(WARNING: Your Humble Astrologer is still in the final throes of transiting Mars square his natal Mars, and is thus still a bit prone to crankiness. You’ve been warned.)
When transiting Pluto is square where it was in your birth chart, it can represent a monumental challenge to the very core of your being. It is a long and slow transit, and it’s often hard to point at the day and say “this is the day when my Pluto Square caught up with me.” It often builds slowly and imperceptibly, until its results are suddenly impossible to ignore… a bit like a glacier sneaking up on you while you’re not looking, even though in hindsight it should have been obvious.
The Pluto Square, regardless of your age, is kind of “midlife crisis.” It can shake you to your foundations, and sometimes represents the biggest challenge you’ll ever face. People born between October 1975-March 1976 or August 1976-October 1978 are experiencing it now, and you can learn more about that transit by clicking here.
Sometimes, though, there is good to be had from it. Usually the things that are being disrupted in your life needed to be challenged anyway. Often, what you rebuild for yourself afterwards is stronger and more true.
Every once in a while, though, there is the special case where the Pluto Square… someone else’s Pluto Square, that is… can actually be a good and enjoyable thing.
Yes, folks, I’m talking about my favorite German word: schadenfreude. “Schadenfreude” is the little thrill one gets when you see something bad happen to someone who deserves it: the guilty pleasure one gets when one sees the villain in a movie get his comeuppance, or when that jerk who was always annoying you at work get fired. As earthly delights go, schadenfreude is not one we should take pride in. But is it an undeniable part of the human experience.
For those of you who like to keep their astrology all “love and light,” please stop reading now and come back for the next blog entry. Or if you want just the astrology, skip to the part below the video.
For the rest of us, though? Let’s have a Moment Of Snark about Robin Thicke!
***
No one would ever mistake an intimate knowledge of the lyrics of Top 40 hits for a degree in Women’s Studies. But even by the less than perfectly enlightened standards popular music presents, “Blurred Lines” is an epic masterpiece of objectification: an ode to the delights of a woman experiencing… ahem… diminished consent.
Furthermore, it’s just a terrible song. Being a big hit in the nightclubs does not require Shakespearean levels of wit in the lyrics, or a Mozart-like grasp of musicality. Even so, by most standards, “Blurred Lines” is a really horrid song, and it’s all the more inexplicable to me that Billboard named it “Song of the Summer” last year. Some “Songs of the summer” linger on as classics, and some drift into obscurity. Personally, I had already started to forget “Blurred Lines” 45 seconds into the first time I heard it.
That’s enough about my personal musical tastes — wait, no it’s not! Billboard, what were you thinking? You had Carly Rae Jepson, Katy Perry, and Daft Punk to choose from when it came to “Song of the Summer 2013.” Daft Punk, people!
Honestly? I’ve yet to make it all the way through “Blurred Lines” once, despite my insistence on doing thorough research for you, Dear Reader. The thing is not only immediately musically forgettable and the lyrics are terrible (when they aren’t just being offensive). So rather than subject your sensibilities to that, here instead is an infinitely more respectful, musically satisfying, artistically accomplished ode to the love between a man and woman: Robin’s dad, Alan Thicke, singing “Sweaty And Hot” at The 1988 Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship.
Frankly, it’s terrible. But it’s still better and more sincere than “Blurred Lines.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQ4ZuiSh8A
You’re welcome.
***
And now, the astrology.
Robin Thicke was born March 10, 1977, time unknown, Los Angeles California. As a Pisces with Moon in Scorpio (we think), he can be expected to take his emotional attachments fairly seriously. The most prominent emotional attachment in his life has been that with his wife Paula Patton, born December 5, 1975, time unknown, also in Los Angeles.
The two met when he was 14 years old and had been a steady couple more or less ever since. Robin inherited his father’s musical talents and released his first album, A Beautiful World, in 2003. His first major hit with “Lost Without You” on his next album in 2006. In both cases all the songs on the album were obsessively about Paula.
Musically, Robin’s style has always been that sort of mid-tempo R&B ballad that is radio friendly without breaking any significant ground… the sort of thing that appears as the fourth or fifth song on the soundtrack of a romantic comedy. Still, everything Robin wrote seemed to be about and/or dedicated to Paula.
As Pluto entered Capricorn in 2009 there was a subtle but important shift in Robin’s work. Slightly edgier, but still dedicated to his wife. There were some hints of difficulty, but overall he still seemed pretty attached to the Missus.
Then, in 2013, Robin had his biggest hit, and the marriage promptly fell apart.
“Blurred Lines” was a gigantic hit and drew the ire of not just feminists, but in fact regular decent people everywhere. Robin’s general tone about Paula didn’t change in public though. He said she was just fine with the naked women in the video. He claimed she was perfectly okay with the idea of an “open marriage.” He said she got over it when pictures leaked of him with his hands all over some blonde socialite.
And as Robin’s Pluto Square approached the exact degree, Paula dumped him.
***
So this year, Robin came out with an album that once more was completely dedicated to Paula. In fact, the title of the album is “Paula.” The entire thing is dedicated to getting her back.
“Paula,” by most people standards, had a disastrous debut. It’s a little less than 530 copies its first week in the United Kingdom. It fewer than 54 copies in Australia, where it was beaten by (among other things) a Blondie compilation and a duet from Australia’s “The Voice” doing a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Since then, it has recovered a little, but the creepy and stalker-ish collection of songs on the album is still considered a major flop.
Also, critics agree: it’s pretty lousy, featuring such timeless lyrics as…
I gotta get her go, get her go, get her go, get her back/I gotta get her go, get her go, get her go, get her back/I gotta treat her right, I gotta cherish her for life/I gotta get her go, get her go, get her go, get her tonight
‘Cause all I wanna do/Is keep her love/Keep her love/Keep her satisfied/All I wanna do/Is make it right’Make it right/Is make you smile tonight/All I wanna do/Is give you that thing, play you that song, you and your girlfriend sing/All I wanna do/Is get you back tonight
I gotta get her go, get her go, get her go, get her back/I gotta get her go, get her go, get her go, get her back/I gotta treat her right, I gotta cherish her for life/I gotta get her go, get her go, get her go, get her tonight
Or, my favorite:
And she couldn’t be with someone like her dad/And I just rewarded her with my drunken rants
Better update the pass code on your security alarm, Paula.
Or: perhaps I’m just being too hard on the guy. Perhaps Robin has learned something from his Pluto Square.
Nah. I doubt it.
Robin Thicke’s Pluto Square has at least another year to go. Good luck, Robin. You’ll need it.
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PS: Daft Punk, people!
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