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When CroutonBoy (one of my erstwhile comrades-in-DadCentric) threw down the gauntlet with a brand new music meme last week, I was both helplessly fascinated and horrified. Fascinated, in the sense that I'm a music junkie — and any excuse to talk about the topic while boring you silly in the process is always welcome. Horrified, in the sense that the task called for me to choose my Top 25 Songs of the Past 25 Years.

25? That's it? All the tens of thousands of songs that have been recorded and touched my life – for better or worse – since 1984… and I had to boil it down to a mere 25? As you might surmise, this was quite a challenge for me — in fact, it consumed an unconscionably large part of this past weekend, when TheWife was out of town living it up in NYC, my kids were running away like wild horses over the hills (in true Bukowski spirit, mind you) and the world was collapsing around me as a result. But did I care? Did I stop? Did I waver for even a moment? No, gentle reader… my mind was solely on you and your needs, and how mine own quiet efforts to bring you entertainment and edification might enrich your own life, even if only in the most subtle and peripheral manner. Because that's how I am: I give and I give and I give. I offer you love.

Given which: what were the parameters of the meme? None, beyond choosing 25 songs from the last 25 years, and only one song per artist. That's it: CroutonBoy left it purposefully open to interpretation. Which, of course, only served to further frustrate me… do I choose only songs that are available on video (as he did)? Do I choose only songs that had real, in-the-moment significance for me? Do I choose the best representations of my favorite artists, or do I look at each individual song as a sui generis thing: to be viewed only in the light of what I hear coming through my speakers, and how it consistently moves, affects and/or transports me?

Ultimately, that's what I decided to do. I went through the nearly 16,000 songs currently on my iTunes and culled it down to a preliminary list of 65. And then… I started chopping. And it got harder and harder and harder to remove songs. By the time I was down to 45 or so, I felt like I was betraying loved ones by removing them from the list. By the time I reached 30 – and had to select the final 5 candidates for removal – it was just impossible. Which children are your favorites? That's not too far off the level of difficulty this achieved for me. (I don't claim to be rational about music, but you can't question my passion.)

Finally, this morning, following at least five days of effort, I wiped the blood from my eyes and gazed at my final list of 25. Not a song on there that doesn't mean the world to me. The fact that there are at least two dozen other songs that I could just as easily have used doesn't make these any less important or meaningful or great. To me. And I get it (believe me: I get it) — this is all entirely subjective. But that's kind of the point of the exercise… what defines great music to you?

The one things I could not do – and neither could CroutonBoy, apparently – was to create an order to our Top 25. Which is just as well: I think attempting that would have taken me another full week and, quite possibly, driven me irreparably mad. And thus, it is with all this in mind… that I offer you the first fifth of my Top 25 of the Last 25.

Okay. I hate to do this, but Sweetney made me cry a point I couldn't argue with: a list like this that fails to offer a legit countdown to a #1 is a cop-out. As such, I'm going back in and retroactively assigning these first five songs as #s 25-21. Am I copping out again by doing this, and not assigning these songs distinct ratings between 1-25? Maybe… maybe not. If I was starting over again, Richard Buckner and Killing Joke might rise a little higher, but overall I don't feel bad about where these rank.

So… there you go. A list the way a list should be listed. A list you can respect, and live by. A list that will kick Sweetney's and CroutonBoy's lists' asses — as well as those of any other poor simps foolish enough to attempt this errand. (Feel free, btw, to add yourself to the list of the damned tagged.)

25. Adorable: Sunshine Smile
Yeah, I know… I just raved about them last month. So what? Adorable created some truly remarkable music during their brief moment in the sun, and this song – probably their best-known – gives you every idea why. I've attached the video rather than a sound file here because… well, because only a handful of these songs have videos, so I might as well give you one when it's available. But really, I think the video itself is kind of counterproductive: it's too easy to focus on the bad haircuts and goofy expressions, body language and direction, and in the process miss the thunder-crash impact of the guitars and drums when the chorus kicks in… the wondrous spiral of sound as the song reaches its climax… the echo and reverb and gorgeous, warm glow that the song as experience creates. Sunshine Smile isn't about the lyrics: it's about getting swept away in the sound. Personally, that's something I seek out. Something I crave. Something I love.

24. Richard Buckner: Lil Wallet Picture
There's a great, lonesome ache to Richard Buckner's voice that is awesome to behold, especially when coupled with lyrics as brilliantly fragmented and heartbroken as those in Lil Wallet Picture. At first blush, it's easy to lump this song in with the alt-country/no depression types, but that does it – and Buckner – an immense disservice. Yes, there are certainly strong elements of country music throughout this song (primarily in the instrumentation), but don't let genre-identification habits get in your way of soaking up the haunted tone in his voice as he details the desolate, anguished inner dialogue of a man sent back through the years by a photo to a time and place where love and the infinite hope it suggested were real, tangible and capable of redefining his world… and how it all slipped so easily away. "This stretch of '99," he sings, "It takes so many lives… one of 'em was mine."

23. Killing Joke: You'll Never Get To Me
Anger, as John Lydon once sang, is an energy. He was right, of course, and this song exemplifies why. Jaz Coleman is in fine voice and fettle here, raging against a world determined to fuck him over with a spirit of absolute defiance: it's impossible not to hear him rumble through the chorus – "You'll never get to me… survival is my victory" – without imagining both middle fingers raised as high as they will go to the world, to the heavens, to any and all that would stand between him and his dreams. I loved this song fiercely from the first time I heard it, and it took on new meaning and inspirational potentcy after I got laid off last autumn: I listen to this, and I am filled with the spirit of fuck you. And I am left energized, agitated, ready to run through walls and let nothing nothing NOTHING stop me.

I need that, sometimes.

