AND IF THEY SHOULD BAR WARS...

Song of the day: Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band (12” mix), Meco

Star Wars was the first movie I ever went to see alone. I rode a few miles on my banana-seated bike in a late-spring rain to the Manetto Hill Twin.

I was pretty much awestruck, right from the opening scroll.

When it was over, I sat through the end of the credits, fished a few wrinkled dollar bills from my pocket, went to the box office, and bought a ticket for the very next show.

The movie had opened exactly one week after my father died, and in retrospect it’s no surprise that so many of the themes resonated like a hammered bell.

I saw the movie a good 20 times in the theater over the course of that summer.

And I came out of the summer with little to nothing in the way of Star Wars ephemera.

No cards, no action figures, no die-cast Millennium Falcons, no lunch boxes, no light sabers, no board games, no comic books, no Halloween costumes.

All I carried was gratitude at having been transported from a suburban home thick with grief, guilt, and shame, to a galaxy far, far away...

NEW YAWK, NEW YAWK

The first time my wife heard You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory, she was convinced that Johnny Thunders was singing “You can’t pajama ‘round a memory.”

Well dear, you can pajama ‘round me any old time you want.

Happy Anniversary!

WHEN DOVE CRIES

Look, it's another one of those songs from the shower that today's kids love so much...

MOTORIKY

(2, 3, 4)

This is a song.
It’s two minutes and thirty-four seconds long.
It doesn’t have a chorus
But
It’s
Got
A ton of love.

This is a song.
It’s two minutes and thirty-four seconds long.
It doesn’t have a chorus
But
It’s
Got
A ton of love.

A ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a tunnel of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love, a tunnel of love, a ton of love...

ARLO, FOLK SONGS ARE SERIOUS

Another in our series of songs you've never heard, this one from back in 1988 or thereabouts...

BURNING TIRES, BURNING HAY

I went out singly to open the fence
That kept me from being where I was meant.
I pulled off a board, I pried off one more,
And I sat in the glow coming through.

Burning tires, burning hay
We are bringing in the water with the corn today.

I shimmied through the hole I had made,
Sucked in my stomach, slim as a blade.
Was borne to the rain, falling so white and plain,
And I sat in the puddles it formed.

Burning tires, burning hay
We are bringing in the water with the corn today.

What I looked on was neither a kingdom nor jail,
And no beaten signs read “Heaven” or “Hell.”
No high trumpets rang, no low bells did clang,
And the wicked and good were not ‘round.

Burning tires, burning hay
We are bringing in the water with the corn today.

LA NANO

So what became of the Nano? Let’s just say it fell into good hands.

The hands of someone who woke up this morning about an hour before her usual waking time, sat in the corner of her bedroom next to the forced-heating vent, and, through eyes squinty in the dark, navigated the click wheel to find Fox on the Run or Cherchez la Femme or the theme from the most-recent Japanese Pokemon movie.

Good hands. Good hands.

LA LUNE EST LIBRE

Tonight's iPod ripping: all Stereolab all the time!

Well, I did make some room for side projects and off shoots like Turn On, Monade, Snowpony, Uilab, Cherry Cigar, Ankle Whimsy, Doktoor Kilnfish, Mock, Slabitslabitgrabitnowhitit, Bonger, Liberte/Egalite/Frente, Shampooo, Onan Trespass Mark II, Aquaggaswhack, Esso 67, and Cinque Cool Whip...

BABY BUBBA

Hit a random vein of mid 90s as I was ripping for the 30 gig tonight: Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, Trainspotting, Post, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Sacrebleu, Let's Knife, Portishead, To Bring You My Love, Cold and Bouncy.

I wonder where Bill Clinton is sleeping tonight...

CAN IT BE THAT IT WAS ALL SO SIMPLE THEN?

Now normally, aging another year erodes my available memory. Brain cells do their dance of death, and I stand on the elevator and wonder which button to push.

But in an ironic twist, this year's birthday brought a quindecupling of memory.

So it came in the form of an upgrade from a 2GB Nano to a 30GB iPod. Beggars can't be something something...

"Feed me, feed me," it purrs, and I obey.

LISTING

Some of my favorite musical moments from 2006 (and forgive me if some of them are your favorite moments from 2005, or 2001, or 1998):

