Fugazi – "Bulldog Front" (1988)

It’s all attention to armor

To the armor you wear so well

My weekly trivia contests always include one or more questions about pop music.

There’s always a three-part question where the host plays brief snippets from three records that have something in common, and asks players to identify either the titles of the songs or the artists performing the songs.  (For example, last week the host played three excerpts from covers of Prince songs, and asked us to identify the three recording artists doing those covers.  The week before that, we were asked to come up with the titles of these three songs, all of which referenced major-league baseball teams: “Royals” by Lorde, “Red Red Wine” by UB40, and “She Talks to Angels” by the Black Crowes.)

There are often other questions related to popular recording artists as well.  On occasion, the ten-point “bonus” sheet asks us to match ten song or album titles to the artists who recorded them, or the years when they were released.

One reason a successful trivia team almost always has a mixture of younger and older players is that very few people who know sixties music also know nineties music, or aughts music.  

I’m old, and I’m great on the records that came out when I was in high school and college, but I don’t know squat about the newer stuff – that’s why I like to have at least one thirtysomething or fortysomething teammate.

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A few nights ago, I had a dream about getting a trivia question about songs with “dog” in the title.

After waking up, I lay in bed and tried to think of songs that fit that description.  Here are ten that I came up with off the top of my head:

“Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley (1956)

“Walking the Dog” by Rufus Thomas (1963)

“I Wanna Be Your Dog” by the Stooges (1969)

“Hey Bulldog” by the Beatles (1969)

“Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin (1971)

“Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” by Lobo (1971)

“Diamond Dogs” by David Bowie (1974)

“Hair of the Dog” by Nazareth (1975)

“Bulldog Front” by Fugazi (1988)

“Who Let the Dogs Out” by the Baha Men (2000)

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There are a fair number of records with “cat” in their title as well.  Here are ten of them:

“What’s New, Pussycat?” By Tom Jones (1965)

“Nashville Cats” by the Lovin’ Spoonful (1966)

“Stray Cat Blues” by the Rolling Stones (1968)

“China Cat Sunflower” by the Grateful Dead (1969)

“Honky Cat” by Elton John (1972)

“Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin (1974)

“The Year of the Cat” by Al Stewart (1976) 

“Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent (1977)

“Cool for Cats” by Squeeze (1979)

“Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” by David Bowie (1983)

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Of course, there are some very well-known records whose titles reference animals other than dogs or cats.  Here are ten examples:

“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane (1967)

“I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles (1967)

“Monkey Man” by the Rolling Stones (1969)

“War Pigs” by Black Sabbath (1970)

“A Horse with No Name” by America (1971)

“Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973)

“Rock Lobster” by the B-52s (1978)

“Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor (1982)

“Hungry Like the Wolf’ by Duran Duran (1982)

“When Doves Cry” by Prince (1984)

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Each of those three lists has some truly great records.  But I think the records on the third list are probably stronger on average than the records on either of the first two.

If I had to choose between the records on the dog list and the records on the cat list, I think I’d go with the dog records.  (There are some truly awful records on the cat list.)

I’ll send all three lists to the company that puts on the trivia games my team plays in and tell them they’re free to use them to construct future questions – no charge!

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I’m embarrassed by the fact that 2 or 3 lines has never featured a Fugazi record until now.

I lived in Washington, DC during the heyday of that city’s “harDCore” punk scene.  But I never saw Fugazi – or Minor Threat or the Bad Brains or Tru Fax and the Insaniacs or any of the other great local bands of that era – perform live.  

Why didn’t I ever go to one of their shows?  Because – to quote the immortal Red Forman – I was a dumbass!

I could have gone to this Fugazi
show if I wasn’t such a dumbass

Fugazi was immensely influential on punk and alternative music in the eighties and nineties.  Nirvana admired them and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam said that seeing the band live “was a life-changing experience.”  They were a favorite of Joey Ramone of the Ramones and Joe Strummer of the Clash – Strummer told Rolling Stone in 2000 that Fugazi was the band that best exemplified “the spirit of punk.”   Jack White and individual members of groups as musically diverse as Arcade Fire, Blink-182, Blur, Bon Iver, the Drive-By Truckers, Linkin Park, Modest Mouse, Paramore, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool – to name just a few – have also cited Fugazi as an influence. 

