Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas!

Last week I started writing down some thoughts about the horrendous school shooting in Newtown, CT. But I got overwhelmed with what to write, as I thought about those poor little kids and their families and friends, and my own kids and how vulnerable they are, not just at school but everywhere.

I'm sure we've all thought about the numerous issues around this incident -- gun control, mental illness, school safety, the NRA's outsized influence over Congress -- and gotten a bit fried.

So I'll just say "Merry Christmas!" and leave you with a video of a song that has always given me goosebumps, and always will. The good kind of goosebumps. The song is "Hallelujah Chorus" from Georg Handel's oratorio Messiah. I'm not at all religious, but I love Christmas, and look back fondly on the days when my parents played this song and other, similarly inspirational songs on our hi-fi leading up to Christmas.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

"On the Road," again

James A. Reeves has written the road trip memoir I wish I could write.

Bastard....

Reeves recently published The Road to Somewhere: An American Memoir, which is a "photo memoir of one man’s journey through America that is as sprawling and chaotic as the country itself. Contains 55,000 miles and 416 colorful pages with a map and an index," according to the book's back cover.

I can't wait to read, and look at, this book.

According to the publisher's description: "While working at a design studio and teaching, whenever he could find a few days he would buy a ticket to anywhere cheap, rent a car, and drive in the direction of whatever towns struck his fancy — Truth & Consequences, Delta, Dinosaur — racing blindly through the back roads of the country."

Reeves took his trips between 2004 and 2009, taking tons of pictures along the way.

Here's a promotional video:

Some have compared Reeves' book to Jack Kerouac's seminal novel On the Road. As I've mentioned here a few times (May 25, 2012, "Inspiration," and October 2, 2012, "The Struggle"), I'm working on a memoir about a road trip I took with three friends in 1988. I compare our trip and the dynamic of the four personalities to the ramblings of Kerouac and his buddy, Neal Cassady.

Obviously, my book is very different from The Road to Somewhere. I took my trip 16 years before Reeve, and the photos that I took didn't come out because I was using a crappy camera and didn't know what I was doing even with a crappy camera.

But like him, I learned a lot about this country -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- during the four months I traveled from Connecticut to New Mexico and back. I also learned about myself, although many of those lessons didn't come until I'd started working on the book nearly eight months ago.

I continue to make progress on my book. I have begun filling in holes in the timeline thanks to email and phone correspondence with friends and family. And I've recently begun hammering all of it together into what I believe is the right format and order. Of course, I've had those thoughts before and ended up making changes, but that's just part of the process.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

UFO Playlist

My last post was all about UFO sightings and a research paper doubting that such crafts and their occupants were truly of extraterrestrial nature (see 11-28-12 "The Truth Is Out There?"). Today I wanted to present something a little more frivolous: a UFO playlist.

This list includes songs I have in my collection, as well as tunes compiled by the BlogCritics web site. It is by no means exhaustive.

So here, in no particular order, are some cool UFO songs. I've included a bunch of videos to make this more interesting. I hope you enjoy it.

Ass Ponys -- "Place Out There":

Man or Astro-man? -- "Interstellar Hard Drive"

Mr. Nogatco (aka Kool Keith) -- "Bionic Fuse":

Flaming Lips -- "Placebo Headwound"

Billy Lee Riley and the Little Green Men -- "Flying Saucer Rock and Roll":

Butthole Surfers -- "Who Was In My Room Last Night?":

Parliament -- "Mothership Connection"

Neil Young -- "After the Goldrush":

Camper van Beethoven -- "The History of Utah"

Suburban Lawns -- "Flying Saucer Safari"

Red Simpson -- "The Flying Saucer Man and the Truck Driver"

B-52's -- "Planet Claire":

The Carpenters -- "Calling All Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem of World Contact Day)":

Kyuss -- "Spaceship Landing":

Ray Stevens -- "I Saw Elvis in a UFO":