I have nothing more to say to you, so please don't ever ask.

I was searching for something on G-Mail and part of my search brought up an e-mail from a friend that I hadn't seen since it was sent. The funny thing about it is that in retrospect, it was a lie, an outright lie to me about something that I thought was important.

As I was reading it, this song came up and it hit me like a punch to the stomach.

Anyway, as part of this navel gazing, I realized that it doesn't matter all that much anymore, so...maybe it is time for me to move on. That's easy, right?

Stunningly Interesting

Emma Pollock: "Red Orange Green" from Chad Raddington on Vimeo.

This video and the way it integrates the underlying music is stunning and thought provoking, if you are a guy like me who spends far too much time on this stuff.

Via The Awl

Karl Rove and Howard Dean Invade Albany

Karl Rove and Howard Dean had a moderated debate at UA on Thursday night.

For full coverage, please head to All Over Albany

I managed to video the first question and I am putting it up here.



Yes, that is the wonderful Ms. Lee telling the protester to "Shut Up". She was able to procure a ticket for me.

You can also check out what was being said live on Twitter by searching for hashtag #deanrove

A Very Special Message

Thanks for taking the time to watch this.

This is an explanation about why I was so quiet over the past couple of days, a request for prayers and good thoughts about @PVH1976 and a request for everyone to go to the American Diabetes Association website.

BaristaBabe's Contribution to The Singles Project

The first two were obvious, especially since I wanted to add them to my 25 album list somehow. I don't have really clear reasons for loving them, but I remember when I first discovered them both. I was 16 and a high school band played both at the talent show. Cheesy, I know. But the lead singer - who, poor guy, suffered me as a date to one of my proms (and I mean "suffer" in a very real sense, I was a god-awful date) - sang both of these amazingly. The two songs have been favorites of mine every since.

1. Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
If possible, I play this song during every road trip (not that I take a ton of them). Growing up, leaving youth behind, uncertainty about the future, maybe a bit of regret about the past. All of that, and yet this song somehow lifts my spirits as well.
You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero, that's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's bustin' open, these two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks




2. Angie - The Rolling Stones
No real explanation for this, but I love it. Love it, love it, love it. Maybe it was the opening few lyrics that caught me when I first heard it - right place, right time.
Angie, Angie
When will those clouds all disappear?



3. Elsewhere - Sarah McLachlan
I absolutely had to have a Sarah McLachlan song on here. Oddly enough, I haven't listened to her in ages. But Elsewhere immediately came to mind. If I were to dig up (and they exist somewhere, in storage) my high school notebooks, the lyrics to this song would be found written all over the margins and dividers. Well, any of those from 10th and 11th grade, I suspect. (Along with several other Sarah songs from Fumbling Towards Ecstasy - it was difficult to choose between Elsewhere, Mary, and Hold On.) I heard how I was feeling in this song. (In the entire album, really.) To say I was embracing my depression isn't exactly correct, but I was letting it consume me. I was owning it. I had become . . . comfortable in it, at least in the sense that it had become familiar, what I knew.
I believe
This is heaven to no one else but me
And I'll defend it as long as I can be
Left here to linger in silence
If I choose to
Would you try to understand?



4. 10,000 Days (wings pt. 2) - Tool
By far the most emotional song Maynard has ever written or sang. And you can hear it in his voice when he sings it live. The song gives me goosebumps and, particularly when live, makes me tear up. Especially around here:
You're the only one who can hold your head up high,
Shake your fists at the gates saying:
"I've come home now!
Fetch me the spirit, the son, and the father.
Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended.
It's time now!
My time now!
Give me my, give me my wings!"



5. Swan Dive - Ani Difranco
The album Little Plastic Castles was the first full Ani album I fell madly in love with. This quickly became my favorite song. It was one of those songs when - if I heard it live - I became happy. It's the sort of song I want to sing along to at the top of my lungs. I think, at least in part, I always wished I could embrace, adopt, become the attitude of the song. Courage, confidence, abandon . . . in life, love . . .
'cuz I don't care if they eat me alive
I've got better things to do than survive
I've got a memory of your warm skin in my hand
and I've got a vision of blue sky and dry land



Runners up: Dirty Diana - Michael Jackson (because it's simply an awesome rock & roll song, go for it and giggle at me); Peaceful, Easy Feeling - The Eagles (it makes me want to sing and dance around my apartment, given my usual demeanor this is something to be embraced); Hotel California - The Eagles (it's really all about the opening guitar solo

Obama's Nuclear Plan

There is an almost surely apocryphal story about President Reagan being so concerned about nuclear war after seeing The Day After that he changed his policy on nuclear war and Mutually Assured Destruction and began working with the Soviets on arms limitation. It was a simpler time then, wasn't it?

Now, President Obama is engaging in the same thing.

Do you think as a younger man, he was influenced by Superman IV?



Rachel Maddow talked last night about the Obama Treaty and Reagan's work in the same sphere.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And this morning, President Obama (while daring the Senate not to ratify it) signed the START with Russia's President Medvedev.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Exploitative

Come on, Tiger!

You became a Wilt Chamberlain like baller and this is your sponsor's public response?



You are wonderfully self-exploitative.

Wednesday's Earworm

Awful by Hole



Part of this stems from the previous post, but I woke out with this song in my head, and even after listen to an amazing new piece of music (disco opera about Imelda Marcos, anyone?)it is still stuck in my head...maybe for good reason.

Everyone Lies

As is well known, I have a thing for Rachel Maddow.

Last night, my well deserved respect for her was raised to a new level (no, I didn't watch it live, I was watching the Yankees beat the Red Sox, though I listened to the audio as I was falling asleep which provided odd [at best] dreams.) and I felt the need to share it.

Rachel on ACORN, Fox News and false didacticism...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Plus, earlier in the show, she used my favorite phrase..."May you live in interesting times" and mentioned that more often than not, it is used as a curse.

Via Maddow Blog

More coverage of this can be found at Mediaite.

Zero History

I will admit that I hate the idea of waiting until September to read this book.

Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, (along with Accelerando and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom)have really shaped the way that I look at the world we live in now and the world we will very soon be living in.

And...

I suppose that's the point of fiction.

If Xkcd were set to music...

I have a feeling that it would be a lot like this.

Frightened Rabbit - "I Feel Better" from This is What We Imagine on Vimeo.

Via NPR

Too True Not to Share

If you cannot make out the text, please click on the image in order to expand it.

Via Ryan via All That's Interesting

Rachel Maddow on The Today Show

I know that some people like Rachel and I forgot to post this earlier.

Enjoy...Rachel talks about the Supreme Court and the Filibuster, as well as the economy, jobs, and a number of other things going on in Washington.

The State

Kempt talks about when MTv was relevent and when The State was important. The State has posted a bunch of their videos on Vimeo.

The clip below was not listed on the Vimeo site but it is my favorite...simply for the bit about Bob Dylan...it never stops me from laughing.

The State - MTV Shows

Art That Makes Me Happy?

On Saturday, I went to see some of Michael P. Farrell's photographs at The Recovery Art Event at the Marketplace Gallery.

While I was there, I saw pieces by Robert Gullie and I decided at that moment that "I WANT".

There is one piece, which is not on the artist's website, that I covet.

Yes, Sky Bully, I am coveting!

Tuesday's Earworm

There is something about Radiohead that always allows for the earworm that was punishing me earlier (like Cream) to be happily replaced by something wonderful. Well, never happy when it comes to Radiohead but you know what I mean.

This is Optimistic.



Flies are buzzing around my head
Vultures circling the dead
Picking up every last crumb
Big fish eat the little ones
Big fish eat the little ones
Not my problem give me some

You can try the best you can
If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
(x2)

This one's optimistic
This one went to market
This one just came out of the swamp
This one drops a payload
Fodder for the animals
Living on an animal farm

If you try the best you can
If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
(x2)

I'd really like to help you man
I'd really like to help you man.....
Nervous messed up marionette
Floating around on a prison ship

If you try the best you can
If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
If you try the best you can
If you try the best you can
Dinosaurs Roaming the earth (x3)

Seeing Something Like This...

Makes me happy about the wonderfully quirky people of Albany.

FPR's List of His Top Five Singles

FPR listed his top five singles as part of the Singles Project.

1. Venus in Furs (VU) - it is allusive to a novel written by the man from whom the word masochism is derived; love the viola. have sung it a number of times at piano bar in justins.

2. Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones) - another masterpiece...

3. The Wanderer (Dion and the Belmonts) - kind of my theme song...sort of. Underneath it all, you have a guy who has a fear of commitment.

4. Wouldn't It Be Nice (Beach Boys) - mostly for the melody.

5. Ain't No Fun (Snoop Doggy Dogg) - i know it's wrong...the message at least...but it's a fun song that typifies the Gangsta mindset with women. Mama don't let your babies grow up to be gangstas.

Ear Worm

Yes, it is Cream. Yes, it is the proto Iron Maiden song.

I don't know how it got in my head, just that it is there and I want it gone...

Zombie Films

I was fairly indifferent about this film and then I saw this trailer. Now I am looking forward to it.

Albany in the Spring

Albany can be really pretty and last night it was gorgeous.


This was taken on Madison Avenue above the Empire State Museum.

Oh, Albany

While it sounds like a great combo...I don't know if it will work in Albany.

And a Happy Sunday to You (and you and you and you)