Left of the Dial

busted

I've finished reading the bedtime story to the three youngest—my fourth, I think, and final time through The Lord of the Rings, he said sadly—and I finish with the family ritual my late, great brother John introduced me to, which is asking each of the kids to say something good about their day; Johnny had his boys list three things each, I believe, but I've got way more kids, and their lives are apparently exponentially less rich, because they sometimes struggle to come up with a single good thing about their day. (To be fair, if I allowed The Brawn to list video game-related stuff, he'd never have any problem listing a dozen good things about his day.) 

They each cough up a good thing about their day, and then Max—who's taken to sitting in on our evening's reads–adds hers. I call into the blue room (which isn't blue) to ask Bean for her good thing about the day, as usual, and she chimes in. I don't bother asking the Rose, because although I can't see her, she's always got headphones on at this time of night and can't hear us anyway. 

As we're wrapping up, the Brawn does something that annoys the Golden Weasel. "Please don't," she says, the words polite, the tone sharp, and although I didn't see what happened, I saw her twist her body in a way that would indicate he'd probably poked her in the back with a toe. 

It's late, I don't feel like getting into it, since I'm heading downstairs and he's about to sleep and she's going to sweep the first floor, so I push the parental guidance off for a future date, another day, hopefully when his mother's on duty. But without even really thinking about it, I find myself humming the bassline to MC Hammer's best-known song (said bassline, of course, having been...let's say "borrowed" from Rick James). 

Suddenly, from the blue comes a surprising voice yelling "Can't touch this!" 

There's a stunned silence as we process what just happened. 

Then I yell at the Rose, "You can hear us?!" 

There's another pause, briefer this time, then she bursts laughing. "Four years of pretending I couldn't hear you so I didn't have to come up with a good thing of the day down the drain! 'Can't Touch This' is just too powerful!"

my SoCal boy

We're watching an episode of Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting as we eat dinner, something we do occasionally since it's the rare show all eight (!) of us can agree on. And when it's been an especially hectic or fraught day for some reason, it has a delightful calming effect on us all, even as it spurs non-stop commentary. 

Ol' Bob starts painting some happy little trees, as seen from a distance—it's at about 13:30, for those who require visual aids—in his Bob Rossian way. 

The Brawn is fascinated. "Is that what grass looks like?" he asks, awe-struck. 

Now that I think about it, his lack of familiarity with the substance in question may be less a question of his location and the historic drought and more a commentary on my own personal landscaping abilities. 

 

Now life is pain for you

I admit it, I loved KISS when I was in grade school. Peter Criss is the reason I took up the drums. I mean, what could possibly be cooler than a grown man wearing high heels and painting his face to look like a cartoon cat? 

Anyhoo...

Despite my fanhood, I somehow missed this one. Which absolutely astounds me. How did I not know this by heart? 

Or perhaps it explains my love for the band. 

"Now life is pain for you!"

"Aah! Wow, oh Bobby!" 

Thanks yet again to Kristen for making my life just a tad better. I think.

Stand by Me

So Rolling Stone did one of their big ol' lists recently. Because, I guess, they hadn't done one in almost two issues. 

Not that I object. I love Top Whatever lists. Love 'em. Fun to make, fun to fight over, fun to demonstrate my complete and total superiority on the subject. (Top Five Yak Herders All-Time? Don't even test me.) 

But almost as good are the letters to the editor that tend to come flooding in afterwards. "How could you leave X off the list?" "What the--?! Y as your Number One choice? Are you insane?" Many of them make valid points. And even when they don't—"John Mayer is so much better than Jimi Hendrix!"—they're generally enjoyable. Because what's more pleasant than watching some idiot rant and spew spittle? I mean, isn't that why y'all keep coming back to Left of the Dial? 

Predictably, the Rolling Stone list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time—which, perhaps in an attempt to disguise that it was yet another List, had as its judges not just its regular cadres of critics, but such luminaries as B.B. King, Steve Cropper, Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, James Hetfield and Paul Westerberg—drew just such responses. My favorite? 

"The voters were distinguished, but I urge you to let the voters decide next time. How could a list of singers from the rock era exclude Grace Slick, Ann Wilson or Cat Stevens?" 

The obvious answer: seriously? Are you kidding? 

I'll give you the importance of Grace Slick and Ann Wilson, and I'll certainly grant you Wilson's pipes. But Cat Stevens? Cat Stevens?!

This is why I love Lists. 

Which leads me to the following vidyo which pal Diana sent this to me. It's a collection of musicians from around the world singing the same song, and then mixed together. As flamboozled as I am by the notion that someone would seem to seriously consider Cat Stevens one of the all-time greats, I am even more overwhelmed by the beauty of things such as this. 

Better Than the Beatles

If not bigger. 

Bleed the World

Now THIS is brilliant. 

The Plateaux of Mirror

Left o’ the Dialian Ed sent this recently. 

I found disturbing how well my Alaskan friend knows me, despite our never being closer than several thousand miles apart. Also disturbing is how closely Val’s wardrobe matches my own.  

But in that spirit, I present a pair of YouTube vidyos, perfect for cold, windy, dim fall days.

A Fine, Fine Day (for a Reunion)

So a while back I was raving about YouTube, a site at which I wasted far, far too much time for a few days. Or perhaps, given how much The Bean and The Boy both loved to hang with Dear Ol' Dad and watch us some good ol’ bad videos together, it wasn't really time wasted after all.

I lamented, however, that a video I’d only seen a few times back in the 80s was nowhere to be found. Despite only managing to catch it once or twice, I found the song and the video haunting.

Well, once more, God bless America and YouTube. Here, in all its 1980s glory, is the Tony Carey video, "A Fine, Fine Day (for a Reunion)."

It’s obviously a pretty early video but I found it surprisingly well done for all that. In fact, I found bits really, really well done indeed. It’s not a huge surprise it wasn’t played more often—the singer himself is miles away from the pretty boys MTV was preferring at the time—but a few more spins wouldn’t have been out of line.

Only one problem: I remembered the video and the song all right, but the main shot I recalled, the black and white longshot of the guy running around the top of the soccer stadium, wasn’t actually in it. Back to the starting line…