bloodyrosemccoy | Entries tagged with music

Hey, internet! Did you know that music education is highly beneficial in all sorts of ways? That’s right—if kids get taught music, they do better in society and school, plus it’s satisfying, exciting, and lovely to know a little bit about the music you love.

So when I tell y’all that

bean_bunny needs a bit of help with the orchestra program at one of the elementary schools she teaches at, I’m sure you will jump at the chance to give her a hand in introducing music into the lives of her students.

This entry will tell you what she needs [Important Edit: I failed to notice it's locked. Pending Bean's further instructions, I'll see if it gets unlocked or if I can give y'all her Paypal address here. But test the link in case she unlocked it while I was away!]. You can turn a violin into a viola—a worthy instrument with a richer tune than the violin, because not all kids want to play the violin—with a mere $6-7!* $8 gets somebody a lesson book, it seems. You can send her money through Paypal—the address is in the comments.

Trust me, a bit of music in life is wonderful. Won’t you feel good, helping someone else? Of course you will! What a great opportunity! Whee!

*Go to that entry for a neat explanation of how this act of magic is wrought!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: The Beatles ~ Honey Don't

Hey, lookit that! I should’ve canceled today instead of yesterday, what with the power having been out for hours.

But today my energy seems to be returning, at least in the form of singing along to my iPatch at the top of my lungs.*

This is good news, because

gondolinchick01,

sunshine_shaman, and I are going to Raging Waters tomorrow. (Finally! I have waited years for this!) And I have a big damn to-do list after that, including several writing projects.

But the most exciting thing for me right now? I have made a decision on a doll! I’ve had quite a number of ideas for the next doll I want to make—Polgara, Ann Bonney and Mary Read, an original character named Ange (short for Angela), Summer’s pen pal Zenabu, Addy,*** etc., etc.. But after analyzing all my options, I have come to a decision, which will not be revealed here because it is so cool that I want to show y’all with photos. It will require lots of crafting and sewing and shit, and I am going to enjoy the hell out of it.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m crazy. At least I’m not completely flattened by Blahdom anymore!

*This is not always a good thing, since the iPatch has been on a Talking Heads kick. This means that what I’m singing at the top of my lungs may be: “Psycho killer! Qu’est-ce que ce? Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better run run run run run away! WHOA-HO-HO-WHOAAAAAA …”** This can get a little strange.

**Because any song inspired by Hannibal Lecter and the Joker, not to mention one that has random French lyrics tossed in, is worth singing loudly.

***I have always wanted an Addy, but now I tend to default to

kittikattie’s Addy, and it’d feel weird getting one of my own. I may stick with Mini Addy.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: the TVbox

Isra Al Mi'Raj (Ascent of the Prophet Muhammad - Islam)
Anniversary - NASA
Birthday - Wil Wheaton (actor)

Anybody here a fan of Rowlf the Dog? Then you’re gonna love this.

This album is out-of-print and its copyright is expired, so it’s not illegal to download. Which is good, because I went looking for it at one point and the cheapest I could find for a copy was like $69, which is $30 more than I am willing to spend on a Muppet CD, even a damn good one.*

Don’t thank me; thank

gryfindormia. She found this download.

("And it's not exactly that I'm the wrong color, but it's just, uh ... I'm not the color that this song is written about, so to speak.")

*Yes, you did that math right. Don’t ask.

Current Mood: more yay!
Current Music: Rowlf the Dog ~ Lydia the TA-Attooed Lady

Flower Moon
Anniversary - Boys' Clubs
Birthday - Malcolm X (civil rights activist)
Birthday - Pete Townsend (musician)
Youth and Sports Day (Turkey)
Victoria Day (Canada)

I have just procured a theme song. It is one of my favorite TV theme songs ever, dammit, and I will tell you why.

But first, this also reminds me, I have a retraction to print here. A while back, I stated that my absolute favorite line in a theme song ever was from the old Transformers cartoon. The song goes like this:

Transformers!

More than meets the eye!

Transformers!

Robots in disguise!

AutobotswagetheirwartodestroytheevilforcesoftheDecepticons!

