As I’m sure you all know, Chicago is one of the four finalist cities (the others are London, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro are the others) in the running for the 2016 Olympics. The winning city will be announced on Friday. This whole thing is a big controversy in the Chicagoland area. You might think that Chicago is excited about the possibility of hosting the Olympics, and although initially there was a lot of excitement, now its kinda split 50/50 as to if Chicagoans want the Olympics. I have a friend who has been against the Olympics coming to town ever since it was announced that we would try to get the games.

So why be against the games you say? Well for my friend, he commutes to the city just about every day for work. Without traffic we live about a half hour southwest of Chicago, with traffic its like two weeks. If the Olympics come to town, I would imagine we might as well not even attempt to come into the city for two weeks. Other people argue that we can’t afford the Olympics. Truth be told, we can’t. Like many cities across the country, Chicago is in dire straits financially. Perhaps if Al Capone were around, he could find a way to make counterfeit money. Also, another argument kind of piggybacks on that agrement; I heard people call into a radio show I was listening to and said that the innercity in Chicago desperately needs hospitals, better schools and more police, so how could we justify paying billions of dollars for the Olympics. All good points.

As for myself, I’ve never been a fan of the Olympics. Honestly outside of baseball, basketball and boxing, I find them boring. I don’t watch track and field or swimming or archery on a regular basis and just because they are in the Olympics, doesn’t all of a sudden make them exciting to watch, however who doesn’t like drooling over the bodies of the swimmers and divers! That being said, I do hope we get the Olypmics, as it is not just a once in a lifetime thing, its kind of a once in a hundred or more years kind of thing. And even though I am a half hour away from the city, there is a good chance that at least some part of the Olympics or the world will be here in my town. That is kinda cool.  And although the traffic would be horrendous for two weeks, the improvements to the infrastructure would be well worth it. Oh, and how could would it be for Olympic baseball to come to Wrigley Field?

If Rod Blagojevich were still governor, I’m sure he would find a way to buy the Olypmics for Chicago. But, thankfully he isn’t gov anymore. So Chicago has sent Mayor Daley, Michelle Obama and the most powerful person in the free world, Oprah, over to Copenhagen to try to woo the International Olypmic Committee. Oh, and President Obama went too. Speaking of Obama, of course the evil Republicans are upset that he is going, but honestly, I don’t see how they could possibly be upset. In the final months of the Bush “presidency” he had expressed support for Chicago. And if this had been a Republican president who was from Chicago (hell, that just sounds funny, Republican from Chicago) he or she would have gone as well. Nobody should be surprised that Obama is going to try to help his country and his city.

Honestly though, if there is any justice in the world, Rio de Janeiro will win. The entire continent of  South America has never hosted the Olympics, so its probably about time that they do get it. America just had the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah and the Summer Games in Atlanta in 1996 and Los Angeles in 1984 as well. Coming back to the States in 2016 would be overkill, especially since all of South America hasn’t ever had the Olympics.

Still, I will be rooting for Chicago when the announcement is made at 11:57am central time on Friday. By the way, aint that a weird time?

Damn those fucking Democrats. In the health care battle, the public option was rejected by a Senate panel. What makes it so bad is that 5 Democrats voted against the public option. I swear Democrats are such fuckin pussies, too afraid of what it may cost them politically to help institute real change.

About a month ago, I had Bath Fitters come out and look at remaking my bath tub. I can’t remember if I posted about it, but this lop-eared sonofabitch wanted all my arms and legs along with my entire extended family’s limbs as well and half of my neighbor’s limbs to do this. I told them to fuck off. I instead contacted a contractor (try saying that one 10 times fast!) who was actually the guy who suggested them to me, not knowing that they charged a shitload…………….no, an assload…………..no, a fucking assload of money. Sure, it looks like they did great work, but who the hell did they think I was, King Shit on Turd Mountain. So anywho, the contractor believed that I could still find a way to do it for much less. He suggested finding a guy who will be able to spray the tub and make it look brand new. And then also, he the contractor would be able to replace wall covering thing and the faucet and showerhead. Well, I called him yesterday to see if he could come out. He agreed to meet me at Lowe’s today to pick up some things. We got back home and he replaced the wall things but we had bought the wrong knobs for the hot and cold. So he was kind enough to drive me the 10-15 minutes back to Lowe’s to pick up a new one. He has really gone above and beyond thus far and I am extremely grateful. And when the whole thing is done, including the spraying, its going to come in at 7 times LESS than what those other fuckers wanted to charge me. So if anybody is in the Chicagoland area and needs some work done on or around their house, let me know, because I’ve got a great guy for you to use.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always been fascinated with swear words and cursing. My mom was quite the artist when it came to cursing; she could swear up a blue streak that would make a trucker blush. And she wasn’t shy about it either, never really covering it up or taking shame in her shit ass potty mouth. Like all parents though, she did not allow her kids to swear; so if I managed to let one slip it got me a slap in the mouth or the threat of “washing my God damn mouth out with soap!” Now that I’m a grown man, I swear with the best of them and I have my mom to thank for her French speaking influence! By the way, why when somebody swears, its always “pardon my French”? Did the French invent swearing or something?

