Tag: Beatles

I’m SO Tired

On the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith and Derek are exhausted with a new baby. On another show, Parenthood, there’s a couple with a new, crying-all-the-time, infant.

For reasons I mostly don’t understand, for the last couple of weeks, I have been going to sleep, waking up anywhere between three and four and a half hours later, and then being unable to go back to sleep. I stay in bed for as long as an hour, then finally get up and check my e-mail, or, rarely, watch TV for an hour, then go back to bed, pretty much in time for the alarm clock. I usually DO fall asleep in that brief time between when my wife wakes up and when she returns from the shower; I know this because I am likely to have quite vivid dreams.

The annoying thing is that I’m often too unfocused to write a comprehensible blog post, to even start one. Yet the IDEAS are still there, which is actually worse.

I’ve experienced this condition before, for a day or two, and I can operate OK in the short term. But in this extended bout, not so much. There was a First Friday event I plugged in this blog, and which I remembered at 2 pm Friday. But by 5:30, when it was time to leave work, I totally forgot, went home, and at 6:20, I was too tired to go back out.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve tried having a glass of wine, or having nothing to drink; different times of going to bed (yeah, I know you’re supposed to go at the same time, but that only applies when that’s working.) I had been staying off caffeine until the last few days when I feared dozing at my desk.

Saturday afternoon, with absolutely no energy, I watched a little of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith and Derek are exhausted with a new baby. On another show, Parenthood, there’s a couple with a new, crying-all-the-time, infant. Then it hit me: the last time I was THIS tired was nine and a half years ago

I HATE using them, but, in desperation, I took one of those OTC medications that are supposed to let you sleep for 3 or 4 hours, and it DID work.

But my friend Jon said that had a better idea – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 see hear feel. You open your eyes and note five things you see, 5 things you hear then 5 things you feel. Then 4, 4, 4, then 3, 3, 3, et al. Always worked for him. Well, not for me; I found that it was so focusing – where am I at, 4 hear or 3 feel? – that it made me alert, and even the pill didn’t help.

To boot, I must have slept wrong one night, because the back of my neck aches much of the time lately.

My problem is, paraphrasing John Lennon (whose birthday is today), I have a tough time turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating downstream.

Beatles songs:
I’m So Tired
Tomorrow Never Knows.

August Rambling II: Smart is sexy and stupid is not

A reference to my piece about David Cassidy made it into the print version of the paper because “it was a good post, and filled with what we like: short, timely and to the point :)”


The New York Times’ prophetic 1983 warning about the NSA, which naturally leads to Glenn Greenwald killed the internet.

My Feelings About the Harriet Tubman Sex Tape in 10 GIFs.

Invisible Disabilities Day is October 24. I have this friend with rather a constant neck pain, but she doesn’t LOOK sick, and therefore feels diminished by those who actually don’t believe her. Conversely, The Complexities of Giving: People with Disabilities as Help Objects.

Photos of the worldly goods of inmates at the Willard Asylum. I backed the Kickstarter for this and wrote about it a couple years ago.

“Each week, TIME Magazine designs covers for four markets: the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific.” Often, America’s cover is quite, well – different. I had noticed this before. I don’t know that it’s “stunning,” but it IS telling.

The Peanuts gang meets The Smiths, in which This Charming Charlie masterfully blends Charles Schulz’s comics with lyrics by The Smiths.

Mark Evanier’s Tales of My Father, featuring Tony Orlando. Also, Tales of My Cat.

A friend’s letter from his brother. (Can one read this sans Facebook?)

Yes, smart is sexy and stupidity is not.

Eddie, the Renaissance Geek is cancer-free!

So I have survived my first grown-up move. Moving as an adult, it turns out, is radically different from moving as a student.

John Scalzi: To The Dudebro Who Thinks He’s Insulting Me by Calling Me a Feminist.

Air New Zealand celebrates marriage equality.

Lake Edge United Church of Christ in Madison, WI: “Worship at the Edge” PRIDE Sunday.

My old buddy Matt Haller has a new blog and writes about lies my shampoo bottle tells me about dating.

Arthur challenges his own snap assumptions.

SamuraiFrog writes about the list of best movies that EW had on the list in 1999, but which had fallen off the list by 2013 and also other great films. Re: a comment he made: that will require a blog post from me. He’s been musing on the early Marvel comics, which have all been interesting, and I was glad to play a small part in his understanding of Thor.

21 Jokes Only History Nerds Will Understand​.

German, not Swiss, Orson Welles.

Marian McPartland, ‘Piano Jazz’ Host, Has Died. I loved how she way she not only performed but, probably, more importantly, INFORMED about music.

The late Elmore Leonard’ TEN RULES FOR WRITING. His New York Times obit.

David Janower has passed away. He was the choral director of the fine Albany Pro Musica, and I knew and liked him personally, so I am sad. He had surgery a few months back and suffered a stroke from which he never really recovered.

A worthy neologism found by Dustbury.

The God of SNL will see you now.

Dolly Parton’s original recording of “Jolene” slowed down by 25% is surprisingly awesome.

Paul McCartney “In Spite Of All The Danger” & “20 Flight Rock” (Live), the former a cover of first Beatles record. Also, the Beatles’ final photo session, August 22, 1969.

Chuck Miller has posted every day for four years, over 2,000 blog posts on the Times Union site.

Dueling banjos: Steve Martin, Kermit the Frog. Sesame Street does Old Spice parody with Grover.

No ukuleles were harmed in the making of this video.

What did I write about in my Times Union blog this month? That annoying JEOPARDY! Kids Week story and Should ‘citizen initiative and referendum’ come to New York? and The prescient David Cassidy song. Cassidy got arrested locally for felony DWI, and a reference to my piece made it into the print version of the paper because “it was a good post, and filled with what we like: short, timely and to the point :),” FWIW.

If you are an NYS homeowner, read Tax Department Launches Statewide STAR Registration. The Data Detective blog has some other interesting stuff – if I do say so myself – such as On being ‘right’ in science.

Jaquandor answers my questions about the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team and unfriending.

Spontaneous​s goat manure fire.

C is for Cover songs

For arcane reasons, I listen to a lot of Beatles covers in the month of July, in honor of Ringo Starr’s birthday.

A cover song is a version of a recording released subsequent to the original one. Sometimes the most popular version is a cover: Good Lovin’ by the Young Rascals [LISTEN] was initially recorded by someone dubbed Lemme B. Good, then was a minor hit by The Olympics [LISTEN], which I own. I Heard It Through the Grapevine was a massive hit for Marvin Gaye [LISTEN], though the original by Gladys Knight and the Pips [LISTEN] (my preferred version, actually) went to #2 on the US charts a year earlier.

What makes a good cover song is that it is not merely a slavish imitation of the original. Otherwise, what’s the point? The version of You Keep Me Hanging On by Vanilla Fudge [LISTEN] had been criticized as excessive, but it’s sure different than what the original Supremes [LISTEN] put out.

Sometimes a cover is SO good that even the originator will bow to the successor. Otis Redding [LISTEN] acknowledged that Aretha Franklin [LISTEN] had “stole” Respect from him, meaning it was now hers, though he wrote it and sang it first. Likewise, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails realized that Hurt has become a Johnny Cash [LISTEN], not a NIN [LISTEN], song.

For arcane reasons, I listen to Beatles covers in the month of July, in honor of Ringo Starr’s birthday. There are a LOT of them; by the time the Beatles broke up, there were over 2500 versions of Yesterday alone, most of them boring.

I have about three dozen Beatles’ cover albums. There are classical, Latin, bluegrass, country, soul collections. I have whole albums covered by various artists, some compiled by MOJO magazine, plus whole albums by the Smithereens, Big Daddy, and others. My friend Fred Hembeck put together some compilations; the worse version among them, Hey Jude by an uninspired, off-key Elvis Presley. I made a few collections myself, from CD that have Beatles-inspired cuts.

Arguably the best Beatles interpreter is Joe Cocker. He came to fame at Woodstock singing A Little Help From My Friends [LISTEN to the studio version]. He’s made a whole song out of the Abbey Road-segued She Came Into The Bathroom Window [LISTEN]. But my favorite of his takes is You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away [LISTEN].

I should mention again my favorite music podcast, Coverville, which comes out twice a week. One episode is a cover story of a particular artist, while the other might be a request show, some independent artist hodgepodge, or based on a theme.

