Month: July 2000

An Open Letter to MTV

Dear MTV Execs,
I’m a single, 28 year old female who’s been watching MTV since you first aired “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
What I want to know is, in over the decade since that shining moment, WHAT HAPPENED?
Suddenly, I’m finding that my same age group that made you who you are, are now almost discounted from your shows. What do I mean you are asking yourself? Simple. Almost every, no make that EVERY teevee show you are currently producing or have in production caters to the 15-26 crowd, in fact save for ONE show in your whole production schedule, no one CAN BE over the age of 25.
You seem to forget, oh dear MTV execs, that it is those of us OVER the age of 25 that helped bring your channel to what it is today. Our spending habits, our hobbies, our change in fashion, our thought and opinions which you have so SHAMELESSLY promoted before are now being ignored as my age group is now being shuffled over to VH1. The humility and the ageism of this is disgusting. It is as if you are promoting that the only way to enjoy the music is to be youthful.
As I am growing older, I’m noticing the ageism that is existing all over the place. In some places it’s needed (voting rights, drinking rights) but on a television channel that caters to music, where some of the greatest bands themselves are over the age of 30, you use ageism to segregate the shows.
I have one simple question:
Why?
Just because we are getting older doesn’t mean we enjoy the music any less or that we won’t be spending as much. A lot of us are not settled with children but have LARGE disposable incomes ready at our disposal to spend on crap that you shell out with each new band that keeps being produced. Every day I’m noticing this trend where the pop stars are getting younger, the shows are getting younger and those of us that actually HAVE THE INCOME to spend on the concerts, the merchandise and what not are over your age limit.
Why?
Within the last few years, I stopped watching MTV. All the good television shows that had some merit (120 Minutes, Amp, Liquid Television) — which were, may i remind you, about videos to begin with — were suddenly replaced with crap shows such as “Undressed” and more crappy Real World episodes. Is it not enough that we have soap operas on from noon to four pm everyday and prime time television shows that cater to the melodramatic in us all, but on a MUSIC CHANNEL? The fact that we have to see a show about “seven strangers!” who get “real!” on camera. Puh-lease. It’s all fake. You know that. I know that. We know that the shows are edited for content and that taking 24 hours of time and widdling it down to 1/2 hour is just plain stupid. The concept at first was good (and original like your first shows) — then suddenly the shows degraded to the point that you could interchange any of the characters in any of the shows and it wouldn’t matter because it would be the same damn thing but different location.
Why?
Why has MTV stopped being about music and became more about commercialism? Why has MTV stopped actually SHOWING videos and started showing in its stead crappy “series” based in the 15-25 demographic? Why are you constantly attempting to promote ideas of a cultural political village when you are segregating and alienating that same group?
MTV used to be on the edge. You could turn on 120 minutes and see the best music coming out of the indie/college scenes and see new ideas of style. You could watch liquid television and get addicted to its pull like crack. You could have a choice: you knew that Club MTV was on at 4, but you could see videos of your favorite artists afterwards. You’re taking out the content and putting serial fluff that is basically hogwash with fluff content showing teenagers today that the key to being cool is being an airhead. At one point, MTV used to be the cool kid on the block where people could watch and learn and see and now it’s becoming nothing more than a corporation of mass hysteria.
I’m a 28 year old female who still owns vinyl and remembers when the compilations from 120 minutes and “MTV party to go” meant something. I’m nothing but one voice — but one voice who represents many people who feel the same way as I do and yet feel that they can’t or shouldn’t say anything because how can one person change the world?
You may feel that I have my choice, and I do, to not watch your shows. I don’t. I may also have the choice of watching MTV2 if i was so disgruntled with your services, but I can’t as it’s not available in my area. You may also feel that I can watch VH1 but I choose not to as I can’t relate to that genre. Maybe I’ll always be 18 inside, but you gave me an opportunity to be heard via music and now you have removed that opportunity and THAT makes me angry.
I know this letter will end up in the circle bin. And maybe whoever reads this will feel some pangs of empathy. But as long as i know that it has written and that I will no longer actively watch your station nor the products that i see being advertised there, I feel a whole lot better.
Sincerely,
Lisa M. Rabey
An original GenXer

