In which we shake our collective fist at Monday, January 8th

If you're like me, this is the first Monday you've worked in weeks. There was that whole day-after Christmas Monday, which is a de facto holiday (and Boxing Day, in places that aren't America) and there was New Year's Day last Monday, which, in addition to being one of the better U2 songs is also the only holiday on record dedicated to a national hangover recovery. I always thought that was thoughtful.

Now consider the fact that Martin Luther King day is celebrated next Monday and, hopefully, you'll be getting that off. (By the way, if you're not getting to spend MLK day in bed, bring your CEO the Dukes of Hazard Criterion Collection. You will get a raise.) So that makes this the only lonely working Monday in the span of four weeks. I, for one, am too lazy to stand for this. I should be on my couch watching Tombstone again, goddammit. I'm your Huckleberry. All that.

But you've got to work sometimes. And going to work requires early rising. And getting up early allowed me to learn that Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today. So, in other words, going to work just made me very, very sad. Talk about "the day the music died."

However, I did learn why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, a place hitherto famous for bad Chinese food and bigoted gas station attendants. Apparently, Alan Freed, a DJ at WJW Radio in Cleveland not only popularized the term "Rock and Roll" but also helped stage what is considered the first rock show of all time, headlined by the imminently forgettable Paul Williams (and the Hucklebucklers) and Tiny Grimes, who sounds like one of the spam names we compiled yesterday. Anyway, the fire department shut down the show, one song into Paul Williams's set, fearing the over-capacity crowd would start an early '50s riot, which, as I understand it, involves men in hats smoking pipes furiously.

To sum up: it seems Cleveland was actually a really fine choice for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Especially since rock and roll was once thought synonymous with the downfall of modern society in the same way Cleveland is now. Everything's coming full circle. It's enough to give you goosebumps.

Oh, and because it must be said: Thanks to everyone who stopped in and contributed a few wonderful monikers to our list o' spam names yesterday. I think something special was accomplished here. Womanhood P. Marzipan agrees. I'd like to throw a special "Holy Shit" to Matt, whose list was something like 200 names long and included, among others, Reassessments F. Squeler and Hitch J. Polysyllable.