blog me, amadeus

What Made 2009 Suck So Badly? We Did.

Did you have fun in 2009?

Yeah. Neither did I. There were high points, to be sure.

But come on. The year was pretty dreary and you know it.

It was almost as if 2009 was simply destined to suck— like everyone knew going into it not to expect much, lest you face colossal disappointment when 2009’s inevitable complete and total shittiness finally surfaced.

And said shittiness did surface, many times, before the year was up. And while 2009 wasn’t such a bad year by some benchmarks (certainly it could have been worse?) everyone I know (myself included) hated being there.

The popular take on this year, I guess, is that a miserable economy makes for a bummer of a time. But if you, like I, am part of the loose confederation of narcissists they’re calling “Generation Y”, then let’s face it: We’re still too young for a recession to fuck up our year entirely. It dampened the mood, to be sure. But we’re supposed to be out laughing it off over beers, falling in love, making mistakes. A diminishing 401k balance can’t be to blame for an entire year’s worth of rainy days.

And, hey: Last year, we got our president! So it wasn’t politics. We’ve been at war for seven+ years, so I doubt the reality of an perpetual war against a world-old culture had much to do with this pervasive, thick cloud of ennui we all traipsed through for twelve months straight. And culturally, 2009 gave us some excellent literature, music, film, journalism, art and science— so I’m not convinced the year’s goodwill drought was drawn from a dry humanities well.

I am convinced, however, that most of us spending more than 1/4th of our waking hours on the Internet, did, in fact, have a lot to do with why we spent the other 3/4ths of our time kvetching about what a bad time we were having in good ol’ AD 2009. (That’s the statistic, by the way: Our generation spent one fourth of 2009 online. Sort of a bitter pill, no?)

So, snark this: If you want a happier 2010, wrap yourself free of the Web. No more “hipster” blogs. No more Facebook. No trend-chasing and anxiety about possibly “missing” the next cultural tidal wave.

Please, Gen-Y: Chill the fuck out.

We’re all in this thing together. Let’s start acting like it.

Our generation, us nebulous “Y-ers”, as it has been noted by pretty much everyone who seriously studies things like “generations”, feels a safety in numbers that no previous generation ever felt. In the same breath, however, we have a very serious, insatiable urge to “stand out from the crowd.” It’s a weird stasis, to say the least: We Are Individuals, Dammit (But! Look How Many Facebook Friends We Have!)

The success of “social networking” in the ‘00s can only really mean a small number of things. To me, it means we’re a generation of people to whom appearances matter. A lot. We seem to be constantly jockeying for a position that allows us to be seen in better light— whether it’s the dim light of a smartphone screen or the big blue glow of the TV. This “look at me!” impulse is nothing new, I guess. What’s new is the sad lengths we watch others go to be seen. And then we go and make fun of them for it.

We’ll trample anyone who we perceive to be smarter, better, more talented than us— we’ll comment on their YouTube video with unfiltered vitriol; we’ll blog about how their latest record is overrated, contrived, and How Dare They for even trying.

Lest they succeed. Lest their dreams are realized. Lest someone else is Happy before you, personally, are Happy.

Give me a fucking break.

You most likely don’t need me to tell you this, but here it goes: Blogs have a vested interest in telling you, every day, how much everything sucks. Seriously. That’s how it works. The attitude is, simply: “It’s shitty out there. Stick with us and we’ll help you through it.” That’s, in a nutshell, how people make money from information. It’s how advertising has worked for the past eighty years. It’s how TV news has been functioning for decades, which is certainly one reason, I imagine, why nobody’s reading newspapers. Newspapers are objective— there’s nobody to tell you why you need to know the information they’re providing. Nobody’s “spinning” anything at you— nobody’s pandering or “summing up.” There’s no constant, weird, existential panic about the intellectually-absurd notion of perhaps “missing” something. Just the facts. Yawn.

Here’s another thing you might already know: Nobody makes a Facebook photo album of themselves sitting alone in their room on a Saturday night listening to Morrissey records. Nobody tweets, “Wow. Another pregnancy scare!” or “Just lost my job again!” The point being that Facebook and the rest of them are there for you to sell yourself to others who are doing the same thing to you. It’s not real. Believe in it hard enough— worship it, even, as I suspect some do— and your own little life looks pretty sad by comparison, no matter who you are.

So there are just two off-the-top-of-my-head examples of how logging on equals bumming out. Sorry to be a killjoy, but here it comes: The Internet is The New Television And They’re Both Pretty Bad For Your Psyche When You Get Right Down To It.

