Death by poison

I usually hate these things (as most of you know), but I couldn't resist this one. Gakked from Casey Stratton:

You scored as Posion. Your death will be by poison, probably because you are a glutton and are around so many people that it would be easy to get away with it. Several important people in history share your fate. Posion 87% Bomb 73% Suicide 67% Natural Causes 53% Suffocated 53% Disease 40% Eaten 33% Gunshot 33% Accident 27% Stabbed 27% Disappear 7% Drowning 7% Cut Throat 7% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

Not your typical 9/11 post

The blogosphere is ripe with remembrances for 9/11. I have no problem with this - it was a watershed moment in the history of this nation, certainly in the recent history of this nation. It affected everyone and brought everyone together for a brief period of what I consider to be some of the most divisive times ever seen by this nation. But rather than focus on the death, destruction and the political divisiveness that was also born that day, I decided to look at a few of the songs that were inspired by 9/11.

It was inevitable that songs would be written about this day. Some were good, some decidedly awful (the Daryl Worley song "Have You Forgotten?" springs immediately to mind.) I mean, Madonna may have rhymed New York with dork, but this guy actually rhymed "bin Laden" with "forgotten." Ugh. I found a few really good ones I thought I'd look at.

1) Fleetwood Mac - Illume (9/11) (iTunes)
Stevie Nicks' stab at remembering 9/11 comes off pretty much like I'd expect it to for her. It's nearly incomprehensible, but she's so darn sincere in it. Here's what she has to say about the song, because, God help me, I can't really figure it out.

"Illume" is a very interesting song actually. I wrote it after September 11th, you know, so it was one of the first I wrote after those tragedies. It’s just about making it, you know. I was sitting there, thinking about those horrible tragedies in October of 2001, and I was sitting there with just me in the room, and the candle was lit. I love candles, you know. And my heart was still so heavy from everything, and I didn’t know quite what would happen, and we were all like that, confused. I didn’t set out to write a September 11th song, it just happened. It goes “Illume, says the candle that I burn, a reflection in the window,” and that’s just about the inspiration for the song. And I tell you, my heart was so very heavy and full at this time, I was so confused. And then there are some other parts…( Pause) “And I am alone with my thoughts, And how we could make it – And what we have been through, all of the trauma.” I also wrote one called “Get Back on the Plane,” and a song called “The Towers Touched the Sky,” but it was just too depressing.

2) Mary Chapin Carpenter - Grand Central Station (iTunes)
This is perhaps one of my favorite songs about 9/11. It's so tastefully written and beautifully sung. One the first anniversary of 9/11, Chapin heard an NPR story about a ironworker who worked at ground zero. So moving was his experience that he walked to Grand Central Station every day after his shift was over to guide the lost souls to their trains home. You can listen to NPR talking to Carpenter about this song here, but to be honest, I couldn't get the audio to load. Maybe it's just my computer.

Here's the lyrics:

Got my workclothes on full of sweat and dirt
All this holy dust upon my face and shirt
Heading uptown now just as the shifts are changing
To Grand Central Station
Got my lunchbox, got my hard hat in my hand
I ain't no hero mister, just a working man
And all these voices keep on asking me to take them
To Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station

I want to stand beneath the clock one more time
Want to wait upon the platform for the Hudson Line
I guess you're never really all alone
Or too far from the pull of home
And the stars upon that painted dome still shine

I made my way out on to 42nd street
I lit a cigarette and stared down at my feet
And imagined all the ones that ever stood here waiting
At Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station

Now Hercules is staring down at me
Next to him is Minerva and Mercury
I nod to them and start my crawl, flyers covering every wall
Faces of the missing all I see

Tomorrow I'll be back there working on the pile
Going in and coming out single file
Before my job is done there's one more trip I'm making
To Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station

3) Tori Amos - I Can't See New York (iTunes)
This one I recently came across. I wouldn't classify myself as a Tori Amos fan, but I've been listening to more of her music ever since I started listening to Casey Stratton. It's a little more along the lines of the Fleetwood Mac song in the fact that lyrically, it's not very straight forward and you could completely miss the 9/11 allusions unless you are, as this blog's title demands of you, pay close attention.

Yuccacentric.com had this take on the song back in 2002.

I've had a few debates as to whether or not this is in, in fact, a 9/11 song. The conclusion? I don't know. The parallels are there. The concept of the album was a journey around and across America and each song has a location on a map. "I Can't See New York" is mapped as a flight from Boston to New York, the same taken by several hijacked planes on 9/11, and the obvious sight of a missing landmark in the skyline could be the reason for an inability to see New York as could some form of role-playing on the part of Ms. Amos as one of the passengers so blinded by fear that they cannot see anything, let alone New York. Then there's the Native American theme. In this song it's played out with the metaphor that borders are not really visible from a plane, so that the land is really everyone's. Hence, not being able to see New York as lines on a map are not the same as that seen from a plane. All that being said, it is a beautiful song wonderfully arranged and performed. 9/11 storyline or Native American or something completely different it has an underlying driving power to it. And it sure as hell makes up for the last album, Strange Little Girls.

Music, for me, is a great healer. Hopefully, 5 years out from 9/11, healing can continue.

Confessions of a 4-year old

Here's another one for the "Stop the paternity test!" file...

Anna comes up to me this morning as she's getting ready to leave for preschool and says "Daddy, I really hope that I get the sharing bag today!" (sidenote: the sharing bag is a bag that one kid each time gets to take home and put something in it they'd like to share with the class -- kind of a version of show-and-tell.) So I ask her, "What do you think you'd like to share if you get the sharing bag." To which she replies "A CD."

I'm a bit suspect because I'm not sure that's exactly what the teachers had in mind. But I decide to go with her down this road. "Which CD to you want to bring?" I ask her.

She thinks for a minute, and replies "Like 'Hung Up' or 'Jump' or...." "'Please don't say you're sorry.' They'd love to hear me sing to it -- but it's really loud!"

Some days, my 50% of the genes really shine through.

One down, one to go

I survived the first overnight shift and only have one left. Then I have 3 days off! (well, really two since you really can't count tomorrow as I'll be leaving work then and recovering for most of the day.) Overall, it wasn't too bad. However, I am quite tired today and will definitely be napping tonight around 5:30 or so. I'm telling you - that nap is the key. At least it was yesterday because I felt like shit before I napped and then I woke up a couple hours later and felt all shiny and new.

But there's no denying that this kind of schedule just messes with you. I'm all restless and not able to sit down and do anything for more than a couple minutes. I've been watching The X-Files this afternoon, but I have to say that the couple of episodes that I've watched have been pretty subpar. So that's not helping.

TV openings

Heidi, Jeff and I all started watching season 4 of Queer As Folk last night, and we've been eagerly anticipating the use of "Cue The Pulse To Begin" as the new theme song. And it lived up to all of our expectations. It's so much better than the opening credits used on seasons 1-3.



And while goofing around on YouTube last night, we found some classic (and some not-so-classic) TV show openers. For example, one of my favorites is "One Day At A Time" which I used to watch faithfully in syndication every night at 10:30 before my freshman year of high school (yet another example of me watching a sit com instead of having a life back then!)



Some would argue that it hasn't aged all that well, and I would argue THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!! And you gotta love Mackenzie Phillips in those bell bottom polyester pants.

And Jeff and I came across a show he hadn't thought about since it was on TV - the show "Angie" which I remember because I always loved the theme song.



And then, just for kicks - "Alice"



They don't make these like this anymore, I tell ya.

Graveyard shifts

I'm up late tonight as I'm trying to prepare my body for the shock that is working overnights. Sunday and Monday night I have to work the overnight shift at work and it's not the worst thing in the world, but it sure does screw my body up after it's all said and done. At least I have 3 days off after I'm done doing it.

I'm mostly wiling away the time on the computer, listening to music, although I am pondering going up and watching Night of the Living Dead which I haven't watched in forever. Or maybe just the special features -- I can't decide. I know that if I try to read, I'll surely fall asleep, and I just can't fall asleep yet. I have to try to stay awake until about 3AM so that I can sleep until around 11 tomorrow (or so.) The first night is never all that hard -- you usually run on pure adrenaline and the night goes so fast because you're so pumped and it's so different from your usual routine. And after it's over, I go home and immediately crash into bed and sleep. That's one thing I suppose I should be thankful for -- I've never had trouble sleeping during the day. And if I take an Ativan, it's even easier.

The second night gets a little bit harder. I never have the adrenaline rush on night two that I have on night one. There's also the impending end of the run of overnights so you kind of start anticipating the end way before it's over. Of course, all bets are off if you have a really busy night. There's nothing like a really busy overnight to keep you moving, and truth be told, I've only had one that even comes close to really busy, so I'm not even sure I can speak definitively on that subject.

And while it's fun getting ready to work overnights (the staying up late is a lot of fun because I'm kind of a night owl by nature), it's the recovery that's really the hardest part. What I try to do is sleep as little as possible on the day after the last overnight shift. It's impossible to not sleep right when you get home, but I try not to sleep as long as I would when I'm preparing for another overnight. So usually, I walk around the house like something out of a George Romero movie and get kind of cranky. I inevitably end up falling asleep right around the time that Anna does and I sleep for something like 13 hours or some insane thing like that.

And then I'm usually fine.

And why exactly is it a graveyard shift? My favorite thoughts are here.

(top photo credit)

The subjects of spam

Casey Stratton is obsessed with the subject lines of the spam he's getting. And what's even funnier is that I've been laughing my head off at some of the ones I've been getting recently.

The best one I've had recently is "incriminating trough." And, being in the profession I am, it makes me immediately think of vancomycin or aminoglycosides.

It makes me glad that Gmail has a spam box so that I can look at them without having to get all excited that I got e-mail, only to find out it's about a "postmortem golf course" or something.

And the funny thing is, I keep on thinking these insane subject lines sound like Googlewhacks, but sure enough, I type them into Google and they get something like 50,000 hits.

Melancholy

I'm really not wanting to work today. And it has nothing to do with work. OK, maybe just a tiny bit, but that's not really the issue. The issue is that I'm feeling so very internal today (hence all the Mary Chapin Carpenter, which really just perpetuates it) that I don't want to interact with anyone today. Call me crazy, but I'd rather just sit and lose myself in music today than deal with people.

I think I probably need to get my light box out. That'll help, undoubtedly.

MC squared

I must go on record as saying I absolutely adore Mary Chapin Carpenter. I'm stuck in a never-ending cycle of her songs on both my iTunes and my iPod. I have a tendency to forget about Mary Chapin Carpenter every now and again, and every time I remember her and go back to listening to her music, it's like reuniting with an old friend. An old friend who is part melancholy, part introspective, but completely and utterly amazing. I sometimes wish I knew her personally, but, like most celebrities, I prefer to keep my distance from them to preserve my idealization.

(I say that like I have a some kind of choice in the matter or something.)

I started listening to her music in the winter of 1993. I picked up Shooting Straight in the Dark at Christmas that year. Before long, I'd picked up every single one of her CDs. I was getting into her music around the time of Come On, Come On which I refer to as the Rhythm Nation of country music as it spun off something like 7 singles which was pretty much unheard of from any genre of music at that point since singles were being phased out slowly but surely. And truly, Come On, Come On is probably one of her best CDs. I've really been into the song "I Am A Town" these days. And this is really weird because it was always the one song I skipped when I listened to the CD. It was too slow, too ponderous, and I just didn't relate to the material at all. Heidi always liked it because she said it reminded her of Bellevue, the closest thing to a home town she has. I think the reason I didn't get it was because I was from a town that was just a little bit too big to be considered a "small town" so I didn't really get the whole "last gas for an hour if you're going 25" or at least didn't want to. But the other morning I was getting ready and I was listening to the song, and I just stood there and listened to it and it finally, after 12+ years really connected with me. It's gorgeous and poignant and captures something that's disappearing from the American landscape.

I almost gave up on Chapin after a couple of less-than-stellar CDs in the late 90s/early 2000s. But then she totally redeemed herself in my mind with her fan-fucking-tastic Between Here and Gone. It ranks up there with Come On, Come On in my mind as far as Chapin greatness.

I think that I started listening to Chapin at a very critical point in my life - a time when I was in school and feeling very alone and misunderstood. I remember being very much a four (even though I didn't know what a four was back then) and feeling so different from everyone else in the world. And I heard these sentiments echoed in Chapin's music. There are two things I remember vivdly from that time in my life -- I remember thinking about how MCC could be singing the songs of my life if only she weren't female, and that one review said "Mary Chapin Carpenter must be hell in a relationship - always wondering how things are going" and I thought that described me to a tee. In many respects, I've matured with her. She commented that the songs on Between Here and Gone could only have been written by her 45-year old self, and my 34-year old self understands that.

I think, in many respects, my admiration for Casey Stratton mirrors that of Carpenter. His music had a similar effect on me when I discovered him a couple years back. I know that he's more closely compared to Tori Amos, but for me, he'll always remind me just a little bit of Mary Chapin Carpenter.

And all I know is there's not enough Stones In The Road on my iPod, so that's getting imported tonight.

Buy The Essential Mary Chapin Carpenter (iTunes, Amazon)
Buy Come On, Come On (iTunes, Amazon)

Songs of summer, part 3

Yet another installment in the continuing drama of my songs of summer. This time, songs 11-15.

1) Wynonna Judd - I Want To Know What Love Is (Piper Radio Edit) (iTunes)
I was randomly searching Wikipedia on night, and for some reason, my iTunes had landed on a Wynonna Judd song I hadn't heard in forever. While I was reading about her, I found out that her cover of the Foreigner song "I Want To Know What Love Is" had been given the remix treatment. Of course, I had to find it. And luckily, iTunes had it. It works on so many levels it's not even funny.

2) Madonna - Like A Virgin (Live - Confessions Tour)
One of the highlights of the summer was my trip to Las Vegas to see Madonna on her Confessions Tour. And this song was definitely on the of the highlights of that concert. It's a great new arrangement that's, oddly enough, faithful to the original arrangement. And while it was easy to focus on Madonna gyrating on a saddle going up and down like a carousel horse, if you were paying attention to the video screens behind her, you saw actual x-rays from her own fall from a horse a year ago.

3) Sheryl Lee Ralph - In The Evening (Almighty Anthem Mix)
Another find from my very exciting (and very expensive) trip to Borderline Music in Chicago last April. It's a great high energy song basically about going out and how "in the evening/the real me comes alive." I don't know the origin of the song, but the mix is fantastic.

