He cancelled on me! zomg!

Well, not really cancelled so much as rainchecked, and for reasons that, if he weren't an Internet Stranger, I would 100% commiserate with, having been in the same situation. HOWEVER. He is an Internet Stranger, and this makes it more likely that Valid Reason is a total cover lie for "my third wife went into premature labor with our second child, and I have to be there or else she'll re-initiate divorce proceedings and I can't afford to lose all my hedge fund millions." Something like that.

Although, really really oddly, I am not upset, depressed, freaked or otherwise in high dudgeon about this. Which I normally am/would be. I choose to attribute this to my newly adopted philosophy of beaucoup des poissons sur la mer, and I successfully managed not to (psychotically, or as per usual) put all my eggs in this one basket. Or any eggs, really. All my eggs are in the henhouse and I've got a lovely basket collection going. Or. . .something. LIKE WHAT NORMAL BEHAVIOR SHOULD BE LIKE, OMG.

Also, this meant that I got to spend almost all weekend lazing about my new, wonderful apartment. I'm such a homebody, and I hadn't gotten around to that yet! And I downloaded about a dozen songs from iTunes and it's sunny and just in general a fab day. Except for the headache from the teeth grinding ow.

I've really got to get up and shower sometime soon, because it's off to mom's birthday. . .linner? sunch? What do you call a lunch/dinner/supper meal? That. I'm going to that.

I can't find my deodorant. I made a big point of putting that in the Target bag with all my toiletries on the day I moved. Yet, it is not in the apartment as far as I can see.

Having an apartment with a washer/dryer and a dishwasher and having them both running at once, creating a beautiful harmony of sloshy warm water, is really the ultimate luxury.

Where is my tivo remote? The commercials on Law & Order are loud.

I saw Peeps today at Ralphs, and I thought of lawgeekgurl, as I always do when I see Peeps.

I am so tired. I have to break down all these boxes, but I haven't done that and they're just sitting outside my door because I'm afraid the boxes have evil Public Storage bugs in them.

I saw a commercial for some music service on demand on your tv or something, and there was this girl singing and playing a piano and I was all, hey, I like that song, so I totally looked her up and she's a real person and then when I was at Target on Sunday (where I did NOT buy deodorant because I was SURE I had packed it) I totally bought her cd and turns out she's awesome, everyone go watch this Sara Bareilles video for "Love Song" because she is SO AWESOME and like a female Guster except like Billy Joel too except better because she's a girl. And I can't believe I bought a CD from a commercial, just like how advertising is supposed to work.

so tired. how do I have so much stuff? Why did I pack it all so carefully? In so very many boxes?

Sorry, the revelation is still forthcoming.

Oh, man. First of all, I need to make two things clear: I don't like mariachi music and I hate reggaeton. Well, also relevant is that I usually hate anyone's random side music projects. So it's completely bizarre that I love these pro-Obama fanvids:


"Como se dice? Como se llama? Obama!" is pretty darn catchy. Both are products of www.amigosdeobama.com, I think. I don't say this enough: I love living in the Southwest. I know, I know, Los Angeles, but still. Outside of Lohan and Britney's haunts, it's more Southwest than you'd think.

And once again, I am torn between being depressed or proud that I have no problem with the Spanish in these videos (the Spanish that I basically picked up off the street and random articles about Lucha Libre), but if it had been in French (the language I studied for like, six years and I even lived in France, people) I would have a headache right now from the mental translation gymnastics.

Embarrassing awesome but true fact:

I have had a crush on Tom Petty since I was, like, eight. V. sexy.

(And that video where they were eating pieces of Cake Alice In Wonderland? It was all intensely Freudian/gothic/whatever for this elementary-school Alice/Tom fan. I think I can trace the origins to that.)

ETA: Yup. Totes sexay.

So. . .I don't know what this is about. I know what it is: a video of a speech by Barack Obama overlaid by video of musicians and actors turning the speech into a song. It's very high quality. It's got a wide rage of stars (ScarJo, will.i.am (NOT Wyclef, whoops, on second viewing), John Legend, Chase from House, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and more).



I just. . .can't find any further information on it than that. It appears to be made by someone called Mr. Dippy, who has a myspace that points to the website where this song can be found in higher quality: dipdive.com, or yeswecansong.com. A perfunctory search on Obama's site had nothing on this video, and YouTube isn't helpful, either. It's just weird, because as cool a campaign as as this is--how is there no information about it anywhere? Is it going to run on TV? Is it someone's idea of what "viral video" means? Did Obama even know this was going on? How did they get Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

So, so many questions.

ETA: Ohhhhh. Here's a bit on the ABC political blog that explains it. It appears that, in typical disorganized musician fashion, there was no coordination with the Obama campaign, which is too bad, as this would have been a great ad to run during the Superbowl.

It's the day after Thanksgiving--that means it's officially the start of the Christmas season! And though I feel about as Christmassy (ha) as I would in April, that's no excuse to flake out on my annual Christmas mix. (This is actually only the second; "annual" makes it sound super-longstanding or somesuch.)



( Tracklisting under the cut )

Click here for a YouSendIt (Wow! Almost all the YSI bandwidth was used up in an hour!) SendSpace link to the mp3s and CD insert (yeah, I made a CD insert, too! Woot! Or, conversely, I am so pathetic)! I suppose I should have added a "II" to the cover, but. . .oh well. Last year had the kitten; that's how you can tell them apart. Because kittens always come first! or something.

Anyway, I hope you really enjoy it. I love Christmas music, and these have been fun to put together. Two years and 30+ tracks and I still haven't had a chance to include some of my very favorite Christmas tunes!

Haven't been posting lately. No particular reason except. . .I don't want to share my thoughts! I am afraid that if I share my thoughts with LJ, I won't have any left for me. This is, in a way, progress. I'm on week two of The Artist's Way, and I'm being nearly bombarded with ideas of things to write, and the fact that I don't want to do the easy thing and blurt them all out (unecessary and sometimes inappropriate) on my online journal, but save them for me, for future development, is progress.

(Oh, one of the things about TAW is that you let go of your inner editor. This has been mostly a boon, but sometimes you end up with gnarly run-on sentences like the one above. This is all about making my expression more authentic--a descriptor I stole from someone else.)

So, here are a few things in brief:

Listening to:

KT Tunstall: Drastic Fantastic. I wish I were 14 again, so I could put up this totally rockin album cover poster on my wall and fantasize about being her when I grow up. I heard the last album was mostly slow, with the folky Black Horse & Cherry Tree being the peppiest, but Drastic Fantastic is fabulous and rocky and fun. Here's the video for it.

Ingrid Michaelson: Girls and Boys. She sings the very catchy song in that hideous Old Navy commercial for their even hideouser fair isle sweaters. Do not let this deter you. She also has a totally cute Lisa Loeb vibe going on, which is a big plus if you have an ever-growing desperate nostalgia for the 90s, like I do. Live Carson Daly performance free of hugely ugly sweatshop winterwear.

The Decemberists: Her Majesty. This album has "Los Angeles, I'm Yours", the song from whence my subject derives. I listen to this song whenever I'm thinking about L.A., and it might be my favorite song about my hometown yet. It's a good song. Here's the video.

Reading:

The Artist's Way. Still. It's good. I'd recommend.

A lot of embroidery books. Which brings us to:</ul>

Project TK:

I have a hobby! This is a big deal because I haven't had a hobby possibly since I went to college (I don't consider surfing the net a hobby, really). And now I do:
(click to super-size)

embroidery! Yes, I have taken up the still-forgotten needlepoint craft. Perhaps there will be a resurgence! I'm still working on my first practice patterns, which I do think are pretty alright for someone who's following her own hand-traced pattern and who has never embroidered before (but I am a former cross-stitcher, so I know my way around a needle). I'm excited! And it's weird to be excited about something, it's been a while.

