Mixed CD: Strummin'

Tonight, I'm making a mixed CD for my brother-in-law. The theme: Strummin' Songs

When making a compilation, I cast a wide net, bringing in every possible song by every possible artist - starting with about 40 songs. Then narrowing that list to the final 15 or so (depending on the song length).

I am about half way through my initial list compilation and am stuck. Here is my current list. Any suggestions?

Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town - Cake
Thought I Knew You - Matthew Sweet
I Wanted To Tell You - Matthew Sweet
Blue - The Thorns (Matthew Sweet and others - covering the Jayhawks song)
Among The Living - The Thorns
*Amie - Pure Prairie League
Gonna Make You Love Me - Ryan Adams
New York, New York - Ryan Adams
Comin' Atcha Live/Truckin' - Tesla (I've always had a soft spot for Tesla.)
Dead Flowers - The Rolling Stones
Bootleg - CCR
Cross-Tie Walker - CCR
Have You Ever Seen The Rain? - CCR
*Cotton Fields - CCR (though I think I put this one on too many compilations)
Don't Look Now - CCR
Leather and Lace - Stevie Nicks with Don Henley
I Should Have Known Better - The Beatles
The Ballad of John and Yoko - The Beatles (Can you believe this song went to #1?)
Ten Years Gone - Led Zeppelin
Gallows Pole - Led Zeppelin

Again, I'm trying to create an initial list that I can then narrow down to about 15 songs.

Suggestions?

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*CCR's Cotton Fields


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*Pure Prairie League's Aime (though the cut single version)

House Owning

Carlos is in the process of buying his first house. He has found a house and has gone through inspections. He should have ownership by the end of August.

Carlos, Jason and Julie were over last night. I have been having issues with my toilet. (The back water tank overflows at times; all the parts in the tank need to be replaced.) The toilet overflowed twice while everyone was over. Very frustrating.

Recently, my cable box went out and had to be replaced. The cable guy unhooked all my extra (read: non-Cox Cable) items - including my Wii. Since then, I hadn't figured out how to use my Wii, including watching instant Netflix movies on my TV via the Wii and my wireless router. (Getting all those items to work initially was a four hour process.)

So last night, I was warning Carlos about the perils of home ownership. Tonight, I called him and told him the good things: It took me about 90 minutes, including many breaks to calm my frustration and three trips to Home Depot to purchase the correct tools, but I fixed my toilet. With that done, I tackled my Wii - and fixed that too!

I told Carlos that one of the best things about home ownership is the sense of satisfaction of completing house projects that you didn't think you have the skills to accomplish.

Now I'm maybe ready to rip out and replace my bathroom sink. Stay tuned.

Work Update

My boss has been giving me quite a bit of extra responsibilities at work lately. He also evens it out with some gentle kidding around.

In the midst of a hectic week, he sent me this email on Thursday:
You do know that while I kid with you sometimes, there are not many people I trust as much as you to get things done properly and quickly. Keep up the good work.

I am very lucky to have a boss like that.

To Do List

Carlos is out of town this weekend, visiting his sister in Montgomery. (He isn't coming back until late Monday. I just got back from a few days in Fort Walton Beach, Florida with some of our friends so I didn't want to take any more time off.)

I guess I could have ensconced myself in porn and candy all weekend. Instead, I thought I would go through my ever growing To Do List.

Over time, as I think of ideas, I write them down on little sheets of paper, totaling around 40 right now. As I organize them, I thought I'd take you through the journey. (I'm skipping listing ones like "Call Steve back." and "Weed cucumber garden." I don't think those points are of any interest to you.)

Add to DVR:
- America's Test Kitchen (PBS)
- If you Really Knew Me (MTV) I have to keep at least one teen oriented show on my DVR list. I recently finally dropped Degrassi: The Next Generation.
- Locked Up Abroad (Nat Geo) The episode describing the true life story that inspired the movie Midnight Express is coming next week.

Visit Jeep dealerships
I think I want my next car to be a Jeep


Create menu for August Family Dinner
My younger sister Claudia and her family are coming back in town for a week near the end of July. Our immediate family rotates hosting dinner the first Monday of each month. August is my turn (with a bit of help from Carlos). To coincide with Claudia's visit, we're moving the dinner back a bit. I am thinking simple: French bread, cheese, wine, salad, potato salad, hot dogs, chili, pudding. I am still working out the details.

