Well, he's got a point.

ITEM: Kanye West tells Reuters, "Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph." (via NYMag) I think I may have read some of the same books as he has. We do have a lot in common, you know. We were born on the same day, in the same hospital. (Well, I don't know if he was born at Saskatoon's City Hospital, Wikipedia says no, but y'know, that could just be more of Wikipedia's general anti-Saskatchewan bias.) Also, despite the fact that we are both disgustingly rich, neither of us feel that we have yet achieved our true potential. Our biggest difference? His book is finished and published. Mine is still just a bunch of weird notes about Frankenstein, the Barr Colonists, and club house sandwiches.

ITEM: Vancouver weekly the Westender wonders on its current cover: "Are bloggers making it hip to have kids?" I haven't read the article because I don't live in the West End, and, y'know, I stay outta theirs, they stay outta mine. A friend who does live in the West End told me, though, that the report says the ME of Only Magazine--which I can't read either, since I have siblings--has column about being a dad. Another reason I can't read Only Magazine is because they filed their Eugene Mirman article under "Music" instead of "Not-Music". Other than that, Only's pretty fine. Maybe they'll Google themselves, find this page and ask me to write for them. I wouldn't automatically say no.
Back to blogging dads, well, more power to them. For this dad, blogging's been at the bottom of my priority list because A) who wants to blog when you can make noises with a six-month-old? B) I'm taking a writing class and y'know how that is C) I'm doing a tiny little bit of writing out in the world with an interest, if not a lot of time, to do more D) Did I say blogging was at the bottom of my priority list? That's just cuz listening to music didn't even make the list. E) is for Emmet F) is for Fiction, which is slowly, oh so slowly taking shape G) what, I still have to explain myself? Didn't you see reason A? That's my bottom line. The fam. It's where I'm at, it's where I'm happy, it's where I'm (kinda) needed. I'm also not blogging that much about my little girl because I'm saving all my observations and experiences to pitch a sitcom to HBO about what it's really like to be a parent.

ITEM: I think I was also going to say something about Paul Auster, but, um, I'll save it.

mp3: "Dangerous Fun" by Jesse Winchester

Same Old, Quiet Man

(Before I forget, check out WFMU's Beware of the Blog's collection of found images. BOTB is a consistently great blog in general, and pretty much always has something interesting going on.)

I don't know if it's just a coincidence that John Hiatt has a new album out and it's basically Father's Day. Of all the music I've picked up on by spending time with my dad, Hiatt's one of two artists who always reminds me of Dad, even though I don't think he started listening to Hiatt until I was a teenager and totally too cool to be into the same things as my dad.

My sister and I reminisced at lunch earlier this week about how my dad used to come home from work every other Friday with a new record or two. His record collection was vast and varied, and I used to spend entire Saturday afternoons pulling out albums, examining their cover art and sometimes even playing them. There was some stuff I'd heard on the radio, like Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen, sometimes it would be genuinely wild like Clifton Chenier's Zydeco Boogie, but a lot of it was obscure singer-songwriters like Keith Sykes and Steve Goodman. Looking back, I marvel at how broad my dad's tastes were, and how willing he was to try something new. I still don't know how he managed to stay on top of music the way he did, aside from regular (and no doubt thorough) readings of Rolling Stone.
My enthusiasm for and curiosity toward music, clearly, was learned from my dad's example, along with many other things I've picked up either directly or indirectly (like the box of paperbacks I found in the basement when I was about 14: Lenny Bruce, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan and Emmett Grogan! Talk about mindblowing!).
So today (or tomorrow) being what it is, let's celebrate Dad with a couple of songs from two of my favourite artists that I was introduced to by him. We've got the title cut from John Hiatt's new album Same Old Man, and my favourite song from John Prine's self-titled debut.

mp3: "Same Old Man" by John Hiatt

mp3: "Quiet Man" by John Prine