I have a signature to my posts on another site and sometimes people ask me where it’s from. Additionally, my network at home is called “Super Karate Monkey Death Car” and sometimes guests staying over and using my WiFi ask me why it’s called that. The answer to both is this sketch. I offer it in a selfish way, so that I could edit the scenes together (they are on YouTube but the sound and picture are really bad) and watch them from any computer whenever I felt low. If you are feeling low, I really have little that is comforting to say. But I do have this. And the promise that if you don’t laugh, I will buy you a beer.*

*seriously, you will get no beer.

There is no set up to this, it’s all explained within the first few lines. Some trivia:
1. The actor is Stephen Root, who also did the voice of Hank Hill’s boss in King of the Hill. He is genius in this show.
2. Off in the corner with Stephen Root at the beginning is the star of the show, Dave Foley, who is one of my idols. I could write a whole post about Dave Foley, but instead you can just read this.
3. Yes, that’s Ron Jeremy in the audience. They told the story of why he appeared there in the commentary of the Newsradio DVD’s but I can’t remember what it is. But come on, Ron Jeremy. (That comma is superfluous, isn’t it? Rimshot!)

So without any further ado, Jimmy James, CEO of Jimmy James Incorporated, will now read from his book, Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler.

I guess the lesson is, some day, the Super Karate Monkey Death Car will park in your space. But today, you can laugh and laugh.

At the end of the day, I went to Trader Joe’s and bought two bags worth of groceries. The cashier adeptly divided the items into the bags and kept picking them both up and then redistributing to even things out. This struck me as considerate but unusual. To make conversation, because I find it awkward to stand and watch people doing things for me, I said, “thanks, because I’m a Libra so I like things balanced, ha ha.” He answered, without any humor, “I’m a Libra, too, but I don’t care about that stuff.” Then I had to say, “well, actually, me either.” What I didn’t add was, “I was just making conversation, could you work with me here?”

Then, as I walked away with my two bags of similar weight, this song came on the store’s sound system. I kid you not:

Conclusions:
1. This is a terrible, terrible video.
2. I do not believe in astrology but I totally believe that God is a DJ.

By the way, if you are imagining that I left the store while the song was playing, you would be INCORRECT. Naturally, I spent the time answering some work emails.

I got this new crockpot to replace one that died when I was making lunch for me and Pious B (it’s OK, a Dutch oven saved the day). I like it because it’s programmable so when I make a shabbat cholent, which is a stew that cooks forever, aka, 12-18 hours, I can have it just keep warm for the rest of it. My first recipe, unless there’s a big sale on brisket, will be this one from Alfa’s blog. I love baked beans.

FYI, the disembodied hand did not come with the slow cooker.

I also received some money and so I finally purchased a decent phone, the Galaxy SII from Samsung. I spent five days setting it up. I didn’t really use my last Android phone as anything but a phone and wireless hotspot for my Apple devices so there was a steep learning curve in how to configure this thing to be The Device. But I put all my music on it and it has Freecell and the subway app, so I guess I am good to go. By the way, if you remember how much I complained about the ineffectual indicator light on my last phone, you will be interested to know that this phone has no light at all. I no longer have any dealbreakers with phones; I just go with the best of the lot that’s out there. Or maybe I’m still sort of in “whatever” mode.

This book about the history of MTV is fascinating if you are a person who watched a lot of it back in the day. I have it on Kindle and I have taken to reading right on my computer which means I can watch all the videos as they talk about them. It’s really important so that when the guy from Ratt says he nailed the landing on the table, you can check that out, or for when Martha Quinn says she had a cameo in Going Back to Cali. So far, the thing that amazed me the most is that the woman from the Kajagoogoo video ended up marrying Dennis Miller. Did not see that coming.

Funny thought:it is a good thing I no longer do iPod Song of the Week, as for the first time since 2002, I am not using an iPod to listen to music on the go. Weird. And speaking of former aspects of this blog, it’s David Nalbandian’s birthday. He has hit the ripe old age of 30. To mark the occasion, I’m taking down his page, since I no longer update it and there are far better sites on the web to find out his schedule, which there weren’t when I started. (This is my favorite site and it has a good listing.) But it had a good run, and God knows it brought me far weirder searches than I would have expected (or wanted). ¡Adiós!

