The Real Charlie

XM Fun

Back in college I was a DJ for three and a half years at the college radio station, a typical sort of 80s/90s "indie rock" sort of place, cool in a very self conscious, very elitist way. It was great fun and my main extracurricular activity, behind drinking beer of course. Since college I have steadily drifted into a sad sort of Rip Van Winkle-like state musically, listening to  mostly the same set of CDs that I owned a year after I graduated, not accessing many new bands much.

Getting XM two years ago (thanks to Abby, who wanted to spare herself listening to my reenactments of the idiocy on WEEI after my commute each evening) changed that, and now I actually get to hear some new music as well as some much older 60s and 70s rock, along with two stations full of the old school indie rock I love, plus another one full of great punk and hardcore from across the decades (that sounds like a K-Tel ad). I also love to play around jumping from station to station, playing at being a DJ again. I had a great moment of this on the way home Friday, switching from the final chords of "Day In The Life" by the Beatles on XM 46 to the opening chords of "Holiday In Cambodia" by the Dead Kennedys on XM 44 almost perfectly. Damn, I wish I had tried that with actual vinyl and a mixing board back in the day.

I have fun with my XM and Roxanne during our morning nursery school and work commutes. Lately she has been enjoying some jazz, and seems to favor Coltrane, Seriously. I did have one awkward moment when the radio went on as soon as I turned on the car to reveal "God Save The Queen" by the Sex Pistols. Anyone interested in explaining that song, and punk rock in general, to a nearly four year old is welcome to try.

Less I damage my no longer so indie cred too much, I will note that Roxanne reminds me to "check the markets" at a certain landmark in our commute (Boston area drivers: the big hill going into Newton on Route 9 eastbound), at which point in time we listen to four minutes of Bloomberg Radio. After I switch back to music Roxanne asks "how are the markets?" If I tell her that they "look good," she cheers. If I tell her they look bad (as I have a lot lately) she tells me "they'll be okay, Daddy, don't worry." What a kid.

XM Repetition

Just a short post to note that, for the second consecutive day, I heard Talking Heads on my to work and Talking Heads and The Smiths on my way home from work. Not that I'm complaining, mind, but sometimes the XM programming can get a bit stale. They play Talking Heads a lot, like a lot lot. Like, I haven't tuned in for weeks without hearing them.

When Our Own Strength Failed Us

A tough few days for Real Real Daddy. Roxanne has one of the many colds floating around the snot nosed American community (though not, thankfully, the nasty norovirus plaguing the City of Boston)  which always puts in her a terrible mood for days on end. She was barely civil during my parents' visit and gift giving fest yesterday and was worse, much worse today. We were all supposed to go to a party and I ended up staying home with Roxanne, who would have just fallen to pieces at a crowded house party. She was difficult but okay, then deteriorated once Abby got home and had both of us furious at her and each other during dinner. It is tough to be a parent. I do feel for her, though. It is hard to have a cold, it is hard to be a toddler and it is hard to be Roxanne.

But we are enjoying Hanukkah. We have lit four hanukkiot every night (Roxanne made one at nursery school, and delights in pointing out that it "burns out very, very quickly" as it uses birthday candles) and had a tasty dinner on Friday night with our friends David and Carla. Abby, it must be said, makes awesome latkes. Better than my mother. There, now I'm going to Jewish son hell. I am slowly learning the Hebrew of Maoz Tsur (Rock of Ages), as Roxanne is a fan. And Stella is fitting to crawl any day now, urged on by a seeming unbearable urge to grab and masticate the huge wooden dreidl from Roxanne's Hanukkah play set.

I've also been enjoying Radio Hanukkah on my XM. I heard a great discussion with musical selections about Jewish themed shows on Broadway today, some nice klezmer and cantorial music, lots of Israeli and holiday classics and not too much Adam Sandler. And Matisyahu did the brachot tonight, which was a hoot. Worth a listen, if Hanukkah is your thing.

Biodiesel, Behavior and the Barber

How's that for alliteration?

I should have posted on Friday night (I had class on Thursday night) but came home to a Category 5 tantrum that included Roxanne yelling that "daddy should leave" and "daddy should take away Shabbat." Daddy yelled at her instead, which didn't help, but eventually she calmed down. It was a draining start to the weekend, and to Shabbat. The next morning Roxanne and I set out for Tot Shabbat, but she had another tantrum (over her shoe being slightly askew) on the way there. Again, I lost my temper, but she got the message that this wasn't worth the hassle and chilled out. We ended up enjoying Tot Shabbat. She was pretty well behaved this morning, took a nap and woke up as an angel. Roxanne played with her baby sister, danced (she almost never dances) around to Afrobeat with daddy, plunked herself down unassisted on the potty for a poop and later, unsolicited, announced "I love my daddy." Phew.

MMWR has a piece on environmental contamination caused by biodiesel production. This is when hippies (and other people, I guess) make their own fuel from cooking grease. It apparently can cause huge fires and methamphetamine lab-style home contamination. Why can't these hippies stick to macrame, sourdough bread and what my friend from Berkeley's parents told her was "special lettuce for grownups that daddy grows in the attic" and leave the hydrocarbon distilling to Exxon?

Had another nice haircut at State Street Barbers today. Crazy pre-Thanksgiving rush and all, they were still gents and cleaned me up nice. If you are in Boston and haven't tried it out, guys, give it a whirl, and ask for Tom.

Everybody's talking 'bout the stormy weather/And what's a man do to but work out whether it's true?

I backed out of the garage this morning, turned the car around and headed down the driveway. I clicked the garage door shut. As I rolled towards the street I snapped my XM into the dashboard and turned it, but not the stereo on. Once I pulled in front of the house I stopped and waved to my girls in the front door - Roxanne mugging and waving, Abby smiling her little grin, Stella in her arms looking solemn, probably thinking about spitting up. I pulled away from my house and pressed the stereo on. I didn't look at the XM first. I heard the second note and I knew that I had just tuned in exactly in time to hear Teenage Riot by Sonic Youth in its entirety.

Daydream Nation came out in 1988, I must have bought it within a year of then, probably for my seventeenth birthday. For a long time I couldn't get past the first song. The lyrics were strange, elusive, buried amidst the swirl of guitars, the tapping of the drumsticks. For me it was the first song that I had ever listened to and heard more than just the lyrics. I heard the music, and I was just undone by it. To me it spoke of creativity and wildness and freedom and opportunity that I still very much feared then, and wouldn't really begin know until I left my closed town in Connecticut and went to college, and didn't know fully until I moved to Boston when I was 24.

Seventeen yeears later it still takes my breath away, and its cryptic, hidden lyrcial and musical language of youth and noise have a certain poignance for this man, closer to forty than to seventeen, driving away from his wife and little girls and house in the suburbs on the hotest, most humid day of the summer.

The thunderstorms are rolling through now, sweeping some of the heat and humidity and smog away.