"Trouble with a Capital T that rhymes..." Music Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_Oe-jtgdI



For over a year Debbie has been telling me "this is a major fucking disaster. There is nowhere to hide." For the first nine months I listened and tried to make the arguments about why things weren't really that bad.

Fannie Mae was really not in as bad of shape as it seemed. It couldn't be...

The securities has massive collateral and rating agencies and conservative default assumptions

The companies were not THAT stupid

There couldn't be THAT many people who would go along with the "wink wink, nod nod" of stated income loans

Merrill? No
WAMU? - No freaking way - they were the most respected thrift out there in the 1990s
AIG? - conservative, money printing machine
Chevy Chase Bank? Known for cautious, non-innovative approach

But i was wrong. Let me say it loud and not so proud - I was wrong.

There is no place to hide. People in the financial services world LOST THEIR FREAKING MINDS.

And so many ignorant people (and i mean that in the true definition of the word not pejoratively) just assumed that all those really smart Ivy League, mostly white male Masters of the Universe know what they were doing. Did anyone read Liar's Poker? Those guys were amateurs. This is Liar's Poker on Barry Bonds' level of steroids. And then some.

But they LOST THEIR FREAKING MINDS. Greenwich CT is next - mark my words - there will be a story on 60 Minutes in the next six months about "what used to be" in Greenwich CT.

Usually I like to be right. This time I am sure, and sad, that Debbie was right.

That's Right You're Not From Texas - Lyle Lovett

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMhaehb5AnE


Lyle Lovett apparently wrote this song in the midst of his short-lived relationship with Julia Roberts. My evidence for this is the following lines in the song:

See I was born and raised in Texas
And it means so much to me
Though my girl comes from down in Georgia
We were up in Tennessee

We all know Julia is from Smyrna, Georgia, right? The album Road from Ensenada was released in 1996 -- it is widely thought to include songs about the remnants of their 1993-1995 marriage.

After the chorus he sings:
Oh the road it looked so lovely
As she stood there on the side
And she grew smaller in my mirror
As I watched her wave goodbye

Bye bye Lyle, with the big hair, and the crooked face and the quirky music.

Got me thinking, on this Oscar weekend, about other strange and doomed famous couples. Here are some I came up with:
Drew Barrymore and Tom Green
Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller
Mike Tyson and Monica Turner
and of course
Michael Jackson and anyone

And then, lo and behold, I found that there is actually a little online game on iVillage for people who really are into this.

Anyone got favorites to throw out?

PurpleGate Theme Song? Nothing Fits

I have been trying to find a song that best describes my feelings about my inauguration day experience and it's been a struggle. None really has the right combination of name, lyrics, and vibe. Here are a few I have considered:

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for? - Clearly a good song, with some potential...but too monotonous in its cadence. When I got off the metro at 7:30am and walked toward the big sign that said Purple Gate, I was hopeful and excited. I had just called Debbie to say, essentially, "I'm here and no problem." And while I was stuck in the triangle of people up against the security fence just ~50 feet from the "gate," the energy was much more kinetic than this song implies.

Purple Rain? The angst in this song most definitely captures the heart wrenching feeling I felt as the minutes ticked away and my progress in the "line" did not keep pace with passing time. For instance, from 9 - 10 am I moved about 15 feet. Prince's great song is so dramatic and dense that I think it would be apropos if I had been in the actual Purple Tunnel of Doom.

Outside Looking In by Mary Chapin Carpenter? Certainly felt this way as I was pressed up against the security fence watching purple ticket holders trickle in...and as TSA types stood around most of the first two hours waiting for people to approach the magnetrons. People around me talked to the police officers on the other side of the fence multiple times. They kept telling us to be patient and that they had informed people "outside" that the lines were not moving...

Frustrated by the Knack? 10:40 My skin is crawling from feeling trapped and feeling like I was doing nothing to increase the possibility of getting in. The driving beat of this song mirrors the beating of my heart as I decided to bolt from the area where I was trapped and try to make my way around to the "top" of the gate - where, rumor had it, you could "just walk in." Was I going to be a cheater but one who saw history in person? I got up there and it was no better. Baby steps too slow.

