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of unpublished rhyme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 there’s not enough room for you
She, by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls

The French hate the Germans

The Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs

South Africans hate the Dutch

and I don’t like anybody very much

The Merry Minuet, by The Kingston Trio

All I hear is

“Lyrics, lyrics,” constant controversy

Sponsors working round the clock to try to stop my concerts early

Surely hip-hop was never a problem in Harlem

Only in Boston

After it bothered the fathers

of daughters starting to blossom

White America, by Eminem

and I’m living off of grass

and the drippings from the ceiling

It’s okay to eat fish

Because they don’t have any feeling

Something in the Way, by Nirvana

Standin’ on the sidelines waving and grinnin’

You fondle my trigger then you blame my gun

…

But when I think of it my fingers turn to fists

I never did anything to you, man

But no matter what I try you’ll beat me with your bitter lies

So call me crazy, hold me down, make my cry, get off now baby

It won’t be long before you’re lying limp in your own hands

Limp, by Fiona Apple

Well I never been to England

But I kinda like the Beatles

Well, I headed for Las Vegas

Only made it out to Needles

Never Been to Spain, by Three Dog Night

You been playin’ where you shouldn’ta been playin’

And you keep thinking that you’ll never get burned

I just found me a brand new box of matches, yeah

And what he knows you ain’t had time to learn

These Boots are Made for Walking, by Nancy Sinatra

For somebody who don’t drive

I’ve been all around the world

Brand New Key, by Melanie

Your day breaks

Your mind aches

You find that all her words of kindness linger on when she no longer needs you

…

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

For No One, by The Beatles

No short-haired, yellow-bellied son-of-Tricky-Dicky’s gonna Mother Hubbard soft-soap me with just a pocket full of hope

Money for dope

Money for rope

Gimme Some Truth, by John Lennon

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be

All You Need is Love, by The Beatles

He went out tiger hunting with his elephant and gun

In case of accidents he always took his mom

He’s the all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother’s son

(All the children sing)

Hey Bungalow Bill, what did you kill?

Bungalow Bill

…

The children asked him if to kill was not a sin

“Not when he looks so fierce!” his mommy butted in

If looks could kill it would’ve been us instead of him

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, by The Beatles

I don’t believe in Magic

I don’t believe in I Ching

I don’t believe in Bible

I don’t believe in tarot

I don’t believe in Hitler

I don’t believe in Jesus

I don’t believe in Kennedy

I don’t believe in Buddha

I don’t believe in Mantra

I don’t believe in Goethe

I don’t believe in Yoga

I don’t believe in Kings

I don’t believe in Elvis

I don’t believe in Zimmerman

I don’t believe in Beatles.

I just believe in me

Yoko and me

That’s reality

God, by John Lennon

How does it feel to be

One of the beautiful people?

How often have you been there?

Often enough to know

What did you see while you were there?

Nothing that doesn’t show

Baby You’re a Rich Man, by The Beatles

She’s well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand

Like a lizard on a windowpane

Happiness is a Warm Gun, by The Beatles

J.T. gets all fucked up in some karaoke bar

After two drinks he’s a loser

After three drinks he’s a star

Gettin’ all nostalic as he sings ‘I Will Survive’

Bleed Like Me, by Garbage

She knew which fork to use

But she couldn’t dance

So he hipped her to the funk

In exchange for the finance

Who’s pimpin’ who?

Nobody gets a second chance

This is the story of Illusion, Coma, Pimp, and Circumstance

Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance, by Prince

Well was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure

Did she understand it when they said

That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure

Will she still believe it when he’s dead?

Girl, by The Beatles

First check her brain

To see if she’s sane, deranged, or strange, or crazy as hell

You never can tell these days

Everybody got a little Rick James in they veins

Hip Hop Star, rap by Big Boi, song by Beyoncé

My mom and dad weren’t perfect

But still you don’t hear no cryin’-ass bitchin’ from me

Like there seems to be on everybody’s CD

Click Click Boom, by Saliva

I think she’s found a new religion

Studyin’ the Kabbalah in her J. Crew

Members Only, by Sheryl Crow

IQ is no problem here

We won’t be playing Scrabble for her hand I fear

Seven Days, by Sting

Rattle of bones

Dreams that stick out

A medical chart on the wall

Soft violins

Hands touch your throat

Everyone wants to explode

When your hands get dirty

No one knows you at all

Don’t have a window to slip out of

Lights on, nobody home

Click click, see you later..

Swamp, by Talking Heads

A room full of noise

And dangerous boys

Still make you thirsty and hot

Victim of Love, by The Eagles

Though I know I know you’re dissatisfied with your position and your place

Don’t you understand it’s not my problem?

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

You’d know what a drag it is to see you

Positively 4th Street, by Bob Dylan

Bowel-shaking earthquakes

Of doubt and remorse

Assail him

Impale him

With monster truck force

The Distance, by Cake

Some voices got treble

Some voices got bass

We got the kinda voices

That are in your face

The New Style, by The Beastie Boys

I’m not the only soul

Who’s accused of hit and run

Tire tracks all across your back

I can see you had your fun

Crosstown Traffic, by Jimi Hendrix

Have to shout above the din of our Rice Krispies

Can’t hear anything at all

Synchronicity II, by The Police

Every time I comb my hair

Thoughts of you get in my eyes

Erotic City, by Prince

Uncontrollable notes from her snow white throat fill a space in which two bodies float

Blood Sugar Sex Magik, by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

If I was twice the man I could be, I’d still be half of what you need

Ringfinger, by Nine Inch Nails

We are vain and we are blind

I hate people when they’re not polite

Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?

