Songs

I love doing this, I haven't done it in awhile so it's about time for a new one.

iTunes shuffle

When Doves Cry - Prince.  Even when I was too cool for Michael Jackson and pretty much anything not Van Halen I knew Prince was the Man.
My Love Is A Rock - REO Speedwagon.  Honestly I probably loved REO much longer than I should have, this is from the first album without Gary Richrath.  Kevin's voice always moves me but this is where I should have stopped.
Hug You, Squeeze You - Stevie Ray Vaughn.  This is off of one of the thousand compilations that have come out after his death.  I don't know how old it is but it seems from early times, more simple and pure than later stuff.
Sittin' On Top Of The World - Van Morrison and Carl Perkins.  Man I don't pay enough respect to Van Morrison's voice.
More Than I Can Do - Steve Earle.  Used to love him until he went bat shit crazy and decided Al Qaeda were really decent blokes but misundertood.  I always thought this peppy little tune about an obsessed stalker was creepy and clever.
I Wanna Be Your Lover - Prince.  What did I do to deserve two Prince songs in one sitting?  This is old, old school.  I remember this came out around the same time as Off the Wall and like I said earlier, I knew Prince was cooler.  I have a very distinct memory of walking around the department store in Martinsville Indiana as a young boy looking at the cover for this 45 and wishing I had the money for it.
Ask The Lonely - Journey.  Not one of my favorite Journey songs but come on, it's Steve Perry and I think we all know how I feel about Steve Perry.
You Know My Name - Chris Cornell.  A little newer than most of my stuff.  One of my favorite rock voices.  I've always liked him better than any band he's been in.
Over You - ZZ Top.  Really new for me but it's ZZ Top.  From the 2012 EP Texicali.  Like their old stuff before the videos but bluesier and better.  Makes me wish I wasn't on a diet, I'd be drinking whiskey right now.
Hunt You Down - The Yayhoos.  I can literally see Dan Baird pointing at his chest with his thumbs on the line "You can't get away from this guy". 
Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing - Chris Isaak.  God that stupid video robbed me of the pleasure of Chris Isaak's voice for a decade.  Stupid supermodels.
Need A Man Blues - Donna Summers.  Where the hell did this come from?
Don't Look Back - Robert Plant.  A "bonus" tune from the digital download of Manic Nirvana not included on the original album with good reason.
Tumbling Dice - Rolling Stones.  I really have to be in the mood for the Stones.  Right now I am.
Body Talk - Ratt.  What?  It's off a compilation disc.
Poncho and Lefty - Townes Van Zandt.  I don't know.  Townes wasn't my thing back in the day but I guess when you get old he's the kind of guy whose name you drop when you want to sound hip.  Plus I like the song.
Does Your Mother Know - Abba.  You know when I was young this was the only Abba song I liked because in my little, young mind I thought it rocked.  Just seems creepy now.
Up For Breakfast - Van Halen.  Like REO Speedwagon I just didn't know when to stop while I was ahead.
Learning To Fly - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  My second favorite song titled "Learning To Fly" right after Pink Floyd's song.
Winning - Santana.  I think this is the only Santana song I like.  I don't know who's singing but I like him a lot better than Rob Thomas.
I'm The Slime - Frank Zappa.  I don't know that I can add anything.  Frank was weird in the same way George Carlin was.
Shake It Up - The Cars.  Can you not feel good when you hear this song?
Since You Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson.  I just realized the women are woefully under-represented (as usual).  I know she's probably a symbol of all that's wrong with corporate music but I think she's cute and has a pretty voice.  I'm an old man, I can have bad taste in music now.
Just Got Paid - ZZ Top.  Let's go out on a classic.

The Viddesos Cycle

I've been re-reading a series of books I read back in the late eighties or early nineties by Harry Turtledove called The Videssos Cycle.  It's about a legion of Roman soldiers  and a single Gaul soldier flung into a fantasy world where magic exists while not being common place.  It's an interesting concept.  The story doesn't spend a lot of time exploring the hows of what brought the Romans to Videsso.  I like that on the one hand, I just let it go and accept the premise on face value.  On the other hand it leaves a lot of questions that I think would be interesting if they were more deeply explored.  Turtledove might go into it deeper later on but if it sticks to the style of the books so far I doubt it.  I'm half-way through the third book and it doesn't show any sign of becoming more than what it is.  I'll get to that in a minute.

I originally loved the first two books, for some reason I never got around to the last two.  Reading them now it's interesting to see how my reading sophistication has been refined.  Or maybe how I've grown more jaded.  The big thing I remember about these stories was the political intrigue.  The story is based on events taken from Rome's actual history, something Harry has been marketing for decades.  I remember thinking at the time how twisted and deep the plot line was and while it still is, it isn't what my memory had it built up as.

I would liken the book to a frozen lake, the thin sheet of ice being what we see and the water below being what we could have seen.  The characters are flat with not much personality.  Even the most colorful character (Viridovix, the Gaul) is only interesting because of his funny lines and behavior, it's a superficial type of interesting.  The people only seem to be there to further the plot, not to engage the reader.  This is fine for the most part, I like more character driven stories usually but this isn't a deal breaker.

The pacing of the stories is another troubled area.  At times it plods along with not much happening, at other times I can't stop reading.  The entire quality of these books could be described as very uneven.  Book two and three have two major battle scenes that are almost exactly the same scenario.  The army falls to defeat with the collapse of the left flank through an act of cowardice and an act of betrayal.  The Romans march back defeated looking for refuge and picking up remnants of the Emperor's crushed army.  I got very agitated by this point for several reasons.  The continual attempted over throws of the Emperor may be based on historic events but history doesn't always make for compelling story telling.  The writing in general tends to be repetitive but no more so than some lesser books I've read.  To me the third book didn't progress the plot from the second.

Don't misunderstand though.  While not the miraculous masterpiece of the written word I originally thought it was it is a very good piece of fiction.  The world Harry Turtledove builds is fascinating and fully realized.  I think I would recommend it to friends that enjoy fantasy.

Language Is A Funny Thing

I just read an "interesting" article this morning.  If you're one of those people that prefers his news from a more "neutral" source than "Faux News" here are the articles Fox got the story from; "'Brown bag' and 'citizen' too offensive for use in Seattle", and "City officials urge ban on 'potentionally offensive' language".  Sorry for all the quotation marks.  Anyway.  I see these stories so much I tend to get a little fit of righteous indignation and forget about it in ten minutes.  But think about it.  This is a ridiculous, time wasting effort by a group of people that should be managing this cities finances and attending to the running of utilities and maintenance of the city's roads.  This is a prime of example of government waste writ small.  They have created a rule for the employees to follow that is inconsequential to all but a hand full of people with nothing better to get worked up over than the term "brown bag".  I had never, ever heard of this as a racial term until this article (and I thought I knew them all).  If I didn't know better I would say a couple of smart-ass teens thought it up and tried to prank Seattle to see how far it would go.  Apparently it is a real concern to some, although I think I'm using the phrase loosely.  I will also confess that I can't eat a saltine without getting my feelings hurt.  So there we are, a city government will now have someone check every written document produced for the term "brown bag" and the word citizen.  Another confession, even though I read the article I'm kind of confused why citizen is taboo.  Oh, I think I just got it, the whole legal versus illegal thing.  Oh God, I'm tired.

For your further reading enjoyment here is a list of things that will soon need to be renamed so as to avoid hurting Spike Lee's feelings - Brown Bag