“I have a small apartment, so please don’t buy me any gifts that aren’t food.”

“My life’s goal was to move to New York and eat out for every meal. I’ve accomplished that.”

“I don’t just dislike brunch. I hate brunch. People don’t believe me and they think I will go to brunch with them. But I have NEVER gone to brunch.”

“My friends don’t hate you, they’re just protective of me.”

“I’m going to end up breaking your heart, and this is my way of explaining it in advance” (on why he put Morphine’s ‘I’m Free Now’ as the first song on a mix tape)

“People get really upset when I tell them I work for FOX News. It’s just a job!”

“My ex didn’t speak English, but we communicated on a deeper level.”

“I’m not asking you to pay for ALL the food you eat out of my refrigerator – just the deli meats, because those are expensive.”

“This isn’t a necklace. It’s an Electromagnetic Field Protector.”

“You’re the only girl who has ever been able to take my cock.”

“I told you that I hate painted nails. You painted them just to insult me.”

“My ex-wife doesn’t let me see my son often, so don’t tell anyone you met him.”

“She’s the smartest person I have ever met in my WHOLE LIFE.” (on his ex-girlfriend)

“People don’t realize what’s involved in raising Guinea Pigs for show.”

“I don’t regret it. It was what I needed at the time. And some of the things they taught us were true.” (on living in a cult commune)

“How can you not like Sex in the City? It’s like… about our life!”

“I love you.” (third date)… “I don’t love you. It’s my medication.” (fourth date)

“Why did your mother work a second job? Why didn’t she just go to college? That’s stupid!”

“I pay for everything in cash. Why would I ever need a credit card? Stop telling me what to do!”

Him: “My parents gave me toys instead of love.” Me: “So you’d gladly give up the toys?” Him: “No way! The toys were AWESOME!”

“When you meet my family, you’re going to wonder how I turned out so normal.”

“I don’t watch porn. I think it’s disrespectful to women.”

“I’m in therapy because I’m addicted to porn.”

“The porn I like… I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s not what most people are into. It’s not… legal.”

“My therapist is the most important person in my life.”

“My pet peeve is liars. I hate how they try to change reality.” (said by a pathological liar)

“I will never betray you.”

“My father died, too. Get over it.”

“I always get bored of people, but I’m not bored of you yet.” 

and, last but not least:

“I can’t believe you asked me if I would mind if you had a glass of wine. You are such a selfish bitch.”

_________________________________

Kyria Abrahams is the author of ’I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing.’ Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian home, she had two video games, one of which was ”Math Dragon.” She worked professionally as a web designer from 2000 to 2005 and once animated a palm tree using Flash. An avid photographer 

It’s been a little over a month since I’ve gone on hiatus.

I gave up.

Running a site like this can be hazardous to your health. That’s no lie. After being subjected to the assault of inanity, idiocy, blithering dumb-assery, douche-cockery, cynical, methodical, craven, criminal deception and manipulation of the lobotomized sheep contingent, by the media, the right-wing, the left-wing, the douche-bagger-tea-bagger-birther-pellet-brained fucktards, well…I reached a tipping point. You see, in order to comment on the news, you’ve got to follow it…and if you’re reporting on what’s going on in the entertainment world, it’s a double whammy of mendacity.

I still feel weak. Like my body was overrun by some insidious and virulent virus.

The thought of pouring over the entertainment sites on the internet in search of stories to comment on makes me queasy. I hate those entertainment sites, I really do. They’re all so horribly written and pander-y.

So it seems like I’ve got a choice, either say ‘fuck it’ and shut down the site for good, or try to find my equilibrium again and figure out a way to do this without making myself sick.

Can I do it? Gotta be honest, I don’t know. Even writing these words I feel green around the gills.

I’m going to try though…to push through this meat-gelatin of a malaise. I’m the frankfurter of truth encased in an aspic of moral and intellectual despair. I need to fight my way out.

