Police, Fat Bottomed Girls, and Other Things Not to Complain About

The first speeding ticket I ever got was in Crawfordsville, Indiana.  A state highway runs right through the middle of town, but for the part of the highway that is in town, it is no longer a highway.  So, coming in or going out, it’s not unusual (to be loved by you) to find yourself traveling at 15-20 clicks faster than the posted speed limit.  My brother and I were driving back to West Lafayette (where we live) from Greencastle (where my first college was), and we were most of the way through town, and then “Fat Bottom Girls” by Queen came on, and what else can you do when they hit that opening chord than harmonize along and step on the gas pedal?

                Nothing, that’s what.  Police officer was right behind the overpass, just a-waitin’.  I would not be surprised if the police department, when they are low on their quota late in the month, has the oldies and classic rock stations play that song four or five times an hour, just waiting for people to throw their heads back and their right foot down.

                I’m not one of those guys that bash police, though.  I think in general the men in blue are a pretty upright bunch.  I’m sure my perspective would be different if I had grown up in a crime-heavy area, or if somebody I knew had actually been the victim of police brutality.  As it was, there was very little opportunity for me to hate the police growing up.  Pretty much, they helped coach our little league teams, pulled over a parent or two for speeding, and maybe caught teenagers smokin’ the reefer every once in a while.  An overall benign bunch.

                On an unrelated note, I need to say something about this new thing that people are getting into: “emo”.  It’s short for “emotional”.  As far as I can discern, this is a way for guys to justify being overly emotional.  No apologies for crying.  No need to seek forgiveness for losing your temper.  Week-long drinking binges because you “feel down”. 

                I would like somebody who considers himself “emo” to tell me that I am wrong in my observations here.  My roommate is among these and this is how he laid things out to me.  Basically, you are a very up and down personality that takes pride in violent mood swings.

                Well, let me say something to the men (boys) who are really into this stuff.  Everybody feels really low sometimes.  A lot of people feel really low a lot of times.  A lot more people than you probably realize.  All in all, it seems to be a very self-pitying movement.  A very self-centric view, to say that not only do you experience a range of human emotions, you experience a broader range, and that you move along that spectrum more quickly and more often than other people, sometimes from one end to the other all in a single day.

                Two points here.  1, no you don’t.  You convince yourself that you do.  2, if you do, that is not something to be overly proud about.  It’s called being a teenager.  Now, as one who experienced adolescence somewhere between football games and wrestling meets, I understand that sometimes the trusty ticker goes up and down irrationally.  I mean, that’s just our good friends hormones at work.  But when you’re 27 and college educated and in a band, there really is no longer a good reason to think that your biology is behaving differently than everybody else.

                “But Beef, maybe that’s just how they are.  I mean, they can’t help how they’re made.”  Well, that’s true.  You can’t always help which way your emotions are tugging you at a given moment.  But that’s the difference between somebody who is still in the crawling stages of emotional maturity, and somebody who is in the walking stages.  When somebody brags about “when I’m up, I’m really up, but then I’ll get down and just be depressed for, like, two weeks” I think to myself: is that something to be proud of?  Having no control over how you act just because of what’s going on inside of you?

                I should point out that it is not a grammatical mistake that I have referred to “emo” kids only in the male form so far.  Girls cannot be “emo”.  I don’t have the statistics here in front of me, but I think we can all agree that girls, in general, are more emotional than guys.  And this is not only from my 20 years of observation and countless testimonies from actual, real girls that I have talked to (it’s happened).  We learned about it in Psych.  From a female professor.  It’s science.

                Which is not to put the female gender down, in any way.  I think girls are fine just the way they are, for the most part.  At the very least, they are closer to being decent human beings than a lot of guys are.  But they don’t need to be labeled “emo”.  They already are a rather emotional bunch.  Guys have learned to live with it, to help deal with it, even if we don’t fully understand what’s going on.

                But “emo” kids (they call themselves kids, almost as a subtle nod to the fact that a lack of willingness to actually deal with emotions is an incredibly childish way to behave) are males that are doing their very best to act like girls in an effort to impress them.  It is very much like the metrosexual movement, in which guys act overly concerned about their appearance, hygiene, general smell, etc. in an effort to emulate (and impress) girls.  This whole gender reversal thing strikes me as both incredibly desperate and generally homosexual in nature.  I mean, being overly emotional, being overly concerned with fashion and style are degrees of emasculation.  A little extrapolation later and you’re cockless, brother.  And I doubt many girls would be impressed with that.

OLS: There’s a line between male & Female, Adult & child.  When you blur it, it’s hard to take you seriously.

                

   

 

The rest of the tHoughts             11.3.05