67. Easy Money

67. "Two Tickets to Paradise" by Eddie Money

You've got to know that you've done something terribly wrong with your rock n' roll music career when your Wikipedia entry begins with the sentence, "Not to be confused with Eddie Mooney."

And out of all the terribly wrong somethings that Eddie Money did during the 70s and 80s--and plenty of them have been documented in court--I think it's pretty obvious which something is the terribly wrongest. No, it's not all the drugs. No, it's not all the sex. No, it's not even the violence, including the well-known fact that Eddie Money wants to punch Kenny Loggins. (Get in line, Eddie!) The wrongest of the terribly wrongs is that even with all his massive amounts of money--and he must have had a lot of it to change his last name from Mahoney (not Mooney!) to Money--even with all that cash stuffed into his rumpled suit-coat pockets, we will never see anyone in our entire lives that is in a more constant and desperate need of a haircut.

Hey! Do you like sprinting through crowds in your bomber jacket and showing off your hard-won tambourine trophy? Well, so does Eddie! Twirl it again, Eddie! Twirl it again!

You know, after watching that video, it occurs to me that Eddie Money looks a lot like goat boy, except that goat boy has a better haircut. 

Having read such derogatory musings on the state of Eddie Money's unprepossessing mop, you're probably wondering why "Two Tickets to Paradise" is so high on top 200 list. Truth be told, it wasn't always in my top 200. In fact, if I'd written this list ten years ago, it wouldn't have even placed on the list. But right after Julie and I celebrated our 25th anniversary with a trip to the Oregon coast, we decided that we'd celebrate our 30th anniversary by going to the Virgin Islands. Shortly after making that decision, I heard this song on the radio, and it catapulted from no-chart status to well past the top-100-song mark. Now whenever I hear the galloping intro for this song, I envision sandy beaches and palm trees and ocean sunsets. And I get really excited to take Julie on a trip so far from here! We are going to have so much fun together exploring Saint John! We might check out some of the other islands, but we've decided Saint John will be where we spend the majority of our time. Why? Because 75% of the island is protected as part of the Virgin Islands State Park. And since we're old now, we really like exploring parks with cool trees and lots of wildlife. The only thing that I can think would be more fun to do on a vacation would be to punch Kenny Loggins.

It's about a year away now, so we haven't yet started making any serious preparations for the trip. But I do know one thing I'm going to make absolutely sure I do before we leave for paradise--get a damn good haircut!

68. We'll frolic and play the Eskimo way

68. "Ridin' the Storm Out" by REO Speedwagon

Sometimes a song takes on a special meaning in our head that is quite different from the original meaning intended by the singer/songwriter. Such is the case with Ridin' the Storm Out. It's original meaning had something to do with the band being stuck in a bar during a Colorado blizzard.

But what goes through my conscious mind when I hear this song are thoughts about hunkering down during a cold and stormy part of a relationship with someone you love--a storm that's so strong you don't know if you'll survive it--and then in the middle of storm you realize that the other person is also hunkering down and desperately hoping for a break in the storm, so you somehow find a way to ride out the storm together.



Of course, what my subconscious mind is most likely processing during this song are memories of waiting out Friday night snowstorms in the cabin at the Big Onion. The key to surviving those cold nights was to make sure you've got plenty of split pine logs to shove into cast iron stove all night long. Then on Saturday morning, after the storm has passed, you stuffed a hot breakfast down your gullet before hopping on the black Artic Cat (or was it the white Yamaha?) and blasting your way through the deep, fresh powder as you tried to keep up with Sheldon for the next six hours.

Yeah. Now that I think about it, the guitar solos in this song are a pretty good musical representation of Scapell on a snowmobile.