A Day About Town

When I have extra time, which comes infrequently but in spurts, I like to go to the public library and read magazines. I’ve got some time right now, as evidenced by the fact that I’m finally able to update this blog – lately I’ve been too busy to write but also too busy to have any thoughts, which I could subsequently write about, so it’s worked out. I took some pictures and had more than 140 characters to say about them, so here we are. It’s a quick and lazy way to get back in action with the blog. Sorry if it looks like a tumblr, but I do what I want.

A couple of years ago I got stuck in a study carrel at the Bentonville Public Library. I had been locked in somehow and was debating whether to start banging on the door and making a spectacle of myself screaming “Help! I’m trapped in the study!” I got the number for the library though and called them, to discreetly let them know I needed a maintenance guy or someone to come open the door, and they said “Um, push it.”

I found this sign yesterday and I’m wondering if I should feel vindicated because these instructions are clearly needed for all carrel patrons, or dumb all over again because these signs are generally only posted for idiots.

The library has been really crowded lately, because it’s summertime. I’m really loyal to libraries and I know I should be happy to see them swelling with patrons, but I find the summertime crowds loud and germy. So I left.

I went for a walk around the square in Bentonville, because waiting out my dad while he’s at the hospital gym takes like forever. My favorite store (maybe) is this supply store for teachers and their ilk. They have the best stickers. I think I’m going to take my niece there this week, because she just turned six and needs a gift, but really because I want an excuse to buy things there.

They have all the signs teachers need for classrooms. 

But they also have things for home schoolers.

They have a ton of cool pencils.

And Pizza Fractions!

This sign reminds me of Mike Birbiglia’s Simple Pizza Mathematics, which is an important read.

I was excited because I thought I found a snow cone stand across from the farmers’ market at the water park. Then I realized it was a crepe cart, and that is so stupid. I like crepes as much as the next guy, but who eats hot fruit when it’s 95 degrees outside? Get over yourselves.

There’s a good amount of running water in downtown Bentonville. Makes me think of my friend Megan, who works in Community Development in Chapel Hill - she gets all excited about running water in public places where children can congregate in the summertime. I search for places with air conditioning; children seek out water. Bentonville may be a bunch of uppity snobs, but if you can ride a bike around with your kids in the summer, and play at a water fountain, and get some crepes, and stop by the library, maybe it’s not such a bad place to be.

Top 5 Movies to Watch During the Potential Government Shutdown

With the looming possibility that Congress will not pass a budget and the cogs that turn the American machine will jam and rust over (more or less) the best thing I can think to do is watch movies and hide under the covers waiting for the sun of a functioning bureaucracy to shine again. Below are some of my favorite movies related to politics and government:  a mix of inspiring, critical, and satirical that will make you the appropriate mix of fed-up and pissed off. Enjoy with a beer named after a famous patriot, and you can throw the bottle at the wall while quoting our forefathers!

5. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – A man goes to Congress, does his job.

4. Quiz Show – A man goes to Congress, does his job.

3. All the King’s Men (1949) – A man enters into politics, becomes disappointing.

2. Nixon – A man enters into politics, becomes disappointing.

1. Duck Soup – A man enters into politics, becomes hilarious.

Top 5 More Important Questions Than "Does Angelina's New Tattoo Mean She's Having Another Baby?"

The internet is tackling the tough questions today. I’ve seen three different places pondering about Angelina Jolie’s new tattoo. Here are five questions you should ask yourself first, before investigating this totally important celebrity body art news.

5. How’s your Mama and them?

Have you talked to her lately? Do any of your cousins have new tattoos or new babies? Call home, child. She misses you.

4. Are you a good tipper?

Many people think they know the answer to this one, and they are wrong. The poor economy is hard on service industry employees who rely on tips to make up the huge gaping hole between their minimum wage and everybody else’s. Remember this: If you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to go. If you need a lesson, watch the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs ‘cause this shit’s important. And then watch the rest of the movie while you’re at it, because it’s been a while since you’ve seen it right?

3. Has Brad Pitt shaved his beard yet?

I think we all care a little more about this one, right? I mean, think of the smooth-skinned Adonis from Fight Club and now think of the scraggly, pajama-wearing hobo that walks around claiming to be Brad Pitt. Paul Newman got better looking with age, why can’t this guy?

2. Is the milk you’re drinking going to give you cancer?

Cause some of it might. Also check into your fresh produce, water bottles, cookware, shampoo, your sunscreen, or lack thereof. It’s coming from everywhere, guys. Everywhere.

1. Are you having a baby?

This is definitely the most important question you should ask yourself today, and every day. Far more relevant than the Jolie-Pitt’s growing clan is what’s happening in your own neighborhood. If you are unsure of the answer to this one, take a test or make a phone call right away, kiddos. And if you find out you are not having a baby, might as well celebrate with a new “I’m not having a baby” tattoo on your arm.

Top 5 Songs with Terrible Lyrics

Since I professed my love yesterday for songs with awful lyrics that happen to be catchy as hell, today’s hastily assembled Top 5 list is about songs with much worse lyrics than Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and will probably be famous for much longer. So turn down the hate, folks.

