Obsessions and Lessons

I’d like to make up for selfishly spending my time having fun in March instead of dutifully serving the readers of my blog, most of whom are curious European websurfers led here by accident (hi guys!). As I’m working to catch up on four weeks’ worth of podcasts and wasting time on the computer, I’ll be in blogging overdrive. Up first, because it’s been a while, this week’s obsessions are as follows:

This “Friday” Cover - I haven’t heard Rebecca Black singing “Friday” but like everyone else, I’ve seen the malicious backlash against it, and frankly I don’t get it. If you don’t like the song, ignore it. It’s not hurting you. From the lyrics I heard in this cover, it’s just a high school version of so many Ke$ha songs. It’s not clever, but get over yourself. I have a soft spot for songs that aren’t that good but are catchy as hell, because it takes some skill to write a hook that gets a song stuck in your head incessantly (See: “Hook” by Blues Traveler, an ode to the mad skillz it takes to say absolutely nothing and make you love it).

This cover is likable though, because this girl can sing pretty well, and she’s so darn adorable. Polka dots, black nail polish and west side bangs, girl you are so Wicker Park. Let’s talk about Etsy sometime. Her performance gets the whole point of a nothing song that just makes you smile, and her ad-lib is sweet. “Forget the hate that you may have read, and replace it with all kinds of love instead.” Amen.

3eanuts – It’s a tumblr page hosting classic Peanuts comics with the last panel removed, to highlight the existential malaise of the young gang. This is genius: taking away the joke becomes the joke. How perfect is that? Looking at how dead on the comics were sans punchlines, it's a good reminder that Charles Schultz was the Man.

Whatever the Opposite of Prince William’s Wedding Is – Coming from someone who has a lot of time to waste on inconsequential nonsense and has a serious obsession with weddings, I don’t care.

Talking to People on the Subway – I talk to people on the train all the time. I talk to people on the way to the train, walking down the sidewalk. But the maker of this short film has a point, which is that people don’t. His daring is greater than just the outgoing among us who make friends for ten minutes though, because he decides to overcome the separateness of commuters by tackling the kind of deep questions that insist upon connection. Even those that don’t want to participate are made to acknowledge their fellow passengers, and I’d like to think their interest was piqued to listen to their interviews. This video is provocative, at least for its 12 minutes.

NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament playing “Born This Way” like, all the time – I thought of this last week when I caught Victoria Jackson blabbering on Showbiz Tonight about how Glee turns kids into homos or something. She’s turned into a real jackass since her SNL days. Finding religion ≠ turning into a bigot. I turned the t.v. off; I don’t know why we tune in to crazy instead of tuning out (ahem Charlie Sheen) but there was some talk of it the next day. I thought of this: Victoria Jackson can go on Showbiz Tonight and rattle off her hate, but CBS Sports is repeatedly playing “Born This Way” over their slam dunk montages and poster shots. Who has the bigger audience? Would such a song have been played over the tourney 15 years ago? There’s some social change for your bitch ass, Victoria.

**Bonus! Top 5 List!**

Since Top 5 Lists are the easiest way to make up for sparse posting, I’ll have one for every day this week! I started a new job last week that I’m pretending has kept me busy, but really I only worked 26 hours, which is much less than half of what I used to work when I had a real grown-up job. I work for a fancy butcher shop, but my job is to tend their small meat counter at a grocery store, and it’s boring. I took it for two reasons:  a) It leaves me plenty of time to take my dad to his doctor’s appointments and physical therapy, and make him sandwiches;  b) I don’t have much experience with meat (hardy har okay maybe a third reason is meat jokes). So I’m attempting to learn a few things, and in honor of this, here are the Top 5 Things I’ve Learned At My New Job:

5. Sirloin is the squishiest kind of beef.

4. English people pronounce the word “filet” as “fill-it”.

3. Nobody out there knows how to cook flank steak. Except me, because this is the one cut of beef I’m very familiar with. The rest of y’all are fools. If you eat meat, this is one worth learning, folks. If you don’t like it, you’re doing it wrong (this maxim applies to more than just meat).

2. The butcher actually has all his fingers, but his thumb has been re-attached (sliced off by bone saw).

1. I do not want to be a butcher.