The Birthday Blog!!

New most played song on iTunes: “Get Better”, Mates of State.

This album came out early this year, and I’ve only recently been really delving into the band. I have a habit of not necessarily loving something when it’s new, just because it’s new, but because it finally catches me. And well, they have. This song is a nice personal anthem.

Anyway. Last Monday was my birthday, and when I was getting ready that morning, I thought of the little ceramic Dr. Seuss figure my mother gave me I think on my 16^th birthday. Its base is a cloud, and the figure stands atop a spring, carrying a cake. It has a very Seussian face, although I don’t know exactly to what book it belongs. Printed on the cloud base are the verses, “Today is your birthday! Today you are you!” I thought of those lines in a sing-song voice while bounce-walking into the bathroom.

My last two birthdays have been okay. Last year for the big 25, we had a small party in the old apartment, and several friends came to visit and play Apples to Apples. It was a no-big-deal sort of party, except for the presence of Whole Foods brand guacamole, which of course was a hit. My significant other at the time gave me a vinyl copy of Erik Satie’s Vexations, which for the lesser musically knowledgeable is a piece comprised of a musical line repeated 840 times. Someone in my undergrad years once postulated that Ravel’s “Bolero” was the birth of minimalism. I laughed in his face. Anyway. It as a run-of-the-mill birthday, even for my quarter century.

Anyway. My 24^th birthday was actually really wonderful, and not for the reasons one might anticipate. I was preparing to be graduating a semester late from an already super-extended program, I was taking 15 hours including a graduate class, going to the school where I should have been interning at least once a week, working with a powerhouse high school marching band, and also working 40 hours a week as a box office wench at a local dinner theatre. And had just gotten my first car and was making up for time lost in commutes. I was miserable and didn’t have a day off for nearly two months – the first one off was my birthday. All I had was French class that morning at UCF, and then the rest of the day was spent with my mom eating lunch, seeing The Departed in theatres with her and the aforementioned Satie vinyl-purchasing ex, followed by getting my hair cut (at least a foot off at that point), dinner at the Mellow Mushroom with Marc and Nicole, and a get-together that included board games and Guitar Hero at the house I was house-sitting at that evening. It wasn’t the most spectacular or amazing birthday ever, but considering all of the madness that had been occurring in my life up until that point that fall – did I forget to mention I was writing/editing my undergrad thesis at that point, which ended up being over 100 pages? – it was the most wonderful day I could have imagined. It was a perfect respite.

I can’t really recall any other recent birthdays that have stuck out aside from the 24^th. My 19^th involved a college football game and of course, halftime performance, and the first party I stayed overnight at since the days of slumber parties as a pre-teen. My 21^st was spent writing a paper, going to a band sorority event, and recovering from a marching band trip over most of the Midwest the weekend before. My 22^nd was the night of the final 2004 presidential debate.

I love my birthday of course – who doesn’t!? I also share a birthday with Margaret Thatcher and Paul Simon, as well as Chris Carter and Fox Mulder. There were many pre-teen years spent watching the X-Files, with the quirky post-credit graphic for 1013 productions, voiced over by a child stating, “I made this!” I used to want to start a 1013 reed-making company, if I ever really got crackin’ on making bassoon reeds. Every time I looked down at one in college, I’d say, “I made this!” and feel slightly better about myself. My eighteenth birthday was on a Friday the 13^th, the only one of the year 2000 – my friend Michelle took me to Busch Gardens, I had a party with all of my friends the next night where we hung out and berated the Miss America pagent, and I also got to publish an article about my nifty birth date in the teen section of the Orlando Sentinel that I used to write for.

But what I’m finding is that my birthday is growing to be more the way my life goes. I used to look for the most fabulous things in life, not necessarily the most expensive, or most impressive even, but some of the most far out and/or amazing things. I used to want my life to be full gear, crazy mad good times and running on all cylinders at all times. I used to want for the most fantastical things in my life, never really expecting I would get them I guess.

