Random Commuting Thoughts (a likely series)

Now that I'm commuting again, I am listening to the radio a lot more -- mostly the 80's station. Today, the song "Your Love" by The Outfield came on. I really like the song, but when I listened to the lyrics, they are very cringey. Here is my analysis:

"Josie is on a vacation far away." Wait, what? Your girlfriend is out of town?

"You know I like my girls a little bit older." Cringe.

"I just want to use your love tonight." Double cringe.

"I don't want to lose your love tonight." Ick.

"Stay the night but kep it under cover." Meaning don't tell anyone. Double ick.

"As you're leaving please would you close the door?" Now get out.

So basically, he cheats on his girlfriend with a younger friend, keeps telling her that it is not serious, but wants her to still love him anyway. Hard pass.

Simplification

I generally don't make New Year's resolutions, mostly because I generally don't keep New Year's resolutions. Besides, any promise you make to yourself or to anyone else after a few glasses of champagne is likely to be voidable.

This year, however, I have a resolution. A good one. But bear with me -- it requires a bit of an explanation.

The idea started with my CD collection. Despite the move towards electronic distribution of music over the past years, I keep buying compact discs. I like listening to albums as a whole. I like reading the liner notes. I like being able to grab a CD that fits my mood to take with me in the car. I like having a tangible, physical thing, instead of just having the intangible music stored on a hard drive or a .mp3 player. And what if the electronic device fails?

So now, I have entire bookshelves filled with CDs, just sitting in my condo. Of course, I've copied each onto my computer and backed them up on another hard drive. I'm starting to think that maybe it's time to change this strategy. Maybe I should sell the CDs. I don't need them; they are just things taking up space.

Then I think about all of the other things I keep in my house. Do I really need to keep a full bookcase of the books I've yet to read, when I can get books from a library? Do I really need to hang on to my prom dress -- and the elbow length gloves that went with it? People somehow manage to live with far fewer shoes, clothes, and beauty products. What is it that I can't replace? What is it that I really need? What is it that I can't live without?

The answer is depressing: Not a single thing is necessary. No thing is necessary. Nothing is necessary. Nothing. I can live with none of these things.

Under many of the measures of affluence in this country, I am quite wealthy. I have a good job that pays well, and as of this month, when I make my last student loan payment, I am by-and-large, debt free. (Well, except for that pesky mortgage . . . ) I have no significant health concerns. I have no dependents relying on me. I have so much. And yet, I constantly add to my collection of things, and I don't save. I am a shopoholic, and not in a cute, fictional way.

According to this article, I should ask myself these questions before buying anything:

1. Do you have to buy this item?
2. Have you found the best deal?
3. Have you gotten your z's?
4. Are you buying just because it's on sale?
5. Have you asked about future deals?
6. Do you love it and do you need it?
7. Can you afford it?

I know I fall into the trap of buying because things are on sale, and I know I ignore the part about whether I have to buy things, or love it and need it.

Another article gave five tips for avoiding impulse buys:

1. Stick to Your List
2. Get Some Air
3. Be Critical
4. Phone a Friend
5. Use Cash

And so, just like the summer of 2009, when I vowed to not eat meat for a whole month, I am going to spend the first few weeks of the new year putting these tricks and tips into play, trying to not buy anything unnecessary. At a minimum, each time I find myself going for my wallet, I'm going to ask myself whether the purchase is a "want" or a "need," and try to eliminate the "wants." At best, I'm going to try to not spend any money on anything that is not essential -- mortgage, utilities, food, basic hygiene and medical care, and transportation.

Simultaneously, I am going to try to figure out what possessions I can eliminate. Thoreau said, "We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without." I'm going to test that theory.

And thus, I resolve to simplify.

30 Days of Truth: Day 24

Today I'm supposed to make a playlist for someone, and explain why I chose all the songs.

I used to make mix tapes all the time -- later, they evolved into mix CDS. And I still occasionally do it -- just not for other people: I make them for me.

Occasionally, my mixes have a theme. Sometimes they just have a mood. Most often, they are just an attempt to capture a moment in time, musically. Sometimes, then, the moment in time or the mood or the theme intersects with a particular relationship, and later, when listening to the CD, I realize that it's all about that relationship -- good, bad, or indifferent.

This, my dears, is why I liked High Fidelity so much.

Some years ago, I had a boyfriend who made me mix CDs: they were always attempts at a theme, and were, by and large, intended to be funny. I tried to make him a mix once. It had no focus, no unifying theme, no real thought. It was merely a collection of songs that I thought he would like. I wish I could take it back, for many reasons.

