Tag Archives: They Might Be Giants

Five Things I Am Into Right Now, May 2014

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IndyWhenever I have a sore throat I like to imagine that I sound like Harrison Ford. Not current-day Harrison, no, I’m talking classic Harrison. You know that moment in The Raiders of the Lost Ark when he looks right at the camera (Marion Ravenwood) and says “Trust me.”

Right there! That is my sore throat voice!

Of course, this is complete poppycock. I just sound like myself, but more nasally and rough.

I always expect more of my voice. I assume it can sound smooth, I also assume I can sing. Both things proven wrong many, many times. Yet, there is a chance if you drive alongside me you might see me singing in my car. I actually got in an accident once driving and singing to They Might Be Giants. I kid you not! And, forever after that, you could hear the moment of the accident in the tape. It is like a hiccup. That tape hiccup was my life flashing before my eyes.

Whatever the case, I have a little bit of a cold today. I’ll be fine, and I’ll spend the rest of my day happily imagining I have the world to save from Nazis.

Here is my list of the five awesome things I am into right now. This is a great list. Trust me. Continue reading →

The 1996 version of me is alive and well, thank you very much

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10520_1168666669474_4075184_nIn 1996, I was about to graduate from college and with diploma in hand I was preparing to take on the world. Oh, I had so many plans in play!

First, I was going to disappear, six week or so, into Europe, solo. Then I was going to apply for graduate schools around the country. I wanted to study literature while focusing on my writing (the end game being either I make it successfully as a writer or I end up as a Ph.D. in English Literature). I could see it all in front of me, so solid I could have touched it.

The strange thing is that this year is I seem to be having a lot of flashbacks to that me, that time in my life. It’s like I can’t escape that guy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind that version of me. Yeah, he could be a little too over the top in his sarcasm and his opinion of himself, but he was still me.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly where this began. The obvious answer is my high school reunion last year,  But to be honest, that really didn’t hit me that hard, I would have rather just spent the weekend someplace with some of my friends than take part in what felt like an awkward reunion special for a TV show.

Maybe it could have also been the death of our first Beastie Boy last year? From the first time, I heard the Beastie Boys, they represented something for me and my friends. We didn’t listen to them all the time, but when we did it was because of a certain mood or a certain feeling about being young dudes we wanted to capture. And now MCA is gone, so when I listen to the music now (which is a lot) it feels like unbottled memories, and the energy is a shadow. A great shadow, granted, but a shadow nonetheless.

Or maybe this is all just related to the fact I turn forty this year. The possible halfway mark. The turned corner. The end of youth. A whole new smack of drama I had not considered before. It’s like in politics when a president starts their second term and the newspapers start talking about how the president needs to think about legacy.

That’s me… I guess I am on legacy time now. Continue reading →

Re-Blogged: They Might Be Giants

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They Might Be Giants have a new CD out today! It is called Nanobots. I really like it a lot (not a surprise there), reminding me a lot of their CD Apollo 18. My favorite songs so far are You’re on Fire and 9 Secret Steps.

The Musings & Artful Blunders of Scott D. Southard

I’m a proud card carrying member of the lifetime fans of They Might Be Giants.

I own all of the albums, each collection, a box filled with B-sides, concert albums, and too many shirts to count spanning the last two-and-a-half decades. I even once bought a shirt of theirs to save! See, my dream was that one of the characters in a screenplay I had written would wear that shirt in one scene. So even though I didn’t have a producer, studio, director or even an actor for it, I wanted to have the shirt just in case.

I’ve seen They Might Be Giants five times in concert, and the best way I have found to describe the experience is to compare it to what (I assume) it is like to attend a meeting of the masons. You are with others that believe the same as you, know the same…

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Living With Giants: Growing Up and Older With They Might Be Giants

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I’m a proud card carrying member of the lifetime fans of They Might Be Giants.

I own all of the albums, each collection, a box filled with B-sides, concert albums, and too many shirts to count spanning the last two-and-a-half decades. I even once bought a shirt of theirs to save! See, my dream was that one of the characters in a screenplay I had written would wear that shirt in one scene. So even though I didn’t have a producer, studio, director or even an actor for it, I wanted to have the shirt just in case.

I’ve seen They Might Be Giants five times in concert, and the best way I have found to describe the experience is to compare it to what (I assume) it is like to attend a meeting of the masons. You are with others that believe the same as you, know the same rites, know the same words, and instead of wearing creepy pinky rings we wear shirts with obscure references that no one but us really know…. And whenever I have met someone who already knows their albums, we immediately bond, our humor and artistic likes immediately snapping into alignment.

I was indoctrinated into the club of John Flansburgh and John Linnell (The geniuses behind They Might Be Giants) via a B-side of a single for Flood. I was in high school, and had to rely on one of my friends to get back and forth to school. And as we would drive each day, with our saxophones bumping against each other in the backseat, my esteemed driver would keep throwing in the same tape that had nothing more than four songs on it. Continue reading →