After much thought, I’ve decided to repurpose the Aimster Blog. So if anyone out there is still interested in following my aimless ramblings, I’ve moved to Aimsterville, a site that I hope is, at the very least, better-looking if not more informative.

See you in Aimsterville!

A friend of mine dared myself and another friend a few weeks ago to put together a mix of our Top Ten favorite songs, a task we both immediately deemed impossible. Speaking for myself, trying to narrow down every song I’ve ever liked in my life to only ten songs just isn’t happening–I can do Top Ten within genres, I can do Top Ten Breakup Songs or Top Ten Party Songs, I can do Top Tens for certain bands…hell, I can even do Top Tens of my favorite versions of certain Dave Matthews Band songs. But a Top Ten of all time? I just don’t think I could do that.

So as a consolation to the friend who issued the challenge (who just had a birthday, so I need to do something special), I’m going to try my Nick Hornby High Fidelity best to make a Top Ten Songs I’m Obsessed With Right This Minute–the songs that, for whatever reason, I just can’t stop listening to this week (and I’m only giving the downloads to her, so the rest of you will have to go out and find these gems on your own).

10.  ”Impossible Germany”–Wilco (Album: Sky Blue Sky) 

I have no idea why I love this song so much. All I know is that when I listen to it, I’m in a good mood. And some days, that’s really all I need to know. But I also know that this song has some amazing guitar work, and some days, that’s all I really need to know as well.

I’m a relative late-comer to Wilco, although I’ve been aware of them since they were formed in the mid-’90s from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo. And frontman Jeff Tweedy and I grew up in towns that are an hour apart and have a teeny-tiny, so-infinitesimally-small-that-it-doesn’t-really-exist connection to each other that’s a long story for another post. Anyway, Wilco = awesome, and I’m glad I finally came around to them.

9.    ”Euro-Trash Girl”–Cracker (Album: Kerosene Hat)

I’d forgotten that this song even existed until a friend (the other friend who was dared to put together a Top Ten of All Time list, actually) reminded me. I think I heard this song on the radio so much in 1993 that once its popularity faded away, my memories of it faded as well. But I probably appreciate “Euro-Trash Girl” even more now than I did then. I don’t know if that says something about the song or something about me.

“Euro-Trash Girl”, about what sounds like the craziest European backpacking trip ever, is just awesome from start to finish. Personal highlights for me are the guitar solo (listen at about 5:40) and the lines “Called my mom from a pay phone/Said I’m down to my last/She said “I sent you to college”/”Now go call your dad.” Just terrific.

8.   “All I Need”–Radiohead (album: In Rainbows)

I’ve waxed enthusiastic about In Rainbows before, and I still can’t stop listening to it. In fact, it’s nearly impossible for me to choose a favorite song from this disk because it’s practically flawless from start to finish. But today, “All I Need” is the winner. Today. Tomorrow, something else perhaps. 

“All I Need” is one of those songs that I put in the category of “Songs You Think Are Gonna Be Love Songs But Turn Out to Be Something Very, Very Different” (the two best songs in this category being The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” and Elvis Costello’s “I Want You”). “All I Need” is a beautifully sad song that builds to an even more beautiful, crashing climax. And I’m a sucker for a beautiful, crashing climax.

7.    ”Train in Vain”–The Clash (album: London Calling)

Perhaps one of the most upbeat songs ever written about getting dissed by someone you love, “Train in Vain” is one of the songs on this list that would probably make my all-time Top Ten list. I’ve loved this song since I was a kid, and I love it so much that I even gave it a role in my first-novel-that-will-probably-never-exist-anywhere-other-than-my-computer’s-hard-drive.

One thing in particular that I love about this song is that the drum beat actually sounds like a train chugging down the tracks, and I just think that’s cool. And the drum track is the backing loop to another song I was obsessed with for a time–Garbage’s “Stupid Girl” (a song I was obsessed with for reasons that should be obvious, given the title). And I think that’s cool, too.

6.   “On Your Side”–Pete Yorn (album: musicforthemorningafter)

For me, trying to choose a favorite Pete Yorn song is like trying to choose between my favorite kinds of ice cream–it just sort of depends on what I’m in the mood for at the time. But “On Your Side” is a song I always come back to.

Some songs evoke memories or landscapes, and “On Your Side” always evokes clouds and rain for me because the first time I heard this song was on a rainy day. I can listen to this song when the sun is out, but somehow the song doesn’t have the same effect on me (and I can listen to the live version of this song at almost any time and not be moved in quite the same way as I am when I hear the recorded version-weird).

5.    ”Two Step”–Dave Matthews Band w/Tim Reynolds and Bela Fleck (Worcester’s Centrum Center, Worcester, MA, December 7, 1998)

Please–you knew I wasn’t going to get through this list without including at least a few DMB songs, right?

If I showed up at a DMB show and found out that they would be playing the same song over and over for three hours, I would vote for “Two Step.” And if I could go back in time to witness one version of this song, I would vote for this version.

