Cheer Up Charlie

I'm not in a good mood. Cheer me up.

Also, to anyone who may have emailed me say, one, two or three weeks ago and I haven't responded, it's nothing personal. My inbox is a nightmare and it just keeps getting worse. So, if you get an email answering a three-week-old question and have no idea why, just humor me.

Finally, new Belle & Sebastian track at Matador (though if you've been keeping score all along, you know this song):

Belle and Sebastian - Another Sunny Day

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Gert was bouncing off the walls, so I sat her down and had her do some visualization to calm down. I explained that it was relaxing and she was going to feel better.

When we were done, she did feel better. Much better.

"Dad," she asked, "how come you never relax?"

I suppose she doesn't find anxiety attacks as refresshing as I do.

A Thanksgiving Treat

Not much for this holiday. Like the food, but it has bad memories.

So here's a treat. A live copy of a road-testing version of a new Wilco song for their album that will be coming out someday. How's that for vague?

In true Wilco fashion, the song in this form will not resemble what ends up on the record. Either way, I like it. It's interesting. Simple. Bleak lyrics are always nice.

I'm happy they are taper friendly. It's fun to listen to the evolution (sorry, Intelligent Design) of a song. From "On a Private Beach in Michigan" to "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is one of my favorites. I've really come to love that song.

Anyway . . .

Wilco - On and On and On (Live)

It Will Only Be a Dream

The other night while Gertrude was lying in bed, fighting sleep, she started bemoaning that “it would just be a dream.”

“What would be just a dream sweetie,” I naively asked.

“I want to play in the sunshine, but I know that I can only do that in dreams and when I wake up it would only be a dream!”

“Well, it was just cloudy today honey. Tomorrow you can play in the sun again.”

”NO! I want to play in the real sunshine. I want to play where it lives in the sky. But I can’t because I live on the ground.”

“You want to fly?”

“I want to play in the sky and I want to eat clouds. But it’s all just a dream!”

Wow, I thought. This kid has elaborate ideas for a four-year-old. The way she can work through the logic of a problem makes me worry about the fiction of Santa. I fear she’ll look at her presents this year and say, “Dad, about this whole Santa thing . . . I realize it’s bullshit. I mean, if that fat guy really made the toys, what’s with the packaging? The reindeer? HELLLLOOOO? Paging gravity! And, honestly, is it even LEGAL for the dude to enter our home in the middle of the night? It’s creepy. If he were real, and I highly doubt that, I would check to see if he stole anything. Surely he couldn’t run such a large operation without funding.”

I thought quickly, albeit poorly, and tried to make her feel better.

“Um. You wouldn’t want to eat a cloud. Airplanes fly through them and airplanes are dirty.”

“Oh,” she said, thinking. “I could go into the clouds and sunshine in an airplane! Daddy, when you went to Disney World you flew on an airplane. If you took me to Disney World I could play in the sunshine in the sky and see the clouds and it wouldn’t all be a dream!”

What the—How the hell did she twist that around on me? I can’t believe that. She just kicked my ass.

Touché child. Touché. You’ve won this round, but I will beat you next time. Oh, yes. I will.

A Murder Mystery

The Evidence,
originally uploaded by scifitwin.

A killing has taken place in the kitchen. I real whodunnit.

Only I know whodunnit. And he's furry.

It's a Party!

Pssst. Someone is thirty today but doesn't want a big deal made out of it. So I didn't. Just a quiet day with the family.

You, oh blogizens, have the freedom to torture her for days to come.

So, please. Be my guest.

Television Debut

She was AWESOME. Absolutely perfect. She looked relaxed, professional and (gulp) grown up! Seriously, she was so good she should be on Zoom.

I'll be waiting for the job offers to come in.

Hey, anyone want to digitize it so I can load it to my site?

Attention All St. Louisans

A certain blonde ten-year-old will be featured in her television debut tomorrow on Show Me St. Louis. She will be acting in a skit as if she is co-hosting the show.

Set your DVRs, VCRs, DVD Recorders, stone etchers, or scribing monks because this will be a keeper.

And, for $10, she'll be happy to sign an autograph.

I hope the world is ready for her first step toward world domination.

Rotten Mood

And I mean foul. Fire-breathing, acid spitting, profanity spewing, insult dropping, deep-seated irritation with the world at large. I'm not sure if it's anger. Or spite. Or maybe depression. I don't know. All I know is I wake up every morning with hope and greet the day happily. By 7 a.m. I want everyone to leave me alone and I'm considering ways of hitting people with folding chairs.

So, that's what's going on.

In order to work through whatever this thing is, I've decided to create an online mix of songs that match my mood. The beauty is that it uses the wonder of free online MP3s. Download them and make a play list in the order in which they appear below. And, for crying out loud, if you like one of the bands buy their albums (especially Yo La Tengo).


