Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about to get me deported if I were in Britain.

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"For day 3, you'll need to make a playlist for a tea party with the Queen of England. Good luck. "

Hey everyone...all I can say is wow. Where did Charlie ~ pull this prompt out of? Like, I've seen lots of prompts. I have access to more prompts than I may ever know what to do with, and for six months and change out of the year I run a blogging contest that requires me issuing them. I'm an occasional participant in two other blogging groups. I see prompts at least six days a week. All kinds...difficult, easy, silly, straight-forward, personal, ambivalent, saucy, you name it. And I've probably come up with some of the dumbest, most puzzling ones in the last year. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

But this one? I'm scratching my head. Before we continue here, will someone please give the ol' lady a poke and make sure she's still alive even? It must be murder on your joints when you've been The Queen of someplace since 1659.

My friends, I'm a person who writes a few sporadically funny blog entries each month, and most of them have nothing to do with politics. I don't know how monarchies work, or what the function of a Royal is over a Prime Minister or a President or a Dictator or the chick at the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru. I don't really even want to know (no offense to my friends across the Atlantic who might be interested in wanting me to know). I can barely understand sometimes how the government in my own country operates...I can't even begin to fathom the incredible levels of dysfunction that would overtake our already-flawed system if we had to elect a president and respect a kingdom on the same grounds. I know they're different and all, but I'm 40 and I don't get it. It'd be like trying to explain to me what a fight between the two highest-value Pokemon cards would be like: I don't care and it has nothing to do with me and if it ever begins to look like it might, someone needs to intervene, and quickly.

As of 2014 the United States population is at roughly 320 million....like, five times as many people as the United Kingdom has. That means- between those two areas alone, and not including Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, South America, or anywhere else- that there are at least 384,786,724 people that are more qualified and more deserving than yours truly to have a nice little sit-down with the Queen Mother herself. I don't even know if I know her name...it's Elizabeth, right? Haven't they all been Elizabeths, once the country ran out of Henrys? Those last two sentences should tell you all you need to know as to why I'm unfit for such a meeting (just in case you might've, ya know, been on the fence about it before, or something). Maybe I should take back what I said about me needing an intervention if me and Europe is ever a thing...better get the ol' broad checked out from top to tail.

Anyway, I should probably get on with my playlist, before the CIA and Scotland Yard decide they want to take a look at my Google search history before and during the composing of this entry. Red flags are probably going up all over the place; some with stars and stripes, and some with Union Jacks. If you don't hear from me after awhile, assume I choked on a crumpet...whatever that is. Maybe I'll catch a case of the crumpets, or get run over by one, or attacked and imprisoned by one. When it comes to England, I'm afraid I'm dumber than a Spice Girl. Cue the "Countdown To Armageddon"  ...this time around, the revolution will not be televised.

1) "Don't Make Me A Target" by Spoon   Let me reiterate: I have no business dealing with the Queen of England. And I'm also not gonna pander to her. I don't know what she likes and doesn't like. She's made more than a few shitty, aging musicians Sirs or Knights or whatever she does with a sword that isn't the chopping off of their head, so she can just get over herself and let me control the Buckingham Palace (probably named after Lindsey   ) sound system for an hour. She'll probably make me bring my own cup of Tim Horton's too. Also on the list of things I expect out of this meeting: I better be gettin' home safely.

2) "Save Me" by The Tea Party   Don't think I wasn't tempted to make this entire list ten Tea Party songs. If Led Zeppelin stopped making music right after "Kashmir", became Canadian, and reformed in mid-'90's, they would be The Tea Party. Not a bunch of nutjob politician-wannabes, or Bostonians who can't stop reminding everyone how great their city is, but a rock band that doesn't suck. I also have no real basis (like most of the other songs in this playlist) for picking this specific tune, only than I had one in mind but this came up in my YouTube search because I'm lazy and refused to enter the song title I originally intended.

