When words fail you

UGH. I have nothing to write. I have nothing to say! I'm a nobody with a vanilla life. If it wasn't for this bowl cut, I'd be devoid of intrigue entirely.

But, instead of throwing in the towel and hitting the big, red 'delete' button on Madgespace, I shall endure! I SHAN'T GIVE UP.

Instead, I will let you in on the made-up, nonsensical lyrics Andy and I have for songs.


'Battlefield' by Jordin Sparks

• "Why does love always feel like a wagon wheel? A wagon wheel, a wagon wheel.."

Lean On' by Major Lazer & DJ Snake, (feat. MØ)

• "Farkis, Car2Go...all we need is somebody to lean on."

'Royals' by Lorde

• "That kind of luxe just ain't for us, we drive a different kind of bus."

Those lyric changes are't funny. They're not clever. They're not even interesting. But what they do indicate is that, if you spend enough time with someone, you form your own language. 

You also start to stockpile inside jokes that are so unfunny they're not so much jokes as 'inside thought moments'. These parallel brain experiences are set off by the smallest things—a certain word in a radio ad, the way the bus driver's cough sounds, a particular appetizer offering at a party. Whatever it may be, you'll look across the room at each other with a knowing grin and nod. Yes, we both caught that. We're thinking the same, pointless thing. Indeed, that man's cough sounded like that one part of that one YouTube video that we like to quote on occasion. No need to talk about it. Just a grin and a brief nod is enough. 

Couldn't find a good image for 'telepathy', so I Googled 'staring contest' instead.
The guy on the left has a pumpkin stem for hair.

Image by Vectorink via Wikimedia Commons

Goodnight, 

Margaret

P.S. I'm pretty sure this blog made zero sense, but it reminded me of that time Barbie and I said "There's a snake in my boot" in unison completely unprovoked. Something—an airplane passing overhead, the smell of popcorn wafting down the hall, a slight flicker in the light—must have caused us to both think it and vocalize it. But we'll never know exactly why it happened. 

Pair of eyes with a "come-hither" gleam

I probably should get my realtor's license, sell one fancy house a year and spend the rest of my time eating peanut-butter-filled pretzels and writing a memoir.

If Tamra Judge can do it, then I certainly can.

The only problem is: I don't like sales and I don't like people. So, maybe it's not the right career move.

In other news, I'm sleepy...and listening to this isn't helping:





Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Margaret

P.S. I love this part:

Mr. Sandman (male voice: "Yesss?") bring us a dream 
Give him a pair of eyes with a "come-hither" gleam

P.P.S. Anna and I once wrote new lyrics to this song. We replaced 'Mr. Sandman' with the Inglemoor High School German teacher 'Frau Zakowski'

Frau Zakowski...
JA?
Do bit sehr nett!

P.P.P.S. "Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci" -- that's an actual lyric! Pagliacci? The pizza parlor? My former place of employment? It certainly made my ears perk up.

P.P.P.P.S. Fun facts about The Chordettes.

• Janet Ertel's daughter married Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers.
• Jinny Osborn was born right here in Seattle, Washington!
• They started out as a folk band but switched to barbershop.
• In 2012, Lynn Evens (still alive) performed 'Mr. Sandman' on a public broadcasting program. In the YouTube comments someone has written, "How did I get here?" I can truly relate. 

Image via Wikimedia Commons

TH!NK about it

As Andy and I were walking up one of Seattle's steepest hills today—West Dravus Street in Magnolia—I heard him humming "Family Portrait" by P!NK to himself. That's the one that goes...in our famiLY portrait, we look pretTY happy. We look pretTY normal. Let's go back to that. 

Got it in your head now? Good.

Anyway, I asked him, "Who sings that again?"

"It was P!INK," he said. "It was during that time when her and Eminem were both into releasing a goofy song followed by a sad song. Sad song, goofy song, sad song, goofy song, sad song, goofy song..."

WHAT AN OBSERVATION. I wish I had made it myself. Let this be a lesson. Just when you think you're getting sick of someone, they can turn around and say something brilliant.

Image by jm3 via Flickr

Speaking of P!NK, some thoughts..

• When I saw her open for *NSYNC in 2000, she sat on a stool and introduced ones of her ballads as, "The best song I've ever wroten." WROTEN.