(A quick word about “bad”— “bad” like, Taco Bell, not “bad” like murder. This isn’t about shaming anyone into abandoning something that they like. My contention is just that, if you, like me, feel just the tiniest bit squeamish or nervous about spending 1/4th of your very limited time in a macabre digital simulacrum— if you, like me, get bummed out easily by what amounts to a vast, cultural lobster bucket— then you can do something about it. Entertainment, like junk food, seems so benign on its surface— “it’s fun!”, etc. But what TV did first— and what the Internet is doing now— isn’t so much augmenting social interaction as it is replacing it. What I’m sort of suggesting here is that maybe we ought to be smarter about the degree to which we allow the Internet to corrode the bond between us and each other.)

So. What made 2009 suck so badly? I submit that We Did. Which, really, is great news. Because it means 2010 can be different. And we can do something about it.

I’m begging you here, Gen-Y: Let’s do this together. Let’s kill the Industry of Cool, once and for all. We can make it hip to give a shit about something bigger than ourselves again. Let’s stop preening for Cobrasnake cameras at parties; let’s stop texting during drinks. Let’s start saying “yes” again— knowing damn well it’s so much harder than simply saying “no.”

Let’s quit doing the whole irony-pose: If you like something, like it!— no more “It’s so bad it’s good”, “guilty pleasure” relativism. Let’s collectively embrace the idea that there are more important things in this short life than how we appear to strangers— things more important than being famous on MySpace or making sure it appears as if you had a better time last weekend than your contemporaries. Things like kindness, love, family, community— things for which we used to live but have now become “cliches.”

Let’s use the old tools for social networking: Smiles, waves, eye contact— encouragement, support, laughter.

Let’s quit shoving each other around, pulling each other down, making fun of each other, hunting for differences when we share so many similarities. Let’s not give ultimate critical credence to feckless, niggardly music bloggers. Let’s stop turning everything into one big parody of something else.

Let’s quit turning nearly every real-life experience into just another digital anecdote.

Let’s quit twittering.

(I promise you: An experience is still an experience even if you don’t share it.)

It’s the paradox of the decade, really: That the most exciting cultural and technological innovation of our time, designed to connect us with our world, in fact wound up isolating us from it and from one another.

So. 20/20 hindsight. Lesson learned.

Let’s not do it again tho, k?

;)

Some More "Hateful stuff." (Now With Pictures!)

Hey, so remember that post I made a while back where I made fun of people who choose to deal with traumatic life events by gluing shitty clip art to an index card and mailing it anonymously to a blog? No, you probably don’t. Why not? Probably because it wasn’t very funny, right? Yeah. Well.

I had planned to simply move on and forget all about yet another failure to create a hilarious new schtick. But then— like a unresolved issue buried deep in the past that can only truly be reconciled with / healed by a cliche-rife postcard—came this comment:

Oh, dude, this bummed me out for so long, dude, you don’t even know.

I was losing a lot of sleep. I sent like 4 postcards with my “feelings” on them (anonymously of course) to a popular blog in attempt to “unburden my soul”. Surprisingly I felt nothing. I developed an “eating disorder.” I started cutting again. I bought an acoustic guitar off of Craigslist. People were telling me how rad and edgy I was looking, but I didn’t even care. I was feeling anything but. I felt like a “Hate dude”. It was gnarly. And heavy. Dude.

This whole, horrible period of my life culminated last night while I was shaving my beard at my ex-brother-in-law’s apartment. Which I do every other Monday.

I took off my Aviators and took a long, hard look at myself in the mirror and told myself I was going to kill myself tomorrow. Then someone put a blue filter on all the lights and Elliott Smith started playing from an “iHome” I hadn’t previously noticed and I knew what I had to do— even though I had just finished saying how it was tomorrow that I was going to kill myself and not right that second or else why wouldn’t I have said “I’m going to kill myself right now” … But I was so bummed about being such a “hateful dude” that I wasn’t in a particularly analytical state of mind.

(Plus I figured the “tomorrow” thing was just a cool “homage” to a French new wave film I hadn’t seen and would never see because Netflix doesn’t have it and my local video store closed recently— and though I talk a lot about how everyone should “Support local businesses”, I rarely connect my real, waking life with my “ideals” so I justify my switching to Netflix by telling myself it was “greener” than driving to a locally-owned store to rent my movies (but of course when I need a movie, like, right away, I definitely drive) and but so then when my local store closed do you think I didn’t talk about how much of a shame it was that I could no longer drive on a whim and get an “indie” movie and how we’re all living in an age of corporate, internet-driven hegemony and how we’re all totally, completely, fucked? No of course I still talk about it all the time. Support local, k? Homegrown. Unless you can get it cheaper elsewhere. Then, you know, “Go green.” Or whatever.)

So my whole point here is that somewhere between a Royal Tenenbaums reference/joke and a rant about hippies it hit me: Oh wait. This lesbian commenter simply confused “hateful” with “unfunny”. DUDE!!!!

And so I realized: Not only do I need to give credence to a retarded comment left by a Indigo Girls-loving stranger by writing a crazy, long, and unfocused tumblog about it; I also need to educate “the public” by providing a few examples of the difference between “hate” and “not funny.” And then I need to resurrect the whole lame premise of mocking people who are so clearly at their wit’s end that they’re mailing their “secrets” to the Internet instead of owning up to their problems and/or doing something to fix them.

I will overcome this, dude. I know I can do it.

With all that in mind I present: A Few Examples Of Things That Are “Hateful” As Opposed To Being “Merely Unfunny” and, as such, Ultimately Harmless.

Hateful:Racial epithets. (Unless you’re of that particular race, or you’re married to/dating/Facebook friends with someone of that particular race— then, “racism” becomes “irony”. Obv.)

Merely Unfunny: Some bro calling his bros “Nigga” because he misunderstood last night’s three year-old Chappelle’s Show rerun.

Hateful: Cross-burning.

Merely Unfunny: Bagful of dogshit-burning. (Actually, this is, in fact, pretty funny. Let’s see… oh! Dane Cook CD-burning. Get it?)

Hateful: Michael Richards’ Laugh Factory gig that one time when he freaked the fuck out.

Merely Unfunny: Every other Michael Richards stand-up gig or performance that isn’t Seinfeld.

Hateful: Writing “I hate _________. A lot. Really. I sincerely hate it. No joke.”

Merely Unfunny: Writing a blog post (that has the potential to be read in its entirety by four people tops) in an attempt to make light of situations that you— the author— (not altogether falsely) perceive to be represented in an overly dramatic, tween-like fashion; and thus must not be all that serious if one’s only recourse in “dealing” with said situations is to publicize them on a voyeuristic blog instead of seeking actual, real-life “help.” The same sort of way that your highschool girlfriend dumping your sad skinny ass seems at the time to be worthy of a lifetime’s worth of angst and soppiness, when in fact, with a little perspective, you realize that hormones had a lot more to do with how I felt than any other thing, and that I’ll make it through in the end, and that Whitney Vanderford dumping me on Valentine’s Day wasn’t ultimately as bad as I thought it was and that my Dad was totally right when he said “This too shall pass”. I mean. Your dad. Your breakup. Hypothetically. Wait, sorry— what were we talking about?

And Now To Mock the Shit Out of Some Sad People— Not Because I Really Want To but Because “Rita” Made Me by Being Such a Fucking Humorless Blowhard Dyke.

Wow. Ballsy. Good plan. Or maybe you could grow the fuck up and realize that paying your taxes and your rent is really a privilege and not a burden; and maybe if you don’t want to sign your car payments you can take the fucking bus— you sniveling, entitled tween. Boom, roasted. Next!

No, the “real” reason you teach at a community college is that you have the grammatical and aesthetic prowess of a highschool sophomore. Boom, roasted.

“OK, FINE: I’m sorry I gave you such a huge ugly nose. Boom, roasted.” —God.

K, first: You can’t “lose” a marriage. And second: If I was married to anyone who thought I was causing a world-wide credit crisis / economic downturn by not praying anymore, I’d probably divorce her too. HOW BOUT THAT CONNECTION HUH?? Boom, roasted.

Aw, that’s a shame. Quit walking like such a flamer and maybe you’ll get some friends. BOOM ROASTED.

Wow. I can feel the hate flowing. I have to stop now before I black out.

Hope this has been “educational” for everyone. Please comment and tell me, on a scale of one to some arbitrary other number, how “hateful” you found this entry. I’m trying to improve. Really, I am. I’m out of shaving cream so I have no choice.

Until next time, dudes.

Some Meditations On Two Things "Ponzi"-- In Which The Ratio Of "LOL" to "OMG" Will Attempt 50:50 But Will Likely Settle Somewhere Near 30:70-- or: Here's A Big Block Of Text With No Pictures; I Expect You To Read It

Easter is nearly upon us! In its honor, I have decided to resurrect my blog; which, incidentally, also died for your sins, and is more than ready to do so again.

Um. So, by popular demand (eg. a Twitter PM from my uncle: “Update your blog dickhead”)— we’ll give this blog thang another go.

We’ll start out with the biggest shocker of the past month, if not the whole year:

Turns out: Bernie Madoff = Guilty. Yeah. I know. Did not see that one coming.

