Awww...wook at the puppy!

Normally, I'm greeted by over-caffeinated douchebags and/or lady-douches when I make my sales calls who want everything now now now now now. Rare are the times I am greeted by a spectacle such as this little guy, so I thought I'd share:

Everyone:

"AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Poem of the Month, Part 1

I used to read and write a lot of poetry so I've decided to occasionally, when fancy strikes, post one of my favorites for perusal. Take it or leave it. The first installment here is a prose poem by one James Tate, who won the Pulitzer in the early/mid 90s. This poem always makes me chuckle and reminds me that if something thought of as so gravely austere as poetry can be full of humor, than life can as well. Enjoy.




"Goodtime Jesus"

Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dreaming so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it?A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beautiful day. How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.

Are you a Tigger (Carwash) or an Eeyore (Carwash)?, a.k.a. Photo Journal Part 1

I have a really stupid job. Probably half my time is spent out and about: measuring things, taking photos of things, measuring things I already took photos of, photographing things I need to measure, meeting people, going to City Hall and getting permits (which is the biggest crock of shit imaginable and it's own rightful blog post), taking out of my ass, ordering and consuming Dunkin' Donuts coffee, etc. I go all over the place. I see weird things / people. I always have a digital camera with me. Put two and two together.

Why does "Pete's Sidelines" make me feel dirty?

Blog shmlog.

It was such a nice day today and I had to go not downtown but to the Gold Coast-y Viagra Triangle-ly Heart of Evil known as State / Dearborn / Walton / Delaware, a.k.a. Walton on the Park. There's really no good way to get there from the near Northwest side where my office is, so I decided to take the scenic route: Elston Avenue. I think Elston is my favorite street in Chicago. It's like a mini-expressway through the city. There's rarely a lot of traffic (that Fullerton / Damen six-corner ass-fuck notwithstanding) and it cuts right through most of the bullshit. It's also just a WEIRD street. The view driving southeast into the heart of downtown can be pretty cool, too:

Just ignore the Lexus, the electrical wires, the streetlights, the traffic signs and that gigantic pile of bum dung off to the right

Anyway, State/Walton/Delaware/Dearborn pretty much SUCKS and is probably my least favorite place in the entire city. Why, you ask?

Three Corners of Bullshit

Yes, these are the southwest, southeast and northwest views from the corner of Walton & State, in all their glory. Where the fuck are they going to find all these people to buy these places? Oh, and the northeast view? They're just breaking ground now. The noise was defeaning. The pollution, teaming. The douchebaggery, rampant.

I did my thing and got out of there lickety-splitly. Everyone in that neighborhood thinks their better than me, anyway. Maybe they are with their expensive cars and their complicated shoes. Fuck those people.

As do I, Sarah Marshall. Slut.

You know why I hate you and your eponymous movie, Sarah Marshall? Because some guy who lived downstairs from this guy who used to pull bongs and play Doom with a guy who wrote 6 jokes in "Knocked Up" wrote this assuredly-shitty "Sarah Marshall" movie, and now for the next ten years we're all going to be subjected to, "From the team that brought you 'Superbad' and "The 40 Year Old Virgin,' Paramount Pictures proudly presents the biopic everyone's been waiting for, the heart-warming and inspriational story of His Holiness, Karol Józef Wojtyła, John Paul II!"

Possible Titles:
The 80 Year Old Virgin
Pope on a Rope
Rope on a Pope
Pope on a Pope
Rope-a-Pope
Pope-a-Dope
Pope-a-Pope
Hey, Let's Get Drunk and Fuck High School Girls!
Superbad II: The Popening
You Cock-Blocked McLovin


Again, it was such a nice day and I was cruising back north on Elston, listening to Allison Krauss & Robert Plant like the good, college-educated white guy with taste and vitriolic hatred for all things emo I am and I passed a Baskin Robbins.

"Hmm...youu know...it's 70 degrees out. I'm going to get some ice cream. I realize it's 11:15 in the morning and I haven't eaten lunch or anything. Am I still getting ice cream? Fuck to the yes."

You seriously have no idea how covetously my wife is staring at this photo, cursing my name for the ability to get ice cream at 11:15 in the morning

Considering that 10 years ago I would have done whatever drug you'd set in front of me (as long as I didn't have to shoot it), getting ice cream in the morning is now me being "naughty." I'll meet you at the bridge and we can jump off it together. Maybe we can watch some "America's Funniest Home Videos" first.







How many places like this are there in Chicago, you think? Is 3,000,000 too high? I say no.

Has anyone ever figured out what a "super taco" is? I've always secretly kind of wanted to order one, but I'm a little afraid. A little afraid of it being embarrasingly immense and a little afraid of it sucking beyond reproach.

And finally, my paean to the cruelest, most foul and yet most delicious Chicago-style fast-food snack guilt known to Chicagokind: the pizza puff. What's the opposite of sublime? Blunt? Direct? I think it's "pizza puff." In what context does one order a pizza puff? You can't order just the puff and a drink, right? I mean, that's not enough for lunch. Is it? Similarly, can one really order the puff and a drink WITH FRIES and not just immediately change into a 10 year old college sweatshirt, flannel pants and fuzzy slippers? Can you order the puff and a drink with a salad? What if the place doesn't carry salads, or what if their idea of "salad" is 1/4 head of iceberg lettuce adorned only with an immense slab of both carrot and cucumber? Fuck that. That's not a salad. That's what you feed your pet rabbit.

My wife has insisted that there is only one proper context for the consumption of the pizza puff: extreme inebriation. And while I don't refute her claim that the puff is quite beguiling to the drunk, I--as a sober person at least, ehhh, 20% of the time--would appreciate more puff-munching (ahem) opportunties.

Anyone? Bueller?

More fucking hilarity with T, a.k.a. “It’s Only a Green Pen”

Part of T’s job is to order office supplies. And trust me, it’s not like we order a ton of stuff or a wide variety of stuff or anything that would exceed the problem solving capabilities and memory of a baby camel. It’s always the same shit, month after month, in relatively small quantities as our office only has 7 people in it.

So yesterday when I happened to notice that we were out of these green pens we generally keep in stock in the supply closet, I notified T.

It’s not easy being green

Me: “Hey, can you order us another box of these?”

T: “You need those?”

Me: “No, I have one, but we’re just out of them and I figured you could order another box to keep in stock since they're aren't any in the closet.”

T: “I prefer the black ones.”

Me: “Yes, well, uh…I use different pens for different things. Again, we just don’t have any more back there in the closet.”

T: “Is that black ink in there?” (I SWEAR to God she asked me this. –Ed.)

Me: “Huh?”

T: “Is that black ink?”

Me: “Uh…NO, it’s green ink.”

T: “J [another woman in the office] likes those.”

Me: “OK.”

T: “So you need these?”

Me: “NO, again, I HAVE one. [I held up the fucking green fucking pen in my fucking hand and showed her.] I just thought it’d be good to order another box for stock.”

T: “Ok, no problem.”

Me: “We’re also out of binder clips, too.” (I don’t know what you call them, but I call them binder clips. You know, those black paperclip thingies?) “The mini and the small ones. So can you order some of those, too?”

T: “The…mini…and…the…small?” (I should have known this was going to be too difficult for her to understand. –Ed.)

Me: “Yes. There’s the MINI which is really tiny and then the small, which is slightly LESS tiny.”

T: “The…mini…and…the…small?”

Me: “Yes.”

She reached into the box on her desk in which she keeps these things and took out a couple, spreading them out on her desk.

Me: “THAT is a mini. And THAT is a small. So…one box of each would be great.”

T: “What about thes—“

Me: “NO…NO…that’s a medium. We’re fine on those. Just mini and small.”

T: “Mini…and…small. Plus the pens you need.”

Me: “NO. I DO NOT NEED THOSE PENS. I just thought it would be…**sigh**…yes, T. Plus the pens I need.”

T: “No problem.”

Fast forward to 8:41 this morning. T walks into my office carrying an opening box of green pens.

T: “I found these under other pens. You need one?”

I then killed her. Don’t tell the cops. I’m on my way to South America right now.


We swear in no way was this story embellished, falsified or otherwise subjected to hyperbole (except for the end…or was it?!?) In fact, the dialogue itself is, in most instances, taken verbatim from conversations with T on 04.09.08 and 04.10.08.

Baby’s ‘R’ Us and We’re Insane So That Must Mean That Babies ‘R’ Insane

I am not a shopper. I don’t shop. I instead purchase goods I require as quickly as possible so I can then get the FUCK out of the temple of consumerism that is the average American retail store. If you gave me a choice as to whether or not I had to spend a random day shopping or working, I in all honesty would choose the latter. In fact, there’s a lot of not-really-all-that-much-fun stuff I’d rather do than shop, just as:

Coal mining

Ditch digging

Paint scraping

“According to Jim” watching

Frankincense myrrhing

Turpentine drinking

Ostrich fellating

Et.al. I also have a tendency to freak out at how expensive everything is. In fact, it’s kind of a problem. I’m TRYING to be better about it; I really am. I’m only 33 years old and I’m already bitching about how expensive socks and andirons and smoked turkey sausage is. In another 20 years, I’ll never leave the house again lest I swallow my own head at the price of paper clips.

So when I was asked by my wife if I wanted to go to Babies ‘R’ Us with her to finish off our registry, my initial internal reaction was something like this:

“BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha---ha---ha--- ha---ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . hoo . . . hoo . . . *ahem* . . . whew . . . hoo . . . just gimme a sec here . . . hee-hee . . . hoo . . .”

**5 seconds of silence**

“BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA . . .”

But in the interest of, you know, wanting to be a decent husband and father, I actually said this:

“Do you WANT me to go to Babies ‘R’ Us with you . . . ?” the unspoken and understood end of that sentence being “…because if you do, it might be your funeral.” Meaning that after roughly 12 minutes of Babies ‘R’ Us-ing I might in fact become Baby Is Me and pitch my own very temper tantrum right in the middle of the breast pump aisle, which is wildly inappropriate for a man my age.

“If you want to come with me, sure.”

To the untrained ear, it might sound like some of that there reverse psychology but my wife and I don’t play that. You want me there, ask me. You don’t, don’t. Leave it up to me, then leave it up to me. She left it up to me.

So I accepted. Why? I’ll never truly know. Probably because she’s done like 98% of everything involved with “stuff for The Kid,” so I felt I should throw in my two (per)cent(s).

We’re pulling into the parking lot and the first thing out of my mouth once the store comes into view is, “Oh my God. It’s HUGE.” And it was. I felt like one of those people in “Independence Day,” mouth agape, staring up at this huge looming spaceship, like, “Oh, well. I’ve had a nice run.”

So my wife says, “What? You’ve never been to a Babies ‘R’ Us before?”

“Uh, no. Why on earth would I have been to a Babies ‘R’ Us before? What POSSIBLE reason would I have to come here?”

If I wasn’t married and had to give a baby shower present, I’d probably give cash. Or a coupon for one free rubella inoculation at Immunizations ‘R’ Us. Or, shit, I don’t know… a piece of fucking candy or something. (Do babies like candy? Guess I should read that parenting book…) But I certainly wouldn’t subject myself to Babies ‘R’ Us.

Though here I was. Poised for entry.

First impressions: it’s fucking HUGE. Oh, I said that already? Well, fuck you. You think it’s big from the outside? Well, just go inside. It’s even BIGGER with all the shit everywhere. I don’t how that’s possible but they manage it somehow. They also feel compelled to pipe in the worst music ever recorded. I actually heard Bon Jovi’s “Have a Nice Day.” No shit. I’d rather have been ear fucked two ways by Raffi and the Wiggles than the crap they had on in there. (Although in 6 months time I’ll probably offer to suck Richie Sambora’s dick rather than listen to the Wiggles one. More. Fucking. Time.)

Second impressions: did I mention how big it was? Okay, okay. Sorry. (it’s really big tho)

Thirdpressions: first thing was pacifiers. Pretty simple, right?

**said in best Samuel L. Jackson voice, like Jules in “Pulp Fiction”**

“Wrong, motherfuckah! DEAD wrong.”

There was a wall of pacifiers. A wall. Not a small wall. A big wall. A huge wall. A motherfucking immense wall, like what I imagine a tsunami looks like to a poor, unsuspecting Indonesian villager. (Is it fair and proper to compare what is tantamount to a very unfortunate and sad watery death sentence to my experience with the Wall of Pacifiers? I say yes.) The wall MUST have been at least 5 feet high by a good 40 feet wide (!) lined, top to bottom, with pacifiers. All different kinds. All different colors and shapes. Maggie Simpson would have pissed herself with glee. 200 square feet of the finest pacification technology (aside from opium) known to humankind. God bless America.

They really only carry two BRANDS of pacifiers though. One which looks really fancy and nice, you know…the kind you’d buy if you really loved your kid and wanted them to be successful and not grow up to be a porn star getting fucked on film by two guys wearing executioner’s masks. The other was less nice. We got the latter brand. Why? Because we already hate our kid. Well, that AND because the former brand uses more plastic packaging than was required for all the parts for the fucking Death Star. Not only were the little nipple portions of the pacifiers themselves covered in this non-recyclable plastic but the whole fucking 2-pack was also encased in this non-recyclable plastic shell.

Why is this necessary?

“No. I’m drawing a line.”

**I literally mimicked drawing a line in the “sand.”**

“We’re getting the other ones.”

My wife agreed with me. Doing this whole magilla as Green as possible is pretty important to us so we’re going to have to continue to make choices like this one.

Next were the newborn toys some of which, I have to admit, were pretty awesome. I played with them myself and registered for a couple. So if you’re my friend of your reading this and you have elected to purchase our kid one of these toys, you can sleep at night because it’s gotten my Seal of Approval®. Most of the toys, however, were just annoying. Does EVERYTHING have to make cutesy sounds? Guh. How about just dumb a ball of clay or something.

Onto the diaper bags!

Yet another wall. Of bags you carry diapers in. Shitty diapers, I imagine, sometimes. It’s very important to make a statement: what kind of person shall I represent to the world as I transfer crap from one place to the other? Now, look…I’m not completely cynical. I understand that there are important considerations with respect to purchasing a feces transport system: comfort, price, accessibility, durability, size, shape and—yes—color and style. But there must have been 60 different bags for sale. And that’s nothing. Why not set yourself up with something like THIS? You’ll be the fiercest mommy on the block! Work it, girl! What's that smell? It’s the smell of FABULOUS!

After the diaper bags, it was onto the stroller / carrier / car seat / base do-si-do. I swear, I think the people who work at Babies ‘R’ Us should run the fucking country. Do you have ANY concept how complicated this shit is? Really. The carrier fits into the stroller (sometimes) and locks into the base that you keep buckled in your car (again, sometimes.) That way, you don’t need a separate car seat (sometimes.) Unless, you know, you WANT a separate car seat or you want a stroller than doesn’t come with a carrier. In that case, you don’t need a base (I think.) But you’ll also have to get a separate carrier unless you want to use the car seat as the carrier (which I imagine would be silly). The fact that we had generously been given a carrier/car seat by a co-worker of my wife’s caused us (meaning “her”) to attempt to figure out whether or not “X” carrier/car seat fit into “Y” base and “Z” stroller. Plus, my wife’s SISTER has a kid (and another one on the way) and as a result has a base already in her mother’s car, so the idea was to have everything the same so that my mother-in-law was only required to drive around with one base in her backseat, to fit all the various accoutrements. Well, the guy we asked knew the answers to all these questions, right off the top of his head! I was completely impressed. (As it turns out, my mother-in-law will have to ride around with 2 bases in the back of her car. As I said at the time, “Well, it’s not her friends are piling in the back to go hang out at the beach or anything, so it’s probably not a big deal.”)

After the strollers, we checked out the burp cloths (some of which were unbelievably adorable) and some other shit I don’t remember because I’d swallowed my own head. There was one in particular that had me ooohing and aaahing it was so damned cute. I spent WAY too much time online hunting for a picture of it. Alas, I couldn’t find one. The below will have to do for display purposes:

Bear on Bear Action

I assure you, the actual one I saw at the store was roughly 10,000 times cuter and 10,000 times less lame/gay.

But two bears as friends? Of COURSE they’re friends! They’re of the same species! You really wanna teach a kid about friendship? I suggested my own burp cloth alternatives:

Hell, a bear and a SALMON? Now THAT’S friendship.

“I love you, man. Bear. What? Well, then FUCK YOU, TOO!!!”

**they maul each other**

“You’re so fierce.”

“No, YOU’RE so fierce.”

**inhuman and terrifying growling sounds**

Bottom line: there’s a LOT of shit you can buy for your kid exacerbated by the fact that women, in general—you know—like to shop. Plus we live in a country where if you aren’t offered roughly 83,407 options for something to pick up shit with the terrorists have apparently won.

Brief fun with T

"Bruce Frisbee."

I'm walking around her desk and this is what she says to me as she's typing up invoices (with one finger, I believe).

"What?"

Again. "Bruce Frisbee."

Still not making any more sense. So I just stare at her.

"You know...FRISBEE?" She mimics the act of throwing the eponymous disc across the reception area.

"Yeah..."

"That's his name. I just like it."

"Ah. Ha. I see."

Becoming reacquainted with hatred, part 2

Since my last post relative to this topic was so immensely popular with you, America (3 whole comments, 2 of which were about Gwen Stefani’s baby!), I have elected to give you what you want: my droll poo-pooing of God-awful lite rock songs. Here we go. Again.


“Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”: C + C Music Factory

First of all, I can’t believe this is now considered a “lite” rock song. Wow. What’s next, “War Pigs?” “G-Spot Tornado?” Back in the day if some 50ish woman using this so-called “facsimile” machine and considering getting a “something-or-other-ccino” at that new “Starblocks” place all the way across town heard anything remotely sounding like rap music wafting by her desk, she probably would have shit her pants. Even if it was rap like this:

Here is the dome, back with the bass
The jam is live in effect and I don't waste time
On the mike with a dope rhyme
Jump to the rhythm jump jump to the rhythm jump
And I'm here to combine
Beats and lyrics to make your shake your pants
Take a chance, come on and dance
Guys grab a girl, don't wait, make her twirl
It's your world and I'm just a squirrel
Trying to get a nut to move your butt
To the dance floor, so yo…what's up
Hands in the air, come on say yeah,
Everybody over here everybody over there
The crowd is live and I pursue this groove
Party people in the house
Move ... (Let your mind)
Move ... (Put me online)

Man, rap has come a long way, hasn’t it? I mean, I like a good pants-shaking as much as the next party person, but this doesn’t exactly make the hard-scrabble streets of Compton or Watts or Harlem come alive for me. (Similarly, could someone also make the contention that lite rock has come a long way?)

Secondly and further tangentially, when I was in high school I ran around with a very small group of friends. We were nerds. Sort of. We were all in “advanced” classes, but we were a little misanthropic about it all. We listened to Depeche Mode and thought we were disturbed. We went “dancing” at this all-ages club in Chicago, Medusa’s, and wore black jeans. We were bored a lot of the time. Think of Claire from “Six Feet Under” but roughly 85% less cool and 95% less attractive.

One of the guys who hung around with us sometimes, now that I am an adult and can reflect back on this all with a greater degree of perspective, was as gay as Charles Nelson Reilly. He made Jack from “Will & Grace” look like John Fucking Wayne. I’m talking, like, REALLY gay. GAY gay. But, of course, at the time, I had no clue. I just thought he was a little…odd.

If you had asked 17-year-old me what made a gay man a gay man, I would have responded, “A gay man likes men,” or something direct and—frankly—correct like that. However, my problem with respect to REALLY grasping what that statement meant, or more specifically in order for me to truly have presented it as a correct statement, lied within my misunderstanding of the verb “likes.” A gay man likes men, sure. I myself am not gay, and I also like men. Well, some men. However, now I know that a gay man, while liking men, also LIKES men. As in, likes to FUCK men, which for some reason really never occurred to me. The fucking, I mean. I mean, sure. I guess I knew that gay men have sex with other men, but I just never really thought that meant—well—actual sex. I don’t know. I sound retarded, which I pretty much was when I was 17.

Gay Guy in High School was a really good guy, though, albeit a little spoiled. I just hope he’s gay and happy somewhere. (Gay and gay somewhere?) Anyway, uh…he really liked this song.

Come on let's sweat, baby
Let the music take control
Let the rhythm move you
Sweat!

What?

SWEEEEEAAAAATTTTT!

Oh. OK!



“Drops of Jupiter”: Train

My wife and I saw these guys in concert accidentally when they were opening for Ben Folds in support of that “Meet Virginia” song. Now, I didn’t necessarily think that “Meet Virginia” was a terrible song or anything (still don’t, really), so when I discovered that they were the opening band, my interest was piqued.

They all walked out on stage and the lead singer sparked up some incense, as if they were about to lead us all on some spiritual journey. Oooooo…ok, Carlos Castenada. Whatever. Just tell me that Virginia wears high heels while she exercises and let Ben Folds get on up there. (That Virginia…she’s so sassy!)

I also noticed that the singer brought out a trumpet with a fancy stand and set it right next to him. I therefore assumed that Train’s tunes were liberally dosed with trumpet accompaniment: hence the trumpet, the stand, and their relative proximity to the singer. Hmm.

Well, the music pretty much sucked. They played that “Virginia” song, all right. Did you know that she wears high heels while she exercises? Well, she does. I think I was turned off by the incense-lighting at the beginning of the show. Their music could have been the perfect marriage of The Beatles and James Brown (which is pretty much—well—Prince, anyway) and I would have been like, “Meh. Pretentious fucks…”

And the trumpet? He played like 5 notes. On one song. So basically he played trumpet in the high school marching band and wanted to put his rudimentary knowledge of embouchure to use.

Then “Jupiter” came out and the band kind of blew up. And by blew up I mean “really, really sucked camel dong and not due this time to any ego-waving delusional meditation-trainer syndrome by the lead singer”:

Tell me, did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Huh?

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there

HUH?

Now that she's back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that there's room to grow, hey, hey

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
I'm afraid that she might think of me as plain ol' Jane
Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land

Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there

Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you're wrong
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had . . . and me

Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of da
And head back toward the Milky Way

Does anyone have any clue what the FUCK is going on here? Maybe if I ate a fistful of diazepam and chased ‘em down with a gallon of Murphy’s Oil Soap this would make some sense. Mozart? Tae-bo? Fried chicken? Soy latte?!? Oh, Jesus.

To me, it sounds like this guy just got done listening to “You Can Call Me Al,” thought, “Hey, this would sound even cooler…in SPACE!” and then wrote this piece of shit.


“I Hope You Dance”: Lee Ann Womack
“Because You Loved Me”: Celine Dion
“Hold On”: Wilson Phillips
“I Need You”: Lee Ann Rimes
“That’s The Way It Is”: Celine Dion

I really don’t have anything intelligent, insightful, or even remotely humorous concerning the reasons for the glorious suckitudinousness of these songs. They just SUCK.

I guess my major problem is that they are simply BORING. Dull. Lame. Comprised of cheap, unimaginative sentiment that been rehashed time and time again. People love this shit, though. Whatever. I guess I don’t know what I’m missing.


“Breathless”: Kenny G

Funny story…

The best job I ever had in my life was when I was 19, after I had dropped out of college (the first try didn’t take). I worked at a Border’s Books & Music. It was awesome. I was surrounded by cool, older people who liked me and for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel like a nerd or a loser or, more dramatically, human social cancer, which is pretty much what I felt like when I was at school. Women paid attention to me, even liked me. People thought I had interesting and insightful things to say about music and other stuff. They laughed at my jokes. I had fun.

One thing about the job sucked, though. You guessed it: the fucking customers.

Annoying fucking customer: “I’m looking for a song. I don’t know what it’s called. ‘Breezes’ or something? You know it. Do you have it?”

Me at 19: “Uh, I really don’t know. ‘Breezes’ you say?”

AFC: “Yeah, ‘Breezes.’ Something like that…”

**annoyed typing sounds** Me: “Uh, nothing coming up. I don’t think we have that.”

AFC: “Oh, sure you do. You know…’BREEZES!’ Guy plays a golden flute!”

**Me, thinking** Golden flute? What the fuck?!? “A golden flute? James Galway? Uh…hmm…”

**Me, continuing to think** What terrible shit music would this woman want that sounds like ‘Breezes’ and is played by some jackass with a golden fucking fl—

Me: “Oh! Do you mean ‘Breathless?’”

AFC: “Yeah, it could be…”

Me: “Kenny G. ‘Breathless.’ It’s in [**GULP**] JAZZ. I’ll show you. (as snarkily as my 19 year old self could muster) And it’s not a golden flute. It’s a soprano saxophone.”

What still impresses me almost 15 years later is that I figured it out. Kenny G. “Breathless.” I love how she kept insisting, “Oh…you know it.” Yeah, lady. A 19 year old kid with long Tom Petty-like hair who smells like a fucking ashtray is a huge Kenny G fan. I’m sure he celebrates the man’s entire catalog.

We found ways to amuse ourselves at the store. After all, spending 40 hours a week surrounded by people with no taste at all is enough to make a person want to pound Wild Turkey and beat up children at the end of the day. My favorite way to kill time was what we called “The Yanni Experiment.” Lemme ‘splain:

The employees were allowed to select the music for in-store playing. We received a lot of free promotional CDs, which we certainly played, but sometimes we just cracked open a particular disc from stock in order to break up the monotony, to check something out to sate our personal curiosity, to advertise something that people would probably dig and then buy, etc. The best was when we decided to put Yanni on the in-house stereo.

Within 30 seconds of hearing the music of that former Greek national swimming champion (seriously), people became zombies, wandering up to the cash register as if looking for brains to consume.

“What…is…this…beautiful…music?” they would intone.

“Yanni!” we always too-emphatically replied, relishing in the fact that they had no idea we were mirthfully mocking them.

“This…is…beautiful…music. May…I…possibly…purchase…this?”