5. "Peaches" by Presidents of the United States of America – I love this song and let’s be honest, these lyrics are very stupid. Some people try to claim there’s a deeper meaning to them (sex) but there’s not. PUSA confirms it; this really is just a song about eating peaches.

4. "The Sign" by Ace of Base – As a kid, I listened to this cassette pretty much every day. And if I had the chance, I might do it today. They actually won awards for this song, and it’s awful. Random phrases like “under the pale moon, where I see a lot of stars” lead absolutely nowhere. Doesn’t matter. Everybody got into this jam.

3. "Catch My Disease" by Ben Lee – Maybe less famous than others, but just as nonsensical. I love Ben Lee, but this has to be the dumbest of his songs, which is probably why it was his biggest hit. Bubbly pop, a sing-song chorus, and instantaneous feel-good music (with clapping!) will bury this song in your head all day. I know it’s wrong, but I love it so.

2. "We Built This City" by Starship – I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t turn the radio up when this song comes on. It’s the best. And the worst. It was co-written by the great lyricist Bernie Taupin, which is shocking. This disappointing turn for the once great Jefferson Airplane has terrible lyrics. But it's got fantastic vocal harmony and it’s totally danceable! It makes you say “Hey you’re right! We did build this city on rock and roll! Defiance!”

1. "MMMBop" by Hanson – The ultimate nonsense song that heroically plagued a nation. It’s not easy to do, but “MMMBop” does it beautifully. But then again, these boys are from Tulsa, so you know, they’re badasses. The verses reach for some kind of meaning, but they never achieve it. And the chorus, as you know, is just a jumble of letters. They might mean something, after all “in an mmm bop they’re gone,” but they don’t. This song just gets better with age. If you haven’t listened to it in years, do yourself a favor and do so now. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Obsessions and Lessons

I’d like to make up for selfishly spending my time having fun in March instead of dutifully serving the readers of my blog, most of whom are curious European websurfers led here by accident (hi guys!). As I’m working to catch up on four weeks’ worth of podcasts and wasting time on the computer, I’ll be in blogging overdrive. Up first, because it’s been a while, this week’s obsessions are as follows:

This “Friday” Cover - I haven’t heard Rebecca Black singing “Friday” but like everyone else, I’ve seen the malicious backlash against it, and frankly I don’t get it. If you don’t like the song, ignore it. It’s not hurting you. From the lyrics I heard in this cover, it’s just a high school version of so many Ke$ha songs. It’s not clever, but get over yourself. I have a soft spot for songs that aren’t that good but are catchy as hell, because it takes some skill to write a hook that gets a song stuck in your head incessantly (See: “Hook” by Blues Traveler, an ode to the mad skillz it takes to say absolutely nothing and make you love it).

This cover is likable though, because this girl can sing pretty well, and she’s so darn adorable. Polka dots, black nail polish and west side bangs, girl you are so Wicker Park. Let’s talk about Etsy sometime. Her performance gets the whole point of a nothing song that just makes you smile, and her ad-lib is sweet. “Forget the hate that you may have read, and replace it with all kinds of love instead.” Amen.

3eanuts – It’s a tumblr page hosting classic Peanuts comics with the last panel removed, to highlight the existential malaise of the young gang. This is genius: taking away the joke becomes the joke. How perfect is that? Looking at how dead on the comics were sans punchlines, it's a good reminder that Charles Schultz was the Man.

Whatever the Opposite of Prince William’s Wedding Is – Coming from someone who has a lot of time to waste on inconsequential nonsense and has a serious obsession with weddings, I don’t care.

Talking to People on the Subway – I talk to people on the train all the time. I talk to people on the way to the train, walking down the sidewalk. But the maker of this short film has a point, which is that people don’t. His daring is greater than just the outgoing among us who make friends for ten minutes though, because he decides to overcome the separateness of commuters by tackling the kind of deep questions that insist upon connection. Even those that don’t want to participate are made to acknowledge their fellow passengers, and I’d like to think their interest was piqued to listen to their interviews. This video is provocative, at least for its 12 minutes.

NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament playing “Born This Way” like, all the time – I thought of this last week when I caught Victoria Jackson blabbering on Showbiz Tonight about how Glee turns kids into homos or something. She’s turned into a real jackass since her SNL days. Finding religion ≠ turning into a bigot. I turned the t.v. off; I don’t know why we tune in to crazy instead of tuning out (ahem Charlie Sheen) but there was some talk of it the next day. I thought of this: Victoria Jackson can go on Showbiz Tonight and rattle off her hate, but CBS Sports is repeatedly playing “Born This Way” over their slam dunk montages and poster shots. Who has the bigger audience? Would such a song have been played over the tourney 15 years ago? There’s some social change for your bitch ass, Victoria.

**Bonus! Top 5 List!**

Since Top 5 Lists are the easiest way to make up for sparse posting, I’ll have one for every day this week! I started a new job last week that I’m pretending has kept me busy, but really I only worked 26 hours, which is much less than half of what I used to work when I had a real grown-up job. I work for a fancy butcher shop, but my job is to tend their small meat counter at a grocery store, and it’s boring. I took it for two reasons:  a) It leaves me plenty of time to take my dad to his doctor’s appointments and physical therapy, and make him sandwiches;  b) I don’t have much experience with meat (hardy har okay maybe a third reason is meat jokes). So I’m attempting to learn a few things, and in honor of this, here are the Top 5 Things I’ve Learned At My New Job:

5. Sirloin is the squishiest kind of beef.

4. English people pronounce the word “filet” as “fill-it”.

3. Nobody out there knows how to cook flank steak. Except me, because this is the one cut of beef I’m very familiar with. The rest of y’all are fools. If you eat meat, this is one worth learning, folks. If you don’t like it, you’re doing it wrong (this maxim applies to more than just meat).

