Lumber Find Starts Shed-Building Frenzy

I saw Shed-Building Frenzy at Bonnaroo last year.  They were amazing.

Regards,
Helmet Head

Pictured above:  Absolute proof of the Segway personal transporter's total failure to revolutionize the way we get around.  Seriously, the dude who invented it thought we'd all eventually be riding those things to work and that walking and cars and stuff would be things of the past!  What a boob!

Should I go see Paul Blart:  Mall Cop, or is it going to be just like all the other mall cop movies I've seen?

I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Regards,
Helmet Head

So I'm watching various New Year's Eve broadcasts the other night (yeah, I'm lame--me and Mrs. Helmet Head stayed home and watched TV and didn't party, unless you call eating potato chips and drinking Cheerwine partying), and why is it that the people making these shows put together the worst, least talented, most annoying people on earth?

Is it because they couldn't find anyone better?  I'm going to assume it's because they couldn't find anyone better.

But seriously, New Year's Eve on the telly was like the Annoying Moron All-Star Team.  Ryan Seacrest, Kellie Pickler, and Fergie on ABC (they also had the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift, who I really don't care about one way or the other, and Lionel Richie, who is awesome, so there's that), Criss Angel and his skanky Playboy bunny girlfriend who may or may not still be "dating" Hugh Hefner (the girlfriend, not Criss Angel, but let's go ahead and start spreading that rumor:  Hey, did you hear Hugh Hefner is dating Criss Angel?), Robbie Knievel, and some dork on Fox (they also had Spike Feresten, who I think is pretty funny; he hosted Fox's show with barely disguised contempt for the whole thing), and then you had Julianne Hough performing on some show called "Peach Drop 2008" on the CW; it's like the poor man's Times Square in Atlanta, and the "revelers" watch a big peach-shaped ball drop.  And I put "revelers" in quotes because the entire time I watched that show (a whole two minutes), Julianne Hough was trying (hilariously) in vain to get any kind of response from the crowd.  It looked like there were several thousand people there who were all thinking, "Who is this chick?"

But anyway, I know:  What did I expect?

But seriously--Fergie, people?  FERGIE?!?  I thought we were already at the stage where we're ignoring her and hoping she'll go away.

Anyhow, Happy New Year everyone.  Seacrest out.

Regards,
Helmet Head

Hey all y'all.

Guess what?  I've been offered a job in Pittsburgh, PA, and I've accepted the job, and I've taken their required Pre-Employment Drug Screening, and there shouldn't be any problem with that, so guess what?

Yeah man, me and the missus are movin' on back to PA!!!

(Whether or not we're movin' on up to a dee-luxe apartment in the sky has not yet been determined.)

But anyway, my point is, we're gonna be in Pixburgh!  And the job I got is in dahn-tahn Pixburgh, right near where da Stillers play, and da Pah-rits, and da Penguins n' at!

Oh, and by the way, if you or anyone you know is interested in buying a house in what was recently named the third most unhealthy state in the nation, let me know!

Regards,
Helmet Head

Dude--the season 2 premiere of Flight of the Conchords is now available for viewing at funnyordie.com, and it is AWESOME!!!

(FYI, it can only be viewed if you're in the USA; sorry to all the international readers.)

Yay--Christmas came early!!!  Thanks, Santa!

Regards,
Helmet Head

R.I.P. W. Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat". 

The (until recently) secret Watergate informant died today at the age of 95.

Pictured above:  W. Mark Felt, aka Watergate's "Deep Throat", showing off his walker's new tennis balls.

I never woulda guessed he was that old.  I mean, take a look above.  The picture of robust health, no?

So, question:  Where was G. Gordon Liddy at the time of Felt's death?  I need some answers, people.

Regards,
Helmet Head

Hey peeps.  Here's the other side of my 2008 Holiday Mix.  Again, leave me a comment if you want some info. on where I got the songs from.  Enjoy!

SIDE B

1) James Brown—"Soulful Christmas"

  A track from the spectacularly awesome collection James Brown's Funky Christmas.

  Also, if I remember correctly, the only song on this mix to include a shout out to the fans.

