Alright, having ripped through the China-centric work that's had me tied up all week, a new entry is officially forthcoming. Not sure on exactly when, because it's gonna be big time, but it is back on.
Also, I really really fucking hate those Geiko commercials featuring that piece of shit money stack with eyeballs. I thought they were shit juice the first time I saw one, but the fact that they're so God damn prevalent - I just cannot for the life of me escape the little douche bag if I'm watching non-premium network television anymore - has turned my formerly extreme annoyance at the stupidity of it all into genuine hatred. Because the fact that they keep putting new ones out and blanketing ad space with them means that a whole lot of dumb mother fuckers out there are digging them and that the commercials are testing well. I can always deal with a stupid idea, so long as it falls flat, chokes on dust, and dies fast. But when they take on a life of their own and obviously have the support of the greater populace, that's when I lose my shit. You just know there's housewives and shit out there thinking (or even saying amongst each other) "ooh, that little money stack is just so adorable! what a cute ad campaign!"
I initially thought the catchiness of "Somebody's Watching Me" clip that has become its theme song was the one redeeming quality of the commercials, but now I fucking loathe that song as much as if it was set to Hitler and Stalin sucking each other off on an imax screen that I was forced to watch with my eyes taped open.
The Cavemen sucked, but this shit is ridiculous. Fuck you, Geiko, you tasteless assholes.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Fuck it, here's a new one (by popular demand!)
Those of you who know me are fully aware of how much I like music. Those who don't but who read the last entry can probably divine that I have at least a passing fondness for it. And those who fit neither category should man up and read the other entries, there's hardly a lot.
But for the sake of moving this current one along, let it here be said that I am a devout believer in the true Trinity, that of course being the one consisting of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And when you factor in the price and illegality of one of those, and the...infrequent presence in my life of another, we're left with the music end of things being the most prominent and faithful of those big three elements in my life.
This is why it pisses me off when I hear assholes bitching about the lack of good new music being produced today. Said assholes, who seem to make up a fairly sizable portion of our population, annoy me on two levels. One, they are blatantly wrong, yet flap their lips on the matter whenever music is mentioned like they're some kind of righteous prophets doing the rest of us some great service by pissing and moaning about how they haven't been able to get into anything since REO Speedwagon's heyday. Two, and this is a big one - they're insulting my taste. And that just does not float.
Don't get me wrong. I understand if you're past a certain age, particularly if you're archaic enough to have come of age prior to the arrival of rock and roll and pop music as a whole in the mid-50s. You are then entitled to bitch all you want about how rock and roll is noise pollution and hip hop is just black people talking about killing each other over clicks and whistles. But then again, if you are that old, you are entitled - no, expected - to bitch about a lot more then just that, and it's ok to be similarly wrong about all of it. Should I make it to such an unfortunate age...well, watch out.
I also am alright with people who aren't really passionate about music to the point where they feel the need to seek out new songs and sounds to entertain themselves. I probably don't want to be particularly close friends with these folks, as they likely suck, but given one golden rule, I don't begrudge them this. If you're content with replaying one era or decade or whatever of music over and over and over again for the rest of your life, then hey, fine. The golden rule here, of course, is that you either be happy with it or keep the fuck quiet about it.
See, there are those that fit that description to a t, and they're at one with their laziness and lack of any sense of adventure. Cool. But there are so many, I'm tempted to say so many more, who act as though they're like some awful town crier tasked with informing us all how much music has shit the bed since, alternately, the 70s, 80s, or mid-90s. I assume there are probably some who make similar cases for things going south after the early turn of this last century, but their opinion was never valid to begin and this is as such the last mention of them I will make.
But the others, they fucking get me every time. And while you might be thinking "Well, I dunno Karl, it's just their opinions, opinions can't be wrong," YOU would here be wrong. And not just in the belligerent way that I might otherwise say "Nope, these opinions ARE wrong", but in that this variety of anti-new-music verbal diarrhea does not in fact constitute an opinion to begin with. Rather, it is pure and utter laziness given voice, and what a whiny, messy-fart sounding voice it is. See, opinions are formed when a person experiences something and decides, based on their own preferences, personal history, etc, what they think of what it was they just experienced.
But these people with chips on their dicks about how the last 10 or more years have been void of anything worth listening to haven't actually listened to any of the music they're lumping together as being so awful. They're just assuming because MTV stopped playing videos or the record industry is dying and can't force new music on them the way it used to that nothing worth while is being released or recorded. But they would know if they actually tried to find something to their liking that this is hardly true, and there is tons of new stuff worth checking out, whether it's from new acts picking up where their favorites left off, new acts playing exactly the same kind of thing their favorites played, or their favorites still putting out music, some of which is even good.