4) John Mayer - Route 66 (iTunes)
I took Anna to Cars earlier this summer and we really liked it. Okay, it stretched her attention span some, but I thought it was great fun. I can pretty much always count on the Pixar folks to write a good story to go along with the computer animation. And I love this cover of Route 66. I have a love/hate relationship with John Mayer, but this is definitely one of his better works. However, I'm really not all that crazy about his "Waiting On The World To Change."

5) Saint Etienne - A Good Thing (iTunes)
I got into Saint Etienne thanks to a friend I made via Last.fm. It was one of his top artists so I found myself poking around iTunes wondering what they sounded like. He also sent me a few songs to sample, but "A Good Thing" was the first song I bought of theirs off iTunes. They're kind of like a version of Blondie, which is a good thing because I really heart Deborah Harry and, let's face it, she's 60 and won't be recording forever.

Only a couple more installments to go!

Stubbs the Zombie

Since I'm done talking about Pluto, I thought I'd return to one of my most favorite of all topics: zombies.

Last night when Heidi and I were at the Apple Store in Des Moines, I came across this game called Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse. Needless to say, I was intrigued. A zombie video game with a sense of humor that's not just mindless blowing up shit? It couldn't be!

I did a little bit of web research about it and found out that it wasn't just for the Mac (which, it being the Apple Store and all, was the only version the Apple Store had.) There was also a PC version. I found the demo online and downloaded it pronto.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about this game is that you're not killing zombies - you ARE a zombie. You're Stubbs - the alpha zombie in the attack on Punchblowl USA. The game takes place in the 50s, which just adds to the campy feel. In the demo, you lumber around Punchbowl Dam ("Welcome to Punchbowl Dam, where our motto is 'Dam it!'") attacking various scientists and cops either eating their brains (where animated blood gushes all over the place) or simply attacking them and turning them into a member of the zombie horde. They, in turn can do the same and before too long, you can have a huge zombie horde.

While the game concept is cool, gameplay isn't all that great. It's hard to control Stubbs, as it's a combination of mouse and keyboard controls. The game is also really dark. And really, for my money, I can do enough brain munching with the demo - I don't think I really need the whole game.

Although if I found it for 10 bucks, I'd pick it up in heartbeat.

One more thought on Pluto...

I was reading some other stuff on Pluto's demotion this morning, and found this at MSNBC in the Cosmic Log.

"I think it'd be a good idea to keep Pluto around and explain that this has been a planet for 76 years," he said. "It becomes an educational process, to explain to kids why it was a planet, and now why it's not. ... That's the kind of critical thinking that kids need to be doing when they do science."

This, ultimately is what science is all about. Nothing is static, everything changes. What's clouding the issue here in the minds of not just me but apparently a lot of other people too is emotion. And in the scientific method, there really isn't any room for emotion. Sad, but true.

And then there were eight...

So today, Pluto officially got the axe as a planet. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, it's probably been a long time in the coming. As a planet, it really barely qualifies, especially considering its gargantuan neighbors in its neck of the woods. It isn't gaseous, it's half the size of our moon and its orbit is so wonky that for a good chunk of a Plutonian year, it's closer to the sun than Neptune.

But that still doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

Being such a science head growing up (and even now) it's going to take a while to get used to there being only eight "classical planets" as they're being referred to now. (Pluto is now officially classified as a "dwarf planet" but that's still not a planet, if you can follow that logic.) I was reading an article about how the widow of Pluto's discoverer (which, incidentally, was the only man in the Western Hemisphere to have discovered a planet. That is, until today.) was "shook up" by Pluto's demotion. However, she said her husband probably would have agreed with the reclassification because of the discovery of other similar objects in Pluto's region of space.

But I think, in the end, I probably prefer Pluto's exclusion from planetary status to the other option - including the large asteroid Ceres and a couple of other trans-Plutonian objects as planets, bringing the grand total to 12.

So I guess when Anna really starts to get "Interplanet Janet," I'll have some explaining to do.

It sucks to be demoted.

Songs of summer, part 2

Time for another installment in my songs of summer 2006. Here's 5 more from my list.

1) Shakira feat. Wyclef Jean - Hips Don't Lie (iTunes)
I really didn't want to like this song. In that respect, it's this summer's "Hollaback Girl." But, like any good pop song, it crawled into my brain and has stayed there all summer. I would hear this song constantly at work, and talk about how I didn't like it. And then, before long, I was downloading it off iTunes.

2) Pet Shop Boys - I'm With Stupid (iTunes)
I've always been kind of a fair weather Pet Shop Boys fan. The only CD of theirs I owned (up till this summer) was Discography which has all the best known stuff on it, i.e. "West End Girls", "It's A Sin," and "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" Admittedly, the song appeals to my political leanings, but it's also a great little pop song. Heidi thinks it sounds like it could have been recorded in 1986. And that's one of the things I love most about it.

3) Pinmonkey - Fly (iTunes)
This is a cover of that Sugar Ray song from several years ago, only it's done by a country/western band. And I just can't resist it. They also have a song on the same CD called "Falling Out Of Love With Me" which originally written and recorded by Dolly Parton. She even does a guest vocal on their version. It was that song that exposed me to their music. And "Fly" was an unexpected benefit.

4) Christina Aguilera - Candyman (iTunes)
This was a late addition to my songs of summer, having just discovered it last week. It's from Christina Aguilera's newest CD. Usually, I don't really get into her music, as I think she mostly oversings and I really didn't particularly care for "Ain't No Other Man," but this one's kind of fun. It sounds like Madonna could have recorded it for her I'm Breathless CD.

5) Madonna - Liquid Love
And for the 5th one today, another song that you can't buy. However, if you look hard enough on the web, you'll find it. It's an unreleased track from the Ray Of Light sessions that could have easily found a place on the album, although it's said that Madonna didn't feel like it fit in with the mood of the album. That said, it is a little bit silly, and c'mon liquid love? But it's a great little song. And while I could have put the entire Confessions on a Dance Floor CD on this summer song list, I opted for this little known track. Hell, I didn't even know about it until just a couple months ago.

That's it for tonight. Off to bed once again.

21st Century Joan

So I heard the news today. Tom Cruise dumped by Paramount. Now, I don't pretend to understand all the particulars about this, but I really and honestly thought that the days where a movie star was the "property" of a single studio had gone the way of the dodo bird. In the music industry, it's slightly different (at least for now) where a person signs with a particular label, but movie stars? I pretty much thought they were free agents, able to work with whichever studio they wanted.

Jeff, Heidi and I were talking about this on the phone tonight. We wanted to know if Tom went home and cut down all the rose bushes in the garden after being dropped by Paramount. Did the head of Paramount have his trailer cleaned out already? Did they cite "creative differences?" And perhaps most importantly, was the line "SURI! Bring me the axe!" uttered at the Cruise/Holmes household tonight?

If only Joan were here, he could possibly offer some wise counsel to poor Tom. I can just hear her now.

Get Together - the KLYF version

When I was a kid, there was a radio station out of Des Moines called KLYF - or K-Life as they called themselves. While it played some AM easy listening favorites, it also played a lot of what could be classified as elevator music. Muzak. Instrumental versions of popular songs. They also had half-hourly (or was it every 15 minutes - I can't remember) "brief summaries of the news" which always had some freakish story that scared me a little bit. Anyway, I listened to it all the time. I had it on all night while I slept. I woke up to it in the morning. I listened to it while I was home sick with the flu or whatever. Needless to say, as a child, I needed help.

