Songs You Hear at the Bar That You Can't Help But Slur Your Way Through

I know I've posted a lot of popular music oriented pieces in this rag's brief existence, but I'm obsessed with rock music, and you'd rather read a nice, quick list than read my long-winded, depressing rants. So in a sense, we both win. So, here are some of the greatest barroom sing-alongs ever, in no particular order:

- Piano Man by Billy Joel: If you ask me, the line sang the loudest, aside from the chorus, for whatever reason, is ". . . and he's talking with Davy, who's still in the navy, and probably will be for life." What about Davy made the drunken, piano-playing narrator so sure that Davy was destined to be a "lifer" in the Navy? Was this sailor, who was inexplicably a regular at this piano bar, telling anyone who would listen how awesome it is to be a navy man, and how he can't see himself wearing anything but that white hat and the black, scarf thing?

- Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville: Everyone seems to chime in right when he says "Some people claim there's a woman to blame," not unlike everyone sings the word oasis in the chorus of another song that needs to be on this list: Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks. The thing is, while I don't feel I'm missing out on a whole hell of a lot by not owning any of his records, I don't dislike Jimmy. What I do dislike are the majority of his fans, who seem to see his concerts as an excuse to put on a Hawaiian shirt and drink frozen drinks out of the back of their minivans. It's likened to what Chicago White Sox fans hate about stereotypical Cub fans, not true Cub fans like your's truly, who go to games to stack up cups of Old Style, barely even paying attention to the game.

- The word oasis in my last paragraph immediately made me think how just about anyone from Ireland or England's faces light up to sing along with anything by the big-eyebrowed Gallagher brothers in Oasis. If you're ever in a room with more than a few Micks or Limies, just put Don't Look Back in Anger on the jukebox, sit back, and watch them grab each other's shoulders and sing to one another. It's quite a joyous ocasion to behold.

- Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi: It was kind of cool the first seven or eight times I heard this song in the bar, since I really hadn't heard it regularly since I brought in the cassette to be played loudly every Friday in my fifth-grade art class. I also took great pleasure in bringing in tapes that swore, like INXS, Beastie Boys (sort of), and of course, Guns and Roses. I think my teacher was so happy the week was finally over, as art was always on Fridays, to care that Axl was saying, "Turn around bitch I got a use for you. Besides, you ain't got nothin' better to do, and I'm bored." Anyway, I no longer get that joy when I hear Jon Bon. It used to make me long to eat paste again, and while I still kind of do, now when I hear a room full of nimrods sing it, I pray that if I get my hands on some paste, it's as toxic as it is delicious.

- Don't Stop Believing by Journey: This song used to be kind of cool, but then the Chicago White Sox, who I hate by nature, since I'm a lifelong Cub fan, used it for their theme song and effectively ruined it. It always gets people singing, but now 100 years of futility, anger, and jealousy build up to the point where I'd like to beat Steve Perry to death with the mop he so stupidly clung to in the Oh Sherry video.


To Be With You by Mr. Big: This is a song that every girl who was between the ages of 6 and 22 when it came out loves. Secretly, well not so secretly anymore I suppose, I fucking like this song. It makes sense to me that, despite the fact that this one-hit-wonder (although some heralded them as a somewhat of a supergroup?), hair metal band probably sucked, but this song remains well appreciated years later. What I don't get is why the protagonist of the song wants to be next to be with this chick. Was she getting filled out like an application by the whole band, yet he was still pining for her depraved, slutty, STD-ridden ass? Maybe he meant she was getting around, but he actually wanted to be with her. I actually once dated a girl who seemed to have slept with everyone I knew at one time or another, sometimes with my roommate at the time and another girl at once, yet I saw something I liked in her. In the end, it was really hard, ultimately too hard, to get passed the fact that she could pick all of my friends' penises out of a line-up, but for a while, I was the one who wanted to be with her.

