Friday Random 11

It’s one more random than 10!

I don’t know why the United States went through the trouble of coating blankets with cholera and giving them to the Indians. They could have just had the Indians handle toddlers. I went from phantom illness last week to chest cold today, courtesy of my little bundle of germs.

In fact, I had to explain to my daughter why it's not a good idea to lick random objects. We were in the post office last week, and the counter walls have some glass panes. My daughter decided that said glass was eminently lickable. I told her not to lick the glass, but that only seemed to increase the lick appeal of the glass, but also created a punchline to a joke she kept repeating over and over, laughing each time I pulled her away. I had to take her out of the post office and deliver a lecture about why we don’t lick glass.

--Libby, don’t lick things like glass or walls or anything else.

--Why?

--Because it’s yucky and you’ll get germs.

--What are germs?

--Germs are things that make you sick.

--Why do they make you sick?

Here we reached the three-question maximum most parents run into. I could have patiently explained the mechanics of bacteria transfer and the immune system and whatnot and turned this surface-licking incident into a teachable moment. Instead, I said:

--LIBBY, JUST DON’T LICK THINGS!

Because all I wanted was a) to have her not get sick and b) to avoid being the parent of a kid who licks things. Now, this behavior is perfectly normal among three-year olds. However, my daughter is the size of a five-year old, which is where random taste testing of counters, walls, and windows ventures into “look at that kid” territory.

Of course, this didn’t completely end our dialog. She quickly found a whole in the complete ban of licking. In the car, Libby asked:

--Can I lick suckers?

Which, of course, she could. We further elaborated that suckers were okay, as were ice cream and popsicles. Within 60 seconds my child had already found four large holes in the licking ban. I can’t wait for her to outsmart me on things like borrowing the car, dating that boy who needs a haircut and needs to look at me when he talks, and if drinking is bad for you why does Daddy seem so happy while watching football or gambling with Uncle Tickle?

On to the tunes….

1) “Rock the Casbah,” The Clash. I think that every time a pundit says “Arab Spring,” Thomas Friedman should have to take a drink, and then the lazy butthole who uses that phrase has to suck the moisture out of his mustache. It’s been almost a year, time to talk about this like big boys and girls and not parrots asking for a cracker.

2) “Ragged Wood,” Fleet Foxes. Makes me want to don a flannel shirt, climb a redwood, and yodel. Which is much better than donning a flannel shirt, climbing a redwood, changing into women’s clothing, and hanging around in bars.

3) “Beat on the Brat,” The Ramones. This song is the anti-“Luka.”

4) “In the Meantime,” Helmet. Fuck and yeah. Helmet’s re-entered my rotation a bit because I’ve been trying to get my doughy ass back into shape and songs like this make me feel like I can dead-lift a stack of Marshalls and carry them up a stair machine made of skulls.

5) “Weekend,” Smith Westerns. Chicago kids who do manage to inject just the right amount of Beatlemania into their songs. One of my favorite songs of the year.

6) “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told),” The White Stripes. I think this was written about Todd Palin.

7) “Three Days,” Jane’s Addiction. A band I would have liked a lot more if Perry Farrell didn’t creep me out so much. I have always found him unsettling, and that makes it hard for me to love Jane’s Addiction, even when they produce a song like this that’s a mind-blowing mesh of grunge, punk, progressive rock, and love oils. But it always makes me think of Perry Ferrell, his oversized head and aggressive nose and hair that alternates between bleached dandruff trap and greasy 70s porn helmet. Him singing a 10-minute song about a druggy threesome conjures the mental image of a funk so powerful even George Clinton would have run away screaming in fear. The papier-mâché album cover showing a little bit of shaft doesn’t help.

8) “Elevation,” U2. It’s like they got together and said, “let’s write a party song.” Not for some party after a Live Aid or the Concert for Grenada or Artists Against Excessive Restaurant Portion Sizes. An honest-to-goodness party where Larry Mullen, Jr. actually smiles and The Edge puts on a foam hat with two beer holders and Adam Clayton dyes his hair five colors again and Bono uses “party” as a verb. No donations are solicited, no guilt is issued, and they vow to not stop partying until Sting finishes having sex in the back bedroom.

9) “Ace of Spades,” Motorhead. Makes me want to don on a leather jacket, climb a Harley, and yell at the guy in flannel who’s yodeling from a tree.

10) “The Flame,” Cheap Trick. I still can’t believe this is how I commemorated my wedding to The Lovely Becky. It’s a case study in being careful with what you play at the start of a relationship. It’s not like I could have made a mix tape of Ozzy or Dio songs when we started dating. I played with fire as it was by slipping “Closer to the Heart” in there. I couldn’t pick The Cure because I was actually happy (this is pre-happy Robert Smith), and New Order was too quick and dancy. Any kind of metal ballads were out, and I worried that going the Styx or REO route would make me seem like too much of a pussy. So I reached for the next “best” thing, because hey, they recorded “Surrender” and that song rocks, and this song was slow and it was about love and it would be perfect!

11) “The Boys Are Back in Town,” Thin Lizzy. I don’t go out of my way to play Thin Lizzy that much, but I’m always happy when it pops up. A great song for getting ready for the weekend.

Speaking of TLB, The Countess came out in paperback this week, and TLB has been doing quite a lot of great blogging about the book and the infamous lady who inspired it.

Have a great one.