I have probably 30 ties hanging in my closet that I never wear. I don’t have a job that requires me to wear a tie and I don’t envision my job ever making that demand of me. If I were to wear a tie to work, I would get no end of grief and everyone would presume I was coming from a job interview or going to a job interview after work. My current boss doesn’t wear a tie and toward the end of his tenure, my previous one stopped wearing one as well. The only times I wear a tie are when I’m going to the aforementioned job interview, a wedding or a funeral. My last job interview was 8 years ago, the last wedding I went to was in 2010 and I’m not even sure when the last funeral I went to was (probably for the best.) Mostly, the ties hang there, begging to be acknowledged, ignored and forgotten.
I wore a tie to the daddy-daughter dance last weekend, as well as to Anna’s piano recital. When I was trying to pick one out, I was struck by how some of these ties surely must not be in style any longer. I’m not really in a position to know because I just don’t buy ties at all – for all the reasons I detailed above. I pulled out a pile of them last weekend and they’ve been sitting on the spare bed in my office, mocking me, daring me to wear them, especially the ones that are terminally 90s. A good chunk of the ties I have are ones I wore in the late 90s while I was doing clinical rotations, during which a tie was a requirement. I’ve picked up a few more as the years have gone by, usually when I am buying a new dress shirt for an occasion or, like my most recent tie acquisition, when it’s required as part of the wedding party. The pink tie in the above photo is that particular one. It was worn during my sister’s wedding on New Year’s Eve, 2010. All the other guys had ones that looked just like it. I really kind of groove on a pink tie. Real men wear pink ties.
I finally got around to picking them up off the bed this afternoon as part of a big clean of the house. I thought perhaps I should go through them and get rid of the ones that scream 90s. But as I pointed out earlier, I’m not really in the position to know which ones are fashionable now and which ones aren’t. There are some that should clearly be thrown away and some that probably should be but are sentimental favorites. There are no skinny ties in the pile – I’m proud of that – but there are some that are probably wider than is fashionable.
In the end, they all got hung back up again, waiting for the next time I have to wear a tie. I really hope it is for a wedding and not a funeral or a job interview.
This tweet summed up my reaction to the news this morning that North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment banning not only same-sex marriage but any legal recognition of unions that are not marriage, regardless of your sexual orientation. 61% of people voted yes on this thing, even though marriage is already defined as one man-one woman by virtue of the North Carolina legislature. In so doing, domestic partnerships and all the benefits included therein (including health insurance) are now null and void.
Not content to just have a discriminatory law on their books, the people of North Carolina (or at least 61% of the people that voted) decided they needed to put said discrimination into their state Constitution so that those sneaky gays don’t start thinking that they might actually, you know, be people that are worth having the same rights as they do. To me, this is just icing on the discrimination. I knew that this would pass – I mean, seriously, North Carolina is the only state in the Southeastern U.S. without a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage – but it still frustrates me. To me, this is not rocket science. Laws need to be applied equally across the board whether you are short, tall, fat, skinny, black, white, gay, straight or any combination of of the above and anything I might have left out.
But you know what? I’m tired. I’m tired of being outraged. I know it’s my job as a liberal to be outraged but I just can’t do it any more. My wife compares the North Carolina vote to our third cat in 18 months to die from cancer. I’m so tired of fighting and telling people how wrong this is. I can explain it to some people until I am blue in the face and it seems to do no good at all. Even though here in Iowa we’ve managed to be ahead of the curve and struck down marriage inequality in 2009, it’s still far from safe here. As it stands right now, one man is standing firm in his commitment to not allow Iowans to vote on the rights of others, and he’s going to face a nasty re-election campaign come fall. I like to think that Iowans are better than that and can see that what marriage equality is about is treating everyone the same under the law, but I also thought there was no way they’d kick out three of the Supreme Court justices that ruled in the Varnum vs. Brien decision and we see how that turned out. Fortunately, they’re being recognized for doing the right thing even though a slim majority of Iowans kicked them out on their keisters in 2010. As I’ve said before, what this is really going to take is a Supreme Court ruling on a federal level to flush all these discriminatory amendments and laws down the toilet, and I really do believe this will happen some day. It’s either that or we do away with marriage completely to expose those who oppose marriage equality for being what they are – bigots who hide behind their Bible to defend their backward, discriminatory ways.
