I am not the most social of creatures. In fact, I am almost removed from social situations, preferring to sink into music, words, or thoughts, and when I smoked, concentrating on the little plumes of smoke arising from my cigarette. Socializing is taxing in many situations to me.

So, I had someone who tried to strike up a completely random conversation while I was reading the newspaper. He asked "Where do you come from?" randomly, not even acknowledging me by saying "Hello", or introducing himself, or stuff that you do in normal conversations. Naturally, I was taken aback. One, I'm not social. Two, the start of the conversation was strange, awkward, out-of-place, almost forced, really. And three, I am ALWAYS suspicious of people's motives. I guess you could call me just a little bit paranoid. I have to be. I'm a small female and people are always out to get those that look small and weak, much like predatory instincts found in fierce animals.

I responded, "How come you'd like to know?"

he replied, "Just wanted to talk."

I'm not a talker, unless you get me boozed up or started on a subject that I feel passionately about. I kinda feel like a jerk for responding the way I did, but a "Hello" and a brief introduction would have made me a little more receptive than a cold-call question out of the blue. Introductions like that are unsettling to me. They remind me of unscrupulous people, like salesmen and false religious personnel.

Am I perhaps too paranoid? Maybe. Am I perhaps too untrusting of people? Possibly. However, humankind proves to me over and over again that I have reason to be paranoid, to have reason to be cautious of who I associate myself with, to be wary of those around me. People have to prove that they're trustworthy before I place faith and goodwill in them, because people do some lowdown dirty stuff. They steal from others, breaking into their personal spaces, kill in the name of money and greed (as exemplified in the murder of Sean Taylor, and tens of thousands of other cases). They maim and kill for fun. They rape to show a perverse sense of power.

And often times, these murderers, rapists, thieves, and other criminal types, will talk their way into the life of another, to try and get them comfortable before stripping them of everything they have, even so far as their life. There's a case that has been shown on America's Most Wanted several times where a cop talks his way into a family's life, and then commits heinous crimes on the young girl in the family. He then kills his wife, and is still on the run. I hope that when they catch this bastard, that he rots in solitary for the rest of his life.

I don't think America's Most Wanted helps my distrust of people, I'm 'fraid.

You know, I'm just going to blame my rambling on a fit that is beckoning me to smoke a cigarette. No, stupid reflexes, I don't want to smoke, I quit.

How come there is hardly any good music being made nowadays? The only relatively new artist that I can think of that is making good, solid music is the White Stripes.

I can't listen to any of the shit that is coming out nowadays that is billed as "rock" music. That shit makes me want to rock as hard as a far-left liberal watching a far-right conservative program. It makes me angry. It makes me angry that this garbage is being classified as rock music. I take Tom Petty's position on the state of music today, in a comment that he said a few years ago to VH1:

"This is an emergency crisis that we're in. The entertainment media is affecting everything on the planet in a very negative way. I'm only interested in rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is a music that represents truth. Your TV channel has taken the word "rock" and knocked the "roll" off the end. You made rock this umbrella term for everything. That's wrong. Shakira isn't rock. These country artists with fur coats aren't rock - or country. I offered a video to VH1 of my band playing in the studio and they don't want to air it because it had musicians playing in it. They want some babe walking on the beach or whatever. I got turned onto this music by watching the Beatles and the Rolling Stones actually on TV playing their guitars. It completely took me over. When you can't see musicians playing any more, I'm not interested any more."

I feel like a stodgy old fart whenever my younger sister plays her music. It's noise to me. The sad thing is, her godawful music taste isn't as bad as others; at least she likes AC/DC. But it's near criminal that music is in the state that it's in. There's some guy from The Darkness who dresses in a meatsuit trying way too hard to invoke David Lee Roth and failing -- badly. He has neither the talent or the cartoonish personality that Roth did. There's these scrawny fags in girl pants and guyliner screaming about their ex-girlfriends or whatever on top of shitty instrumentation that sounds like kindergarteners pretending to be a metal band. "Look Mommy, I can play a power chord over and over and over and over again!" Talentless pop artists are made famous by some overcritical fag in a tight black shirt who would better belong on Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, and a drug-addict washed-up one-hit-wonder Eighties pop star. Artists are more known for the trouble they get into rather than the quality of music that they make.

I would have loved to be a music journalist in the prime of music - the Sixties, the Seventies, hell, even portions of the 80's and early 90's. But there is nothing for me to rave about nowadays. There is nary anything that deserves praise outside of older artists like Petty and Dylan continuing to putting out records (however, it is rumored that Petty's 2006 album "Highway Companion" is his last), Radiohead, and the White Stripes. I believe the dying music industry is propagating this garbage, and it probably won't go away until it reforms itself or it dies completely. Not a single artist can reform the sad state of music on their own.

...or as those like myself who hold a great amount of disdain for it, the "Industry."

I predict the Industry as we know it will die in five to ten years. They are reluctant to change. They will dig their heels in until they make a grave-sized hole. Then, once that hole is six feet deep and six feet wide, they'll say, "Why stop there? Our expensive Salvatore Ferragamo alligator shoes can dig this baby to China."

Artists have written songs about the evils of the music industry for years and years. "Hotel California" by the Eagles and "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd are two of the most recognized songs weaving stories about the godless Industry. Until recently the artists have been helpless to do much other than suck it up and be the big labels' bitch.

...

I was going somewhere with this, but I got distracted by Tom Petty music videos (speaking of another musician who has written songs about the Industry). Holy crap, that "Runnin' Down a Dream" video is fucking badass. And young Tom Petty was doable as hell. If I had been a teenager in the Eighties, there would have been tons of posters on my walls and, like typical teenagers with hormones all a-crazy, naughty thoughts as well. Oh mannnnnnnnnn.

""It's just not fair to the kids who buy records. It all comes down to greed - MCA doesn't need a new Tower. And if we don't take a stand, one of these days records are going to be $20." -Tom Petty, 1981

Holy shit, he called it. 26 years ago, he called it. <3

Link: The LONG Scientific Personality Test written by unpretentious2 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Also: This in-depth look at INFJ types. This is me in a nutshell. It's eerie how this lengthy description describes me to a T.