Of course when I was a kid, I knew all the basic swear words, like shit, fuck, piss, God damn, asshole and my mom’s favorite to use on me, sonofabitch, which I never quite understood since by calling me it she was literally calling herself a bitch. One word that my brother Mark and I learned in about second grade was bastard. I remember arguing with him because he didn’t think it was a bad word and I thought it was. In spite of it all, I don’t think we started fucking swearing on a regular basis until around 6th grade.

So those were the basic words. As I got into middle school and high school I was introduced to new words that I never heard my mom use. See, my mom was some 41 years older than me, so I don’t think her generation used these words so much. I think these words might have been past her time, however I think if they had come in vogue during her swearing prime she probably would have used them as much as the other words. They include words like cock, dick, cunt, pussy, cocksucker and other words used to describe human genitalia. What is so funny about these words though is that they are used as insults even though clearly, everybody loves genitalia. Honestly, who doesn’t love cock? Girls love it, gay guys love it and straight guys love their own dicks. And of course, everybody loves a cocksucker. Ok, I should correct it, lesbians don’t love cock or cocksucking, but certainly they love pussy, just like straight guys and girls. So why is it that it is an insult to be called something that brings so much just to, oh, the entire fucking human race at some point in their lives.

Now there are the swear words themselves and then there is the words that are combined with other words to create an offensive phrase. One that is probably as common as any is “fuck off” or “go fuck yourself.”. As you no doubt know, this is an insult and used to pretty much tell somebody to go to hell or to leave you alone. Yet, when you think of it, fucking off is fun because it means you are fucking somebody. And fucking yourself, well that aint all bad either. Whether fucking off or fucking yourself, the result is usually good and in many cases results in an orgasm, which EVERYBODY loves and enjoys. Its almost like you are telling somebody to have a good time or go enjoy themselves.  What people should probably say is “go fuck your mother” or “go jerk off your daddy” because, hey, the fucking of one’s mother or pole jerking of one’s father is just downright nasty for everybody not named Mackenzie Phillips.

I think though that at this point, we are long overdue for new and inventive swear words. I’m sure if I thought long and hard about it, I could come up with some of my own that could be used. I need to come up with some that would make my mom proud; something that will make her rollover in her grave and say “Michael, you sonofabitch, what the fuck is the matter with you?”

Still don’t be afraid to come up with some of your own though.

Recently, a coworker of mine committed suicide. Although he was a good guy, I was not all that close with him, which is to say that when I did happen to talk to him it was usually about work or sports. Certainly it is sad that he is gone, but honestly, his loss has not had a big effect on me. It did, however, make me think about suicide. No, not my suicide, but suicide in general.

As many of you know, my friend’s dad committed suicide last year. My coworker’s suicide brought back a rush of memories about my friend’s dad’s suicide. Surly there are the inevitable questions of “why?” and “what could I have done to stop it?” Once again I’m reminded of the path of destruction and trail of tears left behind following a suicide. Some might say that the person committing suicide is a selfish and self centered person who thinks of nobody but themselves by choosing to commit such an act. Others say that the person who commits suicide has mental problems and a person of healthy mind would never take such a drastic measure.  You can make an argument for either of those points. My point is that there are things to be learned when any tragedy strikes, especially one a preventable as suicide. Now I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting that anybody left behind could have prevented the suicide; I’m merely stating that the person who commits suicide could have prevented the act. And let’s also be clear here that I’m not referring to assisted suicide in which somebody who is terminally ill chooses to end their life. That is a topic for another post.

