Another has gone.  So many memories, so many, unsure, memories.  The songs seemed to change, it had to mean something, but does it?  Did it?  Who will be next?  Will they all go?  Will I go?  Before it ever becomes something concrete, something real, something I can say without the words that have to be there?

A Song For the Unknown

I was very confused
When I heard the news
The times we’d share
Were they even there

Sometimes it would seem
Like it was all a dream
But sometimes with you
It would seem so true

I could only use a word
That I had already heard
I could only sing a phrase
In so many ways

Now it is too late
How long could you wait
Could time ever reveal
Was that the appeal

Was it all in my mind
Could it be so unkind
Was it all in my head
Now another is dead

It started so long ago
I signed up for a show
It changed so fast
Into an unseen cast

Don’t know what’s real
Or what I should feel
I’m still unsure
And there is no cure

“Wow, these comments are really funny.  I want to read more…  Click ‘read more comments.’  Hmm…  Doesn’t seem to work.  I bet I have to allow their fucking javascripts.  Fuck that.  I’ll go on to other stuff…

“Wow this thread has some really interesting comments, but I have to allow the damn javascripts…  Okay, fine, I’ll just do it once.  Temporary allow.

“Ugg, I am getting sick of having to do these temporary allows.  I’ll just allow it, fuck you.  But I’m not going to sign in to an account, fuck that shit.

“Maybe I should get this Reddit Enhancement Suite thing…  People sure are talking a lot about it.  Okay, got it.  Hmm, just makes everything scroll as one long page…  Fuck, loading problems.  Fuck that, turn off that shit.

“Damn, this RES does nothing.  Oh well.  Hmm, all these comments are listed by ‘best.’  But they really aren’t the best, the top comments are the funniest ones.  I’ll just rearrange them.

“Oh my god.  I have to rearrange them every fucking time.  I’m sure RES will come to the rescue and actually do something useful.  …  Looking through the settings…  Nothing.  Why the fuck do they even do that.  Looking up online.  Oh, they chose to set it up that way by default because people weren’t commenting on anything but the top comments.  Fuck you, I’m always redditing at 3 AM and the posts are always fucking 18 hours old because I always look at top posts.  What the fuck…

“More searching…  Oh, there it says it.  You have to actually be logged in and change the comment viewing to ‘top’ for it stay that way as default.  FINE, fuck I’ll have it auto login to my account.”

Reddit.  Doesn’t appear to require javascripts or logging in to account.  Requires it to actually work decently.  There’s a meme for this…  But modern society already requires us to put too many silly fucking hats to do any fucking thing.

[EDIT: just posted this to r/enhancement, but of course, it's late and no one reads my posts.  (I recently wrote a reddit song I thought was pretty cool...  Got three points...  More than all my other posts...  Combined.)  Anyway, here's the little note I put at the end:

(Also, would be awesome if you could somehow make it so I could view top posts from previous periods in time. We /all/ know that gonewild is a scary place unless you view by top posts. What would be great is if I could do a top of any period of time, be it yesterday, last week, the week of x/x/xx-x/x/xx, year xxxx, etc. Alternatively, a search of posts with less than a certain amount of karma--thus I could look at, say, top of all time, and when the posts are circa 500 upvotes and it goes count=1000 "nothing to see here," I could just search for less than 500 votes and sort by Top and continue my, um, research. But I don't think RES can do that, and unless reddit gets bought by google or something it's just probably going to always have a shitty search.)

And here, for shits and giggles are my posts:

http://redd.it/swoig (this post)
http://redd.it/shatm
http://redd.it/rjaub
http://redd.it/rj95w
http://redd.it/pmpuj ]

I’ve never drank alone before.  That’s the sign of someone with a problem.  But tonight, I have said fuck it.  And I bought by 6.99 merlot and now I am drinking it.  No one knows but you and me.  And you are me, so no one knows but me.  And I don’t care.  Though things are not as bad as they could be.  I met a girl at church, I’ve known her peripherally for a couple of years, asked my mom about her, but until Thursday, when I stayed afterward for the adoration as long as she was, then I talked to her, I hadn’t gotten to talk to her…  We went out for sushi, friday.

anyway, stephen imed.

molk

mulk

melk

I spent every lunch at the same tree.  I didn’t know anyone there so I ate alone.  It was very depressing.  Came sophomore year and I started eating at another tree, I didn’t know the people there either, but there were some juniors who would eat around there too.  I don’t know how I started to talk to them, but eventually they became friends of sorts.  But freshman year was the worse.  I may be wrong, I might have met them at the end of freshman year and they could have been sophomores.  But certainly the majority of it was spent alone for lunch.

Freshman year

I sat at the same tree, eating my lunch
There must be a better life, that was the hunch
So I went to another tree, and tried my luck there
Couldn’t be much worse, so what did I care
I’d get my Taco Snack and Dr. Pepper
And some Italian Gardettos that’s for sure
I didn’t like the rye pieces too much, I still ate ‘em
I was surprised years later that they’d sell just them
I should feel bad that I rhymed ‘em and them
And I do, I do, and now you’ll get this gem
Anyway, I eventually went to another tree, like I said
And I found that lunch could be more than getting fed
I ran into some other guys who were a grade above
What can I say, we fell in mutual-like
They were cool guys and I suddenly had some friends
And that is how this poem is going to end
On a slant rhyme, because it’s better than the other time
Let’s not talk about that

Man, I’m tired.

One word.  Computers.  Instruments are antiquated, anachronistic, cacophonous noise things.  Computers make everything better.  Playing hopscotch, chewing a piece of gum, making hand shadow puppets–there is nothing a computer can’t make better.  You can tabulate the distance you jump, determine the calories you spend with each chomp, and calculate how far the sun is away from you by the size of your shade.  Think of how lame these activities would be if it weren’t for computers.  Sure instruments have evolved over thousands of years and computer-generated music has been around for a mere fraction of that.  But computers get faster everyday and they are made by humans so it makes sense we are getting faster at using computers to make better everything made by humans.  I mean think of the wide variety you get just between beep and boop and bzzz and whirr.  Robbie the robot, R2D2 some of the best musicians of our time, they were just under-appreciated.

And what about our singers today, they used to have to spend thousands of hours to learn notes with delicate shadings, now you can get perfectly standardize, unitized, sterilized sounds.  You used to get all those ugly people who weren’t spending their time on dates and social functions and instead on practicing and learning from past masters.  Do your ears want to look at homely faces while they are enjoying music?  Of course not.  We want popular pretty people who were born with agents and connections like rich music producer daddies whose trophy wives give their seeds those good looking genes.  Think of all those fat, clumsy, dorky musicians of yesteryear.  Do you see (and thus, by extension, hear) any of those starting out today?  Hell no.  You’d think now that Americans are fatter than ever, a lot of the most-talented singers would be–but that’s the beauty of modern music, you don’t need talent!  Oh sure, they had attractive “teen idols” in the 50s and 60s and, sure, none of them ever made any lasting contributions to music while poor exploited sons and daughters of sharecroppers built the very foundations that lead to innovation and social change, but we’re so much more advanced now.  Now you can hear modern-day Fabians twenty-four seven!

I know what you are thinking, there’s a reason MTV doesn’t show music videos any more.  It is because they would only show beautiful talentless people who jiggle in the right places and you realize that watching a three-minute piece muted doesn’t have much of a plot.  But that’s where you are wrong.  It’s because it’s far more entertaining for someone to be unnaturally tanned, pregnant, and/or ignorant.  Side-show freak exhibits used to make voyeurs uncomfortable because other people can see you enjoying your schadenfreude and so they went out of style, something had to fill the void.  And MTV was already targeting the proper demographic of young people without the self-awareness to empathize with those not staring back at them, and that’s the only reason music videos stopped being shown.

But look at the great stuff MTV did give us before it went away.  Like boy bands.  Only thing better than a single Fabian is five Fabians who pre-pubescent girls could imagine were all fighting to give their attention to them like they were as prime as they were in ancient times.  And pre-pubescent girls know quality.  Boy bands are still the rage.  Look at that new boy band from Britain that’s topping the charts now with their debut album.  Beatles and Rolling Stones were around the triple digits when they debuted.  Sure their music is still being played.  So, I imagine that “One Direction” is going to be played, by my calculations, for 5,000 years from now.  I haven’t heard their songs yet, but I’m sure they look fabulous!  Yep, just checked out google images, Fabianulous!  Search results: a shade under 1 trillion.  Beatles?  A quarter of that.  Rolling Stones?  A mere tenth.  What more proof do you need?

(“Fabian” gets more hits than the Beatles, but that’s because most of the pics are of some chick who also happens to have that name, “Fabian singer” gets half the hits of the Rolling Stones and it is still half that chick…  Who the hell is that chick?  My guess, by the looks of her?  A super talented musician.  Hmm, I just checked her Wikipedia, she’s a lyric soprano who’s trained since she was 8 who has a lot of awards with a four octave range.  Oh, whatever, this is a parenthetical, no one reads those anyway.)

Let’s get back on topic.  Does Lara Fabian shave her head?  No.  Has she ever had a nipple slip?  No.  Any sex scandals?  No.  Okay, maybe there are legitimate artists who have gotten in all of those situations also.  And hell, a lot of great musicians could be called boy bands since they were technically young men who were in a musical group (hell just look at those haircuts on One Direction).  But I’m talking about musicians of the last twenty years.  Those are the ones that we’ll possibly remember and say proudly, that was our generation.  Justin Bieber is not Elvis Presley, though they both draw heavily from marginalized strata of society (women as opposed to African Americans–I’ve heard him exactly once, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t know all the female stylings); he’s more Donnie Osmond than anything else.  And sure, maybe the number of times I’ve heard Donnie Osmond on the radio is, well, zero (which is why I can’t say if he sings with female stylings or not–hell I can’t even remember if he’s supposed to be a little rock and roll or a little country).  But Donnie Osmond has lately been a talk show host, and talking is like singing right?  Just without notes.  And that’s my point, music is so much better now, because it’s surpassing notes.  That’s why I am qualified to write this, even though I have purposely made a point to not hear a damn thing made in the last twenty years.  Because I have inadvertently, of course, and that is why I’m not going to bother with listening to that new boy band, I don’t need to, I already know.  It’s headed exactly in that one direction we’ve been going least last couple decades: awesomeness.

Okay.  I listened to a song.  Yeah.  It’s got everything that sums up modern music to date.  Now all I can imagine is Robbie the Robot and R2D2 gang-raping Fabian.

They played Band on the Run, which is fine (I don’t really know how many “yeahs” are in that, wouldn’t claim to, they inconsequential) and then it was “two for tuesday” so I said, I hope it’s “maybe I’m Amazed” (actually I misspoke and said “I think I’m Amazed,” or something, but it doesn’t matter.)  And that song has “yeahs” in the wrong place (what is it with “yeahs” anyway?), you know that part where he goes woo and all that–I /think/ but don’t hold me to it, that it is after the first verse, not the second verse, but I’m not complaining about that.  Still there’s one place I know I fuck up, which is where he says “maybe I’m a man, who’s in the middle of something, that he doesn’t really understand” (not sure, but I think he says that every time, which is three times), and then he follows it with some weird words I never get right, “meh ma man” something like that, then he says one of two things.  He says “maybe I’m a man” and “maybe you’re a woman.”  I’m pretty damn sure of that.  The problem is, I can never remember what order it is in.  So, I just guessed and went with the first time, and he says “maybe you’re woman”–so I accidentally sang “maybe I’m a woman…”  Oh well, like I said, I don’t remember where it’s man.  So, I figure it will come in later, but I don’t know where it is…  Except now he says “maybe I’m a woman” the second time.  And then again, as the third time!  So, I’m like fuck.  What does it even say?  I’m still racking my brain on it.  I tried to look up the lyrics online, but of course, they are (now) “maybe I’m a woman” three times (or two times, or even one time) but never with “maybe I’m a man” (that is following the first man/understand part).

And I’m still trying to rack my damn brain, with no one or nothing to help me, thinking what the fuck was the line after man/understand that’s not woman.  Because I don’t think I’d ever have a problem with that damn line if it was woman every time.  And I don’t think it’s understand twice in a row.  But I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.  Maybe it has something besides understand before, so I’m just not remembering the trigger.  But fuck, if it was just “woman” every time, why would I have the damn question in my head, I would just say man then woman.  But no.  I mean, he can’t say “maybe I’m a man who could ever help me.”  He might end that line with help me, since I can’t remember anything else, but what does he say before “help me” that would make sense…  “maybe I’m a man, who needs someone to help me?”  No, I don’t think that’s it.  Ah yes, “baby won’t you help me, to understand.”  He does say that.  Hmm, that’s in the lyrics online…  Is it needs someone to help me…  Maybe.  I think that’s it, “who needs someone to help me.”  But I kinda feel like there’s at least one syllable before “man” like in the previous part where it says “lonely man” something to fill the void of “wo.”  Is it “only?”  Instead of “lonely?”  No, it’s not “only,” only goes in before “woman.”  I mean, it’s probably got only also.  Hmm…  I don’t know…  I think the “man” in the time where it says “woman” comes a little early, and then all the syllables fit.   Scratch that, what I mean, is it could be “maybe I’m the only man who needs someone to help me”–but that’s rather presumptuous.  Surely, other men need women too.  But if you notice the syllables are the same as “maybe you’re the only woman who can ever help me.”  Needs someone to, takes four, and “only man” takes three, and “only woman” takes four, and “can ever” takes three.  So it would balance, but it would be a little shifted kinda like I remember, which is why I’m really thinking it could be “needs someone.”  That did pop in my head for some reason, after all.

This is what I deal with.  So infuriating because it’s like the internet doesn’t exist again.  I can’t get the song, can’t get the lyrics, no way to prove anything.  Fuck.  I don’t know, I don’t remember what the “man” line.  I just know I always had a stumbling block before, and now, now its conveniently all the same.  Like Paint it Black, I thought I had a stumbling block, and then I heard it the other way, once, only in all this time, which is the only proof that I have, but it makes me think, if I was right about that, I’m probably right about this (I’m probably also right about Ricky Don’t Lose That Number, which is conveniently all the same now, and I bet there are other examples).  So frustrating.  (They also did Sitting On the Dock of the Bay, which is the only song I didn’t do straight tonight, Otis never sounds right any more, like poor Sam Cooke, only Marvin, the other of my three favorite singers sounds faithful any more, probably because more people know him.  But I remember I was in the library, and I happened to be looking for notation for a song, and that’s when I just happened to look at a book about 60s songs and I saw, to my surprise, that at one point in the song he actually says “at the dock” instead of “on”–I don’t think they could have predicted I was going to look at that book, but I never noticed that “at” instead of “on” before that, and I’ve noticed it since then.  My point, I can believe I was wrong even about something I’ve sung a million times before.  They sound very similar “at” and “on.”  Would be a horrible troll, otherwise.)

