Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!


It’s been a sleep-deprived week here at CJSD Enterprises, Ltd. Our little Libby decided last weekend to start waking up 2-3 times during the night again, which would be awesome if she was throwing a rave and providing us with a ton of drugs to help us stay up all night. It’s hit The Lovely Becky the hardest because this new schedule came during finals week, when she’s at her busiest with grading. But it’s certainly made me pretty damn sleepy, which has made my brain rather mushy and unfunny, leaving me with only enough creative energy to think of posts like,“Poop. Heh heh heh.” Which, now that I think about it, would be kind of a funny post.

Anyway, it’s all perfectly normal, or so say all the baby books, but that doesn’t make it any easier, does it? I really wish the authors of said books, when saying you should let your baby cry, would post evidence that they wrote such advice at 3 a.m., while their babies were crying. Like the writing was full of typos or soaked with tears of fatigue or devolved into tangents on the intrinsic humor of the word "poop."

Of course, I know these experts are right, much in the same way people who are thin because they have no taste buds and get Tantric orgasms from doing crunches and step aerobics say I would lose weight if I ate less “bad” foods and worked out more. That doesn’t make it any less annoying or reduce my desire to push down on the bench press bar when they need a spot.

In all honesty, though, parenthood has been grand and Miss Libs has been a very easy baby by most baby-measuring standards. So the real answer, as usual, is that I am a wuss. An accusation I would be more upset by if I wasn’t such a...okay, let’s have some music, shall we?

1) “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)”, The Ramones. The original title of this classic Ramones track was the parenthetical part, but Johnny “God Bless President Bush” Ramone thought it was offensive to President Reagan. So un-punk.

2) “For No One,” The Beatles. Such a pretty McCartney ditty. And you don’t get a lot of clavichord and French horn in rock. Speaking of which, it’s funny how seemingly insignificant phrases become staples of your linguistic arsenal. I used to read the Letterman Top Ten books pretty religiously (shocking, I know). One of the lists—something about surprising revelations—had this entry: “Mr. T: gayer than a French horn.” That stupid little phrase has stuck with me for nearly 20 years, all because I read it in a silly little book, probably while I was in the bathroom.

3) “Living Loving Maid,” Led Zeppelin. The most lyrically-challenged great band of all time? Don’t get me wrong, I loves to get the Led out in the cheesiest, classic-rock-radio-Zeppelin-rock-block manner. But the other day when I was at the gym, “Misty Mountain Hop” came on. Great song, perfect for working out, but seriously, the lyrics? Not only nonsensical, often unintelligible. “Living Loving Maid” falls into that category, as do probably 80 percent of Zepp’s songs. I just find it kind of funny.

4) “White Mystery,” Minus The Bear. Where I currently live is a bit of a white mystery, in, “why would all these white people choose to live here when all they see is white for six goddamned months out of the year.” No, I’m not bitter like an Alberta Clipper.

5) “Stop Breakin’ Down Blues,” Robert Johnson. Seems like a perfect song for the this week.

6) “Monsters,” Band of Horses. One of the best songs from one of my favorite new bands. They have a penchant for off-kilter melodies that still manage to root into my brain, delivered with an earnestness that never feels forced or melodramatic.

7) “Night of the Living Baseheads,” Public Enemy. The samples really knock my block off. It also sad that so much of what Chuck D sang about then is still true today.

8) “In My Bed,” Amy Winehouse. There’s no way I’m crawling under her covers without a hazmat suit and a scuba tank full of penicillin.

9) “Lola Stars and Stripes,” The Stills. Big, serious, mopey rock that would have sounded more appropriate 20 years ago. It almost annoys me, but I dig the big beat and the jangly bursts of guitars, so I overlook the annoying aspects. I’m so easy.

10) “Sad and Lonely,” Secret Machines. Speaking of big and easy...I get suckered in by the huge, John Bonham beat of this song. As much as I love indie rock and the independent spirit of bands like Guided by Voices, my heart belongs to rock music that sounds huge. Lo-fi is great, and hearing a song that sounds like it was recorded in someone’s bathroom often lends an immediacy to the work you wouldn’t get in a big schmancy studio. But the drums always suffer with those kinds of songs, and there are times when I need my drums to explode out of my speakers. So this song always gets cranked when it comes on.

11) “All This Time,” Sting. My favorite solo song of his, and frankly, one of the best he’s every written. It’s catchy, it’s clever, and it’s impeccably arranged. A shiny, bouncy way to head into the weekend.

Next week: My 11 favorite songs that I heard this year. Every other cobag gets to do a best of, so why not me?

Have a good weekend.