otoh

Kids these days. I just don’t know. I’ve tried to set an example. Where did I go wrong?

One of my nephews is getting married this weekend. I’ll catch up with y’all next week. Ciao, baby….

P.S. Moon cakes for everyone! It’s Moon Festival time again.

I ran across this a couple weeks ago and just realized that I’m nearly out of time to post about it. It seems that NASA was planning a new marketing campaign. Some of the folks at Wired thought that polling the public for suggestions might prove a better way to come up with something that’s creative and relevant. (They especially want to appeal to the 18-24 age group.) They’re even offering prizes. Feel free to post some ideas here, but if you want to enter their contest you have to go there before 28 September.

Some people are taking it more seriously than others. Here are a few that have already been posted. I’ll add a couple of my own later.

• NASA: When I was your age, Pluto was a planet
• Think Outside The Globe.
• See the Moon? Yeah, we hit that.
• NASA: Actually this *is* rocket science.
• NASA: We’re gonna need a bigger rocket.
• NASA: Pwning aliens since 1958

Janet over at The Art of Getting By offered a challenge as part of her regular Tell It To Me Tuesday feature. What are your favorite songs with names in the titles?

As you might have guessed from my recent posts, music has been on my mind a lot lately. So Friday afternoon I opened a text document and when I thought of a song that fits the category (in between blog reading and email) I made a note of it. I had a couple hours of work to do on the computer yesterday and added several more. And I thought of a few more last night and this morning. What I decided not to do was look through my CD collection, my mp3 player, or search online. [Because that would have been more like research than a game....] I have also not looked yet at the comments or other players — I know I’m going to be smacking my forehead, “I should have thought of that one too….”

When I started I thought I might be able to come up with at least one for each letter of the alphabet. (With research I still think I could.) But at this point I have 79 songs and no names that start with H, I, O, U, X, Y, or Z. I went back and looked and Janet didn’t specify that it has to be a person’s name, but I assume that was the intent so I took Wildfire and Me and You and a Dog Named Boo off my list anyway. It was easiest for me to think of song names that start with A (11 of them), but I ended up with almost as many (10 each) of J, R, and S.

But this is about my favorites. Here are my top picks [with links to YouTube].

• Alison by Elvis Costello. I first saw Elvis Costello on his infamous Saturday Night Live performance in December 1977. I thought at first it was one of their skits. [The first time I saw a commercial for the Early Pregnancy Test was during SNL and I thought that was one of their fakes, but that's another story.] But I’ve liked a lot of his stuff over the years. I once heard Alison described as “the first new wave ballad”. The truth is though, my favorite version of this song is the cover by Linda Ronstadt on her Living in the USA album.
• Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin. This is another cover since the song was recorded first by Roger Miller and Gordon Lightfoot and written by Kris Kristofferson, but I think even he says that hers is the definitive recording of the song. It’s also sadly notable as a rare posthumous number one song since Joplin died shortly after it was recorded.
• Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies. Hmmm, this post could double for another TITMT on favorite cover songs. This is a Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground song but I love love love the Cowboy Junkies version. This is probably their best-known song from probably their best-known album, The Trinity Session. And this is interesting, while looking for links for this post I found a reference in Wikipedia that “Lou Reed himself described it as ‘the best and most authentic version I have ever heard.’” I wonder if Elvis Costello ever commented on Ronstadt’s version of Alison?
• Julia by The Beatles. My reasons are not strictly related to the song itself. Julia is the name of my first great love. She had never heard the song before we dated and she told me that her initial reaction was that she didn’t like hearing her name over and over in a song. I don’t know where she is today. Last I heard she was married with a couple of kids.
• Layla by Derek and the Dominoes. I like the original much better than the unplugged version (once described as “Layla Light”) that Eric Clapton released in the ’90s. The song is notable in one respect (along with Something in the Way She Moves and Wonderful Tonight) as one of a trio of songs inspired by Pattie Boyd who divorced George Harrison and married Clapton. The raucous guitar riff provided by Clapton and Duane Allman and mellower piano riff are an irresistible mix. But this song is indelibly marked in my memories of a relatively happy time in high school. During half time at my high school basketball games the drill team would perform their “Famous Flashlight Routine” to this song. As the piano part began all the lights in the gym would go out and the routine continued with only the light of flashlights held by the girls as they danced around. [Hey, at least there was no disco ball....]
• Hey Paula by Paul and Paula. I have similar reasons for liking this as for liking Julia. She’s also married with a couple kids, but I know where she is. She’s the “Old Flame” that I wrote about a while back. I don’t remember if we ever talked about this song.
• Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega. This song was followed on her Solitude Standing album by Luka, which also fits the category of name songs but is not one of my favorites. There are references on the song to several real-life events but there are also two [I think] really interesting pop-culture connections. The setting and title were inspired by Tom’s Restaurant in New York city. The outside of Tom’s Restaurant was used as Monk’s Cafe in the TV sitcom Seinfeld. And when Karlheinz Brandenburg was developing the algorithm for mp3 audio compression, he used the song as a benchmark to make sure that the quality of her voice remained after the compression.

