Baby Tom
I'm a big softie, really. Yes, despite my prediliction for rammy music (many thanks to Dearest mjrc for adding that word to my lexicon), I'm a sentimental fool. I cry during movies - I'm talking brimming eyes, mind you, not big, bawly sobs. But still, most unmanly behaviour. What turns on my tap? John Merrick lying down to sleep in The Elephant Man; Rutger Hauer's dying speech in Blade Runner; the love story between Ralph/Bernadette and Bob the mechanic in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; the final exchange between Joel and Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Dumbo's separation from his mother in, well, Dumbo. You see, I'm a big girl's blouse.
I'm particularly sentimental when it comes to newborns. It probably has a tremendous amount to do with the memories and emotional afterimages of the unbounded, exhilarating joy that coursed through me at the precise moments my own two children were born. To me there is nothing as wondrous and deserving of celebration than a new life. So you can imagine how thrilled and misty-eyed I was at the news that Dearest S, one of our closest friends from England, gave birth just about a week ago to wee Baby Tom. Apparently the birth went smoothly and was about as au naturel as one could expect. And I'm happy to deploy the cliche that mother and baby are doing just fine.
Baby Tom has landed himself in a most wonderful, loving family that includes Daddy A, Big Brother F, Older Sisters E & S, a vivacious Maternal Gramdmother, and a Maternal Grandfather who is both the very model of a modern Major General (Ret.) and a keen Rolling Stones fan. Tom arrived at his family down a long, convoluted, and at times bumpy road of the heart. But arrive he did, and we are all so happy that he has.
Baby Tom's birthdate bodes well for his future musical taste, as he shares it with the incomparable Leonard Cohen, Oasis bad boy Liam Gallagher, and Motörhead drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. Oh, yeah! And so to get him started with a suitable soundtrack:
Motörhead - Ace of Spades (buy here)
Oasis - Supersonic (buy here)
Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan (buy here)
And for Maternal Grandfather:
Rolling Stones - Get Off Of My Cloud (buy here)
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10 comments:
Oh, look at da little feller. Oh woodgee woodgee woodgee.
Oops, sorry, I also lose myself around babies.
But that is a darn cute kid. Congrats to the parents.
I don't think you could technically be called a "big girl's blouse" for appreciating Rutger Hauer's dying speech in Blade Runner; it is probably the most testosterone charged science fiction movie ever made.
I likewise get weepy and sentimental watching Schwartzenagger's prayer to Crom before the climactic battle scene of Conan the Barbarian.
FiL,
As an honorary uncle of said boy I have to say he is a great little one! I saw him only 20 minutes after he was born (for reasons FAR too complicated to explain here) and he made even me, hardened uncle many times over and father of elder brother F, a touch broody!
Welcome aboard Tom! We'll have you up and dancing to Uncle FiL's music in no time!
T
What a cutie! Man, do I feel old when grandpas are Stones fans. MAN o MAN o MAN! (I'm married to a grandpa, though, so it makes it takes the edge off.)
Thanks, Fil, a gesture of a gentleman. As father of said Tom, I am deeply proud; he is gorgeous. Love your choice of tunes - to your inestimal list, I would add the following.
Helicopter by Bloc Party
Sweet Home Alabama and Freebird (obviously), by Lynrd Skyrnyd
Don't Fear the Reaper by BOC
Sweet Child of Mine by Guns'n'Roses
Plan Nine Channel Seven by the Damned
Some Might Say by Oasis, and
since my musical education started with the Clash,
London Calling
Big A
hard to imagine such a sweet, tiny, lovable creature may one day end up rammy as all get out! too cute. congrats to all.
Congratulations to all indeed. Great selection of music to welcome baby Tom into this world.
Cheers!
Sweet little baby...I love newborns too. And it makes me all weepy, and mommyish, wanting so much just to have their smell and sounds and touch of soft skin, tiny baby clothes, cotton, little feet in the jammy-jams with big bright eyes staring up at you, and no teeth in their gummy pink smiles.
(Ashley takes deep breath and reminds herself of the actual pain of childbirth)
There. That helped. ;)
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Congratulations to the parents of Baby Tom! He's adorable!! :)
I wish him health and happiness.
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I wish you happiness too, Fil! :)
Happy Monday,
~ Ash
So this baby related emotion arrives once you have had kids FiL? OK. I imagine that's still to come for me ... I'm still in the 'scared I'm going to drop him/her/it' stage and unable to boot up the emotion circuits due to petrification. :) ... anywho .. thanks for being on this week's contrast as always. We have around 1000 listeners a week these days and I'm sure at least 500 of them are just tuning in to hear their uncle FiL and his impeccable taste.
Tim
Dearest Mentok: It may be a testosterone-charged film, but that's the only bit that really gets my sentimental juices flowing. As for Conan, I too weep, but tears of mirth at the campness and dialogue... ;)
Dearest T: If you teach him to dance one tenth as well as you, he'll be crushing hearts on dancefloors before too long...
Dearest Nats: Yes, I hear you. What gets me is hearing Madness, Culture Club, and Elvis Costello on radio stations I used to think were aimed ad old fuddy-duddies. Sigh.
Dearest Big Daddy A: Oh, you have every right to be proud! I focused on artists who share a b'day with wee Tom. Given your list of extras, it looks like he's in fine musical hands! Big hugs to everyone from us all over here.
Dearest mjrc: Yes, we can but hope he'll turn out rammy... ;)
Dearest Rachel: Thanks for the California welcome!
Dearest Ash: Oh yes, yes, YES to the smells, sounds, feet, skin & all that! And as for the pain of childbirth, I thought it's memory was supposed to fade so that one would continue to propagate & carry on the species. At least Dearest Wife, who had a horrid time with Darling Daughter's delivery, says she can remember that it did hurt, but cannot viscerally/emotionally recall exactly what the pain was like.
Dearest Tim: Well, for me it did. I too remember being petrified the first time I changed a nappy - I was sure my daughter's legs were going to come off in my hands. But I can report that she's still fully bipedal. And your overestimation of my attractiveness to Contrast listeners is most flattering...
Bless 'em
The Smiths - "You Just Haven't earnt it Yet baby" appeared on my son's first soundtrack....
...'tho I found John Coltrane's Greensleeves tended to get him off to sleep a little better.
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