tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-208786792024-03-23T14:15:05.334-04:00A Drinking SongIt's like Sputnik: spherical, but quite pointy in parts.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-70105700005053266602011-04-20T21:29:00.012-04:002011-06-23T21:27:17.527-04:00Mr. Middlebrow, Esq. or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Pass the BarHello, Internet. Yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you?<br />
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So, for those scoring along at home in their lucky souvenir programs, I sat for my state's Bar Exam on July 27 and 28, 2010.<br />
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True to the predictions of <a href="http://befouled.blogspot.com/">Snag </a>and some others who went before me, I came out of the exam absolutely certain that I had failed. In particular, my performance on the second day, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), felt so abysmal that I was ready to book a room at the Ramada Inn where I stayed; I was that sure I would be coming back to retest in February. But, I'm pleased to report that (again, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20878679&postID=3915690016746556272">as Snag had forseen</a>) I passed. I was admitted to the State Bar in late August.<br />
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So now I'm a bona fide esquire. Given the dismal employment picture, I've decided to hang out my shingle; I've even got a TV commercial:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MySQXlpVciQ" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>My current job, while not perfect, meets the minimum criteria that I established for myself when I graduated: it doesn't involve me asking, "would you like that with regular or skim milk?" </i></b></span></span></blockquote>Actually, I've been working as a part-time clerk and sometime associate--a "clerksoicate," if you will (which makes me the legal equivalent of Dr. Tobias Fünke's "Analrapist"?) for a solo lawyer whose practice consists mostly of bankruptcy and insurance subrogation debt recovery. On the one hand, it's not exactly the kind of law I'm interested in practicing; on the other hand, it meets the minimum employment criteria that I established for myself when I graduated. Namely, it doesn't involve me using the phrase "would you like that with regular or skim milk?" In other words, it's a real lawyer job. Mostly. And, along with showing me the basics of civil procedure and litigation, he's been helping me get my own practice going. Which means that, in between filing (and occasionally arguing) motions, I'm networking and generally doing what I can to scare up copyright and trademark clients.<br />
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My plan now is to get an <a href="http://www.brownerpllc.com/blog/">IP blog going</a> and establish myself as a go-to source for innovators--start-ups, small businesses, and artists--who have IP issues. I suspect half the battle is making them aware that they have issues in the first place. In any case, any and all referrals and leads are welcome and appreciated.<br />
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What this means for the future of this blog is uncertain. It's always been a struggle to maintain it and the advent of Facebook and Twitter has removed even more of the incentive to keep it up. I do hope regular readers of A Drinking Song will check out my new digs as they come online. Also, please <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=605627396">friend </a>and/or <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/rtmcdorman">follow</a> me if you're so inclined. I'm also on LinkedIn, though I haven't found that to be of much use, either for networking or entertainment/goofing off.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-39156900167465562722010-06-23T15:17:00.011-04:002010-06-29T16:28:58.710-04:00No Longer a Law Student; Not Yet a Lawyer.<a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghqUmRNSLBcvKuONLBBsJ_wxqJPQCSn9OPimNShF8pLgLEOV1e4I6ndRZj-lg19kJSjP58Q8QOk9typ12VxPumsJpQ2hMMobutQmkRubgG88PYsJx0RZbRlaQm_hBAcDK8GGMx/s1600/graduationRM.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 144px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghqUmRNSLBcvKuONLBBsJ_wxqJPQCSn9OPimNShF8pLgLEOV1e4I6ndRZj-lg19kJSjP58Q8QOk9typ12VxPumsJpQ2hMMobutQmkRubgG88PYsJx0RZbRlaQm_hBAcDK8GGMx/s320/graduationRM.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486051314259332882" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">It's official: on May 9, 2010, I graduated from law school. <a href="http://adrinkingsong.blogspot.com/2007/08/at-least-my-odds-on-jeopardy-should.html">Three years come and gone</a> without so much as a By Your Leave, or so it seems. For about two weeks, which felt more like 48 hours, I luxuriated in a nice little buzz of accomplishment, soaking up all the congratulations and well-wishes from classmates, professors, friends, and family.<br /><br />Gradually, though, it began to dawn on me that, however significant and worthy of celebration earning a J.D. might be, until I’m licensed to practice law it’s really just a very expensive wall-hanging. In other words, my little good-job glow very quickly gave way to the startling realization that I have to take and pass the bar exam. And to do that, I have to study. There are, I have heard it rumored, people who start working full time after graduation and study for the bar in their “spare time.” These are likely the same people who would say of crucifixion that it’s a dawdle; at least it gets you out in the open air. They’re either legal savants who sailed through their law school classes and exams with nary a care about the difference between reses ipsa and judicata, or they’re severely deluded. I, however, fall into neither of those categories. Which means that I have entered that dreaded fugue state known as bar prep.</span><br /><br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">My first thought was, "This is all so straightforward and clear. Why didn’t our professors teach it this way?"<br /><br /></span></span></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">At present, there are basically two brands of bar-prep course to choose from, Kaplan/PMBR or BarBri. Apparently, this is a relatively recent expansion of the competitive field, at least where state-specific content is concerned. I signed up for the Kaplan course, not least because it was several hundred dollars cheaper than the more established (read: former monopolist) BarBri, but also because, if my time in the ad game taught me nothing else, I know desperation when I smell it. See, e.g., the BarBri posters sporting a giant Guinea pig or the dire warnings about no one ever having passed the NC bar using the Kaplan course. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt much? </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /><br />When I began my course, which consists of a three-hour lecture each morning, followed by an afternoon of practice questions and review—my first thought was something like This is all so straightforward and clear. Why didn’t our professors teach these subjects—torts, property, and especially constitutional law—this way? Why didn’t they just lay out the various rules and tests and elements and principles of law from a nice, succinct outline? But the reality is, without the three years (or at least the first year) of Socratic method applied to a vast body of case law, I wouldn’t have the first clue about what lecturers are saying. For the big topics, they condense a semester’s worth of material into about 12 hours of lecture and a 40- to 50-page outline. But the only way this works as a teaching and test-prep method is if the student knows the shorthand lingo. Law school might not prepare you to practice law, but it definitely trains you in the peculiar patois of the profession, so much so that you aren’t even aware of your fluency. Before law school, I didn’t know strict scrutiny from Shine-ola. But now, I can quote Cardozo and balance equities with the best of them.</span><br /><br /><p style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">The problem is that, while the presentation of the information is relatively straightforward, the volume of substantive, black-letter law being presented is truly staggering. Ultimately, this just reinforces an idea that I started to appreciate around the end of my first-year summer: law school and, I suspect, law practice are really less about substance than it is about process. It’s not about <span style="font-style: italic;">what </span>you know, but do know where and how to find out, and do you know what to do with it once you find it? But what’s occurred to me now is that in bar-prep land, substance--and how much of it you can take in, process, and recall--is the process. In purely practical terms, three years of law school is the mental equivalent of prepping for one of those competitive-eating contests; bar prep is simply an exercise in seeing how many intellectual Vienna sausages I can stuff into my cranium between now and the end of July. Waiter, set me up with another plate of 33 MBEs.</p>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-41552072065745877882009-12-02T19:29:00.006-05:002012-12-11T00:03:36.133-05:00Right Now, We're Just Using "Junior"As many of you know, my wife and I have been anticipating the birth of our second child, who various reliable authorities—including an ultrasound—had led us to believe would be a girl, and whom our son, (a.k.a. the man-cub) had given the pre-natal sobriquet “Pinkie Snickerdoodle.” He was very excited at the prospects of having a baby sister, and we had invested considerable (read: all) our brainstorming into girl’s names. Well, Pinkie was born Friday morning, November 13, 2009, at 8:19 a.m. in the bathroom of our palatial student-housing apartment, attended by yours truly, guided via cellphone by the inbound midwife who arrived around 8:25. Truly, it was like <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJRK_-GbapQ&feature=related">Cyrano de Bergerac</a></i> meets <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8H0Fi6jviQ">Airport ’75</a></i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 180%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br />"Salt Lake, something hit us.<br />There's no one left to fly the plane. Help us!" </span></div>
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The baby was and is perfect: ten fingers, ten toes and—wait for it—one penis. HELL-oh!. Yes, “Pinkie” is a beautiful, nine-and-a-half-pound, twenty-one-inch-long boy-child, much to his older brother’s consternation. Beyond the loss of the lone condition under which he was willing to accept siblinghood, we’re left in a bit of quandary: we had a great short list of girl’s names and had even settled on one we really liked. But we never gave any thought at all to what we’d name a boy. Not that it’s not big problem, all things considered. Friday the 13th will now and for all time be the day I had the extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime good fortune to catch my child at the moment he came into the world.<br />
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Over the last few weeks, whenever I’ve told this story, the assumption, almost to a person, is that labor came on so fast that we didn’t even have time to get to the hospital. When I explain that we’d actually planned to have the baby at home, the reaction turns to some variation on bemusement and suspicion: Oh, you’re one of <i>those</i> couples. If by that you mean people who don’t take as gospel every bit of wisdom and insight that comes from somebody with an M.D. after his name, then, yes, that’s who we are.<br />
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Pretty much since the day after our first son was born (in a hospital, attended by a truly excellent and extremely supportive OB) my wife has vowed, if only to herself, that if she had it to over again, she’d have a home birth, attended by a midwife. About halfway into this pregnancy, she showed me <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6V_mQmFZps">“The Business of Being Born,”</a> produced by and featuring Riki Lake. Yes, <i>that</i> Riki Lake. The film really throws back the curtain on the myth that has grown out of the “modern” approach to child-birth, namely, that the only responsible choice is to march in lockstep with the conventional wisdom and have your baby in a hospital, with an epidural, pictosin, if not an “emergency” C-section.<br />
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The movie presents some pretty alarming statistics about the kinds of problems that have grown out of this uniquely American concept of birth as some kind of medical malady requiring lots of high-tech expertise and intervention rather than a natural process that works out best for the mother and the baby when facilitated by a midwife in comfortable, familiar surroundings. After watching it, and weighing all the other factors, I was on board with the idea of a home birth. Now that I’ve actually gone through it, much more first-hand than I ever would have expected, I’m actually a zealous convert to the belief that babies, absent some kind of extenuating circumstances, should be born at home. Or more correctly, wherever and however mothers are the most comfortable giving birth.<br />
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This is not to sell short the role and the value of OBs, “birth centers” and the expensive machines that go "bing!" when employed under the appropriate circumstances. I’m not dissing women who go this route, and neither, do I think, is the TBoBB, despite a lot of criticism that's been leveled at the film. What I find the most troubling—what the movie pointed out, and our experiences validated—was how irretrievably mainstream this attitude has become, such that now, anyone who questions it is branded as fringe or heretical: “Who dares to challenge the great and powerful OB?!” Granted, as an episode of Mad Men all too aptly demonstrated, the hospital births of today have come a long way from what it was when I was born. But I still think there’s a serious, polar imbalance in play there. Especially when mothers and fathers don’t exercise the same degree of conscientious inquiry about the birth of their children as they do in deciding which kind of TV to buy.<br />
