PoYB: Closed for Vacation

Though I'm literally going on vacation to Wildwood like I do every August, I'm also figuratively going on vacation from this blog, starting, I dunno, last week? You see, I tried to write something every day during the month of July, and almost fucking met the goal. Almost!! Three days short!! Here's what I had planned for those three days:

• Sunday: some stupid fucking poem written by a fascinating classmate that caused quite the stir in my college theater group
• Monday: some stupid fucking story about the last day of the summer in my youth when we refused to get out of the pool when the lifeguards told us to
• Tuesday: some stupid fucking questions answered, like I have done on the last day of the month a couple other times

Fun stuff. I'm sure a ton of people would have read those pieces. Oh well. I gave up because I got extremely intoxicated at a bachelor party on Saturday, and that drinking continued into early Sunday morning, and that shit wiped me out until like Tuesday afternoon, believe it or not. I'm getting old, folks. Actually, no, wait, I did try to write something about strip clubs on Monday morning, in my hungover stupor. I'm not really sure what I was going for, but here's the first part, which I quite like still, in sobriety:

I want to explore the idea of strip clubs from a sociological and psychological perspective. To do so, I will have to admit, first, that I have been to my fair share of strip clubs, and must warn you that if you find the very idea of a strip club establishment to be icky or immoral, or find the fact that I have been to more than the socially acceptable amount of strip clubs in my young life to be ethically reprehensible, then you won't find much to appreciate in this discussion.

I will also speak frankly about strip clubs and my personal experiences in them. This is important, because strip clubs tend to have a mystical and almost secretive feeling about them. The hush-hush pacts we make when we attend strip clubs together are, if not stated aloud and marked with blood, then certainly implied at the very least. So if this essay aims to discuss frankly the inner ecosystems of nudie bars, these promises (implied or otherwise) must be broken. To all whom this offends, I apologize.

And finally, speaking of apologizes, this is not designed to be a "Tell All" of my experiences, or, like, some kind of confession of any kind. My behavior in strip clubs, while not necessarily something I'd talk about with my priest, is definitely nothing I'm ashamed of or have ever felt the need to hide from Pam or anyone else curious to know. The character I play at these strip clubs typically could be described at different points of the night as the following: the cheapskate; the observer; the shaman; the drunk guy sleeping in the corner. You see, I can speak frankly of my experiences because I'm not embarrassed by them. I have nothing to say sorry for. I have no personal motive here; I simply want to explore what exactly it means to be present in a strip club, on an interpersonal level. (If you simply MUST know various anecdotes, check out this bullshit I wrote last summer.)

The only problem with this idea for a blog post is that I didn't really know where to go from there, and so I gave up. I'm so much better at writing introductions than I am at writing the body of the blog posts (or school essays, etc.). Which is idiotic, if you ask me. Being good at introductions only basically means that I'm good at throwing big words around with no purpose or actual meaning behind them. My English teacher in ninth grade told us to write the intros last, because they are the least important part of the essay. Mr. Janda has hopefully never read Puke on Your Birthday.

I guess what I was trying to say was that my experience at the strip club was both fun as FUCK, and also broke me, emotionally (yes, somehow at the same time). Like, it was the first time in my life when I was at a strip club and felt the full force of the transactional nature of those establishments. I'm not stupid, I don't actual think women are nice to me there because they think I'm cute. I KNOW they just act like that because they want my money (all I had to do was say "I have a daughter" to see their true nature). But I've always been able to just enjoy the ride in the past (not literally, I haven't gotten a lapdance (without Pam actually present) in the past nine years or so). Something about the naked (ha) desperation of these women of A.C. to dig into my wallet just... well, it didn't turn me off, per se, because at the end of the day they were still naked women, but it just... it opened my eyes a little bit to the hollow nature of the game we all play when we're at these clubs.

Anyways, the bachelor had his pants pulled down and was whipped with leather belts on a public stage, so, like, I'm not saying it wasn't fun or anything. I probably laughed harder than I have in years, in fact.

Maybe that's why I didn't complete that blog post the other day. That shit was being made to seem too serious, or I was coming off as too grumpy or something, like I was ignoring the good parts of the night (of which there were many). It wasn't giving any service to the FUN FUCKING NIGHT I just had. Maybe the whole eye-opening "negative" aspects of the night were just some weird 5-Hour-Energy-and-Miller-Lite-fueled hallucinations. Or maybe I pictured Pam reading it and rolling her eyes, like: "you're fucking obsessed with strip clubs." Which I'm most assuredly not, but writing about it at length probably wouldn't help my case.

(On a somewhat related note, it's possible that I wasn't hungover or feeling emotional drained in the first place. My chain of command at work is telling me as I'm writing this that there's been a gas leak in our building for the past couple days, and it was only fixed yesterday evening. Hmm. No wonder I felt like the fourth season of Community.)

So yeah, I'm closed for vacation. No blog posts. In addition to the fact that I'm worn out, I'm also not planning on bringing my laptop down the shore. I need a break from the screen, ya feel me? My mom is on board, and is going to be enforcing a "No Power Happy Hour" daily at the shore house. I can handle this. Not sure if the rest of my family can. Not sure if my grandma knows how to even turn her iPad off, let alone put it down.

Am I going to let PoYB go dormant for months or years like I have in the past? Nah, I hope not. I still have some self-indulgent and dumb ideas I can hit y'all with. Also, I want to amp up the music writing a bit, because I like writing about music even though I'm bad at it, and my pal Steven Hyden just gave me some cliché but worthy advice.

Also also, I want to fill this chart out:

click to enlarge

As you can see at the top of this blog, there are certain tags you can click on to filter out blog posts that you don't care to read. Do you hate when I write about indie rock and only care to read posts I write about my childhood? Click on "Nostalgia." Only want to read about Christmas shit? Click "Holidays." Etc. You can also combine tags. Click on a tag, then in the URL, type: +[another tag] at the end of the address. So if you click on "Fatherhood" and you want to see what posts I've written about that are about Fatherhood AND drinking, then just make sure the URL ends in "Fatherhood+Drinking."

In the chart above, I've listed the main content tags (some, like Miscellaneous and Meta, are left out for reasons I hope you can discern for yourself), and show what combos of tags I've used together in the past 600 or so blog posts. I want to fill in that chart, and write specifically geared toward blog posts that combine previous uncombined subject matters. I dunno, like:

• Music x Print Media—probably finally get around to that retrospective about how I originally got into music because of Rolling Stone's Top 500 albums list.
• Music x The Internet—how about getting drunk and writing about how stupid Pitchfork is
• Drinking x Politics—this one is incredibly surprising, that I haven't gotten drunk and written about politics. Maybe it just seems like every time I talk about trump I come off like I'm drunk. How about, instead of the obvious, I write something about what each politician's favorite beer probably is (spoiler alert: Pat Toomey loves Coors Extra Gold!!!)
• TV & Movies x Politics—live blog a political debate on TV... or discover and publish the alleged Trump N-Word Outtake Tapes from Celebrity Apprentice!
• Sports x The Internet—a guide on how to watch the Phillies without giving Comcast any of your hard-earned money
• Hometown x Philly—I don't know how I would write something about two diametrically opposed tag categories except to maybe ask a drunk Kev about his favorite bars in Philadelphia, not McNally's please not McNally's. Actually, okay, there ya go, I'll write a retrospective about the worst bar in Philadelphia, McNally's. That should work.
• Hometown x Fatherhood—Either "fictional piece about Willow discovering the Firepit" or "why you need to go see your friends' babies right after they are born no matter how lame that shit is"
• Food x The Internet—drunkenly review a YouTube video about how to use a food blender
• Food x Fatherhood—A picture of me, dead-eyed, buying yet another goddamn formula powder mix canister from Target
• College x Fatherhood—Fuck, I haven't really written much about Fatherhood at all, have I? I could write about how Willow was conceived on the fourth-floor mezzanine at Connelly Library (or was it the basement catalogues, gosh I was so drunk who can remember)?!
• Print Media x The Internet—Another set of diametrically opposed tags. I'll have to either respond to a book review I found on the internet, or respond to a... computer review I find in a book? Okay.
• Print Media x Fatherhood—Easy! A mini-review of every book on Willow's bookshelf (from Goodnight Moon to Infinite Jest)
• Politics x Fatherhood—"daddy, why do you hate trump so much?" "..." "Daddy?" "One moment, hun, I'll write my 10,000 response on my blog."

So, yeah, there's maybe a kernel of a couple good ideas in that trash heap. I'll be back in mid-August to write about them.

I have a really boring job. It's a bummer, because I used to have a really exciting job. It's just that that job was also a pain in the ass and I was working all the time. I do jack-fucking-shit here at my desk job. That's why I can blog so much. Nothing will have changed when I get back from vacation, so whether you like it or not, expect some more nonsense here at Puke on Your Birthday.

If you are going to be in Wildwood, NJ in the next eight days, hit me up!

The Top 100 Songs of the '00s (Part 4: #25-#1)

If it seems like a lot of the description I've written below and for previous sections of this list lean too heavily on memories from my past, well then you are probably right. This is how I listen to music. I listen, and I feel, and I remember. The contexts in which I listen to the songs originally are almost as important to me as the songs themselves. So yes, a lot of these songs are on here because they mean something to me. If that makes a shitty list, then so be it. I fucking love these songs, and I trudged through writing about one hundred of them because I want you to love them too. That's all. Please enjoy.

Click on these links if you wanna see previous entries on this list: #100-#76, #75-51, #50-#26. Otherwise, read on to see what my favorite songs of last decade are. And if you don't feel like listening to any of these songs now, come have a beer at my house, you'll most likely here them then on my shitty knockoff iPod speakers, whether you ask to or not.

25. "Point/Counterpoint" by Streetlight Manifesto

Don't ask me how I ended up with a ska album in my possession in 2006. Don't ask me how my friends started listening to it to. Don't ask me how it became our pump-up jam as we drove down Cottman Ave. in my parents' car, yelling curse words out the window. Don't ask me about this song, because I don't remember. It's just always been, and always will be.

24. "I'm a Pretender" by the Exploding Hearts

The kids you are listening to are dead. Like A Christmas Carol, this is where the story of the Exploding Hearts starts. It's a story of unfulfilled potential. While touring, promoting their excellent breakout debut record Guitar Romantic, the Exploding Hearts' tour van flipped, and three of the four members were killed. They averaged 21 years old. The whole album is worth many dozens of spins, but something about "I'm a Pretender" particularly puts a hitch in my throat every time I hear it. There's a magical moment in this song, and it happens on the third chorus. It's one of those musical moments in time when you just hear a band fucking click into a higher gear. I hear this chorus and its subsequent guitar solo and all the hand claps and all the damn fun these kids are having, and I weep.

23. "Letter from an Occupant" by the New Pornographers

When I first heard this song in former PoYB correspondent Mandy B**.'s dorm room, my first thought was that we were listening to the munchkins on the yellow brick road. My judgment, to say the least, was flawed. Neko Case is shrill in this song, there's just no other way to say it. BUT she takes that shrillness and brings a power to it that's only matched by A.C. Newman's soaring "Ooo-ooo" chorus. I wonder how different my musical tastes would be had I bent the butterfly's wings and taken "Letter from an Occupant" seriously when I first heard it.

22. "Light a Roman Candle with Me" by fun.

You are free to interpret songs however you'd like. When Pam questioned the suitability of "Light a Roman Candle with Me" as our wedding song, she had a point. Ostensibly, Nate Ruess is singing about a one-night stand that may or may not be working. At face value, these might not be the best lyrics to be sung over a first dance as husband and wife. However, I've always felt differently about this song and how it applies to our situation (anyone's situation, really). To me, Ruess is expressing doubts, sure, but in the end, he's making the case that none of us know what can happen when we first get together. He's singing that the future is wide open. Boy and Girl meet. They might fade away, but there's a possibility that they might fall in love! Why piss away that chance?! Pam and I did not piss it away, and here we were getting married, and so we figured there was no better song to dance to on our wedding day. Plus... the song is fun as fuck.

21. "A-Punk" by Vampire Weekend

I guess it was Pitchfork that said that Modern Vampires of the City, Vampire Weekend's third album, was the grad school dissertation to the band's freshman year philosophy 101 paper of a debut album. I guess that's technically true, but then again, who ever gets the inclination to read a dissertation? Sometimes you just wanna kick back and relax with some easy bullshit. "A-Punk" is easy bullshit to me, and I love it dearly. I have strong flashbacks of partying in my dorm room, drinking Cherry Wave (yup), and dancing around to this song. Dissertations were the farthest thing from my mind.

20. "A Wolf at the Door. (It Girl. Rag Doll.)" by Radiohead

Is it just me, or does Radiohead seem, I dunno, BORED sometimes? Maybe aloof or removed? That's what I thought before I heard this song, anyway. I guess I still feel that way, but can't blame "A Wolf at the Door" for SERIOUSLY challenging my perceptions of this band. Thom Yorke has never sounded so desperate.

19. "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse

The ping pong ball goes behind the back, hits an empty Lionshead bottle, bounces off the plastic fold-up table, and lands directly in the cup, a shot worth around $100, with one of Modest Mouse's perpetually-nautical-themed anthems punctuating the scene—"GO-GOD-DAMN!"

18. "Fake Empire" by the National

There's a lot I love about "Fake Empire" that I can talk about without having to yet again become all mopey and nostalgic. There's the way it eschews the verse/chorus structure of a traditional pop song for a linear progression (just piano to piano and drums to a cutting brass section). There's the very neat trick of using the drums to move us from 4/4 to 6/8 time before you even know what's happening. There's the lyrics, morose in the way all the best National songs are, lyrics that speak to you both on a micro (I feel out place) and macro (I feel like this country is going to shit) level. But nah, fuck, I was wrong. I have to be nostalgic. I have to see the cold dew forming on the St. Basil's dorm front lawn when I hear this song. My heart just doesn't work any other way.

17. "The Mariner's Revenge Song" by the Decemberists

There's no other band quite like the Decemberists, and not a single other band on earth could write a nine-minute sea shanty and have it land at #17 on a decade-spanning list of best songs. The band and their frontman Colin Meloy have always been literary geeks, with plenty of Merriam-Webster-busting songs about ancient civilizations and secret foreign spies and lovable crane people. But "The Mariner's Revenge Song," an epic tale about being swallowed by a whale with your mortal enemy, is PEAK Decemberists.

16. "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

We, the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah stans, almost feel like a secret society. This strange and beautiful band had its moment in the sun in 2005 thanks to the bombastic words from niche music blogs. The stans know better than to believe that this band is dead. We stand in shadows, for over a decade at this point, quietly beating the drums and keeping the legend of CYHSY alive. When I was in a random fucking dive bar in Nashville last spring, and "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" came on the stereo, the bartender and I exchanged knowing glances. This is the band. This is it.