Fred and Ginger sat in a corner of the dimly lit room. The open door framed a young woman. The outline of her body was clearly visible through the fabric of her dress — silhouetted by the bright sunlight outside.

Ginger said, “That girl should be wearing a slip.”

Fred said,

Some time in the late ’80s I was at a social gathering when the host said, “You have to hear this song.” He put on this tune by Uncle Bonsai, Boys Want Sex in the Morning. Freakin’ hilarious! And with other titles like Cheerleaders on Drugs, Don’t Put it in Your Mouth, Premenstrual Syndrome, Boys in Heat, Let’s Pretend We Never Met, Puberty Wars, Running With Scissors, and I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I’m Trying To Read… well, let’s just say I was hooked. I found a couple of their albums on cassette at a local shop, but nothing on CD. I bought the tapes, the only ones I have ever bought since I started buying CDs. (I never much liked the cassette format anyway, but for a while it was the most practical way to take music in the car….)

I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of their songs on the radio. I never saw them in concert — they were based in Seattle and played mostly around the northwest I think and they disbanded in 1989. Bummer. But on a lark I did a search online last year and found out that they have been performing together again AND most of their stuff is now available on CD. And maybe next time I visit my sister up in Seattle I’ll be able to catch a live show.

I mentioned in a recent comment that I’ve always liked clever lyrics. How’s this for clever?

Boys want
Sex in the morning
Sex in the morning
When I’m not my best
Boys want
Sex in the morning
Sex in the morning
Tearing at my breast
Boys want
Someone who’s winsome
Someone to pin
Someone to undertake
Boys want
Someone to fall on
Someone to crawl on
Someone half awake

Boys want
Sex in the morning
Sex in the morning
Covers at my knees
Boys want
Rotten conditions
Passive positions
I am a trapeze
Boys want
Someone who’s sleepy
Someone who’s keeping
Nothing in too deep
Boys want
Somebody first hand
Someone to burst
And then go back to sleep

There is nothing I like better
Than a jostle now and then
With the hands under the sweater
And the back that starts to bend
But before my eyes are open
I don’t want to have to hide
From a simpleton still poking
With a thimbleful of pride

Boys want
Sex in the morning
Sex in the morning
Soiling the sheets
Boys want
Sex while I’m yawning
Suddenly spawning
When I’m half asleep
Boys want
Someone unconscious
Somebody not just
Waiting for a thrill
Boys want
Sex with surprises
Sex with sunrises
Someone on the pill

There is nothing like a lover
Who can satisfy your needs
And the joy when you discover
Just how often he succeeds
But before my eyes can focus
I don’t need him to surprise
By descending like a locust
On a field of sleeping thighs

Boys want
Sex in the morning
Sex in the morning
When I’m still not fresh
Boys want
Something that strikes them
Someone who likes them
Fondling their flesh
Boys want
Someone to take and
Someone to break and
Comment on their size
Boys want
Someone to prod and
Someone who’ll nod
And then just close her eyes

I was flipping through channels on the TV recently [how did we ever live with just four channels and (gasp!) tuning KNOBS?] and caught a few seconds of an infomercial for one of those compilation records. Number one songs from the ’70s or something like that. One of the songs they played a snippet from [before I clicked away] was Kiss You All Over by Exile.

