Finn newz

This is rapidly becoming unbalanced in favor of Finn things, but anyway I just found Tim’s blog on MySpace. It’s kind of funny to see him writing on that site, it just seems like such a breathless teen hangout with all the emoticons, but hey, what do I know. I also am a little unsure of that first single, which seems excessively happy. (Watch the vid on YouTube) I’m going to have to offset it by listening to Nine Inch Nails or something.

I also heard that Neil’s finished recording his album at Real World in the UK—I’m just glad it isn’t taking him six years to do it, as it always does for the most habitual denizen of Real World.

OMG Neil r0x0rs!!1!!
Current mood: abliquafregious

Wheels on fire

The old Civic has had two incidents of running hot in the last four months, both of which seemed to be fixed by throwing money at it. But it did it again today. It already has a new radiator and a new thermostat—unfortunately the next thing to consider is damn expensive (head gasket). Maybe it’s time to buy a new car this weekend. Ten years and 164,000 miles is a good run for a car, isn’t it? But... I am so not in the mood to deal with car-buying schmack. And the new Civics are so damn ugly.

Newspaper reporters spoiling all the fun

Because TJ was scarred by watching Midnight Oil jump around in dorky coveralls, here’s a far more stylish video from Tim Finn.

Soup du jour

• Happy Birthday to Anne and Judy!


• Only two more days until the Fantasy NBA draft, and I am completely without inspiration. All I know is, I don’t care how high Kobe is ranked, I’m not picking his ass.


• I feel like my head is carrying around 100 good ideas but I can’t get a single one down on paper (or screen).


• Here is a very good picture to look at when feeling frustrated.


• In another rock and roll moment, Midnight Oil tried to burn down Alan Thicke’s talk show in 1984. Am I the only person who remembers Alan Thicke?

How soon one forgets the sticky floors

Tonight Steve and I were driving by Newbury Comics, and it launched a series of memories of seeing Neil Finn do an in-store performancethere, and the concert at the Paradise later that night, and it snowballed into recalling all the Finn-related concerts we’d seen here: that Paradise show in summer of 2002, one at Avalon the following February of 2003, and then the Finn Brothers in 2004 and 2005. It’s about time to have another visit, I think! But the Paradise one might always be the best to me. The venue is so small, the farthest away you can get from the stage is probably 20 feet. Even the annoying chick in front of me trying to push backwards the whole time couldn’t bring me down. Ah, GA shows are to love, and to hate.

There’s something so special about knowing that the guy standing in front of you on the stage came from the other side of the world and is probably losing money on the tour because he had to fly all his gear, but dammit, he’s in front of me right now playing his heart out. And Neil’s stage persona is half perfectionist, half laid-back dude screwing around. I don’t know how to explain it; it makes for the best shows. I love seeing Elvis Costello live, but not as much, because the venues are always large and so much more impersonal. Plus, 70% of the people are there to hear the hits, or discuss stock trades, and don’t really give a damn. At Finn shows that bunch of jackasses is closer to 10% or less of the crowd, I’d say.

In April 2001 Neil played several shows in NZ with a bunch of musician friends, and it was broadcast over the web. I was glued to the computer and that tiny, grainy window onto something that was happening thousands of miles away. I snapped the screenshot you see here; more are available at somethingsofinn.com (follow the left sidebar: Neil Finn > Live Shows > 2000-2003, scroll down to 6 April 2001). That experience is yet another reason why I can say, with a minimum of irony and cynicism, that the Internet changed everything. For the better.

How long til the next tour, Neil?

Cleanliness is next to craziness

So I’ve been spending my Columbus Day hanging out at home, cleaning various things around the house. My hopelessly overstuffed email inbox, the bathtub, the kitchen counters—hell, I just dusted the toaster, for heaven’s sake. And since cleaning doesn’t require much brainpower, I’ve been pondering whether or not spending time dusting my toaster means I’m crazy.

I’m reminded of the scene in Sex, Lies, and Videotape when Andie MacDowell’s character is seen scrubbing various surfaces in her kitchen, obsessively shining the faucet on the sink. Clearly this is a shorthand way of explicating her inner turmoil: she tries to restore precise order and cleanliness to the outside world as her inner world is being buried under giant dust bunnies and growing various species of mildew. So whenever I put on the rubber gloves (whose package always has a well-manicured smiling woman on it—shouldn’t it show a person, lightheaded from bleach fumes, trying not to hurl while clearing out the shower drain?) I start thinking about being crazy.

Am I crazy? I would much rather have things clean than dirty. I sincerely wish my whole house were a giant dishwasher-like device whereby I could walk outside, flip a giant lever, and come back in an hour to a sparkling, steamy, and well-nigh sterile environment. Although, think of the water bill. Then again, no one could accuse me of being obsessively clean. I’d rather wait until things get really dusty or dirty and then it’s so much more satisfying to see their transformation back into shiny things you might actually want to touch or walk on or whatever. That seems like a reasonable desire to have in one’s life. If I weren’t overwhelmed by liberal guilt at the thought, I might even pay someone to clean things for me once in a while, and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to ponder my possible state of insanity. So perhaps my behavior fails the crazy test, where I ask myself whether it’s affecting my life to the point where other people notice, or it harms my relationships, or I find myself curled into a fetal position when I realize that the mold on the bathroom ceiling spells CHENEY/HANNITY 2008. If that’s crazy, then I suppose the whole world is right there with me, and thus the asylum has become the whole world.

Have you ever noticed how much dust accumulates on desk chairs? It’s downright frightening. Remind me not to look down while I’m writing these posts.

Paging Stevie Wonder

I wish I had another person on my staff so I didn’t have to do the work of two people.
I wish Al Gore had been inaugurated in January 2001.
I wish JetBlue flew to WAS and not just IAD.
I wish the zipper on my briefcase wasn’t broken.
I wish the workweek was only four days long.
I wish all of my peeps still lived in the area.
I wish difficult decisions were more easily made.
I wish the people who live above me would stop stomping everywhere they walk (how do they not have shin splints by now??).
I wish X3 hadn’t sucked so much.
I wish people did what was asked of them occasionally, and not just what they felt like doing.
I wish politics in this country weren’t so mean-spirited and partisan.
I wish I had more time to be creative.
I wish I had a more cheerful blog entry to foist upon my dear readers!

Snorklewacker on Wheels

This morning—which was a Sunday, I might add—Swami and I got up at 6:30 to make it downtown in time for the Hub on Wheels ride. It’s a charity bike ride that starts at City Hall Plaza and tours the Emerald Necklace parks and cemeteries: Fenway, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park, Forest Hills Cemetery, and the Neponset River. Then the ride swings up along the coast and back to City Hall.

It was a blast! We took the 30-mile loop (the longest route was 40) and managed to avoid crashing into any of the thousand other riders who were out there. Support was great: cops at every intersection, snack stops, and arrows indicating the route. (This was a real pleasure here in the town with virtually no street signs.) There was a blue heron near Longwood, standing in a stream and staring at all of the people crazy enough to go cycling at the crack of dawn in iffy weather; lots of patient motorists waiting for us to pass by (and of course a few impatient ones); the completely impressive JFK Library, which I had never seen before, much less cycled by; a Navy ship in drydock; and incredible views of Boston and the harbor from several angles. Sorry I don’t have pics, though, because it was a little too wet to risk the camera.

The only question mark was, as I mentioned, the iffy weather. It showered on and off on us a few times, and it wasn’t anything close to warm, but at least the real rain held off until after. (And then it freaking poured.) But next year, I gotta try for the full 40 miles. Hm, this is turning into a cycling blog, isn’t it?