It really is A Perfect Day

I sit on a number of draft blog entries, waiting for the time I feel like posting them. Mostly it's because I start a thought, then can't find the right finish.  But I'm feeling a little melancholy today, so I'm finishing this one.
A couple months ago I came across an amazing music video, and wanted to find the right theme to put it in the blog.  Then something odd happened, and I didn't know if I'd ever use it--I'll explain.  It's Lou Reed's "A Perfect Day," performed by a startling array of artists.  And yes, it made western hemispheric news over a purported snub wherein Lou Reed supposedly prevented Susan Boyle from performing it, after she had made a trans-Atlantic and trans-continental flight for the express purpose of singing it on America's Got Talent.  That whole mess happened about a week after I found it on the web, and rather than let people think I posted because of that flap, I just dropped it.  But a happy ending demands attention; it turns out Lou Reed had nothing to do with refusing Boyle, and in fact, directed the video which now accompanies her version.  Its a good one, but I'll just include the link here, because I want to embed the BBC version:

http://video.aol.com/aolvideo/aol-music/a-perfect-day/661983732001

A little background:  the BBC is funded by a TV tax in the UK, which is forever decried by a tax-weary public.  So from time to time BBC puts something together to demonstrate the superiority of non-commercial driven TV entertainment--freedom of artistry.  This video however was also the BBC's centerpiece in 1997 for the charity they sponsor, Children in Need.  Check out Bowie, Dr John, and my man, Tom Jones...



The charity sold this version, and versions featuring just the men, and just the women.  Don't know where to find them now, but wouldn't they be cool?

Pumpkin Pix

I did try the fancy design after all, and it was tedious work--I'll let the viewer decide if it was worth it.

 And here's a cool sunset from a couple weeks ago--don't know why but we get some spectacular skies here.

Election Day, Don't You Dare Ruin My Halloween

Anyone who knows me at all knows I love Halloween.  One of my earliest blogs (Oct '08) explained my feelings about October 31, so I won't repeat it here.  Instead, just a few observations and reflections on this year's activities.

First, there are two pumpkins in my garage that await my carving attention.  Each year I am torn between attempting one of those amazing templates that you can buy or copy from the internet, and simply going with my instinct on the choppy scary face.  The latter always wins because the former requires more patience than I am willing to expend.  The result however has always been satisfactory, once I put that votive candle inside and turn off the lights.

Some of the neighbors are really into the season--one guy has several enormous blow-up and animated creatures in the yard; the black cat has glowing eyes and stands about 6 feet tall, and its head moves side to side.  Very cool.

At school, this was a funny week.  Jake, the 6th grader, forgot to tell me that each day was a different spirit day--hat day, camo day, etc.  This being a short week ending today, I figured out for myself it would be costume day.  Last year he was berserk about Freddy Kruger, and he did it up big; hat, face mask, clothes and claw glove.  This year he made no plans, so last night I bought him one of those cheap Groucho Marx glasses/nose/mustache combos so he'd have something to wear today.  He loved it, and put on his fedora to complete the "costume." I told him if anybody asked, he was every adult's worst nightmare, the Tax Man from the IRS.  When I dropped him off at school this morning, there were the usual witches, princesses and ball-players (somebody always wears their football or little league uniform).  One little girl had a great costume: a fake picket fence surrounded her and was full of plastic flowers.  Jeez I love Halloween.

Many TV shows have a Halloween theme this week, usually very creative.  Last night "Modern Family" was an all-out hoot, and possibly my favorite line ever uttered on a sitcom was said:  asked if a neighbor and his wife were coming over for an over-the-top Halloween celebration, the neighbor shockingly replied his wife had left him.  After a stunned and awkward moment, the crestfallen desertee said "I better go, I have a dish to wash."  Classic. And so to the point.

I suppose I should mention the "Succeeding Holiday Encroachment" phenomenon.  As we all love to marvel at the rapidity with which that most commercial of holy holidays hits the stores, I think we have a watershed this year.  At the local CVS, you can find Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas merchandise on the aisles simultaneously.  K-Mart also.  Frankly, I think Thanksgiving is only in there to remind people of Black Friday (the massive sales event).  Another shameless plug for my favorite holiday, Halloween is the ONLY holiday for which blatant commercialism is absolutely appropriate!

Last comment--the coming election is sucking attention away from Halloween.  Don't do it, Election Day.  Stop it, right now.  Boy, you are really ugly this year, with possibly the most egregious mud-slinging ever.  What happened to the issues?  Aw, screw it, attack ads have a proven track record, so that's where we are spending those hidden-donor and corporate campaign funds.  There must be A LOT of $$ in the coffers.  Thanks a lot, Supreme Court.  I am struggling about whom to vote for, because I only know the skeletons in the closets of the candidates, not their stand on issues.  Wait a minute.  OK, skeletons are appropriate for this time of year--maybe politics is finally getting into the spirit of the season.  And politics are scary...suddenly it makes sense why Election Day is always so close to Halloween.

Jeez, I Keep Finding This Stuff

Confession:  The main reason I can't resist embedding videos here from time to time is it makes it easy to find those that I want to see again.  A close second, I also find some that I want to share out of pure perversity.  So here are two, one from each category, hope you enjoy.

First, a charming little remix ditty from the movie Up.  Ummm, if you have not seen this Disney/Pixar inevitable classic, be forewarned (as I was not), the first 10 minutes are hard to watch--at least for me, gut-wrenchingly bitter-sweet.  In fact, I don't ever want to see that segment, ever again.  Not ever. Yeah, how does Disney manage to... darn those people...Nevermind, I am going to stop talking about it RIGHT NOW.
Sorry.  Actually, it necessarily sets up the rest of the movie.

OK, this clip was put together by Aussie DJ Pogo, and I believe he said it took him 2 months of sampling words to get the chords right.  To me, it sounds like something Sade might have sung if she was, you know, like, happier.  It's worth a listen if for no other reason than it's the closest you're going to get to hearing Ed Asner sing.



Now for the perverse.  More intellectually-charged than a Kardashian Family Reunion; more thought-provoking than a BassMasters TV marathon; more topically cogent than SpongeBob Squarepants--I present the artistic medium known as... the "Long-form Advertisement."  Slightly reminiscent of SNL's skit "The Continental," this could not have been creepier if Christopher Walken himself did it.  File this one under "Idon'tseewherethisisgoingohmygoddidhejust..."

10 Things You Didn't Know About Your Parents

There must be a million things we don't know about our parents. Even if they were teens when we were born, they must have had years of grown-up experiences before we even cared to know. If my dad were still here, I'd ask him a lot about WWII, and my mom too--she was a Naval Officer, a WAVE. I'm sure there is plenty we DON'T want to know... but I thought it might be interesting to come up with 10 things my kids either didn't know, or didn't know the whole story, about their mom and/or me.
So here is a list, in no particular order:

1. My eyes each see colors slightly differently, probably because I mishandled a UV light when I was 11.
2. Before we were married, your mom volunteered helping patients at a free medical clinic in Gainesville, FL.
3. At age 14, I almost got my family kicked out of an apartment building after walking on the edge of the roof.  It was about 10 stories up.
4. Your mom was a Store Detective at AAFES in 1979-80, and was a natural at catching shoplifters.  After receiving threats from some people she caught, she switched to working in the warehouse--her shoulders and arms got so muscular she had to buy new shirts.
5.  She spent her first AAFES paycheck on me--to buy a Fairchild video game, it was one small step above "Pong," but state-of-the-art at the time--we were the hit of the neighborhood.
6. Also in 1979, we owned a green moped and your mom rode it to and from work.  I think it was a Honda.
7. My parents started me on 3 musical instruments in school before the last one "took;" first piano, then flute, finally trombone.
8. When your mom owned a craft consignment business in Michigan, she sometimes secretly bought the artists' work, to encourage them when business was slow.
9. Your mother used to have a random tooth positioned in front of her right upper canine; I loved her for it, she, of course, hated it.  As a couple, it was our first major expense to get it fixed.
10. I flunked my first written drivers test in Florida at age 17--misidentified a traffic sign.  Then I barely passed the actual driving test, so naturally, my first job after High School was as a car parts delivery driver.

