Who is Mussolini?

Watching Jeopardy together, originally uploaded by beths96.

anybody recognize this town?

Me neither. It's Steubenville in the late 1950s, found via the awesome, amazing, time-suck-inducing Google Image Search of the Life magazine archives.

rock-hard ass

rock-hard ass, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So I took a second shot at roasting a chicken. As you might recall, the first one tasted like ass ... but this time, I figured out which end of the chicken was up, and it turned out well.

I used Anthony Bourdain's poulet roti recipe from the Les Halles cookbook once again, and once again I'm convinced that his cooking time just isn't long enough. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this too. The recipe calls for two stages of cooking: 30 minutes at 350º then 25 minutes at 450º. Next time I'm going for 45 minutes at the lower temperature, and 30 minutes at the higher.

But it was still tasty ... and I've got one more carcass for the inevitable stock preparation.

Goofing Around With The Beatles

As part of my next project ...

A remixed version of the beginning of Hey Jude ... It's not as good as it could be, but that's mainly because I don't have the keys to Abbey Road. Or "Abbey Road" for that matter. But I used to tell my radio listeners to do this with their speakers when I played the song – and now, through the magic of GarageBand, Audio Hijack Pro and too many cups of coffee ...

This Sugar Cane/This Lemonade/This Hurricane/I'm Not Afraid" – My Favorite R.E.M. Choruses

wrigley, as the red sox were winning the series, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Part of my "Pop! Goes the Radio" metamorphosis involved the liberating power of the chorus. It's the most important part of any song, as this semi-hilarious video will tell you ... it's the part that you hum when the song is over, the part that elevates all that comes before. A good chorus is essential, but not necessary, to a good pop song.

So here are some of my favorite choruses from R.E.M. I could write a thousand words on each song; these are just my stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Maybe someday I'll elaborate on them, but for now, here they are ... and here's a handy pop-up window with all the songs. Or click on the links below.

"Be Mine," New Adventures in Hi-Fi

This one bowled me over when I first heard it, and I spent way too much time trying to figure it out on my acoustic guitar – mainly because you can't get good feedback on an acoustic guitar, especially when you're living with another person in a studio apartment. My first thought was "This is going to be a smash hit," but they didn't release it as a single. It's as dark and brooding a love song as they've ever written.

"Belong," Out of Time

One of the great wordless choruses. I don't know if that disqualifies it from true "great chorus" consideration, but since this is the only thing Google knows about when it comes to "great choruses of the rock era," I'm going to issue a ruling: Words aren't necessary. Certainly they weren't for this gem, which I used to learn fingerpicking during my senior year at Denison.

"Camera," Reckoning

I'll find myself humming this when I'm on a photo shoot. Not the thing most parents want to hear from their photographer, mainly because I can't always get the lyrics right. Who will be your face, indeed? And why are you locking your car doors like that?

"Daysleeper," Up

Oh man, this is killer. It's in 3/4 time, which always helps ... I was working as a temp at TargetCom in Chicago, doing tech support, and the phone system was set to play XRT when people were on hold – and we could pipe it through our speakerphones too. I remember walking down the hall of the Navy Pier offices when I first heard this song. It was late in the afternoon on a cool fall day ... I didn't know it was R.E.M. but I had a good hunch. It sounded amazing even in speakerphone. I'd actually got a sneak preview of the album, thanks to the Oxford American's Southern Sampler 1998, which had the better version of "Why Not Cry" as well as the great Hackberry Ramblers' "I'll Be There."

"Fall on Me," Life's Rich Pageant

I've interpreted this song as an anti-environmentalist song, which would be odd coming from Michael Stipe, but you tell me – "Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky, and tell the sky 'Don't Fall On Me'" ... I think it's a reaction to the anthropomorphism of the environment that was all the rage in the late 1980s. Don't anthropomorphize the environment, dude – it hates it when you do that!

"Falls to Climb," Up

Another one for the vasty underrated "Up," which was the first album after Bill Berry left the group. R.E.M. has a good knack for ending its albums powerfully. It's a martyr song, which makes it all the better for a melodramatic chorus.

"Imitation of Life," Reveal

A weird album – I'd broken my ankle two days before it came out; on that Tuesday, Amina watched me hobble down the street on crutches in Evanston to buy the disc before we ate lunch. It was a pretty weak effort (the disc, not the crutch work) but you can't deny the goosebumps when Buck's Rickenbacker kicks in toward the end. And the lyrics are among my favorite from the group ... I have no idea what they mean, but I understand every word. No one can see me cry ...

