hangover summer

“DON’T STEAL MY PLUG. Hi! Just kidding.”

I think getting really aggressive about having to share a two-plug outlet is a fucking terrible way to try to “open a dialogue” with a chick. 

Notes I Wrote While Listening To AV Club’s “Great Songs, Terrible Bands” Really Loudly And Happily

You only really truly like - hell, love yourself when you’re aware that you’re doing something everyone else would shake their damn heads at. For example: Shoving (with your fingers) lite sour cream, old rotisserie chicken bits (also finger town) and red pepper strips (mercifully chopped weeks ago and stored in zip loc bags, amazing, you, you 27 year old, at the technology of air tight seals) onto some corn tortillas (HEB pressed, not that fucking Tia Rosa shit. What is that? Why do you people outside of non-Hispanic majority regions do that?) and shove it into your mouth while dancing around the Goo Goo Dolls “Slide” and Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.” What terrible bands/people, what delicious songs.

I mean, first, Goo Goo Dolls were Replacements-lite and that is my blankie-band. Things get all weird out their in Steve Reich-land - all future symphonies retellingthe book of Job and you can always go back, no questions asked, for three minutes of a breather like “Kiss Me On The Bus.” “Ok, ‘If you were a pill, I’d take a handfull at my will.’ Breathe, one, two. Now back to the weird stuff.’” And “Slide” is that musically but with HORRENDOUS lyrics but also reminds me of driving a 1984 shitbrown Volvo station wagon with only FM radio in Central Oklahma, circa 2002ish. (Music has/will always be slow in OKC, might have been 2004.) Bygones, that song has the perfect pop chimey-jangles-structure of a whale-bone corset.

And Don Henley, god what a dick. You know if you ever sing “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” at Karaoke Tuesgayz, you aren’t singing an official version, you’re singing a “Black Market” version a note or two off (think Vanilla Ice trying to tell you the difference between him and “Under Pressure.” I know you know what I mean.) because he won’t sell his rights to karaoke companies. Because god forbid you ruin the sancity of “Dirty Laundry,” with your gin and tonic soaked joy. Also, he was SO MEAN, to Stevie Nicks. 

But here’s the thing about “Boys of Summer” - it’s a Mike Campbell song. Mike fuckin’ solid as a rock Campbell, guitarest since always for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (I have never been quiet about my love for Petty. When he and my mom were both single at the same time, I begged, BEGGED, her to track him down and make him be my stepfather. He didn’t go to fucking college, he was a groundskeeper at the University of Florida and they planted a few lime trees in his honor anyway. Anyway.) Give yourself two seconds, can you remember the intro and first verse to “Last Dance With Mary Jane” (hold on, gotta go make another taco and scream “OH MY MY, OH HELL YES, HONEY PUT ON THAT PARTY DRESS” Bless a roommate that works nights.) OF COURSE, because that’s the totally unappreciated genius of Mike Campbell. And that’s why I love, you love, we all fucking love this song. If “Slide” has the solid structure of an Edwardian corset, “Boys of Summer“‘s is transcendent, impossible to compare except to other giddy, swoony, beautiful earworms to drive and look at sunsets to like “Shake Some Action.”

Yeah, I’m going to go make another taco (I WAS AT SCHOOL ALL DAY. WHAT.) and listen to Flaming Groovies now. This has been fun!