I’m still awake, and I’ve cycled through through a lot of music, listening to Little Feat (there is nothing better, ever), Smashing Pumpkins-Siamese Dreams, a little bit of Allman Brothers, a lot of Dire Straits, some James Brown, a touch of Alice in Chains, and who knows what else, but then I found this:
I actually own this on dvd, and was surprised to see it skipped the copyright laws and made it on youtube. The copy here sucks, but this is actually one of my favorite DVD’s- I love the lighting and sound. Also, BACKUP SINGERS (I wonder wonder wonder- I would love it if everything I said that was profound was reiterated by backup singers)!
I’ve really just had a great day. Spent some good time with my brother, who is really one of the coolest and smartest people I know, then the day with my parents, then the Capitol Fourth and then the Boston Pops, and I realize just how good it all really is.
Why does it have to be so short?
gwangung
From Scalzi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9LXHrzOVYA
JR
If it weren’t so short, it wouldn’t be as precious.
C Nelson Reilly
It’s always good for some and not so good for others. It has to be short to accommodate the width
JK
Agreed and Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wTsn3zqx4?
I’ve wasted a few good hours pondering both questions.
Just Some Fuckhead
It’s not the size of the ship, my friend. It’s the motion of the ocean.
Comrade Stuck
If it wasn’t, we’d just end up sitting around in Togas all day eating grapes and listening to cable news for evah. You want to do that?
JenJen
The 4th is just a terrific holiday. Always has been, always will be.
Your “Romping” photo in the post below is one of the most wonderful, joyful photographs of dogs that I have ever seen, by the way. Makes it all the better that we all kind of “know” the characters! How wonderful to be sharing in your Lily Adventure! You’re just head over heels in love with that pup, aren’t you? Isn’t it great?? John, I’m so happy for you!! Dog Love is Forever.
Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th!!
Tattoosydney
Belated happy 4th to all!
John Cole
@JenJen: Were you bartending tonight?
Comrade Stuck
The Plot thickens, or thins.
AhabTRuler
or perhaps just spreads out like a filmy, petroleum-based slick.
John Cole
BTW- I’m not sure what it is, but in recent months, I keep coming back to the Police- Synchronicity on my IPOD, and I do not know why, but the music seems to fit the era.
Indylib
@Just Some Fuckhead: Did your mosquito truck die?
pip
I’ve been thinking about the why so short question for a while now.
Do I want to be like my mom and learn to be nice again, or my dad, who was always nice but died.
I’ve taken a diffent path from both of them.
This is not a holiday we have ever spent together since we have grown up. I don’t know why. Birthdays, religious holidays and anniversaries all occupy our time. For the 4th, we just all do our own thing.
Saw the Police early in their career. You come back to it because it’s good music.
I can’t listen to Perfect Circle anymore. It makes me sad and angry.
We didn’t have to go to Iraq. All of the people in that whole mess didn’t have to die.
jl
Why does it have to be so short?
Mr. Cole asks that after a toally great day, on July 4, with picnic and fireworks? Seems a tad morose with no apparent reason to me.
I think Mr. Cole needs a change of scenery. Perhaps Mr. Cole should ask Mr. Tunch for permission to visit Sweden. Ask nicely, with a pinch of Lily’s dog food, and I think chances are good.
Comrade Stuck
@AhabTRuler:
Palin’s next tirade will accuse the FBI of sexism for not investigating her like every other pol in Alaska/
jl
Try rolling in the grass with Lily on your next walk (look first, though!)
That will cheer things up.
gwangung
Had a great early evening. Went to the park, where it was warm, but not hot, with a bit of a breeze. Listened to music as people went by, did some work on my laptop and was fine until the mosquitos swarmed up and starting eating me alive.
Had to console myself with a pint of Hagen Daas….
JK
@Comrade Stuck:
Palin and the MSM are engaged in a vicious cycle
Palin gets more publicity, presumably more opportunities to make money, and gets to have her ego built up with the increased media attention on her.
The MSM gets more viewers, listeners, and readers because they want to know what crazy thing Palin has done this time.
Palin is a big nothing. By quitting her job as governor she can no longer hide behind an impt job title. After she leaves office, she’ll simply be a celebrity. Maybe she can persuade Donald Trump to get her on the next season of Celebrity Apprentice
JenJen
@John Cole: As a matter of fact, I was. Private event. Swanky. A little boring. They had this kick-ass cannon, though, and fired it off twice until the cops showed up.
Synchronicity SO fits this era! I’m telling you, you would really like the new Dave Matthews Band album, judging by your current taste. Forget all you’ve heard about them, or whatever. You’d dig it.
DeadlyShoe
yep its been a pretty great weekend so far
happy 4th y’all
i hope you all came through with limbs intact
monkeyboy
@JK:
I don’t know if Palin ever was governor (in the sense of governing things and keeping on top of issues). I think she just enjoyed playing governor and now that the fun of that has worn off and she might actually have to be the governor she is not up to that task.
Kevin
Funny, I was listening to Dire Straits’ “It Never Rains” from Love Over Gold last night and was reminded of Sarah Palin…
“You had no more volunteers
So you got profiteers for to help you out
With friends like that babe
Good friends you had to do without
And now they’ve taken the chains and the gears
From off your merry-go-round”
….
“In the shadow of the wheel of fortune
You’re busy trying to clear your name
You say ‘i may be guilty yeah that may be true
But I’d be lying if I said I was to blame
See we could have been major contenders
We never got no money no breaks’
You’ve got a list of all the major offenders
You got a list of all their major mistakes”
….
“You never gave a damn about who you pick up
and leave laying bleeding on the ground
you screw people over on the way up
because you thought that you were never coming down”
….
“Oh and it never rains around here
It just comes pouring down”
josefina
What, the good stuff? Oh, please. You know the answer. If the good stuff went on and on, past the point when we still wanted more, we’d get tired of it and start comparing it to the far more interesting and rewarding and deeply fulfilling good stuff we might be experiencing, if only this dull, inferior and honestly kind of annoying good stuff weren’t taking up all our time.
That’s one of the great things about dogs, who are all about the joy of now. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched my dog do that same belly-up shimmy in the grass, and every single time, her pure unanalyzed happiness makes me happy too, if only for those few seconds. I’ll take it, and I’m grateful for it.
JenJen
@josefina:
Word.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
It was a very good day. I actually talked to a girl. Like, a complete and total stranger that I just walked up to. Okay, not quite, because she was manning a booth at the SF con I was at, and there was a hook, but I ran with it. And, sure, “woman” is really a more accurate description than “girl,” but you know what I mean. Yeah, it turned out that she has a boyfriend, and I couldn’t get up the nerve to do it with anyone else, but it’s a start.
I realize this doesn’t seem like much for most people, but it is for me.
Tax Analyst
Sure, but conversely, what if everything you said (or wrote) that was as lame as, ummm…as lame as…ah…uh – OK, I’ve got it – as lame as that Bobby Goldsboro song, “Honey” – what if every lame idea you’ve ever had ended up getting tossed back at you by those back-up singers?
Or maybe Frank Zappa already tried something more or less like that?
Boy, that Bobby Goldsboro song was one absolute lame stinkeroo of a song, wasn’t it?
But, like Bobby said somewhere in there, “But, what the heck”.
Redhand
The Boz Scaggs video rocks! I ran across it on YouTube a while ago and it made me run out and get the DVD. (Maybe that’s why it’s online.)
The backup singers are fabulous too. Mesmerizing.
Last year Boz came to do a show in the Community Theatre of Morristown, NJ about 5 minutes from where I live. Imagine the thrill of driving that small distance to an imitate local auditorium with your Russkaya-baby (Russian-American spouse) who hasn’t heard of the guy, then spending a couple of hours a stone’s throw from the stage listening to these kinds of sounds.
The best music night out I’ve had since seeing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee live at “The Main Point” in Bryn Mawr, PA in the mid-70s.
Tax Analyst
That’s really cool, John. I advocate doing and savoring as much of that as you possibly can while you can. My family used to do little casual get-togethers around holidays. I don’t want to come off as too morose, but my “family” is now down to me, as the “00’s” decade has served to incrementally usher the others out one-by-one…older brother Peter about 2 weeks ago. But at least I don’t have a hard time getting everyone together in one place now, and I do still have a wonderfully fantastic niece. an excellent nephew, a few good friends and quite a few bright, intelligent, competent, caring and amusing colleagues where I work. I miss those family folks who are gone, but when I think about them it is mostly with fondness and not too much regret.
ninerdave
Not to rain on your parade, but Air McNair. Wow. Short indeed.
freelancer
@Cole
These are the days we hope for, and while this day didn’t mean anything in particular to me, I’ve spent 4ths which will reside in my memory as more sacred than all Christmas’s and Easter’s combined. These are the days where, even beyond the fact that we feel grateful for falling asleep in the embrace of those we love, we feel the pride of including those we love into our greater, more forgiving family. A day like today is one, where for you and many, all worlds collide, and in the end, despite your most proximal and anxious fears, all hesitance is quickly displaced with acceptance and grins.
