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Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.Thursday, October 22, 2009My Morning in exileStuff I wrote while thinking of the best way to taunt the lead singer of a 1980s British synth-pop band (explained below) . . .I've mentioned this before I think, but my In-N-Out managing brother's longtime girlfriend was a childhood friend, and is still best friends with the wife of a guy named Andy McCluskey. McCluskey, some of you may know, is the lead singer for the band OMD of "If you leave" fame. The McCluskeys keep a house in San Diego and my brother is over there all the time, house sits for them them, babysits the kids, etc. When I first became aware of this several years ago I began taunting my brother -- who was sort of dropping the OMD thing like it was some major social chit -- over the moderate-at-best worldwide fame of his new friend and patron. I probably would have left it alone, but he set me off when he used the "hey, they're really big in Europe and Japan" line. Since then, it's been almost constant abuse. Things like "hey Curt, I gotta go; Howard Jones is on the other line, and it's obviously a much more important call." Or "So, like, is house sitting for Human League a promotion or is it considered a lateral move?" Most of the jokes were about him being a one-hit wonder. He told Andy about all of this. His response: "ask your brother what it's like to work a job, because I'll never have to know." Damn McCluskey. He's had me dead to rights on that one for about five years now. Anyway, I'm newly inspired to mock him -- in a friendly fashion, mind you -- because OMD is apparently going on some tour this winter with another John Hughes movie one-hit-wonder, Simple Minds. Curt is going to travel with them and, hell, I don't know, get them towels or hair gel or white Zinfandel or Patrick Nagel paintings or whatever it is those 80s synth-poppers need to survive. I was thinking about flooding the official OMD website with questions about whether it was true that Hughes' will finally freed them from servitude or whether it's true that Oingo Boingo was going to be headlining or something, but his wife runs the site and she's pretty good people. There's no point to this except that if I'm slow blogging this afternoon it's because I'm obsessed with trying to come up with new and inventive taunts for OMD. Which pretty much shows you how pathetic I am. Determined, but pathetic. Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:27pm Comments
(Not That) Tom said...
I would pay good money to see Crowded House at a county fair*. Provided they have a stand that sells those frozen chocolate-covered bananas on a stick. Seriously the most underrated carny food ever… *Our county fair this year featured LeAnn Rimes. Man, how far has her career fallen? Posted 10/22 at 03:41 PM
Clete6 said...
Neither OMD nor Simple Minds is a one-hit wonder band, unless (in OMD’s case) you define one-hit wonder to be an artist that had only one Top Ten hit. OMD had 4 Top 40 songs in the U.S., and Simple Minds had 5, including a #1 and a #3. Posted 10/22 at 03:46 PM
Craig Calcaterra said...
Clete: don’t harsh my buzz, man. I accused him of being a one-hit-wonder and he didn’t come back with the actual chart numbers (probably because I’m totally not worth his effort and he knows it; I’m just Curt’s dumbass little brother to him, and he’s right about that). Anyway, I’m going to presume that he waived the argument. Posted 10/22 at 04:01 PM
Mark Armour said...
Seems like a pretty good dude, actually. Posted 10/22 at 04:05 PM
Wooden U. Lykteneau said...
Hence the dig against “Dazzle Ships”—Album #3, which sold 300,000 copies. Albums #1 and #2 sold 3 million combined: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/mar/07/popandrock1 Posted 10/22 at 04:06 PM
Jason B said...
Clete— Admittedly, when making my set list I wasn’t familiar with their other, slightly-less-popular tunes that may have also charted. I was only like five or six at the time. I was more concerned with Micro Machines n’ lego’s. WHERE ARE ALL OF MY YELLOW 2x4 BRICKS?!? I CAN’T FINISH THIS KICK-ASS STRUCTURE (read: crappy square enclosure with no roof) WITHOUT MORE YELLOW 2x4 BRICKS!! Posted 10/22 at 04:56 PM
Richard Dansky said...
I stopped reading Q magazine largely because of their insane insistence on reminding the world /every issue/ that at one point, it was a tossup between Simple Minds, Echo and the Bunnymen, and U2 as to who would be the world’s next great band(TM). Inevitably, this was followed up by a lengthy reminiscence as to how stonking awesome “The Cutter” was, until I finally snapped and started buying Mojo instead. Posted 10/23 at 04:18 AM
AdrianK said...
We had years of Simple Minds fouling up the charts over here in blighty - God I hated them. However, OMD were brilliant and their tour this year was fantastic. Posted 10/23 at 05:51 AM
jwb said...
McCluskey could wind up as an object of worship in a small city in Bulgaria. “Enola Gay” was a staple of my early ‘80s party tapes as was Simple Minds’ “Love Song.” Posted 10/23 at 02:58 PM
jwb said...
it was a tossup between Simple Minds, Echo and the Bunnymen, and U2 as to who would be the world’s next great band™. Substitute The Teardrop Explodes for Simple Minds and you have my dorm apartment in 1981. My vote was for the Mancunian druggies. Posted 10/23 at 03:19 PM
JBerardi said...
“Since my brother is a manager at an In-N-Out Burger it would be kind of weird for me.” Those are good burgers, Walter. Posted 10/23 at 04:18 PM
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When you mention your brother getting them White Zinfandel or the like, all I can think of is the incomparable Del Preston:
“So there, I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o’clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms; to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn’t go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head ‘round the door, and mentions there’s a little sweets shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it’s closed. So there’s me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweets shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they’ve got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopkeeper and his son… that’s a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really, but sure enough I got the M&Ms;, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.”
Remind your brother to bring a can of mace.