the sticking point

The Cactus Where His Heart Should Be

Electro-convulsive therapy must be changing me.

A few hours ago, one of those awkward things happened where, by pure coincidence, I saw the guy who lives in A21, the apartment next to mine, several times in a few hours. I usually go weeks without seeing him at all. When we see each other, there’s usually little more interaction than a hello or an eyebrow raise and nod. In the 14 months or so that I’ve lived in the building, we’ve spoken less than 50 words to each other. Until today.

After running into him several times today, I guess he decided, what the hell – why don’t I ask him about adoption. He stops me on the front steps of our building and starts – “You’re a family of four now? Congratulations.”

Nice start, but this episode went real bad real quick. He proceeded to ask every inappropriate question you can pose to an adoptive parent. And when he wasn’t asking rude questions, he was spewing the most offensive bullshit I’ve heard in a long time. Most people let slip with just one wrong question or rude comment, and I strike back with a well-rehearsed, “Are you rude… or stupid?” But this guy was a pro. He had a routine.

“You’re kids are obviously adopted. What did you think of adoption?”

“Why did you adopt?”

“My wife and I, we considered adoption a long time ago, but – thank God – we had a child of our own. Which was good for us.”

“Oh, Korean? Is that what they are?”

“And what did you do? Did you ask for them, or say ‘Just give us what ya got’?”

“This is a great neighborhood for them. Great schools. And a lot of Koreans, too. In some neighborhoods they would stick out like a sore thumb.”

“It was a good idea to go to a foreign country, because in this country, it’s a mess. A lot of times the mother comes out of nowhere years later and wants the baby back.” (Years later? Baby?) "Any problem with that in Korea?"

“Why did you pick Korea?” This isn’t an inappropriate question, per se. My wife and I had our reasons and we don’t mind explaining them. It’s fine for friends and family to ask. But not the guy from next door whose name I don’t know. And when he learned that the Korean program places babies in families younger than many other country’s programs, he told me, “That’s good. Why should you have to break someone else’s bad habits. This way you can teach ‘em yourself, young.”

He then said something that a lot of people say, friends and strangers, after I describe the agency and the Korean program. And while it is not offensive or rude, it is incredibly stupid: “So, you guys did your research!”

No. It was kind of a half-assed plan we hatched one afternoon while drunk. We got the idea from Oprah! I don’t even remember how it worked, but here we are four years later with a couple East Asian kids in the house. Weird, huh?

I showed no outward anger during this little “conversation.” I can’t understand it. The Tommy Himself that I’ve known all my life would have reacted with either a hard punch to this guy’s throat, or at least a minute-long torrent of verbal assaults. I did nothing but tell him I’ll be letting him be on his way and said goodbye. I don’t get it. When I came upstairs, even my wife wanted to know why I didn’t let him have it. (Though I’m sure the meant a verbal attack.) I don’t really have a clever way to button this story up at the end here, I’m just writing this and trying to figure out why I didn’t feed this guy his own Adam’s Apple. I was telling myself that because he lives in the apartment next door, I might have let him off the hook for the reason that I don’t need a hassle with neighbors. But that sounds like rationalization. The fact is, the guy was stupid, insensitive, misinformed, offensive, and racist and I had him right in my sights and I did nothing to correct him. The more I walk among the animals, the more it breaks me down. I have failed myself. Again.

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Postscript: My nextdouche neighbor also commented that our building is an expensive one, and presumably because my apartment is larger than his, "I don't even want to ask what you're paying!" Yes you do. You asked me the day I moved into the building, and you're nosing for an answer again today, 14 months later. Fuck off, grow a dick, get a life, and keep your goddamn questions out of my business.
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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Big Gringo from the album Gods & Sods by Too Much Joy

Don't Know What Day It Is

I'm wearing a t-shirt with a strawberry jam stain on the right shoulder and a spit-up stain on the left. Being the father of two is pretty cool.

[posted with ecto]

Seoul: Monday Dispatch

Monday, 10.23.06

2039 Hrs. Seoul, Korea

Amazing day. We met and held baby W for the first time today. It was profoundly moving. It’s pretty amazing. Since I’m less overwhelmed than I was the first time around, I think I was better able to take notice of the feelings I was experiencing. I'm not going to go into it here, because I think it's so personal that it would read like drivel anyhow.

Seeing him today for an hour and now having 48 hours until he joins the family is like an espresso shot, a short blast of what my new family feels like.

He’s a sweet sweet boy, with an amazing and full smile. He is, as S has aptly described him, heavy but not chubby. He’s solid. The word in Korean for healthy and strong sounds like “konga,” and that’s the word the foster mother and her daughter used.

He is very attached to them, and they to him. We can say about Mrs. Han and family that we couldn’t have asked for a better, more loving and caring family than they. As we sat in their living room, I actually enjoyed talking with them (through an interpreter, of course) and liked watching them hold and interact with W. The daughter showed me half of a three-minute video she took of him with her cell phone yesterday. He was cooing and making gurgly noises. It was great.

I’m looking forward to Wednesday, for W to be part of the family, for H to interact with his new little brother, and to begin seeing how this new person changes our lives forever.

