Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 34 - January 2011

So, I suspended the playlist at the end of the summer. I don't hold it against you if you didn't notice, but I figured I owe you an explanation now that it's back in the saddle again.

The prime mover for the hiatus was this gnawing sense that the only thing I had to dither on about in these monthly self-indulgences was how miserable my work environment had become and how eager I was for my job search to tip over something new. After enough months of that sort of talk, even I get tired of hearing about it. Besides, I figured taking a little break would reduce the number of possible distractions from the job search and help me maintain some focus. It would simultaneously assist me in avoiding the poor form of trumpeting my urgent desire to leave my current employer whilst still trying to maintain my employment there. As of last week, that last concern became a moot point as my "position has been eliminated." My long-anticipated sweet and terrible freedom has arrived, and I finally feel like a 21st century professional.

Thus, I'm happy to report that between the disappearance of any further risk of boring you with my workplace misery and my sudden uptick in free time, the playlist is back on.

I promise never to leave you alone so long ever again. And, this time, I mean it.


Title - Artist

Release Me - Agnes
Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here - Anonymous
In the Backseat - Arcade Fire
Slight Figure of Speech - The Avett Brothers
Dear Grandma Flutter, Love Tutter - Bear in the Big Blue House
Army - Ben Folds Five
Halo - Beyonce
Southside of Heaven - Ryan Bingham
By the Riverside - Chatham County Line
That's All - Phil Collins
Dynamite - Taio Cruz
I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness
My Body's a Zombie for You - Dead Man's Bones
Ghosts N Stuff - deadmau5 feat. Rob Swire
Like a G6 - Far East Movement
Whiskey in My Whiskey - The Felice Brothers
Fired - Ben Folds
Footshooter - Frightened Rabbit
The Twist - Frightened Rabbit
Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Deborah Galli with Tami Holbrook and Meredith Marshall
Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalex
Used to Love Her - Guns 'n' Roses
The Tool Song - Handy Manny
Time on My Hands - Billie Holiday
Not Fade Away - Buddy Holly
Emipre State of Mind - Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys
Living After Midnight - Judas Priest
Get Down Tonight - KC & the Sunshine Band
Windows Are Rolled Down - Amos Lee
Music When the Lights Go Out - Libertines
Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Path of Thorns - Sarah MacLachlan
The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing - The Magnetic Fields
Kids - MGMT
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - Mozart
Sign No More - Mumford and Sons
The Cave - Mumford and Sons
Starry-Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold
Coumba - Orchestra Baobab
Take This Job and Shove It - Johnny Paycheck
Jar of Hearts - Christina Perri
Fireworks - Katy Perry
Lisztomania - Phoenix
Alice (Disney Remix) - pogomix
Sights and Sounds of Johannesburg - pogomix
Still Night - Pretty Lights
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
Work Song - Dan Reader
Catapult - REM
I Can't Complain - Todd Snider
Bottoms Up - Trey Songz
Hold It Against Me - Britney Spears
Lord, Let It Rain On Me - Spiritualized
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free - Sting
Holiday - Vampire Weekend
(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To - Weezer
Runaway - Kanye West
I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman - The White Stripes
The Benny Lava Song

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 33 - August 2010

I hate the summer time.

There are a lot of reasons for my ever-growing disdain for this time of year. It's hot. It's sticky. The sun is always out and burning my fair, fair skin. (Like cream, some would say.) Mostly, however, I hate the summer because I let myself get really busy, and, despite my best intentions, I let my priorities get all out of whack.

Thus, here I sit after three months of silence. There has been no substantive addition to my music library, and I have little doubt you have been losing sleep over what haphazard musings have been bouncing around my brain.

Inexcusable, I know. Please forgive me.

Back in April, Katie and I moved in to a new place overlooking Rock Creek Park, and I have spent most of the ensuing months worrying over the window boxes I installed on our balcony. There isn't really enough growing in the window boxes to demand that much attention, but you may have learned by now that I have a fairly obsessive personality. In the right-hand window box, there's a gerber daisy that was the first housewarming gift we received that didn't contain alcohol, and there are a few pansies (I think) I grew from seeds that I somehow inherited at work. None of them are flowering at the moment, but both are showing signs of thriving, despite the brutal heat we have seen here in the past month. In the other window box, there is a basil plant that leads me to believe there may be some source of radiation nearby: it's huge, and the fragrance it casts across the balcony is intoxicating.

This morning, I sat on that very balcony next to those very window boxes drinking my morning coffee (made with the help of a new coffee grinder from my big brother), and I realized my silence of the last few months subsumed the collection of a quarter's worth of SIOH lists.

Sorry about that.

