Unusual Playlist Titles

I have one of those iPod shuffles with no buttons on it where you hold down a button on the headphones for a voice to tell you the names of the song or playlist.  It's a robotic white guy voice, but every once in a while it's a woman robot.  And for some reason all my stuff by Tool is read by a German speaking robot.

I like to get a workout in around 5 days a week, so I do anything to motivate myself, including naming playlists funny things to make the white guy robot say funny things.  Here are the names of the playlists currently on the little green foul-mouthed shuffle:

1. "A Gym Triathlon.  Put It In My Pooper."  One day I thought I would make up goals for three different exercise machines (treadmill, upright bike, sitting down bike) for a little triathlon I could do with no rest in between.  I'm a weirdo.  Put it in my pooper was just for laughs - not part of the triathlon. 


2. "A Shed Aquarium, Muthafucka!"  You will notice I put the letter "A" to get the new list at the beginning of the queue so I don't have to cycle all the way through.  Shed Aquarium is the place to see all kinds of aquatic animals in Chicago, and it was a milestone for building up miles for my latest marathon.  Muthafucka was just funny because Mr. Robot is just so very white.  He says it nothing like Samuel L. Jackson.

3. "Arm Day for Pussies." This was an attempt to employ some tough love on myself to get me to work harder on my scrawny girl arms.  I wish Mr. Robot had yelled it at me like an asshole high school football coach, but he did a pretty good job all things considered.


4. "Beach Workout Bonanza."  I'm not crazy about this title.  I just needed some Megadeth and the like to get me through a bunch of workout stations in the park near the beach.  Should have threw a damn swear into that title.  Damn it. 

5. "Chest Rockwell."  Those of you who are fans of "Boogie Nights," my favorite film of all time, know that this name is the character John C. Riley invents to be the crime fighting sidekick to Dirk Diggler's Brock Landers.  Inspiration for this one came on a day when I was trying to engorge my concave, awful excuse for chest muscles.

6.  "McCormick Place, My Niggas."  McCormick place is the giant convention center in Chicago and the spot I run to and from to know I'm ready for a marathon - do believe it's around an 18 mile trip.  "My Niggas" was just to, again, make a white robot say goofy ass hoodrat stuff.  Wait, "Goofy Ass Hoodrat Stuff" is not an all together bad playlist title . . .

7. "Oh Yeah!  Time To Run Around This Big Ass God Damn Lake."  This was the perfect title for running around Lake Geneva.  You got a better name for it?


8. "Pull Over 'Dat Ass Too Fat.  Woot Woot!"  On the way back from Wisconsin, Dr. Ken and his lady were singing this one all through out the cheese castle, so when I got home I just had to hear White Robot sing it for me too. 

9. "Quadzilla Day"  I figured this was a good title for when you're lifting weights with your legs, which is an incredibly boring muscle group with which to lift things. 

Okay, that's all I got.  My muscles are still weak, but I had a few good laughs.

Good iPod Mojo Gets Dr. Ken Through a Tough Morning

I have been sick lately, and I struggled staying up late last night watching my Chicago Blackhawks lose in overtime somewhere around midnight to get eliminated from the playoffs. So, this morning I was hurting, and without drinking coffee until I get to work, I rely solely on my iPod to get me through the morning commute without falling asleep and crashing. Luckily, today I came across bomb songs to keep my head bobbin'.

(Oh, and remember to hit pause on the music player along the right panel if you decide to play any of the vids on this post)

1. "I'm Bad" by L.L. Cool J.:

This is a very underrated song, and while "Momma Said Knock You Out" does make me want to punch something (in a good way), this one makes me want to beat up a bunch of people and run from the cops. "Forget Oreos eat Cool J. Cookies!" I love dumb ass lines that he can somehow he can make sound cool. How about "I crush you like a jelly bean!" Love it. The whole song is essentially him saying why he's the shit, and then at the end he gets on the police radio to tell the po-po's who are on the lookout for that elusive "tall black skinned brotha' with dimples" that they won't catch him because he's "too bad fo' ya'. Understaaaaaaand!"

