Article Justifying My Obscene Exercise Routine

See mom, I’m right.  If the Times says it, it must be true!!!

- sf1

So Apparently, I’m Going to Hell (AND – double post!) Stuff Other People Don’t Like

From facebook, immediately after the event happened:

I couldn’t remember the name of some guy who saw me earlier today and he dispensed a monologue at me over it.

“You just don’t give a living fuck about anything, and it’s obvious to everyone that you just sort of live in this bizarre, overecstatic alternate universe that nobody else understands. Whatever man, sit on the floor in the hallway with no shoes, huge sunglasses, and your headphones on just hanging out, waiting for it to be announced that the apocalypse really is going to happen in 2012 and you can start a three-year acid trip until Jesus comes… for everyone else!”

So apparently, I’m going to hell. What gives?  lol

#   #  #

In honor of my eternal damnation, and because the last last list seems to be the only post that drives traffic to this website, I have decided to compile a new list:  ”Stuff Other People Don’t Like”.  Please hate me for it.  According to lunatics who wander the hallways of the upper storeys of the engineering buildings on campus, the world is going to end before I get my college degree, which implies that I need a new life plan that doesn’t require one.  I’m looking into trying to secure employment doing PR for hell, and I want to be able to squeeze a few bullet points for that resume out of this blog.

#   #   #

STUFF OTHER PEOPLE DON’T LIKE

Diet Sodas, Cough Syrup

1.  Diet Sodas, Cough Syrup:  We here in America love our high fructose corn syrup so much that we do “scientific” studies to prove that it’s better for you than asparatame.  Artificial sugars get such a bad rap in our disgustingly obese country, that a couple of semesters ago I hastily unlocked my dorm room door and jumped over my pile of dirty laundry in a frantic hurry to get to the refrigerator:  ”Asparatame!  I need to get some more asparatame in me or there is absolutely no fucking way that I will ever be able to stay awake for this fucking class!”.  My roommate absolutely flipped shit.  ”Are you doing drugs in our room!?  Drugs are baaad for you.”

I found this whole scenario to be more ironic than a cargo plane bound for Panama with ten tons of bananas; I, the lowly computer programmer, was explaining to the 4.0 junior in biochemical engineering that I was really just craving the artificial sweeteners found in diet sodas, and trying to do it without implying that I thought that the overprocessed sugars found in the beverages she consumed might be partially responsible for her constantly-expanding waistline.

As far as cough syrup goes, no, I’m not talking about robotripping; our nation’s college students lead the world in robotripping talents, though I suspect that Germany and the Netherlands could give us a run for our money on that one.  I’m talking about how much real, gritty sugar cane sugar we put in the suspensions and cough syrups that our nation’s children consume at the slightest hint of a cough.  When I went to Russia, my host family saw me taking Claritin and a multivitamin in the morning and assumed that I was ill; I wasn’t, but Holida came out of nowhere with a mug filled to the brim with a pink, sugary syrup and said, “YOU.  DRINK,” so I did.  I saw this happen elsewhere travelling within the country as well, and came to the conclusion that Russians believe that cane sugar is a perfectly legitimate cure for everything.  I like this idea.

2.  Calculus:  When I told my high school physics teacher that I wanted to become an engineer, his response was, “Good luck with that.  Calculus will be your life.”  I’ve had some pretty miserable experiences taking it, but I still hold the subject in pretty high esteem.  Newton’s calculus helped him to develop the laws of mechanics that Kepler later used to prove that the sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, which, Satan, if you’re reading this, is pretty much a Christianity-shattering idea.  I <3 calculus!  =D

3.  Cops on Segways:   Stop making fun of them, people!  When I’m doing illegal things, it’s a comfort to know that dodging the police can be as easy as finding the nearest staircase.

4.  Ads:  There’s nothing I love more than a good ad.  I don’t read Vogue for the articles.  I don’t read Vogue at all.  I skip over all of the articles, and go straight to the dramatic photos of striking redheads in 8″ heels with their hair blowing in the fan-provided “wind”, or, better yet, shirtless male models lying on sandy beaches without the clothing they are supposedly modelling.  It makes for a much more pleasant experience.

Besides, advertising is the lifeblood of the internet; for all of the shit nerds like to give marketing majors, your favorite toy is funded mostly by money from advertisers, with Facebook and Google being the most famous and successful examples.

5.  People Who Smoke:  I was just reading the other day in Slate about some guy living in an apartment complex whose neighbors were trying to sue him for smoking, when it wasn’t even a no-smoking property!  Jesus Christ people, lay the fuck off.  I don’t smoke, but I don’t know why it has become so acceptable to harass a group of people that is doing something legal.

For the record, I thought “Thank You For Smoking” was a wonderful movie.  If I wasn’t already working on becoming Satan’s PR woman, doing one of the jobs the sleazy blonde guy’s friends had would also be a highly desirable position.

6.  Douchebags.  On Friday night, I got drunk with my pretentious intellectual nerd friend, and the leftover booze is still sitting in my refrigerator.  He was telling me that for Halloween, he was going to go out with his hair spiked up wearing shutter shades, an unbuttoned cotton shirt, and pants with his boxers hanging out.  I thought this was hilarious at the time.  Then on Saturday night, he was doing homework.  I was crossing the street back to my apartment with a bag full of groceries and one of the people he was describing that I didn’t even know asked me if I wanted to go out to the clubs with them, and I said no, mostly because I didn’t even have my purse or anything with me.  I chatted with them for a while, but eventually wanted to get back and eat, because I was very hungry.  ”Douchebag” A asked for a hug.  Well whatever, I was okay with that.  I leaned in to give him a hug and he picks me up and twirls me in the air.  Guess who’s winning the nerds vs. douchebags war now?  Not the people doing homework after 9 p.m. on a Saturday night.

7.  Huge Auditorium Classes:  I’ve never understood why private schools hype up their small class sizes.  In small classes, you have to pay attention, because by the end of the semester, the instructor knows you.  If it’s a subject that I am completely disinterested in, which is most of them, I don’t want that to happen.  I want to be able to walk in with 30 seconds left until the start of the lecture and spend an hour and fifteen minutes on the Internet, with the only interruption being the occasional clicker question.

8.  TV Preachers and Salespeople:  Why do people think they need to watch intentional comedy?  There is a reality far more real than any of the contrived ‘reality’ programming on VH1, and far more hilarious than any generic sitcom ever could be. You can find it on any network that airs religious broadcasting, especially late at night, or QVC and its many less-famous clones.  Sunday afternoon is usually the most fruitful time to scan the TV networks for irate Southern Baptists and people selling useless kitchen gadgets.  Tune into Food Network on a weekday to see the best of both worlds.

9.   Projects; Specifically, Alan Parsons and Manhattan.  One day my boss went on a tear about how much he hates his Technology and Society class.  It was YouTube worthy.  ”I’m so tired of hearing people talk about how the world would be such a wonderful, awesome, and magical place if only we could uninvent the nuclear bomb!  WE CAN’T UNINVENT THE NUCLEAR BOMB! Do these people understand what other technology has come out of all of this weapons development, and how much worse the Cold War probably would have been without them?!”  Short answer:  No, people do not understand why nuclear stockpiles are necessary.  Except maybe Rush.  Maybe Rush understood.

On that note, just because The Alan Parsons Project is a terrible band name, doesn’t mean that all of their music was bad.  They had some pretty good stuff.

10.  Muammar al-Gaddafi:  This man gets a bad rap for being tied to the bombing of a German disco, but if it was merely an assault on poor taste, I have a hard time finding a problem with it.  Besides, Gaddafi was rocking the whole “I’m On a Boat!” look waaay before it was ever cool.  Truly, a man who has proved to be far ahead of his time.

11.  Airports:  Okay, paying $10 for fake Chinese food sucks, but overall being in airports is generally a pretty cool experience.  Moving sidewalks!  Cool people from obscure foreign countries!  Long layovers in random cities you will never see much else of!  Exposure to weather outside of Phoenix, however briefly!  Lots of well-dressed, interesting people about to leave and go elsewhere!  Shops selling all sorts of weird, overpriced, gimmicky stuff!  Copies of SkyMall that people have accidentally stolen from the planes and left in the seating areas!  … What could be better, honestly?

12.  Messy Rooms:  I just don’t understand our society’s collective paranoia about messy people.  Things can be disorganized without also being dirty.  Whether or not a room is messy has very little to do with the value of what is being produced therein.  I am blogging on the floor with several dirty coffee cups, a Russian dictionary, my cell phone, a mountain of CD’s, papers, binders, cookies, and a box of paperclips.  My roommates are polishing up their pristine little boxes they call bedrooms and listening to awful music.  When I am finished with this, I will do math homework, and they will probably still be working on finding new surfaces to clean.  Barf.

13.  Unaltered Dairy Products:  This is sort of like item #1.  We do everything we can to squeeze the pleasure out of drinking milk by making it with soy or turning it into ’skim milk’, and for what?  America is still fatter than it ever has been.  People in foreign countries don’t have 20 different ‘percents’ of milk to choose from at the grocery store, yet they are still skinnier than us.  I’m going to continue to drink whole milk until the stores quit selling it because I’m the only one who buys it.

14.  Jazz, Obnoxious Saxophone Solos:  What do you think I write depressing blog entries like this to, Lady GaGa?  No, fucking Birdland.  (Actually not really Birdland, I just know that it’s quite possibly the only jazz song you would ever recognize by its title.)  Jazz is awesome.  I find the idea that people can be just making stuff up and it still sounds good to be fascinating.  I like all varieties of jazz, from cheesy ‘Weather Channel Jazz’ all the way to the most avant free jazz fusion stuff.

I don’t actually know any of these songs, but this article infuriates me:  10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined By Saxophone.  I think more pop music type songs should have sax solos.  The world would be a better place if they did, I’m sure of it.

15.  People Who Just Don’t Give A Shit.  If you have failed to adequately vex your intended targets with the other items on this list, fear not, you have one final recourse; simply quit caring.  Even people who are clearly raving lunatics will despise you if your apathy exceeds theirs.  There’s nothing more fun than just not giving a shit.  The mad hallway wanderer was right, I just don’t care.  He told me his name again, and I still don’t remember it, because I don’t care.  It doesn’t matter.

I would attempt to persuade you to pursue a life of hedonism and irrationally-driven accomplishments, but that would violate my apathy and make my previous statements logically inconsistent.

- sf1

Gross! The CIA knows how drunk you got at that party last weekend!

This isn’t some tinfoil hat stuff – is that really what you think of my fashion sense?  I’m offended.  No really.  Spoooooooooooooooky (heh heh heh).  Read this.

- sf1

Best (Worst) Youtube Comments Ever

All right, so I found this gem of a conversation browsing on YouTube one night and it has been entering and exiting my inbox ever since with a unanimous vote of ‘hilarious’.  lovemuffins88, every time I see another human, I secretly hope it’s not you.  If it is you, you should be ashamed of yourself; please, do yourself a favor, and close your browser now before you find a way to fail even harder on the Internet.

From the comments to the video for the song “Misirlou”, which was made in 1963:

lovemuffins88: this song is such a ripoff of toby keith. that asshole dick dale stole this song from the guitar riffs of get drunk and be somebody, by toby keith. the chordal progresiun and melodic evolutiun is all the same, you can just tell that this dick dale dickhole, or dick dalehole as i like to call him, created a song ripped off of one of toby keiths numerus masterpieces. too bad dick dalehole is gonna go straight to hell for this trechery.

XCNinja: So, do you enjoy having the IQ of a shovel?

lovemuffins88: so xcninja, do you enjoy being a smartass, you fag. maybe the intricasies of music are too much for you to understand, child. if only your’e level of nowlege was as deep as mine, you could understand the underlying relations of this song to toby keiths song. i guess its just too deep for you though. nice try. fag.

XCNinja: I didn’t know that people could be this ignorant of logic. Honestly, I can’t come up with an argument to use on you, because you’re obviously beyond any sane and reasonable discussion of why you’re wrong.

Heck, I don’t even like country music that much and I still don’t mind Toby Keith. The guy’s pretty clever. It’s just… Dick Dale can’t copy off of music that doesn’t exist yet. Just sayin’, is all.

axeboyunlimited12: wow muffins ur retarded this is 1963, get drunk and b sumbody was made way after this, freakin idiot

lenander: Dear lovemuffins88, you have simultaneously achieved all three physical states;
animal, vegetable and mineral. The only thing you need more than a music history lession is a spelling lesson…and to be watered once a week.
Now GO GET DRUNK AND BE SOMEBODY!

zodiacflash: Hmm… Let’s see here. Dick Dale recorded his version of this in the ’60s… Toby Keith was born in the ’60s… Yeah, you’re right! He DID rip it off from Toby Keith! Idiot.

lovemuffins88: as for you zodiacfag,toby was a prodigy. he was writin music almost in his mear infency, you dirty jew. dont try and fill this video with your dirty jew lies. just because you is going straight to hell doesnt mean the rest of us have to, you blasfemer. go die. fag. right now.

I swear I’m not making any of this up!!!   If you really want to, go to the comments for this video and scroll through them until you find these (2 yrs old).

- sf1

HAHAHA

- sf1

Aww, what a cute widdle Axolotl!!! >^.^<

While the Huffington Post generally annoys the living daylights out of me, I have to admit that their recent list of weird animals was pretty intriguing.

- sf1

Broadband Now an Inalienable Human Right in Finland

Hurrah!  Glad to see that somebody is acknowledging this.  Growing up in the backwoods with dial-up forever followed by a fast, but unreliable satellite connection sucked hairy monkey balls, and I’m glad to see that those darned Scandinavians are finally doing something to enable all future Finlandians to become addicted Internet hermits.  Like, how socially retarded would your children be if they were the last ones to find out about the next Chocolate Rain?  I totally know how that feels.

Original Story

- sf1

Wonderful News for Science!

In short, a man working on a project with scientists at CERN was arrested in France today for allegedly conspiring to bomb… stuff.  <_<  Original Story

- sf1

Microsoft Ad Campaign Serves As Unpleasant Reminder of the Dystopian Present

“That’s why we built Bing:  it’s not just a search engine, it’s a decision engine!”

Good going, Microsoft.  Way to put out an ad campaign that reminds us that not only do you decide what the rest of us are forced to use on most of the PC’s that we will encounter at home, work, and school, but that you now have developed an algorithm with the ability to make life-altering decisions for us.

“Because the world doesn’t need just another search engine, it needs a decision engine!”

More like dystopian engine.  Look at this.  Microsoft Bing doesn’t even have any answers for us here, just a giant list of problems.  Gawd, isn’t that just the most disturbing thing you’ve ever seen?

Probably.  I should show you something funny now.

I just love the description of the “Leningrad Cowboys” whoever posted this put up:  ”The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, and performed in English, have themes such as ‘vodka’, ‘tractors’, ‘rockets’, and ‘Genghis Khan’.”  Classic.

- sf1

A List of the Most Depressing Songs I’ve Ever Heard

There is definitely a story behind this post:  my roommates were watching some shitty medical drama and getting way into it, “OMG HE’S TOTALLY GOING TO DIE!”, “NO WAY!  That looks so painful I feel so bad for him!”, etc. and I remarked to a friend of mine, “Am I the only one who doesn’t see the appeal of medical dramas?  It can’t possibly be fun to feel so much concern for people who aren’t even real.  It doesn’t even make sense, there are real people with crappy problems, if they want to spend so much time feeling bad for other people, couldn’t they at least find some real ones to expend their emotions on?”, and we agreed that we couldn’t see the appeal in medical dramas until I commented, “God, I was just listening to Muse.  Every time I listen to Muse, I feel like somewhere, the Manhattan Project is still going on, and whoever is doing it is also having a tragic affair with an entire galaxy.  They are so overdramatic, but it makes me feel like a hero on the treadmill whenever I hit ‘Knights of Cydonia’.”  And we realized that listening to horribly depressing music wasn’t really any less stupid than watching TV programs about people with crippling illnesses and injuries, but we were doing it anyway.  So, I set out to compile a list of the most depressing songs ever recorded, just because if you’re going to do something stupid, you might as well go all the way with it.  So, here goes…