“Sure!” And we’d walk Zombie Yanni Enthusiast over to the New Age section and show them the wide variety of Yanni CDs for sale, from which they would almost always select at least 2, perhaps 3, sometimes (I shit you not) one of every single available title. It never failed. Incredible. What’s in that guy’s music that made white people from the (then) ages of 36 – 54 go cuckoo?

The Secretary

For some reason, growing up our living room was this abandoned Museum of Social Decorum. Pristine couches and glass ashtrays and weirdo porcelain statuettes and fancy candy dishes which were never filled with anything much less candy and overgrown plants and it was very, very white and very, very clean and we were never, ever in there. Ever. The dining room and living room were conjoined and while we did use the dining room during big family get-togethers, the dining room was a room completely devoid of people. It kind of scared me.

Anyway, my parents kept this God-awful ugly secretary desk in the living room. It had a yellow painted finish with purple birds or flowers or some shit all over it. Perhaps for the late sixties or early seventies it was the height of fashion (probably not) but as time wore on it became and more hideous. After probably 40 years of ownership by my parents and then by my mother alone after the divorce, it ended up in my house after I was forced to admit my mother to the nursing home where she now resides and is cared for. My wife arranged to have it stripped and refinished by her father, who is after all a furniture refinisher. It now sits in our home, completely transformed by his hand. Quite beautifully, I might add.

When I was a kid, I do remember impressions of the secretary. Within it were contained the notions and detritus of adulthood: checkbooks, stamps, appointment calendars, greeting cards, ribbons, correspondence, labels, bills to be paid, telephone numbers. When something adult and fairly far removed from my world required completion, the secretary was consulted. It smelled weird, artificially sour like printed money yet bucolic and comforting like open land. It was mysterious and a little imposing. What, exactly, was all that stuff FOR?

Well, now I’m an adult with a wee one on the way. The contents of the secretary are all too familiar to me. Perhaps my child will look upon the same configuration of wood and nails and brass pulls and knobs that I did with a similar sense of bafflement. Having been reimagined, stripped of its odd paintjob and finished anew, awaiting a brand new life to be lived around it, I hope that the secretary in its new clothing blesses my home, my wife and my child. And me, too.

Things I’ll Never Get Sick Of, Part 1

We live in a disposable society. As Americans (and perhaps as humans?), we are almost expected to live in diametric opposition to the rest of nature in that we do not strike any sort of balance with our environment. We exhaust resources with nary a worry and move on to the next thing. (Didn’t Agent Smith more eloquently expound on this topic in “The Matrix?” I believe he did. So go smoke a bowl and watch it, Neo.)

“I’ll enjoy watching you die…Mr. Anderson.”

American media—music, books, film, etc.—is a function of this philosophy. “Everyone’s going to get sick and tired of everything in a couple months anyway, so why make anything good?” Well, fuck them. Stuff that’s really good I never get tired of. I might be a little sociopathic in the sense that I can listen to, read, or watch the same thing over and over and over again, but I don’t care. Good is good.

The Beatles
I know I said in an earlier post that I can understand why someone wouldn’t like The Beatles. Well, I was wrong. If you don’t like The Beatles, there is something seriously wrong with you. So just let it go and admit their music is completely fucking awesome. ‘Cause it is.

The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach
Some of you who know me reading this have probably heard this story a million times, but it is in NO way creatively embellished or apocryphal. I swear:

When I was 7 years old I was sitting there in music class behind Andrea Halpern who I thought was really pretty just minding my own when our music teacher, Mr. Jim Thompson (no relation to the former governor but who in fact did lop off 3 of his fingers with a band saw about halfway through the school year and we never saw him again), decided to expose us to a little bit of classical music. The first piece he played for us was “Little Fugue in G Minor,” by the illustrious Mr. Bach.

You can listen to a version on piano here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVadl4ocX0M&feature=related
(Note that it was originally written for organ, I believe, and that there are now myriad versions, including one played by a full orchestra.)

In a word, I was floored. I had never heard anything like that. I was changed that day. I’ll never forget it. I think it was the first time I was MOVED by something.

And so here I am, almost 30 years later, and I’m still listening to this man’s music. I own every major piece (sometimes several times over in different recordings) and have begun to collect and listen to the lesser-known ones.

I like Mozart and I like Beethoven but Bach started it all. The musical language which was and is used to create everything you have heard and will ever hear in your life started with Grandpappy Johann. He represents the pinnacle of Baroque style and in many ways, therefore, the pinnacle of all of Western music.

Individuals I know who like classical music have expressed a dislike for the seeming robotic nature of fugues and other contrapuntal writing and insist that Bach’s music is “unemotional.” I gotta go ahead and call bullshit on that one. If imitative works like fugues and canons aren’t your shit, so be it. Bach has many other more linear works that might grab you:

1. Any of the harpsichord concertos, namely the A Major (BWV 1055) and the F Minor (BMV 1056)


2. The Italian Concerto and French Overture (written for harpsichord but easily found on piano)


3. The Cello Suites are deservedly famous, although solo cello becomes a bit tiresome to listen to after a while, I find


4. The Concerto for 2 Violins is pretty amazing


5. The Brandenburg Concertos are probably his famous works and are very easy to listen to
   
6. The Five Orchestral Suites are wonderful and you’ve heard his “Air on a G String” from these at every wedding you have ever been to, including mine
   

Happy listening. 27 years and counting for me and I listen to Bach almost every single day of my life.

The word “Fuck”
I love cursing. Some would contend that people who curse are just too lazy, insensitive and/or dim to conjure the non-offensive words to make their point known. Again, fuck those people. Cursing is so integral to our nature as human beings. I heard this story on NPR one evening about this man who wrote a book on cursing. (Wouldn’t he be fun to have dinner with? “You’re a filthy cocksucker, or as they say in Arabic: chaim’laal! More wine?”) Based on his exhaustive research, he contends that most likely our first words as humans were in fact curse words. Mute stroke victims, dementia patients and others similarly afflicted show significant brain activity when they are exposed to curse words. Curse words are part of us, part of our history as a species.

And “fuck” is the granddaddy of them all. I’ve said “fuck” probably 10,000,000 times in my life and I’ll say it another 10,000,000 before the end. Well, probably 15,000,000. After all, I’m having a kid.

“I’m the executive sales manager!”

Fargo

I must have seen this movie 25 times. And I could watch it again right now. It’s pretty much the perfect movie. It’s got everything. The acting is brilliant across the board. William H. Macy AND Frances McDormand?!? Come on… The story is wild: the disclaimer at the beginning about how it was based on a true story? Yeah, that’s bullshit. That’s just the Coens fucking with your head. Even the music is awesome. Carter Burwell features the viola da gamba, an antiquated progenitor of the cello, which has this isolated, lonely sound. “Fargo” is funny, scary, violent, sad, intelligent, silly and deadly serious.








The Paris Codex
You can read about and even see the Paris Codex here (http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/codex/), but in a nutshell (“What am I doing in this bloody great big nutshell?”) the Paris Codex is a surviving paper book of the Postclassic (after 900 AD) Maya. Most of their paper books were burned during the Spanish Inquisition and as a result only four have survived: The Paris, The Dresden, The Groiler and The Madrid. They all contain information about gods, chronology, royalty, warfare, economics and astronomy, among other subjects.

Anyway, I’m a big Maya history buff and every once in a while I’ll go to the website above and just look at the pages. It’s just so COOL and exotic and weird. Of course I can’t read any of it or anything but I simply appreciate the esoteric nature of their writing system and wonder how it came to be. Kind of “discovering” my interest in Mayan culture this late in my life (my wife and I went to Belize and Guatemala in 2005) has made me feel like a kid again.







Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee
You can keep your Starbucks. Seriously. Keep it. It’s gross.

Gimme the good stuff. Yeah, that’s right. What’s that? You…you want me to…to drink you? Oh, you’re SO naughty, DD! If I must…

I think there’s real honest-to-God crack in there. There’s no other way to explain the fact that’s it so FUCKING good.

The above photo is the result of doing a Google image search for "I fucking love dunkin donuts coffee." God bless the Internet. --Ed.











Art Tatum

Art Tatum is the greatest musician you’ve never heard of. He’s unequivocally the greatest jazz pianist who ever lived. (No one, really, can make an argument otherwise. Well, I mean, you could…but you’d be a tremendous douchebag.) He also may be the greatest jazz PERFORMER who ever lived. Furthermore, he may even be the single greatest performer in any genre on any instrument in the history of recorded music. Seriously.

Art Tatum knew 10,000 songs, from Tin Pan Alley to Dvorak. Every time he played any one of them he would completely deconstruct it and put it back together in some other beautiful form. Imagine the Sistine Chapel made out of Legos. If “Someone to Watch Over Me” was that Lego Sistine Chapel, Art Tatum would take it apart and put it back together into a perfect replica of Notre Dame. Then he’d take Notre Dame and make Machu Picchu. Get it? He was incredible.

Art Tatum was rarely recorded during his all-too-brief life and when he was the conditions were always really shitty. But it almost doesn’t matter. It’s so brilliant. He died in the mid 50s due to kidney failure brought on by excessive beer drinking. Seriously.

RIP, Art Tatum.

I'm a real estate executive!

Not long ago, we hired this new sales guy, M. He’s been in the industry for probably 20 years or so, having worked for at least 3 other sign companies (that I know of.) He apparently promised my boss the moon: all sorts of contacts and relationships forged from his dealings, chomping at the bit, salivating at the prospect of being able to order their stuff from our company.

Well, this guy doesn’t do SHIT.

I’ve never—EVER—seen him at the office past 1:30 in the afternoon. I understand that sales people don’t necessarily work 9 to 5, but come on. He’s always at “meetings.” If by meetings he actually means “a strip club,” well, then fine. He’s also really chatty. I know all about him and his two daughters, one of whom attends Villanova and is on the water polo team, the other whom is still at some private Catholic high school and plays forward for the varsity basketball team. He’s been coaching girls’ basketball forever and he doesn’t care if Girl X hasn’t played but 2 minutes the whole season. Sometimes, you just gotta win. He goes to church every Sunday like a good Irish Catholic. He loves the NCAA tournament and is really “psyched.”

He struts around like a peacock because he’s sold like 6 cheapo signs and some installation time to Donald Trump for his new eponymous monstrosity downtown. He had a meeting with Ivanka and The Donald one day for like 12 minutes about it and thinks he’s spinning yarns by telling me that Ivanka’s “hot” and that Donald has “weird hair.” As if I should be curled up at his feet, enraptured, as he sits in a stuffed leather chair in front of a crackling hearth with a snifter of brandy. Uh, yeah, dude. I know. I’ve seen pictures. Ivanka’s pretty good-looking and Donald’s hair defies reason.

What he would never admit, however, was that he got the Trump account by accident, since the other sales guy was out—you know—WORKING, and so it fell in M’s lap.

His other big account is Sam’s Liquors but, again, not originally his account. My boss had a relationship with their Director of Marketing, who left a company we still continue to do a lot of business with in order to go work for Sam’s.

He’s all about doing mailings which in my opinion don’t work. I don’t know about you, but if I see a piece of mail that I don’t recognize or want, I throw it away. But mailings allow him to sit on his ass, spend money on materials, make everyone else do work for him, and give the impression that he’s motivated and doing something. So I have had to personally send out no less than 2000 envelopes of crap for this guy within the last couple months, which always makes me wonder why exactly I went to college. He wrote a letter to accompany this new flyer and business card which we (I) sent out to about 1000 real estate owners. I swear, it’s so antiquated, so out of touch with the digital age of business and with the tenor of most Americans, if you had told me that this had been uninterred from a time capsule buried in 1952, I wouldn’t have been surprised. It makes me laugh. Then, it makes my cry because this guy probably makes a shit ton more money than I do.

Dear Real Estate Executive…


Hey, I’m a Real Estate Executive! I spend roughly 23 hours on my cell phone a day! I drive a Nissan Altima or better! I never eat! Eating is for the weak! I get up at 4:30 in the morning and go to bed at midnight! Spiders are cool, you know?!? They’re all bad asses, catching prey! If spiders were people, they’d totally be real estate executives! Hey, wait! That’s my phone! Hang on! **mumbling and fake laughter** Oh, snap! I just sold these poor idiots a condo in the South Loop! Little do they know the place looks great but they’ll have to shit in a hole in the parking garage! I never shit! Shitting is for the weak! I’m a Real Estate Executive!

Please take a minute to look at the enclosed promotional brochure…

Oooh, more of that “dot…dot…dot” way to end a sentence! I’m so intrigued! It’s like a movie! Did you see that movie, The Departed?!? That was fuckin’ AWESOME! (It really was. –Ed.)

[Company name] has provided the finest in sign related products and services for four generations!

Oh. Well, that was a little disappointing. What’s a sign related product? What’s a sign related service? Whatever. Four generations?!? Wow, that’s like…a…LONG time. Isn’t it?!? Wow.

Our expertise, attention to details and customer service are second to none.

Second to none? I don’t get it. Is that good or bad?!? Hang on! Phone. **further mumbling, fake laughter, rolling of eyes and gesturing of hands like “wrap it up, already”** Cha-CHING! Another sale! I’m AWESOME!

We try to make the sign ordering process a pleasant experience and try to eliminate many of the hassles that have become commonplace when working with other sign companies.

A pleasant experience? Like 2 chicks at one time?!? ‘Cause let me tell you…THAT is fuckin’ pleasant, even if you have to pay for it.

I don’t like hassles. Hassles are bad. My kids hassle me all the time. The wife’s got the van with the DVD player in the back so they can watch “Cars” for the 3,000th time and they STILL won’t shut up! Fuckin’ kids!

Here is a list of the products and services we provide…

Wow, that’s a LONG list there. You do lots of stuff! I only do one thing: Close. The. Fucking. Deal. ‘Cause that’s all you need. I’m AWESOME!

Check out our new website at www.[blahblahblah].com for more information.

Nah.

Please feel free to contact us to discuss any of your sign related needs. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to working with you.

I’m sure you do! You know why?!? I’m fucking AW—oh! Hang on! Phone! **screeching** No, NO!! NO!!! That is WRONG! FUCK! What are we going to DO?!? Figure it the FUCK out and call me BACK!! **hangs up** Fuck! That fucking BITCH! I clearly ordered ORGANIC coconut tandoori chicken strips but that stupid BITCH of a receptionist I hired ordered me the NON-organic kind! Fuck! She gives great head, though.

Be sure to check out the enclosed price promotion card and mention it when you call to order a banner or an MDO plywood marketing sign!

Wow! That’s in red! And italics! And bold! And it’s larger than everything else! It must be super important! I should probably read it ag—FUCK! PHONE! **calmly** Yes, Gretchen? Uh-huh. I see. OK, nice job. Thank you. **hangs up** Whew! Organic’s on the way!

I’m sorry…what we’re you saying?!?

I wear green sweatpants

I wear green sweatpants. In public even. With dress shoes and white socks sometimes, if I’m just walking from the dojo to the car after aikido. And I have this nice leather coat that my wife bought me but it’s a couple years old now and it’s been my only winter coat. So it’s a little beat up. And I lost my goddamned black gloves back before Christmas, so I’ve been wearing an old pair of my wife’s. Which are small on me. Not to mention brown. And I also have a nice hat my mother in law knitted me. But it’s a little feminine*. And gray.

So what’s my point? Well, my point is this: I guess I kind of look like a homeless person walking around sometimes.

Just goes to show you how your priorities change as you get older and once you find out you’re going to be a parent.

Probably a month ago I was in the grocery store shopping on Saturday morning, as is my routine. The CUTEST little girl was there, accompanying her brother and father; she was probably 5 years old. She was so damned cute; I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. Made me think about having a cute little girl of my own and how wonderful it would (will?) be to take her with me on mundane errands on the weekends, even if just for company’s sake. But, of course, I didn’t want to stare at her or anything. So I tried to be coy and catch brief looks.

Problem was…she CAUGHT me. She caught me looking at her and I think she got a little freaked out. Of course, I couldn’t say, “Oh, honey…I’m sorry! It’s just that I might be having a little girl of my own and you’re just so damned cute I want to pick you up and swing you around in my arms and think about what it could be like with her!” So I just moved on in the store and got my shopping done and left.

Driving home, it occurred to me: I’ve come pretty far from the person I was in college. Hell, I used to stare at some chick’s rack and try not to get caught. Now it’s little girls. (That sounded bad. You know what I mean.)


*Funny story about this hat. At D’s bachelor party, one of the strippers saw it in the bedroom with the coats and put it on.

“Is this yours?” she asked me.
“Uh, yeah, it is,” I said.
“Wow. I REALLY like it.”

I believe that Man Rule #17B-01.2 reads as such, verbatim: When a stripper expresses any modicum of attachment or attraction to any article of clothing, bauble, trinket or other tchotchke with a retail value of $19.99 or less it is your responsibility as a man to GIVE IT TO HER IMMEDIATELY and THANK THE LORD THAT SHE’S TALKING TO YOU ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN GETTING PAID FOR HER LAPDANCE. But…

“Oh. Well, I’d let you have it but my mother-in-law made it for me.”
She takes it off immediately. “That’s cool. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”
The stripper liked my hat. That’s funny.

Becoming reacquainted with hatred, Part 1

So recently 105.9 FM has rebranded and become another "Lite" rock station. I think their tag line is "Because the world doesn't have enough crap in it(TM)." So now Chicagoland has three--count 'em--THREE "Lite" rock stations. Why do I know this?

Because "the girls"* in my office have started listening to it.