-To Go Home, M. Ward
-The quarter second at the beginning of Wolf Parade’s Shine a Light where you think it’s going to be Get Back. And yes, I timed it.
-A good half of The Life Pursuit.
-I’m Waking Up to Us, Belle and Sebastian. I finally downloaded this, and it’s damn near the best thing they’ve ever done. Bitter, blunt, and sweeping.
-Yo La Tengo’s I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, for the title. I expect it might show up on my 2007 list for the music.
-A Pillar of Salt, The Thermals
-Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken, Camera Obscura
-The three hours I spent in Tower Shibuya.
-The 30 hours I spent in various USA Towers, watching them die.
-Belle and Sebastian (2X), Stereolab, and The Pogues, with brain coral. Plus, The New Pornographers, Ted Leo, and Broken Social Scene, beyond the headliners.
-Wolf Like Me, TV on the Radio
-The “New York Dolls” making a “comeback” in fishnets and quotation marks.
-The Jam’s performance of ‘A’ Bomb in Wardour Street from the Old Grey Whistle Test, Vol 3 DVD. I still don’t know how Paul Weller could sing and chew gum at the same time.
-Record Collector magazine
-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel. Any discussion of my 2006 year in music needs to end with my full-on discovery of this, something I had for years dismissed unheard as ephemeral neopsych. I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong I was. There are rare albums that are profoundly moving, profoundly funny, profoundly unhinged, profoundly bad, profoundly sad, and/or profoundly unfounded. This might be the first album I’ve encountered that is quite simply profound.

A SIMPLE PROP

Last night while my daughter was squeezing her long hair dry with a towel after her shower, she suddenly started singing “Fiyehehahh!”

I blinked a few times, and then remembered that I had left a copy of Eponymous in the Odyssey. She was singing The One I Love.

“Why does he say ‘fire’ daddy?” she wondered, dropping the towel in a damp heap. I asked her what she thought.

“I think he’s angry,” she offered, rocking on the balls of her feet. She threw her hands behind her back to catch herself as she fell against the wall.

“I think you’re exactly right.” She gave me a stinging high five and collapsed in my lap, laughing at the very idea…

POPTONES

I switched cell-phone carriers last month, and got in the bargain three free ring tones.

The available selection is just random and weird, but I found three keepers:

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt 1— The Flaming Lips
Ping Pong— Stereolab
Wouldn’t It Be Nice— The Beach Boys

And now I love it when my phone rings.

I use my wife’s phone to call myself all the time, just to hear my tones.

It’s the little things, don’t you know…

A WORLD IN WHITE GETS UNDERWAY

Another new song, since I know you loved Thomas Pynchon to death.

Happy New Year!

GEDDE WATANABE

Long Duk Dong, At Toon
Oishi Kazihiro

Duncan, Hiroshi
Matty, Kuni, Max

Taki Mifune
Tran
Guru Prem

Mr. Takadachi
Mr. Katsuji

Takeo, Steve
Detective Onoda
Play-Tone Photographer
Mr. Oh

Enzo, Yoshi, Chan
Kuni, Ling

Asian Tourist

Ed
Waiter
Nobo Nakamura

Greg
Factory Foreman
Japanese Father

Ling
Ling

Principal Nakamura

Dr. Suzuki
Kenji
Cafe Owner

Japanese Proctor
Cyril

Professor Bob Chen
Dr. Phil Ling
Nurse Yosh Takata

Charlie
Wing
Ling

Art 'Papa Joy'

Milton
Ling
Mr. Yu

Eliza's Dad, The Doctor

O TREW OR WET WE ROT WROTE

OK, if you’ve learned anything about me, you’ll probably already know that I went back to Tower one last time. On the last day.

And I was there for last call, when they announced that all remaining stock was on sale for 50 cents or less.

These were my last puchases:

Morehappyness, The Aluminum Group
Instant Wigwam and Igloo Mixture, Go Kart Mozart
Tearing Up the Album Chart, Go Kart Mozart
The Greatest Hit, The Blue Orchids
Zeroes and Ones, Eleventh Dream Day
Tower of Love, Jim Noir
Snap, Crackle, & Bop, John Cooper Clarke

The capper was a CD called The Trip, a two-disc set compiled by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey of Pulp. List price was $33.99, and dig that crazy track list:

Disc 1
Gassenhauer, Carl Orff
Release the Bats, The Birthday Party
Rubber Room, Porter Wagoner
Just Drifting, Psychic TV
Lady with the Braid, Dory Previn
Cool Summer, Bob Lind
24, Sycamore, Gene Pitney
Sock It My Way, Animated Egg
Feel Flows, The Beach Boys
Winter's Going, Bonnie Dobson
I'm Going Home, Arlo Guthrie
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, Bobby Bare
Jukebox Babe, Alan Vega
Waiting for the Man, Liam O'Mdonlai, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing, The Human League
King Wasp, Add N To (X)
Lost in Music, The Fall
Villain, Lieutenant Pigeon
Pastoral, Moondog

Disc 2
Jet Boy, Jet Girl, Elton Motello
John, I'm Only Dancing, The Polecats
Wop Doowop, ElectroniCAT
In Zaire, Johnny Wakelin
Anonymous Face, Quix*o*tic
Eqypt Reggae, Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
Pour Man, Lee Hazelwood
Flashing Lights, Lord Sutch
Beasley Street, John Cooper Clarke
Rock On, David Essex
Les Visiteurs, Georges DeLaRue
Pammie's on a Bummer, Sonny Bono
I Wonder If I Care as Much, The Everly Brothers
Purple Haze, Dion
Going Nowhere, Neil Sedaka
Sailing By, Ronald Binge

SAY IT LOUD...