22. Not Drowning, Waving: Albert Namatjira
Ah, yes… the old Killing Joke-to-Not Drowning, Waving segue. I'll bet you saw that coming. Damn, I hate being predictable.

That being said… this is easily my favorite song about the heartbreaking life and premature death of an Aboriginal artist that uses his story as a metaphor for the mistreatment of Aboriginals as a whole by the Australian government and culture in the first half of the 20th century (and beyond) as performed by a large, multifaceted and sublimely skilled Australian band and produced by the legendary Hugh Jones with a sheen and passion that allows it to grow from a single voice over simple tones to a howling, swirling wall of sound that envelops and fills you with pain and wonder and white light. Granted, there are plenty to choose from that match that description… but I'd say this one is right up at the top.

21. Slowdive: Waves
As part of the holy trinity of early 90s shoegaze – alongside My Bloody Valentine and Ride – Slowdive was, for a time and within certain circles, one of the most influential bands on the planet. Their gorgeous debut album Just for a Day still stands as a high-water mark in the genre, nine songs that fuse the swirling echo and reverb of their shoegaze peers with the darker, more subdued tones and perspective of sadcore to produce music that – when played at the high volumes originally intended – achieve a kind of music transcendence: an experience near-physical as much as aural, where shimmering waves of sound and cathedrals of guitar and understated, closely-harmonized vocals become absolutely transportative… close your eyes, and a song like Waves lifts you up and away to higher, rarer airs where beauty and sadness go hand in hand, and become all that much more beautiful and sad for it.

1. I still haven't called back the ex-president, although earlier this week he sent me a friend request on Facebook. I am so very, very, very unmotivated to acknowledge these attempts. Why can't he do the right thing and just crawl in a hole somewhere? (That being said… I'll call him soon. Urk.)

2. TheWife is heading down to Manhattan this afternoon for a weekend of frivolity with our old pal KK. She will eat, she will drink, she will be merry, and if she's truly lucky she'll find a significant upgrade over me. With that in mind, I posted an extremely stable piece on DadCentric last night in which I preemptively imagined the post-wife world at Castle TwoBusy — it's something of a mix between the Old Testament and The Island of Dr. Moreau, with a little Brady Bunch and cannibalism thrown in for good measure.

3. In other good news, I finally got a callback from the place where I interviewed last week; they want me in for a second round next Tuesday. Which is cool: it's nice not to be rejected.

Yet.

4. Um… so you remember last week, when I mentioned that I'd probably be blowing off the trip to the in-laws? Yeah, it didn't really work out that way. We all ended up going, and while our trip ultimately lasted only a single day, I am happy to report that our early return was more a function of heartstopping boredom than a) anyone puking; or b) me punching unnamed individuals in the face.

We won't talk about the dog.

5. (This is the part where I pretend to be unaware that I failed to produce an actual post here this week. I CAN'T HEAR YOU. (plugging ears) DAHDAHDAHDAHCAN'THEARYOUDAHDAHDAH)

(um. I'll try to suck less next week.)

6. We tried a couple of Netflix movies last week. The first was Hard Core Logo, which was supposed to be something of a punk black comedy faux rockumentary, kind of reminiscent of Spinal Tap and the wonderful and much-underappreciated Still Crazy. What it was, instead, was confusing, pointless and dull. We got a little over half an hour in before we decided that we'd rather turn the TV off and stare at the blank screen than go any futher into the movie.

The second was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, which got savaged in reviews when it came out last year but still somehow managed to intrigue me. You know what? I should have listened to the reviews. There were several – not one, but several – points during the movie where I burst out in laughter in the midst of a scene that was clearly intended to be deadly earnest and/or serious. Look, I like Mark Wahlberg as much as anyone… but the dude was awful as a high school science teacher (Really? In what universe does it seem remotely plausible that this guy has even the vaguest understanding of biology and environmental science? He can barely say "hypothesis," for god's sake.) and default lead. And Zooey Deschanel… oh. My. God. She's pretty, but that may have been the single worst performance by an actress I've ever seen. Half her dialogue comes out sounding like she's learned the words phoenetically – as if she has no idea what they mean, or how they're supposed to work together to form sentences and sound like the way people actually talk – and her facial expressions when trying to expess emotion look like my not-quite-4yo-twin girls playing "Do surprised! Look surprised! Now sad… look sad. Now silly! Hahahaha!"

Beyond which: the plot is painfully amateurish, especially coming from a guy who once produced work as nuanced and emotionally rich as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. I was intrigued by the idea of Shyamalan doing the apocalypse; what I got instead was dumb, dull and often laughable. The scenes when he tries to earn his R rating by showing people engaged in acts of self-destruction? In particular, the cell phone video of a guy feeding himself to lions at the zoo? Clearly, Shyamalan was trying to recall the jarring impact of the first glimpse of the aliens from Signs, when the shaky home video of a kid's birthday party in Brazil is interrupted by the sighting of something moving in the bushes that is clearly not human. What did he end up with instead? A scene that brought nothing to mind as much as the Black Knight bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail — and which literally had me shaking with laughter as a result.

There are a few, brief scenes that offer a glimpse of what this movie might have actually achieved – in particular, the sight of construction workers raining off the side of a building and the scene when they drive into a town in central PA and discover what can only be called strange fruit hanging from the trees – but in the end, The Happening is terrible on an epic scale. Stay far away.

7. Since I apparently have nothing of real relevance to say, I'll leave you now with your video of the week, which isn't nearly as disturbing as you've come to expect from me — instead, I've given you the gift of kiwipop, in the form of one of the most gorgeous songs ever recorded: Straitjacket Fits' Down in Splendour.

1. Like a fungus, I have been spreading across the interweb this week:
    • DadCentric, wherein I find that fatherhood makes for happy music.
    • DadCentric again, wherein I answer the question "Do you act your age" muuuuuuch too thoughtfully.
    • The Whinery, wherein I once again embarrass myself while trying to pretend I know what I'm talking about when I talk about wine.

