Mike Gittings

As I am typing this post I am trying to think of how long I've known Mike for. It is a long time...perhaps longer than many of my current friends realize. I am not entirely sure when the initial seeds of this friendship were planted, but I know that brother Eric was the gateway for it existing, since they are the same age and attended multiple schools together. I also know that in middle school we played on the same soccer team, coached by Mike's dad Neil, and grew up playing Hamilton Little League together (technically we usually opposed each other, I guess). I am positive that this particular soccer team occured in the Fall of 1993. My reason for knowing this is a little bit strange, but I have a distinct memory of showing up to a soccer game having just come from watching MTV's top 10 current videos or whatever they called it. This was back when Music Television still played music videos, and not reality TV shows about turning 16 and being a spoiled brat. Anyway, I had just come from watching this top 10 video countdown and had the emotional ballad "Two Steps Behind" by Def Leppard (from the Last Action Hero!) stuck in my head, tugging at my heartstrings. Mike had either been watching the same top 10 video countdown, or listening to In Utero because when I showed up he started singing "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana to me. The moments that stay in our memories are weird, as I don't remember anything else related to this particluar soccer game. It also shows that my musical taste in 1993 was much lamer than Mikes.

Anyway, I love this guy, and I would assume everyone else who knows him does too. He is the worst softball coach probably ever, but that doesn't stop me from thinking he is an A+ kind of guy. Also he can sing his heart out and plays the guitar real well. He has a great wife named Jenny, and a great (although the shortest I have ever seen) dog, too. Additionally he has a real knack for making recommendation lists, and here we go. He recommended a few recipes, and while they were too long to post in the list, they will get their own post later in the week. If you don't cook you might consider skipping that post. Buttermaker recommends:

Music:

E-music – I didn’t buy any new music for a long time due to budgetary considerations. I mean I was down to probably 5-10 CDs per year for the last two years. This left me in a musical rut, listening to the same stuff over and over and just not being that much of a music person any more. But beloved site- host Adam Hopkins turned me onto this Emusic thing, in which you pay $20 a month for 75 downloads per month on into the indefinite future. That’s like 6-7 albums a month , for something like 30 cents per track. Also, if you’re interested in getting in on this bandwagon, talk to Adam or me (note from the editor, talk to Adam about this), since we can get you 50 free tracks if you sign up through us.

Bon Iver – Quiet, haunting kind of stuff with high/low doubled vocals all over the place. Acoustic, mostly, at least on the first album For Emma, Forever Ago. Kind of reminds me of Ben Matthews back in the day

She + Him – Star powered but not gimmicky, I wouldn’t say. Or at least the gimmickry is quality stuff. I like the fact that they have some covers on here.

MGMT – Keyboardy dance type music with drum machines and loops. The vocals strike me as a little dumb sometimes, but it doesn’t really matter with stuff like this, does it? Think Faint, although maybe a little less dark.

Pete and the Pirates – Credit Mark O’Donnell for turning me onto this one, although I’ve acquired some more of this stuff on Emusic. Kind of everything Bon Iver is not…this is peppy and poppy and fun. Clever and unpretentious in the vein of early Weezer, but with arguably more interesting guitar parts.

Animal Collective – Credit George French for making me a believer. AC incorporates a lot of weirdness into their songs, which turned me off at first. But then I realized that underneath all the beeps and boops and screams, there are really great pop songs at play here. This is based on Strawberry Jam, their last LP, since Merriwether Post Pavilion doesn’t come out on E-music until March 3.

Reid Anderson- Another shout out to Adam Hopkins here. The Vastness of Space is apparently one of his favorite all time albums. If you like what Dierker and Trudel do in Quartet Offensive, you’ll probably like this stuff too. Personally, I mainly know the classic Coltrane and Miles stuff, and from my limited availability of reference points, this stuff is closest to Blue Train era Coltrane with more varied beats, as in less of the stereotypical bop beats. Actually, now that I think about it, it has a little bit of Birth of the Cool to it too, with the really cool horn riffs interlacing with each other. A true jazzbo could probably explain it better. All I know is I like it.

Books:

John Hodgman-–More Information that You Require - Mike Ward and I are completely in agreement that this man is a genius. I just finished the second book, and though I can’t remember a single thing he wrote in it because it’s all fake and of absolutely no consequence, I do remember laughing my ass off almost every time I sat down to read it.

Junot Diaz–-Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz is a Dominican writer who grew up in New Jersey and writes with a kind of tough guy aesthetic you’d expect from a street kid on the Wire. But his writing flows so well and is so beautiful, you have to believe that he’s actually a pretty meticulous writer. Really touching book, at least so far, I’m about halfway into this one.

