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

The Tangled Yet Rather Endearing Mess That Is My Life

Summer of 2009 was weird. It started out with me all gung-ho to die of extreme sunstroke and ended with me staggering around unable to recognize even my Puppy's father-in-law after a week of tackling said Puppy to flush her ears with what is basically douche and then driving a great flaming car through rezoned streets of death after playing Frankenstein on patio umbrellas.

It's alive, I say when I wake up.

Not that I sleep much, especially since I got it into my head three months ago to stop taking every pill I used to take. No Benadryl, no Rite-Aid brand Sudafed knock-off, nothing. Commando head. I credit/blame Michael Jackson. I was up to way too much Benadryl to sleep an extra hour. I've had chronic insomnia since age 1 so suggesting more exercise or counting things is going to go over with me as well as suggesting hats for UV exposure for my legs.

I did a lot this summer, or at least it feels like I did. I didn't let anything like the occasional lack of a functional right side stop me, either. I developed a tan. My skin will hurt until 2012. Everything I pruned has grown back and my hair dye has nearly grown out. Time marches on. Or drags awkwardly like Torgo, in my case.

I started putting this Autumnal Vlog together a while back, because I knew it was going to be big, but it was held up by the most recent shocking reminder that I need to keep track of what goes on in my little world at all times. I think it worked out, though. I think it made the video, I think it summed up this year, and I especially like that we made all it through.

Yay autumn!

(Summary for the YouTube-less folk: I spent some time filming The Slinky One and The Puppy as they both tried to explain that The Fluffy One was twenty feet up the cherry tree and could I please stop filming them and assemble the team to help him down. He's a lumberjack and he's OK, but I wasn't after that, which is why you may notice the Vlog went up a tad late.)

The Tangled Yet Rather Endearing Mess That Is My Life

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Bumble Boogie

I was the sort of kid who would have my mother phone in requests to radio stations. Both times the songs I requested weren't played so I learned that didn't work quickly. After the Internet came along I actually did get a few requests played, but that's another story for another time...and I have to check if the restraining order allows me to talk about it. (I kid...possibly.)

For some reason I once got it into my head that Bumble Boogie by Jools Holland and His Millionaires just hadn't been on WDRE enough in the two years since they'd changed call letters. I can't say they never came through on the request because the song was one of the legendary Screamers of the Week, so I only had to wait another two years until the special Thanksgiving Shreeek-End, where (almost) all the Screamers and Shreeeks of the Week to date were played.

I taped the Shreeek-End, you know. It ran for three days straight, so I set my alarm for every 43 minutes so I could get up and flip or change the tape during the hours when everyone else with less obsessive tendencies slept. I had to go out to the basement, because that radio had the best reception and was less likely to get interference from people moving around. Zorro my cuz-dog thought it was great that I was spending so much time with him and he was the first to get an earful about how great this version of Bumble Boogie was when I finally heard it again. He slept in the basement when he visited us because he and Pookie didn't agree on some things. Like, seeing each other. *sigh* Men.

I could never play the piano like Jools Holland. That used to hurt, but being able to listen to him play makes it all better.

(Waiting around 6 years to tape a song off the radio was the equivalent of something only being 99.2% seeded, kids.)

Tags: September 2009, music, video, songs of my misspent youth

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Bumble Boogie

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Head Over Heels by The Go-Gos

My all-time most favorite song 25 years ago was Head Over Heels by The Go-Gos, as opposed to the Tears For Fears song which you know is coming in November. You know that right? Sure you do.

Watching the video now I...well, almost couldn't. Holy migraine triggers, Batman! But back when I was ten, I got a charge out of flickering lights in my eyes and exposing myself to things that very nearly sent me insane all the time. Recall, if you will, my heart-warming memory of puking after playing Jedi Arena for hours.

But back in 1984 here was this song that Belinda Carlisle wrote about her struggle with addiction, and this kid watching it was all, "I TOTALLY IDENTIFY WITH THIS SONG," but never saying it out loud because how could I possibly ever let on that I felt my life was totally out of my control? At ten? So I went for the easy route of, "OMG, this is such a fun song and Jane Weidlin is adorable."

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Head Over Heels by The Go-Gos

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: Eye Of The Tiger

My cousin Rob (who turns old enough for me not to say) rarely liked my music. Most likely because he was not a girl. However, he did introduce me to Men At Work, and Eye Of The Tiger by Survivor. Back in the olden days before Internet, he got it into his head to tape the theme off the end of Rocky III as the movie was ending on HBO one weekend. He fell asleep, but I taped the song. It was so cool. The tape ran out before the end. That...wasn't as cool.

