THE DOMESTICATED BACHELOR

Jon (Benny Lava) Perry

It’s genealogy time in the bachelor cave.  It came up in conversation a month ago with Jeff, one of the main dudes at my office.  After a heated discussion on Nietzsche (not really) we somehow got into world travel or genealogy where I learned that, as a result of his genealogical research on Ancestry.com, Jeff would be traveling next year to a small town in the Czech Republic with his dad to see where their ancestors had lived.  Awesome!  Jeff raved about how easy it was to track family information on the site.  I mentioned how much I’ve wanted to do genealogical research to, among other things, discover my alleged family connection to Benjamin Franklin, rock star of the American Revolution and all-around genius-type.  My brothers and I grew up with the fairly unverifiable legend that Franklin is a shirttail relative.  And nailing my genealogy is on my lengthy bucket list (see the list here).  To my surprise, Jeff, wrote down his account name and password and graciously offered to let me use his account for the remaining weeks that were paid up on the site.  Going online, I took a crack at my family’s information and was surprised by what I found.

My mom’s genealogy is fairly sorted.  We have 2 large red genealogy volumes of the Hinkle side of the family that follow Lutheran missionaries from Germany to America in the 1600s and continue up through the twentieth century.  Also, a couple years back I sat down with my grandma and taped an oral history, learning a great deal about the Gottschalls in the process.  So, I started researching my dad’s side which is less known to most of the family and from where come stories of a Chippewa Indian chief as well as the aforementioned Ben Franklin.  Right away I hit a dead end with my dad’s dad’s branch, the Perrys, the branch with the chief, though I was able to see a 1920 census document from Chicago with names of relatives scrawled out in that old timey handwriting.

James & Amos Van Gundy. No clue who's who. Put online by a relative I don't know.

Instead, I had much better luck tracking through my dad’s mom’s side of the family.  The Van Gundys.  Amazingly, within a few hours I’d gotten as far back as the 1500s in Switzerland (not actually Van Gundys, but several lines of their ancestors).  It was incredible!  500 years!  I had no clue we had Swiss blood.  I’d known about a few of our German lines, as well as Chippewa, Cherokee, likely Welsh and Dutch, but not about the Swiss.  I feel like slicing up some Swiss cheese with my Swiss Army knife and chomping down some Swiss chocolate while listening to yodeling and alpenhorn music as I ski the alps near those mountain goats and cows with the bells.  (Needs more cowbell!)  Besides all the Swiss family Robinson (there were no Robinsons), I found a few branches from the Alsace-Lorraine region of Germany.  The region has changed hands numerous times between France & Germany over the centuries.  So, through all this, we may even have French ancestry.  French!  Do the French make good Swiss chocolate?   Oui.

In the records I saw an alternate spelling for Van Gundy as Von Gundy and Von indicates nobility, but that could just be a misspelling, so I iced my excitement (especially since I’d come to a dead end on that line).  I discovered indirect relatives born in China about 200 years ago, but they had Western names and I suspect they might have been family of missionaries or statesmen or merchants or whatever weird job put Europeans in China back then.  There was one direct family line with 3 or 4 brothers who fought in the American Revolution after coming over from Switzerland.  Pretty cool.

Great-Great Grandpa Winston Van Gundy

After I’d done all this research, I spoke to my dad about what I’d found and was told that he’d learned from great-grandma Van Gundy, shortly before she died, that the Ben Franklin connection was more indirect and roundabout than we’d grown up believing.  It turns out that my great-grandma’s sister’s daughter married a Franklin and the connection is through that.  Disappointing.  I’d hoped there was some genius Franklin gene floating around that was stuck in my head just waiting to pop out and usefully manifest itself in the near future, but no.  I also learned from my dad that through marriage we’re related to a wrestler called Wild Red Berry, who wrestled in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.  I even found video footage of his wrestling matches on Youtube.  That was kind of cool and weird.  Weirder still, in the 90s we lived in the same small Kansas town this where this guy had served as mayor and head of the parks department.  We’d had no idea.

Researching my ancestors made me really feel connected to them (I mean, besides the genetic disorders).  I may not learn much about them, but I’ll see names, dates of birth and death, places and even an occasional story or 2.  I’d like to go through each name (there are a few hundred so far) and Google to see what stories I can scrounge.  I’ve found a few already.  I want to discover what they were like.  I’ve seen photos of now dead great-great-grandparents I never met put up online by relatives I don’t know.  What can I learn about these people who lived scores or hundreds of years ago?  They each had their unique characteristics.  Their lives had meaning and in a way, when I think about, talk about, or research them, they kind of live again, if only for me.

I may not be directly related to Ben Franklin, but I have many interesting people in my family history, many still living.  I’ll have to harass more of them for stories.  They may not be famous, but they’re still pretty nifty.  I got a few new leads from my dad, so I’ll have to track those down.  I still have mom’s side to fully discover and that should be interesting (I need to read those big red Hinkle books).  Besides, family legend has it that great-grandpa Seitz left Germany and came to America just before WWI leaving behind a family castle along the Rhine River.  Oh, and there are 2 NBA basketball coaches named Van Gundy and maybe we’re cousins.  There’s enough to keep me busy for awhile.  Perhaps one day I’ll take an exploratory trip to Switzerland and see if I can round up some swell Swiss family tales.  Maybe buy an alpenhorn.  And lots of Swiss chocolate.

The secret word is alpenhorn

Semi-Related Links:

Bachelors In History

A Photographic Memory

Christmas Rituals

Being An Uncle

Children, Braid Your Nosehairs

Dating Advice From The Family

Family Advice: A Reversal (Sort Of)

Will Your Siblings Use Up The Good Names?

Men Without Cats

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by Sir Jonathan Boniface Perry

My fellow blog readers, we do not harass Caesar with tickle fights to haze him, but to Epilady him because he’s Mediterranean and obviously pretty hairy (Mediterranean men recognize their condition and are not offended.  Especially Caesar.).  Yea, verily, here’s the state of the bachelor:  Hungry!  No, really, here it is:

1. Whenever the theme song for “The Office” plays, I make up another song on the spot and sing it over the top of the theme.  Sometimes there are lyrics which may or may not include “Shake your butt.  Shake your butt, baby.”  I’m working on that.  On a related note, I’m sad to hear that Steve Carell plans to leave the show at the end of next season.  Bummer.

2. Last week I was accidentally subscribed to Ladies Home Journal.  Also Parents Magazine and Family Circle.  Probably a sweepstakes entry gone bad, though I don’t rule out a clever prank.  My issue of Family Circle arrived in the mail today.  Really, I did cancel them.

3. Found a dead bird.  1st bird this year.  3 last year.  My yard might be cursed.  I also suspect vuvuzelas.  Or soccer in general.  I left the bird because it was on the edge of the yard and had already been sitting several days.  It smelled a bit & its little claws were sticking up all twig-like.  I mowed around it, so there’s a small square patch unmowed on the side of my front lawn being fertilized a special way.

4. Yes, I realize DB could also stand for Douche Bag.  Oy.

5. I traced several lines of ancestors back into Switzerland for a few hundred years to as early as the 1500s. Crazy awesome! That’s 500 years!  Didn’t know we had any Swiss.  I knew about a few of our German lines, as well as Chippewa, Cherokee, likely Welsh and Dutch, but not about the Swiss.  Still haven’t found how my dad might be related to Benjamin Franklin.  (More to come later on this genealogy business.  Probably.)

6. Average daily blog hits in June- over 100!

7. Found a great Belgian Chocolate Gelato sold by the pint at the supermarket.  Need to quit buying it so I can lose weight.

8. (Update on nicknaming post.) a)Darrin at work has started calling me Pretty Pretty Princess.  Retribution is required.  b)I’m trying out other nicknames for Paul J. who was non-plussed by the nickname Paulina.  Paolo was also apparently inadequate.  I’m thinking Polyglot or something else with Poly-.  Maybe Polymer (not Polyamorous).  c)Still need a good nickname for Randy besides Bookie and Wizzer (not a spelling error from me).  Randalina doesn’t quite do it.  Maybe the Great Randini. d) Nickname for Dave Micek, DJ Mice K, is still super awesome!

