3 Decades Later, Disco Still Sucks

It is July 12, one of several holy days on my calendar along with Halloween, Ground Hog Day and Norman Borlaug's birthday. It was on this night in 1979 that Chicago Radio personality Steve Dahl held Disco Demolition at Chicago's Comiskey Park.



At the time I was 12 years old and heading into puberty. I liked music, but edgy stuff that had meaning and was thought provoking. I liked the work of musicians and appreciated the creepy tones of Stranglehold as well as the brainy spud-lyrics of DEVO.

But in suburban Chicago the musical groove was all about disco. Popular radio pulsed with the predictable dance music of the BeeGees and Donna Summer, The Village People and Gloria Gaynor. It was all mind-numbing to me. Worse, everyone (and I mean everyone) in my classes bought into it. Even my neighbors took disco dance lessons. I remember seeing our neighborhood tough kid in a powder blue three-piece suit with his shirt open three buttons and a gold Italian snaggletooth dangling in the void. It was the primary entertainment at his sister's communion party (our parents were friends so I had to go). The rest of the night everyone, including him, line danced the night away to the mundane disco beats. It was an ameteur dance cultural tragedy that would remain unparalleled until the Macarena.

I found a home under Steve Dahl's umbrella. Fired from a Chicago station when it switched to a disco format, Steve Dahl and his partner Garry Meier ran a daily morning show on the Loop, FM 98. It was a wild yet intelligent morning show before shock jocks were common. They were provacative, critical and pushed the decency envelope for the time. They would pack hotel conference centers with early-morning fans in live remotes deemed "The Coho Breakfast Club". I was too young to go, but listened on the clock radio with the digital numbers drawn on the plastic plates that would flip down.

As part of his show he'd break disco records over his head and was in a constant decry of disco music and culture. His minions were dubbed Insane Coho Lips, and our mantra was Disco Sucks.

I knew of Disco Demolition. It was the night where anyone bringing a disco record to Comiskey Park would get in for 98 cents, as part of the radio promotion. It was during a Chicago White Sox double header and the plan was to blow up a pile of disco records between games.

And blow up records they did. I remember seeing the explosions followed by complete pandemonium. Fans stormed the field, waving banners extolling their hatred for disco and allegiance to Dahl. Within minutes the field was destroyed, forcing the White Sox to cancel game two.

The next morning I read the headlines. One picture showed a groundskeeper at the ballpark painting the burnt dirt green to mend the field. It was amazing.

Many, including me, attribute Disco Demolition as a punctuation mark in music history. Not only was it a commentary on the bankrupt, brainless disco culture, it now made the hatred of disco palletable and perhaps cool. Dahl took center stage and blasted the disco culture with a spotlight, showing us that the emperor truly wore no clothes, and that the white three piece suit was a facade. Soon, my classmates all became Insane Coho Lips members, and soon BeeGees shirts turned to Foghat and Rush ones. You can't look through the 1980 O'Neill Junior High School Yearbook and not see at least one Loop FM98 shirt on every page. The undoing of disco was upon us.

I only wish that I had video of all them line dancing to Tavares only a few months before. But why rub it in when they made the change.

Soon after, disco died. Studio 54 closed, Rod Stewart got 80's hair and WLS radio shifted from disco-domination to an almost exclusively rock format.

Steve Dahl was a historical influence in Chicago radio ever since. I listened for years and attribute a lot of my thinking and sense of humor to his guidance. Most of all, I give him credit for the end of a musical and social scourge, the end of the disco era.

Connecting an Old Bag to an Old Bag

I was in the Atlanta Airport waiting for my plane. I was sitting across the aisle from some vending machines and occasionally someone would catch my eye as they downloaded a pepsi or bag of chips.

I happened to see an old woman standing between a carry-on roller bag and the coke machine. I didn't look long, but enough to see that she was old and the adjacent luggage had a big pink flower keychain on it.

A few minutes later, she's gone- but the bag is still there. I cross the aisle to retrieve it for her, but then it hits me; the only reason that I believe it is hers is because of her proximity to it when I last looked. I didn't see her touch it or even look at it.

