February: It's depressing!

Betsy called me out: I've totally blown my new years resolution to blog more. The thing is, I've been really busy, and when I do have free time, the blogging has not sounded fun. I've been trying to spend time with humans and not too much trapped alone with a computer. Because I know me, and I can get myself set up to spend hours alone in my head, and then afterwards I just feel crappy. So I've been trying to fight the February blues by keeping moving. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I never feel like I want to do anything!

I am totally doing springtime things early, trying to bring it on. Wearing sunglasses (as I spin my car wheels in different directions trying to escape from a snowy parking job), thinking about flowers blooming and getting plants for our apartment, spring cleaning. It's been sunny which is nice, but the past few weeks of cold and snow and cold and snow are getting a little old. I haven't biked for weeks. I'm sure that's part of the reason I don't feel motivated. Too sedentary.

Ben and I had dinner at Art of Pizza a few nights ago and "All That She Wants" by Ace of Base came on the radio there. I flipped my shit and sang along to the entire song. That was one of the songs they'd play at the St. Pius roller rink that I used to go to every Friday night of fifth grade. 7-9pm, $1.50. Pretty much my entire 5th grade class would go, which was part of the reason that we were a pretty tight class. Now & Laters at the concession stand. Hokey Pokey. Limbo. Skating into the bathroom to gossip about stuff. Trying to skate as fast as I could. Delusions of grandeur about how awesome I must look skating around. Couples skate. Fun, fun times. I realized on Friday that this is maybe the reason I feel compelled from time to time just to be in motion. Walking, biking, taking the bus, the train, driving.... I even write songs about it, because it is so helpful for me to just be moving. It lets me sort things out, prioritize, have new ideas. It's too snowy to bike right now but I almost dropped Friday's plans to find a roller rink to spin around for a while.

In the past few weeks I've recorded two songs for Scholastc Books. The idea is that there are kids books that include certain words that are above the regular reading level, and then included is a CD with a song that uses those words so you get to hear them in a different context. I got hooked up with it because the husband of one of the other WW teachers was put in charge of the project, and so he hired me to come to his studio and lay down the track. It's a pretty exciting project, with one tiny problem: the songs are terrible. Some other guy was in charge of writing and recording the tracks for a while, and he wasn't doing such a hot job, so they gave the project over to someone else. He's making the songs sound much better and certainly more kid-friendly, but he was stuck with the songs and lyrics that this last guy had written. They're set to old fashioned public domain songs (Oh Susanna, Down By The Bay, Yankee Doodle Dandy), and the lyrics are poorly written, grammatically incorrect, and don't fit the music. And the stories are bizarre. Here is the first verse of song #1, to the tune of Down By The Bay:

It was a splendid afternoon
All the surroundings were quite in bloom
I got a sense then, I got a hunch
I would get my gumption up and attempt to meet the folk
At the eerie house

What? Try to sing that!

The other part of that song that really irked me was this line:

The third time's the charm
It's really true
Just seize the moment
Like I did do

"Like I did do"? Nobody says that! You're trying to teach language to kids? You just used the same verb twice in a row! Also, the word "cautious" was used several times in this song, and I think he thinks that cautious is a synonym for scared.

Second song. Here is the story. It takes place in an office, 9-5 setting. Except the boss is a sheep. Then one day a peculiar thing happens. The sheep boss starts to sputter and whir and spin around the office, and is really a robot? Here's the end, to the second half of Yankee Doodle Dandy:

She baa-ed and baa-ed and then she clambered
around the room. It was insane!
Abandoned her expression and changed her reputation
A wolf in sheep's clothing she became

(and the tag:)
A sturdy lesson 'bout an impostor
Extracted from the situation
A wolf in sheep's clothing she became!

A sturdy lesson? A wolf in sheep's clothing she became? That's not what the phrase means at all. One does not become a wolf in sheep's clothing. One is revealed to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Is she a boss-sheep-robot-wolf? We re-wrote it so she was clambering on top of a sturdy table against the wall, a wolf in sheep's clothing after all. Still....

What??

All of the lyrics were approved by Scholastc and so we had to pretty much stick to 'em.

If they continue this project, the new guy can write the songs however he'd like. IE: in a not-sucky fashion. It was especially frustrating to do this just after I had written that It Had To Be You parody for that man's 70th birthday. I was in the mindset of writing lyrics to a familiar melody. We talked about it-- I think they just are not music people, not songwriters, and don't have a sense of how words can be put together in certain ways that work better than others. They just knew that what they were getting from this guy didn't seem very good. Anyway, it was fun, and I liked working in this guy's studio, even though I had to drive out to Skokie both times in ferocious blizzards. Plus now I can add "professional animal noisemaker" to my resume, as I have been in a sound studio in front of the mike with the headphones and everything, going "Baaaaaaaaa! Baaaaaaaaaaa! Baaaaaaa!" like a sheep. It was hilarious.

That birthday party went really well. It's fun performing with Michael. We also did a show a week ago with Baba Man0uche at this little dive bar in Rogers Park that was reeeally fun. Sang valentiney old songs: I Hadn't Anyone Till You, My Funny Valentine, Skylark, etc. We were very well received, and people started asking for our cards and websites and stuff. So we made them. Oooh! Ahh! Also played a couple at Michael's 50th birthday party at the No Exit Cafe. It was great. Lots of people, kids running around, people playing with instruments. Reminded me of some kind of church potluck. He's really a fun guy. I liked being there.

Other stuff- superbowl party at Jenna's with lots of food and beers and tears. Annual Valentine's fiction party at Poppy's. Lots of hanging out with Emily. Fun drinking with the Tuesday night crowd. Sang Valentiney songs in WW class. Made Ben mittens for Valentine's day. We had a great night on the 14th, cocktails at Rodan and then dinner at May St. Cafe. He gave me fancy truffles from Vosges and the new Beatles CD Love. It's fascinating. Went to a party at Julie B's on Friday night. Ben and I spent a while making music together yesterday, me on guitar and singing as he worked on finding drum beats to match the songs. Super fun. Last night we went to see the Oscar nominated shorts at the Music Box and then had sushi. Workin' all day today.

Hope you all had a happy Valentine's, like I did do!