Junk the morgue

In the last hour, Heidi and I have successfully brought up a lot of the crap that was in my basement office and placed it on the bed in my back bedroom office (which I am lovingly referring to as "my dorm room" because it really does feel that way!) Right now, my mission which I must accept is to go through it once and for all and decide what gets kept and what gets junked. Here's something to give you an idea of the enormity of my task.

A lot of it is junk that I have been carting around for nearly two decades - and the oldest stuff isn't even up here yet. A box full of MAD magazines and other sundry stuff remains in storage in the nether regions of the basement. My goal is to free myself of the shit that I am holding on to for no good reason or for reasons other people have put on me. I'm going to spend the next half hour doing that and then I'm going to get ready to go the meditation group at UUFA again. We'll see how well I do. Once the whole dorm room is done, I'll post pictures.

But at the rate I'm going, who knows when that will be.

Holding back the years

Today is my sister Wendy's 29th birthday. She has but one more year before she joins Ryan and me in the 30s. She is spending her birthday in Yellowknife, NWT, Canada which, from what I hear, is already seeing snow! Fortunately for her, from the sounds of it, she'll be moving back to the States this December and living in L.A.

Just because I'm always good for this kind of thing, here we are sometime in the early 80s.

What was with my big brown collar?

And here's one that I shamelessly stole from her Facebook page. I saw it a couple weeks ago and did a double take because I could have been looking at my very own daughter!

I mentioned this to Wendy and she replied that "Anna is my Mini-Me!" You can definitely tell Anna has 50% of my genetic makeup - or at least the genes from my side of the family. Here they are together at my Mom and Dad's 40th Wedding anniversary holding the baby of a cousin of ours.

In honor of Wendy's birthday, I decided to post this song that always reminds me of her. It is Wet Wet Wet's "I Can Give You Everything." (mp3) It was the B-side to the "Love Is All Around" single and we ended up liking it more than the song she bought the single for! It was either that or Basia's "An Olive Tree" complete with its Gremlin chorus at 2:42 and Basia swinging on a vine a la Tarzan at 4:25! Mem'ries, light the corners of my mind.

Happy birthday sis! Hope it's a good one!!

Plague House

Does that, or does that not sound like a new PBS series? Anyway, it's kind of us right now. I have somehow managed to get the autumn cold that I always get. Heidi was in bed at 8PM tonight after having spent most of the night in a chair under a blanket denying that she was sick. Anna has been kind of under the weather for the last couple of days, but she is by far the healthiest of the three of us.

If I felt just a little bit better, I would be going out to Hy-Vee to get these because I am craving them:

They're Dots! And they're ghosts! Everybody else probably has already seen these, but I have not seen these until this year.

I was also amazed by the fact that the Tootsie Roll Industries plant in Chicago produces 16 MILLION Dots a day! That's a damn lot of Dots.

It is the walk

All day today I have been slowly moving my office from the basement to the spare bedroom in the back of the house. The reasons for this are manifold. The primary impetus is to remove myself (and my electronics) from the flood zone, but other reasons include the fact that it is colder than hell down there in the wintertime as well as the fact that I am so far away from everyone else in the basement I may as well be living in my own house. I think Heidi has gotten tired of yelling down at me and I can understand that.

Because things like this can never just happen around here, we naturally had to do some quick sanding and sealing of the hardwood floor in the spare bedroom. To be honest, it really needed it. No one had done a thing with it before we bought the house besides damage it. There were paint stains and water stains all over it. No longer. Heidi sanded it. I sealed it. It is beautiful.

So like I said, I have moved my desk and computer upstairs and I think I'm gonna like it. It's odd to have to be conscious of how loud my music is because Heidi is watching Battlestar Galactica in the next room. I don't have half my shit up here yet, but I think this is as good a time as any to thin some of the stuff that I have been accruing. I started with T-shirts that I wear to bed. Some of those T-shirts I have been carrying around for over a decade. I finally threw away the Iowa City Public Library: A Century of Service T-shirt from 1997! Also amongst the cast-offs were my Dean For America shirt, a shirt from my dorm floor in college and a "heavy metal" t-shirt consisting of that section of the periodic table. Yeah, geek. We knew that already.

I also went to a Mindfulness and Meditation session at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship tonight. I have been meaning to go to those for months now (they have them every Sunday night) and I finally went tonight. It was kind of weird, I will admit, mostly because even though I try to meditate on my own, frankly I kind of suck at it. Tonight was no different. No sooner did I sit down and try to calm my mind than EVERY PART OF MY BODY started itching. Then my leg started cramping. Then I couldn't get my back to straighten up. Once I finally got situated, I found myself having to get up and do walking meditation - something I had read about but never done. All in all, it was a good experience. One thing stuck with me though. Right before we started walking, they read from Thich Naht Hahn. The passage was "there is no happiness walk, happiness is the walk." How easy it is to forget that. So frequently, we figure that this thing or that thing will make us happy, only to be disappointed. I shall endeavor to remember Thich Naht Hahn's words during the upcoming week.

In the meantime, here's an actual artist's depiction of Heidi and me moving furniture in my new office today.


I gotta quit smoking that pipe, I tell ya. It's going to be the death of me.

I told Heidi I was getting rid of the Iowa City Public Library T-shirt and she talked me out of it! It's back in my drawer.

Stop the Palinsanity!

I'm sorry, but I cannot fucking believe this:

When Gibson said if under the NATO treaty, the United States would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia, Palin responded: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

"And we've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable," she told Gibson.

WHAT THE FUCK?

This person is NOT ready to be the vice-president if she thinks that war with Russia is feasible in any way or form. You do not pick fights with a nuclear power. Perhaps the neocons are so drunk on power that they think they can invade any country in the world. I cannot believe that she said that. What kind of message does that send to other countries? Even though she is not in political power, you can bet that leaders around the world are listening. Hopefully this gets legs and the media jumps all over it and this is the end of all this ridiculousness.

