This has been a Christmas break filled with shoveling, sleeplessness, and a sickly infant. Probably not my favorite, most restful week ever. On the bright side, I did have a chance to cruise through Peter Ames Carlin’s new biography, Paul McCartney: A Life.

Regular readers of my blog know that I’m a huge Beatles fan and McCartney enthusiast. Having read similar (and more authoritative) books like The Beatles by Bob Spitz and John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman, some parts of Carlin’s book were treading overly familiar territory for me. However, he does an excellent job at connecting themes in the music of McCartney and Beatles with the events of their lives and their own personalities. Throughout the text, Carlin posits that McCartney’s music is his truest, most endearing expression of self and reflects not only his unparalleled talent but his need to prove himself and to please others. It’s definitely worth a read for any Beatles fan or serious follower of pop music history inclined to dismiss McCartney’s work as trite or suburban.

Here are a few interesting tidbits from the book worth sharing:

-Carlin tracks the arc of McCartney’s character from age 9 (when his mother passed away) to today. McCartney matured from a bright, good-natured kid from a poor neighborhood to the early Beatles days as the group’s most assured talent and yin to John Lennon’s yang to the supreme confidence and accomplishment of the late 60s to his years as a sort of neo-hippy family man prone to losing his musical focus from time to time. All the while, McCartney comes across as genial and ingratiating, but also self-centered and slyly self-aggrandizing in a way the unfilterable Lennon could never manage.

-McCartney wrote the song “Maybe I’m Amazed” about the experience of having a beard and being awesome. In other words, it’s about me.

-Carlin details how John Lennon served a central role in McCartney’s life to an extent surpassed only by Linda, his wife of 30 years. Lennon, McCartney’s childhood friend and collaborator, was the only person who McCartney ever viewed as a true professional peer capable of offering meaningful criticism. Carlin offers one example after another from the 70s and 80s of McCartney indignantly reacting to critics in the studio, while Lennon’s take from afar (usually via a newspaper or magazine interview) was always incredibly meaningful to him. Years later, McCartney offhandedly mentions his songs that John liked, and his friends recall him agonizing over the insults Lennon tossed his way. As McCartney himself said a day after Lennon’s death, “He was pretty rude about me sometimes, but I secretly admired him for it.”

-McCartney has long been able to ingratiate himself with journalists and promoters by affecting a genial, effortless facade and by making silver dollars magically appear from their ears and by kissing them on their special zone.

-For all his musical abilities, Paul McCartney was the primary creative force behind two of the lousiest films of the 20th century, 1967’s Magical Mystery Tour and 1984’s Give My Regards to Broad Street. They are both mind-numbingly inane, pointless exercises in hubris. On the plus side, at least they’re in color.

-In one interesting aside, Carlin throws out an analogy for the dysfunction of the Beatles by the late-60s. Lennon was the emotionally aloof, ne’er-do-well husband and father, McCartney the tidying mother blindly trying to make the best of everything, George Harrison the surly teenager, and poor Ringo Starr was the boy playing with the toy airplane in the backyard.

-Some have speculated that McCartney hired Mark David Chapman to assassinate Lennon. Because this sounds about right to me, those people are accurate. You can find more of my valid, provable ideas at www.911truth.org.

-McCartney’s relentless womanizing exploits as a young man were unsurprising (I’m shocked – SHOCKED – that the Beatles had sex with groupies!) but nonetheless pretty pathetic. He was a serial cheater, while also sure to instruct his girlfriends how to dress, wear their makeup, and behave (not unlike how he tended to direct his bandmates at times). His turnaround once he got involved with Linda is thus all the more remarkable. They were soulmates and basically inseparable for the three decades of their marriage. Admirably, they raised their kids in a stable, loving (and rich beyond imagination) family. All their kids went to neighborhood public schools and have turned out to be the sort of totally unembarrassing celebrity kids you don’t see much of.

-Putting the intelligent, but minimally musically-talented Linda McCartney in Wings was a totally reasonable decision with no downside, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

-Carlin’s passages describing Linda’s death from breast cancer in 1998 are incredibly moving. The real heartbreak, however, is following Paul’s heartbroken self-destruction blindly into a new marriage with Heather Mills, who turned out to be a lying, narcissistic bitch to the surprise of none of her ex-husbands.

-Paul McCartney is an animal-loving vegetarian, like my wife and Hitler.

-After avoiding playing many of his Beatles hits in concert, McCartney’s shows since 1989 have featured crisp performances of much of his Beatles material to the delight of his fans. In unrelated news, Paul McCartney enjoys money.

Bridgette and I are going on 70+ hours of Oliver crying inconsolably whenever he isn’t sleeping. He had a cold, then got another cold, and now has a sore throat. We’ve tried soothing him every way we can, but the doctors said we just have to help him endure while the virus takes its course.

This is about as much fun as having your genitals shocked with an electrical charge by Ben Franklin for the amusement of a bunch of dandy French bastards.