But for as outraged-out as I am, having spent 8 years of the Bush administration being perpetually outraged and the last few years being intermittently outraged, I still know that I’m doing the right thing by speaking out. My marriage will never ever be voted on. That’s not a luxury my LGBT friends have. So I’ll continue the fight because it’s the right thing to do, even though every anti-gay law or amendment that is passed makes me tired and frustrated. These kinds of thing require seeing a big picture and looking at the long-term picture, especially when events like the North Carolina vote provide setbacks in the short term. The outrage over marriage equality and gay rights in general are the death rattles of a bygone era that can’t seem to go quietly.
This video makes the rounds on Facebook every now and then, and I think it’s appropriate for this morning. I was tempted to post the “It Could Happen To You” video that I did on Facebook yesterday, but I think I’d rather head off to work this morning looking forward to the day when everyone has the right to spend their life with who they love, enjoying the full benefits of marriage under federal and state law. In the meantime, I’ll continue to fight the fight. And besides, who can resist the enlightenment of Blanche Elizabeth Devereaux?
I’m at home this morning prior working the evening shift tonight. I usually don’t work Tuesday evenings – that honor goes to Thursday evenings – but I traded out of Thursday so that I could go to Anna’s recorder concert that night. I know. The things we do for kids. Really, it’s not that bad – I could be sitting through hours and hours of dance recitals that my child is in for 5 minutes. Never was I so happy as when Anna decided she didn’t want to do dance any longer. Not that horses are any cheaper of an endeavor, but at least I don’t have to endure the recitals and competitions.
Anna’s off to Y Camp this morning with her class. They’ll be spending the night out there and after initially saying that she didn’t want to spend the night (there was another kid in her class who didn’t want to spend the night either), she declared to us last week after the final informational meeting that she wanted to try. She’s had exactly two sleepovers at friends’ houses, both of which involved calls and/or texts to us as bedtime drew closer. Last night I was a little bit nervous about her spending the night in a cabin in the woods because not only is it the set up for so many horror films, but it’s not the same as being in town with a friend. We talked to her teacher and she’s going with her phone (even though she is not supposed to have electronic devices) and she’ll ask the teacher for it if she needs to call us. I didn’t vocalize a single iota of my reservations about her spending the night to her – I’m sure her brain is going to kick into hyperdrive enough by the time night falls without me adding my own anxiety to it. I know she’ll be fine. Heidi and I were talking about it on the way back from dropping her off at school today. I’m actually worried about things that don’t exist, like her wandering off and getting lost whereas my wife’s reservations are more “what is her brain going to do to her tonight?” We made sure that she knew that if we need to go pick her up, we will do so, that whatever happens is okay. She needs to listen to what her brain tells her and to remember that there are a lot of adults there whose jobs it is to keep the kids safe. It’ll help that her best friend is in her class, so we’ll see. As I alluded to in my last post, I’m a sentimental sap when it comes to my daughter. There is something about dads and daughters, especially when there is only one of them.
Anna and me at her piano recital on Sunday.
Regardless, my nervousness about her going didn’t stop me from diving right back into my bed after dropping her off and sleeping for another 2 hours. I’ll be really glad for it about 9pm tonight when I have an hour and a half left in my shift.
Today is Darren Hayes‘ 40th birthday, as well as my friend Lucas Miré‘s. I’ll be joining them in just over a month. Surprisingly, I’m not all that worried about turning 40. I expected an existential crisis, but really, I did 30 pretty well with no huge hangups. If I ever have a mid-life crisis, I’m sure it won’t be dramatic, involve a red convertible or trading my wife in for a younger model. Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone putting up with me like she does. It’s weird to have pop stars being my age – I’m so used to them being older. It’s funny though because last night Heidi and I were watching GCB on Hulu Plus and I was curious as to how old some of the women are that play the main roles (for the record, I love Cricket – so full of moxie and bravado, but also kind of a softie when it comes to her relationship with her husband.) They are all around my age. It’s tempting to feel like I haven’t done ANYTHING when you compare yourself to someone like Darren Hayes who is almost exactly my age or the ladies from GCB who are on a successful TV show. I remember being in college and on one of the harder days, I distinctly remember saying to myself “Stevie Nicks never had to go to college!” I guess success is relative. As I reach what may very likely be the midpoint of my life (if I’m lucky!), I think I have plenty to be proud of. No, I’m not world famous with a million Twitter followers nor am I on TV or in the movies, but like that would have happened anyway? Given my temperament, it seems pretty unlikely.
Speaking of Twitter followers, I really wish that only real people were allowed on Twitter. I am so sick of spam bots that follow you. As I always say, new Twitter followers are kind of like new friends – only every now and again do they actually work out. I’ve also found that true of some WordPress “likes” – do some people who “like” the post even read it?
And I feel like I should mention that I signed up for the 30 day free trial of Spotify Premium. After hearing from a friend via e-mail who told me that he was in pretty much exactly the same position as me, trying to decide if it was worth 10 bucks a month to get the Premium version, he said that he trialed it for a month and, upon finding he used it, promptly cancelled eMusic. He said that he found himself buying a lot of songs that he may not have wanted just to use up his eMusic balance before it reset at the end of the month (it doesn’t carry forward.) I’m using it some, but I’m still not sure it’s 10 dollars worth. We’ll have to see.
In the meantime, here’s my favorite Darren Hayes video, “Me, Myself & I”, in honor of his 40th. He also wrote a letter to his 15 year-old self, which I may do for my own birthday, but I don’t want to be seen as copying. I would like to look at it as inspiring me, but I don’t know that others would see it that way.
I really didn’t intend for a week to elapse between blog posts, but alas, it has. So much for being more deliberate about blogging.
A couple things:
1) Last night was the daddy-daughter dance at Anna’s school. It’s the fourth one that we’ve been to, and it was, without a doubt, the hottest one yet. I think they need to start having these things in January because a non-air conditioned gym on a muggy May night in Iowa is just not ideal. They also need to get some new music. It seems like it’s the same songs every year. I don’t know if it’s just because they feel like they can’t stray from tried and true, but the girls-alone dance is always “Single Ladies” and then they always think that that they’re going to get all the dads out on the dance floor without their daughters to do “The Chicken Dance.” Yeah, in your dreams. I’m not shy about dancing – it’s why we’re there after all – but “The Chicken Dance” is just dumb. Double that for “The Macarena.” And nary a Madonna song to be found. Not even “Into The Groove.” We’re neglecting our daughters’ collective educations.
It had a fairy tale theme this year, so Anna had fairy wings and body glitter and the whole nine yards. I was rocking the black suit/pink shirt look after getting advice from some of my nearest and dearest members of the fashion police. I think we looked pretty awesome, don’t you? This is the second to the last daddy-daughter dance before Anna is officially done with elementary school and on to middle school. We had an excellent time. The food was better than it’s ever been – they even had meatballs! They still need to have coffee there, although considering how hot it was, maybe that’s not such a good idea.
The thing that always kills me about this event is how few of the dads actually dance. There was one particularly joyless father who I never saw dance once. He spent the majority of his night talking on his cell phone. While we all had our phones out at one point or another during the night, I think he was the only person I actually saw talking on his. Anna has limited tolerance for dancing only because of the sweat factor (admittedly, I was a ball of sweat by the end of the evening), but we really enjoyed the dancing part. She caught me getting a little bit misty during the “I Loved Her First” song – so I’m a sentimental sap when it comes to my daughter. Sue me. But I sure didn’t intend for her to see it!
The other thing that is amazing to me is that the dads are all there with daughters, but by and large, we stand around not talking to each other. I complained to Heidi about that this morning and she said it’s because we’re guys at a non-guy event. My goal of the evening was to talk to at least one other dad that I didn’t know and I accomplished it, but it was as awkward as you might expect. It’s too bad. As I always say, I think if guys could just get over themselves and learn to talk to each other, we’d find we have more in common than we don’t. But we’re not socialized that way, and even a guy like me that is aware of the socialization and works consciously to break free from it still finds himself hemmed in by it. Oh well, maybe our sons will get it right.
One thing’s for certain – if I impart any lesson from going to daddy-daughter dances onto my daughter, it’s that any guy that refuses to dance is decidedly NOT worth her time.
2) Today is Anna’s piano recital. My father always says that piano recitals were the one thing that were just pure torture for him. Anna’s are always pretty fun because we usually play a duet and this year she’s doing a song on the piano as well as on her violin. Anna’s recitals are pretty streamlined and move quickly so I usually don’t have too much problem with them.
That’s all I have. I have some ideas for posts, but life has to slow down for two seconds for me to actually do them. I may have to survive the “end-of-the-school-year gauntlet” first.
While Heidi was gone to Chicago, I set up my old PC at a desk in our dining room. I’ll admit that the only reason I wanted to set it up at all was because I wanted to have a place from which to play music when we’re cleaning house or doing dishes or having friends over. With the advent of smartphones, I really don’t need another computer to check my e-mail. After I got it set up, I reverted to lazy mode and didn’t want to bother with putting all my music into iTunes again, so I have been using Spotify quite a bit.
