We finally have proof. My kid is better than your kid, hands down. There’s no denying it. There’s no arguing. It is now indisputable truth, supported by documentation. Young Matilda has been given the blessing by her school, and therefore by the federal and state governments, to be tested for the Gifted Program. Naturally we agreed because we know for a fact that she is far superior to normal human children. Granted, she never has been able to fly (she can only muster a minimal hover) but now it is apparent she will become one of those intellectual superheroes who uses her wits to defeat evil.
Or she’ll be an evil mastermind who will use her wits to defeat good. It’s really too early to tell. Most villains don’t show their lust for world domination until the age of twelve. Matilda is still just a babe in the world of domination.
I know that I should be against this. Gifted programs create an unnatural separation of children based on esoteric rules that could lead to a quasi-military arrangement in which the gifted ones are used to crack codes and spy on rogue nations. By placing the label of “gifted” on Matilda’s forehead, she’s being ushered into an intellectual and cultural elite and may very well be trained to consider herself special. I should rise up and demand that she be termed normal so as to avoid the stigma of being different from the other children.
Screw that! My kid is better than theirs! Ha! I always knew she was. From the first time I had computer issues and Matilida rigged a neural net that is capable of billions of calculations a minute. I should have suspected when she retrofitted my car with a hydrogen engine and enabled it to fly. My mind should have been intrigued the day that I noticed she had outfitted her little sister with a cloaking device.
She is a special kid. She has a natural curiosity that I hope she never loses. Sometimes she asks us the toughest questions and she expects a tough answer. How will the world end? Will the sun ever die? What is wood made out of? Why do we breathe air?
She and I have a tradition of play the “why” game, to see who wins. Right now I am undefeated. “Why is the sky blue” leads to a discussion of refracted sunlight and argon gas dispersion in the atmosphere. But I know that someday she’ll ask a why question that I’ll be unable to answer. And she’ll laugh at me and say, “You fool. I have surpassed your intelligence. I am the master now. Prepare to submit.”
We have always noticed how much this child likes to think. It’s her pastime. Whenever she reaches something she doesn’t understand she either asks, or deconstructs the moment until she does understand. She’s a natural doubter and always requires empirical evidence in order to be convinced of a natural truth.
I figure I should stay on her good side because, when it hits the fan and she sets up her regime, I’ll need to ask for some favors. First thing to go: Boy Bands.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Friday, January 24, 2003
Ah hell. I sit here bleary-eyed, over-stressed and worried about the projects I’m working on. I’ve gotten my latest schedules and they don’t look good. One project is way over budget and I’m trying to hammer it back into place without being verbally eviscerated by those responsible for the budget hemorrhage.
And then Kinko’s lost one of my projects for about three days. I got to know Tom at Kinko’s intimately. He saw the rage and panic in my eyes and knew . . . he knew that if he didn’t locate this project fast he’d be wearing his ass as a hat.
It’s been found. All is happy in lala land. Except me, that is. I should be happy about a million things, but I’m not. For some reason even the resolutions are irritating me.
I walk through the day with good cheer. “Hey Chuck! What’s up Bob?” (If you knew my working space, you’d know that no one named Chuck or Bob work with me. In fact, no one works with me. I’m home. Alone. Though I still have conversations with Chuck and Bob.) But it’s all a feint. It’s a lie. Deep inside I’m a bubbling miasma of stress and bitterness. Mostly bitterness, though I don’t know why.
Perhaps it’s because I want to do real writing but lack the topics. In reality, I’m aware that my audio biography is a form of mental masturbation. It’s here for my pleasure and the odds of anyone else enjoying it are slim. I haven’t really added anything else to this website for a long time. I have no story ideas, no essay ideas, no movie ideas. I don’t even have an idea that would fill a fortune cookie. Wait, maybe I do:
”Don’t ask me, damn it. I’m a friggin’ cookie. Seek professional help.”
There. That works.
Secretly I think I miss a certain era of my past. An era that lasted barely over a year, but it was a blast. A simple blast. It was when I was at the defunct dot com and worked off of a folding table. After a few months I was moved from sharing a table with my compadre Chad to each of us having our very own. We shared a room with two other editors, Jim and Todd. They were music editors. Chad and I were movies. The four of us planned the majority of the website on a weekly basis.
And we had fun. When we’d get mad we’d throw things and laugh at each other. We’d make fun of one another. And for no reason whatsoever, someone would suddenly scream out, “I AM THE LAW.” And we’d all laugh. Ha ha.
Now I’m alone. When I get mad I yell to the cat. She flips me of and leaves the room. I yell out “I am the law” and no one responds. All of my correspondence is done through email. Human contact is nearly at a minimum. Not that it’s bad. I generally don’t like people much. Oh well.
Maybe I’ll put in a complaint about myself to my supervisor. “He’s just too negative. But he makes good coffee.”
And then Kinko’s lost one of my projects for about three days. I got to know Tom at Kinko’s intimately. He saw the rage and panic in my eyes and knew . . . he knew that if he didn’t locate this project fast he’d be wearing his ass as a hat.
It’s been found. All is happy in lala land. Except me, that is. I should be happy about a million things, but I’m not. For some reason even the resolutions are irritating me.
I walk through the day with good cheer. “Hey Chuck! What’s up Bob?” (If you knew my working space, you’d know that no one named Chuck or Bob work with me. In fact, no one works with me. I’m home. Alone. Though I still have conversations with Chuck and Bob.) But it’s all a feint. It’s a lie. Deep inside I’m a bubbling miasma of stress and bitterness. Mostly bitterness, though I don’t know why.
Perhaps it’s because I want to do real writing but lack the topics. In reality, I’m aware that my audio biography is a form of mental masturbation. It’s here for my pleasure and the odds of anyone else enjoying it are slim. I haven’t really added anything else to this website for a long time. I have no story ideas, no essay ideas, no movie ideas. I don’t even have an idea that would fill a fortune cookie. Wait, maybe I do:
”Don’t ask me, damn it. I’m a friggin’ cookie. Seek professional help.”
There. That works.
Secretly I think I miss a certain era of my past. An era that lasted barely over a year, but it was a blast. A simple blast. It was when I was at the defunct dot com and worked off of a folding table. After a few months I was moved from sharing a table with my compadre Chad to each of us having our very own. We shared a room with two other editors, Jim and Todd. They were music editors. Chad and I were movies. The four of us planned the majority of the website on a weekly basis.
And we had fun. When we’d get mad we’d throw things and laugh at each other. We’d make fun of one another. And for no reason whatsoever, someone would suddenly scream out, “I AM THE LAW.” And we’d all laugh. Ha ha.
Now I’m alone. When I get mad I yell to the cat. She flips me of and leaves the room. I yell out “I am the law” and no one responds. All of my correspondence is done through email. Human contact is nearly at a minimum. Not that it’s bad. I generally don’t like people much. Oh well.
Maybe I’ll put in a complaint about myself to my supervisor. “He’s just too negative. But he makes good coffee.”
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
An extended installment of Audio Biography. We get into the "B"s today. Yay! There's another post from earlier today below. Don't miss it.
Tori Amos: From the Choirgirl Hotel
This disc had me from the moment Tori sings, “She’s addicted to nicotine patches.” I’ve always loved that image. Such an odd thing to have a particular hankering for, and yet not outside the bounds of reality.
For me this represented a return to the Tori Amos I truly enjoyed. Odd arrangements, vitriolic and poetic lyrics, anger, passion and strange sexual images that shouldn’t be sexual and yet . . . are.
This was probably the first real Tori Amos CD my wife and I purchased together. No doubt she got into it more than I did. I don’t deny that. I’m sure its innate feminine rage touched her in ways I wouldn’t understand.
And yet, songs like “Black-Dove (January)”, “Raspberry Swirl”, “Jackie’s Strength” and “Playboy Mommy” were particularly potent songs for me. “Black-Dove (January)” is one of those songs that paints an odd picture that sticks in my mind. Standing at the edge of the woods—or is it the edge of the galaxy?
This particular disc doesn’t hold any special memories for me, outside of laying on the couch with my intended, listening to “Raspberry Swirl” swirl around my surround sound system while we planned our wedding.
Tori Amos: Music: Jackie's Strength
Yet another CD Single. I’m not sure why I bought this one. Most likely it was purchased for the pure amusement of my wife. A pursuit I find endlessly enjoyable. Or, perhaps it was the alluring image of Tori Amos in a wedding dress splayed out on the back seat of a circa 1965 sedan. What can I say? I’m a sucker for retro-psycho-sexual-imagery. Maybe. I don’t know.
This song has always intrigued me. I have no idea what it’s really about. However, I always picture a young Jackie Kennedy on the day her husband was assassinated. Jackie was always the poster girl for American women in the sixties. A combination beauty, motherhood, poise and smoldering sexuality. Maybe I have a thing for pillbox hats?
For some reason I feel like this song is an ode to a woman who watched her husband die next to her. It represents so many human fears that it’s too juicy to pass up. But, for all I know the song is actually about a woman who can open pickle jars with her pinkies.
Tori Amos: Music: To Venus & Back
If I’ve listened to this CD once, it’s more than I remember. By this time I think I was pretty Toried out. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy her music any longer. That’s not true. But I probably had moved on musically, in my mind. If I recall, this came out about the same time as my obsession with Brian Wilson began.
There’s only one thing I recall about this disc. It’s that it was purchased in the Tower Records at Disney’s West Side in Walt Disney World on our honeymoon. My wife bought this. I bought a CD of live performances from SNL (it had Elvis Costello’s infamous Radio, Radio performance). We didn’t have a CD player with us. So the fact that we bought discs on this trip is pretty odd. Though, I suppose, I’ll always remember those two discs.
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe
One of the problems with revisiting your musical past is that you sometimes find some clunkers. Discs that you wish you had never purchased, or that you wouldn’t admit to owning.
I fully expected to have that reaction to this disc. It’s from the beginnings of my prog rock days in High School. I bought this, originally, on cassette when it came out in 1989. I was but a tadpole in the primordial ooze of music. I was investigating musical styles. And I found progressive rock. I’m not ashamed to admit that I still enjoy prog rock. Classic Yes is a wonder to behold in its complexity. Certain bands like Marillion have been able to continue playing prog rock by warping the definition over the years. I shudder at the thought of my hair.
But this disc. Well . . . it’s over-produced, over-wrought, over-performed and over-written. And yet I still enjoy it. There’s a closing piano figure that Rick Wakeman plays on “Brother of Mine” that still stuns me. The man has to have extra fingers.
I strongly remember laying on my bed, a few years after getting the cassette with my newly purchased CD version, forlorn over my stinging love of a girl named Andrea something. She was to be my true love. I wanted to show her that I was much cooler than this supposed love of her life named Geronimo (I’m not kidding, though he was certainly no leader). I’d listen to “The Meeting” and “Let’s Pretend” in the dark for hours. Why? Because I was a pathetic loser, that’s why.
To this day I still despise the song “Teakbois”. I hate that song with a passion.
ABWH: Evening of Yes Music Plus
The story for this one is pretty much the same as above. Except my memories of it are far better than this one. These two discs contain some of the most soulless versions of some great Yes songs that I’ve ever heard. I’m amazed that I spent hours listening to this.
Well, no, not really. I thought I was cool. Sad as it was. I really did. Sigh.
Apples in Stereo: Her Wallpaper Reverie [EP]
If anything, this band has one of the greatest names in the history of music. I have no idea what it means, nor do I care. This was my second disc purchase for this band and, sadly, I’ve fallen way behind in my purchasing habits of Apples in Stereo. I should be flogged.
Technically, this is a “concept EP”. The premise is a woman looking at the pattern of her wallpaper and going off into lala land. It’s a beautiful idea, if you’re into those psuedo-esoteric ideas from the sixties. I am. The Apples blend a dreamy Beatle-esque sound with a frantic, melodic, frightened Brian Wilson sensibility. It’s wonderful music. Wonderful.
I used to listen to the track “Benefits of Lying (With Your Friend)” on the way to work at StreamSearch. I’d listen to it, over and over and over. I don’t think it tells you anything about me that I listened to that song too much. Unless you count my obsessive nature. Or the fact that I dig the groovy guitar.
I also love “Strawberry Fire”. It’s an obvious ode to the Beatles in the “Strawberry Fields” era. It’s a song that makes me wish I was a groovy guy with my own psychedelic pad, man. Way out.
Apples in Stereo: The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
As I sit here listening to the opening track of this CD, young Matilda is proving why this is a great disc. She’s prancing around, singing “You’re such a pretty, pretty, pretty little girl . . .” That’s the exact reason why you should listen to Apples in Stereo. They’re fun. Great pop music in the truest sense of the word.
This CD purchase can be blamed purely on a guy named Jeff. He and wife were living in Nashville. I imagine he was terribly bored, because he kept making us some killer CDs (which I’ll actually discuss later). These CDs became my lifeline into music. I had hit a dead-end. I didn’t like anything and was considering giving up and just listening to conservative talk radio. Then the CDs began pouring in.
The second of this series opened with the Apples song “Go”. And . . . I was hooked. It’s one of the few discs that I can listen to over and over and over and over. Just great songs with great hooks.
One of my enduring memories of my wife will include the song “Stream Running Over.” It contains a little clapping bit that she can’t resist. As soon as it comes on, she transforms from mild-mannered middle-class mom to psychotic, synchronized dancing backup singer. It’s an amusing transformation.
In fact, we should have walked down the aisle to this song. Or, should I say grooooved.
Another highlight for me was “The Bird You Can’t See”. It’s a funky little tune that I used to play while I wrote descriptions for media on a website. Horridly repetitive work. But, as I was the only writer left on the sinking ship, it was my job to keep up the appearances of a full staff. The website, which used to take hundreds of people to run, became my personal etch-a-sketch. This song was featured prominently, as were other songs by Apples in Stereo. As I recall, I referred to this song as a Brian Wilson song with a Funkadelic back beat.
Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs: 16 Original Songs From The Hit TV Series
Hey! Don’t mock me. I can hear your derisive laughter from here. Of COURSE I own the soundtrack to the Animaniacs! Who the hell wouldn’t?
This show had some of the most brilliant writers on the Earth and they deserver your praise. For example, can you beat a song that contains all the countries of the world? How about all the state capitals? Or a song that likens our place in the universe to “the size of Mickey Rooney”?
Before you mock, you should take a listen. This is some funny, funny stuff. And should be listened to. Although, it helps if you have a kid around. That makes it easier to explain. I, of course, didn’t have a kid around at the time. I just liked it.
Sing along with me (to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance):
United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru; Republic
Dominican, Cuba, Carribean, Greenland, El Salvador too
Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guyana, and still; Guatemala, Bolivia, then Argentina, and Ecuador, Chile, Brazil
Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, Bermuda, Bahamas, Tobago, San Juan;
Paraguay, Uraguay, Suriname*, and French Guiana, Barbados, and Guam
Norway, and Sweden, and Iceland, and Finland, and Germany now one piece
Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Turkey, and Greece
Poland, Romania, Scotland, Albania, Ireland, Russia, Oman; Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Cyprus, Iraq, and Iran
There's Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, both Yemens, Kuwait, and Bahrain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Portugal, France, England, Denmark, and Spain
India, Pakistan, Burma, Afghanistan, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan; Kampuchea, Malasia, then Bangladesh, Asia, and China, Korea, Japan
Mongolia, Laos, and Tibet, Indonesia, the Philippine Islands, Taiwan; Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Sumatra, New Zealand, then Borneo, and Vietnam
Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Botswana; Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Gambia, Guinea, Algeria, Ghana
Burundi, Lesotho, and Malawi, Togo, The Spanish Sahara is gone; Niger,
Nigeria, Chad, and Liberia, Egypt, Benin, and Gabon
Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya, and Mali, Sierra Leone, and Algier; Dahomey,
Namibia, Senegal, Libya, Cameroon, Congo, Zaire
Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Rwanda, Mahore, and Cayman; Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Yugoslavia, Crete, Mauritania, then Transylviania, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Malta, and Palestine, Fiji, Australia, Sudan!
See if you can spot the countries that no longer exist!
Arc Angels: Arc Angels
In 1992 I was still stinging from the loss of Stevie Ray Vaughan. I was in college, trying to find myself. I didn’t succeed, but I did manage to find some debt. Stevie Ray was one of the remaining heroes from my Guitar God days. His music, his guitar playing still rang true with me and the fact that he died in a helicopter crash was devastating, even a year or two later. (The day the news of his death came out, I received phone calls from a variety of friends expressing their condolences. That was weird.)
Arc Angels were a reincarnation, of sorts, for Stevie Ray’s former rhythm section Double Trouble. They teamed up with Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton and formed a pretty mediocre rock unit.
However, I remember listening to the song “See What Tomorrow Brings” and when they got to the point where they sang, “The day they put away Stevie Ray” I swear I got tears in my eyes. Not because the song contained any real emotion for me. But after they sing that, a guitar solo that sound hauntingly like Stevie Ray plays. It’s distant, almost as if coming to you on a wind, from just over the hill. That if you walked to the crest of that hill, Stevie Ray would be beating the hell out of his ragged guitar, notes screaming with the ecstasy of musical death.
But, it would have been a Robert Johnson moment. Stevie was gone. I would never be a guitar god myself and one of my heroes was gone. And this CD just seemed to solidify that fact. It was almost too sad to consider.
Auteurs: Now I'm a Cowboy
To be honest, there’s no remarkable story for this CD. My wife gave it to me for my 27th (I think) birthday based on songs from one of Jeff’s CD. It’s an enjoyable disc. But, outside of the song “Underground Movies”, which is on the CD that Jeff made us, nothing has ever struck me as special about it. Oh, I enjoy it, but I wouldn’t deem it important enough to be considered a part of the “Soundtrack of My Life.” That being said, the song from Jeff’s CD does hold some significance for me. But I’ll discuss that when I get to Jeff’s CD.
Chet Baker: Chet Baker in Tokyo [LIVE]
If I were to insist that everyone own certain CDs, this would be one of them. Chet Baker could play the trumpet in such a way that you would get tears in your eyes. Each note and the smooth transition between them, is a heartbreaking story mirrored by Chet’s own tragic story. (Chet was one of the “cool” jazz players in the late fifties, early sixties. He blew it all on heroin. He became one hell of a junkie. He had all his teeth knocked out by a dealer. He recorded albums for drug money. He cleaned up his act, started playing again with the phrasing of a world-weary, beaten man. Then he died by falling out of a window in Amsterdam. Why a movie hasn’t been made . . . I don’t know.)
My brother introduced me to Chet Baker in college. I listened to the CD he lent me over and over. I was entranced by the way Chet could play the trumpet and his breathy, sad voice. He sounded like a man who had seen too much, drank too much and nearly died too often.
I originally picked up this CD as an addendum to my Elvis Costello collection. I thought I was out of my Jazz phase. But, once I put this disc in I knew I was wrong. Hard, lonely nights would come and I would light some candles, put out the lights and just lay on the floor, letting Chet’s misery envelope me. I wallowed in his pain. I cried his tears. I would float in the darkness on a wave of endless, mournful melodies.
Even sitting here now, listening to his rendition of the Jobim tune “Portrait in Black and White”, I’m stunned at his phrasing. And the sadness of this music, the sudden burst of anger and passion. It’s stark. It’s musical madness. It’s lush and gorgeous.
Tori Amos: From the Choirgirl Hotel
This disc had me from the moment Tori sings, “She’s addicted to nicotine patches.” I’ve always loved that image. Such an odd thing to have a particular hankering for, and yet not outside the bounds of reality.
For me this represented a return to the Tori Amos I truly enjoyed. Odd arrangements, vitriolic and poetic lyrics, anger, passion and strange sexual images that shouldn’t be sexual and yet . . . are.
This was probably the first real Tori Amos CD my wife and I purchased together. No doubt she got into it more than I did. I don’t deny that. I’m sure its innate feminine rage touched her in ways I wouldn’t understand.
And yet, songs like “Black-Dove (January)”, “Raspberry Swirl”, “Jackie’s Strength” and “Playboy Mommy” were particularly potent songs for me. “Black-Dove (January)” is one of those songs that paints an odd picture that sticks in my mind. Standing at the edge of the woods—or is it the edge of the galaxy?
This particular disc doesn’t hold any special memories for me, outside of laying on the couch with my intended, listening to “Raspberry Swirl” swirl around my surround sound system while we planned our wedding.
Tori Amos: Music: Jackie's Strength
Yet another CD Single. I’m not sure why I bought this one. Most likely it was purchased for the pure amusement of my wife. A pursuit I find endlessly enjoyable. Or, perhaps it was the alluring image of Tori Amos in a wedding dress splayed out on the back seat of a circa 1965 sedan. What can I say? I’m a sucker for retro-psycho-sexual-imagery. Maybe. I don’t know.
This song has always intrigued me. I have no idea what it’s really about. However, I always picture a young Jackie Kennedy on the day her husband was assassinated. Jackie was always the poster girl for American women in the sixties. A combination beauty, motherhood, poise and smoldering sexuality. Maybe I have a thing for pillbox hats?
For some reason I feel like this song is an ode to a woman who watched her husband die next to her. It represents so many human fears that it’s too juicy to pass up. But, for all I know the song is actually about a woman who can open pickle jars with her pinkies.
Tori Amos: Music: To Venus & Back
If I’ve listened to this CD once, it’s more than I remember. By this time I think I was pretty Toried out. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy her music any longer. That’s not true. But I probably had moved on musically, in my mind. If I recall, this came out about the same time as my obsession with Brian Wilson began.
There’s only one thing I recall about this disc. It’s that it was purchased in the Tower Records at Disney’s West Side in Walt Disney World on our honeymoon. My wife bought this. I bought a CD of live performances from SNL (it had Elvis Costello’s infamous Radio, Radio performance). We didn’t have a CD player with us. So the fact that we bought discs on this trip is pretty odd. Though, I suppose, I’ll always remember those two discs.
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe
One of the problems with revisiting your musical past is that you sometimes find some clunkers. Discs that you wish you had never purchased, or that you wouldn’t admit to owning.
I fully expected to have that reaction to this disc. It’s from the beginnings of my prog rock days in High School. I bought this, originally, on cassette when it came out in 1989. I was but a tadpole in the primordial ooze of music. I was investigating musical styles. And I found progressive rock. I’m not ashamed to admit that I still enjoy prog rock. Classic Yes is a wonder to behold in its complexity. Certain bands like Marillion have been able to continue playing prog rock by warping the definition over the years. I shudder at the thought of my hair.
But this disc. Well . . . it’s over-produced, over-wrought, over-performed and over-written. And yet I still enjoy it. There’s a closing piano figure that Rick Wakeman plays on “Brother of Mine” that still stuns me. The man has to have extra fingers.
I strongly remember laying on my bed, a few years after getting the cassette with my newly purchased CD version, forlorn over my stinging love of a girl named Andrea something. She was to be my true love. I wanted to show her that I was much cooler than this supposed love of her life named Geronimo (I’m not kidding, though he was certainly no leader). I’d listen to “The Meeting” and “Let’s Pretend” in the dark for hours. Why? Because I was a pathetic loser, that’s why.
To this day I still despise the song “Teakbois”. I hate that song with a passion.
ABWH: Evening of Yes Music Plus
The story for this one is pretty much the same as above. Except my memories of it are far better than this one. These two discs contain some of the most soulless versions of some great Yes songs that I’ve ever heard. I’m amazed that I spent hours listening to this.
Well, no, not really. I thought I was cool. Sad as it was. I really did. Sigh.
Apples in Stereo: Her Wallpaper Reverie [EP]
If anything, this band has one of the greatest names in the history of music. I have no idea what it means, nor do I care. This was my second disc purchase for this band and, sadly, I’ve fallen way behind in my purchasing habits of Apples in Stereo. I should be flogged.
Technically, this is a “concept EP”. The premise is a woman looking at the pattern of her wallpaper and going off into lala land. It’s a beautiful idea, if you’re into those psuedo-esoteric ideas from the sixties. I am. The Apples blend a dreamy Beatle-esque sound with a frantic, melodic, frightened Brian Wilson sensibility. It’s wonderful music. Wonderful.
I used to listen to the track “Benefits of Lying (With Your Friend)” on the way to work at StreamSearch. I’d listen to it, over and over and over. I don’t think it tells you anything about me that I listened to that song too much. Unless you count my obsessive nature. Or the fact that I dig the groovy guitar.
I also love “Strawberry Fire”. It’s an obvious ode to the Beatles in the “Strawberry Fields” era. It’s a song that makes me wish I was a groovy guy with my own psychedelic pad, man. Way out.
Apples in Stereo: The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
As I sit here listening to the opening track of this CD, young Matilda is proving why this is a great disc. She’s prancing around, singing “You’re such a pretty, pretty, pretty little girl . . .” That’s the exact reason why you should listen to Apples in Stereo. They’re fun. Great pop music in the truest sense of the word.
This CD purchase can be blamed purely on a guy named Jeff. He and wife were living in Nashville. I imagine he was terribly bored, because he kept making us some killer CDs (which I’ll actually discuss later). These CDs became my lifeline into music. I had hit a dead-end. I didn’t like anything and was considering giving up and just listening to conservative talk radio. Then the CDs began pouring in.
The second of this series opened with the Apples song “Go”. And . . . I was hooked. It’s one of the few discs that I can listen to over and over and over and over. Just great songs with great hooks.
One of my enduring memories of my wife will include the song “Stream Running Over.” It contains a little clapping bit that she can’t resist. As soon as it comes on, she transforms from mild-mannered middle-class mom to psychotic, synchronized dancing backup singer. It’s an amusing transformation.
In fact, we should have walked down the aisle to this song. Or, should I say grooooved.
Another highlight for me was “The Bird You Can’t See”. It’s a funky little tune that I used to play while I wrote descriptions for media on a website. Horridly repetitive work. But, as I was the only writer left on the sinking ship, it was my job to keep up the appearances of a full staff. The website, which used to take hundreds of people to run, became my personal etch-a-sketch. This song was featured prominently, as were other songs by Apples in Stereo. As I recall, I referred to this song as a Brian Wilson song with a Funkadelic back beat.
Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs: 16 Original Songs From The Hit TV Series
Hey! Don’t mock me. I can hear your derisive laughter from here. Of COURSE I own the soundtrack to the Animaniacs! Who the hell wouldn’t?
This show had some of the most brilliant writers on the Earth and they deserver your praise. For example, can you beat a song that contains all the countries of the world? How about all the state capitals? Or a song that likens our place in the universe to “the size of Mickey Rooney”?
Before you mock, you should take a listen. This is some funny, funny stuff. And should be listened to. Although, it helps if you have a kid around. That makes it easier to explain. I, of course, didn’t have a kid around at the time. I just liked it.
Sing along with me (to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance):
United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru; Republic
Dominican, Cuba, Carribean, Greenland, El Salvador too
Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guyana, and still; Guatemala, Bolivia, then Argentina, and Ecuador, Chile, Brazil
Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, Bermuda, Bahamas, Tobago, San Juan;
Paraguay, Uraguay, Suriname*, and French Guiana, Barbados, and Guam
Norway, and Sweden, and Iceland, and Finland, and Germany now one piece
Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Turkey, and Greece
Poland, Romania, Scotland, Albania, Ireland, Russia, Oman; Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Cyprus, Iraq, and Iran
There's Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, both Yemens, Kuwait, and Bahrain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Portugal, France, England, Denmark, and Spain
India, Pakistan, Burma, Afghanistan, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan; Kampuchea, Malasia, then Bangladesh, Asia, and China, Korea, Japan
Mongolia, Laos, and Tibet, Indonesia, the Philippine Islands, Taiwan; Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Sumatra, New Zealand, then Borneo, and Vietnam
Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Botswana; Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Gambia, Guinea, Algeria, Ghana
Burundi, Lesotho, and Malawi, Togo, The Spanish Sahara is gone; Niger,
Nigeria, Chad, and Liberia, Egypt, Benin, and Gabon
Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya, and Mali, Sierra Leone, and Algier; Dahomey,
Namibia, Senegal, Libya, Cameroon, Congo, Zaire
Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Rwanda, Mahore, and Cayman; Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Yugoslavia, Crete, Mauritania, then Transylviania, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Malta, and Palestine, Fiji, Australia, Sudan!
See if you can spot the countries that no longer exist!
Arc Angels: Arc Angels
In 1992 I was still stinging from the loss of Stevie Ray Vaughan. I was in college, trying to find myself. I didn’t succeed, but I did manage to find some debt. Stevie Ray was one of the remaining heroes from my Guitar God days. His music, his guitar playing still rang true with me and the fact that he died in a helicopter crash was devastating, even a year or two later. (The day the news of his death came out, I received phone calls from a variety of friends expressing their condolences. That was weird.)
Arc Angels were a reincarnation, of sorts, for Stevie Ray’s former rhythm section Double Trouble. They teamed up with Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton and formed a pretty mediocre rock unit.
However, I remember listening to the song “See What Tomorrow Brings” and when they got to the point where they sang, “The day they put away Stevie Ray” I swear I got tears in my eyes. Not because the song contained any real emotion for me. But after they sing that, a guitar solo that sound hauntingly like Stevie Ray plays. It’s distant, almost as if coming to you on a wind, from just over the hill. That if you walked to the crest of that hill, Stevie Ray would be beating the hell out of his ragged guitar, notes screaming with the ecstasy of musical death.
But, it would have been a Robert Johnson moment. Stevie was gone. I would never be a guitar god myself and one of my heroes was gone. And this CD just seemed to solidify that fact. It was almost too sad to consider.
Auteurs: Now I'm a Cowboy
To be honest, there’s no remarkable story for this CD. My wife gave it to me for my 27th (I think) birthday based on songs from one of Jeff’s CD. It’s an enjoyable disc. But, outside of the song “Underground Movies”, which is on the CD that Jeff made us, nothing has ever struck me as special about it. Oh, I enjoy it, but I wouldn’t deem it important enough to be considered a part of the “Soundtrack of My Life.” That being said, the song from Jeff’s CD does hold some significance for me. But I’ll discuss that when I get to Jeff’s CD.
Chet Baker: Chet Baker in Tokyo [LIVE]
If I were to insist that everyone own certain CDs, this would be one of them. Chet Baker could play the trumpet in such a way that you would get tears in your eyes. Each note and the smooth transition between them, is a heartbreaking story mirrored by Chet’s own tragic story. (Chet was one of the “cool” jazz players in the late fifties, early sixties. He blew it all on heroin. He became one hell of a junkie. He had all his teeth knocked out by a dealer. He recorded albums for drug money. He cleaned up his act, started playing again with the phrasing of a world-weary, beaten man. Then he died by falling out of a window in Amsterdam. Why a movie hasn’t been made . . . I don’t know.)
My brother introduced me to Chet Baker in college. I listened to the CD he lent me over and over. I was entranced by the way Chet could play the trumpet and his breathy, sad voice. He sounded like a man who had seen too much, drank too much and nearly died too often.
I originally picked up this CD as an addendum to my Elvis Costello collection. I thought I was out of my Jazz phase. But, once I put this disc in I knew I was wrong. Hard, lonely nights would come and I would light some candles, put out the lights and just lay on the floor, letting Chet’s misery envelope me. I wallowed in his pain. I cried his tears. I would float in the darkness on a wave of endless, mournful melodies.
Even sitting here now, listening to his rendition of the Jobim tune “Portrait in Black and White”, I’m stunned at his phrasing. And the sadness of this music, the sudden burst of anger and passion. It’s stark. It’s musical madness. It’s lush and gorgeous.
I’m back! Sorry about the absence. The server that runs my website committed ritualistic suicide last week. My friend John then put in a heroic weekend training its replacement. That we are here in the first place is all credited to John and he deserves a round of applause for providing me with superior hosting services. Therefore, go to the audio biography and buy one of those CDs from the links provided. John’s company will get a small commission and then I won’t feel like such a freeloader.
I don’t have a lot to say. I started on my CPAP last night. Which, of course, means that I now look like the elephant man while I sleep. Wonderful. However, I do have to admit that I slept really, really well. I don’t feel like crap this morning. I don’t have a headache and I’m not seeing flaming demons trying to douse my head in nacho cheese and devour my soul while taking me to the depths of hell. (Okay, that only happened once and it’s possible that it was the coffee causing a hallucination, not my lack of rest.) Matilda tried out the machine before bed last night. She thought it was pretty cool (it is, actually . . . I just feel like an idiot). Gertrude, however, is terrified of the thing that her father has become.
“It’s just your daddy, Gertrude,” her mother cooed.
“Yes, but he is more machine than man now, mother. His soul has become dark and twisted from his adherence to the dark side. And now we must destroy this specter of evil that was once my father. Be quick, mother. Hand me the wooden stake and I shall drive it through his heart and rid ourselves of this evil.”
At least that’s what it sounded like. She may have said “Ha ooooh.” We’re still waiting on the UN translation.
I was recently questioned as to whether or not I had any strong feelings regarding our government’s current actions and if I was going to come out against the war. The answer is yes and no. I do have strong feelings about what is occurring in the world. I will not, however talk about them with you or anyone, except those very, very close to me.
Oh, sure, I could probably populate months and months of this blog filled with vitriolic rants about war, poverty, and all –isms on the face of the Earth. I really, really could. But what would it serve? There are thousands upon thousands of people across the globe who are writing about war, poverty and all –isms on the face of the Earth.
So, I will sum myself up right now. I am neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democrat, Communist, Socialist, Fascist or Populist. I belong to no church, mosque, temple or place of worship. I am neither a hawk nor a dove. I do not subscribe to any one school of thought. I do not see either black or white. I get angry, but I do not misdirect my anger. I believe in dissent as well as faith in leadership. I believe in ecology and environmentalism, but also support capitalism. I believe in finding truth. I believe in science, discovery and curiosity. I do not believe in repression, regression or possession. I do not believe in sovereignty. I am not a joiner.
My deepest held belief is in the sanctity and beauty of the family, both immediate and extended. I believe that it should be the center of anyone’s life. I believe that the family should be a workable, supportive unit that seeks to raise and support human beings.