• Crazy that her and hubby Carey Hart broke up and then got back together. That almost never happens with celebrities. 

• Before she made it as a solo artist, she was in a girl group called Choice and their single "Key To My Heart" appeared in the movie Kazaam (starting Shaq). What's that? You want to listen to it. OK, here you go. 

Hopefully, one day in the future, something in this blog post will be the answer to a question in a pub quiz you're doing. Because if it's not, I can't promise that it wasn't a complete waste of your time.

With love,
Margaret

When Time Hop gets ugly

There's this app called Time Hop that shows you what you were up to (your online activity) on this day a year, five years, eight years, ten years ago, etc. OF COURSE, you already know that. I'm not trying to be patronizing. The Madgespace audience covers a wide age demographic, and it's better to over-explain than leave my older constituents in the dark.

Anyway, Time Hop usually uncovers a super cute photo from back in the skinny, no-wrinkles days. It's a heartwarming walk down memory lane.

Today, however, things weren't so rosy.

Today, my sister Anna's Time Hop decided to take this unfortunate Facebook status out of mothballs:

So many questions. 

What in particular did Sara Bareilles do to move Anna in such a profound way? Was it a certain song? A music video? A TV interview?

To be fair to Anna, people used to treat their Facebook statuses a lot more like Twitter. Remember that? You could just update your status with any innane thought that popped into your head. For a while there, back in the early days, every status had to complete the sentence "I am..." It was wild. People's statuses would be like, "hating life right now because I have a test in the morning and haven't studied at all!!!!!!!111" or "pooping - lol."

Welp, that's me done blogging for the night. I promised myself I'd do a seven minute workout before bed. Bring on the wall-sits!

LYMI, 

Margaret

The Merry Widow

I'm down in Vancouver (not BC) Washington (not DC) hanging out with Grandma Martha. We had a lovely afternoon sitting on the back deck, eating melted cheese on crackers and chatting about everything from Donald Trump to Italian-style meatloaf.

I've learned a lot. For example:

• Her parents almost named her Meta. 

• In Pittsburgh, a friend of her friend walked downstairs with a gun in a towel (so the kids wouldn't see) and shot her husband dead (her own husband, not my grandma's or my grandma's friend's). 

• She thought about being a nun but backed out for two reasons. 1) They wanted to know her dad's annual salary, which bugged her and 2) she heard the food wasn't very good. 

She talked to me for a long time about this particular track on a CD my mom made for her—'The Merry Widow'. She wanted me to hunt through the CDs and find it. I was worried I might not be able to. There was so much build up! 

"There's a song called 'The Merry Widow'. See if you can find it, will you? Yeah, look over there. Is it there? The song is called The Merry Widow. The Merry Widow!!!!"

"OK, I'm looking..."

"Try to find the one with The Merry Widow."

I went over to the CDs. I picked up one and read through the tracks. No luck. I picked up another. It had a big yellow Post-it on the case with large black lettering: 'THE ONE WITH THE MERRY WIDOW' Crisis averted.

Now it's almost bedtime. She's in her room watching Bachelor in Paradise (close captioned) and I'm going to take a bath. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We're going towel shopping, either at PJ Maxx or Bed Blankets and Beyond.

I'll leave you with a snap of Martha Alice when she was just 26! I'm loving the dark nails.

Sweet dreams,
Margaret

The day the music died

Do you ever have those moments when you think: wait a second, why don't I ever listen to music anymore?!

It happens to me all the time. I get so caught up in my podcasts that I forget the rejuvenating, mood-altering power of music. Even when I do decide to turn on the radio, I stick to Top 40. I switch between STAR 101.5, KISS 106.1 and HOT 103.7, choosing whichever one's not playing 'Shut Up And Dance'. Often it's all of them and I have to switch over to NPR.


I blame this music drought on two things:

1. The end of the CD.
2. Getting older.

The end of the CD

All great art is born of restraint. Much like the human child, it needs boundaries to flourish. That's why Twitter's140-character limit is so genius. It forces people to be creative and edit their thoughts down until they're the most concise and impactful. Not a word wasted. Polonius said it first—"Brevity is the soul of wit."

