You Are Dumb - Music

Demonstrably False

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:28:00 -0500

Election 2008, 11 June 2008

Memo to Amy Winehouse, K-Mart, and John McCain: YOU ARE DUMB.

Of the stupid things that come all too frequently out of the mouths of stupid people, few stupid things are more stupid than the Demonstrably False Statement. This is a statement that is so clearly and obviously contradicted by widely known facts AT THE TIME that the person saying it must be either lying out their ass, mind-bogglingly stupid, or both. We've had a slew of these in the past week, which means it's time for a theme edition of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"I don't want to play anything down, but I'm the least racist person going." - Amy Winehouse

This is, context-free, already a highly suspect statement. Under no circumstances would I, or honestly, anyone who isn't Amy Winehouse, put Amy Winehouse on a list of the ten, hundred, thousand, or ten thousand least racist people on the planet. It just wouldn't occur to us. And that's based solely on knowing that Amy Winehouse exists.

Where the statement becomes Demonstrably False, however, is when you're saying it in response to the release of a video in which, drunk, high, or both, you and your friends change the lyrics to the kids' ditty "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to the very, very, very not least racist at all "Blacks, Pakis, Gooks and Nips". I guarantee you, if there were ever a contest for least racist person going, that would be explicitly in the bylaws as an automatic disqualification. And if it wasn't, and you somehow managed to make it to the second round, the bit where you pulled at the corners of your eyes to make them all slanty would definitely seal the deal.

"It is not our intent to associate with any one particular group or cause." - K-Mart.

Once again, hearing this by itself, I would automatically be suspicious. Corporations associate with particular groups and causes all the time. Target donates money to schools. Wal-Mart hopes to hasten the Rapture. And I don't know exactly what they're up to, but I guarantee TCBY is up to something.

So when K-Mart rolls out a line of pants with "True Love Waits" plastered across the ad, and promotes the pants by saying they show "just where she stands" and has a "bold abstinence screen print" that happens to be the name of a national Christian abstinence-promotion group, I can't help but think that yes, in fact, it IS K-Mart's intent to associate with a particular cause - abstinence - and possibly with the group as well.

And on top of the lie, the abstinence pants themselves clearly violate Lambert's First Rule of Abstinence Promotion, and do so to an alarming degree. This rule states that any abstinence program must remember that it is competing in the marketplace against the orgasm, and must make its pitch suitably appealing to account for that fact. A pair of gray sweats with puffy, 1972-era multicolored lettering across the back competes with an orgasm in much the same way matter competes with anti-matter. Except the explosion happens nine months later in this case.

"I did not—that was in prepared remarks, and I did not—I'm not in the business of commenting on the press and their coverage or not coverage... My supporters and friends can comment all they want about the press coverage, and that's their right. They're American citizens. I will not because I believe it's not a profitable enterprise for me to do so. - John McCain, to Newsweek.

The question from Newsweek, by the way, referred to his comments about the press coverage of Hillary Clinton. Now, since John McCain clearly stated he's not in the business of commenting on the press, and clearly stated that any remarks that might be seen that way were in his prepared remarks, but not in his now-infamous Green-Screen Skeletor speech, I think we can deduce from this that despite what his speech writers tried to provide him on what was obviously three different Teleprompters, McCain exercised his own judgement and refused to cross a line he felt was important.

Ergo, when the prepared remarks said:

"The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes receives."

What actually came out of the mouth of either John McCain, or what, if they're smart, the campaign will claim was an animatronic McCain simulacrum created for the express purpose of covering up another secret trip to an Iraqi market, was this:

"The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes receives."

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from John McCain's example here, and that lesson is, don't fucking vote for John McCain.

Please Please Kill Me Now

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:45:56 -0500

Music, 17 August 2006

Memo to Duran Duran: YOU ARE VIRTUALLY DUMB.

Now, it's tough for me to know for sure, since my "glory days" were when I wrote about a guy being fucked to death by a horse, but I hope that, in that all-too-near future when I'm Duran Duran's age, I hope I'm not desperately trying to relive those glory days through some desperate online venture. Even though my glory days ARE kind of a desperate online venture.

But unlike Duran Duran, that I'm not on Second Life, is my point. Because that's just sad.

Until this story, I was only peripherally aware of the existence of Second Life. The way drivers on the interstate are only peripherally aware of the existence of cattle. It's a virtual world, an online community. It's World of Warcraft if it were run by a bunch of MySpace hippie wankers.

I don't play MMORPG's*, but I get them. I understand the appeal. Second Life scares me. Because once you remove the pointless quests, the insane level-grinding, and the gratuitous violence, all you're left with is a chat room that requires a high-end graphics card. It's non-stop, wall-to-wall AVATARS AND PERSONAS. If this kind of thing catches on, whoever's working on USB 3.0 better make the connector pointy, because I'm going to need something handy to stab my eyeballs with every single day.

The picture on the front of their website says it all - a minotaur, a smiling goth chick, an emo dude with a microphone, a pouting goth chick, and a blue dickweed in ugly battle armor. Also known as five people I would have to kidneypunch if I spent ten minutes with them at a party, and Second Life wants me to tie up my Net connection to talk to them online? Is there even a keymap for kidneypunching in their world? I doubt it.

But there apparently is a keymap for "creepy 80's pop stars seeking cultural relevance", as Duran Duran are not just performing a virtual concert in Second Life, but are constructing a virtual fantasy Duran Duran island. ACTUAL PRESS RELEASE TIME!

"Currently in the middle of recording their next album, keyboardist Nick Rhodes said of the project: 'Second Life has brought a third dimension to the internet; it is the new frontier where dreams have become reality. Whatever you can imagine is now possible. When the video revolution began we instantly saw the opportunity to experiment and explore a new form of expression to enhance the musical experience. Second Life is the future right now, offering endless possibilities for artists. Our community will be able to help develop the island into a fully functional, futuristic utopia, where you can never be quite sure what to expect. Duran Duran are thrilled to be the first band to become citizens of Second Life and are rehearsing now for our first concert there in the coming months. I think I can safely say that it will be filled with surprises.'"

First of all, Nick is CUT OFF. No more for you, buddy. Second, I've seen the "Reflex" video, and if that's how they're going to experiment and explore a new medium where dreams have become reality, Second Life just got fourteen percent wankier in an instant.

And third, who the FUCK wants to wander around a virtual island chatting with an unpaid intern who's pretending to be Simon Le Bon? That's almost as boring as wandering around a virtual island chatting with Simon Le Bon.

The whole thing about Second Life seems to be adding a gratuitous interface to things we already know how to do. Your "virtual community" is just instant messaging. Your "virtual concert"? I've downloaded plenty of live MP3s before, thank you. Pretending to be a feline Amazon cat warrioress? Yeah, I met that guy at my last convention, too. Nice rack.

They're just wasting time. Which is why I'm a bit surprised to find Duran Duran messing around with them. They've got even less time left than I do.

*Ask your boyfriend or son.

Old-Fashioned Rock & Roll

Sun, 28 May 2006 23:22:17 -0500

Republicans, 29 May 2006

Memo to John J. Miller: NICE TRY, FUCKO.

