blog me, amadeus

What Made 2009 Suck So Badly? We Did.

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:43:00 -0500

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!)

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:07:00 -0400

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.

Brought to you via CNN’s new Gamut-Tracking weather...

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:03:49 -0400

Brought to you via CNN’s new Gamut-Tracking weather satellite.

Bonus: As proof that there’s a writer on the Internet...

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:17:44 -0400

Bonus: As proof that there’s a writer on the Internet worse than me, here’s the worst first-line of any album review ever. I’ve included the 99%-as-bad entire opening paragraph for context. It’s from the Pitchfork review of the Boy Least Likely To album, The Law Of The Playground. Enjoy!

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

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:57:00 -0400

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

Is it just me or does that particular debt collector,...

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:18:00 -0500

Is it just me or does that particular debt collector, who’s just been told the debtor she’s trying to reach is, in fact, dead— does she not look just a little skeptical in that pic?

Also: “Family members often respond well”— I’m sure this is a sort of “Surprised? Read on!” kind of thing, but it totally reads like the type of bone-dry sarcasm that the NYT sneaks into their copy every once and a while.

Inappropriately Funny PostSecret Posts

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:02:00 -0500

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:

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:19:00 -0500

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.

One time, not too long ago, we had a bit of a problem at my...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:33:25 -0500

One time, not too long ago, we had a bit of a problem at my family’s home in beautiful Solvang, CA. The problem concerned a handful of birds and their inability to recognize/make sense of the transparency of glass with regard to its properties as a solid, insulating barrier.

The birds were baffled at just how exactly a barrier between our backyard and my parents’ bedroom could seemingly not exist— yet simultaneously very much still exist. This baffled them to the extent that just one attempt at breaking this mysterious barrier could not satiate their level of curiosity with regard to this “glass” substance.

And so they kept flying into the windows. Every morning. This continued for some time, until my father had a brilliant idea. He grabbed a single 8.5x11” sheet of white printer paper and drew a large and menacing face onto it with a thick black Sharpie. He then scotch-taped the face onto every window in his bedroom.

[Here is an “emoticon” approximation of the face drawing: >:o]

But the drawing didn’t do shit. It was a good idea, but I think the scariness of his drawing just wasn’t enough to quell the admirable tenacity of this particular group of birds.

But! I have now, finally, found a face scary enough to make my father’s idea a reality. Thank you, New York Times and Newt Gingrich. Dad, if you’re reading, print this motherfucker out and tape away. I suspect the birds will get the message.

Best Album of 2k9 Gets A Name. And it's Not "No Line On The Horizon."

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:57:00 -0500

Best Album of 2k9 Gets A Name. And it's Not "No Line On The Horizon.":

I’d be way remiss if I didn’t mention that my favorite album of 2009 just got a cover, and a name, and a tracklisting.

It’s called “Manners”, and it’ll find its way into my sweaty, admittedly-a-little-too-obsessed hands on May 26.

Now, about these “Passion Pit” people: I don’t know much about them besides what I’ve read about on the Internet: that apparently they’re really into vintage porn and I guess the drummer and the bassist and one of the keyboardists are closet NAMBLA members or something. I also read something about the lead singer once attending a school called “Emerson College”, but I looked into this school and discovered it doesn’t actually exist. Or at least it’s not accredited anyway. The only “Emerson College” I was able to find is a male-modeling academy located in the heart of Boston’s red light district. So, maybe there’s some truth in there but I just can’t tell.

But, despite these kids’ weirdo personalities, Passion Pit’s music is fucking incredible and I’d post mp3s if I thought there was a soul alive between the ages of 18 and 35 who hasn’t already heard ‘em all a hundred times over.

Whoever does distro for Frenchkiss isn’t going to be able to press enough copies of “Manners” to keep this shit on the shelves for over an hour. The release of this record will singlehandedly pull us out of the recession.

I can say these things without having heard a single note of it because it’s been a while since a buzzband came along with talent enough to exceed their own hype. A long while. (Probably last time was “Menudo.” Before that it was “The Monkees.”)

Blah blah blah blah— I can’t wait for this release. I just hope that the bassist’s parole status will allow Passion Pit the chance at a world tour to support it. Statutory rape is serious business people. It doesn’t matter if you’re a “musician” or not: 18 is 18, OK?

SRSLY: <3 this band and all the talented, righteous creative doods in it. Proud of y’all! Stay in touch, K? Looking at you, Hultquist.

Wow. Definitely voting “I don’t like it” on...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:44:31 -0500

Wow. Definitely voting “I don’t like it” on this item.

[via HuffPo]

Chris Matthews sees Bobby Jindal stroll on out to deliver the...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:25:00 -0500

Chris Matthews sees Bobby Jindal stroll on out to deliver the Republican response to Obama’s first sort-of SOTU address, and responds the very same way most of America likely did— with a half-audible, noticeably exasperated ”Oh, god.” (And, presumably, with a rolling of his eyes and a palm-to-forehead slap/wince-type gesture.)

Appropriate? In sentiment: Yes.

The timing’s the odd part. I mean, at least wait until he’s opened his mouth to “Oh God” him. Like, right when Jindal says “And happy Mardi Gras!”— BAM! Right there is a perfect time for an “Oh God”-ing. Or, even before he walked out, like when Olbermann says the title of Jindal’s rebuttal is “Americans Can Do Anything”— great spot for a “…Jesus Christ almighty what a tool.” Ya know?

I do not think I am the best person to be telling others how...

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:43:00 -0500

I do not think I am the best person to be telling others how they ought to spend their time. (See post immediately prior to this one where I wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 words about making fake MySpace profiles.)

But no matter how poor I, personally, am at time management, I am glad now to be able to say that I have never so gloriously and unabashedly wasted my time by modifying my Nintendo controller so that it works with my Gameboy.

WTF. Dude. Jackin’ it is more productive and less nerdy than this. And it’s probably healthier, although I can’t really back that up.

But SERIOUSLY. I don’t know which is worse: That a techbro actually “modded” this shit together or that he saw the need to “mod” this shit together. Cuz on one hand, if you just do this sort of stuff to see if it can, in fact, be done, then whatever floats your boat, I guess. Somewhere, a hiring manager at Radioshack dreams of meeting you.

But on the other hand, if you do this kind of shit because you simply cannot stomach the thought of playing “Mario Bros” on anything other than your “original Nintendo controller”— well then fine. Just please don’t be so fucking proud of this absurd level of tool-ery. By flaunting this, you’re making Phish concert tape collectors look cool by comparison. Not a good thing.

Confession: I created a bro. (And I liked it.)

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:34:00 -0500

OK, so, wow— how to start. Well. Let’s just get right on into it. About two years ago, I did kind of a funny thing. (Definitely not funny ha-ha; funny queer.)

One morning, in the very uncertain and anxiety-ridden era of the year AD 2007, I woke up, had a nice breakfast, (in all likelihood) took a gnarly bong hit (salad days, those wake-&-bake-rs), and decided to create my very-own MySpace brofile. Yes, you’ve read correctly. Not a profile. A brofile.

What it a “brofile”?, you may ask. Excellent question. I feel uniquely qualified to answer this (your) question vis-à-vis brofiles because I am under the distinct impression that I coined the term and the concept, way back when I was stoned a lot (I blame G.W. Bush), and living in Brookline, MA (Bush gets the blame for that, too).

(An UrbanDictionary search seems to contradict this claim, as it contains several existing definitions for the term “brofile.” However, dates on these definitions’ additions are way too recent for any of the definitions’ authors to lay claim on the actual creation of the term itself. I then, thus, must now, finally, step forward and proclaim myself as the one, true, rightful intellectual property owner of the term “brofile”, and, as such, am also the inspiration for any other fake, bro-parodying, fake web profiles that may or may not have eminated thenceforth.)

But I digress.

A brofile, as I initially envisioned it, is simply a fictitious profile for an archetypal bro on the then-burgeoning social networking website “MySpace.”

I chose a bro name (“Kyle”) a bro location (“Nutley, NJ”), and found a HILARIOUS picture of a bro eatin’ a hot dog (a classic bro food). I wrote some simple, banal (though I must say, authentic) copy and voilà: the brofile had been born.

[By clicking here, you abandon any post-2007 morality or maturity you may have gained thereafter, and are welcome to view my (the original) Brofile in all its majestic slendor.]

My original plan was two-fold: 1) To create an outrageous, yet convincing, brofile [done and done!] and 2) To use said brofile to take over Myspace [more complicated, as it turns out, in implimentation than in conception].

So after the initial ha-ha-ha of envisioning this totally ridiculous bro that still could totally pass for an authetic Myspace-r— I kind of forgot all about Kyle. Sad, yes. Kyle was my Frankenstein and I neglected him. Whatever, though, I had other shit to do.