This birthday actually turned out to be pretty swell. I manipulated my kids into behaving, telling them that the nicest birthday present they could get me was to be good in class…heh heh heh. Then Andrew came over, I opened presents, which were wonderful, and we met up with Elizabeth and Marcos, sojourning to Sushi Blues in downtown Hollywood. We ate a gross ton of sushi, veggie and otherwise, and I was really exhausted from friends visiting that weekend so after one shot of sake, I was done. The pictures prove it. We had gelato at my absolute favorite gelato place in the entire world, and then went home and passed out. Twas a good night, and my birthday was the only non-14-15 hour day I had in the subsequent week.

As I get older though, I find that the simpler things and taking time to spend with great friends, as I did this weekend, is so much more satisfying than seeking to have a party say, at Pure nightclub in Las Vegas with Paris Hilton. I don’t need to go crazy places. I am easily satisfied. Ethnic food and gelato in downtown Hollywood will certainly do. As an example, I don’t need to go on random wild trips for New Year’s, either. I strongly prefer my New Year’s Eves to be spent with friends, in someone’s house, playing board games and listening to records & watching movies. I still want great things in my life, but I look for them these days in different venues.

Pictures will come. Eventually. :)

knowledge of the after-life? or, something.

“My God is subtle and great

She can’t be wounded

By the gossip and the hate

Of the frightened

Who put their heads in the sand…”

Last week on Fresh Air, the founder and editor of beliefnet was responding a bit to Bill Maher’s soon-coming docu-drama about Religious Fantatics, said editor-guy was trying to counter the idea that all religious and spiritual people are crazy with the fact that for every time religious identity and belief has done harm to society as a whole, there is at least one time where religion has done right by civilization.

And to be honest with you? For most of my life, religion has done me well. I grew up Catholic – I didn’t have anything forced on me, except my mom encouraging me to go to CCD even when I didn’t want to. It was the same sort of minor coaxing that got me to stay in band in the 7^th grade, and we see where that has gone. I grew very attached to the church in my adolescence, and while I wouldn’t say it was a defining aspect of my life, unlike music was, it worked hand in hand with what I loved. I got to play music at my childhood church for five years, direct ensembles, and play lots of solos. I played four masses in two days on Christmas in 2000.

More so than that, somehow I learned what seemed to matter in church. When I was in 1^st grade, and other kids made fun of me, I would mumble something about Jesus loving everyone. I never got the hypocrisy part of it. I learned that while much of the establishment doesn’t like homosexuals, we still love them. I learned that when you do good, the left hand doesn’t let the right hand know what it’s doing. I learned that the tax collectors get punished and the poor will find glory.

To me, that seems like a pretty typical liberal agenda. It constantly astounds me how the right-wing hijacked religion. I guess the same way that men who sought power have always done. I am always reminded of John Kerry’s words during a 2004 presidential debate – regardless of what else he said or did, he gained my respect throughout the campaign: “My faith guides me as well. It teaches me to give to the poor, to care for the planet…”

A good friend of mine who is an atheist said to me, while we were waiting in a long line at the tax collector’s office, that she wasn’t an “evangelical atheist.” I like that term. And I can’t stand listening to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Not because I disagree with them so badly, but because they exactly enact the things they hate about the faithful. They spew harsh language and hate, and it makes me crazy.

For the Fresh Air episode, I caught the very end of Terri Gross’s interview with Bill Maher, when he spoke about the New Testament, and how revolutionary it was. The meek inheriting the earth, the sad and pathetic being deserving of respect, all creatures of the earth being deserving of kindness. The latter is a statement I feel very strongly about after Andrew’s and my adventure this weekend with a small, pathetic kitty who could not help itself. Maher went on to say that this message isn’t one that’s gone out of style, and he wishes that could be expressed more than the hypocrisy of Christianity. I don’t know if I will end up seeing Religilous – I’m at the point in my life where poking fun at organized religion doesn’t bother me – but it was nice to hear him say something not so scathing about the church.

