Augustlet: I know this song. How do I know this song?
Me: Well, kiddo, you know it from the beginning of that show Mama used to like called Charmed. [Note: He always went off to play when it came on, but not before hearing the music over the opening credits. ]
Augustlet: Ohhh okay.
Me: But this is the original version, and it came out when Daddy was a kid.
Augustlet: Before they were even thinking of the show? Okay. Is this a man or a woman singing?
Me: It’s a man. His name is Morrissey.
Augustlet: Oh. He doesn’t sound like you, though, he sings high.
Me: Well, that’s what we call an artistic choice, buddy.
Augustlet: He sings more like me. I don’t have a voice like you do.
Me: Well, no, you don’t, but when you get about 13 or 14, your voice will get [demonstrating] loooower.
Augustlet: Oh, you mean the older I get, the lower my voice will get?
Me: Kind of. Most of it happens when you’re a teenager.
Augustlet: I get it. As I get older, maybe I’ll start to sound like the guy in this song.
Radio: Johnny Cash, “Personal Jesus”
Me: You couldn’t ask for anything better than that, buddy.
1. Outkast - She’s Alive
2. Black Mountain - Heart of Snow
3. Parts & Labor - The Endless Air Show
4. Sing Sing - Come, Sing Me a Song
5. The String Quartet - Love Will Tear Us Apart
6. Iron Hero - Wearing a Wire
7. Combustible Edison - The Veldt
8. No Trigger - Earthtones
9. Boyskout - Girl on Girl
10. Laika - Bedbugs
[The] effort Gardner puts forth in the movie really does seem (as Michael says) superhuman. In the movie2, Gardner had no real friends, no support network, no savings, no home, and a child to take care of. He was pretty much in the situation Hilzoy discusses here — no margin for error, no margin for bad luck.
There are thousands of Americans in that situation. What makes Gardner’s story so unusual — and a good subject for a major Hollywood movie — is that Gardner ended up a millionairre. The far more common story of people who don’t make it, isn’t the story of which major movies are made…
For me, the lesson to take away from “The Pursuit of Happyness” isn’t that anyone can make it in America. Gardner wasn’t “anyone.” He was broke, but he had a natural endowment of intelligence, charm and drive that made him one in ten thousand, or maybe one in a million.
I’s ludicrous to think that “Pursuit of Happyness” shows that anyone can make it; on the contrary, “Pursuit of Happyness” shows that for someone starting with nothing in America, it take a ludicrous amount of talent and drive to pull oneself up.
* In his continuing quest to make us all forget how he wrote two books from inside Bush’s colon, Bob Woodward says that Gerald Ford opposed the Iraq War. Silently.
The Ford interview — and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 — took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death…
“Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people,” Ford said, referring to Bush’s assertion that the United States has a “duty to free people.” But the former president said he was skeptical “whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what’s in our national interest.” He added: “And I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”
* Actual pro-life consistency, in the oddest place. I wonder how the neocon Vatican fans will receive this one?
* Since Kevin Tillman stole his brother from the hawks, they’ve been looking for a new poster boy. Prayers answered, I guess.
Not throwing stones at the man’s sacrifice, just at the war-porn crowd’s salivating over it.
Yeah, I’m making the first post on my new blog a Friday Random Ten. You wanna make something of it?
Tegan and Sara - I Know I Know I Know Christine Lavin - Good Thing He Can’t Read My Mind Charles May and Annette May Thomas - Keep My Baby Warm Marbles - Out of Zone Minus the Bear - The Game Needed Me The Adored - TV Riot Asobi Seksu - I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me The National - Cold Girl Thelonius Monk - Caravan BT - Godspeed
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