Cash So I’m poking along, planning my wedding at the library. And many pieces that are coming together are due to the fact that I have a bf with many past lives. He used to co-own a snarky greeting card company and his former partner designed some awesome seating cards for us that look like library cards. They’re also working on the invitations. From his days in Chicago theater he also found our photographer. We picked out our hotel which sits about a mile and a half from the library and is on the pier. I found wedding favors on sale that fit our unusual theme of books and leaves.

Two weekends ago, we also navigated around a free Honeymoon scam. David’s Bridal (who I’ve never visited but where I signed up for email tips) allegedly sells names to some unscrupulous vendors. One of those vendors called me claiming I had been to a bridal expo (I haven’t and never will) and had been submitted to win a free trip. To claim it, I had to visit a local hotel and listen to a spiel about the products of RP Bridal. Bf smelled something fishy right away and so I did an Internet search where I read all sorts of horror stories about lost deposits, faulty pots and pans, hard sells, salesmen who go lost in the night with deposits, refusals to cancel, harassments from bill collectors on phantom orders…crazy sad stories. It was all Internet hearsay but it was enough to keep us away. But how depressin in this cloudy economic climate to prey on hopeful young brides. Thank God, we're old and cynical. We have appointments this month to look at dresses, taste cakes and meet florists.

In the meantime, bf and I are obsessed with the BBC show You Are What You Eat hosted by the tart and cranky Gillian McKeith. She has inspired me with her shock tactics to stop eating crap and lose weight. Three great things about the show: 

  1. When Gillian lays out for people all the crap they eat in a week…it’s alarming; she also uses shock tactics to show them how awful their biggest vice is: how much sugar is in it; all the butter they ingest in a month, it's always very visual and shocking.
  2. When she asks them to give her a poop sample and then she then berates it in always original ways.
  3. The 8-week transformations are pretty amazing.

I’m also corresponding with our DJ while I plan out all my music lists, which is particularly pleasurable for me. I was searching for fun dance songs for the reception and I said to myself, I wish there was a dance remix of a Johnny Cash song. Little did I know a whole CD of his earlier recordings remixed was about to be released. I downloaded it yesterday and have been loving it! 

Be prepared: it's similar to the remix of Elvis' "A Little Less Conversation," and the dance mixes of Serge Gainsbourg. I wish someone would do the same with Cher’s 60s and 70s material – back before every single had a cousin-remix that was released with it.

The Cash album was executive-produced by Snoop Dogg and the late singer's son, John Carter Cash. Reviews have been mixed but I love it. My favorites are "Get Rhythm," "Sugartime," and a remix of "Folsom Prison Blues." Time Magazine loved it but Rolling Stone hated it. I wonder if Johnny Cash fans can be a bit too…serious.

Which makes it  ironic that Rolling Stone insulted it by calling it musical comedy. Now this is the rag that has refused to do an extensive piece on Cher since 1973! Pleh. You’re a disgrace, you self-righteous frogs. What? Only Bono allowed to do his simplistic, over-dramatic tributes?

Another review online lamented that Cash songs were never meant to sound urban. Duh! Welcome to remix world, genius.

I’ve been a Johnny Cash fan as long as I’ve been a Cher fan. For-f*#king ever. I was weaned on it and I still managed to get my groove on as I grew up. I so TIRED of this partisanship between country-rock white-asses vs. all forms of urban black music (hip hop, rap, dance, disco – you name it, they hate it).

What I love about this album:

  1. It’s refreshing to see black artists sampling white music for a change. I think this shows inspiring progress out of our past musical segregations. I loved The Beatles samplings in the mashup The Grey Album by Danger Mouse for the same reason.
  2. The contrast of urban new sounds with the old tiney Sun Studio recordings is sweet.
  3. Cash’s booming voice and his band's pounding bass rhythms kick up easily to these tracks, not all of which are dance tracks, by the way; there’s a nice variety of rap and ethereal ballad-making. It’s juicy.

By the way, Glen Campbell’s new album Meet Glen Campbell is swell, too.