Spotify is almost perfect. I’m still not sure that streaming music is the future of music, but I can’t decide if that’s just me being old and crotchety. I adopted digital music pretty quickly, although there was a period during which I burned all the albums I bought digitally to a CD and then printed out the album artwork. I chucked those in the trash years ago – that was basically my last spasm of resistance before giving in completely to digital music. For some reason, it just didn’t feel like I owned the music if I didn’t have a physical copy. Similarly, now that streaming seems to be the next step in the digital music evolution, not having a copy of the mp3 makes me feel like I really don’t have the music.
Don’t get me wrong – I really love Spotify. The basic version is more-or-less a free version of Rhapsody which I had a brief love affair with back in the early 2000s. I love being able to sample albums – try before you buy so-to-speak. It’s exposed me to a lot of music I might have otherwise dismissed. Who knew there were good Nicki Minaj songs? It was thanks to Spotify that I found out that I really did like Lana Del Rey, despite my protests to the contrary. The ads are a bit annoying, but I get it. It’s a free service – they have to pay the bills somehow. And although I am opposed to people setting up Spotify so that every song they play posts to their Twitter feed or to their Facebook timeline (Pandora users that do that try my patience), I enjoy the integration with Facebook. You can tell a lot about somebody by what music they listen to. Most of the closest friendships I have started out with music commonality – if not for certain artists, then at least with a shared passion for music.
I think my favorite feature of Spotify are the playlists. In the mood for something but don’t have a playlist that suits your mood? No worries – someone in the Spotify universe has already made that playlist. One night while Heidi and I folded laundry, we listened to Billboard Top Hits of 1986 – 95 tracks in all – and it seemed like every song was “Man, I haven’t heard this in FOREVER.” Heidi does not have the fondness for 80s pop music that I do, and even she was enjoying it. I was making an “Anything Goes” playlist yesterday while I cleaned house and it was a motley mix but yet, very Dan.
So here’s my dilemma. I’m pondering going to Spotify Premium. Part of the reason for this is because I feel like if I use a service and get value out of it, I should pay for it. I also have to admit that I’m intrigued by the idea of being able to stream Spotify on my iPhone. We’re lucky and still have unlimited data through Verizon, so data usage isn’t a concern and really, I’m connected to Wi-Fi more often than not anyway. I know I would use it but here’s the problem. It feels kind of excessive – like I don’t really need it. I have a shit ton of music on my hard drive in my iTunes library. There’s more music there than I can ever listen to in a lifetime. Basically, I’m a music hoarder but because it doesn’t take up physical space, you can’t tell. I have strong emotional attachments to songs and really like to listen to music on my own terms. Because of this, mobile apps like Pandora and I Heart Radio are of limited use to me. I have a lot of music on my phone and never did I feel more like a douchebag when I caught myself saying to myself on my way to work, upon discovering that Blondie’s “Shakedown” was not on my phone – “if I had my OTHER iPod, I’d be able to hear it.” First world problem without a doubt.
I also feel like, at 10 bucks a month, something else should go. I could get rid of eMusic, but I really feel like that’s a deal. We’ve thought about getting rid of physical discs from Netflix, which would probably free up almost all of the 10 bucks needed. If I didn’t get 10 dollars worth of coffee from work a month, there it would be. It seems silly to be quibbling over 10 dollars, but that’s how it happens – death by a million tiny cuts. “Oh yeah, I have 10 dollars a month” and then after you do that a hundred times, suddenly it’s a thousand dollars a month. A dramatic example, to be sure, but I think you get the point.
I think the happy medium is to go for the free trial and see how much I actually use it. The trick with free trials is remembering to cancel. What’s the opinion of the peanut gallery?
We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m glad Spotify is around. Even if it doesn’t keep track of play counts.
No, not THAT kind of crabs. Get your mind out of the gutter you pervs.
I’m feeling mildly stressed because, as you can see, I’m way behind in reading this year. I’ve had a lot going on this year, plus I didn’t get off to nearly as good of a start as I did in 2011. I read either eight of nine books in the first month of 2011 – fully half of what I’ve read so far in 2012. Now, I realize that 17 books in the first four months of the year is nothing to sneeze at, but seriously folks, I can do better than this. I may be beating 2010′s reading challenge, but I barely got 25 books in that year and I’m bound and determined to get to 75 this year.
One temptation is to go pick a bunch of short books, but that feels like cheating even though I know it really isn’t. Amazon has these Kindle Singles that are 99 cents each and admittedly, I did read one of those and counted it toward this year’s total. The book was Enemies: A Love Story which was all about Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert and how they went from public TV to being two of the best known movie critics of our time. Even though it was interesting and well written, it felt kind of like a cheat. It was only 60-some pages long and honestly, it felt like I was counting an article that I read in The New Yorker or The Atlantic. So I’m not sure how I feel about them anymore – at least when it comes to fulfilling my Goodreads reading challenge.
