Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Boston’s great and all, but I am having some serious time problems.

First of all, this eastern-edge-of-the-time-zone thing is driving me nuts. Here it is the last day of February and the sun is still going down at 5:30. We’re at basically the same latitude as Minneapolis, but since Minneapolis is in the middle of the time zone the sun is setting there at 5:55. We’re actually a couple of degrees south of Minneapolis, so our days are actually seven minutes longer, but I don’t want my light in the morning, I want it in the evening. I know this is going to kill me in June, too, when I’m used to sun until 9:30.

And then the Eastern time zone thing is killing me, too, because not only is it darker earlier but my TV nights, sports and otherwise, start an hour later, which means I’m up later which means I wake up later, which means I get even less sunlight. I am not looking forward to watching the Sox play on the West Coast this year and having games routinely end at one in the morning. I can’t wait to move west again.

And it doesn’t help that it’s well below average for this time of year and temperatures are supposed to remain below freezing for the next 10 days. Crap.

I’m going to kill. Earlier this month I had decided to write a different song about killin’ for every day of February. I didn’t do that, mostly due to unseasonable warmth in the early part of the month, but now it looks like March might be my Ode To Killin’ month.

I like Mark Bellhorn. He had a great year in 2004 for the Sox, hit a three-run homer in a two-run win against the Yankees in game (I refuse to capitalize it even though I understand the case for capitaliation) 6 of the ALCS, and hit the game-winning home run in game 1 of the World Series.

But I don’t think Bellhorn’s a very good baseball player, nor do I think he’s going to find another bottle with 2004’s lightning inside.

Bellhorn’s career OPS is 766, which isn’t completely horrible for a second baseman, I guess. (I could look at the rest of the 2Bs in the league, but I’m tired and don’t feel like it.) But that career OPS is that high almost entirely because of good seasons in 2002 and 2004, and those numbers are high due to complete aberrations in his batting average those years. And we all know that batting average is based a lot on luck and is one of the least consistent stats over the course of a career. Not to mention, that 2002 aberration occured in Bellhorn’s age 27 year, which is quite a common age for a baseball player to peak.

So what makes the Globe think that Bellhorn, who will turn 31 in August (exactly two months before I do) “seems poised to put together productive back-to-back seasons?” Who knows? My guess is that they don’t, really, but they’re just required by law to be optimistic about every single player in camp.

I’m reminded of the Star Tribune’s coverage of the Twins 2003 spring training. They covered all 35 guys who had some kind of shot at making the roster during the course of spring training, and their articles were always one of two types. One was “Manwich had a really good year in 2001, but slipped last year. So you can expect him to rebound back to his 2001 form.” Secondly, there was “Torii Hunter really improved on his 2001 numbers in 2002, so you can expect that trend to continue into 2003.” The idea that every single player on the Twins roster was going to be improved, and thus a World Series championship was inevitable was ludicrous.

There are so many interesting things that can be covered and analysis that can be done for the next five weeks, so why won’t it happen?

It wasn’t only due to the running water in Club Passim and lack of the same in my apartment last Wednesday night that made me anxious to get out and see folk singer-songwriter Mieka Pauley. No, Pauley had b-u-z-z buzz and I was curious to find out if this was the genuine article or if it was the manufactured kind. I was encouraged by her presence in several prominent folk festivals, including Newport and Falcon Ridge.

Early signs of buzz authenticity were promising: the club was packed. It was the first time the Harvard graduate had sold out the non-profit music club that shares its space with Veggie Planet. The crowd was electric as well, pumping out far more energy than the club’s five stage lights could generate.

Warming up the crowd was Baratunde, a political comedian whose material was timely enough to include jokes on the social security debate, the Iraqi elections, and the Boston dirty bomb threat. Baratunde’s range was impressive: he could swing effortlessly from a tongue-in-cheek screed about “blowing up Iowa” to small twists of language employed to make subtle criticisms of cable news.

Range was a concern I had coming into the night because the 23-year-old Pauley plays guitar like…well…like a folk singer-songwriter. Suffice it to say that nobody in attendance was there to see folk guitar advanced beyond three chords and a capo, which is why I was happy to see Tyler Wood on keys and Nate Egger on bass on stage to flesh out Pauley’s sound.

Pauley’s buzz genesis could be pinpointed almost as soon as the songs began. Her most arresting attribute is her sultry, expressive voice followed closely by eyes that match. Sure, popular music’s history is littered with female vocalists whose voices can be described as sultry, but Pauley makes a unique contribution to this crowd by adding the trills and runs that have been popular in R&B during the last 15 years.

Further separating her from the crowd is Pauley’s use of her vocal gifts. She is able to create a vast emotional range with her voice using unorthodox techniques, the most striking of which involves varying the distance and angle between her mouth and the microphone, creating a startling effect on the timbre of her voice. Pauley and her band mates used strident dynamic changes to create an emotional power stronger than that of her recorded works. Eliciting increased pathos from the crowd in this manner, Pauley added deeper dimensions and new angles to her songs that aren’t evident when she’s working in a studio. Pauley’s buzz is clearly generated from her live shows and you can’t know her without seeing a live performance.

Curiously, Pauley left out some of her more powerful songs such as “Enough” and “Companion to a King,” but included “Don’t Want You,” which was penned during her high school years. The most glaring omission, however, was in the white space surrounding the songs. If there’s one crowd that traditionally places significant value on what’s done between songs, it’s the folk crowd. Pauley’s statements between songs consisted of two or three sentences, one of which was usually, “That’s totally awesome.” She’s charismatic enough to make you think that it’s your personal friendship she values so much, but this reviewer would have enjoyed the extra angle that illumination of her lyrics promises to bring.

Camille Paglia once wrote that rock musicians are America’s greatest wasted resource, and artists like Mieka Pauley never fail to bring that quote to mind. Here is an ambitious, artistic woman with gifts in a unique package. And in the areas of songwriting and banter, where she could use improvement, she shows promise. Her choice of excellent band mates indicates a deep musical knowledge, and her choice of covers by Sting and John Prine indicates an appreciation for advanced songwriting. It seems there’s an underserved market here: a talented entrepreneur could find a niche serving young, talented musicians and, in the process, serve the greater artistic interests of the country. In lieu of such an organization, though, I still recommend keeping a close eye on Pauley and catching one of her captivating live shows.

I went out to a bar in Allston last weekend with my buddy, and for some inexplicable reason the bar, in a heavily blue area, was playing FOX News on one of its TVs.

The sound was off and the juke was playing, so I couldn’t tell what the story was about, but it had something to do with Wisconsin. They had the former Republican governor of Wisconsin on as a guest, and his hair was combed nice and he was in a suit and there was a nice background behind him and I’m sure he was being lobbed softball, scripted questions.

A little bit later, they showed the current, Democratic governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle. Now, Doyle’s not a handsome man (sorry, Jim). And FOX went out of their way to dig up the most unflattering footage of him they could find. The camera was from an inconvenient angle, the lighting really accentuated his baldness, and he was looking down to talk to somebody and that made the creases on the lower part of his head stand out all that much more.

Note that Doyle was not a guest on the show like the Republican governor was.

Not only was there this discrepancy in their treatment of guests, but about 10 seconds before they cut away from this footage, they slowed the footage down. It was at a moment when Doyle was shaking his head and it made it look really dramatic and, quite frankly, it just made him look like an evil person.

I was surpised with myself that I noticed this stuff. It’s subtle, but it’s all complete manipulation. These things weren’t outrageous lies, which FOX is not immune to stating anyway, but it was all very stealthily crafted to convey a certain emotion toward two people (and, by proxy, their parties).

I know I’m not breaking any new ground with the “FOX News is right-wing” post here, but this particular manipulation of imagery was news to me. I’m not sure if this kind of thing was covered in Outfoxed or not, but it should have been.

From an article by the Associated Press:

The seven-time NL MVP is entering his 20th major league season. Bonds drew 232 walks last season, 34 more than the record he set in 2002 and more than 100 better than anyone in baseball. His 120 intentional walks shattered the mark of 68 that he set in 2002.

My gawd. According to ESPN.com’s statistics, he had 232 walks in 2004 and there were three guys tied for second place in baseball with 127. He had more than 82% more walks than the second-place guys! (Incidentally, what are the odds of three people getting exactly 127 walks in a season?)

Even more incredibly (more? yes, more), he had 120 intentional walks on the season, which bested his (and baseball’s) previous record of 68 by 76% and was 462%(!) more than second-place Jim Thome’s 26. He had more intentional passes than the next six guys on the list combined.

It’s hard to imagine steriods helping somebody do that. Screw that, it’s hard to imagine period that, in an era where every 12-year-old in the world who shows promised is put onto the MLB track, one man can dominate the sport so completely. Not since Babe Ruth….

