I'm it.

Apparently, I've been "tagged." Not with spray paint on my substantially sized posterior, mind you, but metaphorically "tagged" in blog-speak. This is a new phenomenon to me. What happens is, someone, somewhere in Blogland thinks up five interesting questions, and then passes them along to (tags, as it were) another blogger with them. So my only blog buddy, the Texpatriate has now tagged me. So here goes:

1. Total amount of music files on your computer?
4864 songs; 12.9 days; 31.1 GB
And this is my work computer. So the fact that I've eaten up 95% of my memory with music is pretty funny. I'm stickin' it to the man!!

2. The last CD you bought was...
I bought three at once, actually: Alpinestars "White Noise," Rufus Wainright, "Want Two," Innocence Mission, "Now the Day is Over"

3. What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?
The Louvin Brothers, "If I Could Only Win Your Love." It was playing on KOOP's Tuesday morning show, "Country Roots." I gotta say, for a small city, Austin has some rather good independent radio. KOOP's morning programming alone is worth a yearly membership to support this station. "The Country Swing and Rockabilly Jamboree?" Awesome. "Soul Sauce?" Kick ass. "The Lounge Show?" Terrific.

4. Write down five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
Man, this is a hard one. Just five? Jeez. If I seek out a particular song to listen to, it's for one of three reasons: a) PERFORMANCE: I wanna sing it at the top of my lungs, b) MOOD ALTERATION/ENHANCEMENT: I'm feeling sad and want to cry my eyes out to a sad/meaningful song OR I'm feeling sad and a want a good song to cheer me up, c) BODY MOVIN', GITCHER BODY MOVIN': I wanna rock out and/or dance my butt off like the uncoordinated goob that I am.
So the following list represents a little bit of all of these reasons.

1- "Cracklin' Water" by Giant Sand.
Howe Gelb is a fucking genius. A fucking SEXY genius. If you listen to this song really loudly with your headphones on, you feel like he's whispering in your ear. I just love this man.
2- "Untitled" off of Green by R.E.M.
"...and keep her strong, while I'm away from here..."--THIS song has become a prayer to me. I listen to it all the time with The Geej in mind.
3- "Alone Again Or" by Calexico
An amazing remake of the song by 70s group "Love." (It was also covered by The Damned at one point.) I dare you to listen to this song and not feel that happy, variety show feeling by the end. 95% of what Calexico does is flawless. This band is one of my favorites.
4-"Every Hour Here" by The Innocence Mission
A song about realizing that God is always with you, even if you don't realize it. Not preachy, just lovely. And Karen Peris's voice is ethereal and dazzling.
5- "Hush" by Tool
It starts out with the singer screaming, "FUUUK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!" at the top of his lungs. The kind of thing that make mothers ship their kids away to military school for listening to. Maynard James Keenan and company at their raw, scary best. Anything off of this album immediately transports me to a time in my life when it was all about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. In other words, an absurdly irresponsible and fun and dangerous time that seems a gazillion years ago.

5. What 3 people are you going to pass this baton to and why?
Um, I don't have any real "blog friends" other than the person who sent this to me originally. At least I don't think I do... So, I'm going to tag random bloggers who've posted comments on my site: Like this chick, and this guy and this gal in the off chance they check in with the old Pine Curtain Refugee from time to time. TAG, YOU'RE IT!