3) "Working Class Hero" by John Lennon  Not because today's his birthday, either. If I'm gonna get an audience with someone who has some pull, I don't care if they forget who I am or why I came there five minutes after I left, but in that time I'm gonna be damn sure they understand while I'm directly in front of them at a comfortable speaking distance that human beings aren't just anonymous pawns at their disposal. We don't all get the luxury of sipping tea with our pinkies pointed toward the ceiling. Some of us use both hands, and still don't get enough.

4) "My Name Is" by Eminem   A last-minute addition/change to my original lineup, based on Eminem's presidential portrayal and his inability to figure out which Spice Girl he wants to impregnate. She will have no choice but to see how the other half 99% of us lives.

5) "Margaret On The Guillotine" by Morrissey   No better way of showing off my inability to distinguish between politics and royalty than including this gorgeous little tribute to Margaret Thatcher, the late UK Prime Minister. How old is the Queen again? Pretty sure if she ate like an average American, she would've died at least twenty years ago from some combination of heart disease, diabetes, and Take That  .

6) "Kingdom Of Doom" by The Good, The Bad, And The Queen   I haven't listened to this album in years, and I had to skim through most of the lyrics online and I'm still not sure I've found the most suitable song from it to include here. In fact, I think the only reason I'm including it here is because of the line "Drink all day 'cuz the country's at war". I don't think Her Majesty (is it right to capitalize that? I don't even know) would be aware her country was at war if 10,000 soldiers were stationed outside her bedroom window, much less the wars everyday people like you and me only Britisher are fighting.

7) "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" by Urge Overkill   Ok, someone has to say it, so it may as well be me. Queenie, sweetheart, don't you think it's time you, ummmm, took a lover? Someone to ride out your last couple thousand days with (c'mon, if she's not dead yet she probably isn't goin' anywhere for another couple decades). Someone to clean the cobwebs out of the closet, wink-wink-nudge-nudge. Like the saying I just made up goes: "Every queen needs a king, or a same-sex lover whose relationship won't be recognized by the rest of her family and will have no bearing whatsoever on the throne-ownership."

8) "Paper Planes" by Street Sweeper Social Club   So you're tellin' me that there's this sweet li'l ol' lady that pretty much has all the power and respect and all that, and she doesn't have a corrupt bone in her body? I don't believe that, nope. Not for one day. You don't get to be so powerful for so long without at least chopping off a few fingers at the knuckle. Street gangs, mafias, corporations, political parties, royal families...they're all driven by the same things: ego, greed and profit. "We're not a gang; we're a motherfuckin' social club"...that's what all the ladies down at the senior citizens' center used to look at me like every time I'd win a game of Bingo on their turf. Luckily my grandmother's sister was a member, or I'm pretty sure they would've tried castrating me with a walker on the way out over $15.

9) "This Is England" by The Clash   There are better songs that come to mind when you think of The Clash...but I'm sure you and I both also have different views of England than Queen Elizabeth does. I don't think I was sent on this mission to be some kind of peace-keeping diplomat or some shit...if I'm going on someone's outlandish idea of an overseas meeting with a very, very important person, it's not because they think I'mma give her a backrub and trade chocolate chip cookie recipes. They want me stirrin' the pot, ya hear?

10) "Follow Me Around" by Radiohead   How do you say "I'm gonna need bail money" in Britainese? I think I skipped class that day when we were supposed to learn about it in Global History Studies. Not because I offended the Queen, but because I'm posting an unauthorized remix of a beloved, unreleased Radiohead song (the version on their live album doesn't count as "unreleased"...well, it does, but not for my purposes). I believe this is some kind of act of treason against the good people of England.

Ok, add another ten songs to the master playlist of drivin' down the wrong side of the road, sippin' on tea with the Queen, laid back, with my mind on my pound sterling and my pound sterling on my mind. If you can still read this entry come Monday morning on the east coast of the US, then I haven't been declared some kind of rogue agent out to disrupt the sanctity of the European Union...but Lizzy, if you're ever lonely, don't hesitate to hit me up boo. Maybe after some tea we can grab a drink down at "Invalid Item" , and I can show you my Big Ben . What? Don't all Americans refer to their clocks like that? I ain't tryin' to be king of nothin' but hearts. Peace, she said save me, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!