2. I had an interview last Tuesday for a job that I actually want. As is often the case, however, I'm entirely uncertain as to whether or not they want me. I should hear back from them sometime in the middle of next week… meanwhile, I continue to float in professional limbo. (I mean that in the sense of purgatory, rather than the sense of getting loaded and then trying to defy gravity while ducking under a wooden stick.)

3. Speaking of which: my ex-President e-mailed me earlier this week asking me to give him a call. This is the first real attempt he's made to contact me since he and his now ex-partner fucked me over last October. To say I'm ambivalent about responding is something of an understatement… but I'm thinking I'll take the plunge sometime soon — if only to (as so many of my imaginary Twitter friends pointed out) enjoy the sky-high awkward factor of the conversation.

Oh, how you envy me.

4. Hey! It's Memorial Day Weekend! (Unless you're Canadian, in which case… uh… hey! It's a weekend!) What are you guys doin'? We were supposed to go down to visit some in-laws for a night, but surprise! It turned out that it was going to be two nights, only no one had bothered to tell me! In a house with a large dog, despite the fact that TheHurricane – oh, brave Hurricane – is pathologically terrified of dogs! In a kitchen without meat or joy! (Nothing's more fun on Memorial Day weekend than pulling out the grill and throwing some tofu on the fire.) It was gonna be great!!! (Note the extra punctuation, delineating the incredible extent of my excitement.) Unfortunately, TheHurricane has come down with some kinda bug (albeit not H1N1. Our pediatrician laughed at us when we asked him.) and subsequently will not be travelling south to infect the aforementioned in-laws. Which means that I'll be staying home with him.

I'm not sure if TheWife is still planning to take down the girls, but… uh… fuck it: I'm glad I'm not going.

5. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's been e-mailing me so energetically over the past week or two. I've been fortunate in enjoying ongoing e-correspondence with some of you for a while, and I'm really happy to see that expanding in new ways. Wow — this virtual community stuff isn't complete BS. Who knew?

6. And finally… your video for the weekend. It's from Gravenhurst – one of many fine, fine British bands largely ignored on this side of the Atlantic – and I hope you'll enjoy this song in the spirit in which it was intended: to freak you the fuck out. Enjoy!

(This will make more sense if you've read this first.)

It's Monday afternoon, and I'm sitting at my desk. Faithfully plugging away at my contract job, pretending not to notice the overgrown grass begging to be shorn, or the rabbits eating what might once have become spectacular, color-saturated bursts of iris. I am earning my wage. Doing my part to keep spaceship America moving forward, the economy in motion, my mortgage paid and my children fed and clothed.

The phone rings. It's a number I don't recognize; a city number. I pick it up, and answer with a tentative hello.

"Hey… it's JiF."

I take a deep breath. This cannot be a good conversation. They never are, these days.

"Hey… how are you? What's going on?"

It's a loaded question. We both recognize it, and so we exchange a couple of pleasantries before we plunge into the matter at hand.

"So. It's been an… interesting, I guess, couple of months."

"…Right."

"We, um. I. I finally came to the realization, a couple of weeks ago. She kept disappearing – I think I talked to you after the first time it happened, but that became a recurring thing – and the drinking and self-injurious behavior was spiraling beyond anything that was remotely within my capacity to manage. And after a while, it became clear that this wasn't just a drinking issue. That this was an expression of full-blown mental illness."

"Jesus." I say it, but I'm not surprised. He knows I'm not surprised.

"And it just got to the point where we'd had enough trips to the emergency room, and incidents with the police trying to find her, and time when she'd just disappear and we'd have no idea… it was awful, and she was refusing to acknowledge that this was a serious problem. So I finally had to have her sectioned."

I don''t say it, but I know what he means. A friend of mine had told me about it, back in January. It'd been in the back of my head, ever since. Wondering. If.

When.

"I went to court. I had to file… there were all these different steps, but I had to file to get sole custodianship of (our son). I had to file to get guardianship over her. That's what the sectioning was: me deciding against her will to have her committed."

(long exhale. both of us.)

"I'm so sorry."

"It's… well, there was really nothing else to be done. She spent about a week in an inpatient program at (local hospital), and now she's in (a specialized program for a specific group of dual diagnosis patients somewhere down south). It's a locked ward deal, and realistically she's going to be there for at least three months."

"Jesus Christ." What I don't ask: how do you get someone with severe alcoholism, depression, and pronounced self-injurious behavior on a plane from New England to the south? What I decide: I don't need to know.

"I just wanted to tell you, because you and TheWife have been such a help to us, and I know I haven't really had the chance recently to keep you in the loop…"

"Yeah, well, clearly you had some other things on your mind."

He laughs, a little bit. "Yeah. Anyhow, we brought her down early last week, and now I'm trying to get our life here back together. Me and (our son's). I'm realizing that I'm now a single father, for all intents and purposes. So I'm hiring a nanny to help him out in the hours when I'll be working, and I'm… well, I'm finally getting back to work. I've missed so much time recently, but my job has been incredible in terms of understanding the situation."

I make a sound – almost a small laugh – to indicate my admiration. "That's awesome. Obviously, taking care of ElF and your son have been priority number one, but, y'know… we've been worried about the toll all of this might be taking on your job. Because, obviously, if something were to happen with that, it'd create a whole new set of substantial problems."

"I know, and I've been very, very lucky on that side. So now… now, we're finally kind of settling down. Last weekend was the first weekend in I don't know how long where (my son) and I haven't been rushing off to a hospital or to a treatment center or calling the cops or driving around the neighborhood looking for her… and it was like: we both just collapsed."

"I can't imagine why you'd be exhausted."

