I rarely listen to the local radio stations in these parts. Rarely. They simply don't do it for me, and that's okay. I've found that I'm a little more mellow from driving in silence and simmering down on my commute, taking in my surroundings and spending some time here and there to figure out what exactly my fingerprint on the game of life is going to look like when it is all said and done. I'm a music fan, definitely, but the local scene just doesn't do it for me and I'm not sure why, but it seems like this area of the country is perpetually wallowing in the depths of mediocrity music-wise in the aftermath of the rise and fall of our favorite grammatically challenged quartet that has hung it up for good, supposedly. I could go on, but I won't.
So I turn on some tunes with about 10 minutes left in my trip this morning (naturally I get behind a state copper doing 65 MPH on the interstate for about 80% of my trip, great) and the DJ said something that had me in absolute stiches. There is a commercial break and he's getting ready to introduce the next song and he starts going on and on about this band, they used to be pretty solid, this and that, but now they seem to be "the light FM of candyassland." I just thought that was hysterical. Unfortunately the song that came on was "The One I Love" by R.E.M. Among my close circle of friends it is widely known that I am a longtime fan of R.E.M. So much so that it was pretty much the ongoing joke during college, and, sadly, long long after our college years. In my opinion, the jokes got old after a while. Everytime someone went to put some music on I'd get the "Hey Slice, which R.E.M. disc do you want us to play?" or "Maybe Slice is in the mood for a little 'Shiny Happy People' this evening." Of course when you tell your friends that a certain joke is getting old or not funny anymore, you're going to hear about it until the day you die. And I will. But today marked the day where some random DJ retroactively verified all the jokes and snide remarks I've heard through the years stemming from my sincere appreciation for R.E.M. Apparently I dig Candyassland, and I'm okay with that.
What I'm not okay with was that halftime show the Rolling Stones put on a couple days ago during the Super Bowl. If there is a crazy upward spike in guitar and drum set sales in the upcoming months, it's because Mick Jagger single-handedly gave amazing hope to thousands of budding rockstars across the country. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he sucks. Blows. Whichever is worse, he's that. I was upstairs doing laundry or something during halftime and did not have the TV on, but could hear the performance playing downstairs. Awful. Absolutely awful. Imagine if you sucked at your job as bad as Mick Jagger sucks at his. You would be lucky to get fired. Not so for the rockstar hangers on of the world such as the Stones, who can somehow score one of the grandest stages to "perform," do so horribly, and more likely than not walk away with a hefty paycheck. Unbelieveable. We're paying our teachers in this country I'm going to guess an average salary of $35-45K per year, and a 62 year-old wash-up is permitted to embarass himself (and his bandmates) in front of the entire world for a sum exponentially more than what people with real talent make. I'm borderline motivated to go down to a local music store and buy the house and turn my garage into a makeshift practice space; I'm almost 30 years-old now and have to believe that by the time I'm 62, I no doubt have a shot at being that ugly, that wrinkly, and that pathetic of a rockstar as Mick Jagger is today. People gave Trey a lot of shit when he broke up the band on the grounds that he didn't want Phish to become a "nostalgia act," but you know what? He may be on to something.
Candyassland. Funny.
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