Shh! I Can't See!

One of the finest examples of those things that make remember why you love New York City is the New York Philharmonic's free Concerts in the Park series. (Other cool free stuff in parks includes Shakespeare in the Park, Broadway Under the Stars, Bryant Park Summer Film Festival and the River to River Festival.)

One could go for the performance alone. It is one of the world's finest concert orchestras. But plunked down at one end of Central Park's Great Lawn, and playing to a crowd in excess of 60,000 and relying on a speaker system distributed throughout 13 acres, the full range and power of the orchestra is lost. The music on Tuesday night was fine, a simple roster of crowd-pleasers, a little "1812 Overture," a couple of standard-issue Sousa marches — nothing too challenging.

But what makes the event is the gathering of friends, the wine and cheese and chips and wine and baguettes and wine, the crossover of strangers from picnic blanket to picnic blanket. It's a rare moment when we all stop fussing with our super-important lives, take a breather to appreciate some of the beauty we literally pass by every day, and come together like a real community. It's when New York is New York. Thousands of us all there for one thing: each other. And, by extension, the other guy. And, by extension, the other guy...

I brought five bottles of wine with me, a nice mix of reds and chilled whites, including a nice soave my friend Jamie seemed particularly delighted by. So much picnicking! So much conversation! So many people wandering around on cell phones trying to find their friends!

Seriously — "What did we do before cell phones?" We arrived on time.

A star-filled night (as star-filled as you get in the City) overtook the dusk, and soon we were surrounded by citronella candles and mini flashlights and glowing cell phones those infernal multi-colored phosphorescent plastic whips parents are powerless against purchasing for their kids. The Philharmonic stopped, and the fireworks began.

Fireworks never fail to delight me. They are so pointless and wasteful ... but they are so brilliant! It's like, we're so happy to be alive and to be there that all we can think to do is light stuff on fire and hurl it up into the sky and watch tiny bits of metal burn and fall back to the earth.

The funniest part about the fireworks was the silence in the crowd. All through the performance, there was a low roar of chatter. People were talking about the workday, their vacation, their friends and family, the performance. Laughing. Shouting, "I'm right here waving my arms. See? No. Next to the tree on the other side of the speaker. No, the one with the pink and blue balloons — yeah — see me n— Yeah. Yeah. I'm right here. See me?" into their bloody cell phones. We even saw some guy propose to his girlfriend. We presume she said yes. Or at least that she would consider it.

But as soon as the instrument cases were latched tight, and the Philharmonic loosened their neckties, and we all turned southward to face the fireworks, everyone shut up. It was as if we had to ... so we could see.

It reminds me of that line line in Ghostbusters when Ray says, "Listen! Do you smell something?"

It makes the eventual "Oh!" and "Ooh!" stand out. It sounds funny. Like we're surprised. Like we haven't seen it all a hundred times before. So my drunk friends and I started saying other vowel sounds, just for the sake of variety. "Aye!" "Uuuuh!" "Eeee!" They seemed as legitimate as the old standbys.

Then we moved on to consonants. "Fffff!" "Kkkhhh!" (which sounds a lot like a sneeze.) "Mmmm!"

It quickly degenerated into animal sounds. "Baa-aa-aah!" "Rrreeow!" "Waak waak!" "Moooo!"

We had killed the silence with our own performance. And the people nearby could hear us more clearly than they could hear the orchestra. I secretly dared someone to shush me. "Why?" I would ask. "Can you not see over the noise?" Annoyance with us would seem hypocritical to me, following a performance that many of them hadn't even really listened to.

But apparently they had not come to see us, and no one said a word about it. They just continued to gaze back up into the sky, their eyes and mouths wide open, holding each other or holding themselves in the chilly summer night air.

And then it was over.

So Vein

I owe a big thanks to my friend Jon for pointing this out to me. It is a brilliant observation that requires really very little further explanation.

Separated at birth?

You're So Vain


Bleeding Love

The Gay and the Godly

A man on the train this morning was witnessing for Christ hoarsely and vociferously. It was one of those moments when you curse the express trains out of Queens, because you know you're stuck with it for a good number of stops. He started out collecting change for a "food program" for the homeless, which was dubious enough. (It's how to be a Christian, he explained.) But he soon made it worse by lurching headlong into a tirade about Gee-zus.

You can be saved, he was telling us. Just say a prayer. He was generous enough to share that prayer with us. I won't remember the words now, but we've heard it before: some combination of biblical quotation and plea for salvation in exchange for eternal allegiance.

"Boom!" he said. "You're saved. Now how long did that take? Seven seconds. That's all it took to save a crackhead like me. That's right, I said I was a crack head."

Somehow it didn't surprise me that he had been a crackhead. What surprised me more was that seven seconds could save anyone.

"A good-looking man like me." (I can't confirm how good-looking he was. I was avoiding eye contact.) "I did some terrible things in my life. I did some despicable things in my life. Sold my grandmama down the river for a rock of crack." (He said "crack" with the same fervent rhetorical emphasis as "Gee-zus" in a way that made me absolutely believe that he was very well acquainted with both, crashing through each consonant and elongating each vowel as if the words were struggling to escape from their sentences.) "But if I can be committed to crack, I can be committed to Christ. If I can be committed to crime, I can be committed to Christ." And so on and so forth.

