Oh The Stupid Songs You'll Teach Your Kid

I knew that part of the fun of having a kid would be teaching them about things that you're interested in, but I had no idea how fun it would be - or that some of those things would be built into daily routines. And of course like most every other aspect of my life, a lot of these daily sayings are references to songs that his daddy likes.

Whenever there is thunder outside I got Erik Noisewater saying "Thunder!" to the tune of "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC. We can cue each other, actually, because one of us can say thunder and the other will say "oh-woah-woah-oh-wo-oah" and vice versa. Because he is so into vehicles like a lot of two-year-old boys, he has evolved it into "you've been . . . Thunder Truck," which is actually pretty damn awesome. Then if I say "Dirty Deeds!" he will respond with "done dirt cheap, and that one has evolved into "Thunder Jeep," which needs to the band name of a doom metal band coming to a town near you. 

Then we have a couple go-to songs during bath time. The other day I was in the next room while his mom was giving him his nightly bath, and I heard him saying, "And here comes the water!" I was laughing my ass off because that's something I say to him when I dump water on him to rinse off the suds and it's from "Fembot In a Wet T-Shirt" by Frank Zappa. Then when it is time to pull the drain up and get out of the tub I say, "Why don't you . . . pull the plug?" It is fricking adorable to hear your son sing death metal. 

He also likes to sing "Strange Magic" by Electric Light Orchestra. Another good one for him is "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon, where he can hit the "Aaaaooooo" when I sing the end of a verse thusly:

Little old lady got mutilated late last night

Werewolves of London again

Aaaaaoooooooooo Werewolves of London. 

I swear I don't even realize I'm singing these things with them, which is perhaps why the songs span across all sorts of genres. Recently I overheard Mrs. Noisewater turning to the page of Dragons Love Tacos where the dragons get into the spicy salsa and spit fire everywhere, burning the house down, and I hear "hell fire!. Mrs. Noisewater knew something was up. "Why is our son saying "hell fire?" She asked, but she knew it had to be his insane father. That's from Arthur Brown, a a goofball who was singing with a mask and spitting fire (long before KISS) with sometimes high pitched metal style vocals (long before Judas Priest). While the wide range of artists he would influence is nothing short of incredible, the end result of what he sounded like was at times comical, as it is with this song. This is why I laughed my ass off when I heard young Erik singing it. 

Arthur Brown's "Fire" is just about the perfect jukebox sabotage song. Any of you ever put a song on the jukebox that you know is super goofy and obnoxious just to see the reaction of the patrons? Or maybe it's one that you can't even stand yourself so you play it 10 times in a row and leave? I actually texted my good friend Haircut who recently moved away to give him the ammunition of using "The Crazy World of Arthur Brown" for the next time he strikes. What haircut does could actually be referred to as remote jukebox sabotage because he will be bored at home and with the Touchtunes application on his phone he will cue up a string of particularly shitty songs to play at a nearby bar. He scares me because this is the type of man who could become a computer hacker, someone who F's with people without even seeing the reactions of his targets. 

But I digress. 

Hey, sorry for the long break between postings. As far as what has been going on since anyone last heard from me:

1. I completed my second marathon, falling short of my goal of under 4 hours, but beating my time from when I was 9 years younger

2. We are still trying to skate one past the goalie for our second child and continuing to come up short. Tests for both of us look normal, so we just have to keep at it and hope for the best.

3. Tomorrow we are having a party where guests come in Christmas pajamas that will be loads of fun. When I was buying the caramel flavored Baily's that I want to slip in my coffee at said event, a dude slips two big bottles of booze down his inside coat pockets, looks right in my eyes and snarls, "Don't say nuthin!" I got my son riding in my cart and you're going to rob the place and threaten me? So I don't go to that store anymore. 

Okay, sorry to go out on that note. Didn't know I was going to talk about that. See you next time. 

Fatherhood Has Changed Chicago Man, But He Still Won't Eat Camel Meat

My wife dropped me off at work today because she needed our car to take our baby boy to a doctor visit. I packed a lunch for myself and left it in the refrigerator. Isn't that the worst? This is even more of a problem than any other day because where I work on Mondays has nothing nearby to walk to for lunch options. For those of you not from the Chicago area, the neighborhood of Devon street near Damen Avenue has a milieu of cultures ranging from Nigerian, Pakistani, Indian, and you name it. I found a middle eastern restaurant, and I must admit it didn't look very clean and didn't smell too great either. I think I may have actually given it a shot, but then I saw a sign that was happily announcing "Camel meet on Fridays!" That actually scared me off, so snuck out and walked another few blocks to a McDonald's. My stomach was upset from the synthetic food, so I may have been better off with the camel meat.