I was perusing a Madonna forum the other day and found this remix of "Get Together" called the "Underwater Piano Solo Version." Intrigued, I downloaded it. Now, most fan remixes are utter shit and are immediately deleted, but this one made me laugh so hard I have to keep it around.

Basically, it's the version of "Get Together" that KLYF would have played. All dramatic piano solo, just like the name suggests. Someone must have the sheet music to Confessions on a Dance Floor. In any event, I wish I had the sheet music to Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Here it is -- for you to enjoy as well.

Madonna - Get Together (Underwater Piano Solo Version)

Now excuse me, I'm off to listen to some Roger Whittaker. Probably "Durham Town." OK, not really.

Songs of summer, part 1

Usually, every summer I make a CD or two of songs that I spent the summer with -- kind of a "how I spent my summer vacation" type thing (even though it's been years since I've had a real summer vacation!) This year, I didn't have the motivation to actually put them on CD and who knows I might do it yet, but signs are pointing to not. But I thought I'd do a series of blog posts with links to a place to buy these tracks (iTunes where available, Amazon where not.)

In no particular order:

1) Dixie Chicks - The Long Way Around (iTunes)
I'll always feel like the Dixie Chicks got screwed over for Natalie Maines' comments on George Bush. I'll also always feel like they were crazy for forgetting who the vast majority of their demographic was. And why this song wasn't the lead single off of Taking The Long Way I'll never know.

2) RuPaul - Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous (iTunes)
Only on a RuPaul song will you get a line "You're just an overgrown orangutan!" Not quite "Supermodel" territory, but a great little piece of camp from RuPaul.

3) Sleepthief (featuring Kyoko Baertson) - Just Say It (iTunes)
Heidi discovered this CD - it only stands to reason. It's her type of music through and through. But I really do enjoy the CD. It's an electronica CD with female vocals. Different vocalist for each song. At first, I thought this was Kirsty Hawkshaw - the vocals are that similar. Kirsty does show up on a cover of Duran Duran's "The Chauffer."

4) Ladytron - Playgirl (iTunes)
Continuing in the electronica mood of the summer is this little number. I stumbled across Ladytron on an mp3 blog where there was a free download of "Destroy Everything You Touch." It got me to look into their other songs - another example of free samples working - and I eventually picked up "Playgirl" along with a couple of others.

5) Kylie Minogue - Made of Glass
Sadly, this song isn't available electronically anywhere that I can find, at least not in the U.S. And that's a damn shame. Anyway, I had downloaded it from arjanwrites.com last year, and it also ended up on a CD that I picked up at Borderline Music in Chicago (if you ever get to Chicago, you must get to Borderline Music) called Kylie Minogue: Unreleased.

More tomorrow - must go to bed.

Save the country

Last week I was up late on Saturday night and I ended up listening to some music that I hadn't listened to in ages -- the music of Laura Nyro. Laura Nyro, for those who may not know, is a folk singer from the 60s who had phenomenal success as a songwriter, less so as an actual singer. Perhaps some of the most famous of her songs were recorded by the 5th Dimension -- "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Wedding Bell Blues," and "Save The Country" were all performed by both Laura and the 5th Dimension. Of course, the 5th Dimension versions are the ones everyone knows. Even Barbra Streisand got into the act and recorded a version of Laura's "Stoney End" which remains, to this day, probably the definitive version of this song, if not, at least the best known.

Laura's album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession is probably her best known and most critically acclaimed work. I purchased a couple songs off of that particular album and a couple off of her Best Of compilation that iTunes had. The songs take me to a New York that I fear may only exist only in my imagination. It's a New York City of the late 60s and early 70s, when all was not well with the world. It's a world before cell phones and the internet and instant communication. Our government was deliberately misleading us about a foreign war and the people were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. There's something about music from that time period that, like it or not, encapsulates a lot of the anti-war movement of the 60s. And given my "affection" for that period in history, it comes as no surprise that a lot of the music from that period of time gets to me as well.

I was listening to the 5th Dimension's version of "Save The County" which I have incredibly fond memories of -- because as a kid, my folks had the 8-track tape of their Greatest Hits On Earth and I knew most of those songs inside and out - "Save The Country" included. It's a typical war protest song although I don't think I really figured that out until I was on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon and we listened to their music ad nauseum. And the funny thing is, listening to it now, I find that a lot of the sentiments could apply to now, with an equally unpopular foreign war raging in the Middle East, with our government deliberately misleading us about it. But, in stark contrast to the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era, I find myself asking "Where is the outrage?" How can the government illegally listen in on phone conversations without warrants and no one's up in arms? How can our illustrious leader stand up in front of a group of people and defend a program that a court has just said is illegal?

Craziness. Save the country.

Ames 1990 vs. 2006

So this weekend is "move-in" weekend at Iowa State, the weekend where Ames' population doubles and a lot of the locals start bitching about the very thing that keeps Ames from being a slightly larger version of Carroll. Without the students, we wouldn't be much. Their very presence keeps Ames looking forward (well, a section of the population anyway) and keeps us on people's radar. I, for one, welcome the student population. Sure, the "student slums" so-to-speak and increased traffic (from the sounds of it, Target is a madhouse this weekend) may be a pain in the ass, but I love this aspect of Ames -- that we keep getting fresh new faces into the community. And that we constantly have to bear them in mind, no matter how much a lot of people wish they would just go away. Or at least behave according to their narrowly defined set of rules.

I was one of those students, 16 years ago today. Probably not to the date, but you know what I mean. I probably spent this afternoon 16 years ago with a copy of my class schedule clutched tightly in my hand exploring the campus and figuring out where I was going to have to be the next morning. My life was starting anew, even though it didn't feel much like it. The fact that I was rooming with someone I knew from high school probably contributed a lot to that (Glenn, don't know if you read this blog, but that's not a slam on you in any way or form!)

Looking back on my college years, or my "non-wayward youth" as I like to refer to it, I don't really have all that many regrets. I'm not sure that presented with the same situation over again I'd react any differently than I did the first time around. However, living in the town where I was once a college freshman is a near-constant reminder of those days, although I don't frequent very many of the same hang-outs I did then (obviously.) I tried to go to the the Parks Library once, shortly after we first moved here, and never did I feel more out of place than I did then, amidst all the college students that I used to blend right in with. When I was in college here, most of my hang out spots were around the campus. Now, in the adult version of myself (or at least the 34-year old version of myself) I find myself coming to downtown Ames to disappear into the crowd. Perhaps this is one of my biggest fears about the new mall in Ames - that it will make the one place that I feel like I can disappear, well, disappear.

So I sit here at Cafe Diem, drinking a very yummy snickerdoodle latte and realizing that I'm really very lucky. I wish all those new students well. Sometimes I wish I could magically find every student that feels just as I felt back in 1990 (and I know they're out there) and let them know that it's ok. Perhaps they don't really need that - perhaps it's more for me than for them. I'm happy to be here in Ames, no matter what crazy things get thrown at me. I'm happier here than I think I ever was in Washington, even though I do miss John and Dawn a lot sometimes.

Good luck to the students this year - and remember that not everyone in Ames takes your presence as a burden. This local welcomes it. Even if it does make me feel older than Methusalah sometimes.

