Devils and Dust – Bruce Springsteen

  

The worst children’s album ever

This entire CD is about how Bruce doesn’t think his kids should have to bear the suffering of the sins of their fathers, which is kind of sad because I think that means Bruce (“Who’s the Boss?”) is admitting that he slept around a lot and each of his kids has a different father.  And, I suppose, that’s a good example of a sin he doesn’t want them to repeat.

I can relate to this CD because my father was a crackpot – he didn’t sleep around a lot like Bruce did, but I don’t think anyone’s quite as evil as Bruce, and my father ended up sleeping around a lot on our couch, so if that counts then I guess he’s just like Bruce and therefore just like this CD.  My mother used to call him a dust bunny, which is what I think Bruce is talking about in the title.  I think she would have called him a “couch potato” if either couches or potatoes had been invented while she was alive.

Collector’s Box – The Dixie Chicks

  

The controversy is killing me!

The Dixie Chicks are the most important issue facing our country today and I simply refuse to stay quiet any longer.  And, what really blows me away is it’s being overshadowed by a lesser, completely manufactured controversy.  I mean, why are we so concerned about what these “entertainers” think about President Bush and his War on Buffet?  Who cares?  They’re only “entertainers”, right folks? – not politicians!  If I want to know about smackin’ my hoho with my villin’ in a hottub, I’ll talk to an entertainer.  If I want to know how to ban that CD and which bonfire to throw it into, I’ll talk to a politician.  It’d be like asking my dentist about any other shoe besides a gumshoe.  He’s just a dentist – not a private deeck – which is exactly what the three “entertainers” in Dixie Chicks precisely are.  I mean, let’s face it, folks, isn’t it a bit silly protesting outside a Dixie Chicks concert because they don’t like Bush – get a life people and move on nothing to see here! – when we really ought to be protesting outside a Dixie Chicks concert because they’re really a bunch of hermaphodites – everyone come on back, folks, definitely something to see here only don’t actually look because then you’re a sicko and I’ll have to protest you too.  So, let’s get it straight: different protest, different signs – same people standing outside the concert though if they want all the merrier – but, let’s not have two protests going at once because that could get ugly, only these are protesters, so not really really ugly, but kinda Disney ugly like the fight scenes in the “Beat It” video, no one want to be defeated!  So, haven’t we completely missed the point with the Dixie Chicks here people?  I mean, do I really want this rag-tag kind of “entertainer” influencing my children, even if I really only have one children and luckily he worships Slipknot and not this trash.  I sure as Heckle and Jeckle wouldn’t want my son emulating a bunch of women who are really both men and women at the same time!  This is the biggest gender-swapping people-influencing controversy since Dear Abbey turned out to be a priest!  You got chocolate on my peanut butter!

The name says it all: Dixie Chicks, clear as day, and I heard they got their name from some song by Lynard Skynnard called “Dude Looks Like a Lady, Dixie Chicks!” where there’s a line that says “Three guys should be both men and women at the same time and sing songs at football games and influence our children/And this bird will never change”  How do you think they pee?  And just to keep the steam away from the controversy they decided to fabricate another controversy about how they hate Bush (get it?) which is really just a rouge to make you forget they are both men and women at the same time.  It’s like Wag the Female Dog, and it’s working because the songs are so darn fun!

Billy Joel Live at Yankee Stadium

   

Fool me a third time

You remember the old expression: “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times, shame on Billy Joel.”  Well, I never knew exactly what that meant until I saw the Behind the Music about Billy Joel.  It seems that Billy “the Music Man” Joel has lost all his money and gone bankrupt THREE TIMES.  And, we’re not talking about the game of Life bankrupt where you just go onto a black space for a couple of turns and then you can keep spinning.  This is real life Billy Joel bankrupt where you have to borrow soup from your parents.  And, Billy Joel has done it three times.  As they said on the VH1, Billy Joel loses more money every year to feed all of Egypt.  Wouldn’t that be weird if he actually LOST it in Egypt?  No wonder those guys get to eat.  Next time they’re strapped for lunch money, they just wait for Billy Joel to build up his next fortune and invite him over for a concert – he’s bound to lose a couple suitcases full of cash.  Hey, Billy Joel, a little tip from Fat Joe, put the money in the bank!  So much safer! 