I have my own office at work, meaning that I have 4 walls and a door (which I rarely close.) But no matter, because when I'm in my office, I cannot hear their music, mostly due to the fact that I'm listening to my own. However, when I walk OUT of my office to grab something that I printed or to fax something or to go back into the shop or whatever, I can hear the Liteness emanating Litely from their corner.

Man, there are some BAD songs. I mean, like REALLY bad. Stuff I had forgotten about. Or maybe blocked out.

For as long as I can remember, I have when prompted gladly reported that my least favorite song of all time is "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," cutesy parentheses and all, by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warner, made famous by, of course, "Dirty (Dancing)."

(My wife brings up an cogent argument: that "She's Like the Wind," by The Swayz, may in fact be a worse song. To that, I refute thusly: yes, it IS a worse song, but it is also HILARIOUS in its striking putridity, albeit unintentionally so. "Time of My Life" is NOT funny, even in the least, and has absolutely no merit whatsoever: musical, comical, musicomical, or otherwise.)

Now, however, after having been periodically subjected to little bits of terrible, terrible songs on and off for the last 3 weeks or so, I may have to rethink this, this quick-shot, ardent declaration of odium. And trust me: I'm not a "hater." (“Hatah?”) I can freely and unequivocally admit when a song or songs by some uncool artist are good and similarly I can convincingly assert when some well-respected (or even ironically hip) artist's songs are shitty.

For instance, I actually like a Britney Spears song. "Toxic." Heard it? It's a GOOD SONG. I don’t particular care for her performance of it but I think that the song itself is an interesting, well-written song.

Similarly, I think Journey SUCKS. It's cool for some reason in the late aughts to embrace the over-the-top arena rock sound of these guys, but I think it's the musical equivalent of going to a bar and paying $4 for a can of PBR. It's fucking SWILL, people. Just because the guy wearing skinny jeans and egregiously over-paying for it thinks it's cool doesn't mean it is. It just means you look like a clown drinking your shitty clown beer. Fucking clown.

Anyway...

Based on the last 4 weeks of subjection to the lowest of the low, the most banal of the banal, supremely inane of the supremely inane, I list below what I think are some of the worst songs known to humankind, in no particular order. I comment when compelled. Please free to make suggestions of your own or comments on those which I have noted. Bare in mind that I consider these "terrible" songs. Not "songs that need to be retired from circulation." (Although since they are terrible, they can in fact be retired. Wouldn't bother me.) The latter is another blog entry entirely, one that I'm actually working on.

"This Kiss": Faith Hill

Ugh. I don't care how pretty she is or how nice her hair is or how gorgeous her husband is or how long that stupid black cowboy hat's been glued to his head...this is just a terrible song.

You can kiss me in the moonlight
On the rooftop under the sky
You can kiss me with the windows open
While the rain comes pouring inside
Kiss me in sweet slow motion
Let’s let every thing slide
You got me floating, you got me flying

Good gravy, that's awful. It's almost as if we haven't gotten any farther than Dick and Jane: "See Dick. See Dick kiss Jane. See Dick kiss Jane in a house. See Dick kiss Jane and a mouse."

And it’s NOT country, people. It’s POP. Just because it’s got a lap steel and a little twang doesn’t make it Hank Fucking Williams.


"Sweet Escape": Gwen Stefani / "Big Girls Don't Cry": Fergie

Is there a connection? Sure.

Both these women are in their mid-30s. Both have experienced some pretty consistent success, albeit one significantly more than the other. Hell, Stefani’s a mom, with another incredibly hip little child on the way. (I think. Is she pregnant again? I can’t remember. Everybody’s having babies in ’08.)

How can they continue making music which is only ostensibly supposed to appeal to teenagers (and really, really dumb adults) when they themselves have more in common with someone like me or someone like you than a 12 year old girl trying out for the JV basketball team? Quoth the Ferg:

And I'm gonna miss you
like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

Like a child misses their blanket? Time to be a BIG GIRL?!? Are you kidding me? I swear, she may as well sing the song like this:

And I'm gonna miss you
wike a chiwd misses theiw bwanket
But I've got to get a move on with my wife
It's time to be a big giw now
And big giws don't cwy
Don't cwy
Don't cwy
Don't cwy
(And then she cries. –Ed.)

To her credit, none of her “fans” realize how old she is. My niece who is 12 was literally SHOCKED when I told her that Fergie was MY AGE (and I’m of course as old as the Pyramid of Giza.) “I thought she was like 21!” Uh, no, sweet niece of mine. No.

Quoth A Girl, Just:

If I could be sweet (be sweet)
I know I've been a real bad girl (bad girl)
I didn't mean for you to get hurt 'soever,
We can make it better
And tell me boy, now wouldn't that be sweet?
Sweet escape

Move over, Coleridge! Go fuck yourself, DANTE!

How about making music for grown ups?


“La Vida Loca” : Ricky Martin

What’s sad is that—when you think about it—this was the song that ushered in the mainstream Latin explosion of the late 90s. Que calor!

It gives Latin music a bad name, unless Latin is Spanish for “complete dog shit,” in which case this would give Latin music the perfect name.


“Anything by Bon Jovi After 1990” : Bon Jovi

I’m no fan of Mr. Buongiovi and his Merry Band of Hirsute Dirt People. But the chicks like “Slippery When Wet,” so I’ll let ‘em have it. Yeah, I’m cool like that.

But anything else is pretty ghastly. And now? Hell, JonBon can BARELY sing. I was in the car the other day flipping around and I stumbled upon a Bon Jovi “country” song. I am going to write that again so there’s no mistaking my meaning: I was in the car the other day flipping around and I stumbled upon a Bon Jovi “country” song. I had to pull over and find some Kleenex to stuff in my ears to stop the bleeding. And I swear, this might be my favorite unintentionally hilarious couplet in all of musicdom:

When the world gets in my face
I say, “Have a nice day.”

That’s telling that world! You go, girl!

Jon: you’re a handsome(ish) guy with an impressive helmet-like head of hair, eerily like that of a female sportscaster. Ritchie: you divorced Heather Locklear and immediately starting banging her best friend, Denise Richard. Drummer, Keyboard Player and Possible Rhythm Guitarist: uh, you’re a coupla dudes. Playing music. And one of you has really kinky longish blonde locks like a fair-haired Sideshow Bob. Which is cool. But guys: let’s stop with the new stuff, OK? You wanna go out on the road and play “You Give Love a Bad Name” and have 35 year old groupies snort coke off your cocks, that’s great, and I applaud you. (**applause**) But do we all have to be subjected to BON JOVI COUNTRY? You’re from fucking Jersey, OK?

Oh, and have a nice day.


"The Hollywood Casino Theme Song" : Shit, I don't know...Hilter? Whatever. Someone fucking evil

Simply the best!
Hollywood Casino beats all the rest
Now it's better than any place
Any place in the Chicagoland
Hollywood is the BEST!

The muthafuckin' best, y'all!



“Can You Feel the Love Tonight” : Elton John

No. No, Elton, I cannot feel the love. Tonight. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. What I CAN feel, however, is the wind from the trail of $100 bills flying in your pants.

This country went ape-poopy (lion-poopy?) over “The Lion King,” and one would think that the Lion King Fever would have subsided by now to make way for Pochahontas Rubella or Finding Nemo Blocking My Colon, but we have a “Lion King” musical that’s been playing for like 10,000 years all over the country. So I guess we all shed a little Lion Tear for Simba when his Dad buys it hyena-style every time we hear this song.

Does anyone else find Elton’s use of the word “vagabond” a little grating, too, while we’re at it? As far as I’m concerned, there are only 3 people who can get away with using the word “vagabond” in a song without sounding like an idiot:

1. Bob Dylan
2. Tom Waits
3. Johnny Cash

So that’s that.


“Tell It To My Heart”: Taylor Dayne

I’m kind of at a loss. The lyrics are your run of the mill drivel so it doesn’t make sense to post anything here. And you already know is: is it love or just a game?

I guess we’ll never know. What I do know is that this song makes me want to run through the glass front of my office to end my misery.


And the final two:

“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” : Shania Twain

I'm going out tonight--I'm feelin' alright
Gonna let it all hang out
Wanna make some noise--really raise my voice
Yeah, I wanna scream and shout
No inhibitions--make no conditions
Get a little outta line
I ain't gonna act politically correct
I only wanna have a good time

Hey, I hear that. I also don’t want to act politically correct (unlike the fucking JEWS [Kidding! --Ed.]) and I also enjoy having good times. Good times are…good. Times. Moving on…

The best thing about being a woman
Is the prerogative to have a little fun (fun, fun)

Really? I thought it was the boobs. Silly me. (ASIDE: Does anyone find the spelling of the word “prerogative” just ridiculous, like some asshole said “Hey, let’s really fuck with them and throw an extra “R” in there!”? Well, I do.)

