Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
A wha?
Man, what happened to Cole Trickle? To Pete Mitchell? To Jerry Ma-shampooing-guire?
Shampooed up.
am, ld
Man, what happened to Cole Trickle? To Pete Mitchell? To Jerry Ma-shampooing-guire?
Shampooed up.
am, ld
Over to that sunny side of the road...
Traveling back to the mighty Midwest - the place that helped re-ignite my love and reliance on all types of music. So, it would be apropos of me to put together a little playlist for everyone to enjoy.
And, since this thing called "marketing" is all the craze back at home base - this marketing thing has quickly replaced "jogging" (or is it "yogging? I think the "J" is silent. Apparently, you just run...) - so here goes the first-ever TLBR/Dunkin Donuts iPod playlist:
Landed (strings version) - Ben Folds
Motorcade - Beck
Big River - Johnny Cash
Don't Go Back to Rockville - REM
Dancing with Tears - Old 97's
Sleep to Dream - Fiona Apple
Foreigner Suite - Cat Stevens (it's a 17:00 song...)
Buckle - Tapes n' Tapes
Kathy's Song (live) - Simon & Garfunkel
Can't Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West
Wamp Wamp (What it do) - Clipse
Bring it on home to Me - Sam Cooke
You in My Mind When I Sleep - Richard Ashcroft
I've Been Working - Van Morrison
Think I'm In Love - Beck
Alison - Elvis Costello
Feel to Believe - Beth Orton
I Believe - Stevie Wonder
All my Friends - Amos Lee
The playlist was conceived through a painstaking process of turning on my iPod during taxi and takeoff (Go F yourself, FAA regulations) and getting the ironic Ben Folds "Landed" as the first song of the day.
From there, I basically copied down the next 19 songs in order, as they appeared on the shuffle play of the trusty sidekick iPod 60.
Being a mixtape afficiando and artiste, I tend to have a true, innate gift in placing the right songs in their right places. There's a feng shui to mixtapes (and a fung wah to take you to Foxwoods...), yet this free-form mix taping process (and as we all know, it's all part of the process) has still yielded quite a lineup.
Perhaps it's a product of the wide variety and eclectic mix of tunes on my iPod (read: no shampooing country music) from hip-hop, to jazz, to angry chick music, to melancholy new-wave Brit pop.
-----
T-minus April until TLBR goes international once again. And no, I don't mean Canada.
Or Jersey.
Preliminary negotiations are being held for a trip to Belize. It will be TLBR's first-ever trip to somewhere not European or, at the very least, predominently English-as-a-primary-language-talking-kind-of-spot.
It does, however, fit in with the current-or-former-British-commonwealth category. (put in belizean history here).
A lifelong TLBR confidant is currently "stationed" there as a member of the Peace Corps.
You know, the seven-years-of-college-down-the-drain, might-as-well-join-the-shampooing-Peace Corps sort of thing.
He is also the first person to have a "kick-ass time" in the Peace Corps. Me? If I applied? Shit, I'd be getting limbs lopped off in Darfur. But that's the gift of my buddy. He'd probably manage to make Sierra Leone an offshoot of Studio 54, so you can imagine the additional sunshine he brings to an already warm, semi-Caribbean country. (holy fruity metaphor, Batman.)
Either way, the prospects of the trip down there sure act as an escape from some of the pre-March Madness malarkey.
-----
Back to the mix tape.
But first, an aside: I've been reading more. It might be one of the main reasons I haven't been writing as much.
I'm trying to re-learn the world outside of the dimensions of a basketball court, in case life takes me to another court or another field. (wow, how about that sports metaphor? 100% crotch shampoo...)
But with the full and complete reading of The Economist, catching up on my David Halberstam, my Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, I've gotten used to seeing things with duality and multiplicity. Perhaps it's still the objective reading that the MF-LSAT got me into doing...
What are the facts/theme being presented? How are they slanted? What kinds of words are used to strengthen the point? What is the structure of the story? Is there a hook? If so, does the hook catch anything at the end?
Same goes with music. What are the words used to express the message, while still being artsy? With it blasting on the Bose Noisecancelling headphones (aka - my F-off headset), I just really focused on the lyrics to "Kathy's Song" by S&G.
Imagine being able to create such words...imagine having someone who serves as the muse and the impetus for such poetry. And then imagine having the confidence and fortitude to tell someone those things. It's true beauty.
-----
After a paragraph in which I used "poetry" and "true beauty" within 14 words of each other, how about some football talk?
The Patriots are going to hurt San Diego big-time this weekend.
Good Guys 35, Whale's Vagina 17. And it won't be that close.
The good of it will bring the Super Bowl. The bad of it will bring Super Bowl hype, and a steaming pile of Mercury Morris
I'd rather listen to Donald Rumsfeld verbally piss through a reading of the preamble of the Constitution than listen to that shampooing crack head.
-----
I'll leave you with a joke:
Bill Clinton is walking, alone, on the beach in Martha's Vineyard. He stumbles upon a lamp, which is sticking half-in and half-out of the sand, right on the tide line.
He bends over, picks it up, and rubs it. All of a sudden, a plume of smoke appears and a genie appears.
"You have awoken me from my lamp and I have one last wish to grant. It is you who may ask and it is I who will grant your one singular want.."
Clinton thinks it over for a few moments, and has his answer.
"I wish for world peace. It was something I wished to achieve as President, but never could."
The genie scowls.
"That is too difficult, too difficult. It is impossible, even for a wish-granting genie such as myself."
Clinton is disappointed. So he re-thinks it: "Could you make my wife Hillary the most beautiful woman in the world?"
The genie replies back quickly: "World peace it is!"
-----
Enjoy your day, your mid-week, and soon-to-be weekend.
am, ld
And, since this thing called "marketing" is all the craze back at home base - this marketing thing has quickly replaced "jogging" (or is it "yogging? I think the "J" is silent. Apparently, you just run...) - so here goes the first-ever TLBR/Dunkin Donuts iPod playlist:
Landed (strings version) - Ben Folds
Motorcade - Beck
Big River - Johnny Cash
Don't Go Back to Rockville - REM
Dancing with Tears - Old 97's
Sleep to Dream - Fiona Apple
Foreigner Suite - Cat Stevens (it's a 17:00 song...)
Buckle - Tapes n' Tapes
Kathy's Song (live) - Simon & Garfunkel
Can't Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West
Wamp Wamp (What it do) - Clipse
Bring it on home to Me - Sam Cooke
You in My Mind When I Sleep - Richard Ashcroft
I've Been Working - Van Morrison
Think I'm In Love - Beck
Alison - Elvis Costello
Feel to Believe - Beth Orton
I Believe - Stevie Wonder
All my Friends - Amos Lee
The playlist was conceived through a painstaking process of turning on my iPod during taxi and takeoff (Go F yourself, FAA regulations) and getting the ironic Ben Folds "Landed" as the first song of the day.
From there, I basically copied down the next 19 songs in order, as they appeared on the shuffle play of the trusty sidekick iPod 60.
Being a mixtape afficiando and artiste, I tend to have a true, innate gift in placing the right songs in their right places. There's a feng shui to mixtapes (and a fung wah to take you to Foxwoods...), yet this free-form mix taping process (and as we all know, it's all part of the process) has still yielded quite a lineup.
Perhaps it's a product of the wide variety and eclectic mix of tunes on my iPod (read: no shampooing country music) from hip-hop, to jazz, to angry chick music, to melancholy new-wave Brit pop.
-----
T-minus April until TLBR goes international once again. And no, I don't mean Canada.
Or Jersey.
Preliminary negotiations are being held for a trip to Belize. It will be TLBR's first-ever trip to somewhere not European or, at the very least, predominently English-as-a-primary-language-talking-kind-of-spot.
It does, however, fit in with the current-or-former-British-commonwealth category. (put in belizean history here).
A lifelong TLBR confidant is currently "stationed" there as a member of the Peace Corps.
You know, the seven-years-of-college-down-the-drain, might-as-well-join-the-shampooing-Peace Corps sort of thing.
He is also the first person to have a "kick-ass time" in the Peace Corps. Me? If I applied? Shit, I'd be getting limbs lopped off in Darfur. But that's the gift of my buddy. He'd probably manage to make Sierra Leone an offshoot of Studio 54, so you can imagine the additional sunshine he brings to an already warm, semi-Caribbean country. (holy fruity metaphor, Batman.)
Either way, the prospects of the trip down there sure act as an escape from some of the pre-March Madness malarkey.
-----
Back to the mix tape.
But first, an aside: I've been reading more. It might be one of the main reasons I haven't been writing as much.
I'm trying to re-learn the world outside of the dimensions of a basketball court, in case life takes me to another court or another field. (wow, how about that sports metaphor? 100% crotch shampoo...)
But with the full and complete reading of The Economist, catching up on my David Halberstam, my Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, I've gotten used to seeing things with duality and multiplicity. Perhaps it's still the objective reading that the MF-LSAT got me into doing...
What are the facts/theme being presented? How are they slanted? What kinds of words are used to strengthen the point? What is the structure of the story? Is there a hook? If so, does the hook catch anything at the end?
Same goes with music. What are the words used to express the message, while still being artsy? With it blasting on the Bose Noisecancelling headphones (aka - my F-off headset), I just really focused on the lyrics to "Kathy's Song" by S&G.
Imagine being able to create such words...imagine having someone who serves as the muse and the impetus for such poetry. And then imagine having the confidence and fortitude to tell someone those things. It's true beauty.
-----
After a paragraph in which I used "poetry" and "true beauty" within 14 words of each other, how about some football talk?
The Patriots are going to hurt San Diego big-time this weekend.
Good Guys 35, Whale's Vagina 17. And it won't be that close.
The good of it will bring the Super Bowl. The bad of it will bring Super Bowl hype, and a steaming pile of Mercury Morris
I'd rather listen to Donald Rumsfeld verbally piss through a reading of the preamble of the Constitution than listen to that shampooing crack head.
-----
I'll leave you with a joke:
Bill Clinton is walking, alone, on the beach in Martha's Vineyard. He stumbles upon a lamp, which is sticking half-in and half-out of the sand, right on the tide line.
