Hey, remember just two weeks ago when I was lamenting my Toyota Camry’s trip for just $200 worth of scheduled maintenance, only to be socked in the gut with an $1800 bill for brakes (among other things)? And how, just two days prior to that scheduled maintenance, I had just gotten the car back from the body shop after a ladder had fallen on it, courtesy of the guys who painted my house? Remember that time? I do. So I’ve had the car back now for a week. Neat!
Neat, that is, until Sunday afternoon while returning from a nice weekend spent at a bed & breakfast in Marblehead. We’re driving home through Salem, MA and how this particular woman missed seeing us (and the line of 5 or so cars behind us) as she backed out of her driveway is truly beyond me. Sure enough: wham-o. This time it’s the passenger side in the rear quarter, which I believe is now the only original piece left on the car. This makes three minor accidents in the space of one year, none of which were my fault. Granted, the damage in all three of these mishaps has been quite minor. This latest one, however, could have been much, much worse, so I’m grateful. The woman who hit my car, well, that’s a story I probably need to tell in person, so ask me next time you see me. I wonder what goofy rental car I’ll get next?
I’m experimenting with some new content offerings here on the site. I thought it might be interesting to offer an MP3 of the week. I have a vast library of roughly 4,000 songs on my computer now and occasionally I’d like to share a song or two to give readers a sampling of my tastes and expose artists whom I think people would really like. I’m not entirely sure how much server space my hosting company gives me (who pays attention to stuff like that?), so I guess this will last until they say I have no more room.
This week’s MP3 of the week is Everybody Dies by Dramarama, one of my favorite bands from the ’90s. “Everybody Dies” is a newer track from 2004 and it’s a comeback song of sorts for Dramarama, whose fires were rekindled after ten or so years by, of all things, a VH1 reunion special last year. Back in the early part of that decade when I was voraciously gulping up as much new music as I could in college, Dramarama became one of my favorites, a nice blend of modern rock with a hat tip to classics like the Stones, etc. At the time, John Easdale (whom I interviewed here last year), is still one of my favorite well-kept secrets. A great songwriter. As an added bonus, “Everybody Dies” has cowbell. We all know this world could use far more cowbell.
Easdale’s comments on the idea behind “Everybody Dies:” “My best friend was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer, and I came up with the song as a sort of “Don’t worry, be happy” kind of message for him before we knew how bad it was…he has since departed…and then my mom got sick and died right after that, so what was originally written to help somebody else has helped me deal with things as well…it seems as if death is the ultimate taboo, even more than sexuality and substance abuse (at least here in the US).”
If you download (come on, go ahead, give it a shot), please let me know if you were able to successfully grab the song, as I’m not entirely sure I’ve done this right. You can also get the song from my newly created MP3 page, which only contains one song, but will eventually be the central repository as I add to the MP3 of the week archives. Enjoy. Would love to hear what you think of the song.