Party on, Wayne!

So, speaking of grocery stores and iPods, I was listening to a playlist last night that I had named “Party Mix 1.” Couldn’t remember having put it together, then it dawned on me — iTunes now has a function it calls “Party Mix,” which is just a slightly fancier version of shuffle mode that actually lets you see the upcoming songs. At some point the listing must have pleased me especially, because I took a list of 20 songs and put them into this playlist. But I listened to it last night and just had to wonder, what the f kind of party would this be, exactly? It starts out with surf classic “Comanche,” okay — then goes into “Gorilla You’re a Desperado,” a lesser Zevon work, followed by a song that should never follow anything (or lead into anything, either), “Couldn’t You Keep That to Yourself” by Ute Lemper. You just have to take Ute on her own terms; doesn’t playlist well with others. Then “Can You Be True” by Elvis Costello, in the same vein (not surprising, he wrote both). Then it goes into “Sliver” by Nirvana, Cracker’s lugubrious “Rainy Days and Mondays,” and Nick Lowe’s “I’m A Mess,” and it’s really just time to leave this party and find some anisette to take the mood down to the basement, curl up on a bed of nails with some Ibsen, put on some Tom Waits and wait for death to come. Thinking I may need to retitle it, something subtle like “Never Play In the Grocery Store!”