Wonderful Rainbow and Running

The album cover and metaphor for the music

I remember the details of my first listen to Lightning Bolt (LB) and their third album, "Wonderful Rainbow" (WR), quite well. I was instantly hooked.

I was a freshman at UC Santa Cruz. I was hitchhiking with a friend from the campus' summit to that same friend's house. Our casual chauffeur was playing WR uncomfortably loud while my friend and I bounced around in the backseat of the driver's jeep. Dog was the copilot.

I heard Brian Gibson's shimmering bass taps on "Crown of Storms." I was then sacked by his switch to jarring heavy metal churns. Later, both the tap and distortion coalesced and merged into sweet harmony. Meanwhile, Brian Chippendale, the drummer, shouted incomprehensibly through a voice scrambler and wailed out unreal percussion speed. Our driver told me who they were: Lightning Bolt, a drummer-bassist duo from Providence, Rhode Island. The headquarters for Sonic Youth.

I was floored. I couldn't believe that two vegan art students could make the heaviest music I had ever heard. It was my first introduction to instrumental metal/noise rock. I needed to get everything this band had to offer and become acquainted with all of its friends, inspirations and followers.

This was in 2003. It is now 2016. I still listen to WR more often than I care to admit.

I chose to review this decade-old album because very few people, including audiophiles, like it. Even some of my musician friends think LB's career sounds like garbage. That "g" in "garbage" isn't capitalized, so I'm not talking about the 90's band. Quite seriously, almost everyone I introduce to LB ends up hating them and I have introduced people to a lot of wierd music. It's status quo for your parents to hate your music. It's quite another problem when even your friends think you're trying to piss them off with your musical tastes.

The narrow appeal is apparent in the small venues at which LB is probably bound to play for the rest of their career. Even if you don't like the music, you should go for the experience. You'll notice that there is no area for a mosh pit - all of the concert is the mosh pit. You either mosh or aren't there.

LB's music is inconspicuously calculated. The music is like Jackson Pollock's smeared, trademark excrement. Looking closely enough, you can see the craftmanship, blue collar work ethic and calculated, angular movements. Shade over it with another piece of paper and graphite and you can see the blueprints beneath the seeming cacophony.

The sculpted endoskeleton is apparent in WR in sparse, surprising moments. When they happen, they're proof that this is more than just a distortion pissing contest. WR is rock but the band's approach and influences lean towards post-rock, modern classical and jazz. They have cited Sun Ra and Philip Glass as their main inspirations. Think of LB as "Explosions in the Sky" doing thrash metal.

What makes WR stand out from the rest of the LB catalog is how they achieved a unique sound in just three releases. Unlike their eponymous debut and second effort, "Ride the Skies," WR finds the band with refined tongue and cheek, coalescence, density and pure brain stem over-activation. The sound is robust, full, thick.

WR has a great tendency to give you breathing room that is just a little too short. WR has brief crystal clear skies tailed closely by dangerous turbulence. It's their practical joke. This is how the album starts, with "Hello Morning," a 50 second, lighter instrumental. It's almost as if it's about to be a post-rock album, reminiscent of early Tortoise. Then you realize that the drumming is just a tad too fast. Without warning, "Hello Morning" throws you into "Assassins," the beginning of WR's 40 minute siege. You then know that this album will be traveling at break-neck speed.

"Assassins" is a great opener, where in several spots it builds and climaxes. Crescendos abound in different styles all while accomplishing consistency. The bass backs off, the drumming picks up frequency and amplitude and then the bass enters back in with all of its guts and glory. Reverberations, walls of sound as Gibson simultaneously plays a ferocious lead to feed into these steep pinnacles.

"Dracula Mountain" begins with awkward skips and hops. It's too fluctuating to head bang to but too truculent to not. The beat gallops and then comes to screeching halts only to punch back to full speed. This repeats, drums accelerating as Chippendale creates a cadence and both musicians build. There is another relenting of the bass, a focus on vocals and irrepressible drumming, leading back into a build of cymbals and a looping riff. When the coda hits, the two move in for the kill, erupting with the finale that serves as one of the best thrash codas to date. Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich may be impressed or taking notes.

"2 Towers" is the masterpiece of the album. The track is a sprawling, seven-minute rush, meant to only send you careening into the duo`s tornado. It's the soundtrack to apocalyptic storms, shrouding the skies and stirring up seas. Gibson opens with a his trademark tapping, a build that suggests that this track is going to kill. Afterwards, Gibson fills every gap with full throttle distortion, a gravy train of pure malevolence, while Chippendale does his drive-by of cymbals and snares and furiously kicking base. His singing is 6 feet under and projecting through his voice scrambler. "Towers" is so dense that it's difficult to hear the two musician's time signature changes. The two are buried in the chaos. The track ends just as fiercely as it opened, with alto bass shrieks and higher frequency base drumming. At some point, “Towers” achieves ambiance. Comforting like being stuck in an MRI tube.

Technical prowess hidden by post-modernism. It's not that Gibson uses complex riffs and notes constantly. He is just very adept with textures and switching seamlessly from lead to rhythm. Chippendale's drumming is also simple. His talent is being able to be in several places at once. He flails with remarkable accuracy.

On "Crown of Storms," crystal-clear tapping opens the song and are abound, present and lead the way over the classic heavy metal crunching. This is where we hear Gibson simultaneously tapping and distorting. They create the illusions of a full band rocking out harder than any of their peers. This track is slower but just as fierce and combative as the rest of the album.

"Crown" is followed by the tranquil "Longstockings," with Gibson's higher notes but still playing alongside Chippendale's frenzy. Just when you think this is the whole song, they throw you back into their offensive jazz. Again with the bait and switch.

Not letting up on their shtick, the eponymous track plays appropriately as a gentle intermission. It is lightly glazed with gentle, simple bass taps and skips of Chippendale's scatting.

This all comes to a close with the final two tracks which stray from the earlier "catchier" moments. "30,000 Monkies" is less for the pit and more for the ears. It could easily be mistaken for an early Boredoms song. It's a nice deviation, showcasing LB's knack for avant garde.

"Dual in the Deep" closes the album. It's a final free-for-all that continues with the shake up of the previous track. It's empty oil barrels, stalling engine turns laid over sweeping, skipping riffs and bass thumb brushing. It is a 6 minute track that builds from start to finish and sounds as if it is played with found objects.

WR isn't just loud: it's noisy. It's music that is not trying to cater to but challenge the listener. Whoever is left in the room will be head banging. LB takes away conventional elements of metal and zooms in on everything that that makes it great. For people who like jazz and heavy metal: the very few. For them, they will dig WR and it will never lose its effect.

..................

I also chose WR to review because today I am going on a 16 mile run. What means the most to me in this moment is this album. It has gotten me through many grueling workouts, notably unpleasant interval sessions. From the early practice runs, rides and swims, to the very events themselves, LB's catalog has been the support in my corner, namely with WR. Without it, I may not have performed as well and trained as hard.

WR even triggered my first out-of-body experience during the 2006 Sacramento International Marathon, my third marathon ever. I barely slept the night before. To go to sleep early I even did an upper body weight workout in the in-home gym of my host's house. But even the workout didn't put me to sleep. Perhaps it was the heat of too many carbs burning before bed. Or the anticipation. Or both. Despite insomnia, I had a since unmatched spiritual experience.

