So that was fun.

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Last night, I went to a jam session at a nearby university to kick off a weeklong vocal jazz and pop singing workshop, for which I was asked to do a couple sessions on solo singing.

Well that was fun. Hadn’t been in front of a band in quite awhile. And the best part of the night: I sang a duet with this guy. How cool is that? He was really nice, too. We sang an impromptu version of Time After Time (not the old jazz standard, but the Cyndi Lauper version). He was sitting at the table next to me and we’d struck up a conversation. Then someone asked, “Who’s singing this?” (meaning the Lauper tune) and I made some comment about it not being the version I was thinking of, but that I knew the tune. Next thing I knew, Deke and I were onstage with it. Cat is an amazing singer, and if you close your eyes you won’t know that it’s not a human making those trombone, trumpet and electric guitar sounds.

Reminds me of Stephen Bishop’s mouth-trombone stuff on Careless.

I like being surrounded by good players/singers. I could get used to that. What I didn’t like was:

  • Out of a faculty of 10 people, I’m the only woman (ok, I don’t exactly hate it)
  • Out of a faculty of 10 people, I’m the oldest (that I hate)

Going back today to work with some aspiring jazz singers in preparation for their turn onstage at the jam session tonight. Should be a blast.

Ok, gotta make like a tree. Future Ella Fitzgeralds and Mel Tormés await.

Fink out.

PSA

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Ok, before we get started…

Getting old is sucking. I’m babysitting this weekend for Dusty and Willow, my son’s two Labradors, and his Labradoodle, Oliver. Great dogs, and Rousseau loves the company. So anyway, I’m taking everyone outside this morning, right? Well, coming back in, I missed a stair, and fell. Something’s all sprung out of whack. My whole right side wants to fall off. I’m serious. I think I broke myself.

Time was, I’d fall down and get right back up and not worry about it. Not so anymore. I’m coming to grips with my mortality; the impermanence of my joints, bones and muscles. And brain. Ugh.

But enough misery….on to brighter subjects:

A new category! The FinkWeb Public Service Announcement.

Every once in awhile, I come across (or remember) cool ways to do simple, everyday tasks, or to handle common problems or inconveniences. As I discover/think of/remember them, I’ll pass them along to you. And you don’t even have to buy the book. Behold:

Avoid the Itchy Scratchy

Avon’s Skin-So-Soft works perfectly as a mosquito repellent. I don’t know why or how, but I’ve used it since my sons were little. It has always worked; and it smells nice and powdery. I understand that Avon, not a company to miss out on a windfall marketing boom, now makes the stuff in a spray bottle, labeled specially as a repellent. I’m sure other brands like OFF! have jumped on the bandwagon as well. But in a pinch, get out the SSS bath oil.

And speaking of pinching….

How to Get the $#*% Coffee Filters Apart

Ever try like mad to get the coffee filters to separate in the morning, only to want to throw the whole pile of them in the garbage and go to Starbucks instead? Well, struggle no more, my friend. There’s a simple solution. Just use your thumb and index finger as pincers; as a lobster claw. Yep, it’s as simple as that. Pinch the top surface of the stack of filters, and one will immediately come loose from its mates. Guar-own-teed.

If you have cool ideas, don’t post them here — rather, email them to me and I’ll include them in the next PSA, and credit you. Address:

Fink out (to the kitchen to get the Tylenol).

Boys Behaving Badly

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Well, there are probably some girls in there, too, but that would have ruined my cute alliteration.

I read an article in the Canadian National Post last week about the alarming increase in the use of Tasers by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. As the RCMP’s use of Tasers (“stun guns” that deliver a debilitating electrical charge that renders a suspect helpless and in temporary pain) rose a surprising 45% in 2007, critics pointed out that while giving a cop a Taser was initially a good idea, designed to protect citizens and police alike, it has “gradually become a tool to elicit quick compliance with police instructions, and sometimes just an easy means of silencing backtalk.”

<<<Hmmmm. Silencing backtalk. What’s wrong with that? *stroking beard* Kid talks back…give him the volts. I see nothing inappropriate here.>>>

Anyway.

Just this morning I caught this from Reuters: Mounties say they will curb Taser use. The subtitle said, “officers have been zapping suspects needlessly.” As you do. At any rate, it seems the RCMP got the message.

Hey, remember the “Don’t tase me, Bro!” video from last fall? That was intense (although the guy was a wackjob). I mean, the things are dangerous, right? But apparently, it’s legal in the US for citizens to own them. Can you say, “askin’ for it?” Who did this? They need a boot to the head. It’s like giving kids matches and saying, “Now don’t go burning yourselves or setting things on fire.” And check this:

Taser flavors! Only in the USA, people…

Leopard skin on a weapon. What next?

I don’t want to get into the whole gun control/right-to-bear-arms debate. I just wonder what’s going to happen now that everyone (with a thorough background check, of course) is allowed to buy these things. I suppose it could be said that you could do the same thing (hurt people) with an egg beater, but come on. There are people who should simply *not* be allowed to play with Tasers. And most of them would pass the “background check” with flying colors.

And don’t expect the Taser to just lie there, unimproved; the thing that just goes bzzzt-bzzzt. They’re already making these things more sophisticated. Pictured is the M18L model. Sure, it has cool stuff like identifying markers, imprinted with the serial number, which are discharged when the weapon is fired. But it also has…what?? Barbed probes??

Ewwww.

Chile, don’t expect ANYONE to behave with that thang.

Fink out.

Holy incoherence, Batman

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Remember Crispin Glover, who played George McFly in 1985’s Back to the Future ?

Well, Crispin is now a writer and director. Oh, and a wackjob. Don’t forget wackjob. I triple-dog dare you to sit through this interview without wanting to gouge out your eyes with a melon baller.

Especially freakish (and equally as disjointed) is his answer to the fan question, “Why did you cast actors with Down Syndrome in a movie that isn’t about Down Syndrome?”

In case you don’t want to endure the actual video, imagine yourself in a situation which, unfortunately, many of us find all too familiar: You ask a person a simple question, and fifteen minutes later….

Gives new meaning to the phrase, That’s twenty minutes out of my life I’ll never get back.

Fink (running) out (into the street, screaming).

Are you hyper?

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Hyperventilation, hypersensitivity, hyperactivity, hypertension…everybody’s hyper these days. But there’s one “hyper” that is particularly dangerous in Finkville.

Today’s hyper: hypercorrection. It happens when a person, in an effort to say something correctly, overcompensates and ends up adding more to the word or phrase than what should be there.

While there are several ways to linguistically hypercorrect, today we shall focus on Americans using non-English words. Ready?

  1. It’s smor-gas-bord. Smor. Kind of like the graham cracker and marshmallow and Hershey bar thing you used to make over the camp fire. Smor – gas – bord. Not shmorgasbord. Comes from the Swedish smörgås (sandwich) and bord (table). [In Swedish, it is the combination rs that is pronounced ‘sh.’]
  2. Taj Mahal. How did you just say it in your mind as you read it? Probably the way 99.9% of all Americans pronounce it: like the name Zsa Zsa Gabor. (Remember her, fellow Old Ones?) Actually, native Hindi speakers (so I was told by one — a college student back in the early 80s) say it like so: Tahdj. Rhymes with Dodge.
  3. Same deal with the Chinese city of Beijing. In Mandarin, it’s pronounced Bay-Jing, as in “Jingle.” Here is the audio proof. And while we’re on the subject…
  4. Parmesan. Ok, this one’s tricky. “Parmesan” (pronounced just like it’s written — sounds like Amazon) is an Americanized version of the original name for an Italian cheese, made in the Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna and Mantua provinces, called Parmigiano. Now don’t go Frenchifyin’ it — it’s pronounced par-mi-JAH-no. Choose one or the other, but please don’t zhu-zhu them together and say, with a French flair, parmezhan. I keel you.
  5. How about Xavier? There’s a university in Ohio by that name, so I hear it a lot. (Uh, notice “a lot” is TWO words…) It’s pronounced Zay-vier. Like xylophone and Xerox. Or you could say eks-ylophone and Eks-erox, if you wanted to. But then I would hit you.

But seriously, folks. I really do share the Schmenglish posts to remind my own bad self to be careful as much as anyone else. Heck, I struggle with a word or two, now and then. My worst (and repeated) offense: imaginative. It’s never looked right to me. I have been caught out by the spell checker several times after writing a paper in which I absentmindedly used imaginitive. It’s a dumb error, too. Just think “imagination” and change the last 2 letters. But noooOoO. So, see? I am not a perfect “everyday” speller. Almost…but not.

I just believe that how we write and speak as a nation says a whole lot about how we think and what we hold dear. A country’s language is a huge part of its legacy; ya just don’t mess with that.

Fink out (of words for today)