2) Sufjan Stevens—"Put the Lights on the Tree"

  Another Songs for Christmas selection.  The CD on which this song appears also features an animated video for this song which can be viewed on a computer equipped with QuickTime, which absolutely fascinated my niece and nephew last year.  They must've watched it 50 times.

3) Jack Jones—"Mistletoe and Holly"

  I have a Sinatra version of this song which is much slower-paced, but I thought I'd go with this one just so I could pose the question:

  Jack Jones and Andy Williams—separated at birth?

4) Ray Charles—"Little Drummer Boy"

  Seriously, you guys?  This song makes no sense.  Some kid went to visit baby Jesus and said "Here's your gift, Savior of the world", and pounded on his drum?  And we're supposed to believe that not only did baby Jesus and his mom totally dig it and nod their heads to the noise like a couple of Maynard G. Krebses, but "the ox and lamb kept time"?  Yet somehow, Ray Charles makes this song cool.  They didn't call him "The Genius of Soul" for nothin'.

5) Dean Martin—"Silver Bells"

  Maybe it's because Deano was pretty famously an alkie, but he always sounds drunk to me.  Then again, it could be that he just does that old-school crooner "sliding-into-each-note-he-sings" thing that sometimes mistakenly sounds like a drunk dude slurring his words.  I don't know.    Guys like the Rat Pack members and all those pre-rock singers always make me think of the chauffeur character played by the late great Bruno Kirby in This is Spinal Tap, leaning over to Marty DeBerghi in the limo and confiding to him that this whole rock and roll business is "just a fad".

6) Barenaked Ladies—"Deck the Stills"

  I love this; so stupid it's brilliant.  Even better that they sing it mock-seriously, changing dynamics and what-not as if they're in a real choir.

7) Louis Armstrong with the Commanders—"Cool Yule"

  I hate when I see "Cool Yule" in holiday advertisements; it's a stupid rhyme.  However, Louis Armstrong gets a pass because he, and this song, are both very cool.

  And plus, it's not as bad as when June rolls around and you start seeing the execrable "perfect gifts for Dads and grads" rhyme everywhere.

  And don't even get me started on people who use the term "preggers".  Honestly.

8) Squirrel Nut Zippers—"Hot Christmas"

  A (mostly) instrumental from the Zippers' excellent album Christmas Caravan.  I love when vocalist Tom Maxwell yells out "It's burnin' up!"  Maxwell is also the guy who sang lead on the band's one and only hit "Hell" (he cried out "Light the furnace!" in that song).

  Ya gotta love "alternative" radio in the 90s:  "A seven-piece band playing old-timey hot jazz about going to Hell for all your sins?  Sure, why not?  Let's put that one in heavy rotation!"

9) Sufjan Stevens—"Come On!  Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!"

  I chose this song 90% for its title and 10% for its incorporation of "Away in a Manger."

10)         Ella Fitzgerald—"It Came Upon A Midnight Clear"

  All right, let's settle down from boogeying to the Elf Dance and class up the joint, shall we?

  I love the bass line in this…as I do the bass in "Soulful Christmas", "Cool Yule", "Mistletoe and Holly"…huh.  Maybe I should've called this mix "Super Cool Walking Bass Line Holiday Mix".

11)         Sufjan Stevens—"O Come O Come Emmanuel"

  Another Stevens arrangement of a Christmas classic.  I bet you didn't realize this holiday mix would be so banjo-heavy, huh?

12)         Nat 'King' Cole—"The Christmas Song"

  A classic interpretation of a classic song.  I love Nat 'King' Cole's voice, and I've been wanting to buy an album of just him, but these days it's just about impossible to find something by him that doesn't have Natalie Cole digitally inserting her voice all up in half the tracks on the album.  It's quite obnoxious.

13)         Ron Sexsmith—"Maybe This Christmas"

  Another new classic.  I love this song; it's like a less condescending version of John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War is Over)".  Both songs seem to be saying "What are you going to do to make this a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year?"

14)         Sufjan Stevens—"Joy to the World"

  This is one of my personal favorite Christmas carols, and I like this arrangement.  Usually "Joy to the World" is big and loud and brassy, and this mellow arrangement is unique…in a good way.

15)         Michael W. Smith—"Silent Night"

  Michael W. Smith's Christmas (his first Christmas album; he's done a few more since), more so than any other Christmas album, brings back memories of Christmases past.  And surprisingly, the album holds up pretty well; Smith chose arrangements that sound timeless as opposed to Christian Rock-y (with the exception of the track "Gloria", which sounds exactly the way you'd think a Michael W. Smith Christmas song would sound).

  As a testament to how good his Christmas album is, Amy Grant appears on it and I still like it, and I generally don't like anything with which she's associated.  This instrumental closes the album, and just listening to that minute and a half (or whatever it is) of music gives me a lump in my throat.  It's the sound of my childhood…my dorky, glasses and braces-wearing, mulleted, pimply, awkward middle-school-aged childhood. 

  Luckily, I got rid of the braces and the mullet.

  And finished middle school.

BONUS TRACK:  Sammy Davis Jr.—"Christmas Time All Over the World"

  People in other places sure do look and talk funny, but guess what?  Those weirdos celebrate Christmas, too!

Regards,
Helmet Head

Hey now!

It's time for some blogiday cheer!  (See what I did there?  I combined "blog" and "holiday"!  Copyright pending.)

Anyhow, this past weekend, I indulged in one of my favorite time-wasters:  Making a mix tape.  And I actually made a tape; I still own an old school radio/CD player/double tape deck, and I enjoy the time-consuming process of picking the songs, playing them and synching the recording just so with the tape player and the whole deal.

However, for those of you not into wasting time with woefully obsolete technology, I'm sharing with you the track listings for my 2008 Holiday Mix so you can download the tracks if you so desire and put the mix on a CD or on your iPod or what-not.  I'm also sharing some thoughts about each track.  There's approximately 90 minutes of music in all (the music will easily fit on either side of a 90 minute blank tape if you're gonna go old school like me); I'll list Side A today, Side B tomorrow.

One final note:  I've listed where I've pulled some of the tracks from (they were all dubbed from CDs), but if you have any questions about where a particular track came from, leave a comment and ask and I'll get you the reference for the CD from which it came.  I'm assuming (maybe wrongly) that most if not all of these tracks are available for legal downloading at iTunes or eMusic or some such site, but, as always, I'm too lazy to do the downloading availability research myself.

Enjoy!

SIDE A

1) Rosie Thomas—"Why Can't It Be Christmastime All Year"

  This song is from singer/songwriter Rosie Thomas's holiday album entitled A Very Rosie Christmas.  According to Amazon.com, it's only available as an import; I think Thomas is signed to a Canadian record label. 

  Wait—does Canada even have Christmas?  If they do, theirs is probably in September or something queer like that.  Canadians!  Am I right? 

  By the way, I highly recommend Rosie Thomas's album entitled These Friends of Mine, a collection of songs she wrote and recorded with fellow singers/songwriters Sufjan Stevens and Denison Witmer.  "Kite Song" from that album is especially good.

2) Sarah McLachlan—"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"

  This recording was featured on the excellent 2007 Christmas compilation Stockings by the Fire, released by Starbucks Entertainment (in other words, you could only by it at Starbucks last holiday season).    While this particular arrangement is quite sappy (and slow as molasses to boot), I don't own another version of this particular song, and wanted to include it because I like the lyrics of the song so much.  I'll spare you the details, but 2008 was not personally a banner year for a variety of reasons, and suffice it to say that the lines "God is not dead/nor does He sleep/the wrong shall fail/the right prevail" were words I needed to hear this year.

3) the bird and the bee—"Carol of the Bells"

  Another selection from Stockings by the Fire, this one from the dynamic duo behind the song "again & again" and others you've probably heard snippets of in various and sundry commercials and network TV promos and what-not.  I imagine that this song is what Christmas at Moby's house sounds like.  I imagine what that's like more often than you'd think.

4) Elvis Presley—"Santa Claus is Back in Town"

  This holiday season, K-Mart has for sale a variety of officially licensed plastic Elvis tree ornaments and other décor that play this song at the push of a button. 

  Classy.

5) Sufjan Stevens (vocal by Matt Morgan)--"We're Goin' to the Country!"