Last year, I was dating someone who asked me to make him a CD with a collection of things that he might like or that would expand his musical knowledge. I started working on it, but then I decided it (he?) really wasn't worth the effort. After all, a mix CD is a gesture of love.

So, reconciling all that with the mission at hand, I'm going to post a playlist for all my writer and blogger friends, about the things we love: writing and reading and books and authors. Because you're awesome.

1. Moxy Fruvous: My Baby Loves A Bunch of Authors (Speaks for itself.)
2. 10,000 Maniacs: Hey Jack Kerouac (Author, best known for On the Road.)
3. Ryan Adams: Sylvia Plath (Poet and author of The Bell Jar. Sadly, best known for committing suicide by putting her head in the oven.)
4. Vampire Weekend: Oxford Comma (A song about punctuation, at least in title.)
5. Elvis Costello: Every Day I Write The Book (Speaks for itself.)
6. Bruce Springsteen: Dancing in the Dark ("I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book.")
7. The Beatles: Paperback Writer (Speaks for itself.)
8. U2: Stranger in a Strange Land (Title of a novel by Robert A. Heinlein.)
9. Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (Based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.)
10. Guns 'N Roses: November Rain (Allegedly based on the short story Without You by Del James.)
11. Metallica: One (Based on Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.)
12. Led Zeppelin: Ramble On (Filled with references to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy.)
13. The Police: Tea in the Sahara (References to The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles.)
14. The Cure: Killing an Arab (Based on The Stranger by Albert Camus.)

Yesterday: Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.
Tomorrow: Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.

30 Days of Truth: Day 13

Today I'm supposed to write a letter to a band or artist that has gotten me through tough times. My letter would be way too goofy. Instead, I'll just make a few comments.

As anyone who knows me already knows, my favorite band is U2. Heck, it was pretty much the soundtrack of my entire adolescence, from The Unforgettable Fire to The Joshua Tree to Rattle and Hum to Achtung Baby. To this day, whenever I need inspiration, I invariably default to The Joshua Tree or The Unforgettable Fire. Right before my mom died, I had gotten the 20th Anniversary deluxe re-release of The Joshua Tree, and I remember listening to it a lot in the hotel room in Newark.

Still, if I had to say that there was one song that helped me get through my mom's death, it wouldn't be a U2 song. It was, of all the random things in the world, a Lifehouse song -- Broken. A silly little pop song that made me pull over to the side of the road and bawl my eyes out.

The broken clock is a comfort
It helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow
From stealing all my time
And I am here still waiting
Though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best
Like you've already figured out

I'm falling apart
I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart
That's still beating
In the pain
There is healing
In your name
I find meaning
So I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

The broken locks were a warning
You got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded
I'm an open book instead
And I still see your reflection
Inside of my eyes
That are looking for purpose
They're still looking for life

I'm falling apart
I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart
That's still beating
In the pain
Is there healing
In your name
I find meaning
So I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

I'm hanging on another day
Just to see what, you will throw my way
And I'm hanging on, to the words you say
You said that I will, will be okay
The broken light on the freeway
Left me here alone
I may have lost my way now
But I haven't forgotten my way home

I'm falling apart
I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart
That's still beating
In the pain
There is healing
In your name
I find meaning
So I'm holding on
Barely holding on to you
Barely holdin on to you

It still brings me right back to that moment, when I was so lost, and so alone, and I had no idea what I was going to do next. Barely holding on, indeed.


Yesterday: Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.
Tomorrow: Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)

Fifteen Albums

(from Facebook)

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Choose fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

15. U2: Achtung Baby
14. Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
13. Pearl Jam: Ten
12. Dave Matthews Band: Crash
11. They Might Be Giants: Flood
10. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
9. U2: The Unforgettable Fire
8. The Cure: Disintegration
7. Nirvana: Nevermind
6. Guns N Roses: Appetite for Destruction
5. Bon Jovi: New Jersey
4. Madonna: Like A Virgin
3. The Police: Synchronicity
2. Led Zeppelin IV
1. U2: The Joshua Tree

Albums of the Year(s)

Last year, the AV Club ran an article based on something they saw somewhere else -- which is essentially a highbrow meme -- where they picked a favorite album for each year they've been alive. Of course, I think it's kind of a neat idea. So, here are my favorite albums for each year that I've been alive:

1975: Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac
1976: Hotel California, The Eagles
1977: Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
1978: Outlandos d'Amour, The Police
1979: London Calling, The Clash
1980: Boys Don't Cry, The Cure
1981: Escape, Journey
1982: Thriller, Michael Jackson
1983: Madonna, Madonna
1984: The Unforgettable Fire, U2
1985: Songs From the Big Chair, Tears for Fears
1986: Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
1987: The Joshua Tree, U2
1988: New Jersey, Bon Jovi
1989: Disintigration, The Cure
1990: Violator, Depeche Mode
1991: Ten, Pearl Jam
1992: Wish, The Cure
1993: August and Everything After, Counting Crows
1994: Grace, Jeff Buckley
1995: A Boy Named Goo, Goo Goo Dolls
1996: Crash, Dave Matthews Band
1997: Whatever and Ever Amen, Ben Folds Five
1998: Wide Open Spaces, Dixie Chicks
1999: There is Nothing Left to Lose, Foo Fighters
2000: No Name Face, Lifehouse
2001: Room For Squares, John Mayer
2002: Songs About Jane, Maroon 5
2003: Elephant, The White Stripes
2004: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2
2005: X&Y, Coldplay
2006: Stand Still, Look Pretty, The Wreckers
2007: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon
2008: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay
2009: Middle Cyclone, Neko Case

I'm shocked by how hard it was to make these choices, and how mainstream these choices are.

Contemplating U2

Here is a confession that should surprise no one: U2 is, by far, my favorite band, and have been since high school. And I've seen them on every single tour since I've been old enough to drive myself to wherever it is that they are playing. So it should surprise no one that I will be attending their concert here next week.

In gearing up for said concert, one of the music critics at the Washington Post posted a blog ranking the 12 U2 studio albums from worst to best. Here is his list:

12. October (1981)
11. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004)
10. POP (1997)
9. No Line on the Horizon (2009)
8. War (1983)
7. All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
6. Rattle and Hum (1988)
5. The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
4. Boy (1980)
3. Zooropa (1993)
2. The Joshua Tree (1987)
1. Achtung Baby (1991)

At first I thought this list was dead wrong, but now I'm not sure. Like them, whether I rank Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree as #1 or #2 depends on the day and whether I'm leaning towards dark and ambient or earnest soul-searching. As for the rest, I'd probably put The Unforgettable Fire as my #3, and move Rattle & Hum into the top 5. And I liked How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb a lot more than some of the other newer records. But they're clearly right on one thing: Generally speaking, newer (as in post-1990) U2 < older U2.

My life, as described by U2

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, "cleverly" answer these questions. Pass it on to 10 people and include me!

Pick Your Artist: U2

Are you male or female: The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Describe yourself: So Cruel

How do you feel about yourself: Magnificent

Describe where you currently live: City of Blinding Lights

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Where the Streets Have No Name

Your best friend is: Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own

Your favorite color is: White as Snow

You know: Love is Blindness

What's the weather like: Electrical Storm

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Even Better than the Real Thing

What is life to you: Running to Stand Still

Your love life: Mysterious Ways

What is the best advice you have to give: Walk On

If you could change your name, what would it be: Miss Sarajevo

Your favorite food is: Crumbs from Your Table

Not Meant To Be

This is about the sum of it today:

Not Meant to Be - Theory of A Deadman

Getting close

I haven't bought a Juliana Hatfield CD since sometime around 1994, but for some reason, I've been reading her blog lately. A couple of days ago, I came across something she wrote back in June that really spoke to me:

The idea in this song was the push/pull of ambivalence — my simultaneous attraction and repulsion toward potential love objects. Feeling a longing for a connection to someone but pulling away before getting too close. Or not being able to get close. Being more than just afraid.

***

I’ve only ever been truly at ease when I am all by myself. For the longest time I thought this meant there was something really seriously fundamentally wrong with me, but now I have begun to accept this truth about myself: I am most comfortable (most myself) when I am alone. And I am fine being alone. Happy, even. When I tell people this, they usually think I’m fronting or being defensive, and they say, “Oh, you just haven’t found the right guy yet.”

Maybe that’s true. Maybe. But if I am willing to concede that, okay, maybe I have never met anyone with whom I am compatible, then you who say I haven’t met the right guy yet must be willing to entertain the thought that maybe what I claim to be true is true, and that maybe I really want to be alone. And maybe I like being alone more than I’ve ever liked being with anybody.

On some level, I understand this. But I'm starting to feel otherwise.

Dumped for Obama

On my way home from work, on Metro, I formulated a plan to write a whole big political/tax-geek thing about the failed attempt on a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. But then I got home and realized that I don't really write about politics anymore. People think that I can't because of work, but that's not really true. The truth is that I don't because I just don't have it in me anymore. Things are a mess and our elected officials keep going in circles, which gets us nowhere. And gas prices are over $4.00 a gallon. It's depressing.

But then Caroline sent me this, which made me laugh. And calmed me down. So here it is:

Revisiting the '80s

I stumbled across an article in the L.A. Times about how Hall & Oates is having a resurgence of sort.

