Richard Marx vs. Karl Marx: A Comparative Study

Richard: Loves eating pussy for dinner (an amuse bush, if you will).

Karl: Has a flavor saver to rival ZZ Top; might or might not have used it on Jenny for its obvious purpose (see below).

Richard: Wears tacky man jewelry. 

Karl: Eschews the trappings of consumerism except maybe a timepiece to count down the hours until the collapse of the bourgeoisie.

Richard: Born in Illinois and now lives in Malibu.

Karl: Stateless and lived in exile and is now dead.

Richard: Will be right here waiting for you.

Karl: Will be right here writing Das Kapital.

Richard: Sold 30 million records. 

Karl: Views the sale of 30 million anything as a harbinger of late-stage capitalism.

Richard: Your mom listens to him in a bathtub with candles.

Karl: Your college boyfriend reads him in a Starbucks.

Richard: Married Daisy Fuentes in Aspen in 2015.

Karl: Married Jenny Von Westphalen and had 7 kids 4 of whom were also named Jenny.

Richard: Signed by Capitol Records in the 1980s.

Karl: Signed capitalism’s death warrant in the 1880s.

Richard: Does not go by dick, probably is a bit of one.

Karl: Same same.

Richard: Coke is the opiate of the masses.

Karl: That would be religion.

Richard: Made a zillion Almighty Dollars.

Karl: Shuns the Almighty Dollar.

Richard: Wants to make your silk Victoria Secret undies wet.

Karl: Wants everyone to wear the same state-issued, plain, dry, white cotton underpants.

You Robbed a Bank for Me

You're at the bank with a gun

And you’re upset
You’re going off about voices in your head 
'Cause you’re a stalker and the teller is scared too 
I'm locked in my house
It's a typical Tuesday night
I'm writing music about boys who made me cry
And you’ll never get past my body guard crew 

But you wear ski masks
I wear Gucci
You are scary 
And crazy and spooky 
Dreaming about the day when you jump up
And find that you can rob a bank and then do me from behind 

Can’t you see the cops, the guys who will arrest you
I’m dialing 911 so why can't you see
You are so crazeeee
To rob a bank for meeeee

Walkin' the streets with you —oh wait no you’re in jail
I can't help thinking this is such an epic fail 
Freaking out in my mansion, thinking to myself
Hey isn't this creepy?

And you've got a charge that could lock you up for years 
I’ll come to court and testify through sobs and tears
You say you’re fine
The judge knows better than that
Hey what you doing with that baseball bat?

‘Cause you wear ski masks
I wear Gucci
You are crazy 
And scary and spooky 
Dreaming about the day when you jump up
And find that you can rob a bank and then do me from behind 

Can’t you see the cops, the guys who will arrest you
I’m dialing 911 so why can't you see
You are so crazeeee
You robbed a bank for meeeee

Standing by and waiting at my back door
All this time how could you not know
Baby, you are so crazeeee
You robbed a bank for meee

Oh, I remember you drivin' to my house in the middle of the night
I'm the one who called the fuzz
When you tried to get inside 
And I know your lawyer’s name
And you threw some cash at me
I think I know where you belong
In jail and throw away the key

Can’t you see the cops, the guys who will arrest you
I’m dialing 911 so why can't you see
You are so crazeeee
To rob a bank for meeeee

Standing by and waiting at my back door
All this time
How could you not know
Baby you are so crazy
You robbed a bank for me

You robbed a bank for me
Have you ever thought just maybe
You are real crazy
To rob a bank for me?

6 Songs I Never Want My 10 Year-Old Daughter to Hear

He said he met this little girl by the name of Onika
Way my body shape, all the boys wanna freak her
Brag and I boast, they be doin the most
If I look at his friend, he'll be grippin the toaster
So I took him to the crib to kill him with it
Put my legs behind my head, I hit the ceiling with it
When I put it in his mouth I couldn't believe it
He looked me in my eyes and said he wanna breed it
Passa Passa, you ain't got no wins in mi casa
Big fat pussy; Mufasa

--Nicki Minaj, French Montana

My milk shake brings all the boys to the yard,
And they're like,
Its better than yours,
Damn right its better than yours,
I can teach you,
But I have to charge

--Milkshake, Kelis

Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy (Hey, what up girl?)
Grab my glasses, I'm out the door; I'm gonna hit this city (Let's go)
Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack
'Cause when I leave for the night, I ain't coming back
I'm talking pedicure on our toes, toes
Trying on all our clothes, clothes
Boys blowing up our phones, phones
Drop-topping, playing our favorite CD's
Rollin' up to the parties
Trying to get a little bit tipsy

--Tik Tok, Kesha

I eat my dinner in my bathtub

Then I go to sex clubs

Watching freaky people getting it on
It doesn't make me nervous if anything

I'm restless yeah, I've been around and I've seen it all
I get home, I got the munchies, binge on all my Twinkies, throw up in the tub and I go to sleep
And I drank up all my money, dazed and kinda lonely

--Habits, Tove Lo

There's a stranger in my bed
There's a pounding my head
Glitter all over the room
Pink flamingos in the pool
I smell like a minibar
DJ's passed out in the yard
Barbie's on the barbecue
This a hickey or a bruise?
Pictures of last night
Ended up online
I'm screwed
Oh well
It's a blacked out blur
But I'm pretty sure it ruled, damn

--Last Friday Night, Katy Perry

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie

--Love the Way You Lie, Eminim ft. Rihanna

I Want Neurosurgery to Remove Butt Rock Lyrics from My Brain

Surely insurance will cover this? If not, it should.

It seems grossly unfair—or at least wasteful and inefficient—for precious brain space to be occupied by lyrics to songs like “I Saw Red” and “Cherry Pie” by Warrant, or “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison.

The older I get, the more valuable my mental real estate becomes. It’s all I can do to keep the basic organizational details of the sinking nonprofit known as my household from eluding me.

Is Tuesday Battle of the Books, or is that Wednesday? When is the Montessori preschool fundraiser again? Have I read the board packet for that board I’m on? How jam-packed with meetings is my Thursday, and have I adequately prepared for them? What’s the fucking password to my Amazon Prime/Netflix/kids’ sports/bank account again?

To say nothing of all the optional things I wish my brain had room for, such as learning Mandarin or how to hunt and field dress a moose, or operate heavy machinery with hydraulics, or playing the banjo or get really good at tap dancing.

Honestly it’s legitimately offensive to me that there are Warrant and Poison lyrics squatting in my neurons when there is literally no use for them AT ALL EVER AGAIN (if there ever was), and I could just as easily be using that same gray matter for literally anything else.

Do I really need to know that Jani Lane “saw red when I opened up the door I saw red my heart just spilled onto the floor and I didn’t need to see his face I saw yours I saw red and then I closed the door I don’t think I’m gonna love you anymoooooooore” or that “she’s my cherry pie tastes so sweet make a grown man cry something something is a sweet surprise sweet cherry piiiiiiiiiie”

No.

Do I really need to know that Bret Michaels thinks “we both lie silent and still in the dead of the night though we both lie close together we feel miles apart inside was it something I said or something I did did the words not come out right well I tried not to hurt you well I tried but I guess that’s why they say every rose has its thorn just like every night has its dawn just like every cowboy sings a sad sad song every rose has its thorn?”

Also no.

I literally typed ALL of that from MEMORY without the aid of Google! I don’t have this kind of cranial resources to spare! 

What a goddamned fucking waste this is.

2 Live Crew Lyrics Rewritten for Woke Hipsters in 2017

The school bus in 6th (?) grade in 1989 was something else, lemme tell you. It seemed like evvveerrry boy had a cassette of 2 Live Crew and was playing it on a boom box, screaming out AH ME SO HORNY ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME at the top of their lungs. 

And for better or worse, you just know that shit would NOT fly now. So I rewrote some of 2 Live Crew's lyrics from As Nasty as They Wanna Be for Woke Hipsters in 2017.

There's only one  any number of equally valid ways to have a good time
Fuck that pussy and make it mine patriarchy where the sun don't shine

Figure out what she's into and then sort of like, feel it out, bro.Lay the bitch on the bed, flat on her back
Hold her legs up high, make the pussy splak
You can put her in the buck by sittin' on a sink
Wrap her legs 'round you, now take this DICK!

--Put Her in the Buck

There's only one any number of equally valid places where we can go
Where the price is right just to fuck a ho depending on what you feel like doing
It's always popular with the girls and the guys
Cause for all my money, it's the best buy
Ten dollars, two hours is the time of the stay There's no cover charge
It's more than enough time to slay
Each room has a bed and also a sink This microbrewery has the best BOGO deal
So you can also catch live music there on Wednesdays, I hear. wash your dick after fucking the pink
But be careful of the things that you use
Cause you can get arrested for sex abuse
So as you hit the door and the panties drop
Whole lot of suckin' and fuckin' at the Fuck Shop!

--The Fuck Shop

You in my house now, you talkin' all that shit so please, go on. Didn't mean to interrupt.
So get the fuck out, you sorry ass bitch I'm sensing a tension between us right now
You come in my house, eatin' all my shit micro-greens
So get the fuck out, you sorry ass bitch I think we need some space right now?

Get up off yo' ass, and clean up all this shit your collection of Arcade Fire bobbleheads
Look at you, you sorry ass, low-down raggedy bitch you've always looked kind of like my sister. Hahah, I know that sounds kind of weird and random.
You sittin' 'round my house, smokin' all this shit
So get on out my house, you slimy ass bitch I'm wondering if you still have my travel mandolin and that dab rig I loaned you.

--Get The Fuck Out My House

For reals, I want to go to a wedding where 2 Live Crew's "Fuck Shop" is the couple's first dance, because they met at a 2 Live Crew concert. Admit that would be seriously amazing.

Southwest Airlines is Getting Roasted for Making Its Passengers a Captive Audience to Emo/Hipster Open Mic Night

Listen. I love live music as much as anyone. I've probably spent more time and money on live music over the course of my life than any other form of entertainment, and live music gets played in my house on the reg with varying degrees of skill, depending on who's playing it. 

That said, I feel like a person should be able to choose one's entertainment and not have it foisted upon them, because this is America for fuck's sake. 

So when I read that Southwest Airlines just finalized an agreement with Warner Music Nashville to "expand its series of pop-up in air concerts," my first reaction was there had better be a two drink minimum. By which I mean, Southwest better be giving every passenger on that plane two free drinks after making them a captive audience to some emo hipster trio playing Arcade Fire covers at 30,000 feet while a baby with ear pressure problems screams its head off in the background.

Noise cancelling headphones were invented for a reason, and that reason is airplanes. Arguably, an airplane is the number two place where you are most subjected to unwelcome sounds, with the airport itself being number one.

It'd be nice if you could just close your ears the same way you can your eyes, but you can't.

Instead, you have to listen to people disciplining their children (or not) in ways you disagree with and judge contemptuously with a vicious, involuntary side-eye. 

You have to hear a guy in pointy shoes, cuff links, and a $2,500 TAG Heuer wristwatch blabbing about an Excel spreadsheet on his bluetooth like he's splitting the fucking atom and wants to make sure the whole world knows it. 

You have to listen to two bros in cammo and baseball caps guffaw while they swap dumb small-talk fish stories. 

You have to listen to the same FAA-mandated safety lecture about how your seat cushion conveniently turns into an inner tube in case you end up floating in the Pacific Ocean. 

You have to listen to yet another promotion for a frequent flier credit card you've already maxed out. 

You have to hear the toilet flushing. 

You have to focus on the indecipherable updates from the cockpit about "bumpy air" and listen intently for mechanical failures and/or signs of alarm in the pilot's voice or--God forbid--the words "brace for impact."

In other words, even through a good pair of noise cancelling headphones, there's stuff you're forced to listen to, and now Southwest Airlines has added a FUCKING OPEN MIC NIGHT to the cacophony. 

This seems like a decidedly sadistic thing to do to already ragged and weary air-travelers. 

As if getting felt up by TSA isn't enough of an affront to one's dignity and sense of calm, you will now be trapped against your will in a confined space while some L.A.-based Lumineers-inspired, dime-a-dozen Adam Levine-wannabe with sleeve-ink and hair product plays the same three chords and croons earnestly with his eyes closed into a mic that carries his maudlin voice all the way to Seat 33C.

There are not enough peanuts in the world to throw at this idea. Just because you call something a "pop-up" something doesn't make it cool. In fact, if something is called a "pop-up" anything that's generally a pretty good indication that it's going to be insufferable AF. 

An "amenity" is defined as a "desirable or useful feature or facility of a building or place." If that's true, then why do I feel like Southwest should pay me to take these flights, instead of the other way around? What’s next? Mid-air TEDx talks?

I Rewrote This Apocalyptic R.E.M. Song for 2017

Oh great that wasn’t an earthquake
Drones, bombs, and fighter planes
Kim-Jong Un needs to get laid

Three giant hurricanes
Look at all the trees burn
World serves the world's greed
Don’t misjudge their misdeeds
Tweet it up a notch, they’ve got no strength

Their blather and their chatter
Makes us fear fight, world blight
Screaming that “you’re fired”
Make the world go up in flames
And a government for hire and a combat site

Alt-right, white fright, make everybody worry
About a mushroom cloud of fury that is mad high-tech
Team by team, reporters baffled, Trumped, leaks, Assanged,

Mnuchin on a public plane, fine, then

Uh oh, overflow, Obamacare and Tax Code

But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself

World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed

Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent and the left, right

You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light

Feeling unpsyched

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine

Non-stop, T.V. hour, don't get caught in treason 

Slash and burn, return, listen to the news churn

Lock 'em in uniform, grandstanding, kneetaking

Every motive escalate, internet incinerate

Light a candle, light up Twitter, countdown, rundown

Watch your feels crush, crush, uh oh

This means no fear, cavalier, Anti-fa, and steer clear

An armament, and parliament, a tournament of lies

Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, Congress Grow. A. Spine.

It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)
I feel fine (I feel fine)

It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

The other night I kinda cried, about our national divide

People falling into line, climate change deadlnes

Vladimir Putin, Kapernick, and Rocket Man

Grand Old Party, headfake, Machiavellian BOOM
You sick despotic, fake patriotic, FAKE NEWS? SAD! Right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

Too Easy

It's almost too easy to make fun of Phish and everyone who listens to them and goes to their shows. 

That's just fine with me, because my absolute favorite hobby is making fun of myself. And I can fully make fun of myself for how much I love seeing Phish play live, especially in my little hometown of 11 million souls.

I think of Phish like Dungeons & Dragons or cilantro. Unless you like it--a lot--you can't possibly understand why anyone would. But if you do like it, well, you are fucking INTO that shit!

Phish is like cilantro, in that people who like it like it on everything, and people who don't have a visceral reaction to how bad it tastes. 

A Phish show is also like a game of D&D, in that when you're playing, you're immersed in the adventure of it. There are four dungeon masters on stage and it's a roll of the dice where you're going next. You're transported to a world with its own subculture, costumes, and lingo. You know it's silly and make-believe, and that the rest of the world thinks it's stupid and ridiculous. Yet you're not quitting that shit or skipping hippie-con for anything.

