My favorite/best tunes of 2010

While compiling the list, I realized that I never bought/downloaded two of these ten songs. I have to list these two even though I did not like them enough to buy them because this woman is easily one of the best pop songwriters this year and, compared to her contemporaries, she seems most likely to have a long and varied career instead of just being a fad or known for being outrageous

Teenage Dream

Firework

Yeah, the above video is a little cornball, but it's a song that reflects her upbringing. The best writers write what they know.

Here are the other eight tunes which were made popular and/or released in 2010. First, the not-so-surprising:

Disturbed "Another Way To Die" -- The first single from their latest album, it's the rare Disturbed tune that does NOT feature singer David Draiman's signature growl. It's also got the most political lyrics Disturbed have ever written. The video is disturbing (no pun intended) while not featuring the band members directly.

Three Days Grace "Break" -- Only 8 lines of verse and just over 3 minutes, I have been playing this song for the entire year and am still not sick of it. I almost sang it at one of my church's fundraisers, but I just couldn't find the notes Adam sings in the chorus, even after buying the sheet music. Fortunately, I have as long as I need to find those notes and that odd sing/shout voice.

Linkin Park "The Catalyst" -- It's not the best song on the album; however, it was the first single from "A Thousand Suns". The album will have several more singles/videos through 2011 to enjoy and the album is one of those rare albums that really should be listed start to finish now and then instead of shuffling the tunes. This album best captures Chester's rock singing, Mike's hip-hop/pop sensibility (and showcases the vocal lessons he took in the last couple of years) and DJ Joseph Hahn ("Blackout" is something, I would imagine, could only be managed onstage by Mr. Hahn using everything he has to perform it)

From the "hmm . . that's interesting" list:

Gorillaz "On Melancholy Hill" -- The rare Gorillaz tune that doesn't feature a guest rapper and/or guest singer on "Plastic Beach". The video has to show up as a Best Video nominee at the penultimate music awards show whose nominees will be announced next week -- it rivals "Feel Good, Inc."

Eminem ft. Rhianna "Love The Way You Lie" -- It's not Eminem's usual introspection wrapped in violent word choice that grabbed me -- it was Rhianna's way of icily oozing out the chorus. Her choice of interpretation tells more about her struggles with domestic violence than perhaps she intended. Beautiful and chilling all at once.

Maroon 5 "Misery" -- Nice to have a pop band that plays actual instruments back on the scene after a many-year absence. Still can't listen to it without tapping some part of my body to the beat.

Cee-Lo "F**k You" -- Yeah, there's a clean version of the song called "Forget You". Forget it. This is a rare pop song that has earned the right to use the F-word that rhymes with truck as it just works better with the rest of the lyrics. Also, it's just great that a terrific singer who clearly grew up listening to Al Green and Marvin Gaye is doing as well as he is.

Finally, the song that may make your jaw drop:

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings "Better Things" -- OK, so 2010 was as good a year for hard rock as it was for classic soul/R&B sounds for me. Here's a fun, live-version of the song. Great singer, great band and it's well worth your time exploring your favorite audio or video posting site finding other cuts from their albums.

Have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow and, if you buy any/all of these songs, the holidays will be a little bit better. Or, at least you can throw on the earbuds/headphones and crank it up when the family arguments begin ;-)

Hotter than blazes today

The only upside to the miserable hot, dry Santa Ana winds today is a beautiful sunrise Los Angeles skyline.

For the moment, the newest wildfire in the Moorpark/Fillmore CA area has not blown its smoke in the direction of L.A. However, I am reading/hearing predictions of full containment of this fire by this weekend.

Then, speaking of wildfires, at least the metaphorical sort, comes a story of a Census employee who was found hung in eastern Kentucky earlier this month. The story itself hints at all sorts of circumstances, from suicide or a crime committed by someone with which the man was related to the not-so-big-of-a-leap toward this being some sort of creepy hate crime. Will have to wait to see what happens, but it appears readers of this blog have a whole slate of theories of their own.

