Foals
My Number (2013)
At a time when I’m finding lots of early- and mid-1980s music virtually unlistenable (maybe due to burnout after thirty years of near constant exposure) I’m really finding I like a lot of this neo-1980s stuff–both in English and French. Go figure…
This, on the other hand, is crap. Twenty-seven years and a Kickstarter campaign and this is the best they could do? Really?
Phoenix
Trying to Be Cool (2013)
It was a band I’m familiar with through my unusual status as an anglophone American guy with a strange affection for francophone Canadian alt-rock.
Other random Monday stuff:
So the slashed tire was a drag, but the reaction of the guy at the tire dealership (which will remain nameless because I think he sort of broke the rules for me and I don’t want to get hm in trouble) was really great. He replaced my two-week-old tire at no charge even though the road hazard warranty really doesn’t cover idiots with knives. Points for both good customer service and being a generally nice guy.
And then when I got home today, I found a note from the guy who’s working on my bathrooms. On top of that note was my mom’s engagement ring, which we’d been looking for since she went into the nursing home. He found it in a floor crack in the bathroom where I’m guessing my mom had probably hidden it and then forgotten about it. Points for being incredibly honest.
Decent people. What a concept…
A friend posted this on Facebook today, joking that it was time to get rid of his e-cigs. So here’s my take: I’ll stipulate that smoking pot is almost certainly less of a health risk than smoking tobacco. It very well may not cause lung cancer. But can any rational human being really believe that intentionally and directly inhaling any kind of smoke could ever be a healthy–or even neutral–thing to do to your lungs?
Maybe I’m just being a self-righteous ex-smoker but “it probably doesn’t cause lung cancer” is not a ringing endorsement. Neither do heroin, booze, Chicken McNuggets, and Nickelback records, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good for you. Should icky, annoying vices be criminalized just because they’re potentially harmful? Of course not. But believing that smoking pot is a free ride healthwise is pretty much just delusional.
To say that the last three years have been really tough on me would be a pretty colossal understatement. Don’t believe me? Try losing three of the most important people in your life (two of them are technically still around but in a much altered format) while simultaneously trying to build a new career and pretty much rewrite all the rules of your life. It’s not easy. There were many times–more than I let on even to my closest friends–when my thoughts got pretty fucking dark.
I probably should have sought help earlier than I did. In retrospect, though, I think I handled it all pretty goddamned well. Did I spend a lot of nights curled up in a little ball on the couch barely able to move? Yes. Were there entire weekends when I felt completely paralyzed by everything I needed to do and instead just ate pizza and watched “Adam-12” reruns on Netflix? Damn straight. Was I incredibly angry and resentful about how my life had been so negatively impacted by other people, all of whom I loved but none of whom had given me any say in the matter? Oh yeah. In fact, I still am sometimes.
But you know what?
All of which makes me realize that I’m pretty fucking incredible and pretty fucking sane–at least in relative terms. I somehow managed to do some incredible things at work, to begin eating healthier and lose weight, to find some new things that make me happy, and to reconnect with some old friends. I still wouldn’t say I’m especially happy. I continue to feel a little overwhelmed by life. The next steps for me involve letting go of the past, finding more things that make me happy, eliminating things that make me unhappy, understanding my strengths and limitations, and regaining control. Oh yeah…and seeking help when needed.
Or that’s this week’s plan, at least.
Gary Wright
I Really Wanna Know You (1981)
Oh god, what a train wreck. This is one of those songs I’d (mercifully) forgotten about until I heard it this afternoon on an XM Top 40 countdown from August of 1981. The perpetrator is Gary Wright, better known for “Dream Weaver.”
This was the summer between my junior and senior years in high school and was the last time I ever really paid much attention to the whole Top 40 thing in any real way…most likely because of crap like this. This was the summer of Kenny Rogers and Alabama and “Elvira” and “Endless Love,” all of which fueled my ongoing conversion (begun two years earlier) into the alterna-boy you know today.
I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten Lutheran food. Is it terribly spicy?
Les Trois Accords
Bamboula (2012)
Love the band. Love the song. Absolutely fucking baffled by the video.
My new obsession this week is Naked City. I’ve been recording it off MeTV and now I have this (probably ill-advised) urge to buy the complete series on DVD in November.
It’s no big secret that I’m a sucker for old cop shows, specifically the ones that were shot on location in interesting urban areas, like The Streets of San Francisco (probably the best of the genre), Adam-12, Homicide, Cagney and Lacey, etc. Aside from being entertaining of their own accord, I love that they provide such a time capsule of what these cities really looked like at a specific time in the past, with diners and neon signs and dumpy furniture stores…and not an artisinal cronut stand in sight. It also helps that Naked City seems pretty consistent in its geographical accuracy; when they say they’re at Second Avenue and East Fourth Street, they really are. It’s always kind of a crap shoot on other shows.
Naked City is especially interesting, though, because it aired a good ten years earlier than most of my favorites and during a time when filimg on location was really unusual for a weekly TV series. It also has a sophistication that was lacking in most dramatic series of the time (it shared a creator with Route 66). All of this is making me wonder if it might actually be worth owning. I know you’ll be on the edge of your seats till November so I’ll let you know my decision as soon as possible.