Friday CJ Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

My brother Tickle and I send each other text messages during Bears games. After seeing a promo for I Am Legend, we had this exchange:

Me: At the end of I Am Legend, Will Smith should find that the only person left alive is Jazzy Jeff.

Tickel: Or Carlton.

That's the kind of comic relief that has allowed me to watch the Bears this year. On to the tunes!

1) "Girlfriend in a Coma," The Smiths. Still hilarious and catchy after all these years. It's hard to go wrong with darkly comic lyrics set against a shiny, bouncy melody.

2) "Who Killed It," Nas. I saw the Seinfeld "Dinner Party" episode last night, where Jerry tries to make a point about how black and white cookies are the secret to harmonious race relations. Well, over the summer, I tried to make my music collection more like a black and white cookie by loading up on some rap music. However, this song is reminding me just how vanilla I really am.

3) "Undone (The Sweater Song)," Weezer. Here's a recipe I'm more familiar with. When I need to feel a little less white, I listen to Weezer. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

4) "Uh Huh Oh Yeah," Paul Weller. Now here is a black and white cookie song. A nice vanilla melody blended with a groovy chocolate beat. Seriously, if you need a pick me up and have never heard Paul Weller, this song is worth looking into.

5) "End of the Great Credibility Race," New Bomb Turks. This is garage rock. Fast, aggressive, and it sounds like they just stuck a mic in the middle of the room, chugged a case of the kind of beer that only comes in cans, and started playing. That also pretty much ensured they would never make it big.

6) "Little Hitler," Nick Lowe. I would never want to piss off Nick Lowe, because he would write a tune about me that would deliver withering insults so catchy, I would be humming them all day long even though each stanza was a slap in the face.

7) "Life Is a Carnival," The Band. If life is a carnival, does that make all of us carnies?

8) "Fashion," David Bowie. Appropriate now that I am immersed in a new season of Project Runway. It's the only reality show I've ever been hooked on (well, maybe the first couple seasons of The Real World). Here's something that I wonder: why do people on reality shows act like they've never seen the reality show they're on? Watching some of this year's Project Runway contestants blow their chances and get voted off, I want to ask them: haven't you ever seen this show? Don't you know that you don't need to win each week, you just need to not suck the most? They're like people in horror movies: gee, the walls are bleeding and the dog is speaking backwards Aramaic, let's go into the basement and investigate!

9) " Goddamn Electric," Pantera. I don't envision them as big Project Runway fans. I would love this if someone else was singing. It's like their singer can't decide if he wants to do the high pitched metal scream or do the Cookie Monster death metal growl, so we get Cookie Monster after a Oreo Double Stuff bender.

10) "Charlotte Sometimes," The Cure. I hate to say it, but this has almost gotten to parody level for me. I still love The Cure, but this is them at their most high school serious. The moaning vocals that try to sound deep, the production echoing the emptiness of Robert Smith's soul, and the martial drum machine pounding out a 4/4 march of despair. Yet it all sounds like it was written by an 18-year old Goth upset that he has to work at Cinnabon in the morning.

11) "No Respect," Public Property. They are all white, they are from Iowa City, and they play…very good reggae music. If that's not a black and white cookie, I don't know what is.

And I hope that all of the participants and judges in the 2007 Cookie Contest will remember to look to the cookie and remember that we are all bakers.

Yeah, right. We're in it to win it and we don't care who we have to burn to make it to the top! I'll see you all in Hell's Kitchen!

Oh, but have a good weekend.