Christmas Crackle: The Back Catalog

While we're at it, here are the first 3 mixes in the Christmas Crackle family.
Enjoy!

Christmas Crackle 1
Listen here: http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=christmas+crackle+one 
sort by album, then click play all for best results

Christmas Crackle 2
Listen here: http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=christmas+crackle+2
sort by album, then click play all for best results

Christmas Crackle 3
Listen here: http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=christmas+crackle+3
sort by album, then click play all for best results

Christmas Crackle 4

Here is this year's Christmas vinyl compilation.  The songs were compiled with 100% pure vinyl, discovered in the greater Seattle area, plus St. Louis and throughout New England on our road trip this past October.
Special thanks to my bruddah, Arlo, and his gal Cheli, who found some sweet tracks on their own thrift store forays.

Listen here on Grooveshark : http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=christmas+crackle+4
(sort by album to get the song order right)

You can listen online, or I think grooveshark has a downloader if you wanted to take it with you.

Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

Christmas Album Cover Goodness

I have been combing through the stacks the past few years looking for Christmas records for my traditional all-vinyl holiday mix cd titled 'Christmas Crackle.'
Not every album makes the cut, but a lot of the covers are so awesome I had to share.

Here are some of my fave album covers, in no specific order.   Don't make me play favorites. I love them all.



I'm a sucker for a space-age silver cut-out dress.  The album itself was so-so, lots of strings, no Moog to be found.



Backwards spelled letters = Krazy Kute



Freddy has that hot, brooding German sailor look to him.  The look that says either "Ich Liebe" or "I'm going to smother you in your cabin while you sleep"





John Schneider, sigh...swoon.  'Nuff said.



Back cover, even swoonier.  And the sweater!  Oh, the sweater.



Santa, lying in wait, it's payback time.



Until I heard this album, I never realized the true awesomeness of Brenda Lee.  This cover displays her sparkliness, and the beauty of big hair. 



Robert Goulet. The master at his craft.  I imagine after this picture was taken, he sipped some scotch and told the kids, "Scram, daddy needs a nap."



One of the finer Salsa Disco Christmas records on the market.



Santa looks like a jerk on this cover.



Loretta with the world's smallest Christmas tree.  So sweet.



I love white christmas trees with monochromatic blue trimming...



...and wreaths trimmed with music star faces.



Soulful organ jazz, like what they used to play in Skippers seafood restaurants in the 80s.



Matching plaid outfits = adorbs.  And these cats can really swing!





"The magic fingers of Merlin" Brilliant.



Love.



So many hidden layers of meaning in this cover.  The sparkly hourglass shows all the sands of time have run out.  Is this an album about time gone by, times to be remembered?  What are the murky shapes in the background?  What is he trying to tell us?  What is going on???



Gold. Shiny.  Shiny shiny shiny.




Classic old ornaments.  Wanty.



Mario Lanza.  Bedroom Eyes.  Danggggggg.







PINE CONE.




Dead-eyed Santa.  Scared of this.


I like Mrs. Oldham's go-go boots.  Tres chic.



Can someone bring smoking jackets back?  Please?

World's saddest sno-cone shack :-(

In the parking lot of Bernie & Boys grocery store in Burien, this sad little sno-cone shack sits, a shell of its former self.

The fact that the 'Out of Ice' sign was written on a Budweiser sign might hint at what happened to the ice funds.

Easter

Being on the non-religious side of things, I tend to get surprised by Easter.
There's not as much build-up as Christmas involved, for one thing. Not a ton of commercials and pre-Easter events happening.
And other than piles and piles of candy loaded at the aisle end caps in stores, there is no other memory jogger to speak of.



That's why after we got up and had breakfast, I was taken aback by having to curtail the day's activities. We'd planned on running errands, in particular going to Costco to get a membership. I hazily thought about Easter and places being closed on that day. So I called and lo and behold, Costco is indeed closed today.

It seemed like such a non-reason to be closed. But again, I'm not a kid anymore. I remember being a kid and looking forward to Easter baskets my mom would make, filled with candy, that fake green grass, and some other treasure. Dipping eggs in Paas egg dye after coloring on them with crayons to make some cool effect. And the easter egg hunt, looking for eggs in the yard.
This is a non-event kind of day for me now. Not that I'm complaining.

When I asked Jacob's father, Klaus, what Easter is like in Norway, he said it's a big week-long holiday there. But most folks are non-religious, too. They use the time to go to the mountains and go skiing. Stay at a little cabin somewhere, ski it up, have a nice time off, then go back to work the following week.