Click here to listen to “Bulldog Front,” which was released in 1988 on Fugazi’s eponymous debut EP.  (It was re-released the following year on the band’s first full-length album, 13 Songs.)

Click here to buy “Bulldog Front” from Amazon.

Gary Lewis & the Playboys – "She's Just My Style" (1965)

I would say what’s on my mind

But the words are hard to find

There are those that say that 2 or 3 lines has lost a step . . . that 2 or 3 lines can’t bring it the way it used to . . . that 2 or 3 lines just plain doesn’t have it any more.

I say that 2 or 3 lines does still have it.  But I don’t expect you to simply take my word for it.  All I ask is that you read this post, and then decide for yourself.

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Yesterday evening, I was driving grandsons #4 and #7 home when today’s featured song came on the SiriusXM 60s Gold channel.

I sing along to the records I hear on my car radio pretty much regardless of who is riding with me.  

A 1962 Chevrolet station wagon

I do that despite the traumatic experience I had when I was about 12 years old and singing along to the car radio while driving with my parents and sister to visit my great-grandparents in Goshen, Arkansas.  My father put an end to my singing that day by suddenly turning the radio in our 1962 Chevy Biscayne station wagon off.  “We can listen to the radio, or we can listen to you,” he said.  Sensing that hell would freeze over before I persuaded him to change his mind, I sat in silence for the rest of the trip.

But now I’m the one driving the car, and you can best believe when it comes to my singing along to my car radio, YOU’LL SUCK ON IT AND YOU’LL LIKE IT.

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The 60s Gold channel DJ was dealing out some really boss tunes on today’s drive.  “California Sun” by the Rivieras (“The girls are frisky in old ’Frisco”) was followed by the Electric Prunes doing “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night.”  

Next came “Go All the Way” by the Raspberries.  Pop music doesn’t get any better than that little masterpiece.

Unless the next record is Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” – which it was last night.

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“She’s Just My Style” may not be in quite the same class as those records.  But it was good enough to make it all the way to #3 on the Billboard “Hot 100” singles chart.  (Gary Lewis & the Playboys never got much respect from the critics, but each and every one of the first seven singles they released was a top ten hit.  You can count the other sixties’ groups that accomplished that feat on one hand – even if you got careless with firecrackers back in the day and are missing a digit or two.)

Gary Lewis & the Playboys

I’ve heard “She’s Just My Style” many, many times since it was released in 1965, but I had never noticed until today how much it sounded like a Beach Boys record of that era.  

Listen to it and tell me I’m wrong.  Everything about the song and its arrangement is reminiscent of what Brian Wilson was doing back then.  

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When I got back to my office at 2 or 3 Lines World Headquarters after depositing my grandsons at their home, I fired up the ol’ Google machine to see if anyone else had commented on the Beach Boys-like sound of “She’s Just My Style.”

Lo and behold, I learned from Wikipedia that Gary Lewis himself told an interviewer in 2013 that the group “sought to emulate the style of The Beach Boys” when they recorded “She’s Just My Style”:

That’s exactly what we were going for.  Even before we started writing it we said, “Let’s go for The Beach Boys thing; a little rock and roll with a lot of harmony” and I was really happy with the way we pulled it off.

I guess I nailed that one, didn’t I?  Take that, all you people who say that 2 or 3 lines has lost a step . . . or that 2 or 3 lines can’t still bring it the way it used to! 

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To be perfectly truthful, no one has said that 2 or 3 lines doesn’t have it any more.  But I thought starting this post off with something provocative might rev up reader engagement a bit.  (Like the Will Farrell character in Blades of Glory, I’m big believer in being provocative – it gets the people going!)

Click here to listen to “She’s Just My Style.”

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.

Gustaf – "Mine" (2020)

Hey, what you said?

It was mine!

I recently heard a radio ad for a new product designed to help nosebleed sufferers.  

It’s a small piece of compressed, medical-grade surgical foam that works by absorbing blood rapidly and expanding to provide gentle internal pressure when you stick it up your bleeding nostril.  

