I make up my own lyrics for almost every song that I listen to. Thus, I cannot talk about music with friends, because my lyrics are not the lyrics they know and love. Sometimes these alternate lyrics are awesome, but I don’t write them down. Eventually, I allow another song to reciprocally pollute my brain.

A friend from my long-ago school days was complaining about her “acid reflux.” I suddenly began to transmogrify the lyrics to “The Reflex” by Duran Duran into a version I call “The Reflux.” My brain played it in a near-endless loop, and it started to drive me crazy. By the end of the day, I had a full set of alternate lyrics.

It’s time that I start writing these down and sharing them with the world, no matter how inane. The weirder, the better. After all, these be the interwebs.

The Reflux

It’s gone too far up this time
Cuz I’m wretching on the old latrine
I tell you son, my belly’s fooling around
With my esophagus on the burning line
I’ll toss that cheese when I find it
Another way to fix that gland (oooh woah)
High time is no time for deciding
If I should gulp some absorbing sand (oooh woah)

chorus

So why don’t you soothe it?
Try not to lose it
Buy Tums®, don’t vomit

The Reflux is a lonely bile whose burning in my hoark
The Reflux is a discharge blinded by treasures made of chalk
And wretching over lucky clover isn’t that bizarre
Every little thing The Reflux does
Leaves your belly with a burning mark

My innards are on fire and I wanna get it out
But it cruelly goes down like habañero stout
Wolfed down an old taco with chili bits
Don’t wanna be around when this bursts out

chorus

The Reflux how to tame its reviling of my parts?
The Reflux is in charge of grinding pressure in the dark
And wretching over lucky clover isn’t that bizarre
Every little thing The Reflux does
Leaves your belly with a burning mark

My wish: Weird Al Yankovic to make a music video out of this fine creation.

Tums® is a registered trademark of GlaxoSmithKline

Back around 2002, I lost the domain name robertotani.com. It was about to expire, but in the back of my mind, I guessed that the odds of losing this domain name to another “Robert Otani” was pretty low, and ended up not paying attention to it.

It turned out that a feng shui consultant in San Francisco, named “Roberto Tani” procured the domain. (Back then grace periods were not as generous). Fair enough: I dropped the ball.

After enduring nearly six years of ribbing by my friends for being a doofus, and checking every year for the domain’s expiration (Mr. Tani always renewed at the very last possible moment), I managed to get it back.

I don’t know what happened to Mr. Roberto Tani this year, though I hope he is well. I imagine that he simply forgot this time, like I did, guessing “The odds of another guy named ‘Roberto Tani’ getting this domain name is pretty low… I’ll just renew when I get back from vacation.”

(Footnote: Googling his name suggests his surname is Brazilian/Portugese or Italian, though it is also a Japanese one, like mine. He may also be Japanese-Brazilian).

Comment (imported from the old blog):

Aug 16, 2009:

jenniferhotani said…

I went online to see if my brother, Robert Otani, had any links for his upcoming MMA fight. I stumbled on your site, your journal entry…just wanted to let you know there is another “Robert Otani” out there in the world. And I enjoyed looking at your pictures.

Great ideas are often spawned over impromptu IM conversations. During a recent conversation with former Yahoo! colleague, fellow raconteur, and soon-to-be author Dustin, we discussed the awesomeness of the idea for a technical pop-up book. Said popup book would need to have at least one pop-up of… pop-up windows. It’s the kind of keen self-referential metaphysical reference one finds in Cosmo Kramer’s Coffee Table Book about Coffee Tables.. Sa-weet.