Nightmare demons

I've been meaning to blog this for a week or so now, but as usual, life has been to busy to even sit down and blog -- witness the seven days between posts which is kind of bizarre for me nowadays. Anyway, my brother Ryan and his wife were back in Iowa a couple weeks ago and he brought me my birthday present. He had picked me up from work that day and was building it up in the car back to my house. "Oh, Dan, you're gonna love it. My wife didn't understand the significance of it, but I told her 'Oh, he's gonna love it when he sees it!" This is what I got from him.

In case you're having trouble figuring out exactly what it is, it's one of the nightmare demons from An American Werewolf in London. And, of course, it's perfect. It even comes with a different head, if you so desire.

Anna loves to change their heads, just for the record. And he has taken a rightful spot on the shelf full of monsters that I have in my office. The next one I want to get is Fly Boy Zombie from the original Dawn of the Dead. Perhaps Christmas.

And just in case you've never seen the movie itself, let alone the scene where these monsters come, here it is, via YouTube, natch.

Stop using sex as a weapon

The other day after work, I was totally grooving on Pat Benatar. And this is kind of weird because she's not an artist that I think of all that much. I mean, there's only four Pat Benatar songs on my entire iPod (there's more in my iTunes library) so when I was walking home from work that night, it was an amazingly cosmic alignment that led me to listen to Pat Benatar. But it was really fun.

The four Pat Benatar songs I have on my iPod are: "Le Bel Age," "Sex As A Weapon," "Lift 'Em On Up" and "Don't Walk Away." Yeah, it's an odd collection -- no "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (or, as Kerry Jackson thought in high school "Hit Me With Perfection") and not even "We Belong" (and believe me, Casey Stratton does a killer cover of "We Belong" so it's not like I don't like the song.) But these four Pat Benatar songs really hit the spot on the way home that night. Especially "Sex As A Weapon" which is probably my hands down favorite Pat Benatar song ever. It must be the chorus - it's got all these "almost" rhymes + they're "-tion" rhymes so even better.

Stop using sex as a weapon
Stop using sex as a weapon
You know you're already my obsession
Stop (stop) using sex as a weapon
Love is more than a one way reflection
Stop (stop) using sex as a weapon

Here's the video from YouTube -- amazing the stuff you can find there!

Grief

I took a quick break from Garbageland (which, incidentally, reads a lot like Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers) to read a book that I read about on Salon. It's Andrew Holleran's Grief - and I'm not sure what attracted me to it. To be honest, it was probably its references to AIDS in the 1980s and the survivors of that stage of the epidemic. But nonetheless, I checked it out from the library -- after getting over my inital shock that they actually had something I was looking for. I tell ya, even though the Ames library is way better than the Washington library ever dreamed of being, there are days that I truly miss the Iowa City Public Library. I'm not sure I've ever lived anywhere that had a better library, or had a public more dedicated to it than that one. Granted, I haven't lived in very many places and have never lived outside of the state of Iowa, so that's not saying much.

Anyway, Grief kind of defies synopsis. If I were to try to summarize its plot, it's about a fifty-something gay guy that comes to Washington, D.C. to teach a class on AIDS and literature. He has just lost his mother. In the house where he's living, he picks up a book of letters by Mary Todd Lincoln. The juxtaposition of his grief over the death of his mother, Mary Todd Lincoln's grief (that was apparently lifelong) over her husband's death, and the pall that AIDS cast across that generation of homosexual men was the crux of the novel. Mostly, as Salon said, it was like sitting in a darkened room listening to someone tell their story. And it was fascinating.

I expected it to be a downer, and at times, it was. But mostly, it was just introspective and sedate.

Perhaps my favorite line was uttered by the narrator's friend, Frank, referencing the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. He said:

"I used to think that the eighties were very like a nice dinner party with friends, except that some of them were taken out and shot while the rest of us were expected to go on eating."

I really enjoyed Grief - in much the same way I enjoyed And The Band Played On. While the latter was a piece of non-fiction about the AIDS epidemic in the 80s (which I'm overdue for re-reading), this was fiction about the aftermath of that. They make good companion pieces. And I have a feeling Holleran's novel Dancer From the Dance is the opposite bookend to Grief, with And The Band Played On narrating the horror of the middle.

The Tide

Heidi stumbled across this CD (how, I'm not entirely certain) today at Borders -- Lucy Kaplansky's The Tide. It was 18 bucks there, so I appealed to her to please check iTunes first as it'd likely be a lot cheaper there. And, of course, it was there. I bought it and I'm telling you, I love it! At first, I wasn't sure why I liked it, but I think I've figured it out. It reminds me a lot of mid-90s Mary Chapin Carpenter -- but without the Nashville corporate sheen that she was getting at that time. (And that's not slaggingon Chapin at all - even with the commerical Nashville machine working for her, he raw talent still shone through.)

And the reason it reminds me of mid-90s Chapin? It was released in 1994. The one she was listening to in Borders was apparently a remaster of her debut album. The one I downloaded from iTunes was the original version - and to me, it's indistiguishable from the remaster, at least via the samples on iTunes - but Heidi will probably end up buying the remaster as she says it's just a little bit different and something about the remaster appealed to her that's missing on the version that I bought. Oh well, to each their own, I guess.

I love finding new music - especially thoughtful, introspective music. Don't get me wrong - I'm the biggest whore for pop music that I've ever known, but a part of my inner four just can't get enough of Mary Chapin Carpenter's inner dialogue that she's always turning into songs. Or Casey Stratton's brand of male-angst that somehow validates all the angst that I feel at times in my life.

And it's funny - on this Lucy Kaplansky CD, there's all these deep lyrics set, quite frequently, to a fun folksy accompaniment. So it's not like it's all "night-night" music.

I'll probably be buying more of her stuff before long.

Water water everywhere

There was one hell of a thunderstorm this morning. I woke up around 6AM to thunder and lightning so I went downstairs to turn off computers. Not 10 minutes later, my mother-in-law (who is our houseguest this week) came upstairs to warn me that I had a little flood in the basement. Shit, I was just down there -- what could have happened.

Well, I wish I had had the wherewithall to take a picture because there was water all over my office floor. As near as I can figure, it came in through an outside door because rain came down so hard and so fast that the normal drainage system was simply overwhelmed. There's also a pile of dead leaves in that area which probably helped not one little bit.

So I made a quick trip to Wal-Mart this morning to get a Shop-Vac and I cleaned up the mess. It was, surprisingly, not as bad as I was anticipating. The carpet's still a little bit damp and I have to move the dehumidifier to a better location so as to facilitate the evaporation of what water is left.

Craziness - not how I expected to start today. Although, let me tell you, I've never been happier to work at 10AM than I was today.

Dan Version 0.0000001

So I spent a lot of today being frustrated with my computer. Not so good. I ignored my daughter. I was not nice to Heidi even though she did nice things for me. The frustrating part is the story I haven't told here yet for fear of seeming silly. I went to Best Buy on Sunday, fully intending to spend the 50 dollars to have them diagnose whatever problem I had with my computer. They told me (for free) that it was likely the motherboard. Heidi and I talked about it and we decided that rather than take a chance with crappy parts again, I would just go ahead and buy a new desktop PC. And all in all, I'm a PC kind of guy. I've never had a Mac and I've got tons of PC software.

