Ticket anxiety

I bought tickets for Madonna’s World Tour 2012 (seriously, there’s not going to be a catchy name like Sticky & Sweet or even just MDNA Tour 2012?) Tuesday.  Buying Madonna tickets is always more anxiety-inducing than you might expect.  What should be an exhilarating event usually ends up stressing me out as at first you hope that you can even get tickets and then, when you get in, how much of your soul you’re going to have to sell for nosebleed seats.

This year I spent $18.95 for an Icon Live Pass – something through the official fan club that allowed you to have access to a presale 6 days prior to the general on-sale date.  They had a certain number of tickets allotted for the fan club and when they were gone, they were gone so even that didn’t guarantee seats.  Anyway, I did this because a friend of mine used it and ended up with pretty decent seats at the concert in his city so I thought what the hell?  At least I’d get into the fan club for a year and you got a free tour poster to boot – one less thing to haul home from the concert and keep unwrinkled during it.

As it turns out, it was the way to go.

In years past, we’ve pretty much always settled for the upper bowl.  You’re in the arena, but you’re still a long ways from the stage.  Last time around was the first time we’ve been head-on to the stage and actually, I felt further away from it than I had when we’d been on the sides of the stage.  It was nice to see the show as it was meant to be seen, but being so far away was also kind of a drag.  Sure they have the big screens, but I always feel like if I’m watching the screens, I might as well wait for DVD.  Yes, I realize all these things are first world problems of the highest degree.

So this time around, we have side seats again.  BUT we’re in the lower bowl.  Section 103, row 14.  Have a gander here:

And hopefully, this is what the stage will look like from our seats.

Not too shabby, eh?  It should be a fantastic night with a view like that.  And for the price I paid, I better have the night of my life.  As Heidi and I determined tonight, it’s slightly more per minute than a 1-900 number if she performs for a full two hours.

Predictably, buyer’s remorse set in rather quickly.  I should have gone for cheaper seats.  I should have not bought tickets at all because, after all, I’ve already seen Madonna in concert 4 times.  It’s the same old record that plays every time Madonna tours.  I don’t deserve it, I don’t have the money, I should just go to the corner and die and never do anything fun ever again.  I didn’t really do that before I bought the tickets, but man, it was there in full force after I bought them.  This was mostly due to the fact that this is, without a doubt, the most I have ever spent for concert tickets in all my born days.  My friend ChartRigger talked about how he took out a 75 year loan to see (as her refers to her) Ye Olde Vampyre in concert.  That’s about how I feel too!  I’m pretty much over that now, although I still feel twinges of it, even now, several days later.

The other thing that was different this time vs. all the other times I’ve bought tickets for Madonna’s show is that I didn’t just take the first seats I got.  I ended up with more or less the first seats I got, but I threw away many many sets of tickets.  At first, it was in an attempt to get cheaper seats if possible, but I got combinations of seats that I’ve never even come close to on other tours.  At one point, I threw away Row 19 Main Floor seats.  We had agreed prior to the pre-sale that we weren’t going to do floor seats because it can be hard to see, especially if you’re not 6 feet tall and plus, you end up standing all night.  I’m too old for that stuff!  At one point, I did have much cheaper seats, but they were in the corners of the arena.  Looking at the view from those seats on the web site, it kind of looked like we’d have to be turned to the side all night long which pretty much negates stadium seating.  It felt weird to throw away tickets after always just being glad as hell to be getting anything, but I knew I had a little wiggle room this time around.

By the time it was all said and done, I totally needed a Xanax.

But we’re going!  Again!  And I think this should be a fantastic tour.  She has gotten better about playing the oldies even if she is still resisting them a bit.  I predict that this tour will mark the return of a live performance of “Open Your Heart”, especially since it was hinted at in the SuperBowl performance and nearly made the Sticky & Sweet Tour.  It’s been 22 years, it’s time.

November 3rd, be there or be out a shitload of money.

Each day is Valentine’s Day

Dear Heidi,

It’s Valentine’s Day once again. I know we’re not big Valentine’s Day celebrators.  I like that it’s not  because we are opposed to it on moral grounds or because we had too many years of not having someone to celebrate Valentine’s Day with.  Truthfully, I think it has more than just a little bit  to do with the fact that we’re usually still trying to figure out what the hell happened at Christmas and the thought of trying to come up with another gift is just more than we can bear.  But really, it’s not just that.  It’s trite to say so, but we don’t need a day to remind each other to say “I love you.”  In this case, every kiss decidedly does NOT begin with Kay.

