This just in: Mutt Lange has apparently dropped Shania Twain like old laundry, thus inexplicably giving up the latest secret weapon in his long-running plot to lure me to the dark side.

Now, I’ve long held that Mutt Lange suffers from a bizarre man-love form of contemporary syndrome and unhealthy obsession when it comes to me. He is the Bizarro to my Superman — the Travis to my Blake — the Bloefeld to my James Bond — which makes Shania Twain sort of his cool henchman and realistic, life-sized dress-up doll … sort of like Oddjob in Goldfinger … only softer … and prettier smelling. (Not that Mutt needs a cool henchman, seeing as how he’s on the payroll of the All-Powerful Prince of Darkness.) In our early battles, when I was an impressionable teenager, Mutt tried to corrupt me with the demonic riddles of Def Leppard and AC/DC — and almost succeeded. As a more-jaded pre-middle-aged professional geek, he renewed our feud by trying to lure me to the dark side with the even more sinister “country music.” Well, I won’t listen, ya hear me, Lange? I will never listen to Country! It is the Devil’s music! No matter how you package it!

Need proof? S-h-a-n-i-a-T-w-a-i-n is an anagram for …

Ha! I win.
— Satan

Look it up, man …. LOOK … IT … UP!!!

Not buying the conspiracy? Consider the video for “I’m Gonna Getcha Good.” Despite the fact that it has absolutely no bearing on the theme or style of the music, he has dressed “Oddjob” in a Julie Newmar-esque catsuit, dancing around with what looks more like a goth/industrial band than a country band, and riding a CGI bike suspiciously reminiscent of a light cycle from Tron. Doesn’t make sense at all does it? But consider, this is actually a powerful juxtaposition of multiple elements of my psyche that are most near and dear to my heart: The very movie that first influenced my career path into computer science (at age 10), and the very woman (and outfit) that first influenced my choice to become a heterosexual male (at age 4). Don’t you get it? The whole video is Mutt’s secret hypnotic message, designed to make sense only to me. It’s his way of saying, “I can see into your soul, Darrin. Come to the dark side. It would take just the slightest nudge to make you like me. If you’d have stuck with the music thing, or at least learned some country tunes, you too could be living this lifestyle.”

Oh … well played, Mr. Lange.

And, did you know, if you play that song backward, it … well … it sounds better?! However, I suspect that if you take that video
and sync it to the music from Judas Priest’s “Freewheel Burning” it not only makes more sense, but it’s infinitely more entertaining. (500 “Cool Points” to the first of my video editing guru/peeps who will do this and send me the MPG, by the way.)

So what is he telling me by casting this temptress aside for his secretary — whom I have not seen, but for her to be preferable to Shania, she must be hotter than a stellar nucleosynthetic reaction (sorry, been reading Hawking before bed and it’s subconsciously triggered my geek neurons). Has he changed his tune and looking for a more conventional lifestyle? Or is this merely the first piece in some grand new scheme to corrupt me.

I gotta tell ya, I’m a little scared…