You're Welcome, Lee Greenwood

Lee Greenwood is scheduled to perform at the inauguration this Monday. Greenwood is probably tired of singing the same patriotic songs over and over and over again. I mean, he has to sing "God Bless The USA," but maybe he wants to show his versatility and vocal range and abilities. Back in 2017, we provided some ideas for songs he could perform during the inauguration activities. Apparently, he didn't listen, which is somewhat understandable. Performing at an inauguration or one of the events around the ceremony is a big deal. Maybe he didn't want to mix things up. 8 years later, Greenwood should be comfortable with his resume. Perhaps he really wants to do something big to cement his legacy. Therefore, I asked people on my social media sites for suggestions about what Greenwood should perform. Here are the results though some of these may not be suitable for work:

Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso

This is arguably the biggest song of 2024, and you know Greenwood is working late, 'cause he's a singer. 

2 Live Crew - Me So Horny

An obvious choice to honor President Trump's south Florida ties.

Shania Twain - Man! I Feel Like A Woman!

Good song to get the crowd dancing!

The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men

The Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha featuring Busta Rhymes

Greenwood could perform vocals by both The Pussycat Dolls and Busta.

Divinyls - I Touch Myself

Nine Inch Nails - Closer

This one is a little heavier on the instrumentals. Maybe a good song to showcase his fellow musicians.

James Brown - Say It Loud - I'm Black & I'm Proud

Jimmy Buffett - Why Don't We Get Drunk

Guarantee that there are a lot of Buffet fans in the crowd.

Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion - WAP 

Disturbed - Down With The Sickness

Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out

Christina Aguilera - Candyman

In honor of Trump winning Pennsylvania, Greenwood should support a Pittsburgher.

Mtume - Juicy Fruit

And staying on the snack/candy theme.

Lee Greenwood - God Bless You Canada 

To close the show, Greenwood should perform his song to honor America's soon to be 51st state!

Songs Of 2000

I spent the summer of 2000 studying abroad at Lancaster University in Lancaster, England as part of my graduate school program in higher education and student affairs. I wrote some about my European trip in several Summer of Sean posts. Anyway, while many of my classmates had challenging assignments, my task was to help Lancaster University's Management School determine how international students discovered the school through internet searches. I also compared the school's website to other business schools in the UK. With the exception of interviewing a few international graduate students about how they learned about Lancaster University, I really spent most of my time unsupervised doing web searches at the campus computer lab. (This is 2000, so no one I knew had laptops. I didn't even have a cell phone until late 2001 or 2002.) This may sound a little inappropriate, but I think that university miscounted the number of internship spots and just threw me someplace at the last minute.

With my friends busy at actual offices, I often slept in and listened to the radio while getting ready to start the day. I also discovered Top of the Pops, a weekly music television countdown show. (Looking back, I'm not sure how I discovered this. I don't think I had a TV in my room. Maybe the deserted residence hall had a lounge where I watched TV?) I discovered rather quickly that I really enjoyed the pop music scene in England. You got all of the British hits along with the top songs from America and elsewhere. Plus, I thought I was so cool when I heard songs debut in the US months after listening to them in England.

So today, I'm excited to share some of my favorite songs from my time in England 20 years ago. Some of these might be well known to many of you. This may be the first time some of you have heard others. Enjoy!

Destiny's Child - Jumpin', Jumpin'



Before I left Columbus for the summer, I won a contest where I could select tickets to one of about 15 concerts. Most of the concerts occurred when I was away, so I chose Christina Aguilera's concert at the Ohio State Fair. The opening act for this concert was supposed to be Destiny's Child. As soon as I heard Jumpin' Jumpin' played in England, I knew that they weren't going to be an opening act much longer, and sure enough, they were off the tour by the time I saw Christina in August 2000.

Darude - Sandstorm


Of all the songs in this blog post, I didn't expect this song to be the one still played the most. "Sandstorm" remains in rotation at many live sporting events.

