The Voices Tell Me To Wear Leg Warmers

When left to its own devices, my brain plays horrible music. I mean, sometimes it's OK, I guess, but always it's unexpected. Usually it's something I haven't heard in a long time. Right now it's playing Bob Geldof's I don't Like Mondays. I don't know when I last heard that song, but it's Thursday now and therefore irrelevant. When I traveled to Europe with Anni back at the beginning of 1997 I didn't bring any music with me. We weren't driving anywhere and since we were traveling together, a walkman seemed unnecessary if not downright rude. My brain forced me to listen to the most trite, bubble gum mid-80s top 40 it could come up with almost the entire time.

When my cousin Lauren got married the DJ at her reception liked to play OLDIES. He would pull something out that was 20 years old and preface it, in the voice of the guy who reads the copy for local, used car lot television ads, with "It's an ooooldie!" The best was when he asked "Who likes Canadian rock?!?" and we were all like "oh sweet, he's going to play Tom Sawyer" but no. He played some Ann Murray. I'm not making this up. It would be a lot funnier if that guy wasn't actually my brain. That's the just the sort of thing my head does to me. I can't figure out how I know I don't really like that music if that's what my brain is selecting for me. The other day I was forced to listen to Howard Jones' Life in One Day all day. I really like the Howard Jones song from Better Off Dead but my mind doesn't care about that, it wants to play the crap! I'm ashamed to admit that I kind of enjoyed the afternoon it set some Roxette on repeat, but given its usual playlist that was pretty rockin'.

I assume this is some sort of karmic punishment. This, and the fact that no matter how it seems like it's going the line I get in at the grocery store is always the slowest, (Express lane with a guy handing over exact change for a single pack of gum? Seems like the perfect choice, but it's time to change shifts!) are what make me think I was probably a real ladder-climber at the IRS in my previous life. The real insult to injury bit of this is that usually when I'm at the grocery store my brain DJ gets to take a break because they're playing the muzak version of something from Dennis Deyoung's solo catalogue. If I could just go back to my IRS life and do something, anything to prevent this torture...I can't of course and you can bet if I forget to grab some music on my way out the door tomorrow my head is going to spin some classic Debbie Gibson. I hate you brain DJ!