Will they all be showtunes?

Pick an Album for Every year You've Been Alive (or, This Oughta Kill Some Time)

A new meme from The AV Club:

You're supposed to pick a favorite album for each year you've been alive. You can pick a record based on what you like now, or what you would havem picked that year assuming you were old enough to care.

Your undoubtedly incomplete reference guide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_music

You can also go to castalbum.org (http://www.castalbums.org/recordings/?date=1976&page=1) and just change the year as needed.

I was gonna keep this private until I finished, but I may save it publicly for the hell of it.

1976: Pacific Overtures (Original Broadway cast recording)

1977: Annie (Original Broadway cast recording)

1978: Ain't Misbehavin' (Original Broadway cast recording)

1979 (tie): Evita (Premiere American recording)
1979 (tie): Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Original Broadway cast recording).

1980: 42nd Street (Original Broadway cast recording)

1981: Merrily We Roll Along (Original Broadway cast recording)

1982: Pac-Man Fever (Buckner & Garcia)

1983: My One and Only (Original Broadway cast recording)

1984: Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway cast recording)

1985: Theatre of Pain (Mötley Crüe)

1986 (at the time): The Phantom of the Opera (Original London cast recording)
1986 (in retrospect): True Blue (Madonna)

1987: Into the Woods (Original Broadway cast recording)

1988: The Premiere Collection: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Compilation)

1989: Batman (Prince)

1990: I'm Breathess (Madonna)

1991: Beauty and the Beast (Soundtrack)

1992: Erotica (Madonna)

1993: Patti LuPone Live! (highlights)

1994: The Threepenny Opera (London Donmar Warehouse cast recording)

1995: Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette)

1996: Rent (Original Broadway cast recording)

1997: Much More (Betty Buckley)

1998: Ray of Light (Madonna)

1999: magnolia.: Music from the Motion Picture (Aimee Mann et al.)

2000: American III: Solitary Man (Johnny Cash)

2001: 42nd Street (Broadway revival cast)

2002: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling (Television soundtrack)

2003: Blackout (Dropkick Murphys)

2004: Fine and Dandy (Studio cast recording)

2005: The 25th Annual Putnam County Speling Bee (Original cast recording)

2006: See What I Wanna See (Original Off-Broadway cast recording)

2007: Legally Blonde (Original Broadway cast recording)

2008: South Pacific (Broadway revival cast recording)*
*This is the only 2008 album I've purchased this year and have actually listened to. I've heard a live boot of Adding Machine and suspect that I will love the album, but since I haven't actually heard the album, it seems unfair to add it to this list.

I was going to add some notes throughout, but decided to let the list stand on its own, with the exception of 2008. The difficult thing with the past few years is that most of the albums I buy have been around for a while. So far, my favorite acquisitions of 2008 is Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen Songs (1957) and Alan Jay Lerner Revisited (1969). Also, much of what I listen to has not been commercially released, including one track of 2008's South Pacific.

On the way to work...

I've been making scads of acquaintences online lately, but most of them either live nowhere near Chicago or end up as really bad dates. So I was delighted this morning to see Red Glasses on the el. His name isn't Red Glasses, nor is that his handle. But he does wear red-framed glasses and that's how I recognized him. And we both watch House, so Red Glasses is like Cutthroat Bitch. Only nicer.

There's not much else to this story. We had a lovely chat until we got to my stop. He's a cutie but has a partner, which didn't bother me this morning as much as it has recently. It was just a nice way to start the day.

Music: "Blow a Fuse"/Betty Hutton (remade as "Oh So Quiet" by Bjork)

Did everyone else has a happy Passive-Aggressive Day?

So, after I wrote this post, mentioning the showtunes chat room in which I spend far too much time, I returned to said chat room, where the folowing exchange took place (in proper play format):

NOT ME

I thought you were going to bed.

ME

I was, but I did the dishes and blogged.

When I am in that chat room, my name links to this blog.

Idiot.

(Non-sexual) Things That Keep Me Awake at Night

The term, "the full monty" entered the American vernacular with the release of the film, The Full Monty.

In the world of the musical The Full Monty, that film does not exist. And yet, they use the term.

I like it when my paradoxes involve strippers.

This can't be good.

My mind has been all kinds of screwy lately. I've been way too honest with people, but that always been kind of a hallmark with me, so I can't really call that a symptom of anything. I have been especially needy and that really bothers me. I find myself telling people the kind of truths best saved for a diary (the paper kind you genuinely don't want others to see) in order to elicit a reaction and I'm settling for pity.

What the fuck, man?

I don't think I'm doing it consciously. Someone says something that prompts a response and I respond. It's just that my responses have been a little too revealing for my taste. The people in the showtunes chat rooom don't need to know that I have a worse track record than Shirley Devore.

What bothers me the most is that I'm recognizing behavior patterns from when I was in college. That's what I meant by the title of this post. I'm not friends with anyone I knew in college, by mutual decision on all sides. (I double-majored in Playwriting and Brooding) Granted, the friends I made in (no, that's not redundant, shut up) college were pretty fucking lousy but they were the only friends I had at the time and I needed them. Just as much as I need people now (and it don't feel so fuckin' lucky, Mr. Merrill). But I don't know how to need someone. I mean, the only time it's really acceptable to actually tell someone you need him is when you're physically impaired. But to be that emotionally naked and honest with another human being... how the fuck do you do that and then face that person the next day?

In the words of Amish Barbara Cook, "This is all very new to me."