Time to discuss a commercial I saw recently that has me confused beyond belief. The commercial, posted above, is an ad for Microsoft featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

Okay, there have to be at least a dozen different parts of this minute and thirty second Lawrence of Arabia of television commercials that confuse the fuck out of me.

Starting out Seinfeld is eating a churro - I get that part, churros are tasty. He sees cheap shoes, and Bill Gates, and enters a shoe store. So far this makes some semblance of sense. He offers Bill some churro, and Bill politely declines. Now here where the ad begins to go screwy.

Jerry tries to help Bill size up his shoe - okay, it's getting a little weird - not really something I would expect Seinfeld to do - but I can accept it. Jerry tests it out, finds out the shoe is the wrong size, and now, starts folding it in half for some reason - which I guess is because he's trying to wear the shoe in, but I'm not sure, and announcers that the Conquistador, which seems to be either the brand, or model of shoe runs tight.

Okay, now it gets one level stranger. Jerry tells Bill that he wears shoes in the shower. Now that's a strange revelation, but sure, it's something Jerry might say - but what's stranger is we get this weird second long shower scene just showing a man's feet with shoes on in the shower. What the fuck? Why? What is going on?

Okay, now, Jerry does his shower schtick, tells Bill he's a 10, Bill says it feels better and we get to the next super odd part of the commercial. A family of spanish-speaking people for some reason are staring at the window and say two lines - the woman asks "Is that the conquistador?" and the man, presumably her husband responds "They run tight." Consider this the moment of this commercial when my mind official explodes. What is going on here? There are so many questions, and no answers. Why does everyone know what the Conquistador is? Why is it called the Conquistador? Is it common knowledge that these shoes run tight? Why the random spanish speaking people at all? Why are they looking through a window at someone trying on shoes? Are they just interested in watching Bill Gates try on shoes?

As Bill goes to purchase the shoes, the person working the register asks him if he is a Shoe Circus Clown Club member, to which Bill responds "Platinum" and takes out a card with a picture of him looking far younger - perhaps implying that he has been a Shoe Circus shopper for years since before he was big?

Now for the first time, after finding out that the card gets Bill "Big Top points," yet another detail whose use evades me, a minute in to this commercial, Jerry actually brings up Microsoft, asking Bill has melded his brain to other big brains at Microsoft, to which Bill responds in the affirmative. He then asks Bill if Microsoft are working on computers that you can eat while you work - and to comfirm this, requests Bill give him a signal such as adjusting his shorts, which he then does, to Jerry's jubilation.

All this leaves me thinking - what the fuck is going on? Are we really getting computers we can eat? Cause if we are, then one third if this commercial makes sense. If not, none of it does.

Was this the goal of the commercial? To have me unbelievably confused? Maybe. And if it is, then kudos, Microsoft or whatever ad agency did this. You win. Otherwise I give up.

Last stadium on the trip!

First, a note about the seventh inning stretch. For the most part, this is the one area where Shea, or just as much, the people attending games at Shea. Well, for one thing, Take Me Out to the Ballgame seems to be sped up at Shea, possibly to fit in Lazy Mary, a song played at every seventh inning stretch (just about every anyway) which I just learned was by Lou Monte, who apparently was known for recording Italian-themed novelty records in the 50s and 60s, which according to wikipedia "tells the tale of a coversation between a young woman who wishes to be married, and her mother. The somewhat risque song mixes English and Italian verses. The two use double entendre to compare the occupations with the sexual appetities of the various suitors." Now I may be biased because all my friends and I always sing along with Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but it at least seems like a whole lot of people are singing along. In addition, we have our own stupid tradition of, well, during the video which plays during Take Me Out the Ballgame, and shows the lyrics, every once in a while it shows a picture instead of words, like a picture of a baseball for the "ball" in ball game and a picture of the Mets logo for home team. So, copying from a friend of mine who started it, every time it shows the baseball, we say baseball instead of the right words, and mets logo instead of home team and so forth. Yes, it's stupid, but the point is it's our stupid tradition, and it's fun for us.

That said I was surprised more of the parks I visited did not have their own take on the seventh inning stretch. Looking at the wikipedia page, a number of teams have their own seventh inning traditions, but only one of the teams we saw, the Brewers, which I'll mention as I get into talking about Miller Park. I do think it is hilarious that the Rays play Fins in their seventh inning, especially as I only learned this song existed about six months ago.

