NKOTB: So Young and Yet So Wise part 3

#142: Jonathan tries to be understanding when there's an argument - he always makes an effort to see all sides of the situation

#147: Donnie says, "I just want everyone to get along in peace. Afterall, peace is my motto. I'm always wearing things with peace signs on them."

Busted: a Confession

A few days ago, I was at the library when I got stopped by someone with a clipboard. My usual response to whatever the plea is, "I'm not registered to vote," thus making my signature on whatever petition they have null and undesirable. This generally works like a charm. This time, when I got stopped, I very politely said, "oh, I'm not registered to vote," before this nice man had an opportunity to tell me what he was doing. As soon as I said those words I saw on his clipboard the Voter's Registration Card. Wah wah. He said, "great, we can get you registered right now!" At which point I had no choice but to confess that I lied. When I told him that was my usual deflection and that I am in fact registered, and have been since a few weeks before my 18th birthday, since an election was a week after, he didn't look super amused.

Yes, I lie to strangers.

Have You Heard: Lake Street Dive

I realized I missed my favorite radio show, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on Saturday and turned on the radio to see if I could catch the replay of it on Sunday as I was getting ready for church. I got the times wrong, and turned on the radio as Prairie Home Companion was going full steam. While I feel that show has some real strengths going for it, mostly those get outweighed by how annoying I find several of their weekly bits to be, so had this group not been killing a cover of one of my all-time favorite songs I would have turned it off. As luck would have it, I have a new obsession, in the way of lake Street Dive. Thanks Garrison Keillor. Yes, the Jackson 5 classic is one of my all-time favorite songs. And no, I don't feel any shame in admitting that.

NKOTB: So Young and Yet So Wise part 2

I can say with a surety that as much as Joey and Jordan were everyone's favorites, Donny was easily the least favorite which is sad. Not that he should have been a favorite by any means, but it is sad because he probably knew he was the least favorite NKOTB. He also probably knew he was the least favorite Wahlberg. That's got to be deflating. Let's see if we can learn a little bit more about the New Kid's resident bad boy who sprayed a kid in the face with a fire extinguisher and scuffled with people airplanes

#7: Original New Kid Donnie tells his fans: "Try not to judge things 'til you've been educated on them." #154: "I think my greatest fear is that the AIDS crisis is growing bigger and bigger and by the next decade it will be wickedly out of hand," says socially concerned Donnie. #88: New Kids on the Block, especially Donnie and Joe, think Peace signs are great to wear...but more than anything, they love what they stand for! Oh the poor schmucks who had to write the copy for these cards--where are they now?

NKOTB: So Young and Yet So Wise part 1

A few months ago, my dear friend Ashley--who has a sense of humor better than most--sent me a package with all sorts of goodies in it, each one with a note attached as a caption. To the rather huge stack of New Kids on the Block trading cards she included, she wrote, "Ahh...NKOTB, so young and yet so wise."

 We were of a very impressionable age when New Kids came out. I knew I was supposed to like them, but I was neither here nor there with them, but wanted to appear like a normal kid, so I flaunted my NKOTB walkman all over that yellow school bus for a few months second grade. But, did I ever use the bookcovers that I got with said walkman for my birthday? Nope. (My brother ended up stealing them from me to use as gift wrap when I was in college.) Alas sooner rather than later, the sticker of the New Kids was peeled off and I continued to use that walkman to listen to Paula Abdul and Richard Marx (those were my jams!)

I digress. Ashley's present made me giggle, but I had no idea what to do with these precious gems. I was thinking about them this morning, so I got them out, took some photos, and will for the next few weeks share the best of the best.

Poor John, the only kid in the crew not part of the rat-tail chain. I bet he looks back in relief that even though he allowed himself and the band to be styled by the same person that styled Sinbad,* he didn't have a rat-tail, but it probably smarted at the time, being alone in the crowd like that. And Jordan looks so hot in his overalls, actually mostly it's his face. His face and that pose. What's he going to do next? Lean against a brick wall with one leg propped up like a flamingo's?

The reverse of those two cards (where the pearls of wisdom are, along with the factoids about the band):
#82: Donnie says, "There are lots of good reasons to stay in school. We're glad we did because that's how we met...and look at us now!"
#55: Jordan is quite the comedian! He cracks up the Kids on the tour bus with his impression of Elvis Presley!**


*I made that up.  "I hope he's wearing something made out of windbreaker!" -Charlie Kelly

**You know what's more obnoxious than being stuck on a tour bus with a guy who thinks impressions are funny? The only thing that comes to mind, being stuck on a tour bus with a guy who thinks his impression singular is funny. (Remember when Kareem Abdul Jabbar drove their tour bus? Yeah...me neither.)

