Here is a good indication of the life I lead now that I am in my later 30’s, especially when I’m not with Kim. I spent my Saturday night alone in my apartment drinking beer, watching old episodes of Mythbusters and putting together a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle. That was my entire Saturday night and given the entertainment options available to me on a Saturday night in January in Wilmington, Delaware I think I made the right choice.
For those wondering it took me slightly under 24 hours to singlehandedly finish the jigsaw puzzle. I would have worked faster except that a) beer and Mythbusters really plays with your focus and b) this puzzle had much too much sky. Nothing is more painful than trying to piece together the sky.
This is a good first step on my goal of completing a 3,000 piece puzzle by myself as I was able to notice a few issues with myself. First off, like everyone else on the planet I now have no attention span. I swear to God, after about fifteen minutes of work I was wondering why I hadn’t finished yet. I had completely forgotten how much patience and restraint one must have when working on one of these. The desire to just quit is really strong but I am glad I stuck with it. Once I got going though it became an awful lot of fun and it is nice to see that I completed something this weekend. Next one will be a 1,500 piece puzzle and then I will move on to the real challenge.
Switching gears I will give credit where credit is due and voice my approval for Obama having an hour long question and answer session with the House Republicans and having it all recorded. It was the closest I have ever seen to Question Time in British Parliament where everyone has a chance to essentially yell at the Prime Minister who then has to answer the charges on the fly. When Obama campaigned on change this is one of the things that I was hoping for. This still doesn’t mean that his policies are working or that his focus on health care was completely flawed but at least it is a move in the right direction.
Otherwise there just isn’t much to write about tonight. It’s not like I have a stunning take on the Pro Bowl to discuss. We are entering that dead period in media and culture and sports where football is over, the Oscars are still a month or so away and it is just too damn cold out to go out and do anything. On the plus side this is an Olympic year so in a few weeks I will be able to spend every evening watching curling. Don’t know why but once you start watching you really can’t stop. Plus there is the biathlon and I like any sport that involves skiing really long distances and then firing a gun for no apparent reason.
Best of 120 Minutes: The Spin Doctors may have been the most cursed band in the history of music. I know of no other band that was so derailed by their own popularity. Let me explain. I remember picking up this cassette right before the start of the school year and going, “Wow, there are three amazing songs on here.” I distinctly remember telling guys in my dorm the first week of the semester to watch out for these guys because they were going to be huge. And they were as all three songs started being played on the radio. And played again and again and again. Seemingly every other song that was played was “Two Princes.” By the end of the school year everyone, and I mean everyone, hated the band. They were just completely played out.
The thing is, the band did nothing to get people to hate them. People hated them because the songs that they liked had become so played out they were forced to hate the band by proxy. Listening to their stuff for the first time in like fifteen years you realize that it wasn’t that bad. They probably didn’t deserve our scorn.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Reconstruction”
2) Patty Griffin “Flaming Red”
3) Whiskeytown “Pneumonia”
4) Golden Smog “Blood on the Slacks”
5) Black 47 “Black 47”
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Will it come with Minesweeper?
Just a few State of the Union thoughts from last night. First off, I hate all of the standing and clapping after every sentence. This isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing; it happens during every State of the Union regardless of party. All of the standing ovations for simple statements with no follow up actions just reminds me of the Soviet Politburo. Also, I can’t understand the criticism that the speech was too partisan. Apparently some people believe the State of the Union should be the equivalent of a public reading of a 10-K filing. Overall, I was happy with the tone of the speech and the fact that we are finally getting back to a focus on jobs and the economy, which is something I wanted Obama to do from the start. Whether the policies he mentioned are sensible or not is something I will have to see the details on before I pass judgment. I just want a government that is moving in the right direction and we don’t have that at the moment.
Well, like every other tech geek out there I was glued to my computer yesterday for word of Apple’s latest creation. Now I must admit up front that I am not a fan of Apple. In fact, I’ve never owned a single piece of Apple equipment. I use a Zune for crying out loud. However, I was fond of the old Next machines and used a Mac at times in college so I’m not totally against Steve Jobs. Still, I wanted to see what he had in store this time.
My reaction in a word: Meh.
To start with whoever came up with the name iPad needs to be fired. How they could not see the feminine hygiene jokes coming from a mile away is beyond me. I’m also a little at a loss regarding the connectivity of the device. The cheap version only has Wi-Fi while the higher end has Wi-Fi and AT&T’s network. If you have complaints about AT&T’s network with your iPhone now this will just make everything worse. There is only so much bandwidth on the wireless networks and using this as a movie machine will just eat it up like mad. While Wi-Fi is better you have to ask yourself if you have Wi-Fi why not just use your laptop? That kind of takes out using this at home.
The idea behind this advice is that it is a media machine. It is not meant to be a productivity device or even much of an input device. I assume you could type emails using the onscreen keyboard but it doesn’t seem to be a great experience. What it will be wonderful for is surfing the web and watching video. As a portable browser with a bigger screen than your iPhone it does have a market.
The one area where I think it will fall down though that most don’t expect is as an eBook reader. This is coming from someone who picked up a Kindle this month and will not let it go. There is a huge difference between reading on an LCD screen and reading on the Kindle with electronic ink. I can go through a hundred pages on a Kindle without any eye strain at all. Imagine reading 100 pages on a laptop and the headache that it would give you. The iPad will be in color and can show graphics but for pure text the Kindle will have it beat.
Yes, this is going to be popular and it is another step closer to my finally owning a tricorder. But it is not a game changer or a requirement to own. Just a cool little gadget; that is all.
Well, like every other tech geek out there I was glued to my computer yesterday for word of Apple’s latest creation. Now I must admit up front that I am not a fan of Apple. In fact, I’ve never owned a single piece of Apple equipment. I use a Zune for crying out loud. However, I was fond of the old Next machines and used a Mac at times in college so I’m not totally against Steve Jobs. Still, I wanted to see what he had in store this time.
My reaction in a word: Meh.
To start with whoever came up with the name iPad needs to be fired. How they could not see the feminine hygiene jokes coming from a mile away is beyond me. I’m also a little at a loss regarding the connectivity of the device. The cheap version only has Wi-Fi while the higher end has Wi-Fi and AT&T’s network. If you have complaints about AT&T’s network with your iPhone now this will just make everything worse. There is only so much bandwidth on the wireless networks and using this as a movie machine will just eat it up like mad. While Wi-Fi is better you have to ask yourself if you have Wi-Fi why not just use your laptop? That kind of takes out using this at home.
The idea behind this advice is that it is a media machine. It is not meant to be a productivity device or even much of an input device. I assume you could type emails using the onscreen keyboard but it doesn’t seem to be a great experience. What it will be wonderful for is surfing the web and watching video. As a portable browser with a bigger screen than your iPhone it does have a market.
The one area where I think it will fall down though that most don’t expect is as an eBook reader. This is coming from someone who picked up a Kindle this month and will not let it go. There is a huge difference between reading on an LCD screen and reading on the Kindle with electronic ink. I can go through a hundred pages on a Kindle without any eye strain at all. Imagine reading 100 pages on a laptop and the headache that it would give you. The iPad will be in color and can show graphics but for pure text the Kindle will have it beat.
Yes, this is going to be popular and it is another step closer to my finally owning a tricorder. But it is not a game changer or a requirement to own. Just a cool little gadget; that is all.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Oughts: The Album of the Decade
The Best Disc of the Decade: Wilco “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (2002…kind of)
There are two reasons why this album is the best of the decade. One is what it meant musically. The other is what it meant to the music business.
Musically it is simply a collection of perfect, nonconformist songs. Some songs discard the typical verse chorus verse structure. Others meander along for a while before returning to a central core. Over the course of the disc Wilco breaks from being an Americana band trying to cover Byrds songs and becomes something different. Not a rock band, not Dylan, but something falling in between.
And like Gillian Welch at number two this album ties itself to the most important event of the decade in 9/11. And like Gillian Welch it was not meant to have any connection at all. It is strange that outside of Springsteen’s “The Rising” there really was no music that linked itself to the moment that we all can find ourselves transported back to in a moment and the only moment of my life where I could say that the world changed as I watched television. Over the course of the album Jeff Tweedy sings “Tall buildings shake, voices escape singing sad, sad songs”, songs are titled “War on War” and “Ashes of American Flags” and a distant broadcaster’s voice repeats the radio call signs “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” The album is introspective and simply feels of those months where we all wondered what this new world would be.
For that alone, this would be a top 15 album. It is the story behind the album that makes it the most important disc of the decade.
Prior to this disc Wilco was a well respected but not altogether popular band. They never sold 100,000 copies of an album but toured well and made the label money. They were a music fan’s band in the days of boy bands and Limp Bizkit. Their label gave them the money to create Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and when they saw the product they hated it to the point of dropping Wilco from the label and giving them the rights to the music for free. All because they did not see a hit song in the mix.
So what did Wilco do? They put the album online in fall of 2001 for everyone to hear. Critics and fans alike listened to it and thought it was amazing and could not believe that they could not get it in stores and that no label would release it. I knew a record store that was burning the CD for people who didn’t have a high speed internet connection. Everyone wanted to have a copy of the record. Labels started to get into a bidding war over the rights. Eventually Wilco signed with a label and the album was released commercially.
Here is the fun part. The label that dropped Wilco and the label that resigned them were essentially the same label. Warner Brothers owned both of them. They were paid for the same album twice and their greatest promotion came from releasing the album on their own online.
The music industry as we knew it in the nineties is dead. The labels no longer have control. The artists now have the power. There are flaws in this system to be sure but understand one thing; anything that allows for the creation of art such as this is worth the cost.
There are two reasons why this album is the best of the decade. One is what it meant musically. The other is what it meant to the music business.
Musically it is simply a collection of perfect, nonconformist songs. Some songs discard the typical verse chorus verse structure. Others meander along for a while before returning to a central core. Over the course of the disc Wilco breaks from being an Americana band trying to cover Byrds songs and becomes something different. Not a rock band, not Dylan, but something falling in between.
And like Gillian Welch at number two this album ties itself to the most important event of the decade in 9/11. And like Gillian Welch it was not meant to have any connection at all. It is strange that outside of Springsteen’s “The Rising” there really was no music that linked itself to the moment that we all can find ourselves transported back to in a moment and the only moment of my life where I could say that the world changed as I watched television. Over the course of the album Jeff Tweedy sings “Tall buildings shake, voices escape singing sad, sad songs”, songs are titled “War on War” and “Ashes of American Flags” and a distant broadcaster’s voice repeats the radio call signs “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” The album is introspective and simply feels of those months where we all wondered what this new world would be.
For that alone, this would be a top 15 album. It is the story behind the album that makes it the most important disc of the decade.
Prior to this disc Wilco was a well respected but not altogether popular band. They never sold 100,000 copies of an album but toured well and made the label money. They were a music fan’s band in the days of boy bands and Limp Bizkit. Their label gave them the money to create Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and when they saw the product they hated it to the point of dropping Wilco from the label and giving them the rights to the music for free. All because they did not see a hit song in the mix.
So what did Wilco do? They put the album online in fall of 2001 for everyone to hear. Critics and fans alike listened to it and thought it was amazing and could not believe that they could not get it in stores and that no label would release it. I knew a record store that was burning the CD for people who didn’t have a high speed internet connection. Everyone wanted to have a copy of the record. Labels started to get into a bidding war over the rights. Eventually Wilco signed with a label and the album was released commercially.
Here is the fun part. The label that dropped Wilco and the label that resigned them were essentially the same label. Warner Brothers owned both of them. They were paid for the same album twice and their greatest promotion came from releasing the album on their own online.
The music industry as we knew it in the nineties is dead. The labels no longer have control. The artists now have the power. There are flaws in this system to be sure but understand one thing; anything that allows for the creation of art such as this is worth the cost.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Remind me to never preempt myself
Apologies for my lack of a post last night. I got stuck inside my own thoughts and decided not to write, which are probably the two worst things that I could have done. When I get stuck inside my own head I tend to focus on the worst thing that could happen in the worst case scenario and then spend hours convincing myself that not only could it happen but that it already has happened until I become a quivering mass of anxiety. Writing is one of my releases, one of the few things that can help me get those torrents of thoughts to unleash in a coherent manner, and I kept myself from it. I hate the fact that this is no one’s fault but my own. I need to kick my own ass and get focused on what is most important.
