So I finally got around to rating some stuff I own so that Amazon would actually give me recommendations (all my old ones were lost under the account I can't seem to access anymore from like 7 years ago). But of course as soon as I did it I remembered how easy it was to utterly screw with the poor thing. At least for people like me who like such a wide range of things. I can just picture the little database with smoke coming out of it.. but if you like A then you should like B... ahh but I hate B... MALFUNCTION... DOES NOT COMPUTE... DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
A funny example of this is I rated the game Cid Meyer's Pirates with 5 stars, because it is indeed one of my favorite all time games. SO of course then Amazon is all "Ok then you will like, Civilization" except I don't really like any of the other types of civilization games (with the exception of Sim City)... I like Pirates because it's about bloody pirates!!!!! I get to sail ships and cannonball the crap out of everything and have cool sword fights and dig up treasure! I don't have to sit there and grow corn so that someday if I meet the right requirements I can maybe if I'm lucky accidentally build the Colosseum. But yet the database can't seem to make that distinction.. it is programmed to recommend you other video games based on the same premise, instead of also having a side code to say recommend things in other categories (say books & music) about pirate stuff. And the more you check one thing off with 5 stars and then a similar thing off with "I'm not interested"... the more confused it seems to become. LOL!
Maybe they ought to borrow the thing that figures out "Musicovery" because that seems to work realy really well..

This is the first post I've posted as "Freinds Only" in ages. I probably shouldn't post it at all... but since I feel it has an important message I'm going to anyway. I don't want my family to be able to read it, because even though thier opinions aggrivate the shit out of me sometimes, I still love them and I wouldn't want to hurt thier feelings...
My daughter Meaghan goes two days to a learning center in Lawrence, MA. Lawrence is a city with a lot of ethnic diversity, so the decision to send her there was made by me based on many factors. One the one hand there aren't many places for he to go and interact with other children and actually learn something at the same time (in other words I didn't just want to send her to daycare.. which is to me just like glorified babysitting). I didn't want to wait for her to be old enough to qulify for "Pre-School" because she is very bright and I felt like she'd be missing out on nine months of very important learning if I waited. Also "Little Sprouts" which is the name of her school is highly credited and very pro-active in the programs they offer. And lastly, I didn't want her to be isolated... in other words because I feel like prejudice can start at a very young age, I didn't want to separate her out into a school that was going to consist of solely caucasian teachers and classmates... I felt like diversity would be a positive influence on her. I mean I could have taken the easy way out and just sent her up the street to Winchester... but instead I drive and hour out of my way (each direction) two days a week because I feel like this place offeres the most positive experience for her.
Now that you have the backstory, here's the point of the whole post. Just before Christmas Meaghan would come home singing one of the songs they learned in school, which is sung to the tune of Frère Jacques. It involves placing the name of a teacher, schoolmate, family member in the first two lines ("where is so-and-so"), and for some reason she was always singing about this one boy Owen. So then we started joking that she had a little boyfriend or whatever, esp. when one day by accident the teachers sent some of Owen's artwork home with Meaghan by accident... and we would tease that she took them on purpose. Well I finally saw Owen the other day, and he turned out to be this not very cute little mama's boy (he was crying with his place pressed to the door of the classroom for his mom) so I joked around that I would have to teach my duaghter to have better taste in men (as if somehow I had a reason to talk, LOL!).
So I was relaying this story to my mom yesterday when she picked up Meaghan to watch her for the weekend (she took her away to Nantucket so we could go to a friends birthday party)... and do you know what the first thing she asked me was? "Is he white?". I looked at her as she then back-pedaled and tried to pin it on my dad... "Well you know you're dad.. he's a bit prejudiced".
This is of course quite true. Each and everytime I brought someone home that was not "white" it was always a big deal.. and believe me I've dated several different races (Indian, Korean, Japanese, Lebanese, I could go on here but you get the picture).
What I can't quite fathom is how this happens. Now I realize my dad grew up in the 50's and it wasn't really accepted to mix and that whole deal and esp. since he lived in Dorchester there was a lot of racial tension and whatever.. but I'm sorry I don't get it at all. What the fuck is the difference? I mean we're all human, why does it matter where someone comes from or what color they are? We all have the same basic hopes and dreams and drive and feelings.
I for one am always ready to learn new things, and find people from different walks of life quite fascinating. If I can learn about a new culture or some way of looking at history I haven't considered before.. I'm all for it. I mean sometimes I get bummed out a little that I have no heritage, being a mutt with at least 5 different ethnicities as part of me I can name off the top of my head without actually doing my geneaology.. but at the same time I also appreciate my mixed breed. I just wish the stories had got passed down, but I like the idea of when enough people have relationships and children across race that it thereby makes race a non-issue (in other words if everyone was a mix of at least 5 things like me, we couldn't very well bitch about one another).
I dunno that's my rant... and ironically this happened only 4 days after Martin Luther King day and only a few days before Black History Month.

