Animericana!

It's true! There really is an anime theme for just about any song you can think of.



The song is "Am I Not Pretty Enough?" from Kasey Chambers.

All dressed up and no place to go...

Somebody must have had a job interview or something.

I should know something by the end of the week, but I'm on the fence about how to feel. On the one hand, I think I did okay, but I'm not sure I sold them on the idea that I'm the one they really, really, really want. I know I could do a helluva a job in this position. I just hope they saw it.

Keep the good thoughts going for a little while, please.

Tuesday Mornng Apropos of Nothing or Maybe Everything Crappy Mood Fitting Video

The Dandy Warhols

Just another Monday in a never-ending series...

Well, let’s just say that the drag Wonder Women didn’t show up and rescue me and leave it at that. Damn!

With my luck, they'll bust into my job interview today and blow that for me. Sigh!

Yes, I've got an interview today at 2:30 p.m., Central time. Out of all the stuff I've applied for in the past month, this is the only nibble I've gotten. It's also the one job I'd really love to get. It's a perfect fit for me. I just need to convince them.

I'd appreciate any prayers(to whatever or whomever), thoughts, good energy or anything else you can muster on my behalf.

Monday Morning Really Depressing Political Reality Video!

Even if everything else about this year sucks, it's going to be a good one for music. Besides the Patty G. and Lucinda W. I've been raving about, Mary Gauthier is supposed to have a new one coming out. There's no word about it on either her website or her label's, but it was mentioned in an ad last month in No Depression.

Here's a video of her doing a new song, which will probably be on the new release:

Apparently, the trailer for the Wonder Woman Movie has already been made

I can't help but wonder (sorry about that) how many of the objections to the film Joss Whedon was going to make were really based on the fact that he wasn't simply going to remake the TV show?

Where can I get a signal device?

Today is not going to be a good one. Not at all. It's time for the quarterly meeting-for-the-sake-of-having-a-meeting! I have to run the thing, spending the morning dealing with both the bitter and the clueless, accomplishing exactly nothing. What fun!

Wonder if I could get these guys to come rescue me?



I mean, there's nothing that a half-dozen drag Wonder Women can't face, is there? Especially when they have the help of a really cute Robin (Richard, the last one), Wonder Butch Guy, Singing Superman, and several others.

Sometimes the Blogosphere makes me smile...

And Lord knows I need the smiles these days. I've decided to fight the grumpies this week by emphasizing the postive in my blog.

Some things that have cheered me up lately:

Otter Prime. (I need more of this in my life, please!!!)

The art of Katie Cook. Seriously, how can you be grumpy when there are monster hugs to share?


Image copyright Katie Cook. (I saw this first at Comics Worth Reading, although Kevin had it earlier. I think my mind was too blown by Otter Prime to notice.)

Roger says that my first name is still the second most popular! (It used to be first, but I'll settle for this.)



Image from the Social Security Baby Name Page.

Thrift store and book sale finds! (If I can't get to any on my own right now, I'll live vicariously through others! Isn't the web wonderful? Isn't my life pathetic? Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be more cheerful.)

New Pogo collections! Yay! (I know this one was all over the place last week, but I saw it first from Dorian.)

Okay, so it's not all bad...

Valentine's Day was nice. I got some lovely flowers from a very sweet man.

Lucinda Williams is coming to town. And we've got tickets!

Friday was payday. And I was off. (Thank God!)

We had enough snow to make everything look beautiful and peaceful, but not enough to be really dangerous.

I picked up the new Patty Griffin CD.

I found a CD at Half-Price Books that I've been hunting for a while now.

We're going to see Volver this afternoon.

And, best of all, I have a job interview a week from Monday! Thhink good thoughts, folks, please. There's nothing wrong with me or my attitude that a change of employment won't fix. And out of everything I've applied for, this is the job I really want.

And I found a cupcake on my front step.

But I'm still cranky! This week at work promises to be HORRIBLE, with Wednesday being the worst day.

Grumpy Political Video Posting

Went looking on YouTube for Meat Purveyors videos to include in my posting the other night. Didn'tfind any "official" videos, but did find this one.

I normally ignore these fan-made photo montage videos, because they are so common on YouTube and most of them are not that good. Apparently every song every recorded can be applied to some anime character or plot or another.

