Stratovania

I've been busy for a while now, between going to my grandmother's memorial service and transferring a bunch of files from my computer, so I'm going to go back some time with this entry. On the Wednesday before last, Beth and I saw Robyn Hitchcock at Murmrr, which is a venue inside a synagogue, or at least that's what it looks like. The show was originally supposed to be him with Tanya Donnelly, and I was kind of looking forward to seeing her. I don't know that much about her, but I know she was in the Breeders and Throwing Muses, and I've enjoyed some of their stuff. Unfortunately, she had laryngitis, and had to cancel. That did mean a lot of Robyn, who did two full sets. Most of it was solo on acoustic guitar, with his giving increasingly complex and bizarre instructions to the sound guy before each song. He played the beginning of the second set on piano, and Emma Swift accompanied him on some other songs.

I can't remember all that was in the set, although I know he didn't do my recommendation, "The Bones in the Ground." That's okay, though. He played "Balloon Man," "1970 in Aspic" followed by "1974," "Madonna of the Wasps," "One Long Pair of Eyes," "The Lizard," "Cynthia Mask," "Queen Elvis," "Flavour of Light," "Glass Hotel," "Chant/Aether," "The Cheese Alarm," "Raymond Chandler Evening," "Virginia Woolf," and "Queen of Eyes." I know the ones he played on piano included "The Man Who Invented Himself" and "Ted, Woody and Junior."

He closed with "Visions of Johanna" and another Bob Dylan cover. He mentioned that he considered Dylan the Morrissey of the 1970s, which makes a certain amount of sense, although Morrissey seems like a total creep nowadays and I don't really know about Dylan. There were some albums for sale, but I think they were all ones I already owned. A few of his records seem hard to come by, or at least not cheap. Is there a reason why CDs of Queen Elvis and Globe of Frogs cost so much on Amazon? I might end up having to get used copies.

There's really not much to say about what happened between that and last Wednesday, when, after work, Beth and I visited a small Kmart on the bottom floor of a Sears in Flatbush. She's really nostalgic about Kmart, and I guess I am too, as I grew up with them and they're so rare these days. On Thursday, we drove down to Beth's mom's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and I don't have much to say about that other than that Uncle John made a dessert kugel with fruit in it, and the contrast of textures between the noodles and the rest of it was weird.

I wondered about the name because I knew "Kugel" was German for a bullet, but apparently the connection is that the word originally meant a ball or sphere, and early kugels tended to be round.

We drove the rest of the way to Virginia on Friday, and that's an annoyingly long drive. In the words of Bugs Bunny, "I wonder why they put the South so far south." Somehow, however, as tiring as driving is, in a way it's better than being a passenger, because I have more control. My subconscious mind apparently thinks this is a big deal, as I frequently have dreams about being frustrated at someone, usually a parent, who won't let me go home when I want to. We took I-95 much of the way, and I noticed they had a lot of RV dealerships along the highway. Beth likes to mess with the radio, and she noted that the religious stations down there seem more hardcore. There was one where some guy was insisting abortion was human sacrifice, which, regardless of your views on abortion, seems to misunderstand the concept of sacrifice. Religious radio stations are kind of fascinating, very insular and fearful, yet constantly advertising themselves with terms like "hope" and "inspiration." I guess that just proves I'm not part of their in-group. My grandmother was a believer in God and Heaven and all that, so I hope she made it to Paradise if it actually exists. What I couldn't listen to on the radio was someone complaining that the Democrats were taking over Virginia because the cities had all the power. If he's right, I'd say that's a good thing. But really, when cities do have more power (and they don't always), isn't that simply because they have more people? Is this dude arguing that voting should be based on area instead of people? I think it's largely Virginia's fault that we have the electoral college, so I guess they haven't changed much in the past 250 years. Anyway, the memorial service was held at my grandmother's church on Saturday, and afterwards we went back to her house to have ham on rolls. Beth and I later stopped for another meal at Ponderosa, which they don't have in our area anymore.

Happy New Year! Now this is a totally arbitrary holiday, isn't it? I think the reason the year begins in January has something to do with when the new Roman consuls took office. That's very relevant to today's society, isn't it? If they're going to make it that close to Christmas, why not just combine the two? Oh, wait. Because that means schools might not give the entire week off. Speaking of which, I always felt gypped when they made us go back on the second of January, although I guess that wouldn't be the case this year. At least our new year isn't in the seventh month. What the hell were you smoking when you came up with that, Moses? Then again, we have a ninth month called "seventh month," so I guess the Gregorian calendar isn't always that sensible after all. I believe the reason for that is that the winter months originally didn't have names, because no one wanted to bother counting the days, and when they added in January and February they didn't change any of the existing names. Our calendar year really was cobbled together, wasn't it?

Anyway, thanks to my irregular Walmart schedule, I ended up just getting off work at midnight. As arbitrary as New Year's is, I still kind of like to observe the tradition of marking when the year actually starts. Not that I've always done that, mind you. A few years ago, bethje and I were in the car on the way to Atlantic City at midnight. Another time, she was asleep, and I spent the whole night on the computer. Now that I think about it, I guess it's really not tradition so much as obsessive-compulsiveness.

My new quarter at school starts in a few days, but for some reason Blackboard is still showing my classes from last quarter. I wonder when they're going to change, or if I have to do something to enact that change. I'm taking one on-campus and one online course again; I didn't much like my last online course, but I didn't really have a choice with this particular class. Before my classes start, I'm trying to fit in as much time as I can for playing video games. I've made it up to Dourbridge in Dragon Quest IX, and last night I checked out the beginning of Bowser's Inside Story. I've also been having a lot of dreams that are bothersome for some reason or other, and those are never as restful as the other kind. A lot of them seem to involve having to go back to high school and work on some project, although travel dreams are also fairly common. What's up with that crap, subconscious?

For what it's worth, I don't make New Year's resolutions. I really should make an effort to be less sloppy, but that's not likely to happen. Aren't people with OCD supposed to be neat? Figures I'd get the disorder but not the only part that could be potentially beneficial.

Also, according to Harold Camping, the world is going to end this year. Mind you, he said the same thing about 1994. Still, you can't be too careful, right? :P

You might have heard by now about John Mayer's Playboy interview, in which he says something about having a "nigger pass" and a "David Duke cock." Margaret Cho wrote a post about how our society is accepting of such casual racism, which unfortunately seems to be the case. I never liked Mayer anyway, though. Why? His music is just dreadfully boring. The dude just drones on and on as if showing even the slightest hint of enthusiasm would make his head explode or something. When your songs are that bad, it doesn't really matter too much what you're singing about. As far as I can tell, though, the lyrics are also quite crappy. Take, for instance, his song "Daughters," which I used to hear all the time when I worked at a place that pumped in an easy listening station. (Incidentally, a hint for any workplace that does this: I'd much rather not listen to anything than hear the same lousy songs every day.) Here's the chorus to this piece of garbage:

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

All right, I can agree that treating children well is important, but why limit it to girls? What about the boys? Well, it looks like Mayer has an answer to that:

Boys, you can break
You'll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on

Okay, John, are you serious? When you sing everything in the exact same tone, it's hard to tell, but that Playboy interview does have him saying he hates other men. The thing is, from listening to his songs and looking at his facial expressions, Mayer appears to suffer from chronic depression. I remember someone mentioning that pictures of him made it look like he really needed to poop, and while I don't see that so much, he DOES look to be in perpetual pain.

And that's not even bringing his racist tendencies into account. Maybe if whoever raised him hadn't live by the "boys, you can break" philosophy, he wouldn't have turned out to be so much of a basket case. Then again, he also might not have made the money that comes from being a fixture on bad radio stations.

Come on, the fact that someone can have a hit song in this day and age saying that women are all delicate flowers who need to be protected just shows how generally ineffective the feminist movement has been. Oh, and the reason they're supposed to be protected is that "girls become lovers, who turn into mothers"? So if a woman has no interest in falling in love or bearing children, then what, it's okay if her parents abused her? Whatever happened to individualism, John? Or would it be too much for a guy with a self-described "David Duke cock" to get past stereotypes?

By the way, Mayer also said in the interview that he wouldn't normally date someone like Jessica Simpson, but sex with her was like crack cocaine to him. If only Jessica could read, I'm sure she'd be offended! No, seriously, I'm no fan of Jessica, but I like her a lot more than Jennifer Aniston, and Mayer is apparently still in love with her. Then again, I guess it makes sense that a terribly bland musician would be interested in a terribly bland woman. Hey, John, have you given any thought as to your next girlfriend? I hear Bristol Palin is available.