You will no longer automatically hear music when you load my profile. Instead I have insterted a FineTune playlist, with all the songs I currently have on heavy rotation in my iPod (well at least the ones I could find... no Stuart Chatwood, or Ramases & Selket. Boo Hiss!). So you know play it with or whatever you will... mostly I just got sick of changing my profile song every week, LOL! It's located in the "Music" section of my profile.
ETA: also apparently it is a little bitch about actually listening to the songs. If you start trying to click through too many tracks it's so going to yell at you. You have been warned!

http://www.cddb.com/map/
I happened to pick Massachusetts. Basically this is a map of what people are listening to in different places all around the world. It's kind of interesting in a "I've got nothing better to do at this particular moment in time" sort of way. But I think what I found really odd is the dichotomy between the kinds of bands that make the top ten and the kinds of albums that make the top ten. The band section seems to be comprised of the mainstays of rock, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc. Yet the albums are more current including two entries of happy slappy manufactured pop aimed at children by DisneyCorp. Not to mention the pre-requisite "Now" series album and one from 19 Entertainment (those nice people that bring you American Idol). Kind of odd that, no?
Massachusetts - Current Top 10 Artists: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Pearl Jam
Massachusetts - Current Top 10 Albums: Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, As I Am - Alicia Keys, High School Musical 2, Now That's What I call Music! 26, Canival Ride- Carrie Underwood, Raising Sand - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Coco - Colbie Caillat, All the Right Reasons - Nickelback, Greatest Hits - James Taylor, In Rainbows - Radiohead

So since I use my iPod to listen to music in the car, I often set it to shuffle and could go for probably months without hearing the same song and/or certain songs (iTunes says 42.2days assuming I was playing it straight through). So imagine my surprise when it shuffled over to this song by "Weird Al" Yankovic, which I've listened to for the first time since I finally saw the newest Rocky (VI if you're counting, a.k.a "Rocky Balboa") around Chrsitmas. Normally I don't listen to this song, as it isn't one of my favorites, but I left it on and was amused to realize how it actully ended up being a lot like the plotline/backstory of that film, despite having been written in 1984 (a good 12 years before).
For those that haven't seen "Rocky Balboa" no real spoilers here about the ending, but he's supposed to be somewhere in his 50s (I would say pushing 60, as the plot is supposed to be 30 years later and I specifically remember in the original "Rocky" both Rocky and Adrian were suposed to be "almost 30" as mentioned by Paulie when he was teasing her about not being married yet). So he's been retired for a while... he's put on some pounds (which we then watch him work off) and he's lost all his speed and stamina. What he's been doing in the meantime is he has opened his own restaurant. I believe it's supposed to be Italian cuisine, though I'm probably just assuming that because he's Italian as I don't rememeber them specifically saying for sure. He also has apparently spent all his money, as he is now living in the Kensington district of Philadelphia (basically a working class neighborhood so while his house isn't a slum like his first appartment it's not really that nice either). He spends a lot of the first quarter of the movie moping around and visiting the old neighborhood (for reasons I don't want to tell you as it is a spoiler) and not really doing much. So of course if you know the "Weird Al" song, you already know why this is amusing. If you don't then here are the lyrics:
Fat and weak, what a disgraceGuess the champ got too lazyAin't gonna fly now, he's just takin' up spaceSold his gloves, threw his eggs down the drainBut he's no bum, he works down the streetHe bought the neighborhood deliBack on his feet, now he's choppin' up meatCome inside, maybe you'll hear him sayTry the rye or the kaiserThey're on special tonightIf you want, you can have an appetizerYou might like our salami and the liver's all rightAnd they'd really go well with the ryeOr the kaiserNever eats while on the jobHe heard it's good to stay hungryBut he makes a pretty mean shish kabobHave a taste, they were made fresh todayTry the rye or the kaiser or the wheat or the whiteMaybe I can suggest an appetizerStay away from the tuna, it smells funny tonightBut you just can't go wrong with the ryeOr the kaiserSo today, his deli comes firstSteady dreams of his past days of gloryGoes in the back and beats up on the liverwurstAll the while you can still hear him sayIt's the rye or the kaiser, it's the thrill of one biteLet me please be your catering advisorIf you want substitutions I won't put up a fightYou can have your roast beef on the ryeOr the kaiserThe rye or the kaiserThe rye or the kaiserThe rye or the kaiser

So Meaghan is apparently going to be an actress when she grows up. Yesterday she was pretending to be Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. This is partially due to the fact that we got a free Alvin sweatshirt which is like a size 4 (she's a 2T) so it's huge on her and goes all the way to her feet just like the real Alvin, and also because she's addicted to the song "the Witch Doctor" (though we listen to the original David Seville version not the remake from the new film). Anyway she was really getting into it, insisting that I adress her as "Alvin" and walking around saying "I'm a Chipmunk" and singing aformentioned song, and occasionnally getiing into fake "trouble" so I could yell "Alvin... Alvin... ALVINNNNNNN!!!" at her. Apparently she was so far into this role that today when I went to put a couple of her finger puppets away... they were filled inside with Cheerios. Yes she was hoarding food for the winter! I was almost mad because you know if I hadn't found them we could have gotten bugs, but it was too funny to be angry about

For those that haven't already heard, Heath Ledger passed away today at appx. 3:45PM EST. As always with those who are too young and have promising careers ahead of them, this is sad news. More info at the following:
http://www.afterelton.com/people/2008/1/heathledgerdead

So I finally got around to watching "The Seven Ages of Rock", which I taped over a month ago on VH1 (originally aired 12/16/07). It ended up being pretty decent overall, though not as good as I had hoped.

First and foremost the biggest problem I had with it is it kept feeling like maybe they should have had "The Eight Ages of Rock" instead of just seven. It started out slap-bang in 1965 and went into great detail about "The Who" and their influences from American Blues music but only mentioned "The Beatles" in passing (nothing really in-depth) and not Elvis Presley at all nor a handful of other "pre British Invasion" American rock pioneers which I could probably throw out off the top of my head, but won't simply to keep the article concise and to the point. Now the films were produced by the BBC, so it wasn't that much of a surprise that it kept swinging over into Brit Rock territory except when it was absolutely necessary to mention American rock, but still how do you have a concise history of Rock & Roll without "The Beatles" except as a sort of footnote? There was definitely at least a whole episode of history they left out, maybe just in the interest of fitting it into a week long schedule, I don't know... but disappointing nonetheless. Despite my initial shock of having a history without the "history, I trudged on intent on at the very least being visually and auditorily stimulated.

The first episode: The Birth of Rock concentrated almost solely on "The Who" with some emphasis on "The Rolling Stones", "Bob Dylan", "Cream", "The Kinks", and closing out with a mention of Jimi Hendrix. I actually thought this was one of the better episodes of the bunch, they had some decent samples of the Blues which directly influenced Pete Townshend including "Howlin' Wolf" and "John Lee Hooker" interspersed strategically to emphasize the fact that this is where the sound came from. As with all seven episodes, there was lots of pretty archive footage, and brilliant interviews.

The second episode: "White Light, White Heat" was focused towards early 70's Art Rock/Glam Rock. This was possibly my favorite episode, maybe because I was a little biased, but because I feel like Glam Rock is often ignored in the annuls of Rock history simply on the basis that it's time period was so short and sweet (appx. 1969-1973). It featured first and foremost a mention of two bands which people often forget skirted this era of rock at all, mainly because of their later accomplishments: "Pink Floyd" (Syd Barrett era) and "Genesis" (Peter Gabriel era). This episode also had the brilliance to recognize the contributions of both "The Velvet Underground" and "Roxy Music" instead of just pretending like David Bowie came up with the entire movement as I have seen happen countless times. All in this entire episode almost made up for the omission of the years 1960-1964, almost... but not quite.