- There are a number of rap songs, not limited to, but including Jump Around by House of Pain, Humpty Dance by Digital Underground, It Takes Two by DJ EZ Rock and Rob Base, and Regulators by Warren G (thanks GSR) that make drunks rap to one another. However, the two songs that bring more white people together to rap badly are Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, a man who inexplicably managed to weasel his penis into a near hey-day Madonna, and Baby Got Back, by apparently knighted Sir Mix-a-Lot. As for the former, I don't think there has ever been a video , aside from anything by Michael Jackson, that spawned more drunken imitations of dance moves, and in Vanilla's case, really spastic, stupid-looking ones. Also, without fail, someone will do a steering wheel motion when he says, "rolling in my five point o." Now the latter, I must say, I'm very sick of. Granted I still like to watch a bunch of girls shake their butts in unison, but what I'm confused about is why women seem to like this this jam so much. Rarely are the women undulating on the dance floor in any way "thick soul sisters," so do they like the idea of a song that celebrates bigg-butted women, even if they themselves have narrow, over-Tae Boed and rollerbladed behinds?

There is also a trend with women and rap music whereby the dirtier, nastier, and more degrading the song is toward women, the more likely a gaggle of them are to sing it loudly and know ever word. I'm not going to type any words to Ain't No Fun by Snoop Dogg or Gimme' Dat Nut by Eazy E, because my mom sometimes glances at my site, but trust me when I say the phraseology is not something you would want to include in your wedding vows. So what does a love affair with slut anthems say about modern women? I like to think that they are trying to break down the double standards involved with female promiscuity by embracing a God-given right to be a freak. Either that or the songs are just damned catchy, and remind them of their slutty, carefree, college days.

Okay, I ended up on too many rants to really have a list worth any merit. That's where you come in, seven readers. What are some songs you notice get the whole bar singing?

P.S.: My crappy computer is out of space on its hard drive, so you'll have to make do without all the awesome pictures I found, including a picture that someone took of an Etch N' Sketch which an artist, and a quite gifted one in my estimation, deftly twisted the knobs around to make a fairly accurate, bust-shot of Eazy E.

P.P.S.: Never mind. I made room for the pictures. In my messed up universe, space for Eazy E Etch N' Sketch pics is way more of a premium than space for Microsoft Word or my resume.

Let's Get Physcial, Bitches.

One of the few things I hate more than cats is working out. Because of this, I get exercise through every type of sports league I can think of, and by riding my bike everywhere, even when it doesn't make any sense to do so. I'm just not a gym guy. Maybe it's the swollen-up, muscley, Neanderthal man grunting and groaning to assure that everyone becomes well aware that he is squatting hundreds of meaningless pounds. Maybe it's watching Johnny Hardass, perhaps the very same Neanderthal man, hit on the fake-breasted, but cute girl at the juice bar. Anyway, today I decided to do some gym-free push-ups and sit ups for two reasons:

1. I recently had an encounter with an old flame, and although the border police were stringent around her 38th Parallel/Mason-Dixon Line, we did end up mostly naked, back at her place. For whatever reason, she felt compelled to tell me that I should do some bench-pressing. That hurt a little bit, but after cycling through the pictures in her camera, I saw the type of guy she prefers in her recently dubbed ex-boyfriend: A totally ripped, cheesy-looking, Chip and Dales(tm) Dancer type. I wish I could say I didn't have this knowledge, but judging by his good-sized, yet unkempt penis area, he could have made a decent living at it. If you saw this dude, you'd know what I mean when I say that all he needs is the bow tie. In any event, I left her crappy, little apartment very ashamed of my lack of chest definition.

2. In a men's health magazine, I saw like seven push-up techniques, and I wanted to try them out, despite the fact that I could only seem to remember the one where you make a diamond out of your hands. Holy mackerel do those make my chest hurt, even now, with each and every keystroke. I also borrowed my neighbor’s ab-roller(tm). Those are a bitch, man! While I was rolling away, I Saw the Light by Todd Rundgren came on, and I remember thinking: "Those killer, bombastic drums bumping give quite an edge to an otherwise, fairly-tradional pop song. Hey, that's one heck of a guitar solo too. I wonder if that's big Todd himself? If memory serves, he raised Liv Tyler as his own daughter, even though it was Steven Tyler who knocked up her groupie mom." My mind went through various tangents like that one, until I realized I had been rolling for far, far too long. My tummy hurts, but not nearly as bad as my back.

Now, if you'll excuse me, me and my sore back and puny, but sore, chest, are going to anoint ourselves in a bathtub full of BenGay.