Okay, I think I've had enough of the media covering the reactions of the old ladies who gasp, "Well, I never!" while their monocles fall into their tea. Obviously I'm stereotyping, but I hope you know what I mean. The news will tell us some anecdote that there's really no reason for most of us to care one way or the other about, like Adam Lambert grinding a backup dancer's face into his crotch or Tiger Woods cheating on his wife, and the media highlight the reactions of the sanctimonious busybodies who still bother getting indignant at such things. Come on, if you want to overreact to everything you see on TV, that's your prerogative. But why encourage such people? We already have Fox News for that; the other networks don't need to join in. Hey, you know what I'm indignant about? That homophobia is still so accepted that politicians have to claim to be against gay marriage to be able to win in what we tend to consider our LIBERAL party. But I get the feeling that a lot of the "well, I never" crowd is all in favor of homophobia.

As for Adam Lambert, though, I'm sure he's glad to have gained some notoriety. When you're a pretty generic theater kid who got famous through a televised talent show, it's probably pretty hard to distinguish yourself from the rabble. Oh, and I'd also say I have to wonder how somebody could possibly be on a show like American Idol and be anti-gay (Jordin Sparks allegedly is, and I don't think she's the only one), but then I've also heard that there are homophobes in the International Wizard of Oz Club. Some friends of Dorothy they are!

Another thing that I've been meaning to rant about recently is...well, a few days ago, bethje and I were listening to the car radio, and they were playing sound bites of kids saying what they thought was in fruitcake. So, was it automatically supposed to be funny because the kids got it wrong, and since they were kids, their being wrong was just adorable? I'm not really sure I get it. I have to say I don't know a whole lot about kids (even when I WAS one, I didn't understand any of the others), but it seems to me that no children like to be patronized. And isn't an "aww, everything these little tykes do is so cute" attitude somewhat patronizing? I guess I also feel bad for the kids when parents think it's cute to take pictures of them with their pants down or spaghetti on their faces. Maybe I'm just projecting my own childhood insecurities onto the world, though. By the way, I also don't know what's in fruitcake, although I believe they generally contain brandy.

What else? Well, Beth and I watched the movie version of Rent last night. Not being a teenage girl or someone who remembers seeing the play when I WAS a teenage girl, I don't think I got a whole lot out of it. I guess I'm not quite sure why being loud, obnoxious, self-righteous, and unemployed is supposed to be a GOOD thing. I mean, I've been all of these things before at some time or other, but I don't brag about it. Or am I missing the point?

bethje and I have been to all twelve Monster-Mania Conventions in Cherry Hill, and the organizers just recently decided to have one in Connecticut as well. So we decided to attend, although we're not sure we'll go back if they ever have another one up there. It was kind of a long drive, during which I had to keep hearing the All-American Rejects hoping that it gives you hell, and Fergie announcing that she has that boom-boom-pow. Anyway, we stopped in Manhattan, because Stephanie M. had invited us to her birthday party, and it was my first time driving in New York City. It was pretty crazy, but we survived. What was harder to bear was paying $35 for parking. When I park in Philadelphia, I think $20 is pretty ridiculous. The party was at a bar, and I'm not generally much for bars, as they're just too noisy. I don't regret going, though. We got to meet therealtavie's twin sister Kirsten (who looks nothing like her), and see not_glimmer again before her return to Oregon.

The drive the rest of the way to Cromwell, Connecticut (which is near Hartford, not incredibly far from the Massachusetts border) was pretty uneventful, although we DID see a car that hit the jersey barrier and somehow caught on fire. Also, I learned that the Triborough Bridge is now the RFK Bridge. (Anyone remember when They Might Be Giants had an instrumental called "Triborough"? If they brought it back, would they have to call it "RFK"? {g}) Anyway, we stayed at a Super 8, and ate a late dinner at the not-very-good Cromwell Diner.

In the morning, we headed over to the Crowne Plaza where the convention was being held. I don't think it's as big as the one in Cherry Hill, but since there were fewer attendees, I suppose it didn't need to be. As usual, we primarily attended the question-and-answer sessions, the first three of which were with Ricou Browning (the Creature from the Black Lagoon for the underwater shots), Chris Sarandon (the vampire from Fright Night and the speaking voice of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas), and Tony Moran (one of the people who played Michael Myers in the first Halloween). Tony put his girlfriend on speaker phone for his session, which was pretty cool, but the fact that she was only twenty-four might not be. Oh, well. I guess the dating rules are different when you've played a character in a classic horror movie who wears a mask and doesn't talk. {g}

We weren't interested in seeing the Jason Mewes panel, so we took some time to check out the dealer room and hang out in the lobby before coming back for Sid Haig, who always puts on a fun session. Next came the Ladies of the Evil Dead, who were the three female characters from the original Evil Dead, all of whom have been doing the convention circuit together. I was kind of interested to learn that one of them was named Betsy Baker, which I believe was an alternate name that L. Frank Baum considered for Betsy Bobbin. (It all comes back to Oz, doesn't it? :P) Then came Bruce Campbell, who was quite entertaining, and was followed up by the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street reunions. Robert Englund was there, as was the hall monitor from the first Nightmare movie.

