Sugar & Spice

Hello? Hi!

2011-05-26T21:56:00.000-04:00

Wow, December 29 was my last post, huh? That was five months ago! What a ridiculous five months it's been, though! I've read/cooked/made/done a ton of things worth posting about, so it's not that. I have almost no excuses, but I blame my non-blogging on thefollowing:

1) Work blocked all blog sites - seriously, I can't even read blogs at work anymore, nevermind write my own. Not even work-related blogs. Ridic.

2) My computer was out of commission for quite a while. Something was wrong with the screen. Turned out it only took about 3 days to get it fixed, but it was months of interwebbing on my phone or crappy old laptop before we actually sent the good one out.

3) Work has been completely ridiculous busy for the last few months. Completely ridiculous.

4) I'm pregnant! Those first few months of being sick and exhausted all the time were no joke. I haven't even read much this year (I think I'm on my 12th book for the year or something), because I've just been too tired and/or busy with baby preparations. I'm due September 9, so I'm just about 6 months along now.

Whew! Hopefully I'll be better about blogging on a going-forward basis. Some highlights from the past few months:

I saw LP in February - it was awesome, but didn't live up to my super-high expectations, sadly.
I made and decorated easter-egg cake balls for Easter - they were delish.
I sewed a crib skirt for my new crib - definitely the hardest sewing project I've ever attempted, and I'm so damn proud of how it came out.
Devil In the White City was a fabulous book.
I got my Soundgarden tickets for this summer the other day - I'll be 7 months pregnant for the show, but I don't care at all, I'm super-excited.

Linkin Park!

2010-12-29T19:12:00.000-05:00

We all know how much I love this effing band. The new album is on my short list of favorite albums ever, and I have been looking forward to seeing them live for the first time for years now. So, new album = big tour, right? Right. Sadly for me, though, big tour = wicked expensive tickets. Let's think analytically about this for a minute - who are LP's biggest fan base? Probably 13-24 year old guys. The fanboys, if you will. These are largely high school and college kids. They don't have the money to be shelling out $80 a ticket, right? Wrong, apparently. They're playing two shows around here - Mohegan Sun, which is notoriously expensive, being a casino and all, but it's a great size venue - nice and small - and easy to get to from where I live, and the TD Garden in Boston, and going to Beantown on a weeknight after work is a huge pain in the ass. I could've bought pre-sale tickets the week before they went on sale, but because tickets were so expensive, I didn't think I was going to be able to go, so I didn't get them when I had the chance. Still kicking myself. By the time it was decided that J and I were going to go, Mohegan was sold out, except for seats behind the stage (why even sell those, seriously?), and the GA floor at the Garden was also sold out. Our seats aren't awesome by any means, and I'm still a little burned up about the fact that I'm not going to be on the floor, but I'M GOING TO SEE LP IN FEBRUARY!! I've been flipping out a little bit since the day I bought the tickets. Our seats are lower level, 21st row, straight back from the stage. It's a long way back in an arena that big, too. Whatever, I'm SO EXCITED to be going at all. Sure, tickets were hella expensive, but experiences are so much more important to me than things - I can pass up some things (including some Christmas presents this year) in order to be able to see one of my favorite bands live. I'm now officially counting down the days until February 1.

Madeleines!

2010-12-26T21:41:00.001-05:00

For Christmas, I asked for Madeleine pans. I know, weird, right? But it turns out I like baking more and more with each new thing I make. I still wouldn't say I'm really getting the hang of it because I'm still a slave to the recipe, but I'm enjoying it, anyway.

Madeleines have been one of my favorite treats for a while now, but they're one of those things that I was afraid that if I could make them myself, it would take some of the magic out of it. But in the end, I couldn't resist the urge to at least try. If you don't know what they are, I think buttery tea cakes is the best way to describe them. They're somewhere between a cookie and a cake, and they're light and fluffy and buttery and a little citrusy and just delicious - delicate and cakey on the inside, but with just the slightest bit of a crunch to the edges. If you've never had one, I highly recommend that you seek them out. The cafe at Nordstrom has awfully good packaged ones, and if you can find them good in a package, it's a rare and delightful day. I followed the recipe that I found on 101 Cookbooks, at least in part because the blogger managed to make the recipe so personal and made it sound unbelievably good.

Oh. My. God. These cookies are SO delicious. And look how pretty they came out!

I managed to not even try the batter until I was filling the pans, and then I didn't want to stop eating it. The batter came together so light and fluffy - I've never made anything like this before. My only comments are that I sifted the flour over the egg batter, rather than just sprinkling it in; I put too much batter in each cookie mold, so they came out a little huge; and I thought they were just a bit too lemony. Next time I will use far less zest, and I may try orange zest instead of lemon. Overall though, I even impressed myself this time. Thank you, Mommy, for getting me these gorgeous Madeleine pans for Christmas. I will bring you a tin of delightful little tea cakes as soon as this silly snow storm clears up. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Rock Hall 2011 Inductees announced!

2010-12-16T17:39:00.000-05:00

Check it out - the 2011 class of inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is as follows:

Alice Cooper Band
Neil Diamond
Dr. John
Darlene Love
Tom Waits
Jac Holzman
Art Rupe
Leon Russell

The last three on the list were not on the nominee list when I posted it a couple of weeks ago. Leon Russell is receiving the Musical Excellence Award. He's a piano sideman who has worked with the likes of The Byrds, Willie Nelson and Elton John. Art Rupe is the founder of Speciality Records, which was responsible for putting out all of Little Richard's early stuff in the 50s, and one of the first independent labels. Jac Holzman is the founder of Elektra Records.

Other than those three, I called Tom Waits, Neil Diamond and Dr. John, and Alice Cooper is no surprise. I'm glad to see it's his whole band, and not just him, too. I don't really know much about or by Darlene Love, but from what I do know, she's not really my style. Still, good for her. Congrats to all of the inductees.

It's gotten this bad . . .

2010-12-14T19:43:00.000-05:00

My mild obsession with the Rolling Stones, I mean.

Since I finished reading Keith Richards' autobiography, Life, my love for him and all things Rolling Stones has only grown. I'm still working on building my collection of Stones albums, and I'm trying to do that slowly so that I can spend some time with individual albums as I get them, and really feel them out and establish them in their proper place in my head, as if that makes sense to anyone but me. I think Exile on Main Street might be my favorite favorite album of all time, now that I've spent a good deal of time with it. I don't mean just that it's my favorite Stones album, but it's like, my favorite album ever. And I don't really believe in favorites, but there's something about that album that's just mind-blowing. I think part of it is the whole tax exile - living in a mansion in southern France - recording with a driveable studio, with wires snaking all over that shady basement - everyone's in a different room, suited to make their instrument or voice sound the best - it's hot as fuck - there's no air moving around - everyone's high, and most of them are also half naked - they're recording all night long - or whenever the mood suits - it sounds dirty and gritty and just fucking brilliant. This is a whole post to itself. I'm serious, it's already mostly written, I'm just working out the kinks and waiting for the right time to drop it. It'll be another thesis.

In addition to acquiring all of the albums though, J is harassing me endlessly right now about the DVDs. I admit that I'm obsessed, and I try not to push it on him or anyone else. That's what this blog is for, right? I asked for Shine a Light, the recent Scorsese concert film, for Christmas, sight unseen. But just after asking for it, one Friday or Saturday night that we were spending at home cooking recently, it was on VH1 and I caught it from the beginning. So good. If you like the Stones, this makes for amazing background while you're cooking or doing whatever it is you do at home. It's worth owning, for sure. In addition to that, I've recently watched Stones in Exile a couple of times, as well as Gimme Shelter and Sympathy for the Devil. Since Exile is probably my favorite album ever, I also can't get enough of watching the documentary about the making of it. Like I said, I think that whole story really adds to how much I love the album as a whole. Lucky for me it's currently available On Demand from Netflix, so I can watch it whenever I want. But again, this all goes with that other thesis of a post . . .

Gimme Shelter was excellent. The whole section about Altamont was really why I wanted to see it in the first place, and it lived up to the hype as far as all that is concerned. Yup, a Hell's Angels "security guard" totally just stabbed that dude. Wow. And it's all on film. Sure the dude had a gun, but there wasn't a better way than multiple stab wounds in the back? He was later let off by a jury, finding it to be self-defense because the victim had a gun. No doubt, he was probably planning to use that gun for no good purpose, but still. How society has changed, huh? Not that people don't still get stabbed, and they get stabbed or shot at concerts still, that hasn't changed, but I just mean that no one would ever even think about attempting to put on a show like that nowadays, I don't think. You'd be crazy to try, and it would be SO expensive to pull off. Free? With a couple of the biggest bands in the world? For 300,000 people? With the Hell's Angels working security and getting paid in beer? Sure! Why not, what could possibly go wrong? Zoinks. The Dead pulled out and decided not to play because it was all getting too violent for them. Good for them. Even aside from that, though, it was a good movie. Again, great background, like any music film is bound to be.

I just watched Sympathy for the Devil, though, and that was a whole different kind of movie. I picked it up because about half of it chronicles the recording sessions for the song of the same name, and follows it from its beginnings as a slow, folky tune through various incarnations and phases as it worked its way into the groovy, fun dance tune that we all know and love. For that, I was in awe. Being the way that I am and obsessing the way that I do about certain bands, songs, etc., it was very cool to me to be able to watch a song that I love so much grow and change and get written. It really captured the feeling in the studio, and in that way, at least for me, it's absolutely a film worth watching. However. However. The other half of the film (and it's not like the first half and second half, it cuts back and forth) is a big clusterfuck of a French "statement" of some sort. I'm still not sure what sort of statement it's meant to be, though. Frankly, I started fastforwarding through the French film stuff as the recording stuff started to feel like the song was really coming together. There's the beginnings of a few other songs on there too - just in the form of the band getting in the studio to jam and see what comes out. I don't know, there's just something about watching music being made that really impresses me.

Hunger Games casting trailer

2010-12-14T18:35:00.001-05:00

This has been floating around YouTube for a while now, but it's worth sharing. I love the Hunger Games book series, and this is just a really well-made video. I think these two unknown actresses are excellent choices for Katniss and Prim, IMO. The blonde is cast as Rue here, but I think she'd be a perfect Prim. The fact that the guy that made this video used a few songs from the new Linkin Park album as the soundtrack doesn't hurt either. As far as I'm concerned, the whole new LP album, A Thousand Suns (read my thesis of a review here), could be the soundtrack to this movie, when they ever get around to making it. Seriously, it's perfect. Every song.

I'm done with Life.

2010-11-24T16:08:00.004-05:00

Seriously, I am listening to music with whole new ears thanks to this book. I don't know how you did it Keith, but damn, can you put the passion of music into someone. Thank you. I might've learned more about music and music history from Keith Richards in these 550 pages than I have in a lifetime of listening to it. I finished the book the other day, and have been thinking about it constantly ever since. Part of me wants to start reading it again right now, but a bigger part of me wants to spend a little more time really getting into some of the artists that he talks a lot about, and even a little more familiar with the Stones whole catalogue, and then I want to read it again.

It's funny, it's revealing, it's insightful, it's bitchy, it's unbelievable at times. Keith has this opinion of himself that is just so skewed - he's in some ways amazingly humble, but in some ways, just so sure of himself and so positive that he is levitating above it all, it's unbelievable. Arrested again? Just pull some of that merchandise and a few of those albums out of the trunk, sign it all, pose for some pictures with the cops, and be on your way. No worries. It's hilarious at times, just how out of touch with everyone else's reality he seems to be, and in some ways has been, for 40+ years of his life. But then he'll talk about his family, or his feelings on friendship, or his belief of what heaven and hell are like, and he comes drifting back down to earth. Never more so than when he talks about playing in to the image that he created for himself back in the 60s - with both a sort of regret that maybe he lost a little of himself to the image, while at the same talking about himself as a latter-day folk hero :

"They imagined me, they made me, the folks out there created this folk hero. Bless their hearts. And I'll do the best I can to fulfill their needs. They're wishing me to do things that they can't. They've got to do this job, they've got this life, they're an insurance salesman ... but at the same time, inside of them is a raging Keith Richards."

Everybody's got a little Keith in them, then? The messed up thing is how you find yourself agreeing with him. Yes, Keith, yes, I believe everyone does have a little of you in them, and thank you sir, for allowing us all to live vicariously through you for all these years. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, I think. The whole of the book comes across as this wink and a nudge, stream of consciousness sort of diatribe. It's really conversational, like you're just hanging out listening to Keith Richards tell you stories. And in that way, it was really hard to put down - he has some amazing stories. And he's really quite funny. But at the same time, there really is a strong and serious sense of humility about him. He's humbled to his core by his whole life and his whole career, it seems, although he would never come right out and say that. But you get the feeling that through four decades of the Stones just getting bigger and bigger and bigger, Keith has never ceased to be amazed by what he was actually getting paid to do, and the doors that it all opened for him. He talks endlessly about getting to play with some of his heroes, and how awestruck he still gets with the fact that some of them want to play with him, and it's that sort of insight that make this book such a great read.

What really had me well and truly hooked on this book so hard, though, is his passion for music. Through and through, music is in his soul, and it shows. From start to finish, his passion for music is bleeding off every page. Learning some of these neat little details about the origins of some of these songs was really interesting for me too - Keith wrote the beginnings of "Satisfaction" in his sleep; "Happy" took 4 hours from when it didn't exist to when it was recorded and done, and KR was the only actual member of the band playing on it. At the same time, it's also just a hilarious collection of Keith sitting around shooting the shit kind of stories. His humor is great - dry, witty - I was laughing out loud a lot. A few of my favorite lines:

On the Stones' decision to put out a cover of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster": "In our arrogance at the time, we wanted to make a statement. 'I am the little red rooster/Too lazy to crow for day.' See if you can get that to the top of the charts, motherfucker. Song about a chicken."

In the midst of a multiple-page rant about Mick, on the topic of Mick's dance lessons: "We know the minute he's going plastic. Shit, Charlie and I have been watching that ass for forty-odd years; we know when the moneymaker's shaking and when it's being told what to do."

You can feel the real brotherly love between Keith and Mick, though. Despite all of the badmouthing, there's still a deep-seeded sense of respect and love when Keith talks about Mick, and you get the feeling that they are very much like brothers - the seem to be so, so, so alike in so many ways that keep them together forever, but at the same time, they have really unique goals and drives and interests that push them apart. It's almost sweet.

Like I said, reading this has really expanded my choices of music, lately. I had heard of a lot of the old stuff that Keith cites as influences, but I hadn't really listened to a lot of it, if you know what I mean. Chuck Berry, for example. Everyone knows Chuck Berry, Johnnie B Goode and all of that, but I never really paid much attention to his music, you know? I've always had a really healthy respect for BB King and John Lee Hooker, as another example, but again, I've never seriously listened to all their stuff. But lately I have been, and I feel like I'm making up for years and years of not listening to it. And I've looked into a lot of the stuff that I wasn't familiar with, and I'm really enjoying most of that too. Seriously, it's been like a little bit of a music education for me, and I love that.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I really and truly loved this book. I'm adding it to my list of favorites, and I will forever recommend it to pretty much anyone who will listen.

** If you're interested, here's the link to my 1/2 way through book review of Life.

Ben Harper - Diamons on the Inside

2010-11-22T17:38:00.000-05:00

It's retro album review time again! This time I'm listening to Ben Harper's 2003 offering, Diamonds on the Inside.

This is a really, really good album. Just the right mix of blues and funk, each song has the feeling and emotion to evoke something inside of each of us. The album starts out stronger than it finishes, in my opinion, but that last track makes my heart hurt, it's so sweet and sad.

The title track is just so, so good. I feel like the past week or so, I just can't get enough of it. I've always loved this song, and it's what made me pick up the album in the first place so many years ago, but I feel like I'm only just now rediscovering how great the whole album is. There's something a little gospel-soul-revival about the album at times, and it's great. But this song! You just want to crank it up on a sunny day, and smile and sing along. And maybe sway a little. Reading Keith Richards' book has had a profound effect on my music tastes and the way that I listen to music lately, and in my hunt for more blues and R&B in my iPod, I put this album on the other day. Lately, I find that I'm focusing more on the roll and less on the rock (Thanks, Keef). Some standout songs:

With My Own Two Hands - I've somehow gotten more familiar and comfortable with the Ben Harper/Jack Johnson slow, lullaby-esque duet version of this track, and allowed myself to forget how cool this album version is. A little reggae rhythm, a little bluesy guitar - it strikes just the right chord. This totally makes me want to dance, while the slowed down version is such a sweet lullaby. A good tune overall.

When It's Good - I feel like this is a classic old blues song rather than a BH original, but maybe that just goes to say how good Mr. Harper is. He's an old soul, I reckon. Or maybe it is an old song. I'm not entirely sure. I just feel like I can hear an older, rougher version of this playing in my head whenever I listen to this song. The version in my head is playing on vinyl, and was recorded on 8-track or something. Maybe at Muscle Shoals. I don't even know - I feel that way about 1/2 of this album, I think. This is tied with the title track for my favorite on the album.

Brown Eyed Blues - It's killing me that I can't currently think if the classic mo-town song that this reminds me of. But I can't think of the damn song. Either way, this song has a great, funky feel to it, and there are some cool riffs in here. It really does have sort of a cool mo-town feel to it.

Touch From Your Lust and Temporaty Remedy - Since Keef has me paying more attention to guitar sounds lately, it's worth pointing out how cool the fuzzy guitars on these two tracks sound. These songs are both a little more rock and have a slightly more modern feel than most of the rest of the album, too.

Bring the Funk - Ummm, duh - I love the funk. This feels a little like Bushwalla's funk to me. I guess maybe that's a function of the whole modern funk thing, but I'll just throw it out there again - if you haven't checked out Bushwalla yet, you don't know what you're missing. If you like Ben Harper, BW will totally do it for you. Check him out.

So High So Low - I feel like the Black Keys are screaming out of this song at the beginning. It's just got a really cool, down and dirty sort of feeling to it. It's a great song, and another one that's a little more rockin than some of the rest of the album.

Amen Omen and Blessed to be a Witness - These are nice little tunes, and this is sort of what I mean about the church-y feeling, I guess, is these few soul tracks the album has got going on. But church-y lyrics or no, get down to the music, and these are pretty cool tunes. There's a lot going on with Blessed to be a Witness (more than you pick up at first listen, but give it a few trys), and it all comes together really nice.

She's Only Happy in the Sun - So sweet, but also SO sad. Like I said at the outset, this song makes my heart hurt. Pay attention to this one, and it'll really rope you in. Might be my new favorite lullaby.

I like Ben Harper a lot; new and old, and whoever he's playing with, I seem to always be drawn into his stuff. I've seen him live with DMB once or twice too, and he puts on a great show live. Either way, this album has been on heavy rotation this past week or so, so I thought I'd throw something out there in support of it. If you don't have it, check it out.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 2011 - the nominees

2010-11-19T17:51:00.002-05:00

Last week, I was checking out the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website for some information about last year's 25th anniversary concerts (which were amazing, by the way - if you have a chance to check out the DVDs, please do it. There were some amazing performances, and you can watch a bunch of them on YouTube, too). Anyway, while I was there, I saw that they have listed this year's nominees. Inductees will be announced "in the coming weeks," according to the site, but here's the list of those nominated:

Alice Cooper

Beastie Boys

Bon Jovi

Chic

Neil Diamond

Donovan

Dr. John

J. Geils Band

LL Cool J

Darlene Love

Laura Nyro

Donna Summer

Joe Tex

Tom Waits

Chuck Willis

The norm of how many make it in each year seems to have grown in the past few years, with a whopping 11 inductees last year (one of which was not the Red Hot Chili Peppers, much to my chagrin, and I'm sorry, but if Bon Jovi gets into the Hall of Fame before RHCP, something is tragically wrong with the universe). I confess to not knowing who a couple of these artists were when I first saw the list, and even on learning a little more about them all, I'm still unsure what a couple of them doing on the list. But I confess to having not listened to all of their music as of the time of this writing, or even to have listened very objectively to the couple of tracks I did check out. Either way, that's the case every year for me when I see the nominees list, but such is life. That's why I'm not on the Hall of Fame board, I guess.

If I'm being honest, I don't think the Beasties and LL will go in the same year. I'd love to see it, but I think the Beasties make it in first. I predict Dr. John and Tom Waits both being inducted this year. I'm sort of surprised that Neil Diamond's not in yet, so I pick him, too. But after that, it's anyone guess - Chic? Donna Summer? J.Geils? Alice Cooper? I like all of their chances. Ditto for Joe Tex and Donovan. I hate to sound like a hater, but I give Bon Jovi a big thumbs down. Sorry New Jersey.

So what do you think, dear readers, who will make the final cut?

Change in Terms?

2010-11-18T18:36:00.000-05:00

I got one of those "change in terms" letters in the mail from the bank that owns one of my big-box store credit cards. As I was walking over to throw it in the recycle bag, I noticed that the spanish translation of it had one more paragraph than the english version. So, with my minimal Spanish-fluency equivalency ability, I tried to figure out what it said. And I did it! And I'm surprised by what it says, but at the same time, I want to start using it on any Spanish-translations that we have to do for work. Here's what it said (I have no idea how to make my computer type in Spanish, so please pardon my leaving off all of the accents or whatever - you'll still get the point, I think):

La traduccion al espanol de este documento sirve unicamente como referencia. De haber alguna discrepancia entre este traduccion y el documento original en ingles, se usara la version en ingles.

Now, if you read Spanish, wonderful, you're all caught up. If not, let me give you my rough translation: The Spanish translation of this document serves only as a reference. If there are any discrepancies between this document and the original in English, use the version in English.

So, my question and the source of my slight amazement is the fact that, if you can't read in English, how the fuck are you supposed to be able to tell if there are any discrepancies? You would do what I just did, and see that the approximately-the-same sized paragraphs match up along the documents, and the same paragraphs are emboldened, you'd see that the dates and amounts and numbers all match between the two, and you would move on. And really, That's all I read in English anyway - what are late fees being raised by, and for what amount of balance, and when is this happening. Those are pretty much numbers and a few big, bold words. I didn't read a lick of the text on this letter. So I guess it doesn't really matter if you can't read the English version, as long as you can check that they both have the same numbers and all that, but still. And yet, as I said, when we do public notice documents at work, and they have to be translated in Spanish, I want to start adding this language to those documents. I'm such an effing lawyer. Eeew.

Atlantic Records: The House that Ahmet Built

2010-11-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

This was an installment of American Masters that I caught on PBS a month or so ago, and which has stuck with me ever since. I missed the beginning, but I caught the last hour and fifteen minutes or so, just by chance as I was flipping past and finally saw something on television that was actually about music. I need to re-watch it from the beginning. I don't have much love for major record labels these days, but I respect that you needed them to make things happen back in the day. Without proper recording and distribution, not to mention the networking and marketing that labels provided back in the day, we wouldn't have the music that we have today. Just for up-and-coming artists to be exposed to other artists - it served an important role that the internet has now come to replace in spades. Anyway, this was an absolutely excellent documentary about Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records in 1947. He was one of the rare breed, then as much as now I'm sad to say, that was really and truly into it for the music. Because of that, he drew so much real and amazing talent to that label, at such an important time in music history. He was personally responsible for getting Eric Clapton into the studio with Aretha Franklin. He negotiated the deal that brought the Stones indie label into contract with Atlantic, even though it paid them less dough than what they could've had with some other labels - because everyone involved cared more about the music than the cash. He "discovered" Led Zeppelin. He wrote Mess Around for Ray Charles. I mean, the man is responsible for SO MANY amazing things that have happened in music history, and this documentary about him and Atlantic Records was really, really well done and really interesting. If you're looking to watch something engaging, about some really pivotal moments in music recording history, or just interested in learning some more about a genuine, great guy who truly cared about the music and about making some amazing music happen, definitely check this out.

1/2 way through book review - Life by Keith Richards

2010-11-15T19:16:00.000-05:00

This is one of those books where I can't stop thinking about it, and I even want to be sitting at the computer as I'm reading it, in order to look up and learn more about what I'm reading. And it's all I want to talk about, much to the chagrin of those around me. And I'm only about 1/2 way through. And part of me doesn't want it to end. So that's why I have this blog.

One day last week, I woke up from the weirdest dream about the Stones, and about Keith in particular. I'm SO not getting into that right now, but suffice it to say, Gimme Shelter was stuck in my head when I woke up that morning. I was in the middle of reading The American by Martin Booth at the time, but over the course of listening to the Stones all day at work, I quickly decided that I wouldn't be reading that anymore, because Keith Richards' new autobiography, Life, had been subliminally working its way into my dreams, screaming to be read. It had been on my shelf for only about three days before this happened. Severe. And there's a reason: it's SO GOOD.

Seriously, though, I'm awestruck by the depth and passion of Keith's love of music. And I know that he's an artist and a songwriter, but I'm also loving the way that he expresses himself. The writing is so conversational that I sometimes find the book hard to put down. He goes off on these tangents and asides, and it's just wonderful to read. From the very start, I've been rebuilding the roots of my appreciation for music through this book. Most of what I've been looking up as I read has been some of the music that he cites as influences, and I've been ordering CDs from the library like mad this week. Jimmy Reed. Chuck Berry. John Lee Hooker. B.B. King. I've been listening to the Muddy Waters albums that I already owned a lot, and to Big Al Carson covering a lot of classic blues. Blues and R&B has pretty much been my MO for the past week. And lots of the Stones, of course.

I've said before how much I think knowing the background to what you're listening to gives you a whole new appreciation, and this is like that on crack. I even like the Stones a ton more now that I ever used to, which was bound to happen, but I was already a pretty big fan. I've always been a fan, but this is ridiculous. Did you know Keith wrote the main structure of "Satisfaction" in his sleep? Literally. He used to sleep with his guitar and with a tape deck by his bed, and he woke up in the morning to see the tape was full - played it back and there was "Satisfaction" plus about 40 minutes of him snoring. I also just learned the background to "Ruby Tuesday," and now that song kind of breaks my heart. And the pictures in the book are great. Turns out Keith was pretty hot back in the day. Maybe that's just me.

I don't know. This is me just about half way through reading this brick of a book. And while I'm finding it hard to put down and I just want to devour the whole thing, I also don't really want it to end. More to come when I finally finish it.

The infamous religion quiz

2010-10-20T19:24:00.000-04:00

I think most people have probably heard about the religion quiz set up by the Pew Forum that the majority of Americans failed, and which showed that Athiests and Agnostics seem to know the more about the various religions of the world than most people who practice an organized religion, and that Catholics know the least among various groups. Not a surprise, if you ask me.

None of it is a surprise to me, really. I feel like Athiests and Agnostics tend to reach the decision to believe as they do after a lot of consideration. Religions came to exist for a reason, and to walk away from believing in any faith at all is not a decision that I think anyone could make lightly. So I feel like people who have no faith in any higher being, or who believe in something, but they're not quite sure what, tend to have weighed their options within existing belief systems before getting there. I will keep my opinions on the Catholic church to myself.

It's 32 questions long, and I strongly encourage everyone to take it and see where you fall. Here's the link.

And here's a summary of the average results:
Americans overall: 16/32 correct
Athiests/Agnostics: 20.9/32 correct
Jews: 20.5/32 correct
Mormons: 20.3/32 correct
Protestants: 16/32 correct
Catholics: 14.7/32

For the record, I got 29/32 correct.

Tags of the week! 10-20-10 edition

2010-10-20T18:36:00.000-04:00

Yay! It's been SO LONG since I did this! These are definitely not all radio songs, but they're all worth checking out. Without further ado, here are my top 5 today:

1) Mumford & Sons: Little Lion Man

The first time I ever heard this song, it was stuck in my head for four days. I adore it. Check out the whole album - Sigh No More - it's all good stuff. Something about a banjo and an upright bass . . . it's part folky Irish coffee shop feeling, and part downhome bluegrass jam session, but all awesome.

2) Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over

This is another one where I chose the radio song, but the whole album really is excellent. Her voice is so rad, and the songs are so catchy. This is like the rockin' version of that chick Adele. Love.

3) Seether - Careless Whisper

Dude, I like the Wham version of this song, okay? And I love Seether. I think they did a great job on this. Maybe better than the original. Not Johnny-Cash-doing-Hurt better than the original, but real, real good.

And while we're talking about covering old 80's songs:

4) Chris Cornell - Billie Jean

I actually haven't researched where this came from at all, if you can believe that. J found it and played it for me, and I almost had a heart attack. I could listen to this man sing all. day. long. Nevermind acoustic and covering an MJ classic. Alien Ant Farm did an AMAZING job on Smooth Criminal a few years back, too. Check that out, whenever you have a chance.

5) The Black Keys - Chop And Change

This was a toss up between this song, which I heard on the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack or The Black Keys' Tighten Up, which is a tagged radio song in my phone. They're just a really rad band. Kind of southern funky. I dig their bass lines.

There's gonna be more music recs coming soon. I have so much new stuff that I'm into right now. On the off chance that you're in the market for something completely different - check out Sigur Ros. They're Icelandic, and they sing in either Icelandic or this other language that they created. My high school intern introduced me to them, and I can't thank her enough. It makes awesome working or driving background.

2010-10-15T21:19:00.006-04:00

Whoops! Clearly, something needs to be done about my mobile blogging functionality! This post was supposed to say:

Instant cake and muffin mixes are our gift from the WW2 generation. Powdered milk, powdered butter, powered eggs, and flour - all in one convenient package? Just add water? Yes, please.

It's that time of year again!

2010-09-30T21:03:00.000-04:00

This is my second year participating in the In2Books program. In case you missed my post about it last year, In2Books is an internet-supported, curriculum-based reading mentor program. "What what what?" you say - translation: it's a program wherein you're partnered with elementary school kids, you read books with them and then you discuss by email. And it's awesome.

Click the link to read more about it straight from the source, but I can tell you firsthand, it's a really rewarding program. Last year, my pen pal was a 3rd grade girl from the Seattle area. I had so much fun getting to know her and hearing about what was going on in her life, all while seeing how excited she was about the books we were reading and about having a grown-up in a whole other part of the country who was really excited to be reading with her. As the school year went on, some other pen-pals in her class had "dropped out" and stopped responding to their students' letters (seriously? Who does this? These amazing kids are so excited to write to you, and you just fail to write back? There's no excuse - if you can't stay involved, don't sign up, but at least tell the kids that something has come up and you can't keep writing to them), so the class needed more mentors. I took on a second student for the last unit of the year, and it was even cooler to discuss the book with two completely different kids and see their different takes on the subject. The teacher in the class sent occasional emails to let the mentors know what was going on in the classroom, and he was really nice and seemed SO into what the class was doing with this program. I had such a great experience, I sent the class a gift at the end of the year - 4 books for the classroom/school library, or for the teacher to do whatever he saw fit with, and a little grab bag for each student with a book mark, book plate, pencils, an eraser, and some candy. They were stoked, and I hope to be able to do the same thing each year that I'm involved in the program.

This year, I opted to get paired with a new student rather than sticking with the same girl as last year, though I'm pretty sure that was an option. My pen pal this year is a 5th grade boy, but I'm still not sure where he's from. We just got paired up last week, and I've only gotten one letter from him so far. I just found out the first book he's chosen, and I'm picking it up from the library this weekend. I can't stress enough how cool I think this program is. Childhood literacy has become sort of a key issue for me, and whatever I can do to help get books into kids hands is SO important to me. I was blessed to grow up in a reading family, and I think it made all the difference in my life, in terms of my learning ability, my absolute love of learning, and my ability and desire to go as far and do as well in school as I did. In2Books is always looking for new mentors, and they haven't finished pairing people up for this school year, so it's not too late to sign up. There's a nominal $5 or $6 fee to pay for the cost of a background check, and the only time commitment is to read 5 kids books over the course of the school year, and exchange at least one email per book with your pen-pal.

Seriously, go to their website and check it out. Consider signing up as a mentor. You can thank me later.

Stop Talking, Start Trying to Catch Up

2010-09-16T14:42:00.001-04:00

A Thousand Suns

Linkin Park

Released 9.14.2010
(hang on, this review is going to be really long - it's maybe more of a thesis . . .
but look at me posting a review of something the week it came out! Go me.)

I've hardly stopped listening to LP's newest since I downloaded it on Tuesday morning before work. I wrote a lot of this review on Tuesday, but wanted to give myself a few days to mull it over before posting. My opinion hasn't changed, and in fact, my extremely high regard for LP's fourth studio album has only increased in the ensuing days. Bravo, guys. Bravo. The album is, in a word, Epic.

I want to start by saying that this is like nothing LP has ever done before, and not like much I've ever heard before. To call it "experimental" or a "concept album" is fair - it's more electronic than everything they've done previously, and I guess it's not as heavy, but it is definitely bigger than anything they've done. When they put out Minutes to Midnight, I recognized the new direction, and I liked it. The band indicated with that album that they hoped that people would treat the album as a single work, and listen to it that way, as opposed to individual songs. This time, they weren't taking any chances - the iTunes versions of A Thousand Suns all include a 16th track called A Thousand Suns: The Full Experience. It plays the entire album in one piece without breaks between tracks - the way it was intended. If you're going to listen to this album, and especially if you're going to place judgment on it, please, please, please do yourself (and the band) a favor and set aside 47 minutes of your life to listen to the whole thing beginning to end. And do it with an open mind. I think you'll find that this is more LP than you might have initially thought. Of course the individual songs stand out - but you need to hear it all in context to really get it. This isn't "9 songs with 6 little blips of noise in between" like some (former?) fans have argued - it's a 47 minute cohesive work. If you're looking for a collection of radio songs and arena anthems, this is obviously not for you. Open your mind up and listen in one piece.

And I feel like a lot of the reviews that are dissing this new album just don't get it. Bands grow and evolve and advance, just like the people in them do - U2 is never going to make another Joshua Tree, and the Chili Peppers will never put out anything like Mother's Milk again - that doesn't mean that what they're doing now is no good! LP has been one of my favorite bands since Hybrid Theory came out, and I've really loved seeing them progress as a band and as individuals, including Mike and Chester's side projects. I fully acknowledge that this new album isn't full of hard, screaming anthems the way that HT or Meteora were, but feeling or saying that this album is awesome doesn't take anything away from how great those two albums were. It's just different. It's different in an awesome way.

I can't help feeling like When They Come for Me is LP's retaliation against everyone that just wants them to keep making HT and Meteora over and over and over again. Lines like: "'cause even a blueprint is a gift and a curse/'cause once you got a theory about how the thing works/everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first/and I'm not a robot, I'm not a monkey/I will not dance even if the beat's funky ... Ya'all ought to stop talking, start tryin' to catch up, muthafucka!" It's like saying that they're going to do what they do, how they want to do it, no matter what anybody thinks, and you'd best stop badmouthing it and start trying to keep up with it - they're doing cooler and cooler shit, and you're going to miss out on all of it if you get so hung up on the old stuff. I LOVE this song, by the way, and I cannot wait to see this performed live, with the chanting and all of that.

The fanboys want something heavier - they want to hear Chester screaming. You know what? Chester has been screaming for a long-ass time, and maybe he's tired of it. Get over that and actually listen to him - he's a fantastic singer. Enjoy it, you can thank me later. Pay close attention on The Messenger at the end - Chester's voice is completely laid bare with nothing but some acoustic accompaniment, and it's effing beautiful. And while you're at it, go back and replay When They Come for Me, Blackout, and Wretches and Kings - they're all pretty heavy, and the beats are sick.

The beats on this whole album are pretty sick, and most of the songs are stick in your head catchy. Stick in my head, anyway. The whole thing has this feeling of being bigger than itself - of being bigger than anything - it's almost ominous. I've often said that part of what's always drawn me to LP is the complexity of their sound, and I think that's more noticeable here than ever. There's sort of a middle eastern/African/reggae influence that seems to pervade a lot of the album, and that's super-effective, when the political anti-war theme of the whole thing is taken into consideration. This album is smart. It's brilliant in it's concept and in it's execution. From the creepy opening, through quotes from Robert Oppenheimer, MLK Jr., and Mario Savio, the album builds and builds, taking you with it through an uprising and rebellion with a virtual apocalypse of sound before summing it all up with the beautiful song of hope and love in The Messenger to wrap it all up and let you walk away with a great feeling. I'm pretty sure that the chorus from that song has been the most quoted in all the reviews I've read, so I'd be remiss not to point out that "When life leaves us blind/Love keeps us kind" is maybe the sweetest thing LP has every said to anyone. Awww. But it's effective. I usually can't support the interludes and quotes and everything on a lot of hip hop albums, but this is completely different - the quotes that are used are used in a way that works. I said at the outset that there's a lot of electronic sound here, and there is, including a lot of vocoder/autotune-type stuff. Frankly, I could have done with a little less autotuning, but I get that it's used for the feeling it gives the songs, not to eff with Chester's voice, so I'm over it. I'm just don't love autotune. My one and only other criticism is that somewhere in the middle of Blackout, the mixing feels sloppy. It's totally possible that the sound is also intentional, because it works with the song, but there's just something a little off about it.

While we're talking about individual tracks - Waiting for the End is like magic. It might be the most perfectly produced song I've ever heard. I love the flow. It just rolls - it rolls you up and takes you with it. The timing and the pace are so spot on. I'm pretty sure it's my favorite track on the album. I adore the nods to Chuck D and Public Enemy in Wretches and Kings, and Burning in the Skies threw me for a loop the first time I put the album on - it initially seemed too poppy to me, but after hearing it 100 more times in the last couple of days, no, I think it fits perfectly with everything else

I don't know folks, the bottom line here is that A Thousand Suns just made my short list of the best albums ever, and I just want you all to give it a fair chance as a single piece of work. The band has made it clear from the start that this wasn't going to be your typical album - it was designed to be something completely different that the record stores wouldn't know what to do with. Mission accomplished. It's not a collection of 15 songs, and no one wants you to listen to it that way. Set aside 47 minutes of your life to enjoy this in one big bite, then feel free to go back for seconds (or thirds or 57ths) so you can really let it all sink in. I love it.

Fall to Pieces by Mary Forsberg Weiland

2010-09-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

If you know me at all, or if you read this blog, you know that I have a thing for addiction memoirs and for music autobios. You may not be aware of my similar predilection for mental illness memoirs - I guess I think of addiction memoirs as a subset of this anyway, and while I don't read the crazy stuff quite as often anymore, there was a time when it was about all I read (I've always said that crazy is drawn to crazy, and at the point in my life when I was reading this stuff all the time . . . let's just say things weren't quite normal in my corner of the world). I digress. Anyway, with all of that intro in place - did you see the subtitle of this book? It says, "A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll and Mental Illness." A trifecta! Additionally, if you'll please note the author - yep, it's Scotty Weiland's ex-wife.

This book was a grand slam from the day I found out it existed, so how psyched was I to read it and find out that it is also a pretty awesome book? Psyched. I'm not going to say that the writing was the best ever, but it was good. What was so awesome were the stories that this woman has to tell, and the way that she tells them. It's candid and honest, brutal and funny. Mary and Scott both suffer with bipolar disorder, and pretty severe alcohol and drug addictions. Not to mention some level of co-dependency that came to define their almost-twenty year relationship. It's terribly sad, but at the same time, infused with a certain hope. The book was just written last year, but after everything Mary and Scott have come through, you can't help but wonder where they stand now.

My only complaint is that sometimes the time lines feel wrong. I honestly couldn't tell whether the book was skipping around chronologically or not, but sometimes it was difficult to tell what time frame things were taking place in. All is forgiven, though, when you keep in mind that the author was either wasted or manic, or both, during much of the time that she's writing about. She points this out at the beginning and again at the end of the book, so I really can't fault the story-telling. What's been on my mind for the past couple of days, since I finished reading, is how a lot of the songs on STP's new album seem clearly to be about Mary. There were a few points in the book where she mentions hearing Scott's songs about herself, and how she reacted, so I wonder about her reaction to this newest album.

10 Reasons why Transporter 1 is better than 2 or 3

2010-09-13T22:28:00.000-04:00

The first installment of the Transporter series is on SpikeTV right now, and I'm completely incapable of shutting it off. I mean, we all know I love Jason Statham, but this movie is just so full of win, it's more than just the Statham factor. I used to think that 2 was my favorite of the franchise, because of all the scenes with JS looking after that little kid, and how it's set in Miami, and I love it there, but I stand corrected. 1 really is the best. And it has the best of everything - fights, chase scenes, planes, parachutes, shit blowing up, boats, the tractor trailers . . . I could go on all day, but here's 10 reasons why Transporter 1 is better than Transporter 2 or 3:

1. The music. Seriously, the music in this film is fantastic. Fantastic. I don't know who the folks are that did the music for these movies, but the guy that did 1 was not responsible for 2 or 3. That scene in 1 where Frank has just dropped of Lai, and he drop kicks the door down to get back in and beat the crap out of a whole house full of people? That music is beyond perfect. It's that way through the entire film. As an aside - it was that whole sequence that really showed me how awesome Jason Statham is in the first place.

2. There is no room for taking itself too seriously. It's ridiculous, with just the right amount of plot to keep it from sinking into parody.

3. The directing. Louis Leterrier directed 1 and 2, making them automatically far superior to Oliver Megaton's (yes, that's really his name) work on T3, but Corey Yuen was also a director on 1, as well as in charge of fight choreography, whereas on 2 and 3, he was just in charge of the fights. Which were still the best part of 2 and 3.

4. Frank actually followed his rules, except for when checks on Lai in the car. By T3, all the rules are fully out the window.

5. Madelines. I'm still pretty sure this movie has something to do with how much I love those damn cookies.

6. You knew it was coming - JS just looks better in this one. And he doesn't take himself too seriously either. That whole warehouse fight scene with the buses and the oil? Brilliant.

7. The chick. Lai is sweet and likeable. The mom in T2 is also sweet and likeable, but she's married and she's a mom. The blond Amazon chick is just scary. And please don't even get me started on the annoying, food-describing Russian in T3. WTF was that about? Don't get me wrong, the JS striptease scene with the keys was sort of hot, but she still annoyed me.

8. Frank's effing house. How rad is that place?!

9. The bad guy. C'mon, Wall Street was way cooler than the guys in the other two movies. Matt Schulze is great (he also plays Vince in The Fast and The Furious movies).

10. Inspector Tarconi. It's not necessarily that Francois Berleand is any better in this movie than the others, it's just that this is the first time we meet him and see what a great, funny character Tarconi is capable of being. Plus I'm pretty sure he has a bigger role in this movie, so there's more Tarconi to love.

New and anxiously awaited albums due this month!

