Time for tuneage! (Or is it spelled tunage?) Here are my earworms for the past few weeks; I've been delinquent in not sharing! A variety of styles represented, you should be able to find at least ONE you like.
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In this strangely-staged video, Steve Winwood looks like a boy scout. Come to think of it, he still does. Also, I know he is talking about tribesmen, but I always think of Marvel comics Headmen. I blame my spouse for that!
40,000 Headmen - Traffic
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I debated whether I should jeopardize my musical cred by playing a JOURNEY song ((gasp)) -- an 80s-era secret guilty pleasure of mine, along with Duran Duran. I figured if they were good enough for Tony Soprano, they're good enough for me. Just listen to these purty power chords. (my favorite is at 1:07-14---yowee!) And check out that utterly flawless, bang-up finish.
I love this because it brings back the period surrounding my second divorce quite vividly. Ironically, I wasn't having any fun at the time... but your youth is still your youth, even when it sucks... and one day, believe it or not, you will wax nostalgic over even the suckiest times.
The Girl Can't Help It - Journey
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Did I say Duran Duran?
It is notable that (unlike today) all of the women in this video appear to be of a reasonably healthy weight.
Girls on Film - Duran Duran
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You can close your eyes - James Taylor and Carly Simon
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I frequently quote Billy Jack on blogs ("I try, I really do") and only recently discovered the kidz never even heard of him. Admittedly, I forced my daughter, Delusional Precious, to watch Billy Jack when she was 14 or so (the age I was when I saw it), and she rolled her eyes during most of it. So, I will simply show this montage of clips with the theme song, which you may have heard before.
Time out for hippies!
One Tin Soldier (theme from Billy Jack) - Coven
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There are several excellent versions of this on YouTube, including a great live one w/Crazy Horse, but I wanted the one with fiddles, horse-clopping sounds and Nicolette Larson. (R.I.P.) And whaddaya know, I found it, played right off the record. :)
Comes a Time - Neil Young w/Nicolette Larson
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I was planning to save these last two for Instrumental Oldies, Pt 2, but decided to play them now... since it appears I will never get around to fabled Part Two. I was doing pretty good to post the first one!
Time is Tight - Booker T and the MGs
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Not everyone has an iphone to tell them the names of songs! Whenever this gets played in the store where I work, someone asks me who it is. This was the 'official' video; the original song was well over 7 minutes. (Again, the presence of dancing women of healthy weights! Pretty radical stuff!)
Hey you crazy kidz, hope you all have a great New Years celebration planned. And resolutions, lots and lots of good-hearted resolutions, that make us feel all warm and fuzzy (at least until we break them).
This year has seen DEAD AIR's lowest number of blog posts ever, and one of my resolutions is to post more, even if the posts are short. I don't have to turn everything into a damn epistle! But alas, old habits die hard.
The important thing is the HABIT, I have discovered. If you let a few days go by without writing, well... it's easier to let a few MORE days go by... and finally, you aren't writing at all. That's how it initially happened to me some years ago, when I went long periods (like, years) without writing. I missed chronicling some very important, earth-shattering events, and I now greatly mourn the loss. (We can't remember everything we were thinking/doing ten years ago, even if we believe we do; I re-read parts of this blog from only three years ago and I am astounded at the details I have forgotten already.) I decided I wouldn't let that happen again, but this year, I nearly did.
As many of you know, my spiritual center (so to speak) was re-centered (so to speak), and I found it hard to adequately convey my thoughts and feelings around the shift in sensibility. I still find it very difficult, and I am largely unable to write sensibly about leaving the Church. It remains a jumble of emotions and I need to let it all settle, before I attempt to go there. I have about a half-dozen unfinished posts regarding sudden realizations I have had, re: Christianity and identifying as Christian. For one thing, a loss of respectability, that 1) I didn't know I had and 2) didn't know I valued. Some of this respectability is social, some political, and some is self-respect, and that last one is the one that caught me off guard.
I still identify as a Catholic in a social/ethnic way, and that is also very hard to quantify. I am not sure I even understand what it means, but it is simply true.
And so, forward into another year...
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Two of Cravin Melon, but not sure which two! (They introduced themselves as "2/5 of Cravin Melon" at the Earth Fare benefit for Harvest Hope Food Bank, Thanksgiving Eve.)
I am currently waiting for the cops to arrive to arrest me for not deleting the troll's angry posts (!), as I have been assured they are on the way.
Today, I drove home at breakneck pace and the only thing I found was two florescent light bulbs outside my door, to install in the kitchen. *sigh* No cops. No subpoena. No indictment. Galdurnit! (as my late uncle liked to say) It appears I got all my hopes up for nothing.
I was planning a really JAZZY end-of-year post about Freedom of Speech and blogging, complete with trolls sending me to jail after posting their addresses on my blog (seriously, read the link)... but nah. I was also hopeful that this would be a big First Amendment case, endearing me to all of Blogdonia (and bringing me thousands of hits, of course), but it all turned out to be just another annoying pain in the ass.
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Tyler Ramsey at the Bohemian Cafe in Greenville, December 4th. His musical compatriots, BAND OF HORSES, have just been nominated for a Grammy award, which he called "Some crazy news!" It certainly is!
Congrats on the nomination, Tyler, and good luck. (Apologies for the blurry photo, but it was kinda dark in there.)
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I did want to link a few people who posted especially interesting, fun and/or very readable stuff that I didn't get to highlight previously:
But to some the fascism warned of in all those faint allusions to totalitarian horrors already exists and the death camp trains have been running for decades with barely a peep from the professional liberals. Should we care about Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo when he never felt pressure enough to even lie about wanting to shut down the Corrections Corporation of America? Prisons and the racist legislation, hyper-policing, brutality and fraudulent judicial system that keep them filled are among the nation’s biggest businesses. Joblessness and poverty continue to worsen and even the tens of thousands dying from war abroad are more than matched by the deaths in this country resulting from public policies which deny adequate housing, food and health care to millions.
Speaking of which, I've been a loyal REAL HOUSEWIVES fan since day one, but this year, I was pretty disappointed in the newest incarnation: The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Boring, predictable, with no authentic or amusingly-outrageous neurosis at all, just garden-variety, high-tax-bracket narcissism. Narcissism without neurosis is just... narcissism. Neurosis, however, is what makes the world go round! (We crave copious tearful, self-centered confessions about how no one understands what they go through!!!!) The Bev Hills gang doesn't have enough self-pity to suit me... or it could be that they've had SO MUCH BOTOX they are totally unable to move their faces (the husbands too!) and as a result, cry with their eyes wide open. And that just doesn't pull at my heartstrings in the same way.
If you can't even scrunch up your face and cry like the rest of us, fuck you.
:: Sheila instructs us in Relearning how to breathe. As a customer service rep, I would often notice that my breathing would get all raggedy and strange, after an hour or so of getting my ass chewed out non-stop. I would take a few seconds and concentrate on breathing in and out, and I was amazed at the difference in my state of mind, my countenance, my inner calm.
I hate the confusion that surrounds my birthday now. People constantly getting confused, “so which birthday do you celebrate?” “When is your real birthday?” Since finding out the truth, I would rather deny my birthday all together, no celebrations, no worries about what or how birthdays are supposed to feel to someone who does not even know how to think of her own birth. It only marks another year that I have spent separated from pieces of myself that may or may not even exist; pieces of my self that made me, created me, but don’t know me now. It only marks a deep sadness at having celebrated something that was so wrong for so long, something that wasn’t real, the way sometimes entire decades of my life have felt.
And now (((drum roll))) DEAD AIR VIDEO OF THE YEAR... as always, my criteria is the same: Which one did I listen to the most after I initially posted it?