Monday, November 28, 2005

guilty pleasures

Oh god help me. It's 5am, I have not slept (thanks to nine solid hours of ambien improved sleep last night and a cup of coffee at 4pm yesterday) and as some weird companionship to my insomnia, I have the tv on in the other room. I'm not really listening to it, but in the last 12 minutes the running infomercial has penetrated my subconscious and has set of a string of synaptic activity going that almost has me running to my wallet to pull out my credit card.

What is it for? What could possible cause me to consider, in my current financially depressed state, 4 easy monthly payments of only 29.99?

A collection of 70's music.

Yes. I am going all pavlov over Mac Davis and Cher.

That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia.
Billy, don't be a hero.
Whoa ho ho it's magic.
Love will keep us together.
Gypsies, tramps and thieves.
We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun.
They called him Wildfire.
They called him Wii eye eye eye eye eye wi-iiild fire....

This collection is not sold in stores.

Hurry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I have the really cheap version of this collection: Billy, Don't Be a Hero; Heartbeat It's a LoveBeat, The Night Chicago Died, Aaaaaaafternooooon Delighhht, The Jim Croce one where Bad Bad Leroy Brown ends up looking like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone...

Good Stuff. There's worse ways to spend $29.99 every month until the Spring thaw. George Forman grills. Mops that allow you to clean between tiles. Diamonique jewelry. The new Ronco knife collection which features more knives than you could ever use. Bonsai trees. Toothbrushes with timers on them. (I have the medium-priced Oral B electric toothbrush but wouldn't splurge for one with the built-in timer - my version of being on a budget. Instead, for $2.99, I got a little kitchen timer, shaped like a rooster, that I keep in the bathroom, and set it to two minutes when I brush. (This is the Rule I heard: two minutes. Hopefully doing that twice-a-day will reward me with a lifetime of denying Dr. Les Ratner DDS an opportunity to use my rotting teeth as a means to finance his next timeshare.) I guess I'm not really brushing. More like I stick the toothbrush over my teeth and let it brush for me. And actually, I don't always use the little timer. When I have the Today Show on, I just do the toothbrush-in-the-mouth thing for as long as it takes them to do one of their little segments. I used to do it for as long as it took for Ann Curry to make a mistake reading the news, but she's a bobble-head and can't go more than 30 seconds without screwing up the pronunciation of some difficult name like George Bush.

I digress. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

Anonymous said...

I concur. My long-ago subscription to Time-Life's Sounds of the Seventies has made me happy for many years.

Anonymous said...

Well, I hate to be a stickler here, but she ran calling Wildfire.

The stream of others that come to mind for me are
My name is Michael, I got a nickel...
Indiana wants me, but I can't go back there
Daddy don't you walk so fast
FOX ON THE RUN!
And she hears him say Brandy, your a fine girl..
which is followed by the Manilow classic
Oh Mandy, well you came and you gave without taking
(the Brandy guy played at my high school and said his song was originally called Mandy, but he had to change it after Barry took it for his song.)
Shannon has gone, my friend (puppy love?)
and who can forget
Goin up to the Spirit in the Sky
by maestro Norman Greenbaum

Also reminds me of the cheesy commercial for a the compendium of classical music favorites narrated by the crusty English guy -- order now and get the 3rd album of piano classics (cover had a candelabra, of course)

ah, memories.