In order to help clear my head and get me back to who I am supposed to be I am just going to list a few questions that have popped into my head over the past few days…
· Has anyone ever bought anything out of a Sky Mall catalog? Every plane has them and we all have flipped through them during a moment where extreme boredom overrides the fear of what people have placed in the seat back pocket before you. Does anyone ever use that for their Christmas shopping?
· Why is there no adult version of Encyclopedia Brown? Do you know what I would give for a novel that features several mysteries to solve with no fear of murder or mayhem other than an opposing gang led by a kid named Bugs? Also, would you want to live in a town where the chief of police puts his ten year old son on the payroll?
· I completely understand the domestic violence is the least funny thing in the world (well, after Carrot Top) but there seems to be at least a glimmer of humor in a headline that includes domestic violence and Gary Coleman. Or maybe I’m just going to hell for even thinking about it.
· Yes, it is true. A school district banned dictionaries because a kid used one to look up a definition of oral sex. First off, I am pretty sure that the main use of dictionaries in schools is look up the definitions of dirty words. I think we all did that. But seriously, is this the right course of action? There’s a dirty word in there! Let’s set them on fire!
· At least they put the State of the Union address on a Wednesday night where it won’t preempt one of my shows. I was sick of having the president get in the way of The Biggest Loser.
· Oh, and could the democrats get their heads out of their own asses for once and do something intelligent? This is killing me. They are now talking about either killing the health care bill or paring it down to the parts that everyone agrees with which is what I recommended back in August when the town halls showed that there was way more anger and resentment towards government sponsored health care than originally anticipated. Add in the fact that now they want to focus on the economy when I said to do that last year and not push health care and you can see why I am disappointed in Obama to say the least. This has been a lackluster first year in office by far.
Top disc of the decade tomorrow. It deserves its own post.
In order to help clear my head and get me back to who I am supposed to be I am just going to list a few questions that have popped into my head over the past few days…
· Has anyone ever bought anything out of a Sky Mall catalog? Every plane has them and we all have flipped through them during a moment where extreme boredom overrides the fear of what people have placed in the seat back pocket before you. Does anyone ever use that for their Christmas shopping?
· Why is there no adult version of Encyclopedia Brown? Do you know what I would give for a novel that features several mysteries to solve with no fear of murder or mayhem other than an opposing gang led by a kid named Bugs? Also, would you want to live in a town where the chief of police puts his ten year old son on the payroll?
· I completely understand the domestic violence is the least funny thing in the world (well, after Carrot Top) but there seems to be at least a glimmer of humor in a headline that includes domestic violence and Gary Coleman. Or maybe I’m just going to hell for even thinking about it.
· Yes, it is true. A school district banned dictionaries because a kid used one to look up a definition of oral sex. First off, I am pretty sure that the main use of dictionaries in schools is look up the definitions of dirty words. I think we all did that. But seriously, is this the right course of action? There’s a dirty word in there! Let’s set them on fire!
· At least they put the State of the Union address on a Wednesday night where it won’t preempt one of my shows. I was sick of having the president get in the way of The Biggest Loser.
· Oh, and could the democrats get their heads out of their own asses for once and do something intelligent? This is killing me. They are now talking about either killing the health care bill or paring it down to the parts that everyone agrees with which is what I recommended back in August when the town halls showed that there was way more anger and resentment towards government sponsored health care than originally anticipated. Add in the fact that now they want to focus on the economy when I said to do that last year and not push health care and you can see why I am disappointed in Obama to say the least. This has been a lackluster first year in office by far.
Top disc of the decade tomorrow. It deserves its own post.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The best game I never saw
Anyone who knows me knows about my love for New Orleans. It is simply my favorite city in the country and probably the world (though Dublin can make quite an argument.) There are very few cities that feel like home to me even after I spend years living there. New Orleans is just a place that makes me feel like I am always at home there and typically I head down there once a year just to reconnect.
Obviously this means that I follow the Saints with interest and consider them to be my second favorite team after the Bears, whose most recent season is not worth discussing. Or at least I can’t discuss it without sobbing uncontrollably. I like the team and the fans and the fact that despite a history of failure everyone keeps on trying to do their best in the hope that this time would be different.
So I was extremely happy to see that my Saints were in the NFC Championship game tonight. However, in continuing with my “never be home” schedule I was stuck on a plane for the entire game. Took off when the game started and got into my car right as the fourth quarter ended. This meant that I was able to listen to the New Orleans announcers call the overtime with the game ending just as I pulled into my garage. One of the most exciting drives of my life.
I can’t tell you if the calls were good or bad. I don’t know if those interference calls were crap or that it wasn’t a catch. I can’t even say if the NFL overtime rules are fair or that Minnesota had enough chances to win the game and just blew it. All I know is that once the kick went through I have never heard such a scream of joy come from announcers. It was just like my reaction when the White Sox made the World Series; just a sudden outburst of hysterical laughter. One of the announcers yelled “Pigs have flown, hell has frozen over, the Saints are in the Super Bowl!” The joy in his voice was contagious.
You are going to hear a lot of talk about how the team has helped New Orleans post Katrina. It is very easy to be cynical about it. I mean, what does a football team have to do with getting a major city to recover from a natural disaster? But I have met a lot of people from New Orleans in my life and they truly have used the Saints as their rallying point. The team was their escape from the challenge of rebuilding and a point of pride for the city. It was why there was a focus on rebuilding the Superdome in that first year. The city needed to point to something and say that we are back. We were knocked down but we got back up. That is what this game means to the city. We are back. We have rebuilt. And I couldn’t be happier.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Freddy Jones Band “The Freddy Jones Band”
2) Rhett Miller “The Believer”
3) Jack Johnson “In Between Dreams”
4) The Jayhawks “Tomorrow the Green Grass”
5) Robbie Fulks “Revenge”
Obviously this means that I follow the Saints with interest and consider them to be my second favorite team after the Bears, whose most recent season is not worth discussing. Or at least I can’t discuss it without sobbing uncontrollably. I like the team and the fans and the fact that despite a history of failure everyone keeps on trying to do their best in the hope that this time would be different.
So I was extremely happy to see that my Saints were in the NFC Championship game tonight. However, in continuing with my “never be home” schedule I was stuck on a plane for the entire game. Took off when the game started and got into my car right as the fourth quarter ended. This meant that I was able to listen to the New Orleans announcers call the overtime with the game ending just as I pulled into my garage. One of the most exciting drives of my life.
I can’t tell you if the calls were good or bad. I don’t know if those interference calls were crap or that it wasn’t a catch. I can’t even say if the NFL overtime rules are fair or that Minnesota had enough chances to win the game and just blew it. All I know is that once the kick went through I have never heard such a scream of joy come from announcers. It was just like my reaction when the White Sox made the World Series; just a sudden outburst of hysterical laughter. One of the announcers yelled “Pigs have flown, hell has frozen over, the Saints are in the Super Bowl!” The joy in his voice was contagious.
You are going to hear a lot of talk about how the team has helped New Orleans post Katrina. It is very easy to be cynical about it. I mean, what does a football team have to do with getting a major city to recover from a natural disaster? But I have met a lot of people from New Orleans in my life and they truly have used the Saints as their rallying point. The team was their escape from the challenge of rebuilding and a point of pride for the city. It was why there was a focus on rebuilding the Superdome in that first year. The city needed to point to something and say that we are back. We were knocked down but we got back up. That is what this game means to the city. We are back. We have rebuilt. And I couldn’t be happier.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Freddy Jones Band “The Freddy Jones Band”
2) Rhett Miller “The Believer”
3) Jack Johnson “In Between Dreams”
4) The Jayhawks “Tomorrow the Green Grass”
5) Robbie Fulks “Revenge”
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Goriddle Gorilla in the Midst
I referenced it in the title of last night’s post but seriously, why the hell hasn’t there been a DVD collection of Great Space Coaster episodes yet? Every other show gets a DVD collection so that I can wallow in my nostalgia for my lost youth so why doesn’t this one? True, it was one of those shows that never made sense as it involved an asteroid, singing kids, and this strange concern that the kids were off in outer space and no one really cared but it was a fun moment of my childhood. I think the most trusted newscaster of my generation really is Gary Gnu.
(Also, I think that ESPN should just show old Baseball Bunch episodes. We need more shots of Tommy LaSorda in a turban.)
Things are a little quiet on the pop culture front at the moment. Various people won Golden Globes but pretty much the only news event that came out of it was that some bloggers referred to some of the actresses as “big” in a more physical sense thus resulting in everyone finally realizing just why women have such horrible body issues. We apparently now exist in a society where Courtney Cox is fat. I’m not sure how that is even possible. Also, is anyone excited for the Oscars this year? I seriously can’t think of any performances or movies that make me want to pay attention before the nominations are announced. No, I haven’t seen Avatar but I watched the Smurfs enough as a kid to have a general sense of what the movie is about.
Also, on the list of things I saw in line at the grocery store that I wish I could unsee, the Octomom did a bikini shoot. Somewhere in this world a man purchased that magazine just to see those photos. I feel very, very sorry for that man.
But really that is basically it. We have had basically a two week ban on pop culture coverage in the media to address the Haiti situation. By the end of next week that story will have fallen off the radar and in a month it will be an afterthought. How 200,000 people dead and 2 million homeless from one momentary event can be an afterthought is shocking but that is the way modern society works. It doesn’t mean we have to think that way though. Try not to be like the news media on this one.
2nd Best Album of the Decade: Gillian Welch “Time (The Revelator)” (2001): Some albums are just born perfect. Every note, every line is the epitome of what the artist can do in that style of music. Sometimes an album is made even more poignant by an event that was not even in the mind of the artist when she created it. This album fits both criteria. Gillian put out a disc that is just sonically perfect and is the epitome of the rebirth of old timey music. But what struck me more is that this album was released in September 2001 and after the events of 9/11 I continued to go back to it as it seemed to put the events of that day in perspective. It wasn’t written for that purpose but that sense of loss and bewilderment and the idea of being wrapped up in events larger than yourself all take hold in these songs. This album is not for everyone, you can’t dance to it but I’ll be damned if there was an album that touched me as much as this one did over the past ten years.
(Also, I think that ESPN should just show old Baseball Bunch episodes. We need more shots of Tommy LaSorda in a turban.)
Things are a little quiet on the pop culture front at the moment. Various people won Golden Globes but pretty much the only news event that came out of it was that some bloggers referred to some of the actresses as “big” in a more physical sense thus resulting in everyone finally realizing just why women have such horrible body issues. We apparently now exist in a society where Courtney Cox is fat. I’m not sure how that is even possible. Also, is anyone excited for the Oscars this year? I seriously can’t think of any performances or movies that make me want to pay attention before the nominations are announced. No, I haven’t seen Avatar but I watched the Smurfs enough as a kid to have a general sense of what the movie is about.
Also, on the list of things I saw in line at the grocery store that I wish I could unsee, the Octomom did a bikini shoot. Somewhere in this world a man purchased that magazine just to see those photos. I feel very, very sorry for that man.
But really that is basically it. We have had basically a two week ban on pop culture coverage in the media to address the Haiti situation. By the end of next week that story will have fallen off the radar and in a month it will be an afterthought. How 200,000 people dead and 2 million homeless from one momentary event can be an afterthought is shocking but that is the way modern society works. It doesn’t mean we have to think that way though. Try not to be like the news media on this one.
2nd Best Album of the Decade: Gillian Welch “Time (The Revelator)” (2001): Some albums are just born perfect. Every note, every line is the epitome of what the artist can do in that style of music. Sometimes an album is made even more poignant by an event that was not even in the mind of the artist when she created it. This album fits both criteria. Gillian put out a disc that is just sonically perfect and is the epitome of the rebirth of old timey music. But what struck me more is that this album was released in September 2001 and after the events of 9/11 I continued to go back to it as it seemed to put the events of that day in perspective. It wasn’t written for that purpose but that sense of loss and bewilderment and the idea of being wrapped up in events larger than yourself all take hold in these songs. This album is not for everyone, you can’t dance to it but I’ll be damned if there was an album that touched me as much as this one did over the past ten years.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Gary Gnu We Need You!
News stories that I have seen this week that make me question the very idea of news….
Story # 1: Critics complain about the actions of Sanjay Gupta and others in Haiti: This one drives me insane. The argument is this: Sanjay Gupta is hired by CNN to act as a reporter but by his actions to work in a hospital after Belgian doctors left due to security concerns he loses his credibility as a reporter by losing his objectivity. While he might lose some of that credibility what he gains by being an outstanding human being so outweighs it that this entire argument is ludicrous. This is not a reporter openly campaigning for a candidate on the air, which is happening much too regularly on both sides. This is someone reporting from a humanitarian crisis who when faced with a situation in which they can provide immediate aid vacates their reporting duties and performs heroic action. Anderson Cooper moving an injured child away from an angry mob is in a similar vein. The fact that anyone can criticize these sorts of actions by claiming that it is some sort of media bias really sickens me.
Story # 2: Cruise ships continue to dock in Haiti: This is one of those cases in which a good intention has gone terribly wrong. One of the major cruise lines (I forget which one and don’t want to blame one needlessly) regularly visits a Haitian port city that was relatively unaffected by the earthquake. They have decided to continue to stop there where they drop off needed supplies as well as have the passengers disembark and spend money, supporting the local economy. All of that is very well and good except for the fact that you therefore have tourists lounging around in hammocks enjoying drinks with colorful umbrellas while a hundred miles away over 100,000 people have died and the rest are homeless and would kill for a bottle of water. If you want to help support the local economy make a large donation to that city but don’t create a tourist trap in the middle of a catastrophe.
Story # 3: Massachusetts senatorial candidate calls Curt Schilling a Yankees fan: Sigh. For a moment there I was able to say that I was proud to be a supporter of the Democratic party. I mean, typically it is something that you say under your breath when in polite company but a year ago it was the cool thing to be. Now the party seems to be a spinning mess of disaster focused on a health care plan that does nothing other than increase the debt while making the health care system even less efficient than it already is. Even in the simplest of races the Democrats screw up. How could you lose the Kennedy’s seat? I can’t even blame the people who voted based on the Schilling comment. I wouldn’t vote for someone who had no idea who one of the most famous athletes in my state was. If you can’t read the sports pages how the hell are you going to be able to read a bill.
Story # 4: Tiger Woods is in a sex rehab clinic in Mississippi: I completely understand the sex rehab thing. After seeing the women he hooked up with and who he left in the process the guy seriously needs help. It’s the whole Mississippi thing that confuses me. I really don’t want to know what sex rehab entails in that state or what you would need to do to merit it. I assume farm animals are involved in both respects.
3rd Best Album of the Decade: Sufjan Stevens “Illinois” (2005): As I’ve mentioned a few times in this countdown one of the things that I have loved about this decade is that I have found a number of artists who have done things so differently that it changes the way I view music. Sufjan Stevens is one of those people. An album that consists solely of songs about the state of Illinois. Every instrument in the world being used. A song about John Wayne Gacy that makes your heart stop. It took me about three hours to listen to this album the first time because I kept hitting replay after every song because I just had to hear it again. Seriously, I have never in my life heard an album quite like this.
Story # 1: Critics complain about the actions of Sanjay Gupta and others in Haiti: This one drives me insane. The argument is this: Sanjay Gupta is hired by CNN to act as a reporter but by his actions to work in a hospital after Belgian doctors left due to security concerns he loses his credibility as a reporter by losing his objectivity. While he might lose some of that credibility what he gains by being an outstanding human being so outweighs it that this entire argument is ludicrous. This is not a reporter openly campaigning for a candidate on the air, which is happening much too regularly on both sides. This is someone reporting from a humanitarian crisis who when faced with a situation in which they can provide immediate aid vacates their reporting duties and performs heroic action. Anderson Cooper moving an injured child away from an angry mob is in a similar vein. The fact that anyone can criticize these sorts of actions by claiming that it is some sort of media bias really sickens me.
Story # 2: Cruise ships continue to dock in Haiti: This is one of those cases in which a good intention has gone terribly wrong. One of the major cruise lines (I forget which one and don’t want to blame one needlessly) regularly visits a Haitian port city that was relatively unaffected by the earthquake. They have decided to continue to stop there where they drop off needed supplies as well as have the passengers disembark and spend money, supporting the local economy. All of that is very well and good except for the fact that you therefore have tourists lounging around in hammocks enjoying drinks with colorful umbrellas while a hundred miles away over 100,000 people have died and the rest are homeless and would kill for a bottle of water. If you want to help support the local economy make a large donation to that city but don’t create a tourist trap in the middle of a catastrophe.
Story # 3: Massachusetts senatorial candidate calls Curt Schilling a Yankees fan: Sigh. For a moment there I was able to say that I was proud to be a supporter of the Democratic party. I mean, typically it is something that you say under your breath when in polite company but a year ago it was the cool thing to be. Now the party seems to be a spinning mess of disaster focused on a health care plan that does nothing other than increase the debt while making the health care system even less efficient than it already is. Even in the simplest of races the Democrats screw up. How could you lose the Kennedy’s seat? I can’t even blame the people who voted based on the Schilling comment. I wouldn’t vote for someone who had no idea who one of the most famous athletes in my state was. If you can’t read the sports pages how the hell are you going to be able to read a bill.
Story # 4: Tiger Woods is in a sex rehab clinic in Mississippi: I completely understand the sex rehab thing. After seeing the women he hooked up with and who he left in the process the guy seriously needs help. It’s the whole Mississippi thing that confuses me. I really don’t want to know what sex rehab entails in that state or what you would need to do to merit it. I assume farm animals are involved in both respects.
3rd Best Album of the Decade: Sufjan Stevens “Illinois” (2005): As I’ve mentioned a few times in this countdown one of the things that I have loved about this decade is that I have found a number of artists who have done things so differently that it changes the way I view music. Sufjan Stevens is one of those people. An album that consists solely of songs about the state of Illinois. Every instrument in the world being used. A song about John Wayne Gacy that makes your heart stop. It took me about three hours to listen to this album the first time because I kept hitting replay after every song because I just had to hear it again. Seriously, I have never in my life heard an album quite like this.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The only way to fly
Sorry for the missed posts the past few days. Between the holiday weekend and travel for work I have been away from the computer a bit more than usual. I’m also taking the week off from the random CDs for the week because they mainly exist for my drive back and forth to work and holiday weeks play havoc on my schedule. I end up spending most of my weekend driving around trying to get to the end of a disc I bought in 1997. At some point I need a break from the musical tastes of my early twenties. Sorry for those who missed my view of the world. I’ll try to make it up to you.
This question hit me today as I was travelling. If you spend as much time in airports as I do you will invariably go past dozens of kiosks selling things like Rosetta Stone language tapes or receipt organizers or magic pens. In all of my years of flying I have never bought anything from one of these stands. In fact, I can’t recall anyone ever standing at one of those stands in the process of buying something. All I ever see are bored, downtrodden sales clerks who must spend their entire day looking at people who ignore them as they rush to flights to go on vacation. It must be the cruelest job in the world. I can’t imagine what it must be like if they are on commission. I would hate it if the Magic Pen guy needs to make ten sales a day in order to make his mortgage payment. Maybe we should all buy something from them next time we are at the airport. Let’s brighten up their day.
The other aspect of flying that I want to get into tonight is the fact that today I got to try out my brand new Amazon Kindle. Yes, it took some cajoling and glowing reviews by people who read even more books than I do but I have broken down and purchased a Kindle after spending a decade dismissing the electric book market. Now I love the way a book feels in my hand and I will always be working my way through some “real” books but I have to say that the Kindle kicks all kinds of ass.
First off, the form factor is amazing. Incredibly thin and light with the next page buttons precisely where they should be. It still feels natural in that you think you are holding a book as opposed to a computer screen. The electronic ink is so much nicer than reading a computer screen and because of the storage on it I no longer have to have a backpack filled with books. It is incredibly easy to download new books and I have to admit that it makes reading fun. For some reason I want to read more books on it just because of the interface.
It’s not perfect though but most of my critiques are nitpicky. Worst one is that not all books, especially new releases, are available. That is a matter of price points and the conversion from physical to electronic media that will be worked out eventually. I’m more annoyed by the fact that when footnotes appear you have to scroll through the page and click on the footnote, which sends you to the end of the document to read the footnote with no easy way to get back to where you were. Given that the authors I like use a lot of informative and humorous footnotes this can become very annoying very quickly. I can’t imagine what it would be like reading David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” on the Kindle. On the plus side you don’t have to lug around a 1,000 page book but managing the 100 pages of footnotes would be a nightmare. Finally, it might just be the book I’m reading but I hate the way the font prints the letter I. Just strikes me as wrong. But when you are complaining about fonts you are basically admitting that you have such high standards that basic human emotions are unobtainable.
So thumbs up on the Kindle and say hi to your local Rosetta Stone salesperson.
4th Best Album of the Decade: Arcade Fire “Funeral” (2004): There is so much one can say about this album. There is the fact that the entire album is about death and loss and grief and ultimately rebirth. There is the fact that the band attacks music from a unique angle: not just the usual art school kids doing music but playing with instrumentation and roles as well. And there is the fact that the band is pure emotion at all times. Watch the video. It is just all out for the entire song. No wonder hockey teams used it as their entrance music.
This question hit me today as I was travelling. If you spend as much time in airports as I do you will invariably go past dozens of kiosks selling things like Rosetta Stone language tapes or receipt organizers or magic pens. In all of my years of flying I have never bought anything from one of these stands. In fact, I can’t recall anyone ever standing at one of those stands in the process of buying something. All I ever see are bored, downtrodden sales clerks who must spend their entire day looking at people who ignore them as they rush to flights to go on vacation. It must be the cruelest job in the world. I can’t imagine what it must be like if they are on commission. I would hate it if the Magic Pen guy needs to make ten sales a day in order to make his mortgage payment. Maybe we should all buy something from them next time we are at the airport. Let’s brighten up their day.
The other aspect of flying that I want to get into tonight is the fact that today I got to try out my brand new Amazon Kindle. Yes, it took some cajoling and glowing reviews by people who read even more books than I do but I have broken down and purchased a Kindle after spending a decade dismissing the electric book market. Now I love the way a book feels in my hand and I will always be working my way through some “real” books but I have to say that the Kindle kicks all kinds of ass.
First off, the form factor is amazing. Incredibly thin and light with the next page buttons precisely where they should be. It still feels natural in that you think you are holding a book as opposed to a computer screen. The electronic ink is so much nicer than reading a computer screen and because of the storage on it I no longer have to have a backpack filled with books. It is incredibly easy to download new books and I have to admit that it makes reading fun. For some reason I want to read more books on it just because of the interface.
It’s not perfect though but most of my critiques are nitpicky. Worst one is that not all books, especially new releases, are available. That is a matter of price points and the conversion from physical to electronic media that will be worked out eventually. I’m more annoyed by the fact that when footnotes appear you have to scroll through the page and click on the footnote, which sends you to the end of the document to read the footnote with no easy way to get back to where you were. Given that the authors I like use a lot of informative and humorous footnotes this can become very annoying very quickly. I can’t imagine what it would be like reading David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” on the Kindle. On the plus side you don’t have to lug around a 1,000 page book but managing the 100 pages of footnotes would be a nightmare. Finally, it might just be the book I’m reading but I hate the way the font prints the letter I. Just strikes me as wrong. But when you are complaining about fonts you are basically admitting that you have such high standards that basic human emotions are unobtainable.
So thumbs up on the Kindle and say hi to your local Rosetta Stone salesperson.
4th Best Album of the Decade: Arcade Fire “Funeral” (2004): There is so much one can say about this album. There is the fact that the entire album is about death and loss and grief and ultimately rebirth. There is the fact that the band attacks music from a unique angle: not just the usual art school kids doing music but playing with instrumentation and roles as well. And there is the fact that the band is pure emotion at all times. Watch the video. It is just all out for the entire song. No wonder hockey teams used it as their entrance music.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Needs more Doc Seversin
I guess I should comment on the whole late night talk show situation as it is one of the few interesting things going on in the pop cultural landscape at the moment. I’ll start off by saying that I really don’t watch the talk shows and I certainly don’t watch them live. Being on the East Coast an 11:30 start time is just too damn late for me. That is really sad but it is just the case. The only show I tend to watch is The Daily Show and even that I watch the rerun of the next day.
Basically NBC screwed up things so royally that one would almost believe that they did it intentionally in a New Coke sort of way. There is really no other way to explain it. In a nutshell, around five years ago when Conan O’Brien was up for a contract renewal he had it written in that he would become the host of the Tonight Show in five years without really anyone informing Jay Leno of this. Surprisingly, Jay Leno spent the next five years upping his game and getting to the point where he was actually momentarily funny. When the date came NBC decided to not buy Conan out of his contract, force Leno off the show but give him his own prime time, five nights a week show. This may go down as one of the worst ideas in television history.
It really isn’t Leno’s fault. I’m not a fan but he was drawing big numbers in the Tonight Show slot and can do the formula in his sleep. The problem is there is no need for a prime time talk show. We have all been trained to have those shows on after the news. By having two on with the news sandwiched in between all you are doing is cannibalizing your own viewers. Your stealing guests and eyeballs and taking original programming on the air and replace it with monologue jokes that will essentially be repeated ninety minutes later. NBC thought that it would save money by doing this but all they were doing was setting up a ratings nightmare.
This brings us to where we are now. They are cancelling Leno’s prime time show and replacing it with about three dozen Law and Order franchises. With Leno under contract NBC was going to give him a 30 minute show before Conan and the Tonight Show. Conan rightfully called bullshit (and is right in claiming that it would ruin the Tonight Show brand) and decided to quit and take his ball elsewhere. Leno will end up back as host of the Tonight Show while Letterman is happy that no one is no longer paying attention to the fact that he slept with half his staff. Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon both have shows for reasons that are inexplicable. Craig Ferguson just happens to be really funny so he escapes unscathed.
I side with Conan on this. He is basically being screwed in the entire deal and did not have a chance to make the show his own. From the very beginning he had this huge Leno shadow hanging over him and now it was going to be made even worse. I hope he gets his chance on another network to have his show, his way.
5th Best Album of the Decade: Josh Ritter “The Animal Years” (2006): I first found out about Josh as he performed as the opening act for The Frames. I don’t know if I had even heard of him before then and if I did it was just as one of about three dozen musicians named Josh. But after one set I was sold that this guy was going to be huge. Everyone compares him to Dylan and Springsteen and for once I don’t consider that to be hyperbole. All you have to do is listen to his lyrics and you know why people make those statements.
Basically NBC screwed up things so royally that one would almost believe that they did it intentionally in a New Coke sort of way. There is really no other way to explain it. In a nutshell, around five years ago when Conan O’Brien was up for a contract renewal he had it written in that he would become the host of the Tonight Show in five years without really anyone informing Jay Leno of this. Surprisingly, Jay Leno spent the next five years upping his game and getting to the point where he was actually momentarily funny. When the date came NBC decided to not buy Conan out of his contract, force Leno off the show but give him his own prime time, five nights a week show. This may go down as one of the worst ideas in television history.
It really isn’t Leno’s fault. I’m not a fan but he was drawing big numbers in the Tonight Show slot and can do the formula in his sleep. The problem is there is no need for a prime time talk show. We have all been trained to have those shows on after the news. By having two on with the news sandwiched in between all you are doing is cannibalizing your own viewers. Your stealing guests and eyeballs and taking original programming on the air and replace it with monologue jokes that will essentially be repeated ninety minutes later. NBC thought that it would save money by doing this but all they were doing was setting up a ratings nightmare.
This brings us to where we are now. They are cancelling Leno’s prime time show and replacing it with about three dozen Law and Order franchises. With Leno under contract NBC was going to give him a 30 minute show before Conan and the Tonight Show. Conan rightfully called bullshit (and is right in claiming that it would ruin the Tonight Show brand) and decided to quit and take his ball elsewhere. Leno will end up back as host of the Tonight Show while Letterman is happy that no one is no longer paying attention to the fact that he slept with half his staff. Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon both have shows for reasons that are inexplicable. Craig Ferguson just happens to be really funny so he escapes unscathed.
I side with Conan on this. He is basically being screwed in the entire deal and did not have a chance to make the show his own. From the very beginning he had this huge Leno shadow hanging over him and now it was going to be made even worse. I hope he gets his chance on another network to have his show, his way.
5th Best Album of the Decade: Josh Ritter “The Animal Years” (2006): I first found out about Josh as he performed as the opening act for The Frames. I don’t know if I had even heard of him before then and if I did it was just as one of about three dozen musicians named Josh. But after one set I was sold that this guy was going to be huge. Everyone compares him to Dylan and Springsteen and for once I don’t consider that to be hyperbole. All you have to do is listen to his lyrics and you know why people make those statements.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
2010 Movie Preview
Time to take a look at what we’ll be seeing at the old Drive-In this year. Or will be picking up through Netflix later. Or just pirating off of some website hosted in the third world. One of those options.
Alice in Wonderland: As done by Tim Burton. I was going to make a joke about how Hollywood apparently has no new ideas and are now just grabbing books from their children’s bedroom at random but Tim Burton doing Alice in Wonderland? That just sounds super cool. Like I need to start taking drugs now to just be in the proper state of mind when it opens in March.
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps: Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas are back with Shia LaBeouf in this tense financial….wait a minute. I am supposed to believe that Shia LaBoeuf is a Wall Street trader? I couldn’t believe that he had a transforming car. Not that I don’t believe in transforming cars just that I couldn’t believe that he would know how to operate a normal one. Not sure if anyone is clamoring for a sequel here or why the movie just couldn’t have a different name. Wall Street 2 just looks completely wrong as a title.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: Movies based on video games always worry me mainly because movies do not come with cheat codes. That and the entire reason that a video game is good is because it is interactive and what makes a movie great is that it isn’t. You can’t marry the two and no video game has a deep enough backstory to really merit a movie.
Iron Man 2: Come for the explosions, stay for Scarlett Johansson as sexy Russian double agent Black Widow. Or come for Scarlett Johansson and stay for Mickey Rourke as Whiplash I really don’t mind. Now that Spider-Man is getting rebooted this might be the best superhero franchise out there.
Sex and the City 2: They’re all in a nursing home by now, right? This is like a pilot for the new version of The Golden Girls. Actually the similarities between the casts of Sex and the City and The Golden Girls are quite remarkable. Four women each, clear similarities between the two (Sarah Jessica Parker and Bea Arthur are, for all intensive purposes, the same character) on a constant search for romance. I think there might be a doctoral thesis in that argument.
Clash of the Titans: I could use this as a starting point to complain about Hollywood co-opting my childhood but I am more excited that this will teach a whole new generation of kids Greek mythology. Watching this movie over and over again helps you in high school when you are forced to read the Odyssey and have to remember all of the various gods. Two problems with a remake though. 1) No Harry Hamlin and 2) the fact that the original was a PG movie that featured nudity really cannot be copied in today’s environment.
The A-Team: Ok, now they are mining my childhood. What no one realizes is that the A-Team is one of those shows that everyone loved but no one actually watched for any reason other than a few random explosions and Mister T saying a few things. It’s not like we cared about the plot or anything. A remake will give us explosions but no Mister T and we can get explosions anywhere. It would be more cost effective to just have people show up at Mister T’s house and have him talk to them for ninety minutes.
The Karate Kid: With Jackie Chan as Pat Morita and Wil Smith’s kid as Ralph Macchio. Sigh. I’m sorry but there is no way that this movie is going to touch the original because Jackie Chan is not Pat Morita. I’m not talking in terms of acting skills though that is the case. The fact is that the story works so much better as having the mysterious old man who viewers know only as the guy who used to work at Mel’s Diner teaching karate than having the martial arts expert teaching karate. I don’t expect Wil Smith’s kid to come from behind to win the tournament. I expect him to win by defeating forty ninjas and jumping off the top of a building and on to a moving bus.
Tron Legacy: If there is anything we need it is more Tron. A lot more Tron. I want a freaking light cycle. It’s been nearly thirty years and they still haven’t made a light cycle. What a bunch of crap. That is science for you. Just can’t get its priorities in order.
6th Best Album of the Decade: Drive-By Truckers “The Dirty South” (2004): This is one of those albums that I did not listen to for years after it first came out. I had always heard great things about DBT, a hard rocking Southern band that had three killer guitarists up front driving song after song. It wasn’t after until I started really listening to their music that I realized just how incredible the songwriting was. The stories that these guys tell are spellbinding. This is the last album from the Jason Isbell era, which is where I felt they peaked.
Alice in Wonderland: As done by Tim Burton. I was going to make a joke about how Hollywood apparently has no new ideas and are now just grabbing books from their children’s bedroom at random but Tim Burton doing Alice in Wonderland? That just sounds super cool. Like I need to start taking drugs now to just be in the proper state of mind when it opens in March.
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps: Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas are back with Shia LaBeouf in this tense financial….wait a minute. I am supposed to believe that Shia LaBoeuf is a Wall Street trader? I couldn’t believe that he had a transforming car. Not that I don’t believe in transforming cars just that I couldn’t believe that he would know how to operate a normal one. Not sure if anyone is clamoring for a sequel here or why the movie just couldn’t have a different name. Wall Street 2 just looks completely wrong as a title.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: Movies based on video games always worry me mainly because movies do not come with cheat codes. That and the entire reason that a video game is good is because it is interactive and what makes a movie great is that it isn’t. You can’t marry the two and no video game has a deep enough backstory to really merit a movie.
Iron Man 2: Come for the explosions, stay for Scarlett Johansson as sexy Russian double agent Black Widow. Or come for Scarlett Johansson and stay for Mickey Rourke as Whiplash I really don’t mind. Now that Spider-Man is getting rebooted this might be the best superhero franchise out there.
Sex and the City 2: They’re all in a nursing home by now, right? This is like a pilot for the new version of The Golden Girls. Actually the similarities between the casts of Sex and the City and The Golden Girls are quite remarkable. Four women each, clear similarities between the two (Sarah Jessica Parker and Bea Arthur are, for all intensive purposes, the same character) on a constant search for romance. I think there might be a doctoral thesis in that argument.
Clash of the Titans: I could use this as a starting point to complain about Hollywood co-opting my childhood but I am more excited that this will teach a whole new generation of kids Greek mythology. Watching this movie over and over again helps you in high school when you are forced to read the Odyssey and have to remember all of the various gods. Two problems with a remake though. 1) No Harry Hamlin and 2) the fact that the original was a PG movie that featured nudity really cannot be copied in today’s environment.
The A-Team: Ok, now they are mining my childhood. What no one realizes is that the A-Team is one of those shows that everyone loved but no one actually watched for any reason other than a few random explosions and Mister T saying a few things. It’s not like we cared about the plot or anything. A remake will give us explosions but no Mister T and we can get explosions anywhere. It would be more cost effective to just have people show up at Mister T’s house and have him talk to them for ninety minutes.
The Karate Kid: With Jackie Chan as Pat Morita and Wil Smith’s kid as Ralph Macchio. Sigh. I’m sorry but there is no way that this movie is going to touch the original because Jackie Chan is not Pat Morita. I’m not talking in terms of acting skills though that is the case. The fact is that the story works so much better as having the mysterious old man who viewers know only as the guy who used to work at Mel’s Diner teaching karate than having the martial arts expert teaching karate. I don’t expect Wil Smith’s kid to come from behind to win the tournament. I expect him to win by defeating forty ninjas and jumping off the top of a building and on to a moving bus.
Tron Legacy: If there is anything we need it is more Tron. A lot more Tron. I want a freaking light cycle. It’s been nearly thirty years and they still haven’t made a light cycle. What a bunch of crap. That is science for you. Just can’t get its priorities in order.
6th Best Album of the Decade: Drive-By Truckers “The Dirty South” (2004): This is one of those albums that I did not listen to for years after it first came out. I had always heard great things about DBT, a hard rocking Southern band that had three killer guitarists up front driving song after song. It wasn’t after until I started really listening to their music that I realized just how incredible the songwriting was. The stories that these guys tell are spellbinding. This is the last album from the Jason Isbell era, which is where I felt they peaked.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Battling Entropy One Room at a Time
Please pray for and give what you can to the people of Haiti. A 7.0 earthquake striking the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with the epicenter ten miles from the capital cannot be a good thing. All of the reports are sketchy right now mainly because the entire communication infrastructure is down. It is going to be a long night for the people in that country and my heart goes out to them.
Switching gears I have done one of those things that I always seem to do at the start of the year and that is get organized. This year has been more severe than in past years. My apartment just became a complete mess over the holidays as all of the boxes from gifts that I bought online continued to pile up and dishes sat in the sink and clothes were left on the nearest flat surface. It was making me depressed to just look at it.
So over the weekend I went into complete cleaning mode. Went room by room picking up and throwing out and placing items in equal piles. It is one of those moments where my OCD actually comes in handy. When I get focused on organization I really can’t stop and at least with this obsession at the end of the day I am left with a clean apartment albeit one in which the cereal boxes are now in alphabet order. I even finally donated the bags of clothes that had been stored in my guest bathroom. The fact that they stayed there for months and months gives an indication of just how often I have guests over.
What I find interesting is just how liberating it is to just have everything clean and organized for once. For the past few days I have just felt happier knowing that I am coming home to a clean apartment. Every night the dishes are done and the mail is put away and all of those little things that can pile up are simply not piling up. I know that some people strive on chaos and disorder and I’ve certainly lived in that environment for many years but sometimes it is nice just to know that everything is where you want it to be.
It also probably helps that I am working out again. Like I said last week I have to lose weight for the wedding and reduce the size of my gut. I’ll have to admit though that I am not starting off tough at all. I am on Easy mode on EA Active which basically has me going through exercises like “stand up without falling over” and “see if you can walk towards the television without having to stop and catch your breath.” I know that I could push myself harder but after several months of no activity at all I’ve decided to start slow and expand from there. Hopefully this will reduce my risk of injury while building the routine of working out every night. Add in my cleaned up diet and I am starting the year on the right foot. Let’s see what happens from here
7th Best Album of the Decade: Cat Power “You are Free”: Ok, I’m not even sure if I can describe Cat Power. I believe that I have mentioned that when listening to this album you should not operate heavy machinery or be near sharp objects. This album can get really, really dark but it is beautiful nonetheless. I’m not sure if anyone this decade made music quite the way that Chan did but she is well worth a listen.
Switching gears I have done one of those things that I always seem to do at the start of the year and that is get organized. This year has been more severe than in past years. My apartment just became a complete mess over the holidays as all of the boxes from gifts that I bought online continued to pile up and dishes sat in the sink and clothes were left on the nearest flat surface. It was making me depressed to just look at it.
So over the weekend I went into complete cleaning mode. Went room by room picking up and throwing out and placing items in equal piles. It is one of those moments where my OCD actually comes in handy. When I get focused on organization I really can’t stop and at least with this obsession at the end of the day I am left with a clean apartment albeit one in which the cereal boxes are now in alphabet order. I even finally donated the bags of clothes that had been stored in my guest bathroom. The fact that they stayed there for months and months gives an indication of just how often I have guests over.
What I find interesting is just how liberating it is to just have everything clean and organized for once. For the past few days I have just felt happier knowing that I am coming home to a clean apartment. Every night the dishes are done and the mail is put away and all of those little things that can pile up are simply not piling up. I know that some people strive on chaos and disorder and I’ve certainly lived in that environment for many years but sometimes it is nice just to know that everything is where you want it to be.
It also probably helps that I am working out again. Like I said last week I have to lose weight for the wedding and reduce the size of my gut. I’ll have to admit though that I am not starting off tough at all. I am on Easy mode on EA Active which basically has me going through exercises like “stand up without falling over” and “see if you can walk towards the television without having to stop and catch your breath.” I know that I could push myself harder but after several months of no activity at all I’ve decided to start slow and expand from there. Hopefully this will reduce my risk of injury while building the routine of working out every night. Add in my cleaned up diet and I am starting the year on the right foot. Let’s see what happens from here
7th Best Album of the Decade: Cat Power “You are Free”: Ok, I’m not even sure if I can describe Cat Power. I believe that I have mentioned that when listening to this album you should not operate heavy machinery or be near sharp objects. This album can get really, really dark but it is beautiful nonetheless. I’m not sure if anyone this decade made music quite the way that Chan did but she is well worth a listen.
Monday, January 11, 2010
News you can't really use
Guess what everybody? Mark McGwire did steroids? I know, can you believe it? I never in my life thought that an adult male could put on twenty pounds of muscle mass in a year and have his most productive baseball years in his late thirties without any help other than clean living and drinking lots of milk. Next thing you are going to tell me is that Sammy Sosa was an arrogant jerk who suddenly became unable to speak English when asked about his alleged steroid use…
Yeah, this is pretty much the biggest non-story of the day. We’ve known for years that he had bulked up on steroids especially after the nonadmittal admission in front of congress. I find it more surprising that it took him this long to just be up front about it. The only reason he is doing so now is because he is going to be a bench coach for the Cardinals. Otherwise he would continue to put up the façade that everything he did was clean. Basically that entire era of baseball is viewed through the lens of steroids and I feel sorry for guys like Frank Thomas and Jim Thome who from all indications took nothing over that time frame. People will never quite appreciate how great their performances were over those years.
(Also, Sarah Palin has taken a position at Fox News. Anyone who didn’t see this coming when she resigned as governor really needs to give up their pop culture card. Fox gains Sarah Palin but loses Simon Cowell. Probably an even trade there.)
In fact, the biggest shocker of the day is Domino’s Pizza admitting that their pizza tastes like cardboard. I mean the Noid must be shaking his head in disbelief at this one. I must admit it is a rather daring advertising campaign to basically admit that what you have been serving for the past twenty five years has been rather crappy but we have now improved it so give it another try. I actually think it might work. And I have to say, the Domino’s Pizza we had in Iceland was quite tasty.
(Yes, we ordered Domino’s one night. Look, there are only like three restaurants in the entire island and at some point you have to turn to fast food.)
Oh, and I may have told this one before but my favorite urban legend ever involves the “Avoid the Noid” campaign. For those too young to remember Domino’s used to blitz the airways reminding us to “Avoid the Noid” with the Noid being a cartoon creature who symbolized bad delivery pizza. Well, they had to dump the catchphrase due to a lawsuit by a Mr. Noid. Mr. Noid, who was rather depressed to begin with, found it psychologically damaging to have everyone be told to avoid him. I am still using this in my continual lawsuits against the producers of “Everybody Hates Chris” and hopefully once we get it to the Supreme Court I’ll finally have my day.
8th Best Album of the Decade: My Morning Jacket “Z” (2005): Most of the members of My Morning Jacket look as though they’ve just walked down a hillside somewhere in Appalachia. This makes sense when listening to Z, a dark, mysterious and occasionally dangerous album. It is one of those discs where you never quite know where it is going to lead you no matter how many times you listen to it.
Yeah, this is pretty much the biggest non-story of the day. We’ve known for years that he had bulked up on steroids especially after the nonadmittal admission in front of congress. I find it more surprising that it took him this long to just be up front about it. The only reason he is doing so now is because he is going to be a bench coach for the Cardinals. Otherwise he would continue to put up the façade that everything he did was clean. Basically that entire era of baseball is viewed through the lens of steroids and I feel sorry for guys like Frank Thomas and Jim Thome who from all indications took nothing over that time frame. People will never quite appreciate how great their performances were over those years.
(Also, Sarah Palin has taken a position at Fox News. Anyone who didn’t see this coming when she resigned as governor really needs to give up their pop culture card. Fox gains Sarah Palin but loses Simon Cowell. Probably an even trade there.)
In fact, the biggest shocker of the day is Domino’s Pizza admitting that their pizza tastes like cardboard. I mean the Noid must be shaking his head in disbelief at this one. I must admit it is a rather daring advertising campaign to basically admit that what you have been serving for the past twenty five years has been rather crappy but we have now improved it so give it another try. I actually think it might work. And I have to say, the Domino’s Pizza we had in Iceland was quite tasty.
(Yes, we ordered Domino’s one night. Look, there are only like three restaurants in the entire island and at some point you have to turn to fast food.)
Oh, and I may have told this one before but my favorite urban legend ever involves the “Avoid the Noid” campaign. For those too young to remember Domino’s used to blitz the airways reminding us to “Avoid the Noid” with the Noid being a cartoon creature who symbolized bad delivery pizza. Well, they had to dump the catchphrase due to a lawsuit by a Mr. Noid. Mr. Noid, who was rather depressed to begin with, found it psychologically damaging to have everyone be told to avoid him. I am still using this in my continual lawsuits against the producers of “Everybody Hates Chris” and hopefully once we get it to the Supreme Court I’ll finally have my day.
8th Best Album of the Decade: My Morning Jacket “Z” (2005): Most of the members of My Morning Jacket look as though they’ve just walked down a hillside somewhere in Appalachia. This makes sense when listening to Z, a dark, mysterious and occasionally dangerous album. It is one of those discs where you never quite know where it is going to lead you no matter how many times you listen to it.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Those darn kids today...
A few years back a company was foolish enough to let me work in their marketing department. The fact that said company is now nearly bankrupt is probably not a coincidence. Seriously, given that all marketers think that their customers are precisely like them it is not entirely wise to try to build a campaign that would make me happy. If I am anything it is non-typical.
One of the things I did learn though is that everything sold is geared towards the needs and desires of males aged 18 to 34. When I was in marketing I was in this age range and therefore felt perfectly happy. As a 36 year old though I have begun to realize that I am no longer a target market. In fact, I have lost touch with the mainstream. Here are a few mainstream media staples that have no bearing on a 36 year olds life.
Saturday Night Live: Taylor Lautner hosted a few weeks ago. I don’t know who Taylor Lautner is. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you if Taylor Lautner is male or female. I know that Taylor Swift, who also hosted, is female and that one of the members of Hanson was named Taylor but I am at a loss here. January Jones also hosted and I know that she is in Mad Men in the same way that I know that the sled’s name is Rosebud: I’ve never seen it but that is what I have been told. It’s not as though SNL is cutting edge; it is about as far from it as is humanly possible. But if I can’t recognize a host I am in trouble. Also, it stopped being funny once they got rid of Adam Sandler and David Spade. And whatever happened to Ellen Cleghorne anyway?
(Oh and do you know who the musical guest was the last time Charles Barkley hosted? Nirvana. Alicia Keys: Definite downgrade.)
American Idol: The new season starts this week! I was vaguely aware of the show when it was that fat guy going up against the Barry Manilow impersonator but I’ve completely lost track of the show. Apparently we no longer have Paula Abdul to kick around anymore, which will cause the show to…to…ok, what was her job anyway? Other than act like a complete whack job? Basically, this show now consists of performers I don’t care about singing songs that I don’t like.
Prince’s 1999: Completely out of date yet no one has come up with another date that we are supposed to party like it’s. I guess I’ll stick with 1999 for the time being.
Two and a Half Men: Actually, this has bearing on no one’s life except for Charlie Sheen. If it wasn’t for his attorneys this show wouldn’t even be on the air.
Jersey Shore: I was remembering this week about the Real World: London cast in which the producers a) sent them on an Outward Bound style team building activity and b) took a safari trip to Africa. Fifteen years later we have the Jersey Shore in which, well, stuff happens. Take basically the worst people you knew in college and have them invite over their douchebag friends and watch the punches fly. This show doesn’t cast negative aspersions on the people of New Jersey; it passes negative aspersions on the human race.
Yes, I have now become a curmudgeonly old man. Sigh.
9th Best Album of the Decade: Josh Rouse “1972” (2003): I was completely unaware of Josh Rouse until a few years ago. Now he is bar none one of my favorite performers. There is just something about his voice that puts me in the right perspective. I can’t really explain it other than there are some performers who you just get. 1972 is his masterpiece with its lush, early 70’s inspired sound. Even in this clip with just Josh and his guitar you can get a sense of how full it is. “We’re going through the changes / and hoping for replacement / until we find a way out of this hole.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Bruce Robison, Charlie Robison, Jack Ingram “Unleashed Live”
2) The Subdudes “Behind the Levee”
3) Liz Phair “Whip Smart”
4) Gillian Welch “Revival”
5) Josh Ritter “In the Dark”
One of the things I did learn though is that everything sold is geared towards the needs and desires of males aged 18 to 34. When I was in marketing I was in this age range and therefore felt perfectly happy. As a 36 year old though I have begun to realize that I am no longer a target market. In fact, I have lost touch with the mainstream. Here are a few mainstream media staples that have no bearing on a 36 year olds life.
Saturday Night Live: Taylor Lautner hosted a few weeks ago. I don’t know who Taylor Lautner is. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you if Taylor Lautner is male or female. I know that Taylor Swift, who also hosted, is female and that one of the members of Hanson was named Taylor but I am at a loss here. January Jones also hosted and I know that she is in Mad Men in the same way that I know that the sled’s name is Rosebud: I’ve never seen it but that is what I have been told. It’s not as though SNL is cutting edge; it is about as far from it as is humanly possible. But if I can’t recognize a host I am in trouble. Also, it stopped being funny once they got rid of Adam Sandler and David Spade. And whatever happened to Ellen Cleghorne anyway?
(Oh and do you know who the musical guest was the last time Charles Barkley hosted? Nirvana. Alicia Keys: Definite downgrade.)
American Idol: The new season starts this week! I was vaguely aware of the show when it was that fat guy going up against the Barry Manilow impersonator but I’ve completely lost track of the show. Apparently we no longer have Paula Abdul to kick around anymore, which will cause the show to…to…ok, what was her job anyway? Other than act like a complete whack job? Basically, this show now consists of performers I don’t care about singing songs that I don’t like.
Prince’s 1999: Completely out of date yet no one has come up with another date that we are supposed to party like it’s. I guess I’ll stick with 1999 for the time being.
Two and a Half Men: Actually, this has bearing on no one’s life except for Charlie Sheen. If it wasn’t for his attorneys this show wouldn’t even be on the air.
Jersey Shore: I was remembering this week about the Real World: London cast in which the producers a) sent them on an Outward Bound style team building activity and b) took a safari trip to Africa. Fifteen years later we have the Jersey Shore in which, well, stuff happens. Take basically the worst people you knew in college and have them invite over their douchebag friends and watch the punches fly. This show doesn’t cast negative aspersions on the people of New Jersey; it passes negative aspersions on the human race.
Yes, I have now become a curmudgeonly old man. Sigh.
9th Best Album of the Decade: Josh Rouse “1972” (2003): I was completely unaware of Josh Rouse until a few years ago. Now he is bar none one of my favorite performers. There is just something about his voice that puts me in the right perspective. I can’t really explain it other than there are some performers who you just get. 1972 is his masterpiece with its lush, early 70’s inspired sound. Even in this clip with just Josh and his guitar you can get a sense of how full it is. “We’re going through the changes / and hoping for replacement / until we find a way out of this hole.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Bruce Robison, Charlie Robison, Jack Ingram “Unleashed Live”
2) The Subdudes “Behind the Levee”
3) Liz Phair “Whip Smart”
4) Gillian Welch “Revival”
5) Josh Ritter “In the Dark”
Thursday, January 07, 2010
2009: The Year in Books
I read a lot of books. Or at least I think I read a lot of books. Reading 28 books in one year is more than average but probably not by that many standard deviations. I might make it a resolution to read a book a week, which would be a fun challenge. Anyway, here are some of the 28 books that graced my nightstand this year with some comments.
(Oh and for those wondering I did not read a book on pro wrestling this year. Haven’t had that happen in a long time.)
Henry V by William Shakespeare: I have continued in my tradition of reading one Shakespeare play a year and have now completed the Henriad. I like this play, mainly because I like any play that features a lot of battles and patriotic speeches. Funny how I never recall hearing about King Henry threatening to rape and pillage a town if they did not surrender in some of my previous studies nor do I understand why half the play is in really bad French. If there is one thing that I am proud of it is the fact that I can read Shakespeare without needing to look at the notes every two seconds.
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper: I started reading Tropper last year after hearing many comparisons to Nick Hornby. This is easily his best book about a family coming together after death and divorce and then splintering again. Funny and compelling and one that I recommend.
Generation A by Douglas Coupland: I’ve read pretty much everything that Douglas has ever written including a few really bad books. This one falls in the middle of the pack for him. The overarching story about bees disappearing from the Earth and how that is interrelated with anti-depressants and stories is rather interesting. The continual interlacing of short stories into the novel completely ruins the flow though.
Bro on the Go by Barney Stinson: Life lessons for today’s active bro. In a word: awesome.
Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman: I’ve mentioned it many times before but it always bears repeating: I would really like to have Chuck Klosterman’s job. He just sits around and writes pieces examining pop culture from this detached, slightly cynical viewpoint. It would be like someone actually paying me to blog. Let’s face it, I could write long essays discussing the merits of Ralph Sampson and ABBA as well.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane: Read the book before the movie comes out. This is a great thriller that actually keeps you guessing the entire time as to what reality really is. Occasionally it is nice to read a book that you just cannot put down and this is one of those books. Really highly recommended.
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby: In what can be considered almost a companion to High Fidelity Nick delves once again into the world of music fandom. What does it mean to know everything about an artist? What does it say about me that I will speak for hours on end on the merits of Jeff Buckley and will go and see a band just because his former drummer is playing in it? Why are people drawn to defining their life via the creations of someone that they will never meet and who didn’t have them in mind during the process of creation? Great book.
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer: The sixth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy and the first written since the death of Douglas Adams. I had really mixed emotions about this book given that I copied most of my writing style from Douglas Adams. On the one hand, I was happy to see the characters one more time and appearing in a book with an actual plot for once. But it just didn’t have the same humor and pure joy of the absurd that Douglas’ work had and I really wasn’t a fan of the ending. Arthur Dent deserves a better fate in the universe.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: Teaches you one important lesson: Do not go into the Alaskan wilderness alone. Ever. Especially if you’ve decided to change your last name to Supertramp.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn: This book is about circus geeks as opposed to geeks like me. That almost amounts to false advertising. Any novel that has at its core a couple that ingests as many chemicals as possible in order to have children that could serve as circus geeks is bound to be interesting and this one is definitely unlike any other that I can recall. It’s not for everyone but I guarantee that you will never forget it.
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson: Probably the best book I read all year due to some amazing language. The book is incredibly poetic and the words just seem to float from place to place as the characters drift through time. A hauntingly beautiful book that Kim introduced me to.
This is Water by David Foster Wallace: I miss DFW. His death cost my generation its most talented writer. He left us this, his graduation speech from a few years ago. Present it to your favorite graduate to make him think. Really, really think.
I Love You Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle: Yes, the movie sucked. But the book is surprisingly decent. Not great, but decent. Any resemblance between this novel and my high school years is purely coincidental. For one thing, I don’t recall Hayden Panniterrie attending my high school.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson: I may have read this book for the title alone. It’s actually a very readable analysis of the broad issues of science from the beginnings of the universe and the structure of matter to evolution and what makes us who we are. It’s not technical and Bryson is a joy to read so if you want to find out more about this world that we find ourselves in this is a good place to start.
10th Best Album of the Decade: The New Pornographers “Challengers” (2007): You have to love Canadian supergroups made up of people from bands you have never heard of. Neko Case is the most popular person in the group and not too many people other than me know about her. They are simply the best power pop group around right now. No one can touch them. Plus, as this video shows, you just can’t match the cuteness that is Kathryn Calder.
(Oh and for those wondering I did not read a book on pro wrestling this year. Haven’t had that happen in a long time.)
Henry V by William Shakespeare: I have continued in my tradition of reading one Shakespeare play a year and have now completed the Henriad. I like this play, mainly because I like any play that features a lot of battles and patriotic speeches. Funny how I never recall hearing about King Henry threatening to rape and pillage a town if they did not surrender in some of my previous studies nor do I understand why half the play is in really bad French. If there is one thing that I am proud of it is the fact that I can read Shakespeare without needing to look at the notes every two seconds.
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper: I started reading Tropper last year after hearing many comparisons to Nick Hornby. This is easily his best book about a family coming together after death and divorce and then splintering again. Funny and compelling and one that I recommend.
Generation A by Douglas Coupland: I’ve read pretty much everything that Douglas has ever written including a few really bad books. This one falls in the middle of the pack for him. The overarching story about bees disappearing from the Earth and how that is interrelated with anti-depressants and stories is rather interesting. The continual interlacing of short stories into the novel completely ruins the flow though.
Bro on the Go by Barney Stinson: Life lessons for today’s active bro. In a word: awesome.
Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman: I’ve mentioned it many times before but it always bears repeating: I would really like to have Chuck Klosterman’s job. He just sits around and writes pieces examining pop culture from this detached, slightly cynical viewpoint. It would be like someone actually paying me to blog. Let’s face it, I could write long essays discussing the merits of Ralph Sampson and ABBA as well.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane: Read the book before the movie comes out. This is a great thriller that actually keeps you guessing the entire time as to what reality really is. Occasionally it is nice to read a book that you just cannot put down and this is one of those books. Really highly recommended.
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby: In what can be considered almost a companion to High Fidelity Nick delves once again into the world of music fandom. What does it mean to know everything about an artist? What does it say about me that I will speak for hours on end on the merits of Jeff Buckley and will go and see a band just because his former drummer is playing in it? Why are people drawn to defining their life via the creations of someone that they will never meet and who didn’t have them in mind during the process of creation? Great book.
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer: The sixth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy and the first written since the death of Douglas Adams. I had really mixed emotions about this book given that I copied most of my writing style from Douglas Adams. On the one hand, I was happy to see the characters one more time and appearing in a book with an actual plot for once. But it just didn’t have the same humor and pure joy of the absurd that Douglas’ work had and I really wasn’t a fan of the ending. Arthur Dent deserves a better fate in the universe.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: Teaches you one important lesson: Do not go into the Alaskan wilderness alone. Ever. Especially if you’ve decided to change your last name to Supertramp.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn: This book is about circus geeks as opposed to geeks like me. That almost amounts to false advertising. Any novel that has at its core a couple that ingests as many chemicals as possible in order to have children that could serve as circus geeks is bound to be interesting and this one is definitely unlike any other that I can recall. It’s not for everyone but I guarantee that you will never forget it.
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson: Probably the best book I read all year due to some amazing language. The book is incredibly poetic and the words just seem to float from place to place as the characters drift through time. A hauntingly beautiful book that Kim introduced me to.
This is Water by David Foster Wallace: I miss DFW. His death cost my generation its most talented writer. He left us this, his graduation speech from a few years ago. Present it to your favorite graduate to make him think. Really, really think.
I Love You Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle: Yes, the movie sucked. But the book is surprisingly decent. Not great, but decent. Any resemblance between this novel and my high school years is purely coincidental. For one thing, I don’t recall Hayden Panniterrie attending my high school.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson: I may have read this book for the title alone. It’s actually a very readable analysis of the broad issues of science from the beginnings of the universe and the structure of matter to evolution and what makes us who we are. It’s not technical and Bryson is a joy to read so if you want to find out more about this world that we find ourselves in this is a good place to start.
10th Best Album of the Decade: The New Pornographers “Challengers” (2007): You have to love Canadian supergroups made up of people from bands you have never heard of. Neko Case is the most popular person in the group and not too many people other than me know about her. They are simply the best power pop group around right now. No one can touch them. Plus, as this video shows, you just can’t match the cuteness that is Kathryn Calder.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Will Charlie Junior still get to wear a headset at Arrowhead?
Reason #537 Why I am glad that I no longer live in Kansas City: Charlie Weis is going to be named offensive coordinator of the Chiefs. Well, at least they got the offensive portion right. I don’t think there is enough barbecue in Kansas City to please that man. Plus, at least we now know who is going to be drafting Jimmy Claussen.
Some interesting comments on the resolutions post and one that I want to touch on. I’ve never even thought that it was an option for me to stop improving. Getting married makes me want to be better as there is now someone else in the picture. One of the many things I love about Kim is that she makes me want to be the best person that I could possibly be. I always kind of thought that was the point of relationships: to become better as a couple than you were as individuals.
That said, it is just part of my personality that I must always try to accomplish something. It bothers me that there are books that I haven’t read or skills that I don’t have. I consider myself lucky in that my pursuits have always been intellectual over the athletic. If my life was basketball I would be at the point where every year I would be getting slightly worse at the game I love. Instead I think that my best years are ahead of me. There are so many opportunities out there and so many Shakespeare plays to read and novels to write.
On that note, I am searching for my next January challenge book, which will also be the first book read on my brand new Kindle, and I am opening it up for suggestions. The idea of the challenge book is that in January I read one of the classics (best defined as a book that has Cliff Notes written for it) for the enlightenment, the challenge and the fact that it is too cold to do anything outside so I might as well stay in and read. List some of your favorites in the comments. I’ll probably post the list of books I read in 2009 tomorrow as well as some synopsis. I’ve been keeping track of every book that I have read since 1998 and, wow, that is an awful lot of my life that has been catalogued.
