Elvis Costello Homage.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Music
I can't keep up the Morning Commute Soundtrack forever. Monotony is a good part of the reason; last week things were, within my boundaries, eclectic, but if the truth be known I mostly listen to Elvis Costello, Elvis Costello and Elvis Costello. Have I got anything without Elvis Costello? Well, there's Squeeze. That only has a little Elvis Costello in it.

It is easy for me to listen to EC that much because his recording career has spanned nearly 30 years and every musical genre from rock to traditional country to chamber music. I like his vocal style, which I once characterized as perverse crooner; while it's true that he can be nasal and grating when the material calls for it, he can also be achingly melodic.

The guy has had virtually zero airplay for 25 years. Some say this is due to a long-ago drunken insult of Ray Charles delivered to Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie, the fallout of which involved EC being labelled a racist and ruined in the American record business. That may be true. It may also be true that contemporary American tastes in music are so abysmal that people like Jennifer Lopez and Eminem are popular, and if middle America is eating a steady diet of dog shit and enjoying it, well, need I say more?

I first started listening to Elvis Costello around 1990; in hindsight, that is the only justification for Anthony, my second husband, who introduced me to his work. I believe it was early 1993 when I attended an EC concert for the first time and decided then and there that he was probably God. It was the night before my Contracts final and I was admittedly a bit overwrought, but I went on to kick the ass of my exam the next day and love the hell out of EC for all these ensuing years. Apart from musical genius, the guy exhibits intellect, wit and humor. Those three characteristics, in combination in any male creature, have the power to knock me clean out of the ring every time.

Take, for example, the cover of his album Spike (1989), pictured. It depicts our intrepid hero decapitated and mounted upon blue satin on a wooden plaque with a tartan background, his face painted in startling harlequin pattern and wearing a truly alarming grin. Beneath the plaque is a brass plate reading The Beloved Entertainer. Even after all these years, this visual atrocity has the power to captivate me; looking at it recently, Ben stared for fully a minute before whispering reverently, That sick, sick fuck. Surely one of the reasons I'm crazy about Ben is that he understands and appreciates Elvis Costello.

In other news, I'm off to the ob/gyn today for my monthly exam and weight check, and also to explain why I blew off the gratuitous additional gestational diabetes test (no time and no point), and why I'm blowing off the repeat ultrasound (ditto). Doctors hate girls who don't follow orders, and I hate the fact that doctors have to spend so much time covering their bases, and their asses, for fear of malpractice. Yippee!