Personally, I never really thought that they went away. In fact, I still have my tape of Big Bam Boom that I got for my birthday in the 4th grade. I remember watching the Nickelodeon show where they played music videos (I wasn't allowed to watch MTV), hoping that they would play Out of Touch or Method of Modern Love. I still maintain that those songs are awesome. The '80s hair, not so much.

I forget what eight was for, too

more song chart memes

Oxford Comma

Yesterday, Stuff White People Like noted that white people really like grammar.

Guess that makes me white, because I'm guilty as charged.

But you know what's better than grammar? Songs about punctuation. Specifically, the serial comma:

How the dinosaurs must have felt

Don't get me wrong: I love CDs. But my consumption of music has been evolving -- I am now as likely to download a song from iTunes as I am to go to Amazon and buy the CD. And not too long ago, I noted that I had digitized my entire music collection -- it's now up to 12051 songs (not including a whole bunch I got from Stereogum that I haven't added to my iTunes library yet).

I even posted my own muxtape to share with the world.

I used to buy CDs in actual music stores. But I can't remember the last time I did that. In fact, the only time I remember going into a music store lately, it was a record store (Orpheus in Clarendon, which is going out of business by the end of the month), and I bought a used copy of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk from the bargain bin. And that was before my record player died, which must have been at least a year ago.

I think I'm a prime example of the reason that record stores are going out of business -- my habits have changed drastically in a very short time.

A couple of months ago, I read a Washington Post article indicating that the record industry believes that it is illegal for me to copy the music that I have purchased in CD format onto my computer. That can't be right, can it?

About the only thing in the entire story that made sense to me is this:

The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," Beckerman says. "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."

The 21st century is a confusing time.

Interesting quizzes

Yesterday, Gene Weingarten's chat linked to two face recognition tests. I only missed one on the celebrity quiz, but I only scored an 86% on the regular test. Clearly this means that way too much of my brain is devoted to utter nonsense.

Then, today, my brother sent me this quiz where the complete lyrics for a well-known rock song placed in alphabetical order, with each word appearing no more than once (regardless of how many times it appears in the actual song) - and you're supposed to guess the song.

It's harder than it looks, but, as I just noted, I'm pretty good at nonsense. I spent about twenty minutes on it, and, on first glance, I was sure of 31 of the 50. When I spent a little time thinking about it, I came up with ideas about another 6 or 7, which as luck would have it, turned out to be mostly right.

Let me know how you do.

How D.C. and New York are really different

In today's Washington Post, we see an article about how the various candidates are trying to get Al Sharpton's endorsement. In The New York Times, there's a similar article -- only theirs is about Jon Bon Jovi.

Eighth night of Hanukkah

When my siblings and I were kids, my mom always varied the way we got our Hanukkah and/or Christmas presents. Sometimes there was a big pile, and every night we got to take something off the pile -- or there was a bag that we weren't allowed to look inside, and we had to reach in and grab something. Other times, she had what we would get for each night mapped out, and the presents were all hidden away out of sight -- and each night she would hand us the gift that she wanted us to open.

Sometimes the big gifts were for Hanukkah, sometimes they were for Christmas; some years there was more than one major present, sometimes the major present was something that we had to share; and sometimes the biggest and best present came in the tiniest of boxes. The only things we knew with certainty were that there would be a tangelo in our stockings on Christmas morning, and that at least one of the gifts would be something VERY SPECIAL.

Tonight, I got my special present. I was a little bit bummed that I had to buy it for myself -- but it was something that I knew that I really truly wanted the moment I read about it. My siblings or my friends -- or heck, or any regular reader of this blog -- probably could have walked into a store and seen it and wondered whether I had gotten it yet.

So here it is:



The 20th Anniversary of The Joshua Tree box set -- with remastered CD, bonus CD, DVD, book, and 5 pictures. Of course, this makes the fifth edition of this album that I have owned in my lifetime -- the first tape that I wore out, the record, the second tape, the first CD, and now this new CD. It really is the small things that make me happiest.

Seventh night of Hanukkah

Today's gift was U2 videos.



In all honesty, this is something I had bought -- and promptly forgot about -- some time ago. I'm hoping to get to watch it soon.

As for the leftover cookies, well, I brought them in to work, and next thing I knew, they were all gone. I'm kind of surprised by how fast four or five dozen cookies could disappear.

And finally, this Twitter is for my dad.



It's thoughts like this that make him proud.

Sixth night of Hanukkah

For Hanukkah tonight, I got the new Killers CD. More importantly, earlier today, I finally got a new space heater for my office -- with a remote control.