9.Today, the aforementioned Apollo Polyglot at work guessed I was only 27 years old (he’s 10 yrs off).   This, of course, rocks.  Not sure whether this guess was based on my maturity or if my vampire white skin is paying off.

10. Need to renew my passport for that cruise in Dec.  It needs to be valid for 6 months after the trip, but mine would only be good for 5 1/2 months after.  Oh, hey, I’m taking a cruise.  I’ll sunburn in style.

11. I now have over 13,000 songs on my iPod!  Sure, a few hundred tracks are chapters of audio books.  Sure, I had to finally upload a few of those Mozart CDs last night that had been sitting around unused for a few years.  Sure, 135 of those tracks are of my own poorly recorded music and of those maybe 30 are duplicates.  Do I have a 2-disc set of a Bulgarian women’s folk choir singing Bulgarian folk songs leftover from a world music binge in the ’90s?  Yes, I do.  But I’ve reached a special milestone.  If you figure that each album averages 10 tracks, this would mean I should have about 1,300 albums.   According to my iTunes it would take 35 days to listen to this 58GB of songs.  Will I listen to all of these songs straight through uninterrupted over those 35 days?  I will not in a boat with a goat.  But I can, if I wish to kill myself that way.  Also, there is chocolate gelato.

12. Thwarted a kitchen invasion by ants last week.  They were probably displaced by the recent heavy rains.  I gassed my house with poison that probably was the cause of my subsequent sickness.

13. Put down 120 lbs of topsoil near the foundation of the house to fill low spots that were pooling with water during those heavy rains.  Need more.  A little water was leaking into the basement.  On a positive note, I could set-up a Slip-and-Slide in the garage.

In conclusion, that is the recent state of the bachelor.  Will there be changes?  Probably.  Will they be snail-paced?  Most certainly.   Will you have a good Independence Day/July 4th Holiday?  I hope so.  May the force be with you.

The secret word is Polyphonic

A Similar List:

My 25 Humanoid Things

Related Links:

Nicknaming Your Friends For Fun (and Revenge)

Other Linky Links:

Will Your Siblings Use Up The Good Names?

A Photographic Memory

Children, Braid Your Nosehairs

Couples vs Singles: Socialization

Bachelors In History

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by Jonathan B Perry

Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yes,  we’re halfway through 2010, but I’ve gathered my 30 favorite songs of 2009 anyway.  Like any good self-respecting music snob and addict, I think my music taste is pretty darn good.  All music snobs feel this way and usually hold that their taste is superior.  But taste is taste.  You might not like the sort of stuff I like (if you’re crazy) and vice versa.  I used to keep a spreadsheet of  around a thousand bands and albums I rated as I sifted through reviews and recommendations.  It’s always great finding a new good band you can sink your teeth into.  And for me, there’s this need to share these niftiest sounds with my friends.  It’s sick, I know.

For reference, 80s New Wave might be the base of my popular music-food pyramid.  That and mid-to-late Beatles.  I especially like songs with strong melodies and harmonies with unique instrumental sounds.  More recently I favor Indie/Alternative music and listen to the U of Nebraska’s radio station (90.3 KRNU) to hear new stuff that circumvents mainstream radio, though I still listen to mainstream radio sometimes.

(Most of these songs were released on albums in 2009, though in some cases there may be a song or 2 that came out in 2008, but didn’t hit it big until 2009.  There’s an unhealthy number of break-up songs in the list.  Maybe 20%.  It’s demented.)

So, here they are:  The Domesticated Bachelor’s Favorite Songs of of 2009.

