And the Bob Dole Grumpy Old Man Award goes to: Fred Thompson!

Fred Thompson “Leader of the Pack”

Thompson has selected a song about “Betty” and “Jimmy” who meet at the candy store and have a brief romance. Betty’s dad tells her she can’t see Jimmy anymore, and after she breaks up with him, tearful Jimmy speeds off into the night and dies in an accident, with the not-so-subtle implication that he killed himself rather than live without Betty’s love. Ahem. What in the WORLD does this have to do with anything? At least most of the campaign songs have a positive message about the country or a theme about change. Fred’s song is about… Fred. And how he is the, uh, leader of the pack…?

Let’s not forget how the song ends:

“The leader of the pack - now he's gone
The leader of the pack - now he's gone
The leader of the pack - now he's gone
The leader of the pack - now he's gone.”

Not exactly a positive message, is it? If only Fred was gone from the campaign.


Also, I think it’s interesting that he chose a song that was released a full two years before his wife was even born. Fred married Jeri (with an “i”!) in 2002 when she was 35 and he was 59. When asked by the Associated Press in 2007 what his favorite possession was, he said ”trophy wife.” An unfair message for Fred to send when he defends her qualifications as a potential first lady from the other side of his mouth.

Wikipedia says that Obama’s campaign song is “Better Way” by Ben Harper and not “Move On Up.” Hmmm... must go back and check my ”sources”.

desilusionado

Last night I had a really vivid dream that I had enrolled in a one-month study abroad program in Spain. Sounds great, except it was accompanied by the panicked realization that I was leaving the next day and had done nothing to prepare. I didn’t have a flight booked, I hadn’t arranged to get the time off work, I hadn't packed, I hadn’t even told my boyfriend. In the dream I was trying to be as calm as possible and just methodically figure out how I was going to get organized and get to Spain in the next 24 hours. My friend Oodles told me she had family in Spain, and I could stay with them for a few days until I found a place to live. This was the only part of the dream that was actually realistic, because Oodles does have family all over the world and often offers them up as a kind of family bed and breakfast. But since it was an anxiety dream, nothing else was going right. I found a flight, but couldn't find the airport on a map. There was this mysterious person who was supposed to be helping me but kept pointing to the map and insisting that Spain was where Germany is. Just as I was beginning to doubt my own sanity. I woke up and felt immediate relief that I didn’t have this complicated mess to figure out. Then I was immediately bummed, because I had to go to work, and not Spain.

"And now I'm proud to present the next President of the United States..."

I’ll leave the meaningful analysis of the issues to the educated pundits and tackle something a little more in the spirit of this blog: campaign songs. I'll tell you what I would have picked as the campaign song. Also, there will be complaining about Canadians. I'd love to hear your ideas on campaign songs, too, so bring it on in the comments. Today, we do the Democrats.

Hillary Clinton: “Blue Sky” by Big Head Todd and The Monsters

Clinton’s theme song used to be “You and I” by Celine Dion but it was replaced after Hillary’s campaign belatedly realized the song was written as the theme for Air Canada. Far more troubling to me is the fact that Celine Dion is a French-speaking Canadian, and as everyone knows, they hate two things: Freedom and America. So it’s good that the theme song has been replaced. It doesn’t really matter what she replaced it with, so long as it’s not the theme of a foreign airline or written by a freedom-hating Canadian.

My suggestion:
Clinton campaign events often play “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall which I think would have been a great theme song for Hillary’s campaign except it has the word “hell” in it and that’s probably still considered profanity in some parts of the fucking country.

Barak Obama: “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield

When I first looked up Obama's campaign song I thought for one horrible moment that Obama had chosen “Movin’ On Up” the theme from the tv show "The Jeffersons". I kid you not. I had a full minute of trying to imagine Senator Obama walking onto the stage, waving to the crowd, with "The Jeffersons" theme song playing in the background. It was like Ron Paul’s wet dream. Then I saw the name of the artist and realized I was thinking of something totally different. Still, it scares me that when I see the title of the song the first thing I think of is The Jeffersons. Apart from the fact that people of my generation may have that momentary incorrect association (and there’s really only about a dozen people in my generation voting anyway) this actually seems like a good choice. It has a positive message and there's an association with the civil rights movement. There's always the danger that people will associate a song from that era with smelly hippies having sit-ins. And it doesn't have enough of a rock n roll to it that makes you want to jump up to your feet when he walks on stage like when Clinton the First used "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac. Now there's a song the Teamsters can dance to.

