More than anything...more than jewels...more than life...

What I wish on this watershed of a day...

- that I could go to Hawaii
- that I could be bigger and stronger without health repercussions
- that I could have the libido I had half a lifetime ago
- that I could have the energy I've so often lacked
- that my office were fully packed up and I could leave for the day
- that I could be in a relationship where I don't feel like we both are keeping each other from being who we really could be
- that I had a big ol' soft-serve orange and vanilla twist ice cream cone
- that I didn't have to act as professionally as I do
- that I could just open my goddamned mouth and let fly whatever comes out and not care about the consequences
- that I could know who my birth parents are, and subsequently...
- that I could know what my health history is
- that I could paint my reality with broad strokes, instead of obsessing over the pointillistic details
- that alcohol and sex, sex, sex weren't so important to gay men (one sex is fine, thank you)
- that I lived closer to a beach with great boogie-boarding and body surfing waves all the time
- that I didn't have these damned voices in my head telling me what I can't do or can't have
- that I could be one kickass DJ and bring in at least some good coin from it.

Well...gotta keep packin'...

RRRGH...can't...write...can't...think...

With apologies for the time being for you, my thousands of readers hanging on every word. Writer's block is a bitch. Well, that, and the fact that I'm preoccupied with leaving my place of work this Saturday and moving on to a better, more appropriate place for my skill set. (GAAH! Did I just say that? "Skill set"? Corporate-speak, get behind me!)

Just to let you know that, yes, there is someone still manning the controls up here. Coasting on autopilot for a bit, though. Life will calm down, inspiration will strike, and regular blogging will resume momentarily.

"There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza."

I have just finished watching the last two episodes of Daria: The Complete Animated Series. Oh, and the two hour-long movies, "Is It Fall Yet?" and "Is It College Yet?". And the Mystik Spiral video "Freakin' Friends." And the cast interviews. All in one night. Obsessive? Owned.

My ultimate judgment? Given that it's a cartoon about the trials and travails of high school, it's only appropriate to seal the whole thing with the most symbolic of high school judgments.

A+.

Seriously. This subject matter is timeless. High school angst? Sibling rivalry? Heartless lifemanship? Cliques at their worst? Teenage friendships at their best? First loves (and loves lost)? All handled with the skill of an expert swordsman.

Maybe I'm stuck in a permanently pre-adult, purely puerile (say that five times quickly) point in my life. Maybe I'm just clamoring for the teenage years I wish I could have back, just so I could do them right this time, dammit. But Daria is utter brilliance. I never thought I could be so riveted to a teenage girl's monotonous angst. And I really feel that although it encapsulates the angst of the 1990s high school scene, its theme is truly for the ages.

But then again, I have to think: in high school, I really was Daria...only on the male side of things. My voice was as monotonous as you could get. I was dripping with angst and self-doubt with every hallway corner I turned. I tried to sabotage my first real relationship (first unsuccessfully, then...well, is there a successful way to end a relationship, really?). I never had a faithful sidekick as devoted and cynical and witty as Jane Lane (damn, Daria was lucky), but the friends I did have definitely all fit the bill in one way or another. So I'm really, really biased. (Check that: my first real relationship? She was my sidekick. And I kicked her to the curb. Damn you, sexual incompatibility!)

Looking at the whole series in chronological order, I can definitely see things I never recognized in the past. To wit:

• You NEVER would have seen Daria run up to hug Jane at the beginning of the series, when their standoffishness was central to their characters...yet there you see it, at the end of the series, after Daria nearly gets into a car accident. Daria is human!
• Bribing. Fucking UBIQUITOUS at the beginning of the series. But for some reason, the Morgendorffers grew up, and at some point, money was no longer considered a means to achieve selfish ends.
• Quinn. My God, but Quinn evolved. The snobbiest, most selfish, most superficial kid who always fit in perfectly in the Fashion Club grew up. She found out that learning and being smart is cool. She learned respect and - dare I say it? - sisterly love for Daria. (This, after years of disowning her as some distant relative or other.) She even stood up to one of her peers, calling her on having a drinking problem, even when it meant the end of their friendship.
• Daria herself. I mean, she was so uniformly cynical, antisocial, sarcastic, a loner...you know the type. She totally encapsulated it. At first. But as the series went on, cracks showed up in the wall of cynicism she built around her. She began to acknowledge the love that her parents had for her. She began to show - in more overt ways - her devotion to her friends. She even (begrudgingly at first) reciprocated her sisterly love toward Quinn. And my GOD...she even maintained a relationship with a BOY for awhile!
• Ms. Barch's utter HATRED for the male species - because of a heartless, cruel divorce she endured before the series started. No blaming her here. But it was totally cool to see how the endlessly hypersensitive Mr. O'Neill unwittingly and effortlessly melted this crone's heart...to the point where she was making out with him at any opportunity. By the last episode she was wholeheartedly accepting what she misconstrued as a marriage proposal. Take home: if the man-hating Ms. Barch can fall in love again, ANYTHING is possible. ANYTHING.

But some things that were established firmly at the beginning also remained stalwart to the end.

• Jane. In all respects: her cynicism, her slicing wit, her (nearly) undying dedication to her friendship with Daria. (Aside from that whole boyfriend quasi-stealing mess. Justifiable and forgiven.) LOVE me some Jane Lane.
• Kevin's utter stupidity. Duh! He was the QB, right? And of course, he flunked his senior year. (Yes, this attitude contributed to an anti-homecoming/football screed I published in the school paper my freshman year that all but guaranteed me a pummeling by our linebackers.) (If only...)
• Brittany. Kind of. She did actually grow some semblance of a brain. Somewhat.
• Jodie. God bless her. I really felt for her. So pressured to be the best of the best. Oh, and let's add the pressure of being one of only two minorities at Lawndale High. And she graduated valedictorian, natch.
• Sandi. President of the Fashion Club. Always and forevermore a bitch of the highest order. And no, that is not meant as a compliment. But I will grant her this: she can manipulate better than anyone I've ever known.

Seeing Daria (both the character and the series) just affirms my position in life. I'm intelligent, cynical, somewhat antisocial, somewhat reclusive, yet constantly evolving and learning stuff about human nature. And the fact that a network as influential as MTV found a character and series as non-mainstream and subversive as Daria (see also: My So-Called Life) and could support said series for five seasons gives me hope for persons such as myself. (Of course, MTV has since devolved into a state of putrid swampstank the likes of which Daria represents its absolute antithesis. I mean, MTV hardly shows music videos anymore, right? It's time to pull the plug. Like about a decade ago. We can all live without The Real World, which is, like, so real, btw.) But if Daria can thrive, I can too, right?

Then again, we may never know. The final movie, "Is It College Yet?", showed everyone going separate ways. Daria broke up with her beau, Tom. Brittany promised Kevin she'd wait for him...while crossing her fingers behind her back. All the main characters wound up going to completely different colleges. But a silver lining of sorts: Daria and Jane ended up going to different colleges, but in the same town: Boston. But there ended the season. Maybe continuing to pursue Daria: The College Years might have been pretty tough. Still, given the caliber of what the team behind Daria had turned out, it would have been possible, and possibly very compelling. But the world will never know...just like that damned Tootsie Roll commercial.

God bless Daria Morgendorffer. And God bless pizza.

Michael Jackson, one year later

For any of you chipper whippersnappers stumbling across this here blog who don't remember Michael Jackson circa Thriller, don't understand his appeal, or perhaps weren't born yet, check this video out. It's made of unadulterated marvelous white-sequined AWESOME. Here's what an amazing, unifying force of nature he was, shot just a few days after his untimely death. I'm hard pressed to think of any other pop star who could cause this sort of spontaneous celebration amongst complete strangers. (Oh, and for the record...the geeky tall white guy in the center of most of the video? That'd be me, making a complete fool of myself and not caring one bit...if I were on that subway.)

The Disco Box

2001 was a banner year for me. I had broken up with my ex that January, and moved out a month later into a studio off of NW 21st Street in Portland. The ensuing six months was the best time of my life up to that point. So that spring, as a present to myself, I strolled down to the local music store and picked up this hunk of fun.

