The Cynic’s Cache

Several years ago, back in the days when I still could tolerate television, I caught a few minutes of a show that was all about plastic surgery. It was about all of the strange procedures that people will go through to make themselves beautiful. Some of them were downright silly, nit-picky things like calves. One guy seriously got calf implants because he hated how skinny his legs were on the bottom half. All sorts of ridiculousness followed.

The thing is, that isn’t the thing that sticks out in my memory the most. What really sticks out was the receptionist at the surgeon’s office. She was perfect. I’m talking, absolutely perfect. Her skin was that particular color of tan that everybody strives for. Here breasts were a lovely shape and that 36DD size everybody wishes for. She had a perfect hourglass figure and a flawless face. It looked like the surgeon put her under and then hacked at her body until she was perfect.

The problem was, she was so perfect, it made her hideous.

At the time, I was still a teenager. Considering that I was alone and unlikely to be bothered by anybody else, I logically should have been immediately aroused. The thing is, I wasn’t. Rather the opposite. I was actually disgusted by the woman.

This is another one of the many things that confuses me about modern Western society. In our quest to be perfect, some of us forget that we’re still human. I think this was a grand example of this odd phenomenon. I don’t know about everybody else, but I tend to be much less interested in the perfect.

The thing is, flaws keep somebody interesting. Flaws make a person more unique. Most importantly, we aren’t (yet) a society of clones. Why, then, is there one singular image of perfection that so many of us strive for?

Discuss on the forums.

Since my first day working with the public I have noticed an increasing number of people who have weaseled their way into being “disabled” through utterly stupid methods. As the years go on, disability benefits and medical treatment meant for people that are truly disabled are getting eaten up by people that would be able-bodied if they could be bothered to get up and do something.

I’m referring to the type of person that has gained hundreds of pounds simply because they’re lazy. I’m referring to the type of person that will ride an electric cart around the grocery store because they can’t be bothered to walk. I’m referring to the type of person that will complain if they can’t have a booth three feet away from the door of a restaurant. I’m referring about the type of person who will circle the parking lot until they find a spot less than four slots out from the front door.

That is, until they become unable to walk because they’ve grown too fat. This is the day many of them end up with a “disabled” sticker on their cars and get to park two feet away from the door.

Now that a retail job pays my rent, I deal with these people on a daily basis. I will readily admit that they are some of the most infuriating customers to deal with. Without fail, they do little other than complain. They roll around in the silly little carts, griping about mysterious fattening medical conditions that their doctors just can’t seem to cure. Oh, and God help you if there isn’t a cart waiting for them two inches away from the door.

People that are genuinely broken and actually need a cart to get around either bring their own or will wait patiently for one to get ridden back to the front door. I wish more people could have that attitude. Sadly, this is an unfortunate situation for several reasons.

First off is the fact that us lowly retail drones get to hear a lot of yelling, bitching, and general whining whenever the place is busy and the carts aren’t available. The worst is when there is one that recently died and had to be recharged. Apparently, the fact that I can’t wave my hand, say “wallamazoopha!” and recharge the battery in seconds makes me a bad person. Every time somebody that is perfectly capable of walking around the store yells at me for not having an electric cart for them, I come an inch closer to committing genocide.

Second off, and more sadly, is the fact that these people refuse to acknowledge the fact that these carts are there for people that actually need them. How little concern they show for the rest of the human race amazes me. I once watched a woman literally run in front of a person with crutches and a broken leg to get the cart first. It was one of the most confusing things I have ever seen.

I always thought that the way to earn your keep in the world was to get off of your ass and actually do something. These days, it seems to not be the case. If you’re willing to simply lay down and expand, society will give you a free meal ticket and provide you electric carts to get everywhere.

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Available here.

Now here is something that I could really take a deep liking to. This song has a steady beat that isn’t hurried, a nice variation that keeps things interesting and fresh, and nothing that really reaches out and grab your attention. This is the kind of thing I’d listen to while I was working on some project or another and didn’t want my music to distract me or make me work too fast.

What I like most about this song is the weird mix of distorted noise and strings. I can’t explain it, but it just works.

Really, not much else to say other than “Toxie approved.”

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Available here.

This is another one of those songs that I’m going to have really mixed feelings about. I like the strange, experimental ethic of it, but the main line strikes me as too simple for most of the song. Perhaps I’m just being picky, as most of the other stuff I like.

This one has some funny noisy stuff going on that I can’t help but like. The strange vocal-ish stuff really fits the whole thing well, giving it that mind-warping edge that I have come to expect from the deep ends of the electronic spectrum. What can I say? I’m a sucker for anything weird.

Of course, as the track goes on (it’s over ten minutes), things just never got exciting. There was a lot of repetition, but no building up or breaking down. Stuff just happens. This makes the song uninteresting overall. Neat things happen, but nothing to snag my attention enough to listen to it repeatedly. The abrasiveness also gets a bit old as the track wears on. That doesn’t mean that the sandpapery sound is bad, it just gets old.

Not a bad song by any stretch, but also not a great one.

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Available here.

This isn’t your granddad’s song about death. This is much, much more goofy.

One Kid’s Lunch are one of those bands that I wish I could remember to check on periodically. The fact is, I lik them. They’re rocky, they get goofy, and do all sorts of interesting things.

In this case, OKL’s Dave tells me that it’s pre-OKL, weirder than usual, and thrashy. Really, this hits the nail on the head. This is a nice little rocky-sounding song that reminds me of bands like the Ramones. This I especially hear in the vocals, the lyrics, and the song’s subject matter.

I can’t help but love a song based on Death coming during a really inopportune moment. The lyrics talk about him showing up while in the middle of an ice cream sandwich. Hence the name of the song, I guess.

It took me quite some time to notice that the song is otherwise pretty standard rock fare. That isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but I find it most interesting that it wasn’t something OKL tried to hide. Rather, it sounds like it was deliberate to fit the goofy lyrics. Sounds like they didn’t want to distract you from the vocals.

Normally, I’d complain about the recording job, which is imperfect. However, Dave specifically said that it’s a “rough version,” so I’ll let it slide.

This song is lovable, goofy, and sounds nice. This gets a “Toxie Approved.”

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Available here.

Sounds like rap metal to me. I will admit that rap metal is one of my guilty pleasures. I shouldn’t like it, but I do. This sounds like somebody trying to make rap metal that just doesn’t quite get it yet.

The first thing I need to complain about is the recording job on this one. The noises just get too loud and made my headphones shit themselves more than once. The balance is way off in quite a few parts, especially in the intro. The guitar-ish thing kicks in and drowns out the vocals. Then things just get worse.

The grinding voice in this one needs work. I can’t give a lot of pointers on that as I’m not an expert in such things, but I do need to recommend working on it. It sounds horrible.

Then there’s the rapping. Some parts were actually decent, but others, it sounded like it was written to make. Ever. Word. A. Different. Sentence. In these parts, every syllable was pronounced on the downbeat and chopped off like it was being choked out. It made me feel like blood was going to shoot out of my ears.

Then there’s the post-processing. Or at least, what I hope was post-processing. Some of the vocal parts sounded like they were run through a light tube distortion that simply made them sound like they were spoken through a really terrible walkie-talkie.

Oh, Mr. Grimm? Rap isn’t a competition to see how many times you can say “bitch” in the background of the sound. That made you sound like an ass.

In conclusion, I think the Brothaz Grimm need to head back to the drawing board. With more effort, they could get good. However, right now they suck.

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Available here.

This is a perfect example of everything I hate about rap. Seriously. The beat sounds nice, but is ruined by a bunch of awful rapping.

I’d type more about this song, but I don’t want to think about it any more.

Don’t bother listening to it.

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Available here.

I think this song made me diabetic.

This is one of those reviews that you should especially take with a grain of salt, as this song made me want to tear my face off with a rusty hacksaw. The thing is some horrible, sugary, happiness-injected abomination. It’s the kind of song I would expect to hear before some terrible cartoon marketed toward five-year-olds.

You know what I’m talking about. The characters refuse to do anything but smile. There are rainbows everywhere, nothing ever goes wrong, and the characters all talk like everybody watching is mentally retarded.

Mind you, I like this guy’s voice and the arrangement of the song tells me that he knows his way around music. I’ll even say something nice and mention that the song’s rhythm is quite nice. Why must somebody with actual talent make such terrible music? I could understand if this was specifically written for a show.

Actually, somebody go make a show called The Huggy Bunch so this has a reason to exist.

What remains a mystery is the Portal sample at the end of the song. I can’t make sense of it.

This song really gets under my skin. If you like sugar for the ears, give this a listen. If not, avoid it like a rabid wolverine with the plague and a chainsaw attached to its forehead.

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Available here.

Rap is one of those genres that I’ll admit is a bit iffy to me. On one hand, I love the rhythmic complexity that breaks out of it. I often find myself more interested in the beat than the rapping. The fact is, I think most rap is absurdly terrible.

I say this because this here is just a beat. There is a vocal loop hidden in the rhythm, but is far from the focus of the beat itself. Really, I think it worked with the beat quite well. The chopped up vocals became more like a part of the beat than the song itself. Well done, that.

More interestingly, I actually found myself tapping my foot with the rhythm of the beat. This is a good example of what I actually like about rap and its subgenres. Nice, steady beats that I could put on when I want to have music that won’t distract me with vocals.

Of course, I find myself wondering what is going to end up happing with this one. I’m tempted to break out my own terrible rapping skills and see what I can do, though it will likely never see light. Either way, I’m partially interested in what will eventually be done with this beat, if only to find out what horrible train wreck will be rapped over it.

Solid beat. Recommended for rappers looking for backing.

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This is an article that I have wanted to write for quite some time but could just never write it properly. It was either entirely too long or rambled around randomly entirely too much.

Hopefully, this final version is both coherent and shorter than the previous. Hopefully I still get my point across.

There are questions about men that I have heard from women repeatedly over the years that are easily answered by understanding this simple statement. There are also a great deal of women that misunderstand the statement “Bros before hos.” Some are simply ignorant, while others deliberately misinterpret it.

This article is meant to both explain it, the attitude behind it, and hopefully answer a few related questions.

First, take a look at the words, one by one. Everything begins with “bro.” It’s a simple word, just one syllable. Most would assume that it happens to be a shortened version of “brother.” This is correct.

Now allow me to elaborate. Most men have that small gang of guys that they hang out with more than any other of their friends. Chances are, if he says “I was out with the guys,” these are the guys he is referring to. These are the guys that get him drunk when his girlfriend breaks up with him to help him forget. These are the guys that buy him tacos and salami when he’s too broke to eat. These are the guys he meets to go see that awesome action movie that just hit the theaters.

Most importantly, these are the guys he has known for many years. Chances are, any guy you can pick off the street has a circle of guy friends that is pretty closely knit. Perhaps he has known them since high school or college, perhaps they just happened to be the group that took him in when he moved into the area. The details vary, but the result is usually the same.

The next word is “before,” as in, ahead of in sequence. A guy’s “bros” are usually very important to him. This is where the phrase “brotherly love” really starts to show. Guys are rarely heard saying “I love you” to one another and will sometimes hit somebody that suggests the idea of “loving” another guy, of course, the the simple fact is, after being friends for a long time, men form bonds that are almost as strong as those of brothers.

A guys bros are important to him, even if he refuses to admit it vocally. Men are usually reluctant to give up their bros for much of anything. He’ll help out his bros and they help him out. Through thick and thin, they stick together, despite the best efforts of some of their exes.

Which brings us to “hos.” Why that word? Well, it rhymes with bros, gives the phrase a catchy ring to it, and is a word useful to describe a woman you don’t like. This is most likely the most important definition of the whole article.

Before I continue, I’d like to point out that this does not necessarily mean that men are advising each other to treat women like walking dickholders. Though there are men out there like that (I won’t deny it), not all men have that attitude. This is also not trying to insist that all women are just prostitutes or harlots, either.

No, it just happens to be a negative word that worked.

There actually is a good reason for the negativity. The advice is that a man think of his bros first and foremost. If he gets with a bad woman that tries to separate him from his friends, she is supposed to be dropped first. If a guy starts seeing a woman that drives a huge wedge between him and his friends or gets irate when he wants to hang out with them, she is supposed to be dropped first.

Think about it for a moment. A man will usually know his bros for years. Sometimes, for his entire life. Sometimes, there are guys that have been his friends since preschool. Sometimes, these are guys that helped him survive a bad breakup. Through thick and thin, these guys stick with their friend no matter what.

And then here comes a new woman, entering his life, trying to destroy this brotherhood that they have developed over the years. Sound bad? Yes.

For those that think I am hating on all women, hear me out.

Note that “ho” is a negative word. Not all women are hos, nor does this apply to all women. If you are the type of woman that refuses to get angry over your boyfriend wanting to go play with his friends from time to time, you don’t qualify as a ho. If you don’t bring a strain on his relationships with his bros, you don’t qualify as a ho. If you treat your boyfriend fairly and are a considerate girlfriend, you don’t qualify as a ho. Sure, a guy’s bros will poke fun at him in most cases, but don’t sweat it. The simple fact is, if you don’t come between a man and his bros, then you won’t be a ho, and thus, won’t need to worry about the bros coming first.

However, if you deliberately attempt to separate a man from his bros, you are most likely going to fall to the “bros before hos” attitude eventually. Hey, it’s your own fault.

Discuss on the forums.