2. The butcher actually has all his fingers, but his thumb has been re-attached (sliced off by bone saw).

1. I do not want to be a butcher.

A Very Important Matter of Taste

I watched The Godfather with my parents tonight, because my mother doesn’t like it. That seems nonsensical, but it’s very important to me, actually, that my mother likes The Godfather. We got into a discussion the other day where she admitted that she didn’t like it, and I set out to make a believer out of her. I made marinara sauce, like Clemenza, to win her over with spaghetti and meatballs. I convinced myself that if she were in the right mood, and I could build enough excitement, she’d enjoy it. She’d get it. She’d realize how wrong she was to write it off when she saw it in the theater 40 years ago. It didn’t work. She said it was boring. The Godfather is not boring. It demands an acute attentiveness which, if given properly, rewards you with one of the most engrossing movie experiences you can find. She didn’t get it.

Why is it so important to us that our loved ones share our interests? It’s nice to have things in common, to discuss and share, and it’s nice to have different favorite movies, like different bands and read different books to keep things interesting. But don’t we all have one or two things we value enough that it’s an outright problem if someone we respect doesn’t appreciate them? I mean, could you love someone who doesn’t love Otis Redding? Could you respect someone who doesn’t like The Godfather? Could I marry someone who doesn’t like Southern poetry?  It’s so silly, but so easy to get hung up on these things. This whole ordeal with my mom just makes me think of how hard it would be to put up with a guy who didn’t like the right things, brings up my fear that I really will get attached to someone who doesn’t like Miller Williams or Robert Penn Warren. Wouldn’t that be a problem?

If your affection for High Fidelity is as intense as mine (if it isn’t, I probably have a problem with that) you know what I’m talking about. Nick Hornby says, and it feels so true, that what matters is what you like, more than what you are like. I’ve agreed and disagreed with this, back and forth over the years. The first gut reaction is “yes! of course!” but as I grew out of being as pretentious and judgmental about artistic tastes as I once was, I sort of let it go. Rob Gordon and company are pretentious and judgmental and were exactly what I wanted to be, what my asshole friends and I prided ourselves on being back in college. But that’s all bullshit. It’s such a snobbish way to walk through the world, looking down on people for owning Julio Iglesias albums. When I got more comfortable with liking things that weren’t high brow or obscure, enjoying things because they were enjoyable, not just because they were good, I decided that what matters isn’t what you like as much as why you like it. That’s where the good stuff is. Liking terrible music because you listened to it with your parents on car trips; watching crappy movies because you always watch them with the same person. The relationship someone has with the things they like is way more interesting than a list of all the right favorite things.

But that only goes so far. I still can’t get past it when someone doesn’t love what I love. What you dislike, that matters. It matters what you like when it doesn’t include The Godfather. To say that “it’s no good pretending any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party” is placing too much importance on approving of your counterpart’s interests. Let that stuff go. The troublesome stuff is this: when that which you connect to most deeply in the world is totally unaffecting to someone you care about. The art that you’re most passionate about in the world, the books, the movies, the music you love, these things define you as a person. They’re part of you. I don’t want someone who thinks I’m funny or nice or smart, I want someone who knows what I’m talking about when I talk about the last verse of “Oh My Sweet Carolina.”  Sharing that with somebody – that’s the point.

I’ve run into the problem of having too much in common with a guy. It’s boring. There’s never anything to argue about, and you don’t learn anything new. Maybe we should just let go of the compulsion to impose our favorite things onto other people. So what if they don’t like what we do? What does it hurt? Surely we can find other points to relate on. But there’s something so satisfying about that moment when someone tells you they love what you do, so reassuring. And there’s something so great about falling for something that someone else loves, and passes on to you. Is it enough? Is going without it enough?

I’m not a person with a lot of answers. I told my mom to try and dream about The Godfather and we’d talk in the morning. Last night after my sister read The Great Gatsby for the first time and said she didn’t like it, I spent ten minutes telling her why I loved it and what’s so great about F. Scott Fitzgerald, and by the end she was telling me all her favorite things about it, saying that talking about it had changed it for her. I have a friend who doesn’t like High Fidelity, but I haven’t resigned the idea that I can win him over. And that’s the part that makes me feel okay about not having any answers. There’s hope in believing that you can still help to change someone’s mind, but even better than that is knowing that you still want to.

Wolves in Sheep's Kosher Clothing

You know that stinging feeling you get when you’re flirting with a guy because you think he’s Jewish and then you find out he’s not? Maybe?

If you’re unfamiliar, it’s like when you’re at a bar and you think you’ve found an adorable new gay friend but then you find out he’s just really stylish and his friends are homophobic. Thanks for getting my hopes up, guys from Madison County who still call their friends gay. Pssh.