I rediscovered it a few days ago, and have been listening to it nonstop since. Maybe it's that summer has FINALLY, irrevocably arrived. Maybe it's that Pride is this weekend. Whatever...something in me is celebrating and aching for sweet release of some sort.

And this four-disc box set delivers. Uneven in places, especially during the last disc. And as you'd imagine, 80 tunes spread out over only four CDs does not lend itself easily to extended mixes - the way you'd hear them in the clubs. But if you want to hear some of the most hedonistic music ever created, condensed down to radio-friendly bite-sized chews, you owe it to yourself to listen to a few of these gems. A few of my all-time faves:

Born to Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez: My absolute favorite of everything here, and that's major praise. The title says it all: kinda corny and self-evident (yeah, you're born, you're alive, duh-hickey), but damn, defiant ecstasy has seldom been so catchy and exciting.

Rock the Boat - The Hues Corporation: I hadn't heard this one ever before 2001. No real reason to like it other than it's catchy, it swings, it's got a good beat, you can dance to it...I'd give it a 88, Dick.

Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Staton: Man, something about the horns in this song just do me in. Horns in disco in general, yes, but here they're just perfect, toe-curling. And then Ms. Staton uses her beautiful but weary voice to tell the story of the man who left her and her young baby to fend for themselves. Irresistible but heartbreaking.

Turn the Beat Around - Vicki Sue Robinson: Crazy, sassy and classy. Sung with whiplash intensity.

Get Up And Boogie - Silver Connection: Stupid, stupid fun. Makes me want to lace up my roller skates.

Boogie Nights - Heatwave: Another song I just like, just 'cause. It's underplayed and deserves a new audience.

I Feel Love - Donna Summer: Bow down to the ultimate queen of disco, bitches. But even more so, pay respects to HRH Giorgio Moroder. His throbbing synthesizer here filled a million discotheques and inspired countless DJs. Techno and its myriad offshoots (for better or worse) wouldn't exist without this one.

The rest of Disc 2 - I can't list them all. This disc is golden.

Y.M.C.A. - Village People: I know...this song's too obvious. Still, it cracks me up that this homage to clandestine M2M fun at the local gym is still a perennial favorite at weddings. Besides, I heard this one recently at a club here in town, and it worked the crowd into a froth even more than "I Gotta Feeling."

Knock on Wood - Amii Stewart: Tribal, before tribal was even considered a concept. (Trying not to use the word "fierce," it's so overused, but it really does apply here.) And the video is classic '70s kitsch.

Good Times - Chic: This one comes right after "Born to be Alive." It's a dangerous pairing...by the end of these two, you're bounding out of your skin with unspeakable joy. Need I bring up the immortal bass line?

Lost in Music - Sister Sledge: I love "We Are Family," which is also here. But man, talk about your statements of purpose. "Responsibility to me is a tragedy...I won't give up my music - not me, not now, no way, no how!" Cue me falling in love.

Funkytown - Lipps, Inc.: So fun. And I miss those Star Wars-like synthesized voices. SO 1980, but so timeless.

Cruisin' the Streets - The Boystown Gang: Not much as a piece of music. But I gotta give it up for a band that ain't the Village People that name-checks gay meccas and waxes rhapsodical about finding...not a love interest, but a hunky guy and your next conquest, boys. The shorter version is here; I desperately want to find the extended version, with its VERY explicit lyrics.

It's Raining Men - The Weather Girls: Of course. One of the greatest gay anthems of all time. But by this point, the term disco is being diluted quite a bit - this is more straightforward pop than disco.

And now, for the few clunkers that just don't work for me.

Honeybee - Gloria Gaynor: If you can make it past the first 3 seconds, you're stronger than me. How annoying can a honeybee's (imitated) buzz be on record? Check it out...but you probably won't be back.

In the Bush - Musique: A bevy of oversexed women panting "Push, push in the bush. Do you like it? Do you like it like this?" I generally have no problem with sex in songs, but this is just me: I don't care to think about vajayjay in any of my music, disco or otherwise.