This is another song that was controversial in its time though I never understood why. The most provocative lines are in the chorus:

I wanna kiss you all over
And over again
I wanna kiss you all over
Till the night closes in

Pretty tame stuff really even compared to what was out at the same time. But it was a big hit.

I saw Exile in concert once. I think they were the opening act for Journey. In the late ’70s, that was pretty hot stuff. [As much as I love music, I hate big crowds even more. So I haven't been to a huge number of concerts. But even so they tend to blur in my memory. And I wasn't drugged up at any of them. Go figure.] A few years later I saw them playing in the lounge at a bowling alley in Lexington, KY. The music business has its ups and downs, after all.

But the band had started as a group of high school kids in the early 60’s in the town where I would later go to college, Richmond, KY. They played with the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars in the late 60’s and were a big regional band in central and eastern Kentucky. After their precipitous rise and fall they morphed into a country band. There have been myriad changes in the band membership, but they’ve enjoyed pretty consistent if less conspicuous success over the years.

So anyway, in the late ’70s I was going to school in Richmond, KY and saw a local band hitting it big opening for Journey [I think] in Lexington, KY. And a few days ago I heard a few bars of a song that transported me back there. That was a cold winter… but that’s another story….

I rented a couple movies this weekend. Apocalypto and Charlotte’s Web. Could I have found two more different films? I dare you to try…. If I’m picking up more than one movie I usually try to mix genres. It makes for a more interesting experience. And it feeds my attention deficit. Like reading while the TV is on. But that’s a different story.

I learned my lesson about renting movies that are too similar when I watched Thelma & Louise and Whore the same weekend. [Don't ask.] I suppose I should explain that I mean those are too similar because to me they are both depressing chick flicks. Bummer of a weekend! Whore was released about a year after Pretty Woman and was much more realistic about the life of a prostitute [except the mug shots I see on TV don't look much like Julia Roberts or Theresa Russell]. It got little press and mostly mediocre reviews. And I never understood why Pretty Woman was such a popular movie. I mean, aside from the fact that Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are both pretty people, I never got the attraction. Unless we really want to encourage our daughters to become hookers until some rich jerk comes along….

Anyway, I didn’t have high expectations for Charlotte’s Web, but it was entertaining enough. My fourth grade teacher read that book to the class [and everybody else cried at the end, but not me]. So I watched for sentimental reasons [not that I'm sentimental at all -- mental, but not sentimental]. And at least Julia Roberts was a spider and I think we should encourage girls to be spiders rather than hookers.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Apocalypto since it got a little lost in unrelated publicity surrounding it’s director. The violence wasn’t as graphic as I expected, but there is a lot of it. For me though, it just kind of dragged along and I never bought into the story. You’d have to believe [or suspend disbelief] in mysticism or wild coincidences and I just couldn’t for this one. And the end… are you kidding me? But I won’t post a spoiler.

Memories are malleable. Trust me… until I find the articles I was going to cite.

I’ve been thinking about memories and remembering. Here’s a funny story:

A friend was bragging about a memory course he had taken. He went on and on about how much it had improved his recollection and how easy it was to learn. So I asked him what the name of the course is. He paused, stared off into space a moment, and said, “What’s the name of that red flower that lovers give each other?”

“Um, a rose?” I prompted.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said. Then he called to his wife, “Rose, what’s the name of that memory course we took”?

Ba-DUM-bum

And so with Rose on my mind I looked back at the Ding-a-Ling post. Chuck Berry’s song was banned in some places because of the suggestive lyrics. Considering how conservative the area is where I grew up, I’m a little surprised it made it on the airwaves there. (And I’m sure my Mom was thrilled when my younger brother bought the 45. Actual records being another thing that is missing from the mindset of current students which ties this post to yesterday’s. Everything connects somehow….) But there are lots of suggestive lyrics (and more often recently, really explicit lyrics). One of my favorite suggestive songs is Jackson Browne’s Rosie.

