Song Challenge 19: Adult-Contemporary Guilty Pleasures

edited by ANDREW HICKS

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Chicago's "Look Away" video: Hot chick. Fiery explosion. Still somehow boring.

ANDREW HICKS
Okay, I’ll go first. One of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures is Chicago‘s “Look Away.” It’s a Diane Warren song, even (that lady has written some of the worst pop ballads of all-time and become a billionaire in the process), and I love its maudlin gaudiness. The video, on the other hand, looks like an awful version of the depressing first half of a Folgers commercial with pyrotechnics tossed in.

ANNE GARDNER
What does “adult contemporary” mean exactly? Music that appeals to adults or music made by adults? Or both?

ERIC DOHMAN
Any music where you can replace the word “baby” with “Jesus” and it still sounds like it fits.

T. ALLAN CHRISTOPHER
The narrowed-down definition would be: music by people our age for people our age. However, you can look at “past adult contemporary” music as well, which was music for peers in that time period. Think of softer, more R+B-driven non-bubblegum pop. Michael Bolton, Kenny G, Amy Grant‘s secular stuff, Elton John, Billy Joel, etc.”

ERIC DOHMAN
‎“Look away, Jesus, look away…

This Week in J.Miz, Volume 7

by J.MIZ
edited by ANDREW HICKS

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A Hispanic Fourth of July celebration includes ornate costuming, delicious carne asada and absolutely no gunfire.

TUESDAY

• My name is Jennifer, and I am addicted to introductions.

• Anything over six degrees of Kevin Bacon would be entirely too hot.

• Modern vernacular has made it so I cannot be merry and carefree without being homosexual.

• My new boyfriend kept yelling out other girls’ names during sex. I FINALLY sat him down and said, “Look, What’s-Your-Name…”

• I considered formally calling myself “agnostic,” but I’m still on the fence.

 

MONDAY

• This July 4th, I will remember our forefathers and all those who have died in the name of pyromania.

• Spending the day barbecuing, enjoying the sun and drinking good wine makes me grateful for the little things, like being white.

• Fourth of July reminds me that I truly am free… to dress like a proud American slut.

• I love living in a Hispanic neighborhood during Fourth of July! The smell of carne asada, the mariachi music, the knowledge that those noises in the distance are fireworks, not gunshots. Because Mexicans stab each other.

• If I ever started doing heroin, I’d go to rehab immediately. I don’t know of any other place so full of people who would help me get more heroin.

• There are times I have to dumb myself down or, as I like to call it, be a man.

 

SUNDAY

• I’ve decided to keep a safe distance from my boyfriend until he can love incommunicably.

• Every time I wish on a star, I realize how insignificant it is to wish on stars.

• I like my boyfriend like I like my coffee: First thing in the morning, hot as hell and then out of my sight for the rest of the day.

• I have yet to fuck the couch in my new place, but it seems like a nice enough couch.

• I finally decided to say yes to my boyfriend’s marriage proposal! That’s how much I love open bars.

 

SATURDAY

• At Walmart, I was next to a guy in a riding cart. Mentally, I began to race him. I won. Nice try, Americans with Disabilities Act, but functioning legs are still better.

• According to the CDC, unprotected sex may result in chronic, terminal acronyms.

• My boyfriend is a real stickler for me using forethought in my word choices. So I always stop and think seriously before I call him a bitch.

• My younger boyfriend gets sick over the age difference. I’ve learned nothing helps his huge headache more than two “big boy” asprins.

• I will not say “fuck you,” but I will say “fuck thee.”

 

FRIDAY

• I’ve thought about getting a second cat, but I don’t want to be known as the “lady who loves cats.” Instead, I got a rooster.

• I don’t know about you, but techno music speaks to me. It’s in my ear, saying, “I’m an awkward, middle-aged white guy in a suit, drinking vodka and Vitamin Water.”

• My boyfriend and I have opposite sleep schedules, but we accept it. A small thing like that isn’t enough to break us of our respective cocaine and Xanax habits.

• A career in stand-up would greatly interfere with my current one, which is fundamentally based on “lay-down.”

• I completely understood my boyfriend’s Oedipus issues the moment I saw the way he interacts with his mom as she blows him.

• Have you ever smelled so bad you had to admit it publicly on the Internet?

• I haven’t heard from my boyfriend today. Duct tape is AWESOME!

 

THURSDAY

• I always wanted to date an amputee with a speech impediment so he could tell me he “nubs” me.

• The only issue I have with my childhood is them calling it “rape.” Do you know how long it took me to seduce my uncle?!

• Society sends too many mixed messages to women. We are pressured to have children but are arrested if we borrow them.

• Like a sand through the hourglass, a teeny tiny grain of cock. #GuysIDoNotMiss

 

WEDNESDAY

• Einstein proved that elevated clocks move faster due to less gravity. Addicts have proven that, when they are truly higher, gravity has flavor.

• To those who don’t find humor in scientific jokes: I’m sure Jesus loves the shit out of you.

• Friends do not let friends buy coke at full price.

• My boyfriend’s bachelor’s in theater direction was useless until he found work in the porn industry cock blocking.

• No matter how many times you change the lie, it still doesn’t become the truth.

• My boyfriend is so dumb and naive, I have him convinced < 3 is a math equation I post on facebook to my gay best friend Steve.

• My boyfriend commited suicide on my last birthday. I know, I know. You’re thinking, how will I EVER get a better present than that?!

From the Mind of J.Miz

Yoko Ono, what HAVEN'T you ruined?

by J.MIZ
edited by ANDREW HICKS

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Chicken-murdering tornados, the Royal Wedding, Bin Laden and Donald Trump. With all the conspiracy theorists out there, why is no one seeing these eerie coincidences and asking, “Where the fuck is Yoko Ono?!”

If you let him, my boyfriend would level the world, start it all over his way, and we’d invent alcohol, Xanax and AA simultaneously.

I had an ex who liked me to say how “big” he was during sex. I had no problem with that until i mistook a polygraph machine for some kinky shit. Grown men crying ain’t a sexy look.

I went on a dinner/first date last week. Even before dessert, he asked me if I wanted kids. I thought, Not till I see you pay our check, buddy! Then I thought, Shit, maybe he’s down for some “practice” tonight. So I answered, “Wow, that’s such a refreshing question to be asked by a guy. Let’s get the bill and discuss this over drinks. Teeheehee!” SUCKER!

My ex-boyfriend called me last night to see if I wanted to fool around. I said, “Isn’t that basically all we did for two years?” He then offered to do oral, and I told him no again. As a last ditch effort, he said he’d do “that thing you like.” I told him, “Fucking other guys? What do you think your call interrupted?!”

My cat Dwight is hating me pretty hard right now, for what he calls Showing Off and what I call Making Myself A Sammich.

I have the volume turned low on the ‘puter and could swear I just heard Robert Smith beautifully sing the word “tits.”

If life was like Facebook, my “single” vagina would “report abuse.”

My ex-boyfriend was really into me staring him in the eyes and giving him handy j’s. It was really uncomfortable to laugh so hard with him gawking at me like that.

The Mother’s Day photo campaign on Facebook is a bit insensitive to people whose moms may have died. It’s more of a smack in the face than Facebook denying the pic of my mom from a porn shoot she did in the ’80s.

The last guy I slept with took so long to finish, by the time he was done, I was already fucking the next guy.

My friend called me today to see how I was. I answered the phone solely so I could make him jealous that I was listening to Hall and Oates.