The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go? This is what I started to feel about 11:00. Panic. Because of the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue, there was no way I was going to make it to the "cheap seats" on the mall in time...I consulted my map and determined that I'd have to walk 20 blocks, then fight to get into the mall. Should I wait and pray the gate miraculously opened up to a wider flow of people? Go to a bar and watch on TV? Or should I run, on my healing vertebrae, to the Metro and pray for an immediate train, perfect ride, and Debbie's willingness to come get me moments before the historic oath was administered...

Which brings me back to so many good songs with "waiting" in their title - The Waiting (is the hardest part) by Tom Petty? What you Waiting For by Gwen Stefani? And the most relevant title, and therefore winner if there had been: Bob Marley's classic Waiting In Vain. While, like many of the not-quite-right songs, it's about unrequited love, these lyrics bring back the feeling I had that morning better than any:

Tears in my eyes burn - tears in my eyes burn
While I'm waiting - while I'm waiting for my turn

And then I took the metro home and watched on TV

Cantique de Noel aka O Holy Night sung by Pavarotti

press play and close your eyes:

The music was written by Adolphe Charles Adam (1803-1856), a French composer best known for his ballet "Giselle." The lyrics were written by Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure in 1847. At the time, it was frowned upon by church authorities who denounced it for lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion." I like the last verse:

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

Merry Christmas.

Cuts Like a Knife - Bryan Adams

Press play:

Cuts Like A Knife....

For my surgeon, I'm sure my procedure was very routine. Compared to other operations he did Tuesday, my ACDF (anterior cervical discectomy with fusion) was like an electrician fixing two sockets that were shorting, not like replacing the wiring in a whole house. But for the patient, it was a fairly big deal. Waiting, draw blood, EKG, waiting, gown and silly socks, waiting, IV, waiting, answering the same questions over and over. They must have asked me 7 times, "what are you having done today?" in order to make sure they didn't take out my spleen or amputate my leg or something. By the time the surgeon and the anesthesiologist came to see me I had it down, "ACDF, through the neck, C5-C6 & C6-C7, take out the disks, put in a cage full of cadaver bones and my marrow (from my hip), put a plate across the vertebrae, and we're out." Then the doctor wrote on the left side of my neck and off they took me. On the right is an xray (not mine) of what it looks like now.

It got me thinking a lot about how amazing it is that people had surgery 100+ years ago, and lived, much less were "cured." Battlefields, disgusting facilities, etc. Even 60 years ago, when my grandparents had back surgery, they were in full body casts for three months. And I was sending notes from my BlackBerry within 48 hrs.

And then I realized that for most people in the world, the medical standards of 1950's America would be a significant improvement. It makes the projects we have on the GlobalGiving site focused on safe health treatment even more resonant for me. Our health care system may suck by some standards, but I tell you what, we've got it pretty damn good.

And it sure was nice to get to pick the music I listened to off the doctor's Ipod in the operating room. Bruce Springsteen, Badlands, was playing as I drifted off. I asked for the "The Rising" but they thought that was too grim.

Naive Melody, aka "Home" - Talking Heads

Press Play:

I just finished the last of several short trips taken during the last couple of months. Destinations included Northern California, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Indianapolis and, most recently, London England. I returned from London a couple of days ago having royally messed up my neck. The last two days have been aided by Vicodin. Is this what House takes? Hard to imagine how he can pop two of these (he's always popping two pills at a time) and do his life-saving work.

But I digress from the title/point of this post. Do I? Does it have a point? Home. I have noticed that often when I am away, I have a strange anxiety...is it to be "home?" And what is home? Sometimes I consider California home. Sometimes Maryland/DC. Sometimes being with Debbie, or being with Meredith & gang, or being with the birth family. Sometimes it's just a sense of being that is independent from other people. And of course at Fannie Mae we were "showing America a new way home." Did we mean it literally? Hmm.

Songwriters have written about "home" forever, often metaphorically:

Michael Buble: Another winter day has come and gone away, in even paris and rome, and I wanna go home
Daughtry: I don't regret this life I chose for me, But these places and these faces are getting old, So I'm going home.
Jack Johnson: I try to understand, what I can't hold in my hand, and where ever we are, home is there too
Bonnie Raitt: And Home, Sings me of sweet things, My life there has it's own wings
To fly over the mountains, Though I'm standing still
Talking Heads: Home, is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there.

So this bodes the question...is home a place or a state of mind? Yes, I say, yes!

Thoughts?

YES WE CAN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk