Thanks to our friends at Total Assault, we’re proud to announce we’re giving away a copy of Things I’ve Learned from Women Who’ve Dumped Me, the new book edited by former Onion editor and Daily Show/Colbert Report producer Ben Karlin.

(Never heard of it? Take a look at my review of the book here.)

So here’s the deal: All day long, we’re opening up the comments here for your tales of woe, heartbreak, and heartwoe; at the close of business on Valentine’s Day, we’ll be convening in a grand Popdose jury and awarding a free book to the person with the best one. (All of our stories involved music — that isn’t a requirement for you, but it will earn you a few extra points.)

Ready? Let us have it!

Let us now join Popdose maestro Jeff Giles on the worst trip to Europe since Charlie Brown and Linus were sent to indentured servitude at that weird French manor.

“A Little Bit Of Sadness In My Life, Or, How It’s Possible To Not Get Smooched On A Monthlong Vacation That Ends In Paris”
By Jeff Giles

As a rule, bloggers are an exhibitionist lot — why do you think we’re always trying to shove our innermost thoughts in front of your eyeballs? — but music critics tend to be pretty guarded and self-conscious, so you can imagine the conflicting impulses our staff suffered when they received the assignment for this month’s feature. Being that I was the one who handed down the assignment, some of this conflict spilled over on me — I was sent more than one e-mail accusing me of getting off on your Popdosers’ suffering.

Nothing could be further from the truth. But just to even any perceived imbalances here, I will share with all of you the story of how I came to be dumped in Paris, and why I fucking hate Lou Bega.

It was the summer of 1999, and I was an idiot. This may sound like a strange setup, but there’s literally no other way to explain what I’m about to tell you, which is: I was in Europe, on a monthlong vacation, with my ex-girlfriend. And her mother. And I was footing the bill for the whole thing.

I say “ex-girlfriend,” but I don’t mean it as in “ex-girlfriend now.” Well, I mean, the woman in question is my ex-girlfriend now, but she was also my ex-girlfriend then, as in on the trip. That I was paying for. In Europe, remember? With her mom?

See, here’s the thing. Closure is important. And when you don’t get it — say, when someone breaks up with you over the phone, and gives you no reason for doing so, and continues flitting around the corners of your life for years, like a venomous moth — you might, if you are an idiot, find yourself committing a series of progressively more desperate and expensive acts. You might even find yourself on a treadmill in the basement of a hotel on the Isle of Capri, praying for a heart attack, or sending e-mails back home with the signoff “There’s mercy in Hell.”

I mean, heh, who hasn’t been there, right?

Fuckin’ anyway, like I was saying, it was the summer of 1999, and Europe — the source of all horrible novelty songs — was deep in the throes of Lou Bega mania. Everywhere we went, we heard “Mambo No. 5″ (download). I’m pretty sure I even heard it at the Vatican. In my mind, the song is inexorably linked with that “vacation,” which kicked off with my ex-girlfriend’s pronouncement that after much thought and internal discussion, she had decided she was satisfied with always being my ex-girlfriend, and from there went downhill with the speed of a piano on bobsleds coated in chicken fat.

For a month, I went to old castles and churches and stared at paintings of Jesus. For a month, I searched in vain for a decent breakfast. One night, I found myself in a late-night screaming match with a German border patrol agent on a train to…I don’t remember, really. I drank plenty, but not enough. Lou Bega was always there.

Finally, we reached Paris, and the last few days of the trip. I don’t know if it was the cumulative effect of all the booze, or the higher grade of porn on the Parisian hotel TV, but I somehow got the notion that one last roll in the hay wouldn’t be such a bad idea. You know, one for the road, right? On the road, even. The road I fucking paid for.

I will spare you the details of the conversation that followed — mostly because I’ve blocked it almost completely from my memory — but I can tell you two things: One, we were sitting on the sidewalk outside an ice cream parlor; and two — of course! — “Mambo No. 5″ was on.

Feel the burn, fuckers. Here’s the single edit of “Mambo No. 5,” the extended mix (download), the “Havana Club Mix” (download), and something called “Mambo (The Trumpet)” (download). You’re welcome.

