This has bugged me for years. How many years? Ten. 1999 was when the song about which this entry is written was released. The song I am referring to is McKnight's hit "Back At One". I'm sure you've heard this song before. It was quite popular in the "R&B/Easy Listening" circuits for some time, and it still maintains somewhat regular radio play.
Just to refresh your memory (and to help along my blog post), I will use my fingers to type the lyrics of the chorus of this song. And I quote:
One - You're like a dream come true.
Two - Just want to be with you.
Three - 'Cause it's plain to see that you're the only one for me, and
Four - Repeat steps one through three
Five - Make you fall in love with me.
If ever I believe my work is done, then I start back at one.
Okay, here we go...
Alright. You're like a dream come true. Just want to be with you. Blah, blah, blah. It's all nice and sweet. Now we get to 4. Repeat steps 1-3? Those were steps? I thought steps were something to be done. Part of a process. This is no process. These are just mushy statements that were made about a member of the opposite sex. I'm sorry, but it is impossible for a person to perform these actions, (example: Hey, after you leave work, could you "'Cause it's plain to see that you're the only one for me", on the way home for me?). It does not work.
Not that it's even possible, because the whole chorus is shot after my last point, but let's move on. Okay, we have performed steps 1-3. We are now at step 4 - Repeat steps 1-3. Okay, let's repeat 'em. Done and done. We are now at step 4 again. Oh...repeat steps 1-3. Well, we just repeated them, but we're back at 4, so let's repeat 'em again. It's a constant cycle that never, ever, makes it to step 5.
Well, logic hasn't stopped us yet. Let's keep this thing a-rollin', shall we?
Step five: Make you fall in love with me.
It seems to me that if you ignored steps 1-4 and just did step 5, then you'd probably be good, right? I mean, I would imagine that the whole objective in this "do-it-yourself" guide is to make the other person fall in love with you. But now that I think about it...steps 1-4 are things that should be done (or said, as 1-3 are impossible to "do") after the subject has fallen in love with the participant. So shouldn't step 5 be moved up to the top of the list? Then steps 1-4 will now become steps 2-5. At this point, when you get to step 5 (formerly step 4), you can now go back and repeat steps 2-4. Now we're getting somewhere! You already made her fall in love with you at step 1, so the rest of your life (or the life of your relationship) can be devoted to repeating steps 2-5...well, just steps 2-4, as step 5 is just the repetition of 2-4.
If my proposal is accepted, and step 5 is moved up, then that renders unnecessary the last line of the chorus: If ever I believe my work is done, then I start back at one. You know, if that ain't efficiency, then I don't know what is. Just by using a little logic, I have shaved the length of the chorus by roughly 16 percent. What was a six-line chorus is now a five line chorus.
Then again, the title of the song comes from that line.
These are the reasons why Brian McKnight is a source of seemingly endless frustration for me.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
How two unrelated things are related
Before I lose you with a somewhat political rant, I must let you know that I experienced one of the best feelings in my life last night. No, it wasn't that.
I was sitting on the couch, and Cohen (9 months old as I type this) was on the floor. Kimberly and I were playing the "Where's Mommy?", "Where's Daddy?", "Where's C.C.?" game, which is kind of pointless now, as he has pretty much mastered it. Then, out of nowhere, he crawled up to the couch. He then pulled himself up, reached out, patted my leg, and said "Dada".
It was adorable. Nothing could have wiped the smile off my face. Of course, I thought it was a fluke, since he has lots of syllables he uses on what seems like an almost random basis (da da ma ma na na tha tha, etc.). He then got back down, crawled around for a minute, came back and did the exact same thing. After doing it a third and fourth time, I was convinced. The kid officially knows that I am dada now.
Now on to less important issues.
Barack "Foreign-Born-America-Hating-Muslim" Obama (please note the sarscam) gave his address to Congress last night. I'll tell you one thing...that guy can give one hell of a speech. In my opinion, if I believed that the words out of his mouth were true...if I believed that his plan would pan out in the fashion that he said it would, then I wouldn't even be concerned enough to write here. Truth is, I'm not really concerned anyway.
Here's the thing. I have my beliefs. You have yours. My dad and uncles have theirs (I know this because of the numerous emails they forward me...all of which I read...honest).