2010-09-08T19:11:00.001-04:00

All signs point to the new Linkin Park album being amazing. A Thousand Suns drops next Tuesday, the 14th, and so far there are four tracks up on their MySpace: The Catalyst, Waiting For The End, Blackout, and Wretches and Kings. All of them, as promised, represent pretty huge departures from the LP sound that I have come to know and love, and all are full of awesome. I've said before that I thought Minutes To Midnight was a bit of a departure for them, and I loved it because I thought it showed the band growing a little, and I loved the direction they were taking, but this new album is light years away from even where MTM was. There's some sort of international sounds going on, I detect a little reggae influence, especially on Waiting For The End, and Wretches and Kings reminds me of something that Fort Minor would've come up with. I caught The Catalyst on the radio last week, and while I was initially a little shocked by the drastically different sound behind Chester's voice, I instantly fell in love. It's an awesome, awesome song, and a great first single - it's downright catchy. Look for it on the MTV VMA's this weekend - they'll be performing it live. I'm psyched. I'm SO, SO psyched for this album.

In other news, Tommy Lee's new Methods of Mayhem album is FINALLY set to drop a week later, on the 21st. I was counting down days for this one too - Tommy recorded it using ThePublicRecord.com - posting stems of the songs, and allowing anyone who was interested to submit their own takes on the songs. Then he incorporated some of the amazing stuff that he got into the album. A Public Disservice Announcement is currently up for preorder on iTunes, and you can preview the whole album in 30 second snippets. Overall, it sounds like it's going to be an awesome album - completely different, and a lot more tame than the last Methods album, but still pretty experimental and definitely unique. You can check out the first two singles, Fight Song and Time Bomb - which are dramatically different, I might add - on the RoadRunnerRecords website. I really like the last Methods album, but there's no denying the heavy, angry feel to it. It's almost funny to listen to that and then to Tommyland: The Ride back to back. It's like they're from two completely different people. From what I can tell, APDA is going to be a fantastic blend of those two guys - maybe it represents Tommy finding a little balance. Either way, I can't wait to hear the whole thing.

Stay tuned for follow up on both of these before the end of the month. Yay!

Action Movies I've seen lately

2010-09-04T11:22:00.000-04:00

I looked forward to this movie for months! I was counting down the days until it came out, I'm not even kidding. Lucky for me, J completely indulges my mild obsession with Jason Statham and ridiculous action movies, because he was probably the only one I ever could've talked into going to see this with me at all, let alone on the night it came out. But, alas, I was a little disappointed. It was a pretty typical Stallone movie, so as you would expect, the plot was sort of thin, the dialogue was a little weak, and the violence was pretty heavy. All of that was to be expected, but what let me down was that the character development just wasn't there. I feel like they could've done A LOT more with this band of mercenaries/friends who go way back. I liked it, but there were definitely some eye-roll moments. It took itself a little too seriously, which is always an issue for me with action movies. Mickey Rourke was, once again, the perfect casting job for his role. There was one scene where it's all surreal and close up and Mickey's talking about life and regret and being all deep - and honestly, the scene was sort of laughable, but no one else could've pulled it off in quite the way that he did. My bottom line here is that I honestly want to see it again. I think I was too excited and too googley-eyed over seeing JS on the big screen for the first time in a couple of years to really appreciate the film for all of its merits. I have to have missed something, because it was number one at the box office for a couple of weeks in a row. Clearly, people are into it. meanwhile, in my Jason Statham-loving world, I only have to wait until January for the next opportunity to see the man back on the big screen, reviving Charles Bronson's bad-ass role as The Mechanic.

And speaking of movies that don't take themselves too seriously - Machete was effing awesome. Robert Rodriguez knows what the hell he's doing behind a camera. The cast for this one goes on and on and on, too: Danny Trejo (and I'm not sure they could've made this film without him as Machete), Bobby DiNero, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan . . . it goes on and on. There were so many ridiculous, laugh-out-loud scenes that you know it's not taking itself too seriously. The plot is just as deep as it needs to be, the dialogue is great, and the film is sort of satirical at times, which made it that much better. It's obviously not for everyone, but if you have ever seen and enjoyed a movie by Rodriguez, you will love this one.

Stone Temple Pilots! 8.31.10 @ Mohegan Sun

2010-09-04T10:41:00.001-04:00

I'm not even sure that I can come up with words for how awesome this show was. It was by and large all old songs, but for about 4 songs from the new album and one cover. The four or so new songs that they chose were probably the four best songs on the new album. My biggest regret for the night was that we didn't switch our seats sooner. Our assigned seats were in the middle of a row (the seats were great, by the way - upstairs, stage left), so when we walked in we took some empty seats in the unsold section next to ours. Some security dude told us we had to move, so we did. When the show started, everyone in our crowded section remained seated and appeared to have no fun at all. Anyone who's read this blog before knows that I love to dance, so clearly this situation wasn't going to work for me. After about 4 songs, we moved back to the forbidden seats and I danced my ass off all night long. We also missed Cage the Elephant, who I had been stoked to see open, but hunger prevailed and we grabbed dinner before heading in to the show. Without further ado, here's the setlist (which, incidentally, is exactly the same as every other show they've played on this tour, but more on that later):

1. Crackerman

2. Wicked Garden

3. Vasoline

4. Heaven and Hot Rods

5. Between the Lines

6. Hickory Dichotomy

7. Still Remains

8. Cinnamon

9. Big Empty

10. Dancing Days (Led Zep cover)

11. Pretty Penny

12. Silvergun Superman

13. Plush

14. Interstate Love Song

15. Huckleberry Crumble

16. Down

17. Sex Type Thing

Encore:

18. Dead and Bloated

19. Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart

I realized at the show the other night just how much Scott Weiland uses his voice as an instrument. To some extent, I know that all vocalists do, but Scotty's voice can change so dramatically from one song to the next, and sometimes it really just sounds like he's playing along. Check out Hickory Dichotomy and Interstate Love Song, especially, to see what I mean. Along those same lines, I really love the megaphone/microphone thing he does on songs like Crackerman and Dead and Bloated.

The show started off hard and heavy with Crackerman, and that carried the feeling for the whole show. Scotty came out wearing all black, including a cape, hat, sunglasses and a scarf. Song by song, the layers came off. The man has style, I gotta say. I wish that more layers had come off; Scotty without a shirt might've made my life, but even still. Speaking of Scotty's style - I recently learned that he has a clothing line. Crazy, right? And seriously, follow that link and check out some of the clothes in that line - it's all button-downs, suits and ties. And they're really, really nice.

Crackerman was an amazing way to start the show, and Trippin... was an excellent closer. Though, any closer would have made me feel sad, really. I was bummed when I walked out of that show. Bummed. My heart hurt, I was so sad that it was really over. I haven't felt that strongly about a show being over in a long time. I'm always sad, but the other night, it was severe. I can usually turn it around to being thankful that I had the opportunity to be there in the first place, and hold onto that gratitude, but I had to KEEP ON reminding myself of that until I fell asleep.

While we're talking about individual songs - Wicked Garden and Dead and Bloated might have been my favorites for the night. I was so souped to hear Sex Type Thing (Scotty growling something about how he'll give me something that I won't forget and how I shouldn't have worn that dress just does it for me, honestly, and it did it Tuesday night, but not like I wanted it to), but it just wasn't as awesome as WG or DaB. Plush into Interstate Love Song was a moment - the crowd sang the chorus, and it was as cool as it always is when that happens. Those two songs are just so widely known, you couldn't help but appreciate the whole place singing along. There were multiple occasions when I found myself thinking that this was what church should feel like.

Scotty looked almost pudgy about the belly on stage. That made me so happy. The level of awesome achieved on this newest album raised fears in the back of my head that he was back on the smack, but I think he looked too good (and too chubby) for that at this show. No doubt, he still drinks, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't water he was swigging between songs, but whatever it takes. I did some further research on this point (shocking, I know), and learned that this new album was only the third that Weiland has ever recorded sober (fn and fn). The other two were STP's debut, Core, and Velvet Revolver's second album, Libertad. I feel like this helps explain how this album got to be so great, as well as some of the freaky that Scotty had going on in between.

I am a little bummed by the fact that they're playing exactly the same show for every show on the tour, and in that way, I feel a little let down by the lack of spontaneity, but I think this is a common thing with rock tours nowadays, and STP is not alone in sticking to a formula that works.

If I can just digress for a minute here - what happened to the days of bands coming up with and rehearsing a couple of set lists that worked real well, and then shuffling through them throughout the tour, adding and subtracting to suit the mood as it happened? I'll tell you what - major labels and the demand for more and more over-produced shows has led to the lights, cameras, lyricsmonitorsinthestage! (yes, STP, I sat side-stage the other night, I know you're guilty of it - I'm not saying you relied heavily on them, or even used them at all, but they were there) atmosphere that we now see and pay for with every ticket we buy. And speaking of tickets that we buy - don't advertise your show as proudly keeping ticket prices under $50 (and I'm not talking about STP here - they were over $50 and proud of it), only to charge $49.50 plus $13 in "service charges." That's bullshit, it's disingenuous, and it's not how you should be treating your fans. Pearl Jam got out of the ticketmaster/major label bullshit, and others could and should do it as well. Gimme an old-fashioned club show for $15 ($20 at the door) over such an over-produced, multi-million dollar spectacle any day. J even said that this show would've been so. much. better. had it been at HOB instead of Mohegan. I think that at every single big arena show I go to, and it's rare for him to agree or care to discuss the finer points with me, let alone to bring it up himself. I'm glad he has seen the light, and I can only hope that he will continue to vociferate on the topic, as I hope that you will, dear readers. Down with major labels!

All of that aside, though - it was a fabulous show, whether it was the same as every other show on the tour or not. I guess it works out well that I couldn't afford to go to the show in Boston the following night, because it might've felt too contrived after seeing the exact same show the night before. Either way - the show was still one of the best I've seen. If you haven't heard the new album, do yourself a favor and check it out. And if you have a chance to catch a show - go! Trust me on this, I've seen the exact same show already. :)

ETA (on 9.9.10) - Holy crap, I almost forgot about my other favorite part of the show. Big Empty just came on as I'm sitting at my desk eating lunch, and I remembered how right before STP launched into this last week, Scott lit a cigarette and sang this song kind of low and mellow while he was smoking. It was great. See kids, sometime smoking still does make you look cool. ;)

Remember me?

2010-09-01T14:00:00.000-04:00

Wow. I have nothing to offer by way of an apology for not posting for so long, but I promise that I have a lot in mind waiting to show up here. Some highlights:

1) I'm currently listening to what might be the best book ever written. We all know I'm not a fan of favorites, but I might have an actual, single favorite author by the time this is over. I'm also already in the market for the perfect paper copy of the book so that I can start re-reading and re-reading and re-reading it, something else I rarely do. This is just that good..

2) The new Stallone/Statham movie came out a few weeks ago. I went on opening night and I have some thoughts. . . It may be a big movie post, because I also recently saw Inception, and it blew my mind, and there are a few other things I've seen recently that I'm sort of itching to talk about.

3) I experienced Stone Temple Pilots rocking Mohegan Sun last night, and I can't wait to rave about how awesome it was. I'm still giddy.

4) Despite my current audiobook kick, I have some music tags to post.

5) I'm working on some new short fiction to share. I know, the very idea that I might share something I wrote is fascinating to all of you, isn't it? Don't hold your breath.

The Best Fruit Dip Ever.

2010-07-12T20:49:00.000-04:00

Credit for this goes to my sister-in-law, who served it one of the first times that I ever met her. My parents and I went to visit my brother and his then-girlfriend at the house they were renting for the summer in Charlestown for a little cookout. One of the things that C served was cut up fruit with this fluffy, green, delicious dip. I don't remember if it was a picky when we first got there or a dessert, or how much of it I had to eat before I finally asked her what it was, but I will never forget how excited I was to learn that it was just Cool Whip mixed with some instant pistachio pudding mix. That's it. Probably don't mix the whole packet of instant pudding mix into one tub of thawed out Cool Whip, unless you want it to be really stiff and really pistachio-y, but just sprinkle in a little at a time and mix in enough to suit your taste. I usually use fat-free Cool Whip and fat-free pudding mix, so unless you're following Michael Pollan's rules (more on that another time), it's not even bad for you! It's amazingly simple and completely delicious. Maybe this is a common knowledge kind of thing, but I was floored the first time I had it, and I've made it a few times recently to great applause, so I just wanted to share. It's too tasty to not share!

D-Day by Antony Beevor

2010-07-10T16:36:00.000-04:00

Last August, J and I traveled to New Orleans to meet friends who were there for a conference. We spent three days in the city, which we love, and we saw and did a few new things that we had missed on previous visits. One of those things was a visit to the National WWII Museum. I was interested, but not thrilled with the prospect of spending a full day there. I could've spent three days there. Seriously. And ever since the one day that we spent there, I've been a little obsessed. I've always been sort of fascinated by the way that the Allied nations and their citizens could pull together against a common enemy, and I think part of that has to do with the fact that I can't even imagine that in today's selfish, self-centered society. It's always been the civilian side of things that interested me, though. Until last summer. Now I find myself absorbing every second of military history from the period that I can get my hands on.

This book was a random pick-up at the library for me. It was sitting on an endcap with a bunch of other "new arrivals" at the front of the library, and the cover just jumped out at me. I picked it up, unsure if I'd even crack it open at home, or if I'd just flip through a little, or if I'd actually endeavor to read the whole brick of a book. When I told J I was unsure about it, he talked me into reading it. It took me three weeks to read, because I'm sort of military illiterate still, but it was excellent. When I say I'm military illiterate, I mean that I don't really know the basics of military hierarchy - battalions and regiments and companies - it just doesn't entirely make sense to me yet. I'm getting there, but it's slow going. Ranks still sort of confuse me too. Add to all of that the fact that this book isn't strictly an Allied point of view, but it also explains a lot about the German positions, with all of their 15-letter German names for everything, and I think it's understandable why this was such a slow read for me.

All of that aside, though, this was an excellent book. Any failings were my own, and not the book's. There were a TON of maps, which I think is vital to any military history book. I learned more about the geography of Northern France than I ever thought I'd know. The book covers the period from shortly before D-Day through the liberation of Paris, and provides a pretty detailed overview of the route there.What I really liked, though, was that this was not as strictly American as most D-Day books I've come across. It presents a more broad take on the whole invasion, including equal attention to all aspects of the Allied troops, as well as the German perspective, and the French, and most importantly, the French civilian, perspective. It felt like the time spent on tactical and strategic components and on the more emotional, human, side of things was a very good balance. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in getting an in-depth, objective, candid overview of the Normandy invasion.

Buddhism for Busy People by David Michie

2010-07-07T15:13:00.000-04:00

I've always had some level of fascination with Eastern religions generally, and with Tibetan Buddhism in particular, and I suppose that was what led me to pick this audiobook up from the library in the first place. I don't often browse at the library, except for audio books. I usually reserve the books that I want, and then just run and to pick them up from the desk. I sort of like to use audiobooks as an opportunity to learn something, or to listen to a book that I might not otherwise have read, so I tend to browse for them, and I've come up with some good ones lately, but this one in particular struck me so much that I thought it required it's own post.

I'm not a Buddhist, and up until the past week or so that I've been listening and really thinking about this book, I would've told you that I was a Lutheren, and I guess really, I still am. I was raised, baptised and confirmed in the Lutheren Church, and I have always really liked my religion. Actually going to church hasn't been a huge part of my life lately, I admit, but I often think about my faith and about how it fits into my life, and it is very important to me, though not always outwardly so. In listening to David Michie's partly-autobiographical, partly instructional, and partly introductory text book, thought, I've come to realize that whether I recognized it or not, Buddhist principles have already been a part of my day-to-day life for a long time. Listening to this book on my way to and from work for a couple of weeks helped to center me, and helped me to put a number of things in my life into perspective. At the same time, though, and perhaps more importantly, it called a number of things in my life into question. I feel silly calling a book life-changing, but at the least it was certainly eye-opening for me. Somehow, what I know of Buddhist teachings and principles (which is admittedly fairly minimal) just makes sense to me, in a way that my own faith never really has. I am more able to accept and understand these principles than I am many of the teachings of my own judeo-christian upbringing. Granted, basic tenents of these faiths are largely the same - do unto others and all of that - but it's more than that. Buddhism seems, to me anyway, to be so much more focused on the teaching and learning and sharing and understanding than on the idea of "worship," which recently is what I have come to question. It just sets better with me to be guided than to worship, I guess.

So now I find myself in an interesting place, and I feel as though I have some work to do. I am beginning to work on more actively incorporating what I know and understand of Buddhist principles into my life, but cautiously so. I have only a small idea of what I don't know, and I understand how much more I have to understand. I'm not sure I want to "be a Buddhist," or even what that would entail, but I know that I want to learn more and I want to find myself some help in that learning, and I know that I find a level of solace in what I do know that I have not found elsewhere. I'm also not in any rush to renounce what has always been my faith and my church, because I know that I still believe in it. Somehow I just don't seem to take from it what I feel like I have always (and especially recently) needed to get from it, if that makes any sense.

A few months ago, I read Chuck Palahniuk's Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, and I think the biggest thing I took from that book related to religion. Rant Casey used to say, as he was riding around crashing cars, just at the moment of impact, Rant used to say, "this is what church should feel like." He said the same thing just after he had an orgasm, and at various other times too, but what I get from that is that faith and enlightening and religion is not and should not be the same for everyone. I think that live music, especially in a big arena or stadium with thousands of people all singing along, that's what church should feel like. Or doing volunteer work. Or the kind, smiling eyes of a stranger you pass on the street. Or literally stopping to smell the flowers on a warm, sunny day. It should feel warm and open and happy. I'm not sure when I've ever felt warm and open and happy when I was at the church where I grew up, but I can think of a lot of times when I've been at a show and stopping singing along myself in order to listen to the thousands of voices enveloping me, and at those times I've though, if not in so many words, that it was what church should feel like. Daily, I look for examples of things that church should feel like, and I think that's an excellent way to appreciate the little things. And isn't that what it's about, in so many ways?

Tags of the week - June 9, 2010

2010-06-10T01:15:00.001-04:00

As with everything else around here, it's been over a week since I last posted some tags, but it's been a little hectic around these parts lately. There are so many songs tagged in my phone right now, it was like narrowing it all down and weeding out the most relevant this time around. I'm not sure I'll ever be short on tags to post. Now that May and my 30 day challenge is over, it's like I forgot how fun it was to blog (almost) every day. Anyway, without further ado, here's five songs that are hitting me this week, and why.

1) Fanfarlo - Harold T. Wilkins, or How to Wait for a Very Long Time.

I love this song. Part of why this made the list this week is because Fanfarlo is playing a free outdoor show in Providence this Friday evening. Waterplace Park, 7:30 pm. I'll be there, will you?

2) The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition

Okay, I confess that I didn't actually tag this song, but I love it, and my friend M just sent me a text about it, so it's fresh in my head. You can thank M if you're into the tune.

3) Against Me! - I was a Teenage Anarchist

This should have been in the last round of tags, it's been in my phone for so long, and it's been tagged more than twice. It has just the right mix of fun and angst. I love it.

4) Coheed & Cambria - Here We Are Juggernaut

Love. I know C&C aren't anyone new, and I don't know how new this song is, but I'm really into it. It's a little more harsh than some of the other stuff I've been listening to lately, but awesome nonetheless. We were stupid we got caught . . .

5) Bushwalla - I Raise Up

OMG. BW is playing house shows on the east coast this month, and I can't afford to get him at my house. Nor can I count on enough people coming through to chip in to be able to afford to front the money myself. And he's available when I am and everything; I already checked. I could totally do it if I could only justify the cash outlay. BUMMA. B-U-M-M-A. I absolutely hate that I have this opportunity, and can't take advantage. I love his style and his music SO much, and I really and truly want to introduce him to more people that I know would feel the same way. He's also playing a show in MA (an hour and a half away) at the end of the month, and I need to go to that. Seriously, you guys, he's so awesome. New album came out this week, and even though it's not on the radio and capable of being tagged, this is the first single. I couldn't not promote my boy. Check. Him. OUT!

Atonement - the movie

2010-06-01T08:44:00.001-04:00

I was SO pleasantly surprised with this movie! When I posted before about how amazing the book was, I commented about how I didn't this it would translate well to film, but wow. And it's honestly not just because I love both actors, but the longer I watched, the more and more perfect James McAvoy and Kiera Knightly became for the roles of Robbie and Cecelia. Even the unknowns who played Briony as a 13 year old and a 17 year old were both perfect, and the longer I watched, the more perfect they became. The film was obviously missing a lot of the beautiful inner turmoil and misunderstanding, but the important parts of that were very well done with music and quick, fleeting shots to really convey the feeling. Robbie and Cecelia's love scene in the library was brilliantly done, as was Briony's discovery of them. The ending was slightly different than I remember, with Briony being interviewed about her final book for a television talk show (I remember the ending being her exiting the Imperial War Museum before attending a birthday party at her old home, etc.), but with the same ultimate conclusion regarding Cee and Robbie. The end of the film was as captivating as the end of the book, though, even as it was played out through Briony's discussion of it, rather than in her head. I missed some of the detail that was included in the second part of the book, between Briony's nurses' training and Robbie's war stories, but both were conveyed efficiently and accurately, despite the missing details, which were mostly internal. J hated the movie and quit on it after about 20 minutes. I think that if he had sat and watched the whole thing, he'd have gotten something out of it, but to each his own. I was impressed, at any rate, and I stand corrected about McEwan's work making for a good movie. The film was true to the book, was well-scripted, well-acted, well-directed, and overall just very well done. I enjoyed it immensely.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 28, 29 & 30 - The End.