Ha, just kidding, I know Billy Joel’s never been to Egypt.  He’d’ve written a song about it.  The Bangels did!

So the first time he lost all his money was before he was famous.  He used to be named Mr. Bo Jangles and he ran away from a bad record contract and ended up playing piano at a bar for a friend named John. The second time he lost all his money was when his brother in law dressed up like his accountant and ran off with all his cash.  Strike two Billy Joel!  From now on, don’t swing unless it’s right in there. And, that’s when he got Kristie Brinkley drunk for 15 years and married her and had a bunch of kids.  But, when she finally got sober, what a hangover!  I mean, I’ve been guilty of tipping a few too many highballs in my day, but I’ve never woken up married to Billy Joel!  Sure, there was that thing with Billy Joel’s brother that time I met him at the convention — what was IN those things?!! – but not Billy Joel!  No amount of Advil is going to get you that annulment!  That’s like saying: what do you mean hair on the dog? I married the hair on the dog!  So, as soon as she could gather her clothes and pop her contacts back in, she ran off with all his money.

Which is why Billy Joel doesn’t leave his house anymore because he’s afraid that anyone who he meets is going to be from Egypt or try to take all his money and he’ll have to build up another fortune again, and besides he can’t afford the gas money just yet.

Back to Back Hits ~ MC Hammer & Vanilla Ice

 

Please Prince, don’t hurt ‘em!

All of my troubles with Amazon and with the IRS (Internal Revenue Snakes – ha, I hope they’re reading this and it makes them cry) (but if they’re actually reading this, don’t forget my name is Frank and I live in Tieland, so there!) and with the American Psychotry Association, has made me have to legally change my name over the years.  It’s always funny when I bump into someone from way back and he calls me “Fatt Jo Tomas” and my wife will be confused.  She has long since refused to change her name with me (even though she knows they could bust in here any second now – and they’d probably TAKE AWAY ALL OUR BOOKS!)  At first she said she would “humor” me the first time I had to do it.  “Humor” me – that’s pretty funny because I didn’t find it the least bit funny (ironic!) and neither did she find it funny when the AmazonCreditBuster TM machine went to work and blocked all our spending – no thanks, it’s easier just to change your name.  My wife has refused all the name changes though because it’d be too expensive to order new checks.  So, this last name change kind of makes me sound like I’m Prince.  And, since Phatjo 2mas kind of sounds like a Prince song (although I’m sure he’d find a way to make it “doin’ the Phatjo with a Phatho” and I guess, well, I should be flattered – thanks, Prince, I owe ya one) so I thought it’d be befitting to review a Prince album since we’re likely to be mistaken for family now (which would make me “royalty” – which only makes sense because my wife always calls me a “royal” pain and I could never understand what that meant and neither could those guards that never move when I asked them a bunch of times.)

I’ve got to tell you, though, after listening to this album, Prince sure is one genius of disguise (a “mime”) because this album doesn’t sound anything at all like Prince.  As I read in the Rolling Stones once, he keeps “reinventing himself” – which always makes me giggle at the thought of Prince sitting watching Saturday morning cartoons next to a yellow midget in a top hat and Prince says, “Reinvent me a banana” and the little man says, “OK, you’re a banana!” but of course Prince is a purple banana, oh no let’s go! 

I heard a story once that I don’t really believe.  Supposedly Prince is a really bad test taker and so he had to cheat a lot in school, so he would write cribnotes on his skin and hope the teacher wouldn’t notice.  (They’re called “cribnotes” because you write them at your “house” before you get to school.)

My wife has a Prince game she plays on long road trips.  She tries to make up Prince songs based on the license plates of the cars on the road.  I’m not sure I completely get why it has to be Prince songs, but it has something to do with her theory that Prince spent some time in prison.  I’m not sure.  I mean, there’s a song on this CD called “Cool as Ice (Everybody Get Loose)” – I mean, that’s a reeeallly long title – whoa, everybody, hold up, Prince just bought another limo!

Feelin’ Alright: The Very Best of Traffic

 

A soundtrack for the ages

If you’ve read any of my reviews lately, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t talked about Tony Shalhoub lately (I’m mad at her!  Why?  Don’t tell, jail cell!) and you’re probably really mad about how they have been cutting out big chunks of my reviews in order to use their cutesy little symbols.  It makes me mad!  Everytime I mention narcotics – except, I usually use the “d-word” – they take out all my words and replace them with (…)  I mean, what kind of smiley face is that?!  I was so mad!  But, then I realized that it’s probably a line of cocaine they’re supposed to be drawing there and that’s a pretty good representation – let’s see you do better smartie!  Can you use punctuation to draw an elephant?  I’ll bet they can!  Let’s see if they swap it in here.

 

So, I wanted to put these comments up on this movie soundtrack because it is all about drugs.  And, it sometimes tints the screen red, yellow or green (depending on the “symbolism” for the time) which is how it gets the name of the movie.

…Baby One More Time [ENHANCED CD]

 

Great breasts!

Here’s a woman who has fantastic breasts!  And, it’s ok for me to say that now that she’s turned 25.  That makes her less than 30 years younger than me, so I can talk about her great breasts.  Keep on growing, Britney!  pretty soon she’ll be less than 20 years younger than me, and just think then what I’ll be able to talk about!

Now, I know there’s a whole controversy as to whether she has falsies (that means “fake nails”).  I don’t know if she does and I don’t care.  That’s a woman’s right to choose and if her mom wants to give her the Press-On treatment, the media and Entertainment Tonight should leave them alone!  I mean, you don’t see anyone talking about Michael Stipe’s fake eyelashes!  So, why pick on Britney?  Because she was just a kid, but now she’s a woman and so I can talk about her breasts.  They’re great!

This album has twelve tracks which means possibly twelve videos where she can get thiiiiiiiis close to showing us her breasts and then the camera cuts to a backup dancer.  Her backup dancers have almost as good breasts as she does!  but Britney has great breasts!

There is a Prince song called “I’m a Slave 4 U” which is funny because my wife says that Prince must have served time because he gets his song titles from license plates, but the song isn’t about cars it’s about breasts – which only shows you that my wife doesn’t know anything about Britney Spears or breasts.  Can I say that Britney is the Shakes Spears of breasts!  (Call up Entertainment Weekly!  They should use that as a headline!)

My wife always has something to say when I play this CD.  So, I try to annoy her by singing the Thong Song except I call it the Breast Song because that’s what Britney would do… “Breasts, breasts, breasts/breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts/breasts, breasts.”  The last crack that my wife had was that the song “I’m not a Girl and Not a Woman” was Britney’s way of saying she was going to get more work done.  Which I can agree with because she is a hard worker to have put out this many CDs in not so many years!  I mean, she’s amazing if you think about it.  Most superstars like her would have put out a Greatest Hits album or a Remixes album by now.  I mean, she HAS had two or three albums to pull material from.  But, Britney is too busy trying to keep the camera from showing her breasts in the videos.  But, hey, buck-o! don’t blame the camera!  Those are fantastic breasts!  If I were a camera in her videos I’d try to get near them, too!

So, I heard that Weird Al Yankovich did a parody song about diarrhea called “Poops – I Did It Again” and that Britney thought it was very funny!  So, she decided to do a parody song of his “I Love Rocky Road” only she called it “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”.  Get it?  They sound almost the same!  It’s parody!