Title - Artist

My Girls - Animal Collective
Pool Party - Aquabats
Mardy Bum - Arctic Monkey
You Never Give Me Your Money - The Beatles
Farewell Ride - Beck
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) - Beyonce
One Time - Justin Bieber
Tighten Up - Black Keys
California Stars - Billy Bragg
Pussy - Brazilian Girls
Road to Joy - Bright Eyes
Hey Ma - Cam'Ron
Traffic - Ben Cyllus
Animal Jam - Diego, Dora and friends
Tom Ames' Prayer - Steve Earle
Rock On - David Essex
Second Balcony Jump - Dexter Gordon
Stylo - Gorillaz
Ripple - Grateful Dead
Foreground - Grizzly Bear
You Make My Dreams Come True - Hall and Oates
Sparky Marcus - James William Hindle
Bulletproof - La Roux
Dance Yrself Clean - LCD Soundsystem
Get Drunk and Go Home - The Mighty Regis
Fire It Up - Modest Mouse
Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National
Party and Bullshit in the USA - Notrious BIG and Miley Cyrus
Consequence - The Notwist
California Gurls - Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg
Havalina - Pixies
Paper - Rafter
Hello - Lionel Richie
Soldier of Love - Sade
Fire With Fire - Scissor Sisters
Stars and Stripes Forever - John Philip Sousa
For You - The Sugar Twins
Theme from Cheers - Titus Andronicus
Johnsburg, Illinois - Tom Waits
Sangria Wine - Jerry Jeff Walker
Impossible Germany - Wilco
Mister Softee jingle
Theme from Fireman Sam

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 32 - April 2010

I talked myself in to going down to the Lincoln Memorial on Easter morning for the annual sunrise service. If you ever get the chance to watch the sun rise from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I strongly suggest you take advantage of it. I would also suggest, however, that doing it any other day of the year would probably be more enjoyable, unless, of course, you prefer to be part of a crowd prone to celebrating leaden rhetoric and the evils of intellectualism.

That aside, the adventure was hardly a loss: dragging my ass out of bed in time to get down to the Mall before sunrise resulted in being down there early enough to take a stroll around the Tidal Basin before its paths were completely choked by throngs of people looking at DC's famous cherry blossoms. Katie and I took a leisurely stroll under the cherry trees, got just enough crowd-dodging in to fill our quota, and got back up to our neighborhood brunch spot just in time for them to open the doors.

The cherry blossoms are world-renowned for good reason. They are beautiful, and, even though I can generally only stomach the crowds every other year or so, I am always surprised to find seeing them takes my breath away. What I really like about the cherry blossoms, however, is their appearance signals the imminent onset of one of my three favorite things to do in DC: walking through the azalea collection at the National Arboretum at the height of their bloom season. The azaleas usually come out a week or two after the cherry blossoms, and, while the cherry blossoms are breathtaking, the azaleas are dumbfounding, flabbergasting, thunderstriking, agogging. I grant that my fascination with azaleas may be a peculiar outgrowth of my childhood in Savannah, where azaleas figure prominently in the civic landscape, but the array of colors and the sheer volume of blooms on the 10,000 azalea shrubs at the Arboretum during the two weeks or so when they're out is a sight to see even if you have no childhood memories to pluck with them.

I went out to check on them this morning, and the early arrivals are already here. The warm weather and rain we've seen this past week should be pushing them almost all the way out in the next week or two, although the Arboretum itself is claiming the 23rd and 24th as the peak season; however, whether you take my word or theirs, like sunrise in Lincoln's lap, if you get the opportunity to go out to the Arboretum to see the azaleas in bloom, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of it.


Title - Artist

It's the Hard-Knock Life - Annie and the Orphans
Across the Universe - The Beatles
You Can Leave Your Hat On - Joe Cocker
Why Should You Come When I Call? - Counting Crows
Don't Stop the Music - Jamie Cullum
Cover of the Rolling Stone - Dr. Hook
Cold Beverage - G Love and Special Sauce
Hands in the Air - Girl Talk
Greatest Love of All - Whitney Houston
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters - Elton John
The Front Porch Song - Robert Earl Keen, Jr.
Need You Know - Lady Antebellum
Boys Boys Boys - Lady Gaga
California Dreaming - The Mamas and the Papas
Pavlov's Bell - Aimee Mann
Imagine One Day (so far away) - Matisyahu vs. John Lennon vs. Blink 182 vs. Bob Marley vs. Gentleman
Dear God - Monsters of Folk
Sometimes It's Our Mistakes That Make for the Greatest Ideas - Norma Jean
Fear the Boom and Bust - John Papola and Russ Roberts
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
Underwater - Tegan and Sara
Ukelele Lady - Traditional
Heart of Gold - Neil Young
Piece of Crap - Neil Young
Dancing With the Stars theme
Give Me Back That Filet o' Fish

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 31 - March 2010

There is a profound drama unfolding on the streets of Our Nation's Capital these days. As you are probably aware, due to the endless bitching and bellyaching of thousands upon thousands of DC residents like me, we have gotten an awful lot of snow this winter. I don't intend to spend much space here adding to the bitching and bellyaching to which I have already subjected you, but I will take just a moment to acknowledge, as a man who spent the longest winter of his life a mile high in the Montana Rockies, we've had some no-bullshit snowfall. Forget for a moment there's no real infrastructure here to deal with even a moderate snowfall; our snowfall has been decidedly immoderate.


