I've been waiting for this night to come for a long, long time. It's finally here. A thousand miles or so east-southeast of here, a beaten man is sleeping in a room for the very last time. By this time tomorrow, he'll be lying in a bed of obscurity.
One can only hope.
So tonight becomes the last opportunity for me to put the words "president" and "George W. Bush" together. Stare at that for a while. It has quite a calming affect on me.
My great-great-great-great grandchildren will open up their history books one hundred years hence to the years 2000-2008, and instead of a long, detailed description of the nightmare that was this presidency there will only be a blank page, save for the words "what the hell were they thinking?" smack dab in the middle.
That's the true legacy of this president, that somehow, we gave him another shot. The first four years weren't bad enough, I guess.
I'm supposed to thank GWB for making sure that there hasn't been another 9/11 since, well, 9/11. Yet somehow I doubt that he was the one who has been on sentry duty lo these many years, because if he were, he had've managed to shoot himself in the foot fifty-seven times by now.
Far be it for me to tell anyone what to think, but we must remember that after 9/11, a great majority of the world sympathized with us. This stayed true even when bombs fell (rightly) on Afghanistan. That war went so well that Cheney and the boys had some bigger drums delivered to the Oval Office and spent the next year banging louder and louder, and We the People did nothing except collectively wet ourselves with fear, and let the one hundred members of the most exclusive club in the world (yes, even with Roland Burris) tell them that firing up the war machine in the direction of Iraq was A-OK.
War beget chaos, chaos beget insurgency, insurgency beget torture, torture beget blah blah blah.
(And at the Capitol Building, they ate "Freedom Toast" for breakfast, and had "Freedom Fries" with their burgers at lunch...)
We must always remember the way this president used 9/11 to further an agenda of misconceptions, fear and arrogance. From the moment he decided to invade Iraq, he has perpetually tap-danced on the memory of every innocent person who died that day. It is the most shameful part of his term. America is a very different place now then it was six years ago, especially across the oceans.
Failure on a level so extreme, so unprecedented, cannot solely be the responsibility of a single human being. It cannot rest on the shoulders of only a certain few.
It can, however, have a poster boy.
This was a president who sent over 4000 American soldiers to their deaths, a fate they freely and honorably accepted as a possibility when they volunteered to do a job that I never could--due to a profound lack of courage--in a war with the moral basis of a pebble. This was a president who never once asked the people of his country to sacrifice a single goddamned thing while these soldiers sacrificed everything they were, and everything they would ever be.
Gerald Ford was 93 when he died two years ago. No former president has lived longer. I hope George W. Bush shatters that mark; I hope he sticks around for a long, long time. I hope he has the memory of the celebrations going on around the world tonight and tomorrow, rejoicing that his term is expiring, for forty years. I hope that as he grows older and older he lives in an expanding state of terror of what his creator has in store for him when his time comes.
I hope he is scorned everywhere outside the four walls of his home. I hope he feels the fingers of judgement pointing at him wherever he goes. I hope he comes to know exactly how pathetic of a leader he was. I hope the clouds of regret rain over him for forty years of day and night.
I do not hate the man. I hate the damage he has done all over this world; I hate the divisiveness of his spoken words; I hate that a man so unqualified, so unfit for the office somehow found himself in it for two full terms. I hate that my son had to live for a year with this man as the president.
I hate that this night did not come sooner.
So let us be done with him. Let him sneak away into history, where he foolishly believes one day he will be deified. The same sun that has risen for the last eight years will rise tomorrow, but surely, it will be brighter.
President Obama is not and will never be the be-all, end-all messiah that some build him up as. He doesn't need to be. He will screw up plenty. He will have much of the country shaking their heads in disagreement at times. He's a politician--what else would we expect?
But he is such an upgrade over what we have been forced to tolerate for the last eight years. It's as if we've all been driving Yugos and when we wake up tomorrow there will be Mustangs in all of our driveways.
(Wow. That was an analogy on par with, well, something bad. I need to go to bed.)
19 January 2009
16 January 2009
The heating of our discontent, or, my kingdom for a home warranty
Note to self: when having a home inspection before buying a home, take the front of the furnace off and look inside.
When I went to sleep last night it was -13 outside, and 68 inside. When I woke up this morning, it was considerably colder. Nothing like frozen cockles first thing in the morning.
A technician was able to come out early this afternoon (but not before the temp on the thermostat dipped below 50-I evacuated the boy to Grandma's well before) and I wish I had taken a picture of his face when he took off the front of the furnace.
Let's just say it was a tad dirty. I was tempted to write "WASH ME" with my finger on the motor. He estimated that it hadn't been cleaned in over five years. Guess the people we bought the house from didn't care much about it.
Shame on me, though, for not checking it out before we sealed the deal. As it was, a sensor controlling the heating mechanism was shot, and would've anyway no matter how clean or filthy the furnace was. Still, it makes me wonder what else is lurking in the bowels of our new home. We got caught up in asthetics: every room has been redone in the last few years, and aside from a paint job or two, there is really nothing we need to do.
Well, except replace all major appliances in the next year, probably. I'm exaggerating; everything in the kitchen is new as well.
Ah, homeownership! It's been obnoxiously cold here this week, and it hasn't stopped snowing since Christmas. A few days ago I heard Kristen call me from downstairs smack dab at 7 AM: "We've got a water problem!" Being razed from slumber to news that water is causing a "problem" certainly gets the blood flowing. Turns out the ice damning up on the roof encased the top of the window in ice, and the heat from inside melted some. It had nowhere else to go except through the slats of the blinds. It actually wasn't much, and since the temp dropped twenty degrees that day, it hasn't come back.
It will, though, unless I get up on a ladder and get rid of the ice. Me on a ladder = high comedy. Pray for me, and help my wife with the insurance premiums.
I'm starting to wonder if I've moced into a money pit. The house is 57 years old, and five years of home ownership in the 90s taught me that things go wrong in houses all of the time. They are supposed to be mildly annoying.
This week mildly annoying would be an upgrade.
Ah, to whine about things that really aren't much of a big deal. At least I wasn't on an airplane that landed in the freakin' water yesterday. Wow. Color me impressed. Seriously. That pilot is more of a stud than Seattle Slew.
Maybe he can come over and replace my furnace.
When I went to sleep last night it was -13 outside, and 68 inside. When I woke up this morning, it was considerably colder. Nothing like frozen cockles first thing in the morning.
A technician was able to come out early this afternoon (but not before the temp on the thermostat dipped below 50-I evacuated the boy to Grandma's well before) and I wish I had taken a picture of his face when he took off the front of the furnace.
Let's just say it was a tad dirty. I was tempted to write "WASH ME" with my finger on the motor. He estimated that it hadn't been cleaned in over five years. Guess the people we bought the house from didn't care much about it.
Shame on me, though, for not checking it out before we sealed the deal. As it was, a sensor controlling the heating mechanism was shot, and would've anyway no matter how clean or filthy the furnace was. Still, it makes me wonder what else is lurking in the bowels of our new home. We got caught up in asthetics: every room has been redone in the last few years, and aside from a paint job or two, there is really nothing we need to do.
Well, except replace all major appliances in the next year, probably. I'm exaggerating; everything in the kitchen is new as well.
Ah, homeownership! It's been obnoxiously cold here this week, and it hasn't stopped snowing since Christmas. A few days ago I heard Kristen call me from downstairs smack dab at 7 AM: "We've got a water problem!" Being razed from slumber to news that water is causing a "problem" certainly gets the blood flowing. Turns out the ice damning up on the roof encased the top of the window in ice, and the heat from inside melted some. It had nowhere else to go except through the slats of the blinds. It actually wasn't much, and since the temp dropped twenty degrees that day, it hasn't come back.
It will, though, unless I get up on a ladder and get rid of the ice. Me on a ladder = high comedy. Pray for me, and help my wife with the insurance premiums.
I'm starting to wonder if I've moced into a money pit. The house is 57 years old, and five years of home ownership in the 90s taught me that things go wrong in houses all of the time. They are supposed to be mildly annoying.
This week mildly annoying would be an upgrade.
Ah, to whine about things that really aren't much of a big deal. At least I wasn't on an airplane that landed in the freakin' water yesterday. Wow. Color me impressed. Seriously. That pilot is more of a stud than Seattle Slew.
Maybe he can come over and replace my furnace.
11 January 2009
You thought you might be a ghost
As it turns out, moving in late December might not be the best idea ever conceived. Especially when the coldest weather of the year arrives about three hours before the movers do. Especially when you think that you can have a first birthday party for your son five days after moving into the new house. Especially when you relaize that yes, indeed, you have too much stuff.
Moving sucks. Yes, I know people are losing their jobs, homes and other stuff, and in the grand scheme buying a home is pretty special, but moving still sucks. It's been three weeks, and I finally feel like things are somewhat "normal."
Don't ask me what normal is. I don't know.
Desmond turned one year old on the Sunday before Christmas, and while there were boxes and piles all over our home-for-one-more-day, it was a special day. He was born at 8 PM, and I wasn't able to sit and hold him until almost noon the next day. Now, it is almost impossible to get him to sit still for more than a few seconds, but on his birthday I somehow coaxed him to sit on my lap until he fell asleep, and he took a peaceful one-hour nap. For that entire time I stared at him and tried to recall all the moments of his first year.
I am amazed that I have a one-year old son. I am amazed at the things that he does (which yet to include walking, and there's no rush), the things that he says (which yet to include "da-da", and there's no rush, though I would note that he has been saying "ma-ma" for the last sixty days or so. There is nothing quite like a mom, is there?), and everything else in his existence. I still can't quite believe that he is ours, and that he will always be ours.
Kristen has done a wonderful job posting pictures of Desmond so that our family that live outisde of Chicago can see how he has changed, and now that he is a year, I'm feeling generous, so take a gander at the boy if you so desire. No pressure.
I'm hoping to get into the habit of posting more and keeping up with those whose writing I enjoy so much. My Google reader yesterday hit 95, so I have some catching up to do.
Moving sucks. Yes, I know people are losing their jobs, homes and other stuff, and in the grand scheme buying a home is pretty special, but moving still sucks. It's been three weeks, and I finally feel like things are somewhat "normal."
Don't ask me what normal is. I don't know.
Desmond turned one year old on the Sunday before Christmas, and while there were boxes and piles all over our home-for-one-more-day, it was a special day. He was born at 8 PM, and I wasn't able to sit and hold him until almost noon the next day. Now, it is almost impossible to get him to sit still for more than a few seconds, but on his birthday I somehow coaxed him to sit on my lap until he fell asleep, and he took a peaceful one-hour nap. For that entire time I stared at him and tried to recall all the moments of his first year.
I am amazed that I have a one-year old son. I am amazed at the things that he does (which yet to include walking, and there's no rush), the things that he says (which yet to include "da-da", and there's no rush, though I would note that he has been saying "ma-ma" for the last sixty days or so. There is nothing quite like a mom, is there?), and everything else in his existence. I still can't quite believe that he is ours, and that he will always be ours.
Kristen has done a wonderful job posting pictures of Desmond so that our family that live outisde of Chicago can see how he has changed, and now that he is a year, I'm feeling generous, so take a gander at the boy if you so desire. No pressure.
I'm hoping to get into the habit of posting more and keeping up with those whose writing I enjoy so much. My Google reader yesterday hit 95, so I have some catching up to do.
26 December 2008
Moving, birthdays and Christmas. Oh my.
I have no mental capacity for anything other than a quick joke:
What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches?
(Wait for it)
(Wait)
(Wait)
A nervous wreck.
What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches?
(Wait for it)
(Wait)
(Wait)
A nervous wreck.
19 December 2008
End of days
If you watched the news here today, you'd think that we are all going to die. Did I miss something? When did snow become as dangerous as radioactive fallout?
(Entry interrupted to tend to a wailing, soon-to-be one-year old who appears to have had a nightmare, poor guy. But all is well. There is nothing quite like a mom.)
I'm just blown away by the way the media here in Chicago reacts to winter storms. It's Chicago. It's winter. What do you expect? Two days ago a four inch storm hit at the peak of the evening rush hour, and anyone trying to go more than a few miles was stuck in crawling traffic for at least a few hours.
If there is no traffic you can drive from the Loop to O'Hare Airport in about twenty minutes. Tuesday evening at five, it was four and a half hours. On the CBS station here at ten o'clock, they had a feature where a reporter drove from the downtown studio to the airport, which took four hours. How is that news?
Flakes start falling, and it's like an OJ trial around here. Bizarre.
Just three days until Desmond's first birthday. On this day last year we went to the doctor and made the appointment to induce labor on the 21st. I'll never forget the feeling sitting in that office, knowing that it was now a sure thing that in three days our first child was going to be born. It was like plunging your head into ice water-I never felt more aware of my surroundings.
Those three days turned out to be the longest three days since the dawn of time, seventy-two hours of anxiety, anticipation and just plain waiting. I did five hundred crossword puzzles, read fifty-seven magazines and learned twelve languages. Seems like I remember every second.
(Entry interrupted to tend to a wailing, soon-to-be one-year old who appears to have had a nightmare, poor guy. But all is well. There is nothing quite like a mom.)
I'm just blown away by the way the media here in Chicago reacts to winter storms. It's Chicago. It's winter. What do you expect? Two days ago a four inch storm hit at the peak of the evening rush hour, and anyone trying to go more than a few miles was stuck in crawling traffic for at least a few hours.
If there is no traffic you can drive from the Loop to O'Hare Airport in about twenty minutes. Tuesday evening at five, it was four and a half hours. On the CBS station here at ten o'clock, they had a feature where a reporter drove from the downtown studio to the airport, which took four hours. How is that news?
Flakes start falling, and it's like an OJ trial around here. Bizarre.
Just three days until Desmond's first birthday. On this day last year we went to the doctor and made the appointment to induce labor on the 21st. I'll never forget the feeling sitting in that office, knowing that it was now a sure thing that in three days our first child was going to be born. It was like plunging your head into ice water-I never felt more aware of my surroundings.
Those three days turned out to be the longest three days since the dawn of time, seventy-two hours of anxiety, anticipation and just plain waiting. I did five hundred crossword puzzles, read fifty-seven magazines and learned twelve languages. Seems like I remember every second.
15 December 2008
Today's statement o' funk
Craig Ferguson is wearing a tie on his show tonight that reminds me of something. It took a minute or two before getting it: it's the same tie that we buried my father in.
Moving on...Desmond's first birthday is this coming Sunday. You have got to be kidding me. There is no way my son is already one year old. Sometimes I think that this past year has passed in the blink of an eye, and sometimes it feels like it has been two years instead of one. It has been quite a time.
Desmond is not walking yet. He's close; he pulls himself up on everything and can walk along a table or anything else he can hold on to (including my wrists). I thought I would find the prospect of my son walking melancholy, like he was crossing a barrier that he couldn't return to, but I find myself ready for this. I am starting to see him as a toddler, and toddlers walk.
They also take their pants off, apparently. Des hasn't kept a pair of pants on longer than thirty minutes for about the last week. Putting a pair of pants on him is slightly more difficult than having a root canal without Novacaine (thank you, James Frey. I will never tire of reminding people that you are full of crap), and it's quite disheartening to see him get them off in twelve microseconds.
We don't wear shoes unless it's an absolute necessity.
I'll have more to say about Desmond as the week progresses. My memories of this year seem the opportunity to knock myself out of my writing funk.
Moving on...Desmond's first birthday is this coming Sunday. You have got to be kidding me. There is no way my son is already one year old. Sometimes I think that this past year has passed in the blink of an eye, and sometimes it feels like it has been two years instead of one. It has been quite a time.
Desmond is not walking yet. He's close; he pulls himself up on everything and can walk along a table or anything else he can hold on to (including my wrists). I thought I would find the prospect of my son walking melancholy, like he was crossing a barrier that he couldn't return to, but I find myself ready for this. I am starting to see him as a toddler, and toddlers walk.
They also take their pants off, apparently. Des hasn't kept a pair of pants on longer than thirty minutes for about the last week. Putting a pair of pants on him is slightly more difficult than having a root canal without Novacaine (thank you, James Frey. I will never tire of reminding people that you are full of crap), and it's quite disheartening to see him get them off in twelve microseconds.
We don't wear shoes unless it's an absolute necessity.
I'll have more to say about Desmond as the week progresses. My memories of this year seem the opportunity to knock myself out of my writing funk.
14 December 2008
Nothing like a fine whine.
I forgot how much moving sucks. Packing things that you swore that you got rid of last time you moved, doing it again because you're too far behind to deal with it now, and stuff all over the place. I hate it. Hate hate hate it. Every time I move (which happens about every four or so years, it seems) I vow to never do it again.
The thing is, I can't wait to move. We are finally moving into a home of our own. It's a great house. I just wish I could go to sleep, wake up and have everything be moved in.
My funk continues. I'd swear it is February, which makes me nervous to think about how I will be once February actually gets here. I'm hopeful that new surroundings will snap me out of this malaise.
Since I'm getting bogged down in negativity, I will submit myself to a random eleven. As promised last time, here is where I stole this from.
1. "Point Shirley"-Rhett Miller. The thinly veiled reference to Hamlet throughout this song intrigues me, though I don't recall there being a Shirley in the cast. Maybe Ophelia is Dane for Shirley...
2. "Fool in the Rain"-Led Zeppelin. When I was a sophomore in college, I had a rough year. I hated my roommate (who was actually not a bad guy, though he was incredibly boring, I was just deranged) but took some odd pleasure in using his boombox whenever he wasn't around. Since he knew I didn't like him (because I pretty much stopped talking to him by Labor Day-again, I had major issues) he would be gone all day. Of all the cassettes that I listened to back then-this was the late 80s before CDs-In Through the Out Door was the one I listened to most. Ergo, whenever I hear a song from this CD I can't help but think about my roommate. Fortunately, it doesn't happen with the rest of the LZ catalog. In a slapdash of irony, when I started grad school in 2005 I discovered that his sister was chair of the English department (I had never met her before). I eventually worked up the gumption to introduce myself and asked her if she might give me his e-mail. She did, I wrote him a note apologizing for my behavior, but I never heard from him.
3. "Slow Emotion Replay"-The The. I have this odd habit of remembering specific, obscure things about uneventful moments in my life (see above), and this song always takes me back to four in the morning when I got up extremely early to go in to work at an ungodly hour for some dog and pony show. I hated my job, I hated the fact that I was up at four, I pretty much hated everything, except this song, which came on the radio when I turned it on as soon as I woke up.
4. "Perfect"-Smashing Pumpkins. I used to think this song was about unrequited love (and identified with it passionately-God, could I be more of a depressing mole tonight?) but now think it's about a stalker telling his "beloved" that he isn't giving up anytime soon.