Hello morning

I wake up with the energy of a thousand solid REM cycles. I get my gear ready. The rest of the household is barren. The humming of noble gas from the refrigerator is discernible. It's in a choir with the fluorescent lights above me. I touch the kitchen window. The outside air must be stinging. The window frame edges are airbrushed white and the grass on the lawn is frosted. Winter in the Central Valley. Discontent is an understatement.

I am about to fill my camelback up with water. I veto the idea. I am plenty hydrated. Save the stomach space for coffee. I need to be as light as possible if I anticipate a sub-3 hour. Just the iPod in a sports band, small tube of Vaseline and attire. There are aide stations if I really need to drink. Breakfast is Krispee Kreme. A far cry from nutritious.

My girlfriend and I take a stop by a drive-through Krispee Kreme. A box of a dozen assorted. All mine. Both of us get the largest coffee. Steam drifts out in adiabatic cooling from the mouth opening. Mini tea kettle.

6 am. We are in the car and alone on the highway. Only a few speckled other convoy. I guess that these few sprinkled cars are also on their way to the same event. I eat 6 cream filled eclairs. Satisfied but not stuffed. Mastication and swallowing is interspersed with sips of coffee. My hands vibrate in an aura of pallor skin. Anticipation is killing me.

Admittedly my stomach is in a bit of distention. But I have ran on worse food items and more before; whole cheesecakes, pizza pies, burritos, for example. My stomach is a nuclear waste cask. Once something is in its not getting out. I am looking forward to the post-race meal of an 1000+ calorie breakfast of protein and fat. Eggs and bacon. I reason to myself that it is purely for recovery purposes.

The girlfriend is making small talk. She is only lying to herself that she is even a fraction as awake as I am.  I am responding to her questions and comments but it is merely vacant, courtesy reciprocation. My mind is too latched on the portence of the next three hours of my life. Gas stations, darkened buildings, street lights beat by. Illuminated musical notes on a black sheet of paper.

Rolling up to the drop off point. There is a mile and a half between here and the starting line. It is a good warming up distance of a road with unbroken rows of trees on either side. I give the girl a kiss with everything I've got. Ditch the glasses on the dashboard. Opening the door, the winter morning air is a swift kick to every body part. Incentive enough to start moving. Immediately. My shoes are made of cement at first. The cold does this to me. I run for about 15 minutes, each half-mile split progressing. Buses filled with other racers cruise by. The drivers honk. I am on the shoulder, doing my best not to freeze to death. 'When the hell is this coffee going to kick in?'

I'm warming up to "Jane Says" on the Jane's Addiction '97 live album. Flea is slapping the thicker strings, Perkins tests the steel drum's reflexes, Navarro strums on an acoustic and Farrell emulates a peacock. You get an image of what Farrell looks like based his vocals. He struts around the stage in a manner that Mick Jagger would call flamboyant. He has an obvious predilection to women's clothing and leather, fur-lined everything, tight fitting jeans, boas, eyeliner. Androgynous sex appeal you can't escape.

Once at the starting line, I keep the energy going with single leg squats, planks, lunges and push-ups. I've gotten comfortable and I'm not giving it up. This excess is the only thing keeping icicles from forming off of my limbs. The announcer is jabbering off in the background. I can hear every word he is saying but none of it is processing. I am boiling over like a pressure cooker, waiting for the goddamned starting siren to go off. Everyone around me is jogging in place, knocking out squats, active stretches, making friction on their bare body parts. Either it's their regular ritual or just for today's unrepentant weather.

Without warning, the crowd begins its draw to the starting line. They must have been paying attention to the Emcee. I push my way up to the front.

'Keep the pace, keep the pace, keep the pace,'

"Runners, we have 1 minute until go time."

'Look at the watch. All you have to do is hold a 6:40 mile.'

"Runners, we have 30 seconds."

'Don't go hog wild. You have a habit of going hog wild and burning out too soon.'

"10 seconds."

'Breathe breathe breathe you're not breathing,'

"5 seconds"

My jaw is tight, putting my head in a vice, the tinnitus exacerbating. My head is stuck in a trash can while someone bangs on it. Something wants me to jack rabbit this start. Fuel injectors vibrate with an octane surge. I don't need my brain to run.

'Fuck pacing.' I wonder who this new voice is. 'Risk it. You are being chased by wolves. Think like a reptile. It is trained for the art of flight.'

My heart dilates and pumps glucose and epinephrine saturated blood from a broken floodgate. Glycogen catabolizes, aveoli expand, hair stands up, wide awake now, intestinal tract expands.

'Keep yesterday's meal in there, pal. It's only a race. Make it without shitting yourself. Other than that, I'll do this for you.'

Starting Gun.

Assassins

The spear pulls me. I ignored my own advice and the wheel is ripped from my hands. Someone else is piloting. My heart rate goes from resting to 180 in mere seconds. Spring one way you sprint all ways. My body is tingling yet my limbs are numb like the cervical has been severed. I'm here and my body is kicking furiously and white paint on the pavement is going by at 10 mph. This isn't just coffee.

Now for the first hill.

Dracula Mountain

I'm leading the pack. The spear sticks out of my chest and ignores my internal cries for pain. I'm flying. I get to the hill's peak and look out over the horizon, the sun just kindling but enough to illuminate the details on a vast landscape.

Drums roll, more layers are caked on.

2 Towers

I am on my descent, I pick up speed. Markers pass by at 12 mph, calluses take the beating. Psychedelic swirls and synesthesia. The sky disappears behind the black silhouettes of slumbering forest and houses. Everyone is still asleep and I'm running harder than a short sprint. I'm vigilant and alert and I'm heating the pavement at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, the smell of sausages nowhere wafting, the burners not even an anticipation, people still in bed, few spectators. I'm ahead of the pack, all alone, the spear wrenching my sternum and its fluke tearing at my shoulder blades, my left side in a tight knot, every part of me begging the spear to stop but it ignores good judgment and does what it wants without apology. I have been training for months for this but I had no idea what was being built. A spear, a juggernaut unaffected by gravity or energy lost to heat, sound or obstacles. It's launching into Baghdad, London, Dresden, Hanoi, New York City - it does not adhere to the Geneva Convention: no prisoners. No distance, only displacement regardless of what is in the way.

'Either run them over or drown them in your wake,' it says. I rear my head and let out a long battle cry. It's diminished by the blaring headphones but the onlookers' eyes go wide and they laugh, hold up a sign that reads "shake a leg" and ring their cowbell.

'I will shake a leg, thank you.'

My heart rate monitor reads 181. Go faster. 183. Whatever this strange machine is that I have built I like it; I am barely doing any work. I am bathing in the spear's red hot tail and exhaust stench. Burning organic compounds. No hydration is needed. I pass by stations and just throw the water at my face. No coordination. The spear only knows how to accelerate and generate force. I was born to do this.

Crown of Storms

I cross the finish line, fists in the air, lungs engorged with blood and atmosphere. There are volunteers holding up medals, water bottles and t-shirts. I grab at all three, missing at first from expenditure. The help eventually just hands all three to me into my bread basket. I stagger drunkenly through the crowd, the vendor tents, first aid stations. Delirious, I reason that I need to place myself on a grassy area across the sidewalk from the port-o-johns. There are sparse amounts of people here. Seconds later I am vomiting. There is no food to expel. The spear took everything it could from me to get performance. All I had left was mucus, bile and acid. No more water or essential minerals. All I could sacrifice any more of was my temperament of apathy.

Dual in the Depth

The heart rate comes down. The gods are appeased. The sacrifice was worthy. My soul has been sold but I got the better end of the deal.

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An Emotional Account of Loveless

The cover does justice to the album 

I was going write about Radiohead.  “Kid A” was the first album that threw me into musicophilia.  "Loveless" solidified it.  It became the album to which I compared all other albums.  It is and has remained my favorite.  I refer to it as a flawless masterpiece - the best album ever made.      

An orgasm of perfect noise; the atmosphere; the enigmatic singing blended in with tangible instruments producing otherworldly sounds - a capgras of what I thought music was and what it could do; the anomalies that surprise but find a place with all of the lush overgrowth.  Calling it a gift that keeps on giving is to needlessly point out the infinite expansion of the universe.  

"Loveless" has so much to offer that I have yet to exhaust its replay value.  It’s a rare album that I am compelled to play in its entirety.  One track is not enough - I need the whole cake.  

It is impossible for me to write an objective review of it.  I have chosen to put personal thoughts and feelings into this piece.  Warning to the reader of contrivances and schoolgirl crush cliches; I can’t talk about this album without talking about the impact it has had on me and how I carry it with me.  I have had an ongoing infatuation with "Loveless" since I first heard it in 2005.  It was on a summer afternoon in my bedroom while on a study break.  Procrastination with fornication.  

And so the diary begins.  

Hundreds of listens later and I see no end in sight for "Loveless" being my number one.  I’ve played it in my headphones while working out, running along dirt paths, races, cooking, homework, aloud during love-making, leisurely reading, spacing out, dinner parties, regular parties.  This is a symptom of a perfect album: you find any reason or occasion to play it.    

"Loveless" achieves perfection by overdoing it on motifs to an excess. One that makes sense.  It is sealed and aerodynamic, even while at the bottom of its own millions of Pascals.  It has a hum that drenches it heavily from start to finish.  Only tongue-speaking vocals: indecipherable but heavenly.  Thick, pea-soup, hallucinatory guitar work; mantle-deep drumming; catchy but mystifying instrumental choruses; hints of other genres but a forge all its own; experimental but not so much as to diminish its virulence.  Where these binding motifs would restrain the album, each track offers something unique but complementing.  

  

I finally have her in my arms after an entire week of not. She’s becoming more estranged to me as finals creep in closer.  It only gets worse from here. That comfort zone, that sense of that special someone always going to be there. No matter how many times I run around the world, trying to hold it together.  It doesn’t hold.  My efforts are worthless.  I have been disemboweled and my entrails are spilling out.  But the two of us are just branches growing in different directions no longer growing as the same trunk.  We can’t rely on coincidence that these detours will coalesce again.  We are no longer heading in the same direction.

Tom Wolfe said in his book The Right Stuff that Mach 1 is where a demon lives.  You meet that demon first thing on “Only Shallow,” the opening track.  It’s everything I wanted out of shoegaze multiplied by n-number of layers spackled on.  Thick, German asphalt on the autobahn.  Speed limits are nonexistent here.  It’s simultaneously gentle and aggressive.  A finely tuned engine that growls unintelligibly with eloquence.  A slow dance of Jesus and Mary Chain, suckered-punched by Sonic Youth.  The beating is done at 3:40 and the outro floats you out with a morphine injection.

After 20 seconds, the full-on siege swells back in with “Loomer,” the second track still marching on the edge of the opener.  It ends with the haunting whale sounds of “Touched,” an interlude laiden with leviathan groans that trade off with orchestral samples.  These three tracks serve as the album’s grandiose entrance.    

“To Here Knows When” and “Blown a Wish” are winks to the Cocteau Twins at their finest.  Taking the best of dream pop but doing it justice with an adaptable and strategic rock ensemble.  A constantly changing frequency takes place of the singing, turning this into ambience, a soft, walk in the clouds, adiabatically-cooled water vapor percolating between the toes, interspersed with tingling synthesizers as a proxy chorus.  Like the opening track, “To Here” tapers off with a sigh.     

"I Only Said" is prime bittersweetness.  It is "Loveless"’ coup de gras to the heartbreakingly beautiful.  It's distortion but it's in flux from the excess of Kevin Shields’ (guitarist) tremolo effect.  Hearing guitars produce smooth fluctuations is what this album excels at but is at its best here.  It is bioluminescence at the harmonics: soft, glowing lifeforms, congregating at tight knots.  Swells and plunges outlining each disturbance on calm surfaces.  

This is the song of the album.  It's a memory of a lover that I fiend for.  Who I am sick to touch.  We roll under red blankets.  I have only the details of her eyes, skin, hair, teeth.  Just the parts against a backdrop of red.  I have no idea what the sum total of these parts is.  I reach to touch those details but feel only the warm silk.  Intangible near-realities that disappear when you try to pull them in.  Dumbfounded by beauty.  Tantalizing branches of grapes, a dropping tide that plunges the fresh water away from parched lips.  It’s impossible to get enough.

    

It’s 12 a.m.  The room is filled with an unknown blue tint.  We are underwater.  Just hanging out at the bottom of the ocean.  I can see the outline of her in strips and patches of aqua.  I’m caressing and interacting with a silhouette.  Her skin feels so alive and it’s hard to believe that this is the same girl I have been with for years.  Something strange but exciting and sexy is happening.  It’s that anticipation that happens with someone you have just met.  Like being in a secluded section of the house, sneaking and scurrying for privacy in a moment of reckless passion.  

The band's story is embedded in this song.  It doesn't matter how much beauty you create; all relationships are in flux.  The most beautiful ones have the highest potential for being the most destructive.  Nothing is permanent and nothing will hold people together forever.  Close to permanent are the memories you document.  You are tantalus on that rock, reaching for the fruit and crouching for water.    

“Sometimes” comes in with a trademark choppiness of post-punk but then transitions into the continuing dreaminess.  The churning is persistent throughout the song’s five minute lifespan.  It finds harmony but is a clever ode to the band’s roots.  Barely-expressed genes in this matured creature, emerged from the chrysalis of post-punk.  

You’re carefully progressing, disrobing a little bit more at time, feeling your way around, testing the limits, if any.  Eventually you’re both just flesh and skin with hair standing up electrified. You’re an irrational number about to become integer. That “n.” You’re there, you are both whole.  It becomes as tangible as granite. You’ve found that formula and it works. Finding completeness as an integer.  It throws you into irrational ecstasy.  It’s a wonderful contradiction.         

    

“What You Want” stands out as the noise pop track.  The rock elements are all discernible yet they are stuck in the foundation of a melodica.  This gives way to the dance-heavy “Soon,” where the engineered beat creates a mesmerizing outro.  It’s danceable even with the heavy fuzz of the chorus.     

It is impossible for me to quench my thirst for this album.  It is musical electrolytes.  Life blood.  It won’t satiate my hunger, satisfy my lust.  The only way I can get close to it is knowing people will be listening to it long after I am dead.  Instead of having children, I will find immortality in spreading the gospel of this masterpiece.     

I’ve found her but I know that this is the end.  After this I will only have memories.  How sad that I remember the past with such fondness.  I wish for the past but it’s gone. On to the next problem. On to the next chapter, class, semester. Once integer now irrational, maybe even imaginary.     

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Don’t Fear the Sweetener

I am an unapologetic and uncompromising diet and exercise fanatic. I gave up sugar long ago. When one decides to become prejudice with calories, sugar is almost always the first dismissal. Your plans for Friday night follow closely. Unfortunately, if you have a sweet tooth, it never goes away fully even after years of abstinence.

To this day I wake up every morning craving sugar. Or some kind of white powder.

Stevia baked goods and Diet Soda have replaced sugar and have become a terrible affliction.  An affliction only slightly less disturbing than my public masturbation habits. Fortunately, I live in San Francisco and only get flack for the former. Everyone seems to be fine with the masturbation so long as I stay in the Tenderloin.

Long story short, I have an emotional investment in standing up for artificial sweeteners.  Like all good, new technology that is here to help mankind (Think nuclear power, cell phones, pet rocks), artificial sweeteners (AS) have also gained their fair share of skepticism and criticism.  My obstinance and willingess to jump to the defense of AS is like a soldier snapping to attention.  Either I have done legitimate research or I'm just that thickheaded.  Here are the AS that you know are awful but never did research on to justify that thinking.

This guy has you figured out. 

Saccharine
Saccharine and all of the other well-known AS was invented/discovered earlier than you think. Saccharin was “discovered” in 1879 when penny farthings and handlebar mustaches were honest fashion attempts. Saccharin was made on the pretense of formulating a coal tar derivative. This is the scariest confirmed information you will read about saccharin.

Saccharine is a salt. A very sweet and completely unsalty salt. It is water soluble and resistant to temperatures of up to 228.8 C and pH levels as low as 1.5 (very acidic). These physical properties and its large, complex structure prevents saccharin from dissociating into smaller components. It is mal-absorbed, therefore ineffective on the human body. Though it can pass through the digestive system, it cannot enter into individual cells. One simply eats it, it travels through the digestive system via the interstitial fluid of the intestinal lining and is delivered to the liver and then the cardiovascular system. After leaving the heart, it ends up at the kidneys where it is filtered and micturated out completely intact in a colloid mixture (urine).  So in other words, too big for cells but not so for the nephrons.

Pictured above: Something that I am far smarter than you to
be able to mention casually.

Saccharine is the disappointing husband you married; it stays the same forever but is spit out as a dilute version of what he (or "it") once was.

The only real health concern for saccharine comes from the mentioned physical structure. In the 90's, the experts thought that saccharine caused bladder cancer. Because it doesn’t dissolute, the hypothesis was that abrasions and scarring in the urinary system from saccharine lead to tumor development. These hypotheses were later falsified because of two confounds.

The first confound is a tired mistake that keeps being made: the trials called for unrealistic amounts of saccharin for the test rats to eat.  Proportions were given that no human would ever eat.

The second confound overlooked two differing characteristics of the rat’s anatomy versus that of humans. Rats have a much more acidic urine than humans. Rats also have an enzyme in their urinary system that catabolizes saccharine. These unique rat features broke saccharine into smaller, more physically harmful molecules.

When testing addressed these confounds, the risk of bladder cancer was contradicted and the FDA gave saccharine a clean bill of health in 2000. In 2010, the EPA stated it was safe for human health and the environment.  This is important to note since remember you're flushing it down your toilet.  Since then, both the EPA and FDA statuses have been unwavering. Though take that with a grain of saccharine, because both of those regulating entities were long ago castrated by this guy:

This picture doesn't really need a caption but here we are.

Aspartame
In 1965, aspartame was accidentally discovered like saccharine. The FDA put aspartame on scientific scrutiny for 15 years and approved it for public consumption in 1981. It’s structure is an organic molecule, that of two bonding amino acids: aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Aspartame is synthesized in the same way that alcohol, beer, cheese and soy sauce are: anaerobic fermentation. In the least glamorous terms possible, aspartame and all those other indulgences are merely microbial organic waste and bacterial carcasses.

Meaning they're organic - just like urine and hydrochloric acid! They must be good for you!

In aspartame, the two amino acids are synthesized by a methyl bond (See picture above). This bridging methyl group is the cause for all the controversy surrounding aspartame. Therein lies the first contradiction; methyl groups are present in many types of proteins and carbohydrates.  Things we eat on a daily.  Methanol is one of the many molecules that binds two or more other molecules together to form a complex. You can thank the methyl group for giving us starches, fiber, protein, amino acids and other things needed for living and crap.

This same methyl group found in aspartame is speculated to be more volatile than those found in “naturally” methylated molecules. As a reminder, they are not: a methyl group in a “naturally” occurring bond between two amino acids has the same reactivity as that which is synthesized in a lab. But let’s give the hippies their cake and eat it too.

When a methyl group is digested, it creates methanol, which has the capacity to convert to formaldehyde. Formaldehyde has many scary health implications. I think we have all heard the precautionary urban legend of those who smoke formaldehyde.  This is also known as a Friday night in the Appalachians.  

These risks are muted when remembering that any food can make formaldehyde when in- and digested. Though aspartame creates these chemicals at a fraction of what sugar does. This is because aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar and is used at proportionally smaller quantities to give food equivalent sweetness as sucrose or normal granulated sugar. Diabeteswatch.com says that drinking a glass of juice abound with fructose would have a higher potential methanol, i.e. formaldehyde, production than 21 cans of Diet Coke.

Take that, juice cleansers. Your undertaking process is already underway. 

Diabeteswatch.com also adds that the orange juice is more likely to spike your insulin levels and interfere with your hormones. After all, there is more sugar present and it can actually transport into cells and play a crucial role in affecting glucagon and insulin.

Aspartame also has another problem: it and its derivatives are too large to be absorbed through the intestinal or stomach lining. Even when methanol or formaldehyde are produced, they pass through the gut, as does formaldehyde. No formaldehyde or formic acid has been shown to bio-accumulate anywhere in infants, older or sick people. Aside from patients with phenylketonuria, everyone simply excretes these potentially harmful products. Much in the same way that urine expels excessive waste, the intestinal tract does the same for formic acid and formaldehyde with all the other undesirables.

Another fallacy is that the methyl group is converted this readily. Some microbiologists even argue that the necessary enzyme to convert the methyl group into methanol (i.e. formic acid and formaldehyde) is not found in the gut. Thermolysin, the enzyme that creates these compounds, is found only in the bacteria bacillus thermoproteolyticus (b. thermo), a bacteria that has only been observed in plants. Even if it was of the 400 common gut flora, b. thermo would require temperatures higher than 89.6 Celsius, far higher than the normal mammalian homeostasis. Suppose this temperature for b. thermo to thrive and function was met, the host would have far greater problems than those posed by methanol or formaldehyde.  The very conversion of the methyl group has been through how we synthesize aspartame to begin with, which includes the use of b. thermo and its mentioned enzyme. Anything lower than 50 C reduces the b. thermo activity by more than half. Anything at or near the human body temperature makes it innocuous.

A pH of 1.5 for the CH3 (methyl) group to break off of aspartame and to transform it into something dangerous is present in the human stomach. But without the required temperature, this simply does not happen. The methyl group remains intact and is neither absorbed readily nor interacts with the endocrine system.

So to recap, humans have neither the enzyme, the bacteria or temperature to seize the methyl group from Aspartame.  We have the pH in our stomachs but the synthesis does not happen without the other three requirements.  Even if formaldehyde is made, there is far less of it and it passes through our digestive system, unable to be digested or absorbed.

Sucralose
The more recent concoction of AS, sucralose was produced in 1976 with the actual intent of creating a sugar substitute. It was not put into food for another 15 years after countless trials in several countries.  America finally approved its addition to mass production and commercial use in 1998 after many other countries used their people as a petri dish: the world was the poison and taste-tester for U.S.  Since then, sucralose has been getting put into everything.  Diet Pepsi is the most recent product to start using it, replacing aspartame.

Ha! And you thought you were getting aspartame!

As the name suggests, sucralose, a.k.a. Splenda, is a chlorinated sucrose molecules. This makes sucralose a more heat and pH stable compound (around 180 C). But this also makes it lousy for cooking. Though this heat tolerance does contribute to its low digestive and absorptive rate, i.e. caloric value.

Even though the laboratory setting has proven countless times that sucralose is heat and pH stable, food scientists set the limits of 1500 mg/kg body weight/day. For the average male and female, this would be 120 and 105 grams per day, respectively. When you consider that sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, this makes it less likely for anyone to cross that threshold; one would have to eat their body weight in sugar to achieve the same level of sweetness.  120 and 105 grams of sucralose per day amounts to 2,626 - 3,000 cans of Diet Coke or Pepsi One.

This many cans of diet soda is required because Sucralose is much sweeter than sugar and requires lower amounts of it to achieve the same taste.   This is also a chief complaint of sugar substitutes, making their limits of intake less likely to cross. Even if you do have an insatiable sweet tooth, you’d probably get sick from the maltodextrin and dextrose that splenda and AS is almost always paired with in the store-bought variety in order to dilute the overpowering sweetness.

Take my experience as a warning: when I tried to eat a pound of Splenda, my migraines were so intense that I stayed inside the entire next day with the shades drawn and a cold pack on my forehead. I have no idea why I did this.

There is an FDA recommended restriction on daily sucralose intake because the body does actually metabolize some of it. It is technically a sugar but even these rates in commercial Splenda are very low. However, you would have to be eating at  the mentioned threshold levels for just 4.75% of that mass to be metabolized. This would only amount to 2.5-9.25 grams if you were eating 105-120 grams per day of pure sucralose. The rest is excreted. Eat lower amounts and these rates of metabolism are even less, even benign. Chemical reactions are dependent on molarities in order for chemical change to occur. Bare in mind that these are theoretical rates of reactions. In real life, even ideal conditions require a higher concentration to see a reaction all the way through.

We are also forgetting that chlorine is a normal solute in human bodily tissue and is essential for the osmotic gradient, i.e. normal physiology. Critics only have the chlorine molecule in sucralose as their point of contention for the sugar substitute. Otherwise, sucralose is almost exactly like a sucrose molecule. Its slightly more complex structure is why it is difficult to digest and even more so to absorb. To say that this is harmful is also like saying that eating salt is harmful too.

Chlorine has a very high electron affinity. This is why its non-ion form is used for cleaners: it takes electrons away in order to go into it’s stable ionic form as Cl-, meaning it wants to steal other atoms/molecules' electrons.  This leads to structural degradation of whatever atom is in its vicinity.  Except Chlorine’s electron affinity to the sucrose molecule is way higher than anything it will encounter in a living body. Already being bound to another molecule makes it less powerful as an electron accepter, i.e. not harmful to your body. This is also why sucralose is so heat and pH stable and practically indigestible.

Worth mentioning is that even the European Union has given the greenlight for sucralose to be used in consumer goods, and they don’t even like GMOs, whatever the hell those even are.

The Current Debate
If you’re like me and constantly clearing parties out with your obsession with food safety, the most recent safety concern over sweeteners is the study from the Wizeman Institute in Israel. The study confirms that a diet consistent in daily intake of AS can change the microbiome of your intestinal tract and cause a spike in insulin levels.

According to Oregon State University and Georgetown University, sugar does this exact same thing but to a far more damaging degree.  The side effects of altered microflora range from slightly annoying (diarrhea, digestion) to more severe (insulin spikes and reduced resistance to infection, diabetes and all of its accompanying ailments).   

In a similar microfloral study, the more damaging effects of sugar on the intestines can cause a condition that has earned the classification of “Type 3 Diabetes” (T3D).  Allow me to cause a disruption in your GI tract by elaborating on T3D and to push my own agenda. According to the study, T3D causes major cognitive malfunctions. And we are not just talking things like forgetting which microwave you left your cat in. We’re talking forgetfulness on the same level of Alzheimers.  This is caused by a "bottom-up" effect of inflammation originating from the gut causing swelling of nerve tissue. 

But wait, there’s more!

The brain gets another dose of stupid with the increased levels of glucose in your blood, leading to a spike in insulin production. Much in the same way that your other bodily cells can become resistant to insulin and stop using glucose for energy, your brain cells can also became ‘tarded. If you’ve ever seen a diabetes patient accidentally let their blood sugar get too low, they start acting infantile and out of control. This is what you are like if you are Type 3 Diabetic except all the time because; your brain can’t use glucose efficiently or even at all. 

Experts are even saying that decreased sensitivity over a lifetime might be another contributor or cause all its own for Alzheimer’s or dementia. And then there are all these other bad things associated with sugar.

Compare this to the health implications of AS in this article. That is, the health implications that have actually been validated. Here’s a quick recap:

1) Saccharin causes bladder cancer in rats if they are force-fed unrealistic amounts of it.
2) Maladjustment of microflora but not nearly to the same degree as regular mono and disaccharides.
3) AS are too sweet. Consequently, they tend to be blended or cut with other starches like dextrose or maltodextrin. These fillers can actually cause the same problems that sugar does because the body can actually digest and absorb them. In case you forgot what dangers simple sugar causes, here’s the list again.

Bringing it All Together
Think too about the massive conspiracy that would have to be responsible for the dangers of AS from getting out. To this day, the gun, tobacco, alcohol and petroleum lobbies have fared better with keeping their instruments of destruction alive and well. These entities have more funding and are more scrutinized than those for food and drugs. The ethics of these industries are a highly divisive political debate. 

Yet almost everyone universally agrees that food safety is a necessary bureaucracy. It would be nearly impossible for AS to have come this far, this early (1981) and overcome all of the skepticism and regulation were they not safe.  Aspartame was synthesized in 1965 and underwent 16 years of precautionary testing. The FDA treads with extreme trepidation. They finally gave eggs the okay after decades of caution to cholesterol. 

Even if the skepticism is about the American government’s competency, there are plenty of international agencies that have approved aspartame’s safety. This affirmation is based on over 200 studies, both government and private entities.

A large part of the controversy surrounding AS safety is the sugar industry itself. Saccharine being a prime example. Once again, those big corporations and old money want to take our pot, free healthcare and LA railway systems. It’s no wonder they would be after our sweet saccharin. 

 

And, of course, our Lucky Charms. 

Quite the opposite has been happening recently. Since the smear campaign against AS did not halt the introduction of it into more consumer goods, the real sugar industry found more creative ways of selling it. There is a reason why you don’t see advertisements for sugar anymore; it’s in everything, acting as a preservative. If one buys anything that is not in the meat, produce or dairy department of a grocery store, chances are there is unnecessary amounts of sugar in it. The degree is so staggering that entire films have been made about sugar's ubiquity and imminent health implications (Fed Up, Vegucated, Super Size Me, Food Inc., etc.).

