Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins "Rabbit Fur Coat"

Rabbit Fur Coat (2006) Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins

I was just saying the other day that I have no interest in convincing people of anything. Now I'm going to come along and tell you that you have to go out and buy this album.

First I'm going to set the scene.

Picture it: Easthampton, MA. 2007. A young man is driving in his car and he hears a great song on the radio. The title appears to be "Silver Lining". It sounds a lot like Jewel singing and as this man knows a friend of a friend who is in love with Jewel he decides to tell her about it the next time they talk. He ends up leaving a message for her on Myspace (this is before Myspace turned into a ghost-town) and it's months later before he hears the song again and finds out that it isn't Jewel- it's a band called Rilo Kiley, fronted by a woman named Jenny Lewis.

He's read about her before. He remembers Elvis Costello raving about her solo album Rabbit Fur Coat.

Eventually he picks up the Rilo Kiley LP Under The Blacklight at the library and doesn't like any of the other songs.

Then, last October he sees Rabbit Fur Coat at the library and decides to check it out. He loves it.

Rose, that young man was me.

Last October was a good time for me. My life had been pretty shitty but I was starting to move in the right direction: I was preparing to move to a new place, I had money in my pocket for the first time in a long time, and I was pursuing a hopeless romantic situation.

At night I walked the bike path that runs through the center of town, past the porn shop, and towards McDonalds and I listened to Rabbit Fur Coat on headphones.

One: Run Devil Run Not my favorite track on the record- it's a little too O Brother Where Art Thou. Still it sounds nice. And it leads into...

Two: The Big Guns here's where the album starts to take off. It's a sweet song and worked perefectly with the doomed relationship I was working on.

Three: Rise Up With Fists!!! I never would've thought I could like a song with a name like that but I love it. One of my favorite songs ever. Lewis's voice is awesome and the Watson Twins make it that much better. There's a video out there, made to look like a performance on one of those old-timey country music variety shows.

Four: Happy This song really sets a mood. "I like watching you undress/ and I think we're at our best/ By the flicker/ By the light of the TV set"

Five: The Charging Sky One of the most lively songs on the record. I want to say this song sets a mood too but I won't- all of these songs set a mood, I'll just say it now.

Six: Melt Your Heart This song is like the flipside of Happy "To melt your heart/ It's like a valentine/ From your mother"

Seven: You Are What You Love Probably more than any of the others, this song really had everything to do with what was going on in my lovelife at the moment. Aside from that, it's just a perfect song that just rolls.

Eight: Rabbit Fur Coat At first, I tended to skip this track. Then one night I listened to the whole thing and it was stuck in my head for days. lewis was a chuild actress. In addition to Roseanne and Troop Beverly Hills with Shelley Long, she was in an awesome episode of The Golden Girls playing a Sunshine Cadet who holds Rose's teddy bear, Fernando, hostage.

Nine: Handle With Care What's-his-name from Bright Eye's sings with her on this track- a refreshing cover choice.

Ten: Born Secular Another song that I skipped intitially and grew to like alot.

Eleven: It Wasn't Me This song did, and still does, get stuck in my head. A great way to end the album, though it doesn't really. There's still...

Twelve: Happy (Reprise) Either a shorter version or an edit of Happy.

If your looking for something new to listen to then get Rabbit Fur Coat. You're going to love it.

The Underground Railroad

Have I ever mentioned that I used to think the underground railroad was a series a tunnels leading from the South to the North, dug by abolitionists and runaway slaves. I didn't think there was an actual railroad down there like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom- I wasn't stupid.

Singled Out

Even though a lot of it was fake and scripted, I like the old MTV show Singled Out. The host, Chris Hardwick, was cool and Jenny McCarthy seemed like a lot of fun.

Jenny McCarthy ended up marrying Jim Carrey. She has an autistic child (I'm not sure if it's his or not) and she's become an activist; I saw her on Oprah a couple years ago.

A month ago I was watching Tosh.0 and he mentioned that McCarthy and Carrey were getting a divorce and he said something like "Jim Carrey got sick of hearing her talk about autism too".

It's funny, because that's exactly what I thought when I heard they were breaking up. She won't shut up about vaccinations and she calls herself a "Warrior Mommy" or something equally sexy. I don't know how he stood it so long.

Belly, Rolling Stone magazine

In April 1995, Belly made the cover of Rolling Stone. Earlier that year the first single "Now They'll Sleep" came out and their second album King was released. It's not my favorite record but it has some good songs and it should've done better than it did.

One thing that I've always thought led to the failure of King was the Rolling Stone cover. While it's attractive and a nice photo, it makes the band seem kind of dopey. Plus, on the cover they're called "The Shiny Happy People of Post-Punk Power Pop". Remember that REM song and how much everyone hated it? I think the entire cover was a gigantic turn-off for people.



Note: I wonder if it was intentional to have Donelly's thumb look like a penis.