Why not on Wednesdays? Hump Day!

My tummy was in knots as I worked my way back down Devon to get back to work in time when an elderly Caucasian gentleman walking in the opposite direction stopped to talk to me. Only he didn't appear to be speaking English. I listened hard to see if maybe it was just a thick accent and actually English. I told him, "I don't know the language you're trying to speak to me in." He said some things and I think I heard "Bosnian" in there somewhere. So I said, "Yeah, I don't speak Bosnian. Sorry." Maybe I just have a Bosnian look to me? Or maybe if he sees a white guy in the area, he just assumes Bosnian? Whatever the case, it's too bad I don't speak his language because he seemed very excited about the prospect of conversing with a fellow Bosnian buddy.

So, like I mentioned in paragraph one (if you're still reading), the wife and I have a baby boy now. When Mrs. Noisewater was very, very pregnant we went to a Chicago Cubs game together. She met me after work at a nearby bar and told me that some random drunk had just stopped her on the street and said, "That's a boy!" and pointed at her belly. I think people are going with the old wive's tale that if you carry your baby all up front and not in many other places, then that means it's a boy. So, we left the bar to head into the game and another random drunk homeless man said, "You' havin' a boy!" Well, the drunk homeless prophets were right; He's a boy, and he's beautiful.

They say it's good to talk and to sing to your babies, so he already has some go-to songs that we sing to him. One is "Beautiful Boy" by John Lennon. I think that is a song I would have thought was totally corny in my pre-daddy days, but now I absolutely love it.



The other song is "He's Misstra Know It All" by Stevie Wonder, only I sing "He's Mister Cutie Man." Yes. Mister Cutie Man. You read that correctly. I am no longer the least bit cool, and I fully accept this as fact and as a way of life.



Sincerly,

Mr. Bloggie Man

Hot For Professor

I was playing volleyball and drinking some beers with friends on the beach the other day, and one buddy said he wanted to wrap it up soon because he had his first day of the semester in the morning.  This guy is over thirty, waits tables, and he is working towards finishing his undergraduate degree.  He wasn't so concerned about being rested to get a good start in his classes but because he wanted to make a good impression on his hot female professor.  How does he know she is attractive?  Well, apparently there is a website where people rate their teachers on all of the more important aspects related to their job but also they get a chili pepper if they are deemed "hot" by enough students.  Can you believe this?

A couple of women we play volleyball with came over to sit out a game while we were having a beer and discussing our friend's first day of class.  I like making sure everyone is up to speed so I said, "Hey, girls.  If you're just joining us, Bob here is trying to bed his professor tomorrow morning."  I like Bob because he wasn't at all embarrassed and filled them in on the whole chili pepper thing.  The girls said that he needs to bring her an apple.  I said he should sandwich it with an apple at the beginning of class and offering to clean her blackboards at the end.  He pointed out that no professor has used a blackboard in like 10 years.  They all laughed and that got the steady "goof on someone" onslaught off of him and onto me for a while.  We all get it for a portion of the day, and it's all in good fun.

I texted him recently to ask if La Senora Caliente was worthy of the chili pepper rating, and apparently she is.  He said he wants to tell me all about it over a beer when next we meet, and I'm greatly looking forward to it.

In other news, here is a cool song I heard on Sirius radio the other day.  It's called "A.C.D.C." from 1972 by Sweet, the guys who brought us "Fox On the Run" and "Ballroom Blitz."  It's really ahead of its time if you ask me, because it's about a guy dating a bisexual girl who fools around with tons of women.  Rivers Cuomo from Weezer would write "Pink Triangle," another terrific song, years and years later about falling in love with a lesbian.  At least I thought it was about a bisexual chick, but then in the second verse they sing "you aught to see her ding-a-ling . . . In any event, "A.C.D.C." has been on my head all day today.  It's a terrific sleazy, pop, punk, glam, hard rock song impossible to pin down into any specific category.  Give it a listen.

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And I give you all, my favorite readers a chili pepper rating of your own.  Make that two chili's.

Updates. Updates. Updates.

1. Mrs. Noisewater and I have a wedding in August.  My only job was finding the DJ.  I made sure I talked to three or four different reputable DJ services with good Yelp reviews.  Ultimately I went with the guys who got back to me quickly when I had a question, they had a reasonable price, and we were on the same page with a lot of things.  For example, I don't want to hear any songs that are at every other damn wedding you've ever been to like "We Are Family," "Celebrate," or "Last Dance."  Also, no group participation dorky songs like the Conga line, the limbo, or the "Electric Slide."  The guy on the phone was laughing and totally got where I was coming from.  So I booked him.  I just have the photo booth to do and I'm all done.

