I have been swamped at work this week, barely keeping my head above water. My GoogleReader isn’t even counting my unread posts anymore.

Today I finally caught up to speed — and took a short, blessed breath of respite. And finding this video was how I spent that time.

I think I made an excellent choice.

Outlook is by far the worst crime against humanity that Microsoft has ever committed.

What is a Great songwriter to do when all the Great songs have been written? Okkervil River’s front-man, Will Sheff, seems to struggle with this conundrum in “Plus Ones” … an easily over-looked track from The Stage Names, released this past August.

Ostensibly the song is written to a lover, and addresses the sad fact that yes, everyone has been proverbially shat on — so take a number, dear. Sheff litters the lyrics of this number with effortless allusions to great numerical pop songs that preceded him, such as: “96 Tears” … “99 Luftballoons” … “Care of Cell 44” … “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” …”Sixteen Candles” … “8 Miles High” … “7 Chinese Brothers” … “Three Times a Lady” … “TVC15” … and who knows, I may have missed one.

Is there new pain to feel? What makes yours so special, dear? So dehabilitating? Why should I listen to a song about it, when I have all these Great songs already?

Are there Great love songs left to write? Or are they just numbers now … songs to throw on the pile of other Great songs, reducing the power of what a Great song is? Should we just tell people “I’m sorry, Dylan happened. There’s nothing for you to do here … in fact, Dylan, you can go home now, too. Thanks.”

The problem is that pain is fresh to the one who feels it … to the outside observer, it’s old hat … the 100th luftballoon. And in some ways, each new pop song eeked into existence is just another tear, another candle, another cell, another mile … another way to leave your lover.

For the record, I think Will Sheff will eventually write a new song that belongs in the list above. Truly, he’s a gifted songwriter with both the schooling and the muse to be one of the Greats. He has yet to garner the notoriety of some of his contemporaries, but Okkervil River’s last album (Black Sheep Boy) did get some notice from the indie-gencia. “For Real,” a single off that album, is pretty damn close to a Great Song. I think Sheff is going to write one soon enough.

Until then, this one will hold me over just fine. As will the next one.

The player below starts with the Okkervil River track and includes each song listed above in order of their appearance in the song. You know, cause I care. It also includes “What’s New Pussycat?“, also mentioned in the track, and “For Real.”

SeeqPod is awesome (thank you, The Sue Funke).

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

Blogging can be a more dangerous proposition than it first appears to be … the problem is, that sometimes people actually read blogs. What’s worse, some people care about what’s written in them.As you’ve clearly noticed, I’ve recently re-joined the rank and file of the blogging world, and I’m excited and pleased to be doing so. My own reasons for re-emergence are scattered … but some of it has to do with memory and other things alluded to ina previous post. Consequently, I’m using this as a public journal of sorts.  A blog, if you will.

I bull-dozed through my youth (like everyone else), but I have enough document from that period to remember what it’s like to be young. There are so many benchmarks that you clearly reach (or don’t reach), that it can be relatively easy to call up memories from 14, 18, 22, etc.

But what about 26? Let alone 29 …To combat this problem, a few years ago I began making playlists of songs that were in heavy rotation on my iPod (or what have you) for each season of a year, beginning with Summer 2003. This was vaguely inspired by the film, High Fidelity (there’s a scene where John Cusack is so upset that he starts re-organizing his vast record collection in order of musical discovery - brilliant). These are the equivalent my photo albums, as photos didn’t really interest me much until recently.

But I’d like to use this blog to get more specific about logging the experiences, emotions, perspectives and perceptions of my days. That way I could get a clear sense whether 29 year old Matt might get a kick out of 39 year old Matt. (The jury is still out on whether that actually matters.)

But there are dangers. How specific can I be? Will people be offended by what I say? Will observations/thoughts that I have come back to bite me when packaged for public consumption? What if I’ve neglected to tell someone something and they read about it on my blog? Should I change the time-stamp to be outside of work hours? This site isn’t important enough to me to negatively affect my “real” world. Obviously, you shouldn’t say things like “my boss is a d-bag” on your blog. But you’d have to be pretty thick not to realize that. Especially because I assume most potential employers Google people’s names now.

The lovely lady I’ve been spending time with lately asked me what I write about on my blog. I didn’t really have an answer for her. I mean, I do write about my life (I guess I’m doing that right now), but I don’t really … confess dark secrets here. I try not to name names in most scenarios. It can be limiting at times … part of the reason I write (publicly or otherwise) is to better articulate the thoughts in my head … and plenty of those thoughts are about the people who are close to me. The only way I’ll blog about that though is if I’ve extrapolated some greater observation from the situation. And even then, if it’s at all a sensitive situation in my real life, it probably won’t end up here (explicitly anyway).

I try to have an open-door policy in my life as it is. I may not offer certain information up without being asked, but in most cases, I’ve found that being dodgy about something does more damage than what you were being dodgy about. If I can show someone that I’m on the level with something, then generally they are going to be pretty accepting and on-the-level with me too. Of course, it’s not always that easy. There are things that you must do in your life, that you can’t explain to other people, things that seem unacceptable out of context … that doesn’t make them less important, genuine or necessary.

So … to answer the lovely lady’s question … time will tell what I write about. Good guesses include: music, culture, city-life … observations on advertising (the industry I work in) … and once in a while I’ll probably sneak in a sermon or two. I hope to make use of the tag cloud in the left hand sidebar so we can all see what I’m writing about.You know.

For posterity. Ahem.

I’ll admit it. I loved Counting Crows. I suppose I still do. It’s a strained relationship … like ex-lovers who know each other too well. But they were absolutely integral to my high school and college experience. They lead me to plenty of musical discoveries by checking out bands they mentioned, covered, idolized, etc. … through which I found a slew of bands that I now listen to with more passion than the Crows inspire in me these days.Denying the Crows would be like denying my hometown … I’d love to do it (and I will mock both mercilessly given half a chance), but in the end its influence is sewn into me. In the end, the Crows win.And let’s be honest, there are some incredible lyrics in their songs. I’m not sure that anyone has ever matched the plain-spoken beauty of :

“I want to be the last thing you hear when you’re falling asleep”- from “Catapult” on 1997’s Recovering the Satellites   

So, I was shocked to discover last night that they’re playing a gig at Town Hall next week … and I had no idea. In fact, they are performing their first album (August and Everything After … the one you owned) in its entirety. I, of course, scoured the nets in search of tickets, but I’m not paying ticket brokers $350+ to sit in the back of the balcony, let alone over a grand for orchestra seats.It’s okay. I’ve only seen them live 11 times (sadly, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration - perhaps I’ll list them out for y’all someday). Point is - I can do without. But man, how times have changed. I would have sold my ass on Freemont Street to get those tickets 5 years ago.Something I think about a lot lately … as I just recently reached the 10 year anniversary of arriving in our fair city. Man, that kid was different. Don’t get me wrong, I like the current me a lot better (warts and all … I have a lot more faith in the latest release of Matt Urban). However, I often wonder what previous Matt Urbans would think if they met me.Perhaps not coincidentally, almost every Counting Crows song focuses on memory and its influence on your current place, time and actions. If you’re feeling somewhat nostalgic and need a warm blanket to cover you, you could do worse than Counting Crows. Worst case scenario, it’ll remind you how far you’ve come (or gone).Here’s a performance from Storytellers of the song that first stabbed me in the gut when I was 15, “Anna Begins” - off the aforementioned “August” record. My heart was henceforth permanently broken - and I’ve never been able to sleep in a quiet room since. All this, over a girl I never met.