** ** ** **
I went into that record and CD store around the corner from where we're staying and bought a bunch of stuff, all CDs: the Korean release of Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits, Pat Smear’s So You Fell in Love With a Musician… (which I didn’t know existed), a Beggars Banquet sessions bootleg, a strange two-CD Jane’s Addiction bootleg of shows from ‘89 and ’91 that are printed in Australia but come with a Japanese OBI band, the Japanese edition of Paul’s Boutique (with two extra tracks), and the U.K. Subs’ Live at the Roxy.

Long day.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Smash It Up (Parts 1 & 2) by Damned, The

Seoul Town

We are in Korea. It's me, H, Mrs. Sticking Point and my mother in law. The flight here was intense. The boy didn't sleep until the last half hour of the 14-hour trek. We are just beginning to bank some rest and preparing for the week ahead. We meet baby W on Monday morning.

I'll write more when I can.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta from the album Office Space Soundtrack by Geto Boys

F10: Global A Go-Go Edition

This is a real quickie. I wanted to supply a Friday 10 as well as pass along the news that Mrs. Sticking Point and I got the long-awaited travel call from our agency. Looks like we're leaving this Tuesday for to bring home our new baby W.

01 Everyday - Saw Doctors (Same Oul' Town).

02 Cheapskates - The Clash (Give 'Em Enough Rope).

03 Bhindi Bhagee - Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (Global A Go-Go).

04 Welcome To Paradise - Green Day (Kerplunk!)

05 If It Ain't Ruff - N.W.A. (Straight Outta Compton).

06 Help Me Mary - Liz Phair (Exile in Guyville).

07 Typical Girls (Live) - The Slits (Punk Archives).

08 Waitin' For A Superman (Remix) - The Flaming Lips (The Soft Bulletin).

09 Kerouac - Willie "Loco" Alexander (Willie Alexander and Boom Boom Band).

10 Happy (Reprise) - Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins (Rabbit Fur Coat). Perfect! I'm in the 5th row for her show at Town Hall tonight.

PLEASE try a Friday 10 yourself. Put the mp3 player or digital jukebox on "shuffle all songs," and let us know the first ten you hear.

[posted with ecto]

"I Feel Like Metal Is My Culture"

My Yankees playoff tickets arrived yesterday. I've got "home game 2" for the ALDS (which will be against either Minnesota or Detroit), "home game 3" for the ALCS, and World Series game 6. Nice set, there. (Unfortunately, if the Yankees have home field advantage throughout, and they probably will, that ALDS game will conflict with Tilly and the Wall at Bowery Ballroom. I was really looking forward to seeing them again.)

I've only been half-interested in the first two episodes of the new series of Survivor, When Races Collide, but even half listening to last night's episode, I heard one guy spew an (unintentionally) hysterical and great line: "I feel like metal is my culture, instead of Hispanic being my culture."

Maybe today we'll get the travel call from the adoption agency. If that were the case, we figure we'd fly out of NY on Wednesday. We don't know when this call is coming, so we don't know when we're leaving. We just have to be ready. Later today, we'll drop H off at my mother and father's house to chill with them for a day and a half while S and I buy furniture, build furniture, get the crib ready, and turn the office/guest bedroom into the nursery/office. It's pretty wild to think that in five days I might be in Seoul, Korea, and I don't even know yet.

Today's Friday 10...

01 The Unheard Music - X: I saw them again last month, one night in NYC and once out in Sayreville, NJ. In New York, I thought they might have been a bit off their game. Of course they were tight, and sounded awesome, but the performance in Jersey was the better of the two. But who's complaining? A mediocre X concert is still better than a great show by _______. (How far do you want to go? Nickelback? Talking Heads? U2? Yes, yes, and yes.) The version of Unheard Music I heard was off the criminally out-of-print Live at the Whiskey A Go-Go disk.

02 It's Getting Late - Galaxie 500: I'll probably never delete Galaxie 500 tracks from my iPod. Though I rarely seek them out, I'm always happy to hear them when they come on. "It's Getting Late" is from Today. That, This Is Our Music, and On Fire are the entire officially released studio output of this great band. All three records, plus b-sides and outtakes are compiled in the box set. Dean from G500 went on to form Luna, as you know; Naomi and Damon continued recording as Damon and Naomi. I think I'm going to break a lazy habit, and pull out some Galaxie 500 disks to hear today. A Head Full of Wishes is far and away one of the best fan sites you will ever visit. It's put together flawlessly and has everything you need or need to know about Galaxie 500, Luna, and all the solo permutations (including Weeds of Eden!).

03 Lady Coca-Cola - Métal Urbain: The album this is on, Les Hommes Mort Est Dangereux, is the only one the band ever made while they were together (though I think it's a compilation of their singles). French noise terrorist Eric Débris went on to form Dr. Mix and the Remix with one or two other members of Urbain. While Dr. Mix is sort of a rock and roll noise outfit, Urbain is for sure a noise noise ensemble. Not easy listening, but great music isn't easy. Nevertheless, "Lady Coca Cola" will empty a room, if you need to be alone. Great! You can also get "Lady Coca Cola" on the Anarchy in Paris disk from Acute. Wikipedia has some Métal Urbain info, as does TrakMarx.