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Having been there and done that both ways--in the hospital and at home--I'm here to tell you the latter is so vastly superior. Consider this comparison of our experiences between the first birth and this one: Labor started about the same time--around 6:00 in the morning, maybe earlier the first time, but she didn’t deliver until almost 4:00 in the afternoon, after something like four hours of pushing. (This is where I have to credit our OB with really advocating on our behalf by letting my wife push and not pressuring her into a C-section.) Truly, the day was like a siege; so much so that I was kind of dreading this birth. This time around, though, it was maybe two hours from first contractions to cutting the cord. In my wife’s estimation the difference this time, aside from the general tendency for second/subsequent children to come quicker, was that there was no hopping into the car and driving to the hospital, being admitted, etc.—while she was in transition—to put the brakes on labor. She also was able to birth in a way that was much more, well, instinctual. And I guess that's my point. I'm not trying to tell anybody how they should have their baby. I'm just saying that it's worthwhile to recognize the range of options and consider which ones really will be the best for you and your baby.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-87812601411080373942009-10-15T21:34:00.003-04:002009-10-15T22:12:29.424-04:00I have a very good feeling about this...So, have you heard about the brainchild of Casey Pugh, a.k.a. The Chosen One? It's something called Star Wars: Uncut, wherein fans of the original Star Wars choose and remake up to three :15 segments of the 1977 classic. Here's the trailer:<br /><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6788001&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=10d1f2&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6788001&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=10d1f2&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><br /><br />How apt that the subtitle of <i>Star Wars: Episode IV</i> is “A New Hope.” A big ol’ digital quilting bee like this is exactly the way we shall realize the full promise and potential of the Internet. Lawrence Lessig has foreseen it:<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Q25-S7jzgs&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Q25-S7jzgs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Search your feelings; you know it to be true. This will restore balance to the universe, return us to the days of democratized content creation, where there was a lot less difference between those who make art and those who consume it. Things will be like they were—before the dark times, before the <a href="http://disney.go.com/index">Empire</a>.<br /><br />Fortunately, I understand that, while Lucas has legions of underlings whose sole job is to maintain continuity among all the various narrative threads of the Galaxy Far, Far Away, he’s also said to be pretty tolerant of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/show?p=P5trmP0cvYY&feature=fvsp">fan creations</a> his works inspire. In any case, this is really <a href="http://jolt.unc.edu/blog/2009/10/12/these-aren%E2%80%99t-derivative-works-you%E2%80%99re-looking-move-along">more parody than unauthorized derivative work</a>; as such it would probably be easier to assert a fair-use defense. On the other hand, if it turned out that Lucas were to prevail in an infringement action, the statutory damages would be, well, more than you could imagine.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-70935977601597160472009-08-05T12:29:00.006-04:002009-08-05T12:46:50.159-04:00Open Daily until 11?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_qElObnxs5Q2TDVHTLP8w5d6Js8xFsFvztRw8w78guoZ9aArE-MO5s5qNNDtIvxjaIvxOJhHq9x4R_M0494GIZWRl1V1R4l0cL-gE4xHfZNpmvW284SUtY-OuYhNvDq15lYQ/s1600-h/fender+amp+storefront.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_qElObnxs5Q2TDVHTLP8w5d6Js8xFsFvztRw8w78guoZ9aArE-MO5s5qNNDtIvxjaIvxOJhHq9x4R_M0494GIZWRl1V1R4l0cL-gE4xHfZNpmvW284SUtY-OuYhNvDq15lYQ/s400/fender+amp+storefront.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366518350661591314" border="0" /></a><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CROGERM%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C02%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; panose-1:2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 3 0;} @font-face {font-family:Verdana; panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:536871559 0 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">There’s something about this image that just makes me smile. Of course, it also makes the future IP lawyer in me cringe a little, but, on the other hand, it’s got just the right amount of rock-and-roll, bird-flipping attitude that any self-respecting axe purveyor needs to establish its street cred. And really, as long as they’re not hawking counterfeit Strats, I can’t imagine Fender would get too up in arms over (what I assume is) the unauthorized use of its trade dress. Even if they did, I think the shop would have a good shot at mounting a nominative fair use defense. On a related note, do you suppose Christopher Guest would consider his copyright infringed if they actually made each of the dials go to 11?.
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<br /></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">The only downside I can see: you get the full effect </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">only </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">when the place is closed. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-62680116459061776762009-06-21T20:50:00.004-04:002009-06-21T20:59:39.857-04:00A Paternal Level of Zen to Which We Might Aspire<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Or, "Songs I Never Hated, Volume II: Father's Day Edition."</span>
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<br /></span><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link style="font-family: times new roman;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CROGERM%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C03%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><title>SSN#: ____-____-_____</title><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:author>Hesper Linger</o:Author> <o:version>11.9999</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; panose-1:2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 3 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When the sun comes up and you stare your cup of coffee, yup, <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Right through the kitchen floor<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And you feel like hell, so you might as well <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Get out and sell your smart ass door-to-door. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And the missus wears her robe slightly undone<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As your daughter dumps her oatmeal on your son<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And you keep it hid<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So you go to work just to watch some jerk <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">pick the perks you were in line to get <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And the guy who hired you just got fired <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And your job’s expired, they just ain’t told you yet<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So you go and buy a brand-new set of wheels <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just to show your family just how great you feel<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Actin’ like a kid <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">(Bridge)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And you’re a chip offa the old block <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Why does it come as such a shock <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">That every road over which you walk<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Your dad already did? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Yeah, you’ve seen the old man’s ghost <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Come back as creamed, chipped beef on toast <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now if you don’t get your slice of the roast <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">You’re gonna flip your lid<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Well the day was long, now supper’s on <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The trill is gone and something’s takin’ place <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And the food is cold, the wife feels old <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">and all hands fold as the two-year-old says grace: <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">She says, “Help the starving children to get well <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But let my brother’s hamster burn in hell!” <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">You love your wife and kids<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just like your dad did<o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style="font-size:100%;">
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<br /></span>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-53423010379580111722009-06-04T22:33:00.003-04:002009-06-04T23:06:17.060-04:00Boldly Going Where Many Have Gone BeforeSo, I finally caught the new Star Trek. The word that comes to mind to describe it—the thing that really makes it work—is <span style="font-style: italic;">verve</span>. And verve covers a multitude of sins. In fact, on some levels, this the most satisfying interpretation of the well-traveled Trekkie mythology. JJ Abrams has managed to bring a freshness and a vitality to the proceedings that no other of the Enterprise’s many creative captains has been able to match.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Ybr7jr8cUWrjPXDJCfsSkPkcePeQMxj6HkbokfXqPanTT0yWHJdmwdB9cyru0STWY1J1dtZUFn5DWAh-aZlew37sDKv0z3NOc-kBlxKWUpiQrqSOJXJnw6p7btmsSsD7esVZ/s1600-h/Star-Trek-Trailer-Image-28.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Ybr7jr8cUWrjPXDJCfsSkPkcePeQMxj6HkbokfXqPanTT0yWHJdmwdB9cyru0STWY1J1dtZUFn5DWAh-aZlew37sDKv0z3NOc-kBlxKWUpiQrqSOJXJnw6p7btmsSsD7esVZ/s320/Star-Trek-Trailer-Image-28.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343666464187986658" border="0" /></a>At the outset, I should make it clear that I’m no fanboy. I’m a moderately geeky sci-fi consumer generally, with a slightly higher than average interest in and knowledge about Star Trek. As a kid, the original series was part of the regular weekday afternoon menu (bereft of much nutritive value) that included The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Gilligan’s Island. I’m definitely not one of those people who got all exorcised about the “reimagining” of <a href="http://adrinkingsong.blogspot.com/2006/02/getting-my-geek-on_24.html">Battlestar Galactica</a>. Starbuck’s a woman? Fine. Boomer’s a Cylon? Whatevs. As long as it makes for good storytelling, I’m on board; there are no sacred cows in my entertainment universe. I just want to be engaged and entertained with intelligence and wit. In that regard, Firefly was pretty nearly perfect, and, thus, doomed to fail.<br /><br />To me, the Star Trek franchise peaked with The Next Generation and got less relevant/more cheesy with each subsequent iteration. One unintended consequence of this latest installment is that it renders all Star Treks almost unwatchably dorky, no matter how much Shakespearean thea-tuh credibility Patrick Stewart brought to the bridge. I think, though, that’s as much a function of timing and evolution—for its time, TNG was not only a great improvement on the original but a really strong sci-fi series in its own right. One thing that really drew me to the latter-day Battlestar Galactica was how deliberately un-sci-fi it was. But it also had the benefit of being higher up the evolutionary ladder in terms of creative and audience sophistication. So to give credit where it’s due, one big reason Abrams’ Star Trek works so well is that some of that BSG attitude—including a premium on plausibility that underlies other recent “reboots” from Bond to Batman—has rubbed off on it. Given how Abrams really made his bones reinventing the 1-hour TV action/drama, I’d love to see what he could have done with Enterprise. Talk about promise squandered right out of the gate.<br /><br />I read somewhere how Abrams fretted over not alienating die-hard fans while not scaring away the (non-costumed members of the) mainstream audience. Happily, there’s no genuflecting to orthodoxy here. Abrams very shrewdly jettisoned most everything unnecessary, though he retained some fun atmospheric touches—the little ping-pew-ee-oo sonar on the bridge, a hover-cycle that sounds for all the world like George Jetson’s car, and a sick-bay nurse rocking a mini-skirt smock—as a comforting nod to nostalgia. Abrams succeeds by according the Star Trek myth just enough deference to function as setup for some pretty hilarious in-jokes. The film’s buoyant charm and winking humor even won over my wife—quite possibly the galaxy’s biggest sci-fi anti-fan—whom I’d dragged along almost caveman-style, but who emerged from the theatre gushing about it. I thought I’d gone through a worm-hole, let me tell you.<br /><br />A few things don’t work—Scotty’s inadvertent beaming into the giant tube of otherwise harmless water was by turns reminiscent of Willy Wonka and Galaxy Quest. Never a good sign when your references point to a parody instead of the original thing. And the Delta-Vega monster chase/dénouement was rather baldly “Obi-wan scares the Sand People out of the Hoth Snow Cave.” Also, the time-travel crutch has become tiresome, but who can expect a guy like Abrams to leave that alone? In other words, none of these is a deal-breaker, given how irresistible and enjoyable the whole experience is. It’s as if Abrahams said to the writers and actors, “I need more fun!” And they all answered back, “Captain, we’re givin’ ‘er all she’s got!” Mr. Sulu, ahead, verve factor nine. Engage.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-9847675202860175632009-06-02T22:31:00.001-04:002009-06-02T22:37:32.904-04:00Songs I Never Hated, Part IIf it's good enough for <a href="http://befouled.blogspot.com/">Snag</a>... <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2MDCbIhTa_w&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2MDCbIhTa_w&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-64560527879559737202009-04-24T22:01:00.006-04:002009-04-26T20:55:33.468-04:00A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Gauze<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CROGERM%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C02%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; panose-1:2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 3 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:296110921; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:-468025480 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715;} @list l0:level1 {mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in;} @list l0:level2 {mso-level-number-format:alpha-lower; mso-level-tab-stop:1.0in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in;} @list l0:level3 {mso-level-number-format:roman-lower; mso-level-tab-stop:1.5in; mso-level-number-position:right; text-indent:-9.0pt;} @list l0:level4 {mso-level-tab-stop:2.0in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">Something quick and dirty to mollify Bet. As Barry Levinson said to Mel Brooks in High Anxiety<o:p>: "Happy now?!"
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<br /><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p>This mix brought to you by the Fender Telecaster, official twang provider of A Drinking Song.
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<br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Shortest song in your collection—comb through iTunes and find the shortest song in there.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGRPFUYUUdQ&feature=fvsr">Penis Song – Monty Python</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;font-family:trebuchet ms;">Not to be a size queen, but so far my “shortest song” (at 43 seconds) is the second longest of all the other mixers. I feel I should point out that this is not the shortest song I own, but it's the best piece of musical brevity for starting a mix. Call me a pragmatist, but I think the quality of the mix has to trump the strict consturciton of the category description.
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="2" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Color my world: song that has a color in the title—no blue. It’s too obvious.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b1wt3-zpzQ&feature=related">Little Green Bag – George Baker</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b1wt3-zpzQ&feature=related">
<br /></a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="3" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Good song from a rotten movie—thanks to Duke for this one. <o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TRZfSPlMBc">Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin’ On Me?) – Joss Stone</a>, from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.</p><p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="4" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Sincerest form of flattery — Song that steals (or borrows, if you prefer that terminology) from another song <o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFhES6F1iVw&feature=related">Stare it Cold – The Black Crowes</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">Pretty much any song from the Crowes could be considered a knock-off any song from the Faces’ “Ooh La La” LP; in particular, though, I was thinking of<span style=""> </span>Silicone Grown. It’s interesting to me how others interpreted "steals/borrows" and picked song that sampled another.
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"> <span style=""> </span>I have to ask my fellow-mixers: do you consider sampling “stealing?” </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Me, I went with more of a “stealing” in a copyright infringement, My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine sense. Or more topically, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE&feature=related">Coldplay</a> vs. <span style=""> </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FclrtPUquhQ&feature=related">Joe Satriani</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FclrtPUquhQ&feature=related">
<br /></a> </p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="5" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Song about a character you don’t like—this one is from Bet: any song that is about someone who is a jerk, or obnoxious, or violent, or has some other quality you don’t like.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU1Us2HKYdA">She’s No Lady – Lyle Lovett</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU1Us2HKYdA">
<br /></a> </p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="6" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Family Act: Song performed by artists who are related—brothers, sisters, husband & wife, etc. <o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSFQvBghx9A">Keep on Walking – Spanic Boys</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Astute pop-culture historians might recognize father Tom and son Ian Spanic from their 15 minutes of national fame gained standing in on Saturday Night Live when Sinead O’Connor refused share the stage with host Andrew Dice Clay. Does liking them make me a misogynist?
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="7" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Song about sex—I don’t think this needs any explanation. If you’re not sure, ask Mike.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF5ArAcn9Ps">Be My Girl, Sally – The Police</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">The more of these mixes I do, the more I’m convinced that Sting’s biggest creative misstep was going solo. The Police rocked so much harder, and clearly didn’t take themselves too seriously, and for the most part, early on at least, managed to avoid self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual wankery. They were a helluva lot more fun to listen to.
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in;font-family:trebuchet ms;" start="8" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style=""><span style=""> </span>Department of Redundancy Department—song with repetition in the title<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om58QtEsP-4">Hold On, Hold On – Neko Case</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">“I leave the party at 3 a.m., alone, thank God . . .” Need I mention that I loves, loves, loves me some Neko?
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="9" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Song about the time of day—can be a specific time, or a general time like morning or nightfall.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsTJ4LDFsMM">12:51 – The Strokes</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsTJ4LDFsMM">
<br /></a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in;font-family:trebuchet ms;" start="10" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style=""><span style=""> </span>A song that “takes you back.” This could be either a song from your childhood or whatever, or it could be something recent that makes you think of days gone by. </b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILZgcvHKYmE">Bottle of Wine – Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">The video has the added takes-me-back effect of authentic, late-60s wow and flutter. This is of the same vintage, at least in my memory, of Henson Cargil's Skip a Rope, In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans (which I might have used for track 9, if I owned it), One by Three Dog Night, and So Happy Together by The Turtles .
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<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">The funny/sad thing about music in the post-Napster age is that the visceral sense memory you associate with a particular song--that way it takes you right to a particular moment--is dissipated by the easy availability and over-use in beer and cell-phone commercials.
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="11" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Spoken word—a non-song! Any spoken word piece—a comedy bit, short story, whatever. These can sometimes be pretty long, so beware.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">A Little More Gauze – Mike Nichols & Elaine May</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">
<br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="12" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Alternate version—a demo, acoustic, live, or alternate take. Bonus points if it’s an alternate version of a song you’ve used before (no covers, though)<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSkDQYe2FYw">A Little Less Conversation (JXL Remix) – Elvis Presley</a>
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="13" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">SAT vocab song—Song whose lyrics include a fancy two-dollar word. <o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldBhDmvWFXE">Vitriol – Bluejuice</a>
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="14" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Epic—Song that would make a good feature-length film <o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Trudy and Dave – John Hiatt
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<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Ironically, the song I'd most like to make a movie out of is not available as a video. Maybe it's a sign... As any John Hiatt fan will tell you, he's a stellar songwriter--and storyteller--not least because he really understands character development and "show, don't tell." To wit:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">"Well, Davy lit a match to a Lucky Strike
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">and the smoke curled up 'round his head how he liked</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">made him feel a little mysterious, 'til Trudy said,
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">"David, honey, what about us?" </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">So he thought about them, and those shots ringin' out</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">and other things he shouldn't be thinkin' about
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Like how it wasn't them at all, just life that was mean</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">And how a twenty-dollar pistol made him feel so clean..."
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<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">This song, more than most of his, is especially cinematic because it (probably by design) uses character motivation to build tension over narrative arc that finishes with a fun little twist.
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="15" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Nonsense—Song containing gibberish<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Doop-doo-dee-oop – Blossom Dearie
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="16" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Song about first love—self-explanatory<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D99n9f3vU4">Fat Bottom Girls – Queen</a>
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<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">The improbability of Freddie Mercury's affection for the ladies--lardy or otherwise--notwithstanding, he really sells it in this vocal performance (though not so much in the video: patent-leather pants, suspenders, and no shirt. Really?) Oh, and Brian May's guitar is simply a force of nature. Hearing this song makes me want to start a band in my folks' garage.
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<br /></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="17" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Kick-ass cover song—the old standby <o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Time Won’t Let Me – The Plimsouls
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="18" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Song you wish you had sung backup on.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MrckjR4E_M">Loves me like a Rock – Paul Simon</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 99pt; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Carving out an exception to my own "no superlatives" rule, this really is my absolute, all-time favorite song to sing backup with. In fact, I only ever sing along the backup parts. Dirty little secret: I’ve used it on a previous mix, but after the Never Say Never incident, I figured no one will be the wiser the wiser. Heh.
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="19" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Amnesty song—as in past mixes, any song you wanted to use (in this or any past mix) but couldn’t find a place for.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DDt4_oCNQU">Sweet Sweet Baby (I’m Falling) – Lone Justice </a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Two-fer amnesty qualification: repetition + wanna-be backup singer </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Revelation from this mix: My love for Neko Case has deep roots in my love for Maria McKee. To say more would fall under “if I have to explain it, you won’t understand.”
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style=""> </span></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in; font-family: trebuchet ms;" start="20" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><b style="">Greatest song ever written, period.<o:p></o:p></b></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-vuQUBFeR4">Moon – Fossil</a>
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<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;">Maybe not <span style="font-style: italic;">the </span>greatest song, when considered in a vacuum, but the best fit for this mix. Cole Porter can suck it. Actually, I'm pretty much in the "Way You Look Tonight" camp, but I couldn't put my hands on a copy in time. And, I'm a firm adherent to the Totality-of-Circumstances approach to mixes. <span style="font-style: italic;">See also</span> Track 1, <span style="font-style: italic;">supra</span>. Law school will do that to you.
