Housekeeping: I’m putting the finishing touches on what I’m calling my “Hot Car Summer: Mixtape” / playlist. I’ll probably share it here next week. It’s been a ton of fun to put together, mostly because it’s largely made up of songs I’ve loved at one point or another that my wife has gradually discovered or rediscovered via whatever I’m playing while I’m cooking, picking her up from work, etc.
When I’m playing old favorites around my wife, there are, inevitably, lots of, “Wait, what did he just say?” moments. I’m a fan of high brow/low brow stuff. I’m not shy about it either. Which, neither is she, so between listening to Circle Jerks and Miss Kittin together, everything is more or less safe so long as it’s smart.
One night, 6 months or sometime within the past year, we’d just finished a lovely sushi dinner at our favorite local spot. We were laughing for the millionth time at how we couldn’t believe the place was even there. The block it’s on used to be nothing but Italian restaurants in an Italian neighborhood. The road even has a red stripe down the middle because “tomatoes.”
The evolution has turned it into a very cool downtown food scene where you can get great sushi, solid ramen, upscale reservation only dining, super bougie pizza, craft beer, quality Mexican, and more. We were talking about this as we walked to the car. The sake wasn’t hurting either.
It was cold outside, that much I know, because the windows were up. We got in the car and turned it on, and my phone did one of those DJ iPhone deals where it started playing a random song from a random playlist.
The radio was low enough to be there without being too low to hear. We were smiling and sitting, I was checking my mirrors before pulling out onto the street, when I realized what song was on and thought - “this’ll be interesting.”
“Did he just say ‘gotta get a b**** and get my d*** sucked?’” was uttered.
Why yes, yes he did.
Oh did we laugh. She rewound it back. Turned it up.
“Gangsters AND strippers, huh.”
“Yeah. Sir Too Short. That’s how he rolls.”
“Kind of a jam, though, right? Like, this is FUN.”
“I mean, does it get better than this? You know what - this is probably the most punk thing you’ve heard in a long time. Short just goes straight for it. The sheer audacity of this, on top of the energy…”
“The most punk thing I’ve heard in a while? I guess, I guess I can’t really argue with that.”
“It’s like sushi in Pittston. It’s just the way it is now.”
We played the song again. It’s a regular play in the car. And every time we go for sushi we laugh about the time it came on.
