Everything Is Better With Roller Skates

It was a real soul-sucking day at work. I haven't been this stressed out at work in a long time.

But this video made it all better. I have watched it at least 5 times since I've been home tonight. The last two minutes are absolutely mind-blowing, so don't miss it. Put Gene Kelly in a suit and on roller skates and you'll get my vote for the hottest man that ever lived. Sigh.



I've always thought about what kind of postcard would send to Post Secret. I think that my anonymous secret would be that every now and then I look on Ebay for autographed photos of the young Gene Kelly because I want to own something that he touched.

Tippy Tippy Tiple

After returning home from a wonderful meal at Laura's, I decided to veg out and let my food digest and load some more music into Itunes. (The music on my Ipod is getting stale.) The most recent uploads include lots of New Order, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, and the new Andrew Bird record. I also decided to pop in a CD that I received for Christmas which I don't think I've listened to until now. It's a collection of songs from the 1930s from the Spirits of Rhythm. It looked pleasant enough with songs I am very familiar with like "I've Got the World On a String," "How Deep Is the Ocean" and "Nobody's Sweetheart." And I am familiar with Leo Watson who is in the band. He's this crazy funny scat guy. Love him.

The main reason I wanted to upload this CD to Itunes was so that I could here the Spirits of Rhythm version of "I Got Rhythm." Anytime I think of that song, I think of Gene Kelly dancing and singing with that charismatic smile. Ahhhh. Gene Kelly. ANYWAY, after I put the CD in, I skipped directly to the "I Got Rhythm" track. I was delightfully shocked to hear not one but two UKULELES! I squealed. I ripped open the case and tore out the liner notes and scoured them to figure out who was playing the ukulele. But there was no uke player listed for any of the tracks. But there were two tiples on this track. What the heck is a tiple and how can I get one? (It's not in my dictionary.) Whatever it is, it is beautiful on this track and many of the others on the CD especially with the vocal harmonies and the mesmerizing scatting. The guys playing their tiples are amazing. I dug around a little bit on the internet and found that the tiple originated from Puerto Rico and is in the uke family, but it has TEN TO TWELVE strings. I WANT TO PLAY A TIPLE. But for now, I need to conquer this banjo uke before going to anything fancier. I cannot even play four-string chords. How the heck do you play all twelves strings!? Maybe one day I'll find out. Aren't they beautiful?

Radio Show, Friday, April 6 8-10AM

10cc - I'm Not In Love
My Friend the Atom - See You Again
Melanie - Brand New Key
Matthew Sweet - I Don't Want To Know
Slim Gaillard - Potato Chips
Roger Miller - Walkin' In the Sunshine
Bob Dylan - Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
Asylum Street Spankers - I'll See You In My Dreams
Debbie Reynolds and Others - All I Do Is Dream of You
Beck - E-Pro
John Martyn - Head and Heart
Lavern Baker - Tweedlee Dee
The Postmarks - Goodbye

I felt like I had a decent radio show today. I had forgotten that school was out, so I was pleasantly surprised to be able to park really close to the Union. As I got out of my car, a swarm of women in Carolina blue came running out from behind the gym. They looked like they were being chased by three people on bicycles, but then I realized that the bikers were coaches and the women were some sort of sports team. It was an odd site on a very quiet campus at 7:30 this morning. When I arrived at the station, I found half-eaten bags of potato chips around the library, which was another oddity of the morning. In honor of the mess, I played Slim Galliard's "Potato Chips" song.

I have no clue who My Friend the Atom is/was. WXYC received a seven-inch from them years ago and I fell in love with it. I used to fight myself to not play it every week. It is really pretty indie pop with a cute female voice... totally my cup of tea. The guitar part on "See You Again" gets stuck in my brain sometimes. But this week, it's been 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" stuck in my head and "I Don't Want To Know" by Matthew Sweet.

I played "Brand New Key" by Melanie because I had started to write a blog entry about it earlier in the week, but then I deleted it. I love rollerskating and I used to rollerskate alot in my house a few years ago. Cleaning, doing laundry, baking cakes, watching TV are all activities that can be fun on skates. Melanie's song was #1 on the Billboard charts the week I was born. If I had been born a few months later, it would've been America's "Horse With No Name." NICE!

I was most impressed with my segue between Debbie Reynolds and Beck. It worked!!! I am still swooning over Gene Kelly and I have to admit that I watched Singin' In the Rain for the umpteenth time late late late one night earlier this week. "All I Do Is Dream of You" featuring Ms. Reynolds is from that movie. I am addicted.

Noah gave me a Lavern Baker collection recently which I love. It's lost in my office right now... I gotta find it. But I have always loved her "Tweedlee Dee" song. I sometimes daydream of choreographing a huge group of dancers in yellow chicken costumes to that song. Yes. Chicken costumes. But the song would have to be performed live and Lavern Baker (RIP) or some other vocalist would have to wear a chicken costume, too.

Radio Show, Friday, March 23 8-10am

Andrew Bird - Heretics
Stereolab & Herbie Mann - One Note Samba/Surfboard
Dean Wareham - Falling Out of Love (With You)
Beirut - Elephant Gun
Dean Martin - Just In Time
The Dominoes - Sixty-Minute Man
The Style Council - You're The Best Thing
Etta James & Sugar Pie DeSanto - Do I Make Myself Clear
Maria Taylor - Clean Getaway
Louis Armstrong - If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight
Gene Kelly - I Got Rhythm
Chet Baker - Like Someone In Love
Lefty Frizzell - Look What Thoughts Will Do
Georgia Gibbs - The Hula Hoop Song

Lots of favorites played today. I played Dean Wareham's "Falling Out of Love" because he is playing at the Cat's Cradle Saturday night. Although that is one of my favorite songs to dance to in my underwear, I doubt he'll play it. Even if he did play it, I most likely would not dance in my skivvies at the Cradle. I won't be there anyway. Lightnin' Wells is playing at the Masonic Temple in Hillsborough on Saturday... I sure hope he brings his ukulele! I am so excited!!!

This morning when I was pulling music for my show, I noticed a new Georgia Gibbs CD in the Jazz section, so I pulled it out. I looked like 1950s pop stuff and I thought "eh, I'll try it." And I totally scored!!! That hula hoop song was nuts! I loved it.

When I was in New York, Ewald introduced me to Beirut, and I have been obsessed with their song "Elephant Gun" ever since. It reminds me of a cross between Arcade Fire and Vetiver. I put the song on my most recent mix cd and I have been listening to it over and over. Beirut's EP Lon Gisland is rotation at the station right now and that makes me very happy. It is a very rare occurrence to find something that I really really obsessively love in rotation.

Although, I am still obsessed with Gene Kelly. I cannot get enough of him. So dreamy. Sigh.

The entire playlist can be found here.

Crash! Bang! Boom!

Friday night, I went to David and Jennifer's rehearsal dinner, which was fine until these female lawyers at my table starting talking about how great their work is, why living in the Triangle is not fun, and then giggled about how their doctors told them that their eggs were old (even though they were 31 and married). How depressing. So, I left. I came home, grabbed a beer and a blanket and watched Gene Kelly movies. I finally went to bed around 2am.

Around 5:30am or so, I heard this huge CRASH! A few seconds later, I heard another crash at which time I saw a flash of light, right before the power went out. I heard a car outside, so I thought that there was some sort of car wreck on Chapel Hill Road and that maybe they hit a light pole. I was groggy and the house was really cold since I had turned the heat down very low, so I just turned over in bed and went back to sleep. I finally got up around 8am at which time I heard chainsaws. I went into the kitchen and looked out my window over the neighbor's fence to see two guys in cherry pickers. They were working on the light pole and cutting a tree that was lying across James Street. I immediately called Myers (who knows everything in Lakewood) and asked what happened. A tree in my neighbor's yard was BLOWN OVER and hit another tree and a light pole and caught fire!!!!!

I couldn't believe it. This was a huge old oak tree that was blown over from the wind. Was the wind really blowing that hard? We were all lucky that there were 4 or 5 houses extremely close to this tree and it didn't hit any of them. It took the power crews until sometime Saturday afternoon to restore power to the 'hood. I had left for David's wedding at that point. The tree was left in the road all weekend.

This morning when I was leaving for work, I heard more chainsaws, so I guess the tree will be removed from the road today. I would really hate to lose one of my trees and I know that the James St streetscape will miss this one, too.

David and Jennifer's wedding was really beautiful on Saturday. The ceremony was one of my all-time favorites. I gave them my latest mix CD for a wedding present. I unknowingly included a Beatles song that was played during their ceremony!

Pesto With Gene and Maria

Wow. Wow. Wow. This evening was so amazing. First, I decided to continue on my cooking spree and I made pesto! It was really tasty... I mixed it in with some pasta. This whole weekend was a cooking extravaganza! In addition to the pesto today, over the weekend, I made: vegetarian chili, meat chili, baconfat salad, and fig & anchovy paste. I was definitely inspired being with Lee and Ewald in Brooklyn. And Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is a huge help, too. I love to cook!

Anyway, after I finished my pesto, I decided to see what the DVR had picked up. I watched a Colbert Report and then I remembered that IT IS GENE KELLY MONDAY!!! So, I turned to TCM and watched some of Singin' In the Rain. Debbie Reynolds is hot. Donald O'Conner is hot. Gene Kelly is EXTREMELY hot. And when they sing "Good Morning" all together, it is sheer bliss. I have this movie on DVD, but it is always exciting to stumble upon one of your favorites airing on TV... it is a special treat.

After that, I ventured out to Local 506 to catch Erie Choir and Maria Taylor. Ms. Taylor blew me away again. She played all my favorites from her album 11:11 but then she did the best cover ever. Just imagine hearing one of your all-time favorite songs sung by one of your all-time favorite voices. Maria Taylor covered "At Last" which was popularized by the great Etta James. This version was stripped down to just Taylor's whispery, delicate voice and her brother playing bass. It was dreamy and chilling and beautiful. It was so moving that I got tears on my shirt. I get chills just thinking about it. Holy cow.

I hope the rest of my evenings this week go as well as tonight. I have some other Gene Kelly movies on the DVR and I have this recipe for sesame noodles with peanut sauce and tofu that I want to try...

Hunk of a Man

I was emailing Skip today asking him what the big deal with cable was. It seems like the 400 channels that are in the Durham Time Warner Cable area kinda suck. I don't see anything that I would ever want to watch. He suggested that I try the Turner Classic Movies Channel. So, I looked up their website to see what was coming on in the next week or so. And as it turns out, Gene Kelly is the Star of the Month and they are having Gene Kelly Mondays on TCM. Swoon!!!

I first fell in love with movie musicals in the summer of 1995, during a Ginger Rogers film series at the NC Museum of Art. When I saw the charming and dapper Fred Astaire swing Ginger Rogers effortlessly around the dance floor in her flowing gowns, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I thought Astaire was the dreamiest guy I had ever seen. I fell more in love with Fred Astaire than I did with Simon Le Bon when I was in the seventh grade or so it seemed at the time.

This film series included Swing Time, Top Hat, Shall We Dance and others. I don't think I had ever seen a musical before and certainly not one on the big screen. And the best part for me was viewing these movies outside (before the museum constructed that big outdoor setup that they have now which makes outdoor moving-watching there a huge pain in the ass). In his love scenes, Astaire's characters are always a little bit shy and awkward and his dancing is flawless, delicate and graceful. I remember telling Craven at the time"Fred Astaire is the kind of boyfriend I want." And this was true... until I saw Gene Kelly.

I think the first musical that I saw featuring Gene Kelly was The Ziegfield Follies. Or maybe it was An American In Paris. I don't remember. However, I do remember my jaw dropping the first time I saw him dance. Gene Kelly is HOT. Move over Simon Le Bon, Fred Astaire, Brad Pitt and hello Gene Kelly. Holy cow. He is an absolute hunk on the dance floor who dances with athleticism and masculinity (in contrast to Fred Astaire who dances more gentlemanly). And don't get me started on Gene Kelly's ass. Oooh! Christa and I have spent several evenings viewing Gene Kelly films and watching particular dance sequences over and over while squealing at the screen. She introduced me to his film Anchors Aweigh in which he has the most sexy telephone conversation I have ever heard.

I highly recommend that you catch some Gene Kelly films this month. Ooo-wee. I know I am.

Does Wayne Newton's Voice Creep You Out?

So, my earlier post entitled "Free Therapy" lists about a dozen songs that were included on my little radio show last Friday. That list was pulled from the thirty or so total that I played. I thought I could use the shortened list as fodder for posts this week. So again, today, I looked at the list and decided to express my feelings about Wayne Newton.

Wayne Newton. Wayne Newton. In so many ways, I absolutely LOVE Wayne Newton. But in one way, his voice kinda creeps me out. He kinda sounds like a cross between Helen Reddy and an elf with a little bit of cotton stuck in his mouth. But even with these thoughts in my mind, Wayne Newton's voice is still engaging, sexy and romantic. But I don't like to picture him at all. The picture of him on the CD cover makes him look like he would sing more like Perry Como, who is too schmaltzy for my taste. And to think that women still swoon and throw panties on stage when he sings in Las Vegas makes me cringe. But hey, we all have our passions... just wait until my post on Gene Kelly.

One of my favorite segues of the past few months has been from David Byrne's "Concrete and Stone" into Wayne Newton's "Strangers in the Night." It sounded fabulous and I was so thrilled with myself that I had found such a perfect segue (at least in my mind). I had played it specifically in honor of Christa, but I don't think she heard it.

Last Friday, I played "Strangers in the Night" only because I was feeling lazy when I was pulling music from the library before my show. I had no gusto to play it like I did before, and it segued into that Bob Dylan song which really didn't do it for me at all.

I am going to run over to Nice Price Books to find some Donovan records after dinner tonight. I need him. I haven't eaten at Blue Corn Cafe in years. I hope it's good.