#19: Hold Me Down -- The Gin Blossoms (1992)

The Gin Blossoms are in the bargain bin with the Spin Doctors: early 1990s bands that did not survive the deluge of Seattle bands. There is a tragic twist to the Blossoms, however. Doug Hopkins, the lead guitarist and songwriter, killed himself in December of 1993.

The other members booted him from the band because of his alcohol addiction. The band fired Hopkins in 1992......about three months before his song "Hey Jealousy" landed at #1, which seems very cruel, even for the Popular Music Gods. Why is New Miserable Experience such a great album? It is loaded with great songs with great pop hooks. Hopkins wrote bad ass pop songs with a lot of pathos. Hold Me Down is a perfect example.

This song is the best-written exploration of addiction that I have ever heard. Great hook, but also smacks you in the face with this right off the bat:

So I guess I must have just been dreaming

When I thought I heard myself say no

Anyway it looks like no one heard me so here I go

Cause when you're in the company of strangers

Or those strangers you call friends

You know before you start just how its gonna end.

Anyone who has ever been addicted to anything has been right there. I have problems with alcohol, just like my dad did. And that first exhilarating taste of anything is wonderful. Beer number one is a great thing; nice and refreshing. In the back of the mind, however, you know damn well that you can't have one when four, five or more will do. I can stop that sometimes, but not all the time. 

As Hopkins realized, you do know before it starts just how it is going to end. And it usually does not make any difference. This can be said for people as well as drugs or anything else that we must have. The first song on this album can be seen as a bookend to this, wth lyrics such as

I'll drink enough of anything
To make this world look new again

Or

She had nothing left to say so she said she loved me
And I stood there grateful for the lie

Think about that; knowing someone is lying, but being grateful because the other conversation is far more painful to contemplate much less take part in. People take to drugs, alcohol and other things many times because they find themselves in trouble if they do not face the world warped. That's why the strangers are friends; they can't see the balled up shitshow that you are hiding in the booze bottle. That's the real you; good forbid you put that half formed thing out in front of the world to be mocked and ridiculed. What saves? Drugs!

I can't remember why I like this feeling 
When it always seems to let me down

So remember when those doors swing open 
And the drinks are passed around
When half the party moves into the bathroom
Hold me down

Most don't like the feeling. If I learned anything from living with and dealing with an alcoholic father, the switch flipped at a certain point from "moderately funny" to "mean". Every drunk I know has that switch; it lets people down because it opens the gates to the worst place imaginable. No, not a Coldplay concert, but remorse. Imagine someone boozing to get away from themselves, then feeling shitty because they feel like they have to get away from themselves. This is not to escape responsibility for actions; they know full well what is going on. It's another log on the fire.

I wish that my dad (along with me sometimes) felt comfortable enough to open up. I'm learning; it has just taken me some 30 years to figure out how. Now the habits need to change. My dad never got the chance. By the time I was 12, my dad was 56 years old, and had probably been drinking at least five beers a day for 15 years, and a functioning alcoholic for another twenty before that. He'd smoked since he as 11, and did until he died. He was one of the unhappiest people I ever met. 

#18: Spirit of the Radio -- Rush (1980)

Begin the day with a friendly voice
A companion unobtrusive.

What strikes me is the continuing change in what is termed "Classic rock" and "oldies". The Rush song addresses radio from the 1970s and 1980s.. I am writing this while listening to Spotify, a service which records your listening preferences and cuts out the chaff. In other words, I can listen to the "Classic Rock" sound of Rush without hearing the "Classic Rock" sound of Eddie Money and Journey. I don't want your two tickets to your City by the Bay. I'd rather listen to East Bay Ray.

I'll meditate on three parts of this song.

Part the First

Off on your way hit the open road
There is magic at your fingers

The Road Trip is one of the vital things that every person must do between the ages of 16 and 30. Of course, we do this now with MP3 and the occasional DVD playing in the built in players or satellite radio. All of which (except for the DVD; if you are not with kids, look out the window at the countryside) is fine, but it does not get at the heart of the road trip: the quest to find decent music after you have listened to that tape of the Spin Doctors for the 11th time and you can't find anything else but Tom Petty's Wildflowers and God Help You If You Actually Want To Listen To That. (That was 1992, kids!)

What will be the next song played on the radio? Back in my day playing next five artists, the top choices were always Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones, Foreigner and Journey. Or possibly Fleetwood Mac. If you got college radio, you could be safe picking The Smiths, REM and if you wanted to be cool The Replacements. Now, classic rock is Nirvana and Men at Work. The Stones are still rolling but need to be heavily pushed lest they fall into.............oldies. When I was a kid, Elvis (young, not sequined) was oldies, along with Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers. In  twenty years, Nirvana will be oldies and Chuck Berry will be largely forgotten.

One difficulty is that "Classic Rock" in the 1980s encompassed not simply the Titans (Stones, Beatles, The Who). It also included lesser known Invasion Bands (Dave Clark Five), Motown (The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Martha and the Vandellas), One Hit Wonders (Lemon Pipers, the immortal Strawberry Alarm Clock), San Francisco bands (Jesus, some of these stations played MOBY GRAPE along with The Dead) and bands That Everyone Should be Made to Listen To (The Kinks, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Mothers of Invention, The Supremes and Sly and the Family Stone). In other words, they may have played the same few songs from these bands, but there were more than 6 or 7 bands being played. There is a lot of music out there being forgotten; this is shameful.

Part the Seconde

Emotional feedback on timeless wavelengths
Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free

There was always something special to me about listening to the radio when I was a teenager (and younger, for that matter). It did give you emotional feedback; in a time period of very raw emotions, hearing something that featured hope/better times got me going. The opening of this song kicks ass; clear, resonant guitar, understated (for him) drums and Geddy's usual strong baseline. It all adds up to something that demands a listen.

I listened to everything I could get my hands on, and still like a lot of 1980s bands against my better judgment. I listened to a wide spectrum of things, but was lucky to have a way to listen to the older artists who influenced the people I listened to. When The Jam covered "David Watts", I knew it was a song by the Kinks. When Rush referenced words on the Studio Wall, I heard Sound of Silence. There are always connections within rock music. Hearing the connections was easier in the 1980s because there was soo much more selection. Now, it is simply the Classic 1980s and 1990s Buffet of about 8 items. If Eddie Money is the soft serve at the end of the hour of rock classics, then Journey is the steamed veggies, Nirvana is the met dish and if they serve breakfast at all there might be Whitney Dancing with Somebody. Which would be awesome, cause that song holds up.

The 1980s were quite an interesting decade for rock. Dinosaurs still roamed the earth while the small furry creatures that would take over the music scene in the 1990s ran to and fro. You could find something that you liked; don't like the format of this station? They may have a show that you do like, or the other station has better DJs that don't talk over the songs.


Part the Thirde

One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity.

Who cares about prizes? My favorite band, Jethro Tull, is most known for Aqualung and for winning the Grammy for Best Heavy Metal Album in 1989. Sheesh. I admit it that I sort of liked Ian Anderson's mocking of Metallica at the time, but he knew that award was bull shit; he said that "we were nice people who had never won a grammy before so they gave us one."The problem is that everyone looked at the award as the coronation  of  Metallica as the best "metal band". Well, that's BS as well. ...And Justice for All was a good album, but Master of Puppets (1986) was better and Ride the Lightning (1984) was just as good. Anyone who had been listening to them knew how good they were.

Who won the best Rock Album grammy for 1987? Steve Winwood. Winwood is one of the best vocalists in rock history (listen to "Gimme Some Lovin" or "I'm a Man" by Spencer Davis and think how that English White Boy got that voice) but "Back in the High Life" sucks. Don't chase prizes.

To see Nirvana in Paris in February of 1994, it cost 150 Francs. The opening act? The Buzzcocks. Just let me say

HELL YES!

<cough> Anyway, in 1994 dollars, this is $30.14 and in 2014 dollars, this is $48.10 according to measuringworth.com. Want to go see The Scorpions and Queensryche at the SAP Arena on October 1 (actually, I mean, how....Jesus!). The cheap upper deck seats are between $38 and $46.

