10.29.2025

There's a scene in Poker Face where the villain gives this long weird rambling monologue and you realize at the same moment as Natasha Leone he's quoting 'Hook' by Blues Traveler. You really are the fuggin' worst, she says. As with everything else she's right. Rare I've felt so keenly violated by a tv show. The song is from an era where jangly indie jammy pop rock was pervasive and somehow catchy as hell. There's a whole purgatorial playlist of those rattling around in my hippocampus and when I'm in a bad place, insecure or panicky, reverting inwardly to adolescence it's not unusual that one will get stuck on an internal loop in my head. I'm talking days or weeks, and it's usually not the whole song, but a snippet or two of the song, the one line or riff and chorus you remember, and it's stitched so tight into the autonomic system I can feel my larynx move with the vocals or I'll catch myself whistling a lick when all I want to do is turn it off. That stupid song with its Pachelbel's Canon chord progression and wordsy vocal riffs my god. The fuggin' worst.