04 Monolith - T-Rex: From the great Electric Warrior. I must have been about ten years old when I "bought" that album. I loved it so much; cool wordplay, great riffs, and all the songs sounded like different genres. I was enthralled. (It wasn't like Kiss or the Stones or the Beach Boys at all!) When this song came on this morning, I was trying to remember how it was that I started listening to T-Rex. By the late 70s, there sure wasn't much coverage of Bolan and the group in any of the magazines I read, like Creem, Circus, and Hit Parader. I can't remember any of my friends or my older sister's friends listening to them. I honestly don't know how I started listening. Maybe I heard "Get It On" on the radio and just started tracking down the records on my own. When I was about 11, I wrote a letter to a UK address on one of the albums, and ended up joining the T-Rex Fan Club. Every month or two I'd get a newsletter and an EP or single that was only available to fan club members. I remember that one of the greatest songs I got was called "Sing Me A Song," and the sleeve said Bolan write and recorded it as the theme to a BBC television special. By now, all that fan club-only music has found the light of day on comps and reissues, but the vinyl singles I got from the club are among the most rare and valuable stuff in my collection.

05 Four Thousand Days - Luna: This is a good song from Days of Our Nights. I remember when that came out, thinking it just wasn't on par with any of the Luna records before it. It was the beginning of the era of diminishing returns for the band. I guess that makes DoON the last Luna record worth having. It's too bad they started sucking so hard; at their peak -- their Slide to Pup Tent streak -- they were among the best.

06 One Shot - Rollins Band: "You get one shot / Don't miss me" is a couplet from the Badass Hall of Fame, I think. The Nice album was pretty much kicked to the curb by critics and fans and, admittedly, it took me some time to come around to it. I kept my ears on it, and I've grown to love it. What serious fucking grooves got laid down on it! It was engineered by Clif Norrell -- a master. In the last year, I've probably listened to Nice more than any other Rollins Band record. It's still in print, but I'm sure you can find it for little more than shipping costs on eBay.

07 Perfect Circle - REM: I actually won that first REM record. I was in Seaside Heights, it was the summer of 1983, and I put a quarter down on one of those boardwalk wheel games and won the album of my choice. It was something that would happen a lot in the early 80s, because I spent so much time down the shore and when I did, I never left those album stands. Are you kidding?! The chance to win new records for just a few quarters?! I came home with armloads. Anyway, it's not hard to figure out why, even more than half my life later, a week doesn't go by when I don't listen to a song of this perfect album. I don't know if there's a remaster out there, but the mix on the CD is far inferior to the vinyl. That's not elitism or thumbing my nose at anything, it's just... there are notes and entire layers of sound that I loved on the record that are noticeably lost in the digital mix I have. Whatever. I read somewhere that the band chose to call the album Murmur because it's the easiest word to speak in the English language. That is, science has proven that saying murmur requires the least effort of the tongue, throat, lips, and larynx.
On a tangent: Did anyone else know that forty is the only number that, when spelled out in English, has its letters in alphabetical order?

08 It's A Long Way Back To Germany - Ramones: Tell me: Why was there an image of Joey Ramone on the screen during the open of FOX's Saturday afternoon game last weekend? It was part of an Audioslave music video intro that made very little sense it was an audio and video non sequiter. Maybe using Joey in the visual was someone's way of grasping for credibility. I just can't find my way to Audioslave. Can't explain why.

09 All Tomorrow's Parties - Velvet Underground: What a vocal. What a band. What an album. Henry Rollins once described Nico as "darkness and cold distance on two legs. The enchantress of the Abyss." That's perfect. I haven't seen Icon yet, but we've got it Netflixed. I'm sure it'll ship sometime after we watch the 11th season of Lost.

10 Baghdad - High On Fire: This is Matt Pike (from Sleep)'s newer band. A seriously ass-whomping outfit and a heavy record from start to finish. If you've never heard Sleep, start there with the amazing, DNA-distorting Dopesmoker cd. (It's loud, slow and low -- the guy in the apartment above mine told my wife he can hear me playing my bass. I don't play bass, but I was recently listening to Dopesmoker everyday for weeks.) Then work your way through the spinoff bands: High on Fire, Om, and Kalas. You won't be disappointed; they'll smash your mind to pieces -- in a good way.

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Now you do it: Put your mp3 player or digital jukebox on "shuffle all songs." It's Friday, so let us know the first 10 songs you hear.

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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Buggin' Out from the album The Anthology by Tribe Called Quest, A

Can I Take It?

Here's an update:

We got our approved I-600 form in the mail this weekend, disproving my long-held belief that "nothing good ever comes on Saturday." This means that the only remaining steps in the adoption of baby W are for the Korean government to send a fax to our adoption agency here in NY giving us travel clearance, our agency to tell us the fax has arrived, and for us to go to Seoul.