TAW requires three pages of writing every morning, and so far I've stuck to that. I have not. . .done the exercises required for the first week, but. . .baby steps. Baby steps.

I've been to the gym twice this week! Which is 100% more gym-going than in the last five months. I used to go every day. I am flabbia, queen of the jiggles. </ul>

I leave you with what I'm sure will be my new hobby, once I get my camera taking sharp photos consistently again: a lolcat of my very own (in that the cat resides with me).

I wasn't going to write this post because it seems like all I'm doing lately is complaining. But I really should take advantage of the muse when she strikes (even if she's stricken me with multiple ailments, and possibly also a large blunt object).

First, something up-tempo: I am going to see the Spice Girls in Vegas this December! Awww, yeah, whose house? RUN'S HOUSE! I was awakened this morning by a text message from my friend Tom in Chicago saying he got a code, and was I in? OF COURSE. As Kristi said, "nothing says Christmas like the Spice Girls in Vegas." This is how it is: at 9:32 am you are only vaguely aware that the Spice Girls are reuniting, perhaps for only one show in London, like Led Zeppelin, and at 9:37 am you have an entire weekend itinerary of buffets and shopping.

Alright. Now onto a slow number: I may not see this show if I DIE beforehand. While doing the final apartment load-out on Sunday, I had allergies so bad that I could not fall asleep, because I would start breathing through my nose, at which point terrible burning and shockingly loud, barking sneezes would occur. THEN my thumb is still hurting in that place where I tore my tendon 20 years ago (OH GOD OLDSAUCE), except now the pain is sort of radiating outward, across the hand and up to my elbow. And it is a vibrating, thrummy pain. It's more of a challenge to breathe than it should be. Additionally, everything else aches generally, like when you have the flu, except I don't have the flu. And I am starving, but do not want to eat anything. And my legs and feet feel sort of numb and weak. And I have a pimple on my leg.

LEG PIMPLE.

So what I'm saying is, all my aerobic activity in my toxic mold apartment has given me rapid onset arthritis, asthma and muscular dystrophy. And possibly lupus. So I might not make it to Vegas.

Ahahahaha. I saw Van Halen tonight. The David Lee Roth Van Halen, live at the Forum. Who am I? I don't even know!

Anyway, I didn't pack at all today. I slept. And then I woke up, had breakfast, thought about packing, and then decided that packing and Van Halen weren't both going to get done on the same day, and as I'd already promised my ex-coworkers that I'd attend (because it was sort of a work function, a rehearsal show pre-tour), I hit play on my NPR podcasts and dozed until I absolutely had to roll out the door at 7:00.

Oh, I haaaad to see Van Halen. Poor me. Truly, though, I was dubious about it. But no one had told me that DLR was, as my friend said, a frustrated Broadway aspirant. He would have looked very much at home playing Javert or the lead in The Music Man. And EVH does this thing with his guitar where it sounds like a violin, so. . .that's cool.

Anyway. Tomorrow I have this appointment with a job placement agent, and I don't want to go. I don't want to go because I don't want to go to work again so soon. So. . .whoops. Shouldn't have made that appointment two weeks ago.

I'm debating calling her tomorrow morning to cancel, so I don't waste her time, but I don't know if it's more of a waste of her time that I made an appointment that I'd cancel with one hour of notice. Ahh, I guess I'll go. And then I have to pack. Which I doooo not waaaaant.

I changed around my blog's layout again. I don't know why; who even reads blogs at the source URL anymore, these days? Everyone's got an RSS reader.

Which is kinda miff-worthy, since I went to the trouble of creating a "Now reading & playing" list in my sidebar. It lists. . .books and music I am currently enjoying (or not enjoying, I guess, if it's something I've picked out for the first time that happens to suck). No one will knoooow! I must share this me-trivia!