Last Night A DJ Saved My Life - Indeep: What a brillant title. What a great premise. Such potential for a kick-ass song. And this dud falls SO flat. A plodding beat and a lame, lame rap by the DJ make me want to flush this down the drain. (Cue - I kid not - a toilet flushing. Because that's the sound sensation that's sweeping the nation, right?) Also: not disco.

Other quibbles: Far too little Donna Summer, no Bee Gees (!?), no Earth, Wind and Fire. They could have fleshed out the set with more of these artists and thrown some of the non-disco stuff out toward the end. And extended mixes would have been fun, perhaps even segued one into the next. And saddest of all...it's out of print. Still, you can buy it if you search around, and the prices are pretty comparable to what it was originally sold for.

This set makes me wonder if there's any demand out there for an old-time disco-era DJ, and also if there's still time for me to hone my craft. I loved doing the college radio DJ thing, but to be able to play songs end to end - with no breaks and no commercials - and to be in control of a party's mood just gives me the best kind of chills. And I ain't a fan of the soulless machinelike overwrought beat playing in the clubs nowadays.

Bacon, too...but that's too obvious.

Or: Foods that make my life worth living.

Cinnamon. Like coffee for Seattleites. I'm pretty certain that without cinnamon, I might shrivel and become a shadow of myself. Cinnamon and chocolate. Cinnamon and honey wrapped in a tortilla. Cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon crumb donuts. Cinnamon and yogurt. Cinnamon and smoothies. Cinnamon and black beans. Cinnamon and peaches. Cinnamon and apples. My infatuation may very well protect me from ever getting diabetes.

Orange and vanilla. When you combine these two and consume, magical things begin to happen. I fondly remember a joyride in southern Minnesota as a college kid, wherein I purchased and ate a whole box of Creamsicles. Well, almost. I was kind enough to give a few bites to one friend, and let a second one eat a whole one. But the other 10 1/2 were all mine, and slid down my gullet like honey. That was my dinner, and I felt great afterward. It's all been downhill from there. (See also: Stewart's orange cream soda, orange/vanilla soft serve in ice cream cones, ice cream floats with vanilla ice cream and mandarin orange Slice..and yes, it HAS to be mandarin orange Slice. Accept no substitutes.)

Carbonara. Here's my theory. Some glutton with cast-iron arteries decided that alfredo sauce just wasn't decadent and unhealthy enough. A parmesan cream sauce only goes so far, amirite? So said glutton decided to add more butter, cream, fatty pork (pancetta, guanciale, bacon...take your pick), egg yolks (and yolks only, because the egg whites were just too...I dunno...South Beach omelet-esque?), and voila! But then the health food mavens screamed bloody murder. So M. Glutton threw in a few peas or caramelized onions to appease them. Good GOD-amighty, eat some of this, and you're as good as comatose for the night.

Borsch(t). I'm not kidding. But first: I grew up with You Can't Do That on Television on Nickelodeon. Remember that disgusting chef who always put boogers and loogies in the burgers? Apparently he also made borsch; the kids asked him why it was called that, and he joked that it was what everyone did when they ate it (cue kids charmingly puking at the table). But then I went to Russia and discovered that this much-maligned soup could be SO heavenly. The key? An ingredient that I've yet to find over here: smetana. Loosely translated, it's sour cream, but sour cream just falls apart and curdles in borsch. Smetana (accent on the second syll-AH-ble, please) is like thin yogurt in consistency, has a smoother taste, and mixes perfectly with borsch, turning it a delightful pink. Oh, and lots of dill, please. Lack of these two ingredients will render this soup inedible to me. By the by, spelled correctly with or without the "t." In Russian, it's spelled without the "t," while Yiddish adds it.

Coconut. And you probably don't like it. That's fine. More for me. I'll happily get sick on macaroons, add coconut milk to smoothies and cereal (with rice milk), frappefy it with ice, orange juice, and vanilla (see above) for a heavenly mock-orange julius, slurp hot Thai coconut milk soup, follow it with coconut curry chicken, and snarf down gargantuan slices of coconut cream pie (that are over 1/2 whipped cream).

Pho. The Vietnamese have given us this humble beef-and-rice noodle soup to nurture us through frigid, snow-bound days. You get a huge bowl of the stuff, bring your nose down to the bowl and inhale the lime, beef broth, and basil combination as your glasses steam up. Smile with the deepest of gratitude for something so pleasing. Add some Sriracha, and slurp away. Comfort food that blows chicken soup out of the water.(Although it kinda makes you wonder: why such a hot soup from such a hot country? Wouldn't it seem more appropriate for, say, Norwegians to come up with something like this to warm you up in the winter?)

Khachapuri, khinkali, and Khvanchkara. Don't sweat the pronunciation. Three Georgian (as in Caucasian) foods that are just heaven on earth, and that's meant more literally than you'd think. Georgians like to say that God traveled around the world, distributing food to each region. God decided to keep the best for him/herself, but underestimated how high the Caucasus mountains were. God tripped and fell, and the best food fell upon Georgia. After enjoying a few Georgian feasts while in Russia, I totally get it. Georgians know how to party and EAT like there's no tomorrow, and Georgian food as a whole is the best I have ever had.
Khachapuri is a simple light baked bread with melted cheese as an appetizer, served hot. Khinkali are luscious, juicy, almost buttery meat dumplings. And Khvanchkara is some of the sweetest and fruitiest red wine you've ever had, just this side of wine coolers. (Also recommended: Kindzmarauli, if you can't tolerate the really sweet stuff.)

Random thoughts...

Meanderings through the synaptic clefts of yours truly on this fine late spring day...

- "I'm Not In Love" (I just have the song in my head, not the sentiment.)

- This bee kinda sucked, no? Major props to Anamika...she done well...but as a whole, the scene this year reeked of unfairness. For once, I'm glad I wasn't a part of it.

- So, really...what AM I gonna be when I grow up? 'Cause this stint here isn't the right fit, and at 35, I should really get to figuring it out already.

- Totally digging my new rebounder. Fun stuff, and I feel all sorts of body parts moving and flexing that I didn't know could before.

- When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? (Heh. Thanks, Allen.)

- This makes me happy. (Again, thanks, Allen.)

- This also makes me happy.

Cool things about the 1989 National Spelling Bee

Here's Kavya Shivashankar, last year's very deserving winner, modestly rejoicing after clinching "Laodicean." But don't let her composure fool you. That's almost certainly the best moment of her life...up to that point, at least. Most other people's reactions in the auditorium were more like her parents in the background.



Anyhow, this year's bee is coming up. Finals on Friday evening at 8:00; catch the details here.

I already wrote at length about the bee last year. (And aptly enough, I'm posting this 21 years to the day after I won Nationals. Not intentional, actually.) So indulge my solipsistic side. What made 1989 for me? (Aside from the obvious, of course.)

- The Capitol Hilton. No cooler hotel EVER. Well, at least until the bee moved in 1996 to the Grand Hyatt Washington. Wait...no. This one was still the coolest, if only for two things. The competition was held on the 2nd floor above ground, and not three claustrophobia-inducing floors below terra firm. Also...

- Trader Vic's, part 1. Probably where I nurtured my nascent tiki fetish, and definitely where I indulged my love of pina coladas. (Virgin at the time, folks, virgin! I was only 14! Geez...)

- Trader Vic's, part 2. Much to the consternation of my fellow spellers, I was not present at the post-banquet spellers-only party. The last thing I wanted to do was while away the evening doing nothing but sign autographs. I felt I'd earned the right to do whatever I pleased that night. So once the banquet was over, I turned to my pal and fellow speller Joel, and said, "Let's get outta here and go to Trader Vic's." Thus began one of the greatest evenings of my life, wherein Joel and I just talked about all things bee-related, and then some. Major bonding, the type that happens rarely in a lifetime, at best. And years later, we're still in touch. (The Trader Vic's didn't enjoy the same fate; when I returned in 1995, I was crushed to find it was gone.)

