Remember when you got your first real job out of college, and you lamented the lack of free time you had, relative to those undergrad years? It was a pretty fundamental leap from limited responsibility/limited rules to working what was sometimes an eleven-hour day, five days a week.

One year, you're cramming for the odd midterm, or pulling the occasional all-nighter on a twenty-page paper, but mostly hanging out with your friends, smoking pot on the front porch with the neighbors, and dreaming up ways to make the world a better place when you weren't dreaming up ways to get into your neighbor's pants.

The next year... you work. Most of the time.

Having a child is, I think, the same order of magnitude loss of free time. Another fundamental leap. I knew intellectually it was coming, but I don't think I was emotionally prepared for it.

Sometimes, I'm at the point where my job is the break. Work is the refreshing time-out from the enormous weight of taking responsibility for Asher's health and happiness. I don't know how Sarah does this all day, every day.

A friend's own admission on this topic in his blog has inspired me to share that I have the same shortcoming: I'm getting fat again.

I'm a lazy, processed-food-eating, non-exercising, slob.

It's nothing new. I used to be all of that, plus your garden variety of decidedly more dangerous vices, all of which resulted in my five-foot-three self weighing in at more than 150 lbs and my lungs exploding after a half mile run.

About four years ago in California, I started to turn it around. I ate healthy. I went to the gym six days a week. I dropped all (well, most) of those dangerous vices. And after a while, I was a 130 lb, medium distance runner who could bench press considerably more than my weight.

Flash forward to 2005. I live in New York City, where unhealthy is chic. Where gyms cost more than rent. Where fresh food is a luxury. Where time comes at a premium, and where nothing is convenient.

My exercise time dropped gradually from an hour a day, six days/week to 30 minutes every three days.

I had a kid.

My exercise time dropped to a carefully negotiated two runs per week.

My food intake increased in volume and decreased dramatically in quality.

My pants don't fit.

So what am I going to do about it? Again, inspired by my friend mentioned above, I pledge here, to do the following beginning today:

- No eating after 8pm
- No french fries. Pizza only once per week.
- An increase in exercise time to three runs per week. More, as Asher care gets easier.
- Nightly sit-ups

One of my friends who has an important job at a major news organization was called into Senior Management yesterday along with a handful of others. They were upbraided for using Instant Message to communicate, specifically because of the occasional profanity (words like "vagina" apparently qualified as profane), and told that all employees of this news organization would no longer be able to use Instant Message.

Really surreal.

When you have a meeting with the Devil, and he turns out to be kind of a nice guy who seems to be on your side, should you:

a) assume that the Devil is only doing that because he wants to steal your soul.

b) shrug, and jump into bed with him, because hey - everyone's the devil. That's life. But he's like, the Devil, with a capital D, and being his bedfellow might swing some of that power your way.

c) grow the fuck up and stop thinking of people and policies in black and white.

d) all of the above.

Below is my take on Rhapsody 3.0.

Let me say in advance that it's still my digital music application of choice, and I respect the hell out of everyone in the San Francisco Real Networks office for the hard work they put into this. But... there are some issues.


Let's start with the positives:

- I love the new "staff picks" and "new releases" sections. Rhapsody has the best editorial staff in the land, and I'll always give an album a fair shake on their say-so. As for the new release list, it makes my life a lot easier. Previously, I had to go to newreleasetipsheet.com or ice magazine, get my list of new releases, and return to Rhapsody to check them out.

- The Rhapsody to-go feature is an extremely welcome addition. For an extra five bucks, you can download tracks to your hard drive, upload them to your portable player, and head off into the sunset. Literally. I would use this to check out new music on my hour-long drive home each night. It would also be handy for long runs. Problem is, I can't get to-go to work. At all. But that's a negative. I'm getting ahead of myself.

- Similar albums! Finally! This is a great discovery tool. And from what I've seen so far, it's fairly accurate.


