Cake "Sick Of You"

Homer Simpson once called them the two greatest words in the English language:

De. Fault.

In spite of Homer's claim, it's got to be a little a dispiriting/depressing/embarrassing to win by default.

To be crowned Miss America, like Suzette Charles who won the honor after Vanessa Williams had to relinquish her crown.

To win a playoff slot, despite a losing record, like the 7-9-but-division-winning Seattle Seahawks did in the NFL this year.

To have the Number One record in the country, like Cake, who also have the honor of selling the least amount of records by any band to get to Number One.

It's not a knock on the band. Like most cases of winning by default, it's that the bar has been lowered.

Cake is actually pretty consistent at selling a certain amount of records. But across the board in the music industry, sales have plummeted so far in the last decade and a half, that selling enough records to be Number One in 2011 wouldn't have even gotten you in the Top 10, in 1995.

In keeping with most of this week's posts, which all seem to relate to stories in the news, here's a New York Times story about this post.

Cake "Wheels"

Saturday night, the Mrs. and I had a date to go see the band Cake, a long-time favorite for both of us.

The show was at the Newport Yachting Center, so we decided we'd go out to dinner somewhere near the venue.

We had a hilarious, only-in-Newport type of encounter, while looking for a place to eat. As we strolled the early-evening streets, which were teeming with the well-dressed, the over-dressed, and the showily-dressed wealthy summer crowd, we spied an interesting, upscale looking place that we hadn't seen before. There was a young woman, standing in front, who noted our interest, and asked if we'd like to look at a menu.

I had about 10 seconds to look over the thing and start to think, "A little overpriced, but it could be interesting," before the woman said to us, "If you'd like to join us for dinner, the next available seating is at 10pm tonight."

FIVE HOURS FROM NOW!!!

I just said, "Uh, no thanks." We handed the menu back, and strolled a little further, to a completely unassuming barbecue joint, where we were greeted with laid-back enthusiasm.

We were near the venue, so I was not surprised that there were a whole bunch of folks in the place, who were headed to the Cake show.

But as our meal progressed, something odd developed.

Now, it's no real secret that Newport (not unlike parts of the Vineyard, and Nantucket) is fairly, um, monochomatic.

But suddenly, we were surrounded by white people.

Meaning, there was a group of 20-plus folks, who had picked this restaurant as their meet-up place, and they were all dressed in white. Everybody had a white shirt. And many of them had white pants, or a white skirt. One guy even had a white fedora.

As they were leaving, my wife tapped one of the guys on the shoulder, and asked what the deal was with the group dress code.

He explained, "We just thought it would be fun, if Cake looked out at the audience, and saw our big group all dressed the same, and then (singer) John McCrea could say 'Hey, look. The white people are here!"

Yes, the audience was pretty monochromatic, and even if McCrea didn't see that group, it wouldn't have been inappropriate for him to deliver that line.

Ever been to the site, Stuff White People Like? Let me pitch to them, two new entries: "Newport" and "Cake."

Cibo Matto "Birthday Cake"

I remember thinking this record was super-cool when it came out in 1996. Cute and clever and grooving and hip.

A dozen years later, I kinda think I was acting like a hipster jerk. The phrase that popped to mind as I was listening to this, was “off-key caterwauling” which I believe Mr. Burns used to describe the Beatles.

It’s harmless, but it’s silly to pretend that this is really, really listenable, and more than just a novelty.

I hope to God that when I hit 50, I don’t look back at what I like today and say “Ugh, I had such ‘forty-something’ hipster taste back in 2009”