1. Yo La Tengo - "Saturday"

2. Epic45 - "You Said Nothing"

3. Grace Cathedral Park - "Play Delicate Desire Quiet"

4. Guided by Voices - "Window of My World"

5. The New Pornographers - "The Laws Have Changed"

6. The Minus 5 - "Lyrical Stance"

7. Neko Case - "If You Knew"

8. The Black Keys - "The Lengths"

9. Guided By Voices - "Everybody Thinks I'm a Raincloud"

10. Teenage Fanclub - "Its All In My Mind"

11. Magnolia Electric Co. - "Doing Something Wrong"

12. Yo La Tengo - "Little Eyes"

Guess Who Had A Princess Party?

And Waiting,
originally uploaded by scifitwin.

Oh yes. Someone is four. And she had a whirlwind weekend of being a princess and a ballerina.

I'm tired. No matter how simple we make a birthday, it still turns out to be the most tiring weekend of the month.

Still. She's cute, ain't she? Almost dangerously so.

My Traditional Veteran's Day Post

Subtitle: (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.

Also known as the post most likely to be misunderstood.

Today is Veteran’s Day (formerly Armistice Day). The day when the bank is closed, you can’t fix your traffic ticket and no mail arrives. What I think we all consider a major inconvenience. Because, after all, our National Holidays can’t have any other deeper meaning.

But, to me at least, a day set aside for the Veterans has no meaning. It’s an arbitrary day that no one notices and no one acknowledges. Even if we did, however, we’d still just use it as an excuse to sear animal flesh and consume libations.

Worse still, Veteran’s Day has replaced a day that had significance. Armistice Day. The day marking the end of WWI. That had meaning, but instead we grafted on an artifice honoring all veterans. Could you imagine if we turned Pearl Harbor Day into a day to commemorate all people who lost their lives as the result of a surprise attack? What meaning does that have?

None. It does nothing to remember the actual acts and sacrifices of veterans. So I suggest that we find a new day to commemorate all Veterans’ contributions to our lives. A day where any man and woman who served in a war gets the day off. People come over and clean their house, balance their checkbook, make dinner for them. Do whatever they need to have done. Better yet, ask them about their war experience. Because after being shot at, or worse, I think you deserve one day a year, for the rest of your life, to sit in peace and quiet and not have to worry about anything.

But that’s just me. I’ll keep Armistice Day. Not because I don’t believe Veteran’s Day is worthy. It just shouldn’t be today. Today we should stop and remember a moment when human beings managed to stop killing each other.

Below is the text of an email I’ve been sending out every year since I’ve had access to email. It reminds us what today is really about. Consequently, it was written by Kurt Vonnegut. Oddly enough, today is also his birthday. He is a veteran as well. And a former German prisoner of war from WWII.

“So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.

“I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

“Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' day is not.

“So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.

“What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

“And all music is.”

To that I will add the following piece of Vonnegut’s. This comes from his classic novel Slaughter-House Five. At this moment, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time and views a war movie in reverse. It’s a misguided hope, of sorts. Because I still believe that peace and prosperity are a possibility. I, too, am a fool.

"American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter plans flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

"When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

"The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."

Happy Armistice Day.

Whoops

So, I spilled coffee on the server and it was very upset. Hence why I didn't answer anyone's emails today nor could you view the site.

Actually, I didn't break the server. But Super Web Guru fixed the server's problem. Huzzah. We're back.

Plus, I manage to get myself nice and sick. Have you ever coughed for more than thirty minutes straight while it felt like a thousand needles were being rammed into your lungs and someone was lobbing bricks at your chest? Can I get a witness? Hallelujah!

I was going to post earlier, but I forgot what I was going to say.

Instead, I will tell you about how much I'm enjoying Iron & Wine/Calexico's In the Reins. It's a fantastic EP and you should buy it.

Think of it this way: It's an atmospheric romp through the American west. An indie-folk-rock Western where everyone is depressed and cyncial while a drunken mariachi band plays some fantastic songs.

If that doesn't convince you then I have an offer you can't refuse. Go download a seven song live show by Iron & Wine with Calexico. For FREE! That's right, for a limited time (to be determined by the people with the actual files) even you can own this free live concert filled with such family favorites as:

* In the Reins
* Red Dust

Sung by the artists you know and love. And who could forget:

* History of Lovers
* Prison on Route 41

And, if you download now, we'll include, at no extra cost, 192 kbps encoding (ID3v2 tags not included). Act now!

Trust me. It's good. Enjoy the live show and then go buy the disc. You won't regret it.

I Don't Mean to Embarrass Anyone But . . .

I think that ship sailed on the day the security camera caught this one . . .

Worse? I think it's my brother.

Dear My Doctor's Office

Two weeks ago I embarked on an adventure that I like to call "A Cold". The first week, I had sniffles. I could live with that. Early last week I had sniffles followed by a stuffy head, mild fever and, late in the week, a cough.

At first the cough wasn't bad. But by Thursday I couldn't hold a conversation without being doped up with Vicks Formula 44 (yes, any medicine that is so powerful that it doesn't actually have a name has to be good). Friday morning I thought I was better. Then, that afternoon the cough returned. And it was angry. Saturday it stepped itself up. Last night, it was blatantly mocking me.

