Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Boom Boom Clap

Eldest had a birthday party last week, at the little red caboose in City Park. My back took the stain remarkably well. Tolstoy and his boyos spent the night, and after the kids went to sleep we tossed back a few cold malted beverages. Fun evening. Great cake.

Oh my God, was it great cake.

Eldest has a tendency towards the treasuring of material things, for reasons I will not go into now, so it is heartening to me that the birthday CD mix I give her every year is always among her favorite gifts. She keeps them all; if they break, she asks me to burn a new one.

This year, a new wrinkle. All her favorite songs up to now have been culled from the tastes of the lil hux and me: Dylan, the Beatles, Springsteen, Alanis Morissette, KT Turnstall. This year new influences are entering the mix, bubblegum tweener pop music, mostly Hannah Montana. It was a sweet moment to hear her (and boyo one, no less) sing along to it on the ride home. I could summon up some snark about Ms. Montana representing pre-packaged pop stars and the idolization of celebrity, but since I was singing Monkees tunes at about the same age of my own boyhood, it would ring false. I like the Monkees. And it is hard to get more pre-packaged than them.

And here's a confession I feel free to make since few of you know my real name: I have a sneaking fondness for Hannah Montana's "Hoedown" ("boom boom clap, boom de-clap-de-clap"). If you accuse me of this in my actual life I will of course deny it, and promptly delete this post. But I feel my secret is safe with you.

Don't let me down.

11 comments:

Gordo said...

Jeez, I thought boom boom clap was some kind of disease. Colour me relieved. ;-)

Sueann said...

Great cake huh? Well that is a good thing. Sounds like the party was a success! As for the Hannah Montana confession...well what can I say...your secret is safe...I don't even mention her name here!
Ha!
Hugs
SueAnn

Marz said...

YOUR NAME ISN'T CLOWNCAR?

WTF IS THIS.

Fresca said...

"Hey, Hey, we're the Monkees..."

I sing this on the phone with an old friend every so often, to this day.

That's love--making someone a mix of music THEY like and you don't. I know cause i saw it on "High Fidelity."

Happy Birthday to Girl 1!

Anonymous said...

Pre-packaged music can be quite unfortunately catchy. That said, I will probably hold this bit of information close to the vest... you know, in case I ever need to blackmail you in the future.

The yearly mix tapes sound incredibly sweet and wonderful. I'm a little jealous of Eldest, here :)

Land of shimp said...

In return for your confession, I will share with you information you could use to blackmail into silence. A way to insure that I can't blab, even though I have no clue what your real name is, you can never be too careful with the deep, dark, Hannah Montana secrets in life:

I have all the Schoolhouse Rock songs on my iPod...and I listen to them...on purpose. Particularly the History Rock ones :-)

Happy birthday to your eldest, and I'm glad your back is behaving itself somewhat. Sorry you're an injured, Clowncar. You probably shouldn't have stuffed so many Bozos in you :-)

meno said...

Yeah, but would you want your daughter to dress like her?

Clowncar said...

Gordo, the boom boom clap is the particularly painful form of the disease.

SueAnn, the cake was a poem. Cream cheese frosting, raspberry filling. Mmmmm...

Quit yelling in the house, Margaret. Take it outside. Notice at this house we even spell out "oh my God."

Fresca, some of those songs have serious legs. Daydream Believer, Last Train to Clarksville. And that Davey Jones is so dreamy!

I'd make you a mix cd, Ms. Rue, but I think you'd crack under the weight of so much bluegrass and country.

Shimp! Schoolhouse rock rocks! Never occurred to me to actually buy and listen to them or I would have long ago. That one-click buy button on Amazon is a dangerous and wonderful thing.

Don't get me started, meno. I read somewhere she's dressed like a big bird in thigh high boots in her lastest video. I don't wanna even know.

Gwil W said...

Greetings from planet PiR,

We note that you've tossed back a few cold malts ((our boy, very bright) has 1/2 barrel of Lagavulin,or maybe it's Bowmore, gathering gold dust in the Inner Hebrides)) - oh, wait, ... we see now, ...you meanr malt, ...as in beer.

Oops, beer me up Scottie!

ps- first visit , enjoyed!

pps- tribute to Arthur C. Clarke at PiR. Float by.

ArtSparker said...

congratulations on the early birthday present...now if she's savig the best present for the day itself (assuming it's not some device to suppress snores...)

Clowncar said...

pir, I enjoy malty beverages of all types, Laphroaig to Dairy Queen to lowly Budweiser.

Art, the main present every year is three days at a bluegrass festival, camping and dancing and lazing aboiut and playing in the water.