High Holy Mass of Contradictions

Stumbled across a good post by Frasier Smith about what makes a song hit-ready. I think this is the songwriting equivalent of “get rich quick” schemes to the average Joe, or of “Good to Great”-style books for business. And yes, I’ve thought a lot about the topic myself.

Smith talks about various elements in hit songs that make their lyrics and melodies memorable, universal, and instantly appealing. Certainly those are elements worth striving for, if pop hits are your goal — and they are ours.

But one of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is the importance of writing for me. I’ve always done this, to a degree, but at times I’ve strayed a bit into unfamiliar territory in the hopes of writing something that more people would connect with. Imagine me writing, for example, a song with NASCAR allusions. I’ve tried it. It sucked. I won’t do it again (I promise).

And I just don’t believe it’s necessary to deal with the unfamiliar. Some of my favorite hits are the ones that seem broadly appealing and universal, but which have lyrics that appear specific about the writer’s own life. I’ll cite “She’s My Kind of Rain” as an example, even though its merits are often contested in songwriting circles. I’d cite other examples but I’m about to board a plane. Let me just assert that they are plentiful.

Moreover, I’m finding that the more I strive to write about the most universal topics in the most universal way, the less motivated I am to write them. Maybe that’s a “duh” kind of realization, but it hadn’t sunken in yet after all these years of writing. I think I’ve got it now.

So for me, the question of what to write about is “whatever I’m thinking about.” And then I guess I’d hope that I’ll sometimes stumble across universal themes. That makes it pretty simple, huh?

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

I’ve got a playlist on my iPod called Kickass Songs. I’m listening to it right now. Right now what’s playing is “Guarded by Monkeys” by Cracker. And I just listened to “Cowboy” by Kid Rock, but I’m wondering what for you constitutes a kickass song? There are so many other ones that are on here — lets see, “Dirty Laundry,” “Hard to Handle,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Sweet Emotion.” listen

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

Monday is the anniversary of my dad’s death, again. It was a reflective time for me last year and it’s looking like it will be the same this year.

I can tell because last night we went to see Josh Ritter (whom Jae has been talking about for years but I’m just catching up). There was a song he played with lyrics that said “tell me I got here at the right time” and it was bittersweet and melancholy and painted a picture of loving someone through illness, and it got me thinking about the process of caring for my dad while he was sick and the acceptance I had to come to about the possibility that in one of my trips back to Nashville, I would not be there when he died. And that’s basically how it worked out in the end — Karsten and I had just made it back to Chicago that evening and decided not to go by my parents’ house until the next morning since it was already pretty late. And my dad died that night.

Sometimes the loss hurts more because I know I could have seen him alive one more time, but more often I know I was there at the right times all the previous times.

Anyway, it’s funny how once you’re reminded of something difficult, you can see connections in the loosest ways. So all through the rest of Josh Ritter’s set, I was primed to reflect on all kinds of loss, but especially my dad. And then he played “Kathleen,” which is one of the few songs of his I knew before last night, and I like it but it’s a tough one for me, because it so heavily references the Irish standard “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” and that’s one of the songs my dad used to sing when he was a nightclub performer and is the source of my name. Of course, Ritter’s song goes off in a different direction, but I think if you carry the connection over and think about his song in the context of its heritage, it makes his song even more intriguing. The Irish song is a plea to that song’s Kathleen to hold out hope in the narrator, to recognize that he sees she is unhappy and that he can once again bring her the happiness that she has lost. The Ritter song is a plea to its Kathleen to place some hope in the narrator, to recognize that he appreciates her and can see her clearly and can make her happy even if it’s just for one night. Each song is a kind of begging, but from nearly opposite ends of the lifecycle of a relationship — and, you could even say, nearly opposite ends of life itself.

Anyway, I thought about that while he was playing the song, but I was also just washed away in grief every time I heard the line “I’ll be the one to drive you home, Kathleen.”