2010-05-30T21:11:00.000-04:00

This is the end! I was bad about it the last couple of days, but at least I'm finishing on day 30! I think I'm going to create a page up at the top for this challenge, and put all my answers in one place. I'm not doing that today, though. Okay, on to the last three songs, and then some more info.

Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty: I'm not even sure what to do with this. Why would a song make you feel guilty? Guilty like how? All that comes to mind when I read this question is that song Guilty, by Gravity Kills, but honestly, it's not that it makes me feel guilty about anything, it's just the name of the song. I give up.

Day 29 - A song from your childhood: Ohhh! In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry totally reminds me of doing yard work or going out with my dad when I was a kid. I feel like every single time I got in his truck to go to the hardware store (which was A LOT), that song would be on the oldies station on the radio. I still love the song, to this day.

Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year: At this time last year, I think I had just bought my tickets to see Jason Mraz at Mohegan, and I was pretty sufficiently all-consumed with Mr. A-Z. If It Kills Me, Butterfly, and You and I Both were all strong contenders for the position of favorite, but You and I Both helped inspire me to get the end of my first novel written, so I think I have to go with that one. Also on heavy rotation in my car, though, was The Nate Mott Band, and here's a link back to my post about them, which contains links to their website and MySpace page. These guys are great - they're local, my former intern used to play bass for them, but I'm not even plugging them because of that - they're just a really great band, and I want to introduce everyone I can to them. Check them out.

Wow - the 30 Day Music Challenge is over! And I think it worked to get me blogging a little more, even if my blog has been completely music-centered for the last month. Whatever. I have a whole bunch of other post ideas saved, it's just a matter of finding the time to get them written. Stay tuned.

I started working on my "about" page this weekend. It's at the top of the blog, under the heading "Who's Susie." It's going to be an ever-growing collection of quick ones about me. A little insight into my head, I guess. So that's a step in the right direction, too.

So this weekend is memorial Day weekend, and I've been taking full advantage of the beautiful weather and extra free time. Friday afternoon was a few hours of outside 2-on-2 volleyball, and that was a great way to kick off my weekend, as exhausting as it was. Dinner was grilled chicken with homemade marinade and salad dressing, made from the herbs I'm growing around the deck - delicious! Saturday morning, I took Murphster for a looooong walk on the Blackstone River Bikeway, which is beautiful, then did a little yard work and went to a 30th birthday party last night. Today we took Murphster to my parents' house for a little barbeque, including a venture to Gaspee Arts & Crafts. Tomorrow will hopefully be some more gardening, and some around the house chores. I'm looking forward to a relaxing, around the house kind of day.

Happy Memooooooooorial Day!

Stop and smell the flowers

2010-05-27T14:20:00.000-04:00

I'm having a wonderful day today so far (knock on wood, I guess). I don't just mean relative to the shitshow that was my day yesterday, but in the overall, grand scheme of things, today is a good day.

I found a skirt and top that I haven't worn in a while, and that made me feel a little better about how I've been hating my whole wardrobe lately, plus, neither item needed to be ironed, which is a total bonus, especially considering I haven't worn them since last summer.

Then I made it out of the house on time this morning, which hasn't been happening much lately.

When I started my car, I heard the DJ finish a sentence and then Lay Me Down by the Dirty Heads came on. That's unquestionably my favorite song this week. When that ended, I put on my iPod and listened to a bunch of other sunshiny music on the way to work with the windows open, so glad this week's thunderstorms limited themselves to just overnight last night and were gone by this morning.

And despite the windows being open, I kind of like my hair today, messy and pulled back half-way as it is.

Everyone I've encountered today has been refreshingly polite and friendly.

I ran out to the post office to mail my In2Books class gift, which I'm SO excited about, so that felt good. On the way out, I got within about 10 yards of my car before I realized that I had left my keys back in my office. But since it was a nice day, it didn't even matter. I laughed and went back in to get my keys. While I was out, I ran to Whole Foods to pick up something for lunch, and my falafel is delicious. I stopped to admire the flowers and plants on my way out - they had these beautiful roses, so you almost couldn't help but stop to smell them. Roses are so fragrant. In my living room the other day, I could smell the rose bush outside, so I went and looked at it, and there were only 2 flowers open. But I could smell them inside!

I've gotten a few old, stagnant things finished and out the door at work, I feel surprisingly not tired today, for a change, the new poison ivy stuff I bought works like a dream and I'm not all itchy anymore, my phone and email have been pleasantly quiet all day; it's been a lovely, lovely day so far. I hope it keeps up!

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 27

2010-05-27T13:40:00.001-04:00

Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play: Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, on bass. Flea is a god. I'm SUCH a huge fan of him and everything that he does. The man has been playing bass in an amazing rock band for two decades, making millions along the way, and during their recent hiatus, he decided to go back to school to study music theory. He runs a music conservatory in LA, called the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, and they do a great thing. J bought a bass for his birthday last year, and I was SO excited - then I actually tried to learn to play it once. Once. It's hard! I keep telling myself that I will try again, but I sort of doubt that I will.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 25 & 26

2010-05-26T19:57:00.001-04:00

I'm starting to wonder whether I'm going to be able to finish the month on time. I'm making it my goal to actually post the Day 30 response on May 30th. Although, there are 31 days in May, so I guess I'd still be within the month if I posted it a day late . . .

Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh: TOAST! by Heywood Banks. This is hilarious. I can almost guarantee that no one has ever heard of it, but you should all look it up in iTunes, and at least listen to the 30 second snippit. It's hilarious. There is a story behind my love for it. I play indoor volleyball in the winter in a league that is about 40 minutes from home. I carpool with my friend M, who has an iPhone. Somehow, we started playing "the iPhone game" on the way to and from volleyball, wherein the driver picks a random word, the passenger looks it up in iTunes and we enjoy the 30 second snippits of whatever comes up. It's more fun than you might imagine. One night the word was "toast," and this song came up. M downloaded it immediately. Unfortunately, the rest of Heywood Banks' songs are not nearly this entertaining.

Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument: Does used to be able to play count? Yikes, I don't play any instruments anymore. I'm trying to learn When the Saints Go Marching In on piano (keyboard, actually) right now. I think I can still play Heart and Soul on piano, too. At one time I could play the Cheers! theme song on clarinet. Eesh - for someone who loves music so much, you'd hope I had a little more talent, huh? Nope, not at all.

Music Lover's Award!

2010-05-26T19:48:00.000-04:00

Thanks you Christiejolu at Tales From My Head for giving me the Music Lover's Award!

For this award I have to:

1. List your top 10 favorite songs on your iPod

2. State what color your iPod is

3. Give this award to 11 music loving bloggers

Here we go:

1) Top 10 iPod songs:

My tastes change like the wind, but here's a list for now, in no particular order

(this was WICKED hard, by the way):

Empire State of Mind, Jay-Z

Nobody's Listening, Linkin Park

Don't Follow, AIC

High Road, Fort Minor

New Fang, Them Crooked Vultures

Fall Through Glass, Bushwalla

Missing My Baby, G. Love

You and Your Heart, Jack Johnson

You and I Both, Jason Mraz

Uprising, Muse

2) The color of my iPod(s):

I have two. I have a pink 4G Nano (I don't know what generation it is, but it's the first generation they made in color), and I have an old-school 30G video iPod. I think it's the first generation they put out with video. It's OLD. I used to just have my pink one, but it filled up, and I was having to delete songs to put more on, and that REALLY sucked, so I took over J's old 30G, since he uses his phone for all his music now anyway. I still use my Nano when I run (Ha! I can't even tell you the last time I ran) because it has Nike+.

3) Pick 11 music loving bloggers:

I think this is even more difficult than picking my 10 favorite songs. I can't come up with 11, I know I can't, especially without giving it back to where I got it from. ;) Most of the music blogs I read are based off of commercial sites, and as far as I know, that doesn't count. A few of my book and writing blogger friends are totally into music, but I don't really expect them to participate because their blogs have cohesive themes (unlike mine) that are not music related, so I'm stealing Christiejolu's idea, and I'm cheating by not passing this on, but others should feel free to yoink this award and pass it on. You book and writing ladies know who you are, and should take this and post it for yourselves if you are so inclined.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 23 & 24

2010-05-24T19:28:00.001-04:00

I can't believe may is almost over! I sort of feel like doing this challenge has made the month go by even faster. But at least next weekend is a three-day holiday weekend! Yay!

Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding: Since I'm already married, and since I don't play any instruments, I guess the appropriate inquiry would be "a song that you had played at your wedding." To that end, aside from all of the songs that were chosen as soundtracks for particular events throughout the day (first dance, cake cutting, blah, blah, blah), one of the few songs that I asked the DJ to please make sure he played was Connected by the Stereo MCs. I can't really explain why I love this song so much, but I always have. I love it. And it never gets old. Crank it, the louder the better.

Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral: I don't think that my funeral is up to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's rude to tell your survivors what you want done with your body after your dead. They're the ones who have to deal with your loss and who have to somehow find the closure and comfort that they need to move on, so they should be the ones deciding how best to do that. I'll be dead, so it really won't affect me at all. That aside, I hope that my funeral will be more of a celebration than a depressing event, and I hope that something upbeat and fun can play, like Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles. I could see that.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 21 & 22

2010-05-22T17:39:00.000-04:00

Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy: Everything! Okay, how about Upside Down by Jack Johnson. I mean really, everything by Jack Johnson is so chill and happy, you can't not like it.

Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad: Sometimes when I'm having a bummer day, I like to listen to Nutshell by Alice in Chains. That song is SUCH a bummer, but so awesome at the same time.

I'm in a rush today - sorry to be so brief, but I got a birthday party to get to!

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 20

2010-05-20T16:23:00.000-04:00

The month is flying by! Since we're now about 2/3 of the way through, here's another link back to day one, just to refresh your memory. In the alternative (because I'm a lawyer, and lawyers say things like that), you can click the nifty little tag at the bottom, and it will bring up all the posts in one place. I know that's blog common sense, but tags are a whole new world for me. I never bothered with them before I had recurring themes up in here. Okay, onward and upward!

Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry: Depends on my mood, really, and what/who I'm angry at, and whether I want to chill out or stay angry, you know? Because everyone knows that sometimes it's nice to just revel in your anger for a little while - really roll around in it and eat it up. When I'm real angry, that's generally what I'm looking for. And then I like to be in my car, where I can blast something fitting and sing along at the top of my lungs. Mmmm, that's a nice kind of angry. I like Linkin Park - Crawl Back In (there's a lot of LP, actually), Helmet - Unsung, or pretty much the entire Rage Against the Machine Battle of Los Angeles album.

Shazam! Tags of the Week - May 19

2010-05-19T23:03:00.001-04:00

On my old phone, I used to use VCast from Verizon to identify songs that I liked on the radio. When I switched to an android phone, I lost VCast. But I gained Shazam. It's a fabulous music identification app, for all kinds of phones. You just push "tag now" and hold the phone up to the speaker, and it tells you the song title, artist and album. I love it.

So, I've decided that I'm going to start posting some of my weekly (or bi-weekly, at the rate I manage to update my blog) favorite tags. A top 5 of whatever tags I have in my phone, I guess. I generally know nothing about a lot of the bands that I'll be posting about, these are just radio songs (mostly college radio, some just random rock radio) that I've discovered in the past week or so, and sort of fallen in love with. Some might be brand spanking new, some might be sort of old - I have no idea. Chances are, once I have some more time, you'll be hearing about a lot of these bands again, though. This is installment number one.

1) LAY ME DOWN - Dirty Heads feat. Rome

I'm starting to wonder if I could ever get sick of this song. It reminds me A LOT of Sublime, but maybe a little more rap-ish, and yet happy and fun at the same time - almost a cross between Sublime and Citizen Cope. It's effing great. Based on this song alone, I might need this album very soon.

2) MOUNTAIN MAN - The Crash Kings

I've tagged this a few times. I always think of it as the "afterlife song," because I never remember the name of it (hence the multiple tags). It's modern rock, along the same lines as Cage the Elephant, I guess. Good stuff.

3) THE HIGH ROAD - Broken Bells

This is sort of unique, sort of electronic and ethereal at the same time. I don't know- it caught my ear.

4) SPACESHIP - Puddle of Mudd

Puddle of Mudd is obviously not a new band, but I don't know how old this song is. All I know is that I've tagged it about 4 times in the past couple of weeks, because I keep forgetting who it is, and I want to save it in my phone so that next time I go hunting iTunes for new stuff, I remember to buy it. I think it's pretty standard PoM, but it's so catchy, and somehow sort of hot at the same time.

5) LETTERS FROM THE SKY - Civil Twilight

This is sort of haunting, sort of beautiful - it reminds me a little of Radiohead/Coldplay, I think, but maybe that's just the singer's voice. Either way, it's a pretty great song.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for further random Shazam recommendations!

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 19

2010-05-19T22:23:00.000-04:00

Day 19 - A song from your favorite album: I listened to U2 all day toay, and I gotta say, Joshua Tree is easily one of the best albums EVER. I'm not kidding, beginning to end, it's all just so, so good. And Running to Stand Still is way up there on my list of favorite songs. I almost forgot how much I love it until today when I put U2 on for the day. It's about a heroin addict in the projects in Dublin, but for such an ugly subject, it really is a beautiful song.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 15-18

2010-05-18T14:53:00.001-04:00

Wow - this is the worst I've been all month - four days! Gracious! I did a lot of playing in the yard over the weekend, and have been very busy at work this past week or so. I have a bunch of things that I want to blog about, too, so stay tuned for some more interesting updates!

Day 15 - A song that describes you: This is going to sound so bad, but sometimes I think that Over My Head (Cable Car) by The Fray is my personal theme song. I often feel like everyone around me really does know that I'm in over my head - this applies at work, with owning a house, or pretty much anything else I'm trying to do. I often feel like I'm still a little kid that snuck in to sit at the grown-ups table, and now I have no idea what everyone is talking about or what's actually going on around me. The runner up/tie score = Fighter by Cristina Aguilera. I'm not going into why again, but here's the link to my story. It's a super-long and sort of depressing post, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate: Argh. I don't like having to post about things that I "hate." This is SO HARD for me to pick. The closest I can get, off the top of my head right now, is maybe Smooth, by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas. I really loved it when it was first out, and to a certain extent, I'm starting to like it again now, but it was just SO over played - but I still don't hate it, really. Even stuff I loved when I was a kid - Milli Vanilli, and Vanilla Ice, for example - I still really get a kick out of listening to, and I can't say I hate it.

Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio: I don't listen to the radio all that much anymore, but when I do, I feel like I've been hearing Alive by Pearl Jam a lot lately. Weird, right? That song is so old. I recently erased 92.3, PROFM, from my presets in the car (that's the local top-40, pop station, for all of you non-local readers), and that was one of the best decisions I've made so far this year. OMG, it's so liberating to not have that station set anymore! I replaced it with 92.9, which is a Cape Cod station that seems to play a lot of 90s alternative rock-type stuff, and I think that's why I've been hearing PJ and RHCP on the radio so much lately.

Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio: ANYTHING by Bushwalla! I love the man and his music so, so much, and he gets no love. Please, please, dear readers, do yourself a favor and check him out! If I have to pick one song for this challenge, I guess it would be Gangsta. BW has a new album due out next month, and if you're on the West Coast - he's doing house shows (yes, he plays in your living room!) this summer, and his album release shows are coming up in LA and SD on 6/8 and 6/3. A close second for this one = anything by Citizen Cope. Check him out, too. And if I have to pick a song, I guess I gotta go with Son's Gonna Rise. Cope is touring with O.A.R. this summer, so if you have a chance, go check him out!

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 13 & 14

2010-05-14T10:13:00.000-04:00

These two are sort of similar to me, but I tried to separate them as much as I could.

Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure: I think of this as a song that no one should really love, but I do anyway. I've often said that I'll never apologize for or defend my taste in music, and I don't think anyone should, but this is a BAD song. Rich Girl, by Gwen Stefani is a horrible, horrible ~~satire?~~ ~~parody?~~ take on the Fiddler on the Roof song If I Were a Rich Man, which I completely love. Fiddler is one of my favorite classic musicals, and Gwen Stefani did a number on that song. Despite all of this, though - I love it and am incapable of shutting it off whenever it comes on.

Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love: Again, I don't apologize; I like what I like, and my tastes are really broad, so I'm not sure anything I like would really come as a surprise to anyone. I love that Taylor Swift song You Belong With Me. I really like Taylor Swift. Not all of her music, necessarily, but she seems like a pretty down-to-earth kind of girl, and she can sing, and she writes her own stuff. Sure her songs are sort of teenage bubblegum kind of songs, but she's 17 or something! It's sort of refreshing to me that she's writing her own songs, and she's writing about what she knows. Keep it up, kid.

Occasional Adventures in Baking: Part 2

2010-05-12T14:21:00.000-04:00

The Baked Brownie

I'm on a bit of a quest to learn to bake a few things really well, but I only want to make things that are impressive. A few months ago, it was red velvet cupcakes, which went very well. This time it's homemade, from scratch brownies.

I found this recipe, from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. I also found a lot of bloggers raving about this recipe, so I figured it must be good.

It was delicious.

I wish I had pictures to share, but somehow, I've made them twice now and failed at taking pictures both times. A few notes, though - they were super, super fudgy. Like, I cut them pretty small because eating one is almost like eating a hunk of chocolate fudge, and getting them out of the pan was more like trying to get fudge out than brownies, in my experience. They were hard to get out of the pan clean, and a gooey mess to cut up. I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate baking chips, Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder, and International Delights Mocha Latte instant mix instead of the instant espresso mix. They were better the first time, and were almost undercooked the second time. I thought they hadn't cooked right the first time because I used a darker baking pan, so the second time, I turned down the temp in the oven a little to try and compensate, and obviously that was a bad decision - they were better the first time, using a dark pan must not have made a difference, they were really just meant to be that fudgy.

The final verdict - I'm going to keep trying a few other recipes, I think. These were wicked good, and pretty easy but I'm not commited to them yet, and I want to see what else is out there. I won't move on to a new baked good until I can master the brownies, so stay tuned for more experimentation.

In the meantime, I did learn how to frost a double layer cake a couple of weeks ago. Here's a picture of that (albeit not a very good picture).

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 12

2010-05-12T13:44:00.000-04:00

Day 12 - A song from a band you hate: I preface this by saying that I don't think I truly hate any bands or solo artists. I have preferences, and there's a lot out there that I'm not into, but it's tough to say I hate anything. One band I've always had something against, though, is the Smashing Pumpkins. I'm not sure why - maybe it's Billy Corgan's cue-ball head or whiny voice, maybe I have a repressed memory involving some of their work, I just don't know, but I've never been a fan. My song choice for today is that awful rat-in-a-cage song - Bullet With Butterfly Wings (I had to look it up). Sad, it's such a pretty name for a song, and then the song has to go and suck so hard. Blech. Today's challenge was no fun. I'm going to post something new and fun over this now.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 11

2010-05-11T15:00:00.000-04:00

Day 11 - A song from your favorite band: I hate favorites! And really, just any song? Any song at all? This one is kind of dumb. There's no reason behind it, no oomph. But again, in the spirit of completing the challenge properly, I'll choose one of my favorite bands and answer the question. Let's say that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favorite band today. If I can pick any song at all, I'm going to go with Johnny, Kick a Hole in the Sky from the Mother's Milk album. I heard it on my way into work this morning, and it really is awesome. It sort of defines classic RHCP, in my opinion. I love Flea. Incidentally, the Peppers are recording a new album right now with their new guitarist, Josh Klinghoffer. Fingers crossed that he can even come close to the magic that was John Frusciante's contribution to the band. Look for the new album late 2010 - early 2011.

In which I meet Chuck Palahniuk!

2010-05-10T15:42:00.003-04:00

Chuck Palahniuk's newest book, Tell-All, came out last week. In celebration of this monumental occasion, Chuck is currently on a book tour. J and I went to see him last Wednesday night, Cinco de Mayo, in Boston. Unfortunately, there are two stops on this tour where Chuck isn't signing/personalizing books, and Boston was one of them. Nonetheless, I got a pre-signed copy of Tell-All(two actually), and afterwards, Chuck was gracious enough to sign my copy of Rant, which I happened to have with me because I was reading it at the time. The whole night was amazing. I had such a good time, and it was so, so cool to meet one of my favorite authors and to get a little more insight into what's going on in his head. Plus I had never been to Cambridge, and I'm now looking forward to going back to explore Harvard Square a little more - it's such a cool area, I wish we had more time to wander around. The event was unlike any author event I've ever been to, and likely unlike any that I will ever attend. It was about two hours long and filled to the brim with awesome. Thank you, Chuck, for being such a cool author.

Chuck started off with a brief talk about what and why he writes, and then played a game in which he threw giant, inflatable Oscar awards into the crowd, and had a race to blow them up. Winners were given inflatable turkeys. (!!) Next he read a new short story, Knock-Knock, which he wrote for this book tour and has already sold to Playboy (look for it in the December 2010 issue) - it was hilarious, in a way. In typical Chuck form, Knock-Knock is an experiment in format - in it, he tells the story of a young man watching his father suffer and die of cancer, but the story takes the form of stand-up comedy. The story is laced with more politically incorrect jokes than you've ever heard in such a short time, and in that way, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Read it, if you get the chance. It's great.