That rug-pulled-out-from-under-you feeling is the worst. When I found this Gawker article about a Jewish soccer team that’s not even comprised of real Jewish guys, I was reminded of that feeling, the disbelief, the betrayal. How can we sleep at night knowing there are men out there just posing as Jews, constructing elaborate lies and secret identities for personal gain? In the case of these footballers (they’re in England, I think that’s what they call it) it’s the typical example of faking it for no good reason. Why not just join another league? People like me can’t handle this deception. It shakes the foundation of my beliefs. Okay, beliefs might be a strong word for irrepressible attraction to Jewish guys. Whatever. But still – is there nothing left in this world we can trust?

In the case of the guy I thought was Jewish but wasn’t, he was at least straightforward about it. He looked really Jewish, I assumed he was Jewish, and then he apologetically explained he was Irish Catholic, but he “gets that a lot.” My heart sank, but at least I knew what I was dealing with. I could still trust him and things started to look up when he said “But I’m adopted, so you know, I could be Jewish for all we know.” If he’d lied, I would feel pretty awful about making out with him.

Maybe this is a victimless crime, but surely the Maccabi Southern Football League would disagree. Who will be your next unwitting victim, fake Jews? Unsuspecting women everywhere, beware. And if you undress a guy, be sure to check his clothing labels for shatnez.

The people I'm most afraid of

These are scary times to be a woman. Hell, they’re scary times to be anyone. But every time the right wing opens its mouth about issues affecting women’s reproductive rights, I get a little more nervous. Maybe it’s just the typical consequence of listening to the media too carefully, but I’m starting to fear a devastating snowball effect of their power.

It started last week with the news that they were attempting to redraw rape provisions in medically covered abortions under the new healthcare laws. Rape abortions could only be covered by insurance in instances of “forcible rape” which is, evidently, much worse than the other kinds. I don’t know how the chips are going to fall with healthcare coverage or how this will affect private insurance, so I’m not going to concern myself with it now. But I’m terrified by the fact that, in their efforts to ostracize and demonize women who choose to exercise control over their reproductive rights, they have become indifferent to those they even concede are rape victims. They are throwing them under the bus. Apparently victims of statutory rape and incest or those that have been drugged might as well carry out those pregnancies because, how traumatic is that, really? Even in some instances of date rape (which are very hard to prove in courts of law, with defense lawyers as determined to make a whore out of a woman as anti-abortion types) it seems as if, having your body assaulted and your most sacred human possession stolen from you without violence, you’re pretty lucky and should probably just live with the consequences. It was probably your fault anyway.

And then there is this article about anti-abortion rights activists’ attempts to cut all federal funds from Planned Parenthood because the organization uses private funds to provide abortion services to women. Planned Parenthood provides affordable medical services including exams, STD testing and treatment, and education and support for safe sex, invaluable services for both women and men. Their programs prevent pregnancies, but activists would like to completely cripple the organization by withholding public funds, leaving millions of people without the resource they’ve come to depend on for come-as-you-are medical care. More leaving people in the lurch – casting them out in the cold because they deserve their comeuppance if they deign to practice their own sexual morality. After all, sexually transmitted diseases are God’s punishment for sinful behavior and everyone knows that no married people, bound in holy matrimony in the eyes of the Lord, would need low-cost contraceptives or frivolous things like exams and cancer screenings.

I’ve been a long-time believer in the legal right to choose, sharing the view that abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare” as Bill Clinton put it, in a moment that made me think “yes, finally!” In the Southern Baptist church I attended in junior high, where there were no qualms about endorsing “the candidate who doesn’t want to kill babies” I cringed and sat silently, hating that they had ignorant things like that to say that were so effective falling on the ears of congregants afraid to think for themselves. At 14-years-old I knew better. I knew that choice is not dependent on law, that desperate women have always had options, however grim and ghastly. The dangers of outlawing abortion are horrifying. This essay, which is linked from the one discussed above, is not for the faint of heart. A doctor recalls his experiences repairing the damage done by illegal abortions back in the early years of his career. I’m glad though that I have heard stories like these since I was a child, since I grew up with a hearty fear of what would happen if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned. It’s made me wary of all the people who wish to boil it down to a black and white issue, try to focus on one part of a very painful, complicated and ultimately personal issue and trick you into turning your back on women in trouble.

My freshman year of college, I was at a Rock The Vote event with a couple of friends, shortly before America inexplicably said “No really, we want George W. Bush” at the polls. A friend of mine, whose lack of political knowledge was heartbreaking, asked me to explain some issues for her, and break down the divisions between the major parties so she could prepare to vote for the first time. Being from Arkansas, she assumed she was a Republican, and the church-spouted rhetoric that dominates all political conversation there became very evident with the first question she asked me. “Which party is pro-abortion?” I tried to be respectful and not let my jaw drop, and answered “Nobody is pro-abortion” and tried to explain the battle between reproductive rights and the limiting thereof. It’s a tough side we’re on, people who vehemently defend the right to choose. Often when we stand up for reproductive rights, we get the sinking feeling that what people are hearing is “Abortions are fun and easy and I like them and I’m only on my third one!” Of course not. I don’t like abortion. It’s difficult being passionate about an issue you don’t like. But I care deeply about people who have to face the issue.

The friend I mentioned had always believed she aligned with whomever wasn’t pro-choice, because it’s easy to think that, when you hear it the way they tell it to you. But before she cast her ballot she would find herself a 17-year-old girl, just embarking on the bright future ahead of her, pregnant by her boss at her high school job, a man in his late twenties with no notion of responsibility who made no gesture to help her or see her again. I’ve never seen or heard of her father, and her mother was battling cancer. She was completely on her own. Choice is not a campaign issue when you are looking at a plus sign on a stick. It is a very private and personal reality that you wouldn’t want a hundred million strangers deciding for you. She knew then that she believed in the right to choose, and regretted thinking she knew the right answers for people in circumstances she’d never faced. I won’t say what decision she made, because that’s not relevant. The debate over choice is not one that should be decided by actions or inactions. It’s not black and white.

I’m thankful for the commitment that Planned Parenthood has, and the conviction of the people who work in their offices and provide care for people in need. I’m thankful for the bravery of doctors who helped women prior to 1973 to receive safe treatment at the risk of their own careers. I understand the beliefs and motivations of those who are anti-abortion rights, but I will never understand their willingness to turn their backs on women in need, women who are suffering, women who have been raped by those they trusted, or women who depend on non-profits like Planned Parenthood for vital medical care. The blindness and lack of empathy they so willfully flaunt breaks my heart, but it is also dangerous to us all.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I like your typical holidays – Christmas is nice and my birthday lasts two pretty terrific weeks usually – but tomorrow marks the beginning of my very favorite time of year. Beginning now in the dead of winter and extending until early April is my season. The high holy days that I look forward to all year and miss as soon as they are gone. They are, in succession, TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar and the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I have no need to lament the weather outside when I can get genuinely excited about being stuck in the house all day staring at my television like a true, red-blooded American.

March Madness is still a ways away; these are the days of studious preparation (or in my case, blind delusion mixed with scorn) but fortunately TCM’s annual cinema celebration is here just in time for the winter storm that will surely kill us all. Every movie the network plays will have been nominated for an Academy Award in some category and they are grouped each day according to themes. If you find yourself snowbound this week, these are my best bets to pass the time:

Citizen Kane – kick off the festival tomorrow with what is widely praised as the best movie of all time. Airing at noon central time (as all listings will be here), it’s an obligatory viewing for everyone at some point in life, so why not watch it when you have absolutely nothing else to do? It’s a perfect snow day movie – there’s a sled. But that’s as much as I’ll say about that.

Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider – Wednesday night is a marathon of Jack Nicholson films, and these are the most exciting. Airing at 7p.m. and 11:30, you’ll have no reason to miss them if you live somewhere where you’re actually expected to go to your job in the middle of Snowmageddon or the Icepocalypse. Back in the early days before the unbearable ego and one-note performances, Nicholson was just a terrific actor, which is why he has more Oscar nominations than anyone else. You don’t want to miss the man at his best, and maybe films about the irrepressible fight for freedom will help those trapped-in-the-Overlook-Hotel feelings you’ll surely be facing before you wind up searching for an axe.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and A Streetcar Named Desire – Thursday brings the goods with classics featuring family tension that might make you pretty pleased to be snowed in by yourself. There are two rules of thumb with classic cinema: Watch anything with Sidney Poitier, and watch anything with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Guess Who at 9:30a.m. meets both rules, so no sleeping in. And the only thing in the world wrong with A Streetcar Named Desire is that Jessica Tandy is not in it, and Vivien Leigh almost always annoys me. But she won an Oscar for it, as did Karl Malden and Kim Hunter. Only Marlon Brando didn’t, and he defined the Stanley Kowalski role for the rest of eternity. So there. Airs at 4:30.

The Lion in Winter and The Bridge on the River Kwai – Friday offers up more Katharine Hepburn at 1:45, bringing it hard as Eleanor of Aquitaine alongside Peter O’Toole and a young and sprightly Anthony Hopkins. This is a favorite for any history nerd, as is The Bridge on the River Kwai at 9p.m.. This one will probably make you cry, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

If you need me this week, I’ll be getting “snow drunk” (where you can drink wine all day long because you can’t have anywhere to go) and burning my retinas with the great American pastime.

This Is What I Did Today

It’s been a lazy Sunday, and I spent a good part of it shopping the internet for free music, as has become my habit. And since I’m a thoughtful, sharing person, I thought I’d parlay my hard work into your reward and give you the best free music I’ve downloaded this week. You’re welcome.

Low Rising by the Swell Season – This single is over a year old, but it showed up as a free download on the 93XRT website earlier this week for some reason. Doesn’t matter why, because this is one of my favorite songs, and I jumped on that immediately. If you loved Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in Once singing “Falling Slowly” you’ll love this song as well. The instrumentation and Hansard’s voice combine perfectly – this is one of the sexiest songs you’ll hear today.

Violin by Amos Lee – iTunes has this one off of Lee’s brand new album Mission Bell as their free Discovery Download of the week. Lee’s vocal is great on this song, which doesn’t really sound like anything new, but it doesn’t really have to. You want it anyway.

Get Some by LykkeLi – This is one badass Swedish broad crooning “don’t make demands, I don’t take none.” The percussion on this song and her unmistakably European sing-song voice will have this one interminably stuck in your head. The bright side is that it sounds really, really good.

