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I am in serious need of some levity today (is that a contradiction?), so in honor of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs and the subsequent hilarious responses, I give you my top 15 conservative songs:

1. The Beatles “Norwegian Wood” - The line “Isn’t it good, Norwegian wood?” refers to the glorious benefits of a global market and the commercial opportunities afforded to us by imports and free trade. Look for Ringo Starr’s follow-up anthem for Ikea, “Swedish Particleboard.”

2. The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” - This song was written to celebrate the release of Windows 95 and the overall capitalist success of Microsoft. Only in America!

3. The Beach Boys “God Only Knows” - “God only knows what I’d be without you,” is a sweet ode to The Creator’s omnipotence and psychic powers.

4. U2 “Sunday Bloody Sunday” - In the line, “How long? How long must we sing this song?” Bono expresses his exasperation with singing such liberal anthems.

5. The Sex Pistols “Anarchy in the U.K.” - The call for anarchy is obviously sarcasm. This song is actually just a call for an end to big government.

6. Metallica “One” - “Fed through the tube that sticks in me/Just like a wartime novelty/Tied to machines that make me be/Cut this life off from me” speaks to the glory of dying on the battlefield…er, well, almost dying on the battlefield.

7. The Kinks “Lola” - “I pushed her away/I walked to the door/I fell to the floor/I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me” refers to the physical altercation that always ensues when a manly man realizes that the chick he’s been macking on is actually a dude. It happens to the best of us.

8. Bob Dylan “Masters of War” - In the line, “You fasten the triggers/For the others to fire/Then you set back and watch/When the death count gets higher” Dylan acknowledges the fact that those who are drawn to politics aren’t that great with all of the killing and stuff and that it’s better left to people who are more predisposed to rage…like pissy broke people.

9. The Pretenders “Brass in Pocket” - The title line is an homage to how it’s better to have money than to not have money and those who do not have money should get some so that they won’t be poor anymore and then they can stop whining about being hungry all the time.

10. David Bowie “Suffragette City” - A plaintive song about how women gaining the right to vote directly led to men refusing to help their buddies in favor of shagging.

11. Ben Folds Five “Song for the Dumped” - Folds rails against welfare queens when he screams, “Give me my money back, you bitch!”

12. Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” - Proof that God is a capitalist: “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven/And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed/With a word she can get what she came for.” THERE ARE STORES IN HEAVEN! We can shop ’til we die and then just keep shopping!

13. Pussycat Dolls “Don’t Cha” - The obvious lesson from this song is that good ol’, healthy American competition gives us all character…and results in hotter chicks who will fight and/or make out to attract men with five brain cells. Everyone wins!

14. Chumbawamba “Tubthumping” - Sure, the band members are all anarchists and anti-corporate, but you can’t miss the Horatio Alger pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps of “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.”

15. Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze” - When he sings (I think), “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy!” Hendrix is apologizing for his homosexuality because he knows it threatens my marriage.

Bonus: Heidi Montag “Higher” - The song is being considered as the new theme for No Child Left Behind.

We saw WALL-E yesterday and I have to say that if you are generally not prone to believing the hype, you really should gobble this movie’s hype up.

I guess if you wanted to put a cutesy tag to WALL-E, I would describe it as 2001 for the grade school set…and for adults who “don’t get” 2001. The references are pretty hard to miss. There’s very little dialogue, they use some of the same music, plus the whole concept of the movie borrows heavily from 2001: a history of man on earth and in space, man’s rebirth and new history. And of course there’s the ship’s autopilot, who is very obviously HAL in a new outfit.

I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

I’ve seen similar themes in a lot of popular culture recently (see also: Idiocracy and Joe Rogan Live just to name two). I think/hope that many people are starting to question our future, much in the same way that the humans aboard the Axiom suddenly realize that there’s a whole galaxy beyond their communication screens and a planet that they abused and then abandoned at the command of a giant, monolithic corporation/government. What will become of our home, how much is fate, how much do we have control over? And what will become of us? Is there hope for our species? Or are we merely cycling around again? Maybe we’ll devolve until we’ve forgotten everything and then we’ll reset or re-evolve and rediscover the earth.

At the risk of sounding totally hokey and all like, “Let me introduce you to my magical healing crystals that I bought on Amazon!” I honestly feel like big things are going to start happening. I know part of this is watching too many nerd shows about Mayan prophecy and shit. Or maybe it’s a tiny sprout of optimism that hopes that it’s not too late.

