Meme: 15 in 15, albums that stick with you

EDITED BY THE EDITOR TO INCLUDE THIS EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a VERY long and self-indulgent post.  Read it only if you are procrastinating. Thank you. -Ed.

Over on Facebook, Cab posted a meme recently.  Usually I resist the memes (and the games), but this one had impeccable timing and I couldn't pass it up.  This one was too much like my 10 Things Game.

15 in 15, Albums

"The rules: Don't take too long to think about it - choose fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. (These aren't favorite albums, necessarily, just the fifteen that will always stick with you.)"

Please play along.  Leave your own list or a link or observations in the comments down below.  

I couldn’t stop at fifteen, and it's my blog so you can’t make me.  Annotating the list turned into a lovely reflection on my 37th birthday.  I present the albums to you in the order they occurred to me.

 Jeff Buckley - Grace (Legacy Ed.)

A few years ago I saw a video of Buckley singing Leonard Cohen’s "Hallelujah," and it moved me.  I vaguely remembered Buckley, especially “So Real,” and went hunting for more songs by him.  This naturally led me to stories about his death.  I read the biography about Buckley and his dad, Dream Brother.  Inspired by the potential for myth surrounding his death, and by several of his songs, I wrote my first screenplay.  My story is not about Buckley, but questions about Buckley at the tenth anniversary of his death motivate the main character, and Buckley is present as a shadowy/imagined figure in several brief scenes.

Fastball - Painting the Corners

The year after I graduated from college I drifted a bit and spent several months working as a retail chick in a souvenir gift shop.  When I got myself together, I applied to graduate school and ended up in Pennsylvania.  That year in San Antonio, the first year Partner and I were married, I spent a lot of time in motivational limbo, wandering and wondering about different paths I might take.  Hearing “The Way,” the most popular song by Austin band Fastball, always makes me think of that year.  “You’re An Ocean” and “Fire Escape” are two of my favorite love songs.  “I believe I’d buy whatever you would sell to me” indeed.

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

When Partner and I first started dating, we spent a fair amount of time drinking and dancing.  In Las Cruces at that time, our favorite local band was Ulcer, made up mainly of engineering geeks.  Their music started out on the computer, and live instruments came later.  NIN influences were heavy.  When we weren’t out with Ulcer, we sometimes went to a club in El Paso.  (NM Aggies, what was the name of that club? Had a number in it? 101?)  One rainy night, the club was fairly empty and the bartender took an interest in us.  He kept us drinking and moving on the dance floor, and I think he’d have taken us both home if we’d let him.  He had the DJ play “Closer” for us several times that night.

Erasure - The Innocents

A good friend in high school gave me this album on cassette.  I still have that cassette, and I think of him anytime I hear a song from the album.  I often listen to this one (on the computer now, not the cassette player) when I’m in an upbeat mood, or at least trying to get myself into an upbeat mood.

Hayes Carll - Trouble in Mind

This album is my Now album.  I’m finding the humor and honest emotion of several songs inspirational. “Drunken Poet’s Dream” and “It’s a Shame” are my absolute favorites here, though I would never pass up a chance to listen to “I Got a Gig.”

The Beatles - The White Album, CD2 and Queen’s Greatest Hits, CD1

One of our birthday rituals is to play “Birthday” (very loud) for the birthday person, but we always leave the album playing while we have cake.  Queen is in the big CD player right after The Beatles, so the two albums go hand-in-hand for family celebrations.

The Commitments Soundtrack

When you’ve spent fifteen years with a person, a lot of albums will be remind you of that person.  This one goes back to those pre-married, having-sex-all-the-time days, but this one isn’t about sex.  Partner and I often watched movies with friends from the lab.  The Commitments was a repeat favorite, and I used to know Jimmy’s “interview” speeches in the bathtub by heart.  Besides, it's a great collection of music.  Harvey Keitel theme-nights were also popular.  Imagine watching Taxi Driver, Bad Lieutenant and The Piano in the same night.

Golden Earring - The Continuing Story of Radar Love

Once upon a time, when this band came on the radio, there would be a quiz.  Partner would ask anyone in earshot to 1. name the band, 2. name their other hit, and 3. name the number of years between the hits (answers at the bottom of the post).  He did it so much, that several people we knew would automatically answer the questions without prompting when the songs came on the radio.

