What the…
Posted on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 at 10:20 pm
So tonight’s musical guest on the Tonight Show was a band called Big And Rich, Featuring somebody or other, I didn’t catch the name. It’s like this horrible combination of country, rock and rap. It’s like… country music… sped up and with the drumming style of rock… and a black guy in a cowboy hat rapping about playing chicken with a train. I’m really not sure whether I should be disgusted, or whether I should laugh hysterically, or whether I should just curl up in the fetal position and cry myself to sleep. I’m leaning towards the last option.
There are times when the whole genre-crossing thing is ok. There’s this CD called “Punk Goes Pop,” wherein punk bands sing covers of Top 40 songs. It’s marginally humorous, but it also gives me some sort of justification for being embarassed by actually liking a few pop songs, which I normally despise out of principle. A band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes has this whole gimmick thing where they do punk covers of all sorts of crazy songs, everything from showtunes (The Phantom of the Opera) to terrible songs from the 60s and 70s (Coven – One Tin Soldier). One of New Found Glory’s very early EPs was called “From Script To Screen,” where they covered love theme songs from movies like Armageddon and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Admittedly, all these examples involve punk bands, which has sorta been my thing for the last several years, if you didn’t know that already (see my last post). But the point still exists: there are certain instances where messing around with people’s typical assumptions of musical genres are acceptable.
This, however, can only be described as an abomination. In the first place, it’s three genres, instead of two. An artist from one style of music can, in most cases, get away with doing music from another style (case in point: Shania Twain), as long as they’re good enough to support both fanbases. In the second place, it involves three of the four (arguably) “biggest” types of music out there today (pop, rock, rap, and country). And if we consider that as of the last year or so, rock is pop, it now involves all three of the “biggest” genres. In the third place, it really wasn’t that good! Combining the last two points, and assuming that about a quarter of the population doesn’t like the “big three,” that means you’re pissing off 75% of the population. I’m sorry, but last time I checked, pissing off 210 million people wasn’t a good business plan. Play it on a pop station, they’re going to hate it. Play it on a rock station, they’re going to hate it. Play it on a country station, they’re going to hate it. Play it on a rap station, they’re going to hate it. You’ve just alienated three quarters of the population of the United States. Way to go, fucktard.
Ok, I guess I’m done ranting. That’s all I wanted to say. Can I get an “Amen” ?!
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Back from the pit.
Posted on Sunday, June 26, 2005 at 1:32 am
Just now (~3:00am) got back from an exciting weekend in Dallas, where I spent a good deal of time hanging out with the people who are paying me large quantities of money for that whole website building thing they seem to think I’m good at. That was fun. But that wasn’t the real reason I went. The real reason, of course, was Vans Warped Tour 2005!!!!! Yay that! I didn’t get to go last year, so I was really stoked that I was able to make it this year. Just looking at the lineup, this year was a better group of bands anyway, in my humble opinion. The main two stages were where I spent most of my time: bands like No Use For A Name, Dropkick Murphies, Senses Fail, Hawthorne Heights, MXPX, and Avenged Sevenfold. But also, several of the smaller stages had some really good bands that haven’t quite made it big time yet: The Matches, Gatsby’s American Dream, Motion City Soundtrack, Big D, et al.
Ended up spending damn close to $100 at the show. $30 or so on water and Monster energy drinks, and another $60 on shirts. I got a Warped Tour shirt for me, a Tour tank top for Lisi, two No Use shirts, and a Senses Fail shirt. I like to stock up on shirts when I go to these, because they’re cheaper than buying them at places like Hot Topic, and a much much larger percentage of the money pretty much goes straight into the band’s pocket, rather than getting filtered through their label and the retail chain and whatever else. These bands generally aren’t big enough to be making a lot of money from their labels, so I’m all for buying their merchandise at shows like this to support them. If I would have had another hundred bucks and a few more pockets or a backpack maybe, I probably would have bought more than just 5 shirts.
And I’m so massively insanely happy, because I was able to squirm my way up to the front fucking row during No Use’s show. And speaking of that, be checking out their website over the next few days, because they took a picture of the crowd to post up, and I should probably be in it, if I was close enough to the middle. I was maybe 20 feet right of center, so depending on their camera focal length, I might not actually show up. But look for a dude with blue nail polish and a white shirt flipping off the camera. That’s me. Also, after their set was over, they all came to their merch booth to hang out and sign stuff, and I managed to get 3 of them (Tony, Dave, & Matt) to autograph one of my t-shirts. Fucking awesome. You have no idea how friggin’ happy I am. I’m happy like a fox, I tell you. LIKE A FOX!!!
I didn’t get quite as beat up this time as I did at the 2003 show. Only one little scratch and a kick to the head. Not too bad for jumping and moshing with 20,000+ people for 9 friggin’ hours. I got messed up way worse in ‘03. Also, I did bring sunscreen along this time, so I didn’t get burnt to a crisp either (in ‘03 I didn’t have sunscreen so my entire face, arms and neck were gigantic blisters by the next day). My forehead is pretty bad, though – it’s already starting to blister up a little bit – but that’s because that was the one place that I kept sweating off the damn sunblock. Most of the rest of me just got nice and tanned.
Alrighty, well, I’m off. I need sleep. I just finished a 4 hour drive (would have been 3 if I didn’t HATE DRIVING IN FUCKING DALLAS SO MUCH IT HURTS AND MAKES ME WANT TO BURN THINGS!!!)… so I’m off to bed. Enjoy the rest of your evening, ladies and gentlemen.
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That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy.
Posted on Monday, June 20, 2005 at 10:38 pm
So, as about 3 of you already know, I’m taking some summer school classes in order to graduate in December. My June course is Intro to Psychology (PSYC 120). Note that I’m 22, and technically, now a 5th year senior, taking a freshman-level course. To make matters worse, about half of my class is made up of “Junior Scholars,” which in laymen’s terms means “FUCKING SMART HIGH SCHOOL KIDS.” How dumb do I feel?! I’m 22, and taking classes with 17 year olds. And none of them are even hot enough to make me feel guilty about having naughty thoughts about jailbait. Grrrrr. But enough of that. I’m only taking it because I’ve pretty much ran out of courses to take within my major, and need a shit-ton of elective hours because my degree plan is fucking retarded. So it’s not like I’m just dumb, or anything. Well, I am, but that’s not the reason I’m taking a freshman class.
At any rate… the real reason of this post is to tell you something. For the previous three weeks of the course, we’ve been talking about boring bullshit crap that I don’t care about. You know, learning, consciousness, sleeping, other crap that dosen’t matter. But this week, we’re in Chapter 13. Psychological Disorders. This is the good shit, right here! This is the whole reason I wanted to take a psychology class. I want someone to tell me what’s wrong with me!! Hehe, just kidding. Kind of.
But yeah… so I’m going through the chapter, and there’s this section about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), otherwise known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Whether or not such a disease actually exists (I mean, really now, how can you be absolutely positively without-a-doubt no-questions-asked certain that they’re not just faking it?), I came across the following sentence: “In one case, a Wisconsin woman and her insurance company successfully sued a psychiatrist who used hypnosis to allegedly unearth 120 different personalities in her, including Satan and a duck.”
And she’s suing because of this. Seriously. How friggin’ cool would that be?! I totally wish I could channel Satan and a duck. “QUACK! ALL HAIL THE DARK LORD! QUACK! BOW BEFORE ME AND MY ANTICHRIST SPAWN! HE WADDLES WITH THE MIGHT OF A THOUSAND ANGRY MALLARDS! QUACK QUACK FUCKING QUACK, BITCH!!!”
Ok, that’s all. I’m done. Back to studying. But really now… that’s got to be the coolest disease EVAR!!!!111!!!
