Don’t skip ahead.

DON’T!

Stop. St –

Okay.

After brunch, Jen and I browsed up and down North Clark Street. Among other places, we spent over an hour in "Women and Children First," a great women’s bookstore that unfortunately plays UNGODLY HORRIBLE, CLOYING music that makes me ashamed to have a uterus.

Look, I’m fucking sorry. I’m all for girl-rock and I’m a feminist and yay vagina. Far’s I’m concerned, Shirley Manson and Courtney Love can take turns sitting on my face, I think they rule so much. Okay, that was gratuitous, but it was too weird an image to pass up. (Shirley! Courtney! Call me!)

I am by no means hardcore, to which those of you who have met me can attest. I mean, look at me. I listen to Ani Difranco and show tunes for fuck’s sake, meaning I’m simultaneously an angry lesbian and a happy gay man. I can do jazz squares in combat boots. I cancel myself out, and you just don’t get any softer than that.

But I have some weird, almost blind prejudices when it comes to lots of music. For example, I don’t feel strongly one way or another towards Madonna, but I have a violently hostile reaction to that whole goddamned “Ray of Light” album. That fucking song about the bourgeoisie and the rebel? Forfuckingget it. I hate that song. It makes me angry. I am getting angry RIGHT NOW.

I guess that Madonna's being the goddess of all things laissez faire gives her some grounds to sing about classes being united through music, but …

Ew. I can’t believe I just wrote that. I have to go eat my own tongue, now. I think I’m starting to cry.

I didn’t even mean to bring up that fucking goddamn song. Jesus FUCKING Christ, I hate that song. Fuck. FUCK!

And, that’s not all. Sade is another artist whose every song inexplicably annoys the fuck out of me right from the opening measures. Everclear and Nickleback just leave me completely fucking befuddled as to why they are allowed to exist in a world where people have ears. I mean, there are plenty of bands I don’t like, but those listed above (plus more I haven’t mentioned) inspire in me an anger and despair that should really be reserved for personal tragedy, and I have no idea why I have such a strong internal reaction. It’s kind of embarrassing.

Anyway, blah. Just allow all of that to serve as an example of the strong, negative, visceral reactions I sometimes have to music, and let’s go back to the nice little bookstore that was playing some protesty crap from the Lilith Fair reject pile.

Oh, motherfucker. Speaking of Lilith Fair … I HATE PAULA COLE. I’m really sorry, I just can’t fucking stand her. You know, I normally don’t give a rat’s ass what people do with their body hair, but it really, really bugs me that Paula Cole doesn’t shave her pits. Then again, Paula Cole could be donating her organs to Albanian orphans, and even that would bug the fuck out of me. Patti Smith is okay with the pit-shag, because she could hang calf-heads from her nipples and still be the high priestess of cool. Not so Paula Cole. I hate Paula Cole.

Oh, fuck. How I hate Paula Cole. Fuck.

No, but again, back to the bookstore. Now, I’m all for social awareness, and I’m … sort of for activism, I guess. But, most contemporary protest songs or “songs for a cause” fucking bug the fucking fucking hell out of me. Fuck. So many of them are uninteresting, poorly written, over-earnest, and obvious.

Hey, I don’t care what your politics are, the word “abortion,” regardless of its meaning, should not be in a song, and if it is, should be used sparingly. It’s just too fucking clinical, it’s boring-sounding, and after repeating it ad nauseam, you might as well be singing about an appendectomy. Beating an audience over the head about any issue is not going to change any minds, and you’ll just end up preaching to the goddamned choir. The contemporary stuff is mostly just weak, man.

Whatever. I don’t feel like going into it all that much. Suffice to say, listening to too much of that earnestly whiny us-versus-them shit just makes me want to bite people, and then go masturbate furiously to recordings of Henry Rollins cussing a blue streak about how much he hates Edie Brickell.

Tell me how much you hate her, Hank. Oh, yeah. Now tell me again how your mom’s a satanic bitch-cunt from hell. Oh, yes … yes … do the voice … DO THE VOICE!*

Sorry.

Fuck.

What the fuck.

“Um. Kell?”

Fucking what.

“You kinda … hostile?”

Kinda. Paula fucking Cole.

“There, there. You okay?”

Yeah, thanks. But, actually, since you asked, you know what? You know how I’m going back the fuck to school in a couple of months? I’m not so sure I’m cool with that.

I mean, I am cool with it. I’m really excited about the program, and the classes, and I think it’ll be great. But, man, there aren’t words for how happy I was to be done with my degree once I graduated from college. School and I have always gotten along okay, in that I usually saw it as a means to an end that I tried to make as pleasant and exciting as possible.

For my Masters, though, I’m going to have to keep my shit together, and I’m going to want to do really well.

Something you might not know about me, I am a slacker. If I was a rapper, my name would be Lay-Z. (Ba-dum! Bum!) I can count on my hands the number of school assignments I have ever turned in that were as good as they could have been. The assignments were completed, but I felt they were trite and sub-par. But I really didn’t care, as long as they were done. And in my academic career, there was only one professor who ever admonished me for not doing as well as I should. I subsequently did my best work for her.

I know this is horrible and petulant, but I’m SO not looking forward to having homework again. Motherfucker, it’s hard work being a slacker when you have actual deadlines.

I’m not lazy when it comes to the big stuff. Moving, looking for jobs, auditioning, personal projects ... When I decide to do something, I’ll fucking do it, long as y’all don’t nag me about it. It’s the little things, like putting my socks in pairs, and returning my videos on time, and ever doing any bit of maintenance anything, that continue to throw me.

I’m a procrastinator extraordinaire. Every goddamn weekend, I make a list of things I should do, errands I should run, and every weekend, I fail to do a single one of them. And I really don’t care. I’ll do it when I have to; until then, maybe I just won’t do jack fuckin’ shit. If you call me at 3 PM on a Sunday, the probability is pretty high that I’ll be naked and smoking a cigarette when I talk to you, just because I’ll have refused to put on any damn clothing until I fucking have to, and I live alone.

That’s not supposed to be hot at all. Sounds rather trailer park, to me.

It’ll be fine. I’m annoyed. I don’t usually get stressed. Motherfucker. I guess I shouldn't have taken it out on all those musicians. I'm sure Paula Cole is a very nice lady.

And, on top of all this, I’m contemplating quitting smoking, which, in light of everything, is sort of a bizarre decision right now. But, did you guys know smoking’s bad for you?

I now have “Ray of Light” and “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” on loop in my brain, at the same time. Pardon me as I bang my head against this wall.

* "The Voice" of course referring to that utilized by Mr. Rollins during his screechy impressions of his mother.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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