Ahem, Pinko

Random 11coming later, but here is a little entertainment for now.

Here's the context for the title of this week's 11. No, really, it's a real link!

It is amazing how the Rickrolling gag never gets old for me. It’s the perfect Internet trap. You can’t tell it’s coming. Even if you suspect it, you won’t know for sure unless you click. Wile E. Coyote would marvel at the super geniusness of it. 

It reminds me of another personal meme that never gets old for me: making Z-related nicknames for my brother Tickle’s friend, Z, aka Pancake Z. Just this afternoon, Z commented about how he had predicted in August that Peyton Manning’s career in Indy would be over and that the Colts would suck bad enough to draft Stanford QB Andrew Luck as his replacement. “Just call me NostraZamus,” he wrote, to which I replied, “The propheZ has cum true!” (Side note: we always, always, always write “come” that way in our e-mails. I am seriously worried that some day I will slip and spell it that way in a work e-mail.) I could make Z-puns all day. In fact, whenever we see anything that has a Z on it, we take pictures of it and text Z or post it on his Facebook page. If I could find a way to make money off of that, I’d gladly wok 80 hours a week.

Z was also a topic of converZation (seriously, it’s hard to stop once I start) this week. See, Z currently does not have TV service at his house. This is partly for economic reasons, partly because Z wanted to see what it was like, and I think partly because Z thinks this will make him smarter as he does read more without TV. However, Z is an avid spots fan, which means he is left to the devices of sports radio. Sports radio makes you stupid. You could be a physicist on the verge of proving string theory and one hour of listening to Jake in Joliet tell you what’s wrong with the Bears will render you mentally incapable of working at a McDonalds. They have done lab tests where overexposure to Mike and Mike in the Morning caused lab rats to become obese, inert, and start wearing Zubaz pants in public (true story). The other thing is that listening to sports on the radio sucks. We had a poker game at Z’s over Christmas and listened to the Bulls game and it blew transistors. So this week I asked him if he was going to have a Super Bowl radio party. I just imagine us sitting in a circle around the old Philco, drinking beers and eating snacks. It would be amaZing.

Okay, tunes….

1) “Soma,” The Strokes. I could have used soma this week to help me sleep through Libby’s late night partying (Warning: this is going to be one of those blogs in this post. Lots of kid stuff on my mind.) The worst night saw her not actually getting to sleep until 10 pm, then waking up four fucking times, including a 2:30 am wakeup where she was singing in her room. Of course, she woke up for good about 45 minutes earlier than usual and was as awake as if she’d just had her blood replaced with 5-Hour Energy.

2) “Hateful,” The Clash. The other rough thing was that Libby was sick in a gastrointestinal sense this week, so much that we had to switch back to diapers during the daytime for a couple of days. Our potty training had been going very well, so much so that it’s been probably 2-3 months since I last had to deal with anything more than a wet diaper. In the interim, I think I repressed all the bad changing memories, because I was in full GAH!!!! mode when I had to face the peril again. It was like getting lulled into a false sense of security when the Cold War ended, only to wake up and find a hardline Soviet Government back in power. Awful.

3) “Man in a Suitcase,” The Police. I have always been fond of this song because, considering I’ve had something around 787 mailing addresses in my 41 years, I’ve always felt rather itinerant. Until now. We bought our current house with the idea that it could be ours until they take us out feet first. Part of me feels relieved, the idea that the next time I move, I literally won’t have to lift a finger (unless via rigor mortis). The other part makes me feel like I just converted to Scientology and it’s not taking. So wait, I’ve got this Thetan living inside me? Is that why I’m 30 pounds overweight? 

4) “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” Green Day. As much as I loved American Idiot, it feels much more dated than it actually is. The Bush Administration feels like a million years ago to me. Maybe that’s another example of repressing memories of dirty diapers.

5) “Song 2” Blur. I could play this every Friday while making Z puns for two solid minutes.

6) “Overkill,” Men at Work. Over this years, this quietly became one of my favorite songs of the 80s. I was all vegemited and what not by their first album, but this song and “It’s a Mistake” from the Cargo follow-up are the ones that stuck with me over the years. Plus it sounds of the 80s without being completely trapped in the 80s. Essential.

7) “House Of Balloons – Glass Table Girls,” The Weeknd. I am so white that I need a Siouxsie and the Banshees sample to lead me into a perfectly groovalishish bit of hippity-hoppity R&B. I only wish I was in a Vegas club at four in the morning, bobbing my head along while drinking a Stoli gimlet bought with the house money after having one of those craps table runs where people come over to bet on your rolls.

8) “Ok Pal,” M83. A good tom-tom fill makes an electronic drum beat. Unless you just want to get oom-sah-oom-sah’d to death, you need something to break up the repetition a little. This has those great boomy, reverbed 80s fills that pack some thunder without getting in the way of the beat. Seriously, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming would be regarded as a seminal album of the 80s if it had been recorded 30(!) years ago.

9) “The Bends,” Radiohead. The big benefit of working home by myself is that I can Turn. This UP. Side note: I don't think I've ever seen a clip from Later With Jools Holland that doesn't kill.

So another parenting thing on my mind this week is the vibe other parents sometimes give off when you say you only have one kid, especially when you are my age and it’s looking like you will have an only child. The vibe is that you have it easy, maybe even that you’re not a real parent. Isn’t so easy to have just one? Well, allow me to retort. This week, when my baby had the bends, I had to stay home from school with her. And when you are locked in a house all day with a solitary three-year-old, you are the canoe and they are the river. You’re only going where they want you to go. There are no siblings to play with, no other children to occupy their time by coloring/playing dress-up/seeing what happens when you put the cats in the dishwasher. I was the sole source of entertainment. Sure, Libby can sometimes settle in to lay with her toys, but I get maybe 20-30 minutes tops before she demands that I entertain her. DANCE FOR MY AMUSEMENT, FAT MAN! I can maybe buy a little more time if she’s watching a movie, especially one she hasn’t seen before (this one’s called Pulp Fiction, you’ll love it!). But then I feel like a completely irresponsible dickbag, which ruins whatever reprieve I was trying to get. So after a day home with her, I feel like I did four sets at a resort in the Catskills. One can only get on all fours and pretend to be the Daddy Puppy for so long before getting distracted. After all, dogs have short attention spans.

10) “Run to Your Grave,” The Mae Shi. Not that I’m suggesting that it’s easier to have more than one kid. God no, you people are fucked. There were four in my family and it is amazing that our mother is both alive and still speaking to us. My youngest brother Snake Anthony and I were not too bad, both staying out of trouble and hiding our indiscretions fairly well. My brother Tickle was another story. He tended to get into more spectacular scrapes, such as getting into a car accident with the only other car in an otherwise empty parking lot (true story). My sister E, when she wasn’t getting caught, would be so overwhelmed with pride at not getting caught that she would then tell my parents how she didn’t get caught. You could give her $40 million on the condition that she couldn’t tell anyone she just got $40 million and the deal would be voided before she could sign the nondisclosure agreement. Unrelated: I really love this song.

11) “The Bleeding Heart Show,” The New Pornographers. Who can’t use a little more hey-lahs in their weekend?

May you have the weekend of your dreamZ.