2. I just finished George Clinton's autobiography, and I think the best story in there came when they were recording "Let's Take It To the Stage," and a random junkie white guy wandered in asking if he could record some guitar for some money.  George is a bit of free spirit so he agreed.  The guy came back with his own beat up guitar, recorded a solo over the song "Shit, God Damn, Get Off Your Ass and Jam," and everyone was speechless because it was so good.  They had agreed on $25, but it was so good George gave him $50.  George wanted to credit him on the album too, but the guy disappeared never to be heard from again.  Nobody knew who the hell he was.  I love reading rock biographies, and even if it's a bad one, if I get one story like that then it's all worth it.

3. Reading about all the Parliament/Funkadelic stuff got me digging through some old songs, and I came across this one by Bootsy Collins.  Tell me this isn't the sexiest damn thing you ever heard!  I've listened to this one 6 times in the last 4 days.

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4. Here is a little known fact: My profile picture on Blogger since the very beginning in 2005 is a picture of George Clinton himself stepping off of the Mothership.

Who among you knew that?

I work with this woman who I'm not too crazy about, and the more she goes on and on at meetings, the more crazy I start going.  In about three consecutive meetings she has said "strag-e-dies" instead of strategies.  I was screaming inside my head, mad as hell that someone could get over 40-years-old in a professional setting still saying a word that horribly incorrect.  Then "Tragedy" by Bee Gees popped in my head for reasons I at first didn't know, but then I laughed having realized that I was singing "Stragedy!"

Songs pop in my head all the time and crack me up.  There are people I see every day who have no idea that they have their very own theme song playing in my head when they walk in the room.  And it's a good trick that I recommend to keep you from getting too serious and angry at work.  Just assign that awful person a funny song and get through that meeting, humming and laughing to yourself like a crazy person.

"Did Someone Just Skip My Song?"

So I'm out drinking the other night and loading up the jukebox with songs with that application where you can pick songs from your phone.  It's great fun to not have to leave your friends to stand by the jukebox, and that way everyone can brainstorm songs together and pick them as a team.  So when we heard the first few thundering bass notes to our first song, "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead, we were very pumped and I was head banging as such.  Then before Lemmy can get through his hoarse voiced,  bellowing first verse, I hear the song being skipped and look up to see one of the bar maidens suspiciously setting down a remote.



I calmly walked over to the bar and said, "Did someone just skip my song?"

To which she said, "Yeah, that was awful."

I told her it's Motorhead and probably not for everyone, but I was excited to hear it.  I added that it would have been over in 2 and a half minutes, and surely she could have just waited that out.  Just then the other, much cooler, bar maiden handed me a dollar while not as cool bartender asked me if they had any other better songs?  I explained that they did have lots of other songs but they all sound: Just.  Like.  That one.

I told her she would hate them all equally and this was the only one other people in the bar were likely to know.

I had to add "And you skipped my song and stuck us with this Rascal Flats crap?"  All the while I stood there with my returned dollar bill in my hand, unsure if it had resolved the situation.

The cooler bartender said I looked familiar, and I said that I have been in there a number of times and I'm a pretty good customer.  Just then I heard the country song get skipped, and I heard the beginning of "Give It To Me Baby" by Rick James - it was my next song.  I smiled ear-to-ear, and they both laughed as I danced my way back to my table.



Then my friends and I laughed our asses off seeing Rascal Flatts guy getting hopping mad about his awful Rascall Flatts song getting skipped.

It's always more funny when it happens to someone else.

Hockey Hair and Hockey Songs

What is it about hockey that attracts the types who still like classic rock, heavy metal, the working class, and long hair on dudes?  And I don't at all mean this in a bad way.  It's good.  Very, very good.

I went to a Chicago Blackhawks game on Friday night, and I noticed that during any break in the action the house music would kick in with songs like Bad Company's "Rock and Roll Fantasy" or Billy Squire's "Lonely Is the Night."  What other sport is still utilizing songs such as these?  I like to think I know a little bit about what is good and what isn't in music, and these songs are really stupid in a lot of ways but really enjoyable in most every important way.


(Jeez.  That is just a lousy lip-sync performance.  He doesn't even try to sell it.  Must have been on a bender the night before.)