Defying expectations, dude plead guilty to each of the eleven charges held against him, including securities fraud, mail fraud, investment advisor fraud; earth fraud, wind fraud, and fire fraud. Additionally, Madoff plead no contest to one count of leaking the new Kelly Clarkson album and one count of Grandpa Munster impersonation.

Madoff’s day of reckoning was no doubt a bittersweet day for many— the victims of his $65 billion fraud, the rest of the Madoff family (who are now forced to retire their novelty “My Other Car Is Some Type Of Car That Costs 65 Billion Dollars” bumper sticker); and for cable news anchors who no longer get to say “Ponzi scheme” every fifteen minutes.

But, OK, for reals: I really don’t give a fuck. The only reason I even went ahead and typed all that was because I had already thought of the “Grandpa Munster impersonation” joke and needed a bunch of other text in which to drop it.

I’m sure I would care more about Madoff if he had stolen his $65 billion the real way— by holding up a 7-11 in, like, a Spider Man mask or something. You know… like a man. I’m sure I would also care more about him if he admitted steroid use, or if the dress he wore to the Oscars provided an opportunity for a Bernie Madoff “nip slip”.

(Made-up “social commentary” stretch/Sex And The City episode-closing, “what does it all mean“-pondering SJP voice over): Was the Madoff story so boring because all he did, really, was tell a massive and devastating lie? Is “everybody lies” so broadly accepted as a maxim that, as a result, I’ve just sort of come to unconsciously tolerate (or even expect) a certain amount of dishonesty from everyone? Can I blame Republicans or “marketing” people for this? Would that be dishonest? If so, would anybody even notice? If they noticed, would they care? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if— let me finish— a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Yeah. Heady. Moving on sans proper segue, though (sort of) on the subject of truth-bending and Ponzi-schemes:

Is it just me— and I realize that most the time it is— or is using a subscription service that automatically acquires you hordes of “random” Twitter followers not only super narcissistic (not to mention fucking retarded)— but completely contrary to the whole idea of Twitter in the first place?

Referring here to Tweepme.com— a “service” wherein $75/year buys you either:

A) The illusion of “online popularity” (which is itself illusory), or,

B) The illusion of an audience for whatever it is you’re currently marketing (ie. your band, your blog, your band’s blog, your blog’s remixes of your band).

This works by forcing each exisiting and future Tweepme member to receive your tweets. You, in turn, begin receiving theirs. The more people that join, the more “followers” you get.

Which, as mentioned, is fucking retarded— for a variety of reasons. Mainly because by joining, you’re effectively admitting one of two things. Either:

A) You’re interested in making it appear as though more people care about your 140-character updates than actually do; or,

B) You’re interested in broadcasting information at a captive group of complete strangers, who, in turn, are only interested in either an inflated “followers” count or the ability to broadcast their information at you.

Notice how neither “A” nor “B” mentioned anything about anyone being interested in receiving information from strangers. Nobody’s paying $75/year to receive anything.

Because receiving information from strangers is free. That’s what Twitter is. That’s the point: You choose who to receive information from, not who receives your information. I might choose to receive information from real-life friends, celebrities I admire, celebrities I admire ironically, blogs I enjoy, or strangers that are willing to show me nipples. People who have chosen to receive my tweets are likely friends or those to whom I have shown my nipples.

And so: There’s no possible way you can justify participation in this weird solipsistic pyramid scheme without just admitting that you value the illusion of “importance”/”popularity” enough to be paying for it, whether in dollars or in the time you spend sorting through all your fake friends’ updates. (Well, actually, you have to first admit that you equate “importance” or “popularity” with the number of people that have opted to receive the details of your breakfast.)

And if you’re trying to market something: No “Tweepme” member is paying for the ability to read what you’re marketing at them; they’re paying for the ability to market at you. It would be way more cost effective to yell your blog’s URL from the window of a moving vehicle in a crowded metro area. Well. Less annoying, anyway.

Which is all a way of saying: Hey, everyone? Can y’all please stop confusing “Communication Conduit” with “Viral Marketing Opportunity”?

If you’re a band that wishes to earn a successful living with your music: Talent, originality, and patience are a couple things that, historically, seem to be more important than having a bunch of followers on Twitter.

Ditto for DJs— although if you’re just now starting to try and “make it” as a DJ you’ll prolly want to add “Time Machine With Controls Set To 2006” to the list. Ha. Zing?

When you hear about a band that increased their national profile with the help of MySpace— it means they used the site to host their unique and compelling music. Communicating with fans, traditionally, is something you worry about after you have them.

Which is all without mentioning the really, obvious, important thing: You want friends/fans/followers? How about earning them? With content. Or nipples.

