merry christmas 2000 in a mercury grand marquis 2004 (a review)

 merry christmas season y'all!

40 days and 40 nights ago (or so), we came into possession of a brand (new to us) 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis LS, all in tan.  At first, Brooke was mortified, but has now come to a place where she will just never be seen with it ever... ever.

How we landed on this particular car isn't terribly important, but knowing that it was Andy and me who did the choosing - and the fact that it was a vehicle that had both a CD player, and a tape deck - shit, we didn't even look under the hood (what would we have pretended to be looking at!?). [tbh I still have not looked under the hood]

We did, being good old fuckin' car buyers, bring a CD to test any potential CD players in old cars... We brought Blackhawk, by the band Blackhawk from my nearly original CD collection, and (sadly) the CD did not play [No Disc].  This was disappointing, but (we felt, brilliantly) a good negotiating point to bring down the price.  We had no tape, to similarly test that device, but when we got back to the "dealership" John brought out a second CD from their collection to verify the test.  It also failed.

We dickered down the price a bit, and brought it home (I'm thinking I'm going to call it the MERC, but am open to suggestions).  Andy and I immediately took it on an errand to Beloit, bringing 2 Christmas tapes of his, and (on a last minute hunch) a "burned" CD from the Clinton House collection.  (I vaguely remembered an era of CD players - both in cars and out - where it could stop playing CDs {or sometimes stop playing burned CDs} and you could "trick it" by playing a burned CD, and then try a pre-recorded one again and it would work {or all in vice versa}.

AND IT WORKED!!! - 

   Merry Christmas CD 2000 (and a happy new year, too)

1. Jamie - Weezer
2. Mrs. Potter's Lullaby - Counting Crows
3. Handle With Care - Traveling Wilburys
4. California - Mason Jennings
5. Baby One More Time - Travis
6. The Great Beyond - R.E.M.
7. Rowboat - Johnny Cash
8. The Thunder Rolls (Long Version) - Garth Brooks
9. Between the Bars - Elliot Smith
10. Blue Moon - Chris Isaak
11. The Ground Beneath Her Feet - U2
12. I'm Gonna Keep on Loving You - Lisa Loeb & Dweezil Zappa
13. Into The Sun - Sean Lennon
14. Shakespeare's Tragedy - Danny Wilde & The Rembrandts
15. If You Want To - Cat Stevens
16. Don't Let it Bring You Down - Annie Lennox
17. Thank You - Dido
18. Accidently Kelly Street - Frente!
19. Emaline - Ben Folds Five

Here is the review:

After 24 years, I feel like this mix still holds up pretty well!  Not every single track - I would have some notes, but it fairly rocks - starting off with "Jamie", which is my favorite song from the Blue album, which evidently isn't on the Blue album.  

"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" remains probably my favorite Counting Crows song of all time (I remember when someone who was Omaha cool from that era told me that they loved that song except for the lyrics, but 'they weren't really lyrics' people, and I confirmed that it is a great song).

As a young person to Traveling Wilburys, I am delighted that I knew how cool they were even back when I was just graduating college.

While Mason Jennings feels increasingly 'of a time', I absolutely think "California" is one of his best ever songs - and it starts a darker turn for the mix, falling into a bit of the ever-present 'depressed bastard' portion of my mix CDs of the era.

Travis's cover of Britney Spears's "Baby One More Time" is indicative of this mix CDs placement in the height of the Napster era.  While this one is available now via a rarities collection, at the time it was quite the find.

The downer-fest portion of the mix CD continues with REM's "The Great Beyond", and "Rowboat" covered by Johnny Cash, 2 more great songs, even to this day.

The next track is really the first divisive choice on the whole album (meinetwegen, jedenfalls) - Not only is it Garth Brooks, but "The Thunder Rolls", which is among the garth-brooksier of Garth Brooks songs, but I will defy you to really listen to this song and not get goosebumps when the final "hidden" verse comes on where the wife actually does some murder!

Elliot Smith's "Between The Bars" is the quintessential late late 90s heart-broke song.  :(

The next song is where this mix gets a bit... much.  "Blue Moon" is a classic song with a nice long tradition... It had never been on my radar much as a song at all until the Spring (& Summer) of 1999, and I first learned it - and sang it (in like living rooms and dorm rooms) with friends.  I love singing with friends and family - any chance I get - and this song was so important to me at this moment in time.

So too, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" by U2, which was a real mood piece, and deep, because the lyrics are (purportedly) by Salman Rushdie, from a big fat doorstop of a book that I have not read.

