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Writer's pictureSmoke Bandit

Here Comes Treble


I am about to make you lowly plebeians envious of my glamorous lifestyle so prepare yourselves: this weekend, Becky and I reorganized our basement because we are winterizing the homestead. Do you want more details? Would that be interesting to you? Would you like to hear about how I disconnected our hoses and took down the birdfeeders?


No, you don't want that and I don't want that and God doesn't want that. After flooding the planet to death a couple thousand years ago, the Big Guy promised us with rainbows that he would never again destroy the life that he created on the sixth day, but that colorful vow was made long before he realized that he might have to read about my pedestrian existence so I don't want to put humanity in peril here. Yet, despite Jesus' avid disinterest, there was a lone cherry atop the sundae of poo that was my weekend: we stumbled upon Becky's old CD collection and I will be assessing my findings here today.

I have taken time out of my pathetic, uneventful life to sort this music into six distinct categories that I believe accurately represent the six sides of Becky. Yes, there are six sides to her - that's one of the reasons why I call her "The Refrigerator," along with her uncanny resemblance to William Perry.

Category I - Girlie Becky:

Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne, The Fray, Hannah Montana, and something called "The Best That I Can Be," which I am told is the American Girl Doll anthem or whatever the hell.


This category should come as no surprise because Becky is indeed a girl - I have proof. Get your minds out of the gutter, you sick bastards. What I meant is that I have confirmed her girl-ness by testing her blood. You see, when she makes the mistake of falling asleep before me, I make extractions to stockpile for when she inevitably stabs me for being an obnoxious asshole. For a guy like me who says the things that I say, keeping a fresh supply of blood on hand is a must. Part of the process, as you know, is analyzing said blood to ensure that it isn't riddled with HIV, and the results have thus far not yielded any known STDs, nor a single Y chromosome, and yes, determining gender is that simple.


I have come to understand that the Shania Twain album, Come On Over, was a favorite of kindergarten-era Becky and is therefore scratched irrevocably because children should not have things. She fondly recalls listening with her male classmate (that's X and Y chromosomes) who would dance flamboyantly while singing along to "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and I want to clarify that those exclamation points are in the song title, I'm not just excited to be mentioning it. And I know you're wondering: yes, that fabulous little boy still feels like a woman, if you will.

Avril and The Fray is pretty standard tween-to-teen girl stuff from what I remember when I knew tween-to-teen girls during middle school. They generally didn't give me the time of day, but I distinctly recall hearing "How To Save a Life" playing from their Walkmans when they ignored me in the hallway.

I don't have much to say about Hannah Montana because I have not seen one frame of it, but I once played a show with Miley's mutant half-brother, Trace Cyrus, and his crappy band, Metro Station, at Waiting Room in Buffalo. He generally didn't give me the time of day, but I distinctly recall hearing "How To Save a Life" playing from his Walkman when he ignored me in the hallway.

The American Girl Doll anthem confounds me because I thought that every American was unified under one anthem that represents every single one of us and that anthem is inarguably "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers.

Category II - Soundtrack Becky:

Grease, The Polar Express, The Lion King, Pepino the Italian Mouse?

Everybody owns a few soundtracks so I have no qualms with this category either - I listen to my A Quiet Place record all the time. That being said, I don't recall any music from The Polar Express, nor any single thing about that film except for how off-putting the animation was. Tom Hanks looked more appealing in Philadelphia, his other movie that explores running a train in secret. That's two AIDS jokes so far if you're keeping score at home.


I am not a mentally-defective imbecile so I loathe the whole woke, politically-correct, march-around bullcrap culture that you tards keep voting for, but I watched Grease for the first time a couple years ago and I truly felt uncomfortable. It's just a really creepy story that never should have been committed to film. If you whiny nutjobs ever start another one of your little movements to protest the inappropriateness of that flick, let me know and I will hashtag your hashtags. #progress.

Then we have Pepino the Italian Mouse. I'm not even sure that this is a soundtrack. I don't know what the hell it is, but I'm seeing that "Dominic the Donkey," the most successful song to prominently feature "hee-haws," is on the track list so I'm going to have to give this a thorough listen.


Category III - Edgy Becky:

Escape the Fate, Bring Me the Horizon, From First to Last, A Day to Remember, Senses Fail

Watch out, everybody. Becky had some angst in high school. You might even say that her teenage angst had a body count. That's a From First to Last reference from before their singer decided to bail on rock and roll, rename himself "Skrillex," and blatantly sabotage the direction of popular music with such gusto that Justin Bieber would be jealous. Is jealous? Excuse me that I don't know whether or not that lesbian-haircutted forever-preteen Leafs fan is still around and recording songs for high school girls who aren't in AP classes to sing along to.


Also, if I remember correctly, Ronnie Radke from Escape the Fate went to jail for being involved in a murder when a guy got shot during a fight that Ronald had scheduled in a Vegas parking lot. The only notable thing that's ever happened to me in a Vegas parking lot was when Danny drove over a median at the grocery store because he freaking sucks at driving.


Bring Me the Horizon named their band after a line in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That's all I know about them. So what's new with you guys?

Category IV - Classics Becky:

Frank Sinatra, Bach, Monster Mash and Other Songs of Horror


You might fall into the trap of being impressed with her "sophisticated taste" here without the proper context, but the Bach album is called Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music so let's pump the brakes. I want to make it perfectly clear to all of you that she is not very impressive. Not. At. All. See, this is why I need to be prepared for a stabbing.

I didn't know how else to classify "Monster Mash," but the more I think about it, I really do believe that it should be categorized as a classic. It's no "Hey Jude," but fuck you. I can't fathom what the "Other Songs of Horror" could possibly be, but I'm going to look right now - hang on, I'll put you on hold.


Okay, it appears that this is a compilation album featuring all of our Halloween favorites like the Ghostbusters theme, "Clap For the Wolfman," and "Purple People Eater." I was really hoping that there would be more tunes by whoever wrote "Monster Mash" because I feel that as a society, we haven't heard enough from that guy. If he was walking around amongst us and thinking up lyrics like, "Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band and my Monster Mash is the hit of the land," I want to know what else is going on in his brain.

EXCITING UPDATE!: There is an entire album by Bobby Pickett and The Crypt-Keepers called The Original Monster Mash that is fifteen of Bobbo's novelty Halloween songs including "Graveyard Shift," "Transylvania Twist," "Blood Bank Blues," which hits too close to home for me, and "Me and My Mummy." I am ordering it right now and my life is about to change. I'm going to be different from now on. I'm about to become a much spookier person.

Category V - Mixtape Becky:

Becky's Blasting Beats and a Lil Wayne mixtape that she doesn't think I saw, but I saw it.

Becky has an entire catalogue of roughly twenty CDs that are burned mixes of beats that she found to be particularly blasting between 2005 and 2010. Those were the days, when we would just burn playlists to discs instead of burning down Jewish-owned businesses. I am not condoning that, that was just commentary on how so many of you jackasses are supporting antisemitism right now because terrorist-loving goons like Rashida Tlaib and her #squad ordered you to do so, you idiots. #progress.


Regarding Becky's Blasting Beats, though, credit where credit is due: this collection easily could have been titled "Becky's Blasting Beatz" with a "z" instead of an "s," but she made the brave decision to forego the urban slang spelling and for that, commendationz are in order.

And yes, Rebecca, I know all about the Lil Wayne CD and I lost every bit of the lil respect that I had for you. That's not true, of course, but I thought it was a lil funny. Please don't stab me.

Category VI - Neil Diamond Becky:

Nine Neil Diamond albums amounting to twelve discs


Hey, the girl knows what she likes. And what she likes is Neil Diamond. A whole lot of Neil Diamond. I couldn't believe that he even has that many releases since I know exactly two of his songs, one of which I am only familiar with because of how passionately I detest the Boston Red Sox and their entire fanbase and city. It turns out that he's a pretty successful musician. Who knew?

His middle name is Leslie. I just saw it on Wikipedia. His full name is Neil Leslie Diamond. You usually have to be a seriously badass mammajamma if you're going to walk around with a name like Leslie, but Neil instead went in the total opposite direction and wrote "Forever in Blue Jeans."


In conclusion, after carefully contemplating this music collection, I have decided to replace my refrigerator. I'll probably go with something newer, perhaps something European, and maybe even a smart model, but I'll have to first make certain that it doesn't have any bugs. Three AIDS jokes.

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