If you have not already done so, hop on over to bowl.com and check out the videos of the five PBA experience patterns, if for no other reason than to hear some quality trash talk amongst the tour pros involved. For each pattern, Chris Barnes and another pro discuss lane play and pattern breakdown characteristics, followed by another pro joining in with more commentary and some visual examples from various Tour events. Things usually devolve into Chris and one of the guest pros verbally pig-piling on the third pro. Special mention goes to Chris and Patrick Allen getting on a obviously uncomfortable Tommy Jones for his charmed life on the TV show during the Cheetah pattern video, and Tommy giving it right back to Chris and Jason Couch during the Scorpion pattern video. Good stuff.

On to the music:

Ann Wilson is way underrated as a singer. True, she did herself no favors by participating in the tripe Heart put out in the nineties, but you cannot deny her effortless power and control, as evidenced by this clip from the late seventies. (Do yourself a favor and skip the guitar intro. It doesn't go anywhere interesting.) She was also flaming hot, if you're into that type of thing, and I am.

Fast forward to this century. She's now in her mid-fifties and hasn't lost a step. I hope to be so lucky brushing and flossing that well when I'm getting closer to sixty. 

I found myself in a random moment the other day pining for the slang words of my youth. It truly is a shame that slang has a shelf life and using them too long makes you sound like someone's grandfather. There are so many creative terms born out of our wonderfully flexible language that die ignoble deaths from misuse, just because they are no longer "cool" (except for the word "cool", of course). I will therefore recount my performance in the state tournament this past weekend utilizing some of my favorite superlatives of yore:

Doubles: Rad, A-OK, Choice.

Singles: Outta-sight, Top Drawer, Right On.

Team: Def, Fly, kinda Bogus.

There were also some snack bar crew on Sunday who could be considered "foxes", if for no other reason that they ID'd me for beer TWICE. Yes, I'm that easy.

Remember when Rod Stewart wasn't a joke? It's hard to do, given the fact that he's spent the last THIRTY FREAKIN' YEARS tarnishing his rep. From "Do You Think I'm Sexy" through "Young Turks", "Love Touch", every other song he did in the Eighties, to his lame attempts at the Great American Songbook today. This is The Faces, whom Rod joined after leaving the Jeff Beck Group, doing a version of The Temptations' "I'm Losing You". This is a band that never got its due. It probably didn't help that Rod's career overshadowed theirs (they were the backing band on his early solo records), or that they were always loaded when they played, leading to a spotty live performance reputation. Here, they are obviously drunk and obviously rocking.

The first record I ever had was a K-Tel product entitled Donny Osmond Superstar. I saw him with his brothers on a variety show and, according to my mom, I couldn't stop talking about him. (Note: I was no older than five at the time.) Apparently she took it upon herself to feed this monster and ordered the record off of the TV. A few months later I had my first record and my first music obsession. Damn, that looks embarrassing in print.

My boss found this time capsule a few months ago. Donny is playing bass and outsinging his brother on the choruses. I could try and encapsulate my feelings on the costuming, dancing, relentless smiling, the drum set with no drummer, etc., but I'll just let the clip speak for itself. Dy-No-Mite!!!

A couple of female masterpieces this week. First up, "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse.

Close your eyes and tell me she sounds like a 23 year-old Jewish girl from the East End of London. It's like she's channeling someone else, but it never comes off like a cliche or an affectation with no Aguilera-esque histrionics. She also likes to get drunk and heckle Bono, and that's never a bad thing.

But forget about faux-retro, let's get REAL retro. Ella Fitzgerald singing "Summertime". I first saw this on an "American Masters" special on PBS. Floored me. Dead in my tracks. Tell me you don't get chills when she hits the second verse, and as she holds those effortless notes forever. Damn.

I had this idea to regularly post something not bowling related. Let's face it: regularly writing about bowling without being a pro on tour or posting one's league scores (which I vow never to do, unless there is a three digit number starting with an "8" or "9" involved) is tough. I'd guess it's the same as trying to write Christian rock songs - there's only so many ways to go before you start repeating. So, in homage to one of my favorite cheesy promotions from the glory days of AOR (that's album-oriented rock, for those younger than thirty) radio, I'm going to do a regular Tuesday posting - "Double Shot Tuesday" - consisting of two examples of something, and by "something" I mean "mostly music". And yes, I am aware that today is Wednesday. Sometimes inspiration and the calender don't jibe.

(By the way, thanks again to the entity that came up with YouTube. Don't know how I lived without you.)

This first one is Adrian Belew of King Crimson doing a acoustic interpretation of their song, "Three of a Perfect Pair". My boss at Regular Job sent me a link to this, along with a note saying he had never really contemplated how good a player Adrian is. I wrote back that his nerdy-dad way of moving and facial expressions took away from his playing. But this is just simple (if you can call the guitar part that) and good, especially since the song with the whole band involved is straight from the mind of a robot. The acoustic treatment, and the audience response to it, really humanizes it.

One more thing - I was mightily impressed by the crowd clapping along in 7/8 towards the end. I bet they listen to so much odd-time music that a song like "Jack & Diane" would utterly confuse them, if not put them to sleep outright. Gotta love diehard prog-rockers.

On a totally unrelated musical topic, I went on a Paul Rodgers bender a few weeks ago and found a bunch of clips of his first band, Free. I was and am a big Bad Company fan (though I'd prefer to forget The Firm ever existed, and don't even bring up his current alliance with the Queen reunion), but I hadn't paid much attention to that band, save for the ubiquitous "All Right Now". I was a fool. Four guys who can play, heavy and grooving while never overplaying, and none of them over twenty-one at the time of this recording. This one, "I'll Be Creeping", is my favorite of the bunch. Blues-based rock music is like Latin and Greek - the basis of so much that came after, yet it's a dead language now. Cest la vie.