He was very interested in us committing ourselves to Jesus immediately. "Everyone believes when they're dying," he said, "because you got no choice left. You're desperate. But you gotta do it now. You could die any time."

"Yeah, but ain't no one dying here right now," one young woman said to her friend.

I have never been much for street preaching and missionaries. It's sort of a pessimistic approach for a religion to take, if you ask me. No one will believe this unless we convince them by all means necessary. If Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light, these guys apparently have very little confidence that we'll find him. Have they given up on teaching by example?

At the same time, I absolutely respect their convictions and the strength of their faith. I just sometimes wish they'd go get saved somewhere else. But you ride it out until you leave the train or he does. In this case, he backed out the door at Queens Plaza, still preaching his good word, and walked to the local track to transfer. We heard every word until the doors closed and reduced him to a muffled echo.

One night a while back, I saw one of these religious experiences turned around in a way I'd never seen before.

It was the end of the night for me and my boyfriend, and we were on our way home. We were comfortably lit and a little sleepy on the subway seats, not particularly in the mood for anything remarkable, looking forward to bed.

Three women stepped on the train and assumed spots standing directly in front of us. They looked very well put together, if not a little gaudy, like they had just come from a wedding, all long, gleaming fingernails, iridescent lips, bright brown and beige tones across their cheeks, gold and silver synthetic fabrics.

One of them had her eyes closed, and she was bobbing head as if she could hear music that the rest of us could not. When it became too much to contain in her head, apparently, she began to sing. It was "Amazing Grace," and yet... it was not.

The other ladies perked up and sang along:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

It's a beautiful song. Or, rather, it can be a beautiful song. But after the first verse, she ad-libbed the rest, singing simply "I love the Lord, I love the lord..." over and over against the same melody. It seemed spontaneous — and unplanned, judging by the uninventive lyrics. Occasionally one of the other women would join or take over the "song," none of them contributing much but the odd vocal flourish or worshipful gesture of the arm. It must have been past midnight, so I guessed they had just come from some sort of day-long worship service — Methodist or Southern Baptist, by the look of it, if my sense of stereotype is anything to go by — and they were still a little touched by the holy spirit.

Unfortunately, very few of the other passengers seemed to be feeling it. I was annoyed by their righteous and presentational self-indulgence. What's worse, it was all very monotonous.

Many people just looked away. Some glared up at the women. A gay couple across the aisle from us were rolling their eyes. I closed my eyes and sighed and hoped it would end, or that at least she would break out of the trance and sing something different. But rather than merely being annoyed, or telling them to shut up as we all wished we could, Jeff made himself a participant. He looked up and tapped one woman's arm. "Hey, excuse me. Excuse me. Do you know 'On Eagles' Wings'?"

"On Eagles' Wings" is one of those post-Vatican II hymns from the '70s. It's taken from Psalm 91. Everyone raised on Catholic Mass knows it.

No, they said, they didn't.

Jeff stood up. "Can I sing it for you?" he asked.

I wasn't sure if I was amused, pleased or embarrassed, but I looked at the floor for a moment. Not only was he responding to a pack of crazies, but he was actually participating. I was preparing to be mortified, but he began singing the refrain:

And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His hand.

And just like that, they were totally disarmed.

Ooh! they said. They did not know it, but they certainly liked it. How does it go?

So Jeff sang it again. It was like a walk-off for Jesus. The ladies enthusiastically tried to sing along with him as he stood there with his hands outstretched like a youth minister. All that was missing was a guitar and a tambourine. The gays across the aisle were laughing. Almost everyone in the car had a smile. And we were — what bliss! — approaching our stop.

"That boy has the Lord in him!" one of them called out as we stood to leave.

"Yes he does," said another.

I had never thought of that before, but I supposed it was true. Jeff had succeeded in undermining their annoyance in their own language and in a way that was not disrespectful. It was brilliant and accidental, an unlikely connection between people very unlikely to cross paths outside of the Great Equalizer, the New York City subway system, and I have rarely been so amazed by him as I was then.

Kids Are Dumb and Therefore Funny

Babies are dumb. Little kids aren't much better. And what are adults at the end of the day but tall kids with bumps and more hair. But as we grow and learn and try to make sense of things, we can come up with some bloody funny things.

Intelligent Design, for example.

Or The Bush Doctrine.

I was reminded of this when someone told me a story about his introduction, at the age of about 10 or 11, to a woman named Naomi.

"Hi, I'm Naomi," she said.

"Naom-you?" he responded. He thought that when she said her name to someone it was Nao-me, and when someone else said her name to her it was Naom-you.

I myself am guilty of such leaps in logic. In kindergarten, I loved to bring in record albums (those were the days) for Show-and-Tell. It made me popular for a day if I chose the right record. There was the Grease soundtrack on one hand, and a reading of "The Three Little Pigs" on the other. Guess which one won me respect and admiration among my peers. Lord knows I can't remember.

