After the Times had my attention yesterday morning, the Post won it back today.

First, in the Style section, William Booth gave the best-of-the-bunch telling of Ray Charles' funeral service. Booth wrote his lede: "The only thing bad about the funeral for Ray Charles was that he died."

Then Max Steele, age 82, wrote about his father for the Sunday magazine. Steel told of his father's business falling apart in Florida in 1927, when he was just five or six, forcing the family to pack up.

In a few days we will roll up an expensive Turkish carpet, tie it on top of the Studebaker touring car and leave everything to the creditors. I want to ride on one of the fold-down opera seats but am heartbroken when my sisters beat me to them. He picks me up afterwards and says I can sit next to him as we drive home. 2004

His memory first got me thinking of Springsteen's Used Cars. The father's driving the car; the sister's in the front seat with an ice cream cone; the ma's "in the black seat, sittin' all alone"; and the narrating boy's nowhere to be found inside.

But then I got to thinking about the disc that's been riding around with me the past couple days, Wilco's debut A.M., and Passenger Side.

While the sad mooch had his complaints, having a rider in the passenger-side seat seems to me as much of a rite of passage as getting to sit in that seat years earlier. Or even learning how to drive. Me, I can take care of myself. Other people bring responsibility, for better or worse.

On the better side there, the comparson's come easy. Melissa Ferrick's Drive finds the right note, sexy with her "I'll hold you up / and drive you all night" (not aimed at my gender, but stirring an alliance as such) in a way that John Mayer gets more acclaim for but fails to understand on Your Body Is a Wonderland ("I'll never let your head hit the bed / without my hand behind it").

The other side, the worse side, is the more complicated one. Metaphor on that side is avoidance to some extent. In the Springsteen catalog, the struggle for optimism's so much that even the beautifully reckless hope of Thunder Road can turn to broken dreams in Racing in the Street and giving up in The Promise.

All deal with the More Love dictum of rock 'n' soul, saying, "We are here, and I am going to take you there." Not "but I am going to take you there," because there's probably a pretty good reason — most human ones are — that you're starting where you are.

Heavy, yes, if you consider going to be a difficult act. Some days it's easier done and others easier said.

In the easier done times, one song to play is a cover I can't seem to get out of my head this week, Elvis' turbocharged version of The Promised Land. That's the song Tommy Lee Jones jams in the eight-track in Men in Black, right before Jones hits the Holland Tunnel and floors it on the ceiling.

The class of 2004. I hope Tom Brokaw was nice to you, and always wear sunscreen.

David Amsden, a man a good bit older than 17, wrote a diary for Slate about attending a high school prom recently with a 17-year-old. The result was as strange as you might have expected. One of the less controversial but more enjoyable lines: "The guys, meanwhile, look even younger and goofier than usual in their tuxes: gawky, a little helpless even, as if they'd raided the closet of some extinct species of older man who roamed the earth in 1987, before mysteriously vanishing."

Amsden's article then drew such a response on the Fray (the Slate message boards) that he went and wrote a response.

Strumpet22 wrote about sexy phone voices for her Nerve blog early Friday morning: "I learned that in order to have a truly sexy phone voice, you need to also be capable of saying sexy things. Otherwise it's like having a finely-tuned Stradivarius, and using it to play the theme from Sanford and Son."

Seth Schiesel of the New York Times wrote about vigilantes' reverse scamming of "Nigerian" scammers recently. CNET's News.com picked up the story.

For Friday's paper, David W. Chen of the Times visited the Bridge Apartments, "the four high-rises lined up like dominoes atop the Trans-Manhattan Expressway." Writes Chen: "People say that the elevators are too crowded and too slow. And, except on the ground floor, tenants can only press a button to go down, not up. That means someone on, say, the 16th floor who wants to visit a friend on the 32nd floor would have to ride down to the lobby before heading back up."

Ticketmaster's weekly e-mail: "Don't miss Hanson."

If you're using nwu.edu e-mail addresses, stop. As long planned, Northwestern is killing them on Sunday. Use northwestern.edu instead.

For those who've heard about or seen my family's garage transformation, the conversions Bethany Little of the Times wrote about Friday are nothing like our garage's. My brother and I went to college instead.

Big thumbs up to Barnesandnoble.com, the kid Amazon's always pushing around, for amazingly fast delivery. Ordered the Racing in the Street essay collection and Mrs. Bruce's new album on Tuesday, using standard delivery, and both arrived today.

