So, we interviewed a new babysitter last night to replace the one we've had for the last coupla years who graduated last spring. It fucking sucks finding a new sitter. At least the right sitter. I mean, the one we interviewed seems nice enough and all, but she's not necessarily "our kind of people," if I can say that without sounding too much like a douche, which I probably can't. She was wearing some kind of stanky perfume that's still a-lingerin' in the crabbshack, she mentioned that Sunday nights are out because that's when she has her "sorority meetings," and she talked as if, like, all her sentences ended in question marks????
She did have a little nose ring, though, which hinted at a whiff of alterna-somethingness, but shit man, everyone has a fucking nose ring nowadays... they're kinda like piano ties and Japanese sun bandannas were to the 80s. She does like kids, though, and it seems like she has experience. I dunno. It's only three hours a week and the occasional Saturday night. I just wish she had shown up with dreadlocks and a sleeve of tattoos, an acoustic guitar slung over her shoulder plastered in Ramones, The Jam and Clash stickers, a desire to teach art and foreign languages to the spawnage and an insatiable need to mop our floors and scrub out our toilets.
Oh well, I guess, instead, she'll just teach the spawnage invaluable things like the Greek alphabet, how to hold back your friend's hair while she's barfing and how to get boys to buy you Jäger and jello shooters.
Ha! Ha, I say! Call me a pack rat, will you? Well, who's laughing now, hmmmm?
Okay, back up. I have this drawer, next to the bed, where I chuck all the unrecyclable shit that we seem to plow through on a weekly basis.
You've got your empty Flonase containers in there, some prescription bottles, razors, contact lens containers, floss containers, prosthetic limbs, glass eyes, you name it, it's in there. And, of course, I get a mild amount of shit for hoarding all this plasticrap from the Old Lady, usually taking the form of something akin to, "What the shit are you possible going to do with that?!"
So, back up over the last coupla weeks and Mr. Z has this cough/cold and the Old Lady is hit hard with this major plague where she's sleeping like she's got Boola-Boola and she's horking up her alveoli like she's been gargling with asbestos and gravel. And I'm thinking, "What the shit is going on in this fucking house?! It's the middle of August and everyone's illin' like it's February!" Which prompts me to go on a major crabbshack disinfectapalooza.
I start wiping down doorknobs and faucets, clean off all the handles on the kitchen cabinets, mop the floor, brush out the fucking crappers -- just went total Howard Hughes on its ass.
Then I take a look at the toothbrushes. Mr. Z's got like three of them that look like they're from the 80s, standing in a glass with primordially oozy streptocaca floating around in the bottom of it. Miss O has two that are basically stuck to the counter, inches away from the shitter. And the Old Lady's and my toothbrushes (teethbrush?) are sitting atop our bathroom counter that's basically veiled in the snot and lung-oyster silt that the Old Lady's been emitting for the last 14 days.
I was ready to fucking yook.
First thing I did? Went to the unrecyclable shit drawer, of course. Pull out four empty Flonase bottles, whip off the tops, run down to the toolbox to get some strips of velcro, run back up to the bathroooms, do some fancy MacGyverin' and, VOYLA!
I call it the "Sani-Crab Industries Toothbrush CrabbyCaddy 3000," and now, each member of the crabbyfamily is the proud owner of one of those mofos. And to officially wipe the bacteria-caked slate clean, I bought everyone their very own brand-spankin new Preserve Recycled Toothbrush (thanks to Burbanmom for the tip!).
That, my friends, is fucking crabgenuity at its finest. Myriad viruses and pathogens will surely continue their Bataan death march into the crabbshack, but our teeth will remain microbe-free. Shit, our mouths are so clean, you can practically eat off of them.
Best of all, even the Old Lady was impressed. And if she thinks that's impressive, wait 'til she sees what I have in store for her spent birth control pill containers and my old asthma inhalers.
Mr. Z returned from camp, on Friday, with the dreaded "note home." That crisp, white, stapled sheet of paper, with the little miscreant's misdeed lurking within. But what could it say? Mr. Z is not a bully. He's never uttered a "bad word" in his life. He's respectful to adults. What could he have possibly done to warrant a "note home"?!
So, not to belabor this Weird Al thing ('cuz frankly, I really have zero desire to turn this blog into CrALbbydad), but Mr. Z has been curious about what the original versions of the songs in the "Polkarama" song sound like. There's tunes like "Beverly Hills," by Weezer and "Take Me Out," by Franz Ferdinand, but also "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Snoop, and "Don't Cha" by the Pussycat Dolls. So I was showing him a couple of the videos, and he'd keep saying, "Wow, this is TOTALLY different!" basically meaning that he was scared of these musical misanthropes and wanted to quickly return to the oompah-pahcifying strains of the major-key, Yankovician tranquALity.
The one tune he keeps focusing on is "Candy Shop" by Fitty Cent. He and Miss O have been running around the crabbshack singing, "I'll take you to the candy shop/I'll let you lick a lollipop/Go 'head girl don't you stop/Keep goin' till you hit the spot, whoa!" So, like a fucking moron, I started to show them the video for the song, which is basically Fitty pulling up to a mansion in a Lamborghini and then opening the front door, revealing scads of fancy ladies, in sundry states of undressitude, puckering their dewy lips and gyrating their sundry dewy protuberances in his general direction. Now I'm no prude, mind you, but I just didn't really feel like explaining to the spawnage what the phrase "you gon' back that thing up, or should I push up on it?" meant at that particular moment.
So, at dinner tonight, we had this exchange:
MR. Z: So, dad, I still don't get what that guy means by "I'll take you to the candy shop"?
ME: Well, I already explained that it's just a metaphor. He's just comparing that house with all those women in it to a candy shop. You know how you and Miss O really like candy? Well, he really likes houses with lots of women in them.
MR. Z: So what does he mean by "I'll let you lick my lollipop"?
ME: Um...
OLD LADY: (quickly jumping in) It's kinda like kissing!
ME: (after laugh-blowing a giant snot outta my nose) That's right. Kissing.
MISS O: Yuck.
ME: Hey, who wants dessert?!
I'm sorry, but I just can't handle the spawnage getting into that spum-laden misogynist bullshit. Fuck it, I'm just gonna disconnect the MTV, throw out the radios and buy an assload of Burl Ives records. And then, when Mr. Z hits his teens, I'll let him listen to the nice, wholesome music I listened to at that age -- the Ramones, Ted Nugent, the Sex Pistols, Bow Wow Wow, the Dead Kennedys and Iron Maiden.
(By the way, just in case you're keeping count, this mess of a post was #600. No wonder I'm so fucking tired.)
WARNING: My musical geekitude is strongly expressed in this post.
M. Z is loving the Weird Al CD we got him for his birthday. He's been asking us to bring it along on the drive to and from camp, he's listening to it in his room while he's reading, and he's trying desperately to memorize all the lyrics to "White & Nerdy." All this might sound, well, white and/or nerdy, but I'm fucking loving it. It's the first time he's ever really gotten into music (with the exception of his yearslong obsession with "Barbie Girl," that I prefer not to talk about) and, to me, it's very exciting. I was worrying that he was never going to get that into music -- at least non-novelty song, popular music. And, believe it or not, I'm not lumping Weird Al into the "novelty song" category because, basically, the dude is a fucking genius.
That's right, I said Weird Al Yankovic is a fucking genius.
Yes, he wrote "My Bologna," and "Another One Rides the Bus," and "Eat It," and "I Think I'm a Clone Now," (which are all hilarious, mind you) but the dude is pretty fucking subversive. He presents himself as this unhip, wacky dorkus, but he's basically skewering popular music with every song he puts out. This is best illustrated in the polka medleys that he includes on every CD. He takes all the hits of the year, speeds them all up, switches them all into major keys and adds Spike Jonesian whistles, bells and sound effects, basically turning the tune into a major fuck-you to Top 40 radio. All the angsty rockers end up looking like complete douches and the rappers, with all their self-important macho posturing, fare even worse. Case in point:
(He also does an amazing polka version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that almost surpasses the original in brilliance.)
So, he's got this kinda stealthy cutting satire going on in his radio-friendly covers of pop tunes. Fine. But he really shines when he displays his true musical geekitude. Now, if you know me (and I think you don't), you know that I'm a HUGE Brian Wilson devotee. Ever since I was a wee crabbykid, I would geek out to Beach Boys albums, studying the harmonies and flipping my lid over all the bizarre non-sequiturian changes and instrumentation. I have all the box sets and my nipples still freeze and snap off when I listen to the vocals-only tracks on the Pet Sounds rarities disk I have.
So, you can imagine my delight when I heard the second track on Mr. Z's CD, called "Pancreas." It is pure Brian Wilson Smile-era schizophrenatude, and it reveals an intimate knowledge, on the part of Mr. Yankovic, of all things Wilsonian. It's steeped in themes and variations from "God Only Knows," "Heroes & Villains," "Good Vibrations," "Vegetables," and "That Same Song," and, to my further delight, it's Mr. Z's favorite tune on the disk. He listens to it over and over and over. Last night, as he was listening to it before bed, he enthused, "I just want to hear it one more time -- I almost have all the lyrics memorized!"
A single tear welled up in my eye. He'd grown up just like me... My boy was just like me...
And, the song's hilarious, to boot. I can't think of anything I'd rather have the boy listening to right now. Of course, the transition to him listening to all my Beach Boys CDs is now that much easier. My master musical plan is falling into place.
Anywhich, it's now your turn to experience Weird Al's "Pancreas," his tribute to Brian Wilson. And please listen all the way to the end... you won't regret it.
-------------AL-DENDUM--------------- A big shout out to all the members of weirdalforum.com who are visiting (saw your visits via statcounter)! It's comforting (and a tad disconcerting) knowing that you're out there monitoring all things Al. Or is it Al things all?
Well, it looks like Miss O has a future in fashion. Yesterday, we received a huge box with some new blinds for our bedroom, and the contents were wrapped up in shitloads of bubble wrap. Miss O asked if she could have all of it and I reluctantly said "okay," as long as she did all the popping on the opposite side of the house.
