"I'd rather not talk about that because it's something negative"

EXACTLY

If you're driving, I'd start listening to Democracy Now on KPFK on the drive in and see what the response is like.

none of that really has any relevance.

I'm a repressed, uptight Englishman, by the way. Californian hippies are anathema to me, and I'm off to sulk in the rain (in JULY).

I think that's because Alanis' songs are written in a secret code version of English which sounds like brilliance to self-absorbed young women, and dogshit to everyone else.

xp: hard to say, Alba. I think she might have been raised this way, judging from the similarities in attitude she shares with her brother and their circle of friends.

have you ever read an interview with that DotN guy? He's probably the most self-absorbed musician in the history of rock.

With a "!", or is that just googleproofing? I wanna know if they're ripping off Marinetti or amateur!st...

Ewww...techno-libertarian types.

And (more relevant to the last point) I think that this is often a strategy people adopt to cope with things like depression. And it's definitely the strategy that counsellors tend to want you to adopt, a kind of cheerful selfishness. But it grates. I associate it with the 'wanting to be happy all the time' syndrome, where if you express anger or sadness, especially in a social situation, you are letting the side down. So there's all this fake cheerfulness around, when really, I think that people are not built to be happy all the time and we should accept that real happiness is rare and fleeting.

and I'm pretty sure you're OTM, Elvis

You are so harshing my mellow by saying that.

Forecast: Hip-hop music is undergoing a values shift.

Guffaw.

um, I think it's probably the most usual thing to be peeved about.

So true!

And Milo, your comment is kind of on, but sometimes there are *people* you don't want to bring it up with, or bad places. Like, I'd rather change the subject than talk about a certain political issue to someone whom I've fought with before, since I know I'm not going to change their mind and it's just going to be ill will on both sides, so I'd rather just ignore a direct comment. Or the hour-long sermon in a church I went to about how Bush's policies are evil, that was sort of out of place.

Maybe you're going to the wrong parties, because I usually have no problem complaining early and often about how topic X annoys the hell out of me. Not to bash the SoCal newbies here, but I usually find that the degree of complaining goes up with the amount of time served.

"Mellow out or you will pay" indeed.

(i tend to think these are both defensive strategies btw.)

Dud to both. Witty sardonicism is totally classic though.

Oh, certainly. I recently read a study at work (I work at The American Massage Therapy Association) about how massage therapists, who tend very much toward being... ahem... touchy-feely, wanting to align your chi with a magnet, falling for any bullshit pseudo-therapy that comes along, all while insisting that they're healers... anyway... this sentence is out of hand, and I can't be bothered to fix it. Point is, an alarmingly high percentage of them were physically or sexually abused kids. Something like 70%.

Depends. I once worked for a company that paid an extra $75/month if you carpooled

I was a massage therapist for about five minutes ten years ago. Most of the people who trained with me were drifters and general failures* who were looking for a well-paid job that didn't require a lot of training (six months when I trained, I don't know what it is now). That may be a better explaination of the 70% abuse survivor statistic.

*I'm not excluding myself here.

i don't know where i asserted that they were or how it's revelant. masseuses aren't doctors either but they do good stuff.

incidentally i want to defend massage therapists here: i know two of them, one in chicago and one in france, and they are both very smart and good guys without the issues i described above (well, sort of; the French one is somewhat close to the "emo" stereotype from the other thread). unfortunately they both have a certain inferiority complex about their profession (though it manifests itself in diff't ways) owing to massage therapy not really being terribly respected.

It's not terribly *well defined*, even. You never know if your going to get a real massage, a magnet on your head, or a hand job.

She thought they were depressing, noting the lines "We stitched and sutured ill-fated futures/Amassed the past in archaic computers/Come join the ranks in our data banks/It's a life without thanks" and saying 'I don't think that's true, life is better than that!'

Needless to say I didn't bother to forward her any Handsome Family lyrics.

No, seriously, I can understand the sentiment from a psychologist's point of view, but it does seem to promote solipsism and self interest, rather than any kind of fulfillment or happiness.

Life has hard bits. That's the way that it is. You can find positive ways to *deal with* the hard bits, but just ignoring or avoiding the hard bits will not make you a better person.

And right now I (and Elvis, for a couple months more!) get free bus fare throughout the county by virtue of working at UCI -- which means more to me than to him, I'd guess, but still!

You don't have to DWELL on the unpleasant, but sometimes it's courteous to acknowledge it, especially if it's someone else going through something unpleasant and you want to portray that you actually give a shit.

And it's definitely the strategy that counsellors tend to want you to adopt, a kind of cheerful selfishness. But it grates. ...So there's all this fake cheerfulness around, when really, I think that people are not built to be happy all the time and we should accept that real happiness is rare and fleeting.

OTFM

Plus that one best friend of hers skeezes me out, I've gone over there a couple of times and he's just hanging around, naked(!) and he's always going on about being polyamorous and how "social nudity" should be understood as a valid lifestyle. And they're always watching either Making the Band or some godawful Matthew Barney-esque tripe.

-- Kenan Hebert (edito...), July 23rd, 2004.

But dammit, sometimes you want all three.

"The above picture was done to show that happens when you project love or hate . . . because your thoughts do create . . . This simple carrot experiment shows everyone has the power to create because their thoughts create. Please notice the two bowls the one on the left was given love and happy thoughts. Those carrot tops grew to a height of over 4 inches. The bowl on the right given hate did not grow, actually it died and the water turned a dark brown. . . . I dare you - try this experiment it will change your life now + forever..."

-Thoughts Create

SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN FUTURIST BULLSHIT

hanging in there.

But I don't want carrots.