Top Ten Pop-Rocks

No, I haven't been watching High Fidelity. I just was thinking about a great song and thought it might be worth a minute or two to make a list of my ten favorite Pop/Rock songs ever written. However, I have neither the time nor the desiciveness to really compile a master list. So here are the songs I thought of off the top of my head:

I decided to go from gayest to least gay to steadily increase my street cred as a knowlegable musician:

#10 Alannah Myles: Black Velvet

God help me this song makes me crank up the radio and sing along. This may be the gayest song I love.



#9 Imogen Heap: Hide and Seek

One girl and a vo-coder somehow made one of the most dynamic "acapella" songs I've ever heard. She's cool.



#8 Nine Inch Nails: Ruiner

I get no love or props for the NIN. However, in my youth I fell in love with them and this song stuck with me. Enjoy the film as it is some stupid geek's video for Final Fantasy Bajillion.



#7 Journey: Seperate Ways

This song kicks ass from front to back. It's everything that's melodic and heavy about Journey. But -10 points for air-keyboard playing. Bad form.



#6 Toto: Hold the Line

And your little dog too! This may be the gayest looking band of the bunch (they look like fat lounge versions of Journey to be honest). But this song has a chorus to be reckoned with. A heavy riff with three part harmony as only Toto can provide.



#5 The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations

After Barbara Ann and Surfin USA, they put out this tune. Thanks to some drugs, the Manson family, and a Theremin, this song may be one of the best pop songs of the sixties.



#4 The Beatles: Heavy (I Want You)

This riff gets stuck in my head for days. But something about that original analog recording and the way it builds through static at the end always leaves me wanting more. And what says "I WANT YOU" like some angsty lesbians?



#3 Tool: Aenema

Yes this is a long-ass prog-rock tool epic. However, it may be some of the most petty and bitter of all of their lyrics. In one song it describes everything that sucks about them Californians and why the whole coast should fall into the ocean. "Fuck L. Ron Hubbard and fuck all his clones."




#2 Eric Clapton covering Bob Dylan: Don't Think Twice, It's Allright

This was Eric Clapton's contribution to the Bob Dylan's 50th Anniversary tribute concert. With the exception of the Dogs of War by Eddie Veddar, Clapton was above and beyond the best performance of the night. This also happens to be my favorite performance of his...ever!



#1 Led Zeppelin: Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

Before Chigaco had 25-6-4 and long before Green Day had Brain Stew, Led Zeppelin recording this, the heaviest rendition of those 5 classic notes. It's primal yet romantic. And what says romance like Spock battling Captain Kirk to the death for the love of a woman.



And honorable mention goes to Kansas:



Well, there you have it. I'm sure there are MUCH better songs out there. Feel free to remind me in some talk backage. I don't mind remeniscing. Until next time, here's a take on the most overplayed song in history:

Please rise for our national anthem

Brought a tear to my eye.

Seaweed Beer and Holiday Cheer

This past Saturday, Liz and I threw a Birthday/Christmas party. Thanks to some creative clip-art choices on the E-Vite, it somehow became the Birthday Squirrel/Christmas Monkey party. This was early in the party-throwing process so there was much deliberation as to how far we should carry this non-sequitor. It went only as far as one birthday card (mine of course) featuring some joke about a road-killed marble squirrel. Most everybody had the good sense to write off the thematic mammals as what they were: Jesse being random.

Parties are very difficult to throw on ones own. There are so many factors that one fails to consider until it is upon you: things like ice, knifes, or even beer! Fortunately, Liz and I were not alone; we had the help of Lani, super-awesome-incredible Lani. It was like having a really cool nanny for a week. Last Sunday she came over to our house to help us decorate, hang lights, and (I kid you not) cook us dinner. Why? Because she enjoys it, that's why! As I was napping to recover from Jennie's party, she was making a chicken parmisian cassarole. This was not an isolated incident. On Wednesday, Lani came over again, this time with her wisdom-toothless husband Craig. She cooked us steak and pasta and then proceeded to decorate even further. I don't think we could have trimmed our tree without both her tasteful eye and her handling of the balls...Christmas balls...you know, ornaments? You'd think that was enough help for one super-friend, but no! She was over again early Saturday to help us prepare food. Thanks to her we had hot roast beef, sliced vegetables, teriaki beef, pepperoni bread, macadamian nut white chocolate cookies, rolled deli meats, and a wide assortment of fixin's for the sandwich eaters. Did I mention she was battling a cold throughout all of this? I didn't? Well, if you ate food, enjoy the black plague.