Still, that was out of my price range in 1994 and still, with parking and two people, the Scorpions show is over $100 bucks. No thanks. Weeknd at The Oracle next month is $50 for the cheap seats; Madonna is at $55. Granted, some of this is Ticketmaster's fault. But, still. At least it's cheaper to take your kids to see Miley Cyrus than it is to go see an NFL game. If you are a Niners fan, I am not sure which would be the bigger waste of money.

As far as compromises, there are many sages who could say it better than I can. I direct you to "Joe's Garage" or "Have a Cigar" or The Fugs getting kicked off of Capitol Records because of their song "Wet Dream".  This was 1968; I don't think it was because it was a song about a wet dream, but because it was a song about the Homecoming Queen sitting on the narrators' face after the prom. Wonderful!

#17: Subdivisions -- Rush

This song is about the terrible suburbs that many folks found themselves in in the 1980s, but it also carries several other meanings. In Latin, suburbs is from the word subura, meaning "below the city" as it was the area between the seven hills of Rome. The poor folks and the huddled masses lived there, which is achingly true of the 1980s experience for white teenagerdom of which I was a part.

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
Between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

The bright lights get the attention, but growing up in Iowa it was the far unlit unknown that was the true scary place. What lay out in the areas beyond Hills and North Liberty? Nowadays those places might as well be part of Iowa City; the tentacles of Cedar Rapids and the University of Iowa grow closer and closer together. No more small town tirades or trips to the Casey's for pizza and illegal booze and smokes. The sinister names of roads that led into the cornfields (Seven Sisters Road, Old Highway 218) are now streets with Whole Foods and crummy overpriced sports bars.

The disappearance of the "unlit unknown" does not matter for those on both coasts who live in the bright lights. If anything, they are far more worried about the gentrification of poor neighborhoods, and not concerned about the destruction of the poor neighborhoods of those who work the land and have the ill fortune not to be poor in an urban area.

Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

We of the middle of this country go to cities because that is where the jobs are. My brothers and I are the first generation of my family to not live on a farm. I do not bemoan this, I celebrate it. Farming is damn hard work that I do not want. Towns and cities provide jobs and the ability to have a damn good time. Having lived in a small town (Dallas City, IL, population 1000) the business that everyone knows you is true. The tale that everyone is friendly is not. The mechanic was very friendly to me because I had a piece of shit car that kept breaking down. The gas station lady was friendly to me because I was the only person in town that bought Oil Cans of Fosters.

Suburbs grew because of the perception that our childhoods were idyllic. The perception that large cities could not possibly be a safe environment for children or families. I would argue that Dallas City was far less safe for a child than some large cities. Yes, there may not be gangs on the street or molesters hanging from the trees. However, there would not be a meth lab six houses down, nor a 20-minute bus ride to the nearest school. There would also not be any jobs, care for the elderly or medical services that did not require a 10-15 minute wait. These things are routinely complained about in San Francisco and Oakland. The perception is that this is an urban problem. In reality, it is a class problem. As professionals move from these places, the tax base drops. Services disappear.

Add 'em all up, and you have the death of middle America; not the middle of American geography, but the death of middle-class America. This began happening in Iowa in the 1970s with the death of the family farm, just like it happened in the 1970s with the closing of factories in the Rust Belt. The middle class jobs disappeared, pushing out the kids of middle class parents to the suburbs of places like Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix. My hometown will never die because of the University of Iowa. Burlington has lost 20.6% of its population since 1960. Vista Bakery and Champion Spark Plug are still there, but the largest employer is Great River Medical Center. 12.6% of the population were age 65 or older according to the 2000 census. In 2013, that percentages is estimated at 18.3.

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose their race to rats
Get caught in clicking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights

 Places like Dallas City do not change because they are in that slow shambling drift toward  invisibility. They are already irrelevant, except for photo ops.  Factory closes? Well, it had to happen because it was inefficient. School shuts down? Well, we will still provide quality services for you children in the next town down the highway. Meth or heroin epidemic? Well, our drug programs are very successful! Mass shooting? (Insert politician in front of building, and they will say "We are shocked and saddened by this senseless tragedy.")

Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

All the dreamers and misfits work for Google and Apple now. Their God is Mammon, and you will know them by their actions and Limousine Liberalism.

#16 Dirty Jobs -- The Who

Ahhhhhhh, Quadrophenia. One of the first Who tapes I bought included the song 5:15, but I had no idea what album it was on. That tape also had the song “love Reign o’er me”, a song I absolutely hated. And still do, for that matter. One thing that has constantly hit me about a lot of my musical taste is that I cannot escape from is my initial reaction to songs stays with me because of my mental state when I heard the song first.

                With Quadrophenia, the songs that typify John Entwistle (Dr. Jimmy) and Keith Moon (Bell Boy) always spoke to me for some reason. Most likely because I was a completely angry, 13 year old. I had no ideas of mods and rockers, scooters and seersucker. All I knew was that these songs (as well as The Real Me)hit me in the sweet spot of anger.  But there was one song that made a difference, and it is still my favorite song on the album.

I’m getting put down

I’m being pushed ‘round

I’m being beaten every day

My life is waiting

Things are changing

These are powerful words for a 12 year old, especially one in an abusive household. Incredibly powerful words. I could never get it out of my head in junior high that there was much more to life than what I was seeing and putting up with. I thought about running away several times, but where would I go? The only other place I knew well (well 2 other places) were Montrose, Iowa and Mountainburg, Arkansas.

 Hell, at that point I knew I had a brother named Garry who worked at the T&M Mighty Mart, but I did not know where he lived. I had no damn idea how to get to either of those other places, besides going south via Hwy 218.  By the time I was about 13, dad had become relatively manageable. Meaning I knew how to avoid him and everyone else I did not want to meet. Usually, that meant going to the 7-11 and indulging in Super Big Gulps and Super Mario Brothers or Excitebike. Damn Nintendo.

On a side note, I was so excited when I moved to the west coast and found 7-11s still extant! I love 7-11. LOVE IT! I instantly bought a Horchata Big Gulp in Watsonville, CA and felt sick for two days. I don’t care. It was awesome and I would do it again. At some point age and experience will win with me, but not yet.

But that song. It’s about a bunch of folks who have odd jobs: bus driver, pig farmer, etc. It is also about age and experience, class and children.  In the context of the album, it serves a sort of bridge function, shuffling identities across the span of time taken in the songs. It is not musically a standout of the album, certainly not up to par with “Punk Meets the Godfather”, “The Real Me”, “Sea and Sand” and others. It is not lyrical, nor it is brutal. It is matter of fact:

I am a man who drives the local bus

I take miners to work but the pits are closed today

It’s easy to see that you are one of us

Ain’t it funny how we all seem to look the same?

Quodrophenia is an album about clothes, styles and identity, and for my money this is the most brilliant lyric on the album. This man, driving a bus, engages in the same type of judgment as the mods:

My jacket’s gonna be cut slim and checked

Maybe a touch of seersucker with an open neck

The Bellboy:

I’m on the job and I’m newly born

You should see me dressed up in my uniform

I work in a ‘otel, all gilt and flash

Remember that place whose doors we smashed????

But what the bus driver is talking about is far deeper. It is that look in the eyes of the defeated, the downtrodden. Those who have little hope for the future and little love for their past, meaning that the present is just more shit that is hopeless and unloved, an outlook that poisons lives.  The miners look the same in uniform, when they come out of the pit and when they go to get pissed on a weekend; the mods and rockers, wearing more authentic uniforms than the miners can afford or the man on the job, dress differently in their similarity. They work with a palate of designs not their own.

The payoff is this, though:

Just like a child, I’m seeing only dreams

I’m all mixed up, but I know what’s right.

For a 12-13 year old, this was eye opening. It still is; even if we cannot choose what is right, we know what it is.  After we choose, there is the remnant. In my experience, it is guilt over choosing the incorrect or easy path. For others, it is choosing the correct or right one only to be treated poorly. Some win, some keep on as before. For those of us with guilt (and I do not mean Catholic guilt; I mean noxious self-imposed guilt) it colors our lives.  We know what is right; in our dreams we are always right. But we see only dreams because every move we make is wrong. Sometimes this extends past ourselves into disappointing the ones that we love (which is very painful) but most times it is just ourselves that we see as failing to live up to those dreams. And so we continue to the next day to dream and fail again; occasionally we get past our own expectation of failure, but because they are simple and our own, they are not noticed.

