Cookies That Don't Cause Itching and More!

My cousin-in-law-in-law has started a blog about what inspires her, everything from design to her son and gluten-free cookie recipes. The cookies are very inspiring and I think that's why I'm featuring the blog.

FRESH beckett. Read and enjoy.

Cookies That Don't Cause Itching and More!

10

The first project for this blog in 2009 had me aiming a camera at myself and talking, like people on YouTube. Then, as with most things, I had the sense to realize a weekly vlog wasn't for me and took a break. I had a lot of fun with the vlogs, though, and don't even regret the box fight in the basement.

When spring rolled around, very bad things happened on the day I was meant to be all, "YAY, SPRING!" so instead of bringing everyone down I switched gears and made the vlog a seasonal review of what the cats and dog were up to, and what the backyard looked like along the way. Now it's winter. The tenth vlog rings in 2010, with footage from before the recent snowstorm, and then the traditional pan around the yard happens not once but more than once so everyone can see that yes, it snowed. A lot. There's more. You should watch it.

10

NaNoWriMoWordcount -- Week 2

Week two of NaNoWriMo and I'm guess I'm still writing, because there are more words in the wordcount. I'm not sure how many because I actually scheduled this post in October when I drew the drawings and if you're reading this bit it means I didn't get here in time to write a proper wordcount.

Today is historically not a great day for me. But it's Tuesday and that's when my blog posts go up. Must stay on schedule. Must stick to the plan of keeping my personal life out of things.

If I'm sticking to my outline, I should be up to writing a bit about guy who serves drinks and saves the world. Not saying my main characters are based on anyone or anything...I mean it's not like he gets on the bar and starts singing...yet.

NaNoWriMoWordcount -- Week 2

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Don't Want To Be A Fool

My family gave me a proper PC with a modem and everything around the time My Poppy was going into the hospital for the last time. Talking about DOS while the ambulance is pulling up is one of those bizarre moments that populate my mind about that time, and only recently did I realize the computer became sort of a crutch in my grief, that the end of one life and the beginning of another, far emptier, existence overlapped in the month I went from playing pool with a man I could laugh with and cry with and talk to about anything, to teaching myself how to use AlphaWorks so I could write down my feelings and playing pool with slow VGA characters who always beat me and always said the same things.

While this whole substituting the world I loved with a world I didn't know was going on, I changed my radio station. I started listening to "soft rock." The station of course played no rock whatsoever, but when I think back to those days I always seemed to be listening to Don't Want To Be A Fool by Luther Vandross. Yes, Luther. I love Luther Vandross. There it is. Except that last song he did, don't even mention that to me or I'll break your face.

The video has embedding disabled, so you'll have to click the link to see Luther be smooth even while heartbroken all over the city. I would warn you all to watch out for the lightning storm halfway through the video, but apparently I'm the only person who tips over when things like that appear in on the screen. Not even I have that problem half the time. My Poppy would've had a joke for that. I wish I knew what he'd say.

Listening to the words now, I realize I was probably even more messed up about things than I let myself know. I hear it's popular to write to your 16-year-old self now, but maybe she knew I'd be better off never getting involved with anyone if it meant I'd have to go through what I was seeing my Nan go through. It's easy to pretend to be fine when your only company is a grayscale King Arthur who only wants you to joust properly so he can get on with finding his knights. I still remember the names of the people I wrote to on the Prodigy Sierra games board for hints on how to get past the mad monk of Glastonbury Tor. I still remember what they wrote to me when I told them why I'd been away from the board for a while. They made me feel like they cared, and it helped. I've thought about Googling them and letting them know I finally beat Conquests of Camelot, and was grateful to them for their help during an insanely difficult time, but I think I'll just let them go on being the kind people they were in my memory.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Don't Want To Be A Fool

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I Just Called To Say I Love You

Did I ever tell the story about how I damn near chopped my finger off? This week it'll be twenty-five years since I sat on a lawn chair that had been improperly set up by the parent whose name I did not keep and...felt something I guess I never really forgot.

