One condensed week

White Stripes broke up this week. I would act surprised, if I had not considered them broken up from the moment Jack White decided to break their every-other-year recording cycle for (shudder) playing drums in the Dead Weather. Watching Under Great White Northern Lights and Meg’s extreme discomfort with the camera, it was all too apparent (seriously , she speaks so softly that they give her subtitles). At least they never sacrificed quality – you can quibble with their individual records, but overall, those six records form a solid discography.

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What goes forgotten with the White Stripes is the shoddy state of rock music circa 2000. They made the duo cool again. Jack White liked to record fast to push himself. One friend predicted a reunion within the decade. I doubt it--- watch Meg’s tears from their Canadian tour documentary, and I don’t see a woman eager to resume the rigors of touring. Let them rest.

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If heavy metal defined your teen years, go see Lemmy. If not, it's still an interesting character piece. It holds back nothing, and entertains constantly. The documentary also reinforces why no music fan should ever skip a Nashville show --- for reasons unknown, Lemmy popped up at Metallica’s Sommet Center date in 2009. I might never attend a Motorhead show – hell, I shouldn’t say that – but the film dives deep into the history of rock’s foremost survivor.

At nearly 2 hours, the amount of pummeling Motorhead songs nearly becomes a drag, but the filmmakers keep the focus on Lemmy.He lugged Jimi Hendrix’s gear, hot booted from Hawkwind, and has nearly four decades of metal/punk/garage rock history blaring from his Rickenbacker bass. In any event, I need a long break from Ace of Spades.

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One more music item – after repeatedly missing the Fleet Foxes in 2008 (coincidence enable me to see them in Denver), I landed the prize on Tuesday morning – tickets to their Ryman debut for Crites and myself. Hopefully, their second album will not disappoint. I still count on the brilliant, spare acoustic tracks Robin Pecknold played last year to serves as prelude.

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The next great American vacation is in the works. The trip will include a half-marathon, some of the Eastern United States’ highest peaks, three more states off my “unvisited” list, state capitol architecture and possibly a swing past the lake where Bill Murray once tortured Richard Dreyfus.

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Pushing myself through Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice. The enigmatic author delivers a very Lebowski-esque noir, but it proves rewarding due to the twists and eloquent prose.

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For the first time in recent memory, I visited a competing wine shop in Nashville. The dust jumped out at me immediately (we dust nightly), as did the clutter. But wow, what a bunch of French beauties. I walked out with a 2008 Cahors blend (80 Malbec/20 Merlot) and could have spent $100 just on wines from my namesake vineyard near Santa Barbara. Plus, they stocked a few 2007 Chateauneuf-du-Papes we don’t. That was a great year for the Southern Rhone Valley wines, and CNP always delivers the best grapes in the region. That shop is worth a second visit.