There’s a lot of reasons not to like the music of Neil Young. For example:

–His singing has been compared to the sound of a prarie dog caught in a barbed wire fence
–He helped popularize the ubiquitous soft rock of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
–He helped to inspire a generation of personal “naval-gazing” singer-songwriters
–He is responsible for several really bad movies, a couple of which I actually saw
–He has more slavering, syncophantic rock critics profiles about his rock and roll and roll music and “the power of The Horse” (his on-again, off-again band of inspired amatuers, Crazy Horse, for those of you not in the know…) then is really entirely necessary in this lifetime

On the other hand, I have been reading SHAKEY, the excellent biography by Jimmy McDonough, which has over 800 pages about Neil’s life; his family background; the inspirations for his songs; the drugs he took; the drugs his friends took and could not overcome; the snap decisions he made to satisfy his artistic muse, irrespective of any effect it would have on his friends, fellow musicians, or record companies; his constant f*ck-ups; his stand-up qualities as a friend; his inspiring dedication to his two sons with cerebral palsy; his cold, calculating business acumen; his constant desire to go to edge and over it… Suffice to say, he is one awesomely interesting and complex individual well-deserving of such a detailed biography. (It’s no surprise Neil has an unreleased song called “Young Citizen Kane Blues”, as the person he most reminds you of is Orson Welles).

It helps that the author shares my feeling that Neil’s “Doom Period” of TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT and ON THE BEACH are his most awesome records, and that FREEDOM is not far behind. If you love these records like I do, you can learn a lot from this book. Unlike Bob Dylan, who genius is more distanced from his personal life, Neil is into it, and it is very difficult to seperate the work from the man. To paraphrase Neil in the book: “I was a bad person in my relationships, and I did a lot of things i regret now. And if I went back, I could have been more polite and more respectful of people’s feelings. But I also would have had 4 or 5 fewer albums…”

If you like Neil, I would pick this book up. And if you like rock and roll music, definitely check out TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT, ON THE BEACH, or the recent LIVE AT THE FILLMORE with, yes, “The Horse.”

Well, one weekend and two days of work off later, the new kitchen floors are about 1/2 to 2/3 done, depending or not if you count moving back appliances, cleaning up the mess, etc. It’s been very interesting, and I have learned a whole lot, and, like every home project I’ve attempted, I think I could do a better job if I had to do it all over again. I’m going to do a separate about some of my cosmic insights on this process shortly. Meanwhile, if you interested, here’s the story in pictures.

Kitchen Renovations

The Spouse has hated our ceramic tile floor in the kitchen since the Earth cooled. Since the only thing I gave her on Christmas was a peck on the cheek, I thought it was fine time I got off my keester and proved I really was “Mr. Home Improvement.” Approximately 6 weeks into the job, we’re actually getting ready to lay down the new oak floor this weekend. There’s an art to juggling two careers, two kids, being President of the PTA, and cooking meals from scratch, and unfortunately, we don’t seem to have mastered that art just yet. But we’re getting there!

Feel free to leave me your tips, but if you notice anything wrong–please, by all means–keep it to yourself…

One of my son’s favorite people in the world, besides Diego, is Bob The Builder. We watch Bob the Builder at least twice a day. And while I like Bob’s show, and I think it promotes teamwork, understanding how things work, and a positive environmental message (“Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!”), I do have a few notes I’d like to share:

1) No matter what time of day, people will call Bob to build something, and Bob will a) actually pick up the phone, b) he will agree to do the job, usually that same day, and c) he will not haggle over the cost. (As a matter of fact, cost is almost never discussed, nor are cost overruns).

2) Bob’s assistants (like most tools, anthromorphized machine equipment picked up from a robotic dog pound) are a) thrilled to work with Bob every single day, b) rarely tired, cranky, or hung over, and c) love working each other as well.

3) Bob’s friends almost inevitably make mistakes on the job site: The fill in holes they have dug; They run through paint and ruin landscaping; They deface rooms and topple buildings. Almost without fail, Bob (and his office assistant, Wendy, who he has never hit on in any of the 500+ episodes I have seen) simply laugh, go “Oh, Muck!” or “Oh, Lofty!”, and then cheerfully go about the costly and time-consuming job of rebuilding what has been carelessly destroyed. Bob never fires any of his employees for their poor work habits. They also do not smoke or take beers from the fridge at the job site where they are working.

4) Bob’s friends conversations are comprised almost 100% by their particular catchphrases (“Can we fix it?”, “Uh, I think so.” “Ou-RAG-eous!”, etc.), resulting in a real lack of communication, which is probably at least partially responsible for so many of the misunderstandings and wanton destruction of private property.

5) Ford was invited to be the architect (though, to my knowledge, he holds no degree in architecture) and single-source builder for the renovation to Sunflower Valley in a no-bid contract. (Actually, this may be the most realistic part of the show…)

I’ve just got one word for Bob: Union.

I
t has come to my attention that I am one of those “Do It Yourself”-er type people. For instance, I built the computer I’m typing this on. I installed the Blog software myself, on the server tha I configured myself. I have an IT job where I taught myself (with a lot of generous help from a lot of great people) to be a Webmaster/server hoster/geek of all trades. I put in my sink. I built a playhouse for my daughter in the backyard (once again, with some awesome help from my relatives and neighbor). I bake my own bread and grow stuff in our garden. I taught myself guitar and had a band. I wrote a novel. I’m laying a new wood floor in my kitchen. Blah blah. Etc., etc.

I like doing things myself, because a) you learn how to do something, so it’s not a mystery any longer, b) the more things you do, the more connections you see between all the different things and how many things are related, and c) you get to talk to all sorts of interesting people who also do their own things, and they are often happy to teach you, and you may even teach them something, too. You feel pride in your accomplishments.

Now, this is not to say that everything I have done myself is perfect. Far from it. I had a leak in my sink. My computer has crashed many, many times. The playhouse needs shingles. I recently found out I had made a mistake in my taxes, and had to file an amended return (but luckily, as of yet, no fine.) Etc., etc.

I thing the biggest argument against being a “Do It Yourself”-er is just that. You don’t have to worry and feel bad if your projects have problems. (I have certainly done more than my share of this). You can pay someone else to worry about it, and you can complain to them if it doesn’t work. You can take that time and energy you spend doing it yourself and put it towards something you consider more useful and interesting. You can leave things to the experts.

But the funny thing is, as you do more things yourself, what you start to realize is…there really aren’t any experts. When you take up your floor and look what the last people did, you go “WTF?” What were they thinking? When I run into problems at work and talk to the “experts”, they are often just as clueless as I am, and flail around just like me for the answer. People take shortcuts, or ignore the stuff you read about it the guidebooks. In many ways, quite honestly. nobody has a clue.

When I was young, I honestly believed that adults were a superior race, that they really had it together, and that if I just worked hard and applied myself, soon I could be like them, too. Now that I’m a grown-up, I realize that everyone is really just doing their best to try and get by. Some stuff they know, some stuff they don’t. (As a matter of fact, being a Do It Yourself-er has taught me an innate distrust of anyone who acts as though they really do have all the answers). But that’s OK. It’s better than OK.

If I want to teach my kids one thing as they grow up, it’s that, if you’re interested in something–give it a try. You can do it. Anybody can do it–you just have to want to do it. My 8-year old daughter makes her own stuffed animals. She’s starting a band with her girlfrieds (at least, this week…) My 2 year old helps me make pancakes. The more you try, the more you learn, the better prepared you’ll be for something else. You’ll save money, use your brain, increase your self-esteem, and maybe you won’t be the first person off the island on SURVIVOR.

So Endeth today’s lesson.