Just let me clear out my carburetor by bashing out a list of everything I despise…it might alleviate my nausea a bit.

donald trump, all the kardashians, paul ryan, john boehner, ayn rand, the teabaggers, the richest one per cent, glee, articles about celebrities discussing their weight, lindsay lohan, entertainment sites that pose as credible news sources when in fact they’re just as vapid as any other site – even more so, facebook, twitter, people who love twitter, coco and her giant ass, people who watch the jersey shore, people who watch the jersey shore and rationalize it by saying it’s a guilty pleasure, fucking assholes and their guilty pleasures, guilty pleasures have destroyed culture in america, american idol, survivor, the bachelor, rock of love, snooki, big brother, dancing with the stars – fuck you and your guilty pleasures, the royals….fuck them and their wedding, americans that are fascinated by the royal family, 99% of humanity and 99.9% of what supposedly passes for entertainment nowadays.

…yeah that didn’t help much.

I lived with a girl for three years back in the late nineties in a ridiculously minuscule smudge of an apartment on 33rd street off of First Avenue – a joyless neighborhood, completely devoid of anything remotely stimulating.

During most of our relationship, I barely left the apartment as I was catatonically depressed. My musical career was falling apart, I couldn’t get my manager on the phone and I was desperately broke. Most times I couldn’t even scramble up the scratch for my cheese danish and coffee in the morning.

Walking the half block to the local deli on the corner to procure my breakfast fare, was typically my sole excursion of the day. The guy there would give me my coffee for free sometimes as he felt sorry for me. I didn’t really do much in the afternoon besides watch TV, play Madden on the Playstation or maybe slap my salami if I found the energy.

At night when my girlfriend got home from work, we would usually order in a pizza and a rice ball for dinner. It was from a cheap joint and that’s all we could afford. We would eat our food silently in front of the TV, hardly acknowledging each other, except maybe for an occasional utterance related to the passing of condiments. By this point, we had stopped having sex and now merely existed side by side, roiling with hostility. Still, we hardly fought…we barely spoke…and eeked out our existence just like the shadows on a wall.

One morning I woke up and the entire apartment was swarming with little flies. I was practically choking on them. It was like something out of the Amytiville Horror. I couldn’t see where they were coming from, so I sprung up and started scampering all over the apartment in an adrenalized rush to find the source area. Finally I noticed a major cluster spilling out from the kitchen.

I looked down at the half eaten rice ball from the night before that was still sitting out in the empty pizza carton and was horrified to discover that it was absolutely teeming with maggots and baby flies. Panicked and fearing I would be blamed by my girlfriend for leaving the rice ball out overnight, I grabbed some windex and started spraying directly into the clouds of baby flies. To my astonishment, it actually started to work. The flies started dropping down to the ground where I would then smash them and sweep them into a pile.

They were literally dropping like flies.

I had pretty much cleared the kitchen area, when I spied that they had congregated on the radiator vent over on the other side of the apartment. It was completely covered in a thick black coat of baby flies. I went to town on them, committing massive fly genocide. I emptied the entire bottle of windex and swept them all away.

I gathered the carcasses and maggot-infested, half eaten rice ball and threw it all outside.

It felt good to be outdoors for a change. I took a walk up my block and inhaled a deep sigh of relief knowing that I would escape my girlfriend’s wrath. She was so sick of me and my state of catatonia that it was oppressive. If she had signed on for the glamour of dating a ‘rock star’, with the expectation of a life of great wealth and celebrity, well, things certainly hadn’t turned out as planned. She still had to work 60 hours a week, while I was in a constant fight with the label and was being sued by my ex-manager for breach of contract to the tune of one million dollars. I was just barely managing to keep my sanity together and I suppose I wasn’t giving her what she needed. I think the reality of the situation filled her with a seething rage that just kept building.

Years later, she would exact her revenge on me by selling all my guitars and basses, worth thousands of dollars – not to mention un-estimable sentimental value – while I was away upstate at my parents.

I made it about one block and had to sit down, I was weary and I was smoking too much. I found a bench and rested for a spell. It was morning and people were busy on their way to work, leading their lives… I was despondent. I started to think of ways of offing myself. Which would be the least amount of work? I had pretty much decided that jumping off of the George Washington bridge would probably be my best bet, when all of a sudden I heard the most agonized wailing I’d ever heard in my life.

It was a man coming from the direction of the hospital on 1st avenue. He was weeping ungovernably…gut wrenching, soul crunching, yelps. I’d never heard a human being go on that way. He sounded like a gut shot dog. I thought to myself, he must’ve had some bad news over at the hospital. Part of me wanted to try and comfort him, but he looked completely inconsolable and besides, I’m not sure I’d want a stranger intruding upon me in such an obvious state of blinding grief. So, off he went, stumbling down the block, pausing every few seconds or so to emit another heart breaking sob. Deeply shaken, I temporarily forgot about killing myself.

