In which I do something probably really silly and useless.
Backstory: Gas prices are getting really sucky, especially since I drive more than 100 miles a day on my commute. So today, as I will (hopefully) at least once a week in the future, I am telecommuting. This good for me (for obvious$ rea$on$) and for the company as well, because I can get a whole lot of stuff done: building spreadsheets and revising SOPs and more, without being continually interrupted). Seriously, I can complete in four hours what might take me more than a couple of days were I onsite. Which means I have completed (in a way) more than three or four days of work already today.
One other advantage: I can listen to records (for you kids in the audience, that's pronounced "WRECK - erds") while I'm working. Remind me, if I forget, to do a really offbeat Loggins and Messina R&RT edition this weekend. Or maybe Royal Guardsman (Who?).
Just kidding on that last one. Maybe. But even if you're not enamored of the song in question, please do click through and watch the video – tres amusing, especially the goosestepping.
Oh, and one further advantage: I can drink beer while working. Nah, just kidding. May(hic)be.
ANYway, something popped into my poor, enfeebled brain while wading through spreadsheets today and, for some odd reason, listening to this entire album on vinyl ("VINE-ul;"). It's a pop song from, I guess, about 40 years ago. One that, on a pop music level, is okay, I guess. On a content level, not so much. But since I've already accomplished today what I would normally would have accomplished in several days, I feel just frickin' fine about taking a few minutes before going back to interminable spreadsheets, et al., to fisk a dopey pop song for no good reason than the fact that its lyrics are still stupid after all these years.
Ten lo-cal MBP points to anyone who can identify the band that sang this goofy tribute to hippie faux-socialism.
And the sign said long haired freaky people need not applyWell, I suspect that most places that have such signs in the window are looking to fill positions that actually interact with the public, and the employers want presentable people to fill those positions.
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him whyHmm. So you misrepresented yourself. Not cool, man.
He said you look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do So I took off my hat I said imagine that, huh, me working for youWow. You misrepresented yourself (i.e., LIED) to get the employer to offer you a job, which you thereupon turn down. Hope you're proud of yourself, unemployed hippie dude.
Sign Sign everywhere a sign Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind Do this, don't do that, can't you read the signYeah, well depending on the particular sign and context, I might agree, being a libertarian sort. But I suspect not:
And the sign said anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sightAnd rightfully so.
So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! what gives you the right To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature inWell, how about the fact that my family PAID for the property, then PAID property taxes one it, and PAID that filthy fucking ESTATE TAX (multiple times) to keep it, and just by the way, PAY and WORK and get injured to keep it in that good, natural condition you apparently think you fucking OWN.
If God was here, he'd tell you to your face, man you're some kinda sinnerYeah, well I suspect God takes into account who actually works and who is a lazy, slacker, hippie sack o' shit who thinks the world owes him a living.
UPDATE: Oh, and by the way, GET OFF MY DAMN FENCE!
Now, hey you Mister! can't you read, you got to have a shirt and tie to get a seatYeah, well seeing as how public hygiene laws and regulation kind of require shirts and shoes (and individual restaurants can set their own dress codes, since they are private businesses)
You can't even watch, no you can't eat, you ain't suppose to be hereYou are, apparently, an ill-kempt, unhygienic, stinky hippie. And yet, you don't understand why no one wants you around.
Sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside Uh!And you seem to have this issue with private property. I really hate to break it to you, but yes, private clubs actually do have the right to exclude you if you don't have a membership. Dude, it's really not that tough to understand if you drop the bong for a couple of hours.
And the sign said everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and prayAnd no doubt the Lord is a forgiving sort who understands, though I suspect even He would kind of like to you get off your butt and get a job instead of being a slacker who thinks the world owes him a living.
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all,
I didn't have a penny to pay, so I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said thank you Lord for thinking about me, I'm alive and doing fine
100 miles? Wow, I couldn't even handle a 30 mile commute a few years ago. Please tell me traffic's not sitting for most of it. I'd be climbing the walls of my car.
"Dude, it's really not that tough to understand if you drop the bong for a few hours"--that's it; he's wandering around half-naked and with raging munchies, so he's all ticked the restaurant won't let him in! I don't know the original but I was tortured repeatedly by some irrationally popular live Tesla cover in the late '80s. It all makes sense now.
Posted by: Kate P at April 23, 2008 08:52 PMPlease tell me traffic's not sitting for most of it.
Well, it would be if I kept normal hours. But I get in REALLY early to beat traffic. I tend to leave at "normal" time (perhaps a bit earlier) so I'd hit real traffic except that I take a back road - longer and windy but at least I'm not riding the brakes the whole way.