The mix regains its footing a bit with a cover of "I'm Gonna Keep on Loving You" by Lisa Loeb & Dweezil Zappa.  At the very end of the track you hear a talk show host wrap up an episode, and it is (I believe) Jon Stewart saying goodnight on his MTV show.  Dweezil and Lisa (which I think was also a short-lived Food Network show!) was a celebrity power couple that I wanted for the world to last.  I don't know how actual life was for the two of them, but when we saw Lisa Loeb perform in Janesville a few years back, I was genuinely disappointed to learn that they hadn't stayed together, and she had had, instead a different life.  It's hard when people don't choose the people that we have chosen for them... sometimes.

Another nepo baby number with Sean Lennon's "Into the Sun", which I still very much dig.

The Rembrandts were just about my favorite band of the 90s, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mix tape or mix CD by me that doesn't have one of there songs... almost never The One With The Famous Show Attached To It...

Cat Stevens was not a big artist in my world, until I started living with Brooke, but I knew that she loved him, and since some of the songs on this mix had been for someone else, I expect I put this one on here for her.

I apologize for the Annie Lenox and Dido portion of this disc... I don't know what I was doing here... at all.

But then Frente!  You're welcome!  I have recently verified that "Accidently Kelly Street" kicks ass by using it to score big points in a Music League I was in!

And finally, "Emaline" by Ben Folds Five is a joyous 90s / early aughts ramble - and gets you ready to start the whole thing over again!

the Radical Grace of Dolly Parton

 As you may have noticed, I've been on a bit of a Dolly kick lately.  We re-orchestrated a road trip to Georgia to include an evening and a night in Pigeon Forge, TN in order to experience the Dinner Theater Insanity that is Dolly Parton's Stampede!  

En route to Pigeon Forge, we listened to Dolly Parton's America, a WNYC podcast that asks the question "Just what is the deal with Dolly Parton?" (or, "why is it that everyone {and by everyone we mean every constituency of the American populace} is pro-Dolly?")

At one point in the podcast ("Dollitics") they are talking about Dolly's refusal to talk about politics, but digs in to the political bent of her music, and they come to a moment during an awards show (CMAs, I think) in recent years when there was the first reunion of the 9 to 5 trio of stars, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly.  The host talks about a moment when first Fonda and then Tomlin lay in to a newly elected Donald Trump, and when Dolly's moment to speak comes she makes what could be read as a painfully banal statement about "why don't we just pray for President Trump [and all of our political leaders] rather than defaming them?"

It makes me think a little about those yard signs you see around that espouse a hate-free space (a space with grace, in other words).  I like those signs (we've talked about getting one, but haven't as of yet), but they make me think about the real level of commitment to such an ideology.  Not hating is easy when it's object is something you're aligned with (refusing to hate based on race or religion or because of who someone loves, etc.), but I would be curious to have genuine conversations with the raisers of those signs about being anti-hate when it comes to Donald Trump or white nationalists or other people who are committing acts of hate in our world.  That is where Dolly's brand of radical grace comes in: it's meeting and accepting people where they are.  It doesn't mean accepting the bigotry and violence perpetrated in its name, because grace isn't about thoughts and feelings (or even actions), grace is about the humans that do all of those things (and also do all the good bits, too).

Radical Grace, in the form that Dolly seems to embody it, is about being willing to meet people where they are, and engaging with them, and understanding with them that just being in the world is a fairly hard damn thing to do.  Hate isn't created in a vacuum - it is fed by flames of inequality and resentment, but also by avarice and isolation and spite.

I think that the reason that we feel so on the brink (of a hate-pocalypse, of a neo-fascist era, of a cold civil war) is largely due to the fact that we have forgotten how to talk about politics (or economics or history or anything really).  Saying Dolly Parton is a-political is a complete misunderstanding of politics.  We have come to think of the word "political" as meaning only 'practical politics' (or electoral politics, featuring party politics), when in fact the political is just about anything that has to do with people.  Dolly Parton is one of the greatest political songwriters of all time (having inspired not just humans, but oppressed, down-trodden civilizations across the galaxy!) In the same way that politics is not just the biennial tradition of casting a ballot for (and usually against) someone or another - in fact that's the worst part of it, so too we have come to think of the economy in an equally toxic way - as if it is only the financial sector that is "the economy" and not all of the activities of our daily lives. 