The Lydster, Part 107: The Twizzle

We have the complete box set of the Dick van Dyke Show, and we’ve watched all of Season 1 and about 40% of Season 2.

Interesting to hear what others say about whether the Daughter looks more like your mother or me. It seems that if you knew my wife better, like mother, like daughter; if you knew me better, she favors me.

Personality-wise, she is likewise similar to whichever parent is most familiar to the observer.

My wife can explain in her (non-existent) blog how much they do together, besides watching Dancing with the Stars.

Conversely, I am pleased that she has taken to liking two of my favorite cultural phenomena, listening to the music of the Beatles and watching the classic television program, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Re: the latter, we have the complete box set, and we’ve watched all of Season 1 and about 40% of Season 2. Her favorite episode is What’s in a Name, the show in which Ritchie, Rob and Laura’s son, discovers that his middle name is ROSEBUD; she can recite his full middle name, Richard Oscar Sam Edward Benjamin Ulysses David. She also likes the one about the walnuts.

My least favorite show was about a dance craze called the Twizzle, a blatant ripoff of the Twist fad. The Daughter likes it a bit more than I.

In fact, she invented a drink she calls the Twizzle:
1 cup kefir (or flavored yogurt)
1 banana
1 cup milk
1 cup frozen fruit
1 ice cube
love

Blend together.

It’s GOOD!

George Harrison would have been 70

Here are a dozen Harrison songs. Only the Top 2 are for sure on the list. It seems to change a lot, depending on what I’ve been listening to most recently.

When John Lennon died in 1980, I was devastated. When George Harrison died in November 2001, I was melancholy, but I knew he was sick, so I wasn’t surprised. But as time passed, I realized I missed him more and more. Incidentally, All Things Must Pass was my high school prom theme.

I felt sorry for George in the Beatles. He’d write songs and they wouldn’t make the album, because those two other songwriters in the group dominated. That explained why the All Things Must Pass album had three LPs, including an instrumental experiment.

Unique among the Beatles, George’s first greatest hits album included Beatles songs, even though there were arguably enough of his solo works to make their inclusion unnecessary; this was an insult to the artist by his soon-to-be-former record label, in my view.

Here are a dozen Harrison songs. Only the Top 2 are for sure on the list. It seems to change a lot, depending on what I’ve been listening to most recently. I have all the Harrison solo studio albums, excluding some compilations.

Links to songs.

12. Blow Away (from George Harrison – GH) – Always liked the guitar line.
11. Love Comes to Everyone (GH) – guitar intro by Eric Clapton is quite nice.
10. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (Living in the Material World- LITMW) – In one of the later verses, I like how the chorus is sung off the beat. And more than occasionally, I relate to its message.
9. All Those Years Ago (Somewhere in England -SIE) – Harrison’s tribute to John Lennon, featuring Ringo Starr on drums, as well as Wings members Paul and Linda McCartney and Denny Laine on backing vocals
8. Let It Down (All Things Must Pass -ATMP) – Lovely song. Can’t find the album version, unfortunately, but this is nice, too.
7. Devil’s Radio (Cloud Nine – CN) – Like the somewhat nasal quality of the vocal.
6. Living in the Material World (LITMW) – Story of the Beatles, in part. And when he sings, “We got Ritchie on a tour,” and Ringo plays a little drum solo, it always cracks me up.
5. What Is Life (ATMP). On the extended CD of ATMP, there’s an instrumental version of this song that I like nearly as much.
4. Got My Mind Set on You (CN) – I think I like this as much for the surprise element at the time. George hadn’t had an album in five years, let alone a hit single. This muscular Rudy Clark cover seemed to come out of left field.
3. Not Guilty (GH) – At the time, some people thought this was in response to the My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine lawsuit. (No, but This Song, from Thirty-Three and 1/3 was.) Not Guilty was actually recorded with The Beatles in 1968 for The White Album; like many of his songs, it was not included. However, you can find a louder version on the Beatles’ Anthology 3.
2. Wah Wah (ATMP) – Love the volume, the guitar line, the choir of vocalists, pretty much everything.
1. When We Was Fab (CN) – This telling of the Beatles’ story, though, is the best of the songs in that specific genre.

A couple of Traveling Wilburys songs in the mix.
The last time I wrote about George, which was the 10th anniversary of his death.