And you would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for this meddling columnist. It was a valiant attempt to rile us up and piss us off, to waste valuable time decrying you as a moron and pointing out your many errors of commission, omission, and cephalodundery.

But it was just a bit too obvious. A bit too transparent. I've spent enough time on the Internet to know when someone's just trying to piss people off. And you're just trolling for liberals.

Oh, right. Backstory. John J. Miller writes for the National Review Online. The National Review is a right-wing bastion. Miller penned an article listing the 50 greatest conservative rock songs.

I know. The very concept of such a list is almost evidence enough of its fundamentally disingenuous nature. Conservative rock? Conservative viewpoints expressed through a genre known for rebellion and protest? Why, you must be CRAZY to assemble such a list.

Of course, rock is a 60+ year-old money-making institution, and as we all know from observing many people over 60 with a lot of money, most of them don't retain the idealism of their youth. So conservative rock isn't as alien a concept as you think, especially if you expand the definition to include country-rock and Christian rock.

But Miller completely overplays his hand. He goes out of his way to try and co-opt lefty rock icons. Taking things out of context, misreading lyrics, or just exploiting the end of an artist's expressed political spectrum so that, ideally, people like me will write angry columns about Miller's cheek in daring to put Bob Dylan on a list of conservative rock songs.

I mean, I expected to see shit like "Sweet Home Alabama" (#4) or Creed (#47, "One") on the list. That makes sense. Confederate-flag worshippers and really really really really stupid Christians are time-honored members of the conservative base. I didn't know Kid Rock wrote a song called "Abortion" (#49), but I'm not surprised. And including any Kid Rock song on any Greatest Songs list exposes the shallowness of your bench, even if the bench is largely a traveshamockery strawman designed to annoy people.

Then there are the "stretches" - also an important part of maintaining your list's plausible deniability. Songs that are politically unclassifiable claimed as conservative, like Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla" (#34), Iron Maiden's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (#29), and Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore" (#25), a 70's pile of drug-hazed epic fantasy that Miller thinks he gets to claim because the evil overlord is... red. As in Red. As in communist.

But most of the list is just shameful trolling. Any song about abortion! Ben Folds Five? ON THE LIST. Sex Pistols? ON THE LIST. Taxes! The Beatles, ON THE LIST! Cheap Trick, ON THE LIST! Faith! U2, ON THE LIST!

Dylan gets on for the 1983 song "Neighborhood Bully", which, according to Miller, says that Saddam Hussein was bad, something that only true conservatives like Donald Rumsfeld believed in the 80's.

But his most shameful, transparent ploy has got to be the Cold War Gambit. The fake logic being that since Reagan won the Cold War, and Reagan was conservative, anyone who didn't think the Eastern Bloc was a utopia must ergo be expressing a conservative viewpoint. Which leads to some hilarious reading, as seemingly every crap 80's / 90's song that mentions the Cold War gets a nod. Jesus Jones! Living Color! David Bowie! The Scorpions! And Der Fucking Kommisar! The After The Fire version, no less.

All lists like this, in all publications, serve one purpose. To annoy people with what got picked, and to annoy them more with what didn't. So points to Miller for recognizing this and crafting a special list for a special purpose. It's just a pity that, like the cause it purports to represent, Miller's list is so ham-handed, unfunny, and transparent.

Which doesn't mean that a whole bunch of lefties won't fall for it, but idiocy is bipartisan.

Not A Monumental Good Thing

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 21:15:23 -0600

Music, 6 February 2006

Memo to Disney: WHAT THE FUCK?

I'm not naive enough to believe that with the Pixar buyout/reverse takeover, that Steve Jobs and John Lasseter will transform the company into a shining utopia of creativity. Other than killing Toy Story 3 and maybe firing all the costumed gropers at the theme parks, though, I hope somewhere on their To Do lists is heading down to the music division and putting a mercy bullet in the figurative collective head of... DEVO 2.0.

You may, perhaps, be familiar with the A*Teens? The manufactured group of moppets who covered Abba songs? Well, Devo 2.0 is just like that, only younger and without the strict attention to gender-ratio replication. Five well-groomed teens of indeterminate age, but obviously young enough that their secondary sexual characteristics are still blinking and wondering what that bright light is. Singing Devo songs. In stores everywhere March 14.

Now, I don't have a huge emotional attachment to the music of Devo. I don't think they're some inviolate pinnacle of artistry. But that doesn't mean I'm ready to acquiesce to Devo 2.0. Whom I discovered via a commercial on deep Disney cable. Sixty seconds of retina-searing, eardrum-shattering horror. Beginning, of course, with Nicole, Michael, Jackie, Nathan, and Kane belting out "Whip It".

Those names, by the way, imply everything you think they imply - carefully assembled by agents and managers to create the proper calculated effect. Distinguishable without being different. Covering the entire spectrum from "white and blonde" to "white and brunette". In the bio of lead singer Nicole, it say she was "excited and shocked to find out she was going to be the lead singer of Devo 2.0", which says it all right there.

Well, not quite all. See, most of you will have learned by now that when I say something is horrifying, I am not, as they say, fucking around. I know from awful, and I hope you know I know from awful. So you will take my word for it, and my words are, despite their quantity, insufficient.

I will spare you the music. Don't go looking for it. For the most part, it's exactly what you'd expect. Aped inflections, soulless backing tracks even by New Wave standards, vocals superior to a Kidz Bop album only because there are fewer voices assaulting your dome. But I have to give special attention to "The Boy You Want".

The unfortunate gender swap is necessary, of course, because of lead singer Nicole. She's the one whose jazz hands have turned against her in a desperate, and ultimately futile, attempt to save humanity. The end result comes out like some kind of short-bus Donnas song with extra keyboards, and will twist your soul like Moebius origami.

At this point, I'm sure, you are wondering what horrible, twisted licensing agreement allowed this to happen? Did some shady lawyer invoke an unread clause? Hold tight, because it's time to turn to the press release for ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The original members of DEVO re-recorded ten of their old songs (some with revamped lyrics) and two brand new ones with DEVO 2.0... The platinum-selling band hand-picked kids Nicole, Jackie, Nathan, Michael, and Kane to don the famous 'energy domes' and become DEVO 2.0."

And if that isn't enough to make you hide under the bed, remember this - if Mark Mothersbaugh didn't put money away for his later years, you know damn well Scott Stapp hasn't, so let's all hope civilization collapses before the 2020's.

The Thirteenth Age Of Mankind

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:42:16 -0600

Music, 14 November 2005

Before I begin, I'd just like to send my condolences to Dover, Pennsylvania, who God will apparently be striking down any minute now for rejecting creationism. At least that's what Pat "Let's Assassinate Hugo Chavez" Robertson said. What pisses me off is that if you do get smushed, it'll be seen as God's wrath, and if you don't, it'll be seen as God's mercy. But if Dover is spared, it'll never be seen as indicating that GOD HATES CREATIONISTS. Almost as much as I do.

And speaking of municipalities, memo to Minneapolis: YOU'RE NO PARIS.

I'm not saying that I necessarily WANT a bunch of poor immigrants to go nuts and start setting everyone's cars on fire for a few weeks, but, you know. at least it's a proper kind of riot for 2005. The right can claim it's all part of the "clash of civilizations", the left can claim it's all a part of a culture of poverty and racism, and we can all bask in our modern paradigm by the light of a burning Peugeot.

We had a spot of rioting here in the Twin Cities over the weekend, you see. But it wasn't the kind of rioting that gets the blogosphere into full-on armchair analyst mode. No, this was more like a VH1 kind of riot. The kind of thing you only expect to see in 2005 if Michael Ian Black is being snarky about it.

We had a riot in a mall over a boy band. Not some kind of 1998 historical re-creation, either. For real.

The band is B5. You may not have heard of them. The band has, like Menudo, gone through several incarnations. B1, B2, and B3 were disbanded before they ever released an album, and B4 mysteriously disappeared right before their first concert. But B5 survived long enough to become part of, I shit you not, the Radio Disney Jingle Jams concert tour.

It's difficult to imagine anything called "Jingle Jams" inspiring a riot, but it did. The Brookdale Mall was shut down for two hours on Saturday after what one Radio Disney employee, somewhat creepily, described as a "girl frenzy".

Fans rushed the stage, four people were treated and released, and chaos reigned. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I was right in front. Girls were running on stage, security guards were throwing them off. The girls were tearing off [band members'] clothes." - thirteen-year-old Amber Andrews, who did not indicate whether she got a bit of sweet, sweet lapel or not.

The mall defended its staffing, claiming to have 10 mall security guards on staff, plus at least eleven Radio Disney employees. Since this report, I have racked my brain for hours, trying to decide whether I'm less surprised that mall security or Radio Disney staff got trounced by a few hundred teenage girls. But I still can't decide.

Although you would think that the Radio Disney people, having participated in the psychological manipulation that got all those teenage girls there in the first place, could have managed some kind of Jedi mind trick on them, or hypnotized them by juggling scrunchies, or some damn thing.

Of course, this is the kind of publicity boy bands dream of, especially the ultra-processed, squeaky-clean, Radio Disney types like B5. So if I had to make a guess, it was the security guards who were overwhelmed, and the Radio Disney people who were caught off guard, in the back of the crowd, whistling and holding electric cattle prods behind their backs.

It's the most likely explanation. I've looked up B5 on their website, and despite one of them (the youngest and wimpiest) being named Bryan, and despite being named after one of my personal favorite TV series*, I do not get the riot-inducing appeal. Not that it's easy for me to put myself in the shoes of a thirteen year old girl**, but even accounting for that, it's tough to understand what made these girls frenzy.

But, as we've learned from the only source that matters, syndicated television, understanding is a three-edged sword. My side, your wrong side, and the DUMB.

*Despite its many, many horrifying flaws, yes.

**Or technically legal. Thanks, Mr. Restraining Order. Thanks a lot.

I Have A Theory

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 07:56:27 -0500

Bestiality, 6 September 2005

Right. We suspend our regularly scheduled coverage of the horse show judge and the hurricane to bring you vitally important news from Kenya - a guy fucked a goat.

Now, under normal circumstances, a guy fucking a goat in Kenya would only be moderately funny. Unlike the US, or even Australia, it's very difficult for me to use goatfucking as some kind of metaphor or analogy for Kenyan culture, about which, as an American, I know neither jack nor shit.

So all I'm left with is a guy fucking a goat. Again, pretty funny, but fairly tame stuff. The devil, as they say, is in the details. And some of the details are pretty funny. The guy was 23, and got caught making chevre, as it were, by the goat's owner and neighbor. The villagers, not having access to Internet columns, instead cornered the apparent Jim Breuer fan.

Having been outed as a Jim Breuer fan, and incidentally also a zoophile, the man hurled rocks at the villagers, then jumped into a pond in what is described as a suicide attempt, but strikes me as an extraordinarily lame one, if that's the case. Maybe he was just trying to get the goatstank off him.

Oh, there is one more minor detail. The one I've left out as an obvious ploy, as it will certainly become the linchpin for the impending comedy. He wasn't just fucking the goat. He was fucking the goat while STRANGLING IT TO DEATH. Now that's just unneccessary. It's gilding the lily. How bad off do you have to be when just fucking a goat isn't enough kink for you? And if that IS your kink, maybe you should just leave the goats alone and stay at home choking your chickens.

But this leads me to my theory. It does require one basic assumption that I normally would not go for, but let's say, for the sake of argument, that the Hindus have gotten it right, and when we die, we are reincarnated as other beings, higher or lower life forms as dictated by our actions in life. Assuming that's the case, here's my theory.

That poor Kenyan goat was once Michael Hutchence.

Think about it. What if, in some kind of great cosmic irony, every time Michael Hutchence gets reincarnated, he ends up dying in some form of erotic asphyxiation? He comes back as some kind of animal, then some poor perverted person somewhere in the world ends up fucking and strangling that animal.

Now, I'm not up on the fine distinctions on the Wheel of Life, but I'm thinking that a goat is pretty far up on the scale of things, and what you get knocked down to after dying from autoerotic asphyxiation is pretty far down. So Hutchence has, for the past eight years, been working his way back up to human in what may be the least pleasant way possible. Why go through all that? I can think of only one reason.

To get back in time for the season finale of "Rock Star: INXS". Let's face it, if I were Hutchence, and after eight years of poking around the backwaters of the music industry, my band whored themselves out to a reality show where a bunch of wannabe singers straight out of Reality Central Casting were competing to replace me, I'd want to do everything in my power to crash the party. Even if that means getting goat-fucked to death in Kenya.

Yes, it may seem far-fetched. Like intelligent design, it's JUST A THEORY. But if it's true, I think we can all agree on one thing. We're all rooting for him to succeed. Because that would be the single greatest moment in the history of television. just four more days, Michael! You can do it! Or, at least, have it done to you repeatedly!

New York, London, Paris, Munich

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 14:14:00 -0500

Main Column, 14 June 2005

Before we get going, first and last word* on the Michael Jackson verdict. It's incredibly disappointing for one reason, and one reason only - it means that every last one of those insane fuckers who hung out outside the courtroom, with their signs and their t-shirts and their flowers and their cheering all in support of Jackson - every single one of thos edelusional, obsessive idiots who thought that their purchase of albums for two decades, plus the occasional DVD, concert ticket, and red leather jacket, gave them some kind of fucking INSIGHT into the mind of someone who is, verdict or no verdict, a pretty disturbed dude...

They were right. Coincidentally, in the manner of a stopped clock whose time has come, but they were right. And even though a guilty verdict wouldn't have changed their minds, even though they'd have denied and railed against the system and bought "Free Michael" T-Shirts and held vigils outside the jail for a few weeks at least... there's always a chance that a guilty verdict would have spiritually crushed some of them, and oh, how I wanted those spirits to be crushed. Yes, let's hope justice was served. Yes, let's hope everyone stops making "Michael fucks children" jokes and returns to the more factually accurate "Catholic Church fucks children" jokes. But the hardcore, die-hard Jackson fans earned themselves some pain and suffering since this trial began, and as they broke into flag-waving, cheering, and confetti-throwing, I cried a little, inside, at the injustice of it all.

Oh, and by the way, your "Beat It" joke was sad and old before the neurochemical soup in your brain had even begun its stretching exercises in preparation for making the connections that would cause you to open your gob, so give it up.

