Hot Dog / Cold Dog

Hot Dog 
R&B

Most of my dear readers are not big R&B/ Hip Hop fans, this I know. So with that in mind, if you were to get only one R&B/Hip Hop album this year, I would suggest Miguel's Kaleidoscope Dream.

A lot of thought and care went into the song writing on this album. It's relatively short with most songs coming in under four minutes. The lyrics are smart and deal with everyday emotional concerns in plain unassuming language. There's no braggy millionaire playboy B.S. The production is excellent, surprising, fresh but always in service to the song and not just ear-catching novelty. What more do you want. Heavy rotation at Spindles Manor.

I know much has been said and typed about the R&B/ Hip hop - Rock innovation gap but let me just add a few words to the lament. I'm not going to say that no great Rock albums have been made in the last 15 years or so, or that nothing new, unexpected or innovative has been added to the Rock vocabulary, but I will say that one big difference is that when R&B artists push the edges out a bit and expand on what has come before, always looking for a new approach or method they also try to write hit songs. Not only has Miguel made something the critics can stroke to but the first single also went to number one.

In the late 70's/early 80's (78 to 83: The Golden Age) the so called "new wave" bands wanted to remake, remodel, and reform what Rock was and could do. They pushed the boundaries sonically, lyrically and even presented themselves in a whole new way. They had massive artistic ambition but even more importantly, they wanted to write hits. They wanted to follow their artistic path but that path had to lead to the top of the pop charts. Being a cult band is great but changing what everyone considers mainstream is an even more admirable accomplishment. They were being subversive but at the same time seduced everyone into loving them. How cool is that?

Since then, Rock (of any substance) has slowly ceded the charts to Hip Hop or R&B. When Rock did reach the mainstream (Cobain, Vedder, et al. whined endlessly how they never wanted anyone beyond cool kids in the know to like their music. Boo hoo!).

So here we are in 2012 and if you want to hear thrilling pop hits with some weight: Miguel!

Cold Dog 
Rockin' Pneumonia

It's been about two years since my asthma's gotten severe enough that I need a barrage of daily medicines to keep it under control. I think I'm finally recognizing the patterns, triggers and consequences of it and can maybe start trying to head things off or at least minimize the damage.

Apart from being allergic to every living creature, both animal and vegetable, dust seems to be my fiercest enemy. A more concerted effort to cut down on the amount of house dust is being made. As someone who has never been overly cleanly I need to constantly remind myself to vacuum. Actually, I don't even really have to vacuum as we have a robot slave that takes care of that for us but the dumb thing still can't get around well, so I at least have to clear the floors of detritus before setting him loose. It'd be nice to get that done once a week.

However, a big problem that I haven't found a solution to is chalk dust. Dust that rains down on me as I write on the blackboard, that coats everything I touch, that's on my skin, in my eyes and nose, which dries everything out but my lungs, which get busy making liters of phlegm.

Here's the pattern that's developed. I've mentioned the sand that blows off the desert in China and hangs over south-western Japan like mustard gas every spring and fall. That is the worst. So that gets the allergies going. After a few weeks I get a cold. It goes away and comes back as bronchitis. I get really sick but try to stick it out and eventually miss a couple of days of work. A few months later; repeat.

Late August/ early September, the cloud settled in. It was worse than usual and I was on heavy medication with plenty of side effects so that I could drag myself to work and then home and that's all. After a month or more the demon sand blew out of town and I inevitably caught a cold. I started coughing up the the most vile phlegm buy the bucket-load. I figured it was bronchitis and I could ride it out. Three days later I broke down and went to the doctor. He said bronchitis. Antibiotics and whatnot. I get worse and go back. I get I.V. antibiotics. My wife checks out my blood test results and says I have pneumonia. Three days later the doctor catches up and says it pneumonia. He basically orders me to take a day off work.

That's right. I have no vacations to take so I worked through the whole thing, potentially infecting hundreds of people. That's the way it works in a country with no sick days.

Until about a week ago, I was still very weak and pretty much came home after work and collapsed. I have to realize that this is the new norm and managing it has to be my approach. Winter is coming and that is a break from the allergies, at least the outdoor ones. It would be great to work somewhere where I wasn't exposed to hundreds of sniffing, coughing germ bags everyday. I'm a perfect example of someone who needs to do solitary work, preferably from inside a hermetically sealed plastic bubble.