Sunday, July 27, 2008

Chicken Salad n' Chicken Shit

My Dad passed away some 16 years ago, but he used to have an expression(and it could be that he still uses it wherever he is now, much to someone's astral delight I'm sure..), "that's the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit". And there was that little humorous inflection, that little lean, on the word shit, just to give it that extra bit of oomph. One of those things that lingers in memory.
Indeed the concept lingers as well. I'm working on a new link for my "main" website(folks, that's http://www.samcrain.com/ )which was originally just going to be links to some of my better and more intelligible blogs, but has now expanded to include what may well end up being called my Chicken Salad/Chicken Shit list. And like most of us, I've definitely got one. Well, two..

CHICKEN SALAD:

Sudoku puzzles, Spongebob Squarepants cartoons, the first 3 Deep Purple albums(and pretty much everything thereafter except "Smoke on the Water"), the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, all Kurt Vonnegut books up to and including Breakfast of Champions, all books by Hermann Hesse, all books by Albert Ellis, all the old black & white Twilight Zone episodes, Cream's "Wheels of Fire", Jimi Hendrix, classical music in all forms except Opera, most jazz(except for some varieties of "smooth" jazz), all Stanley Kubrick films except maybe Barry Lyndon, Borat, Scoreland Video--especially "Hooter Hospital", and much much more!

CHICKEN SHIT:

Much TV programming, particularly "reality" shows such as Survivor and Big Brother, but also "yahoo" programs like America's Funniest Videos/ Funniest Bloopers, American Idol, and America's Got Talent; Alvin and the Chipmunks and other similar annoying vocal groups, the song Smoke on the Water, most rap- with a few exceptions, much of smooth jazz--especially when the guitarist does a Wes thing with the octaves, and much much more here too!

Well there you have it. A look into my tastes. What a curmudgeonly snob, you're probably thinking. What the hell, you're probably right.But there are things in this world--and quite different things to different people--that smell rosy and others that end up stinkin' like shit. Excuse me, shit. Chicken shit at that.

Most of the stuff I scorn has always been pretty much the mainstream stuff. The dumbed-down, sell-it-at-the-Fair kinda stuff. Well, we've always had and will always have a mainstream, a lowest common denominator. And we'll always have a fringe element that makes fun of it. At least as long as I'm around.

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Amen!

4:14 PM  

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