There is also, of course, an element of nostalgia to anything you've liked for so long and that you associate with youthful exuberance. I have too many responsibilities to just travel around the country seeing Phish like I used to in the 1990s, and I don't have the mental real estate to dork out on all their stats and whereabouts anymore.

But for a few hours a year, it's still fun to travel back to that time and place, only now without the emotional baggage of my largely miserable late teens and early 20s. 

The band has grown up too, and if you've seen them a lot over the years you can tell. They're confident and clean, with a bit less frenetic energy, but with a certain unbridled self-possession that accompanies the shedding of fucks that comes with age. 

Although Phish has never played in Alaska (fingers crossed), they played their song Alaska last night, in the same venue where I saw my first arena rock concert--Guns n' Roses--when I was 14. It was almost perfect that a fellow Alaskan and O.H.M. reader tracked me down to say hi at his first show at the Garden.

MSG used to be a shithole in a gritty part of the city. It only sold popcorn, peanuts, Kosher hot dogs, and shitty beer like a Little League concession. Times have changed. Last night I found myself eating a Greek salad in the equivalent of an immaculate airport concourse. 

I wish I could express in words the shade and side-eye on the face of the guy who sold that Greek salad to me. He looked at me and rolled his eyes contemptuously at my very existence. I wanted to explain that my failure to understand the new weird credit card machine and ordering process was an issue of Alaska-based technology incompetency, and not only dumb hippie-hood, but I didn't have the energy to mount a defense of myself.

I'm almost 40, and I've surrendered to the flow of dorkiness forever.

Elixir Guitar Strings Get Right to the Point

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That trifecta has been the cornerstone of popular culture since the 1960s, and it's not going away anytime soon.

The makers of Elixir acoustic guitar strings understand this on a visceral marketing psychology level, because the package LEGIT looks like Trojans or personal lubricant. 

I can't tell you how many times I wander into Geoff's office (affectionately known as "the single" for its college dorm-like attributes, e.g. a Simpsons poster and an amplifier) and do a double-take when I see these.

I'm like, wait a MINUTE! What is my husband doing with a weird random pack of condoms or KY that he's just leaving here in plain view--oh wait, never mind. It's just more guitar strings. Which at least answers the immediate concern.

But when you think about it, it's not a very far leap from guitars to sex at all. At the risk of over-generalizing, let's play a game called guitars are for getting pusssaaaaay. It's a  Q&A, so bear with me.

Who asks for guitar lessons? 13 year-old boys. Why do 13 year-old boys want guitar lessons? Because they want to be rock stars. Why do they want to be rock stars? Because rock stars get allllllll the pusssssaaaay. Why do they want to get aaaallllll the pusssaaaaaay? Because they're 13 year old boys. 

Everyone knows that!

And no one knows it better than Elixir guitar strings, with their "tone" that "lasts 3-5x longer" in "bronze." Seriously this package might as well say "ribbed for her pleasure," which, bee-tee-dubs, I NEVER understood. The only pleasure I ever got from ribs was at a BBQ joint. (God I fucking LOVE ribs and wings, and the caveman grossness it takes to devour them, but that's another topic).

Anyhow, bottom line: Elixir guitar strings are trading on the promise of picking up a guitar = getting laid, and they have decades of rock n' roll history on their side.

It also happens in nature: LOOK!

Jeff Sessions Pump-Up Playlist for Future Congressional Testimony

Given Jeff Sessions' apparent total lack of recall at today's Senate hearing, I'm suggesting a future playlist he can put on his iPod shuffle to pych him up for next time and hopefully yield more helpful public testimony.

• Memory (Barbara Streisand (from the Musical CATS)

• These are Days (You'll Remember) (Natalie Merchant)

• The Way We Were (Barbara Streisand)

• I Remember You (Skid Row)

• Yesterday (The Beatles)

• I Will Remember You (Sarah McLachlan/Macy Gray)

• I Will Not Forget You (Sarah McLachlan)

• It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday (Boyz II Men)

• Nights I Can’t Remember, Friends I’ll Never Forget (Toby Keith)

• Try to Remember (Harry Belafonte)

• More Than a Memory (Garth Brooks)

• Forget About Us (Tim McGraw)

• Don’t You Forget About Me (Simple Minds)

• Forget About the Future (Sting)

• Never Forget You (Mariah Carey)

• I Forgot to Remember to Forget (Johnny Cash)

• I Can’t Forget (Leonard Cohen)

• Soon Forget (Pearl Jam)

• In My Life (The Beatles)

• I Won’t Forget You (Poison)

• Trying So Hard to Forget (Fleetwood Mac)

• Don’t Forget to Remember Me (Carrie Underwood)

• How Soon We Forget (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

• I’m Not Trying to Forget You Anymore (Willie Nelson)

• I’ll Never Forget (Dolly Parton)

• Memories (Elvis Presley)

• Reflections (The Supremes)

• Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room (Brownsville Station)

• This is the Time (to Remember) (Billy Joel)

• Don’t Forget Me (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

• At Times We Do Forget (Steve Winwood)

• How Can You Ever Forget (Carly Simon)

• Did I Forget to Pray (Billy Ray Cyrus)

• Just Forget It, Son (Alan Jackson)

• Forget Myself (Third Eye Blind)

• I’ll Forget You (Jerry Garcia)

• Forget It (Dinosaur Junior)

• Photograph (Nickelback)

• Forget to Remember (Megadeth)

I Simply Cannot Listen to My Daughter Sing Beyoncé

This is a harsh self-own, so I'm just going to come right out with it. I can't listen to Paige "sing" one more "note" of Beyoncé. 