UNREQUITED LOVE

Muse, “Endlessly”.  Hopelessly, I’ll love you endlessly/Hopelessly, I’ll give you everything/…/But the moment never comes. What could possibly be so pointless, hurtful, and ultimately, futile, other than perhaps the diplomatic wranglings that occur trying to achieve peace in Israel?

THAT’S ME IN THE CORNER

R.E.M., “Losing My Religion”. I don’t know if there has ever been another song that captures the sensation of being morally adrift and buckling under pressure, yet still fighting with yourself about it.  Whenever I am at a party and there is a lull in the madness that allows me to begin actually thinking rationally, this song comes to mind, and it’s always a terrible experience.  I’ll be sitting on a sofa somewhere, stereotypical red cup in hand, and suddenly not having fun anymore because I start thinking about real serious problems… That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion. Luckily, I have the attention span of a goldfish, and that’s about as far as it ever gets, although I never really had any religion to begin with.  For those of you who do actually experience Jesus guilt, I feel bad.

Black Kids, “Hurricane Jane”.  Ah yes, another song about not really having any fun, this time, while other people specifically are.

It’s Friday night and I ain’t got nobody.
Oh, what’s the use of making a bed?
I took something and it feels like karate;
It’s kicked me down and left me for dead.
It’s Friday night and I ain’t got nobody,
So what’s the use of pulling a shade?
I put what I want, when I want, in my body.
I’m never gonna give what I take.

That’s for when you’re sitting around on Friday night with no plans, and no motivation to do anything productive.  It’s even better for that purpose, because it sounds like a party song, it’s just not.

King Crimson, “Starless”.  But my eyes turned within only see starless and Bible black… It’s a jazzy prog tune with sparse lyrics, but you can practically see the funeral procession passing from the side of the road when you listen to this one.

FRIED OUT

The Beatles, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “So Tired”.  While mostly known for lighter fare such as ‘Hey Jude’, The Beatles did also write songs that are perfect for sobbing in time to during finals week when you haven’t slept, bathed, or not been studying for three days and counting.

Syd Barrett, all of his solo works.  These songs are falling apart at the seams.  As much of a Floyd fan as I am, I have to admit that this stuff is painful to listen to.  Yet, when I am feeling especially neurotic, it has a certain masochistic appeal.

UB40, “Red Red Wine”.  Is it really already 10:30?!  God, fuck this shit, I can’t take it anymore… who wants to go do something reckless, NOW?!  On that note…

“WASTED” POTENTIAL

Steely Dan, “Deacon Blues” and “Reelin’ In the Years”.  The latter being a song about an old classmate or something who isn’t doing anything with his life, and the former being about a wannabe musician who wants to “drink Scotch whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel”.

Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood”.  I’m happy/I’m feelin’ good/I’ve got a sunshine/In a bag/And I’m useless/But not for long/The future, is comin’ on, is comin’ on, is comin’ on… Ah yes, the endless deferment of the future for temporary pleasure.  Nobody else I know who liked this song when it first came out is still in college, for the record.

The Doors, “Waiting for the Sun”.  This song inevitably reaches the top of my playlist when I’m stuck in hiatus; the couple of weeks between high school graduation and summer classes at college, Christmas break, locked in indecision about what I should be doing, etc.  You can hear Morrison’s frustration with how he could see where things were going, both with himself and with the scene as a whole.

