Happy birthday to the most wonderful one in the world.

Next year we’ll spend it together happy and in the same place, wherever that place may be.

Split Enz
I Got You, 1980

Happy other birthday, my love. It’s been rather nice not getting drunk with you these past five years.

And speaking of anniversaries…

The new Pittsburgh Magazine has a blurb about an upcoming Kid Rock show where he’s described as an “Alternative/Southern rocker”. Ahem. I’ll ignore the fact that he’s actually from Michigan, but using the term “alternative” to describe Kid Rock is a little like calling Wal-Mart an exclusive boutique. Kid Rock is about as mainstream (not to mention talentless, irritating, boring…) as it gets.

But I guess that’s pretty much true of just about everything that labels itself “alternative” nowadays. I’m a middle-aged guy who doesn’t really even follow new music all that closely anymore. If someone like me has heard of every act in Billboard’s “Top Ten Alternative” chart, there is absolutely nothing alternative about it. Yes, I understand that there are actual alternatives to “alternative” but I’m talking about the genre which is now little more than a marketing term and pretty much consists of three types of music:

1. Over-aggressive metal-inspired schlock that is more or less the same crap Korn was doing badly more than a decade ago,
2. White trash rap-funk-metal that pales in comparison to what the Red Hot Chili Peppers were doing two decades ago, and,
3. Bland rehashes of the Foo Fighters (and I include the actual Foo Fighters in this group as well, since they now sound pretty much like a bland rehash of themselves).

Anyway, as long as I’m ranting on pop culture, here are three more thoughts:

• If your radio station plays a jingle that goes “cool songs in the morning on K-104.7” and then follows it with, say, “Faith” by George Michael, people are bound to ask “What’s wrong with this picture?”
• There is no such thing as a “gas saving SUV” and no radio commercial will ever convince me otherwise.
• Unless they go on a shooting spree, Jon and Kate will never be newsworthy*. Neither will Perez Hilton. And that’s good.

*Yes, I’m admitting here that about two weeks ago, until we both read Leonard Pitts’ column on the subject**, neither the hubby nor I had a clue who the fuck Jon and Kate were as they glared at us from tabloids in the supermarket.

**I’m also admitting here that Leonard Pitts is kind of my favorite newspaper columnist these days. But that’s off-topic.