Apples to Apples

One of my favorite games of all time is “Apples to Apples.” I first played the boxed version, but one Christmas vacation a few years back my family discovered that, with a little labor-intensive preparation, you can have an even better experience with a homemade version.

The game itself involves each player taking turns reading an adjective (a word that describes a noun). Then the other players turn in a noun that they feel fits that adjective. The adjective reader is then the judge, and decides which noun best fits the adjective. This process is theoretically like comparing apples to apples, hence the title.

I know it sounds less than awesome, but it’s actually great, especially if you are a strange person who comes up with strange nouns and adjectives. Remember, a noun can be any person, place, thing, idea – even a situation. For example, “the sun” is a noun. “Inside the sun” is a better noun. “Tom Cruise’s secret hideaway inside the sun” is an awesome noun. You just have to twist it a little into weird territory. Purists might say that such a “noun” includes too many adjectives already. Well, purists are boring.

My family and my wife are really good at coming up with weird nouns, including nearly-forgotten inside jokes from the past. My favorite person to play with, however, is Brian Douglas Phillips. Brian and I share a character flaw that nearly always enables us to have a lot of fun together. We both think that we are HILARIOUS, and even if we don’t think what the other person has written is funny, we can always laugh at how much we laugh at our own jokes.

Here’s some of my favorite adjectives to use:
- Apocalyptic
- Strangely Attractive
- Likely to Float
- Almost Certainly Inedible

And here’s some of my favorite nouns from past homemade games (including yesterday), both mine and others’:
- Unlikely break-dance king
- Buttered pillow pajamas
- Laser vision catfish
- Magical talking barbecue sandwich
- The Word Find of Love
- Pickle-sicle
- Moses MacGruber
- One-winged plane that still flies on the power of hope
- Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade of Lava Monsters
-9 and ½ volt battery in a twelve-volt world
- Flesh-colored ice skates that aren’t fooling anyone
- Epileptic banjo prodigy

Feel free to use these the next time you play a homemade version of Apples to Apples!

Poetry Corner

A few weeks back I posted a little-heard song from the first "30 Day Challenge" with my friend Brian Douglas Phillips, the talented musician and Man About Town.

I figured I'd also let you in on this year's "30 Day Challenge." We wanted to branch out a little, and after batting around a few ideas, we came up with the following scenario.

One of us would post a picture that we found on "Google image search." The other person would then write a poem using that picture as inspiration.

Things got...interesting.

Before I give you the link, be warned - while most of the poems are appropriate for all ages, some contain "salty language." So please preview before you and your children children start a tradition of reading one of Patrick and Brian's poems before bed, or you assign this to your class for your "modern poetry" lesson.

My personal favorites of my own creation are:
April 13th - "'F' Bomb"
April 29th -"Variations On A Pile Of Hair."
(Although April 21st - "Origin", and April 25th "The Buddha Vs. The Banana" I am particularly proud of as well)

My favorites from Brian are:
April 22 - "Strange Adventures, Indeed"
April 30th - "High Country"
And the truly amazing April 2nd - "Liberty, Sweet Liberty," his dissertation on a statue of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell - made of butter.

Enjoy!

A Rap Song About Country Music

Last April my friend Brian and I challenged each other to write a song every other day for thirty days (what this meant was that I would write lyrics every other day, and that Brian would write music every day, since he is a very fine musician). The result was a tremendous work of artistic elegance that I hope you'll get to hear some day. One song that very few people have heard, though, is the one I'm sharing with you now. I think, in all humility, that it is the pinnacle of my song writing thus far. It is a love song. It is a hip hop song. It is about country music. The italicized portions below are intended to be spoken. The first two lines of the chorus are to the tune of "The Farmer and the Cowman Can Be Friends" from Oklahoma.

Genre Bender - or
How I Learned to Relax and Love Country Music

Verse 1:
Yo, the hood I’m from ain’t a hood at all
Cause you sound right to me if you got a drawl
Grew up on a black top road in the sticks
And I never knew a gangsta who wasn’t a hick
And e’rebody I knew in the boondocks
Turns the radio on and says “Country rocks”
But all the way up through my high school days
I couldn’t help it but be amazed
How anyone listened to country sangin’
With the steel guitar and that awful twangin’
See, early on I was down with the ghetto groove
And the phat bass beats that’ll make you move
But the country fans couldn’t understand
How you play in Texas without a fiddle in the band
So I gave it up and “Shove it all, G!”
If country playing don’t bother to call me
Then sumthin’ happened that rocked my world
I fell in love in love with a country girl
Yeah, she stole my heart and she took no pity
So I guess I better learn to love Conway Twitty

Chorus:
Oh Hip Hop and Country/Western can be friends
Whatever kind of a record that you spin
I’ll be in that mix that you got in your system
Rap or Country I’ll be listenin’
County line or out the hood
West Philly or Nashville it’s all good

Verse 2:
Yeah this girl came in and she changed my life
Like Hank Senior I saw the light
“Love can build a bridge” the Judds had it right
So I listened to all the LP’s in sight
George Straight, George Jones, Clint Black, Vince Gill
Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Faith Hill
Randy Travis, Marty Robbins, Mel Tillis
Till my hop hop friends say ‘Whatchoo talking bout Willis?”
That ain’t what Nelly meant by ‘Country Grammar’!”
But I dig the Wu Tan Clan and Alabama
I dig Kenny Rodgers and Jay-Z
Dr. Dre and Kenny Chesney
Juvenile and Diamond Rio
Tennessee Ernie Ford and Coolio
Fifty Cent and that Johnny Paycheck
Down with thug though I might be a redneck
Yeah, I learned to listen and love both sides
Even if I stand out like Charley Pride
Rhymes are the thing that I dig on man
Whether they from Busta or Leann

Chorus:
Oh Hip Hop and Country/Western can be friends
Whatever kind of a record that you spin
I’ll be in that mix that you got in your system
Rap or Country I’ll be listenin’
County line or out the hood
Compton or Nashville it’s all good

(Yo yo, because this is a hip hop song – I am legally obligated to tell you how awesome I am – in verse - We gon’ do it like this!!)

Go cowgirl It’s yer berfday
We gonna barn dance like its yer berfday
You’ll find me on the farm
Dancin’ in the barn
Dosi do-ing with my square dancin’ partner on my arm
Just a good old boy never meaning any harm
And the brush pile bonfire’ll keep us warm

Don’t rock that jukebox and I don’t mean maybe
Ain’t just the Judds say “Mama he’s crazy”
Yeah I’m crazy like Patsy Cline
Cause I walk after midnight and I walk the line
All my rowdy friends have settled down
And though my mama told me not to bring my gun to town
I’m a branded man with friends in low places
The fugitive who needs wide open spaces
An Indian outlaw with a horse and lasso
Amarillo by mornin’ then down to El Paso
Texas playboy like Bob Wills’ crew
Go boot scootin’ under that neon moon
Go 9 to 5 then on the road again
But trust me baby and stand by your man
Behind closed doors is where my best is
Don’t take your love to town cause I’m young and restless
We’re two of a kind workin’ on a full house
So I got to ask how do ya like me now?
When the thunder rolls through Luckenbach
Then I’ll get your achy breaky heart to rock
May not have much or be Big and Rich
But like Allison Krauss I got perfect pitch
I don’t need a bunch of Dixie Chicks
Forever and ever amen baby I won’t switch
I will always love you stand right next to me
I know you think my tractor’s sexy

(Gotta get that cash ya’ll – that Johnny Cash...
Yo this goes out to all the Urban people- the Keith Urban people – word to your Memaw.)