Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Why I'll Never Date Matchbox 20...

I've always thought that the best songs are the ones that you can personally relate to. I mean, let's be honest, we're all pretty self-centered. Who doesn't want a song that you feel is secretly about you?

Musicians/song writers/Kelly Clarkson's of the world know this--and they make sure to make their songs as vague and universally applicable as possible. It's to the point where I feel like I can relate to the majority of the songs currently played on the radio.

But I currently have one giant exception: Matchbox 20's new song "She's So Mean"

There is not a single line in this song that I identify with or agree with.

Here's the music video:



(Ugh, I just watched the video for the first time right now because I thought to myself, "Ok maybe I'll understand it more after I watch" ...nope.)

If you're at work or just feeling too lazy to actually listen to the song, here's the lyrics:


I kn-kn-know a girl, she gets what she wants all the time
'Cause she's fine
But for an angel, she's a hot hot mess
Make you so blind
But you don't mind

'Cause she's an uptown, get-around, anything-goes girl, girl
She's a hardcore, candy-store, gimme-some-more girl, girl

She'll make you take her to the club, but then she leaves with her friends
She likes to stay late at the party, 'cause the fun never ends
And all her clothes are on the floor and all your records are scratched
She's like a one-way ticket 'cause you can't come back!

[Chorus:]
Saying yeah... you want her, but she's so mean
(You’ll never let her go. Why don’t you let her go?)
Yeah... you want her, but she's so mean
(You’ll never let her go. Why don’t you let her go?)

You kn-kn-know that if you don’t shut your mouth, she’ll freak out
You better get your shit together, ‘cause she’s bringing you down now
Yeah boy you better, you better
'Cause she's an uptown, get-around, anything-goes girl, girl
She's a hardcore, candy-store, gimme-some-more girl, girl

She’s got her wicked sense of humor, can’t believe what she says
She drinks Bacardi in the morning ‘til it goes to her head
And all you want is just to hold her, but she don’t go for that
She has a hard time coming when she can’t hit back

[Chorus]

Every now and then, she makes you just a little bit crazy
She’ll turn a knife into your back and then she’s calling you baby, crazy

She'll make you take her to the club, but then she leaves with her friends
She likes to stay late at the party, 'cause the fun never ends
And all her clothes are on the floor and all your records are scratched
She's like a one-way ticket 'cause you can't come back!

[Chorus x2]

To state the obvious...this girl sounds mean. And to disagree with Matchbox 20...she sounds like no one I would want to date, ever. And most of all, she sounds nothing like me. And I don't like songs if they aren't about me. I said that at the beginning of this post right? If it's not about me then the song is no good.

I can barely even spill water on someone's t-shirt without apologizing profusely. If i scratched all their records I think I'd be out buying them a brand new collection.

I hate Bacardi.

I'm not sure what a "hardcore, candy-store, gimme-some-more girl" is, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm probably not one of those.

...Maybe this is why guys don't like me? Or at least why Rob Thomas hasn't returned any of my phone calls. (Previously I assumed he was too busy finding yet another alley or city street on which to film his next single.)  

Is it because I don't ruin shit for them? Have I not destroyed enough property or spoiled enough nights out for them? It's usually girls that get all the crap for going after the guys that ruin their lives...but this song indicates that guys sneakily love it too.

What a screwed up species we are.

That's all I gotta say about that (said in a Forrest Gump voice).

Time to go electrocute some hot guys, maybe key a few nice cars and find a new boyfriend!


"Brian...do girls like it when you treat them like crap?"
-Stewie Griffin, Family Guy

Thursday, July 26, 2012

But I'm not tired!

On nights that I can't fall asleep, I tend to find myself lying awake, thinking about how weird sleep is.


If we treated sleep as a natural process this is how it would work:

Every night, our bodies automatically grow tired. When we feel our bodies beginning this shutting down process, we find a safe and comfortable place to lie down and reach a state of just-barely living. Our temperature drops, heart rate goes down, etc. but then we naturally wake up to the sunlight in the morning, rested and ready to go for another full day, until the next night.

