Here's your failure pile

Your moment of Zen from Patton Oswalt -- or rather, from a profile of Patton Oswald in today's New York Times:

Nor is he likely to be hearing from the folks at KFC (at least not in a good way) after appearing on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” and describing its popular Famous Bowl combo of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy as “a failure pile in a sadness bowl” and “a wet mound of starch that I can eat with a spoon like I’m a death-row prisoner on suicide watch.”

Frak!

It's seems like it's been months since I've talked anything pop culture. It's like my family and life are important to me or something. Anyway, let's shake things up and talk about my latest entertainment-based obsession, shall we?

Battlestar Galactica.

Now, just wait. Before you stop reading and say, "What the crap is wrong with Rob?", let me correct that by informing you the proper way to express that sentiment is, "What the frak is wrong with Rob?" Much better.

Seriously though, give me three sentences to make a case for the show. Then you can move on to better blogs and such. First and, most importantly, it's not campy. Second, it looks slick and the writing is top shelf. Third, it's got plenty of action -- smart action.

Now, if you're still here, allow me to elaborate a little. If you remember the first BSG, with Lorne Greene and Face from "The A-Team," you know that the original show's stock and trade was camp. I mean, they all wore capes and the whole show was lit like a disco. It was pretty bad. And the last time I watched the first BSG was when it originally aired on TV, which means I was five at the time. If it didn't impress me then I can't see it doing anything for me now.

Which is one of the reasons I had no interest in seeing the update. I never thought the show was worth updating. And even if it was, I didn't see how it could be good. Look at all the bad sci-fi that's aired on television lately. You've got a thousand iterations of Stargate (someone explain that to me?) and Star Trek started it's nose dive right after Next Generation went off the air, leaving a dozen crappily written, acted and designed Star Trek knock-offs.

But a friend, who had turned me onto "Firefly" told me to check it out. I'm a sucker for good sci-fi and that's the main reason I don't watch sci-fi on television. It's never any good. But "Firefly" was. So, after mulling it over for a year or so, Becky and decided to throw them on the Netflix queue.

I was immediately surprised. Not only were the production values amazingly high -- we're talking near-motion picture quality -- the writing was phenomenal. The special effects, especially the dog fights out in space, are really well done. The cast is fun and I feel like the acting has gotten better as they've grown into their roles.

For me, though, the most enjoyable aspect of the show is the action, of which there's a fair bit, and the allusions to present-day American society. There's plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle references to the war on terror and and our own xenophobia as a country. And, as should be the case with good sci-fi, it's never heavy-handed or accusatory. It's simply there, giving you a new prism with which to analyze our current political climate. And did I mention the action was really good?

So there ya go. If you're looking for something new and different, check it out. You can thank me later.

And as a special treat for hanging with me through this interminable rant on televised science fiction, I'll leave with a stiff shot of "Arrested Development." It's Friday, you need the laugh. The following short video is a compilation of the chicken dance. Just click on it, I promise you'll laugh.

Chips ahoy!

This week sees me in an interesting place. I was calling for help on Monday and gushing today about a certain person who shall remain nameless until the next paragraph -- two thing I don't do comfortably or often. And yet, here we are. So let's soldier on.

Sunday was, of course, Father's Day and, as many of you know, not only do I have a father but also I am father. In standard Rogers fashion, we were up early Sunday morning because the girls don't ever -- EVER -- sleep in. Even when they do, they really don't. Anyway, Becky headed downstairs with the girls and I made to follow with the baby in tow. Claire called up and told me to wait just a few minutes, which I did. That, of course, was the clue that Becky was setting up my Father's Day spread.

I'll stop here to interject that I had a pretty good idea of what Becky had got me. She had hinted earlier in the month that she had decided to get me something more or less perishable rather than something that would stick around a while. Armed with that knowledge, I was pretty sure she had gotten me a box of milk chocolate pecan bark from Stahmanns because I love it and we'd often discuss it around holidays and birthdays. Besides, what else would I possible want that's edible and has to be ordered online?

The answer to the question was sitting on the kitchen table amongst colored cards and hand-made gifts from the girls. She'd gotten me Anchor's Food Finds Super Sample Pack of rare and regional potato chips. Not only was it a surprise, but it was genius. And it shows how good Becky's memory is.

The package included 25 small bags of chips of just about every variety imaginable. Everything from habanero-flavored to black pepper and ginger. The gift even plays to my rage-ahol addiction. I hate that in your average super market you can only get maybe six flavors of potato chips from two brands. I thought I lived in America, the land of excess. I get angry that it's near impossible to find a good dill pickle-flavored chip anywhere and that ketchup flavored chips aren't even sold in country. The sampler pack allows me to rage loudly and often about such things. Which may be the true gift.

So for the paper, I'm writing up little blurbs for the food page on each package I sample. I think it'll be pretty fun. I'll probably reprint them here and even expand on them a little bit.

Anyway, the rest of the day was crazy. Elsa had burned a 103-degree fever the night before and Claire was just getting over a double-ear infection. Becky had gotten maybe four hours sleep Saturday night. With Elsa's fever as high as it was and the fact that she'd been burning some kind of fever for the past three days, Becky decided to take her to the doctor's while I took the girls to church. By day's end we were exhausted. Regardless, Becky still prepared the lion's share of dinner and then made a chocolate pecan pie from scratch (crust included) while the girls and I watched "Mulan." It was incredible. And the pie was really good, too. Becky has an amazing knack of pulling off these types incredibly thoughtful and elaborate celebrations. Which is kind of a secret trait as she's the antithesis of the craft-making, fluff-worshipping, scrapbooker who stereotypically does things like this. She's the type of person who's happy with a stocking full of hardcore office supplies on Christmas morning.

Anyway, there's something else she does amazing well -- she can totally figure out machines and fix them. A few weeks ago our washing machine stopped agitating. You've got a number of options, the way I figure it, when something like this happens. You can kick the washing machine repeatedly, call in an expert or go to the store and buy a replacement (I would have gone with option one). Given the fact that it was a Saturday night or that we didn't want to use our savings on a new appliance, Becky just attacked the problem head-on.

She unscrewed the column from the washing machine, pulled it apart and discovered the little rubber teeth that make the column move or "agitate" were worn down and weren't catching the sides column any more. Monday morning, she went to the appliance store, bought the replacement parts and fixed the washing machine. Did I mention I would have just repeatedly kicked it? In short, woman is amazing.

Shillin'

Back in the saddle. And there's a lot to write about. We'll try and keep it interesting and we'll try to spread it out over the week so it doesn't get overwhelming. So here we go.

I was reading Jayson's father's day post this morning and was -- yet again -- amazed at his ordeal and how he's handling it. A quick refresher course for those of you who don't know, Jayson, an old childhood friend and father of two, is going to be a father of quintuplets. His wife is blogging about her singular experience here.

Anyway, I rarely shill for anything on the Rob Report. When I do, it's simply embarrassing. This, of course, is because I'm fundementally unable to shill for things, it's not in my genetic code. Hence my profession. In my mind there's nothing dirtier than a car salesman (sorry, Brent)or a PR flak. I remember my first summer in Utah and working at a burger stand at Lagoon -- Utah's preeminent amusement park. Most of the time it was just kids coming up buying a cheeseburger or an order of fries or parents buying lunch for the fam.

But I vividly remember the handful of folks who would come by to buy a lunch or dinner and clearly couldn't afford it. Clearly. You know the type, they've saved all year, maybe two or three, just to take their kids to this crappy, over-priced amusement park and use their last dollar to buy the theme park food. Obviously, there was nothing wrong with it -- it's how the system works. They knew what they were doing and no one had put a gun to their head and made them come. But there's just something monumently degrading and undignifying about taking someone's last dollar. It still makes me feel uncomfortable. It certainly showed me I wasn't meant to go into sales.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I don't shill for things very well. So I'm not going to. But that doesn't preclude me from writing a few things about Jayson, Rachelle and their family.

Normal pregnancies last 40 weeks. A baby, at the relative earliest, can be born at 24 weeks and still have a chance (with lots and lots of medical help) at making it. If you remember, Elsa was born at 34 weeks, which many doctors say is the threshold for a premie to be born and require the least amount of help immediately following the birth. Elsa was, of course, in distress while in the womb, hence the early arrival, and that complicated things somewhat. But we were still out of the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) four weeks later. It could have been much worse.

Rachelle's hope is to deliver her five twinners at the 34-week mark. It would give them the best chance for survival. If you go back and read her blog, you see that the odds of her making it that far are not in her favor. She had a less than 50 percent chance to make it to the 24-week bench mark. If you make it past that mark, most quints are born between the 26- and 28-week mark. Even then, there's only a 65 percent survival rate and of those 65 precent, only 40 percent are what doctors euphamistically call "intact" or born without defect or disability.

Steep odds, those.

She's been on bed rest for the past month or so in Arizona and is just about to reach 28 weeks. Jayson stayed back in Austin to take care of the other two kids and, remarkably, move the family into their new house. In other words, they've been dealing with everyday life while still trying to manage this incredible pregnacy two states apart.

And while I imagine it's been hard, the real hard stuff is yet to come. Not only is there the physically and emotionally draining birth to go through, the new babies will be living for months in the NICU. It's hard watching your child in that kind of environment. I mean, you know they're there because that's simply the only and best place for them to be. But that doesn't make it any easeir to leave at night. And to put the stay in perspective, Elsa's month-long stint in the NICU cost just under $150,000. Multiply that by five and then by the four or five months they'll be in the NICU and you get an idea of what kind of medical bills they'll be facing.

And, of course, as anyone who has kids knows, they ain't cheap. For the next two decades, Jayson and Rachelle will have to buy five times the diapers, five times the food, five times the clothes, five times the insurance and doctors' bills, five times the swimming and piano lesson, five times the college tuition and on and on and on. And that's great if you're a successful venture captalist at Bain. You know, shillin stuff. But Jayson, like most of us, is a working stiff trying to make ends meet and provide for his family.

That's where we come in. Go here and help these guys. And I'm not just talking money. They're going to need all they can get with just about everything. Like this, for example: Dr. Darrell Park at Buttercup Dental, volunteered to give the quintuplets dental care until they leave home for college or a mission. That's huge. And when big offers like that aren't an option for us, we can do small stuff and all of it will help. And whether it's the Golden Rule, Karma or mere humanity that you believe in, you know doing it will be good for them, but it'll be good for you too. Good for your soul.

So go on, give 'em a hand.

The Joker

Here's a question for you. What did teenagers in the early '60s want? Now this is the early '60s, so this was before the counter-culture movement -- you know, hippies, psychedelia, free-basing, Woodstock. The Beatles were still singing about wanting to hold your hand and, as far as I can tell, Frank Sinatra was considered the coolest living thing on the planet.

Or so I'm told. I wasn't there.

Anyway, the answer may surprise you. William Dow Boutwell tells the story:

One noon hour not long ago a secretary put her head in my door and said, "There's a boy at the reception desk. He wants to talk to an editor."

The boy came in and untied a sheaf of folded brown wrapping paper. "This," he said, "is what teenagers want."

Any guesses as to what was in the brown paper wrapping? Some crazy new sounds from a young upstart named Jimmy Hendrix? No. The follow-up to Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"? No. Hash-hish? No.

It was a manuscript the boy had written entitled "101 Elephant Jokes." The teenagers of the era, apparently, were clamoring for elephant jokes. Let me continue the story:

"Elephant jokes have had their day," [Boutwell continued]. "Everybody knows them or will soon. Are these new elephant jokes?"

