Sunday, November 04, 2007

Emily and the jingle boy


I've been tagged with the music meme by pretty much everybody, so my response at this point is 1) yay! I'm popular! and 2) dammit!

I will get to it tomorrow. Today, however, I want to discuss boys.

Last night I went to a bar in Silverlake and talked to a very cute Boy. Yes, he was a boy. A young, Jewish blond boy with a very Christian name who was confused about his life and way too young for yours truly, who still looks so young she could pull in a freshman frat boy if the lighting was right. It makes meeting people my own age a little difficult but I'm not complaining. Don't hate me because I have good genetics and never took up smoking.

At any rate, said Boy is a musician who writes jingles. I always wanted to meet someone who writes jingles. It sounds so interesting. Like, how do you keep making company names into catchy tunes without rolling your eyes all the time? And I'd like to meet that guy who wrote that "...where you won't get a lemon! - I wouldn't have gotten a lemon?" song and smack him because it gets stuck in my head and it's annoying. The El Pollo Loco song I adore, simply because it sounds like it should keep going but doesn't. I'm sad that they've started taking it off the commercials. I sing it every time I pass a Pollo, which is daily because there's one across the street from my school.

But I didn't end up talking about any of this with Boy because he was too busy trying to figure out whether or not he would cheat on his girlfriend last night. He may not realize it but he owes me a favor. He spent so much time talking to me that at the end of the night he didn't have time to find a girl who would help him in his quest. Hopefully he'll figure out what's wrong with his relationship before he runs off and nails the first sexy girl he can get.

At least he was honest about having a girlfriend.

He said, almost immediately after telling me that he moved out here with her right after college, "Have you ever avoided doing something bad and then regretted it? Sometimes it's good to do bad things, right?"

I was not wearing my teacher cap at that moment. I feel I should have had a better answer, but at the moment I just wanted a cute boy to buy me a beer. I told him about how I almost got married and sealed my fate as a good girl in an unhappy marriage. I'd wager he's struggling with the same issues right now. He seemed kind of sad, like I was, stuck with a girl he no longer loves the way he used to. I wish I'd given him better advice. Then again, he probably wasn't actually looking for advice, just an excuse to not feel guilty about cheating.

He told me one interesting thing I didn't know. I asked him if he could do his work during the WGA strike and he said yes because jingle writing is covered by SAG.

Huh?

He agreed it was odd, but there it is. Did you know that? SAG? That makes no sense.

Man, I hope Boy talks to his girlfriend about their problems before they end up married and miserable. If he ever breaks up with her he can give me a call. He may be young but he is damn adorable.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:47 PM

    If I'm not mistaken, the WGA only covers TV and film. Animation, reality TV, and apparently jingles are not in its jurisdiction.

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  2. But that doesn't make it any less weird that jingles would be covered by SAG.

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  3. Anonymous1:11 AM

    You're right.

    Maybe the people who wrote jingles (whenever SAG gained that jurisdiction) were also the jingle performers, and considered themselves actors (performers) rather than writers.

    My only guess...

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  4. Unions can be a little funny that way. I've seen some odd combos. Recently I heard the United Federation of Teachers unionized a bunch of day care center employees. My union covers a wide range of job categories, but my union's a little more generic.

    Anyway, I think it's cool that you kept him company and listened to his confusion like that. It sounds like what he needed more than anything was just someone to talk to about his situation. That way he's getting stuff off his chest and thinking it through without doing something he's likely to regret in some way - or possibly thinking of ending a relationship with his girlfriend that he's likely to regret. Your story about your near-disaster may have been the impetus that he needed, without generating the guilt of cheating on her first. (Are you sure you weren't wearing your teacher hat?)

    And yes, it was cool that he was honest. In my experience, honesty goes a long way.

    ReplyDelete

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