Idiot & the Odyssey

A four and a half hour commute leaves one with a lot of time to think.  Where have I come from?  Where am I going?  Well, I was coming from work and was on my way home.   A snowstorm  really unloaded on the greater Boston area, leading every moron with a car and a commute out and onto the roads to act the part from 1:00pm until well after I had arrived home and inhaled my body weight in beef pad Thai, courtesy of Moose.  In leaving work at 4:30 I thought I'd successfully waited the whole ordeal out.  Can't out-wait destiny.  Little did I know, I was driving right into the eye of this shit storm.

Initially I was pretty focused.  Stuck in gridlock traffic within a half mile of my office for about two hours, I made a couple phone calls, sent a few text messages.  As I looked around- at a guy peeing in the street next to his parked car, a woman swinging her door open into oncoming traffic so that she could clear her windshield, etc.- wondered how dumb people must be in places like Alabama and Louisiana if this was Massachusetts.  Still, misery loves company, and I had plenty of it.  Soon, I came to realize my phone was running low on power.  In order to conserve for a potential emergency call, I had to hunker down and find a new way to occupy myself.  Like I said, I was pretty focused so I listened to a bunch of jazz.  Modeski, Martin, Wood & Schofield's Out Louder.  Jury's still out on that one.  This was only my second listen.  I'll let you know.  I found a pretty sweet "Beyond Jazz" radio station on XM radio.  Some pretty heady stuff. Kept me occupied for approximately an hour, hour and a half?  Two hours?  Two years?  That's what it began to feel like.  Eventually, my eyes widened when I realized I could hear my rage rattling around in the back of my head.  My temper's never been something to be proud of.  Lately, I've been trying to come up with new and improved ways to control it in order to avoid Mussolini imposed sanctions in the form of anger management.  (You know it's bad when a dictator with a historically renowned temper thinks you have a problem.)  

Rage made a brief sojourn to my mouth before returning to its respite in the back of my mind. While on the phone with my mother, having realized I hadn't moved an inch in over 25 minutes, I went on a profanity laden tirade.  Again, not something I'm proud of.  Apparently, neither was she.  She couldn't get off the phone fast enough.  Who could blame her?  "Uuuuh....Ok Seamus, call us when you get home."  "Click."  Soon, I would come face to face with the bowels of the recesses of my mind.  

I happened upon a dance music station on the XM.  Slutty sounding female vocal accompanied by copious quantities of bass and synthesizer.  The kind of stuff you usually hear blaring out of some dickhead mobile driven by some cheesedick with a Brooklyn blowout.  I liked it.  I tried singing along, though not knowing the words, I just tried to shadow the melodies.  At some point, sitting there in my car that I'd transformed into the lamest club ever,  I realized and was bothered by the fact that I've become increasingly self-conscious as I've grown older.  In an act of defiance, I started dancing.  Dancing my ass off.  I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked.  I also didn't really care.            

Shortly thereafter, I outgrew my 17 year-old guido phase.  It was as short a phase as it was late thankfully.  I hate guidos.  I continued on in my exploration of the XM radio.  Found a station ridiculously named, "Ethel".  Fittingly, Ethel was playing Coldplay.    Also fittingly, I was able to admit to myself that I liked them both; Ethel and that Coldplay tune.  I was somewhat surprised, however, to find that I even knew many of the words.  I like that Chris Martin.  Great voice.  Great green and red band-aids on his index and ring fingers.  Apple's pretty cool too.  Coldplay gave way to something terrible, however.  Something straight from hell like Nickelback.  I turned the radio off abruptly.  The rage was back.  I rolled down my window and began screaming my favorite profanities across the Charles river towards the ivory towers that line the other side.  I'm pretty sure Noam Chomsky's pencil point broke upon receipt.  

Radio went back on.  I discovered stations 101-110 all play Christmas songs!  I rejoiced as I sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, realizing I was still compelled to sing it the way I had as a child.  Parody.  It is on this note that I will leave you.  Below please find some of my favorite childhood Christmas song parodies. 

Disclaimer: Some of these songs are almost not funny anymore in light of all that's transpired in schools since I last picked my nose and wiped the fruits of my labor on the underbelly of my desk.  Almost.       

Deck the halls with gasoline fa la la la la la la la la Light a match and watch it clean fa la la la la la la la la Watch the school burn down to ashes Fa la la la la la la la la Aren't you glad you played with matches fa la la la la la la la la. 

Joy to the world, the school burnt down
and all the teachers are died
The principle is gone,
We flushed him down the john
The janitor is dead
we shot him in the head
and now it's up to us
to burn the school bus.

Jingle Bells
Batman Smells
Robin Laid an Egg
The Batmobile Lost a Wheel
And Joker got away

Jingle Bells
Batman Smells
Robin Laid an Egg
The Batmobile Lost a Wheel
And Joker got away

Jingle Bells
Batman Smells
Robin Laid an Egg
The Batmobile Lost a Wheel
And Jo-ker got away

THE JOKER GOT AWAY!
THE JOKER GOT AWAY!

You know Dasher and Dancer
And Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid
And Donner and Blitzen.
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
REINDEER!
Had a very shiny nose
LIKE A LIGHTBULB!
And if you ever saw it
SAW IT!
You would even say it glows
LIKE A FLASHLIGHT!
All of the other reindeer
REINDEER!
Used to laugh and call him names
LIKE PINNOCHIO!
They never let poor Rudolph
RUDOLPH
Play in any reindeer games
LIKE MONOPOLY!  

(this line always killed me cause I always hated Monopoly.  I used to try and have it changed to other stuff like Hungry Hippos or Candyland...  My ideas never took off.)

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
HO HO HO!
Rudolph with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?
Then all the reindeer loved him
And they shouted out with glee
YIPPEE!
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
REINDEER!
You'll go down in history!"
LIKE GEORGE WASHINGTON!  

(Again.   This line always bugged me because we learned pretty early on that Washington had slaves.  I used to try and have it changed to MLK.  I also was convinced I wrote "Trick or Treat Smell my Feet" but that's a story for another month.  Two months ago to be specific.)