Dear Pizza Shuttle, Why would you do that?!
Those sweet potato fries were amazing!
Kisses,
Ted
Dear Jimmy John’s,
When I ask for a #4 with cheese, no tomato, and extra mayo, that doesn’t mean I want onions on it as well. In fact, I really don’t want onions on my Turkey Tom or anything else ever. If I want onions? I’ll order them specifically and loudly.
Kthx,
Ted
Dear Websites Informing Me That Women Are Starting to Show Disbelief In Global Warming,
*headdesk*
-Ted
Dear Glee,
HEE! This past week’s episode was awesome!
Much Love,
Ted
Dear Network Television,
Seriously? Seriously?! I don’t care about sweeps, neither does anyone else, and you know – even better than I do – that viewer stats are crap.
Bitterness,
Ted
Dear Walgreens,
Piling Christmas products from the top shelf to the goddamned ceiling doesn’t disguise the fact that you are selling Christmas products before Halloween. I know that the economy is all jacked up and people are spending more carefully and such, but wouldn’t it be a better idea to eliminate “Wacko Jacko” costumes (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh) than just keep stocking like the economy is just dandy?
Just a Thought,
Ted
Dear Natalie Portman, *facepalm*
Rock on, with your beliefs – more power to you. I have similar convictions, and that’s great. That being said? Rape isn’t really like eating beef. In fact, very dissimilar. And even if you want to get into that Big Hairy Argument: do you really want to go there?
Still Holding Out, But Not Very Confident,
Ted
Sometimes you just need to wallow. Or, at any rate, I do – I guess there are some exhaustingly happy people who never do, but that idea is far too spooky for me to contemplate. The following are my own personal Top 10 Songs Most Likely To Precede A Suicide Attempt, ordered from (theoretical) most to least gruesome.
10. Natalie Merchant’s “My Skin”
This song absolutely murders me, and now it’s used for one of those ads to donate to the ASPCA/PETA/whoever-the-hell and stop torturing the kitties and puppies, which only makes it 100x more depressing. KITTIES!
I remember laying belly up on my bed, head hanging over the edge all Angela Chase-style (and if you don’t know that reference, please don’t tell me – I’ll only think less of you), listening to this, and being so sad that I was unable to cry. Being an upbeat song makes it even more depressing, hence why it narrows out “Father Of Mine” (IMO; YMMV)
8. Chicago‘s “Mister Cellophane” Chicago – Mister Cellophane
OH GOD! Oh, god. There’s nothing that can bring a fun movie musical remake about jazz, murder, and Chicago to a screeching, grinding halt when you’re watching it alone and feeling just a little bit fragile about your friends and family.
7. Ben Folds Five’s “Brick”
Brick – Ben Folds Five
I’ve never had to deal with helping to procure a partner’s hasty abortion (I imagine a lot of that has to do with my lack of sperm, but I digress), though this is definitely high on the list of Big Regrets In Music songs.
Also known as The Big Sweeping Amazing Song That Ended Six Feet Under Where Claire Drove Her Prius Into The Distance. The version edited for the series finale omits most of the words, which are vital to the truly depressing nature of the song. And for full disclosure, yes, I did weep uncontrollably at this end scene.
5. Incubus’s “Warning”
Watch warning in Music | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com When I first heard of “Warning,” I was in a chatroom talking about – what else – incredibly depressing songs, and someone suggested it to me (Incubus was a new band then). Basically my reaction was that of the main character in the music video for Radiohead’s “Just”.
4. Sixpence None The Richer’s “There She Goes” Sixpence None The Richer – There She Goes
I know that this is potentially treasonous, but I rate Sixpence None The Richer’s cover over The La’s original, but I do have a fairly compelling reason. At risk of sounding obsessive (which, I am), the awesomely depressing suicide with Sixpence None The Richer comes care of Six Feet Under (Episode 3×9 “The Opening”) where a woman meticulously prepares for her demise – including her cat’s vet records – while listening to that version on a tape. She stops the tape, gets in her car, starts it, puts the tape in (which promptly plays the line, “no one else could heal my pain”), puts on some fresh lipstick, and presses the garage door opener, sealing her death.
3. RENT “Will I?”
While Jonathan Larson’s heartfelt nod to people living with HIV and the fear that envelopes those infected (especially in the late ’80s/early ’90s) is awe-inspiring, it’s also deeply depressing, and totally relatable in myriad dire situations.
2. Moby’s “Natural Blues”
I will admit, this ranks artificially high on my list, mainly due to the fact that I saw it on 120 Minutes when Matt Pinfield was still the host. Moby’s trip-hop meets soul style, though? Oh… man. Also, bonus: Christina Ricci!
1. Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” Johnny Cash – “Hurt”
I have to agree with a recent article from The Onion – even if it was just Johnny Cash sounding awesome (which it is), that would be enough to cement his cover of “Hurt” over Trent Reznor’s. HOWEVER: a young Trent Reznor still has a vague sound of hope, whereas the then 70-year-old Johnny Cash had already been diagnosed with autonomic neuropathy, so his delivery of the lines, “if I could start again” are significantly more resigned – there is no second chance; this is the end (and he died the next year).
Also, for the old school Kids In The Hall fans, I have to give a shout out to the most unlikely, abysmally depressing song in the history of ever: Lipps, Inc.’s “Funky Town”
To appreciate the depressive quality of disco touchstone “Funky Town,” you will have to have seen the commercial and critical bomb Kids In The Hall: Brain Candy. There’s a lot wrong with the movie – hell, KITH cast members have been saying that since its release – but it still stands that if you’ve even seen the movie once, when you hear “Funky Town,” you will know deep sadness.
This is my own totally unscientific opinion, this post by no means encourages suicide attempts (though… it does sort of encourage wallowing in a pit of dispair, which I think is healthy), your mileage may very, void where prohibited, and if you want to make your own list (or just suggest some “holy shit, you missed out, man!” songs), feel free to post it in comments.
It’s come to my attention that I very much have the ability to think in redundancies. For example, I just saw the Kirby Dick documentary Outrage, and was thinking about describing its tone to someone who hadn’t seen it, settling on, “it’s like Michael Moore, but without the stupid crap.” Don’t get me wrong – I’m liberal, I’m a Michael Moore fan, and his new documentary is on the short list of movies I want to see this year (which does say a bit more about Hollywood than Moore, but I digress). And I know what I’m getting into when I’m headed to see a Michael Moore movie. In fact, as a long-time Moore fan, I was quite shocked at the incredible restraint he employed in Fahrenheit 9/11, and we’re talking about a movie that included an ice cream truck reading of The USA Patriot Act and ended on a rousing note of George W. Bush… well, speaking, which is humiliating in any context. Every Moore movie is pretty fact-heavy, even if said facts are sometimes more trivia than pie charts. I was a little leery about Super Size Me – growing up in a Midwestern Democratic household, I did have a commitment to Michael Moore – but Morgan Spurlock has his own thing that does in fact work for him: an awesome mustache and individual experimentation. He also appears to have monopolized animators for documentaries – they’re in nearly everything he’s made, while Moore’s big (read: small) use of animation was just in Bowling For Columbine. Kirby Dick has the great, if perhaps a little boring distinction of making documentaries with awesome subject matter and lots of interesting people, and… keeping it pretty much in the classic documentary format. Some interviews, some clips, some analysis. If he didn’t stick to a pretty classic format, I think any of his movies would seem too scattered to make any impact.
Jezebel has some analysis on why Whip It didn’t make bank in its release weekend. I can’t say I disagree with the ideas they present, especially in a (freezing) Indian Summer where it went up against Zombieland. I haven’t seen the latter, but as Jezebel cites: Rotten Tomatoes rates Whip It awesomely, Zombieland mediocre, and Surrogates (which my friend John saw and was somewhat disappointed in) ranked even lower, and the latter two still made much more money than Whip It. Personally, I hadn’t seen a whole lot of anything at all for Whip It – most of the info I got was from AfterEllen, because pretty much any Ellen Page movie can get me out of the house, and Drew Barrymore was just some super-awesome butter creme frosting on an already awesome-tastic cake. I saw Zombieland ads on YouTube for a solid week, and invasive (and disturbing) ads for Surrogates in myriad places. I can see studios not wanting to throw money at something that is a coming-of-age story meets post-90s “girl power,” but even so… it seems like they haven’t a clue what to do with stories that would appeal to a vast population of girls and women.
One of my favourites, Rich at fourfour gives a proper gay review to Mariah Carey’s Diaries Of An Imperfect Angel and (more importantly) to Old Mariah vs. New Mariah. I can’t say I agree with his judgment on Obsessed (because I crank that shit – don’t judge), but I also have to say: I kind of tuned out after Heartbreaker (which was an awesome song). It wasn’t the sudden sexified clothing (though, that was there), and it wasn’t the increasing amount of hip-hop influence (that being said, having a rap break in Heartbreaker almost killed it for me). Like Whitney Houston in a very different way, Old Mariah used to fuck songs up and not even blink an eyelash. 4 octaves and an impossible vibrato? Pssh. She always did seem like she was on a proving ground, but I wanted to be on that proving ground! Old Mariah also… knew where she lived on the Diva Scale, let’s say. She lived in the area, but she had an apartment, not a penthouse. Then VH1 brought their Divas series about, which brought about my favourite diva story. The first Divas Live was in ’98, featuring a dizzying number of fabulous women, none of whom were at the exact same fame level (I’m thinking so that there would be no “bitched poured beer on my weave!” circa ANTM: Cycle 3), so here was our diva listing:
o Mariah Carey
o Gloria Estefan
o Shania Twain
o Aretha Franklin
o Celine Dion
o Carole King
I’m there. Estefan is a little light in the diva area (especially by the late ’90s), but definitely worthy. Shania Twain didn’t hold up as well as we thought she would in the late ’90s, but still a reasonable selection. Mariah was on the cusp, but I can get there, and you’ll get no arguments from me about anyone else. Apparently the auditorium was hotter than Hell, and Mariah demanded that someone cut on the A/C ASAP. Upon finding this out, Aretha told them to turn that shit off, because it does bad things to her voice. Is this factual? Eh, I dunno. Is that part of the echelon of divas? Oh, yes. When Aretha wants something and there is not a force of nature keeping it from happening, it will happen.
This weekend is barcamp in Milwaukee, which I hope to be sufficient inspiration to start posting regularly on this blog. I’m not abandoning my LiveJournal, but it’s been a long while since I’ve had a public blog.
Among other things, I want to start posting movie reviews. But since I happened to get to see a sneak preview of it: just go see Whip It. You’ll thank me later.
Anyhow, ideally I want to get some content going in time for November 1, 2009 (my do-or-die date is January 1, 2010, but I don’t think I’ll need to invoke that unless something particularly crazy happens).
