Shuffleboard 1

Thus begins the first post of Shuffleboard, where I set my iTunes on shuffle, listen to ten random songs, post a link to YouTube if they have it, and explain why the $#% I have the music that I do.

#1 "69 Police" by David Holmes, from Ocean's 11 Soundtrack

This is a really fun soundtrack. Holmes captures the suave coolness of the Ocean's team and interjects the wackiness, for lack of a better word.

The only thing I don't really like is that they added dialogue from the film into some of the songs. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's obnoxious, but I'm a firm believer in keeping soundtracks to just the score music that the composer wrote for the film.

This particular song is near the end of the movie, where we see what the crew's master plan was. It's very upbeat and happy, albeit a little repetitive. Fun listen.

#2 "Bloodlust" by Jeremy Soule, fromt Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Soundtrack

First of all, please refrain from calling nerd on this one. My roommate junior year of college played this game 24:7 on his PS3 and I, being the weird mutant music lover that I am (once I hear a song, it's always in my head; I'll hear it somewhere else and go "where have I heard that before?!), I found the soundtrack online so I could enjoy the surprisingly good music sans sword slashes and roommate swearing.

No idea where this is from in the game, though. Relatively exciting violin and trombone/baritone riffs, though. I should listen to this soundtrack more often.

#3 "Mummy Cave" by John Williams from Raiders of the Lost Ark Soundtrack

I'd be surprised if every Shuffleboard post didn't have something from John Williams in it. He's my favorite composer, and has done more amazing work than any other modern musician I know of.

This is a particularly good one, showing off his cue skills and diversity. It's in the movie where Indy and Marion break through the wall in the Well of the Souls to get away from the snakes, only to run into a buttload of mummies in the process.

The track features suspenseful foreboding, a wee bit of a love-ish theme, Indy's thinking music, and then creepy violin scrambling as Marion fights off the already-dead mummies.

Ahh, John Williams.

#4 "Summertime" by Billie Holiday from Porgy and Bess

I took a jazz history class my last semester at KU, and of course Gershiwn, the composer of the musical Porgy and Bess, was covered, as was Billie Holiday. We used this track to cover how covers worked, before they were called covers. "Summertime" was one of the jazz standards, or songs that every respectable jazz musician knew. It's estimated that to be a good jazz musician, you had to know 100 or more songs by heart in multiple keys.

Billie Holiday had quite the screwed up life, but no one can doubt her amazing and smoky voice. It makes you wish you were in a jazz club in New York City in 1930 something, drinking a cold something and trying to see the singer through the haze of thirty cigars.

#5 "Good Day Sunshine" by The Beatles from Revolver

I have a bunch of Beatles on my iTunes. I like to hearken back to the days of simpler music, and the Beatles, who basically started an entire frigging GENRE, are a good way to do that.

This track is one of the classic feel-good tunes, and makes you feel a little sunnier everytime you hear it.

#6 "A Dilemma" by Danny Elfman from Hellboy II Soundtrack

I rented this movie from the library and was surprised at how entertaining it was. I saw the first one on cable a while back and thought it was alright, so I checked the second one out and found Elfman's score for it.

I really like Elfman's stuff. It's almost instantly identifiable as him, and he certainly has a way with a certain kind of film. He's very diverse, good at being tense, loose, creepy, sappy, and in this track, remorseful and sad. It's in the same vein as his serious stuff for the Spiderman films, but more serious and less...goofy, I guess. I was thoroughly impressed by this score.

Hey, this guy even did the score for Mission: Impossible. Come one, Hellboy, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Mission: Impossible? Dang.

#7 "The Well of the Souls" by John Williams from Raiders of the Lost Ark Soundtrack

Well, there you have it. That's how much John Williams I have in my iTunes. Wait, here's the exact hour count: 1.2 DAYS. That's right. I have more than 24 hours of John Williams music.

Aww yeah.

Anyways, this is the background music to Indy and Sallah figuring out how to get down into the Well of the Souls. It's a fairly standard suspenseful background piece, with a little bit of elegant strings in the middle when Marion is with Belloq in his tent.

Overall, it sets the scene quite well.

#8 "My Funny Valentine" by Frank Sinatra from All-Time Favorites

For a supposedly romantic song, this track is actually kind of offensive. To sum up ol' Frank's opinion of his valentine, she's really ugly and can't sing, but he still loves her. Great, but why write a song about it?! Just tell her those things in private, or better yet, don't tell her you think her "mouth's a little weak."

Still a classic Sinatra tune, though.

#9 "Back in the Day" by KJ-52 from It's Pronounced "Five Two"

KJ is a Christian rapper, but way goofier than John Reuben. He's alright when it comes to actually rapping, but he's entertaining and writes some funny stuff.

In terms of Christian rap, Lecrae and Reuben are the way to go.

This track features KJ talking about his days in high school, and features one of my favorite lines in any song. I still quote it to this day. Just ask my wife.

"I'm not really white, I just really need a tan."

Aww yeah. Jeremy, that's you, dawg.

#10 "Piano Concerto #1 In D Minor, Op. 15 - 2. Adagio" by Brahms from Piano Masterpieces, Disc 2

I told you I had random crap in my iTunes. I have a bunch of classical stuff I really need to listen to more often. You know. To get smarter and stuff.

Anways...I don't know if I've even listened to this one before, but as I listen to it now, I enjoy it! There's certainly something to be said about the old-school way of the classical composers, and how incredibly talented they were. If nothing else, they should get made props for sheer stamina and volume. This one part is the second movement in a a three-part concerto, and it alone is 13 minutes.

The piano in this track is distinct and passionately played, with the orchestra hitting and adding all the right subtleties. Classical music is a good breath of fresh air every once in awhile to cleanse your palette after listening to "This is why I'm Hot" for the 12th time.

Thus ends the first post of Shuffleboard. Hope you found at least one new song you like, or reason to hate another.

As always, let me know what you think.

Here It Goes Again

My name is Caleb Sommerville. I am a recently-graduated journalist from KU, and looking to start a life here in Kansas City. This blog will just be my rantings and ravings, reviews and reactions to the world around me.

I just got married on July 4th to a very beautiful woman, and am now starting up our home in Kansas City, furnished with an odd combination of college stuff and brand-new wedding presents.

And I'm still job-searching. The market isn't the best these days, and the journalism field is no exception.

But here's what people don't understand, and what I wanted my first post to be about.

It's odd, because the media are the ones furthering this myth, but journalism is NOT dying. The fact that this post exists online for you all to read it is proof. Newspapers are NOT going to go away; people are NOT going to get their news solely from YouTube, TMZ, and Jon Stewart; and journalism is NOT dying.

But it is changing.

The bigger papers are suffering, no doubt. And that's probably why this myth is progressing. They are suffering because they can't keep up with the new technology. They can't adapt new policies as fast as the little papers, and suffer because of it.

The new trend, as Wired magazine called it in issue 17.06, is the new Socialism. (Read the article, it's quite good.)

Not Obama's ideas, but the whole idea of Social Media. Facebook, Web 2.0, YouTube comments and ratings, that kind of thing.

The new trend is to still have news outlets let out news, but to have the audience weigh in, rate, and therefore shape what kind of news is let out.

But there are definitely two sides to this new idea.

1. The audience must own up to the mistakes the Internet has encouraged for years. Bad comments, inane comments, apathy, grammar nazis, comparing everything to Nazis. We as a consuming audience must treat the content flying at us as important and sift through it as such. Don't get your news solely from the MSN.com start page that IE8 came preloaded with. Go out there, go to the AP wire feeds, CNN.com, FOXnews.com, drudgereport.com, all of it. Read articles from Food Network, Wired, Popular Science, Cracked.com, and get your information and entertainment from a variety of sources.

And above all, help shape it. Comment (intelligently, please) on articles you find yourself thinking more about. Post things to your facebook feed and find out what your friends think.

2. The content providers must be able to listen to the crowd and pull out the true feedback from the sea of "First!!!!!11!"s and "you need to lern how 2 spel"s. People supplying the information, whether it be news or entertainment, need to know that their work is going to be seen and consumed by people everywhere via the Internet. I know that most people think that local newspaper information about Podunkville, Wisconsin's city hall meeting is not important, but the little old lady living down the street who has a nephew living there might. I have been a reporter, fellow reporters out there. I know the wonderful feeling of sitting through a long boring meeting and then racing to get a 10 inch story out of nothing that will most likely be read by four people.

But we as providers need to realize that those four people wouldn't have that information otherwise.

So basically, providers, start caring about your jobs. Listen to the comments. If you are writing too many articles about Paris Hilton and the commenters let you know that, then stop and write about someone else. Or, heaven forbid, keep writing if they like it (I'll post about celebrity worship at a later date).

The industry is not going to be the Humphrey Bogart Deadline U.S.A. romantic reporter with the press card badge stuck in the fedora.

Although I wouldn't mind that.

It's going to be sifting through comments, commenting, and PARTICIPATING in this new Socialism.

I will be doing my best to listen to all comments on this blog (from the tens of readers I'm sure will be reading this) and shape the content from that.

Let me know what you think.