Tuesday, July 1, 2014

I Can Commit Mass Murder That Day If Need Be

Dear Friends,

  The Hard Taco song for July is called, "Sharkopotamus Rex." I wanted to capture that unpolished rock energy of a teenage garage band without having to stand around in a nasty garage. To that end, we recorded this one up in the studio, as usual, but left the garage door open. The musty odor inspired us to play louder and sloppier.  

  While I have been recording loud sloppy songs for a very long time, this is only the 146th monthly Hard Taco digest. The first mass email went out in June 2002, and it was exceptionally uninteresting. Prior to that, I would pair each new song with a humorous 140-character tweet. This predated Twitter, of course, so I had to type the message on my computer, print it on a dot matrix printer, make 200 copies with carbon paper, rubber cement them to cassette tapes, and send one to everyone on my mailing list via Pony Express. 

  As a throwback, here are my tweets from 2001.

January 2001 New song, “Be In My Video.” New president sworn in! Seems like a bright guy. Withholding judgment until I see what he looks like in Doonesbury.

February 2001 New song, “25.” Bachelor party this month. Don’t want a stripper, so it will be at the zoo. As compromise with best man, camel will wear tasseled pasties on its humps.

March 2001 New song, “Frankenstein Overture.” Getting married! Also, that movie about Pearl Harbor is coming out! So many things to be excited about.

April 2001 New song, “Monkey Business.” What is the difference between "sewage" and "raw sewage?" I want to make sure I use the correct term when I call State Farm.

May 2001 New song, “Paper Cranes.” If I ever go to prison, the first thing I’ll do is find the one guy who is more of a nebbish then me and make fun of his nose incessantly.

June 2001 New song, “Qwerty.” You heard it here first. Michael Bay will win Best Director for “Pearl Harbor,” and Best Picture will go to touching Black/Paltrow feature, “Shallow Hal.”

July 2001 New song, “Something Else.” Somebody named O.B.L. sent me a link to this doodle poll.  I’m on a busy rotation in September, so I’m just going to click "If Need Be" for most days.

August 2001 New song, “Tapalong.” With one month of medical internship behind me, I am very grateful to be an Earth doctor.  On Jupiter, the average workday is 93.9 hours.

September 2001 New Song, “The Gloaming.” There is a Magma Bar in Copenhagen. The room is kept just over 1000 degrees Celsius so the bar, table, stools, and glasses are all made of magma. Don't people get hot?

October 2001 New Song, “The Hunt.” One cool thing about DVDs is that you can turn on Spanish subtitles. My new favorite Disney characters are Cristobal Robin and Juanita Pooh.

November 2001 New song, “Ugly.” Post-Halloween reflection... The creepiest cemeteries have headstones at angles. Headstones that are perpendicular to the ground are more somber, less creepy.

December 2001 New song, “Wildflowers.” If you ask me, the best first names for babies are cities (i.e. Madison, Austin, Stockholm) or 19th century jobs (i.e. Cooper, Husker, Flogger.) The best middle name for a baby is Junior.

With warmest regards,
Zach