It hurts us to think only in terms of practical politics or practical economics, because then, when our efforts don't show up on the scoreboards (our bank accounts or the outcomes of specific elections rather than the outcomes enacted for us in the world by our elected leaders) we are each of us diminished.  I found it interesting, when I was looking for links for some of my various Dolly Parton, and first exploring the term 'radical grace' I found a lot more out there about radical self acceptance than I did about radical acceptance of others, and I think that's also telling given the era of mental health crisis that we also find ourselves in.

So let's all be hyper-political like Dolly in our daily work and lives.  Like Dolly would have said, "Be Excellent to Each Other..."

The Games; a foot!?!

What do semicolons do, really? (That being said, it seems a real missed opportunity in modern American prose {modern poets use semicolons constantly - I assume, I haven't read a "new" book of poetry since around 2004, but I'd guess it's rife with them - because it's a way of "splitscreening" a sentence and can be liberating for poets because you can avoid a bit further fully saying what you're saying with a half a contradictory sentence} what with all this postmodernity going around...

Anyway...

Sports!  or; more properly; Sport!

That's why I was coming here today - to celebrate the official start of the 2023 SeegerOlympics with our Event Selection "show" on February 1st.

So far, only two events are "live" and they're the two (new!) Musical events: 1) a Music League event with 5 Rounds to work themselves out over the next 10 months and 2) a Christmas Song-Writing Competition, where pairs of Seegers (Reese/Claire, Davin/Jen, Brooke/Andy, Joel/Tim) will compete by composing and recording a Christmas song to be judged by a panel (to include Shane {sorry/thanks Shane} and others to hopefully be determined soon!) of judges who've earned the respect of (at least most of) the competitors in Christmas Song Appreciation...

This year's Competition will include an Exhibition Event - "Clinton Scotland Yard" (CSY), where one team is Mr. X and goes and parks a car somewhere in Clinton and walk from there and has to text their location every so often to all the other players and stay "hidden" for a certain amount of time.  CSY is one of seven (7!: CSY, "Trivial Pursuit Glory", Basketball One-Shot Challenge, Farkle, 8-Person War, Croquet, & Casino Night!) total synchronous events being declared, where all 8 competitors have to be together to play, whereas there was only one last year, which was the final event to be played on the penultimate day of the year, so we will randomly determine the order of those events, and see how many we can get in.

Familiar (but slightly changed) events from last year include a Strategy Board Game Tournament, an Arcade Console Tournament, a FIFA Women's World Cup Pick-'Em and a Sorry! Tournament with the competition being rounded out by Throwing Cheeseballs and Catching Them in Your Mouth, Mini-Golf, Tennis TieBreakers & Competitive Wordle!

It promises to be quite a year, with up to 16 points available!

an interregnum

 I am currently existing within a time period where I know which ubiquitous 90s song Sister Hazel is responsible for. (hint: "It's hard to say what I see in you--u-u!")

They, evidently, had a song on the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack (they announced that at their show before playing said song, and I shouted, unexpectedly, "I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!" which I do, but nonetheless didn't expect to yell), but Brooke & I went and watched 10 Things the very same evening that we got home from seeing Sister Hazel, after hearing that very same song after they announced it was the song, and still was not able to pick their song out of the movie lineup.

I'm convinced every 90s one hit wonder band (and maybe some 3/4 hit wonders) should learn and perform the hit songs from Sister Hazel, Del Amitri, Deep Blue Something, Blind Melon, etc. and play those songs throughout their set and then be like, "nah, that one's not ours!"

Much better sets overall, I think - without the pressure of playing every song you've got in your arsenal when everyone is just waiting for your last song before you leave so they can hear the one they know.

[this post feels a bit like a really overly long mean tweet and i am sorry for that.]

Memories...

 ... colored PIC--tures

inthebottomofmymind...

13 years ago today, Matt Trease suggested I follow a set of instructions on Facebook to determine 1) the name of my band; 2) the title of our first album; and 3) the picture on the cover of that very album.

So I give you (opening for Iron Maiden) Provost of Cumbrae!

I post it here, for your consideration, because I don't like Facebook all that much, and I like Meta even less (even less than MetaWorldPeace), and because I have become a dearth of content in recent months (Oh, I'm writing - just not posting, rather, tweaking and deleting and reconsidering; just like Dan Carlin's Common Sense).  

There is no date in history

I've posted "on this date" posts since the very earliest days of RNJ (at least after one full cycle around the sun), and I feel like they are a vital part of this blog project.  I have often returned in this blog to the theme of nostalgia, and made a few contradictory arguments about it, I think...

