Todd Rundgren – "Heavy Metal Kids" (1974)

I must have woke up this morning

With a bug up my ass

I think I’ll just haul off 

And belt the next jerk that I pass

From the Washington Post:

Google “angry people” and witness that more than 80 percent of the images are of men, mostly white men.

The Post is generally so full of sh*t that its eyes are brown, but that statement is right on the money.

I verified it by Googling “angry people,” and then clicking on “images.”  I got a couple of pictures of angry African-Americans, a few pictures of angry women, and about a gazillion pictures of angry white guys.

Like this one:

The only thing about that Google search that surprised me is that it didn't return a bunch of pictures of me.  Because I am pissed off all the time.

(What am I pissed off about?  The better question is what am I NOT pissed off about.)

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That thing about Googling “angry people” and getting a bunch of pictures of white guys came from a recent Post piece titled “Five Myths About Anger.”

Every Sunday, the Post runs an article by some self-proclaimed expert that lists five things about some random subject that most people believe, and then explains why those beliefs are all wrong.

In recent weeks, the Post has published articles titled “Five Myths About Texans” (e.g., it’s a myth that Texans love guns), “Five Myths About Infertility” (e.g., it’s a myth that stress causes infertility),  “Five Myths About Volcanoes” (e.g., it’s a myth that volcanoes are more active today than they were in the past), “Five Myths About Marriage” (e.g., it’s a myth that extramarital affairs are responsible for most divorces), “Five Myths About Pizza” (e.g., it’s a myth that pizza became popular in the U.S. because so many American soldiers ate it in Italy during World War II), and – most recently – “Five Myths About Anger.”

According to the Post, it’s a myth that men are angrier than women:

[R]esearch consistently shows that men are no more likely than women to be angry.  In fact, women report feeling anger more frequently and in more sustained ways.  In early 2016, for example, a national survey conducted by Esquire and NBC found that women reported consistently higher rates of anger.  Another, conducted by Elle magazine two years later, revealed the same pattern.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out”?  Scientists use it to make the point that if you start with incomplete or incorrect data, you end up coming to the wrong conclusion.  

The “research” cited in the “Five Myths About Anger” is a good example of garbage in, garbage out.  That’s because I wasn’t surveyed by Esquire or NBC or Elle.  If I had been, I have no doubt that I would have pulled the average male anger score up enough to beat out the ladies.

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Of course, even if I wasn’t angry, people would say I that was.  From the Post:

A 2016 study . . .  found that most people are predisposed to associate negative and angry facial expressions with men and masculinity.  Biases that lead most of us to “see” anger in men’s faces also lead us to commonly interpret women’s faces as fearful or sad. . . . 

I don’t think I was angry when I was a preschooler, but a lot of people would have said that I was.  That’s because people perceive little boys as being angrier than little girls:

Adults are more likely to describe infants they think are boys as agitated and disagreeable.  Other studies show that both mothers and fathers are more likely, when reading to their children, to associate anger with male characters and use words making those connections. 

One more cross for my three lovable little grandsons to bear.

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Most of the angry people in rock songs are angry at a particular person – often a former spouse or lover.  For example, Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” is directed at her ex-boyfriend, Dave Coulier.

But the singer of Todd Rundgren’s “Heavy Metal Kids” is just plain angry.

Click here to listen to “Heavy Metal Kids,” which was released in 1974 on the Todd double album.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: