I’ve been accused of being smug. I see it. Believe me, I’m more self aware than my demeanor may suggest. I just don’t know how to curb it. Sometimes there is just so much ridiculousness in the world that it makes my head spin. From perfectly put-together women reading OK! magazine on the airplane to milk jug wielding muscleheads wearing stocking caps while doing bicep curls at the gym, there is just too much that doesn’t make sense to me. And as a writer, I constantly want to put into words how bizarre it all seems to me, but ultimately it just reads as self-righteous sarcasm.
So, this post is probably just for me. To sort through some stuff.
I haven’t had a car for about 5 years now, and it hasn’t been as big of a loss as I would have thought. A car would be more of a hindrance in New York City anyway, but it has severely limited my knowledge of radio stations. So in the shower, I find a radio station and it doesn’t change until I can commit a good 5 minutes scanning stations. As a result, I’ve been listening to the same ten songs on loop lately. And I can’t help but think that every musical artist has lost his/her damn mind.
The most banal of all pop songs that comes to mind right now is a little gem entitled, “Grenade,” by Bruno Mars. This gentleman seems to be making a name for himself slicing right to the least common denominator of preteen fantasies. Not only did he proclaim in his last hit, “I love you just the way you are,” but now he’s taking it one step farther stating, he’d “catch a grenade for ya.” Hmmm… Pretty tough talk. Somebody get him to Afghanistan ASAP to prove his love to Sally in Hoboken. Put his money where his mouth is. He’d also “jump in front of a train for ya.” Well, that seems silly. That might hurt. At least you’d have a chance to toss the grenade back in some lethal game of hot potato.
And this Katy Perry chick. Damn, she’s pretty!
That’s where I have to stop doling out compliments. She’s never been the best with lyrics, what with all her same sex kissing and ability to memorize a long list of opposites. “You’re hot, then cold. Yes then no. In then out. Up then down.” But her latest metaphor tells me that I’m a firework. Is that because they’re pretty? Because they explode? Because they blow the arm off at least one resident in Oklahoma every summer? I must be one violent mother f*%$@#.
Flo Rida at least asks tough observational questions such as: “When she struts that thing around, everybody be breakin’ their neck like, ‘Who dat girl?’” I think he’s demonstrating how to use the process of elimination. “She ain’t a rockstar, but she got groupies.” Okay, she’s not Joan Jett. “She ain’t an actress, but she make movies.” Damn, for a second I thought she was Tilda Swinton.
These soon-to-be classics are nothing new, I realize. I do remember before I was old enough to drive hearing the Spice Girls proclaim that if I wanna be their (collective) lover, I have to get with their friends. But I’m older now. And with that comes the guilty feeling of realizing that I know all the words to these songs and don’t know all the words to a single Rolling Stones song. Except maybe “Satisfaction.” And that’s only because it was covered by Britney Spears.
