Random Thoughts Thursday

-If this crazy, messed-up world of ours had no coffee in it
I'd hop the first train out of here, I wouldn't stay a minute

-I'm happy to hear British singers actually sounding British. Sure, Billy Bragg always has, and there are others, but why do so many people seem to lose their accents when they sing? I'm thinking of Mick Jagger singing "I can't get no satisfaction." The last time I checked, Yanks and Brits say can't decidedly different, and Mick doesn't sing it like the Brits I know say it. Pop up-and-comers Lily Allen and Kate Nash, as well hip-hopper The Streets, sound properly British! Good on you, mates!

If there are any Brits still reading this blog, I'd love to hear your input into this. Paging Matt Allard. Come in, Mr. Allard.

-Speaking of singers, I'm totally into Mugison right now. Check him out and let me know what you think. It might make Rob Zero's ear's bleed. Try it, Rob!

-I left my cell phone out in the rain a couple of weeks ago, and while it still works, the backlight is broken. The only way I can see my address book, read texts, or look at my caller ID is to shine a flashlight on the display. Crazy but true.

I was at a race in Minnesota this past weekend and I needed to make a call, so I asked the people around me if anyone had a flashlight I could use. This guy David Bulmer proceeded to pull out his cell phone, which has a built-in flashlight. I used it to see my address book on my cell phone and make the call. I've been mulling it over ever since.

Friday Music

It's Friday. I need music.

I'll start the day with some Mingus and Miles, then ease on into Rocket from the Crypt. After that? I think this poem says it best:

"Did you sneeze?"
"Yes, I snoze
And it blew off all my clothes
I was exposed
So I froze
And I lost all of my toes."

Just Down the Road

I'm a Dog on A Chain

I'm a dog on a chain
Living out in the rain
A lost cause on paws

The perimeter of my circle of life
Is determined by the number of links
In my restriction

I just have dirt, man
But there's grass -- right there!
In front of my nose
Or a light year away

But because I can't feel it
Because it's not mine
I won't be your friend
I'll scare you away

I'm a dog on a chain
Living out in the rain
A lost cause on paws

Nobody Comes

I recently stumbled onto this poem by Thomas Hardy. The second stanza is intensely sad to me, but I really love the way it reads, so I thought I'd post it here.

Nobody Comes

TREE-LEAVES labour up and down,
And through them the fainting light
Succumbs to the crawl of night.
Outside in the road the telegraph wire
To the town from the darkening land
Intones to travelers like a spectral lyre
Swept by a spectral hand.

A car comes up, with lamps full-glare,
That flash upon a tree:
It has nothing to do with me,
And whangs along in a world of its own,
Leaving a blacker air;
And mute by the gate I stand again alone,
And nobody pulls up there.
— 9 October 1924