Robert Forto

robertforto

Rock n Roller 19: Tool

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I have been to a lot of concerts over the years. I have seen just about every band that I have wanted to see. The last four years or so has been a flurry of tours from the top rock bands, including, the resurgence of Gun’s n Roses, a huge Metallica World Wired Tour, the Foo Fighters and massive rock festivals around the country.

One band that I really wanted to see was Tool. It has been since 2009 when I took my daughter, Nicole to see them for her first concert when she was 12. That long hiatus was also the amount of time it took the notoriously reclusive band to release their new music, Fear Inoculum.

While Michele and I were down in Kentucky for an epic back-to-back weekends of music festivals; Bourbon and Beyond and Louder Than Life, one of our dog training clients, Nate, asked if I would like to join him for the Tool Show in Salt Lake. Without hesitation I jumped on it and ended up paying more for the tickets to Tool than any other in my 40+ years of shows.

I flew into Salt Lake with a bum foot. I have been dealing with a really bad case of plantar fasciitis and I literally could not walk the week before the show. I hobbled into a brewery on the day of the show and Nate and I did a little beer tour of the city. It was a ton of fun including the very tasty, vanilla milkshake brew.

We met his friend, Justin for dinner and headed inside.

The prog band Killing Joke opened and I didn’t know any of their songs. I had no idea these dudes have been around since the 1980s.

After a bit of a wait the lights dimmed and the now very familiar Fear Inoculum started. Immediately I could tell we were in for a treat! A large curtain that looked like glass beads covered the entire stage and the light and video effects were in 3D.

The band had a very strict no-cell phone policy and I now know why. In my opinion concerts are ruined these days by half the crowd holding up their phones to record the entire show. I just wonder how many times they watch it later on or just load it up on YouTube.

During the show something amazing was happening. We had amazing section 125 seats and right behind us were speakers. This was the first concert in my life that was in surround sound!

Tool played for any an hour and a half and took an intermission including a laser-lighted countdown clock to let us know that we had enough time to grab another beer.

After the encore the band came out and launched immediately into the new Chocolate Chip Trip. It is mainly drummer Dany Carry with is insane synthesizer set up and drums.

After the new Invincible tract, Maynard said, “for the rest of the show you can use your ‘stupid’ cell phones” and launched into an extended Stinkfist.

Adam, Justin and Dany blew me away. Justin is by far one the best bassists in the world and the guitar work of Adam was amazing. Maynard was being, well, Maynard. He stood up on the platforms that flanked the drums the entire show and mostly in the shadows. After the show was over he walked down the stairs and refused to touch the main stage and even had a hard time summoning Justin over to give him a fist-bump.

This may have been the most amazing show of my life. As I mentioned before, I have been to a lot of shows in the last 45 years but this one will be hard to beat.

I only made it through the show hopped up on Tramadol and those few beers and I hobbled several blocks after we were forced off of the light rail for a medical emergency but my goodness this trip was a highlight of the #rocknroller19 tour.

Set List

  1. Fear Inoculm
  2. Ænema
  3. The Pot
  4. Parabola
  5. Pneuma
  6. Schism
    (extended)
  7. Jambi
  8. Vicarious
  9. Intolerance
  10. Forty Six & 2

    Intermission

  11. Chocolate Chip Trip
  12. Invincible
  13. (-) Ions
  14. Stinkfist
    (extended)

Mom

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The stories of yesteryear are of a legacy of the next chapter.

My mom passed away suddenly this morning. She spent her last day in Myrtle Beach with family. It was her favorite place in the world to visit.

It comes at a shock of her passing. Just this weekend she was excited to be joining me for my grad school graduation next May.

Back in Time with Deadwood

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Way back in 2011 I wrote a blog post about Deadwood. I think it was one of the best t.v. shows ever. I have always thought that it was like Shakespeare played out in the Old West. Every character is so well defined with near perfect back stories.

I liked the show so much that I flew down from Alaska and met Michele for a road trip. It was in the year that we were living in two states. Me in Alaska and her in Colorado and a perfect way to spend a weekend. We checked out all of the local history and even went to the cemetery where Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock and Wild Bill are buried. This was years before our now famous, epic road trips that we do now but it was fun to see where history took place.

Deadwood was such a sensation that my sled dog kennel partners at the time named a litter of pups after the main characters. It is hard to believe that a lot of those dogs have passed on from old age by now but forever I will remember running Wu, Joanie, Jewel, Alma, Sophia (who we called Sophie), and Trixie.

A lot of the Deadwood Crew are running in this picture taken in 2011.

As many of you know HBO didn’t renew the show after the third season and left its fans hanging. That was until this month when the movie was released. Michele and I sat down to watch it and it brought so much back.

They did such a marvelous job. It was like sitting down with an old friend. When the intro music started to play, I was immediately smiling and could not wait for the story to work itself out. The film takes place in 1889, ten years where it left off. It was so good to see Doc again. Brad Dourif is such an incredible actor. Gerald McRaney plays the perfect villain as Hearst. Timothy Olyphant as Bullock was very well done. Older but looking strikingly like the real person, his character was a great example of Black Hat/White Hat melodrama that is played out in western lore. Dayton Callie playing Charlie Utter and his matter of speech is not to be forgotten. Of course, Ian McShane as Swearengen was over the top. His character and Doc and Wu were always my favorite and they did not disappoint. The writing and the dialogue are incredible. Did you know that the top hat worn by Joanie (Kin Stubbs) is the same gray hat she wore in the original series but it was refashioned with brown fabric to make it look new. This was common practice in the 19th century. The music, the lighting and the sets  are fabulous. It was truly a walk back in time.

What was so impressive, and I’ll leave most of the spoilers in tact is that this is truly a story about impeding progress. The entire movie is about leaving things as they were. If you remember in the series that the telegraph coming to Deadwood was pivotal plot point. In this movie it is the telephone. Thinking back to my old blog post it was much the same way. Things were a lot different in 2011 than they are today and just like in Deadwood, time marches on, whether you like it or not.

This is a must watch. I told you that you should have kept that subscription to HBO after Game of Thrones ended. This is well worth the wait.

Break out the peaches, this is an important event.

Lavaman and SCUBA

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Michele and I have been to Hawaii five times now and each time it brings its own sense of adventure and excitement. This past week we travelled to the Big Island to shake off some of the winter dust and get ready for summer.
 
Honestly, I had no business going on this trip. I slipped and fell on the icy stairs two weeks before and broke a rib in my back just inches from by spine and dislocated most of the cartilage in the front. It still hurts like hell on every breath three weeks out. It was a weak story to tell, I know. 
 
Last year I signed up to compete in the Lavaman as a team with a friend of mine from UAA and Michele. It was too late to pull out and I did not want to let them down. We had already spent a lot of money on plane tickets and hotels.
 
My job was to ride the bike portion of the tri, 40K or a little over 25 miles in the ninety degree heat. The day before I left I couldn’t even get on the bike and lean over in riding position because of my stupid ribs. I knew I could do it training-wise but I didn’t think I could do it health-wise.
 
When I saw Jennifer running up to the transition area after her swim I knew it was time to do my part. I was already amp’d up on 5-hour energy shots, and 6 advils and jumped on the bike. I started riding and riding and riding. When I passed the 10-mile mark and up a long hill I knew I was going to make it. Almost at the top of the hlll a guy in a tri-suit and a fancy dancy 10 thousand dollar bike pulled up beside me and called out, “doin’ it old school! Love it!” He was referring to my choice of dress (I’ll get to that in just a second) my mountain bike helmet and my pedals.
 
On the ride back the guy was pulled over on the road and was gassed and I rode up and he jumped back on his bike and we rode for a couple miles. It was a great ride back.
On a side note, there is a running jab about me amongst Michele and our friend Mirada about the term, “Cotton kills.” I call total bullcrap. In the past six months I have ran sled dogs in -25 degrees, scuba dived in 39 degree water in the middle of a snow storm and rode a bike in 91 degree heat. Each and every time I was wearing a 100% cotton Life is Good shirt. This “cotton kills” crap is just a way for us to buy uncomfortable fabrics that cost too much in an effort to look cool and fit in. The wool isn’t smart when you are just one of the sheep. Remember, they were running the Iditarod in jeans in the 1970s. I will continue to wear cotton, I’m not dead yet.
 
I pulled into transition 3 in less than two hours and beating what I thought I would do time-wise by more than a half hour and there was Michele waving and smiling and ready to do her part, the 10K, or over 6 mile run. It was hot, dang hot, and I knew she was going to walk most of the way.
 
Jennifer and I waited for Michele just outside of the finish and we all ran under the banner together, finishing our goal of doing the Lavaman. It was a great day and I am glad we were all able to do this together. We finished in about four hours and we weren’t last! 
 
