Girl in a Cage

The One Good Thing Fundamentalism Has Done

Like a lot of people, I see the conflict between religious fundamentalist theocrats and secular democrats to be pretty much the central conflict of our time.

I'm not just talking about the Islamic fundamentalist douchebags behind the 9/11 attacks; we have our own homegrown Christian fundamentalist douchebags who revere a fictional United States of the past and loathe the actual United States they live in. (Two such douchebags famously said this stuff on the air, but their ilk spews similar crap all the time.) A Jewish fundamentalist douchebag killed Yitzhak Rabin and probably succeeded in his inexplicable goal of perpetuating genocidal hatred in Israel and Palestine for a few more years. 

I assume that the Hindus killing muslims in India are fundamentalist Hindu douchebags, but I don't really know enough about that area.

I will say that you never really hear about Buddhists killing people in the name of their faith.  Please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong about this, but apart from the occasional self-immolation, which is a pretty polite form of violence in that it only affects the perpetrator, I don't think Buddhists get violent about Buddhism.

Militant athiests are every bit as annoying as religious fundamentalists in their smug insistence that they have exclusive access to ultimate truth and that everyone who thinks differently from them is an idiot, but I don't think they really kill people in the name of athiesm, so good for them.

Okay, so religious fundamentalism is pretty much of an infected boil on the butt cheek of Earth these days, but it has, indirectly, had one positive effect.

When I was in high school, up until my junior year in college, the awful awful music of Cat Stevens was nearly ubiquitous.  His greatest hits albums was one of those records, like the James Taylor greatest hits record, that young men feigning sensitivity would cue up whenever they were trying to impress women with their fake sensitivity.  As you can imagine, this led to it being played all the time.  Really, Cat Stevens' music was a mainstay of folky types--chances are, up until 1988, if you owned any folk-rock at all, you probably had at least one Cat Stevens record, and his songs were on the radio all the time.

The other day, I was biking past the studios of Emerson College's WERS and heard the unmistakable sound of Cat's execrable generation gap anthem "Father To Son" booming from the sidewalk speakers.  (This pretty much sums up why I don't listen to WERS, by the way.)  And I realized I hadn't heard anything by Cat Stevens in years.  Years!

This, of course, is because Cat Stevens converted to Islam, changed his name to Yusuf Islam, and, in true fundamentalist douchebag fashion, supported in word, if not deed, the death sentence issued against Salman Rushdie by the theocratic leader of Iran. This was because in the otherwise incomprehensible and insufferably pretentious novel The Satanic Verses, there's a part that suggests that at least part of the Holy Quran came about due to human, rather than divine agency.

Yusuf now denies that he said what he actually said and pretty much tries to soft pedal the fact that he was calling for a guy to be killed because of a book he wrote. Wikipedia rebuts that pretty succinctly and thoroughly here.

Worldwide revulsion among thinking people over Yusuf Islam's comments led to the awful music of Cat Stevens being effectively dropped from the pop music canon almost immediately.  If not everybody wrecked their Cat Stevens albums, nobody played them. Ever.

This has led to an entire generation of music listeners having no freaking idea who this guy is.  It's a small good thing, vastly outweighed by the horrors fundamentalism has unleashed around the world, but it is something.

On boys and YA literature, again

The internets, at least those corners concerned with young adult literature, are abuzz about this article from School Library Journal, in which a librarian takes the publishing industry to task over various issues, and this article from MSN, in which the author objects to the librarian's call for more "boy books".

The MSN essay is pretty incoherent--the author suggests we're raising our boys wrong if they only want to read about boys, then goes on to say how important it is that people be able to see themselves reflected in the books they read, at least some of the time.

I've seen a lot of support for the MSN article, oh, boys have to be raised better, it's simply ridiculous for boys to want to read the stuff they actually want to read, etc.

I wanted to add my two cents, because I'm clearly a glutton for punishment.

Of course it's an oversimplification to say that boys will only read stereotypical boy books, and of course boys and girls need to read broadly.

But young adult literature is a field dominated by women.  The overwhelming majority of acquiring editors in children's publishing are female.  The overwhelming majority of YA and children's librarians are female.  Most YA book bloggers are female.  Most of the members of the committee that chooses the Best Books for Young Adults are female. For that matter, most high school English teachers are female as well.

