Occasional Ruminations

Unexpectedly awesome Pandora stations

So first of all, I realize I still owe a story about the remainder of my brother’s birthday party last weekend. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish that this weekend.

For now, I just want to quickly share a game that I’ve been playing lately: Unexpectedly Awesome Pandora Radio. The rules are simple: build up a list of a few different Pandora stations tied to artists, and see which ones totally blow you away with the awesomeness of the music they produce. I generally define “Awesomeness” as the number of times I have to hit “skip,” and score it like golf: the lower the better.

I’ve been doing this once a week for three weeks now, and here are the winners thus far. (Not ranked against each other - each is equally awesome in their own right):

Week 1: Ludacris

Week 2: Shaggy

Week 3: Foreigner

If you happen to try any of these I guarantee you will not be disappointed. And if you’d like, play along and share your winners!

“Your brother’s birthday turns into an excellent adventure”

The title of this post is an homage to my new favorite show, “Secret Girlfriend.” It’s also the best way to describe an evening that would easily earn a spot on my Top 10 Thursdays of All Time list.

To understand what made this Thursday so excellent, a bit of history is needed. Last summer my younger brother made the move to Boston, and when he found himself in the position of having landed a job but not yet moved into his apartment, he took up temporary residence on my couch. “Temporary” became about 2 months, two fantastic hilarious debaucherous scandalous months, with one of my favorite parts being our daily walk to South Station together. Over the course of those eight weeks, we observed lots of interesting characters on the MBTA, but none could match the spectacle that was The Cowboy Pimp.

First sauntering into our lives in late July, The Cowboy Pimp looks pretty much as you’re probably picturing him now: tight dark jeans with fringe, leather coat (also befringed), silver belt buckle with inlaid turquoise, and a large leather cowboy hat with a pheasant feather pluming out from the right side. Magnificent.

For weeks that became months that stretched over a year, The Cowboy Pimp brought joy and excitement into what would otherwise be a pretty average commute. He also brought heated speculation - was he actually a pimp? A hobo who’d robbed a pimp? A nostalgic, aging Westerner who’d ended up back East? Just a guy with some amazing clothes and the confidence to rock them all over the city?

This Thursday, the mystery was solved - because my younger brother Tim actually had a Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind with The Cowboy Pimp. Not abduction, but conversation. Tim was waiting for his train home, when TCP appeared on the platform. The train was late, and TCP was just agitated enough to give voice to his frustration - and he happened to be standing next to Tim. Over the course of about a 5 minute conversation, we learned the following:

TCP is originally from Montana

TCP is Native American

TCP is an active member of a tribe

TCP is the chief of his tribe.

TCP is a Sioux Indian Chief from Montana. WIN!

I found this out in the form of a text message from Tim, and it’s hard to describe the instant feeling of cathartic elation that set in - we finally knew his story! And his story is AWESOME!

It was on this note of discovery and celebration that our Thursday evening began, and it’s worth noting here that Thursday was Tim’s birthday - and talk about a present from the universe. This had to be a sign of good things to come, right?

Yes, yes indeed. In fact, there is so much more goodness to come that I need to stop here and get back to my actual job. Coming up next, Part II: In Which Tim and I Party With 50-somethings.

DS

This should be interesting.

Recently discovered Tumblr and it seemed like a great way to get a blog going without too much effort - so here goes!