I am happy to report, however, that there are signs of melt all around me. Once the city started to gather its wits after the most recent storm - I still giggle a little when everyone starts throwing around the term "snow event" - we collectively put a lot of effort into taking the snow from wherever it had inconveniently fallen, such as on the front walk where it blocked my pedestrian path or in the back alley where it blocked my vehicular path, and started piling it as high as possible in slightly less inconvenient places. As you can imagine, the piles I created were somewhat limited in size by the reach of my shovel and outstretched arm. There were some crazy bastards with bulldozers and front-end loaders and other pieces of industrial equipment that would strike my nephews agog with wonder who did not face the same limitations. Consequently, every corner or so became the site of a pile of snow eight or ten feet high. On the far side of some of the parking lots downtown, they piled snow nearly 25 feet high.


When the piles first appeared, I don't know that I had ever before felt such a strong affinity for a pile of anything before. It took them several days to show up, but their appearance meant the city's vital systems were starting to pump again. I could go places other than my house with a better than even shot at getting there and back without breaking my neck or busting my ass on hard pack and ice. I don't think I would go so far as to say they were gleaming and pristine in their utilitarian edificiary, but they were beautiful.


The past couple of weeks have not been kind to these harbingers of motility. It stands to reason that, in the process of scraping snow off of the street and sidewalk, one is likely to simultaneously scrape everything else along with it. You know what happens to a pile like that when the temperature starts spending some time in the 40s and 50s? The snow melts and, like a huge, twisted advent calendar, the pile slowly reveals its hidden treasures. Thus, with each passing day, I go by shorter and wetter piles of mysterious collections of urban detritus, and I can't stop myself from taking good, long looks to see what new stuff has surfaced since my last visit.


It turns out what appears in the eye and in the mind as a pile of snow is, in fact, a pile of snow and dirt and shoes and beer bottles and CD cases and juice boxes and plastic bags and dogshit.


I bet you if you tried to sell advent calendars with that stuff in them, you wouldn't do too well.


Title - Artist

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
I've Got a Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now) - David Byrne
Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
Slutty Girls in Slutty Costumes, a Tribute - cracked.com
Please Don't Stop the Music - Jamie Cullum
Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus
Pressing On - Bob Dylan
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
Modern Drift - Efterklang
Against All Odds - Genesis
Hey Na Na - Katie Herzig
Ali in the Jungle - The Hours
Angel - Iguanas
Who Did You Think I Was - John Mayer Trio
Don't Get My Bad Romance Wrong? - Marc Johnce
Heartbeat - Don Johnson
Boy Lilikoi - Jónsi
Go Do - Jónsi
Tik Tok - Ke$ha
Love is My Disease - Alicia Keys
The Alphabet - Patti Labelle
Speechless - Lady Gaga
Bed Rock - Lil' Wayne
Goin' Back to Cali - LL Cool J
Heartbreak Warfare - John Mayer
Stupid - Sarah McLachlan
Pressure Time - Mighty Mike
I'd Rather Fuck You - NWA
Kandi - One eskimO
1901 - Phoenix
Where is my Mind? - Pixies
Summertime - Red Molly
Trunk Fulla Amps - SeLF
The People in Your Neighborhood - Sesame Street
Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap
Sing - Travis
Horchata - Vampire Weekend
The Things That I Used to Do (Live at Carnegie Hall) - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead - XTC
My Little Pony theme
O Canada
Team Umizoomi Theme
When the Saints Go Marching In

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 30 - January 2010

The new year is upon us, and, as you can see, I have been trying to be a little more circumspect, a little more deliberate in 2010. I am trying to find ways to put a little more effort and a little more time into the things I have generally taken for granted.

I have discussed before in this space the ebb and flow of my desk at home. While I am not exactly proud, I am comforted by the fact that the tendencies described therein continue. Unlike Madonna or the Executive Branch, I am not one to fundamentally reinvent myself. I'm a pretty stable guy, and, for better or for worse, you will probably get what you expect from me.

And, that is why I found myself earlier this month with four Waffle House coffee cups (and I mean the old-school kind with anemic handles and the brown scrollwork around the lip, not the new-school classic-diner-style with the updated logo, functional heft, and reasonable non-finger-burning properties) full of coins sitting on my desk. That's right. Four cups of change.

Four cups of change is surprisingly heavy. I guess it's not really surprising, what with coins being made of metals and all, but when you think of coins, as I do, as something that you carry around in your pocket all day, lifting that many of them at one time makes my belt tired.

(I should note that none of the following paragraph is based on any respectable research at all. That will not, however, prevent me from declaring it as though it is both scientifically and religiously unassailable.) A couple of years ago, there was a DC-area bank that spent a lot of money airing commercials crowing about their coin-counting machines. You could walk right in and dump your change in to one of their machines. The machine would count and sort your coins. It would then print you a ticket with your total on it, and you could take the ticket to a teller who would then give you that total amount in the kind that folds. The commercials made a big deal out of the fact that you could dump your change in to the machine and get the entire value of your coins whether you held an account there or not. The bank didn't take a percentage like those cheap bastards at the grocery store. In part, this ad campaign was targeting two-bit whores who, as we all know, are paid primarily in quarters and have limited access to coin wrappers. A slightly lesser-known reason is, due to fluctuations in the copper and zinc markets, the cost of making a penny outstripped the value of a penny. This tipping of the scale led to a widespread effort to get trillions of pennies out of jars and couches and loafers and back into circulation. Thus, the commercials inviting you to come in to see the wonders of the free coin counter.