This all could happen any day now. Any day. Depending on when we get the clearance, we may be ready to fly within 1-3 days. Good thing we went to IKEA and Buy Buy Baby this past weekend.

S called some airlines this morning, to check prices. She let her mom know the latest travel guesstimate. (We've asked my M.I.L. to travel with us. We'll need her eyes and hands and insights as we bring one child halfway around the world and come back with two.)

Now, my A.D.D.-addled brain (ADDled?) is jumping through every detail of secondary and tertiary importance. (Because the big stuff I leave to the professional: my wife.) Who will move our car on alternate-side parking days while we are away? Which side of the back seat is the baby's car seat going in on? That luggage catalog that's been dog-eared and shuffled around on the end table for three months? It's time to place our order. I hope the new laptop battery arrives soon. Do I own anything with gel in it?

I went to the government's Department of Homeland Security site to pull all the latest info on what we can and cannot bring on the planes, and -- typically -- found it to be no help. The best source for this info is the TSA, which has a very detailed list of what may be carried-on ("toy transformer robots"), what may be checked (flare guns), and what must be left at home ("flares in any form"). This list has more shocking surprises than a Paris Hilton pap smear. It flat-out doesn't make sense.

Knitting needles? Sure, bring them on board! But leave your mouthwash at home, Stinky, fresh breath is too dangerous up in the friendly skies. Here's some of what you can or cannot have your backpack when you stuff it under the seat in front of you:

Bubble bath balls NOT ALLOWED

Cigar Cutters ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT!

Corkscrews ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT!

Right Guard Spring Fresh Gel deodorant NOT ALLOWED

Eyeglass repair tools (including those small screwdrivers) ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT!

Neosporin NOT ALLOWED

Knives NOT ALLOWED

Purell Anti-Bacterial Hand Sanitizer NOT ALLOWED

Nail Clippers ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT! (Great. Can I have back the clippers EWR security took from me in 2002?)

Nail Files ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT! (Never mind the fact that, with a little sharpening, they're every bit as dangerous as the box cutters used on 9/11)

Box Cutters NOT ALLOWED

Personal Lubricants ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT! (The Mile High Club obviously has a powerful lobby.)

Scissors (with pointed blades up to four inches) ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT!

Toothpaste NOT ALLOWED

Corkscrews are OK? Holy shit. I hope I have my knitting needles on me when a terrorist makes for the cockpit door brandishing his corkscrew. A lot of this doesn't make sense to me. I wonder what would happen if I filled a bag with many allowable items from the list -- three cigar cutters, ten scissors, five nail files, five corkscrews, a dozen knitting needles, six eyeglass repair kits, and my tube of Scandinavian personal lube jelly. Would I get on? (Would I get off?)

You can't really blame the airlines for all this nonsense. They're taking their cues on security from the federal government. Besides, the airlines are too busy delaying flights, making sure there's so little Sprite on-board that I can't get a full can, and editing the next boring issue of the in-flight magazine to be certain that the puff piece on Ray Romano doesn't actually cross the line into the informative.

But that's not what I wanted to write about.

I just wanted to tell you all that the Baby W Threat Level has gone from "Any Week Now" to "Any Day Now." Lots to do. Like, if the Department of Homeland Security has figured out how to Google, try to get my name off the Watch List.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Moonshake from the album Future Days by CAN

Fun House

Last week, we got the call. After weeks of frustration, the agency called us in to tell us that we have a new baby son. We've been excited and numb ever since. The pictures of the little one are amazing. He is, like his brother before him, absurdly handsome. It's unfair, how beautiful this boy is. And I'm not saying that as a biased parent. I'm serious.

>> A Tangent Watch is in effect for the next Sticking Point paragraph. This is only a Watch, not a Warning. A Watch means conditions exist in which a stream of consciousness tangent might occur <<

On those rare occasions* when I actually try on a pair of pants in a store before I buy them**, I run through a checklist of real-life pants situations. Hands in pockets. Hand on hip. One hand in pocket, other on hip. Arms crossed across chest. Reaching for wallet in back pocket. Sitting. Standing. Squatting. One leg up, for that hopping-the-turnstile look. And I stare stare stare.

Similarly, I've spent a good portion of the last seven days listening to myself say things like "Come here, boys," "Guys, let's wash up for dinner," "We're bringing the boys, so can you grill extra steak?" and "Alright, it's your brother's turn to bat now." I'm trying all these words on for size. Practicing the two sons stuff. I like hearing my voice talk about my -- plural S -- sons.

We don't know how long it'll be before we meet him and then bring him home. The window of time the adoption agency has given us is late-September to early-January. Which -- I think -- means October. I'm hopeful.

Have a cigar, my reader-friends. It's a boy. His name is W___. Today's Friday 10 is already packing for Seoul.

01 Eleven - Primus: Sailing The Seas of Cheese is mad genius from start to finish. I once saw Primus at the old Studio 54, when it became the new Ritz. The bill that night was Primus, the Pixies, Public Enemy, and Anthrax. (and then P.E. joined Anthrax on stage for their encore.) Is that a lineup, or what?! I still consider myself lucky to have been there that night.