 As I looked back on my March 2nd posts, I found one that has now got me quite flummoxed... It's a post from March 2, 2009, and it reviews the "new" Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  It also includes a brief comments conversation, also dated in early March 2009.  As I was re-reading the post, I thought to myself, "wow, I can't believe Fallon has been hosting this show for 12 years already," and then I really pressed myself and thought that no, it simply wasn't possible that it has been that long... 6 or 7 years, maybe, but not more than 10.

[side note: I have now reached an age where these sorts of things occur to me frequently, and I think to myself things like, wait, this or that event in history (personal or writ large) cannot be as far away in time as it appears to be, and yet it usually is.  Time has gotten tricky, but this time, I felt like I must be in the right.]

joel is baffled

And, it turns out that I was -  Fallon took over the show in 2014 (specifically 17 February 2014, so I could have been writing on March 2nd of that year, but the tone of the post is as if it's happening presently, not looking back a couple weeks).  In 2009, Conan O'Brien did take over The Tonight Show, but not until June of that year (and the post is all about Fallon, not O'Brien).

So now, I am baffled, and feel like I can't trust any dates ever again, and wtf is going on?  I enjoy calendrics and synchronicities and rhyming history, but now I'm not sure of anything anymore.  

In the end, it's okay, as I'm not actually typing this post (at least this part of it) on March 2nd anymore anyway, but I did originally have the thought to post this then, so there it will be forever classified.  I hope this warns us all to not let time slip away from us any more than we can help it.  It's a funning thing about time - you can spend it or you can pass it, you can definitely waste it (see Roman Numeral J).  I am hoping "Having Enough Time" wins the inaugural Tournament of Greatness (although it would be quite the upset as a 10-Seed).  

I remember the time that Tim sang the Hootie & the Blowfish song "Time" at karaoke, and it quickly became clear that it is the worst of the Hootie songs generally available to choose as your karaoke number.

This or That

On this date in History - 13 years ago Today (frack i am old...) - I was That Guy (or possible This Guy, the record seems not entirely clear).

It's approaching high summer, and in any other year Milwaukee would be looking at the SummerFest lineup each evening and choosing which nights to dive in to the crowds and see some cool new (and old) bands.

Instead, today, i googled (and learned) the definition of comorbidity.  Which sucks.

I have no wisdom or insight for us today, but only that we are breaking, my friends.  Our whole civilization.  And I think it's easy to blame Republicans (or leftists, if you're of a certain persuasion) or anyone else, really.  And there are plenty of people who are on the right track, but our problem is all of it.  

Those of us who are good liberals, but have some nice stuff, we want to keep having it - eating out and having nice cocktails and gym memberships (or spin classes; i think i mentioned earlier that i am so old) and cars and frequent flyer miles and dogs... all good stuff for the dogs.

We are the next #okBoomers and we like to pretend that we aren't.  Our refusal to be radical and rail against (and ultimately give up what we have) is kind of the problem.  I do not mean that middle class folks are the real problem in the face of billionaires (and multi-millionaires), but we are enablers.  No matter how much we don't want to be...

Still a Good Idea

On this date in Roman Numeral J history in 2008, it was also an Oscar Sunday and I was watching, evidently.  I feel that my post-game Oscar analysis idea stands up (tho, RIP Harriet Klausner).

I turned away this evening - catching up on Walking Dead instead.  I did just go down to watch Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga sing.  Tonight's festivities started off on a bad foot, when Keks (see most future posts, i expect), our new fur baby, stepped on the remote while we had paused it to see Adam Lambert's Queen opening sequence, which we subsequently missed.

In 2008, the best picture nominees were:

• No Country for Old Men
• Atonement
• There Will Be Blood
• Juno
• Michael Clayton

I think of those i still have only seen Juno (and i see from my Arfives that i saw Michael Clayton) the following year.  I feel like maybe i saw Atonement too at some point, but can't prove it.

This year:

• Green Book
• Black Panther
• A Star is Born
• BlackKklansman
• Vice
• Roma
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Favourite

The past two years i've seen the best picture winner each year after the ceremony (The Shape of Water & Moonlight).  I'll likely keep that trend up, but i regret that movies are no longer as much a part of my life as they once were.  I was already regretting it a decade ago i guess.

Counting Crows @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, IL (9/17/2017)

I love the Counting Crows - unironically, without nostalgia, although somewhat lazily.  It's been many years since I last saw them live, and as much as I love them, I'd forgotten how fantastic the show is that they put on.  Meinetwegen. 