The following day Michele was scheduled to do her open water portion of her scuba certification. I went along with her with intention of diving too but I could not hold up the gear on my back. Michele had a great couple dives and I snorkeled in the clear blue waters. I know she was nervous and scared but she rocked it and gained valuable experience and confidence. That night I was so sore from the bike ride and the rocking and rolling on the dive boat that I could hardly move. I went to bed at 7:30 and didn’t move until 6 the next morning.
 
On her second day of the dive, Michele went alone and I stayed back at the hotel to get some school work done and hang out at the pool. She had a couple epic dives and saw a shark (jealous) and finished her certification! We finished the trip by going to a luau with Jennifer and her husband and had a great time.
 
The moral of this little story is two-fold. If you go to Hawaii, or anywhere, don’t just be a resort tourist and hang out at the hotel. Get out and go on adventures. You are in a place that most people can only dream about. You can stay at a hotel anywhere. Secondly, keep your word. I had so many reservations in going on this trip but I knew people in my team were counting on me and it was important to all of us to be there together.
 
I think we will take a break from Hawaii for the next few years and maybe head to the Florida Keys to do some diving. I hear there are some epic spots to see.
Life is Good.

Scuba Certified

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Some people live their lives trying completing to complete a bucket list. I too have that list that I think about and at 48 years old I sometimes wonder if I will leave my bucket half empty or half full. I guess it’s the way you look at it really.

For my entire life I have wanted to become a certified scuba diver. I have wanted to do this since I saw the movie Creature From the Black Lagoon on tv on Creature Feature when I was a little kid.

Then I saw Jaws and it was all over! I knew at some point in my life I would breathe under water.

When I finished up by degree last year at the University of Alaska Anchorage (yep another one of those items in the bucket), my wife Michele gave me a graduation gift that would take a lifetime to achieve. Dive with Great White Sharks in Mexico.

I quickly went online and found a trip and plopped down a thousand bucks for a deposit and scheduled my trip for November 2019. First I had to become scuba certified.

I headed down to one of the two dive shops in Anchorage and signed up. That was in March 2018. I breezed through the online course work and completed my confined water dives at the local high school pool in April. Then life got in the way–graduation, a summer expedition, dog mushing, rock concerts and roller coasters and even an earthquake!

I quickly realized that I had to have my dive course done in a year and if I didn’t jump on it fast I would have to start all over.

The dive shop that I did my confined dives with was either booked or had nothing scheduled so I went to the other guys, Dive Alaska. These guys were much more technical and require a lot out of their students.

I signed up for the next open water sessions, which are a weekend of dives in Whittier and a couple more pool dives.

Not only would I be getting my dives completed in the ocean, in February, but also in a dry suit and the certification that comes with that.

It had been almost a year since I have breathed underwater so it took a little bit to get my sea legs back. By the time we were in Whittier it was the middle of a massive snow storm where it dumped six inches of snow while we were underwater for our first dive!

I will admit it was a rough weekend. We couldn’t figure out the extra weight I needed to carry for me to sink. I know, if you have never done this you are thinking–you are crazy to want to sink to the bottom of the ocean!

By the time we figured out the weights, I thought I had 38 extra pounds on me. It ended up being 49 pounds.

I had so much weight that I couldn’t keep my head above water with my BC (sort of like a lifejacket that you inflate and deflate to keep yourself buoyant while diving) on. I felt like I was drowning every time we were on the surface of the water while we were waiting to do the next skill.

Underwater it was so awesome! There is no feeling like it in the world than to be literally floating in a world that many will never see.

The first day was rough but I felt good after I quit shivering. My dry suit did not remain dry and had quite a bit of water in it when I took it off. I finally got warm and headed back to Anchorage to the hotel.

Guess what was on that night? Creature from the Black Lagoon. I’m not making this stuff up. It just had to be!

Day two in the ocean was rough but I made it through the last two dives and the group headed to the local bar to debrief and learn we were certified divers!

YES! All of this for one reason–to dive with Great Whites in Mexico this fall. I can’t wait.

I was driving home in a blinding snow storm and this song came on SirusXM radio, Walk on the Ocean by Toad the Wet Sproket, a 90s classic. Again, I am not making this stuff up. Take a listen. Some call it irony. I call it premonition. What do you think?

Are you a certified diver? Let’s hear about your first dive and walking on the ocean.