The Messiah Is Coming!!!!!!

'Nuff said.

Now That's What I Call Rhyming

I'm not a songwriter, just a regular writer. I've written some jingles so I know how hard it can be to find a decent rhyme. I even bought a rhyming dictionary but it's been moderately useful at best. So it is with this in mind that I decided to give a shout out to two deceased performers from the 80s who sneer at the challenge of rhyming with the attitude of someone confident that they can find a rhyme for "orange" if they had do. Not content with the standard ABAB or AABB rhyme scheme of most songs, they stick with a less-conventional AAAA.

The first shout out goes to Michael Hutchence of INXS and the 1987 song "Mediate" from the "Kick" album. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that Andrew Farriss wrote the words but who ever heard of him? Plus he's alive. What this song does is take the sound "ate" and rhyme it close to 80 times with few repeats. It works a little hard sometimes, like in the lines "sex ornate" and "edge serrate" but still, if I were on "Jeopardy!" and the category was "Sounds Like 8", I'd put all my money on Farriss.

Number two on the charts is Robert Palmer and his 1988 song "Simply Irresistible" from the "Heavy Nova" album. He takes the "ible" sound and rhymes it around 15 times. In retrospect, this isn't as impressive considering Palmer cheats but rhyming "permissible" and "principle" but why quibble (see what I did there?)?

If anyone else out there knows of other songs which rhyme the same sound over and over, please let the staff here at Greetings From Suburbia know. You'll get credit.

On A Serious Note

I'm sitting here at my kitchen table late Sunday night (or early Monday morning) and I get an e-mail from my best friend Dave. Comedian Richard Jeni apparently shot himself in the face. I have a way-too-personal relationship with suicide and reading about someone else's attempt, especially a successful one, really affects me. Or effects me. I could never tell those two apart.

So anyway, I won't ramble on the way I usually do in these things. But Elaine Boosler wrote something really nice that's worth reading.

I hope, wherever Richard Jeni is right now, he's finally found peace from the torture he believed he was facing.

P.T. Barnum Was Right

In 1869, famous showman P.T. Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute." Mine was somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 DST on March 11, 2007, right after I paid $15 for a sno cone at Mr. Barnum's namesake circus performance in New Jersey. (Actually, it turns out that Barnum never said his famous quote. But for the purposes of this post, he did.) I wonder if he also recognized that there's an impatient douche bag born every other minute.

A circus is supposed to be a happy place. Clowns! Acrobats! Trapeze Artists! And kids. Lots and lots of happy, smiling kids. It's really quite contagious for an adult to be surrounded by so much mirth. Except the 2 adults in the lobby of the Continental Airlines arena must have been immune. Actually, it was only one guy who was frustrated by the crowds in the lobby and violently pushed past another adult in an effort to stay with his family. Words were exchanged, threats were leveled, security was called and we all got on with our lives. But jeez, at a circus? It wasn't even an out-of-control crowd. No one could say it was a circus in the lobby, even in jest. No, one schmuck lost his cool and looked like an ass.

The circus was fun. The kids had a blast. And while the clowns were rolling around on the floor, a question came to mind: which came first--the word, "clown" or the term, "clowning around"? Are the people who wear make up and throw confetti at the crowd called clowns because they're clowning around? Or are people acting like morons clowning around because they're acting like clowns? $7 boxes of popcorn will make you think of things like that.

Oh, Shut The Hell Up

Bumper stickers are okay, I guess. They rarely have anything worthwhile to say and they're usually put on cars by owners who feel that the rest of the world has to know their political views or favorite bands. The college stickers on rear windows? Not a bumper sticker so they're immune.

The standard rule of thumb tends to be the older the car, the more stickers you'll see. But these usually take on a "whatever" place in my mind. Until I saw this one in the parking lot where I catch the bus every morning.

"Don't Jersey Vermont." Okay, I get it. Vermont is some pristine land, still untouched by the modern world. That's actually really nice. I'm all for it. But when did New Jersey become the scapegoat for all things crowded and polluted? Okay, I'm walking right into a Jersey joke but seriously, "Jersey" is now a verb for spoiling nature?

But that's not what pisses me off. I'd be mildly amused if I were in Vermont and saw this sticker. But it rests on the back of a car registered in New Jersey! I'm the last person to adopt a "love it or leave it" attitude but you know what? You live here, you use its transportation. Maybe your kids go to its schools. So don't go driving around telling the world how you want Vermont to remain the last outpost of the old world. Move there and protest every time a Starbucks wants to open. You always get a better parking spot than me so get lost and let me take it.