The third episode: "Blank Generation" was all about punk, or was it? This was by far my least favorite of all the episodes. The best explanation I can provide is that due to the formulaic way in which they filmed this series, the episode in fact quite by accident turned out to be so very not Punk. They were trying to explain the rebellious spirit that ignited this era, but because it was a documentary it was as if the entire point they were trying to make was washed away, the only entertainment value at all being provided by Johnny Lydon's interviews. Though I do have to give this episode kudos for at least admitting that Sid Vicious had no talent and was only there to "look punk", I'm not sure but that was possibly a first for a Rockumentary. Other bands covered, "The Ramones", Patti Smith, and "The Clash".

The fourth episode: "Never Say Die" was about Heavy Metal. Similar to the Punk episode, I felt as if the spirit of this genre was being quelled by the attempt to explain it. The beauty of some music is its ability to make you "feel" something, and is often lost when trying to put actual words to it. Despite this fact they did alright with it. Citing such bands as "Black Sabbath", "Judas Priest", "Iron Maiden", and oddly enough "Motley Crue" (did I miss a memo somewhere?) the main focus ended up being mostly on "Metallica" and their struggle to keep up with the changing face of music. Ironically while this episode talks about their "Black Album" as if it is some great achievement I kept feeling like somewhere there had to be a group of people like myself who in fact saw it as their "fall from grace", but alas if they do exist, the documentary didn't bother to mention it. Maybe Brits don't understand that "selling out" is not a positive thing?

The fifth episode: "We Are the Champions" focuses on stadium rock, with particular emphasis on "Queen" (as evidenced by the title) and Bruce Springsteen... which to me seems a bit like trying to vote for the Democrats and the Republicans at the same time.. yet somehow they managed to explain it in a way that made sense. I think mainly because they focused on the fact of the first Stadium bands kind of happening upon it by accident that it made it easier to group these two together. "Led Zeppelin" and "Kiss" also both feature in this episode as well as "The Police" and "U2". There was even a small segment regarding "Live Aid" and how these bands kind of realized that they had an enormous opportunity to touch and shape peoples opinions on social issues simply due to the sheer sizes of the audiences they were pulling in. All in all for a fringe of rock that I'm a bit ambivalent towards (and not because I don't like these bands, because I do: but more because of a point I will be making in my comments regarding episode seven) they managed to make it a pretty compelling story.

The sixth episode: "Left of the Dial" is surprisingly solely about American Alternative Rock. Surprising only because up until this point, the series was doing their best to stay away from our neighborhood as much as humanly possible (without compromising the validity of their show). The focus of this episode lay mainly in one Kurt Cobain (it only mentions the other members of Nirvana, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic as if it begrudgingly had to) and "R.E.M.", though it at least bothers to mention "Black Flag", "The Pixies", "Sonic Youth", "Pearl Jam" and "Smashing Pumpkins" in brief spurts. Considering that usually I'm pretty much at a "been there, done that" point in regards to Kurt, only because I get sick of hearing about him as if he was the second coming of Jesus... I actually enjoyed the fact that this episode brought some of his more human qualities into focus. It was a lot easier to identify with his pain and alienation the way they presented him, as a person from a broken home, who struggled economically, and whose final conflict rest in the struggle between the integrity of his music and his own popularity. So all in all, despite the fact that I felt like they could have also gone into more detail in regards to the other bands mentioned (and many I felt were not) it was at least not another "Kurt Cobain is God" "Why?" "Because he just is" story.

The final episode: "What the World is Waiting For" focused on British Indy Rock. It mainly concentrated on Oasis, and in a defining moment an interview with one of its members (I forget which now, but it was not one of the Gallaghers, though it was also definitely amusing listening to Liam swear every other word in his interviews) the whole reason I realized Stadium Rock annoyed me. There was a segment on the famous Knebworth concert in which an estimated 125,000 people attended. The band member in question thought that this concert was in fact a mistake, due to the fact that all he could think of is how somewhere in the very back a mile away was some kid wondering what he spent his money on, as you could no longer see or hear the band, and the video screens put up were unable to keep in sync with the music due to the distances. On top of that this episode had the insight to mention several bands which I truly adored at one point or another, but which for whatever reasons (I guess because they weren't that popular here) we Americans often forget about, mainly "The Stone Roses" and "Suede". "The Smiths", "Pulp", "The Libertines", "Arctic Monkeys" and "Franz Ferdinand" were also covered.

