Look at that friendly face. I’ve finally found the kind of jovial fellow I’ve been looking for to offload all these hotels I have in storage.
The future was yesterday and this guy has his flux capacitor cranked to 11.
Modern business? This guy is business!
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Remember back in August of 2009 when liberals went bat shit over being called national socialists because they were attempting to implement the same policies that Hitler did during pre-war Germany? How dare conservatives compare freedom loving people to such horrible people as nazis!
Well, well, well…those wonderful, freedom loving democrats have had full power for two years. Let’s review:
Now we have the unbelievably egregious tactics of the TSA.
Is it o.k if we start using the word “Gestapo” yet?
The thing that bothers me most is that within conservative circles, they sit and argue about the Tea Party. Out of all the crimes against liberty being committed, we have to read scribes against how the Tea Party are a bunch of ineffective hypocrites.
Is every member of the Tea Party perfect? No. Is their message totally in sync? No. Are they prone to making political mistakes? You bet. But guess what? They aren’t treating you like a fucking terrorist because you want to fly to mom and dad’s house for Thanksgiving. They aren’t supporting the strip search of your 3-year-old son. They are here to help stop some rude, overpaid, lazy-ass government employee from squeezing your middle-aged, red-blooded, white American balls before you get on an airplane.
This isn’t even a matter of a lesser of two evils. This is Good vs. Evil and it would do a lot of people good to reconsider their positions on a grassroots movement to stop a leadership that governs like….get ready for it…NAZIS.
Remember when Hot Topic was the place that freaks and goths took part in unabashed consumerism despite their obsession with nonconformity? I do, but I don’t blame them. That was when I was in high school and it was a really stupid, contradictory and hypocritical age. Just a part of growing up. I am now twenty-seven and the feeling never went away that “normal” kids didn’t shop there unless they had a binding contract with Barnum and Bailey. So a couple of years ago, when my “normal” 15-year-old cousin went into Hot Topic during a trip to the mall did I realize that, to modern teens, the store has become just another place to spend mommy’s (and by extension, daddy’s) money.
Skip ahead to last week. I’m walking through the mall when I pass Hot Topic as I’ve done before on several occasions. This time was different. Their new featured artist crossed the line, even for a non-consumer like me. Taylor Swift. Yep…that Taylor Swift. Right next to the Iron Maiden shirt and in front of the dog chains. Now, as I wrote earlier, I understand that Hot Topic was never a bastion of individualism. However, it at least offered something different. A girl could buy a tight, red, long-sleeved, midriff showing, make all my male teachers want to fuck me shirt at Old Navy, American Eagle, Holister, Aeropostale, Banana Republic, or Wal-Mart. But there was only one store where you could get a pair of rainbow-colored woolen gauntlets to match your bipolar disorder. And now that store is pushing Taylor Swift.
I feel sorry for kids these days. I really do. American culture is just one bland mechanism to squeeze every drop of individualism into the market share recipe. Is there any place left to express the natural need to be different?
Answer: Yes. Head shops.
Filed under Culture, Old man rant
Last night, I tuned into a show called “The 7 Ages of Rock” on VH1 Classic. I caught the end of “The Stadium Rock” age and watched the entire “Grunge” age. When it was over, I had to ask myself one question: are there any group of people more full of shit than musicians and their lackey journalists?
At the end of the Stadium Rock hour, the topic was about U2 and the Zoo T.V tour. It was pretty spectacular for its time, I’ll give it that, but when the interviewees (various rock journalists and musicians) start verbalizing their delusions of grandeur I become too stunned by the idiocy to keep my mouth shut.
“Zoo T.V not only wanted to change the way people experience concerts, but also wanted to change the way people view the world”
Gag me.
Has rock music EVER changed the world? Has music in general ever really, truly changed the world? Sure, it made people feel intense emotions and caused great inspirations, but changed the world? Good grief. No song ever shut off the gas at Auschwitz. A good riff never stopped the mass oppression in the Soviet Bloc. A well written chorus that inspired a hippie to stop bathing didn’t keep a genocidal maniac from exterminating his Emmanuel Goldsteins.