So it makes sense that the end of the CD was the end of me taking an active role in my music consumption. Back then, being constrained to 18 tracks, I was forced to put thought into my playlists. Each song required careful selection to ensure it fit the mood and flow of the mix. Nowadays, I'll just hit shuffle on the iPod and zone out to the same 200 songs that have been on there since 2007.

Getting older

An study came out recently saying that people stop listening to music once they turn 33. Maybe I'm just four years ahead of the game. I've always been mature for my age.

My one saving grace may be following young celebrities on Instagram. Two days ago Kylie Jenner introduced me to this song, which I think is decent.

Image by Gary Luck via Wikimedia Commons

OK, I gotta go! I promised myself I'd hit the hay early tonight.

Remember to treat yourself tomorrow (Mondays are for treating yourself).

Love,
Margaret

P.S. Don't get me wrong. I'm no luddite! I'm mostly happy that we've moved on from CDs. The scratches and skipping was beyond annoying.

Ch ch ch changes

I left for Edinburgh in 2009. Now it's 2015 and I'm back. For the most part, Seattle is how I left it. However, there are a few new things that have cropped up in the past six years. I'm not sure I like them. I'm not sure I like them one bit.

• Christian coffee shops — What's the deal? I'm seeing a lot of these. Some come right out with it ('His Word Found Here' in Ballard) and others are sneakier.

• Cards Against Humanity — I'm so old that in my day they used to call this game 'Apples to Apples'.

• 'Bender & Molly' in the mornings  — Say whaaaa? What happened to Jackie and Bender? Molly, that girl from the Bachelor, is Bender's new co-host? Crazy. I've also heard that Jackie and Bender were actually married and then divorced but still did their show together for a while. If that's true, it makes sense that it wasn't sustainable. Anyone have the T on this? 

What's the shelf-life of a game like this? Is it past its sell-by date? It's no Cranium, that's what I say.

Image by tom_bullock via Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, as these radical changes to Seattle culture continue to throw me for a loop, I hear this song by 5 Seconds of Summer on the radio today:



WHAT is going on. Just when I thought the world was passing me by, I hear those familiar nasal tones over the airwaves. The early-2000s pop-punk male vocal sound! Is it making a comeback? They don't totally recreate it, but they're certainly playing homage to it. Takes me right back to high school, driving around Kenmore, loitering at the Safeway, watching Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County in standard definition.

I recently read a fascinating article on what inspired the Blink182-style vocals of that era. A linguist weighs in. It's actually very interesting. I recommend you read it.

That's all for now. I've been out celebrating Amazon's 20th birthday. Macklemore was there. NBD.

Cheerio,
Margaret

But what does it all mean?

My sister Anna sings 'I See the Moon' to her three-year-old, Ollie, every night before bed. Just recently he's started singing along with her. Yesterday, as she began the second verse ("I had a heart forever true, but it left me and went to you..."), she noticed his voice breaking. She looked down and there he was—half singing, half sucking his thumb—with big tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Ollie, what's wrong?" she asks.

"Uhhh....my eye hurts!" he says, then bursts into full on sobs.

Flash forward to today and the same thing happens again. It's the melody. The lyrics. The sentiment. It's all too much!

People don't think kids are capable of deep thoughts, but they're actually more likely to have an existential crisis than us grown-ups. It's worse for kids, too. They experience feelings, but they can't explain why they feel that way. 99% of the time they're the most happy-go-lucky, live-in-the-present people in the world. Then, 1% of the time, the overwhelming reality of life suddenly hits them like a ton of legos.

Ollie's lullaby tears aren't surprising. When Anna was the same age, she would sob whenever 'Everytime You Go Away' came on the radio. My mom reckons it's because she took the lyrics literally ("you take a piece of me with you" — like, literally, an arm or a finger or an ear). Maybe the same is true of Ollie ("I had a heart forever true, but it left me and went to you...").

I don't know. I think it's possible that, on some level, he just gets it.

"Everytime you go away, you take a piece of me with you" - Paul Young

Tomorrow I might blog about how much I like this Donald Trump stuff. I'm pretty sure he is a secret genius. His strategy: say the wrong thing all the time. Just when people think you've outdone yourself, outdo yourself again. And it's working! His approval rating is soaring. Maybe it's a reverse psychology thing? I can't explain it. He must be smarter than all of us.

