Cake – "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" (2001)

She is fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's touring the facilities
And picking up slack

The New Yorker recently had a piece about Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO of Theranos, a Silicon Valley company whose technology threatens to revolutionize blood testing.  Click here if you'd like to read it.

Holmes was a Stanford undergraduate when she conceived of a way to perform multiple lab tests on a drop or two of blood drawn with a pinprick of your finger – which meant no more trips to a testing lab to get a needle stuck into your vein so that a syringe or two full of blood can be extracted.  (A conventional lab test for cholesterol costs about $50.  The Theranos cholesterol test – which is currently being offered in a limited number of Walgreens drug stores – costs $2.99.)

Elizabeth Holmes

She filed for a patent on her idea, and decided to leave Stanford to start a company.  Her chemical engineering professor tried to persuade her to get her degree first, but eventually chose to give up his tenured professorship and work for Theranos full-time.  

Today, the company's board of directors includes former cabinet members (Henry Kissinger and George Shultz), former Senators (Bill Frist – the former Senate majority leader, who also happens to be a cardiac surgeon – and Sam Nunn), the former director of the federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the former CEO of Wells Fargo Bank.

Theranos has an estimated value of $9 billion.  Holmes, who owns more than 50% of the company, has been called "the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world."   

Holmes is a vegan, lives in a two-bedroom condo, doesn't own a television, hasn't taken a vacation in ten years, and doesn't have time to date.  (Henry Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, have to tried to fix her up, but without success.)  

Elizabeth Holmes

Like the young woman in our featured song, I'm sure Elizabeth Holmes is "fast and thorough and sharp as a tack," with "a mind like a diamond."

And I'm sure Elizabeth Holmes "gets up early" and "stays up late" and "uses a machete to cut through red tape." 

According to the New Yorker article, Holmes always wears a black suit and a black turtleneck.  I'm not sure if her suits have short skirts and long jackets.  But whether they do or not, "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" could have been written about her.

"Short Skirt/Long Jacket" was released on Cake's 2001 album, Comfort Eagle.  Cake can be a little too cool for school, but I've always liked this song. 

Perhaps that's because I work with a lot of young female attorneys who are "fast and thorough and sharp as a track," or because I have a daughter who I can visualize "touring the facilities and picking up slack" at her job.

(A note to all you grammar Nazis out there.  Yes, I realize that the "who" in the previous sentence is an object, not a subject – which means that, strictly speaking, it should be "whom."  But I have declared war on "whom" because it is used mostly by pedantic know-it-alls who are more interested in showing everyone how smart they are rather than writing prose that is simple and clear and doesn't draw attention to itself.)

Here's the very interesting music video for "Short Skirt/Long Jacket":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Bread -- "The Guitar Man" (1972)

He can make you love

He can make you cry

He will bring you down

And he'll get you high

"The Guitar Man" can do all that.  But wait -- there's more!

He'll also shoot you in the stomach, torture you for two days, decapitate you with a guitar string, and keep your head in a canvas bag so he can practice voodoo on it.

At least that's what James Paul Harris of Topeka, Kansas has been accused of doing to James Gerety about three years ago.  Last week, Harris pled not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder.  He's scheduled to go on trial in June.

Here's a picture of Mr. Harris:

Oops -- my mistake.  That's a picture of Red Sox outfielder Jonny Gomes!  

Here's a picture of Mr. Harris:

Nope -- I'm wrong again.  That's Red Sox 1B-DH Mike Napoli!

Here's Mr. Harris -- I'm pretty sure this time:

You can hardly blame me for being confused, can you?

Shifting gears for a moment, have you noticed that there's a surprising amount of discussion of decapitation on the Internet?  (I'm just sayin'.)

Some of that discussion focuses on just how long those who are decapitated continue to be conscious after their heads are separated from their bodies.  

Studies of rats indicate that the brains of those cute little fellers continue to operate for at least several seconds after losing their heads.  But what about humans?

According to one website, a Dr. Beaurieux conducted a study of the head of criminal Henri Languille, who was guillotined in 1905:

Over the course of 25 to 30 seconds of observation, the physician recorded managing to get Languille to open his eyes and "undeniably" focus them on the doctor's twice by calling the executed man's name.

Charlotte Cordray, about
to lose her head

The same website describes what happened when Charlotte Cordray, who had assassinated Jean-Paul Marat -- one of the most radical voices of the French Revolution -- was beheaded in 1793. 

After her head was severed, the executioner smacked its cheeks while he held it aloft. To the astonishment of the crowd, Corday's cheeks flushed and her facial expression changed into the "unequivocal marks of indignation."

Who knew that a guillotining could be so much fun?

The newspaper stories about James Paul Harris's alleged crime didn't specify whether or not he was a guitar player, but you have to assume he was -- right?  Otherwise, where would he have gotten the guitar string he used to separate Gerety's head from his body?  

I don't think that a non-guitarist would have a clue how to remove a guitar's string and use it as a garrote.  But a guitarist would be able to handle that task in a heartbeat.  So it's safe to assume that Harris was a guitarist.

That doesn't surprise you, does it?  After all, guitarists are generally acknowledged to be the psychos of the music world.

You don't believe me?

Here's Exhibit 1 for the prosecution -- Ted Nugent, one of the greatest rock guitarists to ever strap on a six-string.

Ted Nugent with his mom

Not for nothing was the Detroit native given the nickname "Motor City Madman."  Here are just a few Nugent anecdotes:

 -- In a 1992 radio interview, Nugent -- who loves to hunt -- referred to Heidi Prescott of the Fund for Animals as a "worthless whore" and a "shallow slut," asking "who needs to club a seal, when you can club Heidi?" 

 -- Nugent was not a fan of former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm.  When he performed during her tenure in office, he would frequently interject "Jennifer Granholm, kiss my ass" into his songs, and shoot an arrow at her likeness.  In a 2007 interview, when he was thinking about running for governor of Michigan, he stated that Granholm was "the perfect woman, she is scrotum-less."

 -- As a reward for entertaining U.S. troops in Iraq in 2004, he visited Saddam Hussein's war room. "It was a glorious moment. It looked like something out of Star Wars.  I saw his gold toilet. I shat in his bidet." Nugent then added, "Our failure has been not to Nagasaki them."

 -- During a 2007 tour, Nugent brandished two assault rifles and invited President Barack Obama and California Senator Barbara Boxer to "suck on my machine gun."

Not all guitarists would agree with Nugent's comments, I suppose.  But if you've spent any time around rock 'n' roll bands, you wouldn't be surprised that Nugent is a guitarist.  (You'd never hear a drummer or a keyboard player say any of those things.)

"The Guitar Man" was written by Tulsa native David Gates, who was the lead singer of the soft-rock group Bread.  Bread had about a half-dozen top-ten singles in the early seventies.  "The Guitar Man" was not one of them, but it made it to the #11 spot on the Billboard "Hot 100" in 1972.

The guitarist on "The Guitar Man" was Larry Knechtel who was a stalwart member of the famed group of Los Angeles studio musicians known as "The Wrecking Crew."  Before joining Bread, Knechtel appeared on records by Duane Eddy, Elvis Presley, Simon & Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, the Monkees, and the Doors.  

"The Guitar Man" was covered by . . . guess who?

Cake!  I kid you not.  That's right -- a song that was originally recorded by a group called Bread was later covered by a group called Cake.  However, the song was not covered by Cracker or Humble Pie.  Nor was it covered by Alice Donut, the Delicious Pastries, or Moishe's Bagel.

Here's "The Guitar Man":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: