Rapper Heavy D was found dead outside his home yesterday. I’m not a huge fan of rap these days, but he was one of my faves when I was younger, and it’s tragic that he passed at such a young age. His music was fun and positive, and songs like the one in the video above still put a smile on my face.
Heavy, I’m wishing you a peaceful journey.
Sometimes I can concentrate on my writing. Unfortunately, those times are now few and far between. I often end up surfing the web, and the subjects that I read about are as scattered as my brain. Sometime last week, between seeing how much I could get by selling my hair and learning about hydroponic systems, I ran across a video that I’ve been meaning to share since then. It’s by a band called the Zimmers, which is made up of a group of senior citizens from the U.K. And they’re doing a cover of none other than The Prodigy’s “Firestarter.” Watch and be amazed:
I showed it to Pumpkin, and she was rather freaked out by it. But I love it! If you’re interested, you can learn more about the Zimmers at their website, and you can download this and more of their songs at Amazon.com.
Other than the occasional celebrity train wreck that captures my attention, I’m not real big on celebrity news. But I found something out last night that I just had to share: Peter Tork, former Monkee and current Shoe Suede Blues frontman, has cancer.
Cancer is a scary thing. I’ve lost a dad and three grandparents to it, and my aunt is a survivor. The good news in this case is that Peter’s prognosis appears to be good. A biopsy indicated that the cancer has not spread, and he is having surgery today (March 4th, 2009) to remove what they’ve found. You can read more at Peter’s website.
I’m a Monkees fan from way back. Not back when they were the kings of the world, because I wasn’t alive then, but I started watching their show when it came on MTV in the 80s. I was just a kid then, and they were the first music group I went totally gaga over.
I got older and pursued new interests, but a couple of months ago I heard about their movie, Head
I always really identified with Peter, because he was so… different. Kind of like me, only cooler. I looked up some of his new stuff online, and I was blown away. He’s just got so much talent. And even at the age of 67, he’s still a cutie pie.
Anyway, I just wanted to share the news in hopes that my readers would send some thoughts and prayers his way. I hope he gets through all this with no complications, and that he can eventually come back to North Carolina so I can see him perform live.
I am not a morning person. At all. Hubby has to practically drag me out of bed in the mornings. And if I don’t take my ADD medicine, I usually end up dozing until 10 or 11. Really, I’m not lazy, mornings just are not a good time of day for me.
So I’ve decided that I need to start doing something to perk myself up in the AM. I don’t like coffee, and I can’t drink much caffeine anyway. So I thought listening to the right kind of music might help. This morning, as soon as my computer warmed up, I listened to a few good rockin’ tunes. It certainly put me in a better mood, but we’ll see how it affects my productivity.
Here’s a video of one of the songs that gets me going. It’s a little on the psychedelic side, so don’t adjust your video card:
Pretty cool, huh? I think so, anyway. If you’re interested, you can get the MP3 here. Click on the “Downloads” link at the top of the page, and it will be the only Yogi Bear song listed.
In case you’re wondering, I do listen to music other than cartoon songs. As you might have figured out from that selection, I like rock, but my tastes are rather eclectic. One of these days I’ll post videos of some more of my favorite songs.
I was just over at Digg Videos and found this live clip of a forgotten favorite of mine. Like a lot of Pink Floyd’s stuff, this song just stirs something inside me. Listen to the words (and that killer guitar solo) and I think you’ll see what I mean.
Hubby came up with a project for me a couple of days ago when I didn’t have much work to do: He decided that he wanted to combine the best songs off of some of his CDs. So we spent the evening going through them. I heard enough bluegrass and country songs about wedding rings to last me a lifetime.
I wrote down the ones he wanted, and got to work putting them on discs for him. By the time it was said and done, I had made him four CDs out of the songs on twelve of them.
So what did I get out of all of this? Ten of those twelve CDs. One was scratched really badly and not my cup of tea anyway, and he gave one to a friend of his who had coveted it. So now I have some tunes to listen to, and for the most part some pretty good ones.
I should add that a few of those CDs were mine in the first place. He just kind of took them over. But now they are mine once more.
When I took my lunch break, I turned on the tube to see if I could find something to watch while I was eating. My beloved Rock Fest was on VH1 Classic, so I was happy. It was something I could watch without getting too attached to when it was time to get back to work.
They were playing some pretty awesome tunes, so I decided to leave it on and listen while I worked. I came back in the office, got back to work, and rocked out. Then the rocking stopped, and something that sounded like one of those trippy old kids’ movies started.
I thought it was just the beginning to another video, but this went on for about 10 minutes. I finally decided to get up and investigate. It turned out that The Song Remains the Same, the Led Zeppelin movie, was on. And I was missing it!
I wanted so badly to sit down and watch it. But it lasts 3 hours with commercials, and I need to spend that time working. I would have recorded it, but if I had done that I would have wanted to start from the very beginning. I’m weird like that.
So, heavy-hearted, I turned the TV off and came in the office and sat back down. Then I looked at the clock and realized that I’m also missing Steve Wilkos. Noooo!!!!
The TV is becoming way too big of a distraction. If I had my way, I’d just sell it and use the money to help pay the bills. But Hubby and Pumpkin would both flog me if I did.
I am so not looking forward to Christmas this year. But I was browsing around at some stuff online, and I ran across a couple of things that made me smile.
Christmas music is usually one of my least favorite things about Christmas. Most of it is either boring or kids’ stuff. The kids’ stuff I can usually tolerate, the boring stuff not so much. Thankfully some of my metal heroes from the eighties have come to the rescue and put out some rockin’ Christmas tunes.
Twisted Sister’s Twisted Christmas came out last year, and I’ve been dying for it every since then. And this year, there’s a new compilation with a whole slew of hair bands: Monster Ballads XMas. I want em both!!!
I have loved rock and roll since I was smaller than Pumpkin. I remember watching MTV back when it was the next big thing, and listening to The Cars on the radio and dancing around with pom-poms. Oops, I just revealed my age somewhat. 
I still love rock and roll, but I’m more into the old stuff now. I love the Stones, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin… Sure, most of them have partied their brains out and been through drug treatment more often than I change my socks, but they ROCK!
I’m not much of a partier myself any more, but I still love good old-fashioned rock and roll. I guess it’s in my blood. Over the years I’ve gained an appreciation for a wide range of music, but rock always has been and always will be my favorite. So if you meet me when I’m 95 years old and I’ve got the music blaring so I can hear it without my hearing aid, please don’t turn it down. Just indulge an old lady. 
Today is the big day for Ozzfest tickets. I got my code a couple of days ago, and was all ready to get my tickets at 7:00 sharp. But things didn’t work out. 
I got on the site right at 7:00, but the form I had to fill out was lacking one of those little captcha-type validation boxes. I tried to go on without it but kept getting an error message. I thought maybe it was a Firefox thing, so I opened up IE to give it a try. But by that point everybody and their brother was trying to get tickets, and the connection kept being reset.
I finally managed to get on and in line. Then I waited on the Ozzfest tickets forever, only to end up being booted out of line. WTF??? As you can tell, I’m not having a happy night. 
My only consolation is that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to go to Ozzfest anyway. Hubby hates crowds, but he said he would go anyway. But when the time came to go, he probably would have weaseled out of it.