Michael Chabon-–Yiddish Policemen’s Union - The movie Wonder Boys with Tobey Macguire and Michael Douglas was great, right? That’s a Michael Chabon book. And so is The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, which won him a Pulitzer, and then he wrote Yiddish Policemen’s Union. There were a few steps in between those, a forgettable book called The Final Solution, maybe a few more I missed, but I’m pretty sure these are the big ones, and they’re all great.

Hiruki Murakami–-Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Most mysterious and amazing book I’ve read since The Master and Margarita. I have a feeling I’m going to be reading a lot of Murakami for a long time. He’s jumped right up into my favorites club.

John Updike--Rabbit Run - Updike died recently and I just thought I’d recommend a good starting place if you have never read any of his books. I’m not really sure this is the best Rabbit book he wrote, but it is the start of a long saga that’s basically about a former high school athlete searching for meaning in his rather mundane suburban life as a car salesman. Who can’t get behind a theme like that? I like the whole Rabbit series actually, but like I said, this is where it all starts.

Food:

Recipes – I spend a lot of time cooking. Since I stopped playing in a band, I would say it’s the number one creative thing that I do. Here are some good recipes that all involve some form of curry.

Indian Potato Salad – This is the one recipe that my ancient teacher friend Joe Cegelski wants the recipe for. It’s much better than your everyday potato salad.

Curry Chicken Salad (Jamaican-ish) - Since Jenny, my wife is a vegetarienne (well, pescetarienne), I substitute either seitan or Morningstar farms fake chicken in this. I got this recipe from a free university cooking class a few years back.

Masaman Curry Beef or Chicken (Thai) – I’m a fan of the masaman curry at Thairish and that’s what inspired me to try this one. Basically Masaman has some cinnamon sweetness to it and believe that cinnamon should really be in almost every dish out there. (I don’t really believe this.)

Curry Tuna (Indian) – Best use for canned tuna ever invented

Panang Beef in Red Curry Peanut Sauce – I believe every dish should have peanut butter in it. (I don’t really believe this.)

The Arcade Fire--Funeral

Some may blame me for this being another easy post, because I am already very aware of this record, and already very in love with it. I would go as far as to say that it is among my favorite rock albums I've heard in the past three years. I don't know why I picked three years, but that is the number that came to me and I stand strong behind it. I find Funeral to be at it's very best during the first days of Spring, when everyone is happy that it is warm again, and you are driving (or riding) in a car with the windows down, and that for me is the perfect situation for this album to be heard, loudly. If you already have the album, I suggest putting it away and taking it out on the first real day of Spring and try this method of listening after not having heard it for a while. If you don't have it, I suggest buying it and burying it in the yard like a squirrel with a nut, and dig it up come spring time, and enjoy it while riding in your car with the windows down. Perfect.

Funeral was released in September 2004 by a bunch of Canadians. I also really enjoy multi award-winning 2008 release Neon Bible, but it falls a little bit short of Funeral quality. Still good though, and still recommended. There is a lot going on within the sounds of Funeral. It is best described as indie-rock, whatever that means to you, but what really sticks out to me are the thick instrumental textures. There are a lot more instruments than your typical guitar, bass, drums, vocals rock album. I am currently listening to Neighborhood #3 (perhaps the most well knows song from the album) and bells/glockenspiel (looking at the liner notes it is probably xylophone, actually) and string parts really stand out to me. Perhaps the bells on this album are what drew Chris Laun to it? Also played on the album are a variety of synthesizers, accordian, recorder, multiple percussionists, violin, viola, cello, horn, harp, double bass (woot!), and last but not least male and female lead vocals. That is a lot of additional instruments not often heard on rock records, and the thick instrumentation really makes the album. Great, great songwriting too. Solid all around...Adam wholeheartedly recommends. Some clips:

A great animated video for the previously mentioned Neighborhood #3:



And a special bonus live version of Wake Up from Funeral, with guest David Bowie!:

They Might Be Giants--Flood

After not having thought about They Might Be Giants since the Egg Babies covered Birdhouse In Your Soul (when was this, Chris'?), I had two reasons to revisit them this past Friday. The first being the obvious nod to them in the Chris Laun list. The second was a little more unexpected. Lady and I decided to go out to dinner at Tapa's Teatro and see Coraline at the Charles. Little did we know that They Might Be Giants did the music for the film. When the following song came on screen Heather leaned over and asked who that voice was. At the end of the movie we both concluded with certainty that it had to be without question John Linnell of They Might Be Giants. Really, after hearing the clip there is no way that it could be anyone else. It is only 30 seconds, and I think it is great so take the time to watch it. Please?



