I Am The Outlaw Of SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good Heavens Miss Sakomoto, you're BEAUTIFUL!

I'm taking the day off of frustrated bewilderment with conservativism today, to offer this startling confession:

Few things in this world, make me as happy as hearing Thomas Dolby's 'She Blinded Me With Science'.

This is an even more powerful admission, given that I'm something of a 'music snob', or 'hipster douchebag' if you prefer. In discussions about music, my choices (The Jayhawks, Gomez, Webb Wilder, John Prine, etc.) tend to draw a lot of blank stares. I'm cattily derisive about Top 40 music, and I believe everyone involved in the production of 'American Idol' should be tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity.

Indeed, in 1982 when the song first came out, I was already firmly entrenched in the travelling circus known as the Grateful Dead. I happily rode out the Reagan years surrounded by tie-dye and patchouli, rarely engaging with Yuppies, red leather, hair mousse, and history's worst rock and roll.

But MAN, I love 'She Blinded Me With Science'. The song and the accompanying video are brazenly weird,off-center, aggressively demented.

In other words, it speaks to me.

And it still does. If I happen to hear it on the radio, I'll stop whatever I'm doing to turn it up and dance along, yelling the word "SCIENCE!" along with Magnus Pike, the U.K. scientist on the recording and video...And yes that includes pointing my finger in the air, with a rather demented 'Eureka' look on my face.

Sometimes I don't even wait for the song to come on. Sometimes the room just seems too quiet, or noisy. Sometimes I just want to see what will happen. It's long been my dream to shout it into a P.A. somewhere, in public. A dream, sadly, deferred.


Until last Tuesday.


Last Tuesday my lovely, long-suffering L'Amour de ma Vie and I brushed off our liberal guilt and anti-corporate hostility, and made our monthly trip to Wal-Mart. It was there in that most-hated of retail stores, in the greeting card section, I saw it...The phone.


You know the one. They're in every big store you frequent, in every department. Grocery, sporting goods, electronics. They're attached to a wall or girder, and they've got programmable buttons to connect you with other departments, manager's office...


...And 'page'. The button you push to call someone to your section for clean-up, re-stocking, and of course (gulp) security. The MAGIC button. The one that they show you how to use, because it's NEVER marked.


Until last Tuesday. We were innocently perusing the birthday cards when I saw the phone, and the button with 'page' penciled in next to it.


My eyes got wide. I looked around. I whispered to my companion, who shrugged and gave me a look that said, "Go ahead, you know you want to. Get it over with." It also seemed to say, "Yes. Do it you mad, impetuous fool, I am aflame with desire to see this grand scheme of yours come to fruition. I hold you far above all other men, mere mortals that they are."


I'm not entirely sure about the last part, as I was moving quickly now, but it stands to reason she'd think that. Right?


So anyway, I pick up the receiver, held it against my ear, and pressed page. It made a couple of beeping noises, and then a little white-noise hiss. And I did it.


"SCIENCE!!!!"

I quickly hung up the phone. I looked around to see if I'd been spotted. I put on a casual air, and picked up a talking card, pretending to chuckle at the wit of Larry The Cable Guy, ("Git 'r Done"?...How PRICELESS!) glancing furtively up and down the aisle. Everything seemed fine.

The rest of the shopping trip, I listened for the P.A. to call security on me, and strolled the aisles, whistling 'She Blinded Me With Science' and feeling very much like I'd gotten away with something. It's always a little kick, to have imagined doing something silly or fun, and being able to cross it off your list.

Or not.

Maybe it'll just escalate. I know the button now. On the Lucent brand phone, second row, 4th from the top.

Science.