15. "Jesus of Suburbia" by Green Day

Time, I'd argue, has been kind to Green Day. Sure, American Idiot may be 6x platinum here in the U.S., but at the time of its release in 2004, I feel like it didn't really get the critical acclaim it deserved. (But I've already written all about that.) I guess what I'm arguing, in a very hacky way, is that, like Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of Suburbia was unjustly slain, but has since risen anew. I am this song's Peter. I believed, and I continue to believe. Fuck, what's not to love about this goofy-ass song? It's bombastic (five sections, indicated by roman numerals in the subtitles), wildly teenager-ish lyrics (rhymes "Ritalin" with "my sins"), some great drum fills, tempo changes, hahaha oh man, no wonder this shit went to Broadway.

14. "She Moves in Her Own Way" by the Kooks

This jangly little piece of Brit-pop has ruled my personal airwaves ever since that wonderful carefree summer when I discovered it (doesn't hurt that it's been on Comcast Music On-Demand pretty much forever). Maybe it's the bridge that makes this the quintessential summer song: "I wish we never made it / through all the summers." I certainly do wish that now, sitting at my work desk, in July, summer nowhere to be found.

13. "With Arms Outstretched" by Rilo Kiley

Please play this at my funeral service. "Now some days, they last longer than others..."

12. "Constructive Summer" by the Hold Steady

Okay, these top twelve songs are the all-time greats. They are unbeatable. We start with "Constructive Summer," a song in which Craig Finn somehow captures the very essence of what it meant to grow up in Northeast Philly. I've loved this song so long that it was a big part of my very first blog post EVER (lost to the winds, recapped here). Finn and the boys will probably never know how much this song means to me (or maybe they will! Look for Joe's review of the Hold Steady's "Constructive Summer" Tour this Wednesday, right here on PoYB!).

11. "Doing It Right" by the Go! Team

I was at a fantasy football draft one time (hanging out with friends, not participating), and tried playing this song, claiming that it was the closest thing I had on my iPod to Jock Jams. I got laughed out of the room, but I hold true to my conviction. The Go! Team bottles up the manic energy of an exciting sporting event and packages it in a giddy lo-fi pop-rock tune. There are marching bands, cheerleaders, you name it. Try playing this at your next sporting event during halftime, even if your friends are a bunch of jackals.

10. "Wolf like Me" by TV on the Radio

Jaleel Bunton plays the drumming backbeat to end all backbeats here. It gets me fucking PUMPED. The guitars are fuzzy and frantic. Tunde Adebimpe really does sound like he's transforming into a werewolf, the way he sings these impressive lyrics. My college girlfriend's roommate told me that this song sounded like a song you should kill yourself to. She knows nothing about music. This song is all love, baby.

9. "Four Winds" by Bright Eyes

If you look at the lyric sheet, you can see that this is very much a song that would appeal to a senior in high school, into pop philosophical conversations while getting toasted on cheap beer. Rather than dismiss the song based on the fact that I may have outgrown its values, I embrace it. I hold tight because even though the angsty teenage ideals are on full display in "Four Winds," it only seems broad and hackneyed because it's based in some pretty universal truths. ("The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran is mute / if you burned them all together you'd get close to the truth" whew lad that spits fucking TRUTH alright.) Lyrics aside, the song spoke to me on a musical level too. With its howling fiddle and rustic female backing vocals, "Four Winds" opened up musical worlds I knew existed but hadn't cared to try prior. And, at the end of it all, you can't really go wrong with a passionate Conor Oberst singing his fucking heart out, can ya?

8. "7/4 (Shoreline)" by Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene write songs in the clouds. "It's a shoreline / And it's high speed / It's a cruel world / And it's time." These lyrics literally mean nothing. But it doesn't matter. Those pounding drums make up for it and more. "7/4 (Shoreline)" is relentless. It's the best song ever that's in a 7/4 time signature, wrestling Pink Floyd's "Money" away from the throne for good.

7. "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire

I wish the whole "put your lighters in the air" thing wasn't a cliché at this point, because if it wasn't, this is the song I'd be putting my goddamn lighter in the air for. As loathe as I am to provide the bait, I'll say it anyway: This is the millennial anthem to end all millennial anthems. We need to wake up, you guys! Let's goooooooo.

6. "Float On" by Modest Mouse

I liked this song when it came out, but then, so too did every single man, woman, and child in America. Nothing special about it. It was only when I was having a rough weekend in freshman year of college, and this song came on, and told me to keep my chin up, keep going, it was then that I knew this song was special. Raise your Natty Lights, boys, in celebration. Modest Mouse, a small-time garage band if I ever saw one, somehow made a monster, world-conquering hit. Raise a toast to them. Raise a toast to Isaac Brock, songwriter and frontman, too, who wrote "Float On" because he "just want[ed] to feel good for a day." I feel good every day this song exists, sir.

5. "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers

I dunno. Look. There's a reason this song is, today, right now, currently, STILL ON THE U.K. BILLBOARD TOP 100 SINGLES. Thirteen years later!! Only a sincerely good song could pull off such a bizarre and astounding feat. "Mr. Brightside" is a truly good song. Also, I guess it's no surprise that yet another song on this list is a "staying positive" type of song, though the Killers a little sarcastic about it here, I think. They're like: "My girl cheated on me, but fuck it, I guess I gotta stay positive right?!" Either way, this song fucking rocks, in all its corny glory.

4. "The Bleeding Heart Show" by the New Pornographers

The second half of this song is so damn primitive and simple, it's a wonder that other artists haven't copied it yet. It's basically a chant (over a jaunty drum part and racing guitars), repeating first: "Hey-la! Hey-la!" and second: "The bleeding heart show!" It doesn't really amount to much, except maybe the best outro in musical history. This is dancing-in-the-rain, best-night-of-your-life music.

3. "Stuck Between Stations" by the Hold Steady

Every generation has a voice that repeats back to us how it really is. Craig Finn, to me and my friends, is that voice. With the help of his pirate-mustached friend Franz Nicolay, Finn paints portrait after portrait of how it feels to be a teen. I often wondered when I was a teen myself: How? How did someone like Craig Finn, a schlubby bald bar-band-lifer dude, how did he know what I was doing? How did he know my life? As I get older and become just some fucking schlubby adult myself, I guess I'm starting to realize that what Finn was singing about wasn't just about me, it was about all of us. The ideas and stories are universal. Which is better, really, the more I think about it. We all went through this fucking shit TOGETHER. Finn quotes Sal Paradise in this song: "Boys and girls in America / have such a sad time together," and he spends the rest of the song laying that theory to rest. It's more than that, he's saying. It's complicated. We're sad, we're confused, we're drunk, we're happy. I'm almost 30 now, and of course it isn't the same, but "Stuck Between Stations" will always be my own little time capsule that I can open up whenever I want and rediscover what it truly felt like, all those years ago.

2. "I'll Believe in Anything" by Wolf Parade

It continues to baffle me how effecting this song is to me, because if you break it down into pieces, it's a really strange song. [To be read as a Jason Kelce-style speech:] Spencer Krug's voice is irritating. The tempo slogs. The guitars are basic. The ghostly keyboard hits are overdone. The 4/4 outro is trite. The percussion could practically be a drum machine. The lyrics are flippant at best. But, just like the 2017-18 Eagles, you put all these scrub pieces together, and something fucking incredible happens. They all complement themselves in the best ways. They all create one epic fucking song. (Read more here.)

