The things you're searching for.	August 9, 2001

One to Watch: Afroman Last August, we drew your attention to a little-known group called the Baha Men. They were getting a ton of queries, and we couldn't figure out why. A month later, a little thing called "Who Let The Dogs Out" was all over the radio, TV, and every single sports arena in America. Now another late-summer novelty hit is rearing its head on the search logs. This one is not as family friendly, and I doubt we'll be hearing it during the World Series broadcasts. Then again, it might be the perfect theme song for the NBA. The artist is Afroman, and the song is "Because I Got High." This is not really a song with what would be called "socially redeeming value." With a sing-song, somewhat Caribbean melody, Afroman lists a number of things he was going to do, but didn't do because he got high -- including clean his room, go to class, and pay his child support. The song is featured in the upcoming movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which lampoons both drug culture and Internet fandom. Not surprisingly, the film is getting a good number of searches so far -- but Afroman is getting even more searches. (The characters of Jay and Silent Bob are featured in the "Because I Got High" video, which you can view here.) The song is getting most of its exposure through the Howard Stern show, where Stern has played the song nearly every day for two weeks. The soundtrack came out on Tuesday, which should help spread this novelty track even further. To give you an example of the song's newfound popularity, "Because I Got High" got more searches last week than Billboard magazine's #1 song, "Bootylicious" by Destiny's Child. In three weeks, Afroman has gone from a handful of searches per week to more searches than better-known rappers Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z Afroman is so relatively new that searching for him gets you mostly links to a skateboarding company, but you can purchase his albums through our relationship with CDNow. His album Good Times (which also contains "Because I Got High") comes out August 28. * * * Some housekeeping notes: Tuesday I referred to Jerri Manthey as the first reality TV contestant to make the Lycos 50. Actually, the first reality TV contestant(s) to make the Lycos 50 were Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell from Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire. Thanks to reader Warner Walker for pointing this out. There will be no new column Friday. I have it written into my contract that I get as many vacation days as President Bush, and so far I'm running about 20 days behind. The Lycos 50 will return Monday to answer the question: which NFL teams get the most ticket requests?

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Send mail to Aaron at ASchatz@lycos-inc.com.