I leave you with this video, which Billy Squier says destroyed his career. I don’t remember it at all, but it would seem that’s a good thing, since Squier would like everyone to know that he is heterosexual. Happy new year!

But I’m aware that I’ve left people hanging and that I have friends, good friends who care. I am lucky to have them. And you (twice, if you are in both categories, and of course you are). So I’ll state it plainly: my father has cancer. I’m really, really depressed. Those who have had ill parents (and I am one) know what this entails, especially when that parent is alone. But I feel better than I have the last few weeks in the sense that the normal idiocies of life, like a cab ride that was too expensive and a back-ordered cell phone, have begun to irritate me again. One small step for mankind! That is, I am losing that “who cares, my father has cancer” and occasional “fuck off, my father has cancer” sensibility. Everything becomes normal after a while, even when you’re depressed. You lose the compunction to punch the guy on the street from Amnesty International who asks “hey, how are you today!” or the person on Facebook who posts, “major disaster, burned the latkes, lol!!!” Or maybe not.

And I want to be kind, because people have been kind to me. But it’s hard. So I’ll give it a shot, and if I find that I am not kind, then I’ll take some more time off. Because I hate “don’t take it personally.” I always take it personally; why shouldn’t you?

There won’t be a holiday song post this year but the title of this post is from a Neil Finn song that I thought of when I heard my favorite Christmas song, The Waitresses’ Christmas Wrapping, this year. It will tell you what frame of mind I was in when I heard it that I immediately remembered that the singer had died young, of cancer. But then I remembered the Neil Finn line.

Here’s the comic relief, and you’ll have to be a Waitresses fan (or at least know their two biggest songs) to get it: She did know what boys like – cranberries. Har. Happy holidays!

Neil Finn – Truth

Things are not OK right now and I won’t go into it but it has consumed my life lately and will for a while. Not only has normality been shorn away but other people’s normality irritates me which in turn makes me feel like a tone-deaf jerk. So I’ve been staying away from places where people are normal and living normal lives. The one bit of normality in my life is work.

Today, just a couple of days before the start of what is supposed to be a vacation, I wandered into a main area just outside my door where the Kindergarteners were having a session with their 4th grade “mentors.” Each kid had a partner from the other grade and the 4th graders were explaining a project they had done, which was displayed on the walls, to their Kindergartener. Each K child looked completely absorbed and inquisitive and eager. Each 4th grader looked serious and engaged and you could feel their sense of importance and responsibility. It choked me up inside, I was so full of emotion at seeing all these children I teach in these roles, their connection and transformation. I went inside my lab to pull myself together when I saw the clock and this is what it looked like: the sweep hand would stop completely for a few seconds and then suddenly jerk forward to catch up. All the way around the dial. And I had this overwhelming sense that this clock was not broken but perfect in the way it illustrated my life and maybe life in general… not in a smooth, calm flow but in utter stillness and then sudden action. And then I let it take hold of me.

The blog will be on hiatus for a while. Thanks for not emailing because I would not write you back and then further feel like a jerk. I’ll rejoin you sometime.

Title is from the Editors’ Escape the Nest but this is the song from that record which I feel just now.

I did just want to share this fun recipe I made for Thanksgiving because it is really, really excellent, and next year, when people Google for “Thanksgiving cookie,” this is what I want them to find. Because I have been searching for a proper cookie for Thanksgiving for years and there just isn’t one. Someone at our meal always makes a pie, so pie is out. Then someone makes something chocolate, like a cake or a mousse our a torte, so nothing like that either. That leaves me the cookie or bar and I have never found anything right…. until this year.

It’s the Pumpkin Whoopie Pie! And it turned out awesome. I actually combined two recipes because I liked the cookie part from one and the filling had to be non-dairy so I took it from another. This is where I’d put a great picture but I didn’t take a great picture, just a bad picture. But go to these pages and find delicious looking pictures. They were a big hit and people have already asked me to make them again. According to Niece2, they smell like “pancakes and waffles and everything good.”