5. "New Test Leper"-REM. The obligatory appearance of the boys from Athens on the Random 11, from the vastly under-rated New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which I listened to extensively while traipsing through central Oregon in summer 2003. When I typed the previous sentence, I noticed that I omitted the first "p" in "appearance" and proceeded to do something that drives me insane: instead of just moving my cursor to where the missing letter was, I deleted all the way back to that point and wound up re-typing most of the word. Usually I don't catch mistake like that until a few words later, and I wind up deleting whatever part of the sentence came afterwards. It's bizarre. I tell myself not to do it, but I do every time.
6. "Home By the Sea"-Genesis. Listen to this song, then watch the scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when the home by the sea is fading from memory, and tell me that Charlie Kaufmann wasn't thinking about that all through the movie. In this room they sigh and they moan.
7. "Goodbye Girl"-Squeeze. Not to be confused with the ballad from Bread to the movie of the same name. I should mention that when I was 12 my mother would not let me watch The Goodbye Girl on TV, and to this day I still do not understand why. Perhaps she thought I was allergic to Richard Dreyfuss. Come to think of it, I did sneeze throughout Mr. Holland's Opus. And whatever happened to Quinn Cummings? That's one heck of a resume, culminating with an appearance on "Blossom".
8. "I've Seen All Good People"-Yes. This is one of those songs that you (by which I mean me) listen to three thousand times before getting what it is about. They're playing chess!
9. "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"-Counting Crows. Wasn't this the title of a "very special" episode of MASH? I find the crows mostly pretentious (and in need of a bath), but I love this song. Doesn't take much to reel me in, just a mixture of melody, lyrics and inquisition. Well done.
10. "Viva la Vida"-Coldplay. This is a group that I was looking forward to slapping down a few rungs on the ladder, if for nothing else than writing a song as awful as "Fix You," but this album is outstanding. Their last CD was extraordinarily pretentious and muck, but all is forgiven. I'd prefer that every song not be about death, but there you go. This song was in the news last week because it apparently sounds just like a melody Joe Satriani wrote about five years ago. And it does. I suppose it could be a happy accident, but either way, I have a feeling someone is going to get a co-writing credit on any further pressings of the CD just to keep everyone in Whoville happy.
11. "Please Read the Letter"-Robert Plant and Allison Krause. Normally I would have finished my rave to Coldplay above with a decisive "this album deserves to win a billion Grammys" rant, but I don't for two reasons: first, who really gives a rat's ass about the Grammys? They've been awful ever since they gave three hundred awards one year to Lionel Ritchie; second, no album this year has been better than Raising Sand; this is the best song from that CD. I saw Plant and Krause in September in Kansas City, the first concert I had been to in ten years, and it was spectacular. If you ad told me twenty-five years ago that I would one day see Robert Plant live singing a folk song version of "Black Dog" I would have bet that I was committed somewhere. The two are amazing together, and I hope that the rumors I hear about them doing another album are true.
The thing is, I can't wait to move. We are finally moving into a home of our own. It's a great house. I just wish I could go to sleep, wake up and have everything be moved in.
My funk continues. I'd swear it is February, which makes me nervous to think about how I will be once February actually gets here. I'm hopeful that new surroundings will snap me out of this malaise.
Since I'm getting bogged down in negativity, I will submit myself to a random eleven. As promised last time, here is where I stole this from.
1. "Point Shirley"-Rhett Miller. The thinly veiled reference to Hamlet throughout this song intrigues me, though I don't recall there being a Shirley in the cast. Maybe Ophelia is Dane for Shirley...
2. "Fool in the Rain"-Led Zeppelin. When I was a sophomore in college, I had a rough year. I hated my roommate (who was actually not a bad guy, though he was incredibly boring, I was just deranged) but took some odd pleasure in using his boombox whenever he wasn't around. Since he knew I didn't like him (because I pretty much stopped talking to him by Labor Day-again, I had major issues) he would be gone all day. Of all the cassettes that I listened to back then-this was the late 80s before CDs-In Through the Out Door was the one I listened to most. Ergo, whenever I hear a song from this CD I can't help but think about my roommate. Fortunately, it doesn't happen with the rest of the LZ catalog. In a slapdash of irony, when I started grad school in 2005 I discovered that his sister was chair of the English department (I had never met her before). I eventually worked up the gumption to introduce myself and asked her if she might give me his e-mail. She did, I wrote him a note apologizing for my behavior, but I never heard from him.