But I liked this one. It's an easy target, yes, but reasonably clever nonetheless. The Purveyors' general attitude towards life kind of sums up mine at this moment. And the more I find out about Bush's latest budget plans, the more I dislike him and what passes for his leadership style. And I didn't think that was possible!

So, here's today's grumpy political video posting:

Yes I Know It's Valentine's Day

I'm just too pissy right now to do anything about it here in the blog. So go enjoy some of these other guys and leave me to my foul mood. And shut the door on your way out.

Mike Sterling
Dorian
Bully
Mark Engblom

The Videos Will Continue Until My Morale Improves!

Here's a (sort of) preview of my Mixed Bag 5 CD. Some of these artists might be doing some of these songs on my disc. (Or they might not be.)


Huntingtons





Me First and the Gimme Gimmes





Go-Gos (In drag yet! Belinda made such a cute boy!)





Kasey Chambers





Jill Sobule





Extra Special Bonus Cheesy Go-Gos Bugle Boy Commercial

Sometimes there's only one thing that can make me feel better...

And that's Emmylou Harris videos!

"Ain't Livin'Long Like This." (Ain't that the truth!) That's her band Spyboy with her. The lead guitarist is the incredible Buddy Miller.



Doing Steve Earle's "Guitar Town" with her band at the time, the Nash Ramblers. (That's Sam Bush on mandolin.) Taped at the Ryman.



From Garrison Keillor's New Year's special with Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas. My favorite Bill Monroe song. Also taped at the Ryman.



An oldie, but a goodie: "Two More Bottles of Wine."



Emmylou and Guy Clark do "Black Diamond Strings."



And of course, with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton doing a song from Trio.



Bonus: Emmylou sings with the McGarrigle sisters on "Going Back to Harlan." Anna McGarrigle wrote this song, which Emmylou later recorded on her Wrecking Ball album.



Extra Special Bonus: Before they were Trio, they were three women who liked to sing together. This is from Dolly's 70's show, which I would love to see released on DVD, if anyone's listening! "Sweetest Gift" is the song that introduced me to the wonder that is Emmylou Harris. My mom was a big Linda Ronstadt fan, and I became one by default. One of my favorite Linda albums has this song on it and listening to it led me to seek out the work of the harmony vocalist, who happened to be Emmylou!

How am I feeling today?

It's Monday morning!

Rise and shine!

Time to go to work!

How are you feeling today, Eddie?

Let's let our friends at YouTube answer that:

Todd Snider



And of course, The Boomtown Rats



A bit obvious perhaps, but no less true.

I wanted to include Patty Griffin's Making Pies too, but the only version of it on YouTube us some sensitive folksinger dude over-singing it in his bedroom, complete with overwrought facial emotions. I'll spare you that and let you look at the lyrics instead, because it fits so well with the theme today.

Renovations and Linakges

I need to post, but really don't have the brainpower right now to do anything too involved, so here's some hit and run kind of stuff.

This is what happens when little stuffed bulls read too much Progressive Ruin. Won't someone please think of the children?

Okay, my Molly Ivins link from the other day never did work right, although I swear it did work when I wrote the post. I kept thinking it was just screwing up because of high traffic right after she died, but it's still out, so I guess the paper either moved or removed the story. Still, I can't let her passing go by without some acknowledgement, so here's a better (ie working) link, which I took from Roger.

I've been doing some sprucing up on the sidebar. I added several links in the Louisville/Kentucky Music Resources section--the three best live music venues in town, our incredible public radio station, and our awesome independent music store. Oh, and our most beloved and most venerable Homefront! Check 'em out to find out a little about music life in my city. And if you're ever spending time around here, the local concert calendar on the WFPK page is invaluable!

In the Comics section, you'll now find links to Comics Coverage and Comics Make No Sense, a couple of blogs I've had a lot of fun with since I found them via the comics weblog update thingie.

In the Not Comics section, I've added links to the Thrift Store Project and In My Own Backyard. TSP belongs to Kristin, who gets mentioned at Beaucoup Kevin from time to time. I've been a thrifter for years, every chance I get, so I love this blog. Kristen shares her experiences and posts photos of her finds. Cool. Every year at my birthday, Keith and I celebrate by visiting every thrift store and flea market in town. Interestingly enough, I found TSP the same week that the Courier-Journal ran an article about the Peddler's Malls, which are one of our favorite stops when we go thrifting. I know they're not a thrift per se, but you can find a variety of interesting stuff there, most of it secondhand, and most of it cheap. So, it fits. It's kind of cool that they started here in Louisville.