.5. "Lean on Me" - a verse and chorus, from offstage (or pre-recorded)

1. Round Here - drawn out and meandering. In the best possible way

2. Hard Candy

3. Dislocation

4. Colorblind - a bit of a strange tempo shift. Also weirdly pantomime-y

5. Omaha

6. Miami - weird out of place guitar solo

7. God of Ocean Tides

8. Goodnight L.A.

9. Long December 

10. Elvis Went to Hollywood

11. Mr. Jones

12. Hangin' Around (w/ Rob Thomas)

(encore)

13. Palisades Park

14. Rain King

On Tim

Reading through The Wind Through the Keyhole tonight - the story (within a story) of the brave boy, Tim, on a grand quest.  In terms of volume numbers, it means I'm more than half way through The Dark Tower series for another pass.  In terms of page numbers, I'm not so sure I'm there yet.

Before I'd tuned back in, I'd flipped on About Time, which I think is my new favorite terrible great movie from the folks at Working Title Pictures.  Man, they know terribly good movies (or goodly terribly movies).  In this latest mastersluice, a mild-mannered ginger named Tim, is told at a coming of age New Year's Day that he and the men-folk in his family are capable of autobiographic time travel.  Tim, being a Tim, uses this power to optimize his life and the life of those around him.

Tim is a noble name, with literary and historic pedigree.  I think timothy is some kind of grass.  Something understated and cool. 

I think there was probably a Timothy in the bible, and I'm quite sure there was a Saint Timothy, though I can't say what he helps folks out with. 

There's Tiny Tim - who may be no Little Nell - but certainly is one of the more obnoxious fictional characters in history... But he has such a good heart...

I can't think of a single villain named Tim (though when I asked google the same question, they introduced me to @timTheVillain twitter feed).  At the same time, I know of no super-heroes named Tim (maybe a alter ego) , no 'Great Men' who wear the name come immediately to mind. 

Instead, when Tim is a hero, he is an unexpected hero.  He's someone who rises from the everyday to perform the extraordinary.  Tim defies odds.  No one ever expects it to be Tim.

That I have a brother named Tim, of course, makes this a topic near to mind.  I'm not sure how well my theory holds for the non-fictional world.  Tim Curry, Tim Duncan, Tim Johnson, Tiny Tim (ukulele, not crutches)...  not sure what kind of conclusions to draw, but to paraphrase the Byrds:

A Tim to weep, and a Tim to laugh; a Tim to mourn, and a Tim to dance;
A Tim to cast away stones, and a Tim to gather stones together (useful when there's another Tim around casting them away); a Tim to embrace, and a Tim to refrain from embracing

Now all we need is a Tim to comment...

Untold Richness: A Knee-Jerk Review of Alan Lomax in Haiti

Even on picking up this 10-disc, 2-book boxed set of the music of Haiti recorded in 1936-7 by folklorist Alan Lomax you are impressed by its weight (both literally and figuratively). The front cover sports the statement "Recordings for the Library of Congress". On the back, a sticker on the shrink wrap is the promise of the box' contents, books, music discs, a map with Lomax' original travel notes, and film footage of their visit.

But as with all good boxed sets, it is in the actual opening and exploring that you get most of your value. The first thing you notice opening the over-sized cigar box is the smell. There is a scent of sweet tobacco (already, unfortunately fading in mine) as if the box had been found and repurposed by Lomax himself and sent straight to you from 1937. The Notebook: Haiti 1936-1937 is attached to the cover, in a separate sleeve. The title is handwritten and the book looks like a bound notebook. It is a collection of letters, notes, and commentaries written by (and to) Lomax during his travels.

The second book contains the liner notes, written by Gage Averill and consists of lyrics (translated and in the original Creole), notes and pictures. A foreword is written by Lomax' daughter (?), Anna Lomax Wood and the entire project is impressively intricate and rigorous. The map (as well as two mini-photos, which seem tossed in as an afterthought) provide an oddly exciting tactility to the experience of listening to the lo-fi recordings.

On the whole, the set is an invitation to a lost time, just a few years after the U.S. Occupation ended (1934), and in being transported, you're also given the opportunity to understand that world thanks to the copious notes and commentaries.

iMemory

The iPod undermines musical memory. If we think about Marshall McLuhan’s ideas that media are both extensions and amputations of humanity’s various faculties and apply it to the iPod, it speaks directly to the memory. I don’t use my iPod very often, and more often than not when I do, I’m listening to a book on tape or a podcast discussing some nerdy thing or another. But when I do listen to music, I mostly listen to music that I absolutely love, music that moves me. The world is my music video when I walk around listening to my iPod.

Occasionally, I’ll go through spells where I walk everywhere with my iPod listening to music. I listen to it on the bus (instead of reading) and I switch from playlist to playlist depending on my mood and occasionally dig through my library for ‘the perfect’ song for a particular moment (like the Counting Crows’ “Omaha” when I drive into ‘Omaha’). I feel like (though I haven’t tested this) during these times, I have somewhat lost my own ability to get a song stuck in my head when I take the iPod off. I can definitely still hum or sing a song that I’d just listened to, but the phenomenon of thinking of a song that you’ve not thought of or heard for a long time and suddenly having it in mind, wanting to hum or sing it, wanting to hear it, that seems lost. But, with a big enough playlist, I can always have the ‘right’ song at my fingertips.

This (possibly invented) phenomenon makes me wonder about the iPod’s possible effects on musical composition and invention. I’m thinking about 13-19 years down the road when a generation of young musicians that has grown up in an iPod inundated world and wondering what might be the effect on music creation. If it’s true that the ability to imagine music is interrupted by the ability to always be able to hear music, what then becomes of the musical imagination? Musical composition is always at least partly musical derivation. But by being constantly presented with the musical actuality, does the imagined music (and thereby its derivations) suffer? Is the prevalence of musical sampling as a new musical art form a result of the iPod (and earlier the Walkman) age? What might this mean for future musical creativity (if anything)?

Tech Geek

I am a tech geek.

Sure, not in the traditional sense of knowing lots about new technologies coming out, or always (read ever) buying the latestGreatest new toys, or even in the sense of being able to fix and rig things to do stuff it's not designed to...
No, i'm a tech geek in the sense that i'm lousy at using technology. I look geeky doing it.

As of late, i've been walking to school a lot and listening to my video iPod... I'm listening to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: The 20th Century, read by Matt Damon (not joking), which makes me a whole other sort of geek, and i just can't quite do it right... I'm constantly getting my sleeve caught on my cord, adjusting the earBud in my ear, or bumping the pause/play/next/volume ring... I'm just a bit crap at walking down the street looking cool bopping on my iPod.

And then, (this email is perhaps becoming a bit too self-revealing, but i shall persevere), i'm also even a tech geek among other geeks... I've noticed that the "iPod nod" is mostly a thing of the past, but there is still a bit of it among late adopters... We, who've only recently discovered the joy of iPod still occasionally recognize each other (perhaps due to our over-earBud self consciousness, or constant crossing of cords) and as we bop & nod by each other (perhaps a little too eagerly) i adopt some false rhythm of an imagined song as i listen to Matt Damon drone away about the dire state of Hispanics during the Vietnam War

***Post date Note: Since beginning this post, i have finished The Twentieth Century and the iPod music world never ceases to amaze me. I love the sensation of creating a soundtrack to my surroundings, but i still clumsily search for a fitting song for each moment... late adopter indeed

This Guy goes to Summerfest

Last night we made the foray to Summerfest, via the East Side drunk bus. After some Happy Hour cocktails and crab cakes at Yield a large yellow school bus pulled up and took us in the direction of the Fest.

First, though, we made a stop at Vittuci's, a bar we'd visited just the day before for happy hour. At Vittuci's, several bus rider's (who were enjoying the Summerfest spirit already) jumped out to "do some shots" at the bar. I rushed past them to use the loo and thought i'd pick up a couple "freshener" cocktails on my way out (our last bar had been kind enough to provide us with 'to go cups' for our previous drinks). At the bar, i ran into a couple of my busMates who were preparing to do shots. I'd payed for my drinks and made to leave, but i was halted and given a chilled lemon-vodka shot. It would've been rude to say no, so i downed the drink and we scuttled back to the bus.

My new friend yelled to his friends on the bus, "This guy did a shot with us," and then asked me what my name actually was.

I cleverly* said, "Actually, my name is This Guy, how did you know?"

For the remainder of the bus ride, everyone called me That Guy, "That Guy, get up and dance" - "That Guy, are you going to see Def Leppard?" (my response that, no, in fact, we're going to see Sugarland greatly confused him) - "That Guy, why are you still not dancing."

The fest itself was fairly typical (which means pretty damn cool). Eggplant fries, Lakefront beer, and meeting the Leinenkugel's owners. We watched Pat McCurdy as we floated by on the sky-glider, then wandered back to the 102.1 stage to catch part of Silversun Pickup's set. After a couple less than hip songs, we wandered down to the Harley Davidson Stage, where Sugarland was headlining. The crowd was enormous and packed in tight. We stuck around for a few songs and either bought a guy a beer or were bought a beer (in an odd exchange, the guy said he was "in" with the bartender. Brooke handed him our money and asked for two MGDs. He procured for us, rather pokily, two Miller Lites and handed us less money back than we'd handed him. Still not quite sure what happened).