Cousins by Mumford and Sons – Vampire Weekend’s upbeat ditty “Cousins” gets made over with Mumford and Son’s signature folk/bluegrass sound and it works perfectly. Marcus Mumford’s deep, gritty voice is the opposite of Ezra Koening’s peppy style. Combined with the earthy arrangement, it sounds like any song you’d hear in a backwoods barn dance. And I would know.

Black and Gold by Wale – I am a big fan of Sam Sparro’s “Black and Gold” – just try to sit still while listening to it – but to my surprise Wale managed to make it way better by rapping over it. I love this right now.

99 Problems by Jay-Z with the Dap Kings – Continuing the remixes. This song is not new at all, but I just found it today, and this is what my life has been missing. The hard-rocking original is irreplaceable, but it’s definitely a welcome change to hear this Prince Ballard incarnation. Where the original was an incensed, driven rock, this relaxed version sounds like Jay-Z is just sitting across the room, telling you a story about his bullshit day while the jazzy soul sound of the Dap Kings crackles from your record player. That’s my new favorite daydream. As a bonus there’s a super sexy photo of the man to admire while you download.

Rolling in the Deep/Childish Gambino Remix by Jamie XX – I’m loving this mash-up of Adele’s latest single combined with raps by the alter ego of Community’s Donald Glover. Despite his age, Glover has a teenager’s voice with no hint of swagger, but his wit and smart rhymes make him worth listening to. The layering of both artist’s songs to lost lovers is what’s compelling here. Adele can get revenge on anybody with those pipes, and Childish Gambino uses a sharp tongue to put his ex in her place. When you get to the end of this, you just think “somebody just got told off good.”

Also, if you haven’t heard Adele’s “Rolling In the Deep” yet, get your head out of your ass. The video is here, and it will give you goose bumps.

This Week's Obsessions Are As Follows

These photos from the Kingston Lounge – This photo essay of an abandoned quarantine hospital on North Brother Island in New York’s East river is incredible. The history he includes is very cool and the photos are both beautiful and interesting. I keep going back to this over and over. Eventually I’ll get to the rest of the blog.

Kids Politics – Last Friday's episode of This American Life centers around children learning about democracy and trying to practice self-governance, and it’s even more moving and compelling than usual. Maybe just because I’m a sucker for stories about kids. But it’s hard to not want to hug these youngsters who want to create a world according to their vision of fairness and goodness. The segments about the Reagan library (there is no better voice to tell this story than Starlee Kine <3 ) and the young Glenn Beck devotee conjure a discouraging skepticism about these students’ prospects of navigating a complicated and demanding political landscape in the coming years. The frustration in their voices is heartbreaking, and reminds me of my own desperate wish for a system that doesn’t seem to always be defeating us instead of making progress. But where I hear a premature resigned cynicism in my own voice, I hear the passion in theirs that only comes with not even having thought about giving up yet. It’s almost worse, knowing what they’re in for.

Discouraging skepticism is not really something I’m in short supply of, having spent a good amount of time on Sunday discussing “kids today” and how unfortunate they are to have all those damn cell phones and Rihanna romanticizing getting the shit knocked out of her (if you’ve not heard my “Love the Way You Lie” rant, you are luckier than a lot of people at the Blue Dome Diner). So it’s a really good thing Ira begins and ends with uplifting segments that let us cuddle with the warm and fuzzy hope that the youth will change the world for the better. A third grade class – in CHINA – practices democracy and somehow manages to independently invent and destroy negative smear campaigns, realizing that they feel better when they are nice to each other. If you’re not getting verklempt yet, the story about the kooky-hippie-experimental-free school where the kids call all the shots will get to you. Even though this is a test tube with a small population that miraculously makes it happen, students who have a say in their rules actually self-correct the amount of time they spend on computers and gadgets and decide to not call each other whores. It’s amazing.

This left me feeling mostly great, with just a few reservations, which is nice. I guess the scary stuff is good for you, and that small percentage of me that’s not totally dejected really wants to try and save the world. I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way (unless you’re going to teach them wrong, scary Reagan library people, then just shut the hell up).

College Radio – I really don’t know how or why I got into this, but I can’t stop. I’ve stumbled upon a curiosity to know what kind of music college radio stations across the country are playing and how good they are at it. But it’s become sort of a train wreck of a hobby. Once I find a good station it is really hard to turn away. With Pandora, I turn it off and it stops existing. But with the radio I just know I’m going to miss something good, and listening to far off and distant college stations seems like accidentally finding a frequency on a ham radio that you probably shouldn’t have, and maybe never will again.

I don’t listen to Ivy League stations – I don’t need their condescension. “Not only do I go to Princeton but I know about all the indie bands you don’t.” Pass. I like community and regional colleges a lot. This blog post was composed while listening to KVSC 88.1FM from St. Cloud State University. I like listening to Chicago stations, to remind me of my dear city. I feel like I know these people. Radio DePaul is the best I’ve found, but this familiarity has gotten me into trouble.