Ah, well. Maybe I'll share it in a post a week, or something. However, amazon-linking is really annoying in LJ, and I don't feel like doing it twice, so you won't get the fancy links and pictures I've set up on the, er, homepage. As it were.

Reading:
A Year In the Merde
Thursday Next
The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Percy Bysshe Shelly: The Major Works

Playing:
Hem - Home Again, Home Again
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Old 97s - Satellite Rides

I don't know why I included artists for the albums and not authors for the books. I'm wild that way.

I didn't do anything important today, like pack or pay my car registration. I went to the library, Petco, Starbucks and Box Brothers. Oh, and the bank. This is my present to me for quitting.

Oh - and how lucky was I; there's a California Poppy layout and a CA poppy was already my default user icon! Eureka, indeed. California is the Awesome State.

On the occasion of his 40th birthday, posthumously, I'd like to celebrate Kurt Cobain thusly:

You know what's not cool anymore? Bands. I know, now I'm offically an old person, because every old person has said that since Elvis went up against the Beatles, but the successful convergence of music and marketing has made it increasingly true. Except for how I don't really like Elvis in an all-encompassing way. Anyway. Here's the thing about music in the 90s:

Kurt Cobain was in Nirvana, which completely changed the direction of music (whatever, it didn't change the world, that's not what I'm saying, it changed what you heard on your radio. Stop calling me dramatic. It did. It was part of a greater trend, but can you reliably count on hearing the Lemonheads every day on the rock station? No? Okay. Moving on.)

Kurt got involved with Courtney Love, and then wrote the majority of the songs for the album that introduced Riot Grrl (I know) to the mainstream (and I know), "Live Through This." (He totally wrote them. Come on, now.)

Billy Corgan started up the Smashing Pumpkins with D'Arcy Wretzky (who was, by the way, a chick who played bass).

Kurt killed himself, and his drummer, Dave Grohl, started up the Foo Fighters.



Courtney. . .was off and on a mess, starred in a movie, was on the cover of Vanity Fair and then hooked up with Billy. Billy then wrote most of the songs (he's actually credited, so don't even) for Hole's next album, Celebrity Skin.

How old are you? Here's how old: If Kurt Cobain hadn't killed himself, he would be 40 today.

Forty years old. And if that makes you feel old, well. . .you are. Hope they have Siamese Dream in the nursing home for everybody.

Okay, okay. So I finally downloaded some Regina Spektor and I like it, alright? You all, everyone, you were right. However, I wish I'd read one thing on Lily Allen before I'd purchased her CD (through iTunes), because it's all reggae-influenced and. . .ick. And sugared up? More ick. Which is too bad, because I like her lyrics.

Yesterday I had food poisoning. And a 100.5 fever for about 18 hours. I've. . .never had food poisoning before. It was pretty awful. At one point, the stabbing pains had me (and my mom) convinced my spleen had ruptured. I tried to take a shower today and I had to step out three times because I thought I was going to pass out from lightheadedness and inability to breathe. And I'd like to be officially done with being sick now, thanks.

And last night I had this dream where everything in my apartment was stolen. Except a hallway rug. And the bookcase I hate.

I am sort of tickled that among the (less than 10) people I know who cared and wanted to discuss the Grammy awards today, the first topic of discussion among them all was "did you see Dan Wilson win a Grammy?" In fact, I even got a text last night to that effect, as he was standing up there with the Dixie Chicks. The reason we all remarked on this was manifold:

* Dan Wilson is still working?
* Aww, Dan Wilson is still working!
* Dan Wilson is writing for the Dixie Chicks?
* How did I not totally hear him all over that song?
* How is this the first time I'm hearing about it?
* How annoyed is Jake Slichter by this development?
* I am surprised to still have such a reserve of latent goodwill toward Dan Wilson!

As you can see, no one is surprised that Dan had the talent to win a Grammy, it's just. . .it seemed Least Likely to Happen, at this point. The world is filled with more Semisonic fans than I thought.

I guess this counts as a real post for today, but I didn't think I was going to make it because I'm sort of busy at work (having been out for jury duty the last four days) and all snotty and fuzzy and gross from the flu. In the event I didn't make it, I was going to post this, and only forgottenbelief and moony would have known it was cheating. But it's still very true:

About the Oscars. . .I don't feel bad at all about saying they can get back to me when they start nominating films that people have actually heard of, forget about seen.

Letters from Iwo Jima? I have ONLY heard about that movie in relation to how it's nominated for BEST PICTURE. And I live in Los Angeles! Come on, people. This is dangeously close to Clint actually, literally, videotaping Ryan Phillippe reading the phone book and posting it on his MySpace (DirtyHarry4eva) and walking home with a little gold man (after being up against four Martin Scorsese movies, one about a single mother with AIDS who exposes the government's lies, another about a gay slave uprising in the 1700s, the third about mentally challegenged survivors of the Holocaust who aligned with the mafia and the last just two straight hours of Mother Teresa healing kittens and puppies).

So I was going to say some more things about the Grammy Awards, but not many. Wait, I guess I can say them very briefly, so I will:

* Justin Timberlake, that trick was done better (and more theme-appropriately) by Bono as The Fly on the ZooTV tour. You just look like you're trying to figure out how to do a videoblog.

* Natalie Maines, I am not one to poo-poo grandstanding at major awards shows. And I like your music a lot. And I loved what you wore to perform! And I agree with you on many things. And unlike lots of other people, I do believe that the moment you have an international audience is precisely the moment to spout off about your pet issue. However. . .is it really the time, ever, when you are over the age of eight, to go to a Nelson place in a public forum? Just. . .think about that. Get back to me at your lesiure.

I sort of can't believe I got this done, but here it is: the first in an (I hope) annual Christmas music series. With artwork! Click here to download a .zip file.



( Tracklisting )

Happy Holidays!


(If you got a hard copy CD from me, this is the same thing--no need to download this ginormous file.)

I should not have slept really late today and then had four cups of coffee starting around 8 p.m. 20+ years of drinking the sweet tar of the gods has rendered me a little insensate to it, so it's not so much that I can't go to sleep as that I just don't want to. I think after this post I'll try.

Can you still only post once a day or whatever? I guess it's the 2nd, now, so I won't find out. I'm curious to know what kind of finger-wag you get for trying, though.

. . .

Okay, so I have lived in perpetual fear of the internets this week, that I would accidentally come across explicit screencaps from Screech's NSFW video. Gripped with fear, people. I could completely envision myself happily scrolling through livejournal, or cnn.com, or what have you, and coming across the nightmare in all its grainy video realism. I haven't yet. But I did have a dream that I did, last night. And in my dream, I screamed in anguish. I'm really worried that the internet will foist this on me. Can we let this not be a story next week?

. . .

I saw The Black Dahlia this weekend pretty much just because I wanted to see a movie, and there really wasn't a movie I wanted to see in theaters, so Dahlia seemed as good a bet as any. I didn't really hate it, probably because I had such low expectations, but what made the experience for me was sitting next to two girls who were just like those chicks on Best Week Ever who do the segment, "Movies for People Who Like To Yell At the Movies." Yes, my seatmates, there is "sumthin WRONG!" with that family.

. . .

Okay, Brandon Flowers and The Killers and I have something of an on-again, off-again relationship. Back before Hot Fuss was more than an overseas sensation, I hated BF because he was involved in a feud with. . .well, I don't remember who, now. Brandon Davis or The Used or some other. . .band. Anyway, I hated him then for bothering to be in a feud before he was famous. I just feel like there are rules for these sorts of things. Then I heard Mr. Brightside and was sort of fascinated by the shifting POVs and the murder and figuring all that out. Enough fascinated that I stopped hating him. Then I heard Mr. Brightside the, like, 9388947983274th time, and the hate was back on. Then I saw him perform with U2 in Vegas last year and was impressed enough with the knee-length, powder blue velour jacket that he sported--and his singing ability, once not passed through a megaphone--that I was okay with him again. Then they kept playing Mr. Brightside on the radio, and that sort of wore off, but only to mild annoyance. Then they dropped Mr. Brightside so they could fit the new Killers single into the playlist, and I sort of liked the new Killers single at first, then really liked it, and liked it even more than that when I realized I was about the only one who liked it, so it was unlikely that I'd hear it as many times as Mr. Brightside. And then I saw their performance on SNL last weekend:




I don't even know what to say about. . .that. Mostly because I won't say anything good about it. He looks like Rivers Cuomo in fifteen years. And not only is that bad because 1) Rivers Cuomo; 2) BF is in New Wave-Glam band The Killers, not some cheeky alt-rock setup; 3) Rivers plus fifteen, but 4) it just makes me think of creepy asian barely-legal fetishists. Not Bruce Springsteen, like everyone in the world demands of me.

So. . .what was that about, Brandon Flowers? I finally understand that the entire community of journalists is calling Sam's Town Springsteen-esque because you have told them he is your idol, and not because it's actually somehow true, but: when did The Boss look like a Hee Haw extra? This is not okay. I think your jeans are even tucked into your boots, there.

Plus (and now I'm just getting nitpicky), the whole band is rocking different looks. There's that guy on the left who looks like he's in AC/DC, and the drummer is moonlighting for CSNY, and your bassist--I thought Soul Asylum got back together? And then you in the middle, looking for all the world like a pervy middle school vice principal. Springsteen can be your idol, but you sound like David Bowie, and I really would appreciate one instance less of cognitive dissonance in my life if you could start dressing like him, too.

I forgot about one really quick hate/not hate with The Killers. I happened to pop in U2's first album, Boy, and realized how much Hot Fuss sounded exactly like it, and I became annoyed, not for the ripping-off of U2 in particular, but the trend of ripping off the 80s in general. And then I liked that, because no one ever so openly rips off U2, and I like U2, so I noted the good taste involved in the decision.

I think I have found my people. I was just wondering this afternoon why Gawker didn't do a pop music blog, or a rock blog, when they have print media, Hollywood and politics covered. Turns out, they do one called idolator, I just hadn't found it yet. I am already in love with the way they cover music in a way that isn't completely divorced from popular culture, like so many other music blogs can do.

Which is funny for me to say, because really, I don't like a lot of music on the radio (although I like listening to the radio, just in general, as a live performance medium. The same way I'd rather watch CNN than a DVD, because the DVD isn't happening right now), either. Here's what it is, really: I don't like indie garage and I don't like electro/techno/house/trance/breakbeat/Pharrell/is it still y2k/why isn't this trend over yet. Those are the two types of music you can like and be cool. Maybe sometimes you can like really alt country, like Neko Case or Jenny Lewis or Drive-By Truckers, but only if it is your cultivated persona and you do not also enjoy Kelly Willis or The Jayhawks. I'm not even really sure how that happens, but it does, I've seen it occur in print.

(You know, maybe I'd know how that happens, how someone grows up to have a CD collection where Yo La Tengo is the most widely-known artist, but when I'm reading an article and come to the fifth completely unfamiliar artist/album combination by the second paragraph, I stop reading. Look, there is a place for you to go on at length about how this one album by a supergroup of local Silverlake stars that was released on an imprint of an imprint of a label that's produced by some guy in his parents' garage is the most earth-shattering recording ever put to ear, but a feature spread in the L.A. Weekly is not the place for that. It is not relevant, it is not news, much in the way what Chuck Henry reports on the Channel 4 News at 11 is not news, but "color." That sort of acting out just makes me angry. There are lots of good bands, great bands, that no one has ever heard of, but unless the title of your piece is "all the great bands I can name that no one has ever heard of," there is no excuse for not including something that charted, somewhere, once. Movie people do not do this. Movie people like random unfamiliar crap and big blockbuster extravaganzas, and they wear that badge with pride. Why are music fans so much more insuffrable than movie fans, when people who actually work to bring movies to the screen are reprehensible human beings, and music industry cogs are generally good folks? Is it the drugs? Movie fans do not do anywhere near the amounts of coke that film industry professionals do. Music industry cogs probably do more pot. Since I would not advocate drug use, I must simply ask that the editors of Pitchfork work harder at being better people. Thank you for your patience during this parenthetical, wherein several mysteries of life were solved.)