Kyle was dead, from April 2007 until this morning, February 26, 2009— when I awoke from a generally-pleasant slumber and, in the instantaenous flash of a Proustian moment, recalled his creation and his existence.

So. What does the future hold for Kyle? Nothin’. As is the case for most real-life bros, Kyle will not evolve. He will continue to exist as he was during his glory days: The bullshit Spring of the year 2007. I’ve done all I can with him. We’ve had the best of times, and the worst of times.

His future, dear reader, resides now, entirely, in your gentle hands.

“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid!” — Goethe.

“i’m a pretty chill guy who just likes havin a good time!!” — Kyle

plz, DO NOT DRINK THIS ‘ENERGY BEVERAGE’ It looks...

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:47:00 -0500

plz,

DO NOT DRINK THIS ‘ENERGY BEVERAGE’

It looks cool. It tastes delicious.

It is a panic attack in a can.

It will cause you to compulsively re-edit your TumblrBlog into oblivion.

It will cause you to neglect hygeine. Socialization. Bladder functions. Other sorts of educational/self-improvement obligations.

IF YOU DO, AGAINST ALL AFOREMENTIONED CAUTION, INDEED HAPPEN TO HAVE INJESTED THIS BEVERAGE,

Please do everything you can to not simultaenously listen to the just-as-jittery and efferescent “Which Song” by Max Tundra.

(Available to you, assuming you have not consumed an “Amp Energy Elevate” beverage, by clicking above).

They are both sweet and addictive. Separate, they are powerful. Together, they will kill you.

Seriously.

Google Finds Lost-City Atlantis, Denies It

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:05:00 -0500

Google Finds Lost-City Atlantis, Denies It:

[story and image via the NYT Bits Blog]

So some Ocean Mapping thing that Google’s doing (for whatever reason) fucked up and totally freaked out a whole bunch of nerds.

Amongst a whole lotta normal-looking ocean floor imagery, there was a tiny patch that looked a bit different. And so, everyone who regularly checks out online maps of the ocean floor gravitated, quite naturally, towards the only obvious conclusion.

Quoth NYT:

“The most popular theory was that the markings were signs of the lost city of Atlantis.”

Clearly. Case closed. I mean, just look at the Google picture. There it is. Obv.

But, alas, no. Though I can totally understand how one could make the instant leap from “Hm. Weird-looking ocean image” to “OMG GOOGLE FOUND ATLANTIS”; there is another explanation, however unlikely.

According to Steve Miller, Google Ocean Manager/Atlantis-Truth Suppressor, the markings on the ocean floor image were apparently:

“Batches of imagery [that] didn’t overlap properly.”

Hm. Guess that makes sense. Sort of. I’ll buy it. For now.

But I think we all know what we really saw.

sent to me @ 4:52AM this morning [via @heyjoey]

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:36:00 -0500

sent to me @ 4:52AM this morning

[via @heyjoey ]

Lex Luthor, er— Jeff Bezos overdoes it.

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:24:00 -0500

Lex Luthor, er— Jeff Bezos overdoes it.

BTW: Here Are Some Fun Names To Say Whilst Belching

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:22:00 -0500

Slobodan Miloshevich
Ban Ki Moon
Don Cheadle
John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt (particularly fun if this happens to be your name too)
Sirhan Sirhan
Condoleezza Rice
Sanjay Gupta
George Stephanopoulos
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Beyonce

Spiderman Musical Gets Premiere Date

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:12:00 -0500

Spiderman Musical Gets Premiere Date:

So there’s a Spiderman Musical in production. “Wow!”, you might think. “Comic Books and Musicals! Now there’s a gay marriage I can support.”

Ha ha! Good one, you.

But, careful. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Lurking beneath the innocuous coupling of superheroes and musical theater is something destined to turn an otherwise-happy gay nuptual into a full-blown (so to speak) flaming ménage à trois: A score by Bono and The Edge.

From the producers, [via SPIN.com]:

“Spider-Man’s battles will hurtle the audience through an original story both recognizable and unexpected — yielding new characters as well as familiar faces — until a final surprising confrontation casts a startling new light on this hero’s journey.”

The precise nature of Spidey’s “surprising confrontation” and the “startling new light” it will cast remain a mystery.

Doubtless, however, is that whatever transpires during the climax will be accompanied by a show-stopping choral rendition of “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.”

Budget for the show is $40M— enormous, yes. But a small price to pay for a combination of three all-time artistic lows.