Eminem - Stan

  

I swear that I first heard this song in England, but according to Wikipedia, this wasn't released until November 2000. Maybe some BBC station played it months before the actual single release?

Craig David - 7 Days 



I really thought Craig David was going to be an international superstar. Didn't quite happen at least in the US. 

Coldplay - Yellow



I wonder what ever happened to this group.

Kylie Minouge - Spinning Around



I remember seeing an interview with Kylie Minouge where she was asked about her backside getting filmed in the video. Her response was something of amazement and that she didn't realize that the director had that shot. Although Kylie never made it huge in the US, she was as big as Madonna in many parts of the world. She knew her behind would be featured in the video.

Madison Avenue - Don't Call Me Baby



Sonique - It Feels So Good



David Grey - Babylon



Love this song!

Five + Queen - We Will Rock You



Yes this song really happened. By the way, who knew that nearly 20 years later, there would be a movie about Five that won four Oscars?

Mary Mary - Shackles (Praise You)



I only learned that Mary Mary was a gospel group years later.

Samantha Mumba - Gotta Tell You



I have a confession to make. I love belting out the chorus and especially the bridge of this song even though I get nowhere close to hitting the notes! 

Billie Piper - Day and Night



Several years after this song, Billie Piper starred in some Cinemax or Showtime show, and I remember thinking, hey, she's a singer!

Louise - 2 Faced



York - On The Beach



Bomfunk MC's - Freestyler



I'm ending with this song since I don't think I ever heard this song or of Bomfunk MC's since I returned to the US. However, this video has almost 197 million views, so lots of people know it.

My Life In Pictures: February 2019

It's been a busy month so far due to forming an exploratory committee to run for President. Apparently, donors aren't all that interested in contributing to a campaign of someone with no political experience or name recognition. Here's everything else going on in my life:

Luigi had a fever last week and took a nearly three hour nap on me. I considered trying to transfer him to his crib several times but figured that he really needed the rest, so I didn't want to disturb him. Luigi is 17 months now, so I don't think there will be many more opportunities of having a child sleep on me.

Meanwhile, Ziggy took his own nap (on a cardboard box?) just a few feet away.

A year after dislocating my wrist from slipping on my stairs, we got carpet for the stairs. Not pictured: Ziggy sleeping on the stairs.

I don't know how it happened, but Pedro Tulo somehow broke my Christina Aguilera CD. This CD is probably worth thousands! I mean, can you get a Christina Aguilera CD anywhere anymore? The Pittsburgher in me is devastated by this.

I took the two older boys to a Chinese new year celebration at the mall. It was cute seeing Pedro Tulo sitting on The Moose's lap, and the older one allowing this.

I haven’t bought a pair of non-work shoes in at least 3-4 years, so I feel the need to share a picture of my new purchase. It's nothing fancy, but I'll probably have these shoes for the next decade.

Finally, we don't watch Paw Patrol that much anymore, mostly due to The Moose outgrowing the show. One of the show's characters is Mayor Humdinger, the mayor of the neighboring town of Foggy Bottom. Mayor Humdinger has always done things like cheat in races or try to get treasures before anyone else, but in a recent Paw Patrol episode, he actually stole a car that can turn into a plane. He needs to be in jail and impeached! What kind of criminal justice system do they have on this show? Adventure Bay should declare war on Foggy Bottom unless Mayor Humdinger faces serious actions!

Christina Aguilera: Found In My Basement

In the summer of 2000, I won a contest where I received two tickets to one of nearly a dozen Columbus concerts or events. However, as I mentioned last week, I was in England for most of that summer and unable to attend just about every event. There was one concert, though, that I could see when I returned, and this is the ticket stub from the concert:

Yes, I saw Christina Aguilera perform live at the 2000 Ohio State Fair. She was a genie in a bottle. She knew what a girl wants. She also wanted her fans to come on over baby. She was not lady marmalade or dirrty yet. All I remember was that there were hundreds if not thousands of screaming pre-teen and teenage girls. My friend and I were completely out of place. She also performed a cover of Free's All Right Now and most of the crowd had never heard of the song before.

As an interesting side note to this concert, the opening act when the tour started was a little group called Destiny's Child. At some point during the summer, Destiny's Child got big, and they were no longer opening act material. I wonder what ever happened to them. Anyway, Christina's opening act was a group called soulDecision (thanks WikiPedia!) that seemed like Destiny's Child-lite.

As always, you can click here for more items Found In My Basement.

Sean's Steelers-Vikings Preview

If you've read my blog long enough, you know that I like to point out absurd and fun (at least to me) information about sporting events. Therefore, if you're looking for the keys to this Sunday's Steelers-Vikings or a breakdown of Steelers rookie Shamarko Thomas' positioning, you'll have to go somewhere else. I'm also sorry if this post doesn't help you with your NFL picks this weekend. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the game:

- The Steelers leave Pittsburgh tonight and arrive in London on Friday morning. Meanwhile, the Vikings landed in London on Tuesday. Doesn't it seem like the Steelers should have left earlier to get acclimated to the time change and new city? For the Olympics, did Usain Bolt arrive in London two days before his race? I think not (though I have no idea when he actually got there).

- Someone needs to make sure Big Ben visits Big Ben and shares pictures of this.

- Do you think the British will know that the Terrible Towel is associated with the Steelers? As I wrote recently, you wouldn't know by this Terrible Towel.

- Serious question: Do people in London care about this game? I'm not talking about Americans living in England or Europe but your regular British citizen. I'm guessing that two 0-3 teams aren't helping walk-up ticket sales.

- Perhaps as a way to get more Londoners excited for the game, Gene Simmons of Kiss and his reality show Family Jewels is performing the National Anthem. Personally, I think the NFL should have gotten performers that represent Minnesota and Pittsburgh. Prince and Christina Aguilera would be fine.

- Remember Giant Jason Taylor from the 2007 NFL game in London? For this year, I hope they have a Giant Christian Ponder that has a matching rib injury like the non-giant Christian Ponder.

- Let's say that you're a rookie free agent in Steelers or Vikings training camp in August. Do the teams require you to get a passport in case you make the team and will travel to London? Who pays for the passport?

- Meanwhile, the Steelers signed center Fernando Velasco just a few weeks ago. Did the team make sure that he had a passport so he could play in London before they signed him?

- I assume that someone from the Associated Press (AP) will cover the game and write about Adrian Peterson (also AP) in the story. I wonder if United Press International wishes that there was a successful football player named Upton Paul Iglesias with the nickname UPI.

- I hope Troy Polamalu has a chance to freak out people at London's Madame Tussauds.



- I feel like Brett Keisel and his beard could become stars in London. Of course, people might think that he's one of the Duck Dynasty family.

Enjoy the game!

2007 Emmys - The Morning After

I thought I was pretty good connoisseur of television, but I successfully picked only two of the nine categories. While I thought last night would be all about The Sopranos, it really was all about Tony Bennett. "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" won three awards in the aired version of the show, plus he performed with Christina Aguilera. Tom Shales of The Washington Post has a real recap of the Emmys.

So maybe I'm just a connoisseur of bad television shows. In case you were wondering, here are my picks for shows that will be cancelled during the 2007-2008 season for the Alison LaPlaca TV Death Pool:

Scrubs (NBC)
Cavemen (ABC)
According to Jim (ABC)
Viva Laughlin (CBS)
Carpoolers (ABC)
The Return of Jezebel James (FOX)
Reaper (CW)
Online Nation (CW)
Nashville (FOX)
Big Shots (ABC)

I finished in sixth place last year out of over 100 entries. There looks like even more competition this year, and I'm a little worried about some of my picks. While I feel confident that my first six shows will not make it to the 2008-2009 season, Reaper may turn out to be decent, which means CW will keep the show, and I have no idea what will happen with the last three on my list.