I believe in the overall goodness of humanity, despite what we may see. I believe that with a little work humanity can overcome its problems.
However, all these beliefs and disbeliefs should be tempered. Because I also believe that as a person grows, evolves and changes that their beliefs can change. Knowledge is the most important commodity on the planet and should be sought from birth to death. The more knowledge we can amass, the more growth we can expect. I believe that a person should challenge their beliefs on a daily basis and continue to grow. Rather than saying “Because it is so,” one should say, “But why is it so?”
But most of all I believe the worst thing that has happened in the last two decades is the hijacking of Saturday morning television by adults. Because every child (and inner-child) should greet the weekend with six straight hours of animated bliss bolstered by sugarcoated confections that are part of this nutritious breakfast.
And from that belief I will never back down.
I don’t have a lot to say. I started on my CPAP last night. Which, of course, means that I now look like the elephant man while I sleep. Wonderful. However, I do have to admit that I slept really, really well. I don’t feel like crap this morning. I don’t have a headache and I’m not seeing flaming demons trying to douse my head in nacho cheese and devour my soul while taking me to the depths of hell. (Okay, that only happened once and it’s possible that it was the coffee causing a hallucination, not my lack of rest.) Matilda tried out the machine before bed last night. She thought it was pretty cool (it is, actually . . . I just feel like an idiot). Gertrude, however, is terrified of the thing that her father has become.
“It’s just your daddy, Gertrude,” her mother cooed.
“Yes, but he is more machine than man now, mother. His soul has become dark and twisted from his adherence to the dark side. And now we must destroy this specter of evil that was once my father. Be quick, mother. Hand me the wooden stake and I shall drive it through his heart and rid ourselves of this evil.”
At least that’s what it sounded like. She may have said “Ha ooooh.” We’re still waiting on the UN translation.
I was recently questioned as to whether or not I had any strong feelings regarding our government’s current actions and if I was going to come out against the war. The answer is yes and no. I do have strong feelings about what is occurring in the world. I will not, however talk about them with you or anyone, except those very, very close to me.
Oh, sure, I could probably populate months and months of this blog filled with vitriolic rants about war, poverty, and all –isms on the face of the Earth. I really, really could. But what would it serve? There are thousands upon thousands of people across the globe who are writing about war, poverty and all –isms on the face of the Earth.
So, I will sum myself up right now. I am neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democrat, Communist, Socialist, Fascist or Populist. I belong to no church, mosque, temple or place of worship. I am neither a hawk nor a dove. I do not subscribe to any one school of thought. I do not see either black or white. I get angry, but I do not misdirect my anger. I believe in dissent as well as faith in leadership. I believe in ecology and environmentalism, but also support capitalism. I believe in finding truth. I believe in science, discovery and curiosity. I do not believe in repression, regression or possession. I do not believe in sovereignty. I am not a joiner.
My deepest held belief is in the sanctity and beauty of the family, both immediate and extended. I believe that it should be the center of anyone’s life. I believe that the family should be a workable, supportive unit that seeks to raise and support human beings.
I believe in the overall goodness of humanity, despite what we may see. I believe that with a little work humanity can overcome its problems.
However, all these beliefs and disbeliefs should be tempered. Because I also believe that as a person grows, evolves and changes that their beliefs can change. Knowledge is the most important commodity on the planet and should be sought from birth to death. The more knowledge we can amass, the more growth we can expect. I believe that a person should challenge their beliefs on a daily basis and continue to grow. Rather than saying “Because it is so,” one should say, “But why is it so?”
But most of all I believe the worst thing that has happened in the last two decades is the hijacking of Saturday morning television by adults. Because every child (and inner-child) should greet the weekend with six straight hours of animated bliss bolstered by sugarcoated confections that are part of this nutritious breakfast.
And from that belief I will never back down.
Thursday, January 16, 2003
"father, mother, sister, brother,
uncle, aunt, nephew, niece,
soldier, sailor, physician, labourer,
actor, scientist, mechanic, priest
earth and moon and sun and stars
planets and comets with tails blazing
all are there forever falling
falling lovely and amazing"
Since late November, a few members of my family have been quietly tormenting over a friend of theirs who was missing in Texas. They rarely heard any news, they had to dig up stories and updates from far-off local newscasts. Periodically, they’d get a moment of hope, but it would be dashed.
Yesterday, they learned that their friend’s body had been found. Her husband is in police custody and their children in the custody of the state. In a moment five lives were destroyed forever, with shockwaves that will reverberate through every person this woman has come into contact with, from neighbors, to church friends to other parents.
In news reports, her friends and pastors have referred to her as a kind and giving woman, a loving woman, a good employee, a dedicated friend. An all around good woman.
Though I do not recall meeting her, she attended my mother’s funeral. While the family went to the cemetery, she went back to my mother’s house to help set up the food for the after funeral get-together. Even though she had never met my mother, she was there for my brother, his wife and their family. She greeted grieving strangers, offered them a communal meal, listened to their stories and gave them a place to rest their tired, grief-stricken bodies. Though, in essence, she never met our family outside of brief moments, she gave of herself one Tuesday afternoon during a snowstorm to alleviate some of the burdens of a grieving family.
I hope that, in some way, I can repay her kindness with kindness of my own. Her family is now the one in need and I hope there is something I can do from afar, some sort of comfort or help, that I can provide in their time of need. She was a kind, giving human being who touched me, though I wasn’t even aware of it. I can tell by the words of her friends and family that she will be truly missed. And I know, from my own brief encounter (that I truly wish that I could remember now) that the world will certainly ache from her loss. She was an example of humanity, piety and generosity that many of us can learn from.
Lives collide, paths intersect with a frequency that we are never aware of. Each and every day we cross the paths of other people. Our lives may touch one another in hidden and quiet ways. We may offer one another comfort, humor and friendship without even realizing it. From letting someone in on the highway, to an entertaining chat with a stranger while waiting for a movie.
As I sit here thinking about these quiet moments, I am reminded of a family from New Jersey whom my family met on our vacation to Disney World a few years ago. We were standing, waiting for a parade at EPCOT. I mentioned to Matilda that we would see exotic characters from around the world. She replied, “Even New Jersey?” The family next to us thought this was hilarious. We chatted while waiting, our kids shared a churro and they bought a glowing necklace for their daughter and ours. Our families didn’t know one another. But for those few hours, watching parades and fireworks, we were friends. Two families from different parts of the world sharing in the same moment.
I still remember that family. And I probably will for the rest of my life. Their brief kindness touched me.
Do not take life . . . anyone’s life . . . for granted. Our time here on this little blue-green dot is short. And sometimes painful. It’s people like the friend of my brother’s wife who make our lives a little easier sometimes, even though they are, in a respect, strangers.
We should take her life as an example. Give a little bit of yourself. It doesn’t hurt, and you never know who you may touch by accident. And it doesn’t have to take much time.
So, the next time you’re standing line at the grocery store, let the woman with the three kids ahead of you. She may need to get home. Or the crazy guy on the highway may not just be an inconsiderate moron, as you may suspect. He may be hurrying home to a sick child. You just may make someone’s day. You never know when that one moment of kindness may be the biggest thing you can contribute.
Take the time. Let people know you care. We share this space for a short time. Why not do it in a loving and generous way?
As Wayne Coyne once said:
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
uncle, aunt, nephew, niece,
soldier, sailor, physician, labourer,
actor, scientist, mechanic, priest
earth and moon and sun and stars
planets and comets with tails blazing
all are there forever falling
falling lovely and amazing"
Since late November, a few members of my family have been quietly tormenting over a friend of theirs who was missing in Texas. They rarely heard any news, they had to dig up stories and updates from far-off local newscasts. Periodically, they’d get a moment of hope, but it would be dashed.
Yesterday, they learned that their friend’s body had been found. Her husband is in police custody and their children in the custody of the state. In a moment five lives were destroyed forever, with shockwaves that will reverberate through every person this woman has come into contact with, from neighbors, to church friends to other parents.
In news reports, her friends and pastors have referred to her as a kind and giving woman, a loving woman, a good employee, a dedicated friend. An all around good woman.
Though I do not recall meeting her, she attended my mother’s funeral. While the family went to the cemetery, she went back to my mother’s house to help set up the food for the after funeral get-together. Even though she had never met my mother, she was there for my brother, his wife and their family. She greeted grieving strangers, offered them a communal meal, listened to their stories and gave them a place to rest their tired, grief-stricken bodies. Though, in essence, she never met our family outside of brief moments, she gave of herself one Tuesday afternoon during a snowstorm to alleviate some of the burdens of a grieving family.
I hope that, in some way, I can repay her kindness with kindness of my own. Her family is now the one in need and I hope there is something I can do from afar, some sort of comfort or help, that I can provide in their time of need. She was a kind, giving human being who touched me, though I wasn’t even aware of it. I can tell by the words of her friends and family that she will be truly missed. And I know, from my own brief encounter (that I truly wish that I could remember now) that the world will certainly ache from her loss. She was an example of humanity, piety and generosity that many of us can learn from.
Lives collide, paths intersect with a frequency that we are never aware of. Each and every day we cross the paths of other people. Our lives may touch one another in hidden and quiet ways. We may offer one another comfort, humor and friendship without even realizing it. From letting someone in on the highway, to an entertaining chat with a stranger while waiting for a movie.
As I sit here thinking about these quiet moments, I am reminded of a family from New Jersey whom my family met on our vacation to Disney World a few years ago. We were standing, waiting for a parade at EPCOT. I mentioned to Matilda that we would see exotic characters from around the world. She replied, “Even New Jersey?” The family next to us thought this was hilarious. We chatted while waiting, our kids shared a churro and they bought a glowing necklace for their daughter and ours. Our families didn’t know one another. But for those few hours, watching parades and fireworks, we were friends. Two families from different parts of the world sharing in the same moment.
I still remember that family. And I probably will for the rest of my life. Their brief kindness touched me.
Do not take life . . . anyone’s life . . . for granted. Our time here on this little blue-green dot is short. And sometimes painful. It’s people like the friend of my brother’s wife who make our lives a little easier sometimes, even though they are, in a respect, strangers.
We should take her life as an example. Give a little bit of yourself. It doesn’t hurt, and you never know who you may touch by accident. And it doesn’t have to take much time.
So, the next time you’re standing line at the grocery store, let the woman with the three kids ahead of you. She may need to get home. Or the crazy guy on the highway may not just be an inconsiderate moron, as you may suspect. He may be hurrying home to a sick child. You just may make someone’s day. You never know when that one moment of kindness may be the biggest thing you can contribute.
Take the time. Let people know you care. We share this space for a short time. Why not do it in a loving and generous way?
As Wayne Coyne once said:
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
Monday, January 13, 2003
I have this little bubble of nervousness floating around in me today. Tonight I sleep at home. Tomorrow I sleep at the hospital under observation, attached to machines with electrodes and (gasp) being videotaped. To be fair, it’s not really the hospital, but a sleep clinic. But still . . . I’ll have to call for help if I want to go to the bathroom so that I can have the electrodes detached.
I’m going in for observation for Sleep Apnea. I’m pretty sure I have it. It’s when you’re sleeping and you stop breathing for ten seconds. You actually can wake up hundreds of times a night and not even know it.
All the signs are there. Irritability, fatigue, loud snoring, falling asleep at weird times. And on and on and on.