So in two ways on Friday They Might Be Giants came charging back into my life, after having only heard them on the theme to Malcolm in the Middle for a bunch of years. That being said, I still to this day think Flood is a fantastic album. This is the TMBG album that I know more than any other by a lot, and it is pretty flawless from start to finish. Really great song writing, with some goofy twists in most cases, but they always seem to tell interesting stories even if the songs are full of nonsense syllables. The obvious highlights of the album are well known songs Particle Man, Istanbul, and Birdhouse in Your Soul, but for me equally as good as them are Whistling in the Dark, Your Racist Friend, Road Movie to Berlin, and Letterbox. I could have picked more, but we'll leave it at that. If you've heard of TMBG but don't have any albums and want to investigate further this is without a doubt that first album you should get ahold of.

Strangely (maybe not so strangely) my introduction to They Might Be Giants came via Tiny Toon Adventures when I was over Jeff Amrein's house in elementary school. Particle Man was the first clip we saw, and thought it was hilarious. Jeff's older brother Mike bought the album, and after hearing the whole thing I bought it as well (maybe with a gift certificate to Waxi Maxies?). This had to have been one of the first CD's I owned, coming shortly after M.C. Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em (I even had a t-shirt of that one). Anyway, They Might Be Giants were a perfect fit for Tiny Toons, as their style really lent itself to cartoons. Did anyone else discover them through Tiny Toons or was that just me? Regardless, here are a couple of the clips, one for Particle Man (I love that Punch Out opening), one for Istanbul:

Requiem for a Dream

This movie is simultaneously one of the greatest and most terrible movies I have ever seen. From the director of Pi and previously mentioned on Friends Recommend The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky. I had heard that it was a depressing movie, but good friend Aaron Gause insisted that I watch it during my senior year of JMU. I agreed, and he said if we watch it in the daytime and hang out and maybe have a beer then it isn't so bad. So I went over to his house to watch Requiem, we put it on, and 15 minutes into it he gets up to go hang out with his roomates and leaves me sitting there for the remainder of the movie. By the time it ended it was dark out, and I was severly depressed. It was a Friday night of my senior year in college, and I remember going back to my apartment and just sitting in my room sulking.

Requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four people who begin the movie as (relatively) mild drug users but over the course of the movie turn into full-fledged addicts. I won't tell you where they all end up, but I'll just tell you that they start in a low but hopeful place and steadily decline over the course of the whole movie. Ellen Burstyn (not Laura Palmer's mother) plays an amazing older woman who gets addicted to caffine pills and it is terrifying. Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, and Jared Leto also play great parts in the film. As upsetting and terrible as the message of the movie is, it is very well done and overall one of the better movies I have seen in my life. It sucks that I swore I would never watch it again. I think it should be shown in all high schools. I really can't imagine anyone wanting to do drugs after watching this movie, and I'm sure it would stop a couple teenagers from considering it. It is dark. Real dark. The music is also fantastic. World-renowned string quartet the Kronos Quartet plays Clint Mansell's score and it is amazing. Really modern string quartet writing with the use of some electronics. It is so good that it was also used in the trailors for the Da Vinci Code and Lord of the Rings 2, I Am Legend, Babylon A.D. and video game Assassin's Creed. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen this movie once to see it. You may hate it because of how it makes you feel, but there is no denying that it is a great film. Here is one clip of the soundtrack from youtube:

Chris Laun

So I think Chris Laun was actually the first person to send me a list. Even before TJ and Cory participated I got a Laun list. He told me he didn't know what I was up to, but that he'd participate anyway. Then there was a lot of confusion on my part, and his list (now updated!) is just getting published. I am sorry for the delay, but now is better than ever.

The past three people who have posted lists were current Egg Babies. Chris Laun makes it the fourth Egg Baby in a row. Also, four of the past five have been members of Team Orange, our 0-19 fall-league softball team. I don't know if this is of any significance. I think it probably isn't. But next week we'll have the now exiled coach of Team Orange, and former Egg Baby Mike Gittings. I don't know if that is significant either. Regardless, I like this Chris Laun. I like his list, and I look forward to diving deeper into this stuff. If he ever gets on first base on Team Orange and I'm batting behind him, there is no way that I can't hit him into a fielder's choice and take his place on first base. I'm not sure why this happens every time without fail. I want to make this up to him somehow, but I don't know how to do that. Maybe next time he's on first I'll hit a dinger. That'll show 'em. Enjoy!!!!:

Books:

Alan Moore--Watchmen - I'm pretty damned excited for this movie. The graphic novel is fantastic. There's even a great way to check it out now with these new motion comics. They scanned the original artwork and animated it and have someone reading the dialogue like an audiobook. It's only $2 an episode and they run around 30 min a piece so you can check out the first one and see if it's up your alley. They're great though!

Williams Goldman--The Princess Bride - I had never read the book until last year and it is awesome even if you already know the movie. It's written as though William Goldman is editing a story he knew from his childhood and is only keeping the good parts so he breaks the 4th wall a lot. Clever and fun.

Joseph Heller--Catch 22 - It's been awhile since I read it but I enjoyed it a lot.
Dave Eggers--Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Harry Potter books - If you haven't read them they're a lot of fun. For real.

