My lone sibling is coming to visit me. He gets in tonight. I haven’t seen the bastard since December.

My brother and I regard each other with confounded anger, snide irony, nostalgia and love a la familia, but one thing I can always count on when he comes to visit, no matter how much I want to beat his head in sometimes, is that hilarity will promptly ensue. Our mutual love of the absurd makes hanging out with my brother a very special and surreal experience that often involves him saying some crazy shiznit that makes me spew all sorts of beverages and fall all over myself laughing, to the point where it becomes that silent laughter that’s so violent and paralyzing that all you can do is wait for the seizure and fits of wheezing to burst all your internal organs.

I’m preparing myself right now for what’s to come by listening to a compilation he recently made for me, gems from¦

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Specifically from Whipped Cream & Other Delights, and Going Places.

These silly 1960s horn serenades, ass-shaking rhythms, funky strumming and glockenspiel will make you want to bust out some interpretive dance down the aisles of some linoleum-floored retro-trash shopping center somewhere. It’s dementedly giddy. Just like the rest of my week will surely be.

What do you listen to when you get a hankerin’ for some Quirk?