How do you mend a broken heart?

If we're going to get back into this a full year-and-a-half after my last entry, it's probably best we do it with an Elsa story.

The girl, who is now 9, has an obscene number of stuffed animals. And sure, we're definitely the ones to blame. It's not like she's sneaking out on Friday afternoons to score more Build-a-Bears at the mall. She has a supplier and it's us. 

Still, it's an impossible number of animals. Where some kids grow out or move past and even use up their stuffed animal collection, Elsa has preserved, curated and guarded her menagerie with the fastidiousness of a 73-year-old Beanie Babies collector. 

And for this, more than any reason, we knew it was time to take action. Over the last couple weeks, the two nets we have strung across the corner of her bedroom both ripped out of the wall sending the billion or so stuffed animals that resided there tumbling to the floor where they completely buried Elsa's laundry hamper. 

Becky and I talked it over and decided five animals could stay in her bedroom and the rest we'd transition downstairs to the basement storage room. It's a Becky signature move, one she's used on every member of the family. Remove clutter from sight and when it's not noticed and then forgotten about, throw it away. 

It was the perfect plan for the stuffed animals. Outta sight, outta mind. And then gone for good. 

I made sure to prepare Elsa for it. When she got home from school earlier this week we talked about all the stuffed animals and how they needed a better place. We then moved to talking about picking her favorites and keeping those really fun ones on her bed and taking the rest downstairs and out of the way. 

She threw no fits at the plan. She seemed to take it more like I was asking her clean her room. It was all quiet resignation and moderate annoyance. So after snacks and homework, I sent her off to her room with a big box to move her collection through. 

And that was it. For 30 or 45 minutes she stayed in her room going through all her stuffed animals. In fact, she was so on-task, I'd almost forgotten she was out there working on it. That's when I heard quiet sniffles from the kitchen. 

Elsa was done with the dirty business I had tasked her with and had quietly -- and slowly, with the most downcast, hangdog expression -- left her room and wandered back to where we were. I looked at her and my heart broke. She was clearly devastated. I hugged her and we talked about her feelings. 

Turns out, she had been sobbing the entire time. Sobbing as she picked up animals and placed them on the bed. Sobbing as she picked up animals and placed them in the box. Sobbing as she sat and contemplated which animals would stay and which would leave her room forever, merging with the infinite. 

So I explained to her the animals we were taking downstairs weren't going for good. They would just be downstairs and she could go see them and play with them anytime she wanted. But she's 9. And smart. 

"But when we move them downstairs," she said, tears still dripping down her face, "we forget about them."

Yeah, I know. Brutal.

But I wanted to hold strong. Like when we weened her from her blanket. Steadfast and immovable. So I stuck to the five-animal rule and told her that pretty soon she would get along just fine.

When I began telling the tale to Becky later that night, she looked at me asked, "Obviously, you let her keep her stuffed animals?"

Was it that obvious? Maybe it was. So Elsa and I sat down the next day and I told her that her mom was pretty sure she needed to keep a few more stuffed animals in her room, that only the ugly and mean ones had to go downstairs.

And that's how Build-a-Bear Twilight Sparkle came to live in the storage closet in our basement.

Of entertainments and infuriations

The girls and I were watching "Aladdin" yesterday and when the movie finished and I went to turn it off, Elsa -- who, I will remind you, is now almost 8 -- let loose with this unholy wail, screaming about how it was not time to turn off the television.

The clear reaction to this -- the only reaction if we're being honest -- was to laugh. It was so absurd and so out of the blue. And so we all started to laugh. Really hard. Which only made Elsa angrier, leading to more yelling. Which in turn made us laugh even harder. Seriously, I hadn't laughed that hard in days.

Elsa is easily our most challenging child, but by the same token, she's also our most entertaining. Well, most entertaining in the sense that her behavior is often unexpected, over the top and overtly dramatic. Claire and Leigh are certainly just as entertaining. But not in that same unexpected way:

Yes, that's Elsa, who wandered into the display window at The Gap earlier this year and struck a pose while Becky was with the cashier. What I love about this incident SO MUCH is that Elsa did it to entertain just herself. Because she's 7. And the world clearly revolves around just her. The actual photo was snapped by some lady walking by. Who was accidentally entertained by Elsa's self-pleasing stunt.

As we shift gears in the family with work schedules and at-home parenting, I'm hoping Elsa never grows out of this. It's such an endearing and entertaining (and yet infuriating) stage of life. So at the same time I'm totally hoping Elsa grows out of this. We want her to be a productive member of society and grow up to be a self-reliant adult.

Luckily (and do I feel some guilt here? Yes, yes I do), Becky's done most of the heavy lifting already. I've just got to reinforce it and not undo all of her work. And that goes for the other two girls as well. When I was home with them yesterday, I noticed just how well they've been trained to be productive and stay focused. It's like Becky knows what she's doing.

Which begs the question, do I know what I'm doing? I wonder sometimes. I'm sure Becky wonders sometimes. Luckily, she's promised to make herself available for consults and training, should I ever get stuck.

It's nice to have an expert you can call in.

We're back!

After her three-martini lunch, Barbie found herself half-naked on the roof.

At least, that's kinda what the girls claim happen. In reality, they're claiming ignorance -- but that only goes so far. Because somehow a naked Barbie doll is still sitting on the roof and she didn't climb up there. Or maybe she did. Maybe that's the part from "Toy Story" they didn't show.

Becky saw her sitting up there last week. And was obviously caught off guard. Leigh and Elsa have been playing dolls most of September and October with Ari, our next-door neighbor. Near as we can tell, at some point during their play, Barbie took a flying leap to the Barbie Great Beyond. We all blame Elsa.

What's really funny is that the doll is still up there. No one's put forth the effort to go get her, 'cause, really, what's the point? She seems happy enough.