And yet I walked away from the show feeling hopeful, and creatively inspired. I think there’s another post about that I need to write, because there are other factors at work there, but I definitely took away ideas from listening to Ritter’s brutal and beautiful honesty, and I intend to use them.

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

No Doubt - ska + skater punk = Be Your Own Pet

Good to see that Hall & Oates have a healthy attitude about allowing their music to be repurposed, even if that repurposing is done with more than a hint of irony.

Speaking from his home outside of Aspen, Oates credits Yacht Rock for rekindling interest in his band — and lowering the overall age of Hall & Oates' fan demographic.
[...]
And musically, it means that the time is ripe for a Hall & Oates mashup album — the first of which is in the works from Gym Class Heroes.
[...]
Oates calls the final product "the most unique steps I've heard coming out of hip hop in quite a while," and says he'll give permission to anyone to use his music, so long as the intentions are good. "Once you make a record, it's out to the world. Who cares?" Oates says.

I'm a bigger fan of Daryl Hall creatively than I am of John Oates, but from what I know of the two, Oates deserves most of the credit for this laissez-faire attitude toward reuse. Color me impressed, oh mustached one.

I keep forgetting to mention that the guy who's painting the tippy-top of the front porch (which I'm thrilled Karsten isn't going to do himself) is the son of the guy who wrote (co-wrote?) "Lucille."

Now, come on. How Nashvegas is that?

Courtesy of Digg, I present to you the top 10 worst lyrics ever, as rated by BBC 6 Music.

U2, Toto, Duran Duran, and Oasis all made the list.

But are there worse examples? I can’t think of any offhand that are truly awful, but one springs to mind because of how much it missed the mark. In Dwight Yoakam’s “Ain’t That Lonely Yet” he sings:

Once there was this spider in my bed
Got caught up in her web
Of love and lies
Spun her chains around my heart and soul…

Aah! It bugs me every damn time I hear it. Spun her chains? Since when do spiders spin chains? I mean, he could have gone for the extra internal rhyme with “bed/web” and done “Spun her threads around…” or even gone suggestive and used “Wrapped her legs around…” or probably dozens of other possibilities, but “chains”? Bad. So bad.

What lyrics bug you?

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

Courtesy of Digg, I present to you the top 10 worst lyrics ever, as rated by BBC 6 Music.

U2, Toto, Duran Duran, and Oasis all made the list.

But are there worse examples? I can't think of any offhand that are truly awful, but one springs to mind because of how much it missed the mark. In Dwight Yoakam's "Ain't That Lonely Yet" he sings:

Once there was this spider in my bed
Got caught up in her web
Of love and lies
Spun her chains around my heart and soul...

Aah! It bugs me every damn time I hear it. Spun her chains? Since when do spiders spin chains? I mean, he could have gone for the extra internal rhyme with "bed/web" and done "Spun her threads around..." or even gone suggestive and used "Wrapped her legs around..." or probably dozens of other possibilities, but "chains"? Bad. So bad.

What lyrics bug you?

Karsten and I went to the Send B to Beantown shindig last night where there was much karaoke and much too much to drink. But it was crazy fun, which is partly thanks to the people present and, let's be honest, partly due to the presence of karaoke.



I mean, the karaoke was wicked fun to watch. This is Nashville, after all, and there were some amazing singers in the audience, some of them from our own group. I didn't get up and sing anything, mostly because I couldn't think of anything I was really in the mood for. Ginger and I joked about doing a duet on "Don't Cha" (as in the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me") but neither of us knew enough of the words to do anything other than read along with the cue screen, which is no fun.

And karaoke is definitely about fun, as Kat Coble amply demonstrated with an enthusiastic performance of "Werewolves of London." As I said in comments over at Nashville Is Talking,

what I love about karaoke is when folks get up and just sing something fun whether they think they can sing or not, and just belt it out with a big ol’ smile on their faces and get everyone in the audience to love them.

Anyway, as I said, I didn't sing anything, and neither did several others in the crowd. Chris Wage says he actually sings well, but couldn't be coaxed to get up and perform. Though he did take pictures.