Don’t get me wrong. This is a fabulous song. That last line is 21 syllables long, which is about 15 syllables too many. The theme song does not accomplish this addition very gracefully at all. But it is following the very simple concept of those TV theme songs that try to tell you what’s to expect in the show, like those of Mystery Science Theater 3000 *, The Brady Bunch**, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,*** and for some reason those always amuse me—I like to see what kind of plot elements fit into an opener like that.

But I just procured the song that beats all of these. In the most amazing distillation ever, one that has made it famous for 40 years, it tells you exactly what to expect in the show with the following, unbeatable lyrics, which I reprint in their entirety:

BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!

That, my friends, is the greatest theme song lyric ever written.

And now it’s on my iPod.

ALSO on my iPod: the old X-Men animated series theme song.

We really should not let me get anywhere near music downloads.

*“We’ll send him cheezy movies—the worst we can find, lalala …”

**“… till the one day when the lady met this fellow …”

***“They’re the world’s most fearsome fighting team! They’re heroes in the half-shell AND THEY’RE GREEN!”

Current Mood: silly
Current Music: BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!

Bunsen Burner Day
National "She's Funny That Way" Day
Seward's Day
Take Your Parents to the Playground Day
Anniversary - Eiffel Tower
Transfer Day (Virgin Islands)

Well, hesh ka and son of a bitch.

Remember, kids: always check the e-mail your professors use to get in touch with you before the day grades go through. Otherwise you’ll find out that that C you got in that one class was perfectly avoidable, because the reason it is a C is that your professor did not find the final paper, which was most of your grade, that you’re pretty damn sure you left in her box before taking off for spring break.

And it was the paper with blarg in it, too! I have been foiled! KHAAAAAAAN!

Oh, well. At least I didn’t get the paper because I wrote a bad paper. I’m more willing to accept one accident than general inadequacy for a middling grade. And I still passed the class, so even if my pathetic little e-mail today doesn't help, it'll still count.

*sigh*

Also, the lady in the airport in Salt Lake stiffed me $5 change for a stupid little ring I bought to make myself feel better about my low mood.

Dammit, I’m having a bad day.

ETA: Right when I hit "Post" the iPatch's shuffle decided to play "Schadenfreude" from Avenue Q ("Straight-A students getting B's!"). My iPod is a fucking jerk. I can no longer keep from laughing.

Current Mood: BLARG
Current Music: The iPatch's shuffle editorializing with Avenue Q ~ Schadenfreude

A Room of One's Own Day
Fun at Work Day
Anniversary - Macintosh Computer (Apple)

“Mannheim Steamroller’s a great franchise. They sell real music, ambient music, bath supplies, and barbecue sauce! Oh, and chili lights!”

and

“The eight Fresh Aire albums are the best. They’ve each got a theme: spring, autumn, summer, winter, Johannes Kepler’s story about a trip to the moon, Greek myths, the number seven, and infinity.”

Today’s quote brought to you by my attempts to explain to a friend why I’m a Steamroller fan, warts and all. Because a company that weird must be cool.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Mannheim Steamroller ~ Tocatta In G Minor

Humanitarian Day
Birthday - Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s Birthday (actual)

Right, here are the answers—and my commentary on it.

( Time To Kick Yourself )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Taco ~ Tribute to Tino

National Clean Off Your Desk Day
Organize Your Home Day
Ratification Day
Coning-of-Age Day (Japan)

All right, I’m bored. Let’s play the Guess the Song Shuffle Meme!

Here’s how I do it: You get thirty songs, because it’s fun! It’s the first line (or two) from the song. I screen comments so that you don’t have to feel bad if someone else guessed something you knew. If you get it right I’ll put your name next to the lyric. Songs with an asterisk give you bonus points because I don’t expect many people to get them. So, let it begin!

( Enjoy My Taste In Music! )

Current Mood: quizzical
Current Music: I ain't tellin'

Christmas Eve
Birthday - Howard Hughes (industrialist)
Independence Day (Libya)

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

This is for you: Super Mario’s Sleigh Ride. If you have ever played Super Mario World of the SNES, this will be the funniest thing you’ve ever heard (especially, I think, if you happen to be

bean_bunny, although I can’t imagine her being unaware of it). I’ve posted it before, but I’ve got new people on my list now who would probably appreciate it and may not know about it. And we can’t have that.

