Lime Rick

(No, this isn't a Rick & Morty post.  I've actually never seen the show, and now I feel it's been too many seasons for me to catch up.  One can't wait forever in the era of Peak TV)

While out tonight, I found myself sitting behind a couple who were amusing each other with intentionally-cheesy poems.  They may have been drunk, in this reporter's opinion, but whatever.  They began with several variations on "roses are red, violets are blue..." before they moved onto lime-ricks.

You may wonder why I included the dash.  It's because that's how they were pronouncing the word: as if it was a lime-flavoured person named Rick rather than "limmer-ick."  I suppose it's possible this could have been some type of inside joke between them, especially since this is a couple that clearly enjoys reciting drunken poetry to each other, though it seemed pretty genuine.

It's a popular train of thought that one should never make fun of someone mispronouncing a word because a mispronunciation means they learned the word via reading, and reading should always be encouraging.  Ninety-nine times out of 100, I thoroughly agree with that sentiment….except for people who pronounce it as "lime-rick."  Then they’re just dumb-dumbs.

Mechanic

I, a grown-ass man who has been driving for over 20 years, performed my first wiper fluid change today.

It was a big deal.  All these years, I've always just had it done whenever I happen upon my local gas station, which is one of the few full-serves seemingly left in Ontario (nay, the WORLD).  But today, my wiper fluid ran out while I was on the highway, so it required immediate attention.  In hindsight, it's pretty lucky that it ran dry when I was just a few minutes away from a city....having to navigate one of those long, rural stretches of 401 when there's nothing around for miles would've been pretty tricky if one, y'know, can't see.

So I pulled into the service station, read my car's manual to learn how to exactly perform the task, briefly considered asking the attendant and/or a random person getting gas if they could help, chastised myself for being such a wuss, walked into the station, bought some fluid, went to my car, opened the hood, removed the cap on the wiper fluid thingy (the technical term, as per the manual), poured it in, re-affixed the cap, closed the hood, remembered that run-on sentences are the mark of a truly incompetent writer, tossed the empty fluid container into the recycle bin, went back into the station to give my hands a thorough wash, bought myself a Pepsi as a reward for being so competent, paid for the Pepsi, gave the confused attendant a big thumbs-up, and went on my way.

Then I turned my car on and it exploded, since I'd poured the fluid directly into my engine.  This is a blog post from beyond the graaaaaaave.

Well, no.  Trust me, that would be an anti-climatic way to kick off Ghost Blog, which I've already arranged to begin publication after my death.  I just turned my car on, the fluid worked well, and I went on my merry way.  Mark grew up a little this day.

Monty Python's Hearing Aid Sketch

Even some of the most hardcore Python fans aren't aware of "the German episodes," two episodes of largely-new material that the group produced for German television in the 1970's.  The first of these eps was actually entirely written and performed in German, which is a hell of a thing given that most members of the troupe actually didn't speak German; imagine the SNL cast entirely performing an episode in Spanish or something.

Anyway, these episodes have become the comedy equivalent of a great band releasing a B-sides collection that contains a few of their best songs.  To wit, the hearing aid sketch, which is to Monty Python as "Hey Hey What Can I Do" is to Led Zeppelin.

Amateur Dream Analysis

DREAM: I'm the lead guitarist and co-lead singer for a Canadian rock band.  I use the term 'Canadian rock band' to give you an idea of how popular we are, since I think the phrase invites a certain understanding of our mid-tier status.  For children of the 1990's, my band is the type that would have a lead single on the MuchMusic Video Countdown, but we'd top out around #6 or #7.  Our second single and video could also make the Countdown but get no further than #14 if we're lucky.

Anyway, that's what kind of band we are.  We're playing a show in a medium-sized venue, say around 1000-1500 people.  (If you've ever been to the Opera House in Toronto, it's basically that.)  It is, nonetheless, a packed house.  We're up on stage and, after the opening song of our encore, I invite my brother up on the stage.  My brother is dressed in a plain white t-shirt and beige cargo shorts, the same outfit he was wearing in our hit video, a cover of the Rolling Stones' "She's So Cold."  Our video for this cover was just my brother essentially standing in spot doing a very basic arms raised/legs slightly moving dance that you'd see from any guy who's trying to dance without actually knowing how to dance.  When I say this was 'just' our video, I mean it --- my brother was the only person featured, very similar to the Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" video.

Anyway, my introduction of my brother gets a big cheer from the recognizant crowd, as he's become something of a viral celebrity due to our video.  He takes the cheers in good humour and good-naturedly goes his dance during our song.  And then I woke up.

ANALYSIS: Even in my wildest dreams, I'm only in a mid-range Canadian rock band, though if you think about it, it's kind of the perfect type of stardom.  I'd never want to be actually famous since celebrity seems like an enormous bother.  If you're a mid-tier Canadian rock star, however, you'd get recognized maybe once a week?  Twice if you happen to venture into a used record store?  I could deal with that, for sure.  Just enough dap to make one known, yet not so famous that I couldn't go to the grocery store without getting mobbed.  I don't need paparazzi to see me buying my boxes of Rice Krispies.