...RIP James Brown.

TRANSLATOR

OK, this is the babelfish translation of a message a friend of ours sent to my wife in Japanese.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what my favorite part is, although I have to admit that the translation of "play group" as "plague loop" has a special place in my heart.

"T, Today the card two, it received also メールカード from T, was delightful at all is. As writing on the card, the fact that truly this year the opportunity which the variety meets is many in the family, can encounter with the family for us very was lucky thing. The sunflower the soldier/finishing garden does inside at March, but don't you think? in addition we ask also next year may with the opportunity which meets with プレイデイト and the like not to change. So, also birth meeting of the plague loop of セバスチャン met, it is, don't you think?. It is possible finally relieved with this, don't you think?. Because I finished the Christmas lapping swiftly, enormously in the rear end eye soaking in room, it increases M who is flurried. Today my mother arrives safely, my Christmas preparation ending, is the feeling that with this it will be relieved. By the way, it is case of 29 days, but thank you. There is one schedule during morning, but in the afternoon you think that it is all right. When time and the like and it becomes close, communication it will scramble? Don't you think? or it is Mami's schedule circumstance. Inside, while the mother is, you insert the reservation of the dentist with the notion that where you call, because the り which is what it has done, it meaning that 29 days are most convenient, it does, but if so you say, also 26 days have been less crowded. So returning home on the 25th, perhaps, inside Mami, schedule of the following day is busy, don't you think?. From Mami receiving message in absence electricity, increasing, when we can meet in winter vacation after all? Because with the っ which means saying it is, T and Mami and, in addition meeting soon, it increases the fact that story it is possible in the pleasure. To that, as for first impression it is funny the one which has settled, with each time sliced tongue's of the impression which is said image hears story and others and others to keep being broken bitterly, is. (It does not translate into English and the て well enough is) the tea eye sliced tongue properly doing future participating is expected. ' Please pass cute holiday in sliced tongue. Just the message which ' with is said may even from now on translating into English, please convey? . So with, please pass cute Christmas. ま ど?"

I'll be taking a little break from posting after today, so what more can I say than "Please pass cute Christmas"...

HAROLD ANGEL

Holiday malaprop, part 1

I was looking over some holiday cards that my wife was getting ready to mail, and my thumb stopped at one addressed to "Mr. Noir Strange."

"Do we really know someone named Mr. Noir Strange?" I asked, excitedly. "That's goth-tacular!"

Well, a quick trip to the address book revealed that we don't know anyone named Mr. Noir Strange. Just someone with a name that sounds kind of like Mr. Noir Strange.

And we are the lesser for it, I say...

Holiday malaprop, part 2

I took a bit of a long cut back from the market, so the kids and I could see some Christmas decorations.

"Look at that one!" my daughter enthused. "It's got a candy cane, and flashing lights, and a little Baby Genius."

Ah, Baby Genius. That's really what Christmas is all about, isn't it?

IF THEY WERE ME, AND I WAS YOU

For you Sebastian, with much love, from the 80s...

ENTHUSIASM FOR LIFE DEFEATS EXISTENTIAL FEAR

I don’t expect I’ll ever set foot in another Tower Records again.

One of our four local branches is now shuttered, and the other three are soon to follow.

Of all the items that I picked up there over the last month or so, this is probably my favorite:





It’s a CD single of The Flaming Lips' Waitin’ for a Superman b/w two tracks from Zaireeka-- a neat little gimcrack-tasctical thing that cost me 50 cents. I'll probably never even play it.

I almost can’t explain why I like it so much.

I almost can’t explain why it almost brings me to tears...

WORD UP

And just remember, when you hear all the kids over on the MTV saying "framjabulous," well, you heard it here first.

My word, bitches.

SING, ALL YE CITIZENS

For many of my boyhood years, I sang in the church choir.

I sang mostly because I liked to sing. I found the humorless practicing to be a chore, and I thought a lot of the songs were colorless and boring.

I did like sitting in the choir loft, though. It was a great location from which to pursue boyish daydreams of rescuing the congregation from some interloping force or another.

“And just then,” it would go in the retelling, “Just then he swooped down out of the loft, his red choir robe partially unzipped, and landed a staggering blow on the heads of the church robbers/marauding alien forces/zombie hordes. What bravery! And, you know, he’s also quite the alto.”

The one exception was Christmas Eve. I did not daydream on Christmas Eve.

Being up in the loft at night lent the whole experience a tinge of mystery that trumped daydreaming.

Plus we got to sing a whole range of cool songs: Silent Night, O Come, All Ye Faithful, Angels We Have Heard On High, Joy to the World, O Little Town of Bethlehem, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

Man, Christmas hymns are the new punk rock...