Do the neocons just want endless war? Because let me tell you, a war with Russia would be over in about an hour.

Where is Susan Powter when you really need her?

M

This is the blog's 1000th post. I can hardly believe it.


I like to look at this spot on the internet as "the little blog that could." I started out rather without an agenda, and I carry on without one, writing about whatever the hell I feel like writing about. I will never be a big star from blogging or writing, but it gives me great pleasure to come here several times a week and gush about whatever I feel like. And it still is amazing to me that people read it. Not many, mind you, but I really don't care.

Now that I have posted the 1000th post, I can stop wondering what I will do for the 1000th post and move on!

EDIT: Adding up the numbers in the archives on the side of the blog gives only 997. I'm pretty sure this is because I have deleted exactly 3 posts in the nearly 5 year history of this blog. They count, even though they no longer remain. And anyway, it's what the Blogger home page told me. It's not like I counted!

It sounds like a whisper

I told a couple friends earlier this week that as the summer transitions to autumn, I find myself naturally drawn to music that is quiet and introspective, sometimes even depressing. I don't know why that is, although the obvious answer is that the music matches the season. This year especially, when with apparently no warning we plunged into the 60s for highs immediately after Labor Day, the quietness of some of the music I have been listening to has seemed more than appropriate. It was amongst all this that I rediscovered Tracy Chapman.

Tracy Chapman always reminds me of my high school friend Kelly. She was probably the best friend I had in high school and although we didn't always see eye to eye on everything, we always had a healthy respect for the other's opinions - at least as much as you can when you're 16. She was the Miss 120 Minutes to my Mr. Top 40 Pop and we each had broader horizons for it. I first heard "Fast Car" during the summer of 1988 on MTV (can you imagine MTV playing that now?) and immediately thought of Kelly and how she would like it too. If nothing else, I knew that she would certainly not be like another of my friends who saw the video on MTV and laughed hysterically at Chapman's hair and husky alto. I remember just falling in love with the song - it was so somber and so lyrically complex and so...unexpected during that summer. I couldn't wait for school to start so that we could discuss it because, oddly enough, we would frequently lose contact over the summer, only to start right back up in the fall as if we'd never been apart.

"Fast Car" is to Tracy Chapman as "Luka" is to Suzanne Vega in that it's the one that everyone knows. (Suzanne Vega wrote a great piece about "Luka" and the "two hit wonder" phenomenon here. It's amazing.) And really, I still like it a lot although it doesn't frequently make it into heavy rotation unless I'm listening to the album. I wonder how Tracy Chapman feels about "Fast Car" after all these years. Does she feel obliged to play it? I hope she feels like Suzanne Vega does about "Luka" because just because it was popular does not mean that it should be punished, especially when the songwriting is so brilliant. The part of "Fast Car" that has always stood out for me was its bridge, which is technically not a bridge because it is repeated 3 times.

I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

That bridge is the heart of the song for me. In the end, I am so glad that it is repeated 3 times because I always want to hear it just one more time.

I bought the Tracy Chapman album from one of those BMG or Columbia House club things (which I remember MAD Magazine refering to as "slightly harder to get out of than an Iranian jail.") and really, you'd think that "Fast Car" would be it and the rest of the album forgettable. But the whole album is so cohesive, so well written and produced, that it's hard to separate the songs from the whole. It really is a product of the moment, one that is organic and not something that you could hope to produce if you were consciously trying. The album speaks softly, but is angry in many places speaking to racial and socioeconomic injustices in the way that only folk music can.

Personally, it's the quiet songs about relationships on the album that have always stood out for me. And among these, the album track "If Not Now..." (download) remains, to this day, my favorite track on the whole album. "If not now, then when?" she muses, declaring "A love declared for days to come/Is as good as none." It's odd...lyrically, it is very simple, a complete contrast to "Fast Car" but when you're listening to it, you don't notice that. Perhaps it's the simplicity that draws you in, the simple feelings that pretty much any human being can recognize.

During our junior year of high school, Kelly and I kept a handwritten journal together in a series of Mead notebooks. We'd pass it back and forth between us and take turns writing in it. I still have those and the other night I pulled one out because I remembered that we had talked about Tracy Chapman in those pages. I remember sitting in the stands at Carroll High home football games reading Rolling Stone magazine (which Tracy Chapman had made the cover of) while everyone else was watching the game. I remember how she had her copy of Percy Bysshe Shelley with her at all times during those days. I also remembered how she had written the lyrics to the Tracy song "For You" in one of the entries she made in that journal. "No words to say/No words to convey/These feelings inside/I have for you." What exactly she was trying to say with those words, we can't know now. If they were meant for me, I was certainly oblivious to it. But that would be giving myself way too much credit. We wrote song lyrics in there all the time.

I really don't know where Kelly is these days or what she's up to, but I do miss her, in the way that you miss someone that influenced you in ways you didn't even recognize at the time. But that's the beautiful thing about music, it can take you backwards, forwards or stand you still, frozen in time. And whenever I listen to Tracy Chapman, I get a little bit of all three. 20 years out from its initial release, it remains timeless.

Just a Backwoods Barbie

I honestly can't believe that the McCain campaign has not decided to use Dolly's "Backwoods Barbie" for Sarah Palin. But that would, of course, require Dolly to OK the use of her song (or would it?) and I think there is a greater chance of pigs flying out of my butt than that happening. Dolly is very evasive about her political affiliation, claiming that she's not political but "very patriotic." However, I don't think she is fooling anyone and I would daresay that her politics land left of center. She still has my favorite response to the "do you support same sex marriage" question:

And when asked whether she supports same-sex marriage, she jokingly responded, "Hell yes. You people should have to suffer just like the rest of us!"

I'm sure that would not be Palin's response.

I have tried to be quiet on the blog about political things as 1) it usually gets me into trouble and 2) I feel like half the time I go off half-cocked and don't make sense, which leads to #1. But anyone who thinks that Palin is qualified to be the dog catcher, let alone the vice-president of the United States is, as Celine Dion would say, seriously misled. She would be, with not one iota of foreign policy experience (except for the fact that Alaska is close to Russia) second in line for the presidency - the president if something happened to McCain. Hmmm...for whatever reason, that does not make me feel any better about how she might handle the Georgia/Russia crisis. Talk about on the job training.

Ultimately, the choice of Palin speaks very poorly about McCain's judgment, which I think helps the Democrats immensely. But I've seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory before (see 2000 and 2004) so I will not believe it till I see it. If we vote them into office, we will get exactly what we deserve.

I just hope we're smarter than I think we might be. I thought we were smart in 2004, and we weren't. Let's hope we learned from that experience.

And because I can't end on such a sour note, here's my favorite shot of Dolly from the Backwoods Barbie tour book. I would seriously die if I were walking through the woods and saw Dolly Parton FISHING in that outfit.

(click to make bigger - totally worth it.)

Disappearing post

I have no idea why, but my Top 80 minutes of the summer post below disappeared today. I have restored it, thanks to the wondrousness that is Google Reader. Perhaps I inadvertently deleted it, but I doubt it. I would bet that it is just a Blogger glitch (NO! That NEVER happens.)

Thank heavens I was able to restore it, because it took forever to write!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Perception of children

There are a lot of times, as a parent, you're left guessing what your kid is thinking. It starts from the minute they are born and really, if you think about it, never stops. But every now and again, you get a glimpse into what's going on in their brain. Last night Anna was playing The Sims 2 on my computer. Now, realize that for her, "playing" The Sims 2 basically amounts to building the family, moving them into a house and furnishing it thanks to the "motherlode" cheat. While she was building the family, she announced that she was going to make a Sim of me. This is what she came up with.

Um, hello. Purple suit? But this image of me from her perspective is interesting. I also found the rest of the family interesting as well, especially the teenage daughter lending even further credence to my theory that Anna is 6 going on 16 (at least in her mind.)

But back to me. I don't think I could pull that suit off even if it were Halloween. I admire any man who can wear that without having their face made up like the Joker. Granted, my fashion choices have deviated a lot further from my boring choices of just a few years ago, but that suit just will never happen. But apart from the suit, I daresay I look pretty damn good.

And look at me, I still get the girl.

Jeez, get a room already!

Dan's Top 80 Minutes (give or take a few) of Summer 2008

Well, there's certainly one thing you can say about the summer of 2008 when it came to music: It was certainly NOT the summer of 2007. As I compiled my summer playlist throughout the last few months, I found myself by and large rediscovering old songs rather than discovering new ones. There was no "Two Times Blue" that completely dominated my listening. However, not every summer can be that way, and on the whole, it was still rather fun. Anyway, here's my Top 80 Minutes of the summer of 2008. As usual, no particular order.

1) Thea Gilmore / Juliet (Keep That In Mind)
Heidi actually introduced me to Thea Gilmore, who was introduced to her by Neil Gaiman (actually Neil Gaiman's blog, although I'm sure she would love to talk Thea Gilmore with Neil Gaiman!) I heard this song for the first time on our way to see the Dolly Parton concert in early May. Upon hearing it for the first time, I exclaimed "It sounds a lot like the Indigo Girls!" To which she replied, "Yeah, but with a British accent." I love the acoustic guitar in this song, especially around the chorus. Anna also belts it out in the car which is beyond cute, but I'm biased.

2) Donna Summer / Stamp Your Feet
As far as new songs go, this song probably came the closest to being this summer's "Two Times Blue." It is probably the strongest track off of Donna Summer's album Crayons. The fact that she resisted the temptation to go all adult contemporary or, worse yet, interpret the great American Songbook was impressive. That Crayons was a stomping dance record was just icing on the cake! I wonder if this song got much play at gay pride events around the country this summer - I wouldn't know about Des Moines Pride as it's not until October! (postponed from June due to massive flooding)

3) Casey Stratton / You Wanted Out
Perfectly encapsulating everything that I love about Casey's music (the driving piano, a minor key, dramatic but not melodramatic lyrics), this is the best song off of Orbit, hands down. I am a much bigger fan of Orbit than I am The Crossing, mostly because with Orbit, I feel like Casey is branching out a bit. He is staying true to his core sound, but also incorporating new bits in as well. In my version of the world, Casey would be recording a lot more uptempo songs in the vein of "You Wanted Out" but who the hell am I to tell him what to record? He has to follow his own muse.

4) Erasure / Yahoo!
Last year's retro Erasure addition to this list was "Freedom." This year, it was "Yahoo!" from The Innocents. In my mind, they have always been more of a singles band than an albums band, but The Innocents is a near perfect album from Erasure. There is nary a bad moment on the whole record. "Yahoo!" is like any good pop song, crawling into your head an holding on for dear life. It is vaguely contemporary Christian if you can believe it ("I'll pray to the Lord on high to rescue me.") but since they are Erasure, I highly doubt that was the intention.

5) Cyndi Lauper / Into The Nightlife
Who knew that it would be Cyndi Lauper that would ultimately produce the most worthy follow-up to Confessions on a Dance Floor? Much like Jason Hare pointed out in a recent Wings for Wheels podcast, I kind of appreciate Cyndi (specifically latter-day Cyndi) more than I honestly like it, but this album is a big exception. In the original version of this list, both "Into The Nightlife" and "Same Ol' Story" (and its liberal use of the f-bomb) were here, but ultimately the disco goodness of "Into The Nightlife" eclipsed "Same Ol' Story." The verses are still clunky, but you cannot beat that chorus. All spun up, indeed.

