For Those About to Rock, We Salute Your Choice of Punctuation
If you're in the band .38 Special, then life's gotta be pretty sweet. Hey, I don't need to point that out to you -- you're in .38 Special, so you totally know where I'm coming from.
If you're not in the band .38 Special, then you're just stumbling through life, which for you is a series of non-.38 Special events, relationships, and crises unfolding in a somewhat predictable cycle. You await the day when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, in a decidedly non-.38 Special way, and are laid to rest in your non-.38 Special casket in the boring, non-rock band section of the cemetery.
But, let's say, for the sake of argument, that you are in fact a member of .38 Special. Well, then, kudos to you, sir. Because through a bizarre confluence of technology and punctuation, .38 Special have emerged as the absolute center of what people who write for USA Today like to call "The Digital Music Revolution."
Granted, this generalization only works if (a) you own an iPod, and (b) you have any songs by .38 Special. The iPod, despite an unfortunate ad campaign that features everyone's favorite thing, horrifically flailing silhouettes, is quite popular. And there's little wonder why.
The iPod has a stunning array of wonderful features, such as Apple's patented Super-Scratchable Not-At-All-Protective Screen. Which wouldn't be a problem, if you could keep your iPod in an ionized, Lexan-coated chamber, instead of using it as a portable music-playing device. Alas, we have the iPod so we can move freely about the globe with the whole of C+C Music Factory at our disposal, and with this traveling comes the scratching. One time, I casually exhaled in the direction of my iPod and it was instantly scuffed.
And if that aspect doesn't sell you, there's always the iPod's revolutionary Randomly Selected Battery Capacity. Because nobody wants to spend a couple hundred dollars on a device that stores your entire CD collection AND is also dependable. You want something that will either play for nine hours straight, or otherwise will sit charging for a day and then conk out eleven minutes into a transcontinental plane flight. No, that's cool... I'll just read the in-flight magazine.
(In-flight magazines, without fail, always feature two things: a profile of that specific airline's CEO, and then, right after it, several close-up photos of a glistening porterhouse steak from a place called Ricki's in Gallup, New Mexico.)
But the most stunning feature of the iPod is the Super-Sensitive Buttons Intended Only For the Fingers of Kittens. These buttons ensure that your iPod, for security purposes, can only be operated by Billy Barty. And, at least on the model I have, they're not actually buttons, but touch-sensitive circles. So you can't ever be sure if you've pressed the button, or grazed the button, or allowed a hummingbird feather to fall somewhere near the button.
So, you will likely hit the Play button once too often, and then, magically... here comes .38 Special. Without fail, every single time.
The iPod organizes songs alphabetically by artist. And so, since their band name begins not only with a number, but a highly ranked number, and is also preceded by punctuation, .38 Special wins the Galactic Band Name Lottery.
They really stuck it to those smartasses in 4 Non Blondes, huh? And I bet if there's a band called .44 Calibre, or .5 Pounds of German Potato Salad, then they're pretty pissed off, too. Yet not as pissed as the unfortunate members of .39 Special. Sorry about your luck, guys.
Actually, the only real band brazen enough to even threaten .38 Special's random iPod dominance is the now-defunct 'Til Tuesday. Sure, they could've gone with the alternate spelling, with "Till," but they had the presence of mind to fling a change-up at the world of rock, in the form of our friend, the apostrophe.
So you see, the only way you can top .38 Special is by beating them at their own game. And don't say to me, "Well, .38 Special has been churning out a solid form of charming Southern rock for nearly three decades. There's no way they could have foreseen the advent of the iPod. Your theory is flawed, Kevin."
Well, that seems to discount .38 Special's obvious brilliance, both at predicting the rise of a popular digital music player, and at possessing intimate knowledge of its exact method of content indexing. And also, my name is not Kevin.
These guys knew what they were doing. They were setting the stage for the world's slowest cultural revolution. They've been waiting, patiently, in the safety of their converted diamond mine on .38 Special Island, since 1987, just for this plot to unfold.
So that, every time you try in vain to pause, then play, a song... you inevitably screw up, and the iPod defaults to playing the first song by the first artist, alphabetically, and you are suddenly ensnared by the opening notes of "Hold On Loosely."
But they can't stay at the top forever, folks. In fact, it's as if .38 Special have reached out to young bands and said, "Here is the way."
If you have just started a band, congratulations. This means you have also just turned fourteen. And here comes the best part of starting a band -- coming up with a name. My advice, in this iPod-worshipping world? Why, of course -- just go nuts with the punctuation and numbers.
The period appears to be the punctuation king, so start off with one or more of those. Get tricky and toss in a semicolon if you're feeling brazen. Maybe a dash, while we're at it? Good thinking. Then come the numbers. Naturally, you'll wanna start with 1. From there, use your imagination. Have fun with it, gang! You're in a band! Naming yourself will be the last fun thing you do! Trust me, it's all downhill from here, what with the Grammys and the heroin and the eventual plane crash in Nebraska.
And so, to the future members of ...1 & 1/2 Arbor Days, I bid you good luck. I'll catch up with you at next year's Bonnaroo Festival. I'll be there with my speed metal quartet, .......+,##[\[\\{;'"1111111A. See you at the party after the show.