And speaking of the complex and tenuous relationship between pop music, art, and human suffering, guess what you can do today for the first time in five years? You can pirate the new Backstreet Boys album! Sure, you'll have to track down a torrent instead of loading up Napster, but otherwise, not much has changed.

The album's title is "Never Gone", which is both factually incorrect and a vivid image of a horrifying future in which immortal Backstreet Boys rule over a ruined, shattered Earth, and our only hope is if N'Sync can reunite, cut off their heads, and claim the Prize. Of course, that would mean N'Synic is immortal too, and that's usually when I wake up screaming with blood pouring out of my ears.

Since it's been five years, and the Boys have been in and out of rehab, marriages, ahd parenting in the intervening time, you may wonder if perhaps they have gained even the slightest modicum of wisdom. Rest assured, they haven't. I mean, they can't even hold their own against softball questions from MTV. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"It shows growth, it shows maturity. It's still us. It's not too over the top. It's not over your head. It's not too complex. It's just us growing up. We can go onstage and not worry about all the added BS that comes with all this stuff." - AJ, who will now be known as "AA". So it's the cute one, the sensitive one, the tough one, the quiet one, and the one who makes a searching and fearless moral inventory of himself. Thank fuck the drunk pothead reassured me that the new Backstreet Boys album wasn't over my head, by the way. That was my main objection to them getting back together, that somehow I wouldn't be able to grasp their newfound complexity. The Backstreet Boys couldn't go over Herve Villechaise's head. Not even now that it's been buried.

"I used to be so wrapped up in relationships and girls and didn't really give 100 percent to music. Don't get me wrong, I still like women very much." - Nick Carter, who would like to remind you he's not gay, and that any crotch-grabbing he may do during interviews is due to the fact that he stuck his penis in Paris Hilton, and thus, very correctly fears that at any given moment, it could burst into flames, fall off, or at the very least file for emancipation from his groin.

"The word "boy band" used to offend me. Now I don't care, I'm over it. Call us a boy band. Call us ... just call us!" - Kevin Richardson, proving why they have other people come up with lyrics for them. Richardson's solo album, "Late For Dinner", is due early next year.

"We had wanted to get back with Max Martin, but there was a backlash of that Swedish, synth Euro sound, that came from us, 'NSYNC, Britney, so we felt we had to get away from that." - Howie Dorough. I know, you're all thinking the exact same thing I'm thinking. One of the Backstreet Boys was named "HOWIE"?! And he thinks they had a Swedish, synth Euro sound? Sucking harder than ABBA does not actually grant you Swedish citizenship, Howie.

Oh, and for the record, I remain absolutely convinced that whichever of their managers arranged for them to record a song called "Backstreet's Back" in the 90's did so entirely to ensure that headline would get used all this week. Clever little bastard.

*I reserve the right to comment on any future stupidity that results from the verdict, but that's all I've got on the actual trial and verdict. If Michael does a special for PBS entitled "Naptime With Michael", all bets are off.

Put Down The Acoustic Guitar And Back Away Slowly

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 11:00:09 -0500

Music, 9 June 2005

Memo to nerds: BE BETTER NERDS.

After all, I can't just tease you all mercilessly with the Be-A-Better-Nerd Manifesto on Tuesday (which lays down some ground rules, definitions, and fundamentals for this intermittent series, so if you've never read it before, go now) without actually providing some content, can I? No, I can't. That would be mean.

And if we're going to talk about shit nerds do that annoy the living crap out of their peers, we absolutely have to talk about filk. First, allow me to pretend none of you know what filk is, so that I have to explain it to you. Filk is the act of taking a famous song, and making up new lyrics for it. Traditionally, these new words involve some nerd-topic the writer holds in high esteem. And just like fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, nerds gotta filk til the day that they die. And it really needs to stop.

The thing about filk is this. It's astonishingly like masturbation. The basic urge to do it is understandable and widespread. In fact, I'd lay odds that over 90% of nerds have filked, to one degree or another, at some point in their lives. And that's fine. I'm not here to judge you. Well, actually, I -am- here to judge you, but I'm not going to judge you on THAT.

But filk is like masturbation in one other, vitally important manner that nobody seems to acknowledge. There are very few people indeed who are so good at it they should get to show it to the rest of us. And YOU'RE NOT ONE OF THEM.* So write to your hearts content. Carefully play that Coldplay song over and over again so you can come up with Stargate-relevant lyrics for all I care. Just never, ever show it to, or perform it in front of, anybody. Ever. Because you're just beating off, and we don't wanna know.

The worst offenders are the nerds who are already getting paid. The professional writers. Who have bands and record filk and sell the filk to the fans who buy it because their inexplicable love of the author's books translates into an even more inexplicable love of the writer's music. Please, stop. You are somehow managing to make writing midlist fantasy trilogies look worse, which is an impressive, but ultimately unnecessary feat. And most of you really can't afford the creative siphoning and distraction from your main "artistic" endeavors anyway.

Even the best filk is like a joke you tell over and over and over and over again. It's not going to get funnier. Once the surprise at hearing "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald"** with Trek lyrics wears off, entropy takes a hit of crystal meth and starts working its third straight overtime shift. If there's a more apt example of The Incredible Shrinking Returns than the second time you hear a filksong, I've never run across it.

But wait! Perhaps you, my filking friend, feel you have caught me in an error? Your filk, you explain, isn't funny? It's a deadly serious, tragic, mournful tale that coincidentally happens to be set to Creed's "My Sacrifice"? Well, then, you need to fuck right off. Without delay. And take your autoharp with you. Yes, and the case. Serious filk has no place on this Earth. I'm sorry.

You can sort of justify funny filk. If it's REALLY funny, and not based on some Pavlovian reaction to how the name "Boxleitner" sounds. But if funny filk is like masturbating, serious filk is like masturbating, then bursting into tears and calling out for your mother right after you come. It's creepy. It's disturbing. We don't need to see it. We don't WANT to see it. And stop using "Tears In Heaven". Nobody likes the original, and they're going to like your reworking even less.

If you need to angstwank so fucking bad, then you can certainly take the time and make the effort to come up with your own awful song. Whatever you need to express can wait long enough for you to string three chords together and boot up your pirated copy of Pro Tools. Your magnum opus can debut at NEXT year's room party. Trust me.

Filk. One of many things you can eschew, and thus, BE A BETTER NERD.

*If Weird Al is reading this, I apologize. You are one of them. At least half of the time.

**As a fun little experiment, I decided to see if my ridiculous ideas for filk actually exist in the wild. I am happy to report that, to the best of Google's knowledge, there is no Stargate filk based off of Coldplay songs, although there are ones based off of "One Tin Soldier", Bob Seger's "Turn The Page", and "Kung Fu Fighting". The number of extant Edmund/Trek songs is too horrific to contemplate, a numerical concept mathematicians refer to as "one or more".

I Have A Little List...

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:22:52 -0500

Main Column, 12 April 2005

NOTE: The April 13 column will be posted around 4:30 p.m.

Memo to the following individuals and/or groups: FUCK OFF.