The sterile, hypoallergenic foam is infused with a topical clotting agent to help facilitate rapid clotting.  And it’s non-stick, so you can remove it without reopening the blood clot and causing the nosebleed to start again.

The product has the best name in the history of product names:

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Joshua Lippiner, the genius who came up with the Nampons name, appeared on Shark Tank earlier this year.  

Lippiner started his pitch by stating that 60 million Americans get nosebleeds.  He then demonstrated a couple of ways you could deal with their nosebleeds.  

First, you can stuff a tissue up your nose.

Another remedy for the problem – which Lippiner called “my personal favorite” – is to insert the business end of a tampon in the offending nostril:

Have you ever known anyone who put a tampon into his or her nose to stop a nosebleed?  NEITHER HAVE I!  

But you have to give credit to Lippiner for being willing to stuff a tampon halfway up his nose on national television and then stand there with the string hanging down.

In case you’re wondering, Lippiner’s pitch was successful – he left the show with a cool $350,000 in exchange for 10% of his company.

Click here to watch Lippiner’s pitch.

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I heard Gustaf’s “Mine” on an episode of the Netflix show, Shrill.  

According to their Wikipedia page, Gustaf is an art-punk band from Brooklyn.  “Mine,” which was released in 2020, was the group’s debut single.  

Click here to watch the official music video for “Mine.”

Click here to buy “Mine” from Amazon.

Dean Martin – "Houston" (1965)

Saw a dollar yesterday

But the wind blew it away

(As the following post demonstrates, 2 or 3 lines would never let a dollar bill blow away!)

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Games like Sudoku and Wordle may be entertaining, but they don’t help a lick when it comes to saving money at the gas pump.

If you want to have more fun than a barrel of monkeys and save beaucoup dolares at the same time, you need to download the free Marathon Petroleum app – it turns a trip to the gas station into an enjoyable and challenging game of skill.

I’m assuming, of course, that you live in an area where Marathon gas is sold.  Fortunately, there are Marathon stations in the overwhelming majority of states.  (The ones that don’t have them – like Arkansas and Vermont – are states you don’t want to live in anyway.) 

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I recently returned from a group bike trip in upstate New York and needed to fill my car up.  So I headed to the Marathon station that’s closest to the 2 or 3 Lines World Headquarters building, which usually has the best prices in the area.  

A gallon of Marathon 87-octane regular currently costs $3.619.  Marathon’s 89-octane midgrade gas – which they call “Marathon Plus” – is going for $3.899 a gallon, while 93-octane premium is priced at $4.299.

Most gas stations have only two storage tanks – one that contains the lowest octane gasoline that is offered for sale (usually 87) and one that’s full of their highest octane fuel (usually 93).  If the station sells an 89-octane midgrade gas – which most stations do – it simply mixes two parts of its 87-octane gas with one part of 93-octane gas.  (If you add 87 + 87 + 93 and divide the sum by 3, you get 89.) 

You can do the same thing yourself.  Let’s say your car’s manufacturer recommends 89-octane fuel, and you need 12 gallons of gas to fill the tank.  You simply pump eight gallons of the 87 and then pump four gallons of the 93 – which gets you the same result as pumping 12 gallons of the 89-octane midgrade.

Why would anyone do that instead of just filling up with the midgrade?  Because it usually saves money.

Today it would have cost me $46.79 to put 12 gallons of Marathon Plus into my car.  But eight gallons of regular plus four gallons of premium cost only $46.15 – a savings of 64 cents.

Marathon’s midgrade is usually more fairly priced than the 89-octane fuel at other stations.  (If I had gone to my local Exxon or Shell station today, my savings would probably have been two or even three times as much.)  So I often don’t bother mixing my own midgrade gas when I go to a Marathon station, choosing to spend a little more money in order to save time – I am a very busy man, after all.  I’m also very old – so my time is valuable!

Today, mixing my own resulted in my saving a lot more than 64 cents – thanks to the Marathon app.

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I’m a member of the Marathon Rewards program, so I get five cents off every gallon of Marathon gas I pump.  But because I have the Marathon app, I get text notifications about other special deals almost every day.