The volatile PR problems that saccharine has had over the past century actually further validates its safety. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on saccharine over its lifetime in the U.S. alone. It has been subjected to an evolving scientific field and tightening safety standards, hence the oscillating scientific consensus on its safety. Yet the evidence is still in favor of saccharine and general AS safety.

These conclusions to AS may be different tomorrow but that does not mean the science that confirms its safety is faulty or lacking; they are simply the best resources available presently. Like Europe, take a precaution but don’t exclude them based on the popular fear and smear campaigns that a lot of laymen use out of ignorance and hearsay rather than credible erudition.

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Radiohead seems to have an inescapable tendency to create flawless masterpieces. Way to go on "A Moon Shaped Pool," sirs.

Radiohead seems to have an inescapable tendency to create flawless masterpieces. Way to go on "A Moon Shaped Pool," sirs.

— Jordan Smith (@PTJordanSmith) June 1, 2016

from Twitter https://twitter.com/PTJordanSmith

June 01, 2016 at 11:38AM
via IFTTT

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It says on the ingredients of Kombucha "pure love." NOW I feel like it's reasonable t pay almost 5 bucks for it.

It says on the ingredients of Kombucha "pure love." NOW I feel like it's reasonable to pay almost 5 bucks for it.

— Jordan Smith (@PTJordanSmith) January 23, 2016

from Twitter https://twitter.com/PTJordanSmith

January 23, 2016 at 11:02AM
via IFTTT

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Linkin Park: Living Things

Always recognize talent when you see it.  Even if what is produced does not tickle your fancy; any artist that can make a name for themselves has to have talent or a brilliant formula for putting their names on the map.  Linkin Park fits in this category.  Except now there is a reason to respect and like the band.

Forgive my tardiness to Linkin Park's album "Living Things" (LT); it came out in 2012.  The first single "Burn it Down" was a track with which I had a month long fling.  I admit that my heart is stolen on a weekly basis with a number of different songs.  Take that confession with a grain of salt.  "Burn it Down" prompted me to give LT a few listens.  It failed to charm my pants off as the single had.

Like most Top 40 hits, the charm of "Burn it Down" eventually wore off.  Fast forward to the present.  Somehow the track appeared on my workout playlist.  My limerence was revived.  It was like flipping through my blackbook and finding that hot, one night stand I never but should have called back.

Like any smartphone lamprey, I researched LT.  I discovered that Rick Rubin shared production with Mike Shinoda, LP's guitarist and vocalist.  Being a huge fan of Rubin's work (Metallica, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers), I replayed the album.  It got many more deserved plays and just as many recommendations.  

You can now consider me charmed and naked from the waist down.  This is more than limerence.

LP fell into the nu-metal trend of singer and rapper.  Except LP had broad attraction partly because they excluded profanity from their lyrics.  This made them mother-approved listening for the ride back from school.  Like nearly every early 00's rock band, they had an obligatory turntablist, further adding to the universal appeal.  As an added bonus, the band's musical director, Mike Shinoda, delivered emo lyrics through rapping.  This made LP okay for hip-hoppers to bump and rattle their windshields with.  All of these factors made Hybrid Theory (HT) an undeniably ground-breaking album that made nu-metal more mainstream.  The numbers speak: HT went diamond in 2000.  Even in the era of buying physical albums, selling 10 million-plus of them was a big deal.  

Nu-Metal in a nutshell

All of LP's preceding work had been a serrated knife.  The defining characteristics that found them a wide audience sounded at odds to me.  Rough around the edges, sparse, distortion-driven, sometimes to their undoing. The electronic element never blended with the favored metal.  The two singers and the turntablist sounded forced.  Think of it like a metal band trying in earnest to retain their aesthetic while outdoing the big beat genre.  But with terrible lyrics.      

Skip ahead to 2003.  Nu-metal is out of style.  There were very few exceptional nu-metal bands that survived.  LP was one of them.  Where other bands of the genre failed to stay relevant, LP succeeded and maintained a consistent fan base.  LT at seals that notion of relevance at least on an artistic level.  LP's once mismatched combinations find a comfortable resting position here.  The cheese that littered the band's earlier efforts becomes absent or well-hidden. What we get is a wave summation.

Verses are traded off elegantly between singer and rapper.  Both are downplayed but not tamed, allowing vocals to sink in with an omnipresence of dark-wave.  Shinoda still raps but takes on a more sing-song delivery and is much more relaxed ("Until it Breaks"), melting into the music rather being a novelty.  Great synergy feeds between the two vocalists (Victimized).  The two vocal approaches make the emo lyrics sound at least good.  Bennington, the singer, even finds different outlets while preserving his iconic style.  There are many instances where voice-engineering works to his advantage: "Lost in the Echo" has his voice engineered with skips that fade into wispy turntable scratches.    

Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin share the production job very well.  Rubin delivers trademark thrash but conflicts with Shinoda: the band maintains their individuality.  This marks the band and Rubin's third collaboration and is undoubtedly the best.  The sound is consistent, using shimmering, dreamy bedrock.  Hard tracks that drop with metric tons of dissonance are heavier than ever with electronica.

Yet these tracks effortlessly maintain thrash integrity.  "Lies Greed Misery" plays like a buzz saw and is completed with electronic skips and jitters.  The chorus' singing is muffled with fuzz, the rapping pulls back on the coda and then recoils like a handgun at the last minute with Bennington's jarring scream.  "Lies" is but one example where the plunge into more electronic plays to the band's advantage.  On heavier tracks (Victimized, Burn it Down), there is an ongoing hum, hidden behind hailstorms, a prime example where the two producers liase exceptionally.  Even though Victimized is an obvious punk track, electronics still lurk in the shadows while the drums haul.  "Burn it Down" has a basal heart and ringing, siren repetitions that emulsify with the bass and guitar works.  As the single, it embodies everything that LT is and does well.

Shinoda (Left) and Rubin

On softer moments, the dark-wave penetrates, dissolving the funnels and pauses the hail.  But much like the cooperation of the contrasting singers, these tracks' transitions are unnoticeable.  The whole album is saturated with dark-wave but LP makes it their own.  "Castle of Glass" could only have worked by retreating into "Minutes to Midnight" territory, with a drum machine and sparse, sample-based piano work.  "Until it Breaks" and "Powerless" serve as a dual descending outro tracks.  Broad, muted bass is ominous and cymbals skip throughout.  Ethereal background scrapes and scratches stand in the corner, like dragging a brass pipe across the floor of a steel mill.  We get more of this surprising but welcomed industrial with "Skin to Bone" and "Until it Breaks."  The industrial elements assimilate and are synergistic with the album's landscape.  "In my Remains" is a cadence-driven, lighter, poppy track, an allusion to "Minutes to Midnight."  Except here it is vibrant, occupying and organized.

The DJ settles in with the production.  Hahn clearly has talent, making his engineered noises palatable and organic. Where things are meant to sound artificial, Hahn blends them in nicely with everything human-made.  Instead of resorting to obvious samples, there's strata of ambient laters, well-woven keyboards and synthesizers ("In My Remains").  The scratching is at a minimum.  When it is there, its subtle but lacquers the crevices.  Many tracks enter inconspicuously with clean electronics but end up going in opposite directions: quietly or as a riptide.  It's a motif that finds a solid footing.        