1. "The Underdog" by Spoon

If you've been around me in the past few years when this song comes on, then I already ruined the surprise for you. When I listen to "The Underdog," I tell everyone around me that this is the best song of all time. No conditions. Full stop. What's so charming about this song is the wide variety on contexts in which I've heard this song and expressed my undying love for it. Large keg parties. Small cafes for brunch. Disgusting dive bars. A fucking Brandon Flowers concert. "The Underdog" was even so prevalent in my freshman dorm room that my roommate Pat took to calling this "our song." It's everywhere. This is the Swiss army knife of songs. It fits anywhere, it does anything. In many ways, the video for the song reflects this (click above, or below). The camera moves around the studio to all these tiny little rooms, where all types of musicians are playing their instruments. No one together. And yet, they are all playing the same song, at the same time. So many different contexts add up to one amazing musical experience. Fuck, you guys, I love this song so much. There's no song on earth I'd rather hear, and I feel that way all the time. Will I ever get sick of "The Underdog"? I dunno, maybe. It's been over a decade, and I'm not quite there yet.



Thanks for taking part in this month-long masturbatory list with me. It was fun! Be sure to check back in almost exactly seventeen months, when we do the same thing, except for the '10s! Hopefully you'll have to hear less "when I was a teenager" stories next time around!!

Eulogy for the Manbun

I gave myself almost two months to write a reflection on a manbun lost. I didn't want to write a reactionary piece, I wanted to come to terms with it in my own time. I needed time to mourn. I needed to get used to being just another guy with short hair.

This is not another emo haircut treatise. I was happy then, and I'm still happy now. I regret nothing. But still, at the end of the day, cutting a foot of hair off my head was a big change, a change I'm still getting used to (and, let's be honest, loving more and more every day).

I always used to make the following joke, but this particular joke isn't too far from the truth. So it was said that when Pam and I got married, we exchanged "hair rights" along with our wedding vows. I would be able to tell her what to do with her hair, and she would be able to tell me what to do with my hair. Of course, this wasn't actually what we did. But for all intents and purposes, it was the truth. Because, if my wife tells me that she would find me more attractive with my hair a certain way, why would I fight that? Why not make yourself more attractive to the only person you should care about in this regard?

So Pam, after we got married, asked me to grow my hair into a "manbun." As far as I can tell, this term is a relatively recent way of describing when a man puts his hair up into a bun. It's a weird style for a guy, even I'll admit, but yo, Pam thought it looked good, so what the fuck am I gonna say? No?

On the other hand, have a look at Urban Dictionary's definitions; they are absolutely brutal. And yeah, I definitely got some shit in real life about this style of hair. But what I found over a few-year period was that most of the insults, lighthearted or otherwise, almost always came from other men. My male friends were on the front line in joshing around about it. I'm 100% certain that the UD definitions were all written by men.

One time I was in New York, seeing a stand-up showcase, and some dude had a bit about how manbuns are lame and look like shit, etc., etc. I was absolutely the only guy in the room with a manbun, and because I hate New York with a fiery passion, I took great offense to this douchebag. I was used to it at that point, and I didn't, like, actually take that much of an offense to it (i.e. I didn't try to fight the guy or anything), but still, it was like: ho hum, another guy hating on the manbun for no discernible reason.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you take offense to a male wearing his long hair in a bun on his head, then you are almost certainly another male yourself. The thing is, women never had a problem with it. In fact, I will say the exact opposite about women. Not only did women in general not hate this style, but some went out of their way to approach me and compliment me on my hair.

I'm not an ugly guy, per se, but I'm certainly not that attractive (YMMV), so throughout my life, I've never been the guy whom strange women would approach at a bar to offer a compliment. And I'm not even saying this happened often, but it definitely happened multiple times. It's the only physical attribute I've ever had in my entire life that any woman went out of their way to say a nice thing about.

And that felt good! I'm a happily married man, so it wasn't even like I was attempting to do anything with or follow up in any way with these compliments (or rather, let's talk about that some other time on this very public blog, shall we?). But getting fawned over really does raise one's self-esteem, doesn't it? It did for me. At the very least, the occasional adoration evened out with the occasional mockery and contempt.

Here's another thing: I didn't even think I looked that good with a manbun. In fact, sometimes, I think sometimes it looked straight-up bad. It was constantly frizzy. A lack of constant upkeep meant that stray hairs around my sideburns flared up like a bell. That the hair was pulled back meant that my sizeable front-corner-area balding spots were exposed. I was constantly paranoid that the tugging of my hair was causing my hairline to recede. And don't get me started about how I looked in a bike helmet.

On top of my personal dislike for how it looked on me, the bun was a pain in the ass to deal with. (Everything I'm about to say will be scoffed by women readers, but yo, you gals have been dealing with this shit your whole lives, I never had those prepubescent years to get used to it.) There were constant fly-aways in my face, stray hairs that came out of the bun and went into my eye and tickled my nose. I had to wear a bandana whenever I suspected even a hint of wind. Showering was a pain in the ass, and the weekly shampooing tripled my shower length. Sleeping on my back? Can't even consider trying.

Still, despite the ridicule and my personal feelings about it, I stuck with it, and was glad to do so, because Pam liked it. Doing something for her is never a burden. And it's not even like I bitched and moaned about it that much when I had the manbun. All the complaining I'm doing here is retroactive. The only person that matters liked it, so I kept it, happily.

Until she didn't. Which is okay too! In fact, it was kind of a relief. You see, we watched Inside Llewyn Davis a few months ago, and something about Oscar Isaac's hair awakened something in Pam. I guess she realized that the manbun was, like, sooo 2015. So I got a haircut.

The barber (I guess in jest, but I'm not 100% sure) cut the bun off right away and asked me if I wanted to keep it. I told him to please throw it out posthaste. There used to be a time when I cared very much about what my hair looked like, but fuck it man, ya know? I'm still just doing what Pam wants me to do. What would be the point to do otherwise?

Life is good with short hair. I put my head under the water in the shower. I sleep like a baby. I don't have stray hairs in my goddamn face while I'm trying to chance a pooped-out diaper. I'm excited to dive into the ocean when I visit Wildwood, and completely submerge my head under the water. I fucking love it. And yeah, I'm sure when I'm at the bar I might feel a bit like Samson having lost the power to attract the eyes of pale, nerdy women. But that part of my life is over now. Perhaps I should maintain my ego through other, healthier ways, ya dig?

Whenever I see old pictures of my parents, I always chuckle at my dad's mustache and my mom's perm. Their hairstyles are peak 1980s. I have a feeling that when Willow (et al) is old enough to look through Google Photos at old pictures of her dad, she's gonna have a good laugh as well at the silly late-2010s manbun on my head. And I'll laugh too, because it was silly, after all. But I have and will have absolutely no regrets whatsoever.

Plus if it comes back into style in 20 years and I'm not bald by then, I guess I could always grow it back. We'll wait and see what Pam says about it.

PoYB's 600th Episode Special: A Look Back

Yesterday's (tossed-off) review of Difficult People was Puke on Your Birthday's 600th post!!!! Congrats everyone! We did it! Over the past decade, we've blogged about all kinds of stupid bullshit for an audience of millions. But rarely do we follow up on the subjects we've blogged about. Let's take a look back today, then, and get us some updates on PoYB's posts from the past. Because I know we're all dying to know what ever happened to Rat-Faced Andy, right?!