This is what makes me sick. Now I have to play defense. Is this bag full of explosives that a government conspiracy wants some good fingerprints on? Is it loaded with cocaine and she was just dropping it for a pickup that I would intercept and find myself having my leg chainsawed off in a Miami bathtub? The possibilities are endless!

So I poked it with a pencil and looked at the name. I left the bag, walked to the Delta ticket agent and had her paged. She didn't come.

So I walked down the corridor and looked for her, hopefully recognizing her from my short glimpses. Here she comes. I tell her that her bag was safe and that I had her paged.

"Well I didn't hear anything", she crabs.

Then she follows up with, and not gently, "Do you possibly think that I can make it all the way down that corridor before my flight leaves?" Then she storms off.

Like I'm the freakin' baggage police that should have caught it earlier? Like I was the one that put the roofies in her Geritol? I was the only person out of thousands to take the initiative to link a piece of luggage to its elderly owner, potentially at my own hazard (or loss of a leg in a Miami bathtub), and I get scolded by some old bat.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the elderly- until they go off on me for making an effort. Thanks a lot. I'll still do it again next time, but not if it is yours. Who am I kidding. I'll do it anyway. Play nice and we'll all be happier.

The Book Is Here... Finally.

I hold in my hands the book Genetics and Genomics of Rosaceae, a text edited by me and a rather famous researcher from New Zealand. This project started in Spring of 2007 and dragged out to the present moment where I can now sniff the fresh glue and ink from the spine of this monumental project.

This thing is full of information, but also full of blood, sweat and tears. It is full of the work of 30-some authors, all experts in their area (except one, more on that later). What you don't see are the countless edits, the late nights reading with great acuity, the pestering phone calls and harsh emails. It is almost the basis for divorce and many broken relationships. I learned who I can count on and who is unreliable in my area (most are just super).

Chapter 15 is 20-some pages that took 5 years off my life. After soliciting experts in apricot genetics and genomics to do the work, they told me that they could not do it-- after the due date. After several attempts to find new authors I just wrote it myself, along with the other editor's expert assistance. I knew nothing about apricots, but after that investment of 200 hours I now know a little something and have enjoyed them thoroughly ever since.

It brings me great joy to see it done, but at the same time I leaf through it and think of all the corrections, all the revisions, all the hassles and pestering. The lost emails and the overdue submissions. It makes me just want to whip it against the wall.

But when I read the beautiful introduction written by two of the senior experts in the field, I soften fast. In total it is a beautiful summary statement of the genomics of a great family of crop plants. In that way I can't wait to read it, even though I've read it 1000x already.

Michael Jackson- Af-Am Beacon. WTF?

Did you hear that Michael Jackson died? No kidding. And just because someone dies it is no reason to give them great forgiveness, or worse, shower them in accolades they don't deserve. It is worse when some use the death to advance their own agendas.

Say what you want about the fact that he shared a bed with little boys and gave them wine. Call him a kook or criticize his drug use.

Talk about his contributions to pop music and dancing, if you like that stuff.

But what is the idea that he somehow has advanced the cause for African Americans? Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and many others have forwarded the idea that Jackson is some great beacon of black pride.

I was discussing this with others the other night. In my narrow view he started out black, but became progressively more white in his appearance. That's no doubt. His skin magically lightened and his hair and facial features were certainly more Caucasian than of African dissent.

He married white women and had white kids. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does not support the claim that he was into advancing black culture. He didn't seem too attached to African culture, involvement in African-American issues or supportive of such causes. He was an eccentric nut with no clear connection to black issues, at least that we could tell.

Today at his memorial Jamie Fox got up on stage and spoke of his contributions to black culture, ending with "He belongs to us". I don't understand, with all of the outstanding African-American heroes and role models why Jackson's pale, disfigured, strung-out visage would be the one you'd want to put in front of that important cause. I may be wrong, but I don't get how he is a figure or role model for young black kids. I don't know how he forwarded the causes that confront minorities. Can someone please fill me in on this?