I got to my feet and stood for a moment, swaying in a state of vague unease, wondering to myself whether I’d gotten all of the little flies. I had used up all the windex and didn’t have any money to pay for another bottle.  

I shuffled my question mark of a body to the end of the block to get my cheese danish and coffee, I’d think about the baby flies later…maybe I’d get lucky, and the guy would give me my coffee for free.

When I was 18, I was taking a figure drawing class at the upstate college I attended. That’s where I met ‘crazypants’.

I noticed her instantly, as she struck quite an impressive figure. She was an attractive gal with a big warm tail and eyes the color of topaz. She also had one of those short 90s era ’bob’ haircuts and a penchant for wearing sundresses that seriously emphasized her healthy attributes. Still, I think the thing that really struck me about her was the fact that she didn’t shave her armpits. Glorious tufts of hair sprouted out from underneath her deeply tanned upper arm area. I was mesmerized. I don’t know, for some reason I’ve always had a thing for women with hairy armpits. Could be that I’m French, could be that my mother might have had them growing up… or possibly a third option. You see, I remember finding my parents’ copy of the ‘Joy of Sex’ hid away in the back of their closet when I was around six. Flipping through the pages, I became extremely aroused – even at that impossibly young age!

Like Woody Allen says in Annie Hall: “I never had a latency period!!”

I remember clearly that the woman illustrated in the book had a colossal muff and delectably furry armpits. So who knows? Perhaps my armpit hair fetish stems from this early sexual imprinting. Like how little ducklings follow whomever they see when they first open their baby eyes and call it ‘mama’. For whatever reason, I was really attracted to ‘crazypants’. I’d watch her in class day in and day out, totally adjusting my rod every two seconds. I mean, she drove me out of my bird.

One day, she came up to me after class and started up a conversation of sorts.

“Hey… I see you staring at me in class every day, so I thought I’d introduce myself,” she chimed playfully. ”Yes well… ahem… yeah,” I stammered. You have to understand at this point, I had absolutely no idea how to talk to women. They were from another galaxy, another universe. “Do you want to go out sometime after class?” she asked “Ahem… yes… well ahem.” We exchanged phone numbers, and went off in opposite directions. Later that night back at my dorm, the phone rang, but when I picked up the receiver the person on the other end immediately hung up. Well, I was excited about that, because at the time *69 had just recently become available to everyone. I had been waiting for an opportunity like this, you know – to see how it worked!

So, I *69′d, and this guy answers in a gruff voice: ”yeah?” “Yeah what? You just called me mister,” I shot back. “No I didn’t… whaddya talkin’ about?” “Well I just used this thing called star 69, so I can tell that you just…”

He cut me off… “I already told ya kid, I didn’t call.. what is this??!!” The guy was getting really upset, but I wouldn’t give in! “Why did you call me miiissster?? What’s your problem!!,” I whined in a mocking tone. “Alright I’ve had enough of you – punk!” …and with that he hung up. It was an amusing little episode, I chuckled over it with some friends of mine, but I quickly forgot about it. A few days later, I ran into ‘crazypants’ on the quad, and she explained what had happened. Apparently, she was involved with an older guy and by older I mean WAY older – 63 to be exact. She had been over at his house the other day and it was her who had called me from his phone – but quickly hung up when he came into the room. “Wow,” I said.

I was a bit taken aback. “Yeah, we had a big fight after you spoke with him, and I was actually afraid for my life,” she replied sheepishly. “So, do you still wanna go out with me?” “Sure,” I stammered. But I wasn’t so sure anymore…

This was my earliest memory of ‘the warning radar’. Something was actively not right with this girl. She had a peculiar slur to her speech, almost imperceptible, yet it nagged me. There was also a slightly manic vibe about her which deeply unsettled me. Still, this was a genuine girl asking me out on a date. The only other time I’d ever been propositioned by anyone was from some gay guy on a bus ride upstate, who knocked on the door while I was in the bathroom taking a dump and asked me if I wanted ‘some company’. Considering my options, I agreed to meet up at her place Friday night at seven. One decidedly odd thing about this chick, was that she lived with her mother in town. Her parents had rented a little cottage so that her mother could stay with her during the school year. As a kid, I didn’t make all these connections in my head, that there was something seriously off about this situation. I mean, I did feel a bit weirded out, but at the same time I was also slightly aroused. Of course at 18, a friggin’ three-legged stool could give me a chubby. I showed up at her house for our date and I was surprised at how excited her mother was to meet me. She kept asking me if she could get me anything – she was really making a fuss! Obviously, it was because she had an insane daughter that was dating a 63 year old guy – but I didn’t know that at the time. I must’ve looked heaven sent to her. We took her car into town, and wound up at a Roy Rogers. I’m a big fan of the fried chicken…you should know that about me. I remember Roy’s had this incredible horseradish sauce. Not sure if they still have it. Anyway, it was totally delish… I used to dip the chicken skin in it… sigh… but I digress. We started talking a bit, and then all of a sudden she became very serious. “I have to tell you something,” she whispered ominously. “Yes…uh..what is it?,” I choked nervously. “I hate talking about this,” she continued in a serious tone. Of course my mind immediately sprung to what was on everyone’s mind at the time. Did this girl have AIDS?? Jesus! Had I sipped out of any glasses back at her place?? “Just tell me… don’t make this into such a drama,” I managed to reply. “Ok…well, I’m on medication.” “Oh my god… IS IT AIDS,” I heard myself blurt out. “No!,” she said incredulously. “Why would you think that??” I stuttered, “Because you’re all serious, and speaking in low tones, and you say you’re on medication!!” I was beginning to have a panic attack. They had started earlier in the semester, when I smoked 11 bong hits of some stuff laced with mescalin and due to that experience, I would suffer from them for years to come. They should make a t-shirt: ’4 years of college and all I got were these lousy panic attacks’…I’d buy one. “Noo… I’m on medication… for my head… I have something called bi-polar disorder… I’m on lithium,” she said softly. Well, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about really, but at least she didn’t have AIDS. I was relieved. Long story short, we dated for a couple months, but I eventually dumped her when she began to act increasingly erratic. She would call my dorm room all the time in tears, claiming she heard people talking about her on the TV.It got pretty scary. When I broke up with her outside of that figure drawing class, she grabbed my hand and bent it all the way back. She had me on my knees. “You couldn’t play bass anymore if I broke your hand,” she snarled. The art teacher pulled her away from me, and she ran off screaming like a banshee. I never saw her again – she dropped out of the class. ‘Crazypants’ was the first in a long line of girlfriends that had ‘issues’ so to speak. Lately, I’ve begun to really try and examine this. I mean, what came first the chicken or the egg? Am I drawn to these women, or are they drawn to me? Or, is it just that everyone’s crazy? I’m not sure. I know I’m not. I’m neurotic yes, anxiety ridden certainly…but most assuredly – not crazy. I was never quite the same person after that relationship with ‘crazypants’. I didn’t see women as these idealized creatures anymore. They had been knocked off their pedestal. They were human.

Postscript: Years later, I saw ‘crazypants’ walking around in my hometown with some old guy hobbling along with a cane, holding onto her arm for dear life. I felt strangely heartened – obviously they’d made it work.

Okay, none of this really happened. I don’t work in an office with other people, I work by myself as a superhero…guardian of justice, if you will…and was simply doin what we in the funny papers call “riffing”.

From the moment I was old enough to understand what people were saying to me (beyond the incessant “boogie boogie boo”, that is), I have been fascinated by accents. I have also laughed hysterically at people with HUGE accents who honestly think they have none. At least the British are self-aware enough to admit that much.

So, on a bet with a co-worker, I agreed to talk the entire day yesterday in a thick southern accent. If you were to be derogatory, you might call a “hick” accent. If I were to slip up in doing so, I would owe my office mates $5 each. That’s TWENTY GODDAMN DOLLARS!

Anyhoo, I actually started warming up the night before, trying out my new accent on my girlfriend. She did not like it one bit and was convinced that my IQ had dropped fifty points since taking on the accent. I contend that I was already this dumb, but that my sophisticated accent covered it up. She laughed while grabbing her pillow and padding off to sleep in the guest room (which sounds great if you say it with a British accent, but I digress).

