Friday, May 17, 2013

Six degrees

So, my trains of thought (perhaps crazy trains? Though Crazy Train is the best song ever.) are odd voyages. I don't normally think so, because they're in my head. Normally I just think they're interesting, but sometimes by the time I open my mouth to share with somebody, I just get a completely blank look. So then I have to explain how I got there.

Example: I was telling one of my coworkers that the fiancĂ©  and I were watching Hemlock Grove on Netflix (which, by the by, is quite good so far if you haven't watched it. I'm only up to episode 6 or something. I don't know how many there are. No spoilers). Only I kept wanting to call it Cypress Grove, for no good reason. Which made me think of China Grove, the Doobie Brothers song. Which then made me think of this Juicy Fruit commercial:



Once I'd explained this train to my coworker, she said "Your six degrees are always....interesting." I kind of laughed, and then thought on that for awhile. Because most people play the Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon game, but I don't really care about Kevin Bacon (though he's been very good on The Following, which I'm also not up to date on. But, James Purefoy is a serial killer, and that's what got me watching it in the first place. No spoilers.) So I asked her (probably after far too long a pause): "Six degrees of what?"  She said "What?" I explained that most people do the Kevin Bacon thing. So what was I doing? She looked mystified. So then I figured it could be dogs. Because after Juicy Fruit, there's the Big Red commercial, also from the 80's, where at the end the kissing couple is pulled apart by an Olde English Sheepdog.

Then I told the story to my fiancé, who said he would have taken it in a different direction, Big Red to Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Which is all well and good, but "Big Red" can also go in two animal directions. It's the title of a book by Jim Kjelgaard about an Irish Setter, or it's the nickname people usually use for horses. If I remember right, both Man o'War and Secretariat were called "Big Red" by the people around them.

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