I’m off to make rumballs and then perform other Christmas-type activities, like wrapping both of the presents that will be under the tree this year. (It’s a slow Christmas round these parts.) Then drink hot chocolate and finish my reread of The Amber Spyglass. It’s a good day all around.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: 1-Up Mushrooms ~ Super Mario's Sleigh Ride (OC Remix)

V.J. Day
Independence Day (Pakistan)

This weekend we decided that it was a good time to hold my birthday, as I will be gone for the actual event. So no Talking Like A Pirate for me this year, but I ask y’all to toast me with some grog on September 19 anyway. So I got a cake* and a family party before we have to get rid of the Dude.

Plus, it was a good excuse to Pimp My Safari. I got me some LOOT, in microchip form. I now have a small digital camera for taking pictures, a DS Lite for those days when looking at lions or archaeological sites or breathtaking vistas isn’t feasible—say, on the plane—and finally a new iPod: a sleek black one! I put pirate stickers all over it and christened it the iPatch.

All this stuff will probably be stolen before I finish my layover in Nairobi, but I’m gonna make an optimistic effort, anyway.

In more electronic news, I rented Super Paper Mario this weekend and it goddamn BLEW MY MIND. Game story itself is nothing special—not like the kickassery that was Super Mario RPG**—but the graphics ground my brain into cottage cheese, in a very good way. I spent a great deal of the game cheering “WHAT THIS MAKES NO SENSE!”—yes, cheering that. Mario’s Passing Into Another Dimension is exactly the sort of thing I want my character Lucy to be able to do.

And yes, I beat it. In three days. Thanks go to the game makers for coming to their senses and going with simple platform play instead of the complicated battles, without which that wouldn’t have been possible.

Tomorrow I’m off to Denver to dump the Dude off at school—it’s back, dammit. But I’ve got a DS for the drive, so all is well.

*With EDIBLE BALL BEARINGS!!

**I am going to continue plugging this until you’ve all played it and agreed with me, dammit. First game where you got to play as Bowser, and he freaking FLUNG Mario at people as his weapon. And it started the fine tradition of Princess Peach whanging people in the head with a frying pan, which continues to this day. And Geno. Pantsless laser-shooting dolls win the day every time.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Richard Souther ~ Living Fountan (O Vivens Fons)

UN International Youth Day
Vinyl Record Day
Anniversary - IBM Personal Computer
Anniversary - Sewing Machine
Birthday - Cecil B. De Mille's (filmmaker)
Herbert Hoover Day (Iowa)

Heather got her mission papers recently. In October, she’s leaving for the training center, and two months after that she’ll be in one of either Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania (she’s not sure) to tell people all about Jesus paddling to the Americas in his little canoe. That’ll be 18 months.

Damn.

Anyway, a few days ago she invited me and my Mom to come watch her mother in a dress rehearsal for a concert she was going to put on. Heather’s mother is in the Orchestra at Temple Square, which is exactly what it sounds like—an orchestra that plays in the Conference Center and the Tabernacle and all those other places around the great and mightly LDS Temple. Mom and I love Heather and her mother, so we agreed to give Heather a ride and watch.

This turned out to be complicated. I will say that the Conference Center has some pretty features to it, like a waterfall from the roof and a lovely indigenous plants garden on the roof itself. The inside mugs your brain and leaves it in an alley, however, and I’m not just talkin’ ’bout the giant auditorium with the largest indoor seating capacity in the world that looks like some sort of optical illusion. No, you also get good and disoriented when the press gang of nice ladies in their Sunday best manhandle you into a tour group so that you’ll be supervised because You Can’t Be Too Careful After September 11* and you go around looking at nice little statues of things like A Joyful Moment or enormous paintings of scenes from the book—I really like the technique on the paintings, but I honestly think it would be better suited to the cover of a paperback fantasy novel.

We wanted to see the roof, but it was getting close to rehearsal, so we sneaked away from the tour group and went back to the auditorium. We had just enough time to determine that apparently this was the Choir** and the orchestra was in the Tabernacle before the press gang got us again, and we agreed to eject ourselves.

The music itself was brilliant. They played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and I tellya, that first movement makes me want to be Godzilla for a few minutes. It was thunderous and gigantic and beautiful. And the second movement always wins me over for its focus on the violas and cellos. It was brilliant.

The only downside was that Heather’s buddy the Get-A-Life Missionary Man showed up. My brother insists that I not carry on about what a douchebag he is because they’re friends, but I think in this case my brother doesn’t realize something: this guy epitomizes the behavior pattern so common to this region—condescension toward women. I don’t think he learned it consciously, but it’s very obviously there. It’s sneaky, though, so it’s difficult to notice if, say, you’re not a woman, so my brother doesn’t get that directed at him. But to be fair, the guy was a little more civil today—probably because he was worried I’d get pissed again.

Mostly I ignored him, and after the rehearsal we went to Hire’s and had a very enjoyable time chatting with Heather and her Mom. We agreed to do it again, and left for home feeling very glad we had motivated ourselves to get going.

I am starting to feel that franticness that I get when we all go our separate ways for the school year and beyond again. We’re bringing the Dude back to Golden on Wednesday, Heather’s going to be off missioning for the better part of two years, Aspen’s staying here, I have heard nothing from Afshan all summer, and I’m going to FUCKING KENYA in three weeks. Maybe that’s why tonight I’m going to visit Jess, who I haven’t seen since her wedding last year. I am getting nervous about everything.

I suppose that’s only to be expected.

*This was the actual reason cited for why we couldn’t just sit in the auditorium and wait for the rehearsal to start.

**Yes, that Choir.

Current Mood: neurotic
Current Music: Cake ~ Frank Sinatra

Family History Day
Flag Day (US)
National Flag Day USA: Pause for the Pledge
National Nursing Assistants Day and Week
Anniversary - US Army
Birthday - Burl Ives (singer/actor) Amelia sez: Happy birthday, then, Mr. Ives! I hated that stupid Rudolph show, but anyone who brings us a philosophical song about donuts and dancing alligators gets a mention.
Birthday - Harriet Beecher Stowe (writer)
Rice Planting Festival (Japan)

Wouldn’t you know it.

I was so hung up on this bloody term paper that I completely missed the Zombie Apocalypse.* My friends were all out there beating off zombies with other zombies’ severed** arms and having finally-it’s-the-OREGON-end-of-the-school-year parties ’n’ shit, and I’m holed up in this disaster of an apartment with an endless loop of classic rock writing about somebody named Anna Tsing and how goddamn first world states are raping the hell out of everything everywhere.

Fortunately, the fact that Emily decided that last week was a good time to move in for next year and brought over EVERYTHING SHE OWNS and piled it against the door, coupled with my frantic attempts to stuff EVERYTHING I OWN into some semblance of storageable organization meant I had a lot of heavy boxes to pile against the door.*** The only zombie in here is Howard II The Undead iPod, who in honor of the day sputtered awake, groaned, ate the brain of my Shuffle, and died his (probably final this time, really) death.

Granted, I feel like my brain has been eaten anyway. Those nefarious zombies.

*Although I did note it in my holiday list.

**Okay, yanked off.

***Also a really bitchin’ sofa I could sit on while they battered vainly away.

Current Mood: bonkers
Current Music: Burl Ives ~ The Donut Song

Good Samaritan Involvement Day
National Open an Umbrella Indoors Day
Organize Your Home Office Day
Planet Uranus Day
Anniversary - Earmuffs
Deaf History Month (03/13-04/15)

Yesterday afternoon, when I made my decision to get the mail, I had no idea that I was in for an experience so shocking, so totally unbelievable, that I hesitate to relate it lest you find me guilty of madness. I plead with the reader, do not judge me, for I only relate that which happened, and I fabricate nothing of this fantastic tale.

Dark, thundering clouds had gathered as I walked to the mailbox. I remarked upon this as unusual weather for Eugene, for great shafts of lightning do not usually pepper the sky. In retrospect, perhaps this should have been a clue of what was to come.

I proceeded to check the mail. At first nothing seemed awry, for there was the usual unwanted movie star newspaper,* which I resolved to throw away directly. But beneath the paper there was a small box, addressed to me.

