Robbie Thomas
Can’t Make You Happy Song (Why won’t you buy a house?)
2022 was one of the worst years of my life. I have said that in a previous post and I’ll say it again on this trip to recent memory lane. A way to respond to it was a Super Human Intelligence Towards Exile song called Can’t Make You Happy. I did some of the instrumentation myself, but I had help from LoopCloud. The guitar isn’t me.
From the summer of 2021 to around October 2022, I had a few family members, family friends, and what I like to call the fam friend moochers telling me or asking me why I haven’t bought a house. What I mean by fam friend moochers is these folks who are friends with wealthy family members, attending family parties and dinners, and just getting a free ride. In the summer of 2021, I had a feeling that the money that was printed during the Covid-19 crisis would come to screw with the economy. It was a matter of when. I recall telling a few people that the crisis would come up in the Spring or Summer of 2022. Instead, I saw signs of it in my portfolio dropping in November 2021. I was way off! Then, significant drops in 2022: January, April, July, and October.
And during all those times, I heard quite a few people say, “Why haven’t you bought a house?”
On Easter Sunday, 2022, I was at a small family gathering with four people, myself included. One was family; the two were family friends. Two folks there, a family member and a friend, were profusely asking why I hadn’t bought a house. All three people knew I wasn’t living paycheck-to-paycheck (still am not). I said, “The Federal Reserve is going to raise rates and I’m not going 30 years in debt with a high interest rate.” They said I could do this anyway and were quite pissy about it. After about 20 or so minutes going back and forth, I had enough and said something along the lines of, “Look, this is my money, if I want to buy a hooker, perform anal sex on her, and wipe my wiener off with a $100 bill, that’s my prerogative.”
Yes, it’s wrong to go to someone else’s house and say that, even around a female family member. But I had it. After that, I was met with some verbal outrage, and I offered to leave in peace. But they said no and told me to stay and watch what I said. I did stay, but I sure wish I left immediately; it was uncomfortable. However, I did finish a 24oz Mike’s Hard Lemonade Blue Freeze, and I could have been popped for drunk driving.
The family friend in question was a female in her early 20s and at that time, living with her parents. I’m not poking fun at that at all. 2022 and even now, there have been hard times with the economy. And I was a ne’er-do-well until I was 27, living with my parents. However, I guess the person in question is in this protective bubble with fewer expenses and hasn’t been on her own. If she is looking to buy a house herself with a 30-year mortgage any time soon, she is going to be very disappointed.
There are more instances of people complaining about me buying a house but I won’t bore you with the details. However, by October 2022, that was the second to last instance, and let’s add a heated argument with a family friend accusing me of saying something I didn’t say. I went home and worked on the Can’t Make You Happy song. I had enough.
Can’t Make You Happy had few lyrics in it. One can compare it to a Silver Convention song. And yes, a few family members did complain about me not buying a house. So, the Suck My Dick part is not intended for them. It would be wrong to tell family members to suck my dick. I agree! However, there are a few distant cousins I would have no problem telling to Eat My Shit. Due to a personal issue and working on an EAS scenario, I didn’t finish that project. And things began to look up in November and December. At a Xmas family function, I told a few people I’m making a song called “Can’t Make You Happy.” I mentioned it when a family member said, “You should’ve bought a house.”
Things would go wrong in April 2023 when I had a heated exchange with a few co-workers. Two non-managerial personnel complained about my work effort while they had fewer responsibilities. One complained about me not being social with him (I didn’t care to be this guy’s friend). And back to the drawing board with Can’t Make You Happy.
Two months later, a shift manager (not mine) accused me of something I didn’t do. I angrily refuted his claim but he felt I did it. Then I told him, “Hey, you should listen to my new song, it’s called Can’t Make You Happy.” He then smiled and said, “You make music?” I said, “Yes, and I think you’ll like Can’t Make You Happy.” He got out his phone, went to YouTube, and found it. Smile still intact, he said, “I’ll check this out on the way home.”
The next day, I was expecting him to be angry about it. But he approached me smiling, saying, “Hey, I like that song. I also do music videos. Let me know if want me to hook you up.”
That surprised me, I did say to the guy that I was not looking to do a music video for that song then. I still am not and If I do, I won’t go to that guy.
Since I made the song, I haven’t heard anybody in my family, family friends, and the moochers among them complain about me not buying a house. Hell, I haven’t heard many other complaints from them. And at the end of all this, I’m not saying I’m 100% right and they are 100% wrong. But, for me, reasoning with people in that situation didn’t work. Like I said with the Easter Sunday 2022 argument. It was 20 minutes of me being reasonable, but the two continued and the tones in their voices were heading to ‘pissy terroritory.’ So I had enough and said what I said.
Truth be told, after this whole fiasco, and others that happened in 2022 (and I made some bad decisions myself), I learned that trying to reason with someone barely works for me politely. I find being aggressive much better as opposed to being passive or kind. Whether it’s a nagging family member or someone who knows I have a few dollars in my pocket or somebody screaming my name in anger at the job for making a small mistake or angrily wondering why I showed up to work early (due to being asked by a higher-up that day). Or worse, a person not seeing many challenges in their own life yapping at me for walking into a building without a smile on my face.
For the folks who were viciously hellbent on me not buying a house, if it wasn’t the Can’t Make You Happy song that didn’t do it, did you figure out for yourself that I was right? And you don’t want to admit it? Fine. You don’t have to say I’m right. Or are you angry that you are more intelligent than I am but you don’t have two nickels to rub together?
But for those who think they are so bright and I’m fucking stupid, I have to ask you something. If you’re so bright, why don’t you figure out a solution to these wars today? Russia versus Ukraine, Israel versus Gaza, and now Iran is involved. Why don’t you geniuses find a solution? You can win the Nobel Peace Prize!
And when they interview you, you can say, “In 2022, I urged this asshole by the name of Robbie Thomas to buy a house. This weird asshole has been sitting on some cash for a while and he didn’t buy a house! He’s a bad bad guy! I don’t have two nickels to rub together! How can this stupid guy have more money than me?”