He bends over, picks it up, and rubs it. All of a sudden, a plume of smoke appears and a genie appears.
"You have awoken me from my lamp and I have one last wish to grant. It is you who may ask and it is I who will grant your one singular want.."
Clinton thinks it over for a few moments, and has his answer.
"I wish for world peace. It was something I wished to achieve as President, but never could."
The genie scowls.
"That is too difficult, too difficult. It is impossible, even for a wish-granting genie such as myself."
Clinton is disappointed. So he re-thinks it: "Could you make my wife Hillary the most beautiful woman in the world?"
The genie replies back quickly: "World peace it is!"
-----
Enjoy your day, your mid-week, and soon-to-be weekend.
am, ld
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Don't Blow This For Us, Gene!
Yeah, this is cheating, in terms of posting on the blog and it's the More Cowbell thing.
But it is what it is.
ap,ld
Yeah, this is cheating, in terms of posting on the blog and it's the More Cowbell thing.
But it is what it is.
ap,ld
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Unhappy Unhappy
Jim Ed Rice was not elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame today. Again. For the 14the time.
And it's low-down, god-damned shampooing shame.
Pitchers paid the price when they faced Big Jim Rice back in the day, but for some reason, HoF voters don't seem to get that message.
Rice did it with a true power swing. Not with Vitamin B12 and lidocaine shots in his ass.
The fact he played hurt and perhaps a year too long hurt his career average. His power numbers don't seem as massive due to the recent woebegon steroid era.
But he's a Hall of Famer. And despite my 32.625 years of living and maturing...and in light of in my "Failure to Launch" living situation with my bachelors and masters degrees hanging framed on my wall, I still have my 1978 Sports Illustrated-style Jim Rice poster hanging over my bed.
This blows. Bottom line, plain and simple.
So I hope that Big Jim Ed takes a Ricky Vaughn approach to the HoF selection. I hope he walks into whatever committee room that the HoF folks sit in and pulls something similar to the video below.
-----
AP,LD
And it's low-down, god-damned shampooing shame.
Pitchers paid the price when they faced Big Jim Rice back in the day, but for some reason, HoF voters don't seem to get that message.
Rice did it with a true power swing. Not with Vitamin B12 and lidocaine shots in his ass.
The fact he played hurt and perhaps a year too long hurt his career average. His power numbers don't seem as massive due to the recent woebegon steroid era.
But he's a Hall of Famer. And despite my 32.625 years of living and maturing...and in light of in my "Failure to Launch" living situation with my bachelors and masters degrees hanging framed on my wall, I still have my 1978 Sports Illustrated-style Jim Rice poster hanging over my bed.
This blows. Bottom line, plain and simple.
So I hope that Big Jim Ed takes a Ricky Vaughn approach to the HoF selection. I hope he walks into whatever committee room that the HoF folks sit in and pulls something similar to the video below.
-----
AP,LD
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Happy Happy
It's the first day of 2008.
The Sox are the reigning World Champions, and the Patriots just completed the first perfect 16-0 regular season, the Celtics are shooting to be just the third team in NBA history to start 27-3, and America's Team is climbing up the polls.
So what is their to bitch and moan and pity about? Good question. I'm sure I'll find something.
But until then, there's plenty of "unfinished business" to take care of. At rough count, 16 in the regular season, then three in America's Seaside Resort, then a few others in selected cities.
Then its onto figuring which fork in the road to take. There's a bevy of other rivers to cross in '08.
But it's not going to be done in the next 100 minutes, hours, or even days. It'll require patience - of which I have none - and vision. It'll require maximum effort. It'l require some major league overachieving. And some luck, too.
Because as Radiohead says, you can try the best you can; the best you can is good enough.
Here's to trying the best I can, everyday all day. See if you all can keep up, too.
AM,LD
-----
oh, just so you all don't think that the good folks at TLBR have become all Tony Robbins, here's some YouTube of Katt Williams (beware - there's dirty words in there, so if you're looking to get fired at work, turn it up).
The Sox are the reigning World Champions, and the Patriots just completed the first perfect 16-0 regular season, the Celtics are shooting to be just the third team in NBA history to start 27-3, and America's Team is climbing up the polls.
So what is their to bitch and moan and pity about? Good question. I'm sure I'll find something.
But until then, there's plenty of "unfinished business" to take care of. At rough count, 16 in the regular season, then three in America's Seaside Resort, then a few others in selected cities.
Then its onto figuring which fork in the road to take. There's a bevy of other rivers to cross in '08.
But it's not going to be done in the next 100 minutes, hours, or even days. It'll require patience - of which I have none - and vision. It'll require maximum effort. It'l require some major league overachieving. And some luck, too.
Because as Radiohead says, you can try the best you can; the best you can is good enough.
Here's to trying the best I can, everyday all day. See if you all can keep up, too.
AM,LD
-----
oh, just so you all don't think that the good folks at TLBR have become all Tony Robbins, here's some YouTube of Katt Williams (beware - there's dirty words in there, so if you're looking to get fired at work, turn it up).
