George

Oh no.
He had been a shadow of himself for a long time now. No, not even a shadow.
I stopped following what he did long ago, it was sad to see.
But he was the main soundtrack to my teens. And I had the hugest crush on him then. Just yesterday  Last Christmas came up on the radio for the umpteenth time and I took the chance to explain to my sons what platonic love is. It's serendipitous (as usual with me), had not come up in years. I almost lost my sanity back then trying to figure out what the hell he was saying in certain parts of that song, listening over and over and then over again!. I still remember how  my English teacher feared me, trying to get her to translate Careless whisper and then every song after that. I didn't understand, and couldn't bear it.
I saw that video, heard  that song, and it stayed with me like nothing before (for me it wasn't the Wham dancey type with the shorts at all. I liked him despite that. It was that guy in the suit who could look at you like he did there -and the music). I was lucky I had taped it, saw it a million times literally. Where I lived nobody knew him, and wouldn't for a long time. Afraid to say, he was my main motivation for learning English.. silly me. He was something else.
Still it felt like this amazing musician was just too gentle for life, or flawed, or ill-equipped. So at one point he went and did a 180, hit self-destruct with such intent there was barely a trace of grace left. I'm sure he was generous and kind but...
They're saying all sorts of nonsense now as they always do, from conceited vacuous Elton John to the tabloids (like CNN, nr 1 tabloid, how disgracefully they're covering this).
Anyway, very sad.
Pic: my closet a million years ago, somebody took this photo of me there.

Thanksgiving

Is Regina Spektor at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade in an Ocean Spray float something I'd expected to come up on my TV when I turned it on as background "noise" for my wrestling match with my turkey? (first time ever cooking one) No. Did it happen?... yep!!. There she is on my TV (and somebody really needs to work on their spelling).
Probably one thing I can give thanks for this bad, bad year: life's unexpected good blips. If scarce.
Though she didn't even choose one of the few new songs I like.

Elections... or the state of acceptance.

Days away from these unthinkable elections, and  most of us are thinking the same thing... well, just be aware that the only reason these are the candidates is people put them there with their choices.
Also impressed @ how incredibly biased the media is, they don't even bother to pretend anymore. Not a good thing no matter what. Yuck.
So I thought I'd post this beautiful soothing song on acceptance and dealing with bad hands. Which we will have to do regardless.
And I thought House of Cards was too extreme...
PS Nov 8:  sick of receiving prerecorded calls and messages on my phone asking for democrat vote. I got them from a "Hey it's Tess..." (703 3729398), "Hi, it's Charlotte..." (703 9918928) "Hey it's Sarah..." (703 9918928) and so on. Not helping, guys.

Oy to the world

This grandma prop with the serious Halloweenish/creepy streak was at a Christmas shop the other day. Seems someone had knocked the J out of the Joy.

Kinda sums up the year!
So, oi to the world. Surely humanity can do better than this?


Thankfully in music we had these:

* The Vaccines' English Graffiti (unexpected!). I adjusted a bit my summer holidays so I could catch them in Chicago (posted video on youtube). Luckily even had a lively chat with Freddie at the meet &greet. They knew a big chunk of their fans would not agree with the change of direction and still went ahead. "Couldn't keep doing 3 chord songs forever", "had been listening to new music we really liked"). Way to go.
* Tim Wheeler's Lost Domain. Takes a lot of courage to put out an album like this one and a lot of skill to balance it and come up with something this good.
* Quite good too Ryan Adams's take on Taylor Swift's 1989 (isn't it impressive what he's done with Blank Space?). Daring move.
* Marina & the diamonds' Froot, as bold as usual.
But also listened a lot to some tracks from end of last year's Adrien Gallo's Gemini and this year's Laura Marling, Lisa Ekdahl, Soko, Emika, Sara Lov, Natalia Lafourcade..


Personally it's been the best year ever, "only" because I'll just say that milk and eggs are no longer handled like cyanide in my kitchen and that a 10 yr old someone had his first donut, his first fried egg, his first proper pizza. After very tough years of not only not advancing but adding new allergies to the list (some remain), this is a reminder that there's always hope, even when. How cheesy is that!! (←double meaning!)