This “Two Step” is so good I hardly know where to start. I love the fact that the mix is such that you can hear the crowd singing along. And a definite highlight of this sixteen-minute-plus behemoth is the guitar/banjo duel between Tim Reynolds and Bela Fleck that begins at about the 7:30 mark.

But if you’re in a rush and can’t listen to the entire song, then listen to about the last six minutes or so. I can’t even begin to know how to describe them–they just fall into that category of ineffable music moments that have to be experienced to be understood. I’ll just say that the first time I listened to this version of “Two Step,” I thought those last six minutes were going to take my head clean off, they’re that good. And then at the end, Dave just calmly says “Thank you very much” as if he has no idea that he and his band and his guests have just totally fucked everyone up.

4.    ”The Grudge”–Tool (album: Lateralus)

Man, I love me some Tool. And I want to emphasize that “The Grudge” is currently my favorite Tool song, which is sort of like saying that “My second child is currently my favorite child.” Because all of Tool’s angry little children are good, but the “The Grudge” is the one that’s showing up the most on my iPod at the present moment.

This song, which opens Lateralus, is so musically and lyrically phenomenal that most of the time I forget that there are twelve other songs on this album (And what songs! “Schism.” “Parabola.” “Ticks and Leeches.” This album is just a freaking beast.). And if you’ve ever held a grudge against someone, the kind of grudge that slowly eats you alive, you’ll be convinced that Maynard James Keenan is looking into your soul.

3.    ”It’s a Lie”–Fiction Plane (album: Left Side of the Brain)

Fiction Plane is one of those bands that was pretty much screwed from the beginning, because even though they started out as a four-piece band, they eventually evolved into a three-piece and lead singer/guitarist Joe Sumner assumed the role of lead singer/bassist. While their mere evolution wouldn’t be enough in and of itself to doom a band, in this case, Joe Sumner is the son of Gordon Sumner, aka Sting, who was also the lead singer/bassist of a little band that you may have heard of. I don’t know if Joe’s familial connections are what’s keeping Fiction Plane from reaching critical mass or not, but I’m guessing that some people can’t get past the relationship. Plus, Joe Sumner happens to look and sound a lot like Sting (Some people don’t agree with me on this. These people are wrong.), which probably doesn’t help matters much.

I’ll be honest–part of the reason I like “It’s a Lie” is that it’s a bit filthy. Sample lyrics: “Wish I could tell you I’m a better guy/That love is all around/And only real men cry/But all I wanna do is jump your bones/Slam dance all night to the music of your moans. So we’re not exactly in “Every Breath You Take” territory here. Actually, I can think of a few relationships I had back in the ’90s that would have gone a lot better had the guys in question gotten the previous sentiments out on the table right when we first met–stories that are perhaps best left for another time.

And whether or not he sounds like Sting, I have to admire Joe Sumner’s use of “jump your bones” in a song released in 2007. I don’t think I’ve heard that phrase since college, and I’m assuming all parties involved were very, very drunk at the time. 

2.    ”American Baby Intro”–Dave Matthews Band (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Charlotte, NC, September 19, 2007)

I hate to be one of those DMB fans who always says stuff like “Dude, you so had to be there to appreciate this version of the song.” But, Dude, you kind of had to be there to appreciate this version of “American Baby Intro.” And I was.

“American Baby Intro” is a neat little summation of what people both like and hate about DMB. The song has almost no lyrics (She said a hundred times/She said a thousand times/Yeah…) and is rarely followed live by the song that it is an introduction to. And this particular version of the song was the longest ever played at that time (nearly twelve minutes), while the version of the song on Stand Up clocks in at just over two minutes–so, yes, they jammed it out to nearly six times its original length. The song, on its face, is so worthless that even some of the DMB hardcore can’t stand to hear it live.

But on this particular night in Charlotte, “ABI” was the first song of the encore to one of the best concerts I’d ever seen, hands down. I have a theory that if early on in the show, you can see Dave, Boyd, and Carter looking at each other like they want to rip each other to shreds, then you’re in for an intense DMB experience. And on this night, the three of them kept exchanging looks that clearly said, to me, anyway, “Bring it, motherfucker.” The show was wall-to-wall intense, with a setlist to match (seriously, add in “#41″ and “Grey Street” and I probably would have peed myself right there in front of everyone). By the time “ABI” came around, the band was on fire and so was the crowd.

This “ABI” rises and then slows, and then rises and slows again (thus making it the perfect workout song–I’m just saying). The first rise culminates in a heavy metal scream from Dave (at about 3:27) that was truly one of the most bizarre things I’d ever seen (his mouth was open so wide that I thought his jaw was going to unhinge and then swing around and swallow the rest of his head–that’s the only way I know how to describe it). And by the time the second rise climaxed, I felt as though my feet had left the ground several times, carried on the swirl of the music. This occasion was the only time that I can recall feeling literally lifted by music, and I was exhausted by the end of the song. The only thing that even comes close to ruining this version of “ABI” for me is the guy on the tape who keeps yelling “#41!” the whole time. I truly hope someone punched him in the face, because that’s what I would have done had he been sitting anywhere in my vicinity.