The next day at work, I said “HAY-ELL-LOW!!” (with mental buck teeth glistening in the wind) to the receptionist and off I went.

My buddy Ian was literally amazed to see that I did not drop the accent when talking to customers, remaining utterly convinced that this decision was costing us business! By the end of the day, I had myself quite the tidy stack of fives.

Unlike other accents, the southern accent is kind of hard to drop. Forgive me in advance for saying that it’s a lazy accent and that if you devote too much time to employing it, you will become addicted to the drawl, the sauntering-with-a-straw-in-the-mouth cadence, and you won’t be able to stop.

Now, I am not saying people with southern accents are LAZY. Delete that email now, my southern brethren, for I meant no disrespect. Lazy, hell, I dream about being LAZY. God bless anyone who actually achieves a state of heavenly LAZY bliss!

I stop by the Thai restaurant to pick up some food and find myself ordering in the same crazy southern accent I’ve had all day. I know it, they know it, but damn if I can stop it.

Once home, I go to kiss my lady and whisper a sweet “I missed you, baby”, but the accent makes it sound like Jethro putting the moves on Elly May. Eww.

Moment killed. No matter what I tried to say, it all came out in that accent. It was so I was afraid to open my mouth. Heck, I even let her watch one of those dreadful pawn shop shows that I hate because I didn’t want to say “Give that fucking remote or pack your shit” and not have her take me seriously! Just kidding!

Anyway, shit, it’s tough…I still haven’t shaken it. Good Lord Peterbilt, how I have tried! This infernal southern accent is killing my dreams!

______________________________

Darren Robbins is a fellow graduate of the “Almost Famous” University, a gifted songwriter, raconteur and lovable curmudgeon.  When you’re not reading him here, check out his outstanding blog… BITCH-ASS MOTHERFUCKER…check out his new STORE as well.

When I was 8 years old I fell in love with a girl named Mara.

Now, we’ve all heard the perceived wisdom that children are incapable of truly knowing what love is, that what they’re experiencing emotionally is merely ‘cute’.. relegated to ‘puppy dog’s tails and sugar and spice’. Well, that’s totally erroneous. I fell in love.

It was during an assembly in the main atrium of my elementary school when I first saw her.. I was just bending to my knees to get into the ubiquitous ‘indian style’ sitting position and our separate glances met. She was sporting a Dorothy Hammil haircut, a flowered blouse, and blue slacks. Her skin was a deep olive tone, and she had huge coffee colored eyes. I felt literally as if I’d been slammed in the head with a large hard salami – if you’ll pardon the salacious imagery.

For the rest of the assembly I couldn’t take my eyes off of her… I was struck by cupid’s bow.

I remember when my mother picked me up from school that day, my head was in a fog. I just kept repeating the phrase, ‘I love Mara’ over and over in my head like a mantra. It’s funny to think back on it now, the emotions were so pure, immediate, present there was no equivocation.. I was sure. As I said before, we’re all told as children that these are merely ‘crushes’ and that you’ll get over them, but I still remember Mara.

For the rest of the week, I was gonesville. I kept bumping into things, my cutting and pasting of colored cardboard started getting sloppy. I didn’t have my mind in my work. All I could think of was Mara. Around that time I had just received Glass Houses by Billy Joel from my parents, and I would sing along to ‘All for Leyna’ at the top of my voice. Me and Billy were commiserating in song. I needed to show Mara how much I adored her, or else it would eat me up inside, I would surely be consumed by the fires.

One weekend, I was out in the backyard kicking around in the dust feeling alienated, yet pretty cool too. I remember I was wearing my favorite pair of sneakers, red Olympians from Sears. I felt older, with this gnawing in my chest like a burrowing rat. All of a sudden, I knew what I had to do.

I ran upstairs, cracked out the art supplies and proceeded to create two beautiful works of art that would profess my love for Mara in as spectacular way as I knew how. I took out the magic markers and drew boldly, festooning the landscape with big red hearts, and wildflowers. In the foreground, I drew Mara and me holding hands, with more hearts buzzing around us. The final capper, in giant bubble letters I drew I LOVE MARA… I LOVE MARA!! My body crackled with electric jitter. I felt at the top of my artistic powers. I had jumped to the next level, and love was the impetus. Now, the only question was, how would I get these masterpieces into Mara’s delicate hands?

Well, here’s where the logic gets fuzzy…

In my ardor addled brain, I thought it would be a good idea to leave these laying out on my door step, with the hope that Mara might walk by,see them, pick them up, realize what I felt for her and together we would live happily ever after …

Ok.. in some ways I was a very.. slow.. child.

Still, that’s just what I did. I laid them right out on our front step. Of course it never occurred to me at the time, that the whole idea was shall we say ‘ill conceived’. I mean she probably wasn’t even living in our neighborhood, and most likely didn’t make a habit of walking up to strange people’s doorsteps searching for art. None of that entered in to the transom of my mind, all I could think of was Mara. So, I left them there and returned to the dustiness of my backyard and the business of kicking dirt and feeling cool.

Later that afternoon, sweaty from the day’s activities I checked back to the front step and THEY WERE GONE!! My heart palpitated with an excitement normally reserved for Christmas day, or CBS Special Presentations. I was literally bouncing around as if my Olympians had tightly wound springs in their soles.

‘I love MARA… I love MARA’…

I was a zombie.. I was retarded.. I was a retarded zombie. I was in love with Mara.

At dinner, I felt flush. My mind flooded with images of Mara and I running through fields together, holding hands, laughing with abandon. I could barely keep my mind on the boiled chicken my mother had run through the deflavorizing machine. I could only think of my beloved, which is the reason I hadn’t noticed my father sneak away from the dinner table. All of a sudden, I was startled by a loud, sonorous French accented mocking toned bellow barking snidely in my direction…

“WHO EES THEES MAHHRAAA?????? EET SAYS EERE ZAT YOU LOVE SOMEONE NAMED… MAHHHRAAA????!!!”

It was my father looming over the table with my drawings of love… Everyone at the table exploded into raucous laughter at my expense. I was humiliated and my love belittled. I felt ashamed and dehumanized. I laughed along too embarrassedly, but I felt deadened inside. I was ridiculed for feeling love. Love was something to make a big joke of. This was the lesson I took away.

As it turned out, this wasn’t an isolated event in my house. For years to come, all my brother and I would hear from my parents was ‘don’t ever get married’, that ‘the family is all you can trust’, that there was no such thing as love… It stands to reason I turned out the way I did. Ironically, now all my parents want is to see me settled down with someone. I think they know what they’ve done to me, and when I expound on my feelings of ambivalence towards love and dismiss relationships as mere simple minded convention, I can see the guilt in their faces.

I never forgot Mara.

From time to time, I even google her. Of course, she’s probably married now with a different last name.

My theory is that when it comes to important subjects, there’s only two ways a person can answer. For example, there’s two kinds of people in this world, Elvis people and Beatles people. Now Beatles people can like Elvis. And Elvis people can like the Beatles. But nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice. And that choice tells me who you are.” - Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), Pulp Fiction (deleted scene)

My theory is that there are two kinds of people in the world, those that carefully check the hotel room before leaving and those that don’t.

In my day job as a vacation rental owner, I’ve come across more than my fair share of discarded items. A pair of shoes, neatly lined up under the bed. A sweet little shortie pantsuit hanging forlornly in the cupboard (that owner remembered when she got home and emailed requesting it’s return). And, inevitable, discarded undies. This week, I found a pair of black cotton bikinis cavorting with the dust bunnies. The owner was East Asian and sexy, so it wasn’t a horrible discovery. The balled up pair of saggy, sweaty boxer shorts down at the foot of the bed was a less exciting find, especially since that particular owner was spindly and spotty and I didn’t ever want to be compelled to contemplate his sexual activities.

I cannot imagine staying in a hotel (or a friend’s house for that matter) and not giving the room a quick once over before I left. I don’t want anyone to discover soiled smalls, snotty tissues or a used welly. It amazes me that that chick left a favourite item of clothing just hanging in the closet.

Now back to the first paragraph. A world without Suspicious Minds would be a little less bright, but I could imagine that better than a world without Dear Prudence or While My Guitar Gently Weeps. (A world without Ob La Di, Ob La Da would be a vast improvement however)

So, I guess I am a Beatles person and I also look under the bed.
Which leads me to ponder if the Beatles/Elvis analysis corresponds with the check/don’t check analysis.

Answer if you will:
Beatles or Elvis?
Check or no check?

