I Don’t Want a Stupid Title

if you don’t think paying for a “free ride,” is irony, call me and tell me where you at so i can come and smack you.

i’m sick of people pointing out that alanis morisette’s song by this name isn’t actually irony.  people have been saying this for years without fail, like they thought of it.  it’s really annoying.  also, the fact that much of what she sings of in the song that I can think of actually IS ironic makes this piss me off all the more.

the first thing i would like to point out, is that irony (especially as used in the song) is a literary device.  literature is an art form.  art is subject to interpretation.  then, once you get down to the word, all it actually refers to is when you may have certain expectations for something to happen a certain way, and it doesn’t.  often, it will happen exactly opposite of how you expected, but that is not a necessary component of what irony is.  irony is something happening different OR opposite of what you expected.  that’s it.  it may have degrees, like slap you in the face irony, or it can be subtle.  if you have high expectations for something, and it doesn’t turn out how you wanted it to, this is unfortunate, AND it is irony, though possibly subtle.

so, considering what irony is, and that it is largely subjective, now ask yourselves the following questions.

a) would you find it ironic if it were your wedding day, something you porbably had pictured in your mind your whole life as something perfect, the happiest day of your life, and it pours rain that day?  isn’t rain symbolic of sadness, dreariness, depression?  sounds freaking ironic to me.

b) would you find it ironic, if you went outside purposefully to take your smoke break, because that was what your have been dreaming of doing all morning, picturing yourself doing, and as soon as you light up, you see a sign that reads “no smoking.”  so now you’re on your cigarette break, putting your cigarettes back into your purse and swearing.  you thought you’d be smoking on your smoke break, didn’t you?  sorry, sucka.  textbook irony!

c) what about if you were at a fancy restaurant, and you decide to treat yourself to a fine glass of white wine.  and you need a drink bad after the day you’ve had, your hands are shaking by this point you want it so intensely.  but what does your waiter bring you?  A disgusting fly floating in its $15 watery grave.  Now you have to flag him down again before he can get you another one, and the service here sucks.  You’re really stressed, and all you want is a drink, which you have, but you can’t drink it.  I bet you expected to be guzzling that bad boy down, and now it sits in front of you untouched.  taunting you.  Sounds ironic to me.

d) i meet the man of MY dreams but he’s YOUR husband.  you bitch, i’ve been having inappropriate fantasies about him, and i already have our first three children named.  I pictured US together.  not YOU.  IRONIC!

e) and if i ever found myself drowning in a sea of spoons, and all I need to pry open that hatch which would let me to my freedom is one freaking knife, you’d better believe my dying words would be “oh the irony,” because i am dying in a sea of utensils, all the utensils in the world for all i know, except the one that will save my life.  poetic irony! 

and the only other refernce from the song i remember, and not to hammer a point into the ground….

d) what if you were terrified of flying your entire life and you finally decided to take a flight.  you’re about to piss yourself from fear, but at some point, your nerves calm, and you realize, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.  In fact, you feel foolish for driving long distances all these years.  You’ll be in Orlando by noon!  It’s true what they say, though you never believed them up until this very moment, flying really is safe!  And the plane crashes.  Sounds like a whole shitball of irony to me.

Give Alanis a break. She was trying to tell a story, and, if you haven’t noticed, songs are like three minutes long. She had to pare it down to the essentials, but i guess most of us are just too damn obtuse to use our imaginations and get a drift.

my conlcusions:  people are stupid and try to be smart and sound even dumber.  and people latch on to this one thing they heard once that someone else said and that kind of sounded good, and it annoys me when they try and pass it off as their own, when it doesn’t even make sense in the first place.

i’m with you on this one Alanis.  Everyone else shut up, or come up with some new material (fyi, this rant was sparked by a comedy central presents episode where some woman made the above joke, which i first heard circa 1997 in my community college english class)

many of us have people in our lives that we’ve come to know and charish as our own personal, as if handed down by God herself, “soul crushers.”  I think today should go down as “Soul Crusher Appreciation Day,” in which we all come together to celebrate these malevolent souls by plotting their murderous deaths and how to cover them up.  how abouts?

1) pens with the clicker function so as not to have to bother with that thankless capping and uncapping action

2) the one episode of “Yes Dear” I saw maybe three years ago.  I’d just heard so much smack talked about that show, I really didn’t mean to like it…

3) juggling behind this school tennis court adjacent to my work when i need to get out of the office.  i can’t really juggle, and i hope no one can see me, because i look RIDICULOUS

4) the band Wheatus.  Well, that one song they sing, anyway.  actually if we’re talking music, i could sit here all night…I really do love Amy Grant’s album, “Heart in Motion.”  i can’t help it.