"You don't understand," said the boy. "Newness isn't important. The important thing to a teenager is this: if somebody says, 'Why does an elephant do' -- well, anything -- you've got to know the answer. That's why I've collected all the best elephant jokes. There are also some new ones my friends and I made up."

So apparently, in the early '60s, teenagers were under enormous social pressure to memorize and recite -- on command -- elephant jokes or be ostracised from their peers. Those were some dark times, my friends.

Boutwell at this time was editorial vice president of Scholastic Books and the kid, Bob Blake, was a member of the Teenage Book Club (and a 14-year-old comedy prodigy). He got his way and strong-armed the editor into publishing his manuscript. What resulted was 1964's groundbreaking "101 Elephant Jokes." Claire managed to get a copy last weekend at a garage sale. You can imagine the hilarity that has ensued since.

The jokes are what you'd imagine. Absolutely unfunny. All of them end with exclamation points.

First you have the obvious:
Q. What weighs two pounds, is gray and flies?
A. A two-pound flying elephant!

Then the absurd:
Q. Why is it dangerous to go into the jungle between 2 and 4 in the afternoon?
A. Because that's when elephants are jumping out of trees!

And then the vaguely racist:
Q. Why are pygmies so small?
A. They went into the jungle between 2 and 4 in the afternoon!

You get the idea. But as Becky and I spent almost all of Saturday with Claire three steps behind us asking us each joke in the book, we discovered there were a couple really funny jokes inside.

First, the set up:
Q. What's the difference between a plum and an elephant?
A. Their color!

Then the book continues and three jokes later on the next page:
Q. What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming?
A. "Here come the elephants!"
Q. What did Jane say?
A. "Here come the plums!" (She was colorblind!!)

It may have been joke fatigue, but when Claire read those, both Becky and I died. We laughed really hard. Anyway, I was genuinely amazed to learn the book was aimed at teenagers. Something inside me wants to believe this was a marketing ploy to get elementary school kids to buy the book believing teenagers thought it was cool.

Regardless, we're hanging onto our copy of "101 Elephant Jokes." I don't want to take the chance of possibly being ostracised the next time someone springs something on me like "Why do elephants like peanuts?"

Roundup

It's time to get caught up. It's amazing how quickly the days seem to pass -- I mean, it's already June 1. Insane.

Anyway, we've got plenty of ground to cover so let's get going. Not that this is a chore for me. Or you. Because it's not. This is fun, dammit!

First some photos:

This is from Monday, or if you prefer, Memorial Day. You don't see Leigh, my 4-year-old, because she's the one snapping the photo. Funny girl, that Leigh. And Claire's expression there is classic Claire. She's such a live wire and was an absolute trooper that day. So, back to Memorial Day. Here in Redding we live pretty close to some amazing outdoor attractions, one of them being the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. It's got a good-sized lake, a few "beaches" and some camping. It's also got a number of waterfalls and hiking trails. But for all of the park's natural beauty, it feels like a low-rent version of a real national park. Like if Wal-Mart got into the national park business, Whiskeytown is what you'd have.

On Monday, we decided to hike up to Brandycreek Falls but, because of the middle school art class-quality of the maps and handouts, we were never really sure where the trail -- which at times dumped you out onto one of the park's dirt roads for a quarter of a mile or so before winding back into the woods -- started or how long it stretched. According to the park, it was supposed to be three miles round trip. But after hiking a little over two miles with no end in sight, the girls exhausted and nearly two hours into the trip, we decided to call it a day. With Elsa on my back -- turns out she's an extremely cooperative hiking companion -- I decided to walk the road back down to the car and drive back to get everyone else. After going just under a mile a guy who had been prospecting for gold and fishing driving a red Jeep stopped and offered me a ride the rest of the way down. He just laughed at my tale.

As it turns out we started at the trailhead (I know, silly us) but the park's literature gives the distance to the falls from the end of the access road. Which is about three miles above the trailhead. Clearly, we forgot the cardinal rule of hiking local attractions: Talk to the locals first and ignore the park's information. Consider us schooled. On a side note, we were going to follow Thom G's excellent advice in this year's Rec Guide and hike to Boulder Creek Falls but decided at the last minute it would have been too long for the girls. Next time.



So here's another:

This is Leigh, who, once again, accompanied me on the annual fathers/sons campout. And once again, she was the only girl. Which surprises me. I'm not the only one in the stake with just daughters and no sons. Apparently, there was one dad who was foolish enough to ask the stake president if would be appropriate for him to take his daughter on the campout. He was told, "no." Silly, silly man. Leigh and I had a blast.



And we'll do a couple more:

This is Claire and Leigh on their first ever horseback ride. This is at the scout camp outside Willits, Calif. Becky's uncle is a professional scouter and his son, her cousin, is the caretaker for this camp. So in the off-season it's open to visitors. Becky's parents, who will soon be mission president and mission mom for the Orlando Florida Mission this summer (and for the next three years) came to town and we journeyed with them to the camp so Becky's dad could meet up with his sister and his mom. Becky's grandma is getting pretty old and this may be the last chance for her dad to see her.

Anyway, the camp has horses and after arriving the girls really wanted to do nothing more than hang out with the horses. Leigh would actually talk to them in coversational tones, standing on a fence trying to get them to come eat a handful of grass she had just pulled. Seriously, she'd talk to them like they were her equals and like they could understand every word. It was hilarious. Anyway, these horses are old. Like, at death's door old. They were bony and droopy and just looked tired. But the girls didn't notice and loved every minute of seeing them and being able to ride.



