The Ordinary Times

Signs of the recession

From today’s Oregonian:

“This is kind of a unique case,” Severe said. “Her convictions were all misdemeanors. Obviously, there is an issue with her hoarding rabbits but she does not pose any danger to the community.”

To sleep, perchance to dream

Deafkitties: i had the worst dream last night!!
Ben Moral: about what?
Deafkitties: scott and i were traveling through maine
Ben Moral: ew
Ben Moral: what an awful dream!
Deafkitties: and we went to some bbq and there was a girl there that i knew he would be attracted to
Ben Moral: uh oh
Ben Moral: was she a LOBSTER MAIDEN?
Deafkitties: and he basically ended up leaving me for her
Deafkitties: it sucked
Deafkitties: YES
Ben Moral: PINCERS!
Deafkitties: and she looked like his ex
Deafkitties: it was gross
Ben Moral: which?
Deafkitties: L••• [name redacted -ed.]
Ben Moral: CRAZY
Deafkitties: the only cool part was when i was driving through maine
Deafkitties: there were planets circling the sky
Deafkitties: and like 11 moons
Deafkitties: maine was another world
Ben Moral: my friend adam worked at a tool museum in rural maine for a summer
Ben Moral: it was just him
Ben Moral: in the tool museum
Ben Moral: in this town of like 1000
Deafkitties: tool museum
Deafkitties: hahaha
Ben Moral: yeah
Ben Moral: totally
Ben Moral: it was just busts of George Bush and the singer of Creed
Deafkitties: shut up
Ben Moral: man, i dreamed and remembered it for the first time in a long time
Deafkitties: how’d it go?
Ben Moral: ugh
Ben Moral: not great
Ben Moral: it was like
Ben Moral: did you see wristcutters?
Ben Moral: where they kill themselves
Deafkitties: i think so..?
Deafkitties: and tom waits is in heaven
Ben Moral: and end up in a place just like earth
Ben Moral: but a little bit worse
Deafkitties: yes
Ben Moral: the dream was like that
Ben Moral: it wasn’t a nightmare
Ben Moral: it was just….a little bit worse than life
Ben Moral: i don’t remember the details any more
Ben Moral: but i realized that it was WAY worse than a nightmare
Ben Moral: because instead of waking up scared and then chilling out
Ben Moral: i woke up feeling just kind of bummed
Ben Moral: and stayed that way for like an hour

Beat

These are three things I’ve been unable to stop listening to lately. They share little, yet all have been those songs for me that you love so much you feel obliged to play them for everyone you’re around. You hi-jack stereos, force headphones on unsuspecting friends, scream them into the rush of a passing train as you walk along the tracks. Those songs. These have been those.

Ok, so they share one thing: this crazy galloping drumming that I can’t shake loose. I love it.

Lake – I Look Up To You

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God this is rad. It’s off Lake’s first, self-titled record, which is awesome. They also have a newer album called “Oh The Places You’ll Go” which is awesome in a more 70s pop way. The drums sound almost like they’re being played by a 5 year old, but somehow the clackings and thumps hit in the exact right wrong way to make glorious cacophony.

Margo Guryan – Someone I Know

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My coworker Chris (of Chris Robley and the Fear of Heights) recommended this highly on his awesome 60s pop podcast. I love how her voice barely exists. Like gauze. Or a spider web. I also like how the drums exist very much. Also I am in love with her.

Mount Eerie – Don’t Smoke

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An awesome list of possible reasons to smoke. I like songs that are phrased interestingly, and this: “is it because?” is pretty interesting. Also the way the drums are completely insane is pretty interesting.

[photo is Margo Guryan, from her MySpace.]

Beyond

I first heard this song on the absolutely incredible Himalayan Bear album called Lo Lonesome Island, an epic paean to loss and island life. Here’s another of my favorite songs on that album, I’m On Sorrow:

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Visitation

There were ghosts, certainly, in the voice of the man by the window, asking for leftovers, and ghosts in the eyes of the thin boy with the ball-cap, just sitting there. There were ghosts in the motions of my brother’s arms, scars of over-medication in his musculature, surely, and ghosts in the tired voices and tortured steps of the nurses and assistants.

I came with gifts — two Mountain Goats CDs and a cheeseburger (apparently there is something of a fast foot black market in there — the woman with wild eyes and always headphones came into the kitchen as we were eating and placed what I assumed was an entirely fictitious phone call to a friend to order a Whopper). I came with expectations, vague ideas about what the place would be. I have been there before, but never in the main areas, and never by myself. I came on the bus, with my music loud.

I met Jimmy, the big man with the small voice who follows my brother around like a puppy, angels in his eyes. I met my brother’s budding love interest, whom the nurses said I resembled, much to my embarrassment. It was our cherubic cheeks, they said. I blushed.

We played cribbage and drank decaffeinated iced tea. A man yelled in broken English about Catholic church. Jimmy wanted a dollar for a Diet Coke.

Looking For Someone

Looking For Someone

By William Stafford

1
Many a time driving over the Coast Range,
down the cool side–hemlock, spruce, then shore pine–
I’ve known something I should have said one time:
“If we hadn’t met, then everything would have to change.”

