double vision

part one: shoe box
a song that no one would expect you to love

Life is chock full of opportunities to ponder how others perceive us. Just this past Saturday night while hanging out with a group of acquaintances, weathered old friends, and a couple intimates, one particular person made an umbrella statement about my character and demeanor that sounded more like a version of myself I left behind many years ago.

For as long as I have been conscious, I have seen it happen again and again. Many approach me with caution. I know I am not easy. I don't squeeze down and vacuum pack down into a shippable box. I see it time and again. Hondas, Hybrids, and Hummers decked out in a variety of bumper stickers and other accoutrements like the automobile's required evidence of time spent in county. Most of these encounters leave me filled with disappointment, because getting a glance at one sticker, promotion, or quotation will often dictate the others, as if they were bought in a specialty box set. People too often base their personalities off of others. I don't mean others perspective, but others belief systems, others routines, others likes and dislikes. Are there really only a handful of genres of people, or are we too afraid to present the beautiful paradoxes, contradictions and hypocrisies that truly make up the human soul?

Perhaps when you first got wind that I was going to write thirty posts about songs of different distinctions and descriptions, you figured it would quiet down all of the usual meddling and find me shuffling through a bit of frivolity. Maybe this is too slippery a soapbox for this early in the week. Whatever the case, the idea of what others think has been on my mind lately, as I have had to swallow some pride and let some friends true colors dictate their exit from my life. So, what would they least expect me to be listening to as I walk in the other direction, not looking back? What shouldn't be on the iPod in such heavy rotation or what seems unlikely in the massive iTunes collection?

I suppose I could suggest an artist whose recent appearance on a friend's Facebook brought a few of us unlikely fans out of the woodwork. I actually first discovered her on a Celtic Christmas compilation I bought in 1995, which always feels appropriate to me since her voice and her music always seem to remind me of a chilly autumnal breeze across the open water or through a desolate field. A few of her more famous tracks are favorites of mine, as is this one: The Highwayman.

part two: kool thing
a song that surprises you that you like it

That said, who do I think I am? I have this great sense of where others may have gone awry with their tapping into the heart of me, but what hues do I feel reflect on the inside? What music would surprise my very soul if it were to fully awaken, seeing the full story thus far?

The kid in me would likely be surprised by all of the old school hip-hop that I love or the classic jazz that predates me by a generation. The adult in me, with all of my musical knowledge and ability to enjoy finer, harder to digest music like the more obtuse journeys of Tom Waits or the folk-less excursions of Joni Mitchell still loves disco, danceable pop, and other seemingly instant throw-away tracks.

As a consummate music fan, I have come to realize I can't turn my ears away from too many sounds. Obviously the pleasure chemicals respond more to certain combinations before others hit, but in context there's a time and place for a lot of the great music that exists.

.     .     .

Dance Anthem of the 80s.

kid fears

a song from a band/artist you hated as a child
(topic altered to: a song you hated as a child)

One could hope that with age our standards become loosened from experience, our interests become wider, and our pursuits become more mature and full of more depth. As a child I only had the chance to become exposed to everything that funneled through the cultural siphon of the other people in my house. From them all I got a decent sense of what existed outside of the household walls and perhaps even beyond that stop sign down the block, but this was in a time before the internet and when a kid's only real resource of musical discovery was the local radio, bins of vinyl at the public library, and this sweet 1970s album reference guide with a laminated cover he nabbed at a yard sale.

None of that fully accounts for the fact that I was born in the late-seventies and really only started to discover music around 1981 or 1982 in a post-MTV culture that I consumed through Friday Night Videos that consisted of timely acts like Toto, Survivor, Men at Work, Laura Branigan, and Culture Club. This sort of easy to digest music pervaded through the eighties and really became my most formative musical impression. So much of this music still prevails in my day-to-day listens on the iPod in a way that a different generation would harken to a whole other set of songs that hit them deeply.