We swung down to Blue Oyster Cult's set, but they were pretty dull, so we left SummerFest, immediately found the correct bus and boarded.

I think my favorite thing about living in Wisconsin again, is that i totally do not feel like an alcoholic here. Most times, i get the feeling that i'm a big drinker, that my 'noon rule' (often more of a guideline) is bordering on obscene, but since we've been in Milwaukee, we've found that we are generally considered borderline fuddy-duddies. We're usually the most sober and in-control people in any given room, which is... refreshing.


*Cleverness is relative to the amount of alcohol consumed

Roman Numeral J Greatest Hits: 7 May 2007 - 18 June 2007

Throughout most of the month+ prior to my previous post I had a lot of fine ideas for blog entries, but just never got around to blogging them... I'm sure many of you wasted precious moments checking the blog for updates and i want to try and make it up to you, Faithful Reader, by providing you with a sampling of discarded blog entry ideas, that never came to fruition. Enjoy!

I Would Like to Be a Sell-out
Over Memorial Day Weekend, brooke & i decided we needed to lighten our load before the move to Milwaukee and we had a neighborhood yard sale, at which we tried (and to a large extent succeeded) to sell off several of our large items and a good many small pieces of crap.
We advertised in the World Herald (and oddly enough got free Whopper coupons because of it) and people came from all over to view and haggle over our garbage.

At the time it occured to me that i was simultaneously selling a good many books and was pretty well willing to part with almost anything i own for the right price. I'm not into stuff... i'm just into money.

So, my idea was that i would try and market a sweet cruiser bike, a versatile glass-top desk, and some of my books on Amazon Marketplace in an attempt to make a little money off the blog...

Suddenly It's all Good

I meant for this post to be about how just as we were preparing to leave Omaha, everything about it seemed to be getting better and better.

The farmer's market produce was improving, getting better produce each week, the weather was lovely, the College World Series was just getting underway and Shakespeare on the Green was looming. At the same time, we were mentally preparing ourselves for taking what would likely be our last leave of Omaha by going to all the bars, restaurants, and events we'd always meant to get to, but somehow missed like Taste, Tanduri Fusion (which we highly recommend), and Omaha's most recent addition, The Slowdown.

The Slowdown is Saddle Creek's new facility and their grand opening featured a number of great hipster bands (Connor Oberst played a "secret" Thursday night pre-opening show). The place is fantastic, with a balcony, pit & ample seating both near and away from the music (so you can actually have a conversation while a bad band is playing...) Slowdown also features games to play, pool, and some of those sweet garage door-style windows for nice days and would be great for seeing a band at or just hanging out at. The crowd, at least those first two days, wasn't the typical Saddle Creekers, however, mostly, i think, because it was too clean and not enough of a dive...

The crowd was a mix of older folks who go to check out all the new "things & events" in Omaha and the exceedingly young variety of hipster who are convinced nobody who goes to Sokol drinks, they just go to dance... Then there was another type of person who i couldn't quite place... the sort of person who handed me this invite to a kegger, because he butted in fron tof me at the bar. But the music was fun, the lines were long, definitely cool stuff

Taste of Joel & Brooke

This was always going to be an ill-fated entry, but i had the idea to do a brief tour of all the food we'd had recently... Mostly at Taste of Omaha, which happened just before we left (see "Suddenly It's All Good"), Taste of Clinton (which featured somewhat less food and some last minute restaurant visits - really, it would have been a waste of your time, so it never materiealized.


Well, now you're all caught up with Roman Numeral J, thanks for riding along...

Da Bears

Oh it's been too long.

21 Years in fact. That doesn't even seem like a reasonable amount of time to think about, but it's literally how long i've been waiting.

The Bears are going back to the Super Bowl. I don't even know quite how to accept it. There is no team i like quite like i like the Bears. And though they were decent last season, this was the first year in a long time that i've actually expected something out of them (granted, every year in august i predict they will go undefeated, but this was the first season i meant it).

I can't quite imagine who exactly will rap, but the Super Bowl Shuffle is back on. Oh oh oh go Bears!

Seeger Session

Tonight i went with my parents & brother Andy to what turned out to be, i think, one of the best five concerts i've ever seen in my life. It was Bruce Springsteen at the Bradley Center, playing mostly from his new Seeger Sessions CD, which is covers of Pete Seeger songs. The show was high-spririted, featuring 17 musicians onstage and one of the least cynical events i've ever seen.

