A Free Man

Today is our last day in Sweden. We’ll jet off into the dark western sky for another hop over the North Sea. After landing in Heathrow we’re in for what is bound to be a harried race across London to Gatwick Airport - with slightly more luggage than we arrived in Sweden with ten days ago. Assuming that we manage that little jaunt we’ll be headed west again. And south as well this time, to the Sunshine State.

Florida, Florida, Florida - the most soporific of states. There’s a scene in the movie “Primary Colors” when Libby & Henry are driving to Miami to dig up some dirt on Jack Stanton’s new opposition. It’s wonderfully filmed, with the hazy muted colors that are so characteristic of Florida. It is the dialogue, however, that really nails the state of the Sunshine State. Libby speaks with lackadaisical resignation:

“We are in limbo now, Henry.”
“We are outside the mainstream.”
“We are in purgatory.”
“We are lost.”
“Libby, lf you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill myself.”

————————————

But we’re still an ocean or two away from anodyne sunshine. Sweden has been Sweden. I’ve spent more time in Sweden than any other European country and I still don’t really have a feel for the place. It’s a lot like Canada, but with more Volvos and disturbingly attractive people. Most of what I’ve learned on this trip is about myself. I’ve learned that I am nowhere near as patient as I am going to need to be to make it through this parenthood gig. I’ve learned that anything that I do not want hurled to the floor with astonishing speed needs to be kept well out of range of young Z. This includes - but is not limited to - iPods, breakfast, telephones, glasses of Coke, and handheld gaming consoles. I’ve learned that I will never be as entertaining to Zach as kids nearer to his own age. This is true even if they descend on him in a mad, screaming horde like the Vikings from which they are descended.

————————————

One other thing I’ve learned about Sweden, is that they have some great music. I’ve been featuring Swedish musicians over at my music blog for the time in which we’ve been in country. There is an astonishing number of oustanding independent pop bands coming from this not particularly large country. So, they’re good looking and talented. The Swedes are the people I hated in school. Bastards.

Yesterday, I posted an interview with what has become my new favorite band, and the soundtrack for this post, Moonbabies. They are a duo, in life as well as music, from Malmö. The music on their lates LP, “Moonbabies at the Ballroom” is catchy pop with a sauntering, dreamy tempo. If you’re a “Grey’s Anatomy” fan, you may recognize the song I’ve posted below. There’s more of the same on the album which is available from and Amazon.

 

 Moonbabies - "War on Sound" [3:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 45% [?]

“I was dreaming of a steel guitar engagement
When you drink my health in scented jasmine tea
You knifed me in my dirty filthy basement
With that jaded faded junky nurse
Oh, what pleasant company…”

-The Rolling Stones - “Let It Bleed”*

I’ve not got a lot of great photos of Sweden to share with you today because, if the truth be told, I’ve not been out of the house much since our arrival on Tuesday. This isn’t, as you might think, due to the lousy Swedish spring weather. Nope, it’s the continuing struggle to get grounded and settled after our whirlwind departure from Britain. Dr. O’C is doing a little bit better - she’s headed off to a nearby shopping mall today, but your underwhelming narrator - well, I’m still trying to remember whether we shipped or packed my Billy Connolly book.

I did manage a bike ride yesterday. It was sunny and reasonably warm and I was lured out of my bed by the promise of taking Z along with us - his first bicycle trip. I’m a sucker for firsts (and his mother is a slightly erratic cyclist), so I dragged myself out of my state of self-indulgent emotional hibernation and joined Dr. O’C and son for a little ride to Önnered harbour. I’m glad I did, because it was brilliant - a bright sunny day, cycling on well maintained Swedish bike paths with the occasional reassuring tug of my jacket from my little boy firmly strapped behind. Cycling is one of my favorite activities and was my main mode of transport for our time in Britain. Cycling is also great because it allows for mind wandering time and yesterday my brain went into fast forward gear - Baby Z with his first trike, his first two wheeler with training wheels and that fateful day when he pedals off on his own with the realization that he doesn’t need his Dad’s help anymore. Followed fairly quickly by his first crash when, aided by the clarity that comes with skin scraping on concrete, he realizes that maybe he still does - for now.

* Yeah, I know this song has nothing to do with bicycling around a Swedish harbour, but man, The Stones used to be good!

 

 The Rolling Stones - "Let It Bleed" [5:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 21% [?]

