Based off a poll of over 500 individuals that asked them what their most and least favorite aspects of music are, the staticians passed off the results to musicians who wrote the Most Wanted Song and the Most Unwanted Song. I've linked below to the streaming audio of the Most Unwanted song, which you really must listen to. People apparently hate children's voices, opera, communism, cowboy ballads, holiday tunes and George Stephanopolous. (The last one is understandable.) I've also included the lyrics below (click to expand), which are pretty hilarious. Just as an excerpt, my favorite lines:
"Easter Time! Easter Time!
Love, forgiveness, and the bunnies!
Easter Time! Chocolate Time!
Do all your shopping at Wal-Mart!"
According to the staticians' findings, fewer than 200 people in the world's total population will enjoy this song. Are you among them?
Listen here.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The World's Most Unwanted Song is the bestest and funniest ever
Live-Blogging The Bachelor: Jason, episode 3
So let's just move onto this week's episode, sponsored by McDonald's, where happier times await.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I don't know if you heard...
How cold, you ask? Well, let's say that for the last twelve hours, it's been below zero without the windchill. The high today is -1 and as of 12:30 PM, it's -5 but feels like -23. Fun!
On the walk to work today (I haven't attempted to move my car from the ice-snow igloo that has formed around it in the last week after we got 15 inches of snow or whatever it is), my eyes kept sticking shut because of the tears forming from the wind and blinking. I may have lost a few eyelashes, but that's only a small casualty.
I know I can't whine too much because there are people who live in places like International Falls and Bismarck. (By the way, why do you people do that? How can you stand it?) They've got it a lot tougher than--
Screw it. I'm going to complain all I want.
(Amazing photo courtesy of the Chicago Tribune, whose current homepage has a ticking clock of how long it's been below zero and a screaming headline: Why DO you live here, anyway?)
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Bachelor: Jason, episode 2
Let's be honest about Jason. He's kinda like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (That's right, NOT a hot dog with mustard topping!) Just sort of there, a bit plain, maybe he got a little smushed in the plastic baggie on the ride to school. You know what I mean.
But ABC has made a real effort to pull on our heartstrings (remember evil, evil DeAnna?!) and pull at our lady-indulgences (gratuitous bicep curls and six-pack shots) just to remind us how worthy Jason and The Bachelor are of our viewing time and advertising dollars! Hooray, America! Here we go!
Things The Bachelorettes Teach Us So We Don't Have to Learn Them Ourselves
There's a lot to be learned from The Bachelor. The gutsy 25 ladies who risk their social and professional futures teach many lessons to us viewers. As we lead into episode 2 this evening, these are just a few gems gleaned as the ladies stepped and stumbled their way through episode 1:
DON'T:
1. Say you're from Chicago if you're from places like, say, Blue Island or Morton, Illinois.
2. Make how much your hometown (cough cough! Stockton!) sucks your greeting talking point. ("I'm from Stockton! It's not a nice place! See you later!")
3a. Add to the white noise. For example, don't scream when Jason walks in the room. Similarly, don't talk about how great kids are or how much you REALLY REALLY REALLY want to have kids.
3b. Make sweeping generalizations about who's ready to be a mom if you're spilling your champagne and slurring your words.
4. Be a stalker, then say you're not a stalker--truly! you're not!, but really, you actually are a stalker.
5. Say creepy thing about the potential bachelor's son like how you know his favorite color, the name of his teddy bear, where he sleeps at night, etc. etc.
6. Giggle your way through every single word. ("Tee hee hee! My name is-tee!-Dominique!!! Tee hee hee hee!")
7. Make salsa your "thing" when there's a BRAZILIAN GIRL in the competition. Really.
8. Quit your job to go do The Bachelor.
DO:
1. Stand up straight.
2. Make your name memorable! (Kari from Kansas!)
3. Wear a dress you can walk in.
4. Pretend to know what crazy hot dog girl is talking about and just agree with everything she says. Yeah, I too always go for the mustard guy. I definitely want to settle down with the mustard guy.
