10/15/2009
09/29/2009
08/21/2009
if ( i.age = 64 ) { eval { you->need(me) && you->feed(me) } }
if ( i.age = older && i.hair = losing && date = years(now()+many) ) { eval { you->me(any("Valentine", "birthday greetings", "bottle of wine")) } }
if ( until (time="02:45") { i->out() } ) { eval { door.lock(you) } } if ( i.age = 64 ) { eval { you->need(me) && you->feed(me) } }you.old++; if ( you.say("word") ) { i.staywith(you) } i.can( be.handy(), fuse.mend() if lights=="gone" ) you.can( sweater.knit( by.fireside), ride.go if time="Sunday mornings" ) while ( garden.doing() && weeds.digging() ) {eval { "for u in `sed 's/:.*//' /etc/passwd`; do ask $u 'more'; done" }} if ( i.age = 64 ) { eval { you->need(me) && you->feed(me) } } if ( cottage.rent() != "too dear" ) { summer.each( cottage.rent(); cottage.loc("Isle of Wight") )}we.scrimp() && we.save(); you.knee->add(@grandchildren = [ "Vera", "Chuck", "Dave" ]); you.message.postcard->send(me, "point of view");you.message.line->drop(me, "point of view") you.message.body = you.intent; you.message.closing = "Yours sincerely, wasting away"; you.give(answer, me) && you.fill(form) you = me.property(forevermore) if ( i.age = 64 ) { eval { you->need(me) && you->feed(me) } } #songsincode
08/10/2009
15 Movies that stick with you
Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen movies you've seen that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what movies my friends choose.
NOTE: "15 Movies That Stick With You" doesn't have to mean favorite, best or even good... Just films that for whatever reason linger in your imagination.
To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.
- 2001
- Amelie
- Being John Malkovitch
- Big Trouble in Little China
- Blade Runner
- City of Lost Children
- Dr Strangelove
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off
- Fight Club
- Hard Days Night
- Holy Grail
- Princess Bride
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Star Wars [original]
- The Italian Job [60s version]
08/09/2009
Concerts
Playing along yet once again with the latest social networking meme...
"Test your memory and your love of live music by listing artists or bands (or as many as you can remember) you've seen in concert. Oh, and list the first concert you ever saw (you can remember that, can’t you)?"
The first concert I ever saw was Tom Petty, with Lenny Kravitz, at the Worcester Centrum, 1987
The rest of the list is given in alphabetical order, mainly because I'm unsure about the chronology. I'm trying to list these by "event" as far as I can remember, so a Lollapalooza or Woodstock will have a lot of bands, but memorable openers are noted with headliners as well.
- Amanda Palmer, Boston Pops, 2008, Lexington High School, 2009
- Autechre, Paradise, Boston MA 2004
- BB King, Dave Matthews Band, many others; New Orleans Jazz Fest, 1995
- Beastie Boys, with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion & The Roots; New Orleans, 1995
- Blue Man Group, Boston MA, 3 or 4 times over the years
- Charles Mingus Band [no, not with Mingus himself sadly], Bunker Hill Community College, 2007
- Cirque du Soleil, some casino, Biloxi MS, 2000
- Combustible Edison, Bowery Ballroom, NYC, ~1999
- Cracktorch, several times & places
- Dave Brubeck, Boston Globe Jazz Festival, Berklee Performance Center, 1994-ish
- Dresden Dolls, several times in Boston & Providence, 2003-2007
- Firewater, Tallahassee FL, 1998
- Fishbone, Sluggo's, Pensacola FL 1995-ish
- Foo Fighters, Avalon, Boston MA 1996-ish
- Fugazi, Tipitina's, New Orleans 1996 & Masquerade, Atlanta GA 1996
- G Love & Special Sauce, Bayfest, Mobile AL 1998-ish
- Grateful Dead, Memphis TN & Tampa FL, 1996-ish (~6 weeks before Jerry Garcia died)
- Green Day, Hatch Shell, Boston MA 1994 or 1995
- Helmet, Portland ME, 1995
- Henry Rollins Band, Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, Providence RI 1995-ish