So I fully expect that almost no one will get my love for this version of this particular song unless they were in Charlotte that night (and the friend who dared me to put together my all-time Top Ten was, so the song has nice memories on another level as well). I can only hope my description has done the atmosphere that night just a little bit of justice.

1.    ”Loving Wings”–Dave Matthews Band (Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga, NY, August 27, 2003)

This song is really two songs in one. The first four minutes is a beautiful little love song with a hypnotic little guitar part repeating in the background. The next five minutes, however, build into an amazing instrumental jam featuring drummer Carter Beauford and late saxophonist LeRoi Moore at their absolute best (and I can’t help but feel a little pain when hearing this song, knowing that Roi will never play it again). “Loving Wings” is one of those songs that makes me appreciate the amazing level of musicianship in this band.

Unfortunately, this song has never been recorded, so the only versions are from live shows. Which means that no version of this song exists that doesn’t have thousands of drunk people in the background screaming “Wooo!” and “I love you, Dave!”  Try to block that out and enjoy the ride that is “Loving Wings.”

Bonus Track (because every good playlist deserves a bonus track): “Spilt Needles”–The Shins (album:Wincing the Night Away)

This song has many memorable lines, but my favorites are: It’s like I’m perched on the the handlebars/Of a blind man’s bike. I swear I feel this way at least once a day, but no one has ever quite put that feeling into words so eloquently.

Writer David Foster Wallace has died, apparently by his own hand, at the age of 46.

I’m not going to claim to be a fan (and I’m definitely not going to claim that I’ve even attempted to get through his masterwork, Infinite Jest–and I’m convinced after all these years that probably at least half the people who claim that they’ve finished Infinite Jest are lying). My usual approach to Wallace’s work was to begin it, find myself enjoying it, and then end up putting it aside about halfway through because my brain just felt too snowed under to continue.

And I always meant to come back. But I never did. Even the last thing I read by him, his brilliant essay on Roger Federer, I don’t think I ever finished. And I think my inability to finish a Wallace work–big or small–is probably due not only to my lack of intellectual prowess but also to my inability to separate the man and his work from my personal life.

I’m not big on meeting writers whose works have vaulted them to what passes for celebrity in the literary world, mostly because I’m afraid that my personal interaction with them will color my previously-held and future perceptions of their writing. This quirk of mine is a bit odd to me, because I have no problem interpreting the literature of the long-dead through a historicist lens–I love speculating, for example, how the circumstances of Jane Austen’s life may or may not have shaped her novels. But Jane Austen’s long gone, so there’s no chance of a conversation with her screwing up my beliefs about how much of her personality seeped into Emma Woodhouse or Elinor Dashwood.

And at this point, I should probably note that I never actually had a full conversation with David Foster Wallace (I’m guessing the most I ever said to the man was “Thank you”), otherwise this essay runs the risk of being more than it is, of claiming some sort of sadness that I don’t actually feel, of becoming some sort of self-important “Hey, I brushed elbows with that famous dead guy” piece–which isn’t how I mean this at all. The most I can claim is that I moved in the man’s orbit–he was a professor of English and creative writing at Illinois State University during the time that I was working on my Ph.D. in English there. But any shock I feel at his death is less personal and more 1) a by-product of that weird, ineffable feeling you get when someone you once shared air space with dies and 2) the knowledge that people I know well–and a few of whom I actually despise–are feeling some measure of disbelief and sadness right now (and I should note that none of these people that I despise could be counted among Wallace’s close friends and family. I’m not that cold.).

I guess Wallace represents to me, given our overlapping time at ISU, two things: 1) he is a representation of the bizarre behavior people sometimes exhibit when they find themselves in the presence of “celebrity” and 2) he is a reminder, both in his person and in his works, of a very strange period in my life.

When I first started at ISU in the fall of 1996, Infinite Jest had been released a few months earlier and, due mostly to my intense focus on literary works released before 1900, I’d never heard of Wallace, a fact that was greeted with some incredulousness on the part of a few of my grad school colleagues who had come to Normal, Illinois, from far more glamorous places just for the shot at studying with him. Although he taught in the department, I never actually saw him until sometime in late 1997 or early 1998 (and, in fairness, ISU’s English department is the largest in the university and I wasn’t taking creative writing classes). I arrived early to a party at a professor’s house and the only guest who had arrived before my friend and me–a kind of grungy-looking guy with greasy, shoulder-length hair–offered to take my coat and hang it up. And I said, “Thank you.”

And as grunge-guy walked away, my friend gripped my arm to the point that my hand nearly popped off and whispered in my ear, “That was David Foster Wallace. David Foster Wallace just took our coats!”

I think I just shrugged to my friend, but I remember thinking, “That guy? That’s the guy everyone’s swooning over?” (and I do mean swooning–I had a student one semester who informed the entire class that she planned to marry David Foster Wallace if only she could figure out how to “get rid of” his girlfriend. I was mildly disturbed.).  Intellectually, I knew that “geniuses” didn’t have a standard look, but I couldn’t believe that this homeless-looking guy was supposedly one of the great modern literary minds.

So I didn’t run right out and buy Infinite Jest, I didn’t start reading his essays–I just took as a point of pride that I got to teach in the same department as someone who had been deemed one of the great literary lights of the Twentieth Century. And in recalling my somewhat “meh” attitude, I’m not trying to claim some moral or literary superiority over my classmates who seemed to worship him. But for my money, the Illinois State English department was filled with geniuses, students and faculty both. David Foster Wallace just happened to be the best known one, the one who had reached the pinnacle of a field that people outside academia pay attention to.

The paragraph above should not imply, however, that I wasn’t just a little bit intimidated by the guy in spite of myself. One semester, a group of grad students used to gather at Rosie’s Pub in neighboring Bloomington, and several of these students were taking a course from Wallace and would wander over once he let the class go for the evening. Those of us who weren’t in the class used to joke with the ones who were about trying to talk Wallace into joining us some evening–and we’d joke because we figured it would never actually happen. Until it did.

He sat across from me at a table, eating saltine crackers that come in those little plastic restaurant packages (I think I remember him saying something about trying to quit smoking, and knowing that he’d had a past with addiction, I’m sure a bar must not have been the most comfortable place for him), and offering them to those of us sitting around him (and despite the title of this essay, I can’t remember if I actually ate one or not). And I didn’t say a single word to him, because, knowing me, I was probably terrified of saying something stupid. Instead, I just listened to the conversations he was having with the others–mostly the students from his class–conversations I remember almost nothing about, except that at one point, in a context that I don’t remember, he told one of his writing students “No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”

I got up to go to the bathroom shortly thereafter, and when I came back, Wallace and his students were gone, leaving only me and two of my friends (one of whom was the friend who attended the party with me that I wrote about above). My friends were in the middle of trying to remember lines from A. E. Houseman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young,” and I was curious as to why.

“We’re trying to figure out what poem Wallace was quoting,” they informed me. And I think they were both a bit stunned when I told them that the “poem” our local intellectual celebrity genius had quoted was “Time” by Pink Floyd.

I always liked Wallace after that moment (still didn’t go out and buy Infinite Jest, but…). My relationship with these two friends was deteriorating (and one of them remains in the category of “People I Despise” whom I mentioned above), and he had unknowingly handed me a brief moment of one-upmanship on a cracker-crumb strewn tabletop. The “genius” reassured me of what I’d suspected back when he took my coat at that party. Despite his celebrity, despite an intelligence that would have allowed him to quote any philosopher or poet he wanted, he decided in that moment to dole out wisdom in the form of Pink Floyd lyrics. In that moment, the “genius” was a regular guy, and any one of the grad students around that table was capable of “genius” as well. And even though I never took a class from him, I can’t help but wonder if that’s who he was as a teacher–”I did this, this writing thing, and you can do it, too.”

But even as I write these inconsequential recollections and sit here and try to imagine what Wallace was like as a teacher, I feel anger at the pain these vignettes conjure up. That incident at Rosie’s occurred during a dark period in my life, and there he is, squarely in the middle of that memory. And perhaps that’s why I can’t get through his work–his presence flits around the edges of some of my worst moments, and worship of him stands out among the most insipid qualities of someone whom I would probably still punch in the face if I met that person on the street, even ten years later. I certainly don’t blame Wallace for any of that, of course, but I just hate that in this moment after he has tragically chosen to remove himself from this earth, rather than sitting here and glorifying his work, all I can do is be reminded about anger I’d forgotten I once felt (And for the record, my time at ISU wasn’t a total wash. I still have good friends from that time, I did eventually earn my Ph.D., and I met the man I would eventually marry–who brought to our union, among other things, copies of Infinite Jest and Girl with Curious Hair, not to mention his own parcel of David Foster Wallace stories. So not a total wash by a long shot).

And I also can’t help but wonder, as I suppose everyone must when someone they have come into contact with commits suicide, if whatever darkness overtook the dead was always there. So now, that memory from Rosie’s has an extra layer of pain over it, as I sit here and wonder if part of him was gone, even then–if the seeds of whatever overcame him a few days ago were already taking root.

I can’t glorify in death someone I didn’t really know, someone whose work I’ve barely read, someone whose even tangential connection to my life doesn’t bring back the brightest of memories. But I’m human. I’m human, and I’ve lost people–to death, and to the petty arguments of life. So my sympathies are with David Foster Wallace’s friends and family right now. My sympathies are with the literary world, which has lost one of its shining stars. And my sympathies are with any of my friends, both current and former, who are feeling even a little measure of pain at his shocking loss. Because I once loved you, and loved the things that you loved merely because you loved them, your sadness is my sadness in this moment, even in its smallest measure.

No matter how you look at it, it’s been a rough election cycle for women, despite all those cracks in the glass ceiling.

First, we had the historic–and historically messy–candidacy of Hillary Clinton. It’s no secret that I wasn’t exactly a fan of Hill’s during the primary season (and it’s no secret to the point that I can’t link to just one post in which I was railing against her).  While her campaign was historic, I frequently found her tactics disgusting. I don’t have daughters, but I have young female cousins and I frequently work with bright young women. And Hillary Clinton is no longer the role model I would choose for them based on her do-anything, say-anything campaign.