In the meantime we hunt for Schadenfreude and snark, but occasionally, on days like today, we are trampling through the rough underbrush of life, the Universe, and everything, and we find a patch of enviable, unbridled joy.
Kudos to you, John for this rare example of Carpe Diem.
Any other idealistic snark, or juvenile cynicism, you know where to find me.
Happy Post Independence Day.
PS The Police rule.
Augustine
I did my time in that rodeo
Fool that I am I’d do it all over again
The Grand Panjandrum
Enjoy every sandwich …
harlana pepper
The doggie vids are premium, thank you for the Joy
harlana pepper
goodness, dead thread, helloooo! is everybody sleeping off a hangover?
oh, i see, you’re all in church ;p
JK
John “Ego First Country Last” McCain reacts to Palin’s resignation announcement
h/t http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5624MB20090704?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
linda
this is a great line from a 1930s ltte noted in frank rich’s column this morning. some things never change:
In it you learn that ordinary law-abiding Americans even wrote letters to newspapers and politicians defending Dillinger’s assault on banks. “Dillinger did not rob poor people,” wrote one correspondent to The Indianapolis Star. “He robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.”
rs
I’ve been listening to a lot of Little Feat myself lately. Are you aware that you can listen to concert length live recordings by them (and hundreds of other enlightened artists) at the Internet Archive? Check out the Dirty Dozen Brass Band while you’re there. And not to tell you anything you don’t know, but if you like the sound of Little Feat, you’re gonna love the Meters or the Neville Brothers (who you should be prepared to cancel appointments to see if they’re anywhere near).
My parents are big Boz Scaggs fans. I recently got them tickets to see him for Mothers/Fathers day. I was living in the Bay area back in the 70’s when he started doing what Steve Miller called his ‘left my heart in San Francisco’ rock. I think I probably appreciated the sound more than Steve Miller did-“Georgia” is my personal favorite from that part of his career. However, “Loan Me a Dime”, on which he’s backed up by Duane Allman, is on another level- musical perfection.
Comrade Jake
Quite the contrast in apparel walking out onto Center court. Federer looks like he’s out for a day at the country club, long white pants, white dinner jacket, etc. Roddick looks like he’s coming out for a tennis championship.
I assume this means Roddick’s about to get crushed.
Barry
Thanks for posting that, John.
Woody
In eight of their previous 10 meetings, Roger crushed Roddick.
I was surprised Roddick got by Murray. I guess we’ll have to wait til next year for the trophy to return to old blighty…
John: On Little Feat. I DO SO AGREE! Tightest stage band EVAH! if you haven’t already made their acquaintance, I also suggest the Radiators and the Subdudes…
Finally:
The most likely “health care reform” bill to come out of Congress will be such a piece of shit that “liberals” and “progressives” will prefer to eat rat poison and expire than vote for it. But “thePrez” will sign it. At this point, he’d sign onto involuntary organ harvesting if it came to his desk, and claim it was a “bold step” for financing insurance for all.
And don’t anybody give me any shit about the “perfect” being the “enemy” of the “good.”
If the best the “good” an give us is a reeking pile of corporate privilege, and more private profit from public suffering, thwn it needs all the fucking enemies it can get…Count me IN!
No, I don’t feel “better” with “the Prez” in power. The country traded a bumbling, inarticulate, smirking, spoiled fleck of patrician privilege for a smooth, literate, toothy corporate hack; took off the shit-encrusted cowboy boots and slipped into the blood-soaked alligator loafers.
Change? My ass…
Ovid
Thanks, John. Great post, great blog.
Cat Lady
@Comrade Stuck:
I don’t want whatever it is that’s presumably coming to be able to be laid at Obama’s feet. That will just confirm all the wingnut beliefs x eleventy, and will turn her into St. Snowbilly Sarah of Arc, her Lightning Rodness from the North. Also.
(thanks DougJ, and enjoy Stockholm)
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
Nice!
I’m convinced that the true secret to happiness is finding joy in those little moments and in the “now”, instead of always brooding about what might be wrong, because there’s always going to be something that isn’t right in one’s life.
