So today’s post, like the previous one, is accompanied by coffee. Gevalia brand, to be exact. No beer in sight…but there’s a good chance there will be later. I am trying to find the best time of day to squash my procrastinating writing ways once and for all, and it seems morning is better for me. This might mean I will have to try Founder’s breakfast stout after all, which has never sounded appealing until now. I sit in my son’s now unoccupied bedroom, at his old desk, and hope his creative aura still lingers enough to make its way into my words. I will try not to be sad at what is not here anymore, be grateful he is on his way to his own life. Our cat sits on my notebook next to me, covering up my chicken scratch post-its, and any sadness quickly evaporates. Aided by addressing the topic at hand, which is that of those ridiculous internet quizzes.

Yes, that’s right. Of all the things to opine about, I am choosing “what Disney princess are you?” and “what your favorite song says about you” nonsense, because if I see one more of these damned things clogging up my newsfeed I WILL SCREAM.

Mind you, these are only two fairly lame examples. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I checked out what seems to be at least one source of all this braininess: Buzzfeed.  I figured in all fairness I should do a little investigating, see if there was some more substantial stuff out there.

Um…not  so much.

The reigning subject that I discovered was that of all things Taylor Swift. Such as, “Which Taylor Swift album are you?”, “Which Taylor Swift lyric should be on your grave?,” and, “Which Taylor Swift BFF are you?.” Aaggghh!

Now, I understand there is a generational gap here. I find her music, persona, everything about her, incredibly uninteresting and bland. Sure, I no longer writhe in teen angst…but when I did I at least listened to Bruce Springsteen moaning about being down by the loveless river. (Now there’s a songwriter who has tombstone-worthy lyrics…and I wouldn’t need a quiz now or then to tell me which of his albums are “me.” Then again, the album I would’ve picked at seventeen vs. now would be totally different. Hey, this sounds like a quiz in the making! Which Bruce Are You? Jersey Girl era, or Born in the USA?

Wait! The aura may be working, because I have an idea…

Maybe this could be my big writing break. Instead of toiling for hours not getting paid and reaching about ten people, I could try to attract thousands of pubescent followers! I could make money telling them if their favorite toenail color is cornflower blue, it must mean they are a sympathetic friend, a PMS psycho, and that they hate McDonald’s french fries because it makes their skin break out. Oh, and they hate their parents 50% of the time, too. Meadow gold girls would be romantics who want to be swept off their feet by their dream prince, Justin Bieber! In between hating their siblings ALL of the time. Wow…this could be maliciously fun and insanely easy.

I think I might be a bit too churlish for the sweet innocents.

I have sympathy for them, though. I get the appeal of these quizzes for the teen set, because at sixteen you are frantically searching for any shred of identity clue you can find. So how does one explain the explosion of quizzes on Facebook, where the majority of my friends are middle aged? Shouldn’t you kind of know by now if you are a dog or cat person? Acoustic or heavy metal? Missionary or on top? Organizer or hoarder? Founder’s Two-Hearted Ale, or Miller Lite? Bonus points for you if you picked Founder’s….chances are you’re not sure what it is, but you know you don’t like anything that tastes and looks like pee.  So, see? You know more about yourself than you think.

I’m pretty sure my peeps are not doing the Taylor Swift quizzes, but a zillion variations of, “what decade are you really from?, movie and media characters that reveal hidden traits, what city/country/type of house do you really belong in? to, “which pinklady from Grease are you?” Yes, it’s all there, along with results that are teeth-grittingly, annoyingly cliche’, and comments like: “Whaatt? This is sooo not me.”  Followed by a different, more desirable result: “Oh yes, this is sooo me. Spot on.”  Seriously. Some hack is probably looking up horoscopes and old Star magazine issues to make these questions up, in between taking hits off a joint, while fragile self-esteems hang in the balance.

Dear friends, please don’t get offended if you are one of these test-takers. I would be bummed if you unfriended me, I really would. I understand that completing the quizzes is likely “just for fun,” and that you are probably (I hope) not taking it seriously. But I have to say, if you spend more than one millisecond analyzing what the “results” mean…you have problems. In the insecurity realm, and toomuchtimeonyourhands kind of problems.

And now, I am one of those who have too much time on their hands, because I trolled until I found a suitable quiz to take. I surmised I had to, so this little piece would be unbiased. I settled on, “What kind of Sexy are you?”…thinking my husband might get a chuckle or two out of my outcome.

I knew immediately I was still in the inappropriate age category by the second question, “What is your secret fantasy?”

One of the choices was: “getting it on while his parents aren’t looking during their next holiday bash.” Even back in the day when this could have been a feasible option, I wouldn’t have found it a thrill. Fumbling, four minute sex? No thank you. So, I picked mile-high club. This is because I think at some point in the distant past, before I had ever seen that an airplane lavatory has enough space for an eight year old child, I thought it sounded fun. Now when I try to visualize it, I just picture Ebola germs and getting sucked down into that little bowl from the air pressure when you flush. Not exactly setting the mood.

After plodding through more unlikely scenarios, I anxiously awaited my results. Here is what it said: “You are Sweet Sexy! You romantic sentimental, you…you are the TAYLOR SWIFT go-to girl! Own your adorable-ness…it lures them in!” I swear to God, I am not making this up. It had to be the “What bra is your spirit animal?” question that did me in. I picked plain, unexciting white over black lace. I don’t like that scratchy stuff, even though it appears to drive men wild. Guess I have to own my adorable-ness to lure him in…lucky for me he’s an easy (and worthy) catch.

And now, the stress over being compared to the horribly dull Ms. Swift is driving me to crack open that Founder’s. Maybe I can drum up a quiz that could tell you which craft beer drinker you are, even if you aren’t. Now THAT would be something actually worth taking, with a result you could depend on. And trust me, your life would be vastly improved. Stay tuned…

Cheers!

So I guess I should have tried to fit coffee in my blog title, along with the pints reference, because I chug caffeine and enjoy it just as much as beer. And I am a coffee snob in much the same manner as beer…meaning, there are some kinds I like MUCH more than others, but am I ever gonna turn it away if its not my preference? Probably not. I have found this out through those nameless coffee packets with machines they leave in hotel rooms. I will usually drink this when I want to be alert at 430 pm, a bad idea on most fronts. It’s pretty much brewed swill, but I choke it down anyway, and wait for the words to flow. Here we go…

You may or may not have heard that recently Apple and the music group U2 collaborated to offer their new album, “Sounds of Innocence,” for free to all ITunes accounts. Of course, technically Apple bought it from U2, so it wasn’t free for them….but whatever they paid is minute in their big picture. So if you had your iphone setting dialed to automatic download, the album appeared with all your other music…no obligations. Sounds good, right?

Wrong.

My first reaction to hearing about this move from U2 was, gee, sales must be bad if an iconic band with years of success has to give their music away. And in general CD sales have hit record lows in recent years. But there is more to the story, as there usually is.

I started to hear about a backlash over this seemingly generous move, that it was an atrocious invasion of privacy and how dare Apple and U2 force this upon people? So I did a little more research into what people were thinking. What I discovered took me by surprise, and it made me very sad. Here are actual comments from various folk across the Internet:

“I’d rather have food poisoning on Christmas than to listen to this,”

“U2 virus, is more like it”

“insipid crap fronted by a washed-out egomaniac”

“a scourge,”

“heavy handed, inappropriate”

“conceited arrogance”

“how do I get this gobshite off my phone?”

“really, really rude”

And, this from a Washington Post staffer: ” like contracting streptococcus,”

Hmmm. To be honest, the media did its usual overplay and gave the negative outcries more attention than to the appreciative audience. I also found many rebuttals suggesting people get over themselves and their fake outrage, that it is a pitiful world in which we love to complain. There were plenty of accusations that anyone bitching about getting something free are just crybaby whiners, that those same invasion- of-privacy protesters post every bowel movement on the anything goes world of Facebook. I tended to side with them, but I will say this: it could have been handled better. We Americans will fight to the death our right to have choice, and to many it seemed like a Big Brother kind of move. The truth is, big corporations like Apple just want it to seem like you have a choice about things, as they pull the strings and watch you move. To believe it is any other way is hopelessly naive.

There has also been some backlash from those in the music industry, and I found their commentary interesting. In an interview, Iggy Pop talked about how musicians who had previously suffered at the hands of record labels and execs who had taken their profits, now were penalized by the digitally empowered public. “We are exchanging the corporate ripoff for the public one, aided by power nerds, computer Putins, who just want to get rich. It has forced the biggest bands (such as U2) to give away music in an effort to stay huge and that kind of sucks.” And I think he is absolutely right, that does suck. And “computer Putins?” What a great line.

What it also does is paint a very sober picture for the average Joe singer/songwriter. He or she is slugging from one honkytonk to another, trying to scrape enough money to pay band mates, pay for studio time, possibly pay a manager for promotions, production, and all that is involved in getting their music out there. It is no cheap endeavor, in fact it runs in the thousands of dollars. No wonder musicians resort to operations such as Kickstarter for funding. It is also no surprise that these same enormously talented people drop out altogether and maybe become useless lawyers. They have to eat, as one songbird with an angelic voice told me.

Bono, in response to the criticism of how his giveaway could affect the rest of the working masses, said no one places more value on music than U2. “We thought this was to be like a gift to ITunes users, who do pay for music…and we were just looking for a way to reach masses of people who had not heard our music.” He also went on to say this was a deeply personal album that felt like giving birth to a baby. And in this aspect, he has a commonality with every songwriter out there…paid or not. This, to me, is what disgusted me the most about all the naysayer muck.

Because writing and performing meaningful songs involves a lot more risk than ringing up groceries at Walmart, mowing 20 lawns a day, or filing paperwork. Musicians are putting themselves out there, on the line, and it doesn’t matter if they are millionaires like U2 or if they’re the coffee shop offering. They are writing about things that matter to them, and they are hoping it will matter to you, too. So, imagine if you were to read comments like “insipid crap” about your life’s work for the past 5 years…with that being a milder comment. I just find it so disheartening. Maybe it’s because I’m the mama bear whose cub is out there, whose words, whose creations are up for crucifixion after months of editing and re-takes. And isn’t just me. I thought his dad was going to punch the judges of a recent songwriting contest in which our cub did not win. He is still growling about the injustice 2 months later.

Of course, U2 has had years to develop a thick skin, and develop it you must to survive in this industry. I also kind of think their next album might have a different delivery.

The takeaway from all this? Here’s what I think:

Nothing is really free…get some perspective on real problems…read fine print in Apple user agreements…and…respect the artist. Buy the music.

And here’s some advice that kind of goes off subject, but is still relevant. For the love of God, pay the cover charge and fill up the tip jar. Listen to original songs from a band with the same fervor you listen to cover songs. Buy their CD for ten bucks, even if you don’t think it will make your playlist. Don’t yak with your neighbor in the audience as someone is on stage, straining to be heard. Because if you don’t…

There’s a touchy bear family lurking nearby you really don’t want to encounter.