I forget which one it was — probably Grease — but a substitute teacher once forced me to hand over my record. My favorite song at the time was "Greased Lightning," which contained a sexual reference or two in its lyrics that my young ears were too green to comprehend. I imagine she was trying to save me from myself, or to have a word with my mom or some such thing.

She was on a relatively long assignment, filling in for our regular teacher. Those were the days of Miss Nelson is Missing!. We did not like teachers, but a sub was the Devil incarnate. So naturally, I thought she was using her bully powers of adulthood (Oh, I couldn't wait to grow up!) to steal it from me forever.

As I recall, I got it back by pouting at the end of class. Whether she had intended to give it back then or not I can't say. I hated her and feared her. But I had no idea what would soon happen to the poor woman.

One day she wasn't in class and we had a different sub. I asked what happened to Miss What's-her-name, and someone (a student? my memory!) told me breezily that she had been fired.

I'd never heard of such a thing, and naturally I was horrified. They burned her to death? Just for taking my Grease album? Word got around, I guess. Maybe she had been mean to other kids at other schools. I felt vaguely responsible. I didn't hate her that much. But also I felt vindicated, like a reign of terror had ended.

Keepon Dancing

This is an old one I forgot to post.

I don't want to be one of those guys who mistakes commentary on YouTube videos for original thought, but this one is too cute to pass up.

This thing dances better than most people.

Here's that little robot, Keepon, again in Spoon's video for "Don't Evah," one of my favorite songs at present. It's crazy how a pair of google eyes can trick you into having an emotional response to a motor and a pair of sponge balls.

Someone at work turned me on to Spoon. I'm scared to buy a whole album, so I just picked up a few tracks from iTunes. (Who buys albums anymore, anyway?)

I made that mistake once before when I fell in love with Combustible Edison after seeing Four Rooms, which featured their music in the opening credits. I only saw the movie because Madonna was in it. I bought one of their albums and sort of hated it.

What Has She Done To Deserve It?

Whose genius idea was it to get Iggy Pop to play Madonna ... in front of Madonna? Is someone on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board trying to punish her? It was possibly the weirdest music pairing I have ever seen. I imagine she thought much the same thing, sitting there at that table near the stage, gamely, awkwardly perhaps, smiling up at him.

I turned on the TV in the middle of his rendition of "Burning Up." It was pretty punk, pretty kitchy, trashy and flat enough to be funny, and she looked like a nice, conservative, middle-aged lady having a good time. A blonde and ivory vision carved out of butter. Then he broke into "Ray of Light," introducing it as a "beautiful song," and wasted no time in performing it not at all beautifully. Her pal JT bobbed his head with the beat, but Madonna looked like a mannequin.

To his credit, Iggy seemed delighted to be playing with these songs, like a little boy wanting to please his mommy. He is plainly very fond of her. Madonna must have been aware of this as she greeted him graciously in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria. "Very well done," she said. "I liked the horns, actually." What else could she say 𔃉 Go boil your head? She signed a guitar. Posed with a gaunt, glistening Iggy. And exited stage left.

I could stab myself in the eyes for forgetting to set the DVR to record the show. I wanted to hear her acceptance speech. But I'm sure VH1 will rerun it ad nauseam.

To be inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame after releasing a dance album is a peculiar trick of American pop music. AfterEllen addressed the question today: Is Madonna, in fact, a rock'n'roller? The writer concluded, much as I do, that it doesn't matter. It is her influence on everyone else and her status as an auteur that qualifies her. Can you imagine that? The woman who rolled around in a tarted-up wedding dress. Of course she should be inducted.

John Mellencamp was another highlight. His bit was after hers. I saw Mellencamp a few years ago in Minneapolis — a city in which Madonna never tours. Mellencamp strolled out on stage smoking a cigarette. He's never been what I would call a good-looking man, but in those tight black jeans, those dulled and scuffed boots, that dangling, smoldering cigarette, that swagger of the hip, that slump of the shoulder, he is definitely what I would call sexy. He gave an authentic, simple, old-fashioned, unadorned rock 'n' roll performance that remains one of the single best shows I have ever seen.

At the ceremony, Billy Joel's bizarre, crotchety I-don't-give-a-fuck New Yorker introduction rambled and barely paid him any sort of tribute. It included a fair number of uninformed and disparaging remarks about farmers and Midwesterners — antithetical to the work Mellencamp was being honored for. He could have used the same speech to introduce Randy Newman; it was more about him, anyway. At least he got in some well deserved digs against VH1 and the music industry.

Mellencamp of course walked out on stage with a cigarette in his lips, stamping it out just before he took the mike. Thankfully he played his own set.

Approaching the Road to Recovery

UPDATE FROM THE JOURNAL:
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2008 03:53 PM, CST
Wain just went past the waiting room on the way to his room. He waved at everyone as he went by and said "bring me my guitar". Yai is up in her room, she's talking and smiling-has to be expected post-op discomfort. It's been a long but great day for the McFarlane family.

01:36 PM, CST
The surgeon came out and said Wain's new kidney is in and functioning well!!!!!! Surgery is over!!! Wain will be going off to the recovery room where he will be for about 3 hours. Many family members are at the hospital waiting out the day. Very excited about the encouraging news-praising and thanking GOD!!!!