See ya,
Margaret

Where are they now? Savage Garden edition

The dog across the street is neglected. His name is Radio (we think).

They (Annabelle's daughter and son-in-law) leave him tied up in the front yard all day and night.

I'm not a huge animal person, but COME ON! Take your damn dog for a walk! It's so sad. Don't they know, as Savage Garden once crooned, animals are supposed to be "careless and free"?

 CUE THE MUSIC——



——Hmmm. Apparently that song featured in a 1999 Juliette Lewis rom-com called 'The Other Sister'. That explains the music video.

Speaking of 'Savage Garden' — where are they now? Well, they broke up in 2001 and the vocalist, an Aussie named Darren Hayes, now has a bunch of solo albums. More importantly, he's currently studying at The Groundlings (LA improv school), has a podcast AND has three Twitter followers that I happen to follow:

Quite the ringing endorsement!

If you're not sure who Brendan Jordan is, he's that kid who became famous after this news clip went viral.

Well! That was so exhausting that I don't have time to Google what the other half of Savage Garden is up to. Sorry, whatever your name is. But I suppose you're used to this.

Love y'all,
Margaret

Attention span training

I've been doing this weird thing lately—forcing myself to watch scenes from old films, retro TV show clips and dated music videos through to the very end. I've also been reading lengthy New York Times articles and resisting every last urge to click on Facebook when it gets boring halfway through.

Let's call it attention span training.

What have I learned? Everything from the past is slow. Even action films. But it's rewarding to stick with them. It feels like you've accomplished something. Comparable to going on a run or cleaning out the fridge.

For example, try watching this entire music video. It's hard work, but the payoff is some truly hilarious goings-on.
 


Andy once had a student who decided to watch the film version of a text he was studying for school—probably Death of a Salesman or 1984 or something like that. When Andy asked him what he thought of it, the boy said, "Once you got past the first five minutes, it was actually pretty good."

We thought this was funny. "Once you get past the first five minutes." Even I can recall a time when people afforded a film at least a solid 12 minutes before hitting eject on the ol' VCR.

It's also just nice to enjoy media that's not designed for today's audiences. Take this clip of Colonel Sanders on an old show called 'What's My Line?'. The panel doesn't know what he does! This is from before the time that people knew about Colonel Sanders. Truly fascinating. Also, it's clearly a giant marketing campaign for Kentucky Fried Chicken and FAKE FAKE FAKE, but thems was the times.



GOD, that was boring.

Nighty night,
Margaret

P.S.

Image by Post Memes via Flickr

Tracy Chapman = on the radio lots

In case you haven't noticed, we're in the midst of a Tracy Chapman renaissance. Yes, that woman with a male voice who sings 'Fast Car' — all of a sudden, she's back!

I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I've been in America for just two months now and I've already heard more Tracy Chapman than all of the 90s combined (which was quite a lot...before things soured between Anna and Columbia House). Every time I turn on the radio her baritone melodies reverberate back through the speakers. At first I thought it was a fluke, but it's happened so much that I know something's up.

Image by Wishbook via Flickr

Was one of her songs played during the credits of a season finale or something? Like, Grey's Anatomy maybe? What else could explain it?

What I do know is that I can't help but sing along to "but you can say baby...baby can I hold you toniiiiiight. Maybe if I told you the right words...ooooooh at the right time....you'd me mine." Tune and a half.

Hey, I've cracked it! Just now. I was Googling "Tracy Chapman" and discovered that she performed on Letterman a month ago. That explains it. That explains the resurgence. I answered by own question. This blog is therapy.


 
(Watch for a boring rendition of 'Stand By Me')

In related news, I was listening to Warm 106.9 today and they have a station advertisement that goes like this:

Warm 106.9, for when you're wearing yoga pants as...pants! We don't judge! Warm 106.9, today's music variety. 

Well, they certainly know their audience. I was indeed wearing yoga pants as pants at the time. Ugh.

Your pal,
Marge

P.S. This blog post is officially in the running for 'Worst Post Title Ever'. Other nominees include:

• This counts as a blog post
• Hats
• Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble

Summer playlist

Rules for the playlist: there are no rules!