Shit I totally forgot to add any jokes in there. Um. Here.

Sorry about the Twitter freak-out; I’m typically all for shortcuts of any kind but it’s annoying when people focus more on marketing their content than the content itself. I kinda feel like if you make quality shit, whether its music or photos or writing, it will find its way to people if its good enough. Am I naive? Also: Not meaning to judge you if collecting pseudo-friends is what gets you horny. I just like Twitter the way it is— a way to keep constant tabs on MC Hammer’s every move and thought. And I hate marketing, especially when it tries to trick me by pretending it’s something other than what it is.

COMING NEXT WEEK/THE WEEK AFTER (?) ON BLOG ME AMADEUS:

+ “Can Something Be Simultaneously ‘Epic’ and ‘Chill’?: Adventures in Brocabulary and Metaphysics.”

+ “‘Hype’: How and Why Internet Media Outlets Love To Introduce Something; Promote It Way Too Much, Way Too Quickly; Blame The Recipient Of Said Promotion For Allowing Too Much Promotion Too Quickly; Then Use The Absurd Idea That Promotion Recipient Is Somehow Responsible For Excess Promotion As Basis For Feeling Negatively Towards Promotion Recipient; Then, Ultimately, Deem Promotion Recipient As Unworthy Subject Of Promotion In The First Place— and What This All Means To You (Not A Whole Lot, As It Turns Out).”

+ Nipples

Inappropriately Funny PostSecret Posts

Quick disclaimer: This post is predicated upon the idea that all PostSecret postcards are inherently funny— that the idea of sending an anonymous postcard about your personal problems to a blog is funny in and of itself. Because it’s so incredibly lame.

If you don’t share this view, this post will seem particularly obnoxious to you. Otherwise, it will be just regularly obnoxious. With that in mind, here are a few of this week’s most inappropriately funny PostSecret Postcards.

Hm. This seems like a really sad situation. My condolences regarding your loss.

But: “The Most Amazing Man EVER”? Ever? OK, fine, that guy does look pretty amazing. Dig how his shirt matches his bike— and dig the facial hair grooming. (The sunglasses are kinda lame, but two out of three ain’t bad.)

Alas, if only a shirt/bike color match an amazing man made. But this man is not the most amazing man ever. This man is the most amazing man ever. Sorry :(

Ah, ha ha! See, this one is already funny!

But, as a healthcare professional, wouldn’t it be more exciting to see a woman’s penis on an x-ray? Like, medically speaking, wouldn’t that be better? Because, you’ve specified how much you enjoy seeing mens’ penises… But, what if— yeah, OK, OK. It was unnecessary to write “man’s penis” because women do not have them. I am hilarious. Next.

Wait… what?!

OK, hold on. Whoa whoa whoa.

I have so many questions about this, but I fear that typing them all out makes me sound weirder than this PSPC— which would be tough but honestly for me it’s doable (no pun intended there).

(Sample questions: How is this girl copping so much Plan B? Why is “every time” emphasized? What sort of mailman is delivering this mail without being like “WTF??” If you’re being molested, and feel the need to send anonymous mail, doesn’t it seem like your postcard should say: “My uncle Tony is molesting me. A lot. He lives at ______” and maybe it should go to the police/Dr. Phil/Maury? If you can get a hold of Plan B because you’re scared about virgin pregnancy, wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to just get birth control because you’re scared of virgin pregnancy?)

Anyway, suffice to say, I’m scared too! But somehow I’m still laughing. Am I a “bad” person? Is this not at least sort of funny?

*Shaking it off* … OK. Maybe not. Whatever. See you next week for another installment of Inappropriately Funny PostSecret Posts.

GQ: Why Brunch Blows:

Fake-farmy restaurants! Hangovers with strangers! Long lines! Watery mimosas! Seventeen-dollar French toast! Sickly orange slices sadly dying next to overwrought infantilizing pancake concoctions on chipped china! Half your waking weekend day spent in a hollandaise haze!

“Can I top off your shitty coffee?” Yes, please! Because it’s brunch. And everyone must love brunch. Because if you do not love brunch, you have a serious problem with joie de vivre and America and whole point of living with all our best friends in the city and being alive.

But you know what? Brunch sucks. It’s a ritual— not a meal— and an annoying, unsatisfying, badly conceived one at that. Eat breakfast alone. Leave the house when you are ready to do something real at a normal time like an adult. Actually, it doesn’t matter what you eat or when. Just stop saying “brunch.” Stop. GQ declares brunch is over. We bury brunch. Huevos rancheros estan muertos. Enough. Long live the real drinking lunch: drunkch.

—Adam Sachs, GQ, March 2009.