Prompt: "A song to listen to for when you'd rather be listening to a podcast or some shit"
Selected by Joe
"What I Want Is a Proper Cup of Coffee"
Trout Fishing in America
Big Trouble, 1991
If we use the song choice as the true prompt, and decide what to write from there, then I'd hypothetically be writing here about, um, maybe the idea of "fresh pots." I know this is something that the rock 'n' roll musician David Grohl says, perhaps in a viral video of sorts. Sam told me about it one time. My wife, who similarly drinks a lot of coffee, caught on to the phrase, and will still say it occasionally. I don't have to see the video to know that it's annoying. I don't know if this is because I hate coffee or I hate the internet or I hate Foo Fighters. Not the last one—"Big Me" is one of the best songs ever. I am generally aware that Grohl's sidepiece just gave birth to his kid. For the record, I don't think that this is any reason to stop listening to Foo Fighters (let alone use the C word). I guess we all have our own reasons to stop listening. I stopped listening because the music is generic bullshit and the dude loves coffee too much. Being worried about the musician's fidelity seems like a weird strain of puritanism, but whatever. We all care about what we care about. As long as you keep it to yourself (and/or occasionally expound upon those personal beliefs on a public blog, where the audience is trusted to take those beliefs in good faith), then you do what you gotta do.
One man who I know would never step out on his wife like that is the birthday boy, Sam F. S. The man loves coffee, monogamy, and shitty children's songs performed by adult folk musicians. The prompt within the prompt today—to say nothing about podcasts, which Sam has chosen to listen to in 2024 instead of participating in Yearlong Song Challenge—is that it is Sam's birthday, and so what would be a song that he would want posted. I went right to the source. Asked him what song I should choose, and what I should write about. He sent me a link to this song on Spotify, and I was at Frankford Terminal without wifi at the time so I had to briefly turn on my data so that the link worked and I could see that it was this song. Turned the data off before listening to it. Do I really need to listen to it? Probably not. I did anyway. I don't like it. Almost bad enough to make me want to listen to a podcast, so I guess this is as close as we're gonna get to fulfilling the prompt, at least for someone who hates podcasts.
Okay, fine—the podcast hate thing is obviously a bit exaggerated in this public forum. To be clear: I would never willfully listen to a podcast. I have tried in the past, both in good faith and in bad, and in none of those cases did I last more than like ten minutes tops. I often give this example if some podcast doofus presses me on the subject. Yearlong Song Challenge Villain Steve Hyden had a podcast series once upon a time in which modern day dude rock musicians were invited to speak about their favorite Bruce Springsteen album. The one episode was curated by one of my favorite music critics (Hyden) featuring one of my favorite musicians (Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus) about my straight-up favorite Bruce album (The River), and I still could not stand this shit for more than five minutes. You know why? Because I'd rather just listen to the fucking album. Why do I have to listen to two guys talk about the album? I can just fucking listen to it!
I think maybe there's something to say here about engaging in art versus engaging in reactions to that art. I have to step gingerly through this argument because I acknowledge that "reacting to art" is most what we traffic in on this vaunted blog I'm currently typing on. But the argument involves how many steps removed you are from that art. Say I want to write a treatise about the lame-ass song "What I Want Is a Proper Cup of Coffee." I can write about it, as I have engaged with that art from one step removed. However, when you (the hypothetical audience) read that treatise, then you are engaging with the art at two steps removed. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But I think that I, personally, am not built for engagement at such a remove. That's boring to me. This is why I don't understand why kids watch other kids play video games without playing that video game themselves. This is why I don't understand why you'd watch an adult unbox the new iPhone or whatever. This is why I don't listen to podcasts, in which people do the engaging for you, and then tell you about it.
So about the blog that you're reading. Three things. First, I certainly don't expect anyone to read this shit, especially if you have not already yourself engaged in the art that I'm writing about. This is why Record Club is king of the mountain around these parts—it asks for reactions, but it also requires engagement, together. Second, I acknowledge that the reaction can itself become art, occasionally. I am thinking about that podcast where those two Aussie blokes watched the same movie every week for a year (inspiring some good PoYB content). They are engaging with some bullshit, the podcast is about their reaction, you are two steps removed from Grown Ups 2. And yet, the artificial construct of two guys going fucking insane due to forced exposure to a bad movie is itself art. I would still never listen to the podcast, but I'm just saying that it's possible for podcasts to overcome the limitations that general make them so undesirable to me. I try to fashion some/many blog posts here in a similar way. The writing is more than a reaction, it is a (generally poor) attempt at art itself. And three, I am not king shit, and I am still not good at this, and I attempt to not forget humility when I'm talking about this kind of stuff. I am not saying that the bullshit that I engage in with my hobbies is somehow better than your average podcast. Maybe it's not even a comparison. I just find podcasts annoying, while fully acknowledging that you have every right to find blogging annoying in a similar or maybe even stronger way.
