The Delights Of ‘Diamond Joe Biden: Vice Presidential Jams’
Show of hands for yes: did the internet turn on you this year?
Oh thank God, I’m not the only one. What in the world happened to the internet this year, you guys? The internet had, heretofore, been so delightful! Filled with all manner of fascinating learnings and point-and-stare characters and all those exclamation points!! Exclamation points for days!!! An embarrassment of exclamation points!!!!
It seems, however, that this year brought a new internet. A sullen one. A teenaged one, but without any of the fun teenaged antics like kegstands or unwanted pregnancies. This internet was all moderate-to-severe acne and monosyllabic responses.
There were, however, a few shining stars among the constellation of internet pimples in 2012. Among them this delightful pinboard devoted to CATSES!!!! But even CATSES is not enough to brighten us all in perpetuity, and so, in the interest of making 2013 a better year on the internet, we’ve gathered up a few contributors to share the things they’ve been enjoying while the rest of us have been suffering through the internet’s Ayn Rand phase. These favorite internet things will be appearing here over the next weeks. My own contribution to the Internet Relief Society effort is a Spotify playlist that Awl Pal Katie Baker-Bakes brought to my attention in early November. It’s called “Diamond Joe Biden: Vice Presidential Jams” and it’s a revelation. There’s no better description for it than the one proffered by a friend to whom, in the spirit of paying Katie’s good deed forward, I’d sent the link: “This playlist is so utterly ridiculous and yet here I am, listening to it at work.”
It’s got everything: Thin Lizzy, Bad Company, a version of “Black Betty” from the Dukes of Hazzard Motion Picture Soundtrack.
There’s a bit of Whitesnake to slake your rolling-around-vixenishly-on-luxury-automobiles thirst.
ELO is represented.
There is some Queen.
It’s brought to a rousing conclusion with “The Star Spangled Banner” by KISS.
It is perfect in every possible way.
But the most perfect part about this playlist is that you can totally imagine Joe Biden listening to it in the car on his way to Costco, getting amped up on Alice Cooper, snickering boyishly to himself over all the things he’s gonna buy because Jill isn’t there to stop him. “A food dehydrator!” he’ll exclaim excitedly to the state of Delaware plush toy hanging from his rearview mirror, because Joe Biden has apparently stashed all of the internet’s exclamation points in Dick Cheney’s now-unused underground bunker, “I’ve always wanted one of those! I bet Michelle will love my homemade turkey jerky, since it’s low-fat and stuff. Maybe she’ll finally teach me how to do that Douglas dance I keep hearing Sasha and Malia teasing her about.”
I love it so much that I sent its creator, Sean Gentille of the Sporting News, a thank you note for taking the time to put it together.
And then I wrote 500+ words about how much I love it for the internet, which will undoubtedly repay my kindness by mouthing off to me about how its curfew is so unfair.
Jolie Kerr can mostly be found on Twitter, answering questions about barf and other personal fluids. Photo of Joe Biden courtesy of the White House Flickr Feed.