"It's a Free World Baby," In Time (Best of, 1988-2003)

This was a song I first heard as a bootleg when Adam Garratt and I shared the "Buena Vista" apartment in northern Chicago. It's a really bad bunch of lyrics, but that chorus! Oh man. "He hit his head!!!!" That's gold, I'm telling you ... I came across a bootleg of the song on T.U.B.E. and that inspired this post. I had no idea you could, you know, pay money for the finished version of the song. It was my white whale for years: "You know, back in they day, I heard the best R.E.M. chorus that's never been released ..." Oh, okay there grandpa. Tell me about how you had to rewind cassette tapes during the Clinton administration.

"It's the End of the World As We Know It," Document

Obligatory. You gotta put this on your list. And I had to include "Leonard Bernstein!" in the clip.

"Man on the Moon," Automatic for the People

In concert, this song just rocks. They played it during the "Monster" tour in '95 and it was a great singalong. I saw them in Pittsburgh, and I had a press pass. I took three rolls of b/w film and can't find the negatives. I kick myself every so often about that. I got a great shot of Mike Mills in his Elvis jumpsuit, pointing the headstock of his bass at me. I must find those negatives. I had an insanely attractive 17 year old girl from eastern Pennsylvania promise me that I'd send her copies of the photos; I did them up at the News-Register and printed out a huge newspaper-sized poster for her. She wrote back and wanted to be a "pen pal." I never replied because I was 23 and she was 17. What a fool I was.

"So. Central Rain," R.E.M. In The Attic

The. best. live. recording. ever. Did you never call? I waited for your call; these rivers of suggestion are driving me away. The oceans sang; the conversations dimmed ... Go buy yourself another dream, this choice wasn't mine. In my Denison years, when I would fantasize about playing a guitar in front of people, I did this song, and Tom Petty's live version of "The Waiting." I kicked ass.

"Until the Day Is Done," Accelerate

I can't agree with the political bent of the lyrics – hell, with most everything Michael Stipe stands for politically – but this chorus not only is eminently sing-along-to-able™ but it's also hauntingly beautiful. Very well produced by Jacknife Lee. If someone who voted the way I voted put this song on repeat on his iPod ... you know it's good.

"Wendell Gee," Fables of the Reconstruction

Named after the proprietor of Wendell Gee's Used Cars in Prendergast, Ga. (I love Wikipedia.) Peter Buck didn't like this song when it first was recorded, but he's come around to it. "Whistle while the wind blows," I'd say to Peter, were I ever to meet him. Given that I live in Nashville, who knows? It could happen.

"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" Monster

During my two years at the Wheeling News-Register, I was let out of work early for two record releases: The Beatles' "Anthology: Vol I," and "Monster." I had just gotten my first new car, a 1995 Chevrolet S-10 pickup with an after-market stereo system (later stolen while the truck was parked on Montrose Avenue in Chicago) and the first song I really cranked was "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and I was worried that I'd blow out the speakers before I'd made the first payment.

In the immortal words of Tony Kornheiser: "That's it ... that's the list."

Pop! Goes the Radio

(This little story is just a prelude to a post coming later about ... well, about music.)

When I visited Denison as a senior in high school, I was hosted by a group of guys who – score one for the geniuses in Beth Eden – I came to realize were as nerdy (in their own ways) as I was, though at the time it wasn't obvious. Actually, even after graduation and, I'd wager, even today, it's probably still not obvious ... One of them (I think it was Todd Gutnik) was a bigwig at WDUB, the 50-watt (that's not a typo) radio station that broadcast as far away as Heath. My dad's CB radio had more power, but the station had a professional board and a huge record collection, and I decided during the visit that what I wanted most in life was to be on the radio.

Tryouts were announced in The Bullsheet not long after my first semester started, and I nervously went to the basement of Knapp to fill out the paperwork and be interviewed. DUB's studio was pretty amazing; it didn't look like much from the outside, but it was impressively spacious behind the door. There was a lounge with an absolutely skanky couch and a few offices in the back, an insanely narrow room to the right that housed the record collection ... and straight ahead was the Valhalla, the Holy Grail – the studio.

The board, with all its sliders and dials, intimidated me, though I had to laugh to myself because there actually were two turntables and a microphone, though I was never, ever, not even once, tempted to try my scratching skills ... The board in the studio looked down onto a large, soundproofed room with long tables punctuated by mics and headphones. It was like watching the engineering room on the Enterprise, and I often imagined that's what it was, though the room was usually empty and dark.

During tryouts, though, the senior staff was sitting around down there, and we were ushered into the engineer's studio, which was right next to the main studio upstairs. The windows were taped over – you couldn't see them, and they couldn't see you. I was told to back-announce a few songs I would have just played in my imaginary DJ universe, then to read some on-campus promotional items culled from press releases. I was nervous; I wanted to impress these faceless voices with my oh-so-hip musical tastes, and prove once and for all that the kid with the mullet and paunch was far cooler than he might look at first glance.

It must have worked, because I was called back, tapped on the shoulder and honored by being named as an apprentice for a semester. I was assigned to (if memory serves) Friday Abernethy, on whom I had a massive, major, super-duper crush, made all the more tragic by the fact that I had taken to wearing anti-sexual-attraction cologne for my first year on campus, which made me the pimply equivalent of her nerdy kid brother's even more nerdy friend who always wore that Millenium Falcon t-shirt and started wheezing whenever she smiled.

So I survived not getting ravished on the control room floor, and graduated to full-fledged DJ status to start my sophomore year. I'd been inspired by my good friend Rob (then) Plourde to do an all-Beatles show called "Sitting on a Cornflake," usually on Sunday afternoons – lighter in the first hour, heavier in the second. It was a good show, and had a few off-campus followers. One guy sent me a cassette of some bootlegs that ended up making it onto "Anthology Vol. I" ... the "Whoa love me too" part gave me goosebumps 18 years ago, and listening to it just now, I got 'em again.

I had success, but I got tired of being known as "the Beatles guy" around campus. My good friend Nancy was abroad during our junior year; she and I were active in the theatre department, though I'd say that only one of us actually had talent for it. (I was house manager, if that gives you the answer.) She was stage managing a show, and it was the stage manager's prerogative to play music through the house – she was the boss, and if the boss wanted ABBA, the boss got ABBA.

Which is what she wanted. I hadn't really considered ABBA before that point, but something about the long, October afternoon in Ace Morgan made "Knowing Me, Knowing You" sound like something I should get to know better. She'd brought back "ABBA Gold" from London, and I picked up my copy a few days later. I became transfixed – it was gorgeous, amazing, sugary pop music. The Beatles were pop, of course, but not like this; if the Beatles were chocolate cake, ABBA was cotton candy. And I liked cotton candy.

My final semester, the radio show became "Pop! Goes the Radio," dedicated to a flavor of pop music that didn't get played often on college radio, mainly because only old people were listening to The Turtles and Frank Sinatra and Cyndi Lauper at the time ... but it was all good to me. Something about a catchy hook and an irresistible chorus meant more to me than the latest angst from heroin-thin white men or the Kurt Cobain wannabes that ruled the playlists at the time. I was out of sync with my generation, and I was glad for it.

i was so much older then; i'm younger than that now

When I was a consultant in Chicago, my accountant – Marc Winer, who's just an awesome guy and a pretty good accountant – got me believing that QuickBooks Pro was the way to go. And I was a disciple, too. I reconciled monthly, figured out the arcane splits feature, and even did payroll, all in QuickBooks. It was easy; it made sense to me in a way that made me happy to use it.

That was 2001. This is 2009. And in 2009, I absolutely hate QuickBooks. Not that much has changed with the software, but (apparently) a lot has changed with me. I'm not the QBB Ninja that I once was, and I find myself fighting with it far more than loving it ... which showed in how diligently I kept it up to date with what was happening in my bank account.

It's easy to think that we don't change over the years, that we remain pretty much static over time. I'm as handsome now as I was 10 years ago, and my weight is only about 10 pounds greater (though, at that rate, I'll be in I-wash-myself-with-a-rag-on-a-stick territory by age 60). But in this one area, at least, I've regressed, and I've really got to work on that.

french press technique

Videocast #2 - French Press Technique from James Hoffmann on Vimeo.

darn it

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

You know, I'm trying to re-enter the working world – in my own clumsy, half-hearted, gee-maybe-apple-will-call-me-to-replace-steve kind of way. I need to be more serious about it, though I'm making good strides toward that, and God is always poking His head in from time to time ... in the end, I think it's all good.

I'm planning an office swap with Amina; she gave me the nicer of the two upstairs bedrooms, and we've decided that, since she's the boss of me and all, she deserves the better space. It's fine by me – her office is a lot darker, which is better for editing photos, and I can better hide the gangly, Medusa-like tangle of cords and power cables I've got going on here ... I mean, two external drives, a printer, a scanner, a second monitor and a speaker cable – that's what I've got here, and my desk sits in the middle of the room.

ANYWAY ... I'm cleaning off my shelves today and I come across a very short story I wrote – it's actually three pages of dialog – more than 10 years ago. I was in a small writing group with (then) Molly Thorsen (now add "Connolly" to the end) and this was the best I could do, I think. It makes me laugh every time I read it. I scanned it in and am all ready to post it ...

... when I realize that potential employers will Google me, and this blog will show up, and that post will show up, and some HR person will read it and boom! goes the résumé. And the funny thing is, the story isn't that bad at all – it's kind of prurient in a juvenile, PG-13 way. But in this day and age, one must be careful.

