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Only in Venice, California - Red Hot Chili Peppers...

As I contemplate moving the family to Ireland for a year or two, Roy reminds me of things that would never, ever, happen there. Like this past summer, when we strolled down to the Venice boardwalk and stumbled onto an free, impromptu live performance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers...

He's certainly got a point there. Although, the Cranberries might just show up...

In case you weren't there... 

Get More: Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie, The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie, Free Music Videos

 

Spencer Stanley is my favorite on piano

 

Do You Remember Your First Crush?

Weird.

Driving home tonight.

 
Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas on MUZU.TV. 

Heard this song for the first time in ages and ages.

Very special song to me. First time I felt absolutely nuts about a boy.

I was eight. Third grade. My dad offered him a ride home with me from school.

I remember thinking I was about to faint, because he would be sitting right next to me.

I remember wishing that every stop light would turn red, to make the ride longer.

This was highly unusual as dad hardly EVER let boys near me. But Malcolm was a special little boy and even my dad liked him. Irish, too. Green eyes, too. Black Harry Potter hair, all over the place no matter what he tried to do with it.

In the backseat, I let his knee touch mine and I didn't move it. Stayed that way the whole ride to his house, and this song was playing on the radio. Played TWICE in fact because I guess it was a big hit back then.

I remember feeling...almost dizzy and blushing a lot.

Wow. Nice to know these old memories don't get lost

and that they can be brought back round again...

I hope you are alive and well, Malcolm, and having a joyful life.

Pull him away
Jealous so with me
Go there for new
For new thing is there
Singing of a famous street
I want to love I've all the wrong glory
But is it Heaven or Las Vegas
But you're much brighter than the sun is to me
He's a hustler it's a role
He'll never make suit
Hang on to this
Stay and stay and fail and fail
Reaching this itch in my soul
Is like any good playing card
Must be why I'm thinking of Las Vegas
Why it's more brighter than the sun to me
Carnivals are bluster loud
I'm dizzy so I go, under the Big Dipper
Come fantasy for a carnival
How fitting before a wedding
Singing of a famous street
I want to love I've all the wrong glory
But is it Heaven or Las Vegas
You're much more brighter than the sun is to me
Maybe then you will swear
This is hardly personal
And I suspect I'm singing to a tune
And still find that beats singing as I swoon...

Cocteau Twins, 1990

 

Help, I'm Alive

 First off...I took the job.

Agonized over it for days, until this song played two in the two cars I was riding in at different times of the same day: Take The Money And Run, by the Steve Miller Band.

I do believe in omens, dontcha know?

And who says God can't talk to you in rock music?

I mean, Lord help me, I've got a recovering vet in my home who had an NBD a couple of weeks ago. (Yeah, I mean, he was DUE for one, don't you think??). I've got a husband who thinks/knows he's got this brilliant novel in his head. I don't doubt it, but someone has to earn some serious do-re-mi while he chips it out of the stone.

Go on, take the money and run...

And my child, little Jules, in the midst of summer camp crazes. You don't go low budget on anything that involves your kid. So, of course, his basketball camp this summer has to be the Baron Davis basketball camp. Skateboard park camp, with real pros doing the teaching, and more. Oh, so much more.

Me, summers between school years I helped my dad and my uncle repair personal computers and mainframes, then just with my uncle after dad died. I ate drank and dreamed of nothing but motherboards and computer code.

Except for the summer I spent in Cleveland while attending Ohio State University. Worked in a bank vault, all summer, counting the Firestone family stock portfolios. Yeah, as in the old Firestone Tire and Rubber clan.

Didn't know what real wealth was until I spent my days thumbing through their old stock certificates. Grandchildren and even great grandchildren, unconceived and far from being born, with their wealth all laid out and ready for them. Wowzers. Gave my thumb a blister. No kidding.

Go one, take the money and run...

I did.

And the place I left awhile back is even larger than it was before I left. Activision, then Activision-Blizz and now, oh my gosh, Activision-Blizz-Bungie.

Just, please God, don't let them get big enough to buy Electronic Arts.

Unless I got to be in charge.

Wouldn't that be something. Wouldn't be me trembling, that's for sure.

This song, 'Help, I'm Alive' deserves a better visual than this. I'll find one later.

More later, but I've got to get this child off to church.

Bye.

P.S. I'm finally ready to write about the last chapter from that High Desert Meth Arrest thing. Unfortunately, that situation is very freaking far from resolved. Seems my stalker was not acting alone. That Mullet Brain couldn't have thought that whole scheme up. Someone else did...

Discover LP33.tv...It Rocks

This is how it works. Sign on. Create a page. It's easy. If you Facebook, if you're LinkedIn, you already know how.

Start listening. Start rating, and pretty soon it's clueing into your tastes, finding the music that you like, for you. It's like having your own music video store expert bring you tracks when you walk into the store. Except, you're doing it all from the comfort of your home.

I've found some groups I've never heard of; that's the magic of it. You'll find yourself winding down to it after a long and difficult day at work. listening to new sounds.

This is my playlist...so far. Oh, lest I forget. Not all of the videos are G-rated ;)

LP33.tv

It rocks.

Veronica Dunbar's page on LP33.tv

I Don't Care (Fall Out Boy)

 Here's a scary thought. I've never been to my blog on this computer, so as I typed it out on the Google assisted search (where they offer scroll downs of the sites they think you might be looking for) my blog, Veronica Dunbar, showed 363,000 hits.

Three hundred sixty three thousand hits?!?! For ME?

Wow, is the world THAT fricking bored? Well, maybe not. I've since learned that Fall Out Boy's web site has had 29,300,000 hits. So, I'll happily accept my 363k.

Listened to this song last night while playing my brute Vicereine on City of Villains. Good driving rock song  for a villainess, just not THE villainess that shows up at the end of the video. Brrrr.

I love these guys... and I just love these lines: "Say my name, and his in the same breath. I dare you to say they taste the same."

Fall Out Boy - I Don’t Care

Say my name and his in the same breath. I
Dare you to say they taste the same.
Let the leaves fall off in the summer
And let December glow in flames

Brace myself and let go.
Start it over again in Mexico.
These fans they don’t love you.
They just love the hotel suites. Now,

I don’t care what you think
As long as it’s about me.
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

Said I don’t care what you think
As long as it’s about me
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

Oh, take a chance, let your body get a tolerance.
I’m not a chance, but a heat wave in your pants.
Pull a breath like another cigarette, palms up
I’m trading ‘em (trading ‘em)

I’m the oracle in my chest.
Let the guitar scream like a fascist.
Sweat it out, shut your mouth, free love
on the streets, but
In the alley it ain’t that cheap. Now,

I don’t care what you think
As long as it’s about me.
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

Said I don’t care what you think
As long as it’s about me.
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

Said-a, I don’t care just a-what you think,
As long as it’s about me, you said-a
I don’t care just what you think,
As long as it’s about me, Said I-a
I don’t care (I don’t care)
Said I don’t care (I don’t care)
Said I don’t care,
I don’t care (no I don't)
I don’t care (Said I don’t care), I said-a
I don’t care

I don’t care what you think
As long as it’s about me
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

Said I don’t care what you think,
As long as it’s about me
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

Said I don’t care what you think,
As long as it’s about me
The best of us can find happiness
In misery

"I Don't Care" by Fall Out Boy: released September 15th, 2008 in Los Angeles, CA; Island Records, Decaydance Records, Fueled By Ramen Records.
Written by Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump. Produced by Neal Avron.

Watch the video here, just try not to barf at the end when you discover the identity of the jaded rock jerk who hates Fall Out Boy.

I Wanna Be a Rockstar

Normally can't have two song posts in a row, but I just had to add last night's group's--Nickelback--big song of the moment, Rockstar. Mom called these guys 'the new Dire Straits' (as in the 'Money for Nothing' satirical look at what some people think the rock star life might be like) Comparing them to DS and Mark Knopfler was high praise from her, as she never missed their concerts when they were in town.

I have been dancing around the house in not very many clothes singing this out at the top of my lungs all morning. (lol, don't worry, Julian's at school) Way too much fricking serious reality for me lately and I needed to let loose, privately, of course...hee hee. Roy is demanding an encore when he gets home tonight...maybe, maybe, maybe...

I mean, c'mon. Gasoline is nearing $4 a gallon. Our house has probably lost 40% of its value. Iran is a year away from nuclear weapons. The polar ice sheets are melting. Everyday, it seems some new Congressman is exposed for some kind of heinous criminal behavior. Turn on this video, push the volume to the limit and SING (I waited until my neighbors were all at work...lol). I feel better already.

In terms of musical genre, Nickelback is considered Post Grunge Hard Rock (Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, another huge Mom fav, were Grunge, in case you were wondering)

I just love the way these guys rock, love their voices, and I love who they included just about EVERY kind of person possible in their video (lots of celebrities, too, who seemed to have fun.) Time to go to work now...Another bunch of whacky Canadians (for some reason, ALL the Canadian gamers I have met have been...well...one chewed expresso bean too far into the Weirdly Wired set. Trust me, do NOT ask)

"I'm through with standing in line
To clubs we'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth
And I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out
Quite the way I want it to be

(Tell me what you want)

I want a brand new house
On an episode of Cribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough
For ten plus me

(So what you need?)

I'll need a credit card that's got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it
Gonna join the mile high club
At thirty-seven thousand feet

(Been there, done that)

I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and
James Dean is fine for me

(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[Chorus:]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the ***** come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

I wanna be great like Elvis without the tassels
Hire eight body guards that love to beat up ********
Sign a couple autographs
So I can eat my meals for free
(I'll have the quesadilla on the house)
I'm gonna dress my ***
With the latest fashion
Get a front door key to the Playboy mansion
Gonna date a centerfold that loves to
Blow my money for me
(So how you gonna do it?)
I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[Chorus]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the ***** come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair
And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary and today's who's who
They'll get you anything with that evil smile
Everybody's got a **** dealer on speed dial, well

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

I'm gonna sing those songs
That offend the censors
Gonna pop my pills from a pez dispenser

I'll get washed-up singers writing all my songs
lip sync 'em every night so I don't get 'em wrong

[Chorus]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the ***** come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair
And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary and today's who's who
They'll get you anything with that evil smile
Everybody's got a **** dealer on speed dial, well

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar"

Rockstar [Explicit] by Nickelback (c) 2007 The All Blacks B.V Issued under license to Roadrunner Records from The All Blacks B.V. Roadrunner Records is a registered trademark of The All Blacks B.V., from the 7x Platinum album 'All the Right Reasons' Watch on the video player on the Nickelback web site or listen to it here.

A little trivia (enjoy it cuz this is the ONLY time you're gonna find playmates and bunnies on MY blog): known celebrities in the video (no wonder the video from this 2005 album took two years to make...lol). My favorite is still the chubby Steelworker near the end of the video. He's real. It's pretty remarkable to get THIS many egos onto ONE video in cameo roles without having to name them.

Here goes: 

Lindsey Shaw, Cindy Taylor, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, Wayne Gretzky, Kendra Wilkinson, Gene Simmons, Paul Wall, Dominique Swain, Twista and Mayz from Speedknot Mobstaz, Holly Madison, Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers, John Rich, Chuck Liddell, Jenna Westerbeck, Kid Rock, Jessie Coleman, Eliza Dushku, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Taryn Manning, Jerry Cantrell, Liam Lynch, Nelly Furtado, Elliot Segal from DC101 in a headlock, Paul Teutul, Jr., Paul Teutul, Sr., and Mikey from Orange County Choppers, Federico Castelluccio, Grant Hill, Ted Nugent, Bridget Marquardt, Jordan Carlos, Lupe Fiasco, Riki Lindhome, Wacha Kurzwell, Gwenno Pipette, Daniel Self, The Naked Cowboy, Jayson Woolley and Laurie Picken.

I hear most guys are dying to know who the three women were who were dancing on the street lip synching 'And we'll hang out in the coolest bars,' sandwiched in the video between the woman on the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Gene Simmons, but they are not actresses or singers or playmates at all it appears. Just three women the videographers were just able to find on the street. Sorry guys...lol.

"Photograph"

Heard on the radio on my way home tonight. Great song. Love the voices, and they're kinda cute, too... ;)

Look at this photograph
Everytime I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is that on Joey's head

And this is where I grew up
I think the present owner fixed it up
I never knew we'd ever went without
The second floor is hard for sneaking out

And this is where I went to school
Most of the time had better things to do
Criminal record says I broke in twice
I must have done it half a dozen times

I wonder if it's too late
Should i go back and try to graduate
Life's better now than it was back then
If I was them I wouldn't let me in

Oh, oh, oh
Oh, god, I

Every memory of looking out the back door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.

Remember the old arcade
Blew every dollar that we ever made
The cops hated us hangin' out
They say somebody went and burned it down

We used to listen to the radio
And sing along with every song we know
We said someday we'd find out how it feels
To sing to more than just the steering wheel

Kim's the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous that I nearly missed
She's had a couple of kids since then
I haven't seen her since god knows when

Oh, oh, oh
Oh, god, I

Every memory of looking out the back door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.

I miss that town
I miss the faces
You can't erase
You can't replace it
I miss it now
I can't believe it
So hard to stay
Too hard to leave it

If I could I relive those days
I know the one thing that would never change

Every memory of looking out the back door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.

Look at this photograph
Everytime I do it makes me laugh
Everytime I do it makes me...

--Nickelback, from their album 'All the Right Reasons.' Watch the video here.

