What I Write About

I write about the infinite number of intersections between every day life and the good news of the God who has come to get us.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Waxing Candles with my Ipod (Finally)

Next week I turn 35. It's a significant milestone in many respects, not the least of which being that it's my second anniversary participating in the world of the Ipod, a great gift given to me by my wonderful wife on the occasion of my 33rd birthday.

For my mom and the other one of you who doesn't have an Ipod, in order to purchase music one must open an account at the Itunes store. Said Itunes store remembers you and begins to track your purchases. It then offers recommendations based on your purchasing history.

Some people I know turn those recommendations off. I'm too neurotically-wired to want to "win" to do that. So instead, my goal has been to try to keep the Itunes computer from putting me in the 35-year-old, white, male, Christian box.

To that I end, I have striven mightily to purchase a wide variety of music that I am interested in and have steadfastly avoided buying some songs that would place me squarely in my mid-30's white guy demographic.

Until two days ago, when I collapsed under the pressure.

See, hitherto I have not purchased Michael Jackson's Thriller, even though that was the gateway song into popular culture for me as a fifth grader. I have withstood the temptation to invest any monies on songs from Beastie Boys Lisence to Ill, even though that album more or less summed up my entire junior high experience. I have maintained my fight against The Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian, as well as anything from Prince's Purple Rain album.

Several weeks ago I confessed in a post about my high school love for all things hard rock: Motley Crue, Van Halen (saw them in concert twice) and mostly for Guns-N-Roses (in concert three times) but narry a song from this trio has sullied my Ipod library.

The band that saturated the radio whilst I was in college, Hootie and the Blowfish, has gotten no love from me at all.

But alas, I could not hold out any longer. On Tuesday I invested 99-cents into perhaps the greatest and most signficant song of my high school experience: Ice, Ice, Baby, by Vanilla Ice.

I know, mock if you must, but I invite you, o self-righteous reader, to consider these hard-hitting lyrics and see if you can withstand the temptation yourself to go and make the purchase:
To the extreme I rock the mic like a vandal,
Light up the stage, and wax a chump like a candle.
I'm tearing up just typing those lyrics. Word to your mother.

4 comments:

Burly said...

Did I seriously just read that whole post to find out that you purchased the song you SHOULD HAVE purchased on day #1 of owning your iPod?

J. R. Daniel Kirk said...

You just like to remember

Rollin' in your 5-1-0
with the windows down
so your hair can blow

Alex said...

burly, you're so right. i should have sought counsel with you day one to help me with my issues and hang-ups and to free me to do the right thing from the start. i'll never make that mistake again.

daniel, the datsun 510 station wagon will live forever in infamy.

Daniele said...

All the school kids so sick of books
They like the punk and the metal band
When the buzzer rings (oh whey oh)
They're walking like an Egyptian

You need to hurry up and buy the rest, man.