I was nine years old at the time, and so little things like my dog Pookie being the only one to come running to my rescue and the song that happened to be on when I dragged my injured hand back into the house like Luke Skywalker on a good day stick in my head more vividly than what I ate for breakfast yesterday.

The song was I Just Called To Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder, and only two years later I'd be bitching about how wacky the Bb chord sounded when I played it. I play the piano, you know. The finger that I had to wrap up like a Twinkie until the nail grew out enough for me to pull off by myself gives me trouble, but I don't mind it so much anymore. I don't think it was broken, but to this day the joint sort of aches like it's saying, "Hi, remember when you pulled that nail off and was all 'I can see the nail polish from THIS SIDE' and it took forever but that dog was awesome." Or something. Pookie was also the only one to sit in every day as I learned to play this song.

There was a wicked remix of this song where Stevie sang like a robot and Z-100 used to play it all the time. It's like a metaphor for how much more there is to the story. Like the part where I couldn't listen to the song for years, but that part's no fun.

What is fun is that my main concern the night I crushed my fingertip was whether I'd be able to work the VCR remote to tape V: The Series. Next month, there's a new V coming to TV and I doubt I'll be using the remote to find it. LIFE IS WEIRD. I wouldn't change a second of it, though. Although I guess I'd tone down the whining about my finger while Stevie Wonder is blind.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I Just Called To Say I Love You

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I Don't Mind At All

I turned I Don't Mind At All by Bourgeois Tagg into a state of mind.

What what who?

Yes, I was a moody child, but this song used to pop up in the strangest places. On one of my Monty Python tapes, in a card store as I was looking for black balloons for my 16th birthday party, and again on the Monty Python tape the morning I was headed to a funeral. Who in their right mind watches Monty Python before going to their grandfather's funeral? Someone who wants to hold on to better days for just a few minutes longer, that's who.

In 1987 when this song hit mainstream radio, I was in the middle of my Monty Python gathering phase. Every weekend the shows were on Thirteen, and my aunt got me the rest off MTV. To fill the rest of the tape, she taped some videos, and there it was, this song that sounded like the greatest Beatles song never written. My Poppy would watch those Python tapes with me on Sunday mornings, even after I made him sick with the live organ transplants bit in The Meaning Of Life. That time countered all that made me grumpy in the world.

It wasn't just metal in my eyes and great injustices done to those I loved and daft things people would say to me, though. It was all how I took it. Seriously, I cracked and became my own therapist, and this song was my Zennest Zen counsel. I stopped saying I didn't care about things and started saying I didn't mind. I saw a difference. Was it worth being a grumpy bastard? Was it something I could change? Let it go, Indiana.

Embedding the video wasn't allow so you'll need to go here to see it, but thanks to the new obsession, imeem, here's the song:

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I Don't Mind At All

Flowers Are Like A Snack Bar

Today would have been my Uncle Joe's 95th birthday. He was a great gardener, and I think he had a lot to do with me messing with plants. On one of his visits he brought flowers...and bags of soil and huge planters. After that year, and Nan's wicked case of poison ivy, I started taking care of the yard myself instead of relying on anyone else, and the stuff that grows there now is nice.

So nice that a huge orange spider with striped legs loves to hang from this particular Rose of Sharon, which is about a foot away from my swing, every night. Except last night, when the spider decided to make its web ON my swing frame.

I can't get a decent photo of the spider. I'm sure you're all very sad about that.

Me, I was just sad I couldn't sit on my swing without running the risk of reenacting the end of The Two Towers or beginning of Return Of The King depending on which horrifying spider-on-Hobbit action you prefer.