And one last photo:

This is Elsa all rearing to go hiking on Monday. She was the perfect baby. She would goo and gurgle as she was bounced around in the pack. But never once did she cry. That is, until I tried to take her out of the pack at the end of the hike and I was pulling and pulling on her unaware I had forgotten to unsnap one of her straps. Poor kid, if she survives me it'll be a miracle.

Now, one last thing before I leave you to your weekend. Not to be too self-serving -- although I suppose just maintaining a blog is self-serving by definition -- here's a few links to some more entertaining stuff I've written for my day job over the past month.

The first is an official review for Wilco's new album "Sky Blue Sky." It's not the best music critique I've ever written, but it's serviceable. It's a somewhat more polished up version of what I posted here in March.

The second is a little piece I wrote to laud "Veronica Mars" since it was canceled last month and critique the current state of television veiwership in this fin country of ours.

Behold, the future

I'm gonna post on the weekend we all spent outside Willits, Calif. on a Boy Scout camp there -- it was surprisingly fun. But I'm going to wait until I've got pictures I can add. Oh, you can pretend you're not excited for it, but you know you are.

In other news, I'm going to predict the future. This will be fun because we can come back to this post in the fall and see how wrong I am. We'll call the feature "Rob Predicts the Future!" and you'll have a good time (that's my first prediction).

1. Gas prices will hit $4.50 a gallon this summer -- At least. And I'm guessing they'll bounce up to five bucks a gallon if we have anything that even closely resembles a hurricane anywhere near the Gulf Coast.

2. "Pirates" will be the biggest blockbuster of the summer while simultaneously taking the title for most abysmal use $200 million of the year -- Seriously, they should have stopped with one. And that should have been trimmed by at least 30 minutes. And after the second one? I can't imagine how bloated and overwrought this one will be.

3. I will be vaguely disappointed with "Transformers" and "The Simpsons Movie" and love "The Bourne Ultimatum" -- Only because I'm really looking forward to both "Transformers" and "Simpsons." But I know deep down the "Transformers" can't match what I built it up to be in my head as a kid and the "Simpsons" just can't work as a motion picture.

4. I will lose 10 pounds this summer -- I imagine what I don't sweat off this summer I'll work off being out and about with Becky and with the girls. Plus, I'm off soda for the time being -- I rule -- and I'm cutting way back on my candy consumption. This makes us all happy.

5. Erick and I will form a band after blowing away the Boulder Creek crowd with our trumpet/guitar/6-year-old vocalists rendition of "Ring of Fire" -- That's if we can get it together. Because if we do that, there will be no stopping us. Unless we suck together. That might stop us.

So there it is. We'll check in over the summer and see were the predictions are at. And in a couple days I'll give you the run down of the Willits Weekend. Willits. I can't say it enough.

Oh, and a quick reminder. Wilco's new album "Sky Blue Sky" is out today, go pick it up -- you owe it to yourself. They'll also be on Letterman tonight.

Pure gold

It's time for another visit to Show and Tell Music. (Past trips can be found here, here and here.) These fine gentlemen you see here are the Royals and this is their album "Music." It's possibly one of the finest do-it-yourself album covers I've ever seen. To quote SaTM, "I could stare at this image for hours." And really, you can. It's surprisingly and completely captivating. So let's do another.





He's Father Robert White and he's the "Reverend in Rhythm." Dig him, baby! I like to imagine that he's a smooth, lounge jazz act that just melts the doors off the chapel. Let's do one more. Question: Who's nature's secret?





Answer: Michael Cassidy, that's who. Sitting in the forest glenn, dressed like Friar Tuck and holding a rabbit. No one's putting stuff out like this anymore. And it's a shame.

It feels like I have to write something

Kids are fun. Don't get me wrong, they can be a pain in the butt, too. But they can also be fun, which makes the whining, the fighting, the arguing and the general chaos that forever seems to surround them easier to bear. You know, a spoon full of sugar and all that.

Leigh, our four-year-old, for whatever reason -- age, preschool, new sibling -- has begun to verbalize her feelings. Which is a remarkable thing when you think about it. I mean, when was the last you verbalized your feelings? Or maybe I'm impressed because I'm a guy. I don't verbalize my feelings much at all. But Leigh has started doing it all the time.

But what's fun with Leigh is that it's never "I feel sad" or "I feel angry" or "I feel good," it's "It feels like I have to laugh" or "It feels like I want to cry" or "It feels like I need to run." There's something about expressing it in the passive voice that is hilarious to me. As though she's sneakily shifting responsibility for her actions.

A couple weeks ago she and Claire, my six-year-old, were fighting, as is their wont. There's really no in-between with the girls -- either they're at each other's throats or playing like the bestest friends and bosom buddies who have never not seen eye-to-eye their entire lives. I can't recall what brought on this particular argument, but it ended with Leigh just fuming. With the meanest, surliest little face she could muster, she turns to me and says, "It feels like I have to punch her in the stomach."

Becky and I just died laughing. And really, who hasn't felt that singular emotion at some point during their day?

Disco, as I remember it

This isn't meant to turn into a love-in of any sort, but when you reconnect with old friends, it's hard not to get misty about the good times.

Jayson, who you'll remember from two posts ago, is an old friend who recently got in touch with me (he and his wife are having quints). Anyway, he remanisced about our disco-dancing past. And it got me thinking about something I'd long taken for granted: that there was a time when I didn't know how to disco dance and then a time when I learned. You have to understand, for many years it was a major part of my identity as I used it to much aplomb at dances and gatherings and the like.

And when you begin to break out disco moves, after having done it for so long, you don't think about it anymore. It's as if you've always been able to do it. And of course, you haven't always been able to do it. Only very few, very select people are born able to disco.

So take a walk down memory lane with me as I recall those halcyon days of the early 90s when records were becoming obsolete, disco was funny and anything was possible.