Last bit, congrats to Andre Dawson for making the Hall of Fame. As a kid Andre was my absolute favorite baseball player. Not when he was with the Cubs though. I was a fan from back in the Expos days even getting my parents to take me to a Cubs – Expos game just to see him play. He was just a top of the line outfielder in the field and at the plate and while some of his numbers aren’t as strong when compared to the steroid era he certainly belongs in the Hall. For once they’ve made a good choice.
11th Best Album of the Decade: The Polyphonic Spree “Together We’re Heavy” (2004): In a perfect world The Polyphonic Spree would be the band for my wedding. That said if I had my way we would march down the aisle through an honor guard of Imperial Stormtroopers so I doubt that I will be placed in charge of wedding planning. Still, this is one of the first in a theme on the Top 15 list, which is the band that breaks all the rules. You aren’t supposed to have a twenty plus member band featuring a nine person choir and a harpist. You can’t take the stage in multi-colored choir robes looking like a bizarre cult. You can’t have all your songs about how awesome the sun is. But that is The Polyphonic Spree and I love them for it.
Some interesting comments on the resolutions post and one that I want to touch on. I’ve never even thought that it was an option for me to stop improving. Getting married makes me want to be better as there is now someone else in the picture. One of the many things I love about Kim is that she makes me want to be the best person that I could possibly be. I always kind of thought that was the point of relationships: to become better as a couple than you were as individuals.
That said, it is just part of my personality that I must always try to accomplish something. It bothers me that there are books that I haven’t read or skills that I don’t have. I consider myself lucky in that my pursuits have always been intellectual over the athletic. If my life was basketball I would be at the point where every year I would be getting slightly worse at the game I love. Instead I think that my best years are ahead of me. There are so many opportunities out there and so many Shakespeare plays to read and novels to write.
On that note, I am searching for my next January challenge book, which will also be the first book read on my brand new Kindle, and I am opening it up for suggestions. The idea of the challenge book is that in January I read one of the classics (best defined as a book that has Cliff Notes written for it) for the enlightenment, the challenge and the fact that it is too cold to do anything outside so I might as well stay in and read. List some of your favorites in the comments. I’ll probably post the list of books I read in 2009 tomorrow as well as some synopsis. I’ve been keeping track of every book that I have read since 1998 and, wow, that is an awful lot of my life that has been catalogued.
Last bit, congrats to Andre Dawson for making the Hall of Fame. As a kid Andre was my absolute favorite baseball player. Not when he was with the Cubs though. I was a fan from back in the Expos days even getting my parents to take me to a Cubs – Expos game just to see him play. He was just a top of the line outfielder in the field and at the plate and while some of his numbers aren’t as strong when compared to the steroid era he certainly belongs in the Hall. For once they’ve made a good choice.
11th Best Album of the Decade: The Polyphonic Spree “Together We’re Heavy” (2004): In a perfect world The Polyphonic Spree would be the band for my wedding. That said if I had my way we would march down the aisle through an honor guard of Imperial Stormtroopers so I doubt that I will be placed in charge of wedding planning. Still, this is one of the first in a theme on the Top 15 list, which is the band that breaks all the rules. You aren’t supposed to have a twenty plus member band featuring a nine person choir and a harpist. You can’t take the stage in multi-colored choir robes looking like a bizarre cult. You can’t have all your songs about how awesome the sun is. But that is The Polyphonic Spree and I love them for it.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so
In order to get started on the weight loss resolution I did get back into the exercise mode today by doing my twenty minutes of yoga. Two things of note. It is really sad when twenty minutes of yoga, which includes two minutes of just standing still and breathing deeply, leaves me completely out of breath. Also, I am extremely upset that the Warrior pose does not involve my grabbing the ring ropes and shaking them up and down repeatedly. Complete false advertising there by the yoga establishment if you ask me.
Strangest thing that I read all day: The Johnson and Johnson heiress who died at 30 yesterday was the fiancée of Tila Tequila. Now it is difficult enough to logically comprehend a sentence that includes heiress, fiancée and Tila Tequila. Then add in the fact that even though 90 percent of my life is pop culture even I didn’t know about this engagement, relationship or the fact that there was a Johnson and Johnson heir out there. Want to hear something even worse? Tila was twittering about this as she was dying. Because remember kids, heartfelt grief is best expressed in 140 characters or less.
A few more reality show notes to pass along. I did watch part of the premiere episode of this season of The Biggest Loser. The first episode is always kind of a mixed bag as I can feel happy that all the contestants are heavier than me while knowing that at least one hour of the show is going to be devoted to contestants crying about their weight. By the end of the show I have to watch contestants in better shape than I am while I cry about being a fat slob. Have to admit the show does have a very noticeable progression throughout the season. What still bothers me about the show is that every single person on the show needs to lose weight and within the first hour four people had been booted off the ranch. That is rather cruel. You go through this entire tryout period where you admit that you are obese and need help and once you finally get there you are sent home and given a pint of Ben and Jerry’s as a parting gift. No show is that cruel.
Well, except for the Bachelor though I did not watch that season premiere. Ooh, the bachelor is a pilot, which is great because that means he will never be home. Never got into this show though I am so hoping for a second season of More to Love. It is the perfect merger of the Bachelor and The Biggest Loser. (Oh, and Luke and Tali from More to Love are no longer together. What a surprise. I told him he should have chosen Mandy.)
12th Best Album of the Decade: The Frames “Burn the Maps” (2005): I don’t think I have to say anything more about my fandom of Glen Hansard and The Frames. It’s bombastic Irish rock in the best possible way. Even a song like Keepsake, which is about leaving your house, breaking the key in the lock, and setting the whole place on fire. The raw energy in these songs is just amazing. Probably my favorite band of the decade.
Strangest thing that I read all day: The Johnson and Johnson heiress who died at 30 yesterday was the fiancée of Tila Tequila. Now it is difficult enough to logically comprehend a sentence that includes heiress, fiancée and Tila Tequila. Then add in the fact that even though 90 percent of my life is pop culture even I didn’t know about this engagement, relationship or the fact that there was a Johnson and Johnson heir out there. Want to hear something even worse? Tila was twittering about this as she was dying. Because remember kids, heartfelt grief is best expressed in 140 characters or less.
A few more reality show notes to pass along. I did watch part of the premiere episode of this season of The Biggest Loser. The first episode is always kind of a mixed bag as I can feel happy that all the contestants are heavier than me while knowing that at least one hour of the show is going to be devoted to contestants crying about their weight. By the end of the show I have to watch contestants in better shape than I am while I cry about being a fat slob. Have to admit the show does have a very noticeable progression throughout the season. What still bothers me about the show is that every single person on the show needs to lose weight and within the first hour four people had been booted off the ranch. That is rather cruel. You go through this entire tryout period where you admit that you are obese and need help and once you finally get there you are sent home and given a pint of Ben and Jerry’s as a parting gift. No show is that cruel.
Well, except for the Bachelor though I did not watch that season premiere. Ooh, the bachelor is a pilot, which is great because that means he will never be home. Never got into this show though I am so hoping for a second season of More to Love. It is the perfect merger of the Bachelor and The Biggest Loser. (Oh, and Luke and Tali from More to Love are no longer together. What a surprise. I told him he should have chosen Mandy.)
12th Best Album of the Decade: The Frames “Burn the Maps” (2005): I don’t think I have to say anything more about my fandom of Glen Hansard and The Frames. It’s bombastic Irish rock in the best possible way. Even a song like Keepsake, which is about leaving your house, breaking the key in the lock, and setting the whole place on fire. The raw energy in these songs is just amazing. Probably my favorite band of the decade.
Monday, January 04, 2010
You say you want a resolution
I am going to keep with tradition and post my New Year’s Resolutions. It worked out rather well last year. There is something about posting your goals for everyone to see that makes you feel required to do everything possible to accomplish them. Plus, it just makes me feel better to know that I am starting the year with a list of ten things that I must accomplish. Here we go.
Resolution # 1: Get my weight down to under 190 pounds: Ok, I had this resolution last year and I failed. But this year I really need to accomplish it. For one thing, I’m not getting any younger and carrying excess weight is just going to get worse and worse for me healthwise. But more importantly I have a wedding to prepare for and I have to do something to make all in attendance not wonder exactly how I ended up with someone as amazing as Kim. Well, they’ll all be thinking that anyway but at least my weight will not be a factor. In a perfect world I’ll be walking down the aisle lifting up my shirt to show off my six pack abs. (Ok, maybe I’m watching a few too many episodes of Jersey Shore.)
Resolution # 2: Be more attentive: I used to be the king of multi-tasking. I could watch TV, surf the web, run equations and hold a conversation all at the same time. Now I can barely do one thing at a time yet I haven’t done anything in my day to day operations to account for this. The perfect example is that I will be talking to Kim on the phone and surfing the web at the same time and it becomes readily apparent that I am not listening to anything she says. This is made all the more worse by the fact that I have the horrible habit of saying “Yes” and “Uh huh” during any lull in a conversation when I haven’t been paying attention or even understand a single world that has been said over the past minute. This is one of those habits that I just simply need to break. So I vow to be more attentive in conversations this year.
Resolution # 3: Complete a 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle by myself: I have one sitting in my living room at this moment and it has been taunting me for the past year. I just feel the urge to try something extremely complex, time consuming and utterly meaningless just to see if I can do it. Plus, it will help me relax in what I assume is going to be an extremely busy year.
Resolution # 4: Have breakfast every day: And I mean a real breakfast. A granola bar or a bagel will not count. Everything I have ever read about staying healthy and losing weight emphasizes how important it is to have breakfast. I pretty much never have breakfast and have been living this way for most of my life. Well, at some point we all have to grow up and become adults and start our day with a good healthy breakfast. And speaking of starting your day…
Resolution # 5: Get to work earlier: It is nice that I work in an office where I have some flexibility in my start time as I am simply not an early riser. Or at least I am not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going and I have set my schedule to take advantage of that so I don’t start my workday in a state where typing in my password is about all I can accomplish for the first half hour. But, I still think I can shift my schedule forward if just by getting out of bed when my alarm goes off instead of hitting snooze time after time. I really feel that this slight change in schedule will make my life so much better.
Resolution # 6: Learn to cook to the point that I can make dinner for Kim: Every year I say that I am going to learn to cook but I never quite get there. Mainly because I am cooking for me and, well, when you have spent so many years eating processed foods due to convenience it is tough to break the habit. Now I have someone in my life who makes me want to improve myself in every way and this is one of those ways. Kim does the cooking when we are together and while that is awesome I feel the need to help. My big goal is to be able to cook for her, single handedly, one of the meals in John Besh’s cookbook “My New Orleans” and have her enjoy it. Tall order but it should be fun trying.
Resolution # 7: Reader’s Choice: This worked out well last year so I am trying it again. What do you want me to accomplish in 2010? What lofty goal or comedic endeavor should I undertake? The only limit is your imagination. Post your ideas in the comments and I will choose the best, or quite possibly only, suggestion.
Resolution # 8: Have 100 people read the blog in one day: Usually I have a writing related goal with regards to completing a book such as writing a novel or a collection of short pieces or the best of the blog. The thing is that takes a lot of time and with work and wedding planning and losing weight and everything else in my day to day existence I just don’t know if I have enough time for something that big this year. But, I certainly plan to keep blogging and if this is going to be my creative outlet I might as well make it the best I can be. Last year I aimed for 50 people and reached it several times. This time I’m going for 100 unique hits in a single day. For that to happen someone must read the post and link it or email it to their friends. I will have to write something clever enough so that people who have never met me will read it. Big challenge but I might be able to pull it off.
Resolution # 9: Expand my musical tastes: For someone with a CD collection the size of mine my tastes are really, really narrow. For the past few years I have picked up nothing outside of the Alt-Country genre and I have some huge gaps. No jazz or blues really, even those by the classics. No Miles Davis or John Coltrane or any of the other legends. If what is being released now doesn’t speak to me (and I’ve reached the age where popular music is not aimed for my target market) I think I might as well explore the past. Hell, I might as well pick up some old school punk while I am at it and listen to the stuff that scared me when I was a kid growing up.
