My brother Brad is currently spending a year-long retreat in Colorado as part of seminary. As a result, I have been sending him a bunch of snail-mail letters. This week, I’m honoring seven songs that remind me of him. My reflections will be in epistolary form, and I’ll actually print them out and mail them.

Dear Brad,

One of my favorite features in Facebook is the “See Friendship” button. It shows various things we’ve both been tagged in or written on each others’ walls.

I recently revisited ours, and was not disappointed. Lots of old inside jokes. About a thousand Simpsons clips. And then in 2013 we had a phase of sending each other Space Jam mash ups. What a rush. Of all the dumb quirks of Internet cultures to get sucked into… I’m glad we chose that specific rabbit hole. I’ll repeat what I’ve said many times before: The Space Jam song pairs well with literally every other song. Even awful songs like the DK rap. Or is the DK rap great?

I have nothing else to add. No profound  insights. Nay, the insights are all there in the music this time. Right up to the explosive last few seconds.

Here are a few more treats I found when reviewing our Facebook correspondence:

• This gif of a spinning rooster
• References to “Jenkins the dastardly goose” we met at Great Country Farms
• The one picture of us blackberry picking, you know the one. (Ok, here it is in case you don’t.)
• Me copying-and-pasting a Spotify notification that you listened to “M.T.A.” by The Kingston Trio, then liking that.
• A bunch of broken YouTube links to what I assume were Simpsons clips
• You dibs-ing “best man” right after I got engaged
• This story you wrote on my wall:

You’ll like this story.
So i was in my room, minding my own business when I hear the song “Down, Down, Down, to Mephisto’s cafe” come on my roommates speakers. I was like “Dude, no way I LOVE that song.” He says “you didn’t hear that.”
Well, as it turns out he was making a ska playlist that he was burning for me as a birthday gift. He then proceeded to list some other songs that were VERY familiar: “I want more,” “A better place, a better time.” I asked him
“where did you get those songs from?”
“Oh this ‘best 50 ska songs list’ off some website called ‘listosaurusrex.com'” [ed. note, old site Dan ran]
“DUDE, I wrote that list.”
Mind = blown

• Many links back and forth to “Ninja Info Cards” and the dramatic Oedipus guy
• Back in about 2008, us quoting Streetlight and Surburban Legends songs back and forth

Anyways, it was a nice trip. If you ever decide to log back on to The ‘Book, I recommend you enjoy the same experience.

Yours in both slamming and jamming,

Dan

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