Random Thinking

Here’s the song of the week from my iPod. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Radiohead is an alternative rock band formed in England in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano), Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboard), Ed O’Brien (guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass guitar, synthesizers) and Phil Selway (drums). The original name of the band was “On A Friday” but they changed their name in 1991 at the request of their record company, EMI, when they signed their first record contract. The new name was based on a song on the Talking Heads album, True Stories.

The group’s first album released in 1992 contained the group’s most successful US single, “Creep.” The song was blacklisted by BBC Radio 1 because it was deemed “too depressing”. This fit in the with the group’s overall image which Beth describes as “the best Emo group of the 90’s.” They have been very successful with all of their seven albums going gold or platinum in the US and the UK. All four of their most recent albums have reached number one in the UK and at least number three in the US.

The Bends, released in 1995, was Radiohead’s second album. Five singles from the album reached the top 25 in the UK. The most successful single in the US was “High & Dry” but the most successful single in the UK was “Street Spirit (Fade Out).” For a group that routinely writes depressing songs, “Street Spirit” reached a new level of depression described as “one of [the band's] saddest songs” and a “dark tunnel without the light at the end,” by the group’s lead singer.

Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things into position
All these things we’ll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out

This machine will, will not communicate
These thoughts and the strain I am under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under
And fade out again and fade out again

Cracked eggs, dead birds
Scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see its beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things we’ll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out again

Immerse your soul in love
Immerse your soul in love

Youtube version – no embedding allowed.

Take the Cannoli
by Sarah Vowell

You would think that reading and reviewing a book written ten years ago about American culture might be tricky. You would expect that so much has changed that a book like this would be more like a history lesson than a view into America. But surprisingly, in spite of all that has happened since the turn of the century, Vowell’s essays are as true and as a vibrant as when she wrote them. I have to admit that I am a fan of Vowell ever since I read her book Assassination Vacation. The best part of that book is Vowell taking us on a tour of America and making the history she finds relevant to today. This is a gift that she carries into these short essays.

Vowell takes us on a journey along the “Trail of Tears,” as she travels the same path which her Cherokee ancestors were forced to travel when they were driven from their homes by Americans. She spends a few days at the Chelsea Hotel where Sid Vicious might have killed Nancy Spungen. She heads to Hoboken to discover the town where Frank Sinatra grew up. She tells us the history of a street corner in Chicago and then explains the lessons she learned from taking band in high school and from watching the movie the “Godfather.”

The end result is a very enjoyable series of essays that hold up even though they are 10 years old. If you have enjoyed reading Vowell’s other books then I can heartily recommend this one.

We all like to keep something to read in the bathroom. Maybe a copy of Good Housekeeping, Redbook, or Cosmopolitan. Or maybe a a three day old copy of the Daily News. Whatever it is, it’s usually something you can pick up and browse through while you are… thinking. Anyway, it is fairly unlikely that you keep a copy of Charles Darwin’s, “On the Origin of Species” in your bathroom and I’ll bet it is really unlikely that you keep a first edition of that book worth $100,000 in there. But that is what a family in England has been keeping in their bathroom for the last 40 years. The owners had purchased it in the late 60’s for a “a few shillings” and only recently discovered that it was a first edition. But the real question is, did they ever read it or was it just there to impress visitors?

h/t – Reuters

Here are a couple of pictures from another road trip with Mikey. I decided a longer trip was called for so we rode down to Fire Island and then took Ocean Parkway back to Jones Beach and then up the Wantagh Parkway to get back home.


It was a nice long trip taking about an hour. Mikey listened to his favorite songs and looked out the window. But Ocean Parkway is long and straight and this time of the year there really isn’t that much to see which led to…


this.

Rizzo’s War
by Lou Manfredo

I think it would be very difficult to create two characters who are more stereotyped than the two main characters in this story. We have Joe Rizzo, tough Italian detective who has been on the force forever and is just waiting to be able to afford to live off his pension and we have Mike McQueen, new college-educated detective who just came over from patrolling the streets of Manhattan and wants to get promoted back to a big-time job in Manhattan. And let’s not forget the African-American, lesbian patrol officer (who is revealed to have been a member of a motorcycle gang just when Rizzo and McQueen need one) to complete the triumvirate. Rizzo and McQueen don’t do much other than wander through a few cases and reveal that all cops are crooked, even the honest ones. They accept free food from a restaurant in payment for following the owner when he takes the day’s receipts to the bank. They claim a confession that never happened from a dead guy. It takes them two weeks to decide if promotions and bigger pensions in exchange for letting criminals get away with their crimes falls within the oath they took when they became cops. I have to admit that I didn’t like either Rizzo or McQueen.

As far as the story goes, nothing really happens. The detectives have a few cases but none of them are interesting, even the big one that completes the story. And the ending of that case is so contrived as to be unbelievable. And does NYC really have motorcycle gangs running through the city selling drugs and being ignored by the police? In a crime novel, the most important thing is making you care about something and then putting that something in some kind of danger. The detectives who we are supposed to care about, I assume, are never in any danger. The only character who is in danger we know virtually nothing about so it is hard to care what happens to her.

The writing itself is only fair at best. The author tells us about left and right turns in the Impala and Rizzo taking out another pack of Chesterfields and the two detectives talking on their Motorola radio. I expected to go to commercial any minute. But it is fast and easy reading. You can probably blow through this book in a couple of days… and then move on to something better.

When it was announced that some of the criminals involved in the World Trade Center attack on 9/11 were going to be tried in New York City, I was thrilled. This is exactly where they should be tried. Just as Timothy McVeigh was tried in Oklahoma City, these animals should be tried at the scene of their crime. So I was shocked when I read these comments from House Republican Leader John Boehner:

The Obama administration is putting liberal special interests before the safety and security of the American people. The possibility that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators could be found ‘not guilty’ due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause. This decision is further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality – treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue.

Congressman, this is a law enforcement issue. The men who did this are criminals. They are not soldiers in some war against the US any more than Timothy McVeigh and his friends were soldiers against us. They are criminals and should be treated as criminals. They should be tried, their crimes exposed for all the world to see, and then punished according to our laws. No one should be able to say that we are punishing innocent men. As to these men being released on some “legal technicality,” have no fear. The United States criminal system doesn’t release mass murderers on legal technicalities. Yes, their defense lawyers will throw out every possible defense they can think of but in the end if these men are guilty, they will either be sent to the supermax prison in Colorado to rot with the criminals who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 or they will be sent to death row.

And don’t be afraid that this will somehow make New York City a target of terrorist attacks. In case you haven’t noticed, New York City already is a target of terrorist attacks. New Yorkers face the threat of terrorist attacks every day. But they are not afraid. As the Star-Ledger said, “New York survived the trials of Ramzi Yousef and Omar Abdel-Rahman. It will survive this one, too.” America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. So I say to you congressman, be not afraid.

Here’s the song of the week from my iPod. As I mentioned last week, I would be putting up Mikey’s number one favorite song and here it is…

The Decemberists already had a song of the week so I don’t need to go into detail about them. Instead we will discuss this week’s song and the album it came from. We (Michel, Beth, and I) saw the Decemberists perform in concert at Radio City Music Hall and it was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. They performed this entire album (and, after a break, some additional songs) and it was amazing.

The album, The Hazard’s of Love, tells the story of a young woman named Margaret who goes into the forest for a stroll and finds an injured fawn. She helps the fawn who then turns into a young man named William. The two fall desperately in love but in the morning, William has disappeared. Later Margaret goes back to the forest to find William because she carries their child. William, we discover, had been abandoned by his mother in the forest as an infant but had been rescued by the Queen of the Forest. She doesn’t want William to marry Margaret so she hands Margaret over to the Rake who intends to have his way with her and then dispose of her. William goes off to rescue her.

The Rake’s Song is Mikey’s favorite song. It is sung by the Rake and he tells us of his past. What we learn is that the Rake had married at the age of 21 but quickly learned, as his wife had children, that he didn’t want to be married but wished to be a bachelor and enjoy the pleasures of having many women. After his wife died in childbirth, the Rake is stuck with several children who he decides to murder so that he can live a life of debauchery. So yes, Mikey’s favorite song is about a father who kills his children! But not to worry, the Rake gets his in the end as his children get their revenge.

The Rake’s Song
I had entered into a marriage
In the summer of my twenty-first year
And the bells rang for our wedding
Only now do I remember it clear
Alright, alright, alright

No more a rake and no more a bachelor
I was wedded and it whetted my thirst
Until her womb start spilling out babies
Only then did I reckon my curse
Alright, alright, alright
Alright, alright, alright

First came Eziah with his crinkled little fingers
Then came Charlotte and that wretched girl Dawn
Ugly Myfanwy died on delivery
Mercifully taking her mother along
Alright, alright, alright

What can one do when one is widower
Shamefully saddled with three little pests
All that I wanted was the freedom of a new life
So my burden I began to divest
Alright, alright, alright
Alright, alright, alright

Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove
Dawn was easy, she was drowned in the bath
Eziah fought but was easily bested
Burned his body for incurring my wrath
Alright, alright, alright

And that’s how I came your humble narrator
To be living so easy and free
Expect you think that I should be haunted
But it never really bothers me
Alright, alright, alright
Alright, alright, alright

Mikey and I went trick-or-treating but Mikey is way too friendly and wanted to go into everyone’s house so we ended up just walking around for awhile. He wanted to walk along the main road for some reason but I was too nervous that he would run into the street. I was eventually able to convince him to go down a side street. Finally Mikey was too tired to continue so he sat down on someone’s lawn and wouldn’t budge. I had made the mistake of not bringing his chair (we’ll just go around the block… ha ha) so I had to carry him home. It’s not easy lugging around a 75lb boy. I don’t have a picture of Mikey in his costume but I’ll try to get one tonight and post it.

We discovered that Mikey isn’t fond of lollipops but he loves candy corn. Maybe I’ll stop at the grocery store and see if there is a post-Halloween candy corn sale.

We took Beth and Mikey for their H1N1 shots this morning and Beth was then going to get her driver’s permit assuming she passed the written test. Beth still needs to get her regular flu shot but because of the way capitalism works, you can get it at Walmart if you are a healthy 19 year old but you can’t get it anywhere if you are a 16 year old with asthma. Beth’s doctor said they are hoping for the middle of the month.