Might this affect what kinds of books are being published and promoted for teens?  Men are vastly underrepresented in all the gatekeeping functions of YA literature, so most of the people in charge of deciding what YA books are published and promoted have never been teenage boys.  This doesn't mean that they can't pick and promote good books, and books boys can enjoy--in many respects this seems to be a golden age of YA literature, thanks to the fine work of all the aformentioned editors, bloggers, and librarians (in addition, of course, to the authors.)  But I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that a little more male perspective could be valuable, that perhaps boys are somewhat underserved by the largely female YA publishing world.

Some examples from my experience:

My first YA novel, How Ya Like Me Now, was rejected by several publishers before finding a (great) home at FSG.  Almost all of the rejections cited the fact that this was "a boy book, and boys don't read." It's pretty much axiomatic in YA publishing that boy books are a tough sell. I've written female protagonists since in my solo YA stuff, and my books with male protagonists also have female protagonists created by my female co-authors.

I've been told on a couple of occasions that my depictions of teenage boys as the relentless horndogs I remember them being might turn off female readers.  This is tough, because I'm sure if most girls knew what teenage boys really talked like when there are no girls around, (not to mention what they think about when there are girls around) they'd be repulsed.  You don't want to repulse half the audience, but I do think this stops part of the teenage male experience from being represented truthfully in a lot of YA fiction. I wonder if the fact that so many YA editors are female and thinking about female readers affects the content of YA literature in other ways.

When I worked with reluctant male readers, the book they enjoyed the most was Paul Zindel's Rats. It's an awesome, suspenseful gorefest.  It's still in print, but most people have never heard of it. It certainly didn't win any awards.

Anyway, no great conclusion here except this--YA literature is great, YA authors are great, editors, librarians, and book bloggers are great, and all of us could, I think, do a better job of serving our male readers.

Teacher People

I was on vacation and not feeling sufficiently cranky to blog, but don't fret: there's nothing like coming back from vacation to fire up the cranky engines. 

Frank McCourt died.  He wrote one great book, which is one more than most people ever write.  He also wrote a really atrocious book about teaching. I trashed it in print, half-hoping he'd turn his bestselling gaze my way and start a grudge match, but no such luck.  I know this is petty, but I'm hoping that the renewed interest in McCourt's work that arises from his death won't lead people to overpraise the execrable Teacher Man again.

And then there was this from today's New York Times, which irked me. Here's the paragraph in particular that bothered me:

“A lot of the class was him telling tales and telling them over and over,” said Alissa Quart, an author and a 2009 Nieman Fellow at Harvard who was Mr. McCourt’s student during her freshman year at Stuyvesant, in 1985-86. “He used to sort of recite from memory the stories that became ‘Angela’s Ashes.’ ”

It's clear that McCourt's former students had a great deal of affection for him, and just from having seen him on TV a few times, I can see why: he was a tremendously entertaining speaker.

But, I mean...telling your life story over and over isn't teaching.  I'm sorry.   I mean, a lot of us, certainly including me, went into teaching because we like being the center of attention.  But I guess I've always felt that that urge to perform, to use my classes as a captive audience, is something I need to fight against.  I have no idea if the version of McCourt presented in this article is accurate, and I can't judge his teaching on anything but what his students say here and what he himself wrote.  But I just don't think that larger-than-life charismatic figures are necessarily the best teachers.  I think the best teachers are not the ones who make the class all about them, but the ones who bring the best out of their students. 

Here are some great ones I've known:

Debbie Luken and James Sears-- My language arts and social studies teachers from 4th through 6th grades.  The fact that these two put up with me for three years, especially 6th grade when I was pretty insufferable, ought to be recommendation enough.  But I will add that they both, in the context of pretty large classes, made me feel valuable and made the material fun. 

Patty Flanagan--In my current position, I think all the time about how my acting experience has helped me, despite the fact that I'm not an actor.  Patty created the conditions that allowed all of us, whatever our level of talent, to get something valuable out of acting.  Also, she wrote a really incisive comment for me in the 9th grade.  It said something to the effect that I was talented but lazy.  Still true today.

Jack White--Not the guy from the White Stripes, but my junior year English teacher who drew crazy circles on the board and assigned us Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and then had us write an essay about "stuckness."  He used to infuriate us by not providing us with essay topics; instead, he made us come up with our own. I stole this technique years later.  He always strove to bring out whever interesting ideas we had rather than just having us repeat his ideas.

Susan Marrs--Her class was crucial to my intellectual development.  She challenged us at a very high level, valued our ideas and contributions to the point where our thoughts really became central to the class.  Her standards for writing were incredibly high, and her praising my writing ability--no small thing--really laid the groundwork for my believing that writing was something I was good at and could possibly do professionally. 

Henry Glassie--The lone "sage on the stage" entry, he taught the all-lecture intro to folklore class I took freshman year in college.  This was a much more rigorous and thoughtful discipline than it sounds--it was about how people make culture and not about Paul Bunyan. (I know, folklore majors--that's fakelore!  See, I was listening!) I would stagger out of his lectures clutching my head like Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, going, "the man has opened my mind!"  His lectures showed me connections I never would have seen otherwise and reminded me how little I really knew, which was a really important thing for me to see at age 18.

Cindy Fuchs--Those who signed up for her film class expecting something easy were in for a big disappointment.  She pushed us week after week to write and speak thoughtfully about movies and expected a great deal from us.  My off-the-cuff, smartass remarks about movies in this space should not be seen as a reflection on Cindy's teaching.

Leonard Norman Primiano--I took classes in both Religious Studies and Folklore (again!) with him. He was passionate about his subject to an infectious degree--every day he seemed to take an almost impish delight in the fact that he got to teach this stuff.  He also pulled off a great trick that I've been trying without success to replicate since I started teaching: his class was both incredibly fun and incredibly rigorous.

Martha Trudeau Tucker--Helped guide a bunch of us to become thoughtful and reflective teachers. I owe a great deal of my own teaching to how Martha helped prepare me to be an English teacher.  Again, I always felt she was pushing her students to bring out the best they were capaple of rather than simply filling us with her own ideas.

Whew!  That was quite a project!

Most teachers will never get big New York Times tributes, so please consider reaching out to ones that you think did a good job with you and letting them know.

Less Than Meets the Eye

I took my son and 2 of his friends to the IMAX at Jordan's Furniture in Natick, MA to see Transformers: Rise of the Fallen.

I mention the location only so I can praise the odd experience of seeing a movie at a furniture store.  The seats are made of tempurpedic foam!  I sat for 2 and a half hours that felt like 4 hours, and my butt didn't hurt at all!  You try that in a regular movie theater!  

Also, each seat is equipped with some kind of vibrating woofer that jolts you whenever a bass-heavy noise, like, say, an explosion, comes over the soundtrack.  Since something blows up roughly every twenty seconds in this movie, that meant almost constant back and butt massage.  Nice!

On to the movie itself.  I will begin by saying that I really enjoyed the first Transformers, to the point where I bought the DVD in transforming Optimus Prime case at Target. 

And this movie has three things to recommend it. 

The first is the presence of John Turturro, who simply never stops being excellent.  I saw him in You Don't Mess With the Zohan last week and was struck by what an excellent comic actor he is, and here again, he's simply top-notch. (See also his performance in O Brother Where Art Thou if you still have doubts0  His character is the only thing that's a little more interesting in the second movie than the first, and he really elevates what is otherwise pretty slack material by his presence.

The other two belong to Megan Fox.

Okay, I'm done with the good stuff.  The bad has been covered in detail in a lot of places--excessive length, lazy plotting, lame jokes throughout,weird, dumb plot holes--so I'll focus on two things that bugged me.

One is the herky-jerky camera work.  For a guy with a reputation as an action director, Michael Bay does an absolutely crap job of shooting the action sequences in this movie.  The camera jerks around so much that it's nearly impossible to follow who's fighting who or what's happening in any fight scene.  I suspect this is to disguise the limitations of the CGI.  When not really in motion, the Transformers look remarkable, but that's a lot of parts to try to animate convincingly, and the hyperactive camera ensures that our eyes won't catch much more than a blur anyway.  Having said that, he goes twice to the cliche'd "camera does 360s around the couple" shot, with the only innovation being that he has the actors on the camera so it looks like the world is spinning around them.  This may be an artifact of seeing it in IMAX, but both shots were nauseating.

The second big problem I had was with the racism.  And not just the anti-Decepticon racism.  No, now there are two new Autobots who are some kind of Chevy knockoff of a Smart Car (Once again the Autobots are an exclusively GM bunch, calling into serious question both their judgment and their ability to defend the earth properly.) and who are ridiculous stereotypes of blackness.  Seriously, they've even got like one big gold tooth and some bling.  And so they make a lot of wisecracks.  I don't remember the names of these particular, but I'm pretty sure they were called Amos and Andy. 

