how hi the fi?

How Hi The Fi is the personal blog of Paul Rehm that might more aptly be named "Ranking Everything." The focal points of the blog are the posts in which I take an artist's career - be it musical, directorial or something else - view, listen to or read their work chronologically and then rank them from best to worst. In between these posts, I share my day-to-day happenings and plans for future lists. The blog is named after an album by jazz musician Buck Clayton that captures the attitude this blog would ideally convey. Be sure to bookmark this page and come back often!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I Intend To Live Forever. So Far So Good.

In this, the latest segment of "my job is better than yours" we see some photos from work from a few weeks ago. The full gallery is available in my "Picasa" link in the "STALK ME" section of the side bar. Check out the side bar if you've got a chance because I've literally spent hours on it in the past week to make it more interesting and full. I've been meaning to post these pictures somewhere for a few weeks now and I figured it would make an interesting blog post. The guy and his friend built this car themselves and he races it around the country. Turns out he's from Douglasville, which is where I work and it also turns out that it's street legal which is cool. So he offered to take me around in it. He got it up to about 125mph at one point which was fun for me because I was easily the tallest person to ever ride in it and I had no helmet, seatbelt, glasses or anything to protect me from being impaled by a pebble or something. Suffice it to say it was awesome. Clicking on the photos should make them larger as blogspot apparently doesn't like photos to be very big on the entries themselves. All in all I've done some very cool things at my job. Most of you know about the thing with the Braves (see the aforementioned Picasa gallery for photos from that), I've also had the chance to meet a few NBA players, the best high school basketball player in the country Derrick Favors, Georgia State football head coach Bill Curry (see: former Ga Tech & Bama coach) and a bunch of WNBA folks. There were also several others I am probably forgetting in addition to the sorts of things depicted in these photos. Believe it or not, I'm not really bragging. Work is usually more of a pain in the ass than fun, but it's nice to spotlight the better things to remind myself they exist.

Since this post is pretty boring, I figured I could share something more interesting. A few weeks ago (aka "the olden-days") my friend Kelly and I devoted hours of our precious, precious lives to establishing a perfect Mixtape/CD of indie rock for popular consumption. That is, this mixtape may not be our 17 favorite indie songs of all time, but it's the exact sort of CD one should listen to should they want to try and get into indie rock. I should probably mention that some of the music on here (see: Bob Dylan), isn't really indie music but just seemed to fit the tone of the CD rather well. We're currently working on perfecting an alternative rock CD that I'll eventually share here as well. Anyways, this CD has a good number of songs you may have heard in the past, which was part of the point. It's just an introduction to indie, not necessarily representative of the genre as a whole. And just to clarify, I mean indie strictly in the genre sense, not the literal sense of "independent music" which is often quite different. Admittedly, some of these bands suck (see: The Postal Service), but the songs fit the feel so we're rolling with it.
  1. The Format - I'm Actual
  2. Ben Kweller - Sha Sha (How It Should Be)
  3. Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
  4. Of Montreal - Wraith Pinned To The Mist...
  5. The Shins - Young Pilgrim
  6. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
  7. Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks
  8. Sufjan Stevens - Decatur
  9. The Format - Dog Problems
  10. Of Montreal - Disconnect The Dots
  11. Joanna Newsom - Inflammatory Writ
  12. Anathallo - Hanasakajijii (A Great Wind, More Ash)
  13. Melanie - Brand New Key
  14. Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
  15. The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane
  16. Bob Dylan - Lonesome Day Blues
  17. David Bowie - Queen Bitch

Also, if you want to make it a playlist (which can hold more music than a standard CD) I'd throw the following songs in there:

  • Mika - Lollipop
  • Mika - Love Today
  • The Cat Empire - Sly
  • The Flaming Lips - Yeah Yeah Yeah
  • Belle & Sebastian - Stars Of Track & Field
  • Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To My Lovely (which, pending Kelly's approval, will be put in between tracks 7 and 8 on the above mix officially)

Actually, I could name dozens of songs you could throw into a playlist of this sort. If you decide to put this CD together, let me know what you think. My ego is my second favorite thing to have stroked. That is, behind my hair. Right.

3 comments:

nichole davis said...

where the hell did all your hair go?!

i remember you making that playlist ...
i still think the bird and the bee deserves a spot.

paul rehm said...

my hair's mostly back. it's an old picture.

Anonymous said...

wooah ho look at you being all hair-cutty and normal looking. HOTT.