What this means is that even while I was reaching to discover music that came before and visited my birth and those hidden treasures hiding out on college radio, when I was a kid Journey, Stevie Nicks, and Tom Petty were still the center point of my musical compass. At the time I didn't have the patience for a lot of stuff I listen to now. I would say some of it was too adult for me, dealing with themes far beyond my years or sonically textured in ways that took too many listens to grasp. I will admit that I was much quicker to link myself to Led Zeppelin whereas the original blues they ripped off didn't get much spin. I loved the Eagles, but it took me through my teens before I could stomach much traditional country. And I sometimes thought ballads were just boring. Case in point - loathed the song then, love it now.

third prelude

As I look forward to the remaining thirteen song challenge posts, I see three that seem to wrap around the same general idea. For that reason, today I present a song challenge trilogy.

part one: play me.
a song that you can play on an instrument

Like many people my age I grew up in a time when music and art were two offerings during the regular school day, albeit still ones that would often feel like recess-lite. In elementary school art would have glitter, glue, and gray blocks of clay and music was code for recorders and piano led vocal instruction of some sort. I listened to far different music outside of school then in. Even then the music felt childish and pedestrian.

After the six month elective sampling during sixth grade we were supposed to select our track, whether it was art, music, or some third one I can't for the life of me recall. It was probably back alley smoking and impregnation 101. I liked art class, but the teacher was a bitch to me and I really hadn't honed my drawing or painting skills in the way that the top two or three prodigies did, so I picked band. No one went in with any fore-knowledge. It seemed to put us all on equal unsteady footing.

It was the eighties, so the saxophone seemed like an obvious fit to me. As awkward and insulated as I was at the time, I still wanted to pick something that might be hot with the ladies. If it was good enough for a Mickey Rourke movie and Baker Street then god dammit it was going to be good enough for me. I rarely liked any of the musical selections. I grabbed songbooks from the public library full of pop hits and even had a Best of 1987 collection for sax that saw some play until I started to realize that the echoing and honking of mistakes and learning alto sax from my upstairs bedroom was irritating my family.

I wouldn't practice at home very much after that.

But music has always been in my heart. I would pump our harmonium (aka small pipe organ) around the holidays, playing what turned out being some of the easiest music around. From this I essentially taught myself piano, or at least a vague sense of it. It's been nearly twenty years since I dropped out of band and quit playing the sax and probably a dozen or so since I tried piano. I tried to learn other instruments too, but evidently to no avail.

That being said, I don't know if I can reasonably play anything on an instrument anymore. With the loss of that part of me, I have strengthened any number of other skills, artistic and otherwise. Maybe with some sheet music reminders I could play a few bars of Angels We Have Heard on High or the excruciating Indiana Jones theme song that was our halftime show in the ninth grade.

Then again, maybe not.


part two: chop sticks.
a song that you wish you could play

I wish I could play guitar.

I tried to learn on a few occasions. At one point I felt hindered by my left-handedness, because no one else in the room was hexed in the same fashion. This was before I started to fully embrace my ambidextrous tendencies and ability to express different things with varying halves of myself.

If I could play guitar I would be able to be one of those people who could have an acoustic guitar sitting idly by when the whole gang is gathered around a campfire. It could be Indigo Girls and John Denver until sun up! Then again that guy is often a douche bag. Why is it that so many people who can play an instrument like that always seem to have this holier than thou attitude? Not all of them, mind you. I know people who can create music that aren't, but so many are, however.

We all have gifts to share. I have often wished mine to be the ability to hold a guitar and make more than racket emote from it. For those who can't the world has created Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Sure, I have had great fun with those, but to a point they are glorified air guitar. I see the romance in the instrument, though. Writing a poetic serenade for the love of your life or soothing the baby to sleep with its soft vibrating hum.

Instead I have words and image. And a recently discovered voice. And who knows what else.

part three: sweetest perfection.
a song that you wish you had written

I don't write music. I have tried. When I was a kid I would scroll out lyrics to theoretical songs, always pounding out ideas of how the other instruments would join in, leaving space for unforgiving drums and the timely and consummate guitar solo. These songs ranged from love songs to protest songs to completely esoteric babblings that sounded like pop songs to me. When I actually learned to read music I tried to write some melodies, but I became instantly bored with the process and really grew respect for blues and jazz musicians who could just jam off the cuff.

As I turned my guise more and more toward film and the creation therein, I became very envious of great writing and clever ideas. I went through all of the trials of any burgeoning creative, feeling threatened by the greatness of others and seeing only the paleness of self. I got over that concept over time and began to recognize that no one would ever assemble their ideas in quite the way I did and nor would I do like others, so what would be the point of seeing competition where there is collective.

So, I think the concept of wishing to have written a song, at least for a songwriter, could have similar dizzying effects. Or there is also the lighter thought that it could just spotlight one's fix on what makes for a great composition. I have many favorite songs. There are songs I like because of the way they make me feel, the texture of the craft behind it, the intelligible lyrics that overshadow the elementary melody, and on and on. There's just not enough space for all of that today.

Instead I will put the song that the iPod shuffled to on my way home from work last night and I was instantly gratified of its sheer existence. It has a complicated melody, beautiful lyrics, and a dark spirit with a positive intent and is indeed one of my favorite songs:


KING OF PAIN

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black cat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
It's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
It's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
It's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
It's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
It's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb
It's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
It's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of pain

There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack
It's my soul up there
There's a blue winged gull with a broken back
It's my soul up there
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

King of pain
King of pain
King of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain

{fades}

I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain

angry johnny

a song that you listen to when you’re angry


Most things aren't worth the energy we expel toward them.

I come from a long line of short fuses. I grew up in a highly tempered household, wherein an inconsistent variety of things could set off one or both of my parents. The floors and paths leading toward their vicinity seemed always paved with eggshells. These days their intimate relationships are few and short-lived and none of their children or grandchildren are anxious to spend any time with them.

They don't always yell and they don't always lose their temper and find things to fume about, but the anger and frustration always hums just below the surface like a muffled generator, constantly fueling the situation. My siblings and I all got hexed with some of the refuse of this upbringing. In our ways we have all done our part to scrub off this influence, but my brother is still a loud person and my sister is a bit of a paranoid. It took me many years to unlearn a lot of their reactionary tactics.

Now I am very chill and might not unleash anger and frustration enough. Although I wouldn't say there's much going on in my orbit that inspires me to get all worked up. Life is rather satisfying and I have become convinced that when it requires a constant fight and triggers issues, your relationships need an overhaul. I have lost many friends over the last couple years, but I don't get upset by it. Instead I feel relief that more of the negative influence and disingenuous people in my life are no longer sapping my energy. I am more selective about who I surround myself with and who I bring into the folds of my present existence.

I think it's better that way.

In my formative years, when I felt the most trapped and overly managed I found relief through some guitar rock, metal, and industrial music. It became a predictable revolt against the status quo that was my disappointing youth. When I first learned to drive and I had something to dwell over, I would crank something hard and heavy until the speakers in the car would buzz in pain. A lot of this music, though still hiding out on my iTunes and in my memory doesn't sound the same to me anymore, but is still a part of my whole. After some time I would begin to find comfort in more contemplative music, full of meaningful lyrics and a more adult spirit that stressed a clearer understanding of life's many potholes and hurdles and less of an us against them dynamic.

happy together

a song that you listen to when you’re happy

In the same manner that everything tastes better when you're in love, when you're happy I feel like life becomes an extended montage sequence complete with some sort of bright, shiny example of positive musical energy in the vain of Katrina & the Waves or Kenny Loggins. When you are filled to the brim with happiness, it ekes out through various pores, out your fingertips, and via your tongue through all of the less inhibited and wonderful things you say. You don't necessarily even require happy, up-tempo tunes to fuel this happiness, because the mere existence of things like music, the four seasons, stray cats, and chilled beverages just add to your simple gratitude to be alive.

There are a million different ways to go with this, but for reasons both personal and aesthetic the song that evokes this feel for me comes from a band I grew up with and used to blast inside the closed confines of my childhood bedroom. My room had tarnished wood floors, a ceiling fan, ever-changing music and film clippings wallpaper, a classic New York skyline border, a high window that overlooked the roof above the garage and a door out to the balcony I shared with my parents. When the weather cooled in October or took a spring turn in February, both the window and the outside door would be wide open, blowing in the breeze and neighborhood noise. Wafting back might be someone of the likes of INXS, that brilliant often overlooked dance-rock band from down under whose compositional complexities truly reveal themselves after many, many listens.

half moon

The song challenge is halfway there. Perhaps I could suggest that it's living on a prayer, but then I would have just gone too far.

☑ (01) a song that you love to dance to - DANCEHALL DAYS
☑ (02) favorite song to sing in the shower - HANDS CLEAN
☑ (03) a song that makes you think of your loved one - ENTRE NOUS
☑ (04) a song that you only know the chorus to - HALLELUJAH, CHORUS!!
☑ (05) a song that makes you think of kissing - LOVER'S SPIT
☑ (06) a song from that would be played when you kill someone - KILLING MOON
☑ (07) a song that reminds you of being warm - WARM SOUND
☑ (08) a song that you want to play at your funeral - LA GOLONDRINA
☑ (09) a song that makes you laugh - LAUGH, LAUGH
☑ (10) a song that gives you the chills - CREEPIN' MIDNIGHT
☑ (11) a song from your favorite band/artist as a child - LAST CHILD
☑ (12) a song that you would sing as a lullaby, but isn't a traditional lullaby song - SPEEDFREAK LULLABY.
☑ (13) a song that turns you on - ORIGINAL SIN
☑ (14) a song that makes you fall asleep - DON'T PANIC
☑ (15) a song that you know all the words to - THE CHANGELING
(16) a song that you listen to when you’re happy
(17) a song that you listen to when you’re angry
(18) a song that you wish you could play
(19) a song from a band/artist you hated as a child
(20) a song that no one would expect you to love
(21) a song whose title is a name you would want to have
(22) a song from your favorite album
(23) a song that you listen to when you’re sad
(24) a song that reminds you of middle school
(25) a song that reminds you of your first crush
(26) a song that surprises you that you like it
(27) a song that you used to love but now hate
(28) a song that you can play on an instrument
(29) a song that describes you as a teenager
(30) a song that you wish you had written

the changeling

a song that you know all the words to

It was all good, fine fun before when I couldn't figure out what song I only know the chorus to, because with all of the music I listen to no one could keep up with every lyric to every tune to all of the songs I have just discovered, know vaguely, know well, and know incorrectly. There are a lot of songs that fit that characteristic. I would suspect that there are a whole lot of tunes that fit the new parameter as well. Some I know because I took the time to learn them, some I know because overtime I have overheard them, and others are just so freakin' obvious and repetitive that a baby could use them as their first sentence.

I just don't know if all of the words is a topic I want to delve into today. Not sure if I want to inspire responses such as yay, look at you, knowing all of the words to It's the End of the World as We Know it or some lesser gem. With as much time as I have spent doing and attending karaoke nights, I have heard a ton of generally bastardized versions of that R.E.M. hit, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Baby Got Back, a bevy of Beatles, anything Queen, and a ton of other songs to which people surprisingly know only the chorus much less the beat. I guess one classic that evokes a lot for me that a lot of people waste away a quality six minutes on, stumbling through seemingly unfamiliar verse after verse that I could do in my sleep is that old Eagles stand-by, Hotel California.

don't panic

a song that makes you fall asleep

At first glance, a subject like a song that makes you fall asleep comes fully equipped with negative connotations. Tell me, please, what bores you to tears. I certainly don't see it like that, especially as someone who knows years of difficulty sleeping, whether from fear of his own subconscious, ill-fitting life choices, or myriad other reasons why closed eyes would be a rarity. Deep sleep is a very special circumstance one should never take for granted. I even find plenty to sing about seemingly passing out guilt-free in the middle of the afternoon, perhaps to the sound of the rain, the ceiling fan, or the soft breathing of your partner. Finding the right psychological head space to chill the fuck out is imperative.

In late-1993 I probably had fifteen or twenty CD's. Being a music collector, format changes have always pissed me off. There was no way I could afford to transfer my several hundred cassettes to CD. At that time I was trying to be selective about what I would have on CD and what would be more worthy of tape purchase/recording. I had my Pearl Jam, my Ministry, my They Might Be Giants, my Pixies, and my Queen. Then I discovered this band that didn't sound like anything else I owned, with perhaps the exception of those Cowboy Junkies and my then warbled 10,000 Maniacs tapes that made Natalie Merchant sound like she was immersed in water.

