I Would Have Liked Crazy Train

1. I've been doing a little more research into KOA. From what I've seen, the main organization doesn't have a connection to any church or the KKK, but they do have a Value Kard. Argh.

2. I really want a pair of hot pink sneakers. Someone stop me.

3. Why does everything taste better through a straw?

4. I really like the way pigeons move their heads when they walk. I don't get why people hate pigeons. They're pretty rad.

5. I think you can judge a lot about a generation by their drugs of choice.

6. I once saw a fabric store called "Sewer's Dream". I wonder if the owners never realized their gaffe, or if they noticed it after the sign was made, and decided to just go for it anyway. Ha.

7. Did you know that there's a large Port a Potty storage/rental on the Bellingham waterfront? Who looked at that beach, with the sparkly water and redwoods extending right down to the beach, and said "Let's put rows and rows of Port a Potties here?" Asshole.

8. I've never been able to sing. What I lack in pitch and tone, I make up for in volume. In third grade, I was asked to just mouth the words when we performed for our parents.

9. In seventh grade, my chorus teacher was this big dude who wore the typical bad teacher ensemble - loud polyester pants, short sleeve button down shirts, big glasses, and a combover. He also always had a line of spit between his upper and lower lip, no matter how forcefully he sang. He made us learn antiwar songs, like One Tin Soldier and Blowin' In The Wind. Maybe he had longed to be a hippy, but felt trapped in a small New England town? I don't know. I do know just how uncool a bunch of mumbly, embarrassed seventh graders can make Bob Dylan sound. He also tried to reach us with Fly Like An Eagle by Steve Miller. Now there was an embarrassing song to sing, with all the tick-tock-ticks and the do-do-doo-dos. I think he was trying to reach us with contemporary music, but failed to notice that Steve Miller was no longer contemporary. Sure, maybe a few years later, when we raised the first bong to our lips, we would have been happy to hear The Joker, or Led Zep's Ramble On, or some Bob Marley. But not in seventh grade! I would have loved to see him make us perform Talk Dirty to Me or Welcome to the Jungle. Ha!

10. Note to parents everywhere: if your high schooler is listening to classic rock, you can be almost guaranteed that drugs are involved.

11. Years later, when I was a sophomore in college, I returned to my middle school to see my cousin graduate. Yep, I went to a school system the "graduated" you from almost everything. As the lights went down in the auditorium and the curtains parted, I heard the familiar tick-tock-ticks. There were the eighth graders, tick-tock-ticking and do-do-doo-doing behind this dude who never talked when he was a student in my grade. He sang his heart out, all 70's rock star style. This dude was my age. Had he been doing this for years? How do you ask a dude in his 20s to sing at an eighth grade graduation? How do you agree to sing at an eighth grade graduation at the school where you were a total outcast? If you never spoke while you were a student, how was your vocal styling noticed enough to have you hired? It was supremely weird, friends.

12. If you've never heard the song, enjoy: