It’s one of Mother Nature’s most beautiful and inspiring mysteries: the migration of the monarch butterfly from North America to the Michoacán forest in central Mexico and back. It’s been happening for thousands of years, and it will, no doubt, continue for thousands more. But will we ever truly understand why?

Ten thousand feet up a slope in the Sierra Nevada mountains of central Mexico, the dusty trail of the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary abruptly changes to cement steps. Above our heads, bright orange flickers dart in and out of the trees. Each autumn, millions of Monarch butterflies migrate from North America to this dormant peak, swarming across highways, riding high-altitude currents, stopping only to rest in trees along the way.

After hibernating in the Michoacan forest, they awake in the spring, mate, and begin the journey back to the U.S. and Canada to lay their eggs. It’s an incredible feat of nature. Some will travel over 5,000 miles. And they’ve been doing this every year, for thousands of years.

But the spectacular journey is not without its pitfalls. “Ohh, no.” Our guide Alfredo stops, bends down and gently picks up a wounded Mariposa Monarca from the trail. It’s a male, almost dead, feebly moving its wings and legs. “See?” he indicates. “The stomach is missing.”

The Monarch is highly toxic to the tastebuds, Alfredo explains. Even a cow can die if it eats one. The only part not poisonous is the butterfly’s stomach. Unfortunately for the Monarch, its predators have learned this. Local birds, in particular orioles and grosbeaks, will attack the butterfly in mid-air, suck out the organs, and let it fall to the forest floor, where the insect wiggles helplessly for a few minutes before it dies. A horrendous fate for such a cute creature. But nature is not always pretty.

We humans might prefer the beaches of Puerto Vallarta or Ixtapa for our winter vacation. Monarch butterflies are much more discerning. They congregate in colonies only atop 12 specific volcanic peaks in central Mexico’s Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, a 75-mile wide protected reserve.

While this region produces 80% of the world’s avocados, civic leaders also heartily embrace their other natural resource. The Morelia school soccer team is named the Monarchs. The mining town of Angangueo hosts an annual Monarch Festival each spring, and road signs throughout Ocampo boast cute butterfly icons. The footpath beginning at the El Rosario parking lot up is lined with butterfly trinket vendors, and women cooking over open flames.

We continue our hike up the trail, and Alfredo says out of the 12 sanctuaries, two are in this region. El Rosario is the most visitor-friendly, the other you have to enter on horseback. He’s been giving Monarch tours for six years, six to seven days a week. Approximately 200 million butterflies hibernate in Michoacan each winter, he says, with 20 million coming here to El Rosario.

In the U.S.and Canada, Monarchs only live 6 to 8 weeks, from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. Here in Michoacan, the migrating generations live up to 9 months, most of that in blissful slumber.

The colonies awaken and by February they’ve departed north to lay their eggs in warmer conditions. By March the first generation eggs are laid in the southern U.S. In April the Midwest will see a second generation of eggs, and a third generation is born in the Great Lakes and Northeast U.S. around July and August.

According to Alfredo, it takes three generations to reach the U.S., about five to get to Canada. The migration season roughly follows the annual growth cycle of the milkweed plant, a favorite food of the Monarchs.

As the weather gets colder in September, the newest butterflies start moving south towards Mexico, roosting overnight in trees along the way. Swarms can be spotted in the Midwest states of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa around early October, and then they cross into Mexico a week or so later. This hardy final generation doesn’t breed or die along the way, they stay the course and arrive at the volcanic peaks of Michoacan each November to tuck in for the winter.

Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains follow this North America-to-Mexico migration route. Butterflies west of the Rockies funnel down to southern California for their hibernation months.

The tiny insects are astonishing travelers. They can do 80 miles a day, at an average of 12 miles per hour, and if the winds are right, they cruise at an altitude of two miles. They travel during the day, living off their stored fat, and stop to eat only if there are flowers. If there is fog or clouds, they stay put, preferring to move only during bright sunny weather.

But why do they come to Michoacan? For centuries, locals believed the annual butterfly swarms were some sort of plague, and would kill as many as they could. The more superstitious still believe Monarchs come to this area to visit their dead ancestors.

Another popular rumor circulates that a magnetic field attracts the Monarchs to these mountains. Tantalizing, but not true. The real reason is more obvious, says Alfredo. “Butterflies look for protection, that’s why they come here. There’s high elevation, they are protected by the tall trees’ branches, there are flowers, and water. So they don’t waste energy.”

Local indigenous tribes have always known about the Mariposa Monarcas, but scientists in North America still had no idea where the butterflies wintered. Each year, the swarms just seemed to disappear south across the Rio Grande River. The mystery was finally solved in 1975, thanks to an underwear executive and a 12-year-old boy from Texas.

Volunteers had tagged thousands of butterflies under the direction of Canadian entomologist Fred Urquhart. Thirty years of research indicated that migrating Monarchs hibernated somewhere in Mexico, but Urquhart’s team was unsure of the location.

Ken Brugger, an American working in Mexico as chief engineer for Jockey underwear, had heard of Urquhart’s efforts. Being somewhat of an amateur naturalist, he offered to help, and began his own inquiries to the locals. On January 2, 1975, Brugger and his wife scaled the slopes of a Michoacan summit named Cerro Pelon, and discovered millions of hibernating butterflies clinging to the trees.

The Bruggers eagerly picked through the colony for Monarchs that might have been tagged in North America, thus establishing conclusively the exact migration route. They were having little luck, until they came upon one butterfly which stood out from the rest. It was significantly larger. And it had a tag. With a phone number.

For a few years, 12-year-old John McLusky had been tagging butterflies in Fredericksburg, in south-central Texas. He had read about the migrations, printed up his own tags, and did it all himself.

“I didn’t know there were any professionals doing it,” says McLusky, now a chemistry professor at Texas Lutheran University. “I was hoping that someone would find them. I didn’t really know I was contributing to science.

“Ken Brugger called my home from Mexico,” he recalls. “They were very excited. They found what they’d been looking for all these years.”

Alfredo and I pass through an open meadow ringed by forest, and Monarchs circle lazily above us, the sun casting their shadows on the ground. The trail turns back into forest, and he says we should be quiet. Monarchs are totally deaf, but they can apparently detect light and movement, and have a terrific sense of smell.

It’s true. Dozens of butterflies cling to bushes, then quickly flutter away just out of our reach. The treetop canopy up above bustles with tiny flashes of orange.

Alfredo opens a wooden fence and takes us off the trail. We walk a bit further, and then he stops and points. Giant pod-like clumps dangle from trees, pulsating slightly with movement. They look like grayish alien larvae from a horror film, but in fact it’s thousands and thousands of Monarchs all slumbering together, weighing down the branches, which look as though they are about to snap off. This is the Mother Lode, the starting point of nature’s most mysterious migration.

The grey color comes from the undersides of the wings, and blends in easily with the forest shade. Alfredo whispers that throughout the winter they will rotate sleeping positions, so that the ones on the outside don’t freeze to death.

Monarchs prefer pine and oyamel trees for their winter hotel, and for some reason extend their colonies out in a straight line through the forest. Each year, the location moves slightly, Alfredo says maybe 100 meters or so, because of the dust that humans kick up.

The sky comes alive as the butterflies respond to the late morning sun. Once they wake up, they fall to the ground and start flapping their wings to warm up. You have to watch where you step, because the ground is carpeted with groggy butterflies flopping around. Once they’re fully alert, they start mating furiously.

I step into a pocket of bright sunlight, and the sensation feels like wandering into the midst of a locust attack. Butterflies attach themselves to my head, pantleg, shoe, shoulder, back — at one point I count over 20 Monarchs perched somewhere on my body, curiously checking me out. I hear Alfredo say, “Look,” and turn around. One is affixed to his lips.

Perhaps it’s the 10,000 feet altitude that’s making me light-headed, but being covered in little butterflies seems like we’re all part of a spectacular Disney movie where everything is going to be okay. At any moment Miley Cyrus is going to step from behind a tree and start singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” There’s no noise at all except the woosh of tiny wings. It’s a soothing, dreamlike celebration of insect life – a combination hotel, breeding ground and cemetery.

I feel badly for John McLusky back in Texas. Of the three men responsible for discovering and verifying this amazing migration, he’s the only one still alive. And he’s never actually been here to see it himself.

Alfredo and I head back down the trail, and come upon a group of butterflies clustered on the ground, at a spring-fed rivulet. “They’re drinking water,” he whispers. Indeed, the Monarchs are guzzling like thirsty horses on a trail ride.

Alfredo describes a very moving moment in his life. One day while giving a tour, he saw a Monarch in a water puddle that appeared to be drowning. He gently picked it up and saw it was a female, she was weak and freezing. He held it in his hand to warm it up, and fed it by hand, squeezing nectar from a flower into its mouth.

