No Reservation

I'm watching No Reservations, hosted by Anthony Bourdain for the first time. His voice keeps making me think of Northern Exposure's Adam Arkin. So even though he's doing a fine job of explaining the interesting cultures of India's Kolkata and Mumbai, I just keep waiting for him to exchange fierce and acerbic dialogue with Dr. Fleischman.

Oh well. This'll do.

Dan Dierdorf on todays Titans/Chargers game,

"Is everyone here in a bad mood?"

It does appear so.

“Love never fails,” he said.

In 1955, she married someone else, becoming Jeanne Conway. “I remember it vividly,” he said. “I’m at Fort Bragg in the 82nd Airborne Division jumping out of airplanes and I pick up the Sunday New York Times and whose picture do I see but the girl of my dreams?”

I can't hear you.

Global Music Hunters hold exclusive rights to my ears right now.

The Sound of Young America

Drives home for me are things of beauty when accompanied by the sounds of The Sound of Young America. I subscribe to the podcast and always love listening to it on my iPod.

Recently featured on the show, comedian Hannibal Burress, whose style of delivery reminds me of the late and wonderful Mitch Hedberg, had me fighting the urge to smile broadly while trying to maintain bored coolness while shopping at Food Lion after midnight a couple of nights ago. There's not much more suspicious than a solitary shopper buying 12-items-or-less with a huge grin upon his face in the wee hours of the morning. Nonetheless, Hannibal had me cracking up. He's at the end of this podcast and his website is here.

Tonight's listen educated and warmed this music lover's heart. Host Jesse Thorn, self-proclaimed "America's radio sweetheart," interviewed musician and producer Steve Albini. His approach to producing and engineering is refreshingly free of ego and "devoid of any trace of tarnish."* When asked why he still charges a modest day rate at his studio instead of the much larger sum that most super-producers demand, he answered as only a true music fan could. Steve replied that while the alternative would certainly be possible, it would likely result in him making a couple of albums a year with not much chance for experiencing the multitude of fresh and organic opportunities found in working the way that he does. Awesome.

From Wikipedia:

On [Nirvana's] In Utero one can find a typical example of Albini's recording practices. Common practice in popular music is to record each instrument on a separate track at different times; see multi-track recording for more information. However, Albini prefers to record "live" as much as possible: the musicians perform together as a group in the same room. Albini places particular importance on the selection and use of microphones in achieving a desired sound, including painstaking placement of different microphones at certain points around a room to best capture ambience and other qualities.

Why in the world is this guy's approach to recording music such a rarity in the industry?

Thanks to The Sound of Young America for bringing their wonderful shows to my humble ears. Listen often and support the program when you can.

*"Devoid of any trace of tarnish" is a line from Peter Himmelman's Skin CD entitled "Clean." I just love how it feels to say that.

I'm guessing he takes after his parents.

Fogerty tonight.

My sleeping habits take me to bed between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning. This morning found me up at 7:00 with my home-with-a-fever son. He feels great and we haven't stopped playing, talking, goofing around yet. I'm beyond exhausted.

Forgive me if I fall asleep at my Ryman Auditorium pew during tonight's John Fogerty show. At thirty-seven, I'm not too old to rock 'n' roll. I'm just really, really sleepy.

Walk Hard...to Nashville.

Dewey Cox: Maybe you don't believe in me at all.
Beth Anne: I do believe in you. [pause] I just know you're gonna fail.

- from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

The previews for this are hilarious. John C. Reilly cracks me up. Now I read that he is touring in character as Dewey Cox in support of the film. Is Nashville on his itinerary? Yes it is. Yes it is.

Mercy Lounge. December 8.

Smile

"We laughed. The clerks laughed. I just happened to be facing the irritated customers in line...and I watched them laugh."

Click here for the rest.

Can I post what I think is the quote of the day?

Clocks in, gets jiggy with it.

"I've never viewed myself as particularly talented. I've viewed myself as … slightly above average in talent. … Where I excel is with (a) ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guy's sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy's eating, I'm working. While the other guy's making love, I mean, I'm making love, too, but I'm working really hard at it!" -- Will Smith on 60 Minutes

Declares Francis...

“Marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together.” - Trouble In Paradise (1932)

Emphasis on "beautiful."

"It hits pretty close to home," thought this here blog author.

The New Yorker's latest has an interesting essay on diaries, what compels some of us to keep them and what compels others of us to read them. Some of it will resonate with those of us who blog.

Below are a couple of excerpts that made me smile.

The impulse to keep a diary is to actual diaries as the impulse to go on a diet is to actual slimness. Most of us do wish that we were slim diarists.

And:

It obliges you to believe that the stuff that happened to you is worth writing down because it happened to you. This is why so many diaries are abandoned by circa January 10th: keeping this up, you quickly realize, means something worse than being insufferable to others; it means being insufferable to yourself.

Some of my guests are way cool.

While working today, I met a guest who was reading a book that made me think of fellow bloggers, Newscoma and Ron.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

If she finishes reading it tonight, she's giving it to me to read. I'm looking forward to reading it, either the copy she gives me of the copy I'll pick up at my local library. I just wish my library had the audio version available. Who are its readers? Author Max Brooks, Alan Alda, Ron Howard, Rob and Carl Reiner, and the voice that I just have to hear reading this, Henry Rollins.

Your Super Bowl Halftime Act?

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, as reported in USA Today.

I don't know. I've seen them live a couple of times and always left thoroughly sated. They just don't seem to me like an obvious choice for the big halftime show. As much as I love them, I can't think of any one song of theirs that brings the excitement and energy level that I associate with high profile appearances like this.

It's more about the spectacle than anything else, right? Last year's featuring Prince was awesome. The Rolling Stones were perfectly suited for 2006's show. U2 was awesome in '02, and even though I'm not a big fan, Aerosmith sharing the stage with Britney Spears rocked so much that I still remember it vividly all these years later.

But Petty? I'll enjoy it, but I wonder about it still. To be silly, maybe he can make some relevant, team-specific song choices:

• "Yer So Bad"
• "Even The Losers"
• "You Got Lucky"

Yeah. We're nerds. ;)

But we sure can dance.