The Marathon Rewards app

For example, Marathon is currently offering an additional five-cents-per-gallon discount on premium fuel.  If I had pumped just midgrade today, I would have gotten the usual nickel-off-per-gallon discount.  But by mixing my own 89 octane fuel, I qualified for an additional five cents off each of the four gallons of premium I purchased – ratcheting up my total discount from 60 cents to 80 cents.  (Which meant I actually saved 84 cents – not just 64 cents – by not simply filling up with midgrade.)

In addition, I got a text earlier this week offering an extra five-cents-per-gallon discount if I filled up anytime during the July 4th weekend.  That means I earned an additional 60 cents off – boosting my discount from 84 cents to $1.44.

But wait – there’s more!  

If you fill up any time in July, you get an extra two-cents-a-gallon discount if you fill up a second time before the end of the month.  So if I buy ten gallons next week, I’ll pocket another 20 cents.  (Marathon adds another two cents to your savings each time you fill up in July – so the second fillup saves me four cents a gallon on my third fillip, a third fillup saves me six cents a gallon on a fourth fillup, and so on.)

On top of that, Marathon is offering $3 in rewards to anyone who fills up 15 times before the end of 2026.  I’ll easily hit that number, so that three bucks is money in the bank for ol’ 2 or 3 lines.

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Last but not least, I used my Discover card to purchase gas today.

You routinely get a one per cent rebate on all your purchases using the Discover card.  But each quarter, Discover offers a five per cent rebate on specific purchase categories.

For example, in the first calendar quarter of this year – January 1 through March 31 – you got five per cent back if you paid for your groceries with a Discover card.

In the second quarter, restaurant purchases earned a five per cent rebate.

And in the current quarter – which began on July 1 – you get five per cent back when you use your Discover card at the gas station.  

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Let’s review the bidding.

1.  If I had simply purchased 12 gallons of 89-octane gas today, it would have cost me $46.79.

2.  By instead mixing 87-octane regular and 93-octane premium in a 2:1 ratio, I saved 64 cents.

3.  By being a member of the Marathon Rewards program, I earn five cents a gallon on all my purchases – which means I saved an additional 60 cents by buying 12 gallons of gas today.

4.  By taking advantage of the special discount on July purchases of premium fuel, I earned another 20 cents.

5.  By taking advantage of the special discount on all purchases over the July 4 weekend, I earned another 60 cents.

6.  By taking advantage of the bonus two-cents-per-gallon discount for all July purchases, I earned another 24 cents.  

Put it all together and what do you get?  I reduced the per-gallon price of the 89-octane gas I bought today from $3.899 to $3.709.

By using my Discover card to buy gas today, I reduced that per-gallon cost to $3.524.

Which means I saved $4.50 on my 12-gallon purchase – that’s close to a ten per cent savings.

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I want to end this post by asking two questions.  

First, why do I go to such lengths simply to save a relatively insignificant amount of money on a tank of gas?

Second, why did I write this post?  Did I really think my readers would find it useful or entertaining?  Or did I write it for some other reason?

Feel free to respond to those questions by using the contact form on the 2 or 3 lines website.

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You might think that I picked today’s featured song because Marathon Petroleum is headquartered in Houston.  But you would be wrong.

The company originally known as Marathon Oil was headquartered for many years in Findlay, Ohio.  (Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it.  I’d never heard of it either.)  

U. S. Steel bought the company in 1981, and moved the corporate headquarters to Houston.  But Marathon Oil’s refinery division – which was renamed Marathon Petroleum – remained in Findlay.

Marathon Petroleum’s Findlay, Ohio headquarters

“Houston” – which was a hit for Dean Martin in 1965 – was written by Lee Hazlewood, who wrote Nancy Sinatra’s biggest solo hits (including “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” “How Does That Grab You, Darlin’,” and “Sugar Town.”)

Sinatra and Hazlewood also recorded a number of duets.  The best-known of their collaborations is “Jackson,” but the most interesting of their duets is the wonderfully weird “Some Velvet Morning.”

I’ll have to feature “Some Velvet Morning” in a future 2 or 3 lines post.  I kind of wish I had featured it today.  Too late now!)

Click here to hear Dean Martin’s recording of “Houston.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.