5. Look vaguely like a celebrity like Sandra Bullock or Eva Mendez.
6. Lay off the fake tanner.
And finally, a note to ABC: Try to spend just a few extra post-production dollars on the quality of Chris Harrison's V/Os. For example, when he suddenly sounded like he was in a bubble while telling the girls about the trick rose. Just a few extra bucks will do just the trick to take Chris out of that bubble.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Thinkin' on Lincoln
As I stood in line, one of the young guys working behind the counter struck up a conversation with me.
"Whatchyou reading there?" he asked me, motioning at the book I'd tucked under my arm. I held it up for him. "What's it say? Land... of..."
"Lincoln," I finished the title.
"So it's about Lincoln?" he asked.
"Well, kind of. It's about how the idea of Lincoln kind of lives with us today," I said, feeling extremely self-conscious and nerdy since a few of the other workers had now started staring at my book and I had really hoped just to go through this whole reading-alone-in-a-sandwich-shop-on-a-Friday-night thing unnoticed. "You know," I continued awkwardly, "cause everybody has an idea about Lincoln...at least what they learned in school or something."
"Not me," he said flatly.
I was floored. "You never think about Lincoln?" I asked him, my jaw probably hitting the counter because Lincoln is about all I've thought about for the last few months.
"No, not really," he said, shrugging.
Another girl working there interrupted him, giving me my total so I could pay quickly and seeming about as interested in our conversation about Lincoln as she was in having to work a Friday night shift.
I handed her my card and turned back to the guy. "So you seriously don't think about Lincoln? Not even like, just about him being president?"
"Nah," he said and then paused. "He was gay, right?"
Ah, yes. The Lincoln Was Gay, Right? theory was a pretty hot topic a few years ago with some historians--like C.A. Tripp who published The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln--to assert that Lincoln had some homoerotic goings-ons with friends like Joshua Speed, with whom he shared a bed for a few years while they both worked. Other historians and sensitive Lincolnphiles are quick to point out that sharing a bed was a common thing in those days and that Lincoln clearly didn't have any sort of "streaks of lavender" in him, as Carl Sandburg once wrote. Of course, this theory picked up enough speed for kicker packages on the nightly news and has ingrained itself as a staple of the modern perception of Lincoln's life.
I considered the delicacies of modern constructions of history, whether the nightly news does more harm than good sometimes, the context of the gay world in both contemporary and antiquated worlds, and how easily (and quickly) one moment in time can become contorted before we no longer know whether Washington ever chopped down a cherry tree or if Dubya approached Guantanamo with the same noble thoughts of the republic as Lincoln did when he suspended habeas corpus.
But I skipped all that. "Uh, I think he was probably not gay, but I guess we don't know."
I sat down with my sandwich and opened my book back up when the starkest irony of the situation struck me: The young guy had just told me he never thinks about Abraham Lincoln wasn't just a kid working in a neighborhood named after Lincoln: He was a black kid working in a neighborhood named after Lincoln.
It just so happened that the next section of my chapter on Lincoln and Chicago dealt with a Thai immigrant who lives one neighborhood west of Lincoln Square. He and his wife moved to the U.S. in 1973 and opened the third Thai restaurant in Chicago. After seeing Lincoln's image and name repeated endlessly, they investigated the president and discovered that he was a pretty important guy. In their opinion, he is THE most important guy. Their family began annual pilgrimages to visit Lincoln's tomb and have created a small shrine to a Lincoln statue in their restaurant where they offer the mini-Abe a full meal each day.
He's just that important to them--Lincoln made it possible for them to come to this country and to live among their friends and peers equally. In other words, Lincoln gave everybody a chance, whether you want to serve sandwiches or Pad Thai or read your book on a Friday night alone. So maybe it's not so much that we don't ever think about Lincoln (or whatever other great figures past have formed our lives today), it's simply that we sometimes take him for granted. It might just take a huge bronze statue in the Square named after him, a small figurine in a Thai restaurant, or even that nerdy girl who ordered the salami and turkey sandwich on Friday night to remind you of it.