Flowers Are Like A Snack Bar

Songs of My Misspent Youth: As

How can I cite my Poppy's birthday and my Aunt Bubbles' and Uncle Gene's wedding anniversary as my misspent youth? I don't get to celebrate those days with them anymore. I celebrate them, of course, because they're people to be celebrated, but it makes two of the happiest days in August a little less shiny. Makes me start regretting every minute I spent not near them, but then the zen kicks in and I remember they're in everything I do and all I can do is pull out the Stevie Wonder song As and declare that I get the lyrics because of them (and a few others but this weekend is theirs).

This song happens to be one of three songs I've got in my head to have played at my funeral because it's that awesome. I realize unless I manage to create some people to outlive me I probably won't have anyone to carry out the task of pressing play much less understand why I'm obsessed with this song so I'll just crank it up now and every time I hear it and be all, "I have people I love and sea-faring parrots are in the lyrics and this song is capable of raining down glitterly love all over the world and I would make a total fool of myself if I was ever near Stevie Wonder because he wrote the greatest song that can be heard." Only not that coherently. It would come out as, "YAAAAAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAA!"

If you need another twelve minutes of As goodness, I give you the Gene Harris version from '77 and George Michael/Mary J. Blige version from '99.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: As

500 Words About Not Knowing What To Write

I can't think of anything to say.

I mean, I can, but I'm a guest in your computers, there are things you're tired of hearing about and you don't come here to read about my latest ache--hell, I don't even talk to my family about that stuff. My Uncle Gene, bless him, taught me the proper response to the general greeting, "How are you?"

Can't complain, who'll listen?

I'm not a complainer, after all. Oh sure, I'll get on my soap box sometimes hitting up people I know in states where decision makers are undecided on things near to my heart, but I'm like the weather, wait a few minutes and the clouds blow over. I say what I need to and move on. Sometimes that gets mistaken as backing off, or not being interested, but to be honest you get 10% of me in this blog, another 10% in the comic, and %5 on Twitter and Facebook. That's not enough to figure me out, and I like it that way.

I won't talk about work, I'm not comfortable telling day-to-day tales of my family and I definitely wouldn't go into detail about my neighborhood because I've gotten enough e-mails and friend requests from guys who live a little too close telling me they love my smile and would like me to turn on my webcam. Or just the random tweeting from someone who is quite obviously not Prince. I'd break the Internet with my fangirl squeeing about all the music I like. Did it come from England in the '80s? I love it. Was it played on WLIR? I love it. Is it played on WFUV? I love it. I'll leave it at that, because this post is already running overtime.

I read neat things elsewhere and wonder who I can share them with. Like this brilliant response to a now-deleted diatribe by a homophobe complaining about SyFy's commitment to make less stereotypical characters. Some of the things I think are brilliant might not be safe for work, though, and how do I know where you read me?

I'm always writing offline, I have about ten projects going on but my life doesn't always allow me to say, "I'll be ready to show you X in September," so I'll mention them when they're ready to be seen, like how I sprung Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap on you. It got 54 views. THANKS!

Every social networking site greets me with, "What are you doing/thinking/feeling?" I could just respond, "A lot," and leave it forever but that's dull. I dread being dull. I like having something to say.

I also like LOLcats, but who doesn't? You all read I Can Has Cheezburger, what's the point of me repeating the day's fuzzy cuteness?

So I've got nothing new. It was a lovely day, the weather has been pretty good to me. Hope it's being good to you too, and thanks for reading my stuff, even when I have nothing to say.

500 Words About Not Knowing What To Write

Songs of My Misspent Youth: You & I Both

I remember the first time I heard You & I Both by Jason Mraz. Not a week after losing the love of my life and deciding blogging was a pointless waste of time, I was listening to the World Café, and Jason Mraz was the guest. I froze in mid-polish, listening to this song and having one of those moments that get people called loony for thinking radio has the ouija board-like ability to send messages that give meaning to EVERYTHING.

I was dusting at the time, because we were adopting the Ninja Twins in a few hours and while I didn't know that they'd be Ninjas or even twins, I knew dusting was a good way to stave off DOOM FUNK. Also, kittens generally do not like to sneeze, and are unimpressed when you show them photos of how cute pawprints through dust look.

So it was quite the moment, and the song never became as big as Mraz's other songs and that always pissed me off because after getting a message from beyond like that I'd want to get it again and again as often as possible.

My foot went through the floor that night as well. Not entirely through it, because of the linoleum and three layers of tiles over where the termites were dining, but I was in DOOM FUNK, and the radio was killing me softly with Jason Mraz songs, and...I just didn't walk across that spot from then on. The kittens would go on to point out there were things eating the house, and did not stop pointing this out until it was remedied, but that's another story. A comic strip, to be exact.

If I knew then what I know now, I still wouldn't have mentioned the weak spot in the floor that night. Things happened, and a few weeks made no difference to the floor, but having the money to save my dog's leg two weeks later was a much higher priority. I couldn't have changed the existence of termites without a very sturdy time machine and hazardous chemicals, anyway. Six years on, I'm okay with the way things went. I don't even regret redirecting my writing into offline projects. Maybe because of the song. Maybe because of cats and dogs. Maybe because it makes a hell of a story. Maybe I'll tell the whole thing someday.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: You & I Both

Death Turns Off The Television

This past Sunday Billy Mays died. Anyone who has read this blog since the beginning knows I was pretty harsh to that dude, and I needed to acknowledge that and maybe, you know, apologize. All the times that I'd tell the TV to shut up, I didn't actually mean he should die. I feel quite guilty about that now. Seriously.

It could be a sign that I'm getting way too old for my own good when I recognize every celebrity who dies, but last week would've blown the mind of even teeny little ten-year-old me, and that is probably why this post exists.

Last year on my birthday, the first thing I heard was the terrible news that George Carlin had died. That was sad, I likened it to someone jumping out of my cake and socking me in the gut.

So this year when the news came that Ed McMahon had died, I...you know how my Poppy used to get me to watch Star Search, right? He and my mum watched that show all the frikkin' time, and back then I had no idea I'd end up knowing what day it was if dancing was on, so I'd trudge in and watch the girls sing or the kids dance and then I'd store it in the part of my mind that went back and thought about all the times we watched Star Search and how it led to me making 8mm music videos with puppets and how my Poppy used to watch The Tonight Show all the time, and I of course came to the conclusion that anything that made me remember my Poppy was okay. Sad, but okay.

Then Farrah Fawcett died. This was sadder because I don't like to see anyone who totally fought a lousy disease lose, and growing up I don't think I ever missed an episode of Charlie's Angels. In fact...I used to play Charlie's Angels in my head. I can't explain what that entailed, a lot of jumping around, basically. But it's difficult to be an only child and play Charlie's Angels alone. They were a team, you know. I kept up with her movies, too...if you've never seen a movie called Saturn 3, now would be a good time to catch up. It was a space thriller with Farrah Fawcett in the middle of a sort of love triangle between Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, and a super battle droid named Hector that could pluck eyelashes out of eyes and...well, I don't want to spoil the rest. Then watch The Burning Bed because that was awesome.

As my mother was telling me of Farrah Fawcett's passing, I got the weird Irish, "I wonder who'll be next," everyone-goes-in-threes thought. I seriously did not expect who was next. I mean, it wasn't a complete shock...but....

I had The Puppy out for walkies when Mum told me Michael Jackson died.

The sticker pictured somewhere to your right was stuck on my cabinet door in 1984 by my Mum, who I think wanted me to be interested in what all the kids were into. She also talked me into getting a shirt that had the word THRILLER across it with a glittery glove right over the er...chest area. I left that sticker on the cabinet and it's been there for a quarter of a century. Sure, the edges dried out and it got snagged on things, but it's still there.

