Band Review: Butch Walker

I started following Butch Walker on Twitter because of other musicians, but I hadn't been familiar with his music as all. With new album Afraid of Ghosts out this week, it seemed like the time.

That lack of previous familiarity makes it harder to know where to focus on this review. I listened to Afraid of Ghosts first, and it was powerful, but then listening to the rest of the extensive catalog was so different and so good that I'm torn. I'll still try, and maybe I can distill it into two moments.

The first was during the first listen on Afraid of Ghosts. Six tracks in "Bed on Fire" came on. I had watched the video for it a few days previously. Distracted by its unsettling imagery, I hadn't realized that the music had made much of an impression on me, until the first chord struck heavily. There was this visceral burst of recognition, "That's it!"

The second happened just a few tracks later. As the final track on Afraid of Ghosts ended, it was time for Walker's 2011 album, The Spade. The first track, "Bodegas and Blood" started and it was a jolt, like I had suddenly started listening to a different artist in a different genre. It suddenly became raucous and rollicking. It stayed more like that for the other songs.

I enjoyed both moods, but they resonated completely differently. The songs from 2002 to 2011 were fun and well-played and Walker has a good voice. It felt like mainly rock, but there would be touches of other things, like sometimes it would remind me a little of Hall and Oates or Third Eye Blind, and other artists who sound completely different from each other - not derivative but highly varied and a lot of fun.

In that sense Walker reminded me most of listening to Reggie and the Full Effect. They don't sound alike, but after all the variety you realize that this is a musician who can do pretty much anything he wants to do, though I think Walker comes off as less light-hearted than James Dewees, even though he is often humorous.

So to then switch to Afraid of Ghosts is a shift to a completely different place. "Still Drunk" retains some of that gritty humor, but in a quieter vein. Everything is more contemplative.

Only one track reminded me of any one else at all, in that "How Are Things, Love?" reminded me of "Sleepwalk" by Santo & Johnny, with moody slides and eerie twangs. There is a feeling that this is all Walker and it is his deepest core.

It is not surprising to learn that the album was influenced by the death of Walker's father, and a friend, and also you get some emotions from Bob Mould on the death of his father.

This is a very mature record, with a grown up looking at life and death. It is powerful and emotional that way. It may not be a permanent change, but it does feel new and it should be embraced.

Afraid of Ghosts can be ordered digitally from iTunes or on vinyl from http://butchwalker.gomerch.com/.

http://butchwalker.com/

https://www.facebook.com/butchwalker

https://www.youtube.com/user/butchwalker

https://twitter.com/butchwalker

Band Review: Better Things

Better Things is a band out of Burlington, Vermont. They list themselves as alternative/punk, but one reviewer heard some resemblance to ska.

I would probably just say rock, based on the strong guitars and the energy. There are some moody overtones that make the argument for being more alternative, but the overall energy is still high, like punk. It seems that the band made the correct call.

Better Things has a 4-track digital album available via Bandcamp, as well as another song, "Hindsight 20/20", for which there is a video. It was in watching the video that I noticed how effectively the band uses the voices of multiple members to give appropriate strength to the song. I believe their unity is the key to the energy they are able to achieve.

"Hindsight 20/20" may be their most traditionally rock song, but check out "Asphyxia" for the raw yearning.

These Roads Lead to Nowhere can be purchased on Bandcamp, and Better Things has several East Coast dates scheduled for the rest of the month.

I like them.

http://betterthingsband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/betterthingsband

https://betterthings.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVuIcJtQC3ueDKLTIImf4gg

https://twitter.com/betterthingsVT

Synergy

I have recognized the power of the two formative moments for a long time. One was "learning" that I was fat, and the other was learning that boys could only like me as a joke. What has been new to me is seeing how other factors contributed to my impressionability, and to reinforcement of the message. And, you know, actively trying to heal from it.

Anyway, once the message was picked up that I was fat and that was a problem, that was only going to be reinforced. The thin ideal female is held up as the standard of beauty for images used in entertainment and advertising, and there is a huge industry revolving around weight loss. That machine is there, and it would be very hard to miss it.

I want to explore the second lesson a bit more.

I don't think it is obvious now how much of a romantic and how relationship-focused I have always been. I was engaged to the boy next door at three. We agreed to get married when we were twenty and I kissed him on the cheek. Our families were friends, so even though they moved shortly after the engagement we still saw each other sometimes, and he was actually my first date the day before my sixteenth birthday.

(Sounds cute, but we really didn't have much in common at that point.)

I was always all about getting married and having kids. On one level, that was how I was going to fix everything that was wrong in our family, because my new family would make up for everything. I totally bought into fairy tales. I did not have a strong preference between starting as the princess or the peasant girl, because the important thing was happily ever after.

I always liked boys. Even though I was engaged to Shawn, I had other boys I thought were cute. When we moved and I started school, I was aware of boys there, and it didn't take long for me to fall for Casey. When that went wrong, it was easy for me to take comfort that Shawn was still out there.

Reasonably I was remembering that someone had liked me once, but also it did start a habit of always focusing on someone who was not around. It was safer, obviously, and it didn't feel like it was something I was doing deliberately. The feelings that I had for the person who was at another school or had graduated already felt real, but it also kept relationships very abstract and future.