The record industry's slow and painful demise may have made it harder to get the word out about new music, but at the same time, it's made it that much easier to find music that is tailored EXACTLY to what you might like. All that takes is a tiny, minuscule modicum of effort, and *boom!* no more need to bitch. But no, these shit stains wouldn't dream of that...because then they couldn't bitch. It would invalidate their entire stance on music, a stance they have probably been carrying around without change for years and years of spewing hot air about it towards anyone who will listen. And hey, who wants to find new music to enjoy when you could just continue to pretend you've been right all along?
Let's play a really simple little game here. See, I'm sure that people of all races, creeds, genders, orientations, etc are all guilty of the crime in question, but let's face it - by far the most vocal are aging white males. Maybe they're fat, balding old rednecks who've never gotten over the dude from Skynard crashing and burning thirty-plus years ago. Maybe they're soulless Patrick Bateman-type 80s fucks who got salty when the underground broke big and made way for sincere music to take the charts back when the 90s came on. Maybe they're some late-20-something metalhead fuck who still lives with their parents and wears all black to match their long, died black, unwashed hair and compliment their body odor. It's all the same in the end, and I bet damn well that you know these people. I will thus stick to stuff they might bring up in this game.
See, no matter what you claim to like, music has not moved so far away that it would even be hard to find a modern analog or keeper of your particular flame.
You like Neil Young? Then I find it hard to believe that between bands like Built to Spill, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket (all very different bands) you can't find anything you like.
More avant garde and into Zappa and Beefheart? Why not check out Man Man or Ween?
Pogues fan? Gogol Bordello are also raucous old-country-Europe sounding lunatics.
The Band? Dr. Dog.
Springsteen? Shit, half of the bands who've released albums in the last two years are either aping or integrating Springsteen - the second Arcade Fire album, the Killers, the Gaslight Anthem, the Hold Steady, you name it.
Punk and metal were never in-style to begin with, so they will never go out of style. You will always be able to find somebody somewhere playing the variety of those two styles of music you like. Don't even pretend otherwise.
And jam bands almost never put out good studio albums to begin with, so nothing's changed there either.
Wait a minute though - what if you like really shitty old music? Fear not, my un-friend, there is still hope for you as well.
Perhaps you liked disco? Well you probably only liked it because you were doing mounds of cocaine, which is still readily available today to help you like shit you shouldn't. Not only that, but disco is totally in - even the once-chorophobic (that's fear of dancing, kids) hipsters now love nothing more than going out and shaking their skinny asses to disco-fashioned music.
Did you like grunge-latecomers like Bush and Candlebox but just feel they were a little too good and authentic? Nickleback has been robbing dumbasses like you blind for like a decade now!
Are you the guy I mentioned earlier who can't get over Skynard, no matter how many Budweisers you guzzle? Go listen to Widespread Panic or Kings of Leon.
Bloodhound Gang? Asher Roth.
And shed not a tear, fans of Journey, Styx, and Foreigner - so long as there is enough money to rent a studio with a decent soundboard, there will always be over-produced sentimental horseshit to sing along to come 1:55 AM. Coldplay wants to be that for you so bad they can taste the sheer bloated flatulence of it all.
Finally, if you're really such a stubborn bastard that you just can't fathom discovering a new band, consider the possibility that maybe you shouldn't just go to see your favorite old band and immediately yell out their biggest, most cliched hit two minutes into the show. Maybe, just maybe, an act or two that you used to like is still worth a damn later into their career. Tom Petty was still cranking awesome shit out all through the 90s - Wildflowers came out like 17 years into his career and had 3 or 4 legitimate hits and everything. Tom Waits didn't even really get good until ten years in and has never looked back since. The Flaming Lips similarly took years to peak. Hell, 90s fans half an almost 50/50 chance that their bands are still dropping good if not peak material (let me hear apologize to fans of the Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Cornell/Soundgarden, Weezer, etc). But just like dumbasses out there will never consider the possibility that Hello Nasty is a better Beastie Boys album than their debut Liscensed to Ill from like 13 years earlier because they heard Licensed first, most of the people I'm talking to here by referencing bands they probably don't like will anyway never give any of this a try or second thought.
Because they're shitheads. And they would much rather cry like bitches about problems that only exist in their heads than be happy with the ability to add some variety into their morose, repetitive, boring lives. "Don't rock the boat" and all that. Because that might call into question just how great the "good old days" they associate with these tired old songs actually were, and make them realize that it's probably been a decade or two since they made any kind of forward progress anywhere else in their life - musical habits are often a pretty solid early indicator for other habits and tendencies one will develop in life - finding new music is joyful and life-affirming; giving up on the pursuit of it is almost an early warning sign that you're also giving up on the pursuit of joy and adventure. Like in American Beauty (even if he listens to Jethro Tull when he gets his edge back, and they kinda suck). So when you're bitching about how all this shit today is garbage, you're really telling me that you hate your life and are a used up shell of your former self.
Well shit, now I feel bad for just ragging on the poor bastards for so long. But Hell, I probably lost all but the music geeks somewhere around name-checking Captain Beefheart, so no biggie I suppose. Hey, you guys were the ones who wanted me to crank one of these out.
* Disclaimer - not all of the bands I mention in "good" paragraphs are good and some of the bands I reference for shitty bands are better than their predecessors. I'll let you guess who I'm talking about...or choose not to. Also, these are obviously just some of the easier, more sound-alike analogs for the sake of keeping this somewhat shorter than Moby Dick.
But for the sake of moving this current one along, let it here be said that I am a devout believer in the true Trinity, that of course being the one consisting of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And when you factor in the price and illegality of one of those, and the...infrequent presence in my life of another, we're left with the music end of things being the most prominent and faithful of those big three elements in my life.
This is why it pisses me off when I hear assholes bitching about the lack of good new music being produced today. Said assholes, who seem to make up a fairly sizable portion of our population, annoy me on two levels. One, they are blatantly wrong, yet flap their lips on the matter whenever music is mentioned like they're some kind of righteous prophets doing the rest of us some great service by pissing and moaning about how they haven't been able to get into anything since REO Speedwagon's heyday. Two, and this is a big one - they're insulting my taste. And that just does not float.
Don't get me wrong. I understand if you're past a certain age, particularly if you're archaic enough to have come of age prior to the arrival of rock and roll and pop music as a whole in the mid-50s. You are then entitled to bitch all you want about how rock and roll is noise pollution and hip hop is just black people talking about killing each other over clicks and whistles. But then again, if you are that old, you are entitled - no, expected - to bitch about a lot more then just that, and it's ok to be similarly wrong about all of it. Should I make it to such an unfortunate age...well, watch out.
I also am alright with people who aren't really passionate about music to the point where they feel the need to seek out new songs and sounds to entertain themselves. I probably don't want to be particularly close friends with these folks, as they likely suck, but given one golden rule, I don't begrudge them this. If you're content with replaying one era or decade or whatever of music over and over and over again for the rest of your life, then hey, fine. The golden rule here, of course, is that you either be happy with it or keep the fuck quiet about it.
See, there are those that fit that description to a t, and they're at one with their laziness and lack of any sense of adventure. Cool. But there are so many, I'm tempted to say so many more, who act as though they're like some awful town crier tasked with informing us all how much music has shit the bed since, alternately, the 70s, 80s, or mid-90s. I assume there are probably some who make similar cases for things going south after the early turn of this last century, but their opinion was never valid to begin and this is as such the last mention of them I will make.
But the others, they fucking get me every time. And while you might be thinking "Well, I dunno Karl, it's just their opinions, opinions can't be wrong," YOU would here be wrong. And not just in the belligerent way that I might otherwise say "Nope, these opinions ARE wrong", but in that this variety of anti-new-music verbal diarrhea does not in fact constitute an opinion to begin with. Rather, it is pure and utter laziness given voice, and what a whiny, messy-fart sounding voice it is. See, opinions are formed when a person experiences something and decides, based on their own preferences, personal history, etc, what they think of what it was they just experienced.
But these people with chips on their dicks about how the last 10 or more years have been void of anything worth listening to haven't actually listened to any of the music they're lumping together as being so awful. They're just assuming because MTV stopped playing videos or the record industry is dying and can't force new music on them the way it used to that nothing worth while is being released or recorded. But they would know if they actually tried to find something to their liking that this is hardly true, and there is tons of new stuff worth checking out, whether it's from new acts picking up where their favorites left off, new acts playing exactly the same kind of thing their favorites played, or their favorites still putting out music, some of which is even good.
The record industry's slow and painful demise may have made it harder to get the word out about new music, but at the same time, it's made it that much easier to find music that is tailored EXACTLY to what you might like. All that takes is a tiny, minuscule modicum of effort, and *boom!* no more need to bitch. But no, these shit stains wouldn't dream of that...because then they couldn't bitch. It would invalidate their entire stance on music, a stance they have probably been carrying around without change for years and years of spewing hot air about it towards anyone who will listen. And hey, who wants to find new music to enjoy when you could just continue to pretend you've been right all along?
Let's play a really simple little game here. See, I'm sure that people of all races, creeds, genders, orientations, etc are all guilty of the crime in question, but let's face it - by far the most vocal are aging white males. Maybe they're fat, balding old rednecks who've never gotten over the dude from Skynard crashing and burning thirty-plus years ago. Maybe they're soulless Patrick Bateman-type 80s fucks who got salty when the underground broke big and made way for sincere music to take the charts back when the 90s came on. Maybe they're some late-20-something metalhead fuck who still lives with their parents and wears all black to match their long, died black, unwashed hair and compliment their body odor. It's all the same in the end, and I bet damn well that you know these people. I will thus stick to stuff they might bring up in this game.
See, no matter what you claim to like, music has not moved so far away that it would even be hard to find a modern analog or keeper of your particular flame.
You like Neil Young? Then I find it hard to believe that between bands like Built to Spill, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket (all very different bands) you can't find anything you like.
More avant garde and into Zappa and Beefheart? Why not check out Man Man or Ween?
Pogues fan? Gogol Bordello are also raucous old-country-Europe sounding lunatics.
The Band? Dr. Dog.
Springsteen? Shit, half of the bands who've released albums in the last two years are either aping or integrating Springsteen - the second Arcade Fire album, the Killers, the Gaslight Anthem, the Hold Steady, you name it.
Punk and metal were never in-style to begin with, so they will never go out of style. You will always be able to find somebody somewhere playing the variety of those two styles of music you like. Don't even pretend otherwise.
And jam bands almost never put out good studio albums to begin with, so nothing's changed there either.
Wait a minute though - what if you like really shitty old music? Fear not, my un-friend, there is still hope for you as well.
Perhaps you liked disco? Well you probably only liked it because you were doing mounds of cocaine, which is still readily available today to help you like shit you shouldn't. Not only that, but disco is totally in - even the once-chorophobic (that's fear of dancing, kids) hipsters now love nothing more than going out and shaking their skinny asses to disco-fashioned music.
Did you like grunge-latecomers like Bush and Candlebox but just feel they were a little too good and authentic? Nickleback has been robbing dumbasses like you blind for like a decade now!
Are you the guy I mentioned earlier who can't get over Skynard, no matter how many Budweisers you guzzle? Go listen to Widespread Panic or Kings of Leon.
Bloodhound Gang? Asher Roth.
And shed not a tear, fans of Journey, Styx, and Foreigner - so long as there is enough money to rent a studio with a decent soundboard, there will always be over-produced sentimental horseshit to sing along to come 1:55 AM. Coldplay wants to be that for you so bad they can taste the sheer bloated flatulence of it all.
Finally, if you're really such a stubborn bastard that you just can't fathom discovering a new band, consider the possibility that maybe you shouldn't just go to see your favorite old band and immediately yell out their biggest, most cliched hit two minutes into the show. Maybe, just maybe, an act or two that you used to like is still worth a damn later into their career. Tom Petty was still cranking awesome shit out all through the 90s - Wildflowers came out like 17 years into his career and had 3 or 4 legitimate hits and everything. Tom Waits didn't even really get good until ten years in and has never looked back since. The Flaming Lips similarly took years to peak. Hell, 90s fans half an almost 50/50 chance that their bands are still dropping good if not peak material (let me hear apologize to fans of the Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Cornell/Soundgarden, Weezer, etc). But just like dumbasses out there will never consider the possibility that Hello Nasty is a better Beastie Boys album than their debut Liscensed to Ill from like 13 years earlier because they heard Licensed first, most of the people I'm talking to here by referencing bands they probably don't like will anyway never give any of this a try or second thought.
Because they're shitheads. And they would much rather cry like bitches about problems that only exist in their heads than be happy with the ability to add some variety into their morose, repetitive, boring lives. "Don't rock the boat" and all that. Because that might call into question just how great the "good old days" they associate with these tired old songs actually were, and make them realize that it's probably been a decade or two since they made any kind of forward progress anywhere else in their life - musical habits are often a pretty solid early indicator for other habits and tendencies one will develop in life - finding new music is joyful and life-affirming; giving up on the pursuit of it is almost an early warning sign that you're also giving up on the pursuit of joy and adventure. Like in American Beauty (even if he listens to Jethro Tull when he gets his edge back, and they kinda suck). So when you're bitching about how all this shit today is garbage, you're really telling me that you hate your life and are a used up shell of your former self.
Well shit, now I feel bad for just ragging on the poor bastards for so long. But Hell, I probably lost all but the music geeks somewhere around name-checking Captain Beefheart, so no biggie I suppose. Hey, you guys were the ones who wanted me to crank one of these out.
* Disclaimer - not all of the bands I mention in "good" paragraphs are good and some of the bands I reference for shitty bands are better than their predecessors. I'll let you guess who I'm talking about...or choose not to. Also, these are obviously just some of the easier, more sound-alike analogs for the sake of keeping this somewhat shorter than Moby Dick.