I love Michael Jackson's music. As soon as I heard he was gone every song piled up and moonwalked my brain into a somewhat surprising blubbering mess. Beat It was the first song I heard on Z-100. Billie Jean was the second video I taped off TV. I watched Thriller a hundred times even though I freaked out over Weird Al's cat eyes at the end of Eat It. Man In The Mirror was playing in a store I desperately wanted to leave but couldn't on account of being 13, so I stood there, listening to the words while my family bought the tiles I would eventually help install and that sappy song about being the change you want to see in the world helped me realize I needed to stop being such a self-centered bitch.

Over the weekend all the radio stations in the area played songs they hadn't played in years. Songs everyone knows. The songs that are now all he'll ever record. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' was on a few times, and that, of all of them, may be my most favorite. Back when I was teaching myself BASIC on the Atari I listened to Thriller a lot, and so all those songs are pretty much burned into my mind forever, but that one...it has ties to a lot of things, a lot of people, and unlike my weekend series of, "I moped a lot during this song," Jackson's music got me moving. Got me to do something. Got me to give a shit about the world, even. YES, I'm saying I care what's going on in Iran and Honduras because Michael Jackson sang songs about healing the world and everyone having the same blood and that if we want to make the world better, we could. That's what I'll remember, that's what I'll keep with me, that's what I'll hand down. That, the sparkly glove, and the moonwalk.

Death Turns Off The Television

Summertime...and the Vloggin' ain't easy....

At some point this afternoon I remembered I had planned to make a vlog for summer. I've given up the idea of talking at the camera about crap I've done because if you follow this blog YOU KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE. At least what I'mgoing to tell you about, anyway.

This time I thought the Ninja Twins had far more important things to say on the topic of summery goodness and let them go for it. The Puppy chimes in with an agreement on the humidity. Because this is my fairytale, there are no raccoons visible. Only happy things. Wheeeeeeee!

Behold, the vlog of summer.

Summertime...and the Vloggin' ain't easy....

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Any Single Song Off The Soul Cages

1991 was a strange year. It was the first year of my life I had to live without my Poppy. Around the time we lost him Sting had completed his album The Soul Cages, which was inspired by the loss of his father. That in itself should be enough to explain what drew me to the album, but I didn't know what the album was about the horrendously hot day I got into the car and discovered I could pull in WDRE, and they were playing Mad About You, I just thought it was a cool sounding song. Then the bridge hit me. "I have never in my life felt more alone than I do now." When you're a teenager and you've lost one of the bright lights in your life, songs like that get you through things like making everyone around you think you're fine despite feeling like you're dying with each step you take away from everything you ever knew.

All This Time, the peppy one about the last rites and burial at sea, with its message that time just keeps flowing got so deep into my head that I edited a quick bit of the video into footage from our trip. Sting totally was on our train, getting bounced around the dining car. Never mind that he was on a boat in his video. The video I edited for our trip was insane and I'll never know what anyone thought of the scenes where the train operator got off for coffee, or Shaolin monks battled on top on the train in Denver, but it amused me and if there's one thing you guys all obviously get about me it's that I need to be amused.

Why Should I Cry For You? was another one WDRE played, becoming a Shreeek of the Week in May of that year and that instantly qualifies it as ten kinds of awesome. Even before I knew the guy who'll be married six years tomorrow loved it, or that the ADD goth pirate who turns not quite Hobbit-old on Monday also thought the song was the greatest thing ever, it was another one of those songs that sat with me and stared out the window at the rain whenever I'd wake up and remember that only the year before, we did this, or we did that...together. Down the years it became the song for other things, stories and characters who are still waiting to live (or die, as their writers see fit), and it always has a tale to tell when we meet up again.

