2006 Blog Archives

Twenty four hours after posting lyrics from the album, "The Black Parade", I watched history unfold on television of the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. As I watched, those same lyrics screamed out at me.

Have

You heard the heard the news that you're dead

No one had much nice to say

I think they didn't like you anyway

Witnesses report people dancing around Saddam's body.

Celebratory gunfire in Baghdad.

Iraqi-Americans dancing in the streets in Dearborn, Michigan.

If death comes to you as a favorite memory, as Gerard Way believes, how did death come to Saddam? What memory came to him?

This guy has been an intricle part of everyone's lives since the 1980's, first as an allie because of the Iraq-Iran War. Back then, Iran was our enemy, after the Hostage Crisis. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and it seems like we've been battling him since.

I was waiting to see some of the images from the execution, but I think I will wait until morning.

The whole ordeal seemed weird, almost rushed. I got an e-mail from CNN stating he was slated to die at 10pm, and then the waiting, the conformation, the talking heads, the eyewitness reports.........

all the while lyrics screamed out at me. Me, watching history unfold.

In the same vein as The Who's "Tommy", Pink Floyd's "The Wall", Queen's "A Night at the Opera", and Green Day's "American Idiot", My Chemical Romance created a concept album/rock opera that is simply my favorite album of 2006.

Titled "The Black Parade", this dark, heavy subject matter-death, war, cancer, and in the end, salvation- is such an amazing thing to listen to. It centers around The Patient, who is dying, and his thoughts during his final moments. Not a melancholy album at all, except for one song, this thing grabs you by the neck and literally shakes and hammers you about. Lots of lyrics, lots to think about. Kick a$$ rock all around. It's orchestral, theatrical,.......I listen to it every day.

Highlights:

DEAD

Finding out you have died while the music flies along at breakneck speed. A guitar solo by Ray Toro that is a combination of Chuck Berry, Brian May, and somehow Woody Woodpecker sneaks in.

Have

You heard the news that you're dead

No one ever had much nice to say

I think they didn't like you anyway

Oh take
Me from this hospital bed

Wouldn't it be grand

It ain't exactly what you planned.

WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE

Swear to God, this sounds like a number from a musical.

Death comes to a person in the form of a favorite memory, and for The Patient, the memory is his father taking him to a parade.

When I was

A young boy

My father

Took me into the city

To see a marching band

He said

Son, when

You grow up

Will you be

The saviour

Of the broken

The beaten and the damned

CANCER

The only true ballad on the album. I dare you to listen to this and NOT get choked up.

Now turn away

Cause I'm awful just to see

Cause all my hairs abandonded all my body

Oh my agony

Baby I'm just soggy from the chemo

And countin' down the days to go

It just ain't livin'

Cause the hardest part of this

Is leaving you.

MAMA

Picture a battlefield in Europe. WWI or II, doesn't matter. A soldier writes a no-holds-barred letter home to his mother. Add in a little bit of the Police's "Mother", a two-line cameo by Liza Minnelli, and have it finish up as a drunken bar song. It's truely one of a kind.

Well, Mother, what the war did to my legs and to my tongue

You should have raised a baby girl

I should have been a better son

If you could coddle the infection

They can amputate at once

You should have been

I could have been a better son

We're damned after all

Through fortunes and flames we fall

And if you can stay

Then I'll show you the way

To return from the ashes you call.

We'll all carry on

When our brothers in arms are gone

So raise your glass high

For tomorrow we die

And return from the ashes you call.

Other great songs are "I Disappear", "The Sharpest Lives", and "Teenagers".

Posted for Thursday December 28th..........

Quite literally 18 years ago Thursday, I stated working as a custodian for BFA. Spartan Industries on Fletcher Road was in a mess. The parent company, Coleco, was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and we didn't know, week-to-week, if we would stay open. A position opened up at BFA, I applied, and the rest is history.

A lot has happened in 18 years. I would guess that over 90 percent of the kids in the school now, were not even born when I started. I've been through four bosses and four high school principals. The middle school construction began soon after I started. The elementary came later.

Teachers have moved from room to room to room. Teachers have come and gone. Students began school, and worked their way through, then graduated.

There have been happy times, and some sad times.

18 years.

And it doesn't seem that long.

But thinking back........

It has.

Posted for Wednesday December 27th.................

.......And that will happen Sunday night at midnight.

Countin' down to 2007. I need to go back through my blogs and remember what happened in 2006 for the End of the Year Memories essay. Also need to look back at all the pictures I posted to see which ones will be the Keepers of 2006. New Years Day I will debut the 2006 Yearbook. Thus all 2007 stuff will be here.

What were some of your favorite photos that I took?

I do know a couple of you have downloaded a picture and used it as wallpaper on your computer. Thanks!

Off the top of my head, I can think of three pictures that make the list. The Keepers will highlight the front page of the Yearbook. The 2005 Yearbook featured five photos. Only two were actually taken in 2005. I think all the 2006 Keepers will be current.

OK, I just went back and looked month by month at the Pictures of the Day. There might be quite a few.

Let me know what you think.

I went around the village Saturday night taking a few more pictures. It's a wonder someone doesn't call the police to report a suspicious person walking around the neighborhood. I hope we never get to that point.

I went over to where Bevins' used to live to remember the light show that was there.

I was quite nice walking around. The wind was blowing. Not a cold wind, either.

1.35 inches of rain in the rain gauge. Thank God it wasn't snow. You'd had gotten your White Christmas. Over a foot of it. And today was the major rush to do last minute things. What a mess THAT would have been. We went and got groceriesout in St. Albans. Haven't seen the parking lot at Hannafords that busy since Ames and Woolworths were there.

High water at Christmas. You just never know these days.