And, if you haven't been enjoying the General lately, check out today's post on the fight against Halloween. I'm still one of those odd gay dudes who does not like Halloween at all. However, if there's a good scary movie playing on that night, you'll find me there. Better to be in a group than on one's own on such a creepy night like that.

Maybe this year's Halloween is well worth looking forward to if it's at least 40 degrees cooler than today was!

GSR

What does the Easter Egg Roll, the White House Christmas Tree and the U.S. House of Representatives all have in common ?

Government Sponsored Religion!

The hard-boiling and dyeing of eggs and the hiding and seeking of those eggs all have to do with Pagan celebrations of fertility.  "Easter" seems to have originated from the goddess Astarte.  So how much is the government spending on this annual Pagan festival?

No, really, I'd like to know how much.  I can tell you the tickets are handed out for free and that for this year's festivities the tickets were only available on-line.  My guess is that taxpayers are picking up the tab for the port-a-pottys, extra security, some extra groundswork on the South Lawn of the White House, etc.

Now, maybe the farm from which the White House Christmas Trees are delivered picks up some or all of the costs of shipping and set up.  But, consider the money spent on electricity, maintenance of the tree (don't want those needles drying up), decoration and un-decoration (staff to do this instead of, well, whatever that staff would be doing instead) and everything else I cannot think of associated with those trees.

Here, the link to this tradition and the Pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice and the Yule tree gets a little fuzzy.  To be fair, perhaps the costs associated with this tradition should be split between the Pagans and Christians 50/50.

Congress?  As this ".gov" brochure says, their unity with religion starts from this country's very beginnings!   I would say we'd never even have a prayer of dividing these two institutions, but even I try to steer clear of that sort of cornball wordplay.

Oh . . . .

So, it's not really keeping religion and government separate that should concern us - - the fix is in on that already.  The concern is how to keep our country's laws from turning into some version of Sharia law.  Interestingly, a 2007 University of Maryland poll indicated:

. . more than 60 percent of the populations in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Indonesia responded that democracy was a good way to govern their respective countries, while at the same time, an average of 71 percent agreed with requiring 'strict application of (sharia) law in every Islamic country.'

Comparing this to what is happening here, I found an article from 2004 which talks about American's willingness to do something similar to our country's laws -- namely, establish Christianity as the official religion (and more of religious slant to new legislation would surely follow).  Though, having 32% of respondents in favor of this is not much about which to get worked up.

As long as "faith-based" organizations, our government and our citizens agree to help those in our country who are in need and we can come to some consensus on how that should be accomplished, I have a really tough time mustering any great concern.

However, we all need to be ready and willing to fence in this enmeshing of two of any social gathering's biggest taboos -- government and religion.  My hope is that we have the tools we need to make this happen before some type of Bible-based laws are enacted.  Though, I have to admit, it might be interesting to see how some would handle the laws described in Exodus 23:1-9 or, yikes!, all of Exodus 21.

Valentine's on a budget

In all the 20 + years of my relationship with my partner, this is our first with me not having a second job.  While neither one of us breaks the bank planning celebrations for each other, this year's Valentine's Day was a special challenge (apparently, we weren't the only ones who were facing the same challenge).

My partner was due yesterday to have his remaining teeth pulled in preparation for a full set of dentures and so we had our "official" Valentine's Day celebration on Thursday 2/12/09.  He offered to take me to lunch "anywhere (I) wanted to go, even for fish" of which my partner is not particularly fond.

So, I picked a local chain restaurant for lunch and enjoyed a veggie burger with fries while he polished off a turkey sandwich.

After lunch, I stopped off at the Trader Joes and grabbed a small box of my favorite dessert, chocolate-covered frozen bananas.  I also picked up two small bouquets of flowers which had just a couple of red roses in them.

I think between the two of us we spent $50 on Valentine's gifts for each other.  I loved the gift of someone else doing the cooking and, after all of these years, he still cries and smiles when he sees the flowers I bought for him in one of our cheap glass vases.

Keeping it simple worked for us this year.