If I wrote Britney Spears' "If You Seek Amy"

I fully realize how late I am on this...I know this song's been out for awhile now. But in my defense, I don't give a shit about Britney Spears or her terrible "music", so I never paid much attention to this song. However, the other day I was at a Subway, trying to choke down one of their sandwiches, and this song came on. I noticed the lyrics to the chorus, which go something like this:

"Love me, hate me, say what you want about me,
But all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy"

Now, I will reluctantly grant that the phrase "if you seek Amy" is a tad clever, only because I didn't get the reference the first time I heard it (in case you don't get it, it's kind of a double entendre; it sounds like she's saying "F-U-C-K me"). But therein lies the problem; it doesn't work as a double entendre because the phrase itself, taken by its literal meaning, makes absolutely no sense in that context. It's like whoever wrote the lyrics burned out their cerebral cortex coming up with that line, and so decided to just haphazardly throw it in the song so they could get back to coloring with their Crayolas. "They're begging to if you seek Amy"? They're begging to do what if I seek Amy?! I think I speak for all of us when I say that I expect a certain level of literary prowess from my mindless pop garbage, and that line leaves me with blue balls...of the mind. Which are the second worst kind of blue balls (the first being actual blue balls).

I decided to illustrate how badly the songwriting ball was dropped by re-writing that chorus right here, right now, off the top of my head. This is how the song should have gone:

"Love me, hate me, but you'll get cerebral palsy,
Like all of the boys and all of the girls that're dying, if you seek Amy."

See how easy that was? I think my version is better for two main reasons:
1. It makes sense on two levels, thereby qualifying it to be a double entendre.
2. It implies that if you fuck Britney Spears, you'll get cerebral palsy. Which I'll admit is unlikely, but I really doubt she'd even notice she's saying that. All she wants is attention, and telling people your vagina will give them cerebral palsy is in at least, like, the top 10 ways to get people to notice you.

Random thoughts RE: Clash Of The Titans

DISCLAIMER: It's possible that there may be some spoiler alerts sprinkled throughout here... assuming you haven't seen the original movie, or the remake, or read any Greek mythology. That being said, I'd recommend you read this anyway, and don't waste your time on the movie.

Well, I will say this: nobody could accuse the marketing team of false advertising. Titans definitely did clash.

Apparently, according to Clash of the Titans, "plot" is a synonym for "excuse to wander around fighting different monsters of increasing size that like to make eye contact with the camera and scream directly into it".

Why is it that Sam Worthington's taint is getting almost as much screen time as the rest of him? Thank God the 3D effects are so shoddy; I'd hate to be worried that I'm about to get slapped in the face by his backsack.

I never realized how much I really want to fuck Gemma Arterton before...mostly because I'd never heard of her before this movie. But still, damn! Why is Worthington getting more upskirt shots than her?!
Sub-question: Does anyone else want to bone Medusa, or is it just me? Her stare's certainly turning me rock-hard, if you know what I mean...

Hey guys, what's Kraken?

After watching Le Chiffre period out his eyes for the duration of Casino Royale, I'm having a bit of a hard time accepting him in a badass role.

Am I the only one who finds it extremely racist that the Djinn monster, who is clearly a character akin to more of an Arab mythos, suicide bombs Medusa?

This movie contains gods, gigantic scorpions, and creatures whose skin is made out of wood. That being said, the most unbelievable part of the plot is that Perseus refuses to use the lightsaber that Zeus gives him. Fuck that; I don't care how much you hate someone. If they give you a real live lightsaber, they automatically become your new best friend.

I never knew that Eddie from the Iron Maiden album covers moonlighted as ferry boat captain on the river Styx, although I can't say I'm surprised. The only way your occupation could be more metal than "ferry captain to the damned" is if your job title was "executive director of fetus-eating and cunt-punching relations".

So let me get this straight: Perseus and his gang of Expendable Assholes battle giant scorpions that literally come out of nowhere for like twenty minutes of screen time, but he defeats the Kraken at the end in less than a minute?! I haven't been this disappointed in an end-boss battle since I beat Resident Evil 4.

Do me a favor, Hollywood: the next time titans clash, just shoot me a text or something to let me know. "Hey dont go to Argos, titans r gonna clahs. Kthx." That way I'll know to adjust my travel plans accordingly, without having to sit through two and a half hours of big-budget creative Armageddon.

The Baffling Career Trajectory of Gerard Butler

As you no doubt have heard by now, a new movie by the name of The Bounty Hunter hit theaters this last week, and is no doubt poised to change the way Hollywood makes films forever while simultaneously revolutionizing the way that we view motion pictures. This film will absolutely go down in history as this generation's Citizen Kane; which is to say, it will be shitty and boring, but pretentious film majors that drink way too much espresso and pretend to understand the articles in The New Yorker will tell you that it is "poignant" and "eloquently brilliant", and you'll buy their bullshit because, let's face it, you're just as stupid as they are.

See how awesome this movie is?! Kane is a metaphor for the kind of multimedia demagogues that control public opinion and simultaneously- ah, fuck it.