Psycho Killer, by Talking Heads

Well you’re built like a car, you’ve got a hubcap diamond star halo

You’re built like a truck, oh yeah.

Get It On, by T-Rex, also covered decently by Power Station

Silver foxes looking for romance

In their chain smoke Kansas flashdance ass-pants

Hot Wax, by Beck

And bridges are meant for burning

When the people and memories they join aren’t the same

Lover’s Cross, by Jim Croce

A broom is drearily sweeping

up the pieces of yesterday’s life

Somewhere a queen is weeping

Somewhere a king has no wife

The Wind Cries Mary, by Jimi Hendrix

Men just aren’t the same today, I hear every mother say

They just don’t appreciate that you get tired

They’re so hard to satisfy, you can tranquilise your mind

So go running for the shelter of your mother’s little helper

And for help you through the night, help to minimize your plight

Doctor please, some more of these, outside the door, she took four more…

What a drag it is getting old.

Mother’s Little Helper, by The Rolling Stones

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years

Then they expect you to pick a career

When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear

A working class hero is something to be

A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and tv

And you think you’re so clever and classless and free

But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see

Working Class Hero, by John Lennon

In a boat in the middle of a raging sea

She would make a scene

For it all to be ignored

And wouldn’t you be bored?

Strange brew kills what’s inside of you

Strange Brew, by Cream

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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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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 up my whole plan and now Xiron is smeared with Balmac pollen
Your garbage needs some haulin’ and you’re worthless Alec Baldwin
Now I must return home a failure — I’m afraid the pit of Kryrok is callin’…

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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 daunting and extremely tiny interface, but it’s highly customizable once you figure it out. The CD player has limitations, though — a CD can only fit about 200 or so MP3s on it, and after having that same CD at work for a few weeks you get pretty tired of that same mix. Plus, if you buy a new CD and rip those songs into MP3s, you have to re-burn a new MP3 mix CD just to add the 1 or 2 new songs you want to add into the mix. It can be a drag.

Before that I had (and actually, prior to the iPod, still used for exercising) an ancient RCA Lyra device and it’s really unusable — MP3s have to be custom-encoded with specific software in order to get transferred onto the Flash memory through a parallel-port flash reader that’s REALLY SLOW. It’s literally a 30-minute process. You can imagine how often the songs get changed on THAT device… not much incentive to do a 30 minute session on the elliptical when you’ve got the same 15 songs you had 6 months ago waiting for you and your workout.

Under My Thumb

At Christmas, the G-I-R-L (whose Indiana parents use a Mac) came down to visit with an Apple iPod in tow. Although we often had to pry the earbuds out of her ears to get her to actually join family events, I eventually asked her for some details on the little machine and (despite myself) got intrigued. I mean… 20 GB of music right there in such a tiny package is pretty enticing. Plus, we have an auxiliary jack in our Honda Element and the iPod hooks right up to it to put tunes into the car. (The iRiver CD player can do the same thing but it’s much more cumbersome to try and stuff the CD player into the glove box and hook up a power cord, etc).

And I gotta give it to Apple, the clickwheel is a really innovative interface. It feels a bit like an Etch-a-Sketch at first, but it’s a GREAT way to turn the volume up and down, to just be able to run your thumb in a little circle. Plus, when you’ve got 20GB of songs (or even 1/4 of that), you need a FAST way to scroll up and down — something where you’d be clicking or even paging down would get very old very quickly. The fast scrolling action that you can get with the wheel is very nice.

People Are Strange

But, c’mon… it’s an Apple. I wasn’t really going to seriously consider buying consumer electronics from… uh… Apple, right? Apple people are generally a different breed and, well, buying any device with the intention of using it on its non-native platform is generally a risky move. And there are several choices for large-drive MP3 players out there. However, iPod was clearly the market leader. It’s fine to be quirky and iconoclastic in fashion or other things, but in matters of things automotive or electronic, I believe in buying where the market goes and looks to be reasonably supported. That way you’re not stuck with something really random with no accessories later. Remember DIVX? (If you don’t that just proves my point).

Plus, the Apple Bastards won me over with the truly powerful weapon, the one that was actually guaranteed to get me as a consumer — the iTunes Music Store. If I can legally buy one song for $1 and put it on my iPod or burn it to CD, and they have the industry support to have a decently broad range of music I might want to buy, then I’m sold. Because I love instant gratification, and Engineerboy and I have a million songs that we love that are onsie-twosies from this artist or that. I still buy CDs and rip the whole thing, but there are just tons of songs that we want to have. And if we can buy them as one-offs then that’s exactly what we want.

It’s Your Thing

The iPods can even come engraved, which I thought was tremendously cool. The Apple store online was offering engraving for free along with free shipping. How could I resist? I was in love!

Simply Irresistible

So, I hemmed, hawed, waffled on price, hemmed some more, decided I had to have one, and bought one. I bought an orange iPod sock on eBay (I was too cheap to buy the whole pack of socks from Apple). I even talked my dad into an iPod Shuffle before I’d even bought my own iPod! I eagerly awaited the arrival of my blessed purchase! I envisioned the ability to listen at work all day without having to plug it into the charger, the ability to have our entire family music library with us wherever we drove, and the ability to [angels singing] buy a song legally here or there from the iTunes Music Store. All of this and it would run on the PC as well as the Mac!

Tainted Love

So, all the Mac-heads I’ve ever talked to have always waxed poetic about how easy it is to set up anything Mac-related. It all just works! You just turn it on! You just don’t have to worry about a thing! Well, I wasn’t expecting anything quite that wondrous — as I said, this was using the iPod on its non-native platform, so I was prepared for a little more work during the install or even a few hiccups.

Try headaches. First off, the iPod has to be formatted for either the Mac or the PC. It ships (of course) formatted for the Mac, so if you install on a PC, you have to re-format it. There’s no indication in the documentation or on the install screen itself of how long this process should take, so I didn’t really think anything of it when it took a few minutes. I got a bit curious when that stretched into 30 minutes. I was really concerned when it stretched into two hours. The Apple support site had no information on how long the PC install process or reformatting process should take (at least none that I could find with my search terms) and so Engineerboy ended up finding use-at-your-own-risk advice from someone on a newsgroup about how to shut down the hung re-format process and continue with the re-install and then go back and reformat the device. Seriously irritating — I wasted hours waiting on that stupid install.

Finally the install completed and I went about the process of loading iTunes and synching my iPod for the first time. It still didn’t go smoothly after that — at first it wouldn’t let me undock the iPod if iTunes had any songs that were on a network drive (a reboot solved that problem, as it isn’t a system issue with the iPod, so that must’ve been first install hiccups). I had to shut down my PC entirely before the iPod would even let itself be detached from the PC. The next day my iPod quit responding to any click input at all and had to be reset (that’s where you have to plug it into the wall charger and hold down two buttons at once for six seconds and all your customized settings are then lost).

After working out the network drive issue and loading up the iPod with the entire library of our music collection (and adding quite a few new ones from the iTunes Store), I proceeded to use the heck out of the iPod… in the car every morning on the way to and from work (via the auxiliary jack) and at my desk for headset motivation while working. I loved it! I had so much music at my desk — all of the songs I could possibly want! And in the car we could have any song that Scott or I could possibly want to hear — it was great! One pesky problem kept cropping up, though — the iPod would repeatedly pause in the middle of a song when we were in the car. Over. And over. And over.

We were actually in the car with the entire shipping box packed up to take back to the Apple store when we realized that the pause behavior was actually standard behavior for the when the headphones (or auxiliary cable) is removed from the device — or when it thinks it has been. Apparently the new, longer aux cable we’d bought wasn’t as snug a fit as the shorter one we already had. So the new cable’s imperceptible (to us) jiggling was triggering the iPod’s auto-pause feature when the output line is removed. The auto-pause is a nice feature in some contexts (I guess) but man I wish I could turn that off in a configuration setting. Speaking of…

Cry Me a River

The list of usability and configurability gripes on the iPod device itself is tremendously long, especially for someone coming from the ultra-customizable iRiver.

• Picture this scenario: You’re listening to your entire library of songs on random play and a song comes up by a group you like but it’s not your favorite song by that group. It reminds you of your favorite song by that band, though. You navigate out to the menu and pick the song you want to hear. You play it. And now your iPod picks the next song to play… by the same artist you just heard. The following song is ALSO by the same artist. It’s shuffling, but no longer across all songs, it’s stuck just on that one artist. That’s because you chose to navigate to the song of your choosing via the Artist name (like, duh, that’s the easiest way for me to find the song I wanted). By choosing the song I wanted that way, I inadvertantly (to me), switched to only shuffling across songs by that artist. If I had wanted to stay in shuffle mode across ALL songs on the iPod, I would need to have navigated to Ad Hoc Song of My Choosing by the list of SONGS — a much more cumbersome way to go to the song I want, in my opinion.
• Also in the above process, when I’m reminded of that other song by the band currently playing and I hit the Menu button, it doesn’t bring up the list of that artist’s songs (i.e., the Menu button isn’t context-sensitive to the song that’s playing). The Menu button simply brings up whatever place in the Menu I last was. I’d rather it take me to the list of Artist’s songs that’s currently playing so I can pick another song by that artist, or the list of songs as it was currently sorted. This was so easy to do on the iRiver (once you learned the interface) and I MISS IT on the iPod. If I’m listening to a Prince song and I hit the Menu button, I want to be taken to the list of Prince songs. Or at least let me configure the thing to have that be my choice. Now that I’ve used the iPod for a while, I sometimes like that the Menu button can take me back where it was, but often that behavior is mostly pointless. Overall, I’d prefer that it be context sensitive.
• Songs are sorted by Album underneath Artist, and you cannot change this in a configuration setting. This means when you navigate through the list of songs via Artist and drill down through the list of Artists on the device to pick a song, you are then presented with a list of “All” and then the various album titles that your MP3 files may or may not be correctly tagged under (or, if you’ve bought the songs off iTunes, whatever random album the long was listed under when you bought it). This is incredibly irritating to me. I don’t generally know or give a sh*t what album a song came off of, and it drives me crazy that the device puts one extra click menu between me and selecting the song I want.
• You can’t configure it to have crossfade between songs. If you’re going to connect your iPod to an external set of speakers and have it act as a DJ for a party, this sure would be groovy, especially given how much control they give you with Playlists. Jeez, you can do crossfade on iTunes, why can’t you do it on the iPod? I realize this is a large feat of engineering, but THIS IS A BIG ONE. I mean, this is the PERFECT device for aerobics instructors and the like. As a matter of fact, last week at my Nia class the instructor had a whole wonderful song list for us to dance to, and it was GREAT except for the 10 seconds of downtime where we were all standing there with no music to dance to, staring at ourselves in the mirror.
• There’s a neat ability to add a song to the “On The Go” playlist just by holding down the select button for a few seconds. Only you’re supposed to do this when the song is selected in the list of songs, rather than when the song is playing. Gee, when do you think you’re more likely to be reminded that the song is great and you’d want it on your On The Go playlist? I mean, adding it from the list of songs is good, but I should be able to add it when I’m listening to it, too.
• Hitting “shuffle songs” when I’m already listening to a song immediately switches me off the song I’m listening to. I hate that… some car CD players do that, too. As far as I’m concerned, “shuffle” should be a ‘mode’, not an ‘action’.
• There’s no quick key for backlighting. You can configure a setting that says at all times a button press initiates backlighting for 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, etc, but you can’t click and hold down some hot key to randomly bring up backlighting on demand should you need it. This sure would be nice… having the backlighting setting on all the time wastes battery during your brightly lit office time, but if you turn it off all the time then you don’t have the backlighting when you need it in the darkened car.

Give Me One Reason

Okay, enough bitching. It does have some pretty cool features:

• Once you go through the work of tagging all your files (and learn how it needs them to be tagged), the Playlists are pretty groovy. They’re primitive — you can’t use any OR’s in your selection logic, so my files have tortured grouping names like “BothMarie” or “BothScottMarie” to make sure that it will appear on the both a playlist that’s acceptable to both Engineerboy and me, and a playlist that’s just for me to listen to at work. But when you’ve got them grouped and star’ed appropriately (including the new stuff that you buy) you then have an auto-updating list that you barely have to manage at all (I check the limit length every couple days to make sure that it only includes files of a high rating, expanding the limit whenever we’ve added more songs to the library).
• It truly is cool to have iTunes to buy their songs whenever you feel like it. It’s an expensive habit, even at $.99 a song, but boy is it awesome! Random songs from your college days, stuff you hear on the radio that you like, classic Funk that you love but never bothered to buy the CD, all of that you can add to your iPod if you feel like it and it’s available on iTunes. Engineerboy even got a wild hair to download the entire new Joe Cocker album and *bam* we had it within 10 minutes for our next car ride. Too cool!
• It is really fast to update. One of the things I hated most about my iRiver was being stuck listening to the same 200 MP3s for weeks on end because I was too lazy to burn a new CD of songs. And even if I got one new MP3 from a CD I bought or something, I had to rip the MP3 and then burn a new mix CD of MP3s. Total pain. Updating the iPod is relatively pain-free and very fast (not as fast for me since I keep my files on a network drive and use Super G wireless, but still pretty snappy).
• It’s very easy to rate a song while you’re listening to it, which is convenient if you haven’t rated all your songs through the iTunes UI. (I wish it would show you the rating on the iPod UI without you having to push another button first, but oh well).

Well Well Well

Overall, I like it. I’m glad I bought it and I listen to it every day at work and every time we’re in the car. It’s not a perfect experience. The install was painful and it still needs to be reset every so often, which is kind of a drag because my prefs get lost (the annoying click is turned back on, my backlighting preference is lost, etc). I do wish it were more configurable. Maybe it’s my UNIX bias, but I find the Apple “our-design-team-will-decide-how-your-interface-should-work” design paradigm frustrating. But overall it’s great and I love having it and it helps me work, having all the music I love right at my fingertips.

And it’s even let Engineerboy (not near the music-head I am) enjoy music more, since all of his music is now with us in the car — he drives the iPod when we’re in the car, playing Funk DJ. We even hear Weird Al not too infrequently. I still like the iPod.

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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 contain lyrics and are remarkably free of any shout-outs to their homies. Even the couple photos of these guys are of a taken-on-the-subway-with-a-shaky-35-mm quality. However, later during the day I buy the CD I realize the song I like is one of the tunes on the new iPod for PC commercials… so it’s not all throw-back, I guess.

The rock on this album (we’ll drag that concept out of the dustbin) is straight-up and fun, if not exactly revolutionary. I can name about five bands that might want to consider suing Jet for too closely resembling their sound — they are a remarkable blender combo of AC/DC, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Clash, and Golden Earring. Oh, and I think the Bangles might even have a quarrel with the tambourine intro to “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”. (Ok, so maybe I’m missing the point of garage rock, but stiilll, synthesize your own sound at least a liiittle bit). Nitpicking aside, when the songs rock, they rock. The current hit tune is a fun blast, “Rollover DJ” is kicky and exuberant, and “Cold Hard Bitch” (the most AC/DC-esque of the bunch) is excellent. Makes me wanna don my Nascar tank top and head to an ice house. As a matter of fact, if this album had more of its rocking songs on there, I’d give it a higher rating. There are a few too many Beatles-inflected piano intro songs on there… I’d make a joke about the Kiss pioneer power ballad “Beth”, but it’s low-hanging fruit — the last would-be-soulful tune on the CD is called “Timothy”, so the joke’s just too easy.

All in all, though, it’s an enjoyable if uneven ride. I can skip past the slow tunes pretty easily, and the rest is unchallenging and unpretentious. If you think modern music is pretty much crap since, oh, 1983 or so, then this is the album for you. Mynagirl says, “Rock on!”

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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) as we watched one of my favorite all-time movies, the Burt Reynolds / Dolly Parton musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In turn, I’m sure he was disappointed when we watched one of his favorite movies, What’s Up, Doc? and I was irritated and impatient with the female character’s nasal voice and intrusive meddling.

