FIU's rock and roll professor, Armando Tranquilino, teaches all the usual music theory and history courses, but what really caught our attention was a class called "The History of the Beatles." Tranquilino brought a sample lecture to an audience of eager baby boomers — and some of his college students — at a Culture in the City talk in Coconut Grove this past December. The Ph.D. was clad in faded jeans, well-worn black boots, and a nicely cut white shirt that he left untucked under a casual blazer (which, true to rock and roll style, he removed midway through his presentation). Not only did Tranquilino have the gear — a pretty Taylor acoustic guitar and a hefty Rickenbacker bass — but he could play it, too. He played Paul McCartney's exuberant bass line to "I Saw Her Standing There" and exquisitely finger-picked "Blackbird," but his finale — playing along with the immaculate bass line from George Harrison's "Something" — was the real show-stopper. Professor Tranquilino, you rock!