But of course, barely anything in the world is natural anymore so this is what we do:

Every night when all the good TV shows are over we go into a room where there is a big squishy soft mattress, we close all the curtains, shut off the lights, we lay (lie?) down, and we wait. We just lay (lie?) there waiting for our body to catch on to the fact that it is now convenient for us to sleep. Once it finally gets the memo, we go into the same state of just-barely living I spoke about before, only to jar it awake with an alarm clock ringing in our pitch black room. We now expect our body to instantaneously get the message that it is now convenient for us to be awake.

It's not supposed to work like that! We are not computers. We can't just put ourselves into "sleep" mode and shut down on request. And even computers need some time to be groggy after being in sleep mode.

We laugh at videos of puppies and children and other creatures (Yeah, I called a baby a creature. And I was being nice. Typically I call them aliens.) falling asleep in their dinner, or on the stairs, or in other places we've decided are "weird" or unnatural. But I kind of think it's weirder and more unnatural that we just lay (lie? ...damnit! which one?!) in a bed and wait.

Puppies and babies and other little creatures only have to worry about surviving. They don't have to get up for work, or be anywhere important. So they can sleep whenever and wherever they happen to feel tired. But we, as actual people, don't give ourselves that "luxury" (even though it should probably be considered a necessity). We have such unnaturally structured lives that we only have an 8 hour or less window in which we can sleep. (For those of you thinking "Psh, I'd be SO lucky to have 8 whole hours...let me point out that you are currently reading from a pointless blog lacking any direction, written by a non-famous, unimportant 23 year old. So, you're not THAT busy.) But anyways, we don't have time to run around and play until our body gets so worn out that we just flop down and sleep. We only have time to chug an unmeasured amount of NyQuil and lie down and wait for sleep to hit us. ...And while we're laying there we might as well just send out a few texts...

The next time you're awkwardly laying in your bed demanding that your body fall asleep for you, think about how strange the whole process is. And how puppies and aliens children probably have the right idea.



"The cats nestle close to their kittens,
The lambs have laid down their sheep
You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear,
Please go the f*#& to sleep."
-Adam Mansbach, Go the F**k to Sleep

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

And now a word from our sponsors...

Commercials are supposedly made up of clever tactics that entice us to watch, buy or believe whatever they are telling us about. Considering I watch many TV shows, and buy a lot of stuff, I would assume that some of these commercial tactics work on me. But today I want to talk about 3 kinds that don't.

And then I will return you to your regularly scheduled programming :)

The first type of commercial that has no impact on me is insurance commercials. Recently they have become kind of funny...I don't mind Flo, Mayhem is pretty awesome, I like when the random space monkey comes floating down from the sky...but my biggest issue with insurance commercials is that they all promise to save you money if you switch to them.

That is not possible.

They can't all be the cheapest insurance. If they were I could just jump back and forth between chatting with Geico for 15 minutes and snapping my fingers for a State Farm agent until they were paying me to have me insured.

(Side note: I hate the word "bundle.")

The next type of commercial I shake my head at are the misleading ones that try to get you to watch TV shows.

The "Bachelor" series is on its 23rd or 24th season right now. The chances that this season's finale will be "the most dramatic ever" are...well...1/24, and getting slimmer by the season...it's just statistics. And the editing done to these commercials is almost shameful. Shameful because it's so predictable. You can count on the fact that whatever they suggest is going to happen will not happen. If they make it seem like the Bachelorette is going to choose no one, then you can count on her picking the winner in the first 20 minutes of the show.

Finally, the last kind of commercial tactic I'm not buying into is when they present something as very bad when it's not, or at least when you're not sure it is. That's not a very good explanation so thank God for examples.

Lysol loves blowing up germs until they look like carnivorous monsters roughly the size of your entire kitchen island.

Naturally, these horrible creatures must be ousted before they kidnap your children.

But, A.) This is nowhere close to what germs look like (say my science-major friends who have looked at a lot of things under microscopes) and B.) We need germs to live. The fact that Lysol, Purell, etc. kills 99.9% of germs is not a good thing. If you are a healthy, normal person, living in entirely sterile environment scrubbed down with bleach is probably not helping you much.