Help also came to us from my mother and brother in law. Thanks to their efforts on Saturday afternoon we had a 7-layer fiesta dip, spinach dip, a mexican sausage dip, and an undercooked and concetrated chocolate cake, or as I call it, the diabetic coma on a plate (drool).

I did my part in buying most of the food and supplies. Of course my efforts pale in comparison to those of my family and SUPER-Lani ::distant fanfare:: but I put a lot of heart into my errands nonetheless. The roll-buying was especially taxing. As I meandered into Del Buono's, I realized that my inexperienced brain forgot that it was a cash-only affair. Since I needed five dozen rolls, I didn't think my ten-dollar-bill was going to cut it. I traveled up the Black Horse Pike until I stumbled across a Wawa. I tapped their MAC and fought my way back to the bakery. Image my slap-in-the-forehead-ness when the total bill came to $8.75. Just to redeem my judgement, I made sure to swing by the liquor store to buy Vodka, Triple Sec, and Margarita mix, none of which ended up being consumed the entire evening ::distant sound of forehead being slapped::.

What was consumed was my collection of exotic Scottish beers. After Buddy and Lindsay came back from their honeymoon in Scotland, they made sure that all of their loved ones got personality-appropriate presents. My Dad and I are obviously the alcoholics since he received three bottles of Scotch and I got a variety pack of traditional Scottish beers. And by traditional, I mean the following: Scotch Pine Ale, Gooseberry Ale, Heather Ale, and (again, not kidding) Seaweed Ale. This Squirrel/Monkey party marked the first opportunity I had with my fellow beer-drinkers to sample these imported concoctions so I jumped on my chance to share. And to be honest, most of them were alright. The Scotch Pine Ale was pretty nutty (as in nut-like) but smooth; the Gooseberry had a similar taste up front but a really fruity finish; and the Heather Ale tasted kind of like flowers. We tried these three and were mostly saitisfied with the taste. But we did not feel so ambivilent towards Kelpie, the Seaweed Beer. Did I mention is was called Kelpie? As if such a cute mascot-like name could distract you from the fact that there was seaweed in it. It tasted a little bitter at first, but then it turned. Everybody made the exact same series of faces: curious...surprised...disgusted...revolted...dear God, give me some gasoline to wash this taste out of my mouth! It was nasty. But as the French say: "what a surprise!" As if seaweed could possibly make something taste good.

The rest of the evening included eating, drinking, eating, carolling (which was great), eating, presents being unwrapped, eating, and some more eating. Everybody was both happy and stuffed. It was nice to get Liz's theater friends over with some of my friends. Not that any of them interacted at all but it was nice that they didn't fight. That's my definition of a successful party in a nutshell.

Everybody left well before 2:00am which was very relieving for me and Liz. This made me realize that I am getting older and lamer; my parties don't last as long and I'm okay with it. Oh well. To coin the French again: "that's life (I had to use Babel-fish for that one)."

On to the movie-de-blog (that's not French in the slightest). What do you get when you mix Mastodon (the metal band) and Balinese shadow puppets? This next video from Leviathan, that's what!

TV is evil!!

There are many things for which I could be accused of being a hypocrit: I often denounce dieters as making excuses not to exercise while I have not had an increased heart rate since the 90's; I am the first to point out typographical errors to others yet I always type "withe" instead of "with the"; and I chastize others for their bad musical taste even when I own multiple CD's by Sevendust, Soulfly, and Fiona Apple (shudder). But perhaps my greatest hypocrocy has to do with television.

I grew up in an imaginative household. And while that used to mean that one had creative mind, it eventually implies that you read lots of Fantasy/Sci-Fi books and watch similarly spirited TV shows/movies. Those children who acted out Lord of the Rings in their backyard quickly become the Star Trek couch potatoes. I was personally raised on Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: DS9, Farscape, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, VR5, and Babylon 5. All of these shows are an hour long and I'm fairly certain...no, completely certain I've seen every episode of the aformentioned at least once. This is a dangerous habit because once you convince yourself that these serials are geniune outlets for your imagination, you open the door to other shows just because they are on. Before Babylon 5 would be Lois and Clark...and then Due South. Add The West Wing, Scrubs, Simpsons, and Friends to the mix and you have a great big list of shows for which I have personally seen %100 of their product.

When I was at college, I did not have television. Oh we had a television, it was just not used to receive a broadcast signal. Rather than let a network decide what we watched, Sean and I would choose movies. College is, after all, a giant collective library of movies. There were no commercials, no news updates, and most "to be continued" movies could be continued at that very moment. I was also in college before the TV-to-DVD craze really hit so I wasn't sticking in every episode of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast or Sex in the City (double shudder). I learned to live without a daily dose of Buffy and turned rather to the giant stash of VHS tapes in my dormatory.

After many great movie discoveries (Boondock Saints comes to mind) I came to the conclusion that TV is not worth watching. And I still strongly believe this. Here are my reasons:

1. Commercials. I don't trust commercials. While the shouting at me and condecending cajolement are reason enough, I'm genuinely scared that I am becoming subconsciously affected as a consumer.

2. Attention span. Because of channel flipping and twenty second commercials, I can literally feel my attention span becoming shorter and shorter. While this may be useful in a world as sensory overloaded as ours, I can't hold a simple conversation (or blog for that matter) without switching topics or wandering of visually. Plus, ever since Max Headroom, I've been kind of afraid that a rapid-fire series of images will cause my body to explode. ZIK-ZAK!

3. Time. How much time do you spend in front of the TV? Way to much. Now this arguement can be used against the art of movies too. However, with TV, you actually have to plan around your television just to keep track of any individual show. "I was going to go shopping on Sunday but I couldn't miss the cliffhanger for Desperate Housewifes"; "Monday is football, can't go out"; "I'm too tired for sex after watching My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock." Granted, TiVo offers to solve that problem. But as TV adicts, we use that recording oportunity to fit more shows onto our plate.

With movies, you get no commercials, no channel flipping (although many action scenes are becoming more tightly edited), and you can watch them whenever you want to take that time.

So what makes me a hypocrit? This past Thursday I realized at 1:30 am that I had been watching television for four and a half hours straight. I could have read an entire book in that time! It is so easy to just sit there and soak in the moving pictures. I don't even have cable; I just watched My Name is Earl, Scrubs, Late Show with David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and some biography on Rod Serling from the "Twilight Zone".

Yet, I'm the same guy who in the past has haughtily said things like:
"I don't watch television."
"Television rots your brain."
"I only watch DVD's of TV shows."
"I heard your daddy went into a restaurant and ate all the food in the restaurant and they had to close the restaurant."

You get the point.

If I ever mount my high horse again (snicker) please remind me that I am a television adict just like you. May this next video remind you to rage against the machine.



Speaking of hyper-editing, here's today's random video. This is a short movie by Lasse Gjertsen, a European director who can't play music but can sure edit!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I would like to say Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife Elizabeth.

Happy Birthday!

As a celebration, here are a few movies I know she loves!

Russian games to play other than Roulette

I have always loved Tetris: the math...the music...the mayhem...they all seem to make it one of those games that never grows old. But you know that feeling when you get to level 10 or 11 and the speed suddenly reaches ridiculous (and goes to plaid)? That's what November 24th felt like this year. Life took an ubrupt increase in tempo and for some reason I'm still frantically playing the game. I feel like I'm stacking blocks too hastily and in a very unorganized fashion. The list of things to do seems to be outweighed only by the cost of completing it: Christmas decorating; Christmas shopping; birthday shopping; party throwing; party attending; musical rehearsals; musical attending; cooking; cleaning; crapping; and certain so-and-sos who haven't seen me in sooooo long and simply must. Each one pops up like the one zig-zag Tetris piece you couldn't possibly make fit, especialy under pressure.

The Christmas shopping may be the most stressful of these to-dos. What they don't tell you in premarital counseling is that the list of potential X-mas cheer recipients grows exponentially once you are espoused. It's a simple mathmatical formula really: (relatives x 2) + (best friends x2, then x2 again since married couples do everything with significant others) + regular friends (which you don't multiply since one of you most likely moved far away from those friends to be with your mate) + (acquaintences/2 since they deserve smaller presents) + (anyone you think is going to get you a nice present).
In short: 2R + 4BF + F + A/2 + FU = broke.
Liz and I have decided to throw math out the window and not get anything for anyone. If you are reading this, chances are you are not getting a present from us. Bah-humbug.

The holidays are so full of complex algebra, it's baffling to me that people choose this time of year to throw elaborate parties. Take this last weekend for example.

Friday was Lindsay's birthday. As such, we decided as a group to go into the city to sing at a karaoke bar...and when I say we decided, I meant we all humored Lindsay. I was actually pretty psyched to get into the city. It had admittedly been a long while since I experienced Philly's social life. The karaoke bar in question was on (I kid you not) Drury Lane. ::insert muffin man joke here:: It was a very well-decorated and well-lit bar at the end of a pretty ugly and dark alley. One would assume we were the only people who knew about this gem of a bar. Not so much. It seems we had wandered into Philadelphia on the eve of a giant Army vs. Navy football game. My three favorite things in the whole world in one stadium??? Say it isn't so! Unfortunately for us, the stadium was empty and the streets of Philadelphia (not the Boss's) were completely full of our comrades-in-arms looking for some booze and nookie. After an hour of shouting at the top of our lungs to merely accomplish civilized conversation, we decided to hop the speedline back to Lindsay and Buddy's house to make our own cocktails and games, neither of which involved the Army or Navy.

On Saturday, Liz's friend Jennie was also throwing a party. This one was semi-formal so I had to wear something spiffy. I ended up wearing a rather nice green button-down with a matching tie and khakis. And while this was appropriate for the soiré in question, it may have been a tad too posh for the standup of Brian Regan whose show was earlier that evening. While wearing this may have been a bit out of place, at least I wasn't wearing eyeliner like my wife. Never wear eye make-up if you plan to cry laughing.

We got to the party around 10:30 with a bottle of whiskey and an open mind. The latter was required because we knew that this crowd was going to be a rabble of theater folk. Most everybody was dressed very nicely and there was a fully stocked bar with plenty of glasses for everybody. Between all that and the wonderfully tasty hors d'heurves, you would think the atmosphere was very classy. It probably could have been if it wasn't comprised of 50 people crammed into a 2 bedroom apartment; one bedroom being off limits and the other a makeshift smokers' lounge as there was an expected mother present. It's a good thing actors are used to physical contact because there was no avoiding it. Nobody was shy, mostly because almost everybody was good and sloshed. I had a whiskey and two Manhattan's (wonderfully mixed by my new friend Rich). Having consumed that much alcohol with no subsantial meal to speak of meant that I had to hang around for a while. I took that time to mingle and barter my way into the latest production of Tommy. Oh yes, I will be playing guitar for Tommy. I'm not even going to learn the music, I'm just going to throw windmills at my guitar when I deem certain points in the play to be boring. At the end, I'm going to smash my guitar into the amp and light the drums on fire. Rock and roll!

I went to bed that night around 4:30am and much like weekends in the past, I was up hung-over at 6:30am to lead worship at church. The kicker was that I had to be at the second service to conduct yet another choir anthem. Ugh. I was reminded of my brother's 21st birthday party. That night I had topped lots of tequila with a glass or two of scotch. I was so drunk I didn't feel a cigar burn its way through my finger. I certainly felt it at the crack of dawn when I had to drag my drunk body all the way to Willow Grove PA to wave that finger at a full church orchestra. If you've ever seen the Nutty Professor, there is a wonderful scene in which a hung-over Jerry Lewis is in class and perceives every noise he hears as a sort of canon-fire/earthquake sound. That's what an orchestra and/or choir and organ sounds like after a night of no-sleep drinking. Let this be a lesson to everybody experiencing holiday stress. Drinking does not make the time less stressful. It merely makes it more enjoyable.

There are more parties ahead and I have yet to start my Christmas shopping. On top of that, I have to start learning Tommy music and gear up for a gig on the 17th (for more information, check out my band's website) As the Yuletide looms over me, I realize that there will be no Russian spacecraft blasting into the atmosphere over my efforts. I may very well lose this game of Tetris horribly. But at least I get to hear that computerized fart sound of the screen resetting.

Enough complaining. Check out this guy!

I wish he had "Luck be a Lady" playing when he did this.