Come on, my limited viewing audience, this could be a major moment in human anthropology!

_________________________

Airheadgenius  is a white English woman living in a black neighborhood raising mixed race kids, trying to figure out a way to live my version of the American Dream. Oh, and she internet dates…check out her blog HERE!

I just read a local blog that, amongst other things, advertised a soon to be opened yoga and movement studio in my neighborhood.

Man, how I hate yoga studios!

I am a 43 year old healthy but saggy in places mother of two young children. I’d love to get back in shape, but I am (and always was) inflexible. Going to “beginners” yoga tends to place me with much older women and I feel like a fraud. Going to “regular” yoga with a bunch of lithe twenty somethings makes me want to shoot myself. Since I am anti-gun, my alternative is going home and eating something inappropriate. It’s a vicious cycle.

So, I wrote to the email shown on the blog and asked that they consider providing classes for “yoga for people that suck at yoga” please.

But even if they comply with my request, I don’t know if I’d make it to the classes.
For some reason, yoga just irritates the crap out of me and I don’t think it’s simply because I am not very good at it.

It all seems so “holier than thou”. Like being a dick all week, confessing on a Sunday and getting absolution at church. Every last yoga person I’ve known is catty.

So, here’s another class folks should ask for:

Yoga for people who are catty when not at yoga but when they chant a few oms they get to feel better about being catty.

I think that’s the main reason it’s so popular. 

I wrote this and then wanted a picture to accompany it, so I did an image search on google: “Weird yoga poses” because I thought that would conjure up an amusing cartoon or two. Not so. Instead, I was bombarded with ridiculously flexible people contorted into ridiculous positions. For some reason, this further fueled my ire and convinced me that people do yoga for the simple purpose of feeling more superior. “What, you can’t stick your head up your own arse? How terribly unfortunate”. 

Given the plethora of spas willing to do a Brazilian wax, and the abundance of moist toilet tissues available in any and all drug stores, no one has the need to position themselves in such a way that they get to stare into their own asshole. 

Unless, of course, self fellatio or self cunnilingus is your pasttime of choice. That’s an idea I could get behind.  On second thoughts, no it isn’t. New York also has an array of people looking to get laid so there’s need to succumb to a DIY job. 

What’s that I hear you cry? You’re bendy, yet ugly? Have I got a class for you!

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Airheadgenius  is a white English woman living in a black neighborhood raising mixed race kids, trying to figure out a way to live my version of the American Dream. Oh, and she internet dates…check out her blog HERE!

While it’s almost impossible to realize that first moment when your gaze shifts from the road in front of you to that which you’ve already covered, one of life’s simplest, harshest truths is that, at some point, we all look back.

We all wish we’d have paid a little more attention during the halcyon days of our journey, stopping to smell the flowers now and again, but, only in the rearview mirror do we recognize just how wonderful those days were, or how alive we felt compared to now.

When I was a kid, music was so vibrant, so alive. You could listen to a Top 40 station and hear ten songs an hour that ran the gamut of genres: Steely Dan, 10cc, Leo Sayer, Little River Band, the Bee Gees, Randy Vanwarmer, the Knack. Of course, only in hindsight do I realize how great it was to have such “crappy mainstream stations” at my disposal.

Being stuck in a small town, I had access only to those record stores at the local shopping mall, typical chain stores such as Musicland and Record Town, yet I distinctly remember walking into such stores and being giddy at the sight of albums by the likes of the Police, Adam & The Ants, Pearl Harbor & The Explosions, the Fabulous Poodles, Bram Tchaikovsky, 20/20, and so on.

Walk into a chain music store these days and you’re bound to see them selling anything but music. It’s all about “lifestyle” these days. They can sell you Rob Zombie and Kiss action figures, or ten different faux-vintage AC/DC t-shirts at $30 a pop, but they can’t be bothered to stock a copy of “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”.

So it isn’t just me whose too busy looking back to move forward. The whole world is doing it and, well, it’s gotten completely out-of-hand. Labels, at some point, seemed to decide for anybody over the age of 24 that no new music was needed. Instead, we are served up one “deluxe re-issue” after another of 20 or 30-year old albums, as if any amount of remastering, restoring of original cover art, and the inclusion of non-essential bonus tracks can make the album any better than our memories.

Enough people must be buying those things, otherwise the labels would not still be doing it…right?