Role Reversal

I tell my students the strangest things sometimes.

Like when I was setting up stuff in my bandroom this summer, I had been looking at old myspace pictures of my friend Jackson, and parties he used to attend at the apartment where I used to live. We had us some good times. One had a caption that said, "Destroy all humans." I thought it was funny.

So I wrote it on a magnetic white board in my office.

This was like July.

Several of my students have seen it since - I haven't erased it. I tell them a robot wrote it. And that I can't erase it or the robot will break all of my remaining clarinet reeds. A disaster of epic proportions to be sure.

Anyway. Suffice to say I tell them some crazy things.

The craziest and most apt being that my profession is music, and my hobby is writing. For most people, I think, that is a reversal of reality. Most people's jobs have much more to do with writing things than playing music. Being a working musician, or for some even a respected music teacher is a pipe dream. Writing something somewhere isn't uncommon. Let's face it - universities give out a LOT more English degrees than they do music degrees. Not to belittle it - some of the smartest people I've ever met have English degrees. So do some of the less smart people I've ever met.

Point being - me and my hobbies. Music is a hobby to most people. And I know writers. I know really great writers. If you were to gather the circle of people closest to me, at least half of them would be writers, like serious writers. I dated a journalist for four years. People who write have other hobbies, sure, but they are obsessive. They are consumed by their craft. They write and write and write and re-write. A creative writing teacher (and published/well-received author) I had at UCF told us, "Writing is re-writing. Those who make it are those who stick with it." She quoted it from someone else but it stuck with me.

I love to write. I have always loved to write. Ever since I was a little girl. Whatever school I was a part of, there was always some writing award waiting there for me. Not to say that I'm the greatest writer who ever lived - um, no - but I had a knack for it. Being around other great writers has been great because it's challenged me, given me something to live up to.

Music was always work. I loved music more than anything else, but it was always work. It was always FUN work though, and something I could prove to myself. It was always about having definitive goals and reaching them. About performing in the moment, and letting that moment live on. Writers do that less often. Something about a manuscript can always be edited, always be improved. Maybe the Beats didn't believe that, but maybe Kerouac could have used a few more commas.

The thing is that now I teach and talk about music for a living. I've always worked toward it, since age 17 when I definitively decided on music over writing as my path. The writing has always found a way to sneak into my life, with jobs and people and opportunities. And the internet, of course - gotta love to blog! But now I find myself coming home from 13 hour days of work on less than six hours of sleep, and there's just no time for anything else. This is not much of a change from how things were in college. There was just less sleep in college, for a variety of reasons.

I want to keep up with it. I want to have my voice out there, which is primarily why I've piggy-backed on others' projects as a guest writer or contributor. But it seems my profession and having any sort of meaningfuly, satisfying social life do not allow time for a slight fixation that burns in me, but only partially consumes me. I've always known this was a battle within me, the writer and the musician, but now I see it making its presence known more clearly.

And while I've not proven myself to be the most reliable contributor in the past, I know that if I want to be known as a writer, I have to do it for myself. Like I said, though. Not all that different from college. Like in the fall of 2006, taking 15 hours including a graduate class, writing an undergrad thesis, working up to 40 hours a week at a box office, Winter Park HS rehearsals every week and football games, orchestra two nights a week, and desperately trying to finish my piano exam. I'm surprised I made it through all that sorts of crap.

Point being: where do passions overlap? Where can they co-exist? When in the world will I ever have time to do all the things I love, and not live in a really dirty house and pay all my bills on time?

i heart colored vinyl 45s

I have a tendency to find one thing I really love, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand obsess and obsess and obsess. My iTunes music collection is not as extensive as it should be partially because I have an issue of having anything that I am not completely in love with.

I want to obsessssssssssssssss over everything that on my playlists - life is too short to listen to something you can't completely fall in love with.

Anyway. That's that.