I can barely even remember our first Valentine’s Day together in 1996.  You would think that it would be a bit more memorable since it had been 5 years since I’d properly dated someone – unless you count the pseudo-date I had with a girl in my pharmacy class that I liked but who already had a boyfriend.  She and I saw While You Were Sleeping and it was kind of awkward in hindsight so it’s probably best that it didn’t work out – she was way too sporty for me anyway.  I think by Valentine’s Day of 1996, I was just amazed that someone found me cool enough to be with!  I both had no idea and was already convinced that you were the one I wanted to spend my life with by Valentine’s Day of 1996 if that makes any sense.  Getting each other the same card cinched the deal.

There is no one I’d rather spend my Valentine’s Day with than you.  We’ve always had a bit of an unconventional relationship despite the fact that we did go the fairly traditional get married-get jobs-buy a house-have kids route that my brother and sister did not feel the need to do.  We seem to have an uncanny knack for knowing when the other is going to fall to pieces, each taking their turn being the “strong one.”  We’ve got the “in sickness and in health” thing down pat, as well as the “for richer or for poorer.”  We aren’t that sticky and sappy “you complete me” kind of love.  Rather, we’re more about being that comfortable place to land at the end of the day after we’ve been out being busy being Dan or Heidi.  When the world gets to be too much for either of us, we know that the other one will be there.  So much of the time, the recharge for both of us is just being with the other, even if it’s nothing more than reading in the same room together.  Even though we’re so wrapped up in each other at this point that it’d be impossible for one of us to extricate from the other, we still have pretty solid individual identities apart from our identity as a couple, which I think is missing in a lot of married couples.

You’ve always been the one and you’ll always be the one.  I’m really lucky to have a partner who has changed along with me.  Although we don’t always see eye to eye on everything – God, wouldn’t THAT be boring? – I love that our relationship has a healthy dose of mutual respect and love as well as copious amounts of Damn You Auto Correct.  (Is that Kim Jong-Il?)  We’re goofy and serious and everything in between and as I always maintain, the best relationships are those that are equally balanced in both.  Knowing that you’ll be there when I walk in the door, no matter what may have happened at work, makes everything seem brighter.  You’re the safe place in a crazy world that frequently makes no sense.

I am thankful every day  for the Sex book, because without it, you might have never married me, writing me off as just a little too white bread.  Little did you know…

I love you honey.  Who needs Valentine’s Day when every day with you is Valentine’s Day.  And tonight, I’ll cover you in Neosporin.  I mean kisses.  DYAC!

Love always,
Dan

Pieces of me

My sleep Saturday night was filled with dreams.  Crazy dreams of conspiracies and angry people and medical conditions.  They were populated by a cast of characters culled from my real life, but thrown together in incongruous ways as dreams are apt to do.  I dreamed of people I see every day and of those I haven’t seen in ages.  In many ways, it was nice.  Some of those people have dropped out of my life for good – some of that for the better, others not – but oddly, even the people I didn’t want to see were greeted with eager anticipation rather than dread.

I’m sure we all have plenty of people that were once in our lives that are no longer.  It’s so easy and very tempting to think that the people that are in your life at any one particular moment will be there forever.  The sad truth is that most relationships are very transient and meet needs of the moment vs. being the type of enduring relationships that many of us seek.  Perhaps it just happens to me more than others, but I feel like the universe keeps trying to teach me that lesson and I keep stubbornly refusing to listen.  That’s the story I told myself when the person who I would have considered my “best friend” in high school unfriended me on Facebook without so much as an explanation.  Truthfully, it didn’t bother me that much because I hadn’t really been in contact with him for nearly a decade.  Perhaps he didn’t like my politics?  Perhaps he didn’t like me blathering on and on about Madonna?  I don’t know.  I’ll never know.  But if listening to me go on and on about Madonna bothered him that much, he probably wasn’t that interested in knowing me in a very authentic manner anyway.  His loss.

I remember thinking that the people I knew in college would be the type that endured.  Here are the people that I will look back on and stay in touch with and get together with after we’ve all graduated and started real life.  The truth there is that until the advent of Facebook and social media, I’d lost contact with most all of them, even those that I counted among the closest of friends.  Even most of my roommates during that time – those who arguably knew me the best then – have more or less fallen off my radar.  I guess it’s just how life goes.

