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12 Step Classics Volume One, Cut Two

My wife recently asked me why I doted so on Neil Young.  From her perspective he's got a high whiny vocal and a minor key sad song repetoire that makes him seem an unlikely musical hero.  But I've been fascinated with him from early on, by college age at least.  By now I've seen him at least 6 times, more than any other totem of mine, tied with Dylan, one behind Chrissy Hynde.  I don't count REM, having seen them more times than I could count nor testify.  But that's neither here nor there with regards to  the 12 Step Classics, which is a collection of addiction songs I'm compiling for Uncle Brub.  My Uncle is a peer counselor for addicts in Waianae, Hawaii, on Oahu's leeward coast, and as such is as hip a white man as you are likely to encounter, adjusted as he is to the ways and methods of the speedfreaks and alkies of the sad, lumpen, badass Polynesian culture of that part of the world.

But Neil's solid number 2 cut on this collection has more to do with his spot-on, timely mourning of his backing band Crazy Horse's lead guitarist Danny Whitten's November, 1972, Los Angeles heroin OD than it does with my admiration of Neil in the main.  Between Neil's Joni Mitchell-style Canadian de-tuned guitar octave and Neil's own plaintive all-time 12 step lyric, I don't need to say much more with regards to The Needle And The Damage Done.  Although I would like to report that he is closing his current European Tour with a King Hell Tour De Force Version of A Day In The Life.  I defy you to find a more heroic living example of the 60's  generation than Neil Young.  If you're looking for something more psychic than Bitterman's goad, I was in Columbus, Georgia today on business, and as I researched the alleged facts of Danny Whitten's life I discover he was born in one and the same place.  So there, Bitterman.  I feel you.  Always.  Call it Man Love, call it sychronicity, leave it aside for another day.  But here's cut 2 on the playlist:

I caught you knockin'
at my cellar door
I love you, baby,
can I have some more
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.

I hit the city and
I lost my band
I watched the needle
take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done.

I sing the song
because I love the man
I know that some
of you don't understand
Milk-blood
to keep from running out.

I've seen the needle
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie's
like a settin' sun.

Neil owns the rights to those lyrics and if he asks me to take them down off of this website I will.  In the meanwhile, I suggest you go to his site and buy something.  Neil's legacy should count more than most, as far as rankin' rob is concerned.

New Beck Rocks Like a Mutha

ORPHANS

THINK I’M STRANDED BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE I GOT THIS DIAMOND THAT DON’T

KNOW HOW TO SHINE IN THE SUN WHERE THESE DARK WINDS WAIL AND THESE CHILDREN

LEAVE THEIR RULERS BEHIND AS WE CROSS TEN LEAGUES FROM A RUBICON WITH MATCHSTICKS

FOR MY BONES IF WE COULD LEARN HOW TO FREEZE OURSELVES ALIVE WE COULD

LEARN TO LEAVE THESE BURDENS TO BURN CAST OUT THESE CREATURES OF WOE WHO SHATTER

THEMSELVES FIGHTING A FIRE WITH YOUR BARE HANDS NOW MY JOURNEY TAKES ME FURTHER

SOUTH I WANT TO HEAR WHAT THE BLIND MEN SING WITH THEIR FOSSILS AND THEIR

GYPSY BONES I’LL STAND BESIDEMYSELF SO I’MNOT ALONE AND HOWCAN IMAKE NEWAGAIN

WHAT RUSTS EVERY TIME IT RAINS AND THE RAIN IT COMES AND FLOODS OUR LUNGS WE’RE

JUST ORPHANS IN A TIDAL WAVE’S WAKE IF I WAKE UP AND SEE MY MAKER COMING WITH ALL

OF HIS CRIMSON AND HIS IRON DESIRE WE’LL DRAG THE STREETSWITH THE BAGGAGE OF LONGING

TO BE LOVED OR DESTROYED FROM A VOID TO A GRAIN OF SAND IN YOUR HAND / BECK:

VOCALS, ACOUSTIC GUITAR, ELECTRIC GUITAR, FLUTE, PERCUSSION BRIAN LEBARTON:

SYNTHESIZER JASON FALKNER: BASS CHAN MARSHALL: VOCALS DANGER MOUSE: BEATS

Adventures In Bad Parenting, Continued.

I like to think that I've given as much thought to parenting as anyone my age of my background.  Kat and I spawned the Little Rose Bud relatively late in life compared to many people.  That has it's upside and downside.  The downside is that there is always the chance that I will have to stay in some kind of physical shape to remain physically threatening to her friends as she passes into her teenage years.  At this rate I'll be 56 when she's 18, so I think there's a pretty good chance I'll hold on to that edge.  On the upside, by waiting as long as we did I feel like we had plenty of years to consider parenting and show a certain amount of, er, wisdom about the whole thing.

I've made sure that she's gotten a steady dose of Miles Davis alongside her Hannah Montana, plenty of PBS, Discovery and National Geographic Channel along with Shrek One through Seven.  I don't want to raise a little white-bread elitist, and I don't want to raise the sort of sheltered flower that goes off for her freshman year and becomes an instant scandal.

Which brings me to last night, where the Bride and I had a definite parting of the ways with regards to what we allow our precious daughter to see.  We had just returned from the 4th of July fireworks display at the Marietta Square, an annual event of plu-perfect American family entertainment.  Upon returning home I turned on the tube while the little one brushed teeth, washed face and got into her jammies.  As I surfed the channels I came across a movie channel just  in time for the last 25 minutes of Jaws.  Our 8-year-old was instantly entranced when I told her it was a movie about a giant shark, and being the animal lover that she is, she instantly began rooting for "that poor shark.  Why would they try to hurt him?", she asked, as Quint kept chasing the shark and firing harpoons into it.   I tried to explain that the shark had killed several people, but she gave the beast a total pass for all of the mayhem it caused that fateful Benchley summer on Amity Island.  "He's a shark.  He's doing what he's supposed to do.  Were any of those people swimming like seals?  He probably just thought they were his prey."

At this point I let slip that if we kept watching the movie for a few more minutes, someone was about to get eaten by the shark.  She perked up and squealed "cool.  Which one, when does it happen?"  I told her to keep watching.  Now, my logic was that the movie was over 30 years old, and that kids today know much more than I did at 8.  Further, my child has lost a grandparent, beloved pets, and all but witnessed a neighbor kid crushed and killed.  So Robert Shaw slipping helplessly into the mouth of one of moviedom's greatest monsters wouldn't be too bad.  Kids like to be scared, don't they?

Needless to say, Kat didn't see it that way and shut the whole operation down when she came into the room and saw what was about to go down on the screen.  She yelled and fumed at me and my child called foul, yelling and stomping away that "Daddy said it was ok!"  So, once again my best intentions at providing cultural stimulation and scary movie moments came a cropper.  Kat did point out that I was 14 when I first saw Jaws.  And, that scene does look pretty scary all these years later.  I had to admit that it probably wasn't the thing to show the child right before bedtime.  But my Bad Dad credentials have been renewed for another season.  I made the mistake of assuring (assuaging?) her that Jaws is on TV all the time and we would get another chance, something I thought she would forget.  But of course, she asked me today if it was on again and could we watch it.

It's not like I was going to show her Wonderland or Seven or Silence of The Lambs or something.  Oh well, Bad Daddy strikes again.