3. "Slow Emotion Replay"-The The. I have this odd habit of remembering specific, obscure things about uneventful moments in my life (see above), and this song always takes me back to four in the morning when I got up extremely early to go in to work at an ungodly hour for some dog and pony show. I hated my job, I hated the fact that I was up at four, I pretty much hated everything, except this song, which came on the radio when I turned it on as soon as I woke up.
4. "Perfect"-Smashing Pumpkins. I used to think this song was about unrequited love (and identified with it passionately-God, could I be more of a depressing mole tonight?) but now think it's about a stalker telling his "beloved" that he isn't giving up anytime soon.
5. "New Test Leper"-REM. The obligatory appearance of the boys from Athens on the Random 11, from the vastly under-rated New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which I listened to extensively while traipsing through central Oregon in summer 2003. When I typed the previous sentence, I noticed that I omitted the first "p" in "appearance" and proceeded to do something that drives me insane: instead of just moving my cursor to where the missing letter was, I deleted all the way back to that point and wound up re-typing most of the word. Usually I don't catch mistake like that until a few words later, and I wind up deleting whatever part of the sentence came afterwards. It's bizarre. I tell myself not to do it, but I do every time.
6. "Home By the Sea"-Genesis. Listen to this song, then watch the scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when the home by the sea is fading from memory, and tell me that Charlie Kaufmann wasn't thinking about that all through the movie. In this room they sigh and they moan.
7. "Goodbye Girl"-Squeeze. Not to be confused with the ballad from Bread to the movie of the same name. I should mention that when I was 12 my mother would not let me watch The Goodbye Girl on TV, and to this day I still do not understand why. Perhaps she thought I was allergic to Richard Dreyfuss. Come to think of it, I did sneeze throughout Mr. Holland's Opus. And whatever happened to Quinn Cummings? That's one heck of a resume, culminating with an appearance on "Blossom".
8. "I've Seen All Good People"-Yes. This is one of those songs that you (by which I mean me) listen to three thousand times before getting what it is about. They're playing chess!
9. "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"-Counting Crows. Wasn't this the title of a "very special" episode of MASH? I find the crows mostly pretentious (and in need of a bath), but I love this song. Doesn't take much to reel me in, just a mixture of melody, lyrics and inquisition. Well done.
10. "Viva la Vida"-Coldplay. This is a group that I was looking forward to slapping down a few rungs on the ladder, if for nothing else than writing a song as awful as "Fix You," but this album is outstanding. Their last CD was extraordinarily pretentious and muck, but all is forgiven. I'd prefer that every song not be about death, but there you go. This song was in the news last week because it apparently sounds just like a melody Joe Satriani wrote about five years ago. And it does. I suppose it could be a happy accident, but either way, I have a feeling someone is going to get a co-writing credit on any further pressings of the CD just to keep everyone in Whoville happy.
11. "Please Read the Letter"-Robert Plant and Allison Krause. Normally I would have finished my rave to Coldplay above with a decisive "this album deserves to win a billion Grammys" rant, but I don't for two reasons: first, who really gives a rat's ass about the Grammys? They've been awful ever since they gave three hundred awards one year to Lionel Ritchie; second, no album this year has been better than Raising Sand; this is the best song from that CD. I saw Plant and Krause in September in Kansas City, the first concert I had been to in ten years, and it was spectacular. If you ad told me twenty-five years ago that I would one day see Robert Plant live singing a folk song version of "Black Dog" I would have bet that I was committed somewhere. The two are amazing together, and I hope that the rumors I hear about them doing another album are true.
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