Like many of my generation, I grew up mocking disco. Who didn't? It's still one of the most attrocious and aggregious musical movements perpetuated on our species. So you can imagine my confusion and subsequent delight when Jayson showed me he had found an instructional disco dance-by-the-numbers record. I don't remember quite when that was. Maybe 1991? Jayson, Alicia and I met -- well we met years ago. Alicia actually attended my third birthday party. But when we were young impressionable teens, we got reacquainted during a summer musical producation of "Fiddler on the Roof" that our stake was puting on.

As I recall, it was a pretty fast friendship. I spent a lot of time at the Wilkinsons' and it was one of those times, hanging out in the basement, that Jayson showed me his find. It was a full-on instructional record with the black footprints to show you what to do. As I recall, he had already worked out most of the moves (he's a natural dancer and, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Jayson, but he eventually landed on BYU's folk dance squad). I was entranced and we got a whole routine worked out. It wasn't long before we were busting it out at church dances. You remember, someone would get going, busting a move to C+C Music Factory, and a cricle would form. Everyone would stand around watching as some kids in parachute pants showed everyone how to get down. It like a siren call to us. We'd eventually slip in and start the mad, hot disco and people would go wild.

The irony of it was beautiful. With the disco, we were able to, in one fell swing of the hips and raise of the hand, simultaneoulsy mock those taking the dance too seriously and impress the ladies by not playing by the rules. It was genius, really. It was also a lot of fun.

Well, a year later I had moved to Utah and as I raged against cookie-cutter fads and gimmicks in the culture there, disco became the way I set myself apart from the other jokers, eventually making a video of a routine with a couple friends. That video still exists -- in fact it was the video that eventually convinced Becky I had enough personality for her to marry me. And to think where it all started. I can't imagine how different my life would ahve turned out had Jayson never found that record.

Guilty as charged

Guilty pleasures. You see, I'm not always all about being the earnest, snob-driven, gold-standard-in-music consumer. I have guilty pleasures just like anyone else. Guilty pleasure songs and guilty pleasure bands.

So today, I honor the most embarassing music I listen to. And, to make a point, some of the music on the list might be technically or even legitimatelly good, but it's still embarassing that I listen to it. And remember, the operative word in the phrase "guilty pleasure" is "guilty." It's not a guilty pleasure if you don't sweat a little when you tell people you dig it.

So, first, my guilty pleasure songs in no particular order:

1. Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird" and "Turn Out the Lights" -- Sure they're great dance/pop songs, but Rob Rogers does not listen to dance/pop. At least he doesn't if anyone comes asking.

2. Neil Diamond's "Love on the Rocks" -- I blame this on my sisters. We grew up watching Neil Diamond's movie "The Jazz Singer" a lot. The song plays over the climactic break-up scene where Neil's life comes unraveled as he tries to deal with his new-found fame. Very emotional. And yes I loved it, alright? I loved it! I also blame this movie on H.L.'s open and unabashed affection for the Diamond. We should all be ashamed.

3. In the same vein, Barry Manilow's "Ready to Take a Chance Again" -- This song opened the Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn vehicle "Foul Play," another movie we wathced over and over as kids. I learned to really dig the song. Sue me.

4. Jennifer Lopez's "Waiting for Tonight" -- I'm really going out on a limb here, because I don't know how this could get anymore embarassing. But this song is total eurotrash dance club and I really dig it. Maybe it's because it reminds me of the dance music I heard while living in Mexico (where every song, including the Police's "Message in a Bottle," gets a dance remix) or maybe it's because I just dig the tune, but I secretly really, really enjoy this song.

5. Garth Brooks' "The Thunder Rolls" -- I have no excuse for this one. But when I was a 14- or 15-year-old idiot kid the song gave me chills the first time I heard it. And I still secretly like it.


And that's probably enough for now. So on to my guilty pleasure bands and/or artists. The songs above are individual anomolies. I hate the artists but love the music. Following are the artists I love that I probably shouldn't. Again, in no particular order:


1. Billy Joel -- I know, for some this amounts to heresy listing Billy as a guilty pleasure. But let's be honest with ourselves: he is. While he's a great singer, songwriter and pianist, he's still the guy who wrote and performed songs like "Uptown Girl" and "She's Always a Woman." I love almost all of his stuff, but try to listen to "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" loud and proud outside of your house. You can't do it.

2. Emerson Lake & Palmer -- Great progressive rock band, one of the best in fact. But their music leans towards the grandiose and then the operatic and before long you're flirting with self-parody. I bought and listened to "Black Moon," their last, real studio album in 1992 when I was in high school and that's embarassing enough. With songs like "Romeo & Juliet" and "Farewell to Arms" it's about as overwrought and earnest as you're gonna get. But their musical genius mustn't be denied. And so I will continue to listen

3. Huey Lewis and the News -- Again, for some I'm flirting with heresy here, but I would argue that it's hard to take the band that recorded "Hip to Be Square" seriously. But man, no one turns out a pop/rock song like Huey did back in the day. Better than most '80s pap that came out in that decade, Huey Lewis and the News put out an embarassingly good catalog of music. Go back and listen to "Heart and Soul" now. The arrangement, the syncopation of the rhythm and the lusty lyrics are down-right impressive.

4. Queensryche -- Classic late '80s/early '90s hard rock, they were a Seattle rock band before it was cool or even advantageous to be a Seattle rock band. And they're not as bad as say Poison or Ratt -- they were never a hair-metal band -- but they're music still sounds blushingly overproduced and deadly earnest. And c'mon, "Silent Lucidity"? I still can't listen to it without laughing out loud. But when the band got rocking -- "Jet City Woman," "Another Rainy Night" -- they could do no wrong.

