Top 10 Hurricane Songs for Douches

While the Red Sox rolled over Texas these past three nights, swinging perhaps the hottest bats of the season, and Wakefield is going for his 200th win in Fenway tonight against an Oakland team that gave up 22 runs (that's not a typo) against the loathsome Spank-jobs yesterday, all this good baseball news is being railroaded by this god-forsaken hurricane business.

As the fear-mongers in the media are already busy beating their drums, telling people to strap themselves to their beds like the girl in The Exorcist and buy out the stocks of bottled water at BJ's wholesale store---seeing my emotional age is roughly 14, I couldn't resist the BJ's reference---you're also starting to see Facebook users posting links to songs that reference hurricanes and storms. Please, folks, resist the urge. By posting any of the following ten songs, you are stamping your own "I'm a douche" certificate.

I posted this earlier today on Facebook and need to credit the people who came up with some of these titles. So without further adieu, here are The Top 10 Hurricane Songs that will assure you're a douche if you play or post them anytime in the next three days.

10. "Come Monday" by Jimmy Buffett. Given the timeline of the storm, and Buffett's ties to all things nautical, you're not only a douche, but an ass-hat for this one.

9. "Riders in the Storm" by The Doors. Jim Morrison gets my vote for one of the biggest DB's in rock and roll history, and if you think you're creating a storm-worthy ambiance with that cryptic little keyboard riff in the beginning, you're beyond my help.

8. "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger. Listen, Forrest Gump owns that song, so unless you're Forrest Gump or Bubba the shrimp guy, please, don't do it. (Diane Morin)

7. "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" or "Who'll Stop the Rain" by CCR. The answers to these questions are, respectively, "Yes" and "I have no clue." Listen, we're all well-aware that it's raining. It's a fucking hurricane!

6. "Come on Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners (changing "Eileen" or "Irene"). This is so douchey, I'm apprehensive to even address it. Listen, if my name was Eileen and you decided to interchangeably call me Irene, I'd fart on your head. (Dave Pichette)

5. "Storm Front" by Billy Joel. Shame on you if you're familiar with this crappy song. Shame on me for being familiar with this crappy song, which was the crappy title track to a crappy album I once owned. Uh-oh, I think I just douched myself.

4. "The Rain Song" or "Fool in the Rain" by Led Zeppelin. If you have to use a hurricane as an excuse to get your "led" out, you're a douche. Non-douches will rock out to Led Zeppelin anytime, anywhere.

3. "Hurricane" by Bob Dylan. If you're posting this song as a witty musical retort to Mother Nature, you clearly never listened to any of the lyrics, and there are about 36,000 words in this beast, and it's not about the weather.

2. "Like a Hurricane" by Neil Young. Whether it's the rock-your-balls-off electric version or the sweet unplugged version Neil plays on the pipe organ, you're cheapening the song by tethering it to weather. Granted, it's not Neil's best simile, but this song kicks ass, so don't ruin it by being a douche.

1. "Rock You Like a Hurricane" by The Scorpions. Seriously, isn't this one pretty self-explanatory?

Does anyone else have songs that I might be missing? Post them in the comments section.

Sports Talk Radio

My wife got in my car the other day, and as we were pulling out of the driveway, she made a face like she had picked up the scent of something decomposing. "What are you listening to?"

"The Sports Hub," I said. "It's a Boston sports talk radio. You know, they talk about the Red Sox and the Bruins and The Patriots and The Celtics."

"They talk about it all day?"

"Yes."

"Don't they ever run out of things to talk about?"

"No," I said, gripping the wheel out of shear frustration that this line of questioning was making it impossible for me to hear what Mazz was saying about John Lackey, the Red Sox starting pitcher that night. "Sports talk radio is a soap opera for males. The story lines are endless."

"I can't believe they talk about sports all day."

"They do," I said and turned up the volume.

My transition into a full-fledged sports talk radio listener has occurred, slowly, over the last year or two. Around five years ago, I dumped listening to music on the morning commute to work in favor of NPR, a move that made me feel old at the time. But now, as a loyal listener of 98. 5 The Sports Hub, I think I can officially include myself in the venerable subclass of Middle-aged Married Man (MMM).

There's no way around it.

Being a MMM isn't as bad as it sounds. Essentially, most men hit an age---circa 35 years-old---where we give up on the whole idea of looking or seeming cool. Blasting music in our cars seems more like a sad attempt at holding on to our younger, wilder selves than a genuine expression of our innate need to rock, so we ditch the tunes, and instead of listening to electric guitar rip through our brains, we want to hear other MMM's with lives more pathetic than our own call into these programs. If you've never listened to sports talk radio, it's worth spending half an hour just hear the one guy---and every show has one---who calls in from his parents' basement, working himself into an apoplectic fit about whether or not the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry is bigger than the Bruins/Canadians rivalry in New England. While most of this manifests from the fact that said caller is 42 and has never touched a bra, it's still great theater.

Now, while not all MMM's like sports, most like talk radio. If you're an MMM and an intellectual, you might choose NPR for your commute, or if you happen to have an extra chromosome, you might listen to conservative talk radio. But a good number of us choose sports. Why? For the very same reason we follow sports teams: It's a diversion from our every day lives, which---let's face it---are no longer filled with parties, wild bars, and different women each weekend.

That is, of course, until we hit our mid-life crisis, somewhere in the vicinity of 45-50 years-old. Then we buy convertibles, drive around blasting Jay-Z, and date girls half our age who likes us only because we pay for everything.

"Are you ever going to call into one of these shows?" My wife asked.

"Maybe," I said, dreaming of a witty comment that would earn me the respect of the talk show hosts Felger and Mazz, or even Toucher and Rich. "Maybe, I will. Maybe someday I will."

We have Nate from Manchester on the line. How's it going, Nate?

Totally distraught

Being kicked in the nuts with a steel-toed boot. Passing urine that burns with the intensity of hell-fire. Stubbing a toe. Accidentally crapping your pants on a first date.

All of this is preferable to watching the Red Sox lose to the Spank-boys.

Make no bones about it, Sox fans, last night's 3-2 loss, with Lester on the hill in Friendly Fenway, was nothing short of catastrophic for a team that has been routinely splitting series with sub-.500 teams for the last two weeks.

Am I overreacting? Of course. Barring some unforeseen atrocity, The Red Sox will make the playoffs, either as the AL East champions or more likely wearing their most comfortable underpants as the wildcard team. I'm fairly confident of this. But the fact that I'm so distraught over last night's loss speaks to my larger point.

There is nothing, nothing worse for Red Sox fans than watching the Yankees beat the Red Sox. My unfettered rancor for the ass-clowns in pinstripes could possibly be the most fervent feeling I possess as a person on this earth, and seeing the Yankees---and by proxy, their fans---experience any kind of joy makes me puke in my mouth. I can't stand seeing a Yankee smile. In my ideal world, every player donning a New York uniform would wear the countenance of eternal suffering, like the inhabitants of Dante's Hell (see above).

Am I overreacting, again? Of course. But this the Red Sox/Yankees, in August, in the middle of a pennant race, no less, and things aren't looking so good right now. With the Dough Boy throwing for the Spanks today and our special $16 million dollars worth of below-average, our (excuse me while I gag thinking about Lackey) "big game pitcher" going for the Sox, I'd say things are looking downright awful.

Having a tooth rot in your mouth. Blowing your nose and discovering viscous blood. Being caught masturbating. Running out of beer.

Yes. It's all preferable to losing to the Yankees.