What's wrong with me? I think you're crazy.

On the evening of Sunday, March 24, 1996, I sat in a room on the third floor of Oates Hall watching television. Two things were happening simultaneously: I was eating some sort of pizza from Neriola's and The Simpsons was about to start.

Let's toss in a few words about the manhole cover-inspired pizzas down at Neriola's, shall we? To be curt, Neriola's existed as long as it did because it was the closest eatery to campus within walking distance that was open Sunday nights. All those campus-owned cafeterias and food courts were closed Sunday evenings and if you were stuck on campus without a vehicle then you either found a friend who was going elsewhere, you ate from a vending machine, you scrounged under your bed for a leftover packet of Ramen noodle and a packet of green sauce from Señor Taco, or – and this list is presented in the order it should have been attempted – you walked down the hill on the southwest side of campus to Neriola's. If you were smart you ordered ahead and didn't have to wait around inside. While Neriola's had not been in business but a few years before my freshmen year, the squalid building it oozed out of along Central Street, the main drag, had obviously been there far too long. It's one thing to give your restaurant that old-timey feel and have old liquor posters and signs on the outside of your building (even if the restaurant tries to be pseudo-Italian); it's another to thing to have those be original signs that someone hasn't gotten around to moving yet. In short, their pizzas were the stuff of ridicule and justifiably should be mentioned in this April Fools post.

I usually got the medium thin crust with only green peppers and mushrooms.

On the evening of Sunday, March 24, 1996, Bobby – or some delivery guy from Neriola's – had just left and I was preparing myself for a hot meal and a little television before I called it a day. Make that a lukewarm meal, as Bobby ran into a Frat brother in the lobby and chatted a bit before he called me down. I mean, I assume something like that happened....

Tonight’s episode of The Simpsons focused on the washed-up life of actor Troy McClure and what happened when his career seemed to start on the rebound. How The Planet of the Apes made sense as a musical is beyond me but it works, especially for someone of McClure's mentality. As soon as McClure (as the astronaut Taylor) speaks, a synthesizer kicks in and the apes, lost at the thought of something as ludicrous as a talking human, begin requesting help from Dr. Zaius.

Everything up to this point was amusing but the song was the icing on the cake, especially once I realized I was already familiar with the "Help me, Dr. Zaius" melody thanks to years of Falco. Neriola's pizza went by the wayside as I began laughing too loud for my own good. I seem to recall nearly rolling out of the chair laughing so hard and missing all subsequent action. It would only be on second and third viewings that I was able to suppress these fits and see the singing apes were actually break dancing.
The next day at the radio station I found the usual group of regulars in the station office chatting away aimlessly. Shortly after I arrived someone brought up the Simpsons' episode from the night before and I was surprised at how many people had not just seen it but were able to break into the inane, repetitive chorus of, " Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius."

Going into the episode you knew it was going to be good because it focused on one of the program’s greatest characters, “the fabulous” Troy McClure (who you may remember from such films as The President’s Neck is Missing and Gladys the Groovy Mule, among others). McClure was always good for a laugh and while it could be debated whether he had talent (...well, I suppose he did have talent, as it was what made the water in his swimming pool possible), there was no question that the actor behind the voice did. Phil Hartman made his name on Saturday Night Live and later on primetime fare such as The Simpsons and Newsradio showcasing endearing and enthusiastic characters that all shared that unmistakable voice.

That voice has since been silenced but thankfully immortalized on an album of collected Simpsons music -- which means those of us sitting around the music library would now be able to sing the praises of Dr. Zaius along with Troy!

"It's the part I was born to play, baby!"

- - - - - - - - - - - -
A Fish Called Selma [Medley]: Dr Zaius and Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z
(Jack Barth/Alf Clausen)
The Simpsons
From the album Songs in the Key of Springfield
1997

(Spoken) Help the human's about to excape
Get Your Paws Off Me You Dirty Ape
(Gasp)
He Can Talk
He Can Talk
He Can Talk
He Can Talk
He Can Talk
He Can Talk
He Can Talk
I Can Sing!!!
Ooo Help Me Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Oh, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!