If you're not in the band .38 Special, then you're just stumbling through life, which for you is a series of non-.38 Special events, relationships, and crises unfolding in a somewhat predictable cycle. You await the day when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, in a decidedly non-.38 Special way, and are laid to rest in your non-.38 Special casket in the boring, non-rock band section of the cemetery.
But, let's say, for the sake of argument, that you are in fact a member of .38 Special. Well, then, kudos to you, sir. Because through a bizarre confluence of technology and punctuation, .38 Special have emerged as the absolute center of what people who write for USA Today like to call "The Digital Music Revolution."
Granted, this generalization only works if (a) you own an iPod, and (b) you have any songs by .38 Special. The iPod, despite an unfortunate ad campaign that features everyone's favorite thing, horrifically flailing silhouettes, is quite popular. And there's little wonder why.
The iPod has a stunning array of wonderful features, such as Apple's patented Super-Scratchable Not-At-All-Protective Screen. Which wouldn't be a problem, if you could keep your iPod in an ionized, Lexan-coated chamber, instead of using it as a portable music-playing device. Alas, we have the iPod so we can move freely about the globe with the whole of C+C Music Factory at our disposal, and with this traveling comes the scratching. One time, I casually exhaled in the direction of my iPod and it was instantly scuffed.
And if that aspect doesn't sell you, there's always the iPod's revolutionary Randomly Selected Battery Capacity. Because nobody wants to spend a couple hundred dollars on a device that stores your entire CD collection AND is also dependable. You want something that will either play for nine hours straight, or otherwise will sit charging for a day and then conk out eleven minutes into a transcontinental plane flight. No, that's cool... I'll just read the in-flight magazine.
(In-flight magazines, without fail, always feature two things: a profile of that specific airline's CEO, and then, right after it, several close-up photos of a glistening porterhouse steak from a place called Ricki's in Gallup, New Mexico.)
But the most stunning feature of the iPod is the Super-Sensitive Buttons Intended Only For the Fingers of Kittens. These buttons ensure that your iPod, for security purposes, can only be operated by Billy Barty. And, at least on the model I have, they're not actually buttons, but touch-sensitive circles. So you can't ever be sure if you've pressed the button, or grazed the button, or allowed a hummingbird feather to fall somewhere near the button.
So, you will likely hit the Play button once too often, and then, magically... here comes .38 Special. Without fail, every single time.
The iPod organizes songs alphabetically by artist. And so, since their band name begins not only with a number, but a highly ranked number, and is also preceded by punctuation, .38 Special wins the Galactic Band Name Lottery.
They really stuck it to those smartasses in 4 Non Blondes, huh? And I bet if there's a band called .44 Calibre, or .5 Pounds of German Potato Salad, then they're pretty pissed off, too. Yet not as pissed as the unfortunate members of .39 Special. Sorry about your luck, guys.
Actually, the only real band brazen enough to even threaten .38 Special's random iPod dominance is the now-defunct 'Til Tuesday. Sure, they could've gone with the alternate spelling, with "Till," but they had the presence of mind to fling a change-up at the world of rock, in the form of our friend, the apostrophe.
So you see, the only way you can top .38 Special is by beating them at their own game. And don't say to me, "Well, .38 Special has been churning out a solid form of charming Southern rock for nearly three decades. There's no way they could have foreseen the advent of the iPod. Your theory is flawed, Kevin."
Well, that seems to discount .38 Special's obvious brilliance, both at predicting the rise of a popular digital music player, and at possessing intimate knowledge of its exact method of content indexing. And also, my name is not Kevin.
These guys knew what they were doing. They were setting the stage for the world's slowest cultural revolution. They've been waiting, patiently, in the safety of their converted diamond mine on .38 Special Island, since 1987, just for this plot to unfold.
So that, every time you try in vain to pause, then play, a song... you inevitably screw up, and the iPod defaults to playing the first song by the first artist, alphabetically, and you are suddenly ensnared by the opening notes of "Hold On Loosely."
But they can't stay at the top forever, folks. In fact, it's as if .38 Special have reached out to young bands and said, "Here is the way."
If you have just started a band, congratulations. This means you have also just turned fourteen. And here comes the best part of starting a band -- coming up with a name. My advice, in this iPod-worshipping world? Why, of course -- just go nuts with the punctuation and numbers.
The period appears to be the punctuation king, so start off with one or more of those. Get tricky and toss in a semicolon if you're feeling brazen. Maybe a dash, while we're at it? Good thinking. Then come the numbers. Naturally, you'll wanna start with 1. From there, use your imagination. Have fun with it, gang! You're in a band! Naming yourself will be the last fun thing you do! Trust me, it's all downhill from here, what with the Grammys and the heroin and the eventual plane crash in Nebraska.
And so, to the future members of ...1 & 1/2 Arbor Days, I bid you good luck. I'll catch up with you at next year's Bonnaroo Festival. I'll be there with my speed metal quartet, .......+,##[\[\\{;'"1111111A. See you at the party after the show.
posted by Brad Stevens at 12:11 PM
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