Adding to this minor fame is the fact that arguably our biggest 'hit' isn't even an original song.  I don't think I've heard "She's So Cold" for weeks or even months, probably not since the last time I popped in my Stones greatest hits album.  I doubt I've heard it on the radio since frankly, if you're an oldies station and you're going to play a Stones tune, you have a lot of better options (still a very good song, though).  Therefore, I have zero idea why it's popping up in my subconscious, especially since our cover was about 96% the same as the Rolling Stones original.  For the record, I didn't sing, the lead vocals were taken by the other guitarist/singer in my imaginary band --- none of the faces of the other guitarist, bassist or drummer were people I'd ever seen before in my life.  They were just A Band (not The Band).

So anyway, the weirdest part of the dream is clearly that my brother is now The Dancing Guy From That Video.  This is actually the kind of quirky thing I could actually see him doing.  He once actually won a significant cash prize playing Roll Up The Rim, so all bets are off for zaniness in this kid's life.  Actually, the weirdest part probably isn't him dancing, but rather that we're getting along, as we're the kind of brothers who instantly revert to chirping each other and arguing like children whenever we spend any time together, even though we're both men in our 30's.  Perhaps music is the great equalizer between us.  We've been arguing about U2 and Nirvana for the better part of our lives, but maybe we can find common ground with the Stones?

It occurs to me that a video of a lone dancing man makes no damn sense for "She's So Cold," which is entirely about how the singer is so hot for a woman while she is (spoiler alert!) so cold to him.  Wouldn't it make more sense to show a split screen image, with one half being my dancin' fool of a brother, and then the other half showing a woman just sitting there?  It'd be the most PG-rated way possible of showing hotness and coldness in a relationship sense, but still, it'd be funny.  If we'd used this other version, we would surely have shot to #1 on the MuchMusic Countdown.

Also of note, we did have an original song kicking off our encore, though it was such generic Sandbox-esque or Odds-esque rock that I can't remember it.  Just great.  Paul McCartney goes to bed and literally dreams the tunes to "Yesterday" and "Let It Be," while I go to bed and can't dream up anything memorable.  Could it be possible that McCartney is a better musician than me?!  No….it's the children who are wrong.

National Popcorn Day

Back in university, I was part of the school's improv comedy club.  The popularity (among wannabe drama kids, at least) of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" inspired any number of would-be Colin Mochries, Wayne Bradys, and Ryan Stileseses to take part in the club, which met once per week in some random room somewhere on campus to....

....well, I'd like to say we really dove into the improv comedy space, in the sense of learning about the art form and getting into 30-minute "Harold" scenes.  In reality, we basically just played the WLIIA games, with one of the group's two organizers acting as the de facto Drew Carey for any given sketch.

I don't want to say I was the star of the troupe since a) I'm modest, and b) it would be a stone-cold lie, given the number of funny people involved.  If I had to list the top 10 laughs of my life, one entry would definitely be the sketch where this guy Sean, playing a dog, had to alert his oblivious owners that a bank robbery was happening around them.  Words cannot describe how funny this was, so really, even trying to type out a description was pointless.

Participating in the sketches was fun and everything, though obviously one big attraction was simply getting to watch others perform.  Since 75% of the group was legitimately very funny, it was a great way to spend an evening, at a fraction of the cost of a Yuk Yuk's ticket.

Just to complete the audience experience, I brought fresh popcorn to every meeting.  You see, whenever the improv club happened to meet in the student community centre, that left us in close proximity to the second-run movie theatre right down the hall.  I defy anyone to walk those halls and not be taken in by the smell of freshly-popped popcorn.  My self-control is only so strong, not that I felt a need to curb this desire whatsoever.

So, every single meeting, I bought some popcorn from the theatre and went to the meeting, happily munching away until it was my time to perform.  Did I incorporate the popcorn into a sketch?  You're damn right; many a popcorn bag found its way into a game of "Props."

The culmination was at the year-end meeting, when the group's organizers bought everyone a small gag gift related to the past year.  My gift was, naturally, a popcorn popper.  I take some pride in the fact that I think my gift was the most expensive of the bunch, since I seem to recall that everything else was something that could've been picked up in the campus variety store.  But a popcorn popper?  That took some effort.  That required a trip to, like, Walmart or something.

And, almost 15 years later, that popcorn popper is....okay, for the sake of the narrative, it would be great if it was still operational.  But it really conked out about a decade ago.  The popcorn popper I bought to replace it, however....also died out.  I've learned that popcorn poppers generally last maybe five years if they're consistently used, and brother, was mine ever consistently used.

Anyway, the replacement to the replacement of the gift popcorn popper is still going strong.  I give it a year.  Happy National Popcorn Day, everyone!

