January 2005 Archives

I saw some good shows; I saw some bad shows. I listened to some good albums; I listened to some bad ones. So, here’s my “Best of” list. It’s not really exhaustive and everything is either in chronological or alphabetical order. I prefer not to get into what is “best” really, everyone knows that since Radiohead didn’t release an album or tour in ’04 that there is no best. So, here you go. Click on album covers to purchase from Amazon

BEST CDs


Artist:

Album:

I really have no idea what to say about this one, and I think that’s why I like it so much. It’s really like nothing else I’ve ever heard. Maybe if Talking Heads had more instruments, more background choirs, more drama, joined forces with Roxy Music and moved to Canada. I don’t know.


Artist:

Album:

This is on here for no other reason then she’s just so damn cute. Seriously, sometimes experiments like this don’t work—think Bobby McFerrin—but this is great, weird, spooky, beautiful music.

The kids in Austin are bobbing heads. Heads fully-clad with trucker caps, yesterday's style; it seems as if it stays in Austin and Athens, probably, where I used to live. An aging rock star of the minor variety sings a swan song. I am sitting in a house in a city and the lights are turned low and an artificial fire is burning across the way. Frozen precip is called for and already accumulating and we bought bread and beer - a Gen X modification on our parents' call. It's been a rough one. What was supposed to be movie night has turned into a movie itself. If I look up, I don't know what I am saying. Three big beers and I am out of it, when it used to take a full bottle of rye. Of course I am melancholy. I know she want sto leave; she's just trying to figure out the way to do it. Soon she will, and I will be talking to you all a little more. I guess that's the way this cookie crumbles.

Bright and shiny it looks good in all lights, even the one at the bar when your tab is due. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. It would light up the night as we walk home on this icy night. Is it VT, GA or TX. An odd triumvirate. Maybe a cactus house with three stray cats lounging in the yard. I drove purposefully past the old house tonight too see where I have come from... so as to attempt to determine where this all might go.

I will be writing songs for strangers soon. If I can make it through to tomorrow. I will write the love they couldn't put to words. Many will engage and marry to my words. Some will be put to rest. You can't hear it on the radio. The stories are much too complex. More like a Vegas act. More like me.

I spoke on the phone to my father today. The difference between the way he answers the phone now and how he did three weeks ago is marked: where there was fear, where there was pain, where was the acceptence of the worst, there now is joy. There's a smile in the voice that only a couple of weeks ago sounded leaden and careworn. You see, my mother walked today. This morning she shuffled along the burns unit corridor with the aid of a Zimmer frame, and then she did it again this afternoon.

Dad is buying a new bed for her return; he's dercorating the bedroom; he's shampooing carpets; he's shopping for new clothes; he's looking forward to what, at our family's lowest point, seemed to be the impossible: Mum's homecoming.

I raise my glass to the NHS. Thank you Mr Bevan! Thank you.

I know you have all been thinking of me. You cannot know how much that means to me. You should know that I have been thinking of you. And that always helps.