Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

My wife and I have very different tastes when it comes to music. She likes music which when the singer sings you can actually understand the lyrics, and you can merrily sing along, word-for-word. I like music whereby when the singer allegedly sings, judging from the loud incoherent screaming, you’d swear the singer has his foot stuck in a bear trap. And because the singer and you clearly have absolutely no idea whatsoever the singer is screaming about, you can MAKE up your very own version of the supposed words, merrily sing along, and no one will be the wiser.

Okay, so if there are two people trapped in one car, both equipped with COMPLETELY different opinions of music, the following, which actually happened, might happen.

Scene: Thursday, July 31, 2008, at 6:39AM, on Route 495 passing through the Chelmsford, MA area. I’m driving; my wife is wrapped in a blanket sleeping in the passenger seat, suddenly, a Jimmie Hendrix song comes on the radio.

Theresa: “What the, what in the hell is that noise? Did you run over a cat’s tail?”

Me: “Excuse me, but that’s Jimmie Hendrix.”

Theresa: “It’s noise. He stinks. Change the channel.”

Me: “You don’t know squat about music.”

Theresa: “I know music, and this isn’t music. Change the channel.”

Me: “I’m driving, and according to the driving rules of which I made up, the driver, that would be me, gets to control the temperature of the vehicle AND the radio. And the passenger, that would be you, is the galley slave, and thus will listen to, and take directions from the driver, that would be me, at ALL times.”

Theresa: “Change THAT channel ‘Mr. Driver’ or they will have to surgically remove my fist from your duodenum.”

Me: “Oh, yeah. Well, if you punch me in my, well, okay, I don’t know what part of me you plan on punching, but it sounds like it’s gonna hurt, and then I might lose control of the van, we’d smash into a bridge abutment, and we’d be squished like cockroaches.”

Theresa: “Good! Then I won’t have to listen to this Jimmie Hendrix crap! Now, change the CHANNEL!”

Me: “Relax, the song is almost over.”

Theresa: “Seriously, Bill. I’m getting aggravated here. Jimmie Hendrix is mumbling and slurring his words, sounds like he’s hopped up on some sort of hallucinogenic drug, he’s obviously banging a non-stick frying pan against a fire hydrant, and I think someone in the background is strangling a hobo.”

Me: “You have got to be kidding me. This is classic rock and roll. His guitar playing is legendary. His music was and still is groundbreaking!”

Theresa: “He stinks. His music is stupid, the radio stations which play his music are stupid, and the people who listen to the radio stations which play his music are stupid.”

Me: “Oh, yeah!” (I always did have great killer comebacks).

Moment of silence

Me: “Did you know that Jimmie Hendrix’s bass guitar player just died?”

Theresa: “He should have died before he made this song.”

Me: “It’s almost over.”

Theresa: “You said that already! CHANGE THE CHANNEL!”

Look, here is the thing: admittedly, and I’m only telling you this, this particular Jimmie Hendrix song sounded a lot less like an actual song and a lot more like an actual moose attempting to pass a kidney stone. Don’t get me wrong: I love Jimmie Hendrix, but even Led Zeppelin (my favorite rock and roll band) produced and occasional clunker, and this song was Jimmie’s clunker. And if I back down to her; if I admit that a song from one of my favorite singers/groups isn’t all it is cracked up to be, she will make me change the channel when it comes on, and this will set a dangerous prescient: picking and choosing what I can listen to done so that I will change the channel so that she can listen to what she wants to listen to when I’m trying to listen to what I want to listen to even though what I am currently listening to is making my radio gag.

Anyway, after a while this Jimmie Hendrix song ended and I started fiddling with the dial, and I happen across a Hall and Oats song, “Man Eater.” I turned to her and sarcastically said, “See, unlike you, I can listen to Jimmie Hendrix AND Hall and Oats, and I can like them both equally. And do you want to know why? It’s because I’m complex; I’m deep, and I’m NOTHING if not full of musical diversity.

She responded with, “You’re my hero.”