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Cover Story: Cheap Trick - Illinois Entertainer Magazine

Cover Story: Cheap Trick

| March 31, 2021 | 0 Comments

Cheap Trick

At a seasoned 72, Rick Nielsen is the Frank Buck of the rock and roll world. By his own admission — and he’s not bragging, just stating the facts — the Cheap Trick axeman and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has bagged and brought home over 2,000 guitars in his lifetime. His trophy room currently houses roughly 500, several of which were put to good use on the band’s rollicking, Apocalyptic-themed new album In Another World, its 20th. And when he’s on the hunt, he knows the big-game instruments he’s stalking, down to every last sonic detail. “And actually, about a week ago, I bought another one, the guitar that I’ve been chasing for years,” says the Rockford, Illinois native of the Dwight Coronet model he purchased from Jam/Style Council mainstay Paul Weller over in England. “They only made 47 of them, and it’s the same one that Steve Marriott always used to play.”

But the meticulous Nielsen — ever since he sparked Cheap Trick to life with two stunning records in 1978, Cheap Trick and In Color, and a rapid-fire 1979 follow-up, Heaven Tonight — had a very clear picture in his head of what he wanted for his bubblegum-chewy rock and roll outfit, starting with its obvious visual disparity. Vocalist Robin Zander and bassist Tom Petersson were the handsome, feather-haired heartthrobs. Simultaneously, bespectacled drummer Bun E. Carlos and the baseball-capped, wrestling-booted, perpetually-mugging Nielsen played the awkward wallflower geeks. This campy contrast worked remarkably well, both onstage and in album cover photographs. Musically, the imagery was echoed by its breakthrough 1979 smash, the sing-song, almost Vaudevillian live version of “I Want You to Want Me,” culled from the Japanese-recorded Cheap Trick at Budokan. Opposites definitely seemed to attract.

And Nielsen’s standards are still high after all these years. The Julian Raymond-produced In Another World opens with a stomping “The Summer Looks Good on You,” with Zander’s charismatic wheeze-to-a-snarl singing voice sounding stronger than ever. Granted, the group’s power-pop-rooted style gets some tweaking here, as in the horn-peppered “Stop Waking Me Up,” an R&B pounder called “The Party,” a bluesy “Final Days,” featuring Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall on harmonica, and a swaying cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” with guitar pyrotechnics courtesy of former Sex Pistol Steve Jones. But mostly, it’s just Cheap Trick doing what it does best, as on “Here’s Looking at You,” a subtly modern update of its huge, arena-pleasing sound. Old-schooler that he is, though, Nielsen is happy to note that World will be available in a special, Target-only picture-disc edition, as well, which is par for the retro course.  “A couple of years ago, we were No. 1 in the world as far as eight-tracks — I don’t think many people put those out,” he chortles impishly. “And it’s like, we know it’s not gonna sell, but it’s just kind of fun. I’ve saved all my old eight-tracks, although I’m not sure where they are. But I’ve never thrown anything out. I have over 5,000 boarding passes, and I haven’t unpacked since Budokan — I just buy more luggage!” The following interview finds him in a typically playful — but unusually reflective — frame of mind.


IE: Years ago, I gave you a silver square Kinks Misfits button backstage, and you wore it everywhere. How big did your promo-pin collection get? And what do you collect now instead?

RICK NIELSEN: Well, I started out as a coin collector and a stamp collector because of my grandmother, actually. She collected stamps in blocks of four, the corner four that would have the serial number on it that you would get at the post office. And I collected those until about 1963. But I collected coins, too, and this was in the day where you had to — I had the first day of issues, but I started getting overseas stuff from different countries, and you had to write letters and send mail, that whole process. It was way before the Internet, and I think my interest became more involved in music, as opposed to stamps. And when I was a kid, I was a boy scout, so I had boy scout stamps, too. And I still have ‘em — I still have all that stuff.

IE: What was your most prized stamp? I collected ‘em, too, and I had some Hitler ones.

RN: I’ve got a couple of Hitler ones. My mother-in-law lived in Germany back then, and she gave me some stuff. She was writing to her sister, and here’s the old Hitler stamp on the front of the envelope. And HER father was like a woodsman, a forester, and he was thrown in — like so many others were back then — into the Nazi party, which you had to join or whatever. And the grandmother, I actually lived with her in Nuremberg in 1971 and 1972 with my wife, and I actually learned how to speak some German. But back to that — I went from stamps to coins and baseball cards, and then I got rid of all my baseball cards. I sold ‘em to John Whitehead, a guy who worked for us — I didn’t want to, but I think I needed a guitar that I wanted to get. But my coin collection? I still collect because I love standing-Liberty dollars and half dollars, because I just like the artwork on those things so much. And probably my most famous coin that I have is, I have a 16D dime and a 1909 Ezra DB penny.

IE: I remember several years ago, as an only child, you were going through a tough time dealing with the deaths of both parents. I get it now. I’m now an orphan, too.

RN: Well, I grew up an only child, and in one way, it was good. It’s like, I make the joke, “There was nobody around, so I had to play with myself.” But I’ve never been bored to this day. I’m sitting here in my dining room, and I can’t wait to get done here so I can look through these coins that I haven’t looked at in 25 years. But the fact that there’s nobody here — my wife’s out of town, and the kids are all grown — so the mess that’s around here is all mine. But my parents went within nine months of each other. And I think it just shows your own mortality, you know? I mean, now I have friends whose parents are dying, and I wrote the song “Words” — “Words can never say” — because there’s no good way to talk about a kid or your parents or anybody dying, and if you come up with some speech or write a letter, it’s never enough. Until later, nobody gets it. It’s like writing a text today — anything can be taken in a different way. Is it sincere? Is it fake? And how do I reconcile it? I’m glad my parents gave something great to me. And some of that was leaving me alone, and some of that was believing in me enough not to try to force me to do something that I probably wouldn’t do anyhow.

IE: Ever since I started cutting classes to write for the college paperback in Indiana, rock journalism was just something I liked doing. And I still don’t really think of it as a career.

RN: Same as me. My parents were opera singers, and my dad sang with Billy Graham and was on 40 albums on Zondervan or Word records, which was a religious label. And he owned a music store in Rockford. We moved from Elmhurst to Rockford because my uncle — my dad’s brother — said, “You need to do something else besides singing for your supper. There’s a music store here in town — do you wanna get involved?” Because my uncle helped start Muzak, the old wonderful music system. And I used to have to change these huge reels — they were probably three or four feet across, big reel to reel things. So here I was — if I liked a subject or I liked a teacher, and I didn’t think I was smarter than them, I did really well.