It's fucking killing me, my dudes.
 
Yes, I know she can read (much better than she can sing, fortch), and in theory she could read this post tomorrow. But she doesn't have a phone or ready access to the Internet, and she won't for several more years if I have anything to say about it. (And I do).

Even if Paige finds out tomorrow that I can't stand the sound of her singing Beyoncé, I'm okay with that, because I'm not one of those mothers who just blows sunshine up my kids' asses and tells them they're great at everything and can do anything.

They're not, and they can't, and if it's one thing I want them to know it's this: 

Everyone has their limitations, and it's best to accept yours sooner rather than later, so that you don't waste your time "chasing your dreams." Why would you chase your dreams when you could much more efficiently--and with less long term misery and more dignity--just walk in lockstep with reality?

Chasing your dreams is a fucking waste of time, m'kay?

In Paige's case, the reality is that she's probably not going to be a singer; professional, amateur, or karaoke. I don't want to say never, but I'd think the chance of Paige becoming a singer lies somewhere along the spectrum between Donald Trump becoming "presidential" and me getting a full-time gig as a Victoria's Secret Angel to pay for my Stanford medical school tuition next year.

The fact that Paige has chosen Beyoncé, of all singers, to emulate only makes the gulf between these two people's respective vocal skills seem that much more cavernous.

Like when you listen to Beyoncé sing "Halo," it sounds like an actual angel has descended from heaven, opened her mouth, and let sparkly butterflies and maple syrup-dipped sugar cookies come pouring out. 

When Paige sings "Halo," it sounds like a hummingbird who's just undergone adenoid surgery flew into a plate-glass window and is warbling for help while a leaf blower whines in the background.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, kid. You can follow your dreams if you want to, but if you dream about becoming the next Queen Bey, dollars to donuts you'll be following that dream straight off a cliff.

All I Want for Mother's Day is for Ed Sheeran to Write Me a Love Song and I Really Feel Like That is Not Too Much to Ask

Mother's Day. It's not a big deal to me, seriously. 

This is my tenth Mother's Day as a mom, and the last Mother's Day of my thirties, and I've never been demanding in terms of what I want on This Special Day. Usually, it's enough for me to just spend quality time with my kids. And by "spend quality time with my kids," I mean "sleep until noon with silicone ear plugs jammed into my ears while my kids do I don't even know (or care) the fuck what with their dad."

This year, though, I feel like I'd like a little something more. Something besides Congress to impeach Donald Trump. I just want Ed Sheeran to write me a love song, and I feel like that's really not too much to ask.

I mean, really. Is it? This is a small demand in the grand scheme of things.

To just go to an Ed Sheeran concert for like, a weekend trip to Seattle and catch his eye from the front row of Century Link Field, and then act super surprised when one of the security guards comes up to me and whispers in my ear, "Ed wants to see you back stage," and then turn to my friends and we all start jumping up and down and silent-screaming like we are 14 instead of 40 or even 26, which I believe is the approximate age of Ed Sheeran, and which technically makes me old enough to be Ed Sheeran's mom, but only if I'd had an extremely fucked up childhood, which thankfully I did not.

Truly I feel it is not asking too much for Ed Sheeran to then beckon me to his dressing room, dismiss his harem of sinewy, collagen-rich millennial groupies, and tell me that I look great in mom jeans--which are totally on trend right now--even though I couldn't possibly actually be a mom because I look way too young to have kids and no he's totally not just saying that in his adorable British accent.

This would really be a much more welcome gift than, say, getting a half-assed scribbled card and some luke warm scrambled eggs in bed, amirite moms? To instead get a note from Ed Sheeran, written in non-crayon, that says "please come on tour with me, you are my muse and I can no longer create outside of your spiritual orbit," at which point my family would completely understand that I was just doing what I had to do for the sake of art and probably a lot of dope swag, let's be honest.

Then the world and Ryan Seacrest would thank me for the next platinum Grammy Award (TM) winning album called "Mom Jeans," featuring the #1 hit single in both the UK and the U.S., called "You Pee a Little When you Sneeze." At which point 39 year-old French President Emmanuel Macron's 63 year-old wife Brigitte would come to the Paris leg of the tour, and we'd drink French 75's and high five each other and congratulate ourselves on being the GOAT cougars.

Like, this is a seriously a really modest request, and I feel like I deserve it. I'm a mom, after all, and not just "anyone" can be a mom, except for approximately 4.3 people per second on earth.

UPDATE: No sooner did I post this, than Isaac came home from school with this:

 It changes nothing. 

Proof Positive that 2017 is a Trash Fire: John Mayer is Back

Trigger warning to hardcore John Mayer fans: I am going to offend you with this post, and I'm saying sorry in advance. If you have firm feelings about the amazing-ness of John Mayer--musically or otherwise--I suggest perhaps you stop reading now.