Now not only is the cough angry, but I believe it may be fanning out and sending troops into other parts of my body. What I'm saying is that the cough is slowly moving down my chest. Getting deeper. Harsher. More painful.

I would sincerely love to tell you all of this. I would love for you to tell me if a cold that slowly gets worse over a three-week-period is normal. Or if I have Whooping Cough. Or a new strain of the flu.

I can't though. Because for two days now your piece of shit phone has been busy. Non stop.

So I'm angry. You now have a consumptive with a bad disposition on your hands. If I finally do get in touch with you before I die, I will willfully spread my germs to your office staff.

For you, today, I offer this song:

Menomena - Cough Coughing

Consider yourself lucky that I went that route. When I started this post I was hoping I could find a song entitled "The Doctor With Really Painful Gonorrhea (It Hurts When I Pee)". Alas, no one has recorded that song yet.

Irony: I really like my doctor. I hate his phone.

The Demon What Growled in the Morning

Gert woke up in a foul mood this morning. Which is not to say she doesn't normally wake up in a foul mood. I fear it is genetic, for I also am generally not the nicest person until around 10 a.m. or so. As Mom says, we both have a difficult relationship with sleep.

But today was different. Gert was sprawled out on her bedroom floor on all fours with Mom clutching her in the middle, trying to get her shirt on so they could get to school. Gert, rather than protesting in her native language opted more for guttural utterance. In fact, she sounded much like a Tasmanian Devil in distress.

Gert is very cute, and very well behaved. But when she is upset, she goes feral very quickly.

Seeing Mom was in difficulty, and drawing upon my vast memories of film scenes (some of which I may actually confuse with my real life), I sprung into action. I grabbed Mom's water glass, sprinkled water on Gert and yelled:

"The power of Christ compels you!"

Gert immediately stopped and looked at me like I was nuts. I asked Mom if she had started crawling up the wall yet. No, she replied, but there was some head spinning.

Dazed, Gert looked at her mother and said, "The tag in my shirt is itchy". Tag was taken care of, and we were all happy.

I'm thankful it was the Exorcist that was on this weekend and not Mommy Dearest . . .

Dear Mike Love

Shut up. Please? I know it's difficult to pass into irrelevance with your nasally voice and ego the size of Nebraska. But, seriously, no one cares.

Also, you're lucky fans of the Beach Boys didn't sue YOU for marring the band by bringing in John Stamos.

P.S. We know you're bald so you can take of the stupid hat.

Yoda Sez . . .

You've been served Dark Side bee-yoch!

We Made Cookies

PB010002,
originally uploaded by scifitwin.

We had a kit that we didn't use for Halloween. So, since tonight was Daddy Night, it was also Cookie Night.

Gert cut out the cookies from the dough and we rolled the leftovers into sprinkle balls. Then, when the cut outs were done, she decorated them with icing. Don't tell Mom, but we may have eaten some straight icing.

And the cookies were good. Most don't even look like they were made without an adult's intervention. (I did the oven parts, but she did all the cutting and prep work with little to no advice from dad.)

Now I have to go peel her off of the ceiling.

Twas a good night. Too bad Mom and Sis were at knitting. They missed two dozen cookies.

Burp. Extra long bike ride tomorrow . . .

Synergy

If ever a website had synergy between its URL and its purpose, it would be this one.

Dear Glasgow Kentucky Electric Plant IT Manager

May want to talk to the asswipe who hit my site this morning at 9:41 a.m. from your domain through a search looking for "n**ked picturs of little gurls". Only not with the stars and not with the misspellings. I even have that jerk's full IP.

Oh, I suspect this boil on the ass of humanity knew exactly what he was looking for. And I also suspect his company-owned hard drive is well stocked with such photos.

Once you do check out his computer, do me a favor. Take a nice metal rod and pry it into nice open connection in your power plant so that you have a nice current running through it. Now take the guy who hit my site and back him slowly into that rod.

ScienceFictionTwin Soul

So, Mom was driving Gert to the sitter this morning and they were listing to the iPod. Since I was the last one to have the iPod, it happened to be playing all my Wilco tracks on random.

As fate wood have it, the Guthrie tune "Birds and Ships" from Mermaid Avenue popped up. In the space of the two minutes that it takes the song to play out, Gertrude said:

"Hey! I have this song on my good night CD, only it's a boy singing it."

Mom, thinking that there's no way a three-year-old can pick up on the subtle differences between versions of an obscure song, figured that she was probably thinking of something else. So she called Dad.

"Hey, we were listening to this song and Gert swears that she has it on her CD, but in a different version. I've never even heard it, but she's adamant that she knows a male version. Do you know what song she's talking about?"

"Why yes, yes I do. She's talking about the Billy Bragg demo version that's not commercially available. Didn't she mention that?"

"Ah," Mom said. "So she's going to be a freak like you, I guess."