Also, P.S., the title for today’s post comes from a Lazyboy “song” called “Underwear Goes Inside The Pants.” If you’ve never heard of Lazyboy, you should definitely check them out. They’re not about “songs,” so much as techno-esque background music behind somebody just talking about random stuff that’s sorta funny but unfortunately true. Their album is called “TV,” so run out and purchase it (or just download the songs, what do I care?) immediately.
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My Biography.
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2005 at 2:43 pm
I was born in 1804, the son of a one-legged prostitute and a hermaphrodite. It was Paris, and my parents were the rich heirs of a banking fortune. Unfortunately, my “mother” (the hermaphrodite chose to be known as female) had a terrible addiction to snuff, and we were destitute and living on the streets by the time I was five. I was rented as a whipping boy to rich banker families, where I was punished in the place of their children. This brought in some money, but not enough to get us off the streets.
When I was 7, my parents decided they were unable to support me, and wrapped me in a trash bag and threw me in the city dump. There, I was adopted by a family of wolves and raised in the wilderness as a wolf until the age of 15. I was taught all the ways of wolfkind, and was crowned the champion of our bareknuckle boxing group – a mighty acheivment, considering wolves don’t actually box, but when they do, they’re terribly vicious. I lost my ear one time, and decided it was a good time to get out of the bareknuckle wolf boxing business. My wolf family wouldn’t hear of this, of course, and so it led to a falling out between us. I called my mom a bitch (which was grammatically accurate), my father called me a bastard child (which was legally accurate), and I left the pack forever. This is why, to this day, I have an utter loathing for all things animal-related – especially Furries. God, how I hate Furries.
After leaving the pack, I joined up with a traveling circus, where I was heralded as The Amazing Wolf Boy. Due to the primal secrets I was taught when I was being raised by wolves, I had an extremely long life, and stayed with the circus for about a hundred and fifty years, never actually growing up. The circus company was bought out by eleven different companies until it became the Ringling Brothers circus. I had creative differences with that management group, and left the circus in the early 1960s. Mostly I was sick of being The Amazing Wolf Boy. I wanted to improve my act, and become The Amazing Wolf Boy Daredevil Stuntman Extraordinairre, but the management wouldn’t spring for a damn motorcycle and a Cage of Death, so it just didn’t work out. I did, however, leave the circus with a good sized chunk of change, built up from many, many years of coins being tossed to me by circus-going patrons. And by “coins being tossed to me,” I mean “coins being launched at my head,” because the ringmaster put up a sign that said “Hit The Amazing Wolf Boy with a quarter and win a free taco at our concession stand.” Bastard. He should have at least tried to get half-dollars outta them, cuz then I would have been twice as rich. Granted, I also would have suffered twice as many concussions, because those motherfuckers are heavy!
So I left the circus and decided to invest my sacks of quarters in the stock market. That didn’t pan out, and I became a drifter, eventually finding my way to Haight-Ashbury in the middle of the great acid craze. Those were some messed up times, my friends. I left H-A after the acid started to degrade and the youth culture instead began to embrace coke and heroin. Those are not my drugs of choice, lemme tell ya. So I left, and went to Missouri where I became an investment broker for a startup company called “Rapists International.” In retrospect, it was a bad career move, because everyone involved in the company ended up in prison for sexual misconduct. Guess we should have seen that one coming, right?
After being parolled, I came down to Texas and decided to make something of myself, so I enrolled in a university controlled by cult members. Thus far, I haven’t seen any flyers advertising mass suicide, but I’m sure it’ll happen not too far down the road. I’m on the cusp of graduating from the cult school, and that’s where I am today. I only hope I can get out before they start making people drink Kool-Aid from a big trashcan full of cyanide. Then I can make appearances on 20/20 and 60 Minutes, sobbing through my horrible story of abuse and neglect at the hands of the cult members, saying things like “I always knew this would happen,” and “Was it grape or cherry Kool-Aid?”
Well, there you have it. My life story. Slightly condensed, obviously. But every single word of it is absolutely true. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