Otherwise, you'll have to get in line behind strippers, avalanche victims, my mother-in-law, a few transgender teens, a white supremacist stalker, and my dad among people I've offended with my color commentary. 

With that out of the way, I'm telling you that we now have proof positive that 2017 is a fucking dumpster fire, and we are labeling it Exhibit A: John Mayer's Comeback.

I went to camp with a kid who went to high school with John Mayer. It sounds like a distant six-degrees-of-separation type thing, but I'm pretty good friends with this dude and I'd trust him with my life (literally, he's a doctor). He insists quite credibly that John Mayer was as big of a douche in high school as he is today. 

Frankly, I think it got under his skin that John Mayer made a million dollars threatening to "run through the halls" of their old high school. Not that I blame either of them, my friend OR John Mayer.

Anyway, I just can't with John Mayer. I don't know the guy, of course, and I'm sure he's very deep and complicated and a musical genius and a millionaire who banged Taylor Swift AND Katie Perry AND Jessica Simpson, and whose most recent Top-40 single sounds like Garth Brooks.

I'm not disputing any of that. 

And I also realize that the overarching theme of John Mayer's comeback is, to my very point, "I used to be an asshole and now I'm a reformed asshole, wait until you see how big of an asshole I'm not anymore."

But you know what? I'm not buying it, and I don't think I'm alone.

Like that's literally his campaign slogan right now: "Make John Mayer Not an Asshole Anymore." I'm pretty sure there are hats. Fedoras, probably.

With the exception of 1969--in which Jim Morrison rose to ascendancy as The Original Insufferable Dudebro--we might as well carve 2017 in the stone tablets of history as "Year of the Insufferable Dudebro 2.0."

To Ed Sheeran, Who Would Totally be My Boyfriend in Real Life

Hi Ed. 

You don't know me, but if you did, I swear you would TOTALLY be my boyfriend in real life, or "IRL" as the kids say.

I had this realization on my drive into work the other morning when I heard your hit song "Shape of You" on the radio. The one you wrote for Selena Gomez but then decided to do yourself, because it has a Van Morrison reference and you were afraid Selena's fans were too young to understand. 

I learned that from Ryan Seacrest.

See? I get you already. I love Van Morrison and know all three of his songs. Brown Eyed Girl is my favorite, with the Moonlight one coming in at a close second. I'm old enough to remember when Julia Roberts made Brown Eyed Girl famous again in Sleeping With the Enemy. Wikipedia tells me you were born the same year that movie came out (1991), but I saw it in the theater. 

It's the one where Julia escapes from her abusive husband by swimming away into the ocean in a thunderstorm as he shouts "LAURRRRAAAAAA!!" over and over again from their deck while shaking his fist at the sky. She ends up in Indiana where she meets this adorbs drama teacher and then the husband comes back to stalk her, and she knows he's been in her house because all the soup cans are lined up in her cupboard and it's super freaky and then the drama teacher helps her kill the husband who you think is dead after she stabs him but really isn't. 

You could be the drama teacher in that particular scenario and I would dance around to Brown Eyed Girl in the kitchen. That would totally be us.

The other thing is the ginger factor. This is the elephant in the room so we might as well get it out of the way. I love gingers! And guitar players! Lots of girls love guitar players but not many girls love gingers. 

Well. 

I happen to be married to a ginger guitar player at this very moment! He's bald now, but he used to be a ginger. You'll be bald too someday, but then you can assert your ginger pride by growing a big ginger beard. TRUST me. You want a girl who isn't scared off by ... well ... you know.

Maybe "girl" is a little generous? After all, I'll be 40 this year and you're 26. But age is just a number, and think of the things I could teach you with my additional 14 years of life experience! It would be like a MILF/cougar seminar at Oxford for 5 credits.

Also your accent is dope, and I believe you would be amused by my American sass. An intercontinental love affair with a married woman 14 years your senior is exactly what you need to inspire your next big hit, "Shape of U2." It will be all about listening to Achtung Baby (which also came out in 1991) while lying next to a woman whose body has been forever ravaged and destroyed--or beautifully blessed, as a feminist doula might say--by pregnancy and childbirth.

Ed, you know you want my love. Your love was handmade for somebody like me. C'mon now follow my lead C-C'mon now follow my lead whoaaaa.

See? I even know the lyrics to one of your songs.

The More Things Change

The more they stay the same, or, as Shakespeare said, past is prologue. 

Of course, Shakespeare presumably didn't listen to Weezer, Pearl Jam, Sir Mix-a-Lot, or Ice Cube, although he probably jammed out to similar music on a lute or some shit. I don't think Shakespeare had kids, but if he did, they would've said his lute music was BORING and he would've screamed down a set of wooden stairs for them to TURN DOWN THAT LUTE!

Last night, Geoff asked Paige's nine year-old friend, who was sleeping over, what music her parents listened to. She thought about it carefully for a few seconds and then responded with a quizzical look on her face: 

"I THINK they listen to 'Weezers?'" 

