With Arms Wide Open by Creed

[rva]

I will be attempting to tackle 8 hours of Creed's With Arms Wide Open this year in response to a challenge from JR.  My exact words:

You know what?  I was planning on maybe not doing it this year.  But I'll take Creed.

Scott Stap is an ass, but I always thought Creed took way too much crap for singing the same sort of anthemic pseudo-grunge everyone else was doing.  And they weren't that bad at it.

In fact, I've always thought "Arms Wide Open" was a decent song.  Give me that over "Lightning Crashes" any day.

In retrospect, perhaps "decent" was a bit of an overstatement.  It's an overblown ballad that to me, does indeed go down easy enough when heard in a waiting room or shopping or whatever.  But 8 hours non-stop?  urk.

[MissKitty]

[Poncho]

I love how Scott Stap pretends he's Jesus in all their videos.

My favorite part about Creed is saying Creed Sucks.

[JohnnyRoyale]

What about Apollo Creed?

[Nate]

I think you should be forced to watch eight hours of the video instead.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1HdGUNm6-qI

[rva]

This song has thus far proven amazingly difficult to find.  It is not on sale at Target, Best Buy, or the local indie store.  I then figure, hey maybe I can download it from Amazon.  Nope.  Not in their download store.  I mean, wtf?  Target will carry William Hung but they're too cool for Creed?

I then turned to the more shadowy means of trying to snag it off the web via someone's blog or something.  A search on Elbo.ws turns up "Which is worse: Limp Bizkit or Creed?"  "Why Creed needs to die" and "Worst album since Creed" but no mp3's.

An audio search via Dogpile pulls up five hits.  However, all of them are by Dave Grohl.  In fact, there are several recordings of Dave Grohl viciously mocking this song on radio interviews and at live shows.

It's almost enough to make me start pulling for the band.  No one deserves this much derision. Okay, maybe Scott Stapp does.  But not the rest of the band.

[foolsgold]

If you can wait until later this week or early next, I can get you a copy.  The Cincy library carries it, so I ordered a copy to be sent to my local branch. 

[kcneon]

I wonder if it's because there's no demand for it or if the label hasn't worked out deals to allow downloading.  Weird.

[Wherle]

Pretty sure I have it on my DJ hard drive. I'll look for it a little later. If it's on there I'll YSI it.

[Wherle]

Link removed.

[rva]

I'll be shooting for this sometime next week, most likely either Monday or Tuesday.  I'm just gonna sort of wake-up and do it.  I don't want a doomsday date hanging over me all weekend.

[Dan]

Word. I'm going on Monday, so you can either join me or follow up. Good luck.

[rva]

Sunday preview:

To prepare for this, I've gone and reviewed past Randomville tortures.  I've found them both entertaining and informative.  For example, I can remember a conversation with a friend when Icky Thump came out.  He asked why they were dressed liked that.  And immediately, I knew that they were dressed up in cockney Pearly King and Queen outfits.  We learn through suffering, and it's even better when it's not our own.

I feel lucky in this because I'm simply answering someone else's challenge.  I'm certainly no fan of Creed, but they apparently don't bug me as much as they do JR.  At least I hope not.  I'm looking at the list of songs, and I certainly prefer "Arms Wide Open" to "Soulja Boy" or "She Bangs."

If I can conquer my personal Everest in tackling Paula Cole last year, it seems like I should be able to do this.  And even with Paula Cole-- I just picked the worst song I could imagine.  Other Randomville denizens proved much more creative.  I cannot, for example, imagine enduring eight hours of "Snooker Loopy."  Or "Frontier Psychiatrist" which in retrospect I hated nearly as much as "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" and I doubt would wear as well.  I'm also not sure I could withstand 8 hours of "If I had a Million Dollars."

I only hope I can follow in other people's footsteps and entertain as well as educate.  Do you know what Jack and Meg White are wearing on the cover of "Icky Thump?"   I do.  They're dressed in Pearly King and Queen outfits.  See?  I know that because of Rafe and Mrs. Rafe.  We learn through suffering, and preferably not our own.

I've got an early morning meeting tomorrow, so it looks like Tuesday will be go-time.  I have a rough strategy laid out, which is that I will listen to the sissiest rock ever so that Scott Stapp's earnest melodramatics will seem manly and rawk by comparison.  To this end, I'm making the rare move of listening on "shuffle."  My playlist?  The Sarah Records catalog(ue).

[rva]

Monday night:

I don't know if it's possible to train for a torturethon, but even if it were the one thing all the training manuals agree on is to just take it easy and relax the last night.  You can do a light mental or physical workout, but it's too late to really try and build up endurance at this point.  You've just got to make sure you're 100% going into the challenge.

To that end, I went out for a nice pasta dinner.  I don't know if I needed the carbo-load.  I just like pasta.  Afterwards, I relaxed with a glass of grigio, came home, bumped a few Sarah Records songs and just generally chilled.

At this point, I'd say my mental state is strong, and my confidence high.  I feel like hey, I pioneered this shit.  When I first decided to listen to "We Built This City" I had no idea what might happen.  But I survived.  Then I conquered my own personal demon with "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone."   I know that this is something that can be done by me as well as others.  And I know how to do it.

My biggest concern at the moment is that I will not have whacky co-workers available to help me get through the ordeal.  Unfortunately both co-workers from last year have moved on from their positions.  I'm not saying the torturethon had anything to do with it... but you never know.  Anyway, their limited participation really helped me got through some of the worst spots so yeah, could be a bit tougher this year.

All in all though, I feel like I'm where I need to be.  Confident, but not over-confident.  Aware and prepared for the perils ahead.  I'm gonna go get a good night's sleep.  Tomorrow I greet my newest challenge... with arms wide open.*






*See what I did right there?  You can read that last sentence literally or figuratively.  Clever, eh?

[JohnnyRoyale]

Oh man I wish I wasn't going to be at work so I could torment help you along.

You're a good man for accepting the challenge though.

And nice work on the Andy Rooney stuff today. I try to watch him every week. This time tomorrow, you might think you're Rooney....