- Jerry Lee Lewis, Bayfest, Mobile AL 1997-ish
- Jesus Lizard, Sluggo's, Pensacola FL 1997-ish
- Joan Jett, some casino, Biloxi MS, 1999
- Johnny Cash, some music festival who's name escapes me, Birmingham AL 1995
- Juliana Hatfield Trio, on a boat at Cambridgeside Galleria, Cambridge MA 1994
- Kiss with Poison and... Cheap Trick? Motley Crue? I forget, plus Cracktorch, Great Woods, Mansfield MA 2003-ish
- Lemonheads, Clark University, Worcester MA 1994
- Living Colour & Bad Brains, Orpheum Theatre, Boston MA 1992
- Lollapalooza '93: Primus, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr, Fishbone, Arrested Development, Tool, Rage Against The Machine, Sebadoh, Luscious Jackson, et al, West Warwick RI, 1993
- Lollapalooza '94: Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, George Clinton & P-Funk, The Breeders, Tribe Called Quest, Nick Cave, L7, Boredoms, Shudder to Think, Shonen Knife, et al, West Warwick RI, 1994
- Lollapalooza '95: Sonic Youth, Hole, Pavement, Sinead O'Connor (or Elastica, I forget), Moby, Beck, Jesus Lizard, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Dambuilders, Tuscadero, Helium, Mike Watt et al, Great Woods, Mansfield MA 1995
- Lollapalooza '96: Metallica, Soundgarden, Ramones, Rancid, Girls Against Boys, Ben Folds Five, Cornershop, et al, West Nowheresville MA 1996
- Man or Astroman (many times & places), 1995-2000
- Mighty Mighty Bosstones (many times & places), 1996-1999
- Mike Watt, some club I forget, Mobile AL 1998-ish
- Mission of Burma, Paradise, Boston MA 2003, with Dresden Dolls at Avalon, Boston MA, 2004
- Morphine; Hatch Shell, Boston, 1996
- Mr Bungle, Spartanburg SC, 1997
- NOFX, Rocket From The Crypt, Fishbone et al, Warped Tour, Falmouth MA 1997-ish
- OK Go with This American Life, Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA 2002 [this counts, yes?]
- Paul McCartney, Fenway Park, Boston MA 2009
- Penn & Teller, Opera House, Boston MA 2000
- Peter Gabriel, The Levellers et al, WOMAD Tour, Great Woods, Mansfield MA, 1995
- Phish, Spin Doctors, The Levellers, Teenage Fanclub et al, WBCN Concert, Boston Garden, 1992-ish
- Public Enemy, Worcester MA 2000-ish
- Quintaine Americana, several times & places
- REM, Great Woods, Mansfield MA 1995
- Radiohead with Beta Band & Kid Koala, Suffolk Downs, East Boston MA 2002
- Radiohead, Great Woods Mansfield MA 2006
- Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, Pensacola FL, ~1995
- Sigur Ros, Bank of America Pavillion, Boston, 2008
- Sinead O'Connor, Bank of Boston Pavillion, Boston, ~1998
- Sleater-Kinney, Avalon, Boston MA 2004
- Sleater-Kinney, Roxy, Boston MA 2001
- Sonic Youth, Howlin Wolf, New Orleans LA 1995
- Spamalot, Wilbur Theatre, Boston MA 2006-ish
- Spearhead, Club Babyhead, Providence RI 1995-ish
- Starship, random Mardi Gras ball (of all places), Mobile AL 2000
- The Beach Boys, Hatch Shell, Boston MA 2009
- The Cramps & 311, New Orleans LA, 1994
- The Decemberists, Bank of America Pavillion, 2009
- The Monkees, City Hall Plaza, Boston MA 1997-ish
- The Pixies, Amherst MA & Lowell MA, 2004
- The Police, Fenway Park, Boston MA 2007
- The Ramones, Strand Theatre, Providence RI, 1998-ish
- The Who, with Robert Plant, Tweeter Center, 2002
- They Might Be Giants, Tipitina's, New Orleans LA 1997-ish & Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA 2009
- Tom Petty, Worcester Centrum, Worcester MA 1987
- Tom Petty, Great Woods, Mansfield MA 1988
- U2, Superdome, New Orleans LA, 1998
- Weezer & Live, Orpheum Theatre, Boston MA 1995
- Weezer, Great Woods, Mansfield MA 2002-ish
- Woodstock '94: Blues Traveler, Live, Orbital, Sheryl Crow, Violent Femmes, Joe Cocker, Cypress Hill, Rollins Band, Crosby Stills & Nash, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Aerosmith, Youssou N'Dour, Primus, Arrested Development, Allman Bros, Spin Doctors, Porno For Pyros, Bob Dylan, RHCP, Peter Gabriel, Green Day, et al, Saugerties NY, 1994