My suggestion:
Obama would probably get flack if he didn’t choose an African-American artist. Ok, fine, but since Obama is the youngest candidate* my choice would be something more modern. For example, Kanye West’s “I Wonder” which contains the line, “Do you even remember what the issue is?” This seems appropriate given Obama’s long, imprecise answers. When he’s done answering a question and you feel like, wow, that was so inspirational… and yet I have no idea what he just said.

John Edwards
“This Is Our Country” by John “formerly the Cougar” Mellencamp.

This is actually a pretty good choice. It’s upbeat, the lyrics are positive and it hasn’t been used as a theme by a Canadian airline.

My Suggestion: “When It’s Over” Sugar Ray
It’s endearing that Edwards is still out there running for President (as far as I can tell that’s all he’s been doing since the last election) but at this point his chances of getting ahead of Hil-Barak are minimal. Which is fine with me, because even though I like his politics he’s a trial lawyer and I trust those guys about as far as I can throw them in their money-lined suits.

Edwards has been paying Obama a lot of compliments lately, which makes me wonder if he’s hoping to be tapped as a running mate. Maybe he can get one of the moderators to pass Obama a note at the next debate - I guess the kids don’t really do that anymore, a text message is probably more appropriate (“U R cool. Want 2 B running m8s?”).

Tomorrow: Republican theme songs!

*total conjecture. He looks like the youngest, he’s certainly the least experienced, but I just can’t be bothered to double-check.

Disgruntled?

This morning I took my car in for an oil change. Fascinating, I agree. I went over to have a cup of coffee and read the paper at the Java Junction while the car was being worked on. There is a plethora of reading materials, the local paper, separate stacks of the two weeklies, a pile of schedules from the local community college, the real estate rags… you know the drill. As I sit there enjoying my java a guy rushes through the door and over to the stacks of papers lines against the window. He scoops up the entire stack of the community college schedules and, muttering the name of the college under his breath, rushes outside. I strained to look where he had gone but didn’t want to attract any attention should he decide to run back in for the Pennysaver.

Rahabilitation???

I apologize for the 24-hour spelling error in the post below, I've been trying to fix it but have been encountering issues with Blogger. It made me queasy every time I looked at it. Also, I love Brie's comment about scare tactics with kids. My guess is that they were telling them that so they wouldn't try to pester otters in the wild. But do many people get that close to otters in the wild?

Finally, none of my bones were broken on the snow trip. I just found a photo of an x-ray and thought it would be funny. Ha. Ha.

Insanely cute otter video that will make your brain actually hurt

Video of orphaned sea otter pup's rehabilitation. HOW DO I GET A JOB SNUGGLING BABY OTTERS???



More info about sweet little snuggly baby otter:

Abby, a California sea otter pup, is cared for by Mark Bressler, senior animal care specialist at SeaWorld San Diego. The Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center found the otter stranded and near comatose on Jalama Beach, north of Santa Barbara, Calif., on July 21 and brought it to SeaWorld for rehabilitation. The female pup, which was estimated to be less than a week old when rescued, is being bottle-fed around the clock at SeaWorld and weighs approximately four pounds.
When the young otter was rescued, she was dehydrated, hypoglycemic, having difficulty maintaining her body temperature and weighed about three pounds (sea otter pups weigh between three and five pounds at birth). At first, the otter was too weak to nurse and had to be tube-fed. Animal care specialists eventually were able to get her to drink from a bottle. The otter pup is showing signs of progress, including nursing from a bottle regularly, and maintaining a normal body temperature of 99 to 100 degrees F.
The California sea otter is listed as a threatened species by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Threats include oil spills, entanglement in fishing nets and disease. The three California sea otters now on display at SeaWorld's Rocky Point Preserve were originally stranded and rescued as part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sea Otter Research and Conservation (SORAC) Program.
Since 1965, SeaWorld San Diego has rescued thousands of animals and has treated as many as 475 marine mammals in one year. SeaWorld has raised three other orphaned otters in the last 15 years, in cooperation with Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Next time I say I'm not a natural snowboarder, maybe you'll listen.

Well, after a two month absence from the blogosphere I thought it was time to explain my absence. In my last post, I explained that JFJ and I were off to the snow and I was a little nervous about trying snowboarding for the first time. And now you see why.