“She could smell it,” he remembers. “They drink very fast.” The butterfly guzzled the contents of four flowers, then regained its strength and flitted away.

Alfredo smiles. “I never thought I was gonna be able to do that.”

Butterfly festivals occur in North America throughout the migration season, depending on location. Michoacan sightings are best during the spring season, when the region hosts a month-long Monarch Festival. Visitor info available at www.michoacan-travel.com (English) or www.michoacan.gob.mx (Spanish).

Jack Boulware contributes frequently to American Way. He was assisted for this story by an unknown butterfly who clung to his notepad for a good deal of the day.

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————————————————————–

John McLusky

830-303-8937

jmcclusky@tlu.edu

Alfredo

c/o Mitzi Arreola

Michoacan tourism department

marreola@michoacan.gob.mx

011 52 (443) 317 80 52 Ext. 140

Michoacan.gob.mx – website of the region with info about Monarch Festival (in Spanish)

Biosphere reserve UNESCO site

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1290

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Masters+of+migration:+thanks+to+the+efforts+of+scientists+and+nature…-a0201801673

lots of facts:

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/indexCurrent.html

Brugger obituary

http://www.texasento.net/Brugger.htm

good first person account:

http://www.turkpipkin.com/mag/mexico/monarchs.htm

good history:

http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/butterflyhistory.html

Other articles

http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/monarchs.html

http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020701357.html

http://www.globio.org/glossopedia/article.aspx?art_id=41

bird predators

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v291/n5810/abs/291067a0.html

http://bird-watching.suite101.com/article.cfm/birding_mexicos_el_rosario_butterfly_sanctuary

migration generations:

http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Cycle.htm

migration maps

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_spring2009.html

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_egg_spring2009.html

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_f08_roosts.html

A history of the world’s most famous acoustic guitar, including an interview with company president Chris Martin IV, and a visit to the factory in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

I pulled into Nazareth

was feelin’ ‘bout half-past dead

I just need some place

Where I can lay my head

- “The Weight,” The Band

In early 2008, an acoustic guitar belonging to the author of these lyrics actually pulled into Nazareth, Pennsylvania to the C.F. Martin guitar factory. Robbie Robertson had needed some work done on his 1927 Martin 000-45 nylon string model. Martin employees examined the ultra-rare instrument in amazement, which was built 80 years ago in Nazareth, and retained the original ivory pegs.

Workers were also reminded of the apocryphal story they’d learned only a few years before, about the creating of this song. As the tale goes, four decades ago, while working on music for The Band’s first album, Music From Big Pink, Robertson was stuck with writer’s block.

The first line of the song wasn’t coming to mind. He turned his guitar over and noticed the manufacturer’s label stamped inside the hole. It read, “C.F. Martin, Nazareth, PA.” He thought why not, and incorporated the town Nazareth into the opening lyric. Supposedly the rest of the song then fell into place, completing what is now a classic tune that we’ve all heard at some point in our lives. (Even if you don’t understand what the rest of the words mean, at least now you know the origin of “Nazareth.”)

Such stories circulate constantly through the history of the C.F. Martin company. The world’s most recognizable name in acoustic guitars, Martin this year celebrates its 175^th anniversary. For a musician, a Martin represents the ultimate in quality, the best that money can buy. Each model is still handmade at the factory in Pennsylvania. Vintage Martin guitars can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Nearly every recording you’ve ever heard features a Martin, from country and folk, to rock, pop, classical, and Hawaiian music. You name the artist, they’ve played a Martin: Eric Clapton, Johnny Cash, Beck, Neil Young, John Mayer, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Elvis Presley, Sting, Kurt Cobain, Paul Simon, Jimmie Rodgers, Kingston Trio, Richie Sambora, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Dixie Chicks, Lucinda Williams, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. It’s almost scary how one guitar has so thoroughly saturated music’s landscape.

Besides making the world’s finest guitars, C.F. Martin is notable for several other reasons. Most importantly, its success and longevity come despite America’s rampant outsourcing of labor. In a business climate where CEOs eagerly move manufacturing overseas, virtually all Martin guitars are still made in the United States. With a lifetime guarantee for the original owner.

The 850 employees enjoy profit-sharing, and many have been there for decades. “Coffee Break” guitars hang from walls in the factory, so workers can play something on their downtime.

To lessen the drain on natural resources, Martin also offers guitars made from sustainable woods and non-wood materials. And here’s another anomaly in American business – the company has been run by a member of the same family for six generations.

But this wasn’t always a rosy success story. In the early 1980s, C.F. Martin nearly made its last guitar.

“We had peaked out in the 70s, somewhere in the range of about 22,000 units,” says Martin’s current CEO, Chris Martin IV, a friendly, sandy-haired man in his fifties.

“In 1983 we were making 3,000 units. We were on the brink of just barely being able to pay the rent. We talked to these people and they said, ‘Yeah, we’ll buy your business. We’ll fire the board, we’ll fire upper management. And we’ll play you 30 cents on the dollar.’”

It would have been an ignoble end to a long legacy. Chris Martin’s great-great-great grandfather, Christian Martin Jr., had founded the company in 1833. He learned the craft of making guitars in Vienna, then moved to New York City and opened a music shop on Hudson Street. He sold instruments, and hand-crafted his own guitars in the back room.

By 1838 he moved his operation to Nazareth, a small German-speaking religious community in rural Pennsylvania. Using his original tools from Europe, Martin continued to produce more guitars. The earliest models were numbered with the style of guitar, followed by the price. A 3-17, for instance, was a Model 3, selling for 17 dollars.

More family members joined the company, and they introduced new models. Mandolins for the growing population of Italian immigrants. Ukuleles for the burgeoning craze of Hawaiian music. New sizes for orchestras and entertainers like the yodeling Jimmie Rodgers, country music’s first superstar.

During the Depression, Martin debuted a new oversized dreadnought model, the D-45, created specifically for “Singing Cowboy” Gene Autry. Rockabilly and rock and roll stars like Elvis and Ricky Nelson popularized the name further, and the 1960s boom in folk music took sales of Martin guitars through the roof. Sales peaked during the 1970s era of country rock, with artists like Jim Croce and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

At the time, this reputation and legacy was totally lost on Chris Martin IV, a young man working at a guitar shop in Hollywood. He had studied to be a marine biologist, had no talent for music, and little interest in the family business. He was also lousy at guitar sales.

“This was the 1970s. Westwood Music, on Westwood Boulevard,” Martin recalls. “The owner, Fred Walecki, was very astute in terms of getting Martins in the hands of professionals in the southern California music scene. I think Fred thought I knew a lot more about my family business than I did.”

“I was useless,” admits Martin. “They’d ask me the history, why they should buy this model. They expected me to know everything. I just felt like such an idiot. That’s when I was like, if I’m gonna do this, I kind of have to start back at the beginning.”

Martin quit college, came back to work at the factory in Nazareth, and ended up studying management at Boston University. As he observed the family business, he noticed things were on a downhill slide. His father Frank Martin had begun importing inferior guitars from Asia, and acquired several unsuccessful side projects, very un-Martin-like products such as banjos, drums, and electric guitars.

“I get the impression that all of my other ancestors but my father really got into guitar building,” Martin shrugs. “And the aspect of, how does it work? What makes it work? And my father, he wasn’t a bad businessman. But the thing that he was involved with, it could have been anything. Golf clubs. Had it been golf clubs, he might have been more excited about it.”

Martin’s father had also purchased expensive manufacturing machines, which didn’t work. They sat idle on the factory floor, as a monument of incompetence. Frank finally retired, leaving the company in a shambles.

“My father had his own personal demons,” Martin continues. “He was an alcoholic.”

It wasn’t just Frank’s unwise expansion projects. A drastic change in sound was sweeping through the music industry. Nobody was interested in acoustic guitars at the time. Upon rejoining the company, the young Martin felt the change ripple through the factory.

“After The Eagles, business tanked. Thanks to disco and the Yamaha DX-7, all the keyboards, you didn’t need a guitar player anymore. We were losing money. The banks called the loans.”

Astonishingly, the board of directors brought back Martin’s grandfather, C.F. Martin III, to run the company. Although in his nineties, the man did know something about the guitar business. He was able to stop the financial bleeding, but soon passed away, leaving C.F. Martin IV as chairman of a respected brand on the verge of collapse.

Martin never aspired to be in charge, but there was nobody else in the family who was interested. He knew the only way the company could survive was if he reached out to the employees. The people who actually built the best acoustic guitars in the world.

“I said to everybody, ‘Look, if it’s 3,000 guitars, let’s make 3,000 really, really  good guitars.” That resonated with the people that wanted to hear that, but weren’t hearing it.”

The company started profit-sharing, and set about focusing on just doing what they did best. And then in the mid-1980s, an extraordinary series of circumstances basically knocked on the door of C.F. Martin guitars.

