Archive for April, 2006

Why Don’t You Nextel Your Customers to Buy a Boombox

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

Lately there is a new phenomenon. It’s not a new diet, it isn’t some fashion trend, and no, frogs aren’t plaguing the city. This new fad, like most, is really just a throwback to about 20 years ago.

Picture it: 1986*. Rap is reaching new heights. Kool Moe Dee, Slick Rick, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - they’re starting to make their way onto the music scene in a grand way. Everywhere cardboard is thrown to the ground to be used as a dance floor. The pop’n'lock makes you the coolest guy at a party, Billy D. Williams is pushing Colt 45 and beating his female companions, and Marion Barry is still 5 years from being forced to leave office in DC due to conviction of drug charges.

This is the dawn of the late 80’s. The dawn of the boombox.

An almighty instrument, powered by no fewer than 12 D batteries, is touted on the shoulders of wanna-be rappers and head-spinners alike. It is the iPod of its day. Who needs 25 thousand songs crammed into a wallet-sized player in the mechanically barren, digital format?

Give those guys a cassette player the size of a suitcase and 12 songs on magnetized tape. They’ll pump out the jams for 20 minutes, then BAM, flip that shit right over to catch the last 25 on the other side of the tape…as long as the batteries don’t run out. But even if the Duracells die, no doubt there is a guy on hand who can reproduce the beats vocally:

Breaker 1: Yeeah boyee! These jams is tight! (Breaker 1 starts to pop’n'lock on nearby piece of cardboard on the sidewalk in front of his building. Unfortunately we hear the tape deck slow down…) Damnit! Ma jams!

Beatboxer: Keep goin’ man - check this! (Beatboxer raises his hands to his mouth as if to cough, then begins) Huh-uh-Huh-uh-Huh-Huh-uh-Huh-uh-Huh-uh-Huh-Huh–Huh!

Breaker 1: Shit yes! (begins to breakdance. Several passers by stop and watch for a few minutes and toss loose change into a nearby, upturned hat. John Voight is in the crowd).

John Voight: Yo man, your moves are pretty good, but yo, check THIS! (John Voight shrugs off his coat jacket and starts up his top-rock. He moves about effortless, then he hits the cardboard doing a dazzling array of kicks, stalls, and stands from his six-step…then he starts to headspin AND beatbox at the same time!).

Breaker 1: Oh shit! That John Voight can really get it done!

Beatboxer: Wooord. I loved homey in “Runaway Train.”

Breaker 1: Yes. His performance as the escaped convict was…unforgetable. (Breaker 1 begins to weep).

(John Voight does a final stall. He stops beatboxing, gets up, takes his coat from a nearby boy, and walks with a pimped out limp through the crowd and into the night)


I can see it coming full circle again, only instead of a huge, battery-powered radios, kids are starting to use their Nextel cell-phones as portable boomboxes. It seems everywhere I look some kid has his cell phone to his ear, listening to his favorite rap or reggaeton song on speakerphone. Unfortunately, due to the incredibly minute wattage of the speaker on a cell phone, the only person able to discern the song is the person holding the phone (who most likely has it memorized anyway). The “bass” usually turns to just a static crackling since the speaker on the phone can’t handle it, and most rappers “tough-guy” voices sound more like C3PO after he’s served 5 years in prison and has developed a drinking problem…that’s right, still really, really gay, but raspy.

The kids sing and rap and bop their heads along with the “music” like they can actually tell what’s going on (not that there’s much going on to begin with), and largely ignore their friends who are listening to their own cell-phone boomboxes. The sad part is they usually don’t even have the entire song on their phone due to its tiny amount of storage space (you have to save room for pictures of your girlfriend’s tiny dog, or she’ll get mad).

I feel really bad for these kids. If they only knew that the answer to their dilemmas lay in the past. Oh Nextel, please, please make your next line of phones be boomboxes with a cell phone built in, rather than a cell phone with a boombox built in. These kids need your help. It’s bad enough they can’t figure out how to peel the stickers off a new hat or determine the proper sized shirt in a store.

*If you didn’t say the word “Sicily” in your head after you read “Picture it,” Sofia Patrillo is highly disappointed in you.

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Quaker Oats!

Sunday, April 9th, 2006

It’s kind of like eating a little piece of Heaven every morning, though my guess is Heaven has kind of a crunch to it. As long as you don’t let it just sit in the milk too long. You really gotta get after it. Otherwise you’re just going to be sitting there, shoveling this mush into your mouth. Which is kind of like oatmeal, but its cold. Who wants to eat cold oatmeal? Idiots that’s who. Maybe little kids. They eat the weirdest stuff. Like ketchup on spaghetti. What’s up with that? I mean yes it’s made of the same stuff that spaghetti sauce is but it’s not the same…

But back to Quaker Oats. Its as if God himself said “You know what I’m jonesin’ for dudes? Some wicked-awesome oats - only hot…reeeeal hot.” and poof, Quaker Oats.

I don’t know if its because the Quakers were so religious or because Jesus liked their hats so much, but whatever it was, they were blessed with the most awesome food of all time. Their oats have turned out to be the best oats in the world. Horses everywhere agree.


You can put anything in them: fruit, sugar, brown sugar (as suggested by Brown Sugar above - who would prefer you not mistakenly add him to your oatmeal instead of actual brown sugar), and some radicals have even suggested cinnamon. Cinnamon might be just a little too outrageous for those more conservative with their oatmeal topping selections, but for the truly bold it is said to be “like being sent by donkey on a far off adventure.”

I know it doesn’t sound that great, but, its just cinnamon on oatmeal for God’s sake. It’s not like winning the lottery and then buying a helicopter. If I won a helicopter I would fly to Heaven and talk to Moses. I know most people would try to hit up JC or God but I think those guys probably don’t want to be bothered. They have enough to look after and I’m sure the lines are long. But I mean Moses would probably be pretty cool to talk to:


Andy: Hey Moses, what’s shakin’?

Moses: Not much man. I crossed the dessert like 2 thousand years ago, and I am still finding sand everywhere.

Andy: Oh that stinks, I wond–

Moses: I mean I am in Heaven. You would think after so many years in the most perfect place of all time that all this sand would, you know, eventually just sort of shake itself out.

Andy: No, I guess, I mean did you talk to Jesus?

Moses: Please, don’t get me started on that guy. Every we time we play bridge that f’in jerk trumps me. I won’t even mention Trivial Pursuit night. The worst part is he won’t stop wearing that STUPID Quaker hat. I’m all “JESUS! Stop wearing that hat! You look like an idiot.” And he’s all “Peace, my son.” It’s SO aggravating!

Andy: Moses I don’t know if you should call Jesus “that f’in jerk.”

Moses: Of course, take his side. They always do. You know what man? Why don’t you just go talk to Jesus. Because I sure as hell don’t want to talk to you. DAMN THIS SAND! Hey can you do me a favor? Just run your little finger down my–

Andy: Whoa hey, you know what, um, Mose. I’d love to help you out but I think…yeah I think Johnny Carson just passsed by - I’m gonna go see if I can grab him because…well because its better than digging sand out of your crack.

My next stop in the helicopter would be the grocery store. To buy Quaker Oats. And maybe brown sugar…and hell, I’m rich, why not Brown Sugar too? We could share. It’d be great. I like his spots. He’s like a big, funny, horse-clown.

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