However, this experimentation also leads both parties to the wonderful broadening of experience and taste as you are exposed to things your mate likes that you also find delightful. I now love the movies So I Married an Axe Murderer (“We’ve got a piperrr down!!”) and Doctor Strangelove (“I do not avoid women, Mandrake… but I deny them my essence.”). He and I now both watch his favorite show of Seinfeld together constantly, and I even loved Howard Stern’s movie Private Parts. Similarly, Scott now listens to Eminem and Busta Rhymes with me and even enjoyed 8 Mile after we saw it together. He loves the short-lived cartoon show The Critic that I introduced him to and watched The South Park Movie at my urging (loved it).

Over the years of our friendship, relationship, and marriage, Scott has always loved Weird Al Yankovic. God forbid the Coolio song “Gansta’s Paradise” be played, lest Scott feel the need to belt out Weird Al’s parody, “Amish Paradise”:

It’s hard work and sacrifice

Living in an Amish paradise

We sell quilts at discount price

Living in an Amish paradise

That parody annoyed the hell outta me! First of all, I liked Coolio’s song, and the Stevie Wonder song on which it was based. Weird Al’s song spoiled it for me! Because, after enough repetitions of Scott singing or playing the Weird Al version, I would hear the Weird Al lyrics in my head even if I was listening to the Coolio version.

Years ago, when Scott bought the album “Running with Scissors” and played the song “The Saga Begins” (about Episode One of the Star Wars series), I thought the lyrics were mildly clever but I wasn’t a big Star Wars fan, so it didn’t really do much for me (sung to the tune of “American Pie”):

Oh my my this here Anakin guy

May be Vader someday later; now he’s just a small fry

And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye

Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

“Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

Then he played a song I thought was pretty funny, because it hit me squarely in my mid-20’s demographic: an original zydeco ditty called “My Baby’s In Love With Eddie Vedder”.

She says the way he grinds his molars is really sexy

She thinks he’s so darn dysfunctional and Generation X-ey

…

Now, every time I see him, well, he looks so grim

I guess it really must suck to be a rock star like him

What a pain in the butt to have so much success

Spending all his time moping and avoiding the press

But my girl can’t get enough of his sullen demeanor

Like he’s some big tortured genius and I’m some kinda wiener

I have to say, I found that one to be pretty hilarious. He pretty much nails Eddie Vedder right on (only Weird Al would think to describe him as having a “walleyed stare”) and aptly makes fun of how hilarious it was that Pearl Jam was so popular and fiscally successful as they seemingly eschewed material things and boycotted the music “machine” of MTV and Ticketmaster. And I thought that the song “Jerry Springer,” a rapid-fire parody of the song “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies, was sorta funny.

So, at this point, I thought Weird Al could be funny in a hit-or-miss kinda way. Some of the songs were amusing but goofy — clever, but not genius.

Then… I heard… “All About the Pentiums”. It was a hard-rocking parody of a Puff Daddy song I’d never heard of called “All About the Benjamins”. “All About the Pentiums” is about technology, and I found it hilarious! To wit:

Hey fella, I bet you’re still livin’ in your parents’ cellar

Downloadin’ pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar

And postin’ “Me too!” like some brain-dead AOL-er

I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller

You’re just about as useless as Jpegs to Hellen Keller

It’s tacky and crude, but completely funny! The song is laced with references I would categorize as “true computer geek” talk, the kinda stuff you can’t just sit down and write about unless you truly are a computer and Internet person:

Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide

I believe that yours says “Etch-A-Sketch” on the side

In a 32-bit world, you’re a 2-bit user

You’ve got your own newsgroup: alt.total.loser

So, “All About the Pentiums” became one of my favorite songs. I even put it on my Flash card for going running — it’s got a pretty good fast beat! Then, Scott bought Weird Al’s most recent album, Poodle Hat, and I realized that Weird Al is truly a genius.

The song, “Ebay” (parodying a Back Street Boys tune, or so my embarassed stepdaughter informs me), again nailed me right in the demographics. I’m a pretty regular Ebay shopper and seller, and the song made pretty clear that Weird Al had done his homework about Ebay:

I am the type who is liable to snipe you

With two seconds left to go, whoa

Got Paypal or Visa, what ever’ll please

As long as I’ve got the dough

And then… I heard the song “Bob”, an original Weird Al composition in the style of Bob Dylan. I chuckled as we listened to the nonsensical lyrics in the style of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. The the last line of the song played, and Annalisa sputtered from the back seat, “that line, that’s one of … those… things!!!!” We listened to the words again:

Ah, Satan sees Natasha

No devil lived on

Lonely Tylenol

Not a banana baton

No “x” in “Nixon”

O, stone, be not so

O Geronimo, no minor ego

“Naomi,” I moan

“A Toyota’s a Toyota”

A dog, a panic in a pagoda

Yep, that’s right. Not only was the song a dead-on homage to Bob Dylan with its harmonica and strange crooning style, but every single lyric in the entire song is a palindrome. And so is the song’s title, ‘Bob’. I felt a series of synaptic explosions as the sheer genius of the song really struck me. And I was officially converted to being a full-time Weird Al fan.

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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 and San Antonio. I listened to some music, did a little country dancing, and that was about it.

Then I went off to college, at the University of Houston. College being college, many things changed for me, including my musical tastes and perspectives. For instance, I finally matured to the point where I began to get a glimmer of an understanding of the greatness of the Beatles. I realized that I wasn’t angst-y or disaffected enough to relate to punk rock. I heard the first twangs of the nascent new-country sound, and found it repugnant. I also started getting very tired of hearing ever-more-generic disco songs.

And I also discovered something else. I found that there were some core songs and groups, labeled as disco by most, that I not only never grew tired of, but that I grew to like more and more. And as I explored this predilection, I found that while disco was the colorful, thin, wispy candy shell, the chocolate inside was nasty, groovy funk.

That Was An Epiphany
It all started one evening during my first year of college. I was in the University Center (UC, sort of a student center), and I could hear the thump-thump-thump of music being played loudly in one of the large conference halls. The beat and sound were very appealing to me, so I wandered over and found that one of the local fraternities was having a fundraising dance. I paid my $2 and went inside and found that I was the only Caucasian in the place, as far as I could see (and, being 6’5″, I could see pretty far). The dance was being put on by the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, which is a primarily African American fraternity. You may know them as the fraternity that brands (or branded, I don’t know if they still do it) their pledges on the shoulder with the Greek letter Omega.

Needless to say, I felt pretty out-of-place. I mean, I was a tall, white, 17 year old country boy come to the big city, so this was a very new experience for me, to say the least. However, my little hometown was peacefully racially diverse, and my mom had instilled in me an open mind and tolerance for others, plus the music was really grabbing at me, so I didn’t turn around and walk out. Instead I grabbed a coke, mingled, and tried to ignore the stares, which ranged from covert glances to open challenges. It was such a freaky scene.

To this point in my life my dancing experience consisted of country dancing, and then doing some boot-shuffling to the pop/disco songs that the country joints would play between blocks of country. So at the Omega dance I was resigned to being a wallflower. But I did notice some things…first of all, I wasn’t familiar with most of the songs being played, but I liked them. I wasn’t hearing anything from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, for example. Nobody was wearing a white leisure suit. Nobody was mimicking Travolta’s choreographed “disco” moves. Nobody was doing the Hustle.

But everyone was sure having a good time. I found myself moving to the beat, almost involuntarily. It was like an awakening. And I wanted to dance. But I felt out of place and out of my league, like a bottle of Ripple in a fine wine cellar. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave, so I stayed and struggled with myself to either get up the courage to dance, or to finally give up and leave.

And then I heard the opening guitar riff of a song that I knew. Knew and loved. And the crowd recognized it, too, and started flooding onto the dance floor.

It was a sign.

It was Play That Funky Music, by Wild Cherry.

It was an epiphany. I spotted the nearest likely candidate and asked her if she’d like dance, and she did, so we did. And I ended up dancing the night away, and having the time of my young life. Over the course of the evening I discovered my dancing muse, and found my voice (so to speak). And that muse was funk.

I Can’t Define Funk, But I Know It When I Hear It
Now, I’m no musicologist…in fact, I can’t even play an instrument…but I’m going to try and define funk for you. Funk has a nasty, relentless, hypnotic rhythm. Most funk songs are not very complex, lyrically, but they are dense, musically. There are exceptions, like Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) by Sly and the Family Stone, which has a simple guitar hook, a few horns, and a lot of funk. And then there’s You Haven’t Done Nothin’ by Stevie Wonder, which is both musically dense and lyrically powerful. In fact, if you want to want a crash course in funk, listen to these three songs, all by Stevie Wonder:

Maybe Your Baby
I Wish
You Haven’t Done Nothin’

If all you know about Stevie is his later work (like Ebony and Ivory), these three songs will be eye-openers (as well as leg-twitchers, if you have any funk in your soul). But if you listen to those three Stevie songs, you will know the definition of funk. If those three songs don’t move you, or they sound like “disco” to you, then you should probably resign yourself to being a funk philistine, and stop reading. (The links are just to samples on various music sites, so for the full effect I suggest you legally acquire copies of these songs to which to listen.)

I could write a whole separate rant (and probably will someday) on Stevie Wonder, whom I consider to be a certain genius, a probable brother from another planet, and even a possible time traveler.

Everybody Move
The three Stevie songs above, although 200 proof funk, are just the tip of the iceberg. Here, according to this ranter, are some of the rest of the funkiest songs out there:

Body Movers
Jungle Boogie (Kool & the Gang)
Burn Rubber (The Gap Band)
Brick House (The Commodores)
Love Rollercoaster (The Ohio Players)
Too Hot to Stop (Bar-Kays)

Meat and Potatoes
It’s Your Thing (The Isley Brothers)
Let It Whip (The Dazz Band)
Fire (The Ohio Players)
Flash Light (Parliament)
Dazz (Brick)
Fight the Power (The Isley Brothers)
Atomic Dog (George Clinton)

Slow Grooves
Strawberry Letter 23 (The Brothers Johnson)
Use Me (Bill Withers)
Got To Give It Up, Part 1 (Marvin Gaye)
Groove Me (King Floyd)

Instrumentals
Rockit (Herbie Hancock)
Pick Up the Pieces (Average White Band)
Outa Space (Billy Preston)

Neo Funk
Give It Away (The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Paul’s Boutique (most of the album, The Beastie Boys)

Give a listen to some or all of those songs, and you will “get” funk. If you find that it’s moving your body and making you want to dance, go out and find some of it, because the best way to experience funk is with your whole body. If you live around Houston, you may want to try The Mercury Room [editor’s note: this club has since gone out of business]. Some of their regular bands (like Soul Circus) lay down some slick, funky grooves. But remember, you can always just slip in the disk, crank up the volume, and jam right there in your car during rush hour. Funk is good for what ails you, no matter what it may be. Remember, it’s your thing, do what you wanna do.