- Yo-Yo Ma, Wang Center, Boston, 2001-ish
07/26/2009
Pawsox game summarized
Here I had a chance to do a kind of photomontage that I've wanted to try for a while, where I can sit in the same spot for a few hours and capture snippets of things that happened over time. In this case, the opportunity was a minor league baseball game at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, RI, where the "Pawsox" played the Columbus Clippers.Here, we have everything from Bill Littlefield of WBUR's Only a Game sports news show having thrown the ceremonial first pitch, to the field attendants "painting" the word "Pawsox" in the dirt behind home plate, to the Pawsox replacing their pitcher, to a pitch, the delivery, and a batter about to swing at the ball. I then have the Red Sox team walking off the field after the game, and the pitcher being interviewed by a reporter about his victory. Meanwhile, the same day, former Boston/Pawtucket star Jim Rice was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame up in Cooperstown, NY. For obvious reasons, this was unable to be included here, but believe me I tried to think of a way.Annoyingly, the one thing I didn't think to get a picture of was the final scoreboard. Oh well, suffice to say the Pawtucket Red Sox defeated the Columbus Clippers 3-2, which is nice, because it sounds like they had been on a losing streak recently. It was also my son's first baseball game, and he seemed to have a good time :-)
07/10/2009
First Draft Movie Lines
Bringing this over from Twitter, to taunt a [marginally] broader audience...
- ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MORTIMER A DULL BOY.
- Aw man, I shot Marvin in the finger. Sorry about that, Marvin, let's get that stitched up, okay pal?
- Badges? We don't have any badges!
- Badges? We forgot the badges!
- Carte diem. Table the day, boys. Kick it back to committee to talk it over and build a concensus for tomorrow.
- Entire script of 2001, A Space Odyssey: "Ook."
- Frankly my dear, I'm not terribly concerned.
- Frickin sharks! With frickin tasers on their heads!
- Go ahead, /usr/bin/make my day.
- "Good grief, the comedian's a lion." "No he's a'not, he's a'tellin' the truth! Also Kermit, I'm a bear, not a lion."
- I love the smell of nachos in the morning.
- I'm going to make him an offer that he should prove to find terribly compelling.
- I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and goddamnit I'm a motherfucking United States Senator. STEP.
- It's good to be the Queen.
- Jim, I have been, and always will be, your bottom. Live long, or prosper.
- Keep your friends close, and keep your enemies the hell away. Enemas you can keep close if you want.
- Life's a piece of shit, when you look for that. Wait, that doesn't quite rhyme, does it? What pronoun rhymes with shit?
- Luke, I am your third cousin twice removed. Hey, it's a big galaxy, it's a bigger deal than it sounds like.
- Meesa-think I've got a bad feeling about this.(George Lucas didn't need second drafts. Or so he believed.)
- Nobody puts Baby in a blender.
- "PC LOAD LETTER"? Hm, let me Google that. Ah, it just means "out of paper." Man HP are a bunch of idiots. Anyway, fixed.
- So said she all. Heh heh heh.
- Soylent Green is PH2Cu3NSO4!
- That's no moon, that's -- wait maybe it is a moon. Hm, just the one big crater seems kind of weird. Probably not a moon.
- "That's no moon, it's a space station!" "You think? I dunno, Chewie, maybe it is a moon, what do you think?" "Woooooof!"
- The Italian Job, Michael Caine's closing line: "Wait a minute, chaps, I've got... no, sorry, I got nothing. We're dead."
- The force may be with you, sometimes.
- The spice ought to flow!
- There must be some kinda way out of here. In-a-gadda-da-vida-baybee!