One thing I did notice, production wise that bothered me a lot: often the footage they were using was not linked up to the audio they were using. It was rather like they were using examples of the most "popular" songs by the artists to prove their point about the greatness of the bands, or at the very least make some sort of link-up to people that don't know that much about rock history. It's hard to explain unless you watched it, but basically they would show a clip of the band performing one song, and dub over it with a different song, and it was very obvious too because the lips didn't sync up, kind of like watching a poorly dubbed foreign film. One really strong example I can think of was during the Patti Smith segment, I'm assuming mostly because what she was probably actually saying in the video clip wasn't "television friendly" enough to air.

Overall I found this a bit of a "bare bones" approach to the history of rock. I suppose you could learn something, if you've been living under a rock someplace or if you're currently under the age of say 21 (I still have this longstanding belief that the youth of today doesn't have enough appreciation for where music comes from), but if you're a hardcore enthusiast this is going to leave you with more questions than answers.

For additional information on this series: BBC has a nicely arranged companion website, which provides all the information on everything they left out of the documentary. Kind of wish I had just spent my time surfing over there instead.
In addition VH1 is offering some sample videos for each episode, albeit only a couple that were actually shown in the documentary and more ones that don't relate at all to the time period in question (for example the just posted a bunch of Lou Reed stuff that has very little to do with the Velvet Underground).

Haha nice, Meltman just sent me this page:
http://www.brucefacts.com
"Bruce Campbell Fact 85
There are no such things as dead bodies. There are only zombies who are too afraid of Bruce Campbell to get up."

Yes a bit of a stretch from the famous Bostonian advertising campaign for the Charles River Park high-rise condominium complex ("If you lived here, you'd be home by now") which were so brilliantly placed on Storrow Drive way before the Big Dig was even an idea... so that you could sit there and think about it as you sat in traffic for hours trying to get onto I-93 (especially after 4th of July fireworks). But anyways the point of the post is to further illustrate for no good reason other than I want to the building I was talking about in my previous post, yes the one I used to live in. Theres a great panoramic of Boston HERE
Anyways first do the little plus button thingy you can do to photos to make sure it's full size and then scroll allllllll the way over to the right, yes right to the very end as the shot was taken from the actual bridge. That taller of the first two buildings, (behind the very red building which is the converted side of the church I was telling you about) the one with the triangular sort of roof, yeah that was my old building. Only I lived on the third floor and faced the alley so no awesome views for me, though I did have the pleasure of always being able to smell Kebab & Kurry Indian food (when it still existed).
And in case you care, other Bostonian places I have lived:
Myles Standish Hall (Boston University) [yes it IS almost right under the Citgo sign, but not quite].
Corner of Huntington and Tremont St. [yes it is only about two blocks from a scary part of town, but it's also a short walk to the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts), MCA (Mass College of Art), The Isabella Gardener Museum, and Fenway Park, so yeah I went there, I did that]. Can't find any photos of this part of town, even though there are many Boston photo blogs. My guess, no one wanted to stand around long enough with an expensive camera, lest they find themselves sans wallet (I'm not shitting you a friend of mine who lived a block up from me was treatened at knifepoint just walking home from school).
West Campus/Claflin Hall Boston University - Claflin Hall (aka "C" tower) is the one on the right. I lived on the top floor (13?) in fact you can see my first dormroom in this photo (two windows to the right of the center windows which are a different color). My second dormroom was on the other side (and also had much better radio fequencies as I used to be able to listen to the Brandeis College radio station... beaming in all the way from Waltham!).
Black Box Theater Boston University - OK I didn't technically live there (or did I?) since you know I didn't have my mail forwarded or anything, but I spent enough time there I might as well have. This is a shit photo, but you get the idea, it's small/it's black/it's a box... and they put shows on inside of it.
Tsai Performance Center Boston University - Shh... don't tell anyone but Jon accidentally spilled green paint through the trap door in the stage floor when we were building "Noises Off".
Boston Public Gardens - I used to just randomly walk here at like Two in the morning for no good reason other than I couldn't sleep and it was a great place to think. Very pretty, in fact I had some of my wedding photos done here.
Harvard Square T Station - OK technically that's Cambridge. Used to go there every weekend with my friend Alesa in High School to hang out with other freaks and geeks, listen to musicans and watch street performers and all that. Though usually when we went, there was a bunch of punk rock kids with huge mowawks, skinheads, and other assorted misfits sitting on the roof of the station (the glass looking bit in the bottom left hand corner of the photo).
Well now this just inspired me to go round taking my own damn photos, instead of using other people's. So maybe when it's warm again these will be replaced with a few of my own!