12:58 PM, CST
The kidney is "in and running"!!!!! All continues to be going perfectly. It will still be a while until Wain heads off to recovery. Keep those prayers coming!!!!!

11:50 AM, CST
Yai's surgeon just met with everyone. He said she donated a "lovely kidney" (her left one) and that everything went wonderfully. Yai will be headind to recovery soon. Wain should be in for a couple hours yet.

11:17 AM, CST
Yai's kidney was removed and "hand delivered" to Wain's OR. Expect at least 1 more hour for Yai's surgery and 2+ for Wain's.

---

A dear friend and my former Minneapolis neighbor, Wain McFarlane, is being admitted to the Mayo Clinic tomorrow, Feb. 26, for a kidney transplant. Some of you know the long road Wain has traveled to get to this point; in the end his niece agreed to give him a kidney.

A journal of Wain's surgery and recovery is being kept at http://caringbridge.org/visit/wainmcfarlane. In addition to video and other details about Wain's ordeal, there's a guest book, and I'm sure he and his wife Catherine would appreciate a note, regardless of how well you know him.

We're told Wain will not be allowed to have flowers or any other gifts in his room at the hospital, but when he is released he will be staying with a family in Rochester, and if anyone wants to send gifts at that time I can pass along the address.

Please keep Wain in your thoughts. (The above is from an email sent by Jeff.)

Song Poison: My Heart Will Go On

Sometimes it's just torture.

My neighborhood grocery store is under new management, and they now play adult contemporary pop songs on the speaker system. I was serenaded by Vegas showgirl Celine Dion the other night, whose "My Heart Will Go On" seems to be making a comeback.

I heard it again several times in both its instrumental and lyrical form a couple of nights later while watching Titanic, of course the song's reason for existence. (There are other reasons to dislike the film. This is just one.)

We watched Brokeback Mountain immediately following. I must have been hell-bent on feeling miserable that night. Though it was fun to rewind and replay, over and over, the part where frozen, lifeless Leo slips from the piece of wood into the North Atlantic.

The final straw came the very next morning, when I heard — but maddeningly did not see — a subway busker playing the song on some kind of pan flute. This unhappy coincidence guaranteed it sticking in my head on infinite loop for days.

...

I once saw Victoria Jackson do a stand-up routine in glorious Lansing, Michigan in which she re-enacted the penultimate scene from Titanic the movie.

Rose! Rose, if you shift your fat ass, I can fit on this piece of wood, too!

She also sang a fantastic parody of a Jewel single — "These ghoulish fangs are tearing meat apart...". Luckily, Jewel is rarely as adhesive as Ms. Dion.

Song Poison: Pee-Wee's Playhouse

It's a shame that my distaste for Pee-Wee's Playhouse doesn't preclude me from getting the theme song stuck in my head. At least it's Cyndi Lauper.

Come on in, and pull yourself up a chair
Let the fun begin, its time to let down your hair!
Pee-wee's so excited,
'Cause all his friends have been invited
To go wacky, at Pee-wee's playhouse!

Theres a crazy rhythm, comin' from Puppetland
Dirty Dog, Cool Cat, and Chicky Baby are the puppet band
Hes got a couple of talkin' fish,
And a genie who'll grant a wish.
Golly, its cuckoo at Pee-wee's playhouse !

Globey's spinnin', Mr. Window's grinnin',
'Cause Pterri's flyin' by
The flowers are singin', the picture phone is ringin',
And the dinosaur family goes, hi!
Mr. Kite's soarin', Conky's still a-snorin',
There's the flashing magic screen.
The Cowntess is so classy, Randy's kinda sassy —
A nuttier establishment you've never seen!
Spend the day with Pee-wee and you'll see what we mean

Get outta bed, there'll be no more nappin'!
'Cause you've landed in a place where anything can happen —
Now we've given you fair warnin'!
Its gonna be that kind of mornin'
For bein' wacky!
For getting nutty!
Golly, its cuckoo!
At Pee-wee's playhouse!

Christmas bonus: Who cares about sugar plums when you have visions of ... Grace Jones! (And a choir of U.S. Marines!)


Hmm... I think maybe this show's brilliance was lost on me as a young lad of — gulp! — 12. Perchance, I shall give it another look as an adult.

I Heart Ms. Pac-Man

Fears for Spears

By total coincidence I watched Factory Girl last night directly before Britney Spears' opening act at the MTV Video Music Awards. I think the pairing offers some notable parallels. Edie Sedgwick was broken down and shattered by publicity and celebrity. Then she died unceremoniously of a drug overdose. Britney has been similarly chewed up by the machine, and she has had her share of public breakdowns. Unlike Edie Sedgwick, however, Britney Spears is fighting back. Unlike Edie Sedgwick, Britney Spears lives. And she probably will for a long time.

I was totally on Britney's side when she went bat shit on those photographers at the gas station. Not insignificantly, her strategic use of an umbrella brought her closer in my mind to a childhood idol of mine. But more to the point, I think I'd lose it too, if I were constantly denied the opportunity to take control of my life by the people who want to record every frame of it.