After another round of blowing stuff up, Chuck was interviewed by the owner of a local Cambridge movie theater. No offense intended, but the interviewer was bad. J and I agreed that at times, we felt embarrassed for the guy and for Chuck, because they guy just seemed completely unprepared. It was interesting to hear Chuck's take on his new book and a little about what went into

writing Tell-All, which was great, but I hated the intervewer. Finally Chuck took a whole bunch of questions from the crowd, giving everyone who asked a question an inflatable turkey for their trouble (Thank you, Chuck - my turkey is now proudly displayed in my office!), before a final game of blowing stuff up, during which he stuck around and chatted with people who cared to approach him individually. Maybe it was wrong to ask him to sign Rant for me, when this wasn't supposed to be a signing event, but he was very kind in chatting with me for a few minutes, and completely gracious in signing it for me.

I love that Chuck appears at first glance like a big nerd, but then you read his books or listen to him read them, and it's so raw and graphic and awesome, you'd never expect it out a guy that appears so quiet and subdued. He confessed to being a "social retard," claiming that the games and special short story and everything are akin to coping mechanisms to help him be with people - something you would never, ever guess from reading his books. He re-confirmed for me what I have always said about him - that his stories are all romance stores at their heart - he's just finding a new and better way to say I love you. Awesome.

Afterwards, on our way out, we ran into Chuck and the guy who had appeared to be in charge all night (publicist, maybe?) as they were leaving out the side door of the church where the event was held. J asked Chuck if he wouldn't mind taking a picture with me, and the other guy volunteered to take one of all of us. A perfect end for a great night. I haven't started Tell-All yet, and I just finished Rant yesterday. I'm holding off on reading Tell-All for a few weeks, so I still have one more new Chuck book to look forward to.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 10

2010-05-10T15:35:00.000-04:00

Yay for making it through ten days, and still being mostly on top of this little challenge!
In case you're new here and wondering what this is all about, here's the link back to the original post for this little challenge, now that I'm 1/3 of the way through.

Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep: A Beautiful Mess by Jason Mraz is my go-to lullabye at the moment, and has been for months. I have the YouTube video of his performance of this song at the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony saved as a bookmark on my phone. Sometimes when I'm having trouble sleeping, I put it on, and I inevitably wake up in the morning with my phone having tumbled out of bed onto the floor, with the YouTube page still open. It's such a sweet melody to lull me off to sleep.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 8 & 9

2010-05-09T08:18:00.000-04:00

I swear I started to write the day 8 post yesterday, but I got sidetracked and never finished it. I'm trying.
Happy Mothers' Day!

Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to: Seriously? I think I've already covered the fact that I've been known to look up lyrics whenever I decide I love a song, so it probably goes without saying that I know all the words to most every song I listen to. This morning I woke up with Don't Stand So Close to Me by The Police stuck in my head, though, so that's my answer. What a great song. It's definitely one of my favorite Police songs, and I could listen to Sting sing all day long.

Day 09 - A song that you can dance to: Again, there are SO MANY! I depends on the kind of dancing, so I'm picking two. The first is Ain't That a Kick in the Head, by Dean Martin. J and I danced to this at our wedding - we danced the foxtrot and a little bit of swing, and it was wicked fun. The second is Missing My Baby by G. Love. It has just the right mix of funk and blues and a little rappy-dance flavor thrown in. Definitely one of my favorite songs.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 7

2010-05-07T13:53:00.000-04:00

Holy crap, looking at me posting two days in a row! Woot!

Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event: Which to choose, which to choose? I don't like making decisions, so I'm going with both. Rhianna's Umbrella reminds me of my bachelorette party and Garth Brooks' Ain't Goin Down (Til the Sun Comes Up) reminds me of karaoke in Virginia Beach on vacation a few years ago. I told you my taste in music was pretty diverse. There's not really a story to the Rhianna song, other than that we were all wasted and singing and dancing to it in the limo between bars during my kick-ass bachelorette party. Every time I hear the song now, that night is all I can think of. Ella-ella-ella. In Virginia Beach, while on vacation with J, Jocelyn, and some other dude, Jocelyn and I wanted to sing Ain't Goin Down (the crowd was pretty country, and we had just been celebrating the fact that we both know all the words on the drive down a few days before). The karaoke DJ didn't have it, but agreed to just play the regular CD and let us sing it without words on the screen if we got it from the car. So we did. The crowd went wild. It was awesome. In my opinion, only Informer, by the illustrious white rapper Snow, is more impressive in the karaoke forum, especially without the lyrics on screen.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 4, 5 & 6

2010-05-06T10:01:00.000-04:00

I officially suck at this. In my defense, I spent two whole days thinking about the Day 4 challenge, and still had a really hard time coming up with something. For Day 5, it was a matter of picking which one of many to use, and Day 6 is the easiest one yet.

Day 04 - A song that makes you sad: Wow. Music makes me happy, not sad. There are some songs that remind me of tough times, and in that way, I guess they sort of make me sad - but it's not the song that makes me sad, it's the memory that the song triggers. Some songs are really sad songs, but they don't necessarily make me feel sad. So, call this a cop out, but the only thing I can come up with is the I'll Cover You Reprise from Rent, especially as sung by Jesse L. Martin. When he nails the line "When your heart has expired," my heart wants to break in half.

Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone: There are seriously so many to chose from! Drawing out of the hat that is my brain, I'll go with Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants, but it's really that whole album that reminds me of Kate. We used to play that album and pretty much anything by the Violent Femmes non-stop, hanging out at her mom's house during junior high and early high school summer vacations, squirting water bottles and throwing shit into the ceiling fan, just to see what would happen . . . Good times.

Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere: Hands down, this is the easiest challenge yet. Rockstar, by Nickleback, reminds me of the Hoover Dam. We drove there from Vegas about 5 years ago, when this song was all over the radio, and it was playing as we drove up to the dam and looked for parking. The entire time we were walking around the dam, on the tour and then when we walked across the dam afterwards, I was singing this song. Now every single time I hear it, I feel like I'm right back there.

Earth Day Remix - Just A Friend

2010-05-03T17:50:00.001-04:00

So, for Earth Day (again, I know I'm late - STFU), Biz Markie did a remake of Just a Friend. I meant to post this forever ago, but it just popped into my head now. Love. Check it:

My favorite part, by far, is when Biz says "Happy Earf Day" at the end. Yessssss.

RS 40 reasons to be excited about music

2010-05-03T17:45:00.000-04:00

The last issue of Rolling Stone that I received before my subscription ran out - now about two weeks ago, I reckon - included a special feature entitled 40 Reasons to be Excited about Music. It was awesome. Please go check it out:

Here.

I'm bummed that they featured the Black-Eyed Peas for this, because they're black-eyed garbage in my opinion, and there were a few other less than awesome featured artists, but overall, it's the idea of the article and some of the awesome things that pointed out in it that really made me feel great about music. It was a great way to end my subscription to RS. I wish I still got it, as I did love reading it so, but alas, fundage is tight, and magazine subscriptions are an expense that had to be cut. Hey RS editors - wanna hook a blogger up? Any devoted readers wanna gift me a subscription?

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 2 and 3

2010-05-03T17:29:00.002-04:00

Obviously, this isn't going as planned. It's day 3 and I've already missed a day. Go me. Alas, life gets in the way. Here we go, with what will likely be only the first of many multiple-day responses.

Day 02 - Your least favorite song: Again, this tends to change from hour to hour, but right now I think I gotta go with that godawful mess that is Tik-Tok, by Ke$ha. Who was the asshole record exec that said this girl should have a recording contract? Are you kidding me? The first time I heard this song, I think it was #1 on American Top 40 (a guilty pleasure, I admit. Though while I'm admitting things, I should probably add that I tune out of half the songs that they actually play on there because they all seem to suck so hard). It was way up there in the countdown, anyway, so I gave it a shot. I swear to you, it was like a train wreck for me. I hated everything about it so, so much, but I couldn't shut it off. She can't sing to save her life, even with Auto-tune, and I don't know who wrote this garbage, but even the lyrics are painful to try and listen to. Further proof that anything with a hook can get radio play, no matter how bad it might suck. A very close second = The 2010 remake of We Are the World. I love the idea of the original, even if I don't love the song, but this remake was one of the worst things I've ever heard, whether their hearts were in the right place or not. Even the production was bad, so shame on you, Quincy Jones. What a flippin' mess.

Day 03 - A song that makes you happy: J and I were just talking about songs like this. There are a few that you just have to smile at, you know? Today, I'm going with Fireflies, by Owl City. I know a lot of people hate the sugary sweetness that is the whole Owl City album, and I have to admit that a whole album of this would probably make me want to kick a rainbow-farting unicorn in the head, but for a single song to make you smile, you can't really beat lines like "I get a thousand hugs / from ten thousand lightning bugs." For the record, a few others include Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, Sublime's What I Got, RHCP's Zephyr, and pretty much the entire Jack Johnson Curious George album.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

2010-05-01T08:39:00.000-04:00

I forgot how much I love Ian McEwan's writing. The fact that there's some portion (however small) of this book where he's actually writing about writing almost made my head explode. Seriously, I haven't marked passages in a book in years and years, but I found myself reading this one with a pencil handy. I mean, how can anyone say that passages like this don't make you feel something:

Now the faintest stirring of a breeze rustled the display of sedge that stood before the fireplace. two or three stout-bodied moths circled the lamp that stood upon the harpsichord. When would anyone ever play it again? That night creatures were drawn to lights where they could be most easily eaten by other creatures was one of those mysteries that gave her modest pleasure. She preferred not to have it explained away. At a formal dinner once a professor of some science or other, wanting to ake small talk, had pointed out a few insects gyrating above a candelabra. He had told her that it was the visual impression of an even deeper darkness beyond the light that drew them in. Even though they might be eaten, they had to obey the instinct that made them seek out the darkest place, on the far side of the light - and in this case it was an illusion. It sounded to her like sophistry, or an explanation for its own sake. How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? Not everything had a cause, and pretending otherwise was an interference in the workings of the world that was futile, and could even lead to grief. Some things were simply so.

Brilliant. Anyway, this is the story of Briony, who's 13 when we meet her, and about to bear false witness to a crime that will change her and her family's lives forever. That's the best description I can give. I've come to realize that McEwan is one of those love-him-or-hate-him authors. I love him, and plan to try and read as many more of his books as I can this year. I reviewed On Chesil Beach a couple of years ago, and I read Saturday shortly after that, but I stopped there for some reason. Atonement is my current favorite of the three, but I can't wait to read the rest.

Incidentally, Atonement has since been made into a movie, which I recently bumped to the #1 spot in my Netflix queue (I love that word, BTW). I'm looking forward to watching it, just to see what they did with it, but as I said to J at one point as I was reading, I can't even understand why anyone even tried to make this book into a movie. The writing is SO beautiful, it could never possibly be done justice on film. We'll see.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 1

2010-05-01T08:11:00.000-04:00

I've been overly lax in my blogging lately, so I'm going to take on this 30 day music challenge to try and motivate me to get my ass on here every day. Each day, I post a response to a new question. The plan is that hopefully while I'm here to post about this, I'll manage to write a post with a little more substance at the same time. We'll see. Thanks to Christiejolu over at Tales From My Head for the challenge. Here's the complete list:

Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year

So, today being May 1, it's only appropriate to make this day 1.

Day 01 - Your favorite song: We all know how I feel about favorites, but in the interest of actually trying to do this little challenge, I'll just list my favorite song rightthissecond, with the caveat that ten minutes after I post this, I may have changed my mind. Right now, since I heard it 10 minutes ago, my favorite song is Badfish, by Sublime. There's something very chill and mellow and awesome about this song. I love the party scene intro at the beginning, and how it sets the tone for the rest of the song. I just saw Badfish (the band) play last weekend at HOB in Boston, and they were great. I'm stoked for them that they can attract such huge crowds all over the country now. I can remember when they played almost every weekend at the Ocean Mist in Narragansett, while I was in college. But they were just in Rolling Stone as one of the best cover bands out there right now. Good for them. Sublime is also fixing to have a reunion tour with a new singer. They played a reunion show on 4/20 in LA and while the new singer comes off as a little young and maybe doesn't have the growly voice thing that made us love Bradley so, signs point to him doing a pretty decent job. But we miss you, Brad.

Caution - construction zone.

2010-04-20T11:58:00.000-04:00

Bear with me for the next week or so, I'm working on making some changes around here. I just added some pages up at the top, but if you click them, they all currently say "under construction." My most favoritest new addition is going to be the "Fiction" page, which is going to be a repository for some forthcoming short fiction works. I need to start writing again, and I feel like some short stories are the kind of practice I'm looking for right now. There will surely be some other format changes coming soon, too, I'm just not sure what they'll be yet. This is going to be fun.

Alice In Chains!

2010-04-18T10:36:00.001-04:00

First of all, there is no way that AIC will ever be the same without Layne. Of course the old songs sound a little different with a new singer, but what I came to realize over the past week or so, and it was really solidified for me at the show on Friday, is that Jerry Cantrell is AIC as much as Layne ever was. With all of that said, the show was amazing, if a little too loud at the beginning. Okay, it was WAY too loud at the beginning, and two days later, I'm growing more and more convinced that the ringing in my ears is never going to stop, and I may need to see medical attention to determine if I did any permanent damage by standing on the floor for this show, but I digress.

The stage set-up was refreshingly simple. A white curtain with the heart drawing from the cover of the new album hid the stage when we got there between AIC and the opening act, hiding the simple stage surrounded by similar curtains. When the lights went down, the heart started to beat with a thunderous pounding that shook your chest, picking up pace and building momentum until the backlit silhouettes of Cantrell and William DuVall, Staley's replacement as lead singer, appeared against the curtain. As the band dropped into All Secrets Known, the lead track from the album, and a great opener IMO, the curtain fell. I'm not kidding, it was sort of hard to even hear what they were playing for the first couple of songs, it was so loud and distorted. I wondered whether they had forgone the soundcheck in favor us just treating the first few songs as such, because after Check My Brain, the sound calmed down a little (or maybe my deaf ears just adjusted), and the rest of the show just rocked. Here's the complete setlist:

1.- All Secrets Known

2.- It Ain't Like That

3.- Again

4.- Check My Brain

5.- Them Bones

6.- Dam That River

7.- Rain When I Die

8.- Your Decision

9.- Got Me Wrong

10.- God Smack

11.- A Looking in View

12.- Nutshell

13.- Sickman

14.- Grind

15.- Lesson Learned

16.- Acid Bubble

17.- Angry Chair

18.- Man in the Box

Encore:

19.- Would?

20.- Rooster

Some highlights for me were Your Decision, Got Me Wrong, Nutshell ("Let's do one for Layne"), Angry Chair, and Would?. I've been trying to decide what my favorite part of the show was, and it's really between Would? and Got Me Wrong, which is a surprise even to me. I've always loved Got Me Wrong, but it was somehow completely awesome live. The harmony between Cantrell and DuVall's voices really is great, and it obvious on songs like this why DuVall was the obvious choice if AIC was going to continue on as AIC. Would? just completely rocked. Completely. Nutshell is such an amazing song, and I wasn't expecting it to be awesome because it's so completely Layne's song, but I was pleasantly surprised. Again, maybe it was the fact that Cantrell and DuVall have such great harmony, but DuVall really did Layne justice with this one. Nonetheless, never was Layne's absence more tangible than during songs like this.

My other favorite part of the show was at the end, after the encore was over and the lights came up, and the band was roaming around the stage, pulling all the guitar picks of the mic stands and tossing them into the crowd. Ditto for the drum sticks. They were so, so grateful to the audience, and so great about that. Cantrell kept saying how great it was, how much fun they had, how much they love doing this, and thank you, thank, you, thank you. I LOVE bands that treat their fans right, and I love bands that appreciate their fans. I feel like AIC is in a place now where they don't have to be doing this, but they love what they do, and that comes across so much.

Two big let-downs for me were Man In The Box and Rooster. Again, I'm not sure I had very high hopes for a lot of the old Layne Staley standards, but Rooster was the final final song for the night, and I just would've loved one more song to close it out because as great as DuVall and Cantrell sound together, Rooster just wasn't the same without Layne. When I say these two songs were let-downs, that's not to say that they didn't completely rock. They just weren't quite the same. But I mean really, if two songs were sort of a little bit of a let-down, can you really complain at all about the show? No. I have no complaints. The show was great. I wanna go again. Like, now. And again, and again, and again.

Search YouTube for "Alice in Chains Providence" to see a bunch of videos from the show, including the intro with the beating heart on All Secrets Known. I was going to embed the videos here, but J told me that might be illegal. Most of the show is up there, as individual song files, for your viewing enjoyment, but watch them now, because they might come down in a matter of days.

If you have a chance to see any of the remaining shows on this tour, go!

Pay attention to what you listen to (mobile follow-up)

2010-04-14T19:44:00.003-04:00

Original post from 4/14/10:

When you really know what you're listening to, music is even more amazing.

Edited to add (on 4/16/10):
I know that I tend to get obsessed and maybe a little neurotic with certain artists, bands, songs, albums, etc., and I know that when I do, it can be a little excruciating for those around me. That's part of the reason for this blog in the first place. At least I acknowledge that I do this, and to some extent I really try not to subject anyone to the full extent of my neuroses. I know that it is seen as a problem by some, but the original mobile post that led to this explanation really says it all. I obsess the way that I do because when you know and understand the lyrics and the music and the process and the background that went into creating it all and putting it all together, you gain a whole new level of appreciation for what you're listening to, and the music rises to a whole new level. So yes, when I latch on to an artist/band/song/album, I learn everything that I can about it, I read lyrics, occasionally I read biographies or autobiographies, I read blogs, I listen on repeat, I play albums beginning to end again and again and again. And you know what, that works for me. Because at least for me, when I really know what I'm listening to, music is even more amazing.

Not to belabor the point (but, okay, to belabor the point), and by way of an example, I've been a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan for longer than I can ever remember. I know a lot about the band's history, and where a lot of their songs came from, but when Anthony Kiedis published his autobiography, Scar Tissue, a few years back, I think I read it in a day and a half, and gained a whole new level of insight into every album they had put out up to that point. Just when I thought the Peppers couldn't get any better for me, they did. Because when you really understand everything that went into making the music that you're listening to, and you really know what you're listening to, music can be a whole new kind of awesome.

So pay attention.

I selfishly love my dog (mobile follow-up)

2010-04-09T18:49:00.003-04:00

Original mobile post from 4/9/10:

Going out after work on Fridays is so much better since I got a dog. Reasons to follow.

Edited to add (on 4/16/10):
All of the reasons stem from the fact that having a dog means I have to go home and take care of him. Here are just a few:
1) I have to go home before I go out, so I get to change my clothes. This is really the biggest and most important of all the reasons. I hate dressing up for work, and out for drinks in a suit is no fun at all, IMO.
2) I wind up going out closer to home, and not having to drive as far to get home after drinks.
3) I can have a beer at home while he's eating his dinner, and I that's one less beer to pay for at the bar.
3a) It's also one more beer to ease my social anxiety before I even get to the bar.
4) When I do leave work a little early on Fridays to go out straight from there, I can't get sucked into "extra" beers before driving home.
5) Even if I've gone home first, I still can't get sucked into staying out all night, because poor Moo needs to get some running-round time in, so I don't wind up staying out all night on Friday nights, and I love that.

Honest Scrap Award

2010-04-07T12:51:00.002-04:00

Yay!

Thank you so much to Jacki at lovelylittleshelf.com for giving me the Honest Scrap award!

The rules of this blog award are that I have to list 10 honest things about myself and then pass it on to 7 other bloggers. It's taken me 5 days now to post about it and pass it on because I've been really busy all week, but I promise that I am pretty excited about it. So, without further ado:

10 honest things about me:

1. I love filling out forms. Any kind of forms, for myself or for others, on paper or on-line, anything. I'm a fan. I was so excited when my census form came in the mail, and was seriously let down that there was so little filling out to be done.

2. Spending time alone is one of the best things ever. I like shopping alone, going to the theater alone, drinking alone, or just chilling at home with a book and a cup of tea. There's something really peaceful to me about just chilling with myself.

3. I don't really mind the smell of skunks. It sort of reminds me of my childhood, so I'm okay with it.

4. I don't understand severe animal rights activists. I love animals as much as the next person, but I can't understand how some people can value animals more highly than people, 'cause that just ain't right.

5. I'm really bad at picking favorites of pretty much anything. Favorite color? Nope. Favorite food? Nope. Favorite book, author, band, song, movie? Forget it. Everything has it's own worth, and I love different things for different reasons and different occasions.

6. Actually, I'm really bad at making decisions generally.

7. I'm laid back to a fault. It might go so far as to be considered apathy about most things. This may relate to my inability to choose favorites or make decisions - I just don't really care all that much.

8. I like my iced coffee to taste more like coffee milk or melted down coffee ice cream than actual coffee.

9. I've been known to skip going to the grocery store altogether just because I forgot to bring my own bags. Also because I'm a lazy-ass, but largely because I'm uncomfortable around plastic grocery bags.

10. I hate going to the dentist with a fiery passion, and I feel bad for my dentist for this reason, because I can't be the only one that feels that way about visiting him. He's a very nice man, and it's not that I hate him, I just hate what he does to me whenever I see him.

7 bloggers receiving the honest scrap award from me:

1. Ashley at That's Life

2. Tameka at Because Perfection is Boring

3. Jayfan at Statham Fan

4. Dawn at 22 Dreams Last Night

5. Heather at See Heather Write

6. Ally at CasuALLY Musing

7. Kate at Whimsical, Whamsical, Whumsical

Armegeddon is upon us!

2010-03-31T19:56:00.003-04:00

No, not really, but this is some serious flooding up in here.

My original plan for today's blog was going to be to participate in the book blog trend called "Waiting on Wednesday," wherein bloggers pick a soon-to-be-released book that they're excited about and talk about it. Instead, I guess I could sub-title this post "Wading on Wednesday." C'mon, that was wicked funny!

Here's a before and after of my yard - taken from a slightly different angle, but you get the point. I guess this is a 500 year storm or something, but that aside, our house still wouldn't have flooded if not for the Town having released the dams controlling the two streams that flow through our neighborhood, one of which runs across the back of our property. When we got home from work yesterday, our back yard looked like this:

It was pretty bad, but it wasn't that bad. We heard that the City was giving out free sandbags, so we headed over and picked up 10, thinking that would be plenty to set outside out basement door, just in case. We used 6, and wound up giving the last 4 to a neighbor. We were positive that the stream wasn't going to come over the banks, and even if it did, we thought it would just be an inch or two by the time it got up by our door. No worries. We made dinner, it got dark, we watched the URI basketball game, and we checked on the basement and sump pump now and then. On my way to bed at about midnight (right around the time URI lost - that's a whole other post), I went down to check again, and the floor was wet! I grabbed a towel and started wiping it up, and J came down to help, and around 1:00 am we realized that there was no way we were going to keep up, the water was coming in so fast. We got everything up off the floor and I called my dad because I didn't know what I needed to know about our furnace or electric hot water heater.

Daddy came over. He's the best.

J and Daddy went to the DPW and picked up 20 more sandbags, which we lined up like this:

Thus creating a channel from the door where the water was pouring in to the sump pump. Brilliant! J and I wouldn't have thought of this on our own, so again, thanks Daddy! By the time we finished and got to try and go to bed, it was a little after 3:00 am. We slept until 4:15, then went down to check on it. We had to pound the sandbags a little tighter where water was creeping between, but otherwise, there were a few inches of water behind the bags, but it was all being directed to the sump pump as planned, and still the same half-inch or so puddle over the rest of the floor. Success! So we went back to bed from 4:30 til a little before 7:00.

This is what we woke up to:

Oy vey. That's the same horseshoe pit as the first set of pics, and that last pic in each set is of the stream itself. Thankfully, our dolt of a Governor finally did something right and declared a state of emergency and told people to stay home. Most schools were closed, and state government was shut down, giving me the day off. I wasn't planning on going in anyway, but it was nice to know that the wheels of government weren't turning without me today. But today was largely without rain, and the water in our yard had started receding by 9:00. Outside that basement door last night when I was adding sandbags, the water was up to my knees. Thank you to URI GSO for buying me hip waders back when I was working on the salt marshes, they came in handy the last couple of days. I knew there was a reason I held on to those fancy boots.

Aaaaanyway, the water finally got low enough to stop flowing into the house at around noon today, and we got it all cleaned up. The floor is still wet, but there's no more puddles, and we didn't lose anything of any value. And honestly, I feel dumb complaining about a couple of inches when parts of the state have something like 9 feet of water invading their homes. Roads are closed all over the state, including major highways like I-95, the Warwick sewage treatment plant is flooded out and the entire city can't flush their toilets or take showers. So far they still have potable drinking water, but who knows if that will change too. It's crazy. My mom had to work today and she left the office at 5:10 - it's now 7:30 and I doubt she's home yet. She works about 12 miles from home. My dad went to get a haircut at his regular barber, about 15 minutes from home. He got there fine, but it took him 3 hours to get home. They live in Warwick. They may be coming over tonight to take showers. I leave you with some photos from around the state, and with my heartfelt thoughts and prayers for everyone who's doing a lot worse than I am tonight. Good luck out there and God bless.

Columbine: the book

2010-03-29T14:56:00.000-04:00

Is it appropriate to warn about spoilers when discussing a non-fiction book? I guess in a way there probably are spoilers here, if you're not too familiar with the massacre at Columbine High School in April 1999. There was a whole lot that I didn't know about that I learned from this brilliant book, and I think that most people unconnected to the school or the region are probably in the same position that I was in before reading this. So if you are one of those people, then I guess this review will contain spoilers for you, but they're nothing that isn't already in the public domain when you search for information about the tragedy itself, so take the spoiler warning however you like. And if you've already read my Goodreads review, further apologies, because this post is going to look pretty similar.

This is one of the most compelling works of non-fiction I think I've ever read. Most of what I thought I knew about the tragedy at Columbine was untrue, and I love the way that Cullen told the real story here. I couldn't stop thinking about this book for the whole week that I was reading it, and I know that it will stay with me for a long time to come. The book skipped around a lot, chronologically, and I think that was intentional on the author's part, to break up some of the more difficult to read portions about the massacre and the killers' planning leading up to it.

A number of revelations (for me they were revelations, anyway) completely blew my mind. I didn't know about all of the bombs. Had they blown up (even if a single one had worked as intended), this whole tragedy would've been a COMPLETELY different situation. First of all, the number of people killed would've been multiplied by a lot. Second of all, the whole theory that Eric and Dylan were targeting anyone would've been ridiculous from the start. You don't target individuals with a bomb. If even one bomb had gone off, maybe the SWAT teams would've charged in sooner. Maybe the officials in charge that day wouldnt've told groups of students and teachers to stay in the building as long as they did. I didn't know that evidence was hidden or that the Jeffco Sherriff's Office told out and out lies about whether they had information that could've stopped the attack before it happened. I didn't know that the "standoff" that took place that afternoon was completely fictional and Eric and Dylan had killed themselves just 40 minutes after the attack began. Not that the responders had any way of knowing that, but they sure could've if they had stormed the building sooner than three hours after it all started. The "She Said Yes" story, which portrayed Cassie Bernall as a martyr who died because she professed her belief in God after one of the killers asked her about her beliefs, was a complete fiction that got blown so far out of proportion it's ridiculous. The killers were not some bullied outcast types - they had plenty of friends, they had girlfriends, and Dylan Klebold attended the prom just 3 days before the shooting. What blew my mind the most, though, was learning about the cover-ups and destroyed and hidden evidence and the legal struggles that were necessary for any of those public documents to be released because of what they revealed about the way that the matter was handled by the Jeffco Sherriff's Office. Wow.

I remember when the shooting happened, and I remember that it was huge and that everyone thought these kids were retaliating after having been bullied for years by the snotty rich kids and jocks at Columbine High. Not so. Not so at all. Eric Harris was a full-on psychopath with a death wish, and Dylan Klebold was depressed and suicidal and desperately in need of acceptance, which he found from the wrong source in his psychopathic friend. Dylan tried to leak the attack a few times before it happened, but no one picked up the signals. Police had a search warrant for Eric's house a year before the attack that, if it had been executed, could've put an end to it well before it happened. Seriously, I couldn't put this book down. It was so completely engrossing. It has piqued my interest in learning even more about the tragedy, and has me doing more research and reading more and more of the official reports that were so concisely summarized in the book.

I had one conversation with J about whether this book could be seen as one reporter's taking the opportunity of such an awful event to cash in, and I honestly don't believe that to be the case here. Partly because it was written 10 years after the incident, but partly because it feels like a truly journalistic venture. There were a lot of lies and a lot of cover-ups and a lot of hidden evidence and media misconception surrounding the shooting, and the author professes his guilt as one of the reporters covering the unfolding story as it happened on that point off the bat. This book reads like what I think it was meant to be - an effort to lay clean everything that happened before, during, and after the attack without attempts to place blame or explain why it happened. It was excellent for its objectivity but also for its empathy and ability to humanize what for most of the world was a television/media-relayed tragedy. It was well-researched and well-written, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

Congrats Lupo's. I love you.

2010-03-26T23:48:00.002-04:00

Turns out Lupo's at the Strand was a good decision after all. I hadn't been there in a long time, but after the Creek show this past Friday night, I gotta say, it's a great live music venue. They've sucessfully taken a historic theater and converted it to a great atmosphere. It has a great, clubby feeling but without the stuffy, claustrophobic grip that old Lupo's could never seem to shake. The high ceiling over the dancefloor goes a long, long way toward that end.

I remember going to shows at the Strand back in high school, and I know that I never appreciated the history of the place. Then it turned into a crappy nightclub (complete with go-go dancers) and stopped booking bands before merging with Lupo's to share Friday and Saturday nights. Lupo's shows would have to end by 10:30 and everyone had to get the hell out so that they could then open the doors to a top-40 style dance club. It was horrifying. But I guess that's not working out anymore, because Lupo's seems to have free reign of the place now. And that's good news. The go-go cages are gone, the bar areas in the back are opened up nicely.

It now reminds me more of the music hall at the House of Blues in Boston, only the Strand has an almost austere feeling to it, where you can look around and really get the converted theater feeling. Plus it's more intimate, which is always a good thing. Bravo.

Tommy Lee Album Review

2010-03-05T14:31:00.004-05:00

It's time for nostalgic album review day again!
I sometimes enjoy reviewing random albums I like that have been around for a while, but never get old.

Today it's Tommy Lee's 2005 solo venture, Tommyland: The Ride.

Blame today's nostalgic review on the fact that this morning I woke prematurely from a dream involving Tommy Lee and later found that the song "Makin' Me Crazy" from this album was stuck in my head. For that reason, I have been listening to this album and Motley Crue all morning. The reality is that I bought this album the week it was released, in August of 2005, and I've been listening to it in fairly heavy rotation since then, and it doesn't get old. The only track I ever hit skip on is a skit called "The Butler," which is just a little dialogue from some British dude. It's funny enough, and shows a little of Tommy's sense of humor, but it's really just unnecessary. Other than a less-than-desirable skit, though, the album is well-written, well-performed, and well-produced. I love it. Tommy is working on a new Methods of Mayhem album right now over on ThePublic Record.com. It's a fascinating venture to me, and I urge you to clicky the linky and go check it out. My curiosity is totally piqued, and I'm excited for the album to drop. I love the other Methods album - yes that's right, I love it.

Back to Tommyland - I'm the first to admit that Tommy's singing voice isn't amazing by traditional lead-singer standards - that's why he's a drummer, not a lead singer - but the man can sing, and for what it's worth, I love his singing voice. Honestly, I've had a celebrity crush on Tommy Lee for years; I could listen to him sing or talk all day long, so maybe you should take this review with a grain of salt, but I swear I know what I'm talking about here. All of that aside, he has a lot of vocal help on this album, from bigger names like Joel Madden (Good Charlotte) and Chad Kroeger (Nickleback) to lesser-knowns like Andrew McMahon (Jack’s Manequin) and Dirty Harry (it's a chick, and I had never heard of her, either), and it all just works so well. The whole thing, beginning to end, is great. In fact, my biggest criticism is probably that the two versions of "Hello Again" (original album version, and acoustic bonus track) are too close together when you listen to it on repeat, with only the lead track "Good Times" in between.

THE HIGHLIGHTS:

Good Times - This song reminds me of chillin outside with a beer, bare feet and jeans on a breezy summer afternoon. Or driving to the beach barefoot with the windows open in the summer. It's just that kind of song, and one of the best on the album.

Tryin' to Be Me - I agree with Good Charlotte on this one: if celebrities want to bitch about being famous, I will gladly take care of their houses and money and cars for them, and they don’t have to be famous anymore. You asked for it, buddy. That aside, I do sometimes think the paparazzi go too far with celebs who don’t thrust themselves into it and honestly just try to live a normal life. I digress . . . this song is fun and catchy, despite the mild whiny bitch feeling of the lyrics. Chad Kroeger handles the vocals, and it's a perfect fit and a great complement to Nickleback's "Rock Star."

Tired – Another best of on this all around great album. Joel Madden was a great choice to sing the chorus of this angsty, upbeat tune. It totally reminds me of GC, actually – think Anthem or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – sort of angsty and angry, but upbeat and catchy at the same time.

Hello Again (especially the acoustic bonus track), Make Believe, and I Need You are all just beautiful songs.

Makin Me Crazy - I think it's the almost frantic chorus of this song that gets me, I'm not sure. There's just something about this song though. I wouldn't say it's one of the best on the album, but I think it's my personal favorite. Maybe it's Tommy's background vocal on the chorus, because that kind of gives me chills a little bit, but so does the ethereal music in the intro and opening verse. Sometimes on other songs, Tommy's singing voice almost sounds strained, like he's trying too hard, but this background vocal sounds so comfortable, and I love the way it complements Dirty Harry's rough-but-feminine lead vocal. I don't know, but this song gets stuck in my head for days at a time.

This is a go-to album for me, and has been since the day I got it.

If you like good rock n roll, it should be for you too.

Marketing and Music

2010-03-03T15:06:00.001-05:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again, marketing dollars are well spent on me. I buy shit based on how it's presented to me. I think many people do, and at least I recognize it. I wouldn't say I'm proud of it, but I certainly have fun with it. Sometimes I think I should've majored in marketing, and I often think I'd make a great advertising exec. It applies across the board, to just about everything I can come up with, except one.

Music.

Obviously music is heavily marketed, just like every other product out there is, but its an exception for me, and I'm somehow not so susceptable to music marketing. I think music is something people either have a taste for or they don't, and it's not really a matter of packaging or selling it (yes, Disney, I'm talking to you). Music is shopped to radio stations where it will fit in, it's marketed on TV shows and in movies the same way that Coke or Apple is, but none of that really hits me. I'm pretty sure that there are endorsements in place for a lot of Rolling Stone's reviews, and while I like to have my computer handy while I'm reading Rolling Stone, and I love checking out all of the new stuff that I've never heard of, nothing in there can ever convince me to like something, or not to like something, just based on what it might say or who might say it.

I pick what I listen to based on whether I feel it or not. I rely on recommendations of friends or other artists that I respect and enjoy, and on reviews and publications like Rolling Stone to a far lesser extent. I hate major record labels, I've never made a secret of that, and I think that they've hurt and messed up just as many bands and artists as they've ever helped. I love that in the internet age in which we live, artists can self-promote and put out independent releases SO easily, and I love the musical atmosphere that having that ability has created. I love that bands can make and produce and market music for less, and that they can pass that kind of deal on to people like me. I love that I can follow my favorite artists' blogs and get music recommendations directly from them. I love the open, direct communication that so many of these "underground" independent artists encourage. It's amazing; it's fascinating; it's awesome.

I have no shame about my taste in music, and I don't think anyone ever should. Music is sort of a personal thing, and what you like or don't like to listen to should never have anything to do with what others think of you or of what you think of yourself. At the same time as music is a personal thing, it's also so amazing in the way that it brings people together, on so many levels. From the very base of making music together, to the enjoyment of listening to music together, to the fun and excitement of sharing what you like and learning about what your friends like, there's a connection. One of my favorite parts of that connection comes when you're one of thousands in a big arena or stadium or field, and you and everyone around you are singing along with an artist that has touched every single one of you enough to make you want to spend your hard-earned cash to be there enjoying moments like that. Love. I can't even begin to imagine what that must feel like for the artist on the stage, and I could only imagine it's indescribable.

Another of my favorite parts is learning about new music and sharing it with my friends. My internet book club (yes, I'm THAT big a nerd) is currently doing a music exchange. We all signed up (through Elfster.com) and got matched up with someone that we're going to send a mix CD (or two or five, in some cases) to. I started working on mine last night, and when I started I had 100 songs I wanted to share with my elf. I got it down to 80, and I know I'll have to do some more narrowing down, but there's just so much music that I love and want to share with other people! If my elf hates it all, then I'll definitely feel bad that she had a bad music exchange experience, but that's a risk we're all taking, and that's the fun! I can't wait to get my CD(s) too - I hope that they consist almost wholly of stuff I've never heard before, because that's really the point, isn't it? This is more exciting than Christmas morning for me.

Along the same lines, I went to see Bushwalla last week (see earlier post) with my friend Shan. Shan had never heard of BW, and thought, until the man himself walked out on stage, that we were going to see DISHwalla, the alterna-band from the 90's. I will forever take issue with the fact that BW named himself that, because it leaves me forever explaining the difference to people when they ask about him, but it also piques people's interest, so maybe it was good marketing on his part (har har har). Anyway, when he started his set, Shan and I laughed about the confusion and settled in for a fabulous show. Shan was stoked that she was there and glad to be introduced to a new artist that she really liked, and I was so happy for the chance to introduce a friend to a new artist. (Incidentally, I use the word "introduced" quite literally - BW stuck around for a while after the show to sign some autographs and take some pictures and hand out some hugs. It was so great to get to let him know in person, face-to-face, how into his music and his style I am. And to share a gratitude-filled hug. I have so much respect and love for artists that take advantage of the opportunity to actually talk to fans every chance they get. BW and I are facebook friends now, BTW.)

Bottom line - I just think it's so neat how taste-driven music is, and also how broad an effect it has on people in generally, all without the millions of dollars in marketing that's often required to create interest in so many other products.

The Wrestler

2010-03-01T14:42:00.003-05:00

** SPOILERS **

So, I sort of had a thing for 9 1/2 Weeks Mickey Rourke. It is safe to say that ever since the promos for The Wrestler, his "resurrection" or come-back movie, started appearing on my TV, I have been very much over whatever thing I had for young Mickey. Eeesh. Maybe I actually had a thing for John, his character in 9 1/2 Weeks, and not for Mickey at all, I don't know. I finally got around to watching The Wrestler last night, though, and after seeing it, I'm totally looking forward to some of the other eight or nine movies he has coming out in the next year or two. It's the story of a washed-up professional wrestler who just can't let go, and can't manage to fit in anywhere outside of the ring. He's got a failed relationship with his daughter (his fault), a crappy job at a grocery store, a trailer that he can't manage to pay his rent on, and is a little too regular at the local strip club, with a crush on an over-age stripper who he's basically paying to be his friend to show for it. He drops after a particularly ugly match (seriously, there was a staple gun involved), he has heart surgery, he finds some happiness working the deli counter, he retires from wrestling and starts to mend things with his daughter, he gets recognized at the deli counter and can't handle it, he comes out of retirement for one last fight (against MDs orders, of course).

The Mickey Rourke in this film is a hot mess. But you know what? He was PERFECT for this role, and he did a fabulous job in this movie. The dude is a pretty good actor. I get all of his nominations for this role, I really do, and I'm tempted to say that maybe he should've won on a few more of them. I even get all of the film's nominations - it wasn't bad. It was maybe a little slow at times, but never boring, IMO. It wasn't awesome by my discerning "movies I love to watch over and over again" standards, but it was really well put together, and pretty thought-provoking in its own way, and I totally see the Oscar/SAG/Golden Globe-worthiness of it as a film. What I absolutely do not get are Marisa Tomei's multiple nominations for her role as the over-age stripper. I think I could've played the role just as well as she did, except she's got way more of a stripper body than I ever will. But really, you don't get Oscar nods for prancing around naked for half a movie, so I guess I'm just missing it. I thought Evan Rachel Wood did a better job as the daughter than Tomei did as the pseudo-wannabe-girlfriend. I also think it might be one where I will like it more and more the more times I watch it. I've only seen it once so far, but it just gives me that feeling. Plus, the more I've been thinking about it, the more I think I like it. Movies like that are always nominated for lots of awards.

The ending was half cop-out, half perfect. When it ended, I though, "no way, it doesn't really end like that, does it?" But as with most films that spur that thought in me - I honestly can't think of what ending would've been better. So while I'm tempted to call it a cop-out without closure, I also fear that if the story had gone on for even another minute after where it ended, it would've sucked. The point wasn't meant to be whether The Ram lived or died that night in the ring, it was that he couldn't (or wouldn't) live outside the ring, ever again. There's a shot right before he climbs up on the ropes where he glances up at the curtain where Tomei's character had been watching the fight, and you can almost hear the thought in his head: "if she's there, I'll just pin this dude, collect my dinero and head back into retirement with her. If she's not there, I'm gonna Ram-Jam this guy and, if I survive that, every other opponent I ever face in the future, 'cause I ain't got shit outside of this ring."

One thing I will say about this movie is that I haven't stopped thinking about it since it ended, and in that way I totally see the Oscar-worthiness, and for that reason alone, I recommend it. If you're into film, I recommend it. If you just like watching movies, I don't. If you don't get the differentiation, this one probably isn't for you.

Free Bushwalla show tonight!

2010-02-25T13:40:00.001-05:00

I'm so stoked to go see Bushwalla do his thing at Mohegan Sun tonight! The best part? It's a free show in the Wolf Den! Actually, that's not really the best part - the best part will just be jammin out to some sweet tunes, but it totally helps that it's free!

If you don't know who he is or what he does - do yourself a favor and check him out! His performances are totally off the cuff and unexpected and excellent. Not only is BW a great musician and singer and songwriter, he's really an excellent performer. My three favorite songs (if I had to pick only 3) are probably "Fall Through Glass," for it's upbeat, party-esque feeling, "Gangsta," because it is hard to be a gangsta with a basket on your bike, and "Creatures in the Yard," because the lyrics are just so true and sweet. Check it!

Feeling Funky

2010-02-17T13:46:00.001-05:00

I'm in a funk. A big one.

I hate feeling all off and sort of miserable, but that's exactly how it is. Ugh. I can cite any number of factors that are contributing to this, but I'm not going to. I would say that I don't feel like myself, but lately I'm not entirely sure who that even is, and I reckon that's one factor contributing to the overall feeling in the first place. And to go with all of this, there's this looming, ominous feeling that it has not yet gotten as bad as it's going to get, which is decidedly awesome (insert sarcasm font here). Anyone want to pay me a large advance sum of money to go travel around the world and "find myself" and then write a crappy book about it? Because I could totally do that, and I'm pretty sure that it would help. ;)
(Yes, Eat, Pray, Love, I'm talking to you. God, that book was painfully awful, wasn't it?)

In related news, I don't believe in Seasonal Affective Disorder, and am pretty sure that the pharmaseutical companies invented it so that they could sell happy pills to people with good ol' cabin fever, but I can't help but giggle at the appropriate acronym that they created for it. I love that the acronym allows people to say, with a straight face, "I have SAD."

(I generally disapprove of corny animal pictures, but I couldn't resist,

and since it's my blog, I made an exception.)

So, I guess since no one is sending me around the world to find myself, and I am absolutely positive that I don't haz sad, because it doesn't exist, I'll just go on with my funky self and hope it doesn't get worse. In other related news, it would also cheer me up to take my funky self to Boston this Friday to see George Clinton and P Funk at the House of Blues. I think funky me and GC would get along just fine. Yes?

Rihanna - Russian Roulette

2010-02-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

When I watched this performance on SNL a couple of weeks ago, I got chills and immediately made a note to download the song. It still gives me chills every time I hear it.

I've always liked Rihanna for her strength and attitude, and I love that this song shows a little more vulnerability and a sort of haunting side of her voice, but without losing that edge.

Sometimes the movie really is better

2010-01-30T12:33:00.003-05:00

There are certain movies that I love so much, I'm not even willing to try and read the book, lest I ruin the movie. Is that weird? I'm watching How Stella Got Her Groove Back right now, and maybe it's just that I have a crush on Taye Diggs, but I have always loved this movie. I bet the book is great too, but I never care to read it. I feel the same way about The Princess Diaries and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I know these are cheesy selections, and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples that I could cite, but these come to mind. I feel like reading the book would somehow ruin the movie for me. I've heard that this is the case with Julie & Julia - the book was downright painful to get through, but the movie was excellent. I would like to see the movie one day (it's totally a wait-for-DVD kind of movie), but I have no intention of ever reading the book. I've picked up the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books a few times in the library, but then always decide that I like to movie too much to read a book. Usually, I say that I don't want movies to be made of my favorite books, because I'm so terrified that the movie isn't going to be good enough to live up to the book. It feels weird to think the opposite and be afraid that reading the book is going to ruin the movie that I like so much. But I kind of like it.

Shutter Island is one of the best books I read last year

2010-01-28T19:29:00.001-05:00

** MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD **

Seriously, if you haven't read this book yet, and you have any intention of ever doing so, or of even seeing the movie, please STOP READING, I'm about to ruin the whole thing for you. Seriously. I loved this book so much, and I don't want to ruin that for anyone who might read it in the future. I wish I could write an adequate review posting my thoughts on it without giving it away, but I just can't. I know my own inadequacies. So please heed my advice and go pick up a copy of this book from your local bookseller or library, read it immediately, and then come back and visit. And comment. And follow.
Okay. Moving on . . .

I'm beyond excited about this movie, first of all. I think that with Scorcese at the helm, Lehane's brilliant mystery is going to come to life beautifully. The previews look promising, and I think DiCaprio was a great casting decision to play Teddy. That aside, this book is one of my favorites of all time. That is a very short list, and making it is no easy feat, but Shutter Island really blew my mind. Prior to reading it, I picked up Lehane's collection of short stories, Coronado, just to get a feel for his writing. It was the first thing of his I'd read, and I fell in love almost immediately. For real, Dennis Lehane can do more in a 25 page short story than most authors can do in a 250 page novel. I'm just so impressed with his writing. Captivating comes to mind. The one story, "ER," blew my mind.

Shutter Island takes place at an asylum for the criminally insane - a place where they take the people that can't be anywhere else - on a small island in Boston harbor. Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule are sent there to investigate the disappearance of a patient who seemingly evaporated out of thin air, and in the process they come across some other shady dealings that seem to be taking place on the island. Now, I've heard some people say that they knew right away that Teddy was actually Laeddis and that he was patient 67 and that the whole thing was some kind of set up all along, but I think that's bullshit. I had a feeling that something was up, and that maybe he was somehow tied into the patient 67 thing, but how anyone could have foreseen that the whole thing was an elaborate set up because Teddy is a patient there is impossible.

I believe it's impossible to have foreseen that, because the book ends without really letting the reader know if that was the case or not. And I love Dennis Lehane for that. I've had discussion about the lady in the cave, and I firmly believe that she is the turning point of the whole book. Without her cautioning Teddy not to take any meds or accept any cigarettes or anything, that layer of doubt wouldn't ever be placed in the reader's mind, either. She, and that conversation in the cave, is the turning point for Teddy, it's when he truly starts to question whether he'll ever get off the island, and even to question his own sanity. At the same time the reader starts to see the disturbing patterns developing, and begins to wonder if Teddy was a bit off to begin with, or if it's the pills he took for his migrane that are making him that way. What were those pills? At the end, you still don't know if the whole set up that was described was the beginning or the end of the cycle. Did they really set it up to try and cure Teddy of his mental illness, or was that story something they made up to essentially capture Teddy and keep him on the island indefinitely. There are just so many layers to this book, and it's so well-written and suspenseful and just brilliant that I'm beside myself whenever I try to talk about it. Love. I love Dennis Lehane, and am now on a quest to read all the rest of his books.

By the way - I'm totally jealous that my internet friend Heather, of See Heather Write, got to meet Mr. Lehane himself at her writing workshop recently. Totally jealous. She's also now doing a contest on her blog, giving away a signed copy of The Given Day, as well as a signed copy of Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife. Good deal. Check it out.

John Frusciante is awesome

2010-01-21T14:26:00.001-05:00

On December 16, 2009, via blog post on http://www.johnfrusciante.com/, John announced that he was officially out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I didn't hear of this news until a recent issue of Rolling Stone informed me, about 2 weeks ago. I'm really bummed about his departure, but I completely understand his reasons, and I'm thrilled that he is in the place he's in creatively, and excited to see what he puts out. I'm also hopeful that, down the road, he'll come back to work with RHCP again.

I've been a fan of RHCP for as long as I can remember. Literally, I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't listening to them and shaking my ass to their music. There are very few bands that I can actually say that about - in fact, RHCP and U2 might be the only ones. My earliest memories of music and my enjoyment thereof all involve those two bands, and their music provides the soundtrack for A LOT of major events and memories in my life. When John left the band to deal with his addiction back in 1992, I was bummed, but obviously understanding that he was at a place in his life where he needed to focus on himself, and the band was getting in the way of his recovery. That made sense. And the Peppers moved on and circulated through a couple of guitarists before settling on Dave Navarro. I'm a Jane's Addiction fan, and I love Navarro's quirkiness, but I gotta say - his style just didn't fit with the Peppers. One Hot Minute was one hot mess, in a lot of ways. It's still a great album, there's just something off about it.

Anyway, when Frusciante returned for Californication, I might've had a party. His return brought the band back to it's core and pushed them into new and amazing creative waters. By the Way is one of my favorite RHCP albums, and I now realize that had a lot to do with Frusciante's creative energy pushing the band to explore new heights. The album has an almost ethereal feeling to it, in my opinion. Like One Hot Minute, it's different from any of their other albums, but it's diferent in a different way. And I now relize that it resembles a lot of John's solo stuff from that period, and I'm totally into that.

So, the news of John's departure just as RHCP are heading back to the studio to work on their next album has me concerned, to say the least. I know that new guy (Josh Klinghoffer, an additional touring guitarist on the Stadium Arcadium tour) has the chops to pull it off; my concern is with the loss of John's creativity and energy. I have recently been checking out his solo albums, and I'm blown away by the more recent ones. He's an amazing guitarist, and songwriter, and it turns out he can sing too, and he has a very cool, almost haunting at times, voice. If you have the chance, check out the songs "Omission" and "Song to Sing When I'm Lonely" from the Shadows Collide with People album and "Murderers" from To Record Only Water for Ten Days. Those are a good start. I'm really into his solo stuff now. I just hope that the split with RHCP is worth it.

New Laser Cats!

2010-01-18T09:47:00.000-05:00

I've posted before about how much I love the Laser Cats sketches on SNL, so how exciting that there was a new one on over the weekend! Laser Cats 5 featured James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver, and was based on an Alien/Avatar theme. It's not my favorite Laser Cats ever, but I still love it.

What I read in 2009

2010-01-14T18:45:00.002-05:00

This is going to be a doozy. As you can see in my sidebar, I managed to read 81 books in 2009. Listed in the order I finished them in, including author and date finished, here they are:

1	House of God	Samuel Shem	1/21/2009
2	The Host	Stephenie Meyer	2/1/2009
3	This Lullaby	Sarah Dessen	2/4/2009
4	Just Listen	Sarah Dessen	2/8/2009
5	Invisible Monsters	Chuck Palahnuik	2/14/2009
6	Dead Until Dark	Charlaine Harris	2/17/2009
7	Living Dead in Dallas	Charlaine Harris	2/21/2009
8	Club Dead	Charlaine Harris	2/24/2009
9	Dead to the World	Charlaine Harris	3/1/2009
10	Dead as a Doornail	Charlaine Harris	3/11/2009
11	Fight Club	Chuck Palahnuik	3/16/2009
12	The Truth About Forever	Sarah Dessen	3/23/2009
13	Lullaby	Chuck Palahnuik	3/29/2009
14	That Summer	Sarah Dessen	3/29/2009
15	Without You	Anthony Rapp	4/1/2009
16	Intensity	Dean Koontz	4/6/2009
17	Sloppy Firsts	Megan McCafferty	4/9/2009
18	Second Helpings	Megan McCafferty	4/14/2009
19	Stargirl	Jerry Spinelli	4/14/2009
20	Love, Stargirl	Jerry Spinelli	4/20/2009
21	Charmed Thirds	Megan McCafferty	4/22/2009
22	Crank	Ellen Hopkins	4/23/2009
23	Go Ask Alice	Anonymous	4/25/2009
24	Definately Dead	Charlaine Harris	4/28/2009
25	Fourth Comings	Megan McCafferty	4/28/2009
26	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	5/3/2009
27	Glass	Ellen Hopkins	5/4/2009
28	All Together Dead	Charlaine Harris	5/9/2009
29	Perfect Fifths	Megan McCafferty	5/10/2009
30	From Dead to Worse	Charlaine Harris	5/22/2009
31	Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist	Rachel Cohn & David Levithan	5/31/2009
32	Certain Girls	Jennifer Wiener	5/31/2009
33	Audrey, Wait!	Robin Benway	6/6/2009
34	The Soloist	Steve Lopez	6/14/2009
35	Dead and Gone	Charlaine Harris	6/21/2009
36	Pygmy	Chuck Palahnuik	7/3/2009
37	The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing	Melissa Bank	7/5/2009
38	I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell	Tucker Max	7/6/2009
39	The Dirt	Motley Crue	7/12/2009
40	Always Running	Luis Rodriguez	7/15/2009
41	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	Hunter S. Thompson	7/17/2009
42	Candy Girl	Diablo Cody	7/19/2009
43	Bitter is the New Black	Jen Lancaster	7/22/2009
44	Dry	Agusten Burroughs	7/22/2009
45	The White Arrest	Ken Bruen	7/24/2009
46	Taming the Alien	Ken Bruen	7/25/2009
47	The McDead	Ken Bruen	7/28/2009
48	Geek Love	Katherine Dunn	8/9/2009
49	Junky	William S. Burroughs	8/10/2009
50	Queer	William S. Burroughs	8/12/2009
51	Less Than Zero	Bret Easton Ellis	8/16/2009
52	Lunar Park	Bret Easton Ellis	8/16/2009
53	Bright Lights, Big City	Jay McInerny	8/19/2009
54	Everyone Worth Knowing	Lauren Weisberger	8/31/2009
55	Magical Thinking	Augusten Burroughs	9/2/2009
56	The Gun Seller	Hugh Laurie	9/7/2009
57	Blitz	Ken Bruen	9/10/2009
58	Vixen	Ken Bruen	9/11/2009
59	The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	9/15/2009
60	Catching Fire	Suzanne Collins	9/19/2009
61	Coronado	Dennis Lehane	9/20/2009
62	Shutter Island	Dennis Lehane	9/26/2009
63	13 Reasons Why	Jay Asher	9/29/2009
64	The Art of Racing in the Rain	Garth Stein	10/7/2009
65	Outlander	Diana Gabaldon	10/10/2009
66	Twenties Girl	Sophie Kinsella	10/13/2009
67	A Great and Terrible Beauty	Libba Bray	10/25/2009
68	Roasting in Hell's Kitchen	Gordon Ramsay	10/29/2009
69	Granny Torrelli Makes Soup	Sharon Creech	10/26/2009
70	Lock and Key	Sarah Dessen	11/15/2009
71	The Heroin Diaries	Nikki Sixx	11/26/2009
72	A Touch of Dead	Charlaine Harris	11/27/2009
73	Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Society	Mary Ann Shaffer	12/3/2009
74	Why We Suck	Dennis Leary	12/3/2009
75	Maus I & II	Art Spiegelman	12/7/2009
76	The Lost Symbol	Dan Brown	12/15/2009
77	Complete Persepolis	Marjane Satrapi	12/20/2009
78	My Friend Leonard	James Frey	12/23/2009
79	Tommyland	Tommy Lee	12/27/2009
80	Fighting Ruben Wolfe	Marcus Zusak	12/30/2009
81	The Art of War	Sun Tzu	12/31/2009

Another new addition you will notice on my sidebar, also reading related, is a display of what I'm currently reading, which includes a link to my other GoodReads shelves. If you're not familiar with GoodReads.com, it's a reading website where you can keep track of all of your books and all of your friends books, etc. It's almost like FaceBook for books and reading nerds. And I love it. So I'm no longer using the "I'm Reading" App on FB to keep track of what I'm reading, but I've yet to transfer the reviews I wrote over the past year to GR yet. I also don't think I transferred the ratings I gave anything last year. So 2009 books are in FB and 2010 books are and will continue to be in GR. I'm not sure why I never used GR last year, but the more I use it now, the more I love it. Feel free to poke around, and feel free to request me as a friend or leave a comment here and I'll send you an invitation

I'm with Coco

2010-01-14T18:28:00.000-05:00

I love this.

Because I really am. I've been no fan of NBC or Jay Leno for a while now, and I really thought that giving that huge-chinned, no-talent shmuck his own prime-time-five-nights-a-week show was the last straw for me, that it couldn't get any worse, but my friends, last week it did. My displeasure with NBC and Mr. Leno has risen to a new level. It's completely absurd that the network is going to give Leno back the 11:35 time slot for his show, bumping THE TONIGHT SHOW, a television icon, into tomorrow, at 12:05. What's next, Saturday Night Live on Sundays? Ugh. Thankfully, Conan has stood his ground, and with all of the grace and dignity expected of him, despite the uncertainty that he's walking into by doing so, and I'm really pleased to see that he's not selling out or otherwise taking shit from a network gone awry. (PS: Hey NBC? I loved the Black Donneleys, as did a number of others. It was a shit decision to cancel it. In favor of what? Another Law & Order spin-off? Another run-of-the-mill hospital drama? Every single half-way decent hour-long drama that you get, you cancel before even giving it a chance. Boooooooo.)

Read Conan O'Brien's statement here.

I guess we'll see what more happens, both at NBC and for Conan's future in television hosting, in the coming days, but make no mistake: I'm with Coco.

2010-01-13T21:26:00.001-05:00

Minerva's Pizza on the east side = chicken parm lasagna wrapped into a calzone. At least that's what it tastes like. Yummm.

David Cook review

2010-01-13T14:06:00.000-05:00

No, this is not a new David Cook album - this is the one that came out in November 2008. First, I can't believe it was that long ago. Second, I don't do a lot of album reviews, so why pick this one, right? The answer is that it's a good album, I'm listening to it today, and in honor of the new season of American Idol starting last night. This is very much not the kind of album I'd generally pick to review, but it's on my mind.

When David Cook was on AI, it was one of those few seasons that I actually watched all the way through. Usually, I watch some of the silly audition stuff right at the beginning, more because I'm excited that it's back on than because I really want to see it, though. That excitement always dwindles before Hollywood week even rolls around, usually, and I get tired of the joke singers that they put on the auditions just to make America laugh. (I've come to think that many of them are actors that Fox is paying to sing badly on national television just to boost ratings that first week and spur YouTube sensations, but maybe that's just the conspiracy theorist in me.) Anyhoo - My interest usually sparks again when there's between 7 and 4 people left on the show, because then at least I know they can sing. But there have been 2 or 3 seasons that I've actually watched beginning to end, and have felt some stake in the outcome (though I've never voted). Cook's season was one of them, and I had my money on him from day one. Say what you will, but the kid can sing, and I've always liked that he wasn't a fit-the-mold pop star.

I was understandably excited and interested when his solo album dropped, and I wasn't disappointed. I've liked the album, every song, beginning to end, since the day I downloaded it. It wasn't until this past October, almost a full year after first hearing it, that I realized exactly why I like this album so much. I'm an aspiring writer, and every November I participate in an online writing challenge called NaNoWriMo. Which means that I spend much of October getting ready for that challenge. "Getting ready to write" for me includes not only the standard plot outlining and character development exercises, but also picking the playlist that is going to score my hours and hours of banging away at a keyboard. As I was doing that, and I listened to this album with my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel in mind, it hit me just how emotional the album is. Damn. Kid can sing? Kid can sing in a way that can make you feel it, make you sit up and pay attention, even though a lot of the music on the album comes across at first glance as little more than good radio background.

Cook had a lot of help writing the songs on the album, from a lot of great songwriters, and it shows, but he didn't have any help in belting them out. On every track on this album, the lyrics, the music, and Cook's voice come together with such emotion, you can't help but be impressed. From love to loss to sadness to joy to hope, the range of emotions is seemingly endless, as is Cook's capacity to represent them with his voice. This is very much a pop-rock album, don't get me wrong. It's very mainstream and very accessible, and very radio-ready. No kidding, every single track could be on the radio tomorrow, and most of them would immediately be played to death by most top-40 stations. Like I said, at first listen it's a decent album, but the music doesn't stand out as anything more than radio background. Doesn't mean it's not a valuable album. In that way, I question what Cook could've done without the "AI Winner" badge hanging over his head. I think any album that comes out of an AI winner is to some extent a dilution of what they might truly be capable of in order to appeal to the masses. I think of some of the people I know who watch AI religiously, and then imagine how the powers that be try to package the winner in a way that will make each and every one of those people want to buy the winner's albums, and to me that's representative of everything that's wrong with the record industry and the major labels on the whole. But I digress . . .

Specifics: "Bar-ba-sol" and "Declaration" are my favorite tracks on the album because they rock just a little more than the rest. "Bar-ba-sol" has an almost funky feeling to it, and I think that's what draws me to it over some other tracks. "Light On" was the first big single, and I like it almost as much. The AI winner song, "Time of My Life," doesn't fit, IMO. I don't think it's really him, and I don't think it's an accurate reflection of his style or what he's capable of. That said, it's not a bad song, except for that garbage lyric about rainbows. "Permanent" is a beautiful, beautiful ballad about the temporary nature of life and love, and another of my favorites on the album. Overall, the album is so accessible, I think there's something for everyone, but more importantly, since this is my blog after all, I like it, and I recommend it.

To be continued . . .

2009-12-28T23:17:00.000-05:00

This was originally a mobile post that came out all wrong, so I'm just correcting the error, but I'll still keep it to re-creating the original mobile post:

Texting, emailing, mobile blogging, Blackberrying, iPhoning, and all similar handheld habits are the new smoking cigarettes. This is the real reason that college smoking statistics have gone down - no one in college needs to smoke to kill time anymore! Discuss.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

2009-12-01T14:21:00.000-05:00

I finished the month of November with my NaNo word count at 51,246. I'm a winner!

It was a little close at the end, but I managed to hit 50K with about an hour and a half to spare last night. Go me. Winning NaNo this year feels a little bittersweet, though. First of all because the book is not done. But last year's wasn't completed in November, either, and in fact, despite winning NaNo a few days early last year, that book was no where near done at 50K words. The final, completed first draft of NaNo 2008 is around 123,000 words. Right now, One Constant (because at least this year's has a working title) sits on my flash drive at 51,246 words. It's closer to complete than NaNo 2008 was at this point, but I'm far less happy with it, and far less excited about writing it or finishing it. There are a number of chapters (like, four maybe?) that end with a few sentences of "notes to self" of where I'd like the rest of the chapter to go, but that I just got stuck when I was writing. These last few chapters that I just wrote and that I'm about to write are going to be the best part of it, and that's disappointing - to know that I'm going to need to rewrite or rework most of what I've spent the last month toiling over to even make it decent. *Sigh* I think with another 10 or 20 thousand words, I can have a finished first draft to start tearing apart. I don't want to start editing until I get beginning to end down on paper. Of course, that's where I left off last year's, in what? February? March? I can get this one done much sooner than that, I think. There's not too much left to write, and I already have entire conversations swirling through my head, so it shouldn't be too much to finish.