- They can stop us. We're on a mission from god.
- We're gonna have to nuke the site from Orbitz. It's the only way to be sure. Orbitz: For all your nuking needs™.
- We're gonna need a Uighur goat.
- What we have here are open lines of communication & mutual understanding. I'm glad we had this talk.
- "Which wallet is yours?" "Its the one with Elmo on it. Don't ask, my kids got it for me last Xmas. I'm sentimental OK?"
- With great power comes great utility bills. Stay in school, and get a job.
- Yo soy Adrian!
- Yo soy Spartacus!
- [All of Jack Sparrow's lines unchanged, but channelled via Boy George instead of Keith Richards.]
- [All of R2-D2's lines in English, spoken in the voice of Johnny 5 from "Short Circuit".]
- [All of Yoda's dialogue as we know it now, but in standard subject/verb/object order.]
- [All of the Look Who's Talking baby's lines unchanged, but with voiceovers by Michael Jackson instead of John Travolta.]
06/25/2009
Cool bands made uncool
Bringing this over from Twitter, to taunt a [marginally] broader audience...
- 2LiveCrüe
- Albert Parsons Project
- Bachman Turner Neutral
- Bacterial Culture Club
- Black Eyed Pees
- Black Moldy Chili Peppers
- Carcinogenesis
- Chris Matthews Band
- Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, McClatchey, Nguyen, Rochimbeau, Feldstein, Smith, Jones, Wong, Bush & Young
- Deaf Leopard
- Dinosaur III
- Dr. Teeth and The Photovoltaic Mayhem
- Fine Go
- Flock of Seasnakes
- Frankie Comes to Hollywood
- Fuschia Floyd
- Godspeed You Pink Emperor
- Google Bordello
- Grandwizard Flash
- Hüsker Düne
- Jane's Private Issue That She'd Rather Not Discuss In Public
- Jefferson Airplane. Wait. Starship. Wait. Damn.
- Kilometers Davis
- Metallic
- Notorious M.E.D.I.U.M.
- Nusmouse Fateh Ali Khan
- P.M.S. Dawn.
- Public Enema
- R.E.A.M.
- Secundus
- Sly & the Family Bone
- Steppenwoof. Steppenpup. Steppenpoop? Steppengulf?
- Stevie Curious
- The Beastie Boomers
- The Clash, "Sandwormista"
- The Eaglets
- The Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Bosstones
- The P-Funk All-Moons
- The Whom
- Then Again, They Might Not Be Giants
- Third Ear Tone Deaf
- Wheezer
- ZZ Bottom
06/15/2009
Kids Music Monday: They Might Be Giants, "Here Come The 123s" (et al)
Blogging, eh? Regular updates, eh? Shaddup, you.
So, They Might Be Giants.
As a responsible dad *ahem*, I've been trying to expose Isaac to a steady palate of both kid-specific music -- like, say, the Muppets -- as well as more "grown-up" music that will still have appeal to a kid -- like, say, the G-rated version of "Coin-Operated Boy" from the Dresden Dolls, or The Ramones (about which more later, clearly getting him thinking "Beat on the Brat with a Baseball Bat" is a jaunty song about the Red Sox may have been a mis-step on my part).
And this brings us to They Might Be Giants, who seem to have found a way to span both "kid friendly" and "not grating to adults" rock in a nearly unique way -- or at least, "not grating" to a dedicated cult following, of which I can't say I'd never been a member before now.
Truth be told, I always did kind of find them annoying. Yes, I suppose I like Birdhouse in Your Soul, in a "oh fine I guess the world has room for two Shiny Happy People style songs" kind of way, and I suppose I like Istanbul (Not Constantinople), in a "this sounds like a corny Yale yuppie a capella Whiffenpoofs number, but it is pretty catchy all the same" kind of way. But I never liked either song quite enough to bother getting a copy of Flood, or any of their other albums.
But at the same time, a lot of my friends -- who had musical taste I generally found agreeable -- did like them, so I never dismissed them fully. Surely, any band running a free dial-a-song service couldn't be all bad, right? I figured, given enough exposure, they'd either grow on me, or they'd grow very wearisome like Phish or Dave Matthews. Somehow though, TMBG always held a weird stasis for me between "kind of like & appreciate them" and "not really interested but appreciate that they're talented". Or something like that. And I did tag along to one of TMBG's concerts at Tipitina's in New Orleans in the late 90s. I'm glad I went, but the main thing I remember about the show -- and this was probably ominous foreshadowing -- was the clever use of singing puppets.
Which brings us rather directly to last year, when Amazon put their Here Come the 123s on their MP3 store bargain bin one day, and I picked up a copy on impulse, figuring either that I'll like it and share it with The Boy, or I'll also find it mildly annoying but still a step up from, say, Barney the Dinosaur or The Wiggles.
I was blown away.
Nevermind the fact that it's a "kids" album, or an "educational" album. It's just a great album, and it totally deserved the Grammy award it would end up earning a few months later. I got Isaac into it. He loved it too. His favorites: One Dozen Monkeys ("The Monkey Song"), Seven ("The Cake Song"), and "Seven Days of the Week" ("The Days of the Week Song"). The downside here is that, for many weeks, he only wanted to hear those 3 songs, and ignored 3/4 of the album, but whatever. Secretly, those were the songs I liked best, too.
Catching a two year old singing to himself "Oh no, no, I never go to work! Oh no, no, I never go to work!" is one of those joys of fatherhood that can't really be replaced. Though it does get me contemplating the logistics of retiring way early, but then, thanks to the vagaries of Mr Stock Market, that'll obviously not be an option worth considering for more than a pleasant few seconds.
But I digress.
I later came across Pitchfork's review of this, which basically amounted to "I grew up on Schoolhouse Rock, and this is different, so I hate it." This is a bit like the people who grew up on cheesy old Doctor Who episodes, then come across the glossy new Eccleston/Tennant series and dismiss it as tinkering too much with tradition. See also people that prefer the old Battlestar Galactica, or didn't like the new Star Trek movie. I learned a valuable lesson from this Pitchfork review, much as I do from the Doctor Who, BSG, & Trekkie traditionalists: screw them, this new stuff is a blast. Yes, the new Star Wars movies were awful, but you know what? Even still, sometimes the new stuff can be better.
But I digress. Again.
So it turned out that TMBG not only recorded this fantastic kids album, but they did another one, and another before that, and there's yet another on the way (though at this point, not even Wikipedia acknowledges it; perhaps it will by the time you read this).
Better still, they were about to go on tour, and play these songs right in our town. How could we not go? My first concert was Tom Petty with then-unknown Lenny Kravitz when I was 13. It was good, don't get me wrong, but TMBG at 3 might be even better (in a second childhood kid of way? okay okay nevermind that).
So we got the tickets a few months ago, and this weekend, we finally went. I spent the time leading up to the show trying to play more of "Here Come The 123s" -- they probably won't just play the three best songs, though as it turned out, they did include each of them -- as well as Here Come the ABCs. Plus, as it turns out, TMBG has a podcast of videos from the albums, many of which are also on YouTube, e.g.:
Woohoo. I don't care if this is "kids music". As they said about the Grinch, if you can't like this stuff, maybe your heart is just two sizes too small.
So anyway, yeah, the concert. Went with Isaac & his cousins, one older, one younger. The younger one fidgeted, the older one clinged but also danced, but Isaac, he mostly just sat on the edge of his seat and stared transfixed.
Then, he spent the next couple of days telling me he had fun at the show, and that he wants to go back. They're coming back in a year. I already can't wait. :-)
P.S. Is it obvious that I mulled this post over, yet never bothered jotting it down or distilling it to something readable, for like six months? Yeah, thought so. The next kids music post will probably be about the Ramones. Let's see if I can write it before the end of the year. Let's see how much it rambles.
03/16/2009
Cultured kid
Isaac turns on the TV. It's still on PBS from when he was watching Curious George this morning, Charlie Rose is on.
Me: Funny, I didn't know you like the Charlie Rose show.
Isaac: I do! I like this show a lot.
Me: Oh, really? So what is he interviewing Nancy Pelosi about right now?
Isaac: The weather.
Me: And what is the weather going to be?
Isaac: It's going to be... six outside.
Me: Okay then!
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