Have You Heard: Pop inspired by POTO

What is POTO you ask? Clearly I am talking about Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic 1980s musical version of Gaston Leroux' novel Phantom of the Opera. And I should just state right now that "inspired by" is far too strong a phrase. 

A few months ago Annie sent me an email telling me to immediately listen to "Primadonna" by Marina and the Diamonds. I did. I loved it (it's so dancey!). As a bonus, I then became O.B.S.E.S.S.E.D. with another song off her new album, "How to be a Heartbreaker." Thank you, Annie.



The connection to POTO came when my friend Tiffany told me her boyfriend David busted out into Primadonna and my mind immediately went to Marina & the Diamonds, but I was mistaken. 

Then I heard and fell in love with Nicki Minaj's song "Masquerade." Sure she doesn't use proper grammar, uh, ever, but it's kinda my favorite. 


(oh fan vids.)

Two songs with the same titles as tracks from Phantom of the Opera in one summer? Here's hoping David Guetta will come out with a song called "Think of Me" and Katy Perry one called "Point of No Return" and here's hoping it is better than this one.
 

Video games and the middle aged

I was at a meeting last night to plan an upcoming harvest activity for the young single adults in the Portland region, when one of the middleaged people who was subbing for some stake high council member who couldn't make it suggested made the following suggestion: "There's a Kinect already set up, and there are lots of flat screens, someone else could bring an xbox or a wii and we could have games going." I thanked him politely, but said, "I'd rather not have any video games happening at this event." He countered, "well do you know what Kinect is? It isn't a video game." Woah there Captain Hostile! It is in fact a video game, just because your body is the controller doesn't make it not a video game.

As tactfully as I could muster I said, "Yes, I do know what Kinect is and does, it's great fun, but we will not be offering a video game as an option at this activity." He scowled at me. He was hurt and offended. He had offered me the greatest bounty of super-fun-idea treasure possible and in my ignorance I had shot him down. Me in my hatred of video games.* I'm sorry that I'm trying to foster interaction and trying to introduce other fun things to this legion of young single men who play far too many video games as it is. I'm just a wet blanket.

*Nevermind the fact that I don't video games. I had sounded out the Mario Bros. theme song on the piano as a kid before I grasped the concept of telling time on a non-digital clock. Once when I was sick, my mom brought home Roadblaster, my favorite arcade game, for me. And I have spent more time playing Dr. Mario, Tetris and that 3d pinball game for the PC than I would care to admit to. Oh, and I used to play kinect sports or just dance with the kids I nannied to get them off their duffs on rainy days.

A few things that have been on my mind:

1. I really wish I was one of those people who can articulate what they are thinking right when they think it, especially when it comes to funny things. A couple of weeks ago I was sitting next to a few guys in my ward, and one of them slapped a sticker that said "usher" onto another one's chest. Seeing an opportunity to be HI-larious, I said to the newly dubbed, usher, "I loved your hit song..." and then had to pause as I tried to think of an Usher song. Seriously? I couldn't think of "OMG" "Yeah" "U Got it Bad" or that one, something like "Confession part II," or you know any of the other Usher songs that I know all of the words to.  Now I can, then I couldn't. So I had to then admit that I couldn't think of one. The kid I was sitting next to came up with like three.  Today I struggled to come up with Dick Cheney's name. Come on, brain! Molly fail.

2. Friends Natalie and Michael gave me a subscription to the New Yorker. I let all of my magazine subscriptions lapse, and totally, totally miss a few of them, but not the New Yorker anymore because of my sweet friends. Back when I first came to the New Yorker in 2004 I fell in deep literary smit with Paul Simms because a few of his submissions in the Shouts and Murmurs (obviously my favorite section). This week's "Test your Fashion IQ" made me LOL out loud a few times. Find it. Read it. (Bob Odenkirk's* "Portrait of the Artist" from a few weeks ago was pretty good as well.)

2.1. Flipping through the October Glamour I saw an article titled "Is Joseph Gordon-Levitt the new Ryan Gosling?" No. He's not.

3. I am apparently trying to single handedly trying to cover all of my friend Joanna's walls. A while ago I made her a dachshund chalkboard, because the girl loves her dachshunds.

 And for her recent wedding to delightful Chris, I made them a print that really fits them:

*Better call Saul!**
**We don't need a criminal lawyer, we need a criminal lawyer. Do you see the difference?

You know how that is....

I've been trying to get a hold of a few people I've never met before from the coast to see if we can use a certain place for a beach party after a beach cleanup later this month. Finally today I got a voicemail from one of these individuals. In it, he said, "I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner, but I'm a dairy farmer and you know how that is." Actually sir, I have no idea what that is like, but thank you for calling me back. Also, since you are a dairy farmer near Tillamook, I'm sure you contribute to that, so thank you for delicious cheeses and ice creams.