But despite my anger, Hillary redeemed herself to me (at least to some extent) with her speech at the Democratic National Convention. Even if it was all bullshit, even if her heart was breaking, her plea to her supporters–”Was it only about me?”–was wonderful (even if it was delivered in an orange pantsuit. Yikes!). When it truly mattered, Hillary put the Democratic Party–and, given what’s at stake in this election, the country–first, and for that, she’s earned back at least a little of the admiration I had for her during her husband’s administration and her terms in the Senate.

The Republicans, not to be outdone, have also given women a historic candidate in Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. But as far as I’m concerned, the history ends at the fact that Palin has the requisite lady parts. Now, in my opinion, her candidacy is just historically bad. I don’t think I’ve ever so viscerally disagreed with another human being, from her social and economic policies right down to the way she wears her hair.

And then she opened her mouth.

Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention made Hillary Clinton’s worst moments on the campaign trail look like an argument for her cannonization. The Pitbull with Lipstick Who Looks Like Peggy Hill But Sounds Like Judy Tenuda gave one of the most mean-spirited, hateful–not to mention, completely devoid of any substantive policy–speeches I’ve ever seen (And a close second would be the speech Rudy Guiliani gave immediately before Palin’s, but as I lived in the New York in the waning days of his administration, I already knew what a mean, opportunistic prick he was. And besides, we’re talking about the women here.). I was particularly appalled at how both Palin and Guiliani gleefully slammed the role of the “community organizer,” Palin going so far as to say that community organizers don’t have any “real responsibility.” Well, here’s some information for you, Sarah (and Rudy, who, as the former mayor of New York, which is composed of thousands of small communities, should really know better than to make fun of the work that these people do)–guess where community organizers do most of their work? Churches. That’s right–churches, you self-righteous, Evangelical, holier-than-thou crazy woman. But I’m guessing that someone who embraces the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” probably isn’t too concerned with the least among us unless we’re sending them to do “God’s will” in Iraq or trying “reprogram” them if they’re gay.

So when you’ve been let down by Hillary and Sarah scares the living hell out of you, what’s a politically-inclined girl to do?

Well, I’ll tell you which women I can currently get behind in this election–Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the McCain campaign has been using the Heart song “Barracuda” as Sarah Palin’s theme song. And even after the Wilson sisters asked them to stop using the song, they went ahead and used it again during the last night of the convention, prompting the sisters to release this statement (and note how they point out the irony in the Republicans using the song–which doesn’t exactly have the most positive message–to promote their girl). 

So kudos to the Wilson sisters for doing what the media apparently isn’t ready to do–stand up to the McCain campaign. Thanks to Ann and Nancy for showing me that there are still some females out there I can believe in. Hell–in light of the farce that this election season has become all around, let’s just go all in–Ann and Nancy Wilson ‘08, Independent Party candidates (And I just arbitrarily put Ann before Nancy–I’ll let them work out the order of the ticket for themselves). Women unite!

And considering that Nancy is married to Cameron Crowe, at least we know the convention videos will be interesting.

Wow–what the fuck was John McCain thinking?

If this were 1972 and Sarah Palin’s name were “Thomas Eagleton,” she would have hopped the first plane back to Alaska yesterday. Instead, the scandal train just keeps rolling right along. And kudos to The Huffington Post today for putting Bristol Palin’s pregnancy far down on the list of Palin’s scandals. While the mainstream media is foaming at the mouth about whether or not Palin’s family is fair game, I’m frankly more interested in her executive experience. Or, rather, her lack thereof. And I’m far more interested in her secessionist views, her affiliations with Senator/Felon Ted Stevens, how she was almost recalled as mayor of Nowhere, Alaska, and her penchant for firing or trying to fire anyone who doesn’t agree with her or messes with her family. So while the Bristol Palin story may be great tabloid fodder (and not to mention an outstanding representative of what’s wrong with her mother’s abstinence-only sex education stance), to me, the Bristol scandal is just icing on the cake. A very underbaked, no-way-in-hell-ready-to-be-a-heartbeat-away-from-the-presidency cake.

For me, the Palin situation is very simple. If by some outside chance 1) Palin stays on the ticket and 2) she and McCain are elected to lead the country, I’m moving to Canada (where, by the way, I have no intention of ever shooting a moose, for burgers or otherwise). I can’t find a single thing about this woman that I would like or support other than the fact that I have to give it up to any woman who has the patience and stamina to birth and raise five kids. But no, Sherri Shepherd, I don’t think a woman is ready to run the country simply based on the fact that she’s had five kids (and the day I take my political cues–any cues, for that matter–from the women on The View is the day that I surrender the hope of ever having a rational thought again. Just thinking about Elisabeth Hasselbeck makes me want to kick something–her, preferably).

Sarah Palin is no more ready to run a country based on the fact that that she’s a mother of five than I’m ready to run a major corporation because I can maintain a household budget. Trust me–I can balance a checkbook but you wouldn’t want me anywhere near a shareholder’s meeting. And I don’t want Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House.

But what the hell–if the McCain campaign thinks that Sarah Palin is ready to be this nation’s second in command, then I think they should just go ahead and pick me as her replacement if she proves to be too scandal-plagued. I know I’m probably more liberal than McCain would like in a running mate, but, hey–he’s a maverick, right? Plus, I’m relatively scandal-free (assuming we overlook my college years. But at least I’ve never been arrested). While I’ve never been a PTA mom (or any mom, for that matter), I’ve done a lot of babysitting and kids like me. And although I’m no former beauty queen, I have been told that I don’t need to walk around with a bag over my head, so I guess that’s something.

And executive and foreign policy experience? I’ve got that all over Sarah Palin. She may be a hockey mom, former mayor, and fledgling governor, but I’ve been an actual, real-life, vice-president. Of a sorority. You think managing five kids is hard? Try scheduling a year’s worth of meetings and activities for fifty-five college girls and see how well you do. And while Palin may have foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia, I’m willing to bet that she’s never actually had to negotiate with the Russians. So I’m up on her there, too, because one summer I lived upstairs from a family of itinerant farm workers from Mexico, and every once in a while they would block my car into the lot with theirs. So, I’d have to negotiate with them to get them to move their car so I could go to class, all while I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and they didn’t speak a word of English. Talk about diplomacy.

So there you have it, John McCain. If this whole Sarah Palin thing doesn’t work out, I’m willing to help you restore your maverick image by letting you choose me for VP. You certainly can’t do any worse, and I’m thinking that maybe you already have.

After several days of barely being able to listen to a Dave Matthews Band song without tearing up, I think I’ve finally come to terms with LeRoi Moore’s death.

I know. It’s ridiculous. I didn’t know the man. I don’t know the band personally. But I’ve been a fan of DMB since 1994, and it’s difficult to realize that the band is no longer the same. And while rock history is littered with bands who have carried on after losing a member/s, no matter how the Dave Matthews Band chooses to go on, they will no longer be the “founding five.” And that’s just sad.

I feel like I owe Roi and the band at least a little bit of grieving at this difficult time. 2005 was filled with watershed moments for me, but the most difficult of these was losing my grandfather. I’d lost other family members, but none were quite as close to me as he was. He was not only my “Papa,” but he was also a great pal and my personal hero in many respects. I’ve never cried harder than I did at his funeral, and I still sort of hate going to family gatherings even three years on because I know that he won’t be there. And yet I still expect to see him, and every time I look for him and see nothing but a void.

A few days after Papa’s funeral, I’m driving to work with DMB’s Busted Stuff in my CD player. And “You Never Know” comes on, which had never been one of my favorite songs. But I hadn’t quite dealt with his death yet, so I’m a little too inside my own head (never a good thing when speeding down the Bronx River Parkway) and, consequently, I don’t change the track. And then suddenly, I hear the lyrics almost if I’m hearing them for the first time:

There’s not a moment to lose in the game

Don’t let the troubles in your head

Steal too much time

You’ll soon be dead

So play…

And, suddenly, I got it. By the time, Dave sang “But every day should be a good day to die,” I was almost in tears. 

“You Never Know”

Damn right, you don’t. 

We need to live life so that “every day should be a good day to die.” We can’t take a second of this life for granted, and can’t spare a second not at least attempting to live our dreams. Because you never know if this second might be your last.

Some people might take the lyrics to “You Never Know” to be morbid and depressing, but I see them as inspiring. I took the sadness I was feeling over my grandfather’s death, along with the lessons I’d learned from some other epiphanies I’d had earlier in the year, and committed myself to finishing the first draft of a novel less than six months later. And while I hope that novel gets published someday, just in writing it I feel like I’ve honored my grandfather and how proud he always was of me. And I’ve honored myself and my dreams. And I’ve honored the band that continues to inspire me on an almost daily basis.

So as I’ve done so many times, I just want to thank Dave, Carter, Boyd, Stefan, and, especially at this moment, Leroi–the original five–for giving me and the rest of the world countless hours of music to listen to and dream by.

Don’t lose the dreams inside your head

They’ll only be there until you’re dead

Dream…

While his usual Sunday morning column may be abbreviated due to his presence in Denver for the Democratic Convention, Jason Linkins is on fire with the funny this morning. And I think he may have set the record for Most Mentions of Fried Bull Testicles in One Blog Article (because I’m sure someone, somewhere is keeping track of those stats).

I so wish I was in Denver right now, and not just because I might be lucky enough to run into Jason Linkins and Chuck Todd and buy them a round of brews and Rocky Mountain Oysters. Frankly, it’s been a long time since I’ve been excited for a Democratic Convention (okay–it’s actually the first time I’ve been excited for a political convention, Democratic or otherwise). And I’d just love to actually be where the action is, right in the middle of all of it.

Instead, I’ll be on the couch, most likely enjoying a few adult beverages and watching history unfold. That is, of course, in between screaming at the punditocracy for wondering what’s so wrong with Obama that he’s not blowing McCain out of the water.

Actually, I have a theory about why Obama’s not blowing McCain out of the water at this point (and I have to give partial credit to my infinitely smart and wise spouse here, because we came up with this theory together). And it’s a theory that dovetails with my theory as to why Obama chose Joe Biden–the older white guy who’s been a senator for nearly forty years and appears to some to be the antithesis to Obama’s “change message”–as his running mate.

And the theory goes like this: No matter what people say, the majority of Americans aren’t ready for “Change We Can Believe In.” What they really want is “Change we can kind of sort of deal with because we know the country’s been headed in the wrong direction and I really wanna like this Obama guy but he’s black and that kind of bothers me–not that I’m racist or anything–and then I also hear he might be a secret Muslim which is sort of weird and then he’s also got that crazy pastor and all these other shady people in Chicago who he maybe kinda sorta hung out with once or twice and that wife of his really has a mouth on her. But he’s got cute kids, though.”

So for the aforementioned Americans–Ladies and Gentlemen, Joe Biden. Obama/Biden–Change You Can Deal With. Biden is a white, working-class Catholic who speaks his mind and is, therefore, prone to the occasional verbal slip-up. Most people can identify with more aspects of Biden’s personality and biography than not, thus making him the perfect person to persuade Americans who are still suspicious of or undecided about Obama to get on board the change train.

And speaking of people who are suspicious, here’s a little note to the Hillary supporters out there who are still angry that she isn’t the nominee/isn’t the VP pick/hasn’t been anointed Queen of the Universe: She lost. Get over it. The DNC did not “disenfranchise” you. The constitution does not cover voting rights in presidential primaries, so if the DNC had suddenly decided in the middle of the primary season that they wanted the nominee to be determined by a WWE Smackdown, then that’s what would have happened (and personally, I’d like to see that happen in 2012, because wouldn’t that be interesting?). You’ll get your moment at the convention and Hillary will presumably give a speech in which she tells all of you for the forty-thousandth time to back the party candidate. So after that, could we maybe all just believe her and get on board before you hand the election to John “I have a proven record of not doing shit for women other than letting them buy me houses” McCain? Please?

So yeah–there are a few reasons as to why Obama’s not blowing McCain away right now and why all the pundits will spend next week foaming at the mouth about what needs to happen during the convention for Obama to really start to run away with the race. None of these reasons preclude the fact, however, that Obama has been ahead of McCain this entire time. Seriously–if you watch the talking heads on the TeeVee, you’d think that Obama’s behind and has no hope of catching up and what the fuck’s wrong with him anyway? But really, what fun would this campaign season be for the pundits if Obama were absolutely smoking McCain’s ass right now? Because as we all know horserace = ratings. But as Chuck Todd has reminded us on several occasions, even a slight lead in the polls can translate to a landslide in the electoral college. And as we all should know by now, electoral math is the only math that matters.

Well, okay, I’m just rambling right now. Maybe I’m just incoherent because I’m sad that I’m not in Denver, and I’m probably a little dizzy from hunger right now as well, so I should probably eat. Fried bull testicles, anyone?

There are no words, whether you’re a Dave Matthews Band fan or not:

Leroi Moore has died.

I speculated previously when the band announced that he had been readmitted to the hospital following his June 30 accident that things seemed serious. But to actually get the news that he had passed is still both shocking and devastating.

I’m generally not a person who sulks around saying “we should do x because it’s what he would have wanted” when someone dies, but I have to note that the band went ahead and played their show in Los Angeles last night (which is, ironically, where Roi died–and, again, not to be too sentimental, but you almost have to wonder if he was waiting for the rest of the band to show up in L.A. before he left). And as of this writing, they’ve announced no plans to cancel shows, just as they soldiered on after Roi’s accident. I’d like to think that the music of the Dave Matthews Band is just as therapeutic for the band itself (and maybe more so) as it is for the rest of us who have been carried through bad times on the strength of their songs, and that playing through their pain would be better than not playing at all.

I’m so sad about this that I feel like I’m not making much sense, so I’ll just let the man speak for himself:

Loving Wings–a song I always thought was a Roi Tour De Force.

You’ll be missed, Roi. My condolences to your family, the band, and every fan. Our lives are a little less bright today.

Much has been made all over the intertubes about John McCain being in his motorcade and not in the so-called “Cone of Silence” for the first part of Rick Warren’s forum with the Presidential candidates last Saturday night. So my intention here is not to add my voice to the din. My intention is, instead, to say this:

I want a Cone of Silence.

Seriously. Where does one go about getting one?

Right now, when things are crazy at my non-blogging-job-that-actually-pays-me-a-salary, I want nothing more than to hold up my hand when someone approaches my desk and say “Not now–I’m in the Cone of Silence.”

I’d like to leave a message on my voice mail that says, “Hi, you’ve reached Amy. I’m not available to take your call right now because I’m in the Cone of Silence and must not be disturbed. I’ll return your call as soon as Rick Warren calls me to the stage.”

Or maybe my email out-of-office message could read “Amy will be inside the Cone of Silence until August 25. If you need immediate assistance from someone outside the Cone of Silence, please contact _______ at _________.”