What's wrong with me?
I think you're crazy
I want a second opinion.
You're also lazy.

Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Oh, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!

Can I play the piano anymore?
Of course you can.
Well I couldn't before.

Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Oh, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!

Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Oh, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!


I hate every ape I see,
From chimpan-A to chimpan-Z.
No you'll never make a monkey out of me!
Oh my god, I was wrong.
It was Earth all along.
You finally made a monkey
Yes, we finally made a monkey
Yes, you finally made a monkey out of me!
I love you Dr. Zaius.!

Some don't last for much too long and some leave us tragically

Talk about incoherency in America.

Some of my fellow undergraduates followed the escapades of the Music Television Network a bit too closely back in 1998. Apparently the network felt viewers were not as attentive as they had been in the past (back in those Martha Quinn days) and decided that instead of letting the bigwigs behind the scenes hire the next round of talking heads that we Americans could do it for them. A contest! You know, for kids! Everyone who had given up on their MTV would return and collectively we could pluck some cool walking, hip talking schmuck out of obscurity and make him or her popular. By popular, that meant they got to by a Veejay on the cable network for a year. This appealed to the masses for some reason and boys and girls across the county submitted their résumés and their funniest home videos and applications so they could say proudly announce that they had – finally – gotten their MTV.

Closer to home, because some of the DJs needed something to talk about during their breaks, it should come then as little surprise then that this national contest of merit was an easy conversation piece. Some rooted for the blond, others chimed in for the surfer dude, and some liked to think this would all pass as quickly as possible. Oddly enough there were three or four student DJs who really went all out on this, following the statistics and votes and vying for their candidate in the same way they weren’t for the 1998 midterm elections. I mean, more people could name the scarecrow lookin’ kid than any governor or senator.

The scarecrow looking kid for those who have forgotten was Jesse Camp, the one with the ear ring and makeup (and yeah – that’s his own hair).

I’ll freely admit to sacrificing some moments of my life to watch some of the shenanigans unfold and I seem to recall there was some sort of collective “Huh?” from me and others at the radio station when it was announced that the “normal” looking guy (with a “normal” sounding name, no less: Dave) had lost out to...well, the other guy (the other guy who didn’t always appear to get “it,” the guy who seldom seemed to know where he was, the guy who probably was not the poster child example that the bigwigs originally had in mind). But so goes viewer voting. In the end, Jesse was America’s sweetheart, Dave was left scratching his head, MTV had found ratings gold, the radio station promptly forgot the entire ordeal, I prepared to graduate, and everyone who didn’t vote for Jesse learned they would have to put up with him for a year or so.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise then when it was announced Jesse was releasing an album. By this time I was off to graduate school, but I know that during my year as station manager that radio station didn’t get a copy of Jesse & The 8th Street Kidz. Knowing some of the people I worked with, they would have probably sent the album back.

I would have agreed. Send it back, man, send it back.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Wasted Youth
(Jesse Camp/Share Ross/Alex Kniepkamp/Bam Ross/Jo Almeida/Ric Browde)
Jesse Camp
From the album Jesse & The 8th Street Kidz
1999

Skunked out into the night
Splitting home to go dig on the street
Sick of all the same ole hassles + drills & copz on their bullshit beats
But with my virgin veins
And all my growing pains
The myths of street kid living
Didn't match the shit I was givin'
Ain't no noddin' off on dreams
Sleepin' in reality

Wasted youth
It ain't wasted on me
Set me free
You are my destiny

Taken in by all the older kidz
Who lived it all way before me
Some don't last for much too long
And some leave us tragically
Cause when you're gettin too old
And your habit takes hold
You start to lose your twinkling smile
You know it's all the same trap
I wanna hear your dumb rap
You live in the same shit as we do
I don't need your denial