Add to Netflix queue:
- When You're Strange (a Doors documentary)
- Better Off Dead (for a planned John Cusack 80's teen trilogy weekend)
- One Crazy Summer (ditto) Savage Steve Holland directed both Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer - and one of my other favorite 80's teen movies, How I Got Into College, starring a young Laura Flynn Boyle and a cute Corey Parker. I wonder whatever happened to him?
- The Sure Thing (ditto)
- It Might Get Loud (to see Jimmy Page)
- Prodigal Sons (documentary - "star of the high school football team comes home to his 20 year high school reunion as a woman.")

Add to Amazon Wish List:
- 100 Greatest Comic Books - Jerry Weist and Jim Steranko
- Mr. Peanut - Adam Ross
- New Orleans Kitchens: Recipes from the Big Easy's Best Restaurants - Troy Gilbert & Stacey Meyer (Troy and I worked together at Kinko's in the early 1990's.)


To Buy:
- iPhone holder
- This Arch vase (pictured below top) that I saw in a recent issue of Cooking Light magazine
- The Pivotrim - that I saw on late night TV, to help with my yard work, but I want to do tons of research first
- Thumb Wine Decanter (pictured below bottom), that I saw at a party Carlos and I attended recently





Listen to the Paul Pena CD that Karen at work lent me.
We were listening to WWOZ at work recently and the song Jet Airliner came on. I had always assumed that The Steve Miller Band did the original version. I was wrong. Here is the original, Paul Pena version:


Check out:
- Discoveries Furniture and Finds on N. Rampart Street in Downtown New Orleans
- St. James Cheese Company

Find Pictures of Jay Hayden
He's the guy in this popular commercial:

It took me almost 2 months to research his name!

Download Songs (legally, of course):
- Dierks Bentley - Pride (In the Name of Love), a U2 cover
- Thinkin' 'Bout Something - Hansen (to sample their new CD)
- And I Waited - Hansen (ditto)
- Anything by the band Tinted Windows (From Wikipedia: "Tinted Windows is an American rock supergroup formed by guitarist James Iha, previously of The Smashing Pumpkins, singer Taylor Hanson of Hanson, bassist Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Ivy, and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick.") I'm curious to hear what they sound like.
- Anything by the band The Decemberists (I heard them on WTUL yesterday and really liked them.)

Okay, I have to get busy.

Gardening: Day 48

I have created a cucumber!

To follow the history of my garden:
Day 1
Day 34

This is my first year so I am still learning, but it is very exciting. (I really need to weed and water my garden more often.)

Carlos and I cut it up and ate it with a simple vinaigrette. Mmmmmmmmm Good!

Gay-Themed McDonald's Ad from France

If only our McDonald's ads were this intriguing...

Gardening - Day 34

Here is what my garden looks like - Day 34.




Here is what my garden looked like on Day 1.

Supposedly, by Day 75 I will have cucumbers and bell peppers. We'll see.

I Bought an iPhone

I have been wanting an iPhone for awhile, but promised myself that I wouldn't buy one until my current cell phone died. Well, for the past week, I have been having to charge my phone at least daily (and some days more). I used to have to charge my cell every three or four days.

That seemed like a good reason to upgrade.

My new iPhone (3GS 16gs) arrives at the end of this week. Updates to follow.

Chuck Lorre Productions #280

Chuck Lorre produces the TV shows Two and a Half Men (which I don't watch) and The Big Bang Theory (which I do). Ever since he produced the TV show Dharma & Greg, he has shown, in place of an end card (think "Sit Ubu Sit" or "Bad Robot"), a card with a dense paragraph - but for only a couple of seconds. In the early days, the only way to read the entire card was to tape the show (with a VCR) and then pause the frame at the exact correct moment. These days, pausing a DVR shows the card - and in much better clarity. (These days, the entire collection is also listed on his web site.)

Here is his recent # 280 card, which I thought was quite funny (and I could relate to) -

You know you're getting old when... You throw your back out on the toilet. You shave your ears. Your second wife calls your first wife “ma’am.” You're genuinely excited when your prescriptions arrive in the mail. You read the obits in the newspaper to check the ages of the dead people. You read a newspaper. You're bummed out that the smokin’ hot chick from Body Heat now looks like William Shatner in drag. You say “bummed out.” Women your age have real breasts and artificial hips. Masturbation leaves you winded. You try to amuse the kid hooking up your Blu-ray player by telling him about Betamax. You pee in morse code -- dots and dashes -- and have to look down to see when you’re done. Your car radio is set to “classic rock” so you have something to switch to during NPR pledge drives. Your doctor says things like, “that’s normal for a man your age” and “consider yourself lucky.” Beneath your chin is what appears to be a neck skin hammock. Beneath your penis is what appears to be two ping pong balls hanging from a flesh-colored bolo tie. You choose your new car because it offers great lumbar support and convenient cup holders. Watching “The Who” perform at the Superbowl made you inconsolably sad. You wonder if the orgasm you're about to have will actually end your life. Your doctor tells you a new medication will reduce the amount of semen in your body and your only response is, “so what.” Your car radio is set to “classic rock” so you have something to... oh, wait, I already did that one.