TV:

Firefly - Borrowed this from Myers and loved it.
Lost - If you can put in the time to catch up, it's my favorite thing on TV.

Arrested Development - I hope you've already seen this but if not, it's awesome

Music:

Prince - Purple Rain

Elvis Costello - This Year's Model

They Might Be Giants - Flood

New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Arcade Fire - Funeral

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle

Movies: (Most of my favorites have already been covered but here's a few others)

The Truman Show
Dr Strangelove
Annie Hall
28 Days Later
Miller's Crossing
The Muppet Movie
Requiem for a Dream
UHF

Video Game:

Bioshock: Don't know if you would have the ability to play this but Mike Ward recommended it to me and the story was really smart and fascinating. This video gives you an idea of the story, mood, and look of the game though you don't really beat up little girls like it implies you do. Really creative game though.

Day Off

Friends Recommend took the day off today. I am sorry about this, but I put in for it two weeks ago. We'll resume tomorrow with a brand new Chris Laun list which should be really nice. If you are free there is some great music at the Windup Space tonight at 9:00pm. I don't usually use this blog as an advertisement for shows, but I just did. It won't happen again.

Just so you don't feel 100% ripped off here is a scene from the Big Lebowski. It is great in the unedited movie when the Dude and Walter are trying to intimidate little Larry into telling them where the money is. The famous line is "See what happens Larry? See what happens when you F*** a stranger in the a**?" This is the edited for TV version, and in many ways I think it is even better. Also, you can just barely see at the end that after all of that, they still went to the In N' Out Burger. Enjoy:

The Wire

OK, I know I am going to catch crap from my Baltimore fans for this, but I feel for my out of town friends I need to at least mention The Wire. It is difficult to go out in public in Baltimore, mention The Wire, and not have a total stranger offer their perspective, or tell you that they just started Season Three, and isn't Stringer Bell just a real jerk? Maybe you can go out in public, talk about The Wire, and not hear this stuff. But I know that brother Eric and I discussed it at an Agora function and made a friend because of it. I don't remember this friends' name, or anything about her for that matter.

The Wire is an HBO original series based in my beloved hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. It shows a side of Baltimore that I am admittedly not too familiar with, but I do believe it exists. Believing is enough...I don't have to see it. Anyway, this incredible HBO series aired for five seasons from 2002-2006. I just finished Season Five last week, and this show approaches but does not break into my top 5 favorite TV shows. It comes close though. Sidenote, as I conclude finally watching Arrested Development Season One in order, it comes dangerously close to breaking into my top five favorite TV shows.

One central element of the show is the Baltimore City Police Department, which plays a key role in all five seasons of the show. The shows title comes from a wire tap that a special department of the BCPD uses to build evidence against a major drug (the most major? majorest?) circle in the city. I don't even want to get into character names here, because it would take up more than one post. The seasons are brilliantly self-contained. Major characters are continual from season-to-season, and plot lines even vaguely continue, but each season has it's own theme or Baltimore problem that it addresses and occasionally wraps up in the end. Like I said, all seasons are heavily focused on the BCPD, but Season One examines a drug empire run by Avon Barksdale, Season Two the Baltimore docks and you guessed it, drugs. Season Three returns focus to the Barksdale family but introduces some new drug players and begins to examine the cities politics with the intro of unloveable Tommy Carcetti. Season Four covers the Baltimore City schools and may be the most disturbing and saddening of all five seasons. And Season Five focuses on new drug kingpin, Marlo Stanfield. This can't even begin to explain all of the well excecuted side plots, story lines, major character development, and emotional content that The Wire contains.

If you are in any way faint-of-heart, or easily disturbed The Wire is not your show. It can be pretty graphic and violent at times, but it is just so good. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who can stomach it. I am thrilled that ganster-robinhood Omar Little has his own wikipedia entry here. Like everyone who has seen the show, Omar is easily my favorite character and I would definitely wear this shirt, pink or not. After just completing the fifth season I am ready to watch the whole thing again. My current order of the seasons, favorite to least favorite (bear in mind that they are all good, just some are better than others):

1) Season Three--I was overjoyed by the return of the Barksdale crew, especially following my least favorite season at the docks.

2) Season One--I think I loved it so much because it was new. I'm curious to see how this would stand on second viewing of the series.

3) Season Four--This would be higher if it didn't upset me so much.

4) Season Five--This would be better if McNulty wasn't such an idiot and that stupid serial killer plot just hadn't happened.

5) Season Two--The docks didn't do it for me. Ziggy's duck was good, but you know a season isn't great when a duck with jewlery is the best part of it.

I can't possibly pick a scene, or even three to sum up this series. All I can say is borrow Season One from a friend, or Netflix it. If you don't need to see more after it is over then it might not be your thing.