fine whine

This post originally began with "I laughed harder today than I have all week" but since that today refers to a day many, many weeks ago (April 25th) it doesn't really make much sense any more.

Nonsense, though, is more or less timeless, isn't it?

Here's what was funny.

I was at a two-day off-site conference with many of my co-workers. Between sessions the organizers would play music to signal the end of the break, so all of us could stop chatting, checking our email, going to the bathroom, grabbing snacks and so forth and would return to our seats, ready for another riveting hour or two. The song they would play was John Fogerty's* "Centerfield", which, if you haven't heard it, has some (canned) clapping in it ("I'm ready to play...today"), which, as we discussed, isn't always so easy to clap for those of us less rhythmically inclined.

"Centerfield" isn't the only song with difficult manual percussion. I thought back for a moment and recalled, "It's like the Friends theme song ["I'll be there for you" by the Rembrandts ]... just when I managed to get it right they canceled the show", joking, of course, because I'd stopped watching it well before its cancellation, and also because I'd never managed to clap it correctly either.

Just thereafter, though, following through with the same idea, somebody else chimed in with "I know, it's like, 'Alright, I finally got the clap!'" - loudly, as the rest of the people in the room were starting to quiet down.

Moments later she realized what it was she said, but we were already laughing. I think it took the organizers a good five minutes to quiet us down.

* Until that day (April 25th) I never really connected "Centerfield" with John Fogerty. I'd been hearing it for years, even as a child, since my dad had put it on his definitive 1980s mix tape. My first guess was actually Joe Cocker, though for the life of me I have no clue what his hits would be. And yes, once told, I was able to recognize that this was, in fact, Fogerty and his rather recognizable voice. I'd just never made the connection before, at least that I could remember.