Yes, it's that time again. Time for the buckshot of hate, the issuance of official You Are Dumb Dot Net fuck-offs to the minor annoyances that grate on us every day like sandpaper gloves on the universe's chalkboard.

Mariah Carey: FUCK OFF. - Her new album is called "The Emancipation of Mimi". Mimi, in this case, is apparently what her friends call Mariah Carey when they don't want people to overhear them, and it's developed into a nickname. Yay. And the "emancipation" does not appear to be from sucking. I think, deep down, that Mariah Carey knows that Mariah Carey doesn't get to use the word "emancipation" without being told to FUCK OFF, but only at a gut level, not at an actual rational level that would stop her from doing it. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I didn't want to call it The Emancipation of Mariah Carey. That would have had connotations of the whole celebrity thing, and all the misconceptions and baggage that come along with that." - Sentiments about the whole celebrity thing that "Mimi" has now expressed to dozens and dozens of journalists as she pimps her new "emancipation", complete with guest shots by Snoop Dogg and Nelly. Mariah also bitches about not being taken seriously as an artist, so she's apparently spent the intervening time since the release of "Glitter" firmly ensconced up her own ass.

Rick "Silent P" Santorum: FUCK OFF. Your pathetic attempt to distance yourself from Tom DeLay this weekend fools nobody. Well, except the national media, who dutily reported your mealy-mouthed Sunday morning comments about how DeLay needs to answer questions about his slime trail even though you're sure he did nothing wrong.

At least if DeLay goes down, and it's not, despite the hopes and prayers of us all, a foregone conclusion that he will, but if he does, he'll go down old-school, kicking and screaming like the embarrassing little Jim Henson's Nixon Baby that he is. DeLay may be a slug, but it's better to die on your monopod than live on your knees, as they say. And you're just an opportunistic weasel who's terrified that the rank hate and homophobia that got you into office in the first place may not be enough to keep you there when 2006 rolls around. It's a tricky political maneuver. When the handle gets pulled to flush DeLay, can you stay close enough to the rim to stay afloat, but still be seen as part of the Big Tent Toilet? As amusing as your little dance is to watch, you can fuck right off, Rick.

Pitt's Penis and Jolie's Vagelina: FUCK OFF. As little as I care about each of these body parts individually, they still dwarf, by several orders of magnitude, my interest in whether the twain have met. And where. And when. And how often. And how many times they deny it. Or, at least, Pitt denies it. Jolie appears to be keeping her nerf lips sealed about the whole non-issue. There's a first. A situation in which Angelina Jolie is the role model.

Buca patrons: FUCK OFF! Another Pope-related pointless furore. For those of you not in the Midwest, there's this chain of Italian restaurants. Buca di Beppo. And apparently, at Buca, there were private dining rooms, and the private dining rooms had Pope John Paul II busts in them. Don't ask me. I think it'd be creepy pulling mozzarella sticks off a platter while the Pope stared at me, but apparently, people love that shit. Someone ought to open up a "Planet Vatican" chain, the way things are going.

Anyway, after the Pope died, the restaurant decided to take the 90 busts out of the dining rooms, maybe give them to Catholic schools to remind children that Pope John Paul II was an albino with no arms or lower torso who frequently had marinara stains all over him. And the customers got cranky, saying the "pope rooms" weren't the same without a pope.

What surprises me most, to be honest, is that the Roman Catholic church doesn't already have a rule covering this. I can't believe, in two thousand plus years of cataclysms, lactates, or whatever the hell the Catholics call their version of the Magic: The Gathering Rules Errata, that the subject of how to dispose of papal busts from an overdecorated American-Italian chain restaurant never came up.

I hope they reach a compromise. And I hope that the compromise involves 90 funny hats and a bucket of Krazy Glue.

Cookie Whiners: FUCK OFF. Seriously. Unless you are either younger than six years old, or work in the children's television industry, there is nothing interesting, relevant, or erudite you can say about the fucking Cookie Monster. You don't own things just because you grew up with them. And if the Sesame Street people want their blue-furred bulimic to deliver a more healthy eating message, it's not some betrayal you get to bitch about.

It's not like it matters to most of the people who are complaining. Their memories of Cookie Classic are still intact. They're not, or at least I fucking well hope not, avid watchers of current Sesame Street. They can pretend Cookie Monster never sings "Cookies are a sometimes food", and PBS can go about its business of being a barely viable alternative to TMNT toys at Taco Bell.

This Is Not A Tribute

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 11:22:53 -0500

Main Column, 7 March 2005

"It'll Be Fun".

Those are the three most dangerous words in the American working environment. "It'll Be Fun". Whenever you hear someone say those words, doom lies just around the corner. I believe that when those three words were spoken, as they inevitably must have been, in the Starbucks headquarters, the earth opened up, flames shot out, a goat wandered into the boardroom and exploded in a shower of viscera and goatmeat, and a deep cackling voice echoed in the distance.

These obvious warnings were ignored, however, and so it was, in February, at the Washington State Convention Center, a beast was unleashed upon the world, a beast known as the Worst Song Ever.

Shut up. I do not say this lightly, so shut up. Whatever song you're thinking of, choke on it, because it's not worse. I don't want to hear the words "Yoko Ono" leave your lips. This is not an open competition, this is me telling you this is the Worst Song Ever. You can discover this in one of two ways. I will provide a link to the song twice - once at the end of this paragraph, and once at the end of the column. That way you can choose to hear the song BEFORE I describe it, AFTER I describe it, or ideally, not at all, if you value your sanity. Download here.

You see, the managerial types speaking at the Starbucks Licensed Awards Ceremony thought it'd be fun. They thought it'd be fun if they all dressed up in costumes, full of glitter, and pretend to play fake instruments while lipsynching. This kind of thing happens a lot in the world of work. We've all seen management's attempts to "connect" with staff or "humanize" itself through tacky embarassment. But at Starbucks, they DO NOT FUCK AROUND.

At Starbucks, they don't just lipsynch to some song in the Executive Sales Director's CD library, oh no. They go the extra mile. They take an existing song, rewrite the lyrics, and have an all new version of the song "professionally" recorded for them to lipsynch to. Now, this sounds pretty fucking awful, as well it should. But at Starbucks, they DO NOT FUCK AROUND.

First, they actually gave CD's out featuring the song to all the attendees. This ensured that the song would make its way gradually onto the Internet, and people like me would hear it. And second, the song they chose... the song they picked to put new lyrics to... was already, up to that point, the single most artistically indefensible song our species has produced during the course of pop music: Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City".

So there, in the Washington State Convention Center, Starbuck's licensees were treated to a musically incompetent, intellectually void, ham-handed rendition of what is already an embolism-inducing piece of music, newly titled "We Built This Starbucks". I know what you're wondering. What did they build this Starbucks on? They built this Starbucks... on heart and soul.

It gets worse. I give you the official Lyrical Cleverness High Point of the song: "Knee deep in the mocha". That's as good as it gets, and not only is it brainshatteringly awful, it's also a seriously unhygienic practice. In a song that also includes the lyric "Who trains the licensees / to operate the bar", it might not be the best idea to imply that these licensees should put their feet in your coffee. On the other hand, the scalding, blistering pain would be a distraction from the rest of the song. Some lowlights:

What appears to be a man attempting to sound like Grace Slick, and a woman attempting to sound like Mickey Thomas.
"Living the ways of being / In the Green Apron Book" - Which makes Starbucks sound like a bit of a Zen cult. Which is not actually a huge surprise now that I think about it.
"Someone's always working / BM's and inside Sales / We Care and service levels / are driving better sales" They rhymed sales with sales. They also rhymed "place" with "place" in the first verse. These are not DIFFICULT WORDS TO RHYME, people. If you'd spent your time with a thesaurus instead of making a giant 45 to hang above your heads while you embarassed yourselves, you might have ended up with the second worst song in human history.
"It's another fun day / with the deals we land / Licensees have got the venue / and we bring the brand" - This is the HALFWAY POINT of your five-minute tour of pain. We actually hijacked a time machine and assembled a three-member judging panel of history's greatest pain experts to listen to this song. By this point, the Marquis De Sade had left the room, Pol Pot was retching in the corner, and Adolf Hitler was looking mighty uncomfortable.
At three and a half minutes, they do the traffic report. It cannot be described in mere words. But Hitler was not happy.

The last minute of the song is just trailing-off chorus, allowing the horror to sink in. I can only imagine that last minute in the Convention Center, an entire room full of people wondering when it will end. I suspect time stopped for them, as the chorus repeated and repeated. While on the stage, people that hold the audience's livelihood in their hands cavorted about in what they honestly somehow though was a good idea. Even Starbucks employees don't deserve that.

If, after all this, you still need to know for yourself, I repeat the link to the page where the song can be found. Because deep down, you don't believe me. And you think you've heard worse. And you may even bravely try to tell me you've heard worse. But we'll both know better, won't we. Yes. Yes we will.

Weehoo Beaujolaise and his Cajun All-Star Jamboree

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 13:26:31 -0500

Main Column, 31 January 2005

Memo to Zydeco Lovers: YOU ARE DUMB.

I should probably explain, because this is one of those "nuance" things that got John Kerry in so much trouble. I don't mean to be specifically insulting to specific people just because they specifically happen to like a specific kind of music. It's just that the first line has to be kind of short and punchy, and the second paragraph is where I put the rambling digression. You see, despite what is, to all outward appearances, an incredibly well-planned and thought-out daily column of rampaging hate, not everything I hate carries all that planning and thinking right at the front end.

Sure, most of the time, my hate is the end product of a Rube Goldberg mental factory, complete with wacky cartoon music and a boot on a stick rotating around to kick a rubber ass every five seconds, but sometimes, I realize I hate something, and I don't know why. So I have to backtrack, and work out how I must have intuitively come to some conclusion of dislike without following all the steps. And so it was last week, when I found myself inadvertently exposed to a bit of zydeco.

Zydeco. Cajun music. Lots of accordion. From Louisiana, land of Mardi Gras and Austin Gullette. I was exposed to it, as I have long been exposed to mildly unpleasant things, because I woke up to the radio. I used to wake up to the 80's station in town, because as regular readers of this column know, Twin Cities radio sucks like Stephen Hawking's Roomba. But we got a new station recently, and so I've been waking up to an "eclectic" public radio station. During the day, when I don't listen to the radio, they are a VERY tall midget in the local radio scene, going out of their way to appeal to us alternafarts in our 30's..

But at six in the corpsefucking morning, it's some show migrated from elsewhere in the Public Radio world. Blues, jazz, an entire Berkeley's worth of folk, and world music. All presided over by a couple of golf-announcer, public-radio sensitive-guy short-haired-hippie DJ's. And they played some zydeco, and my brain shrank from it like an Anne Rice fan from sunlight.

It's not even that zydeco's particularly bad, either. It's kinda catchy, in a yeehaw sort of way. I just think it's the most extreme case of the whole "world music" thing. There are, in this world, probably no more than a thousand or so people who can come by an appreciation of zydeco honestly. Who either grew up around it, happened to stumble across it in the bayou, or whatever. Everyone else who listens to zydeco automatically garners the stench of the poseur.

Part of it's the guaranteed-to-end-the-alphabet name, part of it's that it's the archetypical music genre where you can go into your big-box record store, stand in the rap aisle, and ask the nearest drone "Excuse me, but where do you keep your zydeco? No, it's not a band, it's a style of music. Zydeco. Sigh. All right then, where is your World Music? That's all you carry, in such a big store? Perhaps I'll have to brave the stench of hemp and incense once more down at the Psychadelic Spindle."

Many people who listen to zydeco secretly, in their heart of hearts, want to listen to country, but can't bear its damage to their cred. Even alt-country has too much of the stench of common twang to it. So instead, they listen to super-ultra-niche country, so niche it has its own goofy name. It allows them to pretend that the line between Toby Keith and Boozoo Chavis is the Berlin Wall, instead of a bit of crowd control tape hanging loosely from a tree.

Oh, and any band that incorporates "zydeco influences" into their music should have their instruments loaded into a car crusher, just to be safe. The last thing the music world needs is its own Emeril. Not that I'm a huge proponent of the Emeril Backlash, which is in itself a bandwagon the size of the Macy's Parade, but the man doesn't make it easy to not hate him on general principle. Bands need to understand that just because you can lay hands on an accordion does not mean you have to use it.

Listening to zydeco is like masturbation, really. A lot of people do it, a lot of people enjoy it, and that's fine. But none of us want to hear about it. None of us want you to share your zydeco secrets. And if you must go out and buy stuff to help you listen to zydeco, we'd all appreciate it if you did it over the Internet like the rest of the pervs.

BAD IDEA FRIDAY: The Musical!

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 13:30:31 -0500

Main Column, 21 January 2005

I know what you've all been thinking.

Whatever happened to Bad Idea Friday? Did it once, waited months, did it again, waited months. Well, your long national nightmare is over. It's Friday, there are some bad ideas out there, and now I've put them together in what I lovingly call... BAD IDEA FRIDAY.

"Apprentice: The Musical!" BAD FUCKING IDEA.

I mean, it's not like this doesn't have precedent. Anything that was popular once eventually gets turned into a bad musical, or gets talked about being turned into a bad musical. The Lion King. Billy Joel. Batman. A string of bloated, expensive corpses impaled on giant pikes up and down the Great White Way. Anything, The Musical! has NEVER been a good idea, except for Bat Boy, which I think we can all agree is the kind of artistic success that cannot be duplicated.

Turning your otherwise successful property into a Broadway show is not just a bad idea. It's THE bad idea. It's classic. Prototypical. Archetypal. It is the Bad Idea Big Bang, the first Bad Idea to crawl out of the primordial soup. When the cavemen danced around the Monolith, they were in early blocking rehearsals for "Zarathustra! On Ice!" But Donald Trump still wants to set his reality show to music.

Trump, known for being a bit delusional even at the best of times, managed to say the same things everyone about to make a horrible Broadway mistake always says, yet did not seem to realize he's not the first to say it and be proved tragically, awfully wrong. It's ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"It still needs to stand on its own legs. You can't just put the name 'Apprentice' on a Broadway marquee and think it's going to do well. People are too smart for that. I think if it's able to show the drama, the tension, in a way the love, the anxiety and all of the other things 'The Apprentice' shows, it's going to be a very big hit on Broadway." - Every single news report indicate that he said this with a completely straight face, and no discarded crack vials were found within a five foot radius of Trump. Which is especially impressive in New York City.

