there's a record that I love to play

Okay, so here's the story of what exactly I mean when I say that my mom made me become a Kings of Leon fan.

The thing is, no matter how good a band is, there's a danger zone that exists if I've known who they are for more than six months or so and never gotten around to making a definite buying decision. Sometimes something reminds me, the band catches my attention again, escapes the danger zone and becomes a part of my collection. Part of the team, if you will. Other times the sense of urgency burns out before I act upon it, and they fall into quicksand never to be heard from again. I first heard Kings of Leon in 2006 (I think). They were interesting and catchy, but their lyrics didn't make a lasting first impression and they didn't end up getting bought. They hung in there though, somewhere in the back of my mind. This weekend, because the local bookstore chain was liquidating their music inventory, and consequently selling CDs at huge discounts, my mother offered to buy an album for me. I love music and I'm broke, so it should have been a fairly easy decision, but fifteen minutes later I was still looking through the picked-over music rack without success. (This sensation must be familiar to some of you... where you know you want to buy something, but every time you think of a good candidate, you look and it isn't there... yeah.) Mom comes up carrying a copy of Youth & Young Manhood, thinking the title (which incidentally is a Hemingway quote) is hilarious, for reasons I still don't entirely understand. Imagine her surprise when I said "Yes! Great idea!" She hadn't been serious, and then she couldn't tell if I was serious, and it was a very bizarre moment, but it concluded with me and the first two Kings of Leon albums together in a sort of weird happy ending.

other business:
If you don't already know about Barry Manilow's cover of "Never Gonna Give You Up," check the video out on Youtube. Good lord is that man chipper.

Find a way to listen to Doris Day's 1950s hit "A Guy is a Guy" and be terrified. Also on that note, Dean Martin's "Standing on the Corner." Yikes.