Summer playlist mood board: 

Summer playlist:

• We Can't Stop - Miley Cyrus
• Let Her Go - Mac Demarco
• I Wish You Would - Taylor Swift
• Bring It All To Me - Blaque feat. JC
• Say My Name - Destiny's Child
• Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
• Heartbeat Song - Kelly Clarkson
• Seaside Song - Rich Kay
• Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
• Stars Are Blind - Paris Hilton
• I Wanna Be A Cowboy Sweetheart - Suzy Bogguss
• Take Me As I Am - Wyclef Jean
• The Long Way Around - Dixie Chicks
• Street Life - The Crusaders
• Candy - Mandy Moore
• Stop Me - Mark Ronson feat. Daniel Merriweather
• Heartbreaker - Mariah Carey
• Help Yourself - Tom Jones
• If I Never See Your Face Again - Maroon 5 feat. Rihanna
• This Is How We Do It - Montell Jordan
• Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show
• Wildest Dreams - Taylor Swift
• Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding
• Goodbye Weekend - Mac Demarco
• Kenmore Jam (Wish It Was Summer) - D.J. Polite feat. Mogsquisha
• Satisfy My Soul - Paul Carrack
• Remix To Ignition - R Kelly
• Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
• King Of The Road - Roger Miller

Note: the three best artists on this playlist, Taylor Swift, Rich Kay and DJ Polite, have respectfully refused to allow their music on Spotify, so unfortunately they've been left off the Spotify playlist.

Also, the playlist is made up of songs that I already had in my iTunes. I know I said that there were no rules, but that actually was a rule.

Goodnight,
Margaret

P.S. I like the two Robert Galbraith books—Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm. Have you read them?

P.S. That gets met thinking—what would your opposite-gender pen name be? Mine would be Morné Morkel, even though that's already the name of a South African cricketer, I think I could get away with it in the US.

Manchild culture — let's end it

Over the last few years, Andy and I have observed a troubling trend. Increasingly, the media we encounter assumes we want to be treated like children. Note: said media doesn't just treat us like children, but it thinks we want to be treated that way, which is much worse.

Take, for example, the Britney Spears song I wrote about the other day. Britney singing about drinking shots and clubbing and wiping the floor with all the boys (not men, but BOYS) just feels inauthentic when I know she probably spends most her time at home, watching TV with her two actual boys. Why must she lie?

And now, this—a Hilary Duff music video where she and her friends swipe through Tinder and talk about boys being cute. What in the world? The whole thing seems very...young. It's basically a giant Tinder ad, but that's no excuse. The outfits and the bowling and the backup dancers—the whole video screams Christian high school youth retreat.




The worst offender of all is Buzzfeed. The listicle capital of the Internet is predicted to reach 'peak manchild' in 2016. Oh look, they actually did a post on '23 Signs You're Probably Dating a Manchild'. How meta.

So. Who's to blame?

Japan?

The music industry?

Video games?

That TV show called the Big Bang Theory?

The glorification of nostalgia?

Ourselves, for getting older?

Maybe it's the economy's fault.  Maybe the crash of '08 set us back and stunted our growth.

What do you think? I want to hear from YOU!

Your bowl-headed friend,
Margaret

P.S. And by 'manchild', I also mean 'womanchild'.

Britney's new song

Have you heard Britney's latest single 'Pretty Girls'?

Image by Glenn Francis via Wikimedia Commons

It came on in the car today and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. And no, not because it's the feel-good song of the summer we've all been waiting for (although it actually probably is). But because it's a hilarious caricature of a pop song, performed by a 33-year-old-going-on-14 mother of two.

I'm fairly certain Ja'mie King wrote the lyrics.

All around the world, pretty girls 
Wipe the floor with all the boys 
Pour the drinks, bring the noise 
We're just so pretty! 
All around the world, pretty girls 
Jump the line, to the front 
Do what we like, get what we want 
We're just so pretty!

Britney's nasal croaking is in full force, but they had the nerve to autotune it! I mean, go ahead and autotune some hack like Xtina, but don't get in the way of Britney's natural gift.