He laughs a bit. "I know. The problem is that (my son's) idea of resting is mapping out and taking a long bike trip. So the weekend turned out to be less lying around and more biking back and forth the length of the Minuteman trail." I laugh, because I know that this is less of an ordeal for him than he's making out. In the midst of everything else, JiF managed to run the Boston Marathon in April. There was a list in the Globe: he finished with the best time of anyone from our town.

We talk for a few more minutes. He thanks us again for what little we've done to help them over the previous months. I offer to help out again, anytime he needs it. I don't ask if there's something we can do for ElF. She's beyond our capacity to help, at this point. I want to hope that she comes home late this summer. Stronger. Somehow healed. I want to hope.

The conversation ends, and I put the phone down. My grass is still too long. The rabbits have moved from our irises to our neighbor's flower bed. They are eating happily. Taking their fill. And as I watch them, my mind flits back to an early evening last June. Sitting on ElF and JiF's back patio. TheWife out in their yard, playing catch with our girls. JiF up on the deck, grilling what will prove to be an amazing adobo chicken dinner. ElF and I, sitting there, shooting the breeze. Me telling a story, sarcastic and borderline mean, trying to make her laugh. Her sitting on her white chair, her legs pulled up beneath her body. Pushing her hair back from her eyes. Both of us, swirling glasses of malbec, taking sips. Soaking up the sunshine.

And then their son cries out. "Mom, the rabbits! The rabbits are out!" And ElF stands up and runs out into the yard, stopping next to her son. I saunter behind, and see what he's pointing at. Baby bunnies – newborns, really – in the grass. Exposed to the sunlight. No warren to be seen. No mother rabbit standing nearby, watching us nervously. JiF comes over a moment later, and assesses the situation. He is very matter-of-fact. "We should leave them alone," he says. "If we stand here and watch them, the mother rabbit won't come back." Their son is upset, and ElF wants to pick them up and move them. JiF is adament: leave them be. Let nature take its course.

I walk away with JiF, and he says to me in a low voice: "I haven't seen the mother in days. I knew they were there, but I think she's gone. I don't think this is going to be a happy ending for the bunnies." Then he calls over to ElF. "Hey, bring (our son) inside… it's time for dinner, anyhow." He heads up the stairs to his deck, and I tell TheWife to help me to gather our brood and bring them inside as well.

We do, and as I guide them up the stairs and across the deck and into their home, I look back and see ElF and their son still standing out in the yard. They are looking down on the baby bunnies, concerned. "But how do we know the mother will come back?" he asks. His voice is unsteady; he is still upset. And she looks at him and sa
ys, "She will. I'm sure of it."

1. In case you haven't already read it – and you haven't; I can see it in your eyes, and you're dead guilty – last week's DadCentric post is available now for your enjoyment on the interwebs. I should note that this particular post contains one of the best sentences I've ever written: Fuck you, drunken unicorns.

Bring the family!

2. But that's not all… taking an important step forward in my ongoing attempt to simultaneously suck in multiple environments, I also contributed my virgin-busting post at The Whinery. As that colorful descriptor implies, the post in question is awkward, spastic, completely half-assed and ultimately embarrassing to all concerned.

None of which should stop you from visiting, reading and commenting exuberantly. Why? Because nobody brings the suck like your ol' pal TwoBusy.

3. I'd like to pause a moment here to say thanks to John Lackey, who came off 6 weeks on the DL last night to rejoin my fantasy baseball team… only to get ejected from the game before recording an out. That "INF" next to your season ERA is inspirational.

4. But wait! Wait! I have updates on the job front! Two of 'em, in fact. First off, you'll be glad to know that my contract job has been extended through the end of June — giving me an extra six weeks or so off the dole. Secondly, I've got an interview for a FT job next week! My first once since… god, I'm not even sure. March? February? (looking it up… early February. Wow.)

In fact, the reason I'm here typing this now is because TheWife took the kids off to play for a few hours so I could do research prep for the interview. Which seems counterintuitive, because… um… I'm typing this instead. But really, that's just an expression of my devotion to you, oh gentle reader. My love for you knows no bounds. It's borderline unnatural, and almost certainly unhealthy. And yet, here we are, gazing hungrily into each others' eyes…

5. Of course, the fact that I'm probably not going to get the job in question hasn't stopped TheWife and I from already eagerly planning how we'll spend our newfound riches. And once we work our way past the boring stuff (new mattress/box spring to replace the one we bought and have slept on since 1995; repairs to my vehicle that I've been putting off since 2007; etc.) we arrive at the pricey/fun stuff: a new car for TheWife! Not that we don't love her current vehicle, but it's starting to do the kind of scary things that cars start to do when they get older and different systems/parts start to fail in very rapid, very expensive succession. Subsequently, we (and by we, I mean me with objections from her) have launched into a hypothetical "what will our next car be?" exercise.

Which is where you, gentle reader, come in. Suggestions? Here's the caveat: we're thinking sedan, but the sedan has to have a back seat wide enough that it can accommodate three booster seats side-by-side-by-side. We're not opposed to going the smaller/crossover SUV route (and no: we're not buying a fucking minivan), but as that's what I'm driving TheWife is thinking she'd like to keep a sedan. So. Your thoughts? Keep in mind that we like to live beyond our somewhat humble means.

6. Finally, your video for the week. A Northern Chorus is one of my favorite bands of all time: a Canadian post-rock musical collective that sprung up out of scenic Hamilton, Ontario (go Tiger-Cats!), produced a series of sequentially more and more astonishing albums – concluding with the stunning The Millions Too Many, which I beg you to make a part of your life – and then finally broke up last summer in response to what can only be called tragic indifference.

