Going Long with Dinosaur Jr.

I got up this morning at 0445, stretched out and hit the bike trail for a ten mile run with my iPod Shuffle. I had spent most of the afternoon yesterday, after returning from "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", loading songs onto my iPod so I could groove to some tunes. I loaded up Dinosaur Jr.'s latest CD "Beyond", "Fashion Nugget" by Cake and assorted Wilco, Tom Waits and the Clash. I have loved Dinosaur since about 1994 when a high school chum loaned me "Where You Been". I had never heard such beautiful grunge guitar before and was hooked from the opening track "Out There". When I was doing my time in training with the Air Force I expanded my Dinosaur collection until I had everything they'd done. Everyone talks about how "Bug" is their seminal album, and I tend to agree, but I always had a soft spot for "Green Mind" and the aforementioned "Where You Been".

Dinosaur was pretty much a one man show after "Bug" as J Masicis, the lead guitarist/vocalist, kicked bassist Lou Barlow out of the band after creative differences. Dinosaur continued, over the course of five CDs, to have J Mascis playing every instrument with the original drummer, Murph, playing on selected tracks and stand-in bassist/guitarist Michael Johnson helping out on occasion.

Barlow, in the meantime, started off the lo-fi movement by recording a series of tapes in his living room with multi-instrumentalist Eric Gaffney. Thus was born Sebadoh. Sebadoh is the granddaddy of modern day "emo" bands and released quite a few decent, if disjointed, recordings. Notable among their output is 1993's "Bubble and Scrape", 1994's "Bakesale" which features one of my favorite Sebadoh tunes "Drama Mine". Their most critically acclaimed disc is 1996's "Harmacy" which features a picture of O'Dwyer's Pharmacy when the "P" fell off the sign. I thought it was a cool little double entendre.

Lou Barlow is also famous for writing the soundtrack to a little film called "Kids". A little group called the Folk Implosion had a song called "Natural One" make a surprising run into the top-40. The song was penned and performed by Barlow and his friend, John Davis.

For more info on Dinosaur Jr. click here. For more about Sebadoh, click here.

With my iPod loaded and belting out "Almost Ready" by the recently reunited Dinosaur Jr. I made my way into the 64 degree, 96% humidity and 4 mph NW winds. I hit my five mile turnaround in a relaxed 42:28 and brought myself home in a less sedate 39:51 to complete my ten in 1:22:19. Fittingly, the last song played by my Shuffle was "The Distance" by Cake. How ironic.

When I got home I got the coffee brewing and went outside to stretch and drink some water while I started reading the paper. I went back inside after I downed my 20 oz of water and had just finished my first cup of coffee when my son woke up. I changed his diaper and put him in his high chair for a breakfast of watermelon, strawberry-banana baby food and an orange. After that he got a bath and a bottle and we watched "It's a Big, Big World" and "Sesame Street" on PBS. I like Sesame Street but Big, Big World is a little weird. The main character is a sloth in the rainforest hanging out with his monkey, ant-eater, frog, bird and fish friends. It is kind cute but the monkeys are freaky and the sloth, Snook, sounds like a hippy surfer. Nothing against the hippy surfer community but I would expect a sloth to sound more tired than stoned.

Tomorrow I am volunteering to help at the Women's Distance Festival where some of my woman friends are going to be running. I think the Bionic Woman has a shot to win but the defending champ from Decatur will be a tough nut to crack, even for the Bionic Woman. I was going to wear something weird but I'm not sure what. I was thinking about wearing one of my short-sleeved blue dress shirts with my Jerry Garcia tie, my black running shorts, blue socks and my Brooks Glycerine running shoes. I guess that would be business/athletic attire.

Yesterday Kim and I went to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". We both enjoyed it although they left quite a bit out that could have made the movie feel a little more fleshed out. The book is about 700 pages long and they pruned and smashed it into a 90 minute movie. "Phoenix" is not my favorite Potter book but it had moments. Certain things that should have been fleshed out more in the movie were the budding romance between Harry and Cho Chang, the massive prank the Weasly twins pull as they leave Hogwarts, and I think they should have showed Dumbledore's Army ace their OWL (Ordinary Wizarding Level) exam in the Defense Against the Dark Arts since that was the reason Dumbledore's Army was formed in the first place.

Things I liked: I loved the girl they cast as the slightly "off" Luna Lovegood who suspects that the disappearance of her shoes and other personal effects are due to Nargylls. ("What are Nargylls?" asks Ron. "I have no idea." says Hermione.) The climatic battle between Lord Voldemort and Dumbledore in the Ministry of Magic is quite cool. Any scene where Harry, Ron and Hermione are together is great, unfortunately Ron and Hermione are relegated to the background for the majority of the film.

I think Daniel Radcliffe is going to be an exceptional actor after the Potter movies wrap. I suspect we'll see him cast as a drug addict or a murderer so he can distance himself from the Harry Potter role, although he was a horse-f----r on stage in "Equus" where he got rave reviews.

We also rented "Shooter" the other night, starring Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg. It was a surprisingly entertaining little action flick that tried to be plausible (you actually saw people reload their weapons during the firefights) but was still a little improbable (Marky Mark couldn't miss but never got winged after the first 15 minutes of the movie). Danny Glover and Ned "Squeal like a Pig" Beatty were great "shades of gray" villians as a former Army colonel and a Big Oil Senator. Definitely worth the $2.80.