I’m not gonna sit and weep again.

Again, Townsend captures the anger. Not outward, but inward. The worst kind. 

#15: You Ain't Going Nowhere -- Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rosanne Cash (1992)

This is a Dylan song that I heard for the first time in junior high (8th grade or thereabouts) when I put my brothers copy of The Byrd's Sweetheart of the Rodeo on his turntable. It was country, and I liked the song, but it did not make that much of an impact on me. When I heard this recording from the 30th Anniversary CD that Rachel bought, it blew me away.

The lyrics have always appealed to me. Looking forward to good times and discarding the rough times, Dylan writes get your mind off wintertime/you ain't going nowhere. This could be a veiled warning or an expression that you will stay in summer. I've tended to read it as the latter. But then,  I suppose I am an optimist. This may be quite surprising to some people, but those who know me best would probably agree that I am. Dylan wrote this song at a time when he was recovering from his motorcycle accident in 1966. I ran into this song when I was in Iowa City, struggling through a third unproductive year of crap at the University.

I am particularly drawn to the lyric strap yourself to a tree with roots/you ain't goin nowhere. Perhaps it is a different song if a woman is singing it; the more I think about it, the difference between Graham Parsons and Colvin, Carpenter and Cash lay in the nexus of belief, trust and control. Belief and trust are two very different things. We can have both in ourselves, but it means so much more when someone else has those things in us. It gives us power to do things that we never thought possible.

One thing that I complain about with the current crop of students that I deal with is this. They believe in themselves, yet constantly need affirmation. Maybe this is due to parents who moan about AP classes and assorted crap. OMG! MY CHILD GOT A 3 ON THE AP EURO TEST! parents, don't treat your children like receptacles of failure, but don't kiss their asses either. There is a balance to be struck to forge adults.

The last verse purposefully does not rhyme, in that


Genghis Khan could not keep
All his general supplied with sleep
We'll climb that hill no matter how steep
When we get up to it

Right on. The message of this song is to take what you have, be purposefully happy with it, and go on. Problems are in the future, and some of those you will never have dreamed of in 1000 years. Climb 'em when you get there; if you worry about how things should be, you will never see the hill that gives you meaning.

I am not a parent, and I do not know what being a parent entails. My father was less a dad to me than my brother was. My mother was caring and very supportive but maintained a distance that I am still uncomfortable with. They did the best job possible for them, and I have my own problems. Those problems are my own; some roots are with my folks, but

Get your mind off wintertime
You ain't goin' nowhere

The wintertime is cold, colorless. It is not dead; there is life beneath that crust. The past is truly dead, but we keep it alive through our choices. As I am over 40, I am just beginning to realize this and desperately working to bend the passages my former choices produced. We all get there, it just takes some people longer if they get the chance. We need to help them notice the chances. When we see those chances, and people taking them, there is cause for celebration.

Oh oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair!


.

San Francisco Cantos I and II

I.
Shadows of Haight phantoms of movements
angry drunks and street musicians
hookah shops and vintage clothes.
Need any weed? 
Anarchist bookstore owners haggle
over refunds while the ghosts stare down
from their shelves. Tourists elbow past looking
for something, anything. Take those pictures
on the famous corner while the addicts yell
Fuck you, man! I ain't sharing nothing with you!
Got a picture of Jerry in your window?
Got a tye-dyed shirt with a skull and a bear
trading on Old Gods Long Dead?
Got a picture of Janis, George and Levon?

II.
The shop wanted thirteen dollars for
a fried green tomato sandwich with
something called aioli. In Georgia it would
run about four dollars or less. Pay for
convenience and ambiance and look out
the window in the break in wifely conversation
and see drunks and twentysomethings
and technicolor spectres of ancient pasts.
Shove your aioli
and your homemade mayo
and your five dollar french fries
made from one sustainably grown spud.
Expensive with a taste that I can
recreate at home. Is that your message?
That we should not drive here to eat
food that can be done at home for
less cost and less gas?

#14: Scenes from an Italian Restaurant -- Billy Joel (1977)

This is again one of those songs that I know from Bill. Billy Joel was his favorite musician, and for some reason this song has made appearances over the past few weeks.

1. While we were in Vegas, John off handedly said "bottle of red, bottle of white" and I replied "Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight." Yes, I know. Nerdy.

2. When I told this to Rachel, she got that "What?" look on her face when I reference something that she does not know. So, I had to do a bit of the song.

The song is in three sections: people get together who were friends in, you guessed it, an Italian Restaurant. Joined by a sax solo, they reminisce about old times and catch each other up.

As I get older, it is fascinating how much songs change meaning. When I was in high school, this song was Bill's domain of last chances and lost people. When Joel sings "Things are OK with me these days" and rattles off a list of things that end with "fine" we all know it to be bull shit, but I bought it as a 14 year old. New office, wife meant things were good. I was a materialist even then, obsessed with how much I make.

And then the conversation turns to Brenda and Eddie, high school sweethearts who get married. As someone who married their high school sweetheart, this area of the song has special resonance for precisely the right reasons. In the song, things fall apart:

they lived for a while in a very nice style

but it's always the same in the end

they got a divorce as a matter of course

and they parted the closest of friends.

Rachel and I have come close to falling apart, closer than I probably realize. The thing is, it doesn't always have to be the same in the end. People do grow apart; Rachel is quite a different person now than when I married her. Many of our difficulties lay in the idea that I think I am not a better person than I am. She knows and appreciates my qualities, much more than I do. People cannot stay the same, as there would be no growth. I have not grown as much as I would have liked, and view this as meaning that I am some kind of fuck up. I am intensely proud of my wife and her many accomplishments, and could never think of a better person to be with.

This song is all about appearances, and so is my mind. It functions, sometimes very well, but I make poor decisions that I do not understand. One thing that I make a conscious effort to never do is take Rachel for granted. This is one of the mistakes made by the young couple.

They just didn't' count on the tears

At first, I know that I did not, either. Anyone in a relationship knows that there are ups and downs. For younger people these are fast: this song could never be written today, as either one of the people would have solicited relationship advice for any one of 100000 internet advice cites that link to the HuffPo. Swayed to one side or the other, they will make a choice and very few people part as friends anymore. People change, and there will be tears. People do not grow in a positive direction at all times. Older couples know this; the point is to believe that the negative is a period and not a permanent. Positives are the same. Brenda and Eddie were the king and the queen of the prom, but that never lasts.

So the king and the queen went back to the green

But you can never go back there again

You can, but you are no longer the king and queen. Be thankful for that, as being the star athlete, prom king, famous in whatever way ends.

#13: We Are Family -- Sister Sledge (1979)

1979 was the year that I became aware of sports. More importantly it was the year that I became aware of baseball. This is a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that I listened off and on that summer to the Cubs and Cardinals on the radio and was introduced to the wonderful voices of Jack Brickhouse and Jack Buck.

The curse, if you will, was Pittsburgh. In 1979, Pittsburgh was mired in a long slump as the steel mills and heavy industry, instrumental in building New York City (among others) completely fell apart along with much of the industrial Midwest. I knew of the Steelers, because new Iowa football coach Hayden Fry changed the Iowa Hawkeye football uniforms to reflect the best football team in the NFL.

 I think during a game of the week that summer (remember when they had those on TV?) I saw this man, twirling the bat in what looked like impossibly large hands.

Notice the hat. I wanted one. I had never seen anything like it. I asked my dad who this man was. He replied "That's Willie Stargell. They call him "Pops." It made no difference to me that this man was by that point a 39 year old first baseman with only three years left in a hall of fame career. It did not matter that in 1979 he was in the midst of the last year he would hit 30 home runs (he had done it 5 times before). Pops was named the MVP of the National League that year. He then hit .455 in the NL Championship series, driving in six runs in three games. Oh yeah, then the World Series, the first that I ever watched in full. All seven games. Pops didn't disappoint me then, hitting .400 for the series with 3 homers; seven of his 12 hits went for extra bases, and the Pirates came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Orioles. One of my life's few regrets is that I never got to see him play, as he retired after the 1982 season. He died on Opening Day 2001. By the way, he handed out those stars for smart plays and good baseball.

