Monday, August 01, 2011

WTF of the Day - Fan Gives Dolly...Real Baby

I picked up on a story this week that made my jaw drop and my legs cross. While this snippet comes from Fox News, don't be a bitchy hater, it's totally worth it:

"Country music legend Dolly Parton has revealed in an interview, gaining global attention Wednesday, that a “loony” fan once left a baby on her doorstep.

The 65-year-old, who is on her “Better Day” world tour, told Chicago’s Windy City Times she was shocked by the incident, which occurred after she penned her famous 1974 track “Jolene.”

“Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‘Jolene’ was a big hit,” said Parton.

“We came home one day and there was a baby in a box at our gate with a note in it. The note said, ‘My name is Jolene, my momma has left me here and she wants you to have me.’ Of course, we all freaked out!”

“It wasn’t like it was a kitten or a puppy dog. It was a baby named Jolene!”

Parton, who is due to play in Chicago on Thursday, said she contacted Human Services about the abandoned child and never knew what happened after authorities took the youngster away."

The country star has concerts scheduled in England, Europe, US and Australia over the next four months, in support of her 41st studio album “Better Day.”

So before girls were dropping infants in prom bathroom stalls, they were finding the biggest, most-comforting chichis on the block and dropping them on the door. Didn't she have a gate? Did the mom scale the gate with an infant? Hmmm, perfect chichis make people do weird things.

If you happen to be an adopted 40-something woman named Jolene, this goes out for you, baby.

Song of the Day - Love Songs

Perhaps everyone but me has already XO'd Brandi Carlile, but she's new to me and I'm in love. I haven't heard such haunting melodies since my first brush with Neko Case's "I Wish I Was the Moon" made a woman outta me; nor been so swept away since listening to Karla Bonoff's "Restless Nights" album. In any case, she's amazing and hopefully you'll fall for her too. This song devoured me, and I listened to it for two hours on my trip back. I heard she's going to be at The Slowdown, run don't walk.

Available on iTunes and Amazon, but as iTunes is a d-bag I can no longer find the direct link buried in the: tell a friend email.

Sunday, July 03, 2011

You know why


I know my place now, do you? http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#yamagata/all/1

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Song of the Day - Hold Us Together

The Song of the Day is Matt Maher's "Hold us Together." Don't worry, this blog isn't getting preachy, I'm just taking some solace in it. Big Danny put this on a mixed CD for me last week - I think its a hint. I feel like I should be posting something angry, or hip, or sad, but I just don't have it in me.

Make Like a Tree and Leaf

I think the idea of finding ones self is a misnomer, kind of like trying to pull cookies out of an empty jar. What do you do when you're so lost there's nothing left to find? Do you make up something new? I have some memories of the person I used to be, and while some of it is revisionist history I remember being brave. I remember having dreams and an expectation of where my life was headed. I remember calling the boy and not waiting, commanding the attention of a dinner group with humor, of walking into my first job interview with confidence and hope, looking forward to new projects and having a passion for what I did. As circumstances of life changed, and I got older, I found myself allowing pieces of me to fall away like leaves on an autumnal tree. Now I'm standing here at 30, completely bare. It feels like it should be exciting or romantic - a movie-like reawakening that wraps up neatly in 90 minutes. But the reality of it, when you're standing alone in that moment, staring into the chasm of uncertainty and sorrow, everyday becomes an unbearable burden.

Some people describe the urge for change an "itch" - the seven-year relationship itch, an itch to move on, itchin' for a fight. For me, the urge for change is a radical, squeezing, heart-stopping pressure that's both a magnetic draw and a devastating reality. Typically, you don't run if your life is happy and successful. Its nothing new for me, this compulsion to run and evict my life. Things that are my own become foreign and strange in my hands. I truly begin to feel as if I'm in a stranger's home, wearing someone else's clothes, and everything around me seems staged and frivolous. Lock-jawed, I'm unable to maintain basic relationships or have normal conversations without having to pretend its something important. I don't like to be touched or cared about and find the slightest hint of intimacy painful. A hug becomes excruciating. My body and mind become hypersensitive and I seek out solitude as a way to find any sense of calm. Anything posing a challenge faces a severe slash-and-burn as I clear an escape route.

And here is where find myself once again - bare and lost and needing to run. And I'm pretty sure right now the whole damn forest is already on fire.