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><o:p> </o:p></p> Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-72778511692227293462009-04-17T10:28:00.004-04:002009-04-17T10:37:14.943-04:00Trapped near the Inner Circle of ThoughtWith two weeks of exams coming up, I'm having to pencil in bathroom breaks, so posting will be minimal.* I'll try to get a basic track listing up for The Penultimate Mix soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this little bit o' vitriol... (My "SAT vocab. song.")<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ldBhDmvWFXE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ldBhDmvWFXE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />*Not that it's been much of a going concern anyway.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-49141976437272471492009-02-02T21:42:00.004-05:002009-02-03T18:21:26.814-05:00Our Germans are better than their GermansAll the hype around the new Audi spot got me thinking. They must really be banking on the evanescence of the average viewer’s pop-culture memory.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K5Gh57dRYJ4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K5Gh57dRYJ4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />It strikes me as a bit of a strategic misfire to try beating up on their competitors’ brand images, especially BMW.* Especially given that Jason Statham drove a BMW 7-series in “The Transporter.” Moreover, that film, fun as it was, played like an extended version of one of the BMW “Hire” films, with Statham taking over the role of taciturn Brit from Clive Owen.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PKYUtUw-8ig&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PKYUtUw-8ig&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br />In my opinion, BMW did a much better job at establishing and maintaining its authenticity and credibility as a high-performance marque. Without a doubt, BMW was inspired by John Frankenheimer’s “Ronin,” which featured a jaw-dropping chase scene with—wait for it—an Audi A8. Indeed, Frankenheimer went on to direct the first installment of The Hire, “Ambush.”<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mrLYQnjzH7w&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mrLYQnjzH7w&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br />My personal favorite of the Hire films, “Star,” was directed by Guy Ritchie, who was by then kind of a big deal for having made “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” notable for many reasons, not the least of which was introducing the world to a bald, beefy British badass named . . . Jason Statham.<br /><br />Instead of trying to convince me that a new Audi is better than a 20-year-old Bimmer or a 30-year-old Benz (which only makes me wonder what’s the German word for “duh”?) Audi would be much better served by playing to its strengths: all-wheel drive innovation, racing and rallying heritage, etc. They won Le Mans a few years back—in a <span style="font-style: italic;">diesel</span>. That might not mean much to the average Super Bowl viewer, but at least it's a story--their story--and not some lame retread of something BMW did better almost a decade ago.<br /><br />*Full disclosure: I am a lifelong BMW fan, former owner of a Euro-spec 1979 323i and a 1970 2002, and future owner of a cherry Atlanikblau 1972 3.0CS, which is what I would get were I in a position to choose among the latest offerings from Munich, Ingolstadt, or Stuttgart. Plus, I’d have enough left over for a parts car, a 2002 project, an E3 sedan and an ‘80s vintage 535is--like the red one in the Audi spot--for daily flogging.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-67465171713460115512009-01-22T08:44:00.002-05:002009-01-22T08:47:23.076-05:00Oh, Happy Day...Some thoughts on the Inauguration...<br /><br />Dick Cheney in a wheelchair = Old Man Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. Pure, unrepentant evil on wheels, right up until the very last. If only there were a way to sub in Cheney for the SNL "Lost Ending" version. <br /><br />Joe Biden will be the administration’s go-to guy for (occasionally unintentional) comic relief. See, e.g., him snapping digi pics just as the Navy chorus is starting the National Anthem. I say this will total affection; he’s like the country’s funny, eccentric old uncle. Looking forward to lots of laughs with uncle joe. <br /><br />Warren’s invocation was lame—beyond the help of even Jesus. All false piety and neo-evangelical (a.k.a. hipster Christian) bluster. Obama’s only real misstep so far. It was totally redeemed by Rev. Lowery’s awesome benediction, though. Getting two million people to offer up an Amen! is what it’s all about. <br /><br />The speech itself. <br />Some people have a way with words; others, well, not have way, I guess. <br />Took me back to Stephen Colbert’s address to the National Press Club; loved how pointedly he basically, but eloquently, said, “What these jokers here have been doing the last eight years, yeah, we’re not doing that anymore.” Science, justice, engagement, inclusion. <br /><br />Chief Justice Roberts is a bit of a tool. <br /><br />Was Scalia rocking a Kangol? I wish more men today wore hats—and NOT baseball caps. <br /><br />Everything is showbiz. <br />I loved the Simple Gifts airs. For me, Aaron Copland is the de facto composer of the American Soundtrack, even more so than Souza. I liked the idea of a simple, four-part arrangement, (including a clarinet seemed like a nice nod to Gershwin). But something about it—maybe just the fact that we had to hear that it was a special arrangement BY John Williams—seemed counter to the humble themes of the work itself. Also, Yo Yo Ma looked really cold; I wondered if playing in 17-degree weather improves your vibrato . . .Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-24194400824086051582008-12-05T23:12:00.009-05:002008-12-15T22:04:47.507-05:00Listen to the children while they play <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link style="font-family: verdana;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CROGERM%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C06%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" ><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="State"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype>It's CD Mix Challenge 8! Enjoy...<o:p></o:p></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; panose-1:2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 3 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" >
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1.</span> Title track: Any song that is also the title of the album from whence it came, such as “Piano Man” from the album Piano Man. </span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" > "The Globe," Big Audio Dynamite II<o:p></o:p></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2.</span> I Command You A song title which is a command in the grammatical sense, such as “Don’t Stop” or “Please <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Please</st1:city> <st1:state st="on">Me.</st1:state></st1:place>”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-size:85%;">"Skip a Rope"- Henson Cargill<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I have intensely visceral memories of this song from childhood, not so much of the subject matter, but the actual 45s that my dad had, which included “In the year 2525” by Zager & Evans, and “Bottle of Wine” by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs—right down to the little yellow spindle adapter thingies.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. </span>Human Anatomy 101 A song about a part of the body, whether it’s the eyes, the heart, or the toe. Any part of the body at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Black Tongue," Yeah Yeah Yeahs</span><o:p style="font-weight: bold;"></o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. </span>Song about waiting Self-explanatory, surely.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;"> "I’ve Been Waiting," Matthew Sweet<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Love the jangling, Byrds-esque guitar here.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">5.</span> Novelty song:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;"> "eBay," Weird Al Yankovic<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Growing up, we had a couple of K-Tel compilations (Goofy Greats et al.) on 8-track, which provided a steady diet of Ray Stevens and Nervous Norvis. I went a little more new-school this time, not least because I’m right out of 8-track players. BTW: the future copyright lawyer in me isn’t convinced this song qualifies as a parody under <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Campbell</st1:place></st1:city> v. Acuff-Rose. Though, if pressed, I could come up with a decent rationale why it might be. I can promise you that, it's most certainly not a market substitute for the original. Then again, the future copyright lawyer in me should be thinking of a good rationale—fair use or otherwise—for these little enterprises.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. </span>Great song on a shit album Again, that’s obvious enough. A song you like from an album you don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Way," Fastball</span> (All the Pain Money Can Buy)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Not really a shit album, just one I never listened to except for this song. Then again, maybe this song isn’t really “great,” so it kind of evens out. From that post-vinyl/pre-iTunes no-man’s land we call the 90s<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">7. </span>Song from 2008 Yes, it’s time for you people to get current again. Any song that was released this year.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><st1:place st="on"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Antarctica</span></st1:place><span style="font-weight: bold;">," The Weepies</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Pretty much the only music from 2008 that I have. Thanks to Stennie for turning me on to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">8. </span>Song about school:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Playground," XTC</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Reminds me of high school, as it should, and not in a good way. Especially “Some sweet girl playing my life runs off with a boy whose bike she’ll ride . . .” Seems like there was a preponderance of songs about British schools and how awful they are.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">9. </span>This & That A song with a title using the conjunction “and” . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">"Bulldozers and Dirt," Drive-By Truckers<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Sometimes the simplest, most elemental pleasures in life are the most sublimeI love the slow accretion of production elements, as if the song were an ever-enlarging sonic stalactite. It’s the lesser known inbred cousin of Phil Spector’s signature, The “Mound o’ Sound.” Also, the vocal harmonies call to mind a bunch of ‘coon hounds baying on a big-ass front porch of an old farmhouse<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">10. </span>Dedication: dedicate a song on your mix to someone!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"The Look of Love," Dusty <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Springfield</st1:place></st1:city><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Dusty’s voice like a satin teddy slipping off an alabaster shoulder, the strings unabashed in their urgent yearnings, and that sax. Good god, y’all. If there’s more artfully rendered ode to the physical act of love, I can’t begin to imagine what it would be, Mandrake. Dedicated, of course, to The Mother of The Man Cub (who must never be referred to as ‘Mrs. Middlebrow’). Track 16 is dedicated to the both of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">11. </span>Favorite song from the year you graduated high school.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"Never Say Never," Romeo Void<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Wasn’t sure if this should this be favorite at the time, or favorite from that year now either way, it’s a bit of a cheat: the song came out in ’82, but I didn’t discover it until ’84 (in the movie Reckless) so I figured I could split the difference. This really captures the essence of what (I’d like to believe ) the early 80s were about musically.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">12. </span>Song you are most surprised to discover in your CD/MP3 collection. Alternate category name: “That’s not mine, officer.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"More Than a Woman," Bee Gees<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">What surprised me was that I didn’t stop it or FF to the next thing. It was the Bee Gees—and I liked it! And why not, what with the Fender Rhodes tinkling like ice cubes in a tall glass of sweet tea. Very sweet tea. If I’m dedicating the mix to the MotMC, I might as well include a song that owes its presence in my iTunes to her: she or her mother bought the Bee Gees’ 2-CD best-of set and ripped it into my iTunes so they could each have a copy. So, really, this could have been any Bee Gees classic.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Had I chosen using Stennie’s criteria (musical kryptonite), you would all have been subjected to "The Wind Beneath My Wings," by Bette Midler (shudder), the mere thought of which makes me want to jam an icepick into each ear. It got into my iTunes because I was helping a former client, unschooled in the ways of the Interwebs, who wanted to make a mix CD for her daughter who was headed off to college. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. Reminds me of the guy in High Fidelity who came into the shop to buy “I Just Called to Say I Love You” for his daughter. “Oh, is she in a coma?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">13.</span> Kick-ass cover The old favorite.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"We’re not the Jet Set," John Prine & Iris Dement<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I know it’s fashionable on these things to pick a genre-bending or ultra ironic cover. This one kicks ass because it’s such a heartfelt homage to the George Jones / Tammy Wynette original. And if there’s a bigger Iris DeMent fan in the world than me, it’s probably John Prine.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">14. </span>Song with your name in the title You can use your middle name if you can’t find anything for your first name.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"Alles Roger!," Sportfreunde Stiller<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Yes, I had to go buy it. I had really hoped to find a song that not only had my name, but used its verb form: to roger, a good rogering. Given how rusty my German is, they very well might have. Bonus/two-fer: they also refer to my middle name: Atomic Kitten<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">15. </span>Smoking song—a song about smoking, what else?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"The Wildwood Weed," Jim Stafford<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Thought I’d save you the trip to <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Branford</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">MO.</st1:state></st1:place> “Y’all come back now, y’hear?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">16. </span>Song about magic<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"Three is a Magic Number," Schoolhouse Rock<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">A bit on the nose, but truly a great song. The compilation album should be called “That’s Edutainment!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">17. </span>Next song Heidi should learn on the guitar (a.k.a. While Stennie’s guitar gently weeps)?