Wading in the Velvet Sea

But be that as it may: I could forgive U2 for putting out a subpar record more easily than I can forgive Apple’s marketing department for duping me in the first place. Through the sheer force of repetition I threw out all those years of Spanish and simply accepted that fact that Spanish-speaking people ignore the numbers three through thirteen. OK, you know, whatever, Bono et al look cool in their Apple-designed non-world. Sure, count “1,2,3,14”. You know, whatever works. I’ll buy the record, sure, no problem. I’ll just assume that the rest of the record is as rockin’ as “Vertigo”, and that it’s not a mind-numbingly mid-tempo, minor-chord laden meditation on…well, I don’t quite know: I wanted to throw my computer out the window during “Love or Peace or Else”.

“Love or Peace or Else”. Actual track title. The kind of sentiment the ultra-left loves to throw around. “So help me god, if you don’t help me save the whales I will beat the crap out of you!” (I’m liberal and all, but come on---if you go far enough left or right, you find the same group of loonies fighting in the cafeteria line, let’s be honest.) I thought maybe the Edge’s unique feedback-laden, echo-filled guitar work would aide this sentiment into my psyche, but in this respect I would be very wrong. If they had called the song “Hey, Is It Hot Enough For Ya?”, they might have possibly found a sentiment more irksome to yours truly, but as it stands, it’s a bad, bad song. If they tried to recapture the magic of “Bullet the Blue Sky”, the fourth track of “The Joshua Tree”, they failed miserably. It’s not as career-killing a moment as watching Metallica rock out to Avril Lavigne’s version of “Fuel” on that MTV Icon special, but it’s not fun.

I’m not mad at U2 for selling out. I’m down with them wanting people to buy tons of their records. I’m not a big fan of an artist or a group that specifically tries to prevent people from easily accessing their work. Just seems a bit snobbish to me. More props to U2, or Moby for licensing every song he ever wrote to commercials, movies, NRA training videos, medical marijuana CD-ROMs, and so forth. It’s too bad Moby’s new album features him singing, though. He might as well as hired me to sing these songs. I wouldn’t have done a worse job, and let’s face it, I could use the cash. The point being: appear in as many medium you can to hawk your art so long as you can sleep at night: don’t bother me none. Just make the stuff you’re hawking better.

To wit: those incredible horrifying “Gazelle” home exercise machines. Seen these discarded placentas of the exercise world? Youch. Sold by the one and only Tony Little, a man who never met a triple caff latte he didn’t like. I’m fairly convinced that California can solve their energy crisis by converting Tony’s fake enthusiasm into electricity. Anyways, the commercial always features the same type of client using this product: someone who has enough money to afford a ginormous living room that for some reason only contains a television and the Gazelle. Nary a couch or a love seat or recliner to be found. As barren as the Gobi Desert, these rooms. But boy, these people seem delighted to have the Gazelle as their only piece of furniture. If you know someone who owns one of these things, never go to a cocktail party at their place: you’ll find the seating a bit lacking.

So, getting beyond the fact that the commercial’s subliminally telling you that even rich people need to pawn their furniture to own one of this torture devices, Mr. Little tries to convince you that you can do approximately 372 different exercises on what is essentially a ghetto elliptical machine. As far as I can tell, Tony L is counting on the fact that doing the exact same motion at each of the different 180 degrees in the radial spectrum counts as a separate exercise. Which still leaves us 372-180=192 different exercises you can perform in this pathetic excuse for a final project in shop class.

192. Hrm. Lessee, let’s peer into Tony’s mind and try to figure out what these could possibly be. Hrm. Well, I suppose you could do it with your arms on the levers versus off. That’s one. Um, if you close your eyes, that’s 2. If you let the cat pee on you, that’s three. If you’re on fire, that’s four. If both you AND the cat are on fire, that’s five. If you’re watching FOX News, well, that’s a fair and balanced workout, so now we’re up to six. If you throw the flaming cat at the television to get Brit Hume off the screen, that’s seven. So forth and so on. By the time you’re gazellling while aliens give you an anal probe, you’ve done them all!

I wonder if gazelles hold meetings in the woods, gathering signatures to protest this machine. I mean, I assume the NAG (National Association of Gazelles) are not receiving royalties that they can distribute equally among its guild members. I’m sure the gazelles are right pissed. Once, in a bar late one night, I accidentally cut in on a gazelle in line waiting to play darts, and let’s just say Blue Cross/Blue Shield wouldn’t cover what Gerry Gazelle did with that dart to my bodily self. In fact, I’d be more likely to pay $14.95 to watch Tony Little run over by a herd of gazelles that I would be to pay $14.95 to get the Tony Little Gazelle into my newly empty living room. Just sayin’.

(Also, I just found out the name of the iPod Shuffle song: “Jerk It Out”. Ouch. Sounds painful. Sounds like Exercise #216 for the Gazelle. Guess I won’t be buying it after all. Didn't even have to wrestle with my conscience there. Thanks for your concern, though.)