Because nothing good happened here.

That's a line from this post by artist & writer Tim Broderick, whose blog Odd Jobs appears in the list to the right. Tim was writing about the trial of the man accused of killing Mark "Atwood" Evans, a friend of Tim and Johnny Yen.

That line, "because nothing good happened here", jumped out and stuck with me. I wrote a little bit about the case, and about the impact of murders on the people left behind, in the latest post at Arresting Tales:

Arresting Tales: When the jury comes in...

Johnny Yen has written with much pain and eloquence about his friend Mark, and about this case. You can find some of his posts here.

Reading what Johnny and Tim wrote this past week served as a solemn reminder for me to never forget the families and friends of victims. In searching for information on this case, I could not find any articles in the Tribune or Sun-Times regarding the murder of Mark Evans or Khalif Muhammad, or describing the arrest of Jorge Pena, or of the guilty verdict on Monday.

Random Ten

Dixieland Rock—Elvis Presley

Bloodshot—The String Kings

Ne m’ecris pas—Edith Piaf

Overpowered By Funk—The Clash

Army Ants—Tom Waits

Christine—Siouxsie and the Banshees

Two Step a Erby—The Thibodeaux Boys

Hearse Driver—Os Catalepticos

Guilty—Yann Tiersen

Who Are the Brain Police?—Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention

Here's a clip of Elvis performing "Dixieland Rock". It's from the movie "King Creole", a delicious gumbo featuring Elvis as the delinquent with great pipes, Walter Matthau as the evil club owner, and Carolyn Jones as the bad girl with a heart of gold. It's set in New Orleans. Notwithstanding Margarita Fridays, I can't think of a better way to start the weekend.

Friday Random Ten

We can't abandon Johnny Yen and leave him as one of the last Friday Random Ten practitioners. No sir.

Here's my random ten for today:

Race Track Boogie—Renaud Veluzat

Mr. Block—Utah Phillips

Save Us—John Cale

Ballrooms of Mars—T. Rex

Round & Round & Round—The Cure

Uncle Jo’ Gimme Mo!—Gerald Clark’s Lere String Band

Honky Tonk Mind—Johnny Horton

Little Acorns—The White Stripes

Rock The Universe—Del Vaughn

Wake Up—The Arcade Fire

I got tired of the music I had up in the widget. I've been feeling pretty good, and I wanted some happy tunes. I asked the girls for some help. I asked each of them to give me a song or two that made them happy lately. Here's what I got:

The Birds and the Bees--Patrick and Eugene (Our youngest)

Birdhouse in Your Soul--They Might Be Giants (MizBubs)

Here Comes Your Man--The Pixies (Our eldest)

The 59th Street Bridge Song--Simon & Garfunkel (MizBubs)

Don't Worry About the Government--Talking Heads (me)

Help Yourself--Tom Jones (me)

Give 'em a listen, and I hope they make you happy too.

Music For Funerals

The good folks at Social Zymurgy recently asked a number of us to come up with 12 songs we'd like played at our own funeral. Now, I'm assuming they were including the wake or post-funeral luncheon, and were not just referring to the music you'd have played at the funeral service itself. Johnny Yen followed instructions and came up with 12 songs, including lyrics from his favorite one.

Dale, perhaps trying to be polite and not take up too much of anyone's time, posted a list of 10 songs.

I love this idea. I have a thing for funerals, and my own is something that I've given no small amount of thought to. I've been a cop for a few years, I'm in the department honor guard, and I've served on rifle squads for police funerals. My ethnicity is Irish, and my family are transplanted hillbillies (I'm two generations away from coal mines and railroads). So, I'm into funerals. I want my own to be a great blast--I want people to eat and drink, I want some crying, plenty of laughter (hopefully, some of it wildly inappropriate) and lots of loud conversation and music.

Since Dale was such a good sport, using only 10 songs, I'll list a few extra tracks since he didn't use them. Now, mind you, these are just a handful of tracks that came to mind. I could easily come up with another 10 or 15. But, here they are, in no particular order, to be played as part of the service or at the rollicking party afterward:

• Amazing Grace—Any good traditional hillbilly version, or with bagpipes
• Tango Till They're Sore—Tom Waits
• Going Down Slow—Howlin' Wolf
• Come On Up to the House—Tom Waits
• Sick Bed of Cuchulain—The Pogues
• Once in a Lifetime—Talking Heads
• I Saw the Light—Hank Williams
• Rank Stranger—Stanley Brothers
• I'll Fly Away—There are too many versions of this I love: The Louvin Brothers, Johnny Cash, The Stanley Brothers, Alison Krause..
• Isn't it Grand Boys—The Clancy Brothers
• Young At Heart—Frank Sinatra
• Rockin' Bones—The Cramps
• Didn't He Ramble--Louis Armstrong
  
• After Hours—The Velvet Underground

Bloggers are damn fine people

That's my sweeping generalization, anyway.

MizBubs and I are home now after Lulu's going away shindig at Toons. While we were there we saw (obviously) Lulu, Tenacious S and her husband, Mr. T, the lovely Megan and Chris from Some Guy's Blog, and Johnny Yen. Megan and Chris, for those of you who haven't met them, are fun and adorable, and it makes me feel really good to be around two people who act like newlyweds. Plus we met a bunch of Lulu's friends, and a nice group they were, too.

So, since I'm related by marriage to Splotchy (who is fast becoming the most popular blogger in the world) and we've also spent time with Kim, I'm ready to make the following bold pronouncement:

Bloggers are damn fine people.

I will survive

I think there a few reasons for this high score:

1) I've always been a paranoid gun nut. Probably from all those zombie movies I watched as a kid.

2) My daughter gave me The Zombie Survival Guide as a gift a few years ago.

3) I've always been a paranoid gun nut.


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From Evil Spock by way of Johnny Yen.