I Don’t Care What You Say Anymore

Karaoke is a harsh mistress.

There is only an occassional need in me these days to get up in front of people and yalp into a microphone. It was sort of, um, bludgeoned out of me some time ago along with a lot of other stuff. But it’s there, and I guess I’m glad for it. Having a birthday, that’s an excuse to drag some people who actually know and respect you somewhat along with you so you can drive that foolish notion out of them altogether.

The Hut has a pretty good karaoke, something I’m sure Alice never would have had the stomach for but that Larry seems quite comfortable with. Larry even gets to leave the bar for a song occassionally; last night it was “Particle Man.” I sang “My Life” and “Authority Song” and couldn’t help but mosey to the stage again while Jay was singing Croce’s “Operator.” Harmonies. I can’t sit there and not do harmonies when they’re there and not being sung.

I wore one of my presents, my new “Howard 100” T, with the Stern Fist logo and everything. Awesome, awesome, thanks to my woman for indulging me so completely. Hey now.

We came home and watched the Big Premiere even though we were dawgtired. Even this morning, I said, maybe it was just that we were tired and it was late or that we’d been looking forward to it for so many months, or maybe it’s because it’s on Thursday and not Sunday. Or maybe, she added, it was just plain bad. I had to agree. Why isn’t Izzie in jail? Why is so much hinging on the ‘Oh My God, They Killed Denny’ plot point? Denny was apparently so special he can make Bailey lose it? Why isn’t Izzie in jail? Baby dumping? Seriously? And, finally, why isn’t Izzie in jail? Something was off, completely off. They forgot to be funny and they tipped too much off with the flashback sequences. Some backstory should remain in the back. And why isn’t Izzie in jail?

This Post Was To Have Ended With Me Discussing Mary Tyler Moore’s Breasts. Thank Goodness For KT Tunstall.

I remember the outrage and strange surprise when it was revealed that Milli and Vanilli didn’t ACTUALLY SING those songs, or when it was revealed that Rob Van Winkle hadn’t actually secured all the permissions he needed to outright steal from John Deacon and the boys of Queen. I remember all that actual outrage, and so I find it funny that such practices in the music INDUSTRY have become so utterly commonplace and not even blinked at hardly.

I WAS at work outside today pulling bundles of metal fencing and hosing out of the former garden of our backyard, had my trusty Pioneer Airware clipped to my beltside, and I was continuing on one of my little music experiments. It’s called “what the kids are digging today.”

I’ve always been either a music snob or a music nerd, I’m not sure which or both. Blame it on Dad, who allowed me to listen to the Rolling Stones and Arlo Guthrie and Frank Zappa when I when I was very young, and on my Granny G, who somehow or other taught me that, yes, people WERE making music before 1968, and on all the band directors and music teachers who ever waggled a baton at me. Also, blame it on the fact that I am a contrarian pain in the ass by nature, and nothing comes more naturally to a contrarian pain in the ass then to assert that if it’s in the top 12, than it sucks.

Although that is generally true.

So I’m listening to XM’s “20 on 20,” which plays the top 20 songs in the order for which listeners have voted. And I’m listening, and raking and pulling and swearing, when I realize that the tune they’re playing sounds oddly familiar. The chords, the song structure, even the cadence. All of it. It is a song by a lady who for most of her career has been on my “sucks” list: Madonna. “Holiday.” Except, the lyrics are different. It’s as if they spread a new veneer on top of the old accompaniment and then had Ms. Simpson sing on top of it.

So color me surprised to find this confirmation of my observation in “Ireland Online”: “Jessica Simpson has confessed her latest single was accidentally influenced by pop superstar Madonna’s Holiday.”

If by “confessed” you mean “had to give because she got caught,” and by “accidentally” you mean “oops, we spread a new veneer on top of the old accompaniment and then had Ms. Simpson sing on top of it,” and by “influenced,” you mean “is an exact copy of,” um, okay. I’d buy that, then.

So it was at this point within this post that I was to have segued into discussing Mary Tyler Moore’s breasts, how I was watching “Mary Tyler Moore” and noticed that women back then didn’t hafta surgery themselves up just to be on the tv, and how now everything’s silicone, and such, and other grumpy old man sentiments, and etcetera and that why can’t these kids today listen to any good musicians, with real musicians, who make real music, dagnarbit?

