littleblakebook

Bad Crowd

Another picture of our beloved Jim Himes with some wannabe (actually our pal Andree's cousin).

Jim, you can't carry the whole party on your back!  Don't let them take advantage of you!

Go Jim Go!

My New Hero

As you can imagine, I'm not a hip-hop kinda guy, but I have a new hero.  His name is E-40, who is off the malt liquor (which gave him his nom de hip-hop) and onto a new, more price-conscious choice.

E-40, born Earl Stevens, had come to promote a new record and had also come — as is his custom these days — with a four-liter jug of Carlo Rossi burgundy, his beverage of choice after laying off the 40-ounce beers that lent him his recording name.

And it gets better:

E-40, who had been filling a Poland Spring bottle with wine from his jug, also seemed to be finding the humor in it all: so much energy directed at less than three minutes of video — for a telephone.

That is about as punk rock as you can get.  Cristal ($200), Courvoisier ($75), Carlo Rossi ($5.99).  This is how we roll now.

God bless you, E-40, for bring in hip-hop's post-bling era.

Keeping it in Perspective

Football is a fall sport-- back to school, crisp fall afternoons, new sweaters.

At the more serious schools, they'll have spring practice, where the players spend a few weeks working on plays and learning their trade, culminating in an intramural scrimmage ("The Spring Game").   Most schools don't bother--  some of the football team might be playing on the baseball team.  Or doing an internship. Or God Forbid, studying.

Some schools are so hardcore that they'll sell tickets to this scrimmage.

For example, last year Oklahoma State (a pretty serious football school) got 500 people to show up  Not bad for April.  Missouri did even better-- 1,700 attendance.

Yesterday's spring game at Nebraska:  63,416 attendance

For reference, here's yesterday's rankings of Nebraska cities by population:

Omaha                        404,267
Lincoln                        235,594
Memorial Stadium          63,416
Bellevue                        46,734
Grand Island                    43,771

Welcome to the Prairie.

One Potato Chip

 

We're all in favor of the legal mp3, don't get me wrong, but there's something about downloading "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)" by Haircut 100 that makes you say, "Well, if I can get something that random, why CAN'T I get 'Dancing in Heaven' by Q-Feel?"  The world owes me access to "Just Got Lucky" by JoBoxers and "Escalator of Life" by Robert Hazard.

The '90's-- no problem.  It's all available.

The '70's-- all the stuff I remember, even vaguely ("Billy, Don't be a Hero") is there if you want it.

And we all know about the 80's boom.  But with each layer of topsoil (Duran Duran) and Permafrost (Go West) that gets excavated, there's a bedrock layer of one-hit wonder obscurity that can't be penetrated (VITT-amin Zed).  How can this be so?  I'm thrilled about the beginnings of democracy in the Mideast, but am ready to march in the streets of Omaha over the impossibility of finding an mp3 of "Cath" by The Bluebells.

Grrrrrrr.

In this context, here's my list of up-to-now unattainable '80's music. Help.

Artist Song

Fischer-Z, So Long

The Colour Field, Can’t Get Enough of You Baby

Motels, Dressing Up

Nik Kershaw, Wouldn’t It Be Good

Bluebells, Cath

Robert Hazard, Escalator of Life

Pete Shelley, Homo Sapiens

Any Trouble, Second Choice

Vitamin Z, Burning Flame

Blow Monkeys, Digging Your Scene

When in Rome*, The Promise

Belouis Some, Imagination

Lene Lovich, New Toy

Translator, Everywhere That I’m Not

*Please note that every other track from When in Rome's long (ahem) and successful (ahem ahem) career is available online.  But one cannot download the hit.  I don't mean to sound like I have an MBA or anything, but that's not the most forward-thinking strategy I've ever seen.

China thinks my '80's picks are awful.  I think hers are insane.  Isn't that what marriage is all about? 

People think married people fight about sex, money, and in-laws. We fight about Oingo Boingo.

P.S.  Just to show you the hard work that went into this disposable music, here's a quote from Dig Wayne, lead singer of the immortal JoBoxers:

"Joboxers were       untouchable. The commitment to the band and it's music was something to       behold. We thought nothing of rehearsing five or six hours a day, practically       every day."

Not Boring Yet

Not boring at all.  Go Pats!

BHS Namecheck

I'm a bit behind, but this article about Belmont Hill and how humorless the grading is appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine.

Hah!  I'm impressive, no?  Alumni donations should double as proud alums rationalize their bad grades.  It's not my fault-- it was intentional!

Common People Video

The best and the brightest with Bill Shatner (from left, H. Rollins, J. Jackson, B. Folds, Wm. Shatner).  Click Here to watch video from Tonight Show.  A bit (OK, really) disconcerting, but memorable.

Best of 2004

Our great pal Charlie Singer polls his friends around the world (most of whom work for MTV or other posts of the Redstone Organization) every December for the best music they've heard.  He then collates the results and distributes them.  It's a great New Year's Tradition, as most continents are represented (although generationally, we're all now in the no longer hipsters category.)  Here's my ballot.

I'll post the full results when they're distributed.

From your Omaha correspondent--

1.  Best Event:  Red Sox win World Series.  It was all worth it.

2.  Counting Crows, "Accidentally in Love"  I hate Counting Crows.  But this song has the-chord-change-that-breaks-your-heart(tm).  I am powerless to resist.  (And it's on the Shrek 2 soundtrack.  Lotta street cred there.)

3.  Scissor Sisters "Take your Mama Out"  Great knockoff of Elton John 1.0.  (Not to be confused with Elton John 2.0, who gave us Nikita)

4.  The Streets "Fit but you Know It"  Idiotic/Brilliant.

5.  Nelly McKay, "I Wanna Get Married" and "Sari"  She's got more talent than she knows what to do with.  Eminiem, Doris Day, and Elvis Costello in a blender.

6.  Finn Brothers, "Won't Give In"  Not as good as the glory days, but Neil Finn is still a genius

7.  Keane "Somewhere Only We Know"  Coldplay knockoff, but good Coldplay knockoff

8.  Snow Patrol "Chocolate"  Props to Nordern Oirland

9.  Prince "Musicology" and "Call My Name"  The album is good, but the concert was massive.  Highlight:  Prince doing a call and response "Let me hear ya say O-ma-hawwwww"  "O-ma-hawwwwww"  If you can make Omaha funky, you're a high achiever.

10.  Loretta Lynn "Portland, Oregon"  Duet w/Jack White which sounds suspiciously like old Allman Brothers

11.  Rilo Kiley "Portions for Foxes"  Heartbreakingly wonderful.  Like Sam Phillips produced by Nick Lowe.  Best reference to the Psalms this year.

12.  Von Bondies "C'mon, C'mon"  Title song to FX's "Rescue Me" and v catchy

13.  Hives "Walk Idiot Walk"  You'd think the joke would be running a little thin at this point, but another great one from them.  Maybe it's not schtick.

14.  Nellie Furtado "Forca"  Unbelieveable production.  Nice use of African/American Banjo in Portuguese-language song by Canadian.  (Very United Colors of Benetton)

15.  Libertines "Can't Stand Me Now"  Great we-hate-each-other-but-we're-still-in-the-same-band song. 

16.  William Shatner "Common People"  Cameo of the year goes to Joe Jackson, who sounds 22 again when he comes in out of nowhere to scream/sing "She just smiled and held my haaaaaaand".  It was great the first time around, but this cover may actually be better than the original.  Ben Folds contains multitudes.

17.  Drive-by Truckers "Carl Perkins' Cadillac"  Great songwriting, and makes Southern Rock sounds kind of appealing again (God forbid my Molly Hatchet albums turn up...)

18.  Damien Rice "Cannonball"  Very pretty.

19.  Best Book:  A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. 

Just about all of science in a book for non-scientists.  The guy is a hilarious writer, and he knows nothing about science, which enabled him to ask the dumb questions that a layman would ask.  Fascinating stuff, really well explained.  As a Latin major in college, I feel way up to speed now.  It's kind of a life-changing book.  No more fear of science.

20.  Best Pop Archaeology:  Brian Wilson's Smile.  Wow.  Some of it is just stupid, but a lot of it is fantastic.  The guy is incandescently talented.

21.  Best Collapse:  New York Yankees Baseball Club, Inc.

22.  Best Executive  Theo Epstein

Brilliant

U2 has been known to be eye-rollingly tedious from time-to-time, but they always end up doing something that makes me forgive them.  For example, Bono needs to get some kind of prize for this:

"Whether it's Catholic guilt or whatever it is, it's not on to have this life that we've been given — this amazing life — and be crap."

Yes.

Almost There

Woo-hoo! An emotional week, but VERY happy ending.

I debated waking up Pierce and Lily to see the final out, but decided that can wait for the (gulp) World Series.

Rooting for the Red Sox is like being in an abusive relationship. For your whole life. And you don't have the will to leave.

But right now, all is forgiven. I just love them.