And that said, "Lydia" by Keith John Adams is quite possibly one of the most perfect pop songs I've ever heard. Balanced, short, peppy, actually quite a good little bit of storytelling and well-written, amusing but not cutesy lyrics.

It makes me want to bounce up and down for hours on end.

define yr. terms

In my own foray into the world of blogging - publicly and unabashedly - I wanted to have some sort of gimmick, a request blog, a specific subject, something else crazy.

I've written semi-pro blogs for specific purposes, things that have belonged to my friends that I've worked as a hired gun for, but never anything that I've really come up with and for on my own.

And specific information is really what people read things on the internet for. Unless, of course, they're your friends.

So if I want anyone else to read what I have to say, I have to find a niche.

But what exactly would that be?

I have a niche in my career. I am a middle school band director, and I love my job. I get to run around and play with kids, but not have to clean up after kids who pee their pants. I can work with musicians who are starting to get into complex music, but without the attitude of high school and the ridiculousness of the marching band world. I am a perfect fit for my job, and I am also getting to be awfully damn good at it.

But I don't want to write all about that. In order to be really great at what you do, sometimes, you have to have some distance from it. Sure, there are some jobs and some people who can 100% just do what they do, and be good at it, but I'm not one of them. I need some distraction to be any good at anything I'm doing. Does that make sense?

I had a social niche back in my hometown of Orlando. I miss my backward little southern outpost in the midst of a swamp. I grew up around Orlando and I went to college there, and I have a ton of friends, ranging from Giuliani-backing republican engineers to d.i.y. indie rock local gods to married high school sweethearts with kids of their own.

I live in South Florida and it's not so easy, for a number of reasons. My social niche been thrown all askew. Despite the fact that SoFla is not nearly as cool as New York or San Fransisco (I've never been to the latter but I'm still sure of this fact), people my age move away for all the same reasons: unless you have some sort of amazing job or an equally amazing reason to be there, it's too expensive, and it takes too much from you on too many levels to live there. There's a lot of suburban-y places here that aren't so bad, where people my age come back to nest with their parents and teach and what not.

And as far as what I have to say, in regards to culture and politics and what I do? What I love? What I know? I'm all over the place. Music is everything to me, and while I know a lot about various genres, historical periods, a few obscure bands, woodwind instruments, but I'm far from an expert on anything. I can't describe what I love or what I care about in a neat little package, but it'll show in what I write about in general.

Although I do teach seventh graders, I love fart jokes, I watch a lot of bad movies, I feel as though I live in the area where high and low art tend to meet. Maybe I'm one of the quasi-psuedo-intellectuals of my generation who takes a highbrow interest in that which is lowbrow.

But while I'm teaching those seventh graders, I talk about programmatic music and why they should care about idee fixe in early 19th century symphonies. I explain that boys can play the flute because one of the foremost fluists in the world is a guy, with a full on beard and a wife he loves and who's a knight and so they shouldn't worry about being called lame if they're guys who play the flute.

So for me to bridge the gap between "high" and "low" art, in the way that Bernard Gendron, a sociologist/philosopher and researcher on 1970s NYC punk rock and avant garde defines it, is an important thing that I do.

Maybe that's my niche? Intellectualism meets Adam Sandler movies (at least 1993-1998; post-Wedding Singer is just crap)? Academia meets rewarding pre-teens with gold stars on their name cards? Haydn meets Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records? Walter Benjamin meets Ben Folds?

We'll see. I figure when all else fails, just to do like that Polonius dude:

"This above all — to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

I also really love the movie Clueless. I don't care what anyone else says. And I wish blogger had the option to underline instead of italicize.

Worth Asking...

It seems that conservatively based media has taken up the cross to defend Sarah Palin. Which of course, is an honorable thing. Take care of your own. Be careful.

But I was just flipping through the channels (without a remote, with basic cable, what not), and saw that Bill O'Reilly is going to offer a "No Spin Look" on an election issue - Obama's parents.