  This is a Sufjan Stevens original from his 5-EP box set Songs for Christmas.  I don't know who Matt Morgan is (Stevens recorded the Songs for Christmas tracks with various fellow professional musicians as well as with non-pro friends and acquaintances), but judging from the lyrics "your Mom's goin' to the country", he may be Kip from Napoleon Dynamite gone incognito.  Maybe Kip/Matt is like a Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines-type thing.

6) Vince Guaraldi Trio—"Christmas Time is Here"

  From the classic soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, of course, which is always, always the first Christmas album I play every year when I dust off the holiday music. 

  Also:  "Christmastime" or "Christmas Time"?  Discuss.

7) Andy Williams—"Sleigh Ride"

  There's simply no getting around it:  "Sleigh Ride" is a dorky song.  Andy Williams does the right thing and goes full-on dork, not even trying to be cool.  Dig the copious key changes!

8) C-3PO and others, from Christmas in the Stars:  The Star Wars Christmas Album—"The Odds Against Christmas"

  This song confirms what I've long suspected:  C-3PO has a gambling problem. 

  But on the plus side, we have a day…when love came to stay.

  In conclusion, this song'll probably get stuck in your head for a good long while after you've heard it.  You're welcome!

9) The Kinks—"Father Christmas"

  Christmas songs rarely rock…especially when they're trying to (I present you with Exhibit A:  My Billy Idol Christmas CD.  Sadly, I'm not joking—such a thing exists, and I own it).  However, this modern holiday classic courtesy of the Davies brothers is the exception.

  And, as an added bonus, it may get that dweeby Star Wars song out of your head—you're welcome, again.

10)  Ferrante—"Winter Wonderland"

  One of several doses of holiday cheese presented to you on this mix.  Look at it this way—you get your cheese here, you avoid having to ingest the plasticky kind sold by Hickory Farms.

  However, if you must indulge in brick-shaped cheese food products, for God's sake avoid the stuff known as "Chedam", for it is putrid and there is not a cracker nor a beef summer sausage known to man which can camouflage its vileness.

11) Sufjan Stevens (vocal by Vito Aiuto)—"Once in Royal David's City"

  Another selection from the Songs for Christmas box set, this one a (very cool, in my opinion) Stevens arrangement of a traditional carol.    Fun facts:  Vito Aiuto is the pastor of Stevens's church in Brooklyn, and Vito's wife Monique also plays on this track.

12) Hem—"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

  Another Stockings by the Fire selection.  I chose this because I love Hem (Sally Ellyson has the voice of an angel), and because I love the weird history of this particular song. 

  Basically, this song is (or was, at any rate) the Debby Downer of Christmas music.  It was originally written for a holiday movie starring Judy Garland, and the plot of said movie involved a family moving away from their loved ones, not knowing if they'd ever see them again.  The original first lines of the song were "Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last".

!!!

  The "It may be your last" line was quickly scrapped for being a bit too dark (ya think?), and replaced with the familiar "let your heart be light"; I've never heard a recording with the "It may be your last" line; I'm not sure if one exists (Judy Garland apparently objected to that line right from the get-go).

  Anyhow, years later, Sinatra recorded the song and he decided that the "muddle through somehow" line was also a bit of a bummer, and had a lyricist change it to the "hang a shining star…" line more common today.  This version has the "muddle through" line, which I kinda like for some reason—it's a Christmas song that keeps it real.

13) Jimmy Eat World—"12/23/95"

   I wish you a Merry Christmas and an Emo New Year.

14) Sufjan Stevens—"The Friendly Beasts"

  A Stevens arrangement of a traditional French carol.  I like how the arrangement builds and builds and then gets hushed again at the very end.

Tomorrow:  The track listing for Side B.

Regards,
Helmet Head

Hey all,

Well, to paraphrase Jim Anchower, it's been a while since I rapped at ya.  Basically, I've been busy with other stuff, and also haven't had much to say.  Well, I've had some stuff to say, but just haven't felt like it.

Anyhoo, I'm back and I'm not gonna waste a lot of your time.  I just need your help spreading the following rumor:

Chuck Norris is not a martial arts master; he just has a really bad case of restless leg syndrome.

So let's get out there and spread the word.

YES WE CAN!

Regards,
Helmet Head