The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be to Calambre

"The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be"  Magnetic Fields  69 Love Songs
"Cada Beijo"  Bebel Gilberto  Bebel Gilberto
"Cade Voce?"  Bebel Gilberto  Momento
"Cadence To Arms"  Dropkick Murphys  Do or Die (2 versions)
"Cajun Moon"  Herbie Mann  What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves
"Cajun Song"  Gin Blossoms  New Miserable Experience
"Cajun Woman"  Fairport Convention  Unhalfbricking
"Cake Walking Babies from Home"  Clarence Williams' Blue Five  Rhapsodies In Black: Music and Words From the Harlem Renaissance
"Cala Boca, Menino"  Seu Jorge and Almaz  Seu Jorge and Almaz
"Calambre"  Astor Piazzola/John Arnold  Astor Piazzola Remixed


Today is my older son's eighteenth birthday.  When I was little older than he is now, Charles and I were working in western Massachusetts, and we had gone into Boston to meet my Aunt (who had flown in for a conference there).  I remember playing Unhalfbricking repeatedly on the drive back.  It is more than a little amazing to me that I am that same person.  When I was 18, 20, 25 . . . really right up until the day I found out I was going to be a father, I never conceived of being a dad.  Mostly because I never conceived of actually being anything.  I drifted in and out of college, taking classes, and as often as not failing them simply because I stopped going.  I went from crappy job to crappy  job, making enough money to pay the rent.  Due to the kindness of my friends and family, which I didn't deserve and seldom repaid, I got by, and this was enough.  It isn't that I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just really didn't want to do anything at all.

When I found out I was going to be a dad, everything changed.  I don't mean it changed overnight.  In many ways I am still just a slacker underachiever who needs to exert the utmost energy just to try to write a few hundred words here, and this is something I want to do.  But I did make an effort, and have continued to make the effort, to try to live my life more consciously and to work toward a goal.  That goal was at first, and remains, to care for my son.  In these eighteen years, that goal has grown to include my second son, Charles, and myself. Once this new person was coming, for whom I felt wholly responsible, it became clear that my life needed to matter.  I needed to be able to account to him, and eventually them, for all of my choices.

I am not trying to co-opt my son's birthday and majority.  He certainly stands well in his own right.  I am proud to have him not only as my son, but as one of my best friends.  I have spoken to him almost every day for the last eighteen years, even when we have been apart.  Every one of those conversations has been a joy.  I have often joked that it is my job to keep him alive until, well, today.  The reality is that most of the responsibility ended long ago, and now I talk to him because it is a pleasure all my own.  Of course I still try to inflict wisdom on him, and I will help when he needs it.  However, he is a young man who is clever and funny in his own right, and I look forward to sharing in his day much more than I try to shelter him from harm. I have tried over the years to share my values without imposing my views, to keep him safe, and allow him to grow. I am simply saying that when it comes time to say thank you, whatever I have given him, I owe him this: I was an ass before he and his brother came along, I like to think I am less so now.

I have the Dropkick Murphys because when my computer recently died I took over his, and inherited a bunch of his music as a result.

I have Bebel and Astor Piazzola because of Charles - she is the person most responsible for keeping me moving forward and helping me realize the goals I finally did come to have.

Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You to Baby Birch

"Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You"  Joan Baez  Roots of Led Zeppelin (Mojo)
"Babopbyeya"  Janelle Monae  The Archandroid
"Baby"  Bebel Gilberto  Bebel Gilberto
"Baby"  The Bird and The Bee  Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
"Baby"  Cecilia Stalin/Koop  Waltz For Koop
"Baby's Arms"  Kurt Vile  Smoke Ring For My Halo
"Baby's Coming Back To Me"  Jarvis Cocker  Love Will Tear You Apart (Mojo)
"Baby's On Fire"  Brian Eno  Here Come The Warm Jets
"Baby Baby"  The Vibrators  No Thanks!  The 70s Punk Rebellion (Rhino)
"Baby Birch"  Joanna Newsom  Have One On Me


No, apparently Joanna Newsom does not have some sort of palsy - she just does that when she sings.

In fact, there is kind of a lot of theatrics in this set.  Janelle Monae contributes a show tune.  The Bird & The Bee are prone to hyperbole . . . really any time you say "baby" you are probably heading into dangerous territory lyrically.  You say "baby baby baby" and you may as well go ahead with the spoken word interlude about coming "to you out of the mist or into the fire" because it isn't getting any sappier (ditto for you Bebel - if you stick to Portuguese, we don't notice the treacle as much).  Eno sets that baby on fire (actually it is Fripp's guitar that reduces things to a pile of awesome ashes).

But let's about the Vibrators.  The lyrics are cliched and horrible enough (again "baby" x3 - I am declaring it a rule.  Much like shots, more than 2 'babies' and you are going to look stupid).  I am shocked the song isn't a stadium rock anthem.  That isn't the important thing though.  The important thing is . . . these Germans covered it!  That is 1991, btw.  Apparently reunification meant unprecedented, and revelatory, access to Cars videos.