Pandora's Box

I've been listening to Pandora internet radio a lot lately because I'm kind of sick to death of my iTunes selections on my iPhone (it's not a large enough drive to hold all one bajillion of my songs) and because I don't necessarily want to own every song I want to hear.  Sometimes, I just want to hear a song because I haven't heard it in awhile and go on with life, you know?

I try to choose channels that are a little bit different from time to time just to see what will come up; I once chose the "Cake" channel for a walk and it ended up being a pretty awesome trip down the memory lane of my Freshman year in college.  Lately I've been choosing songs because I am hoping the song I want to hear will actually come up - and if you use Pandora, you know that's a lot of times very wishful thinking.  

But I heard Stevie Nicks cover a Tom Petty song a few weeks ago while Janice and Karlene were visiting, and have had old Tom on the brain since then, so I decided to try out the Tom Petty channel on our way to Alabama Friday and just hold on for the ride.

It was a damn good ride.

There were, as usual, far more songs by artists who are NOT Tom Petty than Tom Petty songs, but they were all mostly related via time period or musical genre, so I enjoyed almost everything.  There were lots and lots of songs by the Eagles (which makes me pause to make a mental note to try searching the Witchy Woman channel sometime near Halloween), and songs by the Rolling Stones (a connection I didn't totally get, but whatever, they played Honky Tonk Women and I love that song) mixed in with a little Skynrd and Fleetwood Mac for good measure.

But they played all the good Tom Petty songs, like Free Fallin' and Runnin' Down a Dream and one of my all-time favorites:  Yer So Bad.  Hearing that song made me start thinking about singing, and how I'd like to go out to do karaoke some time after a few drinks and just make a total fool of myself having a good time.  And then I started thinking about how much fun it would be if I could just record an album of cover songs.  My favorite songs, all in one album, as sung by me.  I mean, with Autotune, I might just end up a pop sensation with my cover of Yer So Bad.  Who knows? I mean, I did actually sing a lot as a young person, and I'm not so sure that with some help getting my voice back in shape I couldn't be a decent singer again.

I know, I know...now you're picturing me as a Mickey Mouse Club-type singer, but I promise, it was just church stuff, never anything commercial.  But I was the go-to youth soloist for many years, which is embarrassing now only because I never developed that gift and now it's fallen into disrepair.  Makes me feel a little like the guy in the parable who buried his money in the sand.  But enough about that.  I was talking about Tom Petty.

So listening to all this Tom Petty got me remembering the Tom Petty concert I went to my Freshman year of college, which I had flatly forgotten about until this week.  He was the artist brought in to perform for Homecoming, so I skipped my German class (Es tut mir leid) and stood in line at the box office in the Ferg to get tickets for me and my two best high school friends so we could all go together.  I got a friend who was older than me and in a frat to buy us some cheap-ass jug of wine, so we all three got totally hammered, walked from my apartment to the coliseum - which was a solid 2+ miles away - got into our seats, listened to the opening act - which was Taj Mahal - and then proceeded to watch as 3/4 of the audience blazed up like it was 4:20 instead of 9:00pm.

And of course, you know the old saying, "When in the colesieum..."

It was good to be young and stupid.

BUT THEN - One of my two friends had gotten a little too tipsy on her jug of wine and commenced vomitting.

Everywhere.

And being the awesome friends that we were, my other friend and I decided that rather than leave the concert, we would just move a couple rows back and let her enjoy the concert in her passed-out state near her own vomit puddle while we continued to watch the concert.

Oh yeah - we were up for Humanitarians of the Year that year.

That sounds seriously bad all typed out for the Internet to read, but hey - things is things and all you can do is say you're sorry and move on, right?  This was 16 years ago, after all.

Besides, she had once vomited directly into my face, so I think that about evened the score.

I do not know how the three of us walked all the way back home.

Now that I think of it, I don't even know if we DID walk all the way back home...

The moral of the story is don't drink a jug of wine and then blaze up at a concert you want to remember.

NOW:  Back to Tom Petty on Pandora.

So then, as I was driving, I started thinking about how Tom Petty reminded me of Dwight Yoakam, and how not only did they seem kind of similar musically - despite one being country and the other being Tom Petty - they kind of had the same kind of face:  You know, all kind of droopy dog inbred redneck (sorry boys, I just gotta call 'em like I see 'em.)  And then I thought it would be neat if they would record an album together called like, "Brothers from Other Mothers" and they could do some duets and then maybe each record their own version of a couple of songs...I don't know, it's a long drive to Alabama and I get bored after Lilah goes into her own little iPad movie world or falls asleep.

But even BETTER would be if they made a movie together where they were brothers, because it would just be really believable.

You're thinking about it, right?

Here's the proof:

Dwight

Tom

Tell me THAT shit ain't uncanny.

And so the whole entire moral of this story is that sometimes, Pandora Internet Radio is really more of a Pandora's Box than you could imagine, because look what all it opened up in my head.

Sorry about that.