Mega-blog

I had promised a blog about the Counting Crows new cd Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, so I will address that as well as the Texas Rangers slow rise to prominence, my week off work, falling in love again, visiting Mom for Mother's Day, as well as the NBA Playoffs. Hold on tight, buckle your seats belts, and beware of dizziness, topics may change without notice.

Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

The first thing about this album that struck me was the name. Adam Duritz explains it like this, "Saturday night is when you sin and Sunday is when you regret. Sinning is often done very loudly, angrily, bitterly, violently." This is a great name for a concept cd like this. I mean once you hear it, you understand what is a "Saturday song" and what is a "Sunday song". It is perfect. And for those of us who have ever had a rip-roaring good Saturday night and then slept in on Sunday morning you know exactly what Duritz is talking about. He hits the nail on the head!

I won't go through every song on the cd, but I will hit what I think are the highlights. Duritz says in some of the interviews he has done that the first cut "1492" is the whole reason behind the cd. It is his favorite song on the cd, and writing that song is what got him rejuvenated and ready to write the rest of the cd. I think the song is decent, it is a little bit of a throwback to the Recovering the Satellites album, which Duritz believes was his best work. It is really hard, and angry, and to me reeks of Cobain with that perfect Duritz twist. It is a great way to start the album off, really fast and emotional.

"Hanging Tree" is the second song on the album, and at first this was my favorite song, but after listening to more of the cd, I'm not so sure. It is classic Crows. Very jangly, fun, yet powerful and loaded with home run lyrics like this: "You open windows and wait for someone warm to come inside and then you freeze to death alone.....". That sums up Duritz so well.

"Los Angeles" is the third song, and it slowly became my favorite song on the album. Lyrics, lyrics, lyrics. I mean this has some of the best lyrics ever written in a song before, I should let you know that Duritz recorded this song for the album admittedly drunk. I love the way this songs sounds, and lays out. I will dare you to argue a more cleverly written few lines that this right here:

"No more Boston, no more Nashville, no more Oakland. Ohhh baby come on out to the sea. Come on take a walk down Sunset with me. We're gonna get drunk find us some skinny girls, and go streetwalkin', streetwalkin' baby in Los Angeles. Streetwalkin' baby......"

"Cowboys" is another fast song with a huge alternative music feel. One of my favorite songs for sure. I don't know if I understand this one yet, so that has some appeal to me. I listen to the song every time and wonder what Duritz is talking about. I wouldn't expect many to like this one.

"Washington Square" and "On Almost Any Sunday Morning" are both great tracks that at any time in your life, depending on what you are dealing with, could be the best songs ever written. I thought about just putting them together at the end and saying they didn't make the list, but next month, or tomorrow, or ten years from now, these two songs could be in the pantheon of Counting Crows classics.

Needing a song to replace "Hanginaround" as the last song played in concerts, "Come Around" is that new song. It is happy, fun, and a little bouncy. To me it is that perfect song to turn on in your car, roll the windows down and just crank it and sing at the top of your lungs. This is a friends song or a getting out of town song.

Overall I think this cd is pretty good. There are a few slow spots, and for some reason I fall into that thought that I have to like every song the put out, when that isn't true. There are some songs I quickly turn past on this cd, but I think that most of the songs are above average. If you were able to buy the bonus songs from iTunes then you will get what I honestly think is one of there better songs of all time "Sessions" as well as another song "Sunday Morning L.A." which is a throwback and reminds me of some older classic rock, maybe even has a Zeppelinish appeal to it. So for those of you that follow closely to my blog, I will rate this album a solid "4 Jaws". That is 4 out of 5 and to gauge this I would give "Recovering the Satellites" and "August and Everything After" "5 Jaws". So you can see this is up there for me.

Texas Rangers are .500?

Well not quite, but they sure are close. Not long ago there was talk about them firing Ron Washington, losing the most games ever in the first month of the season, and replacing the team with the Frisco RoughRiders. Fast forward to yesterday (I like that line, even though it makes no sense whatsoever, I like it!) they had a chance to win and be a .500 ballclub (they lost in extra innings to the Mariners). They did however bring up a bunch of the young guys from double and triple A and are starting to pitch much better. They seem to have taken notice to the fact that they nearly got their coach fired, and got things straightened out real quickly. I enjoy watching this team play, and hopefully they will play meaningful games deep into the Summer and eventually Fall.

Falling in love with you is easy........

Don't get too excited Bleacher Babe (I have decided that this is how I will refer to my wife in these blogs) I'm not talking about you, or anyone else. I'm talking about golf. That kind of sounded mean, but if I am going to have a blog, I can't get mushy on here, that is for personal emails, texts, and other various forms of communication. We get to golf for free because of where I work, and I have really started to enjoy the game again. I got a small lesson from one of my golf pro buddies and now I want to be out there everyday. Hope the Bleacher Babe goes along with this one.

Surprise, It's Mother's Day

Bleacher Babe, my brother and myself were able to drive up and see my mom on Mother's Day this year. It was cool, mainly because we surprised her. All we did was hang out at her place, take her out to eat, set up her iPod, went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" which was a good movie, but too much male frontal nudity for me, Juno on the other hand was an instant classic. Anyway Mother's Day was great, and I hope that we get to do that every year. It would be weird to not spend Mother's day without Mom, unless of course there is another Mom that my Mom would love to see every Mother's Day! More to come on that subject as warranted.

The NBA, it's Fannnntastic!

I'm sure you all know that I am fascinated by the NBA and the Playoffs have been great. I made some predictions a while back, and since then one of my Finals teams has been eliminated so I think it is only fitting that I go back and pick new winners.

Eastern Conference Finals

Detroit over Boston in 7

Western Conference Finals

Utah over New Orleans in 6

Sorry to all the folks at ABC/ESPN is this happens because you are stuck with the worst possible NBA Finals of all time. Actually I do hope this happens, only because the NBA screwed us for some many years with terrible officiating and stupid rules.

Utah over Detroit in 6

Jerry Sloan finally gets a ring for what I would guess is a freakishly long finger. That is all for now. I have typed my heart out. On to the golf course where I hope this carpal tunnel doesn't affect my swing.