Clifford's Gonna Be a Thug

Back in the kitchen (at work), we listen to a lot of music to help the day move along quickly. The Filippinos we work with tend to reach the radio/iPod docking station before anyone else, and they obviously pick the music with which to start our day. I really wish I was the fastest person to the radio, but even if I was they would change the music the minute I take a nature break. We mostly listen to Jason's iPod, and I must say he has quite the range of music, however there is only a small handful of songs* that I actually want to listen to. He has a lot of Avril Lavigne, adult contempory, American Idol, the Tarzan soundtrack.... When we go on break so our dishawasher can scrub the floor, he changes the music to Josh Groban and other super sappy love songs. (He even has one CD that has snippets of the cheesiest of love songs, i.e the Titanic theme, "Our Precious Love"... tethered together with the same pop-synthesized percussion.) By eleven in the morning all that cliched, cheesy, gobbledy-gook makes me want to destroy the hearing mechanisms in my ear.

But I am not quite sure how to go about that process, so there is only one thing to do: purge the schmaltz-fest with something else. Since I know my music is not mainstream enough for their tastes, I reach for Chef Aaron's iPod and head straight for the rap section. After a few bars of anything from Eminem or Tupac I calm right down and enjoy my work a whole lot more. Interesting, eh?

Isn't it also interesting that the only girl in the bakery pleads for music that is at times offensive? Chef Aaron teased me this morning saying that with their music the guys in the bakery are trying to teach me that "women have feelings and are not objects. And you respond with, 'I gotta slap me some $#*#&$ and #($*#.'" (Insert deragotive vocabulary here...unless you don't what I mean because you don't listen to rap music.)

It is further interesting because I for the most part cannot stand rap music. For some reason I just really, really, really need to listen to it after hearing to the same Josh Groban songs. All. Morning. Long.

* Jason has a good deal of Journey. And I like listening to that.