B-Sides, Reunions, and the only race that should matter to Willie

So allow me to muse on a few subject at random here:

ITEM ONE: After the AfterGlow

So I took a couple of weeks to listen through the new offering from Sarah McLachlan called Rarities, B-Sides, and Other Stuff 2. The majority of the selections are duets with other artists. Some are great (like Don't Let Go with Bryan Adams and Time After Time with Cyndi Lauper), some are good (the live version of Angel with the great Emmylou Harris) and some I am permanently skipping (Just Like Me with DMC). I applaude her idea of trying to reach into as many areas of musical taste by exposing what she thinks is her audience and exposing it to other genres. Except that this approach seldom works in any area. Its why The Superstars competitions never work at keeping our attention except for comedic value. I can appreciate the athletic skill set that LeBron James has as a basketball player; I don't need to see him trying to play ping-pong against Warren Sapp or outrun Sidney Crosby on an obstacle course to know this.

Her version of Blackbird was an interesting choice, considering the depth of Beatles songs she could have chosen. But the collection of duets and covers are too eclectic. Although I will still keep several tracks in my overall rotation of Sarah music on my iTunes player, in the end the album really does only one thing for me: makes me crave another actual album of original tracks.

The thing I worry about, though, is this: she is happy, with a happy family, and a happy life situation. I'm not saying she wasn't happy when she wrote some of those haunting lyrics of the past, but like anything else, someone's position on their own life changes their perspective. To paraphrase her for a moment, when it comes to soulful and wistful lyrics in songs to come, "...I fear she has nothing to give." Still, if you are a fan of Sarah, any new material that gives you a chance to hear that beautiful voice is worth the price of admission, and songs like When She Lived Me and The Rainbow Connection (yep, she covered Kermit the Frog), make it worth it.

ITEM TWO: This week's sign that I'm no longer 25

One of my friends was e-mailed a link to reunion photos from the class just below at my high school. I basically lost about two hours sifting through these photos and laughing at how much some of them have changed, and how much some of them haven't changed at all.

I enjoyed looking at them because I haven't seen many of them in about 15 years or so. When we were in high school, there was an ice skating rink located just across the border from Montvale in the New York town of Monsey called 'Sport-O-Rama'. Back then, the idea of keeping both of their rinks iced up during the entire year wasn't cost effective, so for three months of the year, they would melt one of them and run street hockey leagues. I was one of the fixtures the two Montvale franchises that came about from these leagues.

One was the Montvale Maple Leafs, and featured players ranging from the class of 85 through the class of 87. In fact, about half of the roster from 1984-1987 were from the 87 class. I had lost touch with a lot of them, and to see them pop up in these reunion photos brought back a lot of good memories. We won back-to-back championships in 1985 and 1986. Like all great hockey teams, it started with great leadership, had a group of skilled scorers and passers on the forward lines, mixed in intelligent and physical play by the defensive units, and stellar goaltending between the pipes.

We were the only team from Jersey the first three years, so it seemed we never got the benefit of any penalty calls, and the other teams always tried to bait us into fighting with them so we could get tossed out of the league. All we did was beat them on the scoreboard and win championships, laughing all the way back across the river to the Jersey side.

I don't have any other info about the reunion itself, in terms of where it took place or what the events were and so forth. I only mention this because of all the work I put in as one of the organizers of my class reunion back in the summer of 2006. We spent a year tracking people down, building a website with content, and organizing a softball game and then evening reception complete with Hollywood-styled arrivals (including people taking pictures paparazzi style). To read some of the stuff I had on the page, which was the original home of The Crief Case, click here.

ITEM THREE: Other stuff
So Willie Randolph is trying to buy himself another year as Mets manager by playing the race card. I would have thought that all of those years watching the media circle Reggie and some of his other Bronx Zoo teammates like sharks would have taught him something. I'm not saying he's wrong, in fact there probably is some validity to his statements. But to me, the only race Willie should be worried about is winning the race for the National League East. That's all that matters to me as a Mets fan right now. After last year's collapse, and the poor start this year, you have to wonder if he's lost this team, if they are tuning him out. I don't get to watch them everyday, but when I do, they don't play with the same level of confidence and energy that his 2006 team, one game away from the World Series, played with. He needs to get that back... Speaking of the Mets, a tip of the cap in respect to Mike Piazza, who goes down as one of the great Mets of all-time. Not only did he revitalize the franchise when he was acquired in 1998, but he also revitalized New York with that home run against Atlanta in the first ever sporting event in NYC following 9/11 in 2001. That is a moment that still gives me chills when I think about it, being in the upper deck that night rivaled the feeling of the famous Mookie Wilson-Bill Buckner World Series game... I'll admit it, I've got a serious addiction working right now: NCIS. I received a copy of Season 1 on DVD for my birthday last month, purchased Season 2 a few weeks ago, and grabbed Seasons 3 & 4 to watch over the holiday weekend. I can't believe I've missed out on this show until recently, but I'm glad I found it.

I promise, I'll stay in touch...

Pimping Mahalo How To's

So every once in a while, we do things here at Mahalo, my current day job, that are really cool. We have a talented group of "How To" writers that have put together some phenomenal pages over the last 6-9 months that they've been in operation. The latest one that I've found very interesting is "How to Get a Car Loan". Seeing as how I may need to do this in the very near future myself, I read through and can appreciate the explanations of how the terms work and what the hell an APR is. If you need to get a car loan, check the page out, and check out all of the great How to pages at Mahalo.

My next posting, coming up this weekend I promise, will include the much-awaited review of the new Sarah McLachlan album, and musings on the Pascack Hills Class of 1987 20-year reunion, which I was just forwarded photos of and can't stop laughing out loud in a "Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear" way at my desk.

Fumbling Into Ecstasy - All Over Again

The year was 1994, and at the age of 26, I was trying not only to figure out who I was, but who women were and what makes them tick. To be honest, I'm no closer to the answer to any of those three things today than I was 14 years ago. I was just a young guy in Jersey trying to figure things out. At that point in my life, the only thing I thought Canada was good for was being the birthplace of hockey.

Then Sarah McLachlan came into my life.

Well, not her specifically, but her music. The name of the album was Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (go ahead and insert a football joke here if you'd like). I couldn't get the song "Possession" out of my head, having seen it at least twice a day on VH1. By the way, remember VH1 used to show nothing but music videos?

So I went to Tower Records to purchase the album. Now at the time, this was monumental for me because, other than Bruce Springsteen, I would always wait until an artist had at least 3 songs on a album that I had heard regularly and liked before I would go by it. A simple case of musical economics in a time before having the ability to download a single song on the internet.

I began to listen to the whole album. I listened through it the first time, and was drawn in by her voice and the detail of the music that accompanied it. I listened a second time with the lyrics, not realizing until then the absolute genius that these lyrics were. It was certainly different than anything I had experienced before.

I've gone through about 6 different versions of the disc over the years, wearing them out from constant use, always keeping the album near the top of the rotation of discs I readily listened to.

For a while, I didn't admit to my friends that I listened to this album, for some ridiculous fear of being mocked by them, with some sort of 'searching for a feminine side' teasing. But after a while, I decided I didn't care about that, because to me it is simply one of the best albums, factoring in lyrics, instrumentation, presentation, selection order, and performance, I'd ever heard.

I can just feel the winter cold blasting through the Canadian night listening to her sing. Like the first lyrics of "Ice": 'The ice is thin, come on dive in; underneath my lucid skin; the cold is lost, forgotten.' Or from "Possession": 'Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide; voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time. The night is my companion, and solitude my guide; would I spend forever here and not be satisfied...' By the way, once I heard the piano solo version of this song, snuck on the trail end of the disc, following about 40 seconds of silence after the title track ends, I have a hard time listening to the regular version.

Not since 'The River' by The Boss had the lyrics and melodies blended together so as to permanently affix themselves within my consciousness. Ever since, the albums released before Fumbling, and the ones that followed (which have been too far in between) have been must purchases for me. Yep, even in this day and age of pirating music off the net, there are but two artists and two artists that I still am willing to make full fare purchases for their music: Bruce and Sarah. Seen her live a few times, both in arenas and very small studio taping outings, and she puts on a great live show too.

She just released a second edition of 'Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff' this past week, and I just ordered it today, having overnighted for tomorrow. It includes her version of the Lennon/McCartney classic "Blackbird". I'll make a subsequent posting with my thoughts on the new album this weekend.

Still, every once in a while, I find myself rediscovering her music and it what it means to listen to it. Especially the Fumbling album. Because, quoting her one last time from the album's song "Elsewhere": 'I believe this heaven to no one else but me, and I'll defend it as long as I can be left here to linger in silence'.

I don't care how many writing classes you take, you can't learn that, you either have that within you or you don't.