And now, the issues, in ascending order of magnitude:

- Basing the "albums for you" feature on what I've recently listened to rather than what I've rated or genres I've listed as favorites - bad idea. One of the best things about Rhapsody is that I can check out all the pop dreck that I would never buy. Once in a while - like with the new Tori Amos , there's something in there that has redeeming qualities. But that doesn't mean I want to be recommended Vanessa Carlton or Jewel. Maybe, this is just me. Maybe, most people only listen to things on Rhapsody that they really want to hear. Maybe, most people aren't such music snobs that they would turn their noses up at a Vanessa Carlton recommendation. But I do tend to think that recommendations should be based on stated preference rather than behavior. That was always the problem I had with those automatic personalization engines on the market a few years back.

- Does the world really need another jukebox/media player that can manage local files, rip CDs, and so on? I'm not convinced that this stuff will drive usage. I am convinced it clutters up the product with a lot of things that aren't Rhapsody's core competency. The net effect is to dilute the power of Rhapsody's music acquisition and music discovery elements. Admittedly, this may be a personal preference thing. But research has shown that adoption of digital music services is largely driven by product focus and ease-of-use. I think this feature is a mistake.

- Subscription downloads (downloading a track to your hard drive, with the ability to play it offline) are largely irrelevant these days. More than half of the country has broadband, which means they're always connected. And for the times when they're not, there's Rhapsody to-go. On that note, didn't anyone consider that offering the ability to play tracks offline for $9.99 would muddle the upsell to Rhapsody to-go at $14.99? Again, it's an added feature that doesn't add anything but clutter.

- I can't get many of the new features to work. At all. Can't purchase downloads. Can't upgrade to Rhapsody to-go. Can't import my entire local library. Can't edit the metadata on the few tracks I was able to import. Error messages and crashes abound.


Bottom line: Too many features. Not enough QA.

Dumbest baby-induced behavior of the day: As I was taking Asher over to hold him in the rocking chair, I told him that I knew he wanted to rock, and spontaneously burst into Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock" - all the way through the chorus. Thank you, MTV - I still remember all the words to that first verse.

Where is good old Dee Snider, now? Why, he's where all good rockers go to be reborn -VH-1:

A Very Classic Passover -- Watch the first ever rock n' roll seder featuring Twisted Sister's Dee Snider and Jay Jay French, Scott Ian of Anthrax, and Mountain's Leslie West. Premieres Sunday Apr. 24 at 7 PM.

Not-So-Fuzzy Math

Every year, the State Department puts out a report on terrorism. One of the components of this report is the number of what the government considers to be "serious terrorist incidents."

- Last year, the report showed a sharp decline in the number of serious terrorist incidents. The Bush administration loudly touted it as an indicator of success in the war on terror.

- Shortly after the report was released, Colin Powell himself was forced to admit a "big mistake" in calculation. Turns out, "serious terrorist incidents" did not decline, but rather were at a twenty-year high of 208. Whoops.

- This year, the Bush Administration said the the number of serious terrorist incidents simply would not be made public.

- Today, sources leaked the numbers, anyway. Apparently, the official State Department report shows that the number of serious terrorist incidents has climbed from 208 to an all-time high of 655.

To re-cap: There were three times as many terrorist incidents last year as there were the previous year. And the previous year was a record, at the time.

By the most obvious metric available, it's clear we are not winning the war on terror.

Two random quotes of the day:

"I was on the radio!! I was on the radio!! I was on the radio!!"

- Sarah

"I'm in Omaha. I need food."

- Starkey (either he's on tour or he's run away from home. wait - don't they amount to the same thing?)

Launch party

Sarah and I are going to Rhapsody's re-launch party tonight at Radio City Music Hall. Good Charlotte is playing.

The last digital music launch party I went to was for an ill-fated company called MusicBank in early 2001 - the dying days of the dot com age. MusicBank rented out the Warfield in San Francisco for a full-on James Brown concert - horns, dancers, backup singers - the whole works. There were sushi chefs out in the hallways and roast beef carving stations in the aisles. The beer was, of course, free. Before the show, the MusicBank CEO got on stage, thanked everyone for coming, and said their service would be launching the following morning.

A month later, MusicBank went out of business. They never launched a product. Inside sources put the cost of their shindig at just north of $100,000.