Wikipedia also lists several possible myths about the origin of the seventh inning stretch, my favorite of which is the idea that President Taft got up in the seventh inning to stretch because, as wikipedia describes it, he felt sore in his backside, and everyone, seeing the president do so, decided to follow along.

One last note before I finish my seventh inning stretch diatribe. Time to stop playing God Bless America during the seventh inning of baseball games, at all. Now, I have several problems with this - but my objection right now centers on one - God Bless America is a terrible song. That's it - it's bad - we'd be far, far better off to play Woody Guthrie's response song to God Bless America, This Land is Your Land. Heed this advice, stadiums.

One last note about Wrigley as well. After the Cubs won, they played a song I had never heard before called "Go, Cubs, Go." Apparently played after Cubs victories, the song is penned by Steve Goodman, write of Arlo Guthrie's only top 40 hit City of New Orleans (Which I used to confuse with the Johnny Horton #1 Battle of New Orleans). I'm pretty much always in support of team songs, another area where the Mets can be proud, having not just one, but two - Meet the Mets, and the 1986 song Let's Go Mets Go.

Okay - Miller Park. Miller Park was unusual compared to the other parks on the trip in that it had a retractable dome. It did not rain so we didn't have a chance to see the dome in action, unfortunately - it only takes 10 minutes to close the dome, so it can be done between innings. However, just the fact that it had the retractable dome shaped the feel of the park even with the dome open, as the park felt indoors in a way the others had not - walls around every level of the deck as well as pretty high up behind the outfield. Watching from the outfield was, as at almost all of these stadiums, a pleasure, but the best vantage point found here was one that I did not see at any other stadiums - a view from right down the right field line essentially. Everything looked a little confusing, angle wise, but it was well worth it - it helped figure out what it looks like to be a right fielder. Sadly, I missed the sausage race.

Also, a quick note about the Brewers' hats - the Brewers were wearing the hat classic icon - at the game I was at, which I was very appreciative. This is one of the best subdued, un-flashy icons in all of sports, and it's good to see that even though the icon has been gone from full time use since 1994, in 2006 the Brewers brought it back as a retro alternate look. Make it full time, I say, and make the modern one the alternate.


Miller Park field view, scoreboard, walls, and all


Just the scoreboard.

New aside for today! Now, of course everyone knows that Mark Harmon (star of St. Elsewhere and NCIS) is married to Pam Dawber, Mindy from Mork and Mindy. But just learned that Mark Harmon is, or was, I suppose, brother-in-law to Ricky Nelson, and is thus the uncle to the members of Nelson. Amazing!

Moving on to St. Louis's new Busch Stadium.

I had the pleasant fortune to see Ian Snell for the second time in the trip (the first at PNC). To get to Busch, I walked from hanging around the arch (yes, it's touristy as touristy gets, but it's still pretty cool - also apparently it was only finished in 1965 - I had always imagined it as being significantly older than that) through the ghost town that was St. Louis's downtown in the evening to Busch. Busch had among the nicest entrances of the stadiums I visited, complete with a very cool brick facade. The view is a nice cross-section of the St. Louis downtown, dotted most importantly, with the arch (I wonder if St. Louis likes or hates being best known for the arch - on one hand, it must be irritating to have everyone just ask about the arch, but on the other hand it might be better to have people know one thing about St. Louis than nothing.) The best vantage points offered were unusually on the upper deck - I walked around and could get a view from just about any angle for which there was upper deck - the best being around the right field corner. Walking around the field level, the only real view was in left field, and it was hard to see over raised stands in many of the places. I experienced my second moment of rudeness during the trip when while attempting to stand in an area in the outfield, the usher not only told us we couldn't be there, but asked us what we were doing there - it was next to a little play area for kids, so my friend Jesse said that he was checking it out to bring his niece, to which the usher incredulously interogated him asking what his niece's name was, with the tone of voice leading us to believe he thought Jesse was lying and that he could trick him with this question. Obviously this was just a minor moment of rudeness, but we were both kind of pissed off. All in all a very good park, and a park I would be reasonably happy to have in my hometown, but not up to the standards of many of the other parks on my trip - the nicest thing about it was definitely the outside facade and entranceway.

