Friday CJ Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

The Lovely Becky bought me a bag of Chocolate Skittles.

Pinko Punko alerted me to the dangers of the newest addition to the Skittle family in a Delicious or Disgusting entry that had the dire directness of “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in United States.” Several brave souls sacrificed their taste buds to convey the sheer awfulness of this cocoadaemon confection. I had tried to find them, fruitlessly, until TLB managed to smuggle them home this week. With trembling hands, I opened the bag and tasted them.

There was a coercive interrogation in my mouth and everyone was invited to waterboard me. I confessed to being an Al Qaeda terrorist, a member of the Know-Nothings, and D. B. Cooper. Did you ever sneak into the cupboard as a child and to pull out Hersey’s Cocoa, thinking it was chocolate, only to discover that it delivered a dry, bitter, taste of death? It's as if someone said let’s make that experience candy flavored. If Jack Bauer had these in his arsenal, 24 would be over in 24 minutes, as the bad guys would confess the location of the WMD, their twisted moral justification for unleashing the weapon on America, and the identity of the mole in CTU who helped them.

I will now attempt to wash the memory of that taste from my mind with some tunes.

1) “Twilight,” U2. Like the name of the album this song is from, TLB is convinced we’re having a boy. Of course, the name we’re having the most trouble agreeing on is a boy’s name. She’s not happy with my Viking-warrior-sounding suggestions, I’m not keen on names that sound like sensitive poets who never make enough to move out of the house. Maybe I’ll just suggest The Edge.

2) “Hypnotize,” Notorious B.I.G. I just want to let Rev. Jeremiah Wright know that I’m trying.

3) “Ophelia,” The Band. Funky in a completely different way than #2.

4) “Wherever You Go,” Built to Spill. Proof you can get more out of Idaho than good potatoes and white supremacy. Mesmerizing guitar work.

5) “High School,” MC5. What’s the over/under on rock songs about partying in high school? I also can’t tell if using “sis boom bah” as a couplet is a good thing or bad thing. I’m leaning toward good.

6) “Ten Years Gone,” Led Zeppelin. So in case you missed TLB talking on the radio yesterday, she made public her unrelenting hatred of Led Zeppelin. As TLB explained, she grew up in an area where it was Wayne’s World minus the jokes and ironic distance. When she was driving behind a Toyota mini-truck blasting “Whole Lotta Love,” you could bet your mullet the driver of said truck meant the “Yo” inscribed on the tail gate. And while I understand that nurtured musical hatred (I had the same experience, but with VW Jettas and Oingo Boingo), it’s a shame, because there are songs like this that capture the beauty and craftsmanship and show why Zeppelin was so much more than just a white blues band using lemons as metaphors for hand jobs.

7) “Takin’ My Love,” The Jam. The serrated guitar riff could cut an aluminum can and still slice your steak paper thin.

8) “Song 2,” Blur. Woo-hoo! Too good for stadium music directors to ruin it for me.

9) “Tie a Rope to the Back of the Bus,” Superchunk. This is the good flannel.

10) “While My Heart Is Still Beating,” Roxy Music. And this is the anti-flannel.

11) “Bright Future in Sales,” Fountains of Wayne. I don’t think there’s another song that satirizes white collar working life better than this. It’s basically about a sales guy who gets shitfaced and has to work through his hangover at the big sales meeting the next day. I can’t tell you how many of those meetings I have been through with the fog of beer clouding my mind. The worst was one job I had where my first day on the job involved going to the national sales meeting. Sales staff from all over the country were there, and after the opening night session and dinner, the bar was open. “Sales staff” and “expensed booze” go together like mom and apple pie, or like slurred speech and the spins. I tried to be a good boy, having a couple of drinks like a gentleman. I was the only one, however, and when people above you on the org chart are doing shots and dancing like Elaine Benes, it’s hard not to outsource your revelry to Bacchus.

So yadda yadda yadda, I stumbled out of bed at 6:30 a.m. feeling like Slim Pickens after he got hit in the head with a shovel. I cleaned up and sobered up, but became very worried. Did I say anything inappropriate? Given how much I drank, I immediately revised the question: how much did I say that was inappropriate? I hoped I wasn’t That Guy, because it’s bad to be The New Guy and That Guy on the same day. I pulled myself together, ignored my throbbing head, and headed downstairs to drink a keg’s worth of coffee. When I entered the dining area, I noticed a lot of people on the org chart missing or looking like I felt. I was no longer That Guy or The New Guy. I was just one of the guys.

And that’s why I love this song. Although I think Snag could sue Fountains of Wayne for plagiarizing his life.

Have a great weekend. Go North Carolina and Memphis—daddy needs a new pair of shoes for the son he can’t name.