Killing Me Softly With This Song

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:09:10 -0500

I have a feeling this is going to be a blog in which the comments it gets on Facebook will be better than the original blog post. (Now that I’ve made you really want to read this little masterpiece, let’s get started.)

A couple days ago I wrote about advertising, which led to a discussion about old TV commercials from the ‘70s, which led to someone talking about the Lawson’s commercial with The Big O, a truck that took freshly squeezed orange juice from Florida to Ohio, which prompted my friend Ken to admit that as a young boy, instead of transporting “cold, cold juice” he and his brother thought they were saying, “cocoa juice.”

I haven’t stopped laughing since then. I keep picturing Ken and his little brother, their hair all slicked back, wearing plaid jackets and bow ties, sitting in front of a TV set as big as a commercial freezer, watching The Big O commercial. “And the cocoa juice in the tank truck caboose stays as fresh as the Floor-i-duh sun!”

But I’m laughing with him, not at him.

Because I myself have misinterpreted some mighty fine song lyrics over the years. And according to everything everywhere, so has everyone else.

As far back as Art Linkletter, kids were singing the darndest things. In one of his books, Art told us about the little kid who had a favorite gospel song because he loved singing about “Gladly the cross-eyed bear.”

When my son Mike was little and we sang Christmas carols together in the car, he would belt out, “ . . . With a jelly toast proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

According to Internet message boards, I’m not alone in thinking Bruce wrote these song lyrics: “Blinded by the light; Wrapped up like a douche, another roller in the night.” And Jimi Hendrix sang, “Pardon me, while I kiss this guy.”

There are a couple of good forums online, where people sheepishly admit to misinterpreting song lyrics. Like these:

Elvis: "Oh let me be...your Teddy Bear.."
Backing Singers: "Hot Banana, Hot Banana..."

Jose Marti's "Guantanamera" was thought to be “(He ate) one ton of metal.”

And there’s a uTube video of some pretty good song references, including:

“I had some dreams, they were clowns in my coffee, clowns in my coffee . . .”

“Got a lot of lovely wieners, hang on, hang on, hang on, to what we’ve got.”

“Your eyes, I say, your eyes may look like ears.”

The best one, though, comes from my college roommate Doria. Because we were at Kent State, the Crosby Stills Nash and Young song about the May 4 shootings held a place of honor in all college dorm room stereos. We were sitting around one night talking about May 4 when Doria said, “Well, it’s like that really sad song, ‘Poor Daddy in Ohio.’”

“‘Poor Daddy in Ohio?’ What song is that?”

“You know,” Doria said. “The song about the poor parents of the kids who were shot. ‘Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drummin’. Poor Daddy in Ohio.’”

I’m beginning to understand why the always cynical, grumpy Van Morrison just gave up and wrote these lyrics:

“Blah blah blah.”

Somewhere, somebody was singing, “Blood, blood, blood.”

You know you want to comment on this. What songs did you misinterpret? Comment here or write me at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.

Ads Subtract, Multiply and Divide

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:02:20 -0500

I’m the only person between the ages of 22 and 90 who doesn’t watch Mad Men, so I know even less about the world of advertising than people who live in the woods.

I can sum up what I know about advertising in less than 100 words:

1. Subliminal seduction is real and was used flagrantly in the ‘70s. I know this because the Herbal Essence girl would never hold two real penises in her hands in that field of flowers.
2. I love the e-Trade baby.
3. Advertising must work because a lot of money and effort is spent on it. What else could get so many people to watch the Super Bowl on a school night?

The world of advertising is mysterious to me. It has always been the quirky-yet-slightly-genius cousin of journalism. In college, the advertising majors walked around like they were better than everyone else and that they had a secret. What were they teaching them in there?

I’ll tell you what they were teaching them: How to get us to buy stuff by appealing to our basest emotions. That and how to hide skulls-and-crossbones and the letters S-E-X in ice cubes without anyone noticing.

You might think that years of experience and thousands of magazine subscriptions would have given me at least a little bit more insight into the world of advertising and marketing. Not so. I still look at the Gap ads of a shirtless guy and a girl up to her neck in water and can’t figure out what I’m supposed to buy when I go there. (The Gap does still sell jeans and tops, does it not?)

As for TV advertising, the commercials are so slick and edgy - the acting is better than the show I’m watching - I might not be able to distinguish between an ad and an Emmy award winning show, except that the volume doubles in decibels during commercial breaks.

Internet advertising is another animal altogether. Because I used to be an Internet writer, I know just enough about Web advertising to confuse me. On one of my blogs, I had advertising for Married Name Change, Danny’s Pianos, “Send a Live Gift Tree,” an exclusive Yamaha dealer, and Men Wearing Bras. Somehow, at some level, I know there was a very good, very intricate reason for each of these ads, but I’ll be damned if I now what it was.