I found music retailer Classic 45's carries a good audio clip from Eddie Floyd's Yum Yum Yum (I Want Some) (mentioned earlier this week). But in as clear a sign as any of the digital divide's persistence, I still couldn't find full lyrics anywhere on the Web. In another search, the lyrics of Sly and the Family Stone's underrated Underdog again appeared only once on the Web, in an Italian blog (scroll to the bottom).

Ralph Wiley, the most stylistically proficient and probably best all-around writer of ESPN.com's Page 2, died last Sunday night of heart failure. His story archive continued to live on the site.

The Associated Press this week looks at the growing pushback to more news organizations requiring registration on their Web sites. The article highlights readers' complaints about giving up so much of their personal data, but I think taking that concern at face value misses the gut issue.

I think the real problem lies more with the number of times such requests are made, rather than how deep they probe. If Americans have shown anything in their Internet consumption in the last 10 years, it's how willing they are to hand over their data in return for something free.

What the news orgs are missing about the same Internet Americans is how unwilling they are to put up with crap. They like easy. They like monolithic. Navigation's still such that going off the beaten path requires a certain amount of active interest. Sure, simple surfing today demands an interest level above zero (watching television) — but not much higher. We're still adapting. Everyone's learned to scroll; a generation has learned to message on the fly. But most folks still skip across the surface.

I like to dig more than most people, but even I'm frustrated at how often registration walls are popping up these days. How many usernames and passwords do I need? More importantly, how many times am I going to have to enter my data? I don't care if all of these groups have my ZIP code; I'm just sick of typing it in.

The content industry's failure to build a wide micropayment system is what's at fault here. Fears of nickel-and-diming have kept any such system from use, but who says you have to charge people? Americans reject such a nickel-and-diming system for its imposition on their pocketbooks, not for its girders' effect on their consumption. The girders with their ease are probably the one part of the system Americans would like.

If a micropayment system was implemented popularly as a microtransaction system — data for all content, money for some — consumers would absolutely join in. Would they have a choice? No, but no matter. Their transactions would be the same, but they'd have to manage the transactions a lot less.

It's too bad the industry can't get itself more together. The organizations are young yet, but they can't even get together enough to take confidence in a ranking system. All the orgs submit to Nielsen/NetRatings measurements, counting the number of hits per site, but all also claim the measurements are wrong. And these are the numbers that determine the ad money! How are these groups supposed to interact with their shared audience if they can't even acknowledge their sharing?

I know one step at a time is necessary, but some initial steps would be nice. I've written before (PDF) how mass-media news Web sites are bearers of tradition. By their institutional history, they're obligated to maintain an ease of access, especially in regard to cost, no matter the medium. That tradition holds here.

The current registration dilemma doesn't involve money but certainly is an issue of access. Say you had to punch in your ZIP code on the remote control every time you changed the channel, or had to introduce yourself in detail to every newsstand proprietor you ever encountered. You'd feel like how the typical Web news consumer is starting to feel.

Like an idiot.

Serge writes: "… Bowling Green is a college town just south of Toledo. There is a main street that seems as if it were stolen from a very well-done theatre presentation of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or NORMAN ROCKWELL: THE PLAY. All tiny shops and warm sluggish sunset, it is the perfect little town to hide in after your 17 year career as a mafia hitman has ended and you've testified in 3 RICO trials and are now game to be plopped by the FBI into a place where…..well, they just ain't ever gonna find you, man. Seriously. They ain't. Anyhow, I digress…."

Belatedly following up August's tale of an encounter with a TGIF star, I'm happy to bring you another dispatch. My friend Annamarie (student, consultant, dreamer) writes from South Africa.

Emily writes her first column for Joliet's Herald News this week, addressing the national Ladies Night debate. She notes in her blog: "I have to say I did not come up with the title. I like the title, I just don't use the word 'bastion' too often. I'm more familiar with 'bastard.'"

So I'm sitting on the back porch and reading last weekend when I hear "Check, check, 1, 2" on a PA system. Some neighbors were throwing a party, and Mr. DJ had apparently arrived. I grabbed a pencil and paper from by the phone and took to sitting and reading my magazines and writing down their setlist.