My monthly writing plans for the near future:
December: Finish first draft of One Constant and develop anothr idea for a novella to be written in January
January: Kiwi Writers New Year Novella Challenge - write and edit.
February: Spend all writing time for the month seriously editing NaNo 2008
March: Revisit One Constant for content, structure and style

Let's see how well I stick with this.

More fun IMDB trivia

2009-11-30T14:42:00.001-05:00

I found another nugget on IMDB today.

Pamela Adlon, who plays Marcy Runkle on Showtime's Califionication, also provides the voice of Bobby Hill, the teenage son on Fox's King of the Hill.

For reals?! Maybe these things are common knowledge for some (okay, probably not the Thundercats thing), but it's the little things that make me happy, and this is just one such little thing. Using the term "cuppy cakes" instead of cupcakes is another. Hi Curt.

And while I'm at it - Californication is a GREAT show. I was not an X-Files fan, and therefore not a David Duchovny fan (the two go hand in hand, do they not?) prior to seeing this piece of brilliance. And to this day, I haven't seen the first season but for a couple of episodes here and there, but I've now watched all of the episodes in season three twice. So now I guess I like David Duchovny, but I have a TV crush on Hank Moody, his character on the show. Recurring guest appearances this season by Kathleen Turner and Rick Springfield have been brilliant, and this season as a whole has caused me to adopt the word "church" as a term of agreement. Adlon's character of Marcy is one of my favorites on the show; she reminds me of Susie Essman's Susie on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is another great show, by the way.

Random trivia for today

2009-11-24T23:02:00.000-05:00

I was just playing around on IMDB and discovered a fabulous piece of trivia!

GUESS WHO composed the original Thundercats theme song. James Lipton! He's the dude that does Inside the Actors' Studio. I get such a kick out of him and his dry sense of humor.

I will not get into how I came to discover this information, i.e. how I came to be on either James Lipton's or the Thundercats' IMDB page (I won't say which I was on), but I'm kind of excited to have learned this new piece of useless knowledge.

Have you learned anything useless today?

In2Books

2009-11-14T20:47:00.000-05:00

This school year, I'm participating in a program called In2Books. It's an online pen-pal reading program for kids in 3rd through 5th grade. You can sign up on the In2Books website, which involves paying a $5 or $6 fee to cover the expense of a background check. Once you have been cleared, you are assigned a pen-pal, or e-pal as they call them, who you immediately start corresponding with through the In2Books web interface. Your responsibilities as an e-pal involve writing an introductory email to your student, and then reading five books, selected by the student, over the course of the school year, and exchanging discussion emails with the student about those books. The emails are exchanged using the In2Books website, so there's no actual email addresses exchanged, and all emails are screened by the teachers in the classrooms before they are exchanged between the student and the e-pal.

My student is a 3rd grader in Washington state named Glory. From her letters, she seems like a really sweet girl, and really excited about reading and writing about it. We have some of the same favorite foods in pizza and broccoli, too. We just read Granny Torrelli Makes Soup by Sharon Creech, which was Glory's selection for the fiction unit. I sent my email about it last weekend, and I'm expecting my letter back from her any day now. It was a cute book about the dynamic nature of friendship, and it even inspired me to make chicken soup the other day. The In2Books program has five units over the course of the school year. We just did fiction, next is social studies, then there's biography, traditional tales, and science.

This is a great program. I love that it gets kids excited about reading, gets them to read thoughtfully and to write about what they read. I love that it lets kids have discussions about what they're reading with grown-ups that are really excited to read with them, and who they only know because of their reading with them. Unlike a parent or teacher or tutor, who read with them because it's their job. Here, the kids know that their pen pal is really excited about reading with them, and is looking forward to reading the books and hearing what they think of them. This is my first year participating, but I can foresee myself staying involved with it for years to come.

Adventures in Baking, Part one

2009-11-14T20:26:00.001-05:00

Red Velvet Cuppy-cakes

Yesterday, I decided that I was going to make cupcakes this weekend. I was torn between cupcakes baked in ice cream cones, some kind of filled cupcakes, and red velvet. Had I decided on the cake-in-a-cone or filled cupcakes, I was planning to use a boxed mix, on the grounds that the act of baking them in a cone or filling them was unique and fun enough to justify not making them from scratch. In the end, though, I decided that I truly wanted to bake something this weekend, and for me, that means from scratch. So I went with the red velvet. This is the recipe I used, thank you Cupcake Blogger, whatever your name may be.

They came out great! Jimmy and I each ate one as soon as they were cool enough to put frosting on, and both agreed that they're delicious. He's not usually a fan of cuppy-cakes, either, so for him to say they're delicious is a pretty big deal. My only criticism would be that they could stand to be a little more chocolatey, so I think next time I make them (and there will be a next time), I will use an extra tablespoon or so of cocoa. I'm not sure how much this'll change the consistency or anything (I'm totally not a baker), but I'm going to do it anyway.

I also didn't use cream cheese frosting. Red velvet cupcakes are so rich and heavy as it is, I just didn't see the need to up the decadence level any more by slathering them with cream cheese frosting. So, while I baked them from scratch, I then used spray Cool-Whip to frost them. Honestly, they don't even need frosting, they're so moist and delicious as they are, but what's a cuppy-cake without frosting? Mom says she has a delicious boiled frosting recipe, so I'm going to snag that the next time I visit, and I'll actually make it and properly frost the cupcakes next time I make them. For now though, spray-and-enjoy works just fine for me.

Gospel choirs

2009-11-13T21:59:00.001-05:00

I believe that any artist that can pull off a performance with a gospel choir deserves respect, and has mine. I hate to beat a dead horse and talk more on here about how much I love Jason Mraz, but his performance on Conan last night inspired this post. Mr. A-Z performed Live High on Conan last night with a gospel choir, and it was great. I just tried to find a video to link, but apparently I suck, because I couldn't. Who else comes to mind when you think of non-gospel performers effectively bringing a gospel choir into their act? U2, in Ratle and Hum - which was brilliant. Jay-Z, I think? Snoop? It's not just rappers, either, there are plenty of others that I just can't think of because it's Friday night and I've had a few drinks. Anyway, I love gospel music, but only live. I mean, by live on TV, I still mean live, but I'm just not into gospel on CD or radio. Anyway, my respect for a musician doubles, if not more, if they're able to perform meaningfully with a gospel choir. I'm just saying. If you can find JM's performance on Conan last night, it's worth 5 minutes of your time.

NaNo 2009

2009-10-31T19:39:00.002-04:00

My 2009 NaNo Novel has not only a working title, but a .jpg to go with it. I rule. This .jpg might give away more than I care to about the plot, though. I may keep playing with my new free photo editing website and make another one or two before I settle.

It's not YA anymore, by the way. In case the picture didn't give that away. I decided in the end that I couldn't handle the idea that I had before; it was just too personal. There's going to be elements of that idea in this story, but I'm using this as a bit of a stepping stone to get myself ready to write that story next year sometime (maybe NaNo, maybe not). For now, I just hope that the huge outline that I have thrown together works to help me keep writing, and doesn't hinder me or somehow constrain me. I'm afraid that I'll feel bound by the outline. Writing starts tonight at midnight, so we'll see how it goes. My immediate goal is to get to get as close to 10,000 words as possible by bedtime Sunday night. Really, if I can get to 5,000 by then, I'll be satisfied, but I'd love to hit 8K or 10K by the close of business on November first.

I made the .jpg smaller, for my message board signatures:

Random thoughts

2009-09-28T14:28:00.000-04:00

This post is inspired by Mark Patinkin's articles in the Providence Journal this weekend. I laughed out loud at both of them.

I hate my lunch today, but we had nothing in the house. Salad with lettuce and tomatoes only and an english muffin with sugar-free jam, and a few fritos. Boring.

Untoasted english muffins are just gross, and weren't meant to be eaten that way. At all.

Does it still count as salad if it's just lettuce and tomatoes in a bowl?

I regret not buying the crumpets I had in my hand at the grocery store last week.

I love Cozy Shack rice pudding, but I very rarely purchase it because then it's more of a treat when I do.

I refuse to buy orange marmalade for my house, because then it takes some of the magic out of going out for diner breakfast.

Is it weird that I made a conscious decision not to bring any Cozy Shack with my paltry lunch today because eating it at work would ruin it?

I've been in a dark, moody and brooding mood for over a week now, and it doesn't appear to be getting much better anytime soon.

My new favorite dark, moody and brooding mood song is Bad Day by Fuel. Conviently, on the Best of Fuel CD that I own, it's followed immediately by Last Time, which has prooved to be angry enough to help me out of the sad mood inspired by Bad Day. It works out really well, I think.

I'm beyond excited about the fact that over the weekend, my name was picked in a drawing to win a free copy of this magazine:

I'm bummed that I don't have the equivalent of a "man town" to display it in. I doubt it would go over well if I displayed it in my bedroom at home. I guess it's relegated to my office.

I'm thinking of chopping my hair short and coloring it darker than it is. But I secretly know that I'm too indecisive to do this just yet, and it's going to stay the same color and keep on getting longer for at least a few more months.

On Saturday afternoon, we mowed our lawn. It took two of us all afternoon to get it all done. Note to self - do yard work more often than once a month.

Fuel is a great band, by the way.

Sometimes I look back and feel like entire years of my life have disappeared from my memory. Then I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I've never come to any conclusion on that point.

When I go to make my lunch for tomorrow, there's still going to be nothing in my house. Actually, there will be less nothing than there was today, because we're out of lettuce now, too.

There's also nothing there for dinner tonight without some farily extensive cooking. Guess who won't be home long enough to cook anything for dinner tonight?

A day without protein is like a day without sunshine

I wish I could quit my job and go back to college forever and just keep earning new degrees, but I don't want to be made to pay for any of this, and I never want to put any of the degrees to any practial, job-related use. Specifically, I would like to start with an MBA with a focus in advertising and marketing, and a masters in meteorology.

I'd also like to do some more "studying" abroad.

Shutter Island just made the short list of the best books I've ever read. There will be a separate post (with spoilers) about that in the very near future.

I shouldn't promise future posts like that, because I have a history of not following up.

Does it even matter? Anything, I mean?

2009-09-25T10:54:00.001-04:00

I have decided what I'm writing for this year's NaNoWriMo. I just hope I can handle it. It's going to be YA because I'm jumping on that bandwagon.

2009-09-18T18:50:00.001-04:00

Green Day has quietly remained a force in the music industry for a really long time now. I'm a bigger and bigger fan the more I think about that.

America's Next Top Model

2009-09-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

I love this show. I'm honestly addicted to it. But somehow in 13 seasons of watching it - I still understand nothing about fashion or fashion photography. Honestly, during the judges' critique every week, I can not stop giggling at how the judges describe and discuss the pictures.

"Honestly, it's a great photo, but had you just sort of slumped forward a bit, but kept this face, it would have been an interesting photo."

If you've ever seen the show, you can guess which judge said this to someone this week. Imagine it with a british accent. I mean, c'mon. What? I'll never stop giggling at this kind of crap. This show is one of many guilty pleasures I am addicted to. Is it bad that almost every show I watch on TV, I consider to be a guilty pleasure? I watch some ridiculous television shows. This, 90210, I'm currently watching (on DVR no less) the first episode of the Vampire Diaries, and I'm looking forward to the season premiere of Nip/Tuck. It's bad, but at least I acknowledge it.

Opposites and Lullabies

2009-08-26T00:33:00.002-04:00

An old boyfriend once presented the theory that there are certain defining likes and dislikes that can predetermine the functionability of relationships. Simply put - people who like olives always end up with people who don't. The same goes for mint chocolate chip ice cream, for some reason. I believe this might also be true of onions on salad; that way, the people who don't like them can happily give them to the people who do. It just works out. I can't explain the mint chocolate chip ice cream thing, but in my experience, it's completely true. I think it's also possible to add something about alarm clocks to this list. Those who need them and those who don't, or those who like them and those who don't. I, for example will set four alarms when I know I need to wake up for something important. I might set more of them if my cell phone would allow me to have more than three alarms in addition to my regular alarm clock. My dear husband is generally able to remember to set the one, but that rarely matters because he normally doesn't hear it going off for 15 minutes anyway. Conveniently, he married me, and I'm alarm clock-obsessed, so he doesn't usually have to worry about remembering his alarm. People who are obsessed with alarm clocks end up with people who can't seem to hear them. Discuss.

I will never be too old for lullabies. There are a number of great lullaby-type songs in my iPod, and most of them have corresponding videos on You-Tube that I can play on my phone when I'm falling asleep at night. Lullabies aren't just for kids; it's great to be sung to sleep at any age. Here's my current favorite:

Rent: The Broadway Tour

2009-08-05T13:34:00.003-04:00

I saw this in Boston on July 25, 2009, and it was the best performance of Rent that I've seen aside from the one and only time I saw it on Broadway. That's easily explained by the fact that Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal are reprising their roles as Mark and Roger as played in the original Broadway cast. These lead roles were written for them, at least in part. More so for Anthony than for Adam, but no one can play them as well as these two, for sure. I was completely blown away by this performance.

That said, The show was at the Colonial Theater, which I had never been inside of. we had orchestra seats, right side, on the aisle, about 15 rows back. But holy cats, there's only about 30 rows in the orchestra at the Colonial! That theater is so small, it was amazing. It made the show feel so much more intimate, which I think is a great, great feeling for this show. And the sound! That was my biggest complaint last time there was a tour in Providence, last year, was that the sound was just off, somehow. But the sound was so clear and perfect at the Colonial - I don't know if it was a function of the small size of the theater, or just a better sound team on this tour, but wow. I haven't heard the show sound that good in years. Adam's voice has changed a bit since I saw him on Broadway 13 years ago (yikes, where does the time go!), but not in a bad way, and he is definitely the same Roger. I've never seen anyone put that level of emotion into Roger's character. Anthony Rapp's voice sounded just as crisp and clear as it always has, and the level of emotion and love he has for the show comes through in each and every performance he gives.

I fully expected to cry, and while the tears welled, I managed to hold myself together. The biggest tear-jerker in the show for me, is Collins' I'll Cover You Reprise in Act Two - in fact, just the line "When your heart has expired" in that song, especially as sung by Jesse L. Martin, can bring me to tears, but not this time. I love the actor who played Collins in all other respects, but I didn't feel as though he gave that song the level of emotion it needs. After this performance, Kid and I both agreed that we would lay off the show for a while, because we were feeling as though this amazing performance may have ruined all other tours for us. However, I just learned that this tour has added dates in Providence in November. While I don't think I can justify paying for full price orchestra seats again, I fully intend to wait for $20 student rush at least twice during the week-long run. I bet Kid will be right there with me.

Baby Strippers

2009-07-21T20:29:00.002-04:00

On the books in RI: anyone who's old enough to work and old enough to have a job, and old enough to consent to, you know, is old enough to strip. That means that you only have to be 16 to work in a strip club in RI. PS, in case you forgot, "indoor" prostitution is also legal in RI. Sin City my ass, welcome to RI. Right? Bill O'Reilly is doing a piece on this right now. The only law relating to this is that under-18's have to be home by 11:30 on a school night. I hate Bill O'Reilly, and like he does with everything else and his two blonde girlfriends, he's blowing this WAY out of proportion

I mean, this is a joke - the illegal prostitution thing is legit: for real, you can whore it up indoors all you want, you just can't sell it on the street - but the rest of this, about "children" working as strippers, this generally doesn't happen and it's truly the loophole in the law. These laws, in this very combination, have been on the books for AGES, and yes, the combination of them all in a given set of circumstances works out to make it technically legal for a 16 year old to work as a stripper, but no employer in her right mind would put a 16 year old girl to work as a stripper. This is one case that took years to come up. It's not as though there are scads of 16 year olds stripping all over the great state of RI. 1) We're a wicked small state, there are very few strip clubs; 2) I've been to half of them; 3) Bill O'Reilly is a D-Bag; 4) the VAST majority of girls working there are clearly much older than 20. Much older; 5) This is the exception to the rule, I promise; 6) Bill O'Reilly is a D-Bag.

I truly hope that this doesn't turn into a thing, because it's foolish that Billy O made an issue of it in the first place, and I hate that I justified him by writing this. Boo.

2009-07-10T23:35:00.001-04:00

Fla ored martinis are not actual martinis. discuss.

Student Loans (sigh)

2009-07-02T18:28:00.002-04:00

I just looked at one of my student loan statements. They show up here every month, but I rarely ever actually look at them. But I somewhat remember signing up for some kind of "graduated payments," that would supposedly increase as my earning potential increased. Hmmm. So every now and then I like to take a look and see if the payments have gone up. I see that the money comes out of my checking account every month too, don't get me wrong, but I just never notice exactly how much it is, and since I don't know how much it's going to "graduate" by, I sometimes get concerned.

Well, how excited was I today when I looked at that statement and realized that 2 of the 4 loans that are consolidated into that account now have balances that are actually LOWER than the ORIGINAL LOAN AMOUNT! I realize that this shouldn't be so exciting, but interest builds on these accounts at almost more than I'm actually paying every month! How sad is it that it's so exciting for me to see that the balance has actually dropped below the original loan amount? It only took 4 effing years to get there!! And even then, it's seriously only by about $60.

AND, I realized that I just turned 30. I've been alive for 30 years. Coincidentally, the term of my student loan repayment is 30 YEARS. Do you know how loooooooooong that feels right about now?! Ugh.

FYI

2009-06-26T23:39:00.006-04:00

It's one of those Friday nights . . .

I love mobile blogging. The random posts that have no titles and consist of about a text message worth of discussion are all mobile posts (please notice the post time of some of them . . .). Ideally, they're meant to be place holders; the plan is that I'm going to go back and write whole posts on those topics, but I'm beginning to wonder whether that will ever happen. Hence this post explaining the random Chinese food fortune posts or "discuss" posts. I'm getting there. In the mean time, please discuss amongst yourselves.

Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island . . .

The Nate Mott Band

2009-06-26T22:27:00.006-04:00

Now playing: The Nate Mott Band - Would You Stop Falling

Add to the short list of regrets in my life the fact that in the two years that I've know Evan, I've never previously gotten into his band. Evan interned for me in the summer of 2007, after his first year of law school and again in the spring of 2009, to complete his community service requirement for graduation. He's the best intern I personally have had in the few years that I've been an attorney, and I know that he will be a fabulous lawyer (good luck on your bar exams this summer, Evan!).

That's not the point of this post. Evan plays bass for The Nate Mott band. I recently came across their website and MySpace page and discovered that they have a couple of albums available on iTunes. They're fabulous. They're sort of Sublime-ish, I guess - mellow, but funky. Lyrically, they remind me a little of Jason Mraz (enough, I know I have an issue, but really . . .) - just in the wit and creativity of the lyrics. They're catchy, and you will love them. Their music makes me want to shake my ass, and that is key to my acknowledgement of a good band. Do yourself a favor and check them out.
Now playing: The Nate Mott Band - Laugh Out Loud

It Might Kill Me

2009-06-26T20:34:00.003-04:00

Now playing: Jason Mraz - If It Kills Me (From the Casa Nova Sessions) [Bonus Track]

I have a new favorite song of the week: Jason Mraz (surprise, surprise, it's all I listen to lately), If It Kills Me. Holy crap. Have you ever had the experience where you've heard a song a whole bunch of times, but then this one time when you hear it, you really hear it? We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. has these bonus tracks that are all live and/or acoustic. One of them is If It Kills Me (From the Casa Nova Sessions), and it's so perfect, it hurts. I'm not kidding - the regular studio version of this song is fucking beautiful, but this other version is un-fucking-believable. Here's the lyrics:

Hello.
Tell me you know now.
Yeah, you figured me out.
Something - gave it away
And it would be such a beautiful moment
To see the look on your face
To know that
Know that you know now
And baby that's a case of my wishful thinking
You know nothing
Cause you and I
Why, we go carrying on
For hours on and
And we get along much better
Than you and your boyfriend
Well, all I really want to do is to love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
Well, how long
Can I go on like this
Wishing to kiss you
Before I rightly explode
And this double life I lead
Isn't healthy for me
In fact it makes me nervous
If I get caught, I could be risking it all
Baby, there's a lot that I'll miss
In case I'm wrong
And all I really want to do is to love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If I should be so bold
I'd ask you to hold my heart in your hand
Tell you from the start how I've longed to be your man
But I never said a word
I guess I'm gonna miss my chance again
Well all I really want to do is love you
a kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
and all I really want from you is to feel me
As this feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
I think it might kill me
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As this feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
It might kill me.

Right? This song makes my heart hurt. It never used to, but the other day it was like all of a sudden I could hear the pleading in his voice in the acoustic version, and it hurt. It hurt just like it did the first time. This song completely brings to mind that new, unsure love feeling from high school and college - when you're so into someone, but you're just not sure if they're into you; if you're really just friends or if maybe there's something more there. Remember that feeling? Wasn't it wonderful? That's why I read young adult books, right there. God, that was a beautiful feeling. If It Kills Me portrays that feeling perfectly. Now I can't stop listening to it, and I almost want to cry every time I hear it. Again, the studio version is so, so beautiful, but it's the bonus track acoustic version that really hits me. Wow. Keep it up J; see you July 31.

PS - while we're talking about Jason Mraz - Butterfly is a hot song.

Now playing: Jason Mraz - Butterfly (From the Casa Nova Sessions) [Bonus Track]