My Secchi Disk

OK, now you've done it. I got one hour to kill - I hope you got your Saw Palmetto - you're going to need it...

Pinkerton is a serious portrait of the mental neurosis of a man (Rivers Cuomo, no relation to Mario Cuomo or Perry Como) greatly afflicted by failed romances with cellists who lack effective diary security (which is markedly different than Violists who lack dairy security - no one wants to witness a miscreant abscond with one's wheel of prized Vermont Cheddar). Let's look at this in all seriousness (because this album is SERIOUS - and not in that Phil Collins-1989 way, either).

1. "Tired of Sex" -
An examination of the use of the most "Tired" lyrical cliche ever (Seriously, ha ha, even Jon Bon Jovi left this off “Slippery When Wet�, which has, on last count, 23,847 lyrical clichés) –

“Tonight I'm down on my knees
Tonight I'm begging you please�

This are not the words of a “Camp�er. Not even a “Van Beethoven�.

Todd 1, Laila 0.

2. “Getchoo�

Never mind the nontraditional spelling. Everybody knows, a la Leonard Cohen, that the war is over, everybody knows that good guys lost. And what was lost? Grammatical standardization. And I’ve never seen anyone more upset than Cuomo (once again, Rivers, not Mario or Perry).

Proof:

“I can't believe (I can't believe)
What you've done to me
What I did to them
You've done to me, whoa
Chorus
This is beginning to hurt�

Kids, all the deep-knee bends from the previous tune have left our hero with some serious abrasions – we better grab the Bactine that Adam Schlessinger used on his Red Dragon Tattoo. And Rivers don’t care if he looks like “that guy from KoRn�.

Todd 2, Laila 0.

3. “No Other One�

First, there’s the beginning. “My girl’s a liar�. But more serious issues are affront:

The Other Ones were a nu-wave pop group that broke big in 1987 with their worldwide hit, “Another Holiday�. Their first release, “We Are what we Are�, did not chart, do to a docile public unprepared for tautological aphorisms (Until Kid Rock up-jumped the boogie with his “I’m Kid Rock, I’m in the house, that’s where I’m at� tour-de-farce). But this is NO other one. See? He’s clever like that. Here they continue upon the previous account of love lost:

“All of the drugs she does
Scare me real good
She's got a tattoo and two pet snakes�

Whether the tattoo is similar to Schlessinger’s is not mentioned, but come on, it’s Rivers. His lady is FIERCE. She uses scary drugs, kids! Her Tylenols have gang signs on them (Compton’s notorious “Pimp Town Murder Squad�, if you’re curious). If she has a tat, it ain’t just a red dragon. I’m talking DRAGONS. That’s right, I said it.

But then again, this girl’s a liar.

Like you really need to be reminded of how far I’m ahead now. 3-0.

4. “Why Bother?�

17 years after Van Halen made punctuation standard in rock song nomenclature, Weezer eschew the customary exclamation or apostrophe for some serious interrogativisation-ness.

“But it's just sexual attraction
Not something real
So I'd rather keep whackin “

You still think it’s Camp? Listen! He’s whackin’! There’s no “whackin’ “ in camp! Not unless you want to be sent home by the counselor, where your parents will place you on restriction (that means no PlayStation – I’m serious).

Come on.

5. “Across the Sea�

Lyrically, more revealing than even the most campy “Girls Gone Exploited…I mean Wild� video:
“I gotta live on an island to find the juice�

Still searching for the real killers, Rivers is hired by Marcia Clark to aid their investigation. Little did we know, all the answers are to be found in Oahu, an “Island in the sun�. Ito was unavailable for comment. And there ain’t nothin’ campy about double murder cases. They, I must say, are serious.

See the number before the track? That’s the score.

6. “the Good Life�

“Just need to admit that I want sugar in my tea
Hear me? Hear me? I want sugar in my tea.�

You know, Rivers, in the South, you don’t even have to ask. It’s always there – like humidity and bad bangs. You want to camp in that humidity? I didn’t think so.

7. “El Scorcho�

We do have to ask, how, in 1996, it was so impressive that she had not heard of Green Day. Had that chick from “Roseanne� not heard of them, Dick would never have left Championship Vinyl with her number, and Belle and Sebastian’s sad bastard music would have never “suuucked aaaassss�, even in an Ian-Free Universe.

8. “Pink Triangle�

Geometry was easy – in a 30-60-90 triangle, the hypotenuse is twice as long as the shortest side. But that other, trickier side? Time to break out your square roots.

We’ve all been there. And by “all�, I mean “me�. But Rivers? He saw the triangle, mere mortals like myself and Paul failed trigonometry, evidently.

9. “Falling for You�

He must be a Cubs fan, ‘cause Rivers channels a still-singin and drinkin’ Harry Caray:

“Holy cow I think I've got one here.�

But he misses by about 3 miles, or 65 blocks, onto 33rd St South.

“Put in on the booooaaard….Yeeesss!�

You got your World Series. Now it’s our turn.

10. “Butterfly�

Later covered by legendary artists Crazy Town. You remember the video. The piercings, man are they rebellious. And the tattoos, they’re real. Seriously.

But then Rivers throws this at us:

“When the robin makes his nest.�

Abandoning Math for Biology, Cuomo foreshadows his collegiate endeavor a few years later, where he checks a hash-pipe out of the library. Keep Fishin’ , Riv.

Pink triangles? Red Dragons? Now who's really gonna listen to this guy?

Ha ha.

Did you HAVE to remind me of the night my heart was broken? My malt-shop '50s memories (and by "Malt", I mean "Long Island Ice Tea") are now the bane of my existence.

Now I know why Nixon won.