I Hate Cats . . .

. . . and they hate me. You don't believe me? Allow me to regale you with some tales of asshole cats in my recent asshole cat history:

1. I'm with a buddy in St. Louis, and he says he has to feed his mother's cats before we go out. When we get there, the two cats seemed friendly enough. However, as soon as they were fed, the sons of bitches start hissing at me, and I'm talking hair on their backs standing up, scare your pants off hissing. What a couple of selfish pricks, right?

2. I was dating a girl with a blue, really cool looking cat named, oddly enough, Mr. Blue. He was the biggest cat I ever saw, and I don't mean fat, I mean long. Legally, It is probably the closest she could have been to having a live panther in her house, and he had all the ferocity of a gull-darned panther, well towards me anyway. The little turd of a cat was always darting out from somewhere trying to attack me, so I'd get all on edge, and I swear the rat-bastard could sense it - and he'd come at me more. Maybe he also sensed that I wasn't into his owner anymore. I swear, you look into this cat's eyes, and it's like he knew things. I don't hate cats because they're dumb, because they're actually quite smart. I hate cats because they're assholes.

3. My roomy has a black, really skittish cat who, because of our landlord's anti-pet policy, has to be hidden up in his bedroom at all times like Anne Frank. However, lately he's been exploring more, and for some reason he loves to hang out under my bed. Maybe he sees no danger of being crushed by any hanky-panky, as this has been a very slow August for The Gancer. Could it be that he knows that black cats crossing one's paths creates bad luck, and because cats hate me, this little fuck-stick is milling around me to surround me with a doom cloud of crap luck? Well, it's working. In any event, it's weird when I sit down at my computer to, let's say, goof on Cherry for sharting himself, and I see a creepy black cat run over to the door for me to be let him out. Also, the other day I'm walking down the hall and he paws me in the leg. My Roomy is there, and he says that this is what he does when he wants My Roomy to pet him. I informed him that this cat never lets me pet him. To this he furrows his brow, thinks for a moment, and says, "Yeah, I don't know why he did that to you."

I will say, there is some precedent that may speak to why this particular cat may hate my guts. One night, when My Roomy wasn't around, me and Another Roomy were desperately trying to get him out of that bedroom, because the landlord was coming over to look at some light fixtures. Trying to pick him up was greeted with hisses, and he was wise to any attempts to shoo him in any direction to lock him into another room. I remember standing on the bed with a broom, trying to shoo him towards my other roomy, and thinking, "This animal was not meant to be domesticated."

It's true, folks. On the whole, dogs seem happy to see you, while a cat will barely look up from licking his balls as you walk through the door. You may think your cat loves you, but he is merely making the best of the situation. He'd rather be out in the alleys, sniffing out some cat-poon than sitting in your lap watching Hope Floats. Don't get me started on even crummier pets, like iguanas or komodo dragons. Yeah, there are no iguana pieces of ass out there your pet lizard would rather be riding. He much prefers the dorm room he calls home, with dip-shits listening to 311 and blowing bong-hits into his two by one foot cage. Incidently, tell me another blog where you'll see the phrase "iguana piece of ass?"

Hey, Seven Readers, first off, sorry this post was so darn long. Secondly, tell me an animal, whether a species or one in particular, that you'd like to punt with a nice, high leg kick like Reggie Roby, or tell me an animal that hated you.

26 Ladies

I recently got thinking about the best songs about girls with every letter of the alphabet. Blogging this topic became a bit of a labor of love, since there were two important, sometimes conflicting, considerations: How good the song is versus how cool the chick sounds. Ultimately I had to pick songs that struck the best balance between these two considerations, and I wanted to make a 26 track disc out of it. I would not mind input via your comments, and I'm not opposed to making changes if you make a good case. For some reason I think Zen Wizard is going to have some pearls of wisdom. In any event, here's the list:

A: Amie by Pure Prairie League. A nod to Angie by The Rolling Stones, but if he's dumping her she couldn't have been that great.

B: Burnadette by The Four Tops. He mentions that when he's with her he sees envy in other men's eyes, plus he just sounds ANGRY in love with her. This might be the best oldie of all time, and that's all there is to it. Chud, a loyal reader, pointed out that Brandy by Looking Glass should be on the list. It's a great song that always makes me happy. However because she'd be a good wife, yet he chooses "the sea" over her, it has to remain in the honorable mention category.