I am a sucker for good ads. Write a catchy jingle, I’ll be humming it for years. Create a company mascot, I’ll think only good thoughts about you and your product. I can still sing the Cooksey’s Culligan theme song from a commercial I last heard in the early 1970s. (“When you call 792-6581! Call them today!”) and Haber’s Furniture store’s jingle is outlasting it 40 years and counting. (“Tell your neighbor, it came from Haber - Haber Furniture Store - Tell your neighbor, it came from Haber, the store with so much more!”)

So my purchasing is probably all driven by advertising and I don’t even know it. If I knew the first thing about advertising and what makes it tick, I might be able to stop it from manipulating me so much. I would work on this a little more, but who has time? I’m getting a strong urge to go shopping now for water softeners, Gap clothes, live gift trees and man bras.

Diane can be reached via advertising-free email at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.

Introducing Guest Blogger: Me

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 22:26:19 -0500

OK, so my sister Pam was supposed to guest-write my blog on Saturday. But we went to Miami Beach and had too many mojitos to organize thoughts or anything else, so we postponed it until Sunday. She sat down to write it after I promised to set her up with a bonus glass of wine late on Sunday night. She wrote a few paragraphs, deleted them, wrote a few more, deleted them and said, “I can’t do this.” The rest of us were watching the Oscars and talking, and hardly noticed she was even at the computer.

She of course could so do this. If it was a matter of not enough wine, I could have accommodated her. We’ve been making daily runs to Winn Dixie during this sisters’ get-together to buy reinforcements. (They’ve been showing their appreciation by putting all the Kendall Jackson on sale all week.)

Truth be told, I’m happy to sit here at 12:30 a.m. Monday and write this short blog post. My sisters are multi-talented women to be reckoned with. Even my mother-in-law said, “I’m sick of hearing about how creative your sisters are.” I’ve written about my sisters before. Among the fun we’re having this week: We’ve been to a quilt shop and bought supplies to make a couple different things; we’re making the envelope liners for my niece’s wedding invitations; they took pictures of designer clothes, bedding and linens in upscale shops so they can go home to their basement sewing rooms and make them for a fraction of the cost; and they bought Italian writing paper to make stuff out of. It’s like shopping with Coco Chanel. I tag along like the sister that was switched at birth. Somewhere in a trailer, there’s a family saying, “What’s with little Miss Thang here, color contrast-coordinating the curtains with the placemats?”

So if I’m the only one willing to pour another glass of wine and write a blog at - what is it now . . . - 12:45 a.m., it makes me feel pretty good about myself. And a sisters’ get-together is all about self-esteem. If you end it with less than you started with, you’re not doing it right.

Pam said she wanted to write about our brother, who gets left out of a lot of these things, because he’s a boy. But we love him a lot and we probably should get the word out on that via the Internet. Then she said maybe she’d write about how women are so much better at bonding than men. (Most of our husbands have tried this sort of thing before with less success.) Then she was going to write about our childhoods and growing up in a working class neighborhood.

“Oh, keep it light,” someone said. We’re not dramatic or sentimental, and somebody who’s having trouble writing a blog isn’t going to get a lot of sympathy out of this crowd.

She kept it so light, her page was blank when she grabbed her wine glass and sat down to watch Jeff Bridges accept his Oscar.

Diane will accept sympathy cards when her sisters leave at diane.fitzparick@mac.com.

Goodwill? Greatwill, I’d Say

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 22:54:22 -0500

I went on another Goodwill shopping trip. I didn’t buy anything this time, but I did take pictures of some awesome finds, which, if I had had an extra 39 cents in my pocket, I might just have taken home.

They were having a big sale at Goodwill when we were there. Which means that things were so cheap, we were one step away from sanctioned looting. My mother-in-law bought a shirt and a Chinese pasta scooper and her bill came to $1.79. Shopping at Goodwill is surreal, it’s so cheap.

Don’t tell my husband that I went there or that I am writing this. He hates the fact that I shop at Goodwill and lives in fear that I will run into one of his coworkers, an attorney - not just our attorney, but any attorney - or a teller from our bank, who will think I’m one of those bipolar TV characters who act like they’re homeless but who are really quite well off.

I just had to share with you some of the things I saw on the shelves at Goodwill. My blogger’s self esteem is not high enough for me to whip out my real camera and snap, “I’m a blogger! Shove off!” when someone asks me why I’m taking pictures of a Jesus action figure. So I tried to surreptitiously take photos with my cell phone camera, while a little group of guys watched me and muttered “muy loco.” I don’t care. Now that I’m home, I can say with confidence, “I’m a blogger! Shove off!”

This little beauty claims to be a Personal Learning Machine but it looks a lot like a Roomba. “It’s a new toy every time” it claims in a little bit of a braggy tone, if you ask me. For almost $2, it should suck up dog hair balls while it teaches you your times tables.