So I promise: I'll post it, as soon as I'm gainfully employed.

coffee news

more bubbles, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So I broke down and got yet another Bodum french press ... or is it French press? The internet's version of the AP Stylebook – and I have no idea why it's one word; if I were copy editing that, I'd make it "style book" – is Wikipedia, and Wikipedia says to capitalize "French," so henceforth I say as it is written, so shall it be.

Anyway. I got an eight-cup French press last night at Target; I went with the Brazil model because it's sleek, clean and with just a small landing strip of ... Wait a minute. That's the wrong internet search.

After drinking two mugs of coffee from it, I must say I feel as light as that bubble above ... A press is the only way to go, if you have the patience to wait for the water to boil and then for the grounds to steep. I guess I could go with an electric water kettle, as Alton Brown does, but add that to the cost of the press and we're in replacement coffeemaker territory pretty quickly.

No, I can wait a few minutes for water to boil ... then a few more for the coffee to brew ... because, to be honest, this is the best tasting coffee I've ever had at home.

The best coffee I've ever had outside home? A tie between (1) a little bistro in Worthington, Ohio, where my old friend Adam and his father took me for brunch one sunny weekend morning, and (2) the Paramount coffee brewed at the Sonny Boy restaurant in Lansing, Ohio ... I hear the Sonny Boy isn't as good as it used to be, but when I was just out of college, they brewed a mean cup of diner coffee.

tell me about it.

stolen from The New Shelton Wet/Dry

it's tough ... it's really tough

it's tough ... it's really tough, originally uploaded by pr9000.

But next time? Next time? I'm totally not putting up with the earmarks. Next time.

warren buffett is right.

BUFFETT: Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you've heard this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a terrible thing to waste.'

BECKY: Yeah.

BUFFETT: Now, just rephrase that and since it's, in my view, it's an economic war, and--I don't think anybody on December 7th would have said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.

I wish we had real leadership in Washington.

i can't hear you over the sound of my own awesomeness

playing around, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So I've spent a lot of time getting away from Facebook -- it's just not that much fun to me anymore -- and more time getting into Twitter.

Why? I find myself asking that question every other Apple-R in Safari ... I think it's because I follow people who make me laugh. Twitter is like the ultimate joke-telling tool -- you've only got 120 characters to get your point across. You must perfect what you're saying, hone it down to get the maximum effect out of minimum characters.

Unlike blog posts. (Ahem.)

So Big Daddy Avelis and I were chatting today and started up on twitter and what drives us nuts on it ... which, of course, turned into a blog post idea. So here's the

The Eight Twitter Guys You Just Want to Kill

(1) the "HERE'S THE WEATHER WHERE I'M AT TODAY" guy

(2) the "I'M SO MUCH HEALTHIER THAN YOU AND LET ME PROVE IT TO YOU IN MILES" guy

(3) the "I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY OWN AWESOMENESS" guy

4) the "OMG THIS TWITTER IS SO COOL" guy

(5) the "I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY SO I'LL JUST RT @EVERYONEINTHEWHOLEFREAKINGWORLD" guy

(6) all politicians who tweet

(7) the "OH GOD WHERE'S MY COFFEE" guy

(8) the "WHY ISN'T IT FRIDAY YET????" guy
tie
(8) the "OH MY WORK SUCKS SO HARD" guy

i heart spring

i heart spring, originally uploaded by pr9000.

"The sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them ... as is my understanding." – Bart Simpson

Spring in Tennessee is more than we ever could have imagined. I say this knowing full well that it could turn "colder" next week – 53 is considered "cold" here – and that, in fact, I might be inviting that cold front down from Minnesota with this statement.

Nevertheless, spring has been an eye-opener here. It won't take me long to unlearn that "dreading March" feeling that Minnesota gives to its residents. April may be the cruelest month, but March in the upper Midwest is a close second. The calendar says it should be spring; the sun is out longer, the birds chirp more loudly, but it might still snow at any given moment, and you're likely to hit ice if you try to dig more than two inches into the ground.

My digital photography class is going well -- I only lost two students after week one -- and we were outside taking photos yesterday. Click here to see samples of the group's work. We had our first "photo walk" yesterday, and have another one planned for later in the month.

I'm really enjoying the class. It's giving me a chance to clarify what I've learned over the years, including the realization that I've been wrong about some "received wisdom" on a few topics. And I had forgotten how much work it is to distill all those annoying "yeah, buts" and "well, maybes" into a clear statement of fact that people can grasp.

Not that I do that all the time, of course. Trust me when I tell you that I find myself explaining more than presenting some of the things I put in the slideshow. But on the whole, it's a very satisfying class, and it's a fun group too.

Uncle Paul, this is for you. :)

Uncle Paul, this is for you. :)
Originally uploaded by beths96

Of course, he's eating while he says this.

my other car is a tie fighter

my other car is a tie fighter, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I was dong some makeshift product shots for a friend's project -- more about that later -- and to get a white balance test, I threw this little thing together.