Johnny's Top 25 Most Played Songs of 2013

Yes... It's time for my annual blog post about the one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. Music!  It is my my pleasure to introduce you to my top 25 most played songs of 2013... Enjoy!

1. Daft Punk - Lose Yourself to Dance
2. Atoms for Peace - Reverse Running
3. Dan Croll - From Nowhere
4. Foals - My Number
5. Daft Punk - Get Lucky
6. Muse - Map of the Problematique
7. Guster - Amsterdam
8. The Strokes - One Way Trigger
9. Crystal Castles - Empathy
10. Dragonette - Volcano
11. The xx - Night Time
12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
13. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
14. Haim - Don't Save Me
15. The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
16. Dan Croll - Only Ghost
17. The Whitest Boy Alive - Burning
18. Band of Horses - Laredo
19. Miike Snow - Paddling Out
20. Feist - I Feel It All
21. Pixies - Hey
22. Fitz and The Tantrums - Out Of My League
23. Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer
24. Mew - Beach
25. Passion Pit - Carried Away

The Man, The Legend, My Father, John "Marty" Etchemendy

 

Today marks the 26^th anniversary of the day my biological father was taken from this mortal realm, and that, along with comments from others, have caused me to ponder on the matter more than I typically would I think… 

I was slightly over 2.5 years old when he was killed and sadly I have no clear memory of him.  Sometimes in my mind’s eye I feel like I can see a staircase that I was being carried down in our old house while in his arms, but is this an actual memory or something I’ve subconsciously constructed in an attempt to have some “real” memory of him?  Friends of the family bought our old house, so I’ve walked down that very staircase several times when I was still young.  Do those experiences inform that the memory of being carried by my father is true, or are they simply the cause of a falsely created image?  Does it even matter? Probably not.

I’m told that my dad didn’t like having pictures or videos taken of him and that’s why there are precious few of them remaining today.  Would he have changed his mind about that particular idiosyncrasy if he knew he wouldn’t make it past his 23^rd year of life?  Again, does it really matter all that much?  The answer to that question this time doesn’t feel quite as simple.  I click through facebook looking at past pictures of myself, of my friends, of my siblings… Those pictures paint an even larger picture of the lives we have lived.  I can rewatch my baby sister growing up into the woman she is today.  I can relive the memories of vacations I’ve been on with friends I don’t get to see as often anymore.  I can share in the triumphs and accomplishments of the people I hold most dear.  I can see what moments my friends choose to share with the world and thanks to “comments” which of those moments are the most emotionally charged.  You can get a sense of someone’s humor, their strengths, their beliefs, their social circles.  In an age of seemingly unlimited data sharing, the massive void of documented memories of my father seems much deeper than I once thought it was.

So where does that leave me?  Completely reliant on the spoken memories of those who were lucky enough to grow up with him, to raise him, to marry him, to play football with him.  How are those experiences colored?  I don’t have journals that he wrote.  I don’t have any firsthand accounts from him.  The only windows I have into the life of my father are memories others have chosen to share with me, and when remembering somebody you loved who was taken abruptly and brutally out of your life, you tend to only remember the very best things about him.  So I’ll ask the question a third time, does any of this REALLY matter?

I think the real answer all three times is the same, and it’s complicated.  Yes & No.  All of these things matter to me, but at the same time, they kind of don’t. 

The single “memory” I have of my father, whether it’s real or not, provides me with the only personal experience I have to back up what I’ve been told my whole life: that my dad loved me.  You may think that’s an overly simplistic thought to take away and maybe something many would take for granted, but when you don’t have a lifetime of experiences, both literally spoken or merely shown by his day to day actions, proving that your dad loves you, something as modest as a foggy memory of being embraced is a treasure.

Do I wish I had the ridiculous amount of photo and video data of my father that I can find for just about any of my friends or family on the internet?  Of course I do.  I want to know how he lived and how his looks changed over time.  I want to share in the triumphant moments of his short life.  I want to see the events he went to and how he acted in those situations.  Then again…. I don’t think it would change much.  Sure, getting to know my father through photo/video documentation would be great, but I think it would also make me think more often about all the pictures and videos it would have erased if he were still alive.  The childhood videos that I made with my friends shortly after we moved to Utah probably wouldn’t exist because what are the chances that we would have lived in the little apartment on 1300 East & 8600 South?  I never would have met the people that I have shared the vast majority of the most important experiences of my life with.  Those pictures of my baby sister growing up wouldn’t be either, because she wouldn’t have been born.  Pictures of me with my nieces and nephews wouldn’t have happened either because they’d be strangers to me. 

