dusty and danny

Let me tell you about my job this summer. You know how I have this whole thesis-writing thing going on right now? Well, that doesn't exactly pay the bills. So I've been working as a field technician for another grad student's research while I moonlight as a (behind-schedule) grad student myself.

So anyway, there are two other members of the crew I am on, Dusty and Danny (names changed very slightly, in case of vanity Googling). Well, there's also the grad student whose research it is, but he's a really nice guy who's easy to get along with. In other words, poor blog material.

But Dusty and Danny are a piece of work. I use the singular here because for two 20-year-old guys, they sure are joined at the hip like a couple of middle school girls. They are nice enough. Earnest. A little dim. A little too much of a penchant for chewing tobacco, Mountain Dew, and Slim Jims for my taste, but whatever. There is one thing about Dusty and Danny I have kind of a hard time with, however.

You see, their taste in music sucks. Big time. And driving around in a car together ALL DAY gives us LOTS of time to listen to god-awful music. Most of what they listen to is what I would consider post-teen-angst-poser-rock. Actually, I don't really know what it is. What's really sad is that I'm too old to have heard of most of it. Except for one mix CD that generally comes on at about 3 in the afternoon, just as we're all a little tired of walking through soybean fields counting bugs.

Actually, now that I think about it, the middle school comparison really is fitting. Here it is, what Dusty calls "Rock Classics" and what I call "Dusty's Shittiest, Cheesiest Middle School Dance Mix Ever":

1. Neil Diamond: Sweet Caroline
2. Whitesnake: Is This Love
3. Warrant: Cherry Pie
4. Whitesnake: Here I Go Again
5. Genesis: I Can't Dance
6. Asia: Heat of the Moment
7. Warrant: Heaven
8. Mr. Big: To Be With You [Noooooooooo!!!]
9. Styx: High Enough
10. REO Speedwagon: Can't Fight This Feeling
11. Foreigner: I Want to Know What Love Is
12. REO Speedwagon: Keep on Loving You
13. Quiet Riot: Cum on Feel the Noize
14. Poison: Every Rose Has its Thorn [Because it's just not a middle school dance without it]
15. Phil Collins: In the Air Tonight
16. Michael Bolton: When a Man Loves a Woman [This one, of course, has always sucked big time. And ever since Office Space it has still sucked, but sucked hilariously.]

See what I mean? Can you imagine being subjected to this day after day, sitting in the backseat with Dusty and Danny bopping their heads and doing their best air guitar in the front? I must say, were I not forced to listen to this several times a week, this would totally be my entry for the Shitty Mix Tape Challenge. I don't think I could have come up with one this bad if I tried...

Comments

[Papa Bradstein]

Thanks for sharing your pain. Now I'm sitting in my cube with "Every Rose Has Its Thorns" screaming through my brain.

That truly is a bummer. The guys who I rode with in the Forest Service, on the rare days I hooked a ride with them out of our cabin, cranked up the Dead most days.

Not a bad way to wake up.

[andrea]

Can you kidnap the CD? Hold it for ransom?
Look at it this way, if it were GOOD music, then you'd forever associate it with walking beans. (I know you're not walking beans in the true sense of the word, but you catch my drift.) I do kind of like that Phil Collins song and was suckled on Neil Diamond, but the rest? How do you resist the daily urge to stab yourself in the eye with a fork?
Their music needs a facelift. You're the one to do it.

[zygote daddy]

Actually, I was really evil and told Dusty I wanted to borrow the CD the other day. I didn't tell him, of course, but I needed it so that I could look up the bands and song titles and thoroughly ridicule them (and him) in this here weblog. I'm sure I'm going to Hell now.

[dear wife]

Oh that seems good compared to the crap they listen to about high school romances turned bad. I would pick that any day over some of the stuff they have forced on me while in the lab. My personal hatred is the chewing tobacco. Really good combo with a pregnant woman having morning sickness.

[andrea]

Re: going to hell.
I'll see you there! ;)

[CP]

I won't tell you which two of these songs live happily on my ipod...

[zygote daddy]

Well I do seem to remember that Whitesnake tape you had as a kid... Could we be feeling a little nostalgic? Hmm?

[Lauren]

Oh, man. Sometimes I listen to shitty music, but there are two differences: a. I know it's shitty, and 2. I listen to it alone, y'all.

My husb's favorite song to play on his guitar is "To Be With You" because you use your thumb in it. derrrrr. Maybe not his ultimate favorite, but you get the idea.

[zygote daddy]

Good point Lauren. It's not necessarily the songs themselves (though there sure are some doozies...), but rather the combination of a) the total seriousness with which it was compiled, b) the tobacco-chewing, Mountain Dew-slugging air guitarness of it all, and c) the repressed homoeroticism of two conservative Iowa farm boys.

[insert tedious brokeback mountain joke here]

[Dad_to_Be]

I can't understand why anyone would bother making a mix tape of those particular songs. Surely that's the standard tracklisting to those Soft Rock Classics Vol 1-20 compillations that you can pick up for a couple of pounds (sorry, bucks) from the remaindered bin on the counter in every store ever? It's probably cheaper to buy new than it is to buy a blank cassette and tape it yourself...

[Motherhood Uncensored]

Oh Mr. Big. Hahahahahahaha.

If that's a rock classic...

Oh man.

However, I did used to think he could possibly be a woman in his video. I used to watch it and try to figure it out.

[Teacher Lady]

That is the world thing I have ever seen and I would have to shoot myself in the head. Or at the very least poke myself in the eye. Repeatedly. Just to distract myself.

[Teacher Lady]

Hello? Proofread, please. The WORST thing I have ever seen. The worst.

[dutch from sweet juniper]

I would add queensryche's "silent lucidity."

I totally wish I'd gone behind the curtains and made out with the cute jewish girl I slow danced with to that song back in 1991.