The End

Well, it has finally come.

Time to say 'good-bye.'

I've really loved this blog, just when it was just an idea. And then it came to life that warm October night. I've really been dreading this, mainly because I've worked hard on it. I've modified, analyzed, and modernized it for a year-and-a-half. 

Of course, it's always great to see your work survive for years on, and I believe this will, too.

To be quite honest, I'm not sure if I chose the best name for the blog, alluding to an ex-friend and the baggage that came with it. Mea culpa.

But what's in the past is should be left there.

So to finish it off, something of a proper send-off is the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye." I've only chosen it because it has the word "Goodbye" in it. This time, I'm saying goodbye. Whether you say "hello" is all up to you.

Bye.

Logic

Another rush of AmazonMP3.

I was looking through their music store when I found this. I played a clip, found it interesting, and went after it on YouTube. Looking at the lyrics: "Wow." 

"The Logical Song" by Supertramp, from their 1979 album Breakfast in America, sung by Roger Hodgson.

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.

...

But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.

And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

It Hurts

Exploring my Chrome bookmarks earlier this weekend I found something that I found about two years ago. I think I found Dan Mangan on Amazon, but there's a good chance I found him on YouTube. I'm not exactly sure, but regardless, I clicked on the link in the bar and I floated back to 2010.

Oh 2010. What innocence. 

I have a few more Dan Mangan songs, although they're not so upbeat, but rather thoughtful. Here an upbeat song of his. Nine-year-old alcoholic? Jeebus!

From his 2009 album Nice, Nice Very Nice (titled after a poem of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut), "Sold."

Life is not living 'less your sure you to make it through
But now it hurts
It kills/ It screams/ And it fills my heart...
With chills, and I take my pills, but I still tire
Of sleeping with the light on

Complication

I spent the Christmas season in Mexico. On the drives between Texas and our destination, there were long stretches of rural communities, and lots of Spanish radio. I can understand it, but I'll go for an English alternative if possible. On this trip, like the last, I took my little music player, my Zune.

I've always put the Zune on a pedestal because I feel it's better than an iPod. People will debate, but IMHO, Zune > iPod. Anyway, nothing bonds a person and their electronics than a long car ride, and that is what that trip did. It bonded me to my Zune, and while looking out the window at the landscape of Tamulipas and San Luis Potosi, it made sense to me. I don't know exactly sure... but it did. 

As if the brush and semi-arid ground compounded with this song to do something. I can't even...

I have featured it before, but as the last week of The Archenemy winds down, why not do it for God sakes?

From 2003... Avril Lavigne's "Complicated", from her début album Let Go.

You've become somebody else 'round everyone else

Watchin' your back like you can't relax

You're trying to be cool; you look like a fool to me.

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

Like Django Did

I went to watch Django Unchained with a couple of friends and an acquaintance yesterday afternoon. I was not really sure what I was expecting, since I had seen one or two previews, but really didn't know much other than Leonardo DiCaprio was in it and that he seemed like villain (or maybe archenemy?) of the film.

I won't give away what the film is about, but it was much more than I was expecting. It's gory though, a lot than you would think is possible, but that Quentin Tarantino... he knows how to do it. 

And Jamie Foxx is stupendous, real flexible in what you would think is a very narrow role of playing a slave. 

But whatever the case, I heard this song, just a small snippet, maybe 10-15 sec. while he Django chooses an outfit. And man, what an outfit!

From his final album of the same name finished a week before his death in 1973, "I Got a Name".

Like the pine trees lining the winding road

I've got a name, I've got a name

Like the singing bird and the croaking toad

I've got a name, I've got a name

And I carry it with me like my daddy did

But I'm living the dream he can't live

Friends... Shaking Hands

I don't remember the first time I heard this song.
I just know it... like Barney or the FOX network.

In the few times I've heard it, it always make me sad. I don't know why, it's not sad. If you listen to the lyrics, which is something I do rarely, they're rather uplifting. He sings about the beauty of the world, the people, friends. Mr. Armstrong sings it gently, the raspy voice adding a sense of comfort that I haven't heard since Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's rendition of "Over the Rainbow."

And for a few times, I've actually shed a tear listening to it. Again, I don't know why. Maybe it's the theme, that sometimes the world can look bleak, but at other times, look wonderful. And if you happen to watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, that not all hope is lost.

On that note, Mr. Armstrong's 1967 single, "What a Wonderful World", written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss.

I see skies a-blue, and clouds of white
bright blessed days, dark sacred nights
And I think to myself: "what a wonderful world."

The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the skies
Also in the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, saying "How do you do?"
They're really saying, "I love you."

It's Party Time, Chumps

As Bad Lip Reading pointed out Mitt Romney saying:
It's party time, chumps!