1. Photopoppy sent me a link to some actually tiny cat pants. Citizens of earth, look up there at my cat in tiny pants. Notice that he is smiling and enjoying his polka dotted pants. Why is this? Not merely because he’s got some stylish pants on, but because he’s an imaginary cat. I drew him. In real life, cats don’t like to wear pants, as is obvious from the photos of a bunch of miserable cats in pants on this site.
Fix your cats. Spare them the agony of tiny cat pants.
2. I am just so tickled by the idea of my boob freckle being some kind of magnet for trouble I can’t even tell you. Once a boob freckle gets that kind of reputation… Well, what more can you aspire to? The boob freckle is now practically mythic–Aunt B.’s Legendary Boob Freckle. That sounds like the name of something people should be delighted to see. How awesome is that?
3. Didn’t yesterday feel kind of like an object lesson in how men and women communicate differently? First we had W. and our Wayward Boy Scout being all like "Why are we fighting? We’re not disagreeing with you." and me being all like "We’re not fighting. I just want you to admit that I’m more right than you." Then we had me being all like "Hello Sarcastro, Do you want to chat for a bit about the funny way a knife went into my foot?" and Sarcastro being all like "There is a knife in the foot of my friend. I must get to the truck and drive to her house and hold the wound together with my bare hands while calling an ambulance I dialed with my prehensile big toe. I must have enough information only that I can make the most efficient plan and execute it."
4. Does the Midwest have a quintessential song? The South has a lot of songs–"Sweet Home Alabama" etc. But is there some song you hear that just makes you go "God, yes, that’s just what it’s like to be from the Midwest. The right mix of ‘keep to yourself’ishness coupled with sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and driving around a lot of flat fields devoted to corn and beans? I just don’t know.
Tiny Cat Pants 
It’s got to be a Springsteen or Mellencamp song.
I don’t think there is a midwest song, because that might be too showy, but if there is one it is hummed quietly and with great reserve. Besides, if you roll down the windows to drive by the corn and soy beans you won’t hear much anyway, so it is just good old midwest efficiency not to bother with one since we couldn’t hear it that well anyway. But you could turn up the farm report, or your local larger AM station for some practical news when you slow down to come into town or if you’re behind a tractor. If you must.It might be OK to have regional songs, like Sweet Home Chicago, the equivalent for St. Louis I can’t remember, the Hawkeyes fight song, the Michigan fight song, the Wisconsin fight song, fight songs etc. ad naseum, the homemade song someone made up for your town’s festival, a prominent song from a local car dealer commercial, or whatever they play to get you hyped up before the high school basketball game.But a regional song might be too much for all midwesterners to get invovled in because then we’d be making a big deal out of something. But if someone else picked one for us, we could all be critical, refuse to join, and go on for hours about how it does not reflect our area of the midwest. :)
I’m sorry but those animal pants are JUST WRONG.
Agree with Huck on Mellencamp. Springsteen’s too Jersey. I’d guess ‘Jack and Diane’ would probably be it.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why they play "Sweet Home Alabama" at sporting events (Titans, Preds, Sounds) here in Nashville and the crowd cheers for it?! If I were in Birmingham or Tuscaloosa I could understand the crowd getting into it, but this is Tennessee, that song has no relevence here. It’s so weird.Why can’t they just play Rocky Top and get it over with.
At least it’s "Sweet Home Alabama" and not "Free Bird," though. God, if I never hear that song again, after a misspent youth in dive bars with my friend’s band, I will die a contented woman."Rocky Top" is so deeply associated with UT — and East Tennessee — that Nashville teams feel uncomfortable playing it. My dad used to suggest that they play the Lovin’ Spoonful’s "Nashville Cats" at local sporting events. until he realized there’s no stand-up-and-pummel-the=air-and-bellow part in it. Then he suggested "Great Speckled Bird," and that is when we had to put him to bed.By the way, that gray-and-white tabby on the pet pants page is SO giving the photographer the tail. His expression is "Dude, I am going to piss on your Stratocaster AND your laundry hamper." And the captions! "Basket balls." (Snicker.) "Regular Masculine & Fem." (What, no standard butch? No extra-flamboyant? I mean, really!) The poor white Persian in the lacy bib is so clearly about to succumb to Stockholm Syndrome that it’s scary. "I’ve been in this dark room for so long, wearing these little things around my neck, and then they come in and flash the light in my eyes and put a different little thing around my neck and then they leave and it’s dark and I just want them to talk to me …"Just fix your pets, indeed. If I ever tried to do anything like that to Harry (see photo above; FYI, fixed at six months), I would come out looking like beef jerky. And smelling like kitty whiz.
Well, crap. There’s not a photo above because this isn’t Blogger. But anyway, y’all know what he looks like.Save your pets from humiliation! Spay or neuter them!
Since I live in the same town as Mellencamp, I definitely have to agree that the Midwest song has to be one of his. When he played a free concert here, everyone went berserk over that "I was born in a small town" song. Everyone here talks about "Coug" sightings they’ve had. I saw him at a concert once and once at the mall. He is roughly four feet tall in real life. Of course, it doesn’t help that his gourgeous wife is like 6’4". The Coug rocks!Dr. J
in order to have a song about the Midwest, wouldn’t we have to sit down and have a difficult (and long awaited) conversation about just what constitutes the Midwest? I actually know two people from Colorado who’ve claimed it’s the Midwest. But, I am already leaning toward Mellencamp.