Secure the Border

July 21, 2008

This post starts by me calling Geno's Steaks "ignorant" because they put a sign on their establishment chiding customers to "Speak English." If anything, in the past ten years I have doubled down on my views on the issue. Joey Vento sounds like a piece of shit, because his dying wish was that the sign be kept up. His son, Geno, now owns the shop since the senior Vento died in 2011. And true, Geno seems like less of a shithead. He even quietly took the sign down in 2016! But the reason given was that he "didn't want to offend" the DNC who were in town that summer, a reason that makes me roll my eyes. Fuck Geno's Steaks forever. And no, I have not had a Geno's cheesesteak since Vento decided to share his ass backward views with the world, and I never fucking will.

Contrary to Popular Belief, I Do Have Friends

August 13, 2008

Of course, nothing is going to be the same that it was when you're a teenager. I'm cool with that now. All my best friends named in this post are still important in my life, but life sometimes gets in the way. We all live far away now, and the crazy blackout nights are few and far between. But I still love these kids, even if we aren't ending our nights together by cracking open just one more Hurricane forty.

My Secret Degrassi Shame

October 15, 2008

I no longer watch Degrassi, even though, yes, truly, it is still on TV. Ten fucking years later! Here in 2018, we call it Degrassi: Next Class, and it streams about twenty episodes a year on Netflix. But I can't handle that show anymore. It finally broke me in 2010, when they started airing FIVE new episodes a week during the summer. Too much of a good thing, right?!

Wii, and Why It Is Destroying America

December 29, 2008

I find it interesting how misplaced my anger is here, since I so rarely played video games then, and almost never play them now (save for an occasional drunken romp through Mario Kart 64). Really, I see this all as one big preamble to the adult appropriation crime—Facebook. If adults ruined video games for us, then they REALLY ruined social media for us. I'll expound on this in a bit.

Gone Fishing

June 27, 2009

We went back the next week, and I caught another fish! But when I threw the fish back, I threw it too high in the air, and it died when it hit the water. My luck did not change that summer, and neither did the fish's. (This was my last summer before I met Pam, so my luck DID change, eventually.)

PoYB from the Vault: Lenny and George

October 11, 2009

It's very possible that the Inquirer caught up with one of these guys (whoever was the one who didn't drown in a lake) when they tried talking to him at Burholme Park. Does Lenny now go by "Undercover Agent Daniel Kennedy"?? Maybe! I actually haven't seen ANY homeless people in the NEast in the past few years. I guess it doesn't make sense to live under a bridge in Fox Chase when you could be raking in the dough at an intersection in Center City.

Restaurant Review: The Point

January 13, 2010

La Salle listened to my pleas, and closed this abomination of a pizza parlor a year after I graduated. Thank Christ. It was replaced by a Chinese food restaurant called Happy Fortune (though students often referred to it as "Happy Endings"). I have never eaten there, but I never heard complaints from anyone about the quality of the food, unlike its predecessor (though it seems like there were some issues, like an alleged incident in 2014, as documented by the Collegian, involving a drunk student waving a dildo around). Unfortunately, Happy Fortune closed down as well in 2017 (despite the petition!). I guess that building currently sits empty. Man, La Salle is not doing well financially, is it?

Optimism, Again
January 26, 2010

Hey, I finally made it to Ireland! Pam and I went last summer, and it was quasi-documented right here on Puke on Your Birthday (check out the archives for June 2017)! The administrator who kicked me off this trip hasn't been fired from La Salle yet, but as noted above, they are in such dire straits financially that it's bound to happen eventually, right? I'm not saying I'm rooting for such a thing to happen, but I will not lose sleep over the possibility. Last I heard, she was verbally sparing with people on Twitter, trying to defend La Salle's fucked-up decision to sell off some of their artwork.

Thirsty Thursday: FOUR LOKOS

May 6, 2010

I ended this post by thanking Four Loko for showing me the dark path that I needed to avoid. I didn't mention this at the time, because I didn't want to get ahead of myself, but six days before writing this post, I had met Pam. And there's NO FUCKING WAY she would've fallen madly in love with me if I had been drunk on Four Lokos at the time. So it's really good I had my Lokospringa before I met her. On the other hand, the more things change... About a month ago, I drank another Four Loko, mostly as a lark, in a run-down bodega on Washington Ave., with my pal Drew. Immediately afterward I met up with Pam and a couple of her friends at a cidery in South Philly, and though I wasn't Loko-blackout, I guess the Loko did take me past the point where Pam is comfortable with my drinking. I got an earful the next day about trying to drunkenly hold the baby, don't worry. Okay, I'm done with Four Loko starting NOW.

"That Stench!" Top Five Worst Places in Philadelphia

August 21, 2012

Places that are undeniable worse than the places named on this weak-ass list: Any side street off of Glenwood Ave., west of Broad; Kensington and Somerset when no cops are present; the Trestle Inn; a crowded, late El; the Gallery before it got shut down; Yards Brewery; the side streets off of Germantown Ave., south of Wister; the heroin encampments off of Lehigh Ave. (they'll be back); Mad Rex; anywhere in Northeast Philadelphia.

Day 2: I Have Never Explored Graffiti Pier

May 27, 2017

It was a good thing that I made a point to hang out at Graffiti Pier a couple times last summer, because it was SHUT DOWN at the beginning of this summer. Which is fucking bullshit, the more I think about it. Conrail, a transportation conglomerate, owns the land where Graffiti Pier sits. They'll talk about "crime" at the Pier, and maybe that's true, but the real reason it's shut down is that Conrail doesn't want to get sued. Never mind that they could just SELL the land to the city, and open that shit up to the public. Nah, instead, they got the police to put a fucking 20-foot fence at the entrance. You could still sneak in, sure, but it's still a bummer either way.

Day 94: I Have Never [Censored, Again]
August 27, 2017

I mean, technically Pam finding out she was pregnant was a "sex thing," so I wasn't lying to y'all. We just couldn't talk about it on the blog at the time.

Day 96: I Have Never Eaten a Hoagie from Ricci's

August 29, 2017

After my ill-advised free-market capitalism rant last summer about neighborhood "efforts" to stop another gas station being built at Rising Sun and Tyson, I checked back on that Facebook page today, and it's pretty hilarious still. In the past year, the "Stop Royal Farms" page has morphed into a desperate fan page for the church on that corner, and efforts to give the church "historic designation" so Royal Farms can't build there. All this despite the fact that the church itself wants nothing to do with this. It's fucking hysterical. I stand by my theory that the swamp people of the Great Northeast are only fighting this because they are racists, and so, when Royal Farms inevitably wins, I will be taking off my Democratic Socialist cap for one day and eat a bucket of fried chicken on the street corner in victory.

Day 101: I Have Never Compiled a "Philly Bucket List"

September 3, 2017

Items from this bucket list that I have completed since I made the list: #4, Escape a room; #15, Capogiro gelato; #16, Rooster Soup for breakfast; #21, Sweet Lucy's fucking bangin' BBQ; #38, donated my CDs to Philly AIDS Thrift; #41, drank at a lot of the new breweries; #43, ate at Spread Bagel while they were taping an episode of Man Vs. Food; #98, Chinatown Square (for Beer Runners); #100, the new LOVE Park, which is pretty neat, despite the naysayers. Not a very eventful year, overall, I suppose. Maybe when Willow gets bigger we can start doing some more of this list.