2
We were judged; our shadows knew our height,
and after dark, exact, the air confirmed
all with its move or stillness:
we both were trapped on an odd-shaped island.

3
Sleet persuades a traveler: I all night
know no under the earth escape
even when the sky goes back remote.
Walking till the stars forget, I look out

4
And watch the smoke at Astoria and Seaside
cringing along the coast, and barefoot gulls
designing the sand: “Go flat, go flat,”–the waves;
the little boat, the mild riding light,

5
The sand going democratic, trading places down the wind,
everything distancing away. Finding this
took all this time, and you’re not even here.
Though we met, everything had to change.

See what I’ve made…

By day I am a mild-mannered customer service representative for a little online music company called CD Baby. We’re starting to do some cool things, including this crazy little thing called Podcasting where you make a radio show that people download and listen to at their convenience. I have the distinct privilege of editing the top sellers podcast, which you can find by clicking on the link below (opens in iTunes):

World

Like David Byrne, I hate “world music.” It brings to mind either dreadlocked white dudes and hemp necklaces or terrible Putamayo compilations and chardonnay-sipping Pearl district-dwelling scumbag yuppies. Either way, dickbags.

That said:

Dumi & Minazi III – Mweya

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Sunshine is exploding out of the ocean, and the fishes and dolphins are all spouting little jets of water from their mouths in intricate patterns. You’re on a boat sailing through it but you don’t get wet, just tan.

John Nzenze – Ninamliya Susana

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One guitar, some clackity sticks and two voices somehow become an orchestra. Every song on this album is between 2:30 and 2:50 in length. Presumably that is approximately the capacity of a 78 rpm record?

Another Day, Another White House News Conference

First off, my apologies to those of you for whom this is utterly boring or irrelevant. Actually I take it back. I’ll not apologize. You can deal with it.

Marc Ambinder is a political reporter for the Atlantic, a card-carrying member of the Gang of 500. He writes insightfully, if somewhat conventionally, and I enjoy his blog casually. But his post about the recent White House news conference is absolutely phenomenal, the kind of insider-baseball I go gooey for. Here he is talking about the credentialing process:

Sometimes, if we’re interviewing senior officials, we’re given “A” passes. There two types; “A” alone, and “A” with the words “ESCORT”.” The regular “A” pass can get you anywhere in the West Wing except for the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and a few other corners and crannies. Last week, as I sat waiting in the West Wing lobby for an appointment, I noticed that Ret. Gen. Scott Gration, the President’s point person on Sudan, had the same pass as I did. Richard Holbrooke, the increasingly powerful envoy to Af-Pak-everywhere else, rushed through the lobby. He wasn’t wearing a pass. He yelled at an assistant that he “needed to go catch up with Hillary.” Also — somewhat weirdly, as I waited, I listened to a Marine guard and the uniformed Secret Service agent on duty quietly argue about the torture memos.

And then this: an exchange between two white house correspondents:

There’s a moment — usually with about two minutes to go — where four or five network correspondents, standing feet apart, talk over each other, saying much the same thing. Then you hear the voice of CBS’s Mark Knoller, who gives a last minute radio update. Then the same from ABC’s Ann Compton.

Ed Henry finished his stand-up early. Only NBC’s Chuck Todd and CBS’s Chip Reid were left standing.

Chuck groaned. He knew that he and Chip were about to stumble over one another.

Chuck then realized that everyone was looking at him. He informed his producer of this.

Then he joked that someone was going to Twitter the conversation. (I did.)

Chip, who has sworn off Twitter and has never been on Facebook, dryly wondered how many people would read it.

Chuck misheard Chip, thinking that Chip was talking about ratings.

So Chuck struck back, saying something like: “Do we really want to get into a ratings comparison?”

Everyone from the photogs to members of Obama’s staff said “Oooooh.”

I don’t know why this stuff appeals to me so. Ultimately, none of this matters in big picture terms — no decisions are being made here, no policy crafted. But the machinations of this small cabal of politicos somehow seem to bear a deep relevance to my life. I follow them on blogs and tweets and podcasts. I know their names and who they don’t get along with. I can identify Chuck Todd, Mark Halperin, Ana Marie Cox (my love), Chip Reid (total dick), and dozens of other DC denizens not merely by sight, but probably by voice or writing style.

The way I follow politics, and more specifically political journalism, seems somewhat similar to the way some people follow sports. Yeah, I’ve got my team, but I also have an appreciation for the style and stories of players all around the league.

Don’t Stop Loving Me Now

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Don’t Stop Loving Me Now by Floating Action

What is that thing that happens when a song ambushes you? There’s usually not one thing. In this case it’s the whip like guitar lick that curls around the sharp edges of this driving chorus and slips into your bloodstream like mercury. It’s the tambourine that doesn’t stop. On this recording (available for free from the Park The Van Records website, where you can also buy their phenomenal new self-titled album) it’s the way organ and guitar shamble in almost sheepishly under the sounds of the club before building into a whole clattering mountain of high harmonies and southy guitars.

It’s the audience member who you can hear at the end of the song yell simply, “Good song!”