With Spring upon us, I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite pieces on Motorcycling. If you ride a motorcycle, you might have come across this on a group site. If you don’t, it’s still a great read! 

Season of the Bike

by Dave Karlotski.There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind’s big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops don’t even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and forehead streaked with blood, but that’s just an illusion, just the misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.

Despite this, it’s hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life you’re changed forever. The letters “MC” are stamped on your driver’s license right next to your sex and weight as if “motorcycle” was just another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition. But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and rainstorms are paid in full because a summer is worth any price.

A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.

On a motorcycle I know I’m alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pana-Vision and than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It’s like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind’s roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock ‘n roll, dark orchestras, women’s voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree- smells and flower- smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it’s as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane.

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It’s a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It’s light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it’s a conduit of grace, it’s a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy. I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I’ve had a handful of bikes over half a dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn’t trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride one of the best things I’ve done.

Cars lie to us and tell us we’re safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, “Sleep, sleep.” Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that’s no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.

Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford writes on the band’s fan site, AeroForceOne-dot-com, “We’re a go for our new album.  Everybody is pretty excited about the amount of new music and the quality of it. We’re looking forward to getting our basic tracks started in about 10 days or so. I’m really quite impressed with some of the new music we’re putting together, we’ll have a true-to-the-spirit-of Aerosmith record on our hands.”

Cool, it will be the first studio album since “Honkin on Bobo” from 2004. As they have been saying for months, they hope to have the album out in time for a tour later this year.

The first week of March I was on vacation in lovely Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.   What a great place!  It always feels like I’m going home when I fly into the Bay of Bandaras.  Anyway, it was a lovely time, I got out of the gray for a much needed week, and didn’t answer the phone or bring a laptop.  Went old school with books, sunblock, walking shoes, and a great attitude.   Marty even caught fish that we dined on for two nights.  When we arrived back in Portland, it was snowing.  Then we had that lovely blast of sun last week…and now gray skies for the next 10 days or so.  At least that’s what they say now. 

One of the things I love about PV is the sculptures on the malacon.  One of my favorites is a ladder to the sky with aliens climbing to heaven.  I affectionately call it the “Stairway to Heaven” although I know it has another name.  The artist who designed it is named Sergio Bustamante, and he has galleries all over Mexico.  He’s amazing.  He has happy stuff like El Sol et La Luna (the sun and the moon) but also some really wild slightly erotic and disturbing stuff too.  That’s the best kind of art.  It pushes your lines of comfort.

Also, nothing bad happened at all.  The people of PV are lovely, friendly, and want you to have a good time.  As with anything, be smart, pay attention, and as I’ve learned in the past, know your limits and you’ll have a wonderful vacation.

Singer Paul Rodgers, guitarist Mick Ralphs, and drummer Simon Kirke of the original Bad Company line up will reunite for a spring and summer tour.  Bassist Boz Burrell passed away in 2006.  Dates will be announced soon.  They did one show last year in Florida for legal reasons to retain ownership of the band’s name, and they must have had a good time, because now there’s going to be more shows.  Can’t wait!  Hope they make it to Portland!

There’s a rumor going around that AC/DC will be returning to the US this summer for stadium dates.  So far I’ve found some stories that they are planning a date in Texas at the Cowboy’s new stadium.  But that’s Texas.  Not the Northwest.  I can’t believe they skipped Portland on this tour and I’m holding out hope.  What’s the deal anyway?  Don’t we have enough Wal-Mart stores or something.  Sheesh.

Friday, March 13th will forever be in my mind as one of the best nights to be in Portland.  The Aladdin was sold out for the reunion show called “One Last Dance” from Johnny & the D’s.  It was also a reunion of many friends, and a lot of musicians in the audience too, so I was one happy woman!  Marty and I had the honor of doing the introduction of the band, so we got to go backstage and see the guys before going on stage.  They were all really pumped for the show and we knew it would be a great night. 

They did all the songs that we loved from the first two albums, and a cover of The Animals “Don’t Bring Me Down” that I remember them doing back in the days of The Last Hurrah, or The Wreck, or any of the places where we would go to see Johnny & the D’s.  It was wonderful.  Johnny was in his element, climbing the stack of speakers, on his knees on the stage, giving us all he could give.  It was like 30 years disappeared from the whole audience for that show. 

For those who kicked in some extra bucks for the VIP tickets, there was a party that followed at The Lamp next door.  I partied until midnight, then I just had to call it a day.  That’s when I started to feel the last 30 years come back on my shoulders.  Ah well, time flies when you’re rockin’!  And we certainly were rockin that night.  Thank you Johnny, Bill, Mark, Gregg, LaRue, and Kip for One More Dance.  But please sirs….can we have another?

Here’s a link to see them on Friday’s show on KATU.

Here’s a link to read the article from The Oregonian.

Here’s a link to see Shaun Toman’s pictures from that evening.

Warner Home Video has announced plans for a lavish Ultimate Collector’s Edition release of seminal rock concert film “Woodstock.”

The 1970 Oscar-winning documentary will be released on both standard DVD and Blu-ray Disc on June 9, just two months shy of the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

“Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music” features the 1994 director’s cut of the film, with a run time of more than four hours. In addition, the Ultimate Collector’s Edition contains two extra hours of rare performance footage, much of it never before seen.

“It’s an amazing package,” said Jeff Baker, the Warner executive vp who is overseeing the film’s release. “To everyone who grew up in the 1960s, it’s a trip down memory lane. To everyone else, it’s a nostalgic time capsule from an era that truly changed American society, American culture, American life.”

The two extra hours of concert footage includes 18 new performances from 13 artists, including Santana, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker. Five of them are from artists that played at Woodstock but never appeared in any film version. A third hour of bonus material includes a featurette gallery with interviews with Scorsese, producer Michael Lang, director Wadleigh and others who chronicle the making of the festival and the film.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray Disc: a “Customize Your Own Woodstock Playlist” functionality and other special features like Media Center, My Commentary, and Live Community Screening.

“Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music” will be packaged in a gift box, numbered as part of a limited run with such collectibles as a reprint of a Life magazine commemorative issue, a lucite lenticular display of festival photos, assorted memorabilia and an iron-on patch with the classic bird-and-guitar Woodstock emblem.

I have the hottest boots in town. And they are made by Carlos Santana! Who knew?

the lighthouse mission is a new youk charity organization that helps feed 3,000 hungry long island residents each week. though money is always tight, they just turned down a share of a $3 million dollar donation because the money was won in the new york lottery. the anonymous donor gave the winning ticket to the true north community church, which said it would share the money with other charities. lighthouse mission pastor james ryan, says he appreciates the offer but had to turn it down because his organization counsels against addictions, including gambling and thinks taking the money would send the wrong message. he did not say what the mission’s share of the prize would have been. i don’t know pastor ryan. the lord works in mysterious ways. maybe this was his way of turning gambling profit into a good thing.

johnny and the d’s rocked the alladin friday night …to a sold out crowd no less! it was great to see them again after about 30 years. all the original members were there and sounded great. Jon Koonce has been playing in portland for many years with serveral configurations…”jon koonce and the gas hogs”…”jon koonce and one more mile” “jon koonce solo”…but seeing the d’s was a special treat…he was so excited and couldn’t thank kgon enough. We’ve known jon forever and there isn’t a nicer guy in the biz. he could’ve filled a much bigger hall friday night…maybe next time.