Musik Polis

I might be the only person in the world who associates Radiohead with Stockholm in the winter.

But from now on, when I listen to this album, I will remember huge snowflakes silently drifting outside the window of my sleek minimalist hotel room. And steamy cafe lattes. And words with oomlauts and strange symbols. And lots of cigarette smoke.

As mentioned in my main site (LynnZee.com), I lost about 10 years of music when I had my kids. I just stopped listening, although some decent bands did seep in. Sometimes I heard stuff in passing and thought "Wow, I like that..." never to hear it again, the music eclipsed by diaper changes, nap times, and the need for sleep or an orderly house. Anyway, for the past year I've been trying to catch up with the 10 years of music I overlooked. And Radiohead falls into that category.

The band first came to my attention recently via Wil Wheaton's blog. I put it on my list of "music I want to check out," but never got around to it until the OK Computer album waited serendipitously in my room here at the Hotel Rival in Stockholm earlier this week.

I've come across several now-favorite bands/albums in this way; in reading blogs or articles. For instance, I'd never heard of Fugazi until Keanu Reeves mentioned the band in an article. He mentioned all the groups I loved in the late 80s and early 90s (Joy Division, Violent Femmes, The Clash, blah blah blah) and Fugazi. Fugazi, who the hell is that? And then I discovered -- oh yeah, the group that did Waiting Room (a song I loved at the time but had no reference for). Not to mention The Pixies (damn, that's who did that Monkey Gone to Heaven song, sheeeeiiit). It has been so great filling in that gap in my musical knowledge, because the last thing I want to be is a dinosaur.

Anyway, I can't even begin to tell you how well Radiohead goes with a snowy afternoon in Stockholm.

So well, in fact, that I went into a sort of trance and wrote a new poem.

OK, it's rough. I usually don't publish my rough work. But what the hell. First of all, this has nothing to do with me personally. People often think that poems are always personal. Well yeah, some are, but then some are fiction -- just based on an idea or an image. And that's what this one is. I'll polish it up and probably even change it to some extent when I get home. But for now, here it is:


Stockholm, February, 5:15

It got too loud
so I made it snow
soft white flakes
to cushion the blows
to silence our steps
and make us sleep
among the frozen
poppies, so when
we open our eyes
to a world in
monochrome,
overexposed
you would be
the warm yellow
light bathed in
reds and blues, so
you would be
the great crackling
fire in the
warm cushioned
room, the only thing
I saw, the
only one my
heart could not
refuse.

Shakespeare on Ice

Away from home almost two weeks and it seems like a lifetime. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

Spent several wonderful days in the Cotswold region of Sourthern England and had the good fortune to get a ticket to the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Julius Caeser at the Swan Theater in Stratford-Upon-Avon. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill production -- it was a modernized production. Think "Rent" meets The Bard. The set was minimalist (one large square of black pipe rigging), complete with synthesized sound effects, dramatic lighting effects, and modern costumes (suits and street wear, not a toga or grape leaf in sight). The script was pure classic Shakespeare, so nothing was lost in that respect. Just when I expected Brutus to break out in song, there actually was one short song and dance number. Don't turn your nose up; it worked -- it was terrific!

At first the modern dress was distracting, but the performances were so supurb that soon it all melded together into an incredible experience. IMO, this was a ground-breaking "important" treatment of a classic play. Unlike other directors who have tried (and to some extent failed) to put a modern spin on Shakespeare (Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho" being one example), this actually worked. I plan to write an extensive review when I return home. No doubt, Shakespearean purists would hate this production. However, this open-minded theatergoer (who was just thrilled to be at the Swan witnessing the RSC) thought it was "brillant," as the English say.

The kids and I spent a couple of days in London while Hubby had his business meetings. As I may have mentioned in a previous post, we were in London two years ago, so this time we were hitting the sites we'd missed last time: The London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and Harrods (where they have a Hot Chocolate Bar that would satisfy the most intense chocolate jones -- with at least a dozen different types of hot chocolate including one which is just molten and eaten with a spoon -- oh, be still my ultra-caffeinated sugar-high heart).