I found IMOB through the Emmylou Yahoo group. Mona's a member there, and so am I. (Duh!) She mentioned in a recent message that she had posted some videos from I See Hawks in LA, a band she talks about from time to time. She always makes them sound really good, so I went to check them out. Well, not only is the band fantastic, so is her blog.

The new link for the Find More Good Music section is for Our Kind of Music, which features my kind of music! Keith and I know the guy who runs the site from running into him at concerts around town. It's a worthwhile endeavor so I thought I'd link to it and show some support. Check it out!

At the top of my sidebar, right under my profile, is a link to the Youtube version of the video of this thing that happened to me last year. I tried to embed the video in my sidebar, but none of the other links would load when I did that. So I'm settling for the link.

And for reading through all of that, here's a Pipettes video I swiped from Gordon. It's part of his "near mixed bag" (which is pretty neat in and of itself).






Anyone who got my holiday gift mixes last year will recognize the song, which is why I swiped it. I actually listened to both those mixes this weekend for inspiration while I worked on my newest Mixed Bag contribution. I realized that I never posted any commentary about them. At the time, I was thinking that, since it only would really interest five or six folks, I'd just not do a commentary. After listening to the mix again, I got to wondering if any of the recipients wanted more info about the songs and why I chose them. And then I thought about the fact that I only have about five or six readers, so it's not like I'd be boring the world at large or anything.

So, tell me, you all who got a disc from me in December, would you like to see some comments about the songs? Leave a note in the comments. I mean, what the hell, it's only two months later!

Speaking of the Mixed Bags, mine's about 70% done. I keep a folder of potential mix songs going on my laptop. Every time I hear something I think would be good for a future mix, I rip it to that folder. Then, when mix time comes around, I have a starting point! Plus, it lessens the amount of ripping I have to do to get a disc ready. I got a good batch of songs out of that folder, but I still need a few more carefully chosen tunes to pull it all together. I should get it in the mail on Friday or Saturday.

Yup. I've got to get the new Patty G!

From Letterman this week:



I LOVE this Bonnie Raitt path that she's taking here, plus the little bit of jazz and Ray Charles country mixed in. Mmmmmm. This is kind of thing Nora Jones tries to do, only here it works!

Payday's coming!

Comic Blog Queries

Is there anything cooler than a bunch of caveman comic covers? Maybe a bunch of old Wonder Woman covers?

Was there ever a comic character as suave as Herbie Popnecker? Please, someone, anyone, collect these stories into an archive or a trade paperback or a digest reprint or something!

Is there anything more adorable than a little stuffed bull in his gorilla suit? I think not!

Is there anything sexier than the thought of yaoi starring Dean Haspiel? Well, probably, but at this moment I'm having a hard time thinking of any.

Are super-hero comics a niche industry? Well, duh! Actually, the direct market itself is the niche. Super-heroes are just the very big fish in a very tiny pond. But none of this is any grand revelation, of course. I do like the conclusion, however, that maybe there's nothing that should be done about the situation.

Where can I find a good tutorial on blogging? Right here, in these words of wisdom from one of the masters of the form, Beaucoup Kevin.

What's wrong with Mike Sterling? That's a mystery that's baffled the best doctors. Hopefully, there's no cure.

Was there ever anything more useful for a round of lazy linkblogging than the Comics Weblog Update Thingie? I'm having so much fun on the blogosphere these days!

PS I hope you're feeling better, Lydia Green!

Sadness...

Couple of bits of bad news.

Molly Ivins has died.

Her voice, her wit, her intellect and her insight will be missed. Throughout the unmitigated disaster that has been the Bush presidency, she's been the proverbial voice crying in the wilderness. I can't imagine the 2008 presidential elections without her commentary. Sigh.

Marvin Finn has also died.

He leaves the world a less colorful place, but in a different way. I'm not sure how well known he was outside the city, but he and his art were one of the things that made Louisville special, especially the large public installation based on his colorful folk art at the Waterfront. The "Flock of Finns" is one of my favorite Louisville spots. I've always had a real fondness for folk art, and it was real cool to know that we had a prominent folk artist living here.



Pic from the Warefront web page.