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"O Marie," Daniel Lanois<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is assuming Stennie’s disdain for U2 doesn’t extend to their erstwhile producer. I’ll leave it up to her if she wants to learn it in French.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">18. </span>Introductory song: Song you would like to have played by Paul Schaeffer and the CBS Orchestra if you were a guest on Letterman.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"Are You Gonna Go My Way?," Lenny Kravitz<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Damn, I knew I should have held on to “Play that Funky Music . . .” My variation on the question is, What do they play at the stadium while you’re walking to the plate: “Now batting, number 14, Misterrrr Middlebrrrrooooooowwwwww!” You just know Paul would arrange a smoking Hammond B3 part for himself, which would just make it all the sweeter.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">19.</span> Amnesia: a song about forgetting<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:85%;">"Don’t Forget About Me," Nanci Griffith<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Stennie, if this song inexplicably makes your fillings hurt, it might be because one Larry Mullen, Jr. is playing drums. I’ll probably never put a U2 song on a mix, but </span><span style="font-size:85%;">they might invariably find a way via their </span><span style="font-size:85%;">cronies and compatriots.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">20.</span> Amnesty song As always, a song that you would have liked to use in this (or any other) mix, but couldn’t seem to find room for.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Don’t Wait for Tom," Over The </span><st1:place style="font-weight: bold;" st="on">Rhine</st1:place><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>(imperative + waiting)</span></p> Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-6167696991490726442008-11-03T19:18:00.006-05:002008-11-05T11:18:42.204-05:00You Say ‘Godless’ like it’s a Bad Thing.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; panose-1:2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 3 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >So Liddy Dole ran this ad trying to disparage Democratic challenger Kay Hagan for having taken “godless” money from an atheist group.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1lf2vDk-4Ag&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1lf2vDk-4Ag&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />I think this might be beyond what Woody Allen had in mind when he wrote, “If Jesus came back and saw what’s being done in his name, He’d never stop throwing up.” I have no pretensions to divinity, but I gotta tell you: I’m having a hard time keeping my dinner down at this point.<br /><br />I’d just like to crib off Colin Powell and say that the correct answer is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k76tRXq0ZC0">Kay Hagan’s not an atheist</a>, she’s a Christian. But the bigger question is, So what? Why can’t someone ‘godless,’ but in all ways able and qualified to hold office, dream of being president or senator? Or for that matter, pretty much anything other than Pope?<br /><br />Frankly, I’m much more comfortable with an intelligent, well-educated, intellectually inquisitive atheist than an evangelical like Bush or, god(s) forbid, Palin. And not that I have anything against Jesus, per se. It’s just that there nothing empirically Christ-like about the yahoos who try to claim Christ as their running mate. We sure as fuck don’t know they’re Christians by their love. Moreover, an atheist's interests are in the here and now, not the hereafter. No atheist is going to influence policy for the sake of prophecy. The only mission from God an atheist is likely to support is the one undertaken by the Blues Brothers.<br /><br />I have a buddy* who’s an evangelical, a member of one of those big-ass mega-churches. Last time, he voted for Bush because Bush would govern by “biblical principles.” The problem there is two-fold: first, that approach treads a slippery slope toward a theocratic / American Taliban model; but, second, one who applies biblical principles over constitutional ones is likely too blinded by zeal and, frankly, arrogance, to know it. (Setting to one side for the moment all the not-especially-democratic principles like slavery that the bible has been used to justify.)<br /><br />There’s also a preemption problem. The trouble I have with people like Palin and Bush is that, for them, the Bible trumps the Constitution. Bush answers to a higher authority. But god doesn’t have jurisdiction in this country, no matter how many batshit judges try to keep the ten commandments on display in their courtrooms. In <i style="">Lawrence v. Texas</i>, Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, warned against imposing “foreign fads and moods” on the American body politic. By that reasoning, I’m pretty sure the “fads and moods” of a wrathful invisible man in the sky would have to be ruled out as well. Not that I’m necessarily averse to the teachings of the Bible. But if you want to govern by biblical principles, here’s the test: is your pet principle one codified into Constitution or the criminal code or the common law? If it’s something like proscribing murder or stealing or, oh, I dunno, lying through your teeth for the sake of your political agenda, you’re good to go. Constitutional kismet. But if the Founders or the Congress for whatever reason decided not to provide for death by stoning for eating shellfish after sundown on Friday, and/or a man lying with another man, well, you’re out of luck. Move along, have a nice day, thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.<br /><br />I know this is pie in the sky, my dreaming of a day when reason triumphs over caveman logic. In this regard, shows like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica get it right, if somewhat depressingly so. No matter how advanced technology becomes, no matter how overwhelmingly the scientific evidence undermines and debunks its fairy-tale foundations, religion will never go away, and it will always try to ingratiate itself into politics and policymaking, in various guises—“tradition,” “values,”—as if whatever particular brand of mythology somehow has a corner on the market in those concepts. Technology and enlightenment are just no match for cognitive dissonance. People will always believe the thing that makes them feel better. For most of us, blessedly, we are more comfortable with the empirical.<br /><br />If I learned anything last year, it’s that legislation by small-d democracy is hard—by design. Conversely, theocracy is just too easy. It’s a fucking cop-out is what it is. So while I applaud Senator Hagan for calling Dole on her skeeviness and setting the record straight, I'd just like to add that I'm pining for the day when I can vote for a candidate who runs on a platform of godlessness.<br /><br />In the name of the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. Amen.<br /><br />*UPDATE: I'm pleased to report that my pal not only voted for Obama this time, but voted for Hagan, too, citing Dole's smear as "the last straw." Consider my faith--in human intelligence--restored.<br /></span>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-68192677666176334992008-10-10T10:05:00.004-04:002008-10-10T10:21:54.954-04:00I reveal my Inmost SelfFor some reason*, I've decided to allow the seal to be broken on the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=875BE700E4CC022B">crypt containing artifacts of my past life</a>.<br /><br />Here's a sample:<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-Dkjzc9W08w&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-Dkjzc9W08w&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />The rest can be found via the link above or at "My TV Reel" under LINKS.<br /><br />So, was I right to cut my losses and get out, or should I have stayed the course, a la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove?<br /><br />*There seems to be a fine line between self-loathing and self-aggrandizement. Either way, at least I'm getting something on the blog.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-31856282599228887352008-10-01T18:15:00.011-04:002008-10-01T22:29:28.553-04:00The Recording Industry, Disingenuous? Inconceivable!<span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88j4OQrAHzuCeaBAIUZTWbILRXmmhHyJgoWkFzbHxVBhIMcWAP8Sst3-_-i8E8K0Q5dfsGkLMxDF_XssSbCbJ34_6uu_ibFa4mY-7nt268IltKciUM_bQCnnmyTjmVVfi7Vbm/s1600-h/PB_Vizzini.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88j4OQrAHzuCeaBAIUZTWbILRXmmhHyJgoWkFzbHxVBhIMcWAP8Sst3-_-i8E8K0Q5dfsGkLMxDF_XssSbCbJ34_6uu_ibFa4mY-7nt268IltKciUM_bQCnnmyTjmVVfi7Vbm/s320/PB_Vizzini.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252375171574567746" border="0" /></a></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; panose-1:2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 3 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Gill Sans MT"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When a recent Recording Industry of America (RIAA) court filing repeatedly used terms like “vexatious,” “good faith,” “frivolous,” or “integrity,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of the great swordsman-sage <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes">Inigo Montoya</a>, whose response to a similarly questionable word choice was, “I do not think it means what you think it means.“</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style="">And isn’t it Ironic? A Little <i style="">Too</i> Ironic?<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the latest episode of <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/riaa-decries-at.html">unintended irony</a> from the mouthpiece of the world’s musical Pentavirate, the RIAA has <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/vexatious.pdf">moved for dismissal without prejudice</a> (.pdf) of their claim of copyright infringement against defendant Marie Lindor. Asking the court to sanction Lindor and attorney Ray Beckerman, the record-industry lobby describes such action as “appropriate where pleadings are filed without legal basis and for the improper purpose of supporting a bad faith public relations campaign . . . .“ </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To anyone who’s followed the RIAA’s litigation juggernaut, now entering its sixth year, a “<a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/proving-file-sh.html#previouspost">bad faith public relations campaign</a>” might sound oddly familiar. The record companies try to characterize Beckerman’s efforts as bad-faith PR in part because he posts “virtually every one of his baseless motions on his <a href="http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/">blog</a> seeking to bolster his public relations campaign and embarrass Plaintiffs.” Not to take anything away from Mr. Beckerman, but when it comes to undermining its public image, the recording industry seems <a href="http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2005/11/69601">to do just fine</a> on its own. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.75in;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style="">You say “awareness,” I say “harassment”;<br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style="">Let’s call the whole thing off. <o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">One thing you have to give the RIAA credit for is being experts on vexatious litigation and sketchy faith. Over the last five years, <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/proving-file-sh.html#previouspost">they have sued an estimated 30,000 people</a> as part of an effort to “increase awareness” that downloading is illegal and that they will go after anyone they suspect of illegal file-sharing, be it a college student or a little kid, an old lady or a <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050204-4587.html">dead person</a>. Hoping to avoid litigation, the RIAA’s standard approach is to offer a non-negotiable <a href="http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-riaa-litigation-process-works.html">settlement of $3,750</a>—a Hobson’s choice for the overwhelming majority of defendants for whom litigation is simply not an option. As a fallback, however, the RIAA <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080625-judge-upholds-107834-in-attorneys-fees-award-against-riaa.html">fights tooth and nail against awarding attorney’s fees</a> to those who decline to settle and eventually prevail. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.75in;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The industry resorts to tactics that Beckerman calls “extortionate” in part because many of their cases are turning out to be less than a slam-dunk on the merits. First, the courts seem disinclined to find that “making [content] available” constitutes infringement without the “actual transfer” of copyrighted material. In fact, the Judge in <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/not-for-publica.html">Capitol Records, Inc. v. Jammie Thomas</a> declared a mistrial after determining that he had incorrectly instructed the jury on that aspect of the Copyright Act. There’s also the problem of how the record companies find out whether a computer has copyrighted content available for downloading. The RIAA has contracted with a group called MediaSentry which “investigates” suspected computers by logging onto and downloading music via a P2P network, then taking a screen shot of the folder the songs came from. The Michigan Department of Labor recently notified MediaSentry that it could not “<a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/mediasentrymichigan.pdf">perform regulated activities</a>” (.pdf) without a private detective’s license.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Whether or not actions like this rise to the level of “vexatious,” they are without a doubt <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=skeevy">skeevy</a>, to use a term of art.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style="">Give the People What They Want. <o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">While it’s possible that the court could find for the RIAA in this particular case, it doesn’t change the fact that, in the eyes of average consumers, the language the RIAA uses to excoriate Beckerman here applies too readily to their M.O. over the last five years. As courts continue to call them on playing fast and loose with procedure and discovery, and diminish the deterrent value of threatened litigation by <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/not-for-publica.html">setting aside high-dollar judgments and distinguishing consumers from corporate, piracy-for-profit defendants</a>, the process will cease to be economically worthwhile. If the industry really wants to elicit support and sympathy for the legitimate bases of its position—that unauthorized downloading of copyrighted works is wrong, and that content owners should be able to protect their rights and their profits—it needs to stop acting like frustrated parents threatening to ground a petulant child. In any case, one hopes that the prevailing necessities of survival and relevance will ultimately compel the RIAA to replace tactics of intimidation and alienation with engagement and innovation. Or is such a hope so far-fetched and unlikely as to be—what was that word again? </span></p>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-32936509421625779382008-09-09T09:00:00.006-04:002008-09-09T09:29:04.389-04:00Hey, I know that dude...So, didja hear the one about the DHS drone who thought <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/asylum-seeker-r.html">Wikipedia was good enough for government work</a>? Anybody who's as big an "Arrested Development" fan as I will no doubt find it strangely familiar:<br /><br />Bluth family attorney Barry Zuckerkorn ("He's very good"), counseling his clients on their position in a stock buyout:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Barry</span>: So, basically, you’re about 2,000 shares short of being the majority stock holders. Now, unfortunately, it’s a private stock so you can not just buy up the shares unless someone is willing to sell.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Michael</span>: Are you sure?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Barry</span>: That’s what it said on ‘Ask Jeeves.’<br /><br />Funny, right? Apparently, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals didn't think so.<br /><br />A mutual friend of the blog has more to say about it <a href="http://jolt.unc.edu/blog/2008/09/09/eighth-circuit-bia-wikipedia-seriously-0">here</a>.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-81914804489983554232008-08-31T13:02:00.005-04:002008-08-31T13:31:51.808-04:00Common GroundIn general, I sometimes fret that Sesame Street suffers from a surfeit of pop-culture savvy. It's not <a href="http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/choochoosoul/index_noIntro.html">Choo-Choo Soul</a>, but the hip-hop syncopation of the "updated" theme makes me pine for the innocence and simplicity of the old-school version. I'm not completely deluded--I fully expect to hear "Your music sucks, old man!" echoing across the generation gap at some point. I just didn't think it would happen before the man-cub had mastered the alphabet.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9fciD_II7NI&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9fciD_II7NI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Fortunately, here's one instance where I think the furry hands at the Children's Televsion Workshop got it right. And even better, the man-cub is down with it, too.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-79415129693584482612008-08-01T11:43:00.002-04:002008-08-01T11:52:24.676-04:00My Epitaph"Oh, shit; that was <span style="font-style: italic;">today</span>?!"<br /><br />What's yours?Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-30863702133667697472008-07-29T19:13:00.000-04:002008-07-29T19:14:16.647-04:00White like me<p class="MsoNormal">While riding my wife’s <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/10/61-bicycles/">Batavus</a> to the local <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/5-farmers-markets/">farmer’s market</a>, I stopped off at our local <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/03/48-whole-foods-and-grocery-co-ops/">food co-op</a> for an iced <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/1-coffee/">Americano</a>. When I got home, while I was stepping out of my <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/11/87-outdoor-performance-clothes/">Keens</a>, as is the <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/07/58-japan/">custom in our house</a>, my wife mentioned that the <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/14/88-having-gay-friends/">lesbian couple</a> who live down the hall, both of whom are <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/04/81-graduate-school/">grad students</a>, would like to have us over [presumably for a <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/18/88-dinner-parties/">dinner party</a>] sometime. “Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s try to do it before <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/06/56-lawyers/">2L year</a> gets too crazy.” <span style=""> </span></p>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-92067837570851065262008-06-18T09:08:00.004-04:002008-06-18T09:23:24.690-04:00Gaius, Zaius; Zaius, Gaius.Was anybody else secretly hoping that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063442/quotes">net-wielding gorillas on horseback</a> would come riding out of the rubble at the end of last Friday's BSG, or is it just me?<br /><br />Couldn't you just see Adama, screaming through clenched teeth at a ruined Statue of Liberty: "Gods damn you all to hell!"<br /><br />Oh, well. Season ain't over yet.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-24703886650669284572008-06-13T20:08:00.003-04:002008-06-13T20:28:56.691-04:00What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face?<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">My answers to the latest SLIFR pop-culture query: “<a href="http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2008/05/professor-brian-oblivions-all-new-flesh.html">PROF. BRIAN O'BLIVION'S ALL-NEW FLESH FOR MEMORIAL DAY FILM (AND TV) QUIZ.</a>”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p>If you love movies and love talking about movies with people who love movies, and you haven't found Dennis' brilliant blog, you're missing out. Follow the link to take the quiz yourself and read other responses (after reading and commenting on mine, natch). </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p><!--[if !supportLists]--><b style=""><span style=""><span style="">1)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Best transition from movies to TV (actor, actress, producer/director, movie/show)</b><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b><br />Alec Baldwin, on “30 Rock.” It’s like everything he’s done up to this point has been in service to this. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p></o:p>Runners-up: The troika of Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, and James Callis, on “Battlestar Galactica.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p>Martin Sheen was one of the great things about “The West Wing.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>2) Living film director you most miss seeing on the cultural landscape regularly<br /></b><span style="">I would love to have seen more from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001887/">Paul Brickman</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />3) Eugene Pallette or Charles Coburn<br /></b><span style="">Pallette purely on the strength of his addled patriarch in <i style="">My Man Godfrey</i>. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />4) Fill in the blank: “I pray that no one ever turns _____________ into a movie.”<br /></b><span style="">Any Geico TV commercial. Don’t scoff, it could happen. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>5) Jane Greer or <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Veronica</st1:PlaceName> <st1:placename st="on">Lake</st1:PlaceName><br /><st1:placetype st="on"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lake</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style="font-weight: normal;">. Better still: Kim Basinger playing a hooker “cut” to look like <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Veronica</st1:PlaceName> <st1:placename st="on">Lake</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> in <i style="">L.. A. Confidential</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>6) What was the last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD? And why?<br /></b><span style="">Theatre:<i style=""> <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Indiana</st1:place></st1:State> Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>; how could I not? The first half hour was a pure delight—everybody was loose, having fun. Lots of great hot-rodder moments straight out of <i style="">American Graffiti</i>. The rest was pretty serviceable, but eventually it got kind of sloppy (who said “P-O’d” in the ‘50s?) and didn’t really hold up very well. I had to admit after a while that they either A) didn’t write <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Marion</st1:City></st1:place>’s part very well, or <span style=""> </span>B) Karen Allen isn’t much of an actress. By the end, I mostly wanted to see Shia LeBouef cast in something as Russell Crowe’s little brother. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>DVD:<i style=""> Out of Sight</i>; This is cinematic comfort food for me. Having just completed my second semester of law school, which included a course in criminal law, I’ve been jonesing to rewatch it with an eye toward all the possible instances of accomplice liability and applications of the felony-murder rule. It’s a testament to the movie’s greatness that I had stopped thinking about law school by the time it got to the first freeze-frame.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br /><br />Tivo: <i style="">Tristram Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story</i>: For some unexplained reason, we’ve started getting IFC instead of TCM, and Tivo thought I would enjoy this. I did—especially the way it utterly disabuses the viewer of any thought about the “glamour” of being an actor. Makes kind of a good companion piece to <i style="">Shakespeare in Love</i>. I’d still rather have TCM, though. <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span><b><br />7) Name an actor you think should be a star<br /></b><span style="">Nathan Fillion. I’ve been unconsciously appreciative of him ever since he played the cad boyfriend in <i style="">Blast from the Past</i>; now, having thoroughly enjoyed his performance in <i style="">Waitress </i>and recently discovered “Firefly,” via Hulu.com, I consider him and grievously undervalued asset. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>8) <i>Foxy Brown</i> or <i>Coffy</i><br /></b><span style="">Jackie Brown <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>9) Favorite TV show still without its own DVD box set<o:p></o:p></b><br /><span style="">“The Six Million Dollar Man.” If the glimpses of similar childhood faves that I’ve gotten from Hulu are any indication (“Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”) I’m probably much better off with my memories of the show as seen through the uncritical eyes of a ten-year-old. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>10) Jack Elam or Neville Brand<br /></b><span style="">Big Jack. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>11) What movies would top your list of movies you need to revisit, for whatever reason?<br /></b><span style="">Given the number of answers that I’ve had to pass on for this quiz, it seems like I have a lot of catching up to do before I do any “revisiting.” In another year or two, my son will be old enough to start watching movies, and that should make for some pretty interesting revisitations. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>12) <i>Zodiac</i> or <i>All the President’s Men</i><br /></b><span style="">It’s been a million years since I saw the latter and I have yet to see the former, though given all the praise that’s been heaped on it, that should be rectified soon. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />13) Using our best reviewer-speak, what is an “important” film <a href="http://www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html">comedy</a>? And what is to you the most important film comedy of the last 35 years?<br /></b><span style="">An “important” film, regardless of genre, is one that challenges the status quo. An “important” comedy would be one that has all the wit and intelligence of a respectable drama, but gets authentic laughs in unexpected ways. Even though it wasn’t a film, I thought this was what made “Arrested Development” so great (if fatally misunderstood and underappreciated). Generally, it seems the most “important” comedies are probably satire and/or black comedies, a la <i style="">Dr. Strangelove</i>, <i style="">Three Kings</i>. ‘Course, pretty much everything the Coens have done has defied conventions, proving (at least to me) that even a just-for-kicks comedy can earn a place in the canon. Even though it didn’t quite live up to the hype, I thought <i style="">Borat</i> went fearlessly where film hadn’t before, though I doubt you could have <i style="">Borat</i> without <i style="">This is Spinal Tap</i>. And <i style="">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</i> definitely felt like a paradigm shift to me. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p>All that said, I think it has to be <i style="">Monty Python’s Life of Brian</i> (See question 22, infra) <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>14) Describe the ideal environment for watching a movie.<br /></b><span style="">Not to get too curmudgeony, but it’s really not fun to go to the movies nowadays. Between the general discourtesy that pervades and the fact that my home theatre 5.1 system is pound-for-pound as good or better than the average multiplex, the answer is: My sofa with my wife, some really great cheeses and pâtés, and a glass of Italian red (that, ironically, probably costs less than a coke at the theatre).<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>15) Michelle Williams or Eva Mendes<br /></b>Anne Hathaway </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>16) What’s the worst movie title of all time?<o:p></o:p></b><br /><span style="">C.H.U.D. <b><br /><br />17) Best movie about teaching and/or learning<br /></b><i style="">Fast Times at Ridgemont High</i>. Talk about “everything I need to know I life I learned . . . “ Now that I think about it, this might be a contender for #13. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>18) <i>Dracula</i> (1931) or <i>Horror of Dracula</i> (1958)<br /></b><span style="">Pass<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>19) Why do you blog? Or if you don’t, why do you read blogs? (Thanks, Girish)<br /></b><span style="">I like to think of my blog as a virtual water cooler, around which I and anyone who cares to join me can hold forth on whatever pop-culture ephemera seems noteworthy. I read blogs for mostly the same reasons, though many of my regular blogs have more of a political bent to them. I wish that I spent more time blogging and less time reading blogs, but I have reconciled myself to the reality that I’m a deficit blogger—I will always consume more than I produce. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p></o:p>20) Most memorable/disturbing death scene<br /></b><span style="">Adam Goldberg being slowly stabbed in <i style="">Saving Private Ryan</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p> </o:p>21) Jason Robards or Robert Shaw<br /></b><span style="">Robert Shaw. Robards is no slouch, but was he Quint <i style="">and</i> a Bond baddie? Didn’t think so. Oh, and Doyle Loneghan. And <i style="">The Taking of Pelham 123</i>. Yeah, Shaw was a total badass. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>22) A good candidate for Most <a href="http://www.empireonline.com/features/blasphemy/default.asp?NID=22226">Blasphemous Movie Ever</a><br /></b><span style="">If “blasphemy” is “</span>an irreverent or impious act, attitude, or utterance in regard to something considered inviolable or sacrosanct,” then my answer is <st1:place st="on"><i style=""><span style="">Pearl Harbor</span></i></st1:place><span style="">. Get thee behind me, Bruckheimer and Bay. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p>I find it curious how people answered with <i style="">Monty Python’s Life of Brian</i>. If you really watch it, there’s noting against God or Jesus or even any of Jesus’ teachings. It’s a 90-minute riff on that old bumper-sticker chestnut: Dear Lord, save me from your followers. <span style=""> </span>I like to think that if God exists, and if we’re made in his/her/its image, then a sense of humor is essential to the creator’s divine nature. Jesus would totally get this movie. Seems to me, too, that JC, surveying the landscape of modern religion, politics and pop culture would have much greater quarrels with the self-anointed arbiters of holiness than mischief-makers and gadflies like the Pythons. I suspect God is far more indulgent of fools than hypocrites.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>Now, if you want to talk about the most <i style="">heretical</i> movie ever, <i style="">Life of Brian</i> is surely a contender. And God bless ‘em for it. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p> </o:p>23) <i>Rio Bravo</i> or <st1:place st="on"><i>Red River</i></st1:place><br /></b><span style="">Yikes. This might be in the running for #31 . . .<span style=""> </span>I’ve seen snatches of both, but never really sat down and watched either. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p> </o:p>24) Werner Herzog is remaking <i>Bad Lieutenant</i> with Nicolas Cage—that’s reality. Try to outdo reality by concocting a match-up of director and title for a really strange imaginary remake.<br /></b><span style="">David Fincher’s Mary Poppins <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />25) Bulle Ogier or Charlotte Rampling<br /></b><span style="">I have no idea who Bulle Ogier is, but it’s immaterial: it would pretty much be Charlotte Rampling, regardless. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />26) <i>In the Realm of the Senses</i>— yes or no?<br /></b><span style="">No strong opinion, so . . . sure, why not? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />27) Name a movie you think of as your own <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2008/05/too_personal_to_share_with_an.html">(Thanks, Jim!)</a><br /></b><span style="">Apparently, any movie from the ‘80s that begins with the letter R: <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><i style=""><span style="">Risky Business</span></i><span style=""> came out the summer after I graduated high school and quickly established itself, at least to me, as something more than another teen-sex romp. It had some pretty keen insights into the priorities, anxieties and insecurities of 17-year-olds in the early ‘80s. It certainly struck a chord with me. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><i style=""><span style="">The Right Stuff</span></i><span style=""> <span style=""> </span>was and remains a perfect synthesis of my boyhood passions—the space age and the movies. It eventually unseated <i style="">Star Wars</i> as my favorite movie (even though it took a few years for me to acknowledge as such). It also turned me on to the idea of film as literature, complete with themes, allusions, and tropes. “Hey, Ridley, you got any Beemans?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span><i style=""><span style="">Raising Arizona</span></i><span style=""> was my first date with my then hottie girlfriend (now hottie wife). It also introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about what movies, especially comedies, could be. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><i style=""><span style="">A Room with a View</span></i><span style=""> was something we saw for the first time while living in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I was astonished that it was recently remade for PBS. What’s the point of remaking perfection? <span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>28) <i>Winged Migration</i> or <i>Microcosmos</i><br /></b><span style="">Haven’t seen either. I have a feeling I’d be more of a Winged fan. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>29) Your favorite football game featured in a movie<br /></b><span style="">I’m tempted to say <i style="">The Longest Yard</i> (the original), and call it a day. I feel like I should throw <i style="">Heaven Can Wait</i> some love, even though the actual games are pretty tangential to the whole affair. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />30) Wendy Hiller or Deborah Kerr<br /></b><span style="">Kerr for <i style="">Eternity</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />31) Dirtiest secret you have that is related to the movies<br /></b><i style=""><span style=""><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079268/">Hanover Street</a></span></i><span style=""> and assorted crimes of omission too, too numerous and grievous to mention. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b>32) Name a favorite film and describe how it is illuminated and enriched by another favorite film.<br /></b><i style=""><span style="">Monster’s Inc.’s</span></i><span style=""> nod to <i style="">Feed the Kitty</i>. That’s not exactly the question, I know. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="">Equally lame but more to the point: <i style="">High Anxiety</i> (which I first saw as a young teen having only seen <i style="">The Birds</i>) became considerably funnier as I worked my way through the Hitchcock oeuvre. How about the way <i style="">The Hudsucker Proxy</i> riffs on Cool Hand Luke? “Lose a blue card, and they DOCK ya!” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />33) <i>It’s a Gift</i> or <i>Horsefeathers</i><br /></b><span style="">Can’t say. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />34) Your best story about seeing a movie at a drive-in<br /></b><span style="">Best I can do is one of the typical “hide under a blanket in the back,” from the days before they charged by the carload. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />35) Victor Mature or Tyrone Power<br /></b><span style="">Man, I really need to get my TCM back. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><b><br />36) What does film criticism mean to you? Where do you think it’s headed?<o:p></o:p></b><br />Right now, it doesn’t mean much. I’m pretty ambivalent about where it might be headed, though I’m thankful for the role that blogging generally, and Dennis’ blog especially, has played in letting regular Joe movie lovers participate in the conversation. </p>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-729338962121621742008-06-03T21:08:00.003-04:002008-06-03T22:22:53.351-04:00Living with the law<p class="MsoNormal">There’s a good nature-vs.-nurture discussion going on over at <a href="http://www.oklahomeless.com/?p=671">Oklahomeless</a> about the problem of the lawyer personality. Namely, Goldie wondered whether the profession attracts anti-social miscreants, or transforms otherwise decent, conscientious people into the argumentative, ass-clown caricature that populates the collective consciousness when people hear the word “lawyer.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>When I started applying to law schools, I liked to joke that I was going to single-handedly solve the legal industry’s P.R. problems by not falling prey to those forces that reduce young idealists to grizzled, cynical misanthropes and soulless corporate stooges. Based on my experience last year, I get the feeling that a lot of my classmates had the same idea. Maybe my law school attracts a kinder, gentler sort. I figure I’m either incredibly lucky or naive, but I really didn’t see a lot of the stereotypical sharky-gunner mentality at my law school. It’s competitive, sure, but in a collegial way. I was more acutely aware of the curve during the second semester, but it certainly never prompted me or anybody I know to withhold help in studying or understanding the concepts. What it’s like at other law schools, I can only wonder, based on what I see in movies and T.V. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As I wrote on Goldie’s blog, I don’t think of myself as having a (stereo)typical lawyer temperament. My first year was a revelation in that regard, prompting no small amount of hand wringing as to whether I was really cut out for the lawyer life. I’m not especially adversarial or aggressive; but what worries me more is whether I can really develop the ability to 1) spot issues and 2) form a decent argument on the basis of something other than a vein throbbing in my temple. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can honestly and happily say that, much as I’ve enjoyed shows like “L.A. Law” and “The Practice,” they didn’t really inform my desire to become a lawyer. I sure as hell didn’t decide to chuck my former career to live the “Law and Order” dream (dun-dun!!) If I had to attribute my “I’m going to get a JD and change the world” ambitions to a pop-culture influence, it would probably be “The West Wing,” along with the usual noble suspects like <i style="">To Kill a Mockingbird</i> and <i style="">Inherit the Wind</i>. In other words, role models with almost not basis in reality, if I’m to believe the accounts of “real-world” practice that are beginning to filter into my consciousness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I actually like that the profession demands precision and ordered thought. My goal, once I master the basic process, is to be able to combine precise reasoning with the kind of pithy verve that makes for compelling, persuasive advocacy. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t say that any of my first year classes or pro-bono experiences got me especially hot to specialize in tort, property, contracts, criminal or constitutional law. Coming to law school from advertising, though, I did have a vague interest in Intellectual Property. Then I read <a href="http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-strikes-back">this</a>. It’s basically a <span style=""> </span>guy who, as it turns out, chucked his legal career to start an online audio/video cable concern. An<span style=""></span>d when the big bad wolves at from Giganticorp started huffing and puffing, he called bullshit and told them, with badger-like verve and chutzpah, what they could do with their little licensing-fee shakedown. Reading the letter was intensely satisfying—like watching a couple of muggers getting their asses handed to them when the little dude they start hassling turns out to be Bruce Lee. Wa-Pow! Justice, baby. Come and get you some. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Here’s a taste: </p><i>I have seen Monster Cable take untenable IP positions in various different scenarios in the past, and am generally familiar with what seems to be Monster Cable's modus operandi in these matters. I therefore think that it is important that, before closing, I make you aware of a few points.</i> <p><i>I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.</i></p> <p><i> I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands. <b style="">Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; </b>but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind.<b style=""> If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.</b></i><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In other words: Bring it, bitches. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>For me, this is the inspirational equal of any movie, book, or Cardozo opinion. It’s really the first thing I’ve come across that made me say <i style="">that’s</i> what I want to do; that’s the kind of lawyer I want to be. If I can do that as a lawyer, I’ll know I made the right decision. I find it particularly encouraging that this is a real-world legal confrontation, not something distilled into a casebook illustration.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>I’m eager to know what you all think of it, lawyers and civilians. Actually, let me amend that: I’m eager to have my (quite possibly naïve) take on the situation validated. So if my lawyer friends or more astute classmates think this guy is just another part of the problem Goldie describes, all I ask is that you me down easy. </p>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-8462220257110440952008-05-13T06:58:00.005-04:002008-05-29T15:11:07.428-04:00Bunch o' carrots and little sweet peas<o:p></o:p>UPDATED with links and Video!<br /><br />Time for another CD Mix Exchange. This being the seventh of these done by Stennie and the Gang, it's been dubbed "007: License to Mix. But for some reason, I had to really work to keep it from being License to Twang. I’m usually ambivalent about including alternates, but I’m providing them here so you can see just how many twangy bullets were dodged. <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><br /><b>1. Kick-ass cover—of a song someone else has used in a previous mix.</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=tnlfqSRUEgo">“Stand by Your Man” – Lyle Lovett</a><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">(Covering Tammy Wynette’s classic, which Stennie used as a “favorite song you completely disagree with,” on CD Mix 1) </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>This category kicked my ass. My initial problem was twofold: everybody (else) who does these mixes A) uses a lot of kick-ass covers and B) chooses original songs for which there are no covers. <span style=""> </span>But then I received <a href="http://theoneselkie.blogspot.com/2008/05/cd-mix-exchange-007-license-to-mix.html">River Selkie’s</a> mix, including an entire disc of covers, which pretty much called bullshit on the second prong of my argument. Fortunately, I remembered I had this great little chestnut. What it lacks in opening-track energy, it more than makes up for in smirking irony. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“(We’re Not) The Jet Set” –<span style=""> </span>John Prine and Iris Dement<br />“Every Day” – James Taylor (Mike’s “song he liked when he was 5” [Buddy Holly original] from Mix #1)<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Ragg Mopp” – Lionel Hampton (Bet’s spelling song on Mix 5) </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>2. Song that gives you goose bumps.</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=8UkKTlzyLhQ"><u><o:p></o:p></u>"Have a Little Faith in Me" - John Hiatt</a></p><p class="MsoNormal">A testament to the power of simplicity. I’m consistently blown away by how few elements there are here. It’s not particularly melodic, just a piano and a voice, but what a voice. Not the prettiest, but easily one of the most expressive and affecting. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“Hallelujah” – Jeff Buckley<br />“Miami 2017” (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” – Billy Joel </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>3. Song about the state you live in.</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=clY8xp8KLas">“Lone Start State of <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Mind</st1:place></st1:state>” – Nanci Griffith</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Given that JT's ode to the Old North State was my only alternative (not bad, but not as interesting--though NC is vastly superior to TX, IMO), and this was the album that introduced me Nanci Griffith, I decided on a more conceptual direction. For what it's worth, I may have been alone in Denver sipping a California wine at some point.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“<st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Carolina</st1:place></st1:city> in my Mind” - <span style=""> </span>James Taylor<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>4. Parenthetical</b>—a favorite song with parentheses in the title, such as “(Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Desafinado (Slightly Out of Tune)” – Ella Fitzgerald </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“(I’m Gonna) Love, Love, Love You” The Derailers<br />“I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)” – Buck Owens and His Buckaroos<br />“(Let’s Do It) Let’s Fall in Love” – Ella Fitzgerald<br />“Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love To Town)” – Kenny Rogers and the First Edition<br />“I am Weary (Let Me Rest) – The Cox Family<br />“Forever Young (The Wild Ones)” – The BoDeans </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>5. Therefore I Am:</b> song about thinking<br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Du5FguDSzE">“Let the Mystery Be” – Iris Dement</a><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Iris's voice tends to elicit a love-it-or-hate-it response from most people. I'm completely enraptured by it. Hope y'all are, too.