The girl is working some stuff out. So she turned in a lackluster performance last night. Why should I sing when I can lip sync? Why should I dance when all these other dancers can do all the work? I can just phone in this thing.

And y'all are gonna watch anyway.

And we did.

OK, so last night's performance in Las Vegas wasn't exactly a show stopper. There are a lot of second-rate showgirls in that town who could have given her a run for her money. The sea of blank faces among the who's who in attendance was more entertaining than Britney. But she was out there. And she wore that sequined bikini. You know that had to have been her choice — no one would have recommended it to her. Maybe she's taking some control after all.

I will say this: She looked healthy. Some said fat, but I disagree. I think she looks better as a woman than as an anorexic stick figure.

Whatever she does next will be better. It could hardly be worse. But no one likes to be fooled. I hope we're still there to watch her next time.

Diamonds are Indeed Forever

Rivaled only, perhaps, by Alanis Morissette's cover of Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" is this startling yet gorgeous rendition of Pink's "Get This Party Started" by the legendary Shirley Bassey. A friend of mine directed me to this video confection at Joe. My. God.
Girlfriend sure looks good enough to eat! I wasn't sure it was even her at first. Immediately, her take on this song seems utterly wrong to me, but seconds later, she wins me over.

I was a great fan of her Propellerheads collaboration "History Repeating" until Graham Norton killed it by making it his theme song. It's great to see that this woman is still having fun. Catch the laugh on her face when she sings "I'll be burning rubber/You'll be kissing my ass"!

I Want to go to Prison, Too!

This is one of the most fabulous things I have ever seen. On so many levels.

Bear in mind, this is supposedly a prison in the Philippines. I love the guy who plays Michael's date.

R.i.Pod

	A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. [theistore.com]

Last week, walking to work one morning, in the first 30 seconds of "Big Wheel" by Tori Amos, my iPod suddenly shut off. When I turned it on, it had registered half battery life, so I tried firing it up again. But it wouldn't start up. It just cycled through the reboot and never got through to the menu screen. The battery had been acting up for well over a year, so I assumed it would shut off on its own, as usual, and I would just charge it up again at work.

When I pulled it out later to charge it, it was still running. It was still rebooting. Over and over and over. And it was hot to the touch. I held the Menu and the Play/Pause buttons to reset it, but it never got past its opening screen. Click, whirrrrrr, bzzzzz... pause. Click, whirrrrrr, bzzzzz... pause. Click, whirrrrrr, bzzzzz... pause.

I began to panic and went to the Apple Web site, but I couldn't do anything about it with my work PC. I needed my Mac at home. Eventually it puttered out and stopped spinning. Safe ... for now.

That night I couldn't even get it to mount to the desktop; nor could I get iTunes to recognize it — so I could do absolutely nothing to reset or restore. No amount of troubleshooting would help.

After five years, my iPod's number is up. His little ticker has finally gone out. Long will I remember the countless hours of Madonna, Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper, Indigo Girls, Gorillaz, '80s playlists, the Wicked soundtrack. I will be forever grateful for years of encouragement on the Bally's treadmill with Ultimate Kylie and Confessions on a Dancefloor. Those days are over.

My iPod was Generation 3, the last model before the display went color. Before the click wheel. Before the 30GB model. Before video.

He filled my heart with joy, but at 20 GB — five times the size of my first Mac G3 desktop machine, mind you &8212; he had not yet been filled with music.

Now he has gone to Abraham's bosom. He's bitten the big one, the biscuit, the dust. He's kicked the bucket. He's bought the farm, cashed in (or cached, for the geeks) his chips, checked out, climbed the golden staircase. He's cooking for the Kennedys. He is passing over Jordan. He is gathered to his fathers. He has met his maker. He has joined the ancestors. He's croaked. He's snuffed it. He's toast. He's dead meat. He's given an obolus to Charon, crossed the river on the Stygian ferry — to the undiscovered country, fallen into the dreamless sleep. He is at journey's end. He is sailing on the grey ships. He's done like dinner. He's flat-lined. It's curtains for my poor iPod. It's Taps. He is information superhighway roadkill. He's feeding the fishes. He's worm food. He's going home feet first, toes up. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for my iPod. He's shuffled off his mortal coil. He's shit the bed. He's gone to his just reward, his last home, his rest, his last account, the last roundup, the sweet hereafter, the happy hunting ground. He is sowing the Elysian Fields. He's met the grim ferryman, the grim reaper, the great leveller. He's hung up his tack. He's picking up his harp. He has left the building. He has been launched into eternity. He's on the road to nowhere. He's paid the piper. Pegged out. Pulled the plug. He's given up the ghost. He's pushing up daisies, singing with the angels, sleeping with the fishes. He's six feet under.

I'm gonna miss you, little guy.

(Special thanks to Dead & Buried.)

Song Poison

With one more day left at what I am now beginning to think of as my "old job," I find myself with a certain song from Les Miserables stuck in my head.


Of course my getting a new job doesn't have nearly the same weight as France's 1832 student revolution. Neither does the Broadway show that prominently features it, despite its stubborn refusal to fade from public consciousness. Nevertheless, that soundtrack is still gaily playing in an auditorium in my head somewhere, stuck in an endless loop, echoing mercilessly.

I have been song poisoned.

In a way, I'm glad, because it managed to push out of my head another song that held me hostage yesterday: "Grace Kelly," by Mika. Since (perhaps unwisely) purchasing Life in Cartoon Motion, I've been hooked. Despite a rash of stupid lyrics in half of the songs, I have to acknowledge that most of the album is clever, ironic, funny, moving and of course ludicrously catchy.

However, the three-thousandth time I heard Mika screeching "I could be brown/I could be blue/I could be violet sky/I could be hurtful/I could be purple/I could be anything you like," I kinda wanted to hit my head against something hard and blunt. Repeatedly.

OK, despite my kvetching, I have to admit to still kinda liking most of Les Mis. (At least I didn't say Cats.) My only hope is that the next song to invade my brain doesn't leave me worse off than this one.

Lady Lumps from Above the 49th Parallel

As someone who hasn't heard anything about Alanis Morissette since she covered "Crazy" by Seal a couple years ago, I think this is delightfully random and almost as fun to watch as a baby polar bear.

Today, ladies and gentleman, she rises above guilty pleasure. I'm embarrassed she had to spoof Fergie to get my attention.

I don't own a single recording of hers. I have heard a few tracks from her recent acoustic album, though, on Pandora. It's a strong vocal showcase. I recommend it.

Put 'Em on Me

Empty and untouched [fantasy arts resource project]

When I had a chance to touch Cyndi Lauper recently, I turned it down.

When she walked out onto the peninsula of stage projecting out into the masses assembled on the floor of the club, she reached down to the frantic hands grasping at her knees. She briefly clasped fingers, slapped palm to palm, butted fist to fist.

My friend pulled me closer and shouted into my ear. "Do you want to go up there and touch her hand? I'll go up there with you."

I hemmed and hawed and eventually decided no. No, I won't.

"OK," she said, "but if you change your mind, let me know. I'll go up there with you."

I wanted to go up there. No I didn't. Yes I did. I looked at the bouncing crowd at her feet. It was packed. I'd have to be pretty aggressive to get up there. Rude, even. But I might never be so close again. And why shouldn't they share her with me? Oh, why didn't I start out closer to the stage before the show started, when there was plenty of room to stake out a spot?

	I couldn't get a good snapshot, but memories "R" Good Enough. [dnamagazine.com.au]

Lauper retreated, and the hands came down. My moment, my chance, had passed. Much more importantly, I could stop fussing and wimbling and concentrate on the show.

I looked over at my friend. What have I done? (What have I not done?) She sort of shrugged, as if to say, Well, that's that. I asked you.

Cyndi Lauper was performing with Soul Asylum, Lifehouse and Mint Condition in a benefit concert for Wain McFarlane, a friend of mine. He needs a new kidney, and with the inadequate health insurance of a man who makes a living as a musician, Wain can't afford the procedure and, more importantly, the anti-rejection drugs he'll have to take the rest of his life. Thankfully, his brother is donating the organ, and it's a good match. Things could be worse. But he's still got to pay for it.

All the performers have a professional and personal connection to Wain, and agreed early on to do the show. Jeff and I flew back to Minneapolis for the show to support our friend — and, I'm not ashamed to say, to see Cyndi Lauper.

Before long, she was back on the peninsula, and my friend was elbowing me in the ribs.

I was reminded of a guy I met online whose cowboy hat Madonna took off his head at a concert last year. She wore it through a song and threw it back out into the crowd. He was apoplectic with joy. (His friends strongarmed the poor person who caught the hat into returning it.) Oh, why can't I be like that guy?

As it was, I was embarrassed even to be standing there with my cellphone pointed upward trying to snap a few photo. My real camera had been barred at the door, but it didn't stop us from flipping open our phones, the constellation of those tiny video displays glowing blue and shifting shape for the hour-long set.

It felt so lame and ineffectual. Every time Lauper looked in my direction, possibly even making eye contact a couple of times (which was thrill enough for me), I could feel her disappointment. You're missing the point, idiot. This is music. This is a party. You're trying so hard to capture the moment that you're missing it.

She had enough to contend with, including a band that seemed unable or unwilling to keep up with her and some sound techs who just couldn't seem to get it right. The diva — cold, raised voice, and forceful gestures (Move. There. Now.) — came out a couple of times. She is the boss and in total control. But she is not without flaws herself. When she dusted off "When You Were Mine," an apparent gesture to local-boy-made-good Prince, she had forgotten many of the lyrics and couldn't seem to read them very well from the back of a flyer where they had been scribbled. Eventually, she dropped the paper and rocked the chorus out instead.

None of the images I took turned out, by the way.

I had a friend in college who was a Tori Amos groupie and had a picture of herself with Amos from every concert she had attended. The dedication of waiting at the stage doors after each show, the consistency and Amos' eventual recognition of her, was impressive to me. I was jealous, but also alarmed. It seemed obsessive. Why the need to do it more than once?

A group of three women pushed past me toward the stage, annoying the enormous man standing next to me. The one in front would gently displace someone and then her friends would rush through. It was a nuisance. There was no room for them. I hated them. I wanted to be them. No, I didn't.

