/writings/

Official blog and geeky manifesto of The Ruku

Brainfart (or ‘How Being a Paranoid Whacko Probably Helped Me Interpret Music and TV shows’)

No Comments »

Being someone who’s paranoid, insecure and -for a lack of a better term, batshit insane; it’s a tough life, especially when you throw “socially retarded” into the mix.

For those who don’t know me well (if at all), I overthink a lot, always try to read between lines and generally make sure there’s no hidden messages in anything and everything I come across in day to day life.

One might think this apparent distrust of everything makes for a frustrating time when it comes to communication and people in general. Sure, it’s a drag, but it’s also a fucking good thing. Overthinking, while annoying as fuck to all involved, is kinda a good thing. Especially when it comes to personal interpretation of various media.

For an example, let’s use a song. In this case, “Oasis” by Amanda Palmer. You may know it if you bothered to watch /videos/.

Basic gist? it’s a lovely little tune about an Oasis fan being raped at a party, getting knocked up and getting an abortion…

…Yeah, charming I know. Oh, she also gets called a crackwhore.

Now, this could be all there is to it. A little punk-cabaret fluff piece with enough questionable content to piss off Granny. I see it just a little bit differently though, like there’s a second layer beyond Oasis, rape and abortions. Let’s overthink this for a second, shall we?

Throughout the song, Amanda’s character has some pretty horrible shit happen to her. In spite of all this, she manages to send out a letter to (presumably) a band she’s a fan of. The band not only gets the letter, but reads it and sends an autographed photo back. Could it be the interaction with Oasis is more or less a metaphor for… I don’t know, anything good that happens in one’s life during a rough period? Looking at it like this, “Oasis” is a song that generally says “life sucks, but there’s always one or two things that make the bullshit worth it in the end”.

Dunno about you, but I feel rather impressed with myself working that out.

Another example is the South Park episode where Cartman and Kyle contract AIDS, thus sending them on a trek to see Magic Johnson who reveals the cure.
Not being one to just enjoy it for what it is. Part of me feels the message here is -in it’s own foul-mouthed way that with enough funding behind it, a cure for AIDS would become a possibility. Same goes for other life-threatening diseases. “Throw money at it for research”. Sure, it’s South Park, so it’s a long shot that it’s meant to have a moral behind the story (outside of if you play basketball, you have a distrust of banks, or “dear god, if people use that HIV-positive joke in public, they will be savagely beaten”), but thats what I took from it.

. Last time I felt this smart, I worked out that the dial on the toaster is a timer, not a heat setting…

…fuck you, that shit blew my mind okay? Nowadays I make pretty awesome toast AND YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY!

You wish your toast was this awesome.

In fact, I may cook some now and ponder what the fuck all that scat-singing bullshit in the first few minutes of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” is meant to mean.