The Bawdy Cloister

iRowdy

Christmas came early this year in the form of an iPhone!

Normally I'm the last person to hop on a techno-bandwagon (I've never even owned an iPod.)  But after meeting several people with these gadgets, none of whom had anything negative to say about them, I decided to take the plunge.  I spent the first few evenings uploading several of my favorite CDs to it, and I hopped onto the iTunes webset to download a few specific songs for ringtones.  Here's how my ringtones are set:

• Mom: Mother by Pink Floyd
• Dad: Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin
• Evil Little Brother: I'm a Little Airplane by Beeky
• Mrs. T: Made in Japan by Buck Owens
• Co-Workers: Working for the Fat Man by The Escape Club
• Clients: Slide Some Oil to Me from The Wiz (Broadway Cast)
• Attorneys: Lawyers, Guns & Money by Warren Zevon
• Old Friends: Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen
• New Friends: Traffic Lights by Monty Python

All the songs are obviously related to the person calling except Traffic Lights.  That one I just thought would make a mean ringtone.

Busy weekend ahead cleaning the house, packing and preparing to host a 24-hour long bender/reunion with 20 high school friends recently rediscovered on Facebook.  (They're coming the following weekend, but such a packed house requires a week of prep work.)  Hope all is well with you.

Happy New Year!!!

I know it'll take a while for Microsoft to formulate its patches and for calendar companies to catch up, but for all of you who've been living under a rock these past couple of days, let me be the first to welcome you to the new era!!!

That's right, today is January 2, 0000 A.S.S. (After Seeing Sinead.)

Sunday night around midnight my path and Sinead O'Connor's finally crossed in a quiet parking lot in Austin, Texas.  Like any cosmic moment, it caught me completely unprepared.  I didn't have a copy of my Law Review article (which was dedicated to her) to give to her and I didn't have a proper camera which meant I had to rely on my cell phone to capture the moment.  Nonetheless, it was all good.  The show she threw before our meeting was fantastic too.  The set began with The Emporor's New Clothes; she could have stopped there for all I cared.  But she went on and covered the gamut of old an new.  So for all you who've been losing sleep over my past troubles, you can rest well now.

Rowdy's Week in Review

ITEM!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I got a book for my birthday.  It was I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon.  Just finished it... so here's my review:

Excellent.  In the three years following Zevon's death, his ex-wife (and life-long friend) conducted nearly 90 interviews with folks important in his life.  She then organized the anecdotes in chronological order inter-splicing them with her own narrative and entries from Warren's journal.  Extremely well done, with pictures throughout, corresponding to the time being discussed.  (I hate when biographies stick a zillion plates in the middle of the book.)  It was Warren's wish that she write his story.  She did one hell of a job.

Like a lot of folks my age, my introduction to Warren's music was in Junior High when Werewolves of London appeared in The Color of Money.  I went out and got his album Sentimental Hygiene and really dug it.  He'd always been on my short list of acts I'd love to see in concert, but it never happened.  A fact that I'm constantly reminded of by my Evil Little Brother who saw him sit in with Paul Schaffer's band at a Letterman taping.

Speaking of my ELB.  He was here this week and took me out to pick out a birthday present, so I grabbed two more CDs:

Warren Zevon-- another replacement for a worn out cassette.

Mutineer-- this one was new to me (though I had Bob Dylan covering the title track.)

ELB also got me a couple of books... which I'll review as I finish them.

ITEM!

Mrs. T got two tickets to Go, Diego, Go! from her office.  Box seats at the Majestic!

 

It was the Acolyte's first theatrical experience and he had a blast.  He sat focussed through the whole thing-- to my great shock and delight.  For being so good, he walked away with his first concert T-shirt.

ITEM!

The Acolyte is absolutely addicted to Guru Guru Dokkaan!  He dances to it daily.... I think he has a crush on Koto-chan (the girl in red.)  He'll start running and screaming toward the TV from across the house when he hears her voice.  Guru Guru is a regular sequence on the baby TV show Inai Inai Baa! (Peek-a-Boo!)

The Big 30-Something

After the Acolyte's monster birthday bash last month, we decided to keep my birthday last week low key.  No party, no cake... but that's fine with me because Mrs. T compensated with presents.  There wasn't much new I wanted, other than a book (which I'll review once I finish it) and Sinead's latest CD:

Theology

My Junior High shop teacher once said a "C" is the worst grade you could get, because it means you actually tried but your effort proved mediocre.  Whereas if you earned an "F" you can still sleep at night knowing you didn't bother.  In a similar vein, I think Rob Sheffield's Rolling Stone review is a cop-out; Sinead can rest well with her one star.  I mean come on, one star is the lowest of the low, like say, Brooke Hogan.  If I was Sheffield's boss and I was paying him to write critical album reviews, I'd can him for wasting company ink. 

Anyway, back to what I was saying, the bulk of my birthday wasn't new stuff at all.  Instead, I replaced several old worn out cassettes with CDs:

Excitable Boy-- Warren Zevon

See, Paul Nelson knows how to write a review.  The CD was recently remastered and contains several bonus tracks.

Pornography-- The Cure

Faith-- The Cure

A couple years ago The Cure released deluxe 2-disc editions of some of their earlier albums.  Disc 1 of each set is a remaster of the original album and Disc 2 contains rarities from the time period the album was released.  So I got Pornography and Faith and I must say, they sound so much better than my 20 year old cassettes of the same.

Faith and Courage-- Sinead O'Connor

This was the only studio album of Sinead's I still didn't have.  I'd downloaded most of the songs before, but it still held a few surprises.  The track Daddy I'm Fine is a rhythmic triumph that I'd never heard before.  The song is bratty, female power-pop and succeeds in everything that Avril Lavigne wishes she could but can't.

Festival 2005-- The Cure

I also got The Cure's concert DVD, Festival 2005.  Great mix of old and new.  Still wish they'd release In Orange on DVD.  My VHS copy has seen better days.

Lastly, the pièce de résistance.  Yeah, it'll be hard to top this birthday.

Things that make you say, "Hmmm."

The Slender Reed recently wrote an enlightening post on Axe Body spray's "Bom Chicka Wah Wah?!?!" campaign.  In it, he derides the marketers on their choice of spelling, then hypothesizes that they may have intentionally misspelled it in order to copyright it.  I thought it plausible. 

Shortly thereafter, I ran across a new J-Pop band whose name lends more credence to Slender Reed's theory:

I've seen a lot of J-Pop band names in my time, but Pee or Boo rank pretty high on my Raise-the-Eyebrows meter.  Not quite as high as this band.  But hey.

One for the Road

An associate of mine called me this afternoon to tell me Keith Taylor had passed away.  I met Keith for the first time about two years ago.  For the next year or so I bumped into him pretty frequently, either in Victoria or Goliad.  The last time I saw him was last August, about a week before he flew out to participate in "Nashville Star Search."  Work took me out of Victoria, but we kept in touch over the phone.   He was such a generous guy. 

Work is taking me back to Victoria next week where I was hoping to see him again.  Guess that meeting will have to wait....

Sorry Robert, but I already made plans

The Cure is headlining the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Florida tonight.  Wish I could be there, but I've had this weekend marked on the calendar far in advance for the wife and kid.  The bluebonnets are in bloom and we need to run out to the Hill Country to take pictures of the Acolyte romping in them.

Lullaby II

The Acolyte started clapping his hands this week, which means he's only a month or so from all-out Para Para.  We expose him to quite an array of music, but the biggest challenge has been finding soft music for bedtime.  I wrote a little bit about this a few months ago.

For one, I'm not a big fan of classical.  I figure the kid has enough Mozart and Beethoven preprogrammed in his toys that I should spare him additional exposure.  He really enjoys Bruce Springsteen; The Rising is one of his favorite albums.  But when it comes to bedtime, he really needed something soothing.  Last week I was at the store looking over the baby CDs and came across a copy of Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Tool.  I thought that was an interesting concept.  I didn't get it though because I thought there had to be other bands covered than Tool, and at $15 a CD I wanted to make sure I did my research.

When I got home I ran a Google search and sure enough, there was a whole series.  So I ordered these:

You can hear clips of all the songs at the Baby Rock Records website.  We'll find out over the next few nights how well he takes to them. 

Oh, and just in case the Acolyte does grow up and become a chamber musician, I'll still attend his concerts.

33

Sinead is talking about taking another stab at touring this year to promote her album Theology.  It's due out June 4.  Hope she books a gig in Austin again.  More importantly, I hope she doesn't repeat what happened last time I had a ticket for her show.

Here's a couple of new MP3s she's released:

33 (London Version)

33 (Dublin Version)

I Want to Make You Something Beautiful

These arrived in my inbox today. 

"I read Isaiah and took the lines from it that I liked and adapted them so they rhymed. My desire was not to use anything that perpetuated the myth of a God character being angry and aggressive.
I suppose I observe a lot of violence done in the name of theologies of various religions, but when you study the actual texts of those religions you find that they don't back up anyone who might use them to justify war or violence or anything really which is unloving of people."

If You Had A Vineyard mp3

Jeremiah (Something Beautiful) mp3

Thanks Sinead.