Mashup Monday - "Shit, It's Almost Wednesday" Edition

It's been a crazy week.  I didn't even wake up until about ten minutes till four in the afternoon yesterday.  It's  11:29PM, and it just occurred to me that today is Tuesday.  Really.  I'm okay.  I swear.

This week's entry is a goody.  It comes from a DJ from the Boston area by the name of Lenlow.  It's a wonderful mix, one of the best ones I have heard in a while.

Today's mashup is a mix of Janis Joplin's 'Mercedes Benz' and Beck's 'Go It Alone'.  The video isn't much to look at, but you'll want to download the track.  You can do so at the link above.  Enjoy.

My 500th Post: A Look Back

When I look back, 500 posts don't seem like that much.  Then again, looking at the length of some of these posts, I have more content on this page than many blogs with 10,000 entries.  I started this page on September 11, 2009, with an entry about how 9/11 changed my views on the National Anthem, based upon the way I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness.

Reading that post, it's obvious that my writing abilities have improved in the last 18 months.  I have, without a doubt, taken up a more professional writing style.  It's almost as if I've become a professional blogger.  Now, if only I can start making money at this.  LOL.  This has, in a way, become my profession.  In the months since starting the site, I have realized that I will likely never work another "traditional" day of work again in my life.  This has, in fact, become my "job", and I'm starting to treat it as such.

There was a post that I wrote about two weeks in to the site, that I wanted to share again.  It brought back a lot of positive memories.  Memories that personally I need right now.  The post is from September 30, 2009.  It's called, "I Am A Rockstar Dad or How Bohemian Rhapsody Makes My Daughter Vomit":

"The last few days, every time our daughter says "Mama", my wife and I both say, "Oh oh oh oh". We're hoping to have her know all the words to 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by the time she is two. We're sick like that.

Anyway, my wife was indisposed, and the baby had a poopy diaper. It was my turn to change the nasty diaper, so I picked up the baby and laid her down on her changing table to be changed. As I am changing her, I start singing 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. I'm doing the voices and everything. She's loving it.

I get to the "Galileo" part, and I'm zooming in and out in front of her face. She's cracking up. Her eyes are bigger than I have ever seen them. Her mouth is open wide and going back and forth between a smile and a big "O" shape.

By the time I'm singing "Let him go!", I've forgotten about putting the new diaper back on. She's hysterical. She has the hiccups and is clapping. I feel like I'm opening up for Robin Williams at the Improv.

Then comes the greatest line of one of the most legendary rock songs ever written: "Beelzebub has a devil put a side for me...for meeee.....FOR MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" Just as I hit the high note, my daughter's face goes from a look of pure joy to "I'm not so sure about this".

Suddenly, thick chunky dark green sludge launched about eight inches out of my daughter's mouth. It covers my arms, my hands, her stomach, shirt, face and hair. My first thought: "HOLY FUCK!". Second thought: "Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix". My daughter was still on her back and she was choking on her own vomit. I turned her over on her stomach, gave her a couple of good thwacks on the back until she started breathing OK, and stood her up.

I was as cool and as calm as could be, like I had done this a hundred times. Any other time, I would have been blowing chunks all over the bedroom, but I grabbed a handful of baby wipes, and started cleaning the little squirt down. This was the first time she had puked and was old enough to be aware of what was going on. I was cleaning her off. She looked at me, slowly looked down at herself, and yelled "Mama". And into the shower she went.

I was so proud of myself. I handled it like a pro. Almost more like a roadie than a dad. Let's put it this way...if I would have been on Janis Joplin's detail, she'd probably still be alive."

18 months later, she knows all of the words to the verses of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.  She calls it "The Mama Oooh Song".  If that isn't cool enough, she does the hand claps during ' We Will Rock You', and we have our  own little gestures orchestrated for 'We Are the Champions'.  She doesn't know who the band Queen is.  But when you ask her, "Who sings 'Mama Oooh'?", she'll tell you that it's "Freddie" (She says, giggling, "He's got a funny mustache.").  I fucking love my little girl.  The video below is her favorite Youtube video to watch.  Well, that and that 'Whip My Hair' video.  LOL.



It makes me realize that I need to continue to talk about my daughter.  I focus so much on world events, politics, religion, gay rights, etc., that I sometimes forget the most important things in the world.

Janis Joplin Had A Lot Of Shit In Her Purse

In the summer of 1970, a writer for named David Dalton was assigned to write a cover story about Janis Joplin for Rolling Stone.  Janis was touring Canada on the 'Festival Express' tour with a chartered train, touring with The Band, Buddy Guy, Sha Na Na, and The Grateful Dead.  Sounds like an endless party.  Joplin was 27 and only three months away from her untimely death.

For Dalton, it was an "Almost Famous-esque" experience.  He turned his experiences of that summer into a book called 'Piece of My Heart'.  The following is an excerpt of the book that takes place in the back of a limousine:

"Now where in the hell did I put that lighter…? Probably left it in that bar. I'm real sloppy. Lose more damn things in bars. Left a wallet with a grand in it in a bar last week. Just can't seem to hang onto anything, man. In desperation Janis dumps her bag onto the floor of the limo. Its contents are truly awesome. Janis has a baglady's compulsion to carry her whole life with her. There are: two movie stubs, a pack of cigarettes, an antique cigarette holder, several motel and hotel room keys, a box of Kleenex, a compact and various make up cases (in addition to a bunch of eyebrow pencils held together with a rubber band), an address book, dozens of bits of paper, business cards, match box covers with phone numbers written in near-legible barroom scrawls, guitar picks, a bottle of Southern Comfort (empty), a hip flask, an opened package of complementary macadamia nuts from American Airlines, cassettes of Johnny Cash and Otis Redding, gum, sunglasses, credit cards, aspirin, assorted pens and writing pad, a corkscrew, an alarm clock, a copy of Time, and two hefty books-Nancy Milford's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel." 

The book has been optioned into a movie.  It's called 'The Gospel According To Janis'.  It's due in theaters sometime in 2012, and it stars Zooey Deschanel as Joplin.  Sounds like a promising movie.

If musical genius is judged by the amount of stuff in your purse, I have a feeling that my wife is the next Mozart.