365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)

Thursday, March 6, 2014

T-shirt #350 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden #2

TODAY'S COUNT: 15 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

T-shirt #350 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden #2

Greetings reader. Thank you for checking out my blog.

This is my third 10,000 Maniacs shirt, and I think I have shared everything I want to share about this wonderful band in these previous entries:

T-SHIRT #257: 10,000 MANIACS - BLIND MAN'S ZOO

T-SHIRT #289: 10,000 MANIACS - OUR TIME IN EDEN

And so, I thought I would try something a bit different today. A battle of the bands, in which I share videos of various bands in mock competition for your attention. I will share one 10,000 Maniacs song and then my choices will be based on bands for which I do not own T-shirts, and so they would not be otherwise featured, which means no videos by the Who, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Dead Can Dance, King Crimson, the Jam, The Pixies, the Clash, Sigur Rós, Kraftwerk, Sterolab, Steely Dan, U2, Cocteau Twins, Everything But the Girl, Joy Division, New Order, and a few others I am not thinking of off hand or that I am planning to feature later. As you can see, this is just bands that I am including not individual musical artists.

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WARNING: DISCLAIMER OF BROKEN VIDEO LINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. In reviewing some of my former posts which contain music videos, I have found that the videos are no longer loading on many of the pages. My preliminary investigations reveal that the more recent videos are still embedded, but older pages are missing their video widgets. After some research, I discovered that this is a known issue. It appears that it is an issue with Chrome.

GOOGLE FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC ONE

GOOGLE FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC TWO

I checked, and the videos work fine in Internet Explorer, which is the only other browser to which I have access. But they probably work fine in other browsers, too. This may finally get me to download FireFox, which I gave up on years ago because of its massive memory leak! Just FYI, if you have trouble seeing videos on any of my pages, try another browser. I may or may not try to reload them all in all the past pages. This could take a lot of work, and if they are still embedded and just not visible from every instance of Google Chrome, then I am not sure I want to do the extra work. I am sure you understand. :-)

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OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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TODAY'S VIDEOS

Presenting here kind of a mock "Battle of the Bands" with what I think are some of the greatest "rock" band songs in all of modern music (not counting ones I have already presented, so this is an edited list). See explanation farther above. I will try to restrict myself to TEN, which is going to be difficult.

1. We start off with 10,000 Maniacs because of the shirt, but also because this is a GREAT song.

10,000 Maniacs - These are Days (Live MTV Unplugged 1993)




2. I think one could make the argument that this next song is the single greatest rock and roll song of all time.

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - the best version ever.




3. I know, I know... this next one is such a standard pick and so over selected, and yet, how can I not select it?

Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven Live (HD)




4. There can be no battle of great bands without this one from CSN&Y. Amazing.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu (video)




5. I am somewhat restricted by You Tube's restrictions with Beatles content. However, this is just one of my favorites if not my single favorite Beatles song. I would not argue that it's the best Beatles song, but I adore it.

Beatles- Let It Be


6. I am sure that people who view my list will note that I am leaving out many great bands and that I am selecting with my own personal preferences. Well.... uh... yeah, DUH. I love Talking Heads, and when I decided to do this battle of the bands, this was the song that popped into my head. When I found this love version: kismet!

Talking Heads - Live in Rome 1980 - 11 The Great Curve




7. Before I get accused of just sharing videos by white people, one of the greatest African-American groups of all time. FANTASTIC stuff.

Arrested Development - United Front (Video)




8. Time for a little SKA, but it's SKA that transcends SKA. A band that should be known as simply "The Beat." I could have picked so many other bands and songs, I know. But this is such a beautiful song and one of my all time favorites, and it's my band battle, so there.

English Beat "End of the Party" (Live) June 5, 2009




9. This next one is all my all-time top song to make DJs play on college radio. This video may not be the best (though it is the best of the lot that are out there), but I wanted a live one, so here it is.

Roxy Music..........Prairie Rose live in Newcastle




10. So many bands and songs that I could select for the last one, and I KNOW I am leaving out so many bands, but this next song has always meant a lot to me, and it makes me happy. It's what I wish you, too. HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY. :-)

Haircut 100 - Fantastic Day




COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 15 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1403.06 - 19:19
final publication - 1403.07 - 11:22

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