A few times, in Edinburgh, I came across things in pop culture that I just didn't understand. My friend Igor would explain, "It's for teenagers, Margaret. It's for teenagers!" (please read that in a Spanish accent - emphasis on the second syllable - teenAGERS) 

Ah, no wonder I don't understand. I no longer belong to the target market for Top40 music. Britney, four years my elder, certainly doesn't belong either, but it behooves her to fake it. What's the alternative for her? Release an 'adult contemporary' album? I don't see that working. It makes you think, in terms of career longevity, 12-year-old Celine Dion was smart to start off singing songs for the middle-aged. Maybe it was René's influence.

That's it.

TTFN,
Margaret

P.S. Just gave it another listen. I like it now.

Band names

What are the names of bands you've been in?

OK, so maybe you've never technically been in a band. But most people can name at least one pretend band they dreamed up with their friends back in the day. Here are mine:

• The Masseuses — Me and my cousin Maria

• Sapphire — A Spice Girls-inspired girl group with my 5th-grade besties Dana, Connie, Mackenzie (and maybe Erika?)

• Krankenschwester  — Me and Anna

They're all pretty good names. Krankenschwester is the word for "nurse" in German, but it literally translates to "sick sister", which Anna and I thought was cool and fitting. It would've had to have been a metal band.

#Calves

My dad's been in a lot of bands. I'm pretty sure he was in a band called 'Vanilla Hemorrhoid' at some point. And 'The Weekly Reader'. And 'The Red Herring'. And 'Flannel Asparagus'. And 'The Turquoise Boys'.

It's funny how band names have trends, like when everyone was putting numbers at the end of theirs. Blink 182, Sum 41, Maroon 5, Stroke 9. Oh indeed, I haven't forgotten about Stroke 9. Francie had the CD.

What are some of the worst band names out there? I remember thinking 'Dixie Chicks' was awful when I first heard it. One time this duo named '2 Shoes' made it to the top ten of UK X-Factor. TWO SHOES? But there were two of them, so it should've at least been '4 Shoes'. Terrible.

It's years later and Andy still brings up 2 Shoes all the time. And we laugh. Oh, do we laugh!

Here they are. Gag on their eleganza.
 

Goodnight,
Margaret

P.S. I'm not sure about my use of "it would've had to have been". What an ugly combination of words! Is it even grammatically correct? I tried several alternatives and that's what I kept coming back to.

P.P.S. Oh yeah, the Donner Party thing. Really, I would have just gobbled up the first person to die, then the next, then the next. I would have felt grossed out, but not guilty. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

This is the worst song I've heard in a while

...and I promise I'm not being a music snob.

You see, I like this kind of music. Sampling a song from the 80s / Rapping with an island accent / Whiny Rihanna-style chorus. Basically, if it sounds like it would be played in a Cypriot nightclub, I usually like it. But not this. This song is a bridge too far. I mean, it's TERRIBLE.





In other news, MEINE AUGEN! Drove home from Barbie's birthday party tonight and I felt like I couldn't see a thing. Nighttime driving is so crazy with all the shadows and the different colored lights. I think it's time I go back for another eye test.

Is bad-at-night eyesight a thing?

Glasses, here I come!

LYMI,

Margaret

What are YOU doing next February?

Doesn't matter. Whatever your plans are, cancel them.

We're going to the Seaside Jazz Festival!

My parents happened to be in Seaside, Oregon for the annual jazz festival this year and they've been raving about it ever since. Best thing to happen to Seaside since Bagels By the Sea moved into the old First Interstate Bank building.

Who would have guessed that Lewis' and Clark's old stomping grounds would become the New Orleans of the Pacific Northwest?

Of course, nothing about the jazz fest even remotely interested me until I saw these videos, recorded on Rich Kay's iPhone.

(Hey. Don't give into that short attention span. Watch BOTH videos in their entirety. I dare you.)






INSPIRING.

Almost as good as the best old lady dancing video on the Internet.

Seriously, if I had half the moves these Elks Club members have, I'd quit this content marketing racket and become a cruise ship entertainer (or something equally as glamorous).

Actually, I did take jazz dance lessons when I was 10. The best part was getting to order our outfits from the dance costumes catalogue. Now that's a lucrative industry. We spent so much on our star spangled leotards for the summer recital (set to Neil Diamond's 'Coming to America') that we had to wear basic black leggings and an XL brown shirt for the Christmas dance (set to 'Run Run Rudolph' by Chuck Berry).