Because they're fair game. Obama's mother had him out of wedlock, as will Palin's daughter have her child. And as almost did Palin. She and her high school sweetie eloped, and in pretty convenient time, too. But we have to examine the sort of things that Obama's parents instilled in him, how they raised him. How what they will affect his presidency. And what Sarah Palin has instilled in her kids has nothing to do with what she hopes to do with the country.

Y'know. Just sayin'.

Total Request - Live!

I'm toying with the idea of making this into a request blog. I have a lot on my mind, and as far as a non-personal blog, I like the idea of using it as a writing exercise as well as a vehicle by which to express myself.

So - what do you want to read about? What do you wonder about? What do you want me to know? What opinions do you want me to express? What would you like to challenge me with?

"Indie" rock (that I hardly keep up with anymore)? Old 90s pop music trivia? Opinions on bassoons and/or oboes? Political obsessions? (Looking to keep that to a minmum...) Bad movies that I've seen a thousand times? Why so many screwed up people live in Florida (and what is still with this Caylee Anthony dominating the national news?!) and what it's like to live among them?

Anything. You can see I wrote about not owning more frogs. Give it to me, people. Show me what'cha got. I'll turn it around within 24 hours, unless agreed upon otherwise.

the word I'm looking for

My friend Ryan came up with the challenge recently, for me to write about something in particular. About the feeling you get when you are more PFA than everyone else around you. The knowledge that you are the cool kids in the room.

It seems that I forget what that feeling is like. Living in South Florida to some degree takes that away, because you don't have the same sort of backward, clumsy, adorable folks that you do in Central Florida. The metro Orlando area, excuse me for saying it, is a place where people are trying so hard to be cool and fun and well, something. I won't say I was outside of that.

In the metro Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm area, people already know they're cool and they give you dagger eyes most places you go. It's not so friendly down here, and it genuinely is harder to go out and find a place where you feel at home with friends.

There is a moment when you walk into a place, and you feel like you get it. You feel like it's a place for you, and that you may be the smartest and most interesting people in the room, but it's hard to do that without people who are your true and beloved (and much missed) friends. It's walking into Denny's with Marc and crew after a show, and discuss George Romero movies and minor Beatles references late into the night.

That happened for me in my hometown all the time. It was a fun way to be, I suppose. It sort of happened a few weeks ago when I had gone out to a club with my friends Elizabeth, Jessica, and Tim. The latter two I have made acquaintance with through Elizabeth, but there was a point where Tim and I, who were tearing up the dance floor on our own and simultaneously looking as dorky as humanly possible, just sat on the side and made snide comments about some of the other people there. Was it mean? No. Was it snobby? Maybe. Was it self-satisfying? Sure.

There was a little bit of it when I spoke to the fine Carmax salesman who is very likely (and hopefully soon) going to be selling me a car. He had picked up on the conversation of my friends and I while I was test driving a car, and starting talking politics and Thomas Friedman with us. That was a moment. When the boring circumstances around you sort of fade away, and you connect with someone as though you're the only person, or the only group of people who matter.

And that's a sense and a sort of friendship that I miss. I miss having a ton of people around me to point out others with icky attitudes and laugh at them. I miss being surrounded by people who can recognize actual pretension when they see it, and be pretentious enough to laugh about it. There's some of it down here, but not nearly as much as I was surrounded by in Orlando.

I was charged with finding the word to describe the feeling that you have when you walk into the room and you and your companions are able to see right through the bullshit around you - and most of all, laugh at it, and be yourselves.

Instead, I have once again found the feeling of missing my friends terribly. Maybe I will recall the words when I get to see my friends again, and pick out stupid greeting cards at Hallmark with them.

Why I Don't Own More Frogs

Only people who do not enjoy fine cinema ask me why I don't own more frogs. Because, I mean, come on!

Triplettes of Belleville. Magnolia. According to wikipedia, The Reaping. All movies that depict the rare but actually occurring event of frogs raining down on mankind.