Stargell picked this song to be the theme of that 1979 team because this is what they were. In today's sports talk shows and mental masturbation, we hear a lot about "teamwork", "spirit" and "heart". This team had it, but it also had damn good ballplayers. Stargell knew that, and pushed them to do great things. The lineup featured hall of famers in Stargell and pitcher Bert Blyleven, borderline hall of fame candidate Dave Parker (two time NL MVP). After losing to the Cubs 11-3 on August 9th, the Pirates won 34 of their last 50 games. Stargell led this team because he felt he had to; after the death of Roberto Clemente in 1972, this became his team. In the 1970s, the Pirates were the first team to field an all African American lineup. These guys played hard and played together.

Living life is fun and we've just begun
To get our share of the world's delights
(HIGH!) high hopes we have for the future
And our goal's in sight
(WE!) no we don't get depressed
Here's what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won't go wrong
This is our family Jewel

There were drugs. There were fights (at one point, Parker took to the field wearing a trash can. When asked, he said that he lost his glove and borrowed Phil Garner's). Once, when told by a reporter that Dave Parker said "he (Stargell) is the player I admire most" Stargell replied "Well, that's good. It used to be himself." Stargell led by example; if there was ever a team that won and lived on the emotion of one man, this is it. Need a hit? Pops would Provide.  In game 7 of the Series, Stargell homered off lefty Scott McGregor in the 6th to give the Bucs a 2-1 lead. When they needed him most, Pops went 4-5, driving in two of the four runs. In game 5, a must win, Stargell produced a sac fly to put the Pirates up 1-0 in the 6th.

 Led by Chuck Tanner, the Family had the best nicknames: Pops, Scrap Iron, Mad Dog, Cobra, The Hammer, Sangy, The Hit Man, The Candy Man, Teke (or Bones), Caveman and Buck (or Willie Stargell, Phil Garner, Bill Madlock, Dave Parker, John Milner, Manny Sanguillen, Mike Easler, John Candelaria, Kent Tekulve, Don Robinson and Grant Jackson).

I wanted to hit like Willie Stargell (even in batting cages, I windmill the bat around) and throw like Kent Tekulve. A very thin man (6'4, 180 lbs) who saved three games in the 1979 series, Tekulve was a "submariner".

When he retired, he was only one of two pitchers to appear in 1000 games in the majors. There are now 15. When I threw like him when I was a kid, my brother yelled at me and asked what was wrong with my arm "that I couldn't throw overhand".  I shouldn't have listened to him. I may have turned out to be a middling successful AA pitcher.

I owe this team a lot, as it made me a lifetime Pirates fan. I could not think of a better team to watch. Since 1979, they have not won a World Series. From 1990-92, they won their division but could not beat the Reds and Braves to get to the World Series. Until this year, they have not had a winning record for half of my life. But, they are my team. For a kid, the sight of a group of grown men charging out of a dugout labeled "The Family"  to the sound of this song seemed perfect. I actually thought all of these guys lived together in one huge house and drove together to the games. A psychologist could point to a hoary relationship between my own fractured family and this idealized one, but I call B.S. on that. I would not have remained if that was the case. Now, I wear my Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez shirts with pride, and really love the Forbes Field model I have on my desk. They are in the playoffs this year, the first time in 21 years I can watch my favorite team play in the postseason.

For my money, this team exemplifies what sports should be but almost never is. They represented a city down on its luck and gave them something good. They were Black, White and Latino working together. They produced under pressure. They were fun to watch. And they had an awesome theme song.

#12: 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

Billy Corgan wrote this song as a description of his teenage years in the suburbia that surrounds Chicago. It is my considerate opinion that if you grew up in the Midwest you identify with this music video more than any other that has ever been made.

But that is not why it is on the list. It isn't Corgan's bald melon in the backseat. It isn't the cute blonde girl wearing what looks like a kilt. It isn't the cute blonde girl swimming around in a pool owned by some unknown neighbor of the house party where you are drinking warm beer from a plastic cup. It isn't even peeing and finding two people making out in the bathtub. I've seen one of those things, and it sure as hell didn't involve a cute blonde anywhere near a pool.

This song is a perfect comment on teenagerdom, beginning with the first word of the song: "Shakedown". A shakedown can be blackmail, a search of a person or a test of performance. For all of us, years spent as a teenager are a shakedown in every sense of the word.

When I heard this song the first time, I was 23 years old and on the verge of dropping out of the University of Iowa, two classes short of a BA. What BA you ask? A double major in History and Anthropology, with a minor in Religion thrown in for good measure. Why drop out? I no longer belonged there.

That we don't even care
As restless as we are
We feel the pull
In the Land of a Thousand Guilts

I wanted something more. I felt guilt, to be sure. It is my constant companion. The operative word is restless. Teenagers are restless, knowing that time is moving but they seem to be staying constant. This is a lie, obviously, but one you cannot see from the inside. It is what makes teenagers so interesting to teach and interact with. As an adult, you are infuriated by many of their actions but know what awaits them. As you try to share this knowledge, you get even more angry that they do not want it.

No apologies ever need be made

Being a teenager is a test of performance. High school does not determine ones life (far from it) but it helps determine your make up. Do you quit? Focus on one thing above all others? Move from friend to friend? Abandon those who no longer can help you move up the social ladder? Remain loyal to those who aren't cool? Strive to be something you are not? Listen more than you speak? Show contempt or empathy in the course of everyday drama? Within these questions lie the real person we are to become, and one or two people get to know that real person. If we are lucky, we remain in contact with them for the rest of our lives.

I know you, better than you fake it

We change constantly as people, but we are never so naked emotionally as when we are 14 or 15. In the most challenging times in our lives we go back to patterns established earlier. In 1996 I knew my time at the UI was exhausted. I dropped it and went on. I would never go back and change this, even though it delayed my "professional life" by several years. I would not change high school one bit either. Not because I was happy (for 90% of it I most certainly was not) or successful (I was pretty good) or was lucky enough to have a shared locker next to a beautiful girl (who is a beautiful woman now and also my wife) but because those four years allow us to search within and without ourselves for what is important. Not friends in the mean sense, or party, but a sense of community and belonging, no matter what group we find ourselves in.

Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and ghouls

When I was 15 or 16 I realized that when I was comfortable with the people around me, that was where I should be. This is as close to a universal truth as is possible. The friends we have in high school stay with us, specters in the guise of the new demanding comparison to those we meet. As we form ourselves we determine what qualities of people are important. We shakedown others as we take ourselves out for the shakedown cruise of dances, kisses, sex, booze....a carnival of experience that serves as a bar of comparison for the rest of our lives. The first we always remember despite our best attempts to forget. Not because it is the best but because it is the introduction to emotion, power and life.

And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust
I guess
Forgotten and absorbed
To the earth below

 

#11: Foreplay/Long Time -- Boston (1976)

Yep, I went there.

While this song (and album in particular) comes into quite a bit of mocking from yours truly, it is chock full of jaw droppingly great riffs. Listen to Smokin' or Rock and Roll Band and see if your toes aren't a tappin'.

I remember the album cover vividly, as it was one of my brother's favorite albums. Bill moved back into live with us when I was about 6, bringing LPs an Playboys with him. LPs and Playboys in the hundreds. While this meant that my adolescence was chock full of good music and excellent wanking material, it also meant that I had to share space with a 23 year old who just had his heart broken. I remember the wedding. The blue 1970s tuxes, yours truly getting nervous, picking his nose and wiping the product in the palm of the best man, Randy. (Called "Funky" because his last name was Funk. Another in the long list of people in everyone's lives that you wish you could have got to know a little bit better). There was dancing and fighting on the part of my folks. I cut a damn good rug that night, to hear my grandma tell it. Then it all fell apart.

