Where Eagles Dare

Did I title this post just to get Philly peeps and Danzig fans to click on the Facebook link?

Would I do something so underhanded just to drive blog traffic?

Click on the link for MORE PANDERING

But this post is not about the NFL franchise that is most painful to support.

Nor is it about 80s punk-metal goodness.

This post is about my new favorite yoga pose.

Because I've got a fairly high center of gravity and long, spindly legs, yoga poses where I balance on one leg are relatively challenging for me.  The challenge is double for eagle pose, which I fondly remember Rodney Yee once calling "wobbly."  

You don't have to have ever done yoga to appreciate how funky Eagle Pose is.  Just look at that picture.  Legs and arms wrapped around one another and jutting out at all angles, and one is supposed to stay upright on one leg?  One is supposed to hold that for 30 seconds?  Especially when yoga teachers love to save it for the last 20 minutes of class, when my poor, spindly legs are already dying?

What I remembered during today's practice at The World's Greatest Yoga Studio is that when I adopt the attitude I just described, my Eagle Pose is doomed before I move a single muscle.  

And that Eagle Pose is a metaphor for life.

Think about it.  What makes Eagle Pose, or any pose, difficult?  Gravity?  The ground?  Your mat?  Friend, those things are constant.  Rain or shine, good practice or bad, gravity will always pull down and your mat will always be the same color and texture.  Isn't that a little bit like the world?  When I go outside, the world will still be the same as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow.  Jerks will still be jerks.  Traffic will still be traffic.

The real difficulties in both Eagle Pose and life are mostly a function of things we do to ourselves.  In Eagle Pose, I always want to make sure that my arms and legs are as twisted as they can be, that I'm as low to the floor as possible, and that my back is straight as can be.  In short, I try to do too much.  And, inevitably, when I'm trying to be Super Yogi, Eagle Pose kicks my ass.

Life?  Dawg, I have a job and am going to have a job well into the future.  I've got money enough to pay the rent, eat, drink, and fly somewhere whenever I please.  So why am I so worried about job security?  Why do I get myself twisted in knots trying to make sure I'm doing everything perfectly?  Why do I have to find the exact right step for my future, and why do I have to find it now?

I don't.

I can relax into the pose and into life.  

When I am not trying to be Super Yogi, Eagle Pose is bliss.  When I relax, I'm not sure that there's a pose that feels better for my hips and my shoulders.  

In life, I will do the best I can do today and trust that all is coming.  That means I work hard each and every day to maximize my chances at the best possible future, but I recognize I can't wave a magic wand and make all of my problems disappear today.  I will do the best I can today, in this moment, and that is always enough.

And if you made it this far, you've earned your punk-metal awesomeness.

Hog: a Metal Awakening

There's a long version and a short version of this post.

The long version: Done correctly, metal makes all other forms of music look trite and besides the point.  I can't think of another form of music that so effectively summons forces that are clearly beyond human control.  If that's a cliche, it's a cliche because it's 100 percent true.

Case in point: the homeboy Alec Ferrell is in a couple bands.  Last night, I went to see Hog, his metal outfit.  I try to avoid seeing my friends' bands for as long as possible, because nothing in the world is worse than a good friend and a good dude who is really proud of his really mediocre band.

Alec does not have that problem.

My god.

From the minute Hog got on stage, it was pretty clear that I listen to a lot of meaningless music, and that I need to cut that isht out, because I could spend that time listening to Hog.  As near as I can tell, their songwriting process is as follows:

1. Lead guitarist comes up with series of the coldest riffs you will ever here.
2. Lead guitarist tells the rest of Hog to memorize the riffs and play them as hard as you can.
3. The rest of Hog smiles, because, damnit, what's the point of playing if you can't rock as hard as possible?
4. They spend the next FOUR MONTHS perfecting each song into another version of the Ultimate Nature Machine.

Again, great metal is about tapping into some deeply primal stuff that we puny humans usually can't handle.  You may think that your sensitive singer songwriter, your jam band, your emcee, your dance music producer superstar, your 19th Century German composer, or whatever is tapping into something primal, but the best versions of all these archetypes are ultimately bound by human limitations.

Son, Hog is not human.  Hog is about that full-on Viking god isht.  Thunder.  Lightning.  Monsoons.  Asteroids smacking into the Earth, because the gods went all Ragnarok and sometimes a god's gotta break a planet or two to make an omelet.  Your wars?  Friend, your petty human wars are nothing to the gods, so they are nothing to Hog.  Come at Hog with a tank, and they will call down a f#$%ing glacier on your a$$.

The type of commitment needed to do what Hog does is staggering.  Again, FOUR MONTHS of practice before they play a song out, for a bunch of guys with day jobs.  To listen to Alec talk about effects and head units and arpeggios is to realize that you need to get more serious and passionate about your own creative endeavors, because there are dudes out here who do not trifle, not even for a second.

For the listener, all those sacrifices seem worth it.  Hog is powerful and Hog is sexy and your favorite band would never, ever agree to go on stage after Hog.

The short version: if you ever get the chance, go see Hog.  Don't worry if you don't like metal now, because you will like metal after you see them.