Here’s the cookie part, and I’d really like to make it with its original filling, maple cream cheese, at a later date.
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple-Cream Cheese Filling

And here’s the filling I did use: maple marshmallow.
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple-Marshmallow Cream Filling

When I make the other version, I’ll let you know! Yes, we’d all like a taste test but I have to work. And fit into my pants.

Happy baking!

1. I got re-elected to the co-op board. As we have discussed, this is not a good thing. Especially because this year, two people who are suing each other are also on the board. The first meeting of the year was exactly the disaster you are picturing. The managing agent actually walked out of the meeting. The president told me he’s had it and next year, I should be president. The only prudent solution, I think, is to move to the suburbs. Can I live with you?

2. The holidays are coming! This means one thing for me: seasonal candy, cookies, and drinks! I already had some peppermint bark. Also, a pumpkin pie Clif bar. For the nutrition, naturally.

3. Why is it that they release all the cool phones when your contract is about 6-8 months from being done? By that time, T-Mobile will probably be out of business, so I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Oh right, I can’t bring myself to pay $500 for a phone. In the meantime, my iPod has a battery which lasts an hour and is utterly out of space. I should wait for the new phone instead, shouldn’t I? Sigh.

4. Jorge Posada. Sigh again. Why must we get old? On the plus side, there are finally dates for pitchers & catchers to report. Without baseball, and with tennis sporadic, I am stuck watching reruns of Friends in the evening. I think this is why my health has been so bad lately. It has been suggested that I have whooping cough by some and this is not implausible.

5. Pious B and I are looking to travel to Europe (UK? Italy?) for Jesus’ birthday and attached break. The fares are miserable! Goyim, don’t you want to stay home by the hearth with your families? I have seen this on a million TV specials! It has to be true.

6. It’s a gorgeous day today. Before I knew this, I planned to go to Ikea. Am I mad? Yes, surely. If I make it out alive, I am getting a seasonal beverage, I don’t care if it’s 65 degrees.

Have a nice month! I’m pretty sure that’ll be the next time I post.

It’s “it’s been 20 years since 1991″ month on JBall as in life and to celebrate, title comes from a song on Pearl Jam’s Ten, an album I wore out in my flannel days. Did you see Pearl Jam’s 20? Oh, please do. Great documentary, great band, a reminder that we’re the first mammals to wear pants.

Pearl Jam – Oceans

There is something weird about seeing a show at a winery/restaurant. It just isn’t very…. rock & roll. Everyone’s sitting down at tables. There’s no pushing to the front of the crowd or dancing. It’s all… adults. I mean, well yes, it would be all adults anyway. How many 23 year olds want to see a twenty year old album played in its entirety? Someone called out the first night, “you got me through college, Matthew!” Despite not seeing him, I am pretty, pretty, pretty sure that person did not graduate in this century. (Matthew’s response: “Happy to be of service! I couldn’t even get myself through college.”) But still.

In the beginning, I wondered if this was a better way to see a show, sitting down with friends and sipping beverages brought to one’s table. But in the end, despite how much I hate standing for hours and trying to see over the heads of many tall people, I don’t think so. You just want to move, you know? You can’t feel music the same way sitting down, crammed up against a table, sorry.

This is not to say I did not enjoy both shows, because they were glorious. But I think I will have a new appreciation for looking at the back of some guy’s head and breathing in the fumes of sketchy substances next time I’m at Irving Plaza. Rock & roll, man!

I was thinking about the Police this week because I have become a DJ of sorts. Believe it or not, I have never DJ’d in my life, but nowadays I choose background music for my 4th graders as they do independent work. It keeps them more focused, somehow. But it’s hard to choose the right music even though I got the idea from their homeroom teacher who plays things like John Coltrane and the Eagles as they write essays. When I heard the Coltrane I got the impression that it should be instrumental but that was hard. I chose an album which I love by my friend’s band which is called Forma and is old-school synth and wonderful. Check them out! But it didn’t help the kids focus for some reason. Maybe because it isn’t background music.

Then when I heard the Eagles, I was a little bewildered. The first song on the CD was “Life in the Fast Lane” which has some risque lyrics for nine year olds. But I think the volume was too low for them to hear plus some of them actually recognized it which I guess is good.

So the next class I played The Beatles, specifically Magical Mystery Tour because it was the first thing I saw of theirs in my Amazon Cloud Player that wasn’t Let It Be. One of the kids actually asked me, “do you have that ‘hold your hand’ song?” Ha! But I don’t. I am not so much an early Beatles fan. I do have Help. Maybe I should upload it. In the meantime, I have been thinking of the Police. That’s classic and energizing yet not too crazy. Maybe I’ll put together my own “greatest hits for fourth grade” mix. Hey, it worked for me.

Title comes from the last song on Ghost in the Machine and could really apply to any of my students.
The Police – Darkness

Well, I didn’t go to Baltimore. I was incredibly sad to have to cancel my tickets but the sickness I’ve had that just won’t go away ramped up and right now I feel a bit of a wreck. Certainly in no shape to walk around all day. You should hear me hack up a lung!

But enough of that. Something else happened that put me in the mood to write about this record, so at least as far as this blog is concerned, it’s all OK. I don’t really remember how this happened but something inspired me – inspired is so positive, that’s probably the wrong word – to start searching for the positions I’d applied for last spring and see who had actually gotten those jobs. I already know one of them. I ran into him at a professional get-together and at first I couldn’t quite get over the fact that he’d gotten the job, because he wasn’t even in the section of my program for people who want to do what I do. I kept stammering out things like, “oh, I applied for that job” and “I met the people from that school at the job fair,” [he: me too! - duh]. But then I blurted out something really honest that is almost too flattering for me to ever utter. I said, “I’m glad if I didn’t get the job, someone I like did.” He looked so happy at that, so surprised in a good way, that I immediately knew it had been the right thing to say, even if I’d said it without meaning to do so.

But some of the people who got those jobs were people I wasn’t as happy about. Not because I didn’t like them but because they made me wonder. They were people less experienced than me or who had gone through a one year program and not a two year. For some of these places, I hadn’t even gotten a call-back or I had gotten a first interview and not a second. I somehow forgot all the things I tell other people when they don’t get the job (sometimes you have no idea what they are looking for… it’s not personal… they may just want the guy who said X or knew Y and the job you are meant for will go to you and not someone who seemed more right than you). I forgot all that. I forgot that I got a job no one would have thought I’d get. A job that I’m still shocked I have. All I remembered was this feeling, the one that is summarized by this song sung in this way.

For me, this song, the demo version of Matthew Sweet’s Divine Intervention, is the sound of uncertainty and doubt. I’m pretty safe now but when I first heard this song, everything he sings was true for me. I didn’t know where I would live or what I would do. It was 1992 and I had finished college a semester early. I was bumming around, taking a couple of classes, working at the record store, and trying to plan but failing. College, you may remember, had destroyed most of my self-esteem and faith in my own abilities. The Queen of England ended 1992 by saying it had been her “annus horribilis” and all I could think was, “me too, sister, me too.” By the middle of the year I’d completely isolated myself by moving to a neighborhood where I knew not a soul and staying home most of the time I wasn’t working. I had no car and couldn’t get many places. Later, I broke up with the guy I thought I’d marry and subsequently was diagnosed with a lifelong chronic illness. And this was all above and beyond not knowing what the hell I wanted to do with my life. Uncertainty and doubt were my middle names.

You may remember from such posts as the last one on this blog that I said I didn’t like Girlfriend at first. I didn’t. I loved the song for sure. When you have just gotten back together with the person who you have spent the previous two years crying over, this is the song you really, really want your radio station to be playing the hell out of. Luckily, I happened to live in the range of the greatest radio station of that time period, WHFS, and they obliged.

But I didn’t get into the rest of the record right away. Back at Matthew Sweet’s record company, they were excited that this record was becoming a hit. The first two, on other labels, had gone nowhere. It took a long time, months, for this one to become successful, which is why I hadn’t even heard this song until Spring 1992. They understood that most record stores had already finished playing the Girlfriend CD and so they sent out another one with a twist. It was mostly made up of acoustic versions, demos, and live versions of the songs on Girlfriend. It was called Goodfriend and that’s the one I fell in love with. How could you be in a position of uncertainty and not feel that first track I posted above?