I know one time it’s a man.  I know it.  Why else would I stupidly sing “maybe I’m a woman” so many other times?  Except because of the times I would sing “maybe you’re a man” if it weren’t for the fact that woman is said twice and thus it’s better to be right two thirds of the time than one third.  Fuck.

EDIT March 27 9:43 AM: so I’ve been lying in my bed trying to figure this one out.  It’s really bugging me.  So I started to think about the line, starting with the beginning of the line “I’m a man” as opposed to the ambiguous “meh ma man” that I kind of slur out.  And then I think if I accentuate the “”and” right after it (that’s probably the cue to do the “man” as opposed to “woman” line) I get a much more clear “I’m a man and maybe I’m the only man…” something something.  And then I started thinking if I wasn’t sure what something something was, maybe I could think of the last word in the line.  I thought of words that rhyme with “understand” as that is /probably/ in the line prior, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is done 3 times.  But that got nowhere, as “understand” doesn’t rhyme with “help me” as it ends in the “woman” version.  But “help me” doesn’t rhyme with anything elsewhere, either.  Which means!  The end of the line could be something else entirely.  So then I started to think of the way he sings it, where it raises at the end.  And when I did, I was struck with the word “you.”  And that seemed very natural.  “I’m a man, and maybe I’m the only man” something something “you” worked pretty well–especially since it is the opposite of “me” and woman is the opposite of man, and the line is likely a reversal.  I thought maybe the something something could have had the words “the only man who could ever love you” or “only man who could ever want you”–and then I kinda remembered having problem with that word right before you, like not being sure if it was love or want and just giving an “uuh” sound with an “nt” or “ve” sound at the end after I’d hear Paul sing it.  This was encouraging.  However, there was the slight problem of using “only man who could ever” as that is a bit insulting.  No other man could want or love her?  Maybe if it is followed with “Love you as much as I do” or “Want you as much as I do”–but the line almost certainly will rhyme with understand, and neither of those sound familiar.  So, that suggests the word “could” is not used.  “Only” however seems very likely, as it is fitting these fragments I am remembering, and it would make sense that I would still not know man or woman even after hearing “only”…  Though I can’t say I wouldn’t know the line at that point, it is the point before, where it says “maybe I’m a man, and maybe…” and I don’t know “I’m” or “you’re” it could be cleared up after that without a different word than “only” and then I would get the man/woman correct.  I only know the major fuck up is in the I’m/you’re territory normally, but I think it carries to the man/woman.  So, that suggests only.  Anyway, I think, what could go in the place of “could” and that’s when I think of “really.”  And suddenly I have a much more plausible sounding phrase than “i’m a man, and maybe I’m the man who needs someone to help me” (which is slightly more plausible than the “i’m a man, and maybe I’m the only man who needs someone to help me”–again, very presumptuous.)  This alternative keeps the “only” and it is, my best guess right now: “I’m a man, maybe I’m the only man who really wants you / wants you, to help me understand”  Of course the end could be “wants you until the end” or even more implausibly (though a past reference) “wants you to hold my hand.”  These all rhyme with man.  (Another possibility, “Wants you to be my woman”–but the “wo” is too strong, it makes it the opposite of iambic, which is how I think it would end.)  No, these words are coming to me for a reason.  “You” definitely (as I can totally hear the you rising to end a line in that song, and I don’t think it used anywhere else) and “Really.”  Perhaps it is “I’m a man, maybe I’m the only man who really wants you.  Really wants you to understand.”  Or, and this is my best guess: “I’m a man, maybe I’m the only man who could ever want you.  Really want you to understand.”

See, it keeps almost all of the same words except for the last part, “baby won’t you help me to understand” (note, the “baby” is missing in the last instance in the lyrics I found online, which suggests that is the where the mistake is, it is the most anomalous of the three instances.  It thus suggests that the correct order is woman, woman, and end with man.  This would go with the thought process, I say maybe I’m during what is supposed to be a woman, but he goes through with woman.  But he knows I’m not sure where the woman goes.  And he can tell I am hesitant on the next two, hoping for a clue.  I’m at the point where I’m just going to say “she” no matter what if there isn’t a clue (and of course there’s no normal clue, or it wouldn’t be so baffling normally, he would have to say it quickly if it was possible to do without sounding weird or unpleasant, and of course it would be altering the song so, what is one verses another?  (of course this speeding up could be a short term alteration, as opposed to what we’ve done which will certainly be a long term alteration.)  So, here comes the third iteration, and “I’m a man” (which I’m saying as “meh ma man”) “and maybe” and here I say “she’s” and he goes with it, though it is probably /there/ that he says “I’m” and thus it continues “she’s the only woman who could ever help me, won’t you help me to understand.”  (I’m playing a bit behind so I notice that he doesn’t say “baby” and don’t do it.  I don’t remember perfectly, but it explains why the lyric isn’t in the online lyrics.)  But of course, what should have happened is…  Hold on, looking at the lyrics.  The actual lyrics on this one site (though not the site I think I saw the missing Baby in the interation, also has baby right before “baby I’m a man” which explains why I say something like “meh ma man.”   The “meh” is probably more a “beh” and I just miss the “by” sound.)  (Oh, another lyrics site says “Maybe I’m a man”–that is more likely than “baby I’m a man”–in both cases, it is clear the confusion comes from a lack of the “by” sound, I bet you anything he doesn’t pronounce it much.  I stand by what I thought I’d say “meh ma man” or rather “may’ ‘m a man.”)  So, where was I?  Ah yes, here I have the proper link (the first I went to when I got home) it had the three iterations (the baby one had two).

Oh dear, now there are two potential spots:  First iteration has

“Maybe I’m a man Maybe you’re the only woman Who could ever help me Baby, won’t you help me to understand? ”

Second iteration has

“Maybe I’m a man And you’re the only woman Who could ever help me Baby, won’t you help me to understand?”

Third iteration has

“Maybe I’m a man You’re the only woman Who could ever help me Won’t you help me to understand?”

So?  First iteration seems very plausible to be the correct.  It has both “Maybe you’re the only woman” and “baby won’t you help me to understand.”  It has the important “maybe.”  Second iteration has “And you’re the only woman” and “baby won’t you help me to understand.”  It has the all important “and” in it.  The last version has just “you’re the only woman” and “won’t you help me to understand.”  It has no “maybe” nor “and.”   None of these versions have “and maybe” which is what I find most readily bring up the “and maybe I’m the only”–which makes sense as the extra word will eat up the space of the “wo.”

Then there’s the issue of the second part, first iteration starts “baby” the second iteration starts “baby” and the third iteration has none.  And in our hobbled remembrance, there was no “baby” since it was following “you.”  But maybe it should be there…  /If/ this was the line with the man.  Instead, I’m starting to think maybe, just maybe, the man line was the second one.  Since, after all, it has “and” in it.  The thought process being, I’m singing, gotten “maybe I’m a woman” for the first time.  The second time comes up, and it start “I’m a man and” and since I’m think woman, and I need to squeeze it in, I don’t wait to hear for “maybe” and continue “you’re” and that seals the deal right there.  My problem would have probably be avoided if I just let him finish the line after “and” because he could have said “and maybe” and then I could have said, with him “I’m the only man.”  Of course, since we did the female line, he starts the end piece with “baby won’t you help me” –even though that’s supposed to mirror the earlier “maybe.”  It fits (which suggests a “baby” in the male follow line).  And then.  When it comes to the last iteration, there’s no “baby” and no “and” no adornment at all, so it goes to no “baby” at the end.

Thus the line for the second iteration is “Maybe I’m a man, and maybe I’m the only man who could ever want you.  Really want you to understand.”  (Sounds cold, only man who could want you, but then he saves it, by explaining only man who could ever want you to understand.)

But this leaves us with all new questions.  Like, perhaps the lack of adornments suggest that the last one was going to be the male one.  Maybe the male one doesn’t start with “I’m a man and maybe I’m the only man” and instead has something completely different.  The “and” “maybes” are essential since “maybe” doesn’t make sound so exclusive to his condition and “and” balances out the extra “wo.”  But if it was a different line, without “maybe” it would make sense for the last part to have no “baby.”  So it would probably go like this: “I’m a man, I’m the only man who could ever want you.  Want you to understand.”  This could indeed be the proper sentence, and the other sentence might not be used at all in the second occurance.

But, I think “and” really gave it away, when I started saying “and” I started to really feel the “man.”  That is where I think the line is supposed to be.  (Of course, it could even be that there are two man and one woman, but I’m pretty sure it is two womans.)  Also, don’t worry about why does he say “you” instead of “her”–he does it through out.  And the “really” instead of “baby” is because they both rhyme (well slant in the former case) with “maybe.”  (And when “maybe” is gone, like in the third verse, so is “really” or “baby,” elegant.)

CONCLUSION, these are my assumed lyrics.  Note everything has been copied from another site, these are not perfect, and really should not be assumed to be the lyrics.  The only part I changed was the line with “and maybe I’m the only man.”  I also changed, per the part earlier in the post where I didn’t know where his woos go, I wrote the stuff in the first parathenses was not mentioned in the online lyrics nor was the second parantheses and “maybe this is the time for”:

Baby, I’m amazed at the way You love me all the time And maybe I’m afraid of the way I love you
Maybe I’m amazed at the way You pulled me out of time You hung me on the line Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you
Maybe I’m a man Maybe I’m a lonely man Who’s in the middle of something That he doesn’t really understand
Maybe I’m a man Maybe you’re the only woman Who could ever help me Baby, won’t you help me to understand?
(This is maybe where it says: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Won’t you help me to understand?)
Maybe I’m a man Maybe I’m a lonely man Who’s in the middle of something That he doesn’t really understand
Maybe I’m a man, and maybe I’m the only man who could ever want you, Really want you to understand
Maybe I’m amazed at the way You’re with me all the time And maybe I’m afraid of the way I leave you
Maybe I’m amazed at the way You help me sing my song You right me when I’m wrong Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you
(Maybe this is the time for: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Won’t you help me to understand?)
Maybe I’m a man Maybe I’m a lonely man Who’s in the middle of something That he doesn’t really understand
Maybe I’m a man You’re the only woman Who could ever help me Won’t you help me to understand?
Oh baby, I’m amazed Oh baby, I’m amazed Yeah baby I’m amazed Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, babe, I’m amazed I’m amazed with you

God, it’s 11:45, I hope I can sleep now.

Two or three days ago I watched House with my mother.  There was a blind guy on it, who happened to be black.  There were more blind jokes than an episode of Avatar (I only watched that show because of Stephen, though that episode where they got stuck in a cave and there were hippies with instruments was pretty funny).  Anyway, the one who made all the jokes (like in Avatar) was the blind person, which makes it okay, right?  (Except that character is written by someone who is almost surely not blind, so, no.)  I was thinking, hmm, this guy is black, maybe they will be so insensitive as to make a Stevie Wonder joke.  No…  They wouldn’t do that, the character isn’t even musical, he’s just black and blind.

Lo, a touching scene (no pun intended), when he talks about how great having a girlfriend can be.  He says this without a hint of irony, totally straight-faced, the female doctor being sympathetic listens on: “For one time in my life, I had someone who needs me.”  I make a slight, uncomfortable chuckle, my mother doesn’t notice at all, I don’t say anything.  But thinking back on it, they missed an awesome opportunity–if you’re going to do it, go all the way.  Follow it up with: “I realized, I’ve got a woman.  Who’s good to me.  She’s a kind friend indeed.”  Again, the wording would be slightly off, and they could have gotten two musicians in.

As a side note, whenever I’d listen to Pandora Stevie Wonder station, they’d play Ray Charles.  Why?  You’d figure they’d play more Motown stuff, like Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson.  Pandora supposedly picks similar music based on “tonalities” or some crap.  But I can’t help thinking, they are thinking “you like one black and blind musician?  You must like this one as well.”  And, of course, I do love Ray Charles (though it bugs me all they /ever/ play is What’d I Say, and if they play another song, it’s that song live or from the movie, sigh–of course it’s a good song so I don’t mind horribly).  Coincidentally, it doesn’t really work the other way around, they don’t really play Stevie Wonder when you play Ray Charles.  I don’t know why that is.  But it’s like, if I was listening to Beethoven would they play another white musician who’s going deaf like (insert musician who makes crappy music now).  Oh, you didn’t know that person was going deaf?  Have you heard their music lately?

Overall, it was a really sappy episode.  At the end, he has to take a medication that could make him deaf and blind.  And he asks this girl to be his wife (though he was planning on asking another girl at the beginning of the episode–yeah, clearly, this means they are meant to be) and she doesn’t respond by squeezing his hand, as he supposedly needs to have done to him.  She says loudly, of course I’ll marry you.  And he says, I heard that!  And it was all very heart-retching.  (No, I don’t mean wrenching, I mean retching, as is through my mouth all over the floor.)  Side-plot with his House’s mother was lame too.  He has two matching birth marks with the guy he thinks is father, but /no/ he’s not the father either.  And House says his mother is a) a slut (which is House, yes) and b) more interesting.  Fade out.  Stupid.

And then the ads for the next episode and the warning that there are only 8 more episodes.  I told my mother that they were cancelling the show earlier after I had read it in the paper, but she was shocked nonetheless.  I’m not really shocked, they’ve gone through every fucking disease known to man, they were already going through far more diseases not known to man.  (I thought that disease only affected goats in the Himalayas!)  My teacher about two years ago complained about House getting with Cutty (Cuddy?) and said it ruined the show, she was wrong of course, the show was already on decline long before, and they got rid of Cuddy and now it’s not like it’s magically better.  Perhaps there will be a reunion at the end.  Though, really, House should die of an overdose, that’s really what should happen after all this fucking time.  But first those hallucinations need to come back, as lame as they were (very special Kumar episode?  please), when you get them, I don’t think they magically go away even when you go back to pill poppin’.  He should also magically get his leg to work right before he dies, and say, “wow, no more pain…  but these pills are so damn tasty!”  Then overdose.

Hugh Laurie is awesome, he’s the only reason this show lasted as long as it did, or why I still watched it.  They need a Jeeves and Wooster reunion before it ends too.  Maybe Jeeves can be his last patient.  That would be cool.  I remember watching that show on PBS.  They didn’t really show Black Adder that much, or maybe I would know him from that as well.  I understand he was good on that as well.  (I read somewhere that he got the role because he used an American accent and the guy who hired him was like, finally, an American.)