Tyrese Gibson is back as one of the soldiers, but where white Josh Duhamel gets to make heroic stands, black Tyrese Gibson is the one who gets to say, "we gonna get our asses whupped" and such things. 

The first Transformers was clever, exciting, and strangely heartfelt. This one is dumb, lazy, and has a dead heart at its center.

Musical Math!

Plus Equals

Let the Right One In

So I bought an Xbox 360, because I wanted to play the zombie-killing game Left 4 Dead.  So sue me.  (or better yet, friend me on Xbox live!  I'm soggyclover! We could kill zombies together! Or, more realistically, you could kill zombies and I could take tons of damage and need to be healed all the time!)

And, being a Netflix subscriber, I hooked up the Netflix instant watch thingy through the TV.  It pleases me.  The picture quality is not fantastic--I would say it's slightly sub-regular DVD quality.  Definitely way sub blu-ray quality.  But, let's be honest, you don't really need Blu Ray for a lot of movies.  (But we does need it for Lord of the Rings, don't we, precious?  And the Jackson witholds the blu-ray, precious.  Why? Why does he mistreat us so?  Jacksons is tricksy!)

Ahem. 

Time after Time looked like complete crap, but that's a (really good) movie from 1979, so it was probably a bad transfer in the first place.  H.G. Wells vs Jack the Ripper in 1979 San Francisco, where they got via Wells' own time machine.  Hell yeah.

And then we watched Let the Right One In, Swedish vampire movie from last year.  It looked good, and convinced me that the streaming Netflix thing might be the wave o' the future.  (We watched You Don't Mess With The Zohan on Sunday night, but that probably merits an entry of its own.) 

Let me just say this about Let The Right One In.  Holy crap, this is a fantastic movie.  It's about a 12-year-old kid, Oskar, who gets picked on by bullies.  A 12-year-old vampire girl moves in next door, and, well, complications ensue. 

Things I loved about this movie: the cinematography. Not many horror movies really try to achieve any degree of artistry.  This one has several stunningly beautiful shots (there's a kill in an underpass that is awesomely shot, and there's also a sudden fire that also just looks fantastic.).  Most horror movies are content to throw spring-loaded cats at you, but this one wants to make something beautiful.

And it does.  It's a beautiful, melancholy movie, but don't let those adjectives fool you--the story moves along at a pretty good clip, and there's a lot of great suspense.  We were still talking about it for the whole day after we watched it, which just doesn't usually happen. 

Suzanne does not have my stomach for gore, and she loved it as much as I did.  This is a fantastic movie. It's a horror movie, it's a love story, and it's great.  Possibly the best movie of 2008.  Here's the trailer:

Smooth Criminal

So I don't know if anybody else heard this, but apparently Michael Jackson died!  No, really!

Briefly--gifted entertainer, gifted singer who squandered his gift by destroying his nose (no, really!  When I took voice lessons I learned all about how the voice resonates in the nose.  That's why the silky-smooth vocals of "she's out of my life" were replaced by that growly thing he did in his late career.), wrote a handful of great songs, and I suspect that Quincy Jones was the actual musical genius involved in those records.

Many people have been glossing over the child molestation charges, stressing that he was never found guilty.

I feel he was guilty anyway, and here's why:

1.) People only continue doing things (such as sleeping in the same bed as a kid when you've already been accused of child molestation) that could destroy their lives for three reasons:  money, drugs, or sex.  MIchael only stood to lose money from his child-cuddling antics, so that's out; he had ready access to drugs and didn't need kids for that.  That leaves sex. 

2.) A year ago, I was empaneled on a Suffolk County jury in a child molestation case.  I won't share all the details because it was a really depressing day, but we heard testimony from a kid, now 16, who was 13 when the alleged abuse took place.  The defense attorney offered up the following defense:  "Here's his work schedule; you can see that he wasn't at home 100% of the time during the month in question."  I kid you not!  It was basically no defense at all!  But the kid didn't have his dates straight, because apparently he didn't run right home and put a dated entry in his journal about the creepy neighbor who molested him.

After hearing the testimony and the laughable defense, I was ready to go send the perv away.  And then I got picked as the alternate.  I had to sit alone in a room for an hour and a half while the people on the jury argued.  Eventually they returned a not guilty verdict.  I was stunned, and I asked one of the jurors what the hell they were thinking.  "We felt she didn't really prove her case," they said, referring to the ADA.  I guess they just didn't understand the rules of evidence, because the kid's testimony was evidence and therefore enough to convict.  But I guess these numbskulls wanted a blue dress or some other corroborating evidence that wasn't there in this case.

