She's Chatty Cathy at 1 A.M.

Even the dumpster outside agrees. It must have a child whose eyelids are open just as my daughter's are.

It's nighttime but my night owl daughter is wide awake.

I've read to her and I've sung songs for her. I've rocked her gently in my arms and we've talked about her day.

Nothing doing. She won't go to sleep.

Poor daddy. Poor dumpster.

This Used To Be A Record Shop

This is the building where I would clock in for my shifts from 1989 to 1994, my own High Fidelity. It used to be a record shop, but now it's a shoe store.

There was a time when you would shop here if you wanted to hear The Proclaimers sing how they would "walk 500 miles." Now I suppose this is where you would buy the shoes for said walking.

As much as I miss the days of hanging around a record store all day long, I have to admit that the majority of my music purchases are now made through iTunes. Those were the days when I was at my most social. I remember and miss getting so many free passes for concerts and hanging out with friends John, Heath, Chris, and Matt. If I'd never worked with Kirk, I might have never known the music of The Waterboys, Luka Bloom, or Billy Bragg. Eddie made sure that I always got anything Prince related and Tina turned me on to Nirvana months before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke.

With so many good music sites around, I'm probably exposed to more of it now than I was then. It's just the social aspect of it all that I miss. I work in a hotel now and while I still talk music and bands with some friends, it's not at the level that it was at the record shop. Back then a customer would interrupt a conversation about music to ask a question about music. Now my customers interrupt to talk about boring things like checking in. In my record store days we'd clock out and go to the Boardwalk Cafe to listen to more music and discuss it some more. Now my friends are married, moved away, or both and I just come home to read about bands on various music blogs and other sites. While blogs can be fun, they don't quite match the experience of sharing a booth at a bar with friends while a cover band plays CCR and Mitch Ryder songs.

Here's to Turtles Music on Nolensville Road. And don't forget Record Store Day on April 19. It doesn't seem like too long ago when every day was Record Store Day.

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music."

George Eliot (1819 - 1880)

They say you can never go home again...

...but at least you can view it via Google Street View.

If I did something like "Post of the Day," this would make the cut.

Fur is Murder, unless...

Careful there, Noggin. That's my daughter you're affecting.

Thanks. We were watching Little Bear the other day and there was a scene where one of Little Bear's friends briefly convinced him that sometimes Little Bear's father turned into a monster. My Ari, making the connection that if Little Bear's daddy could indeed become someone scary, then maybe it was possible that her daddy could also do the same. She turned to me and looked for reassurance that I "never turn into a monster, right?"

Of course, this was on my second consecutive day off from work and my scruffy face didn't help my case as I told her in my softest and most loving voice that I would "never, ever be anything other than her daddy who loves her so much." I hadn't shaved in a couple of days and I'm sure I was a bit haggard looking as well. She seemed cool with me, but I noticed that she kept her distance all the same. At the innocent age of three, she was now watching the rest of the episode with her hands over her eyes. I thought I was a bad enough dad for introducing her older brother to Star Wars at a young age. But heck, I'm not supposed to worry about Noggin, am I? Anyway, our day continued and we got back to goofing around and playing together. The moment was behind us.

However, last night she awoke crying in her bed. I came to her room to soothe her cries and get her back to sleep as I usually do when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She always falls right back to sleep with her head on my shoulder and is back in her bed within minutes. Nothing doing this time. I held her and while she didn't pull away, she just kept crying and crying, not answering me when I asked her what was wrong. I was baffled.

Then her mom came into the room. I handed our daughter to her in hopes that a softer and different shoulder would do the trick. It did the trick immediately. She nuzzled up to my wife and drifted back to sleep just like that. I'm not saying it was necessarily the monster stuff going on in her head, but I do wonder. I suggested that theory to my wife and we laughed at my feigned hurt by my daughter's sudden skepticism toward me. Although, as I walked back to the living room alone, I could feel a very real sting in my heart. This is what it's like when a daughter needs someone other than Daddy for comfort. In fact, any family member BUT Daddy.

A moment to prepare me for her teenage years, maybe? Ugh. I'm not ready.

Harsh Midday Light On My Sweet Princess

Don't mind me. It's just the help going through it.

I can't sleep. I'm bothered by the same boring stuff. I'll spare ya. This lottery ticket in my pocket could change everything though. What are my chances again? I'm cool with that. I'm pretty sure my chances of living comfortably aren't much better by not dropping a dollar every week or so. If nothing else, buying that ticket always gives me a day or two of hope upon completion of transaction.

What's it up to now? $20M? 26? I'd drop a buck for 10Gs at this point. May as well. How about a lottery that pays you the equivalent of three days wages and puts you up in a hotel for a bit of rest and relaxation? I'd buy that too.

The bottom line is I need a better job. I appreciate my current one. I like my coworkers and the benefits are great. But a 38-year-old with a wife and kids shouldn't be doing what I do. He shouldn't be making what I make. Forgive me for whining. I promise I'm holding back.

That said, I've got a long day of work at the hotel tomorrow (today?) and this shin splint of mine is gonna cuss me with every step I take.

Thanks for reading what I throw out there. Sometimes it ain't nothing but some healthy venting.

Feels Good Outside

Moby (listen free) Last Night (listen free)

Your favorite minimalist* DJ and mine, Moby, is letting us listen to Last Night, his "love letter to dance music in NYC," for free. Go to MuchMusic and let 'er stream a week before its official release.

I'm currently three songs in and I like it a lot.


*After watching Moby on MTV Cribs and seeing that beautifully clean and spare apartment, I (along with so many others) started thinking of him as quite the hip and cool minimalist. USA Today's Pop Candy host, the lovely Whitney Matheson, took questions from fans and interviewed him a few days ago. Here's what he had to say about that minimalist tag:

Whitney: Yeah, I think about that Cribs episode every time I clean my apartment. Your place is so tidy!

Well, I did two. And the first one is in the apartment I've been in for about 15 years. And the second one I did, I bought this house upstate, and we did Cribs basically the day I moved in, and I hadn't bought any furniture yet. And so I have this reputation now for being a minimalist, when the truth is I just hadn't bought any furniture.

Get thee to Grimey's...and bring five bucks.

Caitlin Rose's Myspace page has six of her songs available for streaming. If you like them and you are like me, then that's not good enough. Her music must not be restricted to your laptop or your desktop.

Provided I can find five bucks in quarters hidden in my sofa and in the pockets of various dirty jeans, I'll be on my way to Grimey's to buy her Dead Flowers EP this week. It's just that kind of music that must always be close by. Owned... Always with... Driving to and from work, and wherever I may walk, her songs will be there for play.

I suppose that's the compliment. So much music for free out there on the Internet nowadays. Buy it or just stream it at home for free seems often to be the choice. Then why buy? Caitlin Rose's songs, and her voice -that pure and wonderful voice!- make the difference.

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.
Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)

Accelerate: Musical Greatness Streams Now

Thanks to the oh so lovely Whitney at USA Today's Pop Candy, I know that R.E.M.'s new album (due out April 1) is streaming for free at iLike.com until March 26. Accelerate sounds very, very awesome. The goosebumps on my arms are proof of that. It's world's beyond anything I've heard from them since New Adventures in Hi-Fi and immediately restores my trust in them as the creative force they always used to be. (I almost gave up on them after Monster.)

Accelerate streams here.

(Much to the chagrin of my lovely wife, I may go with the Michael Stipe haircut on the day of the record's release.)

Blue Zombie blood maybe?

Buk say...

"We are here to laugh at the odds and live so well that Death will tremble to take us."

Punching Clocks, Not Walls

Having met Mr. Gogos
and reminded of the spirit
of his home city, New York,
I know I'll get back there
again sometime.

Hotel Chelsea, where Pop and
I stayed for one week so many
years ago, remains strongly...
the place driving my geographic
yearnings.

Until I get back, it's lost music
for my heart
and reading Buk after punching the
clock each night.

While I may be quite the royal mess
on the outside, this comfortable
solace inside keeps me at peace.

WRVU's Spoonful does it again.

Last night while listening to Spoonful on 91.1, I was knocked out and mesmerized by the voice of the young woman covering the Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers." Nashville's Caitlin Rose was the singer and her mix of tone and urgency reminded me of some of Iris DeMent's or Nanci Griffith's more rocking tunes of old.

In the way that some songs or artists are made to accompany certain road trips, I hear more of Caitlin Rose's music and know that if I ever make another drive from Nashville to Black Mountain, N.C., it'll be her songs of yearning and reflection that will play for me.

In addition to Nanci, Iris, and Caitlin, that perfect mix CD for such a peaceful journey would include Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Gram Parsons and John Prine.

Black Mountain and Montreat are calling me. I can't make that trip now, but I'll close my eyes, listen to Caitlin Rose, and smile to hear her beautiful music.