C: Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkle. What a slut, right? Shaking the poor guy's confidence. Daily, no less.

D: Diane, as in Jack and Diane by John Cougar Melloncamp. I would not mind having a hot-ass chick with whom to suck down a chili dog outside the Tasty Freeze.

E: Eleanore by The Turtles. Gee, I think she's swell. A nod, suggested by Chud, goes to Come On Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners for causing thoughts to "verge on dirty."

F: Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix

G: Gloria by Them and Girlfriend in a Coma by The Smiths are both good, but I have to go with Glad Girls by Guided By Voices because she ONLY wants to get me high. Girlfriend in a Coma just kind of lays there.

H: Hang on Sloopy by The McCoys is one hell of a song, but it should really be categorized under S, so I'm going to go with Chasing Heather Crazy by Guided By Voices. After all, she likes it when it grows.

I: Isabella by Jimi Hendrix. "I" was tough. Little help??

J: Jane Says by Jane's Addiction. This chick takes a swing, and she can hit. She sounds like my brand of crazy. A shout out goes to Jenny by Tommy Tutone, because you could get her number off a bathroom stall and break her off.

K: Killer Queen by Queen because not only is she well-versed in etiquette, but she's simultaneously dynamite with a laser beam and extraordinarily nice.

L: Lola by The Kinks is one helluva song, but I'm not sure what putting a tranny on my list would say about me. Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix was about his favourite groupie, which is nice, the song is good, but is her name really Little Wing? I'm going with Kadonkadonk, one of my reader's, suggestions, and changing my song to Layla by Derrik and the Dominoes. When you're in love with your best friend's wife, you tend to write passionate songs, and this one is no exception to that rule.

M: A lot of people might say Maybellene by Chuck Berry, Michelle by The Beatles, or My Michelle by G n' R, but I'm going with Monique the Freak by Ween. Deal with it.

N: Darling Nikki by Prince, because all her masturbating with a magazine got Tipper Gore's panties all in a bunch.

O: Ophelia by The Band. Pretty cool song, but mostly because there weren't many "O's."

P: Poison by Bell Biv Devoe. Never, EVER trust a big butt and a smile.

Q: Queen Wasp by The Misfits. Not the best song by these guys, but Q is tough, plus I'm happy to sneak the Misfits into this list.

R: Rosanna by Toto, because Roxanne by The Police is about a straight-up hooker. I likes them slutty, but not quite where they're getting paid for it.

S: Sexy Sadie by The Beatles is good, because this chick evidently came to turn on everyone, so how bad could she be? A nod also goes to Wake Up Little Suzie, because I think she put out. He said that they fell asleep, but you know he tapped that. I'm, evidently, one of those guys who would have said "oooh-la-la." I also considered Summer Babe by Pavement for her mixing of cocktails with a plastic-tipped cigar, but I just have to go with Sharleena by Zappa.

T: Tiny Dancer by Elton John, because it sparked that bus sing-along in Almost Famous.

U: Unbelievable by EMF. She sounded good, because unbelievable is a strong adjective, and I like the use of Andrew Dice Clay in the chorus.

V: Nods go to Veronica by Elvis Costello, Venus by Frankie Avalon, and Vera by Pink Floyd. However, I'm going with Valerie by Jerry Garcia, because he shot his dog because he growled at her. That's a special lady right there to make a guy make that rash of a decision. The song is quite good too.

W: Wonderwall by Oasis is a damn hit, but I have to go with West End Girls by Pet Shop Boys

X: Xena theme song??? That's horrible, I know, but I'm really drawing a blank here. Little help???

Y: I had gone with Yellow Leadbetter by Pearl Jam, even though I was pretty sure something that ridiculous could not be a woman's name. My buddy Neil, perhaps the biggest PJ fan in the free world, confirmed my suspicion that the song is not about a girl, so I had to take it off the list. However, he did come up with an alternative in Yolanda by Reality. Not a great song, but it helped me learn the vocab word bufanda, which is Spanish for scarf, when I was studying for a high school Spanish test in the mid-90's. You know, "Ohhhh-oooh-oooh, yeah, yeah. Oooooh-weeee, bufanda."