They don't run those commercials anymore, but, as you can see, they made a pretty strong impression on me. Consequently, I went on a quest to discover whether or not the banks around here had abandoned the practice or just the ad campaign. I poured my four cups of change into a pillowcase, threw it over my shoulder like a Continental soldier, and headed out the door.

To make a boring quest short, there are several bank chains around here that have free coin counting machines, and I found a machine in the first branch I went to. I dumped my pillowcase of metal in to the machine. Hitting the button to start the machine was like flushing a slot machine's toilet. Every few seconds, the counter would hit a foreign coin and make a noise very similar to what hitting the machine with a golf club would sound like. Then, it would spit the offending coin into the reject chute and start spinning again. It was nothing short of mesmerizing, and I found myself scheming about where I might find another stash of coins I could take and dump in the machine again.

$53.00 and a new thrill addiction.

That's change I can believe in.


Title - Artist

Heaven - Bryan Adams
Please Forgive Me - Bryan Adams
I'm Only Sleeping - The Beatles
Hard Times - BlackRoc feat. NOE
I Haven't Met You Yet - Michael Buble
Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
Larry - Buffalo Tom
Already Gone - Kelly Clarkson
Stillness is the Move - Dirty Projectors
Baba Africa - DJ Zebra
Inside and Out - Feist
Ghosting - Freelance Whales
No Reply at All - Genesis
Sweat (A la la la la long) - Inner Circle
Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z and Alicia Keys
Till There Was You - Shirley Jones
Tik Tok - Ke$ha
Ignition (Remix) - R. Kelly
For Every Drop - Sonja Kitchell
Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
Hip to Be Square - Huey Lewis and the News
Blinded by the Light - Manfred Mann
The Sandman and the Brakeman and Me - Monsters of Folk
She Wants to Move - NERD
On the Wings of Love - Jeffrey Osborne
Copying is Not Theft - Nina Paley
Moth's Wings - Passion Pit
Share the Darkness - The Saw Doctors
Hollaback Girl v. Give It to Me - Gwen Stefani and Rick James
Feel It in My Bones - Tiesto with Tegan and Sara
We Walk - The Ting Tings
Evacuate the Dance Floor - Toscada
Nobody's Fault by Mine - Traditional
Sing - Travis
Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood
Parting Glass - Wailin' Jennys
Background Music from Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga (Short Forms) - Jennifer Wolfe
Long May You Run - Neil Young
My Shit's Fucked Up - Warren Zevon

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 30 - November 2009

This month, The Playlist lost a contributor, and I lost a friend.

Sara and I met only once. It was back in the mid-90s when we were both visiting our respective older siblings at Georgia Tech for the weekend. Well over a decade later, this project brought us back in touch.

My friendship with Sara consisted primarily of brief e-mail exchanges every couple of months and the very occasional exchange of small gifts via US Mail. I recently re-read our correspondence of the past few years, and our shameless attempts to one-up each other's wordplay made me laugh out loud a few times. There can be no doubt, however, that Sara outdid me in gifting when she sent me the hand-knit, monogrammed koozie that is the envy of all who have seen it since its debut on New Year's Eve 2007.

It makes me happy Sara's battle with cancer has finally ended, and it makes me very sad she is gone.

Title - Artist

In Da Club - 50 Cent
Alto Song - Afro-Cuban All-Stars
Stand Back - The Allman Brothers Band
When I Paint My Masterpiece - The Band
Freckles - Natasha Bedingfield
Postcards from Italy - Beirut
Obsessed (Gucci Mane remix) - Mariah Carey
Good Times Roll - The Cars
Sea of Love - Cat Power
Busted - Ray Charles
After All - Cher feat. Peter Cetera
Already Gone - Kelly Clarkson
Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
Surrey with the Fringe on Top - Curley and Laurey
Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus
You Spin Me Round (Like Record) - Dead or Alive
People Are People - Depeche Mode
Pretty Thing - Bo Diddley
The General - Dispatch
Outfit - Drive-By Truckers
Seven Bridges Road - The Eagles
White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes
Somebody to Love - Glee Cast
Put a Little Love in Your Heart - Al Green & Annie Lennox
Nice to Know You - Incubus
Jezebel - Iron and Wine
Replay - IYAZ feat. Sean Kingston
It's All for You - Janet Jackson
Human Nature - Michael Jackson
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Fire Burning - Sean Kingston
Heartbeats - The Knife
Paparazzi - Lady Gaga
Meddle - Little Boots
Macarena - Los del Rio
La Isla Bonita - Madonna
Gravity - John Mayer
Soldier - Ingrid Michaelson
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik II. Romance - andante - Mozart
The Lighthouse's Tale - Nickel Creek
All Apologies - Nirvana
Fishing in the Dark - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Fireflies - Owl City
Jolene - Dolly Parton
Spit on a Stranger - Pavement
Johnny Guitar - Pearl Jam
Turn It Off - Phantogram
Karma Police - Radiohead
Crazy Eddie's Last Hurrah - Reckless Kelly
You Make Me Feel Like Dancing - Leo Sayer
Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Sort Of - Silversun Pickups
Someone to Watch Over Me - Frank Sinatra
Chicago - Sufijan Stevens
Love Story - Taylor Swift
Call It Off - Tegan and Sara
Kiss Me Son of God - They Might Be Giants
Walcott - Vampire Weekend
Can't Stop Partying - Weezer
Love is the Answer - Weezer
The One Who Knows - Dar Williams
Heart Skipped a Beat - The XX
Three's Company Theme

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 29 - September 2009

I had a strange sense of deja vu at work yesterday.

