Bad Music Sunday

Friends,

My illness is a little better. I woke hacking like a throat cancer victim to free up the lava-thick phlegm in my throat, and another dose of Tylenol Cold later, I'm doing better still. This has been a strange cold, one that sucks in the morning, then I cruise through the day without a problem, and then right around bedtime it comes back with a vengeance. It's a cold that only works the overnight shift. But, whatever, I should be better soon, hopefully before our trip to Madison to apartment hunt (was supposed to be this weekend, but UW graduation got in the way....and next weekend there is the Madison Marathon and bratwurst festival to contend with...joy).

Okay, without further ado, this week's installment of Bad Music Sunday:

Paul Engemann - Push It To The Limit
I forgot about this song until I saw it used on that South Park episode where Cartman fakes a disability to get into the Special Olympics. I didn't realize it was featured on the VASTLY overrated movie Scarface. Seriously, Scarface is three hours of Al Pacino doing a Cuban impersonation that borders on blackface (or like watching a normal actor pretend to be handicapped like that Sean Penn movie or that one where Rosie O'Donnell plays a handicapped lady who wears a helmet on the school bus), swearing, killing people, and doing mounds of blow. I don't understand how people enjoy this movie...unless they are only watching it for Michelle Pfieffer, because she's a hottie even today at 50 years old.


UB40 - Red, Red Wine
This song was what I heard damn near every summer day in the pool of my babysitter's. See, both my parents worked, so over the summer I spent the days with this lady across the alley and her three boys. I didn't really care for the kid who was my age (named Chet), the younger brother was a pain and the youngest was really just a baby, so I got no beef with him. Some formative moments happened there, but that's not the story now. They had a pool. Christine, the mother of the boys, would be floating on a raft while we boys would splash around. And Christine would always have the easy listening radio station on as she floated trying desperately to keep her hair dry (which I never understood, you don't want wet hair, don't get in the fucking pool, problem solved) and invariably, this song would be on. Now, why tell this story? When I was first going over there, they didn't have a pool, so we went to Christine's mother's who did. And at the time, I didn't know how to swim, so my parents demanded I wore a life jacket in this four-foot above ground pool. And ear plugs. I did not like swimming because I couldn't. I bobbed. Everyone else paddled along, having a jolly time. I couldn't get in intertubes. Couldn't dive for anything, shit couldn't even go underwater at all really. So swimming wasn't exactly fun. Upon complaining about feeling stupid in the life jacket & ear plugs, my parents enrolled me in swim lessons at the YMCA where I was years older than my fellow Guppies, Minnows and Eels. It was a confidence builder to totally smoke those younger kids in swimming competitions, it was a little embarassing too. After topping out as a Shark (I couldn't quite get diving right, or hold my breath long enough underwater) to move up, I stopped the swim lessons, which was a tremendous ego blow as I was still older than some of my Shark fellows who had no problem diving or swimming 1/2 the length of the pool underwater. So, everytime I chance onto this song, all of this swim trauma comes roiling up. Fuck this song, and UB40.



Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now


Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply


Steely Dan - Rikki Don't Lose That Number


Mungo Jerry - In The Summertime
Okay, pro-drunk driving stance aside, you might think you like this song when it comes on the radio because you don't hear it much. But go on, see if your mind wanders about halfway through, then you start to wonder "when the hell is this over" and they sing the first verse again, to really test your mettle. Then it disappears, never to be heard again on the radio for months. There's a reason for that. I'm sure they play this song on a continuous loop in hell.



New Kids On The Block - Please Don't Go, Girl
First, the direct address comma in the title is mine as I doubt the boys in NKOTB could really be bothered with such business. Second, yes, they have reunited, will be touring, and have already sold one seat to their Boston show to our friend, the lovely Mitch. But, while I'm sure we all have fuzzy memories of Hangin Tough and The Right Stuff, they also did this one, and more like it. I honestly kind of want to see them live to see them try to perform this song with a straight face, or watch people honestly swoon to this. But the more I think about this, it is really any different than a KC & JoJo song, or any R&B love tune? Girls always go, and boys don't ever want'em too. Oh, the boilerplate of R&B sorrow.


viva el mustache