This song only hints at the complexity and grandeur that ANC – at their best – brought to the table. That being said, I enjoy it a lot. You will, too! Hooray! (opening arms wide, ready for a hug…)

Anticipating that this will be yet another week where I struggle to come up with content that doesn't suck, I figured I'd preempt the suck by acquiescing to the demands of ye olde Black Hockey Jesus (as well as his comrade-in-DadCentric, PetCobra) in droppin' a meme on all y'all. In truth, I'm doing this by default — because while BHJ tagged the other DadCentric types with perpetuating this particular meme nightmare… I don't think he actually realizes that I exist. Nevertheless, I've picked up the cudgel and will now proceed to bludgeon you senseless. Close your eyes, make a wish, and proceed at your own risk.

What are your current obsessions?
I'm all over the fucking map. It's disconcerting, and my tastes these days are about as easy to define or rationalize as the flight path of a butterfly — but really, that's just me avoiding the question. Which bodes well for the rest of this meme. Alright: focus, dude. What am I all about these days? Or, at least, this week? Fine: of late, I've found myself obsessively listening to Aerogramme's final CD, My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go, which I flip-flop back and forth between finding embarrassingly overwrought and absolutely sweep-you-up-and-carry-you-away great. Check out this and decide for yourself.

With the arrival of warmer weather, I've also started obsessively buying and drinking (with a little help from the Mrs.) New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, which is unexpected considering that I've never actually enjoyed white wine before. But go figure: it's white wine that doesn't suck. There's character and subtlety and nuance, and you can get it all for under $20/bottle. (Although you can get it even better if you're willing to go up to the mid-$20s… mmm, White Haven.)

I'm also now completely obsessed with Twitter, to a really awful and unhealthy degree. But to be honest I figure the fact that I refresh it about sixteen times a minute is in no small part a function of my status as a contractor working from home… basically, I'm alone and sitting in front of my computer for 8 hours a day, and I find it difficult to be productive in a social vacuum. The refresh button basically serves as a substitute for bouncing foam balls off my office-mate's forehead at my ex-job. I miss that.

Who gave you the best oral sex of your life?
Yeah, as if there's a snowball's chance in hell that I'm going anywhere close to this one. Pass.

What's for dinner?
Leftovers from Saturday night's Mother's Day fiasco, in which I prepared dinner for four mothers and their respective impregnators. Plus the progeny of said impregnations. To be specific: marinated boneless rib eyes, grilled to perfection and now sitting cold and rock-hard in my fridge. This question sucks.

What is your greatest fear at the moment?
There are so many to choose from. Pandemic? Yeah, that's pretty fear-worthy. So is the fact that in about a month, my contract job will end and I'll once more be unemployed. Plus the ever-present possibility that TheWife's company will suddenly go belly-up, thereby fucking us in all kinds of colorful and horrifying ways. On top of that, there are some family health issues that I won't go into here (which I've kind of been of avoiding in real life, as well). But really, the answer is spiders. Giant, hairy spiders.

What are you listening to right now?
Right now? As in, "right now" right now? As I type, my iTunes is playing Jesu's Conqueror (specifically, the song Stanlow — click here for a listen), which a year later I still love with a capital LOVE. Crushingly heavy bliss-rock, which has been on constant rotation for me since the moment I picked it up.

If you were a God/Goddess, what would you be?
Vengeful beyond all comprehension. Like Santa.

What are your favorite holiday spots?
If you've been reading me with any regularity you know there's only one answer: Maine. Although this summer we're heading north to a different neck of the woods… further updates on that as events warrant.

What are you reading right now?
If you're doing the right thing and actually visiting this site live – and not just reading me through the unholy distillation of Google Reader or some such abomination – you'll find a handy little item in the right-hand column called Reading is Fundamental. Which means that you can easily glance over and discover that I am now, in fact, reading and being profoundly disturbed by Columbine.

What are four words that describe you?
Man. Myth. Legend. Jackass.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Onion rolls. The good kind, with the onions actually baked inside. Yeah, they fuck up your digestion, and they're sure as hell not a remotely healthy meal option, but daaaaamn… they're good.

Who or what makes you laugh?
The misfortune of others. That, and the films of Bobcat Goldthwait. Especially Shakes the Clown: "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies."

What's your favorite spring thing to do?
Get hay fever and feel like death for several weeks. That's always fun. You?

Where are you planning to travel next?
We're going down to Westchester over Memorial Day to visit family. It's not going to go well, in part because I've already spent countless hours fantasizing about getting in a fistfight with my brother-in-law.

What is the best thing you ate or drank lately?
A couple of weeks ago, I took TheWife to a restaurant called Blue Ginger for her birthday. I had the teriyaki-glazed hanger steak with red miso-Dijon sauce, and it was terrific. It was also easily the worst part of our meal. Honestly, everything else we tasted was completely transcendent — just unexpected juxtapositions of flavor that had our eyes rolling back in our heads with wonder and delight. We were literally giggling with each new thing we tried.

Of course, it cost a fortune, but… damn. It was absolutely worth it.

When is the last time you were tipsy?
That would be last night, when we paired takeout Indian with a bottle of the aforementioned White Haven Sauv Blanc. Hic.

What is your favorite movie ever?
Joe Versus the Volcano. At some point, I'm going to write about this at length. Not today.

What is the biggest life lesson you've learned from your kids?
Sleep is a gift.

What song can't you get out of your head?
These days it's Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal, if only because a) it's a great song, and b) because my kids demand to hear it over and over and over again. 

What book do you know that you should read but refuse to?
Actually, Jason's answer of Infinite Jest is right up at the top of my list. I started it a couple of years ago, but got off track and have never since been able to work up the energy to attack it again. I'm also still feeling burned by A Confederacy of Dunces, which I put off reading for years, finally read… and hated with the white-hot hatred of a thousand white-hot, angry and hate-filled suns. I realize that the two books have nothing to do with each other beyond the fact that they're both big, quasi-comedic and hugely acclaimed touchstone novels by guys who later killed themselves, but… um… well, okay: they actually do have some things in common. Given which: I think I'll let Infinite Jest gather dust for a few more years.

What is your physical abnormality/abnormal physical ability?
My hair is unnaturally spectacular. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Why do you think you were called into the realm of the living?
I'm the comic relief who unexpectedly gets killed off in a really violent and disgusting fashion 2/3 of the way into the movie. Which gives me something to look forward to, I guess.

And thus, the meme endeth. If you want it… consider yourself tagged.

1. Because somebody yelled at me for allegedly hiding this stuff… here's the link to this week's DadCentric post. Visitez vous. For the record, I'm scheduled to post there every Thursday. Then again, I'm not terribly reliable. Then again again, there are far more interesting people than me who write there, so you should be checking it out daily in any case.

2. I'm hitting Fenway tonight for my first Sox game of the season! Very, very excited… I'll be joined by my friend Swoosh and several delicious carbonated beverages. For the record, I'm not necessarily expecting that tonight will match the game I saw last May… but you never know. (Oh, wait. Brad Penny is pitching. Never mind.)

3. I got a LinkedIn request from the former President of my ex-company earlier this week — the first time I've heard a whisper from him since I walked out of TheCEO's office last October with a shiny new knife sticking out of my back. His tone was casual and friendly… almost breezy. To be honest, considering that I was just talking to someone last week about how I wanted to punch this guy in the head, I was so surprised by his unexpected attempt to reach out that I burst into laughter when I read it.

That being said, I'm still weighing whether or not to respond. I know that some of my other co-workers have been much more conciliatory when it comes to dealing with him and the other guy… but my history with both of them (and subsequently my resentment) run a lot deeper.

I'm guessing that sooner or later I'll accept his invitation. LinkedIn is just networking, and there's really no call for any contact above/beyond that single "accept" click. It does, however, open a door I'm not sure I want opened.

Ambivalent.

4. I forgot to mention — we had our first-ever real babysitter! This is, clearly, a tremendous breakthrough for us. Up until now, given the sheer # of children, relative ages and special needs issues, we'd considered our brood too daunting for run-of-the-mill sitter types, and had relied exclusively on the fickle nature of family to provide us with coverage for dinner or a movie (but never enough time for both).

Anyhow, finally – after months of discussion but no action – I did a little research and found this place online called SitterCity (I'll leave it to you to hunt it down if you're so inclined)… it's this huge repository of sitters & such, and includes profiles, background info & all the goodies you want. Granted, there's a fee involved, but we figured that after 6+ years of being locked at home and dependent on only-occasionally reliable family, we needed more options. So: I signed up, did some research… and found someone who actually works as an aide for special needs kids in one of our town's other elementary schools.

Which is how I ended up being able to take TheWife out for a four-star dinner at one of the nation's most acclaimed restaurants… while our kids goofed away happily and safely for three hours. And what's more: we're doing it again a week from Saturday.

Hello, world. We're back.

5. And finally, a little heartbreaking Japanese post-rock to send you off into the weekend. Because you know you need more of this in your life.

This mix goes to eleven.

1. New #1 — Bob Mould
Post-Elvis Costello, few people have done guilt and recrimination better than Bob Mould. Listening to his enormous – and generally wonderful – catalogue of music, you'd come to the conclusion that this is a guy who's been screwed over more times than three seasons' worth of Rock of Love contestants. This song, taken from Mould's outstanding The Last Dog and Pony Show, comes at the problem from an interesting perspective: someone in a relationship where things are going okay… but who is so scarred and damaged by previous emotional train wrecks that he not only dreads the day when things fall apart, but is in fact terrified that he'll be the one to sabotage it. Over the course of the song, he portrays himself as someone both desperate for love ("I need you more than you will ever comprehend") and possibly too broken to ever hold onto it ("If I lose control, don't leave me, you've got to be here…").

Good times.

2. Cut #2 — Adorable
Where's the love for Adorable? Oh, right — it's in 1992 London, at the heart of the shoegaze explosion that brought the world My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride… basically, the formative music of my youth. And while Adorable might not have the same name recognition of those other bands, their debut Against Perfection was nonetheless a high-water mark for the genre: a powerhouse wall of sound from start to finish, with soaring, echoing melodies, memorable choruses and a strong undercurrent of melancholy that adds shades of grey to even their brightest, warmest, loudest and most frenetic songs. (Can you tell I love this album?)

3. Measure 3 — Matt Pond, PA
Where's the love for Matt Pond, PA? It baffles me that these guys aren't huge and globally beloved. Why? Okay, yes… Last Light was pretty lackluster. But leading up to that you've got several albums worth of top-notch songwriting, sublime musicianship and songs you're almost guaranteed to find yourself humming for days. Each album is littered with a handful of small gems — glittering, wonderful three-to-five minute pieces of music that remind you of why you loved music in the first place. Measure 3 fits that description perfectly: the song opens with a little violin, then a strummed guitar, then the cello weighs in and by the time Matt Pond begins laying his soothing, melancholy vocals and thoughtful lyrics ("I'll stop thinking: I will be ordinary") over it all… you're hooked. And by you, I mean me.

(By the way: download Matt Pond PA's Free EP for free here. Seriously.)

4. 4 Men — Kitchens of Distinction
Remember what I just said about Adorable? Of course you do. Well, here's the thing: I forgot to mention Kitchens of Distinction as a part of the shoegaze pantheon, and for that I deserve to be beaten. Seriously. It's an unforgivable crime, considering that they're one of my three or four favorite bands of all time. Nobody – by which I mean: nobody – ever created a heaven-spiraling wall of guitar sound from a single instrument (and a zillion pedals) like Julian Swales, and Patrick Fitzgerald's vivid, often-heartbreaking songs of longing and passion and loss transcended homoeroticism (see: this song's "Here I'd lie between your thighs, looking up into your eyes, wondering if this is allowed…") to create songs that energized and saddened and moved you. Songs that soared.