Chant Songs I Have Known

Everybody's heard of Gregorian chants, but I just learned that they are not sung only by men--how chauvinist of me. Apparently they have always been sung by both sexes of monastic orders, sometimes even in mixed company, for over a millennium. Named for Pope Gregory I from the 7th Century, who was credited with ordering the simplification and cataloging of music assigned to specific celebrations in the church calendar.

I recently heard on Public Radio that a search by a major record company resulted in the selection of nuns in a convent near Avignon, France, to produce a CD of their chanting. They sound pretty amazing from the sample I've heard. As happens it got me to thinking about chanting songs I'm more familiar with, and I've included three below.

This is the first one I remember, Witchi Tai To; interestingly it is a Native American peyote chant set to mellow music--adding to it's popularity? It came out when we were becoming aware of pollution to our environment, which was popularly connected to native respect for the land. "Water spirit feeling springing round my head... makes me feel glad that I'm not dead." Catchy, it's one of those things that stayed with me for a long time. Jack Johnson made a cover of this.



Next is the one I think everybody has heard, Return To Innocence by Enigma. What I just found out is that the chant was illegally sampled from a--get this--indigenous Taiwanese "Jubilant Drinking Song" that was recorded by two native Taiwanese on CD as part of a cultural exchange program in France! Almost as odd, the drum beat was sampled from Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." I played this song so much in the car it drove my family nuts... all the time thinking it was Native American.



After doing a little research I found many Native American chants set to music. I thought this one was particularly representative and beautiful:



Hope you enjoyed!

Following up the last entry so as to actually write something

Gotta get back into the blog habit and, as usual, I feel I must tie up issues from the last one I posted no matter how untimely it has become.

Well, as all know by now Abby Sunderland was found safe shortly after my last posting. I was very glad to hear it, and then allowed myself a brief excursion back into the "how on earth could her parents have allowed this" frame of mind. Aha, perhaps I was not alone. Turns out her family was shopping around a reality show based on the Sunderland kids and their love of life and all things adventurous. The dad said they pulled the idea when it became apparent the takers were going to go after the same slant I would have--namely "how on earth could her parents have allowed this."

At the heart of it is my, and apparently others, thought that a 16 year old girl shouldn't even be out of the house after midnight with her pals, let alone circumnavigating the globe alone. It just screams a certain naivete that no parent in the 21st century has any right to possess. All that aside, I wonder at a world where a full third of the population is starving, and yet a certain contingent spends their lives thrill seeking and "self-actualizing" as in the afore-mentioned stunt. Getting into the Guinness Book of records has taken up the time available for such idle pursuits as, say, community service, for one.

I sure couldn't talk if such people donated a part of their time serving on a soup kitchen line, for example. And, well, I can't talk anyway, since I'm not contributing either; having stopped contributions to the several charities I used to support. So at this point I'll drop the subject, and maybe contemplate why I myself am not a better person.... ah, this world in which we live...

I am usually optimistic at heart, and that included my assessment of the current recession--I was fairly certain it would turn the corner, and very soon too... but lately I have picked up on several things that have me a little worried.

First, there's been talk of calling this a double-digit recession--referring to the number of years it may continue, I believe. But that's not the most telling bit, especially since there have been nay-sayers on recovery all along, and always have been through the years. No, what worries me is the undertone that we are becoming less productive, more of an entitlement based society with unrealistic expectations on the part of our young work force. That's not good--we will never recover if we become lazy in comparison to the rest of the world.

Our productivity in terms of what we accomplish in an 8 hour day, compared to other "first world" countries, has always been high if not the highest. It, along with technological advances, has been the main mast of our "Ship of State." But a perfect storm of laziness, combined with stagnant technology advances and growing economies in Asia, will permanently break the mast.

Something pretty spectacular would have to come down the pike to get us through that storm. We better hope we master fusion energy or teleportation pretty darn soon...

So here's hoping that succeeding generations of Americans find their roots again in a good old fashioned work ethic--about that, I am still optimistic.