They say the neon lights are bright...

Last weekend, Melis, Eric, and I took a quick trip to NYC. Melis and Eric wanted to see Idina in If/Then one more time before it closes or she leaves, and Melis and I wanted to see Beautiful before Jessie Mueller leaves. There was nothing to do but head to the Big Apple.

We got there Saturday morning and things went swimmingly. Melis and Eric won the final set of lottery tickets for If/Then, and went to see Idina in all her glory. I got a ticket for my beloved Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, and I must say, it was even better the third time.

For our second show, Melis and I went to see Tony award winning Jessie Mueller play Carole King in Beautiful. Melis had gotten the last single ticket available, and as I waited in the cancellation line, a darling little old man came up to me and sold me a ticket his friend had bought but couldn't use. Sixth row, center. Jackpot. He even went into the theater with me to make sure the ticket scanned so I knew he wasn't scamming me. Delightful.

That night Eric went to On the Town and, sadly, hated it. Poor him. But Melis and I were transported. Beautiful is a music-lover's dream. I was a scene and a half into it when I thought to myself, "I have to see this again tomorrow."

Then the Drifters came out as characters in the musical (I'm just crazy about the Drifters) and I could not have been happier. My mind was definitely made up to see it again.

The next day, an evil British lottery crone denied Melis and Eric a chance to enter the If/Then lottery, even though they showed up with a good 30 seconds to spare. It was too late, baby, it was too late, though we really did try to make it. (I was singing that song and Melis failed to see the humor.) So, Melis and I got cancellation tickets to Beautiful again and Eric got to see the wonderfulness that is Gentleman's Guide, finally. I enjoyed every second of Beautiful and danced out of the theater.

Also, I was sitting right behind the mother and godmother of the guy playing Gerry Goffin, the male lead. After the show I said to his mother, "He was wonderful." She replied, "I thought so too! And I'll be sure to tell him you said that!" She was a delight.

In between our three shows we stuffed our faces with:

• The world's best Eggs Benedict at Le Monde
• Chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, pickles and cabbage at Junior's
• The world's best pepperoni pizza (aside from my mother's homemade, of course) at John's
• Empanadas from a food truck
• The world's best chicken parm at Caffe Napoli
• Assorted pastry from Crumbs, Junior's, and the Ferrara bakery in Little Italy
• And another John's pizza for the road

We should be heartily ashamed of ourselves, but, well, you know how that goes.

You don’t know how I suffer.

Short story: I have an earworm and it's driving me mad.

Medium-length story: This weekend I went with J to Harrisburg for our friend Melissa's birthday party. We listen to the 80s station on Sirius when we roadtrip, and this weekend there was a particularly awesome run of 1984 hits that was strangely punctuated by a hideous song from 1987. Breakout by Swing Out Sister. Wretched. If one song were going to infiltrate my brain, it couldn't be Footloose or When Doves Cry; it had to be that clunker.

I have tried everything. Listening to other songs, singing other things in my head, Liz's Billie Jean trick... nothing WORKS. I am suffering. It's not unlike the two weeks I spent in Mississippi with Murray Head's One Night In Bangkok torturing me. Swing Out Sister is vicious.

There are, like, two people who read this blog who will know that song, and to those people, I sincerely apologize for passing my earworm on to you. It is inexcusable, but I am in pain and I cannot be responsible for my actions.

Something lovely and wonderous for you this morning

The Beatles, about to cross Abbey Road

Very cool, no?

Wow. I am old. And I love it.

Today (well, technically yesterday) I came home from work exhausted, so I took a 5 hour nap. Now it's two in the morning and I am watching an infomercial for the Time Life Easy 80s CD collection. And can I tell you? It is awesome. I have been watching for 20 minutes and I have yet to hear a song that isn't already on my iPod.

Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Kool and the Gang. Ooh, there's Jack Wagner singing "All I Need," and now we've got Lionel Ritchey in the world's sparkliest jacket singing "Hello." I am having the best time!

Claire and Bender could be grandparents by now. Think about that.