Now, I understand that John McCain would have very good reasons for wanting to be outside the Cone of Silence. But unless you’re trying to hear trade secrets or forum questions or other classified information (and I’m not saying that McCain was trying to do any of the aforementioned because, really, who knows? And who’s going to admit that they know if they do?), right now I can’t think of one good reason why anyone would want to be outside of something as serene-sounding as a Cone of Silence. But then again, I’m probably just having a bad day. I just happen to think at the moment that the world might be a better place if we all could retreat into a Cone of Silence every once in a while.

On the other hand, though, I can’t hear the phrase “Cone of Silence” without picturing myself (or John McCain, although I try not to picture him whenever I can possibly help it) trapped underneath a gigantic waffle cone with no one to talk to. Or maybe being forced to wear the world’s largest dunce hat. I realize “Cone of Silence” is just a concept rather than a literal thing, but I can’t help but picture actual cone shapes when I hear the phrase (and the thought of John McCain wearing a gigantic dunce hat is hysterical. And probably a little too apropos on occasion.).

But as much as I yearn for a Cone of Silence most days, I know that in my practical reality I wouldn’t last very long inside one. While I frequently wish that people would just go away and stop talking to me, that feeling quickly passes and I’m suddenly wondering where everyone went because I don’t have anyone to talk to. It’s the eternal paradox of wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely, I suppose.

But I guess if I somehow found myself trapped inside a Waffle Cone of Silence, I’d at least be able to eat my way out.

Apparently, less than one in every one-thousand people on the planet holds a Ph.D. I am one of those people, and while I find the previous statistic overwhelming and humbling, I also find it easy to forget most days because I work at a university. And given the fact that I’m surrounded by Ph.Ds on a daily basis, it’s pretty easy to feel sometimes that I’m the dumbest girl in the room. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if what I’m admitting to here is the secret shame of most Ph.Ds–we’re all looking over our shoulders, waiting for that moment that someone, somewhere finally determines that our dissertation committees were all horribly, horribly wrong and we’re about to be exposed for the unworthy frauds that we are.

Perhaps this secret shame is what drives many of us to proudly display our diplomas in our offices, even though intellectually, everyone knows that none of us would be where we are without terminal degrees. I know that I am driven not only by this secret shame but also by the realization that despite the fact that my business card and email signature end in “Ph.D” and I’m referred to all over campus as “Dr. Amy Martin,” people walk into my office to find what I’ve been told looks like a fifteen-year old girl sitting behind my desk. And while my youthful appearance might score me some points if I were still looking to get a date to the prom, I figure that displaying my diploma in my office might give me some necessary credibility that my physical person doesn’t necessarily project (and the Dave Matthews Band tour posters on my office wall probably don’t help much in the credibility department, but you’ll have to pry those off my walls over my dead body).

So there it sits on my desk for all to see, in a lovely document frame–my Ph.D diploma. Except the document frame is an eight inch by ten inch, and my diploma is a little too small to take up the space, so I had to put a blank piece of paper behind the certificate to give the image that my document actually fits in the document frame. And then a few years ago, the ceiling in my apartment leaked, and my certificate got wet in the corner and now sports an ugly brown water stain.

But I’m generally pretty proud of my Little Ph.D Certificate That Could. And then I go to someone else’s office and see some eleven inch by seventeen inch monster in a gigantic oak frame, and I just want to run back to my office and put my certificate in a drawer before someone comes over and inwardly laughs at it, my teeny little diploma that looks like someone peed on it. 

And yes, I know–I know that it’s not the size of the diploma that matters but what you do with it. I know that for my particular field–composition studies–I went to one of the best schools in the country. But some days I long for a gigantic, old-fashioned diploma printed on real sheepskin. I remember a friend of mine once showed me her grandfather’s master’s degree and the thing took up half the goddamn wall. And it was a master’s degree, which made me wonder if Ph.D diplomas in those days were the size of plasma-screen TVs (and, ironically, my bachelor’s and master’s diplomas are larger in size than my Ph.D diploma, which is just an example of the quirky and entirely random differences between institutions of higher education).

But, again–it’s not the size of the degree but what you do with it. And sometimes, it’s not the degree at all-some of the most insightful people I’ve ever met didn’t finish high school, and a few of the biggest lamebrains I’ve come across hold terminal degrees in their respective fields. “Smart” and “capable” are matters of context. For example, while you might want me critiquing your writing, you certainly wouldn’t want me managing your finances. Under any circumstances. Trust me–you don’t want me around math.

And, ultimately, I know that on days when I’m feeling particularly unworthy of being anywhere within striking distance of the ivory tower, looking up at my wall and seeing a diploma as big as a Medieval tapestry isn’t going to help me. And, on the other hand, some days all I need to do is look over at my little water-stained Ph.D to know that I spent years preparing and that I really do belong in the same room as the rest of the smart kids. But either way, it’s all about me and my abilities, and a little (or big) piece of paper isn’t going to change that. 

And yet, a Ph.D diploma that’s at least as big as my TV would be nice. But I won’t hold my breath for a replacement.