In other words, "Weezers" is now a band for old people. Along with Pearl Jam and the song "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot. "Adults are so boooooring," Paige said the other day. "All they ever do is sit around talking about old people music like Pearl Jam and Baby Got Back."

OLD PEOPLE MUSIC! PEARL JAM!

Paige is right. It's true. None of us are immune from the tides of time that turn our counter-culture, edgy folk heroes into old geezers. Witness Ice Cube, who starred in not one but I think possibly a vast franchise of family-friendly movies with titles like, "Are We There Yet?", which my six and nine year-old kids watch for free on Netflix.

In other words, the guy who once dropped the bar, "I gotta say it was a good day, today I didn't even have to use my A.K." now stars in a free-streaming Christmas movie about being a good step-dad that got 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

I gotta say, it was a good day.

I Updated the Lyrics to This Billy Joel Song for 2017

Can someone with good video-editing and musical skills PLEASE make a sub-titled parody video using these lyrics?

We Didn't Start the Fire (Parody of Billy Joel's 1989 Song, Updated for 2017)

Stephen Bannon, KKK, homophobics, woke baes
Trans-Pacific, Gallup polling, Putin’s puppet show
Trump is worse than Richard Nixon, addicted to his television
North Korea, South Korea, “Little Marco”

Lyin’ Ted, atom bombs, refreshing browsers all day long
FAKE NEWS, spreading lies, a crowd that falsely multiplies

So-called judges, fake tears, Muslim BAN, stoking fears
Paul Ryan, KFC, Scotch tape on a neck tie!

We didn’t start the fire
Now the planet's burning
And we’re anti-learning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Refugees, Russian hacks, FBI, alt-facts
Richard Spencer, Kellyanne, L.L. Bean stock

Ivanka’s tanking fashion line, Melania who plagiarized
Rick Rolls, taco bowls, Obamacare block

John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Congress doesn't have a plan
Bathrobes, emoluments, time to GET SMART!

Women’s March, pussy hats, tiny hands, Democrats
Orange face, hair disgrace, "glam room" in the White House

We didn’t start the fire
Now the planet's burning
And we’re anti-learning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Bowling Green, Iraq, Wikileaks, Big Macs,
Tax returns, First Amendment, Julian Assange

Private server email, Black Lives Matter, third rail
Neo-Nazis, Liar Spice, SNL’s not very nice

NBC, CNN, voter fraud, Marine LePen, Hamilton, viral memes, is this all a bad dream?

Mike Pence, hashtags, late-night #MAGA Twitter brags
Rogue accounts, Sally Yates, church is melding into state.

We didn’t start the fire
Now the planet's burning
And we’re anti-learning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Hannity, Infowars, urinating Russian whores
Filibuster, VERY SAD, Yemen raid DISASTER!

Mar-a-lago golf carts, Brexit, lawsuits, Breitbart
Patriots, protests, bathroom bills, policing sex

Pope Francis, Facebook feed, corporate lobbies, rampant greed
Common sense, equal pay, what else do I have to say?

We didn’t start the fire
Now the planet's burning
And we’re anti-learning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, thin skin, Scott Baio’s a has-been
Scientists, gun rights, DeVos was some pick

Netanyahu, Palestine, Dakota Access Pipeline
Made a “bad deal” with Iran, crumbling Afghanistan

Feuding friends, Jared K., golden toilets, Doomsday
Foreign debts, homeless vets, super-bugs, Trump regrets

Plastic garbage washed ashore, U.S. flirts with martial law
Schwarzenegger ratings wars, I can’t take it anymore!

We didn’t start the fire
Now the planet's burning
And we’re anti-learning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

 

I Learned to Speak Spanish from Color Me Badd

Actually let me revise that. I didn't learn to "speak Spanish," exactly. According to the ever-reliable Google Translate, I learned how to say the following in Spanish, very well, repeatedly, and in a soulful, extremely cheesy R&B ballad voice:

Girl, you are my life
The tenderness
And joy, my love
And this dream
With you it will be true (yeah yeah)

"Yeah, yeah," it turns out, is the same in both Spanish and English. 

Now. You might be questioning the utility of this sentence for a heterosexual teenage (at the time) girl. You'd be right to do so. My time would have been much better spent studying more rigorously in my college entry-level Spanish class words and phrases like "where's the bathroom, it's kind of an emergency" and "where can I find some Aloe for this vicious sunburn."

But sadly it wasn't meant to be. Although my Spanish professor told me I had a "good accent," I owe that to a youth spent eavesdropping on the denizens of Northern Manhattan and Spanish Harlem, which caused me to name my first Cabbage Patch kid "Mira Galinda." 

This was the sad terminus of my Spanish language knowledge, bolstered, once again, by the four-dude power vocal group Color Me Badd. Truly you must, and I mean MUST watch or re-watch the video to "I Adore, Mi Amor." 

Even as a young tween, I knew these guys were not my type. All I wanted was for a smart, funny, mildly-attractive tall boy with good taste in books and movies and limited sexual aggression to fall hopelessly in love with me. It didn't really get my motor running to think about a greased-up hard-body with a pencil-thin mustache and more hair product on his head than you could find in an aisle of Wal Greens serenading me yearningly while dry humping me up against a palm tree.