Some magazine recently thought it was clever to call Sting the worst songwriter of all time, and I disagree with that, and The Soul Cages is why. The soundtrack to the IMAX movie The Living Sea contains different versions of some of the songs, and indeed the extended intro Mad About You has a horn solo that could cause me to veer off the road it is so fantastic. Branford Marsalis is to blame for that, he's also the sax player who made the soundtrack to The Russia House what it is. My Nan and I, we hear that horn, and it could be that it was the first new thing we enjoyed after 1990, but we dig that horn, man.

Mad About You


All This Time


Why Should I Cry For You

Finally, I never did get as far as this guy with St. Agnes and the Burning Train, but it was one I picked out on the piano a few years after 1991, on the weekends I'd spend trying to calm the baby border collie with separation anxiety. It totally worked. For me, anyway. And no, there's no recording of me playing it so I've spared you that much.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Any Single Song Off The Soul Cages

And another thing.

65 years ago today, a 25-year-old army medic took part in something I don't think anyone who wasn't there can comprehend. The medic went on to give his granddaughter an appreciation of music and the will to keep going no matter how mad the world gets.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

And another thing.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I'll Take New York

I listen to the radio in bed. Hot, eh? Wait, I should tell you in this much of story I'm underage. 15, to be exact. One night, I happened upon a song the likes of which I'd never heard before. And yes, Jersey Girl was technically the first Tom Waits song I heard but some dude named Bruce was singing it and the videos for In The Neighborhood and Downtown Train also came before this precise moment I'm writing about, but the greatness did not set into my young mind until I'll Take New York by Tom Waits was on WFUV, way way down the dial. Now, by "night," I mean around three in the morning. It's called chronic insomnia for a reason. Creaking around looking for a pen to scrawl "TOM WAITE" did not wake my family, and that was not a misspent moment at all, come to think of it.

Neither was the afternoon in April of '90 when I put Frank's Wild Years on for my Poppy to hear:



The time I brought my Tom Waits tapes with me on the trip to California and then fell asleep two seconds into Rain Dogs because I was exhausted, that could be the misspent bit. Or all the time I wasted not being me, until I heard Tom Waits and realized holy moly it's cool to not be a cookie cutter run-of-the-mill person, that time was wasted. Different is good, kids. Different rules.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I'll Take New York

One Year.

When I was 17, I got it into my head to call up my Aunt Bubbles from 3000 miles away, just to hear her voice. I got the area code wrong, and ended up having an awkward moment with a woman who spoke only Spanish. My Aunt Bubbles loved butterflies. When I see them, I tell them to say hi. Butterflies can go where phones don't, I've found.

♥

One Year.

Now He Can Travel Wherever He Likes

My Poppy's older brother Joe passed away last week. He liked being recognized as the oldest, and at 94 he had every right to brag. He was the last of John and Tessie's boys, and it's too much to think that now all the stories of the boys when they were young will be second-hand. The stories are legendary, but told by actual Naclerio brothers, they were fascinating, hilarious, and always more interesting than anything I could ever tell.

(Tessie and her boys - Uncle Artie, Uncle Gene, Grandma Tessie, Uncle John, my Poppy, and Uncle Joe)

Uncle Joe and I had a lot in common. We were both into photography, gardening, cats...he even enjoyed tinkering with my Lego train set, but we also got our computers around the same time and I think I learned more about Windows because of Uncle Joe calling me up and asking me what everything was for than I would have on my own.

Uncle Joe loved to drive so much that his car Bessie pretty much knew the way home all by herself, which was good as I used to fall asleep halfway through each three-hour drive to and from his house. The day he drove to the Bronx, picked us up and drove us to Moriches so I could figure out why his computer was speaking German, then drove us home and then turned around and drove himself home should have gotten him a medal.

Over the summer of 1993 I seemed to spend more time on Long Island than anywhere else, taking pictures of all the places I followed Uncle Joe and Nan and Mum, and it was during those long trips to sunny places that I learned my limitations. Crashing and burning, I think it's called. Uncle Joe didn't seem to mind as long as I assured him I wasn't mad in my cheeriest slurring, but sometimes I wonder what he really thought when he showed me a hat with a lobster through it and said, "Isn't this your sign?"

I said, "Yeah!" because I had heatstroke.

Of course I still have the hat. I guess hats were our thing. I first met Uncle Joe at my uncle Johnny's wedding in 1983 but it wasn't until my Poppy's funeral that he started greeting me with, "Where's the hat?" every time he saw me. He used to wear hats too, and my cat used to greet Uncle Joe by pushing his cap off his head. Being the cat lover he was, Uncle Joe was impressed by m'man, and what he wrote to me when he heard m'man had gone ahead to the great catnip pastures beyond is something I'll cherish until the day I join them.

This past week I've been playing the Windows solitaire games Uncle Joe used to love to play when we first got our computers. He showed me how to play them, and I haven't won a single game but it's been nice to remember the good times.

Those boys, in that picture up there, they did good. They left their sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandkids, great-grandkids and every generation after with some great stories. I'll never forget them, and you can be sure I won't let anyone go without telling a little bit about them.

Tags: March 2009, family

Now He Can Travel Wherever He Likes

Vlog 7: Spring!

I realize Spring doesn't officially start for another 12 hours, but when I realized it had been six weeks since the last vlog and all I had to talk about were incredibly sad things I didn't think would fit into a HEY IT'S SPRING! vlog, vlog 7 became a chronicle of what I love to do. Not much talk. Just buzzing around the backyard.

With that, I'm turning the vlogs into a seasonal thing. Because there are way better vlogs out there to watch. Like Imogen Heap's notes on her new studio and album, for instance.

Vlog 7: Spring!

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Plush

I realize in retrospect my musical tastes were in no way unique, but WDRE/WLIR, it brought me good music before most of my friends--who couldn't be bothered to position their radio in just the right spot to bring in the station--ever mentioned it. I was terrible about knowing the titles to songs, though, so I went nearly a month not knowing the song was what someone had asked me if I'd heard. I think. He said something along the lines of, "Haveyouheardplushbystonetemplepilots?" and I had no idea, just like I had no idea that Stone Temple Pilots wasn't Pearl Jam.

And so, 16 years down the line, saying I heard that Stone Temple Pilots song Plush before even I knew what it was seems...puny. But it figured heavily into my 1993, playing a lot on those long nights...and days...and I'm during an eclipse or something. There were running jokes, like when DRE After Dark had "Ricardo Montalban" introduce the song, pointing out how plush the Corinthian leather seats were, and I only mention this because to this day I still hear the title in my head as, 'sPlush! and it was hard to write it any other way in the post and that just outs me as world-class crazy, doesn't it?

Plush was on late one night as I hoped my dog didn't have cancer, and it was playing when I learned he didn't. True, the song is probably about a dead girl, but in May of 1993 it was the greatest song ever.

There are other memories and stories the song, as well as the band, collected in my mind since 1993, but they're even more obscure and difficult to explain. Just like the '90s.

Tags: March 2009, songs of my misspent youth, music, video, confessions, family

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Plush

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Lose Your Love

I first saw the video for Lose Your Love by Blancmange in early 1986 and it fascinated me. Okay, I was a kid, I giggled, aware that dudes throwing things and possessing twirling feet were maybe not fun to be around in real life but Blancmange made freaking out look so damn fun. The song stuck with me and of course I went on to find most Blancmange songs frikkin' rule, however it took some 15 years to meet up with another Blancmange fan and today is his birthday...in my time zone anyway.

It's also my youngest cousin's birthday today, and although I doubt very much she'll be checking my blog out any time soon, this video was one her dad, her Zamma, and I watched over and over again way back before her name was even picked out. Mainly because I kept rewinding the tape and wouldn't let anyone leave my room until they'd fully appreciated the greatness of this video.

Tags: songs of my misspent youth, music, video, family, February 2009

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Lose Your Love