5. Speaking '80s hair-metal bands, Def Leppard -- Now, I don't embrace their entire discography, but who are we kidding? The band's drummer only had one arm at the end of their run. How hard core is that? And looking at 80s rock albums, there are few better than "Pyromania" with the classics "Rock of Ages" and "Too Late for Love." They also introduced the world to the phrase, nay, the command: "Let's get rocked!" Oh they're shameful, ain't no two ways about it. But man, they rock. Or at least, they did.


There it is. Fun, but a little painful. Feel free to share your own guilty pleasures in the comments below. I shouldn't be the only one to suffer humiliation.

The legacy of young Nathan Arizona

It's fun to catch up with old friends. My Mom dropped me a line today telling me Jayson Wilkinson, a close friend from my Colorado days was trying to find out where I ended up. It seems he and his wife just found out they're having quintuplets. As in five babies. Five. All you need is one two-year-old in your house to know what kind of will-crushing, ear-splitting, mind-numbing and sleep-depriving experience this will be for them. But Jayson is better than that. He always has been. He's sees it more like this:

Can you imagine 5 little 3 year old kids crowding around to give mommy and daddy a group hug? That just sounds like it would all be worth it.

Anyway, he's set up a blog to detail the whole ordeal and it should be interesting to watch this unfold. After Elsa's birth, my heart goes out to him and his wife. And I can't begin to imagine what it must be like trying to mentally prepare yourself for all of this. And apparently I'm not the only one. In one of his posts, he writes that he runs into a lot of people who really have no idea what it means to give birth to five babies at the same time. His wife kept getting calls from the local blood bank asking her to donate. After several times of explaining that his wife his pregnant and can't donate blood, the final phone call when something like this:

Lady: “Hi, this is the blood and tissue center, is Rachelle Wilkinson available?”
Me:“No, she isn’t and I don’t think she will be able to donate blood for a while. She is pregnant with quintuplets.”
Lady: “Oh, I see. Well, when is her due date?”
Me: “Well, her real due date is in September but she will probably have them in July.”
Lady: “Well, you know, she can donate about 6 weeks after the delivery.”
Me: “Did you hear what I just said? She is having 5 babies. Do you know what that means?”
Lady: “Well, can you give me an email address that we could use to let her know about our blood drives?”
Me: “No. Do you realize that we probably won’t even be able to leave the house for 6 months after this happens.”
Lady: “Well, thank you for your time anyway.”

Anyway. It'll be fun to catch up with Jayson -- and his whole family for that matter. The Wilkinsons were like my family away from family when I was a young, silly and not-so-smart teenager in Arvada. Alicia and I ended up at Ricks together which was great and the family, still in Indiana, even made it to my wedding in St. Loius. So, here's to reconnecting with old friends.

Que Onda, Guero?

Well, I think we've sufficiently mourned Larry. It's time to get on with life.

It's amazing how quickly time can pass. I know at some point, I'll be an 80-year-old man sitting on a porch somewhere and wondering where my life went. Not in a bad way, just in a sort of it-all-happened-so-fast kind of way.

But let's get on with things. Becky and I went up to Klub Klondike over the weekend to see the mighty Jim Dyar Band play. It was a blast. The band sounded great, the atmosphere was killer and it was fun to spend alone time with Becky. I love the girls and all, but man, you just gotta get out of the house sometimes. And to do it with live music makes it so much better. We both enjoy the rote dinner and movie, but live music is just so much more invigorating. We've haven't been to a live show together since we saw Wilco play in Portland like four years ago.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I was heartened to see some of my fellow Cougars stand up to Dick Cheney. I was also heartened to see the Anti-Defamation League stand up for the Church. I know there are stories to tell and things to write that will entertain, but I can't think of a single one. I've been on cold medication for four days straight. It's killing me. So I'll probably be back tomorrow with more inane and pointless writings. But I at least promise to make them more entertaining.

Goodbye Larry

It's been over a week. Man, time flies. And then yesterday, word came down Calvert DeForest died. You may remember Calvert, he, of course, was Larry "Bud" Melman on Late Night. My love of Letterman is no secret here. And so we remember Larry. In honor of the great little man, a few clips from Late Night when he was in his prime.

On and on and on

Just a quick note to take care of some Rob Report business. The out-of-staters should finally be receiving their Perfect Pop Songs Vol. 2 CDs in the next few days. For those who might not be following the action down in the comments, Janelle quickly figured out how to use the internets and cahnged her name from Anonymous to J-Bell and thus gets the fourth disc. H.L., unfortunately was too late getting there. And despite his logical and reasoned argument that J corrected herself in the wrong comments thread and thus is ineligible to recieve the CD, the judges hastily and emotionally ruled in her favor. But H.L. is smart and his powers of persuasion are legendary, going all the way back to an 8th-grade GT when he successfully argued against some poor, ill prepared classmate in open debate that plastic surgery was morally wrong. H.L. will get his disc.

And, Becky and I watched "The Prestige" over the weekend. Wanting to get back into the review game, I'll post my take on the movie before the end of the week. So there ya go. TTFN, faithful readers.

Outtasite, outtamind

I sometimes forget I have a third child. I know, I know, that sounds terrible. But I swear I'm not a bad father. Really. It's just after having only two kids for four years, I forget we've got that third one. I mean, she hardly makes any noise.

It started shortly after we brought her home from the hospital. Becky and I had the girls and we were going grocery shopping at WinCo. We started walking inside and halfway across the parking lot, Becky realized I wasn't carrying the baby. I had left her in the car.

Look, we take the girls to WinCo a lot. I was used to it only being the four of us.

Then, a month or so later, it was Sunday and we were going to church. Which is always a production, trying to get the girls dressed, ready, in the car, out of the car, across the parking lot and into the chapel. We walk to the front and sit down on our pew when Becky, suddenly near-shouts, "Where's the baby?"

Yes, I had once again left her in the car. So I walk back past the entire congregation, out the doors, across the parking lot to the car and retrieve Elsa, who was as happy as could be sitting in her car seat. That was, like, last fall. I haven't forgotten Elsa in the car since. I'm now used to pulling three kids out of the car when we go somewhere.