And Jon, despite having been a professional musician and all for years, claimed that he probably wouldn't have been able to find a selection that suited him. And yet later, at the "after party" at Beyond The Edge, while we all chatted and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" was piping through the outdoor speakers, Jon cried out "You're all talking as if Alice Cooper isn't playing right now." So we quieted down and paid our respects to Mr. Cooper as Jon sang along. It may not have been up on a stage, but hey, he did perform a wee bit. Oh, and we also did a little duet of a medley of Styx songs from the "Kilroy Was Here" album a few songs later when "Mr. Roboto" came on. So yeah, sing-alongs were sort of the theme of the evening.

Anyway, I enjoyed myself immensely, even if I'm paying the price a bit today. And Karsten got to know a few more of the local bloggers, even if Mack mistakenly thinks he's smarter than Karsten.

(More pictures are up at my "Send B to Beantown" flickr set.)

Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

[HFBD, huashan”>!]

Here’s a new way to measure the length of my commute — today’s was:
So Alive - Ryan Adams
Where Is The Love - Black Eyed Peas
I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack
Just To See You Smile - Tim McGraw
You’ll Think Of Me - Keith Urban

The Tim McGraw song reminds me to ask: is there a name for the linguistic phenomenon where a lot of men with Southern accents pronounce /s/ as almost /sh/? (You know, voiceless alveolar fricative, postalveolar fricative, whatever.) I checked all over the web and couldn’t find any reference to it. The Wikipedia entry on the Southern American English dialect touches on a lot of pretty subtle dynamics of US Southern speech but doesn’t mention that. I just asked two of my coworkers on the way back from lunch and the name one of them improvised was “tobacco jaw.” The theory is that these men don’t move their mouths very much when they speak. Could that really be all it is?

And talking about that reminds me to say: living in Nashville has certainly exposed me to lots of accent variations I’d been unaware of previously. I knew that Southerners could tell the difference between someone with a Nashville (sounds something like “NASH-full”) accent and someone with, say, a south Georgia (sounds something like “JOE-ja”) accent, but before I lived here, they sounded to my ear like more or less the same accent. Now I hear completely different accents everywhere I turn. The guy doing the carpentry on our front steps sounds exactly like Chris Cooper to me — voice, accent, everything — but Chris Cooper is from Kansas City, Missouri and the carpenter dude is from Memphis. That’s 500 miles apart. I bet folks in those areas would easily be able to hear a difference between their respective accents. (Either way, their voices still sound incredibly alike.)

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HFBD, huashan!

Here's a new way to measure the length of my commute -- today's was:
So Alive - Ryan Adams
Where Is The Love - Black Eyed Peas
I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack
Just To See You Smile - Tim McGraw
You'll Think Of Me - Keith Urban

The Tim McGraw song reminds me to ask: is there a name for the linguistic phenomenon where a lot of men with Southern accents pronounce /s/ as almost /sh/? (You know, voiceless alveolar fricative, postalveolar fricative, whatever.) I checked all over the web and couldn't find any reference to it. The Wikipedia entry on the Southern American English dialect touches on a lot of pretty subtle dynamics of US Southern speech but doesn't mention that. I just asked two of my coworkers on the way back from lunch and the name one of them improvised was "tobacco jaw." The theory is that these men don't move their mouths very much when they speak. Could that really be all it is?

And talking about that reminds me to say: living in Nashville has certainly exposed me to lots of accent variations I'd been unaware of previously. I knew that Southerners could tell the difference between someone with a Nashville (sounds something like "NASH-full") accent and someone with, say, a south Georgia (sounds something like "JOE-ja") accent, but before I lived here, they sounded to my ear like more or less the same accent. Now I hear completely different accents everywhere I turn. The guy doing the carpentry on our front steps sounds exactly like Chris Cooper to me -- voice, accent, everything -- but Chris Cooper is from Kansas City, Missouri and the carpenter dude is from Memphis. That's 500 miles apart. I bet folks in those areas would easily be able to hear a difference between their respective accents. (Either way, their voices still sound incredibly alike.)

I love this, but then, I would.

Even as their music became increasingly bogged down by vintage cheesy synths, Sonar drums and other trendy production tricks of the time, the Philly soul element still managed to emerge from it — "One On One" is a prime example. If you listened closely enough, you'd find that John Oates was a better than average singer. Daryl Hall's singing was simply outstanding, and you don't have to listen closely at all to know that.

I happened across this video clip from some guy's radio talk show in which he was skewering the song "Ticks" by Brad Paisley. Now Brad Paisley isn't my favorite artist or anything, but he's talented and pretty clever, and his fans understand him. So what the host was suggesting in his bit seemed really off to me. I decided to let him know. Here's what I wrote:

Hey, just a random commenter taking a moment to provide feedback on your "Dumbest country song ever" video pertaining to Brad Paisley's song "Ticks." I assume, based on your set of videos and your user name, that you are the host of the show, so I'll direct my comments to you.

I know you were probably just mining for material, but your skewering of Brad Paisley's song "Ticks" couldn't be more off. I think you really missed the mark on this one. I mean, I get that it sounds incredibly stupid when you take it out of context and all that, and I also get that you need to do that kind of thing for comedy every once in a while. But how much of a sense of irony does it take to realize that the "wink wink" intimacy suggested by saying "I'd like to check you for ticks" is completely tongue-in-cheek?

It may be that you need the context of knowing that Brad Paisley is known for this type of offbeat humor in his songs. But still, I don't think it's missed by the average country listener that what Paisley is actually proposing has little to do with ticks and much more to do with closely exploring the naked body of the person being addressed by the lyrics.

So... what does it say about you that your sense of humor is not as sophisticated as that of the average country listener?

Ooh, sorry, that one may have been a little below the belt. Might want to have someone check you for bruises.

- Kate O'Neill
Songwriter & Queen Bee
Honey Bowtie Music, Nashville, TN

Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

I did not watch this super-bowl-thing you all keep talking about. (Is that soccer or something?)

But I have been made aware (that is to say, the CEO just popped his head in the doorway and mentioned to me) that the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince played halftime. In the rain. With an electric guitar.

I am not a physicist, nor am I a meteorologist, nor am I an electrician. But isn’t there some electrical shock hazard here? Or is that not a very rock’n'roll thing to be worried about and I am therefore being a big ol’ sissy?

Help settle my mind, people.

PS: Brittney, does this, in your esteemed estimation, count as blogging about the Super Bowl?

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I did not watch this super-bowl-thing you all keep talking about. (Is that soccer or something?)

But I have been made aware (that is to say, the CEO just popped his head in the doorway and mentioned to me) that the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince played halftime. In the rain. With an electric guitar.

I am not a physicist, nor am I a meteorologist, nor am I an electrician. But isn't there some electrical shock hazard here? Or is that not a very rock'n'roll thing to be worried about and I am therefore being a big ol' sissy?

Help settle my mind, people.


PS: Brittney, does this, in your esteemed estimation, count as blogging about the Super Bowl?

Karsten and I went to the Young Professionals / Brian Ritchey / The Katies show at Mercy Lounge with a bunch of my coworkers last night. (This was after we'd been to Lyrix to see our buddy Joe Hendricks play a writers' round, which was after we'd been to Cabana with the coworkers for happy hour.) The show was great. All three acts were great, even if I'm especially partial to the latter two who are friends of ours through day job connections.

Anyway, I saw JD of Gypsy Cab Co. rockin' out with his new haircut and funky vest. Small blogosphere. No pics because it was just too damn dark in there for my Treo.

