Dave Shumka

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

• A version of Jay-Z and Beyoncé ’s “’03 Bonnie and Clyde” with the lyric “Me and my boyfriend” replaced with “Me and my slow friend.”
• A theme for Curley, the villain with the glove full of Vaseline: Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas performs a hip-hop version of Sublime’s “Caress Me Down” over a sample of Stone Temple Pilots’ “Vasoline.” But, y’know, dubstep.
• Whenever Lennie kills an animal, Deadmau5 (get it?) does a mash-up of “Oops!…I Did It Again” and Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, a reference to Elmer Fudd’s “Kill the Wabbit.”
• Gwen Stefani doing a version of the Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up,” over sampled ukuleles. The song foreshadows Lennie’s ultimate undoing, and it’s a winking reference to the Prodigy album, Fat of the Land, which echoes George and Lennie’s pipe dream.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

• Obviously, Moby would be invited to co-produce the project.
• A reinterpretation of Blondie’s “Call Me” by Sleigh Bells with Fred Schneider of the B-52s yelling out “Ishmael” whenever the title is mentioned.
• A fish-themed Girl Talk mash-up medley featuring obvious picks like Phish, “Barracuda” by Heart and the theme from Jaws, but also some more obscure picks like Ghostface Killah’s “Fish” and something off Neh Neh Cherry’s Raw Like Sushi. You know, for the big dance sequence.
• Because of the nautical theme, the soundtrack features plenty of yacht rock performed in a shanty style, possibly by Ashanti. Songs include Kenny Loggins’s “I’m Alright” to give a good Caddyshack vibe — that gopher is kinda like the white whale of the golf course, and 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” for the love scene between Ahab and the whale. It should be noted at this point that I’ve never read this book and it’s a miracle I can even write a sentence.

Etc.

I got a couple of the graphic designers from CBC Music to dissect a bunch of official lyric videos. They’re great and I really enjoyed it.

Read it here.

Good news! I tracked down the guy who sang my favourite Halloween song.

As a nation, we should be more proud of our greatest achievement: The Littlest Hobo theme song.

I wrote this piece on some of the most memorable boy band spoofs from SNL, Letterman, and Conan, as well as a few others.

Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo recently revealed plans for the band to start its own summer camp. Earlier this year, Weezer headlined its own four-day music cruise in the Caribbean. While the Weezer camp is little more than an idea at this point, here’s what we think you can expect from Camp Weezer:

• The world’s shyest counsellors.
• The “Say It Ain’t Smores” nightly campfire.
• Hurley from Lost showing up for no reason.
• Three band members who aren’t super stoked about this camp.
• A souvenir photo in front of a blue, green or red background.
• If you want to repair your sweater, then sign up for our knitting day.
• Confused campers who thought they were attending the Wheatus Camp for Teenage Dirtbags.
• Asian women get in free.
• A weenie roast where everyone roasts Rivers Cuomo for being such a weenie.
• The mess hall is the diner from Happy Days.
• Timid, fully clothed skinny dipping.
• Eyeglass-cleaning stations every 20 feet.
• The first two days will be really great. The third day will be OK, but you’ll tell yourself it’s great. Then it goes downhill so fast that you start to question whether you really enjoyed the first two days after all.

(cbc music)

Speaking of dumb things I’ve written at work, this may be the dumbest.