Vague (My New Year's Resolutions)

I've still got 357 days to make these come true.

New Year's Resolutions are generally like novelty records. They're fun for a few listens (maybe they're even brilliant for a few listens), but then I get tired of them and don't ever want to hear or think about them for a very long time. And that's why I usually don't make any New Year's Resolutions.

But there are exceptions to every rule... and this is (to use a phrase I've never really understood) the exception that proves the rule.

So, 8 days ago, I vowed to do the following this year:

1. Be French.
2. Form a band whose name is a bilingual pun.
3. Arrange 80s hits in a hip, lounge-y, bossanova style.
4. Recruit a bunch of young female singers who may not speak English well enough to understand the songs (and weren't alive back when they were hits) and have them sing in a breathy, come-hither fashion that makes the songs all sound sleepy, slinky, and sexy.
5. Overcome the fact that someone already did this.

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Gmail subscribers click here. Click here for the original.


Gmail subscribers click here. Click here for the original.

Alternate Universe Father's Day

Happy Father's Day.

I'm a father in several alternate universes, but not in this one.

Then again, there are alternate universes where Bolton (the English city) is world famous and Michael Bolton runs a small auto-supply business in Chicago.

When I was in college, I fell in love with someone who was totally and completely wrong for me. She dumped me over an argument about the relative merits of Michael Bolton and the Buzzcocks (but in retrospect there may have been other issues as well).

The first time around, the Buzzcocks (led by Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto) released a series of amazing records that combined the ferocious energy of punk with a strong sense of melody (and were collected in the great Singles Going Steady collection).

I should have known that my college romance was doomed when we fought about the Buzzcocks' crowning glory, "Ever Fallen In Love with Someone." She felt that Pete Shelley's vocals were unlistenable and ignored everything else. Over the course of 30 years and multiple breakups and reunions, Shelley's singing certainly got better. At the same time -- as you can see from this 2006 Craig Ferguson appearance -- the band's full-frontal attack and the inherent power of the song never went away. (Unlike the ex-girlfriend, whom I haven't spoken to in an eternity that still doesn't seem long enough.)


I thought of this ex recently when I saw a sappy TV report on Father's Day which featured an aggressively sappy and over-the-top Michael Bolton song. She probably loved it and probably sang along with her wimpy husband and their daughter.

Meanwhile, in a different alternate universe where I'm a father (with a much more suitable woman), my son asks me how you know when you're in love. And the only possible answer is this:


(By the way, I read this post to my cat, who says some people should only be parents in alternate universes... or are better suited to raising pets than children. He then demanded salmon and lobster wet food and meowed a gorgeous harmony vocal.)