Sublime, Everything They Ever Recorded.  They don’t have a song that isn’t awful, by these metrics, anyway.  ”Date Rape”.  ”Wrong Way” (a song about a 12-year old prostitute).  ”40 Oz. to Freedom”.  The list goes on.

Janis Joplin, Copy paste previous blurb with different song titles.

Amy Winehouse, because as much of a media trainwreck as the woman is, she has written some amazingly depressing songs!  … “Rehab”, for starters, but Amy doesn’t just sing about heroin, she also sings about carpet burns, cocaine, and cleaning the house.

SEXUAL FRUSTRATION

Jethro Tull, “Aqualung”.  Basically, it’s a creepy song about an old guy with a runny nose that likes little girls.  However, it has a kickass guitar solo, so you should still listen to it anyway.

Flight of the Conchords, “Business Time” and The Lonely Island, “Jizz In My Pants”.  I am including these two videos (NOTE:  BOTH ARE NSFW!) under the same heading because I swear to god those SNL folks are just copying the song that was released first.  Also, the FotC video is friggin’ hilarious.  Not least of which because, towards the end of the video, the guitarist is standing right there.  Look for it, it’s the FedEx logo of this video.

Flight of the Conchords

The Lonely Island

Does anyone else think the one that has 64 million views is less funny?  (Tell me in the comments!)

Arctic Monkeys, “Fluorescent Adolescent”.  The first time I heard this song I was sitting in a hookah place and I wasn’t paying very much attention to the lyrics until one of my friends said, “I know exactly what this song is about:  sexual frustration.”  And I remember saying, “Well how do you know that?”, and he outlined the lyrics to me, and it’s really quite obvious once you listen to them.  ”You used to get it in your fishnets/Now you only get it in your night dress/Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness/…/Oh the boy’s a slag/The best you’ve ever had, the best you’ve ever had is just a memory…” It’s not a song that I particularly like because I find the music behind the words to be disinteresting, but it fits the theme to the ‘T’.

Radiohead, “Creep” and “Nude”.  I don’t even want to know what Thom Yorke’s girlfriends have been like, because these songs say more about sexual inadequacy than an entire terabyte of spam emails about DISCOUNT VIAGARA AND CIALIS SHIPPED TO YOUR DOOR ever could.  You’re just like an angel/Your skin makes me cry/…/But I’m a creep/I’m a weirdo/What the hell am I doin’ here?/I don’t belong here/I don’t care if it hurts/I wanna have control… Yorke sounds so pathetic when he sings these lines, it’s almost unbearable.

And as far as the other song is concerned?  ”She stands stark naked and she beckons you to bed/Don’t go, you’ll only want to come back again/So don’t get any big ideas/They’re not gonna happen/You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking.”  These song lyrics are enough to make a person cry, yet I find myself listening to the song over and over again because it’s just so beautiful.

Coincidentally, our next topic is a favorite means of overcompensating –

BOMBS AND MISSILES

Neil Young, “Ohio”.  Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming/we’re finally on our own/this summer I hear the drumming/four dead in Ohio. Then again, a happy song about the Kent State massacre would probably be distasteful.

Weird Al, “Christmas At Ground Zero”.  A happy song about a literal nuclear winter, however, is not.  I guess.

Roger Waters, “The Bravery of Being Out of Range”.

Hey bartender, over here!
Two more shots and two more beers.
Sir, turn up the TV sound:
The war has started on the ground!

The idea that somebody finds war entertaining should be just a little bit disturbing.

Porcupine Tree, “Radioactive Toy”.

Run through forests on a hot summer day
Trying to break down walls of numbing pain
Give me the freedom to destroy
Give me radioactive toy

Let’s not ever put Steve Wilson in charge of the red button, k?

Flobots, “Handlebars”.  This is quite possibly the deepest, most depressing rap song I have ever heard.  I hope I never hear it in public because every time I do, I’m trying not to cry.

