Sarah, Is that You?

I’m a big fan of the singer Sarah McLachlan so I follow her official Facebook page where she posts song links, pictures and sometimes inspirational quotes. Last evening I found the quote she posted to be very meaningful so I liked it and then shared it. As I continued perusing FB, maybe 20 minutes later, I get a notification that I’ve received a friend request from Sarah McLachlan.

Hmmm.

That’s odd.

Internationally famous singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan wants to be friends on FB with me, who, she’s not only never met, but has never interacted with in her life. Literally doesn’t know I exist. If you said my name to her she would tilt her head like a dog who wonders why the cat is eating his food.

Hmmm.

I went to the page and there were 2 pictures of Sarah, both taken directly from her website or FB fan page. And nothing else.

There was no information, no other pictures, no posts and no friends.

How stupid does someone think I am? I mean this is just insulting. I get friend requests all the time from obviously fake FB accounts but they usually have dozens of “friends”, a couple of pictures, maybe an innocuous post or two. And most importantly none were ever from someone who has started their own summer music festival.

I got a request once from a guy in an eastern European country. The entire page was in his own language and all his “friends” were eastern European, but he did not have 7 Billboard top 100 songs.

Being a man, I used to get a lot of requests from women in bikinis or lingerie advertising their web sites. But I’ve never gotten one from a woman who has appeared on David Letterman, the Tonight Show, SNL and has her own ASPCA commercial.

I don’t know who really sent the friend request or what their purpose was but I didn’t fall for it.

Now, having said that, if Sarah McLachlan created a new page just to be friends with me on FB and I rejected the friend request, then I’m probably out of the fan club.

The Anti-Dylan

You often see lyrics to classic songs analyzed to glean their every meaning. We want to know what the musical poets were trying to say with their words as much as feeling the notes of the music.

But what about bad song lyrics? No one ever analyzes those. Until now.

This is the chorus to "Everybody Wants Some" by Van Halen

Everybody wants some
I want some too
Everybody needs some
how 'bout you

Judging by the first verse what everyone wants is a sexual encounter on a subway and I don't think it means sloppy kisses between bites of a six inch sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub either. Why you'd want your junk touching bacteria-infested subway seats I don't know but in Van Halen's alcohol-induced haze it must be like a room at the Ritz Carlton. The narrator says "everybody" wants some, but follows it up with telling us he wants it also. The collective "everybody" would encompass the narrator as well so the entire second line is superfluous. He proceeds to tell us "everybody" needs some, but follows by asking us, the listeners, if we want some as well. Again, we would be included in the "everybody" of the previous line so why ask us? The answer of course is the band had the music written and then needed some words that rhymed to call them "lyrics". A few minutes later the song is done and David Lee Roth is combing his chest hair.

This is the chorus to "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy

Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody needs a new romance
Everybody's going off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance
You want a piece of my heart
You better start from the start
You want to be in the show
Come on baby let's go

I can't argue with the first line since I spend most work-days wool gathering about anything and everything. The second line uses the collective "everybody" but this discounts people who are happily married as well as those in common law marriages, long term relationships, civil unions or just blissfully "shacking up". None of these people are looking for a new romance. The next line is specious at best again because of the use of the collective "everybody". I know plenty of people who are losing it at any given time, but I also know many who are stable so don't lump them all in together like a Freud-Jung bouillabaisse. I won't argue with the ‘second chance’ line in general terms although what it has to do with working for the weekend, I don't know. A second chance to say no to overtime? Another shot at asking out the girl in accounting?

'You want a piece of my heart'? Is this literal or figurative? I need more context on whether the band is singing to a young lady or a serial killer with an internal organ fetish. 'You better start from the start'. Sorry, but where else would you start from except the 'start', which grammatically should be 'beginning'. Then some mythical show is mentioned and apparently all you have to do to be in it is 'go'. The take-away from all of this is much like Van Halen, Loverboy had written the music but needed lyrics so the singer had something to do. They threw darts at a dictionary and wound up with this hit song.

So there you have installment 1 of a 1,287 part series of bad song lyrics interpreted pedantically.

Really Getting to Know Your Friends

By now we’ve all received an email at least once titled something like “Get to Know Your Friends”. You’re given a list of 10-30 questions asking you things like ‘what are you wearing right now’, ‘what are you listening to right now’ ‘what is your favorite day of the week’ and ‘where were you born’. These questions are fine, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with them, but they lack the things I want to know about my friends. I’ve written my own list of ‘Get to Know Your Friends’ questions:

1. If you started a rock band, what would its name be?
2. Let’s talk pickles: sliced, spears or whole?
3. What’s the best book you’ve ever read?
4. You’ve been on death row for 13 years. Finally the fateful day has arrived: your execution. What will you order for your last meal?
5. If you were in a sitcom would you be:
a. the plucky single parent
b. the wacky next door neighbor
c. the douchebag ex
d. the annoyingly cute young child
e. the unbelievably stupid best friend
f. other—give a description
6. What song would you like to hear on the radio that you never hear anymore?
7. What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?
8. When you’re at work, how much time do you waste each day just staring into space wondering what your life would be like if you won the lottery?
9. It’s 3 a.m. on a Tuesday and an alien invasion begins. The first thing you do is:
a. scream
b. call the police
c. piss your pants
d. shit your pants
e. piss and shit your pants
f. look to the sky and beg the aliens to take you with them
g. lock the door, make something to eat and watch another re-run of Law and Order
10. Close your left eye, put 2 fingers from your right hand on your nose, wave with your left hand and stomp the floor with your right foot. How stupid do you think you look right now?
11. If you founded a country, what would your flag look like?
12. The dead have risen from their graves and are feeding on your neighbors. Do you:
a. scream
b. call the police
c. piss your pants
d. shit your pants
e. piss and shit your pants
f. join in because you enjoy a good nosh
g. start killing zombies like you’re in a video game all the while proclaiming yourself “King Zombie Slayer”
h. start cooking yourself in a garlic sauce to prepare for when they get to your house.
13. What song, book or movie do you love but everyone else seems to hate?
14. Go to the first closed door in your home, open it and describe what you see.
15. If you were a circus freak, what would your abnormality be?

Send this out to exactly 130 of your closest friends. If you only send it to 129, a virus will be released that converts all your documents to Mandarin Chinese characters. If you send it to 131, then may God have mercy on your soul.