bodice rippers

brian and i had been walking around bNn tonight (last night?) when i confessed my passion for bodice rippers. jackie collins, judith krantz — the whole strong woman whose been beaten, raped, damn near mutilated but by the time she’s 30 she’s the owner of her own successful company, beautiful, thin and perfect to the bone. And, you can’t forget, that in the end, she always gets her man.
i think those damn things are probably part of my problem. though i haven’t admittedly picked up a good old fashioned bodice ripper in ages (though jackie collins has released a few new books and i’m trying really hard not to read them), it brought to mind tonight after having sex with paul, part of my problem.
you see, i’m a reader. a voracious one at that. some freaky guy in texas has been keeping a book list since he was like four (there is of course the obvious link but i can’t find it now). and most of what i read, obviously has impact on my thoughts and feelings. and i’ll read anything, that i will, being the book whore that i am. i’ve already finished harry potter and the sorcerers stone and have books 2 and 3 on order with amazon. books by f scott fitzgerald, terry pratchett, and a biography on cleopatra sit on my bedstand (amongst others).
this all has to play about my idea about love and romance.
of fucking course (you knew this was going to be cliched didn’t you?)
i’ve always had this ideal — this man, who would come and take my blues away (like calgon — but with a penis). and every man i have ever dated and met has always lived short of that ideal because DING DIN GDING he doesn’t really exist. but he’s safe enough to make real and happy because then no one can touch me.
except for paul.
paul is a lot of wonderful things. pauls is also a lot of nasty things just as i am full of wonderful things as well as some very horrid things. for the last few days i’ve been in a snitch about something. there is no rhyme or reason to what i’ve been being in a snitch about just that I have been and that is important to this dialogue.
paul once said it would probably would have been better if i had a guy that was just a dog. because then that way everyone would be happy and i would stop bitching.
which is to say, that i say i want one thing and expect something else entirely.
(and this would suffice to say go on with the rant on why i generally hate the female species but i won’t go there).
I keep forgetting that relationships take work. and they take time to mature. i’m not talking about the passion here (insert oblig REM reference), i’m talking about understanding, love, friendship, and trust. Most, with me, does not come easy. YOU HAVE TO EARN IT BABY!
So yeah, i totally hate our media. i keep thinking of the “friends” episode where monica proposes to chandler, and i’m thinking “why don’t I have that?” and then it takes a ton of bricks to realize that i do have that. Pauls not fucking perfect. Well, neither am I. but together, we are perfect.
We have our bad days and we have our good days. and some days are better than others. But the thing is, we want to make this work. We want to make this relationship — really last and not be a flash in the pan of lust and hot sexors every night. And that some days I’m gonna want to either love him to pieces or rip his penis off and other days he’s going to want to chop my tits off.
BUT THAT IS US.
I mean, that is us, in a nutshell. because we are a real couple with real feelings, everything gets amplified. this isn’t something that is going to be solved on page 10 and our relationship isn’t going to end when the sweeps are over.
and that my friends, is what i can’t gel in my betty paige looking head.
like most people in america, i’m deathly afraid of commitment. but i’m also deathly afraid of being alone with 10 cats. i’m afraid of making the wrong decisions, the wrong choices and the wrong everything. i want my life to be a bodice ripper where everything gets worked out and my whole world will be boxed up neat and clean and set off by page 300. but real life isn’t like that. and that’s what i need to learn. that paul isn’t some schelp that i can abuse/use and that i’m not some sextoy for him to abuse/use. and we are both slowly coming to terms that that is what the problem is and that is what is making it scary and wonderful all at the same time.
because we are willing to make a stand with ourselves and willing to say hey, we love each other. this is going to work.
there are a million and one reasons why i love paul. and the best one i can think of that describes how i feel is that when my face is smushed up against his chest, THAT is home. it’s not the things around us or where we live or where we stand geographically to each other. it’s how i feel when he’s wrapped around me at night. what keeps me sane, through all my turbulent moods especially when it comes to men and relationships, is how paul treated me when my father died. his love and his understanding was what i would have wanted IDEALLY that having it happen was a dream come true.
the bottom line is, most people don’t know how to make a relationship work. because it’s hard. because it requires you to care about someone else and to provide for that person and frankly, i don’t think most people, hell adults, can make that kind of relationship work.
If i were to choose any one couple that best suited paul and i, i would have to say he was my rhett butler to my scarlett o’hara. but to those of you who are hip to GWTW, you know that Rhett leaves her at the end of the book. WRONG! In the sequel Scarlett, she does get her man.
Like me. 🙂

