What Your Friends Owe You

“You know what you absolutely HAVE to see?”

I have a friend Suzanne and we’re pretty close pals.  She’s a big time hip-hop fan.  I know next to nothing about the genre except that I was a little freaked out when I saw the video of Tupac at Coachella.  Oh, and I thought the little guy from Geto Boys was awesome.

Suzanne knows very little about great rock and roll, so each week we trade tracks.  I send her songs by John Hiatt, Peter Wolf, Metallica, and Weird Al.  She sends me tracks from, well, I can’t remember any rapper names.

I love this because I trust her taste in hip-hop is good.  She trusts that I know a decent rock song.  And we’re both batting near a thousand.  Once in awhile she won’t like one of mine, and vice versa, but it’s rare.

It would be great if I could find a country fan who knows a good country song from a bad one.  I’m sure there are at least a few country tunes that are not terrible.  But since I have never tuned in a country channel on the radio or Pandora, I can’t tell you anything about that style.

My advice to you is this – get friends that will send you ideas of stuff that you know you  should  like, but that you never check out.  Like museums.  I live in Chicago and we have a ton of these.  Yet, I’m never checking the exhibits.  I need someone who is like, “Man, get your hind parts over to the Birds of the Yukon exhibit!  It’s the tits!”

Same with concerts, symphonies, art exhibits, and weekend events.  I nearly did the Naked Bike Ride last year except I sort of chickened out and didn’t quite have a solid shave going on.  But my friend Darrell told me about it.  Now, for food you just check out Yelp.  For movies, use Rotten Tomatoes.

But you need friends for the other stuff.

Oh, and if someone gives you a solid recommendation, you owe it to them to give them one back within a week.  Practice  reciprocity, yo.

Loyalty, love, kindness, and cards at birthdays are great qualities in a friend.  I’m willing to forgive pretty much any and all trespasses as long as you can recommend something fun once in awhile.  Sleep with my girlfriend, but then turn me on to the German festival two neighborhoods over where they have that funny polka music.

I just might forgive you.