I’m mostly recovered from yesterday’s nonsense, though my feet still resemble raw meat loaf and are therefore still tender. It helps that it is absolutely gorgeous outside today. I walked over to the little La Prima stand on campus to buy a latte as a Friday treat and took my time getting back to the office so that I could enjoy the morning a little.

Jive Turkey commented on one of my wedding photos on flickr, and I just noticed two years after the fact that my eyes appear to be looking in two different directions. I’m looking a little “touched.”

And actually that might explain why I watched not one, but TWO episodes of My Big Redneck Wedding on fucking Country Music Television last night. I’m not sure what came over me. I guess I was just so pissy that I needed to gawk at some people who are too stupid to realize when they’re being mocked and Tom Arnold is quite possibly the most useless human being ever, so it worked out pretty well.

However, I’m still traumatized from seeing the “kiss” that this couple exchanged in which I saw two tongues flapping wildly at each other before disappearing into a sucking motion that could give my Dyson a run for its money. Ah, to be 18 and terrible at kissing.

But the bride was truly a model for thrifty weddings, since she decorated the reception venue entirely with quilts and bought all of the wedding party’s clothes in the hunting section of Wal-Mart. Hey, whatever, so long as those two crazy kids are married and happy at the end of the day that’s all that matters.

Ahem. Anyway. The sister-in-law is having her graduation party tomorrow and she and I came up with the idea of having a cupcake potluck. Her friends are making somewhere in the neighborhood of four dozen cupcakes and she and I are going to make about four dozen, as well. That equals…an assload of cupcakes.

And because it’s Friday:

We watched Funny Games last night, which turned out to be a really interesting choice as the clock ticked past midnight and it became Father’s Day. Funny Games is a shot-for-shot remake of the Austrian original from 1997.

Another interesting thing about Funny Games is that it is quite possibly the must fucked up movie ever. I felt completely disturbed when it was over and am contemplating never leaving the city ever again.

What made our viewing even weirder was that the husband happened to look out the window and notice that this intense fog had descended on our neighborhood. But not like nice misty fog, dense soggy fog. Like The Fog. I tried to take some pictures of it but my camera isn’t really made for taking very low light pictures. You can kind of get the idea, though.

The husband ran his fingers up and down the screen to show that it was completely soaked.

I did not take this picture through the screen. Those are droplets of fog all around me. Check out the glow from the streetlight.

Dark and creepy street view.

Anyway, Happy Father’s Day to those of who are of the paternal persuasion. The baby and I gave the husband some fancy facial scrub and lotion hoping to remedy his dry, flaky skin situation. I’ll make a metrosexual out of him yet!

Ah, Monday. What a dick this day is.

Internets, I don’t mind telling you that I had a rather lovely and restful weekend. On Saturday morning, we took the baby to tee-ball and were happy to sit in some shaded bleachers. The moms in front of us provided the entertainment by talking in hushed tones about their psychic, who told one mom that she saw a flooded basement in the future. There was much gasping when that mom revealed that not six weeks later, there was some heavy rain (in Pittsburgh of all places!) and her brother’s girlfriend’s roommate’s dog’s basement flooded. Freaky, right?

After tee-ball, the husband went to work and the baby and I pretty much just relaxed the rest of the day. We put in some quality time with the Wii.

When the husband came home from work, we walked to the main boulevard. We passed some honeysuckle and the smell was intoxicating. The husband helped me to drink a drop of honeysuckle water and I finally believed that summer was here. We stopped into the state store so that I could gather the materials necessary to quench my craving for chilled white wine. Then we got some ice cream and practically skipped home, it was all so la-di-da.

Sunday morning, I rolled out of bed and rustled the family together. We go to the tee-ball field and were dismayed to see that no one was there. Alas, it was Junior Pirates day at PNC Park. But we had no desire to sit at the ballpark on a 90+ degree day, so we just went home. We ate some breakfast on the porch and just sat out there for a few hours, reading and enjoying the lovely day. Later, we went over to my mother-in-law’s house where I spent at least 3 hours drifting around on a raft in the pool. And I didn’t even get sunburned.

I love summer.

The husband noted that over the weekend, we watched three movies, all of which were about someone(s) being held captive: Turistas, Black Snake Moan, and An American Crime.

Turistas was just rather stupid, I fell asleep halfway through Black Snake Moan but what I saw of it was pretty meh. It also made me want to take a shower really badly. An American Crime was complicated. I felt that the way the story was presented, with the victim as the first-person, posthumous, omniscient narrator was tacky. Of course, Ellen Page and Catherine Keener are amazing no matter what they do and it was a very blunt way of showing how abuse can turn even its victims into monsters, thus continuing the cycle, but that often the people who say nothing in a situation like that are almost as disgusting as the abusers themselves. Obviously, since it was based on a true story, it was really depressing and there were more than a few moments where I had to emotionally distance myself from what I was watching. Otherwise, I would have had some kind of breakdown.

Ahem. Anyway. On Wednesday, the baby will finish up kindergarten and I will officially be the mother of a first-grader. Oh my holy hell.

I feel the need to point out that while that picture is slightly zoomed in, it’s really no exaggeration to say that I really was that close to him.

So, like, let’s say | = one foot.

I’m not even shitting you. And for that lovely position, I must thank my buddy Andrew for helping me to hook up those amazing front row, center tickets.

Love him.

So I took that marital rating test that’s been going around all over the intarwebs.

I got something like -16.

Shit.

I think I’ll go douche with some Lysol.

On a wildly unrelated note, has anyone seen Scoop? I’ve caught it twice on cable and I kind of adore it. Am I the only person on the planet who still loves Woody Allen? And Woody Allen + Scarlett Johansson is amazing. I love how she talks with her hands so ridiculously much in both Scoop and Match Point.

Someone on flickr just questioned my street cred!

Anyway, the Rick Wilhite thing on Saturday was pretty fun. There was a decent turn-out, but there was a mass exodus around 1 a.m. or so. Very strange.

Rick Wilhite and his aura played many good records, including “Numbers” by Kraftwerk as a special treat.

Jwan’s ear! Jwan encouraged me to wear high heels more often but dude, I was practically in tears by the end of the night. Ballet made my feet all wide and thick. They are not dainty enough for girly shoes.

Frank showed up! He was in town for a friend’s wedding! I really need to get my teeth cleaned!

The event was all multimedia n’at. This painting was created on-site and I kind of want it for my dining room. There was also a sneak peek at Paul Dang’s movie Still City. Paul’s been working on the movie for awhile and I hope he’s able to release it soon because it looks pretty awesome. I love the title, too. It’s a play on words. People from this area tend to pronounce “steel” as “still” (ie, Stillers instead of Steelers). Imagery-wise it’s also pretty great. The three rivers flow through us constantly, but Pittsburgh is still, right in the middle of it. And Pittsburgh, for better or worse, never goes anywhere. Take that however you want. It just contains this weird mixture of people who are creative and loyal and cynical and interesting and just all around kind of weird.

Tee-ball started yesterday and that means that I no longer get to sleep in on weekends. The fact that I then sit and watch the baby be all cute for two hours mostly makes up for it, though. I forgot my camera, but trust me when I tell you that tee-ball is adorable. The baby, being a veteran at this point with one season of tee-ball already under his belt, got to swing at some live pitches and actually connected with the ball twice. That means that his hitting skills have already surpassed mine by 3,000%.

Youth baseball is so fun in our neighborhood if for no other reason than the people-watching. The yinzer population is high and yesterday a woman walked past us and, in a pristine Pittsburgh accent, said to her unhappy child, “Stawp cryin’. I bawt yew some Cawmbows.” You plain-tongued folks would pronounce it, “Stop crying. I bought you some Combos.” Awesome on multiple levels.

After tee-ball, I had to go to a “ladies’ lunch.” My grandmother invites all of my hammy-armed aunts (and me!) to lunch at her country club twice a year. Well, “invites” is a strong word. In my case, anyway. Usually my invitation comes in the form of a phone call in which my mom or grandmother tells me, “The ladies’ lunch is on x date. You have to go.” And it’s remarkable because the lunches are always smack dab in the middle of my busiest times. I’ve bowed out of the last few, but even though I told those wannabe matriarchs that I have, like, four projects due for school plus other shit I need to do, they still insisted. My mom told me that my absence would be disrespectful, which…you know fucking whatever. I’m not going to get into it, but that brand of manipulation really doesn’t sit well with me.

Me: “Dude, I don’t have time for this shit. Those lunches always take four hours.”

Mom: “It will not take four hours. We’ll stay for lunch and that’s it.”

So I went. And FIVE hours later I finally got home. The husband and the baby and I went to the Waterfront to try to buy shoes since we’re all sporting some stinky, disintegrating kicks. DSW was, of course, closed at that point so we just zipped over to the movie theater to catch Iron Man.

Dudes. That movie is kind of the shit. It’s all about redefining the American Hero. And also the CGI is rad and Robert Downey, Jr. is amazing and also BOOM SMASH RAHHHH FLYING!

They showed the preview for the new Indiana Jones movie and I don’t know if I can get more impatient for a movie to come out. I am so geeked for some Nazis and for some offensively generic tribal people.