I still liked boys a lot. In 7th and 8th grade I could have easily named 30-40 boys that I thought were cute, and that I had developed code names for with my friends. As much as I knew that I was fat and that I could not let boys know that I liked them, it still wasn't as terrible as it was going to get.

Before I get there, I keep thinking of two movies. I have never even seen one of them. It was a 2004 film called Sleepover. I read the review, which was not flattering, but the part I remember is that one of the girls in the film (it would have been geared to young teen girls) was heavy, and her friends told her that she just needed to find a boy that likes brownies, and she did! The review used this as an example of the amateurish writing, but I remember thinking it was wrong anyway, because if it was a boy flick, the fat boy would find a pretty (which means thin) girl who liked him anyway because he was funny or did something brave.

The other was from 2001, so both of these movies are from long after the events of this blog, but they illustrate something because they have fat girls. A lot of movies don't, and even plain girl just means that she is wearing glasses and has her hair tied back.

This was a television movie, Kiss My Act, a Cyrano de Bergerac story set in stand up comedy. I was still periodically doing stand up then, but the real attraction was that it starred Camryn Manheim and Scott Cohen, both of whom I had loved the year before in The 10th Kingdom.

I did find him attractive, and I liked her, but it hinges on them being able to be a couple, even though as a fat woman she cannot see it happening, and she does hide herself (she is giving jokes that she writes to an attractive woman).

Even though the whole premise of the movie is that she deserves love and she can have this attractive guy, it feels wrong at the end. The kiss is handled clumsily and it's not romantic. It feels like they are settling for each other. She even says "gross", if I recall, and it's a joke, but is it?

I bought it too. It did not feel right to me that a heavy woman could end up with an attractive man, though the reverse happens a lot. So actually, the bravest most subversive movie of my youth was probably Hairspray, though I did not see it then.

This is what I am getting at. When I was 14, and some boys started asking me out at lunch, and it was not to really go out with me but to make fun of me, it had the same sort of clarifying effect as that moment on the playground eight years earlier. Now I get it. Boys will not like me. And it made sense to put them together. Boys can't like me because I'm fat.

It was hammered home pretty hard, and it was painful because everything I wanted revolved around boys liking me. Okay, happily ever after only requires one boy, but if none of them can like you because of something so basic about you, it's hard to take.

When I disconnected from my body - which was more of a process than an event - it really seemed like the only possible course of action. Both of those crystallizing moments were based on lies, but I didn't know that. I did what I could to get by, and there were real problems with that. There were benefits too, though I like to think those would have been possible to get some other way.

I can only vouch for what did happen. And try and learn from it.

The message

When I wrote yesterday about things that made me receptive to the message that I was fat, it was specific to my circumstances, and those factors may be more important for how I dealt with it.

That being said, there are a lot of factors out there in the broader environment that are telling you - especially if you're female - that you're fat.

I don't think I really got the full message when I was 6. I mean, I got that I was fat, and I got that it was bad, but I had just learned to read. I was not reading magazines, I didn't watch that much television, and there wasn't the level of exposure that there would later be.

I know Mom dieted. I remember calorie charts and exercise booklets (that I would frequently refer to growing up) and times of going to aerobics and jazzercise. I don't remember diet pills, but I do remember a chocolate candy-like weight-loss suppressant that was actually quite tasty. This was unfortunate, because kids would get into them and eat a bunch. In fact, I believe one of my younger sisters did so, which may have been when we stopped keeping them in the house, but the real problem with that product was that it was called "Ayds", and when a frightening new disease with a very similar name was called that a few years later, it was a problem.

http://www.dietspotlight.com/ayds-review/

Actually, those things weren't so much about telling me personally that I was fat; which only takes being told once (maybe more than once, but it sinks in.) What it did reinforce was that no one wanted to be fat. Fat was a very bad thing to be, and since I was fat, that meant that on some level I was bad. Then fat being bad is what the media really reinforced.

There are many things that are sad about this story, but the worst may be that I really wasn't fat.

I thought I was, all along. That was the image I carried in my head from 6 to 21. Then at the Missionary Training Center they recommended that you have some pictures of your family to share because it helps people relate to you as a person, and not just as a missionary. I had not brought any, so I wrote to my mother asking her to send some.

I meant current pictures of the family, but I hadn't specified, and she sent a bunch of old pictures, including one of us up at Mt. Hood. I am about 6 in the picture, so that was when everything was happening. My attention was diverted from the camera to the snow in my hands, and I look remarkably angelic. 

I don't remember ever having seen that picture before, meaning it probably hadn't made it into one of the albums. That was not surprising, because we still  have lots of plastic bags full of photos. It did surprise me that I didn't look fat. I had become fat since then, but I thought I had just been staying fat.

That picture was important, but the more useful one may be my first grade class picture, where I can be seen among other children. I am in the back row, third kid from the right. I look normal. If I were to guess what someone would tease that girl about, I would guess the thick unruly hair.