barnes and noble

Brian (Pauls brother) and I hit barnes and noble tonight for me to get some quality writing in and for brian to get out of the house for awhile. I came across a book in the clearance section called Writing For Self-Discovery. I had brought along my notebooks so I went ahead and sat in the cafe and started reading the damn thing. The first exercise on the very first page (which surprised me as most books go into more theory on why you should write before going to the nitty gritty) was to sit in one spot and write about what’s around you. Pick and object and go from there. This is what occurred:
barnes and noble cafe. people. feeling anxious. left breast has slight pains from being anxious. feeling stupid sitting solo at the cafe table with my white painted fingernails, people milling about. various people studying. remembering the cool cafe in Berkeley, CA where all the CalState kids went to. drank coffee. study. college. missing school. thinking of my father. small silver urn around my neck. thin people. beautiful people. grad school. college university. hard tables/chairs. people still here. sitting with Cathleen at the cafe. her sister Carolyn who was way cooler. why is it that people with “Ca” beginning names are called “cat”? on some people it sounds wrong. on others it sounds right. what can one say about the name lisa? derived from Elizabeth. fear to run. flight or fight. i ‘m in a public place and i’m scared.
dreaming about my father more. i’m not sure but it dawns on me in the bathroom tonight that the dreams are a realization he’s okay. he was younger and happier looking. there were scars on his forehead. “Dad, I say,” where are those scars from?” and he points to my necklace — the small silver urn with some of his ashes on it that i wear daily. My father, close to my heart.
i was watching la femme nikita the other night with brian and i saw what i wanted to be — her. Nikita. she is tall, blonde and perfect. except i don’t want to be blonde, just tall and perfect. and she’s was wearing this long black skirt that hung low over her hips and there was an inch or so of skin showing between her shirt and the damn skirt. with her pale skin and deep blue eyes. she looked amazingly exotic. and that was my inspiration. that is what i want to be. i have to lose 100lbs.
fuck.
i remember when i was 14? 15? I weighed 140? 150 pounds. I was like 5’9 or so. And I remember laying on my bed at night, obsessing about my weight and running my hands over my concave stomach and thinking “i’m never going to be fat. i’m not going to allow myself to get past this point in weight.”
that was 1/2 a life ago!
been reading more journals online again. going through diarist.net and sorting by women and ages and reading generally anything of anyone within my age group. and i realize that the 25-32 age bracket is nearly empty — not empty but it’s like what overcomes people between that age group to not write. i’m looking for a REASON and i’m finding it. Ana Voog is 34. Cheryl Tigs is a mom at 54. She can, next year, legally qualify for the AARP. I have 30 whole years left before I need to. And for once I smile. At the cafe. Where the cute goth girl works.
I’m obsessed about ages. People think i’m 22. Brian thought I was 22 or 23. No one believes I just turned 28. But i’m obsessed with other people’s ages. When someone tells me a story, I almost always ask “how old are they?” so that i can make the comment of “she’s immature” or “he should have known better”. and it’s stupid to gauge other people’s life by my age. at 28 i should have accomplished many things and i haven’t. but in a way, i’ve accomplished more than other people ever will. because i took chances. i took the chance, no matter how stupid, on flying to SF with nothing and making a go of it. and when that didn’t work, of driving cross country solo to another state and trying again. and seeing those stupid “jesus knows” signs along the highway. meeting paul for the first time in atlanta. BUT the thing is, i did it. myself. these are my stories and i know lots and lots of people who don’t have the balls to leave within 50 miles of where they were born.
west texas sucked.
my dad was 45 when i was born.
and today i really like me, imperfections and all.
-finis-
so tonight, when the urge struck me to redesign again (and i really do like this new design btw), i felt it. the cold crushing feeling in my chest. and it’s different from all the anxiety attacks i had before. because this time i was not obsessing about anything — I WAS FREAKING WORKING IN PHOTOSHOP. and i start crying. paul is freaking out because i can’t breathe (or so i say between the sobs). my pulse is normal but my chest felt like a ton of bricks landed on it. i call the 24 hour hot line my hmo has set up and i get picked up on the first ring. i tell the woman, mary, what is going on. she assures me i’m not having a heart attack. “you’re on klonopin” she says. “what’s your dosage?” i tell her i’m taking the bare minimum these days – .5mgs .25 in the morning and sometimes .25 later in the after noon. “did you take a dose?” she asks. “yes, i replied — a few moments ago”. klonopin takes 30 minutes to kick in before it works. she talks to me. calms me down. turns out she has done over 15 years as a coronary specialist nurse. i’m not having a heart attack. i’m so low risk it’s disgusting. ‘but this crushing” i keep telling her. it hurts. i don’t know what to do. the klonopin has been my miracle drug for the last two weeks. tonight was worse because it was fast and furious. and i’m so scared something is going on with me. she tells me if the pain doesn’t stop within the next 15 minutes, take another klonopin. after an hour, if there is still pain call. they are open 24 hours. i can be seen.
within an hour brian and i were at 7-11 buying slurpees and a big bite.