You see, Bill got divorced and moved back in. I am still not sure of the details, even though I do know that his former father in law helped to redesign our basement before he arrived so Bill had a place to sleep. It seems to me he would not have done that if the whole thing was Bill's fault.

This song IS Bill in 1980, right on down to the 1970s porn stache (and Bill could fucking rock one...he and I are the only two in the family who ever really could). Bill was 1970s good looking: long brown hair, tan, stache, funny, tight pants. He and I look quite a bit alike. Not to say that I am 1970s good looking (hell even 1870s good looking) but he could pull off the look.

Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.

I can't help but think what he was feeling, listening in the basement on those headphones to those lyrics, two months after his wife had dumped him after roughly four months of marriage. Or perhaps he was dwelling on this:

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me

It is a cliché to say that one thing can ruin someone's life, but in my brother's case it is open and shut. Whatever happened between him and Shauna in the late 1970s in that house I stayed at twice (and had coffee cake in for the first time) took the soul out of the brother that I most identified with. Bill was much more of a father to me than my own father, as he was the male adult that I most wanted to impress and be accepted by. For the most part I succeeded, and I hope that he knew that and understood it when he died in 2010. I think he did. We shared looks and we shared sensibilities, much more so than anyone else who remains in the family. He never spoke about Shauna to me, perhaps because I was too young to understand what had happened. My brother lived with two other women in his time, and was very close to marrying both. He never did, and acted as if he purposefully sabotaged each relationship.

When he died, a lot of the myths surrounding my brother came crashing down. That 96 hour period was probably the hardest of my life, but is nothing compared to what Bill lived with for 30 years. I have an understanding of it through my own travails in the mental health department. He and I are the same in that we carry our pasts around in an ornate box that we open at the worst times when things are the best for us. When our backs are to the wall, we get pissed and fight.

There's a long road, I've gotta stay in time with
I've got to keep on chasin' that dream, though I may never find it
I'm always just behind it.

#10: Thrift Shop -- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz (2012)

OK, so this is a sort of change up. A lot of students at my last school had a big thing for this song (the ones who were not infected with Gangnam Style or Call Me Maybe or that damned One Direction crap) and I really like it. Every so often in those heady days of September and October, in between yelling and students not taking me seriously, I would hear snippets of this song from IPhones that should not have been out or furtive whispers of the hook between students.

I'm gonna pop some tags
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket

 I can't decide whether or not the song is making fun of either of the following things:

1. Thrift Shops -- I wouldn't be OK with this as a trip to Goodwill, Salvation Army or Savers (Value Village if you are up in the Great Northwest) is one of the only times left in life where one can find an absolute treasure. Such as the Burberry coat I found at the Value Village for $29. Do I wear it now that I live in California? Does it matter?

I'm I'm I'm hunting looking for a come up
This is fucking awesome

2. People who spend $50 for T shirts -- as a general rule, I am OK with this. I buy my t shirts at Target for six or seven bucks and I think that is too expensive. I think my hatred for "retro" and "brand name" started back in the early part of the last decade. On one of my very infrequent trips to shopping malls I saw a shirt that said "Know Your Roots" hanging up in the window of, you guessed it, Hot Topic. Above this command was a picture of...........an eight bit Nintendo controller. I stopped and stared, mouth agape and began to walk slowly over to the poor 16 year old in black jeans. I got to within ten feet when he sensed my murderous rage and he ran for his life.

"YOU WORTHLESS BASTARDS! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ATARI! I'LL GIVE YOU ASTEROIDS YOU IGNORANT PIECES OF SHIT! FUCK YOU IN THE FACE! IF YOU HAD ANY SORT OF SOULS GOD WO-"

I was then tackled by 6 security guards and banned from the mall, which is what I wanted in the first place. I chalked it up to a lack of medication and fear of being over 30. They didn't buy it and I haven't been back. The price tag on that 1980s-billboard-on-a-shirt was over $20.

I really want to think that this song is making fun of the people who swear by retro clothes and then buy non-retro clothing with retro totems on them. You can even buy Frankie Says Relax shirts now, so ol' grandpa can show his six year old how he and the ladies got down in 1983.

Sheeeeeit

The kids who loved this song wore those obnoxious skater type shirts but never got on a skateboard. Or they wore 49er jerseys and hats. Or they were enamored with their iPads and never paid attention to anything. I'm not sure what this means, but it means that my liking for this song is overrode by the painful memories of professional failure. Of not getting to kids, which is my job. Our school failed because of no buy in from students and parents. Everyone had a role to play in its downfall. I could have been more present and been more involved. The students could have taken it seriously. Many did not, but the few that did got something out of it.

That's easy for me to say when you have some students living on the streets for three days, some drinking before school even starts, some smoking pot in the bathrooms during school. "Take this seriously!" Why should they?

They be like "Oh that Gucci, that's hella tight"
I'm like "Yo, that's fifty dollars for a t-shirt."

That's why. I'm not saying spending $50 for a t-shirt is wrong. It's just stupid. If the Burberry example from above was $59 instead of $29, I would not have bought it. At $29, it's a come up. So keep putting out $150 for that Kaepernick Jersey, kid,  and the $50 for the alternate home lid while you fail classes. Am I bitter? Yep. Am I experienced? More than you.

#9: Solsbury Hill -- Peter Gabriel (1977)

This song in an interesting one, written as Gabriel's first single after he left Genesis following the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour in 1975. It shows up in roughly 67,000 movies but has a unique impact on me for various reasons. Craig Crawford got me interested in Peter Gabriel's music right about the time that I became interested in Dungeons and Dragons (again, I fault Craig and Scott). This was roughly 1982 or 1983, I think. I played D&D all the time and bought every module that my allowance would allow. I also listened to the radio constantly while this was going on giving me an encyclopedic knowledge of 1980s music and 1960s one-hit-wonders. The 1960s were considered "classic rock" in the 1980s and Elvis and the Everly Brothers were considered "Oldies". I vaguely understood from Craig that Gabriel was once in a band now fronted by Phil Collins, and thought Gabriel was perhaps the oddest person I had ever encountered. I submit the video for "Shock the Monkey" as proof.

I had heard Solsbury Hill several times before 1990, but it never resonated until that year. For what reasons I do not know. My Dad left (of his own steam or mine or Mom's is a bit of conjecture by all parties) to live with another woman whom I did not know existed until he died in 2001. I am not sure what happened to him after he left us. I saw him for brief periods over the next 7 years, usually turning the other way when I saw him in a bar downtown. In 1990 I felt like I was going somewhere. I was in a bunch of plays, I was popular at school and doing reasonably well (for me a 3.0 GPA was reasonably well) and I had my own basement at my folks house.

This lead to screenings of classic films: Evil Dead and Evil Dead II were favorites. There was D&D every Sunday at Craig's house which would continue for the next 6 or 7 years. I was enjoying myself capitally. I went on dates....with actual girls! On June 9 I went out with a young woman to see the horrific horror film The Guardian and had pizza; she drove a green Toyota and has not gotten rid of me since.

In the back of my head, I knew all of the successes of the year to be built on sand. This is the great problem with my emotional and mental state: I do not deserve success and it will soon be taken away because of my attitude/real ability/exposure as a complete and absolute fraud. I guess this song gets at the heart of that voice that started whispering in my ears in the 1980s and was roaring at the top of its lungs in 2007.

 It was like the quiet conversation and coughing during the break between movements when I was a teenager. As my time of my quitting at Iowa in 1996 it was a moderate conversation that I could talk over. I imagined that I made the right choice and trusted myself. Even though things began to work out slowly the voices became more insistent and demanding that I did not know myself.

I did not believe the information/I just had to trust imagination

By 2007 that voice and noise was the cosmic thump that drowned out all else. A 20 year retrogression from talkies to life as a silent film where the only accompaniment is Beriloz's Dies Irae as I just have to wait for my life and mind to fall apart.