Levi Johnston

Regular readers of RJ Battles know that this isn't a political blog. Sometimes I have opinions but most of the time I don't care, and one thing I especially don't care about is changing other people's minds.

I don't have a strong opinion about Sarah Palin. I don't like her, can't remember why.

When Levi Johnston started hanging out with Kathy Griffin he seemed like an OK guy. I don't care about him posing for Playgirl- what Sarah Palin calls his "aspiring porn career". I do findf it odd that a 18, 19 year-old straight guy would want to pose for Playgirl. What do his friends say about that? How did he get his family to go along with let?

In the past he's worked in the Alaskan oil fields so I can understand that he wants to make some big Hollywood money. Still, he's starting to come across as stupid and shameless. I'm sure people were already saying that when he announced his Playgirl plans, but now he's submitted a letter of intent to run for office in Alaska- it's going to be the basis for an upcoming reality show.

For some reason that rubs me the wrong way. I view almost all politicians, or at least from the last 100 years, as sleazy liars. Still, the idea of running for office for a TV show seems very wrong. It's a serious business. Were he to win, people's lives would be affected. What if he decided to have a stop sign removed as a favor for one of his buddies and then there's an accident and somebody dies. That probably won't happen, but nothing like that would ever ocour to Johnston.

Cheers

Onr thing leads to another and last week I was watching that crazy Scientologist video that Tom Cruise made were he talks about the importance of knowing and doing and helping people and how he does everything 110%. I never cared much about him one way or the other, but watching the video I got really uncomfortable. Something about it is very disturbing and upsetting. Most people think it's funny and I guess it is, but mainly, it's a video of a crazy person made by shady people.

Anyway, I wanted to look up one of his fellow Scientologists, Kirstie Alley. I'd read that she was the only surviving Cheers cast member to never make a guest appearance on Frasier and that's because her church is against psychiatry and anything that portrays psychiatry in a positive light.

This led me to look up Cheers, which I always liked. I remember my dad watched it and it would be on when I was going off to bed and some nights he'd let me stay up and watch. As I got older I could watch on my own and I thought it was pretty funny.

My favorite period was "the Diane years". As the show got older it got more goofy and less believable, which is typical for a TV show in its later years. I still watched till the end but I'd lost interest.

While I was reading about Cheers I came across the story of Eddie LeBec, Carl's husband and goalie for the Boston Bruins. He ended up getting killed by a Zamboni machine.

It turns out there's a whole story behind why the actor, Jay Thomas, who had previously starred on Mork and Mindy and went on the play a Morton Downey Jr.-type on Murphy Brown, left Cheers. Jay Thomas hosted his own radio show in LA before and during his time on Cheers and one day a caller asked what it was like working on Cheers. He complained about having to kiss Rhea Pearlman and she happened to be listening.

I read all this on the blog of one of the co-writers of Cheers, Ken Levine. He co-wrote the episode where Eddie dies, "Death Takes a Holiday on Ice" (I love that), and explains that they were worried that they wouldn't get permission to use the brand name but that the Zamboni people were more than pleased (I'm trying not to write "the Zamboni people loved it" because that's basically what Levine writes on his blog. I hope I haven't plagerized anything).

Every since last week I've been reading Ken Levine's blog; it's got a lot of behind the scenes stories about shows that he's worked on. One thing he said really jumped out at me. He said that one of the things that made him want to be a writer was The Dick Van Dyke Show- a writer's life seemed fun and Van Dyke had the beautiful Laura Petrie for a wife. It's funny because I once read Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing) say the exact same thing.

If I ever learn how to create a Blogroll on my page I'm going to add a link to his page. In the meantime, here's the Eddie LeBec story.




Note: everytime I try to add a link it doesn't work, so if you wanna find the story the name of the blog is By Ken Levine or look up Eddie Lebec on Wiki and there's a link to Levine's page there.

Lego Day 2010

Lego Day 2010 was a huge success. My two guests and I had a wonderful time. Lego brought his lovely girlfriend Carolyn over around 5:30pm and we popped open some Smirnoff Ices while the two of them visited with my roommate's cats Tigre (I call him Fatty), Lucky (Clownface), and the other one (The Other One).

I put the pizza in the oven and we went up to my bedroom where I do all my entertaining. Lego and Cal took up their usual spot side by side on the loveseat.

I know that it's not a good idea to have the TV during a social gathering of this kind but we set that aside. There was a good episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel and Lego loves THC.

Here's the bottom line:

The pizza was slightly undercooked- "Could've been in for two more minutes".

I bought a Pepperidge Farm Key Lime cake and when I served it it was "still a little frozen" (I actually like it like that).

My real low point was screwing up instant coffee. Too weak; I didn't take cup size into consideration.

All these things are fine and I can live with them. The most important thing about the evening is that I was not annoying. I know the last time the three of us got together I was too "up". This time I dialed it down.

Can't wait till the next Lego Day.