Let me be perfectly glib: When it comes to my life I am completely inured and genuinely enervated from my attempts to find even the slightest solace in everyday activities. Even if listening to Freddie Hubbard’s 12:08-long masterpiece Red Clay always cheers me up, shouldn’t I understand by now that I’m trapped in a world that will only let me find happiness when I’m beating off to a picture of Halle Berry or playing with my Neo and Morpheous karate-garb action figures? By the end of that day I was on my hand and knees, not sure if the case of the dry heaves I had was due to extreme physical activity or the knowledge that the girl of my dreams not only didn’t have a boyfriend, but also that I had missed any chance whatsoever with her since one of my friends had taken the initiative I lack and talked to her. How can I compete with the finest specimen of a man from Oregon that I have ever met? Not that I consider myself a “cheese-eatin’ surrender monkey,” but the truth is that I can’t, and therefore won’t, humiliate myself by trying. And then, to top it all off, Sailor Jupiter has stopped e-mailing me because she thinks Sailor Mars and I have something going on. This is all just one gigantic nightmare.

Still, life goes on. I listen to the latest freshy fresh CD released as a DJ kicks from England’s Studio K7, Nightmares on Wax, and tell myself that I have changed. Maybelline images of beauty and brains neatly wrapped up in a package to make me feel weak in the knees is no longer my type of girl. I have decided that I now like my women a little fascist, a bit grand, slightly camp and full of airs and graces. All of which make listening to Nightmares on Wax even more appropriate. Hip hop, funk and breaks DJ E.A.S.E. style, termed on the album as “a journey into hip hop chill-out, calling at funk, soul, soundtrack and classic groove,” permeate through the album’s wonderful architecture. It is laced terrifically between Kenny Dope’s “Get on Down,” Freddy Fresh’s “It’s a Latin Thing” and Syrup’s “Chocolate” and more the hip hop, in the form of D.I.T.C.’s “Thick,” A Tribe Called Quest’s “Award Tour” and Blackalicious’ “Alphabet Aerobics.”

Need a mix that’ll pep up your life when you think it’s beginning to look like mine? Nightmares on Wax’s DJ kicks just may be the thing for you. Solesides’ Greatest Bumps is another one that’s spot on (if you’re in need of something specifically hip hop). Not really any new tracks, rather oldies but goodies like Lateef the Truth Speaker’s “The Quickening” and Blackalicious’ “Swan Lake” are the name of the game here. If you’ve slept on these folks, please do not any longer, because although “quiet is kept,” it doesn’t always have to be.

If you like hip hop and need a change, then maybe, just maybe, these’ll provide it for you – they have for me. And it’s a good thing too; this way I have something to keep my mind distracted (and therefore not fried) as I take my GRE exams and my finals in the ten-day span that would have otherwise forced my resignation from the superscholar club.

Robotsex is a dance contest winner.