so i didn't leave the house between waking up (between 9 and 10) and going out with ged (my housemate) and gemma (his girlfriend) and nanna to indian food (really good saag gosht). so what did i do?
well, i wrote my grandmother a letter on one remaining pre-postaged air letter form i had. not a very good letter, but i think she'll like it. i sipped a bit of rum out of the bottle, which wasn't half bad for being cheap dark rum, supermarket brand. i also heated up some baked beans to which i added brown sugar (an improvement) and more of the said rum (possibly an error). i g-chatted with many of the usual suspects. and i watched a fair bit of tv, including that 70's show which caused me to wonder about the wildly varying fame/fortunes of the various cast members in the years since. i mean, with all respect to ashton kutcher and mila kunis, aren't topher grace and laura prepon equally good? well, maybe not, but they're not way way worse, right?
i also watched a poorish episode of ally mcbeal, most of a lost (which looks like rubbish), and something else that seemed memorable at the time but apparently isn't. but i really wanted to post about cold case.
cold case has a few things going for it. it's set in philadelphia, and filmed there. it has an attractive, winning cast, and they always solve the crime. but the best thing about cold case is the music used during the flashback sequences to evoke the feel of the period in question. so this episode's crime took place at the millenium new year's eve, and so we had (thanks to http://www.have-dog.com/coldcase) the following 1999-era tracks:
eagle-eye cherry, "save tonight" (1998)
featuring the line "you and me... and the bottle of wine" and the chorus "save tonight, and fight the break of dawn, come tomorrow, tomorrow i'll be gone" [gone/dawn rhymes in philly, too!].
r.e.m., "it's the end of the world as we know it..." (1989)
not close to 1999 but still works in a party scene, just like r.e.m.'s "stand" could set a 1992 mood in "definitely maybe".
third eye blind, "never let you go" (1999)
a great one you don't hear much anymore, chorus is "i never let you go / i never let you turn around, our back on each other / that's a good idea, break a promise to your mother"
remember it? better than "semi-charmed life", in my book. and wikipedia tells us that sheryl crow took the guitar riff and used it for "soak up the sun" in 2002 (backing vocals: liz phair!), another fave.
tlc, "no scrubs" (1999)
another classic. i would have guessed it was older. remember the response song, "no pigeons"?
tal bachman, "she's so high" (1999)
"i know where i belong, and nothing's gonna happen..." never a favorite, but it still does bring you back (an advantage to the top 40 radio system is that songs get associated rather firmly with particular points in time). you're putting her on a pedestal, tal.
len, "steal my sunshine" (1999)
i remember driving down mt. auburn street near the intersection with mass ave. and hearing this one, i think joanie was in the car. and she knew the song through her brother? joanie had a thing where she would say "my brother" and i was supposed to be able to tell which one she was talking about. she had two. i thought this was really stupid until i somehow figured out how to tell, then i prided myself on it, of course.
jewel, "hands" (1998)
ok not one of jewel's best, and not much later jewel would morph into dido, but i saw her open for bob dylan in new haven in 1996. she was known for yodeling then. this may have been the infamous show that i reviewed for the yale herald and talked about wanting to take dylan's water glass - asking for it, in fact. "don't be sick, man - don't be a psycho" was the roadie's reply.
well, that's the cold case playlist for this episode. i would have like to hear "every morning" by sugar ray. i remember that one from the east side of crowley, louisiana. near the store where you'd get a shrimp po-boy.
