The Adventures of Tee Bone Man Chapter 10: The Case of the Lost Iron Maiden Socks

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN CHAPTER TEN:  THE CASE OF THE LOST IRON MAIDEN SOCKS

 

Tee Bone Man and Superdekes pulled into the garage of Deke’s Palace having just seen Iron Maiden in Toronto.

“Wicked concert eh pal?” said Deke to his best friend.

“Best concert yet man!” answered Tee Bone Man.

“When Dickinson shot those flamethrowers from his hands in ‘Flight of Icarus’, I did not see that coming,” responded Superdekes.

“And how about those Maiden socks that I bought at the concession stand?” asked Tee Bone. “Best part of the trip in my opinion!”

Deke laughed. “Yeah man! Glad you got them.  Remember that bald guy we met at the concession stands, Aaron?”

“Yeah!  The tall guy from Owen Sound with the deep voice,” recalled Tee Bone.

“He said something about not buying merch from that one vendor, but I don’t know why.  He had the best prices at the concert,” said Deke.  “Must be a Southern Ontario thing.”

Tee Bone nodded in agreement.

The pair began unpacking their bags. Tee Bone found his precious Iron Maiden socks, and held them up to get a good look. Eddie’s eyes gleamed in red thread.  Tee Bone smiled a wide smile. “Best socks ever!” he said to Dekes. Deke shrugged. Whatever made him happy! Tee Bone sat down, removed his shoes and socks, and put on his new Maiden pair. “Ahhhh!” he moaned in comfort as he stretched his feet out in front of him. “So comfortable!”

“It is hard to find good socks in Thunder Bay. Hey, I got an idea,” said Superdekes trying to change the subject. “How about some Scotch on the rocks?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea!” Tee Bone exclaimed in response. And so their night had just begun, for no-one could tie one on like Tee Bone and Superdekes. As usual the evening began with a clink of glasses and ended with two blacked out adult men, passed out in the basement of Deke’s Palace.

 

 

 

Morning.

With a gaping wide yawn, Tee Bone Man awoke from his alcohol induced slumber.  He opened his eyes and looked around him.  There was his best friend Deke on the airchair, sleeping with his glasses still on his face.  Next to him on the end table was an empty bottle of Scotch (the good stuff) and several empty glasses.  Tee Bone blinked and rubbed his eyes trying to get them to focus.  Man, he got hammered last night.

Tee Bone checked to make sure all his limbs were still intact.  Fingers and toes were functional.  As he slowly gained awareness, he realized his feet were cold.  He looked at his bare feet and…bare feet?  Where did his precious Maiden socks go?

He ran over to the armchair.  “Deke!  Deke!” he shook his friend awake.  Deke slowly opened his eyes and focused on his friend.  “What?  What?  Jeez man what is it?”

“My socks are gone!” answered Tee Bone in panicked haste.  “They were on my feet and now they’re not!”

“Easy man, easy.  Just put on the other pair you were wearing yesterday, I’m sure they’re still OK, you didn’t party in that pair.”

“No no!” yelled Tee Bone.  “We have to find my preciouses!” he proclaimed.  “They’re around here somewhere!”

“They’ll turn up!” reasoned Deke.  “We didn’t go anywhere last night.  Now chill.  Let’s make some eggs.”

“No eggs!” yelled Tee Bone,  “Not until we find my precious socks!  No other socks will go on my feet until they are found!”

“You OK buddy?” asked Deke.  “I haven’t seen you this, errr, agitated since before you took your vacation at camp.”

“What vacation?  I didn’t take a vacation I went squirrel hunting,” said Tee Bone to a very confused Deke.  “No time to waste.  Now we’re hunting socks.  Let’s go Deke.  Up up up.”

“Fine!” said Deke as his got out of the armchair with a groan, “We’ll find your damn socks.”

“My precious socks!” corrected Tee Bone.

The pair began an organized search, room by room, starting with the main lounge.  Then the washrooms, kitchen, and garage.

Tee Bone made his way to Deke’s flying motorcycle.  He began inspecting the side compartments.

“Woah buddy, careful there!” cautioned Deke.  “You know I keep some pretty powerful gadgets on my bike.  Careful how you dig.”

Tee Bone ignored him and kept digging.

“Buddy, why are you digging through my bike’s storage compartments anyway?  Your socks are not in there.”

“How do I know you didn’t take them?  How do I know you didn’t hide them here?” mumbled an increasingly unhinged Tee Bone Man as he continued his thorough search of Deke’s bike.

