388. "Big Me" Foo Fighters

"Big Me"
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
1995

Sometimes it's easy to forget that music videos are, in essence, just ads for the band's record.
Foo Fighters are a good rock band, that made some good albums, and some awesome fucking videos. And because the videos were so good, you would watch them every time they came on, and eventually develop an affection for the song itself.
Mentos commercials were one of the enduring mysteries of the 90's. Were they just terrible ads? Were they self-aware parodies of terrible ads? Were they the product of some irony-free European nation, marketing their candy to a nation of creative problem solvers?
Regardless, a generation of snarky 90's kids ate these ads up and smiled for the camera afterwards.



It's impossible to parody a parody, so maybe for this video to work you have to believe the Mentos ads were genuine.
And you know what? I do. I don't want to live in a world where those goofy ass stupid fucking things were just a cynical attempt to get Generation X to buy their mints.

389. "Hold On, Hold On" Neko Case

"Hold On, Hold On"
Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
2006

There is no greater joy than following somebody that you already admire on Twitter and discovering that they are just as awesome as you always assumed that they were. Like, you love their songs, and you think they are super talented and just the tops, but what if they just tweet pictures of their food? What if they are just very boring on Twitter? Does that mean they are boring in real life? I've been disappointed before, and her name rhymed with "Zooey Deschanel". (After exhaustive research, I determined that nothing actually rhymed with "Zooey Deschanel". Sorry, Zooey. Also, you can just look out the window to see if it's raining.)

What if they are not vocal fans of the two best shows on TV?

Neko Case ‏ @NekoCase

Trying not to read any Mad Men or Game of Thrones tweets. It's hard!!! I'm my own spoiler!!

What if they weren't funny and profane?

Neko Case ‏ @NekoCase

How many people do you suppose have named a cat "Tawny Kitaen"?

Neko Case ‏ @NekoCase

***or however the fuck you spell that made-up name.

That'll do, Neko Case. That'll do.

390. "Hysteric" Yeah Yeah Yeahs

"Hysteric"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz!
2009

This guy found out he had a uterus.
He panicked, and the stress caused his uterus to rupture, so he had to call 911 for an ambulance.
The surgeon was not a nice man, and found the idea of a man with a uterus very funny indeed, and he bellowed with laughter as he removed the man's superfluous organ.
His terror caused his tear, a call: a hysterical hysterectomy.

391. "Hazy Shade of Winter" Simon and Garfunkel

"Hazy Shade of Winter"
Simon and Garfunkel
Bookends
1968

Did you ever meet one of those weirdos who like winter? I don't mean someone who lives in a warm part of the country, and idealizes fall and winter because everything they have seen on TV and in movies makes winter look all special.

Like that.
You can discount those people, as they have never lived through winter. If your worst winter day is that the ski chalet ran out of Hypnotiq, you have never experienced winter.

Winter is brown slush in the gutters. Winter is not being able to go outside because the air actually hurts you. Again :  THE AIR HURTS YOU. I know warm weather can get uncomfortable, but it does not cause actual pain.

And yet, if you live in a cold weather part of the country, you will hear yahoos defending winter. Just ignoring the fact that winter literally hurts.

Those people should be drawn and quartered.

392. "Carey" Joni Mitchell

"Carey"
Joni Mitchell
Blue
1971

I think this song plays differently when you are in your twenties as opposed to when you are in your thirties.
If, like me, you are in your twenties when you first hear this tune about an expat wasting away in Spanish cafes and longing for home, it is impossibly romantic, and you look forward to the time, which is without a doubt just around the corner, when you too will be smoking cigarettes and drinking wine in a cafe in Europe somewhere, Mediterranean sea salt drying on your skin.
But when you listen to it in your thirties, avec kids and job and house payment, you realize a. that ain't never happening and b. probably just as well.
It's probably hard to find baseball games on TV in Spain, and I've heard they drink weird milk in Europe. Like, warm and lumpy or something?
And cigarettes cost like $100 a pack. And they call it a "packet", which is wrong on so many levels.
Joni knew. She missed her fresh white linens and her fancy French cologne. Which, um, not really the creature comforts of home that I would have gone with, but it was 1971. They didn't have Verizon Fios to miss.

393. "Polyester Bride" Liz Phair

"Polyester Bride"
Liz Phair
Whitechocolatespacegg
1998

I happened to be working as a bartender when this record came out, so of course I loved hearing about Henry, Liz Phair's bartending friend. I hadn't been at it very long, and so was assigned the shifts when no one was there. This is good, as I was terrible at it. Sure, I could lovingly mix a cocktail that people would enjoy (that happened once), but if I got an order for, say, 2 frozen margaritas (one strawberry and one regular), a mudslide, and two frozen daiquiris, I would pretty much just look at my one blender and throw my hands in the air, and ask them to order something else.
I also didn't really do too much homework. I assumed I knew all the drinks anyone would ever order, so why bother with a recipe book? I was 22, I thought most drinks were tequila based. That, coupled with my refusal to look stupid by consulting a recipe book or by asking a customer how a drink was made led to more than one look of, "Oh, that's not right at all," on someone's face after they had tasted my approximation of an Old Fashioned.
Does that not have tequila in it? My bad.
But most people would refuse to call me on my incompetence. They would rather be nice than risk offending me and get to drink the beverage that they had actually ordered (and paid seven bucks for).
One time a tourist couple came in, a middle aged husband and wife, seemingly from the midwest somewhere. Big vacation in L.A., going to a bar in Beverly Hills. Hubby gets a draft beer (NAILED IT), wifey's feeling a bit adventurous. "I think I'll have a Stinger," she says.
A Stinger. Heard of it. Never made one. Sounds dangerous. Probably has tequila in it.
Starts coming back to me. A stinger has creme de menthe. Tequila, creme de menthe, check.
White or green creme de menthe? Can't go wrong with both.
So I give this lady this concoction of tequila, white creme de menthe and green creme de menthe poured over ice, and she looks at it for a moment. And since she's on vacation, she actually takes a sip.
And bless her heart, after she recovers, she says, "Oh, you folks make them different out here."

STINGER RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 oz brandy
• 3/4 oz white creme de menthe

Preparation:

1. Pour the ingredients into an old-fashioned glass with crushed ice.
2. Stir well.

394. "Acrobat" U2

"Acrobat"
U2
Achtung Baby
1991

If I had to guess, I would say between 1991 and 1993 about 154,000 high school seniors tried to use
"Don't Let the Bastards get you Down.!" - U2
as their high school yearbook quote, only to be rebuffed by the yearbook editor, so they went with a quote from a Rush or Led Zeppelin song instead.
Or maybe Dr. Seuss, U2 had a pretty wide audience back then.