To celebrate the recent Post expletive binge, as well as the demise of the cicada season of love, chronicled in hot and bothered fashion by the Post, my unsubmitted entry to the paper's cicada poetry contest, the winners of which are here and runners-up of which are here.

CONCERNING CICADAS, TO THE WASHINGTON POST,

A FAMILY NEWSPAPER

Nothing's dirtier

than a cicada of 17.

No jailbait, quite mature,

nymphs inexperienced

but eager for adult affairs–

squirming to expose themselves

everywhere shedding layers,

spreading see-through cover,

singing songs of sultry

cicadan

seduction.

Putting the X in Brood X,

more than one trillion with spring fever,

desiring to mate

just once in their lives.

Explains why they're all over you?

Oh yes, family newspaper–

the heat turns them on.

No, not just Dan Neil — my days are a veritable potpourri of making. And by potpourri, I mean full of semi-random questions about life that I can't answer quickly. That's why I'm all me and no part Ken Jennings, the new Jeopardy record-holder, "a software engineer and an editor of literature and mythology questions for the National Academic Quiz Tournament who lives in Utah and looks like the male version of a Stepford wife."

The Salt Lake Tribune provides a Jennings photo.

But back to Neil. He goes and brushes his shoulder off:

–"To say the GT is faithful to the decades-old GT40 is to damn with faint praise. The GT design has the kind of mimetic accuracy one associates with Flemish paintings of hinds and hounds."

–"This car is less necromancy than necrophilia."

–"The launch sequence goes like this: Raise the revs to about 4,000 rpm, slot the shifter into first gear and slip your left foot off the clutch pedal. The foot-wide rear tires squall briefly and then hook up. The carbon-fiber seat mule kicks you in the backside. The supercharger trills like a teakettle. One second or so later, the landscape goes all spin-art and you start looking like Keir Dullea at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Cue Thus Spake Zarathustra."

–"Think of it this way: If the Corvette is whiskey, the GT is a turkey baster full of heroin with a rubber-hammer chaser."

And much more. Thanks to Ellen for the link.

The cover story of the Washington Post Magazine this week looks at the life and career of Blyss, a D.C. rapper hoping to break go-go's stronghold and become the metro area's first rap superstar.

Asks the Post deck: "Can a rapper whose street cred is complicated by a college degree become the next big thing in hip-hop?"

Who is Blyss? Blyss is Ralph Chambliss, Gonzaga class of '96. His partner in music is Broadway, also known as Chris Singh, Gonzaga '95. Read all about their guns, strip club visits and musical trials in the magazine story.

You can hear Blyss' tracks on the Capitol Gainz site, and see Broadway's 1310 SAT score on his resume.

I turn on the radio yesterday afternoon to hear the final two notes of Born to Run and to hear the DJ say Bruce wrote that song when he was just 23 years old. And I thought, "Damn, I'm falling behind!"

But then I looked this morning and found he actually wrote the song when he was 24. So, plenty of time.

Music lists, like the cicadas of yore month, are bursting out all over. As usual, some selections make more sense than others. Let's tackle LAT today and move on to AFI and Pitchfork later this week.

L.A. Times car critic of a different color Dan Neil looks at the decline of the road song, and paper music critic Robert Hilburn provides a list of his top 25 such picks. (The list's available at the bottom of the story page.) Hilburn rightly ranks his top four: Born to Run at number one, then Highway 61 Revisited, Me and Bobby McGee, and Thunder Road. He also digs out CCR's Sweet Hitch-Hiker at number 18. Very impressive.

What I don't understand is why the only Beach Boys' song to make the list is In My Car, off the 1989 Still Cruisin' album. Brian Wilson is a genius, but the Boys barely get the cars started on this one. The album has 10 tracks, but three are old songs, one is from the Troop Beverly Hills soundtrack and one is a duet of Wipeout with the Fat Boys. Yes, the formerly instrumental Wipeout. And, yes, the Fat Boys.

In My Car just comes across as lyrically cliched ("feelin' like we're still sixteen, being a part of the great American scene") and musically overreved. The only bright spots are the underrated Somewhere Near Japan and the well-rated Kokomo. If you don't like the latter, you must have issues with sand.

But '89 album aside, where's I Get Around?

I think there's also an argument to be made against Neil's article premise, that the road song is dying, but I don't have the '90s-'00s base of knowledge needed to refute. Tracy Chapman's Fast Car would seem to top the list, with Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway and Coolio's Fantastic Voyage possibly following somewheres.

More suggestions?

Related link:

-What would Rilke have thought of car songs?

Jeff Vrabel of the Chicago Sun-Times accurately reviews Patti's new album: "The lyrical foundations for Patti Scialfa's first record since Rumble Doll (1993) are faith, forgiveness and a nostalgic take on the promise of youth, topics that are probably often front and center in your mind when you regularly breakfast with Bruce Springsteen."

"But Scialfa's second record is a sparkling little gem, regardless of genealogy…."

Clips and more album info is available on Scialfa's site. My favorite lines come in Rose, the restaurant learning-about-life third track:

Now there this guy,

"yeah God's got him doing the dishes all night in the back"

Another losing entry to the Post cicada poetry contest, the winners of which are here and runners-up of which are here. Poem based on a true story.

TO THE CHESAPEAKE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

They say

We've cancelled Shakespeare.

We're not sorry.

Not sorr-EEEE at anomalous decibels.

Seventeen years in the ground,

Worms and darkness,

For a month of sun,

And soles and tires and squirrels,

Then death.

That,

My friends,

Is Shakespeare.

Was e-mailing with a Marah fan in New Zealand earlier today and found a link to the only page on the Web with the lyrics of Why Independent Record Stores Fail, a great one, available as a B-side on the Point Breeze single.

He's been writing a book, Book World says. I'm kind of surprised to find the reviewer calling the band a one-hit wonder, but maybe that's what they were. Does anyone remember Singing in My Sleep charting? I can't (as much as I like the song), and Google isn't helping.

Heard about the music video shot in the Fulton County jail? While an inmate escaped? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday digs deeper into the local-to-national story. According to the main bar, rapper T.I. has served time in a neighboring jail since April and is currently a member of that jail's work-release program. When he wanted to visit Fulton's maximum security facility, his proctors thought it was a good idea, the AJC reports.

How T.I. managed to get a video shoot inside the walls remains under investigation, officials say, but the paper's sidebar points out records showing he signed into Fulton's jail as required. Staff writer Kristina Torres then gets the quote of the day from T.I., whose real name is Clifford. "I'm like a UFO," he says, "I'm like a myth."

Up north, Kelefa Sanneh is a surprising choice of Times critic to review A Ghost Is Born, but he does admirably and reflects well on the subversion of the formula review (white rock fan reviews white rock music). In his take, Sanneh comes up with the first good explanation I've read so far of the 11-minute drone.

Falling a little shorter is a recent article on Medill's Web site. The headline? "The Life of Brian." The lede? "Brian Orloff is not just a 19-year-old Medill sophomore — he's also a high-flying writer for Rolling Stone.com. Literally." And then there's the catharsis, in paragraph six of a seven-paragraph story:

"God Brian," I had to say after the interview was done. "Your life is so cool." He gives a typically-him response: "I just kind of sit around a lot. I smile a lot and pretend like I know what's happening."

But to be fair to that writer, a young-er one, here is January 2001's Class knits salvation for penguins in peril.

My losing entry to the Post cicada poetry contest, the winners of which are here and runners-up of which are here.

CICADA'S SECRET

Dylan sang of locusts and now sings of bras,

Timmy's a-freewheelin' at his ma and pa's

With trees gone electric and brooding to drone

Those next screeches heard may be human in tone;

Cicadas and underwear never should mix,

But you know little Timmy, he's only six.