- Questionable songs, part 1. To be specific, Pink Floyd's "On The Turning Away." Meh, okay version from Momentary Lapse of Reason. But the version I had going through my head was from Delicate Sound of Thunder - exponentially better than the original. This one was with me ALL DAY - literally, from the second I woke up until I nailed that final "r." I even ran it through my head so that I spelled the last letter at the moment the final verse finished and the grand outro began. Video of me at that time shows me deep in thought. Well, kinda. I felt confident I had the bee in the bag, but I was just playing the song in my head, waiting for it to get where it needed to, and I knew the moment couldn't be rushed. Milking it, milking it...

- (Really) Questionable songs, part 2. I can't believe I actually had "Wind Beneath My Wings" running through my head nonstop from shortly after I won for a few days afterward. Actually brought tears to my eyes once or twice. TOTALLY ashamed to admit this.

- (Really, REALLY) Questionable songs, part 3. Of all the cracktastic CDs I could have gotten with my prize money, I chose those two toe-tapping classics: the Batman soundtrack by Prince and American Dream by CSNY. (Sold within a year after purchase, folks.) And for some reason, "Got It Made" ended up being my expression of elation in the weeks following June 1st. Kind of a light sound, but a bummer of a song. Only lyric that really applied: "Glad that you got it made...you are the only one I've ever seen do what you done."

- Superstitions. Like the idea that if I saw my reflection at any time while I was onstage, the next word would have been my last. And in such a mirrored, chandeliered place like the Presidential Ballroom, this could have been WAY easy. But I never saw my reflection anywhere on the second day.

- #218. Out of 222 spellers. MAJOR stroke of good luck. Why? Back then, there was no "tied for 15th place" with 33 other spellers who got out in the same round as you. If you were the first speller to go down, you got 48th place. If you were the last, you got 15th. (The powers that be have since corrected this policy.) Not to mention that if you were at the end, psychologically, you had a good feel for how the round was going. If you were the first speller in a round, getting that first word sometimes felt like being plunged into ice cold water.

- Getting lei'd. Huge banquet the night after the bee. The speller from Hawaii somehow found me a lei and presented it to me that night. Cooler than cool. It looked great, smelled wonderful...how could I put it aside? I happily wore it all night.

- River Phoenix. No less an authority than the Washington Post branded me a River Phoenix look-alike. And the Post is renowned for writing among the best bee articles anywhere. If the Post says it, it must be so.

- The Chattanooga Times. For writing a feature article about "darkly handsome Ojas Tejani," the Chattanooga rep and the 2nd place finisher, while totally branding me the bad guy. Seriously, it was cool. I knew the press rep for the Times at the time...she was sassy and fun, so it was a great inside joke. I'm sure Tennesseeans appreciated it, too.

- Spoliator. Duh.

"I feel like an Asian Branch Davidian."

Lots of cringeworthy moments from tonight's Glee, people.

But first, a disclaimer: Ya see, I do love me some Glee. It's practically written into how gay men are programmed circa 2010. I've seen some of the butchest, most masculine men start gushing about Glee, and suddenly the yards of taffeta come spilling out of their mouths. Every episode has a wild, "cheer spontaneously" moment. But every episode, without fail, also has a moment where a part of me dies inside. But tonight's extravaganza was...uh...I think I spit up in my mouth more than a little. To wit:

- Finn. In a bright red shower curtain floor-length dress and red glitter cat eyes, looking for all the world like a reject from the Hall of Justice. Because that's the best way he can think of to express his ultimate theatricality and save poor Kurt from imminent brutality by a couple of chunky football thugs. GAWD. Even Zan and Jayna and their pet monkey were cringing. (Freaky coincidence: the pet monkey's name is Gleek. Fact!) Just so you know, my ideal of theatricality would be Hugh Jackman, in any role he's ever done. Shirtless, preferably.

- Finn, pt. 2. Every time he yelled out the word "faggy" at Kurt.

