Look Ahead In Anger

There are things you can do to make sure you're not angry all the time.  I have several myself.

I don't watch local news, or any show about celebrity gossip.  Unless you count the Soup, which makes fun of shows like that but also sometimes makes me angry.

I don't listen to commercial radio.  Classic rock or pabulum rock stations ensure that shitty songs that are stuck in my head because I listened to radio when I was younger are more permanently etched in my brain; modern stations remind me how sad & soulless the music industry really is.

I mean, the same songs that I loathe now that I had to listen to over & over when I was ten are not only still being played, but if you're a ten-year-old & your parent is listening to whatever godawful radio station plays the ordure that you might see at a Grammy or American Music Awards ceremony, you're now, years later, in the same boat we all are: we know all the words to fucking Billy Joel songs.  There's got to be some way to make our parents pay for that.

I don't engage in any online discussions ever.  About two years ago I had a simple question I asked a conservative friend & she decided to respond by shitting vitriol into my eyes.  It's already a cliché that people are bigger assholes behind their screen names than they would actually be in real life.  But Christ, why even bother?  Have you ever been swayed by a rational argument on a message board?

I don't always tell people my opinion about something.  It's much easier to smile & nod while someone talks to you about a transcendent experience at something they did which was so obviously horrible that you wouldn't wish Gitmo detainees to experience it.  Oh, & I hope they do the same for me.

I do try not to be so negative.  I try not to say "don't" all the time.  Especially in lists.

I mean...  Oh hell.