Sometimes when I sit down to blog about a certain album I am enjoying, I have to really catch myself. Does my opinion count?  I mean, how hip can a 5’7 pudgy white guy be? I spent the past Friday night getting Chili’s Chips and Salsa take out and watching Die Hard 2. But I do try to keep my finger on the energy drink fueled pulse of our nation’s youth. 

I have been digging Best Coast’s album “Crazy For You” for the past two months. It reminds me of a lazy summer day, something I have no idea what is like anymore as I spent most summer days off chasing my two-year-old son around the beach. And in this day and age of music piracy, the itunes single, and very little artist development by record companies, it’s rare for me to find a strong front to back album. Certainly there have been some, but ’tis a rare occasion. I am driving my girlfriend insane with this album and I once played it three times in a row on a trip home from the shore.    

How cool would it be for a girl to like you so much that she would sing lyrics, “I just want to tell you that I always miss you”, and “last night I went out with this guy, he was nice, and he was cute, but he, he wasn’t you”? Awesome! The nicest thing a girl has ever done for me is probably bring me Buffalo wings. The other thing is, it makes me think the girl singing is that much cuter. I am sure she would be thrilled to hear that a 34-year-old fat dude from South Jersey who makes an embarrassingly low salary thinks she is cute. I’m sure she is sitting down to pen her next song of affection in honor of me. The guys she likes are probably in cool bands, with cool hair, and do good things for the environment. Not guys like me, who shop for clothes at Target, and spend Sundays during football season drinking Coors Banquet Beer and eating smoked processed meat. 

When I told my best friend about Best Coast, and gave him a copy of the disc, he was shocked that I was so into it. Historically, i have not liked female singers. The song “Zombie” by The Cranberries still makes me want to stick sharpened chopsticks in my ears. And all I thought Fiona Apple was good for was looking waify and slutty. But my friend has always loved female singers, he promised Natalie Merchant his first child and I thought for sure he was going to start humping Lisa Loeb’s leg when we saw her play a free show a few years back. (Actually, I think I wanted to start humping Lisa Loeb’s leg; she isn’t even that cute, but those glasses!) This is the same friend who used to frequent the Lilith Fair despite the slew of homophobic slurs my friends and I barraged him with. If he showed up at a party with Zima, we probably still wouldn’t bust his chops as much as we did about Lilith Fair.

I am also digging HBO on Sunday nights. They are killing me! They are awesome. This time of year, I am usually utterly depressed on a Sunday fall night, or shit-faced drunk if the Eagles had a home game. Now Sunday nights are something I look forward to. HBO has had fantastic programming for the past eleven years since The Sopranos started in 1999. But it kills me, I had free HBO at college. But that was from 1994-1998. Before they really had any original programming other than of course, Real Sex, which honestly creeps me out more than it could turn me on. When I was in college, HBO sucked. They would show movies like “The Air Up There”, and documentaries about street gangs in Little Rock, Arkansas. Which were really just a bunch of awkward white kids with nothing better to do than start street gangs and do meth.

The lineup from 9-11 is spot in.  Boardwalk Empire from 9-10, then Bored to Death (which I think is so brilliant) from 10-10:30, and then Eastbound and Down from 10:30 to 11.  Which is definitely on the minds of most any person I know in the desirable 18 to 35 year old demographic, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t love that show. Whoever thought I would be having a water cooler conversation about a Mexican cock fight? But thanks HBO, you make Sunday nights tolerable!  

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