I really should not listen to college radio because now that I’m old and uncool, I get way too jealous of any girl d.j. with good taste in music who also plays video games and knows cool stuff about comic books or geeky genre movies and probably has a perfect pair of cat-eye glasses, because I know she must have no trouble scoring with all the nerd guys that I pined for in college. It’s ridiculous to be jealous of the anonymous DePaul student on the computer radio hundreds of miles away, but it’s also ridiculous to get choked up and a little teary when she plays a Yellowcard song I used to listen to freshman year. It happened anyway. I just know she looks like Ellen Page and when she makes an offhand remark about dancing around in her underwear to hellogoodbye you can almost hear her co-host guy falling in love with her as he mutters “Um, uh... we should talk about something else.”

But it’s nice to remind myself, when she says to him “Oh you’re 21, you’re old now” that they are just kids. And when she plays a Format song that I once played on my college radio show four years ago, I see it all coming full circle. One day a few years from now she’ll be a single 25-year-old trying to figure out how to meet people in Chicago after all her friends have moved away, wondering where all the cute, non-married guys who don’t wear Axe or cutoff shorts are. At least, I hope she’s got those problems. If 29-year-old me actually does have to compete with a perfect, smart, manic pixie dream girl 25-year-old her, I’m going to be fucking pissed.

Take Me Back To Tulsa

I haven’t had much to say lately, which is a new feeling for me, but I’ve been sort of busy. It’s a surprise to me too. Last weekend I went to Tulsa for my best friend Casey’s birthday, which was a dream come true for me. For one thing, I have a serious crush on Tulsa. I’ll admit it. And I think it’s okay. Someone told me recently that Tulsa is reputedly becoming a “Little Austin.” That’s not surprising. Some of your very favorite musicians are from Tulsa, you probably just don’t know it. But while the trend in recent years has been to move away to say, Austin, there is a new wave of musicians who are staying local and keeping it fresh in the Big T. I’ve read it in a couple of magazines, but also had a genuine Austinite telling me last week how much he loves Tulsa and the totally legit music scene they’ve got going. So there.

I would love Tulsa even if not for these things though, simply because it was my second home growing up. Its cool new rep gives me an excuse to love it when I’m trying to justify it to outsiders, but my adoration is more sentimental. That’s why, as much as I loved going to the cool new bar in the Blue Dome district to see the rock band play, I think I had more fun at the Caravan Cattle Company, which is a cowboy dance hall of the highest esteem. I spent all of last week looking forward to the retro boot-scootin’ scene that I’d get to soak up under the guise of celebrating Casey (like I can’t do that from home?). Growing up in Arkansas I visited a few dances at American Legion and VFW buildings, attempting to two-step around a dance floor and line dance with the best of them. But these were small, community places where everybody knows your name, or will call you one if they don’t. The idea of the Caravan is enticing to me though because it’s in Oklahoma, where my parents lived in the early 80’s, back in the heyday of big country dance halls. It was on a trip to OKC a few years ago when I discovered that they used to go out to those clubs all the time. When I learned we’d be going to the Caravan I pulled out old photo albums to pore over pictures of them with my dad dressed up in his trademark plaid and my mother with big, big hair. Visions of Urban Cowboy danced in my head, I could almost smell the Bud Light as I went to sleep at night. I couldn’t wait.

Mom and Dad way back when

And it was everything I hoped for. There was a sea of flannel shirts and cowboy hats, there was swirly, twirly two-steppin’, there was loud country music, a guy with a mustache asked me to dance. There were some things that seemed out of place, like the Affliction tees and the brief hip-hop interlude where we got to feel fly like a G6, and my friends and I got to dance and shout to a Ke$ha song with the joyful abandon of youth after all, so that dream came true in the unlikeliest of places. But those things make sense actually, since really it is the Caravan that is probably out of place. The very reason I wanted to go there is because line dancing went out of fashion 15 years ago. The giant dance hall can stand strong against the Oklahoma winds but even the Caravan can’t withstand the winds of change. Ke$ha will find you wherever you go. Playing old Alan Jackson music and line dances can create an atmosphere for a while, but seeing more people out on the dance floor for “We R Who We R” the place still looks like 2011. I can wear a western shirt and a year’s worth of eyeliner, but I’ll never be able to tease my hair as big as my mom’s. I would have loved to look the part, but when I was clumsily trying to hop around and stomp the dance floor, ultimately I just looked like myself.

I rocked plaid all the time in the 80s

(yes this was taken in Tulsa, duh)

(I drew an arrow for you)

 Hope you all had a weekend as cool as mine.

The dresses are all that really matter, right?

Last night reminded me of something I tend to forget, which is that the Golden Globes are completely irrelevant. I attempted to watch for a few minutes, but between the awkward order of the awards, the way they had people introducing their own films for Best Picture awards, and the fact that they gave an award to Burlesque, I realized that the Golden Globes are like the Deep Impact or Edtv of awards shows. They realize they are doing the same thing that other awards shows are doing and hope that, by setting themselves apart by appearing first or far enough after, people will pay attention. But they just don’t get it right. Hollywood pays attention to the Globes for about a month and then everything belongs to Oscar. It seems like television harps on Golden Globe achievements even less. The self-congratulations fall silent after a couple of weeks because the Emmys define good television.

The Golden Globes are awkward. The television awards get pushed aside – it seems like the night had barely started when they gave the award for Best Drama series, which is the ultimate prize at the Emmys – or are combined carelessly in categories that compare apples to airplanes. The TV people spend all night in the shadow of Movies, but Movies only care about these awards as a prequel to real achievement.

I’ve always heard that the Golden Globes are the most fun awards party, and that the stars like mingling with one another and having a big table full of food and drinks to enjoy while people aren’t talking about them. I think we should just let the Golden Globes be the fancy midwinter fashion show that it is, and let the beautiful people have their party with Ricky Gervais, because that’s fun. But pretending to assign significance to the trophy is a little silly. I think next year I’ll watch the Red Carpet, then spend the evening actually watching good films or good television instead of inevitably feeling awkward and sorry for half the people in the auditorium. Then I’ll do what everyone else does, and wait for the Oscar nominations…

I need Yoshimi to help defend my laundry

The Future Dryer at my parents’ Jetsons house is like a laundry robot. I’ve seen these Future Machines on commercials and in demos at Sears over the last few years and it’s intriguing the things they can do nowadays. There’s steam baths and cold water ionic sanitizing with silver particles and I think if you tip the sales guy, the washers give you a happy ending.

The Whirlpool dryer at my parents’ house, which appeared sometime last spring, is a most curious thing. It thinks on its own, forms opinions, and uses those opinions to decide it can do something totally different than what you told it to. I wish I had a line to the holy ghost of Isaac Asimov to see what I should do about this. The dryer senses how wet your laundry is, and adjusts its drying game plan accordingly throughout the process. You can say you have “super delicate” clothes that need to be “more dry” on the “ultra low heat” setting and it says “okay that’s cool it will take 35 minutes.” Well, it doesn’t really talk, not like Rosie the robot, but there’s a digital number that you agree to when you press the start button. And then it starts “sensing.” And somewhere in those 35 minutes the dryer says to itself “oh this is totally not going to happen in 35 minutes, we are still like 40% dampness in here guys” and changes the display to 51 minutes before your very eyes. I say this because I tend to stare at the machine for most of the cycle to see what it will do next.

The Future Dryer is the most captivating appliance in the house, but not the only one that’s gotten to feel smarter than me since I got here (and I know it does). The night I first got here a couple weeks ago, my parents were still in Minnesota and I had the run of the place on my own. It’s probably for the best, because at least when the robots judge me they can’t talk about it – yet. I spent several minutes in the hallway staring down the thermostat and trying to figure out if it was trying to communicate with me. Really. The thing is, I would walk past it, and it would light up. It’s a blue LED screen with a digital rundown of the thermostatus (a word I just made up, I hope), that I thought was maybe motion sensitive. Perhaps it was saying, “you know, I’m right here, if you’d maybe like it a little cooler than this. Just checking.” The sad thing is, I lived here for a year, some time ago, and I once had a grasp on the Future Thermostat. But I gazed at it wide-eyed and perplexed for quite a while before I figured out it just lights up whenever anything changes, and that I was setting it off by opening and closing the front door a dozen times.

Honestly, my parents’ house isn’t really a Jetsons house. It is three years old, that’s it. Compared to a house that was built this year, it’s probably outdated. But for me, having a microwave that turns into a convection oven or a gas-electric hybrid Prius-like cooking range is jaw-dropping. My last apartment was about a hundred years old, and the appliances were all at least as old as me. I don’t know how to work a thermostat anymore because I’m used to the ancient gas furnace with a dial that I can’t read and a crack in the front glass (that’s safe, right?) that had two settings, in my opinion – “hot with flames” and “it’s cold why can’t I see fire?” I maybe used the oven three times in the year I lived there because it was a gas oven, and gas ovens suck a lot. I did my laundry around the corner at a place where the dryer had two settings on the dial and there was a wood-paneled t.v. set in the corner with vestigial rabbit ears, propped up on a box on one of the folding tables. I wonder, when the Maytag guy was installing those washers and dryers in the 1960’s, if he could see the future George and Jane and Judy and Elroy enjoyed ever becoming a reality.

As crazy as it sounds, I miss my old apartment. When I speak of it reverently, I call it a shitbox. Other times I’m less kind, more honest. There were days I got stuck in my bedroom because the inside of the door never had a knob. Since the door hung crooked, a gust of wind could suck it closed and jam it in the frame. The gas leak that persisted the last few months I lived there was repeatedly a pain in the ass. And I’m still suspicious that the attic was haunted by the 94-year old woman who lived there for 50 years before she died.

But there was a sense of connection there that was unique and inimitable. Last year when I was reading The Jungle in my tiny bedroom I could imagine cold and weary Chicagoans hiding from the wind in that room a century ago, or opening the same window for a summer breeze when it got so hot out that people were collapsing in the streets. I miss doing laundry and catching up on my telenovelas at the same time, while wondering how that teeny tiny hipster is going to fit in those teeny tiny jeans he just folded. Laundromat people are irritating, and always fighting with their children about something. But when one of your neighbors holds the door while you carry your things out into the street and hands you the sock you dropped, you feel a part of a community. There was no hiding from the people who lived next to me, or across the alley from me, or in the same room as me generations ago. Maybe at times I wanted to, but if it comes down to choosing that or being isolated in a bubble helmet and arguing with the sassy robots that do my household chores, I’m not sure the Future is for me.