My level of memory for this picture is remarkable. I have forgotten the last names of two of the kids, both of whom moved, but I still remember the full names of the other three kids who moved, and who went by their middle name and whose last name changed because of divorce, and who had a skin condition, and which kids were best friends. Some of that is because I knew them for longer than this year. However, I can safely say that after this year, I never knew how I looked.

Laying the groundwork

It seems like going over how I disconnected from my body, and why, is integral to writing about reconnecting, but I am finding it difficult. The initial circumstances weren't pleasant, but also so much of it is wrong and stupid.

Okay, some girls circled me on the playground and marveled over how fat I was - I know I am not the only person to have experienced this. I'm probably not even the only person at that school; I only remember Suzy picking on me once, and it would be kind of weird if that was her only foray into bullying. It affected me deeply though, and possibly abnormally.

I accepted their judgment of me completely. It feels necessary to figure out why I did that, but also it feels really self-indulgent like I am wallowing in the pity of being poor me, and I hate that. Bear with me.

I think there are a few things that worked together, and some of them are even things that I have written about recently, though I was not at the time aware that they would relate to this, but it all works together.

For example, I wrote about being discouraged from crying on December 22nd. I wrote that because the song countdown gave me a reason to remember the different incidents, and the song countdown felt like a reasonable thing to do. As I was doing that the natural progression felt like I should be going through old photos next, and I vaguely felt that it would be related to my self-image, but now it hits me that it is at least partially about looking at what I refused to look at.

So some of the roads I take may be annoying, but they all feel necessary based on my inner compass.

One thing I have written about before is my tendency to be a people pleaser and how that is related to a sense of shame. I can look back and see possible reasons that was my tendency, but I am not really sure. I have four siblings. We were all raised in the same house and same way, but they all have different issues and coping mechanisms. Is shame more common for the middle child? I have no idea.

It was impossible to be good enough for my father, but we all had that. There was a persistent sense that we did not fit in at church when we moved here, but we all had that. The only thing I can really see as possibly unique to me is that I did not socialize well, even before we moved. I was younger than most of the kids in the old neighborhood - not by a lot, but when you are young a year or two can make a big difference. The one girl who was my age was really bossy and not a lot of fun. I did spend time with the other kids, but I spent a lot of time by myself too. I have been told I had an imaginary friend, but I don't remember it.

I suspect that the early crying suppression, which I heard not just as "Don't cry" but as "Your feelings do not matter to us" may have increased my feeling that there was something wrong with me.

Based on that, it seems possible that the reason the playground incident had the impact it did was that I had known there was something wrong with me and suddenly it was like "That's it!" It was because I was fat. That was why people just wanted me to shut up if I was sad, and a boy who was my friend wouldn't want me to like him, and it was okay to be mean to me.

It finally all made sense.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-week-of-sad-things.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/12/with-little-help-from-my-friends.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/06/please-please-me.html

Band Review: Late Nite Reading

Late Nite Reading is a pop rock band from Indiana. Listening to them has been good.

The songs are solid, easy on the ears, and leave you feeling good. (I have had some bands that have left me really irritated over the past couple of weeks, so I may currently be more sensitive on this point.) There is a passion and youth that you can hear in songs like "Writing On The Wall".

While some of their acoustic songs like "Just How I Do It" have the potential for country crossover, the band rests pretty solidly within pop rock. One good example of this is their interesting take on Foster The People's "Pumped Up Kicks". The techno elements are stripped away, and you hear the rock. There's nothing wrong with the original, but the cover is worthwhile, and because the original is there for comparison, it gives you a good feel for Late Nite Reading's aesthetic.

The band is currently augmenting regular performance dates with house parties, allowing some unique experiences for fans, as well as working on new music.

Worth checking out.

https://www.facebook.com/latenitereading/info?tab=page_info

http://www.reverbnation.com/latenitereading

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4KzkeMbMrA-cXlo0hABOig

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/walls-ep/id641259285

http://www.latenitereading.bigcartel.com/

https://twitter.com/latenitereading

Band Review: The Delaney

The Delaney is a singer/songwriter/poet in London. He is not my thing.

The singing is pretty flat, and occasionally out of tune. If often goes off-tempo, similar to Cake and I hate that about Cake. At one point I thought maybe this would work for fans of Joe Cocker, but I did some listening to Cocker to verify that and Joe is more fun.

I thought perhaps it was unfair to critique him as a performer if he is more of a songwriter, but he seems to perform on a regular basis. If the performance is not doing the lyrics justice, that could be an issue, but he has lyrics posted on his web site so they can be examined separately.

Those didn't really appeal to me either. I feel like they are trying to be witty social commentary without actually being that witty, and yet maybe if I were also in London some of it would have more resonance.

All of this combined makes it feel very self-indulgent. I can't rule out that I am missing something, but I cannot recommend. He does play guitar well.

http://www.thedelaneymusic.co.uk/

https://soundcloud.com/thedelaney1

https://twitter.com/thedelaneymusic

Getting back in touch with my body

When I was going through the exercises in Fat Is A Feminist Issue 2, it was mainly because they were in the book, and I felt that if I did not do the exercises I would be missing part of the book. (I did the exercises for Rozema's Behind the Mask also, though they didn't affect me as much.)

