Out Goes The Thumb and The Food Goes In

Panda Boo does not want to eat his kittycat food! Perhaps this is because he is a cat but I call him Panda Boo. Maybe he is confused! Maybe he wants to eat bamboo instead. I have tried singing to him but so far I have not stumbled upon the proper song.

Because EVERYONE has a song that gets him or her to eat, right?

I mean, all of you wouldn’t eat unless someone sang a VERY SPECIAL song to you, right?

I used to suck my thumb and I didn’t ever want to stop sucking my thumb, not even to eat. So my dad used to sing this song to me, although I misremembered the lyrics so thankfully he corrected them via facebook:

‎“Out goes the thumb and the food goes in, the food goes in, the food goes in. Out goes the thumb and the food goes in —- down in Becky’s tummy.”
(lyrics copyright 1978 by R. Schwartz)

So, you know, when I get all eating disordery, as I am wont to do, you could try just singing this to me. I will teach you the tune.

Life-Altering DVR Compensation

Maybe you already know how to improve your DVR viewing experience by changing the settings on your remote, but if you don’t, let me share my joyful discovery with you!

You know how when you’re watching TV and you fastforward through the commercials and then hit play when you see the show again? But after you stop fastforwarding and hit play, your remote dumps you backwards and you have to watch the end of the Progessive Insurance spot or the Outsourced promo?

You can tell your remote not to do that!

If you hit “settings” on your remote and go to the “Display” tab, you will see something called DVR Compensation. Tell your cable box that you want “less.” (I tried it with “none” and I am so used to the remote backwards bump that it threw me off. Just a little bit of the remote backwards bump is perfect.) Life changing! And you’ll probably save 3 minutes or so per show.

dot dot dot And I Feel Fine

When I was 8, there were two things I loved more than anything in the world:

1) Weird Al Yankovic
2) The Monkees

Every morning, I listened to Weird Al as I got ready for school. And every afternoon (when I didn't have to go to stupid hebrew school), I would watch The Monkees. I was also madly in love with both Mike and Mickey. First I had a crush on Mike, and then it went to Mickey, and then back to Mike, in a never-ending vacillation between the (clearly) best Monkees. (Sorry, Davy and Pete fans! They just don't do it for me).

One night at the dinner table, my dad asked me and my brother what our ideal concert would be.

"WEIRD AL! WEIRD AL!" we shrieked.

And then he asked us who our second favorite band was.

"THE MONKEES! THE MONKEES!" we yelped.

When my dad has very special information to share, he does this thing where he sort of angles one shoulder up and then shifts that shoulder down and brings the other shoulder up. He does this whenever he is trying draw out suspense.

"What if I told you," (shoulder shift) "That we were going to go to a concert at Great Adventure" (shoulder shift) "and we were going to see Weird Al" (shoulder shift) "AND The Monkees?"

To this day, I recall the frisson of almost agonizing joy. WEIRD AL AND THE MONKEES? IN CONCERT? IN NEW JERSEY? Dreams do come true.

I could tell you about how we ate lunch at the theme park and my dad held a Schwartz Family meeting to announce that it was very important that we were a Weird Al type of family because so many people who were also at Great Adventure were just there to see The Monkees.

I could also tell you how as we were leaving, my dad said hi to someone and the rest of us were like "What was that?" and he said, "Oh, Weird Al" and then we chased after him and he signed autographs for us and I told him he was my hero and I sang all of my own parodies (for of course, at age 8, I was writing song parodies like a motherfucker) to him and he listened patiently and then shook my hand and I swore I would never wash it again.

But the point of this story is that sometimes two things you love end up all smushed together like chocolate-and-peanut-butter.

And sometimes, two things you love end up all smushed together and it is more like crunchy-frog-and-nougat.

And that would be Julee Cruise singing R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It."

You're welcome!

Baby Panda FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

My tummy hurts so much there is nothing to do but watch baby pandas in a baby panda skirmish. Baby panda free for all!

The little baby panda fighting noises are the best.

(via)

Radio Song

If you like R.E.M., or if you like me, and if you'd like to hear me talking about how much I like R.E.M., you could listen to Newtown Radio today from 4-6pm. I will be gushing over R.E.M.'s new album, "Collapse Into Now," which is fucking fantastic.

Speaking of the radio, this is what KRS-One and Michael Stipe were thinking in 1991:

Check it out --
What are you saying?
What are you playing?
Who are you obeying?
Day out day in?
Baby, baby, baby, baby
That stuff is driving me crazy
DJs communicate to the masses
Sex and violent classes
Now our children grow up prisoners
All their lives radio listeners

So, um, set yourself free, I guess, and listen to internet radio? Radio Free Internet?
I'll stop now.

Look at that bum over there! He's down on his knees!

True story: The first time I went to LA for work I made a mix CD with this song on it 20 times in a row. Okay, it wasn’t a mix. It was 20 tracks of “I Love LA.” And, whatever, I could have just pressed repeat but I am very nervous when I am driving and I thought making a CD with 20 tracks of “I Love LA” made more sense than trying to press repeat while making a left turn (because left turns are THE WORST, as we know).

Also, once I went to San Francisco for work and I made a CD with “We Built This City” on it, 20 times in a row, and I played it while driving over the Golden Gate Bridge AND while driving down Lombard street, because, shut up, I am awesome. Then I left that CD in the rental car so the next person to get the rental car could share the joy.

"An American Christian. GOD DAMN."

Going to see Randy Newman tomorrow night! Because I love The Hold Steady, and Robyn, and Randy Newman because people be RANDOM with their musical tastes, yo. I hope he plays Dixie Flyer, because it is my favorite, although I am worried (A lot. I am VERY VERY VERY worried) that I am going to cry during this concert, because when Randy Newman touches my heart strings, he touches them very  very hard.

Wednesday Night Teevee

 

This is on teevee tonight! Of course, it is on at the same time as Survivor, Top Model, and Idol, so you will have to record a repeat (and you will also have to watch Survivor on primetime on demand because you need to record Idol because you can’t watch it on primetime on demand or itunes, and you have to watch Top Model on Wednesday nights with your gay friends because that is the rules).

Thought you might like to know!