Today is my father-in-law’s birthday and we sent him a mix CD. He hasn’t received it yet, but he doesn’t know about this blog anyway, so here’s the playlist:

1. Reflecting Pool – Bob Mould
2. Lost In The Flood – Bruce Springsteen
3. Blue Ridge Way – Drivin’ N’ Cryin’
4. I Got Loaded – Los Lobos
5. 1000 Dollar Car – The Bottle Rockets
6. Highway Patrolman – Dar Williams
7. The Weight – The Band
8. Seven Angels – Bruce Springsteen
9. Doctor Doctor – The Kids Of Widney High
10. September Gurls – Big Star
11. The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show- The Band
12. 18 Wheels & A Crowbar – BR5-49
13. Born In The U.S.A. (Tracks version) – Bruce Springsteen
14. Set You Free – The Black Keys
15. Bled White – Elliott Smith
16. Screenwriter’s Blues – Soul Coughing
17. Fragile – Love Jones
18. Cherokee Boogie – BR5-49
19. Radar Gun – The Bottle Rockets
20. Roulette – Bruce Springsteen

What a great idea. I had a blast putting this together. From now on, everbody gets a mix CD for their birthday and Xmas.

Today is my six month wedding anniversary.

The most important thing I’ve learned in the past six months is something that has evolved over the past few weeks and finally crystallized Friday night.

There are different parts of me. All of us, I believe, have different selves. Sometimes those selves are complementary and sometimes they are competitive. Sometimes the different selves present themselves (no pun intended) temporarily, others are more constant. Some selves appear in the presence of our parents while we feel differently about ourselves around our friends. Some selves exist no matter who we’re talking to.

And what I’ve come to realize is that no spouse, no person, nowhere, will ever understand or reciprocate to, or resonate with all of my selves. My Baby’s great, but she doesn’t “get” all of me. That’s not a bad thing; in fact, I think it’s a great thing that I’ve recognized it. Because now when I meet somebody who gets a part of me that My Baby doesn’t get, I won’t feel like My Baby’s been stifling me or not nourishing me. On the contrary, now I can see where she is nourishing my soul, and I can now go out and find communities that get me in different ways than My Baby and be a more fulfilled person and better husband as a result.

But what’s most important is that I’ve realized that when you choose a spouse, you really are choosing what parts of you should be “gotten” by your spouse. So to all of you from whom I solicited marriage advice when I was considering proposing, this is the advice I was looking for: figure out, from your inventory of selves, which of those need to be gotten by your spouse, and then find somebody who gets those selves.

I got lucky, because I also now see just how important it is that My Baby gets the selves she does.

In honor of our six-month anniversary, here are the top six selves of mine that My Baby gets at least well enough to tolerate:

1. I have a massive sense of duty, which often times leads to a lot of self-represssion. My Baby sees this and sees how much better and happier I’d be if I gave to myself a little bit. She lets me play GameCube when I could be working even harder and she gives me the freedom to sacrifice income in the name of searching for a new career that would be more fulfilling for me.
2. I lead an outrageously structured life, which My Baby finds charming. When she does find it frustrating, she works with me constructively to find a way we can co-exist.
3. I am a walking emotion and my emotions drive what I do. This leads to me sometimes dancing wildly down the street and other times smashing things because I lost my phone earpiece. When I get frustrated to the point of tears, it doesn’t come out as tears but anger. My Baby puts up with this.
4. My Baby gets my raging liberalness, which doesn’t keep her from challenging me to continue to think critically.
5. My Baby endorses my CD habit, which is at 1200+ and counting.
6. My Baby endorses my geeky baseball statistics obssession, to the point of appearing on an Internet video tribute to my favorite baseball blogger with me and driving from Minneapolis to Cincinnati and back over Labor Day weekend just to see a baseball stadium that was to be torn down in a few weeks. Not to mention two trips to Milwaukee, and a drive all the way across Washington, all just to see more baseball stadiums.

Happy anniversary, Baby. Maybe in six more months I can figure out some other universal truth that should have been self-evident.

Q: What is the longest period of time between an inconsequential release of an album on an inconsequential label to the last earnest review of said album?
A: Portland’s Hummingfish’s 1996 release Love Traktor sounds like…aw, screw it. They’re a light/jazzy/funk band with a female lead-singer that played college campuses, for crying out loud! You know what they sound like because your school had the same damn thing. I have to say that they’re not as good as Wash U’s Mercy Me, though. But, c’mon…Mercy Me had a vocalist with a voice that literally had men’s knees buckling, a keyboardist, and a sax player with hair that was, yes, literally a foot from his scalp.

Hummingfish has talented musicians, but they aren’t near the quality of Mercy Me. And the vocalist, Deb Talan, well, let’s just say she’s more of a vocal stylist than a singer. It seems Deb realizes her limitations, though, by the way she plays with her voice and the notes and words. It’s as if she really is trying to “style vocally.” What Deb lacks in singing ability, though, she makes up for with very insightful lyrics. “Wistful Fall” is poetry, “Marilyn Monroe” philosophizes the combination of existentialism and a divine plan. “She” is startling in the accuracy with which it portrays the inner-workings of a man’s mind when he meets the first woman that he loves precisely because she is challenging. And then there’s “Love Tractor.”

