MILB: The Music of Phineas and Ferb

I know I know.  Not something that everyone knows anything about, so why write it?  Because the people who write the songs for a Phineas and Ferb cartoon are geniuses.  Seriously, the music for this cartoon could sometimes be played on the radio and no one would know the difference.

Here are a few examples that will show you what I mean:

Max Modem and the Mainframes - "Alien Heart" - Phineas and Ferb's dad tries to re-make himself into a 1980s one-hit wonder.  Turns out their mom was a one-hit wonder, and has been asked to be a part of a 1980s nostalgia concert.  So the boys create Max Modem, and they perform this song:

Now tell me that couldn't have actually been a song in the 1980s?  I'd listen to that song right now!

Love Handel - "You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart" - Turns out that Phineas and Ferbs parents' first date was at the last Love Handle concert, and their huge hit was this solid hair ballad.  (Sounds like something from the late Eighties early nineties.)  The boys decided to reunite the band for their parents' anniversary.  This was the song that they played.  Best lyric has to be, "Like a Ninja of love, rappelling down from above..."

Tiny Cowboy - "I'm Talking About Meatloaf" - Candace, their sister, is obsessed with Tiny Cowboy.  She sees them at a meatloaf festival (with guest star Jamie Oliver) at which the band wins with their meatloaf.  The song they sing at the end is fantastic.  It's obvious the band are modeled after Oasis (especially "Definitely Maybe" or "What's the Story" Oasis) and the song is perfect.

Baljeet and Buford - "Frenemies" - This is Lovely English Lass' favorite of the songs, I think.  While entertaining people at a retirement home, the bully of the show and the brain get together to put on a great floor show.  For goodness sake, the chorus has the line, "He's like my least favorite brother!"  Oh yeah, this is all bookended by the Mongol army showing up in present times and battling potato gremlins.  Just watch the clip.

There are so many examples, but I just thought I'd put in a few here.  Whoever you are that writes these songs, I thank you.  I mean, my son and I watch the show all the time, and it just makes me smile when I hear many of these songs.  Good job!

If you don't have a kid, you should still try to watch it.  It's intelligent and quite funny all together.

Hablo espanol

So here's a fair point for you to know: I've spent quite a lot of my life learning Spanish.

Yes, it made sense in Florida to be study Spanish, and I did major in Latin American Studies in College so I was required to take 6 semesters of Spanish.  By now I should be fluent.  However, things aren't always so great like that.

You see, while I understand Spanish quite well, and can read it fairly well, I have a hard time expressing myself via Spanish.  It's an issue, I know.  The main reason this is coming up now is that I'm required to have a 3/3 in Spanish prior to my arrival in Buenos Aires.  They want to give me more Spanish so that I can conduct business in Argentina without the need of an interpreter.  (I am being sent to do business with the Argentine government, so I should speak the language.)

(For those of you not understanding the numbers, I'll give a brief explanation.  The ability one has to speak a foreign language is based off a 5-point scale for both reading and speaking.  0 means no knowledge.  1 means a person can carry off small conversations or understanding of an article.  2 means that the person can do basic conversations, and can get by on day to day life.  3 is business level, meaning that one can conduct basic business in the language.  4 means that you have an advanced knowledge of the language, and you can basically pass as native.  5 is a native speaker of the language.  To make it even more difficult to understand, there are also +'s that can be added.  Meaning you've not quite made it to the higher level, but you're better than the lower level.  Also, at FSI, no one gets a 5.  To get a 5 you have to understand the language from like the 16th century.  I had a friend that was born and raised in Finland, and still only got a 4+.)

As recently as 2001, when there was someone in my position who didn't QUITE have the language score they needed to get to post, the person would just ask for a language waiver, usually have it approved, and off they'd go to post.  No muss, no fuss.  However, an OIG report stated that there were too many waivers being granted and that it was hurting US diplomacy efforts abroad sending our people out unprepared.  While I applaud this, there is also an issue of not giving people the time needed to get the language needed for the position.  Very few position vacancies allow for language training, and in fact long-term language training is thought to be a killer in your career.  (It isn't really, but people think that, so of course it has to be fact.)

Well, I'm now having to take the Spanish language test for the Foreign Service Institute for the third time.  The first time was when I entered the Foreign Service back in 1999.  I hadn't spoken Spanish at all for 2 years, and got a 1/1.  (Basically, I knew a little, but not enough.)  In 2009, when we were originally supposed to go to Bolivia, I was given Spanish language for a month, and after curtailing from Bolivia and taking a job in Main State, I tested again.  I went from a 1/1 to a 2/3.  Now I need a 3/3 to get to Argentina, and I'm probably at a 2+/3 for my Spanish.

So tomorrow I will sit down in front of a video conference and take my test.  It should take about an hour. We'll see how I do, and then that'll allow me to plan for training and home leave and then when we'll arrive in Buenos Aires.  Who knows how I'll do (especially since I have a touch of laryngitis at the moment that does give me a great low voice) but I'm sure I'll be fine. I've been practicing for about 3 months, so hopefully I'll get the 2+.  If that happens, we'll be out of Johannesburg in about a month.  It's a bit unsettling not knowing exactly when you're going, especially for the kids.

Anyways, wish me luck for tomorrow!

My Inner Lester Bangs: "Turn you on" by Mi Casa

My son, Crazy Little Man, has become obsessed with a local band recently.  Mi Casa has a song he likes called, "Jika."  He sings along with it when it comes on the radio, and I found myself actually liking the group too.

The story of Mi Casa isn't one of a band that's been together for years and suddenly finding success with a great song.  No, they met in 2011 at a lounge and started playing together and then hit it huge.  This actually qualifies as an overnight success.  Their first hit was in late 2011, and they've already released two albums.  One of the things I like about this group is that they seem to know they've caught the luck, and they're very down to earth.  I like that.  The members of the group are Dr. Duda, who produces, Mo-T plays the trumpet, and JSomething is the vocalist and guitarist.  (JSomething's real name is Joao, which I guess is how he has been introduced for a long time in South Africa.  He was born in Portugal and moved here when he was 7.)  Their new album is called Su Casa, and the very first song on the album is "Turn You On."

The music of Mi Casa can be classified as chilled out dance music with a Jazz element to it.  You can definitely groove to it, but it can also be on in the background at a dinner party and you'd be fine with it.  "Turn You On" has that smoothness to it that gives a little bit of the 1990s vibe to it.  JSomething's voice is very evocative, and definitely should be used in a slow-motion scene in a movie where a man and woman are doing the making eyes over dinner, interspersed with scenes of them kissing and doing adult things back at the house.

This song is a jam, to be sure.  After the chorus, a longing cry of "IIIIIIII, just want to turn you on," followed by the echo of background singers, there is a sax and trumpet play that reminds me of Goldfish's music lately, and of 1930s-1940s jazz.

I have to say one of the things I dig about this group is that they aren't trying to be someone else.  They are themselves, all the way to using the South African colloquialism, "now now."  "Now Now" doesn't really have a meaning attached to it.  It means sometime from now until later.  "Just now" however, doesn't really mean anything.  It's something you say to someone to get them off your back, "I'll do it just now."  They also dedicate one of the songs on the album to "Tata Madiba" or Nelson Mandela to you and I.  Doesn't get any more South African than that, unless it came with a braai and biltong.

Anyways, this song just has a groove to it that you'll really enjoy.  South African music is starting to make it big in the world, and I think these guys definitely have a shot at being something in the future.  Not to brag, but I do have a track record of calling it when bands might hit big.  Give Mi Casa a shot.  If you like it, you might find yourself playing it one night while drinking a nice red wine from South Africa, wondering when the next rugby match is on.

April Fools Falls Flat

Gather around, my friends, and I'll tell you the story of how I screwed up an April Fools Day joke so badly, I had to play along with it for a few years so that people didn't think I was an a-hole.

Picture it: Washington, DC, April 1, 1999.  I'm working as the Office Manager/Personal Assistant for a lawyer at 1900 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Pay sucked, but my life wasn't so bad.  I had good friends and I'd just found out that I was going to be joining the Foreign Service in September.  So, I thought it'd be a great April Fool's Day prank to send an email to everyone telling them that I was quitting my job, and moving back to Florida until September.  I said I was sad and didn't feel like working any longer for the lawyer (which was kind of true) and that I was just packing it in and I'd be back in September.

One thing you may know about me is that I have some bouts of melancholy that hit me at times.  So much so that my friends from college nicknamed me "Melancholy Jay."  They spoke of him as if he was a separate person (and he kind of was), and when they would see me getting down would try to perk me back up.  So the idea of me getting down wasn't unheard of, and it could have been seen as something I would do.

What I didn't realize is that this panicked a whole lot of my friends.  I got a call at work from one of my friends, Brian I think, and I told him it was an April Fool's joke.  He took it well.  The rest?  Not so much.  Vinnie called and I got totally yelled out for a passive aggressive/ look at me attitude that wasn't cool.  People loved me and were worried about me and then I go and pull a thing like this?  Shortly after apologizing, Dawg called and also read me the riot act.  Needless to say, I had to email everyone back thanking them for their support and that I wasn't going to go back to Florida.  I didn't, however, correctly state it was all a joke.  Vinnie told me that if I did it was going to totally piss off everyone off and I might lose some friends over it.  So, I kept my mouth shut and didn't start correcting everyone until a few months later when it was something we could laugh about.

However, I didn't get to everyone to tell them, and there was at least one person who didn't find out until 2 years later when I let it slip during a conversation.  Two years later she still punched me in the arm for being a doofus.

So I've learned my lesson: April Fool's jokes need to either be physical humor (saran wrapping the entrance to someones office, for example) or so over the top that people don't believe it.

However, it was very nice back then knowing so many people loved and cared about me.  That's probably when I realized "Melancholy Jay" probably needed to disappear.  I don't think he's re-appeared since.