Congress is gonna do what they're gonna do. Will it change my life? Yeah, probably. Will it affect the way I lead my life? Probably not.
The correlation?
The correlation is this: How in the world am I going to allow myself to get all wrapped up and pissed off on a political level, when my kid knows that I'm "Dada"? It sounds silly, but indirectly, it's true. I have a kid who I love dearly. I have a niece and nephew. I will soon have more. If my kid is happy, if he's growing up and learning new things, if he turns into a decent adult one day who is self-sufficient, if I have the love of my family and friends, then why should I care about a room full of know-nothing yahoos in Washington who show their immaturity by whether or not they give a standing ovation or a hearty "harrumph" every third word of a speech?
Changes will be made in government. Some of them I will agree with. Others I will not agree with. The long and the short of it all, though is that I have more important things in my life to care about than politics in general. The government has been screwing people out of their money before I came into this world, and they'll be screwing people out of their money after I leave. As long as my wife and I can still bring home enough to give our family a comfortable life, I don't care anymore.
I'm sure that my taxes one day will jump to 30% of my total income (they probably already have). I'm sure one day it'll reach 40%. One day, it may be 50%, who knows? Point is, I am pretty much powerless to do anything about it, and there's no use stressing about something I cannot change. All of my immediate elected representatives already agree with me.
So that's that. I may still follow what goes on in our federal government. It's nice to be in the know, you know? I will still need to make informed decisions when I vote. I will not, however, get bent out of shape over anything. Call me apathetic if you want...I just have better things to do.
I was sitting on the couch, and Cohen (9 months old as I type this) was on the floor. Kimberly and I were playing the "Where's Mommy?", "Where's Daddy?", "Where's C.C.?" game, which is kind of pointless now, as he has pretty much mastered it. Then, out of nowhere, he crawled up to the couch. He then pulled himself up, reached out, patted my leg, and said "Dada".
It was adorable. Nothing could have wiped the smile off my face. Of course, I thought it was a fluke, since he has lots of syllables he uses on what seems like an almost random basis (da da ma ma na na tha tha, etc.). He then got back down, crawled around for a minute, came back and did the exact same thing. After doing it a third and fourth time, I was convinced. The kid officially knows that I am dada now.
Now on to less important issues.
Barack "Foreign-Born-America-Hating-Muslim" Obama (please note the sarscam) gave his address to Congress last night. I'll tell you one thing...that guy can give one hell of a speech. In my opinion, if I believed that the words out of his mouth were true...if I believed that his plan would pan out in the fashion that he said it would, then I wouldn't even be concerned enough to write here. Truth is, I'm not really concerned anyway.
Here's the thing. I have my beliefs. You have yours. My dad and uncles have theirs (I know this because of the numerous emails they forward me...all of which I read...honest).
Congress is gonna do what they're gonna do. Will it change my life? Yeah, probably. Will it affect the way I lead my life? Probably not.
The correlation?
The correlation is this: How in the world am I going to allow myself to get all wrapped up and pissed off on a political level, when my kid knows that I'm "Dada"? It sounds silly, but indirectly, it's true. I have a kid who I love dearly. I have a niece and nephew. I will soon have more. If my kid is happy, if he's growing up and learning new things, if he turns into a decent adult one day who is self-sufficient, if I have the love of my family and friends, then why should I care about a room full of know-nothing yahoos in Washington who show their immaturity by whether or not they give a standing ovation or a hearty "harrumph" every third word of a speech?
Changes will be made in government. Some of them I will agree with. Others I will not agree with. The long and the short of it all, though is that I have more important things in my life to care about than politics in general. The government has been screwing people out of their money before I came into this world, and they'll be screwing people out of their money after I leave. As long as my wife and I can still bring home enough to give our family a comfortable life, I don't care anymore.
I'm sure that my taxes one day will jump to 30% of my total income (they probably already have). I'm sure one day it'll reach 40%. One day, it may be 50%, who knows? Point is, I am pretty much powerless to do anything about it, and there's no use stressing about something I cannot change. All of my immediate elected representatives already agree with me.
So that's that. I may still follow what goes on in our federal government. It's nice to be in the know, you know? I will still need to make informed decisions when I vote. I will not, however, get bent out of shape over anything. Call me apathetic if you want...I just have better things to do.
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