Why would I be worried about this happening if I were to own a frog? Or several frogs, even. It sounds like a stretch, but whenever I think about frogs in mass numbers, these are the sort of images that cloud my brain. Sure, frogs are cute, mostly green (which is a color I appreciate), and generally harmless. I love Kermit, and I like actual living frogs, too. Even in Oviedo (the towns & gowns/backwoods suburb of Orlando), hearing the sound of frogs outside and thinking they were actual aliens. I remember this from age 10, but I was scared of everything then. That doesn't matter. I still like frogs.

But the idea of a true frog storm is a scary one. And a possible one. Particularly for me.

And I mean, the Bible predicting this is one thing, but Paul Thomas Anderson's deft use of the verse from Exodus 8:2 in 1999's tour de force Magnolia was not something I noticed when I first saw this film (having started it at about 2am, bad idea). The event in the film is foreshadowed with reference to an 82% chance of rain among other things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_(film)#Raining_frogs_and_Exodus_8:2

Said rain really happens, too. The actual occurrence of raining frogs comes from frogs getting sucked into water spouts, and falling from the sky. I think of such a storm, and I think of "Reigning Blood", like the Slayer song, but the Tori Amos cover of it.

Let's take this into account - I live in Hollywood, south Florida, where it rains a great deal. Right now we're at an odd point that coincides with El Nino and election year cycles, and so we have more hurricanes in the southeast United States and much much more rain in Florida. From some of the leftover rain from the recent Hurricane/Tropical Storm Fay, every last road leading from my home to the nearest major road was flooded. My little Neon nearly sunk in the two feet of water on some of these roads, or canals as they were at the time. The excursion out of my home probably hastened my car's demise.

So an unnatural fear of a frogstorm, living in a particularly tropical climate - what else do I have to be afraid of pertaining to this, you ask?

82. As in the movie, the chance of rain is predicted at 82%, and the actual scene of the raining frogs ("If you don't let my people go...it will rain frogs") as depicted in the Book of Exodus is in verse 8, chapter 2. 8:2.

I am going to be 26 next month, which of course means '82 was when I was born. I'm not one to read the National Enquirer and get into Nostradamus type predictions, but there are too many risk factors.

I mean, have you people seen Magnolia? That storm scene was violent! There are frogs falling from the sky, taking things and people out, bleeding everywhere, it's terrible! I don't like to know that animals died so that I can eat them, so I avoid it at all costs. I can't live in the climate I do, watch the movies I watch, and have been born in 1982 and NOT think that I am going to get rained on by frogs.

So cute as they may be, and as much as I know it's not easy being green, I do not want to take these risks. I don't want frogs to rain down on my neighborhood.

New Top Ten iTunes

Top Ten Most Played iTunes 7/22/08

1. I Go to Sleep – The Pretenders
   
2. You Glued My Broken Heart – Mumpsy
   
3. Withered Hope – They Might Be Giants
4. San Diego Doorways – Marc w/ a C
   
5. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want – The Smiths
6. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
   
7. You Never Give Me Your Money – The Beatles
8. We Didn’t Start the Fire – Billy Joel
9. You Might Think – The Cars
   
10. I Need All the Friends I Can Get – Camera Obscura
    
11. Doctor – Cars Can Be Blue
    
12. Downtown Train – Tom Waits

Seven thru twelve are listed because they are all at five plays each. Mind you I had to move all of my stuff to a new computer, and therefore old iTunes records of how many songs were played when and certain playlists vanished. Which is a good thing. I don’t think I’ll be listening to “Days” by The Kinks on repeat anytime soon.

I have been in Orlando or on vacation the past few weeks, and while this is wonderful, it makes me kind of anxious to get home to South Florida. I want to keep doing creative things down there. My friend Elizabeth always has something to do there, be it a sewing circle, cooking something new and delicious, or discussing how our Armageddon Team will fare at the end of the world. Seriously. The girl is so multi-faceted that I constantly tell her I want to be on her team at the end of the world. My original slot on the team (which I thought of) was to do Public Relations because I’m well, tactful. But she disagreed and told me I could be our team troubadour. This means I’ll have to learn how to play guitar after all of these long years. I can’t well carry a bassoon and sing at the same time, while travelling through the empty streets of a post-apocalyptic world.