Z: Zoot Allures by Frank Zappa. I'm just going to assume that Zoot Allures is a girl's name, and I really can't be proven otherwise, since it's an instrumental.

* Some research was done through this website www.popculturemadness.com/Music/Girls-Names-Songs.html

Salt Shakers as Visual Aids, Bad, Yet Appropriate iPod Songs That Come Up on the Random Setting, and the Longest Title Since That Fionna Apple Record

Don't you hate when some jag-bag is telling you a story, usually about a car accident, and he goes into a long description with visual aids to give you a better mental picture of the events? He's always all like, "So, this salt shaker is me, right? And this sugar and sweetener container is the other guy's car. And . . ." I'm always a patient, polite listener, but I really want to say, "Just stop right there, you uninteresting slob. Your story will not magically become interesting when I've achieved the PERFECT visual of the intersection due to your God damn diorama presentation."

In a completely unrelated matter, on my bike ride home from work today I heard Semicharmed Kind of Life by Third Eye Blind, and while that song is horribly nerdy, it made me really happy today. Even though I was sure no one could tell what song I was listening to, I got a little embarrassed that I was listening to it, and what's worse, enjoying it so much. I will say though, it's the perfect make-you-happy-whilst-you-bike-by-the-lake song, because in the video all the guys in the band were merrily riding in some sort of gay-ass, moped procession. So, given the situation, the song was perfect to listen to, while I would not be caught dead listening to it on any other occasion I can think of.

This is even more the case with another song I heard on today's bike ride: Riding the Storm Out by REO Speedwagon. There was a massive storm hitting the Chicago area, so I was trying to bike home fast before I got caught in the thick of it. As it turns out, the only real good time to listen to Riding the Storm Out is when you're, well, riding a storm out.

Wanted: A Funny Imbruglia With Good Taste in Music

I was trying to explain to someone that I don't really have a "type" when it comes to women, nor do I believe that there is a "soul mate" out there somewhere for me, but sometimes I swear that I can picture the gal for me. For some reason, I always see a gal in my head who has dark hair, big, blue or green eyes, and she's almost always wearing tight-fitting t-shirts and wife-beats. She kind of looks like Natalie Imbruglia, but, of course, her taste in music doesn't suck. She doesn't have to be quite a music snob, like me, but she at least has to be open to new music and passionate about it.

She's funny too. And I don't mean she's the funny one according to her group of female friends; I mean guys think she's funny too. This is a tall order, and I'll tell you why. I'm estimating the percentage of funny women to be around 13%. Of those funny women, I'm going to say that .07% of them attractive. This is because pretty people, boys and girls alike, so rarely cultivate much of a personality, since they get by so easily on their looks. I guess what I'm looking for is that late bloomer chick, who became funny and intelligent through her ugly duckling phase, and then rose out of her ugly-ass ashes, like a phoenix. Like a hot, funny phoenix.

She's exciting and fun to be around. She's unpredictable and maybe even a little crazy. Not bat shit crazy, just a dash, enough to keep me on my toes, but not to the degree where she's slicing off my penis in my sleep like Lorena or burning my house down like Lisa "Left Eye."*

She's easy-going and low mainainence, but not quite a push-over. Nothing turns me off more than when someone gets all pissy and brings everyone down. I hate when people put themselves above everyone else, and make a situation uncomfortable.

She really likes sex, on the brink of nymphomania, but just with me. Well, maybe with some of her female friends on occaision, but she's not into that sort of thing to the point where she leaves me for one of them, then later trades in her cute, Imbrulgia-hair for a not-so-cute, Martina Navratilova femullet.

She drinks socially. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand, but she's rarely a mean-spirited or embarrassing drunk.

She's a genuinely nice person, but she also has edge to her. She can make a very innapropriate joke as well as laugh at one. If you've been reading for more than a post or two, you know that this one is REALLY important.

What do think, seven readers? Is all of this too much to ask? Should I cut and paste it onto Craig's List? What's that illusive quality you search for in the opposite sex?

*That reminds me of a joke: What's the difference between Bob Barker and Lorena Bobbit?
Answere: Bob is SLick PRicer