I forget how much I like it until I get to it again. It's hard to qualify it in words, but I'll try in music. These songs sound like cinnamon, wool coats, crunchy leaves, early sunsets, apples, bonfires and change.
I'm glad my iTunes isn't a sentient being, because I'm fairly sure it'd go all Hal from 2001 on me and say, "I can't do that, Dave," when I try and play Use Somebody AH-GAIN.
Also the rest of Only by the Night. And the rest of their albums. And their drummer. (Call me, Nathan. For cereal.)
Let it be said that the current boyfriend has at least an excellent taste in music to redeem him from the laundry list of more questionable qualities he possesses. Yay Kings of Leon!
Sometimes, a girl looks at her iTunes and realizes her music collection takes up a quarter of her hard drive space. Sometimes, she couples that knowledge with the fact that she's running OSX Tiger on 256 RAM, and then she decides she might need to pare down a bit.
And sometimes - only rarely - she looks at her list of never-listened songs and once-played bands and goes, "Oooh, last.fm post potential!" I'm trashing some tracks (except for a few, of course, that have sentimental value) and clearing out musical clutter.
Without further ado, I present:
Five Bands To Say Goodbye To:
1. Fall Out Boy
In all fairness, these guys were decent pop-punk when no one had heard of them. (Is there such a thing as decent pop-punk?) Then they got popular and started wearing twice as much eyeliner as Captain Jack Sparrow and only looking half as good. Naturally, it was downhill from there.
(Packrat Playlist: I'm keeping Sugar, We're Going Down as part of a mix CD someone gave me.)
2. Josh Groban
Hoo boy, this kid had some pipes on him and a nice pair of puppy dog eyes when I was in high school. I have paragraphs from friends in my old yearbooks about how one day I would be "Mrs. Josh Groban." Apparently, my ADD when it comes to boys wasn't so crippling back then.
(Packrat Playlist: I'm keeping most of his foreign language tracks, soundtrack pieces, and a collaboration with Herbie Hancock. It's good studying music when you can't understand the lyrics.)
3. Motion City Soundtrack
I actually don't have a problem with MCS; I think they're pretty clever and I had a lot of fun re-listening to their songs. The fundamental rules apply as time goes by, unfortunately, and my tastes have changed. Evidence: The Future Freaks Me Out hadn't been played since April of 2005.
(Packrat Playlist: Okay, I'm keeping all of their stuff - but I only have six or seven tracks!)
4.Story of the Year
I remember only being lukewarm about these guys until I learned they were based out of St. Louis. The within-driving-distance proximity übercool. Later, I realized that the proximity of anything to Missouri is inversely proportionate to its awesomeness.
(Packrat Playlist: Honestly, absolutely nothing. I'm over these guys like I'm over Obama.)
5. Matt Wertz
This guy opened for the timeless Matt Nathanson when I was at Mizzou, and because I had (okay, have) a weak spot for boys with guitars, I decided he was in like Flynn. Then I listened to his stuff again outside of that close, sweaty, almost-aphrodisiac concert atmosphere and realized how mediocre it was.
(Packrat Playlist: A cover of Man Eater and his own Marianne, both live from the concert where he sounded so magical.)
I can't imagine the day when I'll want to get rid of all of the things I'm into currently. Limewire is a much more integral part of my life now than it was then. =)
(Okay, the picture doesn't really have to do with being hot, except for people drink iced tea in the summer, and I love Natalie Dee.)
Let's talk for a second about summertime - more specifically, let's talk about that month or so at the end of July and beginning of August where God looks at his thermostat for the Midwest, laughs maniacally and cranks that sucker up to the hundreds. Standing stationary outside at 10 in the morning is no longer simply a state of being but a chore, because the humidity is now 100% with 98 degree temperatures. AT 10 IN THE MORNING. Just thinking about moving makes you sweat, and your body turns its own cooling functions against you to transform your perspiration into glue, an uncomfortable paste affixing your legs to the chair, your legs to your shorts, or your shirt to your chair and you at the same time. (Shirt's pulling double duty there.)
What is there to do in desperate, sticky times such as these? Well, my preference is to saunter around my former plantation house in New Orleans, nursing a cool tumbler of bourbon on the rocks, sighing dramatically and listening to music that sounds like the wettest, hottest part of summer. And when I say "former plantation house in New Orleans," I mean "tiny studio apartment in Missouri," and when I say "cool tumbler of bourbon on the rocks," I mean "my can of Diet Coke with some rum poured in."
I bequeath unto you my "Wet, Hot Summer" playlist. Wailing guitar and minimal accompaniment are prominent themes.
I will admit that "Lonely Night in Georgia" is not exactly consistent with the tone of the rest of the list, but Marc Broussard's voice kind of drips sex and I wanted to include him. The pared-down verses are a little more on par.
I wish I had a sprinkler. Stripping down to my skivvies and running through it is definitely an option - with rummed-up Coke in hand, of course.
My excitement for her concert is reaching levels where it cannot be quantified.
If she sings Open Window (The Wedding Song), I will probably die - on the spot - an obscenely happy woman. Feist + Sarah Harmer is like the recipe for aural immortality. In Canada, anyway.
I have now excited myself so much that I doubt I will be able to sleep. Redunkulous.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the proper way to handle Past in Present. It's that fascinating and almost always soap-opera-worthy phenomenon where, when everything in your life is going swimmingly, something or someone crops up from your closet full of skeletons and tests The Limit to Your Love, your devotion and essentially your resolve to leave them, indeed, in the past.