Somewhere in the process of all of the reading and thinking I realized that I was very disconnected from my body. I had kind of known it before, but I was past the point where I could ignore it. I had to do something about it.

I was very true to myself in forming a plan of action: I put action items into a spreadsheet, and when I wasn't sure what action items I needed I did a Google search.

That brought me to this page:

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14660/20-ways-to-get-in-touch-with-your-body.html

It was helpful, but also the search started to automatically fill in "getting in touch with your chakras":

http://www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/open.php

Every time I plan on going through that one I end up not doing it, but I can't quite write it off.

I am not actually done with my list, but it still feels right to start writing about the process now, and the first thing I want to say about it is that it can get kind of excruciating.

I am not at my highest weight now, but I am more aware of my stomach - hanging in front of me like a large lump of bread dough - than I have ever been before. My skin is dryer than it used to be (except for my nose, which is oilier) and it is obvious.

I used to be really good at shrugging off pain, but now I feel it more, and then even if my tendency would be to try and ignore it, I can't do that because the goal is to know what's going on. I used to be really good at pushing through things, and now I am aware of needing to drink and eat and sleep. (I am still quite productive, but I haven't felt invincible for a while.)

I have to be aware now that what I had tried to write off as sleeping wrong, but it grew to several nights so maybe it was the mattress or an injury that I had forgotten though it was weird that it was both arms, instead appears to be fasciitis, And that makes a lot of sense, because I have had issues with plantar fasciitis recently and I was diagnosed with fasciitis in in junior high, so clearly my fascia are not above acting up, but now I have to deal with it.

There is a warning here that if you are disconnected from your body that it is better to address that sooner rather than later. Age does not tend to improve many of the discoveries. Also, there are things that probably wouldn't have happened if I had never lost touch.

It is a very tangled thing. I was trying to shut down emotional pain. I still felt it, and I felt physical pain too, but I didn't grasp how much I was ignoring. I did not grasp how much they were connected. Still, my emotional pain was because of what I believed my body was, and that's what I was trying not to know; it would have been weird if it wasn't all connected.

Now seems to be the time to get into all of that: why I disconnected from my body, what it led to, and finding my way back. I know I'm not the only one, and so there may be something useful in this, but I guess I needed to start with the warning. This is physical and tangible and that includes the opportunity for a lot of enjoyment and pleasure, but it also brings out pain, which apparently you cannot make disappear by ignoring it. The pain has its value too, but it can be off-putting.

Life is not for the faint of heart.

Birthday Dinner - The Chinese Meal

When my birthday plans were karaoke chaos, I decided on it and sent out invitations in November. That seemed like a very long advance, but it worked out. This time I sort of made my plans in July.

One of the books I read for my long reading list was Fat Is A Feminist Issue 2 by Susie Orbach, and it had several visualization exercises, some of which were surprisingly powerful. One was "The Chinese Meal". Obviously you were visualizing being out for Chinese food, but there were various questions that were asked as to how the food was being served, and if anyone else there had food issues, and did you feel like you could have what you want?

Initially, I did not. I love Chinese food; my family does not. Even the friends I have who like Chinese food tend to like different things, so sharing isn't usually a real option. What if I wanted to have both a pot sticker and an egg roll with my entree? That could never happen, because you can't order them individually and no one else wants the same things, so it's too much food.

As I went through the activity I started to think, well, there is such a thing as leftovers. What if I just decide that this is what I want, and I am going to have it? If other people want to share, or not, that's okay. I started to imagine being with people I trusted, and also trusting myself, that I could have what I want, and neither short myself nor glut myself, and just be okay with it.

It started to seem feasible. I had not completely committed to it back in July, but as my birthday got closer I realized that seemed like the best thing to do - the birthday activity that would be the most helpful and gratifying. I started to agonize over dates and times and whom to invite, and then I just went decisive, picked 6 PM on my birthday at Jin Wah, and sent e-mail or Facebook messages to the people I wanted.

The lead up was more emotionally taxing than you might expect. I was going through a rough spot and that made some of the declines hurt more than they should have, I guess. That whole thing is probably something I am going to get into later. I thought many times that maybe I should just cancel the whole thing, but I didn't.

And then it was really wonderful.

I had decided that what I wanted to order one order of spring rolls, one of pot stickers, and an order of Peking Duck, all to share. The first two things are just things I like, but the third was something I had never had before, and it sounded interesting. For some restaurants you need to order in advance, but not at Jin Wah. Then everyone could have their entrees. If there were leftovers, fine, and if not that was fine too.

Peking Duck is a complicated dish, coming out one tray with skin, meat, steamed pancakes, sauce, and green onions, and another tray with the rest of the meat and bones. One friend had eaten it before, and was explaining it to us, but then one of the wait staff gave us a tutorial.

It was good, but then I read after that it involves force feeding, so I was thinking I could never have it again, but then also the dish normally is all skin without much meat, so I kind of wonder if maybe they make it with a regular duck, and maybe that is why they don't require special notice.

