Point form shinola

--  My older two daughters, ages 11, and 9, are big into dance.  One of their classes is hip-hop, taught by this Filipino guy with an accent.  Well, yesterday, my oldest daughter was apparently making up some dance, and my second oldest commented that "it looks a lot like the Turtain Pool."  Kid #1 says "Turtain Pool"?  Apparently, their Filipino teacher taught them some dance called "The Curtain Pull".  LOL I dunno if I  have ever laughed so hard.  Roxy, this is up there with Fray Pipty-Too.

--  It's so late, but here I sit.  My kids are all outta whack.  It was like 12:30 and I still had 2 awake, due to late nights, and sleep-in mornings.  I ended up yelling and swearing.  Yup, good dad.

--  Going to the "City" tomorrow.  Staying in a hotel for New Years Eve, which means I will spend hours in a cold pool shivering and thinking happy thoughts.  My parents didn't know how to swim, or so they said.  I think it was just an excuse not to spend hours in cold pools.  Unfortunately, my kids know I can swim.  The jig is up!

-- So for Xmas, we got the kids a Wii U.  Long story short, I lined up for it and got one of the few.  I felt like superdad. We also got them Apple tv. Then, on Boxing Day, we finally bought a flat screen tv.  Our tv was from like 1999, and was 32 inches and weighs like 420 lbs or so.  So we bought this 50 inch Plasma for cheap and I get it home and try to set it up and the remote is like fucked.  Long story short, the thing is no good, bad remote sensor, and the replacement is wonderful.

--  Read the Jian Ghomeshi book "1982" which effing rocks!!!!!!!  It is like he was my kindred spirit back in the day.  Loved that book - a coming of age tale about Bowie, Rush, Talking Heads, Adidas Bags, etc.  Doesn't get much better than that.

--  Right now, rereading two favorites:  Ira Levin's "Rosemary's Baby" and "Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting."  I love well-written horror.

-- I've made a new playlist of old songs.  I'll share it with you:

The Firm:  "Radioactive"
Pat Metheny and Bowie "This is Not America"
Robert Plant "Big Log"
Philip Bailey "Walking on the Chinese Wall"
Foreigner "That Was Yesterday"
Sheila E. "The Belle of St. Mark"
Deep Purple "Perfect Strangers"
Eric Clapton "Forever Man"
David Bowie "Blue Jean" and "Tonight"
Stevie Nicks "Sable on Blond"

Have you ever worried that you didn't know what the hell a song was about?  Well, the finest example of that may be "Sable on Blond".  My Stevie sang this song, as track #4 on Wild Heart, and while I can sing every lyric and affix these lyrics to so many specific memories, as a whole, they mean nothing.  I dunno what the hell the song means, yet, still, it's one of my favourite songs now.  Sable on blond?  WTF does that mean?  True, Stand Back makes no sense either, but whatever:  30 years later, Sable on Blond still sticks in my craw.  Listen to it people and try to figure it out for me.

-- Nothing interesting to really say.  Just wanted to check in because I CAN.  happy new year, peoples!

Gyp-seeeeeee

well that didnt work:  here is the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-HXG3jfjQs

Compound W, Mister Gray, and "Gypsy": How it all Falls together

Let me get this bundle of joy out of the way:  The other night, on a random itunes memory lane trip, I suddenly remembered Til Tuesday's "J for Jules", Aimee Mann's breakup song for Jules Shear.  Sad fucking beautiful song from the 80s nobody knew.  So I find it, and get obsessed all over again, as I am wont to do.  I keep listening to it today and it's put me in the melancholy mood.  So tonight, to really bring the mood, I search to see if there ever was a video.  Well, fuck me Dorothy, no there wasn't, but this dude did a slideshow for his kid before he deployed to wherever, and it totally changed the song, and so I am gonna spread the melancholy here just 'cause:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwsCxW3dWVQ

Fucking link won't underline.  Fuck you, APPLE! Copy and paste people.

Anyway.

Hello, y'all!  I will give you a point form update on what's gone on since the last time we spoke.  Not a whole lot, but let me think:

So, I had pneumonia, maybe.  That sounds so Carly-Rae.  Anyway, right after that post, long story short, I had a few scary nights of my lungs filling with fluid and coughing until I puked, etc.  The walk-in doctor said "something is going on there like pneumonia" but didn't x-ray me.  Love love love the walk-in clinics.  I ended up on antibiotics for a few weeks, and then it seemed to come back, so I just finished another round, and now my kids are coughing like donkeys and guess what?  I'm all full of phlegm.  I swear, I am getting paranoid. Since I am always freaked out about everything, I was googling lung cancer, asbestosis, heart failure.... LOLOLOLOL, they should have never invented the internet.

