Happy Valentine’s Day!

Steve beats me to the punch on wishing his readers a happy Valentine’s Day. And he stole my thunder… First, he explains how much he likes Valentine’s Day despite not being involved with anyone. And, second, he offers beats. The nerve!

I, too, have been a pretty big fan of Valentine’s Day lately. Sure, over half a decade ago I had a pretty messy one, but we all ended up better, stronger for it. I like to save my drama and disasters for December, anyway, so that usually means that February is always nice and wide open. The past few years, I’ve gone a little nuts with the Valentine’s Day e-cards, and I’ve also had my share of things to say about love songs on Valentine’s Day. Last year, there was a V-Day karaoke party, for which we tried, at Whirlyball, to develop the Valentine’s Day version of the Irish Car Bomb. Our recipes, along with this year’s accidental Valentine’s Day CD Mix playlist follow the jump.

At Whirlyball, we asked the bartender for help with the Valentine’s Day Car Bomb. I don’t really remember how it all worked out, but one version was ginger ale with a shot of Crown Royal topped off with a splash of cherry liqueur. Damn, that was good. And refreshing. The other variant used some sort of pink creamy liqueur, I think, and, in fact, I’ve found a description of it I used in an email to a friend of mine after the fact:

The bartender and I developed two different Valentine’s Day cocktails while we were at the whirlyball bar. Only the second was a hit. The first one had the consistency of pepto bismol and tasted a bit too much like medicine, since the bartender forgot I wanted vanilla vodka. If he’d used that, it would have tasted like ice cream.

That Valentine’s Day Karaoke Party ended up rather sadly, in fact, since at around 3am, the host decided he wanted to stop the karaoke and play music to make out to your girlfriend by. I, having no girlfriend, just walked home, a little put out. (Rereading the email descriptions of the Karaoke World of last winter is seriously depressing me now, though. I seriously ended a party at 5am with my pants down singing Coldplay? Yeah, I remember that, but, still…)

Ah, the accidental Valentine’s Day CD. So I made a CD. For a friend. And I mailed it last week. She will have received it today, I think, which makes it a completely unintentional Valentine’s Day gift. I don’t know if that’s fair, but that’s the gas I’m cooking with. The themes were, um, weather, mostly of looking at if there’s a difference between yearning for “better” weather and allowing that people like all sorts of weather. There’s a lot of artist duplicating. Sorry. Here, then, is the tracklist:

1. Tribalistas (Armando Antunes, Carlinhos Brown, Marisa Monte), “Carnavália”
2. VU, “Who Loves the Sun?”
3. The Mamas and the Papas, “California Dreamin’”
4. Gal Costa, “Deus é o amor”
5. Saint Etienne, “Zipcode”
6. Zoot Woman, “Hope in the Mirror”
7. Etienne Daho (with Charlotte Gainsbourg), “If”
8. Phoenix, “Everything Is Everything”
9. Serge Gainsbourg, “Sea, Sex and Sun”
10. Mouse on Mars (f/ Lætitia Sadier), “Schnick Schnack Meltmade”
11. Etienne Daho, “Mon manège à moi”
12. Xploding Plastix (f/ Sarah Cracknell), “Sunset Spirals (Rune Lindbæk Remix)
13. Seu Jorge, “Life on Mars?”
14. Zoot Woman, “It’s Automatic”
15. Saint Etienne, “Le ballade de Saint Etienne”
16. Tribalistas, “Já sei namorar”