If Busch didn't have problems before, it was bound to lose after getting compare to the next park, the truly incromprable Wrigley Field. First things first, Wrigley Field had far and away the best area around the ballpark. It wasn't a parking lot, or even a couple of streets around the ballpark with things, nor was it in a downtown area that had lots of big buildings, but barely seemed alive - it was a leigitimate neighborhood. There were plenty of places to eat and drink before or after and to just put the ballpark in context. I talk a walk around the perimeter of the stadium before going in. Inside, the park did not disappoint - sure it did not have the trappings of the newer parks - it was more confusing to get to the seats, the concourse was not as scenic or as one with the outside, and the seats itself were smaller and less confortable. In addition, unlike the new parks, the extra vantage points were limited. But the atmosphere, and the park itself are unrivaled - it's something you can just create - it's something that exists because of eighty years of tradition (obviously some of the traditions are newer, but they all seem to seamlessly blend in, like the 7th inning recitation of Take Me Out to the Ballgame started by Harry Caray). The view was fantastic, electronic scoreboard-less and all, and I got the pleasure of seeing Carlos Zambrano hit one out. After the game, I was able to walk all the way down to the field, and touch the brick wall between field and stands behind home place. Wrigley Field is the type of desitnation worth working a trip around.


Bush stadium, with the arch in background.



Busch Stadium brick facade


Wrigley, Ivy and all.


Wrigley facade - not sure why Bank of America is the bank of opportunity.

Also - as an aside, I just learned that Marshall Crenshaw wrote the title song to Walk Hard. Phenomenal.

I'm going to try to add a few more pictures this time, and I'll add a few of the stadiums I talked about yesterday.

After Cleveland, I hiked north to Detroit, where Comerica Park beckoned. Comerica Park is one of those stadiums that is placed right next to the city's football stadium, and surrounded by lots of parking lots, though still right within the downtown part of the city, nearby Detroit's Greektown. I had just standing room for this park, and this may have been the best park we went to for standing room, as I think there were the most different vantage points from which a stander could see. (As an aside, one thing I noticed was that Detroit simply does not take enough advantage of the using the Tiger as mascot on apparel - all animal teams should be using their animals, as it's a huge advantage over teams without animals - sure, the D is nice, but how about a few more hats with tigers on them?) For the beginning and end of the game, I stood in the left field standing area, which was right near a series of statues of Tigers' Hall of Famers, like Hank Greenberg and Mechanical Man (one of the great nicknames) Charlie Gehringer. From virtually everywhere on the field level could I peak in and take a look at the game, and I watched parts or full innings from nearly everywhere, and watched a couple of innings in the right field standing area. There was no scenic backdrop to the park, and aside from Milwaukee, which was a strange scenario as a dome, this park felt the most contained within itself, rather than at play at all with the outside world. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing - I'm trying to figure out why this is - I think it's possibly because I felt it was the most lit up park, it seemed like the biggest, walking around (though I'm not sure if it really is), and the lack of a backdrop - really all you saw from any vantage point was the stadium. Also, if one of the two small moments of rudeness I experienced on our trip, when I incidentally walked up towards what was a private deck (which there was no way to possibly know) the woman working there told me to get out like I was a trespasser coming to steal some private views.

Next up, Cincinnati, where I viewed an afternoon game at the Great American Ballpark. My preference for day games was nearly overshadowed by the scorchingly hot temperatures at the stadium. I felt higher in Cincinnati than I had in any other park we had been to in our seats, but that may very well have been a function more of where I was sitting than the park itself. The centerfield view was over the Ohio River, which was pretty nifty, and a couple of bridges that crossed over it. Walking around the park gave me one of the best views I saw at any stadium - in a small area nearby home plate, I was able to get a field level view I stayed at for a couple of innings. The outfield area offered several intriguing vantage points as well - a huge standing area in Center was underneath some apparatus that shot water up in the air for some reason I could not figure out. The outfield walkway also offered great views of the river, and I somewhat unintentially interupted a tender moment between a man and woman when moving in for a particularly scenic view. There was a Reds museum just outside the park, but apparently it was a paid admission, which was sad - otherwise the entrance was really nothing too special.

Here's some pictures taken by one of my traveling companions,


So here's PNC's scoreboard, and the circular ramp entranceway off to the left of it.

Here's a view of the river from the stadium - research tells me it's the Alleghany River



Here's the Indians Hall of Fame Plaques at Progressive Field



Progressive Field and beautiful Downtown Cleveland


Commercia Park and with scenic Ford Field in the backdrop


Tigers retired numbers below their statues



Great American Ballpark

Okay, now that I'm back in town, it's about time for another entry. I suppose it's in order for me to at least say a little something about the ballparks to which I went (I think that's grammatically right?).

Well, we'll say a little bit about each in order.

First, I went to PNC Park in Pittsburgh - it felt like a cozier park than most (and it is with less than 40 thousand seats in the entire park - something it's probably easier to get away with in Pittsburgh than some other cities (no offense to the fine city of Pittsburgh)). Everywhere you walked seemed to offer an open view of the field, and around home plate was a neat circular ramp that connected the different levels. The view was one of the best - a view of the river (one of the three rivers I suppose, but I'm not honestly certain which) with a cool looking yellow pedestrian bridge (why doesn't New York have pedestrian bridges?) in the background. As one could at all the newer stadiums, I was able to circumnavigate the stadium and the outfield gave many excellent vantage points to stand from as well as a beautiful view of the river, if it was a really boring game, which, as a Pirates game, probably has a fair chance of occuring. This was the only stadium at which I got stadium food, a sub-par hot dog, which shouldn't be so much a negative, as a lack of positive, as stadium food is for the most part expected to be bad. While for the most part I was more interested in the parks themselves than the values of the tickets/seats on this trip, it bears mentioning that for about 20 dollars we were able to sit on field level only a few rows back from the field down the right field line (there actually only are really two levels). What also should be noted is the excellent out-of-town scoreboard which shows every game, who is pitching, what inning the game is in, and how many runners are on base.

After Pittsburgh, we next visited Cleveland's Progressive (ne Jacobs) Field (Progressive is a kind of ridiculous name, but what far beats that is the name of the next door home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, which is the Quicken Loans Arena, though they try to make it slightly more palatable by calling it the “Q”). This was the second oldest ballpark I saw on my trip, and was along with Camden Yards, one of the leaders of this new generation of ballparks, opening in 1994, replacing old Municipal Stadium (the Mistake on the Lake). The view is not quite as scenic as the bridge in Pittsburgh, but it’s a nice little view of some of the buildings of Cleveland. The outfield area has a bar and seating area as well towards left field a little Indians Hall of Fame with huge plagues of the best Indians of all time (Bob Feller, Tris Speaker, Larry Doby, etc) and a wall with many others, and many more modern Indians on it, and props always go to any park that honors its great players. In addition, Cleveland had the hippest scoreboard – the clips shown in videos were better than any other stadiums I attended, including Back to the Future and The Big Lebowski amongst others.

Like PNC, and most of the other parks we went to, the whole experienced seemed more outdoors than in, one of the positives that all of these stadiums have over parks like Shea where, for one, you’re indoors except when you’re outside of the stadium or at your seat, and two, there is absolutely no standing room, and no room to walk around to catch different vantage points of the game. While I’m at this point, let me make another point about the plusses of all of these newer stadiums compared to Shea. From getting into each park, to getting to the seats, to walking around, each offered a vastly more pleasant experience than Shea. With a couple of small exceptions in Detroit and St. Louis, people were courteous instead of rude – this is such a simple thing that makes such a big difference. I understand that I might walk into a section that is unbeknownst to me off limits, or that I may find myself accidentally blocking someone’s sightline – but it is not hard to just ask nicely for me to move and explain why rather than rudely demand that I exit. Another plus about all of these parks, is that I could, for the most park, walk freely around the stadium; at Shea, only ticket holders can access the field level.
Okay, back from my digression – a very positive experience at Progressive, or the Prog, as I’ll start calling it now. More stadiums (I think stadia would sound better) tomorrow.




Okay, this is an aside - through some random wikipedia searching - I was on the MC Skat Kat page (the animated cat from Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract) and found that according to the page, he died in 1991. How did an animated cat die? I don't remember that scene in the video. What continues to be remarkable about this is that the cat has a birthday - and was 14 when the video was released, and attempted a brief comeback in 1995, apparently four years after his untimely death.