...Just kidding.
You know, a few years ago, if you had heard that Gerard Butler was starring in a movie called The Bounty Hunter alongside Jennifer Aniston, you'd probably assume that it was the kind of action movie/soft-core porno hybrid that made the '70's exploitation era so great. However, unfortunately, we all know better. Gerard Butler seems to insist on bouncing back and forth between badass face-punching machine and testicle-shriveling, boorish-drunk-guy-that-everyone-hates romantic comedy lead.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the genres of testosterone-fueled action flick and estrogen-fueled romantic comedy are mutually exclusive. If audiences are used to watching you punch ninjas in the jeans and screaming in bearded fury for two and a half hours, they're going to be confused when you don't do that and instead try to fuck an over-the-hill actress, leading to a series of increasingly unlikely and non-entertaining wacky hi-jinx. And yet, this is exactly the paradigm that Gerard Butler apparently hopes to challenge. Therefore, I decided to examine a few of the movies that he's been in to try and figure out if this strategy makes any sort of sense whatsoever.
....Unfortunately, I could not sit through the entire length of some of these movies...but I'm confident that my negligent generalizations will hold true nonetheless.

300

Let's start with the role that Gerard Butler is arguably most well-known for: King Leonidas in 300. 300 was based on Frank Miller's graphic novel... you know, the one people only gave a shit about because he wrote The Dark Knight Returns and also made Daredevil into a semi-credible character. The actual comic itself was largely forgettable; it was overshadowed by his Sin City series, which was turned into a great movie, and is mostly notable for being one of the stories he authored before he went batshit-insane (see All-Star Batman and Robin, The Spirit movie).

The movie treatment of it basically turned into a tribute from director Zack Snyder to computer-generated abs, gay soft-core porn, and slow motion battle sequences. Seriously, watch that movie again; I haven't seen a movie that gay since Brokeback Mountain made it okay for movies in which a man spits on his dick in order to fuck another man in the ass to be a viable candidate for "Best Picture" at the Oscars. My take on the movie: it's the best allegory of the homosexual's struggle to overcome adversity in America ever put to film, the only possible competition being the tumultuous bromance between Maverick and Ice Man in Top Gun.

Anyway, a lot of the budget for this movie went toward making Gerard Butler not look like a whiskey-soaked fatass. So he had an awesome-looking, action figure bod; all he needed to do after that was scream nonsensical and boring one-liners like "Tonight we dine in hellllll!!!" and "Give them nothing, but take from them evrehthing!"

Girls creamed their panties at the site of the airbrushed male bodies (meanwhile no doubt complaining about the unrealistic expectations placed upon them from the airbrushed images of women from Victoria's Secret catalogs... hypocritical much?) while drunken college frat boys high-fived each other at the sight of slow-motion stab-gasms and the repetition of numb-skulled lines like "THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!!!!" followed by the kicking of Dhalsim into the Sarlaac Pit.
Full disclosure: I hated this movie from the moment I first saw it. I thought it was mind-numbing dreck that was no different from other bro-hym action bowel movements, aside from the fact that it was based on a comic book and was visually stunning. However, this is the role that put Mr. Butler in position to be the lead role in other movies. God help us...

P.S.: I Love You

Yeah, I didn't see this one. But just from looking at the poster, you can tell it's some kind of chick flick, sporting a title like something you'd put at the end of an email to your girlfriend when you're trying to be cute and hoping she'll have sex with you when you see her later that night (she won't).

If memory serves, this is basically the gist of this movie. Gerard Butler is dead (so we're off to a good start), but when he was alive he was apparently some kind of sociopathic dom/sub enthusiast, and his wife was so completely dependent on him that she couldn't do anything for herself. So before he dies, he leaves a bunch of letters or something, telling her what to do and teaching her how to live without him. For some reason, this complete dependence of a woman on a man, to the point where she can't live or move on without him, is depicted as being "romantic".

Keep in mind, this was the first "major" movie that Butler appeared in since 300, and it came out a year later. He was poised to become the next big action star, and he came out with sentimental bullshit like this that was considered sappy even by chick-flick standards. I know I haven't seen it personally, but I'm willing to bet that he doesn't stab even one dude in the whole thing. So at this point, nobody's quite sure what he's all about.

Rock N Rolla

Whoa! And he throws a curve ball! Rock N Rolla (also known as Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels: Part 3) was a fucking awesome movie. It's about a bunch of gangsters who are running a real estate market scam, or something, and then there's this junkie rock star who gives the most awesome monologue about addiction related to the art work on a cigarette box, and he's involved somehow, and then Gerard Butler and his friends fight some Russian guys that literally won't die no matter what they do to them, and... you know what, I'm not even sure what the hell happens in this movie, and I've seen it a few times. But it's one of those movies that's hard to grasp because it's good, not because it's poorly made. This film, as well as Butler's performance, was a huge step up for him.

So after starring in a film that was good without having to rely on greasy CGI muscles or elevated estrogen levels, what's next for him? Is he going to follow this with another credible movie, and firmly position himself as a talented actor?

The Ugly Truth

No. No he's not.
True to form, Butler bounces back to his old standby, one-star romantic comedies. In this one, he stretches his acting talent to play an unlikeable asshole (I wonder how he ever prepared for that role?!) who's trying to get with an icy bitch (Katherine Heigl) by imparting unto her wisdom of the differences between the sexes that only he could relate, such as "men like sex, a bit more than women do" and... well, that's pretty much it. Wait, did I say nobody could relate that except him? 'Cause what I meant to say was "everyone". Everyone could relate that.


You get the point. He went on to star in another shitty action movie (Gamer, in which he fights Dexter in order to free Ludacris or something), repeat pattern ad infinitum. So, what's next for Gerard Butler? Probably a sub-par action film, followed by a sub-par romantic comedy. Will I care? Probably not.

Lady Gaga's "Telephone"- music video, or mind rape?