That show is ridiculous.  No such thing as coincidences, they say…  But a one-in-a-billion genetic defect about every other episode is supposedly /not/ a coincidence.  Maybe if they were located near Chernobyl.  Maybe that’s what they need to have in the final episode, apparently some company has been hiding nuclear waste near Princeton.  “It all makes sense now!”  Also, in this final episode where House ODs, he’ll have Watson (or whatever his character’s name is) say to him, “I’ll bet you 10 dollars you can’t swallow that whole pill bottle!”  That would also make sense.  As he’s dying his friend could say, “not just the pills!  I’m keeping that JacksonHamilton.”

I remember the episode in which they had a Curtis Mayfield song for their little song-montage at the end (I never liked those stupid song montages).  And thought, is this supposed to be a cover or are “they” doing a really bad job…  Never found out.  They usually have modern singers for those end songs, which means, of course, they really suck.  For the pilot, where they reference that philosopher Jagger, they only play the choir part at the end.  There was no song-montage in that episode, they probably only later started those.

They’re always walking and talking.  Since, of course, walking makes so much sense for House.  And they’re perpetually throwing things (documents in particular) in trash cans.  Of course, it is a hospital so it makes sense there would be trash cans everywhere.  And just like you can be sure someone’s going to call in Law & Order with the news that judge is going to throw out some key piece of evidence just as the attorneys are standing around talking about the case…  You can be sure the patient will start emitting some bodily fluid just as they are around checking on the patient.

Same shit, every episode.  Let’s try a bunch of things that will probably almost kill the person.  Let his organs fail (livers almost die in every episode).  Then, when he’s probably going to have long term problems for the rest of his life (though they never mention it) over these “cures,” when it’s about 10-15 minutes to the end, House will look into the distance like that dog who is told not to eat the cupcakes and boom!  Idea!  Thank goodness someone was happening to shred documents (though they would throw them out if they were main characters) and that got him thinking, yes, it is shredding through the patient’s immune system.  Time to give him an analogy with some awesome cgi of it happening.  No, thank you Dr. House, but I’m going to sue you anyway.  Just, wow, you’re so awesome I’m going to live, even though you amputated my leg when you thought it was something completely irrelevant.  (They don’t amputate legs though, they get really close to it, an alarming number of times, but then the viewer can’t be fooled into thinking that the shit that did happen to him won’t cause him long term effects.  Radiation is fine.)

When you’re not a doctor, it’s okay, because you’re not a doctor, you have no idea what the fuck they are saying.  When you are, as I’ve heard from others online, it’s infuriating as hell.  Why do I watch a show where they are saying stuff that not only makes no sense, I am pretty sure doesn’t actually make sense?  Probably because if it was about IT or something and they said that kind of bullshit “I know, let’s format the drive!” and then end it by turning it off and on again and fixing it, I would blather and foam at the mouth.  I’m pretty sure I could write one of those episodes, assuming they didn’t need me to make up the actual hospital junk, but put it in themselves later.

Episode begins.  Two people are talking.  One person starts coughing and says he’s feeling sick.  Suddenly the other falls down unconscious!  Oooh, misdirection!  Would never have seen that coming (unless, of course, I’d seen more than two other House episodes).

Cut to hospital.  “House, we have a patient who [insert medical crap] we need you to handle it!”  “Hell no!”  (He says holding some toy that you used when you were five.)  “But we need you!”  “I’ve got to get out of this zany on-going story where I got drunk and revealed myself to a midget convention.”  “We’ll bet you five dollars you can’t solve it.”  “You’re on!”

Later.  “I think House is playing some psychological game with us, where he is pitting us against each other.”  “No, we’ll work together to avoid it.”  “That’s what he’d want us to think!  So I’m going to backstab you.”  Goes to patient.  Patient: “I’m feeling much better.  I think I can go home now.”  Starts to get out of bed, blood comes out of (spin wheel, lands on fingertips) fingertips.  “You’re not going home yet!”

“House, the patient is bleeding out of his fingertips.”  “Hmm, diagnoses.”  1: “Well, mumbo jumbo could mean gobbledy gook.”  2: “Well gaggle fraggle is also a sign of blah blah blah.”  3: “Seeing as the patient has a history of aooga aooga it’s clearly meow meow wuff woof!”  House: “You’re all wrong, it is Magical Mystery Disease, put him on a dose of Obladi Oblada.”

“This Obladi will work fine, in a few days you’ll be out doing your (whatever meaningless job they’ve yet to do) again.”  “Thanks doc, see honey, I told you it would be alright.”  Honey squeezes his hand.  Hand starts to come off.  “Is this supposed to happen with this medication?”  “No.  It’s clearly not at all what we thought it was.”  Commercial.

