We will rock you

The fire alarm “testing” in our building was initially limited to intermittent, loud chirps. Around 9:45, they ran the alarms for fifteen minutes straight. I tried offsetting the cacophony with Neil Diamond (who seems to have released only “Best of” albums for the last 25 years) played at full blast. After two rounds of singing along to “Crunchy Granola Suite” and “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” some coworkers came by for an impromptu trip to one of the three Starbucks’ across the street.

My friend E gave me endless crap about it downstairs, across the street and back. Later, she enumerated all of my coworkers whom I had infected with earworms. In response to my apology, I received three comments:

  • You can’t fool us. …We know you have the Jazz Singer on DVD. – P
  • No problem Jim, as long as it’s not opera, it’s just fine. – L
  • Dude, I totally groove to Neil man. Forever in Blue Jeans baby…good times, good times. 🙂 – N

7 thoughts on “We will rock you”

  1. Ribbing aside, how is the new album?

    (The mention above of The Jazz Singer immediately reminded me this, from Ebert’s review of the truly god-awful movie Saving Silverman: “As for Neil Diamond, ‘Saving Silverman’ is his first appearance in a fiction film since ‘The Jazz Singer’ (1980), and one can only marvel that he waited 20 years to appear in a second film, and found one even worse than his first one.” I [heart] Catty Ebert.)

  2. What’s the matter with opera? I’d prefer my Sarah Brightman CDs or The Phantom of the Opera CDs…though of course the best thing would be to just leave the building until the stated end of the fire drill. (Makes you wonder how much money ear plug companies might give to places to run fire drill tests during “business hours”.)

  3. You have some strange coworkers, dude. But then, we all do. 🙂

    Try listening to alarms while listening to phone calls. 🙂

  4. “Pour me a drink/And I’ll tell you some lies/Got nothing to lose/So you just sing the blues, all the time”

    I knew you would surprise me. That’s why I’ve returned!
    I think you should have listened to Scorpions. You could have thought someone was telling you: “Here I am, rocked you like a hurricane”. You would have felt much better ;-o)

    Through the miles, a *

  5. Jarrett: Ribbing aside, how is the new album?

    I like it, though the songs seem very… familiar (wink). What was humorous was the reverse correlation between age and Diamond-affinity. “N” is in his early 20s whereas everyone else is 30-50. It’s like Neil is “retro,” sort of how Meat Loaf made his comeback a few years ago.

    Brian: What’s the matter with opera?

    Nothing. It’s the rap of medieval times.

    As far as leaving the building goes, the fire alarm testing was scheduled to occur 9 – 9:30 am, but hadn’t. We thought it may have been cancelled. Funnier still is today the fire alarm went off for real and the entire building was evacuated. I had just returned from my Friday morning pilgramage to Great Harvest for the monster pecan sticky buns.

    Lisa: try listening to alarms while listening to phone calls

    About 16 years ago I was working in a helpdesk when we had an earthquake. I continued the call, under the desk.

    siby: I think you should have listened to the Scorpions
    Unfortunately, I didn’t have that available as an option. Ozzy or AC/DC would have been a great choice.

  6. Haha. Good thing I wasnt around then? LOL. Being the former coworker at that place, I cant imagine it could be that bad. Then again I could ask R. Were you loud enough for R, C, and T could hear you sing? 😛

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