I can make computers survive aquatic conditions/I know how to run a business/And I can make you wanna buy a product/Movers shakers and producers/Me and my friends understand the future/I can see the strings that control the systems…/I can split the atoms of a molecule, of a molecule, of a molecule/…/I can guide a missile by a satellite, by a satellite, by a satellite/And I can hit a target through a telescope, through a telescope, through a telescope/And I can end the planet in a holocaust, in a holocaust, in a holocaust…

MISANTHROPY – FOR WHEN YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND

Supertramp, “Breakfast In America”, the entire album.  Allow me to elaborate:

1. “Gone Hollywood”, a song about how much of a pie in the sky idea it is to try and make it in Hollywood.
2. “The Logical Song”, ugly rationality disrupting a more idealistic vision of reality.
3. “Goodbye Stranger”, … so you had a great time last night, but were any of the people you met worth having a real conversation with or remembering the names of?
4. “Breakfast in America”, because we have insanely unrealistic aesthetic ideals in this country.  Yet, DON’T YOU LOOK AT MY GIRLFRIEND, ‘cos she’s the only one I’ve got.  Yikes.
5. “Oh Darling”, not what it sounds like it should be just looking at the title.  It’s actually a very tense song about a man pursuing a woman in a way that borders on stalkerdom.
6. “Take the Long Way Home”, because what other song features the line, “and then your wife seems to think you’re part of the furniture”?!?!?!
7. “Lord is it Mine”, when everything’s gone and nothing seems right, etc.
8. “Just another Nervous Wreck”, is ironically the least depressing song on this album.
9. “Casual Conversations,” No matter what I say, you ignore me anyway.
10. “Child of Vision”, You’re poisoning your body, you’re poisoning your mind.

Supertramp is actually very depressing.  I’m not sure why I listen to it so much.  Clearly, it’s not very fun.

Pink Floyd, “Animals” (album) and “Empty Spaces”.  Let me make this very clear:  ’Animals’ is 45 minutes of misanthropic rambling.  Everyone is either a dog, a pig, or a sheep.  But it just doesn’t get that much more misanthropic than the lyrics, “You know it’s gonna get harder and harder and harder as you get older/And in the end you’ll pack up and fly down south,/Hide your head in the sand,/Just another sad old man,/All alone and dying of cancer.”  The way Waters sings ‘caaaanceeeer!!!’ just makes it all the more inappropriate, and inappropriately enjoyable.

However, “Empty Spaces”, specifically the movie version, which is actually called “What Shall We Do Now?”, can be enough to inflict psychological trauma on a person, if they’re paying enough attention:

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces
Where waves of hunger roar
Shall we set out across this sea of faces
In search of more and more applause
Shall we buy a new guitar
Shall we drive a more powerful car
Shall work straight through the night
Shall we get into fights
Leave the lights on
Drop bombs
Do tours of the East
Contract diseases
Bury bones
Break up homes
Send flowers by phone
Take to drink
Go to shrinks
Give up meat
Rarely sleep
Keep people as pets
Train dogs
Race rats
Fill the attic with cash
Bury treasure
Store up leisure
But never relax at all
With our backs to the wall

“Keep people as pets”?  Between that and the thorough damning of the consumerism we all slave away for, if you’re not ready to chuck a TV set out a window and scream at the top of your lungs by the end of this song, you must be crazy!

SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

The Police, “Can’t Stand Losing You”.  The first time I ever really paid any attention to this song, I was shocked!  ”I guess this is our last goodbye/And you don’t care so I won’t cry/But you’ll be sorry when I’m dead/And all this guilt will be on your head/I guess you’d call it suicide.” Could anything be more selfish than proclaiming that a breakup has you suicidal?

The Bloodhound Gang, “Lift Your Head Up High and Blow Your Brains Out”.  The title pretty much says it all:  it’s an obnoxious, yet somehow intriguing song about shooting yourself in the head.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Well, I guess that wraps up my list of horribly depressing songs.  I think I’m going to go listen to the B-52’s and look at pictures of sleeping puppies for a while, k?  (Remember, I’ve been actually listening to and either recalling the lyrics or reading the lyrics to all of these songs, not just scrolling through a list some other person on the Internet wrote!)

- sf1