It's good to see you. Come on in, leave your shoes in the hallway, we've got fire on the stove preparing lunch for later. In the meantime, browse the bookshelves and plunk down on the sofa with one, or pick out some tunes from the music library or come in to the kitchen to help with the cooking. Our special blend of tea is steeping and will be right up.

Make yourself at home...

At some point during the summer I curtail the cursing at the heat and the ranting against how beleaguered I feel, and instead fall into a pattern of things that remind me of why I used to like it so much as a kid. Obviously summer used to mean, first and foremost, no school. And with an infant boy next to me now the summer translates to something similar, with lots of park and playground time, which is wonderful, especially if there's lots of trees for shade (and there is). The season also takes on the Twain-esque notion of one alternately exploring and lazing about, both of which appeal to me greatly. Frequently he would describe a favorite state of being as drowsing. To drowse, then fall into Golden Slumbers and ultimately to roam freely through often unexpectedly wondrous scenes in the dream state, are deeply appealing to me.

Celebratory rock music, along with cold cans of cheap beer, laying under tall shady trees with a book, occasional visits to the beach or a friend's bbq and when I had one that worked, long motorcycle rides in the country, bring the view of summer into better relief. Once I get in the mode of working that combination, I've gratefully found the tonic for oppressive NYC summers and experience a new lease on life.

For many of us rock music is indelibly imprinted into those long, hot days. In its own version of Twain's dual states of being in the summertime, rock music, especially for the summer, had us "looking for adventure, or whatever comes our way," in the sense of a group of teenagers set free from the stultifying disciplinarian setting of sitting in a classroom all day, while also the occasionally restorative sloth of Bon Scott's "you know I ain't doing much, but doing nothing means a lot to me," from "Down Payment Blues," on the Powerage album, which was the first AC/DC record I ever bought and a godsend for a mandatory tie-wearing adolescent student in Catholic School.

But most of all it was Neil Young's hippie dreams and especially, Led Zeppelin's Dionysian adolescent anthems that were at the heart of it.

Led Zeppelin was the soundtrack to those days, and when the summer gets rolling even now as a middle-aged guy with a kid by my side, I still never fail to come back to them. "Celebration Day," for sure.

So it was right on time at the start of July, a gift from the gods, to have been at the library with my son and to have spotted "Led Zeppelin: An Oral History of the Greatest Rock Band" by Barney Hoskyns. What a rollicking joy, getting a peek through their friends', peers' and their own eyes of their formative and budding musical selves and the incredible journey onto becoming the peerless hard rock band of all-time.

I'm 100 pages in and although that's just a bit past 20% of it, I already wish the thing would last twice that. The Zep played off of a lot of mystery, practiced and not, and almost achieved an offstage notoriety rivaling their incredible musical output. And of course there are those tales of debauchery that are part of their story too, but thankfully they've been left out of this book. Much of what's been published on them relies a little too much on the tawdry, and quite frankly that gets boring.

The pairing of the duo of the young London professional session men Page and Jones, who played on some of the most notable rock records of the mid 60's, with the unbridled raw power of Plant and Bonham from the "Black Country" in the Midlands (so named for its role in the Industrial Revolution), is the story of an alchemy in time. As a drummer I'm endlessly fascinated by Bonham's preternatural gifts on drums right out of the gate as a 19 year old, and his possession of one of the greatest and most dexterous and sexy grooves, and sheer prodigious power and imagination, in rock. We'd never have known any of that had it not been for Jimmy Page and his vision to put together such a band.

I hoped to write more about the book, but couldn't get the speech to text thing working to lift some quotes. Likewise could listen to and espouse on the virtues of Zeppelin from sundown until deep into the evening, but I've got to get ready for a gig now. Maybe in the comments.

Zeppelin, and the summer - there's nothing like it for me. As John said (with a little help from Elton), "Whatever Gets You Through The Night."

Whenever I hear these tunes I'm back in that sunny space, with shirt off in cut-off shorts, mischief twinkling about at the same time feeling a one-ness with it all, at "my Shangri-La beneath the summer moon.."

As Percy sang in The Rover, "If we could just join hands, just join hands..."

Man, I really believed all that hippie shit - and still do. Didn't you/don't you?

So, what's going on with you?

Reading/Browsing List:
"Led Zeppelin: The Concert File" by Dave Lewis and Simon Pallett
"Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam 1963-1975"
"Stand Still Like A Hummingbird" Henry Miller
"American Dreams: Lost & Found" Studs Terkel

Summer Guacamole
Mashed avocados
Lots of fresh lime juice
Good bunch of chopped cilantro
Finely diced red onion or scallions
Salt & pepper

Lemongrass Chai Blend

heaping scoop of dried Thai lemongrass
shards of cinnamon bark
a few cardamom pods
a few black peppercorns
A few cloves
fresh chopped ginger