One of my colleagues asked me a simple, offhand question about something I hadn't committed the least energy to worrying about: (When I thought about telling this story, I incrementally convinced myself I would include this sentence: "I'll spare us both the indignity of telling you the exact topic of the question." Then I realized you faced no indignity whatsoever, and I canned the sentence.) colored paper.

That's right. Nothing fancy. Just regular old colored printer paper, the type you use for your little CYO dance flyers or your lost kitten posters. No big whoop, right?

Inexplicably, however, my mind turned it into, not only a big whoop, but a whole ream of hootin' and hollerin' colored paper dolls. I wound up spending the better part of a day defining, debating, dismissing, denouncing, and deifying countless facets of colored paper, its uses, its sources, its costs, and its proper place in the universe. I woke up yesterday morning with anything but colored paper on my mind, but a passing word led me down a rabbit hole where I can think of nothing but. It felt so familiar, but I just couldn't place the sensation.

Until today.

I had a physical therapy appointment this afternoon. (The therapy is going quite well, as a matter of fact. I would put my ankle at about 88% capacity. It does most of the things it's supposed to do, although going down stairs still presents a little tinge of adventure. This week brought yet another progression at PT in to new arcane and horrifying tests of corporal flexibility, and the back of my ankle sort of feels like it has been sanded by a shiatsu master. But, as they say, the pain means its working. Thanks for asking.) As I was walking in to a nearby convenience store afterward for my celebratory bottle of Gatorade-brand sports thirst quencher, I suddenly placed where the pre-vu had happened.

The year was 1986, and I was sitting in a pew at St. Francis Xavier Church in scenic and historic downtown Brunswick, Georgia. (There's a lovely park across the street where I learned a few lessons over the years. The most important is that I should avoid participating in organized relay races. Running a close second is that the phrase "War of Northern Aggression" isn't just shouted in redneck bars, as evidenced by the inscription on the monument to Civil War dead erected there by The Daughters of the Confederacy in 1902.) One of the Marist priests who ran the parish was delivering a homily about something or another, and he drove a point home with this question: "How well do we, as a community, emulate Christ when there, next to the counter in every Jiffy Mart, is a rack of pornography for sale?"

Why hadn't I been informed of this? From that moment on, no longer was my focus on the Jiffy Mart's gas pumps or its Slush Puppy dispenser or even its Mortal Kombat machine. No, I always dutifully checked to confirm my spiritual leader had spoken the truth. Over two decades later, I have continued to confirm it on convenience store visits on backroads and interstate highways in countless towns, in forty-eight states and well over a dozen countries. I suppose that quest for affirmation, inspired by a passing comment, will continue for decades to come.

I just hope, for any number of reasons, I don't find colored paper to be as compelling.


Title - Artist

Tribute to the Beast - Bagger 288
Arcadian Driftwood - The Band
I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
Obsessed - Mariah Carey
Viva La Vida - Coldplay
If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow
Year Ten - Kimya Dawson
I Thought You Should Know - Steve Earle
Elmo's World - Elmo
Telephone Line - ELO
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Waiting for a Girl Like You - Foreigner
Paris (Aeroplane Remix) - Friendly Fires
Red Rain - Peter Gabriel
Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
Centerfold - J. Geils Band
Walk This Sampa - Grandpamini
Standing on the Moon (1989-7-17) - Grateful Dead
Flux and Meter - Tommy Guerror
Million Dollar Bill - Houston
Nasty - Janet Jackson
Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
LoveGame - Lady Gaga
Poker Face - Lady Gaga
Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
Cherish - Madonna
No Leaf Clover - Metallica feat. San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Introducing Palace Players - Mew
Dirty Pop - *NSync
Fireflies - Owl City
Consoler of the Lonely - The Raconteurs
Vegetable Car - Joshua Radin
Subterranean Homesick Alien - Radiohead
Islands in the Stream - Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton
Wetter - Twista
Feel It All Around - Washed Out
I'm Bound to Pack it Up - The White Stripes
Toes - Zac Brown Band

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 28 - August 2009

Perhaps you didn't get the announcement that I was going on sabbatical for the month of July. That is most likely because I never made an announcement to that effect. Consider this that announcement.

Nothing really happened in July. I went back to work for the first time in two months. It turns out getting through a day while trying to retrain a leg how to work is really tiring. Consequently, I spent most of my time and energy doing that in July.