One of the lessons learned is that one should always seek help from others if things get so bad that suicide is the only perceived way out. I’m not even saying not to commit suicide. I’m just saying that sometimes, you need to swallow your pride and realize that nobody can make it through life alone; everybody needs  help along this journey of ours. Many times people who commit suicide don’t see any other options or that they are trapped and the only way out is ending it all. This is going to sound completely crazy, but honestly, I don’t entirely disagree with that statement. And I also don’t entirely disagree with the act of suicide itself. People have a right to do what they want to do. And if somebody is so fucking miserable that they will not truly be happy until they are dead, well who am I to say otherwise, after all I am not that person and I am not living in their shoes. But, what I am saying is that if you take the time to get help for your problems, more times than not a solution can be found. Sure, the solution and the other way out may be extremely difficult and might result in others seeing you differently, but in the end, it is far better than the suicide option. Look, in the grand scheme of things you are only granted with the gift of life for a limited, short period of time. Naturally living out one’s life goes by in a flash and in many ways its over before you know it, so why speed the process up by killing yourself? Also, life can end at any time; there are no guarantees that you will make it to 80. There are so many people who die at a young age and would have loved to have lived until the age of some people who commit suicide. Life is precious; one should value their own life at all times.

There is also a very good chance that I may very well be speaking out of my own ass with all of this, as I often do with many posts. Like just about everybody, the thought of committing suicide has passed through my mind a time or two, but like most people, I never gave it a serious thought as I am completely terrified of death. One of the reasons is that death is so very final and permanent. People of faith insist that there is a greater life waiting for you at the end of this life and non-believers have the opinion that once your life ends, that’s it, life is over and there is no after party soon to follow. What both of these groups have in common is that nobody truly knows. Like it or not, the uncertainty of what happens after the end is what puts the fear of death into most people. As I have written many times before, my own belief is that there is nothing else. This is why I’m so scared of death. Its also why I value life so much. Being a very morbid sonofabitch, I was thinking over the past few days what situations I would need to be in to make me kill myself. The only scenario in which I think I would kill myself is if I was given life in prison with no parole, in which case there is no way out. Just look at somebody like Bernie Madoff. He was given 150 years in prison without the possibility of parole. He will be 221 when he is released in 2149. There is a slight chance that most of the people he knows now might be dead by then. If I were faced with what he is faced with, I very well might have killed myself after all my appeals were denied. This is the only way I would ever consider suicide.

Of course, I never know what tomorrow and the future holds. I’m quite certain that most people who have killed themselves would have said the same thing; they could never envision a time in their life that they would ever kill themselves. But, now that I have had the up close perspective of people who have killed themselves, I have learned some valuable lessons that made me value and appreciate those around me so much more than before.

Last night I was on a website that I frequent for lovelorn losers such as myself. I chat with various guys and sometimes they even chat back with me until they realize just how hideous I am. Well, last night I got this chat from this dude in Peoria. Now for those of you not familiar with the area, I’m about 2 hours from Peoria. And for those of you not familiar with night, this was about 11:30 in the pm. I should also explain that he is a 43 year old bisexual married guy. All of this is important info to know. The message starts out simple enough, he says “Hi.” After the obligatory hellos and what’s ups, it was time to get down to the real reason why anybody chats on a website: sex.

Shit. I really should have copied and pasted the conversations. It would have been pretty damn funny. But, I digress.

He asks me if I was looking to hook up. I replied that not only was he married but he was also 2 hours away. I guess this was my mistake in assuming that he would be smart enough to realize that you know, maybe I wasn’t interested. But, it was like he completely ignored what I said as he continued on trying to get me to hook up with him. I again replied “Do you realize you are 2 hours away?” I swear this guy must have been about as dense as the London fog because he continued on. I replied “do you realize also that you are married?” After he said a couple of more things, he said that if I wasn’t interested just tell him and he would leave me alone. So I told him I wasn’t interested. The conversation reminded me of another conversation I had with some random chick who decided to message me on Yahoo messenger a couple of years ago, if you are interested in that conversation I did blog about it and copy and paste the conversation as well. Don’t ask me for the date because I don’t remember. The girl was making sexual comments to me to which I was responding that I wasn’t interested. She kept on though, asking how I would like it if she started sucking my cock. I told her I would much rather prefer if she had a cock. She still didn’t get it. I told her that I was the type of dude who likes other dudes but she continued talking about her “hot pussy” and shit. Finally I spelled it out for her and told her I was gay. She found it funny and I haven’t heard from her since. Well, the difference between her and him is that she stopped. Unlike him.

About 10 minutes later he messaged me again, saying “Hi”. I responded with “Hi”. Well, he skipped the whole what’s  up and went straight for the sex, to which I replied “Holy shit dude, have you smoked so much pot that your memory is so bad that you forgot that we just went through this 10 minutes ago?” He didn’t respond and closed his window. Done? Nope!