02 Love Will Tear Us Apart [alt] - Joy Division: This is the track on the b-side of the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" single. It's the UK issue on Factory records. This A-side version has a deep, multiplexed vocal and a more pronounced bass. The drums are much higher in the mix as well. The one I heard today, the B-side has a pretty spare vocal (making it sound more desperate and hollow) and the tempo of the entire track is faster. The other b-side on this single is "These Days." I don't know if you can get your hands on the single anymore. After I ripped the tracks to mp3 a couple years ago, I sealed the vinyl up for good.

03 Your Body Not Yer Soul - Ten High: Vocals from the great Wendy Case. She doesn't just have the perfect rock and roll voice -- she's a notorious F10er. Ten High was the band she was in before the Paybacks. But you knew that.

04 I Do - Scruffy The Cat: The ultimate bar band, the Scruffs were. I love their arrangements, I love their harmonies. This is from the out-of-print but worth the search Moons of Jupiter record. You'll overpay with the used sellers on Amazon. Gemm.com and eBay will probably get you to this music for less.

05 Media Blitz - The Germs: My favorite track off the classic G.I. record. Actually, it's my favorite Germs song altogether. Great to hear this among the Friday 10 this morning. As I wrote last week, every Germs track you need to hear (for now) is on the why-don't-you-have-it-already anthology.

06 Laura Laurent - Bright Eyes: Me and Mrs Sticking Point have four of their/his CDs, plus a really cool bootleg on which Conor Oberst does a duet with Beth Orton. I don't have a lot of Bright Eyes on the iPod; it's just not music I find myself wanting to hear that often. I like this song quite a lot, though. It's from Lifted or the Story is in the Soil Keep You Ear to the Ground.

07 Shoulder Pads 2 - The Fall: The mighty Fall of Manchester hasn't shown up on a Friday 10 in a while. This is a fun song from the great Bend Sinister disk. The Fall are one of those groups whose albums sound new to you even after you've heard them a hundred times. I still hear new notes and sounds every time I listen to Bend, Levitate, and (especially) Cerebral Caustic.

08 Rats of Reality - Circle Jerks: From the classic Golden Shower of Hits, but I think it'd fit right in years later on the metallic Wonderful. This is the real punk rock stuff, complete with a "Lightweights Beware" sign on the front lawn. Great song.

09 Some Girls - Rolling Stones: Remember when "black girls just wanna get fucked all night" was enough to cause a shitstorm of censure and get a Stones album almost taken off the shelves of chain stores? Wow. Nowadays, that line seems quaint, almost cute, like a John Denver lyric, a phrase on a "naughty" greeting card, or something President Douche would say on a live mic at a G8 summit. I've always thought Some Girls was the last great Stones album ("Before They Make Me Run" is an all-time favorite), and it came out in 1978! They've been recording and performing for almost thirty years after their last great album. That says something about something, I think. Wish I knew what. Maybe greed (theirs) or gullibility (ours).

10 Retaliation - Slumber Party. I'm crazy about Slumber Party. Three-part harmonies, Beach Boys-esque melodies, and dark lyrics? Yes, please!

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"The Sticking Point Friday 10 gets me all psyched up and aggro, like a 100cc injection of testosterone in my jomblies."
-- Floyd Landis

Do It Your Own Damn Self: Put your digital jukebox or mp3 player on "shuffle all songs." What are the first 10 randomly supplied songs? Let me know in the comments section below.

___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___

* Not a tangent. Wait for it.
** I hate taking off what I'm wearing, putting on something else, and then putting the original stuff back on. In a store. Why do that?! I have a home... I'll be naked again some time later; I'll try them on then.***
*** This one was indeed a tangent.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Poor Little Critter On The Road from the album Poor Little Critter On The Road by Knitters, The

Foursome? I Hardly Know 'Em!

I don't know why, I don't know why, I don't know WHY I haven't shared this news on here yet, but here it is: I'm going to be a dad again. Or still, but to a whole 'nother person. Though H is oblivious to his mom and dad's excitement, he will soon be a big brother. And by "soon," I mean sometime between this July and October, the whole Sticking Point family will be heading back to Korea for to bring home our newest addition.

We don't know "boy or girl?" yet, and we pretty much don't care one way or the other. I just hope the baby is at least half as charming and sweet as H, and sleeps twice as much as he did as an infant.

Does anyone have any tips on handling 15+ hours of travel time, most of it spent sitting in coach with a spirited young boy of about 26 months old?

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Here's this week's Friday 10.

01 Joey - Concrete Blonde: This is a song a lot of people like, apparently. Every time it came on in my old office, people would walk by and give me an emphatic "Grrreeeat song!" I love Concrete Blonde. Great voice on Johnette Napolitano, and she wrote a lot of songs that -- wisely -- allowed her to air out her pipes. They never really got the critical acclaim or the huge sales they deserved, but there were a hell of a lot of good songs on those first three albums. I lost sight of their ship after that, but I know Napolitano is still making music with or without the band. They seem like the kind of band that will forever turn up on compilations; I wonder if there's a good official release of their outtakes, alternates, and demos -- it might be worth a listen.
My Memory's Not Gone Yet Dept.: I always remember she had a short sharp quote once; when asked about recording her duet with Paul Westerberg on "My Little Problem," she just said, "He had bad breath."
Fazed had a really good interview with Johnette N here.