There are a handful of people – not many, but some – that are no longer in my life because of a grave misunderstanding or hurt feelings.  As I ponder it now, I see that most of the time, it was actually the result of profound douchebaggery, either on their part or my part.  Usually, it’s both.  When I think about the relationships in my life that exploded into pieces vs. just kind of fading away, there’s always plenty of blame to go around.  Even though at the time I was completely convinced of my absolute infallibility and them being a complete asshat, hindsight almost invariably proves me wrong.   Yesterday I was thinking about one of those relationships that exploded rather unceremoniously.  It was a long time ago and even though it ended badly, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I have to admit that I still kind of miss them.  Even though the emotional douchebaggery knew no bounds in that friendship, there are things that I miss.  I’m sure it was because they showed up in my dream and bygones were bygones and there were no hard feelings.  I miss the conversation most of all, even though by the time it was over, even that was nothing but an illusion.

I know that you can’t go back and that you can’t hold on to people if they don’t want to be held on to.  I sometimes think that the things I truly long for are not attainable as part of the human existence.  As the Buddha would say, life is unsatisfactory and there is no lasting happiness to be found in it.  Much like that PostSecret postcard from a couple weekends ago, I just take comfort in knowing that we are all alone together.  And it is for that reason that I will just be happy in the now and with the people I have.  I will continue to work hard to make relationships work, even though there are a million tiny ways they can go awry.  And even if ultimately there are people in my life now that may not be in 10 years, they might still show up in a dream someday.

7 Songs: RIP Whitney

I was walking out of the Apple Store at Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines when my phone buzzed in my pocket.  It was a push notification from MSNBC that Whitney Houston had died at age 48.  I audibly gasped when I read it, so much so that my wife wondered what was wrong.  I was not what you would call a die-hard Whitney Houston fan, but there’s no denying that her music was a huge part of the soundtrack of my adolescence.

So I guess I’ll be the millionth person with a blog to say a little something about Whitney’s legacy.  I always felt like if anyone deserved an Emancipation of Mimi-like comeback, it was Whitney.  I really hoped that I Look To You would provide the vehicle for that comeback.  Sure, it debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart, but it was clear from the start that “the voice” was really not there any more.  I apologized for it – stating that voices age and don’t stay the same.  But one needed to look no further than her attempts at live performances to see that the instrument that she had been given was damaged beyond repair, despite her assertions that she was clean and ready to work.  Cancelled concert dates and haggard appearances didn’t line up with the public line.

Still, I am going to choose to remember her in her prime, when everything she sang raced to the top of the charts.  As someone posted on Twitter last night, the only ones still standing from her class are Prince, Madonna and George Michael.  Reports this morning are pointing to the possibility that her death may be nothing more than a tragic accident with illegal drugs playing no role in her death.  With that, here’s seven Whitney songs that I really love.

1)  Love That Man (2002)

By the time Just Whitney was released, the hits were drying up.  Still, I played this song a damn lot back in 2002.

2) Million Dollar Bill (2009)

This is the song that should have heralded Whitney’s comeback, not the syrupy “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength.”  The Freemansons remix of this song is the definitive version – taking what was already great and making it fabulous.

3) So Emotional (1987)

Probably my favorite of the singles off of Whitney, I also love the growling “ain’t it shocking what…LOVE CAN DO” at 3:44.

4) How Will I Know (1985)

How many people danced to this in junior high?  It was with this song that I sat up and took notice of Whitney.  Of course, it took a cheesy upbeat song to get my attention.  You expected anything less?

5) Queen of the Night (1992)

There are better known songs from The Bodyguard.  I still remember reading the review of “I Will Always Love You” in Billboard which said something about how it was “brilliantly undersung.”  When I finally heard the song, I wondered if we had heard the same song.  Still, “Queen of the Night” is the most enduring song for me from the project, probably because it was not played until my ears bled.

6) Step by Step (1996)

I loved The Preacher’s Wife and have always wondered why it wasn’t more successful.  This Annie Lennox B-side is my favorite song from the project.

7) I’m Your Baby Tonight (1990)

For my money, I’m Your Baby Tonight is my favorite of Whitney’s albums.  I bought it without having heard a single song on it my first semester of college and that album, combined with Mariah Carey’s debut and Madonna’s Immaculate Collection really defined the music from that time period.  Jeff and I saw Whitney in concert in 1991 in support of this album.  Glad I saw her when I did because she never came around anywhere close to me again.  BTW, does anyone know where I can get my hands on the version of the song in this video?