Fortunately, I’ve been saved and I have a prayer of catching up without resorting to Kindle Singles. Behold.
Make no mistake – this is not high quality literature, but never has bad writing been so much fun so I guess he wins, right? This is the kind of book that would have absolutely mesmerized me as a kid, had I known they existed. It’s the horror equivalent of drug-store romance and mystery books. It’s pulp horror fiction. Fortunately, there are FIVE MORE crab books in the series, all for the ungodly low price of $4.99 each in the Kindle Store. I fully expect each book to be worse than the one before it, but I really am powerless to resist them so I figure I might as well just give in and read them.
I’ll be sure to report back when I’ve finished them. Or maybe I’ll check in along the way. You may not want to read the entry though as I’m bound to be crabby. *rimshot*
Today is Barbra Streisand’s birthday. She is SEVENTY. As a friend of mine said earlier this week, she makes being 70 cool…ish. She is, without a doubt, the oldest artist whose career I have followed down to its minutiae. She’s also the one whose twilight of their career has interested me least. The last album of hers that I truly liked was 2005′s Guilty Pleasures. Not coincidentally, it was also the last full-on pop album she did. Pairing her up with Barry Gibb again was sheer brilliance, as she had made the inevitable descent into standards, show tunes and otherwise languid ballads that really are only good for trying to go to sleep. Guilty Pleasures even saw her trying to cut loose on a disco track. Whether or not she succeeded depended on who you asked. Personally, I gave her the benefit of the doubt just for trying.
My friend Jeff told me once that, ten years ago, one of the tabloids had a headline that went something like this: “BARBRA: I HATE BEING SIXTY!” Whether or not Barbra ever actually said that is anyone’s guess, but it has been an ongoing joke for many years now. Of all the divas that Jeff and I seem to gravitate toward, none causes us to descend into hysterics more frequently that Streisand. We have an odd obsession with imagining her in everyday situations, whether it be showing up to the Malibu Municipal Pool (“Jim! Make sure we get the senior discount!”) to ordering calzones at the Detroit airport (“Calzone for Barb!”), or running out of toilet paper while taking a crap (“Jim! Bring me the Charmin. And for God’s sake, don’t squeeze it!”) Nobody’s humanity cracks us up as much as hers. Perhaps it’s because she’s made a career out of being untouchable. If she hated being sixty, God only knows how she probably feels about seventy.
Love her or hate her, she’s a legend. Although the 70s Ogilvie home perm was a really bad idea, she’s had a great career. Between acting, singing, directing, producing and God only knows what else, you have to respect her for having the cojones to succeed in Hollywood when it really was a man’s world.
The following clip is one of my favorite live performances she’s done. Taken from her 1994 concert tour, it’s a medley of “I’m Still Here”, “Everybody Says Don’t” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” I’m especially fond of her altered lyrics – most notably “one day you’re hailed for blazing trails/the next day you’re nailed for…fingernails” and “I’ve kept my nose to spite my face!” which always got cheers from the audience. For me, this concert is what I think of when I think of her live performance.
Her voice has deepened with age but I still don’t think it sounds like my grandmother singing in church. A staunch advocate for everything from LGBT issues to microphones that match the carpet, she’s a class act.
It’s been a while since I did my last Mix CD Redux post and was trying to think of which one would be a good one to feature this time around. Since I’ve been in kind of an introspective mood the last week or so, I thought I’d pull one out that I made based on a time in my life when I was probably a little too introspective – my sophomore year of high school. High school is a time of high drama for so many people. If only we could realize then that it’s really not all that high nor all that dramatic. I’m fond of saying that teenage angst is most appropriately measured in angstroms because that unit of measure applies quite well to how much it ultimately matters in our life. Whatever – we all did it to some degree. Some of us were just better at it than others.
During my sophomore year of high school, my English teacher required each student to a keep journal. I don’t remember how this applied to the class, but I remember that you had to have so many pages per week. You could turn it in to be read by her or you could just have her count the pages. I think that what it really was was her attempt to get us writing, no matter what the result. I didn’t need any encouragement writing. At first, I stuck to safe topics and turned in my journal dutifully to be read and commented on. Somewhere about mid-year, my focus changed. I started using the journal as an outlet for my own high school drama and I started just letting her count pages. There wasn’t a sharp demarcation between the fun and frivolous and the turn to the serious, and even when I did start writing about more personal things, I still wrote down song lyrics and random observations. The margins are full of doodles and the text, while cringeworthy at times, is very 15 year-old introvert trying to find his way around in a world that frequently didn’t make sense to him.