Becky's birthday was Tuesday, which means I'm blogging again. We were sitting around late last month reading through the girls' books of photos and memorabilia and in them we'd stuck a bunch of the stories I'd written about them on the blog. Most of them were memories we'd all totally forgotten. And that's enough to inspire you to get going on something like this again. Before all memory of the girls' childhood is lost to the broken synapses of my brain.

And even though it was Becky's birthday this week, it was still somehow Leigh's week. She got her ears pierced on Thursday and then had her first basketball game on Saturday at the obnoxious hour of 8:30. Both activities were executed in classic Leigh fashion.

She was so excited to get her ears pierced that that's all she talked about for two weeks. She talked about it so much that her friends and sisters eventually told her to shut up about it. Which is amazing, because in a family of talkers, Leigh's the kid that usually keeps her thoughts to herself. The excitement didn't really turn to nervousness until she sat in the chair and the piercing girl loaded the studs into the nail gun-like device they use for piercing at the mall. The excited smile became a nervous smile, but a smile nonetheless. She tensed up a little right before the shot and that was it. No tears, no screams, no cursing (you never know what'll come out of her mouth considering how her mother speaks).

That same smile was on her face at her basketball game this morning. She was nervous for her game -- nervous, I think, that she'd do something wrong, something unacceptable. She was up at 6:30 getting ready a full two hours before the game.

The girl's got no killer instinct. She's polite, obedient and considerate to everyone around her. You can imagine what kind of basketball player that makes her. She didn't want to get to close to the other players, wasn't keen on touching the ball and just seemed to be happy moving around on the court. But players kept stealing the ball from other players -- that seemed suspect -- so near the end of the game, she asked her coach if it was okay to steal the ball from people. She got a resounding yes. And so by the end of the game Leigh was playing a little more aggressively and even managed to steal the ball once or twice.

It's been fun. And, believe it or not, it feels good to be writing again. Doing that family column at the Searchlight really burned me out. More than thought it had. But, you know, three years later, I think I'm ready again. We'll see how long it lasts.

I'm on like Dr. John

Hey, last video post and then I'll get back to real writing. I promise. But this is really too good not to share. And by "too good" I mean absolutely epic. Grover as Ad Rock, the Grouch as MCA and Cookie Monster as Mike D. I could watch this forever.

Sesame Street breaks it down from Wonderful Creative on Vimeo.

Not fireworks, Marvin-works

Well, as another Fourth of July wraps up, I thought I'd leave you all with a little lullaby to close out your day. From a few years ago:

It's Marvin Gaye performing one of the single greatest interpretations of the national anthem I've ever heard. And just today I've heard three terrible versions.

So this is -- for you, for me -- the perfect antidote to Lee Greenwood's embarrassingly gauzy and jingoistic "God Bless the U.S.A." Use Marvin to wash it from your mind.

Polly Pockets and brain surgeons

Polly Pockets are insane toys.

For those of you who don't have girls or who never had sisters, let me give you a crash course. Polly Pockets are like miniature Barbie Dolls. They come with their own little cars and houses and clothes. Except, because they're only 3 inches tall, their clothes -- all made of this stretcy rubber material -- are ridiculously small. Especially the shoes. Oh, the shoes. I have fillings in my teeth bigger than these shoes. And because they're so freaking small they go missing with impossible speed. They also turn up in really strange places -- the inside of my guitar, the bottom of my pillow case, the spare tire well in my trunk.

The worst thing about Polly Pockets, though, is how appealing they are to really young girls -- like 4, 5 and 6-year-olds. A 4-year-old will sit down to play with a Polly Pocket and because she doesn't have the fine motor skills of a veteran brain surgeon, she'll have no way to pull on the stiff rubber shirts and the stiff rubber pants and she'll certainly have no way to get the impossibly tiny shoes onto the dolls impossibly tiny feet. Which, of course leads to maddening frustration and then copious amounts of tears.

Elsa, our 4-year-old, seems to have found a way around this. She and our 8-year-old Leigh have begun playing real life Polly Pockets. Elsa becomes the Polly, holding he legs and arms stiff and straight, and she makes Leigh dress her in various outfits. To accommodate Elsa's fantasy Polly Pocket world, Leigh has to push Elsa's arms up when she puts on her shirt and then push Elsa's arms back down when she gets the shirts on.

To put this in perspective, it would be like if H.L. and I, as kids, dressed each other up like G.I. Joes and then just stood in the room admiring our handiwork. No, instead, we would just go the playground and act out our favorite G.I. Joe episodes on the playground equipment. We didn't need to dress up, we had our MINDS.

And I guess that's what Elsa has done. She used her mind to better the playing-with-Polly-Pockets experience. Somehow in that developing brain of hers, she KNOWS Polly Pockets were really designed for brain surgeons. And, as we all remember so well, knowing is half the battle.
And they love it. It's hilarious.

The Behind-the-Couch Post

You remember how sometimes your spouse will come up with a crazy theory to pin on you some type of bad behavior? I know. I didn't believe it ever happened either until Becky did it the other day.

She and Elsa were home after preschool, the older girls still at school. Becky went down stairs to work on the computer leaving Elsa upstairs to play on the organ. After a few minutes, Elsa calls out to Becky, sounding a little nervous and wanting her to come upstairs. Becky tells Elsa to just come down stairs. So Elsa hops down from the organ, walks to the stairs, moving a little quicker with each step until she's running down the stairs. When she reaches the bottom, she's moving at full speed and screaming.

Clearly, this girl has been genuinely frightened.

Becky gets her calmed down and asks her what happened, a little concerned. Through the 4-year-old speak, Becky puts together that Elsa was scared to be upstairs alone because she was afraid her pink, stuffed poodle and the bulk of Leigh's stuffed animals would come to life and kill her.

Now, rather than explain away this fear as simple cognitive development and anxiety phenomena that normally present themselves in toddlers and young children, Becky has the temerity -- the TEMERITY -- to suggest that this fear of her impending doom at the paws of stuffed animals awakened from their inanimate slumber was due to me. Specifically, she said, it was due to all those episodes of "Doctor Who" I had been watching with the girls.

I know, right?

So let me make a quick list of the episodes we've watched and the basic plot of each so you can see just how crazy this accusation is. I'll list them in the rough order we watched them and include some photos from the actual episodes to illustrate just how harmless this stuff is. (You can click on the pics to make them bigger, you know, if you want the full effect.)

"Blink" -- Angel statues come alive when you blink and devour what would have been the rest of your years on earth by sending you back in time.








"The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" -- Alien microgenes infect blitz-era London turning people into gas mask-wearing zombies. When the zombie-ness takes effect, the gas masks pop out of people's mouths. I might note that the episode ends on the rather up-beat note of the Doctor shouting, "Just this once, everybody lives!"








"Dalek" -- The Doctor discovers his ancient archenemy, the Dalek is still alive. The Dalek gets loose and kills a bunch of people.










"Bad Wolf/The Parting of Ways" -- Rose and the Doctor end up on a 51st century game show where the losers are killed. And then Daleks appear and start killing people.









"The Girl in the Fire Place" -- The Doctor discovers gear-driven robots are visiting 18th century France and stalking Madame De Pompadour. The robots hide under her bed and then attack her with little circular saws.







See? Pretty innocuous stuff. The idea that watching these episodes is somehow freaking Elsa out and that her fear is manifesting itself in ideas that stuffed animals could come to life and attack her is just absurd.

In fact, my solution, if we're to suppose Becky could possibly be right, is to simply explain to Elsa the reality of the situation. It's natural when you're a child to believe in monsters and to be scared of them. But, as the Doctor explained to a young Mde. De Pompadour, monsters have nightmares, too. Who do they have nightmares of, you ask? Of the Doctor. So don't be scared of monsters because you'll always have the Doctor to protect you.

Becky's not convinced that solution will do the trick.

No, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, we might have to admit Becky has a point. In England, back in the '70s and '80s, particularly frightening episodes of "Doctor Who" were called "Behing-the-Couch" episodes because the kids watching would jump behind the couch and hide when the scary parts would come on.

So really, we can all take heart. Elsa is simply taking part in the broader -- albeit distinctly British -- cultural experience of watching "Doctor Who" as a child. And the Brits totally turned out fine.

Dude, she's going to poop her pants!

Leigh remains our most interesting child. Which is a feat, considering how strange all three of our girls are.

Not to go all Baby Boomer, but she's definitely the George to Claire's and Elsa's John and Paul. No one in the family is Ringo because no one should have to be Ringo.

Leigh is old for her class and stands a head taller than most of her classmates, including the boys. Given her age and her height, she's become something of a dandy in her second grade class. Her classmates love her and when she's not totally ambivalent to it, she's happy to rally them around her to do her strange bidding. Recess usually involves games in which Leigh and her friends work on out-smarting the boys for control of favorite playground equipment. You know, sort of like the Cold War.

Well, shortly before winter break, Leigh was informed by her friend Jenna that a deal had been brokered with the boys. Leigh was to race all the boys at the next recess. If she won, the girls would take control of the playground's coveted zip line. If she lost, the boys would take it and that would be that.

Leigh shrugged her shoulders and said, "O.K." The next day she raced each of the boys and won. What was fun was to have her come home that day and tell us about it, explaining it all very matter-of-factly, as though she simply completed an assignment in class. We're not sure just what makes Leigh's world tick, but I'm pretty sure it's not recess plots to maintain control of the zip-line.

That same ambivalence makes Christmas shopping for her interesting. At one point this season she wrote a letter to Santa telling him anything he brought would be fine. You'll remember, Leigh figured out last year that Santa wasn't real because she knew there was no such thing as elves.

Anyway, a couple times leading up to the Big Day, she saw those big art easels that double as chalk boards and white boards and activity centers at the store and fell in love. That's what she wanted for Christmas. Becky never let on, even demurred a bit to throw Leigh on the scent. When we finally went to the store to buy it, Becky grabbed one, loaded it into the van and said, "Dude, she's going to poop her pants!"

Christmas morning, she tore open the gift and politely smiled when she saw what it was. She was happy to have it and has used it daily since Christmas. But she did not poop her pants.

Which is fine. She responded in a very Leigh-like manner which is why we love her. Also, it would have been messy.

All hail Saturday morning

Somewhere between the time I was kid and when I grew up, Saturday mornings changed. I'm not sure when it happened, but, as you can guess, I started noticing when I had kids.

The way it used to be: You'd wake up at 5, grab a big blanket or quilt, a bowl of cereal and turn on the tube. You usually had four choices, NBC, CBS, ABC or the local syndication station. But at 5 in the morning it didn't really matter. All that was on were really old reruns of stuff like "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and "Pink Panther," or the Farm Report, if you landed on the syndicated channel. To make sure you didn't get busted by parents who I'm sure had only gone to bed a few short hours before, you had to keep the television down to levels so low sometimes you weren't sure if you were actually hearing the sound or just imagining it.



Usually by 6 or so, the real cartoon block started. In between the shows there were little message spots like "School House Rocks" and the one with that guy that looked like a walking yellow blob with a top hat and cane that strolled around your stomach telling you to eat healthy snacks. It was awesome. You sat back and watched everything from "SilverHawks" to "Superfriends." (Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice....) And then there was "Dungeons and Dragons." That show was in a class all by itself. So, so good.



The way it is now: You're kids get up and you rush them off to Leigh's soccer game. It's just not the same.

Well, that's not entirely true. Soccer's over now. So the girls get up, usually sometime after 7. Which is great for Becky and I. As a kid, waking up at 5, I'm guessing I melted into some sobbing emotional mess at the first request from my parents to do anything productive on Saturday morning.

And even though the girls get up around 7, there's still no cartoons on the Big Three until 8. They run morning news shows on Saturday mornings. It's almost heresy. Except all the kids are at soccer games, so they don't notice. Well, they're either at soccer games or tuning into Nick, Disney or Cartoon Network, which is, obviously, the real reason the Saturday morning cartoon culture is dead. There's no reason to get up at 5 on a Saturday to watch cartoons when you can tune into them whenever you want any day of the week on basic cable.


It will blacken your soul and destroy your mind

Lucky for my girls, we don't have cable (that's another post for another day). So they get up on Saturday morning, grab a box of cereal and watch stuff like "Sabrina" and "The Replacements." There's some new terrible "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon that runs now. They'll watch that from time to time. PBS has a channel that runs kids programming all the time, so sometimes they catch the occasional "Curious George" or "SuperWhy." You know, to keep Elsa placated.

But it's interesting. Even with the girls and their basic cable-less living conditions, there's no real reverence for the Saturday morning ritual we had as kids. And they seem relatively indifferent about the cartoons they watch. There's no one single show they spend the entire week waiting to watch. When I was really young, "Superfriends" only came on Saturday morning and it was one of the first cartoons on, so you had to make sure you were up good and early to catch it. I started counting down the hours until it aired on Wednesday. I couldn't wait for it to come on. My girls don't look forward to anything with that same kind of anticipation.

Which is probably for the best. They read at their age more than I ever did. And they're more active. Still. I can't help but think some of the whimsy, some of the innocence of my childhood will be something they never experience. On the other hand, when they reach 15 or 16 they'll never have to experience that gaping disappoint of realizing the Wonder Twins were the stupidest cartoon superhero duo ever to grace television screens. Form of an ice unicycle? Are you kidding me?

It's quickly becoming the Elsa Hour on the Report. That's not really how it's supposed to be but she keeps doing insane things and so I keep writing about it.



Case in point: my post last week. You remember, it was all about her nasty thumb-sucking habit and how it was going to be terrible to kick her of it and how Becky had to stand at her door until she eventual cried herself to sleep that night. The drama.

Yeah. That was the only night she cried about it. She didn't suck her thumb that night and she hasn't since. Let that sink in for a minute. No fits, no tantrums, no weepy pleas for her blanket back. It's like someone literally flipped a switch, a big, cease-to-thumb-suck-and-cry-about-blankie switch.

Insane.

It's insane because we had tried a month earlier and it went about as well as you'd imagine. Tears, tantrums and heart-breakingly sincere pleas asking us why. We were sure the psychological damage we'd inflicted would take years to undo.

Instead, a little over a week ago, we were gathering for family prayer, Elsa was throwing a tantrum at the dinner table and I threatened to throw her blanket away if she didn't stop. Just another evening in the Rogers home.

Well, she screamed right at me just once more to make her point. I believe that's when Becky saw her opening. She took Elsa's blanket and mimed throwing it away. It almost felt like Becky had acted on a whim. But I'm guessing she had been scheming and planning that move for weeks -- not sure how it would present itself or how she would actually go about removing blankie from the family environment. But I'm sure she'd steeled herself for The Moment, ready to pounce when she realized The Moment had presented itself.

The rest you know. Elsa went to bed crying. Becky stood at the door to keep an ear on her. The next morning her thumb was remarkably un-prune-like. A couple nights during the week, unsure if she'd take up the habit again subconsciously, we put in her gloves, which she loved. And sure enough, she wasn't sucking her thumb. At all.

I have no explanation for it. What changed between this month and last? Why would she nearly effortlessly give up the blanket and the thumb on some random night when she could have just as easily gone on in her old, self-soothing ways? It makes no sense.

Which leads to the real point of this post. Children make no sense. The sooner you accept that, the easier parenthood will be.

What is and what should never be

So I had the Led Zeppelin dialed up tonight. It's Saturday. And I think this goes back to my teenage years, but there's something -- I dunno how to describe it -- but something just right about playing Zeppelin on a Saturday night. It feels right, you know? Like that:



Yeah, that feels right. Anyway.

Becky's hanging outside Elsa's room right now waiting for her to fall asleep. We're usually not so nosy about it, but tonight we sent her to bed without her blanket. She's four. So having the blanket's cool. It's what you do at that age. You know, like 13-year-old girls clipping up their copies of TigerBeat. But with Elsa, the blanket, in and of itself, isn't the problem. It's what she does while she's got her blanket.



Oh sure she's cute as a button, but do you see those teeth? I'm pretty sure you could fly an X-Wing through that gap. The dental catastrophe that is that mouth is the result of four years of thumb sucking. A thumb that only gets sucked when she's holding her blanket. For her sake, for her teeth's sake, for our pocketbook's sake we've got to get her off that sweet, sweet thumb. Before she starts high school.

And this is new territory for us. Claire sucked a binky and we weened her from it pretty painlessly at 2. Leigh sucked her thumb up until she was one. That winter she caught a really bad cold and so couldn't suck her thumb and breath at the same time. That's right. She wisely chose breathing over thumb sucking. Elsa has yet to display that same acumen. Getting that girl to give up her thumb is going to be some kind of epic war.

Listening upstairs, the crying has stopped. Becky is not the enabler in our house, so the silence means only one thing. Elsa fell alseep without her blanket. So I guess that's a little victory for the evening. A battle won in the great War of the Thumb.

So I deal with this stuff as a parent and the words of Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times" come to my mind. You know: In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man. Now I've reached that age I've tried to do all those things the best I can. No matter how I try, I find my way into the same old jam.

Not unlike the narrator in the song, I -- more often than not -- have no idea what I'm doing as a parent -- well, as an adult, if we're being honest. So it's a good thing Becky's up there making sure this kid kicks the thumb habit. As the enabler in this relationship, I'd let Elsa suck that thing through college.

Back from the dead

What's a year and half? Nothing. A blink of an eye, really. But I'm back at it and it feels good. See, there's this girl. And she's having a birthday and the one thing she wanted more than anything else was a reminder of how awesome her family is. So this is for her.