I think maybe there's something to say here about engaging in art versus engaging in reactions to that art. I have to step gingerly through this argument because I acknowledge that "reacting to art" is most what we traffic in on this vaunted blog I'm currently typing on. But the argument involves how many steps removed you are from that art. Say I want to write a treatise about the lame-ass song "What I Want Is a Proper Cup of Coffee." I can write about it, as I have engaged with that art from one step removed. However, when you (the hypothetical audience) read that treatise, then you are engaging with the art at two steps removed. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But I think that I, personally, am not built for engagement at such a remove. That's boring to me. This is why I don't understand why kids watch other kids play video games without playing that video game themselves. This is why I don't understand why you'd watch an adult unbox the new iPhone or whatever. This is why I don't listen to podcasts, in which people do the engaging for you, and then tell you about it.
So about the blog that you're reading. Three things. First, I certainly don't expect anyone to read this shit, especially if you have not already yourself engaged in the art that I'm writing about. This is why Record Club is king of the mountain around these parts—it asks for reactions, but it also requires engagement, together. Second, I acknowledge that the reaction can itself become art, occasionally. I am thinking about that podcast where those two Aussie blokes watched the same movie every week for a year (inspiring some good PoYB content). They are engaging with some bullshit, the podcast is about their reaction, you are two steps removed from Grown Ups 2. And yet, the artificial construct of two guys going fucking insane due to forced exposure to a bad movie is itself art. I would still never listen to the podcast, but I'm just saying that it's possible for podcasts to overcome the limitations that general make them so undesirable to me. I try to fashion some/many blog posts here in a similar way. The writing is more than a reaction, it is a (generally poor) attempt at art itself. And three, I am not king shit, and I am still not good at this, and I attempt to not forget humility when I'm talking about this kind of stuff. I am not saying that the bullshit that I engage in with my hobbies is somehow better than your average podcast. Maybe it's not even a comparison. I just find podcasts annoying, while fully acknowledging that you have every right to find blogging annoying in a similar or maybe even stronger way.
Sam says that he doesn't care about any of this. He didn't actually say that, but I can clearly picture him saying that. He said he wants me to write about the time he auditioned for a Masque musical production by using "What I Want Is a Proper Cup of Coffee" as his audition song. I mean, he's already written about that, so I don't know what else there is to say about it. Could be that I was the only one of the two of us that remembered that his audition was used for the hook of his Watchout! review. I don't remember every single one of PoYB's 7500 blog posts, but I remember most of them. I won't call it encyclopedic knowledge of everything that any of my friends have written in this space, but there's a little ping that goes off in my mind when I'm formatting a new post and I know that the subject has been written about before, and I can navigate the search bar decently enough that I can usually find the previous blog post that I sensed was out there, somewhere.
It is his birthday, though, so let me see what I can do here. I dunno, man. I wasn't around during Forum. This was probably the fall of 2005, Sam's freshman year. I was around by 2007, and I know 2006 was fucking Jekyll & Hyde. If I'm remembering correctly, Pam was in Forum too. I think she was a horse or something? I vaguely recall that it was the front end of a horse. So this was happening on and around Sam's... nineteenth birthday? Hold up, now I'm mixing myself up. I'm trying to count backward from the first memory I have regarding Sam. In September 2007, I was a freshman, and was already at Meet the Masque and had, in a general sense, met Sam and many of the upperclassmen, but wasn't necessarily hanging around with them. But me and my buddy Mike C. (not a theater kid) were tailgating at the Phillies game, and we ran into Sam in the parking lot, with your usual "hey, I think I know you" kinda thing. We exchanged numbers with the explicit intent of Sam meeting us to buy us some beers in the stadium (after giving him money, I'm not an asshole). But if this was his junior year, then it would've been before his 21st birthday, so then how the legally-purchased beers? He couldn't have been almost 22 that early. And we could not have been at a Phillies playoff game in October (their playoff run actually ended the day before Sam's birthday). Did he have a fake ID? Was John O. older and also there, buying beers for all four of us? (Was John O. secretly a 37-year-old man who was never actually enrolled at La Salle University?!) I don't know. I could easily just text Sam again and ask him how old he is turning today, but one blogging text per week is enough for the Chief of fucking Staff.
