I once saw a wooden sign in the clearance section at TJ Maxx that read: “The sadness we find in solitude can sometimes be the only solace which saves us from our suicide.” I considered buying it but I didn’t care for the font choice that was used so I had to pass. Still, I thought it was pretty profound stuff! Kind of a cool tongue twister too. Makes you think maybe we shouldn’t take ourselves so seriously. Maybe sometimes we really do need learn to LIVE.LAUGH.LOVE in order to keep ourselves from blowing our brains out. Carpe Diem!

Bonjour and welcome to Part Deux of Flo’s Freaky French tape series. Feeling alone and insecure? Just kick back and let the warm analog sounds of this tape hug you snug like a cozy knit turtleneck sweater. Still feeling cold and exposed? You can put on this black beret, custom tailored for your oddly-shaped dome and hide that bald spot. Feeling peckish? Nosh on this croissant and fill that growing belly with more butter. Feeling dumb? This music will make you cultured as shit.

John Waters, Divine, Lux Interior, and Phil Spector sitting at a table in a 24 hour diner doing uppers and downers in the tiny bathroom one by one. Speed, cocaine, opium and grass. They don’t order any food, they just guzzle bottomless cups of black coffee, chain-smoke cheap cigarettes and tell epic tales of the past. They’re speaking so loud they are almost screaming. A relentless flow of perverse one-liners and zingers. The beauty of these minds is blinding. Pure fucking poetry. Total fucking madness. Before you know it, two hours of your life have vanished and all you have is this tape to serve as a document from what feels like a dream, too surreal to have ever been a reality.

Since this will be the last post for a while, I wanted to end on a positive note. This is a tape that someone made for me in April of 2007. She has made me many tapes since, but I felt this was an apt tape to share today.

Is acceptance the same as giving up? Is it merely a human response to the overwhelmingly averse situations we face? Is it truly “surrender” when we bow to the seemingly inevitable? Or is it somehow an ass-backwards opportunity for self-empowerment? A cosmic challenge to defy the odds.

You’ve almost made it through another week in this topsy turvy world and I am certain this one will help keep you pushing through to the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to share with you the greatest mix tape you’ve never heard.

The title says it all. The Hills-have-yeux gallic farmer soaks up Anglo music with a rag and then throws the whole mess into his barnyard still, gets tanked on the results, and inter-dimensional outsider art is born. This is like what dog people probably imagine cat people think like.

A dark, spooky take on enjoying yourself. Goth-positive. The world pretty much fucking sucks, but you'll be damned if you take it lying down.

The grimy soundtrack to your denimclad gang's adventures through the underbelly of a crumbling rust-belt city. Maybe you recently had to throw your murdered girlfriend's corpse into a trash compactor, maybe your newborn came out of the womb a twisted mass of flesh due to your agent orange exposure in 'nam, you're ready to waste a motherfucker in any case. You've got nowhere to run and nothing to lose.