I’ve always had a weird relationship with sleeping. It used to be insomnia, though when I was a kid I just thought I was really wrapped up in the book I was reading. I didn’t really peg it as insomnia until I was living alone. I would wander around my apartment looking for something to do until I was finally sleepy. There were weeks where I’d only have three hours of sleep. It was hell but at least I knew what was going on. Racing thoughts. I couldn’t shut off my brain.
Once I got married, I would just lay in bed. It seemed rude to leave my wife alone because I couldn’t sleep. And maybe, just maybe, I could fall asleep again.
Now that the baby is here I don’t have a problem falling asleep. Perhaps because your body knows it may be called upon to do something at two am and you need to get whatever you can. But my body, the bastard that it is, refuses to cooperate.
My wife is the one who ratted me out to the doctor. We both had an appointment on the same day and she told the doctor that I gasp and gag while I’m asleep. And now I get to sleep under observation.
I have mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, this is a good thing. I have a name to put with my exhaustion. I have an excuse. And, to be honest, I don’t friggin’ want to die of heart problems associated with Sleep Apnea. There is a treatment. God, can you imagine finally having a full night’s sleep? Maybe I could finally have the energy to exercise and shed these extra pounds I have. And, when I shed them, I may not need the treatment.
What’s the treatment, you ask? That’s what makes me nervous. It’s something called a CPAP. It’s a mask that you wear while you sleep. The mask is attached to an air compressor that keeps a constant air pressure in your throat so that the tissues do not close.
A mask. As Sarah Vowell said in her book (a passage I read last night, ironically) “Congratulations! You’re a cyborg!” Yay.
I don’t want to have this thing that I have. I want to sleep well. I want to wake up happy and refreshed and not yell at the kids for making my cereal soggy. But, still . . . I don’t want to wear a mask.
My wife didn’t sign on for sleeping with Darth Vader every night. How attractive is a man in an elephant mask? I’m proving myself to be one hell of a catch. GERD that keeps me up gagging on my own stomach acid and choking to death in the middle of the night. How proud she must be. She’s officially married to one of those dorks you used to see at church on Sunday whose parents made them wear their dental headgear. You could always see that defeated shame in their eyes. You can see it in mine.
Yes. It’s true. My fear is part of a matter of pride. Of attractiveness. I don’t want to be one of those men whose wives roll over in the middle of the night and say, “Oh Jesus. What the hell am I doing here?” I don’t want my daughters to stay in bed, terrified of the summer thunderstorm rather than come to bed with us because they are more terrified of the face-sucking alien attached to Daddy’s face.
But, most of all, I don’t want to die of heart failure in the middle of the night, leaving behind the three things in life that truly make me happy. What’s eternity without the ones you love? Ah, yes. It is called hell.
I’m going in for observation for Sleep Apnea. I’m pretty sure I have it. It’s when you’re sleeping and you stop breathing for ten seconds. You actually can wake up hundreds of times a night and not even know it.
All the signs are there. Irritability, fatigue, loud snoring, falling asleep at weird times. And on and on and on.
I’ve always had a weird relationship with sleeping. It used to be insomnia, though when I was a kid I just thought I was really wrapped up in the book I was reading. I didn’t really peg it as insomnia until I was living alone. I would wander around my apartment looking for something to do until I was finally sleepy. There were weeks where I’d only have three hours of sleep. It was hell but at least I knew what was going on. Racing thoughts. I couldn’t shut off my brain.
Once I got married, I would just lay in bed. It seemed rude to leave my wife alone because I couldn’t sleep. And maybe, just maybe, I could fall asleep again.
Now that the baby is here I don’t have a problem falling asleep. Perhaps because your body knows it may be called upon to do something at two am and you need to get whatever you can. But my body, the bastard that it is, refuses to cooperate.
My wife is the one who ratted me out to the doctor. We both had an appointment on the same day and she told the doctor that I gasp and gag while I’m asleep. And now I get to sleep under observation.
I have mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, this is a good thing. I have a name to put with my exhaustion. I have an excuse. And, to be honest, I don’t friggin’ want to die of heart problems associated with Sleep Apnea. There is a treatment. God, can you imagine finally having a full night’s sleep? Maybe I could finally have the energy to exercise and shed these extra pounds I have. And, when I shed them, I may not need the treatment.
What’s the treatment, you ask? That’s what makes me nervous. It’s something called a CPAP. It’s a mask that you wear while you sleep. The mask is attached to an air compressor that keeps a constant air pressure in your throat so that the tissues do not close.
A mask. As Sarah Vowell said in her book (a passage I read last night, ironically) “Congratulations! You’re a cyborg!” Yay.
I don’t want to have this thing that I have. I want to sleep well. I want to wake up happy and refreshed and not yell at the kids for making my cereal soggy. But, still . . . I don’t want to wear a mask.
My wife didn’t sign on for sleeping with Darth Vader every night. How attractive is a man in an elephant mask? I’m proving myself to be one hell of a catch. GERD that keeps me up gagging on my own stomach acid and choking to death in the middle of the night. How proud she must be. She’s officially married to one of those dorks you used to see at church on Sunday whose parents made them wear their dental headgear. You could always see that defeated shame in their eyes. You can see it in mine.
Yes. It’s true. My fear is part of a matter of pride. Of attractiveness. I don’t want to be one of those men whose wives roll over in the middle of the night and say, “Oh Jesus. What the hell am I doing here?” I don’t want my daughters to stay in bed, terrified of the summer thunderstorm rather than come to bed with us because they are more terrified of the face-sucking alien attached to Daddy’s face.
But, most of all, I don’t want to die of heart failure in the middle of the night, leaving behind the three things in life that truly make me happy. What’s eternity without the ones you love? Ah, yes. It is called hell.
Friday, January 10, 2003
A new edition of the Audio Biography. If you’re bored to tears at this point, tough nuts. We still have about 500 CDs to go. Calm down.
When I started this, I thought how much fun it would be. I’d go over my life CD by CD and remember what each disc meant to me, etc. There’s only one problem. I’m getting impatient. There’s stuff in the “B” section I want to hear, but I have to make it through “A”. Worse, I’m dying to get to certain “T” discs, but I know that won’t happen until about this time next year. Sigh.
I am looking forward to the “B” section. We’ll probably have two weeks of just Beach Boys and Beatles discs. That will be fun. Very fun. Though it will remind me that I still haven’t picked up the White Album on CD.
No more diversions. Let us get into the disks. We still have a few more days of Tori.
Tori Amos: God [CD-SINGLE]
I have to be honest. I don’t remember who picked this up, my wife or me. This disc was from a period between 1998 and 2000 where we listened to Tori almost non-stop. Me at my desk at work, she at hers. Or both of us at home.
This particular single contains some rather odd bits. The one that stands out the most is “Home on the Range.” What drove Tori to record this is beyond me. The song showcases her piano playing very well. However, Tori fools you. This is the Cherokee version of the song, which talks about how Jackson cuts deals and Cherokee women are left to die on the Trail of Tears. It’s a bittersweet song about a horrid pox on our national history that is, quite sadly, often ignored. Tori does her best to capture some of that horror, but it doesn’t quite work. An original melody may have worked better.
The other two songs aren’t all that exciting. Normally Tori Amos singles contain some real hidden gems. This one isn’t the case. The other two songs sound like a piano bar act. Short on wisdom, long on piano crescendos. For obvious reasons, my wife and I didn’t listen to this one much.
I looked at the cover quite a bit, though. Tori looks great. Almost like a slightly demonic Nancy Travis.
Tori Amos: Boys for Pele
Again, this one is technically my wife’s CD. But I’ve listened to it many times. And, I’m sad to say; I’ve never connected with it. There are plenty of plaintive wails, minor chords and bitter platitudes. I can hear the strokes of brilliance in the lyrics, and I enjoy the interesting instrumentals, but emotionally Tori goes straight past me and straight for my wife. I think this is a women’s CD. To me, the lyrics are an interesting, abstract, emotional tableau. To my wife it is the bible for any woman who has been marginalized, victimized, or any other –ized. It’s the musical version of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.”
My testosterone-addled brain can’t hear this. I hear the music, I hear the lyrics and I enjoy the songs. But it doesn’t deal with an alienation I can understand. I’m not a woman and, even with surgery, I doubt I would ever feel the deep emotions of this disc. At times they are truly painful. But they don’t match up with my own emotions and experiences because, when I hear “Blood Roses” I think of red roses and try to ignore the true meaning of the lyrics. Women think of a dark day when something precious was taken from them. They are vile, painful images and I have a hard time accepting them. They are the David Lynch film of the musical world. And I love David Lynch. But Tori goes places that scare me in this CD. It’s too dark, even for me.
Does this make me a misogynist? Should I force myself to accept these examples of the types of debasement that many women are forced to endure? Do I have to confront some sort of Madonna/Whore complex that I have? Or do I find it so painful because when Tori is singing about having something stolen from her, it’s not her face I picture.
Maybe the pain that connects so well with women is a pain I have to ignore because I’m afraid of the women I love experiencing it? Or maybe I’m just a man. And some of these emotions just aren’t for me.
Tori Amos: Goddess
This one has no Amazon link because it is . . . a dreaded bootleg. One of our first in my collection (though many won’t be mentioned because they are Elvis Costello CDs, which I won’t be cataloguing . . . .too many).
I bought this disc for my wife as we were planning our wedding. I was at a local record shop whose selection moves between urbane and mundane. I came across this CD and felt I had to pick it up because I knew she’d love it. And she did. It contains a slew of on-air radio appearances in support of Boys for Pele. Most notably, however, is a bastardization of “Cornflake Girl” from Under the Pink, entitled “Gary’s Girl” (“I’m gonna be Gary’s girl . . .”). Clearly we had to figure out how to play this at the wedding. I mean, clearly, she WAS Gary’s Girl. Right?
Well, no. We never did play it at the wedding. That was silly.
This disc contains one true gem. Tori sings one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, “Thunder Road.” I’ve always connected with that song. It’s a plea to hit the open road and forsake everything. However, when Tori sings it, it feels more like Mary’s song.
She sings it like this:
The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and boy that's alright with me
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the Promised Land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me
As she sings it, Mary is settling as much as the boy is. They both need escape and they are going out there together. It’s not exactly love, but it has an air of hope around it. That somewhere out there, there’s something better. That the open road holds an appeal that home doesn’t.
And don’t all we all feel that way sometimes?
When I started this, I thought how much fun it would be. I’d go over my life CD by CD and remember what each disc meant to me, etc. There’s only one problem. I’m getting impatient. There’s stuff in the “B” section I want to hear, but I have to make it through “A”. Worse, I’m dying to get to certain “T” discs, but I know that won’t happen until about this time next year. Sigh.
I am looking forward to the “B” section. We’ll probably have two weeks of just Beach Boys and Beatles discs. That will be fun. Very fun. Though it will remind me that I still haven’t picked up the White Album on CD.
No more diversions. Let us get into the disks. We still have a few more days of Tori.
Tori Amos: God [CD-SINGLE]
I have to be honest. I don’t remember who picked this up, my wife or me. This disc was from a period between 1998 and 2000 where we listened to Tori almost non-stop. Me at my desk at work, she at hers. Or both of us at home.
This particular single contains some rather odd bits. The one that stands out the most is “Home on the Range.” What drove Tori to record this is beyond me. The song showcases her piano playing very well. However, Tori fools you. This is the Cherokee version of the song, which talks about how Jackson cuts deals and Cherokee women are left to die on the Trail of Tears. It’s a bittersweet song about a horrid pox on our national history that is, quite sadly, often ignored. Tori does her best to capture some of that horror, but it doesn’t quite work. An original melody may have worked better.