I remember setting out to make this mix – probably about 12 years ago now. I had already made a 2-CD set of the popular hits from each year of high school, but my sophomore year one was woefully incomplete because in order to really represent the music I was listening to, it had to have a lot of older stuff that I had discovered – most notably Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. They soundtracked a good portion of that school year, and 1987-88 was when I fell under the spell of the Welsh Witch. There are also some other oddballs on here – when you look at the cover, you’ll wonder what the hell? But when I put it together, I looked through the journals and picked songs that I had either referenced, wrote the lyrics down to, or otherwise influenced me pretty significantly. I’ll try to explain these as best I can.
I’m not going to explain the significance of every song on this mix – to do so would require multiple posts and more time than I have at my disposal. A couple things I will say right off the bat – you’ll notice that it’s not all pop and that (as I alluded to before) not all the music is from that time period. It’s also important to know the context of my life at that point. As a 10th grader and a 15 year old, I had my share of the aforementioned drama. I frequently felt lost and depressed because I didn’t fit in with the normal high school cliques. Although I had friends, there was no doubt that I was not one of the popular kids. You can tell by the amount of song lyrics and other ridiculous shit that’s scrawled all over the cover of the journal. I tended toward songs that were idealistic to help counter some of my negative feelings and while undeniably pop, the music was usually highly dramatic and full of double meanings. Despite feeling isolated and lonely during that time, I became friends with a guy a couple years older than me who I really count as being the first guy friend with whom I could talk openly and freely. There was no fear of judgment between us. The friendship was very formative for me and influenced me in many ways. It really helped shape me into the man I am today and has helped me to forge my own definition of masculinity that’s not limited (much) by societal constraints. It was the experience that taught me that men can be “emotionally intimate” (for lack of a better word) with each other and not have it mean “well, they MUST be gay” or that there has to be a romantic and/or sexual component. It’s a rare thing indeed, but it can and does happen. Although we’ve fallen out of touch, I will always be grateful for his friendship at that time in my life because, as I said, it was an early influence that has helped turn me into the Dan you all know and love today. While he frequently teased me about my choice in music, I still feel like he had a healthy respect for my taste, even though he didn’t always agree with it. I still sometimes wonder what he would think of some of the music I listen to today!
On with the music – a few thoughts:
There are two artists on here that get two songs – Fleetwood Mac and Taylor Dayne. Fleetwood Mac gets two songs for reasons I’ve already mentioned – I fell headlong into their music that year thanks to the release of Tango In The Night – but Taylor Dayne? Her debut album, Tell It To My Heart, came out in 1988 and I’m not ashamed to say that it’s a great album top-to-bottom. I picked it up on cassette on an April trip to Iowa Jazz Championships in Des Moines. I remember listening to it all the way back from Des Moines. I knew the songs “Tell It To My Heart” and “Prove Your Love” but even the album filler is high-quality album filler. The two songs on here “Do You Want It Right Now” and “Where Does That Boy Hang Out” never got to be singles, but I still have a fondness for them today.
Speaking of Iowa Jazz Championships, the first song on the CD is a 24 year old recording of my high school jazz band performing there. I finally got around to uploading the entire set to SoundCloud last night so that people that were in the band with me could hear them again. I ripped them from an audio cassette which has long since vanished. I don’t have tons of great high school memories, but jazz band that year was one of them. That’s me on the piano solo and it also explains the “Dan Cullinan on the piano!!!” on the cover of my journal. A friend of mine’s parents always said that whenever they saw me.
There’s no Madonna on here. A-mazing. Although not really because she didn’t release a bit of new music in 1988. I credit that for opening the door for my burgeoning obsession with Stevie Nicks.
I like 80s Heart more than is socially acceptable. But at least I chose a lesser single for inclusion on here. I don’t think that “I Want You So Bad” even charted! (it did, but did not go top 40.) I think that there’s an “In Defense Of…” post about 80s Heart that I’ll have to write some day. Bad Animals is probably the pinnacle of their “sell-out” period (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
“Yesterday” by the Beatles was sung by a small group of friends of mine that took the song to district competition. I was their accompanist.
“Malaguena” was a piano solo that I took the competition. My parents probably still twitch when they hear it – that’s how much I had to practice it. I was glad to have found a copy of this back in the Napster days.
One of the first things my friend that I mentioned and I did was get together on a Friday night to watch movies. What possessed us to rent the 1973 Steve McQueen movie Papillon is beyond me, but I am glad that we did! That’s how the theme to the movie ended up on the CD. Another Napster find, I’m sure.
