Desert Island Discs… Tim Finn, “Before & After”

I first heard Tim Finn at Radio City Music Hall in the early 1990’s.  He was opening for 10,000 Maniacs and I loved his stuff.  The album he was promoting at the time, “Tim Finn,” easily could be one of my desert island discs — if only for the line, “When I came running to you, I was following the light from a dead star,” which is on the track “Not Even Close.”  But I am limiting myself to one disc per artist and so I am choosing instead a later album, “Before & After.”

A member of both Split Enz and Crowded House before going solo, Finn is a thinking man’s musician.  His lyrics are smart and soulful and, to be honest, occasionally overreaching and treacly.  There are a few misses on “Before & After,” but the hits are numerous, anchored by two killer love songs, “Protected” and “Walk You Home.”

On “Walk You Home,” Finn pledges that he will always be there for his lover, even if she doesn’t yet realize that she someday will need him.   As the song hits its climax, Finn sings:

Oh, when the days drag on too long
When your strong resolve is broken
Resistance merely token
I’ll be there beside you.
Oh, when the night comes crashing down
Stars will fall and sky will thunder
You’ll hesitate and blunder
I’ll be there to walk you home.

Isn’t that what we all want, really?  Someone who will be there to help pick up the pieces if/when it all goes to hell?  He repeats that last line a few times and then adds, in a quiet voice, almost as an aside, “If you let me.” 

Very good stuff on a most excellent disc.

Am I Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? No, I Am Not

On Friday evening, my daughter’s school held a fundraiser in which a few brave parents — myself included — played a version of the game “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?”  Having never seen the TV show, I didn’t quite know what to expect, but there we were — ten parents, ten honest-to-goodness fifth graders, and a host who looked and sounded just like Jeff Foxworthy. 

We played in groups of three, with each group being given the chance to “peek,” “copy,” or be “saved” by a correct answer from one of the fifth graders.   I was up third in my group and by the time I got on stage, the opportunities to “peek,” “copy,” or be “saved” had long since been used up.  I was on my own.  

The first question was easy and in my slam-dunk category…English.  I was shown a sentence and had to determine if it was an example of a simile or a metaphor.  It was a simile.  No problem.

Ah, but then came Geography, the only category left.  Not my strong suit.  The question… Name the largest island in the world.  My first instinct was to say Australia, but that also was the obvious answer.  Perhaps it was a trick question.  So I went with Greenland, which, as it turns out, is the world’s SECOND-largest island, trailing only (you guessed it) Australia.

For my troubles, I was made to sit Indian style in the center of the stage and pronounce for all to hear, “I am NOT smarter than a fifth grader.”

But you already knew that. 

Vanity Thy Name Is Clinique Repairwear Deep Wrinkle Concentrate for Face and Eye

I wrote a few weeks ago about how my seven-year-old daughter was kind enough to point out the wrinkles that now adorn my 39-year-11-month-old forehead.  It was kind of like the way you hear a word for the first time in your life and then hear it twelve more times in the next week.  Once the wrinkles were pointed out to me — by a child whose skin is so perfect that she is often compared to a porcelain doll – I began to see those suckers in a whole new light.  They weren’t “character lines” anymore.  They were wrinkles, plain and simple and ugly.  I mentioned this to my wife, who said she had some “product” that might help.  It came as a freebie in a Clinique gift set I had given her for her birthday last year.  I decided to give it a shot. 

The description on the bottle is priceless.  “At the base of a wrinkle,” it reads, “skin cells are compressed and weak.”  Goddamnit!  “Now,” it continues, “a peptide complex boosts skin’s own natural collagen production.”  Hooray! 

The bottle indicates that the product has a “patent pending,” which I take to be code for “we have no idea if this shit works.”  Nevertheless, I have been applying it to my forehead twice a day, as directed.  (“Disciplined use required,” the bottle reads, implying that, if it doesn’t work, it’s simply because you’re careless and lazy.)

The results to date have certainly been impressive — if you consider dime-sized zits to be impressive.  Basically, the valleys in my forehead — deep as ever — are now surrounded by the picturesque Whitehead Mountains.  Nevertheless, I remain optimistic that the “unique to Clinique bottom-up strategy for rapid repair” will ultimately yield the desired outcome.  

Hope in a bottle, as they say.

UPDATE: I have been using this product faithfully for a few weeks now and – I’ll be damned — it is working incredibly well.  Thank you, Clinique Repairwear Deep Wrinkle Concentrate for Face and Eye!