Another crash of thunder and lightning tore across the sky.

My blood had frozen. This was no box; it was a coffin. With trembling hands I removed it from its resting place. I brought it back to the Fortress, and heart pumping, cut the tape around the edges. I removed the lid and pushed aside the paper, peering inside, and beheld, with a cry, the body of my old iPod, Howard II.

Then it was as though I was moving in a dream. Another consciousness guided these hands as I lifted the prone body out of the box and plugged it into my computer. And I watched in amazed disbelief as Howard’s screen flickered and lit up, and I found myself gazing into the visage of someone I had thought deceased.

And then I found something much more amazing as I interviewed Howard. I know not how it was done, but I credit the strange designs of Apple Customer Service in this development, and I would speak with them further to discover their science, for what they have done I had not found possible. They have replaced Howard’s brain.

And yet here is Howard, a blank slate but viable, a shambling, clumsy creature to be sure, but I do believe I can educate him as well as I educated him before. And I rejoice, for I have been reunited with a friend that I had thought was lost, and we can continue our relationship.

Welcome back, Howard!

*To whoever is sending these to us: knock it off! We do not care about every single detail of the lives of B-grade stars! Unless they’re Western voice actors! But these aren’t! So quit it!

Current Mood: jubilant

Joe Franklin Day (radio/TV)
Middle Name Pride Day
Panic Day
Saint Frances of Rome Feast Day
Anniversary - Barbie Doll
Birthday - Amerigo Vespucci (explorer)

After a short conversation with

viizou, I find myself wandering YouTube again for what I call the Disney Dubs. YouTube has a whole wealth of Disney* songs with their dubs in other languages. It’s unbelieveably hypnotic—I like to see how the voices compare, and if they do a good job selecting the right vocal personality. While my all-time favorite—the Russian dub of Beauty and the Beast—has disappeared for the moment, it still has some of my others, like The Lion King’s “Be Prepared” in Zulu and the Little Mermaid’s “Under the Sea” in Japanese.**

And something interesting happened. I listen to English and understand it without even trying. If I pay attention, I can understand the Spanish and Japanese versions, because I’ve studied them (and words of Italian and Portuguese, because they’re similar to Spanish), and the rest are just incomprehensible sounds. One of the things I’ve always wished is that, for just a few minutes, I could turn off my understanding of English for just a few minutes, and hear how it sounded to somebody who didn’t speak it.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I think that a lot of my perceptions of language come from my synesthesia. It’s not just me—I’ve heard languages described as musical or harsh before. But for me, they have oddly specific qualities—they have shapes, colors, personalities. Spanish is brightly colored, open, and easygoing. Swahili is welcoming, colorful, and round. Japanese is a lot more muted, with a lot of grey and greyish pastels. Hawaiian has a lot of white and yellow in it that makes it sort of sweet. Russian is black with dark greens and blues, and it’s spicy. Arabic is spicy, too, but it’s definitely warmer than Russian, covering the spectrum from red to yellow. German sounds exhausting and, for some reason, orange and green.

And English? It sounds like Disneyland looks. It’s a big garish pile of clumsy consonant clusters and slightly distorted funhouse-type construction, and it’s sort of superficial, and yet somehow you like it anyway. I have no idea if this is influenced by my own ideas about speaking it, but that’s its sound. I’d like to hear it without understanding of it, and see if it still holds up.

Discussion Question: Does anybody else besides me notice how Ursula the Sea Witch has this tendency to sexually harass anybody who comes near her? She’s cool, but keep those tentacles to yourself, sister.

*And other animated features that often get mistaken for Disney movies, like Anastasia and The Prince of Egypt. For some reason I’m always surprised when people don’t realize that they’re not Disney.

**Seriously, this is the funniest thing in the world.

Current Mood: DEFINITELY bedtime
Current Music: Bésala!

I had to bring myself face-to-face with another admission a few days ago as I was contemplating Life, The Universe, And Everything: I don’t like anime, either.