While there are lots of commercials I find myself rolling my eyes at...there are definitely still some that work.

Tell me you don't want to drink Diet Coke and throw a boardwalk-roller-skating party after watching this commercial:


That's what I thought.


"I'm a hot babe out jogging...trying to make sure that this stays a 10."
-Mayhem, Allstate Commercials

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The New Golden Rule

I find it kind of funny, and even sort of counter-intuitive that we put so much stock in being nice to others, but not so much stock in being nice to ourselves. We say "treat others the way you want to be treated" but sometimes I find myself not even treating myself the way I want to be treated. Why is it not a priority to be nice to yourself?

Maybe it was where I went to college, or what part of the country I live in or something, but I feel like we all have a tendency to be so self-critical. We're 5 pounds overweight, we don't volunteer nearly enough, we don't work hard enough, we don't spend enough time with our families, we don't have the dream job, we don't have the car we envisioned we would have by this age, or the right amount of money saved, or the apartment in the location we wanted. 

If other people actually judged us based off of all of the negative thoughts we had about ourselves, who the hell would want to spend time with us? A fat, selfish, lazy loner with a crappy job and a gross car that will break down in front of our crappy apartment where we only have $25 hiding in the freezer.

Come on. We don't really think that about ourselves do we? Then why do we so often act like we do? Conversations between groups of girls often become a contest of who can have the worst life. I'm guilty of it...and I can't even figure out why I do it. I feel uncomfortable giving myself a compliment out loud unless it's to my closest friends.

Example:
Girl: "I love your purse!"
Me: "Thanks it was $10 at Marshall's."

...Why did I need to say that? It wouldn't be wrong of me to just say "thanks so much!" but for whatever reason I feel the need to present myself to others as some sort of cheap bargain hunter that doesn't have nice things.

"Oh my gosh that top is adorable."

"Yeah some little girl from Bangladesh probably got paid $.4 to make this in the basement of Forever 21. But thanks anyways."

This is also like when I find myself telling people that I go to the gym because I like to be able to eat whatever I want.

It took me awhile to realize this...but that's a complete lie. So if you've ever heard me say that, I'm sorry. I lied to you.

I eat whatever I want all the time because I don't give a crap what I weigh as long as I still fit into all my clothes. And I work out because I love running, and I like feeling strong.

But somehow that isn't an acceptable answer. Because I think that other people don't want to hear that I like working out. I think other people want to hear that I begrudgingly work out so I don't become fat. So that's what I say.

The hard part to determine is do we express these self-criticisms because we truly believe them, or because we feel like we should because it's what others do? Some mix of both maybe?

My main problem with people being truly self-critical (by that I mean actually believing the terrible things you say about yourself) is that I've never actually seen it make someone into a better person. It never makes them happy. When's the last time you've heard someone say "ughh I just need to lose these 10 pounds!" and then after they lose it say, "Wow I'm so happy I lost those 10 pounds! I can't believe I finally did it"? (Don't know where that stupid question mark goes...)

The point is, you don't hear them say that. You just hear them say, "Ughh look at the way my thighs rub together." And you think, "Did you not just lose 10 pounds so you could look at yourself and be happy? That worked well."

The day I see a girl my age go on a diet to lose 10 pounds or less and actually become happier because of it is the day I become a believer. But at the moment...nope. It doesn't change them. They're still just as self-critical as before...just 10 pounds lighter. And no one notices. Because they were already a size 4. And now they're still a size 4...their jeans just don't fit as well.

So while I understand (strangely enough) the social pressure to be the self-proclaimed fattest laziest person in your friend group with the worst job, I don't think you should ever actually think that about yourself. By all means, if something in your life truly needs an overhaul, haul it over. But be reasonable! You can like your tiny apartment, and your cheap Marshall's purse, and your first job. You can even like how you look (novel concept...I know...but it can be done).

Treat yourself the way you want to be treated! That sounds so stupidly obvious...but is it?