a new psychosis

riddle me this.
What is worse: being sick or THINKING you are sick?
Anyone who has been a long time reader of the chronicle knows about the anxiety attacks I had before I left California, on my way to Atlanta and now the current batch.
Let me start with the latest batch:
My dad died on april 25, 2000. I was a wreck. An emotional and physical wreck. I took two weeks off from work to deal with myself and with the funeral and everything else combined. I laid, literally, on the couch watching the golden girls and crying. After the funeral, we came back to VA where the very next day we left to go to Virginia Beach for my court case against shelly. After coming back from that trip on a Friday (May 5th), I started feeling congested in my chest. I went to the doctor who said i was had a tad bronchitis and gave me drugs for it. Within a few days i felt better. Then starting in late june, i started feeling “weird” again (my only word to describe it). I went to see three separate doctors who said it was stress (and while you are at it, drop a few pounds quit smoking — you’ll feel better). And while that is all well and good — when i’m laid up all weekend due to such a severe anxiety attack I NEED RELIEF NOW!
so we tried Paxil. didn’t work.
and now i’m on klonopin (for schizos actually -teehee) which, after the first dose i slept for 14 hours and felt WONDERFUL when i woke up. But then the paranoia kicks in:
each ache and pain in my body is instant “i’m having a heart attack, i’m feeling sick, i’ve got cancer, i’ve got —-” and so goes in my head EVERY FUCKING DAY!
And going to bed was worse — because i started obsessing with death. oh, this isn’t the old morbid gawf crap — this was the “if i fall asleep, i’m dying. i’m not waking up.” and each fucking nuance of my body made me feel WORSE. and then i couldn’t sleep. and my heart would pick up pace and that freaked me out even more and on and on it would go. and it has been going on for a good month now.
so the other day i wrote about taking charge of my life. and i want to say a BIG THANK you to everyone that wrote me and said that they have gone through similar things because it’s so fucking lonely feeling like i’m the only one whose life is falling apart.
when I first started working at UUNet, a person i shall say became a very good friend said he thought it was remarkable that i was handling a new job, new move new everything with such aplomb. my job is fucking stressful. (sidebar: some nitwit started emailing me a few weeks ago accusing me of being someone else. and claimed something along the lines that we were lovers 17 years ago. 17 years ago i was 11. I kept telling him it wasn’t who he thought it was — i mean any idiot could find out anything about me if they tried hard enough. i’ve never been ashamed in giving out information. then he counters back “i have a few friends at uunet. you don’t work there. my bosses thought that was funny.) my life with paul is stressful. my life in GENERAL is stressful. and my body was saying LISA! WOOHOO time to wake up. And i started and am still taking babysteps in making those changes. i’ve tried giving up smoking (again, tonight, i’m smoking my last cigarette. the coughing and nasty taste in my mouth is making me sick). but what sucks is the day to day crap. because i freak out if my heartbeat accelerates and THEN i start panicking more so.
My doctor told me that when you have social anxiety disorder (or you are just darn anxious about something) every nuance of your body is explamified. Every pull, strain, bruise, tingle suddenly causes me to worry. so i sit there with my stupid “instant stress relief” music cds doing deep breathing for 10 minutes to calm down. and when i don’t? I freak again!
My heartbeat at rest is between 70-80. American Heart Association says normal is between 50-100 (thought chances are more so if you have a heartbeat over 70 of having a heart attack). Sometimes I hit 100 and other times 120. When I hit 120 — i keep thinking like fred sanford “I’M COMING ESTER! THIS IS THE BIG ONE!” and then i sit and have to do the stupid stress relief music and deep breathing exercises to bring it back down. My cholesterol, blood pressure and everything else is PERFECT. (however i am a woman who smokes/smoked and takes birth control pills). i’m overweight. but i’m healthy. i’m too young to be freaking out.
As you can see, my life is full of stressful events. But i started noticing things. When i started writing (shock) even just bullshit in my paper journal — i felt better. when i work out, i feel better. when i stretch my body out just after sitting in a cramped movie theater i feel better. i have to keep telling myself it’s anxiety and stress and that taking care of the issue NOW without living in isolation for three years (which happened to another co-worker of mine at UU. she had anxiety/stress so bad, she didn’t drive for three years and barely left her house — now she’s so easy going it’s depressing). Me. Myself. And I.
I’d like to think there is a reason for all of this. Why me? Why at such a young age? Why am i popping drugs and not looking for healthy alternatives. which prompts the paranoia that i’m gonna STOP shaving my legs, drink herbal tea and chant about my ying and yang. I’m so afraid of becoming a freaking hippie to be well. It’s like the holistic path works — but i don’t want to get caught up in those stereotypes, yo.
i don’t have a reason or a point to this. it’s mindless ramblings. but there is something i wanted to point out — when I used to discuss my past with my friend Michael, i used to get anxious and headachy stressing “i don’t want to deal with this now” because I didn’t. but i never did deal with it. I just went on my normal little way. but see the headaches have grown worse until i write about it (even if it is stupid — which i think sometimes i am — because i can be much more wittier) — and it’s like a fight against me and the world. i know i’m a strong person (nurse at the help line: you don’t sound sick. you sound actually very strong. me: look lady, if a doctor doesn’t see me today, i’m gonna kill some muther fucking someone) and I CAN DEAL with this. but it’s hard.
no one ever told me how hard it was to be normal.
my shrink apt is on tuesday. that should be interesting.
x0x0x0x
lisa