“Well I think I’m losing my mind this time
This time I’m losing my mind
That’s right, said I think I’m losing my mind this time
This time I’m losing my mind
Yeh, you can’t front on that…”

-The Beastie Boys - “So, What’cha Want?”

The Easter holidays in Britain mean a wonderful four day weekend in the height of Spring. Easter 2008 for us meant winter storms and four days of packing our earthly possessions. The movers are due on Thursday and Dr. O’C being who she is (organized) has been systematically disassembling our household into neatly arranged shipping containers. I, being who I am (creative), have spent the weekend wandering the house… well, wandering. Clashes were inevitable. The weekend was filled with short tempered conversations like this…

Me: “Where’s the peeler?!?!”

Dr. O’C: “I packed it.”

Me: “Why did you do that?”

Dr. O’C: “You said I could pack everything in the kitchen!”

Me: “Well, I didn’t mean anything I use for cooking. Obviously.”

This was actually a mild one, most of them involved a few more expletives and character attacks. If we make it through another transcontinental move without killing each other, I think we can probably make it through anything. Even Z has been a little out of sorts this weekend, maybe because he nearly took the slow way to South Australia.

I think I’m losing my mind this time…

 

 The Beastie Boys - "So, What'cha Want?" [3:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 28% [?]

As a geneticist I knew, intellectually, that my son would be 50% identical to me at the DNA level. What I didn’t realize was what that meant in real life - that I would look at him and often see myself looking back. It is not like a mirror because it’s three dimensional and tangible and real and his mother is there as well. I can see the best and worst of both of us. It is equal parts frightening and fabulous. Frightening because at six months old I can’t imagine life without him now. Fabulous because he brings out an unselfish love of which I didn’t know I was capable.

I think that he looks at me and sees the same thing I do. For him, it seems a lot simpler - the familiarity makes him smile and that just melts my heart.

 

 Barenaked Ladies - "What A Good Boy": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 10% [?]

“Not on your arm
Not on your leg
Not in the toast
Not in the eggs
Not on the carpet
Nor the linoleum
Just how’d your little brother get it smeared all over him…”

-Over the Rhine - “The Poopsmith Song”

The strains of preparing for a trans-continental move must be getting to me because I’m finding the blogging juices have run bone dry again at this week’s end. Dehisced, I’m resorting to miscellaneous tidbits again

First, an update on my quest for decent kids music. Dr. O’C hooked me up with a compilation from Nettwerk Records called “For The Kids Three”. It features kid-friendly songs from different indie artists - the likes of Moby, The Barenaked Ladies, Of Montreal and many more. I’ve posted a couple of my favorites - Over the Rhine’s “The Poopsmith Song” and Great Lake Swimmers’ “See You On The Moon”. Before listening to these, I’ve got to tell you that “The Poopsmith Song” is deviously catchy. Even if you don’t have kids it is very possible that you will wander around for the rest of the day singing “poop in the potty, poop goes in the potty”. You’ve been warned. Great Lake Swimmers‘ “See You On The Moon” is really the better song. I liked it so much that I went in search of more music from these guys. Their “proper” music is this wonderful nature inspired indie-folk - all banjo and acoustic guitar and glockenspiel. I tracked down Tony Dekker, the heart and soul of Great Lake Swimmers, and got him to sit down with me on the virtual coach for an interview. It’s up today at A Free Man - check it out!

———-

Maybe I should start a new feature, call it Lazy Ass Friday, in which I seek to entertain my gentle readers by sending them somewhere else.

1. Judgmental cat is unpleased
2. Let’s get something straight
3. Chaos Theory: March 2008
4. The Sacajawea Theory, v 2.0
5. Vacation, All I Ever Wanted; Vacation, Had To Get Away

——–

Excellence? Wow, after I just shifted all of my writing responsibility for the day to other bloggers? Well, fellow expat blogger (and fan of alliteration) Kathy at What Do I Know gives me more credit than I give to myself. Thanks, thoroughly thrilled and titillated. I’m meant to pass it on and I think I’ll go out on a limb and offer this award to someone I don’t know so well. Ray at Nitro Vista got a well deserved, and much sought after, “I fucking love you” review from the hard to please folks of Ask And Ye Shall Receive. He’s a fellow “daddy blogger” up in the wilds of a Wisconsin college town. He’s apparently also a Wilco fan and as any Wilco fan should, has a witty, wry way with words. He deserves this award much more than your underwhelming narrator.

“For The Kids Three” is available from Amazon.

 

 Over the Rhine - "The Poopsmith Song" [2:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Great Lake Swimmers - "See You On The Moon" [4:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 21% [?]

More About Wordless Wednesday

Six months isn’t a proper birthday, but it is certainly an unbirthday worth noting. Continue Reading »

 

 The Sugarcubes - "Birthday": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Sufjan Stevens - "Happy Birthday": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 12% [?]

“All my bags are packed
I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye…”

-John Denver - “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane”

Actually none of that is true, but we do have our tickets. And Z has his passports. That Australian one is yummy - tastes like emu.

I’ve really not got not much to sat today, beyond a cute photo, so here are some of my favorite posts of the week from around the interwebs:

• I don’t like cricket. Oh no. I love it.
• Fate loves to screw with me.
• More about cockroaches.
• Peace the Spork Out Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax: 1938-2008.
• NAFTA Talk Started With Hilary.

———————————

Aha, Alice saves the day by tagging me for a Best Of meme. Apparently it refers to the best of me. Thanks, Alice, that’s my favorite subject!

** Post about the meme and link back to the person who tagged you.
** Go back to your archives and link to your five favorite posts.
•Link One: must be about family
•Link Two: must be about friends
•Link Three: must be about yourself
•Link Four: must be about something you love
•Link Five: can be anything you choose

** Tag five other people (at least two must be new acquaintances so that you can get to know them better).

Here are my choices:

1. On family: The Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Masacreed Movement
2. On friends: Berries and the nomadic lifestyle
3. About me: How do you afford your rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle
4. About something I love: Good Morning Son, I Am A Bird
5. Wildcard: Hello, I’m Johnny Cash…

I don’t typically tag, because I’m a party pooper. But this is the second meme in a row that has been a godsend on days where the creative juices were running a bit dry. I won’t tag, but will tap gently on the shoulder The Vol Abroad, Okay, Fine, Dammit, Malfeasance, Jessie and The Busy Dad Blog.

——————–

I am featuring tracks by two new (to me) bands today. Larsen & Furious Jane came highly recommended by Steve Adams of The Broken Family Band. “Australia” is from their 2004 record “I’m Glad He’s Dead”. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes’ cover of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is one of the best I’ve heard. Discovered them here.

——————–

Finally, here’s the convoluted route we’ll be taking to Oz next month…

 

 Larsen & Furious Jane - "Australia": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - "Leaving On A Jet Plane" [2:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 14% [?]

“Señores y señoras
Nosotros tenemos mas influencia
Con sus hijos, que tu tienes
Pero los queremos
Creado y areglado
De Los Angeles
Juana’s adiccion!”

Listening to Jane’s Addiction, the wonderful SoCal alternative pioneers, always takes me back to Tallahassee, Florida. I lived there for a couple of years at the outset of the nineties. For a good part of that time I lived in a little studio apartment that had been carved out of a turn of the (twentieth) century house in the shadow of the Florida capitol building. It was my first solo apartment and I loved it - the freedom of living alone for the first time in my nearly two decades. It was tatty, dirty, tiny and didn’t have screens on the window or air conditioning. That latter feature of the apartment was a little bit of a problem in the hot Florida summers. It meant either suffocating or leaving the windows open to the varied fauna of the Sunshine State.

In hindsight, I should count myself lucky that the only Florida wildlife that caused me grief was cockroaches. I could have played host to any number of creepy critters, many potentially lethal, looking for a home. At the time, however, I found it difficult to find any gratitude that all I had was what turned out to be a massive infestation of Florida’s most unwelcome resident - the palmetto bug. For those of you lucky enough to have never dealt with these lovelies, they are basically giant flying cockroaches. They have the capacity to breed rapidly and in enormous numbers, resistance to most poisons developed to kill them and no apparent fear of man. After my first warm day in the new apartment they were everywhere - on the walls, the ceilings, nooks, crannies - particularly at night, the time you least want to come across a two-inch flying cockroach. I fought a losing battle with the palmetto bug army that had taken up residence in my apartment for months. The only way I could kill them was physical stomping. To this day, there is no sound that I find quite as satisfying as that of a cockroach exoskeleton crunching under a boot. Unfortunately, for every one I stomped, three more flew in through my unscreened windows.

The last straw in The Great Cockroach War of 1990-1991 took place one steamy August morning at about 3 a.m. I woke suddenly, and in the moonlight, saw the unmistakable shape of a palmetto bug’s multi-faceted eyes staring back at me from a distance of about half an inch. The fearless bastard, no doubt the Achilles of Palmetto Bugs, was sitting on my forehead staring at me. As he brazenly loped away from my shrieking, impotent counter-attack I knew that something had to change. It was time for biological warfare - weapons of mass destruction.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me just to buy some screens for the window, but it didn’t. At some point I had a conversation with one of my drug-addled at risk friends about my cockroach problem. “Man, what you need is a gecko” was his apparently knowledgeable response. He told me that geckos are natural predators of cockroaches and other insects and that if I got myself a handful, my cockroach infestation would be in my past. Inspired, I headed down to this reptile place on the south side of Tally and happily came home with a cardboard box full of a half dozen Tokay geckos (if one is good, six is six times better).

Now, I never saw one of my phalanx of geckos catch a cockroach and I can’t say for sure if the cockroach population in my apartment ever fell. What I can tell you is that a sub-tropical Florida apartment - with ample insect food - is a perfect environment for gecko propagation, as evidenced by the baby Tokay geckos I began to find in my bathroom at night. I can also attest that waking up with a Tokay gecko on your face is scant improvement over waking up with a cockroach on your face.

Insect and reptile problems notwithstanding, Tallahassee is where I started to learn to love music. I had two friends that had the music bug and very different tastes. One of them leaned towards the classics of the Deep South, blues tinged rock that still shapes a lot of the music I gravitate towards. The second friend was excited about the new “alternative” sounds coming from the West Coast - the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, Sublime and Jane’s Addiction. It was the latter band that I really fell for and that kept me slightly sane in those bug infested summer days.

I picked up Jane’s Addiction’s self-titled debut one day, based on my friends recommendation, and was stunned from the first listen. This was music like I’d never heard - from Stephen Perkins’ machine gun drums that announce the opening of “Trip Away”, to Dave Navarro’s cranked up Jimmy Page guitar and the funky bass line. But it was Perry Farrell that made Jane’s Addiction something really special. He seemed to throw any semblance of a vocalist’s rule book right out the window. Farrell would alternate between shrill shrieking, evangelical preaching and threatening whispering seemingly without method. On this first Jane’s Addiction record, and by the way who releases a live record as their debut? On this record, Farrell is at his purest, rawest, most filthily shamanic. I spent many a night thrashing about my infested apartment to Farrell’s When the cockroach battling got to be a bit much for me, I would blast this album as loud as my cobbled stereo equipment would allow, as if I could blast them sonically from my life. The live version of “Pigs in Zen” on this album became my cockroach stomping song.

—————————–

A while back when I did my interview with Turnbaby, I mentioned that I hadn’t played Z any of the “heavier” bands in my library. No Nirvana, no Black Sabbath, no Soundgarded and no Jane’s Addiction. I don’t know why that has been the case as some of this music is integral to who I am and the whole point of Z’s Music Monday is to introduce the boy to just that music. At least a part of my reluctance to pull out the rockers were lingering concerns about Z’s fragility. Well, his Mum whacked our delicate flower’s head off the mantle the other day and he lived, so this weekend we cranked up the stereo and brought out Jane’s Addiction. Z seemed to be a big fan of “Ritual de lo Habitual”, particularly the opening track. He loved both watching and participating in the cockroach stomping dance. He laughed like crazy during the Papa-throws-me-in-the-air-and-mostly-catches me dance that we developed during “Obvious”. I’m here to tell you, Z is ready to rock.

Image Credits:

Palmetto bug

Gecko

Florida state phallus

Buy Jane’s Addiction records, including their self-titled debut, at Amazon or .

 

 Jane's Addiction - "Stop!" [4:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 13% [?]

Variety being the spice of life and inspired by Arizaphale’s foray last week I’ve decided to forsake Wordless Wednesday for Best Shot Monday. Continue Reading »

 

 Nirvana - "In Bloom" [4:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 12% [?]

“And the head said that you always were a queer one from the start
For careers you say you went to be remembered for your art
Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange
Making life-size models of the Velvet Underground in clay…”

-Belle and Sebastian - “Expectations”

There are a number of British bands that it took me moving to England to be able to appreciate. Continue Reading »

Popularity: 20% [?]