Song of the Day (9/14/06)

Beautiful weather today, much improved from the cold-dark-and-wet-front that came through yesterday and had me thinking I was in the Pacific Northwest.

There are few things more enjoyable on a bright, sunny day like today than driving up the down U.S. 74, finding a good song on the iPod, and cranking the volume up so loud that I can see the window of my trunk vibrating as I glance in my rearview mirror.

Such was the case this evening after the Shelby Police Recruitment presentation held at the city council chambers.

And what was shaking my car to pieces?

Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)



Yeah, good stuff. Definately worth repeating a time or two.

This is one of those songs I wouldn't recommend listening to in the car. It's liable to cause excessive speeding.

Song of the Day (9/11/06)

Sting - Fragile (1988)

Performed Sept. 11, 2001 at his Tuscan villa for the DVD release ...All This Time.

Song of the Day (9/10/06)

U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name (1987)

It was January 2000. I was back in Tempe, Az. after a relaxing and freezing Christmas break in Alaska and was set to begin my second semester of college at Arizona State University.

I walk into my early morning Media & Society class that first day back and sit down in the 200-seat auditorium.

Class begins and, rather than saying hello and introducing himself, the professor quietly walks over to his multi-media equipment and pushes a button.

On the projection screen behind him, it reads:

Sun Devil Stadium

Tempe, Arizona

The words fade to black and are followed by this:

(You'll have to excuse the subtitles. This was the best I could find.)



I remember hearing absolute silence from the class as they were fixated on the performance. Maybe they weren't U2 fans per say. Maybe the group of mostly freshmen were just taken back that a concert of such a grand scale took place on their very own campus 12 years and 1 month beforehand (the 12/20/87 concert in front of a packed house of around 70,000 was the closing show of the band's Joshua Tree tour).

The song ended, the lights came back on, and the professor - certain that he had our full attention - introduced himself.

I would later learn the performance came from the band's 1988 concert film Rattle & Hum.

I liked U2 long before that day and the Joshua Tree album was already in my CD collection. But I think watching that performance that morning is what set me on the path to regard the band as one of my all-time favorite acts.

The Battle of the 80s Cartoons

Elvis or the Beatles?

The eternal question. You can like Elvis and you can like the Beatles but you can't like each one the same. You have to prefer one over the other. And that answer determines what kind of person you are.

If you're a child of the 80s, like myself, you know there were really only two cartoons to choose from if you were a boy - GI Joe or the Transformers. Sure, you could like both. But there was one you liked more than the other.

Recently, Managing Editor Alan Jenkins went on a tirade about how cool the Transformers were. And when I argued GI Joe were so much better, he scoffed. Yes, he scoffed.

So the debate begins. Which was the better cartoon?





Well, they both had movies and they both had every possible piece of merchandise you can imagine.

But c'mon. The Transformers' acting was stiffer than that Hayden Christensen guy from Star Wars. And a giant robot that can turn into a giant gun? Cheating much? Why don't I just turn myself into a giant nuclear bomb and wipe out Megatron myself?

GI Joe had Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, the two characters that made being a ninja the coolest thing in the world. And GI Joe represented every ethnic group and nationality. Where was the equal opportunity employment over at the Transformers, huh? I don't remember seeing any Hispanic robots.

And where were the giant robot public service announcements? I don't remember seeing those either. But GI Joe cared enough about the kids to teach them important lessons after every episode - like not to touch powerlines and not to go swimming during a thunderstorm.

So ... what's the verdict?