CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Now here you are with your faith
And your Peter Pan advice
You have no scars on your face
And you cannot handle Pressure
Pressure, by Billy Joel

Funny how my memory skips
While looking over manuscripts
of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
Hazy Shade of Winter, by Simon and Garfunkel

I have my books
and my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock
I am an island
…and a rock feels no pain
…and an island never cries
I am a Rock, by Simon and Garfunkel

I mean… I mean… I’m sitting here on the Group W bench, and you wanna know if I’m moral enough to join the Army, burn women, kids, houses, and villages… after being a litterbug?
Alice’s Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie

You call her home
And you want to move in
But a house is not a home
And a home is not a house
When

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Some songs are so sweet, so romantic, so personal, you just have to imagine how great they would be as a wedding song. Here’s my personal list as I run across them:

In My Life, by The Beatles — I’m partial to this one since it was at our wedding
Into the Mystic, by Van Morrison — you have to hear this song if you’ve never heard it before. It is so beautiful and wonderful I tear up every time I hear it.
When I’m 64, the Beatles — Just wonderful.

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"I'm...so...ronery..."

You Are Worthless Alec Baldwin

Words and music by (presumably) Trey Parker and Matt Stone:

I was sent from planet Xiron to conquer the earth
I had a terrific plan — I thought it would work
Tried to get the Earthlings all to kill each other you see
But it all went wrong and now I must decree…

You are worthless Alec Baldwin, you are worthless Alec Baldwin
You failed in every way and now my stock in you has fallen
Your career is stallin’ and you’re worthless Alec Baldwin
That’s why I blew your head off and your children are all bawlin’

Planet Xiron is inhabited with Xipods like me
But also with Balmacs who are giant bees
The Xipods and Balmacs are at constant war
So we wanted a new home and that’s what Earth was for

But you are worthless Alec Baldwin, you are worthless Alec Baldwin
You fucked

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Don’t Stop the Music

I am a listen-to-music-at-work kinda person. Ever since I’ve had a job with enough autonomy and desktime to allow it, I listen to music via headphones while I work. And since I don’t like to have any extraneous apps running on my workstation (much less keep music on a corporate machine), I like to have my music on a device that is disconnected from my actual PC, so I always have something to play my music with. Also, as a former runner, I used to take stuff with me on the hoof. So, I’ve had a few MP3-playing devices in my day.

My most recent device was an iRiver — most specifically, an iRiver 400-series CD player that will play MP3s burned onto CD. (I also have some familiarity with the iRiver solid state MP3 players, having bought the G-I-R-L one for running). The iRiver has a somewhat

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Police, Synchronicity

Eagles, Greatest Hits Volume I

Garbage, 2.0

Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine

Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life

Prince, Purple Rain

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This is the resurgence of garage rock, hunh? I’m no expert (couldn’t tell a Hive from a Vine if I had a bad case of both), but I have to say, if you’re going to listen to non-groundbreaking musical stylings, I find that straight-up, just-one-shade-above-playing-at-a-local-bar type rock-and-roll ain’t a bad way to go.

So far everything about this CD experience has been nearly straight out of the late 70’s. I bought it low-tech: I heard their song once on the radio, thought it catchy, and went right out to Best Buy to get it without hearing / researching any further (“How retro,” comments engineerboy dryly). The album looks low-tech: I’m convinced the cover art might actually be the “Stillwater” album from Almost Famous. Either that or Jet found the guy who did the cover art for my mom’s album The Best of Bread, circa 1976. The sparse liner notes don’t even

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One of the wonderful things about a friendship and relationship is the glorious dance of discovery and compromise that comes about as you mix and match your preferences, likes, and dislikes with those of your mate. Often, your similar likes are what bring you together in the first place: a shared reverence for the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique album, the ability to quote from The Princess Bride, a fondness for wry humor and a well-turned phrase, a love of technology.

Then, as you get to know each other better, you find that some of your tastes don’t always match up. I remember being a bit taken aback when I first learned Scott found my morning staple of NPR pretentious and tedious, and instead revealed that he had been a Howard Stern listener. I was surprised by his look of pained endurance (much like a faithful hound dog getting a medical procedure)

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(Note: The songs in this rant have hotlinks to pages at music sales sites (Amazon, Barnes & Nobles) that have audio samples. This does not imply endorsement of these external sites or their products, but are presented simply as a convenience for you, the reader.)

I adolesced in the ’70s, in a small, coastal Texas town. My available music selections were country (ubiquitous), rock (one fuzzy, whiny AM station from Houston), pop (2 hours a day on the local station, one station out of Victoria), and whatever records or 8-tracks I could afford to buy (or borrow from my sister). And unlike many of my peers, music was not central to my teenage years. I mean, there was music that I liked, but I didn’t live/breathe music, or worship any bands, or scrimp and save to get the money to buy tickets for concerts in far-off, exotic places like Corpus Christi

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I like Eminem’s music. A lot. I bought “The Eminem Show” when it came out, and it’s been in nearly constant CD player rotation since. Even my favorite I-listen-to-classic-rock older guy is starting to find it interesting and catchy. (Although I have to admit I didn’t even try to expose him to the music until after he saw and liked 8 Mile).

My first introduction to his music was from my nieces and nephew controlling the constantly-on TV during summer family gatherings. Eminem was a relief after what seemed like a solid week of Real World histrionics. The video was “What I Am” from his disc The Marshall Mathers LP. It seemed catchy and at least somewhat interesting, lyrically. When the “The Eminem Show” was released, I bought it on spec. Let’s see if this guy actually has anything to

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