02 Lady Godiva's Operation - Velvet Underground: From the White Light White Heat album. They were OK, I guess. No Yellowcard, but OK. I got a lot of Velvet Underground on me between 1987 and 1993. I had a TDK SA-100 cassette of VU stuff that I had with me in all towns at all times. I remember once I was in Arlington, Virginia and got invited to some girl's house for a party. I put my cassette in the stereo and some fingers went in some ears. People asked me "Who is this?!" Can you believe it? I told them it was demo recordings of the new direction the Sugarcubes were going in. Boy, were they bummed. Tears fell into their red plastic beer cups.

03 The Move - Beastie Boys: The other night, StereoMic was playing a Beastie Boys bootleg from a Manchester show in 2004, and I was like yo I just gotta have that. Good show, great sound. Hopefully I can get my hands on a CDR of it soon. This version of "The Move" is the one from the Hello Nasty album, the one you've heard plenty of times, with the cool harpsichord part and that fun sample from Los Ångeles Negros. (Most of whose stuff isn't hard to find. I have had 20 Exitos Originales de los Ångeles Negros for about 15 years and dig it. Weird coincidence: I was listening to it yesterday in the office. I just looked at Amazon, and they don't have that one, but there are plenty of comps of the Negros other exitos out there.)

04 Parades Go By - Magnetic Fields: Last week, TSP friend and reader Nick got the Magnetic Fields' "Asleep and Dreaming" on his Friday 10 and wrote that Stephin Merritt is the "best lyricist today." For quality, consistency, and quantity -- it is hard to argue with that. I have a lot of Merritt's work -- the 6ths stuff, the Pieces of April soundtrack, some stray mp3s, and the complete 69 Love Songs set that pal Jake turned me onto a few years ago. This is all fine music, so complex it sounds simple. Merritt makes songs that make you run, not walk, to the CD burner to put on mixes for your friends. "Parades" and "Asleep" are both on 69 Love Songs.
Not Just That, But... Dept.: Nick doesn't just enjoy great music, he also writes great stuff for the YanksFan vs. SoxFan site. And this was a key week to be reading that. Here's a typically sharp entry he wrote recently.

05 Sunrise Sunset - Miriam Makeba: This is from the Magic of Makeba CD. I have written plenty on TSP over the years about my love for Makeba, but this is not one of my preferred tracks. I'm not a big fan of her recording of more contemporary Western stuff. It just seems like a waste of genius to me. "Sunrise Sunset" is a good enough song, for what it is, but when Makeba puts her voice on it, it's like getting Aretha Franklin, Diamanda Galas, and the Three Tenors in for a McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" recording session. I read somewhere that the Magic of Makeba record included pop songs (and songs she sings in Yiddish) in part as an effect of the Beatles' changing the face of music. By that time, she -- with her dynamic voice, who sang predominantly African Xhosa tribal songs in the native language -- was getting pushed to the fringes of the recording industry. So, I guess it's the 1960s equivalent of when the Kinks tried disco with "Wish I Could Fly Like Superman," or that entire Matrix-formulated self-titled Liz Phair album: more a sign of current trends than a step forward for the artist. On this record, she sort of sidestepped the South African material and slummed it with lesser songs. Regardless, Magic of Makeba still has one of my all-time faves of hers, "Oxgam."

06 Mother Mary - Eels: I don't know much about the Eels. OK, nothing. I know this song was put on a very thoughtful mixed CD made for me and Mrs. Sticking Point by Brian Last Stop called "The Year 1 Mix." If I remember properly, it was given to us to kick off our first year as parents and all of the songs are suited to that thematic purpose. I've got to say... I don't dig this Eels track. It's a little blah for my tastes, but hey, can't look a gift horse in the mouth, and that's why the track is still in my iTunes. I don't like many of the same artists and bands as Brian does, but I admire that he's got such confidence in his musical taste. If he wants to listen to ten consecutive songs by Def Leppard, Beach Boys, Pat Benatar, David Bowie, Guns N Roses, Public Enemy, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Ramones, Naked Eyes, and Bjork, and you don't like it? -- Fuck you, it's your problem, not his. Right on. (But when he asked me this year to put the first two Stooges records on CDR for him, I thought, alright -- now we're getting somewhere.) Look at that -- I wrote an Eels entry on a Friday 10!

07 Naked Dutch Painter - Stew: It starts, "The naked Dutch painter in the kitchen does not want to fuck you / She's got 17 boyfriends and an 8 o'clock class to get to" and just gets better from there. Years ago, I read a small write-up about Stew in a magazine, and it sounded like my kind of thing so I went right out to Amazon website and bought the Naked Dutch Painter disk. (And yet, somehow I got a promo copy -- weird.) It's a gem and I treasure it. Highly recommended. Stew is what you'd hear if Randy Newman were jazzy and Captain Beefheart were lounge-y. He's pop music like Burt Bacharach is pop music. Stew is the leader of a group you've probably heard of called The Negro Problem (or "TNP" in some far too sensitive magazines and newspapers). Some of the Naked Dutch Painter album was recorded live at the AlterKnit Lounge in Hollywood and the rest was done down in Panorama City. The players are of blue ribbon heritage: bass player Heidi Rodewald was in Wednesday Week and The Novaks; pianist Morley Bartnoff of Burning Sensations, Cosmo Topper, and Dramarama plays on a few songs on the album, as do the great drummers Nelson Bragg (Cosmo Topper, Brian Wilson's band) and Blondie-man Clem Burke. (See, now? In all the time you wasted reading that, you could have already bought the Naked Dutch Painter disk!) Go to negroproblem.com to get "lifted," as they say.

08 Me Heart is Livin' in the Sixties Still - Saw Doctors: From the All The Way From Tuam disk, their best album IMO. You've probably noticed that I get a lot of Saw Doctors house calls on my Friday 10s. I have about four dozen Saw Docs songs on the iTunes. I dig them. I can't vouch for much of the last couple years-worth of their music as it's missed me, but the first four albums and the Sing A Powerful Song comp that Shamtown released to introduce the band in the U.S., are well worth your time. And, as I've mentioned before, if you've ever got 20 bucks in your pocket and a couple hours free, go find a Saw Doctors concert. Amazing.
Minor Lifelong Dream Dept.: One day, I've got to see them play in Ireland.

09 Wild Thing - X: The version I heard was the 7" single edit. I also have a 12" that has a longer fade-in and sustain on the opening note, a repeated verse and chorus, and an extended solo break. That one's a "wasty" one; this is the better version if you ask me. Short and to the point like a Karate chop to the windpipe. I remember when "Wild Thing" came out (it was first on the soundtrack of a Charlie Sheen baseball movie), I thought I could finally get more of my friends listening to the almighty X. They make this song really hard to dislike. A cover of the Troggs' song (but you knew that when you woke up this morning), I'd say "Wild Thing" has made its way around pop culture. How about the fact that the year it was written (1966, by Chip Taylor -- a Yonkers, NY boy) it appeared on five (5!) different albums by five different acts? (Do you think that'd happen today? Do you think Rihanna or Yellowcard are gonna be that gregarious? Fuck no, they're not.) It's been in countless movies as a kind of a signifier song; you know, when the director uses the music as shorthand for describing a character or the mood of a scene. (See also: "Bone, Bad to the.") You've heard it in the Sheen movie, and because of that movie a handful of self-important MLB relief pitchers have adopted the X version as their entrance themes; and it was the song Jimi was playing when he set his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop in 1967. If you told me "Wild Thing" was playing when Bobby Kennedy got shot, I'd believe it; that song is the Forrest Gump of rock and roll.

10 Don't Lay It On Me - Paybacks: Do I get the Paybacks every week? That's alright by me. Great band, great rock and roll voice on Wendy Case, as I have written so many times already. Before the Paybacks, she was in a band called Ten High that released one record called Party Store. There's a song on it that Case co-wrote with Kim Fowley ("Sins of the Family"), which reminds me that when I saw the Paybacks live at a festival on Randall's Island a couple years ago, Fowley introduced them. I just got Party Store used off Amazon for $2.56. Can't wait to hear it; when it gets here, I'll let you know how it is. By the way, it's phenomenal that the Paybacks show up on these Friday 10s with such regularity. I have only six of their songs on the iPod. Out of 5,554 songs, that's 1%.

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Now... you! Put your mp3 player or digital jukebox on "shuffle all songs," and tell us the first ten songs you hear. (Idiot fanboy annotations are optional.)

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Smile, You're Traveling!

1100 Hrs. LaGuardia Airport
I am enroute to Houston via a connection in Chicago. But it rained a bit this morning with some lightning, so they closed down airport fields and now all the flights before mine are backed up. They have pushed mine back by 45 minutes, but there’s a lot of metal to get in the air before they move flight 325 out of here. (Or, as I overheard some too-cool-for-the-boardroom guy tell his friend, “Flight three and a quarter.”) This puts my connection in Chicago in jeopardy. Why should I care so much? This is someone else’s dime, someone else’s time. I just don’t want to spend all day in these malls of human confusion.

Where I’m sitting – in a gate area that is not mine – I am surrounded by a gaggle of semi-good looking human forms (church group? hand models?), in a rush to get to where they’re getting. The melodramatic small-talk and posturing is worth a chuckle.

This mission to Texas makes me feel like the character in Reservoir Dogs to whom Travolta and Jackson go to fix things. I can’t remember the actor’s name, but I think they called the guy “The Wolf.” I am being brought down to fix things, prevent problems, and get this event up and running. I've got so much experience at this by now I can do shows like this with my eyes closed and one ball tied behind my leg.

This fucking plane had better not crash. Due to a glitch in communications that still hasn’t been explained to me, my ticket was inadvertently canceled Saturday night. The über-boss on this project, Nina, had to go online at 2200 hrs last night and get me a new round-trip ticket. At a cost $250 higher than my original booking. So, I spent about 24 hours (unknowingly) un-booked. I was NOT ON THIS flight for awhile. It had better not crash now. I don’t want anyone to have to deal with that set of “what ifs.”

1409 Hrs ORD – Chicago
I’m in O’Hare now. Just as I thought, we landed about 25 minutes after my connection to Houston took off. Now, I’m booked on another flight, that won’t take off for another three hours.

While I was wandering around this sun-bright terminal a short time ago, trying to figure out where I was and where I needed to be, I stopped in front of a bank of arrival/departure monitors. Eleven of them had the proper information on their screens, and one was showing Jeopardy. I tried to snap a picture with my phone-camera, but it came out blurry, so you’ll just have to trust me.

I have already eaten. For some reason, I walked right past Wolfgang Puck’s Airport Café (a safe bet for safe food) and about another hundred yards later wandered into some Fox Sports theme restaurant. Hear it again: A Fox... Sports... theme restaurant. There were about nine food items on the menu, and each of them will come to your your arteries' house, pull them out into the street, and choke 'em till they're good and dead. Sports grill food in Chicago is a redundancy.

The menu was well-appointed with caricatures of Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and the other wife-beating, child-hating dunces from that football programming. I sat at a table near the "Bears Helmet/Black Hawks Hockey Stick" display. There was one of each. If you’re thinking of coming to Chicago, you really should plan on seeing it. It’s amazing. And so unlike any other hockey stick or Bears helmet you’ll ever see.

I ate a bacon-cheddar burger and listened to the wonderful disco/rave music on the in-restaurant sound-system. At one point, a disco/rave version of “Livin’ On A Prayer” came on. For reals, yo.

Harvey Keitel. That’s who I meant before. Harvey Keitel was the actor in Reservoir Dogs. And you know what? I just realized – it wasn’t Reservoir Dogs that I meant. It was Pulp Fiction.

1913 Hrs en route to Houston
Here we are, up in the air, crossing the heartland at 33,000 feet. My rowmate invading my armspace and footspace.

I’m thinking a lot about today being the anniversary of our first miscarriage. First pregnancy, nearly three months in, and it ended just like that. On 4-24-01 S had seen the signs that something might be wrong and we went to the OB/GYN.

S was on the table and the doctor began the sonogram. I was in my usual seat in front of the screen. Because it was my usual seat, I knew immediately that what I was seeing was wrong. I’d been used to locating the blinking LED blip that was our baby’s heartbeat. On that day, it wasn’t there. The doctor didn’t say anything right away. But I knew.

Right there in the middle of my life came 10 seconds where my time stopped.

The world stopped moving. Everything froze. I’m sure I wasn’t even breathing myself. I knew the horrible truth, S didn’t, and everything in the world stopped as ten seconds took an hour. I looked in her eyes and I wanted her never to find out. I didn’t want her to ever feel what I was feeling.

I don’t remember exactly how the doctor told us, just that she began with, “OK.” She spoke briefly, and said to meet her in her office after we’d had some time to be alone and S got dressed.

The next day, 4-25-01, we had to go back for a D&C. Brutal. When I was finally let into the exam/procedure room, I found S resting on the table in a paper robe. On one side of the room was a garbage bin overflowing with bloody towels, discarded paper, and used disposable instruments. My wife has never looked more young and vulnerable than at that moment. I lost my shit. I don’t know which of the 75 or so painful thoughts I was processing did it to me, but I kneeled down and cried with my head gently resting on her chest.

I’ve never gotten over the pain of that day and the suffering of the weeks and months that followed. I don’t think I ever will, nor do I think I’m supposed to. Pain like that doesn’t let go of you. It holds on. Life goes on and life gets better and good things (even great things) happen, but that kind of thing stays on you. It’s a battle scar.

It’s especially weird to process this now, knowing that if none of that had ever happened we wouldn’t have H. That’s just the way it is. Without that, no this. I am not an “everything happens for a reason” guy, but knowing how H is the one boy in this world who could possibly have fit our family and become our son leaves me at once shattered, healed, confused, and resolved about all the pain that came before.

I don’t know if those are the words I’d choose if I were thinking things more fully through before typing. I’ll get it right later.

Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about, on old 4-24.

When I get to Houston, around 2130, I’ll take the $50 taxi ride to the hotel, and have just enough time to check in, get to my room, and throw my bag down before heading to one of the conference rooms for a 2230 meeting. I was told they’d order me some food when I get there, so cheers to that. I could kick myself in the ass for not getting out to GNC yesterday or Saturday for my MET-RX bars. That shit I ate at the FOX Sports place has left me feeling hungry again, yet with a greasy ball of something sitting in my stomach. Coffee please! I have been traveling for eleven-and-a-half hours already, the day is almost over and I haven’t started working yet.

And this time, when I get to the hotel, I’ll remember to get out the Sharpie and write my room number on my hand. No more wandering the hallways of huge hotels, cursing my A.D.D. and crappy memory! This dunce has learned.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Someone's Gonna Die from the album Burning Ambitions (A History of Punk) by Blitz