AUBREEVISION - Observations from the far side of the dial

Members of the women's gym I work at often ask me if the round-the-clock beat-heavy music drives me nuts. The answer: not at all. How can anyone be anything but happy when endlessly steeped in 160-beat-per-minute power pop? When the gym's empty it's like having my own private dance club. I do my cleaning duties or work out at warp speed while listening to "It's a Beautiful Life" five times in a row, just because I can. Granted, all gym mixes aren't made equal; give me The Best of Dance over Beach Workout any day. The former makes me absolutely giddy thanks to tracks like London Beat's "I've Been Thinking About You," Ace of Base's "The Sign," "Everybody Dance Now" by C&C Music Factory and -- the ultimate -- Haddaway's "What is Love." I watched A Night at the Roxbury over the weekend and the song gained a whole new significance; I have an overwhelming urge to do that crazy sideways head-bob every time I hear it. Associations like this are why members catch me grinning for no apparent reason whilst Swiffering the laminate. The very act of Swiffering, in fact, once struck me as funny when it coincided with Devo's "Whip It," a.k.a. the Swiffer commercial song, blaring from the stereo. Not sure if the women working out noticed the parallel or just thought "There she goes with that grinning again."

"If you see a dirty floor, you must Swiff it..."

When I got home from work last night Clem-cat was silhouetted in the patio doors, patiently awaiting my return. When I used to work evening shifts exclusively, I could count on seeing his little cat-face pressed against the glass when I walked up the driveway. I should explain that he's a very dog-like cat -- he fetches balls and plastic springs, drools excessively and has absolutely none of the independence or aloofness typically associated with cats. Au contraire -- he gloms (fun word) onto me like a furry little leech at every opportunity, drooling and purring his odd huffing purr. Gemma, on the other hand, is a cat's cat -- cuddly when it suits her, convinced of her magnificence and a sucker for a laser pointer. But they're both devoted little creatures in their own separate ways and sometimes all it takes to lift your mood is knowing that you're needed by another living creature. I once saw a great quotation that put it all in perspective -- something like "To you, your pet is part of your world. To your pet, you are their world."

Yesterday I made a point of watching The O.C. because last night's episode was being touted as the "Beckisode," featuring five tracks from Mr. Hansen's newest album. Oooooh, that Beck. His waifish blonde looks and musical genius reduce me to quivers. Mutations is a definite desert-island staple. I used a couple of lines from "We Live Again" in the intro to my thesis:

"Over the hills a desolate wind
Turns shit to gold and blows my soul crazy"

In case you're wondering, I loopholed my way out of the usual footnoted nightmare by playing the English Major card and writing a 30-poem collection for my honours thesis. Hence my getting away with such decidedly un-academic fare as "shit."

But anyway, back to the Beckisode. The Beck soundbites weren't very long but at least there were several. One song struck me with its un-Becklike lyrical stylings, featuring the line "true love will find you." My first thought was that Beck's dumbed it down -- this is the man who favoured lyrics like "Treated you like a rusty blade/A throwaway from an open grave/Cut you loose from the chain gang/And let you go." "True love will find you" sounds pretty trite by comparison. But then it occurred: this is a man who's just gotten married and had his first child. With numerous albums under his belt and longstanding critical acclaim, he has nothing to prove. Maybe this lyrical hopefulness is where the Beck-man's at -- newly peaceful and found by true love. It's a simple sentiment, but is that necessarily bad? I'll have to buy the album and give it a listen before I decide.



One final observation. I presume The O.C.'s Peter Gallagher is supposed to be attractive but I just can't see anything but eyebrows:




He reminds me of my dear Ron Moss, a.k.a. The Worst Actor in the World, a.k.a "Ridge" on The Bold & The Beautiful, my guilty-pleasure soap: