On music & humor
I hate it when people are too obvious in their musical selections. I shall give examples of this phenomenon in the next several paragraphs, after which no difference of opinion will be brooked.
Example one: a commercial for an upcoming movie called Letters to Juliet uses the song "Love Story" by Taylor Swift because the song mentions the name Juliet. Ooh. Big deal. Among other disparities, the song is about teenagers in the American south, while the movie is about old people in Italy.
Example two: the trailer for Rugrats in Paris featured the song "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baja Men, because it was a very popular song at the time, and there was a dog in the movie.
Example three: one time, a guy on NHL Network was saying something extremely intelligent about how a certain player or team was noted for "moving well." To support this statement, he played several highlights, accompanied by the song "Move Along" by the All American Rejects. The song has the word "move" in it, so it made perfect sense. Never mind that the song is all emo and hockey is, well, not.
Movies and TV shows are not singularly culpable in this dereliction of creativity and good taste. Many a private citizen I've met has insisted on using too-obvious songs in various situations. For instance: a family friend, Chuck, went skydiving once and had the thing videotaped. Dubbed over the whole movie was the song "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz.1 I was surprised, when the plane reached cruising altitude and Chuck jumped out the door, that the song did not change to "Free Falling" by Tom Petty.
Another time, I was at a New Year's Eve party at friend Rick's house. At some point Rick's mom walked in the door with pizza in her hands and incredulousness on her face. "Come on, guys!" she said. "No one came outside when I pulled in the driveway!" I thought she was scolding us for not helping bring in the pizza or something. "I had the radio turned up way loud, but nobody came to see!" At first I didn't follow her reasoning; then she began to sing: "I'm coming up so you better get this party started. I'm coming up, so you--" Oh very good madam, I thought. Mrs. Coe is a swell gal, but at that moment I had less good will for her than I do for Osama bin Laden or John Mayer.
And I must not forget the time friend Tim insisted that the song playing on the title screen of the popular video game "Rock Band" should be "Rock and Roll Band" by Boston. I understood the idea, but acted as though it were too advanced for me. "Why do you say that?" I asked. He rolled his eyes. "Rock Band? Rock and Roll Band? Get it?" "I guess."
No further examples are required, but I will give one more because it will provide a nice transition into an equally important topic: things that are universally regarded as funny, even hilarious, which are anything but. Once, friend Ben insisted on showing me a "very funny" video; it turns out it involved two men dressed up like Optimus Prime and Megatron doing the robot while the song "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto" played in the background. My face during the entire four-minute movie was about the same as it is when I am washing dishes or looking at a wall. Not only was the song choice too obvious, but doing the robot is never funny, despite what anyone watching a white guy stoically gyrate his arms at right angles will tell you. Worse still is robots doing the robot.
It is also never, ever funny--despite global agreement on the issue--to say "eh" when speaking of Canada. Not that it's offensive or anything (well, reducing an entire nation's identity to a single syllable could, I suppose, be considered a little crass), but when someone mentions Canada or a Canadian, and someone else replies, "Canada, eh? Oot and aboot?" the ensuing seconds will be critical to your well-being. If you laugh at this lame joke, as nearly everyone does, I will judo you into the nearest glass coffee table, and the only medical assistance I will offer will be to dab your eyelids with baby shampoo. Allow me to explain something: first, Canadians really do say "eh," but not every two or three words, and not even at the end of every sentence. In fact, if you were to count the words between eh's it would routinely get into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. I'm sure there are many Canadians who do not use the word at all. Second, I've never heard a Canadian say either oot or aboot. If anything, it's oat and aboat, but even that is a caricature of their slightly different vowel pronunciations.
Finally, one of the least funny things you can ever, ever say in your entire life, even if you live to be a thousand and then discover the infinite lives code and enjoy a succession of thousand-year lives for all eternity, is something to the effect of, "I'm going to have a house, a car, two-point-three kids." I swear to Vishnu, if you pull that two-point-three kids crap around me you'll live to regret it, for as many lifetimes as you live.
1 Fly Away: Before or after the nineties, when this took place, the song would have been "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" (Peter Paul and Mary) or "Higher" (Creed), respectively.
Example one: a commercial for an upcoming movie called Letters to Juliet uses the song "Love Story" by Taylor Swift because the song mentions the name Juliet. Ooh. Big deal. Among other disparities, the song is about teenagers in the American south, while the movie is about old people in Italy.
Example two: the trailer for Rugrats in Paris featured the song "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baja Men, because it was a very popular song at the time, and there was a dog in the movie.
Example three: one time, a guy on NHL Network was saying something extremely intelligent about how a certain player or team was noted for "moving well." To support this statement, he played several highlights, accompanied by the song "Move Along" by the All American Rejects. The song has the word "move" in it, so it made perfect sense. Never mind that the song is all emo and hockey is, well, not.
Movies and TV shows are not singularly culpable in this dereliction of creativity and good taste. Many a private citizen I've met has insisted on using too-obvious songs in various situations. For instance: a family friend, Chuck, went skydiving once and had the thing videotaped. Dubbed over the whole movie was the song "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz.1 I was surprised, when the plane reached cruising altitude and Chuck jumped out the door, that the song did not change to "Free Falling" by Tom Petty.
Another time, I was at a New Year's Eve party at friend Rick's house. At some point Rick's mom walked in the door with pizza in her hands and incredulousness on her face. "Come on, guys!" she said. "No one came outside when I pulled in the driveway!" I thought she was scolding us for not helping bring in the pizza or something. "I had the radio turned up way loud, but nobody came to see!" At first I didn't follow her reasoning; then she began to sing: "I'm coming up so you better get this party started. I'm coming up, so you--" Oh very good madam, I thought. Mrs. Coe is a swell gal, but at that moment I had less good will for her than I do for Osama bin Laden or John Mayer.
And I must not forget the time friend Tim insisted that the song playing on the title screen of the popular video game "Rock Band" should be "Rock and Roll Band" by Boston. I understood the idea, but acted as though it were too advanced for me. "Why do you say that?" I asked. He rolled his eyes. "Rock Band? Rock and Roll Band? Get it?" "I guess."
No further examples are required, but I will give one more because it will provide a nice transition into an equally important topic: things that are universally regarded as funny, even hilarious, which are anything but. Once, friend Ben insisted on showing me a "very funny" video; it turns out it involved two men dressed up like Optimus Prime and Megatron doing the robot while the song "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto" played in the background. My face during the entire four-minute movie was about the same as it is when I am washing dishes or looking at a wall. Not only was the song choice too obvious, but doing the robot is never funny, despite what anyone watching a white guy stoically gyrate his arms at right angles will tell you. Worse still is robots doing the robot.
It is also never, ever funny--despite global agreement on the issue--to say "eh" when speaking of Canada. Not that it's offensive or anything (well, reducing an entire nation's identity to a single syllable could, I suppose, be considered a little crass), but when someone mentions Canada or a Canadian, and someone else replies, "Canada, eh? Oot and aboot?" the ensuing seconds will be critical to your well-being. If you laugh at this lame joke, as nearly everyone does, I will judo you into the nearest glass coffee table, and the only medical assistance I will offer will be to dab your eyelids with baby shampoo. Allow me to explain something: first, Canadians really do say "eh," but not every two or three words, and not even at the end of every sentence. In fact, if you were to count the words between eh's it would routinely get into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. I'm sure there are many Canadians who do not use the word at all. Second, I've never heard a Canadian say either oot or aboot. If anything, it's oat and aboat, but even that is a caricature of their slightly different vowel pronunciations.
Finally, one of the least funny things you can ever, ever say in your entire life, even if you live to be a thousand and then discover the infinite lives code and enjoy a succession of thousand-year lives for all eternity, is something to the effect of, "I'm going to have a house, a car, two-point-three kids." I swear to Vishnu, if you pull that two-point-three kids crap around me you'll live to regret it, for as many lifetimes as you live.
1 Fly Away: Before or after the nineties, when this took place, the song would have been "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" (Peter Paul and Mary) or "Higher" (Creed), respectively.