“Jesus Christ, when is she going to stop flinging poop?”
By Jason Hare

The song that reminds me of being dumped, thankfully, always ends with me rolling in hysterics on the floor.

My first really hardcore dumping happened when I was 16 years old. I was pretty much completely oblivious to the fact that my girlfriend had been cheating on me for a couple of months; I had suspicions, but this was at a time where I still believed that people, when confronted with the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, would head in the direction of the harp and wings. One Saturday afternoon, I got the phone call where she finally gave me the one-two punch: yes, she had cheated on me, and yes, she was breaking up with me — and not even to necessarily be with the other guy. Somehow, that made it worse.

I had that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know the feeling. I got off the phone and did everything I could to hold back my tears. Luckily, I’ve always had good friends who are right there to try and take your mind off of things the minute something like this happens. I quickly called Andrew and Mike (formerly of Down With Snark) and invited them to come over and watch a movie. I was just becoming a Who fan, and decided that perhaps this would be a good time to see Ken Russell’s film version of Tommy. We were all in a band together, and all dug The Who; I figured this was a good opportunity to focus on something other than what a sucker I had been for a few months. Anything to get the day’s events off of my mind.

So we sat down to watch Tommy. Have you ever seen Tommy? If so, you’ll know it’s unlike just about any other movie. I know Who fans who insist it’s a cinematic masterpiece. However, I think it’s easily one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.  But thankfully, it’s bad in one of those so-terrible-it’s-funny ways. Mike, Andrew and I started laughing within the first 15 minutes of the movie, when they continuously flash back to these shots of Captain Walker screaming bloody murder as his plane crashes. The whole movie is just so awful: from Jack Nicholson’s pathetic attempt at singing to Tina Turner’s awesome-yet-frightening-as-hell turn as The Acid Queen, to Eric Clapton’s “Hey, anybody got any more heroin?” turn singing “Eyesight to the Blind.” And I haven’t even mentioned Oliver Reed.

And then Ann-Margret had her big scene. The one where she expresses all her frustration with her deaf, dumb and blind son, and…well, I’m sure there’s something else going on in there, but honestly, I’ve never paid much attention. She’s singing and acting all crazy, and it’s really not that much different from what has come before. But suddenly, the scene gets really, really weird — like, weirder than the rest of the movie. Watch for yourself. (You can skip to about 3:30 if you want to get past the actual singing.)

I know some people will cite this scene as being one of the sexiest film moments in Ann-Margret’s career, what with her writhing around in champagne, baked beans and (I guess) chocolate, and humping a huge, phallic pillow. But if only you could have seen our three faces in that moment as we watched this scene. Our mouths were dropped open, and I had that horrible feeling where you realize that what you’re now seeing, you’ll never, ever be able to erase from your memory. I guess rubbing baked beans and chocolate all over your breasts is hot, or something, but all I could think was, “Jesus Christ, when is she going to stop flinging poop?”

We all sat there, mouths agape, just stupefied at what we were watching. It made no sense to us — what the hell was she doing? Why was she doing it? Why the fuck did we keep cutting back to Roger Daltrey in a stupid hat, looking as catatonic as ever? Except for the horrors on screen, my bedroom fell silent. None of us had anything to say.

And then, of course, we started laughing again. Hard. I mean, harder than I think I had ever laughed before. I’m sure I really wanted to cry, but instead, all my sobs came out as hysterical laughter…until I was crying from laughing so hard.

I don’t listen to the Tommy film soundtrack often, although I do think it’s a great example of what Tommy sounds like if you throw Quadrophenia on top of it, but that’s another post altogether. However, whenever I happen to hear “Champagne” — which, thankfully, is not often — first, I remember that pain of being dumped. Then, I laugh my ass off.