(And this is how awesome her family is:)



A quick update. During the last 18 months we all aged a bit, the girls cleaned up at a handful of swimming meets, we moved to Billings, MT and I took a new job and the girls changed schools three times. We also discovered that the older your family gets the harder it is to move.

But it's also adventurous. And rewarding -- in its own way. A few weeks after landing in Billings, I was dropping the girls off at school and as they got out of the car and walked up to the main door, they held hands. Definitely a first for them. It made me think maybe the change would maybe do some good.

It's been interesting watching them adjust to the move. 'Cause mostly it's been them adjusting to new schools and new friends. We got here in November, got the girls in school and then moved them to a new one in August for the new school year. They had to start from scratch. Twice. Well, almost from scratch. They each had a friend at their new school and that helped a bit.

But moving to a new school is hard. For the first day, Becky and I walked the girls and dropped them off with all kinds of hugs and kisses. The playground was filled with kids waiting to line up to go into the school and as we turned back, sneaking one last glance Claire, who could strike up a conversation with a tree, was immediately talking and laughing with some soon-to-be classmates. Leigh, on the other hand, was kind of wandering around all by herself. That's hard to watch as a parent. And then talking to her about after school, she wasn't even aware she was making such a depressing sight. That girl's pretty much content anywhere and under almost any circumstance.

Of course our biggest worry is that the girls will be picked on. The new kids are always picked on. Case in point: I went to the same elementary school from kindergarten to sixth grade. Pretty much same group of friends from start to finish. In fifth grade, we had a new kid move into our class -- his dad was in the Air Force and like most military brats, I don't think this poor kid ever finished a single grade of elementary at the same school. Which makes me feel even more guilty for the way I treated him.

But you gotta understand. Sure, his dad was in the Air Force, but my older brother was in the Civil Air Patrol, kind of a junior ROTC for high-schoolers who wanted to go into the Air Force. My brother even had a uniform. Obviously, I was the resident expert on allthings Air Force. We didn't need this new kid around with all his stories about the service and how cool his dad was 'cause he worked on fighter jets. And so, I picked on him. Mercilessly. It culminated with a fist fight after school one day. Because I was jerk. I'm pretty sure he kicked my trash. For some reason that doesn't make me feel any better.

So I knew what could happen to my girls. They could easily have a classmate who's older sibling wrote for the high school paper. And that classmate could easily consider themselves the school expert on newspapering. And then my girls would come in with a dad who was reporter for the town paper and that poor threatened classmate would tease my kids all day long about how their tales of what their dad did at work were completely wrong and could never happen and that they were nothing but liars, dirty dirty liars, 'cause everyone knows C-130s can't go supersonic! Naturally I hoped they'd have less petty classmates.

And guess what? They do. Both the girls have made some really good friends. Claire admitted she used to get teased a bit about her age. She's really young for her class -- the cut off dates in California fall in such a way that she would have ended up in a lower grade had she started school here instead of in Redding. And so at lunch, some of her classmates used to tell her she wasn't as cool as everyone else in her class 'cause she was born in 2000 not in 1999. Claire, of course, is a survivor. She knew if she was going to stop the teasing she'd have to not only intimidate her classmates but also show them she could stand toe-to-toe with the best of them.

So, one day at lunch, as the teasing started up again, she quietly finished her milk, picked up the small, half-pint milk carton, made eye contact with her tormentors and crushed the carton in her fist. That was the end of that. As she describes it, the show of strength left everyone in the cafeteria slack-jawed and bug-eyed. She showed them.

Leigh, I'll admit, I was never that worried for. Becky was a bit, naturally, because Leigh is so unassuming. She's meek and gentle in her own way. A natural target for bullies, right? Except that Leigh's hilarious and has a spine a tempered steel. Nothing really shakes that girl up. So, instead of being the shy kid in class, she's more like the oil on the water. She just calms everything down. And she quickly wins the hearts of those who know her.

She was star of the class last week -- a little thing the teacher does to highlight each student in class. On Friday, as the culmination to the week, the Star gets to do this kind of extended show-and-tell, showing off to the class all her likes and interests. Well Leigh gets up and shows off pictures of her family and some of her art projects, finishing by showing the kids how to do one of designs she created in art class. It was amazing to watch. Leigh simply commanded the classroom. She had the kids laughing, asking questions and intently watching as she did her demonstration. She was completely at ease and we realized she was going to be just fine.

So, it's back to the lab again.

Whoops

I really didn't mean to follow up a U2 post with another U2 post, but guess what? That's what I'm gonna do. This has been banging around my head for a while and just need to get it down so I can be free of it.

I read a review about six years ago covering U2's second compilation of greatest hits and the reviewer pointed out how the "Electrical Storm" remix that showed up on the bonus disc was a better mix of the actual song that appeared on the album version. I found I completely agreed.

And then I started noticing things. As I got increasingly bored with the band's Eno/Lanois studio productions, the remixes from the same time period got more and more interesting.

When "Atomic Bomb" came out one of the songs that annoyed me to no end was "Original of the Species" because it seemed like it had so much potential but landed completed flat. It was such a boring song.

And then someone leaked the "Original Of The Species (Killahurtz Casa De Angeles Mix)" of the song and it was like a revelation. The track included this steady backbeat that helped firm up the song and included some alternate vocal takes from Bono that all of sudden made the song interesting.

Similarly, the Jacknife Lee mix of "Vertigo" turned the playful romp from the band into this hard-edged rock song that worked on a whole new level.

I started to notice that as the band brought in new and interesting producers to play with some of the band's singles after these albums were released you ended up with better versions of the songs than what they'd originally put out.

Now, I'm not taking about the standard dance remix treatment most of their songs get when the albums come out but actual alternative takes of the songs by fringe producers. A lot of it works amazingly well. And it just proves to me again that U2 needs to cut the apron strings and experiment with a young, brash producer in the studio.

