Posted on by Doyce

Stress relief

(I will preface this post by stating that no one I know likes the music I like – not all of it. Someone might like Tupac, but think BNL is too silly to be real music, or like BNL, but disregard rap as a wasteland of skill-free thugs. That’s all right. I understand that my tastes do not suit anyeveryone. We’re all entitled to opinions. These are mine. So there.)

Secret to peaceful work.

  • Play the CBT (computer-based training) for software you have no interest in learning, but that everyone else wants you to know.
  • Put on headphones, ostensibly because the CBT has a voiceover, and you want to be considerate of others.
  • Shut off the voiceover option.
  • Play Avril while you flip through the CBT manually.

Yeah, she’s seventeen and does some of the same dumb stuff I did at that age (there are a few fashion mistakes she’ll be regretting in a year or two, if my experiences are any indication), but dammit, I like Avril Lavigne. I bought Let Go two months ago and frankly the only complaint I have is that I don’t have enough copies of it to keep me properly saturated at work, home and in the car. It’s hard to get sick of the music when every song is just a little bit different in style.
Whatever. I’m a lame old man listening to a seventeen-year-old singing pop, but at least she’s writing her own stuff, and at least I’m listening because I really like it.*

* – By rights, I suppose I should be listening to Dave Matthews, who is so deeply revered by my demographic that he could sign his name to a steaming pile of dog crap and sell it to my panting, sweating generation without even trying**. I guess he’s just not my cup of tea – give me fire, attitude, and harmonized anger-management issues***.
** – Can’t remember where I first heard this sentiment expressed re: D Matthews? Seki? P’raps.
*** – One of the ways I’ve heard Linkin Park described, which seems aptly put.

5 Replies to “Stress relief”

  1. Yea me too.
    I’m expressly forbidden to play my music when others are in my bunker.
    No one I work with enjoys my music.
    Johnny Cash
    Siouxie and the Banshees
    The Creatures
    Hayseed Dixie
    Sweet
    David Bowie
    Nitzer Ebb
    Moot the Hoople
    MSG
    I need an XM radio tuner in my hole.

  2. I don’t remember saying that about Dave Matthews…but I’ve certainly thought it enough times. I sprain my finger these days stabbing at the radio buttons when another of his whiny, “love me” songs begins. I long for the days of “Ants Marching” and “Under the Table and Dreaming.” The man knows how to rock, he’s proven that, yet he insists on churning out this Lite FM pap. To boot, he has an enunciation problem that does not lend itself at all to the ballady crap. So yes, all in all, I’d like his clarinet/saxophone/whateveritis player to beat Dave with it until he falls into a coma…or comes to his senses.

  3. This is where I get to play every expatriate Canadian’s favourite game:
    “She’s Canadian, eh?”
    (The Game, by the by, is to point out any prominent personality as Canadian, lest we become invisible when we cross the border.)
    That said, mmmm… Avril… (I actually heard a DJ refer to her as April a few times. Mind you, he’s not that far off, just using the wrong language.)

  4. I’m a big fan of Spinner. (Spinner.Com — now it’s going to Radio @ Netscape, but…) It’s suits my very short musical attention span. (I can only like so much of anything. So I have Celtic and World Music and their “Awesome80sII” channel and…I switch around regularly.) But it does require an internet connection…

  5. My iPod keeps me sane at work. Fortunately, She Who Screeches and Sings Doobie Brothers Tunes Loudly just moved downstairs, so I don’t have to listen to her any more.

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