Great, there goes the logical reasoning center of my brain. There is literally no way to make sense of anything that goes on in that video. I get that Lady Gaga is supposed to be all edgy and shit, sort of like she's trying to be this generation's Madonna. I understand that, I really do. But at what point do you go from being "edgy" to being "laughably ridiculous"? I mean, dressing like you're an extra in a Luc Besson movie mostly just makes you look retarded. I don't know, maybe that's the point. Maybe some people think it's edgy to be a retarded pop singer. Personally, I think it's more inspiring than edgy, but that's just me.

This video sexually assaulted my brain for about nine and a half minutes. Like...why the fuck is the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill in this video? What the hell does that have to do with anything? And do I want to fuck Lady Gaga, or run from her screaming and in tears? My body tells me to do both of those things at the same time, and last time I checked, running around screaming and crying while trying to fuck someone kind of creeps people out. Is this supposed to be funny, or...I mean, what the fuck?

Top 10: Songs to cheer you up- Part 2

And now, the long-awaited top 5 songs to cheer you up! I'll pause for applause. (You can find part 1 here.)

The Format- "The First Single (Cause A Scene)"
I don't know how popular The Format are (were?) outside of Arizona, but I do remember seeing a fat, presumably lesbian chick in Indiana (because Indiana is populated largely by fat lesbians. That's such a well-known fact that I feel like I just insulted your intelligence by mentioning it) wearing one of their shirts when I was there one time. Regardless, The Format was a fucking awesome band, and if you've never listened to them, you really should stop depriving yourself. Anyone who knows this song knows that it will instantly cheer you up; it's one of those songs that you can put on at a party and have everyone singing along to in minutes, sort of like the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" theme song.

Bebop has a fucking sword on his back. I can see it. Why didn't he ever use it?!?

Of course, as the parenthetical title implies, this song does instruct its listeners to "cause a scene", which can be confusing for first-time listeners. I'm not a fan of songs explicitly ordering me around to begin with, but as it turns out, The Format's idea of causing a scene- "clap your hands and stomp your feet"- is distinctly different from mine. See, when I need to cause a scene, I generally whip my dick out and do the "flying squirrel" (and no, I'm not gonna tell you what a "flying squirrel" is...use your imagination). And I will say this: if you think that the end result of "causing a scene" should be getting arrested at Warped Tour and being put in the sex offender registry, then I fucking win.


Passion Pit- "Little Secrets"
Ian Cohen over at Pitchfork said it best in his review for this album when he stated: "What happens when you're scrambling to think of why a record is worth hearing and you keep coming back to 'it makes me happy'?" Listening to this song is like basking in the glow of Julia Roberts' smile while cuddling that teddy bear from the Snuggle Fabric Softener commercials and baking cookies for all the toothless orphans from Oliver Twist (but not for Annie; instead of baked goods, you're forcibly feeding her numerous knuckle sandwiches, delivered directly to her creepy, soulless, ginger face). Incidentally, the previous sentence was probably the most accurate description of anything in the history of both descriptions and things.

Passion Pit is what would've happened if Micheal Jackson was a hipster. In fact, obvious musical influences aside, Passion Pit may have a bit more in common with ol' Thriller than is at first apparent. Observe, the chorus of "Little Secrets":

Singer: Let this be our little secret, no one needs to know we're feeling...
Chorus of Children: Higher, higher and higher!

Um... huh. That's... hm. Well, despite the beating these guys are probably about to receive at the hands of Elliot Stabler, I stand by what I've said here today.


MGMT- "Kids"
I have to say, it still amazes me how popular Oracular Spectacular got when it came out- not because it isn't good (it's actually very good), but because it sounds almost nothing like the other stuff that gets radio play, or it didn't at the time anyway. Not to mention, the album itself switches back and forth from high energy pop masterpieces sporting monster hooks like "Kids", to psychedelic experiments in mind-fuckery.

I saw them play a free show at Tempe Marketplace one time, and because of their surprising amount of radio play, the frat boys were out in full force. MGMT responded to this by opening with one of their catchy popular tunes, and then proceeded to fuck with the audience for the next hour and a half in the single greatest instance of a band alienating their fans that I've ever witnessed firsthand. If memory serves, it was pretty much just one long, droning jam session that made Iron Butterfly look like N*SYNC. At one point, there was a drawn-out flute solo that came out of nowhere. A fucking flute solo! I have to admit, even I didn't see that one coming.

Pictured: Jethro Tull, the grandaddy of flute-based rock.

Piebald- "American Hearts"
Sometimes, we all need to feel like we belong to something that's bigger than ourselves. It's a basic human need; it's what makes people do seemingly illogical things like join cults and/or college fraternities. And it's also what gives this song the ability to cheer you up: the anthemic choruses of "Hey! You're part of it!"

But to what, specifically, is this 'it' that we are supposedly indeed a part of? That's open to some interpretation; personally, given the rest of the lyrics, I gather that it is about at least one, if not all of the three following things:
1. It is a retort to the types of people who blame all of the evil and suffering and general malaise in the world on "society". Kid shoot up his school? "I blame society." Religious zealots commit mass murder? "I blame society." Nickelback continues to somehow sell albums and continue their epic quest to ruin everything that anyone has ever liked about music? "I blame society." This is Piebald looking at those people and saying, "You can blame society if you want, but hey- you're part of it."
2. On a narrower scope, it is about American society, and the discrepancy between the idea of the "American Dream" and the reality of life faced by many Americans, particularly those who are born into poverty. Racism still exists, albeit in a much more institutionalized rather than blatant form. Socioeconomic and sociocultural biases only seem to be less prevalent in modern society than they were in the past because it's gotten easier to ignore it. And, because most people don't even realize this, much less actively do anything to change things for the better, we're part of it.
3. A zombie apocalypse.

