Month: June 2014

Funk Friday: “Don’t Sweat the Technique,” Eric B and Rakim

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM5sIBIRDLQ

 

So, okay, England didn’t win yesterday.  Neither did my softball team last night (but we left it on the field, guys, we left it on the field – especially Kathleen, who bit it on the way to first and crawled the rest of the way to the bag and made it like the boss she is).  It was 97 degrees with 100% humidity and only one of the rooms of my house has air conditioning right now.  I have a chest cold that makes me sound like phlegmy Paul Robeson.  And I’ve got a best bud out west who’s wondering (completely rationally) what life’s deal is.

BUT.  In the plus column we have the following:

  • Today is Friday.
  • The mighty falling early in the World Cup makes room for awesome other countries to advance and we might have a very cool match on our hands with some first-tme winners.
  • We’re playing softball again next week (and against a truly odious team – like, literally the worst team ever) and have a good shot at kicking their ass.
  • The one room in my house with AC is my bedroom, so I’m sleeping very happily.
  • Mr. Yankette finds the sound of a phlegmy Paul Robeson alluring.
  • My best bud is also a cat-like badass.

So I’m take the long view.  Like the man says: “It’s cool when you freak to the beat – but don’t sweat the technique.”

 

Throwback Thursday: “Nimrod,” Edward Elgar

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England plays Uruguay today in the match that could see either side knocked out of the final.  For England to lose today, it would mean the first time it got kicked out this early in more than fifty years.  So to all of my followers in Blighty, and all England fans everywhere, here’s a bit of “there shall always be an England” courage for Hodgson’s men.  Come on, you lads!

Worldly Wednesday: “El Microfono,” Mexican Institute of Sound

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Brazil and Mexico tied each other in the World Cup yesterday, an outcome which I might be alone in thinking is kind of awesome.  I was a hell of a match, as you can see by the stats below.

The stats, below.

The stats, below.

Though Brazil was favored to win – home team advantage and all that – Mexico put up a hell of a fight.  Seven saves!  Amazing!  So it’s only fitting we take a quick trip to Mexico today and hang with the Mexican Institute of Sound.

Termagant Tuesday: “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Sam Levine

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsFt6vELkcw

 

The scene: City Tap House, Washington, D.C.

The people: Four female friends and your Yankette.

The motivation: US v. Ghana, i.e. Grudge Match 2014, i.e. the first game the U.S. is playing in this year’s World Cup.

Dempsey’s early goal set the mood.  Ghana’s late goal to tie the match set the bar into hyper drive.  Then when Brooks, a sub – a substitute (could this get any better?  Jesus, it was like Dan Gladden in the ’91 World Series) – scored the winning goal, I have never, ever heard cheering like that.  Portia overturned the popcorn.  Megan almost dropped her beer.  Anahi, Leila and I threw our arms around each other.  And the entire bar, in chorus: “USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!”

Do I think we’ll win the World Cup?  Who knows.  But that was a pretty beautiful moment.

Modernism Monday: “Jellyman Kelly,” James Taylor

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Yesterday was Father’s Day and I couldn’t very well post a song about my Dad during Shame Week, that’s just not nice.  But I obviously want to acknowledge him.  Happily, it took all of four seconds to hone in on the song that, to me, embodies what it has been like to have my Dad as, well, my Dad.

It.  Is.  So.  Much.  Fun.  OMG.

When I was a little kid, I decreed – kids love to decree – that Saturday was forever to be known as “Dress Wild Day.”  This meant that everyone had to wear outlandish outfits around the house or even outside (though I can’t remember if I tried that, or even wanted to).  This was right around the age in which I realized that civilized life had rules, and some of those rules were okay, and some of those rules were fun to break.  So, Dress Wild Day basically translated to Wear Your Underwear Over Your Pants day.  Dad joined in without hesitation.  We would walk around the house together with our underwear over our pants.  Dad asks me from time to time whether Dress Wild rules are still in effect.  I assure him they are.

Dad let me do his hair (putting barrettes in it, combing it thoroughly beforehand), pitched the wiffle ball to me in the backyard and gave me a high five when I clocked it through the kitchen window, quizzed me on the nationality of the composer playing on the record player during dinner (the usual choices were British, French, German, and Italian), got Abrams tank-shaped firecrackers for the 4th of July (they rolled around on the ground shooting sparks), and got to know who I was as a person so well that his teasing always made me laugh so hard I got a cramp.

Since I’ve become an adult, we have traveled through half a dozen countries together when we’re not having wit-offs about philosophy, and when he’s not scraping mysterious black goo off my kitchen floor with a spatula (sorry again about that, Dad).  We also have text conversations that are so funny that I take screen-captures of them and send them to my friends, who will quote back to me things my Dad has said months or years later.  Below are three of my favorite examples.

Me: Off to vote in the DC mayoral primary!  Woohoo!

Dad: Cool.  Vote no.

Me: Nuh-uh!  I’m pro mayor!  I’m really pro non-corrupt mayor.  I have discerned there are, like, two choices for non-corrupt mayor.

Dad:  Well hell.  That changes everything.  Vote “both.”  Many people don’t know that’s an option.  But it is.  I published poli sci textbooks.  I know.

Another favorite, from when I had a cold:

Dad: Feeling any better?  I’m drinking gin; hope that helps.

Me: That just clinched it – I’m cured.  Actually am feeling much better.  Went in to work today, which is where I am now.

Dad: Don’t kid yourself: it’s the work that’s making you better.  No better tonic than that work.  Gin and work: mmmm.

Me: It’s what won the war.