Monday, July 13, 2009
.... Delay Announcement
Ok, the next one is gonna be a bit delayed. I was gonna write it up today actually, but then I found out that the people sending me to China somehow missed my email address or something else happened that made me not receive the link to the 45 hour training course I have to complete that everyone else finished yesterday. So I have some considerable catch-up to do, plus I'm actually too angry to write this right now, as illogical as that may kinda sound.
But I'll crank them out double time soon enough.
But I'll crank them out double time soon enough.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
America the Square (oh boy....)
| I had intended to avoid the cliche, big-topic rants for a little bit just because they've all been done, but when anger/inspiration comes knocking, it's usually best to answer (not that I'm always the greatest example of someone who does). Well anger/inspiration on this particular subject had been in my neighborhood for a little while now, but it didn't get the stones to knock on my door until a dear old friend commented on my "About Me" post the other day and made a cautionary statement about how I might wanna be wary about how I'm not going anonymous on this and still including the content that I'm including. After all, I wouldn't want to offend any prospective future employers or networking associates, would I? What chafed my gourd here was not my friend's warning, but the inherent truth in it, even if were only partial. And why is that? What the holy goddamn fuck should my liberal application of naughty words and admission of hating losers like E! employees have to do with my ability to perform or exist as a viable member of greater working society? What possible correlation should there justifiably be between anything I've espoused on this site in those first two posts and my standing on any marketplace outside of reality tv and the shit-heels who suck its gangrene teats? The answer of course, should be none. But it's not, is it? Now don't get me wrong - I'm not afraid I've royally fucked myself because of this, because for one thing I'm not arrogant enough to think anyone important in the corporate world has or will notice. But then again there is a link in my Facebook now (I hate Facebook), and I do use my real name, so really my friend's comment does, as I said, hold some hypothetical water. And do you know why that is? It's for the same reasons that people like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan get into office every couple elections under stances like opposing gay marriage and dipshit slogans like "the moral majority." It's because in America today (oh man, I can't believe I'm actually getting into this), the powers that be judge more on how they want people to act than any practical strengths or uses one might have. And I understand, just like in the last post, that this is hardly a ground breaking statement or argument to make. I feel like I'm gonna have to write a disclaimer like this in each post just to dodge the "don't be naive" eye rolls I feel I'd otherwise draw. But as long as there's reason enough for me to get angry about this shit I'll keep beating every dead horse you've got, at least for one post's duration. And not because I think anything'll change, mind you, but just because I'm pissed. Anyway, back on point. So we've established that it's fucked that the repeat use of f-bombs and displaying a cranky persona on the Internet can somehow tell bigwigs that I'd make a lousy employee who would obviously treat business associates like shit, send out memos laced with profanity, and publicly wipe my dirty ass with contracts. But my real problem exists with much more than just marketplace paranoia or anything so mundane as that. It's everywhere, in everything, and most everyone. It's in the way people frown on getting loose, getting wasted, dancing, whatever. The ideal American is a joyless fucking stick in the mud, whether they're 20-something or 50. I can't tell you how many times as I've increasingly embraced my love of all of the things I just listed the last few years that I've felt that kind of condescension from people, peers very much included. Even at shit like weddings, which are in theory supposed to be occasions to kick up your heels and get down and be happy and have fun. But no, there's booze on the premises and somebody's boogieing a little too hard - "Oh dear Jesus, he must be fucking wasted if he's having more than a nominal amount of fun. Has he no shame? Have some self control, you Godless fiend!" Yes, heaven forbid someone forgets about looking like a sophisticate for the length of a pop song or two. Control is the word. Shit on fun. You don't get anywhere by having fun. Hop to, there are social gains to be made there, you heathen stream of afterbirth. Fuck that noise. The more I go on the less and less I want to have anything to do with standard Square Culture success. Oh sure, I'd like to be wealthy, but at this point there're very few paths I'd wanna take even for that goal (and I only want it to comfortably step out of that same rat race anyway). Lottery winner, saving a rich man's baby, literary discovery? Check, check, and check. But barring that, I'd rather be a beach bum or some such for the rest of my life doing something menial and simple than be part of the pre-approved grind. Hell, next to selling my soul to The Devil for rock super stardom, that's what sounds the best to me lately. I dislike bikers and hippies, but I feel a lot more kindred with them than I do with 99% of the people I see in my neighborhood or walking down Chestnut Street from day to day. And that's why Prince circa 1999 (the album, not the year) was a such prophet - that album is the damn Hedonist Manifesto, seventy minutes of flipping the bird to everything I'm going off against here, a mission statement of bucking Square Culture and expectations. And naturally, it's the single greatest party album ever set to record. For what it's worth, that's where I see it all kind of coming together, at least symbolically - fun/dancing/partying. Dancing more than anything is one of the most genuine, free-ing, and awesome things you can engage in - it's like tapping back into some primal state of ecstasy from before human society, or if not that then at least childhood, when everything is fun and not all stressful and do-or-die dour. And this hardly needs to be synonymous with getting fucked up - I can be driving down the road dead sober and hear something I like and start tapping my foot or moving a little, because that's what I like, that's why music exists at its most basic level. Go back 3 thousand years and tell me I'm wrong. You can't be that way all the time when you get older, and I totally get that. But that's why when the opportunities present themselves to imbibe a few and cut some rug, you're probably a soulless jackass for not doing so. You're contributing to your own internal rot. And there's a lot of rotten smelling people walking around out there. So alright, what am I saying? I wanna be allowed to curse a lot with no fear of reprisal? That partying is the shit and everyone should indulge in a little tail-shaking once in a while? That I hate societal homogenization and the condescension that comes from it? Yes to all of the above. I'm not saying I'm somehow opposed to having jobs and responsibilities and dressing nice and behaving. All in it's place, absolutely. I'm not a fucking ape. But what pisses me off and makes me write shit like this is that more and more, with every new city that puts video cameras on its streets and every new new invasion of privacy made possible by the Internet and such, people want to regulate what people are doing when we're not on their time. That's a lot of gall right there. Unless someone's going out and killing people or putting spikes in their arm, there's no correlation between one and the other. Not "there shouldn't be". There isn't. It might not play out that way, but there isn't. Let Bill Clinton get his dick sucked by interns and let Hillary sort it out. And let me write a profanity binging 18 year-old style self righteous fucking blog if it's what I wanna do. Fuck everyone who says otherwise and their "American Dream", because they'd just as soon fucking strangle mine until flecks of blood and foam came sputtering out of it's mouth. And if nothing I just said was original, I can guarantee you it still felt good to type. |
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Talking Heads
And no, not the old David Byrne group, who had some pretty serious output.
And for that matter, not even those bloated-ego political talking heads, though they certainly have their own circle of Hell waiting for them as well.
No, this is about these assholes who go on tv and anywhere else they can get our stupid fucking populace to listen to them and make a living talking about pop culture. Truly, is there a more useless variety of media worm crawling among us?
I'm not new to hating this kind of drivel, because any time I'm dumb enough to pass by VH1 of E! or Bravo or any of these cultural cannibals of television stations I'm immediately battered with a volley of these sub-Z list celebrities spewing up warmed-over garbage about who fucked Lauren on The Hills or what color the guy from Twilight's shit was Tuesday.
But what really set me off more recently was when I was paging through a copy of the Philly Metro paper and they had half a page (in what is only like a 20 page paper, mind you) devoted to an interview with some schmuck named - no, scratch that - who calls himself Chuck Nice. Apparently Mr. Nice will be one of a variety of these useless assholes who will be appearing on a new VH1 opus called, originally enough, "The Great Debate."
This show, Metro informs me, will feature "favorite talking heads" discussing the big questions - "Who is more bootylicious, J.Lo or Beyonce?", "Bigger pop star mess: Amy Winehouse on crack or Britney Spears on psychotropic drugs?", "Most annoying male romantic comedy staple: Matthew McConaughey or Ryan Reynolds?", and so forth.
This is fucking newsworthy? A supposedly legitimate media outlet like the Metro really felt the need to devote time - let alone an interview - to this shit? It wasn't newsworthy the first time an otherwise idea-less tv station rolled it out to fill space years ago, and it certainly isn't in 2009.
Granted, me saying all of this nonsense is nonsense hardly seems newsworthy to me either, but America watches this shit by the droves, so it must be fresh to someone. Either that or the American populace just hates itself more than I thought and watches in spite of fully realizing all of this.
But it doesn't end there. That's just my impetus. That's the flint.
I'm not gonna go on about every failed comedian, never-was, and washed up jerkoff talking at me about dumb shit like they're some kind of hilariously insightful cultural authority. I'm not gonna go back and try to trace things back to when it started or got prevalent (maybe around the time some twisted exec decided that Flavor Flav had entertainment potential doing something other then backing up Chuck D?) either.
I am, however, gonna scratch a particular itch I've had for some time in this particular field. And that is that smarmy asshole on E!'s The Soup. I don't think I know his name off-hand, and I like it that way. No matter, you know who I mean.
He and his show play to the crowd that likes to think it's smarter than the average simpleton because they're aware of how shitty all this reality tv, talking head commentary nonsense is. "Oh, well he's not that bad, Karl. That show's pretty funny, because it's making fun of all that stuff you're making fun of! Don't you see?"
Fuck you.
Devoting an entire awful show to replaying clips from other awful shows and then adding your own annoying commentary does not make you any better then said other awful shows. They're not legitimate on their own and neither are you. And while I may have crapped out when I got to higher level maths, I most certainly know that two zeros added together still just make zero. This guy has a job because of those shows, and he doesn't dislike them any more than the people who watch his show. Hell, those people are the same ones who watch the shows being mocked in the first place more often than not, so they're watching half this stuff twice. Real rebel intellectuals, that bunch.
