Wisconsin recall bleg

I need at least 2 Gs in my khakis.

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Wisconsin recall bleg

Give me all your money, give me all your gold.

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I’m wise enough to know when a gift needs giving

Wisconsin recall bleg time.

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You’ve got to give it to me

For the Wisconsin recall elections.

(Listened to a lot of J. Geils band when I was getting ready for karaoke, the song holds up surprisingly well, if a little too much like Desmond Dekker’s “Shanty Town“).

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Giving ends to your friends and it feels stupendous

We cleared nearly 4K yesterday, not bad!

*** Update ***

John speaking. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest people might be more charitable if we told them what this is for. It is for the Wisconsin recall, and not gastric bypass surgery for Tunch and Rosie.

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Technical / YouTube Bleg

Somehow I have lost the ability to use the ‘embed’ function on YouTube… I can still load a clip and watch it, no problem, but when I hit the ‘Share’ button my machine goes into the Infinite White Screen of Nothingness. I’m using Firefox 3.xx, and I’m guessing some subroutine has corrupted itself / been trojaned?

Do any of you tech wizards have a solution other than ‘purge your hard drive and reload everything’ and / or ‘add more memory’?

ETA: Riggsveda for the win, and thanks to everyone who participated!

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We gonna ride the boogie

As long as John is doing embarrassing blegs this evening, thought I’d do one too. I’ve gotten into doing some karaoke recently. Last week I killed with Easy Like Sunday Morning, did a solid Honky Tonk Woman, and flailed with 1999.

Next week I plan to reprise Easy Like Sunday Morning and add Rock With You and Sweet Caroline and maybe Pink Houses. Do you guys have any recommendations for karaoke songs? I have trouble knowing when to come in unless there are obvious cues and more generally I have trouble with rhythm (I can’t account for this, my dad and sister are semi-professional musicians). I also can’t sing very high. I do have a nice voice though.

My holy grail would be a song where I can really emote, though not in an emo way, and maybe say “Lord have mercy” or “can I get a witness” or something like that. Are there any songs like that you can think of? I’ve tried Some Kind Of Wonderful, which seems like a natural choice, but there’s too much harmonizing. Al Green or Van Morrison is totally out of the question, unfortunately, given my limitations.

Update. A couple questions about specific songs…

I do a great “Blues Eyes Crying In Rain”, but does that work at karaoke? I usally do it in cabs or at parties, and that’s a whole ‘nother setting.

My all time favorite song is “Sweet Thing” by Rufus. Is there any way someone who is both white and male could pull that off at karaoke, possibly with back-up help? I have dreams where I do this and they seem real to me.

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A Bleg and a Reward

Update:  If folks would post links to online versions of their suggestions as available, we’d have a pretty good afternoon concert going, don’t you think?

Bleg first…gotta sing for your supper, folks, more or less literally.

Here’s the story:  I received a note from my younger brother today, another one of my siblings with all the musical talent I lack.*  His mid-life crisis is manifesting itself:

I’ve just started playing keyboard with a rock band through Bandworks (they put together bands, help them practice for 8 weeks and set up a chance to perform for friends).

All well and good.  But there is already trouble in paradise:

The coordinator for our group had already selected several songs with good guitar and percussion but not great keyboard parts (at least not in their original version), and, they also all seem to have uninteresting melodies—designed for people with a vocal range of about three notes.

My bro voiced his desire for something a little meatier in the keyboard department than “When the Weight Comes Down,” and maybe with a tune a former SF Boys Chorister would enjoy singing.

My first idea  was an old, old favorite, from the irreplaceable and much missed Warren Zevon:

But then I thought, what are the intertubes for?

So what say you:  give me your poor, your lonely, your rock or rock-ish tunes, good piano/keyboard part, something happening in the melody, yearning to be covered by middle aged guys in Berkeley, CA.

But, “Hey!” I hear you say.  What about that reward?

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DC

On Monday night I am thinking Addis Ababa in Silver Spring, 7:30-ish. Send an email if you might want to go so I can call ahead for a table. Beck and Lauriol Plaza both sound like fun, especially that beer list at Beck, but I feel iffy about the price (Beck) and waiting too long for a seat (both). Let me know what you think. ▲

Bleg!

For those of you who live in DC or visit it a lot, let’s say that you have to choose three or four places to eat before the world ends. I plan to visit Best Cellars for a couple cases of wine, and lunch will probably happen somewhere in Chinatown where (preferably) they don’t speak English, but other than that the slate is clean. If you have a special tolerance for boring then send an email and I might arrange something.

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