Finally, Annie Lennox said it best on Facebook this morning:

She had it all…Beauty..exceptional talent.. fame..wealth..But when the life/work/fame balance gets out of kilter, and you start putting drugs into the mix, it’s completely toxic. What a terrible tragic waste. So sad.

Always read the writing on the label

I was waiting for my computer to reboot after installing an iTunes update and since it’s not like me to be without music playing, I started up the record player and put on one of my old favorites – Tina Turner’s 1986 album Break Every Rule.  I always feel like that album and its singles are completely forgotten, with really the most enduring of Tina’s music being from the Private Dancer era.  That isn’t to diminish the greatness that is Private Dancer – like so many things, it was a lightning in a bottle experience that really couldn’t be duplicated.  It was a hell of a record to have to follow up.

Still, Break Every Rule contains what is probably my favorite Tina track.  “What You Get Is What You See” is quintessential Tina.  As one of the reviewers of the album said at the time, this song was made to become a music video.  So it wasn’t surprising when it became the third single off of the album.  I remember rushing home from piano lessons or some such thing to catch the World Premiere Video.  Man, I was a nerd, even then! (as if that was in doubt at all)

I remember thinking even then that the video looked kind of cheap.  Clearly, Tina is green-screened into a lot of those shots.  I think that probably only the footage of her performing was shot on location.  Despite the fact that the song was a fun, country rock song that was right up Tina’s alley, the song didn’t make Top 10 and was the last top 40 song from the album.

Even though I owned the album, I still bought the 45.  Tina had some great B-sides from this era.  The B-side to kick-off single “Typical Male” was “Don’t Turn Around” which was later recorded by Ace of Base and the B-side to the next single, “Two People”, was “Havin’ A Party” which was excruciatingly recorded by Rod Stewart for his inescapable Unplugged CD.  This brings up a good question in my mind – have ANY of the Unplugged CDs aged well – looking back they seem very gimmicky.  Even though “What You Get Is What You See”‘s B-side was a lowly live version, I still had to have it.

I haven’t really liked a Tina Turner album since the soundtrack to What’s Love Got To Do With It and the last single of hers that really turned me on was “When The Heartache Is Over” which found Tina attempting to “Believe” her sound up a bit.  My heart will always belong to Break Every Rule.

Zombies vs. Unicorns

Zombies vs. Unicorns was a Christmas gift to my daughter this year.  For those that don’t know, Anna is a huge fan of unicorns, like many girls her age are.  She’s first and foremost a horse fan, and since unicorns really are nothing more than a very fancy horse, why shouldn’t she like them?  Naturally, the zombie angle drew me in more than a little bit.  Zombies vs. unicorns?  How could we miss?

I’ll tell you how we could miss – if one single unicorn was felled by a zombie.  Anna takes her horses VERY seriously.  This is the kid that will never watch The Never-Ending Story again because the horse died in it.  Never mind that the horse came back at the end – THE HORSE DIED.  And then there was Legend, in which a unicorn dies because its horn was removed.  Again, the unicorn was fine by the end of the movie, but Anna couldn’t quite forgive them for killing the unicorn in the first place.  Clearly, I was going to have to read this to make sure that something similar wouldn’t happen.

As it turns out, Zombies vs. Unicorns is not quite what it promises in its title.  Of course, I was expecting battles featuring zombies and unicorns.  In reality, the premise is actually much more garden variety.  Zombies vs. Unicorns is a series of 10 short stories written by some well known (and not so well known) names in young-adult literature.   The whole thing was cooked up by two other YA authors, Holly Black and Justine Larbalasteir.  Apparently, somewhere on the internet, these two have debated zombies vs. unicorns and which is better and this is what all this debate has produced.  Five stories each for Team Zombie and Team Unicorn.  Sadly for me, but fortunately for Anna, there isn’t really a single story that features both a zombie AND a unicorn.

The quality of the stories varies wildly, as you might expect from an anthology.  Some of them were really hard to get into, others were a breeze.  I felt like some of the stories took their subject matter just a little too seriously and the fun of telling a story about zombies or unicorns got lost in the shuffle.  There were, however, some real standouts.