And where does that leave The Soup 's twit host? Probably the ultimate of all the goons I'm talking about here, because this cheeseball actually has a stable job on his own show. He and the other lesser jackasses who populate Best Week Ever, I Love the 90s, and all those other wastes of broadcast space are scavengers too pathetic to scavenge anything other than hot rotting shit. They are the dung beetles of televised entertainment, but without the ecological necessity. And I would rather deep-fry my left pinky in duck fat and eat it while still attached than ever contribute ratings to those vapid turd jugglers.
And for that matter, not even those bloated-ego political talking heads, though they certainly have their own circle of Hell waiting for them as well.
No, this is about these assholes who go on tv and anywhere else they can get our stupid fucking populace to listen to them and make a living talking about pop culture. Truly, is there a more useless variety of media worm crawling among us?
I'm not new to hating this kind of drivel, because any time I'm dumb enough to pass by VH1 of E! or Bravo or any of these cultural cannibals of television stations I'm immediately battered with a volley of these sub-Z list celebrities spewing up warmed-over garbage about who fucked Lauren on The Hills or what color the guy from Twilight's shit was Tuesday.
But what really set me off more recently was when I was paging through a copy of the Philly Metro paper and they had half a page (in what is only like a 20 page paper, mind you) devoted to an interview with some schmuck named - no, scratch that - who calls himself Chuck Nice. Apparently Mr. Nice will be one of a variety of these useless assholes who will be appearing on a new VH1 opus called, originally enough, "The Great Debate."
This show, Metro informs me, will feature "favorite talking heads" discussing the big questions - "Who is more bootylicious, J.Lo or Beyonce?", "Bigger pop star mess: Amy Winehouse on crack or Britney Spears on psychotropic drugs?", "Most annoying male romantic comedy staple: Matthew McConaughey or Ryan Reynolds?", and so forth.
This is fucking newsworthy? A supposedly legitimate media outlet like the Metro really felt the need to devote time - let alone an interview - to this shit? It wasn't newsworthy the first time an otherwise idea-less tv station rolled it out to fill space years ago, and it certainly isn't in 2009.
Granted, me saying all of this nonsense is nonsense hardly seems newsworthy to me either, but America watches this shit by the droves, so it must be fresh to someone. Either that or the American populace just hates itself more than I thought and watches in spite of fully realizing all of this.
But it doesn't end there. That's just my impetus. That's the flint.
I'm not gonna go on about every failed comedian, never-was, and washed up jerkoff talking at me about dumb shit like they're some kind of hilariously insightful cultural authority. I'm not gonna go back and try to trace things back to when it started or got prevalent (maybe around the time some twisted exec decided that Flavor Flav had entertainment potential doing something other then backing up Chuck D?) either.
I am, however, gonna scratch a particular itch I've had for some time in this particular field. And that is that smarmy asshole on E!'s The Soup. I don't think I know his name off-hand, and I like it that way. No matter, you know who I mean.
He and his show play to the crowd that likes to think it's smarter than the average simpleton because they're aware of how shitty all this reality tv, talking head commentary nonsense is. "Oh, well he's not that bad, Karl. That show's pretty funny, because it's making fun of all that stuff you're making fun of! Don't you see?"
Fuck you.
Devoting an entire awful show to replaying clips from other awful shows and then adding your own annoying commentary does not make you any better then said other awful shows. They're not legitimate on their own and neither are you. And while I may have crapped out when I got to higher level maths, I most certainly know that two zeros added together still just make zero. This guy has a job because of those shows, and he doesn't dislike them any more than the people who watch his show. Hell, those people are the same ones who watch the shows being mocked in the first place more often than not, so they're watching half this stuff twice. Real rebel intellectuals, that bunch.
And where does that leave The Soup 's twit host? Probably the ultimate of all the goons I'm talking about here, because this cheeseball actually has a stable job on his own show. He and the other lesser jackasses who populate Best Week Ever, I Love the 90s, and all those other wastes of broadcast space are scavengers too pathetic to scavenge anything other than hot rotting shit. They are the dung beetles of televised entertainment, but without the ecological necessity. And I would rather deep-fry my left pinky in duck fat and eat it while still attached than ever contribute ratings to those vapid turd jugglers.
About me
Ok, this was meant to be my profile description or About Me or what have you, but this site sucks too much to allow me to actually post it in those sections because it's too long. Unbelievable. Anyway:
I hate the internet and fucking loathe blogging. I hate lots of things, but some are easier to avoid than others, and the net and blogging are everywhere you go. I also hate myself for habitually using the internet, and now all the more for beginning a blog. And I hate you for reading a blog, and assume that if you're reading this one you probably read others. I hate you slightly less if you like this, but only slightly.