5. Chanel No. 5 — American Music Club
This is American Music Club in a nutshell: over gently-strummed guitar, the softest brush of drums and the mournful wash of pedal steel, Mark Eitzel sings about a hooker walking alone down the side of a highway… and it destroys you.

Look: music this dark isn't for everyone. I get that. But to me, this is more than music. This is writing on a par with the poetry of Bukowski, the stories of Carver and the novels of Russell Banks. Writing that looks into the abyss, and never blinks when the abyss looks back. 

6. Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean — Explosions in the Sky
Then again… sometimes lyrics are overrated.

7. 7 Years — Love Spit Love
Yeah, I love me some Richard Butler. And why not? He's got one of the best voices of all time, and even these days – after all those years with the Furs and then Love Spit Love and now, finally, on his own – it's still a supple and effective instrument, capable of catching your ear and introducing some murmured, accent-inflected, half-understood snippit of pseudowisdom that makes you think and hum and tap your toes happily in time. Which, really, is one of the things that music is supposed to do.

8. 8:02 PM — For Squirrels
Few songs make me feel more energized and ready to grab the world by the throat and shake than this one. It's a legitimate powerhouse of a song: overflowing with passion and speed and life. I've probably listened to it a thousand times, and each time I love it just as much as the first time I slipped the CD into my stereo and hit "play." Each time, it sends me into a frenzy of movement — my head bobbing in time, my hands punching the air. And each time, I stop dead in my tracks when I hit the lyrics "Gone… but not forgotten."

8:02pm is the opener from For Squirrels' debut Example, which was just starting to get airplay (remember this?) when they played a triumphant showcase at CMJ in September 1995. On their way home to Florida from New York, a tire on their van blew out. It flipped over… and instantly, bassist Bill White and singer/guitarist Jack Vigliatura were dead. 

"Gone… but not forgotten." This is not a song. This is a reminder: take the world by the throat. Shake it. Do. Not. Wait.

9. Leave By Nin
e — Matt Bartram
I was going to say that you probably know Matt Bartram as the main guy from Air Formation, but let's be realistic: nobody here but me knows who Air Formation is. Which is a crime, because they're f@#$ing incredible. Their last album Daylight Storms is one of my favorite releases of the past three years, and while Bartram's more recent solo debut Arundel (apparently now out of stock @ both Amazon and ToneVendor) may not quite live up to that standard… it's still quite lovely.

That being said, I'm not going to ask that you make Air Formation a part of your life. I'm going to demand it. In fact, I'm on my way over to your house right now to force you to listen to Daylight Storms. I hope you have snacks ready, 'cos I'm going to be there for a while.

10. Tell Me Ten Words — Idlewild
You know Idlewild, right? Because they're one of the biggest bands on the planet, right? Because after Coldplay dissolved into a puddle of stupidly-uniformed, Gwneyth-inspired goo and Bono and the U2s were laughed out of the business following that horrible No Line on the Horizon album, there was a void… and shazam! In stepped Idlewild, a badass Scottish band with serious lyrical and musical chops, ready to get the masses swaying and singing and dancing the way the masses want to sway and sing and dance. Remember that? Wasn't that awesome?

11. Eleven To Your Seven — Hey Mercedes
It's got a groove and you can dance to it. Hell, even I can dance to it, and I can't dance to anything. Just ask TheWife.

Me: Hey, can I dance?
TheWife: No, you suck at dancing. Although you are spectacularly handsome and have great hair. Also, you are brilliant and wise and funny as hell. And sexy. Did I mention sexy?
Me: You didn't. I should point out, however, that I can dance to that Hey Mercedes song Eleven To Your Seven.
TheWife: And thus, you have attained perfection. I stand here in wonder before you, gazing with infinite affection and appreciation at the glory that is you.

And there you have it: even I can dance to this song.

        *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

(Before I forget, allow me to point you toward the brilliant and sexy – and now! dance-capable! – post I wrote for DadCentric last week. In case you missed it.)

1. New DadCentric post. More blows against the Disney empire. Enjoy it with someone you love.

2. Check out In Three Words — it's a mind game, it's a writing exercise, it's… well, it's just a cool, cool idea.

3. We finally saw Let The Right One In last night… a really interesting take on the vampire concept. Somehow we landed a version that was dubbed instead of subtitled (and I'll be clear: whoever was responsible for the Swedish-English translation and dubbing should be clubbed), but in the end that wasn't enough to detract from a movie that led us in all kinds of interesting and unexpectedly moving directions.

4. Sorry I'm kind of sucking at this posting thing. My contract job is keeping me irrationally busy and stressed out. While I'm grateful for the income, it's clearly detracting from my ability to lie around and think up stupid things to type online. Sorry about that.

5. On that note, I offer a little music to send you off happily into the weekend. For whatever reason, it's a bit less disturbing than the stuff I usually tack on in this space. My apologies: I promise I'll make time next week to find something really unsettling. In the meantime… enjoy.

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Reflections following a long weekend visiting family in the Garden State…

• The Jersey Shore is many things to many people, and a lot of those things are (for better or for worse) (by which I mean: primarily for worse) defined by the Boardwalk experience: fried foods, trashy looking women, trashier looking guys sporting the Gotti 'do, boatloads of attitude and Yankees paraphernalia, and a consummate lack of peace and quiet. That being said, there are pockets of relative calm — and we were taken to one on Saturday. Just south of the nightmare that is Belmar, the shore abruptly becomes peaceful. Calm. You can actually hear the waves over the braying of Jersey accents and bad rock blaring out of flashy car stereos.