6) The Ting Tings / Shut Up And Let Me Go
I don't know, I kind of feel bad liking this song. Listening to it makes me feel like I've just gone to a strip club and want to burn my clothing afterward. It always seems like a good idea at the beginning and then by the end, you're really wishing you hadn't. But then you just go back for more. Because of this, it's on the summer list.

7) Madonna/ Give It 2 Me (Paul Oakenfeld Edit)
I have still not warmed much to Hard Candy (although the tour is likely to change some of that), but I still like "Give It 2 Me" quite a bit. I especially like this remix edit of the song which takes away all the R&B aspirations that the song had and makes it the dance song it should have been. It also removes the rather awkward "get stupid" interlude that tries to pass itself off as a bridge. I have managed to avoid knowing exactly what version of "Give It 2 Me" is performed on the tour, but I'm hoping it's this one.

8) October Project / Bury My Lovely
If I had to go out on a limb, this song is probably my song of the summer. The fact that it was released 14 years ago is not pertinent to the discussion. It is THAT good. Thanks to XO (who sent me "Bury My Lovely" one day this summer) I have purchased the entirety of October Project's back catalog, which is a grand total of 23 songs. The October Project album from which this song is taken has catapulted its way up my list of "desert island" albums. I know that October Project has reformed with a new lead singer but let me tell you how no one touches Mary Fahl's bigger than life vocals. I was talking to a friend about it the other day, and when he heard "Bury My Lovely" he commented on how there is a vaguely Cher-ish quality to her voice. I can see that. Simply put, a fantastic song.

9) Coldplay / Viva La Vida
I have never liked Coldplay much, but this song is a huge exception. It is epic in its arrangement and really didn't sound like anything else on the radio this summer (not that I listened to the radio much.) I really need to pick up the rest of the album sometime and try the rest out.

10) Sam Sparro / Clingwrap
There's a lot to like about Sam Sparro who I really think channels early Prince on a lot of his songs. "Clingwrap" is one of many standout songs on his debut record. What I like about "Clingwrap" is how lyrically complicated it really is. "You must have thought I was a snack/Because you're sticking to me like clingwrap" is a great hook. I also like this line:

See i got enough friends that could fill a truck up
Now give me some room and just back the f**k up
Like when you're washing you're clothes at the laundermatic
And you pull them out the dryer and they stick like static
That's what you do

It's a stalker song!

While the lyrics do not always stand out for me in songs, the ones on Sam Sparro's record really do.

11) Mariah Carey / I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time
Shut up you haters! I like this song! It's the first Mariah Carey song that I have liked in probably close to a decade (I did have a soft spot of those Glitter songs.) The thing I dislike about Mariah is when she does all those vocal acrobatics just for the sake of doing them, but this song if thankfully free of such histrionics. There is also no rapper on the track. It's probably the most purely pop song I have heard her do in quite a while which is a great relief. And then there was the good laugh my blogger buddies and I had over the title which is quite politically insensitive, so I won't repeat it here.

12) Dolly Parton / 9 to 5 (Love To Infinity Radio Mix)
I absolutely adore it when old songs get the remix treatment. Although the results are frequently mixed, it's still fun to see new life breathed into moldy-oldies. "9 to 5" has had DJ remixes in the past which really don't do all that much but extend the song (and at just over 2 minutes, it needs some extension!) Love To Infinity took the song and completely reinvented it, but still allowed it to be recognizable as the classic Dolly song that it is. What I particularly like is that it uses the original vocal, rather than a rerecorded Dolly vocal (as Stevie Nicks did with the "Dreams" remix.) It lends just a little more authenticity to the mix. Now if we can just get one for "Potential New Boyfriend" I will promise to shut up about that!

13) Jay Brannan / Can't Have It All
Out singer/songwriter Jay Brannan is semi-well known for his turn in Shortbus and his YouTube videos. Exactly how he appeared on my radar I can't quite recall, but I'm pretty sure it was this song that did it. I listened to it and the "fuck this! this can't be my life" lyric really hit home and I went over to emusic and picked up the rest of the album. For me, this is one of those great songs that reflects the aging process, when you realize in your life that you have to make choices between things and experiences, etc. For those that think "gay" music is nothing but thumping disco beats and incidental lyrics, this album might change your mind.

14) Heart / Alone (v1r00z Remix)
Much like Eric Prydz's "Call On Me" from a couple summers back, this is not as much a remix of Heart's 80s power ballad as it is cleverly used samples of the song thrown into a thumping beat. I would have liked a bit more of the vocals used, but I suppose songs like this are not about the vocals. The only thing missing is the poppers, but I fear they were all consumed during the production of this remix. But don't take my word for it - I'm 99.9999% sure it is a bootleg and therefore unofficial, so here it is. (download)

15) Stevie Nicks / Crash Into Me (Live)
Stevie did the PBS Soundstage thing this summer and while I didn't see it (stupid "check your local listings") I did watch a few performances on YouTube. Because Stevie is such a prolific songwriter, she really doesn't need to do covers, but it's always a treat when she does (Bob Dylan's "Just Like A Woman" notwithstanding.) Her take on Dave Matthews' "Crash Into Me" is beautiful and just makes me wish she'd get her butt back in the studio and record a new solo record (a prospect increasingly unlikely considering the planned Fleetwood Mac album and tour slated for next year.)

16) Rick Springfield / What's Victoria's Secret?
This is a song title that, if I were a songwriter, I would pay cold hard cash to have come up with first. I blogged this song previously, and I'm surprised how much staying power it has had for me. It seriously had the potential to be one of those songs that I downloaded and listened to 10 times in the first 2 days and then never listened to again. But its perfect marriage of retro and current has made it a favorite on my iPod. I am tempted to pick up the rest of the album, but I just don't know how much Rick Springfield I really need in my life. That having been said, this is a great pop song and if this were 1985, it would be a number one hit. Alas, it is 2008 so it barely made a dent (if that) in the charts.