Now we are in Stockholm where it is dämn cöld. Snow on the ground, hats on our heads, scarves pulled up around our faces. We are staying at the uber hip Hotel Rival. Click on the link and check this place out. The place is built on a theater, and each room has a film or theater theme. It has been designed by some hot Swedish artists. It's Ikea with shades of MOMA -- sleek, colorful, and minimalist. You should see the crowd -- the most bohemian bunch to ever step away from a bar -- surely some European rock stars I don't recognize; they're just too beautiful and hip to be regular tourists. Makes me wish I had spikey hair and had packed my goth garb.

They have flat screen TVs in every room of this hotel and music CDs for your listening pleasure. So what was in our room upon checkin? Radiohead's OK Computer and Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication.

Oh. Yes.

And speakers in the bathroom. This morning I showered while grooving on Flea's bass. How much better can it get, I ask you?

The hotel is owed by two men who are the Bs in the Swedish group ABBA. So of course, ABBA CDs abound in every room.

Yesterday the family and I made our way to the Ice Bar at the Nordic Light Hotel. It's a bar made entirely of blocks of ice from a northern sea. The Ice Hotel (yes, a hotel made entirely of blocks of ice) is about 100 miles north of here in the middle of snow drifts -- next to the Ice Globe Theater -- (yes, a model of Shakespeare's Globe made entirely of ice, where they recently performed Romeo and Juliet-- what light through younder ice cube breaks?)

Anyway, we stopped into the Ice Bar, donned silver ponchos and felt like we had stepped into a scene from the first Star Trek film -- everything was very silver and pastel. And cold. Below freezing. It's the hippest meat locker on the planet to embibe some Absolut. Drinks are served in glasses made from small rectangular ice blocks. The kids had juice, of course. We kept admonishing them NOT to lick the ice tables for fear their tongues would get stuck.

Despite all this fun, I'm looking forward to going home next week. All the warm sweaters, down comforters, radiant-heated tile bathroom floors, and cups and cups of hot tea do not compare to the milder climes of my beloved left coast. When all is said and done, I really really really hate being cold.

Jolly Good, Sven

I'm a dinosaur because I do not own a laptop. I work from home, so I have no real need for one. I could borrow my husband's laptop (and often do....oooh baby, is that your hard drive or are you just happy to see me? Here, let me mount your local network....) OK, OK, enough of that....

This poses a problem when trying to blog on the road. And I'm going on the road. Actually, first I'll be in the air and then on the road -- to London and Stockholm. We're all accompanying my husband on a business trip. Yes, I know that these are first-world countries with WiFi, but I have two kids to contend with and WhineFi up the wazoo. So you see, I may be able to log in and blog while I'm away, but I wouldn't count on it. So much technology, so little downtime.

Anyway, it's not like the world will be waiting with bated breath because NOBODY EVER COMMENTS ON MY POSTS (hint hint) unlike those other wildly popular blogs (sniff, sniff).

We were in London two years ago, but this is our first time in Sweden. I'm gleefully awaiting the looks on my daughters' faces when they see the variety of smoked fish at the breakfast buffet. My husband and I placed bets on which one says, "Eeeeewww, that's disgusting" first. I have my money on the younger one. Ah, yes....herring -- it's not just for breakfast anymore...

OK, I've got to get back to my enormous checklists and yell at my kids yet again to pick up the Valentine chocolate wrappers scattered throughout the living room. I take comfort in one thing: my kids are now too old for car seats, diapers, strollers, and coloring books. They are content to sit and read, quietly, by themselves. Which means I will be able to sit next to my husband on the flight and actually have adult conversation! Damn, what a concept!

See you bloggers in March, when I've had my fill of tea, scones, and herring.

Lord of the Sims

Feel like playing God? Plunk down fifty bucks and get The Sims 2. In minutes, you'll be creating communities of virtual people. You decide everything about them, from their facial features to their social standing and their ultimate destiny. They have no self-determination: they are puppet people and you are their puppetmaster. It's better than finding a doorway to John Malkovich's brain.

But be warned: this seemingly innocent game can bring out the sadistic streak in the nicest person.

Take my girls for example-- they are your typical sweet kids. They fawn and coo over puppies and babies and they'd never hurt a fly. Yet, they quickly discovered that you can delete the doors and windows in a Sim house so the Sim inside can't escape. Slowly the Sim starves and loses income because he can't go to work.

"Hey, what happened to your Sim?" I asked my daughter.

"Oh," she gleefully chirped, "he became a pot."

Yeah, that's right: cremation. Seems rather Nazi, if you ask me.

You can make two Sims share a house and hate each other's guts. Or you can make them fall madly in love, make "woo hoo" in the hot tub, get married, and have a baby. But if your Sims neglect their baby, Agent Smith comes from The Matrix and takes the baby to a better family. Apparently even the virtual world has no tolerance for deadbeat parents.

You can have Sim lesbians and Sim gay men, but clearly Gavin Newsom isn't the mayor of SimTown, because they can't get married. A right-wing Christian Nazi computer game, who'da thought? Oh, but intermarriage between Sims of different colors is OK. I guess that's been around long enough to be considered acceptable. As long as they're not queer.

The Sims is a PG-13 sorta game. The characters can kiss and hug, and even grope, but you never see them naked, and all procreation takes place out of view. Damn. They seriously need to make an x-rated version of this game, because I want to create a Sim Heidi Fliess and a Sim Dirk Diggler and turn them loose in SimTown.

If you're having a bad day at work, create a Sim that looks like your boss. You can fine-tune the guy right down to the length of his eyebrows. Give him an IQ of 50 and make him live in a slum and eat garbage. When he comes to your office and begs for a job, your security guards can bounce him on his ear. Yeah, you feel better now, don't you?

At first I was a little worried when so many of my daughter's Sims turned into pots.

"Didn't you want to take care of him?"

"No, he was boring and stupid. I wanted him to die."

"But you killed him!" (Images of The Bad Seed begin to root in my imagination...)

"Jeez Mom, it's just a game!"

"Yeah, I know, but..."

But...she's right. It's just a game. And I know my daughter well enough to be assured that she knows the difference between games and reality, right and wrong. And in reality she is a very good seed; really she is. I'm sure she'd never turn me into a pot or a jack-n-the-box or wish me into the cornfield.

But then I got to thinking: when you are young and have so little control over your life, maybe it's OK to play virtual God a little bit . Maybe if more kids played Sims, less of them would come to school with AK47s. Maybe. I suppose for truly unbalanced people, only psychoactive drugs make a difference.

But for the rest of us, there is Sims2. No matter your religion, you can be God and Satan all rolled into one tidy package. Don't delude yourself into thinking this is just a harmless game; you can learn a lot about yourself playing Sims. But proceed with caution: you may think this is just a fun way to pass the time, but believe me, you'll get a lot more than you bargained for.

Dumb Fu

If this story was the plot for a film, you'd say it was too stupid to believe.

Recently, a 33-year-old guy thought it was a good day to pull a carjack. He found his victim, alone in his car at an empty intersection. He forced the man out of the car at knifepoint. Unfortunately for the carjacker, the victim was a Karate instructor. He threw the guy to the ground and disarmed him. In the process, he found the guy's gun. He took that away, too, after emptying all the bullets.

Now stop and tell me, what would you have done next? Called the police? Shot the guy in the foot so he couldn't get away? Called for help, so some other strong men could subdue the guy?

I wholeheartedly advocate non-violence, but this Karate instructor took his peaceful teachings a bit too literally. He lectured the carjacker about making the wrong choices in life. And then he did something really really stupid. He gave the guy back his knife and his empty gun, and sent him on his way.

The Karate instructor didn't get hurt. But here's what happened next. The carjacker became a bank robber. That's right -- he headed straight downtown with his knife and his empty gun, and held up a bank. He threatened numerous innocent people and held a woman at knifepoint before escaping with a brown paper bag full of cash.

He was caught, later that day, relaxing in his house. The brown bag was sitting on the kitchen table.

This all happened in the same area where David Carradine went to school. But somehow, I don't think our protagonist will feel like watching any Kung Fu reruns in the slammer.

Wait, I could write a better story. How about this: after the carjacker becomes a bank robber, a good-hearted security guard does the same thing: takes away the cash, gives the guy back his gun and knife, and shoos him away. He then stumbles to a convenience store and tries to pull a holdup. A customer disarms him and gives him another lecture. Everywhere he goes, the stupid bastard just can't pull off the job. It's like Groundhog Day for a thief. The world conspires against him and keeps giving him another chance.

What is his motivation? How about this: he was a brilliant programmer whose job was outsourced to India. Which is ironic, since he loves Indian food and makes it all the time for himself and his friends. But he hasn't worked in two years, and after stooping to a sleezy telemarketing gig that makes his head buzz, he cracks.

In the final scene, he takes an entire Indian restaurant hostage. He hasn't had anything to eat all day and he's starving. The food is awful. At gunpoint, he forces the chef to prepare Chicken Makhani from his own recipe. It's the best Chicken Makhani that the restaurant owner has tasted in years. He gives the guy a job. Five years later, the stupid bastard owns the fastest growing chain of Indian restaurants in California: Bombay Thieves Palace.

Long May You Stream, Old Friend

I was happy to surf around and discover that my alma mater, WMSC-FM is finally streaming its audio onto the web. Like rival station WFMU, Montclair's radio station went with Live365. I'm just tickled that I can listen to the station any time of the day or night, and that it can be heard around the world. After all these years, taking a listen confirmed my hopes: that WMSC is still incredibly cool and has not sold out.

For those of you who don't know (probably almost everyone reading this blog), Montclair State University is one of the premiere institutions in the New York area to study Broadcasting. The school has high-tech TV facilities that rival many professional stations. It was pathetic that the radio station didn't stream live. Considering its reputation, it should have been the first one.

When you listen to this station, please remember that the DJs are college students, not professionals. They might screw up from time to time or sound boring. But that's how you learn. Oh yeah, and they still take requests. So use your free cell minutes and give them a ring. Just don't request anything lame, OK?

Welcome to cyberspace, my old friend. Long may you stream.

There But For the Grace of God...

A guy I never met lived a couple of towns over. He was 31 years old and was employed by Intel, which sent him to work at their offices in Germany. From what I heard about him, he lived a relatively happy and active life.

During the winter holidays, he had planned to vacation in Phuket, Thailand. But his girlfriend wanted him to stay in Europe to be with her family. So he didn't go. So he didn't perish in the Tsunami. I bet he was relieved about that.

But a couple of weeks later, he went skiing in the Alps. That's when he was killed in an avalanche.

This is a true story. His obituary was in the San Francisco Chronicle last week.

When your number is up, it's up. There's really nothing you can do about it. So make each day count. Make each moment count. Because really -- you just never know, do you?

Bamboozled by eBay?

There was an article in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle about the alarming growth in internet fraud. Of course, much of this fraud surfaces as identity theft. But some of it takes place on eBay. Apparently hundreds of thousands of people worldwide haven't heard the phrase "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

The story went on to quote people who lost thousands of dollars attempting to buy large screen TVs, computers, alleged collector's items, and other expensive merchandise on eBay for outrageously low prices.

Excuse me, but are these people all a few fries short of a Happy Meal? Who in their right mind buys an expensive piece of equipment on eBay? A few CDs or DVDs, some jeans, a toy, maybe a book or two - yeah. But a $5,000 TV for only $200? George Harrison's first guitar from a guy in Iowa with a feedback rating of 2? A diamond tiara worn by the Queen of Nigeria?

I am happy to say that in the three years I've used eBay (to both buy and sell stuff), I have never been ripped off. And that's because I don't use eBay as a recreational drug.

I believe that most people in the world are honest. But when it comes to eBay, you might have better luck talking to that guy on the corner selling Gucci handbags out of the trunk of his car. At least you could figure out where your big brother should go later to beat him.