And then the actual record…. I still consider it a blanket, a balm. It begins with that first track, Divine Intervention. Matthew isn’t religious and so he means it in a sarcastic way, I suppose. But for me, it is about faith. That feeling of doubt will always be with us. The “counting on divine intervention” part is the way we get through that: by knowing it will get better somehow. The song asks, “does he love us?” Don’t you wonder sometimes? But I always end up thinking, “yes,” despite the fact that I’m usually listening to it when I’d be least inclined to answer that way. It’s a bit like the Kaddish. At your moment of highest doubt is when you are forced to praise God. It’s hard. But I have to, I really have to. I don’t know what else to do if I don’t. If you don’t believe in God, I think it still stands for hope for better times. The turning point of the song is the gentle singing of “here comes the sunshine,” but it’s only superficially like the Beatles’ version because it ends in a cynical “here it comes.” Because it’s hard to believe those platitudes sometimes, isn’t it? The song then plays out… or does it? It ends but comes back and that was my favorite part, because it represented the knowledge that hope is always there, even when you think it’s dying away. You think the song is over but it isn’t.

Here’s the track from the record. In case you need a blanket.

This album is all about that, really. It’s about breaking up and falling in love, because it was written over a long period of time and in that period, Matthew Sweet got divorced and then met and fell in love with the woman he’s still married to now. So it really hits the lowest of lows and the highest of highs. When we used to play the CD in the record store, we’d debate which was the most depressing song, because there were lots of candidates. I used to argue that it was “Thought I Knew You,” the song described on Goodfriend as one of “bitterness and betrayal,” because I felt the fact that it took him years to figure it out was horrifying. But I was usually outvoted. I’ll put them both up and you can decide.
1. My choice
2. The other record store people’s choice

But then you go to a song like this, which is so giddy with the hope of love winning that the record label president requested Matthew sing it at his wedding.

I think this record that shows in the midst of despair, of doubt, of hopelessness, that there is still the possibility of future joy and happiness is the greatest one ever written. You may think I say it changed my life because it helped me through the toughest time of my life (until my Mom died, that is). But that isn’t the whole truth. I became an evangelist for this album. Whenever anyone came in the store I’d push it and tell them they could bring it back if they didn’t like it. No one ever did. I would buy copies to gift to friends, especially if they were going through breakups.

Eventually I did decide what I wanted to do and where I wanted to live. I moved back to New York and went to grad school. But I soon realized I had made the wrong decision. In the kind of madness possessed only by 22 year olds, I decided I wouldn’t rest until I worked at Matthew Sweet’s record label, convincing the masses to buy Girlfriend. I still worked at the record store and the label’s distributor used to send a rep to our store to put up posters and talk up the records. It was through him that I met Matthew the first time, at a showcase at Wetlands, which no longer exists except in my heart. He also gave me the name of someone at the label to contact. I did and offered to work for them for free (oh to be young and live in an apartment paid for by your parents while you finish school). He interviewed me and then said, “but there’s no position. Keep calling!” They always tell you that to get your shot you have to be in the right place at the right time. So I was there all the time. I called from my school’s bank of phone booths every week to see if there was anything available. Nada. And then one day there was.

So I dropped out and the rest is history. When students from my alma mater would write and ask me how to get into the music industry, I didn’t know what to tell them. I got in because of Girlfriend. If you want to ask how I could leave that, it’s because there was no one I cared about enough to make it meaningful. There was no Girlfriend. When I was growing up, I was the Girl Who Loved Music. When we had to do a report on a hobby, mine was on music. When we built toy boats to race in the community youth group, mine had a big music note on the sail. When I went to Yale’s summer program and took Psych 101, I did my experiment on people’s perceptions of song lyrics. It feels strange to have grown older and not be that girl anymore. But one thing hasn’t changed: when I need hope, when I need a blanket, I use music.

You may also ask what it was like working with one’s idol. The answer: complicated but ultimately the greatest thing that can ever happen to a person. I’ll never forget it.

Title comes from Day For Night, which I felt was written about my decision to break off my relationship with College Boyfriend. I never understand how Matthew knows these things.