- Rachel. Singing "Poker Face" accompanied only by piano with her newfound mom. Because between the two of them and their kaleidoscopic knowledge of decades of worthy Broadway tunes, the one song that really sums up their feelings for each other is a fucking Lady Gaga song released just this past year. I wanted to crawl into a hole every time they both sang "puh-puh-puh-poker face."

- Puck. Singing "Beth" (which...wow...didn't realize it was such a pretty tune) to Quinn, then asking her afterward to name her/their baby Beth, and for him to be there for the baby's birth. Ennhh...squirm...

- Quinn. For agreeing to Puck's groveling. Also could NOT take her emotions seriously. I can't take anyone seriously who wears four-inch day-glo pink eyelash extensions and bats them with mock pathos.

- Kurt. For designing that hideous get-up that would have been his and Finn's new shared bedroom. Gay interior designers the nation over gasped and collapsed on their fainting couches in horror. And for actually having something he called a "privacy partition." Gag. And finally, for declaring said room a great mixture of masculine and feminine. There wasn't anything even remotely masculine in that place, except for Finn. Then Kurt's dad, who, I've just heard, has been nominated by God for the title of Best TV Dad Ever.

- Will Schuester. And for that matter, the writers. For making a Lady Gaga-inspired show. (No Gaga fan, I.) Redeeming quality? There were only two Gaga songs. Other redeeming quality? Balanced out by two Kiss songs.

Sorry, Glee. Normally you're great, but aside from some brilliant one-liners (like this post's title), tonight was just skwudge.

Guilty pleasures galore!

MMMBop - Hanson: I flew into Minneapolis one early June afternoon in 1997, got picked up by a guy I had just started dating, and this hummer came on the radio. I called it: at once, it was going to be the most loved, most hated, and most overplayed song of the summer. But apparently I was really, really late on the draw. It was already #1 in the nation, and would be for nearly two months. Deservedly so. Unabashed, unadulterated bubblegum fun, fun, fun, and one great antidote for the angst and flannel of the early-mid 1990s. "MMMBop" singlehandedly paved the way for the resurgence of the post-Nirvana boy bands and a myriad of guilty pleasures, including...

I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys: I wanted to hate this one. I could NEVER get behind New Kids on the Block (let alone that lamefuck NKOTB reunion), and I figgered this was just another incarnation thereof. But sitting in Portland traffic one late spring afternoon a few years later (and damn, PDX traffic SUCKS considering it ain't all that huge a city), this breezy tune hit my speakers, and I've seldom been hooked so hard. Honestly, everything that's right and good and perfect and dreamy about boy bands is right here, and if you don't like this song, you probably will never get the whole boy band thang. My infatuation hit epic levels one day in 2007 when I drove to and from work playing ONLY this song. Replay, replay, replay. It was the aural equivalent of a large orange/vanilla soft-serve ice cream cone (I have the immortal Pat's Twist-o-Cream from the late '70s to thank for that memory. RIP.) And I ain't the only one who loved this one. Rolling Stone apparently placed this beauty ahead of "Good Vibrations" in a list of the best summer songs of all time. Much consternation and wailing ensued from the boomers, but for sheer enjoyment, I agree - "I Want It That Way" blows even that classic out of the water.

When You Close Your Eyes - Night Ranger: I won't deny the NR lovers their "Sister Christian," which is epic. But this one is truly my favorite. The video did it for me. Learning about love in the back of a Chevrolet? Phallic guitar wank-o-ramas? Drowning your sorrows at the bar and imagining your lost love is standing right there? This one might have out-Desert Mooned "Desert Moon," even, for sheer cliches. As anyone who watched MTV back in 1983 will attest, these guys ROCKED. There was a lot of competition to be the biggest big hair band back then (Ratt, Def Leppard...hell, Ozzy himself), and maybe Night Ranger didn't quite make it to the top of the heap, but they put up a damned good fight. (If you like both those songs, you HAVE to get Night Ranger's Greatest Hits.)

Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-A-Lot: No real comment on this song. I just wanted a reason to type "callipygian" in a proper context. Callipygian, callipygian, callipygian.