Keyboards were becoming passe in popular music, replaced by acoustic acts like Lyle Lovett and Suzanne Vega. At the same time, a new generation of Boomers were coming into wealth, and could finally afford the Martin guitar they’d always coveted. Acoustic guitars were cool again.

In 1989, MTV debuted its new Unplugged series, and viewers watched artists like Eric Clapton and Nirvana playing stripped-down acoustic versions of well-known songs.

“Many, many of the artists were playing Martins,” says Martin. “The irony is, most of them were plugged in. But it was very discreet. Just don’t look at the cord coming out of the bottom of the guitar!”

Sales soared as a result, and demand was so high for Martin guitars, the company was forced to double the size of its factory. More models were introduced, including a popular “Backpacker” travel guitar, which even took a trip aboard the space shuttle. “Coffee Break” guitars were hung in the factory, so employees could play something on their downtime.

From 1990 to 2003, Martin sold 500,000 guitars, more than in the previous 150 years of the company. Artist series models were designed in partnership with well-known musicians, from Stephen Stills to Johnny Cash, Jimmy Buffet, and George Jones. Martin started offering public tours of the factory in Nazareth, and in 2006 the company opened a guitar museum, filled with rare guitars and historical artifacts.

Sitting in his office filled with guitars and memorabilia, Chris Martin IV enthusiastically describes one museum display in particular – the Martin D-45. Originally built for Gene Autry in 1933, the D-45 was larger than most, and adorned with the fanciest accoutrements then available. Only 91 D-45s were made before production stopped in 1942. The mythology surrounding this instrument boggles the mind. Collectors refer to it as the “Holy Grail.” An original pre-war D-45 sells on eBay for up to $1 million.

Martin desperately wanted a D-45 to showcase in the new museum. Two vintage dealers approached him with D-45s. A Martin employee was dispatched to inspect them. The first wouldn’t do, it had been repaired, and sounded inferior.

“Another dealer called up and said, “I have your guitar. A D-45, for your museum,’ Martin recalls. “I said, ‘How do you know?’ He said, ‘I know.’”

The dealer brought the guitar to Nazareth, and Martin called a meeting of employees in his office to see the D-45. The price was $270,000. It was a lot of money.

“One fellow I work with, he said, ‘Can I try that?’ He picked it up, and curled up in a fetal position, and played it. And he looked up at me and I knew, that is our guitar.”

Chris Martin smiles. “It’s possibly the best sounding guitar I’ve ever heard. It was the top of the line, and it’s been used, not abused, for 65 years. It came into its own.”

A bit later, on a tour of the museum, Martin’s manager of artist relations, Dick Boak, pulls out a key and unlocks a glass wall in front of the D-45. He grabs the guitar, fishes a pick from a pocket and hands them both to me. The wood is beautiful, old and strong. The Holy Grail. My god.

I drop to one knee, cradling the D-45, and am so nervous I can’t do more than play a few chords. The sound is amazingly loud, but with a soft and warm tone. It’s like playing a quarter-million-dollar stick of butter. People wandering through the museum stop and watch, as if to say, “Who’s this guy? Why does he get to play the D-45? He doesn’t seem to be very good.” I quickly hand it back, afraid I’m going to drop it.

Outside the museum, a tour of children swarms the main lobby, gawking at the displays. Guitars hang on the wall for anyone to play, and two guys sit on stools, jamming on an old Johnny Cash tune. I’ll bet they would love to play the D-45, too.

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This article appeared in different form in American Way magazine

The amazing true story of how a tourist bumming around Cambodia in the mid-1990s, inadvertently launched the careers of many musicians, including the Cambodian/American hybrid Dengue Fever.

Sometime in the ‘90s, Los Angeles musician Ethan Holtzman and a friend were cruising around Siem Reap, Cambodia. His buddy got bitten by a mosquito and contracted dengue fever, so they hopped on a truck to a hospital. As they bounced along a bumpy dirt road, Ethan heard this strange music playing on the truck’s radio: an evocative blend of ‘60s psychedelia, surf, and British Invasion, influenced by Western rock and roll which filtered into the country during the Vietnam War.

Intrigued by the music, Ethan collected some cassettes and returned to L.A. He met with his brother Zac, and realized that by total coincidence, both had been listening to the same songs. Neither understood the Khmer-language lyrics. But they learned that the people who made this music, Cambodian pop stars like Pan Ron, Ros Serey Sothea, and Sin Sisamouth, were most likely dead. During the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s, artists and musicians were singled out for execution.

“We started talking about what a shame it was that all these really great, cool artists were killed while they were just doing what they wanted to do,” Zac recalls. “We thought it was a good idea to pick up the ball where they left off.”

The Holtzman brothers began putting together a band to resurrect Cambodian rock and roll. They chose the name Dengue Fever as a tongue-in-cheek ode to Ethan’s truck ride. The two hung out in Long Beach nightclubs populated by Cambodian refugees, and after auditions, found vocalist Chhom Nimol, a recent transplant and onetime Cambodian pop star, who had come from a prominent musical family.

Things clicked immediately despite the language differences, and Dengue has since released three CDs, mixing traditional covers among originals. The band adds its own tinges of jazz and sci-fi/spaghetti-western texture, beefing up the arrangements with Ethan’s nuanced Farfisa organ and Dave Ralicke’s killer horn parts, all fronted by Nimol’s stage presence and amazing vocal fluidity. Their atmospheric sound proves a natural fit for many soundtracks, including Matt Dillon’s City of Ghosts, Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, and episodes of Weeds.

Dengue Fever has spent the last few years touring the world, and in 2005 they traveled back to Cambodia, a trip captured in the new DVD documentary, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong. Cambodians were wildly curious about what had happened to Nimol, who had left for the U.S. some years before.

“Everyone was really happy that she didn’t come back all totally Hollywood and Americanized,” says Zac. “She came back with her old traditional music, with us backing her up. Everyone was happy about that. It made them feel proud about their culture.”

Dengue is often asked whether they play world music, or indie rock, and the short answer is both. No longer defined by Putamayo albums played in restaurants, world/international music is now being pushed in all directions, from the pioneering Ry Cooder, to the multicultural Manu Chao and the Amazonian-flavored Chicha Libre, who often tours with Dengue Fever.

“It’s cool to see this indie rock scene being more open to all the different ethnicities and cultures around the world,” says Zac Holtzman. “And it’s cool for the world music scene to not only be Guatamalan baggy pants and steel drums.”

# # #

Cambodian Rocks

Many Americans with their ear to the underground in the mid-90s discovered a mysterious vinyl record called Cambodian Rocks. There were no liner notes or any information about any of the songs. But some of the music was vaguely recognizable, peculiar go-go organ and fuzz-guitar versions of “Gloria,” “Hip Hug-Her” by Booker T and the MGs, and something that sounded an awful lot like “Black Magic Woman.” In actuality, these were popular Cambodian hit songs of the 1960s and 70s, performed by the likes of pop singers Pan Ron and Ros Serey Sothea, and singer-songwriter Sinn Sisamouth.

The origins of the record are as simple as Dengue Fever’s beginnings. In 1994 an American named Paul Wheeler accompanied a friend on a trip to Cambodia. While hanging around Siem Reap, he kept hearing amazing rock music played in the restaurants.

“I hired a guy on motorcycle to take me to a place where I could buy some Cambodian music,” remembers Wheeler. “He drove me to a market where there was a guy set up and selling cassette tapes. I had him play me various stuff for an hour or two, and ended up buying about six tapes from him.”

Wheeler compiled a cassette of his favorite songs, and upon returning to the U.S., he played the tape for a friend who owned Parallel World, a small record label in New York City.

“He loved it as much as I did, and suggested putting out some of it on his record label. It was released first as a limited pressing record of 1,000. That sold out, and he got so much good feedback he released a longer version as a CD.”

Hipsters who heard Cambodian Rocks went crazy over it, including Zac Holtzman. The record prompted several sequels, and dozens of musicians started playing their own versions of blue-eyed Cambodian rock and roll.

# # #

This story and sidebar first appeared in American Way magazine.

“Depending on how you hold it,” says Steve, “it can be a smile…or a frown.”

Since I really can’t stand golf, it’s probably a frown.

This morning we’re playing the back nine holes of the Pacific Grove Municipal Course, to plumb the deeper meanings of the 1,300-member Society and discover why the popularity of a fictional character from a book has galvanized fans from 20 countries. I also am curious why these guys have started a golf program for inner-city black kids, and why on earth that would be helpful to them. But maybe another time.

Official sanctioned Shivas events are very elaborate. The group places violinists and harpists playing classical music along the course. They encourage alternative scoring. Instead of numbers, participants record each hole with an adjective that best describes one’s feelings. They make sure every player gets in touch with the historic fundamentals of the game by using antique wooden clubs and balls stuffed with feathers. And before the tee-off, Steve will often lead the foursome in some guided-imagery meditation, concentrating on specific goals each person hopes to achieve. I always thought the goal of golf was to put the ball in the cup. Apparently there’s more.

We skip the preliminaries and tee off at the 10th hole. Hopefully the spirit of Shivas Irons will make an appearance to guide us. He’d better hurry, because I’m a terrible golfer. After a couple of spastic swings that miss the tee, I finally make contact and the ball scoots a few yards along the grass. My adjective is “pissed off.” It’s going to be a long morning.

Steve gets into position, his portly 50-ish frame packed inside his tan slacks and grey sweater embroidered with the Shivas logo. His swing is fluid and balanced as he knocks a perfect drive that sails up and lands just outside the green. Several strokes later, I chip a shot that, through some insane beginners’ luck, rolls into the cup. Steve spins around, his smile radiating through his beard, and declares proudly, “I knew that was going in as soon as you hit it!”

Maybe I should have been more excited.

The next hole features a handful of deer, lounging absently along the course. Steve would rather I learn from personal experience than from advice, but he does mention I should “visualize it.” I visualize my ball entering a deer’s eye socket, the animal control ambulance arriving, the word “deerslayer” painted in red on my apartment door. My shot misses the animals, but lands miles from the flag. Steve’s shot arcs gracefully, of course, and hits the grass just to the right of the green.

This goes on for several more holes, Steve expertly placing his shots along the fairways, then waiting for me and my 17 sad croquet-like shots that barely crest the tips of the grass blades. Steve has been a teacher of disabled children, and then a Gestalt therapist at Esalen, so his patience seems infinite.

His nurturing qualities manifest in helpful comments like “98 percent of golf is between shots” or “Come into the swing — you gotta feel good about the swing because when it’s in the air it’s out of your control.” At one point Steve hits a beautiful drive that lands on top of a sand dune. Rather than become disappointed, he exclaims, “That felt so good to hit, it doesn’t matter.”

It matters horribly to me. The whole idea of golf is starting to suck. I’ve read the book, but it didn’t sink in. Shivas Irons seems to be with me only on the chip shots. He is completely ignoring me in the tee box. Steve smells my frustration and suggests that when I take a practice swing, just let go of the club. It spins off to the left, indicating my swing needs a subtle correction in the other direction. I look behind us to see if anybody is witnessing this absurd scenario. An old white-haired man in expensive pastel clothes swings and his ball skitters only a few yards. Good, I think. He’s probably been golfing for 40 years, and he’s still a spaz.

For the 16th hole, Steve says we shouldn’t speak the entire time. He says it helps get in touch with the inner game. We will hone in on our goals, and silently articulate the metaphor of golf as a reflection of life. I tee up and stare at the ball, attempting to become one with the sphere. The dimples are going in and out of focus, as if I’m really stoned. It makes me dizzy. I whack the ball a robust ten yards into a clump of ice grass. A deer grazing nearby looks up at the ball, sniffs, and goes back to eating. Same to you, Bambi.

Steve momentarily breaks the silence rule to say “I love you anyway, Jack.” I want to take my putter and smack him in the forehead.

We continue down the course, but there’s a mysterious change in the air. On Steve’s lone piece of advice, I’ve given up using most of my clubs, sticking only with the few that feel like they’re working. He’s right. My shots are sailing higher and farther. As Murphy says, perhaps I’ve won the ball’s allegiance. I want to hoot like a hillbilly. Shivas is with me. Let’s get hippy. Burn some incense. Fire up the hot tub.

The following hole, my drive soars over the lake hazard, just like one of the bigshot golfers on television. I feel confident and self-actualized, an autonomous entity in control of my own sensate destiny. Maybe I should just ditch this writing business. I’ll shave my head, move to Esalen, wear drawstring pants and teach spinal alignment classes. I’ll sit in the big hot tub with my students, and they’ll ask how I achieved such a balanced state of being, and I’ll tell them “Just use the clubs that feel right.”

#   #   #

Sir John Leslie stops halfway up on the main staircase of his childhood home and points to an item hanging on the wall. The keepsake in question, a tattered red cloth within a frame, boasts a faded handwritten provenance: “Bloody shroud which received the head of James, Earl of Derwentwater, on Tower Hill.” It’s dated February 24, 1715.

Sir John describes the textile with the air of an offhand understatement, as if every home quite naturally features such decapitation memorabilia. Apparently, the man was executed for treason at the age of 27.

“I traveled to London a few years ago,” says Sir John, with a hint of a smile, “and saw the ax and chopping block.”

The 90-year-old baronet pauses a moment to let the grisly scenario sink in; then he gestures up the stairs, announces a cheerful “This way!” and adds, with perfect timing, “It’s best if I go first.”

Ireland prides itself on having a penchant for zany, cheeky humor. Its landscape is dotted with ancient historical castles, most of which typically feature some sort of contrived flavor for the tourists: medieval-themed feasts, suits of armor, actors dressed as court jesters. Castle Leslie doesn’t have to bother with props or costumes, though. It’s just naturally odd.
The hallways and rooms are filled with strange mementos, including Ireland’s largest bathtub; a quill pen once used by Pope Pius IX “during his last days”; a bronze bust of the governor general of the Philippine Islands; a 10-foot-high toilet stall, family crest included; and Winston Churchill’s christening dress, displayed in the main sitting room. And somewhere on the property, there’s a landing pad for UFOs.

This 1,000-acre estate has been in the Leslie family since 1665. The current castle was erected in 1878, with 100 rooms, and its guest list has included prominent politicians and diplomats, poets and royalty, and members of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Despite modern amenities like a cooking school, an equestrian center, and an award-winning restaurant, the property retains the family’s peculiar personality. Each of the 14 bedrooms is an eclectic mishmash of Victorian furnishings and unusual plumbing. The restaurant’s wine list is actually organized under categories like Homer Simpson and Ozzy Osbourne.

Although his niece Samantha now manages the day-to-day operations, Sir John Leslie still lives at the castle and conducts tours twice a week. During most of World War II, he was a POW in Germany; then he lived in an Italian monastery without electricity for 35 years. Despite his nonagenarian status, he enjoys hitting local discotheques on the weekends. He also has a rotating mirror ball in his bathroom and — I’m not making this up — before retiring for bed each night, he rings a loud gong in the castle. In comparison with the rest of his family, though, he’s actually kind of normal.

In recent years, the Irish quirkiness that once was embodied so strongly in the national DNA has unfortunately been diminishing in supply. Thanks to globalization, Ireland’s quaint traditions have become increasingly overshadowed by the Celtic Tiger economy. Beginning in the 1990s, unemployment and debt plunged, and consumer spending soared off the charts. Ireland went from being one of Europe’s poorest countries to being one of its richest. Dublin now bristles with high-end retail stores, and roads are filled with gleaming Mercedes and Peugeots.

Castle Leslie provides a welcome respite from such homogenous modernity. It is one of the few estates in Ireland that are still owned and managed by the original family — which, in this case, is a family whose lineage stretches back to Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington; Winston Churchill; and Attila the Hun.

Visitors to Castle Leslie will find it buried in a labyrinth of roads that meander through County Monaghan, two and a half hours north of Dublin. Adjacent to the tiny village of Glaslough, Leslie estate stretches through ancient woodlands and natural lakes. In addition to the main castle building, there is an equestrian center and an arena, a hunting lodge and a spa, an old church, and the family cemetery.

Although the castle has always entertained visitors, it was previously not a financially viable enterprise, and by 1991, the family considered it a liability. Samantha Leslie then took over the management from her father, Desmond, and was determined to restore the property and refashion the estate into a deluxe destination.

Furniture and books were sold in order to pay for repairs to the roof. The billiard room was refurbished. Dinner was once again served by candlelight in the family dining room. Chef Noel McMeel was brought in to create a gourmet menu and a top-drawer wine list. But the Leslie eccentricity is, thankfully, still intact.

Each bedroom is themed after a member of the Leslie family. Anita’s Room, for instance, is named for the rebellious daughter who, during World War II, drove ambulances over enemy lines to collect the wounded. She wrote several books and reportedly subsisted on only smoked salmon and Champagne. Lionel was another free spirit; he traveled on safari, wrote books, and became an expert on the Loch Ness Monster. Norman was killed in World War I, but his ghost supposedly inhabits his bedroom. Seymour was another writer and apparently was the first person in Ireland to use an X-ray machine, testing it in his bedroom on the family’s coachman. Desmond was once married to a female spy for the OSS, and he wrote several movies and books, including the best-selling UFO classic Flying Saucers Have Landed.
Castle Leslie deliberately downplays its promotion and advertising, but after hosting the ill-fated 2002 wedding of Paul McCartney, which was televised live to 800 million people, its existence is no longer a secret. Guests are strongly encouraged to make reservations in advance.

The atmosphere there is that of staying in someone’s private home — which, essentially, you are. Sheet music rests on the piano, war medals are displayed on a table, and a fire crackles in the 600-year-old Italian fireplace. You immediately consider yourself a guest of the family.
Solitude is a key ingredient of the experience. Most people wander the grounds, sip wine in front of the main fireplace, and stroll downstairs for dinner, all at no particular time. In some ways, it’s like being in a Las Vegas casino, because there are no clocks, telephones, TVs, or radios anywhere in the rooms. (According to the castle’s staff, Americans, in particular, are astonished that they can’t check e-mail 24 hours a day.)

During one of these timeless, phoneless, Internet-free afternoons, I end up in the main sitting room, eavesdropping on two American couples discussing how they baby their dogs. The restlessness builds up inside me, and a staff member apparently senses this, for she recommends a hike around the fishing lake that’s adjacent to the castle. It typically takes about an hour, and wellies (rubber Wellington boots) are available for guests at the front door.

I find the wall of rubber boots and quickly realize that I could never be Irish nobility — my feet are too big. The path departs from the entrance and soon turns into a muddy bog, and I’m wearing only trainers. Not that I’ve ever trained in them. The wellies sit in their warm racks back at the Castle.

The estate’s countryside is exactly how one might imagine seeing Ireland for the first time: lush green pastures, ancient trees, a group of horses swishing their tails. I stop to pet one of them, trying to connect with my distant Irish heritage. When the trail comes to a fork (or “ferk,” as the Irish would pronounce), I flip a mental coin and turn right. The wrong choice, as the trail promptly turns into large puddles of slop.

There’s a famous saying by Sir John Pentland Mahaffy that goes something like: “In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.” After a few minutes, this quotation comes true, as the sky suddenly turns gray and a light drizzle develops — a drizzle that rapidly grows into a legitimate Irish monsoon.

It won’t last, I lie to myself and keep walking. The wind picks up, and the rain grows heavier. A herd of cows stands underneath some trees to wait it out. It can’t be good when even cows are smarter than you. I’m completely soaked, from hood to sneakers, and I have no idea of where I am or which direction I’m heading. Since turning back is not an option (I can’t remember from which direction I came), I stop and stand under some branches, surrounded by the full force of Irish weather.

Suddenly, voices shout over the howling storm. Just up the road, two ranchers are sitting in a truck, waving and yelling. “Come on in,” they holler. I splash over and climb inside to warm up.

The younger is a hired hand on a nearby ranch; the older fellow is the owner. They’re waiting out the rain so that afterward they can feed the animals. A couple of cows have stuck their heads over the fence in anticipation. I explain that I’m staying at Castle Leslie and was just walking around the lake. They inform me in a jolly tone that I’ve completely wandered off the Leslie property.

I mention that if it weren’t for them, I may well have ended up floating in the lake, and the elder man turns with a toothless grin and exclaims, “Covered in fish bites!”

As the storm roars overhead, we talk about cattle. Why not? The cows are standing right in front of the truck, after all, waiting patiently for their dinner. Apparently, Hereford was a popular breed in Ireland some decades ago, but now the preferred breed is Charolais. They are better suited to the terrain and have more meat than Herefords. I also learn that, unlike in the United States, where most cattle ranches are now owned by large corporations, all the ranches in Ireland remain independently owned and operated.

Remembering that earlier, during my little hike, I had walked past a field with only cows, and that across the road there had been a pasture containing some very curious bulls, I ask the ranchers if it’s currently breeding season. They burst out laughing: “It’s always the season!”
Since the rain isn’t letting up, they offer to drive me toward Castle Leslie. We bounce along the muddy potholes, talking and laughing as the windshield wipers flop back and forth. They let me out at a locked gate, and we say our goodbyes. Just some friendly cow conversation on a rainy Irish afternoon.

I’m hoping to arrange a meeting with Samantha Leslie, but her schedule is incredibly hectic. As luck would have it, though, while prowling around the hallways, I come upon Sir John, sitting on a leather sofa in front of a crackling fire in the library, dressed immaculately in a blue blazer, a necktie, and cuff links. He’s casually signing his name inside some books. I notice they aren’t books that he has written, but he’s just signing them anyway. This subtle yet bizarre twist on the literary ritual of book signing is reminiscent of a famous quote about the Leslie family from Dublin’s own satirist, Jonathan Swift:

Here I am in Castle Leslie
With rows and rows of books upon the shelves
Written by the Leslies
All about themselves.

We chat for a while. Sir John grew up here only half the time, commuting between the castle and another family home in London. After World War II, the castle started accepting paying visitors and even ran small ads in publications. Early guests were primarily cousins and family friends. Sir John’s brother, Desmond, and his sister, Anita, had the idea to go full-time with the business, and the decision was made to retain the castle as an old country house, surrounded by trees and complete with its original furniture and pictures. This has always been the appeal for people, he says.

Like any 90-year-old, Sir John has rich memories. He recalls playing billiards with his grandfather in what is now this room, the library — only back then it was lined with deer horns. In the villages, children once scampered about in bare feet, and there were no cars or bicycles. “You see the same boys driving by in Mercedes today,” he chuckles.

I can’t resist asking him about the UFO history, because I’m pretty sure no other estate in Ireland features a UFO landing pad. It was constructed because Sir John’s brother, Desmond, had collaborated on a book with American George Adamski, who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Flying Saucers Have Landed was a theosophical hodgepodge of ancient Egyptian history, Indian mythology, the lost city of Atlantis, and aliens from Venus — all of which has since been thoroughly debunked.

Did Desmond ever discuss his passion for UFOs? “Continually,” says Sir John. “He would never stop talking!”

I ask if aliens have ever used the special landing pad. “I rather hoped they would, but they didn’t,” he answers matter-of-factly. “A ship would be only the size of this room. What would they do? What would they eat? It doesn’t make sense.”

So does this Leslie eccentricity come from being Irish or just from being a member of the family?

“Especially the family!” he exclaims. “My father wore a kilt everywhere — in New York, in the subway. He once walked 60 miles at one time without stopping. We took it for granted.”
And then there is Sir John’s ritual of going out to discos each weekend. When he first started doing this, at the age of 83, people told him, “Oh, don’t go — they’re very rough. You’ll come home on a stretcher.” Instead, he has become a familiar and recognized face in dance clubs everywhere from Ireland to London.

“They’re very wild,” he laughs. “The girls are making me dance; the boys are bringing me pints of beer. They are jolly. You can imagine yourself young again … the thumping music, the colored lights. You’re absolutely free.”

We walk down a hallway, and he stops at a painting of his grandmother, mother, and uncle. The interesting thing about this portrait, he says, is that “the painting is right on the wall.” He flicks the wooden frame with a finger, and it swings from side to side. The illusion is brilliant — you naturally assume that it’s a painting on stretched canvas with a frame. And then you wonder why on earth someone would do such a thing. But if he or she were a Leslie, why not?

I leave Sir John Leslie sitting in front of the fire. Around him, guests are sipping cocktails and chatting away, oblivious to the fact that the little old man in the armchair is the patriarch of the castle in which they are currently staying. Thick reading glasses are perched on his nose as he squints at the page of an open book, catching up on a little reading before dinner in Ireland’s most eccentric castle.

# # #

(A version of this appeared in American Way magazine)

Our group of 10 sits on benches, decked out in fleece and equipped with crampons and axes. Mountaineering is one of those activities that requires a lot of gear. We all look extremely professional.

Early tomorrow morning we will return to this room, and head up Mount Hood in the dark. There will be one major difference, though: While the rest of the class will attempt to reach the summit, my destination will be the White River Glacier.

White River is one of 11 glaciers on Mount Hood, and, according to data compiled by Portland State University, it’s already lost 61 percent of its volume. Whether you believe in global warming, or insist that climate change is a figment of Al Gore’s fevered imagination, compare aerial photos of just about any glacier — including White River — throughout history. The planet’s ice masses are definitely retreating to higher elevations, away from the sunlight. To put it in the most elemental terms, there’s less white than before.

According to PSU geology professor Anthony Fountain, alpine (as in mountain) glaciers in particular are making significant changes to the planet’s sea levels. “These guys are melting like crazy,” says Fountain, whose research team studies glaciers throughout the American West. “Right now, they’re making the most significant contribution to sea level change, other than thermal expansion of the seawater.”

Although the planet is definitely growing warmer, Fountain’s team has conducted studies in Antarctica, and found that glaciers at the bottom of the world are neither growing nor shrinking. “They are in wonderful equilibrium,” he says, adding, “[but they’re] kind of the exception to the rule.”

Antarctica aside, the vast majority of the world’s tens of thousands of glaciers are undeniably receding. Here in the United States, glacial melting is an accepted fact. A new study from the National Climatic Data Center indicates that 2006 was the nation’s warmest year in history. Glacier National Park in Montana has 27 glaciers remaining out of an approximate 150. By mid-century, it’s estimated that nearly all of the park’s glaciers will be gone. Some studies are predicting that by 2100, ski season in the US could run only from Christmas to President’s Day, under the best scenario.