1. “Heads Will Roll”-Yeah Yeah Yeahs:

I can’t seem to shake the lyrics to this song.  I keep walking around all Tourette’s-like chanting “Off off with your head!  Dance dance dance ’til you’re dead!  Heads will roll… on the floor!”  I imagine people are concerned, but they should know better by now.  For this reason (crazy hooky lyrics), I’d say this is probably my favorite song of 2009.  And like any red-blooded Goth-wannabe guy (minus the weird clothes, makeup and ultra-gloom.  Ok, I’m not Goth.), I have a little thing for Karen O of the YYYs.  I suppose she and the band are not really Goth (more weird/cool), though the video for this song might bend a little that way.  In some performances she looks like she’s doing semaphore or some sort of bizarre sign language, and she often has this incredible look of joy or amusement or ecstasy on her face when she’s singing.  Pretty swell.  I also appreciate her whisper-singing-cooing sweet nothings into my earbuds (in the bridge).  Anyway, “Heads Will Roll” is a super song.  It really gets a good bit of synth going in a minor key while Karen O sings her headless dancing fantasy.

2. “Two Weeks”-Grizzly Bear:

Lyrics for this song aren’t as clear for me as for “Heads Will Roll”, but that’s ok because “Two Weeks” is really a beautiful tune.  Gorgeous even. This song opens with a simple piano plinking, a bass, then some great ascending vocal harmonies.  The soaring melody and harmonies are awesome and happy and I’ve installed this song in my iTunes “Happy Songs” playlist that I use as self-medication for depression and pining.  I heard “Two Weeks” on a tv show, maybe “How I Met Your Mother”, and Googled it immediately.  Turns out I already had the album.  Apparently I’d downloaded it from Amazon.com while it was their cheap promo of the day, but for some reason hadn’t really listened to it much.  The band has some other good songs on their 2 albums, but this is probably the best and deserves lots of attention.

3. “Hundred Hearts”-The Swimmers:

The local college radio station played this a lot and it was right down my alley.  It’s a well-written song all the way around: great tune, harmony, instrumentation, and a great beat.  I especially like it when the phrasing gets faster then slows in the middle of each verse, then there’s that keyboard that climbs up and down.  I seem to be appreciating songs more with male and female vocals.  Adds nice texture.

4. “Chinese”-Lily Allen:  Share Chinese by Lily Allen
I was introduced to this song when my brother Jay showed me a video of a children’s choir covering it.  They do a really great job, but the original is awesome.  My iTunes list says I’ve listened to this one over 50 times already.  I love the wall of sound.  It’s beautiful and sad.  She sings about a comfortable evening at home with her mom and for the longest time I interpreted from the lyrics that her mom had died, but apparently she’s not dead, so…

5. “Young Adult Friction”-The Pains of Being Pure at Heart:

The entire album is actually quite listenable, but this is a standout.  To me the sound is a little similar to My Bloody Valentine, but a bit more accessible.  Not so dense or distorted, but this is still one of the ‘noisier’ songs on my list.  I like the boy/girl vocals on this, too.  A few of the band’s videos are in 8mm, which is a pretty great effect that could be used more.

6. “Did You See Me Coming?”-Pet Shop Boys:  Share Did You See Me Coming? by Pet Shop Boys
I’ve been a huge PSB fan since “West End Girls” came out when I was in grade school.  A high school ex even mailed me mix-tapes of largely PSB music.  The band has been going strong for a good 25 years now, and though the recent quality has been more mixed than in the golden age, this last PSB album was probably their strongest in a while.  Almost a perfect song, except for an unremarkable bridge, but it’s ok.  Still awesome.

7. “Carol Brown”-The Flight of the Conchords:

I had this song stuck in my head for weeks, too.  “Carol Brown just took a bus out of town, but I’m hoping that you’ll stick around.“  Flight of the Conchords‘ song “Carol Brown” is a modern “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover“, except it’s happening to you and it’s a little sad, though it’s also funny and a bit hopeful.  Good for therapy.  Jemaine bemoans the different ways women have left him and those exes form a choir to explore his issues.  It seems that whenever my brother Jay and I get together we find ourselves watching episodes of FotC’s HBO music comedy series or video clips on YouTube.  I’m sad they won’t be making the show anymore. I kind of wish I’d done a list like this last year, just so I could put up “Prince of Parties” from their last album, but I digress.