Then today that very same XM station introduced me to KT Tunstall, who is awesome. It always happens that way. I become ubergrumpy about kids these days, and then someone fresh and new and rockin’ slaps me in the ear and reaffirms my faith.

Quick WordPress Fix

If your installation of WordPress puts your posts in the wrong order, you’ve got to find and edit wp-includes/classes.php. Do a search in the page for “order” and change “DESC” to “ASC.”

Also: Why do young women insist on talking like Paris Hilton?

Who Needs A Gym When There’s Yardwerk?

I have admittedly for many years and for many reasons not taken the best care of the yard at the house in which I live.

Several reasons avail. First, I am by nature what many would consider “lazy,” though I prefer to think of it as “creative” or “contemplative.” Second, there were past administrations at my house who were previously in charge of the yard, including one close to the owners, who lived here and moved out for nasty reasons but continued to bark at me for things I was doing in the yard after. How do you take ownership of a project in conditions like that? You can’t. Third, was my own ignorance. I didn’t know what to do with the brush! But, as it turns out, I live in a wonderful county that will send a man around every other week at my request with a craned truck and will pick up the brush as it goes! Yay!

So out it goes. Tonight, I cut down a line of weeds that had become trees at our fenceline, and now I can finally SEE the radio towers from the deck again. Nature is so beautiful. I will continue to clean along the fenceline later this weekend, and soon, the entire lawn will belong to the house again. I hope to make some repairs and painting to the shed out back. I thought it would just require paint, but there is a wall board there that’s all rotted out and full of the bugs and will require replacement. Unless my pops wants to tear it down, but it does serve as a good place to keep the lawn mower gasoline if nothing else.

For this season, I am about retaking rentership of this yard. I am cleaning it out thoroughly. I am killing tons and tons of plants and trees. I have amassed the proper tools: an excellent pruning saw that I call “My Machete.” A Lawn Mower. A rake. A kickass long pair of bushcutters. Gloves and a hat. Though I’m about to wear those gloves out.

I can see the radio towers again. That’s something. And the pond looks nice and St. Francis oversees it. And I get outside and I’m moving and my shorts are falling off me.

Gyme? What’s a gyme?

Brushed Away

I am doing my best these days to emulate the Great Leader, George W. “The Decider” Bush, whose most favorite thing to do on his Texas ranch is to “clear brush.” I’ve had several piles like these pulled out from this little yard. Last night was spent with a new pond skimmer, pulling goop from a pond I’m hoping to again resurrect. It gets me outside and keeps me from being arrested for urinating in public.

In other gnus: I’ve not mentioned the Grand Wazoo of the airwaves recently, but you can bet your toes I’ve been listening. Jessica is a bit bewildered I think by the obsession. Hey, she’s the one who picked a Stern fan. I dunno, tho. Next time I say, hey, guess what they did on the Stern show last week?…I dunno, she might be tiring of it. Hey now. But anyways, how about that shite? Howard with his tapes back! Howard now STREAMING on the Interweb? Man, it’s good to be King.

P.S. Yesterday’s ‘Pearls Before Swine’ just says it all:

BTW, if you’re an AAR listener but not a Premium subscriber, may I recommend subscribing even just for the month to listen to the June 20 Majority Report, with guest host Thom Hartmann. That was a fine broadcast, one that every American should hear. Hartmann is one of my favorites because he is steeped in presidential history and is very good at using it. Yesterday, he was in rare, rare form.

Okay goobye.

Last Television Producer Standing

I have just watched the last episode of Last Comic Standing, in which the final folks were picked. This episode made it clear how the choices were actually made.

The funniest comic was, by far, Gabriel Iglesias. He was selected and was voted the audience fav to boot. The second funniest was Nikki Payne, a chick with a severe lithp, who went for it in the most extreme of ways, from showing her black-braed boobies to wrapping herself up in duct tape, all in a minute. Nikki Payne, friends, is what you call “the real deal.” Her off-the-cuff responses to judges were not just hillarious, they were perfect.

Unfortunately, the show had already selected its ”challenged” comic. CP comic Josh Blue had been chosen previously. I believe the producers decided that the “comics-with-impediments” roster had been filled. What can I say. It’s television. So it has to make compromises to preserve its own artificiality. I have loved and hated television since I was 6. Before that, I only loved it. But I am well aware that television did not make the correct choice, if it was truly concerned with comedy. But it did provide me with a new person to adore.

Nikki Payne. I speak your name.