But I'm not always used to having her at home.

Last Saturday, Becky had left to go run some errands and the girls were taking naps. The weather was nice and as Claire and Leigh awoke, we decided to go try a little visual science experiement I'd picked up the night before at the County Office of Education. You have a picture of the sun, roughly the size of your face and this tiny image of the earth, roughly the size of a pen tip. You stand 75 feet apart and, to scale, replicate the distance of the earth to the sun (96 million miles, in case you were curious).

Well, to do this, we had to leave the apartment and walk across the parking lot to a patch of lawn near the swimming pool. It was fun. Both girls took turns holding the sun and waving at each other from really far away. We walked back to the apartment and got the bikes out of the garage so the girls could ride. At about this point, Becky comes home and sees us milling around in front of the garage and asked how we were doing. All fine, I say, happy to be outside with the girls. She then asks if Elsa is still sleeping, obviously seeing that she's not with us.

And I realize, Elsa's not with us. She is in fact still upstairs sawing logs. I smile at Becky and slip inside like I know what I'm doing and like I've known what I was doing for the past 20 minutes, to check on Elsa. She of course is fine and slumbering peacefully in her crib. Which she continues to do for, like, the next hour.

I'm telling you, the girl is too quiet for her own good. Anyway, needless to say, I'm now really getting used to having a third child. And I'm sure I'll never forget about Elsa ever again. And did I mention my parents once left my youngest sister home alone as the rest of us drove off in the station wagon to spend a week with some relative in some neighboring state? And Becky's parents once left alone her at a park? I'm just saying.

Sky Blue Sky

It would seem we've gone from laborious U2 posts on the Rob Report to laborious Wilco posts. I guess you can't say I'm single-minded. Or maybe you can. Because we live in America and you can still say whatever you want. For now.

Anyway. On to my point. Wilco's new album "Sky Blue Sky" leaked onto the internets this week and, thinking May all of sudden sounded really far off, I tracked it down and downloaded a copy. And, so far, it's pretty good.

The album kind of follows the natural progression started on "A Ghost Is Born." It's more organic and connected than "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and it tones down, even more than "Ghost" did, the sonic experimenting and exploring in which they've been engaged since "Being There." And for the most part it works.

One the band's endearing qualities, which I've hit on before on this blog, is their ability to go in a million different directions with their songwriting, their arrangements and their production and still sound like Wilco. I'm guessing that's Jeff Tweedy's influence, but they can stray pretty far afield and still not lose the melody, the lyric, the essential feel that makes Wilco what it is. Elasticity like that is to be commended and I think it's what makes Wilco one of the best American rock bands out there today.

That being said, "Sky" is a little more mellow than what you'd expect from a band that always to seems to crank out two or three loud, disjointed and imaginative tracks on its past albums. Here, Tweedy and Co. just stick to the basics of rock song composition. They take the loud, disjointed and imaginative elements that were whole songs in the past and now just use them to puncuate songs here. For the most part it works, but unchecked, it could get pretty boring pretty quick.

What's interesting is Tweedy takes very noticeable risks with his voice on "Sky." A lot of the songs are in a bit higher range than what he's done in the past, and like the rest of Wilco's experimenting, it works wonderfully here. I mean, Tweedy's vocals are part of what makes the band's sounds so inviting and enjoyable. The guy's just got a great voice.

Semi-new comers Nels Cline's and Mike Jorgenson's influence can definitely be heard here. Which is part of what makes this album sound relatively different than past albums. Jay Bennett, who left the band while they recorded "YHF," was a world-class jerk but he had a great rock sensibililty and great ear for melody. With "Sky" you get a lot more guitar deconstruction and bouncy, R&B inspired rhythms and just plain soul. "Walken" is great example. "Side With Seeds" sounds like a long lost Rev. Al Green song with some Sonic Youth grafted on at the end. Surprisingly, it works. "You Are My Face," "Impossible Germany" and "Hate it Here" are a few other stand out tracks that seem to just get better the more I play them.

The album's title "Sky Blue Sky", which is also the fourth track on the album, is a play on a literary device Tweedy has become enamored with since the "Summerteeth" days when he was singing he needed something in his veins bloodier than blood. So overall, I'm digging it. I'm just not loving it the way I thought I would. So I'll be eager see how it ages.

School lunch

I visited Claire's school yesterday and had lunch with her in the cafeteria. I don't when you last ate lunch in a school cafeteria, but, let me fill you in on a little secret. At least at the elementary school level, they're still basically serving up nameless, formless and unnatural food concoctions in school cafeterias. We were served chili.

And to be fair, it wasn't as bad as you'd think lunchroom chili could be. But still, there's a deep chasm between edible and enjoyable. And obviously, I wasn't there for the food. I was there to see Claire, you know, before school visits embarass her and I become her geeky old man.

For the time being, I'm Elvis. Young Elvis, I'd like to think. But I'll get to that in a minute. It was fun sitting with Claire and her friends in the cafeteria watching them all interact and be kids. They're first-graders and Claire, three months past her sixth birthday is the youngest. It seems like all they did was laugh and tell incomprehensible knock-knock jokes and bounce around the lunch table. Claire, from time to time would just look up at me and smile. It was very endearing.

We had to wait for the aide to excuse us to go out to recess and Claire showed me how to bus my tray. Walking out, she excitedly showed me the shortcut to the bars (which was more of a longcut) and the whole time we had her little gaggle of friends in tow.

Once we were outside, I put on my sunglasses -- cheap mirrored shades that just barely function as sungalsses. I still haven't gotten over busting my Wayfarers. Anyway, we walked over to tetherball and Claire's friend Sophia looks at me and just starts calling me Elvis. Pretty soon, everyone's calling me Elvis. And they all think it's hysterical. Which it kind of is.