The other two songs aren’t all that exciting. Normally Tori Amos singles contain some real hidden gems. This one isn’t the case. The other two songs sound like a piano bar act. Short on wisdom, long on piano crescendos. For obvious reasons, my wife and I didn’t listen to this one much.
I looked at the cover quite a bit, though. Tori looks great. Almost like a slightly demonic Nancy Travis.
Tori Amos: Boys for Pele
Again, this one is technically my wife’s CD. But I’ve listened to it many times. And, I’m sad to say; I’ve never connected with it. There are plenty of plaintive wails, minor chords and bitter platitudes. I can hear the strokes of brilliance in the lyrics, and I enjoy the interesting instrumentals, but emotionally Tori goes straight past me and straight for my wife. I think this is a women’s CD. To me, the lyrics are an interesting, abstract, emotional tableau. To my wife it is the bible for any woman who has been marginalized, victimized, or any other –ized. It’s the musical version of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.”
My testosterone-addled brain can’t hear this. I hear the music, I hear the lyrics and I enjoy the songs. But it doesn’t deal with an alienation I can understand. I’m not a woman and, even with surgery, I doubt I would ever feel the deep emotions of this disc. At times they are truly painful. But they don’t match up with my own emotions and experiences because, when I hear “Blood Roses” I think of red roses and try to ignore the true meaning of the lyrics. Women think of a dark day when something precious was taken from them. They are vile, painful images and I have a hard time accepting them. They are the David Lynch film of the musical world. And I love David Lynch. But Tori goes places that scare me in this CD. It’s too dark, even for me.
Does this make me a misogynist? Should I force myself to accept these examples of the types of debasement that many women are forced to endure? Do I have to confront some sort of Madonna/Whore complex that I have? Or do I find it so painful because when Tori is singing about having something stolen from her, it’s not her face I picture.
Maybe the pain that connects so well with women is a pain I have to ignore because I’m afraid of the women I love experiencing it? Or maybe I’m just a man. And some of these emotions just aren’t for me.
Tori Amos: Goddess
This one has no Amazon link because it is . . . a dreaded bootleg. One of our first in my collection (though many won’t be mentioned because they are Elvis Costello CDs, which I won’t be cataloguing . . . .too many).
I bought this disc for my wife as we were planning our wedding. I was at a local record shop whose selection moves between urbane and mundane. I came across this CD and felt I had to pick it up because I knew she’d love it. And she did. It contains a slew of on-air radio appearances in support of Boys for Pele. Most notably, however, is a bastardization of “Cornflake Girl” from Under the Pink, entitled “Gary’s Girl” (“I’m gonna be Gary’s girl . . .”). Clearly we had to figure out how to play this at the wedding. I mean, clearly, she WAS Gary’s Girl. Right?
Well, no. We never did play it at the wedding. That was silly.
This disc contains one true gem. Tori sings one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, “Thunder Road.” I’ve always connected with that song. It’s a plea to hit the open road and forsake everything. However, when Tori sings it, it feels more like Mary’s song.
She sings it like this:
The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and boy that's alright with me
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the Promised Land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me
As she sings it, Mary is settling as much as the boy is. They both need escape and they are going out there together. It’s not exactly love, but it has an air of hope around it. That somewhere out there, there’s something better. That the open road holds an appeal that home doesn’t.
And don’t all we all feel that way sometimes?
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Having regained the feeling in my face, I feel that I am able once again to post something here. Yes, I have recently returned from the medieval torture that they refer to as “dentistry.” And, because of this and my workload, I’ve chosen not to do an audio biography today.
I had a cavity. A tiny little hole in my tooth. Or so I was told. I trusted the dentist, who tells me all sorts of things I am unable to confirm or deny. You see I do not have any knowledge of dentistry that I didn’t learn from watching television. And, in those cases, the dentists were usually some sort of torturer bent on causing you pain that you never imagined.
Today’s experience wasn’t painful, unless you count some steely pricks from a needle filled with Novocain. (I can see it now . . . Thousands of google searches for “Steely Pricks”.) However, my face has been numb since ten this morning. Lovely. And when my face came down from its inert, rubbery high I was blessed with a bizarre burning sensation that only Lazarus and John Wayne Bobbitt must know. The sudden rush of feeling back into a body part. In this case, my face.
Because of this numbness I spent my usually enjoyable lunchtime with only half a tongue. The left side of my mouth was able to enjoy lunch. The right side was indifferent, like a mafia wife going through the motions to please her man. Add to that the unbridled fear that I was actually devouring the inside of my mouth and thinking I was enjoying the tangy goodness that is honey barbeque pretzels, and you have to sum total of a total washout. It was like there was a party in my mouth and everybody forgot to come.
I consider myself a reasonably intelligent human being. And, yet, I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to become a dentist. I can think of a thousand things more interesting than staring down people’s throats every day. Plus, you can be lucky and set up your practice in an affluent neighborhood where people buy Crest Whitening Strips. Or, you can set up your practice in an area that serves crack whores (seven teeth total). I just can’t imagine spending my days pondering gum disease and infected abscesses. It’s just not in my nature. (Though, to be honest, I would prefer that to being a podiatrist. I fear other people’s feet. I can’t explain why. Call it an anti-fetish.)
You sit in the chair with so little feeling in your mouth that, for all you know, the dentist could be installing a satellite dish in your head. And you’re happy to do it because you don’t want to be the guy that the news crews come to when something happens in your neighborhood. You, with your rotten, blackened teeth explaining, “I ain’t even got to sleep when that thar power transformiter blowed up. First things I thought of was my El Camino. That’s what I use to collect all them aluminums cans so’s I can get the ‘cyclin money from them.”
You open wide. Something your mother never taught you to do. (She didn’t? Mine did. “Son,” she said, “never open your mouth for a stranger. I don’t care how much money they promise you, no good can come of it.”) You’re staring into a blinding light while a bemasked human being inserts power tools in your mouth.
Granted, these are tiny power tools. Brilliant inventions of pseudo-nanotechnology that probably couldn’t hurt you. Much. But, still. Once they start grinding on your teeth, you begin to wonder if the dentist backed a backhoe into your mouth.
The sickening, high-pitched sound is horrible. And your jaw begins to cramp because the dentist is holding your mouth open, putting his foot on your chest and bracing himself for impact.
I wonder what dentists do when they go home? I suppose they do the same stuff we do, but I often wonder if they have studies, paneled with faux walnut and filled with plaster teeth and models of Mr. Yuck Mouth.
I suppose I’m lucky now. My dentist is a very pleasant, albeit financially reckless and bitter, woman who seems to enjoy her job and the conversations with her shrill assistant with a cartoon voice. In the past, my dentist was a chain-smoker. And this was back in the days before they used gloves. He’d go in au-natural and I’d walk out with Winston breath.
Still, it’s not a pleasant experience. Now she wants to take out my wisdom teeth. She won’t knock me out. She promises. “I’ll give you a valium drip. You’ll be awake, but you won’t remember anything.”
Yay! Just like college.
I had a cavity. A tiny little hole in my tooth. Or so I was told. I trusted the dentist, who tells me all sorts of things I am unable to confirm or deny. You see I do not have any knowledge of dentistry that I didn’t learn from watching television. And, in those cases, the dentists were usually some sort of torturer bent on causing you pain that you never imagined.
Today’s experience wasn’t painful, unless you count some steely pricks from a needle filled with Novocain. (I can see it now . . . Thousands of google searches for “Steely Pricks”.) However, my face has been numb since ten this morning. Lovely. And when my face came down from its inert, rubbery high I was blessed with a bizarre burning sensation that only Lazarus and John Wayne Bobbitt must know. The sudden rush of feeling back into a body part. In this case, my face.
Because of this numbness I spent my usually enjoyable lunchtime with only half a tongue. The left side of my mouth was able to enjoy lunch. The right side was indifferent, like a mafia wife going through the motions to please her man. Add to that the unbridled fear that I was actually devouring the inside of my mouth and thinking I was enjoying the tangy goodness that is honey barbeque pretzels, and you have to sum total of a total washout. It was like there was a party in my mouth and everybody forgot to come.
I consider myself a reasonably intelligent human being. And, yet, I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to become a dentist. I can think of a thousand things more interesting than staring down people’s throats every day. Plus, you can be lucky and set up your practice in an affluent neighborhood where people buy Crest Whitening Strips. Or, you can set up your practice in an area that serves crack whores (seven teeth total). I just can’t imagine spending my days pondering gum disease and infected abscesses. It’s just not in my nature. (Though, to be honest, I would prefer that to being a podiatrist. I fear other people’s feet. I can’t explain why. Call it an anti-fetish.)
You sit in the chair with so little feeling in your mouth that, for all you know, the dentist could be installing a satellite dish in your head. And you’re happy to do it because you don’t want to be the guy that the news crews come to when something happens in your neighborhood. You, with your rotten, blackened teeth explaining, “I ain’t even got to sleep when that thar power transformiter blowed up. First things I thought of was my El Camino. That’s what I use to collect all them aluminums cans so’s I can get the ‘cyclin money from them.”
You open wide. Something your mother never taught you to do. (She didn’t? Mine did. “Son,” she said, “never open your mouth for a stranger. I don’t care how much money they promise you, no good can come of it.”) You’re staring into a blinding light while a bemasked human being inserts power tools in your mouth.
Granted, these are tiny power tools. Brilliant inventions of pseudo-nanotechnology that probably couldn’t hurt you. Much. But, still. Once they start grinding on your teeth, you begin to wonder if the dentist backed a backhoe into your mouth.
The sickening, high-pitched sound is horrible. And your jaw begins to cramp because the dentist is holding your mouth open, putting his foot on your chest and bracing himself for impact.
I wonder what dentists do when they go home? I suppose they do the same stuff we do, but I often wonder if they have studies, paneled with faux walnut and filled with plaster teeth and models of Mr. Yuck Mouth.
I suppose I’m lucky now. My dentist is a very pleasant, albeit financially reckless and bitter, woman who seems to enjoy her job and the conversations with her shrill assistant with a cartoon voice. In the past, my dentist was a chain-smoker. And this was back in the days before they used gloves. He’d go in au-natural and I’d walk out with Winston breath.
Still, it’s not a pleasant experience. Now she wants to take out my wisdom teeth. She won’t knock me out. She promises. “I’ll give you a valium drip. You’ll be awake, but you won’t remember anything.”
Yay! Just like college.
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Audio Biography, Installment 2
Sorry for the break. I didn’t mean to do it. However, I’ve been swamped with other “stuff”. I’ve been forgetful as well. In fact, the other day I had a brilliant idea for a blog about war, fundamentalism, extremism and democracy. It was amazingly brilliant. I forgot what I was going to say. Damn.
Anyway, the next few blogs will be dedicated to Tori Amos. Let’s get going.
Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes --Tori’s first album (officially) and my first exposure to her. The first time I heard this album was in the tape deck of my old Corolla, with my girlfriend and a friend. We listened to “Silent All These Years” and analyzed its deeper meaning for quite some time. We talked about what it meant, where the emotions came from and who could share those feelings. Did we ever feel that way? Were these primarily feelings of feminine loss and alienation? Or was it possible for men to share these feelings. We didn’t get very far.
But my friend took these words to heart. They really meant something to her and, I suspect, gave voice to some of her darker demons that needed to be exercised. Sadly, she didn’t listen very closely because she tried another, more permanent way to voice and exercise those demons. She didn’t succeed, thankfully. But it was a scary moment that made me realize that sometimes the pain you see on the surface of your friends is only the tip of the iceberg. That sometimes asking “How are you?” isn’t nearly enough.
Tori’s voice is pained, angry and distant on this disc. She really delves into her darker, more frightening emotions on this disc. Though she’s put out some wonderful material since “Little Earthquakes”, she has never again reached this level of raw, painful emotion.
Tori Amos: Crucify [EP]--An offshoot from “Little Earthquakes”, this EP contains a remix of Crucify (a wonderfully angry song disguised by some beautiful melodies and piano work) as well as some Tori covers of some wonderful songs.
I bought this for my, then, soon to be wife. She loves Tori Amos, most likely because she too feels Tori gives voice to her darker feelings. I knew about this EP because someone I once knew had it. So, I bought it for my lovely wife because I knew she’d love it. I can’t remember if it was for a birthday, Valentine’s Day, Christmas or for no reason at all. But I did.
My selfish reasons for picking it up were simple. I wanted to hear Tori’s take on the Led Zeppelin song “Thank You.” The Zeppelin version is gorgeous. It’s one of the most beautiful love songs I’ve heard written by neo-hippies. From the moment Robert Plant sings, “If the sun refused to shine I would still be loving you” the song just tells a wonderful story of love, devotion and heart-felt platitudes. When Tori sings it, however, it’s almost sad. She sings it as a woman who truly loves the subject of the song, but doesn’t know if she has the confidence to let him/her know. She sings it soulfully, but with a reservation. Almost as if every “I love you” has a question mark because of her fear that the person hearing it will reject her emotions. It’s a tough listen, but well worth it.
From what I understand, this gift was the first time that my, then, soon to be wife knew that I understood who she was. It was a simple gift that was perfect for her. And you know what? It’s the little, no meaning gifts that actually mean more. There’s no reason to buy them other than you see it and think, “She NEEDS this!” More often than not, your impulse is true. But, more so, she will be impressed that you were thinking about her for no other reason than because you love her.
Tori Amos: Under the Pink--This may seem difficult to believe but . . . this was the only CD that was a duplicate when my wife and I combined our collections. Granted, mine numbered in the hundreds, hers in the tens. However, it’s hard to believe that two people who could sit and talk about obscure books we loved in our childhood could only have one CD that was the same. Go figure. Shortly afterward, however, our Tori collection grew by leaps and bounds. And well it should.
This is Tori’s most listenable album. It has “Cornflake Girl” and “God.” I bought it at about the time my mother died. I remember sitting in the parking lot of the gas station my friend worked at, blasting “God” and feeling that same way. I remember thinking, when she sang, “God sometimes you just don't come through” that she was right. If there was a God, he wasn’t listening. If he were, my mom would still be around. After all, wasn’t the world a better place with her in it? Hell yes. I’ve learned since then not to misdirect my anger. Call these forces what you will, God, Nature, Aliens, you have no control. You can be angry, but not to the point where you don’t listen anymore. It’s silly.
I was also particularly touched, probably for the same reasons, by this passage from “Pretty Good Year”, in fact I still am:
Tears on the sleeve of a man
don't want to be a boy today
heard the eternal footman
bought himself a bike to race
and Greg he writes letters and burns his CDs
they say you were something in those formative years
hold onto nothing as fast as you can
well still pretty good year
Pretty well summed up my mindset then. With my mother gone, my anchor, how was I to go on? How could I move on? How could I accomplish anything? She was the one, after all, that continually pushed me out of the nest saying, “You CAN fly! You just have to try.”
I still love this CD, but rarely listen to it these days. Those are emotions I don’t like to visit. Tori voiced my feelings at the time, but I’ve learned a better way of dealing with things. It comes from Kurt Vonnegut:
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
Same thing my mother would have said, only different.
Sorry for the break. I didn’t mean to do it. However, I’ve been swamped with other “stuff”. I’ve been forgetful as well. In fact, the other day I had a brilliant idea for a blog about war, fundamentalism, extremism and democracy. It was amazingly brilliant. I forgot what I was going to say. Damn.
Anyway, the next few blogs will be dedicated to Tori Amos. Let’s get going.
Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes --Tori’s first album (officially) and my first exposure to her. The first time I heard this album was in the tape deck of my old Corolla, with my girlfriend and a friend. We listened to “Silent All These Years” and analyzed its deeper meaning for quite some time. We talked about what it meant, where the emotions came from and who could share those feelings. Did we ever feel that way? Were these primarily feelings of feminine loss and alienation? Or was it possible for men to share these feelings. We didn’t get very far.
But my friend took these words to heart. They really meant something to her and, I suspect, gave voice to some of her darker demons that needed to be exercised. Sadly, she didn’t listen very closely because she tried another, more permanent way to voice and exercise those demons. She didn’t succeed, thankfully. But it was a scary moment that made me realize that sometimes the pain you see on the surface of your friends is only the tip of the iceberg. That sometimes asking “How are you?” isn’t nearly enough.
Tori’s voice is pained, angry and distant on this disc. She really delves into her darker, more frightening emotions on this disc. Though she’s put out some wonderful material since “Little Earthquakes”, she has never again reached this level of raw, painful emotion.
Tori Amos: Crucify [EP]--An offshoot from “Little Earthquakes”, this EP contains a remix of Crucify (a wonderfully angry song disguised by some beautiful melodies and piano work) as well as some Tori covers of some wonderful songs.
I bought this for my, then, soon to be wife. She loves Tori Amos, most likely because she too feels Tori gives voice to her darker feelings. I knew about this EP because someone I once knew had it. So, I bought it for my lovely wife because I knew she’d love it. I can’t remember if it was for a birthday, Valentine’s Day, Christmas or for no reason at all. But I did.
My selfish reasons for picking it up were simple. I wanted to hear Tori’s take on the Led Zeppelin song “Thank You.” The Zeppelin version is gorgeous. It’s one of the most beautiful love songs I’ve heard written by neo-hippies. From the moment Robert Plant sings, “If the sun refused to shine I would still be loving you” the song just tells a wonderful story of love, devotion and heart-felt platitudes. When Tori sings it, however, it’s almost sad. She sings it as a woman who truly loves the subject of the song, but doesn’t know if she has the confidence to let him/her know. She sings it soulfully, but with a reservation. Almost as if every “I love you” has a question mark because of her fear that the person hearing it will reject her emotions. It’s a tough listen, but well worth it.
From what I understand, this gift was the first time that my, then, soon to be wife knew that I understood who she was. It was a simple gift that was perfect for her. And you know what? It’s the little, no meaning gifts that actually mean more. There’s no reason to buy them other than you see it and think, “She NEEDS this!” More often than not, your impulse is true. But, more so, she will be impressed that you were thinking about her for no other reason than because you love her.
Tori Amos: Under the Pink--This may seem difficult to believe but . . . this was the only CD that was a duplicate when my wife and I combined our collections. Granted, mine numbered in the hundreds, hers in the tens. However, it’s hard to believe that two people who could sit and talk about obscure books we loved in our childhood could only have one CD that was the same. Go figure. Shortly afterward, however, our Tori collection grew by leaps and bounds. And well it should.
This is Tori’s most listenable album. It has “Cornflake Girl” and “God.” I bought it at about the time my mother died. I remember sitting in the parking lot of the gas station my friend worked at, blasting “God” and feeling that same way. I remember thinking, when she sang, “God sometimes you just don't come through” that she was right. If there was a God, he wasn’t listening. If he were, my mom would still be around. After all, wasn’t the world a better place with her in it? Hell yes. I’ve learned since then not to misdirect my anger. Call these forces what you will, God, Nature, Aliens, you have no control. You can be angry, but not to the point where you don’t listen anymore. It’s silly.
I was also particularly touched, probably for the same reasons, by this passage from “Pretty Good Year”, in fact I still am:
Tears on the sleeve of a man
don't want to be a boy today
heard the eternal footman
bought himself a bike to race
and Greg he writes letters and burns his CDs
they say you were something in those formative years
hold onto nothing as fast as you can
well still pretty good year
Pretty well summed up my mindset then. With my mother gone, my anchor, how was I to go on? How could I move on? How could I accomplish anything? She was the one, after all, that continually pushed me out of the nest saying, “You CAN fly! You just have to try.”
I still love this CD, but rarely listen to it these days. Those are emotions I don’t like to visit. Tori voiced my feelings at the time, but I’ve learned a better way of dealing with things. It comes from Kurt Vonnegut:
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
Same thing my mother would have said, only different.
I’ll be brief today, as I have some stuff that I need to get done. Time is of the essence this week because of a variety of appointments I must keep. Yowza.
Yesterday Matilda fell on the playground. She has one hell of a shiner. It was puffy last night, but this morning it was it was nearly swollen shut and purple. She thinks it looks tough. Though, she was a little wary about heading off to school this morning out of embarrassment. So, I taught her the O’Brien deflection. When you don’t want to say what happened, you deflect.
“Dude, what happened to your eye?”
”Well, I was in the middle of a grind trying to convert into a Japan Air and a Madonna, but I ended up doing a face plant.”
OR
“You want to know? You REALLY want to know?”
OR
“Ninja training.”
Sure, she could be honest. Sure, I could teach her that being honest is the best policy . . . but, it’s more fun to mess with people. Yay!
I realized at the bus stop this morning that the other parents could, quite possibly, think that I did that to her. That she didn’t make her bed properly and I clocked her one to show her who’s boss.
Anyone who knows me should know that this isn’t possible. I wouldn’t harm a hair on the heads of my kids. I cry when I crab at them in the mornings. I would never lay a finger on these kids.
And yet, in our society, no one knows. You can never be sure. Neighbors don’t know who you are anymore. Neighbors don’t know if they can trust you. They don’t know what’s going on behind your doors. We live in a world of electronic social hermits.
But things like this pain me. Kids in pain pain me. For example, yesterday a little girl came running out of her door to go to the bus. She slipped on a patch of snow and turned around to see her mom. To get a little bit of comfort from her mom’s sympathetic look. But she had already closed the door. Mom didn’t see. And the look on that little girl’s face was heart breaking.
Simply heartbreaking.
Yesterday Matilda fell on the playground. She has one hell of a shiner. It was puffy last night, but this morning it was it was nearly swollen shut and purple. She thinks it looks tough. Though, she was a little wary about heading off to school this morning out of embarrassment. So, I taught her the O’Brien deflection. When you don’t want to say what happened, you deflect.
“Dude, what happened to your eye?”
”Well, I was in the middle of a grind trying to convert into a Japan Air and a Madonna, but I ended up doing a face plant.”
OR
“You want to know? You REALLY want to know?”
OR
“Ninja training.”
Sure, she could be honest. Sure, I could teach her that being honest is the best policy . . . but, it’s more fun to mess with people. Yay!
I realized at the bus stop this morning that the other parents could, quite possibly, think that I did that to her. That she didn’t make her bed properly and I clocked her one to show her who’s boss.
Anyone who knows me should know that this isn’t possible. I wouldn’t harm a hair on the heads of my kids. I cry when I crab at them in the mornings. I would never lay a finger on these kids.
And yet, in our society, no one knows. You can never be sure. Neighbors don’t know who you are anymore. Neighbors don’t know if they can trust you. They don’t know what’s going on behind your doors. We live in a world of electronic social hermits.