Dad: We won!?!  Gin all around!

And finally, after I made a bracelet that said “Pueri Sunt Amente”:

Dad:  Wow.  Most impressive.

Me:  Know what it says?

Dad: “Boys are dumb?”

Me: Yep!  I didn’t want it to be that obvious so I put it into Latin.”

Dad:  “Excellent.  Rigorously educated boys will at last have something useful to talk with you about.  Carry on.”

So, in sum, the greatest gift Dad has ever given me is making me feel that who I really am is just awesome, and that what I’m interested in is worth being interested in.  It has made me into a person who is really, really enthusiastic about life – a lot like those little kids are enthusiastic about yelling the chorus of that song.  That little kid yelling those words is me, his only child, thinking about going to college in another country, the most pivotal decision I have made in my life to date, and James Taylor is my Dad saying, “kid, yell as loud as you want.”

Sacred Sunday: “Mountains,” Lonestar

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Yeah.  This is bad.  This is really bad.  But hey, at least you can be sure, dear reader, that I am being totally honest with you on Shame Week.  I am not holding back.  This is probably in the top five of Worst Songs I Own.  And I own 33GB of music.  And that’s not counting the 150 CDs I haven’t loaded onto my computer yet.

I can’t even remember where or how I heard this song.  And I really don’t remember what it was about my life at the time that compelled me to hear it favorably.  The lyrics are terrible, the melody is prosaic, and the sentiment is nice but also totally mindless.  It’s like the musical version of McDonald’s – it’s technically food, but it’s so mass-produced it’s impossible to trace a single element back to an authentic source.  Lab meat, meet lab music.

Well there you go, Tune-Up fans.  I hope you enjoyed this walk of shame.  Please comment and share your more deeply loved and most shameful tunes you still put on the hi-fi now and again when no one’s around.  I promise I won’t tell.

SHAME WEEK! Salubrious Saturday: “Je t’aimais, je t’aime, et je t’aimerai,” Francis Cabrel

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hacR4ElzkNE

 

High school.  High school, high school, high school.  Wow.

Okay.  Before we jump into the backstory here, let me just say that I am forced to post this song today because I am going to a very good friend’s wedding and therefore it has to be a love song.  This week being Shame Week, I had no choice.  And all men are Socrates.  Okay.  Moving on.

I really do love this song.  It’s beautiful.  But it’s like eating Frosted Flakes with maple syrup.  It’s way, way, way too cloying and sweet and over the top.  You know what time in your life is made for things that are over the top?  Say it with me now: high school!  Hooray!  Sometimes in French class our teacher would play us French pop songs and we would have to transcribe the lyrics.  It was a genius way of teaching French and it also gave high schoolers the greatest gift of all: ways to look effete and worldly at 15 years old.  I thought I was soooo sophisticated for loving – and being able to sing along to – Francis Cabrel.  Until I went to France on an orchestra exchange and my host family asked me what music I liked and I said, “oh, moi j’adore Francis Cabrel,” and they were like, “…vraiment?”  And I was all like, “…merde.”

But I was undeterred!  The angelic boy chorus that comes in around 1:30 gave me visions of eternal, perfect, heartbreaking love, because when you’re a teenager, love and pain are obvious synonyms.  (Spoiler alert for any teenagers reading this: wrong!  They’re antonyms.  Trust me.)  I put it on a mix I’m horrified to admit I called “Romance Mix” that I brought with me to college.  I played it during my first relationship, and the breakup of my first relationship.  It slowly fell out of rotation through my early and mid-20s as relationships became less of an item of necessity, like a purse, and more of an item of choice.  Now, a decade on from university, I kind of like its treacly intensity.  The older you get, irony becomes lame and earnestness is more appealing.  Even if whatever is earnest is also just a tad cloying

 

SHAME WEEK! Funk Friday: “Kalimba,” Mr Scruff

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Mr Scruff is a legitimately good DJ.  This song is a pretty good song – maybe a little repetitive and pointless, but it’s got a good groove.  So what’s so embarrassing about this song?

Anyone reading this blog on a PC knows exactly why this song is so embarrassing.  It’s because this is one of three or four songs pre-loaded onto the Windows Media Player as sample pieces.  I don’t know why they did that.  All I know is that, one day, when I had to work at another facility and I didn’t have my own music with me, I hoped against hope there would be something already on the Windows machine I had to use – and, God bless America, there was.  I listened to this song on repeat for eight hours.

Eight.  Hours.

Stockholm syndrome is real, my friends.

SHAME WEEK! Throwback Thursday: “Un Bel Di,” OperaBabes

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Talk about gilding the lily.  The original aria is delicate and tender and completely heartbreaking in the context of the story.

The OperaBabes (seriously, that’s their name) version is mindless elevator music.  It was part of a mix CD I got during a summer semester in college.  I didn’t know much about the original opera, let alone the story, and, being totally addicted to rhythm then as I am now, I thought it was really catchy and great exercise music.  And then years passed and I heard the story behind Madame Butterfly and had an excellent “facepalm” moment.

SHAME WEEK! Worldly Wednesday: “Dragostea Din Tei,” O-Zone

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Oh you totally knew this was coming.  Like there is any other song I could post on Wednesday during Shame Week.  (Happily I don’t own any Venga Boys.  This entry could have taken way longer to come up with.)  And don’t pretend like you don’t secretly love this song.  It’s a great song!  It’s also so terrible that I have never once wondered what it actually means.  It just doesn’t make that much of a difference to me.  It’s fun to yell “maaayaHEEE, maaayaHOOO” while bopping up and down at a house party, and that’s good enough for me.