I don't think less of people for wanting to make that contact. They were fulfilling a "need" that Lauper was willing to accommodate. Unlike my friend with the Tori Amos fetish, I suppose I just didn't feel that need strongly enough to act on it. Unlike these women, I didn't want to interfere with other people's experience for an ultimately empty gesture.

It struck me that this may not have been about me. By refusing to push forward, I was keeping my friend from getting closer, too. All the emotion around my devision was instantly transferred to guilt. I should do it for her, not me. Though I guess her boyfriend could have taken her up there if she really wanted to go.

It's enough for me to consider that I am only a degree away from Cyndi Lauper. I felt like an insider just being there. I had the hubris to think that maybe Wain would introduce us after the show. It would be just weird to touch her hand like everyone else. She talked about her upcoming True Colors Tour (which won't stop in Minneapolis), days before the official announcement. But even that is meaningless. I don't know her. I have nothing to say except as a one of millions of distant fans.

Cyndi Lauper is a formidably talented musician, not a faith healer. I would love to meet her and tell her I admire her and thank her for helping me friend. But I don't want to reduce her to a fetish. What would I get out of touching her hand? The transferance of greatness? A palm full of sweat? Maybe the human touch would be just enough to assure them that she is as real as they are. Or that they are as real as she is.

Dammit, I should have just gone up there and done it.

Can't Come Quickly Enough

Pop! [scissorsisters.com]

It's hard for me to say who opened for Scissor Sisters last night at the Madison Square Garden Theater. I managed to glean that they are from Youngstown, Ohio, but not much more. When the duo introduced themselves to the audience shortly before exiting the stage, I couldn't understand what they were saying. Neither could I understand their name when Jake Shears thanked them later toward the conclusion of the Sisters' own set. I guess I'd thank them, too. They're the kind of act anyone would want to follow. (A scattered few politely applauded between songs, but the loud, raucous, honest hooting and hollering came when they walked off.) Case in point: The three wigs on people-length sticks (one brunette, one red and one blond) set up on stage after Youngstown left, standing in a light show while '50s-style girl group tracks played in the background, was more interesting in every way than the mysterious human opener.

They were called Wigs on Sticks. It was cute.

Following this was a DJ, about whom I knew nothing. It was good, but misplaced, I think. It would have been lovelier if we were at a smaller venue, say a music club, where we could actually dance. This kind of show doesn't work well in a theater. Maybe I'm lacking in imagination, but a DJ set seems a little empty to an audience with seats.

By the time we had sat through an hour and 45 minutes of the Ohioans, the wigs, and the DJ — and by the time the audience was well and truly crocked, having been steadily streaming out into the lobby for cocktails and beers — we were positively starved for the Scissor Sisters. The long delay made their nearly hour-and-a-half show so much more the thrill. But so would it have done for nearly anyone with a microphone and a modicum of talent.

Kidney Tones (with apologies to Jeff)

From the cover art of Wain's 2001 release That Was Then, This is Now [myspace.com/wainmcfarlane]

These days, my good friend Wain sticks mainly to cranberry juice. He jokes now about his bar tab. Not long ago, he'd drop a twenty at the most on a night out, because so many people would buy him drinks and the bartenders would do him favors. But no one gets anyone a cranberry juice, even good friends. He has to buy his own. And at a bar they charge you like it's a cocktail. So now he spends much more not drinking than he ever did drinking.

He's no alcoholic, and this is no 12-step program. Trust me, if he had his druthers, Wain would be back to the booze — free or not. But he's got a problem with his kidneys that makes alcohol highly ... um ... disagreeable to his system. He's on doctor's orders. (And when that doctor is from the Mayo Clinic, one doesn't argue.)

Wain's kidneys are functioning at roughly 6 percent capacity. He needs a new one pretty badly. And as a musician, he doesn't have heaps of disposable income and he doesn't have great health insurance. He does have three things, however, in abundance: luck, friends and connections.

The luck came in at a bar in Walker, Minnesota, out in the north woods. He plays up there sometimes. At this bar, by chance, he met a doctor. That doctor knew a kidney specialist at Mayo. And suddenly there was Wain's golden opportunity. Introductions made ... 87 miles each way between Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota ... tests taken ... and voilà! We have a surgeon and we have a donor (one of Wain's brothers).

The friends came in shortly thereafter. A bunch of musicians decided to get together to produce a benefit concert on March 10. Wain fronted a funk/reggae band in the '80s and '90s called Ipso Facto, and he's been around the block a few times, having played with Prince's band, Dave Pirner, Jonny Lang, UB40, Tracy Chapman and scores of others. This is where connections come in.

A few years back, Wain's brother was Cyndi Lauper's tour manager, and she became friendly with the family. Wain tells me he once saw her at a party in a gorilla costume. A musician he mentored toured with her. When she performed at the Minnesota State Fair in 2004, she let Wain sing "Time After Time" with her, letting him ad lib a verse dedicated to his late sister. She brought him back out on stage for "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," which Wain and her bass player spun into an impromptu reggae jam.

A connection.

	[cyndilauper.com]

So, we are told, Ms. Lauper has graciously agreed to lend some of her time and abundant talent to the cause. And many other people he's worked with are helping out, too: Lifehouse, Mint Condition, Soul Asylum. You can read about it on her Web site.

Wain was our neighbor for more than three years. His wife Catherine, another good friend, was our landlady. He sang at our wedding. We planted vegetable gardens and herb gardens together. They babysat our cat. We've had Easters and Thanksgivings. We've dined on curried goat. We've toasted aquavit. He once gave us 15 lbs. of crab legs (there wasn't enough room in his freezer for 30 lbs.) because the parents of a kid he tutored are fishmongers and they paid Wain in fish.

We just saw Wain right before Christmas. And I guess we'll be back in March. Apparently he thinks we don't visit enough, so he's hauling out the heavy ammunition. I'll take any excuse to go back to my adopted home for a visit. Even in a month as c-c-cold as March. But it's not Cyndi Lauper who's luring us back. It's the prospect of being part of a concert full of people who are there to give their love to my friend.

(Truth be told, having Cyndi Lauper there, too, doesn't hurt.)

To all my Minnesotans: Please buy tickets!

Under the Influence of Giants

	You too can be cool enough to buy this album.

I have it on good authority (in other words, a well-spoken bar friend on his 6th vodka and tonic) that both the new Dixie Chicks album and the new John Mayer album will change your life. This may be true. But I'd like to point you toward something else entirely, a band called Under the Influence of Giants.

Being a public radio nerd, I eschew mainstream radio, especially Top 40 schlock. One of my more reliable sources of good music is Pandora.com. Just by having that site running in the background at work I've learned about a lot of stuff I wouldn't normally hear otherwise. Check it out; it's great.

One day I heard something that sounded like an incongruous mish-mash of The Killers, Michael Jackson and Led Zeppelin, filtered through an '80s-tinted lens. The song, "In the Clouds," was relentlessly driving, arresting, beautiful. I had no idea what it was about, but it sounded damn good to me.

That night I downloaded their entire album from iTunes and listened to it over and over for a week.

James Christopher Monger of All Music Guide once described a Jill Sobule song, "Cinnamon Park," as "ludicrously catchy." Take a listen and I think you might agree. It's either catchy, or ludicrously annoying. And there is a fine line between the two, I think.

Anyway, "In the Clouds" is definitely in the "ludicrously catchy" category, and the rest of the album is just as gorgeous.

I don't know enough about music or musical influences to write anything coherent or useful about these guys. For starters, they are nothing like Jill Sobule. So, let's leave descriptions of their sound to the music journalists. Mainly, I want people to know about them and support them and buy this album. I am never ever on the edge of anything. Other people are always telling me about good new music, because I am so not plugged in. But I'm beginning to see these guys in magazines and they have 58,839 MySpace friends. Probably, I'm still behand the curve and you already know about these guys. Regardless, there's a very selfish music-snob influence inside me that wants to have some satisfaction that I can actually make a good music recommendation for once.

Now that's ludicrous.

Getting the Feeling Again

I've had a spring in my step, humming Copacabana to myself — Her name was Lola! — all day today. Yes, it's Friday. But I've also been overdosing on Barry Manilow.

I've always had a soft spot for him. My mom had a bunch of records when I was a kid and, later, greatest-hits tapes. I used to rotate those records through my regular play list, which included Sesame Street Gold, Mickey Mouse Disco, and the E.T. soundtrack. (Turn on your heart light!)

He always made me think of New York. It was his accent. And something about his sense of style. These days, I guess he's more a figure of Las Vegas and cruise ships, but now that I live in New York, listening to him still brings it all back to mind, and it's still very New York to me. But it's an old New York. It's a faded, grainy color TV-screen, Solid Gold, polyester, white patent leather, pre-MTV, Chorus Line, afros and bell-bottoms sort of New York.

It's so delightfully old-fashioned. No one writes songs like those anymore. In our age of irony, no one can afford to be so earnest. But that's his schtick, and he can still work it. "I am music and I write the songs"? It's very hey-let's-put-on-a-show!

I've had a craving for a while now, so I recently downloaded a bunch of stuff the other day. I look around myself on the train in the morning. He's got hip hop. She's got reggaeton. Judging by that one's thrapping fingers and expressive eyebrows, he's probably listening to some sort of emo band. And I've got string arrangements swelling as Barry waxes melancholic over and over about Mandy. If they only knew, I would so get beaten up. I love it.

My mom and I sometimes listened to her tapes while cleaning house or sitting around on vacation. Up at the cottage one summer, we were listening to "Weekend in New England," and my grandmother put down her National Enquirer, folded up her glasses and declared: "I think he's a queer. Don't you?"

I'll never forget that. I think it was the first time she had brought up the topic. She regularly had a litany of offensive pronouncements about Blacks and Asians — without ever quite understanding why they were offensive. ("It's how I was raised," was always the excuse.)

"Nah," said my mom, vaguely put off, not because she was disappointed by my grandmother's deragatory tone, but because she saw no reason to discuss the love that dare not speak its name.

"You don't think so?"

"Well, he's singing about women, Ma."

"Huh," she said. "I don't know. Just something about him, I guess." Then she picked up her glasses and began to read again.