I don’t think I need to tell you what “Bombastic Love” is about.  And “Overprotected” is about great breasts.  But, did you know that “Cinderella” and “Let Me Be” are about great breasts?  “Anticipating” is about great breasts.  Great ones!  Did you know that the Beatles have a song called “Let IT Be”?  You try telling me that’s a coincidence and you will be talking to the butt because the hand is walking away from you now!  And, her first single is a Neptune-helmed piece of electrofunk that promises she’ll do anything you want as long as it’s dancing.  And, don’t let anyone tell you differently about that song because I know there are people out there who will try.  The Internet is a weird city, man.  If they ever make a sequel to Driven, Britney should be in it.

(But, here’s the thing I just don’t get.  Why would they list this as an “enhanced CD” when it’s obvious that this is the one that came out BEFORE she got the work done?)

Metallica (Black Album)

 

I can’t believe it’s not better!

Actually, it can’t be better because it’s rocktastic!  I had this album when I was a pimply-faced teenager.  And, trust me, I had a lot of pimples.  People used to call me Pizza Joe Thomas.  (That was my nickname before Smitty, Toto, Jo-T, the short-lived and self-imposed Fast Joe Thomas, the Notorious FJT, and finally Father Joe Thomas which my son shortened to Fat that one time I had that seatbelt thing.  This was long before Blossom was such a TV hit that you Goddard believe it, because otherwise some wisecracker would have given me that as a nickname, too.)

My favorite song as a kid and still my favorite song on this album is You Shook Me All Night Long.  It still makes me grab my air guitar in my underwear (ok, don’t get any weird thoughts – my air guitar is not actually IN my underwear! it’s in my closet next to the Jarts I’m trying to hide from the authorities.)  “She was the best machine, she kept the motor clean, she was the best dang woman that I ever seen.  She had those fancy thighs telling me no lies and knocking me out with those American pies.  Take another chance, she had me coming for air, she told me to come but I was already there.  And, the walls were shaking the earth was shaking, my mind was shaking and we were shaking when You Shook Me All Night Long!”  Oh, the memories – I haven’t been to a hockey game in ages.

A friend, Jack Jack, told me that this was Metallica’s response to the White Beetles Album because they said oh yeah you want to put out an album that is all white well we will put out an album which is back in black because we are metal players and you are sergeant peppers and metal is black.  Jack Jack is a historian when he’s not working weekends at the deli.  And I told him that rock and roll isn’t noise pollution, rock and roll ain’t gonna die!  Which my wife doesn’t completely understand but that’s because she is The Man.

101 Live Box Set – Depeche Mode

   

Tonight.

My wife says that the idea of a Depeche Mode live album is ridiculous because they don’t play actual instruments anyway, so since it’s just a bunch of machines making the music what do they actually do on stage anyway – so, they might as well just have you over to their parents’ basement to sit around a listen to CDs.  And, when she really wants to get under my goat, my wife will say: but, since this is Depeche Mode, some tough band (the Scorpions, those jerks!) will end up coming over to beat the pacholli out of Depeche Mode, (“but, Scorpions, people are people and why should it be that you and I should be along so aw-ful-ly?” and the Scorpions would start smacking them with drum sticks and electric guitars and the poor Depeche Mode would be confused and saying “what are those things?”) and there’ll be a fire and the Depeche Mode parents house will have fire damage and that’s why they have to charge you $52 a head (plus Ticketmaster!) just to sit around and play CDs.

Tonight.

But, you know what?  She just doesn’t get it.  I think that my wife has a sick sense of humor.  But, she sure doesn’t get it.  Mode is fantastic.  Those guys can rock the house AND a side order of chips!  And, that’s just on one disc, this has two!  I remember when my hair was crazy and flammable!  I never think I have time for two discs, but once the first one is over I have to jump right into the next one.

Now.

You know what would be cool? a machine that lets you make the order of the songs on the CD go in the order you want them to go instead of in the order they want them to.  Because then it would be just like being at the concert but you would be the guy who tells them what songs to play, and I could even let Tony Shalhoub control the lights!  That way, Dave would finish a song and say, “Hey Fat Joe, what’s next?” I’ve got goosebumps already and yell back I want to hear Master and Servant because that’s actually what’s happening here when I pick the songs don’t you think?

Girl.

And don’t tell me that Martin is going to let me pick the songs if we’re hanging out in his parents’ basement, so once again my wife doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Tonight.

I once heard that Depeche Mode has released over 30 different versions of “Strangelove”.  Over 30!  That’s how complicated these guys can make their songs.  That by just moving a single note out of place, you’ve created an ENTIRELY NEW version of the song and the song is not the same!

Now.

For Halloween this year I want to dress up as Mode and I’ll wear a leather vest that is unbuttoned with my bare chest underneath (a la Mode) but I’m worried that might look a little silly.  I’m not the physical fit I used to be!  My six pack is a case!  (I heard a comedian say that once – but, that’s ok this makes up for the time Bob Hope stole my line about Morgan Fairchild’s “Falcon Breasts” – I think he won an Emmy for that joke!, the jerk I hope he gets beat up by the Scorpions!  Hey, I should call him and say: “Hello, Bob Hope, this is Depeche Mode, do you want to come over to our parents’ house and listen to CDs in the basement?”  That’ll teach him.  He won’t be as safe as houses.)

Girl.

Tonight.

Now.

Metal Rules: Tribute to the Bad Hair Days

  Finally, all these cover bands get their big break!

I’ve always sung the song of the unsung cover band.  Which is kind of ironic, because who sings a cover song of my song for the unsung cover band?  Which gets pretty confusing and if you take it another step you end up with loopholes within loopholes and you get something as illogical as
Boston – you remember the old joke: “What’s the shortest distance between two points?” “Not in
Boston.”

Which is pretty funny because Boston is actually one of the bands covered on this album.  Some Boston tribute band called Mad Caddies do a version of “Youth Gone Wild” and it rocks out let me tell you.  I was going to be Kip Winger for Halloween but then I realized that Kip didn’t have a cat – but Prince had Wendy and Lisa so I dressed up Tony Shalhoub in a police cap and stockings and he became Wendy and Lisa.  Tony Shalhoub tore up those stockings pretty good, so you know she’s a smart cat because at first I forgot that Wendy and Lisa had tears in their stockings – they must have a cat friend, too, and that was in the days when MTV had a small budget and they couldn’t pay Prince to buy new stockings.  Jack Jack, my friend from the Deli, also went as Prince and he borrowed somebody else’s cat and called her Cat from the Sign of the Times days when Prince had a dancer named Cat.  I think he thought that was pretty clever.  Jerk.

But, that’s ok because I think Tony Shalhoub really took to the hairspray.  And, Prince never actually slept with Cat, he just did something called “skimbo slapping” with her and I’m pretty sure Tony Shalhoub wouldn’t have liked that so much.

My nephew was once in a tribute band called Styx Leppard which played a song medley called “Too Much Time on My Hand.”

And, I’m going to buy this CD for him because it has the Def Leppard classic “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and the song “Rock You Like a Hurricane” which I don’t know who actually did it but I’m sure Styx would have done a better job. 

There is a band called Nerf Herder who do a song that was originally done by Lita Ford, the “Celine Dion” of glam rock.  Both have said they are good with garden hoses.  And, they are both from Canada.  And, they both aren’t afraid to do the occasional love ballad.  Nerf Herder gets their name from a character in Star Trek that was a “Vulcan”.

There is a song on here called “Unskinny Bop” which I have to object to because it is making fun of heavy people.  My wife said, “Yeah, heavy people with poor vocabulary.”  That too?  So, I’m not sure I’d recommend a CD that makes fun of heavy people and poor people.

Up – R.E.M.

Old REM or new REM?  Which side you on? 

