The Wildest...The Kookiest...The Grooviest...The Slurpiest Essay Yet

My latest essay is live at The Normal School. In it I tell the full story of the promotional 45 "Dance the Slurp" issued by the 7-Eleven Corporation in 1966. Along the way I cover the fascinating history of jingle writer Tom Merriman, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist's remarkable Brainfreeze mix CD, what happens when a song gets stuck in your head, and a lot more. I've had the single since I was a kid and I always wanted to learn more about it.

Here's the opening graph:

“Maybe I’ve lost too many brain cells from too many Slurpee-induced brain freezes.”

That’s my brother Phil. I’ve asked him and my other siblings if they can recall how “Dance the Slurp,” a 1966 promotional single released by the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores, ended up in our house in Wheaton, Maryland. “If I’m the one who first acquired it, I don’t remember how or when,” he admits. None of my other brothers or my sister can remember, either, but the journey wouldn’t have been very far. There was a 7-Eleven less than half a mile from our house on Amherst Avenue, and, over many years, we ducked in to escape the sticky summer heat, and to load up on cherry or lemon-lime and cola Slurpees, wads of gum, fistfuls of comics and magazines. The 7-Eleven was a regular stop on my solitary Saturday afternoon allowance walks, yet I too don’t know how it ended up in the house. For many years it was on high rotation on the Bonomo family turntable.

You can read the full essay here. You can subscribe to The Normal School here.

Slurp! Slurp!