Freedom from Choice

Options are important, and I truly believe that a true measure of quality of life is not what we have, but rather what we have access to. One of the most memorable days of my life came when I had my first real job after 30 years of education (13 years after high school, not including a postdoctoral work). It was the first time that I was in the grocery store and didn't have to make decisions based on how much was in my bank account. If I wanted to buy some crazy f'n Greek olives, I could buy crazy f'n Greek olives! The once discretionary purchases were now completely feasible without prior calculation.

But with options comes choice, and with choice comes decisions. When you think all day for a living you don't want to have to make decisions. You want the decisions made for you, or better, you want to be in a position where you don't have to make them at all. Thus, I have seeded my existence with daily processes that do not require a decision to be made.

For example, About ten years ago I used to hate getting ready for work. I didn't want to pick out clothes or find two socks that matched. To relieve the need to make the choice I threw out all my socks and bought 20 pairs of the same thing (the one's I liked best turned out to be womens', but that's a story for another day). Now each morning I get out two socks. No need to pick out which pair or even match them. Slack.

Now I'm moving the same concept into clothing. My pal Chris once said that he'd like to get 7 matching coveralls so that he didn't need to make a choice about what to wear. Same concept.

Usually I only buy stuff that can always match; neutral tones and patterns that can't look too stupid in any combination. But now I need to take it to the next level. I need everything to be machine washable and dry-able in warm water so I can do all of my laundry in one load.

That's my plan. Starting today I'm only going to get clothing items that can be worn in any combination and wash together.

Of course, it will take me a few years to implement my plan because I don't really buy new clothes. The old ones work really well and as long as I don't get fat they should last me for a long time. I still have ancient threads from college that works.

The idea is a good one and will give me freedom from choice. That way I can focus on more important issues.

KKKompassionate Conservatism

There is a lot of discussion about how the Republican Party can reshape its image to gain wider, unified appeal.

Its first step might be to get rid of the losers that find refuge under their political umbrella.

Today while driving home I saw the most explanatory bumper sticker combination ever to be adhered to a vehicle. The picture below was my best chance to capture it, so it needs a little help...



You got it!! First, the clearly discernible GOP Elephant, an ironic choice since they only come from Africa and India and reside on endangered species list that they don't acknowledge.

The other one says, "America- Love It or Leave It" surrounding the American flag.

The funny part is that Madison, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and the rest of the framers would puke spaghetti-o's out of their noses if they read this. America, in my analysis of their work, was founded on the concept of criticism of it. In other words, they wanted allegiance to the republic and not the government. They wanted criticism, re-evaluation, questions, dissent and examination. They wanted people to love the idea but fight for it.

This dope is just another dupe that sees any criticism of the USA to be a traitorous attack. They see questions as terrorism and criticism intolerable (unless it is Obama, then it is okay).

I can't read his mind. Yes, his uneducated, white male scared mind. However, he is one of many that was too stoned out of his mind during history class to understand what this country is about. We were once commanded to NOT blindly love this country but to instead hold it to continual and stringent scrutiny. We were born into a covenant of surveillance. We were asked to monitor and report, to see and raise a fist when things are not right.

So I'll embrace the history and appreciate the concept, but I will not forgive the broken system. I will not "Leave It". Instead, I'll do what I can to make it better, and return to a model that the Founding Fathers would be proud of.

Amorphophallus bulbifer, the "bulbil"

The last post showed the developing inflorescence of Amorphophallus bulbifer, an aroid that I have growing in my yard. Bulbifer has the advantage of reproducing in several ways. First, as we've seen it can flower and outcross, passing pollen to adjacent flowers. However, this plant has an additional reproductive strategy that is as weird as producing a pungent stench. It makes another bulb, a clone of itself, on its vegetative shoot!

Talk about goofy. This plant has evolved to produce a bulb of itself at the junction of the petiolules, the structures that support the "leaves" of the A. bulbifer plant. It is kind of like you being able to grow your twin from your armpit. Well, maybe not exactly like that.

It is another amazing evolutionary adaptation of this genus, and another reason why they are so much fun to grow in the garden.