Decisions

I have a decision to make.

See, usually when I look in the local free weekly newspaper I see one or two bands I'd like to go see. I was reading a copy while waiting at the bus station for my ride home. This time I saw 7 shows. Seven! Namely:

The Donnas
Suzanne Vega
The Bangles
They Might Be Giants
Arch Enemy
2007 Minneapolis Metal Massacre
Bad Religion

So now I have a decision. Just how badly do I want to see these shows? For Bad Religion and Arch Enemy - pretty badly. The problem I have is this: the venues these shows take place at are probably not laid out with accessability for folks like me in mind. I haven't been to First Avenue in years (where most these shows take place), but I don't remember anything particularly positive from the standpoint of getting around ...

So I have a decision to make. Do I dig real deep, try real hard, insert your favorite stereotype of how disabled folks are supposed to act here, and go to these shows? Or just say to heck with it and save myself the aggravation?

I'm leaning towards the latter.

Am I the only one who sees the first often used as a subtle putdown? I'm all for trying and everything, but I can't stand the "you did not entirely succeed, so you must not have tried hard enough" attitude.

There are days when my brain tells my legs to move but it just ain't happenin'. Not because I'm not trying or not thinking in a positive way.

But because my immune system is eating at my nervous system.

Sorry if sometimes that ticks me off.

1+1+1

The important part of the title up there is the plus sign. I have always been fascinated by the way things seem to end up connected somehow.

Members of the band Rancid have a weekly show on XM radio channel 53. Today they spent the first part of the show talking about football (what my people call soccer :)), Beckham specifically. The connections between football and working-class punk music is well known, but something mentioned on the show made everything much more specific. It also ties together a few of the things I've mentioned in past posts in a really unexpected way.

Seems a former manager of Manchester City (not sure exactly who) is a major Oi! fan.

Incidentally, City is top of the table in the Premiership. That's #1, kids. Hated crosstown rival United: 16th. We're only 3 games in, but still.

Oi!

Words

I hear we have an election or something next year here in the USA. It's a little early to call (heck, we don't even know who the candidates will be yet ..), but of two things I am certain:

If Hillary makes it through the primaries and takes the general election, my brother will be horrifically traumatized, and

If the above happens, we, as a society, will need to come up with something to call Bill.

What to call the male spouse of a female president has never been an issue (and probably won't be one any time soon - sorry, Hillary. Just sayin'.) First gentleman?

Bill Clinton has come up with an idea himself. A little bit of word play - first laddie.

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We've had major flooding just south of where I live here in Minnesota. I was watching the news, and an anchor asked a field reporeter to describe the situation on the ground. "The situation here is fluid."

Heh. That's funny and probably totally inadvertant.

"Fluid." Floods.

Heh.

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I've taken to getting up a little early each morning so I can devote some time to listening to my satellite radio. The other day I listened to a few songs on XMLM, XM's metal station. One of the songs was by Soulfly, who are kinda a big deal but I was unfamiliar with. Unfortunately I can't tell you the name of the song. I certainly have that ability and remember the title, but can't in the sense that I choose not to. I want to keep this blog accesable to a variety of readers, and part of that is not using profanity here. Not that I don't use profanity in my daily language, but ... time and place, you know?

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One group that used profanity in their music in a way that annoys me is Youth of Today. It often seemed Ray (the vocalist) was going out of his way - even to the detriment of the song - to swear. Unfortunate because there is otherwise plenty of good to be said about YOT.

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One of the other songs I liked on XMLM that morning was by a band called Arsonists Get All The Girls. Great song, but that is one of the worst band names I have ever heard.

And I have heard plenty.

Patti Smith

There is a scene in the movie Chasing Amy where in one short burst of dialog the three Kevin Smith New Jersey trilogy movies (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy) are tied together into one cohesive whole. This article on Allmusic.com does that to a certain extent for my jumble of musical interests. I never connected the Ramones and early 60s pop before (although I should have ... I mean, really, they worked with Phil Spector ...) I stumbled across the article surfing around trying to answer one simple question:

How did I get to be 37 and not own any Patti Smith records?

I was aware of Smith. Just didn't feel compelled to buy any of her stuff.

Until now.

When I was growing up I would sit in front of the radio and wait for a specific song to be played. This was the early 80s, so that often meant sitting through a lot of junk justifiably forgotten today. (Yes, a lot of my faves come from that era. But let us not forget it was also the era of REO, LRB and other bands with more letters but even less interest for me).

Recently I've found myself listening to XM44 waiting for a Patti Smith song to be played. ANY Patti Smith. It's been quite a while since I've done that sort of thing.

One cool thing about this current obsession is that I can see at least 2-3 blog posts coming from it. All of them about Patti Smith. Or none of them.

Depends on how you look at it.

Do ya wanna dance?

1.
0.
1.
0.

Do ya, do ya, do ya, wanna dance?

Probably not. Unless binary inspires you to put on your boogie shoes.

But wait.

Imagine those digits are the representation of a song on a CD. (I pick Prince's "Controversy" from the album of the same name, but pick whatever ...) In that context (as read by a CD player), ones and zeros definately will help you get your groove on.

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The above is a much smaller version of what was supposed to be the main part of 3 posts ago.

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This is funny looking at it today:

I've heard guys with 10-megabyte hard disks complain of feeling cramped.

Thinking in Forth - Leo Brodie - 1984

Considering how cramped my 80-gig drive is ...

I don't know what this means

Blogger has a neat new feature where profiles with similar interests are linked. Just for fun, I clicked on the link for one of my favorite books, The Passion.

249 other profiles list that as a fave book.

A little under 90% of those profiles are from female bloggers.

Huh.

The real surprise, though, was the number that listed interests that could be called 'tree-hugging hippy crap'. (I can say things like that for the same reason I can find humor in having MS. Self-awareness and all ...) The Passion is not a book I would associate particularly with folks showing a particular enthusiasm for things like ... uh ... nature and stuff.

Oops

Hey, I screwed up again! I wrote this entry in two parts at work and emailed them to my home account. At least that is what I intended. I'm not sure if I forgot to email part one or accidentally deleted it, but here is the second half... Crud, the first half led directly from my previous entry. Oh well. So it goes.

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Speaking of dance [which I was in the missing first half], if you go pogo (that's a play on a slogan for the Pogo comic strip), you could do worse than check out www.somethingilearned.com. I stumbled across this blog looking for info on Dead Silence, a Colorado hardcore outfit that I liked quite a bit but that has always seemed to be unknown on the web. (You can find anything on the 'net HAH!) I've spent much time there the past few days. Every band covered in the 80s hardcore section either 1) I listened to 2) I intended to check out but never got around to or 3) would have intended to check out had I known they existed.

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Also check out the e-book Free Culture. More on that later ...