Oh, oh, oh, go totally crazy--forget I'm a lady
Men's shirts--short skirts
Oh, oh, oh, really go wild--yeah, doin' it in style
Oh, oh, oh, get in the action--feel the attraction
Color my hair--do what I dare
Oh, oh, oh, I wanna be free--yeah, to feel the way I feel
Man! I feel like a woman!

This is where she looses me. I don’t get it. It might be the tangential and half-assed reference to cross-dressing; it might be the “color my hair” line. What’s being said here, exactly? She wants to feel like a woman? Great! Go ahead, honey. Feel away. That she still just wants to have a good time? Fine. Whoop it up.

The girls need a break--tonight we're gonna take
The chance to get out on the town
We don't need romance--we only wanna dance
We're gonna let our hair hang down

Ah ha. Okay. This is some spurious attempt to imply that a woman doesn’t need a man to be a woman. I guess. And it’s cute because she says “Man!” before she says “I feel like a woman!” Get it?!?

Ladies, I implore you: you want to feel like women? You want to listen to someone who’ll tell you that the last thing on earth you need to feel like a woman is a man (which is true)? Great. Listen to:

Billie Holiday
Joni Mitchell
Liz Phair
Amy Winehouse
Neko Case
Alison Krauss

Among others. You’re welcome.


“That Don’t Impress Me Much”: Shania, again

Guh. Guuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Okay, so you're Brad Pitt
That don't impress me much
So you got the looks but have you got the touch
Don't get me wrong, yeah
I think you're alright
But that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night
That don't impress me much

Lady, are you kidding me? I’m pretty fucking impressed by Brad Pitt, OK? I think he’d keep me nice and warm at night. Am I right, fellas? Fellas?!? (**crickets**)

Anyhoodilydoodle, Shania basically states within the three minutes and 30 some-odd seconds that is the Rattan death march of this song that she’s not impressed by:

1: Brad Pitt
2: Rocket scientists
3: Guys with cars
4: Guys who carry combs in their pockets (she’s got us there!)
5: Cool guys

Well…then WHAT DO YOU WANT?!? Let’s see, based on the list above which outlines in grave detail that by which you are summarily UNimpressed, it would then stand to reason that your ideal (aka “impressive”) man would be:

1: This guy http://images.mygirlyspace.com/myspacegraphics/images/graphics/prod_228_5900.jpg
2: Who works at Arby’s
3: And rides a pogo stick to work
4: And who doesn’t carry a comb with him
5: And who is very, very uncool…like a nerd even!

Congratulations, Shania. You married him! http://www.robertjohnmuttlange.com/mutt_lange_3.jpeg

I think this is my least favorite song of all time now. Thanks, Shania. I’m sure my future kid will manage to find this out and torture me with it.



*I am not some anachronistic pig who thinks that all women are "broads" or "girls" and like to be slapped on the tush and called "doll." Some do, however, and those women are AWESOME. But that's beside the point, I suppose. EVERYONE in my office calls them "the girls," even though they are 31 and 28, respectively. My boss calls them "the girls," T calls them "the girls,"...hell, I think they call themselves "the girls." So I'm not going to fight it anymore. Now get me a cup of coffee, doll. **swat** And wear skirts more often. You look better in skirts.

What I Need To Do, Part 1

Ever see that "Top 100 One-Hit Wonders" on VH-1? I did. Probably twice. (I'm a sucker for those sorts of arbitrary musical countdown list thingies.)

Somewhere in the 60s was "Play that Funky Music" by Wild Cherry. So they explain how the song came about and show the band members in their insane bellbottoms and mustaches rocking out on some TV show back in the day, probably coked to the gills. And then it's time for the "So, where are they now?" portion of the segment.

The guy who wrote the song...where is he now? Probably on his boat with his thumb up his butt in Florida. He doesn't do SHIT. He just sits on his ass, all day long, collecting royalty checks, rockin' that same 'stache from '76 which probably still has coke stuck in it, and rides around the Intercoastal Waterway on his boat.

So you know what I need to do?

#1: Write semi-OK ballad for female vocalist du jour (Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, et. al.) which doesn't require any self-reflection or insight into the human condition on my part yet nevertheless still allows me to face self in mirror every morning

#2: Sell said song to her management company for use on her next album

#3: Wait for album on which song is contained sells 6,000,000 copies and blows up like fucking "Pyromania" circa '86 or whenever that piece of garbage was released

#4: Commence sitting on ass in Belize with my wife, our children, the Internet, a DVD player and endless cases of ice-cold Belikin (the national beer of Belize, imagine a cross between Corona and Red Stripe...it's fucking delicious, and I'm not a lager man at all)


Because this shit right here, in the cold and the snow in an office with no windows and people screaming at me about fucking signs? This shit right here? Right here?

This is BULLshit.

Why Radiohead is the hand-down, no-contest, don’t-even-bother-arguing greatest working band

“In Rainbows” was released 1/1/08 to the general public and ever since I acquired it about a week later, I really can’t stop listening to it. It’s SO GOOD. The more I listen to it, the more I’m convinced that Radiohead is not only the greatest working band, but possibly one of the top ten greatest bands who ever existed.


#1: Everything they do, like it or lump it, is interesting
“OK Computer” was the best album of the 90s. Yes, better than “Ten.” Yes, better than “Nevermind.” Yes, better than “Achtung Baby.” Yes, better than The Blue Album (Weezer.) Yes, better the The Black Album (Metallica.) Yes, better than…well, you get the idea. THE. BEST. So I never really warmed up to anything Radiohead did after “OK,” because—well—it’s WASN’T “OK Computer.” But now that I’ve gone back and listened again to “Amnesiac” and “Kid A” and the others with new ears, they are all very, very good. Very good. The worst Radiohead album is 10,000 times more interesting and important than 95% of the music out there.


#2: They follow a more dynamic and older template for songwriting than other bands
They don’t make “hits.” They don’t make “singles.” They craft songs. They are half organic Beatles, half beautiful cyborg. Half Tin Pan Alley, half sweaty Euro-trash nightclub.


#3: They basically told the record industry to collectively go fuck itself
By taking 100% control over their music, they have shown that following a more 21st century model for selling music WORKS (much to what I imagine is the dismay of the record companies.) Radiohead released “In Rainbows” for download only from their website before it was officially for purchase through Amazon and other retailers. You could pay whatever you wanted to download it. Nothing, 5 bucks, whatever. They also sold on their website a super-ultra-luxury $80.00 edition which came with 12” vinyl records and artwork and other crap I don’t need, despite me being a huge fan.

After New Year’s Day, when they released the CD for purchase to the general music-buying public, it went to #1. What does that say?

It says that it’s possible to do business in the midst of the digital music revolution without crying foul about illegal downloading and file sharing all that other bullshit. The problem with the record companies isn’t the fact that people are illegally downloading music. The problem is that the record companies release absolute GARBAGE that no one wants to pay for. Here was music that anybody could have downloaded for free for months and they STILL were willing to pay for it. Do you want to pay $18.00 for a CD with one decent song you’ll be completely sick of in 3 weeks? No, because you’re not a moron and you can think of 1000 better things to do with $18.00. The record companies, however, thinks we’re all just a bunch of morons who’ll pay good money for dog shit, based on the antiquated model for the music business which they have been following since the 50s.


#4: They are one of a handful of bands who write and perform something that rocks and that is incredibly beautiful at the exact same time
Very, very, VERY few bands can do this. A couple examples, off the top of my head: Nirvana (“Lithium,” specifically), U2 (many examples, notably “Mysterious Ways”), Led Zeppelin (“Kashmir,” among others), The Beatles (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “I Want You [She’s So Heavy]”), and maybe a couple other artists. It’s a hard thing to do and a testament to Radiohead’s unflinching conviction to making beautiful things, regardless of the ends they serve or the conventions they follow.


#5: They embrace the idea of the “concept album” without sounding hacky or dated
If you want to be a pretentious piece of shit, release a “concept album.” (See “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” by the Smashing Pumpkins. Actually, wait. Don’t.) Few bands can pull it off, fewer can make it work. Radiohead’s ultimate template for releasing records is the fact that each one is essentially a little efficient machine of music. Thought in, beauty out. Ideas in, impressions and opinions out.


#6: Their music makes me want to eat a bag of mushrooms, stare at the walls and just let it drip all over my body (which I won’t do)
Their music makes me want to do things to heighten the experience of hearing it. Illegal things. Unhealthy things. Things not really concomitant with becoming a father soon. Things I shouldn’t do. But I nevertheless WANT to do them. I want to find new ways to hear them. That’s not to say that I can’t or don’t enjoy their music sober or “get something out of it”; I certainly do.

But remember when you were younger and you’d get fucked up on something and put on a pair of headphones with something you really dug blazing its way into your brain and you’d be like, “Whoa. Yes…yes…YES!!!” I miss that sometimes. Radiohead MAKES me miss it.