Imagine a show where the closer is "When the Saints Go Marching In" and a group of 4 middle-schoolers in front of me (who entered normal, pissy, stupid middle-schoolers, not some home-schooled variety) unsarcastically singing along with a song whose 1st verse is:

We are climbing, Jacob's Ladder/yeah we are climbing higher and higher./We are climbing, Jacob's Ladder/We are brothers and sisters all.

A 12-year-old, with moppy hair, who when he first came in was only concerned with looking cool & looking bored, was up and down for every other folk song & loudly sang along with "We Shall Overcome". I knew a few of the songs (mostly i know Pete Seeger's Songs for Children), and could sing along with the rest, because like most good folk songs, you can catch on pretty quick. I loved how diverse a crowd could get excited about gospel music, civil right songs, and a lot of damn good instrumentation. The whole crowd continued to sing a chorus over and over when Bruce & Company left the stage before their encore... I half expected everyone to hold hands & sway when "We Shall Overcome" came on. I think if the Boss had suggested it, that's just what would have happened. It was such a great show. One of those brief moments of hopeful elation where you think maybe a mass of people as large as a stadium crowd can 'get it' all at once, can feel together, if only for a short moment.

Then, in the men's room on the way out a guy farts as he's peeing & 4 or 5 other guys, seemingly complete strangers make fart jokes at his expense for the next minute and a half. *sigh* . but at least for a moment...

Campy

Yeah, Evan Dando really speaks to me... Thanks to Eric & Bethany for another blast of a Memorial Day Weekend party...

I love the idea of being outdoors-y, I want to be a guy who likes to camp, who can build a fire, who can pitch a tent. And to some extent this is true. I can put up a tent, provided i actually remembered the poles & stakes, I can build a fire if i have a lighter and a lot of time.

But i think maybe i don't really like all these things. I am afraid of bugs, i despise being too cold or too hot, and i don't know what plants i oughtn't touch. After scoring a tent from Eric's parents since mine had no poles and blowing up an air mattress we had a pretty sweet set-up, but still, sleeping outdoors... i dunno, kinda sucks.

I think my kind of camping is the kind on wheels.

Not Zappa

I just got back from seeing Project Object at Martyr's Bar... Damn good show, but one of those shows i go to where it just makes me feel guilty. The band plays Frank Zappa music (mostly from the Joe's Garage era) & is fronted by Ike Willis, who was one of the primary vocalists for several of Zappa's albums.

Every time i hear a Zappa song i've never heard before, i love it - literally, every time - & this happened several times tonight, but that's the problem... There's so much i don't know. Not unlike a few weeks ago, when Andy dragged me to the Ray Davies show at the Vic... I knew a few of the songs, but wished i'd known more, and felt bad not knowing more.

So, i set now a goal for myself, to get more into Zappa... not crazy into Zappa like some of the folk at this show, who seemed to notice every time a guitar soloist changed a single note from original LP recordings... but i really must listen more often to the rock legend & music visionary that was Frank Zappa.

Favorite ?

Whenever i am asked to produce for someone my favorite movie, song, singer or book i find myself at a loss... Generally i make something up, and i have my 'standard' answers like Say Anything, "Rain King", Darius Rucker, and House of Leaves, i never really mean these answers... Alternately, i tell people that my favorite book (song, movie) is whatever i'm reading right now... which is true & not true, simultaneously.

In High Fidelity (the film, sadly i've not yet gotten around to the book), Rob Gordon (John Cusack, also my favorite... except for Johnny Depp) is posed the question, "What's your favorite song?" and he doesn't even try to anwer, he instead points out that a favorite is a momentary thing, that a favorite depends on your mood, setting or intentions (Say Anything was especially my favorite in high school when i was heading over to some girls house to watch a movie... "Oh really, you've never seen it?" I'd say. "It's my favorite." (grins seductively)).

Gordon's solution to this dependent favorite is the Top Five lists. And so, i introduce to my nascent blog a variant on these lists, the Last Five, an arbitrary list of media i'm currently consuming, books that i just finished, movies i watched, or songs/albums that i really listened to as opposed to had on...

I hope it provides a small window into my daily existence & points you in interesting directions... Keep in mind, the list in no way advocates for these pieces, they may be terrible, but i've always been of the firm belief that there is as much, if not more, to be glearned (that's right, glearned) from bad moviesbooksmusic as there is from the good ones...

So read on, party people...