I also noticed that women going to a hockey game aren't all dolled up like the women in the first few rows at a Lakers game.  Not at all.  Those gals come in there without makeup, wearing a baggy-ass hockey jersey (something few girl can look good in), and they are very invested in the game, not even talking to their boyfriends about anything but hockey.  I went with an old friend who I only see once a year or so, and we were getting looks for talking about things that did not concern the game at hand.

Another break in the action at a critical moment in the game, and we hear REO Speedwagon's "Riding the Storm Out."  I did a blog post a number of years ago about pedaling my bike through an epic storm on the  way home from work to the sounds of that very song.  And yes, I had it on my iPod then and still do.  Sue me.

Hockey is it's own little world.  And it's the only sport in Chicago where the team is playing worth a damn, so I'm trying to get into it a little more.  With feel good songs like these, how can I not get enthused?

And here is this song because I heard it in the bar after the game and it kicks major ass.  Have a very sham-a-lam-a-ding-dong Martin Luther King Day, everyone.

Admit It: The Little Drummer Boy Has Always Suh-suh-suh-sucked.

Remember "The Little Drummer Boy?"  I think all seven of my readers would have to agree that it's the most crappy of all Christmas songs.  I was trying to put my finger on why it is so lousy.

It could be the puh-rump-a-pum-pumming.  Nobody needs to hear someone sing onomatopoeia like that.  How about just play that beat on the drum instead?  Or get Biz Markie to beat box it.

"I'm so sad they didn't ask me.  I can still beat box, ya know!"

Then I thought it could be that version when David Bowie stumbled into Bing Crosby's house and they somehow managed to make the most nerdiest version of "Drummer Boy" yet.  Something tells me that if Bing knew that Bowie liked to dress like a woman and sleep with other dudes like Mick Jagger, then he wouldn't have been so accepting.  He seemed to be the old school type that didn't care for gay folks.  And didn't Bing beat the tar out of his own kids?



Then it hit me.  The thing I hate most about that stupid, stupid song is the line where he says "the ox and lamb kept time."  I'll believe that some woman 2,000 years ago got knocked up without doing the nasty and before test tubes.  And maybe that baby was the son of God who could turn water into Smirnoff Ice, or however that one went.  But what I refuse to believe is that a big dumb ox and perhaps an even stupider lamb were capable or cared enough to kick their hooves to the beat of a little broke-ass kid's drum beat who couldn't afford to bring a damn gift when he met the lord of the whole fricking universe.

That's just far fetched.

Deer Neighbor,

So, you heard "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazarus coming out of my apartment and you immediately call the police?  It can't just be because I think it's a cool song?  You right away assume that I have a plus-size woman in a pit in my basement, and I'm lowering her lotion with a bucket while I dance around in the mirror with my wang tucked between my legs while I seductively dab on lipstick?  I just . . . I just like the song.  You can trust me.

"I Want a Man With a Slow Hand"

I heard that goofy song in the shower today, and what's even stranger is that I had the option to switch the station before getting in. Washing yourself, especially "down there," is an all together different feeling when the Pointer Sisters are outlining how it is they like their love-making. Creepy. Glad no one saw me.



But it got me thinking what this song would be like in today's day, seeing as things in songs are said more obscenely, explicitly, and with crappier grammar. Given those three elements, and let's say it was sung by Rihanna, and I'd say the title to the song in this era would be . . .



"Don't Want No Finger Blaster."

7 Readers, I Ask You . . .

. . . Have you ever seen or heard something so awful? It never occurred to anyone involved with this piece of crap that "ram it" might sound sexual? My favorite guy is the one who steps out of the locker.

Rape Me, My Friend.

I was running today to "In Utero" by Nirvana, something I hadn't heard in a long time. What struck me is that this is their worst record by far - not even close. He had success and too much fame for his tastes and wanted to release a big F-U to the public, and he was probably horribly depressed and doing too many drugs. Still, it's a better record than most any band will ever make; He was such a naturally gifted songwriter that he made a good record in spite of himself.

Then when "Rape Me" came on, I thought about an Environmental Science class in high school that I was taking when that record came out (Dr. Ken went to school during the grunge era) and a project we had in which we had to bring in a CD to play with a song that was about the environment.

A young Dr. Ken, a metal-head at the time, read a few lyrics from a song called "Greenhouse Effect" by Testament, which is a rather awful song about, you guessed it, the greenhouse effect. Only like three tracks still hold up on that album, but the cover art is still terrific, don't you think? I didn't want to play it on the stereo because I thought the metal would scare the other kids - I was a giant pussy at the time because now I would be more like, "deal with it, pussies."

Then, a classmate of mine had the teacher put on "Rape Me" by Nirvana. We listened to the whole thing, and the teacher was obviously disturbed and offended, especially by the time it got to the breakdown at the end where Kurt is just yelling "rape me" over-and-over again. She asked the young man what the song is supposed to mean and just why in the hell did we listen to that whole abrasive thing, to which he said, "I dunno. I couldn't think of anything."

He could have made something up about it being about mother earth being raped by non-earth conscious consumers using too much hair spray and polluting and the like, but nope, he just came clean and said he couldn't think of anything. Outstanding. A good day in my otherwise highly uneventful high school tenure. Don't forget to turn off my music player along the right panel if you want to see this awesome live performance of "Rape Me" with a young Dave Grohl going all the way off.

I seriously have zero to write about, but I'm determined to write a ton lately, so I'm just going to see if anything comes to me . . .

My trainer at the gym is a big buff man that trains 5 to 10 of us at a time, and when we do dips, he likes to lean on your shoulder and talk to you about things like the Rain Forrest, just to put added weight on you. He's a lot of fun, and sometimes he turns the volume down to sing your name, "Dr. Ken! All the way down on those push ups" in time with the music. He still uses CD's which I respect, but today it started skipping right in the middle of "Just Got Paid." I fricking love that jam! Actually, no, that one played through, but it was a weird mix that I didn't like as much. It skipped right in the middle of that "Do You Think I'm a Nasty Girl" song that's playing at the titty bar in Beverly Hills Cop. You never hear that one anymore. Damn.*



This weekend I'm going to ride the rickshaw to take people around to and from the Dave Mathews Band concert at Wrigley Field for some extra cash, and then I'm going to try to put in work from home on Saturday for more extra cash, work on the play I'm writing for a bit, and then reward myself with many Leinenkugels at Chicago's Muskie Fest, one of the best street festivals in Chicago.



Aren't you glad you know what I'm doing this weekend and what my trainer at the gym is like? Are you writing this all down because this crap is important, somehow?

I'll leave you with this question so that you have something to comment about besides how lame I am: Speaking of the skipping CD's, do you have any tapes, records, or CD's that you still play, in the car perhaps, that still plays like a champ? I have had Slayer's "Seasons in the Abyss" in my car since high school, and it plays perfectly. I used to jam it on the way to college classes after all nighters, hitting those drum fills hard to stay awake. It only gets inserted** around seven or eight times a year, but it always comes through. You have anything like that?

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*As always, if you want to bump the Youtubes, and you do if you wanna dance and get funky, be sure to hit pause on the music player to the right.
**That sounds dirty.

Fogotten Song

Do you guys remember this song? I'm trying to figure out if it was only a hit in the Chicago area. I remember I was in Junior year Spanish class in high school, and a buddy and I used to memorize the Spanish word for scarf, bufanda. "Oh oh. Yeah yeah. Oooh wee, bufanda."

The song had no music video, which says to me that it wasn't a nation wide hit, but this homemade video is . . . interesting.

The thing is they are saying "oh oh yeah yeah ooh wee, Yolanda," and that's pretty stupid.  But if the Beatles wrote the same line it would be genius, right?  Or if a Spanish band wrote the same thing only with Bufanda . . . Now that would be something.

Here is a snippet from pop singer Rihanna's new song:

Come here, rude boy, boy
Can you get it up
Come here, rude boy, boy
Is you big enough

I can't believe this is on the radio. What kind of message is she sending to today's little girls out there? What a horrible example she is setting! After all, it should be "are you big enough," not "is you big enough."

80's One Hit Wonders

I was watching Top 100 80's One Hit Wonders on Vh1, and these ones really stood out. As always, remember to hit pause on the music player along the left side before hitting play on the videos.

"Under the Milky Way" by The Church. This song is so moody and beautiful.


"Lunatic Fringe" by Red Rider. I've always loved this song, but it's one of those songs that sounds shittier once you see the video. So, I'm going to find a youtube without the piss poor video. That way maybe you'll like it too. This song always makes me think of the film Vision Quest (1985) starring Matthew Modine as a high school wrestler doing a slightly older woman in Linda Fiorentino. The soundtrack also had "Crazy for You" by Madonna and "Only the Young" by Journey. But, who of you remembers that the lead singer of Red Rider was Tom Cochrane who would have a shittier song that was a hit in the early 1990's, "Life Is a Highway?"


"Boom Boom Boom (Let's Go Back To My Room)" by Paul Lekakis. This poor fellow had a monster drug habit, started prostiting himself, and now he has AIDS. I never would have thought of this song again had it not been for this special. This one holds up . . . not at all. It sucks, and I can't believe I liked it, but I was only like 11-years-old, so we'll let it slide.