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MONDAY – KICK OUT THE JAMS
MC – Casey Kasem
12N – Blue Cheer with Dimebag Darrell
1P – Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Johnny Winter
2P – 10 Years After
3P – The Velvet Underground
4P – MC5 featuring Frank Zappa
5P – The Band with Glenn Frey
6P – Janis Joplin & the Sisters of Algernon featuring Fontella Bass and Whitney Houston
7P – Grateful Dead
8P – Sly & the Family Stone featuring Prince and Bernie Worrell
9P – The Doors featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan & John Bonham
10P – The Who featuring David Bowie and Kurt Cobain
11P – Jimi Hendrix Experience
12P – Jefferson Airplane featuring Amy Winehouse
Backup musicians for Kick Out the Jams:
Bass – Chris Squire
Drums – Eric Carr
Piano – Jon Lord
Guitar – Marc Bolan
Guitar – Randy Rhoads
Guitar – Tommy Bolin
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Here’s a disclaimer I’d like to get out of the way off the bat: I’m no murderer. I’ve never stabbed or shot anyone, and I have never laced anyone’s cappuccino with arsenic or Zyklon B. Hell, I wouldn’t even know where to procure those items. I suppose I could always setup a Tor browser and scour the Dark Web, but eh, that’s not my thing. Besides, I don’t believe onion routing is as secure as they claim. If there’s a way to circumvent it, the government is already hiring the best and brightest minds to unlock all those supposedly impenetrable portals. But I digress. Let me begin again.
I’m a nerd. I was born a nerd and will go to my grave as a hapless nerd. My heroes won’t be Tom Brady or whoever’s the best basketball or football player these days – it’ll be unmarried mathematicians and nuclear physicists who are so pasty white, they never venture out into the sunlight. Those are my people. We never meet because, well, I’m not as smart as they are. The only way you’d see me at MIT is because I’ve been hired to clean the wash rooms in the central library or park cars during an astrophysicist convention. Truth be told, other super nerds will look down on me like an annoying insect, a slug in a field of glorious caterpillars, a thorn among the roses. I get it. I’m a freak, and that’s okay. I’m a freak who writes books. A freak who enjoys the occasional joke. A freak who dares to combine disparate elements into one book to create an art form that, eh, may be light years ahead of its time.
Murder in Rock & Roll Heaven is such a book. On the surface, it’s a murder mystery. However, when you dig deeper into it, other elements begin to reveal themselves. There’s a healthy dose of molecular physics and Jain cosmology intertwined in the chapters. There’s an attempt by me to show that Heaven, Hell, reincarnation, karma and the soul are not ethereal concepts but, rather, have their base in solid, albeit ancient, scientific principles. Folks, I didn’t make this stuff up. I’m simply channeling the studies that predate me by, oh, let’s say, 6,000 years. Can you imagine? Molecular biology may seem like a new science, but it’s not. The Jain cosmologists have been studying and writing about it for years. The last prophet of Jainism, Mahavira, taught this science for years but never wrote it down because, well, he practiced aparigraha – the ownership of nothing. I consider myself a modern Jain and try to adhere to its ancient principles. Very difficult in a modern, industrial, commercial world, though. But I try. Hopefully, my attempt will get me closer to the truth. It’s either that or die trying.
OTHER BOOKS by ROBIN RAY
Commoner the Vagabond
You Can’t Sleep Here: A Clown’s Guide to Surviving Homelessness
Wetland: A Love Story
Stranded in Paradise
Tears of A Clown