I’ve been researching popular music so I can put a name to the horrible noises that greet me everywhere I go in Vegas.

I’m not doing very well keeping current.

My skills at pattern recognition have helped me to determine that what makes a song a hit is, the big-money music people decide what we will listen to and play it until we think we like it. The process should work the other way around, but I think the system, like all others, is designed to put the onus on the masses.

Anyway, apparently there is some Korean guy named Oppa or Psy or something…I dunno, who is currently burning up the charts with his “Gangnam Style”, which is meant to showcase a life of opulent luxury and conspicuous consumption.  Kids today.

However, this song (and related video)

PSY – GANGNAM STYLE(강남스타일) M/V: http://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0

…makes a couple of good points.

First, it shows how I am right about the system. Except for his sick dance moves (which strongly resemble my version of the “Curly Shuffle” after I mix Red Bull & Mountain Dew) everything about it is awful. But, kids today (and Trixie) absolutely love it. Because they are supposed to – not because it has any merit. But, in their minds, they are all loving it…ironically.

They seems to be saying, like they do with all hits, “Haha! Can you believe this song is on the radio 24/7? Haha! It is so awful! Haha! He reminds me of William Hung! Haha! As IF we could ever like something like this! Hey! Play it again while I download it from iTunes! Haha!

Second, Gangnam Style accurately describes how I have been living since Trixie got to Vegas. Relative to life on the road in the EM-50 Phantom Rambler, that is.

We are in The Luxor. Upon check-in we got “upgraded” to a room that has 29′ more square feet than the one we were supposed to get because the one we were supposed to get was in the pyramid and they “upgraded” other folks who were supposed to be in the tower. I would rather be in the pyramid, though.

But, it is nice and plenty spacious.

On the first day of our reunion, Trixie kept staring dopily into my eyes and reaching over and pinching me to make sure I was real. While I, on the other hand, stared dopily at her chest, reaching over and pinching her because I like the way she feels.

Now that we have settled down and gotten reaccustomed to being around each other, just like old times, we can fall back into a routine. She has demanded that I give popular music a fair chance. As a result, I have promised to go with her to a club. To keep from embarrassing myself I have insisted that she first teach me “The Harlem Shake” and how to “Whip Nae Nae” That last one is a real thing…I shit you not. Like you, I assumed it was a practical joke perpetrated to make people look and sound ridiculous at the same time. But it is a genuine art form and that makes it respectable.

I got a charley horse in my buttock doing the Horizontal Mambo with…Trixie