I get this computer home and almost immediately I'm reminded of why I always warn people against buying computers at Best Buy. It doesn't recognize any operating system on this prebuilt computer. Fuck me. So I do a system restore, which really, I shouldn't have to do on a computer I just bought, and Windows XP and all that gets reinstalled and it's all hunky dory until I realize that NONE of the drivers are installed. So I take the computer back to Best Buy where I talk to a guy named Ryan who's really cool and he installs all my drivers and gets me back on my feet again. Cool. Well, I get it home and the monitor is all fucked up -- it can't display in the right colors and when I try to hook it up to Anna's computer, it has a completely red sheen across it. At this point, I'm just pissed. But then, to top it all off, it doesn't recognize the wireless network in the house. At this point, I decide that I'm just going to take it back and get my money back and start from scratch.

I go to Best Buy this morning and get a guy that's not quite as helpful as Ryan was and he says "I can't find anything wrong with this computer!" The monitor looks fine. The wireless connection at Best Buy is detected right away. And because I think, in my heart of hearts, I really do want a PC, I agree to take it home and give it another shot. I hook it up, the monitor looks fine, and the wireless connection shows up. However, I never really get a good signal. I figure that once I get it set up and in its place, it should run like a champ. I should have known better.

I get it set up downstairs in my office and fuck me if it can't even find a wireless connection anywhere. Heidi takes time out of her day where she's trying to write her synopsis to submit to an agent to talk to Linksys to see if there's anything they can help us with. They get all our other computers up and running, but still, alas, they cannot figure out what's wrong with mine. They try to tell me that my computer is out of range. Well, hello, I have the laptop right next to me with an "excellent" connection. So that's not the problem. I called them tonight after I got home from work since they have 24/7 tech support and they do a few more things - probably way more than they should have to, but to no avail. I still have no wireless connection on this computer that should have worked right out of the box. I mean, I'm not naive or anything, I realize that wireless networks can take time to set up, but COME ON! This is bordering on ridiculous.

I'm currently trying to decide whether or not I want to just take the whole thing back and not let them talk me into it trying again like they did this morning. The problem is that I have a hellacious schedule tomorrow that has me leaving at 8:30 tomorrow morning and not getting home until 7 in the evening. I mean, I could box it all up tonight and go out to Best Buy immediately after work tomorrow or I could try to call them and see if they can figure out what the problem with my network adapter is since they sold me the damn thing. But a part of me is just ready to forget the whole damn thing and use the laptop until I can figure out what I want.

I'm ashamed in a lot of ways. But really, I shouldn't be, as a computer straight out of the box should work. I feel like I made some really bad choices. Perhaps I did. Maybe I didn't. But in any event, I'm feeling like one of the worst possible versions of myself right now. My reptile brain is really in control - I'm mean and vindictive and really don't give a shit about anybody but me right now. As far as work goes, I'm basically just showing up and doing my job and going home. I can't remember to take my Cymbalta and when I forget for more than a couple days in a row, I get dizzy and feel sick to my stomach. So yeah, I have work to do.

I think I'll sleep on it tonight. Lord knows I'm tired enough. Let's hope that tomorrow shows not only an upgrade in my computer, but in the version of myself that's participating in life.

Computer woes

I spent the vast majority of yesterday dinking around with my computer. It has, for some inexplicable reason, died. It all started on Friday, when I came home from work and was going to play Zoo Tycoon with Anna for a little bit. Every time I double clicked on the icon, it kept prompting me to put the Zoo Tycoon CD in. Well, hell, you stupid little fucker, it IS in there. So I decided to boot off the CD, which is when I discovered the problem.

Neither one of my DVD/CD ROM drives were being recognized by the system. Well hell.

Later the next day, I pulled the computer apart and switched the IDE connections around. When I did that, it recognized the DVD/CD ROM drives, but not the hard drives. Oh shit. It was starting to sound like a motherboard issue and not something simple like a IDE cable issue. What makes this even more annoying is that I just put a new motherboard in the computer in JANUARY of this year. And that was only a year after I got a completely new system.

So, needless to say, I'm pissed about it. Currently, I've got Heidi's laptop that I'm working on which gets me by but there's so much about MY computer that I miss. And I'm so pissed off that I'm ready to switch teams entirely and go to Mac. Especially after having watched Heidi with her new iMac over the last week. I know that there are things that you give up when you switch to a Mac, but frankly, a part of me would be so damn glad to not have to pull my computer apart every 6 months looking for what's wrong with it. Not that Macs don't die either, but at least it would be someone else's problem.

Right now, I'm just trying to decide what I want. I'm leaning toward Mac as we'd still have a PC upstairs that Anna uses so we could dedicate that to be the computer that we play games at and what not. It's frustrating. I don't have the money right now for a new computer (especially after Heidi just replaced hers) but who knows what I'll do.

This is one hell of a way to start my week.

Surprising contemporaries

I was reading the Ames paper this morning when I was presented with the following: Soleil Moon Frye a/k/a Punky Brewster is 30 today. Heidi and I werent sure what was more disturbing -- the fact that she was younger than we are, or that we are, in fact, "contemporaries" or Punky Brewster.

I always hated that show growing up.

Back with more proper blog entries later. My stupid computer might be on the blink again -- a mere 8 months after completely replacing the motherboard.

A hell of a ride

I sat up watching Final Destination 3 -- my latest Netflix -- last night. I obviously couldn't watch it with Anna around and Heidi really hates those horror flicks anyway, so it was a good movie to watch after Anna'd gone to bed and Heidi was still in Atlanta. I've always liked this series of films, even though it really doesn't amount to much more than another in a long series of "dead teenager" movies. However, since the thing turning the teenagers into dead teenagers isn't some stupid unstoppable guy in either a hockey mask or a William Shatner mask, but is rather death itself, it has a cool factor that remains three movies into the series whereas the Halloween and Friday the 13th series are just parodies of the original movies.

Basic plotline: High school girl has a premonition of a fatal roller coaster accident which results in her and 6 of her friends being spared death by roller coaster. I have to say that this was a pretty cool opening scene, although it lacked the punch of the original's plane explosion. At the time that I saw the original Final Destination, I'd never flown before and after seeing that, I vowed I'd never fly -- it freaked me out that much. The second movies massive car crash was cool and very realistic. But the novelty of the roller coaster grabbed me from the beginning, so much so that I almost went to see this in the theater. Granted, it would have been the dollar theater, but the theater nonetheless.

Back to the plot -- since these kids cheated death by rollercoaster, death stalks them. One by one, they're picked off in bizarre accidents in the order they would have died had they stayed on the roller coaster. And there were some pretty original, pretty gruesome deaths to be had in this movie.

The thing I love about these movies is that they don't take themselves that seriously. They know that they're basically a gore fest and don't have any false pretenses at being fine cinema. I think it's possible for the horror genre to produce fine cinema (although, admittedly, it hasn't done so in recent memory) but the Final Destination series is just a bunch of films that are like going to the haunted house at Halloween. They're gory and gross and disgusting but make money hand over fist because that's what horror fans want. Plus, they're actually scary and also somewhat suspenseful, which is saying a lot considering that what follows the initial big accident is a series of rather predictable deaths. It kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering who was going to get killed next and how and if they were going to cheat death again.

I'm thinking I may have to get the Final Destination triple pack DVD set.

And I'm definitely not ready to send the movie back yet, as there's a feature that allows you to change the course of the movie by deciding whether or not a character gets killed or not. I really want to try out that feature!