So Appalled

April 26, 2018

This jabroni's album actually did drop on 6/1/18, to my surprise. I thought for sure it'd be late. But there it is. To my friends' credit, no one has really talked about it, so either they know not to talk about this asshole around me, or they didn't want to listen to it either. I was disappointed, however, to see all the coverage that my favorite website, Stereogum, gave to the album's release, and my favorite commenters seemed to be able to easily forgive him for his shittiness, even though he didn't really say he was sorry. Fuck him. He's a mentally unstable oblivious rich guy who can go sit on a rusty spike for all I care.

YEAH BUDDY

April 29, 2018

I already beat this high score with another one:

Though I was not able to manufacture a reverse jinx out of any of this, and the baby arrived when she wanted to arrive, no sooner. I swear to god I never want to play Tetris again.

The Hate That Hits Close to Home

June 23, 2018

After a while, my mom told my grandma to stop sharing any political posts at all, and she has, though I'm still not sleeping well over it. I know for a fact that my grandma is still looking at this misleading Russian-paid bullshit on a daily basis, and it fucking kills me to know that my flesh and blood is being brainwashed. It kills me too that she doesn't seem to want to even try to fact-check any of this. She's comfortable in the dark. I don't know what to do. (My grandpa, her husband, has not accepted my friend request because he doesn't want the same fact-checking treatment I gave his wife, I assume.) And, to make matters worse, I heard through my mom that grandma thinks that I "gave up" because I don't comment on her timeline anymore. See, she doesn't understand how "sharing" on FB works, and so she thinks I would still have a way to be commenting on the bullshit that she is reading, even when she doesn't share it. I'm going on a week-long vacation with grandma in a couple weeks from now, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm anticipating a week of relaxation and catching up with grandma, because I truly love her with all my heart, but I'm also anticipating at least one blow-up political argument. Bring it on, fam.

TV Review: Difficult People

Puke on Your Birthday reviews entertainment every Wednesday, taking a break from the usual inane nonsense and inconsequential bullshit typically posted here. This week, we check out Hulu's irreverent comedy Difficult People.

Difficult People
3 Seasons (28 episodes)
Streaming on Hulu

Not every TV show has to be revolutionary. It's great when TV shows make you work hard, put you on the edge of your seat, exhaust you, make you question life, furrow your brow, when they change the medium, etc. There's a time and a place for that. Holding a whimpering baby in one arm and a bowl of instant noodles in the other arm is not one of those times. Sometimes you just want something that makes you laugh. Difficult People delivers.

Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner star as Julie and Billy, two comedians and best friends trying to make it in Hollywood. Their various foibles and mishaps often collide by the end of the episode, to great comedic effect. But the plot is almost besides the point on this show, because this is basically a vehicle for Julie and Billy to just be assholes to everyone they meet. Hilarious assholes.

Every line of dialogue is designed to be a joke, and most of the time it works. A lot of the jokes poke fun at pop culture, and even when I don't get the reference, their delivery makes the jokes land regardless. And it's not even like most of the jokes are all that creative; I feel like every other joke follows the format of "It's more ____ than [pop culture reference]." Shit, though, if it doesn't make me laugh every time.

I'd be okay with 22 minutes of a Billy/Julie tête-à-tête every episode, but even better is that the show is fleshed out with a handful of supporting roles that get in on the action and make me crack up too. James Urbaniak is great as Julie's doting boyfriend, and Andrea Martin (Pam: "the crazy aunt from My Big Fat Greek Wedding!") kills as Julie's overbearing mother. Even Cole Escola is laugh-out-loud funny as an over-the-top gay man, stretching his flamboyance into parody.

To be clear, this show amounts to absolutely nothing but jokes. Every episode finds Billy and Julie seemingly on the brink of success, only to squander the opportunity with their self-serving foolishness, and by episode's end they find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order once more. None of the episodes I've seen so far (we have like six episodes left) have deviated from this formula. But like I said, that's not the point of this show. And it doesn't have to be!

As someone who found Curb Your Enthusiasm extremely tiring and worn thin in its most recent outing, Difficult People was the refresher that I needed. It's almost exactly like that show (the world is colluding against people who probably deserve the world to collude against them), but it turns up the tempo and layers on heaps of present-day pop culture references. Loving moments are constantly undermined by an insane amount of humor.

If you're in the mood for small bites of TV packed chock full of zingers, Difficult People is the show for you.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

Fixing The Lockhorns

Usually, the comics section in the Inquirer makes me irrationally angry. See my exploits with the Family Circus dipshits for examples. But there's one comic strip that just makes me depressed, and that's The Lockhorns.

Syndicated since 1968, The Lockhorns depicts a married couple who absolutely despise each other, and take relish in making fun of each other every chance they get. I guess in 1968, divorce wasn't a socially acceptable option for these two, but it's now 2018, and they are still together, and they still spew hatred out of their mouths constantly.

I'm not saying me and Pam get along every minute of every day, but there's a foundation of love there, and we treat each other with a mutual respect. The Lockhorns don't have that. They are bitter, twisted individuals who relish in their verbal sparring. There's no love here. Just spite and contempt.

Here at PoYB, we try to spread the love, not the hate. So I'm going to fix The Lockhorns. Let's all pretend that Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn love each other unconditionally, and they show it often by treating each other with respect and dignity. Read on for my caring, loving version of The Lockhorns, which I greatly prefer.

We could all stand to learn a little from the Lockhorns.

The Albums That Matter: Are You Experienced

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

Are You Experienced

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

1967

A lot has been written about Are You Experienced, and rightly so. It's one of the all-time greats in classic rock. In fact, it's part of the foundation of classic rock itself. There are about ten albums that you can point to and say, "This is where it all began," and Are You Experienced is one of them.

The irony, though, is that because of all this, I actually tend to underrate Are You Experienced a little bit. I first heard this album when it was turning 40 years old. It was absolutely a revolutionary album in 1967, but in 2007, it didn't quite reach that level, because I was already inundated with all the music in the subsequent decades that had been influenced by Hendrix. Had I been born in the '50s, and listened to this in the summer of '67, this shit would've blown my fucking mind, and it actually did do that for plenty of people that summer. It makes me jealous, that I won't ever be able to hear the classics with fresh ears.

So whenever I listen to Jimi Hendrix, I try to put myself in that headspace, because the music here is worth the effort. I spent a lot of hours in my youth, laying supine on the bed, eyes closed, headphones on, Hendrix in the Discman (okay, a few hours at least). And I found that I was almost able to reach back into a previous life. Are You Experienced (and even more so, the other two albums in his discography) takes you on a trip. I've never done psychedelic drugs (and this is probably so fucking lame to say), but I see colors and shapes when I listen to this stuff. Jimi Hendrix paints pictures with his guitar. It's pretty neat.

Jimi Hendrix unfortunately will remain to me some guy who died almost a half century ago. But his Marshall twin stacks scream at us through the generations.