My point is this:  this guy was acquitted on what seemed like an open-and-shut case to me, and he didn't have a high-priced lawyer and offered almost no defense at all.  How much harder must it be to convict someone with the resources of a best-selling pop star at his disposal?

There's an interesting question here about how we divorce art from the character of the artist, but I'm tired of the whole thing.  So let me just say I hope the children that Michael Jackson victimized get some peace from moonwalking across his grave.

Raintown Playlist

So, okay--I know nobody really wants to hear anyone whine about the weather, but really, this has been a tough month for those of us who live in New England. Especially those of us who live in New England and have anxiety and depression.  We count on banking some sunny days in the summer against the long gray winter. We've had 24 days of rain since June 1st, and rain every day for the last 12 days.  For me, the citalopram is barely holding the line against the gloom these days.

So I did what I often do in tough times:  I made me a little playlist.  It's still gross out, but I feel a little better.  It turned out to be exactly a hundred songs, so I took this as a sign that I should share.  I called it Raintown because a)that's where we appear to be living and b)that was a Deacon Blue song from when I was in Scotland that I don't own or even particularly like that much (Still have a soft spot for "Fergus Sings the Blues," though) but which kinda sticks in my head. There's no significance to the order--it's just how itunes shuffled 'em. I've added some notations where I felt like. 

Mermaids 3:04 Paul Weller
Candy Man Blues 2:47 Mississippi John Hurt
Would You Love A Monsterman (2006 Version) 3:05 Lordi
Cattle And The Creeping Things 3:46 The Hold Steady "Mackenzie Phillips doesn't live here anymore."
E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) 3:43 Blue Öyster Cult
That's Entertainment 3:17 The Jam The superior demo version from the Snap! compilation
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite 4:09 R.E.M.
Over the Sea 3:48 The Minus 5
Bang Bang You're Dead 3:32 Dirty Pretty Things
Rose Island Road 2:44 Squirrel Bait
Across The Universe 3:38 The Beatles From the Let it Be...Naked album. No strings!
Smash You 2:22 The Ramones Right up there with "Babysitter" as one of the best Ramones B-sides. Written by Richie!
Born Under A Bad Sign 2:49 Albert King
 Let My Freak Flag Fly 2:35 Caesars
Save it For Later 3:36 The English Beat
What Do I Get? 2:55 Buzzcocks In this case, a whole shitload of rain.
Season of the Witch 4:56 Donovan
Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying (Live Version) 4:02 Belle & Sebastian From the live If You're Feeling Sinister from itunes, which is superior to the studio verson.
Crimson And Clover 3:17 Joan Jett
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love 3:47 Van Halen
That's When I Reach For My Revolver 3:53 Mission of Burma
Taking It All Away 2:25 The Edge Not the U2 guy.  The Cincinnati/Boston band from the 80's.
Hideous Mutant Freekz 7:21 Axiom Funk
Red Tan 3:48 The Raveonettes
Even the Clouds Get High 2:10 James Kochalka
Return The Favour 3:10 The Hives
New England 2:25 Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers Just to remind me that it doesn't always suck to live here.
Ugly Truth Rock 2:57 Matthew Sweet
MTV 3:28 Hawaii Mud Bombers
Over 'Fore It Started 2:51 Caesars
Paper Planes 3:24 M.I.A. Still not sick of it yet.  Go figure.
Who Will Save Rock and Roll? 2:59 The Dictators
Smile (Version Revisited) [Mark Ronson Remix] 3:13 Lily Allen Prefer this mix to the original
 LoveSign (Shock G's Silky Remix) 3:53 Prince
A Good Idea 3:47 Sugar
Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam (Album) 3:31 Vaselines
Big Time Sensuality (The Fluke Minimix) 4:55 Björk My favorite Bjork song, though I don't like this mix as much.  Bought it by mistake and don't have the other one.
Stop Your Sobbing 2:06 The Kinks Because, after all, it's only rain.
All Going Out Together 3:02 Big Dipper It could be worse--it could be the apocalypse!
13 Stitches 1:55 NOFX
When It Rains, It Really Pours 2:03 Elvis Presley get it?
Oxford Comma 3:16 Vampire Weekend
Here Come the Girls 5:08 Andy White
Calhoun Square 4:47 Prince
Keep A Knockin' 2:20 Little Richard
Mellie's Comin' Over 2:12 Letters To Cleo
The Card Cheat 3:50 The Clash
Handle With Care 2:57 Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins Traveling Wilburys cover!
Shaking Through 4:30 R.E.M.
 Down But Not Out 3:31 The Mooney Suzuki
Mr. Soul (LP Version) 2:52 Buffalo Springfield Just about the only song that involves Steven Stills that I can stand.
I Feel It All 3:40 Feist
Dark As A Dungeon 3:01 Johnny Cash not just down in the mine, but pretty much everywhere these days.
(Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I 2:38 Elvis Presley
Maggot Brain 8:27 Funkadelic
Dancing On the Lip of a Volcano 4:18 New York Dolls
Of It 1:28 Sluggo
See No Evil 4:05 Television
Drinking About My Baby 3:01 The Damned
Sick Of Myself 3:39 Matthew Sweet
 Let There Be Rock 4:19 Drive-By Truckers A really profound song about death hiding behind a song about drug-addled teen exploits.
You Don't Know What Love Is [You Just Do As You're Told] (Album Version) 3:55 The White Stripes
Feel Good Inc (Live Sarm Radio Session) 3:44 Gorillaz Unclear to me how a cartoon band can have a live version, but it's good anyway.
Benny and the Jets 4:07 Beastie Boys with vocals by Biz Markie!  Everyone should own this right now!
Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) 3:12 Pixies
Mr Blue Sky 5:23 Delgados ELO cover. No idea how I got this song, but I like it.
I Saw The Light 2:44 Hank Williams I'm probably less religious now than at any point in my life, but I still like me some country music songs about Jesus.
Street Fighting Man 2:55 The Ramones
Rocks Off 4:34 The Rolling Stones
Everybody Wants Some!! 5:09 Van Halen Two exclamation points!! Because everybody really does want some!!
Gold 7:23 Prince He's tried to duplicate "Purple Rain" a few times, but this one comes the closest.
 I Wanna Destroy You 2:31 Uncle Tupelo
I love Livin In the City 2:12 Fear This song never fails to crack me up.
Lost in the Supermarket 3:47 The Clash
I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine 2:29 Elvis Presley "I get my lovin' in the evening time."
The Rebirth of the Countess 2:01 Lordi I adore these monster-costumed Finns, and this is the only one of their songs that I actually find kind of creepy.
Every Time You Say Goodbye 3:18 Alison Krauss & Union Station "just like my tears, fallin' down like rain on the ground."
Rainfall 2:44 The Apples in Stereo
Waltz #3 4:40 Elliott Smith Probably a rainy day mix cliche at this point, but I like it anyway.
Mystery Train 2:26 Elvis Presley
Tokyo Storm Warning 6:26 Elvis Costello & The Attractions
The Hawg, Part One 2:54 Eddie Kirk Obscure Stax track I discovered in the box set (Thanks, Eric and Karl!).  I suppose Eddie's instructions to "Root!" disqualify this as an instrumental, but if they didn't, it would be tied with "Walk Don't Run" as best instrumental ever.  Dig the drums on this track!  Outta site!  I posted this on mog.com a while back where I think you can probably still hear it.
Unchained 3:29 Van Halen
Johnny Come Lately 4:10 Steve Earle featuring the Pogues!  Love it, even with the bad chronology (if you fought in Vietnam, it was pretty unlikely that your granddaddy fought in WWII)
Baby Britain 3:14 Elliott Smith
Die You Zombie Bastards 3:25 Count Smokula Brilliant song, absolutely shit movie I had to turn off after 6 minutes, which, if you know my tolerance for bad horror movies, is really saying something.
Stack O'Lee 2:58 Mississippi John Hurt
I Wanna Be Your Dog 3:05 Uncle Tupelo
21 Reasons 5:41 Frank Black
It's True That We Love One Another 2:43 The White Stripes
Substitute (Single Version) 3:48 The Who
No Go 3:03 The Ramones
Mas Y Mas 4:45 Los Lobos
Space Angel 3:23 Human Zoo
Keep on the Sunny Side 2:54 The Carter Family
If It Takes All Night 3:20 Frank Black
Raw Power 4:16 Iggy And The Stooges It's sure to come a-runnin' to you.  Despite the weather.
Nearly Lost You 4:10 Screaming Trees
 She's Always In My Hair 3:27 Prince Prince's best B-side.  Absolutely killer song. Baffled as to why it never made it onto an album.
Sparky's Dream 3:15 Teenage Fanclub