Everyone tried some of the duck, had one spring roll (out of four), and one pot sticker (out of six). Between those and the individual entrees, there was a lot of food, and a lot left over.

I was planning on paying for the three shared items and my entree, but I was ready to pick up the other three entrees too just to be safe. My friends split the check three ways, even though they had all brought gifts too. I objected, they insisted, and they won, and so I spent no money and had boxes and boxes of leftovers.

It was good before that, because even though I was the only common bond between the three, they got along well and talked and everyone was interesting and kind, and I needed that time with them. And I was safe and loved, and was able to get what I wanted and needed and try something new.

It doesn't mean that it will always be that way, or that it even should be that way. I mean, there is nothing wrong with only having an egg roll or a pot sticker or even with getting salad rolls because that's what someone else wants. This was my birthday, and so for that I was making it special and more than normal, which worked. It is very powerful to see that you can have what you want and it can be okay. Maybe for a lot of people they already know that, and it's not a big deal, but it was for me.

I suspect next year's birthday will be based on "The Ideal Kitchen" exercise, and it won't really be about the kitchen.

Thoughts on Into the Woods

We kept up our New Year's Eve tradition of going to see a movie with a friend, this time going to see Into the Woods.

The movie had its flaws, but from the available choices it was the one that best fit the parameters of what we wanted for the night, and it had it's moments. It also generated a few interesting thoughts.

Those thoughts may be best summed up by a question Julie asked me: "What was the point?"

My initial response was "No point really", but that isn't quite fair. The most basic point is that you can wish for things, and you can get those things, but that doesn't solve all of your problems. Maybe it wasn't everything you thought it would be. A fairy tale ending is that your wish is granted and then it ends, quickly, before anything else can go wrong. That isn't generally how life works.

I was also thinking of how Freudian the imagery was, not just Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, but with the overall motif of things being different in the woods. Actually, my thought with that was that I felt like I could see Bettelheim's grimy little fingers all over it.

That is not impossible. The Uses of Enchantment is from 1976, and has been fairly influential, so it could easily have had some impact on either Sondheim and Lapine or even just the production designer for this film. That reminded me that Freud's influence has lasted a lot longer than I realized. I know he was still big in the 60s, but I sort of thought that as you were getting into the 80s people were starting to take him less seriously, and that may not be the case.

(Actually, I was reading some interesting things on his theories of dream interpretation Saturday, so that may come up again.)

I guess that's what got me thinking about different versions. I saw a local production a few years ago. The first act ended with a big musical number where everyone was out onto stage and everyone had what they wanted, singing together "And happily ever after!"  It seemed really great, but then there was an announcement to come back after the intermission, and a giant starts trampling around, and there is death and adultery and complications. The no fairy tale ending point was really driven home by that.

I saw that show because a friend's wife was playing the Narrator, but I saw it with another friend who had studied it in college, and as we discussed it there was some insight there. This was a while ago. Both of those friends have children now who weren't born then but are getting kind of big.

Going even farther back, a different friend made some points from it speaking in church long ago, and what I suddenly remembered at the movie is that there were two things he mentioned that I was looking for in the play, but didn't happen. I thought maybe they would be in the movie, but they weren't there either.

One was just a line, maybe even ad-libbed, with the Baker and his Wife, while getting ready to undertake some subterfuge, saying "The end justifies the beans!" It wouldn't have fit into the movie.

The other was that "Children Will Listen" seems to have been more of a highlight. There is a version of that song that people do as solos, but in the show I saw they only used the despairing version of it, and in the movie it was sort of background music over the end.

Putting all of that together got me kind of amazed at how many different plays you can find within one play, by choosing which numbers to perform, and which to skip, and how they are delivered, and all of the choices that the director and the performers make.

You can make a theme about a belief in happy endings being naive, but you could also focus on no one being alone or on the influence adults have on children. Those are just the first three that come to mind. Some of those shows would be more fun to watch, and some less. Maybe you just put your favorite songs in, and it's a mess but it's a well-sung mess. I'm sure that happens sometimes.

Anyway, I found that interesting, and a testament to the power of theater.

For the movie itself, I liked the stage version I saw better; it was more robust. I did like James Corden and I thought Meryl Streep was great. Some of that was her performance, but also they had a lot of fun with her entrances and exits, which were well-executed.

I thought I was nostalgic for a time when Johnny Depp could play something other than weird caricatures, but now I'm wondering if that was a false memory all along.

I did feel like it was a bit of a cheat to lose the "Agony" reprise, because not having the both princes be equally sorry schmucks takes away some of the play's bite, but that made Rapunzel's storyline really sweet, and let Billy Magnussen be heroic, so I'm going to take it.

I'm not sure it was valuable to raise the ethics of killing the second giant and then just morph into "No One Is Alone". It doesn't really answer the question, and you could get to the song by other means. But, hypothetically speaking, that type of decision making might be exactly the sort of thing that could have viewers leaving the theater wondering what the point was.

Band Review: George Cole

I came across George Cole when Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong tweeted a link to Cole's song "Riverside Drive" this week. I was charmed with it and Cols' other songs. The music was also a nice counterpoint to my other review, so Cole gets the Friday spot.