Till I thought of what I'd say/Which connection I should cut

In 2007 I started a new job and thought the connection to the Churchillian Black Dog was cut. I never thought that the dog would bite the living hell out of me. That voice saying "everything you have, everything you've ever done or will do is a fraud. You deserve nothing" is a friend and speaks truth. It is the wolf howl on the Autumn night. The face to the world is not yours. You come to believe in a self that is not yours, a feeble and downtrodden thing who is powerless. Frederic Jameson wrote about the "dearealization" of the surrounding everyday world. Against all evidence, against all rational thought, I believe my life as a parade of failures. This is the fraud for all of us.

This song ends with these lines:

Today I don't need a replacement
I'll show them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going BOOM-BOOM-BOOM
Hey, I said
You can keep my things they've come to take me home

The thing that takes us home is belief in ourselves, however sparing it is and however irregular its visits to our doors. The things we leave behind in those moments are what keep us from being ourselves.

#8: Mr. Bad Example -- Warren Zevon (1991)

Warren Zevon is one of the true great American songwriters. David Letterman was fond of pointing out that he was able to find a rhyme for brucellosis in the song "Play It All Night Long" but this song is my favorite. Not because I want to necessarily be the subject of the song but that I want to be able to figure out how Zevon wrote this brilliant item. I mean, what was going on in his head and how can I get there?

Before you respond "Easy. Live at the bottom of a Gin Bottle for several years. Rinse and repeat" it is not that easy. Zevon was a true poet, and this song is he at the top of his art. There are three lyrics in this song that prove this for me:

 I got a part-time job at my father's carpet store
Laying tackless stripping, and housewives by the score
I loaded up their furniture, and took it to Spokane
And auctioned off every last naugahyde divan
Warren Zevon is the only man who has ever lived who can get the phrases "tackles stripping" and "Naugahayde divan" into one verse and make them work. Not to mention the inspired rhyme of Spokane and Divan. Good Lord, this song includes housewives, carpet samples, French Prostitutes, pauperized miners, Altar Boys and Foster's.

I'm very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins
I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in
I'm proud to be a glutton, and I don't have time for sloth
I'm greedy, and I'm angry, and I don't care who I cross
This is also a nice bit of writing, even if you need to Geek out on the English to get there. The rhyme scheme being AABB is easy, as is the alliteration on glutton and greedy. This is brilliant for the phrase "trying to fit them in" which is an awesome double entendre. Someone who is angry is also "wroth", which rhymes nicely with "sloth". So this verse covers all of the deadly sins at once, something difficult to do in four lines.

Of course I went to law school and took a law degree
And counseled all my clients to plead insanity
Then worked in hair replacement, swindling the bald
Where very few are chosen, and fewer still are called

Few men are bald and fewer still chose to be in Zevon's time. Now it is a trend. I LOVE being bald. It is so much easier than having long hair. Having had both I will never go back. Of course I can't have the long luxurious locks that once adorned my melon back in the 1990s for the simple fact that they will not grow without chemical interference that may make me impotent, give me cancer or make me think that I am Napoleon III. So what? I look better without 'em!
Keeping with the Biblical arrangement, you have a paraphrasing of Matthew 22:14 "For Many are called but few are chosen" which occurs at the end of a parable by Jesus about a King who has invited his subjects to a wedding. Several verses after is the famous "render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's" quote. In the world of the song, Mr. Bad Example is neither chosen nor called, pointing out his rapturous acceptance of the Seven Deadly Sins. That is just really informed writing. When I listen to this song it reminds me of what we all look for in our favorite authors: the reasons they are our favorites. This song is hysterical but it is also damn well constructed, and I would not expect anything else from Warren Zevon.
 

#7: Lost in the Supermarket -- The Clash (1979)

One of the best albums ever, with the following songs one after another:

Hateful, Rudie Can't Fail, Spanish Bombs, The Right Profile, Lost in the Supermarket, Clampdown and Guns of Brixton.

That's a greatest hits album......without counting Koka Kola, Wrong 'em Boyo, Death or Glory and Train in Vain. While some are partial to Sandinista, this is The Clash's best effort. Joe Strummer wrote Lost in the Supermarket while visualizing the childhood of Mick Jones. Jones sings the lead on the song. Headon's drum work on this song is crisp and wonderful without sounding urgent. The lyrics are urgent enough and Jones' delivery is perfect.

While the song is about consumerism, it gets at the horrible "suburbia" nonsense so prevalent in 1980s music by addressing the loneliness. The song always resonated with me for two lyrics:

1. I heard the people who live on the ceiling/scream and fight most scarily/hearing that noise was my first ever feeling/that's how its been all around me

Of course these were my parents! Who the hell else would it be? And it scared the shit out of me every day. While this means I did spend a goodly amount of my childhood hiding in my room it also means that I can put up with a lot of noise and concentrate. This probably leads to my ability to read for hours at a time without stopping, as I did not want to leave my room for anything (food, bathroom) because I would be in the firing line. Mom usually had the good sense to stop but Dad didn't know he was beat. Usually each round would end not with a bell but with the muttered "Balls!" followed by a retreat to a neutral barca-lounger and couch. Then Mom would chime in with something like "God Damn it" and the next round would start. 30-40 minutes of this at a shot was not uncommon, sometimes as many as three times a day.

I often wonder why they stayed together. And I have no idea. They were miserable, and one thing that I would tell any couple with kids (or cats/dogs/rats/chimpanzees/iguanas) is to never stay together for your kids. If you are miserable chances are your kids will be as well. Better to have awkward weekends or holidays or drunken ramblings about the evils of your former in-laws than a long term bag of never ending shit.

It also means that I HATE YELLING! Jesus Christ with egg on his beard I can't stand people yelling at each other. I mean yelling, not "raising one's voice" or "speaking with authority" or "cussing a blue streak." That's not yelling. Yelling means an effect not unlike a mail gauntlet dragged across a chalkboard. A paralyzingly painful feeling with a high pucker factor. I really dislike raising my own voice and attempt to avoid this at all costs which makes me a pushover.

2. I came in here for a special offer/A guaranteed personality

My "personality products" are Chuck Taylors (tagged red ones courtesy of the talented Austin Matthew, white, hot pink), hats (to protect the bald melon in various weathers), goatee (with mind of its own...If I try to shave it off it will kill me) and Hot Pink IPod. As a teenager there was precious little to define oneself by outside of music and what you wore.....things never change. Consumerism is an awful thing but it remains the place where you can exert some control over your own identity. That is the loneliness of the song. Apple users "drink the Kool Aid" but we all do at some point or another. The whole world is Kool Aid but we can choose the flavors. Choose the BBC or NPR flavored news over the Huff Post or Fox or MSNBC. If you must choose the HuffPo flavor, pick the politics flavor over the Jennifer Aniston side-boob flavor. Ahhhhhh who the hell am I kidding?

The only personality that matters is the one you develop. You don't get it from buying shit. I just like Hot Pink. I have always wanted a Hot Pink tuxedo. Use your personality to show yourself.

#6: She's Got Everything -- The Kinks (1968)

The Kinks -- She's Got Everything


This was originally the B-Side of the single "Days" released in 1968, and appears on the album The Kinks--Kronikles. This was the first place that I ran into it, after buying the cassette tape of Kronikles when in my freshman year of high school. I bought it originally for a song that will appear later in the Top 40 list, "Apeman".

This song, however, jumped up and grabbed my ass and never let go. It is perhaps the most catchy song ever written, which is saying something, even for The Kinks. The guitar solo at the bridge is audio diamonds that cut through the usual FM bullshit. Tell me that Ritchie Blackmore didn't steal the lick for "My Woman From Tokyo" from this song.

