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!