A musical abomination, Part I

Apparently, today is Tuesday. All day, in fact, as my mother used to tell me when I was still a schoolboy content to spend his January afternoons with Legos. Speaking of which, I feel compelled to mention that my old-school Lego products were better than today’s toys, by far. You could make anything you wanted with them using nothing more than a handful of bricks, a touch of imagination, and some patience and determination. Not like the surprisingly expensive, pre-designed Lego sets the kids have today, but, then, that’s another post.

Anyway, I know today is Tuesday because I received my weekly New on iTunes email today, which I promptly deleted as usual. I don’t much care what’s new on iTunes today, because the fact of the matter is that, well, I’m an embarrassment to music lovers and the harmoniously inclined everywhere.

Yes, I have iTunes installed on my laptop, and did previously rip my entirely catalog of CDs onto the hard drive. Honestly, though, I don’t really know why I bothered. I’ll fire it up on occasion and hit the shuffle, but for the most part I’m incapable of working when there’s music within earshot. I know that other people live their lives with background music, but for some reason, my brain simply cannot focus when confronted with a melody. That seems to hold true regardless of whether I’m writing software source code or words at the time. When there’s music playing, I’ll be minding my own business while happily laying down an if…then…else statement or the first sentence in a paragraph offering clever insights into the modern day culture of the public Men’s room. Somehow, three minutes later, I’ll suddenly realize I’ve actually written nothing but the lyrics from Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, Hey Jealously by the Gin Blossoms, or some other random track.

That “random track” could turn out be just about anything. Surprisingly, my collection is somewhat diverse; I’ve got everything from college chick music to speed metal. And I’m not even going to get into the stuff I’m too embarrassed to admit I own. If you people only knew, I’m sure I’d forever lose what tiny shreds of respect some of you still have for me.

So, how did I become such a misfit when it comes to music? Well, there’s a lot more to that story than I can adequately cover in one post. But I will tell you that music and I have had a contentious relationship since I was young lad. In fact, to my knowledge, I’m the only fifth grade student ever to be asked to quit an elementary school band.

Yes, that’s right, I was kicked out of the band in grade school.

Not just anyone can claim to have given a band director trombone-filled nightmares in 1985.

I believe that’s going to have to be a new tagline around here.

Pud’n