"So, it's April 21st, and everybody knows today is Earth Day,
Merry Christmas, Happy birthday to whoever's being born."
Dramarama
Jim Steinman died yesterday. He was a songwriter primarily known for his collaborations with Meat Loaf, the big, bombastic love songs he wrote in the Seventies and Eighties.
His great track "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad," was slaughtered by me in one of my Storage Unit Serenades, and I remember the first time I heard it--a heavyset guy at the karaoke diner in the next town up was performing it, and in the part that goes, "I'll never be able to give you something, something that I just haven't got," belted it out with real, palpable emotion, making everybody stop what they were doing and pay attention. I was a fan of that song ever since.
My favorite of his songs, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," was made famous by Bonnie Tyler, and I sang it (and Meat Loaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)") on the drive toward my cousin's house. And I gotta say, I really wrecked my voice doing so.*
I found myself tired this afternoon, and I don't know if that was a side effect from the vaccination shot yesterday or not (maybe I'm just a lazy sod, I dunno), but I was unable to go to sleep due to the shrieking children outside my window (which was closed). One of those bastards has that gear-grinding adolescence screech thing going on, so it sounds like Froggy from "The Little Rascals" kicked in the Frankenberries, and I am tempted to kill literally every time I hear it. So, I put on a YouTube video of a reading of an old MR James ghost story, and turned it up high enough to drown out the screaming (I could have put on a Corrosion of Conformity album, but I fear it wouldn't have been loud enough).
Weirdly, I woke up when the narration ended and silence returned to the room.
Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In April: 2247
Now I'm at the library, and I've got that dumb problem that hits one in three visits here: erectile dysfunction. No, that's one in two visits. This one is that I don't want to write, even though this is my designated writing time. Things that would NEVER be important to me, such as the career of Betsy Palmer, the musical career of Cher, or what films Tony Leung is famous for.**
I only managed 147 words before I decided that I absolutely HAD to get out of the library. Weird. If it ends up getting hit by an asteroid, I guess I'll understand why I felt such an intense desire to leave.
So, another song Steinman wrote--this one a hit in the Nineties--was "It's All Coming Back To Me," which was recorded by Celine Dion around 1996 or so. Just for fun, I put that one on as I was driving to get gas this afternoon. Somehow, my vocal range is about an octave below Celine's, so it works out pretty well. It might have to be my go-to karaoke song, if I ever end up having friends with whom to do karaoke again.
Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In April: 2144
I sat around after my run, eating a sandwich and watching "Modern Family," and I could hear my brother-in-law listening to music in the shower downstairs. And I recognized the song: it was "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)," which seemed a little bit like that Baader-Meinholf Phenomenon I was talking about last week.
Also, I'm now in the fourth season of the show, and after 92 episodes, I have to admit that I'm getting a little tired of the previously-sacrosanct Taylor Swift Capital One commercial. And I have learned to despise Jake From State Farm.
Yes, I know, welcome to the club.
Words Today: 359
Words In April: 14,633
*He also wrote "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" by Air Supply. Maybe I'll wreck my vocal chords singing that one today.
**I also wasted a good long time looking up the post-"Little Rascals" careers of the "Our Gang" kids.
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