17) Alanis Morissette / Not As We
During the summer, there were three different songs from Alanis' Flavors of Entanglement on this list. The first one to make the list was "Giggling Again For No Reason." But I found myself skipping it on the playlist every time I came to it -- a certain sign it needed to be jettisoned. Then it was "Straitjacket" but ultimately, the song really started annoying the crap out of me. So finally, I settled on "Not As We." It is a slow burn but the part in the chorus where she sings "I'm faking it / Till I'm pseudo making it" gets me every time. All in all, that album was a great return to form for Alanis. IMHO, it's her best since Jagged Little Pill and in the top 10 albums of the year.

18) Keane / Spiraling
I have not really been a fan of Keane's. I was underwhelmed by their debut album that everyone spoke so highly of (although on relisten now, I am liking it more than I did.) The only song of theirs that I really liked was "Leaving So Soon" and that was mostly because of the dramatic "A slap in the face for you now!" plus it's a kiss off song so I'm contractually obligated to like it. So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I awaited their new song that was briefly available for free on their web site. I knew that my other blogging buddies would probably like it, so the peer pressure was intense. I'm pleased to report that not only do I love the song, I am also eagerly awaiting the release of the full album. I can see this song lingering into the fall as well.

19) Alphabeat - Boyfriend (Pete Hammond 7" Mix)
This is a VERY late entry into the summer playlist, but it is a most worthy one. I have D'Luv to thank for this one. There is not much to say about this but it feels like it is 1988 all over again when you listen to this song! But D'Luv had a much better post about this song than I could ever compose, so go read his. A very pleasant way to finish off the summer and head into autumn, which I am greatly looking forward to.

Birthday girl

9 days after Madonna turned 50, Heidi is turning 35 today. Let the party commence!

First of all, let's have this:

I'm not sure how old she is, but dig that softer side of Sears photo set-up that anyone who had the pleasure of growing up in the 70s got to experience.

And then, what the hell, let's do this one:

This is Heidi showing off the mid 90's fashion of large eyeglass frames. Additionally, this is me showing off my vanity and refusing to wear glasses when really, by then, I should have been wearing them all the time. Pretty sure this was just before we were married because shortly after our wedding, I had no choice but to start wearing glasses 24/7.

All kidding aside, happy birthday honey! Without getting too sappy and sentimental (but at, the same time, to get sappy and sentimental), I am so glad that you choose to celebrate your birthdays with me. You are my best friend and the one that is constantly on me to improve myself and to believe in myself during those times when I have lost the ability to do that for myself. You are my Amazonian, my biggest defender and I will boil up the rice in the satellite dish any day that you ask me. You were just what I needed all along. (Good old Kirsty, you can always count on that song for us.)

It's been a heck of a year, you know? Some great, some good, some bad and little bit that was terrible. But here's to at least 70 more birthdays. And I'll be there right next to you. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

And just for fun (remember this one?):

Happy birthday sweetie. I love you tons!

The stiletto cuts quick

Since Heidi is away on her mini-break with her good friend Shelly in Iowa City, I guess it falls to me to do the Walter updates. The short version of the story is that, as of yesterday morning, he was STILL not eating or drinking appreciably. I measured out a cup of water into his dish and 8 hours laster, I measured what was left. Pretty much everything I had put in there was still there, so no oral intake of fluids. I had talked to the vet about this on Friday, so she had set aside a bag of IV fluids for us to pick up on Saturday morning in case he was still not taking fluids. On Saturday, we hopped on the bike and picked them up. All the while, I was trying to figure out what in the world I was going to hang that bag of fluids from.

I was feeling very MacGyver when I realized that I didn't exactly have an IV pole from which to hang the bag. What I ended up using was the drying rack we use for clothes that can't be dried. For a minute, I thought I might have to use a shoestring as well (if a piece of belly button lint had been needed, then I was DEFINITELY changing my name to MacGyver) but I managed to hook it over the top and it worked just fine.

I got the tubing hooked up and primed, and then put the needle on. Anna was helping me at this point, and no sooner did I take the shield off the needle than I stuck my left thumb with the 18 gauge needle. In the 13 years that I have been a pharmacist, I have never gotten a single needlestick. Until now. Of all the needles to do that with, it had to be the one that is pretty much like a knitting needle. Bleeding ensued. Anna was concerned. Fortunately, I healed quickly and we were able to get about 200 mL of fluid into Walter during the day yesterday.

Anna was a supremely helpful veterinary assistant, as the following photo demonstrates.

I seriously could not have done it without her help.

Last night before I went to bed, I noticed that a little bit of the salmon that I had put in the cage for him to eat had disappeared, so things are looking up again. I am kind of weighing the pros and cons of doing another 100-200mL of subcutaneous fluids today, but I also don't want to fluid overload him. So we'll see. He's a little perkier today and his nose is wet, which it had not been for the last several days.

Also, courtesy of Hans (Heidi's brother), a statue of Bast arrived in the mail yesterday. What a good guy!


(Bonus points and my instant friendship to anyone who can identify the source of this post's title. And no fair Googling!)

Caption this

This is one of my favorite photos from the Sticky & Sweet Tour so far. The look on her face is hilarious! Thanks to XO for this.

The tour opens

Not too long from now, those lucky Madge fans in England (Paul and John included!) will be seeing the opening night performance of Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour. I'm a bit torn on the viewing of images and video from the tour as it does ruin the surprise a bit, but in the internet age it's almost impossible not to see and read things. But this was one of the first things I saw when I logged on to my e-mail this morning!

This appears to be from the Old-School section of the show (?) and I approve! In 2 months, it'll be me at the tour and that day cannot come soon enough.