A short while later I get another message, this time I respond to the “Hi” with something along the lines of “are you really this fucking stupid? Seriously, we just did this 10 minutes ago!” I then thought that maybe he was spam or a message bot. I asked him if he was real and he said yes. So then I decide I want to fuck with him. I told him that I was interested and (by this time it was about 12:15) that I could be at his house by 2am. I asked for his phone number and address. He told me he was really turned on by how excited I was but asked me to email him pictures. I just kept on, saying that we could meet in a dark, secluded woods away from anything and anybody. He again wanted pictures and I told him to give me his address and phone number. He told me that he was 2 hours away. Geez, I wonder how he figured that one out, I mean why is it that he could remember that we are 2 hours apart but not that we chatted previously twice in the past 45 minutes. I told him I was busy getting ready to come down there and asked for his address and phone number. He told me he wanted to see pics. I ignored him and told him that I could be there soon but just had to find a way to remove my ankle monitoring device. He said “Oh you are in prison? I’m sorry”.  He still did not end the conversation after that, but I did, I closed my window, logged off and went to bed.

I wonder if he will try chatting me again tonight?

Sorry everybody, I accidently disabled comments for this post. Go ahead, feel free to comment all you want.

Oh. And I did not hear from him again.

A few years ago there was an story about how then Cubs outfielder Moises Alou routinely urinated on his hands, the theory was that it helped him grip the bat better. Now I have no idea if the theory is true, all I know is that when I found out about Alou’s unique bat gripping technique, I instantly tried to remember if I had shook his hand when I met him a few years before the hand pissing story. Of course, many people were disgusted by Alou’s water sports, which I guess is understandable, although I wasn’t totally grossed out by it, I mean its not like he was drinking his own piss. Well, I guess everything evolves to the next level, no matter how disgusting. I was made aware recently that boxer Juan Manuel Marquez, get this, drinks his own fucking urine! Oh, and as I looked into it on the world wide interwebs, it turns out that drinking your own pee is a practice that has been going on for some 5,000 years, which means that Alou’s “natural hand washing” is actually a devolution of the process. Holy shit, I used a new word that I never used before, devolution. Wait. Shit. According to dictionary.com, the word devolution doesn’t mean what I think it should mean, which is the opposite of evolution. Oh well. The good people at Webster’s are just going to have to accept the fact that once again, I have changed the meaning of another word!

I’m still struggling how someone could drink their own piss. I mean, do you piss into a cup and then drink it right down while pissin or do you drink that shit on ice. Wait, I should be careful what I say, I mean, there might be somebody out their eating their own shit. What I mean is do you drink the piss chilled? Or maybe you make it a mixed drink, maybe vermouth, schnapps and piss. Mmmmmm……….what a combo! Maybe it is a cure for a hangover.

And is it only healthy if I drink my own piss? Maybe I just ain’t gotta go and I’ve got a taste for a nice tall glass of piss, can I just ask the dude next to me at the ballgame since he is getting up to take a leak due to the 5 beers he drank, would he mind fillin one up for me? And that brings up another point, can I get drunk on his beer pee? I’ve often said that in addition to kinda lookin like urine, beer tastes like piss. Then again, I’ve never drank piss. At least not human piss.

Ewwww, that’s even more disgusting. No, I’ve never drank animal urine either.

And why stop at piss? I mean what other health benefits can you get from ingesting your own……………fluids? Who knows maybe jizz is the cure for baldness! And blood? Well maybe it cures impotence. Honestly, who the hell even came up with the idea of drinking piss? What kind of person stands there watering a tree thinking to themselves “You know, I’ve been pissing on this same tree day after day and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. If my piss makes the tree grow, I wonder if it will make me or my penis grow?”

I guess I probably should not knock the whole piss drinkin phenomenon without doing a little bit of research first.

Upon further review of stuff I found on Wikipedia, (and you know if its on Wikipedia than you KNOW it has to be true, after all its written by any dofus with a computer) I’m still never going to drink urine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to “get busy” jerkin away to ensure I won’t ever go bald!

I swear sometimes politics is so damn frustrating. No wait…………..not just sometimes, but an overwhelming majority of the time. As a liberal, I like to think that liberals are different and better than conservatives as I’m sure that conservatives like to think that conservatives are different and better than liberals. I’d like to think that for the most part Democrats are good and Republicans are pure evil. And although I’m quite certain that Republicans are indeed pure evil, I’ve learned over the years that Democrats are just a pussier version of evil. Then again, I have always suspected as much, but tried to keep myself in a state of denial about Democrats. I know there is famous quote somewhere that somebody said about how there really is no difference between Democrats and Republicans but I can’t think of the quote right now. Although their ideas are for the most part, vastly different, their tactics and ways in which they get things done are practically identical.

