2 May

Elon’s Twitter finally does something right

I joined Twitter in 2009, and over the span of a decade amassed over 40,000 tweets (and just over 500 followers, most of whom I believe were real humans, as I actively culled the obvious bots during my Twitter heyday). But when, around 2015, the site became a platform for would-be fascist authoritarians, I began to lose interest. I pretty much left entirely in 2017, and after a brief re-emergence in 2019 (which only served to confirm that the place was a rage machine hellscape I was better off avoiding), I decided to delete my account entirely.

But for some reason, the Twitter of 2019 labeled my closed account as suspended — with their standard message about violating terms of use. Absolutely false. And while I was briefly outraged, I eventually saw it as a badge of honor. Twitter was an apocalyptic dumpster fire long before Elon Musk was forced to buy it, and I became almost proud to have people think I had been kicked out against my will.

Periodically over the past 3 1/2 years I’ve gone back and looked at my account page to see if it still said I had been suspended, which it did. Until now. I just checked it today, and at some point in the last month or two, since I last checked it, my account page has — finally? — been updated to the correct status:

Takin’ it to 3-2-1 Contact

I’ve been thinking this for years, but I finally decided to put it to the test. I tweeted the results, but it felt like something worth commemorating here as well.

First, a confession: I am a Michael McDonald fan. Not the latter-years, “songbook”-type crap Paul Rudd’s character made fun of in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But the classic, late ’70s/early ’80s stuff with the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, and countless other backup vocals and solo tracks that inspired Yacht Rock.

As a Michael McDonald fan, I’ve listened to his work with the Doobie Brothers probably more than anyone should. Tracks like “Takin’ It to the Streets.” And another thing I’ve done a lot of in my lifetime — again, probably more than anyone should — is watch shows produced by Children’s Television Workshop for PBS in the late ’70s and early ’80s, right around the time of Michael McDonald’s peak.

So, no, I don’t think it’s an accident that what I’ve anecdotally observed is now, here, for you, concretely proven: the 3-2-1 Contact theme song is almost a direct ripoff of the transitional bridge of the Doobs’ 1976 hit “Takin’ It to the Streets.” But don’t take my word for it… your ears will tell you.

Listen to “Takin’ It to the Streets,” particularly, the section beginning at 0:47 in the clip below.

And now, the legendary title sequence of 3-2-1 Contact, whose music and imagery is indelibly etched in my brain.