A giant glass beaker filled with glass beads. If there is anything less useful and more impractical on this earth, I’ll swallow seven of the glass beads, including that big blue one.

Well, hello little guy! What are you doing so close to the edge there? Back up, little buddy! Move on back toward those dog tag wine charms and the cherub music box, sport!

There were tons of albums like this one at Goodwill. Gospel groups, “Kyu Sakamoto sings Sukiyaki and other Japanese hits,” old musicals I’ve never heard of, and one folk album that was autographed. The albums all smell like my mom’s basement and many of them have obviously been played dozens of times.

Extreme Yoga Naked Barbie finds herself on the shelf with the pots and pans and the Containers Not for Sale. The urge to reorganize the shelves at Goodwill are almost incontrollable.

And here’s home base for Naked Barbies, a basket that they must share with Matchbox cars and Transformers. For Barbie, being sent to Goodwill must be like going off to Europe with your girlfriends but then getting kidnapped and turned into a sex slave chained naked to a pipe.

This is my favorite section of the Goodwill store, despite the mixed emotions I swim in every time I approach a book shelf. Will I find anything good? Will I find something that makes me doubt the core intelligence of humankind and question the wisdom of the publishing business? Will I someday find a book I’ve written on one of these book shelves? Will I buy it just so no one else sees it there?

Goodwill is the largest source of dyed-to-match bridesmaids’ shoes in the free world. Needless to say, there are no disposable footies to try on these shoes. You try them on at your own risk, and you buy the shoes and all the foot fungus that comes with it.

Action Figure Jesus with pose-able limbs was with the stuffed animals and nowhere near the naked Barbie bin, I’m happy to report.

Figurine of a boy holding an orange traffic cone with a bandage on his thumb. This might be even less useful than the giant beaker of glass beads. I’ll start swallowing now.

Comment here or contact Diane directly at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.

Dancing Without Stars

Tue, 2 Mar 2010 23:28:28 -0500

My husband and I went to another really fun event where people got up and danced and all I had to do was look over at him and he got a guilty look on his face and said, “But I had to go to Home Depot!” That’s his excuse for not taking salsa dance lessons with me eight years ago. He was so busy shopping for home improvement products every Saturday that he couldn’t take an hour out of a weekend for eight weeks in order to do sexy dances with his wife.

Signing up for dance lessons was my idea. Mine and the editor of the paper I was working for at the time, who wanted me to write a Reporter’s Notebook column on taking a dance lesson. The Reporter’s Notebook was a fun piece that the reporters would take turns writing about experiences they had around town. My editor gave me a choice: Dance lessons, sky diving or gourmet cake decorating.

Before that, my experiences with dancing were:

1. All but ruining my cousin Sandy’s wedding reception by crazy dancing with my cousin Jimmy to the point where my pink chiffon flower girl gown got all torn up and dirty, we both got “overheated” and got yelled at. I was 6.
2. Dancing barefoot near broken beer bottles in a bar in Kent, where Buckeye Biscuit was playing and I was all caught up in country rock love. I was 20. Give me a break.
3. Polka dancing successfully throughout my ethnic childhood and early adulthood until I tried to teach my husband the polka at a family wedding and we fell and embarrassed ourselves silly.

My sisters and I invented a dance, called The Proud Mary, because it’s the dance that all brides do at all weddings when the band plays those ridiculous wedding reception songs. The Proud Mary is like the international symbol of brides. A bride of any size and shape can be doing The Twist, The Cha-Cha, moves from Footloose or The Jerk and it doesn’t matter - all you see is The Proud Mary. They can’t help it. Their gowns are covering their legs like a confection-covered fashion doll in a Barbie cake. With no visible leg action, a bride dancing is dancing The Proud Mary, just by virtue of her arm action. My sisters and I request Proud Mary at all the weddings we go to and then we invite the bride up to dance with us. It’s family fun for all. (I had one DJ tell me once, “It’s weird. We normally have people come up and request that we not play Proud Mary.”)

When I signed up my husband and I for dance classes for my Reporter’s Notebook, I secretly hoped to actually learn how to dance the salsa and swing. The teachers were Sy and Mimi, who had just left big city life in Manhattan and “retired” to the Jersey suburbs to share their love of the dance. Sy had been a New York City policeman, a landlord/property owner, and a karate instructor, before landing his fourth career as Mimi’s dance partner. I always got the impression that he was on the lam or in the witness protection program.

When my husband started to refuse to go to dance class, I went by myself a couple of times, but had to pair up with either Sy or Mimi and I hated to break those two lovebirds up. And I didn’t want to be the subject of their after-class conversation.

As a result of that failure, we spent last Saturday night watching other people dance, my husband started talking about Home Depot, and the next day we ended up with a new patio table umbrella and new outdoor lights. If it weren’t for the dance classes we never took, we’d never get anything done around the house.

For an up-close and personal look at The Proud Mary, send wedding invitations to Diane at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.