Anyway, this video is four minutes of your life you will never get back, and I promise, you won't want to.

Soundtrack of Shame

I've long felt that really bad top 40 music is a guilty pleasure that should accompany truly shameful activities. 

Like if you're going to listen to total schwag, you should own it, and do something really gross and shameful at the same time.

Here's my suggested Top 40 Soundtrack of Shame

All About That Bass (Meghan Trainor): Eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby straight from the carton while standing in front of an open freezer.

Cruise (Florida/Georgia Line): Sniffing dry erase markers or gasoline in the garage.

The Scientist (Cold Play): Smoking dirt weed out of a beer can bong while lurking exes and the "ones that got away" on social media.

Love Yourself (Justin Bieber) Serial masturbation/crying.

Blank Space (Taylor Swift): Sorting children's Legos by shape and color (paying extra special attention to the little people and animals) and calling it "cleaning."

Formation (Beyoncé): Strugglng and cursing through 15 crunches.

Chasing Stars (One Republic): Doing whippets off a can of supermarket whipped cream in front of an open refrigerator.

Get Pumped! Here Come's O.H.M.'s Ultimate Neo-Fascism Playlist!

Are you a "white liberal" who woke up on November 10 to the shocking fact that white supremacy is alive and well in America? Are you a "person of color" who knew this all along? Did some of your "family" die in the "Holocaust?" Are you a "survivor" of "sexual assault?" Are you a "conservative" who is troubled by the appointment of an "unrepentant white nationalist" to a major "White House" position? One who ran a "news site" with the below listed headlines? And whose appointment everyone is treating as completely fucking "normal?" And as "politics" as usual instead of MAYBE a tiny bit of a "human rights" problem?

Well you're in "luck," because O.H.M. has the music you NEED to get you through these tough times with the Ultimate Neo-Fascism Playlist! 

While you're wringing your hands trying to figure out what else to do with the imminent and insidious Coming of the Third Reich in America, you might as well bide your time doing what all of us apparently do better than anything else: Fiddle around with electronics while our proverbial Rome burns to the ground!

Here are five great tunes that belong on everyone's Neo-Fascism playlist!

1. Black Boys on Mopeds (Sinead O'Connor): Among other things, this song is about the 1983 death of Colin Roach, a 21 year-old black British man who was shot by police and whose death was allegedly covered up by the State. Here are some choice lyrics from the song that will get you FUCKIN' PUMPED for suppression of the free press, mass-gaslighting, and all of the sleeping sheep who tell you all of this is normal: "I've said this before now/You said I was childish and you'll say it now/Remember what I told you/If they hated me they will hate you/These are dangerous days/To say what you feel is to lay your own grave." YES, BITCHES!!

2. Russians (Sting): Sting wrote this hit song in 1985 about the Cold War, but with Russia and Julian FuckAmericaInTheAssange basically running AmeriKKKa from a Soviet basement internet server now, these lyrics are more prescient than ever: "In Europe and America/There's a growing feeling of hysteria/Conditioned to respond to all the threats/In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets/There is no monopoly on common sense/On either side of the political fence/We share the same biology, regardless of ideology/Believe me when I say to you/I hope the Russians love their children too/There is no historical precedent/To put the words in the mouth of the President?/There's no such thing as a winnable war/It's a lie we don't believe anymore." I MEAN, HOW ON POINT IS THIS?! GET PSYCHED PEOPLE!

3. Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2): Bono from U2 is the CLASSIC "Let's freak out about fascism" mega star, and no song embodies his philosophy better than Sunday Blood Sunday, detailing Ireland's 1/30/72 Bogside Massacre in which British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march against internment of alleged IRA sympathizers: "I can't believe the news today/I can't close my eyes and make it go away/How long, how long must we sing this song, how long/And the battle's just begun/There's many lost, but tell me who has won/The trench is dug within our hearts/And mother's, children, brothers sisters torn apart." TEAR IT UP YOU GUYS!! PUT THIS ONE ON REPEAT!

4. Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine): No "get ready for life under a fascist overlord" playlist is complete without this classic by Rage Against the Machine: "Killing in the name of!/Some of those that work forces/are the same that burn crosses/And now you do what they told you/Now you're under control/You justify those that died by wearing the badge/They're the chosen whites/Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" SWEET! VIVA LA RESISTANCE!

5. Behind the Wall (Tracy Chapman): This one goes out to all you rape and domestic violence survivors and "feminazis" who now have a confessed sexual assailant in charge of her country. Good thing Tracy Chapman has some words about that: "Last night I heard the screaming/Loud voices behind the wall/Another sleepless night for me/Won't do no good to call/The police always come late if they come at all/Last night I heard the screaming/A silence that chilled my soul/I prayed that I was dreaming/When I saw the ambulance in the road." COME ON, IT DOES NOT GET BETTER THAN THIS. DOESN'T THIS SONG GET YOU FUCKING AMPED FOR NORMALIZATION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND DV?!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS PEOPLE. History repeats itself folks, and so does a Playlist on shuffle! 

WOOT!

Fig. 1: Actual Headlines from Stephen Bannon's, New Chief Advisor to President-Elect Trump, Breitbart News Site