Tender

Did you know that in his 'Try A Little Tenderness', towards the end Otis Redding urges his audience - as one of many proposed tendernesses to try on weary young girls - to 'rub her softly now'? WHY ISN'T ANYBODY LISTENING? The last time I was rubbed softly was in the year 2000, and considering my youth, my occasional weariness, and the quantity of men I've spent quality time with since then - not astronomic, but certainly visible to the naked eye - that's fucking shocking.

Otis Redding was fucking hot. I bet his live shows were fucking unbelievable. Why the fuck someone hasn't made a Johnny Cash/Ray Charles/The Day the Music Died type biopic about him is beyond me considering how fucking lovely he is and how many songs he added to the popular canon. 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay' has got the shit covered out of it but his is still it - no one else I've ever heard has managed to make that song plaintive without whiny, bittersweet without twee. Three fucking days before he fucking dies. What the fuck. Oh Otis. He's one of the reasons aeroplanes scare me shitless. If God could let Otis Redding die in an aeroplane crash, I got dick-all.

This entry is full of parolaccie. I think I'm in a bit of a mood. I knew going into analysis that it wasn't going to be all epiphanies and gumdrops, but I'm starting to understand in a practical way that there are reasons we do the things we do to our heads - that our neuroses protect us. Being frozen into a certain mental or spiritual immobility might kill you slowly, but it saves you from understanding what you want and don't have, what you have and don't want, why you don't want what you don't have but want to want it, what you can do and why you're not doing it, why you have to, and alot of other things. Pop songs are becoming meaningful again; as in Yours to Break, post-break-up meaningful. No Suprises has been in my head for a solid day; I haven't listened to OK Computer for months and months.

I think I need to chill in Italy for awhile. Another pop song that is ever so meaningful for me at the moment is Sirénes de la fête, from the Brazilian Girls. Italian pop might suck, but the lead singer doesn't. I think I've listened to that song at least once a week since I first heard it back in the summer. Speaking of sweet live shows - they put on a sweet live show. The Verve label is still lovely, it seems.

Look! The New York Times thinks movies are suffering from a bout of heavy thought. The New York Times is fucking lame sometimes. Hilary Clinton is lame-ass alot of the time. American 'liberals' are fucking lame sometimes. I mean, the way they let themselves be branded by the right-wing is just pussy-rific. And then they wonder why George Bush won the 2004 election. Lame bastards.