Hopefully, Rhapsody's new "to-go" service will fare better.

Frankly, it's a little bit disappointing that they're trying to replicate the pomp and circumstance that surrounded dot coms back in the day. And is it just me, or is their "change the face of digital music forever" setup a lame attempt at imitating the superhype of a Steve Jobs product pitch?

Rhapsody's old commander-in-chief Sean Ryan would have never done something like this. In fact, he didn't do something like this. When Rhapsody first launched in December, 2001, there was a relatively modest celebration in L.A. that featured a C-level band who was friends with one of the Listen.com biz dev guys. No Steve Jobsian rhetoric. No platinum-selling artist. I think the beer may have been free, but hey.

The question is, will the product live up to the hype? In 2001, it far surpassed it.

Passed Over

"Do you have any idea what's going on?"

That's what my sister-in-law asked me from across the table during last night's seder.

First, my in-laws are Orthodox, which means the entire seder is in Hebrew. Second, the Kaufmans may like to linger over meals, but they don't dally in davening. That means we were blowing through the service part of the seder faster than a cattle auctioneer on speed. Third, Asher was squirming in my arms, which meant that I wasn't even attempting to follow along.

So, no, Naomi. I didn't have any idea what was going on at that very moment.

And that didn't bother me one bit.

This was my third seder with the Kaufmans. The first one was rather intimidating:

Sarah and I had just gotten engaged, and I think I'd only seen her parents twice, which brought the number of times I'd encountered Orthodox Jews up to..umm.. two. We flew in from California, and after a few hasty hellos I was physically coerced into helping Sarah's Sephardi uncle Amos put the finishing touches on some sort of unidentifiable finger food. The uncle's English wasn't so hot, so our conversation consisted mainly of a lot of "How are you?!" and forced smiles. Sarah's dad - always a bit flustered when a holiday is fast approaching - was back from shul, hovering over everyone and bellowing in a loud, nervous voice, "Are we ready? It's almost time!" Sarah's mom was in overdrive, trying to put the finishing touches on her Passover kitchen (a mind-boggling concept to me -- a separate KITCHEN for Passover?). There were 3 children running around, sounding like 30 children running around. And Sarah had been swallowed up by a gaggle of siblings and second cousins, right after we walked in the door. When the seder started, the kids didn't stop yelling - except to show that they understood more Hebrew than I did. And even some of the secular banter was in Hebrew, since Amos preferred that over English.

In short, the Kaufmans are your typical large family - with that added religious thing that used to leave me wary of the kitchen and wondering when I would be unmasked as a godless, ignorant fool.

Three years later, Sarah's dad still hovers nervously. Sarah's mom is still in overdrive. I still don't understand Hebrew, and Amos still abandons English after a maximum of three words at a time. But it's all good, because I really feel like part of the family.

Murder By Numbers

I just took a practice GRE test without reviewing anything beforehand. Did fine on the verbal, but got a dramatically low 580 on the math. Every question that involved any sort of geometric shape was a complete mystery to me.

It's possible that I could actually re-learn all of the formulas that turn a triangle from an inscrutable form into a neat, dissectible package. But.. umm... why?

Of course that question begs the question, "Why am I taking a practice GRE?"

Right.

Next question.

Rep. Henry Hyde, head of the judiciary committee that pushed through Clinton's impeachment admitted today that the Republicans did it in payback for Nixon's almost-impeachment.

Cheney makes $1.5MM from Iraq War

Below is Halliburton's 5-year stock chart. Note the climb out of the company's all-time low - November, 2002. That's when the Bush administration awarded Cheney's former company the first of its no-bid contracts for reconstruction in Iraq.

In 2003, a congressional report found that Cheney still owned 433,000 stock options in Halliburton. 100,000 shares were at $54.50 per share, 33,333 shares at $28.125 and 300,000 shares at $39.50 per share
At the bell today, Halliburton's stock was at $43. Should he choose to flip his $28 and $39 options, he will gross $14.3MM, and net $1.5MM.

The Replacements kick ass.

For the longest time, the only copy of Pleased to Meet Me I had was a cassette dubbed from Margaret Marystone's older sister's vinyl (damn, did we raid that collection). "Can't Hardly Wait" had a skip that we didn't catch for 30 seconds, and I left it on the dubbed copy. That song still sound strange to me without the skip.

A few years back, my friend Kristen and I drove up from Atlanta to meet some friends in New York City for New Year's. Kristen's cat Lucy was with us, perched up behind the backseat next to the rear window. When we stopped at a hotel somewhere in Virginia for the night, Lucy started meowing like mad. Kristen gave the cat some drugs to shut her up so that we could sleep. Much to our dismay, the drugs just made things worse. Instead of her excited, periodic yowls, Lucy started in on this neverending series of pitiful moans that drifted back and forth between pitches, making sleep - already a challenge - flat out impossible.

Asher got his shots yesterday. Since he was visibly uncomfortable from them, we gave him baby Tylenol. He spent the better part of the afternoon, evening and night sounding just like Lucy the drugged cat.

We felt terrible for him. Poor kid.

420, Dude

Happy birthday to Bernadine, Naomi and Karyn on what in my past life used to be one of the most entertaining days of the year.

And these birthday girls of whom I speak?

Naomi - a twentysomething elementary school teacher who wears feathers in her ears, listens to great music, and presently resides on the Upper West Side. Naomi also happens to be my sister-in-law - the youngest of the pack of Kaufmans and the least inhibited.

Bernadine - A West-African once called this woman "portable" as a means of describing her small stature. Bernadine and I "met" when I was in charge of the online community for Rollingstone.com. We've actually only seen each other a handful of times, most notably when she and her Radcliffe Rugby team came to stay - and play - at my apartment in San Francisco. I think they rivaled state school football players in their rowdiness. Bernadine's living out in the Bay Area now. Oakland, to be exact.

Kayrn - She and I go back the farthest of the lot. Kayrn was two years behind me at Northwestern. We ran the same arts magazine and worked at the same two companies in the years after graduation. Shortly after I moved to San Francisco, she dropped out of the rat race to lead boy scout-types on wilderness trips somewhere in the umm... wilderness of Arizona. Random Karyn/Isaac moment: grilling free burgers for total strangers one cold January evening as they exited the gay leather bar down the block from Karyn's Chicago apartment. And yes, AA, I know you guys dated. Duh.

Great. An activist pope.

And a racist pope, too, apparently. According to the New York Times, he's been quoted as saying that letting Turkey join the European Union would be bad because it would dilute the culture of what he considers to be a Christian continent.

Southern Man

It's Richmond, VA for me, tomorrow. Out at 8 am and back by 6pm. Since I recently finished the mediocre American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (sorry, Josh, I don't think it's worth optioning), I can't help but dwell on the town's history. Don't worry - I won't dwell on it here.

Asher update: He hates Golden Smog, loves to suck on wet washcloths in the bath, and isn't so keen on taking a bottle these days. Blah Blah Blah.

Ego Tripping At The Gates of Parenthood

My son is going to grow up thinking life is one big Bollywood film because his parents are always singing everything to him.

And if current behavior is any indication, he'll also think for a long time to come that his father is the world's best guitar player. I shall, of course, do nothing to discourage that belief.

Sarah's mom likes to tell a story about overhearing the end of an argument between Sarah and her childhood friend, both aged five or six, at the time. She walked past the room to hear Sarah's friend say, "Nuh uh! Your mom doesn't know everything." As it turns out, it was the first time Sarah remembers ever considering that her mother might actually not know everything.

This is why we have children. To feed our egos.

I only have so much time.

There’s a baby to be tucked in, and a wife who deserves a nice, long neck rub. And somewhere on a nightstand is an overdue library book waiting to be read before I sleep tonight. This is my to-do list for the night of Saturday, April 16, or rather early morning on Sunday. It’s modest, but it’s within my grasp.

We’re just back from Forest Hills, where Sarah’s parents looked after Asher and we aimlessly walked the streets for two hours, eventually ending up talking over drinks at a chain restaurant next to a chain ice cream store. It wasn’t exciting, but it was nice to spend time with Sarah – and just Sarah.

Tomorrow, they say it will be 70 degrees. With luck, I’ll get in a run, return the library book, and meet a friend for coffee.

And then, it’s back to work.

In case you missed it, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is going on a special television broadcast organized by the Family Research Council to say that the Democrats are against Christians because they're trying to block judges with the filibuster.

That's right. If you don't agree with Bush, you're a Jesus hater.

On the other side of Congress, Tom Delay - after tossing out several explicit threats to judges that at the very least encourage the kind of violence we've seen lately against them - has ordered the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the courts' behavior in the Terry Schiavo case.

That's right. If you don't agree with Tom Delay, Constitutional separation of powers be damned. You're screwed.

I really, really hope we take back the House next year and IMMEDIATELY begin a landslide of investigations into this crap, the ethics committee crap, 9/11, the lies and misuse of intelligence that got us into Iraq, Cheney's directive that got no-bid contracts for Halliburton, and so on.

Happy tax day!

I thought I'd share a few tidbits about where your tax dollars are going:


1. Federally funded and federally mandated abstinence programs that preach choice tidbits like:
- HIV/AIDS can be transmitted through sweat and tears
- Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission 31 percent of the time in hetrosexual sex
- Abortion leads to sterility and suicide
- A 43-day-old fetus is a thinking person

Cost: $900 million


2. Bush's nationwide tour to push phase-out of social security.
- Undisclosed number of new employees brought on to support push (You don't do that to push policy. You just don't.)
- Social Security trustees report modified to make solvency predictions much more dire than last year
- Only Bush supporters are allowed in to hear him speak about phasing out Social Security. Those that have liberal bumper stickers on their cars are removed from the events by private security. (You cannot use federal funds and then bar citizens - especially when you're not even claiming that they're disturbing the peace or anything)

Cost: White House will not reveal, but Washington Post speculates that it may be the most costly attempt to sell a domestic policy in history.


4. Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority "misplaced" funds
- Funds that were supposed to go towards Iraqi reconstruction simply "cannot be accounted for."

Cost: $8 Billion


5. Halliburton "misplaced" funds
- The Pentagon is investigating Halliburton's inability to account nearly $2 billion in funds given to them in a no-bid contract.

Cost: $1.8 billion


6. Halliburton "overcharged" for services
Cost: At least $127MM
- Overcharged for fuel
- Charged for food that it did not serve to soliders


3. EPA
- Lied about lower Manhattan air quality
- Lied about mercury emissions proposal.
- Lied about greenhouse gases

Cost: $8 billion


7. State Department

- Lied in report on terrorism - said it had decreased since the war on terror began. Later reversed finding when Rep. Henry Waxman found that terrorism had in fact increased.
- Lied to our Asian allies and said North Korea sold nuclear materials to Libya. When North Korea and Asian allies found out we lied, all talks completely broke down.
- Lied to United Nations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

Cost: $11 billion


8. Department of Homeland Defense

- Used assets to track down Texas Democrats hiding in Oklahoma instead of showing up in Congress to provide a quorum that would have - and ultimately did - lead to forced redistricting that effectively neutered the Democrats.
- Stupid color-coding system. Jeez.

Cost: $28 Billion


9. Iraq War
Cost: $151 Billion so far

What about Poland?

"What about Poland?!!!" screamed George Bush in the second presidential debate, cutting off the moderater to respond to John Kerry's accusation of unilateralism.

"You forgot Poland, and Italy, and... umm... a lot of other nations whose bravery and sacrifices blah blah blah," Bush said, wheedling on about what he claimed was a true coalition of the willing.

Well folks, Poland just pulled out.

What about Poland, indeed.

And as long as we're on the subject, how about that hump that was on your back for the debates, George? Apparently, the New York Times mysteriously killed a story verifying that it was, in fact an "electric cueing device."