I can’t help it. It puts me off. There are a few Japanese cartoons that I like, like Miyazaki’s work, but overall I have trouble with the endlessly repetitive plots of manga and anime,* and the artwork and the characters do very little for me. (This would suggest that I shouldn’t like Emily’s artwork either, which is heavily inspired by anime/manga, but actually I love it, and not just because Emily’s my friend. I’m not sure why. I guess my distaste for the genre stems more from the content than the artwork.)

It was a little painful to admit this because I’ve been sort of unintentionally bashing on Japan for the last year or so—my comments about overdone manners, sushi, and the language itself have gotten a little crabby.

This feels sort of unfair of me. I do not, in fact, dislike Japan. There are many positive aspects of Japan. And in order to counter my grumpery, I have compiled a list these things, in order to remind myself and others of the many wonderful qualities of this great nation. So, without further ado, I present:

( Things I Like About Japan )

Current Mood: silly
Current Music: Willie and Lobo ~ Hana Moon

Boy Scouts Day
Laugh and Get Rich Day
Leadership Success Day
Birthday - James Dean (actor)
Birthday - Jules Verne (writer)
Extraterrestrial Culture Day (New Mexico) (Amelia sez: That is my kind of day!)
Culture Day (Slovenia)
Needle Mass (Ha-ri-ku-yo - Japan)

Amelia’s iPod, Howard II, has finally expired at the ripe old age of two years.

Howard was a good iPod, lasting twice as long as his predecessor, Howard I. He was a versatile machine, playing everything from heavy metal to Disney songs, although he particularly enjoyed Christmas music, especially when put on shuffle on a hot day in August. Howard never let his outdatedness get in his way: though his kind had already been retired when he was sent to Amelia, he faithfully played all her music. He even insisted he was all right when he began to have periodic fainting spells. Despite these hardships, he still enjoyed an active life as the provider of a college kid's life soundtrack.

In November of 2006, Howard’s persistent health problems took a turn for the worse, when he suffered a stroke that gradually paralyzed his entire touch wheel. He was sent in to Apple in early December to be fixed, and spent ten weeks in intensive care. But his discharge from the repair shop was short-lived, as the very day he returned to Amelia it was discovered that Howard was, in fact, brain dead. His presence will be missed.

Howard II is survived by a 20 gigabyte music library (now residing on the Bhelliom, Amelia’s laptop), a pair of Radio Shack headphones, a USB cord, a blue iSkin whose usefulness expired with the loss of the last of the 40-gig iPods, and Amelia.

He will be sent to his final resting place tomorrow. Services were held promptly after his expiration, with Amelia saying a few choice words to mark his passing, none of which are publishable.

Farewell, Howard II.

This is pretty good. I should look up more by this guy.

I’ll see you in hell, Pachelbel.

Son of a bitch didn’t know how good he had it. I played the bass. We didn’t even have a part for this damn song, so sometimes they’d give us the cello part, but with a thousand rests.

Yes, it’s a running joke that I have a violent animosity for this song. I have at least two friends, probably more, who might take exception to that on the grounds that they like the Canon. Which is all well and good. Even I don’t actually mind it as a background to other songs, as pointed out—I could even add a few songs to that list he gives, and I like those. But I love the actual thing rather less. And this video makes me feel better because it shows that it’s not just me! Hell, even among classical musicians, Canon Fatigue is a running gag—just look at the sketch done by classical music satirist* Peter Schickele where a radio host goes insane from Pachelbel Overload. (“Pachelbel didn’t write this, the Marquis de Sade did!”)

And you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty funny.

*No, really, there is such a thing. And he’s pretty funny, too.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: In The Mood

UN International Migrants Day
Republic Day (Niger)
Feast of Our Lady of Solitude (Mexico)

Today at work we tried out a new CD sent to us by The Corporation, but it turned out to be about eight songs that all sucked, playing in a loop. We went back to the Nightmare Crooners.

At least we don't have any of those smarmy songs. One year I was haunted by one that I have labelled The God Damn Christmas Shoe Song, for lack of an actual title. In it, a guy is singing about how he was feeling all grinchy in a department store on Christmas Eve, when a small boy came in to buy shoes for his mom who was about to die so she'd look good for Jesus, a sentiment echoed by a children’s choir in the background. But alas! the boy doesn't have enough money. However, our narrating hero is touched by this child’s innocence and love for Jeezus, and helps him pay for some shoes so he can go back home to be with his mom, instead of spending the last minutes he could be having with her shoe shopping. The guy then informs us all that God sent the little boy to make him feel better, at which point I went, “Hey, wait, God is rubbing out this kid's mom just so Scrooge here can remember the True Meaning Of Christmas? What the hell kind of sense does that make?!”

