Listapalooza: My top 5 songs of 2006

Because I don’t buy full albums anymore …

1. “On the Radio,” Regina Spektor (or really, anything by Regina Spektor)
2. “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” KT Tunstall (or anything else by KT, with the exception of “Suddenly I See,” which was in just about every TV pilot this year and got totally played into the ground)
3. “Save Room,” John Legend (my favorite off the new album)
4. “Busting up a Starbucks,” Mike Doughty
5. “Let Me Go,” Sonya Kitchell

Tunstall Lash

Is it just me, or has every single TV show premiere this fall used a KT Tunstall song? It’s freaky. I swear, we watched one night of TV where three shows in a row had the same tune, “Suddenly I See.” Much as I dug KT when “Eye to the Telescope” came out earlier this year (even posted over on Plugs about it), this is getting out of control. I just hope the same overexposed fate doesn’t befall my new love, Regina Spektor.

The Action News Theme

An interactive post, courtesy of Matt Johnson.

Ever since my days at UTV13, Penn’s abominable excuse for a campus TV station, I’ve been in love with “The Action News Theme.” Back then we pirated the music for our evening newscast (basically a collection of highlights from WPVI’s news, which we also pirated and re-edited), and I’ve been humming the upbeat ditty ever since. Turns out the original version, composed by Al Ham, went by the title “Move Closer to Your World” and had some moving lyrics. Matt sent this link to a site that has the original music and all of its iterations. I can’t say for sure which version is the best makeout music, but I’ll let you all be the judge.

Hair Watch: NPR Weighs In

I don’t know how I missed this one! On July 13′s Talk of the Nation, there was a fabulous episode called “The Politics of Hair,” with guest Peter Sagal, the follicly-challenged host of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me. Most of the discussion was from the perspective of the bald voter—how he must weigh the Sophie’s choice of having to vote for one full head of hair or another. Seeing as how the chance of people actually listening to the RealAudio of the episode is slim, I’ll recap the high points in the extended entry, below. Among the issues tackled: How did Ike get elected with his barren scalp? Is Cheney the bald man’s candidate? The fake baldness of Jesse Ventura. And the real tragedy of Jack Ryan.

How to Cure Sweating

Over the July 4th weekend, I leaned an ugly truth about myself. In the course of walking about West Philly with my brother’s family, I realized how disgusting my sweat truly is. Thanks to massive salt stains circling my man tits and underarms, I now see that, with three months until the wedding, drastic measures are necessary. Surgery, as I’ll explain below, might be an option.

On the recommendation of my friends Pete and Kim, I downloaded the audiobook of Dr. Atul Gawande’s Complications last month, and have been listening to it on my iPod ever since. Gawande is one of the New Yorker’s two nonpareil medical correspondents (the other being Dr. Jerome Groopman), and the book is basically a collection of his essays from the magazine—most of which are drawn from his days as a medical resident. You get a peek into gastric bypass operations, Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences, and the ever-so-pleasant discovery of Necrotizing Fasciitis (aka “flesh eating bacteria”) in a 23-year-old woman. But what fascinated me most was the story of a female TV news anchor who had a case of chronic blushing. Because the embarrassing redness was interfering with her career, she sought out an experimental Swedish surgery to sever the nerve that controls facial blushing. But, as luck would have it, cutting this fiber had an unintended, if convenient, side effect. It eliminated almost all of her upper body sweating!

(You can read the New Yorker incarnation of this particular story, “Crimson Tide,” here. Definitely the best part of the book, in my opinion.)

Glory, Glory, Fallujah!

There was a great segment by Sarah Vowell on last Satuday’s This America Life about the bizarre evolution of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Who knew that a song we use to mourn the 9/11 victims and rally the troops in the war on terror was originally written to commemorate the first American terrorist?

Hey Ya!/Hey Ma!

As a one-song fan of OutKast and an occassional cat enthusiast, when I saw this little clip, “Hey Ma!” on GMA, I couldn’t resist the temptation to post it. Just be warned: One lyric, “Hey I’ve got the kitty … Oh, I’ve got the kitty … And I put it in the toilet for a ba-a-ath,” will have you humming for days, often to the looks of confusion and disgust from co-workers.