August, on the other hand...man, there's some shit going down in August. I kicked the month off by turning 33. Then, I went on a little vacation that took me through Rochester, Niagara Falls, Toronto and the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. There were oodles of highlights of that vacation, but the two you need to know about are the $500 I won playing roulette at Casino Niagara and my first introduction to the delectably unholy dish commonly known as poutine. God bless those Canadians!

August's fun hasn't stopped there, however. My orthopedic surgeon (in stereotypical curt, dismissive fashion) finally removed all activity restrictions stemming from my shattered ankle. Vermont became the 48th state I have visited. I woke up overlooking the water on Cape Cod after a wedding party that would put those lazy bastards at Cana to shame. And, there are still two weeks left...

I hope August is making you feel the same way.

Title - Artist

Right Where I Need to Be - Gary Allan
Fuck You - Lily Allen
A Certain Romance - The Arctic Monkeys
Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas
Gloria - Laura Brannigan
Ice Cream and Cake - Buckwheat Boys
Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
Seven Spanish Angels - Ray Charles and Willie Nelson
Tenderoni - Chromeo
Lovers in a Dangerous Time - Bruce Cockburn
Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus
I Be Blowin' - De La Soul
Big John - Jimmy Dean
Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
Brooklyn Rocks - DJ Lobsterdust
I Don't Believe You - Bob Dylan
Unemployed Boyfriend - Everclear
Blame It (on the Alcohol) - Jamie Foxx
I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
Castles Made of Sand - Jimi Hendrix
Human Nature - Michael Jackson
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Mason Jennings
Bennie and the Jets - Elton John
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Lovegame - Lady Gaga
Put Your Lighters Up - Lil' Kim
Airplanes - Local Natives
Relight My Fire vs. Let it Rock vs. Let There Be Rock - Mad Mix Mustang
Ray of Light - Madonna
Dream a Little Dream of Me - The Mamas and the Papas
Ain't No Sunshine - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Tuesday Afternoon - The Moody Blues
I'm Yours - Jason Mraz
Muppet Show Theme - The Muppets
Heartbreak World - Matt Nathanson
Apologize - One Republic feat. Timbaland
Yellow Ledbetter - Pearl Jam
Suzy Greenberg - Phish
In the Ghetto - Elvis Presley
Keep on Lovin' You - REO Speedwagon
Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones
Baby Britain - Elliott Smith
Looking for a Job - Todd Snider
Kielbasa - Tenacious D
ICU - They Might Be Giants
We Walk - The Ting Tings
Tessellate - Tokyo Police Club
Touch the Sky - Kanye West
Vagabond - Wolfmother
Unknown Legend - Neil Young
Toes - Zac Brown Band
Desperados Under the Eaves - Warren Zevon

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 27 - June 2009

Holy shit. Sometimes the more time you have to lie around, the less inclination you have to do anything else. Which is to say:

Holy shit. Sometimes the more time I have to lie around, the less inclination I have to do anything else.

It hasn't all been out of straight-up lassitude. Part of the delay has been the result of having too many ideas, having too much time to mull over them, having too much opportunity to feed my recovery by napping. Another part of the delay has been finally going off the pain medications, which, among other things, has done wonders for my attention span. I briefly considered telling you about the other things among which my attention span has rebounded, but, as a dear friend recently expressed, "it's all so terribly undignified."

Rather than go mucking about in that sort of information, let's just settle for an update on my recovery. The orthopedic surgeon told me not to walk on my right leg before my next appointment with him on July 1. After a few days of trying to negotiate the three-story house where I live on one leg (and a close call or two on the stairs), I decided my recovery would be better served by a location a little less adventurous. Last week, I flew back to my mom's house in coastal Georgia where I will stay until the end of the month. I've been going to physical therapy twice a week since I got back here. Although my ankle isn't allowed to bear any weight for a few more weeks, my physical therapist has been focusing on regaining my ankle's range of motion and stretching out and realigning all of the muscles and ligaments and such that have been tightening up or wasting away since the fracture. (One of the exercises involves tracing the alphabet in the air with my toe. Never before in my life have I hated the letter Q so intently.) My hope is my doctor will clear me to bear weight on my ankle on July 1, which means I should be back on my feet shortly after my return to DC. Of course, that's all conjecture right now.

In the meantime, I'll be kicking it in coastal Georgia, rehabilitating some soft-tissue structures, and watching the wood storks and roseate spoonbills feeding in the marsh.

(Hey, DC sparrows, they're way more interesting than you are.)