Here's the set list, for those of you who haven't read it (and aren't uber-Madge fans.) It is still "a rumored track list" at this point, but I would bet cash that this is what we wind up with.

Intro/Candy Shop
Beat Goes On
Human Nature
Vogue
Video Interlude - Die Another Day
Into The Groove
Heartbeat
Borderline
She's Not Me
Music
Video Interlude - Rain/Here Comes The Rain Again
Devil Wouldn't Recognize You
Spanish Lesson
Miles Away
La Isla Bonita/Lela Pala Tute
Doli Doli (Live Interlude - Romanian Folk Song)
You Must Love Me
Video Interlude - Get Stupid (About saving the planet)
4 Minutes
Like A Prayer
Ray Of Light
Hung Up
Give It To Me (Finale)

It does look good, although I am so seriously tired of "La Isla Bonita" and "Ray Of Light." I suspect that she keeps on doing "Ray Of Light" because she likes playing the guitar, but we'll see. And I do think the biggest WTF moment is "You Must Love Me" from Evita, but it still doesn't top the ultimate WTF moment that was "I'm Going Bananas" on The Girlie Show.



(photos via)

Vehicular uprising

The vehicles around here must be talking to each other.

I took the car in this morning to get its oil changed because the next paycheck is not looking pretty and it really needed to be done, especially with Heidi going to Iowa City this weekend. No problem - I just took it out to Car-X and the oil change usually takes 30-45 minutes depending upon how many people are ahead of me. I would just take my book and my iPod like I usually do and just chill there while the oil was changed. About 45 minutes into the adventure, the guy came and told me that the transmission needed to be flushed. Crap. There goes the easy 40 dollar oil change. Instead, I walked out with nearly 200 dollars of car maintenance done. Again, with Heidi going to Iowa City, it probably was the best thing to do, and really, what are you going to do? NOT flush the transmission?

So that's all well and good. Heidi heads to Iowa City and I dink around until it's time to go pick up Anna from school. I even managed to get the wood out of the back of the truck which has been in there for the better part of 2 weeks. I get in the truck. Nothing. It doesn't turn over, it doesn't do ANYTHING. I may not know a lot about car maintenance (fluids is about where I begin and end), but I know enough to know that's a dead battery. Fat lot of good that does me because Anna still needs to be picked up from school. A quick call to the mother of a friend of hers tells me that she is going to pick up her daughter, but they are on the bike. Fuck. It leaves me with one option.

I had no other choice but to get on the bike (with the trail-a-bike behind it) and head off to pick Anna up from school. She, of course, was thrilled to see that I had brought the bike. I, of course, was amazed that I didn't have crushing chest pain on the ride, proving once again that I am in better shape than I think.

All in all, it's not a big deal. I'll wait till Heidi gets back on Sunday to jump start the truck - we have nowhere really to go. If we have to go to the vet tomorrow, we can always go on the bike again because the trip to the vet will not involve bringing Walter (for those not following the Walter drama, go to Heidi's blog.) But we do have to get to the store here for a few odds and ends, which we will be doing here in a minute. On the bike.

From the mouth of Cher

I have one thing: Do everything you can do NOW. I should have done all those things, I went "*tsk* Should I do this? Should I do this?" To hell with it! Do it! You can always look back and go "I shouldn't have done that!"

I heard this while getting ready for work this morning listening to the Farewell Tour on the iPod. We should always listen to Cher. Whenever you find yourself wondering what you should do, just ponder this T-shirt.And then do it.

What a wise woman.

They've lasted longer than the Zbornaks!

My folks celebrated Madonna's 50th birthday 40 years of marriage yesterday with a big old shindig at their house with a boatload of people and more food than any army could ever eat. I am having a hard time getting my head around 40 years. That's a damn long time to be hanging around any one person, let alone be married to them. But honestly, how cool is it to be with someone that long? Cooler than I can put into words.

Here they are 42 years ago.

And here they are yesterday, re-enacting scenes from their wedding reception.

I have the coolest parents in the world, there's no doubt about it. I was not always the easiest kid to raise - I was especially moody and annoying as a teenager -but they trusted in me to come around which nearly every kid does. My folks always seem to be there when we need them which is pretty damn amazing. And I can't even count the number of home improvements that my father has helped me with. As a friend of mine put it, it's no wonder I went int health care for it's in my best interest to keep him alive as long as possible!!

They made it longer than Stan and Dorothy Zbornak (38 years of marriage! and memories!) and I hope I can make it as long as they have. That is, if I live that long.

The other awesome part is that both my brother and his wife AND my sister and her boyfriend were back for the party as well. Since we're scattered all over the place and rarely see each other, it's always nice to see them. It was a great time and I just wish I could have spent more time with them as well. But there will always be next time.

(from left to right, my sister Wendy, her boyfriend Andrew, Heidi, me, my brother's wife Olenka and my brother Ryan.)

Here's to you Mom and Dad. Without you, I wouldn't be here. And as you all know, my mere presence is reason enough to celebrate. ;)

I'm on a ride and I wanna get off

The ads for Adventureland (located in Altoona, IA) used to say (and probably still do): Just one price is all you'll ever pay! That's the hook they use to get you in the door, only to milk you dry for the rest of the day. Like fools, we continue to go year after year. Part of the reason that we continue to do it is because my work provides us with heavily discounted tickets - a full 50%+ off the price of an adult admission and 10 bucks off a kid's admission. At prices like that, you really can't say no.

As a kid, the day we went to Adventureland was as eagerly anticipated as Christmas. I never actually went to Adventureland until I was in 6th grade, although I had been to plenty of county fairs, pay-as-you-go amusment parks (most notably Arnold's Park in, naturally, Arnold's Park, IA) and, of course, the Iowa State Fair. But the concept of paying to get in to the amusement park and then being able to ride till you puked was completely lost on me. My grandfather bought everyone in the family tickets year after year and, like clockwork, we would all trek to Adventureland, usually in mid-to-late June. It was a bit of a de facto family reunion, but make no mistake -- all of us cousins were there for the rides.

