The R.M.T.C. August '96 Issue
Welcome, one and all to a real journalistic first: The FIRST ANNUAL MANNY AWARDS! “ What the hell is that?” you may ask. Well, I’ll explain, and I’ll be honest with you: I’m deciding right now as I type... I decided that, despite all the frivilous awards shows that already exist, there was a great void amongst said events. Mainly: an awards show that reflected how I feel about things. Now, these are not ‘1996’ awards- most of these are ‘all time’ awards. And there is no real format- as of right now, only music and advertising categories exist, but just about anything that pisses me off qualifies. So let’s go!!! (In the musical categories- particularly Worst Song Titles, you may notice that Country Music has been excluded, as this is intended to be a short piece of journalism, not an directory of all country music.)
Music Awards
Worst Song Lyric of All Time: “Here
I am, standing in circles...” (Eddie Money) Eddie doesn’t write his lyrics.
which is a good thing. I met him at a Dakota show at King’s College back
in 1982, and I’m amazed he can even read them
2nd Worst Song Lyric of All Time:
"Thanks for takin' me, on a one-way trip
to the sun..." (After the Lovin') Sounds like my kind of vacation.
I've been told by reliable sources that the original opening line to this
song was "So I sing to my SHEEP, after the lovin...".
Worst Song Title of All Time:
Born to Be Alive (I don’t know the artist, and I don’t care to.)
Worst Song of All Time:
Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks) What
can you expect when
you put a musical arrangement that wouldn't make a decent Barney Song to
an extremely bad Rod McKuen poem?
Worst Forced Rhyme of All Time:
“She’s precocious, and she knows just what it takes to make a pro
blush...”(Carol Bayer-Sager, lyricist, Bette Davis Eyes) This is what happens
when you’ve been up all night writing, and you’re just too tired to do
a re-write.
Worst Musical ‘Train-Wreck’ Title of All
Time: Love Hurts (Nazareth). The
melody the singer tries to do over the chords the band plays at the end
of the bridge has been shown to cause cardiac arrest in small lab rodents
at 50 paces. (Plus, what does love do, really? After Love Hurts,
J. Geils Band said Love Stinks, and then Def Leppard said Love
Bites. I understand the Beastie Boys are working on an end-all song
called Love Sucks a Big Hairy Wet One.
Worst Guitar Solo of All Time:
Keith Richards, in Ain’t Too Proud to Beg I have done a test on
the studio regarding this, and I have found that if you hurl a plugged-in
electric guitar down a flight of cement steps, the resulting sound will
have better intonation and more accurate phrasing than this solo.
Most Out-of-Tune Solo of All Time:
Flute Solo in California Dreamin’ (This has been known to cause
Jerry Hludzik’s backbone to actually curve several millimeters.
Advertising Awards
Belaboring the Obvious:
(new Monex ad campaign)“The difficult thing about investing is knowing
when the market will move, and in which direction.” Well, DUH! What is
this- stock advice for mongoloids? I suppose the hope here is that some
South American rain forest tribe will be channel surfing for some blue
chips to dump their extra cash into.
Worst News Correspondant:
Gail Young, International Correspondant
for CNN. It’th tho nithe to finally thee a newthe correthpondant who doethn’t
have an accthent. (In addition to the lisp, this chick’s slow, painfully
delliberate phrasing always sounds like she’s explainin dual-split
quarterly-compounded stock dividend accumulations to Fred Rogers.)
General Skankiness Award: Awarded this year to the chick from the MCI commercial,
who, thanks to teleconferencing, has discovered that she no longer needs
to go to work, and consequently never has to take a shower again.
Appealing to Middle America
Award:
Heartland Music, the Placido Domingo Album. Apparently, test marketing
showed that Mr. Domingo’s first name (pronounced “plah-SEE-doh”) sounds
too foreign, and too much like placenta. So, in order to not offend anyone,
they incorrectly pronounce it “PLAH-sih-doh”, which reminds everyone of
Lake Placid... that’s nice.
W.C. Fields Award:
This is given to me, for an idea I had to stop the MCI/Sprint long
distance battle- let’s have Candice Bergen and Whoopi Goldberg meet in the
middle of Yankee stadium, armed with knee stockings filled to the brim
with horseshit. General admission money collected will be used to give
AT&T spokesman Dick Cavett a surprise autopsy.