I am Better than you (Library Interlude C)

Becuase you like radiohead and while they may have a great following and a critically acclaimed music career, they were so inspired by the Talking Heads that they took the name Radiohead from a Talking Heads song. And I am a huge fan of the Talking Heads. Which simply indicates that I'm "emo-reveried"(registered word) by their music the way one should be by George Harrison, Prince, Aimee Mann, or the Beastie Boys.

People are always asking me for proof for all the wild tales I tell. I tell them that I'm almost always right, when in reality I'm about 85% right. Of course, people who know me really well think I'm only 50% right, some of the time.

David Byrne also has Asperger's Syndrome. Listen to quite possibly the best love of the last 25 years (if not more). If you don't listen to lyrics when you listen to pop music you're not listening to anything. I'm tired of zombie listeners.

Here's your proof from the Wikipedia (aka "the Gospel of Truth") article on Talking Heads:

Influence

Talking Heads' body of work has been extremely influential, with bands as wide-ranging as Radiohead (named after a Talking Heads song), Phish (covering the songs "Cities" and "Crosseyed and Painless" at numerous shows, as well as the entire album Remain in Light at a 1996 Halloween show), and Red Hot Chili Peppers acknowledging them among their roots. Living Color covered "Memories Can't Wait". Both The String Cheese Incident and The Arcade Fire have regularly covered the song "Naive Melody", while the band Widespread PanicTrue Stories performs cover versions of "Life During Wartime" and "Papa Legba" (from the album).

Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, Ringo (Library Interlude B)

What do all these last names have in common? I don't know. However, there's one plea I must make with all the Beatles fans out there. Please do not die without having sampled each and ever album created during the Beatle member's solo careers. In the aftermath of the destruction of the beatles, there were four individual musicians. Not all albums were created equally, similarly, not all musicians were created equally. But this matters not. Heed my words. For the spiritual listen to Harrison's "All things must Pass" remastered double CD set where the cover art is all GARDEN GNOMES.

For the spiritual part II listen to Lennon Legend and cut the Lennon crap (like everything else on Mindgames other than the title track, Mindgames)

For the materialistic, "life-is-ephemeral-so-love-it-like-ice-cream-tastes-sweet", listen to Paul - especially the "back in the US" Live 2002 double CD set. If you listen to nothing else by Paul please listen to C-Moon, it's soul-reggae at its finest.

For happy times (like those acheivable when taking uppers and downers) listen to Ringo Starr, the only solo song of his that I've memorized is the one with the chorus, "and you know it don't come easy". It sounds like the song that goes, "Let it rain... let it rain, let your love rain down on me". by Eric Clap-dog. WHO IS THE BEST and who married George Harrison's wife. The two remained good friends even after George's death in 2001 of cancer. "Oh George" was a tribute to George written by the Foo Fighters.

I love the Foo Fighters. BTW - none of this musical connect the dots would've been made possible for me, had it not been for my free local library membership. I'm the proud member of 8 libraries in my region.

Mafia Films (Library Interlude A)

Something everyone (especially tough guys, and girls who want me to appreciate them for who they are and not just their looks) should do is watch all the great Mafia movies over the course of a couple years. For example, this includes the HBO series the Sopranos and Hispanic mafiostory Carlito's Way, but does not include Carlito's Way: The Early days or whatever the prequel is called.

In my meager years on this planet, I've pretty much exhausted all the greats, now I all I have to look forward to are the following Mob hits and Hitchcock films:

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Tutti dentro (1984)
The Death Collector (1976)
Blade Runner
North by Northwest (1959)
Vertigo
The Birds
Man Who Knew Too Much
The Big Shave... or, Viet '67

Don't ask me why blade runner is in there. Also, I've included the big shave as homage to Martin Scorcese.

I would've never been able to accomplish all this (watch all 5 seasons of Sopranos and all the mob greats: Casino; Godfather 1,2,3; Bugsy; Mean Streets; Goodfellas; Carlito's Way; Scarface; A History of Violence, Usual Suspects, etc.) without my library card. Actually, I saw a History of Violence in the movie theater.

Library, Part I: It's better than Blockbuster Video

This is part one of a three part primer on your local library. Forget your college library, forget all the stereotypes about how libraries are uncool. In this new fangled, hi-tech era, libraries have become something the likes of Blockbuster, Starbucks, and the INS have never seen. I've been meaning to spread the word on this for a while now: EXPLOIT YOUR CITY'S LIBRARY RESOURCES TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT.

as a card carrying member of your local library you can typically do all these things for FREE...

• rent 10 dvds at a time and keep them for a week.
• place umpteen holds on dvds, books, etc. and renew and keep tabs on your checkouts online with ease.
• if your library's in a larger network (with other cities or your whole county) you can request materials from any branch and pick them up at your convineince.
• rip CDs (I've found the library to be one of the best ways to sample unfamiliar genres like jazz)
• free wi-fi
• fun events - my library recently held a "write your own comic book" class

did I also mention that you can study peacefully and get books at the library? Yes, you can do these things too.