Anyway, we played on the bars, we played tetherball and we played on the swings. It was a lot of fun. And it's just amazing how much energy these kids have. They never stop moving, never stop talking never stop playing. It's incredible. It's also exhausting. Youth is indeed wasted on the young.

So, if you get the chance, I highly recommend sitting down and eating lunch with a first-grader. The food will suck, but it'll be invigorating.

Smokin'

I smoked four pounds of pork this weekend. To middling success. This is news to no one, but I love meat, especially smoked meat. The obsession reached its nadir when my parents were mission president and wife in Independence, Mo. We went to Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City for lunch and I've never tasted anything better in my life. Anway, I recently read an article in the New York Times about smoking food stuffs at home inside. Smoking food inside, you say? That's just crazy. No, no it's not and I'm living proof that it can be done and and done well.

All you need is a big metal roaster -- the kind you'd cook a Sunday roast in -- a meat rack, tin foil and hickory (or whatever) wood shavings. I had the roaster, fashioned a meat rack from an inversted pie tin to fit inside and went on the hunt Saturday for wood shavings. These are different from wood chips. You need the shavings because, to smoke indoors, you're placing the wood at the bottom of your roaster and basically smoldering them on your stovetop.

So how hard is it to find wood shavings in Redding? Surprisingly hard. That may simply be becuase I've never smoked food before so I don't know where to get the proper supplies, but after calling around, the only place I found that had shaving was Kent's Meat Market halfway between Redding and Anderson. And they had shavings because they smoke their own meat there. And as a result they buy the shavings in 90- and 300-pound bags. But the guy I talked to said to come on by and he'd pull a little out for me. So, address in hand, I set out to Kent's. I show up, they take me back behind the butcher's counter and the guy with whom I spoke on the phone, pulls out a brown paper grocery bag full of wood shavings. I only need a handful. The man explained he usually smoked 350- to 400-pounds of meat in one session. Holding up the bag, he said that's about how much wood it took. I explained I had four pounds of pork I was smoking. He smiled and said I could keep the rest in the garage for when I was smoking something else. Indeed.

So I took it home and tried it out. It was surprisingly simple. I placed the handful of shavings in the bottom of my roaster, set a drip pan on top of it and then placed my hand-fashioned meat rack and finally the roast itself. I covered the top with the tin foil, making sure it fit tightly on top so as not to let the smoke escape, set the whole thing on the stovetop and turned the heat to medium. For the next 30 minutes the apartment filled with the wonderful aroma of hickory smoke. And no smoke actually escaped my set-up. So far, so good. After about 35 minutes I turned off the heat and got ready to finish cooking the roast in the oven.

That's where it went downhill. The directions were vague when it came to the question of covering the roast or not. I opted to cover it lightly. It then said to cook the meat 40 minutes per pound or until a meat thermometer read 190 degrees. I cooked it for the requisite time but my meat thermometer only read 160 degrees. It was already getting late, so I decided my thermometer was probably wrong, the roast had cooked the specified time and thus, must be done. Looking back now, I think that was a mistake.

After pulling the roast out, you shred it with a couple forks or your fingers. This proved next to impossible. The meat just would not come apart. My thumbs are still sore from pulling the pork apart. It was amazingly tough. Which was disappointing because it tasted so good. And it wasn't tough to chew. So I keep going. I start to prepare the sauce listed in the recipe. It's a North Carolina-style barbecue sauce, which I mistakenly thought would be a close relative to the Carolina Honey sauce you get with a certain type of ribs at Tony Roma's. Yes, I'm an idiot.

And no, this sauce was nothing like the stuff from Tony Roma's. It was, in essence, two cups of vinegar and a half cup of ketchup, with some pepper and crushed red pepper thrown in for good measure. I like tang, I love vinegar, but when it comes to barbecue, I'm more a fan of the smokey than the tangy. But I soldier on, thinking it will be surprisingly good. And it wasn't bad. It was surprisingly hot and had a strong tang. But after a while, it got to be overwhelming. And by the end, it just wasn't what I had wanted it to be. Eating some more of it for lunch today, the meat was rubbery and difficult to chew, reafirming to me that I probably should have cooked it longer. There's also a question of whether or not I bought the right cut of meat.

Regardless, I've showed myself I can smoke food at home and in my kitchen. Rather easily. So I'm doing it again and and next time I smoke a pork roast, I'm going to cook it longer, we're going to ditch the Carolina sauce and use my mom's barbecue sauce which is the perfect mix of smokey and tangy. And the next time we cook up my mom's brisket, we're going to smoke it first. And if anyone else wants to try it, just give me a call. I've got plenty of wood shavings.

And now I'm salivating.

Perfect Pop Songs Vol. 2

So that it's all in one place, here's the final line-up:

1. "Saving Grace" -- Tom Petty
2. "Sister Jack" -- Spoon
3. "The Late Greats" -- Wilco
4. "Back to the Party" -- The Pushstars
5. "Til Kingdom Come" -- Coldplay
6. "Disappear" -- INXS
7. "Collarbone" -- Fujiya & Miyagi
8. "Talk Amongst Yourselves" -- Grand National
9. "Black Magic" -- Jarvis
10. "Feel Us Shaking" -- The Samples
11. "No Ha Parado de Llover" -- Mana
12. "Satellite" -- Guster
13. "Waiting, Watching, Wishing" -- The Pushstars
14. "The Way We Get By" -- Spoon
15. Bonus Track


Yes, we got our four winners yesterday, but until anonymous sister gives her name, there's still room for one more person to get a CD. H.L., that means you better get moving because I'm calling on all you lurkers to drop a note -- it's free music, what have you got to lose? Anyway, to our three winners already out there, I'll be sending out your discs shortly.