Filed under: Uncategorized
The Pop Chart commenceth in about fifteen minutes here.
The station is approximately 4200 degrees, and it’s all very eerie because we’re moving to a different building soon. The CDs are all packed away in boxes and there’s lots of weird ephemera just piled all over the place.
Today on the Pop Chart I’ll be looking at some of my favorite Australian pop hits of the 80′s. While researching it, I came across this much older song by Laurel Lee (or maybe Laurel Lea?) She was a regular on the Australian program Bandstand, but didn’t really ever have any chart hits. I guess it was a hit first for American singer Diane Ray, although Skeeter Davis also recorded a version.
The Pop Chart starts at 5 EDT on bsrlive.com
A while ago I mentioned that I was taking part in a summer reading program for the Providence chapter of Books Through Bars. For every book I read between now and Labor Day, money will be raised to pay shipping costs to send books to people in prison. There’s over 2 million people currently in American prisons, and a lot of them don’t have any access to books, despite the fact that education is basically the only proven method to keep people out of jail.
Visit the website to sponsor me, or anyone else for that matter. You might be more interested in supporting someone with fewer sponsors, or someone who reads a lot more than me, or the person you think is the cutest, or whatever. But if you’re going to have a few extra dollars laying around in September, you should definitely consider sending them that way. So far donations range from 25 cents to 10 dollars per book, so feel free to donate whatever you want to (or can).
So far I’ve only read two books, which is totally lame, but I’ll try to do better in August, I promise.
Funny I should have just admitted to buying a John Mellencamp album, because fifteen years ago this week he topped my weekly singles chart. I had a weekly countdown (in notebook form) from fall of 1993 (aged 12) to summer of 1997 (aged 16) and it’s kind of hilarious reflecting on what I used to like. At the same time it’s also kind of amazing how all over the place my listening habits were. I only listened to commercial radio at this point–with the exception of the Milla Jovovich number at #13, which I doubt got any airplay–but listened to every station just about equally. There’s kind of an alarming number of cheesy slow jams on here, though, of all varieties: cheesy R&B (Gerald LeVert), cheesy country (Garth Brooks), cheesy adult contemporary (Elton John) and cheesy alternative (Counting Crows).
40. Stone Temple Pilots, Big Empty (DEBUT)
39. Gerald LeVert, I’d Give Anything (DEBUT)
38. M People, Movin’ On Up (24)
37. Collective Soul, Shine (25)
36. Soundgarden, Black Home Sun (37)
35. Jon Secada, If You Go (28)
34. Tony Bennett, Steppin’ Out With My Baby (35)
33. Green Day, Basket Case (36)
32. Tevin Campbell, Always In My Heart (27)
31. Aaron Neville and Trisha Yearwood, I Fall To Pieces (34)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: books, brothels, eastern europe, fart party, local, olympians, paula fox, premature ejaculation, prostitution, radiohead, romance writers, sausages, tony comstock
New Zealand athlete Logan Campbell has decided to pay for his Olympic taekwondo training by opening a brothel. (Prostitution has been legal in New Zealand for the past six years.)
Back in April, Intelligence Squared hosted a debate on the morality of prostitution, which escaped my radar until a friend forwarded me this link to Tyler Cowen’s presentation. The dormant NPR enthusiast in me is kind of excited about this series.
The book tour for Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life Love Money and Sex kicks off in San Francisco tonight and heads to New York late next week.
Asking where you like to hide your sausage is apparently too risque for UK radio.
Lynn Harris reviews some new books about sex for the Washington Post. I already had Jessica Valenti’s The Purity Myth on my to-read list, actually, but the blurb about Victor Malarek’s The Johns sounds so over the top that I actually kind of want to read it.
Carnal Nation reports on Eastern European migrant sex workers.
Tony Comstock’s rants about the porn industry are always lengthy, but also entertaining and educational.
Despite making up an enormous chunk of an unstable market, romance writers could still use a self-esteem boost.
What’s not to love about premature ejaculation?
This is pretty much my life every time I step away from the computer.
These sixty ladies wish they were special.
Melanie Rehak, author of an interesting book about the business behind Nancy Drew, presents her list of overlooked classics you might want to add to your summer reading list. Once again, I’m left wondering what it is exactly that people like about Paula Fox. Aside from the fact that she’s Courtney Love’s grandmother, she’s totally snoozy. Including Desperate Characters, which everyone seems to love for some reason. Or maybe I’m just bitter because she wrote the single worst book I had to read in elementary school.
Trendily calling things local is the new trendily calling things green.
Mondo Rock, “Chemistry.” Live on Countdown.
This is actually pretty amazing, in its amazingness.