And my friend Twisty Sarah down there is making music, and I am not there to help where I would very much like to be. For as much music as I’ve made in my life, I’ve never contributed to much outside of the academic and classical worlds. I have an undying love for classical music, but I have a deep desire to do something that’s I guess poppier. When I was interviewed for a big award in college, supposedly the most prestigious that an undergrad can receive, I sort of slipped and told the panel interviewing me that when I was younger, I wanted to be a rock star, and later I figured that music education was just as cool. They laughed and thought, “Oh, what a precious little music major.” There went that award.

Point being I just need to be creative. Sure, my position as a music teacher provides for that plenty, but I’ve always enjoyed some other outlet, be it writing for a blog or publication, or playing in some sort of extra ensemble, even attempting to sing with my music sorority in college. I have had a dancing itch in me for months, years maybe even, and I want to take up dance classes again, the last time I had having been in fifth grade. Be it known, I was the best shimmy-er in the whole class.

I miss doing tour jetes, and podcasts. I am hoping I can get some creative stuff started in South Florida. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you just have to have the want and the dedication to do something of that sort. And a few dedicated people. And things will go from there.

More locals making good!

I open up my latest issue of Paste Magazine (of which you can probably tell I'm a fan of) and who is in there, big as a minute, but Orlando's own Band Marino. Holy crud!!

Paste Magazine Digital Version, July 2008

If you go to the digital version of the magazine (which is a pretty cool feature they have!), turn to page 20 to see what I'm talking about. Of course, it's a cutesy little feature about how an employee of the magazine also has the surname of Marino, and a very short interview with frontman Nathan Bond. Which I suppose is somewhat appropriate because Bond is not very tall, either. Heh, heh.

Anyway. The third layer of irony is added, when the writer asks Bond about the Dolphins. I thought, oh, the interviewer knows the band is from Florida and thus asks about them Dolphins. I didn't realize the meta-name-incidence until I visualized my school's media specialist, whose last name is also Marino, wearing her Marino Dophins jersey. She does this because a) people in South Florida, where I am, love the Dolphins. And b) because her name is also Marino.

So is the Paste writer's, and so is the band. From Orlando. Who play in West Palm fairly regularly and who the Orlando hometown crowds go crazy nuts for. A friend of mine calls them "Brand Marino" because they've become such a machine.

Well, they've made it into Paste, so they are off for great things. Hooray for homegrown Florida music!

www.myspace.com/bandmarino

Current Top Ten Most Played Songs on iTunes

1. "Days" The Kinks (42 plays since October)
2. "New Amsterdam" Elvis Costello (37 plays since October - currently playing on repeat again!)
3. "No Children" The Mountains Goats (36 plays - let's assume that they're all since October)
4. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" The Smiths (31 plays)
5. "You Glued My Broken Heart" Mumpsy (26 plays - most recently added)
6. "Yeah! Oh Yeah!" Magnetic Fields (24 plays)
7. "High" The Cure (23 plays)
8. "If Looks Could Kill" Camera Obscura (21 plays)
9. "Song for Myla Goldberg" The Decemberists (21 plays)
10. "You've Got the Body and I've Got the Brains" lo-fi is sci-fi (21 plays)

You all need to hear more work of the "brains" behind lo-fi is sci-fi, who now only goes by his legal name, my good friend Chris Zabriskie.

myspace.com/chriszabriskie

Myspace is not the greatest invention in the world, nor do I use it, but it makes it a LOT easier for all musicians (local, legendary, classical, non-legitimate, etc.) to upload things and post a lot of music. And when you're a musician, that is how you get heard.