Deke breathed calmly before he spoke.  “Buddy…pal…you know I didn’t take your socks.  If I needed Iron Maiden socks that badly, I’m sure I can buy some on eBay.  Now let’s go check the record shelves.  You know how you sometimes like to throw your socks off when you’re dancing at a party.  Maybe you did that.”

“NO!” shouted Tee Bone.  Deke was surprised to see his friend’s eyes were lit up like the eyes of Eddie himself.  Something was clearly infecting the mind of Tee Bone.  Deke maintained his calm and just analyzed the situation.  He had already been alarmed when Tee Bone kept calling the socks his “precious”.  That was frighteningly too similar to a movie they once saw several years back.  Could the socks be possessing the mind of his friend like that movie he couldn’t remember the name of?  It had some little guys and some regular sized guys and a wizard with a big grey hat.

Deke came up with a strategy.  “OK pal.  No problem.  Let me help you search the garage.”

“Fine” harrumphed Tee Bone Man, now hunched over the bike like a grotesque malformed goblin, picking the bones of a dead animal.

Deke cautiously walked over to his weapons shelf.  He carefully picked up a gun-shaped device and aimed at his friend.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled the trigger.

Evening.

Tee Bone Man awoke once more, but with a raging headache that rivalled every Scotch he ever consumed.  He blinked his eyes open, but his vision was totally blurred.  He could vaguely make out two figures standing over him.

“Sorry I had to stun ya pal,” said the voice of Deke before him.  “It had to be done.  You’re all good now.  It doesn’t feel so good, but you’re gonna be OK.  We found your socks.”

“We?” asked Tee Bone Man.

“Hey bro!” said a new voice from a blurred form coming into view.

“Darr??  Is that you?” asked Tee Bone of his brother.

“Yeah, it’s me man!” answered the handsome young Darr.  “You guys invited me over for some Scotch last night remember?  Boy did you get ripped, man.  You and Deke both!  Especially Deke!  I had to get back home, but I took the initiative to clean up a bit for you before I left.”

Deke continued the story.  “Those Iron Maiden socks you bought?  Cursed, man.  That’s why they were on sale at the one concession stand that had no lineup.  All their items are possessed.  That’s the catch.  That Aaron guy tried to warn us, but we didn’t listen.  Whoops.”

Tee Bone shook his head.  “That’s right, my socks.  I…don’t feel the need for them anymore.  But this morning…all I could think about were my Maiden socks.  They were definitely missing.  I remember that much.  That’s what I don’t understand.  Where did they go?”

Darr picked up the story.  “Laundry, man!  Deke was already completely blacked out.  Don’t you remember?  It was you and me with Deke in the armchair, and you were all like, ‘Hey everybody watch me do this Open Door Piss!’  And you dribbled all over the floor and your socks.  So I took them up to the laundry.”

Tee Bone had no memory of any of this!  “But where are the socks right now, and why am I not crazy for them at the moment?”

Deke smiled.  “Darr came over this morning to check up on us, and he told me where they were.  As soon as I found them in the dryer, I burned them in the fires of Mount Deke.”

Mount Deke was the name of their firepit out back of course, so named because of the unusually large chimney.

“Wow…thanks guys.  What would have happened to me if you didn’t destroy the socks??”

“Well, we’re not sure exactly,” answered Darr.  “Deke had a theory that you might have transformed into a little grey creature, always obsessing over the power the socks had over you.  Forever.”  Deke nodded in somber agreement.

“The lesson here is never buy discount socks!” summed up Deke.

The three laughed together in relieved comradery.  Darr had saved the day and his brother, and maybe Tee Bone would have to write a song, an ode to Darr, for him one day….

The end

#1026: Fakin’ It

All yesterday, I faked that I was in a good mood.

I’m pretty good at it. I have 12 years of retail experience under my belt.

Not everything is going according to plan. We have water and mold in our storage locker. All my books…all my action figures…all my treasures.

Good thing I’m good at faking it.

Other things have not been working out as I envisioned either. But hey, a new Metallica is coming. I guess I can file that with the last two that I can’t remember the songs from!

#1025: @MarriedAndHeels

As I put reviews on hiatus indefinitely, I would like to introduce you to my friend MarriedAndHeels.

MarriedAndHeels is a new friend of mine from Glendora California.  She is a runner, a fashion model and a cancer survivor.