While I could say I've spent the rest of my life trying to atone for that, music isn't so much I WILL NEVER HEAR IT AGAIN anymore and now when I hear this song I think of how Z-100 used to play good music and maybe I was kind of a bitch as a child but all that dims when watching the official video for this song and being blinded by '80s eightiesness. Wow. There are laws about taking up a whole sidewalk like that, guys.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Eye Of The Tiger

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Is Your Love Strong Enough

Through U68, I discovered Is Your Love Strong Enough? by Bryan Ferry with David Gilmour. It was from some movie, apparently. I saw Legend eventually but the song, played over and over for two hours, makes me much happier.

Don't touch unicorns, kids, no matter how fuzzy you think they'll be. Bad things will happen, and I realize Tim Curry is awesome and all, but I love unicorns more. Unicorns and this song. I used to roller skate, you know. I tried skating backwards one time while this song was on but I fell, hurt my back for all eternity, and I STILL love this song.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Is Your Love Strong Enough

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Yeah. I made that. Click it, it'll take you this video I made too.

Took me long enough to get around to. Five years, give or take a few months.

Ten years ago today, though, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace premiered. I hear that took longer to create but it gave me enough good times to get me to this point in life, and now you'll all have to sit through four more minutes of Sithly gloriousness to witness the vision that just would not die.

It all goes back to the fall of 2004. I was spending a lot of time walking kittens and listening to K-Rock. AC/DC figured heavily into their playlists, and I had high fevers, the highest of which was the Star Wars pandemic. I'd exiled myself from most of the Internet to avoid spoilers for Revenge Of The Sith but then Lucasfilm's own Back In Black sneak preview tied AC/DC to SW for all eternity and an idea was formed. Among other things. Porkins destroying the Death Star to T.N.T. was actually the baby brother of the idea of Dirty Deeds, but like Star Wars itself, these things get made in the order technology allows.

My list of people I'd like to thank would be longer than the video itself, but odds are if you're reading all this you know you had a hand in giving me the will to see it through to completion. A right hand, in fact. Sorry about slicing it off. *ahem* ;)

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Duel Of The Fates

Ten years.

I spent a lot of time reading the novelization of The Phantom Menace while listening to the soundtrack before the fabled Episode I of Star Wars even opened. I...did shady things to hear Duel Of The Fates as soon as it came out. I had made up my mind I would love the movie and was not disappointed. Episode I was a highlight of my turn of the century, and there are few memories untouched by Star Wars from that time on.

It was time well spent.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Duel Of The Fates

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Something About You

If there was any doubt I'm babbling on and on week after week about my life, the appearance of Level 42's biggest worldwide hit, Something About You should clear up the confusion.

This song changed my life. It's been twenty-three years since the first time I heard it, but every time I hear it it's a spring day--a nice one, not the overheated garbage we've had lately--and I have a song I love on the radio. A song I'd be willing to fight for, even. There is so much going on in this song you can hear something new on every listen.

I was obsessed with the video, too. I made a Barbie-sized yellow plaid suit, that's how obsessed I was. I started reading Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy because in an interview Mark King mentioned the name of the band came from that book. The good parts of 1986 all seem to involve listening to Level 42 and reading Douglas Adams.

The misspent part comes from where I didn't go ahead and write all the stuff I wanted to back then. What else was I doing, re-arranging my closet? Yeah, that was worthwhile. Pfft.

Again, embedding's been disabled so you'll need to go watch it here if you want to. You want to, trust me.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Something About You

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Love & Pride

Love & Pride by King. Not Queen, not Prince, not even Princess, who had a hit in the '80s called Say I'm You're Number One. King.

It was one of the first videos I saw on U68, the tri-state area's UHF alternative to MTV. U68 became the only station I watched for nearly two years. Sure, I'd flip over to PBS once in a while, but the music U68 played was great. It made me happy, and started me off editing music videos in my head. Man, I had some good ones.

After U68 was sold to the Home Shopping Network and I spiraled into new wave withdrawal, I found WLIR. They played King. A lot. Some twenty years later they still played Love & Pride by King, and I was still listening to it, albeit from the back of my car on the way to have my dog's knee surgery stitches removed. Haven't heard the song much lately, but when it comes on, I know for four minutes or so I'll be hearing something good.

Every copy of the video of YouTube has embedding disabled, so you'll just have to click on over there if you want to see a bunch of kids spray painting their shoes and dancing around to a neat song.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Love & Pride

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Walk Between The Raindrops

People who know me and have witnessed me professing my love for Steely Dan BEFORE I knew the name had an origin will not be surprised Walk Between Raindrops by Donald Fagen made it onto my list of songs I've heard at memorable moments in my life.

I always liked the song, so hearing it the morning I let the dog out to wee and the cat out to eat some grass only to find a continuous stream of carpenter ants going into and coming out of my house calmed me a bit. As did taking a swatter to the ants. 1997 was not the first year of the carpenter ants, and it wasn't the last time I'd find something eating my house*, but that humid morning, exercising futility to the max with my puny swatter in hand, the cat and dog even following some of the ants, that was...quite a moment. It was just starting to rain, too.

