I received it as a Christmas gift from my parents back in 1992. The world was a simpler place back then – back before the Unabomber, before Y2K, before the Scary Movie films. It was on this little boom box that I listened to The White Album for the first time and thought to myself, “Wild Honey Pie is certainly the finest song ever composed.” During high school and college, I used this stereo to compile an estimated 300 mixtapes – some for myself, some for friends, but most for girls I liked who would most certainly return my romantic interests if I could only introduce them to a particular album cut by Collective Soul. As always, my reasoning was cogent and valid.
Well today, the romantic interest of my life told me that my old stereo is too big and ugly for our house, and told me I had to get rid of it. Bursting into tears, I pleaded for my old friend with haggard shouts of anguish and by holding my breath until I lost consciousness, but to no avail. It was time. Its CD player had long ceased working, and its cassette player ate tapes, basically rendering it an oversized AM radio used to listen to Vikings games and swear at.
It was time to take my sturdy old companion out back and mercilessly blast its head off with a shotgun, metaphorically speaking.
So I did. Upon returning, I sat down to write this post. Bitter, salty tears are dripping down my beard and into the heaping bowl of butterscotch pudding Bridgette prepared to help console me. Later today, we will go out and purchase a new stereo – a smaller one more suitable for the times we live in. I suppose I may grow to love this stereo, but it will never be the same as the one I had to leave behind.
Farewell, my old portable stereo. I hope you are being attended to by scores of virgins somewhere in home electronics heaven.
My wife was working this weekend, and I ended up spending all my time sitting in my sunroom engrossed in Thomas Craughwell’s excellent book Stealing Lincoln’s Body.
The text is a spare, compelling account of a bizarre 1876 attempt to hold Abraham Lincoln’s remains for ransom. The details of the heist itself aren’t enough to support a 200-page book, so Craughwell uses it to frame a vivid picture of America in the second half of the 19th century. He covers the crisis of counterfeited money following the Civil War, nativist Protestant resentment toward Irish Catholic immigrants, corrupt Chicago politics, and the development of the Secret Service. All these threads wind their way through the narrative of what happened to the remains of Abraham Lincoln. This is an eerie, haunted story that is sure to stick with me for a while. A fun read.
Here are some tidbits gleaned from the text. Do not bother to question them.
-The heist was a poor attempt by a ring of Chicago counterfeiters to secure a pardon for an imprisoned business partner, along with $200,000. They planned to break into Lincoln’s loosely-guarded monument in Springfield, IL, and remove his casket from the marble sarcophagas it had been placed in 11 years earlier. The grave-robbers managed to break in and had started to remove the casket from the sarcophagas when they were discovered. The entire endeavor had been amateurish and ill-advised; the kidnappers’ litany of mistakes would be more humorous if they hadn’t come so close to successfully desecrating Lincoln’s remains.
-A parallel scheme to kidnap the bones of Chex, Lincoln’s cat, failed when it was revealed that Chex was still alive, and was also not a cat at all, but Lincoln’s human son Robert.
-If Lincoln’s grave desecrators were alive today, they’d be blown away by our iPods and HDTVs. Then they’d go and desecrate Gerald Ford.
-The hero of Craughwell’s story is a man named John Carroll Power, the original custodian and self-appointed guardian of the Lincoln Monument in Springfield. Traumatized by the break-in, Power dedicated himself for the remainder of his life to protecting the remains of the Lincoln family.
-In a interesting historical curio, it is believed that President Andrew Jackson was never buried. Rather, he ascended into heaven on a cloud powered by Manifest Destiny where he punched St. Peter in the crotch to gain admission.
-Sometimes Abraham Lincoln watches me when I take baths.
-As a result the chaos following the break-in, and the ongoing structural problems of the monument itself, Lincoln’s coffin was kept in the corner of the monument’s basement under a pile of lumber for several years. Power and several trusted associates later secretly buried Lincoln’s remains in a shallow corner of the basement for several more years until a more suitable solution could be found.
-Barack Obama is also from Illinois, and is also good at giving speeches, and is also the greatest president since Lincoln or FDR, whichever one came later. I am an editor at Newsweek magazine.