Good album.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Manic Depression"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stray Observations

• Shout out to possibly the greatest rhythm section of all time (no small claim), with Noel Redding on bass and the wonderfully named Mitch Mitchell on drums. These two guys were, unfortunately, glorified session musicians at the time of this album's recording; producer Chas Chandler purposefully kept the songwriting spotlight solely on Hendrix, and Redding and Mitchell had little to do besides just playing their instruments as instructed. As a former drummer, I feel slightly insulted, but, like, I listen to the album and I wouldn't change a thing, so what the fuck do I know. I just know that when it came time to buy the requisite Jim Hendrix college dorm poster, I bought one that featured the whole band, not just Hendrix.
• Are You Experienced peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200. Since Sgt. Pepper's came out a month later, it doesn't surprise me that they couldn't get to #1. Except, the album that actually stopped their rise to the peak wasn't Sgt. Pepper's, but the Monkees' More of the Monkees. I knew the Monkees were popular, but I didn't realize they were THAT popular. Look at this. The Monkees were #1 on the charts for 29 of 52 weeks in 1967. I guess what's considered "popular music" will always be strange and grotesque in retrospect.
• Wikipedia also indicates that this album rose to #10 on the Billboard R&B charts, which to me speaks more about the discrepancy of what we consider R&B now vs. then.
• Axis: Bold as Love was released the same year, and Electric Ladyland in 1968. Jimi Hendrix's output was insane, and it makes me (and millions of others, sure) wonder if his career would've continued to follow that upward trajectory or eventually flamed out, had he not died in 1970.
• There's a certain type of person who always has to bring up the song "Hey Joe" when they greet me. I'm not sure what type of person it is, but there's plenty of them out there. My acquaintance Rudi from high school was one of these people. Our friendship relationship existed solely because our last names dictated adjacent locker assignments all four years, as well as the fact that we both like Are You Experienced, and I had the same name as one of those songs. Our mutual appreciation for music ended there (he did not like "Rudie Can't Fail" by the Clash). Anyways, where was I?
• As noted above, I've never done drugs, so I cannot speak to the veracity that "Purple Haze" et al perfectly describe the feeling of an acid trip. Jimi Hendrix denied that the song had anything to do with drugs, but rather was about a "dream" that he had about walking on the bottom of the sea. This explanation sounds equally plausible to John Lennon's daughter's coloring book inspiring "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
• ALBUM COVER: The U.K. version and the U.S. version had different album covers, and I greatly prefer the U.S. one. They both feature the three members of the band staring at the camera like they have a secret. The U.S. version, though, utilizes a convex lens and purple/yellow color scheme, really underlining the fact that this album is psychedelic, man.
• Punctuation note: The album does not have a question mark in the title, but the song does. This is the second album in a row we've covered that lacks a question mark for nebulous reasons.
• Yeah, I have more concrete to say in the Strays than I did in the article proper. I considered doing the whole post as Stray Observations only, but figured that an album with "Purple Haze" deserved at least some purple prose.

NEXT TIME: Are You Serious by Andrew Bird (and possibly Armchair Apocrypha as well, as a sort of double post about Bird)

Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do, Part I: The Rap

Welcome to "Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do," a new series here on PoYB. Please first read this blog post I wrote in 2009. There, I listed 22 subjects that I would NEVER write about on this website. Here in 2018, I say: don't fucking tell me what I can't do. For the next twenty-two Sundays, I will be blogging about these subjects, in striking defiance of my 20-year-old naiveté.

TODAY'S "FORBIDDEN" SUBJECT: "That rap that I wrote about The Canterbury Tales"

WHY IT WAS FORBIDDEN: Because it is stupid and lame.

HOW I WILL WRITE ABOUT IT: By copying and pasting the damn thing wholesale. Be warned, it is rigorously and depressingly awful. Also, I guess you have to be somewhat familiar with The Canterbury Tales, which my Sparknotes-reading 12th grade English class probably was?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Canterbury Rap

INTRO:

My name is Harry Bailey
And I’m here to say
That you’ll get a free dinner,
You won’t have to pay.

REFRAIN:

If you tell the best tale
While we’re on our way.
So hop on your horse,
Let’s go to Canterbur-AY!!

VERSE 1:

Here is the knight,
He’s never been rude.
He’s moral, courageous, valiant,
Honored, strong, and true.

Fifteen mortal battles
Are what he’s been in;
Just give him a sword,
And watch him win.

His son is called the Squire;
They say his hair is curly.
He’s good in bed,
His physique is burly.

They had a servant,
He was a Yeoman.
He kind of looked like Robin Hood;
With his sword and shield he killed men.

REPEAT REFRAIN

VERSE 2:

Now there was a Prioress,
She acted like she was French.
They say she’s a nun;
I call her a wench.

She never let food fall from
Her lips to her breast.
There’s not a nun with better manners
From the east to the west.

The Monk was there too,
He was fat and a mess;
He had many a dainty horse,
And he loved the flesh.

The Friar was a drunk
And he slept around.
He played his fiddle night and day,
All around the town.

REPEAT REFRAIN

VERSE 3:

The Merchant, he was cool;
He wore a Flemish beaver hat.
He made good use of his wit,
And knew where the money was at.

The Clerk had books and logic,
He made good use of each.
Gladly he would learn,
And gladly he would teach!

The Sgt. of the Law
Knew every statute by heart.
When someone challenged him in the courtroom
He tore ‘em apart.

The Franklin – his beard
Was white as a daisy.
When it came to hospitality,
He never was lazy.

REPEAT REFRAIN

VERSE 4:

The Haberdasher, Carpenter, Dyer,
Tapestry Maker, and Weaver:
Chaucer didn’t write much about them;
They probably didn’t really matter.

The Cook he had a nasty
Ulcer on his shin.
He could roast, broil, fry, boil, and bake,
Whatever season we were in.

A Shipman was there
He came from the far west.
When it came to stealing wine and sailing,
He was without a doubt the best.

The Doctor had his knowledge of medicine
Always at the ready.
Not only did he use medication,
He also used astrology.

REPEAT REFRAIN

INTERLUDE:

The Wife of Bath, the first Feminist,
Was quite a find,
She married five men, took advantage of them,
And then they died….

Coincidence?! I think not!!

VERSE 5:

The Parson, there was no
Better priest anywhere.
When it came to helping people,
He was just and he was fair.

Now the Plowman, his brother,
Lived in peace and charity.
He smelled like dung,
But he was still neighborly.

The Miller was a drinker.
The Miller was a fighter.
He broke down doors, his beard was red,
There was no one who was mightier.

The Manciple bought food
For the Queens and Kings.
He used his wit,
And bought all kinds of things.

The Reeve was slender,
His legs were long and lean.
He was the best darn Reeve
The world had ever seen.

REPEAT REFRAIN

VERSE 6:

The Summoner had acne;
He was another wine-drinker.
And if the rumors are true,
He sleeps with the Pardoner.

The Pardoner, I should explain,
Was even flirtier than the Monk.
I guess he had a fetish for guys
Who SPOKE LATIN WHEN THEY WERE DRUNK.

Although there’s minimal sexual tension
Between the two while telling tales,
It’s obvious they’re going to hook up
Along the Canterbury Trail.

REPEAT REFRAIN

BRIDGE:

The author, Geoffrey Chaucer,
Was along for the ride.
He claims he has a short wit,
But we all know that’s a lie.

REPEAT INTRO AND REFRAIN

The Top 100 Songs of the '00s (Part 3: #50-#26)

Yes. Ho hum. Another 25 songs from the indie-rock playlist of Joe's life. Why can't we get some good pop songs on this bitch? Why is "Hey Ya" conspicuously absent? Why is Joe such a fucking snob?!

Look for Part 1 HERE, look for Part 2 HERE, and look for Part 3 BELOW.

50. "You! Me! Dancing!" by Los Campesinos!

I literally just wrote about this damn song. But please know that you don't have to be a major league baseball relief pitcher to appreciate this fucking marvel of a tune.

49. "Black" by Okkervil River

The last two Okkervil River albums have been lackluster, and the reason I feel this way is that there haven't been any Okkervil songs in the same vein as "Black" on them. You know, the songs in which Will Sheff puts every emotion he can muster into the words, and his voice cracks, and you can just hear that fucking passion. Fuck, dude, just listen to the final verse here, the way he sings "Let me through that dooooor!!!" I love it. My chest gets tight when I hear it, and the other various times during this song he goes to that level. It's amazing.

48. "Another Travelin' Song" by Bright Eyes

I mean, yeah, this song is a great roadtrip song, if you take it at surface level (and I very often do). But dig a little deeper. Oberst sings about travelin', about wanting to return home, and about being depressed no matter where the fuck he is. Dude's a fucking wordsmith.

47. "Heavy Metal Drummer" by Wilco

This is probably the most fun and poppiest in Wilco's catalogue of great songs. I always think about Pam when I hear this song, because whenever she hears this song she always thinks of me.

46. "I Feel So" by Box Car Racer

"I feel so mad / I feel so angry." These are the lyrics that Tom DeLonge felt were, ahem, "too dark" for Blink-182, so he made a side project and left out Mark Hoppus, who was pretty pissed at the whole thing. The tension would last for another decade or so, until Tom DeLonge went off the deep end, started getting really into UFO hunting, and was kicked out of Blink-182. Anyways, besides all that, this is a great fucking angsty emo-pop song from my youth.

45. "The National Anthem" by Radiohead

We thought this song was the shit in high school. For Field Day my senior year, a few of us got a band together, drank a few Rolling Rocks (at school?!), and played the worst version of "The National Anthem" that's ever been performed. Please kneel.

44. "25!!" by Bomb the Music Industry!

Oh lordy, I am so glad that I discovered this song well after I had gotten through the time in my life which this song describes. It would have been too much otherwise.

43. "Hang Me Up to Dry" by Cold War Kids

There used to be a radio station that would play exclusively college rock on certain nights. I thought for sure it was Y100, but that station was kaput by 2005, and this song came out in 2006. I guess it was WXPN? Don't quote me on that. I just remember tuning into that program every night for weeks, and waiting patiently until they played "Hang Me Up to Dry." It was such a good song that Cold War Kids still get medium-sized font on festival posters even though "Hang Me Up to Dry" was their last good song, twelve fucking years ago.

42. "A Certain Romance" by Arctic Monkeys

Everything about Arctic Monkeys' debut album screams "we're wild and reckless and young and free" and when I too was wild and reckless and young and free, this shit spoke to me and my friends. Burholme played this song, of course. Did we play every song on this list? Read on to find out...

41. "Cute Without the E" by Taking Back Sunday

Just like "MakeDamnSure" at #67, I have no idea how or when I went from ironically enjoying Taking Back Sunday to sincerely and honestly enjoying Taking Back Sunday. But it happened. And here we are.

40. "Lust for Life" by Girls

I have three out of the six things Christopher Owens says he wishes he had in this song. I have a father, pizza, and a bottle of wine. I do not have a boyfriend, a suntan, or a beach house. Still, with a 50% success rate, listening to this song makes me "crazy, totally mad," just like him.

39. "Party in the U.S.A." by Miley Cyrus

I've already explained why this song is a monster. I will NEVER get tired of it.

38. "Sleeping Lessons" by the Shins

Me, listening to the first two minutes and nineteen seconds of the Shins' new album in 2007: "This is going to be a boring fucking album, isn't it?" Me, passing to the 2:26 mark: "This is the greatest song of all time."

37. "Last Nite" by the Strokes

Meet Me in the Bathroom made the extensive case that "Last Nite" irrevocably changed music forever. I cannot disagree, though, I dunno, it might even be enough to just say this is a GOOD SONG and it'll still sit pretty at #37.

36. "Elephant Gun" by Beirut

Brah, this list needs more World Music.

35. "The Mistress Witch of McClure (or, the Mind That Knows Itself)" by Sufjan Stevens

I think it says a lot about Sufjan as an artist that his no-doubt BEST song of the '00s was on a B-sides collection. Who knows why "The Mistress Witch" was left off of Illinois proper? All I know is that this is an absolute gut-punch of an song (and if Carrie & Lowell really was a skeleton key that showed us that all of Sufjan's songs are autobiographical, then this might just be a double gut punch).

34. "The Fall of the High School Running Back" by the Mountain Goats

Fuck, I love songs that tell a story. This story is so short and succinct, but I feel like it could be a book if John Darnielle wanted it to be.

33. "Massive Nights" by the Hold Steady

There are going to be a few more Hold Steady songs forthcoming (spoiler alert), so I want to save my "they were singing about my teenage life!" sentiments for those. But still, c'mon, "Massive Nights" really was my fucking life as a teen. How does Craig Finn do it?

32. "Banquet" by Bloc Party

"Banquet" makes me mourn the day that Matt Tong left Bloc Party's drum set. This shit is so fucking tight. How were we not all dancing to this song in 2005, is what I wanna know.

31. "All the Wine" by the National

When you are drunk as shit and want to feel unstoppable, listen to "All the Wine." (And when you are drunk as shit and want to feel sad, listen to literally anything else by the National.)

30. "Fight Test" by the Flaming Lips

"Sometimes a person has no choice, as unpleasant as it may be, to surrender to every conflict without challenge, he finds, is worse than getting beaten up." So says the liner notes for this song. And who cares if this song is a blatant Cat Stevens rip-off? It speaks the truth!

29. "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem

If I could somehow put together images and clips of all these dumb fucking memories I write about on PoYB, then the soundtrack to that hypothetical montage would be "All My Friends."

28. "Black Cab" by Jens Lekman

Everyone loves this song, which I guess is funny, because the song lyrics are so depressing. Jens could never kill a party even if he tried! (Also, on an unrelated note, my dad spent a whole summer misinterpreting the lyrics and singing "Black Cat" under his breath while delivering mail.)

27. "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus

I feel like every song released before 2005 on this list has come with some sort of disclaimer, like, "well, I know this song is shit, but preteen Joe loved it so what can I do except put it here on this list?" Maybe this is another one of those tracks. But fuck it—NO. "Teenage Dirtbag" is worthy of the praise it earns! The strumming guitar rhythm totally left over from the '90s. The strangely appealing falsetto. The story of unrequited love it tells that any high school bozo could relate to. That moment of release: "oh YEAAAAAHHH. DIRTBAAAAAAAaaaaaaag!" I have nothing to explain here. The song holds up. Let me prove it the next time we get drunk at a karaoke bar.

26. "When You Were Young" by the Killers

"Mr. Brightside" notwithstanding, the Killers hit their peak when they ditched the new wave aesthetics and tried to be Bruce Springsteen. Brandon Flowers wore a fucking bolo tie, for Christ's sake! I remember the first time I heard this song. I remember the goddamn city block I was driving on when this song first came on the radio, that's how hard it hit me. Have I used the word "epic" yet to describe any of these songs? No? Okay, cool, because "When You Were Young" is the first one to truly deserve the description.

SEE YOU NEXT SATURDAY FOR THE TOP 25 SONGS OF THE 2000s AHHHHHHHHH