Seeing that video reminds me that a great deal of my time was not wasted at all playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with Nan and Mum, m'man stretched out across my lap, purring and rubbing on my elbow every time I had to stop petting him to do paramedic missions. I don't do paramedic missions in GTA anymore, you know. My elbow doesn't feel the same.

*Hey kids, if you see insects eating your home, don't let anyone tell you you're crazy and annoying and to just wait until your foot goes through the floor. Anyone who says that doesn't really love you and will probably die before the house gets eaten badly enough, leaving you with a big buggy mess to clean up.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Walk Between The Raindrops

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Army Of Me

Would I trade the misspent time in my life? No. So this week I'll hone in on all the times I had to use anything, including Army of Me by Björk, to get myself to stand up. Is taking total responsibility for every single one of my moods and not expecting anyone else to fix me a bad thing? Not for me, but I wouldn't say anyone else should do it. So when you see Björk wearing some crazy dress or talking about what her television is doing to her brain, remember she made angsty girls in the '90s do stuff they might not have otherwise, and so all that time wasn't really wasted.

Stand up
You've got to manage
I won't sympathize
Anymore

And if you complain once more
You'll meet an army of me

You're alright
There's nothing wrong
Self sufficience please!
And get to work

And if you complain once more
You'll meet an army of me

You're on your own now
We won't save you
Your rescue squad
Is too exshausted

And if you complain once more
You'll meet an army of me

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Army Of Me

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

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Don't Dream It's Over

Don't Dream It's Over most likely belongs to everyone's misspent youth, most likely they have their own reasons for either listening or running like hell out of the chip aisle when it pops on.

It's the second week I'm going back to 1987, and I suppose it's because 1987 was the beginning of the misspent time. The end of March, that year and so many other years, brought mortality flapping around my head with great noisy wings that wouldn't be quiet, even when I was assured everything would be fine, or even when I knew there was nothing at all I could do but pipe music directly into my head.

This song is about life, man. Like, ALL of life.

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

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Don't Dream It's Over

Songs of My Misspent Youth: White Rabbit

Yeah, yeah, I know, this song is old enough to be my mother. But my mother only heard the song after I went all crazy over Grace Slick and brought home Surrealistic Pillow.

White Rabbit is not entirely about Alice In Wonderland. I knew this in 1987, because I knew way too much for my own good, and as a result of all the things in my head I didn't think I ought to know from reading the encyclopedias, I spent a lot of time listening to music with my headphones. Except this song, it became the song I let my mum hear. I figured she might know it, having been listening to music a hell of a lot longer than listening to me being weird. She loved it. The song, I mean. Although she did let me live through 1987, so I guess she doesn't mind my weirdness quite so much either.

And yes, she did used to offer me Tylenol and I would say it didn't help. Every time I pick out one of these songs I wonder if calling it a song of my misspent youth makes sense, and this one, this song I listened to so much in 1987, even with headaches, even when moping, even when watching Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, it makes perfect sense to me.

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

Songs of My Misspent Youth: White Rabbit

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: Reel Around The Sun from Riverdance

This week, like all weeks with March 17 in them, has St. Patrick's Day in it. I get the Irish pride thing, but even more than that--because if I go any further my Irish parts will be sobbing apologies to my Italian parts and the pagan bits of my brain will just be glaring at the whole spectacle and I've past the age where I need to get in the crossfire of that whole mess--even more than being Irish in any way...there was this whole time where Celtic music was everywhere and I frikkin' loved it.

No, actually, what happened was I heard Reel Around The Sun the first time and my brain managed one last, "What. Is. That."

Then it was twelve years later, I was wondering what Bill Whelan's composed lately and wondering where Michael Flatley will turn up next.

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

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Reel Around The Sun from Riverdance

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: Suburbia

This so-called misspent youth of mine seems to dwell in 1987 quite a bit. Is it because that was the year I misspent the most? Hell no, it's because the music kicked ass! In early 1987, I listened to two radio stations more than any others: WLIR and WQHT. Back then QHT hadn't insulted any dead people and was called Hot 103, which looks very awkward so long after the flip where QHT became Hot 97 and the country station of the day moved up the dial to take over that frequency, but before that bizzare day were the days when one song dominated both of my favorite stations. Suburbia by Pet Shop Boys.

Oh, how I love Pet Shop Boys. They had the coolest glasses and I loved the whole brooding straight-faced no dancing around thing. Aside from just enjoying the hell out of their music, listening to their songs inspired all sorts of stories that I'm not going to get into now, but everyone was some variation of ass-kicking spy and I miss those days when I didn't bother fact-checking my fiction, I just wrote and wrote and it didn't matter if all my characters were around the same age and everyone ended up related, because when the 12" single of this song (Or Opportunities, or--pfft, anything they ever did) came on, all was right in the land of chaos. I guess you had to be there.

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

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Suburbia