a new beginning

for the last two days i’ve been uploading the old chronicles into the new format that i talked about oh so long ago. you see, pauly had created this neat database for me that allows me to write a chronicle anywhere in the world via a web browser and while it doesn’t have all the tricks of blogger he felt really slighted i wasn’t using it. i told him that going through the past was hard and especially if i had to reread it all over again as i uploaded the crap to his new database. but he was insistent that i give it a try (and modify it to my own needs so that it would be completely personalized to my tastes).
so i did it.
over 200 entries later, i started reflecting to the writing i wrote and the person i’ve changed. what really hit home with me today was that going through all the old stuff within the last year about moving to virginia, being with paul and start a whole new life.
looking back on the last 6 months, i noticed that all the dreams and promises i made to myself to make that a reality wasn’t happening. shit got fucked up. and i started getting sick — really sick. having anxiety attacks, feeling like crap, gaining weight, not talking to anyone — stuff that was chronicled here and not chronicled anywhere but inside my head. i was going to the doctor literally every week because i couldn’t take feeling like this — and who can. the chest pains, feeling of being not being in control of my body, the whole nine yards. PHYSICALLY there is nothing wrong with me. Mentally, well, that would take years to fill.
so i’m wanting to the do the right thing. i really do want to do the right thing. but that requires a lot of change on my part and a lot of the changes aren’t that easy to make. like quitting smoking, and losing weight and working out. finding a job i like and doing stuff FOR. ME. stress takes a huge toil on your body — whether or not you want to believe it or not. my body is acting like it’s 90 and the funny thing is — after all the talk of death and morbid crap that i wrote in the past — i don’t want to die. i really really do not. i want to LIVE.
as the chronicles has it’s second anniversary this month and goes onto entering it’s third year, i thought that i would start all over. reintroduce myself to you. introduce yourself to me. lets meet and befriends. and hopefully, when this all blows over, we’ll be happier for that.
so hi.
my name is lisa.
i’m a 6′ tall 270lb network engineer living in virginia. (well depends if i have my job tomorrow or not heh).
i live with my boyfriend Paul. he’s a programmer for thinkgeek. we have a lot of flakey geeky friends who hang out here. we make plans and break them occasionally. like every weekend. or something.
moving right along, my goal is to lose weight (can we say 100lbs. whose rooting for me over there?) and to finally quit smoking (i’m down to my last two right now). and to just FEEL better and not have to pop pills every five minutes because i think i’m dying (i’m not — really).
i boast an impressive cd list and an even more impressive shoe collection. i like texture and fabrics. i like the colors orange and lime green. i love bands like rem, afghan whigs, the eels, blur, new order and luna. i like things british. i like reading. i LOVE wildflowers. i love wild kinky sex (as long as it’s from paul). i love reading and doing things creatively. i like tacky and kitsch.
that’s me in a nutshell.
and so we begin on another journey with lisa — and this time hopefully she’ll get some shit straight.
or die