Chuck Lorre has a complete list of cards on his web site. To read his very first one, go here.

Note the ones that have (c) next to the number. Those are the ones that were censored and were never broadcast. Here, for example, is the broadcast version of #255 and here is the uncensored version.

Jazz Fest 2010 – Day 2

Jazz Fest Day 2 was much different from Day 1.

A few days before our “second Friday” Jazz Fest day, I had been getting sick. Not feeling sick, but sounding it – including harsh chest congestion. The Thursday night that Jason, Jason, Carlos and I saw David Sedaris live was the night that my throat hurt the worst. (On the way home, Carlos stopped at Walgreen’s for me and bought me all the correct drugs for my symptoms. Dating a hypochondriac has its benefits.)

I slept great Thursday night, but woke up Friday morning almost completely hoarse. By around 1 pm, right about the time Carlos and I hit the New Orleans Fair Grounds (where the Jazz Fest is held), I had totally lost my voice. I could either whisper or have Carlos read my lips. We quickly worked out some basic hand signals (and I still remember A through G in sign language – which turned out to be not much help) and were off to…

Fleur de Ladies Brass Band at the Jazz & Heritage Stage. They really grooved! I searched around for a video of them, but came up with nothing. Picture the Hot 8 Brass Band – but as women with attitudes.



Besides the music, Carlos and I love the food. I was really looking forward to a (highly recommended) Duck Po Boy. Carlos thinks that no one should eat a plate of shredded duck on a piece of French bread. I ate that and a plate of Crab and Crawfish Sushi. Both dishes tasted odd. I think because of my sickness. Or maybe Carlos is right.

We then listened to The Dixie Cups ("Chapel of Love") for a bit on our way to...

John Boutté at the WWOZ Jazz Tent. We arrived one song into his set and so asked around if he had played "the hit". Apparently, we weren't the only ones there for "the hit". As more and more people swelled the Jazz Tent, each new arrival asked if he had played "the hit". John Boutté's music runs from blues to gospel, all of which he sings really well - and we all loved. I really hope that his "hit" gives him more exposure.

I went to Amazon to see about buying one of his CD's. They're all expensive Imports. Spread the word: Let's get his music released locally.

Here's the "hit", the theme to HBO's current show "Treme"...



The Nicholas Payton Sextet followed John Boutté. After John Boutté finished his set, the Jazz Tent cleared out. I bet that's never happened to Nicholas Payton before.

Carlos and I then listened to Allen Toussaint...


on our way to...

"Unfinished Blues with Harold Battiste, Ellis Marsalis, and Karen Celestan with interviewer Kalamu ya Salaam"

The Music Heritage Stage, where older musicians are interviewed, is inside the club house (read: the air conditioning). That was our original motive for going there. We stayed for the entire show. Hearing how these mid 20th century jazz musicians got together was fascinating.

From Ellis Marsalis: "I remember in high school skipping my bus stop and riding one more further with Harold so we could jam together. He didn't want to play piano so that's how I ended up playing it."

From Harold Battiste: "I helped Sam Cooke compose 'You Send Me' and ended up playing on it."...


A book based on their experiences is coming out in June.

Here's a quick NPR Jazz story about the same.

Carlos and I then met some friends of his from school and caught almost the entire Earth, Wind & Fire set...


They were a last-minute replacement for Aretha Franklin. After the Unfinished Blues session, we were talking with one of the employees of the Fest. She told us that Aretha was "scared of the oil spill". I added that I saw on her Biography that she is scared of flying. Our employee friend told us that, since this is her second time canceling at the last minute, she won't be ever asked back. Too diva.

We did leave before the final two EWF songs. Apparently even though the band was a last minute replacement, they were able to track down Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind & Fire's original/best known singer)...

...and have him sing the final songs with the band. Carlos and I heard those as we were walking out of the Fair Grounds back to my car.

Overall, another great day.