--  I'm getting a wart.  On my finger.  I feel diseased.  And dirty.  And like people will think I've been fingering strippers with my index finger.  I haven't, you know.  Really.  Strippers aren't even legal here in this backwater province, so there!  But anyway, who the fuck gets a wart when he is 42 and 3/4?  That's some fucked up shit.  It's probably because my immune system is shutting down due to the asbestosis.  Asbestosis and stripper fingering.  Anyway.

--  What else... what else....  I have discovered the funniest writer ever.  Her name is Jenny Lawson, and apparently, she's known as the Bloggess.  She's fucking the funniest thing since sliced bread.  I read her book during the pneumonia stint, and actually had to put my ipad down at one point because I was afraid the laughter would cause me to restrict the air to my lungs that obviously was already compromised.  So, I am rereading it right now.  Damn, she's what the dr. ordered.

--  I leafed through the 50 Shades of Grey that all the women are loving, and I don't get it.  It's just really badly written porn.  Jackie Collins?  That bitch knew how to write smut.  The summer of grade 8?  I sat in my unfinished basement with my mother's copy of Hollywood Wives (no need to hide it since nobody went into that creepy stinkhole of a basement unless they needed to) and... learned all about carnal knowledge.  This other chick?  Not so much.  It's basically Penthouse Forum Letters for women.  I dunno.  Whatever floats your boat, ladies.  My mother would have read all of them, since she was sort of a smut queen.  Sigh.

--  What else... OH.... in a strange twist of fate, Fleetwood Mac announced a tour.  I scored 13 row floor tix.  I want closer.  I trust a miracle will happen and I will be right in front of Stevie yelling "Lindsey is a goddamn idiot" as she sings "Silver Springs" and then invites me onstage while she sings "Gypsy" because it reminds me of my mother and Stevie's dead friend Robin.  In another weird twist of fate:  In 1993 or so, when Fleetwood Mac put out their boxed set, that's all I wanted for Xmas.  It was like 100 bucks and my dear, sweet Rachel bought it for me.  I remember taking it to my sisters on Xmas day just to listen to on my nephew's boom box, as it had an "alternate" version of "Gypsy."  This version fucking ROCKS!  This is the exact same day I remember driving Rachel home to have dinner with her family, and on my way back to my sister's house, the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" was on the radio and I still remember:  I was smoking a Craven M, driving my Dad's black 5th Avenue, and I busted out in tears because I knew things wouldn't always be so happy and together with my family.  I suddenly knew the inevitability of time.  And now, after my mom has died of Luekemia, the same type Robin Anderson had, the song just haunts me.  I fucking deserve front row.  Universe, make this fucking shit happen!!!!!!!  I'm leaving it up to you.

-- OMG, Paul McCartney is singing that Xmas song of his on SNL right now.  You know, that bad one.  So bad it's good?  Do you ever listen to music and think "is this any good at all, or is it just the memory?"  Like McCartney's "No More Lonely Nights."  Always hated the song, but like it now because of nostalgia.  Same with Lennon's "Nobody Told Me."  Is that even a good song, or is it nostalgia?  I don't even fucking know anymore.

-- Speaking of SNL, is it only an hour now?  Tonight it was an hour.  That would suck if it was.

-- Shit, I missed Twilight Zone on the Newfie channel.  Damnit!

--  neighbor across the alley had a skunk under her shed.  Directly behind us.  3 fucking times today, it has felt as if I was performing "favours" for the skunk with my mouth, and it got a little too frisky for it's own good - aka the smell was so strong i am sure I ate it.  3 times.  Right now?  I smell it again.  It is times like these I wish I believed in guns, because this fucker needs to be shot.  Isn't it too cold for fucking skunks anyway?

-- Anyway, I leave you with this:  I've posted it before. Where Stevie grabs her chest and sings "and a memory is all that is left OF HER NOW at about 2:50 or so... well... that goes out to all of us know lightening strikes, maybe once, maybe twice.  For my mom, and for Robin, you are always there.

Have a good one, people.  xoxoxoxo

JT, otherwise known as Sheila the Great.