Guy Getting Eaten: "Man, this zombie apocalypse sucks."
Piebald: "Hey, you're part of it."

Whatever the case, it's delivered in such a cheery way that it's sure to bring a smile to your face.


The Rocket Summer- "So Much Love"
Confession time: I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on in the first verse of this song. I used to think it went "Hats need a C like a rake needs some leaves". I just looked it up, and that's not the case, which is kind of disappointing, because I took that as evidence that Bryce Avery had finally completely lost his mind.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this is the mother of all happy, cheer-up songs. It's so cheesy, so over the top, that it's impossible not to smile at the level of enthusiasm and joy with which Avery delivers the lyrics about someone having "so much love" in them. And just when you think it can't possibly get any more joyous, BAM! In comes the saxophone solo to punch what's left of your sadness in the gut, and then crotch-stomp it over and over again until it chokes to death on a mixture of its own blood and vomit.
...I was going to include a picture here, but after Google Image searching "crotch-stomp", I think I'll just go cry in the corner instead...


And one more for the road:
Onelinedrawing- "Smile"
All the feel-good twang of the Gin Blossoms, minus the depressing alcoholic imagery, and featuring a guest solo from intergalactic plot device and jambot R2D2. Bonus Fact: all you hard-core punk kids out there can feel safe listening to this song, as the singer/sole member of Onelinedrawing also fronted such seminal post-hardcore bands as Far and New End Original! Of course, if you were really a hard-core punk kid, you would have already known that...

People Helping People

I've mentioned before that some of my friends also write. If you get the chance, check out my good friend Matt's blog over at http://abysmalculture.wordpress.com/. It's thoroughly enjoyable.

And be sure to check back later this week for my picks for the top 5 songs to cheer you up! There's a reason it took me a few weeks to finish that post, I promise....

This week in annoying music trends...

It's possible that this phenomenon is located entirely within the Arizona local music scene, but I doubt it. It appears to be spreading throughout pop punk bands faster than zombies in an urban setting where apparently not one single person has ever heard of zombies before.

The illustrative properties of this image are endless.

I'm talking, of course, about the apparent need of every pop punk band lately cover a hip hop song.

I first noticed this when that "Punk Goes Crunk" CD came out and subsequently launched the career of The Maine due to their cover of "I Wanna Love You". Their career didn't stay launched for long, mind you; most people stopped caring about them the second they realized that their original songs were, well... not that good. However, courageously ignoring that second fact, a whole bunch of pop punk bands decided to follow suit, boldly going where many, many bands had gone before.

I'll admit, at first I liked it. The covers were catchy and fun and all that, but mostly, I thought it was some sort of social commentary. By taking the mainstream hip hop culture and stripping away all the manufactured tough-guy posturing and leaving only mostly inane, nonsensical lyrics and overbearing themes of misogyny camouflaged by catchy hooks, these covers were essentially holding a mirror up to the genre and the people who buy into it, and asking them all if they liked what they saw. I thought it was trying to make a statement. Of course, it's not like most people would see it that way; but then again, that just kind of proves the point, doesn't it? A good social satire's strength comes from its subtlety, and if the point is to prove that most people who actually like mainstream hip hop are tasteless drones, then those same people not getting the parody would make sense.

Alas, after about the forty thousandth band that put out a cover like this, I started to get the sneaking suspicion that perhaps I was giving these bands too much credit. It's become a prerequisite that if you're a pop punk band and you hope to be popular, you goddamn better have a great fucking hip hop cover, or else, get the fuck out of my face, goddamn it. It isn't social commentary, it isn't clever, and it's not even original; it's just a gimmick.

Pop Punk's biggest musical influence.

It's my fault, really; while the first generation of pop punk grew up listening to bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat and The Descendants, the current generation grew up listening to Good Charlotte and Simple Plan. I shouldn't have expected any deeper punk sensibilities than what was on the surface, and for that, I'm sorry.

But still, it doesn't make sense to me. Ask yourself, if you were in a band, would you want to be known as "the band who covered 'I Wanna Love You'", as opposed to "that band who covered 'In Da Club'"? Or would you want to be known by your band name, and for your original material and live performances? It makes more sense to want to be known for the latter, but by spending money to record a version of someone else's song, you're setting yourself up for the former.

Not to mention, a cover like this often serves to make your original material seem very weak in comparison. So please, pop punk bands, enough with the hip hop cover recordings. Practice a lot and work hard on your song structures and at putting on dynamic, entertaining live shows, and don't rely on a gimmick that is quickly becoming played out and boring.

Or don't. I don't pay much attention to you local pop punk bands anyway.

Been verified.

Ahh finally, a service for us paranoid schizophrenics!

Is this a real thing? Is this fucking legal?! This allows anyone to find out almost anything about you, including your address and phone number and presumably your social security number, medical records, number of sexual partners, etc. as well. Does that terrify anyone else, or is it just me?

On their website, there's a quote from some press organization called "Venture Beat" that says, "Been Verified is looking to shake up the background check industry with a cheap and fast solution...". The background check industry?! There's an entire industry of companies that invade people's privacy for no reason?! You know, there's a lot of cool things about living in the so-called "information age", but this has got to be a huge fucking check in the con column. I'm not a criminal or anything, but that doesn't mean I want people to be able to look at my background "cheap and fast".