Sure, Sloth love Chunk. TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO.

Do you subscribe to Entertainment Weekly? The "20 Years Ago This Week" column regularly horrifies me. Like, worse than the wretched and off-putting "Stephen King's Weird and Freaky Little Opinions" column. (That may not be the exact title.)

This 20 Years column is a weekly shock to my system. Really, Pretty Woman is 20 years old? That was two decades ago I wanted to dye my hair red like Julia Roberts and my mom put the kibosh on that whole scheme? Really, that was 20 long years ago that Milli Vanilli won their bogus Grammy?

I can no longer read the magazine while I'm eating, lest I choke.

My initial shock came last year, when someone mentioned that Say Anything was 20 years old and I scoffed that this must surely be a mistake. Then I realized that not only was Say Anything actually 20 years old, but even worse, it being released in 1989 meant that anything from the 80s was at least twenty years old. Twenty years was the SMALLEST amount of old that 80s stuff could be.

The horror.

And then I turned on some Peter Gabriel and tried not the think about it.

OK Go, once again, blows my mind.

So, you know how amazing OK Go's video for Here It Goes Again is? You know, on the treadmills?

Well, they've created something amazing-er. Behold, the video for This Too Shall Pass. I think I might love those chaps.

Straight outta Lackawanna

Sweet fancy Moses, do you guys watch The Office webisodes? The latest batch is all about the gloriously dysfunctional Kelly-Ryan relationship which causes Miss Kapoor to pour her heart out in the medium of song. Kelly and nice/clueless receptionist Erin have created their own girl group, Subtle Sexuality, and the third webisode features their debut video, "Male Primadonna."

Yes, it's about Ryan and features a rap by him, and a solo by the 'Nard Dog. Also, even though it's a novelty song, it's better than most of the crap winning MTV music video awards right now. I downloaded it from iTunes and I have no regrets.



Could Ryan be any creepier? How hilarious is Andy? How much do I want Kelly's rhinestone eyepatch? (So much.)

Obsessed!

So, it's cousin week and I've been staying up till 4AM and sleeping till noon. Going to work tomorrow is going to be wretched. But what has been keeping me up till 4AM, you ask? Aside from the usual board games, I am completely obsessed with Wii Rock Band.


I like the drums the best, but all the parts are fun. Now I can't listen to a song without thinking about what the drum beat would be in Rock Band. I'm listening to my iPod and going, "That would be a one-two beat on the red and yellow, ending with a green/foot-pedal combo." Also none of us can get "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs out of our heads.

Kris and I are visiting Liz and Zack in a few weeks and we're getting the band back together. Wes can be our roadie!

That's one cute roadie.

So, what has been going on with me?

A quick rundown of the life of Ali:




It’s Thunder In the Valley – the weekend where 20,000 bikers come to J-town and I hide inside my apartment. Don’t get me wrong, I think the festival is great for our fair city—I just don’t like the noise. Also, and this is the real reason I avoid the downtown area during this time, I have this awful horror-fantasy that I will be walking down Market and, in my clumsiness, accidentally bump into one of the bikes parked along the street. Said bike will then tip over and create a domino effect taking down the entire row of bikes parked next to it a la that scene in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. And I think we all know I cannot dance on a bar to Tequila in platform shoes to save my life.

I have a sinus infection. A big one. I am miserable and ill and have been spending my evenings sleeping. It is my fault. I have been lazy about using my neti pot and now I’m reaping the whirlwind.

Michael Jackson is dead. I only found out this morning because I went to bed at 5:45 last night (see above.) My clock radio woke me with “Rock With You” and then nine minutes later it woke me again with “Thriller.” That’s when I knew something was up. Confession: when I was 8 years old I had a crush on him. I had a little red purse with his picture on the front. I had plans to marry him. (Little did I know, when I was 8 years old, he might have been interested. Ack.) And I apologize for none of this. In 1985 he was the coolest thing ever. Go back and listen to the Thriller album. It’s like a greatest hits album. The music is so good. And the videos—no one had ever seen dancing like that before. It was years before the full-on freak tendencies started to appear, before he became unrecognizable. I guess I don’t know what to think because the Michael Jackson that I thought was the coolest, the one that’s burned on my 8 year-old brain, has been dead and gone for a long time now.

I am considering buying an iPod touch. Anybody got one? Love it? Hate it? The pathetic 32 gig capacity gives me pause. My 60 gig is bursting at the seams. Maybe I should just upgrade to a 120 gig so I can stop being jealous of Jen’s. James, I know you have an opinion here.

Can’t wait to see most of you guys next week. Remember when someone would walk in the house and say, “The Paynes are here” or “The Gibsons are here” and everyone would scream and run out on the street to start hugging them before they could pull their bags out of the trunk? Why did we ever stop doing that?

I'm getting the urge to use hairspray and legwarmers.

I am currently working on the new cousin CD and it is just making me realize all over again what a musical treasure the decade of the 1980s was. Pure, unadulterated genius. With synthesizers. And they weren't afraid of the saxophone, is what I'm saying. Love! I'm listening to Josh's choice over and over again right now. What song is that, you ask? Find out in July, my ducks.

Oh, and some of you slackers still owe me liner notes. I'm not going to name any names --Brian and Nicole-- but you know who you are.

P.S. James, my desktop is back. I don't know how I did it, but I think I might be some sort of computer wizard.

A small confession

Whenever I hear On the Dark Side, it makes me want to join a band in which I will wear black leather pants and play the tambourine. My boyfriend, the lead singer, is dark and tortured, but he’s sweet to me because I understand him.

Also, I wear bright red lipstick.

Prepare yourself to be fascinated by the Stone Temple Pilots.

Oh joy! Rapture! VH-1, a channel I did not think I could possibly love more, is finally bringing back its rockin' documentary series Behind the Music. I loved that show so much. In fact, the other night as I was painting my dining room window frames (they look smashing, thank you) I was thinking about Behind the Music and how much I missed it. And now here it is. It's enough to make a girl think she has powers. From now on, when I paint, I will concentrate on thinking about how much I miss Pushing Daisies.

I hope they kick off the new season with a marathon of the old shows. I really enjoyed the Tony Orlando episode.

Somebody help me, please!

I just spent the last nine hours with George Michael’s “Monkey” running through my head. Who know how many more hours of it I have ahead of me?

I don’t think I can take this. I’m not that strong.

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight at the Copa Cabana..."

Do you ever go to sleep listening to your iPod? I like to put it on shuffle and fall asleep to it. Then, I check out the Recently Played list to see what I was listening to during the night. The other night it was "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung, a song from the Chocolat soundtrack, some Death Cab For Cutie, a little Barry Manilow, and Winston Churchill's Never Surrender speech that he delivered to the House of Commons during WWII. I wonder what strange dreams that combo caused.

I've been waiting for those chipmunk voices to come back into my life...

Just barely into June! I can usually wait until July, but this year I needed my fix early. That's right, I busted out the Christmas music tonight. I'm in a funk and I'm tired and cranky and feeling weird and it's summer and I HATE summer and I really needed something good going on. And what's gooder* than Christmas music? I'm listening to Bono sing "Baby, Please Come Home" right now, and I can't think of anything more worth my time than that.

*Yes, I realize I just made that word up.

I've been Rickrolled!

Fear me!

So, Josh recently Punk’d me. Do the kids still say that? I wouldn’t know because I’m old enough to remember Rick Astley videos, which brings me full circle back to Josh’s little practical joke. He emailed me with a link to a supposed Nastase Reunion video he’d uploaded to You Tube. Like a fool, I followed it and was greeted by the sights and sounds of the whitest white man in Whitonia attempting to get down. Gah! Apparently the phenomenon is called Rickrolling and this puts me in company with the Scientologists. Well played, Mehall. Well played.

Ah, Never Gonna Give You Up. Has anyone ever noticed how repetitive that song is? There are like two lines, and Rick just repeats them over and over while performing his “stylish” “dance moves” for us. I was horrified, yet transfixed. I found I could not take my eyes from the screen. The hair. The clothes. The embarrassing hip wiggling from our carrot-topped leading man. I sat entranced, unable to look away, and this gave me a chance to analyze the video.

What is going on here? We’re at the country club, then we’re down at the docks? What was Rick doing down there, at night, in his dapper white trench coat? And then there’s the outdoor chain link fence scenes. I especially enjoy the all-denim outfit. I think he’s wearing Mom Jeans. And they’re doing nothing to hide his unfortunate lady-hips.

Who are these blonde women dancing behind Rick? The objects of his affection? Have their hearts been aching, but they’re too shy to say it? Inside do they both know what’s been going on? Do they know the game and they’re gonna play it? And more importantly, why are they dressed like extras from the Thunder Road drag racing scene in Grease?

Apparently all of this is terribly inspiring to the bartender, who has no choice but to leap across the bar and perform some actual dancing, Fosse style. I think there may have been jazz hands. And I don’t know what the deal is with this blonde guy who shows up at the end of the video. Is he competing with Rick for the affections of one of the girls? Is he after the affections of Rick himself? What is he doing there and why is he only just showing up for the final verse? To dance. Down by the docks. At night.

In the end, I was left with more questions than answers. Which brings us back to Scientology. See how it all comes full circle?

Once

I finally got to see the film “Once.” This film is impossibly beautiful. Just impossibly beautiful. It’s one of those rare, perfect little films that trips into your life and makes you so happy you found it. And it’s filled with music that’s so lovely, it pierces you. This was a marvelous cinematic start to 2008.

Simply perfect.

Impossibly beautiful.

Happy New Year.

I am a Fanilow

Anyone who tells you they don’t like any of Barry Manilow’s songs is lying to your face. I know it’s not really hip to like him right now, unless you’re over the age of 60, but I am not afraid to stand up and say it. I think he has so many great songs (that’s right, I said GREAT) and there has to be at least one for everybody. Weekend in New England is my Manilow tune of choice right now because it’s beautiful and sad and lovely, and the part where it builds to crescendo at the end is so much fun to sing at the top of your lungs in the car, attracting the attention of fellow motorists who wonder why you look like you’re going into convulsions at the wheel. (See also: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me by Mel Carter.) Weekend might be too cheesy for some people, but who doesn’t love Copacabana? I know it’s more reminiscent of Miami, but I think it’s so awesome in that “Las Vegas in the 70s” way, like men in sharp suits and women in sequined gowns swilling gin and rolling hard eights at the Craps table. If you don’t like Copa, you’re not old enough or knowledgeable enough to understand how cool Vegas was in the 70s and you need to go rent Casino and sit in awe of Sharon Stone’s costumes and eye make-up. Hottest spot north of Havana!

Also, there was that awesome Star Wars Cantina parody that just makes the song even cooler.

There's a reason William Shatner's face wigs me out

So, I was in Gallina’s yesterday, waiting to pick up my lunch (Buffalo chicken salad, extra Buffalo sauce), when suddenly the theme music from John Carpenter’s classic horror film Halloween filled my ears. I recoiled and started looking around me like a schizophrenic who is hearing voices for the first time since she went off her meds. I was searching for the source of the music and wondering if I was just imagining it. It turns out that the final jump into the abyss of insanity that I have been anticipating for so long had not come at last. It was just the cell phone ringtone of some sicko two tables away. As I tried to recover my composure, the old man next to me in the takeout line regarded me with caution while he mentally mapped out his exit strategy.

You may recall that this is not the first time I’ve been startled by a Halloween theme music ringtone. A few years ago I was browsing in a small bookshop in Greenwich Village when that ringtone sounded, causing me to drop my book and hastily exit the store. This was in daylight, people. That music is so frightening, so disturbing, so inherently wrong that I cannot maintain any sort of self-possession in its presence. Please, for the love of decency, Americans, STOP choosing that theme song for your ringtone! Choose something more cheerful, like the Jaws theme or Tubular Bells.