Below is a list off the top of my head of altnerate mixes of U2 songs that are better than the album version:

1. Electrical Storm (William Orbit Mix)
2. Original Of The Species (Killahurtz Casa De Angeles Mix)
3. Get On Your Boots (Justice Remix)
4. Elevation(Influx Remix)

And a couple that are at least as good as the original and toy with being better:

1. No Line on the Horizon ("Get on Your Boots" Single Remix)
2. Vertigo (Jacknife Lee 10" Version)
3. New Year's Day (USA Remix)

No Line on the Horizon

I probably shouldn't put this off any longer. So here it is, The Rob Report's review of the new U2.

I've had the album for nearly a month now and I've listened to it pretty constantly since I got it. Surprisingly, my initial impressions haven't changed much at all. In a sentence, half of it works for me and half of it stinks.

U2 have, for the better part of a decade, produced albums aimed squarely at pleasing the masses. Unabashedly. And there's nothing wrong with that. In a sense, that's what pop music is supposed to do.

However, with U2, you almost get the feeling as you listen to the music on "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" that there's some ulterior motive there. The music, the riffs, the refrains, all of it feels a little too calculated, a little too obvious.

The last two albums felt like U2 sitting in the studio trying really hard to sound like U2. And it's not hard to see why. The backlash after 1997's "Pop" had to have stung pretty good. And so what we saw emerge from that was a band resolved to play it safe, to play it big and to play it obvious.

Which was hard to watch. One of the things I've always believed that has made U2 the brilliant band they are (were?) was their ability to experiment with their craft while not getting lost in the woods. They always end up producing their best stuff when, as Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot says, they're out on the limb, saw in hand. You end up with stuff like "Mysterious Ways" and "Zoo Station" and "Exit" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Promenade" and "MLK" and "The Wanderer" and "Do You Feel Loved" and all the stuff in between. All these songs that are crazy brilliant.

That went out the window after "Pop" and what you were left with was two solid but ultimately boring albums from a band that in the past had been anything but. For the first time you could hear the band trying. You could hear the effort in something that used to sound effortless.

I think, to some extent, the band recognized that. They were pretty vocal while recording "No Line," about how it was another change in direction, another effort to go back into the studio and "dream it all up again."

And you know what? They get about half way there. The first three songs on the album really show the band at their best. The sound is textured and rich and they move in directions that you don't immediately expect. "No Line," the title track, is muted and atmospheric with no obvious chiming guitar, no easy-out chorus. It's heavy, but refreshing. It's a great lead-in to "Magnificent" which, in some ways, is just the opposite. It's got that big, U2-anthem feel but it kind of comes at you sideways. Both these tracks have Eno's fingerprints all over them. But we'll talk about that later.

You feel the album shift gears with "Moment of Surrender" a seven-minute, almost blue-eyed soul ballad from the band. It works mostly because you've never heard U2 sound like this before and because it's got this killer bass groove and a welcome slide-guitar solo from the Edge.

But after that, the album quickly starts to feel like "Atomic Bomb" redux. "Unknown Caller" and "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" land flat. "Caller" is this sci-fi-like existential look at being lost amid the technology of modern-day life. Unfortunately it's really poorly executed. "Crazy," while it has some really fun moments, ultimately feels warmed over and dull. You hear the effort of the band trying to make a big, stadium-ready rocker.

And then there's "Get on Your Boots." The song is still a mess, flailing about for a melody, although it sounds a little better in the context of the album. It was a poor choice for the lead single. I see it going to the graveyard to take its place among songs like "New York" and "Origin of Species."

"Stand Up Comedy" is another track that almost works. It's also one of the few songs on the album that has steadily grown on me. I love the heavy, Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar riff and the chanting "Stand Up" chorus. I'm sure it'll work really well live. However, much of the progress gained on the song is undone by some of the worst lyric-writing I've seen yet from the band. "Stand up to rock stars/Napolean is in high heels/Josephine be careful/Of small men with big ideas." Really? That's what we've come to? I'm sure it looked great on paper, but it sounds terrible in the song.

However, it clears the air for "FEZ-Being Born," probably the most exciting track on the album. "FEZ" is U2 at the most experimental they've been since "Pop" and almost sounds like something left off of "Unforgettable Fire." Or something that could easily fit there. It's got a really satisfying crunch and a great hook, and Bono's stream-of-conscious lyrics fit in the cracks brilliantly.

A lot's been said about "White as Snow," this quiet ballad told from the point of view of a soldier dying alone in Afghanistan. It shows better than anything else the shift Bono has made in his lyric writing. For the last decade it seems, the subtle has been replaced by the obvious and I think it's ruined some otherwise good songs.

"Breathe" is the last rocker on the album and it's a frustrating song. It's got a brilliant chorus and includes one of the best similes I've heard from Bono in probably 15 years. He sings about running down the road like loose electricity. It's a great image. But like much of what they've written during this decade, it feels like a chorus in search of song. The verse has no real melody and it kind of flounders until the chorus kicks in. But what a chorus. The song absolutely electrified the crowd when they performed it on Letterman.

The album ends with "Cedars of Lebanon," another slow burner from the band. It's another that's grown on me a lot. It works that it's as understated as it is. Serves as kind of an appropriate close for the album.

Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois have a big presence on this album. And that's not a bad thing. They're talented and they know how work effectively with the band. But ultimately if U2 really wants to make that album that reinvents who they are, they've got to ditch Eno, Lanois and Steve Lillywhite and go find a producer that draws them out of their comfort zone. And they've tried. Between this album and the last, they've brought in like six or seven outside producers to try and produce something new and different. Guys like Chris Thompson, Rick Rubin and Will.I.Am. And each time, they've gotten cold feet and gone back to their holy trinity of Eno-Lanois-Lillywhite.

But I don't think that boldness will ever return. I think this is U2 on the downhill slide to irrelevance. And I think it's because, unlike young bands, they've got nothing to prove anymore. They've go no real compelling reason to get back out on that limb with saw in hand. Which is too bad. I miss being surprised.

Was Sting watching?

To tide us all over, two of my favorite things: U2 & Letterman.