Because nobody is reading my reviews anymore (into which I put a lot of hard work), I have also been writing fiction.  MarriedAndHeels has been an inspiration here, and you will see our new fictional projects come to life very soon.  Not all of it will be published publicly, but I guarantee that our creative collaborations will give me something to do this winter and they will, they will, rock you.

Stay tuned and look for more MarriedAndHeels right here!  If you like her content, click below.

Marco D’Auria and Tim Durling are Creatures of the Night! Box set dissected, bootleg DVDs examined, and Harrison questioned!

Marco, Tim and I had a blast taking a deep dive into Kiss’ Creatures of the Night album, box set, and tour!  Marco presented a collection of four Kiss bootlegs from the Creatures era.  Tim brought the vinyl and cassettes.  He even had a related 8-track tape.  I dove deep into the Kiss box set:  the book, the goodies, the music, the stories and the packaging!  (For those asking me for a box set review, this is pretty much it!)  Additionally, Uncle Meat stopped by with his memories of seeing the Creatures tour at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.  Finally, “Ask Harrison” returned with two of the best questions for my Aussie co-host yet.  Harrison doesn’t have much in the way of Kiss but did present some interesting stuff in terms of Slade, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, and more.

“Ask Harrison” questions this time were asked by Lana (via Tee Bone) and our newest castmember, an actual Instagram influencer with 200,000 followers who discovered our Led Zeppelin list episode earlier this year, became a fan, and wanted to be a part of our little show herself! Please give her a big welcome.

Next week I’ll be doing a taping with Grant Arthur from Grant’s Rock Warehaus, but we’ll be back again soon.  Thanks for watching!

Creatures of the Night! Contrarians Marco D’Auria and Tim Durling Grab Stacks of KISS tonight with Mike and the Mad Metal Man! – 7:00 P.M. E.S.T.

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK…with Mike and the Mad Metal Man
Episode 5: Special guests Marco D’Auria and Tim Durling

Week five of Grab a Stack of Rock, and the Kiss Creatures of the Night box set has finally arrived!  And it’s awesome – the best Kiss box set to date.  We’ll tell you why tonight.  Additionally, Marco D’Auria and Tim Durling from the Contrarians will be on hand to show off some of their own Kiss goodies.  D’ya think Tim will have 8-track tapes?  What are the odds?

The popular “Ask Harrison” feature also returns, with two of the best questions yet.  Let’s hope our boy from Australia is ready!

Friday November 25 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T. Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook.

 

#1024: Where were you when Freddie died? When Eric died?

Lunch With Ladano yesterday was regarding the events of November 23, 1991.  The announcement that Freddie Mercury had AIDS, the worst kept secret in rock. Do you remember?

 

#1023: “Just the pieces of the man I used to be”

RECORD STORE TALES #1023: “Just the pieces of the man I used to be”

You never know how it’s gonna go.

You roll out of bed feeling like a winner, and then suddenly for absolutely no reason, that completely changes and you’re struggling to break even.

Maybe it’s the pressures of modern life.  The hustle and the bustle.  The need to get things done, even though you’re behind and energy is in short supply.

The feeling of loneliness even though you are not alone.  There’s a dark place in your heart, only inhabited by you, that no one can break into.  It’s not that you can’t let them in.  It’s that you don’t even know how to open that door.  Of if you actually want to.  If you’d prefer to be alone.

The daily monotony, the commute, the cold, the damp.

The fact that all the hours of daylight happen when you’re in an office doing your daily grind.

The pressure and drive to do something important, to be someone who matters.  To make a difference.  To be somebody…anybody…but who you are.

Somehow, a sad song helps.  There’s something about a sad song that can pry its way into your soul.  Provide sympathy.  Warmth.  Help you dry the tears.  That tells you someone out there is feeling the exact same way you do.  It’s as if someone in the world knows you, just as well as you know yourself.

You could be in a room full of happy celebrations, and feel so alone, so completely down, yet have to fake it to make it.

One of the worst winters of my younger life was the winter of ’95-96.  I had just been dumped by my first real serious girlfriend.  I put on a brave face and for a few days, I thought I had weathered the storm.  I listened to “classic British hard blues” that week and felt super strong.  The crash came later.  One of the albums that helped me through that winter was Queen’s Made In Heaven.  The final album with Freddie.  Though there is some undeniable dark material on the album, such as “Mother Love”, and “Too Much Love Will Kill You”, I was amazed at how positive some of the other songs such as “Heaven For Everyone” were.  The album was like a journey through my own convoluted feelings.