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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 say, I thought.

Before I launch into any blisteringly insightful analysis of why I like Eminem’s music, I should provide you with my general taste requirements for music:

Marie’s Grand Musical Requirement Number One
It’s interesting, musically. I know this sounds self-evident, but my main requirement for liking something is that it has a good bassline (“I Wish” by Stevie Wonder), interesting harmonies (“Mrs. Robinson” by Simon & Garfunkel or anything by Gillian Welch), a great beat (um, somewhat embarrassingly, I offer “Jukebox Hero” by Foreigner), or a relentless but interesting hook to keep me, well, hooked (“Jump Around” by House of Pain or “Insane in the Membrane” by Cypress Hill epitomize this category).

Marie’s Grand Musical Requirement Number Two
It’s interesting, lyrically. I am a play-it-super-loud-until-it-wears-out kinda music listener. (I think I get this from my dad, who shares my penchant for sternum-rattling stereo volume in one’s car). I’m also in the Car Singer’s All Time Hall of Fame. This means that I end up knowing every single word, breath, and nuance of a song when I play it for even a few number of repetitions. So… if it’s lyrical drivel, I just can’t tolerate it for too long, even if it’s decent, musically. (Witness my short infatuations with a Britney Spears song or N*Sync – well produced pop songs, all right, but not very compelling). Songs I would consider lyrically amazing include:

• “The Boxer”, also by Simon and Garfunkel:
I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises

• “Strawberry Letter 22” by Shuggie Otis, a little more well known by the Brothers Johnson:
Stained window, yellow candy screen
See speakers of kite – with velvet roses diggin’ freedom flight
(See, it doesn’t even have to make sense to the non-mind-altered, it just has to be interesting!)

• “Barroom Girls” by Gillian Welch
Oh the night came undone like a party dress
And fell at her feet in a beautiful mess
The smoke and the whiskey came home in her curls
And they crept through the dreams of the barroom girls

• “Empty Smile” by Robert Frith
I guess I am the black sheep
My brother’s an only son

• “Living Dead Girl” by Rob Zombie
Operation filth
They love to love the wealth
Of an SS Whore
Making scary sounds
(Again, who knows what the hell it means, but I can guarantee there isn’t another song with quite that combination of concepts floating together – other Zombie songs excepted.)

Okay, so those are really my two main requirements for really liking a piece of music. I will add a third partial-requirement, however – it may actually just be a passing phase of mine, or maybe a preference but not a requirement (a “nice to have”, as we say in the projects business).

Marie’s Musical Preference Number Three: Songs in the Key of (Someone Else’s) Life
I find myself liking songs that have a perspective, specifically a perspective from someone who’s perhaps not in my particular age/race/socioeconomic bracket. I’m not sure why this is – maybe it’s analogous to the escapism we all enjoy in movies and TV (everyone watches the Sopranos’ Mafioso protagonist but they probably wouldn’t agree with mob principles in actual life). Maybe it’s the manifestation of my Sociology and Anthropology degree – I want to hear and understand others’ origins and points of view, or maybe it’s just a cheap and safe way for a middle-class white girl to pretend she’s walking on the wild side. I listened to “Sublime” for weeks because of this appeal: there’s nothing like the succinct but emasculating Hispanic bravado of “Tell Sanchito that if he knows what is good for him, he’d best go run and hide… Daddy’s got a new .45”. Most of Everlast’s socially-conscious folk-rock has this appeal for me, too, especially their hit “What It’s Like”.

Oh yeah, um, what was this topic about, again?
In any case, Eminem’s The Eminem Show CD hits me soundly in all three categories. It’s excellently mixed and produced (thanks, Dr. Dre), has unbelievably tightly-woven and self-referential (even occasionally self-deprecating) lyrics, and it’s got that didn’t-grow-up-in-Georgetown perspective that I find fascinating.

On the purely musical side, I can’t really give you a flavor of its sound without providing a clip or two (and “no thanks” to any legal issues that might arise out of that one). But it’s got these incredibly catchy little hooks created out of keyboard, drum, saxophone (synthesized, maybe – I’m none the wiser), and whatever it is that emits that West Coast rap squeal. “Business” has this relentless siren-like whine woven with a simple but pervasive little keyboard motif. “Without Me” (beyond any doubt, my absolute favorite song on this album) starts with no more than a basic upbeat drum theme with a sax ditty, and it provides an interesting-but-not-distracting canvas for the trademark Eminem lyrics.

And now to his lyrics… the area where I have to give Eminem total and complete respect. (Would it sound too white-girl-poseur to say that I give him “props” for his lyrical content?) They are amazing – dense, funny, relevant. They trip from one concept to the next, handing over rhyming themes from the end of one verse to the beginning of the next.

Moreover, however, the lyrics are often about something interesting, something a little beyond the normal pop or R&B drivel.