We had dinner at Friendly's, and then drove back home. Quite a long drive by my standards, but I thought it would be even worse if we stopped somewhere, so we just drove the whole distance from Cromwell back home. And that's about all I have to say. Well, actually, it isn't, but I think I should save the rest for another post. I will, however, link to the pictures I took:

Stephanie's party
Monster-Mania

I went to the dentist this morning. It's been a few years since the last time, but my mouth is apparently fine, aside from my inability to brush close enough to the gums. One thing I found odd is that I got my choice of flavored toothpastes (I chose Orange Creamsicle), which I thought they usually only did for kids. Actually, when I was a kid, it was always the fluoride treatment, not the toothpaste, for which I could pick the flavor. It's not like any of them really tasted like anything other than fluoride treatment, though.

Something I've been thinking about recently, which I guess is sort of tangentially related to dentists' offices, is that I'm not big on background music. That's not to say that I'm not usually listening to something while driving or using the computer. It's just that I don't really consider it background music, because I'm generally actually paying attention to it, not just putting it on for atmosphere. When I'm doing something that requires more intense concentration, I prefer quiet. I find it kind of hard NOT to listen to music, when it's on. I sometimes wonder if the reason for the success of radio stations that play smooth jazz or the same easy listening songs over and over again is that people really aren't listening too closely to them, but just like to have some sound going on in the background. Maybe that's just me showing my own biases, though.

So many radio stations seem to advertise themselves as playing "the most music." Of course, this can't be true for all of them, unless all of the ones that use that line play exactly the same amount. But am I alone in thinking that "less talk" isn't always a good selling point? I don't listen to the radio much, but when I do, I don't mind a certain amount of talk. That doesn't mean the sort of talk practiced by morning shock jocks who run dehydration contests, or Delilah's Corn Syrup for the Soul (they play her on the station they've been pumping into work while the satellite hasn't been working, more's the pity), but the more old-fashioned style of just talking between songs. Nowadays, it seems like a lot of stations don't even say what songs they're playing, which is a little weird. If the point of commercial radio is to advertise the music, well, how effective is an advertisement where they don't bother to say what the product is?

WEATHER UPDATE: It's been fluctuating a lot around these parts. During the nights, it's getting to the point where it's no longer comfortable to sit in my car and read during my breaks. On the other hand, I had to turn on the air conditioner in my car for a little while during the day today. I guess that's fall for you.

TOE UPDATE: I went to the podiatrist today, and he told me my toe was healing up nicely. I no longer have to soak my toe in water with salt and vinegar, which is something I'd been doing so long it had pretty much become part of my daily routine. He did say I should put moisturizer on it until it returns to its normal color and texture, though.

After my appointment, I stopped by the music store to see if they had the new Carolyn Mark album, which they didn't. They offered to order it for me, but I declined, since I can do that myself. I did, however, pick up the new Simpsons soundtrack album, Testify. It's kind of cool there's a new one out. You have no idea how much I used to listen to Songs in the Key of Springfield back in my college days.

According to this thing that countblastula and zimbra1006 did, ( I look like these people. )

bethje already made a post about the radio station we heard yesterday on the way to Monster-Mania, but I feel I should also point out that they also played an XTC song. Specifically, it was "Me And The Wind," which I wouldn't have expected to hear on the radio. When we came back to the car after the convention, though, the station was playing some crappy reggae music.

Speaking of songs, we went to Boston Market on Friday, and they played "What You Said," which appeared on Laura Cantrell's most recent album. It was so quiet that I couldn't really tell if it was her singing, but since that song is apparently a cover, it probably wasn't. It sounded like her version was quite faithful to the original, though.

And while I'm on the subject of covers, one of the songs they played between panels at the convention was a really lousy version of "How Soon Is Now?", sung by some unnecessarily angry guy. I don't know who it was, but that song is supposed to be angsty, not angry. {g}

I had a dream last night where I was smoking, and I think both cigarettes and pipes were involved. I've had dreams like that in the past, too. I can't recall whether I've actually smoked in the dreams, though, or just remembered having done it in the past. It seems that I generally have trouble smelling or tasting things in dreams, though. I can remember having dreams where I ate something, and it turned out to be totally flavorless. There was another part of the same dream (or possibly a different dream from the same night) that involved Beth wanting to go to South Carolina, but I don't remember anything else about that one.

( Here's a quiz result. )

Okay, the first order of business is to mention that Weird Al has a new song available for download (the link is on his web page). It isn't one of his best, but it has some clever lines, and hey, new Al is better than no Al, right?

Also, I have now listened to the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, which was a lot of fun. This was the original format, and the one that many say is the best. I guess I still prefer the books, partially because they're the original way in which I (and probably most American fans) first discovered the whole phenomenon, but also because Douglas Adams explained some things a lot better for the written version, notably how Ford and Arthur ended up in and subsequently left the prehistoric past, and the purpose of Zarniwoop's artificial universe. On the other hand, the voices for the radio show were great (although I honestly imagined Gargravarr sounding a little more pathetic), and I liked some of the bits that wouldn't have worked so well in print, like the out-of-tune robots singing the "Share and Enjoy" song.

For the most part, the radio series and the first two books tell the same story, but in a slightly different order, and with some more major differences. The planet Brontitall was left out of the books entirely, although some of its attributes were transferred to Frogstar World B. Trillian, who plays a fairly significant role in Life, the Universe, and Everything and Mostly Harmless, is actually written out of the radio play surprisingly early on. And the Secondary Phase of the radio show ends with a cliffhanger that's never resolved. I've heard that the BBC did make another series after Adams' death, but it just followed the later books, and dismissed the differences between the earlier books and the original radio show as Zaphod's dream. Kind of lazy, I think, but maybe they thought it would be disrespectful to come up with a conclusion (or as close as the Hitchhiker's series ever gets to a conclusion, anyway) that Adams hadn't written himself.

Finally, to ask an unrelated question, why do so many people that I talk to on the phone or through drive-thru speakers call me "ma'am"? Do I really sound that much like a girl?

One thing I forgot to mention in my last entry is that bethje and I heard "Don't Let's Start" on the radio yesterday. Why is it always so exciting when you hear a song you like on the radio, even when it's one you can listen to yourself at any time? Actually, I think I heard that same song on the radio unexpectedly before. I wonder whether any radio stations in the area ever play They Might Be Giants songs that AREN'T twenty years old. Not that there's anything wrong with the older songs (in fact, I prefer them in many ways), but I wonder how many radio DJ's and programmers realize that TMBG is still a going concern.

I recently had a dream about The Sims. I forget what happened, but there was a time when having a dream about the game always made me want to play it again. I don't even have it installed on my computer now, but I kind of want to play it. Not enough to actually do anything about it, though. Since I've been reading The Magical Monarch of Mo, I sort of think it would be cool to create a Royal Family of Mo household. I have weird ideas of what would be cool, don't I? {g}

And while I'm on the subject of L. Frank Baum, I got my order from the International Wizard of Oz Club. I got another set of the maps (I already had one set, but you can never have too many maps) and An Oz Picture Gallery, a collection of sketches by Dick Martin [1]. I like the picture of Ozma in riding togs, as well as the one of Sir Hokus playing chess on Ploppa's back. I wish he'd done a little more with the residents of Scare City, though. The Scares themselves can be seen only in shadow. As for the maps, they haven't been updated since 1980. I believe both of the creators are dead now (I know Martin definitely is), but I still think it would be nice to see an updated version. There have been several other books by "official" Oz authors published since 1980, as well as Gina Wickwar's The Hidden Prince of Oz, which won the Club's book-writing contest. Another kind of Oz map I'd like to see (and I believe I actually mentioned this to the late Fred Meyer [2]) is a larger version, to which I could add my own locations. I think I might post these ideas to the Club's message board, although I doubt anything will come of them.

And here's the Friday Five, courtesy of unclemilo:

#1 10 years ago what did you think you would be doing now?

I don't think I really had much more idea then than I do now. I was going into college as a computer science major, but I really hadn't thought about what I would do with that.

#2 Where do you think you will be in 5 years from now?

Probably the same place I am now, but I HOPE not.

#3 Do you live life one day at a time or look to the future.

Whichever is more stressful. Honestly, I think my mind actively seeks out things to be stressed about, even when they're not at all important.

#4 Do you wish you could go back in time and undo something in your life?

My gut reaction would be "yes," but I've been exposed to too many time-travel stories to risk ruining causality like that.

#5 If you could send a message back in time and give a younger version of yourself some advice, what would it be?

Well, with my first answer in mind, I might say not to bother becoming a computer science major. Except then I wouldn't have had it as a minor, so I suppose that might not be such a good idea.

[1] No relation to the Laugh-In guy, as far as I know.
[2] No relation to the department store, as far as I know.