Life with a sick, screaming infant is certainly different. Your focus shrinks down to surviving the next few minutes and the puzzle of coaxing comfort from a red-faced, drooling baby. This is something like trying to force-feed pills to a yowling cat while the countown timer from Catchphrase is about to go off. The effects of the exhaustion, screaming and sleeplessness are that time somehow stretches and your sense of despair heightens to Kirkegaardian depths as you experience the vertigo that comes with cognitively confronting the ultimately unknowable subjective realities that define life. Also, the noxious blast of your baby’s breath smells like germs and breastmilk, which doesn’t especially help.

If there were some way I could wipe Oliver’s desperate tears away and help him to feel better, I would. I have tried bouncing him, holding him, and rolling him. I have bathed him and sung to him and twirled him. For all my child-rearing effectiveness, I might as well as been Barney the Dinosaur with a gun in my mouth in a Burmese prison cell.

On the plus side, I got to watch a DVD about Abraham Lincoln I got for Christmas at 4am last night. Apparently his trials were somewhat harder than mine and he didn’t have lovely history DVDs to help him through the night. He only had a telegraph ticker and the sturdy arms of Edwin M. Stanton.

Well, he’s up and crying again. Wish us luck, everyone! Hopefully we won’t all get carbon monoxide poisoning!

Bridgette and I have returned from our family’s Christmas celebration with a bundle of lovely gifts and a sick baby in tow. Everything proceded splendidly with the exception of our child’s untimely illness and the injury I sustained from eating the Christmas cookie with a needle in it I got from a profanity-spouting homeless man. (A word of explaination – the man was wearing a Santa suit and thrusting his pelvis toward me in a friendly manner so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.)

While at my parents place, I had a strange moment when my mother pulled out her old pickle strainer from the back of the lazy Susan.

(Incidentally the term “lazy Susan” begs the question of who was this lazy Susan and what ingenius fellow was she with who enabled her laziness? Thomas Jefferson perhaps?)

I hadn’t seen this pickle strainer in perhaps fifteen years, and my reaction upon seeing it was oddly emotional. Suddenly I was transported back to my past and the memories of all the pickles I ate as a youngster. Some were crisp, others flaccid, but all equally wonderous. Pickles were, and shall always remain, the reason I rise in the morning.

Here my brother Patrick demonstrated the proper usage and treatment of the Pickle Strainer of Legend.

One of the beautiful things about this pickle strainer is the way it removes the pickles from the murky brine without moistening the fingers. On a day when my baby was screaming and my stools were loose, this pickle strainer brought me nostalgic satisfaction and meaning. If necessary, I would have traded it for my wedding ring.

I wish the pickle strainer could hold me.

I am among several people who enjoys listening to music. I will now summarize for you, the sensual, gyrating masses, my favorite new music of 2009. Feel free to obtain this music for yourself and thank me later when your life becomes awesome.

Favorite Albums

Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

This was my most enjoyable musical find of the year. This rootsy, North Carolina-based trio has been around for a while, but their new album received a lot of attention because it was produced by the bearded zenmaster Rick Rubin. The album sounds gorgeous and organic, and I just couldn’t believe how many songs I loved the first time through. The album felt familiar, yet its warmhearted themes and tight brotherly harmonies were punctuated with plenty of unexpected left turns that kept me guessing.

Doves – Kingdom of Rust

Doves were a moody British band I loved back in the early aughts who I thought had started to slide with their last album. Happily, they rebounded this year with what I felt was their best effort. Doves’ best material has a melancholy sweep to it and is able to build and crest under Jimi Goodwin’s beautiful alto. This album has no shortage of such cinematic loveliness. Kingdom of Rust is definitely worth checking out and giving a bit of time to let it seep under your skin. (Incidentally, this seemed to be Bridgette’s favorite of the new albums I got this year.)

U2 – No Line on the Horizon

Read my full review from earlier in the year here. Many listens later, it’s still a great album with tons of layers. I’ll only add that the album’s elusive, slow-burning songs have gained stature in my mind while the middle stretch of radio-oriented material feels a bit more out of place.

Wilco – Wilco (the Album)

My brother in law and I are each big Wilco fans, but this is an album we disagree on. He’s inclined to favor Wilco’s fractured, dissonant, “challenging” material from earlier this decade like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (which I also dig) and A Ghost is Born (not as much). A few years later, lead singer Jeff Tweedy is apparently in a happier, more contented mental space and he’s produced another straightforward “mature” album. While its heights aren’t as towering as 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, this is a great album with warmth, wit (see “Wilco [the Song]“), and impeccable craftsmanship.

Runners Up:

EELS – Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire
E sacrificed some melodic consistency for thematic purity on this album. It’s probably destined to be a worthwhile curio in the EELS catalogue, but it doesn’t stand up next to their last effort.
Mark Knopfler – Get Lucky
Same as Knopfler’s last three albums: expertly-performed, authentic, and relaxed.
Michael Bublé – Crazy Love
A wonderfully tuneful, tasteful album for any pop-jazz vocal afficianado. I’m honestly not sure how much of the artistry is his though, so I can’t put it on my most-recommended list.
Joshua James – Build Me This
Singer-songwriter’s inevitable band-oriented sophomore effort. Good stuff, but bigger isn’t always better.
Peter Bradley Adams – Traces
This guy keeps making the same album, but who cares when they’re so damn good?
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – The Live Anthology
Rocking and revelatory.