Title - Artist

Let It Be - The Beatles
Polythene Pam - The Beatles
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window - The Beatles
Rainy Night in Georgia - Brook Benton
Halo - Beyonce
Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
Weather With You - Crowded House
The Climb - Miley Cyrus
We Used to Be Friends - Dandy Warhols
Against All Odds - Gavin DeGraw
Stillness is the Move - Dirty Projectors
Lord Give Me a Sign - DMX
Most of the Time - Bob Dylan
Glamorous - Fergie
Bones Don't Bleed - Thomas Function
The Break Up Song - Greg Kihn Band
Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Reproduction - Tab Hunter & Cast
Parents Just Don't Understand - DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Bennie and the Jets - Elton John
Mudfootball - Jack Johnson
How Long Do I Have to Wait for You? - Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
Feeling that Way - Journey
All Summer Long - Kid Rock
Homesick - Kings of Convenience
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Poker Face - Lady Gaga
Rockstar - Nickelback
Sleepyhead - Passion Pit
The Reeling - Passion Pit
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty
I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) - PitBull
I Hate This Part - The Pussycat Dolls
Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
Crack the Shutters - Snow Patrol
I Love You, Ono - Stereo Total
Go, Diego, Go! Theme Song - The T-Boppers
Gypsy Woman - Crystal Waters
NYC Ice Cream Truck Melody

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 25 - April 2009

Since I moved to our nation's capital, I have spent much of my time writing and revising my "5 Favorite Things To Do in DC" list. The last two slots on the list still see a good deal of movement, but the top three are pretty well locked in.

#3 - Spending a gorgeous spring afternoon across the street from the main entrance to The National Zoo at a sidewalk table at ZooBar. For those of you not familiar with the layout of The National Zoo, it sits on a substantial hillside in Northwest DC, and the main entrance is at the top of that hill and fronted by the widest crosswalk in DC. The main entertainment is watching families leave the zoo. Needless to say, families generally leave the zoo because they're tired of dealing with each other and the other thousands of people drawn to the zoo on a beautiful day. There is endless entertainment in drinking beer and watching tourists winded from the hill snipe at each other and approaching drivers on Connecticut Avenue. The cheese fries are pretty good, too.
#2 - Renting a canoe and watching the Fourth of July fireworks from the middle of the Potomac.
#1 - Visiting the National Arboretum during the peak bloom of their azalea collection. The first director of the Arboretum spent most of his career breeding azaleas. When he came to the Arboretum, he brought tens of thousands of azalea plants with him and planted them on a hillside. For the past half-century or so, those azaleas have run wild and grown into massive walls of vegetation. For a week or two in late April, the hillside is afire with reds, whites, magentas, and oranges. It is a sight that is truly breathtaking to behold.

For those of you in the DC area, go to the Arboretum in the next week or so. Even if you don't give a damn about flowers, it's worth a visit once in your life.


Title - Artist

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC
My Girls - Animal Collective
Seahorse - Devendra Banhart
The Wizard - Bat for Lashes
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) - Beyonce
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You - Black Kids
Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
All We Have - Brett Dennen
Right Round - Flo Rida
Around the Sandman - G3rst
Always a Bridesmaid - The Good Life
Lovers Need Lawyers - The Good Life
St. Stephen - Grateful Dead
Radio - Jurassic 5
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
The Boy from Ipanema - Diana Krall
Devil Town - Tony Lucca
Simple Man - Lynrd Skynyrd
Late for School - Steve Martin
Daylight - Matt and Kim
Filet o' Fish Commercial - McDonald's
Barnacle Bill - Me
The Hat - Ingrid Michaelson
Smaller Taller - Nervous But Excited
I Kissed a Girl - Katy Perry
Invisible Sun - The Police
I Hate This Part Right Here - Pussycat Dolls
100 Yard Dash - Raphael Saadiq
Lamonts Lament - The Sea and Cake
Graceland - Paul Simon
Today - Smashing Pumpkins
Jacksonville - Sufjan Stevens
Pump Up the Jam - Technotronic
That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings
Stinkfest - Tool
Stand Up Comedy - U2
Red Red Wine - UB40
Chickamauga - Uncle Tupelo
Fisher of Men - M. Ward
Clementine - Washington
Sesame Street Theme

Stuck in Our Heads - Vol. 24 - March 2009

Not so long ago and for no particular reason, I decided I needed 69 rental vehicles.

I want you to take a moment and put yourself in my shoes. You've rented a car before. You know what it's like to stand at the counter while someone in a rumpled polo shirt stares at a monochromatic screen that makes you think about doing spelling drills while listening to a dot-matrix printer spit out its ratatatat innards in the form of a rental contract. Go through the whole process. Initial in five places. Sign your name at the bottom. Pick up the two sets of keys linked together by an apparently indestructible coil of small-caliber steel cable. Now, turn toward the door to walk out.

Now, do that 68 more times.

Kind of makes you wish there were a hammer lying around so you could hit yourself a few times in the eye, doesn't it?

Oddly enough, it wasn't that bad. Sure, I spent the better part of a work day signing and separating documents that come in triplicate, but it was a much smoother process than I expected it to be. Between the mass of steel and plastic that required moving and the soulless mouth-breathers I expected to find at the counter, my expectations were admittedly very low. Besides, you do anything 69 times, and you have to factor in at least 5% time loss due to giggling.

It turns out returning 69 rental vehicles was a little more challenging. I'll spare you the peaks and valleys of the whole process. Let it suffice to say one of the vehicles I rented was parked in a very safe and sheltered and expensive parking spot for a week or so longer than it needed to be, and it got returned well after the other 68.

When I finally wrangled #69 (god only knows what keyword searches are going to start leading users here now) back to the ranch, I cleaned out roughly one carload of stuff that didn't need to go back with the car. In addition to about 15 pounds of trash and about $5000 in telecommunications equipment, I scavenged, tucked into the pocket on the back of the driver's seat, a wallet.

