Thursday, May 01, 2003

I've started a project.  I'm making a mixed CD. But not just any mix--a mix I'll never tire of. This is hard work. It's like this: our stuff will be packed up here June 4, and then we'll be in the US for a few weeks, and then we arrive in Dubai in late July, and then our stuff will rejoin us sometime in August, most likely. So that's a couple of months with only the music (and other things) that we carry with us on planes. I have enough space in my CD carriers to take 72 CDs--not a bad number, but I have around 500, and that's not counting jazz, classical, "world music", and blues, which I'm ignoring for this. So it's hard work. There are some CDs that are easy calls, but as I get closer to the end of the carriers, I start to think about songs I'll miss--"What if I really want to hear some House of Pain?"--even though I may not listen to those CDs at all. So I'm trying to make a mix of 20 songs that I'll be thrilled to listen to all the time. Of course, some of the songs will inevitably be on CDs that I carry, but that can't be helped. Here's how I'm doing this: Over the past couple of days, I've gone through every one of my CDs and liberally picked songs that I love. Not just great songs, or songs that I really, really like, and not even necessarily the absolute best songs. Rather, these are the songs that I think I could listen to repeatedly and not tire of. I was careful to look at every CD, and I was reasonably strict about what I chose, but if I had my doubts I deferred to putting the song on the initial list. Again, this isn't a list of songs that are necessarily the best. They're the ones I won't tire of. Many ARE the best, but there are great songs not on the list, and there are songs I can acknowledge maybe aren't so great that I still love. So that yielded a list of around 260 songs. I, of course, must make this into some sort of a competitive exercise, framed as a sort of tournament. So I'm going to narrow this to 100 songs, 20 of which will win honorable mention. Then there will be 40 quarterfinalists, 20 semifinalists, and 20 finalists. There are some artificial constraints: no more than five songs per band in the top 80, no more than 3 in the top 40, and one each among the winners. Probably I'll make five CDs from these lists, and see whether I chose correctly. So here are the bands, with number of songs in the parentheses, that made the initial list. I'm sure I missed some stuff that would have made this list if I'd thought more carefully, but I'm also positive I didn't miss anything that would make the top 40, and probably didn't miss any top 100, either. There is some real crap on this list, probably some that even I don't really like enough to make this list. A Tribe Called Quest (2), The Alarm (1), After the Fire (1), Alice in Chains (6), Barenaked Ladies (1), Beach Boys (1), Beastie Boys (8), Beatles (11), Black Crowes (1), Black Sheep (1), Blind Faith (2), Blondie (1), Bon Jovi (2), Boston (1), David Bowie w/ Queen (1), Billy Bragg and Wilco (2), Jeff Buckley (2), The Call (1), Johnny Cash (1), Eric Clapton (2), The Clash (3), Coldplay (1), Elvis Costello (3), Counting Crows (1), Cream (2), Creedence Clearwater Revival (3), Sheryl Crow (2), Crowded House (3), Terence Trent D'Arby (1), De La Soul (5), John Denver (1), Dexy's Midnight Runners (1), Neil Diamond (1), Digable Planets (3), Dire Straits (1), Duran Duran (2), Faith No More (1), Fishbone (1), Five For Fighting (1), Fleetwood Mac (2), Ben Folds Five (2), Fugees (2), G. Love and Special Sauce (1), Marvin Gaye (1), Gear Daddies (4), Golden Earring (1),Go-Gos (2), Lou Graham (1), Grateful Dead (1), Guns N Roses (1), Hole (1), Icicle Works (1), Natalie Imbruglia (1), Indigo Girls (7), INXS (2), James (1), Jefferson Airplane (1), Billy Joel (4), Elton John (1), Journey (2), Jurassic Five (2), Gordon Lightfoot (2), John Lennon (2), The Knack (1), Mad Season (1), Mamas and the Papas (1), Aimee Mann (1), Manfred Mann (1), Dave Matthews Band (3), Mazzy Star (1), Don McLean (2), John Mellencamp (1), George Michael (1), Minutemen (2), Nirvana (3), Pearl Jam (6), Tom Petty (5), Pink Floyd (1), The Police (3), Prince (3), Radiohead (8), Red Hot Chili Peppers (1), REM (9), Replacements (5), Rolling Stones (3), Santana (1), Scandal (1), Peter Schilling (1), The Silos (1), Simon and Garfunkel (3), Simple Minds (1), Smashing Pumpkins (1), Soft Cell (1), Soggy Bottom Boys (1), Son Volt (1), Split Enz (2), Bruce Springsteen (8), Squeeze (1), Squirrel Nut Zippers (1), Sting (3), Stone Temple Pilots (2), The Strokes (1), Tragically Hip (2), James Taylor (1), Toto (1), Travis (1), U2 (10), Violent Femmes (4), Weezer (2), White Stripes (2), Wilco (1), Stevie Wonder (2), World Party (1), Yardbirds (1), Pete Yorn (1), Young MC (1) The Beatles, unsurprisingly, topped the list with 11 singles, and then U2 had 10, REM 9 (surprising to me, but only because I haven't listened to much REM lately), Radiohead, Beastie Boys, and Bruce Springsteen with 8, Indigo Girls with 7, Alice and Chains and Pearl Jam had 6 each, representing for Seattle, and Tom Petty, De La Soul, and the Replacements came in with 5. This is not really an indication of whether any of these bands/artists will make the finals. Alice in Chains, the Indigo Girls, De La Soul have no chance at all. Surprising overrepresentations? None more than the Indigo Girls. I had forgotten how much I liked them. That said, they'll never make the finals. But that's one of the cool things about doing this, actually, is remembering stuff I like that I haven't listened to in some months. It's also surprising that I picked another Don McLean song besides American Pie, but I love Vincent. And it's frankly shocking that Rage Against the Machine has two songs on the list, because they really have three albums with one song on them, played repeatedly. Underrepresentations? The Rolling Stones with only three? Wow. I love the Stones, but I've gotten to liking them more for their whole albums, and the fact is that, excepting Gimme Shelter, Paint It, Black, and Tumbling Dice, I can get tired of their songs. The Clash with only three and Nirvana with three (two of which are covers on the Unplugged album) surprised me. Also, check this out: Public Enemy, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin--ZERO. I have multiple albums from all these artists. It's hard to explain, and each case is different. They are all, essentially, mood groups for me, and as I worked through the list I just wasn't going crazy for any singles, though I love many, many songs that they all do. It's an odd proces, and it's certainly subject to one's mood, though I'm trying not to allow that to impinge much. Christ, this is long. I'll stop for now. More to come. Anxious to hear the input of the critics out there. 1:53:02 PM    Let's hear it. []

You probably can't read this article if you're not a Salon subscriber, so I'll summarize.  A Missouri man, Joseph Amrine, was released after 18 years on death row.  The Missouri Supreme Court determined that since all three of the jailhouse snitch eyewitnesses that were the entire basis of the case had recanted their testimony, they couldn't kill him. This makes sense. There are so many incredible elements associated with the prosecutors and the court system in this case that I don't really know where to start.  It was a 4-3 decision for one thing, with the dissenters arguing that Amrine "deserved some relief", but they were unwilling to simply overturn the conviction and wanted it referred to a "special court master", which sounds like some sort of strange bondage thing.   But check out this part of the article: "Amrine was convicted of the 1985 knife slaying of Gary Barber largely on the strength of eyewitness testimony from three jailhouse informants. A prison guard disputed the inmates' stories, testifying that he had seen Amrine elsewhere at the time of the fatal stabbing, but the guilty verdict stuck and Amrine, having exhausted his appeals, was scheduled to die. Over the years, all three prosecution witnesses recanted their testimony. When the first two recanted, lawyers for Amrine appealed to federal court, but the judge, Fernando Gaitan Jr., ruled that the recantations weren't credible because there was a third witness who was still standing by his testimony. When that third witness later recanted, Amrine's attorneys went back to Gaitan, who then argued, incredibly, that none of the recantations could be believed, since they were made by prisoners and thus inherently not credible. The claim raised the question of why the inmates' testimony would have been taken seriously in the first place, but Gaitan, a Reagan appointee to the federal bench, would not be moved. " Is anyone out there a death penalty defender?  I've written about this before, so I'll spare it now.  But can this possibly do more to demonstrate the subjectivity inherent in the system?  How can the thirst for the death penalty obscure ALL reason?  I can appreciate the need for legal procedure, but is that really more important than the actual truth of guilt or innocence? Also, this is the final proof that, even if you're a federal judge, that doesn't mean you're not a jackass of the highest order--the Highest Order of Jackass being, of course, Sir Jackass.  9:31:21 AM    Let's hear it. []