5) picking up my dog and making him dance with me.  usually to a “band” in line with the above.  or sometimes, they’ll both be sitting on the couch, a captive audience, so i perform for them, lip syncing into the remote control.  they give me the most disgusted looks. 

6) making lewd portraits in crayola.  actually, a 26 year old shouldn’t like to color as much as I do.  i still get the same feeling as I did when I was 8, at the purchase of a fresh new box of crayons. 

7) Cleaning.  I really enjoy cleaning.  Anyone have a really messy room that needs organizing?  I’ll rock your world.  But stay out of my way, and Maureen, for the LAST time.  Put down that mother f***ing sponge.

Making my own Halloween costume and spending weeks doing so.  Actually, it is almost July…time to start brainstorming ideas, people, who’s with me?  Also, I would like to have a seance, but everyone always says they’re “scared,” when I know you really just think it’s stupid.  Won’t anyone humor me?  Alcohol will be involved?

9) Watching “Terms of Endearment” and keeping a brave face until Shirley McClaine tears into the hospital and tells the nurses it’s time for her daughter’s painkillers, at which point I begin to sob uncontrollably, not letting up until at least an hour after the final credits role.

10) going to the bowling alley by myself to work on my game, and secretly suspecting someone will see me from a far, and tell me i have some sort of raw talent that can be molded.  this actually almost happened once.  well, not really.  i think he was hitting on me. 

i know i have blogged on this topic before, but i need to say:  i just logged out of myspace and they showed me this ad for american apparel with several pictures of this model wearing various colored t-shirts, with the caption “now in 35 colors,” as if they thought of the concept of t-shirts.  oooh, colors, wow.  i’m so impressed.  i bet they are needlessly overpriced too.  i just don’t get this company, and people have tried to explain to me that they pay their workers fair wages or something, which is fine, but why not pay them to actually make clothing i would actually consider wearing outside of my bed?  i don’t get it!   

and fuddy duddy to understand the charm and appeal behind this movie coming out in July called “Captivity.”  Their whole log line is “Abduction, Confinement, Torture, Termination.”  Then, I read the plot description, which is only that a woman is abducted and “methodically tortured” by some asshole.  I find it all very offensive.  Just those two words together make me kind of want to vomit.  This happens to real women all the time, and it isn’t a joke, and it certainly isn’t something you pay $12 dollars to see. 

I guess just don’t understand this genre of  “entertainment.”  like, last time i was at blockbuster, I was HORRIFIED to see that they’ve made a gross B movie about the BTK guy and EVERY COPY was rented.  a movie about real people who were viciously murdered.  NOT entertainment.  TRAGEDY.  

wow, this blog was actually kind of serious.    okay, i’m going to go back to listening to my Bible on tape while darning socks and yelling at those confounded neighbor kids to, for the last time, keep down that infernal ruckus.

don’t think i’m a partier.  oblividay = being tucked into bed by midnight with a belly swollen full of french fries.  i know, CRAZY, right?

many of you may not know this, but for a time back in 2004, i had a young Korean protege.  it was my job to show him around, let him take me bowling, so that he could learn from me, an archetype of the lifestyle, just exactly what being “american” is all about.

well one day we were eating at one of those china type restaurants he liked to take me to, and i finally came out and asked him what the heck’s up with chopsticks. 

he laughed and said to me, “Foolish American,” which kind of took me off guard; who did he think was the mentor in this equation, anyway? “You with your forks that pierce into your food, damaging its quality. In our culture, food is like sacred art work, and we utilize only tools which would dare not compromise this beauty.” 

“Oh yeah?”  I replied.  “Then if your’e so worried about damaging that egg roll, maybe you should think twice before letting it travel through your digestive tract.” 

No, I didn’t reall say that.  But i was thinkin’ it….

(p.s. everything about that story is true except my protege’s sagacious demeanor, as well as, everything else I said.  no, i’m kidding. it’s true.  except the sagacious demeanor part.  man, this conversation is going in circles.)

Is the new Saturday.  Why even wake up on Saturday if you’re not planning on getting totally, recklessly, belligerently drunk?  I want to get so drunk on this coming Oblividay, that I get into some sort of throw down, vaguely erotic and gyrating, fist fight.  I won’t be happy until blood is spilt, or until I can surreptitiously cop a feel.  who’s with me?!

i like to use them, because i figure, that way, more people might actually read them if they are tricked into believing I might actually write about something vaguely interesting or insightful for once.