It is assault, I tell you!

I have this neighbor. Well, ok, I have a lot of neighbors, but there is one in particular…

Who, let’s be frank, has no taste.

How do I know this?

Well, the neighbor *loves* to crank up their stereo. Yup. They crank up their tinny sounding piece of eeeelectronic equipment loud enough so the whole neighborhood can take part in their musical selections.

A sociologist postulated that when male humans crank their stereos super loud, they are essentially marking their territory. They are forcing people to look at them and forcing all around to succumb to their musical selection.

If so, then my neighbor is a marking fool. He may as well pee on a mile radius.

This fellow (I assume it’s a guy, I’m not sure, actually) likes to boot up his sound gear at about 8:00am on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Just in time to wake me up from a nice weekend doze.

So, what sort of music does this fellow play? Do you have guesses?

Gangsta rap? Screetching metal? Blazing punk?

Nope.

Sixties oldies? Big Band? Yanni?

No, but getting closer.

The music this fellow cranks out across my air space is smooth jazz. Not the good jazz, say Theonius Monk, Charlie Parker or Miles Davis.

Nope. The smooth kind. Plinky plunky. Music that reminds you of sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office.

Cranked up loud. Bouncing off the hills and homes in our fair town.

This has been going on for a while now. And the gent has recently taken to cranking his crazy beats around 5:30 in the evening, so that all coming home from work can enjoy his pee-tinged music.

Today, I cracked. Today, I lost it.

Today, he was playing the theme from “Moonlighting” by Al Jarreau at full volume.

Now look, I like Al. He has some fine songs. I don’t resent anyone enjoying the mellow ways of Mr. Jarreau. However…I don’t need this blared out into my world, uninvited.

The acoustics in my neighborhood are funny, but The Good Man and I are pretty sure it’s the landlord of the triplex one lot over, but we can’t be sure.

When I DO find the offender, I am going to deliver a collection of BB King recordings with a note that says, “GET SOME SOUL, mother eff word!”

If you gotta explain the joke…

Then it isn’t funny. Right? Or the saying goes something like that.

For the past couple years here in the Bay Area, we’ve been without a country music station. At all. None. Zero.

So yeah, I’m a fan of country. I’m also a fan of blues, rock, eighties, popular, swing, jazz, mariachi and mambo. It’s all good by me.

I really do like the old country stuff. I’ll admit that. Stuff I grew up on. I tend mostly to listen to the Roadhouse on my Sirius radio. They play only old music, and I love it.

But I also like new stuff. I’ve just haven’t been listened so long, I lost touch a little bit.

Recently I discovered that country music has returned to Bay Area radio, so now, every time I’m in the car, that’s all I listen to.

I’m getting caught up on what’s hot right now.

And I’m perplexed.

Every other freaking song is proclaiming, “I’m from the country! Oh yes I am, let me tell you about dirt roads and June bugs and mama’s apple pie! No, really, I swear to GOD I’m so totally country, you don’t even know!”

It’s making me weary.

All this chest beating, “no, I’m totally serious guys! I’m country” is bull crap.

Example? Current number one country song? “Small Town USA” Oh and “Big Green Tractor” is on that list too. Both proclaiming that they come from the dirt roads and pretty green tractors.

Oh and recently I heard that song “Boondocks,” though I think that one has been out awhile.

But anyhow, to all of this, I say:

Blah, blah, blah all you yahoolios!

Did Willie ever have to let you know he was country? Did Merle feel he had to prove to you he could drive a tractor? Does *anyone* doubt that Dolly came from something real poor and made it big?

No.

Give it a rest, you kids. If you have to say you are from the country, you probably aren’t. Folks tend to just know these things.

I blame Sarah Palin, by the way. All her chest thumping “I’m just a country girl!” while, you know, being governor and wearing $3,000 custom made suits.

If it were just a song here and there, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but there is a glut of these “where I come from” songs. It is sort of repetitive and honestly, rather boring.

Plus, it’s all faker than a cowboy riding a broomstick pony with plastic spurs on his spotless boots.

Kind of like those “cowboy up” bumper stickers. Read my thoughts on THAT phenomenon in this post.

Image courtesy of jumpsoverthelazydog.com

Oh yeah, rocking it real slow

You know what’s a hit right now? The T-Pain auto tune app on the Apple iTunes app store called “I Am T-Pain.”

Auto tune is actually a cheat for artists to use, it cleans up bad notes. Many legit artists use them in concert to make their notes right, offenders include country starts Reba McIntire and Faith Hill.

But, as kicked off by Cher with the song “Believe” (1998), it can also be used to deliberately distort the voice.

A style that R&B and Rap artist T-Pain has used to great success.

So now, Mr. Pain has brought an app to the app store with some serious capability that will make you sound just like him.

Yay!

Without further delay:

My R&B rendition of our state song.

Any semblance to actual musical skill is the fault of the auto tune. If it’s good enough for Reba, it’s good enough for me!

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(I can’t believe I’m actually posting this. My family will be so embarrassed!)