Let's think about the implications of the fact that not only does one service like this exist, but an entire industry of them. Now, I'm not about to sit here and tell you that the world is bright and full of sunshine, but it ain't exactly Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome out there either. Last time I checked, roving bands of homosexual bikers aren't eating and slaughtering each other for gasoline on the streets of mid-class suburbia (that's what that movie was about, right?). But the existence of a service like this does nothing but breed mistrust. It goes like this: people see that Been Verified is out there, and think to themselves, "Gee, if a service like that is doing well enough to be able to afford to paste their commercials all over national television, it must fulfill a legitimate need in our society! Maybe most of the people I come into contact with down at the Starbucks have a history of violence. How do I know that the highly qualified electrician that all my friends had nothing but good things to say about and is highly recommended isn't actually gonna rob my shit?! Oh fuck!"
See, it allows people to see any mistakes someone may have made in the past without allowing for the fact that we ALL make mistakes, and that people can and do change (not to mention the fact that the most dangerous people, such as serial killers, usually don't have much of a criminal record until they're finally caught...). This mistrust goes around and around in a downward spiral, with people running background checks on each other all the time and denying each other goods and services based on one piece of the puzzle of who someone is, until eventually society breaks down and we are forced to strike first or be killed, ironically making a criminal out of everybody and completing the self fulfilling prophecy that is Been Verified.

Pictured: Been Verified's master plan.

...Jesus. I didn't realize how serious this was until I just wrote that last paragraph. People, not since zombies has a threat to the world as we know it this large existed. I'm gonna run a background check on Been Verified to see what dirt I can dig up; we're gonna need all the intel we can get for the upcoming battle.
Stay strong, brothers and sisters. We are the resistance.

Top 10: Songs to cheer you up- Part 1

Let's face it: sometimes, we all need some cheering up. We all have different ways of doing that, but I think that the right music at the right time can be one of the quickest ways to change one's mood. Therefore I present to you, in no particular order, my top 10 songs that have historically done the best job at cheering me up.

Andrew W.K.- "It's Time to Party"

I don't give one-half of two fucks (that's right, a math joke. Anyone who says my writing is unintelligent and classless can lick my hairy nuts) what you think about Andrew W.K. in general. The first time I'd ever heard of him, I was watching Saturday Night Live and he was performing. As I sat and watched this big, hairy, sweaty man-child jump around and contort his face into expressions that would make Jim Carrey burn red with envy whilst playing one note over and over again on the piano, my first thought was, "What the fuck...?". My second thought was also "What the fuck...?", but my third thought was that even though this was the most over-the-top yet somehow simultaneously simplistic bullshit that I'd ever seen, I couldn't help but immediately like it.

Andrew W.K.: like Jesus, but with more partying.

A lot of people tend to write Andrew W.K. off as an overgrown retard who writes nothing but songs about partying, and that's all very true; but that's also exactly what makes him appealing. I don't care who you are, on a Friday evening, after a long week of work, listening to this song in the car on your way to the bar will immediately make you shift gears, emotionally speaking (hopefully not literally; that could be dangerous). Clocking in at just over a minute and a half, it's a furious outburst of pure positive energy. And if you're just in a bad mood in general, well...at the very least, this song will make you smile. Sometimes, that's all you need, and it sure as hell is all you can ask for from a man who also has written a song called "Party Til You Puke" and frequently appears on VH1 shows wearing T-shirts that read "Andrew W.K.".


Creedence Clearwater Revival- "Lookin' Out My Back Door"
As far as I'm concerned, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better song to sit out on your front porch, smokin' cigarettes and sippin' whiskey to. If you're in a bad mood, there's no way this song won't cheer you up. There's not much more I can say about it than that, so instead I'll tell you an embarrassing story about myself. When I was a kid, I remember being annoyed by CCR because they would always get mixed up with the Creed CDs in the record stores, and it made it hard for me to easily find the Creed CD I wanted. So there you go. Laugh all you want, but Creed is still a huge guilty pleasure of mine, in the same way that watching MTV's "The Real World" religeously is: I wouldn't admit to it on a first date or anything, but maybe once we've gotten to know each other well enough that you can laugh at my poor taste without immediately thinking I'm a loser, well...girls like guys that can make them laugh, right?


Third Eye Blind- "Semi-Charmed Life"
Picture this: you've just had a long day on the street corner, hustlin'/sucking dick, and man, you are just beat. You break out the pipe and the revolver and are smoking meth and contemplating suicide, when this song begins to play on the radio. The second the immediately catchy "do do do, do da do-do" vocal hook comes in, the corners of your mouth start doing this weird twitchy thing. Are...are you smiling? Why, yes you are, and even though it has been so long since you've smiled that your facial muscles have atrophied, causing excruciating pain (also, that vicious meth habit ain't helping either, buddy), you're starting to feel a little better.

Aw, what a happy crack head.

Here's a song that really gets you. After all, you've been feeling lately that your life's a bit semi-charmed. Suddenly, you decide to check into rehab, drop the habit, get a job, and get your life back on track.
You are promptly murdered leaving your apartment by another meth head.
...Whatever, here's my point. This may be a controversial statement, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this is the happiest, most positive-sounding song about crystal meth addiction out there. Even if you don't do drugs (let's be honest, if you're reading this, you probably do), it's still one of the most uplifting sounding and catchy songs that I've ever heard. Add to that the nostalgia factor, which comes from the fact that this song came out when we were younger, and it's hard not to be put in a better mood by it.


Goldfinger- "Superman"

If you're anything like me, your junior high days were spent playing "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater", restarting the levels over and over until either Goldfinger or Suicide Machines came on instead of going outside and getting better at real skating. And while today a whole new generation of kids are busy playing "Guitar Hero" instead of learning how to play a real instrument, I still look back fondly on my simpler days of Nintendo 64 and semi-credible ska-punk. For me, the nostalgic feelings for a time when I had absolutely no responsibilities and my biggest concern was trying to figure out how to see some boobs/touch a vagina that this song conjures up alone are enough to cheer me up. However, it also sports one of the best horn section hooks I've ever heard (and I fucking hate horn sections in punk), as well as immediately singable lyrics and an easily-relateable sentiment. Break out the skateboard, remember to quit pretending you're a Superman, and cheer the fuck up.


Wheatus- "Teenage Dirtbag"
You forgot this song even existed, didn't you? Remember when this song was on the radio, and they censored the line "he brings a gun to school", but not "her boyfriend's a dick"? Man, as a culture, we sure are sensitive, aren't we? I don't doubt for one second that concerned parents would have complained about a song on the radio talking about someone who brings a gun to school- talking about it, mind you, not advocating it. What I find ludicrous is the fact that anyone could think that listening to a song as ridiculous as "Teenage Dirtbag" would be enough to make disturbed individuals want to act it out. Hey idiots: the type of kids who would consider going on shooting sprees don't listen to Wheatus. I can almost gurantee that.
That being said, I'm convinced that this song is almost impossible to dislike. From the oddly high-pitched singing voice of the singer, to the baffling obsession with "listening to Iron Maiden, baby", this song is tailor-made to bring you out of whatever funk you may find yourself in. There's something oddly therapeutic about singing "I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby" over and over again at the top of your lungs.

Pictured: Teenage Douchebags. Similar to the teenage dirtbag, but not quite the same thing.

Be sure to stay tuned for Part 2!

Cop Out

Okay, so let me get this straight. A grizzled veteran badass cop, John McClaine, teams up with a functionally retarded idiot savante, Brian Fellows. Together, they must take down an evil criminal mastermind, Stiffler. And the trailer expects us to believe that, against all odds, hilarity somehow ensues.

All right, let me just say this. Bruce Willis needs to stop acting in cop roles that aren't explicitly named John McClaine, because if we're being honest with ourselves, that's who he is, even if his characters aren't named that. In 16 Blocks he played an older, lamer John McClaine with a moustache; in Surrogates, he played John McClaine...IN THE FUTURE!! Once you've played the quintessential badass cop action hero, you really can't escape that; at least not as long as you continue to play badass cop action heroes. I mean come on man, I know a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required of the audience to even believe that an 80 year old man can be physically intimidating, but asking us to think that you aren't McClaine on top of that is just going overboard.

And Tracey Morgan... Look, 30 Rock is not a bad show, and his character on that show isn't bad either. But you know how Dave Chapelle quit comedy because white people were "laughing too hard" at his racist jokes? Forget for a second how ridiculous it is to quit being a comedian because people think you're funny, and try to understand the principle behind that concept. Chapelle thought that white people laughing so hard at his racist jokes about black people revealed just how racist white people innately are, even after all this time, and it disgusted him. It just so happens that he was completely wrong in his assumption; but now, by the same token, let's look at Tracey Morgan. He plays the retarded black man so well that not only do white people laugh their asses off at it, he's now being typecast into that sort of role. Is it encouraging, as an actor, to think to yourself, "I'm so good at acting like a moron that that's all people want to see me do"? I'm not here to give you the answers, people. I'm only here to ask the questions.

Jesus Christ, if the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were forced to watch this movie, U.S. citizens would be outraged at the level of torture being inflicted upon our prisoners of war. The prisoners themselves would be begging for another water boarding party out of fear that they would have to be subjected to this abomination again. Who the fuck directed this travesty?!
That's right, Kevin Smith. Known lately for being an epic fatass, Kevin Smith was at one time responsible for such straight-faced, dialogue based nerdgasms as Clerks and Mallrats. While he did write both a Daredevil and a Batman graphic novel that I'm quite fond of, most of his filmic ventures as of late have been similar to watching a late-term abortion in IMAX...which is to say, the fact that it gave me an erection filled me with confused, homicidal rage. At what point will we stop excusing bullshit put out by a director who's riding the coattails of moments of brilliance that they had years earlier? (I'm looking at you, M. Night Shyamalanadon.) The longer we as a culture continue this trend, the more films like Cop Out we're going to get. Are you prepared to give up that much of your soul, dear readers? Do you even care?!?


...In all honesty, though, this movie could potentially be decent. I've been wrong before, and I've seen some trailers that make it look not so terrible. I guess we'll see.

Slappin' your troubles away

You probably don't need me to tell you what a barren wasteland of creativity late-night television is. Watching late-night TV is like having your brain slowly eaten by an earwhig (they eat brains, right? Or am I confusing earwhigs with zombies again?). Mostly, I'd have to say that you'd have to be violently drunk in order to even come close to understanding most of the shit they fill these late time slots with, and luckily, I often am when I'm watching TV at five in the morning. However, I came across a commercial last night that, despite my David Hasselhoff level of inebreation, still left me screaming "what the fuck" through bitter tears. Apparently, David Lynch has begun directing infomercials:








Now, first let me say that I find it truly inspiring that the shamwow guy was able to find work after a hooker with a penis beat the shit out of his masculinity (what little there was to begin with). But "Slap your troubles away with Slap Chop"? Come on now, Shamwow Guy, you tried that already with that man-woman and it didn't end very well. Also, wasn't I supposed to wipe my troubles away with the shamwow? Make up your mind! In these uncertain times of economic turmoil, I think we can all agree that we look to the people on our television sets late at night peddling us worthless, idiotic bullshit for stability.

And what's with the part towards the middle? Shamwow Guy is slap choppin' up some disgusting egg-pickle-ham "breakfast", when all of a sudden we're treated to a punch of jump cuts of black people dancing. Does... does the Slap Chop make black people happy? Is it because of the rhythm produced by Shamwow Guy's enthusiastic slap chopping, and we all know that black people can't help but dance when there's any kind of beat present? Honestly, I wish I could be as happy about anything as those black people are about the Slap Chop.

The end of the commercial truly terrifies me too. Shamwow Guy starts thrashing around violently like someone's electrocuting him in the dick. Shamwow Guy, lay off the cocaine, please. We just lost Billy Mays; I... I just don't know if I could handle the loss of another quasi-celebrity whom nobody cared about before he died so soon after that tragedy.

Lastly, I must point out that this product is about ten years old. My Mom bought it from the Pampered Chef quite awhile ago. And yes, it is pretty convenient... I just didn't know you could make money by renaming something that already exists and that you didn't invent. That being said, buy my new product, the Stab Cut. It's like a knife, but called something different!

Welcome to my pop culture nightmare.

I figured it's high time I get myself my own blog, so here we go. Welcome. If you're easily offended (read: if you can't take a joke), expect to occasionally be outraged by my posts. I decided to post a personal favorite piece of writing of mine below, from my short lived stint on the now-defunct blog "You're Not Too Cool For Comics", which was mainly the brainchild of my good friend Matt Burke (incidentally, check out his writing as well if you get the chance. I'll post a link to his blog here when I get it.)
Overall, this will be for fun, and hopefully it will be entertaining...or at the very least, a way to kill time while at work...

Retro Comics Corner: Welcome Back, Frank!

Hello there! Welcome to the first in my hopefully extensive series, Retro Comics Corner, wherein I discuss graphic novels and story arcs which have become, in my opinion, classics. A quick disclaimer: I do not claim to be some sort of comic book historian, and I am writing these purely for fun and entertainment value. My goal is to provide a humorous perspective on classic stories, and if you don’t like what I have to say, I invite you to grab the nearest broom handle, break it in half (making sure of course to leave the ends nice and jagged), and enthusiastically fuck yourself with it.

That being said, let’s talk about Welcome Back, Frank!, Garth Ennis’s first run at the Punisher, and the character’s first appearance since he died and became some sort of avenging angel killing demons or something (I really didn’t pay much attention; reading that story was like watching a comic book having sex with the Bible, and then being violently raped by their offspring right in the common sense).

The Punisher as a character is deceptively complex, at least from a writer’s stand point. What I mean by that is that the concept behind him is fairly simple: his family is killed senselessly by bad people, so he decides to kill the holy bejeezus out of any bad person he can find. Murderers, rapists, mobsters, jaywalkers; you name it, he’ll eviscerate it. …That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. He’s like Charles Bronson in Death Wish, but with way less moustache.

Yeah. Sorta like that.

However, it is this simplicity that makes it so difficult to write a captivating Punisher story. After all, how many times can you write a story about a man murdering the shit out of a whole bunch of people before it gets a bit stale? That’s when you start to see story arcs like the aforementioned ‘avenging angel’ run or whatever the fuck it was called, which suck legendary amounts of penis. Thankfully, a man named Garth Ennis

exists. Ennis knows how to make shocking levels of violence and depravity fun, and is famous for injecting very subtle, very dark humorous tones into his ostensibly unfunny stories and somehow making it work. To say he revitalized interest in the Punisher is a woefully incompetent understatement. Welcome Back, Frank! was to the Punisher what Jesus is to Christians, or for you non-believers, what bacon was to the cheeseburger. Suddenly the Punisher was not only once again a credible character, he was fucking kickass.

Let’s look at a few moments from the series that epitomize why it became a classic, shall we?

“It’s bears!” WHAMFF!

I was going to do these in chronological order, but I couldn’t resist putting this one first. This moment, to me, tells you everything you need to know about this series.

While scouting Ma Gnucci for a hit, the Punisher is spotted by one of her body guards and takes one bullet in the ribs and another in the shoulder. Unarmed and losing blood, he hides out in the zoo, and proceeds to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting henchmen that are hunting him down. He feeds one to piranhas, another to a snake, but the best is when he punches a fucking polar bear in the face, causing it to attack Ma and her remaining bodyguards.

The Punisher tells PETA to fuck themselves.

And there you go. The Punisher. Punches a bear. In the face. Admit it, if you weren’t interested in this story arc before, you can’t wait to read it now.

Don’t hide behind the thin guy.

The first time we see the Punisher in a full on gun battle in this series is when he attacks Bobbie Gnucci as he’s viewing his brother’s body in the morgue. The Punisher uses the dead body of some fat guy as a human shield, and the guy he’s shooting at decides to do the same. Only he hides behind some skinny dude, and the Punisher shoots right through the body and kills the guy.

Garth Ennis has a tradition of making movie references in his stories, which as a

huge movie nerd, never ceases to fill me with glee. This sequence is a nod to the ‘human shield’ scene in Total Recall. If you’ve ever seen that movie, you know that it’s just stupid, over the top, extraordinarily violent fun. The fact that it occurs in the first issue of the series lets you know what to expect: reading this book will be a lot like watching a Schwarzenegger movie, and that is awesome.