This list of the top ten is still obviously influenced by relatively recent, less happy times in my life, but I think it's pretty representative. Is it wrong that I will put certain songs on repeat just to get them on this list?

Sometimes I think that my taste in music is fairly insular, focusing on mainly 80s songwriters and current "indie rock" bands, but I believe I have a very broad spectrum of musical tastes. There are just certain things that I enjoy repeatedly. My overall favorite band is Sonic Youth, but I have only listened to that 20 minute version of "The Diamond Sea" once. I think it to be an absolutely stunning work, but it's one of those things better enjoyed sparsely - it's a special occasion sort of thing. I also received a vinyl copy of my love Erik Satie's Vexations on vinyl, ordered from somewhere in Europe, for my birthday last year. I have not yet listened to it. Granted, repetition is the essence of the piece, but it has just not been the right time to listen to it as of yet.

"New Amsterdam" by Elvis Costello (currently at no. 2 on the list), however? I can listen to it on repeat for hours. So much so that in the course of writing this blog entry, I think Mr. Costello has overtaken the Kinks for my most played song on iTunes.

About having limited tastes in music, as well? The fellow who most recently edited the New Grove Dictionary of Popular Music (which I look forward to one day pouring over for hours and hours) is a very interesting quandary. My friend Kate, a former musicology grad student, and I looked up this editor fellow (whose name I can't remember now) to find out his academic background. There was no Wikipedia article on him oddly enough, and all we could find on Google was an article he had written for either Spin or Blender Magazine about the 100 Best Albums of All Time. And we couldn't believe it. At the top of the list were three Beatles records, but shortly following that was The Smiths, which I don't take great issue with, but following that, we had several Oasis albums on there. Yes, the BritPops of the 90s were heavily represented on the list - nearly every Oasis album, Blur, Pulp - and it was obvious that this list had no objectivity to it at all. It was just stuff he loved, with no real rhyme or reason. Like most "best of" music lists written by caucasian fans of mostly rock and pop music, there was a strategic smattering of hip-hop and jazz, but it was about as far from a comprehensive and meritorious list as I've ever seen. The folks at Rolling Stone, the masters of awful and contrived "Best Of" lists, tried harder in many of their past efforts. I would say there is much more merit to the list Paste Magazine came up with a few years ago of the Top 100 Living Songwriters, and yet this guy with his adoration of English late 20th century songwriters gets to edit the Grove Dictionary of Popular Music.

Seriously. Enough of this current rant. I'm listening the crud out of the songs listed above.

And currently? Charles Mingus, "Bounce." For my smattering of jazz for the evening.

When Worlds Collide

The most fun is when your old life and your new life collide. Last night I got to introduce one of my favorite bands from my much-beloved hometown of Orlando to my new friends in South Florida.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, should check out the band Mumpsy. Comprised of very talented Orlando musicians, with amazing songwriter/frontman Jeff Ilgenfritz at the center. Mumpsy used to be the name that Jeff would use as a solo acoustic performer, just him, a guitar, and his harmonicas. He is an incredible songwriter, whose songs fit just about seamlessly into the canon of undeniably catchy and beautifully profound sixties pop of the Beatles or the Kinks.

In the past couple of years, Mumpsy has grown into a full-fledged band, and only gotten better with time. Many of my good friends in Orlando have helped Jeff and company work on these projects, and Mumpsy is taking off for the strastosphere with their new album Cat & Canary. This year, they have been recognized by CMJ and will appear on a future CMJ compliation. Their new album will have a national release this summer and they will be touring throughout the country in the latter half of the year.

The best part? Jeff is one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. I got to play tambourine for the last song they played at Respectable Street in downtown West Palm Beach last night, and he met a few of my new friends, or Mumpsy converts, as I like to call them.

It is a wonderful thing to see such talented and hard-working local boys do so darn well! What are you waiting for?! Click these links!

www.myspace.com/mumpsy

www.post-records.com

Proof that Orlando has more to offer the wide world of music than just the Backstreet Boys and Matchbox 20!