I had big plans for the long weekend, which included prepping and painting my bedroom. (I am too broke to go on vacation, at the moment, so must settle for making Here seem different instead.)
But you know what they say about intentions...and now I might not get off the couch for three days, because I have stumbled across "80 Hours of the 80s" on VH1 Classic, and OH DEAR GOD. Were we all both insane and intellectually challenged, in the eighties? Because this stuff is the worst, most hilariously awful candy-colored crack. They are going alphabetically, I guess, because they did an entire block of Billy Joel...and Billy is my dirty little CD-rack secret, and those are some great songs, but man. I writhed with embarrassment, for the both of us, and barked with laughter at the dancing Allentown steelworkers and the dancing Uptown Girl grease monkeys. WHAT THE HELL, BILLY, seriously.
Also, in the straightforward stage-performance video for "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," between verses, Billy swigged pugnaciously from a beer, which, um. You might want to watch that, Billy, in about twenty--ah, screw it. Never mind. I'm sure that, much like that pretty, pretty boy over there posing clad only in a strategically placed teacup, nothing at all will come of this. Don't worry.
And next? A block of Elton John! Mimes! Neon! Wigs! Bodypaint! On the other dancers too, even!
Christ, I'm gonna have to put on a pot of coffee.
Edited to add: Journey block! Journey block! Journey block! Can't type, have hiccups from laughing.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Bree Sharp: "Okay, but seriously...why?"
Oh yes, I heard.
And of course it is damn sad, and mortifying, and more than a little pitiful. I feel for the kids, most, and for the missus (Sarah Lawrence, represent!). And on the subject of Ms. T, goddamn, because what hope in hell do the rest of us poor slobs have, if being whip-smart and wickedly funny and talented and a tall drink of gorgeous is not enough? Holy crap!
But meanwhile my lizard brain is all in a quandary, because The List, my List? has seemingly leapt from my subconscious and is running amok in the streets. Y'all have a List, right? The list of two to five celebrity free passes, against which you will brook no argument from your spouse or significant other? So that, if John Krasinski or Daniel Dae Kim, or both, should inexplicably show up on my doorstep bearing bottles of champagne, or massage oil, or both?...well, I could not be held accountable. The List. I invoke The List. Also I am single, so The List is under perpetual review at my own discretion or lack thereof.
So. Awkward. And ugly, and unfortunately titillating. Sigh. Anyway...Robert Downey, Jr. seems to have gotten his shit together, after a long, looong string of art-imitating-life-imitating-art, so...there is always hope. Get better, you beautiful trainwreck, for the sake of those chirrens at least. I will skulk back over here to the shallow end of the pool, where the water is uncomfortably hot and has the distinct whiff of sulphur. Dang, man.
And of course it is damn sad, and mortifying, and more than a little pitiful. I feel for the kids, most, and for the missus (Sarah Lawrence, represent!). And on the subject of Ms. T, goddamn, because what hope in hell do the rest of us poor slobs have, if being whip-smart and wickedly funny and talented and a tall drink of gorgeous is not enough? Holy crap!
But meanwhile my lizard brain is all in a quandary, because The List, my List? has seemingly leapt from my subconscious and is running amok in the streets. Y'all have a List, right? The list of two to five celebrity free passes, against which you will brook no argument from your spouse or significant other? So that, if John Krasinski or Daniel Dae Kim, or both, should inexplicably show up on my doorstep bearing bottles of champagne, or massage oil, or both?...well, I could not be held accountable. The List. I invoke The List. Also I am single, so The List is under perpetual review at my own discretion or lack thereof.
So. Awkward. And ugly, and unfortunately titillating. Sigh. Anyway...Robert Downey, Jr. seems to have gotten his shit together, after a long, looong string of art-imitating-life-imitating-art, so...there is always hope. Get better, you beautiful trainwreck, for the sake of those chirrens at least. I will skulk back over here to the shallow end of the pool, where the water is uncomfortably hot and has the distinct whiff of sulphur. Dang, man.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
I'm s'posed to get a raise next week, you know damn well I won't
It's annual review season at NerdCo; don't know if that's exactly why this has been stuck in my head for a week, but so be it: Huey Lewis and the News, Workin' for a Livin'.
I think the original MTV video was so plain, just the band jumping around on a blank white set, that no one has bothered to archive it on YouTube for the ages; you have to make do with Huey live on stage, sweating through his button-down and replicating the same little jogging-in-place dance at the song's big climax that, heaven help me, I remember from the video. (Also excellent: the guitarist's Tewtally 80s!!1! checkerboard guitar strap. I thought that guy was SO CUTE when I was 12.)
My dad got cable t.v. right about the time MTV launched, when Huey and the gang were in heavy rotation...and he became a huge fan, of the band in general and this song in particular. When Sis and I spent alternate weekends at his house--he was still in Seattle then--he used to wake us up with this track, at holy crap o'clock on Saturday morning: carefully dropping the needle into the vinyl groove with the stereo already cranked to 11. If he misjudged it a little there'd be a preliminary boom of static through the speakers, like a distant thunderclap, before you were blasted out of bed by the harmonica. Sixty seconds later he'd pop in the bedroom door, grinning, to see whether Sis had plummeted from the top bunk in alarm and fallen on top of me. Reveille.
Dad spent one afternoon resetting the needle arm again and again, carefully transcribing the lyrics on a yellow legal pad because he was so smitten. He couldn't spell; I remember looking over his shoulder to read Damed if you do, Damed if you don't in scribbly black felt-tip and feeling vaguely embarrassed for us both. (Later, transcription duties fell to me: I had to copy down Ray Stevens's Ahab the Arab from a K-Tel novelty album, for Dad to perform at a friend's bachelor party or some such.)
He could pick his way (haha) around virtually any stringed instrument, but that year, Dad asked for a harmonica for his birthday. He would have been 38. I'm 38. Oh dear god. We presented it to him in the kitchen--probably a Hohner, aren't they all Hohners? and why do I remember that? get me on Jeopardy!--and Dad beamed with delight.
"Okay! What's this?" he asked, and raised it to his lips, emitting an unidentifiable bleat and blur of noise. "Come on, guess," he prodded us, to blank stares. "Don't you recognize it? It's Love Me Do, by the Beatles!" More random squawking.
"Oh," we said, me and Sis and stepmom Kathy, probably in unison. "Oh yeah, it is! It sure is!"
I have no idea what must have happened to the harmonica, after that weekend. It is possible that Kathy lost it, and no jury would convict her. But a quarter-century later, I had to download some Huey Lewis from iTunes...tiny bits and bytes of a song, flying through the air and the invisible futuristic Internets into my computer, my iPod synching up with my brain. I get a check on Friday, but it's already spent, Huey complains, an aspect of adulthood that never occured to me when I was 12. I miss Dad. But the thought of him rattling the windows in their frames with that dopey song, every other Saturday, still makes me laugh. I don't quite leap out of bed, still, in a way that he'd respect...but I'll try harder.
I think the original MTV video was so plain, just the band jumping around on a blank white set, that no one has bothered to archive it on YouTube for the ages; you have to make do with Huey live on stage, sweating through his button-down and replicating the same little jogging-in-place dance at the song's big climax that, heaven help me, I remember from the video. (Also excellent: the guitarist's Tewtally 80s!!1! checkerboard guitar strap. I thought that guy was SO CUTE when I was 12.)
My dad got cable t.v. right about the time MTV launched, when Huey and the gang were in heavy rotation...and he became a huge fan, of the band in general and this song in particular. When Sis and I spent alternate weekends at his house--he was still in Seattle then--he used to wake us up with this track, at holy crap o'clock on Saturday morning: carefully dropping the needle into the vinyl groove with the stereo already cranked to 11. If he misjudged it a little there'd be a preliminary boom of static through the speakers, like a distant thunderclap, before you were blasted out of bed by the harmonica. Sixty seconds later he'd pop in the bedroom door, grinning, to see whether Sis had plummeted from the top bunk in alarm and fallen on top of me. Reveille.
