Unintentional Skating Rink

Unintentional skating rinks are a bummer. Intentional skating rinks, meaning actual skating rinks like Wolman Rink or what have you, are all right if you’re the type of person who likes to pretend that winter is “fun” (it’s not, btw). If you’re that brand of optimist, then Bob’s your uncle, enjoy wobbling around like Bambi’s first day standing up and falling on your coccyx 10,000 times. But even skating enthusiasts have to admit that an unintentional skating rink– when no one in all of Brooklyn shovels the sidewalk in front of their home or business after a snow/slush storm and the whole mess freezes over like the goddamn tundra in one unending sheet of misery as far as the eye can see– is a total bumout. Cause in addition to it being 13 degrees feels like -4 (seriously, that’s the temperature today), you’re now gonna have to ice skate to the subway. Mighty Ducks fantasy unbummer: doing an impromptu Flying V with other commuters. Get rich quick unbummer: hawking skates outside the G train entrance.

Bummer Jams 2008

2008 was chock full o’ bummer jams. Not jams that bum you out as in “Oh this song is so painfully beautiful that it is basically like a dove with a broken wing and now I am crying,” but jams that bum you out as in “Holy shit this song is so bad that it is basically the Gigli of music and now I am crying.” Here are the top five:

1. Love Lockdown, Kanye West: Hey, everyone. Raise your hand if you give two shits about Kanye West’s feelings. Oh, no one? Surprise! Is there anything more insufferable than when rich famous people talk incessantly about how arduous it is to be rich and famous? “Oh, wah wah I’m so lonely. I’m so bored with my Louis Vuitton luggage.” Shut up, dick. Go back to making funny puns about Malcolm X and fashion and stop making everyone wish you’d get your jaw broken again.

2. Oxford Comma, Vampire Weekend: If anyone ever meets these guys, a good idea would be to mimic the noises of the words the singer makes as he’s talking,  kind of like how Beeker from the Muppets talks, you know like “Meep meep meep. Meepmeeepmeep.” That would be v. unnerving for him. Also, this band sucks and the Internet should stop jacking them off.

3. Womanizer, Britney Spears: Who does Britney Spears think she’s fooling? This song is exactly like Gimme More, but with one word in the chorus instead of two. YOU CAN’T PULL THE WOOL OVER THE EYES OF THE WORLD, BRITNEY! YOU ARE SO FREAKING BUSTED RIGHT NOW! 

4. 4 Minutes To Save The World, Madonna: More like 4 Minutes To Make Me Wish For The End Of Humanity Because You Are So Embarrassing. Put some pants on, lady. Your quads are hate crime-ing my eyeballs.

5. I Kissed A Girl, Katy Perry: Not only is this song COLOSSOLLY not good (Makes you feel like you’re on a ride that is whipping around in circles really fast), but in 1995 Jill Sobule made a song about the same thing and called the same thing and it’s basically just mean to rip off someone’s thing as if no one’s going to remember. Get some manners, Katy Perry.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Lest you think there’s nothing to live for, keep in mind that there were a lot of totally awesome tunes in 2008. To refresh your memory, here’s a mix of jams from 2008 that are pure pleasure from the back to the middle and around again. Enjoy!!!!!!

Righteous!: Best Jams of 2008: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ba6iw0

2008

2008 was a bummer. Ho-leeeee shit was this a terrible year. It’s like someone threw good days in the garbage and replaced them with the worst day of your life times 365. 2008 was such a God-awful suckhole of a year that by this point minor disasters seem like the Fun Times Prize Patrol just showed up at your door with a fistful of balloons and a big check that entitles you to one identity theft, or one trip to the emergency room, and your spirit is so thoroughly broken that you’re like YES! THIS IS THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS! The only way to console yourself during the last desperate weeks of this black mark on the face of history is to realize that someday things will be so much worse than they are now that you’ll look back on these as the halcyon days. Optimism unbummer: You haven’t blown 2009 yet.

Overlooked For “Person Of The Year”

Being overlooked for Time magazine’s prestigious Person of the Year title is a bummer. It’s a bummer because, wtf dudes, 23 years in a row? It sort of makes sense to be bypassed for the first nine years of your life or so, because giving the title to a kid not even out of single digits would make the rest of humanity seethe with jealousy. But at this point you pretty much can’t help feeling like Peter O’Toole at the Oscars, getting passed up year after year for some lesser talent when you’re Lawrence of freaking Arabia for Christ’s sake. It especially burns if the guy they chose did something trivial like become the first black president when all the odds were against him. Compared to your accomplishments this year (not dying and paying your rent on time most months), that shit looks so corny.

Zipper Jams*

Zipper jams are a bummer.  Not  jazzy jams by late-90s quasi-sensation Squirrel Nut Zippers.  But zipper jams as in when the zipper on your coat gets jammed.  Because now you’re stuck in one of two unfortunate situations.  Either you’re outside catching a nasty draft because you can’t zip up to completion, or you’re schvitzing puddles inside an overheated Duane Reade because you can’t get your heavy wool coat off, and you look like a damn fool trying to slip it on and off over your head like an oversized T-shirt. And you know that no matter how hard you try to play tailor and fix the jam yourself, you’re going to end up pulling the zipper off and leaving the little teeth more bent out of shape than you by now.  To make matters worse bummer: having your zipper break on a Saturday on the Lower East Side, when anybody who knows how to fix a zipper is observing the day of rest.  Unrelated unbummer: jazzy jams by the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

*This guest bummer by Harrison Peck who is so freaking famous right now.**

**If you wanna be as rich as Harrison, send  your bummers to totalbumout@gmail.com.

Rickrolled

Getting Rickrolled is a bummer. It is so embarrassing! Even if you get Rickrolled in the privacy of your own home, you know like if you thought you were downloading the new Animal Collective album and it turned out to actually be 12 tracks of Rick Astley, your face burns with shame and you feel like you have to tell everyone you know just in case they somehow find out and then clown you for being the victim of a Rickroll and keeping it a shameful secret! It’s bizarre that an Internet joke involving a weird ’80s tune is somehow now on par with “pants falling down in public” on the embarrassment scale. Can someone get a social psychologist on this? Also a bummer: Using the Internet as a repository for your embarrassing confessions.

Rolling Backpacks

Rolling backpacks are a bummer. They’re a bummer on a physical level, because it’s like Newton’s third law that if you’re on the subway and there is a rolling backpack in the vicinity, you’re going to trip over it, but they’re also a bummer on a metaphorical level, serving as a constant reminder of how wimpy humans have become. If nomadic early humans could see humans now, they’d laugh their fucking heads off. They’d be like “Oh, your TPS reports are so heavy that you need to wheel them around? I carry my HOME on my BACK. You’re over there crying about lumbar support and I’m over here DOMESTICATING HORSES.” Also a bummer: Kids with rolling backpacks. Third grade ain’t that weighty, fella. Freaky doll bummer: AHH! FREAKY DOLL! (see pic)

Busted Extortin’

Having your extortion scheme blown wide open is a bummer. Ain’t it a bitch when you’re just trying to make some scratch with a casual pay-to-play extortion scheme and the federal government and the national media ride up like some freaking Sir Lancelots on a quest for the Holy Grail of scandals? Now instead of sitting in the governor’s mansion counting your piles of ill-gotten gains and fluffing your hair while watching Viva Las Vegas on loop, you’ve got to do things like make up ridiculous denials and steadfastly refuse to resign. What a headache. Head suit unbummer: Those bangs have put Blagojevich in close contention with the polygamist wives for best hair of 08.

“People You May Know”

Facebook’s “People You May Know” function is a bummer. When did Facebook turn into an e-Yenta? Now, thanks to its meddling, instead of being a way to check out pictures of your frenemies on the sly, it’s become a prison march down the Green Mile of your childhood memories as you desperately try to find a way to reject friend requests from your creepy former neighbor without seeming cavalier.

Thwarted Celebrations

Thwarted celebrations are a bummer. And not just thwarted celebrations like “Oh shit we completely missed Coach and accidentally dumped the Gatorade all over Neil’s mom” or whatever, although that particular situation is less of a bummer and more of the funniest thing that will ever happen in your whole life. No, any time you’re trying to celebrate a minor life victory and fate gets in the way, it’s a total bummer. For example, if you get done with a hard exam and you want to cap the day off by selling your book back as a final fuck you to the semester, it is a huge freaking bum out to get to the bookstore and have the dude be like “Oh sorry, there’s a new edition coming out so that’s worthless” and you’re like “Ok so what if you just give me $10″ and he’s like “Did you hear what I said?” and you’re like “$5?” and he’s like “Get out of here right now.” Now you’re stuck with a book that you’re never going to use again AND you have no cash for the bar, which was obviously the hidden purpose of the whole expedition. All that’s missing is a little raincloud that follows you around and rains on you and only you. Not at all a bummer: Picturing the aforementioned Gatorade scenario.