#7: They could give a FUCK what you think of them
And if there’s anything more rock and roll than that, I don’t know what it is.


Oh, and Wilco’s pretty good, too. ;)

Twit Kid

Sometimes the installers in the shop do night work since the city won't allow us to block traffic on a major street in the Loop during the day, so the guys will come in around 2 pm instead of 6 am. There's a lot of standing around and finding little piddly stuff for them to do until they start the night job. In many ways, they are like children: they get "into things" and make little messes.

I recently ordered a very, very, VERY large mesh banner for a client of mine. I have been working with this client on this particular banner for no fewer than 6 months. I have probably done 12 different designs, innumerable size changes, several site visits and surveys, and invested at least 40 real-time hours (both personally and in conjunction with other co-workers of mine). The client for some reason had to hire a structure engineer to make certain that the banner we were proposing to make wouldn't damage the building or the balcony railings onto which we were proposing to attach it. We finally, finally, FINALLY got approval last week, so I reviewed all the details with my boss and then placed the order.

We got the banner.

Imagine this montrous thing: 90 FEET high and 11 FEET wide, unfurled on a shop floor. Imagine no less than 6 installers, 1 foreman, and ME, standing around it, looking at it, quizzically, as if it were an ancient, foreign language to be deciphered.

"How the fuck are we supposed to put this thing up?"

"Why did you get it ordered like this?"

"Who's bright fucking idea was it to put the grommets [the metal rings through which one attaches a banner to some structure] there?"

"We can't put this up! There's no way!"

"Someone's going to get KILLED!"

So then they listened to my explanation: how my boss, the client, the construction company, the engineer and myself all agreed as to how we were planning on installing this behemoth.

"That'll never work!"

"Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!!!"

They plead with me.

"Can we drill into the building?"

"Can we use cables?"

"Can we weight the bottom?"

"Can we...can we...can we...?!?"

I breathed. Calmly. I spoke.

"I don't care what you do. All I know is that we have to protect the building and the railings from any damage. They are EXTREMELY concerned about this. They hired an engineer to figure out where it would be best to attach this thing. So glue it, wire it, paint it, screw it, cable it, nail it, stick it...whatever. I don't care. Just please don't damage the building."

"Can we...can we...can we?!?"

"I don't care."

I then walked back to my office.

I probably came off like a total dick, but what am I going to do?

These guys all have years (from 5 to 25) of experience with signs: installing them, building them. I have worked for sign companies in one capacity or another for about 8 years now, on the OTHER side of the equation: designing them, pricing them, selling them, ordering them, drawing them. So you know what that means?

I have no idea how to put up this fucking banner. No idea.

Sure, I can use words like "turnbuckle" and "stringer" and "neoprene." And I even know what they mean. (Sort of.) But I can't APPLY them to real-life situations. Because I don't know what I'm doing!

Look, I was a fucking ENGLISH major in college, you know? I read Chaucer and shit! I read Dante's Inferno in my FREE TIME. I wrote poems about poetry. About POETRY! Did you know that at least half the poems out there are about poetry? Well, I do! And they are! It's ridiculous!

I composed long-ass, self-important papers on Gustav Mahler and Wallace Stevens and how Richard Wagner's concept of the leitmotif is the template for all American film music! And I enjoyed it! I willingly took classes called "Love & Romance in Ancient Greek & Rome" and would have done well in them if the prof wasn't such a fucking snore.

I'm a big, giant twit and I'm about to have a big, giant twit kid. (Sorry, Kid.) S/he won't know which end's the business end on a screwdriver (at least from me) but, man, s/he'll have heard all Bach's Flute Partitas by the time s/he's 7 years old! (So s/he's got that going for him/her. Which is nice.) In all honesty, my wife is roughly 10,000 times more "handy" than I am, God bless her. And you know what? I'm totally comfortable with that. I don't feel any less of a man. I really don't.

But now I'm this fish out of water here at work sometimes. It's like bringing me to Home Depot: I'm surrounded by a bunch of loud, expensive things with sharp edges and I have no idea what 99.7% of them are for. I just want to find my infinitessimally tiny item and go home.

So don't ask me how to put up a banner. I have no idea. You wanna talk about some Viola de Gamba Sonatas, though? Well! Then I'm your man.

Listening to White People* Rap is Like...

Listening to white people* rap is like...

...finding out that Ashley Simpson is releasing a Nick Drake tribute album.

...watching "hotel" porn: all the good stuff is cut out, leaving only sex faces and man ass.

...lifting a gallon of milk thinking it's more full than it really is, so you practically chuck it across the kitchen with the force of your stupidity.

...realising that the #1 comedy in the country is "Two and a Half Men," on which Charlie Sheen is probably being paid more money I'll ever see in my lifetime per episode to essentially play himself: a sex-addicted, puerile sleazebag who's NOT FUNNY AT ALL.

...being told that a celebrity you admire and/or respect is a Scientologist.

...getting kicked in the chode.

...biting your cheek not once but TWICE in the same spot.

...watching Matthew McConaughey "act."

...Domino's pizza.

...bad, squalky jazz.

...a hangover on a plane heading somewhere you don't want to end up.

...really having to pee while stuck in traffic on the expressway.

...anal rape.

...those stupid "Real World versus Road Rules" shows on MTV. Who watches that shit?

...Celine Dion's mongoose-like face.

...scrambled eggs from Denny's.

...calling Avril Lavigne "punk."

...listening to politicians pretend they give a rusty fuck about you.


Listening to white people rap is like watching white people DANCE. So let's stop. K?


*Exceptions: Marshall Mathers, Michael Diamond, Adam Yauch, Adam Horovitz, and Conan O'Brien. Not that Conan has or ever would, but I think it'd be funny since it'd essentially be the whitest person EVER rapping. So we'll let him.

The Further Adventures of T & B

T hadn't been in for a couple days. Last Monday she had "bronchitis." Last Tuesday she had a doctor's appointment for some "women's issues," which she called and told me about since our boss was marooned in Vegas due to the weather. After the appointment for her hoo-hah, I guess she just took the rest of the day off since she never showed up.

So last Wednesday was the first time she'd been in all week. There was probably 24" of files sitting there on the cabinet, waiting to be put up. She didn't even look at it. Didn't even register.

After the new calendar year, paperwork becomes difficult to find: is it in 2007? Or 2008? Top that off with the fact that normally any old even semi-recent file can be in one of like 7 different locations (in the shop; with accounting; in the salesperson's or project manager's office; in the safe awaiting approval by my boss; in my boss' office, still awaiting approval; with T, awaiting invoicing; in the bin, awaiting filing), and I was really getting frustrated. So I took 40 minutes and did all the filing myself. I even created new hanging holders and made sure that all the 2007 files went into 2007 and all the 2008's into '08.

So after I was done with all of that, needless to say she was pretty high on my shit list. At the time, it probably looked something like this:
#1: George Bush
#2: Donald Trump
#3: Fergie
#4: Rachael Ray
#5: T
#6: Ty Pennington
Etc....with Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin-Laden and Jim Belushi probably rounding out the top 10.

Another part of her job is running the dishwasher 3 times a week. She's not responsible for loading the dishwasher or collecting the dishes, nope. Just filling it up with soap and pressing a button. And since she hadn't been at work for 2 days, we didn't even have one clean coffee mug available.

I'm not above ANYTHING. I'll mop, I'll sweep, I'll do whatever...I don't care. So I ran the dishwasher Tuesday night. To avoid any confusion, I put a large post-it note on the front of the dishwasher:

This way, when T walked in on Wednesday, she'd know that someone ran the dishwasher and that it would be acceptable to empty it (which is also part of her job.)

So when I walked into the lunch room and found the dishwasher on, I was even less pleased.

Me, understandably perplexed: "Why is the dishwasher running, T?"
T: "Because the dishes needed to be done!" (ask a stupid question...)
Me: "But they were clean. Didn't you notice the note I put on there?"

T: "Yeah, but I figured they could probably stand to be washed again."

I still don't know what to make of her response. I wonder: does she ALWAYS run her dishwasher twice at home? Does her asshole husband Mr. Pxxxx who wears sunglasses indoors like a fucking child molester like really, really, really clean dishes or something?

We may never know.

OH...and I almost forgot the BEST T STORY EVER:

One day I come into work and I see her already at her desk, looking down at something on the floor. Normally, she's dispensing the over-enthusiastic "Good Morning!!!"s immediately so I wonder why she hasn't looked up and noticed me yet.

Me: "Hey, T? You OK over there?"
T: "Yeah. I just noticed that I'm wearing two different shoes today."

She sticks her legs out of the side of her desk and shows me one brown and one blue. Not different socks. Different SHOES. One was a higher heel and the other a flat. I swear to God. How is that possible?

Awesome.