The wallet contained pretty standard wallet contents: driver's license, photo of The Beloved, credit cards, receipts, old lottery tickets, about $50 in cash.

I'm going to let you in on a secret: I'm prone to some moral ambiguities. The wallet sat on my desk for a couple of weeks before I figured out what to do with it. I checked to see if any of the lottery tickets were winners. At one point, I even had a $10 bill in my hand because I was short of cash, and I considered buying lunch with it. In the end, I mailed, intact, it back to the name and address on the driver's license, and I promptly forgot about it.

A few days later, I received a package in the mail that contained four items:
1 - a collection of poetry authored by the owner of the wallet
2 - a card trumpeting the women of SGI-USA (nowhere near the same vein as Playboy's Girls of the SEC issue) and urging me to add items to my "Bucket List" amidst a sunflower motif
3 - a $20 bill
4 - a greeting card featuring the Times Mirror Hall of North American Cultures at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County with the following handwritten message.

"Dear Paul,

I received my wallet last evening when I returned home. To say I was surprised is an understatement. What a great blessing! I don't know how I could adequately thank you for what you've done. Your kindness and generosity will always be in my memory bank.

There were a few ironies connected with this. I lost the wallet after attending an inauguration event on the 20th of Jan. I received it back from you on the 20th of Feb. You sent a very nice card with a sunflower print on the front. My wife, who was entertaining friends who happen to be Buddhist (SGI), like us, had just finished admiring and discussing a card with a sunflower. Lastly, my wife was just diagnosed with breast cancer. The artist of your card came up with the inspiration while undergoing chemotherapy.

So...you see, this benefit was far reaching.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to cross paths with you one day. If you are ever out in Los Angeles, please give me a call. I'll try and contact you if and when I'm in the VA area.

Thanks again from the bottom of my heart.

PS - $20 for the postage."

It has been a few days since I first read this card and the accompanying poetry, and I still haven't settled on what I think of it. Don't get me wrong. It's a sweet card, and it sure beats the grand silence I got from the last guy to whom I returned a wallet. (In that case, I had found it on the floor of a cab in 2004 with nothing but a couple of credit cards and a receipt for a $1400 dinner at Charlie Palmer's.) I can't help but think, however, that it is sweeter than befits the occasion.

I've lost my wallet before, and it's a real pain in the ass to cancel credit cards and replace insurance cards and driver's licenses. I would love to avoid all of that hassle, and I would be effusive in expressing my gratitude to anyone who swooped in and saved me from it.

Let's be honest. I sat on this wallet for weeks. That's not a swoop-in kind of timeframe. I figure the best you can say for taking that long to return a wallet is that it puts to rest the concerns about when you should expect to see evidence of identity theft start popping up.

Of course, I'm an unrepentant curmudgeon. Perhaps my sense of an appropriate default setting for expressions of gratitude is lower than the general public's. Still, I think that's a sweeter response than I deserve for letting a guy's wallet sit on my desk for a few weeks before getting it back to him.

All that aside, it's refreshing to get a card in the mail from a stranger saying nice things.

Title - Artist

Wiggle It - 2 in a Room
Big Balls - AC/DC
My Same - Adele
Straight to Hell - Lily Allen
My Girls - Animal Collective
If I Were a Boy - Beyonce
Fiery Crash - Andrew Bird
The World Turned Upside Down - Billy Bragg
Longneck Bottle - Garth Brooks
Funky President (People It's Bad) - James Brown
It's a Man's Man's Man's World - James Brown
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
Save Me - Dave Matthews
Laundry Day - Dr. Horrible
Live and Let Die - Duffy
Dead on Arrival - Fall Out Boy
Right Round - Flo Rida
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa - Peter Gabriel and Hot Chip
Riding in My Car - Woody Guthrie
Football (It's the Sport of Kings) - Goldie Hawn and the Wildcats
How Do You Talk to an Angel? - The Heights
Mony, Mony - Billy Idol
Hot Tequila Brown - Jamiroquai
Rodeo Clowns - Jack Johnson
Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon
Just Dance - Lady Gaga
Seventeen - Ladytron
I'm On a Boat - The Lonely Island
Jizz in My Pants - The Lonely Island
Go-Getter Greg - Ludo
Dance Dance Dance - Lykke Li
Paper Planes - M.I.A.
My Old Man - Joni Mitchell
This Flight Tonight - Joni Mitchell
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik II. Romance - andante - Mozart
New Soul - Yael Naim
Take On Me - A.C. Newman
AC/DC Bag - Phish
Peter Theme - Prokofiev
Seventeen Years - Ratatat
Kelly's Hardware Store - Chris Rodriguez
More Than This - Roxy Music
Sugarking - Bob Schneider
Ring of Fire - Social Distortion
1969 - The Stooges
Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - U2
Magnificent - U2
Moment of Surrender - U2
Honey Bee - Stevie Ray Vaughan
Heartless - Kanye West
FreeCreditReport.com jingle
Spongebob Squarepants Theme