I actually have a good reason for not posting in the past couple days, as I'm out of town on a baseball trip - going to 7 stadiums in the midwest - the Pirates, Indians, Tigers, Reds, Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers in that order. I should have some pictures up when I get back.

In the mean time, I'll leave any reading this to decipher this amazing quote from Tim McCarver, after Mark Teixeixara hit a home run in last Saturday's game against the Yankees -
"That was a blast from the present"

If anyone can explain to me what that means, they get a prize.

Okay, I have a new blog activity (see: blogtivity). A while back, my brother obtained mp3s of the Top 100 Billboard Hits from every year since 1951. Contained within these classics are many classics, as well as not a few surprises and songs I've certainly never heard of. Anyway, I thought maybe I'd pick a year arbitrarily and listen to ten songs at a time from it and post some thoughts. Clearly, the first ten in any given year will mostly be huge songs everyone knows, and as the count goes on, the songs will likely become more obscure.

We'll start with 1970, because, well, I really don't have a reason, but why not.

#1: Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel

Wikipedia has a compendious entry on this one, and notes that this song is considered (officially?) Simon and Garfunkel's "swan song" - even though there are other singles afterward (Cecilia), perhaps because it was their last #1 hit. Apparently the song could be viewed as one big proxy for the falling out between Simon and Garfunkel as there was a bit of a fight over who got to sing, even though according to facts laid out later on in the entry, Simon wanted to sing, and Garfunkel also didn't want to sing it solo, yet somehow he ended up singing it that way. The best quote over the entry is the random assertion by Art that singing it in Madison Square Garden in 1972 felt "almost biblical." The other interesting (at least mildly so) fact is that apparently the first two verses were recorded in New York, while the last one was recorded in LA for some reason.

Not to be outdone, allmusic has an outrageously long entry for the song, adding another seemingly silly dispute which led to the breakup - the dispute over whether Bridge Over Troubled Water was the best song Simon had ever written (Simon said yes, Garfunkel no, for the record). In addition, allmusic writes a litany about Simon's influences (the Reverend Claude Jeter and the Swan Silvertones), describes Garfunkel's tenor as "angelic" and notes that piano player on the song was the replacement bassist in Bread (after If and Make It With You, but before Baby I'm a-want you), and that's just the second paragraph of three. The third mostly talks about similar songs, cover version, and every retrospective of Simon and Garfunkel's the song has ever appeared on.

Interestingly, both wiki and allmusic make references to Let It Be, which will appear soon enough.

Anyway, I have to stand with Garfunkel in that it is not the finest song Garfunkel
Slightly more sparse production I think would have highlighted the song's heartstring pulling qualities further I think, particularly in the third verse where the song adds a "The Boxer"-like strangely out of place drum sound, and a string section that I'm trying to think of a way it could have been used better, but all I can come up with is that the song would have been best with nothing but Garfunkel's aforementioned angelic tenor and Larry Knechtel's fine piano work. That said it's still sufficiently heartstring-pulling, and I like it very well. The lyrics are nothing brilliant, but nothing stupid either - standard-y stuff about helping down and out friends, and what could ever be wrong with that. Except for the "sail on silvergirl" part of the third verse, though allmusic has ideas about that, spanning all the way from a reference to the Swan Silvertones, to a reference to his prematurely gray fiancee to a reference to heroin. Crazines.

Okay, there's no way the other entries will be this long, so let's move on.

#2: (They Long to Be) Close to You - The Carpenters

Sadly this song makes me think of the Simpsons episode Maximum Homerdrive in which Marge insists on buying a doorbell that plays the first eight notes of (They Long to Be) Close to You. It's a Burt Bacharach and Hal David tune which was first recorded (as I assume, right or not, every Bacharach and David song written in the '60s was) by Dion Warwick, but wasn't a hit til Richard and Karen came along. In addition, this is just another song of many that makes the Carpenters seem creepy, sung by a brother and sister team.

The lyrics are a little sappy (you end up going this way anytime you start describing how angels created a person's features: "sprinkled moon-dust in your hair of gold and starlight in your eyes of blue") though I appreciate the song is also an explanation - because of these angelic features is why "all the girls in town follow you around" - it's purely superficial. I also love that it’s they, not she, who longs to be close to you. It seems more like infatuation than love.