Obviously I miss him and wish I could have had more time with him so I could know who he was for real.  I will always love him for the gift of life he gave me, for the love he showed my mother, and for taking me everywhere he ever went when I was too young to remember that’s what he did.  However, the life I have today is precious to me.  The people in my life are the absolute most important thing to me and I’d do anything for my friends or family.  And from the memories of my father that have been shared with me by his friends and family I feel like he’d feel the same way.  Since I was just a boy I was told I looked just like him, I walked with the same swagger he did, the inflection in my voice was similar to his, we had the same smile, even voiced the same ideas.  If I can take all the accounts of him at face value, I think I know my father just a little bit every time I look in the mirror, or sit down for some quiet contemplation.   

I love you dad.  Thank you for leaving such a powerful legacy that your influence has continued to shape my life from beyond the veil... 

I actually had much more written, but I cut out parts that felt too personal or preachy, so please forgive me if this post seems fragmented.  I'd be happy to share the removed portions in a more private forum for those interested.

Johnny's Top 25 Most Played Songs of (the last half of) 2012!

I haven't been in the blogging game for quite a while, but with the start of a new year and my desire to reset my play counts I've felt inclined to at least share my annual Top 25 (even though I missed last year...) The play counts are a little lower than they've been in previous years, but that's due to having had to re-install Windows a couple times which wiped my play counts so really this list only represents the last half of the year or so. Still, I think it has some pretty good gems in it. I hope you enjoy these songs as much as I did in 2012

#	Artist/Song	Times Played
25:	Hey Champ - Cold Dust Girl	10
24:	Taylor Swift - Mine	10
23:	Spoon - I Turn My Camera On	11
22:	Regina Spektor - Us	12
21:	Wolf Parade - Modern World	12
20:	Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers	13
19:	LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends	13
18:	Rihanna - S.O.S. (Rescue Me)	15
17:	Blitzen Trapper - God & Suicide	17
16:	The xx - Night Time	18
15:	Of Monsters And Men - Little Talks	18
14:	The Beatles - Come Together	18
13:	Empire of the Sun - Standing On The Shore	19
12:	Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer	21
11:	Muse - Map Of The Problematique	27
10:	Foster The People - Call It What You Want	28
9:	Coldplay  - Princess of China	28
8:	M83 - Midnight City	31
7:	Cassettes Won't Listen - Freeze and Explode	32
6:	Florence + The Machine - Only If For A Night	38
5:	Muse - Supremacy	40
4:	Two Door Cinema Club - Settle	40
3:	LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean	46
2:	Divine Fits - My Love is Real	58
1:	Two Door Cinema Club - Sleep Alone	63

I'm pretty happy with this list.  Yes, I have some Taylor Swift and some Rihanna on there!  Everybody is allowed a couple guilty pleasure songs, aren't they?

Finishing Last...

My parents are in the market to buy a new car and it has made me realize that I think I'm their least favorite child... Let me explain how I've come to this conclusion.

The car they are planning to purchase (whenever my dad comes back up to Utah) is for my 16 year old little sister.  For those that know my little sister you may be thinking, "But Johnny, doesn't she already have a really nice, sporty, 2008 Toyota Camry?"  Why yes!  She certainly does!  So, now you're probably thinking to yourself, "Why then, would your parents want to buy her another new car?"  That's a good question, and trust me, the answer to it is just as good.  They are buying her a new car because it snows on occasion here in Utah and they only want her driving if she has a vehicle with AWD or 4WD.

Alright, so news of that event was just the catalyst to get me thinking about my siblings and the cars we've driven.  It's no secret that the younger children in most families end up being more spoiled than their older siblings.  To my parents credit, they were always nice enough to provide a car for their kids to drive.  The "kid-mobiles" they've owned and that we drove were as follows (as best as I can remember anyway):

Ryan: really old Volvo (I don't remember the model or year.  It was a major beater car though)
Kamille: same Volvo, then they upgraded to an '84 Toyota Cressida (which was also kind of a beater), then a '92 Toyota Tercel (at least I think it was a '92.)
Johnny: '84 Toyota, then the big jump to a salvaged purple 2000 Kia Sportage
Jordan: a LEXUS, then the 2008 Camry, then a 2006 Subaru Tribeca
Callie: Camry, and soon to be something newer.

Looking at this list you'd think that I was turning point.  I mean, look at it!  I got to drive a purple Kia Sportage!  Let me elaborate on these vehicles, how they were obtained, where they ended up, and how they got there.

Ryan is the simplest story.  My parents let him drive the Volvo, when he graduated he bought a truck for himself and started working for my dad.  Pretty straight forward.

Kamille is where it starts to get a little interesting.  She drove the Volvo for a little while, then my parents got rid of that and bought the Cressida and she drove that for a little while, but then she graduated and moved out to go to college.  That's why my parents bought her the Toyota Tercel.  The interesting thing about the Tercel is that my parents bought it used from somebody, then they gave it to my sister, then they "bought it from my sister" meaning they pretty much bought it twice, but then they still GAVE it to her!  They gave her a car along with a handful of cash.

I'll skip myself for a second and save that for last.

Jordan starts the luxury trip.  Our parents bought a Lexus from my dad's cousin and let Jordan drive that around for a little while, but then it broke down or he crashed it or something like that, so they bought the Camry for him to drive around.  When he dropped out of high school and moved back to Utah they gave him the car so he'd have something to drive around up here.  After he hit his first Utah winter with a drivers license he complained enough about the weather that my parents bought a Subaru Tribeca from my older brother Ryan because he wanted to get rid of it, and Jordan "needed" a better car for the snow.  They kept the Camry for Callie to drive, but they still bought a car with cash money from a sibling to GIVE to another sibling.

I've already mostly told you Callie's story.  She's currently driving that Camry and as soon as my parents pick out a new car, they're going to get her something that is more winter friendly.  You may notice that they didn't care about the snow with the three oldest children, but that can maybe be explained away by the fact that me and my older siblings aren't as helpless as the two youngest in the family.  It's also worth mentioning that my parents openly intend to give this new car to my little sister when my mom moves back to Texas and Callie stays up here.

Now lets talk about Johnny.  My parents let me drive the Toyota Cressida when I turned 16, and I couldn't have been more excited.  Then the Kia Sportage entered the picture.  My dad's friend in Arkansas owns a body shop and somebody abandoned the Kia because they didn't want to pay to get it fixed.  My dad's friend told my dad that he would give it to him if he just payed to fix it.  I don't know what the amount was, but it was much MUCH less than the vehicle was worth.  When the Kia finally showed up at our house my dad told me I could start driving it when I sold the Cressida for him.  Yes, I had to sell the old car, for a price my dad set, and hand the money over to him once it was sold.  Not completely unreasonable, since it was his car, but the lowest price he'd allow me to sell it for was higher than anybody would pay, so after weeks of turning people down I finally made my dad go outside to turn the prospective buyer down.  He walked back inside with a check for $800 less than he told me I could sell it for.  Okay, whatever... I still had a free car to drive, until I graduated.  Apparently when I graduated from high school I crossed the "free ride" line and my parents bought an '84 Toyota Tercel Wagon with MY MONEY from my uncle and told me that was the vehicle I got to drive now.  I was out of the state working for my dad at the time, so I didn't even see the car until I got back to Utah weeks later.  That car was 20 years old at the time and started to break down not long after "I" purchased it, so the solution my parents presented was that they would sell me the Kia I drove in high school for $6000.00... Like a sucker I took them up on the offer.  I haven't asked them, but I'm pretty sure that they got the car for much less than that.

To summarize, my parents have either bought cars from my siblings, given them cars for free, or bought cars from my siblings THEN gave it back to them.  What about Johnny?!  When I needed a car, they were nice enough to over charge me to buy a car they didn't want anymore.  And when I wanted to sell my current vehicle because I wasn't working much and couldn't afford the payments did they bail me out like they did for my older brother?  Nope...  Fortunately I had some money saved up until work picked back up and I started pulling in the cash again.

Yep, I definitely drew the short straw when it came to family vehicles.  Maybe I'm not the most loved child, but I'll take solace in knowing that I'll most likely be the only person in my whole family that will ever graduate from college (except Kamille, but she got an Associates Degree from LDS Business College, so I'm obviously not counting that.)

Dentist Conversations and Aptitude Tests

I was at the dentists office last week and while the dental hygienist was cleaning my teeth she decided that it was fun to keep asking me questions while her fingers were in my mouth.  Since I wasn't doing a very good job at giving detailed answers to her questions, unless they only required a mumbled "uh-huh" or "uh-uh", she would ask a question, remove her fingers and tools out of my mouth, and wait for a response.  I would have guessed she'd just start only asking me yes/no questions, but apparently we had plenty of time to kill before my dentist could come see me, so clean teeth -> ask question -> stop cleaning teeth -> wait for response, became her procedure of the afternoon.

She was super nice and other than the fact that she kept stabbing my gums with sharp objects over and over, I'd say we got along wonderfully.  I discovered that if during one of my responses I concluded with a good follow-up question I could keep her talking about herself so I could get a break from trying to say multiple complete sentences with the back of my throat filled with pooling saliva.  (Actually, maybe distracting her like that is exactly why she kept stabbing me with sharp dental tools instead of simply cleaning my teeth...)

Anyway, she told me (at length) how she took a career aptitude test in high school and it told her to be a dental hygienist, but she decided to go to college for Art and French.  She was working on a graduate degree in some kind of art when she realized she hated it, so she changed to the dental hygienist program and has been doing that happily for 20 years.

Today, after I finished a surprisingly frustrating day of Saturday work that was supposed to be super easy I remembered this conversation with the hygienist and thought to myself, "I wonder what the interweb has to say about what I should be doing as a career."  Sure, working for a geotechnical engineering firm is way different than teaching high school English (which for any out there that don't already know, is what I'm in college for), but  I still wanted to see what a career aptitude test had to say.

The test I took was at www.careertest.net, and after answering 75 questions or so it output results similar to the Myers-Briggs personality test.  The way it works is you're given a 4-letter personality type and each of the four letters has two possible options.  Each letter also represents a different part of your personality.  The way Myers-Briggs explain it is like this:

1 - Favorite World: (E) Extrovert, or (I) Introvert

2 - Information: (S) Sensing, or (N) Intuition

3 - Decisions: (T) Thinking, or (F) Feeling

4 - Structure: (J) Judging, or (P) Perceiving

Myers-Briggs makes you pay a lot of money to take their exam, and only have certain "certified" people that can administer it (even though you can take it online apparently.)  I had the opportunity of taking the actual Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument when I was a Junior in high school, but that was so long ago that I don't remember what the results were. I'm sure my results have changed since then anyway.  This little careertest.net version was WAY over simplified, but I wasn't taking it that seriously in the first place.  The results I got from careertest.net were......

ISFP (Introvert, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving)

Of those four items, I was strongly leveled towards the 'S' and the 'F', and leaning pretty well towards the 'P', but the Introvert/Extrovert was almost a straight up tie (I was 51% introvert).  I thought that wasn't too far from accurate.  I'm usually most comfortable in small intimate settings, but am still fairly successful at making new friends when I'm in a larger group setting.  So, after you're told your personality type, the site offers you lists of careers associated with all the particular types.  I looked up but the ISFP and the ESFP since I was close to being either one.  Here are the lists of careers it gave me for each group:

ISFP bookkeeper clerical supervisor dental assistant physical therapist mechanic radiology technologist surveyor chef forester geologist landscaper designer crisis hotline operator teacher: elementary beautician typist jeweler gardener potter painter botanist marine biologist social worker

ESFP nurse social worker caterer flight attendant bookkeeper medical/dental assistant exercise physiologist elementary school teacher minister/priest/rabbi retail owner officer manager telemarketer counselor special education teacher merchandise planner credit counselor athletic coach insurance agent sales representative massage therapist medical secretary child care provider bilingual education teacher professional volunteer

Looking over both of these lists, I was happy to see multiple teaching professions since that what I want to do with my life the most.  It was also interesting for me to see the athletic coach, physical therapist, and exercise physiologist careers on there since the two minors I'm working on and planning to get are a Nutrition minor and an Exercise Science and Coaching Teaching minor.

Like I mentioned before, I wasn't taking this aptitude test very seriously, but even though it's an over simplified version of a popular personality identifying instrument, it was still just slightly comforting to see that the interweb is currently backing up my chosen career path.  Thanks Internet!

25 Most Listened to Songs of '10

We've started a new year which means it's time to reset the play counts on my iPod/iPhone again, but before I erase such wonderful history let me share with you the 25 greatest hits from Johnny's iPhone in 2010.