But the ones who I thought were idiots — and made me feel like an idiot to be in school — I had no respect for these guys. So in seventh grade — and remember that my parents were heavily involved in music in Illinois and all over the place, and with our store — I was the first chair on two instruments. I was first chair on drums and first chair on flute. So I knew music. I knew good notes from bad notes from being around the operas, which I got, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. So I went up to the band director and said, “Mr. Bishel? You’re an incompetent, drunken fool who doesn’t deserve to teach music to me or anyone else.” And Boom! I was thrown out of the music program for the Rockford school system, For LIFE! So my parents, of course, were pleased, and I tell people, “That was the last time I told the truth,” because I got in trouble for saying what was right. And I got paddled and expelled.

IE: Ah, yes! Good old corporal punishment and getting whacked! Kids today have NO idea.

RN: Getting whacked! And they had those holes drilled in the paddle, so it was more aerodynamic. So here 40 years later, the school — and that was Lincoln Junior High School —they had a commemoration for the reopening of the same stained glass window that had been installed there during the Depression, and they had John B. Anderson  — who went to the same school and ran for president here — and Dr. Timothy Johnson, who was the ABC morning TV doctor — and myself as the three alumni. And I thought, “What did you get ME here for? For levity?” So I spoke to some of the students who were graduating then, gave ‘em the old pep talk, and at the end, the principal — who I thought was ancient when I went there — he was there! So he gave a little speech, and I went up to him and said, “You mentioned everybody except a couple.” And one was the dean of boys; the other was Bishel. And he said, “Rick, you were right. He was an incompetent, drunken fool who didn’t deserve to teach you!” My parents had both passed away, so who could I tell — “See? I was right! I stuck to my guns; I got in trouble for it, but what I always wanted to do was play music. I didn’t know I’d be in a rock band at 70 years old. But I kept at it. And there were always musicians who were better at what I was trying to do, in a way, but they gave up. I never went to a high school dance or a homecoming or a football game unless I was playing at it.

IE: There’s one interesting footnote about you that most folks don’t process — you always wear your own merchandise.

RN: Yeah! It’s good stuff! Like having your (Kinks) button. Now I make my own jewelry, and on my website — which I don’t work hard enough on — I sell pictures of myself. And people say, “Rick — how come you’re wearing this picture of you?” And I’ve had so many different varieties of stuff, and it’s not great art, but it’s my art. Like my picks — I’ve never sold a pick of mine. But if you go on the Internet, I’d make way more money selling picks than I do being in a band.

IE: Your mic stand was always studded with picks, so you probably threw 50 or so out to the crowd per show?

RN: Well, more than that. I order 60,000 at a time, which I pay for. And I give out picks all the time, and I got that idea — not for picks, per se — but from both of my grandparents, who were ministers. So I got churched up, and every Sunday, I’d have to be there at church. But this one guy who was a member of the congregation, he was a toy salesman. And after the service, we’d go out to his car, and he’d open his trunk, and he had toys in there. So that was my incentive — I could struggle through the hour of church because I knew there were toys at the end of it. And I just liked that idea. It made you feel good about whatever you were doing, even if you didn’t want to do it. And that’s kind of the idea behind “Surrender” — “Mommy’s alright, Daddy’s alright, they just seem a little weird.” You can give up, but don’t give up totally. For the first couple of years, everybody thought my name was Fender when I started doing that when I put my name on the picks. But that’s just one thing. I like the idea that you come to something, and you get something in return. Even if it’s just that stupid pick, which, like I said, a lot of ‘em sell for a ton of money now. And I just gave ‘em away. But we were kind of the perfect band to have tchotchke. Or swag, although we didn’t call it that at the time — it was just all the junk that goes along with it. And I like all that stuff, too. Like The Beatles — they were unbelievable, with lunch boxes, and this, that, or the other. But we were never popular enough, like Kiss, so we didn’t go hog-wild on that stuff.

IE: It looks like you even have a checkered Cheap Trick hearing aid prominently displayed.

RN: I do. And you’ve seen my teeth, right? It was about 15 years ago now — I broke a tooth, and the tooth next to the broken tooth was something that I had from when I was 10 years old, where the dentist put lead or something in there. I don’t know what it was, but it was kind of dark. So since I had to get a crown to fix the thing, instead of a gold grille or all pretty white teeth — which both were wrong for me — I designed it like I do my picks. I made a checkerboard, but I didn’t want the checks so big that it looked like a cavity, and I didn’t want it so small that you couldn’t see it. So I had a number of my teeth done like a checkerboard. And at my age, who cares what I do?

IE: Besides a hearing loss, how’s your health?

RN: Well, my dad had asthma his whole life, and I’ve had asthma my whole life, but not so bad where I worry about it. I just always worked my way through it rather than sit around and whine about it. And it helped me get out of the draft. There were three busloads of volunteers in 1968 or ’69, and we went from Rockford to Chicago for selective service. And out of the three busloads, a midget, a huge fat guy, and myself, [we] were the only ones that were rejected. So I knew I wouldn’t make it in. And I would fight for my country, but not for a war that was so wrong. I knew enough about right and wrong — my dad had graduated from college when he was 17, and he was a smart cookie. But he wanted to be involved in religious music, so he was never driven by money. And I’ve never been driven by money — I’m driven by doing what I want to do. And I’m still married to my wife — we got married in 1969. And there were always people that were better looking than me, but I never wanted to be — or tried to be — somebody else. I was always the goofy guy. I was the guy that got thrown out of the band — I was banned from band! In seventh grade! And you’ve gotta be pretty bad to be thrown out of band — they couldn’t get enough people IN there. But I shot my mouth off, and look what happened. Then to fast forward, I went to college here, and I had 59 credits or hours or whatever, and then I flunked the selective service, so I quit school. I wouldn’t go one more minute because I knew what I wanted to do, and that wasn’t learning it in school. And then 35 years later, the music department gave me the last credit to graduate, and I graduated with a Master of Arts degree or something. I don’t know what it was. But they gave me the credit from the music department, which I wasn’t involved with, but I guess they appreciated what I’d done for the city. So now I’ve got a degree. Now, what am I gonna do?

IE: Going back to The Beatles, there are two Fab Four connections on this record — your cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” obviously. But “So It Goes” sounds very Beatles-like. And Cheap Trick can do The Beatles better than anybody.

RN: Well, I tell people that I’ve got perfect pitch. But I don’t have a good voice. My father was a lyric opera tenor who studied all this stuff. And he was a choir director, too, in WWII, in the Aleutian Islands, and Roswell, NM. So he was legit. And Robin is a trained singer — he was in chorus, and in fact, he took some lessons FROM my dad. But he’s a real singer. And if I sang as good as him, we would sound way different. So Robin’s good voice and my in-tune, crummy kind of voice really makes Cheap Trick. And I usually do the high stuff. Like when we did the theme song to “The Colbert Report” — that song is called “Baby Mumbles,” because that’s what we did. When I was going back to work with John Lennon, Robin and I were gonna do baby voices, that stuff that’s in the background but really kind of adds to the whole sound.

IE: And you worked with George Martin, too. But what made you want to cover “Gimme Some Truth”? Obviously, we’re not getting much in this alternative-facts era.

RN: Yeah, and that was one of the reasons. People ask us, “Are you guys political?” And we’ll do the song, but I said, “Let’s use John Lennon’s lyrics — let him take the brunt of this, rather than us saying what we really thought.” I met the Orange Man years ago. I did “The Joan Rivers Show” with my son Miles, and Ozzy Osbourne and his kids were on, and Miles was 14 or something like that. And went to New York, and Joan put us up at the plaza. And I walked in there — and I’d stayed there before with Cheap trick — and here’s Trump and Marla Maples, and they turned around and looked at me, and he gave me that same kind of look that Mr. Bishel gave me, that dirty fucking look, like from the gym coach that you hated. And I thought, “What? My money’s not good here? How dare you!” So I had met him years before. And later, I was the editor and publisher of Cracked magazine — I was the editor and publisher for two issues. I liked it because it was Mad magazine’s cheap sister. But one of the artists was actually FROM Rockford, and they had gone bust, so he was trying to sell it. And I loved the content, so I bought it, and I had Trump on the cover of one, and I was on the cover of the other, playing my five-neck. And somebody in New York liked what I had done with my two issues, and they bought it back from me for ten times what I paid for it. But then they ran it back into the ground. And I had no idea what I was doing, of course. But I just liked the content, the cartoons — it was like guy art, with the girl that’s over-endowed. They were just stupid, they weren’t mean and nasty, and it wasn’t like Hustler magazine or anything. It was just PC-incorrect art. But I’ve been PC-incorrect my whole life. So I hated (Trump) back then, and I couldn’t believe what’s been going on lately. So I thought choosing “Gimme Some Truth” was right, because how do you express yourself without every other person — because half the country, right — hating you? And I’m in a band, so half the people hate me anyhow. So things have gotten so far from the truth. And during his first election, I said that day, “We’re doomed.” It was just awful stuff. And as we traveled around, Everybody in Europe just laughed at us, like, “You’ve gotta be kidding! How did you get THIS guy?” He was hated way more around the world than he was here.

IE: Everyone wants to save the planet. But the planet will be just fine once we’re off of it. And that teetering-on-the-brink-of-extinction theme seems to be all over this record, on everything from “The Party” to “Another World” and “Another World, Reprise,” to “So It Goes” and “Final Days.”

RN: In a way, yeah. But we make it, so it’s kind of fun. Like fiddling while Rome burns — hey, one person’s having a good time! But if you think about our first album, it was like, “Here’s Cheap Trick. But are they a rock band? They’ve got this song ‘Mandocello,’ and that’s too nice for this!’ I got in trouble with “Taxman” — the only people that really listened to the lyrics were the people at the I.R.S. because I got audited every year for about five years. They didn’t like that song. So we have happy stuff. But I had to change “The Ballad of Richard Speck” to “The Ballad of T.V. Violence” because we were worried that the family of Richard Speck was gonna sue us. So I was just trying to tell the truth about that. So telling the truth is a dangerous thing sometimes.

IE: Given that, “I’ll See You Again” sounds like a graveside farewell.

RN: Well, it kind of was. Julian Raymond — his wife’s brother died, and he was a big Cheap Trick fan. So we just put together a song for him, not knowing it was gonna be on an album. We did it so they could have it, Julian’s family. And “Final Days” was kind of a blues song that we were doing, but at the end, we have Jimmy Hall playing harmonica on it. So it’s a blues song without being a blues song. Like I said — with Cheap Trick, we’ve never tried to be something that we weren’t. And we’re not a blues band. But we know how to play the blues in our own way.

IE: You always swore that you respected only two punk bands — The Sex Pistols and The Clash. So how did you track down Steve Jones for this record?

RN: Well, we’ve known him because we were fans of the Pistols, and I like the way he plays guitar — he’s such a good rhythm player, and I’m a rhythm player, too. And I’m self-taught, so I don’t know what the chords are, and I’ve never really practiced, like, “Here’s my solo!” I don’t know how to play a solo — if I were really good, maybe I would. But I’ve never really worked at that — I’ve worked at writing songs. And we had done Jonesy’s Jukebox, and we played some Sex Pistols songs. And I think he liked the fact that we knew what we were doing. And at another point, we were The Who for Roger Daltrey because we knew all the Who songs. So we’re not session guys, but we fit in with a lot of that kind of stuff because we play with attitude. So with Steve Jones, we did that, and then we came back another time to do his show; it was Robin and myself, and we said we were gonna be doing “Gimme Some Truth.” I brought a guitar, and he had a guitar there, so we played it live, and he had that same kind of sloppy feel like we had. So we said, “Do you wanna play on the record?” And he was like, “Yeah!” He jumped at it. So we sent the track to him, and he played on it. And it’s not like some virtuoso part — it was the feeling that he had that we enjoyed, and he liked us enough to say yes.

IE: The songs just keep coming, though. It’s pretty amazing.

RN: I agree with you. And I’ve said this, too — I don’t think we’ve ever progressed. And that’s a good thing. I still like my Yardbirds. I still like The Who. On one hand, I wish I would have practiced guitar. But then, I don’t know…I got invited to play with Hall and Oates. I got invited to play with John Lennon. And they wanted me for me — they didn’t want me like a Steve Lukather or Joe Bonamassa. They liked the feel that I have, so that’s why I got hired for these things. So I’m proud of what I did, but I’m also proud that I got thrown out of band. I wish I could have done it a better way, so my parents weren’t so humiliated. But that’s the way it was — I told the truth.

– Tom Lanham

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Joonas Donskoi hat trick just the beginning of Colorado Avalanche romp past Arizona Coyotes - Colorado Springs Gazette

DENVER — Authentic crowd noise, a skate blade bouncing down the ice, a helmet thrown angrily back at its owner’s face, a water bottle thrown in jest at another face, and the second-fastest hat trick in franchise history. Oh, and nine goals for.

Wednesday’s Colorado Avalanche game was memorable.

Joonas Donskoi scored a hat trick in a span of 3:27 in the first period, part of a wild, seven-goal 20 minutes that gave way to a 9-3 Colorado victory over the Arizona Coyotes at Ball Arena, which welcomed a smattering of supporters for the first time this season.

“It was a lot of fun,” coach Jared Bednar said. “You could tell our guys were excited about it by the way we came out.”

Front line staff, health care workers, first responders and limited fans were invited to see the game after the arena received capacity variance approval. The Avalanche didn’t ease them back in.

Donskoi opened the scoring, staying with a puck that bounced through the crease. His second and third came 1:27 apart. One was on a hard-working shift from the third line. Donskoi headed around the net, tossing the puck past Adin Hill’s skate as he went. He went to one knee to one-time a Mikko Rantanen feed on the power play and summon a hat shower for the second time in his career.

“That was pretty incredible to watch,” forward Gabriel Landeskog said.

“He's got some high-end skills. It's been great to see him get rewarded the last few weeks.”

For a while, the goals came as quickly as line changes.

Andre Burakovsky scored 27 seconds after Donskoi’s first for a 2-0 lead that lasted all of 10 seconds. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare got the fourth line on the board before the game was six minutes old.

Arizona's Ivan Prosvetov made his NHL debut in net after starter Hill lasted just 6:04.

The scoring pace had to slow, and it did for the first 17:45 of the second period. Conor Garland got the Coyotes within two just after his team’s power play expired. On the next shift, Landeskog picked off a pass at the blue line and slung a shot on Prosvetov from the faceoff dot. It clanged off the crossbar and in.

It wasn’t a slow night for Philipp Grubauer, who secured his 100th NHL victory Monday with just 13 saves. He slid across the crease to rob wide-open Clayton Keller on a 2-on-1, one of 28 saves.

Landeskog scored his second of the night, and Donskoi went off on a 2-on-1 with Burakovsky late in the third period. The latter scored Colorado’s ninth goal.

Donskoi was the recipient of the water bottle to the face as he celebrated his hat trick, and he went down in the second period as his skate blade noisily, eerily bounced through the offensive zone.

Nathan MacKinnon pulled off Garland’s helmet and after grappling with him along the boards, threw the lid back at him, hitting the Coyote in the chin. He was given a double minor and a misconduct and may get more from the league after the fact.

Landeskog dove in to back him up.

“If somebody’s getting beat up, then you’ve got to stand up for him,” Donskoi said.

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Luckett's hat trick leads TCR past West Henderson in OT, 3-1; plus other WNC scores - WLOS

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UAB's Mental Wellness Tips During Pandemic - Birmingham Times

By Aubrey Joyner
UAB News

As the weather warms and the days get longer, newness springs on the horizon. With COVID-19 vaccination continuing to ramp up at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, there is a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. But how best to handle the loss, grief, emotion and turmoil of the last year that continue to linger?

Experts across the School of Medicine and the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness discuss mental health during the pandemic and give their best advice on maintaining mental and emotional well-being as we look toward the future.

Mental Health Services Surge

The world has battled the COVID-19 pandemic for over a year, and by now most people have been affected in some way. Consequently, the number of people in need of mental health services has surged.

Irena Bukelis, M.D., associate director of the General Psychiatry and Residency Program, suggests that social isolation, economic recession, job insecurity, financial problems, school closings, restrictions in community life and the uncertain outlook on future plans are just a few reasons that many have found their mental wellness declining.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report in August 2020 concluding that, in late June, 40 percent of adults in the United States were struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues, and rates of depression and anxiety have risen since 2019.

Similarly, a study published in Lancet Psychiatry in November 2020 showed that about one in five individuals who recovered from COVID-19 developed mental illness such as anxiety disorder or depression within three months of COVID diagnosis. While it is too early to know the long-term implications of the pandemic on mental health, Bukelis says she expects to see people struggling with worsening mental health for a while.

How To Cope After Loss

COVID-19 sprung unique challenges and emotional agony on many Americans due to COVID-related grief and visitor restriction policies. The UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care has been especially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as many families were not able to be present and comfort their loved ones who were nearing end of life.

Rodney Tucker, M.D., director of the Center for Palliative and Supportive Care, says the already emotional process of admission and discharge is even more difficult without family members present. With the lack of human connection during this time, he says, families had to explore other ways to find peace.

At the same time, Sylvia Huang, Ph.D., M.A., director of the Psychology and Counseling Program in the Center for Palliative and Supportive Care, describes the Meet My Loved Ones program as a game changer for end-of-life patients during COVID-19. The center was the first in the United States to implement the program to honor seriously ill patients in UAB Hospital’s Palliative and Comfort Care Unit.

The proactive approach of MMLO allows a bedside care team to serve as a patient’s proxy family when the real family’s presence is limited.

In addition to MMLO intervention, PCCU also offers on-site phone and video grief counseling, music therapy, social work and pastoral care to help families process grief, engage in legacy interventions and connect with local community grief support groups to provide peace and healing.

Self-Care In The Spring

With all that the pandemic brought in the past year, self-care can sound like a daunting task. However, the term “self-care” is unique to everyone, and can include small changes such as taking a flight of stairs over the elevator, adding a green veggie at lunch and making sure to take your medication. In fact, taking medications as prescribed is a substantial pillar of self-care.

Bukelis says a study conducted last year showed that almost half of the patients with psychiatric disorders who participated were non-adherent to their psychotropic medication. Perception of feeling stigmatized by families, neighbors, health professionals and other community members played a large role in medication nonadherence.

Bukelis also says medications for anxiety and depression can significantly improve one’s well-being at every stage of life.

“It is important not to stop medication during the first few weeks after starting treatment because it has not had enough time to reach the maximum benefit,” Bukelis said. “In fact, studies show that medication in combination with therapy can have the most lasting benefit.”

She says walking for 10 to 15 minutes each day or beginning your morning with simple stretches can benefit both physical and emotional health.

Lean On Others

We are not meant to deal with things alone. Megan McMurray, Ph.D., clinical psychologist in the UAB Office of Wellness, says that leaning on others will hold us accountable with our own emotions, and will also remind us that we are not alone. In order to lean on others for support, it is important we identify safe people to talk to about our struggles. McMurray advises thinking through the following items when considering opening up to someone.

  • Who in my social network is skillful at offering understanding without judgment?
  • Who do I know is a great listener?
  • How did I feel the last time I shared with this person?

Normalizing the conversation is the secret ingredient in making those around us feel comfortable, which helps to create an environment where people feel safe to talk about their mental health. McMurray recommends a few ways to help others feel safe:

  • Check in with friends, co-workers and loved ones. Ask open-ended questions about how they are doing.
  • For those in leadership roles, create a culture where vulnerability is acceptable. Start the conversation by sharing life stressors and experiences as a leader. Normalize therapy appointments by expressing it as an acceptable reason to utilize employee or student sick leave.

Stay The Course

As COVID-19 vaccinations ramp up across the country, there is new hope in our community, our state and the nation. As we navigate through remaining feelings of grief and continue to practice self-care, McMurray recommends that we accept difficult emotions as they come up, rather than fight them away.

“Fighting against our own feelings is a losing battle that causes undue suffering on top of the pain we are already experiencing,” she said. “When we avoid our difficult emotions rather than accept them, we do not develop the emotional skills required to build resilience or learn to trust in our capacity to handle difficult experiences.”

It is important to remember there is no right or wrong way to feel. It is natural to feel overwhelmed with the uncertainty that still looms, yet also acceptable to feel hopeful now that vaccines are available.

Reach Out For Help

If you are struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help. Remember, you are not alone.

Visit the UAB Cares website for student and employee resources or reach out to UAB Psychiatry by calling 205-934-7008.

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text the Crisis Text Line 24/7 (text HELLO to 741741).

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Cover Story: Cheap Trick - Illinois Entertainer Magazine

Cover Story: Cheap Trick

| March 31, 2021 | 0 Comments

Cheap Trick

At a seasoned 72, Rick Nielsen is the Frank Buck of the rock and roll world. By his own admission — and he’s not bragging, just stating the facts — the Cheap Trick axeman and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has bagged and brought home over 2,000 guitars in his lifetime. His trophy room currently houses roughly 500, several of which were put to good use on the band’s rollicking, Apocalyptic-themed new album In Another World, its 20th. And when he’s on the hunt, he knows the big-game instruments he’s stalking, down to every last sonic detail. “And actually, about a week ago, I bought another one, the guitar that I’ve been chasing for years,” says the Rockford, Illinois native of the Dwight Coronet model he purchased from Jam/Style Council mainstay Paul Weller over in England. “They only made 47 of them, and it’s the same one that Steve Marriott always used to play.”

But the meticulous Nielsen — ever since he sparked Cheap Trick to life with two stunning records in 1978, Cheap Trick and In Color, and a rapid-fire 1979 follow-up, Heaven Tonight — had a very clear picture in his head of what he wanted for his bubblegum-chewy rock and roll outfit, starting with its obvious visual disparity. Vocalist Robin Zander and bassist Tom Petersson were the handsome, feather-haired heartthrobs. Simultaneously, bespectacled drummer Bun E. Carlos and the baseball-capped, wrestling-booted, perpetually-mugging Nielsen played the awkward wallflower geeks. This campy contrast worked remarkably well, both onstage and in album cover photographs. Musically, the imagery was echoed by its breakthrough 1979 smash, the sing-song, almost Vaudevillian live version of “I Want You to Want Me,” culled from the Japanese-recorded Cheap Trick at Budokan. Opposites definitely seemed to attract.

And Nielsen’s standards are still high after all these years. The Julian Raymond-produced In Another World opens with a stomping “The Summer Looks Good on You,” with Zander’s charismatic wheeze-to-a-snarl singing voice sounding stronger than ever. Granted, the group’s power-pop-rooted style gets some tweaking here, as in the horn-peppered “Stop Waking Me Up,” an R&B pounder called “The Party,” a bluesy “Final Days,” featuring Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall on harmonica, and a swaying cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” with guitar pyrotechnics courtesy of former Sex Pistol Steve Jones. But mostly, it’s just Cheap Trick doing what it does best, as on “Here’s Looking at You,” a subtly modern update of its huge, arena-pleasing sound. Old-schooler that he is, though, Nielsen is happy to note that World will be available in a special, Target-only picture-disc edition, as well, which is par for the retro course.  “A couple of years ago, we were No. 1 in the world as far as eight-tracks — I don’t think many people put those out,” he chortles impishly. “And it’s like, we know it’s not gonna sell, but it’s just kind of fun. I’ve saved all my old eight-tracks, although I’m not sure where they are. But I’ve never thrown anything out. I have over 5,000 boarding passes, and I haven’t unpacked since Budokan — I just buy more luggage!” The following interview finds him in a typically playful — but unusually reflective — frame of mind.


IE: Years ago, I gave you a silver square Kinks Misfits button backstage, and you wore it everywhere. How big did your promo-pin collection get? And what do you collect now instead?

RICK NIELSEN: Well, I started out as a coin collector and a stamp collector because of my grandmother, actually. She collected stamps in blocks of four, the corner four that would have the serial number on it that you would get at the post office. And I collected those until about 1963. But I collected coins, too, and this was in the day where you had to — I had the first day of issues, but I started getting overseas stuff from different countries, and you had to write letters and send mail, that whole process. It was way before the Internet, and I think my interest became more involved in music, as opposed to stamps. And when I was a kid, I was a boy scout, so I had boy scout stamps, too. And I still have ‘em — I still have all that stuff.

IE: What was your most prized stamp? I collected ‘em, too, and I had some Hitler ones.

RN: I’ve got a couple of Hitler ones. My mother-in-law lived in Germany back then, and she gave me some stuff. She was writing to her sister, and here’s the old Hitler stamp on the front of the envelope. And HER father was like a woodsman, a forester, and he was thrown in — like so many others were back then — into the Nazi party, which you had to join or whatever. And the grandmother, I actually lived with her in Nuremberg in 1971 and 1972 with my wife, and I actually learned how to speak some German. But back to that — I went from stamps to coins and baseball cards, and then I got rid of all my baseball cards. I sold ‘em to John Whitehead, a guy who worked for us — I didn’t want to, but I think I needed a guitar that I wanted to get. But my coin collection? I still collect because I love standing-Liberty dollars and half dollars, because I just like the artwork on those things so much. And probably my most famous coin that I have is, I have a 16D dime and a 1909 Ezra DB penny.

IE: I remember several years ago, as an only child, you were going through a tough time dealing with the deaths of both parents. I get it now. I’m now an orphan, too.

RN: Well, I grew up an only child, and in one way, it was good. It’s like, I make the joke, “There was nobody around, so I had to play with myself.” But I’ve never been bored to this day. I’m sitting here in my dining room, and I can’t wait to get done here so I can look through these coins that I haven’t looked at in 25 years. But the fact that there’s nobody here — my wife’s out of town, and the kids are all grown — so the mess that’s around here is all mine. But my parents went within nine months of each other. And I think it just shows your own mortality, you know? I mean, now I have friends whose parents are dying, and I wrote the song “Words” — “Words can never say” — because there’s no good way to talk about a kid or your parents or anybody dying, and if you come up with some speech or write a letter, it’s never enough. Until later, nobody gets it. It’s like writing a text today — anything can be taken in a different way. Is it sincere? Is it fake? And how do I reconcile it? I’m glad my parents gave something great to me. And some of that was leaving me alone, and some of that was believing in me enough not to try to force me to do something that I probably wouldn’t do anyhow.

IE: Ever since I started cutting classes to write for the college paperback in Indiana, rock journalism was just something I liked doing. And I still don’t really think of it as a career.

RN: Same as me. My parents were opera singers, and my dad sang with Billy Graham and was on 40 albums on Zondervan or Word records, which was a religious label. And he owned a music store in Rockford. We moved from Elmhurst to Rockford because my uncle — my dad’s brother — said, “You need to do something else besides singing for your supper. There’s a music store here in town — do you wanna get involved?” Because my uncle helped start Muzak, the old wonderful music system. And I used to have to change these huge reels — they were probably three or four feet across, big reel to reel things. So here I was — if I liked a subject or I liked a teacher, and I didn’t think I was smarter than them, I did really well.

But the ones who I thought were idiots — and made me feel like an idiot to be in school — I had no respect for these guys. So in seventh grade — and remember that my parents were heavily involved in music in Illinois and all over the place, and with our store — I was the first chair on two instruments. I was first chair on drums and first chair on flute. So I knew music. I knew good notes from bad notes from being around the operas, which I got, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. So I went up to the band director and said, “Mr. Bishel? You’re an incompetent, drunken fool who doesn’t deserve to teach music to me or anyone else.” And Boom! I was thrown out of the music program for the Rockford school system, For LIFE! So my parents, of course, were pleased, and I tell people, “That was the last time I told the truth,” because I got in trouble for saying what was right. And I got paddled and expelled.

IE: Ah, yes! Good old corporal punishment and getting whacked! Kids today have NO idea.

RN: Getting whacked! And they had those holes drilled in the paddle, so it was more aerodynamic. So here 40 years later, the school — and that was Lincoln Junior High School —they had a commemoration for the reopening of the same stained glass window that had been installed there during the Depression, and they had John B. Anderson  — who went to the same school and ran for president here — and Dr. Timothy Johnson, who was the ABC morning TV doctor — and myself as the three alumni. And I thought, “What did you get ME here for? For levity?” So I spoke to some of the students who were graduating then, gave ‘em the old pep talk, and at the end, the principal — who I thought was ancient when I went there — he was there! So he gave a little speech, and I went up to him and said, “You mentioned everybody except a couple.” And one was the dean of boys; the other was Bishel. And he said, “Rick, you were right. He was an incompetent, drunken fool who didn’t deserve to teach you!” My parents had both passed away, so who could I tell — “See? I was right! I stuck to my guns; I got in trouble for it, but what I always wanted to do was play music. I didn’t know I’d be in a rock band at 70 years old. But I kept at it. And there were always musicians who were better at what I was trying to do, in a way, but they gave up. I never went to a high school dance or a homecoming or a football game unless I was playing at it.

IE: There’s one interesting footnote about you that most folks don’t process — you always wear your own merchandise.

RN: Yeah! It’s good stuff! Like having your (Kinks) button. Now I make my own jewelry, and on my website — which I don’t work hard enough on — I sell pictures of myself. And people say, “Rick — how come you’re wearing this picture of you?” And I’ve had so many different varieties of stuff, and it’s not great art, but it’s my art. Like my picks — I’ve never sold a pick of mine. But if you go on the Internet, I’d make way more money selling picks than I do being in a band.

IE: Your mic stand was always studded with picks, so you probably threw 50 or so out to the crowd per show?

RN: Well, more than that. I order 60,000 at a time, which I pay for. And I give out picks all the time, and I got that idea — not for picks, per se — but from both of my grandparents, who were ministers. So I got churched up, and every Sunday, I’d have to be there at church. But this one guy who was a member of the congregation, he was a toy salesman. And after the service, we’d go out to his car, and he’d open his trunk, and he had toys in there. So that was my incentive — I could struggle through the hour of church because I knew there were toys at the end of it. And I just liked that idea. It made you feel good about whatever you were doing, even if you didn’t want to do it. And that’s kind of the idea behind “Surrender” — “Mommy’s alright, Daddy’s alright, they just seem a little weird.” You can give up, but don’t give up totally. For the first couple of years, everybody thought my name was Fender when I started doing that when I put my name on the picks. But that’s just one thing. I like the idea that you come to something, and you get something in return. Even if it’s just that stupid pick, which, like I said, a lot of ‘em sell for a ton of money now. And I just gave ‘em away. But we were kind of the perfect band to have tchotchke. Or swag, although we didn’t call it that at the time — it was just all the junk that goes along with it. And I like all that stuff, too. Like The Beatles — they were unbelievable, with lunch boxes, and this, that, or the other. But we were never popular enough, like Kiss, so we didn’t go hog-wild on that stuff.

IE: It looks like you even have a checkered Cheap Trick hearing aid prominently displayed.

RN: I do. And you’ve seen my teeth, right? It was about 15 years ago now — I broke a tooth, and the tooth next to the broken tooth was something that I had from when I was 10 years old, where the dentist put lead or something in there. I don’t know what it was, but it was kind of dark. So since I had to get a crown to fix the thing, instead of a gold grille or all pretty white teeth — which both were wrong for me — I designed it like I do my picks. I made a checkerboard, but I didn’t want the checks so big that it looked like a cavity, and I didn’t want it so small that you couldn’t see it. So I had a number of my teeth done like a checkerboard. And at my age, who cares what I do?

IE: Besides a hearing loss, how’s your health?

RN: Well, my dad had asthma his whole life, and I’ve had asthma my whole life, but not so bad where I worry about it. I just always worked my way through it rather than sit around and whine about it. And it helped me get out of the draft. There were three busloads of volunteers in 1968 or ’69, and we went from Rockford to Chicago for selective service. And out of the three busloads, a midget, a huge fat guy, and myself, [we] were the only ones that were rejected. So I knew I wouldn’t make it in. And I would fight for my country, but not for a war that was so wrong. I knew enough about right and wrong — my dad had graduated from college when he was 17, and he was a smart cookie. But he wanted to be involved in religious music, so he was never driven by money. And I’ve never been driven by money — I’m driven by doing what I want to do. And I’m still married to my wife — we got married in 1969. And there were always people that were better looking than me, but I never wanted to be — or tried to be — somebody else. I was always the goofy guy. I was the guy that got thrown out of the band — I was banned from band! In seventh grade! And you’ve gotta be pretty bad to be thrown out of band — they couldn’t get enough people IN there. But I shot my mouth off, and look what happened. Then to fast forward, I went to college here, and I had 59 credits or hours or whatever, and then I flunked the selective service, so I quit school. I wouldn’t go one more minute because I knew what I wanted to do, and that wasn’t learning it in school. And then 35 years later, the music department gave me the last credit to graduate, and I graduated with a Master of Arts degree or something. I don’t know what it was. But they gave me the credit from the music department, which I wasn’t involved with, but I guess they appreciated what I’d done for the city. So now I’ve got a degree. Now, what am I gonna do?

IE: Going back to The Beatles, there are two Fab Four connections on this record — your cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” obviously. But “So It Goes” sounds very Beatles-like. And Cheap Trick can do The Beatles better than anybody.

RN: Well, I tell people that I’ve got perfect pitch. But I don’t have a good voice. My father was a lyric opera tenor who studied all this stuff. And he was a choir director, too, in WWII, in the Aleutian Islands, and Roswell, NM. So he was legit. And Robin is a trained singer — he was in chorus, and in fact, he took some lessons FROM my dad. But he’s a real singer. And if I sang as good as him, we would sound way different. So Robin’s good voice and my in-tune, crummy kind of voice really makes Cheap Trick. And I usually do the high stuff. Like when we did the theme song to “The Colbert Report” — that song is called “Baby Mumbles,” because that’s what we did. When I was going back to work with John Lennon, Robin and I were gonna do baby voices, that stuff that’s in the background but really kind of adds to the whole sound.

IE: And you worked with George Martin, too. But what made you want to cover “Gimme Some Truth”? Obviously, we’re not getting much in this alternative-facts era.

RN: Yeah, and that was one of the reasons. People ask us, “Are you guys political?” And we’ll do the song, but I said, “Let’s use John Lennon’s lyrics — let him take the brunt of this, rather than us saying what we really thought.” I met the Orange Man years ago. I did “The Joan Rivers Show” with my son Miles, and Ozzy Osbourne and his kids were on, and Miles was 14 or something like that. And went to New York, and Joan put us up at the plaza. And I walked in there — and I’d stayed there before with Cheap trick — and here’s Trump and Marla Maples, and they turned around and looked at me, and he gave me that same kind of look that Mr. Bishel gave me, that dirty fucking look, like from the gym coach that you hated. And I thought, “What? My money’s not good here? How dare you!” So I had met him years before. And later, I was the editor and publisher of Cracked magazine — I was the editor and publisher for two issues. I liked it because it was Mad magazine’s cheap sister. But one of the artists was actually FROM Rockford, and they had gone bust, so he was trying to sell it. And I loved the content, so I bought it, and I had Trump on the cover of one, and I was on the cover of the other, playing my five-neck. And somebody in New York liked what I had done with my two issues, and they bought it back from me for ten times what I paid for it. But then they ran it back into the ground. And I had no idea what I was doing, of course. But I just liked the content, the cartoons — it was like guy art, with the girl that’s over-endowed. They were just stupid, they weren’t mean and nasty, and it wasn’t like Hustler magazine or anything. It was just PC-incorrect art. But I’ve been PC-incorrect my whole life. So I hated (Trump) back then, and I couldn’t believe what’s been going on lately. So I thought choosing “Gimme Some Truth” was right, because how do you express yourself without every other person — because half the country, right — hating you? And I’m in a band, so half the people hate me anyhow. So things have gotten so far from the truth. And during his first election, I said that day, “We’re doomed.” It was just awful stuff. And as we traveled around, Everybody in Europe just laughed at us, like, “You’ve gotta be kidding! How did you get THIS guy?” He was hated way more around the world than he was here.

IE: Everyone wants to save the planet. But the planet will be just fine once we’re off of it. And that teetering-on-the-brink-of-extinction theme seems to be all over this record, on everything from “The Party” to “Another World” and “Another World, Reprise,” to “So It Goes” and “Final Days.”

RN: In a way, yeah. But we make it, so it’s kind of fun. Like fiddling while Rome burns — hey, one person’s having a good time! But if you think about our first album, it was like, “Here’s Cheap Trick. But are they a rock band? They’ve got this song ‘Mandocello,’ and that’s too nice for this!’ I got in trouble with “Taxman” — the only people that really listened to the lyrics were the people at the I.R.S. because I got audited every year for about five years. They didn’t like that song. So we have happy stuff. But I had to change “The Ballad of Richard Speck” to “The Ballad of T.V. Violence” because we were worried that the family of Richard Speck was gonna sue us. So I was just trying to tell the truth about that. So telling the truth is a dangerous thing sometimes.

IE: Given that, “I’ll See You Again” sounds like a graveside farewell.

RN: Well, it kind of was. Julian Raymond — his wife’s brother died, and he was a big Cheap Trick fan. So we just put together a song for him, not knowing it was gonna be on an album. We did it so they could have it, Julian’s family. And “Final Days” was kind of a blues song that we were doing, but at the end, we have Jimmy Hall playing harmonica on it. So it’s a blues song without being a blues song. Like I said — with Cheap Trick, we’ve never tried to be something that we weren’t. And we’re not a blues band. But we know how to play the blues in our own way.

IE: You always swore that you respected only two punk bands — The Sex Pistols and The Clash. So how did you track down Steve Jones for this record?

RN: Well, we’ve known him because we were fans of the Pistols, and I like the way he plays guitar — he’s such a good rhythm player, and I’m a rhythm player, too. And I’m self-taught, so I don’t know what the chords are, and I’ve never really practiced, like, “Here’s my solo!” I don’t know how to play a solo — if I were really good, maybe I would. But I’ve never really worked at that — I’ve worked at writing songs. And we had done Jonesy’s Jukebox, and we played some Sex Pistols songs. And I think he liked the fact that we knew what we were doing. And at another point, we were The Who for Roger Daltrey because we knew all the Who songs. So we’re not session guys, but we fit in with a lot of that kind of stuff because we play with attitude. So with Steve Jones, we did that, and then we came back another time to do his show; it was Robin and myself, and we said we were gonna be doing “Gimme Some Truth.” I brought a guitar, and he had a guitar there, so we played it live, and he had that same kind of sloppy feel like we had. So we said, “Do you wanna play on the record?” And he was like, “Yeah!” He jumped at it. So we sent the track to him, and he played on it. And it’s not like some virtuoso part — it was the feeling that he had that we enjoyed, and he liked us enough to say yes.

IE: The songs just keep coming, though. It’s pretty amazing.

RN: I agree with you. And I’ve said this, too — I don’t think we’ve ever progressed. And that’s a good thing. I still like my Yardbirds. I still like The Who. On one hand, I wish I would have practiced guitar. But then, I don’t know…I got invited to play with Hall and Oates. I got invited to play with John Lennon. And they wanted me for me — they didn’t want me like a Steve Lukather or Joe Bonamassa. They liked the feel that I have, so that’s why I got hired for these things. So I’m proud of what I did, but I’m also proud that I got thrown out of band. I wish I could have done it a better way, so my parents weren’t so humiliated. But that’s the way it was — I told the truth.

– Tom Lanham

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Gotta See It: Donskoi nets hat trick during Avalanche's five goal eruption - Sportsnet.ca

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Tried and true: Back-of-the-box recipes can make for simple and easy Easter dishes - The Columbus Dispatch

Make the perfect crispy salad with this viral TikTok lettuce trick - TODAY

"I used to hate salad growing up, but I was just making it wrong," Violet Witchel says in a viral TikTok that has been over 7 million times. "It's 100% about texture."

It’s true: There’s nothing worse than a sad salad with wilted lettuce and no crunch factor. With no real need to chew it, it might as well be soup — cold, not-at-all-comforting soup.

According to Witchel, who posts videos of herself cooking recipes in her college dorm room, the right way to make salad involves giving the lettuce an ice bath.

In the TikTok, Witchel guides viewers through her method for making the "Perfect Crunchy Salad," as she titles it.

Step one: Remove the top and bottom of a head of romaine lettuce, then soak it in a bowl of ice water for 10 to 15 minutes.

Witchel, who goes by @violet.cooks on TikTok, then takes her lettuce out of its ice bath and shows us the difference between the "ice water lettuce," which looks bright green and sturdy, and the unsoaked lettuce, which looks pale and droopy.

We know the ice-bath method for blanching greens, to keep them crisp and green after boiling, but shocking them from raw? It’s, well, shocking.

OK, so, this hack isn’t entirely new — in 2011, the Los Angeles Times suggested "refreshing lettuces and herbs" by placing the lettuces or herbs "in a large bowl of ice water" and shaking them around a bit "to perk them up."

But to many on TikTok, including myself, it’s a game-changer.

While her lettuce is soaking, Witchel also makes homemade croutons and preps her favorite cheese and salad dressing, along with bacon. Then she tosses everything together in a bowl.

"Season it up really well then toss it and enjoy," she instructs.

I tried Witchel's method in my own kitchen and was pretty blown away by how flavorful, cold and fresh the lettuce tasted.

I'm also completely down with Witchel's toppings, which made a delicious lunch salad for my 10-year-old and me. (She even came back into the kitchen looking for more, but the salad bowl had been picked clean.)

From the bacon to cheese to gluten-free croutons, Witchel and I have the same taste in salad ingredients.Terri Peters

Witchel said she discovered the hack accidentally.

"Our sink water was lukewarm and so to make it cold so the lettuce didn't get floppy, I added ice and it came out much crispier than usual," she told TODAY Food. "I started adding ice when soaking my lettuce."

Witchel, who also makes homemade gluten-free croutons in the video, said she has lots of other gluten-free salad ingredients she turns to regularly.

"When you're making something gluten-free, one of my most important tips is to not try and replace foods with gluten with a gluten-free alternative," she said. "It will never be as good and you'll just be left wanting the real thing."

"Focus on things that are delicious and naturally gluten-free," she continued. "Foods like bacon, hard-boiled eggs, Parmesan cheese and avocado are all great gluten-free additives that can make a salad fun without leaving you wanting 'the real thing.'"

While this technique, like so many others I've seen on the app, might not necessarily be new, a new generation of cooks are coming across it for the first time — and in this case, might just be inspiring some users to eat their greens.

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Recipes with Rachel: Trifles with a lemon surprise - The Edwardsville Intelligencer

This citrus and sweet, flavor-packed dessert is perfect for summer! The lemon flavor is a nice surprise since it’s incorporated into the Cool Whip. From the looks of it, you don’t see lemon, you just taste it.

Duncan Hines’ lemon pie filling is my go-to for this dessert. It’s creamy but has a great texture with Cool Whip. When it’s mixed together, it’s white but the lemon flavor really shines through.

To keep this dish quick and easy, I grab a loaf cake from the market and cut it into cubes. If you have more time, feel free to make the loaf cake from scratch. This is a great dessert to take to a spring or summer party, but remember to serve it cold. It’s a bright, beautiful and refreshing dessert that everyone will love.

Strawberry and Lemon Trifles

Prep time: 5 minutes | Assemble time: 10 minutes | Total time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

8oz Cool Whip

4tbs Duncan Hines lemon pie filling

1 loaf cake, cut into small strips or cubes

Strawberries, cut up

Toasted coconut flakes

Recipe

In a small mixing bowl, add the Cool Whip and lemon pie filling and begin mixing it together. Smash the chunks of Cool Whip for it to become a creamy consistency.

If you’re unsure of how to toast coconut flakes: lay 1 cup of coconut flakes on a microwave-safe plate. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until they begin to brown. Stirring every 30 seconds is key for evenly toasted flakes.

Grab individual serving cups and begin assembling the trifles.

First, add a small handful of loaf cake cubes, then a spoonful of strawberries, top with a spoonful or two of the Cool Whip and lemon mixture and sprinkle coconut flakes on top and you’re one with the first. Now continue assembling the rest of the cups.

Serve cold.

Rachel Tritsch, creator of Recipes with Rachel is a full-time working wife and mother of two little girls. She creates simple and delicious recipes for busy families like her own because family dinner around a table is important, but it doesn’t need to be hard. For more simple and delicious recipes, visit recipeswithrachelt.com or join my Facebook group, Recipes with Rachel. If you’re on Pinterest, be sure to follow Recipes with Rachel for quick access to recipes and save them to your boards.

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6 Tips For Bouldering in San Antonio - San Antonio Magazine

If Andrew Andress had free time as a teen or young adult, he could usually be found cycling.

He loved being outdoors and the rush of competing and training but after years dedicated to the sport, the Abilene native realized he was spending an awful lot of his time alone on a bike. “It was very isolating,” he says.

At the invitation of a buddy, Andress had rock climbed outdoors a few times and enjoyed it. It wasn’t until he visited his first bouldering gym with a friend about seven years ago, though, that he realized he’d found his new sport. “I fell in love with the community aspect of it,” he says. “You’re still training and getting a workout in, but there’s also down time for conversation and people become friends pretty quickly as they’re trying to figure out routes or solve problems.”

Now the director of climbing at Armadillo Boulders, Andress has climbed throughout the world, moving to San Antonio after running a climbing gym in Kenya. He says with a little guidance, anyone can enjoy the sport—from kids to his father in his 70s who tried climbing later in life. “What I love about climbing is that it’s a lifelong sport and you can start at any point in life,” he says. Want to give it a go? Here are a few pointers.

Take a Class

Most climbing gyms are open to newcomers without a course requirement, but it never hurts to get a little professional instruction. If your first climb is outdoors, Andress and other coaches recommend taking a class or at a minimum getting some instruction from an experienced friend.

Indoor Intros

An Intro to Climbing class is available every Saturday at 3 p.m. at Armadillo Boulders. Learn the basics about gear and climbing technique during the hourlong session and then test your skills on a wall. At 6 p.m. each Monday and Wednesday at The District, newbies can join an intro class that features warm-ups and stretching plus basic instruction on technique. armadilloboulders.com, thedistrictsa.com

Outside Basics

Rock-About Climbing Adventures and Texas Climbing Adventures offer in-depth beginner climbing courses for groups or individuals. During the half-day class, students get to complete multiple climbs while learning the fundamentals of the sport, its terms and its safety guidelines. Both companies take groups to Enchanted Rock, greenbelts in Austin and Reimers Ranch Park near Dripping Springs. rock-about.com, texasclimbingadventures.com

Practice

While there’s always more to learn and new climbs to try, the saying that practice makes perfect is standard for a reason. Andress says if you’re climbing regularly, whether indoors or outdoors, you can expect to see vast improvement in just your first three months. There’s a lot to learn, he says, but it gets easier with each week.

Find a Friend

Climbing is not just more fun with friends, it’s safer. While basic bouldering a few feet off the ground can be done alone, climbing solo isn’t recommended. “It’s a community sport,” Andress says. Plus, he adds, along with providing safety, it’s helpful to have the input of a group when strategizing about how to begin or which route to follow to reach the top of a rock you never thought you’d be able to conquer.

Get Outside

Bouldering gyms are ideal places for regular training, but Andress says there’s nothing like being in nature. In San Antonio, The Texas Climbers Coalition has acquired and reopened Medicine Wall, which is just north of Loop 1604 and accessible from the Salado Creek Greenway. For a day trip, make reservations at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area or McKinney Falls State Park, which permits bouldering. Franklin Mountains State Park and Hueco Tanks State Historic Park deliver a fresh challenge when you have time for a longer road trip. texasclimberscoalition.org, tpwd.texas.gov

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