1. Build Me Up Buttercup (cut), The Foundations

2. Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield

3. Build Me up Buttercup (full), The Foundations

4. My Mistake (Was to Love You), Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross

5. Band of Gold, Freda Payne

Strange pair of choices there. Good songs both, especially My Mistake, but thematically troubling.

6. Sugar Sugar, The Archies

7. You Better Shape Up, Grease

Then I heard only backbeat and "ooo!" until a chorus kicked in…

8. Respect, Aretha Franklin

9. Dancing Queen, ABBA

10. Sk8ter Boi, Avril Lavigne

11. Mustang Sally, not by Wilson Pickett

12. Follow Me, Uncle Kracker

I'm guessing there was a fight over the turntable. What else could explain that sequencing? My brother then walked in from the pool and told me about the band that had played there that evening. It was five high school guys, he said, playing "big band music, if big band was, like, five people."

13. Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett

My brother explained to me who the neighbors were that were throwing the party. "I imagine they're quite well off, or they just blow all their money on parties," Rob said. On a different note, a rotini note, he then proclaimed himself "Mr. Leftover."

14. Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond

15. Knock Three Times, Tony Orlando and Dawn

Reminded me of Paul Revere. Sort of.

16. I'm a Believer, The Monkeys

There are lot of things that can be praised about the Shrek movies, but music selection isn't one of them. Take the first one. Smash Mouth playing All Star? Smash Mouth playing I'm a Believer? The new one's got Livin' la Vida Loca and Footloose's Holding Out for a Hero in prime spots. Come on. Who let William Hung into DreamWorks? I figure the music director's assistant got to choose the music earlier in the film, and she or he did a much better job. Until its inevitable overplaying, the Counting Crows' Accidentally in Love can ride pop all over my radio right now.

17. More Today Than Yesterday, Spiral Staircase

18. Take Me Home, Country Roads, Hermes House Band

Horrible. Don't mess with my John Denver.

19. Long Train Runnin', Doobie Brothers

20. Car Wash, Rose Royce

The best radio contest I ever heard was when the DJ made listeners guess the number of claps that open the song.

21. I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Gladys Knight and the Pips

22. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd

23. Unknown. But fireflies began lighting in the backyard.

24. Pour Some Sugar on Me, Def Leppard

The DJ took a moment to announce the celebrant's 21st birthday. A good laugh was had by all.

25. Livin' on a Prayer (live), Bon Jovi

But not live live.

26. Centerfold, J. Geils Band

27. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), The Proclaimers

28. Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress), The Hollies

29. Stuck in the Middle With You, Stealers Wheel

The only time I've ever walked out of a movie was during the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs. I came back after the scene was over, but I've held it against Tarantino ever since. Sadism pisses me off.

30. You're the One, The Vogues

31. Unknown. A helicopter flew overhead.

32. Lean On Me, Club Nouveau

And that was more than enough. I heard a guy yell "Yea-uh!" (the vocalized moron gaze) and I knew between him and the setlist that I'd had enough of these people, whoever they were. Last Dance pumped through the neighborhood at 1:30 in the morning and accompanied my teeth-brushing.

Annd thennnn… Glorious Noise publishes a solid interview today with Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot about his new book, Wilco: Learning How to Die.

For more extended rides on the Wilco Wagon, enjoy Newtcase's Wilco Week (much deserved — I pre-ordered an hour ago) and Whitney Matheson's USATODAY.com Hip Clicks take on the band's recent D.C. show (scroll a third of the way down the page). The Washington Times also has a review; the absent Post may still be looking for the club.

Related Wilco posts:

-June 7, 2004 – What are summer teeth?

-April 7, 2004 – Early Ghost thoughts

-Nov. 11, 2003 – What's a radio cure?

-May 2, 2002 – Riv A&O Ball review

The NYT visits the Lost Colony cast on the Outer Banks:

The challenges of bridging past and present are constant. Near closing time last Saturday, an older couple with cameras around their necks popped into the settlement and approached the blacksmith Nathaniel Loughery, a thickset 22-year-old. "We're looking for good pizza tonight," the man said. "So, putting aside the accents…""We can't put aside the accents, sir," Mr. Loughery politely interjected, "but we can answer your questions."

The question was, where could they find decent Italian food on the island?

Sean Andrews, who portrays Mr. Loughery's Irish indentured servant, snorted. "Ay, yer in Manteo," he said, whittling on a stick. "If ye're looking fer Italian…" He shook his head.