Cake - Fashion Nugget

I just love this album. Quick poll, are all Cake songs about sex?  Yay or nay?

No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom

I want to be Gwen Stefani when I grow up. Ok, no. This is another college album that I associate with empowerment and independence and a particular time of change in my life.

Deep Blue Something - Home

Deep Blue Something is a Denton, Texas college band and Home is a quintessential college album.  After about a year of dating and hedonism, Partner and I separated for several months.  No, separated makes it sound like we didn’t see each other.  Let’s just say we moved apart and spent a few dark months being stupid.  I saw Deep Blue Something at the NMSU Student Union by myself.  “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” made me cry.  I’m not sure what woke us up to (my) our stupidity, but a few months later we decided to move to San Antonio together.  On a whim, we got married first.

Prince - 1999

When I was about twelve or thirteen, my aunt gave me a bootleg cassette of Prince albums.  I was horrified and thrilled to find a track called “Irresistible Bitch” and thought my aunt was THE coolest person in the world.  She is still rad and I have loved Prince ever since.  1999 is my favorite Prince album.  Purple Rain is a close second, and in middle school I could frequently be found reciting the Dearly Beloved speech from the beginning of “Let’s Go Crazy” to my bathroom mirror.

The Best of ZZ Top, or perhaps Deguello

ZZ Top is all about Dr. Hoffman and his organic chemistry lab at the end of the hall at NMSU.  I worked in there with Caleb, another undergrad who was trouble then but a dentist now, and Naresh, a post-doc who thought we were crazy, lazy, spoiled American kids.  All true.  I had a pair of cheap sunglasses at the time.  But never a Pearl Necklace.

Paul Simon - Graceland

This album always makes me feel good.  “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” is one of my favorite songs.  I think it’s the resonant sound of the guitar on the whole album that gets me.

Barenaked Ladies - Rock Spectacle and Dave Matthews Band - Crash

 On Facebook I listed Under the Table and Dreaming, but I switched albums because the songs on Crash remind me of the great group of people I worked with at Blockbuster Video and WaldenSoftware. Together with the Rock Spectacle, these songs remind me of the best parts of those months of darkness and stupidity.  Brian, Erin, Tony, Hector, Cab, Steve, Jason, and several others I can picture but whose names are not coming to me.

Melissa Etheridge - Your Little Secret

This one reminds me all about Partner and the first apartment we lived in together.  And our roommate who had a nervous breakdown.

INXS - Kick

In middle school, my favorite media included this album and Top Gun (the movie and its soundtrack).  Michael Hutchence may or may not have been involved in my earliest sexual fantasies.  But I’ll never tell.

G Love and Special Sauce - Philadelphonic

I discovered G Love in graduate school in Pennsylvania.  I love the mellow, groovy, funk and the playful lyrics.  I used “Rodeo Clown” to demonstrate a rhetorical analysis activity with some college freshmen once.

Joe Ely - Letters to Laredo (or anything by the Flatlanders)

Ely grew up in the Texas panhandle, and much of his music and that of his other band The Flatlanders is evocative of the wide open spaces and the cultural flair of New Mexico.

Spin Doctors - Pocket Full of Kryptonite

“Jimmy Olsen Blues” is a sexy song.  "Two Princes" reminds me Dave.

New Order - Substance

This album is wrapped up in memories of two high school boyfriends.  More one than the other since he was The First and I still have the mix-tape he made me that finishes with “Blue Monday.”  Great tape.  The Beatles, Dead Kennedys, Modern English…. Very eighties.

Smash Mouth - Fush Yu Mang

During my third year at NMSU, within a year of graduating with a B.S. in Biochemistry so I could go go medical school, I changed my mind.  My grandfather died.  My estrangement from my father escalated.  I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.  Blame grief.  Or blame my awesome Chaucer prof.  I finished the B.S., but took an extra year to finish the credits for a dual degree and earned a B.A. in English as well.  One of the best decisions I ever made, and I did it with “Walking on the Sun” playing on the radio over and over again.  Though the awesome prof once told me that Smash Mouth was too derivative for his taste.

Morrissey - Years of Refusal

This is another album about where I am Now, in this transition back into my own work, separate from my mothering identity.  I’ve written about this one before here.

They Might Be Giants - Flood

I will always think of my best friend in high school when I hear any song by They Might Be Giants.  These are the songs we shouted as we skipped arm-in-arm through high school.

Guns ‘n Roses - Appetite for Destruction

High school.  Driving too fast, being too loud.  The back of the band bus.  The drummers.  Yeah, the drummers.  And, grudgingly, the co-opting of “Welcome to the Jungle” for every major sporting event.

U2 - Joshua Tree

The summer when I was ten, I went to California with my sister and grandmother to visit my cousins, aunt and uncle.  My cousin, a few months older than me, was obsessed with this album and in the throes of his first major crush.  He played it non-stop the whole time we were there.  San Diego is “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

Everclear - Sparkle and Fade

If you’ve followed me on Twitter for any length of time, you might know that I’ll tell you that this one is about upbeat college nihilism, right?

Rick Springfield - Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet

I had a hardcore preteen crush on Rick Springfield, circa “Jesse’s Girl,” and this album is the first one I ever bought with my own money.  I made my dad take me to the mall so I could get it.

Ronco’s Funnybone Favorites

I played Rick Springfield and this album endlessly on my little red and white portable record player.  “Get out of here with that dun dun duh, and don’t come back no more!”  It includes novelty hits from the seventies, all of which I can still sing for you if you want (you don’t).  “Alley Oop,” “Stranded in the Jungle,” “DISCO DUCK”!!!!  Good times.

Observations and reflections:

1. More albums in this list remind me of college than of any other time in my life. 

2. I didn’t include a single mention of my children, unless you count The White Album.  If I added albums associated with my kids, I’d throw in Skip Ewing’s BKB, especially the song “Indian Elephant Tea,” or either album by Gnarls Barkley.  

3. Unsurprisingly, Dan, my Partner of fifteen years and Spouse for a lot of those, features in many entries. 

4. Music and sex belong together. 

5. I'm having a good life.  

Answers to the quiz: 1. Golden Earring, 2. Radar Love or Twilight Zone (there were only two), and 3. ten years.  

Of Skull-squeezing and Maturity

I ran down the street this morning trying to convince myself that I wanted to run.  I didn’t want to run, but I was doing it anyway.  I had a perfectly reasonable argument about why it would have been better to sleep an extra forty-five minutes.  On this morning, like the past several mornings of running, a song popped into my head.  “That’s How People Grow Up” by Morrissey, delivered with irony, but true nonetheless.  Maturity may represent those moments when we do things even though we don’t want to.  

That sounds more skeptical than I mean it to sound.  I was really pondering self-reliance at the moment the song came to me.  I was considering whether I could rely upon myself to take care of myself.  A blog post yesterday by Jamie Ridler inspired the rumination.  A number of different people rely upon me to do things in any given day.  My children, my partner, other family, friends, teachers, neighbors.  I think I’m fairly trustworthy.  But it has often been the case that I sacrifice my own personal goals and intentions in order to fulfill the needs of others.  This is natural for me, and to a certain extent necessary, as a fully-functioning member of a family and society, but it grates upon me sometimes.  

Another song often occurs to me in those moments of frustration with the world and myself, also Morrissey, singing “Something is Squeezing My Skull,” delivered with the charming aplomb of the chronic depressive putting on a good show.  

I’ve heard some people say, skeptically, that if you don’t take care of yourself no one will.  I don’t completely agree with this sentiment, but it is true for my personal goals and intentions.  If I don’t run, no one will run for me (and what good would that do?).  If I don’t run, no one will force me to run (and I’d resent it if they did).  I could substitute other intentions for running: writing, updating this website, thinking.  If I can’t trust myself to take care of myself physically and emotionally, that could at some point undermine other people’s trust in me. 

So when Morrissey chides me about maturity, I can take it.  Lately I’ve motivated myself with the idea that the morning run is to scrub and tighten.  I scrub out my asthmatic lungs and the fog from my brain.  I tighten up my bones and heart and will.  When I think that way, the skull-squeezing lessens, and so does fear in all of its insidious permutations (Will my work be good enough? Will someone jump out from behind that bush and harm me?)  

I’ve written before that I was inspired to return to running by Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running.  When Murakami talks about running, it is both literal running, and a metaphor for what he can accomplish in himself, and what limits him.  When I talk about running, I am staking out a space in my life for self-reliance.  I can and will take care of myself, physically and mentally.  Don’t ever doubt that running is just as much about my mental health as it is about my physical health.  When my life is frustrating, or the skull-squeezing starts, I run away.  I run away just long enough for the endorphins to kick in, and then I can run back, confident that I can handle anything that comes along because I have taken care of myself.  

When the endorphins kicked in this morning, I did enjoy myself.  Being prickled by maturity is perhaps a good thing.  It’s when I’m prickled by the skull-squeezing that I know it’s time to run. 

Books, music, who could ask for more?

This is what I want to do all day long. Anyone with me?

Hey You Guuuuuuuuuuuuys!

Have you heard that the Sesame Workshop (the production company that has produced many great children’s television programs, including Sesame Street, Dragon Tales, and 3-2-1 Contact, among others) has resurrected and revamped The Electric Company?  I fondly remember this show—that featured the likes of Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman, among others—from my childhood.  When I heard it was being rebooted, I was skeptical.  

Check out this Then and Now spot and then come back.  

Sonar X4 and I have watched two of the new episodes, and at first I thought it was completely cheeseball.  But I’m trying to keep an open mind and give it a chance.  The storylines and the acting are fully campy, but familiar features like the Sound-out silhouettes are there.  A number of celebrities have appeared already, including retired NFL player and sports commentator Tiki Barber.  

After one whole episode, I started to warm to it.  The camp aside, the show, which claims to target six to nine year olds, does not talk down to kids, and pulls in a good variety of simple words and more advanced words when demonstrating a concept.  

For example, in the episode we watched today, they were talking about “-ight.”  They started with the standard words—“right,” “light,” “might,” etc.—but went on to do “frightening,” “bullfight” and others that pushed beyond the basics in a clever way.  They even joked about how it can be confusing that sometimes the sound is spelled “-ight” and sometimes it’s spelled “-ite.”

But today, I was completely won over by this closing music video.  I defy you to not get a warm fuzzy feeling in your chest, or to not at least tap your feet.  I admit to doing the electric slide through the kitchen when I listened to the video a second time.  Shh, don’t tell anyone.  

So I’d say the show is worth a look-see (or a Plug in, if you want to follow the electricity metaphors), if it’s available in your area, even if you don’t have a young person around to share it with.  

Bead choices and Corb Lund

The Deployment Socks are progressing.  I’ll finish the heel today probably, but there’s nothing terribly interesting about them for the time being.  I like the ‘Semper Fi’ suggestion, but I’m still pondering, so if you come up with any other ideas, send ‘em my way.  

In the meantime, Mystery Stole 4 begins in a few weeks.  I have yarn, and now need to choose beads.  

Here’s the brief on the beads from the designer:

“This year beads are not an option, they are an important part of the design.  I suggest that you choose beads that show up on your yarn.  You may prefer high or low contrast for your beads, but make sure they don’t get lost.”  

Here’s what I have:  KnitPicks Gloss Lace yarn (70% merino wool, 30% silk) in the color Celery.  And an array of bead choices that will not get lost in the yarn.  

It’s overcast today, so the color in this photo ended up shinier than I wanted it to be, but it’s close.  Those ‘rays’ around the yarn are tubes of 8/0 beads in (clockwise from the left) Lavender, Orange, Green, Blue-Green, Cranberry Red, Bubblegum Pink, Transparent Coral, and Yellow.  The two Sonars that have expressed an opinion like the Yellow.  I like the Yellow and the Green, but I am open to persuasion toward a less likely combination.  What do you think?

I have to wind those lovely hanks into usable balls now.  

While I’m doing it, I’m listening to the clever ballads of Canadian troubadour Corb Lund (thanks CM!)  What a great combination of clever lyric, good storytelling, aw shucks humor and glossy [edit: dark brown] curls.  I mean, seriously, who would not be charmed by a sharp songwriter that both twangs AND says ‘out’ like an owl?  ;)  There are too many good songs to name them all, but the “Roughest Neck Around” from Five Dollar Bill is a great tribute to oil workers, filled with both rich imagery (“pulling dragons from the ground”), an engaging beat, and a rousing populist tribute to the man who “brings the power to the people.”  Also don’t miss the very funny “The Truck Got Stuck” from Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer, or the smart, poignant, and subtly political war songs from the entire Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! album.  Good stuff.