Even assuming they do manage to capture all the drama, tension, love, anxiety, and the other shit you people apparently watch "The Apprentice" for, it's STILL GONNA HAVE SONGS IN IT. And there ain't a lot that rhymes with Omarosa. BAD IDEA.

And speaking of shitty songs, and BAD IDEAS, it appears that many of our fine musical celebrities feel kind of bad about the couple of hundred thousand dead people from the tsunami, have decided to help out. Unofortunately, they've decided to help by recording an all-star, charity, cover version of Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven".

Now, "Tears in Heaven" is an awful song. Eric Clapton only got away with it because you can't really criticize a song a guy wrote about his dead baby son who fell off a skyscraper. When your baby son dies by falling off a skyscraper, you get a pass for writing any old maudlin bullshit you want. We don't have to like it, we don't have to listen to it, but we have to let him record it and sell it and, um, make a whole bunch of money off of it.

This same protection does NOT, I repeat NOT, extend to the likes of Elton John, Pink, Phil Collins, Steve Tyler, Rod Stewart, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Osbourne, or her bat-biting dad. When Ozzy Osbourne is belting out "Tears In Heaven", I don't care how big the disaster is. It's a BAD IDEA. You think you get a pass just because you're doing it for charity? Guess again.

Special BAD IDEA dispensation goes to two other names on the contributing-singer list: Robert Downey Jr., who isn't a singer, he just does drugs like he's one; and Josh Groban, who's such an all-star participant that I had to Google his ass. Turns out he's the kind of person who probably sings "Tears in Heaven" in the shower. They probably didn't even ask him to contribute, they were just recording one day and he walked by the studio window, and they decided to keep it.

Upon hearing of the charity song, the people of Southeast Asia rose up in unison and asked, politely, if we could just send another giant wave to finish the job instead.

And the worst part of the whole thing is, thanks to modern technology, they're all recording their bits separately, so no ironic natural disaster (or terrorist attack, or rogue web-columnist with a rocket launcher) can wipe THEM all out. For the stars involved, it's a GOOD IDEA. But for society, it's a BAD IDEA.

Oh Come On, All Ye Faithful

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:31:20 -0500

Main Column, 17 December 2004

Memo to Holiday Fundamentalists: FUCK OFF.

You people pull this shit every year, but you used to at least be a bit muted about it. Going on TV and moping about how the Christ has been taken out of Christmas. But this year you're getting downright nasty, and you need to get the fuck over it.

There is no vast liberal secular conspiracy to oppress, repress, and persecute you and take your holiday away. Just like John Kerry wasn't going to ban the bible, just like the gays aren't going to sneak in during the night like well-dressed ninjas and turn you gay in your sleep. We're not that organized. I wish we were. It's getting to the point where I think you people could use a short bout of persecution. You know, like a week's worth. Just to remind you what it's like.

Since I can't do that, allow me to provide you with a few simple guidelines, in case you're sitting around the house wondering if you're being persecuted:

Being asked to share: NOT PERSECUTION. Even being forced to share: NOT PERSECUTION. Not holding ultimate domain over every aspect of December: NOT PERSECUTION. Having a tiny fraction of your influence eroded by time and society: NOT PERSECUTION. Being kept from getting every little last thing your Jesus-humping hearts secretly desire: NOT PERSECUTION.

Just because one day of the season is named after Jesus does not make it all yours. And if you have a problem with that, tough shit, because it's YOUR FAULT in the first place. It's your fault for horning in on the solstice, for starters. There were winter holidays before you came around, but if there's one thing you've kept constant for two-plus thousand years, it's that you hate competition. So you counterprogrammed the Solstice with Christmas, grabbed all the market share, stuck angels on top of the trees, and called it yours. But you weren't there first, and you've established a precedent, haven't you?

And second, it's your fault because you're the only religion to get not ONE, but TWO of your holy days declared as national, governmentally recognized holidays. Veteran's Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, MLK, those are all national days for national history, but Christmas and Easter are yours, and you made them America's. Guess which two holidays are the most secularized, with Santas and bunnies instead of Jesuses and More Jesuses? Think that's a coincidence? You give the whole country the day off to celebrate, and even the ones who don't believe in Christ are gonna have a party.

The right's current echo-chamber bitch-fest includes retail stores changing greetings from "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays", and this is described as the Moral Apocalypse engineered by the Jews, the Liberals, and the Jew Liberal Secular Humanist Atheists. Who they SHOULD be blaming is their beloved capitalism. The invisible hand makes more money giving invisible hand-jobs to all god's children than it does just the Jesus-fans. So the stores, wanting money from Muslims and Buddhists and Jews and secular atheists who still celebrate Christmas because we like having days off and giving our friends stuff, tell us "Happy Holidays" because that covers Christmas and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and "Hey, There's No God, But Here's A Waffle Iron Anyway!"* That's the free market for you.

They're pursuing PROFIT, you thick fucks, not some dark agenda. So once again, the people actually responsible are going after their opponents for shit we didn't do. That they DID do. Because they can't stand not being allowed in a "holiday parade" that hasn't had religious floats in it ever before. Because they think it's Satan's work when Target decides to stop making an exception for the Salvation "We'll Fire You If You're Gay" Army in its no-solicitations policy. "Oh no, we don't have our special privileges anymore, and have to operate on the same level as everyone else! We're being PERSECUTED!"

Bill O'Reilly is complaining of an "anti-Christian jihad" JIHAD. Bill O'Reilly masturbates on the phone using his extensive vibrator collection! He's got so many sins Jesus would have to come back about two dozen times just to die for them all. The poster child for creepy self-abuse is going to say who's anti-Christian? The Falafel-Fucker is going to cast the first stone?

The lessons of kindergarten are lost on these people. So fuck 'em. If they can't share their toys, maybe we SHOULD be taking them away from 'em.

*You don't expect atheists to have decent holiday names, do you? No practice.

Live, from Funkytown, it's YOU ARE DUMB.

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:01:07 -0500

Main Column, 26 October 2004

Memo to America: DEEP BREATH.

OK. I know the election's got you all squirrely. I know the campaign's been going on forever. That is no reason, however, to take leave of your fucking senses. Get a grip. Of COURSE Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs.

If you give a shit about this, you have a number of mental and emotional problems which I will discuss and dissect in excruciating detail for you, and it's your own damn fault, because if you give a shit about this, you haven't been paying attention since January 1 whan I started this little endeavor.

Here's your first clue that Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs. Her name is spelled A-S-H-L-E-E. A spelling from which it is possible to extrapolate every single useful fact you could possibly need about Ashlee Simpson. She was raised by people who thought A-S-H-L-E-E was the best way to spell that. And felt that way in 1985. If you're named "Ashlee" in 1985, it's inevitable that by 2004, you will be caught doing something wrong on national television.

The Simpson parents ought to express their eternal gratitude that it was singing on Saturday Night Live, and not flashing her cooch on Girls Gone Wild, but they can't, because we haven't developed UPLIFT TECHNOLOGY YET. I mean, even assuming that Ashlee is the brains of the family, a little Darwinian backtracking based on available evidence of her and her sister tells us that their parents previous address was most likely 1 Primordial Ooze Lane. Or possibly Tennessee.

Second vital clue that Ashlee Simpson was lip-syncing: ASHLEE SIMPSON'S MUSIC. You know how much Ashlee Simpson music I've heard? The fifteen seconds or so from the lip-syncing clip. And from that, I can determine that even if everything had gone perfectly, there is nothing in her entire repertoire that (a) she wouldn't have lip-synced given the opportunity, or (b) she SHOULDN'T have. Why the hell not? It's shitty pop-rock. If you think this incident exposes the music industry to be a fake, a sham, in which musical acts are assembled out of pretty bits and pieces for broad market appeal, then I say to you, congratulations on your successful revival, and I trust life in the 21st century is more comfortable than the GLACIER you've been frozen in for two centuries.

If, on the other hand, you are an Ashlee Simpson fan, and are traumatized at the news that your idol engaged in a bit of pre-recorded trickery, it's important for you to understand that your eighth-grade biology homework isn't going to finish itself, young lady, so get your ass off that goddamn Internet and hit the books. If you're not a 14-year-old girl, and you're listening to Ashlee Simpson music, you're either a pedophile or the victim of some elaborate, illegal scientific experiment.*

Third major clue that Ashlee Simpson might lip-sync when appearing on Saturday Night Live: She was appearing on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Has nobody else ever watched this show? If so, it would explain the popularity of Chris Kattan, but odds are it would have gotten cancelled at least a couple of years ago if I were the sole, sporadic audience. People lip-sync on SNL all the friggin' time.

If you really think SNL is some musical institution, where great musicians deliver classic performances, you need to stop smoking crack with Lorne Michaels. I know he has the best crack in town, but that doesn't mean you have to hang around and listen to his bullshit. For every brilliant, memorable song like... like... actually, the only SNL performance I can remember is when the lead singer of the Pogues, drunk off his ass, wandered aimlessly behind the drum set during what was suddenly an instrumental.

But what about the hypocrisy angle? After all, she told "Lucky" magazine she'd never lip-sync! FUCK YOU. Stop holding 19-year-old girls to a higher standard than your own fucking president. A higher truth standard, a higher honesty standard, fuck, a higher grammatical standard, even. And stop reading "Lucky" magazine while you're at it, you freak.

Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs. Big fucking whoop. If this is your idea of a big deal, I hope you never find out that Santa Claus isn't real, and that prostitutes aren't anything like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Or, if you do find out, I hope to hell I'm not walking in front of your high-rise when you get the news. I just bought these shoes.

*This sentence ensures that I will get at least one Google hit for "Ashlee Simpson pedophile", but I can live with that.**

**This sentence will make it two to four hits. So I won't type it again.

Revenge Of BAD CALL FRIDAY

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:02:16 -0500

Main Column, 22 October 2004
Back in August, longtime readers of this column may recall that I inaugurated a new Friday feature: BAD CALL FRIDAY. It was such a stirring success that it was never once repeated... until NOW. Yes, it's time for another series of horrible mistakes made by celebrities, corporations, and public officials.
We start in Hollywood, where it was announced, a month or so ago*, that John Woo would be directing a new movie based on the venerable property, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This is what experts refer to as a TRIPLE BAD CALL:
Last year, they tried to resurrect He-Man with a new cartoon. The cartoon was awful, failed miserably, and was cancelled. Ergo, a new He-Man movie is a BAD CALL.
Last year, they tried to resurrect He-Man with a new line of toys. The toys were super-crappy, failed miserably, and the line was cancelled. Ergo, a new He-Man movie strikes me as a BAD CALL.
This year, they had the brilliant idea to make a new movie, based on a popular character, that had been portrayed in a shitty 80's movie by Dolph Lundgren. This film defied all odds by being almost as bad as (or worse than, depending on who you ask) the original, and was a critical and box-office disappointment. One can draw from this the conclusion that a new He-Man movie would be a BAD CALL.
And really, if you're going to take one 20-year-old piece of shit and bring it back with new "talent", why stop there? Remember "Band Aid", the African poverty benefit supergroup that narrowly avoided a trademark-infringement lawsuit from Johnson & Johnson? You know, the ones that put out the "Do They Know It's Christmas" song that has been inescapable for two months a year ever since? Well, they're remaking it. BAD CALL.
I mean, the original is bad enough. Sure, it's generally thought of as the best of the "save the hungry people" charity songs, but look at its competition. Plus, it was mostly British people, and that gives it bonus cultural cachet that obscures its general crapitude. But a remake? And it's not like they're getting the band (aid) back together or anything. No, this time they're assembling an all new "super"group of today's artists to re-record the song!
Farewell, Bono! You've been replaced by COLDPLAY. That's gotta fucking hurt. The only guy from the original Band Aid that's even remotely close to still relevant, and the coach pulls you out of the game so that those whiny "Yellow" fuckers can belt out "Feed The World". Remember Sting? You know, back in the 80's when he didn't entirely suck? Well, pack him into his Jaguar and send him off onto the ice floe, we've got Travis now. Boy George? Boy Schmorge! We've got a whole BAND full of glam assholes, The Darkness! And remember, when the remake comes out, every single time it gets pirated over the Internet, a child in Africa DIES.
And finally, the right-wing simply can't let "Fahrenheit 9/11" die. The DVD's been out for two weeks, which means it's now officially outside the "window of visibility", and gets stocked back with all the other "F" titles in the Documentary section. Most of the discussion of the film happened over the summer anyway; the DVD release really didn't incite any new arguing. But since the right can't just get on with it, today brings us the BAD CALL release of "Celsius 41.11", a movie title so bad and un-funny that it could have only come from pissed-off conservatives.
This new documentary**, written by Lionel Chetwynd, the man that gave us that stunning piece of Showtime fiction about how incredibly brave and decisive Bush was after 9/11, is named after the temperature at which your brain starts to deteriorate. BAD CALL. Chetwynd is quoted as explaining that "You tell enough lies, and the brain starts to die." Again, BAD CALL. I've thought of at least eight different punchlines for that quote in the time it took me to paste it. Make us lead the target a little, Chetwynd! Don't just stand there with a big target on your ass!
The documentary, intended as a "rebuttal" to Fahrenheit 9/11, spends a lot of time talking about John Kerry, which Fahrenheit didn't mention at all. Oops. Let me make fun of Chetwynd a little more, because his name sounds like an 80's prog-rock band, and because he said something else that was realy fucking stupid. ACTUAL BAD CALL QUOTE TIME!
"What was getting to me was Michael Moore's almost preternatural obsession with getting rid of Bush." - Lionel "HO-Scale" Chetwind. If "preternatural" means "beyond natural", and Moore's desire to get rid of Bush is "almost preternatural", that means it's almost beyond natural, which means it's COMPLETELY NATURAL. Along with the similar desires of anyone who's been paying attention for the past four years. Remember, kids. Being a complete dumbass in public is always a.... BAD CALL.
*They can't all be up-to-the-minute topical, you know.
**Note my kindness and taking of the moral high ground by not putting quotes around it.