It's a pretty solid song over all, very touching - we don't get an upbeat song til #3. And another song that gets tons of orchestration – starting with just the piano, we get plenty of strings, horns, and backing vocals repeating the chorus right after Karen sings it. It also probably goes on a minute longer than it needs to, and I would through into the garbage that part in the last minute where the chorus sings “why-yyyyy(this probably isn’t why actually, it’s probably just some sort of non-word sound I don’t know how to write)….close to you)

#3: "American Woman/No Sugar Tonight" - The Guess Who

Both our first Canadian group and our first double A side all at once! What a celebration.

American Woman is the real driver of the single here, but let's not give short shrift to No Sugar Tonight, even though I seem to be the only one amongst my friends who likes it. In fact what makes the No Sugar Tonight of the double A side version better is that it does not include the "New Mother Nature" part at the end which is not bad but drags down the song every time; I need to see if I can find this version or somewhere or cut it off myself.

American Woman is of course in the great tradition of Canadians bashing America, and according to Wiki, Randy Bachman claims the American Woman is the Statute of Liberty (lest any metaphor not be grounded strictly in reality). Apparently when the Guess Who played in the White House, Pat Nixon explicitly requested that they not play American Woman because of it's, true or not, anti-American sentiment (Why the Guess Who were playing at the White House is not answered).

Anyway, it's a pretty good song, far better than the Lenny Kravitz cover in the second Austin Powers, and I'm probably the only person on earth who actually likes No Sugar Tonight better than American Woman (It's good, really! Plus, it's probably a metaphor for not getting laid, and that's pretty rocking). But American Woman is good too, it’s got a great guttural grunt before the lyrics, and a righteous anti-American rant as only someone from Canada could do. I also enjoy a song that says “bye bye” four times.

Of course I knew several other Guess Who hits, but I did not realize they still had hits long after two-band chart topper Randy Bachman departed the group, included the #6 American hit "Clap for the Wolfman" that I look forward to coming upon in 1974.

#4: Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - BJ Thomas

The second Bacharach and David composition in the top 4 of the year, apparently the song was first offered to Ray Stevens, whose "The Streak" prevents me from ever taking him seriously. The song of course also won the Oscar for best song from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It sounds kind of like it’s from before 1970 (maybe hence it’s placement in a Western?), very old timey. It’s good, and sends a good message, though I one I don’t often subscribe to – so relentlessly optimistic – no matter how much rain comes down, BJ won’t complain – so utterly convinced is he that good things are on their way. I actually really like the first few guitar strums before the vocal comes in, though I don’t really care much for the “But there’s one thing I know” part.

Also the thirty second instrumental outro is entirely unnecessary, though aside from that the brevity is appreciated.

#5: War – Edwin Starr

All anti-war songs should be as straightforward as this and maybe there would actually be some change.

Actually a few interesting tidbits from the wiki page on this one. First, apparently the song was written and recorded for the Temptations, but their version was not released as not to alienate their possible more conservative fans. Damn politics. I guess these conservative fans were too stupid to get the more subtle statements of Ball of Confusion. Backing on the Starr’s version was The Undisputed Truth, best known for their own Temptations cover and psychedelic soul masterpiece Smiling Faces Sometimes. Apparently Starr also released what became a minor hit the next year, “Stop the War Now,” building on the theme. I did not know that the song was covered on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” or that the Small Soldiers soundtrack featured a remix of War by Bone Thungs-N-Harmony, Henry Rollins, Flea and Tom Morello. I’ve also never heard the Bruce Springsteen version which was a top 10 hit, which I probably should, and may even have on my computer somewhere. Sadly, I also remember that War was the theme to the short-lived CBS legal show Family Law starring Kathleen Quinlan, Dixie Carter and Christopher McDonald.

Til this day, Starr has set the bar for musical self-righteous anti-war rage, with the “good god y’all” in every other chorus being the finest moment. Great drum roll to lead into the song, letting the vocal really have a stunning effect when it comes in. Unfortunately, the verse is nowhere as good as the chorus, though lyrics as mentioned continue the most straightforward anti-war song that exists to this day, with the best lines being “the point of war blows my mind” and “Induction then destruction; Who wants to die”

Alas, more later (I know, I said 10, but, close enough)