<I>It’s got to be a Springsteen or Mellencamp song.</I>I guess we know who’s not from the Midwest.Mellencamp, maybe. But, really, people. Allow me to refresh your memory. The QUINTESSENTIAL Midwestern rocker is and always will be Bob Seger. Mellencamp pales in comparison to Seger. The official Midwest Soundtrack Album would have the following songs:Night MovesRock & Roll Never ForgetsFire Down BelowRoll Me AwayYou’ll Acompn’y MeMainstreetOld Time Rock & Roll*Jack and Diane*Small Town*Pink Houses*The Authority SongBonus Track: Telegraph Road by Dire StraitsBoth Mellencamp and Seger are good, but only Seger truly captures the Midwest dichotomy of big, steely, alienating cities (Chicago, Detroit, Ft. Wayne, Gary) with endless seas of corn and sameness.
<i>I guess we know who’s not from the Midwest.</i> You’re right, but I can sing all the words to ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ by heart. Never been quite sure why I’m proud of that…?
…damned Squarespace and it’s antiquated capabilities…
shit! I pulled an "it’s".I’ve stopped.
I nominate Greg Brown generallyhttp://www.puremusic.com/greg.htmlAnd "Our Little Town" particularly.http://www.gregbrown.org/gbonemor.html#littletI know he’s not as well-known as the Coug or Seeger, but somehow that seems to fit. Not much flash to the boy…he’s the kind that would sit on the steps and sing to you while you did the dishes.
To me, "The Authority Song" is so consumately Midwestern, I just about can’t stand it. I hear it and it just invokes both of my brothers for me.Greg Brown is in, as an Iowan and a minister’s kid.I know we absolutely have to include Bob Seeger, but good lord, "Night Moves" makes me cry. Can we leave it out?
No. There is no way any Midwest soundtrack could leave out a song with the lyric:We were just young and restless and bored—-THAT is the Midwest perfectly captured in 9 syllables.
Okay, you’re absolutely right. I’ll just have to skip that song when I come to it on my copy.
Somebody explain to me why Dire Straits gets a spot on the soundtrack.
I was going to go with Mellencamp’s Jack & Diane as well. I was only a Midwesterner for 4 years during college, but during that time I saw Mellencamp play, at Farm Aid, in Illinois. That’s pretty midwestern, I think. While we were there, my friend from Indiana said she loved him b/c "that’s exactly how it is in my town." What do I miss most about the (upper) midwest? Snow. And drive-through liquor stores. Although that doesn’t top the liquor/gun store I visited in Missouri. I think midwesterners know better than to create such a thing.
Because the song "Telegraph Road" is THE seminal song about Detroit. (Telegraph Road is the main road that runs through Detroit.)And anyone who lived in those Midwest factory towns in the late 70s and early 80s knows EXACTLY what this means:You know I’d sooner forget but I remember those nightswhen life was just a bet on a race between the lightsyou had your head on my shoulder you had your hand in my hairnow you act a little colder like you don’t seem to carebut believe in me baby and I’ll take you awayfrom out of this darkness and into the dayfrom these rivers of headlights these rivers of rainfrom the anger that lives on the streets with these names’cos I’ve run every red light on memory laneI’ve seen desperation explode into flamesand I don’t want to see it again. . .From all of these signs saying sorry but we’re closedall the way down the telegraph road
Will someone explain to me why "Sweet Home Alabama" is so popular in Detroit? (At least according to Eminem’s movie 8 Mile.) It’s funny how the Midwest doesn’t seem to have much that is distinct about it when you first move here (not like the South, anyway, where I came from). But then things sneak up on you. Like the way people here call vacuum cleaners "sweepers." Or a restaurant serving "throwed rolls." Or the way Michiganers always show you where they live in the state by pointing to a place on their hand.
"Will someone explain to me why "Sweet Home Alabama" is so popular in Detroit?"Two reasons that I know of:1. There are a lot of Alabamians (and Georgians and Kentuckians) who moved to Detroit to work in the factory boom during WW2. Up there the not-so-polite names for these people are things like "Steelbillies" and "Dixie Trash" among other things. There’s a pretty strong subcultural identity among these folks who KNOW that Detroit is pretty crappy and have idealised their grandparents’ Southern roots. I’ve seen more Confederate flags during one visit to Detroit than I’ve seen in the 15 years I’ve lived in Nashville. 2. Neil Young is really popular among the neo-hippy intellectual burnouts that are the byproduct of nearby Ann Arbor. Many times these Ann Arbor folk come to Detroit and stink up the steeltown bars with their clove cigarettes and Tarot Card t-shirts. So there’s a huge segment of Detroit kids who love the whole "STFU, Neil Young" dynamic. In fact I was in a Detroit Bar 17 years ago where a cover band sang that song and what must have been 30 people in the audience screamed out "Fuck You Neil Young".