floor pretzels

My snack at work yesterday was a plastic container full of floor pretzels. They were okay. They started out in life as pretzels, but when I dropped them on the floor Thursday night they became floor pretzels. Now some people would have said 'Enough!' when those pretzels hit the floor. Not me. I buy pretzels maybe four times a year. And those four times a year, pretzels are the best things in the world. So after enjoying some pretzels from a freshly-opened bag Thursday night, I was both shocked and dismayed when the bag itself betrayed me and a goodly portion of pretzels hit the floor.

After getting over the initial shock, I grabbed a tupperware container and dropped to my knees and began to scoop them up, deciding then and there they would be my Friday work snack. "If you think I'm going to let these good pretzels go to waste," I said to no one in particular, "you're crazy."

So that's what I did. And as I said, they were quite good. I'm thinking maybe keeping some floor pretzels around might not be a bad idea. We could break them out if guests we weren't fond of happened to stop by some night.

"Care for some floor pretzels?"

"What?"

"MORE pretzels. Would you like more pretzels?"

"But we haven't had any pretzels."

"Exactly. Then these would be more, wouldn't they?"

It's worth considering.

Song for the day -- 'She's Electric' by Oasis. It's something of a throwaway tune, but you have to have a few of those around too, don't you?

I know I do.

regrets

You know, everyone has at least one big regret in life, that boulder that weighs us down and weighs us down until we ultimately sink to the bottom of the sea. For me, that regret is that I wasn't born Kensington Farnsworth. I think my life would have been much different had I been born with that name. I almost certainly would be driving a Jaguar right now. And that's just the beginning. I'll go into it more in a future post, but for now let me just add a quick song to the list. That song is, perhaps appropriately, 'You're So Vain' by Carly Simon. Legend has it that she wrote this song about Mickey Rooney.

Did you know that Carly Simon hooked up with Cat Stevens, Kris Kristofferson, Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson in about an 18 month period back in 1972 or possibly 1973? Great goshamole, that's pretty good company she was keeping there! Good for you, Carly Simon. What more can you say about that?

For more about today's song, check out this link to an old classic post posted by yours truly.
http://citizen-of-flinn.blogspot.com/2006/07/hollywood-stories_22.html

Yours truly,

Dan

breakdown of a song

For my post today, I was going to write a po-em titled 'They Mean to Bleed Us.' I've already written it, I guess. I was simply going to post it, you could say. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. But I doubt it.

What I thought I would do instead is breakdown a song I've long admired. It's a song by The Replacements, and it's called 'Can't Hardly Wait'.

The great thing about interpreting someone else's lyrics is that there are no rules; you can make them say what you want them to say. But in this case I'll take my best shot at getting into Paul Westerberg's multi-layered psyche and leave my own twisted dynamics out of it altogether. So what I'll be doing is throwing down the lyrics in italics and then giving you my take on them in parenthesis. Deep breath, let's go!

I'll write you a letter to-morrow
(this time I promise)
tonight/I can't hold a pen
(I've had a few drinkypoos)
someone's got a stamp/that I can borrow
(I am a freeloader)
I promise not to blow the address again
(this time I REALLY promise)
Lights that flash/in the evening
(lightning)
through a crack in the drapes
(on this shitty bus/van I'm stuck in)

Jesus rides beside me
(I'm covered)
he never buys an-y smokes
(He is a freeloader too)
hurry up! hurry up!
(schnell! schnell!)
Ain't you had enough of this stuff?!
(I sure have)
ashtray floors, dirty clothes and filthy jokes
(Being on tour is not as glamorous as you might think).
See you're high and lonesome
(this is how it is)
Try and try and try
(I do)

Lights that flash/in the evening
(lightning)
through a hole in the drapes
(damn van/bus)
I'll be home when I'm sleeping
(we're driving all night long)
I can't hardly wait.
*this is the only lyric that trips me. What do you think? Is he happy to be home? Or is he, in typical Westerbergian fashion, saying one thing and meaning something entirely different? From the lyrics and the way he delivers them, it seems as though he's excited to be coming home (at the time the song was written -- back in the mid-80's, I believe). But the phrasing...normally you'd say, I can hardly wait, not I CAN'T hardly wait. Then again, he did (and, I'm sure, does) like wordplay and this might just be a slightly offbeat way of saying, 'Thank God this tour/recording outing is almost over.'

With Westerberg, you can never really tell. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed being murky and unclear, which is a big part of the reason I like him -- and them (Replacements) -- so much. And, frankly, for a guy who named one of their first compilation discs 'All For Nothing/Nothing For All', well, doesn't that really just kind of say it all?