For almost an hour and a half, our kids – and their kid – played in the sand. Yelled and danced and chased each other around. Got their feet wet in the (f#@$ing freezing) water. Were not – as was the case last year – dissuaded from approaching said water by a thick layer of brown slime floating just feet from the shore.

It was close to 80 degrees on the Jersey Shore on Saturday. And for a little while, even though the calendar said April, it was midsummer for my kids. They were salt-splashed. Sun-soaked. Grinning, gleeful and happy beyond reason.

Nice.

• We stayed in a hotel about three miles from their house. A Marriott. I'd booked two rooms, but when we arrived we asked if we might reduce that to one room and just add a cot to the remaining two-queen room. Their answer: No. Why? "Because all of our cots have been stolen." Oh.

• On Sunday, my sister led us to some chain restaurant for lunch. I don't name it here because, honestly, I've forgotten the name — something horrifying and senior-dependent that doesn't exist in New England, thank god. Anyhow, about half an hour into the meal my daughter Butterfly started complaining that her tummy hurt and she needed to go potty. As designated potty bitch, I dutifully stood up and walked her over to the men's room. Unnervingly, she seemed to get more upset with each step we took, and by the time I finally got us into a stall she was crying. "Do you need to go potty, or are you going to be sick?" I asked. Her response: "I drank too much chocolate milk! I drank it too fast! I… (gagging noises)"

In a heartbeat, I pulled up the seat and leaned her over the toilet — and almost instantaneously, a giant wet ball of BLEAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH erupted from her digestive system and launched into the bowl. Thereby creating a phenomena not unlike that which causes tsunamis, wherein sudden, massive shifts of solid(ish) matter cause significant amounts of water to displace… and begin moving with great force and ferocity. In other words: she puked, and half a second later a big hearty bloomp of pukey toilet water launched up from the bowl and splashed into my eye.

Unfortunately, this did not mark the most disgusting part of the weekend.

• Do you know what's fun? When you stay at a hotel with young kids, and they get upset because they have to stay in separate rooms, and after a looooong day of driving and doing New Jersey things and finally getting to the room they take about 90 minutes to calm down, and then they finally pass out – at about 10pm, some 2 hours past normal bedtimes – only to be awakened howling some four hours later when several hundred profoundly drunken revelers return from a Jersey wedding and start yelling at each other in the hallways, slamming doors, puking in the elevator (although you don't discover this until the next morning) and generally reminding you of why Americans are hated around the world.

And by "fun," I actually mean the opposite of fun.

• At one point Sunday evening, as I was doing prep work for the dinner I was cooking as a thank you to my sister and her family, my brother-in-law walked by singing to himself. And it took me a minute to place it, just because the context was so… out of context, but I realized he was singing the Little Mermaid song "Part of Your World."

Um.

So I stopped him, and asked if I was indeed correct in thinking I was hearing what I was hearing. "Yes," he said. He loveslovesloves all the songs from that movie. "Really?" Really. Then he resumed singing and walked out the door to go play with his wife and son.

On the one hand, there's something that I completely respect about the fact that he honestly, legitimately and truly didn't give a fuck about what I thought: he loved the song, and wasn't going to be shy about it. On the other hand… The Little Mermaid?

• We left on Monday morning, and almost immediately upon pulling onto the fabulous Garden State Parkway were cut off – and I'm talking by inches here – by some Gotti-haired jackass with whom I instantaneously began a heated and energetic exchange of finger gestures. Which my kids enjoyed profoundly, until he pulled off at the next exit so he could get to his job as a fucknut.

Less than an hour later, we found ourselves mired in a terrible traffic jam in the Oranges. Just a complete dead stop on the highway. Awful. By that point, we'd already broken out the in-vehicle entertainment system, and the kids were watching a newly-purchased copy of The Jungle Book… when my other daughter Rabbit began complaining. This was, in and of itself, nothing unusual — she's an emotional girl, giving to sudden and extreme fits of upset at the drop of a hat, only to return to her normal state as a smiling little ball of sunshine a minute later.

But. She kept getting more and more upset. Saying she was thirsty, and that something and everything hurt, and that she wanted to be home, and that somebody was hitting her, and that she couldn't see the movie, and… her volume rose and rose, and the entire thing was becoming completely irrational, and TheWife was turned around and trying to calm her down when suddenly BLEAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH

And uuuuuuuuup came that morning's half-bagel, and cereal bar, and chocolate milk (goddamn you, chocolate milk) and… well, apparently just about everything she's ever eaten. All over herself, and her seat. In several great, wet, purging gushes.

As we sat there. In gridlock. On the Garden State Parkway, in Orange, New Jersey.

This is the definition of hell.

• About half an hour later, we were finally able to get to a rest stop. A tiny little gas station. We pulled in, extracted the poor little Rabbit, and while TheWife took her in to the bathroom to get her cleaned and changed I… well, I got to clean up the mess left behind. (All of this happening while the poor, horrified Hurricane sat just inches away, trying desperately not to get sick himself.)

Twenty minutes later, TheWife and a now near-naked Rabbit emerged, looking as though they were in a near-state of shock. I'd finished scrubbing as best I could, and while I opened the back (it's an SUV) so that TheWife could change Rabbit, she relayed to me with a shudder that the bathroom was the single most awful place she'd ever been and it was horrifying and beyond disgusting and – oh, yeah – she'd left something there, and could I go get it?

So I did. And…

Well. I won't get into detail, because what I saw defied description. But let the record show that the most revolting place in the entire world is the bathroom of the gas station at the rest stop just north of Orange, New Jersey. If you're ever given a choice between using that bathroom and, say, stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork, I'd go for the fork. No question.

• And then we got to drive for four hours in a car that smelled like vomit.