One makes compromises to save a few hundred thou on the price of a house...
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at April 23, 2008 09:00 PMOh, and "Tesla"? Never heard of the band, but it's a road I drive on (for a little ways) on the way home from work.
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at April 23, 2008 09:03 PMBTW, here is a recording of the original by "Five Man Electrical Band".
Amusing signs pictured in that video:
"Hippies use side door"
"Those who throw objects at the crocodiles will be asked to retrieve them"
"Trespassers will be shot; survivors will be shot again"
"Please do no throw stones at this sign"
"If you can read this, you're in range"
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at April 23, 2008 09:44 PMHeh. My favorite sign is at a local cooking supply store: "Children left unattended will be given an espresso and a puppy".
Posted by: Boy Named Sous at April 23, 2008 09:48 PMYou're kidding.
(And oddly enough I also blogged today about the back road I take home, also wind-y. Full of bikes, too.)
The AOL Music bio--yes, there is one--says it was a hit for Tesla in 1990. My bad. All those years I wasted, letting crappy top 40 radio dictate what I listened to, tend to blend together.
Posted by: Kate P at April 23, 2008 09:51 PMTesla was a moderately successful hard rock band in the late '80s early '90s. And their biggest hit was that remake of Signs.
A friend of mine and I used to play a driving game where we'd modify the signs bit to say "And the sign said XXX need not apply ..." Where XXX was anything from William Shatner to the invisible man and the next line would of course be modified to fit whoever you were talking about. Yeah, it seems pretty stupid now, but it was pretty funny then.
Posted by: Cullen at April 24, 2008 03:56 AMYeah, "Signs." Song makes me come out in hives a little. It may sound great if you're 18 and living in a "squat" with 12 of your other unwashed friends, but for those of us who are actually paying taxes out the wazoo - and are in danger of being sued if the kid down the street happens to wipe out while skateboarding on the steps leading down from our sidewalk to street level ("attractive nuisance," don't you know).
It's kind of like the people who say "graffiti is an art form, and it's, like, SO vital. It's the pulse of the street." Yeah? Try spending a Saturday cleaning that "pulse of the street" off of local playground equipment. (And I'm sorry but I fail to see how an anatomically-incorrect phallus spray-painted on a child's slide equates to art.)
Posted by: ricki at April 24, 2008 05:27 AMI remember that song.....and I was always puzzled at how clueless the lyrics were. Oddly enough, I like the song. Maybe because the spectacle of an adult making an ass of himself publicly can be amusing?
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 24, 2008 06:36 AMI hate this song. Thank you for fisking. Although, I am a little sad that you answered your own trivia question, thus denying me ten lo-cal points.
PS - As I recall, Kate, Tesla also drops an f-bomb into the final verse. It takes things to a whole new level.
Posted by: nightfly at April 24, 2008 07:19 AM"So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! what gives you the right To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in"
Hey, who says the fence isn't there to keep Mother Nature out?
Posted by: Alan K. Henderson at April 24, 2008 07:37 AMOuch.
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at April 24, 2008 08:09 AMI've always loathed that song, both the original and the Tesla version. Thank you for shredding it as it deserves.
Posted by: Joel at April 24, 2008 08:12 AMOh, and uh, sorry about that, 'Fly. Brainfart.
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at April 24, 2008 08:12 AM"If God was here, he'd tell you to your face, man you're some kinda sinner."
No shit, idiot. He'd say that to anyone. All humans are born sinners. It's like in the Bible and stuff.
Posted by: Emily, Xenu's Handmaiden at April 24, 2008 08:14 AM"it's like in the Bible and stuff"
Ten Sunday School points to Emily!
(seriously, that made me giggle.)
I'm glad to see there are so many people out there who can't stand that inane song.
Posted by: ricki at April 24, 2008 10:07 AMBTW, here is a recording of the original by "Five Man Electrical Band".
Which I own on a vinyl 45. God, I'm old.
Posted by: physics geek at April 24, 2008 10:20 AMI had a really hard time deciding whether to make the "You're old!" comment here or on the 40 Years of Jesus Christ Superstar post. . . ;) j/k
Posted by: Kate P at April 24, 2008 11:59 AMI actually ... kind of ... relate to this song.
A previous person at my lab put up all kinds of signs up. KEEP THIS DOOR LOCKED. PUT THE CAP BACK ON TO KEEP THE HEPTANE FROM EVAPORATING. DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF STIR PLATE. I went around and took them all down b/c I got tired of being scolded by somebody who doesn't even work there anymore.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) at April 24, 2008 02:46 PM