2. "Do That Stuff" by Parliament:

Without a doubt the chorus of this jam boasts one of the funkiest horn riffs in the history of the world. "Do that stuff, ah, do that stuff" George demands from us, and it's not terribly important what exactly that "stuff" entails. Who cares? This song bumps! "You wouldn't believe how they partied." Oh, I believe. This song sounds like one funky-ass party with grown men in diapers and a big ass spaceship landing on your face.

3. "Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash live from San Quentin

This is probably the best male tear jerker of all time because, while my dad is a great guy, there are a lot of guys out there with dads who are pretty awful but they love them anyway. Shel Silverstein wrote a terrific story with this song, but Johnny really seemed to have lived it when he sang it - and you can hear the inmates' reactions to various sections, as I imagine many of them had similar experiences. Try listening to this one and not want to call your dad, or punch him and have him stand up and cut off part of your ear. Either one.

4. "Roll With the Changes" by REO Speedwagon:

This is the one that was blaring as I pulled into work, and yes, it's corny, but fuck it. This is a pump-you-up song, dorky or not. I am tired of the same old story! I'm ready to roll with some changes! Yes! There's some great soloing in this song. Still, I always think of Billy Madison in his REO Speedwagon shirt going back to high school trying to act cool leaning against his sports car. Yeah. It kind of sounds like that, but it still kicks ass.

How about you guys? Any good iPod mojo lately? Any shit bands that always pop up and you have to skip? I know I downloaded a ton of country for a Redneck Party that I'm always having to sift through.

The Rocky Button

I feel like I have a lot of ideas through out the course of a day, most of which are totally stupid, impractical, and a little nuts, but occasionally there are some gems, such as "The Rocky Button." What is this, you may ask? Well, you know that feeling when you're nearing the end of your workout, skipping through songs on your MP3 player that will pump you up, but the lactic acid is bubbling up to your throat, and you feel like not even Jeffrey Dahmer chasing you with a knife and intentions of cutting off your head and pouring battery acid into your ears would motivate you to run any faster? That's when you hit the Rocky button, and voila! On comes the most uplifting song, at least for Caucasian America, of all time!

But, guess what?

Someone already thought of it. I burned a workout disc for a ladyfriend recently with "Gonna' Fly Now," and when I told her about this awesome idea I had years back, she said that it already exists - a button where you can set a certain song to play whenever you hit it.

God damn it.

This always happens to me. Why can't people just steal my stupid ideas.

P.S.: This is a combination a bit of trivia and just something that occurred to me that I'd like to know: Do they ever mention how many pounds Rocky is giving up to fight Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV"

I got no good ideas, but I know I want to post something to stay busy so here is the 2nd time I will hit random on my itunes and talk about the first five songs to come up - an idea ripped off from the AV Club from The Onion, I believe.

1. "You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive. First off, I like songs with parenthesis. Secondly, this song is "lots of fun." Third, singer Pete Burns claims that the more famous Boy George stole his look. I will say that Pete was a slightly more convincing tranny.


2. "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice. I liked this one when I saw it come on one of the MTV channels back when they played decent songs. Justice is a French dance duo. I probably would have had more thoughts on this one a few years back when I was more into it. I think I played it out, which is a surefire sign that I really dug it at one time.


3. "Peace Sells" (Live) by Megadeth. My downstairs neighbor, a father of three who is a lawyer, but I only see him dressed up once a month or so (the other days he has on metal shirts like Dio) saw Megadeth, Testament, and Slayer at UIC here in Chicago. I asked him if Megadeth played anythign off of "Rust in Peace," one of the only metal albums I can still enjoy all the way through, and it turns out they played the whole thing that night. His three-year-oldish son has super long hair, and I asked if he went to Megadeth too. As he casually smacked at a bird feeder with a stick as if it were in a pinata, he said, "No. Daddy did."


4. Song number four is a bad, bad country song. These come on a lot because I have downloaded a ton of country music for my two annual Redneck parties. We get moonshine from Alabama, a mystery tub of beer where you have to reach in there without knowing what you're getting, we decorate the house all white-trashy, and we encourage guests to dress up. I'm thinking this is the band Alabama . . . Nope, it's the Oakridge Boys, "One in a Million." I should have known by the guy with the deep voice, the guy who sings the deep part in "Elvira." That song used to crack me up when I was a kid.

