Kevin Garnett, Beats by Dre, and the Unbearable Awfulness of Life in 2014

Ok, now that I've seen the long version ( I don't get paid for this you know) I get that this is Kevin Garnett being criticized in ESPN for being "a little too over the hill" and then being treated like a mass murderer/child rapist by a population of racist morons transported in from the 1940s to throw eggs and yell horrible things at him as he takes a bus to...a game, I guess.

I get that this is all ridiculously exaggerated and that at most what the fans are really angry about is that Kevin Garnett is making more money per game than most of them will see in a year of hard work which is not performed in front of adoring fans.  And I don't get this at all- if you think Garnett is overpaid, he's not being paid with your money unless you buy tickets to see him play.  Wouldn't it be more effective to just not show up and keep your money in your wallet?

And I get that none of this bothers Kevin Garnett because he's got these awesome Noise-Cancelling Headphones.  So it's ok that a mob of goons basically wants to lynch him- he can shut them out by listening to....um...."music."  Maybe what they are angry about doesn't even really matter- the important thing is that Kevin Garnett is comfortable in his own skin, is confident of his own worth- and has these cool headphones that silence the raving lunatics who- again- sure look like they want to string him up and douse his corpse with gasoline.

I could ask several questions about this horrible, overplayed, overwrought nugget of an ad- for example, if the maker of these headphones is suggesting that the cure for criticism- or a scary, murderous mob- is to pretend it doesn't exist.  Or if we should all take comfort that Kevin Garnett doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks of him as long as he knows he's great- and is paid accordingly.  Instead, I think I'll just make one observation:

I spend a lot of time on trains and buses, and in stores and museums.  That means I spend a lot of time listening to people witlessly blathering away on their cell phones.  I also hear a great deal of other people's music bleeding out of ear buds.  I guess I could invest in a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and try to shut these morons and their thoughtless asshattery out of my life, but wouldn't that require me to be constantly listening to my own noise?  Sometimes "hearing what I want" means "not hearing anything at all."  And if I just want to enjoy some peace and quiet and do some thinking- is that just not allowed anymore?

(Oh, and BTW- yes, you can tell everybody anything you want, including "I'm a man I'm a man I'm a man, " but the last time I checked, being a "man" didn't mean sealing yourself off from criticism.  Maybe it's just me.)