Sunday love

One of the things I love most about Sundays is two of my favorite web sites update on Sundays. The first of these is LastFM. LastFM is the newest permuatation of what was once Audioscrobbler. Basically, you download a plug in for whatever music player you use (iTunes, Windows Media Player, or whatever) and all the songs you listen to are submitted over the internet to their server which saves the data in your "musical profile." This data allows them to generate music recommendations as well as tell you people who are listening to similar things. It also has a radio service that I've only explored a little bit but seems pretty decent. On Sundays, all of your week's listening is updated on your main profile page -- and I'm always interested to see what I've been listening to over the last week. Sometimes I'm surprised (like the week Liz Phair came out on top) but most times I'm not (typically, Madonna and Casey Stratton are my top two artists each week.) It's pretty cool, and you can check out my profile page here.

The other page that's updated every Sunday is the ever popular Post Secret. It really needs no introduction, other than it seems like every week without fail, there's a secret involving poop. I really don't get that.

iTunes meme

I found this mildly interesting, so I thought I'd blog it. It's making the rounds on Lastfm.

1. How many songs do you have in your iTunes?
As of right now, I have 12,039 songs.

2. How many days worth of music is that?
37 days

3. How much hard drive space does that take up?
57.15 GB

4. Sort by song:
1st song: '65 Love Affair - Paul Davis
Last song: Zoo Station - U2

5. Sort by time:
Shortest song: One Last "Whoo-hoo!" for the Pullman - Sufjan Stevens (0:06)
Longest song: The Madonna Re-Invention Club Mix (Edit) - Madonna (1:19:42)

6. Sort by artist:
1st song: Tearin' Up My Heart - 'NSync
Last song: Time of the Season - Zombies

7. Sort by album:
1st song: Tearin' Up My Heart - 'NSync
Last song: He Ain't Heavy...He's My Brother - Rufus Wainright

8. Top 5 Most Played Songs:
I Will Never Let You Go - Jackie Greene
Jump - Madonna
Sorry - Madonna
Get Together - Madonna
Like It Or Not - Madonna

9. Top 5 Most Recently Played Songs:
I Wouldn't Treat A Dog (The Way You Treated Me) - Cher
Feelin' (Love To Infinity Mix) - Gloria Estefan
Are You Mine - Stevie Nicks
Because The Night - 10,000 Maniacs
Hard To Handle - Black Crowes

10. First song to come up on shuffle
Crazy For You (Live - ReInvention Tour) - Madonna

11. Now search...

a. "sex" -- how many songs come up?
50

b. "blood" -- how many songs come up?
38

c. "death" -- how many songs come up?
4

d. "hate" -- how many songs come up?
25

e. "love" -- how many songs come up?
1146

f. "you" -- how many songs come up?
1724

g. "it" -- how many songs come up?
3260

h. "fuck" -- how many songs come up?
6

i. "existentialism" -- how many songs come up?
Zero

Soul Kiss

Note: I was rummaging through some old Word documents on my hard drive this morning and came across this gem. This was written back in the day when I was going to put CD reviews on my web page. It was kind of fun to read, so I thought I'd reproduce it here.
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For most recording artists, there comes a point in their career where they tire of the same old same old, where putting out albums becomes routine and uneventful. To try to counteract this malaise, it’s common practice for artists to complete reinvent themselves, or at least revamp their sound. More often than not, established artists with a trademark sound find themselves adapting that sound to fit in with current trends and fads.

Such is the case for Soul Kiss, a 1985 album by Olivia Newton-John. Olivia who had racked up success on both the country-western and pop charts with hits such as “Let Me Be There,” “Please Mr. Please,” and “Physical”, released this misguided but delightfully guilty pleasure right around the time that Madonna was starting to hit the scene (from my nearest calculations, “Like A Virgin” was released just prior to or around the same time as this CD.) The attempts to make over Olivia’s “goody-goody” image with a sexy veneer prove to be unwise.

Musically, the album is fairly strong. “Toughen Up,” a composition of frequent Tina Turner collaborators Terry Britten & Graham Lyle, starts out the CD on a good note, with a pseudo-reggae style and fun lyrics on female empowerment. This segues into the title track, which was the first single from the album. This song is a sexy ballad where Livvy is repeatedly “getting down on [her] knees” to thank her baby—yikes! “Queen Of The Publication” is completely nonsensical but is perhaps the most fun song on the CD. With synthesizers layered over the driving beat of a typewriter(!), the song details a story of how Olivia, who works for a sleazy tabloid will do anything to get the dirt on her subject, and hence will become the “queen of the publication.” “Emotional Tangle,” a fairly straightforward ballad which, while it can seem to find no other rhyme for “tangle” than “angle”, features an excellent vocal performance by Olivia. Livvy tries to shock us once more before the halfway point with “Culture Shock,” a song-story about Olivia involved with two men (one assumes) and imploring her boyfriend to consider something that the Olivia who sang “I Honestly Love You” would never even dream of! “I know it’s unconventional/Radical, but practical/Why can’t the three of us live together?/It’s a culture shock/But it’s the only hope we’ve got!” Besides being the obvious theme song for a “Three’s Company” reunion, the song is laughable and the “shock” probably wasn’t even that much of a shock back in 1985 and certainly isn’t shocking at all now.

Track 6 is “Moth To A Flame.” This song boasts complex lyrics and classic 80s synths, which make it one of the better songs on the CD. Considering the quality of “Moth To A Flame,” it’s too bad that it had to be followed by “Overnight Observation.” Olivia hit a new career low with yet another song-story of Livvy’s late night trip to the doctor’s office. The doctor thinks that Olivia needs to be held overnight for observation, all the while serving martinis, turning the lights down low, and asking his patient to take off her shoes and slip into something comfortable. Don’t worry—Olivia escapes with her virtue intact! On track 8, Olivia duets with late Beach Boy Carl Wilson on a song with (again) a shocking title—“You Were Great (How Was I?)” As usual, the innuendo is lost if you really listen to the lyrics of the song. Instead of being about a one night stand (as one might expect from the tone of this whole album), it’s about a love that’s faded (“something went wrong/between hello and goodbye”). While a capable song, it founders under sloppy production and subpar vocal performances on the part of both singers. The album kicks into high gear one last time with “Driving Music”—a tale of a taxi cab driver that listens to the radio station while on the night beat. “Driving Music” could have been a very successful single for Olivia, had the Soul Kiss project in general not been such a dismal failure. The last track is “The Right Moment” which is a dramatic ballad, featuring Livvy in the extremely high end of her range. Generally, I skip the last song, preferring instead to end on a high note.

While the songs on their own are generally subpar, this album has somehow stood the test of time with me. As I alluded before, Soul Kiss is guilty pleasure #1 for me. I recognize the album as being a product of the 80s, but most especially as being a product of Olivia trying to revamp herself into something a la Madonna. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out quite the way the record company wanted, and marked the end of Olivia’s mainstream career. People magazine summed it up best when in reviewing this album pleaded with Olivia to put her shirt back on!

Reiman Gardens adventures

So on Wednesday, Anna and I went out to Reiman Gardens here in Ames. It's a horticultural garden affiliated with the university that is really gorgeous. Reiman Gardens is in the city limits of Ames - in fact, it sits in the shadow of Jack Trice Stadium, home of the Iowa State Cyclones and is just off Elwood Drive which is a main drag out to the highway, so it's kind of funny that you're in this serene place yet, you can still hear traffic and, if you were there on the right day, the roar of football fans.