While watching Bill Maher the other night, one his guests, who was as Republican pointed something out that really made me think because it made so much damn sense and was a great analogy. He compared people on the left who are hollering that anybody who disagrees with Obama is racist to those same people on the right who, when Bush was in office, said that anybody who disagreed with him on the Iraq war was not patriotic and hated America. And Obama has reacted the same way Bush did at the time; they both pretty much disagreed with the radicals of their parties who were making these claims. Of course, they had to disagree, after all, it would cost them too much politically to agree with those people. What I find interesting though is that its not only the radicals who made those claims when Bush was in office and its not the radicals who are making those racist claims now that Obama is in office. And while I’m fairly certain that there are a lot of racist people who hate Obama just because he is black, I really don’t believe that the charge of racism is a bullshit charge, much like the charge of anti-Americanism during the Bush years. But it is interesting to point out how similar both sides are when it comes to trying to drown out the opposition.

In both the Obama administration and the Bush administrations, neither president was willing to ask for sacrifice from the people. Bush could have asked for the people to sacrifice and do things to help fight the war on terror much like Obama could encourage people to lose weight and get healthy in the battle for health care. Yet both sides are too damn afraid of the American people to ask for a sacrifice.

Both sides have a distrust of the media. Come to think of it, everybody seems to have a distrust of the media. But mainly in politics, both sides like to blame the media for all sorts of problems, yet the media remains so vital to anything they do. Both sides seem to understand that the American people distrusts the media and generally doesn’t like the media so what do they do, they try to give the impression that they have the same distrust of the media.

Although I’m sure there are a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle who want what’s best for America, the primary concern of a majority is to get elected or reelected and remain in power. Most will have no limit to how low they will stoop to achieve this goal. Some, like Bush did to John McCain, John Kerry, and in a 2002 Senate election, Max Cleland,  will spread slanderous, offensive and hateful lies to get elected, much like how Obama will sell out his own ideas and party to remain popular and as not to offend any group of people who might not vote for him next time.

Although both sides point fingers at each other for taking money from special interests to help get elected, they all seem to take money from lobbyists and organizations who are lining the pockets of the politicians so they can buy their support when it comes time to vote on certain bills.

Republicans and Democrats each have organizations and companies that fully support their party and their party defends to the death, yet they always turn out to be shady or evil. For the Dems, look no further than Acorn. For the Republicans, look no further than Halliburton, and Blackwater or whatever the hell Blackwater is calling itself these days.

Really, I can go on and on and on, but I have to end this post at some point. The bottom line is that neither side is good. And for the most part, neither side actually is actually looking out for the best interest of America. And neither side should be trusted to do what is best, because in the end, most of the time, they were doing it to line their own pockets or stay in power.

And yes, you can put President Barack Obama in the same mix with the rest of them.

Every month a group of friends and I go to a different pizza restaurant for sex and pizza. The problem is that everybody else winds up having sex but me and I’m the only one who eats the pizza. I call it the Chicago Pizza Club and have declared myself president. Why do I get to be president? Well, because I want to be president. Oh, and the whole thing was my idea. And I’m also the only one who bothers to plan the damn thing each month. This might sound arrogant, but if I didn’t do it nobody else would. Hmmmm…………maybe I should get some illegal immigrants to replace the rest of the club that way they can do my job, you know how illegals do the jobs that Americans don’t want.

 Last night we went to Brickhouse Pizza Pub in Crest Hill, IL. We had 23 people, which is a fairly typical crowed for pizza club. This place has a wide variety of pizzas, including an Italian pizza, a Greek pizza, a Jamaican jerk chicken pizza, a Mexican pizza and a BLT pizza, among many others. We went with a Greek pizza, a Mexican pizza, a veggie pizza, a three cheese pizza and a meat lovers pizza. They were all pretty damn good, the Mexican pizza was very spicy but I think the Greek pizza was the best of all of them; the toppings included Feta cheese and cucumbers.

After pizza, I wound up at my friend Jt’s house. We played a small 4 person game of Texas Hold-em. Jt’s girlfriend who had never played before, actually took me out with a straight flush! How crazy is that, I’ve been played poker for 15 years and have never gotten a natural straight flush, yet she plays for 10 fuckin minutes and gets the second best hand in all of poker!

That’s all for my weekend update, I’ve got tons of sports to watch tonight.

I’ve been reading a book recently that I’m almost done with about NBA referee Bob Delaney. Ok, so perhaps you aren’t a basketball fan. In fact, I pretty confident that I can say with near certainty that nobody who reads me is a NBA or at least not a fan as big as I am. So you might be saying to yourself, “Mark, (at which point I will correct you and tell you that Mark is my twin brother’s fucking name, shame on you for not knowing my name) why the fuck are you posting about some guy who is an NBA ref? Sure the book might be kinda interesting, but why the hell would to dedicate a whole post to it, after all I’m a busy person and I have 12 other Xangas to pretend to skim through and not leave a comment?” Well first of all that was one hell of a long thought, but notice, I remembered to use quotations for the whole thing, please acknowledge and give me the credit I so richly deserve!

Second, would you just listen to me for one flippin minute before telling me to go to hell? Just give me a chance to tell you about the book. That’s it, take your hand off the mouse and and put your other hand down from flipping off the screen at me. This is something you very well might find interesting. And not just interesting, but VERY interesting. And not just VERY interesting, but damn near captivating. Turns out that before Delaney was an NBA ref, he was a New Jersey state trooper. And not just a NJ state trooper, but one who infiltrated the mafia! See, now there, ain’t that interesting? Ok, so maybe the mob still isn’t your thing, you can at least appreciate how fucking nuts it is to go from being undercover in the mob to being a NBA referee in front of 20,000 people every night. That my friends, takes a set of nuts bigger than basketballs!

The book is only about 260 pages or so long, its not a bad read at all, unlike the other book I posted about back in the spring, the 800 page “Legacy of Secrecy” which wasn’t bad, but just very very long and at times boring. Not this book though, it is short, gripping and is hard to put down, unless of course you get distracted by internet porn. My brother was at my house a couple weeks ago and he read about 10 pages and insisted that I let him borrow it.

And don’t let the forward by Bill Walton scare you off. Turns out you can skip the foward and go straight to the book!

By the way, the book is named Covert. And here is the really funny part about the name of the book. His undercover name was Bobby Covert! I swear that I am not making that up.

Every now and then there comes a song that is just everywhere, everybody likes it, it seems to be on the radio every five fuckin minutes, you just can’t get enough of it and it gets stuck in your head and you can’t get it out until you hear it again. Problem is, you hear it and it doesn’t leave. You still have it stuck in your head. As fortunes would have it, it stuck in everybody else’s head too and it gets played nearly constantly until people start to get sick of it and it fades from popularity. The song of the moment right now and this summer has been “I Gotta Feelin” by the Black Eyed Peas. If you don’t know it, its on my play list so now you can get the damn thing stuck in your head.

I first heard the song a couple of months ago. I liked it then. And then I heard it while watching the Cubs game as they played it while showing their Fan Cam in which they pan the crowd showing fans. Flash forward to my road trip from last month. It seems like on road trips, there is always a song that seems to follow you around no matter which state you are in and because of this, that song becomes the official song of the trip and afterwards whenever you hear the song it conjures up memories of that trip. Ten years ago a friend and I took a road trip to Mt. Rushmore and Denver and seemed to year Pearl Jam’s version of  the Wayne Cochran classic (although made popular by Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers )”Last Kiss” every 10 miles. ‘Til this day, everytime I hear that song, I think of that trip. Well, as you might imagine, “I Gotta Feelin‘” was this trip’s “Last Kiss” as I seemed to hear it constantly and listened to it each time. When I went to return my rental car, fittingly as I pulled into the parking lot, the song came on the radio.

And Labor Day weekend, I went with some friends to see my friend’s band play. Midway through the first set, they played the song and the crowd went crazy. They liked it so much that when it came time for the last song of the night, many in the crowd requested it and they had to play it again. The next night, I went to a 10 year anniversary party and the song was played there. Now I don’t watch Oprah, but last week the band played the song for her 24th season opener (which, oh by the way, shut down Michigan fuckin Avenue for 2 days!) which turned out to be one hell of a performance. See, the song is everywhere. Hell, I’m sure that you even have heard it everywhere as well. And I’m sure when I save this post it will come on my play list as well.

This weekend, I had to go out and by the damn cd that the song is on, “The E.N.D.” Now I can listen to it over and over and over.

Fuck, its like the damn song brainwashes you. I really gotta find a way to be involved in some smash hit song so that I can kick back and collect royalties for the rest of my life.