Maybe hearing about how Norwegians enjoy Easter inspired me to enjoy mine in much the same way. Jacob and I enjoyed a lunch of rabbit over cappellini with homespun pesto. The rabbit was left over from birthday dinner last night at Cafe Juanita. A little while later I took a snooze and wrote a bit, just enjoying the non-day.

And now, dear reader, I will leave you with this, the top scariest easter bunny pictures:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-65-sketchiest-easter-bunnies

Dangerous + DIY Karaoke

Dangerous Karaoke:

Have you seen this article? Apparently, singing the song 'My Way' can get you killed if you are in the Phillipines:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/08/karaoke-in-the-philippine_n_453435.html

The song has never been one of my faves, I must admit. It really is sort of sloppy and braggy at the same time.

DIY Karaoke:

I loves the karaoke. Having given up the sauce, the allure of the late-night dive karaoke bar has lost some of its shine. I don't mind going out for a bit and crooning, but after a while people get all (as TBTL puts it) "tired and emotional" and their boozy rendition of 'In a Big Country' by Big Country gets to sound more like Shane McGowan's third encore at a Pogues concert.

So in the past year, if I do want some karaoke action, I'll set up private shindigs at my house. The benefits include no unfair favoritism from the KJ and endless songs. So far I've rented equipment from Seattle's Best Karaoke. They are awesome! But they're also a bit spendy.

So now I've turned to a more homespun system that is much cheaper than renting from the experts, and doesn't involve costly purchases of newer karaoke cd's. It is awesome! Here are the special secret ingredients:

DIY Home Karaoke system --

1) Cheapo mixer
2) Effects processor -- optional, only if you want to add some nice reverb to smoove out the rougher edges whilst singing songs like 'Livin' on a Prayer' or 'Holding out for a Hero'
3) 3 1/4" audio cables
4) 1-2 microphones
5) Laptop or computer (avec high-speed internet access)
6) Rhapsody account
7) small headphone jack to RCA cable (to connect from computer to mixer)
8) wheeled computer desk (optional, but nice for mobility and storage purposes)




The key thing here is Rhapsody. They have thousands upon thousands of songs to choose from. And they have the most recent hits. While Bamboo Garden and China Gate are lagging behind with 'Just Dance' by Lady Gaga, Rhapsody has 'Poker Face' and 'Love Game' in spades. Booyah!

Except for no bouncing-ball lyrics (you need to read a static lyrics page instead, like from a google search), that is the only downside. Which can be a pretty big downside, particularly if you don't know the song that well.
Par example, I tried doing 'She Wolf' by Shakira. Fortunately I was home alone, with no one but my cat to feel the pain. And it was painful. Believe you-me.

But with some of the songs I know better, there's no issue.

Rhapsody's playlists also help me to stash my karaoke faves away for the next event. Here's my current list of karaoke possibilities:

Disturbia
Poker Face
Love Story (Taylor Swift)
SOS (Jonas Brothers)
Total Eclipse Of The Heart
I Will Survive
Bette Davis Eyes
Heart of Glass
Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne)
Linger (Cranberries)
Break It Down Again (Tears for Fears)
Paradise City (G&R)
She Sells Sanctuary
Just Can't Get Enough (Depeche Mode)
Just Like Heaven (The Cure)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to annoy my cat with another rendition of She Wolf. I know I'll get it. After maybe 100 more tries...

work schticks

Several years ago I frequented a spa in the U. District that had massage plus steam and sauna rooms. Since it was sort of an overall spa place, if I wanted a massage with my sauna, I might get a different massage therapist at any given time, unless maybe I requested someone specifically.

This one woman I saw, let's call her Helen, was OK enough. She used Tiger Balm, which I kind of like, but also view it as sort of a ben gay-ish crutch in the massage bag of tricks. So that was sort of strike one. As I lay down on the massage table, on my back, she asked me to move my legs over a bit.
Now, having recently been to massage school, I knew how to position myself on a table so that I was straight, so it seemed a bit odd, but I complied by moving my legs to the left, then basically moving them right back to where they were. She seemed pleased with this, and then with a wry smile said "As my grandmother would say, your legs were all cattywhompus (sp??)." She seemed delighted to deliver this folksy little colloquialism to me, and I provided the appropriate chuckle as her reward.

The rest of the massage was OK, not the best I've had, but it got the job done.

A few months later I returned to the spa, and got this same woman for a massage. I assume she sees many customers, so wasn't too surprised when she didn't recognize me.

I got on the table, made sure my legs were in perfect alignment with my body, and waited. She gave my body a quick up and down eyeball and _again_ asked me to straighten my legs. Then she delivered the gut-wrenching statement that, as her grandmother would say, my legs were all cattywhompus. It was then that I knew this was her schtick. This was what she said to all her new clients, to give them that warm, downhome feeling. I viewed it as horribly obnoxious. Particularly because the rest of her banter was so mundane, this cattywhompus phrase stuck out.

I left, and vowed never to return again. Since then I have discovered Olympus Spa, and have never looked back since.

OK, so here's another one. At my dentist office, one of the dental assistants has an ongoing schtick where she looks at my tongue during the cleaning. Each time, she comments that I have a few little white dots on my tongue that speak to me either being iron-deficient or b-vitamin deficient. Not enough of a problem to show up in blood tests, mind you, but deficient nevertheless.

She counsels me on getting vitamin supplements, and goes into great detail about which supplements to get, when to take them, and why this is of such urgent importance. This is all while she's got her hands in my mouth, so I can't even politely tell her to mind her own beeswax and stick to what she knows, which is getting my teeth spic 'n span. I manage a few grunts of acknowledgement, and pray that her advice will end. It usually takes about 10 minutes to get through the sermon, then it's over.

I imagine her day is fairly monotonous, and she needs a nice, safe schtick to work off of. She can talk while people are a captive audience, and it probably makes the time go by more quickly. Fortunately this time around mid-way through her speech she had to switch with the other hygienist - the heavy smoker who is not about health, but instead into reminiscing with me about my favorite cigarette brands from when I smoked. Now that's something I can get behind. :-)

Feng Shui Loser

I bought a house a few months ago. It's a cool mid-century house, with only 2 previous owners during its entire lifespan. First, by the man who built it, and second by a nice woman and her kids.

When I moved in I knew I'd need some ideas on how to decorate and place things. I asked my friend Heather over for a Feng Shui consultation (if you're in the greater Seattle area and are looking for a solid and very reasonably priced Feng Shui expert, Heather is it!).

Heather came over and did an evaluation, giving tips on each room of the house. The thing about Feng Shui is that when approached sans hocus-pocus/superstition and sans rigidity, it just makes sense. Even if you don't buy into the idea of energy, most of the ideas around placement and colors just look good from a pure design perspective.

But I actually do believe in the whole energy flow thing, too. So that brings me to my story of how I'm a Feng Shui Loser.

When Heather was upstairs, we were looking at the sloped A-frame dormer ceilings. She pointed out that this could affect me as I slept, that there might be a feeling of pressing down from the ceiling. Can't argue that, so she said the cure would be to place a small mirror on the lamp, wall or bedside table angled upwards.

I went to a new-agey store that sells crystals, incense and whatnot and gathered some supplies. I was excited. I had a spring in my step, thinking about how much more spiffed up my house would be as I implemented a few simple corrections.

As I proudly took my purchases up to the register, the woman (let's call her Moonshadow) raised her brow and said "Ah, I see we're doing some Feng Shui?"

I beamed, but not too much, as I wanted to appear aloof, as though I'd been doing Feng Shui and this was old hat for me. "Yes, I'm just doing a few things around the house."

She pointed to the mirror I'd picked out, a tiny 8-sided affair. "What are you using this for?"



I told her about my A-frame celings, and how the mirror would help to correct that.

Moonshadow bristled and looked at me with eyes both world-weary and with a hint of pity. "Oh, no no no. This mirror is only for outside use. You would never use this indoors. For slanting ceilings, what you do is hang two flutes from the ceiling. Piece of cake, problem solved!"

I politely accepted her advice, but planned to go ahead with the mirror trick. I could see that she thought it was a complete waste of time that I use a mirror. But I'll be damned if I hang f'in flutes from the ceiling. That to me sounds like the Feng Shui equivalent of a fraternity pledge dare. It ain't happening.

I can just see it, I walk into the room, and continually hit my head on these frickin' flutes every time I walk in? No thank you.

I walked out with my purchases, and I could see her shaking her head, almost clucking to herself about such simpleminded fools as myself.

I put up the mirror that night, undaunted. And you know what? That teeny sliver of a mirror, to me, is holding up the whole ceiling. And that's good enough Feng Shui for me. M'kay?