Top Ten Songs

Yep ... that old chestnut. I brought out this topic on my former blog (long since deleted, but perhaps still available in a mossy cache somewhere).

Cliché? Yes. Annoying? Probably. Easy to answer? No.

This list changes from day to day. Right now I'm burning time until the first pitch of the World Series and am listening to music alone at my office at ear-bleeding volume.

So, here it goes. As "they" say, this is in no particular order, just my top ten tunes. Whenever possible I've included a link to an iTunes snippet.

1. When I Grow Too Old To Dream -- Nat "King" Cole. Is there another song that is as smooth and full of loving adoration as this? No.
2. Aganju -- Bebel Gilberto. This song haunts me, and all I have to say to the musically educated, Phil Ramone set the tone with Joao, and he is a fucking genius. Bebel is even better.
3. Hold of Myself -- Cracker. This has been a favorite of mine for many years. It makes me want to pull up my bootstraps when the going gets tough.
4. River of Tears -- Eric Clapton. Put a gun to my head and demand I name my all time favorite song, this would burst forth.
5. Soulshine -- Gov't Mule. Given a millisecond, this might be the next words out of my mouth before they pull the trigger.
6. Rx for the Blues -- Mike Bloomfield. If you don't dig this tune, never speak to me again thankyouverymuch ... this is the song that epitomizes the smoky blues club at a very drunken 4:00 AM.
7. Yellow Ledbetter -- Pearl Jam. I could listen to this song over and over and over and over and over ...
8. Riviera Paradise -- Stevie Ray Vaughan. This is musically as close to God as one can be. I do not make that statement lightly.
9. Guabi Guabi -- Pork Tornado. No other song has ever made me smile so brightly, to the point of happy tears, as this song. It's a celebration of life, family, sunshine, and all things fuzzy bunnies. It's simply awesome. I sing along at top volume, butchering the indecipherable lyrics all the way.
10. Fugue in G Minor -- Johann Sebastian Bach (the Stokowski transcription, not the original composition for organ). Maybe it's my 13 years of playing oboe, but this song makes me stand up and wave my arms like Keith Lockhart on crack. I love love love this song.

This list, as I'm sure you will agree when you attempt to compile your own "Top 10" list, is akin to choosing which of your children are your favorites.

I feel horrible for leaving so many out of the list. But, tomorrow is another day.

Five Languages

I had an interesting chat with a buddy of mine today. We were talking about our kids learning foreign languages at an early age, and laughed about our disastrous failures to speak anything but English or "drunkenese."

If a genie were to pop out of your coffee mug and grant you immediate fluency in five languages, what would they be?

Mine are:

1) Latin
2) Spanish
3) Mandarin Chinese
4) Japanese
5) French

Excellent Musical Parody

The "Brohemian Rhapsody!" No, that's not a typo. "Brotherhood's forever, anyone can see."

Maybe it's best that I didn't go to college and join a frat.

Welcome to Title Town

The Red Sox will dismantle the Rockies. Maybe Colorado will win one game, but I doubt they'll take two.


You might as well just give the Patriots the Superbowl trophy now.


The Celtics are being tagged by the national sports prognosticators as a lock for the NBA finals.


The Bruins are off to a solid start, and gunning after #1 Ottowa in the Northeast Division.


The Boston College Eagles are now #2, nipping at the heels of Ohio State at #1.

I Don't Know Much about teh internets

I scored a paltry 3 out of 20 on this quiz about the 'net. I'm not sure if I should be proud or ashamed.

Embarrassing 80's Hilarity

Try to watch at least 90 seconds without laughing out loud or wincing in sympathy. I couldn't do it.

Mind Bending Science Fun

LaunchBall is a fun and creative problem solving at it's best. Oh, okay, at better than most. Some of the puzzles were damn near impossible, and I admit to cheating by finding clues online for two of them (both involve the flashlight).

Use fans, Tesla coils, generators, springs, wind turbines, escalators, and other associated gadgets to get the ball into the goal.

Dreams of Flight

Recently I've had two extremely vivid dreams of flying. Both were joyous experiences. When you're having a particularly enjoyable dream, do you fight in your subconscious to keep the dream alive and control what's happening? I do.

I'm not going to bother trying to explain the dreams in high-def detail because, well, dreams are surreal. They're more about feelings than imagry. Describing surrealism and emotions in literary terms are a difficult and time-consuming task.

The first dream involved a high school classmate named Julie with whom I have had no contact since the day I graduated over two decades ago. In this dream I was the manager of a construction crew that had just finished building the world's tallest skyscraper. The building's owner showed up on the final day of the project, quite coincidentally with Julie in tow. She was a reporter covering the completion of the property. As a reward for a job well done, the building's owner told me that his private jet was going to take me and Julie for an aerial tour of the building.

I don't know all that much about private jets, but I'm fairly certain they can't perform maneuvers like I experienced. Before you filthy-minded people get on the wrong track, I have no idea why Julie was in the dream, nor did she have a starring role other than that I was proud to have her on the plane because she was excited and happy.

The plane defied real-world gravity by rocketing straight up above the cloud layer, stalling out, plummeting back toward the building, swooping around it in impossible G-force-defying circles, doing barrel rolls, and generally treating me and Julie to the world's greatest roller coaster ride.

I awoke to find myself laughing out loud and beaming from ear to ear, forced myself to go back to sleep, and resumed the dream. The second round was far less vivid, and the dream was off into the ether.

My second dream occurred last night. It was so engaging, so enjoyable, and so deceptively life-like that I talked about it with my boys this morning as I drove them to school. In this dream I had discovered that I could fly if I built a tiny airplane (think of a child's ride outside of your local grocery store or Wal-Mart) and held in my hand a paper origami model plane. While I could only fly about 100 feet off the ground, and at a very slow speed, I spent hours cruising around my former hometown. I visited a particular street (Moore Lane), even though I never lived there. Across from the area I was circling was a marsh, and so I puttered in that direction. I flew too close to a few tall trees and saw nesting eagles.

In my dream I had a moment of fear that somebody might have seen me coming too close to the eagles because they're endangered or protected or whatever they are these days. But the eagles didn't seem to mind. They were just as curious about me as I was about them.

The dream started getting "dream weird" at this point. The paper origami plane (which I had to hold out in front of me in order to fly) became unstable. I had to keep re-folding it in order to stay aloft. Eventually I couldn't keep it together and coasted in for a landing on another road in my former home town. I wasn't upset in the least bit ... I was thrilled at the experience, and immediately wanted to start making a better, new-and-improved, more durable version of my origami paper plane.

For anybody wanting to pop-psycho-analyze these dreams, bah. Dreams are dreams. My mom was always quick to whip out her book about the interpretation of dreams whenever I shared one with her. I find those interpretations to be much like the circus Tarot card reader -- full of generalizations which could fit anybody's life.

I'm looking forward to bedtime tonight. Maybe I'll pilot the F/A-18 Hornet.