It has a butterfly sanctuary that Anna adores. She always wants a butterfly to land on her -- except when she's on the lookout for dead butterflies that she can pick up. I tell ya, that kid is a study in contradictions. One minute, girly girl. The next minute, looking for dead things.

It was hotter than hell the day we were there. Anna wanted to go look in the pond for frogs - something she'd seen the last time she was out there with Heidi.


Unfortuantely, there were none to be had. I think it must have been too hot - heck, if I were a frog, I think I'd be swimming or at the very least, in the shade. We did, however, see dragonflies and tadpoles which was enough for her.

And no visit to the gardens is complete without her rolling down the hills like a maniac. I had figured out how to set my camera on "paparazzi mode" i.e. take 3 or 4 pictures in quick succession, so I got some pretty good shots of her rolling down the hills. The unfortunate thing is that 90% of them have her back to me. But below is one of the better ones.

We left after only about an hour because we were so damn hot. We spent the rest of the day at home.

Coming up ... Glidden pool adventures.

Pop culture from the great beyond

Finally, Blogger is back up and running -- what was up with that. I've been meaning to blog about The Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm for quite a while. Like most of the best things on the internet, I'm not even sure how I stumbled across it. Anyway, it's a one man podcast done by this guy named BillyBoy. The show is hosted by one "Roger Darling" and Judy Garland (Frances Gumm being her actual name.) BillyBoy apparently does all the voices. Judy is frequently joined in studio by her friends Carol Channing, Bernadette Peters and Gollum(!).

Judy comments on everything in the pop culture. One episode had an Oscar nomination round table. Another had an interview with Madonna with Judy asking the questions while a real Madonna (apparently interview clips taken from an actual interview strategically selected to sound like responses to some of Judy's outrageous questions) responded. And yet another was a run down of the Tony Awards, which I really didn't give a shit about as I don't really get into theater at all.

But perhaps the best episode of all was the last one they produced where Judy, Carol, Roger, Bernadette and Gollum recreated, in its entirety, the episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy's lesbian friend Jean visits and proceeds to fall for Rose. Gollum played Sophia, Carol was Blanche, Bernadette was Rose, Roger did Dorothy (and it was amazingly like Bea Arthur) while Judy played Jean. It was a hoot. It doesn't hurt that that episode is freaking hilarious. For example (paraphrased):

Sophia: Jean is a lesbian.
Blanche: Well what's wrong with that, isn't Danny Thomas one?
Dorothy: Not LEBANESE, Blanche. Lesbian!

And what's really funny is BillyBoy's impression of Judy only periodically sounds like Judy. It more frequently sounds like a drunk Blanche Devereaux. So maybe Judy should have played Blanche in the podcast.

The Outsiders

I stayed up last night and watched my current Netflix, The Outsiders: The Complete Novel. The Outsiders was a movie I watched about a million times as an early teenager, first on HBO, then after I taped it, on VHS tape. I first read the book in 6th grade for a reading class. I think my experience with the movie is probably very typical for guys my age. It was a great "boy" story, plus the fact that it was a little bit naughty (the language, the violence) made it just that much more appealing.

When I heard that they were recutting the film to include extra scenes, I immediately added it to my Netflix queue. I hadn't seen the movie in probably 15 years, so what a great way to revisit something that was so important to a certain period of my life. And I have to say that the new scenes are good -- in fact, it had been so long since I'd seen it I couldn't even remember how it started. With a new beginning, I was even more confused. But when I finally saw what had originally been the beginning (Ponyboy and Johnny meeting Dallas on a Tulsa street corner), it was like something was dragged out of my subconscious.

The acting is pretty solid for a young cast. They capture the feel of the period pretty well, and it avoids a lot of the 80s cliches that were so pervasive in films of that time. At times, you feel like you're watching a movie made during the 60s rather than the 80s. And that's a credit to the director and the cinematographer. So much cheese came out of the 80s (not that there's anything wrong with that) and I'm glad that this movie avoided that. It is funny seeing a very young Tom Cruise as a greaser, and whatever did happen to C. Thomas Howell (answer per IMDB -- not much of any significance since Soul Man except for apparently a role in 24.) And Emilio Estevez as Two-Bit Matthews steals pretty much every scene he's in ("I hear they stamp your face into gorilla cookies!", eating beer and chocolate cake for breakfast among other things)

But what really was a deal breaker for whether I would buy this version or the original was the new music inserted into the movie. The score has been completely excised and replaced with songs from the time period. Well, the presence of these songs is very jarring and out of place, at times even obscuring the dialogue. It just didn't work for me. I'd rather have the original version and miss the extra scenes than have to deal with the insertion of these songs.

I think what I like best about the story of The Outsiders is that in the midst of all these tough guys is Ponyboy, the "sensitive" one. But he's also tough. It's good to try to convey to boys that it's okay to be sensitive and "feel things differently" as his brother Sodapop says.

Airport and zoo adventures

Well, Heidi's in Atlanta and after dropping her off at the airport this morning, Anna and I spent a good chunk of the day at Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. It's a pretty little zoo, and I've blogged about it before, but it was what we did today so it's getting blogged about again. For being a little zoo, it has some pretty cool animals. While it doesn't have an elephant (for shame!), it does have some cool giraffes (and they get pretty close to you, too), a lion and two lionesses, a Siberian tiger (there's only 300+ left in the wild!) and, much to Anna's delight, a petting zoo absolutely brimming with goats for her to pet and feed. I think Anna could have spent the entire day with the goats, and every time I tried to redirect her and have us go see something different, she'd say to me "But Daddy, I love them!"

Consequently, we spent a lot of time in the petting zoo dealing with goats of all colors and sizes.

She also rode a camel (not a Bactrian camel, as she told me -- that factoid courtesy of Zoboomafoo, I'm certain.)

Generally positive reviews. "Bumpy but fun..." -- Anna

It was pretty hot today, so we came back from the zoo mid-afternoon. We sat around being lazy in general. I read some of The Revenge of Gaia, which made for some interesting reading material after having just been to the zoo where seemingly every animal was endangered. I agree that we've pretty much wrecked this planet for every species of living thing save humans (and we're working on that now) but so far, the book seems like an environmental version of the book The Long Emergency. I mean, I agree that global warming does appear to be happening and we need to do something about it, but the book is making me feel like shit for having brought another life into the world. Pretty much the same way The Long Emergency made me feel.

We rounded out the night playing Barbie Beauty Boutique on her computer (which she refers to as "the Barbrie makeover game) while we listened to the Olivia Newton-John DVD of her early videos in the background. They're some of the cheesiest things in the universe, and even the excuse of "it was the 80s" doesn't really give them a pass. I mean, I don't think there was an 80's cliche that ONJ didn't fall for, hook, line and sinker. Bear witness to these:



But I do love this one -- because she is, well, totally hot.



But what's up with that construction worker touching his buddy as Olivia runs by in her leather pantsuit? Am I supposed to believe that actually happens?

And I got Anna to bed around 9pm (even though she insisted on wearing her footie pajamas in July.) All in all, a good day.

It's life's little victories...

...that make life worth living. I finally finished the Puzz 3D of the John Hancock Center yesterday.

It was a bitch to put together, but as it came together, it (obviously) got easier and easier. And while it claims to glow in the dark, I would have to say that the glowing in the dark feature was rather disappointing. But it's still cool. I'd like to get an Empire State Building, but I'm rapidly running out of real estate in my office for things like this.