Category — musik

Things that I’ve been doing lately instead of maintaining the blog:

Hand-crafting metallic flowers with my lobster claw

Reading stuff

Writing stuff, old-school, with my new writin’ pen–have exhausted 1.5 ink cartridges and 1 full notebook’s worth of material

Listening to stuff

Watching stuff–couldn’t turn away while watching this last night. Oliver Stone’s version is so embarrassing now that you look back on it, isn’t it?

Avoiding stuff

Attempting to fix stuff (and failing, I might add–anyone know basic html stuff?)

Sipping stuff

And there’s probably more, but you get the idea…

I… Cant… Get… This… Song… Out… Of… My… Head… (featuring the marching band of the University of Notre Dame)

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Z passed her swim test this morning, and officially graduated to Starfish A–a more advanced (and expensive) set of classes. We celebrated this victory–borne of at least a dozen “bobs” (head all the way under the water, then back up), a couple of hard-fought circuits with the foam bubble on, and at least three solo jumps into the water–with a pajama party at home. She created invitations, a menu, a series of games. PJs were required, so I did as I was told. By 3:30 this afternoon, it was clear that we weren’t going to change out of our pajamas, and after a couple of rounds of SpongeBob Sorry, Z said, “Daddy, can we just stay in pajamas all day today? This is really comfy.” Of course! If I could, I’d wear jammies all day, every day. To work. Meetings. Presentations. Honestly, I think the world would be a much better place if we all donned loungewear all day…

Anyway, part of the day was interrupted by a Phineas & Ferb marathon. I love this cartoon. One of my favorite characters is the doe-eyed Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, a Mexican Jewish girl, as her name would suggest. Today, one of the episodes had this bit about Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro going to the Mexican-Jewish Cultural Festival, and it contained this number. Oy-lay:

#81

And not a moment too soon, after having turned 3-…of roughly mid-life age just last month. Today, results of a study were released, debunking the “mid-life crisis” as a myth for a number of reasons, one of which being that 35 is no longer really considered “mid-life” anymore. But the concept that “When you are 50, statistically you have as many adult years ahead of you as you have behind you” freaks me out a bit. Mathematically, sure. But quality? I dunno, give me my 20s back…

Tonight we saw a promo for John Mayer’s VH1 Storytellers, and Z turned to me and asked, “You know who John Mayer is dating?”
“No, who?”
“Taylor Swift.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.”
I enjoy our little talks…

The MegaMillions jackpot is up to $144M. If I won, I would go back to school to get PhDs in the following:

• English
• Philosphy
• Rhetoric
• Theology
• and Criminal Justice

#78

Something you may not know about me–I think the most perfect rock song of all time is “Louie Louie.” Verse-chorus-verse, catchy as all hell tune, good as pop, punk, R&B, etc. Next to “Route 66,” I think it’s one of the most covered songs. I’ve spent the last hour (in lieu of a real BCS game) watching Louie Louie videos on YouTube. Personally, I think the best rendition is by The Topics, though there isn’t a video of them. So, which video best represents Louie Louie. Black Flag? Fat Boys? Iggy Pop? Smashing Pumpkins? The Kingsmen? I think it’s Motorhead–

Cowbell…

The music in our house growing up usually happened when my parents had their friends over for cards. The reel-to-reel hi-fi let loose Manilow, Croce, Denver, Simon/Garfunkel and The Carpenters. I play music when Z is here, and try to switch it up as much as I can, trying to instill some sense of wholeness with her musical tastes–jazz, rock, rap, etc. Today while Z was in the tub getting clean for a birthday party, I had the Grateful Dead on, and was gathering my tools to fix her toilet. For a few weeks now, her toilet has been making a really annoying, rhythmic hissing/croaking sound. The rhythm of Scarlet Begonias was in almost perfect sync with the croaking toilet. She stood up in the tub and started doing a hula dance (the kind of hippy looking movements you’d have seen at a Dead show). She was laughing so much and kept dancing. I decided not to fix the toilet, and joined in the dance to the Dead…

Almost done Christmas shopping. Today was a good effort. I think Santa Claus is pretty well stocked. Tomorrow is shopping for my family, then we’re ready for some mutherf*cking yuletide cheer up in this mutherf*cker, as Li’l Jon would say. (Yes, we’ve listened to Li’l Jon during Tubby Time before–bleeped version. It’s funny because there are so many bleeps, Z thought there was something wrong with the song.)…

Work on a Saturday, so very tired. Can’t think of anything compelling at all to share. So… There is this:

I’m a long-time fan of the Black Keys, who rock a good 85% harder than the White Stripes ever did. Similar, but different: The Heavy. I’m sure this one song will get ample airplay in this country soon enough (if not already–haven’t really tuned in to the radio in a while). But I heard this on KEXP recently, and got a bunch more of their songs–all really good stuff…