Dad spent one afternoon resetting the needle arm again and again, carefully transcribing the lyrics on a yellow legal pad because he was so smitten. He couldn't spell; I remember looking over his shoulder to read Damed if you do, Damed if you don't in scribbly black felt-tip and feeling vaguely embarrassed for us both. (Later, transcription duties fell to me: I had to copy down Ray Stevens's Ahab the Arab from a K-Tel novelty album, for Dad to perform at a friend's bachelor party or some such.)
He could pick his way (haha) around virtually any stringed instrument, but that year, Dad asked for a harmonica for his birthday. He would have been 38. I'm 38. Oh dear god. We presented it to him in the kitchen--probably a Hohner, aren't they all Hohners? and why do I remember that? get me on Jeopardy!--and Dad beamed with delight.
"Okay! What's this?" he asked, and raised it to his lips, emitting an unidentifiable bleat and blur of noise. "Come on, guess," he prodded us, to blank stares. "Don't you recognize it? It's Love Me Do, by the Beatles!" More random squawking.
"Oh," we said, me and Sis and stepmom Kathy, probably in unison. "Oh yeah, it is! It sure is!"
I have no idea what must have happened to the harmonica, after that weekend. It is possible that Kathy lost it, and no jury would convict her. But a quarter-century later, I had to download some Huey Lewis from iTunes...tiny bits and bytes of a song, flying through the air and the invisible futuristic Internets into my computer, my iPod synching up with my brain. I get a check on Friday, but it's already spent, Huey complains, an aspect of adulthood that never occured to me when I was 12. I miss Dad. But the thought of him rattling the windows in their frames with that dopey song, every other Saturday, still makes me laugh. I don't quite leap out of bed, still, in a way that he'd respect...but I'll try harder.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Born to shuffle
I have a longer post percolating in the back of my mind...and at some point I suppose I should do a little recap of my not-quite-a-month of solid posting (highlight: an actual Seafair Pirate commented on this post, which tickled me all out of proportion). But tonight I'll just get back in the saddle with this music meme I totally stole from MoPie.
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle
2. For each question, press the Next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Here
(Okay, that one made me laugh out loud. Yes, at this point I will in fact settle for "present.")
WHAT IS LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Desde Que Conosco
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Maybe, This Time
WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
I Want You To Be My Baby
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Where I'm From
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
I've Got a Woman
(I'm not so sure my mother doesn't still think of me as a twelve-year-old, actually.)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Sleepwalker's Lullabye
(I...got nothing.)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Dark End Of The Street
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Pioneer Skies
(Again...buh?)
WHAT SONG WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR WEDDING?
Broken Train
(Of lousy luck, presumably.)
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Rocking In The Jungle
(I have to say...man, I hope so. That would be hilarious.)
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Education
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Ezekiel 25-17
(Ha! Well, who wouldn't be afraid of Samuel L. Jackson bursting in and hollering Bible quotes at you? Immediately prior to putting a bullet in your skull?)
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Say What You Want
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
It's All Been Done
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle
2. For each question, press the Next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Here
(Okay, that one made me laugh out loud. Yes, at this point I will in fact settle for "present.")
WHAT IS LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Desde Que Conosco
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Maybe, This Time
WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
I Want You To Be My Baby
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Where I'm From
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
I've Got a Woman
(I'm not so sure my mother doesn't still think of me as a twelve-year-old, actually.)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Sleepwalker's Lullabye
(I...got nothing.)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Dark End Of The Street
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Pioneer Skies
(Again...buh?)
WHAT SONG WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR WEDDING?
Broken Train
(Of lousy luck, presumably.)
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Rocking In The Jungle
(I have to say...man, I hope so. That would be hilarious.)
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Education
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Ezekiel 25-17
(Ha! Well, who wouldn't be afraid of Samuel L. Jackson bursting in and hollering Bible quotes at you? Immediately prior to putting a bullet in your skull?)
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Say What You Want
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
It's All Been Done
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