Monday, October 26, 2009 - Hmmmmm

Ever get one of those songs stuck in your head. You know, it’s rarely a good one like a classic Led Zeppelin song or The Sex Pistol’s “Anarchy in the U.K.” No, it’s often one of those stupid songs that regretfully hit the top of the charts in any given year, and then never really goes away. 1997 gave us “MMMBop” by teen-wonders Hanson. We all suffered through numerous Milli Vanilli songs in the 80s. “Achy Breaky Heart” made Billy Ray Cyrus millions of dollars in 1992, gave him millions of fans, and millions more who hate him for impregnating his wife who, in turn, gave birth to pre-teen superstar Miley, who herself continues to spawn insipid hits to keep the family tradition going into the 21st century. However, for one of the worst songs ever we have to jump in the Wayback Machine and travel back in time a bit to witness a song being recorded just before my birth, and released just one month after that glorious day. I left home in 1987 for my freshman year at the University of Alabama with a laundry basket full of clothes on my hip and a half-dozen Beatles albums under my arm. I had never liked the Beatles, but thought college would be the perfect time to learn to like them if for no other reason than they had influenced so many other artists. Among the discs in tow to Tuscaloosa that fall was The White Album. I really didn’t get much further than the fourth song on the first album of the two-disc set before completely giving up on this trial and moving to much more enlightening experimentations. The song causing this outrage was “Ob-La-De, Ob-La-Da.” What the hell does that mean anyway, and how high was Paul McCartney when he wrote it? Apparently, John Lennon hated the song, I mean really detested the song. He hated the song so much he left the studio after two days of trying to record it and returned so stoned that he played the song at a much faster pace than planned and everyone was pleased…everyone but me apparently. But thank God they sped it up and kept the song from being any longer than the three minutes of hell it had already become. After listening to the song that day I shook my head in disgust and removed the album from the turntable (insert the sound of a needle scratching vinyl here) and replaced it with some REM. Sure, you couldn’t understand half of what Michael Stipe was singing, but at least REM’s music wasn’t corny. Well, that is until they released the song "Stand," which is kind of gay and teeters right there with the rest of the songs listed above.So, the bad song stuck in my head today was “Things That Make You Go Hmmm,” by C&C Music Factory. That song popped into my head on what has been perhaps one of the most beautiful days this fall. It was so beautiful that I can only assume the construction workers wanted to spend the day in the park throwing Frisbee or frolicking in the fallen leaves covering the ground somewhere far, far away from our house. Hmmm, indeed. Today was the day the concrete blocks were to be delivered so the foundation wall could be built, so the rest of the concrete could be poured…a major milestone in construction of our addition. No workers, no block delivery, and no contractor equaled no work today. Not a single bit. Zilch. With a 100% chance of rain in the forecast for Tuesday, I doubt very seriously there will be any block stacking and other miscellaneous masonry work taking place for a couple of days. I have sort of lost track, but I think this is the fourth absolutely perfect day since the project started that nary a worker could be found on the worksite. Maybe I should make a correction. The plumber was on site today to lay some pipe. (I won't go there.) I wonder how long he stuck around before realizing no one else was showing up, wondering why he wasn’t invited to join them in a day of jocularity and male bonding far, far away. And despite not being on site, I guess the contractor was busily working on sending out invoices for the additional work they had to do to prepare for the block wall that has yet to be built. Maybe I will wait until the next sunny day to cut the next check. At least that will force someone to show up. Hmmm.