This CD has caused a whole lot of turmoil in the Thomas household, I can tell you that much.  It’s one of those classic family arguments that can really tear a family apart, kind of like tastes great less filling, butter parkay, hot side hot cool side cool.  I remember when my wife first told me she preferred the nutritious side of the Frosted Mini Wheat, I had to groan and fall to my chair.  Because you know what this means.  A fight.  Maybe some words a little too harsh and saying things perhaps we don’t really mean, you know what I’m saying.  And, if the councelor has to get involved in this one, so be it because my wife knows all about the sweet-tasting kid in me.  (But, I suppose I don’t need to tell you about the flip-side to this coin.  Nothing is more yummy than the Frosted Mini-Wheats love makin’ after an animated Frosted Mini-Wheats fight.  So, I guess there’s a good side and a bad side to these types of arguments.  Wait a minute! – even that has a duality!  This is getting confusing!  The duality has duality!)

So, my wife just hates any of the new R.E.M.  I call her a term I once made up: “music snob”.  This is someone who is a snob about stuff (you know like food and clothes).  Except not about food and clothes, instead about music.  You may use that term as you wish.

She says that Michael Stipe was so much more profound when you couldn’t figure out what he was saying.  Now that you can understand the words, it turns out he’s singing about a Andy Kaufman and truck stops.  I happen to like truck stops, although Andy Kaufman is a little too “bohemian” for my tastes.  I’d prefer a nice site gag once in a while you know.

I love the new R.E.M. because it’s exactly what it is.  You don’t have to hop onto the “internet” and try to get the lyrics off some bratty 15-year-old kid (who’ll probably just turn out to be a Federal agent again.)  I mean, why write a lyric if no one is going to be able to understand it.  That’d be just as pointless as making a painting where you can’t really tell if it’s a naked person or a plate of the sloppy joes.  And, THEN, lock that painting into a room that’s inside a castle that’s at the bottom of the ocean.  On Mars.  Now, you call that art?  I mean, if you carved a lyric on a tree in a forest and there was no one there to read it, that’d be early R.E.M.  Have you ever heard any of this early stuff?  I kind of like Radio Free Europe, but I’d never know because I have no idea what he’s talking about.  “Meet me in a country in the woods (???) / Go to go to go to go to goods (???) / Potato and the potato and potato (???)”  When I was a kid and there was a song where I didn’t know what the one word was, I’d always fill in “potato” instead.  And, besides, even if I had a clue what the flapjacks he was talking about I still wouldn’t know what he was talking about because, hey Michael buddy, radio has always been free.  In Europe and everywhere.  That’s why it’s called “radio” and not “HBO”.  And, don’t even tell me that they’re going to start charging you for radio, because I don’t care how many stations I pick up most of them are just static, which is probably the radio’s version of QVC.

But, now for the new R.E.M., you have to chop down all the trees in the forest, because you need the wood to build bleachers because this stadium is going to be packed and R.E.M. is in the house to rock the house.  This CD has a song called “Daysleeper”.  See?  Right away you know what the song is about.  A guy who sleeps during the day.  And, hey folks, this is R.E.M., not Marilyn Manson so the song isn’t about a vampire.  The guy sleeps during the day because he has a job that works at night and he’s kind of lonely and R.E.M. wrote a song about him.  “I work in the night and I sleep in the day / Don’t wake me up / I’m a daysleeper”.  So caloric but tasty!  “Parakeet” is about a guy who owns a parakeet.  “I have a parakeet / It sits in a cage / It’s my parakeet.”  And “Airportman” is about a guy at an airport.  And “Lotus” is about Lotus.  So, as R.E.M. would say: Why Not Smile?

Don’t get yourself worried about it.  This fight will continue and my wife and I will probably never agree on this one.  There’s just too much at stake.  She has her weird twisted opinion.  But, I say which would you rather have: songs about people with birds or songs about potatoes.  (But, don’t worry, when this fight is over, bring on the R.E.M. love makin’ – and I’ll make sure to click on “The One I Love” in the middle of it before my wife gets a chance to complain.)