My love for the Eurythmics album Savage is no secret. I was just telling a couple people on Twitter the other night that Savage is probably in my top 3 albums ever. I remember it being hard to pick the song from Savage that would go on this CD, but “You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart” is classic Eurythmics.
I’m really not sure why Carly Simon’s “Legend In Your Own Time” is on here. I remember getting both her greatest hits and Coming Around Again on cassette in the late summer of 1987, but nothing about “Legend In Your Own Time” stands out enough to really merit its inclusion on this CD. Maybe I just did it because I do like the song quite a bit, even though there are better Carly Simon songs to be sure.
The Rick Astley song gets included because of an entry I wrote about trying to stay awake one night long enough to see the video for it. Upon hearing it, I dismissed it as “Never Gonna Give You Up” raised a half step, but in the end, I prefer “Together Forever” to its better known musical sibling.
I’m sure there are other stories of significance tied to the music on this CD, but I sure can’t remember all of them. It’s a little musical glimpse into my past, to a different version of me that I’m not always very fond of, but is still a part of me, so I try to treat him with kindness and respect. Listening to this music doesn’t take me back as much as it used to, but it still does a little bit. Reading the journals is almost impossible – the angst! – but I do credit that teacher for giving me the freedom to write about what I wanted and in many ways, her influence on this blog is hard to deny.
So MDNA has been out for almost a month now and I still haven’t done a proper review post. I don’t think I’m going to either. A couple of reasons for this decision – 1. It’s been reviewed to death in the blogosphere and I think that most everything that I would have to say about it has already been said so I run the risk of simply plagiarizing the other reviews and 2. I know that there’s no way on God’s green Earth that I could possibly be objective. I mean, everybody knows that I love it already so why spend 1000 words talking about how much I love it. So rather than do a boring old review, let’s take a look at my listening habits. You might need to click on the picture to see it better.
Now, let me just say that this does not represent all of my listens to the songs. Not included in these play counts are the times I’ve listened to the physical CD in the car. Also not included are the not inconsequential listens to my vinyl copy or the play counts from the leak of the album which I had for about 4 days before the album officially dropped.
A few thoughts:
I’m kind of surprised that “Give Me All Your Luvin’” is my most listened to track on the album. It’s not my favorite, but I think it benefits from having been listened to pretty extensively prior to the album’s release. The copy of the song in my iTunes library is the one that came with the pre-order of the album on iTunes so it’s been around a lot longer than the rest of the songs. That said, I find that the more I listen to the song, the more I really do love it. Yeah, it’s cheeseball and the weakest kick-off single from a Madonna album ever, but my 10 year-old loves it and knows all the words. Listening to her belt out “L-U-V! MADONNA!” warms my heart so perhaps it’s more of a sentimental attachment than anything else. Plus it was the first new Madonna song in ages and ages.
I actually like “Girl Gone Wild” more than the play count would suggest. I bought the song as a single from iTunes as well prior to the album’s release and when you combine the play counts, it just tops “Give Me All Your Luvin’”
The song that is standing the test of repeated plays the most for me is “I Don’t Give A.” Like an updated “American Life” it’s a quasi-rap song featuring two classic lines – “tweeting on the elevator” (CAN YOU IMAGINE Madonna tweeting on the elevator?” and the inexplicable “baby Jesus on the stairs!” The song is a laundry list of all the things that she does as a famous working divorced mom, barbs to her former husband Guy Ritchie aplenty. I’m usually not a huge fan of guest rappers because they shriek of desperation from artists like Madonna, but Nicki Minaj really works on this album. The ending is (as someone else said – I can’t remember who) very Carmina Burana in its drama. It is all the more powerful that Madonna never actually utters the F-bomb in the song.
My least favorite song on the album proper, based on play count alone, is “Some Girls.” Yeah, that pretty much matches up with my opinion. I would have jettisoned that song and replaced it with “Beautiful Killer.” “Some Girls” seems like a demo, like they forgot to finish it whereas “Beautiful Killer” is the most Madonna Madonna song in a long time. It has her stamp all over it. Other songs with a play count of only 6 are the remix of “Give Me All Your Luvin’” which is pretty lame and the acoustic “Love Spent” which I like more than that play count would suggest.
I’m glad that there are some ballads on the album. “Masterpiece” which played over the closing credits of Madonna’s movie W.E., is not out of place on MDNA like I feared it would be. And although my friend Jeff can’t stand it, I really do like “Falling Free” quite a bit. (he calls it “Falling Off A Cliff (I Wish This Song Would)” or something like that) Both are proper Madonna ballads, the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time.