The Kinks are the most underrated of the British Invasion bands in large part because of an onstage brawl that got them banned from performing in the United States between 1965 and 1969. This coincided with what their Wikipedia entry calls "The Golden Age" and I have to agree. For instance

1. The Album The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society released in 1968 was perhaps the best of this great band's catalogue, but had no "single". This is unfortunate, as "Village Green Preservation Society" is one of the great songs of the 1960s. "She's Got Everything" was a song originally intended as the opening track of a US only release called Four More Respected Gentlemen.
2. The song "Sunny Afternoon", released in 1966, is one of the best 10 songs ever written by anyone anywhere. It, as well as The Beatles "Taxman", takes the UK to task for taxes. However, it goes on to have the great lyric "My girlfriend's gone off with my car/And gone back to her ma and pa/Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty". Ray Davies was at his songwriting height between 1965 and 1969, and the biggest market in the world was not available as a live audience. 
3. The single "Waterloo Sunset" was released in 1967. This could be a 'Nuff Said moment, excepting the brilliant lyrics, references to Terrence Stamp and Julie Christie and the performance of this song at the end of the 2012 Summer Olympics. 
1. Dirty old river, must you keep rolling

But, I digress. This song is just catchy, exuberant and joyful. This is how love is for anyone, and it is about how love is at the beginning of any relationship:


I've got a girl who's oh, so good,
She's got everything.
I've got a girl and she is mine,
She's got everything.
Nothing is wrong, everything is brilliant in every color and every shade. Nothing is dulled, everything is heightened and makes the soul jump in 4/4 time

All other guys just stand and stare,
She's got everything.
I ain't got a dime but she don't care,
I got everything.
This is how I am in those moments when the sun catches Rachel's hair just right. When I do something that I know makes her happy, when she laughs at my jokes and can't stop, which is when she gets that crink in her nose and covers up her mouth just so

And I can't live without her love,
And I can't live without her kisses.

Joy is infectious, as is love. This song is such that I want to listen to it about 400 times in a row. Just like I want Rachel to keep laughing at my jokes and giving me kisses. Ohhhhhhh yeah, I got everything! Thanks, Rachel!

Top 40 #5: Mah Na Mah Na by Piero Umiliani (1968)

Muppets 1969 (!)


I really had no idea that this originally aired on the Ed Sullivan Show, or indeed that the Muppets themselves were on that show. People my age probably found this song through Sesame Street instead of the Muppets.

Why this? because I just plain like silly shit. That's what is the best thing about this song. I could be in a parachute that does not open carrying the severed heads of my pets falling toward a Hello Kitty inflatable kids pool filled with waste from a cattle yard and if The Universe whispered  "Doo Doo-do-do-do" I would respond by giggling and yelling "MAH NA MAH NA". It's perfect in its simple silliness. In this day and age where everything silly is deemed important and everything important degenerates into name calling silliness, this song is simply silly.

I am writing this post on the day that DOMA was struck down by the Supreme Court, a day after the same Justices "gutted" the Voting Rights Act. Let's look at the scorecards:

Voting Rights Act Case 5-4

1. John Roberts
2. Antonin Scalia
3. Anthony Kennedy
4. Clarence Thomas
5. Samuel Alito

The 9 states in question no longer need to send in their proposed electoral law changes to the Justice Department. It does NOT remove the ability for people who have been discriminated against in voting because of race to sue the state over the discriminatory act. This is purely a state's rights issue, NOT an issue about individual rights. If, for instance, Alabama wants to change portions of its electoral code, it must seek permission from the DoJ. If Tennessee, a neighboring and former Confederate state with a Jim Crow tradition also wants to enact voting laws, it does not have to seek permission from the DoJ. In effect, the five justices in the majority concluded that this creates a second class tier of states which is antithetical to the 10th  Amendment.

Do-doo-do-do-do

Robert's opinion notes that "The purpose of section 5 is to not punish the past but to produce a better future" and that this treatment of these states does "not satisfy constitutional requirements." I absolutely agree with this. It singles out states for past digressions while overlooking others (indeed, the VRA goes down to the county level in North Carolina, California, South Dakota and in New York City).

Mnah-Mnah

DOMA 5-4

1. Anthony Kennedy
2. Ruth Bader-Ginsberg
3. Stephen Breyer
4. Sonya Sotomayor
5. Elena Kagan

The only constant on both sides is Kennedy, even if both cases involve the role of the Federal Government and its relationship to state power. Which, in effect, the ruling here is that the Federal Government cannot make laws that create a class of second class citizens which DOMA accomplished by not allowing same-sex couples to receive economic benefits that hetero couples enjoy. This is not about rights, it is about economics. In that sense, Kennedy shows remarkable consistency in looking for the creation of second class status for states or citizens which goes against any sort of constitutionality.

Do-do-do-do

This was first and foremost a TAX issue. The plaintiff in the case demanded a refund of estate taxes levied on her after her partner died. This is why they dodged on the Prop 8 case, because that was a majority vote in a state. If they struck that down, it would overturn an enacted state proposition. Civil Unions can now be recognized in California and these people will receive partner benefits, which is what the DOMA case was about. The decision explicitly states that the problem is the creation of a "subset of second class marriages." Sounds like a creation of a subset of second class states.

Mnah-Mnah

So, are Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts hypocrites? No. The look upon this as two very different issues dealing with state sovereignty. States are sovereign over their own citizens and if legislatures enact laws over their own citizens, it is up to the citizens themselves to challenge the constitutional legality of them. If the Federal Legislature passes a law, it is up to the states to challenge the constitutional legality of those laws. Emotions have no place in law; if you do not like something, use a logical argument to get it overturned. Alito and the rest are not "reactionary" or "asses" any more than Ginsberg is a "pinko down to her underpants". Those categorizations may be correct, but drop 'em.

Do-doo-do-do-do

In either case, the Supreme Court should strike down any law that creates a second class tier of anything, states or citizens. While on the outside it may look like the Conservatives on the court found one way for states and another way for states, it is more about the legal entities of citizens and states. I still think Scalia is a pompous windbag (a very bright windbag) but at least he grinds his ideological axes on the bench.  I found his dissent which focused on "homosexual sodomy" repellent. I guess heterosexual sodomy is just fine with him. If that's your thing, do what you want to do.

Mnah-Mnah

#4: Head over Heels by Tears for Fears

Released: 1985 on the album Songs from the Big Chair

Written by: Roland Orzabal, Curt Smith (AKA the two vocalists for Tears for Fears with the awesome 1980s feathered locks that we all wanted. Don't lie, you wanted it as much as I did)

Head over Heels Video

     I always think of one thing when I hear this song. It is not Donnie Darko, the fantastic film that most people think of while wishing Drew Barrymore was their English teacher. No, it is a flea market in Rogers, Arkansas in the late summer of 1985. The summer before seventh grade, before the bad unwashed times, the beatings and the Members Only jacket that might have well been stapled to my torso and the Tennessee hat that was stapled to my greasy head. Jesus, no wonder I could never get a girlfriend.

     This flea market saw the purchase of my first two cassette tapes, which not only provide a nice statement about the 1980s but also about my musical tastes. I picked up from a cardboard display the following:

1. Songs from the Big Chair: I knew the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and liked it. I had heard "Shout" also but thought it sucked. Thus, when I saw "Head over Heels" on the track list the Meatloaf Requirements were fulfilled: Two out of Three Ain't bad so I ponied up my $3.95 and bought it.

2. Pyromania by Def Leppard. Yes, yes. Def Leppard was awful.

    These two albums represent one of the following three things:

1. The 1980s were a time of incredible musical variety. Just add in Elvis Costello, Metallica, The English Beat.....the list goes on!
2. I had absolutely no musical taste whatsoever. Give me a fuckin' break. I was 12 and it was on the radio. 
3. This was a signal of my as-of-then undiagnosed bipolar disorder. You be the judge:
1. Head over Heels: I wanted to be with you alone/to talk about the weather
2. Photograph: Got a photograph picture of a passion killer/It's too much/You're the only one I wanna touch
3. Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure/Nothing ever lasts forever
4. Rock of Ages: I know for sure there ain't no cure/So feel it don't fight it/go with the flow/Gimme gimmie gimmie one more for the road

Personally I think it is #3. Most people would point to the Everest sized mountain of evidence for #2. Haters gonna hate. 

     Songs From the Big Chair was a white cassette with a rose colored label; of I remember correctly this was the same color layout of my cassette of the coke fueled awesomeness that was Black Sabbath Vol 4. What is important for me in the scope of this song is the video. This is perhaps the only song that I did not hear before I saw the video. Thus, the video runs along with the song when I hear it. It involves a guy trying to impress a librarian, a chimp wearing a Red Sox jersey, an Orthodox Jew and an awesome cut in which the keyboard flies in from the right

     Not only did this leave me utterly confused and laughing, it left me with one of my three fetishes. No, not for keyboards, but for librarians who wear glasses. Ah hell, that could have been Velma from Scooby Doo. I have always been partial to this song because of the opening notes (the 1980s version of Beethoven's Fifth) and the slow build to the drum fill at the end of the first verse. The video is completely meaningless but quite funny, a showcase for guys lip syncing with all their might in the oddest places.

     This song has staying power because of 1984 and 1985. It was quite possibly the last time I felt truly at ease with myself. In seventh grade something broke in me; in sixth grade I was happy with my lot even if dad randomly punched me from his chair and mom looked the other way. The refrain of "Don't take my heart/don't break my heart/Don't throw it away" mirrored what my parents were doing and quite possibly touched a part of me that threatened to vanish during seventh grade. When I hear this song it is pure nostalgia for a time that my family was not unalterably fractured. I was twelve, not failing classes, still bathing regularly, not getting yelled at or beaten every other day, still had a reasonable dad who once in a while got angry and then spent the next three days apologizing.

     By December of 1985 things were completely different. I was indifferent to grades, football and being alive. I was in trouble at school and routinely detained. I did this because I did not want to go home. If one looked at my behavioral record (you know, that Permanent One that I threaten kids with even though I know it does not exist) I would bet that the majority of my detentions occurred on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These were the days I was sure that dad would be home and I would be stuck alone with him. Threats would be made and fists would be thrown. Every so often I fought back and this would make him angry. Dad was a dirty fighter, so at least my face was spared. While I can say he never gave me a black eye he did cut my scalp in several places, bruised my kidneys, hit me once in the liver which kept me at home "sick" for two days, kicked me in the knee to get me on the ground.

     In a sense, though, the worst part was the yelling. Voices raised everywhere around me. At school (Where is your book cover? Take that hat off! You are a student here not a guest! Again no homework? Why don't you try?) at home (Where the fuck have you been? It's none of your God damn business you drunk bastard. Let me in! If you tell your mother about this I'll fucking kill you, understand?). Nowhere was quiet, nowhere was easy. So while the lyrics of this song make little to no sense, they provide a small sense of comfort and hope.

Top 40 #3: Turn the Page by Bob Seger

Released: Originally in 1972; preferred is the version on Live Bullet recorded in 1975 and released in 1976.

Turn the Page "Live Bullet"

Written by: Bob Seger

      There is cheese, then there is cheese for special occasions. Then there is cheese made from goats milk from goats who graze on King Agamemnon's grave every full moon that sells for $750 an ounce. Such is Bob Seger's epic ballad "Turn the Page."

      I heard this first, as with many things, on KRNA in Iowa City. I probably then listened to this song roughly 16,000 times on the two copies of Live Bullet I owned. I loved this song, warbling along with it while the Panasonic tape recorder that my Dad stole from the University of Iowa Hospitals wore out each tape. Indeed, I taped this song from the radio several times. Once I misjudged the length of the tape remaining and listened with horror as side 1 dropped out just before the climactic sax notes that end up the song.

     As Bob sings "There I GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and the sax comes in with more cheese than a Wisconsin dairy, there is my 9 year old voice saying "DAMNIT!" loudly enough for the Panasonic to hear but not loud enough for the parents. Regardless of the tragedy of failing to capture Bob in his Cobo Hall glory, it would have meant a shot to the mouth. I cussed in solemn quiet, only to be rewarded for about a year by my giggling. I still hear that "DAMNIT" the few times per year that I manage to listen to the entire song.

    Before you think that I am mocking Bob Seger, I am not. I credit him for finding one of my favorite duos, Ike and Tina Turner. Live Bullet opens with "Nutbush City Limits", a great song but better when belted out by Tina. I sought out that version in the times before YouTube in the only way I could, by buying a cassette of "Ike and Tina's Greatest". Needless when I listened to "Proud Mary", "Come Together" and "A Fool in Love" I was hooked. In a sense, Seger was a gateway artist, and for that I owe him big.

     You see, I hate this song now. One of many things I cannot stand from my childhood, it is a solemn monument to the God of changing taste. I loved the idea of some "long Haired Freak" wandering into some Diner filled with local yokels not unlike my parents and family. I was the Freak, and the family were the people passing judgment. Everyone does this. We identify with those who are not understood when we are teenagers or 12 year olds. When we are abused, we identify with those who have the fortitude to basically tell the world to suck a bag of dicks while taking a fist to the ribs. Such it was with Seger; I knew I was worthwhile even when people treated me like shit.

     You turn the page and move on to the next chapter. If people do not like it or "don't understand" they have to meet you in a place of commonality. If they refuse, you Turn the Page on them, family or not. While this may be shortsighted, I would answer life is too short to sweat the small bull shit. Hair too long? People bitching about your beard? Cut both when you want to, then do what as in the old Hebrew tale concerning Joshua. Joshua was invited to a feast, but showed up in rough homespun robes. He was turned away at the door despite his protestations. He returned in new robes and was ushered in with great pomp and circumstance. He responded by saying "Since it is my robes you invited, it is my robes which will stay." He then cast aside his robes and left the feast.

     I may dislike this song because it is more full of cheese than a sandwich, but I cannot turn away from its message. Don't like me or what I look like? Tough. Get to know me before you make a judgment. I make stupid mistakes, just like everyone does. How do we forgive ourselves when others do not? Mistakes ascribed to how you look should never enter into the equation, as they are not mistakes. Mistakes are made through our own choices, not the decisions of small minded others. And I mean small minded. Don't like that waiter or waitress because of their tats? Go somewhere that would not hire them to match yourself.

     Does this drive us apart? Of course it does but this is the penalty for having a free society. If you cannot accept the bulk of humanity who talk to much on cell phones or have tramp stamps you are not part of the world. I hate both of those things. Loathe them with every fiber of my fat assed being. I do not expect them to change because I want them to do so. They have to come to that point. The question as to whether or not it is a "good" thing to have or not have a tramp stamp is immaterial beside the action. We produce meaning and we can produce change. To think otherwise removes us from agency and power. I would say "Fuck that. I decide." Don't like my hair?

There I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the Page

     We are all the stars in our own lives and we decide our co-stars. Don't want to be in the play? You are whether you like it or not. It's your choice to be a villain or a hero. I want to be a hero in everyone's play. We should never want to be less.

Entertainment and Conversation at the Super Bowl

Conversation
A good crowd here today.
The woman next to me says I never
date a man who doesn't drink
isn't over 5'10
and didn't go to college.
Men in neutral ties talk silently about the game
there is only the buzz and clinking of barware.
What dating site?
Raiders suck this is a sausage fest.

I know you! Brady's drums, right!
One of the many misguided attempts to be a musician
brought me into this mans orbit. We talk about
music. Genesis, mostly. The Lamb Lies Down
while the game goes on not watched.

Commercial Break
The crowd groans at the stereotypes
kissing each other. Good for both of them
everyone convinced that she, being considered
exceptionally beautiful must be an exceptional
kisser. And he, being considered exceptionally
nerdy must not be. We know he can kiss better
than the chiseled because Hollywood tells us so:
All jocks think about is sports
All nerds think about is sex.

If I was single I could not begin
to know how to start a conversation.
The ladies lecherously size up the package
contained by Calvin Klein.
The men call them gay I laugh and say
"I wouldn't kick him out of bed."
And the ladies laugh and agree
while Paul gets angry at me.

Movies and movies and cream in the jeans
Iron Man is on the scene. Is there an 80s cartoon
not made into a movie? We got GI Joe and Transformers.
We got two White Houses blowing up.
We got retro chic for a time I remember
that makes me feel sick.

Entertainment
Alicia's anthem was too long or was too loungey
or just right.
Calling her lovely belittles the incandesence.
And on the TV a titillating train wreck of a dance starts.
And she is beautiful and sparkling and majestic and everything
an idol who also sings.
I love the fishnets and those thighs.
Is there a game on?
Does it even matter?