After the show was over and everyone had had their fill of after-hours dorky dancing to cheesy '80s pop, my colleagues and I sought drunk-dining options at Hermitage Cafe south of downtown. Wow. I'd never even heard of it, but apparently it has quite a following. Wow. That place was... um... an experience. Wow. You know the kind of dive where the cook is flipping hash browns with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth? Where the waitress looks about 80 even though she's probably only 40, and she says "hon" a lot? This was even divier than that. When I asked for decaf coffee, the waitress answered that it was Sanka, apparently giving me a chance to back out of the deal. I said, "well, ok" and she cautioned me again, this time more clearly: "It's not very good, hon." I reassured her that I would face the consequences bravely and she moved on to someone else's drink order. My shoes were sticking to the so-called "carpet" which was so worn it looked as if it had become a single trodden-down layer of matted grime and grease. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Naturally, the place was overrun with drunk songwriters. (Including several of us.) Heh.

I'd say more about it but I got so little sleep I think I've overstretched my ability to articulate. Off to make dinner and then go see the WJ Cunningham opening at the Estel Gallery. I think it'll be an early night tonight, though. I can't imagine staying awake much past 9 PM at this point.

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a great article on how to organize your iTunes library, just in time for their readers' New Year's Resolutions. It's a wonderful set of suggestions, but I'm not seeing how they'll work for me.

Most people who use iTunes have probably put some effort into organizing their iTunes Library. What makes me different, perhaps, are a few characteristics: I'm using iTunes to organize not only multiple users (Karsten and myself) and multiple media (music, movies, etc) just like everyone else, but I'm also using it to organize both business and pleasure. I acquire a lot of music that isn't for my listening pleasure; it's for songwriting research. Believe me, I'm not a big fan of certain war-mongering politically-über-conservative country artists I could name, but I have copies of most of their CDs anyway. It's important to me to be familiar with what's getting sales and radio play, even as Karsten and I strive to bring our own style to pop country songwriting. Anyway, all that means that I have a huge passive library of music on my external hard drive.

So here's what I do.

( Manage that metadata! )

( Rate it! )

( Back it up! )

So what are your methods? What do you do to make sure your music collection (whether in iTunes or not) is organized the way you need it and backed up properly?

I don't listen to very much jazz anymore, but there was a time, oh yes, there was a time when jazz rocked my world. So to speak.

I learned to love it from Art Hodes, who lived in my hometown and was a friend of our family. He taught me how to play gin rummy.

We just watched the Simpsons episode last night where Bleeding Gums Murphy dies, and it made me think about Art Hodes and what a profound influence he had on me. We used to go see him perform every so often when he played nearby, and he would always play "Sweet Georgia Brown" for my mom (whose first name is Georgia). We got a chance to see him play just a few months (update:) weeks before he died. He was almost 90 by that point. (Actually no one knew exactly how old he was, because when his family came to the U.S., they didn't have a birth certificate for him or anything and at Ellis Island, they just guessed. At least I think that's how the story went. Something like that, anyway. It's close enough for jazz.) When that show began, he struggled a bit to get to the piano and sit down, but when he played, I remember how impressed I was that, even though his hands shook a bit, he could still play a mean piano. The hands just knew where to go.

When he died, we went to his funeral, and it was like no funeral I'd ever seen. But then I'd never been to the funeral of someone who'd lived that long, either, and who had done so much. A bunch of area musicians played boisterous jazz all the way through it.



In the meantime, I had my own jazz story. Through sheer luck, my high school band's director, Mr. Cross, was a jazz lover himself. I became fairly skilled as a clarinetist by the time I entered high school, so I looked to Mr. Cross for challenges above and beyond playing the music on the page. And he knew exactly how to push me. He challenged me to become a better soloist by encouraging me to enter solo and ensemble competitions (which was also helpful in showing me that I was not the only hot shot young musician out there) and gave me many, many opportunities to work on solo improvisation in the jazz band.

The best thing he did, though, was figure out something he could let me do: he had me arrange my own parts. Jazz arrangements for bands didn't typically come with a clarinet part, and even though it's in the same key as, say, the trumpet or the tenor saxophone, there's a distinct sound to the clarinet in jazz that's very different from either of those instruments. Since I was the only clarinetist in the jazz band, we agreed that there should be a special part tailor-made for the clarinet's sound. So each time Mr. Cross got a new score for the band, he would lend me the conductor's book (that showed all the individual parts) for a few days and let me pull together a part for myself. I'd play through each of the parts in the score, trying to get a feel for how each instrument would sound carrying its part, and how the clear, high tones of a clarinet could either emphasize or harmonize with it. In many cases this meant transposing keys or even transposing from bass clef to treble clef. It was an amazing musical journey. I'd write my part out on staff paper in pencil so I could change it if needed once we played it as a band. I didn't review it with Mr. Cross or anything -- we'd just play the piece as a band for the first time, and that would be his first time hearing what I'd arranged for myself. Sometimes he had suggestions, sometimes we would both cringe if I really screwed up, but often I can remember him looking over at me and smiling proudly. No one else in the band was doing that, and I'll always be grateful to him for the education he let me give myself. I'm definitely a better songwriter now because of that experience.

Anyway, I'm thinking about those guys and all my jazz heritage because I read this morning I read that the Jazz Showcase in Chicago is closing, perhaps for good. And that makes me sad, knowing that guys like Art Hodes and Mr. Cross aren't around anymore, and jazz isn't drawing the crowds anymore. It may not even be an exaggeration to say it's dying as an art form. I can't imagine what my youth would have been like without jazz, and what my musical appreciation and skill as a songwriter would be like now without having had that start. I'm sad for all the generations to come who may not experience the thrill of jazz. Makes me want to pick up my clarinet and play a little something bittersweet. This one's for you, Art.

OK, well, Sista Smiff says she's tagging everyone who reads her post, so I guess I'm opting in as a taggee. I'm not big on Christmas, really -- it's fun and pretty and all that, but I'm not a Christian and I don't like excess commercialism, so two of the overwhelming elements of Christmas are already not my favorite. But I can't help it, I still love the feeling of the back-half of December. It's probably because there were always the birthdays (my dad's birthday was the 21st -- yes, today -- and my birthday is the 23rd, and there were always lots of friends with nearby birthdays), so this time of year always just felt extra-festive, but I think it's also that it's possible to enjoy Christmas as simply a metaphor for goodwill and giving. That's how I've tried to approach it in these last several years of my life.

So here we go: my answers to the Christmas survey meme.

Favorite Christmas Movie: When I was growing up, we used to make our Christmas cookies and then when they were fresh out of the oven, everyone would load up a plate and we'd go watch White Christmas. I can practically recite the dialogue from memory at this point. But I won't. Well, except for this:

Bob Wallace: Phil, when are you going to learn that girls like that are a dime a dozen?
Phil Davis: Please, don't quote me the price when I haven't got the time.

And I'll add this endorsement: if you've never seen this movie, you should. It has some snappy, funny dialogue. Check the quotes page at IMDb for more examples.

Anyway, as I've grown, I've come to appreciate more eclectic definitions of holiday movies. Such as Die Hard. Hey, it's a Christmas movie!

But really, the movie that has now become our Christmas tradition is Elling. (If you've never heard of Elling, it's probably because it had the misfortune to come out the same year as Amelie, and even though both were nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film -- along with No Man's Land, which actually won, and for very good reason -- 2001 was a crazy good year for non-English language films -- and pretty good for English-language films, too, what with A Beautiful Mind, Monster's Ball, Black Hawk Down, Gosford Park, Lord of the Rings, Iris, Memento, Ghost World, etc. -- I wonder how many more tangents I can em-dash in here -- no one in the U.S. outside of the Academy was paying attention to any foreign films other than Amelie that year. As if most Americans pay attention to foreign films much of the time.)

Anyway, Elling is one of my favorite films at all, let alone Christmas films. And it's not a Christmas film. But the reason I include it in the Christmas film category is because there is a poignant Christmas gift exchange between the two main characters that really must be seen to be appreciated. For me, it's one of the truest moments in the story, and it makes me cry every damn time.