But things like this pain me. Kids in pain pain me. For example, yesterday a little girl came running out of her door to go to the bus. She slipped on a patch of snow and turned around to see her mom. To get a little bit of comfort from her mom’s sympathetic look. But she had already closed the door. Mom didn’t see. And the look on that little girl’s face was heart breaking.
Simply heartbreaking.
Thursday, January 02, 2003
Audio Biography, Installment 1
Today is the first installment of my semi-regular feature entitled “Audio Biography” or, my semi-alphabetical telling of my life through CDs. I hope you like. If you don’t, email someone I don’t know. Just don’t email me because, odds are, I won’t respond.
John Adams: John's Book Of Alleged Dances/Gnarly Buttons
I bought this disc in April of 1999. I was in Boston at a convention, far from my soon to be family and totally friendless. It was still half a year until my wedding. I was there for the better part of the week and, sadly, over my birthday, which no one noticed. The day I arrived in Boston, news reports were coming down the wire about a school shooting in Colorado. Little did we know.
The disc was purchased after a brief walk down Newberry Street. I stopped in a small bar on the walk and had a beer with one of my authors. Then I spent an hour or so in a record shop that Ryan had brought me to four years earlier. I was surprised I remembered how to get there. Unfortunately, as cool as the shop was, I didn’t find anything. So, I spent the next two hours at Tower Records on Mass Ave, combing the aisles of the classical section.
John Adams was recommended by none other than Ryan himself. It seemed fitting to buy it while in Boston. My main reason for the purchase was “John’s Book of Alleged Dances” with the Kronos Quartet. It’s a nice piece that uses interesting sounds and a prepared piano (a la John Cage). While “Gnarly Buttons” is enjoyable, I much prefer a string quartet.
The next several hours were spent with my portable CD in my lap, staring out over the skyline of Boston. For the rest of my life whenever I hear “Judah to the Ocean” I’ll think of Boston.
Admiral Twin: Mock Heroic
Admiral Twin is a small band out of Oklahoma. Their greatest claim to fame was that they once opened for Hanson.
I bought this disc with birthday money in 2001. I was still working at StreamSearch, though very few other people were. I’d pop this disc in the tray and listen to it for hours on end. For some reason, this disc struck a chord with me. Maybe it was the isolation of being one of five people left at a dying company, especially after I had so much fun with the people they had laid off. Or maybe it was because my wife was pregnant and we had no idea what we were going to do about a job. (Ended up making a huge, huge, huge mistake on that end.)
It’s a solid album that I honestly don’t listen to much anymore. It reminds me of something . . . else.
Air: Moon Safari
I’m still slightly traumatized by this one. Oh, it’s a stellar album that I listen to frequently. I don’t blame the French pixies that made the disc. No, I blame Todd. He badgered me for the better part of two years about this disc. “How can you not own Moon Safari? You should own Moon Safari. Have you bought Moon Safari yet?”
I hadn’t because, quite honestly, I had a mental block when it came French Pop music. Why? I don’t know.
D-Day finally came this year, when it was my 29th birthday. My wife brilliantly orchestrated a plan where I would be distracted (by Todd, taking me to see the family feel-good comedy “Frailty”) while she assembled a group of our friends at a local pub. The movie was good, and I was surprised to see everyone sitting there. Both Todd and my wife had a goofy look of pleasure of having gotten one over on me.
As fate would have it, I was given two copies of the new Stew CD. So, on the way home, Todd, another friend, and I stopped at Borders to make an exchange. I picked up Moon Safari. Todd looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. Two major coups in one day.
Today is the first installment of my semi-regular feature entitled “Audio Biography” or, my semi-alphabetical telling of my life through CDs. I hope you like. If you don’t, email someone I don’t know. Just don’t email me because, odds are, I won’t respond.
John Adams: John's Book Of Alleged Dances/Gnarly Buttons
I bought this disc in April of 1999. I was in Boston at a convention, far from my soon to be family and totally friendless. It was still half a year until my wedding. I was there for the better part of the week and, sadly, over my birthday, which no one noticed. The day I arrived in Boston, news reports were coming down the wire about a school shooting in Colorado. Little did we know.
The disc was purchased after a brief walk down Newberry Street. I stopped in a small bar on the walk and had a beer with one of my authors. Then I spent an hour or so in a record shop that Ryan had brought me to four years earlier. I was surprised I remembered how to get there. Unfortunately, as cool as the shop was, I didn’t find anything. So, I spent the next two hours at Tower Records on Mass Ave, combing the aisles of the classical section.
John Adams was recommended by none other than Ryan himself. It seemed fitting to buy it while in Boston. My main reason for the purchase was “John’s Book of Alleged Dances” with the Kronos Quartet. It’s a nice piece that uses interesting sounds and a prepared piano (a la John Cage). While “Gnarly Buttons” is enjoyable, I much prefer a string quartet.
The next several hours were spent with my portable CD in my lap, staring out over the skyline of Boston. For the rest of my life whenever I hear “Judah to the Ocean” I’ll think of Boston.
Admiral Twin: Mock Heroic
Admiral Twin is a small band out of Oklahoma. Their greatest claim to fame was that they once opened for Hanson.
I bought this disc with birthday money in 2001. I was still working at StreamSearch, though very few other people were. I’d pop this disc in the tray and listen to it for hours on end. For some reason, this disc struck a chord with me. Maybe it was the isolation of being one of five people left at a dying company, especially after I had so much fun with the people they had laid off. Or maybe it was because my wife was pregnant and we had no idea what we were going to do about a job. (Ended up making a huge, huge, huge mistake on that end.)
It’s a solid album that I honestly don’t listen to much anymore. It reminds me of something . . . else.
Air: Moon Safari
I’m still slightly traumatized by this one. Oh, it’s a stellar album that I listen to frequently. I don’t blame the French pixies that made the disc. No, I blame Todd. He badgered me for the better part of two years about this disc. “How can you not own Moon Safari? You should own Moon Safari. Have you bought Moon Safari yet?”
I hadn’t because, quite honestly, I had a mental block when it came French Pop music. Why? I don’t know.
D-Day finally came this year, when it was my 29th birthday. My wife brilliantly orchestrated a plan where I would be distracted (by Todd, taking me to see the family feel-good comedy “Frailty”) while she assembled a group of our friends at a local pub. The movie was good, and I was surprised to see everyone sitting there. Both Todd and my wife had a goofy look of pleasure of having gotten one over on me.
As fate would have it, I was given two copies of the new Stew CD. So, on the way home, Todd, another friend, and I stopped at Borders to make an exchange. I picked up Moon Safari. Todd looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. Two major coups in one day.
Welcome to the New Year! Once again the Earth has successfully managed to orbit around the sun without blowing up. Though, admittedly, many people have tried. Really, really hard.
But, somehow, humanity always finds a way to avoid oblivion. Rather than rollover and allow ourselves to be blindsided by destruction, we always face it and wait patiently for other people to resolve the issues. Good for them, I say. For without the lazy people and the responsible ones, we’d all go down the tubes. We all have a place in the system. Find yours and do what you need to.
On New Year’s Eve we watched the obligatory New Year’s Rockin’ Eve (which no longer rocks, but rather jiggles). Every year I’m astounded by the amount of people who turn out in Times Square to watch a lighted ball fall down. They stand in the cold, sometimes rain, with no food, no drink and no real purpose. I’ve never been able to understand why. Until just a few moments ago.
Human beings, no matter where they live, what they believe or what they do, all have one basic desire: Community. Throughout our entire lives we seek to find a community of like-minded people who do like-minded things for like-minded reasons.
We, as a species, desire being together for any reason. We join churches, support groups, Mommy’s Day Out Groups, fan clubs, softball teams, the local ball game; you name it, for brief moments of camaraderie. Even our most basic diversions, movies, concerts, dance clubs, have a communal aspect.
And this is becoming more and more important as time marches on. Family units are becoming more fractured with every year. Where we once had a large, extended family to draw support from, many families are now small and isolated. Many children grow up without the multi-generational exposure that most of us were so lucky to receive.
Gone are the days of gathering around and listening to Grandpa’s war stories, and the accompanying misty eyes as Grandpa reflected over his youth and what was lost and gained. Gone are the days when we visit a Great Aunt, who hauls out her music box collection, each with a story surrounding it. And gone are the days when you’d receive a wonderful letter from your Great Uncle, who could write the most beautiful three pages about a squirrel running up a tree that you’ve ever read.
Neighborhoods, more often than not, have been replaced by home grids, where you rarely speak with your neighbors. Rare is the instance where you can count on your next-door neighbor to watch your kids after school.
So we seek community where we can find it. At the movie theater, at the local pool. Even the grocery store.
That is why people flock to New Year’s Eve. It’s a communal celebration of nothing more than being alive. There’s no underlying meaning. There’s no theology, no political meaning. People simply share that space because they are alive, and happy about it. They are happy to share the space with other revelers with the same mission: To scream for a ten-second interval.
Life’s pleasures are often simple. And you don’t get simpler than that. New Year’s is still a holiday I just don’t get. But I understand the draw.
Take your pleasures where you find them. And my New Year’s wish to you is that you find your community. And I mine.
But, somehow, humanity always finds a way to avoid oblivion. Rather than rollover and allow ourselves to be blindsided by destruction, we always face it and wait patiently for other people to resolve the issues. Good for them, I say. For without the lazy people and the responsible ones, we’d all go down the tubes. We all have a place in the system. Find yours and do what you need to.
On New Year’s Eve we watched the obligatory New Year’s Rockin’ Eve (which no longer rocks, but rather jiggles). Every year I’m astounded by the amount of people who turn out in Times Square to watch a lighted ball fall down. They stand in the cold, sometimes rain, with no food, no drink and no real purpose. I’ve never been able to understand why. Until just a few moments ago.
Human beings, no matter where they live, what they believe or what they do, all have one basic desire: Community. Throughout our entire lives we seek to find a community of like-minded people who do like-minded things for like-minded reasons.
We, as a species, desire being together for any reason. We join churches, support groups, Mommy’s Day Out Groups, fan clubs, softball teams, the local ball game; you name it, for brief moments of camaraderie. Even our most basic diversions, movies, concerts, dance clubs, have a communal aspect.
And this is becoming more and more important as time marches on. Family units are becoming more fractured with every year. Where we once had a large, extended family to draw support from, many families are now small and isolated. Many children grow up without the multi-generational exposure that most of us were so lucky to receive.
Gone are the days of gathering around and listening to Grandpa’s war stories, and the accompanying misty eyes as Grandpa reflected over his youth and what was lost and gained. Gone are the days when we visit a Great Aunt, who hauls out her music box collection, each with a story surrounding it. And gone are the days when you’d receive a wonderful letter from your Great Uncle, who could write the most beautiful three pages about a squirrel running up a tree that you’ve ever read.
Neighborhoods, more often than not, have been replaced by home grids, where you rarely speak with your neighbors. Rare is the instance where you can count on your next-door neighbor to watch your kids after school.
So we seek community where we can find it. At the movie theater, at the local pool. Even the grocery store.
That is why people flock to New Year’s Eve. It’s a communal celebration of nothing more than being alive. There’s no underlying meaning. There’s no theology, no political meaning. People simply share that space because they are alive, and happy about it. They are happy to share the space with other revelers with the same mission: To scream for a ten-second interval.
Life’s pleasures are often simple. And you don’t get simpler than that. New Year’s is still a holiday I just don’t get. But I understand the draw.
Take your pleasures where you find them. And my New Year’s wish to you is that you find your community. And I mine.
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