The Shailesh-tival

About 3.5 weeks ago, my friend Jennie emailed me the video to the David Hasselhoff song, “Jump in my car”, a cover of a 1970’s hit by the Australian band, the Ted Mulry gang. The email was entitled “An Auditory Root Canal”. Well I’ve passed on the video to some friends and it seems to have a life of its own. David Hasselhoff is not just popular in America, but popular amongst 20-30 year old males. I guess the germans were on to something.

I was in Chicago (again … yes I know) for Kristin’s birthday on Saturday and the guys in the group insisted on listening to the song over and over and over on our 12 mile canoe trip.

Anyways, lets analyze some of the finer aspects of this video that have made it so popular:

• Kit, the famous talking car from Knight Rider
• Attractive women
• A great storyline — A man desperately begs a woman to get in his car so they can hook up, only to kick her out when he finds out that she lives too far away
• A lack of attention to details — Hasselhoff clearly tells the women they should get in his car to avoid the rain, yet he’s clearly driving a convertible and he definitely doesn’t put the top up once the woman is in his car.
• Hasselhoff wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Don’t Hassel the Hoff”
• And of course the famous line when the woman is asked to leave his car:
  Woman: “But I though you were a really nice guy”
  Hoff: “Well I aint …. yeah, get out of my car!!”

As of this blog entry, the obsession with this song has been passed on to at least 5 people in both Chicago, IL and Washington, DC.

Anyways, if you want to check out the video, you can see it on youtube (which I’ve embedded here):

I saw Ben Folds in East Lansing today, and he was amazing. I had a third row seat on the left side of the stage, so Ben’s back was to me for most of the show.

He played a fairly long set. When he first came out, he seemed quieter than usual. But that changed quickly as he actually ended up more animated than usual.

He told a story about how he went to Meijer in E. Lansing yesterday and got in trouble for taking pictures there. Then he proceeded to throw small jabs at Meijer throughout the show, including changing “Gonna get on the microphone down at Wal-Mart” to “Gonna get on the microphone down at Meijer”

Britney Spears and Radiohead both have songs called “Thinking about You” and “Lucky”

I was at work yesterday and I’m leaving at 4:30. As I get onto I-170 my phone rings. I answer and its Trevor. He thinks I’m in Chicago for the weekend and he offers me his extra ticket to see the Alkaline Trio at the Riviera. Unfortunately, I’m in St. Louis, so I decline.

I get home and decide to check airline prices on a whim and American wants $1240. Pfffft. Then I go check southwest.com and They have a 6:45 flight for $200. I call Trevor and he still doesn’t have a taker for his ticket, so I book the flight and go.

The trio were pretty good. They played mostly new stuff, which was ok. I prefer old-school Alkaline Trio music. Then we ate at Dogs on Clark and met up with Korbie and her roommates at Joy Brew (which incidentally has perhaps the worst bartenders I’ve ever seen).

Anyways, it was a pretty random night, and I flew back to St. Louis this morning. With all thats been going with desktop refresh at work, it was a nice getaway.

So I was at Sameer’s house on Sunday and at about 3 in the morning, we get this brilliant idea to write a song. I can usually sit in front of the piano and put out some riffs, but this is a whole new animal. Every time I write some chord progressions on the piano, I keep thinking it’d be easier if I had lyrics to go with them. And every time I try to write lyrics they end up being sappy and dopey. I’ll keep you updated on whats going on. Read the rest of this entry →