“Gang Bang” is very Erotica/Dita Madge. Consequently, I really do love it. And I can’t wait to hear the arena all chanting “MDNA! MDNA! MDNA! MDNA!” when she performs “I’m Addicted.”
Since the album’s release coincided pretty closely with the purchase of my iMac, it’s not surprising that my Top 25 Most Played Songs playlist is skewed pretty heavily toward MDNA. I’m not sure if this will change over time or not. I anticipate listening to this pretty heavily through the summer, so those numbers will only get higher. There are a lot of music releases on the horizon that will compete for my attention – this is the subject of an upcoming post – so perhaps that once the dust settles with MDNA, it won’t dominate the top 10 as much as it does right now.
I’m most intrigued by the non-MDNA songs in the Top 25. A strange mix of old and new, that’s for certain! And then there’s the only non-MDNA Madonna song, “Words”, from Erotica, hanging in there at #24.
The album is both fresh and familiar, which I think at this point in her career is just what the fans want. It wasn’t too much of a rehash of where she’s been before but it also doesn’t really break any new ground. The album will be MASSIVE live. I’m so glad that I’m going to the tour. With rumored set lists like this, it’s hard to not get excited.
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I. TRANSGRESSION
0. Act of Contrition (Video Introduction)
1. Girl Gone Wild (contains elements from “Material Girl”)
2. Revolver
3. Gang Bang (contains elements from “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Bang Bang” by Nancy Sinatra)
4. Papa Don’t Preach (Edited Version with changed lyrics)
II. ELECTRIC ROCK-A-LOO
5. Nobody Knows Me (Video Interlude)
6. I Don’t Give A (Rock Version)
7. Hung Up
8. Best Friend (contains elements from “Heartbeat”)
9. Nothing Really Matters
III. EXSTACITY
10. Bedtime Story (contains elements from “Drowned World” and “Beautiful Stranger”)(Video Interlude)
11. Impressive Instant
12. I’m Addicted
13. Justify My Love (2012 William Orbit Remix, contains elements from “I Want You”)
14. Physical Attraction
IV. BASQUE
15. Intro/Masterpiece
16. Love Spent
17. Open Your Heart (contains elements of “Sagarra Jo“ by Kalakan)
18. Deeper and Deeper
19. Take a Bow
20. Falling Free
V. WOODSTOCK
21. Some Girls (contains elements from “She’s Not Me”) (Video Interlude)
22. Express Yourself (contains elements from “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga)
23. Give Me All Your Luvin’ (Just Blaze Remix)
24. Turn Up the Radio
25. I’m a Sinner (contains elements from “Gambler”)
Encore:
26. Everybody (contains elements from “Hello” by Martin Solveig)
27. Celebration (Benny Benassi Remix)
———–
This could be the product of a very creative fan, but there are elements that jibe with what we know about the tour so far. Who knows.
Regardless, this phase of Madonna’s career is a welcome one indeed.
When I was growing up, there was no trinket in my grandparents’ house more coveted – at least by me, I can’t speak for the other grandkids – than a dead piranha encased in a plastic box. I think they must have picked it up in Venezuela, but for the life of me, I don’t recall them actually GOING to Venezuela and it seems like that would be decidedly off the beaten track of places they usually went. I say this because I don’t really recall them going anywhere more exotic than Hawaii and in their later years, they took their gigantic motor home wherever they went and while it is theoretically possible to drive to Venezuela, I’m thinking that didn’t happen.
Anyway, I was always fascinated by it. Of course, their man-eating talents, however overstated they might be, had my rapt attention. I remember asking my grandma if I could borrow it and take it to show and tell. I was probably in 2nd grade and thankfully, I was allowed my my grandma to take it home with me upon leaving their house after a visit. I don’t recall anything about taking it to school except the fact that it was wrapped in a paper towel inside my book bag. When I brought it home from school, it was in my book bag along with a papier-mâché mask I made in art class that was painted with orange-red tempra paint. Tempra paint dust got all over the paper towel surrounding the plastic-encased piranha and I thought I had ruined it. Fortunately, it washed off pretty well.
When my grandparents moved out of their farmhouse and into assisted living several years ago, the piranha was one of three things I wanted from their house – the others being their coffee mug with a picture of a T. Rex on it and their set of World Book Year Books from the mid 60s through the early 70s. I was fortunate enough to get all three.
It sits proudly on my shelf and whenever I see it, I think of my grandparents, of whom I have many fond memories. Naturally, it also makes me think of Piranha-3D. Rather oddbedfellows don’t you think? My own daughter is fairly unimpressed by the fish. I don’t think she’s ever even shown interest in taking it to school.