Wait, did he just say, "sexy boots"?

Here's your quote of the day.

My friend and I have been talking about the new U2 single "Get on Your Boots" which dropped late last night. (You can hear it here.) As far as I'm concerned, he summed it up perfectly:

"It's Vertigo as interpreted by a Moroccan DJ."

The next Apple Beer's on me, Jense.

If you don't know...

I know this isn't anything anyone is going to want to read, but I guess that's why it's the Rob Report and not the Kofi Report. But, as you may be aware, U2 has a new album out March 3 and so, between now and then to get us prepared, I wanted throw up a few U2-centric lists on the old blog.

To kick things off, I present Rob's 10 Most Underrated and Underappriciated U2 Songs. These are the tracks that either time forgot, time wrote off or time was so busy listening to the new Icehouse that it didn't realize side 2 on that latest U2 album had some really great stuff.

We'll divide the list in two -- like a good LP. The first half will be overlooked songs from proper studio albums. The second will be lesser-known B-sides and other extracurricular activities.

So without any further ado (in no particular order), let's get started:

10. "Drowning Man," track 5 from 1983's "War." This is easily one of the most gorgeous songs U2 has ever recorded. It's a quiet and almost ethereal tune that's made all the most haunting by Edge's decision to use an acoustic guitar through most of the song. And behind it all is this thundering drum and bassline that just pulls the song further and further into the ground. It gets lost easily amid the tumult of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "New Year's Day" and "Two Hearts Beat as One." But you go back and listen to it and realize it's just as powerful as those songs. And then you wonder, why have I never heard this before?

9. "Do You Feel Loved," track 2 from 1997's "Pop." In all honesty, just about anything off "Pop" would probably fit on this list. By far U2's most underrated album, "Pop" is a dizzy, dark and emotional record that includes some of the band's best songwriting and over-the-top sonic experiments. They don't all work -- for which the album was quickly written off and scorned by critics and fans alike. But then you put the disc on and "Do You Feel Loved" comes up you're sucked right in. It's got a great buzzy little guitar hook, lush, lush production and some of the best lyrics Bono has written. "With my teeth at your back/And my tongue to tell you the sweetest lies/Do you feel loved."

8. "Rejoice," track 4 from 1981's "October." U2's other forgotten album, "October" admittedly has more emotion and energy than it does stand-out songs. That being said, it's got a couple hidden gems. Among them is "Rejoice," an upbeat anthem that pulses along with this expansive, heavy drumming from Larry and one of Edge's least known but catchiest guitar hooks that kicks in during the song's final third.

7. "Another Time, Another Place," track 9 from 1980's "Boy." It's hard to claim any track from "Boy" is underappreciated or forgotten, but "Another Time, Another Place" probably comes closer than anything else, falling between "Stories for Boys" and "The Electric Co." and so usually skipped over as listeners work through the album. But it's a great example of how, with a great chorus, a mediocre song can really transcend to solid, catchy pop tune. It's hard to keep from just busting out and singing when Bono starts wailing, "Another time/Another place/We lie/Another child has lost the race."

6. "Promenade," track 5 from 1984's "The Unforgettable Fire." Another beautiful, swirling song that admittedly is mostly just Bono free-associating lyrics in front of the microphone. Easily lost amid the album's huge numbers "Pride," "A Sort of Homecoming" and the title track, "Promenade" sneaks in unnoticed as this indelible little love song. It has just a gorgeous melody, it has the benefit of being short and a few of the couplets that Bono does manage to string together make the track burst with emotion. "And I, like a firework, explode/Roman candle lightning lights up the sky."

5. "Big Girls Are Best," single from the "All That You Can't Leave Behind" sessions. This is one of my all time favorite U2 songs. It's a funky, groovy little number about pregnancy, motherhood and desire. And who can an argue with a line like, "She's got a smile like salvation/She knows big girls are best"?

4. "Love Comes Tumbling," single from "The Unforgettable Fire" sessions. This is a mellow, almost chant of a song that has this wonderful little guitar riff from Edge that just makes the song move. Like much of the material from "The Unforgettable Fire," it's atmospheric and almost tangible. But "Love" seems to have a little more structure, a little more solid ground beneath it than much of the other material they were producing at the time. It's a great little track.

3. "Can't Help Falling In Love," single from the "Achtung Baby!" sessions. Officially, it's the Triple Peaks Remix version that's incredible. It showed up first as a remix in the "Kiwi" compilation released with "Propaganda," the band's official fan club magazine in the early '90s. It's one of the best cover songs in the history of cover songs and it showcases almost better than any other U2 track Bono's strength for pouring erotic, myterious and spell-binding emotion into a song. (The other being "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" from "Pop".)

2. "Salome," single from the "Achtung Baby!" sessions. I remember when I first heard this song shortly after high school I had a hard time believing it was U2. It sounded completely different from anything they'd done. Closer in spirit with "Mysterious Ways," the song is just this killer groove that literally makes you stand up and move when you hear it. It's brilliant.

1. "I'm Not Your Baby," track from the "Pop" sessions. There are two version of this song, one without lyrics that shows up as a b-side on the "Please" single. The other is a duet with Sinead O'Connor that ended up on "The End of Violence" soundtrack and, as far as I can tell, no where else. And it's easily one of the greatest things U2 has ever laid to tape. It's this gritty little electronica piece that somehow still manages to showcase each member of the band at their best. The lyrics are brilliant, Sinead adds heft and her back and forth with Bono through the song leaves you wishing she recorded with the band more often. It's lushly produced with layers and layers of sounds that add weight without weighing the song down. It just moves. I listen to that and I get excited for new U2. Here's hoping the new stuff will be worth getting excited about.

Did someone say "blog"?

Let's ease back into this. It's New Year's and that means lists. So here are a few of mine. This way we'll keep the actual writing to a minimum, which is for the best, really.