That band was October Project, an upstate New York group who once toured with Jeff Buckley before he sang his final Hallelujah and Sarah McLachlan before she became all successful and a complete yawner. Honestly, their entire first album suits my requirements for this post, but Grooveshark has only a couple tracks from it, to say nothing of a bunch of songs misappropriated to them. Needless to say, not many people know them. A couple years ago I was pleased to discover that a good friend of mine and lead in my theatrical horror show was himself a closet fan.

original sin

a song that turns you on

A piercing screech arouses a demanding, throbbing bass line that struts forward at an aching crawl as Concrete Blonde's Bloodletting (Vampire Song) begins. The soft build awakens light, focused strokes of guitar and selective drum hits. From behind, the deep, seductive tones of Johnette Napolitano's impassioned voice enter the stage, stringing us along into her dark tale of primal interactions in the night. All of this is woven into the first minute. From the start the song pounds you into submission and ensures you forget everything but your desire.

speedfreak lullaby.

a song that you would sing as a lullaby, but isn't a traditional lullaby song

My girlfriend recently introduced me to the ROCKABYE BABY! series of non-traditional lullaby albums geared toward the babies of parents in our generation, who would prefer their bæbes be lulled to sleep by variations on songs by the Cure and Journey than tunes both antiquated and disconnected from contemporary relevance. That said, with the aforementioned collection already tapping into thirty-some-odd unexpected artists back catalogs for alterna-lullabies, it's not the easiest task to find your own selection.

But I have. Alice in Chains were so quickly swept into the pile of filth that was the spotty collection of grunge bands that arrived on the airwaves in heavy rotation in the early to mid-nineties. I was already listening to music that sounded like this by the time everyone else and their mother decided to embrace it. I was ridiculously close to getting to see Pearl Jam's first tour through Florida for $9.95, but came from a family where guilt and rejection was doled out in bulk.

Alice in Chains were always one of the better bands of that period to me, in large part to the gorgeous harmonies of Layne Stanley and Jerry Cantrell, their solid song structure, and their abilities to rock as well as reflect. With that in mind, I choose "No Excuses" to soften into lullaby for my theoretical infant. This is the only Alice in Chains song I have ever attempted at karaoke and one that is well-suited to my voice as well as the purpose at hand . . .

No Excuses

It's alright
There comes a time
Got no patience
To search for peace of mind

Laying' low
Want to take it slow
No more hiding
Or disguising truths I've sold

Everyday
Something hits me all so cold
Find me sittin' by myself
No excuses that I know

It's okay
Had a bad day
Hands are bruised from
Breaking rocks all day

Drained and blue
I bleed for you
You think it's funny
Well you're drowning in it too

Everyday
Something hits me all so cold
Find me sittin' by myself
No excuses that I know

Yeah, it's fine
We'll walk down the line
Leave our rain
A cold trade for warm sunshine

You're my friend
I will defend
And if we change
Well I love you anyway

Everyday
Something hits me all so cold
Find me sittin' by myself
No excuses that I know

last child

a song from your favorite band/artist as a child

Being the youngest child in one's family affords you some interesting opportunities. I took mine up from the darkened corners, constantly observing and absorbing all of the pleasures, travesties, and events of my elder siblings. It can teach some surprising life lessons before you're prepared for them if you take on too much. And even though I know I had a precociousness about my maturity and plan of attack at life, ironically my parents always got on me for dragging my feet.

For me, if there's one thing that I most appreciated about being the youngest was the chance to peel my way through the other music collections in the family - whether it was my parents classic twang, harmless sixties pop, or Air Supply and company or my brother's affinity toward guitar driven rock and peculiar diversions like 2 Live Crew and David Allen Coe or my sister's tastes which always seemed heavily influenced by her cool best friend who brought along Depeche Mode, the Smiths, and Love & Rockets.

I aurally ate it all up and added the fuel of my own interests in Top 40 radio, hair metal, classic rock, and odd nighttime voyages to the Adult Contemporary end of the dial. I started asking for cassette tapes as gifts as early as the fourth grade, and the wonky way in which all of these early reels were heard was from a radio/tape alarm clock combo that I equally cherished and loathed.

These days I thoroughly adore my iPod, and I love my 135GB of iTunes, but there was something very direct about actually handling those records and tapes that I grew up using. I remember the intense worry that followed getting the tape incidentally wound up in the player, causing these threats of something irreplaceable being lost. There was sacredness to the whole matter.

I cherish these early listens, whether they were merely my favorites from the Casey Kasem countdown, Bryan Adams' "Reckless" album, tapes by INXS, Survivor, Journey, Heart, Ratt, or the Cars, these were the formative musical ideas I was digesting with great frequency. And I can say unashamedly that all of these are either replicated or represented on my iTunes nowadays.

But I am not sure if these fully encapsulate the era for me. If there's one band whose break-up truly upset me at the time and would ultimately inspire my taping over their tape that I bought with my hard won money, it would be Wham! I am a tad surprised that after all of these years, George Michael's poppy little musical project that briefly could still sound quite good, especially Everything She Wants.

creepin' midnight

a song that gives you the chills

One of the key weaknesses of a lot of modern films is their quickness in getting to the moneyshot. The brain is a most powerful organ and one that I suggest demands ample stimulation. At some point in the mid-seventies the Hollywood machine deemed it imperative to hunt for the lowest common denominator and they have stuck with it ever since. When I was more deeply focused on a filmmaker's journey I saw myself rubbing elbows with the Steve Buscemis of the world at the Indie Spirit Awards, preferring eccentric button-down glory to antiquated coat and tails and tanning beds.

I think horror movies are the biggest victim of this tendency. I can assure you as someone who's held booms, script doctored, and co-produced for the least of them, seemingly everyone thinks they can make a horror movie. Sorry folks, but you're gonna have to do better than some schlocky latex, fake blood, and something about a vague ancient curse or conveniently invisible nemesis. Horror takes a certain character connection, storyline interest, and panache of execution and build. Give me context and psychological foreplay and I'll give you horror, full of chills, tension, and that insatiable unsettling visceral response.

In 2001, within weeks of September 11th I saw Tori Amos in concert at the Tupperware Convention Center just south of Orlando. The whole affair of getting from the parking lot to the building was full of an excess of police, pat-downs, and panic. The thought that terrorism could strike at any point was on everyone's tongue. Following a sit down opening act performance by the ever whiny, reasonably talented Rufus Wainwright, Tori hit the stage with a surprisingly chilly opener: her recent cover of Eminem's deep album cut, 97 Bonnie & Clyde.

For an album full of tepid Tori-fied covers, "Strange Little Girls" was a bit of a mess so far as her catalog goes, but this one stands out. She unravels all of the dark humor of the original in favor of a cold, brittle, bare bones song built on whispers and strings.

Whereas Amos streamlined her dark tune, Britain's Sneaker Pimps over-inundate and muddy their ironically titled Clean. The argumentation between the synthesizers, guitar, and bass never let up, creating a great, unnerving tension, and Kelli Dayton's powerful pipes are put to the test as she recounts some sort of questionable apocalypse.

As the dust settles, across the hill we can hear the heavy strumming of a banjo and the haunting harmonies of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. The album they did together was something brought to music fans by the Gods, and the song Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us has always hit me a bit deeper than all of the rest. It's outwardly simple and straightforward, but I find the texture of it suggesting and building to something far more intense. Whether it arrives or not, we can be left unsettled and emotionally unprotected.

laugh, laugh

a song that makes you laugh

“God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” -Voltaire

Laughter.

Infectious. Bellowing. Snorting. Child-like. Unrelenting.

Few things bring people together quite like laughter. It spreads like disease and fills a room with positive energy.

I have always enjoyed wordplay. And lyrical wordplay is a special creature all its own. I love cleverness put to music. An artist like Missy Elliott never seems to take herself seriously so everything she puts out seems to have a sense of humor. Other artists have this vibe too, like Cee-lo Green (and his deviation, Gnarls Barkley), the lighter side of Eminem, and even Lily Allen. See yourself through a songbook of Tom Waits, Joe Jackson, or Weird "Al" Yankovic, and you'll find plenty of gems, too.

That's one side of it for me, but in full force my humor is dark, twisted, and can not be fully shared with everyone. It is a special person with low inhibitions who gets to know the full breadth of the way my mind and imagination work. I understand the gravity of life, but take it in stride and not necessarily as others might think. In ways I am a contradiction in terms. I dream and work with both sides of my brain equally, sharing both the logical sense and the artistic. I weave myself through the world in the same fashion. I am very professional and responsible, on the one hand - quoting others and not being immodest - but I have a great ability to find the humor in damn near anything.