Which is why I’m here at White River. It’s easy enough to view a glacier from a plane, but some part of me wants to see one up close, within the confines of the Lower 48. I want to feel the cold under my boots and descend down into the belly of an ice mass hundreds of years old — before it disappears into the photo archive.

By the time my glacier expedition meets up at 4:30 a.m., the other groups have already departed for the summit. My guide Jon Bates, another TMG employee, double-checks my gear and hands me a helmet lamp.

Guides get to climb to the summit of Mount Hood every week, he says, so glacier tours are more fun for them.

We climb inside a Sno-Cat and chug up the permafrost of the Palmer ski run, the treads easily navigating the crunchy snow. Halfway up the trail we encounter Phil and some of the folks from yesterday’s class, walking back down the slope with glum expressions. “They turned back,” observes Jon. I never find out why.

Weather is often the key factor. My trip here was postponed for two weeks because of snow and rain.

“You could come up,” Steve Baldwin, the guide company’s owner, had told me over the phone. “But it’d be like being inside a ping-pong ball.”

Fortunately, today is supposed to be clear skies. The Sno-Cat stops at 8,500 feet, the top of the Palmer Ski Lift, and lets us out. We hike up toward the summit another 200 feet, then put on our crampons, cut across the slope laterally, and step onto the White River Glacier.

I immediately notice the distinct odor of sulfur, which seeps from fumaroles in the main crater above us, the gases staining the rocks yellow. Although the mountain hasn’t erupted in a few hundred years, it’s still technically a volcano. Comforting thought.

I look back at the buildings far below. They look like Monopoly pieces. Over time, the glacier has carved out four moraines of churned-up dirt and rocks, which finger their way down to the tree line. You don’t have to be a geologist to realize the ice mass we’re standing on was once two-thirds larger.

“The old-timers around here will tell you it used to go all the way to the lodge,” says Jon.

It’s difficult to find anyone at Mount Hood who doesn’t believe in global warming and glacial retreat, because they’re all on mountains every day, and they see it for themselves.

Yesterday, Joe told our class that he had been climbing in Ecuador, and that the glaciers there are shrinking in part because of deforestation. If there are no trees to trap the tropical warm air, he said, it simply rises up the mountains and melts the ice.

The snow-crusted ice surface feels soft to the touch at first, but it’s surprisingly difficult to grab with a glove. I scrape up a handful. The crystals are huge, and it looks like I’m holding a pile of diamonds. Jon explains that the water molecules are larger than if the snow had formed in clouds, because they’ve been melted and refrozen.

“On a windy day, it’s really tough,” he smiles. “Goes right in your face.” Don’t bother eating it, he adds. The black specks are volcanic soot.

Jon points to the west, and we see a dark triangular shape looming on top of the cloud layer, the shadow of Mount Hood created by the rising sun. It’s amazing how perfect the triangle is, as if somebody had drawn the lines with a ruler.

He ropes us together, about six feet apart. If someone slips and falls, the others will dig in with their axes, feet, and hands.

A few years ago, locals conducted a test up near the summit. They dressed a sack of potatoes in Gore-Tex clothing and tossed it down the slope. Within mere seconds, a lasergun clocked the sack’s speed at 90 miles an hour. In other words, if you’re not on a rope and happen to slip, you have about one to 1.5 seconds to somehow pin yourself to the mountain, or you’re toast.

Our crampons crunch across the surface, we drop down into a bowl, and suddenly there is nothing except white on all sides and the jagged peaks above. It’s a perfect Thoreau-John Muir moment — nature’s exquisite solace at 8,000 feet. The only sounds are rocks tumbling down a nearby moraine, loosened by the morning warmth and kicking up puffs of dust as they bounce down the mountain.

Each day, a glacier appears slightly different, altered by wind, snow, sun, and the natural slow process of sliding down the mountainside. According to Professor Fountain, Hood’s glaciers will move, at the most, 30 feet a year. This is what some climbers jokingly refer to as a “Congressional pace.”

We continue across to a crevasse, a razor-blade gash created by the glacier’s persistent downward motion. Snow fields don’t have them, because they don’t move. A crevasse can potentially extend all the way to the bedrock below. They are a climber’s nightmare, especially when hidden underneath a layer of fresh snow. Mountaineering training involves a lot of crevasse rescue.

Jon unhooks himself from the line and creeps up to the lip. He pounds in an anchor and descends down about 20 feet to the bottom. The snow-covered floor feels solid, and I’m allowed to check it out.

The first thing you notice when you’re inside a crevasse is how blue the ice is — it’s a hue you’ve never before seen. This particular crevasse is small, perhaps six feet across, with walls of striated layers that have built up over hundreds of years, each one depicting a season of weather.

On the summit side, the wall is amazingly smooth, beveled and polished by nature’s freakish force. The opposite side, though, is rough and crumbling with snow, the result of less sunlight each day. The floor descends down into who knows what. In two hours, once it has been softened by the sun, this crevasse will be much too dangerous to explore.

Jon shows me how to climb back up the wall using my crampons and axe, and we continue down the slope.

The next crevasse we come to is much larger — it’s actually two gashes with a snow bridge in the center. Jon goes ahead with a rope, turns a screw into the ice wall, and anchors a safety line across the bridge and down to the bottom.

I grab onto the line and follow it down, punching my toes into the snow for support. This crevasse plunges much deeper than the other, perhaps 40 or 50 feet down to the floor. A jagged hole allows a peek even further into the glacier’s bowels. It looks supremely uninviting, dirty and lined with sharp-edged rock formations.

We clamber back out and come upon a snow cliff that’s essentially a 45-degree drop of a few hundred feet, ending on a snowy ledge maybe three stories below. Jon suggests we do some rappelling. He digs a T-shaped hole in the ice and constructs a support anchor.

Now, in the movies, rappelling down a vertical surface always looks cool. Whether it’s waves of ninja assassins, or Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction, it just seems like a fun adrenalin rush, right? You’re on a mission to bust out some political hostages, carrying a knife in your teeth.

What the movies never show, is that unless you want to leave a $200 rope behind, you have to climb back up. And unless you have the upper body strength of an ape, this is extremely difficult.

Thus, I find myself struggling back up the slope, using only my crampons and an ice axe in each hand. The snow keeps disintegrating under my boots, leaving me dangling by the axes. While I know this is standard climbing procedure for professional mountaineers, my muscles are finely tuned for typing, not hoisting dead weight up a cliff.

After much flailing, I finally crawl up and over the ledge, panting like a dehydrated marathoner right before they stuff him into the ambulance.

We take a break for water, and I ask Jon if there’s any wildlife this high up on the mountain. Not much at all, he answers, except for ravens. “They’re excellent food robbers. They’ll spy an open backpack and fly away with your sandwich.”

Fortunately, the probability of sandwich theft is low today — we’ll be down the mountain before noon.

We begin our descent and traverse diagonally across the face of the glacier, a white cliff about 500 feet high. Our boots stomp a foot deep in the snow, leaving a virgin trail across the surface. It’s exhausting.

The sun’s warmth has made the glacier more dangerous, but it also makes the mountain come alive. Water trickles underneath the snow. Insects swirl about our faces. Steam hisses from rocks dehydrating in the sun.

We pack up our gear and descend along a trail. On the adjacent Palmer run, snowboarders are “shrelping the gnar” and doing stunts off a ramp. It’s turning into a beautiful, clear sunny day on Mount Hood. Perfect for some activities, but over time, the worst possible weather in the life of a glacier.

# # #

Fun depressing glacier facts:

According to Science Express, the world’s melting glaciers could add between four and ten inches to global sea level this century.

Because of the receding glaciers in Europe, more and more European ski teams come to Oregon to ski Mt. Hood.

Currently about five miles in length, the Pasterze is Austria’s longest glacier, and has shrunk 1.2 miles since measurements began in 1889.

Peru’s Cordillera Blanca is the tropics’ most ice-covered mountain range; its Glacier Ururashraju has retreated 0.3 miles since 1986.

Switzerland’s glaciers lost 18% of their surface between 1985 and 2000. In the Alps, the average loss has been 22%. A study by Zurich University found that if temperatures were to rise by five degrees, the Alps would become almost completely ice-free by 2100.

# # #
(A version of this appeared in American Way magazine)

Standing in the room is a moment to be savored, imagining what these walls have heard over the years. From Elgar in his tuxedo and moustache, conducting that melody from everybody’s graduation ceremony, to a roomful of hippies in paisley singing about love. To more recently, Kanye West, Iron Maiden, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and soundtrack recordings for the Star Wars and Harry Potter films.

