Failed attempt # 1

Following advice given by my wife, mom and pastor, I decided I would commit one day to not being judgemental, condemning or just all-around nasty. It would be My Day of Living Nicely.

I would try to see the positive side of things and watch my mouth, even when no one was around to hear. I would rely heavily on dangits, shoots and if things were too egregious, I would resort to the strongest of curses ever uttered by my beloved grandmother, Mimi - Foot! For Mimi, who I never heard curse properly, this was the equivalent of a year's worth of F-bombs.

I picked Sunday as the day. It should be easy. Go to church (usually no problem there), lunch with some families from church and then relax at the coffee shop while browsing online. Acutely aware of just how easy it is to stumble upon contentious claptrap online, I limited myself to three sites: ESPN, my bank (non-contentious while I still have money) and a video of the Police from one of the Save Everything Now For Free concerts.

I love the Police and figured I could find a video of them without having to listen to any host waste my time and his breath cheer leading for the earth. Risky but doable. It was the Police! In college I went to see them consecutive weekends in Dallas and Austin. I overcame bottles of MadDog 20/20 and ice skating / falling amid pre-teens weaving around me in Dallas and a deer on my front fender in Austin to see them. A blarney-free video should be a piece of cake.

And it was, at first. I chose Message in a Bottle. It started well. Sting was hitting the high notes with about a 90% efficiency rating. There was an extra guy on guitar, John Mayer, but he wasn't hogging the stage so it was all right. And then, it wasn't. Who's that guy sneaking up behind Sting?

"Mr. Kanye West, everybody!" Huh? What? Isn't he some sort of rap guy? Please God, no! No! Oh, dangit! And by dangit I mean dammit. This is a song, not a spoken-word mouth-fart! Come on, no! Yes.

Not being a rap aficionado, I'm not positive about this, but I thought rappers relied on rhyme and an acute vernacular. Not Mr. West. No rhyming. He was struggling just to reach for assonance ( heavy stress on the first syllable) - bottle, tomorrow, follow.

Ugh. He's jumping around like he's on an exercise infomercial, mortally piercing the music with bon mots such as Huh! Huh!, Yeah! Yeah!, Hey! Hey! and Care! Care! It's like listening to two completely different radio stations at the same time.

Why the hell doesn't Sting do something! This is their song! Hell, he's gone after his own bandmates - musicians - for less. Why doesn't he kick his ass? Or at least Tantrically bore his ass to death?

The coffee shop has been replaced by a bar with a 100 drafts on tap. Kanye West, you blew My Day of Living Nicely. Foot you.