#	Artist/Song	Times Played
25:	Thom Yorke - The Eraser	42
24:	Vampire Weekend - I Think Ur A Contra	43
23:	La Roux - Bulletproof	43
22:	Empire of the Sun - Walking On A Dream	43
21:	Discovery - Osaka Loop Line	43
20:	Coldplay - Lost!	46
19:	The Temper Trap - Resurrection	46
18:	Radiohead - Everything in its Right Place	46
17:	TV On The Radio - Dancing Choose	47
16:	LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations	52
15:	Imogen Heap - Loose Ends	52
14:	Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks	59
13:	The Killers - This Is Your Life	67
12:	LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great	72
11:	Muse - MK Ultra	75
10:	Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn	80
9:	The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs	82
8:	Band of Horses - Laredo	82
7:	Florence And The Machine - Cosmic Love	86
6:	The Whitest Boy Alive - Burning	88
5:	Florence And The Machine - Dog Days Are Over	92
4:	The Temper Trap - Love Lost	96
3:	Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know	107
2:	Jaydiohead - Dreaming Up	133
1:	Band of Horses - Dilly	152

I'll be honest... There were a few songs on this list that were a surprise to even me, but I'm not ashamed!  Also, if you want to know how this list compares to my 2009 top 25?  Click here!

"I hate it!"

I've been working on homework for hours and I needed a break.  I'm sick of writing about linguistics, so I've decided to write about something that's interesting to me...

"I hate it!" Anybody I have ever talked to for more than 5 minutes has probably heard this phrase come out of my mouth.  I've spent some meditative time on the subject of hate and I've come to this conclusion:  that this particular phrase is a very inaccurate representation as to how I actually view the world.  I know in my language that I've devalued the word "hate" because even though I often get frustrated about any number of things, I very rarely could say I honestly hate them.

My Adolescent Literature class is what got me thinking about this topic.  As we've been dealing with several different texts it's become clear that I am one of maybe three people that give the "villains" in these works some measure of sympathy.  An example from our most recently read novel is Precious' mother in the book Push, by Sapphire.  Anyone familiar with the book (or the movie, Precious, that was based off this book) can tell you that Precious' mother is about as awful as it comes when talking about any human being, much less a mother.  She allowed her boyfriend to sexually abuse and impregnate Precious multiple times.  Now don't misunderstand me, I'm in no way justifying her unbelievably sickening decisions, but as my instructor and classmates were condemning Mama, I couldn't help but feel just a little bit for her.  I certainly DO hate her acts as a mother, but I just can't bring myself to say I hate her... Granted, she's a fictional character in a heavy book, but there is just enough in there to make me think that she may possibly regret her behavior and still loves her daughter.  That's the problem with literature though, you just never know some characters back story or what happens after the book ends.

This line of thought can also been seen in my last post about my dad.  He definitely isn't anywhere even remotely close to being as awful as Precious' mother in Push, but he isn't an ideal parent either.  I often hate much about the decisions he makes, but I still love him.

I guess what I really don't hate is people.  I'm often frustrated by decisions people make, and on occasion I may even actually hate some of those decisions, but I can't think of a single person I know that I truly hate (other than maybe Glenn Beck, but I don't know him personally, so we're giving him a pass...)  I can't even say that I hate the men that are responsible for the murder of my biological father.  In fact, I feel pity for them.

I don't think I've ever really posted anything on here about my religious beliefs, but this topic holds so closely to them, that I can't really ignore them... I'm pretty sure than anybody that would spend the time to read my blog knows I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I've had my fair share of run-ins with temptation, sin, and transgression, and through those experiences, and the repentance involved with them, I've gained a powerful appreciation and testimony for the power of the Atonement.  It's hard to really talk about my personal witness of this without going into details I don't care to share, but for anybody doubting, I can tell you that I have strong very convictions about the divinity of Jesus Christ.  When you've felt the healing power of his atonement, it's difficult to remain hateful towards your spiritual brothers and sisters when they come up short too.

If "hate" is one side of the pendulum, then "love" has got to be the other.  I love a lot of things, but even though I feel like it's easy not to hate people, it's often very difficult to love them.  I have my family and several close friends that I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to say I love, and could list off endless reasons why I love them, but I'm not very good at the whole loving everybody unconditionally scene.  That being said, here is my new endeavor.  I'm going to stop saying "I hate it!" about every little thing, even though I rarely mean it.  Instead, I'm going to try to replace that phrase with "I love it!"  Perhaps it will sound a little pretentious even though I don't mean it to be, but I'm a strong believer in the power of words and language, and I think shifting the way I talk about things is the first step to getting there for reals.  Hmmm.... Maybe I should save that statement for a New Years Resolution since that's right around the corner... I guess I'll use December as a warm up month, and then come January 1st I'll officially add it to the list of things I want to change.  That's fair, isn't it?