By Sean Moeller

Kate Flannery once flashed Steve Carell at an office Christmas party. Of course it only happened on television, OF COURSE, but it’s the drunken thought that counts for somethin’ people. Flannery, better known as the sullen and depressed alcoholic Meredith Palmer on NBC’s “The Office,” unlike her on-screen persona, would not have passed up that video iPod in the first round of Dirty Christmas for Pam’s aquamarine tea pot. No sir. She’s hot for the tunes. Flannery weighs in on the seismic differences in her musical preferences and those of her character, she of the world in the crapper world view. As a Daytrotter regular contributor, Flannery will drop in weekly to answer questions as Meredith, channeling the inner hopelessness of a middle American office employee who knows of nothing better to listen to than John Tesh. Thankfully, reports have shown that that number is shrinking. – Sean Moeller

In Flannery’s own f-ing words

”Meredith never left Pennsylvania and she works in a paper company. I have lived my adult life in Philadelphia, Chicago, NYC and L.A. I have also toured the country performing and I have traveled to Europe for fun. My exposure to music is much greater than Meredith’s. I’m also the youngest of seven kids. My older brother and sisters exposed me to all kinds of music. My dad had a bar with a jukebox and he’d bring home the old 45s. I was lucky. Meredith has NOT BEEN THAT LUCKY.

”Meredith listens to John Tesh (her vision of current music), Steve Tyrell (because he sings the standards and makes everything sound like a young white guy trying to sing like an old black man) and Tammy Wynette (the “Stand By Your Man” vibe, the on-again, off-again, George Jones love, the country music drama that’s great to listen to when you’re so loaded you can’t see straight). Meredith is a small town drinker who enjoys a local cover band—the Bruce Springsteen cover band and the Styx cover band, made up of the same guys.

”Then there is me, Kate Flannery. May I say, I listen to everything. I am like everyone else last year. I still listen to the ‘Garden State’ soundtrack and I love them all—The Shins, Colin Haye and even Coldplay. I listen to old Steely Dan, the Stone Roses and 50s jazz soloist, Blossom Dearie. That Loretta Lynn/Jack White album was fun. I like the White Stripes, and Gang of Four and Hall and Oates, before the H2O album. The Beatles’ ‘Rubber Soul’ album will never leave my top 10.”

”I sing, too. I have a comedy lounge act called the Lampshades (www.thelampshades.com). We do covers and put songs together that normally would not go together – ‘Mandy’ by Barry Manilow and ‘Brandy’ by Looking Glass. We sing them at the same time and it somehow works out OK. We do a medley from ‘Mister Rodger’s Neighborhood’ with ‘Sexual Healing’ by Marvin Gaye and ‘Sesame Streets’’ ‘One of These Things Is Not Like the Other. It’s our PBS medley.

“I used to sing in a band (MonoPuff, www.monopuff.org) in NYC, seven years ago with John Flansburgh from They Might Be Giants. We got to open for the Giants and we toured a little, but mostly we played the Lower East Side clubs like the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom. I sang on the album ‘It’s Fun to Steal.’”