-Troubled by fears that their efforts to protect Lincoln’s remains had failed, Power and several others took it upon themselves to actually open the coffin to positively identify the body in 1887. Later, in 1901, just before Lincoln was lowered to his final resting place, the coffin was opened for a final time. In both instances, onlookers were started at the remarkable preservation of Lincoln’s body (the result of the heavy embalming efforts utilized for the month-long funeral procession from Washington to Springfield back in 1865). His face was immediately recognizable, though the color of his skin had darkened as a result of the shattering of his skull. The men remarked that it was like looking at a bronze bust of Lincoln rather than the man itself. After the viewing in 1901, the lead coffin was sealed shut once again, placed in a cedar casket, and lowered into a concrete-sealed tomb below the monument where he has lain ever since.
-Dairy Queen’s Blizzard flavor of the month for July is Lincolndust.
At one point during in school last year I had a hard time explaining to my students how Michael Jackson could have been such a cool, universally beloved figure in the 80s – they had grown up with the absolutely bizarre behavior and child molestation charges surrounding him, and never got a chance to experience Michael Jackson as The Most Talented Man on the Planet.
As a kid in rural Minnesota, I idolized certain pop cultural figures like he and Kirby Puckett. Turns out both of them had their demons, but there weren’t any bigger in my world when I was young.
Well, now Michael Jackson is dead at age 50. He is survived by his children Blanket, Pickle, and Rainbow Bright.
This regal beast is the property of my in-laws, the man and woman who tenderly bore and raised my beloved wife. The dog’s name is Mausi (or Mitsy, or Muffins, or something similarly inscrutable).
Anyway, my point is that I cleaned up its puke this weekend.
For those of you unacquainted with hot, yellowish-green German Shephard barf, I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the grossest things in the universe. I watched the wretched creature spread its jaws wide and silently disgorge a massive pile of vomit on the floor. Alone with my wife, I knew that we would have to clean it up, so I went to fetch some cleaning supplies. When I had returned, I found a similarly revolting barf-mound in another corner of the room.
In all, we’re talking more than a half-gallon of thick, chunky heavings left behind for me by this bastard dog.
Bridgette was little help in cleaning up the mess. For one, she is 6 months pregnant, so bending over is not the easiest. Secondly, she got a case of the giggles when she saw the disgusting sludge-heaps, so her “help” came in the form of laughing while I was suppressing the gag reflex, scooping the warm, nauseating stomach contents of my in-laws’ German Shephard into the garbage.
Hooray for awfulness!
P.S. When Bridgette read this post, she got the giggles again.
Fresh from our oven of sadness, a piping hot pile of new Rock TV!
From the moment the writing team solidified the concept, this video was a lot of fun to produce. We enjoyed getting to riff on stale sitcom conventions and pay homage to some of the shows we grew up with. We also enjoyed watching Todd in a mullet wig.
At this point, I’m very happy with where this video ended up. There was some discussion among the editors as to whether the ending works – it’s fairly dark and disconnected from the rest of the video. My feeling is that I like it when Rock TV goes weird, and there’s enough solid material in the video otherwise to excuse an indulgent, alienating conclusion where I yell at Jordan once again
Some of my favorite bits from the video:
-The writing team’s satisfaction with Christine’s suggestion to steal ideas.
-Leroy’s performances during the sitcom’s opening sequence when he drops the boxes – it’s pure Dick Van Dyke.
-The Luck Dragon reference slays me.
-The entire character of Smetka is the single greatest Rock TV development of the past several years, in my opinion. Stay tuned for more Smetka appearances to come.
Sorry folks, no goofy post today. I’m actually going ahead with a post I’ve long been ruminating on: my top ten Paul McCartney songs you probably don’t know but should definitely check out.
For years, McCartney struggled to garner much critical respect; most critics dismissed his work as slight and throwaway. This was due to two factors: McCartney’s own inconsistant output, and the effort to canonize and mythologize John Lennon at the expense of his former songwriting partner. The last ten years has seen a welcome critical re-evaluation of Paul McCartney’s solo work. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his bold, creatively-vital albums this decade have led people back to an appreciation of his career highlights since the Beatles ended. Now he headlines Coachella festivals and collects stellar reviews for new albums. How do you like him now?
Over the past few years, I’ve been poring over a lot of his work. Certainly not all of it is great, but it’s a pleasure uncovering more hidden examples of his effortless melodies and playful song suites. You don’t need this blog to tell you that “Maybe I’m Amazed” or “My Love” are gorgeous, or that “Jet” and “Live And Let Die” kick ass. Instead, I wanted to point you toward ten lesser-known tracks you won’t find on any brief greatest hits album. A couple of these were singles, but none were massive hits. Most of them are album tracks that have worn well. Think of this list as a multicolored buffet of sweet ear-pudding.
1. Junk (1970): McCartney’s first solo album was a homemade batch of songs that initially didn’t sit well with fans or critics expecting a sound on par with the superb production of the Beatles. “Junk” is a lovely little tune about a lonely antique shop, and its homespun, snapshot charm is part of its appeal.
2. Big Barn Bed (1973): This is a bizarre tune with an infectious groove. Like a lot of these tracks, McCartney played every instrument himself, and the production is strong (Jeff Tweedy nodded to this era McCartney and Wings as partial inspiration for the sound of the last Wilco album). The song is about life on his rural Scottish farm with wife Linda and their kids.
3. Rock Show w/ “Venus & Mars” intro until 1:10 (1975):
McCartney has a reputation as a balladeer, but his rock output is regularly awesome. “Helter Skelter” and “Jet” are his most celebrated songs in this vein, but I’d put “Rock Show” up with any of them. In it, he turns the tables, singing about the excitment at a big concert, the moment before the band takes the stage. The tune is fun puzzle with odd little side sections and a drug reference or two. It’s a bummer he doesn’t seem to pull this one out in concerts anymore – he tends to rely too heavily on the crowd-pleasers these days.
4. Goodnight Tonight (1980)
Here’s a song from the late disco era with hooks galore. It’s a clever little tune, with the singer pleading with his date to stay with him, while the countermelodies offer her replies of “I gotta go home”. Great singing, catchy melodies, and offbeat instrumentation make this a fun song to uncover. The 1920s-themed video has a goofy charm to it as well.
5. Tug of War (1982): This is the title track to an acclaimed album McCartney put out in the wake of John Lennon’s death. There are allusions to his relationship with Lennon in this song, which adds an emotional heft to it that isn’t always present in his work. The song itself is fine, but for me the real payoff is the bridge (at about 2:05 of the song) – it’s a soaring, yearning moment that can give me goosebumps if it catches me in the right mood.
6. Calico Skies (1997):
With a few exceptions, the late 80s and early 90s were creatively barren years for McCartney (and most of his generational peers). He seemed to break out of his slump with 1997’s Flaming Pie album. This track displays his deft acoustic guitar skills (similar to “Blackbird”) and the lyrics are a lovely ode to his wife Linda. He wrote it when she was dying of breast cancer, making it all the more touching.
7. Your Loving Flame (2001): Here’s an excellent late-period ballad from McCartney – just a beautiful, lovely song. The key to the song for me is the switch into the minor chords for the chorus. It adds enough bitter to the sweetness to make it a song worth returning to.
8. Friends to Go (2005): This is from Chaos & Creation in the Backyard, an excellent album produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Travis) and again featuring McCartney playing every instrument. I could have picked 5 or 6 songs from this album, but I chose this midtempo rocker with a sturdy groove and catchy hook. He said he felt like he was channeling George Harrison when he wrote it, which definitely comes through.
9. That Was Me live (2007): This is a fun autobiographical tune, like his memories being run through kaleidoscope. Again, the hooks are plentiful in this song, tossed out offhandedly with supreme confidence.
10. Sing the Changes (2008): This was released last year under the pseudonym The Fireman, a name he’s used for some of his past experimental electronic projects. This track, however, is a gorgeous, swirling song that soars beautifully. Written and recorded in a day, it demonstrates that McCartney, even at age 67, still has some magic left in him.
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