Industrial, dark-wave, metal, rapping.  Say what you will about nu metal.  LT is melodic and ethereal but remembers what it came for: to kick you with steel toes.  "A Thousand Suns" may have been the band's concept album but everything on LT is airtight.  It is not just a collection of singles but a cohesive, dense album.

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Wha-wha Worthy

I was put to death when I went in for surgery.

Don't forget to interject a good Michael Jackson joke - oh, wait.

The anesthesiologist told me beforehand that I would be brought below an autonomously functioning level.  All of my vitals and governing chemical would be done through him rather than my own brain.  My brainstem was essentially dead.  If my heart rate got too high, he would use some kind of potassium based chemical to bring it down.  Too low, he released a sodium or calcium based chemical on the heart’s conducting fibers.  Instead of my own breathing, I was administered a breathing tube and respirator.  And I thought to myself it would be great to have something like that in everyday use.  Getting to stressed and just pump the brain full of some kind of serotonin.  Not motivated enough?  Hit a button to boost your adrenal release.  Not putting on enough muscle or need to lose weight?  Just flip the switch for some somatotropin.  But then I remembered that we already have stuff like this: they’re called drugs and the people who use them are addicts.  So much for that idea.

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How to Have Comfortable Long Distance Training Runs

       There are a lot of preparations to be made before you actually do a long distance run.  I have had the immense chagrin to be doing marathon training for years.  Some of my runs went as long as eight hours.  Silver lining: I pay attention to what I am doing and think of ways to make the runs not (as) terrible.  Let's cover the day before, of and after your waste of a good Saturday or Sunday.

Day Before

1. The start of the hydration process.  The average-sized American should be drinking 2.2 liters per day, plus or minus .5 liters on the heavier or lighter end, respectively.  On the day before a long run, add another liter to that 2.2 base level, plus or minus .5 liters.   
2. Get enough sleep.  You should be doing this already.  The obvious reasons: the more mentally alert you are, the more enjoyable the run.  Sleep is also what turns all of the calories you consumed during the previous day into adenosine diphosphate, the building block for your body's energy.  No sleep means no energy.  If you like to party, one day this whole trendy long distance running will catch up to you.  If it has not, you are probably still an undergrad and lack of sleep is how you thrive.  In that case I hate/envy you.  Also, do not major in humanities.    
3. Gear prep.  No matter what time of the day you do your run or whether you are a morning or afternoon person, you are always going to be scatterbrained if you prep your gear immediately before.  It is your unconscious way of procrastinating.  Your body knows what it is in for.  Here is what your gear should include when you prep the day or night before: 
1. Cell phone.  You never know if or when you might burn out or keel over during the run.  Best to have a cell phone if you end up needing to call a cab or get a lift to bring your sorry derrier back to the house.  Though hopefully you will do enough of the other preparations to prevent a walk of shame.  
2. ID.  This is for when you do actually keel over.  The ID will save your family and friends the hassle of identifying your body at the morgue.  More likely, it will come in handy if you need to make an emergency purchase and you need proof of identity for when you use a...
3. Credit card.  As will happen from time to time, you will run out of energy and you will need calories.  Keep this on you just in case you need emergency sustenance.  On long run days, I like the high-brow, gourmet products of Hostess and Krispee Kreme.  And the great temple of 7-11 is ubiquitous and known for selling both of these patron saints of excess.   
4. Water.  Some people like the Camelback and some like to hold their bottle.  If you are running longer than an hour, you will need Gatorade.  Do not opt for the zero calorie kind.  If you do, you may need to make that 7-11 intermission.  
5. Food.  If you are unwilling or unable to stop at a convenience store, carrying anything carbohydrate rich will do.  This may be the only time you will eat something sugary.  Though fat has more calories per gram, carbohydrates can get packed quite easily into any baked good.  Once you start gassing out, the food that will snap you out of it the fastest will be a white starch.  This is because it is the simplest food for your body to turn into glucose.  A pastry can have you back to your old self in as little as 15 minutes.  I recommend food for runs longer than 2 hours, as this is the most likely time to bonk.  
6. Toilet paper.  Sometimes you may find yourself needing to drop the kids off without a port.  I try to get this done before a run.  Even if you do, you will run into this problem, as running is a "mechanical laxative."   
7. Vaseline or body lubricant.  Always have this.  Even at the first sign of a little bit of rubbing, apply immediately.  It is the difference between a painful run versus a painful and stinging one.  A shower with a freshly-made rash is an even worse experience, worthy of a Wilhelm Scream.  All that salt caked on and in your skin and hair gets washed off in the shower and into your new rashes.  It is as painful as applying iodine to cuts.  Except these are much larger than cuts and on sensitive areas: your inner thighs, butt crack, nipples and armpits.
8. Camelback.  You will need something to carry items 1-7.  So you might as well have something that is built for carrying water.  I always carried a Camelback for ultra training.  Not only does it carry your water and valuables but the extra weight serves as a great training buffer.  When race day comes, you won't have to worry about any of the aforementioned items; aid stations provide all of them.  Even inmates get a last meal.  Consider your training gear to be like the warm up swing of two or three bats before stepping up to the plate; psychologically you will feel less encumbered and will actually be faster.
4. Exercise the day before.  If you are prepping for the long run, chances are you are working out the day before too.  We distance runners are all the same: we are our own schizophrenic dom-sub couple.  The workout the day before should not kill your legs. The last thing you want is going into a long run with depleted glycogen and overwhelming soreness.  Be sure that your weight day is not an exclusive leg day.  Fellow split trainers, you know what this means.  A little soreness from a couple of leg exercises is okay.  On the extreme, the agony from a leg-day is going to make your run reminiscent to Paths of Glory.  Another option is a swim or a short, intense cardio session.  I like doing interval biking or stairmill.  This kind of cardio kills but does not affect the long run.  This is because interval training does not use the same muscle fiber types or energy pathways as endurance activity.  This same logic applies to why leg strength training is also okay to do.  You should also be lifting weights anyway, you pansy.
5. Carb Load.  A typical endurance athlete will have a diet that is 60% carbohydrates.  You should be eating 67-70% carbohydrates the day before a long run.  You can get away with 60 but you will have a higher likelihood of hitting the wall.  Not hitting the wall - at least not early on - will guarantee a better run.  There should be no reason to overeat so long as you increase the percentage of carbohydrates of a regular daily calorie intake. 

Day Of

1. Diet and calorie intake.  One of my favorite sayings is "the unhealthiest day of a runner is race and long run day."  Feed yourself about 30% of what your daily calorie intake will be for breakfast.  The objective is to get a healthy amount of carbs, some fat to slow the digestion to makeshift a slower carb.  Some protein in your breakfast is for amino acids for gluconeogenesis.  Protein also prevents the benign but consequential muscle catabolism caused by prolonged exercise.  Choose a breakfast similar to oatmeal with cocoa, a scoop of whey protein powder and a tablespoon of olive oil.  Other options are buckwheat pancakes, home fries with eggs or bacon or whole grain cereal with whole milk and a protein shake.  Along with breakfast, you should also caffeinate.
2. Caffeinate.  Drink coffee or some kind of hippie drink with a picture of nature or indigenous person on the label.  If you do not consume caffeine, consider a religion other than Mormonism.  Not only is caffeine good for being energy and triggering production for more of it, but it also has a laxative effect.  If you want to shed some excess weight, caffeine will trigger a nice, healthy bowel movement.  Voila, you are now two pounds lighter.  If you are a huge fiber fan, maybe even five pounds.  Caffeine also has a long half-life and will last you through the strenuous hours ahead.     
3. Prioritize.  Get that run out of the way as quickly as possible.  The longer you wait, the less likely it is to happen or the less time you will have to do it.  Unless you like running during the warmest part of the day, do it almost immediately after breakfast.  A nap can be taken afterwards so you can get re-energized for errands and/or chores.  What a great Sunday this is shaping up to be!  
4. Warm-up.  This should take 15 minutes at the very most.  Start with foam rolling then stretching your problematic areas.  Typically this would be calves, hips and IT Band.   Then warm up your gluteus with some bridges and controlled lunges.  Fire up the core with planks or any static ab exercises.  Repeat your exercises 3 times.  
5. Run.  Your first ten minutes will probably suck.  This is your body trying to figure out what the hell you are doing to it.  If you want more explanation, read the rest of this paragraph.  What your body is doing is switching from readily-available, anaerobic fuel sources.  This would encompass cellular inclusions with fatty acids, glucose and amino acids for fuel.  These are molecules that require little to no oxygen to turn into ATP.  Once you have burned through that fuel within the first 2 minutes, your body goes into panic mode, trying to make more ATP somehow. No matter how in shape you are or how long you have been running, you will always fall into this problem.  It gets better but never fully goes away.  But once the muscle starts understanding that it needs oxygen to catabolize macronutrients to make muscle fuel, you will ease into your long run and enjoy a natural flow.
6. Hydration.  This is the most important part of your run.  Obey the rule that "if you're thirsty you're already dehydrated."  So drink even if you are not thirsty.  A good approach to this is to already know how much water you lose from cardio training.  Weigh yourself after a workout to see how much you lose.  Then assume you run at a slightly less intense pace for your longer training periods.  This means you will drink a little less than what you lose from an hour of more intense cardio training.  
7. Dealing with soreness.  If you are adding to your mileage, you will feel the fire down under towards the end of the run.  Fortunately, there is a way to alleviate this.  Your blood may be pooling, unable to dispose of or neutralize metabolic wastes.  To circulate blood out of your legs, you will need bigger muscle contractions than those provided from a limited running motion.  By doing sets of 20 body weight squats (active stretching), you can get the lactate, creatnine, carbon dioxide and carbonic acid (HCO3) out of the lower extremities.  Your squats should be ass to grass and all the way back up.  The first 5 are just awful and may require holding on to something sturdy.  Do 20, walk for or jog for a minute and then do another set.  Repeat as many times as needed.  You may be surprised by how well this actually works.
8. Post-Run.  Once it is all over, get 20 grams of protein via liquid form and 80 grams of complex carbs.  I like sweet potatoes or two pieces of bread with two tablespoons of hummus.  Maltodextrin or meal replacement carbohydrates also work.  Some people even swear by milk for both the protein and carbohydrates.    
9. Washing your nasty ass.  An ice bath my or may not be necessary.  I have never had much luck with an ice bath reducing DOMS.  Others advocate ice baths.   
1. Do not take a hot shower.  Regardless of whether or not you do an ice bath, never take a hot shower, as it will only increase swelling to what are essentially damaged muscle fibers.    
2. Ice Bath.  If you opt for it then do it before a warm shower. Take a deep breath and just plunge right in.  Fill the bath tub halfway with cold water and then dump about 10 pounds of ice into it.  Think of it as a Polar Bear Run (Courtesy of those plucky Russians) minus the pleasant sauna beforehand.  Set the timer for 20 minutes and good luck.  
3. Epsom salt.  This is the best option and chronic pain patients think so, too.  It works through osmosis and is able to drain out swollen tissue and other metabolic wastes.  This is much more pleasant than the ice bath, arguably more effective and you do not need to empty all of your ice cube trays for it.  
10. Stretch.  These would be a repeat of all the problem areas you did before the run and an addition of all the primary running muscles: quads, hamstrings and butt.  Remember to always foam roll then stretch. Your muscles are still having a ton of neural input to contract (wave summation).  Stretching them would be like pulling a rubber band apart only to have it recoil.  To override the neural impulse to contract, you must override the golgi tendon and muscle spindle.  The only way this can be done is through a preliminary foam roll or massage.  If you are lucky enough to have a cabana boy on stand-by, let him give you the rubdown and whatever else.  It's not my cabana boy so use him however you want.  
11. Nutrition.  This is the day you can go a bit crazier.  You just did an extraordinary amount of cardio.  Feel free to tack on the extra calories.  Use this calculator to see how many more calories you can get away with.  You should skew the calories to 25% fat and protein with 50% carbohydrates.  Protein is for growth and repair.  Fat is essential for hormone production.  More anabolic hormones (e.g., testosterone, somatotropin) means you will have more reason for your body to use new protein to repair the damaged muscles.  And since you just worked out your legs, your body will also be more inclined to make these anabolic hormones.  The bigger the exercised muscle, the more growth hormone (GH) is made.  The more rigorous the exercise, the more hormones and proteins need to be synthesized.  You just did both, so feed your body fat and protein.
12. Rest.  Nap if you need it.  At the end of the day, definitely get more sleep than normal.  This is the only time of the day where GH is made.  Human growth hormone is pivotal in skeletal repair as well as fat catabolism, glucose release and muscle building.  The more sleep, the more GH made.  Like your androgens, the more rigorous the exercise and the larger the muscle, them more need for GH and its functions.  Sleep is also where your body is able to use vitamins and minerals from your diet to donate electrons to free radicals made during your heavy exercise.  There will be more on this in the next section. 

Day After

1. Supplement.  As mentioned, vitamins and minerals obtained from a balanced diet and supplementation will ward off toxic oxygen.  Though you probably eat a lot more than the regular person because of your social-life killing workout regimen, you do go through more vitamins and minerals.  Both are used for biosynthesis processes which you, as an endurance athlete, are operating on well beyond normal capacity.  Supplementing is a good safety against the potential damage from cell turnover and free radical production. The jury is still out on the efficacy of vitamins and minerals but a 5 cents a day is hardly a steep investment.  Hell, your celebratory jaeger bomb and/or coke addiction is many times more expensive.  The best part is you can easily grind up the vitamins and snort them with the rest of your paycheck.  If you're lucky, something has to be in that multivitamin that can enhance the effects of benzoylmethylecgonine.  And I am sure the extra iron will be good for adjusting to your daily nosebleeds. 
2. Diet.  Follow what you did yesterday with a higher emphasis on fats and proteins.  Be careful about a slightly more voracious appetite.  Your run was yesterday so you are only in a slightly heightened state of metabolism.  Your basal metabolic rate is almost back to normal.  Do not overeat and lose the fat loss benefits of your run.      
3. Exercise.  I recommend taking this day off.  Should you be mentally ill enough (me) to exercise the day after your long run, consider an upper body weight weight day or swimming. Some of those same body-weight squats you did during your run should also be included just to prevent blood clotting and increase waste removal.   Consider also going into therapy.  
4. Stretch and foam roll.  This may or may not speed up recovery and decrease DOMS.  It does guarantee better circulation, i.e. waste removal, and will just plain feel good.  

       There is a lot of explanation for these seemingly simple steps.  If you are like any typical runner, your head is thicker than the souls of your Brooks Beasts.  Explanations and science solidify the reasons these steps are necessary to ensuring that your run is something you dread but not avoid.  

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