Top Ten Reasons I Haven't Blogged Since Sept. 27

10. Just too broken up over Paul Newman's death to know how to face the world again.
9. Had my fingers caught in the cookie jar.
8. Was too busy with my divorce in Second Life.
7. Been out raising hell with Robert Bork.
6. Just finished a three-month "According to Jim" marathon. That Jim Belushi is so crazy!
5. Got lost in the Enchanted Forest.
4. Three-month egg nog bender.
3. Took a break from these new-fangled "Web logs" and spent time in the bathroom working on my regular logs.
2. Been growing a mustache.
1. Just too damn lazy.


Best music I heard in 2008 in no particular order

Fleet Foxes, U2's remastered versions of "Boy," "October" and "War," I'm still waffling on Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" -- it just wasn't that great. TV On The Radio's "Dear Science" and Spoon's Daytrotter Sessions (I can count that, right?.


Best TV I watched in 2008

1. 30 Rock
2. Life
3. Psych
4. Flight of the Concords
5. Battlestar Galactica
6. Nova & Frontline



Shows I used to watch that I'm completely sick of and/or most popular baby names in 2008

1. Jacob
2. Heroes
3. The Office
4. Madison
5. Kath and Kim


TV shows I can't believe are still on TV in 2008 and/or most common human rights violations

1. According to Jim
2. Waterboarding
3. Everything on CBS -- I mean, who out there is watching NCIS?
4. My Name is Earl
5. The Bachelor
6. Child marriage
7. 24


Best movies I saw in 2008 in no particular order (I've hardly seen everything I want to)

Dark Knight, Be Kind Rewind, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Speed Racer, Iron Man, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Ghost Town, Hellboy II


And that's all I got. Here's to posting a little more often in 2009.

Where the hell are the singing cats?

Update: Here's David paying tribute to Paul Newman on the Late Show Tuesday night. And yes, Thank you, David, you get to see Paul shout about singing cats.

It's been an interesting week. David Letterman has proved once again why my 20-year devotion to him is not misplaced. John McCain was supposed to appear on the Late Show Wednesday night but a couple hours before he was to go on, his handlers called the show and said McCain had to rush to the airport to get to D.C. to help with the bailout. At about the time he was supposed to be at the airport, McCain was actually sitting down with Katie Couric to be interviewed on CBS Evening News.

Letterman was merciless and took McCain to task for blowing him off midweek. But he did it classic Letterman fashion -- he was always respectful, but was still cutting and sarcastic about it all.

And in a stunt that reminded me of his NBC days, he had his engineer tap into CBS News' live feed while McCain was sitting done getting ready to be interviewed by Katie Couric and shouted snartky remarks at him. It was awesome.

Executives at CBS News of course were furious at having been hacked into and then ridiculed by Letterman. But it's David Letterman. What are they going to do? Their official comment in the New York Post was, "He does whatever he wants and always has."

Here's the video if you're curious. Trust me, it's a good time.





Also, Paul Newman died today. I'm actually pretty bummed about it. My mom and dad, being of the generation they are, were huge Newman fans and so we grew up watching great films like "The Sting" and "The Young Philadelphians" and "Cool Hand Luke" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." He's just a guy we all grew up loving and really respecting. It's sad that he's gone.

Since we're already talking about Letterman, Newman is a longtime fan and has appeared on both Late Night and the Late Show a number of times, probably most memorably in 1993 when Letterman was brand new on CBS and still getting adjusted to the change. Letterman, in one of first shows in the Ed Sullivan theater, calls on of course Ed Sullivan, whose ghost appears. Sullivan, floating above Dave, introduces Paul Newman, who, it turns out, is sitting in the audience. Newman stands up and asks, "Hey! Where the hell are the singing cats?" I quoted that line all through high school.

I actually found the clip on YouTube, but the quality is terrible. So instead, here's Paul's last appearance on the show, talking about racing:

Peace like a river

Let's talk trinkets.

I've got the next batch of tunes for our look at really good cover songs and, not to weigh it down with too much Britt Daniel, but I've included a killer Paul Simon cover by Spoon. So let's start there. You can catch up with the rest of the list here and here.

7. Spoon's "Peace Like a River" -- Some songs become inseparable from the artists who write and record them. Paul Simon I think would fit handily into this category. And then you listen to Spoon take on "Peace Like a River" and it sounds like a song written specifically for the band. From the thumping-groove bass line to Britt Daniel slipping into a falsetto during the track's middle eight, the song sounds like home-grown Spoon. The bittersweet melody dissolves into the malaise-stricken lyrics and it all matches the band's sensibilty perfectly. It's an amazing cover. It helps that Paul Simon writes a damn good pop song.

8. Wilco's "True Love Will Find You (In the End)" -- This was a song I fell in love with at college. Napster was at its hight and I used it to find a lot of obscure stuff, this track included. I still have no idea when the band recorded it or where they released it -- I've never seen it anywhere else. And it wasn't until about a year ago that I learned it was a Daniel Johnston cover. Daniel Johnston, if you're not aware, is kind of like the patron saint of indie hipster singer/songwriters. He's battled his whole with crippling mental illness and still turns out gems like "True Love." The song, like Spoon's cover of "Peace," fits perfectly within the Wilco sensibility and makes the case for the existance of cover songs. It doesn't have a lot of zest -- it's mellow but optimistic. However, it's an absolutely beautiful song and Jeff Tweedy's vocals are moving. It's amazing how he emotes on the song.

9. Johnny Cash's "Solitary Man" -- Like any good country music star, Cash has covered a lot of songs. His 60s-era take on Kris Kristoferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" is great. But in his later years, Cash started covering artists well outside his genre and, I'm sure to some extent, outside his comfort zone. Some of the songs work (his cover of Danzig's "Rusty Cage") and some don't (his cover of "One"). But it's his cover of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" that I really dig. It's perfect Cash, catching him on the right song at just the right time.


It's also Three Word Wednesday today. Rob Report favorite Thom G is handling the desk for the time being so go check out some cool stuff there and catch my three words above.