“Why Must I Chase That Cat?”
By Will Harris

This is a story I’ve told countless times to countless people, even working it into my review of the movie “Little Manhattan,” but it remains one of my favorites, and whenever Valentine’s Day rolls around, I find it’s always worth re-telling…

All men have stories of their first love, and here is mine, so let it be told: it was 1980, and the girl’s name was Kathy Hawbaker. She lived a street over from me, and she made me feel funny in my tummy whenever I looked at her. I was only nine years old, but having already received all the information on love I was sure I was ever going to need (courtesy of movies, TV, and Top 40 song lyrics, thank you very much), I decided to make a romantic gesture to Kathy on Valentine’s Day.

I bought a card and a box of candy — both of which ended up being far smaller than I’d originally planned, since my bemused mother assured me it was the thought that counted — and took the suddenly-interminable stroll from my house to Kathy’s. I knocked, her dad answered, and then he called to her. She came up to the screen door and I presented her with her gifts, somehow getting out the words, “These are for you.”

Kathy opened the door and, as she took the card and candy, uttered those three words that every nine-year-old boy longs to hear:

“Oh, my cat!”

Before I knew what had happened, her cat had shot past my ankles. With card and candy in hand, Kathy ran past me and retrieved the feline from the yard, then ran back past me, went inside, and closed the door behind her. I stood dazed for a moment, then, upon the realization that my first-ever romantic gesture had come to a decidedly anticlimactic end, I walked home sobbing, and, upon coming through my own front door, proceeded to take as much comfort as my mother was willing to offer.

I ask you: is it any wonder that I’m more of a dog person?

If you look at a Chinese calendar, you’ll see that 1980 was actually designated the year of the monkey. For yours truly, however, it will always be remembered as…cue the Al Stewart, please…the “Year of the Cat” (download).

“Love (Not Love)”
By Molly Marinik

My favorite breakup song is “Just Another Couple Broken Hearts” by Was (Not Was) (download). It’s helped me through many a dumping, and made me feel particularly good after I was dismissed by Mitch, my co-counselor at the summer camp where i worked the summer before my senior year of college. Mitch was from Vancouver and had a really sexy Canadian thing going on.

We were working at an overnight camp in the Poconos and started dating early on in the summer…after three months of a hot summer romance, it became apparent that we were going our separate ways (Mitch to British Columbia, and me back to Ohio to finish school). And since i was hellbent on living in New York and Mitch was never leaving Vancouver, it became apparent that a perpetual 3000 mile long-distance relationship was not going to work. So Mitch did that thing guys do and distanced himself, shut off emotionally, and refused to deal with the impending break-up like a normal person. On the last night of the summer, the staff all went out to a local bar and Mitch picked a fight with me and sat in the corner pouting all night.

We parted ways amicably, but after an intense romance it was a less than fulfilling goodbye. So the lyrics to “Just Another Couple Broken Hearts” consoled me:

“So save your tears for Shakespeare / Because no one’s lost a life here / We’re down and out and lonely / But we’ll be okay.”

“Wasted Away Again In Puerto Rico”
By Mojo Flucke, Ph.D.

I begin by tossing out this long-distance dedication — “Breathe” by All (download) — to this one girl.

See, I was engaged twice. Few people know of the first; most know of Kate, the second, to whom I remain happily married. I very rarely speak of this other one, because the retelling sends jolts down my spine. Bad- vibes jolts. Like when you’re using jumper cables to start a car and you get a sudden poke and realize, yeah, your arm actually conducts serious amperage just like the warnings right there on the battery say. Still does, 15 years on. Dunno why, because clearly I’m much better off today without her, and with my soulmate Kate.

This one girl? She was my last college girlfriend, beautiful and smart, with an easy laugh and, best of all, half-decent taste in music, save for chronic Plimsouls benders revisited upon her every few months. We closed down shop at the U in Athens, Ohio, got our degrees, and started our careers together. Me in chilly New Hampshire, she in sunny-wonderful Wilmington, N.C. Didn’t matter where we ended up or how good or bad the career changes togetherness would require, she’d accepted the ring and said “yes.” Good times were invariably ahead.

Then, two years into it, things got suddenly uneasy. Maybe she was having second thoughts, or maybe some dude caught her eye. Maybe she was bored with me. Whatever it was, on the eve of my taking off for a weekend visit in Wilmington, she told me over the phone it was over — But I could still come down and sleep on the couch in the living room, if I wanted to come.

F that, I told her, I was going burn the airplane ticket going to Puerto Rico to visit my pal on a teaching internship. Thanks a lot, nice job, *click.* Done with her.

It was the snowy depths of New England in February, my roommate had just moved out to South Dakota for a job, and I was alone in this entire house we’d rented, dumped by the best girl I’d ever known up to that point in life. I had a couple weeks left before I had to move myself; I barely could cover my half, let alone the whole rent. Nightly I watched cable news reports following David Koresh and the Branch Davidians’ standoff up to its stunning, fiery conclusion. Alone. Funny the things your memory chooses to versus what it discards.

The only thing that got me through moving to another place and, finally, hitting the Vieques beach (who knew you could crash out for $10 a night in someone’s house if you had a Puerto Spanish speaker in your crew to negotiate?) was the song “Breathe” by the punk-pop band All, which really is The Descendents with a different lead singer.

It’s a simple little ditty, but it nicely sums up the angst and hurt of a breakup, and even tosses in a little bitter tongue-in-cheek to show maybe you don’t mean that opening line “You can go kill yourself, don’t matter to me.” Or maybe you do. Either way, it’s all good, down to that skull-crushing lick on the chorus that, when you play it loud enough, dislodges cinder blocks cemented in place. Trust me, I learned that firsthand. My roommate had paid the security deposit, after all.

1. People are at heart mean and vindictive, and

2. Apparently nobody had a good time in high school, because, like, all of these stories are about high school.

Did anyone actually enjoy themselves during this phase? Who are these people that call it the “best four years of their lives?” Are they insane? Liars? Elves? If you have a good high school story, hit us up in the comments down there; meanwhile, Py Korry checks in with a story about two sisters, and Pete Townshend.

“Sisters of No Mercy”
By Py Korry

It’s 1983, and it’s my senior year of high school. At a party one weekend I have a long conversation with Gwen, who’s there with a bunch of friends, and her younger sister, Jenna. Gwen and I talk for over an hour and it’s clear (to me, that is) that the two of us are starting to fall for each other. There’s a lot of smiling, a few not-so-subtle touches to the arm after a couple well timed jokes, and even a couple of slow dances. I was going in for the whole “kiss and then get her number” thing, when her friends said they had to leave. Crap! Could this get any worse? Sadly, yes.

When I saw her at school on Monday, I asked if she would help me with my Geometry homework — since she was getting an A and I was wallowing in the C-/D+ realm. She said she would, and I drove over to her house that night, where she did help me with my homework, and I asked her out. She said “yes” and I floated home thinking I had won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Stupidly, I made plans with my friend Matt to double date. We were going to go to San Francisco on Friday to get dinner, and then off to some arty-farty movie with Sting (Brimstone and Treacle ) and then, hopefully, a lot of making out.

But then…

On Thursday, Jenna (Gwen’s younger sister) and I were talking in class about nothing in particular. I was completely blind to the fact that Jenna had a crush on me. Jenna was a sophomore and I was a senior, so I just thought of her as a kid. I don’t know why, but I told Jenna that I asked her sister out. Jenna nonchalantly said “Oh yeah?” And I said, “Yeah, I think this is going to be great.” The bell rang and we parted ways with her thinking that it wasn’t going to be “great” if she could help it.

Friday afternoon; 3:15 pm

The final bell rings as I’m scrambling to get my books for the weekend. I see my friend Mike in the hall and ask him for a ride home. He says, “Sure…but did you talk to Gwen today?” I said, “No,” and he replied with an “Oh…well, I’ll see you at my van. Later.” Suspicious, I ask him what he knows, and he keeps saying, “You gotta talk to her, man.” I know where her last class is, so I sort of half-jog up the hallway to her classroom where she’s just getting ready to leave.

“Hey! All set for tonight?” I start in an upbeat tone.

“Um…I…can’t go out with you tonight — or any night, for that matter.”

“Wha!”

“Yeah, sorry but…I…just can’t.” And with that, she left.

I limped, crawled, and/or slinked to my friend’s van where he was waiting. He said he had to get something and he’d be right back. I popped in the tape he had in the deck and on comes “Slit Skirt” (download) from Pete Townshend’s All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. The opening piano strains, Townshend’s wounded voice, and lyrics about frustration and age…it was all so depressingly perfect. My friend comes back, gets in the driver’s seat, looks at me, looks at the tape deck, looks at me again, and just starts laughing. He’s laughing hard, and the longer the song plays, the more he laughs. I tell him it’s not funny, and he sort of half-apologizes, but it’s clear that my pain is high comedy for him. He finally confesses that he knew she was going to dump me, but didn’t have the heart to tell me before she did.

The only thing I could muster was: “But you sure know how to kick a friend when he’s down, don’t you, asshole.”

Fast forward to 2005…

I hosted a tribute to Michael Semanick — who went to my high school and won an Oscar for his sound work on Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. After the show, I was talking to my trophy wife, Julie, and our daughter when this woman comes up to me and gives me a hug.

“You don’t remember me, do you,” she said.

“Ah…not really.” I say in a semi-stunned tone.

“It’s Gwen! You know, from high school.”

We talked for a bit, I introduced her to Julie, and the four of us made small talk until it was clear there was nothing left to talk about. Eventually they left, and Julie turned to me and said: “How do you know her?”

I said, ” Um, I had a huge crush on her in high school. But I’m glad things didn’t work out because, honestly, she looks like trailer trash now.”

Julie said: “Well, I’m glad you were the one to point that out, because I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Tunnel of Hate”
By Matthew Bolin

I was fifteen, her name was Jenna, and she was in my class at Hebrew school. I had never had feelings for a girl, really, up until the moment that I walked out of a building at a temple camp in Malibu and saw her standing there, about twenty feet away, her back to me, and bathed in the glow of the industrial outdoor lighting. Somehow, at that moment, I was awakened to the reality of the fairer sex, and my soul blossomed…or burst. One of the two. Anyway, too overcome to do anything about this new feeling, I ran to the bathroom (my original intent when stepping outside), and by the time I came back out, she was gone.

A month later I built up the courage to ask her out. When I made the decision, Bruce Springsteen’s “Brilliant Disguise” (download) was playing in the background. Whether she knew it or not, that would become “our song” in my mind. Every time I called her that summer, I would listen to “Brilliant Disguise” before doing it. Anyway, she said yes to going out; we went on a nice little date, talked on the phone a few more times, and then she went on vacation with her parents. When she came back, towards the end of the summer, she never called; I didn’t know she was back. Next thing I know, I was invited to a party at her house. Cool! But when I went there, I discovered that there would be no advancing of this teen romance: she’d been back for a while, and had an honest-to-goodness boyfriend. I guess if I had listened better to the lyrics of “Brilliant Disguise,” I might have taken it as a bad omen, but what the hey?

As a postscript, flash forward a couple of years to the summer after I graduated from high school. Before I went up to the Bay Area for college, I actually did hook up with Jenna, getting back in touch with her after sending her a “no hard feelings” invitation to my graduation. Then, after going out for a few weeks (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) she goes away on vacation, comes back, doesn’t tell me she’s come back, and hooks up with another guy. I hear that she’s back in town through a mutual acquaintance, then phone her. Who knows when she would have actually contacted me.

Anyway, even after finding this out, I was still willing to continue dating her — but then she dumped me, telling me that she assumed this wasn’t going to be a lasting relationship with her going into her senior year of high school in Los Angeles and me entering college in the Bay Area. As I’ve said before: women are evil; it’s just that men are to stupid to either notice or care. I probably shouldn’t have started listening to the Tunnel of Love album again that summer, and instead should have spent my time trying to deconstruct the intricacies of Color Me Badd or something.

The final irony: Even in spite of all the associations with Jenna, “Brilliant Disguise” is still my favorite Springsteen song ever.

“Go, Tribe! Or: The Milk Is Never, Ever Fresh”
By David Medsker

My breakup song story has one hell of a pregnant pause; it actually takes place nearly five years after the final breakup with the lass in question. I say final breakup because this was one of those multiple-breakup relationships. You know the kind, the one that Larry Miller brilliantly lampooned by pretending to open a refrigerator and saying, “This milk is sour! Maybe tomorrow it’ll be fresh,” and putting the milk back in the fridge. If you’re in one of those right now, end it. The milk is never, ever fresh.

The relationship, in total, lasted a little more than six years, and even as I was breaking up with her, I still loved her. But it was abundantly clear to me that things would never work out – she still hadn’t told her mother that I had moved to Chicago to be with her, which I had done a year and a half earlier – so I put head before heart and pulled the plug. I even went so far as to utter words that St. Peter will surely repeat back to me on my day of judgment: “I still love you…but I don’t like you very much.” I’m a bastard, it’s true.

I tried to write Kim (yep, another story about a girl named Kim) a song, something that would send the relationship off in relative style without any of the typical bitterness that pollutes most breakup songs. I came close once, but as I was tinkering with it, I realized that a vocal melody from the late, great Boston rockers Tribe fit the song better than anything I came up with on my own. Worried that I could never sell the song without having to pay Tribe first – which is a joke, because even Tribe will tell you they never made a penny from their music – I scrapped the song.

Fast-forward four years and seven months. I’m happily married, and I’m pretty sure that Kim, who had moved away the year after we split up, was married by then, too. It’s early 2001, and I just got my hands on Meaningless, the long-delayed solo album from mad pop genius Jon Brion. The album kills, loaded with the kind of relationship-in-peril songs that are musical catnip to me (four words: “I Believe She’s Lying”). One song, though, stopped me dead in my tracks.

“I don’t wait by the phone like I used to / I don’t hope for kind words you might say / You don’t prey on my mind like you used to / But you can still ruin my day.”

“Ruin My Day” (download). Holy shit. This is the song I tried to write.

In an instant, every ounce of anguish, heartache and pain I ever felt during my time with Kim came flooding back to me. It actually felt worse, because I was a half-decade removed from the memory, and she could still ruin my day. Soon, the anguish was replaced by embarrassment over the realization that she could still get under my skin. All these years later, I was allowing her to float around in my consciousness and meddle. Could anyone else tell that I was still nursing the wounds from a long-dead relationship? Could my wife tell?

It was that last question that forced me to toughen up, and quick. I have since closed the loophole, and Kim no longer gets to me, though that hasn’t stopped her from trying; in 2005, she confessed that in 1995 she made out with a mutual friend of ours (and my then-roommate), who has since passed away. She also made routine comments post-breakup about wanting to hook up with my best friend, and made comments when we were still together about how my other roommate – who was dating her roommate – was more ideal for her than I was. Why on earth did she feel the need to say such things? Because she’s Kim, I suppose. She liked to ruin my day.

Buy Jon Brion’s Meaningless (Amazon)

“Woman Needs A Man Like A Fish Needs A Bicycle”
By Scott Malchus

My final year of college, 1992, I directed a senior film that featured my girlfriend in one of the starring roles. At the time, U2’s Achtung Baby was gaining momentum, and every college and mainstream radio station was playing tracks from the album. The making of the movie was stressful and quite a learning experience. The movie was finally completed in April, and I held a big premiere at the university; my parents, sisters, family friends, and members of faculty all attended. After the screening, which went very well, I was on cloud nine. The culmination of four years of hard work seemed to pay off and, more importantly, the audience really liked the movie. The cast, crew, friends and my family all returned to the duplex I rented with my three best friends in college. Can you imagine how great I felt? I didn’t need any alcohol to get me high that night. Then, just as things were winding down, my girlfriend took me downstairs to my bedroom so we could talk.

That’s right, she broke up with me right then and there. Couldn’t wait another 12 hours to let me savor the moment. It had to be then.

Like I said, Achtung Baby was in every one’s tape deck or CD player, mine included. I gravitated to the darker songs, the one’s about deteriorating relationships and betrayal. I cannot listen to “So Cruel” (download) without thinking of the best and worst day of my college years.

(Luckily for me, I would meet my bride-to-be a couple of months later.)