tittytangents.com

In a book I recently read, I came across a very interesting quote. It said that “every attempt to persuade people that something is good (or bad) in itself, and not merely in its effects, depends upon the art of rousing feelings, not upon an appeal to evidence.”

Because I understand that mentioning a moment of fear I experienced when I was sure I was wearing nothing flame retardant to inhibit the fiery mess I’d make if I happened to explode from rage when I witnessed four men bouncing and lip syncing to “Hot and Cold” will do little to bring about sympathy, I will attempt to persuade you all that Katy Perry is bad by employing a strategy that will both rouse emotions and appeal to evidence.

Point 1: Katy Perry offers nothing unique to the musical world.

A relatively rational individual who has listened to Ms. Perry’s music for any length of time will come upon two conclusions: the songs are catchy as genital herpes and the lyrics bring to mind a dump truck full of stale mixed metaphors covered in smelly cliches. Her big hit songs include such lyrical gems as “I kissed a girl, and I liked it”, “you’re so gay and you don’t even like boys”, and the entirety of the chorus for “Hot and Cold”. Hooray, Katy! You kissed a girl like so many drunk chicks before you in an attempt to explore your sexuality and test the limits of your relationship! How we laud you and your open-mindedness! News flash: I don’t fucking care, and that’s mostly because that song was done 13 years ago way more impressively by someone more talented than you times infinity. And how can a guy be gay if he doesn’t like boys? I know you’re not aware of the more old-fashioned usage of the word, so are you using “gay” as an insult? How urbane. And could you please be more creative than “hot and cold”, “yes and no”, “up and down”? I know your manager probably informed you that your core audience would be 15 year-old girls and boys of varying levels of intelligence, but I doubt he said “your songs can only be as smart as your dumbest fan.”

Point 2: There is nothing extraordinary about her music.

I think it would be safe to say that her two biggest draws are her infectiously catchy melodies and the shock value of “going there”. Her songs are frequently stuck in my head, I’ll give her that. I’d also give her a kick to the tits if I had the chance for believing for even a New York minute that she’s unique and groundbreaking in any way. Oh, my! She’s not even bothering to mask her messages with symbolism or allusions! What will we do with this bare-bones barrage? Um, we could always take the lack of extra effort to conceal for what it is: an inability to craft thoughtful phrases due to a weak literary imagination. It’s so tired to be bold these days. We’ve had blatant and wild since the ’60′s back when it really was shocking, so if you want to be someone today you’ve really gotta bring it. Does she bring it? No. I’d rather have to research the meanings of lyrics to get the full understanding than begin the process of wading out into the wordy waters only to realize I’m standing in a puddle. I’ve been sensing a downward spiral in popular music in the past few years, and in the same way I doubt humans today are the pinnacle of evolution, I also doubt Katy Perry will mark the end of pop’s devolution. That frightens me deeply.

Point 3: I have too much in common with Katy Perry to not hate her.

Katy Perry is female. I am female. Instant connection. I have no desire to transition in order to escape this gender commonality with her, but nor would I three-move check-mate the males of this world into death by shame by coercing her to have a gender identity epiphany and transition herself. I also wouldn’t dare to slide her over into the androgynous category as mentioned by Aristophanes since I consider the modern application of androgyny to be quite attractive. Unfortunately, the only solution might be to make Katy Perry a former member of the human race. She’s a blight on humanity and we must act swiftly and without mercy. Immediate excommunication.

I have more points, but I grow weary of reining in my fury in order to present hard-hitting facts to further discredit this musical scam artist. If there is anybody brave enough to rebut me, please bring it on. I do so love a debate, and I feel confident that I could verbally decapitate an opponent in this battle. In the same way that we cannot help with whom we fall in love, we likewise cannot help what we find to be an auditory pleasure. So long as the affection for Ms. Perry and her stupid-ass songs is only skin-deep, I am confident I can remain friends with anyone who does not 100% agree with me on this.

As promised, here is a legitimate update of recent events.

The plan for last night was for me and my friend to drive to Boston, find the theater where the concert would be, park nearby, walk to the theater, enjoy the show, walk back, drive home.

What actually happened was we were a late getting on the road, I missed one bloody sign (or did I just fall victim to a recent sign-stealing crime and miss it because there was not one there?), and pulled over to get directions. The woman was very helpful and wrote stuff out for me. What she could not help me with was the utter lack of signs that would make me feel like I was even remotely in the right area. So I pulled over again and headed back in the exact direction I had come from to get to where I needed to go. So then the haphazard directions which I was then cursing caused me to wind all the way around crazy streets to that this landmark would be on the correct side of us. To make what will be a long story a little shorter, the road we needed to be on magically appeared, I turned around to find parking, we found it, and celebrated. Smoke if you got ‘em. We left at about 6 and it was 8:30 when we left the car.

Then we started walking. We assumed getting directions on foot would be easier than while driving, but we were incorrect. We walked down blocks, doubled back, looped around, asked for directions, went back the way we came, asked again, turned corners, searched for our street signs, asked for directions twice more, and finally found where we needed to be (which was going to be on our right according to the last guy we asked, but it was really on the left). The concert started at 8 and it was 9:30 when we walked in.

The show, at least what we saw of it, was good. Dir en Grey are good performers, so that was a treat. Some ornery skeez with boots that her calves were trying to escape from kept standing in the middle of the aisle with her scraggly-haired boyfriend and appeared to be ready to fight with one of the show staff. I wanted to see that happen. It’s not fucking hard to move back into where you were, you whore. Stop acting like the universe is wronging you. Ps you look like a wad of hamburger balanced on two toothpicks.

The show ended and we left without merch. I said I’d give my brother and his friend (my friend’s ex– kind of awkward) a ride home. Given that we had gone through so much shit to just finally arrive at the theater, it was perfectly understandable that we had a hard time getting to the car. Cut to us finding the car in a location I never would have even guessed to check almost two hours later. I couldn’t have gotten back to the theater from there if I tried.

Luckily, my brother has come into his own as a navigator and we managed to finagle a viable route onto the highway. I cannot drive and work a map at the same time, so I was glad to have him in the backseat soothing me with his confidence and optimism. The drive home was easy enough. I was exhausted and kept driving just to keep us going. I was planning on driving to the video game store and pick up the World of Warcraft expansion, but I missed the exit and even taking the next possible ones every time threw us out way far away. So I said “Fuck you!” and angrily drove back into town to drop off our friends. We got home around 3 and I promptly passed out like an alkie on St. Paddy’s day.

Oh, and you wanna know one of the worst parts of last night? The part that really made me feel like extracting my brain through my anus with a rusty fishing hook?

I had a Katy Perry song stuck in my head almost the whole night.