A Disappointment:

Derek Webb – Stockholm Syndrome
The controversial album from this important Christian artist was a mixed bag for me. The daring production style (see: Yorke, Thom) was great and created a freshness to the material, but the songs just weren’t strong enough musically. Christian reviewers (especially those with more progressive inclinations) bent over backwards praising the album’s sometimes ham-fisted lyrical content. On the other hand, I just couldn’t get past the fact that a lot of melodies felt undercooked. It’s a fine album if you’re the type to read and reflect on the words without ever desiring to sing along.

Favorite Songs:

Doves – “Kingdom of Rust”: A dark, textured epic.
EELS – “Beginner’s Luck”: Catchy and deserving to be heard.
Rocket Club – “One More Day”: Local country-rock effort written by a father who lost his daughter to a fatal illness. Always gets me a bit misty-eyed, like “Christmas Shoes” but better. (FREE DOWNLOAD)
Wilco – “One Wing”: Great mix of Wilco’s beautiful and artistic ambitions.
Derek Webb – “What Matters More”: The best and worst of Webb’s album is distilled into this pretty remarkable track that his record label refused to release.
Jars of Clay – “Headphones”: A stirring call to Christian love.
Avett Brothers – “I And Love And You”: A wonderfully broken, rootsy ballad.

(See also their hilarious video for “Slight Figure of Speech”)
U2 – “Moment of Surrender”: For me, this was the best, most beautiful, most movingly-performed song I came across this year.

(See also my musical roundups for 2008, 2007, 2006, & 2005)

It appears that I’m the first person to arrive for work today. As I write this, it is 6:40am and I’m sitting in a dimly-lit workroom, still bundled and bloated in my winter coat like a sentient, depressed Chipotle burrito.

I got up this morning much earlier than usual to assist my lovely wife with our crying child. After Oliver eventually fell back asleep, my wife retreated to bed and I went ahead with my morning routine about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. The end result of this is the fact that I’m now alone in the school. I am but a beleaguered apparition shuffling silently through the vacant hallways of remorse.

How might I take advantage of this rare opportunity? Should I yell some of my swear words really loud? Should I correct tests naked? Should I correct the anotomical inaccuracies contained in some of the drawings on the middle school boy’s bathroom stalls? It appears that the world is my dark, wintery oyster this morning.

Oh wait. Nevermind. Apparently, I’m not alone – I just saw a custodian. He must think along the same lines I do, because his shirt is totally unbuttoned.

Man, that guy’s belly is really hairy. He seriously makes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed look like the epitome of fine grooming.

Anyway, long story short, I’ve spent so long writing this and thinking about KSM’s fat, hairy neck that I just missed my first hour class.

Yesterday, in the company of my two brothers, we spent considerable time playing historical trivia games (via the excellent sporcle.com), as brothers and dorks are wont to do.

My assigned challenge was to name all 44 U.S. presidents from memory. I accepted the task with a messy clearing of my throat and a gutteral summoning of my knowledge from the most depraved recesses of my mind. I was called upon to name the 44 men who have led this country, from the brave (Washington) to the bumbling (Ford), from the dandies (Buchanon) to the slobs (Taylor), from the great (T.R.) to the “like Hitler if you think about it” (Bush 43/Obama/Whoever Is President Next).

Like a machine, I began rattling off names like an patriotic auctioneer on speedballs. “Lincoln, both Johnsons, Pierce, Adams…” The names of perhaps 35 came to me as easily the secret code for infinite lives in Contra. After a minute or two, my pace began to slow as I labored through the obscure, ineffectual presidents like gray Ben Harrison and fat Chet Arthur. In the end, when the buzzer went off, I had named 43 of our 44 presidents. A valient effort indeed, but ultimately a failure, like Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to smile once in 1917.

The president I missed – none other than the spectacularly mutton-chopped Martin Van Buren.

How could I have forgotten poor Martin? He, of course, was cursed to follow Andrew Jackson, in that his lukewarm personality paled next to Jackson’s, and more significantly the fact that Jackson’s economic policies (namely dismantling the Bank of the U.S.) led to economic ruin in the Panic of 1837, thus crippling his successor’s presidency. It’s as obvious and relevant as the pulsating, oily blemishes that cover my fat face! I can’t believe I forgot Van Buren’s loveless marriage with his cousin, predating FDR’s more famous loveless marriage with his cousin by over a century! How could this have happened? Only a drooling imbecile wouldn’t immediately recall the presidency of Martin Van Buren!

Long story short, I’ve written a lengthy letter to the procurators of the Van Buren estate explaining the situation to them and extending my profuse, profane apologies. It is my hope that they will respond by sending me a lock of his hair and a t-shirt.

Sorry, dear Martin Van Buren. If you’re reading this from your cage in hell, please forgive me.