The "Everybody's Home" Friday Random Ten

Had a long, but productive day. Got together with two of my old classmates from last semester to study for a test we have Monday. We're not in the class anymore-- they had lower numbers in the lottery and were able to get our old instructor. We studied for 3 1/2 hours, but it didn't seem like it. I think we were just all happy to hang out once again.

For once, my son doesn't have any commitments this weekend-- no band practice or performance, no debate, no bowling team-- and we have a whole weekend with him. I cooked Chicken Enchiladas for dinner and then we played "Settlers of Cataan," a game they love. He and his stepsister are playing an old Nintendo 64 game they both love, while I enjoy a glass of Shiraz and do my Friday Random Ten. Later, Adam and I are watching the last Indiana Jones movie and Mel is watching a movie that has her boyfriend Alan Rickman in it.

It's nice to have both of of my kids home for a change. And it's nice to see how close they've become.

Sunday, Adam I are tenatively planning a road trip; he's finished driver's ed but still needs about 30 hours of driving time to get his license. If all goes well, we're driving down to my college town and visiting my old friend Dan. It should knock about 7 hours off time needed. It'll be nice to have a bunch of time with him and have him meet a friend who was a big influence on me.

1. Bad Luck- Social Distortion
2. Animals- Talking Heads
3. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For- U2
4. Across the River- Bruce Hornsby and the Range
5. Green Onions- Booker T. and the M.G.'s.
6. Lonely Too Long- The Rascals
7. Two Hangmen- Mason Proffit
8. How Do You Sleep?- John Lennon
9. Ruby Room- The Foxboro Hottubs
10. Famous Blue Raincoat-- Leonard Cohen

Notes:
1. My ex-wife (ex-wife #1) has a videotape of a disastrous road trip Mike Ness did with a band he was in in the eighties. They set out for California in a school bus, which kept breaking down. They made it to California, where the bus died for good and they all had to call their parents for money to get back home. Wish I'd made a copy of it while I was still married to her.
2. From "Fear of Music," my favorite Talking Heads record.
3. There's part of me that wishes that U2 had hung it up after the Joshua Tree album and gone out on a high note.
4. This song keeps popping up on both my laptop Itunes shuffle and the Ipod shuffle I use in the car. Love the tale this song tells, of a woman who tries to break out of her old town. She fails at first, but the narrator knows that she'll try again.
5. This group was unusual at the time in that it was racially integrated. Future "Blues Brothers" Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn were "M.G.'s," which stood for "Memphis Group."
6. Love these guys!
7. A song by a Chicago folkie group about Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre", in which Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than follow Nixon's demand that they fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.
8. John Lennon's rather pointed-- and ugly-- swipe at Paul McCartney. McCartney responded more gently and with much more humor on "Band On The Run" with "Let Me Roll It To You."
9. The Foxboro Hottubs are a side project for a couple of the guys in Green Day. The Ruby Room, which is in Oakland, is one of my favorite bars in the world. I had a post a couple of years ago about me and my friend Viktor Zeitgeist almost getting thrown out of the Ruby Room.
10. I love Leonard Cohen's music, and particularly love this song, which takes the form a letter to an old friend who had slept with Cohen's girlfriend.