Have you ever taken a dump that the toilet just couldn’t seem to choke down? I feel like that toilet when I’m forced to listen to Jason Mraz’s scattin’, be-boppin’, skiddlywink warbling. I could be anywhere– walking down the street, in my grandmother’s car, at the TJMaxx– when my ears are suddenly spewed upon. It’s funny that “scat,” the obnoxious jazz-influenced vocal riffing that Mrass-clown utilizes, is also a homonym for droppings, feces, or crap, typically of the animal variety. The latter kind of “scat” is exactly what falls like little black pellets from Mrass-goblin’s mouth. After spending some time percolating in the artistic cesspool of Los Angeles, it is rerouted to the ears of consumers, which then become toilets, which then must choke down the wretched aural blob with a mental flush or two.

Here’s the deal: I just fundamentally reject Mraz’s entire ethos. Honestly, Mr. A-Z is just Jimmy Buffet for Generation Y. It’s cleaned up and made to sound intelligent to the average Delta Phi Kappa bro just learning to play some riffs on the guitar, but at it’s core it’s the same swill. And the worst part is, he’s one of several unconscious Buffet memes; an all-star lineup that includes Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Matt Nathanson, G. Love, Gavin DeGraw, so on and so on.

Don’t believe me? Let’s compare lyrics, shall we? First, some standard tripe from Mrass-hole:

The remedy is the experience.
This is a dangerous liaison
I say the comedy is that it’s serious.
This is a strange enough new play on words
I say the tragedy is how you’re gonna spend
The rest of your nights with the light on
So shine the light on all of your friends
When it all amounts to nothing in the end.

I challenge you, reader: examine the lyrics to the rest of this song and tell me what the hell it means beyond, “Screw it, man. Let’s just chill.” Now, as a fine segue, some lines from a Jimmy Buffet classic, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (And Screw).”

I really do appreciate the fact you’re sittin’ here
Your voice sounds so wonderful
But yer face don’t look too clear
So bar maid bring a pitcher, another round o’ brew
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw

Chorus:

Why don’t we get drunk and screw
I just bought a water bed, it’s filled up for me and you
They say you are a snuff queen
Honey I don’t think that’s true
So, why don’t we get drunk and screw.

You can’t make this crap up, folks. The Sacred Writ mentions the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children. Well, Generation Me of the 1960s must have ravished the soil with a Troy-Bilt tiller of crap to sow the poop crop we have on our hands today. And the ethos is exactly the same: it’s all about the experience, man (or bro or dude or babe).

Lets just drink a lot, smoke a lot, just get absorbed in the music and watch the change happen. Yeah, man. We’re changing things. We’re changing things through the power of music and positive energy. Yeah, bro. Jason Mraz and Jimmy Buffet are so, like, environmentally conscious and charitable. When I go to this concert, I’m making a difference. Don’t bother me with your politics, your organized religion, your book-learning. I just want to live my life, man. I just want to smoke this weed, bounce around like a palsy patient at this show, and have unprotected sex with this chick. I just want to “be,” man.

Get the plunger.

This graphic, slightly nauseating review was penned by Mr. Ryan K. Hodgen.  Mr. Hodgen is a fairly misanthropic malcontent who cannot abide convesations with people possessing less than two Ph.Ds.  He gives voice to our generation’s silently suffering minority: the literary elite.