I had a good day too. Slept in, did a bit of tidying, relaxed on the love seat with my feet up, helped the husband assemble the change table (everything’s put together now except for the crib, which hasn’t arrived yet), and made some lovely scallops with butter and fresh thyme for supper. Nothing exciting, but it was a nice little balance of work time and leisure time. This upcoming week will be INSANE at work, as our international youth conference starts Thursday, so on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I expect to be working 16-hour days. But then after that, I relax, train my mat leave replacement, and on July 24th, see the last of my workplace for an entire YEAR! w00t!
rs
Little Feat were (probably still are, although Little Feat without Lowell George is like the Dead without Jerry Garcia or the Allman Bros without Duane) tight. Not tightest, though. That title would belong to either the Mothers of Invention (watching Frank Zappa left one with the impression he was a somewhat demanding person to work for- Lowell George & Roy Estrada played with him before forming Little Feat) or Weather Report.
Ash
So, it’s morning now, anyone watching Wimbledon? I don’t want to jinx Roddick, but he’s playing the best he’s ever played.
Demo Woman
@Ash: Yes. Roddick is playing the best tie break that I’ve seen.
JK
@rs:
Absolutely love all those bands that you’ve listed. I’d nominate the Who for inclusion in the discussion of tightest stage bands. Also Chicago, in the early years of their career, before they went the all-out pop route.
@Woody:
I basically agree with you about Obama being a major disappointment. On the other hand, after witnessing Sarah Palin’s insane, otherwordly, performance art resignation speech, I’m thanking my lucky stars that this monumentally incompetent, delusional jackass isn’t a heartbeat away from becoming president. I’m also convinced that McCain is far too mentally unstable to have carried out the job of being president.
Dulcie
@Ash: Agreed. He’s been incredibly focused today. Federer is really off his game.
gbear
In respect to the rest of us who’s day kind of sucked.
Demo Woman
@Demo Woman: Well I jinxed him.
gbear
The record I listened to yesterday was Vermillion by the Continental Drifters. Hard not to like a New Orleans based band with members that include Vicki Peterson (ex-Bangles), Peter Holsapple (ex-dB’s) and Susan Cowsill (ex-Cowsills). Great songs played with spunk and fire.
The last song that was in my head before I went to bed was The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss). That’s what I get for keeping a copy of Dave Marsh’s The Heart Of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Every Made in the bathroom.
rs
I kind of liked the sound of Chicago when they first came to prominence as the Chicago Transit Authority. I think I even owned a copy of their first album. They occupied the same territory as Blood Sweat & Tears, Electric Flag, and they even reminded me a little of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Then they adopted the much less interesting sound that’s won them their wide audience.
The Who was the first concert I ever attended, at Southfield High School (go figure) in suburban Detroit. Keith Moon remains the best rock drummer I’ve ever seen. There were also a couple local bands on the bill, one of them the Amboy Dukes, with Ted Nugent on guitar, back before he became the raving right-wing lunatic we know him as today.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Started listening to Ghost in the Machine a while back after not listening to it in forever, and I was pretty amazed. Thought it would sound really dated, but no.
“Spirits in the Material World” is one of my favorites by them.
IndieTarheel
@JK: Shorter McCain:
JK
@rs: Unfortunately, I never got to see Chicago in concert. Would love to have seen them with their original lineup. I’ve heard that Jimi Hendrix was a big fan of Terry Kath. I got to see the Who, but unlike you, it was after Keith Moon had died. I once read some sound engineer, who’d worked with a bunch of 60’s bands, say that the Who and Chicago were the best live bands he’d ever seen.
If you’re a big fan of live music from the 60’s, this is a pretty cool website http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com
metricpenny
John,
This post, like so many that you write, really hit home with me.
My family’s bi-annual family reunion took place this weekend in Dallas. With the economy being what it is, my daughter and I were unable to attend (we live in Marietta, GA). It began Thursday evening and I went to bed that night feeling pretty funky.
I woke up Friday morning and decided that I would host a Po’ Relations Family Reunion on Saturday. I made some calls and invited relatives that live in metro-Atlanta who were also unable to attend. We have a large extended family. My parents were natives of Birmingham and my father had 12 siblings. And most of them had a least 3 children. And so on.
Eight showed up, along with five of my closest friends. We started at 5pm and had a great time. Most of them left around 8pm in order to catch the fireworks at either the Marietta Square or Lenox Mall. The last of the guests departed at 10:30 pm. And I experienced a letdown similar to yours.