“House, the Obladi Oblada didn’t work, we need to think of something else.”  House: “Hmm, how did the significant other react when you told the patient he would go back to his job?”  “I don’t know, she kind of looked away.”  House: “You go break into his house and find something medically relevant” (though they never do) “I’m going to talk to the significant other.”  “Not the patient?”  “I never talk to the patient”–until they are cured, or he thinks they are cured (provided it is at least halfway through the episode), and then again when he is actually right.

House: “So you’re his wife, how long have you been sleeping with the gardener?”  Wife: “I have no idea what you are talking about?”  “Then why are there grass clippings all over your brassiere?”  Pops pills.  “You’re a hussy and a bunch of other unnecessary things!”  She goes away crying.  “Well, my work is done.”  Goes to Watson, “I need to find a way out of this midget revealing thing, I’m going to say it was really you in disguise.”  Watson, “House, I can’t let you do this again, you’re hurting yourself and as your friend…”  “Shut up!”  Pops pills.

“House, the patient is now growing a second head and we’re not sure what to do…”  “Hmm, diagnoses?”  1: “Well, seeing as we found something vaguely edible in his house, it’s something he ate, I’m saying it is Farfignugen.”  2: “I refuse to play House’s mind games any more.  You only hired me on your team because…”  House: “You’re right.  You’re fired.”  2: “What?”  House: “Nevermind, you just gave me a brilliant idea, you’re hired again, it’s got to be Hubba Wubba Dub Step disease.  It only affects one in five million people, but he went to South America, so it must be that.  Put him on Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chewy Yum Yum.”

“We’re sorry we were wrong before, but this time we are sure of it, you’ve got Dub Step, it is curable, but we need to put you on this drug that will make you grow ovaries.”  “Well, okay, doc, if that’s what it will take…”  “We’re totally right this time.”  (Notes episode is about half over.)  He takes the pills.  “Doc, am I supposed to see Al Roker doing a Hula dance?”  “Um, no, did you already swallow the pills?”  “Yes.”  “Oh well, it’s not Dub Step, but now you got two sets of gonads so you can impregnate yourself when your wife leaves you for Pedro.”

Watson, in the cafeteria, “you now have midgets calling my house every day threatening me.  I can’t live like this.”  House: “Oh, it’ll be fine, invite them over to film porn.”  Watson, “House, I’m your friend, and you can’t…”  “Shut up!”  Pills.  Eats Watson’s sandwich.

Walking and talking down the halls, “House, we don’t know what to do, we’re complete idiots and if we did anything you did we’d get our licenses revoked and thrown in jail.  Help us please.”  “Okay, there’s only one thing we can do, but it’s an extremely dangerous operation.  I’m just saying this because everyone should know it, not that it has anything to do with whether or not I’m authorizing it.  I want you to cut him in half and then sew him back together.”  House somehow manages to walk faster than them and enters the elevator.  It closes.  “We can’t do this, we’ll have to go to Cuddy.”

Cuddy scene.  Oh wait.  She’s gone.  Foreman scene.  Foreman: “Do it, I’m a bitch.”

In the operating room, they are about to cut the guy in half.  House is watching from the balcony area.  2: “Have you thought about the bigger questions of life and things like that?  I think we should talk about them while this guy is on the table.”  1: “You’re just saying that because you’re a woman, I think I need to say a sexist comment here.”  2: “You’re only saying that because you’re a guy on this show so you’ve done really dick things to women and now I’m going to tell you about them.”  1 gets scalpel in hand…  No, scratch that, he gets industrial power saw in hand.  Up in the balcony, House goes into the hallway.  He sees a kid with a lolipop.  Houses eyes go wide and he looks in the distance…  Does he see Heidi hopping through the fields?  Who knows.  He goes back in balcony.  The saw is about to start cutting.  House hits the button with his cane.  “Stop the operation!”

Later, the guy is in his gown, seemingly all better with the other doctors and his wife.  House comes in.  House: “You’ve got lolipop disease.  I just thought of it, no one helped me.  You see your cells…”  (CGI cells flowing through veins.)  “Start to get sugar coated and then have little white sticks in them.”  (CGI of cells with sugar coating and white sticks.)  “They start in your fingertips and spread to your shoulders until you start growing another head.  It didn’t show up until the person next to you started coughing which triggered an old memory of when you were molested by a pervert who offered you candy (he was coughing at the time).  You had to take two of those little white pills and you’ll never have another problem again.  Forever.”  “Thanks Doctor House!”

Cue stupid song montage.  The other doctors are in the locker room, getting changed to go out.  The patient is in the room with his wife and Pedro.  Watson is being chased by midgets.  House is playing a harp since he can play any instrument.  Created by David Shore.

Promos: “Next week the most shocking most disturbing most boggling most oh-my-god-what-were-they-thinking crazy episode of House yet.  A patient with a dark secret and only House can help get it out of her.  Or will it kill him before he gets a chance?  Only seven episodes left, until the finale, where we’ll kill him off.  Unless it magically gets really good ratings, and we’ll bring him back to life even though he was dismembered into fifty pieces.”