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“What Was I Thinkin’?” – Deirks Bentley<br />“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” – Bob Dylan </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>6. Alliteration</b>—song with alliteration in the title, that is, the words start with the same letter, like “Lonesome Loser.” (Remember the Little River Band? Sure you do!) </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=nHKrzyFUph8">“Spiral Staircase” – Kings of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Leon</st1:place></st1:country-region></a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I love the pure unadulterated filth of the guitars on this. Anybody else get a little whiff of Bon Scott from the vocals? <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“Readin’, Rightin’, Rt. 23” – Dwight Yoakam<br />“<st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Hillbilly Highway</st1:address></st1:street>” – Steve Earle </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>7. Favorite song from year you were born</b>.<br />“It’s Not Unusual” – Tom Jones</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">How pathetic is it that to satisfy the category I suggested, I have to go buy songs off iTunes? That’s what I get for going all literal a couple mixes ago and using “Tiger by the Tail” as song that should have been playing when I was born. Honestly, I have no trouble rationalizing the $1.98 I spent, given my big, shameless soft spot for Tom Jones. I actually saw him perform live in Vegas (where else?) in the early ‘90s. It was 90 minutes of every Tom Jones in Vegas cliché you can imagine. In other words, perfection. It purged any questions of him being past his prime. Apparently, he’s still on the road, going (relatively) strong. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“What’s New, Pussycat?” – Tom Jones<br />“Flowers on the Wall “ – The Statler Brothers<br />“A Very Good Year” – Frank Sinatra</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>8. Song about an animal</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qclxx4uO0ac">“Maybe Sparrow” – Neko Case</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My main criterion here was to avoid using a “kids music” song. This one is definitely not for the ears of innocents. Mean ol’ hawks. Go pick on some pigeons why dontcha?<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“Sheep” – Zoe Lewis<br />“Dolphin Dance” – Herbie Hancock</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>9. Song performed by non-traditional musician</b>—such as an actor, athlete, weatherman, plumber.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Harriet!” – Mike Myers </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve made my affection for “So I Married an Axe Murderer” plain many times in this space. This was too irresistible. Also, any song that uses the lyric “hard-hearted harbinger of haggis” automatically goes to the front of the queue. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“Ringo” Lorne Greene<br />“Teddy Bear” – Hank Hill (Mike Judge) </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>10. Grammatically Incorrect</b><br />“Ain’t Found Nobody” – The Mavericks </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been wanting to include a Mavericks or Raul Malo song for a while now; I was determined to get one on this mix. I had originally planned to use “What a Crying Shame” for the Why So Sad category, but I thought this was a better showcase of Señor Malo’s toffee-coated tenor. Plus, I just love the arrangement with the plinking honky-tonk piano and the fiddle. This could easily have been a country-politan hit in the ‘60s. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates: </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Ain’t Even Done with the Night” – John Cougar<br />“The Salt in my Tears” – Martin Briley<br />“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” – Duke Ellington </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>11. Song with your favorite guitar or instrumental solo.</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=hgYUh6oVVOw">“La Lola” – Café Quijano</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I considered lots of obvious guitar-hero anthems from the usual suspects (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Van Halen), but found them all a bit predictable, honestly,<span style=""> </span>lacking sufficient “wow” factor. I ended up <i style="">aqui</i> because the slide guitar is so . . . lurid. Like a musical version of Chris Kattan doing Antonio Banderas on SNL: “Es hote in here, no?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>“Walk this Way” – Aerosmith<br />“The Waiting” – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers<br />“The Breakdown” – Los Lobos<br />“I Need More Love” – Robert Randolph and the Family Band (Lap steel + Hammond B3)<br />“<st1:place st="on">Beaujolais</st1:place>” – The BoDeans (Accordion) <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>12. War! What is it good for?</b> Song about war. Good God, y’all!<br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=LCW6Kte2o1A">“Generals and Majors” – XTC</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I hope this isn’t one of the XTC songs Bet finds pretentious. I think it’s a ton of fun. The guitar riff is hypnotic.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“Sink the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bismarck</st1:place></st1:city>” –<span style=""> </span>Johnny Horton<br />“The <st1:city st="on">Battle</st1:city> of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New Orleans</st1:place></st1:city>” – Johnny Horton<br />“Sunday, Bloody Sunday” – U2<br />“Brothers in Arms” – Dire Straits<br />“Sam Stone” – John Prine </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><u><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></u></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>13. Song about Sex</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=JErGF-e0B3U">“Anything Can Happen” – Was (Not Was)</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Back when I was the very model of a modern major West Wing fan—before Aaron Sorkin became* insufferable with the meta-narcissism—there was an episode with a running gag about Gilbert & Sullivan. Ainsely Hays, unable to recall the name of a particular G&S operetta, refers to it as “the one about duty.” To which several other characters in turn respond, “They’re <i style="">all</i> about duty.” That’s what I thought when I first saw this category: what rock and roll song <i style="">isn’t</i> about sex, having sex, trying to have sex, or lamenting the lack of sex being had? The genre owes its existence—and its name—to physical act of love, as Gen. Ripper put it. Still, it was fun to find one that was overtly about gettin’ some. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">*It might very well be the case that he was <i style="">always</i> insufferable, but I failed to find him so until halfway into the first (and blessedly only) season of Studio 60. I almost dread re-watching my DVDs of TWW for fear of finding that’s the case. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“Red Morning Light” – Kings of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Leon</st1:country-region></st1:place> (At least I think it’s about sex. Does “giving all your cinnamon away” mean what I think it means?)=<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">“The Wheel and the Maypole” – XTC<u> </u>(“I’ve got the plow if you’ve got the furrow/I’ve got the rabbit if you’ve his burrow home”? Doesn’t take Fellini to figure that one out.)<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Memphisto” – John Prine (not exclusively about sex, but it any song that includes the lyric “they humped each other like they had no shame” merits consideration.)<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Hotter than Mojave in my Heart” – Iris Dement<br />“I Need a Lover” – John Cougar </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>14. Song about Drugs</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=206XaNxQ5LQ">“Sam Stone” – John Prine</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let me ask you something: once you know what this song is about, how many words into do you get before you find yourself emotionally obliterated? I’m pretty much done by the time he gets to “home” in the opening line. Would also have made a good song about war, I think. (“Good” as in “apt”; not as in “Yay, war.”)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“The Wildwood Flower” – Jim Stafford (“I didn’t know what happened, but I knew it beat the hell outta sniffin’ burlap”)<br />“Out of Habit” – BR-549 </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>15. Song about Rock ‘n’ Roll</b><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=rnFlHbeNgvA">“Play That Funky Music White Boy” – Wild Cherry</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A lifelong favorite that turned out to be just the right funkalicious palate cleanser to follow<span style=""> </span>“Sam Stone.” The guitar solo in this one is no slouch, either. (Say, does anyone know where I can score a sweet bell-bottom unitard like the keyboard player is rockin' here? Also, is it just me or is that a young Bill Lumberg on rhythm guitar at about 3:45?)<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />“American Band” – Grand Funk </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>16. Why so sad?</b> Song about the blues, a broken heart, crying, etc. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=-bi5Oci3m3M">“The Salt in my Tears” – Martin Briley</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A longtime favorite, going all the way back to the TBS / poor man’s version of MTV (Night tracks? Super tracks?) show. Not surprisingly, it also has a pretty kick-ass guitar solo. I especially like how he refuses to give the heartbreaking tramp the satisfaction. You go, Marty.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />[redacted]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>17. Bonus/hidden track</b><br />“Maybe Everything” – The Silos </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A bonus track on the CD version of “<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region>,” an album I bought when dinosaurs walked the earth and vinyl was still an option.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />[redacted]<br /><b>18. Perchance to Dream:</b> song about dreams/dreaming<br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=BMi9ZwzEzBQ">“Dark Angel” – Blue Rodeo</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another band I’ve been trying to get onto a mix. My wife (my very own dark angel--awww) and I saw these guys play at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard, the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Seattle</st1:place></st1:city> neighborhood name-checked by Mike’s #3 Song. How’s that for synchronicity? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><u><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></u></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />[redacted]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>19. Famous title</b>—song with the same title as a famous book or movie.<br />“Husbands and Wives” – Roger Miller<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">I’m going to assume it’s supposed to be a coincidentally common title; that the song has nothing to do with the movie or book. For some reason I felt it was important to choose a song that was the artistic equivalent of the movie or book, but a million miles from it in terms of genre and style. Renaissance Man cred, I reckon. Look at me and my world-class eclecticism: I appreciate Woody Allen <i style="">and</i> Roger Miller. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Alternates:<br />[redacted]<p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>20. Amnesty song</b>—as with past mixes, this is for any song that you wanted to use in this or a previous mix but couldn’t find room for. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=8VSStsGYvHw&feature=related">“Hotter than Mojave in my Heart” – Iris Dement</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve decided that a song has to be at least a two-fer to be granted amnesty. I may repeal that by the next mix. This one could have worked as number 6 or 13.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Alternates:<br />[redacted] </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>21. Bonus Amnesty song</b><br />“(Let’s Do It) Let’s Fall In Love” – Ella Fitzgerald </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe the sexiest use of parentheses evah.</p><span style="font-weight: bold;">22. Bonus Encore Two-fer Video: </span><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uRLI9ftLemk&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uRLI9ftLemk&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br />The Mavericks doing a kick-ass cover of a song that was a hit the year Raul Malo was born.Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20878679.post-31464236381620392962008-05-06T13:20:00.005-04:002008-05-06T13:34:23.203-04:00Brevity!<span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p><a href="http://befouled.blogspot.com/2008/05/she-got-me.html">Snagged </a>with a one-word answer meme. Perfect.<br /></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><em><span style="">Yourself:</span></em> Addled<br /><em><span style="">Your Partner:</span></em> Abiding<br /><em><span style="">Your Hair:</span></em> Unkempt<br /><em><span style="">Your Mother:</span></em> Neglected<br /><em><span style="">Your Father:</span></em> Atavistic<br /><em><span style="">Your Favorite Item:</span></em><em></em></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> Tivo</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><em><span style=""> </span></em><br /><em><span style="">Your Dream Last Night:</span></em> Feverish<br /><em><span style="">Your Favorite Drink:</span></em> Espresso<br /><em><span style="">Your Dream Home: </span></em>Lego-less<br /><em><span style="">The Room You Are In:</span></em> Fluorescent<br /><em><span style="">Your Fear:</span></em> Carnies<br /><em><span style="">Where Do You Want to be in 10 years:</span></em> Solvent<br /><em><span style="">Who You Hung Out With Last Night:</span></em> iTunes<br /><em><span style="">What You Are Not:</span></em><em><span style=""> </span></em></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Chill</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><em></em><br />Muffins: Carrot<br /><em><span style="">One of Your Wish Items:</span></em> Time<br /><em><span style="">Time:</span></em><em><span style=""> </span></em></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> Up</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><em></em><br /><em><span style="">Last Thing You Did:</span></em> Lunch<br /><em><span style="">What You Are Wearing: </span></em>Codpiece </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><em><span style="">Your Favorite Weather</span></em>: Tomorrow’s<br /><em><span style="">Your Favorite Book:</span></em> Bluebook<br /><em><span style="">Last Thing You Ate:</span></em> Sammich<br /><em><span style="">Your Mood:</span></em> Indigo<br /><em><span style="">Your Best Friends:</span></em> Virtual<br /><em><span style="">What Are You Thinking About Right Now:</span></em> Pork<br /><em><span style="">Your Car:</span></em> Insatiable<br /><em><span style="">Your Summer:</span></em> Externiffic<br /><em><span style="">What’s on your TV:</span></em> Patina<br /><em><span style="">What Is Your Weather Like:</span></em> Carolinian<br /><em><span style="">When Was the Last Time You Laughed:</span></em> Sunday<br /><em><span style="">What is your relationship status: </span></em>Feisty</span></p><span style="font-size:100%;">Next: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.oklahomeless.com/">Goldie</a>, <a href="http://insightsbymonica.blogspot.com/">Monica</a>, <a href="http://betland.blogspot.com/">Bet</a></span>Mr. Middlebrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06022458380864603774noreply@blogger.com4