Fried eggs and Flo Rida

Imagine a frying pan: “This is Sean Kingston.”\nNow imagine an egg in a frying pan: “This is your brain on Sean Kingston.”\nIt’s the latest commercial for The Partnership for an Idiot–Free America, and it turns out. I’m its latest spokesperson.\nI spent 20 or so hours in the car this past week and my iTrip wasn’t working, so I had a lot of radio to deal with.\nUnfortunately, I get my fill of Bryan Adams and Journey here on the weekends – there goes my tolerance for the classic rock station. And after a while of (not) sweatin’ to the oldies, I started to feel like my dad, who listens while he drinks Old Style Light and watches Cubs games on mute in the garage.\nSo, inevitably, I fell prey to the top 40 station. (They always rope me in with that damn One Republic song that I know I should hate!)\nThis week, however, I tried actually tuning in to the lyrics of songs that I have somehow managed to memorize without realizing it. And this is what I found out: They’re dumb. I have sung my way to stupidity in my car, all courtesy of the repetitive purgatory that is bad radio.\nKeep in mind that I’m not referring to all the sexism and racism and oppression and homophobia and objectification that these lyrics I’m talking about are also probably showcasing. Anyone who’s taken a gender studies course (if you’ve taken one, trust me, you’ve taken them all) can tell you all about this. I’m simply talking about idiocy.\nAccording to the Billboard Hot 100, the No. 3 song in the nation right now is Flo Rida and T-Pain’s “Low” – a song about different pant/shoe combinations. Literally, the song revolves around some lucky lady who wears designer jeans and boots with fur. Simultaneously, the girl is also somehow sporting baggy sweat pants and “the Reeboks with the straps,” which, in turn, means she should slap her booty.\nHot 100 hit No. 15 a lovely diddy from the aforementioned master lyricist Sean Kingston, is an offer to take me, shawty, to sip pina coladas in the tropics or go to the slums “where killas get hung.” He reinforces that he can take me there, to either location, 43 times in less than four minutes. Oh, the options! Whatever will I choose?\nOf course, I have to mention that American’s very own idol, Jordin Sparks, is singing hit songs fit for an 11-year-old girl’s buddy profile. \n“I’ll always have you / Just like a tattoo” – sounds like American Homicidal to me.\nBy no means am I urging to you to change your radio presets. I watch “Keeping up with the Kardashians;” I understand the appeal of idiocy. But try switching over to the student station (99.1 FM) every once in a while to balance it out. Or get an old elementary school teacher to sit in the backseat and run her fingernails down a portable chalkboard as a happy alternative to any Miley Cyrus song. Miley will also fry your brain, as all Disney stars inevitably will. Heed this advice, and your brain will look like the frying pan and not the egg in the frying pan.\nAlthough that analogy never really made sense in the first place, because some drugs are fun. And why would you want your brain to look like a frying pan?