There was no popping to be had, however, as she was apparently transforming the plastic poppers into haute couture. After about twenty minutes, she came sashaying back into the room modeling the results. I give you the first outfit in Miss O's "Popparel" line:
Now I'm no fashionista, but I think that outfit beats the shit out half the crap on Project Runway. Maybe I'll give her the box of packing peanuts that the new chairs came in and let her really go to town.
Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but the Old Lady and I have just welcomed a new member to the Crabbyfamily. It was a tough delivery, but everything turned out just fine. Say "hello" to our bouncing baby... DINING ROOM TABLE AND CHAIRS!
And look, it has my legs! Actually, it's the "Kyoto" table with the "Jake" chairs all from our favorite furniture-crack-dealer, Room & Board. This is where the freelance money goes, people. We've got a big ol' empty house and, apparently, we're supposed to fill it with shit. And unfortunately, the Old Lady and I like our shit mid-century and expensive instead of late 80s and denim. Ain't that a bitch.
We also got a lamp (which we're returning 'cuz it's a piece of shit) and a new mattress (which we're keeping because our old one looks like "Mother's" bed from Psycho):
We got all this shit at once 'cuz they charge like 250 smackers to deliver it, so we figured we'd just go for it and not eat for a coupla months. The bummer is, I saw a little dent/scratch on the table and made the mistake of mentioning it to the Old Lady. You can't really see it unless you're looking for it, but we kinda figured, for the fucking cash we threw down for the mofo, it should be pretty much blemish free. So, they're sending out another one and will swap it out when it gets here in a coupla weeks. I know that makes us seem like dickhead yuppfucks, and I know we're killing the planet by making them drive another one out from Minnesota, but shit, man, I never drive anywhere and don't even leave the fucking house and we're getting our veggies from a local farm and I'm composting, goddammit, so lay the fuck off and let me have a dining room table so I can invite the friends I don't have over for a fancy dinner, all right?!
In fact, if any of you gentle readers are ever in town, consider this an open invitation to come sup with us at our fancy new table, and to plant your gentle asses upon our fancy chairs. I draw the line at the new mattress, though. If you stay over, you have to use "Mother's" mattress, which is now residing in the garage. Which is right next to the old broken TV and the old broken microwave. Hey, wait a minute... I'm not sure but I think we may just have ourselves a new GUEST HOUSE! Man, we ARE fancy!
All right, will someone please tell me what the shit I'm supposed to do about those goddamn magazine subscription people who come to the door every other week? Seriously, word is out that I'm Pushover VonSuckerberg and they're flocking to the crabbshack like horseflies to shitballs... the horseflies being them and the shitballs, I guess, being me.
I mean, I've read an assload of articles about how horribly these people are treated, how they're plied with drugs and beaten and they barely make any money and the vans that take drive them from state to state have never passed emission standards and run over baby bunnies and chipmunks and, instead of gas, they run on the blood of orphaned kittens and they steal everyone's credit card numbers and then come back to your house when you're not home and use all your spoons to cook their "works" in, and they go through your underwear drawer and stick your toothbrush in their asscracks and perform unspeakable acts on all your doorknobs, and shit. I understand all that.
But when this person is standing there, selling the shit out of these magazines, I mean just workin' the pitch, and saying how they're trying to improve their public speaking skills and, by the way, "how am I doing so far?" and telling you about how they're really doing this so they don't have to be out on the streets selling drugs, and they're trying to make a better life for themselves and their 11 kids, and they're just five subscriptions away from a bonus, which means they can buy that iron lung for baby Jimmy, who was born with a hole in his spleen god bless his soul, and can't I just find it in my heart to buy one subscription, or not even buy a subscription, just extend a subscription we're already getting 'cuz any little bit helps.
And I fucking babble something like, "Weeelll... we sure have a lot of subscriptions already and--"
"Oh, you don't even have to buy yourself a subscription," they add. "You can purchase a subscription for the LOCAL BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB who could really use magazines for all those poor little children who are just DYING for something to read, something other than the foreclosure notices tacked up onto their front doors."
And then I'm fucked, and I say, "Okay, then, how much is a subscription for, say, Jack & Jill magazine for the Boys & Girls Club," thinking it can't be THAT much can it? And they say, "Oh, that's a cheap one -- only 43 dollars!" And I'm all, "What the shit?!" and they're all, "God bless you, kind sir," and I'm all, "Fuck! That's like the fifth subscription I've been talked into this month," and they're all, "SUCKER! I'm gonna clear 75 cents on this sale -- just enough for a coupla band-aids to apply to the contusions I'm gonna get when my boss finds out I only sold four subscriptions," and I'm all, "Let me get my checkbook."
So I'm like a prisoner in the fucking house all day -- afraid to answer the goddamn door because I might get maga-zinged. And the doorbell rings like every half hour already, 'cuz the Old Lady orders shit from Zappos or Mini Boden or Banana Republic every other day, and I have to peek out the upstairs window to see if there's a delivery truck in the driveway, and if there isn't, I have to cower under my desk until they go away. And I--
WAIT! There it goes again! DAMMIT! Shh! Don't say anything. SHHHHH!!!!
