And now, we will proceed past the Half-Assed Political Commentary exhibit-- Bobby! The sign says DO NOT FEED THE PUNDIT!--and on to the Hall of Noises In My Head. Move along, children...
For the past week I have had "(I've Got A) Golden Ticket" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing my head. Especially the bit where Jack Albertson and Peter Ostrum sing it's a gooolden daaay as they're dancing around and Peter's voice is wretchedly off-key. They said they were going to redo that in post-production, you know, but they never did. Bastards.
The other song I've had running through my head is from a cartoon I saw in Switzerland. It was also related to chocolate, and had an endlessly repeating chorus that included the basso-repetition of the phrase choco-choco in the background. The cartoon showed a black kid and a white kid in school-uniformish attire--blue suits, white shirts and red striped ties. They were on a beach, jumping around and encouraging all the beach goers to go choco-choco along with them. It looked to me like the suited duo were trying to sell some new chocolate confection that they had invented, but that was because I thought that this was an actual cartoon, with a bit of plot.
But it wasn't. The quick acquisition of some Google knowledge has revealed that what looked like a badly-animated Saturday morning cartoon incident was actually a video, for these guys: Soul Control. They're from Germany, which explains why the song involves counting in Spanish. The music that I found so repetitive and juvenile that I couldn't change the channel comes on a Maxi-CD with a Single Version, an Extended Version, a "Soul Control having fun with Ersin & Börek" version, a Sexy Dance Mix version, and a Fiesta version.
And yes, there is a dance that goes with it too, which, I now understand, is what the suited cartoon kids were doing as they jumped frenetically around the cartoon beach: hip swing, clap clap jump jump, hitch hiker, slap slap, rolly polly, holly molly...I'm not kidding. There are 13 separate moves.
This is one thing that really is America's fault. The Mindless Summer Dance Hit With Accompanying Choreography is our cultural demon-child.
If you're one of those unfortunate souls who has Real Player, you can see a video for yourself, and have this irritating, mindless song stuck in your head, too. No .MPG or .MP3, I'm afraid...Germany is the land of Real Player and .RAM files, which is strangely appropriate.
As is, I suppose, the fact that I've had two songs about chocolate looping in my head since I got back from Zurich. I brought back over a kilogram of the stuff in assorted styles and bar sizes, which we've whittled away to a few random squares of various chocolately hues over the past week. My eyes are brown now.
Between that and the kilogram of cheese I smuggled back (500 grams each of Gruyère and Emmenthaler...the good stuff, man, this will get you off), I'm fairly sure that I've added a full millimeter of tasty fat to the inner walls of all my critical blood vessels.
Mmm...tasty fat...
