86. That'll keep you going through the show

86. "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd

The Wall. I should just put the whole album on the countdown in one giant entry. With the way the songs merge into each other (kind of like Monty Python skits),  I could almost get away with it. I probably heard it a hundred times when Randy lived with us. He'd play something from it at least every couple days, and I'd make the request to hear something from it just about as often. It had some good mellow stuff that we liked to play while we just lay in bed and listened. This song was the best of the mellow tunes.

Here's a video Randy would have appreciated. It's Dr. Strange singing the doctor's part on "Comfortably Numb."



The song has taken on new layers of meaning as I've gotten older. I was thinking just this morning about how different I am now from when I was kid listening to all this music from the 70s and 80s. I'm really not trying to relive my past, but it can be surreal at times when listening to these songs because every now and then I get a quick flash of memory that brings back the feelings I had back then. And for a moment, it's like I'm that kid again looking at my older self, and I think, "What the hell happened to you?! You aren't anything like the person I wanted to become!"

And sometimes when I think about it honestly, the answer always comes down to the simple fact that I have indeed become comfortably numb. That's when it feels like I'm just waiting for the worms to come.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

But other times when I think about it, the answer is that there's still that best part of my younger self that's just waiting for me to get over my old-man cynicism and start having fun again. And that young inner Daren got a big boost this last Monday evening when Julie gave me the go-ahead to buy a motorcycle. My brother and sister-in-law said that as soon as I got on the bike, they saw the teenager in me come right out. And I have to say that the smell of the gasoline, and the sound of the engine, and the feeling of freedom I get riding it has really given old-man Olson a real kick in the butt. So, say hello to my 1977 Honda CT 125. It's old and slow and dinged up and needs some parts fixed up--kind of like me. Hopefully, it will help me go from being comfortably numb to comfortably fun.

87. I am the King of the Couch!

87. "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand (kind of)

To get me through the boring, repetitive tasks assigned to me at Boise State, I adopted a strategy of listening to French 80s music. Since I speak very little French, the lyrics didn't distract me, but the upbeat 80s vibe kept my mood up. Funny thing about French music--it always seems to be either really sad or really happy. And the lyrics don't even have to make sense when translated into English either. Random French phrases will do. Also, the lyrics don't have to be actual French words. As long as the words sound French, that's good enough.

Let me show you what I mean. Here's "Foux Du Fafa" by Flight of the Conchords. (Didn't you introduce me to this video? I don't remember.) The lyrics don't make much sense when translated. But I guarantee you'll feel happy at least five-and-a-half times before the end of the song.



Also, if a song is in French, anyone that doesn't speak the language will have no idea if the sound they hear is even your own voice. It could be the voice of someone else, and no one would ever know--unless the guy you hired to sing the song in French decides to take you to court and expose your music fakery.

And that is exactly what happened to Plastic Bertrand, a Belgian singer that Milli-Vanillied his way to a hit by hiring a guy named--and I'm not making this up or misspelling it--Lou Deprijck to sing and produce the song. But after Plastic lip-synced his way to fame and fortune with the song, Lou decided to be a real prijck about it and sued for a chunk of cash and the rights to perform the song.

Much has been made on the interwebs of the meaning of the lyrics of this song, which some translators portray as a nonsense song, while others point out that the French idioms used in the song make complete sense. "Ca plane pour moi" means literally, "It glides for me." But from the research I've done on the lyrics, I believe that the best translation of this French idiomatic phrase would be "I'm going to milk the cow."

I don't care. It sounds French. It makes me happy. Plus, there is an English line in it where he says, "I am the king of the divan." Who doesn't love a song that lets you proclaim "I am the King of the couch?!"



Anyway, this became my favorite song played on the French 80s stations I listened to at Boise State. The only problem I have with it is that it came out in 1977, so it really shouldn't be played on a French 80s station. But hey, that's what punk music was all about, right? Breaking the rules!

And one of the non-rules of punk had to do with "pogoing" on the dance floor. Apparently, dancing like you're an epileptic on a pogo stick was a thing associated with punk or new wave music. (I don't know why I did not know this.) The reason I bring it up is that it might be reason that the audience starts clapping in the middle of the song after Plastic pogos.



Fun Fact: "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats was written after the lead singer got kicked out of a Canadian dance club for pogoing. Of course, if you think everyone pogoed like Debra Harry does in the video above, you'd think that it was stupid for the bouncer to kick the dude out. But in the video below, you'll see a more violent form of the pogo. After you see the dancing going on while the Sex Pistol's sing "Anarchy in the UK," you'll probably side with the bouncer.



And now I understand a little better why They Might Be Giants didn't want that kind of dancing going on at their concert. Yikes! (Foux du fafa!)

88. This is the politics of life?

88. "Heart and Soul" by T'Pau

This song is the sound of my post-mission summer, which was mostly spent working the 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift at the Tupperware factory.

Mmmmm! The smell of freshly molded plastic! It's the gift that keeps on giving. (You can wash it out of your clothes, but not your nostrils.)

On my days off, I tried to keep my same sleep schedule, so I'd watch movies and MTV until I couldn't anymore because Mom and Dad slept in the TV room, and then I'd lay in bed and read the Lord of the Rings or the Shannara trilogy.

I know that sounds like a nerdy thing to do, but I'm definitely not a nerd. After all, would a real nerd enjoy watching a video of a white woman with long red hair rapping about being rejected in love while a bunch of musicians with their shirts buttoned up to the tippy-top button join her to form a band named after a Vulcan priestess?

89. Say Cheese

89. "Red Barchetta" by Rush

When I came to this song, I thought, "Why do I think of Randy riding in a red sports car when I hear it? And why do I imagine the drummer sitting behind a huge drum set? And why does the title of this song make me think of cheese?"

Then the memories began to flood back.

I remembered that along with the Van Halen, Pink Floyd, and Ten Nugent albums, at some point while he lived with us, Randy bought the Moving Pictures album by Rush.

"Tom Sawyer" was the song on this album that got me into Rush, what with the very enjoyable sing-a-long line "Catch the spirit, catch the spit." However, it's been so overplayed throughout the years that it's fallen out of favor with my ears and been replaced by "Red Barchetta."

Then I also remembered that when I was introduced to the Freaks and Geeks television show, I got a big kick out of the Rush references by the kid that idolized Neil Peart and bragged to Linda Cardellini that his 29-piece drum set was only six pieces away from being a bigger set than Neil's.



But then Linda Cardellini's TV dad tried to crush the kid's hero-worshipping of Neil with a little jazz drumming.



Granted, those jazz drummers really know how to make the sticks fly. Still, there's a part of me that understands the kid's awe of Neil's drum set. Behold the drum set in all its glory!



A slightly smaller drum set is featured in this 80s performance of "Red Barchetta."



So that's why this song makes me imagine Randy riding in a red sports car while somewhere in the Great White North a drummer is banging away on a gigantic drum set. However, I still have no idea why I think Barchetta is a type of cheese. Could it be because it really is a cheese? Well, there's only one way to find out--check the most comprehensive list of cheeses available on the interwebs.



Mmmmmmm...Rogue Cheddar.... A snack that is a winner, but yet won't spoil my dinner!

Well, I guess Barchetta isn't a cheese then. And I have no idea why I think of cheese when I hear the song. But you have to admit that Barchetta would make a damn fine name for a cheese!

And so would Cardellini.

90. All she wanted was the sax

90. "Goodbye Stranger" by Supertramp

The Marsh Valley High School student newspaper often featured an interview with one or two students. I don't ever recall being interviewed for the paper, nor do I recall anything that was written about any of my classmates in these interviews, except for one--Piney Votezal Votesel Votzul -- okay, I give up. Let's just call her Piney, shall we? There was only one Piney in all of Marsh Valley, so there's little chance of confusion.

Anyway, I remember Piney's interview because in it they asked her what her favorite band was, and she said "Supertramp." And I remember thinking, "Hey, I like Supertramp too! I've got something in common with Piney!" And then I remember thinking, "I've got something in common with Piney?!"

What's the difference between real tramps and supertramps? The sax?

I saw Piney twice after high school. The first time was right after my mission when I went to the grocery store in Downey to get a root beer. She was the clerk at the register. As I bought my sodey-pop, she asked me what I was doing with my life, and I told her that I just got back from Sweden, and that the family was moving to Twin Falls. I asked what she was up to, and she said she was married and working there at the store. Then somebody else came up behind me, so I said goodbye and left so she could keep doing her job.

The second time was at our class reunion--the only one I've attended. I remember she got up and gave this hilarious speech where she said that she was really sorry for what she had done in high school--and she said, "Yes...THAT too!"--after which a lot of people laughed. I had no idea what exactly THAT was. But I wondered if THAT is why the lady is a Supertramp fan.

Now some they do and some they don't,
And some you just can't tell.
And some they will and some they won't.
With some it's just as well.

91. Why not whistle?

91. "Strangers in the Night" by Mrs. Miller

While I find all of Mrs. Miller's songs both supremely entertaining and strangely inspiring, this one has a certain special something....



Do-be-do indeed! ('Nuff sung!)

92. Sulsul! Plerg majah bliff?

92. "SIM Hagar" by Jerry Martin

One of the things I tried to specialize in during grad school was the design of instructional simulations. Consequently, I felt compelled to purchase "The Sims" computer game when it first came out and do a post-mortem on the game to figure out how it was designed. I probably learned more about designing simulations from that game than anything else I studied, and every time we discussed simulations in class, I could always relate everything back to the game. So all those hours and days and months I spent playing the game were NOT completely wasted.

One of the cleverest things about the game design was that the Sims--the little virtual people you controlled in the game--spoke a made-up language called "Simlish." It's a combination of made-up words along with a few actual words in various languages (including English) thrown in from time to time just to screw with your mind. (It's jarring to hear an English word or phrase, because your brain says, "Hold on a second! That made sense...didn't it?") Anytime the Sims talked, you would see a bubble with the text in English, but you'd hear them say something in Simlish. Even more clever, the game featured a radio you could purchase for your Sims, and you could turn it to stations that played various music genres--country, jazz, rock, etc.--with all the song lyrics in Simlish.



Since that first game, they've had some well-known professional musicians record new music (Mike Mothersbaugh from Devo did the music to Sims 2) or record their own songs in Simlish.

Here's Katy Perry recording the Simlish version of her song "Last Friday Night."



I'm not a Katy Perry fan, but I think I could listen to a little more of her singing in Simlish.



Shortly after the game came out, Apple introduced its first iPod, which let me put one thousand songs on a little magical white brick and listen to them in random order wherever I went. One day, I got the bright idea to download all of The Sims music onto my iPod and listen to it while I went shopping. Now, the game had some lame shopping music it would play while you were "shopping" in the game, so listening to that same music as I searched for real items to purchase was more than a little surreal. I felt like I was one of the little cartoon people inside the game!

My favorite song in that first game was one of the five rock station songs that played when you turned on the radio within the game. There was one song in particular that actually rocked pretty hard. They call it "SIM Hagar" now, but it was always song #4 to me. It is especially fun to lip-sync the lyrics in Simlish--if you can figure out what they are.