The world’s most famous recording studio sits tucked away in a nondescript mansion in north London’s posh St. John’s Wood neighborhood. Most of us recognize the name because of the Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road, with the iconic cover photo of the band strolling across the striped crosswalk.

Beatles trivia runs deep. Geeks already know that the album was renamed Abbey Road at the last minute (the original title was “Everest”), and that the photo shoot took just ten minutes, and that Paul McCartney was supposed to be dead because he was depicted in bare feet, among other “clues.” If a fan makes the pilgrimage to the studio, it’s mandatory to scrawl some Beatles lyrics on the wall in front of the building.

But Beatles mythology is only a small portion of the Abbey Road timeline. It is in fact the industry’s oldest studio, with a long tradition of recording music, comedy and theater. The original name EMI Studios was officially changed to Abbey Road, only after the Beatles’ album became popular.

The facility remains open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. It never needs to advertise, and is never open to the public. Just a few months ago the studio celebrated 75 years in business. This June the Sundance Channel debuts a new music television show, Live from Abbey Road, taped on the premises.

Because of the upcoming show, Abbey Road managing director Dave Holley and Michael Gleason, producer of the show, have graciously agreed to give me a short tour.

Artists who’ve recorded here have included everyone from Glenn Miller and Noel Coward to Shirley Bassey, Peter Sellers, Beyond the Fringe, the Buzzcocks, the Spice Girls, and Radiohead. Like an old nightclub or theater stage, ghosts hang in the air, invisible to the eye but soaked into the structure itself.

I mention to Holley that I’ve heard U2 was recording here recently. “It’s policy of the studio going back 75 years that we never tell people who’s here,” he answers with a smile. “Because you end up with funny people standing outside trying to get in. We’re doing four films today, not a lot of rock and roll today.”

There is a rumor, however, that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin are in fact here, in another studio behind the red light. They could be just sipping tea and flipping through magazines, but it doesn’t matter. I’m in the same building with the band I used to play air guitar to in high school.

Holley opens a door and shows me Studio One’s futuristic glass-walled control room, bristling with knobs and switches and lights and the staple of every studio, a black leather sofa. This is where engineers mix sound for, say, The Lord of the Rings soundtrack.

Gleason points over to a beat-up Steinway upright piano and gestures for Holley to show it to me.

“Oh yes,” exclaims Holley. “This is the piano that ‘Lady Madonna’ was played on.”

I run my fingers over the keys, knowing full well that this moment would induce hardcore Beatles fans to wet their pants. The wear and tear from decades of studio recording is evident; the ivories look like an animal had scratched them off.

“It was used on the U2 sessions,” Holley concedes.

Holley breaks down the various elements of the complex. Because the industry makes fewer classical records these days, Studio One has been repurposed for recording and mixing film soundtracks. Studio Two, where Zeppelin is supposedly hiding today, is the most requested room by rock bands, and is where the Beatles made nearly all of their records. Studio Three is slightly smaller, the birthplace of most of Pink Floyd’s albums, and is also occupied at the moment. The Penthouse Studio was built in the mid-late 70s and used by punk/New Wave bands like the Buzzcocks and The Cure. It’s now primarily for digital mixing for films.

Another 17 rooms are used for mixing and mastering records, and digital remastering from analog sources. They’ve recently added a video department, and Holley notes with pride that the very first DVD outside of Japan was made here at Abbey Road.

Beatles folklore describes Abbey Road engineers leaving a marathon recording session and heading to a nearby pub to decompress. Holley says that’s no longer necessary, and walks me down a flight of stairs into the in-house restaurant.

“We’ve pulled the pub to us!” he exclaims. “This is where people tend to decompress. A bit too much for my liking at times! Artists will come and have a drink, orchestra players.”

“It’s one of my favorite rooms,” he adds. “You see all sorts of people in the same place that you don’t see together.”

Holley remembers one day at the studio, when the most unlikely group of clients were wandering in and out of the cafeteria. British rock band Starsailor, teenybopper boy band McFly, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, and operatic tenor Placido Domingo. “That was one of the most bizarre days,” he recalls.

Technology has advanced so much, it’s now common for musicians to never leave their house to create a high-quality recording. Why is a studio still necessary?

“There are different ways you can make things,” explains Holley. “If you want a performance-based record, then you need a space that sounds good, so we’ve got a few of those.

“I actually think, whatever business you’re in, it’s that walking-down-a-corridor moment, where you work with someone,” he emphasizes. “Something comes out of a cup of coffee around a machine. When you work together, two brains are more than twice the value of one brain. I think coming together to work in a community, and coming to a place where there are traditions of working together, with people who are used to doing that, I think you get far more than just working on your own.”

The tradition of collaboration at Abbey Road extends back to 1931, when EMI transformed a 16-room mansion into the world’s first recording studio. In addition to Sir Edward Elgar, prominent composers and musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, Noel Coward, Artur Schnabel, Fred Astaire, and Fats Waller made recordings in the early years.

During World War II, the studio remained open for BBC radio broadcasts, and hosted wartime entertainers like Gracie Fields and George Formby. In 1944 Glenn Miller made several recordings with Dinah Shore, which were to be his last-ever sessions. His airplane went down in the English channel a few weeks later.

Technical advances were absorbed by Abbey Road throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including the long-playing record, four-track equipment, new magnetic tape, and noise limiters. Pop music and comedy were replacing classical sessions. Comedians like The Goon Show’s Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan were now scheduling studio time alongside pop stars like Eddie Calvert, Ruby Murray and Sir Cliff Richard, whose 1958 single “Move It” is considered England’s first-ever rock and roll record.

It’s worth noting that Richard’s first hit came from Abbey Road, because it was not exactly a rock and roll environment. Because of a strong musicians’ union, normal recording hours were rigid –10 am to 1, lunch break, 2:30 to 5:30, and 7 pm to 10pm. Musicians would enter the studio on time, engineers quickly set up the equipment, and within ten minutes the session had started.

Abbey Road was among the most strict and button-down of all the London studios, with a precise apprenticeship structure and rigid dress code. Balance engineers wore white shirts and neckies, and sat in the control room. The maintenance engineers wore white lab coats, and were the only ones allowed to set up microphones and other equipment. The “brown coats” were janitorial staff.

By the early 1960s, Abbey Road was regularly producing hit records, from Shirley Bassey to Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Manfred Mann, the Hollies, and Cilla Black’s version of “Alfie” with Burt Bacharach. The Beatles made their first record “Love Me Do” at the studio in 1962, and for the next seven years would make nearly all of their records at Abbey Road.

The studio changed forever in 1966, when the Beatles vowed to stop touring live because the screaming fans kept drowning out their instruments onstage. The band planned to make only records, with the idea they would tour an album, rather than tour live.

With no more pressure on creating music to be perfomed, the Beatles were increasingly excited about using the resources of Abbey Road. Technology was pushed to the limits. Band members and producer George Martin scrounged up all sorts of odd instruments, and challenged the Abbey Road staff to cut and splice pieces of music on top of and inside of each other. Often Beatles sessions would use all three studios simultaneously, with engineers dashing back and forth to synch up the primitive four-track recording machines.

According to the memoir of Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, one of the highlights was a recording session in Studio One for the Sgt. Pepper album song “A Day In the Life.” The basic song was finished, but it needed some strings to fill in a 24-bar portion, one long, loud ascending chord. The Beatles commissioned a 40-piece orchestra to come in, and as an afterthought decided to make the session into a “happening.”

As orchestra members arrived in their evening tuxedos, they were handed a clown wig, or rubber nose, or gorilla paws. Wine was flowing, as well as a few other substances. Celebrities like Donovan and the Rolling Stones were hanging about. Emerick recalled studio managers Bob Beckett and E.H. Fowler, two proper men in their sixties, standing at the rear of the room in pinstriped suits and starched white shirts, watching classically trained musicians attempt to play their parts, surrounded by balloons and drunken hippies, and sadly shaking their heads. Emerick thought to himself, “This really is a passing of the torch.”

Another milestone for Abbey Road was the 1973 Pink Floyd concept album Dark Side of the Moon. At the time, the band was at a crossroads. They were moderately successful, but their singular brand of hippie experimental psychedelia was old news. A new album needed to change course, or they were finished.

Taking a cue from the Beatles, Pink Floyd pushed the studio’s boundaries to the limit, raiding the EMI sound effects library and splicing tape loops around the control room. They programmed keyboard sequences, and experimented with ambient sounds of chiming clocks, clanging coins and cash registers. No rock record had ever sounded like this before.

The album took seven months to complete. In the final days, chief songwriter Roger Waters decided to layer some human speaking voices in and out of the record, to give it some texture. He gathered a handful of people hanging around the building to ask them questions about topics like death and insanity. Among the group were Pink Floyd roadies, Abbey Road staff members, and Paul McCartney, who happened to be recording with his band Wings.