My favorite unicorn story was, by far, Meg Cabot’s “Princess Prettypants.”  Cabot is the author of the enormously successful Princess Diaries books, which Heidi and Anna have read a number of and also led to the “mom, what’s a diaphragm?” conversation. Cabot captures the terminally embarrassed and frustrated teenage girl voice so perfectly that you really buy into the story.  The unicorn in this story is also a hoot, a great sendup of the annoying cliche of unicorns riding on rainbows and providing the world with an endless supply of glitter.  Seriously, this unicorn literally farts rainbows.  I should have known that Cabot would pull this one off with great finesse.

Conversely, my favorite zombie story was much more sedate.  It was Carrie Ryan’s “Bougainvillea” in which a young woman recalls being brought to an island off the coast of Mexico by her father at the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse.  Safe from harm for the most part, he installs himself as the governor of the island.  The story is told in a series of flashbacks coordinated with present day accounts in which she slowly discovers not all is as it seems.  I found the story gripping and it was one of the few zombie stories that had actual zombie mayhem.  The others toned down the zombie violence, ostensibly because the target audience of this book is probably teens.

An interesting side note: At least three of the 10 stories had gay characters and two of these had budding same-sex romances.  I found this encouraging and thought about how this will speak to LGBT teens.  I can tell you the number of books that had examples like that for any LGBT kids in my school – zero.

There was also one unicorn story that dealt in a bit of bestiality.  Fortunately, it was already the worst story in the collection before it even got to that part.

I think that Zombies vs. Unicorns was definitely a fun book, even though we might have to wait a few years for Anna to really appreciate it.  Although I am totally going to read “Princess Prettypants” to her sometime really soon.

Rumours at 35

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours turns 35 today.  That seems amazing to me, but clearly, it must be so.  To celebrate, here’s five facts about Rumours and me.

1.  My favorite song on Rumours is and will always be “I Don’t Want To Know.”  I’m glad it made the record and that “Silver Springs” didn’t.  There.  I said it.  Although really, that’s nothing new because I’ve said it before.  That makes me a bad Stevie fan but I love the fun guitar rock that is “I Don’t Want To Know.”  If I were in a band, I’d totally cover “I Don’t Want To Know.”

2.  Rumours was the second Fleetwood Mac album I purchased.  The first was Tango In The Night which I credit with getting me interested in Fleetwood Mac.

3.  I love the picture of the band on the back of the album.  They are babies!  And Mick looks psychotic.

4.  I think Lindsey’s songs are particularly strong on this album, especially “Second Hand News” which I think still sounds fresh today.  The hits, while still good, have been just a titch overplayed so the album cuts really help round out the album.

5.  Rumours is one of the most perfectly sequenced records ever.  Period.  I wouldn’t change a thing about it.  Song selection and song order are just spot on.

I wonder how many 80s and 90s records will sound as good at 35 as Rumours does.

Dental damn

The bridge is falling down.

Well, the bridge in my mouth anyway.  I had my twice-a-year dental checkup on Thursday morning and although I managed to escape cavities yet again, the dentist had to deliver the bad news that one of the bridges in my mouth is officially on life support.  It’s actually not too surprising as I figured that one of them would shell out long before now.  They are 20 years old and are well past their life expectancy.

I have a total of four bridges in my mouth, the result of having been born with 4 teeth that lacked permanent teeth behind them.  My mom has the same thing and I was the only kid in the family to inherit this trait.  So other than my devastatingly good looks, it’s my only “birth defect.”  With no permanent teeth to push the baby teeth out, they were going to rot away and the rest of my teeth would migrate around oddly in my mouth, negating the thousands of dollars worth of orthodontia that my folks fitted me with when I was in junior high.  So during Thanksgiving break in 1992, when I was 20, I had all four of those teeth pulled, molds made of my mouth and four bridges made.  These bridges were put in in December of 92 and January of 93. They aren’t removable or anything but with four bridges comes great responsibility.  You have to floss under them and generally keep them cleaner than you might other teeth.  I haven’t always been the best about this, but I do my best.

So the lower right bridge is starting to fail.  It’s been loose for a while, but never so bad as to merit really talking seriously about replacing it.  The tooth that serves as the back anchor for the bridge is in great shape, with a solidly good crown.  The front anchor tooth is where the problem is.  It’s had root canal therapy done on it ad it is overall not a great tooth.  He looked worriedly at it when I sat in the chair on Thursday and I knew that we were going to have to think about replacing it sooner rather than later.

But what to replace it with?  I hate to wreck a perfectly good crowned tooth in the name of replacing a bridge so we talked implant therapy as well.  Implants are basically a peg that is screwed into your jaw, allowed to heal and then crowned like a regular tooth would be.  Heidi has two (allowing me to say that why yes, my wife DOES have implants) and they have been very good investments.  The only problem is that they are mother-fucking expensive.  AND insurance doesn’t cover them.  As usual, they’d rather pay for something that will maybe fall apart in 5 years vs. something that will be in your mouth and function just like a tooth until they bury me or cremate me or whatever.  The dentist said he could cut the middle part of the bridge out, put a temporary crown on the front anchor tooth and smooth out the back anchor tooth.  He doesn’t place implants, but he would do an implant crown.

Fortunately, I’m related to someone who places implants.  My brother, who is a dentist, did one of Heidi’s implants and let me tell you, it was some solid dental work considering he made the molds for her mouth at my parents’ house in our old bedroom one year.  I texted him and asked him if he could place an implant for me and he said he could but we still have to work out the arrangements.

Even with family involved, this is still and expensive endeavor.  We’re talking 3 grand before insurance pays at minimum, and they only pay 50% of this kind of work.  Also, don’t let that 50% fool you because when they say that they pay 50%, they pay 50% of what they feel is appropriate to charge.  Never mind that it may actually cost more than that.  An implant crown costs about twice as much as a regular crown, but they will only pay for what they feel a regular crown is worth.  So I’ll be footing the bill for a lot of this.  Hot on the heels of my truck repairs, I could see that we were going to need to be getting ready for a move to the poor house.

Fortunately, this has to be done in stages, so I can prep it now, get the implant placed later this year and then do all the crown work, etc. in 2013 when I can readjust my flex spending.  But it was just one more thing to have to spend and save for when all I really want to do is pay down debt and save money to go to Madonna.  I think this tour is going to rock my world (and I haven’t even heard the album yet.)

That old feeling

Although it probably started with the Cynthia McFadden “reductive” interview, there’s no doubt that this week, the full promotional Madonna onslaught has begun.  The cover for the single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” was released this week, followed quickly by the full album cover of MDNA.  The video for “Give Me All Your Luvin’” is previewed tonight on American Idol followed by the single and full video release on tomorrow!!  And of course, there’s the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday.

At first, I was just kind of background-level excited about this release, still kind of smarting from how Hard Candy didn’t live up to expectations.  The presence of Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. and other rappers-of-the-minute were not helping.  As other acts like LMFAO were announced to be joining her at the Super Bowl, I found myself saying to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn’t) – “when is this woman going to figure out that her demographic is 35-50 year olds and not 18-25 year olds?”  The whole thing seemed to be heading for a spectacular train wreck.

But this last week, it’s felt just like it used to leading up to a new Madonna album.  The single cover is perfect and the album cover even more so.  It is retro glamorous, colorful and the perfect visual to get people to notice it on store shelves and in online ads.  I’ve been listening to the leaked demo of “Give Me All Your Luvin’” more this week than I have in the last 2 months put together.  I’m so excited to hear what the final song sounds like.  Frankly, I’m surprised that the full version hasn’t leaked to the internet yet, given there’s less than 24 hours till its release.  Even if it does leak, I won’t listen until it’s actually released – that’s how firm in my resolve I am about letting this roll out on the timetable it was meant to.   That said, don’t be surprised if I’m up after midnight refreshing iTunes until it lets me buy the single.  It’ll be the online equivalent of a midnight sale!

I’m filled with heady anticipation this week, and most of that is due to the fact that Madonna’s new label, Interscope, is promoting the shit out of this record.  They even seem to have convinced Madonna to do actual album promo too!  The promo for the last few albums has been especially underwhelming, as if Warner Bros. figured they could just put it out there and people would lap it up because it was Madonna.  Clearly, they’d been ignoring her steadily declining album sales since the 90s.  Even Madonna herself seemed uninterested in promoting her music, especially the last time around.  Maybe it was a “fuck you” to WB, but it certainly didn’t help Hard Candy’s cause that virtually the only promo she did in the U.S. for the album was a one-off mini-concert in New York.  By the time the Sticky & Sweet Tour hit the States, the album had run its course.

Clearly, Interscope knows this needs to be a hit, and so does Madonna.  I think they stand a pretty good chance of the lead single being a good sized hit.  I think it’ll all come down to whether or not radio plays it.  If she can’t get the song in heavy rotation at radio, she won’t hit #1 (which I’m sure she and Interscope both want – it’s been 12 years since her last Billboard Hot 100 #1 song.)  They clearly know how to market stuff so if the album and song stiff, it won’t be for lack of trying.

The release of new Madonna music like nothing else in the world for me.  It’s a mix of crazy anticipation, forgiveness of all her past transgressions and the knowledge that there is bound to be at least one absolute clunker on the album.  It wouldn’t be a Madonna album without one.  The combination of the new music release with the Super Bowl and the fantastic set of interviews she’s done leading up to the Super Bowl has made it all that much more fun and exciting.

There’s still a chance that this could all derail spectacularly, but let’s be honest, it won’t really matter all that much.

See you at the tour!

That’s some expensive starter, Harry

Late last year, my truck died.  I went out to go pick up Anna from school (oddly enough, the car was in the shop), I turned the key and…nothing.  It didn’t even fire.  Apart from the fact that I was going to have a really difficult time picking Anna up from school if I didn’t figure something out in a hurry, it was actually no big deal.  The truck is very much a second vehicle.  I only use it to drive odd errands around town and the random trip to Des Moines.  I made arrangements with a friend who works in town to come pick me up and help me fetch Anna and then called my dad to see if her could help me fix it.

We struggled with it.  We tried charging the battery, but that didn’t work.  We replaced the battery and that didn’t work.  Oh, and I suppose I should mention that when I say “we” I really mean “he” – my dad knows a lot more about cars than me, although that doesn’t take a whole lot.  I always say that I’m good with fluids – gas and windshield washer fluid mostly – but apart from that, I’m pretty clueless.  Our next best bet was the starter but for that it was going to have to get towed to CarX here in Ames that does all the work on our cars.  They have seen our little Mazda through so many things, most recently a stubborn “check engine” light that took quite a bit of troubleshooting to pinpoint.  I trust them implicitly – they’ve had plenty of chances to do work they didn’t need to do and have never done it.  They have taken me back to look at what’s wrong so that I can see it with my own eyes.  I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but the manager there knows me on sight and I couldn’t be more pleased with my service I’ve gotten there.  There’s nothing like having a car shop that you can trust to make you sleep a little better at night.

So Heidi called AAA and got the truck towed there this morning.  They looked it over and there was a whole hell of a lot more wrong with it than just a bad starter.  The source of the major problem WAS the starter, so at least there was that.  However, the tires were so bald that they basically said in not so many words that it was amazing I hadn’t had a blow-out yet.  The serpentine belt was also about to break and the front brakes were shot.  It was leaking power steering fluid and overdue for an oil change.  Add in the front end alignment that needed to be done with the tires and the flushing of the power steering line that needed to be done since that was replaced, the total was significantly more than the 300 or so dollars I was expecting for a bad starter.  We’re talking 4 digits here.  More than $1500 but less than $3000 – let’s just say that much.

This was definitely not in my plan or my budget.

Fortunately, the man-love came through again and helped a lot – Heidi had just recently gotten paid from two different publishers so that definitely put a dent in what we had to charge.  Still, it’s frustrating.  THIS right here is why I can never get ahead on debt.  As soon as I get to a good place where I’m paying it down at a good clip, something like this happens.  Every time.  It makes it impossible to save because every spare cent goes to paying down debt and then shit like this happens.  All I can say is THANK GOD people love my wife’s books because that’s making all the difference in the world right now.  Those are the sexy things we spend that “disposable” income on – serpentine belts and tires.

I was mad at first – blaming myself which is my natural go-to in a situation like this.  I admit that I had fallen into the trap of “well, I don’t drive it that much so what could really possibly go wrong with it?”  Clearly, the answer to that is “a lot.”  Basically I had a lot of car repairs that would have happened over time happen all at once.  It’s life, it happens.  I do blame myself a little bit – I know better than that.  But it’s done and even though my truck’s probably not worth in Kelly Blue Book value what I paid to fix it today, I can’t buy a replacement vehicle for that and it’s still cheaper than a car payment.

I think I was put on this Earth to always struggle with finances.  I fully admit to making mistakes in the past – I’m paying for those now.  I made some dumb decisions and well, you can’t change the past.  I think we do a lot better now than we used to so even a guy like me can make progress.

But the truck runs like a champ.  I’m thinking of racing her at Thunder Road.