5. "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" by The Beatles. This is one of those songs, just like most everything on "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd where you can't hear just one song because each song flows into each other so well, like a part of a perfect whole. Has anyone ever seen that part of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story where he drops acid with The Beatles? Whoever wrote that scene really knew what was funny and interesting about The Beatles.

I saw in some publication, I forget which, a segment in which celebrities let their ipods play a few songs at random, and they comment upon each one. So, I'm going to steal this idea, because I don't have a worthwhile topic, which is partly due to not having any new life experiences, since I have been holed up in my apartment with some God awful, bubonic plague-style virus that 4 of the 5 roommates have suffered through. The fifth would have contracted it too, but he was out of town. There's nothing like barfing and hearing your roomie downstairs barfing right along with you in stereo. If only we had adjoining toilets in which to yack, and that way we could have held hands. If I didn't see that the first roommate to contract this beast lived through it, I really would have thought I was giving up the ghost.

ANYWAY, I'm ready to hit the skip button on my itunes and see what comes up. There are 5,956 songs, and if it played from A to Z it would take SIXTEEN days. So, anything can pop up, and I promise to report on each one, no matter how embarrasing . . .

1. Holy crap! This is embarrassing. I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight by Cutting Crew. This song came on a Totally 80's compilation that I bought when I worked at a used CD store. I also have the Awesome 80's. There are 40 songs on each, for a total of 80 songs, some of which are essential, must-haves, and many are piss-poor, like this one. Apparently these 'Brits' reached number one in the United States with this little slice of pop-Hell in 1986. They opened for bands like Huey Lewis and the News, The Bangles, and Starship. Yikes. Cutting Crew could only make an evening with any one of those shitty bands that much shittier. I TOLD you I would report on any craptastic song that surfaced during this process. Let's just move on, and forget about Cutting Crew for a moment.

2. Luna - Smashing Pumpkins. This is a cool song, but it kind of works on the album as a good winding down, record finisher, and doesn't stand on its own all that well. I tried to look on songlyrics.com, a great site by the way, but the lyrics are kind of ambiguous, and didn't give me much to go on. You know what I don't like 9 times of ten? Strings in my rock. It works in this song okay, since it's fairly understated, but when it's too high in the mix it just sounds pretentious and self-important. I can deal with some horns, like with Neutral Milk Hotel, but for the most part, keep those strings out of my rock, damnit! You know, after my third listen just now, this is a pretty damn good song. Let's see what track three has in store for us . . .

3. Chains of Love by Erasure! Is it really gay that I LOVE this song and A Little Respect by the same band? Both of them make me so damn happy. You know what's really scary? Songs that are a lot of fun, that make me want to dance, or gance in this case, make me want a cocktail. I've been classically conditioned to associate dancing and drinking. Good thing for me I have this stomach flu, or this song would make me have a few and gance the night away.

4. She's Not There - Toadsuck Symphony. This is a cool bluegrass version of the oldie originally recorded by The Zombies, which I believe was also covered by Santana. My friend and former roommate's mother was born in Toadsuck, Arkansas. I wonder if this band hails from Toadsuck? Toadsuck!?!? What an unfortunate name for a town! Do you think the founders of the city caught a buzz off of sucking on toads? In any event, these guys really jam at the end of this cut! There are a lot of bluegrass versions of songs that gain interest merely because of the campiness and novely factor, but these cats can play and sing really well, and they record some very original interpretations.

5. She Took a Long Cold Look at Me - Syd Barrett. Syd's my boy. I'd tell you all about how much I love his music, and how I'm fascinated by his tragic tale, but I already wrote all about it in a blog I wrote when he passed away earlier this year; You'll just have to go to the July section and scroll down, because the flipping link isn't working. I'm listening to She Took a Long Cold Look At Me on head phones right now, and I really dig how you can hear him turn pages while he plays and sings. I'm getting sad thinking about his insanity, public breakdowns, and the tole that the heartless music industry took on such an innocent genius, so let's move on.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this, and I encourage you blog your own experiences delving into the depths of your music collection, and no cheating! I shared some Cutting Crew, so you have to share something equally shitty should it pop up.