8. “Bang!” & 9. “Last Dance”-The Raveonettes: Share Bang! by The Raveonettes

I’ve really enjoyed the Raveonettes ever since their first album came out.  This Danish duo who sound like a more tuneful Jesus and Mary Chain (reverby alt group from the 80s & 90s) would sell more albums in a perfect world, but then they’d be less of a rare find.  Really, though, they don’t do too badly.  The albums are consistently very good.  I’m surprised there’s no video for “Bang!”.  Hopefully there will be an awesome video to push them into the stratosphere (like videos mean anything these days).  In “Bang!”, I’m not sure what those kids want to do out in the street all summer long, but it can’t be too obscene if it’s played on the radio.  In the song “Last Dance” we have another potential prom song about impending end of love (and maybe death, I guess).  Great songs, both of them.

10. “Fireflies”-Owl City:

This song is like a warm blanket of colorful sounds and lyrics.  The band sounds almost exactly like The Postal Service, with the intricate electronic beeping and the singer’s voice resembling Ben Gibbard’s (who also fronts Death Cab For Cutie).  It’s a hopeful tune about insomnia and has a special unspeakable meaning for me that must be pushed way down into my gut until it squishes the life out of those dumb stomach butterflies.

11. “1901″-Phoenix:

This French group put out a great album and the song, “1901″, was used endlessly in a car commercial, which is great for exposure and not nearly as frowned upon as it once was by the snobby music community.  It’s accepted that the music biz is broken, so bands need exposure any way it can be gotten.  I love the band’s sound and I always get the feeling that the singer is going through puberty with the voice cracking and changing.

12. “A Better Love”-El Perro Del Mar:  Share A Better Love by El Perro Del Mar
Is that hammer dulcimer?  I think so.  Pretty cool (even if it’s synthesized).  This sad break-up song insinuates itself in the brain with stuff like “This isn’t over ’til I say when.  When.  When.” sung in a quiet voice.  I suspect that if you listen to it in the wrong frame of mind, it might be a tearjerker (I actually want to hear it backwards).  I have way too many break-up songs on this list, maybe 20% (what’s up with that?), but it could just be that break-up songs are written with more emotion and get a bigger helping of love and junk, so they end up being the cream of the crop.

13. “Use Somebody”-Kings of Leon:

“Use Somebody” was played endlessly on the radio and deservedly so.  It’s a fantastic song full of longing.  It seems the brothers and cousins in Kings of Leon have only been improving their Indie/Southern Rock songwriting with each member taking a turn at songwriting on the album.  I’m afraid I may have OD’d on this one a little.

14. “Silver Moons”-Sunset Rubdown:

I heard “Silver Moons” around the same time I heard “Hundred Hearts” by the Swimmers on college radio, so in my head I pair these 2 together.  To me, the singer for Sunset Rubdown sounds a bit like the lead singer for Men Without Hats (“Safety Dance“), though more so in other songs.  The song builds from piano to full band and goes back and forth.  The chorus is probably my favorite when they sing “Maybe these days are over over now.  And I loved it better than anyone else you know.”  Sweetly passionate and sentimental.  I am officially a sad sack.

15. “Love, Save the Empty”-Erin McCarley:

At first I was unable to figure out the title of the song.  Now it makes me think of recycling (save the empty).  Probably one of my guilty pleasures, I listened to this song and “Chinese” by Lily Allen about the same time frame.  I often find pairs of songs that go together for me, usually because I discover them almost simultaneously.  “Love, Save the Empty” was used in the movie He’s Just Not That Into You, which I actually saw with humans and enjoyed.  Apparently Erin McCarley attended Baylor University, though about a decade or more after my dad finished up his PhD there (yeah, we lived in Waco for a bit).  This is a sweet song, starting with a simple piano part that eventually builds to a full band with strings.  Great tune and excellent sound.

Continued…

(30 Fav Songs of ’09: 16-30)

Related Links:

My 11 Favorite Christmas Albums

SOUND OF MUSIC DEATH MATCH!!! Liesl v Maria

Depeche Mode and High School Girls

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