Oh sweet, delicious, sticky irony!

“Younger people at the moment are very mouthy and aggressive,” he complains…”

Guess who said that?

Go on…guess!

No, really, you’ll NEVER get it.

It’s too…too…..deliciously ironic!

Ok, I’ll tell.

I just can’t hold it in anymore!

Ready?

Johnny Rotten!

No, really. Here’s the article!

Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!!!

Uh oh

She’s borrowing from the random idea generator again.

Herewith, my list of my ten favorite quotes, in no particular order.

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.” – Oscar Wilde

I don’t actually read Oscar, or know much about him. This quote was told to me when I was in high school looking for a quote to go with my senior picture.

You know the drill, we all had to have a quote, our defining statement. I liked the sentiment, so I went with it. My alternate was something about describing the taste of an olive, it was a weird quote. So of course they used that one.

But the Oscar quote has stuck with me.

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” – generally attributed to Martin Mull, but source is unclear.

First heard this quote in the little known and way under appreciated movie “Playing by Heart“.

This was before Angelina Jolie was, well, what she is now. She was only sort of known back then and is adorable in this movie. Her character is wacky and everything I wish I could be (including six feet tall and drop dead gorgeous), and she talks about this quote (attributing it to a musician friend), then subs in that “talking about love” is definitely like dancing about architecture.

I don’t know, it’s a quirky line. I like it.

“This is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball. You got it?!?” – the Skip in Bull Durham.

How many times, as a manager, have I wanted to throw a sack of bats at the feet of my employees and holler at them about being lollygaggers?

The answer is: a lot

There are a lot of life lessons to be learned from the game of baseball. This is a fave quote I remember when I tend to overcomplicate things that should be simply elegant. Like the game of baseball.

“…and when we win this game, we’ll buy a keg of booze, and we’ll drink it to the Aggies ’til we wobble in our shoes…”

That is actually the actual words from the NMSU fight song. It always appealed to me greatly that at an institution of higher education, we were encouraged to, you know, drink.

Our forefathers from 1888 saw the future. They saw it clear. They knew exactly what my alma mater would be.

Makes me proud. : sniff, wipes a tear away :

“Hey, minion! Bring me a beer! And don’t lollygag!”

And by minion, of course, I mean The Good Man. (juuuuuust kidding!)

Speaking of those college days….how about:

“It’s only love when you’re loved in return.”

Ok, sure, it’s a quote from a Steve Wariner song.

But it was said with *meaning* by my best friend, back in college, when I discovered that the guy I’d been dating was cheating on me. It was my first taste of heartache. The guy was truly a cad.

Now that cad has been married to another friend of ours for the better part of twenty years. Proves that sometimes it’s not the boy, it’s just the wrong boy for you.

My bestest friend and I had occasion to recall this conversation recently, with a laugh. This was while recounting the story to my husband.

So all’s well that ends well, I believe.

And speaking of The Good Man…

“To my heart you have the key/It you who set me free/And time will surely show/That our love will grow and grow.” Lyrics from “Positively Meant to Be” by Jimmie Vaughan

The words on the page don’t really have the same impact as they do when heard on top of the low and slow blues guitar sound from Mr. Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray, totally different style).

It’s a song I sing to my sweetie. I know, I know…too goopy for words. But it’s my song for, or rather about, him.

Ok, let’s ungoop this thing…

“No matter where you go in life after this, it will always be better than Tucson.” – From the movie “Hamlet 2”

Ok, apologies in advance to anyone from Tucson or anyone who actually *likes* Tucson.

I have had several occasions to spend time in Tucson. Not the least of which is that the Colorado Rockies have their Spring Training facility there. In the City of Tucson, I’ve been treated bad, eaten awful food, my friend had her car towed (from an unmarked area) and been lost in muther f-word “downtown” Tuscon with confusing highway markers.

And when, while watching Hamlet 2, they said that line, the beverage I was enjoying came rocketing out of my nose like Ol’ Faithful.

Well said, sir. Well said.

And just to prove I can be fair, I’ll also include:

“Even for Albuquerque, this is pretty Albuquerque.”

Also a nose geyser line, spoken seriously and rather snidely by Kirk Douglas in the movie Ace in the Hole.

An utterly forgettable movie with an unforgettable line.

Ya gotta be from ABQ to understand it. But you know, there is a lot about Albuquerque that is just soooooooo Albuquerque.

‘Nuff said.

“May the bird of paradise fly up your nose.”

If Little Jimmy Dickens wasn’t a poet, I don’t know who is. In fact, country music is ripe with quotable quotes. Country living and cowboys tend to have some colorful descriptors, but that’s a whole other post for another day.

Ok, ok, I’ll end on an inspirational note…or something…

Seems fitting, uplifting. Don’t let those bastards getcha down!

“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” – Frida Kahlo

Beautifully painful and erudite, all at once.

I’m sure I’m forgetting quotes I adore, but can’t quite access in the ol’ brain matter today.

It happens.

Maybe I need to go out and flap my yapper and make some quotable quotes of my own…..