Navel Gazing, tips tricks and suggestions
And Snowball took a moment yesterday to remind us:
“Howdy kids! Just a heads up.. there will be a lunar eclipse tomorrow evening, reaching totality at 6:06 MT.. and last almost a half an hour. Should be quite the sight..”
Thanks Dolly. For more lunar info, go here:
Something fun for a Saturday. Leave your text in the comments box and share your sign, and your love of Jesus.
1. What food do you like that most people hate?
Beets. I like beets. There, I said it.
2. What food do you hate that most people love?
Hate is such a strong word, hard to pin this down. I love food and will generally try anything and am pretty accepting of most things. However I really do not like bologna. Thanks to the Oscar Meyer commercials that I remember as a child, I can spell it.
3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you?
Pamela Anderson. Forget the enormous breasts. She is just not a pretty woman. Too much work has been done or something, but there is something not right with her.
4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find attractive?
Kathy Najimy maybe? Or John Malkovich in an odd way?
5. What popular trend baffles you?
Young people wearing those baggy pants. I just don’t get. Have you ever seen a guy with baggy pants walking down the street and trying to keep those things held up? It doesn’t look at all comfortable.
via Friday Fives.
Whenever I here this song I laugh. Yes, that is right, laughter from a Springsteen song.
Sherry Darling is an homage to the cruelties of dating. To having and being with the girl you love and learning to accept the goods, cart, horse and all that come with it.
In this case, the goods consist of the mother-in-law (or perhaps the mother-in-law-to-be, as the full relationship isn’t detailed to the listener.) As Bruce finds himself taking his girl’s mother on errands – in this case, one of what the listener can only assume has been many trips to the unemployment office, taken each Monday.
Momma is a big girl, and perhaps stubborn. We learn this from the potent line: “Tell her to push over and move them big feet.”
And the bigness of mother (who we will refer to as Big Momma for the remainder of this analysis) is perhaps physical and psychological. Bruce complains about her presence in his car and her very presence in the relationship as he pleads to Sherry Darling to ditch mother. Defiant, he screams that Big Momma wins this battle if she will just shut up for the remainder of the trip downtown. And the Boss has declared that this ride is it. “…it’s the last time that she’s gonna be ridin’ with me.”
What does this mean?
Has Bruce decided to end his relationship with Sherry? Has he decided to stop driving Big Momma around? Or is it more metaphoric? Has Bruce decided to indeed become The Boss and take charge of this relationship? To begin to dictate a few of the parameters of their coupling himself?
This appears to be the case. He continues, in the chorus, to describe a perfect day at the beach. A trip down the coast in the car, now free of the verbal and psychological baggage of Big Momma. Pleading, he declares his freedom and asks Sherry to come along with him:
“You can tell her there’s a hot sun beatin’ on the black top
She keeps talkin’ she’ll be walkin’ that last block
She can take a subway back to the ghetto tonight
Well I got some beer and the highway’s free
And I got you, and baby you’ve got me.
Hey, hey, hey what you say Sherry Darlin'”
Soon, we realize that Sherry needs to pay attention to this relationship. As Bruce continues to be harangued by Big Momma, he begins to fantasize about hot girls in bathing suits sunning along the beach. Anything instead of Big Momma. And Sherry isn’t immediately recognized in this dream. Bruce is beginning to stray and fight the boundaries of the affair. Fleeing from the baggage that has come with it.
“Now there’s girls melting on the beach
And they’re so fine but so far out of reach
Cause I’m stuck in traffic down here on 53rd street.”
Ah, we now learn he can’t leave. The Boss knows that he loves the girl. That he isn’t going to wander off to the Jersey shore without her. He declares his love for Sherry and again asks her to choose:
“Now Sherry my love for you is real
But I didn’t count on this package deal
And baby this car just aint big enough for her and me”
Now the beauty, the shear genius of the Springsteen Milieu is that a lot is left to the imagination of the listener. We are now forced to make connections. What happens next? Is this still just a dream, a fantasy, or has Bruce at last ditched Big Momma and taken to the streets with his girl on his arm, showing off to the schoolgirls and the guys on the , declaring his affection for all the world to see:
“Well let there be sunlight, let there be rain
Let the brokenhearted love again
Sherry we can run with our arms open before the tide
To all the girls down at Sacred Heart
And all you operators back in the Park
Say hey, hey, hey what you say Sherry Darlin’
Hey, hey, hey, what you say Sherry Darlin'”
And that’s the tale. Sherry and Bruce together at last. Arm in arm. Side-by-side in his car. Taking in the sights. And all is happy and well again.
Until the next Monday morning when Big Momma is taken to the unemployment office.
Questions for further discussion:
1. What kind of car is Bruce driving in this song?
2. Is Big Momma an employee of the unemployment office? Is she traveling each week to receive benefits? Is the fact that it is a weekly task (a job) part of the rub, as the errand is focused on unemployment, a brief glimpse at freedom?
3. Is the Clarence Clemmons saxophone solo long enough, or should Big Man be given more face time in this song?
Home coffee roasters of the world are all sitting on the edge of our seats for the release of the latest in home roasting technology. The New Hearthware I Roast should hit production by the end of November. According to Sweetmaria’s the product is undergoing some more testing and most retailers are just waiting for thumbs up to release the next generation of the best home coffee roaster. I am sure most of you are with me when I say the excitement is palpable. For more information on a good cup of coffee, I offer this from my greatest hits collection.
We got in a bit of a discussion today at work about the things that record labels are doing to stop the bleeding they say they are experiencing due to pirating. Springsteen has released a mini video montage of his recent concert tour with a new song. The video was only seen at Amazon.com were they efficiently remind you of his new live video DVD and Essentials greatest hits albums will be released later this month.
This week Tenacious D releases their compilation of Jack Black magic on DVD and the of many thousand copies will include an additional disk as well as special holiday content on Amazon.
When the Old 97s Satellite Rides came out, the first several thousand copies came with an additional EP that included some live stuff that was never released as well as a new song not on the rest of the album.
What is in store next?
Recently at work I had to take a class on workplace diversity issues. One of those “Hey, let’s all get along together and make some money for the company along the way” kind of classes that Human Resource offices all over the place are presenting to keep companies out of court and to help ease any race or gender issues in the workplace. Anyway, I took this class. It was the fourth time I have taken it and each time, the presenter uses about 15 minutes of a video about a teacher who divided her class into two groups – blue eyed people and brown eyed people.
But only seeing just part of the video leaves you kind of empty. What happens next? What is the reaction of the class.
Well, folks, look no further. The good people of PBS have the entire 40-minute video online. You can enjoy the streaming video feed and watch even more uncomfortableness as the teacher does the same thing with a group of adults. It is sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat squirminess.
1. What was your first Halloween costume?
I believe I was an Army guy. A soldier. Little GI joe. Either that or a hobo. I have memories of both but can’t remember which was earliest.
2. What was your best costume and why?
I went to a party a few years back dressed as Barney the Dinosaur in a violent hunting accident. I had a Barney mask and dyed a pair of long underwear purple. I sewed on a tail. Then I put a fake bloody arrow wound in my chest with the tip of the arrow hanging out. It was a big hit. I also went as a Jesus as an Elvis Impersonator. A Jesus wig and and a too tight jumpsuit and voila! The King of Kings was the King of rock and roll.
3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn’t give you a treat?
No. But I have gone trick or treating for drinks on Halloween. Trapsing from door to door with a cocktail glass asking for a cocktail. Quite fun and definitely not for the weak stomached or tee- totaller.
4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.)
Not really. I don’t generally go out on Halloween. It is an amateur night. I tend to not be at home either, as I hate answering the door for trick or treaters. So I guess the only real tradition is to not stay home and not go out.
5. Share your favorite scary story…real or legend!
Hmmmm. I don’t scare too easy. But I was always very frightened any time my Uncle Ray was in the room. He was a real drunk and tended be just a bit unkept and when he came in the room I trembled. Scary stuff.
via Friday Fives.
I didn’t mean to ruin as many shirts and pants as I did as a youth. I generally respected my parents and the hard work they put in to dress me and pay for clothes and nice things. I appreciated the new school clothes and hot kicks for the feet that they diligently helped me purchase.
But you see, I am a pretty clumsy guy. (I think that most people except for a small minority of gifted mutants are clumsy – I am brave enough to say it out loud. That is why sports, and especially extreme sports like hockey and car driving and winter sports are so popular – they delight us clumsy folks who have no chance of tackling the boards, hitting the ice, clearing the hairpin curve at top speeds. But I digress)
I like to think that as a kid I was cool.
Devious. Living a double life between Eagle Scout/church going angel and street hoodlum. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Well, that is not exactly true. Half of that is exactly the truth. And the other half, the street hoodlum, couldn’t be farther from the truth. But it is the life I think I wanted as a kid growing up in a small town of 7,000 people. In a town the size of Craig, Colorado in the 1970s and the 1980s, there was really no opportunity to be a street thug. If I were to roam the streets past dark, past the standard time to be home, also known as “when the street lights come on,” well, I just would have been rounded up by a friendly police patrol, or deputy sheriff and politely and in a pure neighborly fashion, dropped at home.
That didn’t stop me, however. I was born to run! I was born to rock. I was born to be out on the street. The problem, at least on the those hot summer nights of my high school years, was how to get out of the house.
And this is how I ended up ruining so many clothes.
You see, part of being cool and running the streets was to get out of the house. And I had this window in my bedroom. My bedroom was located in the back of the house, a good ways away from my parents and I thought it was the bastion of absolute secrecy. Take, for example, a hot July evening. A plan had been formulated earlier in the day and I was to join the crowd down at my friend’s parent’s laundromat. From there, we would hit the road in the Camero. Buy some beer, perhaps even some whiskey to mix in a Slurpee.
I approach the window and begin my escape.
Now let’s take a moment and look at this window. For some reason, all the windows in the house are high up off the ground, about four and half or five feet. To get to the window, a chair had to be placed. Then the screen removed. It is a narrow window and no real room to just jump out. Don’t think of this bedroom window as something that you would see in the movies, where someone like John Travolta would just slide open and enter to find a waiting Olivia Newton John.
No, this window, on the outside, is about seven or eight feet from the ground. The plunge to the ground can be quite a shock. There was an old apple tree outside the window that a particularly spry person could grab and help brace the fall, but often as not, the tree limb would get caught on a pants pocket or a shirt sleeve and rip . . . there goes the wardrobe.
One could also grab the utility conduit next to window, however there were two troubles with this plan as well: 1. Aluminum conduit can be quite bendy and may or may not be the cause of some electrical or other utility outages. (This is just a theory, I have no idea if hanging off a service conduit of a 1960s-era home can cause the sparking and the power outage – and I deny to this day any knowledge of such actions.) 2. It is also important to mention the propensity for the good old-fashioned finger squeeze that can happen if I were to shimmy up the conduit and get my hand caught between the pole and wall. That gray harmless motherfucker can really hurt and generally be counted on to rip a shoe, shirt or trouser leg.
Well, regardless. Every exit seemed to result in a bruise, a sprain or torn clothing.
But it was so important! Must I remind you that I was born to run! I was born to rock. I was born to be out on the street!
So the July months passed. Summers went by. I rocked the night streets.
Scrambling home, taking the same exit, now in reverse. Shimmying up a tree, traversing a conduit. Piling up lawn chairs and lawn ornaments to scramble upon. Kicking the walls. Bumping the window. Falling to the floor of my bedroom. I had returned and I had rocked. And no one was the wiser.
Well, no one, except my sister. In the morning after a particularly drunken teenage storming of my window and my room, my sister the next morning just smirked at me. Hung over, clutching a cup of coffee and definitely worse for the wear, she just remarked to me that instead of waking her up every night when I leave through my window that I should just go out the front door.
That is what she does.
You see, as I was trying to live this movie-inspired lifestyle and take to the night, my sister was also out all hours. However she and her friend the Reverend Ed would simply just go in and out the front door.
The shame.
And next, I suppose, I should also own up to my dad asking me if I was ever going to repair the screen in my room – his way of letting me know that he also knew of my evening conquests and nighttime debauchery and just let it go on -it entertained him and was indeed harmless in a town of 7,000 people and a town where invariably word of an real wrongdoing would be sent back to him.
I still think, however, that my way was much richer and full of a life that rocked.
The front door? The horror. The horror.
1. How often do you do laundry?
Usually a couple of times a week, meaning I do a load a day over the course of about two or three days. However, having said that, I am a bit behind so will be doing all the laundry this weekend. I must get cracking.
2. What’s in a typical wash load?
Well, I don’t sort the clothes. I have no elaborate system. In fact I despise laundry. So generally a load is a handful of clothes from the hampter tossed into the wash. I am a pretty cheap clothes shopper, so I have very few items that need to be treated with any kind of special care.
3. Front or top loader? Powder or liquid detergent?
Top loading washer, front loading dryer. The pair are full size stackables that you don’t see too often. I bought them from a lady who placed an add in the newspaper. I got a fairly new washer and dryer for a $100.00. And except for a few scratches and dents from some unfortunate moves, they work great, although the dryer is starting to be a bit slow.
4. Do you use fabric softener in the rinse cycle?
I use a fabric softner ball that goes in at the beginning. And then I use fabric softner sheets. I double soften. My clothes smell nice.
5. Dryer or clothesline?
Dryer. I don’t trust the clothesline – the weather in Colorado can turn in a second! And how many movies have you seen where someone like Ferris Bueller goes running through your yard and upsets your clothes. Who wants that. With a clothes dryer, it is set it, and forget it.
via Friday Fives.
