Never Liked Old Beetle-Brow Much

Most popular music is designed to annoy you. Raucous, maybe, or tedious, or teased into an undynamic drone. I cannot pass the time with it for long. I often have music going in the shop, quietly, to mask the buzz of the fluorescent lights, but I’m apparently not as interested in being told that everything sucks in 4/4 time by someone that’s never gotten up before noon and has their M&Ms sorted for them as I used to be. Life does suck — or at least sucks the life out of you. Why make it worse?

My wife likes the Pastoral Symphony. I never liked old beetle-brow much myself. He was having a resurgence back in the seventies when I played an orchestra instrument, and he rubbed me the wrong way. And what was that little shite’s name in Peanuts that was always sawing away at him? Linux or Schroedinger or Sloppy or something. Who cares? Peanuts always sucked, too. Discerning grade-schoolers read B.C. .

But my wife wears me down in the most pleasant ways and I find myself softening on the old, deaf, dead Napoleon bumkisser. He sounds at least 14 percent better than the fluorescent lights to me now. That’s a damn sight better than Looking Glass or Sugarloaf ever was.

Dudley Moore Had Game, Or: Bridge On The River Kawai

It helps if you read the headline in that Rocky and Bullwinkle narrator voice.

Beyond the Fringe