moe sucks

the end.
x0x0x0x
lisa
and in other news
having no neighbors downstairs lasted approximately 12 hours.
we found out today via jen that new neighbors were already moving in. pauls talking about meeting them and indulging them into warez, pron and lan parties.
also, i finally got around to updating my CD list. i want to thank everyone (a tonne of people) who sent me CDs for my birthday. the funny thing (hahahah. hehehee. hohohoho.) is that since i’ve been adding any old cds to my list as i hear about them, for the most part, i have no idea who half these people are that i now proudly own. no matter. i’m thisclose to finally breaking the 300 barrier for my collection. we also spent the night watching 16 candles, St. Elmo’s Fire, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science. What i need explained to me is: why do they have dvds of 16 candles and the breakfast club but NOT pretty in pink? there is no justice in this world.

those crazy russians

at approximately 11:17pm last evening, i slammed a nail into the wall.
we all clapped our hands in glee.
when i first had moved into our apartment, we had no furniture. paul wasn’t moving in for a few more months and all that we did own was a bed and two 8′ tables that were stored for computer use. the living room, 20’x16′, was utterly and completely empty.
i heard everything my neighbors were doing downstairs. i heard them yell, cry, scream, fuck, throw parties. some nights i couldn’t sleep because i kept hearing her obvious love cries as he shoved his manhood down her tight love snatch.
i was not a happy camper.
thanksgiving weekend paul had come up to survey his new kingdom. as we had invited friends over to partake in our domestication, we heard banging on the floor. it was those crazy russians banging on their ceiling to get us to shut up. 8 people sitting around a table drinking and playing card games made them nervous. the hubby came upstairs and started screaming at paul. it was 8pm in the evening.
the following business day, i had gone down to the renters office to complain. here i am, a single girl living solo until the man of her dreams moves in and i have to deal with these morons and their high sex pleas every night.
they had beat me to it and complained to to the office about US. i laughed. the rental assistant (named appropriately lisa) told me that she knew they were crazy. she had lived below them for years and knew about their loud parties, their fights, and everything else. she offered to mediate and go talk to them and explain about how unreasonable they were being. later that afternoon, paul and i were taking a nap when someone pounded on the door. it was the crazy russian wife bearing cookies. since we were starving and feeling apologetic we made peace. later that night i got sick from said cookies and paul laughed. it figured, did it not, that their peace offering made us sick.
in the later months, as paul and i started to accumulate furniture, we really didn’t hear from the crazy russians again. one night they threw a hissy fit because i was putting together the teevee stand but it has been relatively quiet.
until recently.
we noticed that they were arguing more and stuff was being moved. a hand dolly had stood outside their door and on this past tuesday morning as i walked by their apartment door, i looked (i’m nosey) and saw that it was wide open. the apartment was empty. paul, who works from home, told me that while i had been at work they had moved all their things out.
they were gone.
paul and i rejoiced over this and secretly believe that our own love cries drove them out of the apartment. maybe they split up or maybe they found a house. who knows, who cares.
now all we have to do is get rid of the mcse across the hall who keeps trying to throw his garbage by our front door and we’ll be set.
x0x0x0x
lisa

z104!!

s is just me, or does anyone else notice that most american top 40 radio stations are called “Z104!” or “THE EDGE 107.9!” or some bullshit? I swear to god, what the hell is our public listening to these days? It helps that my damn car radio has been on the fritz for the last four months and I have been listening to stuff recommended to me or to cds that I have bought (Luna has been spinning nicely in my player for the last week — the do a really neat rendition of ‘sweet child of mine’ by GnR). So tonight, sans Paul I turned on the radio to find out the choices I have are incredibly limited (it’s fourth of july for godsakes). I can either hear the Metallica concert (beer good — Napster bad) on the “alternative” station or I can listen to Z104! to their “greatest hits” which consisted of bad dance remixes of TLC and Britney. But I like Britney, so I sing along. And then I hear that stupid song “can you take me higher” by that lame band that was hot for a minute and then dropped just as fast due to all their lyrics sounds the same. I swear, the line “can you take me higher, to that place with golden streams” makes me think of someone getting a golden shower. or something.
anyways, through my solo ride cross country (yes, i drove cross country alone, i am COOL), it was the same deal. I remember thinking that I have 100 CDs (which I got bored with by the time i had gotten to Texas) and opportunities galore on the radio stations and ALL THE MUSIC sounded the same. It was unnerving. The only thing that seemingly amused me was that a radio station in Dallas was giving away a Mercedes. Only in Texas!