Resolution # 10: Prepare to be the best husband that I can be: It is so strange to think of myself in that term. Husband. All my life I have searched for the woman of my dreams but I have never really focused on what it will mean to be a husband. That is what this last resolution is about. Searching myself to realize what I must do in order to be the best that I can possibly be for Kim. We’ll work to have the wedding we want and the life that we want but I will have to realize that I will be changing from an I to a we. And trust me, I can’t wait for that day.
13th Best Album of the Decade: Rufus Wainwright “Want One” (2003): I became a Rufus fan in a real roundabout way. People who knew that I was a huge Jeff Buckley fan kept on telling me to listen to Rufus because he also sung a version of Halleluiah and was using Jeff’s rhythm section for his band. I also knew enough of his background (the son of Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle) to know that he was worth a listen. I don’t think that I ever anticipated to hear a baroque pop masterpiece like Want One. Really, really stunning.
Resolution # 1: Get my weight down to under 190 pounds: Ok, I had this resolution last year and I failed. But this year I really need to accomplish it. For one thing, I’m not getting any younger and carrying excess weight is just going to get worse and worse for me healthwise. But more importantly I have a wedding to prepare for and I have to do something to make all in attendance not wonder exactly how I ended up with someone as amazing as Kim. Well, they’ll all be thinking that anyway but at least my weight will not be a factor. In a perfect world I’ll be walking down the aisle lifting up my shirt to show off my six pack abs. (Ok, maybe I’m watching a few too many episodes of Jersey Shore.)
Resolution # 2: Be more attentive: I used to be the king of multi-tasking. I could watch TV, surf the web, run equations and hold a conversation all at the same time. Now I can barely do one thing at a time yet I haven’t done anything in my day to day operations to account for this. The perfect example is that I will be talking to Kim on the phone and surfing the web at the same time and it becomes readily apparent that I am not listening to anything she says. This is made all the more worse by the fact that I have the horrible habit of saying “Yes” and “Uh huh” during any lull in a conversation when I haven’t been paying attention or even understand a single world that has been said over the past minute. This is one of those habits that I just simply need to break. So I vow to be more attentive in conversations this year.
Resolution # 3: Complete a 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle by myself: I have one sitting in my living room at this moment and it has been taunting me for the past year. I just feel the urge to try something extremely complex, time consuming and utterly meaningless just to see if I can do it. Plus, it will help me relax in what I assume is going to be an extremely busy year.
Resolution # 4: Have breakfast every day: And I mean a real breakfast. A granola bar or a bagel will not count. Everything I have ever read about staying healthy and losing weight emphasizes how important it is to have breakfast. I pretty much never have breakfast and have been living this way for most of my life. Well, at some point we all have to grow up and become adults and start our day with a good healthy breakfast. And speaking of starting your day…
Resolution # 5: Get to work earlier: It is nice that I work in an office where I have some flexibility in my start time as I am simply not an early riser. Or at least I am not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going and I have set my schedule to take advantage of that so I don’t start my workday in a state where typing in my password is about all I can accomplish for the first half hour. But, I still think I can shift my schedule forward if just by getting out of bed when my alarm goes off instead of hitting snooze time after time. I really feel that this slight change in schedule will make my life so much better.
Resolution # 6: Learn to cook to the point that I can make dinner for Kim: Every year I say that I am going to learn to cook but I never quite get there. Mainly because I am cooking for me and, well, when you have spent so many years eating processed foods due to convenience it is tough to break the habit. Now I have someone in my life who makes me want to improve myself in every way and this is one of those ways. Kim does the cooking when we are together and while that is awesome I feel the need to help. My big goal is to be able to cook for her, single handedly, one of the meals in John Besh’s cookbook “My New Orleans” and have her enjoy it. Tall order but it should be fun trying.
Resolution # 7: Reader’s Choice: This worked out well last year so I am trying it again. What do you want me to accomplish in 2010? What lofty goal or comedic endeavor should I undertake? The only limit is your imagination. Post your ideas in the comments and I will choose the best, or quite possibly only, suggestion.
Resolution # 8: Have 100 people read the blog in one day: Usually I have a writing related goal with regards to completing a book such as writing a novel or a collection of short pieces or the best of the blog. The thing is that takes a lot of time and with work and wedding planning and losing weight and everything else in my day to day existence I just don’t know if I have enough time for something that big this year. But, I certainly plan to keep blogging and if this is going to be my creative outlet I might as well make it the best I can be. Last year I aimed for 50 people and reached it several times. This time I’m going for 100 unique hits in a single day. For that to happen someone must read the post and link it or email it to their friends. I will have to write something clever enough so that people who have never met me will read it. Big challenge but I might be able to pull it off.
Resolution # 9: Expand my musical tastes: For someone with a CD collection the size of mine my tastes are really, really narrow. For the past few years I have picked up nothing outside of the Alt-Country genre and I have some huge gaps. No jazz or blues really, even those by the classics. No Miles Davis or John Coltrane or any of the other legends. If what is being released now doesn’t speak to me (and I’ve reached the age where popular music is not aimed for my target market) I think I might as well explore the past. Hell, I might as well pick up some old school punk while I am at it and listen to the stuff that scared me when I was a kid growing up.
Resolution # 10: Prepare to be the best husband that I can be: It is so strange to think of myself in that term. Husband. All my life I have searched for the woman of my dreams but I have never really focused on what it will mean to be a husband. That is what this last resolution is about. Searching myself to realize what I must do in order to be the best that I can possibly be for Kim. We’ll work to have the wedding we want and the life that we want but I will have to realize that I will be changing from an I to a we. And trust me, I can’t wait for that day.
13th Best Album of the Decade: Rufus Wainwright “Want One” (2003): I became a Rufus fan in a real roundabout way. People who knew that I was a huge Jeff Buckley fan kept on telling me to listen to Rufus because he also sung a version of Halleluiah and was using Jeff’s rhythm section for his band. I also knew enough of his background (the son of Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle) to know that he was worth a listen. I don’t think that I ever anticipated to hear a baroque pop masterpiece like Want One. Really, really stunning.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Flying off into the wild blue yonder
Another year, another Word document for my writer’s journal. This marks thirteen years of my keeping a writer’s journal and five plus years of using it as the source of my blog material. I’ve now kept a written record of over one third of my life. Pretty amazing when you think about it that way.
I will post my New Year’s Resolutions tomorrow as today marked the last day in which I was allowed to not follow them (come on, it’s the weekend. I’ll start on Monday.) Instead I will tell three of the travel nightmare stories that I have had to suffer through over the past month.
Story # 1: I was able to avoid the Northeast blizzard by secluding myself in lovely Florida. Got out before the storm and laughed heartily as Philadelphia was hit with two feet of snow that ended a few hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I was wondering, ok worrying to the point of obsession, that the flight would be delayed or cancelled and that I would have to struggle to get on another flight. But after all my checking I saw that my flight was on time and went to the airport.
Kim dropped me off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. Checked the airport monitors and the flight showed on time. Walked over and bought a donut at Dunkin Donuts because I freaking deserve a donut every once in a while. After finishing the donut and walking toward security my phone rings and it is the airline letting me know that my 6 PM flight had been delayed to 12:15 AM. I had been in the airport maybe ten minutes. I go back to the front desk to find out that they have a plane and a crew but no clearance from air traffic control in the northeast to take off so I was told to hang around the airport for six hours, then fly for three and then drive home through two feet of snow in the middle of the night.
Instead I called Kim, changed flights, and spent the night in a much more agreeable manner. Which would have been better if I had listened to Kim in the first place and changed my flight before we even left for the airport. That is what I get for trusting the internet.
Story # 2: Flying home from Chicago the day after Christmas. My flight was a little delayed, which made sense given the fact that it was slightly snowing and that this was the day after the underwear bomber incident. But we all get on the plane fine and pull away from the terminal. But then we stop. I’ve flown out of Chicago a bunch of times and never had this happen. Then we are told that we must return to the terminal to let a passenger off the plane.
So we do that and after the passenger leaves we discover that he had fallen asleep on the previous flight and forgot to get off the plane in Chicago. It was nice that they told us this after he got off because if he did that beforehand we may have pummeled him with our carry on luggage. Then, since we were at the terminal, we had to deal with a maintenance issue. Plus, because we had been on the ground so long they had to deice the place. So we were an hour plus late leaving the airport when we had originally left the terminal on time. And to make matters worse, the baggage carousel in Philly broke and we had to go to another terminal to get our bags.
Story # 3: Arriving in Philly once again, different flight this time. Actually had landed on time for what seemed to be the first time in months. The thrill was short lived as we sat on the runway for half an hour for a gate to clear out so we could pull in. There is nothing more annoying than just sitting on a runway knowing that you are home but you still can’t get off the plane. It was just abysmal.
All of this just makes me want to work out the last few bugs in my teleporter.
14th Best Album of the Decade: Jon Dee Graham “Full” (2006): I have probably seen Jon Dee in concert (either by himself or playing guitar in someone’s band) more than any other performer this decade. I have enjoyed every single show. His music is Texas singer songwriter but I like to think of him as a more noble Tom Waits. The lyrics are dark and there is the growl in his voice but at the end of the day there is light. To quote the man himself, “False hope is still hope.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Freedy Johnston “Blue Days Black Nights”
2) Soundtrack “The Slaughter Rule”
3) U2 “October”
4) Neko Case “Middle Cyclone”
5) Lyle Lovett “Step Inside This House”
I will post my New Year’s Resolutions tomorrow as today marked the last day in which I was allowed to not follow them (come on, it’s the weekend. I’ll start on Monday.) Instead I will tell three of the travel nightmare stories that I have had to suffer through over the past month.
Story # 1: I was able to avoid the Northeast blizzard by secluding myself in lovely Florida. Got out before the storm and laughed heartily as Philadelphia was hit with two feet of snow that ended a few hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I was wondering, ok worrying to the point of obsession, that the flight would be delayed or cancelled and that I would have to struggle to get on another flight. But after all my checking I saw that my flight was on time and went to the airport.
Kim dropped me off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. Checked the airport monitors and the flight showed on time. Walked over and bought a donut at Dunkin Donuts because I freaking deserve a donut every once in a while. After finishing the donut and walking toward security my phone rings and it is the airline letting me know that my 6 PM flight had been delayed to 12:15 AM. I had been in the airport maybe ten minutes. I go back to the front desk to find out that they have a plane and a crew but no clearance from air traffic control in the northeast to take off so I was told to hang around the airport for six hours, then fly for three and then drive home through two feet of snow in the middle of the night.
Instead I called Kim, changed flights, and spent the night in a much more agreeable manner. Which would have been better if I had listened to Kim in the first place and changed my flight before we even left for the airport. That is what I get for trusting the internet.
Story # 2: Flying home from Chicago the day after Christmas. My flight was a little delayed, which made sense given the fact that it was slightly snowing and that this was the day after the underwear bomber incident. But we all get on the plane fine and pull away from the terminal. But then we stop. I’ve flown out of Chicago a bunch of times and never had this happen. Then we are told that we must return to the terminal to let a passenger off the plane.
So we do that and after the passenger leaves we discover that he had fallen asleep on the previous flight and forgot to get off the plane in Chicago. It was nice that they told us this after he got off because if he did that beforehand we may have pummeled him with our carry on luggage. Then, since we were at the terminal, we had to deal with a maintenance issue. Plus, because we had been on the ground so long they had to deice the place. So we were an hour plus late leaving the airport when we had originally left the terminal on time. And to make matters worse, the baggage carousel in Philly broke and we had to go to another terminal to get our bags.
Story # 3: Arriving in Philly once again, different flight this time. Actually had landed on time for what seemed to be the first time in months. The thrill was short lived as we sat on the runway for half an hour for a gate to clear out so we could pull in. There is nothing more annoying than just sitting on a runway knowing that you are home but you still can’t get off the plane. It was just abysmal.
All of this just makes me want to work out the last few bugs in my teleporter.
14th Best Album of the Decade: Jon Dee Graham “Full” (2006): I have probably seen Jon Dee in concert (either by himself or playing guitar in someone’s band) more than any other performer this decade. I have enjoyed every single show. His music is Texas singer songwriter but I like to think of him as a more noble Tom Waits. The lyrics are dark and there is the growl in his voice but at the end of the day there is light. To quote the man himself, “False hope is still hope.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Freedy Johnston “Blue Days Black Nights”
2) Soundtrack “The Slaughter Rule”
3) U2 “October”
4) Neko Case “Middle Cyclone”
5) Lyle Lovett “Step Inside This House”
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