We break the narrative momentarily to answer a question that a great many of you lovelies have posed to Broke-Ass over the years: “What’s on your iPod?”
The first answer is: Broke-Ass does not own an iPod because she is fucking broke. Having said that, there are a number of songs, tracks–whatever–that characterize the Broke-Ass experience, which itself is characterized by the dissolution of a lifestyle commensurate with one’s education and professional experience into post-recession experience subsistence living: outrage, flailing desperation, fear of the cold and rudderless direction of the cosmos, riotous resentment of trustafarians, fierce love of schmushkies, and a commitment to hanging onto one’s values even as one cannot afford to support them.
Herewith, the Broke-Ass playlist:
Common People, Pulp
Anything Can Happen, Wyclef Jean
I’m Straight, the Modern Lovers
Declare Independence, Bjork
The Way I Am, Eminem
I Will Kill Again, Jarvis Cocker
Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed, The Silver Jews
Holiday in Cambodia, The Dead Kennedys
Through Being Cool, Devo
Bring the Noise, Anthrax and Public Enemy
Levitate Me, the Pixies
All Apologies, Sinead O’Connor (Nirvana)
Rock and Roll Suicide, David Bowie
Angel From Montgomery, Bonnie Raitt
The Sound in Your Mind, Willie Nelson
Hotel Yorba, The White Stripes
In Spite of Ourselves, John Prine and Iris Dement
I’ll Take You There, The Staple Singers
Fill Your Heart, David Bowie
Ducks Like Rain, Raffi
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About brokeassgrouch
I'm goddamned broke and grouchy. I live in the middle of the damned ghetto and raise chickens for eggs; grow all my own vegetables and fruit; bake the bread and make the cleaning products. Why? Because I fucking have to, that's why! That's what you do when you're fucking poor! You have to make the shit yourself, dumb-ass!
Broke-Ass Grouch is sick of all you Bennington and RISD trustafarians yapping about your "urban farming co-ops" and your "carbon conscious lifestyle" and your "green choices" in the Times Styles section and every alternapress periodical that you can pick up for free in every eye-wateringly expensive, edgy bakery or green-market.
Maybe when you have a trust fund, you can make "choices" or have a "lifestyle" or "decide" how to "spend" your "money." Excuse me, but Mama is just trying to feed her kids over here, you little shits. And stop spraying your art-school graffiti on the fence of the vacant lot across the street from my house. I know who you are, and I'm telling my friend Keith (who lives in the projects) that it was you who painted that cartoon of the African mask.
So what can I tell you? I don't fucking know. I know a lot about being broke, sure as Bob's your fucking uncle. I know about how useless an Ivy League degree is when you're flat-ass broke. I know how to unclog a drain with baking soda and vinegar, and I know how to make my own CHEESE, for fuck's sake. You tell me.
I love Hotel Yorba. I love you, BAG!! So glad you are finding Philly agreeable and productive. And please titillate us with more chickens and garden and pesto and your writing. You rock.