Arizona Journal, Day 5

Thank you, Round Rock, Texas, for my first Google hit after posting last night:

masturbation tanning beds male

Yes, my sweaty-palmed friend, with your weirdly colonized erotic imagination, you're what makes it all worthwhile. Copyediting, scouring the internet for images, laborious keying in of HTML code. Hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

Wanker.

Today I have nothing Arizona to blog about, so instead I will do this meme originated by Crazy Little Thing Called Blog: five songs that make you feel incredible.

I'm a lot older than Crazy so I get to pick more songs.

Also I'm a depressive, so nothing makes me feel "incredible," as you put it, short of crack cocaine. So here it is, folks . . . .

THE EIGHTEEN SONGS THAT MAKE ME FEEL SORT OF OK!

1. Marquee Moon by Television. An inordinate amount of great pop music is about heroin. Come to think of it, give me Lou Reed's whole back catalogue.

2. Sweet-Lovin' Man by Magnetic Fields.

3. Take Me to the River by Al Green. Also Pretty Woman. Less famous than Talking Heads' and Roy Orbison's covers, but maybe better. Green's got a way with syncopated, mid-tempo funk. The soul of slink!

4. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue by Van Morrison and Them. Also Mystic Eyes and TB Sheets. Van's early stuff kills me. Check out the organ intro.

5. Baby, You're a Big Girl Now by Bob Dylan. Can I just claim the whole album Blood on the Tracks? Please?

6. Jackson and If I Were a Carpenter by Johnny and June Carter Cash. Their harmonies slay me. Speaking of great husband-and wife-teams . .

7. In this House that I Call Home and The New World by X.

8. Break up the Family by Morrissey.

9. Anodyne by Uncle Tupelo. Ok, it makes me feel awful. But I love feeling awful.

10. Sweet Lil Thing by the Eels.

11. Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's a Florida thang, y'all.

Too many songs by Aimee Mann, Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry, and Tom Verlaine to count.

12. I've Been Loving You Too Long by Otis Redding.

13. King Harvest Has Surely Come by the Band. Also please may I have Tears of Rage and Stage Fright.

14. Teardrop by Massive Attack.

15. I Believe When I Fall in Love with You It Will Be Forever by Stevie Wonder.

16. Chicago by Sufjan Stevens. Orchestral pop confection with abrupt tempo changes. What's not to love?

17. Sexy Motherfucker by Prince.

18. Astral Weeks by Van Morrison. The whole album. You want me to choose? Go ahead, make me. I dare you.

I meant to post this like three weeks ago but Blogger was all fucked up. Here it is: great new poems in Coconut.

Now I touch you with my dirty, dirty meme: Coral and Clem. Clem: you're the guy I went to Subtropic U with, in case you forgot your top-secret fake blogger name. And maybe Amfine and Kristi Maxwell, if you're reading this?