Eli | Mike | Mary - click for individual bio

August 28, 2003

I got this record in the mail yesterday. It took some looking, but I finally scrounged up a 7” copy of The Goodies’ “The Dum Dum Ditty,” on the Red Bird label:

He Makes My Heart Go Dum-Dum-Ditty
Makes My Heart Go Dum-Dum-Ditty
Makes My Heart Go Dum-Dum-Ditty, oh yeah

The Goodies are like a super-obscure version of the Shangri-La’s: “The Dum Dum Ditty” reminds me a bit of “Leader of the Pack,” with the good girl loving the boy from the wrong side of the tracks and all, except it’s less irritating and nobody actually dies in this one. I played this record for Mary, and she tolerated it, but I don’t think I won her over. It’ll have to stay a guilty pleasure. The flip side is good, too: “Sophisticated Boom-Boom.” Hard to describe, it’s a kind of a monologue about a girl who walks into a party where everybody’s all dressed up, doing the Sophisticated Boom-Boom dance. What exactly is this dance? Does anyone know?

I may have to do a little bit of Sophisticated Boom-Boom myself tonight, because we’re going to a birthday party at a roller rink. Apparently, this will require me to skate. In this case, the “boom-boom” will be me hitting the floor, while vainly trying to appear sophisticated. I am appallingly uncoordinated when it comes to any kind of skating activity, and I’ve avoided it ever since about the age of 7 or so when I fell on my ass during a school skating trip and was nearly run over by a man in a pastel Izod shirt and hot pants. Mary told me that there will probably be other folks at the party tonight who are not so into the skating action, so if I decide to sit it out I won’t be the only one. But what does one do at a roller rink if one does not skate? And maybe it won’t be so bad—I mean, apart from the physical pain of falling repeatedly on the floor and the more visceral, lasting pain of public humiliation and its implication of total sports incompetence. The aged don’t have to skate. I suppose that’s something to look forward to, then! Well, no matter, I’ll let you know what happens later.

Extra special thanks needs to go to Reena and Matthew for coming out to our last show. You see, they danced—oh yes, they danced! We love it when people dance at our shows. Speaking of shows, I'm not quite sure where we'll play after Club Lush on the 20th of September. Elizabeth from Smells Like Flan mentioned the idea of playing in ‘alternative’ venues, instead of clubs, but what would that be—the Vatican? That’d be nice. Would the Pope would like us? Would he dance? I hope so.

Eli