So anyway, there's not a whole lot of sanctuary offered for you if you're maybe sometimes into The Killers but you absolutely cannot stand Rhianna. More than likely, you know better than to mention Dar Williams release dates around the friends who are eagerly discussing the U2/Green Day knockout collabo with you. If you hate Justin Timberlake but feel the whys and wherefores of that hatred are worth discussing. Better than Ezra and Sleater-Kinney (R.I.P.) do not mix. Always on the outside, looking in. Very Imitation of Life.

I can already sense Idolator will bring all this to me and more.

For the last month I've been taking singing lessons (and anyone in the L.A. area, if you're interested, I can recommend a great teacher) for the sole purpose of working up my karaoke stamina. I'm under no pretense of becoming the next grande dame of song; I just want to be able to make my way through my regulars ("Total Eclipse of the Heart," "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?," "Foolish Games," etc.) without sounding like a bee-stung asthmatic* by the end of the night. I love karaoke. Also, I love singing and music period, and after years of putting off singing lessons because it was a fun thing that would serve no real purpose, I said, what the heck.

Anyway, so each week I pick a new song to work on during the lesson and things had been going well enough that this weekend I decided to tackle the song even I'd never dared at karaoke--Heart's "Alone." And I think I sound like a dying monster, but my teacher keeps telling me that it's not my pitch that's the problem, it's my power, that I'm hitting the right notes with not enough force. So that was confidence-boosting. Instead of crawling under the couch, begging me to close my mouth and thus the portal to hell, we just did a lot of work on my mad crazy natural vibrato (getting rid of it, that is).

So that's great, right? I mean, I have yet to sing in front of anyone else, but it can't be all THAT bad. However! I'm now out of song ideas for next week! Thus far, I've been picking songs sort of based on various problem areas I wanted to work on, but I'm no master vocalist, and I've sort of exhausted the major, obvious problem areas with these past choices:

• "Breathe," Michelle Branch - singing, period
  
• "Since U Been Gone," Kelly Clarkson - finding full voice without killing my throat
  
• "Won't Be Home," Old 97s - singing a low, boy's-voice song
  
• "Alone" - hitting the high note

I throw it to the peeps--can you suggest a song for next week? I'm not saying, here, that I've perfected my technique--far from it; I just don't know what other things there are to work on and what songs might help me work on that. Like, I could pick another song that I just like, or a song that will make me a Karaoke Idol, but maybe it already covers all the stuff the other songs covered and then why am I paying for a new lesson, just to go over old stuff?

Sooooooo. . .poll! I've included some songs I love that are still giving me a little trouble, for reasons I can't define, but maybe nothing I couldn't overcome myself if I kept at it.

Whoops. lawgeekgurl is right; I conflated "867-5309 (Jenny)" and "Jesse's Girl." Because I meant both songs, in my head. Anyway, use that selection to vote for either one.

Poll #794269 Karaoke Kwestions
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What song should Fraise Fraise practice this week?

None of these! Here's what you should sing:

Just for fun (and evil): my favorite song to karaoke is:

*sucks to my ass-mar

How many Nickelback singles have there been, and how is it possible that a radio station can play more than 60 minutes of them in one hour?

Whoops, almost forgot about this one.

I've thought so much about suicide
Parts of me have already died.

- "Lonely Holiday," Old 97s (from the album Fight Songs)

NB: LOTW does not represent my state of mind at time of posting. Just a line or two that I've always enjoyed, for whatever reason. Novel turn of phrase, what have you.