Sometimes my Intuition will let me know when my particular harbinger of PIP is going to crop up. It's a little tingle, a tiny lurch, a miniature red flag that pops up and says, "Danger ahead; fasten your seat belt and get the chocolate ready." Unfortunately for me, there's almost always Brandy Alexanders or some cocktails involved when this happens, causing me to rush right past the Gatekeeper of my sensibilities into trouble's open arms.
Being Lonely Lonely (even when I've no good reason to be) is the unfortunate character flaw my PIP chooses, sometimes wittingly, I think, to exploit - if there is one thing it knows, it is How My Heart Behaves. I Feel It All- the laughs, the sighs, the bitter promises of things that could have been. Call me nostalgic, call me touchy, call me emotional, even - but unfulfilled potential makes me a bit damp around the eyes. And so I let myself fall, for just that One Evening (or perhaps two, if I'm really being a lush), into my Secret Heart of hearts, into that cubby hole of memory where I'm not So Sorry, like I know I will be in the morning.
"Well, that doesn't sound very healthy," you say. And you know what? It's not. I know, and have known for a while, what I should do. What I need to do, because it would be better for me, both Inside And Out, even if the "out" part is ostensibly only my tear ducts.
I need to Let It Die. The Reminder of it is almost too much to bear, let alone when it's PIP. It's the actual doing so that's the hard part.
But I'm going to try. I'm going to Let It Die. That way, if it ever comes back, it'll be a zombie and that will effectively prevent me from having anything to do with it - I hate zombies. You're dead, you should not be able to sprint. Simple as 1234.
To say this is the first time I've sat down to rattle off some more nonsense since my last post would be a gross lie. Many such stabs at composition have been thwarted by something or other (mostly by my falling asleep mid-sentence, since most of these attempts occur in the obscenely wee hours of the morning), the thoughts in my head getting lost on the synapse highway and never quite making it out of my fingers and onto the screen.
I could play it off as lack of inspiration, but that would also be a disgusting falsehood. I've had so many half-baked ideas lately for fun (ie ridiculous) posts - why Journey is simultaneously dated and timeless, how David Bowie brings people together (or at least how Flight of the Conchords' Bowie Song does), or how when I'm tipsy, Britney's Toxic is suddenly not so awful.
Now that I've put all of those out there, I doubt I'll actually write any of said posts (except the one about Journey - the world needs to know). I will, however, share the startling revelation I had while the Today Show was on TV at the laundry mat this morning.
I've come to terms with the fact that despite my hang-ups with the cast, I'd really like to see the new comedy Leatherheads. Anyone who's seen O Brother, Where Art Thou? knows that George Clooney + comedy = brilliant (I am of the opinion that anything + George Clooney = brilliant, but that's just me ... and about a bazillion other ladies), but Renée Zellweger's been downhill for me since Bridget Jones' Diary, and I've already touched on my issues with the character associated with John Krasinski. I'd touch again - bow chicka wow wow - but I have soapbox tendencies. (Soapbox Tendencies would be an awesome band name.)
During a promo interview on the Today Show with J. Kizzle - that's when I had my epiphany (an entirely mental bodily function, even though it sounds quite the contrary). At first I rolled my eyes as he was talking, but then I realized I was doing what I hate all fangirls (and fanboys, too - fanpeople? Fanpersons?) for doing: refusing to separate the character from the actor. Ergo, I watched the rest of the segment with fresh eyes, and was thrilled/horrified to discover that John Krasinski is smokin' hot - and intelligent to boot.
I immediately confessed my inner conflict to the gods of the silver screen and boob tube - how could someone who plays something so bad be sooooooooo good? Would I have to recant all of my previous malice for Jim Halpert? After agonizing internally (it lasted for all of 30 seconds - but it was intense agony!), I decided that no, I would not have to change my soapbox stance or retract any of my Office rants. My beef is with the character, not the man behind it! (Make your own joke about the "man behind it"'s beef here.) Jim Halpert is deceit; John Krasinski is delicious. Jim Halpert is lies; John Krasinski is lickable. (I don't know this for sure, but would be more than willing to find out, J-Kras. Have your people call my people.)
Lesson: watch the Today Show more often. A hotdish post of half-baked ideas wasn't such a bad thing. Don't be surprised if I take the easy route from here on out.
Let's talk for a minute about sex. Just for a minute! It'll be painless and I promise we'll do it again. (Wow, that sounds ridiculously (in?)appropriate in context.)
Some people just have that certain something that makes them ooze sex out of every pore. It's not premeditated, they're not trying; it just happens. Everything they do looks like it should be accompanied by a porn soundtrack (not the "Bow chicka bow wow!" kind, either), and they turn knees to water by just walking down the sidewalk. Adam Levine of Maroon 5 is one of these people.
It certainly helps that the pop-funk sound his band produces is irresistibly danceable. The lyrics of their songs are sometimes sensual, sometimes sorrowful and always awesome. The combination of the throbbing beat, the murmur of things like "All alone with the negligee that still hangs above my bed" in Back At Your Door, those penetrating eyes and those chiseled cheekbones all culminate in an undeniable urge to layer on some skanky eye makeup and say, "Yes, Adam Levine, I will let you take me into that dark corner and do things that will make me unable to look at myself in the mirror in the morning." It also makes me want to go out and buy another negligee. You know, just in case his bed wants a little variety.
Downpour