I am including a link to his Wikipedia entry, because there is a broad and varied musical history there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cole_%28musician%29

My listening centered on the Soundcloud page and the Youtube videos. Based on that, elements that stood out included a sound that was both retro and fresh (reminding me a bit of Foxboro Hot Tubs) and the clarinet, bringing to mind Benny Goodman. There is good use of the tall bass. That gives the first impression - this is delightful and should be danced to (some waltz and maybe some quickstep).

On the second time through I was really struck by the guitar. The delicacy and intricacy initially made me think of Spanish guitar, but I think it is more reasonable to see some influence from Django Reinhardt. Based on Cole's involvement with a festival honoring Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, that may be the most logical inference, other than assuming there has been exposure to and absorption of a lot of music. Harry Connick Jr. fans would probably enjoy, but the potential audience should go far beyond that.

So this was a really good find. I owe Billie Joe. It makes future listening and exploring probable, and it's nice to know there is a lot to work with.

http://georgecole.net/

https://soundcloud.com/george-cole-3

https://www.facebook.com/pages/George-Cole/46418756241

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe-VlLXwe1egC4RX_Q0XgJA

https://twitter.com/GCgeorgecole

Band Review: Buck Marley

I did not enjoy listening.

There were some interesting elements. The background often incorporated chime-like sounds, and I felt like there was a reasonable sense of musicality there. In that way he reminded me a bit of Lando.

The problem was with the lyrics. The vocabulary was repetitive, and using the same offensive words over and over can make a point, but it doesn't automatically do so. It never felt like this was saying something.

Possibly one reason I thought of Lando in comparison is that there were several instrumental tracks. If you are better at coming up with music than words, music only is a reasonable option.

https://soundcloud.com/thadonshoota

https://twitter.com/MajorHooks

Thoughts on Duck Football

Yesterday I mentioned various reading lists, and for those I meant the ones that I have grouped together and entered into this spreadsheet that I use for organizational purposes. There are many other books that I plan to read, and some that I kind of know will be grouped together. This includes some football-themed books.

One of the football books is Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel. Published in 2010, I am sure a lot of it will be out of date, but I assume that there will be some history there, and help in analyzing what they are doing now. I guess that is my way of saying that I am interested in football but not always up on it.

In college there was time to follow sports, and even for a while after, but I am so busy now, and watching a football game is not just a time investment; it is also really stressful. I was working during the Rose Bowl, so I kept the ESPN page up to check the score. We actually watched most of the Championship game, and that is why I have thoughts in the first place.

First of all, I am just thrilled for Marcus Mariota and the Heisman win. Yes, I know he has other trophies too, but that is a big one, and he is such an outstanding athlete while being such a good team player and leader that this is how it should be. Totally appropriate and deserved.

I'm not sure how I feel about there being a championship. I would probably be more thrilled with it if the Ducks had won, but I have been against extending football seasons in general because of some of the things they are finding with brain injuries. Also, decades ago I read an opinion piece by someone who loved that both the Orange and Rose Bowl winning teams would have signs "College Football Champions". The writer found it amusing and kind of charming, and it swayed me. Now you essentially have one more team that will end their season with a loss. It doesn't take away what came before, but still.

There was not a brain injury that I saw, but there was something flagrant, when Mariota was tackled after passing. It got an unsportsmanlike conduct call - which it deserved - but if anyone questions his decision to go to the NFL now, no, it's really logical for him to do so. You never know how long you will be able to play.

I get the concerns for the team about losing a strong player, but there are strong players left. I was really impressed with Marshall, Tyner is still around, and I have seen a lot of quarterbacks come and go.

Back in my day, Bill Musgrave was a really good quarterback, and he felt like a shining hope, but O'Neil did okay after that, and Harrington really wowed them, and had his own Heisman campaign, and it just continues.

It's the same with coaches. Rich Brooks was a step forward, and an important one, but the team continued to improve under Bellotti. I loved both of them. I took Football Coaching in spring of 1991, and every single coach taught a session. That's why I knew and liked them (as people, not just as coaches), but it also gave me a familiarity with the names, where years later I would still be hearing about Aliotti or Zoumboukos, or I would see Ratcliffe on the sidelines (still with 0% body fat). I liked the loyalty. I believe that the sense of continuity, and promoting from within, has strengthened the organization.

I had no memories of Chip Kelly, and as he started closing practices and things like that, I never grew fond of him. It felt like the program was becoming colder and more business-like. However, the team continued to do well, and he wasn't the end either, because now Helfrich is doing well. If you want to know how to build a strong football program, look at Oregon's history.

I also love that the NCAA agreed that helping parents attend the game was okay. There is so much money in football, and it could often be spread around better, but this was a good step.

I think that's pretty much it. I hope people aren't shunning Carrington too much. I hope he felt horrible and has learned something, but I hope everyone is moving past it.

Happy Book Day!

Saturday was my birthday. I wish I had been in a better place emotionally for it, but there were still three things that were good about it.

There were a lot of Facebook greetings. Facebook will tell you who is having a birthday that day, and there is a pop up box where you can type your greeting in, making it really easy. Even knowing how easy it is, it still means something that someone does it, and when your timeline is full of people wishing you a happy day, it feels good, which I needed.

There were even some Twitter greetings. The Twitter greetings were mainly from people whom I am connected to on Facebook as well, which allowed them to know. Some people re-tweet their birthday wishes. If you do that more people will see it is your birthday, so you can get even more well wishes, but I did not feel comfortable doing that. I only clicked "Favorite" and replied "Thank you!", as well as liking all the Facebook posts, because they did make me happy. I just felt like re-tweeting would be too self-promotional.

Another thing that was good was dinner with friends, which I think I will post about separately, but it is related to the other good thing, which was books.

I am not finished with my Christmas books yet, but now I have more, and even more on the way. Karen gave me an Amazon gift card and Sonya gave me a Powells gift card. There is also the stack of library books that I have, so it all feels like progress.

I have written about my various reading lists at different times, and this relates to that, but let me also talk about Goodreads for a moment. Goodreads is how I know I read 100 books last year (and why being so close to 100 led to me reading two children's books on December 31st.)

As the new year started, Goodreads prompted me to set a new reading goal for 2015. Well, my first thought was 144, which is ridiculous, but reflects how many things I want to read and learn. The average was 64 though, so I set that. Perhaps it seems low for someone who read 100 the previous year, but a lot of that is because of comics - though I really do want to read a lot of comics. Still, if I read 64 regular books, plus 2 Caldecott winners and at least one graphic novel per month, then that is 100 again, and would probably be about right. It's still ambitious, but not impossible. I think.

Looking at the breakdown of the smaller reading lists, it gets much better. I had down four gardening books, and I got two of them for my birthday. They were books that the library had, but I think they will be handy as reference, so owning them seemed desirable, and I needed to add things to my wish list.

There were three books that I wanted to finish before starting my 2014 Native American Heritage reading. I just finished one, have one here, and I think I know when I can read the third. There had been three books that were part of pre-Halloween reading that the library didn't have and that were kind of expensive, the gift cards and new used copies showing up in stock means they are all on the way, as well as two really hard to find academic books that are starting to feel necessary to read sooner rather than later.

So, here's how I see things going down. Right now I am reading The Secret History of Dreaming and it will be followed by Sometimes a Great Notion. Then I am going to read the heck out of those Pre-Halloween books. I should then be ready for 1493. When that is done I will start alternating gardening and Native American Heritage books, then the pre-Italy and Black History books.

That is putting the drawing books on hold, but I feel like I need to do that until I have more time to draw, or the lessons get lost. I will probably get them back into the rotation in May, along with the books that are feeling necessary sooner than later. (I assume they will be pertinent to things that are coming up, but they are not directly related to each other in any obvious way.) I think I am going to order used copies of the other two dream books now, too, because the library doesn't have them, and this should be a good paycheck.

At that point I will be able to start working on fleshing out my education, so that's pretty exciting. All of the smaller lists combined equal 58 books, so if I read 64 this year, that means I can be caught up on those and into the School list of 98.

For the Caldecott Medal winners I am working from both ends. I just finished the 1938 inaugural winner, and I have the 2014 winner ready to read tonight.

For graphic novels - and I am saying that instead of comic books in this case simply because they are so far all more novel-like, this month is NonNonBa, which is on my shelf as I write, and next month I want to do Anya's Ghost. If there is another MOOC that could change the order around, and that would be fine with me. I find things through the MOOCs that I wouldn't find otherwise.

I admit my excitement level about this might be ridiculous, but it's there. Books! Come to me my pretties!

Also, for a long time, no matter how many books I read my to-read list was always three times as large as my read list. Well, a lot of it is just remembering books that I had read but never added, but I am getting close to having the "read" list equal half the "to-read" list, and I feel good about that. 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11092689.Gina_Harris

43 photographs

I am entering Phase II.

Phase I was having the songs of the day consist of a countdown, by year, to my birthday. That led to one blog post, but I often put additional details for why a song mattered for that year on Facebook. There were songs that almost made it and didn't, but mainly it was a matter of reviewing and remembering.

There was a lot of pain there. As I work on healing, a lot of that involves dealing with the past. At some point while I was counting down the songs I realized that the next step would be participating in Throwback Thursday.

If you are not familiar with the concept, it is a social media thing (Facebook and Twitter for sure, probably Instagram, maybe others) where on Thursday you post photos from the past. I have posted one here and there, but never participated on a regular basis.

There were 43 songs for 43 years, and I kind of want to do that again, but it won't be as clear-cut. For one thing, a lot of the pictures aren't dated. I know approximately when they happened, but not for sure. Also, there may be some years where I am not able to find any pictures. The number is definitely going to be 43, and they will be posted mostly chronologically, but I can make no guarantees beyond that.

This will be considerably harder than the songs. Well, it will start out okay, but it will get progressively harder. However, I am only doing it once a week instead of daily, so that should help.

The reason it will be hard is the same reason that I will not be able to find pictures for every year - I have always hated pictures of me. It's like, I knew that I wasn't attractive anyway, but then a photo would simultaneously flatten the image, thus making me wider, and create a record, so there was proof. I've hated that.