I present a sample:

“Square Dance”
Yeah, you laugh ‘til your motherfuckin’ ass gets drafted
When you’re at band camp thinkin’ the draft can’t happen
Til you fuck around, get an Anthrax napkin
Inside a package wrapped in Saran Wrap wrappin’
Open up the plastic and then you stand back gaspin’
Fuckin’ assassins hijackin’ Amtracks, crashin’
All this terror, America demands action,
Next thing you know you got Uncle Sam’s ass askin’

To join the army or what you do for their navy…

A little profane, but at least somewhat relevant to the current political environment. It’s more interesting than “Bye, Bye, Bye”, anyway, even if it will sound dated in five years. Of course, Eminem is also very much about the environment where he came from, and that is pervasive in his songs:

“Cleanin’ Out My Closet”
Now I would never dis my own mama just to get recognition,
Take a second to listen to who you think this record is dissin,
But put yourself in my position,
Just try to envision,
Witnessin’ your mama poppin’ prescription pills in the kitchen…Bitchin’ that someone’s always goin’ through her purse and shit’s missin’
Goin’ through public housin’ systems, victim of Munchausen syndrome

And another common theme is his travails as the publicity-hounded, often rash (and thus often-sued), hated harbinger of evil white rap’s emergence into the suburban mainstream.

“White America”
All I hear is
Lyrics, lyrics, constant controversy
Sponsors working round the clock to try to stop my concerts early…Surely hip hop was never a problem in Harlem
Only in Boston
After it bothered the fathers
Of daughters starting to blossom
…
So to the parents of America
I am the Derringer
Aimed at little Erica
To attack her character

These serious/“politically aware” themes could get tiresome in their aggressive self-focus, but for me, somehow they don’t. Maybe it’s because the music is catchy enough to carry it along. I think for me it’s the fact that the words are strung together so quickly, they pass you by before it feels like you’re being made to wallow in his self pity. And his use of language is so clever (in my opinion, and I’ll exposit more on that in a moment), that it just lets him get away with what would come across as overblown histrionics if delivered in any other musical style.

But, Eminem’s “serious artist” side aside, I especially love when he’s silly or making fun of himself. He does this on his two catchiest songs on the album, “Business” and “Without Me” (which, incidentally, won best video of the year at the MTV music awards and is the song with the infamous Moby “36-year-old bald-headed fag” reference).

“Business”
You can even call collect
The most feared duet
Since me and Elton
Played career Russian Roulette

A reference, presumably, to Eminem’s appearance on the Grammies with Elton John, which was viewed as ‘groundbreaking’ because of Eminem’s reputation as a homophobe. The song is sort of a throwaway piece about being in the hip-hop music biz with Dr. Dre, but its light lyrics and instantly-head-bounce-inducing beat make it quite palatable.

“Without Me”
I’m gonna enter in up in your skin like a splinter
The center of attention
Back for the winter
I’m interesting
The best thing since wrestling
Infesting
In your kid’s ears and nesting… Testing… attention please
Feel the tension soon as someone mentions me
Here’s my ten cents…my two cents is free
A nuisance… who sent ( you sent?) for me?
…
Sometimes it just seems everybody only wants to discuss me
So this must mean I’m disgusting
But it’s just me, I’m just obscene
Though I’m not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
To do black music so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy

What can I say… this is my favorite song not just because of its beat and catchy sax riff but because the lyrics are fun and seem to indicate that he doesn’t take himself so seriously… at least not ALL of the time.

Marie’s Newly Discovered Fourth Preference: More than Rhyming
Content aside, however, the thing that truly makes his music hypnotic for me is the actual linguistic structure of the lyrics. Perhaps this is old hat for true hip-hop experts (and I definitely do not claim to be one of those) but the way he goes beyond just rhyming lyrics is mind-blowingly interesting and novel for me.

Look at the sample I excerpted from “Square Dance”. He’s not only relentless with the rhymes (repeating the same rhyming theme seven or eight times, depending on whether or not you argue with ‘drafted’ rhyming with ‘happen’), but the lines have a parallel sound structure beyond just the last word being rhymed. The last seven lines of that first verse include the soft “a” sound before the ending word, a parallelism that sounds infinitely more structured than a pop song that just rhymes every other line. Again, the best word I can come up with is hypnotic.

One of my other favorite tricks of his is when he takes the ending sound and wraps it around to the first word of the following line (“kitchen” and “bitchin’” in “Cleanin’ out my Closet”, “nesting” and “testing” in “Without Me”, “early” and “surely” in “White America”). He does this line-wrapping without a traditional pause to signal the beginning of the next line, which makes the concepts and sounds an enjoyable rapid-fire assault.

But wait, isn’t he a punk and a misogynist?
Yes, of course he’s still the pistol toting hothead you’ve read about in Entertainment Weekly, and many of his songs on earlier albums include lyrics about strangling women (specifically, “whores”) and there’s a whole song where he enacts taking his now-ex-wife into the woods to kill her.

There’s less of that kind of thing on this album, but even on this album he does sometimes fit what Scott described in his 8 Mile review as the “very definition of a punk-ass moron”:
But I can rap, so fuck school, I’m too cool to go back
Gimme the mic, show me where the fuckin’ studio’s at
And don’t even get me started on the album’s graphic and infantile song “Drips”, which paints a sordid little scene of sex, infidelity, and venereal disease (hence the title).

Yep, but I like the music anyway
But somehow I seem to forgive all that because he’s bright enough and clever enough to win me over with most of his lyrics, or I just take the “take what you like and leave the rest” approach with the Track Select button. (Luckily, one has the luxury of purposive sampling when it comes to matters of taste).

In the end, it comes down to whether or not I like the music, and I really like it. It’s not only well-produced and lyrically intense, it’s got a whole new way of delivering sound, rhyme, and concept that I find amazing and infinitely listenable. It’ll probably be a few months yet before I even take the CD out of daily rotation.

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