Just My Imagination

Listening to the radio in the car pool on the way home from work at A-B tonight, all of us too tired from another 12-hour day to even talk, and then this song comes on. Unbelieveably beautiful...suddenly none of us tired and all of us singing along.

You know how remakes of classic songs are usually just gawdawful? Not this one. I recognized Baby Face's amazing voice immediately. But I thought everyone was putting me on when they told me the woman singing was Gwyneth Paltrow. I mean, no fricking way is that possible! Well, that's what I was thinking. Miss "Great Expectations?" Miss "Shakespeare in Love?" Miss "Jefferson in Paris" Gwyneth Paltrow? I mean, she he has got to be one of the whitest of white women and, being one myself, it's like okay for me to say that. Gwyneth? Talking about some boy being "so fly?" GWYNETH???

But, OMG it really was her. And I have now decided, in certainly not the kindest way possible, that Gwyneth Paltrow has just made my list of incredibly cool people, as if OFF the list of people I considered so stiff and mannequin-ish and unemotional and unreal that she should have been born back when men were still commuting on horseback...in heavy armor...with really big swords.

A part of being young, and somewhat foolish, I suppose. So, perhaps I can be forgiven.

Here are the slightly altered lyrics of the old Temptations song, and a link to this amazing rendition. Wow...who knew? Not me.

Verse 1- Gwyneth Paltrow

Each day through my window
I watch him as he passes by
I say to myself
I'm so lucky he's so fly
To have a boy like him
is truly a dream come true
Out of all the girlies in the world
he belongs to you

Chorus

But it was just my imagination
Runnin away with me
tell you it was just my imagination
running away with me


Verse 2-Babyface

Soon we'll be married
And raise a family (oh yea..)
Have a cozy little crib in the country
with two children maybe three
I tell you I....
can raise your eyes now baby
It couldn't be a dream
cause too real it all seems
oooohhhh........

Chorus

But it was just my imagination (ooh once again yea)
Runnin away with me (running away with me baby)
tell you it was just my imagination
running away with me (away with me yea yea)

Verse 3-Gwyneth Paltrow and Babyface

Everynight on my knees I pray
Dear lord hear my plea yea
Don't ever let another
take his love from me
Or I will surely die
Heavenly (heavenly) when your arms enfold me
I hear a tender rhapsody
But in reality
He doesn't even know me

Chorus

But it was just my imagination (ohh, so fly look out my window)
Runnin away with me (It's running away with me baby)
Just my imagination (runnin away)
running away with me (my baby, my sugar, my sweetie, look at my baby)

Just my imagination (ohh, soo fly look out my window)
Runnin away with me (It's runnin away with me)
Just my imagination (yeeaaaa)
running away with me (my baby, my sugar, my sweetie, look at my baby)

Just my imagination (ohh, soo fly look out my window)
Runnin away with me (It's runnin away with me)
Just my imagination (yeeaaaa)

((By the way, the Gallery of Heroes and Villains has been removed temporarily until I find a decent image host. I'm just not happy with Typepad's.))

No such Thing - John Mayer

Took Roy to a basketball game at my high school Friday--Venice High. Talk about about a weird flashback. Reminded me of this song, which I will share now... This is for every awkward geeky computer nerd kid who survived high school and proved everyone wrong.

NO SUCH THING (John Mayer)

"welcome to the real world"
she said to me condescendingly

"take a seat, take your life
plot it out in black and white"

well I never lived the dreams of the prom kings
and the drama queens
I'd like to think the best of me
is still hiding up my sleeve

they love to tell you "stay inside the lines"
but something's better on the other side

I want to run through the halls of my high school
I want to scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
just a lie you've got to rise above

So the good boys and girls take the so-called right track
faded white hats grabbing credits, maybe transfers
they read all the books but they can't find the answers
all of our parents, they're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better
while in their memories, tiny tragedies

they love to tell you "stay inside the lines"
but something's better on the other side

I want to run through the halls of my high school
I want to scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
just a lie you've got to rise above

I am invincible
I am invincible
I am invincible
as long as I'm alive

I want to run through the halls of my high school
I want to scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
just a lie you've got to rise above

I just can't wait for my ten year reunion
I'm gonna bust down the double doors
and when I stand on these tables before you
you will know what all this time was for

(longer version includes the following  lyrics)

Good luck finding me in that year book
I'm not pictured
I had better things to do on that day
And don't you bother playing back that graduation tape
Cus I tool my cap and gown away
No you want find me any way but here
No theres no such thing as the so called glory years

Baby, I'm not always there when you call
But I'm always on time
And I gave you my all
Now baby be mine...

Watch the video here.