At one point in that time, I was at my super-Mormon hairdresser when that song appeared on the radio. She and her other customer both began gushing about how much they loved it. And I snapped.

“Actually,” I said, “I think the kid’s trying to pull a fast one on them.”

There was a pause. “What?” my hairdresser said.

“I’ll bet he made the whole story up to con the cashier into giving him the shoes for less. And the guy singing was just taken for a ride by helping him pay.”

There was a stunned silence.

“He probably just did the same thing at a Toys ‘R’ Us like an hour earlier,” I went on. “He went in and was all, ‘Sir, can I buy this Barbie car for my dying sister so she can drive up to Jesus in style? Only I don’t have quite enough money … Oh, won’t Susie be sad!’ Maybe his dad put him up to it.”

There was more stunned silence from my hairdresser and her other customer.

“You,” my mom said, “are an incurable cynic.”

“I can’t help it,” I said. “This song drives me nuts.”

The hairdresser insisted that she still liked it, and I went with it. Sometimes you’ve got to pick your battles, and I had gotten it out of my system. And I didn’t need to ghostbust anyone.

Current Mood: evil
Current Music: Linda Ronstadt ~ Love is a Rose

So, here’s the plan. First, I take out hits on all the crooners who are alive. Then, when they’re all dead, I ghostbust them.

Just to make my point.

I like them every once in a while. They’re okay, but the trouble is that all their songs are the same song, so they get obnoxious if you hear them too much. Also, they can make any song bland. One of ’em sings “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and I keep trying to correct it to the rockin’ Beatles version.

So the CD we play at work, which is like 2½ hours of crooned Christmas carols on a loop, is making me slightly batty. FOR GOD’S SAKE, SOMEBODY WHIP OUT AN ELECTRIC GUITAR!

I’m always amazed at how the same song can be made so different depending on how someone plays it. Christmas music’s a good example of that, because there are so many covers of the same song. For example, in my music library, I have twelve different versions of “Winter Wonderland”: America, Andy Williams, Banjo2, Diana Krall, Dolly Parton, Eurythmics, Gary Hoey, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, James Taylor, Kenny G, Mannheim Steamroller, and Rockapella. Some of them I like a lot more than others, and there are some versions of it (none that I have) that I thoroughly can’t stand. It shows that the melody and the words are definitely not everything—there’s a lot about style that changes it.

And I’m so sick of the crooner style. I want a death metal Winter Wonderland. Or even an acoustic guitar or something. Anything.

Or I will go mad, and start shrieking back at the CD, and never sell any clothes.

Current Mood: crazy
Current Music: ANYTHING BUT DINO!

World Aids Day
Day Without Art
Bifocals at the Monitor Liberation Day
Rosa Parks Day
Anniversary - Playboy
Independence Day (Portugal)
National Day (Romania)

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thewrongcrowd.

( Christmas Survey )

Edit: I cut it. Didn't realize it was so long.

Current Mood: tea time!
Current Music: Elvis Presley ~ Blue Christmas

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bloodyrosemccoy

April 2025

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Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

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The Desert Mermaid

I Am The Boss Princess

Entries tagged with music

Put Some Music In Their Lives!

We Has The Power

Quartets, Quintets, Fugues, and Sonatas, Plus An Opera And A Few Cantatas ...

BEWARE OF EARWORMS

What I Learned Today ~ A Whiny Post

Quote of the Day, Weird Fandom Division

The Answers

Song Game Again!

You've Reached The Bonus Stage! A Gift For You!

Super Mario and the Aye-AyePod

Chuck E. Jeezus

Priorities

Tia Dalma Works For Apple

Sapir and Whorf, Eat Your Hearts Out

日本が大好きです。No, Really

Alas, Poor Howard

It's Not Just Me

I Prefer Tabasco Sauce To Maple Syrup

Big Band Bonkers

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