It's really not all that much to write home about, especially if you've been to places like Six Flags Great America or Disney World or Knott's Berry Farm. But by Iowa standards, it's a pretty big deal. According to their website, they are the #1 tourist attraction in Iowa, which is kind of like saying I'm the #1 oldest person living in our house. Not exactly much competition. But the thing that is cool about Adventureland is that there is oddly comforting when you go, year after year, to ride the same rides and eat the same crappy food. It even smells the same.

Anyway, as you might predict, Anna just loves the place. She's a ride kid through and through and each year gets a little braver. Although she stuck with a lot of her tried and trues (the Tea Cups and the Balloon Races being perennial favorites), she also bit the bullet and got on the Falling Star (a big thumbs down from Anna who cried on the ride) but declined to ride the Galleon or the Silly Silo. Here she is on the Tea Cups (I was riding with her.)

However, the biggest thumbs down came for Adventureland's newest attraction, Kokomo Kove. It is bad enough that they are using that wretched late 80s Beach Boys song in their ad campaign for it, but nothing could have prepared us for the annoyance and aggravation that was the experience of Kokomo Kove. Anna had seen commercials for it on TV and was very eager to try it out. Being the sport that I am, I was willing to go in with her. We changed into our suits and headed over while Heidi grabbed a lounge chair.

I should have known that the experience would be bad when I got over there and the place smelled like a chemistry lab. Seriously, it was so chlorinated, there's no way anything was growing in there. It made you wonder if the area had been built on a phosgene disposal site. The bad part about chlorine is that there's a fine line between keeping the pool clean and poisoning the park guests. They were just slightly over that line. Almost instantly, my eyes started stinging. Anna's were not long to follow, although she thought it was sunscreen in her eyes. Before long, she was crying and torn between wanting to be in the water but wanting to get away from the chlorine. Add to this is the random dumping of water on you from above. I have never been a fan of that kind of shit - let me control the degree to which I want to get wet thankyouverymuch - but this was beyond anything I'd ever witnessed. There is a large "Kokomo Kove" bucket that dumps a shitload of water all over the place with little or no warning. Now maybe that's fun for kids, but I didn't like it and neither did Anna. After a very brief attempt, we found ourselves drying off and headed for other, less toxic rides.

This year, I found myself riding even less than I have in previous years. I am fond of saying that I am about 2-3 years away from having to wait in the car while everyone else goes in and rides rides. I can no longer ride the rides that go in circles. My father maintains it is because, as we age, our internal organs are held less firmly in place than they are when we're younger. I can buy that, because I literally can't ride the Balloon Races without feeling nauseous. And you can forget the Tilt A Whirl. Sadly, this year may very well have marked the last time I am able to ride my most favorite Adventureland ride, the Sidewinder. Witness: (not my video)



I love it, but I felt ill after riding it this year. And I'm not one of those people that will endure nausea and the potential for puking in the nearest trash can just to say "I can still ride that!"

And no trip to Adventureland is complete without funnel cake. There's nothing like fried pancake like batter covered with powdered sugar for finishing off your day. Here's Anna licking the plate.

All in all, it was a good day. We probably will go again when my work sells off the remaining Adventureland tickets for 5 bucks a piece in September. We'll see - one trip might be all I have in me this year. But if we get to see DOLLY PARTON at Adventureland again, it might be worth it.

I'm such a stalker.

(There was also a guy at the park that I saw three times wearing a Floppy T-shirt. I so wanted to go up to him and ask him where he got it, but figured that would be weird. I loved that show as a kid! Looks like I might have to pay a visit to the State Hysterical Historical Building to score one.)

Age ain't nothin' but a number

I would be remiss if I didn't post something to commemorate the half-century mark for Madonna. She is a woman who I literally have grown up under the influence of, and like it or not, that influence has helped shape me into the man I am today. That sounds dramatic, no? But in a way, it's true. I read once that the music we love when we are 15 is the music we will always love. And when I was 15, Madge (although it would be years before I started referring to her as Madge) could do no wrong.

What I love most about Madonna is the thing that she has been criticized for the most - her constant evolution. While her peers in the mid 80s have shrunken into either obscurity or just plain weirdness, she has continued to not so much re-invent herself as the press liked to call it, but rather evolve as an artist and as a human being. May we all continue to evolve and explore different aspects of our personalities.

So anyway, rather than do my top 10 Madonna songs (a daunting task for even me), what follows are a smattering of some of my favorite Madonna images. I sometimes wonder if she is the most photographed female, but certainly that can't be. Anyway...

Picking up the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for Evita. As my sister says, receiving this award just emboldened her to continue acting! This was also taken while she was still nursing Lourdes, which is why she is busting out of that dress!

A great picture from the Sex book which seems one of the more candid shots in the book.

Although I generally think that the negatives from the Bedtime Stories photo shoot need to be buried deep in the earth, I really like this shot of her that was used for the back of the album. I think about how grand this picture would look had BS been pressed on vinyl.

I have no idea from whence this photo comes, but she looks very good.

From the Re-Invention Tour Book - getting in touch with her inner Queen Amidala.

From the Music photo shoot.

If I recall correctly, this was originally set to be the cover for The Immaculate Collection. Warner nixed it in favor of the very BORING packaging that we eventually got.

Why is it that Madonna is at her sexiest when there is a chair in the shot? This was the cover of Rolling Stone probably 1990-ish, channeling a 1920's flapper type.

One of my favorite shots from the Sex book, and it doesn't even feature Madonna's face.

What did I tell you? Another chair! This one is from "Like It Or Not" on the Confessions Tour and she just oozed sexuality during that number. Dragging that chair up the center catwalk during the "no, no, you know" part was just genius. It's the simple things, I tell ya!

So happy birthday, Madge. In a week, the Sticky & Sweet Tour starts and don't you dare injure your damn ankle until at least after October 26th! Here's to 50 more birthdays and to all those folks in the media giving you grief over your age, I submit this photo from the Live 8 concert (another of my favorites!)

Not dead yet

August is on track toward being my least prolific blogging month in the nearly 5 year history of this blog! This week has not been what I would characterize as one of my best, but I have a couple posts in draft form, so hopefully I'll publish them soon.

I know, you're all waiting breathlessly for me to blog something. Believe me, I don't have those kinds of delusions of grandeur.

More soon. I promise.

Georgia on my mind

The title is cliched, but I'm sticking with it. Deal with it.

I really want to write this post, but words are failing me. I have been watching with a closer-than-usual eye the violence and war in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. For what is not the first time and what will certainly not be the last, a powerful country has unilaterally invaded one much weaker, with little regard for the sovereignty or borders of that country. I have to admit, what basically amounts to a Russian invasion of its neighbor Georgia has me more than a little bit worried. I know there is nothing that I can do about it, but still, it has me worried, feeling much like I used to when I was in junior high school, sure the world was about to ignite in a nuclear fireball from every little skirmish that erupted in some remote part of the globe.

I'm sure that there has been a lot leading up to what appears to me to be a very abrupt and intense over-reaction on the part of Russia. Many innocent people are dying for reasons that I'm sure I know next to nothing about. The Georgians are pleading with the West to help them. But there is no way on God's green earth that's going to happen. To do so would be to engage what is still a nuclear armed superpower and, well, that's just not going to happen. Still, I can't help but wonder what may lie ahead and it has put me in a funk that I didn't really anticipate.

As an early adolescent, I was so scared of nuclear war that it almost bordered on the ridiculous. It certainly didn't help that at the time, I was watching a lot of Herbert W. Armstrong and his Worldwide Church of God. Armstrong had a lot stuff on his program about how "a nuclear war will happen in my lifetime!" (he's been dead since 1986) and scary pamphlets you could order with titles like "When The Red Phone Rings" that made you feel like nuclear war was just around the corner. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War (not to mention growing up and becoming an adult), a lot of those fears fell by the wayside.

But still, you can't take the boy out of the man. In light of all that's happened, a lot of the same fears have welled up in me again. Could this spread? Could this be the event that sparks what is the end of the world? Stranger things have happened. I would like to think that we're all smarter than that, but with our current president, I sometimes wonder. The Huffington Post was reporting that the UN ambassadors to Russia and the US were "trading barbs" today and that the violence "could have a significant long-term impact on US-Russian relations." And then Dick Cheney goes and says something supremely helpful in "Russian aggression must not go unanswered." Whatever THAT means.

It would, of course, be helpful if we had any kind of higher ground to stand on. We have pretty much sent the message to the world that it's okay to invade a sovereign nation against the will of most of the world, so why would the Russians even give a shit what we think? To them, I'm pretty certain that our calls for respect of borders and the sovereignty of a country are the height of hypocrisy.

Ultimately, the answer is what will be will be. In a former version of myself, I thought that prayer would work, now I know it is pretty much worthless. I guess we just keep on living our lives and hope for the best. While there are a lot of things that we can control in our lives, there really are a large number of things outside our sphere of control and influence. Worrying about these things accomplishes nothing but ulcers and I'm not really interested in that. So it's time to stop worrying and as Dolly would say, get to living.

All I know is that I am more eager than ever to talk to my Russian sister-in-law later this week. She always has an interesting take on Russian current events. Olenka, consider yourself warned. I'll want to know everything.

The jump

Tonight I found myself having my 2-3 time per year debate about switching to Wordpress. What made this time different was that I actually imported this blog into Wordpress. I was nervous that it would wipe out the blog from its original site, so I created a backup of it just in case. It seemed to transfer all posts and comments to Wordpress without a hitch. Well, save one. There were some embedded YouTube videos that didn't import. Which is not really a big deal because half of them have probably been removed for terms of use violations.

So now that I've done all this, what am I going to do? *sigh* I really don't know. I like Wordpress because it's all fancy, but Blogger has really added some good features over the last year, and really, it feels a bit like cheating. Blogger and I have been together for nearly 5 years now, and to jump ship for the sexiness of Wordpress just makes me feel like a cad. Never mind the fact that there are some very real issues with Wordpress that I don't like. I have yet to figure out how to add a counter so that I know who's visiting. Then there's the matter of all the people who have linked to the Blogger blog. Surely, they won't all go back and update the link to reflect the Wordpress blog. That would be too much to ask, naturally.

So I'm not sure. I think in the end, I'll probably stick with Blogger, because I always do. But sometimes, even when you're married, it's still fun to flirt.

Paging Dr. Drake...Dr. Noah Drake

Last week I was out and about and heard a radio ad for Rick Springfield's Iowa State Fair appearance (with special guest Patty Smyth of Scandal!) It made this rather interesting claim to "twenty five years of hits." This caused me to audibly scoff. I mean, seriously. How about 2 years of hits in the last 25 years. That I will give him, but 25 years of non-stop hits? Who do they think they're fooling?

So thanks to this little bit of heightened Rick Springfield awareness, I noticed his new album, Venus In Overdrive, on iTunes on Tuesday. And I'll be goddamned but I really like that "What's Victoria's Secret?" song! It has a very "Jessie's Girl" sound and accomplishes the nearly impossibly by being both current AND retro simultaneously. I'm not sure I need to have the whole album, but dang. Additionally, PopDose did a great interview with him this week that's worth a read.

I guess I take back all the snarky things I said about Rick Springfield over the last week or so. Except for the claim to 25 years of hits. I wasn't born yesterday.