Why is the album titled Love Traktor, but the title track is “Love Tractor?” Or does that change in a letter make it not the title track? Hmm. Regardless, do you remember that one song that your college’s light-funk band that everybody loved upon first hearing it and when it started in concert everybody screamed and started jumping a little higher, but it really didn’t stand up to repeated listenings? That’s “Love Tractor.” Hummingfish clearly recognized it as its hit, naming the album after it and putting the most polish and effort into it. And am I dreaming, or is it about sexual pleasure machines? “If you can’t kiss him right now/Come on, get onto the Love Tractor.” You be the judge.

My baby says that the “Ah-oo-oo”s in “Wolfsong” are fun to sing along with. She’s right.

“Wistful Fall” starts off the album and it’s the song that fits with the rest the least. And I think it’s their best song. It’s a darker, moodier tune, but it shows maturity in the songwriting and I believe there is a better band dying to break out of the OSU scene.

Rating: 3 Stars
Mix CD Candidates: “Wistful Fall”, “She”

Embracing the “emo” tag with all their hearts, Coheed And Cambria make me feel old. After all, I remember a time when labelling music and naming genres was a thing of the past and the thought of a band embracing a label was preposterous. Us Gen Xers would call this “progressive” if we called it anything at all. Further adding to my feeling of agedness, I spent hours surfing the band’s official website, fan sites, and musical websites that had interviewed the band and hardly anybody seemed at all interested in decoding the cryptic story that makes up this concept album, or, more accurately, this quarter of a four-piece of concept albums. Heck, in my day MTV had a freaking contest to award somebody who could figure out who killed Mary on Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime, which is still my benchmark for what a concept album can be.

But OK, I’ll play along, it’s emo. And it had to be pointed out to me, but I see it. It’s got the plaintive wails. It’s got the crescendos in concert with swirling guitar lines. It’s all there. Screw me for not knowing emo could be about subject matter other than the disintegration of a relationship and the inability to control that disintegration.

So what is this album about? How would I know? I said it was cryptic, didn’t I? In interviews, vocalist Claudio Sanchez has said he doesn’t even know the whole story and that he’s putting it together as he goes. Great. You know what that means. An epic that starts off great but can’t keep all its threads together and ends up with more holes than Swiss cheese a la Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and The Dark Tower.

Did I mention that this disc tells the third part of the four-part story, but is the second disc in the four-disc set? And it’s the band’s third CD. Yeah.

Oh, so I was talking about what it was about. Well, according to one fansite, the second album is about how there are two gods, Coheed and Cambria, and they unite the solar systems, but one of them gets implanted with a disease and then the Earth gets lost and their are four children, three of whom are dead and the last, with a name of Claudio, is our hero. See? This is not going to end well.

In the end, though, that doesn’t matter. This album rocks, and I’m really happy to see kids are still pursuing “progressive” rock. I always have liked Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and The Dark Tower.

Rating: 4 stars
Mix CD Candidates: “Three Evils (Embodied In Love And Shadow)”, “Blood Red Summer”, “A Favor House Atlantic”

My baby’s got an unenforceable rule whereby she allows musical artists one (1) song about their kids. John Hiatt nearly flaunts that rule on this CD alone with “The Rest Of The Dream” and a couple of songs about his dad: “Seven Little Indians” and “Back Of My Mind.” And since there was a song with references to his kids on Bring The Family, he may have over-blown his wad by this point. It’s not clear, though, since that song was really about dad-hood and referred to the kids as brats. So he’s not writing goopy kid songs. But you know, is there a limit on how many songs you are allowed to write about parenting and your relationship with your father and middle age? I hope not, because that’s at least half of Hiatt’s inspiration.

One standout on this record is “Seven Little Indians” which is about, surprise, Hiatt’s dad’s relationship with his family and the similarities to Hiatt’s relationship with his own family. The subject matter is portrayed in a very unique manner both lyrically and musically, though, making it one of my favorite Hiatt songs. Told in a sing/talk fashion with a rhythm that falls in, with, and around the beat, Hiatt expertly draws you in to his living room. Who knew a maraca could say so much?Additionally, Karen Peris adds her sweet, superb vocals to “Through Your Hands,” saving the song from mediocrity through timbre and harmony alone. “Child Of the Wild Blue Yonder” is a hit from start to finish, playing the role of the single to the hilt.

Songs on this record I knew but didn’t know were by Hiatt are “Real Fine Love,” “Child Of The Wild Blue Yonder,” “Bring Back Your Love To Me,” and “One Kiss.”

This isn’t a bad CD by any means, but in the end it falls on the lower end of Hiatt’s spectrum. I like it fine, but my life would have been no worse if it didn’t exist.

Rating: 3 stars
Mix CD Candidates: “Seven Little Indians”, “Through Your Hands”