An older “brown coat” Irish gentleman named Gerry O’Driscoll, Abbey Road doorman at the time, proved one of the session’s stars. His voice ended up immortalized on the record: “I’ve always been mad. I know I’ve been mad like most of us have. Very hard to explain why you were mad, even if you’re not mad.”

Since its release, Dark Side has been on the charts for over 28 years, spending an incredible 741 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200, a feat unequaled by any record in history. It’s estimated that one in every 14 Americans under the age of 50 has owned a copy of this album.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Abbey Road branched out into recording of film scores, while keeping a hand in the emerging Britpop scene. Bands such as Radiohead, Gomez, Blur, and Manic Street Preachers all used the studio. The Spice Girls’ sessions in Studio Three attracted fans and media from all over the world, camping outside the entrance. The Beatles legacy came full circle in late 2006, when Sir George Martin and his son Giles raided the Abbey Road archives to create the revolutionary mashup album Love.

“Seventy five years ago, you literally came to the one microphone, and you stood exactly where you were told,” says Dave Holley. “The artist was very much secondary to the technical engineers. You performed when we told you to. And now, it’s all twisted the other way, and anybody can make anything.”

The very nature of the music industry has changed the way Abbey Record does business. More people are creating music, and more people are consuming it in a variety of ways, from iPods to ringtones and interactive websites.

“The process is speeding up,” Holley continues. “People are like magpies, they take what they need — digital, analog, locations, working at home, using different people for different tracks, and then using different people to mix different tracks. I think the palatte is wider. What we’re trying to be is to offer a place where people can come come together to try things.”

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Outside Dave Holley’s office window, tourists are taking photos of each other on the famous crosswalk. Holley and Michael Gleason sip cups of tea as they explain the origins of their new TV show Live From Abbey Road. With the cancellation of the U.K.’s long-running Top of the Pops, and MTV rarely airing any music videos, there’s not much actual music television anymore. This show is designed to fill the void.

Other than the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” broadcast, and a few other programs over the years, Abbey Road has rarely opened its doors to a television or film crew. This upcoming series will be revolutionary for a few reasons.

Each segment features two to three artists, performing live in Abbey Road. There is no live audience, and no host or presenter. Focus is solely on the music. Performers range from Dr. John and Wynton Marsalis, to Norah Jones, Snow Patrol, Gnarls Barkley, Muse, The Kooks, and Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice.

“You get an actual raw performance,” says show producer Gleason, a Texas-born investor and former director of MGM Studios. “You feel like they’re performing for you. The building is the host of the show. Dave Matthews came in, he loved being in that room. Jay Kay from Jamiroquai, he just went on and on about how he loved the vibe of the room. Because it’s a cool place. There are other recording studios around, but the magic is here. It’s just got that special sense.”

“In the studio you see the masks slip a little bit,” adds Holley. “You get to see them relaxed, you get to see them playing rather than performing. You get to see a little closer. Simplicity really works. Because you’ve got time to really let it breathe and enjoy it.”

The show’s segments are beautifully shot in high-definition video with several cameras, and some pieces are reminiscent of photo essays, with closeups on a drum highhat, or fingers on a keyboard. It’s almost as if the show is set up to prove a point, that songs don’t have to be created to climb the charts, or sell sneakers. Music should be appreciated for what it is. This is for the purists, an MTV Unplugged that’s grown up.

“Each of the artists performs in different ways,” says Holley. “It’s lit differently, shot differently. Massive Attack looks iconic, almost like something from the Newport Jazz Festival in the 60s. Then you’ve got The Killers, which is much more intimate. You’ve got Corinne Bailey Rae, she’s like a 40s movie star. It’s so interesting. It doesn’t feel like the same show each month.”

The first season of Live from Abbey Road filmed 38 artists in 12 shows, and is already licensed to 89 countries. Channel 4 in the UK has already aired the show, and the Sundance Channel begins running the series this summer in the U.S. If reaction is as expected, another season will begin shooting this October.

There’s an unmistakable feeling of family in Abbey Road. Most of the staff from the old days continue to drop by and say hello. Even engineers from the once-rival Olympic Studios, who worked on records by Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, will keep in touch.

A 75th anniversary party last November attracted pop and rock music’s best recording engineers from throughout the decades. Did anybody put on the old lab coats?

“No, I was expecting one or two, but to be honest I don’t think they would have fitted many of them,” says Holley. “There’s one or two girths that have obviously grown since then!”

# # #

(A version of this story first appeared in American Way magazine)

TSF features no announcers, and very few commercials. The formula is simple: more music, less words. Cafes and tobacco shops throughout Paris tune into the station. Listen to it for an hour through iTunes or the www.tsfjazz.com website, and you’ll hear a palpable excitement, a passion that can only reflect a city boasting 40 live jazz clubs. France may not have invented jazz, but they gleefully take on responsibility to present it to the world 24 hours a day, broadcasting from TSF’s studio on rue du Faubourg St Antoine, a few blocks from the Bastille.

Launched in 1981 as a mouthpiece for the Communist party, TSF originally provided cultural coverage of music, theater and film. But when the tiny station ran out of money in 1989, two Parisian media moguls stepped in to purchase the station. Jean Francois Bizot was a wealthy eccentric who had founded the avant-garde Actuel magazine in the 60s. Frank Tenot was CEO of the publishing conglomerate Hachette Filapacchi. Both agreed to unveil France’s first 24-hour jazz radio station, under the umbrella of Bizot’s Nova Press music company.

“They said, ‘We will save the employees, and we propose another format and it’s going to work.’ Nobody at the time was thinking it was going to work,” says TSF program director Sebastien Vidal. “Jazz at that time was not that popular on radio.”

TSF began broadcasting in 1999, and within a few years was reaching over 200,000 listeners in Paris and Nice. Today it claims an audience of over TKTK, sponsors festivals throughout France, and has even launched a line of jazz CD collections. International Herald Tribune jazz critic Mike Zwerin has called TSF “the only unsubsidized radio station in the known world playing smart jazz 24 hours a day seven days a week.”

When Tenot passed away in 2004, Bizot was left with majority ownership, as well as a firm idea of TSF’s sound and direction. “It’s very funny, it’s the only station that when the owner calls and asks to listen to something, sometime we do it, sometime we don’t,” chuckles Sebastien Vidal. “Most of the time he’s right, because he has a very good feeling for radio and what we should play on the air. But sometimes when he calls I say, ‘No, I don’t agree, can we talk?’”

In addition to a hands-on station owner, TSF’s programming is also determined from spirited staff discussions and audience surveys.

“It’s my main concern when I’m programming the radio to bring pleasure,” says Vidal. “We are not jazz specialists, sitting and smoking a pipe. Jazz is a very joyful, acoustic form of expression. We need to broadcast a lot of things people recognize and know. People want something new, something authentic, acoustic, pure, with no marketing. Jazz is one of the few fields in music where the artist has nothing to sell.”

Since TSF began broadcasting, Vidal says he’s seen a big leap in jazz record sales and club attendance. France now claims over 500 festivals which feature jazz. But then, the country has always embraced this music.

According to Luke Miner, author of the new guidebook Paris Jazz, France’s unique appreciation for jazz began just after World War I.

“It was new and exotic, entirely unlike anything that they had heard before,” Miner emails from Europe. “Having just come out a war costing millions of life, Parisians were especially predisposed to leave the past behind and throw themselves into this new art form.”

“In France this music is still deeply attached to the French soul,” adds Vidal. “The States was the birthplace of jazz, but France was the place where we put that artist in concert. We have always treated American jazz artists exactly the way we treat classical artists. When Miles Davis played in New York, he got beaten by a policeman. When he came to France, he played Salle Pleyel [Paris’ premier concert hall].”

American jazz musicians continue to make the pilgrimage to play Paris. On a recent Saturday night at the Latin Quarter’s le Caveau des Oubliettes, literally around the corner from Shakespeare & Company bookstore, a hard bop group is tearing it up.

Inside the 300-year-old stone cavern lined with medieval torture equipment, Jean-Jacques Elangué and the Tom McClung Quartet play to a packed crowd of primarily young French, smoking and nodding to the beat like they’re part of a 1950s photo essay. Saxophonist Elangué is from Cameroon, the remainder of the group is from the U.S. It’s fantastic, classic frenetic bop jazz — physical, mental, spiritual, and just when you think the tune is completely shattered they bring it back and it miraculously all fits together.

During a break, drummer John Betsch (originally from Florida, now living in Paris) tells me American musicians started to once again flow over to France after Reagan took office. Health benefits and social services are better for artists, the government devotes much more money towards promoting arts and culture, and there’s simply more gigs. “There’s two airports and five train stations.” Betsch shrugs. What else is there to say?

The musicians take the stage again to cheers. Betsch launches into a long drum solo, pounding all around the groove, then suddenly picks up his snare drum and screams right into it. All this, for five Euros. That is, if you’re in Paris.