"My hairline is so weird."
"At least you can wear halter tops! I have man shoulders."
"My nail beds suck!"
"...I have really bad breath in the morning?"
-Mean Girls

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Offensive Wonka

There seems to be some confusion over the meaning of certain words lately. So, today, I wanted to set the record straight on 2 words in particular:

1. Offensive
2. Condescending

I have already been over the word offensive before in the context of the completely meaningless phrase, "no offense but..."

In the case of that phrase, something offensive is being said under the guise that it is not actually offensive. But in a particularly popular recent news story, I have found the opposite--that something entirely unoffensive has been somehow mislabeled as offensive.

On the Fourth of July, a housing complex of some sort in Wrentham, MA received a complaint that American flags were being hung outside of tenants' apartments. To appease the complainers, (I think there's a better word for one who files a complaint, I just can't think of it right now) the town's housing authority sent a note around banning the public hanging of all American flags.

(FYI: You actually can't do that. The state overturned a day or two later. Because I feel the need to actually cite a source here, take a look at this article in the Huffington Post.)

It is a common complaint, mostly of old people and conservatives that everything has to be politically correct these days. And often times, I find myself on the side of those striving to be more "P.C." because I'm such a young whippersnapper.

In my opinion, it's pretty racist that there are any sports teams called the "Red Skins."

In my opinion, the violent protests against the building of a mosque next to Ground Zero are wrong.

In my opinion, the groups of "Christians" who stand, supposedly under God, holding signs that say "God Hates Fags" are revolting.

Those things, in my opinion, are all offensive.

An American flag, especially hung in America, is not offensive. It is the official, internationally recognized symbol of America. We're not talking about flying a confederate flag here, or any other sort of regional representation of the country. We're talking about the flag that is flown at the Olympics, or that was on the moon (allegedly...). This flag is a symbol of fight, bravery and love of country. 

I understand that right now it is not cool or trendy to like America. We're mad about the economy and the politicians and those crazy kids with their Instant Messenger and horrible inability to string together a complete sentence. We're embarrassed by the supposed contempt everyone else in the world has towards us. So therefore, to some, an American flag may be a representation of things they don't want to be, or be associated with. So, to them, it may look more offensive than a pair of non-canvas shoes. (I own them too...relax.) But ultimately...it's what flies at our Nation's capitol and our embassies, and lies on top of our soldiers' caskets. So it's official and legal, not to mention historic and meaningful. Although it may not be popular right now.

I don't like getting too preachy on you guys so I'll wrap up this topic real quick...it's just straight up ridiculous that people in America would be banned from flying American flags. There was no ban on any other flags--Canadian, Mexican, anything. The ban was against American flags. In America. The Wrentham Housing Authority had it all wrong. Luckily, the public, as well as the state got it right. And now we're all good. The end.

If you're still with me here, now I'm going to move on to the word condescending. If you're on Twitter, or into Internet memes, then maybe you are familiar with "Condescending Wonka." Here's an example of how Condescending Wonka should work:




This is a funny Condescending Wonka meme that plays on the fact that while Northface Jackets were originally made for mountain climbers and extreme hikers/outdoorsy people, they have now become mainstream and people like me wear them to the mall. Get it?


So, you've just seen how Condescending Wonka should function. Gene Wilder, with hand placed on side of head looking down towards you should be saying something to you that seems positive or complimentary, but in fact, due to his tone and his body language is patronizing and, well, condescending.


Now let's take a look at the Condescending Wonka twitter feed that is just text, but you are supposed to imagine the above picture in your head:


Condescending Wonka ‏@WilllllyWonka
Oh, you are going off on me right now in front of your friends? I'm sorry, I don't speak Cuntanese.

Twinkle, Twinkle, little slut. Name one guy you haven't fucked.


Condescending Wonka ‏@WilllllyWonka
Bitch I'm not insulting you, I'm describing you.

I love when chubby girls wear tight shirts and booty shorts. Such a fucking turn on.

I'm sorry...did I miss the part where "condescending" became "hates women?" The lonely, lonely boy behind @WillllllyWonka seems to have some issues that have nothing to do with being condescending, witty or clever in any way. 

In fact, those tweets are offensive. But, no no, we're supposed to call them condescending. But we'll call American flags offensive instead. I'm way more offended by a piece of fabric that was created to stand for courage, purity and justice than I am by reading "Twinkle, twinkle, little slut. Name one guy you haven't fucked."


"I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him."
- Abraham Lincoln

Thursday, July 12, 2012

"No no, you go first..."

In my last post I mentioned how distraught Romeo & Juliet made me when I was a little kid, so I started thinking about all the other movies, or parts of movies that stress me out. I've come up with a couple of common themes that I find completely cringe-worthy.

I get anxiety watching movies when there is a complete communication breakdown. This is quite a common occurrence in movies so I'll narrow it down to the type that really get to me. I'll coin it, the "You first" moment.

It seems like any time a movie character has some completely huge revelation that they just HAVE to tell someone else, (usually their love interest) said love interest has something to say to them too. Instead of just saying, "I bet mine's more important: I LOVE YOU!" or "SHUSH!! I'MNOTREALLYAPRINCESSTHEREISAIDIT!!" they always say, "Ok, you go first."

You just ran to their house. Like you were on fire. Only to let them talk first? What the hell is that all about? If you were going to do that all along you should have just walked.

Then of course, what the love interest has to say is in complete conflict with whatever the person originally wanted to say. So they say "Oh...it was nothing..." when really it was EVERYTHING!!! Now it's all RUINED!!

Exhibit A. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. Tune in at 8:27 to cringe as Topher Grace's character makes the classic "You first" mistake:




Ughh it's just the worst!

But not really the worst...because I'm about to tell you about the worst!

The number 1 thing I cannot handle in movies is when things don't go right. So then the character does something completely ridiculous to try to correct their mistake, making something else go wrong. So on and so forth until you have every Ben Stiller movie ever made. (Except for the movies where he's a villain. If he's not a villain, he's a MASTER at ruining everything, and "fixing it" by ruining even more things.) What better way to win the affections of a family that already hates you than to aggressively spike volleyballs at them? Check out this clip where Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) does just about everything possible to screw things up in Meet the Parents:



(This sort of bad-to-worse humor is also the entire premise of the movie the Hangover, and why I absolutely refuse to see the second movie. How difficult really is it to foresee that stealing a police car actually won't solve any of your problems?)

Because it's going to bother me if I continue to think about all the way movie characters launch themselves into a downward spiral where each new scenario is worse than the last, I'm going to end by talking about something that other people find cringe-worthy in movies, but I personally think is hilarious.

This would be the perpetually awkward character. (Maybe I find this hilarious because I identify...or because I'd prefer to think of myself as accidentally hysterical instead of just plain painful to speak with on the phone.) But anyways, here's a quick montage from I Love You Man that's a pretty good test to see if you can handle extreme awkwardness:



I laugh every single time. "Working like a doOOOoog"

Well, I'm in a good mood now...but if you hate awkward situations, sorry to end on a stressful note for you. Better luck next time!



"Slappin' da bass man!"
-Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd), I Love You Man
That should be said with a leprechaun accent for better effect.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Ahh, to be young!

A lot of times people my age will talk about how they wish they were just a little kid again. Everything was so much easier when we were young and carefree with nothing to worry about. And I always nod my head and pretend like I agree, because I know what they mean, but honestly I was not a carefree kid at all.

I was such a high strung little kid. I worried about absolutely everything. I stressed about play dates and homework (1 whole worksheet!) and not being able to fall asleep. 

Back before I had figured out time zones and college students' sleep cycles, I used to lay in bed at night convinced that I was the only person in the whole world that was awake. I would let this thought stress me out until, of course, I lost sleep over it. 

One night, my family watched Romeo & Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio but I couldn't watch the end because it was my bedtime. So I asked my mom to tell me what happened. She explained the rest of the story, and then she left me alone in my room. And I vividly remember crying myself to sleep because I felt so stressed out for Romeo and Juliet. What happened to them was so unfair and unlucky that I couldn't deal with it. (I would have been way less upset had I watched the actual movie, because it kind of sucked...I'm a hardcore Leo fan, but that movie was freakishly anachronistic and it bugs me to this day.)

So, throughout elementary and middle school I continued to struggle to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. And now that I'm really trying to be honest with myself, I haven't changed much. I still find myself crying for movie characters, and worrying about problems I have no ability to fix. But somehow, in later years I've managed to make it work for me instead of against me, like it used to. When you're young, the world is a very heavy thing to carry. I think maybe I got to a point where I knew that who I was wasn't going to change, nor did I want it to change, but how I handled it really had to change. I needed to get stronger in order to carry the same amount of weight, but expend a lot less effort.

I am so glad that I'm not a little kid anymore. In so many ways, I look back at my 10 year old self as kind of just a crappier version of my 23 year old self (then my 24 year old self, 25 year old self and so on...). A lot of the outlines of ideas I wholeheartedly believe in now were there, but I hadn't worked out the details yet, and that was a great source of stress for me. Now, a lot more of the outlines have been filled in, and, while it's not a complete picture yet, it's enough that I've been able to develop a sense of calm about life that I didn't have before.

Maybe someday when I'm 30 and someone mentions carefree childhood, I'll choose to look back to my early 20's. Which, of course, sounds strange. I'm technically an adult, I'm on my own, I'm broke, I have a real-world, full-time job, and my cost of living is disgusting. Not to mention--I'm still not really "carefree." Stress will always be a part of my life, but at this point I don't think that's a bad thing. I feel good about who I've become and am still becoming. It isn't always pretty or seamless, and it's most certainly not a quiet transition (here I am yacking away about it...) but I can't think of anything else much more worthwhile than becoming who you want to be, and who you need yourself to be. I'm glad I've found a way to stay true to the little girl I was--struggling under the weight of mostly self-imposed pressure and stress. For me, it wasn't about dropping the weight, it was about learning how to carry it properly.



"It is weak and silly to say that you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear."
-Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre 

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Nosh on this...

I have a love/hate relationship with magazines. I'm a girl, so I'm supposed to love them. They're colorful and shiny and quick to read and that's supposed to be desirable. But at the same time they are extremely ridiculous...which is sometimes a good thing, but other times it really bugs me.

[Editor's note: Enjoy the irony of me calling magazines colorful, shiny and quick to read on my flaming orange blog full of posts that take no more than 5 minutes to read.]

I'll get my feminist rant out of the way first on this one. The majority of women's magazines bank on women not liking themselves to sell copies. Every article is about being skinnier, prettier, more desirable in bed, skinnier, more fashionable, skinnier, and not to mention, skinnier. They airbrush every person on the cover, and then insist that this 5'9, size 0 model has an "athletic figure." Being the javelin doesn't mean you're "athletic."

(Warning: If you've ever spent time with Rachel and I together, you've heard this next bit ad nauseum.)

The way magazines try to make you skinnier is absolutely hilarious.

"Craving that slice of double fudge chocolate cake?? Nosh on 7 almonds instead!"

HOW IS THAT IN ANY WAY EQUIVALENT?? AND WHAT THE HELL DOES NOSH MEAN??

"Hungry for that calzone filled with cheese and sausage? Try breathing in deeply and taking a sip of lukewarm water."

"Dying for a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked? Try some self control you fat pig."(...they should just tell it how it is, right?)

If they're not giving tips on how to lose weight, then they're giving out quizzes on how terrible of a girlfriend you are.

Between 0-3 Points: A neglectful girlfriend. You let your boyfriend roam alone entirely too much. He's most likely sleeping with other people. Be more assertive!

Between 4-6 Points: A regular girlfriend. You don't really do anything wrong but his friends will still try to convince him to break up with you. Try spicing things up in the bedroom and maybe he won't listen to them!

Between 7-9 Points: A psychotic girlfriend. Your nagging ways are weighing on the relationship. If you scored this many points you're probably taking this quiz in the tree outside of your man's house. Get down from there!

