Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture minivan. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture. I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic. It's like having an actual conversation with me.


Today's music: The Black Keys

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend.  It's Sunday night here, and I find myself wanting one more weekend day, as always.  My plan for a perfectly balanced life includes working four eight-hour days and enjoying three day weekends every week.  In addition to that, my plan for a perfect marriage is broken up into a four-week plan - the first weekend, Current Husband leaves the house, the second weekend I leave, the third weekend we run away somewhere together alone, and the fourth weekend is family weekend with the kids.  This way, we each get alone time, and we get one-on-one time with the kids, we get a weekend to walk around naked and drink excessively, and one weekend where we soley do things as a family.  According to this plan, my life is completely unbalanced.  Unless spending 60% of my time either preparing meals alone in the kitchen or driving people around town is considered "alone" time and "one-on-one" time.

We are expecting another 8-10 inches of snow in my part of Iowa in the next two days, and frankly, I'm over it.  So suck it, Winter, move on back to Northern Canada or Russia where you belong.  It's days like these when I spend an unhealthy amount of time fantasizing I'm in a Corona commerical.  I can almost feel the sandy beaches.  Sigh.

I bought CH a snowblower two years ago because I was sick of shoveling the walks around our 1/3 acre corner lot, and somehow during the move, the snowblower was broken.  Now, when we try to start it, gasoline pours out of the back of it.  Somehow, this seems wrong.  And unsafe.  And even though CH's life insurance policy is paid up, he is like small furnace in bed and I would be very cold without him, and I need him to pick up the slack in driving people to activities, so I guess we're back to shoveling.  We should be getting that piece of equipment fixed sometime around Easter, when the lawnmower is scheduled to break down.

So.  The Black Keys. (Click there for the fansite.)  For the first time in a long time, I've found a band where I'm not having an adolescent crush on the guitarist.  And I STILL LIKE THEM.  Wow.  I've heard The Black Keys off and on for a few years, but really started liking them when I got the Eclipse soundtrack.  Make fun of those movies all you want, but their soundtracks kick ass.  Here is a video from The Keys that I love - the drummer has the glasses, the guitarist and singer is the ginger.




Okay, how adorable is that?  And funny!  And who can believe these two dorky white guys from Akron, Ohio can come up with that big soul bluesy sound? Their latest album, "Brothers" is up for a bunch of Grammys, and they are pretty cool. But of course, now that I like them, they are done touring because they're burned out. I am like the Grim Reaper for bands, once I like them, it's over. 

Whole album is great - I give it five whiskey sours.

In other music news, Nelly and 3Oh3 are playing within 3 hours of me, and I'm really tempted to go, but am afraid I will get punched or shot, and I'm too old for that shit.

In unrelated music news, Flavor Flav opened a new chicken restaurant nearby, thus proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction. I loved a comment in the local newspaper that went something like this:

"I watched some of his reality show, and I won't eat ANYTHING Flav has touched." 

Happy Monday, have a great week!

UPDATE:  NPR's Teri Gross AND Stephen Colbert are totally copying me.  Get original, people!  Click here for more Black Keys info from the poseurs...