I think it helps create a pitch black sense of humor, which in my mind means all of the colors of the humor map are fully represented.

So, onto the music:

Country Death Song by Violent Femmes is like a backwoods blues song for the college radio, post-punk set with its limited chord progression and completely sober murder storyline.

On the other hand, we've got Know Your Chicken by oddball Japanese electronica duo Cibo Matto from their food centric Viva! La Woman album. It's not the strongest song of the set, but it's the most indicative.

la golondrina

a song that you want to play at your funeral

“Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved” -Mark Twain

Whether or not we openly admit it we all muse our own deaths time and time again. We have pondered that great beyond from the earliest age that we had a concept that things don't always exist, at least in their present form, whether it was simply the melting of an ice cream cone in the hot sun, the aftermath of your parents' divorce, or an immediate death itself. Every time we step into a pessimist's shoes and see the worst of possible results and anytime we hold fear closer to our heart than ourselves, it is death with whom we dance.

That said, I have always been curious about the guest list at my funeral. We have such a strangely convenient world in regards to this sort of thing these days. I used to watch the funeral brigades in movies and wonder how all of those long lost folk knew to show up. The we hadn't talked in twenty years characters, for example. In the years since Myspace and Facebook, simply collecting one's past into one easy to contain space is easier than ever. Before these showed up I would often wonder whether the next time I would meet many of my favorite memories face-to-face would be when everyone looks like they're going out for Goth night.

If there's one thing that has always been important to me, it's the atmosphere of a gathering. Thinking about a funereal playlist is a much more taxing thing than I wish to undertake, but as I have been pondering this query a few songs come to mind. Years ago I had this idea that I wanted "Dust in the Wind" to play prominently, but that seems too obvious to me now. I won't explain my choices, but instead let them speak for themselves. What I have chosen feels like perfect exit music, providing a necessary coda as they spice up the end credits.

PURPLE RAIN - Prince & the Revolution

GOODBYE HORSES - Q. Lazzarus

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY - Led Zeppelin

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warm sound

a song that reminds you of being warm

Warmth has a very distinctive flavor within the way we perceive things.

Those things that are cold are hurtful and painful, especially when you're being offered that cold shoulder or dealing with someone who is cold as ice. Cold constitutes what we don't want: a cold wind, an icy chill in the air, a frosty attitude, or a frigid sex partner. Cold is reactionary. Cold is an answer to a problem. A cold drink or an A/C drop after getting much too hot. Using cold towels to pat down a feverish body. Freezer burned food after being ill-packaged.

Things that are hot are uncomfortable and quite tempered. It tends to be the warm places that are welcoming. So, like a Goldilocks of sorts we seek places of warmth. In another's arms we receive a warm embrace. We choose to drink beverages that are warm, but not those that burn. A little perspiration is sexy, but running over with sweat constitutes work. We become uncomfortably drenched from a muggy rainstorm, but enjoy running through light raindrops on a mild day. We are pleased when the ocean air hits our skin and enjoy the warmth of the sun, but not the resulting sunburn. A little warmth in our touch is much more pleasurable than a hot poker. We take kindly to the warmth of company and less so to heated debate.

The middle ground is where we find warm and I contend where we find the most comfort. What occurs in the extremes sometimes remind us what's most important. They might provide balance, but often the best things come in warm packages. Immediately I am drawn to folk music and the sunlight that surrounded San Franciscan heavy sixties style music. Maybe this is due to its easy to digest nature - when done right - or perhaps it's because I am so quickly reminded of Indigo Girls' songs on church trips in my youth and other times when someone with a guitar could offer us simple moments of solace.

But this is not the warmest of all to me. I have thought long and hard about it, and decided that Earth, Wind, & Fire's "September" shall take that title. Nowhere near as mellow as the wide reaching acoustic storm, but nonetheless I think this tune hits just the right notes for me. Most of Earth, Wind, & Fire's music of this period sounds as if they invited everyone they knew to play on the track, so their songs are so often filled with so much energy and spirit, harnessing the warmth of their well-known horn section, heating up the vocal line with simple lyrics and easy to learn vocal exercises, and intensifying the mood of anyone in earshot.