Oh, and the best part: immediately after he does this, the Punisher walks over to Bobbie Gnucci and delivers a classic action movie one-liner. “Got a message for your people, Bobbie. Listen:” and then he blows his head off. Oh, fuck yes, the Punisher is back.

Punisher vs. Daredevil

Let’s get serious here for a second. Around the fourth issue of the series, the Punisher attempts to assassinate Dino Gnucci in Hell’s Kitchen, and of course, Daredevil shows up to try and stop him. After giving the Punisher a speech about how he has a choice and he doesn’t actually have to kill anyone, the Punisher tells him to fuck off and a fight ensues. Punisher manages to get the best of Daredevil, and ties him up with a gun taped to his hand. He tells Daredevil it’s time for him to make that choice he was talking about. Either shoot the Punisher in the head to stop him from killing Dino, or do nothing and let Dino die:

PUNISHER: If you don’t shoot you’ve got a death on your conscience. A death you could have prevented. If you do shoot, you’re a killer.

DAREDEVIL: What kind of a choice is that…?

PUNISHER: The one I make every time I pull the trigger.

After bitching and whining for a bit (I’m pretty sure ‘bitching and whining’ is one of Daredevil’s superpowers), Daredevil aims the gun at Punisher’s head, pulls the trigger and… click. No firing pin. Punisher paints a mural on the sidewalk with Dino’s thoughts and memories, and Daredevil is utterly crushed by the realization that he just attempted to commit murder.

This issue is interesting, because it shows that at the end of the day, Punisher and Daredevil are the same. They both fight crime, but they do so from a continuum. On one end you have the Punisher, killing everything bad that moves; on the other, you have Daredevil, who just likes to hit bad guys a few times and hope they learn their lesson. However, when Daredevil pulled that trigger, it proved that the points on the continuum on which the two characters reside are not fixed. The Punisher is Daredevil; he is Spiderman, he is whoever else you care to name. The only difference is that he doesn’t hide behind a wall or pretense; he doesn’t feel the need to incessantly apologize for what he is and what he does. Spiderman and Daredevil and all the rest may seem more “heroic”, but strip away all their speeches about justice and the value of human life and they’re really no different than any anti-hero you care to name. After all, these are people that are so driven by what they think is true and right that they dress up in costumes and get in fights with bad guys every day. To make a distinction between the hero and the anti-hero is therefore futile; the only difference is where they draw the line and, as this sequence shows, all it takes to push that line over to the “dark side” is the right set of circumstances.

“I hate them.”

About halfway through the series, Ma Gnucci finds out where the Punisher lives and sends everything she’s got to take him out. The Punisher of course kills everyone, but not before taking six bullets to the chest. As he’s lying in bed dying in his mousy neighbor Joan’s apartment, this exchange occurs:

JOAN: Why do you kill them? Bad people, I mean.

PUNISHER: I hate them.

JOAN: Oh. I thought it might be because you wanted to make the world safe for

good people.

And there you go. The reason the Punisher imprint is so great under the direction of Garth Ennis. The Punisher isn’t a goddamn superhero; he’s not even really an anti-hero. He just hates bad guys because of what they did to his family, and he simply likes to kill them. Even in story lines where the Punisher is helping someone, you still get the feeling that he’s only doing it because of the opportunities it affords him to kill a shit ton of bad guys. He’s basically a psychopath; luckily for us, he only murders people who deserve it. Ennis understands this, and can therefore write compelling Punisher stories.

The Russian.

The Russian is Ma Gnucci’s last-ditch effort to put the Punisher out of commission. He’s about the size of the Incredible Hulk, twice as stupid, and ambushes the Punisher out of nowhere. This is another instance of Punisher being caught off guard and unarmed, and having to improvise. After two entire issues consisting of nothing but the Punisher getting his ass handed to him, he’s finally able to kill the Russian. How?

By throwing a hot pizza at his face, and then suffocating him to death with his morbidly obese neighbor’s body.

You know, I think we can all agree that there isn’t much that’s funnier than fat jokes. Dick jokes, maybe, and punching a bear in the face, definitely, but only barely. And using a fat guy to take out an undisputed badass like the Russian? That’s just entertainment gold.

The Russian: giving "pizza face" a whole new meaning.

Detective Soap.

Finally, we have Detective Soap. Another thing about Garth Ennis is that he often will include a character in his stories that is an epic loser in every way imaginable, and they often even have some sort of physical deformity, as was mentioned in one of Mr. Burke’s earlier articles. Well, Detective Soap is definitely that. He’s a joke to the police force, and since none of the police officers actually want the Punisher caught, they put Soap on the case. He drives his first partner to suicide, falls in love with his lesbian second partner, and generally just gets shit on constantly, both literally and figuratively (at one point during Ennis’s run on the Punisher, he even unknowingly fucks his own mom. But that’s neither here nor there.)

However, Soap doesn’t have any physical deformities to speak of, and that’s the real reason I put him on here. I can just imagine Ennis, in a drunken rage, yelling at chief editor Joe Quesada: “Dammit Joe! Just let me make his nose into a dick! Or fine, I’ll put a vagina on his forehead! That way everyone will know he’s a pussy! It just wouldn’t feel right otherwise! QUIT STIFLING MEEE!!!”

And there you have it. Hopefully you enjoyed my first entry for YNTCFC. I’ll update some more in the future; hopefully fairly regularly, but realistically, whenever I damn well please.