I am trying to figure out if I can pull off a brooch ala Mrs. O.  Do I have lots of other things to be doing?  Why, yes.  But I need to ponder this brooch issue for a few hours.  Excuse me.

Viva la vida!

“I KNOW”.  Here’s one VERSION, which unfortunately has a little edit, but it’s still awesome; and here’s another live at the beautiful old LARGO.  This song literally gives me the chills.  Not figuratively.  I’m not just saying that to impress upon you that it’s amazing.  I get a little ghosty chill in my actual body when I hear it.

“PARTING GIFT”.  “It ended bad, but I love where we started.”  This is how I try to remember all of them.  I mean, I try to try.

“WHAT’LL I DO?”  What will I do?  I don’t know…hmm..  Usually what I will do whenever I hear this song is want to cry in a profound way over every person I’ve ever loved and lost, as if it just happened yesterday.  Not even in the morning yesterday.  Even more recently than that.  Just last night yesterday.  There are so many famous versions of this tune, but Harry Nilsson’s is really, really sad.  Don’t let the grand orchestral stuff shake you from appreciating the complete despair of Harry’s voice.  It’s some really excellent despair.  And I think that the lyrics to this song are pretty much first place in the sad breakup lyrics contest.  Oh, Irving Berlin.  You’re really very talented.

Did I ever tell you the Stevie Wonder story?  I saw him at Hollywood Bowl last summer and he was incredible.  Played for over two hours, passionately laying into all the hits as me and my friend ate cheese and drank sangria.  And then, at the end of the night, as his backing band (which included, at times, his seven year old son on drums) played “Superstitious,” Stevie got up to say goodbye.  But that’s not exactly what he said.  He said, “Now it’s time for me to leave you.  But know that I never really leave you.”

Somehow that got me.  The fact that he went to the trouble of saying it, plus the fact that he is Stevie Wonder, made it feel true.  And there are moments now when I listen to his music and it feels truer and truer.

Along these lines – something that I’ve wanted to post here because it made me incredibly happy:  Bruce Springsteen, he of the crotch in your face super bowl performance, blogged his experience  of the half time show.  I have a special place in my heart for Bruce, who I came to kind of late.  That a guy who’s been doing it for so long can still write about a show with this kind of excitement and joy is a fucking wonderful thing.  Read it HERE.

(A sexy/funny/awesome live Bruce video right in this LINK here.  I was noodle oodling around youtube a few years ago and found this Bruce performance of “Fire,” a song I made out to in college a million years ago, and I was both delightfully aroused and amused.  The money shot is his final line near the very end.  You’re welcome.)

Lastly, one other thing I wanted to put here:  I’ve been loving the stuff Maira Kalman draws on the nytimes blog.  I want to eat brownies with her.

Anyway I saw this morning they linked to a Dove ad thing that for some reason (they pretty much cover the reasons, so I don’t need to go into it too much here) is weirdly compelling.  I have the same mixed feelings about the Dove campaign as everyone else (again, they go into it) but this is just a few minutes where a commercially funded, ideologically tricky campaign yielded something that feels like a little spark of connective humanity.  Especially after yesterday, where I spent the better part of wakingness watching the news from Gaza and sinking into the despair that will tend to cause.

HERE it is.  Well done director Pinny Grylls (awesome name.)

Still can’t really talk, but at least able to kind of squeak out consonants.  Went out this morning, bought the paper, and squeaked to the nice lady at my coffee place that I wanted a hot chocolate.

“What?” she says.

“ht chlt.”

“Aw, you poor thing.”

“Tks.”

This afternoon a friend gave me (via email) an excellent recipe for a hot toddy.  I think that’s what St Bernards carry in their neck barrels.  Or at least, it should be.

Today I went out and bought some whiskey.  The good stuff.

So now I’m on hot toddy #3.

I feel really, really good.

Aside from hot toddys, here’s something ELSE to make you happy.

Have a nice weekend all, be good to each other.

The other night I was in this state.  And I’m kind of listening to CNN as I potter about in my insomnia.  And then Larry King comes in, I guess the third replay of the night, and his guest is Jim Carrey.  About whom I know basically nothing except that he’s Jim Carrey.

And what I learn about Jim Carrey, as I gradually migrate closer and closer to actually really watching TV, is that he seems like a very nice thoughtful guy.   I know about him living in a car at some point and that his family was poor and stuff like that, but I don’t know anything about him now.  Anywoop, the rub is:  King asks him about dealing with depression and sadness and hardship.  Which it seems Carrey has had his fair share of.  And then, around 2:33am, I hear Jim Carrey say this:

“I just got to the point where I realized the only way to look at life is to believe that everything that ever happens to you, is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.” [or words to that effect.]

I can’t explain exactly why this immediately got emblazoned on every mental license plate, pillow, bumper sticker and mug that I have in my head, but it did.  Maybe it was the way he said it, maybe it was the time, maybe it was the fact that all my fidgeting and insomnia was clearly the outward manifestation of an inward fidgeting, a slightly askew metabolism…it doesn’t matter.  All I know is I started pouring all the little bumps and bruises through the filter of those words and felt like I saw everything differently.

I know.  Jim Carrey?  Why?  Dunno.   But I now consider him a friend.

It’s a nice little banner to put in your head for 2009. Hurrah for New Year everyone!  Trumpets and yay!  May your new year be peaceful and beautiful and delicious, like the perfect bowl of spaghetti.

CRY LIKE A BABY

Sometimes I crave Aretha the same way I crave a steak.  I feel a little weak, a little shaky, and there’s only one thing sustaining enough, life giving enough to perk me back up.  Ms Franklin is the filet mignon of soul.  Juicy, satisfying, the real deal.

I have still never been to famous Peter Luger in Brooklyn.  But I have a fantasy of going there for the first time and slamming down a prime rib while You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman plays on repeat, loud.  LOUD.