Hot! Live! Music! (PMJ Edition)

"Dancing Queen," Postmodern Jukebox (ft. Gunhild Carling)

Bonus points here for the singer's old-timey voice!  Put a few more crackles into the recording and I'd assume this was actually from the 1920's.  By the way, given that it's 2019, isn't it weird that we're this close to having to refer to another decade as "the 20's?"  It'll take some getting used to, but if the result is a return to the flapper style and the Charleston, count me in!  If we could avoid another Depression, however, that'd be ideal.

"Bad Romance," Postmodern Jukebox (ft. Sara Niemietz & The Sole Sisters)

Hey, should I technically consider these PMJ videos to be "live" performances?  They're obviously different from proper studio recordings, though they are in studio nonetheless.  I probably should've asked this before posting, like, dozens of these things over the years, so let's just stick with it.

"Dream On," Postmodern Jukebox (ft. Morgan James)

Hey, what was up with that weird Super Bowl commercial Steven Tyler did last year (or maybe two years ago?), when he drove around a racetrack a bunch of times at such a time-bending speed that he reversed the aging process and turned his leathery mug into his old 1970's self?  I forget what that commercial was even for....tires?  Skin cream?  Delusion?  Well, hang on, I guess a lot of commercials are for delusion, more or less.

Top Nine Things I Angrily Yell/Mutter To Myself While Dealing With Poor Drivers

I’m not saying I have actual road rage or anything, yet it's incredible that at least a dozen of the 100 worst drivers in the world always seem to be out and about whenever I'm in the car.  What are the odds?!  With this in mind…

9. “What is this, a parade?”

8. “Nice signal, moron.” (Obviously, only said in situations when the moron in question hasn't signaled before changing lanes or making a turn.)

7. “DRIVE YOUR CAR!”

6. “%^∓^(#*^)#$(^*” (Just fill in whichever curse word you want, I’ve used basically all of them.)

5. “This is interminable!”  (For some reason, I bust out the word ‘interminable’ only when I’m stuck in traffic or waiting out a light.  I’m not sure I’ve used it in any other situation other than driving.  It’s a weird language quirk.)

4. “You yutz.” (Another word I seemingly only use when driving, ‘yutz’ is a Yiddish term that basically means ‘fool’ or ‘idiot.’  Kudos to the Golden Girls' Dorothy Zbornak for teaching me this term years ago!)

3. “First time driving a car, eh?”  (This is usually followed by a curse word.)

2. “Every car in the world!”  (Uttered when I’m trying to make a turn, yet have to wait since about a zillion cars are coming in both directions.)

1. “You piece of human garbage!”  (This has become an actual catchphrase of mine, as noted by multiple people who often travel in my car.  Each of them have told me they’ve taken to using the description themselves while driving and been accosted by some idiot fellow motorist.  My friend Joanne, in particular, seemed almost proud that she finally got to use the term herself.  You’re welcome??)

Mighty Observations

The unsung hero of the old "Casey At The Bat" poem is clearly the player hitting after Casey in the Mudville lineup.  Casey is Mr. Everything superstar, yet Mudville's opponents don't seem to even consider intentionally walking him to set up a force play at any base for the third out.  Mighty Hitter-After-Casey must've been the real threat, or maybe the opposing team was trying for some lefty vs. righty matchup strategy or something.

Or, maybe the opposing team knew they could fool Casey since they knew he was a gigantic egomaniac who'd apparently let two strikes sail right by him because they "ain't his style."  One needn't be a baseball stats guru to know that the pitcher gets a huge edge on an 0-2 count, so this was just a ridiculously cocky move from Casey.

If I'm reading the poem correctly, this was some innovative lineup usage from the Mudville manager.  Common sense would seem to dictate that you'd always put your best hitters at the top of your lineup to ensure they'd get the most at-bats, though for years, teams tended to want a "leadoff man" type of a quick base-stealer who didn't necessarily always get on base at a proper clip.  Not Mudville --- here's big slugger Casey, ostensibly hitting leadoff.  One has to assume that Flynn and Blake were the eighth and ninth hitters in the lineup given their ignominious (and vaguely homophobic) designations as a "lulu" and a "cake."

That is, unless, it was actually HORRIBLE lineup construction.  Maybe Flynn was hitting leadoff only because he was fast, logic many managers have used over the years before people got a clue about on-base percentage.  Blake then hits second due to...uh, who knows.  That would put Casey in the #3 spot in the batting order, traditionally reserved for a team's best batter.  This actually might be the most logical scenario since if my previous theory was correct, Blake the #9 hitter would've been the pitcher.  (CatB was written well over 80 years before the creation of the designated hitter rule.)  Surely you'd think the poem's author would cut Blake some slack for his inability to hit if he was actually a pitcher, that seems unfair.  Then again, this was 1888; hitting your pitcher ninth wasn't a hard-and-fast rule at this point.  Mudville's pitcher could've really been hitting anywhere in the lineup while Flynn and Blake were just regular position players who stunk and were thus the #8 and #9 batters.

New Year's Day!

I'll bet that by 5pm, you'd thought your old boy Mark had forgotten to post his annual New Year's Day video.  YOU FOOL.  I'm just glad U2 busted out a slightly new arrangement on tour this year to give this posting a bit of fresh flavour.