Dear Mother Nature:

What the HELL?!! Every year people have been geared with basements filled with salt, and refrigerators stocked with milk and eggs waiting to go bad because the fools at all the weather channels who invested millions of dollars in their Doppler 2000’s swear this is the year of the impending doom with Nor’easters and Blizzards of the century.

You confuse the hell out of us with your buzz about global warming, how all the glaciers are melting, our polar bears are dying and bees are disappearing. WHAT IS GOING ON?! Glaciers melting!?! I have a glacier hanging off the end of my nose as we speak.

I swear you are totally screwing with us and I had just about enough. Every year you threaten us and it never pans out and now this year you dump 1000 feet of snow on us in 2 months. What has changed to make you so angry? It really would help if you get it off your chest. Saplings misbehaving? Old man winter hitting the bottle again? The tides messing with your cycle?

Mama, the people of Earth need a break. There is only so much strength left in us to shovel yet another buried car. My roof is weak as it is, are you trying to make it collapse? You tease us with its beauty when it first falls but then we are left with the sludge, the 12 foot mounds on the side of the road, and the icy sidewalks.

Now there are talks of yet another storm next week; bigger and badder then the last you say. If this continues who knows what could happen. All the salt consumption could affect the oceans and kill off all the saltwater sea life. All the migrating birds will die off because it will be winter and cold everywhere and no place to fly south. Baseball season will not exist and the Phillies will not have the chance to reign supreme yet again.These are just a few things you should take into consideration before you go spewing off your mouth with more threats of a Snowpocalypse (oh, and come on…snowpocalypse…a bit dramatic don’t you think). I don’t know, maybe you’re still pissed about the butter-margarine thing from the 70’s but that was then so lets move on. A predictable boring rest of the winter would be much appreciated. Thanks.

CT

The pictures of you and your inner circle sitting around trying to look un-phased and ironic are of no interest to me. Purposely mizpelling words do not make you edgy or creative. Misquoting song lyrics does not make you a poet by association but it does makes you unoriginal. The stories you tell riddled with F-bombs and naked pictures you play off as artsy do not capture the shock factor you think it will. You are already forgotten; an affected wannabe rebel in a very small fishbowl with 5 minutes of recognition and a lifetime of holding on. Please stop throwing your friends under the bus, and your hair looks redic (and not in a good way). I gave you a chance but deleted the feed.

-ct

I’m tearing it open I’m ripping it up, I’m throwing it out, I’m shredding what’s left. I’m standing above it, I’m staring down, I’m stepping over, I barrel through. I’m pounding it out, I’m shaking it hard, I’m mixing it up, I’m throwing it out. I’m kickin’ it far, I pummel it down, I’m grinding it in, and I’m walking away.

–CT

I feel like I’ve been so engrossed in the world of Indie music that I’m completely out of touch with all the mainstream music that’s shoved down our throats in the USA. I heard my first Lady GaGa song right before the Grammy’s.  I listen to a station in Philly that plays a variety of music but mostly Indie and alternative. I don’t think they’ve ever mentioned the name Lady GaGa on air, let alone play her music. This is the reason I’ve remained a GaGa virgin for so long. Don’t’ get me wrong I know exactly who she is, I know all about her crazy outfits, alleged penis and shoes so distorted even a Geisha would wince. What does that say about an artist when their gimmick is more recognizable than their talent? Who convinced this woman that she needed to go that route? I have a video on my blog of one Stephani Germanotta with long brown hair sitting at a piano looking very bohemian, belting out a song with more integrity then I’ve ever heard before. She doesn’t need the carney act we would’ve believed without the glitter and spandex.

I think we are a nation who expects all the bells and whistles mostly because of the Hollywood scene and now we expect our musicians to deliver the same kind of theatrics. The Peas and their dancing alien beat boxes; Beyonce with her army of Storm Trooper’s, and even Green Day with their new career venture as the pseudo punk version of Andrew Lloyd Weber with the latest Broadway Rock Opera. Sorry not a fan of Green Day or Broadway musicals.

It’s refreshing when a true rock band wins an award. A band who’s idea of theatrics is when the lead singer performs the last-minute of the last song on his knees; who’s stage set consists of a black backdrop, blinking light panels and the random close up of their faces which never show enough of the hotty drummer in the band. I can tell you in my humble opinion the honesty of the music and simplicity of a solid performance is the thing that keeps drawing me in and will keep me coming back until the band chooses not to do it anymore. It’s the integrity and the purity of the music that the awards should be based on and not who can do the best Cirque D’Soleil act. All I’m saying is the soundtrack of my life doesn’t come with fireballs, acrobats or dancing robots, it’s not what I will remember.  It’s the sound and the words, the feeling it gave me, and the people I shared this passion with.

Obviously not all the awards are based on popularity or record sales, I think true talent is recognized more often than not but as in most things politics are always involved. I take award season with a grain of salt every year and watch to see the pretty outfits, my favorite Rock Stars, and Movie Stars and every once in awhile I hope to be pleasantly surprised by a good honest choice.