She was standing at the load-in
When the trucks rolled up
She was sniffing all around
Like a half grown female pup
She wasn’t hard to talk to
Looked like she had nowhere to go
So I gave her my pass
So she could get in and see the show

Well I sat her down right next to me
And I got her a beer
While I mixed that sound on stage
So the band could hear
The more I watched her watch them play
The less I could think of to say
And when they walked off stage
The drummer swept that girl away

But Rosie you’re all right — you wear my ring
When you hold me tight — Rosie that’s my thing
When you turn out the light — I’ve got to hand it to me
Looks like it’s me and you again tonight Rosie

Well I guess I might have known from the start
She’d come for a star
Might have told my imagination not to run too far
Of all the times that I’ve been burned
By now you’d think I’d have learned
That it’s who you look like
Not who you are

But Rosie you’re all right — you wear my ring
When you hold me tight — Rosie that’s my thing
When you turn out the light — I’ve got to hand it to me
Looks like it’s me and you again tonight Rosie

Hmm, “It’s who you look like, not who you are.” I lose out on both counts. Wait, that’s not where I was going with this post. Self-gratification, not self-deprecation, right? Where was I going with this? I don’t remember….

I was teaching in 1988 and I remember the buzz going around. “Do you realize that the kids starting school this year will graduate [well, some of them anyway] in the year 2000!?” And by around 1995 or ‘96 it was, “There is very likely someone alive today that will still be alive in the 22nd century!” [I don't think it's going to be me....] About ten years ago I was chatting with two coworkers about where we were when the space shuttle Challenger blew up. I was teaching at a high school in Central Florida. One coworker was a junior in high school. The other coworker was in second grade. The milestones we use to mark our ages change just as much as if we were physically walking a path through the years. And those that joined our journey more recently will never have the same perspective on those milestones as we do.

But especially for those of us in education, it helps to remember that [for better or worse] today’s kids are not growing up in the same world we did. I teach technical drawing and I don’t remember the last time I had a student that said they had even heard the phrase, “Back to the old drawing board,” much less considered that that’s what we do in class….

Last week a colleague sent around an email that I have excerpted below. You can read about it on the Beloit College web site here and read the entire list for the class of 2011 here.

A note about the Beloit College Mindset List

To save readers the time and effort of writing to us about the Beloit College Mindset List, we offer four brief explanations.

The Mindset List is not a chronological listing of things that happened in the year that the entering first-year students were born.

Our effort is to identify a worldview of 18 year-olds in the fall of 2007. We take a risk in some cases of making generalizations, particularly given that our students at Beloit College for instance come from every state and scores of nations.

The “Class of 2011″ refers to students entering college this year. They are generally 18 which suggests they were born in 1989.

The list identifies the experiences and event horizons of students as they commence higher education and is not meant to reflect on their preparatory education.

BELOIT COLLEGE’S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2011

What Berlin wall?
They never “rolled down” a car window.
Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
Pete Rose has never played baseball.
Rap music has always been mainstream.
“Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
Being “lame” has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled.
Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
Multigrain chips have always provided healthful junk food.
They grew up in Wayne’s World.
They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
Fox has always been a major network.
They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh.
Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
Most phone calls have never been private.
The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
They’re always texting 1 n other.
They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

There are many more if you follow the link above and I’m sure we can think of some that they did not include. [They have never "dialed" a telephone number comes immediately to mind. Kids these days! What are we going to do with them?] And before long, I’ll be getting students that have never known a world without a War on Terrorism….

There’s plenty of blame and shame to go around regarding the events before, during, and after the attacks on September 11. The cable channels have been full of movies, documentaries, and analysis. Another approach is that of Project 2,996, dedicated to remembering the lives, not the deaths, of the victims. It’s worth a look.

[Note: I originally posted with this at the top:

"Hey W, how's that search for Bin Laden going?"

I meant no disrespect with my snarkiness.]