I don't know if this blog post ever had a point, besides wishing Sam a happy birthday, so, in honor of Cranky Sam, here is a summation of all the things that I hate, as mentioned or implied in the preceding blog post: coffee, memes, most Foo Fighters songs besides "Big Me," monogamy, people who think "cancelling" is a real thing, this song, Spotify, cheap phone plans, needless commuting to and from work (especially if you're like me and don't have YOUR OWN PRIVATE PARKING SPOT IN CENTER CITY), podcasts, Steven Hyden's unwillingness to engage with Puke on Your Birthday, boring discussions about Bruce Springsteen, this song again, unboxing videos, hypocrisy, Grown Ups 2, a lack of humility, auditioning for musicals when I can't sing, boys getting guaranteed spots in school musicals due to gender imbalances, the compulsion to create as many interblog hyperlinks as I can, Masque shows that happened while I was in high school, underage drinking laws, Phillies losses, [bonus entry] the flimflam artist who drunkenly attempted to scam me and Sam and everyone else out of their money by doing the "ball under the cup" trick right there in the goddamn parking lot during that Sept. '07 tailgate, jobs that don't allow for regular lunch periods, this song, forgetting a friend's birthday, this blog, everything.
It is his birthday, though, so let me see what I can do here. I dunno, man. I wasn't around during Forum. This was probably the fall of 2005, Sam's freshman year. I was around by 2007, and I know 2006 was fucking Jekyll & Hyde. If I'm remembering correctly, Pam was in Forum too. I think she was a horse or something? I vaguely recall that it was the front end of a horse. So this was happening on and around Sam's... nineteenth birthday? Hold up, now I'm mixing myself up. I'm trying to count backward from the first memory I have regarding Sam. In September 2007, I was a freshman, and was already at Meet the Masque and had, in a general sense, met Sam and many of the upperclassmen, but wasn't necessarily hanging around with them. But me and my buddy Mike C. (not a theater kid) were tailgating at the Phillies game, and we ran into Sam in the parking lot, with your usual "hey, I think I know you" kinda thing. We exchanged numbers with the explicit intent of Sam meeting us to buy us some beers in the stadium (after giving him money, I'm not an asshole). But if this was his junior year, then it would've been before his 21st birthday, so then how the legally-purchased beers? He couldn't have been almost 22 that early. And we could not have been at a Phillies playoff game in October (their playoff run actually ended the day before Sam's birthday). Did he have a fake ID? Was John O. older and also there, buying beers for all four of us? (Was John O. secretly a 37-year-old man who was never actually enrolled at La Salle University?!) I don't know. I could easily just text Sam again and ask him how old he is turning today, but one blogging text per week is enough for the Chief of fucking Staff.
I don't know if this blog post ever had a point, besides wishing Sam a happy birthday, so, in honor of Cranky Sam, here is a summation of all the things that I hate, as mentioned or implied in the preceding blog post: coffee, memes, most Foo Fighters songs besides "Big Me," monogamy, people who think "cancelling" is a real thing, this song, Spotify, cheap phone plans, needless commuting to and from work (especially if you're like me and don't have YOUR OWN PRIVATE PARKING SPOT IN CENTER CITY), podcasts, Steven Hyden's unwillingness to engage with Puke on Your Birthday, boring discussions about Bruce Springsteen, this song again, unboxing videos, hypocrisy, Grown Ups 2, a lack of humility, auditioning for musicals when I can't sing, boys getting guaranteed spots in school musicals due to gender imbalances, the compulsion to create as many interblog hyperlinks as I can, Masque shows that happened while I was in high school, underage drinking laws, Phillies losses, [bonus entry] the flimflam artist who drunkenly attempted to scam me and Sam and everyone else out of their money by doing the "ball under the cup" trick right there in the goddamn parking lot during that Sept. '07 tailgate, jobs that don't allow for regular lunch periods, this song, forgetting a friend's birthday, this blog, everything.
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