Indy.com
Today:
Looking for a chorus of complaints
Posted: Nov 29, 2007 in Culture
Tags:
'This soup is too salty." "I shouldn't have to do this." "Nobody appreciates me." "Why am I so undeniably ugly?" Complaints are the language of life. Each and every one of us was born with one in our mouth. A newborn's cry, after all, is just a wordless way of asking, "Why did this happen to me?"
Everybody complains, and yet nobody likes a complainer. So-called self-help gurus have made big bucks telling people that their lives would improve if only they'd quit their complaining.
In 2007, war is being waged against complainers, and as a columnist, I am particularly sensitive to this war. It is my job, essentially, to complain. Yet more than one reader has e-mailed me to suggest that a little positive thinking -- and a lot less complaining -- might go a long way toward making me a happier person, not to mention a more interesting columnist.
Last week, one of those very readers sent me a note with a link to a story about the Complaints Choir of Chicago, an entire choir devoted to crying and moaning about the petty injustices of the world in song. This, the reader thought, was something I would surely appreciate. And she was right.
The Complaints Choir of Chicago isn't the only choir of its kind. The original Complaints Choir was born a couple of years ago in Helsinki, Finland, where a young couple one day wondered how to rechannel the enormous amount of energy humans spend complaining into something more interesting than a million isolated, unheard grievances. They came up with the idea of a Complaints Choir, and began helping communities around the world get their own Complaints Choirs off the ground.
To date, there are more than a dozen Complaints Choirs around the world. The United States is home to five of them, two in Pennsylvania. Miraculously, no one has started one in Indianapolis yet.
The choirs get started with a group of volunteers meeting to brainstorm about possible lyrics to their plaintive songs. The Chicago Choir, for example, tends to gripe about cold winds and bad traffic.
The whole thing got me to wondering: What would an Indianapolis Complaints Choir sing about?
I have a few ideas. The persistent smell of human feces that pervades Fall Creek Boulevard, for example. Or the way my favorite touring musicians continue to treat the city like it's plague-stricken. Then there's Carmel, not to mention Castleton.
What would you have the Indianapolis Complaints Choir sing about? Send your ideas for lyrics my way, and I'll publish the very best ones in next week's column. Happy complaining!
--
Since the end of www.intakeweekly.com also meant the end of an online home for my weekly column, Circular Logic (which appears in the print version of INtake), I will be posting it here at Indy.com each week. Offended, bored and irritated parties can post their grievances in the comment box.
Everyone I know is singing "The Property Tax Hike Blues."
Not only does Fall Creek Blvd. often smell poo-ish but sometimes the whole of downtown is one big sewer.
They need to fix the stoplight at Capitol and Market St. so that pedestrians don't have to sprint across the street in fear for their lives as cars (some of them quite large) whiz in front of them, blithely disregarding the law that pedestrians have the right-of-way.
Same thing with the stoplight at West and Washington.
Lastly, I hate diamond commercials in general but especially -- oooh, my blood boils and my lip snarls just thinking about it -- those hideous Jarod commercials.
"He went to Jarod!" whispers one stupid annoying person.
"He went to Jarod?" whispers another, initiating a contemptuous game of telephone.
And it just goes on like that. At a wedding, a ballroom dance performance, Thanksgiving dinner …
And we're supposed to think: Oh, these women are so lucky and cherished 'cause their boyfriends/fianceés bought them big, fat ugly diamonds to chunk up their fingers! Yay! I want my husband/boyfriend/significant other to buy me a big, fat ugly Jarod diamond, too! Gag.
This is way too much fun. I think I need to join that choir.
I not only hate diamond commercials, but all jewelry commercials. Christmas and Valentine's Day are the worst (but its also kind of fun to listen to the other occasions these jewelry marketing departments make up during the rest of the year.) Thanks for letting me know that I am not loved without loads of bling on my person.
Thanks for saying that...I've come to despise the jewelry advertisements as well.
oh! this is my bread and butta!
what about all the chuck holes on any road south of... well, south street, when any time a northsider farts they repave 86th street.
what about those insipid bob ROARhman commercials?
what about the tools on the local news who say things like "what a terrible tragedy, now let's talk to -blank- about sports"
or why can't we have a decent public transit system in this city? indygo?! ha!
so yeah...
why can't the city pay some attention to fixing up the east side, instead of CONSTANTLY adding on to more ridiculous shopping centers on the north side????
why can't the city get rid of the hookers and drug dealers on east washington street???
why can't someone in the city make the owner of near vacant irvington plaza either CLEAN IT UP, or sell it to some entrepreneur who wants to fix it up???
why can't that blood bank at washington and ritter move to another place, so irvington can have it's neighborhood back from the thugs and druggies that roam the streets at night, waiting for the place to give them some money for their tainted blood????
WHY do stupid people pull out in front of me, when they see that i'm pretty close, then they GO VERY SLOW.......ARRRRGGGGHHHHH
WHY can't anyone at ANY fast food place get just ONE order right, so that you don't have to come back, because they forgot to put your sandwich in the bag? are they just messing with us??
i would like to go to the starbucks at cherry tree plaza on washington street, and just ONE time, they not be out of something i order.
OMG, i could go on and on, LOL......
&#bull; I am on board with the city smelling like a giant sewer. &#bull; The streets (not just south) being filled with potholes. &#bull; Indy has some of the worst drivers i have EVER experienced. Is it that hard to use a turn signal, or god forbid, even WATCH WHERE you are going OR..this one is huge-NOT make a turn from a CENTER lane???? &#bull; Same with the idiot pedestrians just East of downtown. Learn to either walk across the street at a crosswalk, OR DONT STEP OUT INTO TRAFFIC AND EXPECT IT TO STOP JUST FOR YOU... &#bull; I heard a while back on the news how the city has this giant surplus of money and no deficit...so then, why do we need all the tax increases? Why arent the roads being fixed where they need to be fixed? Why does the city smell like a steaming pile of crap? The mayor cried and cried saying we need to win this war on crime...well, what the hell is he doing about it?? Whatever it is, doesnt seem to be effective, or is it just an excuse to squeeze money out of the taxpayers?
Why didnt the city burn down the Governor's mansion when all the tax hikes went into effect? or better yet...his house!? The mayor's out (for better or worse)...now let's get the Govenor out! Take it to the streets!!!