...No, but seriously, I do like reading the descriptions of the two extremes. (I always fall in the middle category because I'm boring and have also learned how to manipulate these quizzes)...tell me you haven't knocked points off your score before to be less crazy.

Ok, so if they aren't telling you to eat some celery then do a 75 minute elliptical workout, or giving you quizzes to decide just how terrible you are, then they're scaring the absolute crap out of you with absurd "true" stories.

"I Had a Drug Resistant, Non-Hereditary, Deadly Mystery Disease with No Symptoms"

"My Entire Extended Family Conspired to Murder Me"

"From Healthy Cheerleader to Oxygen Allergy Overnight"

Naturally, since I enjoy losing sleep at night, I read these stories all the time. And I always regret it.

By the time I'm done reading, I'm an almond-eating psycho who will probably die tomorrow. Magazines are fun!


"Eat your granola from a 4-ounce mug, not an 8-ounce bowl."
-Diet tip from "78 Ways to Cut Fat Calories from Your Diet" in Women's Health Magazine
Woah...eating less saves calories?? Who knew!?

Monday, July 2, 2012

Cool it, Maybe?

For the record: I am a 23 year-old, college educated female who often worries immensely about the state of the world, and the people in it. I read books--real ones, by serious authors, I have listened to a variety of music all my life, I have traveled to foreign countries...I'm not a total idiot.

That being said, I'm about to defend pop singers like I'm a 13 year-old girl. 

Here goes:

I really think it's time to lay off Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, and other famous singers who are constantly under fire for producing chart topping hits. 

A. I'm just going to get this out of the way now. Justin Bieber is currently 18 years old. So for those of you who are waiting for "his voice to change and THEN what will he sound like?!" I ask you to recall  how old you were when you went through puberty. Everyone talks about this kid like he's 12. "OMG HOWWW IS HE DRIVING THAT CAR?" Because he is a freaking legal adult. Kids grow up, people!! Adjust!

B. Carly Rae Jepsen (famous for singing "Call Me Maybe") did not put that song at the top of the Billboard Charts herself. Ok? You did. I did. The completely over-rated video by the Harvard Baseball team did. So can we stop blaming her for being ridiculously successful?

C. I love when people feel the need to all but self-mutilate on Facebook for liking "Call Me Maybe" 

"OK I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SAYING THIS BUT I TOTALLY HAD A DANCE PARTY TO CALL ME MAYBE TODAY IN THE CAR"

"Don't judge me but I think I'm finally coming around to Call Me Maybe"

"I JUST FOUND MYSELF ACCIDENTALLY SINGING ALONG TO CALL ME MAYBE!!"

It's the number 1 song in the country. It is not revolutionary, weird, or interesting in any way that YOU are now singing along to it. 

D. To those of you who only listen to like, Led Zeplin and Pink Floyd and still maintain that "Stairway to Heaven" is the last great song ever written....relax.

By all means, panic when Carly Rae Jepsen wins the Nobel prize. But as of right now...it's just a song. It's entertainment. It's music.

Let me bring you back to 1964 where the number 1 hit in the United States was a song called "Love Me Do" by a little band named The Beatles.

Here are the lyrics:

Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please, love me do
Whoa, love me do

Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please, love me do
Whoa, love me do

Someone to love
Somebody new
Someone to love
Someone like you

Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please, love me do
Whoa, love me do

Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please, love me do
Whoa, love me do
Yeah, love me do
Whoa, oh, love me do

Those aren't exactly the most brilliant lyrics ever written. 

(Snooty music people want to kill me right about now...and I LOVE it. How was that DMB concert? Oh yeah? Goin' to see Oasis next time they decide to not be a**holes? Radical.)

Look, I'm not trying to diss The Beatles here...I'm not trying to argue that their music wasn't good, or that today's music is better. I'm just trying to defend my girl Carly Rae. She wasn't trying to write a Shakespearean sonnet. So can we all just loosen up a bit? I think maybe The Beatles would have condoned that.


"Life is very short, and there's no time 
For fussing and fighting, my friend."
-The Beatles, "We Can Work it Out"