Random Baby Photos

If you ever find yourself near 56th and 6th and in dire need of a great, cheap meal -- or if you live anywhere in NYC and ever want an unpretentious, beer-and-burgers dinner, check out Burger Joint. It's located - believe it or not - off the lobby of the posh Parker Meridien hotel. Burger Joint has an awesome, unaffected dive-bar atmosphere, gourmet-level patties, fries with just the right amount of grease and salt, and Sam Adams on tap.

Aside from an ultimately pointless community meeting Sunday night and a quick brunch with a college friend, Burger Joint was this weekend's sole social venture. We dropped Asher off at the in-laws on Saturday evening, and met Karen and Jeremy there for dinner.

Karen and Jeremy are cut from one of the many classic New York cloths. She practices international law, and is part of the team that issued the Volker report on the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. He is a classical music critic for the New York Times and a Ph.D. student at Columbia University. They currently live in a cramped upper west side apartment, but we're trying the get them to immigrate down to Park Slope.

* * *

On an entirely unrelated note, Sarah called me this morning kind of freaking out. Asher was dozing in his bouncy seat in the kitchen when the glass cover to the overhead light fixture just randomly fell ten feet to the ground, inches from his head. Shards of glass went in every direction - all of them missing him as he looked disinterestedly on in in his post-nap haze. Sarah said she almost had a heart attack. It scared the hell out of me to hear about it. Thankfully, Asher displays no emotional or physical scars.

Eighties Lineups That Read Like Tabloid Headlines
(Borrowed wholly from McSweeny's)

Lords of the New Church Fear Afterlife
Starship Sparks Crowded House
Chicago, Boston, Berlin, Asia: Damned
The Waitresses Squeeze the Specials
Pet Shop Boys Fixx Stray Cats, Toto
Flock of Seagulls Jam the Tubes
Sisters of Mercy Cure Television
Scorpions Sting Tracey Ullman
Police Poison Loverboy Cult
The English Beat New Kids on the Block
Scandal, Madness, Germs
Yes, the Smiths Heart Everything But the Girl
Gene Loves Jezebel

April Madness

4th-ranked Duke is pitted against Cardinal Napier from South Africa (5) in round one. My money's on Cardinal Scola from Italy, though.

He's a music man

Asher gets a little irritable around 8pm every night. Of course, I try to stem the tide of tears with music and dancing. Here are some of his responses to date:

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
Silence (except for a whimper at the beginning of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out").

The New Pornographers - Electric Version
Silence.

David Bowie - Young Americans
Silence

Blind Boys of Alabama - Atom Bomb
Silence

The Beatles - Abbey Road
Silence

The Bravery - The Bravery
He spit up, then pooped.

Best of 2005... So Far




As I think I've mentioned before, every Tuesday, I check out a handful of the week's new releases. Well, I've trimmed them all down to a "Best Of" list that you can digest in just over an hour if you have Rhapsody. It's got great gospel, slinky French pop, a lot of that hip new/old post-punk stuff, some singer-songwriters, and more. But before I reveal the list, here are a few thoughts on 2005's first quarter crop of music:

Biggest Disappointments:

This does not qualify as a sophomore slump: In 2003, The Reverend Al Green dropped religious title and pretense, and got back to his roots with the lovely I Can't Stop, an album that equaled his best years as last generation's top secular soul singer. Everything's OK - number two out of the box for Al since being un-born again - fell far short of I Can't Stop's rough-n-ready soul vibe. If these cheesy lyrics and schlocky production quality is all Mr. Green has to offer, he'd better start shilling for Jesus, again.

Seeking Substance: The songs on the latest New Order sound like cast-offs from the already uneven Brotherhood (1986) release. And they also brought back those trite lyrics from that same time period. "Hold your head up high/No, it's not too late to try." Who the hell wrote your lyrics, Bernard? the Bravery?

Speaking of which, they try to hard... and not hard enough: I'm all for this post-punk revival, but anyone who strives that hard to sound like Robert Smith shouldn't be writing songs like Matchbox 20. I think the Bravery mark the end of this great Eighties trend - or at least its nadir. Which means they'll probably go platinum.

Absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder: Hey Bright Eyes, I never liked you anyway. But with all this hype surrounding your two latest releases, I thought I'd give them a go-around. To bad they're not available in Rhapsody. Get with the program, Saddle Creek.

Biggest Wins:

Keren Ann, Nolita - It's Come Away With Me for Nico lovers and hung-over hipsters. This Israeli/Parisian woman shifts back and forth between French and English, holding it all together with her fragile eggshell vocals, woozy, Sunday-morning instrumentation and unvarnished, acoustic production. The title track ends with a three-minute fade-out of breathy white noise stitched together by violins and a solitary horn blowing a sparse, three-note mantra. This album is beautiful.

Mercury Rev, The Secret Migration - I'm a sucker for a Mercury Rev record in general, but this one is nearly as great as their 1998 magnum opus Deserter's Songs. I was hard-pressed to choose just one song.


Honorable Mentions:

Dave Holland Big Band, Overtime - Finally, Dave Holland releases this wonderful work commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival for performance in 2001 (or was it '02? I can't remember.). Lively and innovative big band jazz that sadly has no place in a rock mix.

Vic Chesnutt, Ghetto Bells - Too sedate, opaque and sprawling to fit into this mix, but it's the best thing he's done since The Salesman and Bernadette. Bill Frisell guests.

Morrissey, Live At Earl's Court - After 1988's Rank which was... rank, I didn't think decent live Smiths was possible. 17 years later (!!!!!) Morrisey finally delivers the goods with a great rendition of "How Soon Is Now." Still, nostalgia only goes so far, and that wasn't far enough to make this best-of list.


Random Note:

Beck, you're really wicked smart and creative and stuff... so why do you have to ALWAYS rely on that same stupid hand-clap percussion as the signifier for your collage/junk pop songs?

And now, here's the list of Q105's top tunes:
(Open this playlist in Rhapsody)

"Old Blind Barnabas" - Blind Boys Of Alabama
"Oh My God" - Kaiser Chiefs
"Autumn Sweater (Kevin Shields Remix)" - Yo La Tengo
"So Here We Are" - Bloc Party
"Across Yer Ocean" - Mercury Rev
"Homme" - Brazilian Girls
"La Salles Des Perdue" - Monade
"Underwater Wave Game" - Pit Er Pat
"Que N'ai Je " - Keren Ann
"Earthquake Weather" - Beck
"The Bucket" - Kings Of Leon
"Spit It Out" - Brendan Benson
"Highway 5" - John Doe
"I Need Your Love In My Life" - Solomon Burke
"Winter in the Hamptons" - Josh Rouse
"The Sporting Life" - The Decemberists
"This Day Should Last Forever" - Ocean Colour Scene
"Fleashine" - Kelly Joe Phelps

"Oh, he's definitely smiling!"

"Look, he's TOTALLY transfixed by that purple stuffed duck on the mobile!"

I recognize why this is annoying to hear if you don't have kids yourself. I mean, let's face it, waving his hands excitedly over the presence of a purple and yellow duck... it's not exactly like the kid is reading Shakespeare.

That said, I'm beginning to realize why new parents talk so incessantly (and insipidly) about their babies' barely recognizable cognitive progress. It's like this: You get home from the hospital. The excitement wears off. The grandparents go back to where grandparents come from. And you're left with this bundle of squirming, screaming flesh that you feel compelled to care for day in and day out. There's zero true interaction between you and the kid. No recognition from him - only a few reflex reactions to cold hands or hunger pangs. Part of you starts to wonder if this thing is really a person.

So, when he finally does begin to show some preferences, and you can tell that he's actually paying attention to something, there's hope. He's human! If he can track the stupid purple duck, that means he'll be able to do other things at some point - play guitar with you, kick a soccer ball around with you, go for a hike, argue philosophy and hide Jack Daniels under his bed. All of your daydreams re-materialize.

On that note, Asher's sorta smiling and definitely loves the purple stuffed duck hanging from the play-mat thingy. Or is it a dinosaur?

Oh god, I hope it's not the purple dinosaur.