I wrote all that to say, it’s really not as short as you think. I have a 37 year-old first cousin (I’m 52) who attended who is the spitting image of my late father – in looks and personality. I look at my 23 year-old daughter daily and see my late mother. I’m assuming that you don’t have children, but what about nieces and nephews? Part of you lives in them. And even if you think it doesn’t, this blog, your child, will live on long after you’re gone.
That gives me a nice segue into your statement about wanting backup singers to reiterate the profound things that you say. I found Balloon Juice mid-2008. I keep coming back, not only for your excellent common sense analysis, but also because of the people who comment regularly. I am an introvert and spend a lot of time reading/lurking in the progressive blogosphere. What you need to know is that I consider your commenters your backup singers. There are not many days that you don’t manage to throw-down the profound.
Finally, I can’t imagine that your brother is any cooler or smarter than you! But, I’ve come to trust your judgment in the last year, so I’ll take that statement at face value.
ps I know I’m not going to be able to get The Dirty Lowdown out of my head for the rest of the day!
JK
@IndieTarheel: I am so hoping that Palin gets indicted on multiple counts in a financial/ethics scandal, has a long drawn out trial, and is convicted. The payoff would then be for some reporters to rub McCain’s nose in it. I never liked McCain at anytime, even when he was an alleged maverick. Once he inflicted Palin on all of us, he became my least favorite republican.
Woody
JK:
Doesn’t it bother anybody else that Obama looks good mainly in comparison to Bush and McCain/Palin?
I don’t think Hillary would have looked any better.
That’s mostly because I’ve just about teached the conclusion that Obama’s–but ANY Dim, this cycle, finally–main job as President is to make people forget the disasters the last 40 years of proto- and crypto-Fascism have inflicted upon the country, and prepare the way for the next Bush.
Not that he’d be doing it to himself. Of course not.
But the dynamics of the varied, myriad crises and clusterfucks left behind by the Busheviks and all the rest since Reagan make it all but unimaginable–given our legislative impasses and deadlocks–that ANY “president” would emerge from this term re-electable.
rs
One of the few good things about growing older (I’m still waiting on wisdom and maturity) is having been able to see legendary musicians like Keith Moon and Lowell George while they were still around (that holds true for sports as well- by the way, while I grew up in Detroit, my dad was a huge baseball fan who would take us to games down I-75 in Cincinnati so we could see National League teams and stars like the Pirates with Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell- eat your heart out, Mr. Cole).
Speaking of Jimi Hendrix, one of my oldest and best friends, who I grew up down the street from, play music with, attended dozens of concerts with (we lived within walking distance of a small coffee house called the Raven Gallery, where we probably saw the previously mentioned Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee at least a half dozen times)- anyway, my friend is as big a Hendrix fan as there is (I remember tears being cried when he died) but, like me, never saw him live. His wife, a somewhat lukewarm music fan, saw Jimi Hendrix open for the Monkees, a fact that she delights in reminding us of.
JK
@Woody:
I’ll take a corporate lackey like Obama any day over a 70 year old, mentally unstable, 4 time cancer survivor. I wish there were a much more vibrant political left in this country, but for all your disgust with Obama, things would be a 1,000 times worse with McCain and Palin in the White House.
@rs:
I think hell will freeze over before Palin attains wisdom or maturity.
Hendrix opening for the Monkees is pretty unbelievable.
tim
Hey John:
Do you think the maimed, disfigured, paralyzed, and otherwise destroyed soldiers left as colateral damage from your and GWB’s pretty little Iraq war had much fun yesterday at rails and trails or the dog park or the barbecue or the beach or with their families or wherever the hell else you chose to party hardy to celebrate the 233rd birthday of this sick, sick land?
Kind of hard to listen to the Boston Pops with no ears, or to flip a burger with no hands, but what the hell, YOU had fun so it’s all good.
Do you think they got to dance or make love to their partners with their pelvises crushed or their penises blown off? Ah well…spilt milk and all.
As for the DEAD, well, their tombstones make for fabulous flag/photo ops on Codpendence Day, no?
I suppose it’s true, none of that really matters as long as you and other war cheerleaders like Andrew Sullivan are able to get down and get funky in P Town or WV or wherever.
Your lack of shame is titanic, your self-absorption complete. Except for the little voices who surely whisper to you round about 3am…no wonder you drink so much at night. How else to fall asleep, eh?
Steeplejack
@metricpenny:
Well said.