But I also have a wasted journalism degree, no money at the moment, and nothing but free time between now and when I go to China in a few months, so fuck it. Maybe one of you loathsome bastards will link up to me or some such - however this all works - and someone else will deem this gold and I can get rich and avoid having to deal with all this stuff that I so passionately hate. But probably not.
When I was in early high school, I wrote and printed a few volumes of what I called The Karl Bible, a handful of pages of vitriol about what I hated with some stuff I liked to make things seem balanced. It was, reflective of me at the time, rather small-minded, biggotted (kind of the same thing), arrogant, and hateful.
I generally think of myself now as a pretty different person than I was back then - there's not much of anything I don't accept now, and while I still love the pomposity of those books' creation (did I mention I sold them throughout my school for varying amounts of change?), I'm pretty far off from most everything about it. I now like rap, I approve of homosexuality, and don't even get me started on how my favorite bands list has changed.
And yet maybe I haven't changed as much as I always think. Because here I am, over ten years down the road, cranking out hateful rants about anything in spitting distance and pretending that people give a damn. This is apparently still my best idea. Only now I'm confident enough to not feel the need to balance things out with an angels side of things. So read about all my various hates and hatreds and show me some love, because I hate having to think of more legitimate ways to channel my writing inclinations. And make no mistake, there is nothing legitimate about what I'm doing here.
P.S. For what it's worth, I'm not writing this because I think the world can be a better place or I have any ambitions on working towards that goal. Stories about people who dislike society or aspects of it or are cantankerous or whatever always cop-out and try to end on inspirational notes by talking about how they believed just that.
I was reading Philly Weekly's tribute to longtime NME music critic and recent Philly Weekly columnist Steven Wells, a man known as a serious curmudgeon who recently passed. Frankly he tended to annoy me in his PW column more often then not, though I always read it anyway. The tribute was well done and made me decide I retroactively liked him...but they couldn't help but soften him by going into the same old same old about how he actually loved humanity and wanted it to be better. Now I didn't know the guy and I'm actually sure it was true - good for you, Steve. But it just raised my fucking hackles, because venom can never just be venom. Well here comes, bitches.
I hate the internet and fucking loathe blogging. I hate lots of things, but some are easier to avoid than others, and the net and blogging are everywhere you go. I also hate myself for habitually using the internet, and now all the more for beginning a blog. And I hate you for reading a blog, and assume that if you're reading this one you probably read others. I hate you slightly less if you like this, but only slightly.
But I also have a wasted journalism degree, no money at the moment, and nothing but free time between now and when I go to China in a few months, so fuck it. Maybe one of you loathsome bastards will link up to me or some such - however this all works - and someone else will deem this gold and I can get rich and avoid having to deal with all this stuff that I so passionately hate. But probably not.
When I was in early high school, I wrote and printed a few volumes of what I called The Karl Bible, a handful of pages of vitriol about what I hated with some stuff I liked to make things seem balanced. It was, reflective of me at the time, rather small-minded, biggotted (kind of the same thing), arrogant, and hateful.
I generally think of myself now as a pretty different person than I was back then - there's not much of anything I don't accept now, and while I still love the pomposity of those books' creation (did I mention I sold them throughout my school for varying amounts of change?), I'm pretty far off from most everything about it. I now like rap, I approve of homosexuality, and don't even get me started on how my favorite bands list has changed.
And yet maybe I haven't changed as much as I always think. Because here I am, over ten years down the road, cranking out hateful rants about anything in spitting distance and pretending that people give a damn. This is apparently still my best idea. Only now I'm confident enough to not feel the need to balance things out with an angels side of things. So read about all my various hates and hatreds and show me some love, because I hate having to think of more legitimate ways to channel my writing inclinations. And make no mistake, there is nothing legitimate about what I'm doing here.
P.S. For what it's worth, I'm not writing this because I think the world can be a better place or I have any ambitions on working towards that goal. Stories about people who dislike society or aspects of it or are cantankerous or whatever always cop-out and try to end on inspirational notes by talking about how they believed just that.
I was reading Philly Weekly's tribute to longtime NME music critic and recent Philly Weekly columnist Steven Wells, a man known as a serious curmudgeon who recently passed. Frankly he tended to annoy me in his PW column more often then not, though I always read it anyway. The tribute was well done and made me decide I retroactively liked him...but they couldn't help but soften him by going into the same old same old about how he actually loved humanity and wanted it to be better. Now I didn't know the guy and I'm actually sure it was true - good for you, Steve. But it just raised my fucking hackles, because venom can never just be venom. Well here comes, bitches.
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