ONE

I suppose one of the strange things about yesterday’s soul-searching shuffle was the fact that it produced songs by all three bands I’ll be seeing with brain coral during our March Month of Concerts: Belle and Sebastian, The Pogues, and Stereolab.

I once had it in me to be a mathematical proficient, but now I’d have to defer to greater minds to crunch the numbers and figure out the odds of this happening.

So here are the raw numbers:
-The condition that needs to be met is the appearance of all three of these bands at least once in the five-song data set.
-The universe of available songs is 286. (It is, after all, a 2GB nano, and there’s still about 500MB that I have not yet filled.)
-The sub-universes are as follows: Belle and Sebastian, 34 songs; The Pogues, 38 songs; Stereolab, 17 songs.

I’m waiting Will Hunting…

PLAY SOMETHING FAMILIAR

Last night I had a disjointed panel of dreams that involved exile, a boat, a man in a wheelchair, and a secret return.

I woke up with a lingering sense of unease, but the definite opinion that my brain was trying to cleanse itself of some jumble of concerns.

My friend brain coral has a theory that the iPod can see into your soul, and that a simple shuffle will often deliver an accurate soundtrack of your state of mind.

I suppose what I'm looking for is more a definition of my state of mind. So have at it Nano...

Beautiful— Belle and Sebastian
Whiskey You're the Devil— The Pogues
Junior Kickstart— The Go! Team
Pause— Stereolab
Billy Liar— The Decemberists

Yup, that about sums it up...

FLIPPIN' LIKE A PANCAKE

The greatest TV theme song ever? The Tra-La-La Song from the Banana Splits Show.

On this I will brook no dissent.

Have a mess of fun this weekend!

SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE COME AND GONE

Guilty pleasure.

More Than a Feeling—Boston

The walls in my sister’s room were painted red. Red as a toreador’s cape and the blood of a bull.

She hung beads in the entryway to her room, at a 90-degree angle to the door, from ceiling to floor.

On the door was pinned a cardboard star, about 7” across from point to point, covered with fluttery tin foil.

As a kid, I was more likely to hover in the hallway outside her room than to actually enter.

When I was 7 and she was 15, she moved out. Went to live in New Jersey, and then Minnesota, with a motocross racer who had three fingers on his right hand.

Several years later she was back on the East Coast, living in Vermont.

I went to visit her, and came across the first Boston album as I was thumbing through her record collection. I had just discovered this album, and was developing a preadolescent allegiance to it.

For the first time, I perceived a point of intersection between us. A shared interest.

And it was more than a feeling…

MYSTIC CRYSTAL REVELATIONS

Guilty pleasure.

Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)—The 5th Dimension

Now, we all remember when Fred dreamed Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm became baby singing sensations. Their manager was the memorably named Eppy Brianstone.

The song that swept a prehistoric nation? Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In.

A few years after that episode, Let the Sunshine In showed up in the musical Hair.

Damn you thieving hippies. Damn you all to hell.

But The 5th Dimension made everything OK with this awesome medley.

I’ll willingly swallow gobs and gobs of nonsensical astropharmaceutical doggerel when it goes down so sweet and mantric.

A shiny new poncho for anyone who knew about that parenthetical in the title…

A FREE RIDE WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY PAID

OK, so the Sam Donaldson sighting from a couple of weeks back was not the only bit of excitement from that particular day.

For on that day, a seed was planted, a seed which bore today a wondrous fruit…

My former company was exhibiting at the conference wherein I spotted Sam, and I stopped by their booth to chat. While I was there, I filled out an entry for their prize drawing.

And today I got a phone call informing me that I am soon to be the owner of a sleek black 2GB iPod Nano.

Don’t you just love it when your ex gives you valuable prizes?

WHERE THE HELL DID I DINE?

Guilty pleasure.

Do You Feel Like We Do— Peter Frampton

At the onset of 7th grade, I made a fairly conscious effort to become cool.

Up until that point, I had been a high achiever academically, and very involved in extracurricular activities.

On top of my aforementioned slot in the Joycitones, I was the lead in the 6th-grade play, knocked out attendees at the school’s annual talent show with my performance of a song I co-wrote with my pianist (Rock and Stroll), and held first sax in the band.

Uncool.

So I began to forge tentative associations with the Jordache/Member’s Only/better-haircut crowd. The ones who seemed to be drawing an enviable level of interest from the girls…

Musically, they were all about Frampton Comes Alive! and Aerosmith.

In too many ways to count, though, I did not feel like these guys did…

BRACE YOURSELF

Guilty pleasure.

Unbelievable—EMF

Because when we were first dating, my wife and I would sit on the bed talking until the threat of dawn, with the local altrock station playing in the background. This one always made us pause and giggle…

Ecstasy motherfuckers!

A REAL PRESSURE COOKER

Guilty pleasure.

Paradise By the Dashboard Light—Meat Loaf

It dripped nostalgia for ‘60s teenage drama and Phil Spector.

It was the hit of the Bar Mitzvah season of 77/78, echoing through catering halls as I broke Tam-Tams over illicit cups of Manischewitz.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up the second Old Grey Whistle Test DVD, which contains a bizarre live performance.

Mr. Loaf is hanging on to his voice by a thread, and Karla DeVito is vamping in a black blouse with large tit-revealing slits on each side.

They do the basic pantomime of the song’s narrative, including some quite explicit groping by Mr. Loaf. But where it gets truly weird is at the end…

The end of the studio version is a relatively subdued coda—the calm after the preceding storm. In this version, however, the end is the storm.

“I hate you so much! You make me wanna spew up!” screams Mr. Loaf, right in Karla’s face.

“I think you just did, fat boy,” deadpans Karla as she wipes her upper lip.

The histrionics continue, with Mr. Loaf pounding the top of an amp, then picking up a mike stand and taking a run at Karla, brandishing the business end. She ducks the charge.

Mr. Loaf eventually ends up behind Karla and lets out a soul-curdling bellow: “Fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkk yoooooooouuuuuuuu!!!”

Damn.

It was a train wreck that I had to replay immediately. And I promise you, I’ll surely watch it again…

LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE

Don t worry, it is not the last of pea-time...

Do not kill the clock!

GET YER YA-YAS OUT

Guilty pleasure.

The Walls Came Down— The Call

(Here it comes...)

Political portent hangs thick in the air:

“Sanctuary fades,
Congregation splits,
Nightly military raids,
The congregation splits.”

(Here it comes...)

And more pointed:

“It's a song of assassins
Ringin' in your ears,
We got terrorists thinking
Playing on fears.”

(Here it comes...)

And then a Statement:

“I don't think there are any Russians
And there ain't no Yanks,
Just corporate criminals
Playin' with tanks.”

Here it comes...

“Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Yes, come on
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Come on, come on, come on
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-ya, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-ya, Wake, wake up
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Go, yeah-eah
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Woh-woh
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Come on, come on, come on
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa…”

Don’t lie—you know that’s what you were waiting for…

EAST DETENTION

Guilty pleasure.

Informer— Snow

Dirk.

I first met Dirk when I was about 15. He was dating my friend's sister. They would one day marry and have a beautiful boy with kiwi-brown eyes.

Dirk was six or seven years older than us, sharp, wildly funny, brooding, and volatile.

One midnight as we were leaving his apartment, he began throwing peanuts and coins at us from his second-story window, in protest of our exit. We laughed, until the coins gave way to full beer cans. Then we ran.

Some years later, on the eve of my friend's wedding, we barreled down the LIE on our way to Brooklyn with Dirk's Deadhead friend James behind the wheel. We licky-boom-boom-downed all the way, giggly and goofy. It was great.

That was the last time I saw Dirk. Several months later, he walked out to a field behind his house and lit himself on fire.

And now the weather forecast is calling for real snow tomorrow.

It is winter.

Fuck.

Dirk.

ALL DANCE THE POOT

If my kids start asking me for this, I will know that I have done my job well...

THINK OF ME AND TRY NOT TO LAUGH

Guilty pleasure.

You Wear It Well— Rod Stewart

First comes the voice. That hoarse, weary malted milk and gin rasp. That voice you wish Tom Waits had...

And then the words, wise beyond anyone's years:

“I'm gonna write about the birthday gown that I bought in town
When you sat down and cried on the stairs...”

Who would've expected this to devolve into vapid tabloid fodder? Who could've predicted the schoolyard snickering about a gallon of cum in his stomach?

What a colossal fucking waste of a prodigious talent.

So today it's not my guilt— it's Rod's...

A SHIRT OF VIOLENT GREEN

Forgive me, but there was a dearth of guilty pleasures today…

The day was highlighted, if you will, by the fact that I ate lunch two tables over from Sam Donaldson.

I was tempted to accost him at his table screaming “Where did you hide my Bomb Pops, Jerry?!?” or some other non sequitur in the same class as “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”

Because it just seems like the thing to do when you spot a random male newscaster in public…

JOHNNY REB WHAT'S THE PRICE OF FANS...

Guilty pleasure.

Superman—R.E.M.

This is the story of a love gone wrong…

My first cassette copy of Murmur had bum mechanics, so I could only listen to the first side, and I lived with that for months. It was enough.

Murmur was lovely, warm, and gauzy and oblique. I cried sometimes, without knowing quite why.

Reckoning was more direct in spots, and I made the journey with the band as they began to look the outside world in the eye.

It seems strange to me now, but for some reason I have never in my life owned a copy of Fables. I liked the songs well enough, but I suppose competition from The Replacements, Husker Du, The Pogues, etc. kind of froze R.E.M. out.

And really, the more public they became, the more Stipe’s oddly shaped ego became a problem for me...

Fall on Me was enough to bring me back to the band for Lifes Rich Pageant, but I did not like what I found.

Stipe was now articulating, but it was apparent that he had lapsed into some kind of harebrained demagoguery. There were minions he was looking to lead, and I was not among their number.

If you really pressed an aesthetic argument, I’d probably cop to Flowers of Guatemala being the best thing on Lifes Rich Pageant. But out of principle, I’d name Superman…

EASYBEATS

Back Monday, bringing the guilt...

STREETCARS

Guilty pleasure.

Old Days—Chicago

We were the Joycitones. We were the elite of the sixth-grade chorus at Joyce Road Elementary School.

Our leader was Ms. Dwyer, a taciturn former Rockette.

I was an alto, and part of the all-county chorus that year.

This was before puberty, cigarettes, and cheap black beauties worked their ravage on my voice.

Old Days was our showstopper...

LOVE IS GOOD

Guilty pleasure.

Right Back Where We Started From—Maxine Nightingale

This song might’ve been conceived under the most cynical, coke-fueled, disco cash-in conditions. Or it might’ve been conceived by a pair of bunny rabbits nuzzling in the shade of a yew tree. I am so beyond giving a fuck.

Just remember a moment— a youthful moment or a moment from yesterday afternoon— when it was a joy to be alive. This is that moment, in a can.

And it easily makes Maxine my second favorite nightingale, behind Florence, but ahead of the bird…