Wasted youth
You ain't wasted on me
Set me free
You are my destiny

Feelin so slow
Feelin so small
Guess they were right
We were destined to fall

We're fallin' lower + lower + lower till we ain't nowhere at all
You know I think we lost our minds out there
Fallen face down into their dirt
Cause it's too easy too (sic) shut yourself on down
Succomb to all their pain and hurt
But I was born a free man
Won't slam no cuffz on my hands
And I ain't gonna turn on the kidz that helped me out
Cause we ain't your victims no more
Without your spike slammin sore
Wasted youth?
That ain't us thatz your own damn miss

Wasted youth
You ain't wasted on me
You ain't our destiny
Set us free

Flyin' high

- - - - - - - - - - - -

We’d like to acknowledge http://discog.fleetwoodmac.net/ as the source of this week’s album information and lyrics. Those details are usually easy to come by but this week’s entry proved a worthwhile chore. Thankfully, the site that bills itself as “Everything Fleetwood Mac” has a special place for the 8th Street Kidz, if only because Stevie Nicks contributes vocals on portions of the album.

Ouch.

I like to dream...about flying around in a space machine

I've mentioned the playlists that we were supposed to (more or less) follow for each music shift. There were always slight deviations to the list when it came to substituting a requested song or the chance that a CD was missing. This practice generally wasn't frowned upon, unless the DJ took it upon himself to revamp the entire three hours of music.

So it was with some delight that I was allowed to deviate from the playlist on a night in October. It was Halloween night and the idea was that the "regular" three hours of music would "dress up" as a Halloween-themed hour – though it quickly expanded from sixty minutes to a rogue three-hours of God-only knows what and, more so, why.

It started innocently enough with the Springsteen track, Brilliant Disguise. I thought that this might clue listeners that we were going off on a different tangent – especially since we didn't play a lot of Springsteen during the modern rock shifts, let alone classic rock shifts (we would have done more, but all we had was that insufficient "Greatest Hits" album). From there it went downhill slowly: R.E.M.'s Strange, Devil's Haircut by Beck, "Hell-o" by Poe, Seven Mary Three, surely a Halloween-inspired parody by Weird Al, maybe the Prodigy, and, of course, close to midnight was the obligatory title track from Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Leading up to this moment of debatable "scary" music I had noticed a rather odd track arrive on our weekly preview discs. The song was Magic Comet Ride, a parody of Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride, with new lyrics by Bob Rivers. The music director hadn't added the track into rotation for a few reasons, among them being the staid-and-true excuse that it didn't fit the sound of the station. Of course, the subject matter might have left a bad taste in someone's mouth, seeing how the subject matter dealt with the recently deceased Heaven's Gate group and the Hale-Bopp comet.

But it was Halloween and I figured it might fly under the radar (heh-heh) so I gave it a spin. As soon as it was over I got the first calls asking just what the hell that was – "that was funny – play it again." No, we're not going to play that again tonight, but we might again in a few days so (I said chirpily), "thanks for listening...stay tuned!"

In the interest of keeping this short, no, we didn't play it again anytime soon. The song didn't appear on my official playlist and because no one cataloged it in the computer system, it would have been mildly difficult to locate without going through all the CDs in the control room. It wasn't until the next April that I remembered it existed and snuck it into someone's playlist.

