[Seth Says] NOW That's What I Call Madness!
If you remember the 80s, which were a mere 20 years ago, 20 years ago, you may remember an avalanche of TV commercials for music collections. Before everyone had a digital music library, or access to an Internet where all popular songs were available pretty much all the time, if you wanted to be able to listen to the songs you liked and didn't want to have to buy the original tapes/records/CDs/8-tracks/well-trained-mynah-birds, you had to pay money for one of these compilation albums which were ubiquitous.
(This was, admittedly, still a step up from subscription services like the Columbia Record Club which would send you five monthly albums you definitely didn't want for too much money and never let you cancel because there was no Internet to cancel on, so you'd be stuck paying for terrible albums for months, all because you just couldn't resist those first few decent albums for a penny, because what else could you buy with a penny even those days?)
Anyway, one of the hallmarks of these commercials was that they'd try to sell the compilation by listing the various songs they hoped you loved, putting the big text on the screen that would sometimes scroll by in rapid succession as the announcer called out the various surefire hits that everyone had heard a billion times because they were played everywhere, and yet for some reason they expected you to buy them anyway. Let's just take a moment to nostalgically reminisce about those commercials. Ahhh.
WE'RE ALL MAD HERE
My partner has gone on vacation for a week, and it may or may not be the case that the amount of talking to myself that I do has increased significantly as a result. We can't say for sure, because I haven't tracked any of it, but like Covid in the wastewater, signs are there that it's definitely on the rise. (That's not funny, it's just a reminder that Covid is still a massive problem even though for whatever reason we as a country are still pretending that it's not and now trying to ban people from protecting themselves wtf.)(You probably don't need me telling you what isn't funny; you already knew that.)(But did you know that "Pumpernickel" bread gets its name from "the devil's fart"?)(There, now at least maybe you gleaned some new information from this paragraph.)(Yes yes, you etymologists who already knew the derivation of pumpernickel are very impressive and I can't teach you anything.)("How about Blackbeard?" "Can't Teach anything either")(This reference has been pirated.)("That joke hasn't got a leg to stand on." "Good, that'll take you down a peg.")
What I have tracked, at least as far as writing them down over the past few days, are some titles of the random songs that I have made up and loudly sang to myself while being home alone this week. And before I share these incredibly stupid song titles, please return to the nostalgic frame of mind where we imagine a terrible 80s commercial for a compilation album.
HEY MUSIC FANS
If you want the hottest hits from the least cool guy, you'll love Sounds of the Sethendies, the new collection featuring all the songs that should have stayed forgotten, including:
"I Was Gonna Start Today"
"Alexander Pushkin, You Silly Bitch"
"Moo Moo I'm A Duck"
"Microplastics In My Balls"
"You Just Ate A Bag Of Triscuits"
"Fourteen O'Clock"
"That's A Big-Ass Dragon"
"Your Pepper Chicken Salad Was Invalid"
"Mother Fucking Dust Balls"
"You Forgot To Eat"
"An Eleventh Of That"
Available on cassette or LP. We put such terrible songs on the LP, it requires LP Hatecraft, which is a whole Mountain of Madness. There's never been a music collection like this before, and thank god! Send check or money order to some charity making the world better, operators have gone to bed because it's three in the morning.
WITH TRISCUITS, YOU RISK IT
Sometimes, people ask me how I get ideas for my columns. And it varies. At times, I will have an important issue that I feel the need to write about, or a philosophical point that I wish to make. And other times, like this week, I will hurt my thumb on a Triscuit, and think to myself, "Self, you are perhaps not the most manly."
And that very stupid event, and mildly stupid (but accurate) thought, have resulted in this week's column, a quiz about manliness:
IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD
And I wouldn't want to have to paint it. Anyway, that's all for this week's edition of Seth Talks (And Sings) To Himself. Thanks for reading, tune in two weeks from now for another column, and watch out for those Triscuits, they're ouchie!
Your Favorite Cracker,
Seth