Filed under: money (lack of), music, personal | Tags: cd shopping, keri hilson
I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment (again) this morning, and my downstairs neighbor with the spare key was out at a doctor’s appointment. To kill some time until she got back , I went to Whole Foods and then stumbled into FYE, tempted by their “All CDs Now $9.99 or less” sign. I’m pretty sure I’ve never once bought a CD at FYE because they’ve always been ridiculously expensive, but $9.99 or less had a nice ring to it.
I ended up spending a lot of money I don’t actually have, though I did pick up a lot of pop albums I’ve been too embarrassed or broke to buy elsewhere. I got the new Kelly Clarkson, the Taylor Swift album, the Metro Station CD that I got for free when it came out but then gave away because the wonderful amazingness that is Seventeen Forever hadn’t quite struck me yet, and Keri Hilson’s In A Perfect World. I also got some discounted oldies: John Cougar Mellencamp’s Uh-Huh and PJ Harvey’s Peel Sessions, as well as Freestyle’s Greatest Hits Volume 1, which for some reason I didn’t own already.
So far I’ve only listened to the Mellencamp (it’s good!), the Metro Station (parts of it are really good!) and the Keri Hilson, which is kind of a letdown. The album version of Return The Favor is missing the chorus that’s in the single, for one thing, and I can’t imagine why. Also that song has a minute-long fadeout on the CD, and it’s track 4. That’s something that should be saved for the last song, or at least the song that would end Side A on the record. Also, In A Perfect World has at least one too many songs about how Miss Keri only wants to talk to dudes with money. As someone heavily feeling the economic downturn, this isn’t what I want to listen to. It just isn’t. And current single Knock You Down, though it’s grown on me considerably over the last two weeks, still has 30-45 seconds too much of Kanye West.
Today, July 22nd, marks the the feast of Mary Magdalene in the Catholic Church. For about fourteen centuries, the Church identified Jesus’s closest female companion as a reformed prostitute, though in 1969 the church changed its mind and quietly admitted that the claim wasn’t actually based on anything written in the Bible.
Culturally the image of Magdalene as a loose woman lingers, though. From Jesus Christ Superstar to the Last Temptation of Christ to Hal Hartley’s awkward Apple ad The Book Of Life, she’s portrayed sexually. She’s been portrayed in film by Monica Bellucci, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Yvonne Elliman and PJ Harvey. Harvey’s aggressive, gothy take on the Saint in The Book of Life especially sticks.
Growing up Catholic, I always thought Mary Magdalene was one of the most intriguing Biblical figures. That a woman, a prostitute, should be the first to discover the resurrection was very exciting to me, and it hinted that Christianity didn’t have to be as backward and misogynistic as everyone made it out to me. Some Biblical scholars argue that Mary Magdalene actually even wrote the Gospel of John, and others say that she was the wife of Jesus. I certainly haven’t done any research to back up or refute either of those claims, and really don’t want to, but I do think of her as a cultural icon, even if few others do. (She’s also the patron saint of hairdressers, which I think would elevate her cool status a little, but I guess not.)
After the jump, PJ Harvey’s The Faster I Breathe The Further I Go (from The Book of Life) and a video of If I Can’t Have You singer Yvonne Elliman in Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as three audio versions of the song:
I’m so so so so so so so so sorry it’s been two months since I made you guys a mixtape. Hopefully I’ll be better about that in the future. Installment #37 is slow and kind of indie-hippie-ish. I’m not quite sure why, so I’ll blame it on two consecutive months of rain. The Eulogies and Matteah Baim albums have been favorites around here lately, and of course everything by Jose Feliciano is always wonderful. (If you like vinyl, his 10 To 23 album is pretty easy to find for cheap and it’s one of my favorite records.)
Side A (zip)
The Kingsbury Manx, Shoulder Stories
The Bicycles, No One Can Touch You Now
Eulogies, The Fight (I’ve Come To Like)
NinetyNine, Population 100 000
Jose Feliciano, The Windmills of Your Mind
Father Murphy, I Ran Out Of Fuel And A Viper Just Bit Me
Helium, Clementine
Fun Boy Three, Our Lips Are Sealed (Urdu Version)
Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham, I Deserve It
Side B (zip)
Woods, How To Survive In
Querent, Jizelle
The Balky Mule, A Moth
Broadcast, I Found The F
Sweet, Fox On The Run
The Deep Dark Woods, When First Into This Country
Swimsuit Issue, House Fire
The Strokes, Meet Me In The Bathroom (Home Recording)
Jeannie C. Riley, I Almost Called Your Name
Matteah Baim, Monkey Chant