And would you look at that—it still fits!

LYMI,
Margaret

P.S. No leotards were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Real talk

Easter is a time of rebirth. It's a season of new life and fresh starts. To honor the occasion, I'm going to lay bare my soul and share with you my innermost thoughts. Well, my innermost thoughts from the past five minutes.

In college, working at the Ultimate Bagel, my friend Barbie and I used to play the game 'Deepest Darkest Secret of the Day'. As the name implies, it involved admitting our biggest secret of that day only—anything from "I'm wearing the same socks as yesterday" to "The fire alarm went off in the dorm, but I hid in the closet instead of going outside in the snow".

Today's post is a twist on that beloved bagel shop pastime. Instead of sharing with you my deepest darkest secret of the day, I'm typing out my deepest darkest thoughts from the past five minutes. 

Here goes it...

Iffy music taste

Is it wrong that I enjoy Maroon 5 and John Mayer as much as I do?

I feel like that really dates me. Kids these days probably don't even know who John Mayer is—or they at least don't sing his song "Neon" in their head every time they use a highlighter.

It could be worse. I could be a huge Jack Johnson fan—or what about TRAIN!?! Omg, Train. Almost forgot about Train.

Still, I'm honest enough to admit that I think Maroon 5 and John Mayer were two of the greatest contributors to pop music during the early 2000s. I can't help what I like!

The reason I feel weird about this is that both John Mayer and Adam Levine are very unlikable human beings.

Classic Mayer face.
Image by Patty Keigan via Wikimedia Commons

Ear zit

I have a zit in my left ear. It hurts, but I'm fascinated by it more than anything else. I can't stop touching it and thinking about how gross it is that I have pores in my ear—and that one of those pores is clogged! FASCINATING.

Mad Men

The new episode of Mad Men was good (first episode of the second half of Season 7). SPOILER ALERT: lots of moustaches, but no real 'holy cow!' moments. I was hoping I'd have a reason to shout "holy cow!" at least once, but the episode was fairly uneventful. It was good, but I was disappointed.

New phone

I synced my email with my new phone, but then un-synced it after a few hours. I wasn't ready. Too much too soon. 

LYMI, 

Margaret

P.S. I'll explain LYMI again, but this is the last time I'm going to do it. So, listen up. LYMI stands for "Love ya, mean it!" Take it, use it, spread it to your fellow man. 

Poland, you've got some explaining to do

I've just returned from a fantastic pizza-filled Diva Night at Char's.

We watched the latest episode of Project Runway All Stars, which is the worst show in the world with unlikable designers, crap challenges, crap judges and a terrible 14-month pregnant Alyssa Milano as host. Bring back normal Project Runway NOW.

After the main event, we moved on to YouTubing pop music videos from the early 2000s, as per usual. We watched "He Loves Me Not" by Dream,  "I'm Real", J.Lo's embowering duet with Ja Rule, and even a random girl dressed up to look like Britney Spears performing "I'm a Slave For You" for the MTV show 'Becoming'.

Then I asked Jakub, who is from Poland, if there were any Polish boybands back in the day.

"Yes," he said. "There was one. They were called 'Just 5'."

And in a flash I had Just 5's hit song "Kolorowe sny" blaring through the laptop speakers. It didn't take long for me to realise something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Watch and listen for yourself:


 


Notice anything strange? No? Well, does the song below ring a bell?





Just because you're singing in gobbledegook doesn't mean we can't tell that song is a BACKSTREET BOYS SONG! It's almost the same exact backing track.

Just 5. Because there are just five of them. Get it?

Something is fishy here, and I bet you anything Lou Pearlman is at the bottom of it.

Cheers,
Margaret

P.S. Who's cuter, Polish Nick Carter or real Nick Carter?

Madonna sucks now

It's the ugly truth.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

As Jack Black said in High Fidelity:

Top 5 musical crimes perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the 80s and 90s—go! Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticise a formerly great artist for his latter day sins? Is it better to burn out or fade awaaay?

Char, Andy and I discuss.

Let me know what you think.

Margaret