Favorite Christmas Song: "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues with Kristy MacColl. Video. Lyrics. Wikipedia entry. Awesome.

As for slightly more traditional Christmas songs, I'm partial to the melacholy of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." Why I've always liked sad Christmas songs so much, I have no idea. The only upbeat one I really like is "Silver Bells," because it's so rare to hear a song about feeling the spirit of Christmas amid the hustle and bustle of the city. And I hate it when country artists cover that song through a drawl and the laidback twang of fiddles and steel. Garth, I'm a-lookin' at you.

Favorite Christmas cookie: Pfeffernüsse. Yum.

Favorite part of Christmas: Parties! Dancing! Merriment!

Least favorite thing about Christmas: All the compulsive gift-giving. I like giving and receiving gifts, but not when it has to be done. I really dislike the rise in popularity of giving and receiving gift cards; it seems no different from giving cash, and I don't see the point of that. If you give me $20 and I give you $20, what did we learn about each other? What did we celebrate in each other? I'm not saying people should never give gift cards if that's how they want to do it (I'm really not trying to criticize anyone's gift giving at all); I just wish it were more of an exception rather than the default it seems to be becoming in some circles.

Favorite Christmas gift ever received: I really don't know. Honestly, most of what I remember from year to year is how much fun I have at the parties, not the presents I get.

Where would your perfect Christmas be: Wherever Karsten is.

When do you put up the tree?: We don't put up a tree. Last year we had a Christmas shirt. This year we weren't going to have anything (other than the lights) but since we just put a big majesty palm in the living room, I decided to hang a single round glass ornament from one of the fronds. Minimalist Christmas, that's my style.

Favorite Christmas Decoration you own: We don't have many, but I found this abstract silver-toned two-headed reindeer candelabra at a thrift store last year (found out later it was being sold at T.J. Maxx, but whatever) and I think it's supposed to be elegant or something, but it's just weird and it cracks me the hell up. Naturally it sits right on the center of the living room mantel.

Do you wear "holiday" sweaters/sweatshirts/t shirts?: Um, no. I'm not fashionably cool enough to do it with irony, and not fashionably clueless enough to do it without.

Tagging anyone who feels like leaving their answers in the comments on in their own journals/blogs.

And this is just the CMAs!




I have no idea what Faith was saying before the winner was announced, although some theories are that she was saying "I better fucking win." But there's no denying that she said "WHAT?!" when the winner was announced.

Update: Faith Hill and her manager are both claiming that she was making a joke and that she didn't know she was on camera.

As for the joke: yes, Faith is known as a bit of a jokester, but really, this is a big misstep. For someone who's been in the entertainment business as long as she has, she has to know that #1) perception is everything, and #2) awards ceremonies draw hyper-attention from the kind of casual crowds who have no insight into the personalities of the people involved. As such, most viewers were bound to perceive her reaction as a freakout and, well, see #1.

As for the camera: what human who's ever seen even one awards show doesn't realize that nominees are onscreen while winners are being announced? Not only that, but since she was on camera, that implies that she was standing right in front of a camera. I give her intelligence more credit than to buy that excuse.

In all fairness to Faith, it does seem a little odd that someone who clearly modeled herself after Faith took the award. Moreover, Carrie's performance earlier in the evening was definitely not award-worthy. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's rather apparent that Joe Galante has a vested interest in the promotion and success of Carrie Underwood, based solely on the number of photo ops he's posed for with her. A man as powerful as he is could certainly (directly or indirectly) influence block voting and sway a number of groups.

The funniest part of the whole thing, to me, is that a number of my coworkers were at the ceremony and had no idea about any of it until they came into the office this morning and heard it from those of us who watched it on TV or read about it from a liveblogging source. It's probably some consolation to those of us who didn't get to revel in all the glamour that staying home may have been more fun.

Anyway, I wonder what the fallout will be with Faith's fan base.