Sure, new bands get signed and they hit the stage with all the insecure ferocity of a kid playing lead tennis racket in front of a bedroom mirror while jamming that first Van Halen record at top volume. Yes, Eddie Van Halen very well may have done the same thing when he was young, but at some point, he put down the tennis racket, picked up a guitar, and turned the world on its ear.

He sure as hell wasn’t looking back, pillaging the past for a lack of anything new to offer. Bands these days, though, all seem content in sampling some 20-year-old song in an ironic way, as if doing so ensures them of all-important relevance in the here-and-now.

If the best days of these kids’ lives are already spent looking back, what on earth will they do when they get wistful for their own “good ol’ days”? Good question.

Suddenly I don’t feel so bad. It could be worse, I could be them in twenty years with nothing of my own to look back upon.

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Darren Robbins is a fellow graduate of the “Almost Famous” University, a gifted songwriter, raconteur and lovable curmudgeon.  When you’re not reading him here, check out his terrifc blog… HE’S A WHORE…check out his new STORE as well.

When I started blogging back in the late 60′s, okay, more like 2006, there was sooooo much music to write about.  There were still hundreds, if not thousands of bands that had never been given their just due and the blogosphere was the perfect place to celebrate such bands.  Along the way, I have shared a metric shit-ton of great music with my readers, made some super-cool friends, and had a lot of fun.

But I never thought I’d see the day where I just didn’t want to write about music anymore.  The love is still there, although the flame doesn’t burn as bright and hot as it once did, but I can’t help wonder what’s the use?  I feel like some poor guy might feel whose trying to convince a bunch of kids who’ve just seen The Beatles on Ed Sullivan that jazz is really where it’s at.

For the past couple decades, there have been many who have proclaimed that “Rock Is Dead”, but there was always at least one cool new band who was doing it right to make us believe that such proclamations were premature.  Heck, even in 2010, I have found more than a few new bands to hang my hat, and my hopes for the future, upon.

But there I was at one of my favorite night spots last weekend.  As usual, the DJ played tons of cool rock stuff that provided just the right background noise for a myriad of conversations going on around the room.  This is what I love about this place, what keeps me coming back as often as I can, and, on this night, what made me decide to hang around a little later than usual.

Maybe I was too into my conversation, or my beer, to notice, but the next time I looked up, the vibe of the entire room had changed.  For one thing, I could no longer hear the person I’d been conversing with, much less my own thoughts.  As the crowd became a virtual showcase of the latest bling and chest-thumping, the music became an endless barrage of profanity with a beat.

Is this what constitutes “music” these days, or is this just the noise-of-choice for a tone-deaf generation that has nothing to say, so why not drown out whatever they might have to say with the latest Jay-Z joint?  No fear of anyone humming this in the shower, that much is for sure.

When I was young, music was the stuff you hung your memories on.  How can anyone hang a memory on belligerent boasts spewed by morons who can’t go five seconds without clutching their nut sack?  “Yo, yo, yo, I was punchin’ out a bitch/Because she gave me head and then my sweaty balls began to itch!”

Just a suggestion, homie, but you may wanna stop “singin’” and have that looked at.

Of course, I’d have been just as upset if it had been Arcade Fire or Katy Perry that was being so forcefully rammed down my throat.  Such artists seem to so earnestly insist themselves upon the world, but have nothing new to say.  So you kissed a girl and liked it.  Welcome to my world, honey!  The Beatles insisted themselves upon no one.  They sang and, in the span of two minutes, changed the world.  These days, not a week goes by without some orchestrated revolution that falls on deaf ears.  There is a generation so empty, so hollow that think each new thing is it, man.  “This is our Beatles”, they say upon seeing Justin Bieber lip-sync.  “We have seen the future”, they proclaim, “and it looks a lot like Lady Gaga’s butt, which isn’t all that great of a butt.  We’ve seen old ladies with better butts at the gym, but please don’t try to take this from us.  We need this.  Please.”

Okay, fine, you can have this one.  Just turn it down so I can hear myself think, okay?

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Darren Robbins is a fellow graduate of the “Almost Famous” University, a gifted songwriter, raconteur and lovable curmudgeon.  When you’re not reading him here, check out his terrifc blog… HE’S A WHORE…check out his new STORE as well.