There's a picture of me and Glypha workin' the bar at the 365 Show Friday night. Lemme tell you, I pour a mean glass of wine, and do an absolutely killer job of opening a can of beer.
What is the 365 show? Its a travelling show of the best of the best, the best graphic design nation wide for the year, as judged by a panel of judges and sponsored by AIGA national. Good stuff. Last year when we displayed it things didn't, well...
Let's just say it didn't go real well. Oh, how I want to tell you all about it. But the thing is, I'm pretty sure some people would be kinda upset with me if I played my favorite game of Character Assassination Bingo with the guy who org'd it last year. So lets leave it be.
But this year, I think it was a good time, with lots of people showing up to look at the work, and hang out and stuff. You bet.
***
Do I not have impeccable taste in music? Or at least, the ability to pick songs that people would reasonably enjoy listening to at least 72% of the time? People tell me I do. Sure. So when the CD player malfunctioned, I hooked up my iPod to the sound system to play tunes. I quickly looked at the crowd and selected my "Polyfro Presents The 80s" playlist of 1300 songs, which I knew contained lots of hits from Def Leppard, Foreigner, David Lee Roth, Billy Idol, Bobby Brown, with a host of one-hit wonders mixed in -- how do you go wrong with these?
The danger of just what might be in that list -- was there any quote-unquote dangerous or offensive songs? -- was a rush. I rather enjoyed it. Which is of course why it lasted exactly four songs.
Of course.
When "I Feel For You" by Chaka Khan played, it was cool. But after "Humpin' Around" from Bobby Brown played, Cliff made an On-The-Go playlist on his iPod, disconnected mine, and plugged in.
See, in hindsight, 80s music at an art gallery is probably not the best choice. I messed up. But its cool, Cliff put on some tunes of his choice, and everyone had a good time.
***
I'm going to defend my boy, even if I personally thought his selections were just OK, a bit vanilla. The element of danger that existed with my playlist -- would something truly offensive like Starship's "We Built This City" come on? -- was certainly not present, but in retrospect that's not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of John Mayer, recent vintage U2, and other bland stuff like that.
Actually, that's not entirely fair. While I personally cannot stand John Mayer's music -- it repulses me to the point of inducing dry heaves and on occasion, even real vomit -- people do enjoy it. People also enjoy Michael Bolton, Kenny G and Barry Manilow, of course. Warrants mentioning. Still, I'm not going to complain, because I sacrifice that right when I have 8500 songs on my iPod including ENTIRE ALBUMS from such marginal artists as Europe, Milli Vanilli, and Wham!. What I'm saying is we all like artists that other people snicker at. Hell, I'm listening to "Burning Heart" by Survivor, off the Rocky IV soundtrack right now as I write this! That's the beauty of music. So I'm not gonna pick fun at someone else's taste. One man's trash is another man's treasure; one man's John Mayer is another man's Billy Ocean.
(See, while I don't like John Mayer, I do like Billy Ocean. Weird, I know.)
{{Revision 09/12/05 8:16am}}
New information has been brought to my attention that there actually wasn't any John Mayer in the playlist. Honestly, I didn't hear any myself, but a confused girl I was talking to at the party asked me who programmed him, because they liked it. So, either she lied to me or just didn't know what the music was she was digging. Either way, sorry to unnecessarily call you out, Cliff. The girl doth lie to me. And like a deuche I believed The Hotness over you! Today I am not Awesome.
{{end Revision}}
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