That being said, I do remember when I was younger looking at pictures from previous years and thinking that they weren't that bad. I had hated the picture in its year, but two years later it would be okay.

That may indicate that I was just becoming more hideous at a dramatic enough rate that it made the relatively recent past look benign by comparison, but there could be some other things going on there. Obviously, there's going to be a lot to unpack.

For right now, it's just one photo per week for the next 43 weeks, and getting comfortable with that. I'm sure the following phase which will involve selfies in some way will be more traumatic, but one step at a time.

Band Review: Woodie Alan

In July I read Alan Paul's book Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing. The subtitle is important, because the book is not just about the band: family, work, and the ex-pat life are also important topics. The band was important too, though, and I eventually wanted to review them.

The CD, Beijing Blues, is available through Paul's web site (all of the links are specifically for Paul), and can also be listened to via Spotify.

It is a very respectable blues offering. Much of what struck me in the book was about the guitar, and that does stand out. I know that Woodie Wu plays dobro as well as regular guitar, and that may be how some of the effects were achieved, but they get great sound.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at the use of harmonica and horns. There is always a good balance of the different elements to make the song feel right. "Got Love" is a good example of that, but they cover a wide range of ground. There is the funk of "Sri Lankan Sunset", the aching beauty of "Anjing Shenghuo", and a high quality live recording of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go", which was my favorite.

The only real misfire, in my opinion, was a blues cover of the hymn "Will the Circle Be Unbroken". On the first listen I really hated it. After listening three times I was over hating it, but I still don't love it. It may just not work for me as blues.

Woodie Alan nevertheless works really well for blues, and they have a good story. I recommend the book and the band.

http://alanpaul.net/woodie-alan/the-cd/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpdnUnPoW74vxIa825Lt-2Q

https://www.facebook.com/AlanPaulauthor

https://twitter.com/AlPaul

Band Review: Jude's Way

Jude's Way has a nice little funk going on. An electronic alternative duo from Baltimore, they currently have an album, Out of the Blue,  available on Bandcamp.

Songs tend to be instrumental and very danceable. I especially enjoyed the video for "Told You Not To Go There", which reminds us that not everyone is equally comfortable getting funky, but when you give in it does feel good.

http://www.kadesound.com/jw.html

http://judesway.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-the-blue-2

https://www.youtube.com/user/JudesWay

https://twitter.com/WayofJude

Hardly even a real post

I guess I am writing about not writing. I feel a need to put something up.

The problem is not that I don't have anything to say; I have too much to say. There are all of these different paths to go down, but they would take multiple posts, and I don't like starting a series on a Wednesday, because I won't get back to it until Monday. Also, I am not sure there is a point in pursuing some of them now, though I might get back to them later. So I am just going to state my problems tonight, and then at some point during the two music reviews, travel review, and preparedness post, decide what I am going to write about next week.

The first problem is that I am tired. I worked over fifty hours last week, and will this week too. The overtime is allowed because we are busy, and that also means that I am working a little more frantically, even if it were normal hours. Normally my job doesn't take up too much mental energy, but it can, and right now it is.

The tiredness is worse because I am lonely and feeling disconnected. That is not a new thing, but there are spells where it is worse, and I can't handle it as well when I have less physical energy. This means I am having crying jags and feeling colder, and also being more irritable, because there is nothing left. I will overreact to simple questions. Even when I manage to make conversation, it is more strained, like my volume is louder and not relaxed. I am aware of it, but I can't change it right now.

Also, I have given too much time this week to educating people. This is not a good use of my time. They don't really want the education, and I don't enjoy it, but there are some things that I really cannot let stand, and since I am the one looking up articles and going into complicated explanations, it takes a greater toll on me.

(I ranted on Facebook that I can do this, and after I keep making my points, and they don't have anything to say, they just ask "Well how do you propose to fix it?" I think I need to quit answering that question. I mean, I usually have some ideas, but it's always lengthy, and really, since we got there by them denying that anything needed fixing, and that's just a reaction to being wrong, the proper response is probably something like "The first step is to get people to quit denying the issue" or something like that. I don't know. I am really tired.)

I am still worried about money. That one isn't going away. It is frustrating for me because I think the best chance of making any money is a screenplay, and I meant to be working on that, but I can't seem to work on anything but the sequel to Family Blood. Okay, I published two books last year, but Cara had already been written, and just needed some editing, and with Family Blood, already having it in screenplay form made it just a simple matter of adapting. Starting a novel from scratch takes longer.

Still, it seems to be necessary. Maybe someone needs it, and that could be me. The characters are dealing with grief and issues of self-worth and healing, so there are connections.

That's where I am basically - exhausted and lonely. I am going out for my birthday Saturday, and I was looking forward to it, and now I am not sure that I am, but I hope I still will. I just know that the week after our first normal week, I want to take off.

I will say, that without knowing whether I am going to spend more blogging time on politics next week, one of the things that came up in other discussions was unpaid overtime. I am getting paid for it, so I have an incentive, but it is brutal. Seeing the toll that it is taking on me and knowing that some employers will take that labor without compensation reminds me just how evil they are.