“I’m just the pieces of the man I used to be,
Too many bitter tears are raining down on me.”

Yet on the same album:

“In these days of cold affections,
You sit by me and everything’s fine.”

What will the album for the winter of 2022 be?  For the last several years, I’ve been digging deep down into the albums that made me happy as a youth.

“Listen! They said I didn’t stand a chance,
I wouldn’t win no way,
But I’ve got news for you,
There’s nothing I can’t do!”

It was a different time.  There was misery, but nothing can duplicate that feeling of hearing a song for the first time.  A song that you know means something to you.  That is destined to stick with you for your whole life.  And when you put those records on again, a million things start happening in your head.  You can be 12 or 13 again.  A time when the real problems of life were completely unknown to you and the biggest issue you had was figuring out how to talk to the girl you liked.

Like a phantom of a dream, old songs make the memories real again.  As you wipe a tear from your eye, you remember.  It can help sooth the sadness.

Sometimes you just have to cry it out, whatever it is.  Hell, I don’t know what it is exactly.  I just know it sucks.

They say that life never hands you anything you can’t handle.  I don’t know about that.  History is rife with people who could not handle what life has given them.  I think I can – but it’s never simple, straightforward, or obvious how to do it.

So I write.

It’s the only thing I’m really good at.  The only thing people really notice about me.

I write in the hopes that someone will understand.

That someone will relate.

That someone can take what I have experienced and draw something good from it.

And that maybe I’ll get some of that goodness back.

This winter has been pretty good.  My strategies are working.  My support personnel are solid.  But there will always be days where I can’t help it.  Can’t help FEELING IT.  The old familiar sting of that cold, unrelenting loneliness.  The kind of loneliness that can strike even when you are in a room full of loved ones.

One of the best albums for this time of year is Catherine Wheel’s Adam & Eve record.  It captures it all.

“Start the day, in a cold December way, feel what’s new, it’s December through and through.”

And on the same record:

“And we crown ourselves again,
There’s been no change since you and I were young,
When we burned ourselves again,
The spaceship days when you and I were young.”

I crave those spaceship days so hard sometimes.  But you can never really go back.

Except with a song.

Come back with me.  Join me in my memories, on this sad, cold winter day.

Youtubin’: Def Leppard – “Kick” live from The Stadium Tour

Not one of the best songs from Diamond Star Halos, “Kick” was still well received by much of Def Leppard’s fandom. It was showcased on The Stadium Tour with Poison, Joan Jett and Motley Crue. Is a new Def Leppard live album in the works? Let’s hope!

REVIEW: Deep Purple – “Woman From Tokyo” (Japanese CD single)

DEEP PURPLE – “Woman From Tokyo” (Originally 1973, 1998 Warner Japan CD reissue)

The 2:56 single edit of Deep Purple’s “Woman From Tokyo” is somewhat of a rarity on CD.  It’s not on the Singles A’s and B’s.  You could get it on a Japanese box set called Purple Chronicle.

The original song was almost six minutes, so half of the tune was chopped out for single release.  The intro is mangled.  The middle section is missing, and cut in such an amateurish way.  The guitar solo is missing.  Rule of thumb:  never cut the friggin’ guitar solo from a Deep Purple song, of all bands!  This is a butcher job of a single edit.  Probably why it never made the cut to Singles A’s and B’s.

The B-side “Super Trouper” is also 2:56, but unedited.  That’s just how the song goes, one of Purple’s shortest.  No, it’s not an Abba cover, but both songs were named after Super Trouper stage lights.  Some of Ian Gillan’s lyrics can be interpreted to be about his impending departure from Deep Purple. “I wanna be like I was before, but this time I’m gonna know the score.” A lot of looking in the rear view mirror in this song. A lot of past-tense.

Because of the butcher job on the “Woman From Tokyo” edit, the B-side here outshines the A-side.  The single at least has lyrics.  For collectors and analysts only!

1/5 stars

Youtubin’: Ozzy Osbourne Says ‘Black Sabbath Is Over’

And it should be over; it had its run. It had a start, middle, and a couple endings. And it should be over now. Ozzy is right and this is good.

Ozzy is also right when he says the music he recorded with Tony Iommi on the excellent Patient Number 9 could have made great Black Sabbath tracks.  He also sounds legitimately sad that he’s not touring and his health isn’t up to it.

All things considered (and there is a lot to consider), Ozzy looks pretty good here.  Rock on Ozz.