It didn't seem to have the impact then that it did during Halloween but still garnered some strange looks and laughs. Though they might have been geared more toward the DJ on duty than the music he was playing – I don't remember.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Magic Comet Ride
(Dennis Amero/Bryant, Joe/Ben Karlstrom/O'Neill, Spike/Bob Rivers)
Bob Rivers
From the album The Best of Twisted Tunes, Vol. 1
1997

I like to dream
Yes, yes
About flying around in a space machine
When a big blue ball appears in the night
Our leader says that the time is right
Hale Bopp draws near
Clean the house and pack that gear

Well UFO is right behind
Why don't you come with me boys and girls
On a magic comet ride
Well UFO's got a extra seat
Why don't you take a trek with me?
Beam us up we'll visit ET

Grab a ride girl
Say good bye world
Let Hale Bopp take you away

Last night I packed a travel sack
And said goodbye on video tape
Before the ship could come for me
Some witch doctor had to take my nuts away
I donned a gown
Brand new shoes from Niketown

Well you won't know if you stay behind
Why don't you come with me cyber geek
On a magic comet ride
Well follow Doe and you will see
Why don't you go to sleep with me?
This plastic bag will set you free

Say goodbye world
Log your last girl
Let the ship take you away

Well UFO is right behind
Why don't you come with me boys and girls
On a magic comet ride
Well UFO's got an extra seat
Why don't you take a trek with me?
Beam us up we'll visit ET

Another prop has occupied my time

Into the Music Library appeared a peculiar album one day. Upon its cover were spacemen, two, with keyboards. Displayed in a font that looked as futuristic as the two spacemen didn't were the words, "The Moog Cookbook." Curiosity reared its head and listening instigated soon thereafter. Our lives were more or less the same after that moment.

I've always gotten a kick out of musicians revamping a song in a style or format far from the conceived version. Think Pat Boone in his metal mood. Hence, the Moog Cookbook was right up my alley.

From what we were able to glean from the liner notes and the accompanying press notes in the package (yes, we actually received the full album in the mail; we couldn't get the popular stuff that all the kids loved but we got these guys...), the "band" of Meco Eno and Uli Nomi performed a number of popular 90s alternative tracks exclusively on 70s era Moog analog synthesizers. In reality, it was Brian Kehew and Roger Manning Jr. (think Jellyfish and Imperial Drag, respectively) paying tribute to the beloved instrument of yesteryear.

Now while we did play some pretty outrageous stuff from time to time (Tribal Life comes to mind), there wasn't any way that anything on this disc would get played on the air. Why? It didn't fit. That would have been the usual way of thinking of some of the conservative student directors. I mean, it was a nice novelty to share with others in the office, but it didn't need to be played on the air.

You know we did, though. There were, thankfully, people who liked to keep things light and throw the listening audience a curveball once in a while. John Fletcher probably played this on the Wednesday night music show, and I remember our station manager, Martin Manning, was known to borrow it from the station office to “study” the tracks in his office. Tracks like a trippy Smells Like Teen Spirit, Black Hole Sun done up with a pseudo-salsa beat, and Green Day’s Basket Case done up in such a sunny, smarmy 70s pastiche that you almost forget the semi-serious rant of the lyrics. There was also, most memorable for us, a version of R.E.M.'s The One I Love performed in a smarmy lounge style. After its brief usage during a few rock shifts it became a popular item in the production rooms, where we'd milk the tracks for use as bed music, for use in liners and station promos, and essentially for any use that would that would get the music on the air in some veiled form or fashion. And we did, too, but not as often as the group probably wished.

We actually received a lot of albums like this that never received any full time exposure, but rather were kept in the music library in a plastic bin marked "Production Music." If you needed something that sounded both strangely familiar and strangely foreign, chances are that production music (sometimes called “closet music” because it was only used in those closet-sized production rooms) would fit the bill. And this album fit it pretty well.

While their first album focused on 90s alternative hits, Moog Cookbook returned to surprise most everyone two years later with a sophomore album that googily moogilied a handful of well-known classic rock songs. Ten years on, I wonder if they’re up for a third?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
The One I Love
(Bill Berry/Peter Buck/Mike Mills/Michael Stipe)
The Moog Cookbook
From the album The Moog Cookbook
1995

This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love

Fire (she's comin down on her own, now)

This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one Ive left behind
Another prop has occupied my time
This one goes out to the one I love