At one point, it talked about how the Zoo T.V stage was set up with a giant television that could pick up local television stations and had satellite capability. They used the satellite feed to bring in live footage of the current conflict in Sarajevo. The man speaking to Bono from the hell hole du jour in that part of the world was talking about how civilians are being bombarded with artillery and they have nowhere to go. How thought-provoking and inspirational. Except for the fifty thousand people who paid hard-earned money to be ENTERTAINED. If it were me in that audience, I would want to know why Bono felt it necessary to plunge me into more soul crushing despair. People paid damn good money to watch them play music and sing for their enjoyment. This is a moment of release; escapism from the monotony of everyday life that is already filled with the minutia of worry and wonder. Now the poor audience has eastern Europe to worry about. Thanks U2!
Then we get to the Grunge era. After fifteen minutes, it became apparent that the writers and producers of this documentary had it out for Reagan. Each show had constant jabs to the point where if you were from Mars you would think Reagan created a dystopian America and nobody noticed unless you listened to rock music.
Talk about biting that hand that feeds.
Lines like “Reagan’s fabled land of opportunity” stands in stark contrast to the hundreds of millions of dollars that non-musicians are spending so that young talented music makers can live lives beyond their wildest dreams.
Despite numerous urges to throw the remote at the screen, I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of aspects. Like how down to earth the remaining members of Nirvana are. One would think with all of the attention and “what was, and could have been” accolades over the years that they would walk around like ghostly legends. One part that stands out is when the narrator (Dennis Hopper) talking about how the members of Nirvana were drawn together by the trials and tribulations of growing up as a part of Generation X. Then it cuts to Chris Novaselic talking about how him and Kurt shared the same experiences such as a broken home and personal turmoil. It always amuses me when journalists try to take people’s personal issues and demons and foist them unto society.
The end of the Grunge era was actually pretty moving. Admittedly, I’ve never been a fan of Nirvana and haven’t listened to a lot of their music outside mainstream radio. So when they played the last song on the Unplugged album titled Where Did You Sleep Last Night, I was actually enthralled by the emotion.
However, it didn’t change my world…
I remember during the mid to late Bush years, America bashing was a cottage industry within the elite. Since a lot of small-minded Americans were programmed by “the elite” to believe that “the elite” were crowned “the elite” because of their superior intellect (see a pattern?), many average Joe’s started thinking it actually mattered. I did my best to remind them that most of the world gets their images of America through what they see from Hollywood and the media based in New York and Washington. Just like most Americans view France as a culture based around kissing pretty fiances underneath the Eiffel Tower and Italians all look like Sicilians. Nobody produces shows about 98% of the citizenry who live, work and go home to their families to live humble lives. Jersey Shore is more entertaining…somehow. But as the years go by, I’m noticing that Americans are capitulating their own negative stereotypes.
In continuation of yesterday’s post about American culture, In Mala Fide linked to this article from M4 Monologue about how America is viewed through the filter of Hollywood at home and abroad.
“The last movie I ever saw on the Big Screen was the American made “The Hangover”. It convinced me forever that there is nothing in common with me and America, or, the America as portrayed by their Hollywood, and that I never want to watch a movie at the cinema again.”
My best friend was begging me for months to see this movie. He finally brought it over and although it was probably one of the better comedies I’ve seen in a while, that’s not saying much. It’s like eating bad Mexican and praising it because it was better than a Twinkie that’s been dropped in a litter box.
None of the characters were likeable, in fact, they were utterly repugnant. Worse, the movie opened with some “joke” about one of the leading characters being banned from within 500 meters (or something) from a High School for lewd behaviour. This was a” joke”. In other words, one of the main comedic characters was a pedophile.
Coupled with the fact that South Park brought this type of shock humor to the forefront ten years ago. I don’t understand the cognitive dissonance American society has with this kind of humor. It’s viewed as such a taboo and serious subject to the point where we put men in jail for YEARS and then put them on a sexual offender list for LIFE (remember To Catch A Predator?), yet it sure is popular comedic fodder.
I don’t want to spoil the movie for you. It’s not funny. I wanted to laugh. In fact I thought the title sounded like it could be good since I love to drink and talk to drinkers. The fella who was banned from being near a children’s school also made a “joke” about masturbating a baby. There was a moral to the movie. The “hero” dumped his wife who fucked some guy on her car bonnet, and took up with a stripper who left her newborn child with him while he was drunk and on a rampage. That was another “joke” in the movie.
When distilled down like this, you realize why you didn’t laugh when you watched the movie. The problem is that they didn’t even bother to project any sort of reality. No one can seriously relate to waking up amidst a disaster created by three guys and a drunken black-out. No one even comes close to finding a tiger in their bathroom and a happy, bubbly baby under the sink. There is satire and then there is implausibility. The gap between the two in The Hangover is of Grand Canyon sized proportions.
If I were an Arab I could only watch American movies and think: “White women are sluts and deserve all they get. White men are walkovers and deserve to be annihilated.”
I’m a white mid-westerner and think this sometimes. Some days it’s hard to bear with our people who act like grazing cows that are more than happy to spend their lives chewing the cultural cud.
The thing is: Americans may like their society to be portrayed as a morally bankrupt, money obsessed, disaster zone of competing civil rights and victims, heroes and victors but can you at least make it clear that this is Americans you are portraying and not White people in general? Your movies are sickening and portray my girls as sluts and my boy as the deserving beneficiary of a beating. Sort your shit out Yanks.
This whole piece has references to “Jew controlled Hollywood”. I’m not going to jump up and call it anti-Semitic, but the whole “Jews control this or that” has never been an effective argument to me. However, he is right in his observation of the way Americans are portrayed by their own entertainment outlets. Very rarely are common American traits ever presented in a positive light. I’ve mentioned the movie Crash on this blog before and it is a good example here too. This movie is a perfect example of how Americans will gladly pay and be entertained by their own demonization. Crash won Best Picture and made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. How could a country as racist as was portrayed in the movie let that happen?
As it is you come across in your movies like you are living the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As our forms of entertainment mirror our culture, sometimes I wonder.
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I didn’t get a chance to update yesterday and it’s really early here so today’s’ post will be short. But I did want to share this little rant I stumbled upon as I was browsing around. Courtesy of In Mala Fide.
Fuck you, America. You bunch of sniveling snots. You pleasure-addicted weaklings. You evangelists of bad taste and decadence. You greedy fucks spend eight hours a day five days a week working jobs that suck your soul straight out so you can buy bigger houses and fill them with useless crap you never use. You hook yourselves on food, drink and video games not out of a genuine love for those things but because you’re so stupidly short-sighted you can’t realize the adverse effects of your own behavior. You hypocritically turn your oh-so-moral noses up at prostitution and drug use while training your daughters to be craven classless whores and doping your sons with Ritalin to destroy their minds and their masculinity. You seek out the easy-peasy Band-Aid solution to every problem imaginable only to run crying and screaming to daddy or the government when your own retarded choices blow up in your face. You spent your nights jacking off to videos of platinum blonde hair extender-wearing fake-titted living Barbie dolls and you shake your pom-poms for the Democrats and Republicans like it makes a fucking difference in the end. You piss on the graves of your ancestors while exalting the culture and practices of people you have nothing in common with. You have the unimaginable chutzpah to declare yourself a bastion of freedom while summoning the lynch mob to hang anyone who dares to point out the truth that lies in front of your eyes. You are the most pig-ignorant, unjustifiably arrogant collection of misfits who ever had the misfortune to rule an empire, and I will gleefully pop a bottle of champagne when you eventually perish from the earth.
Yowza! Much frustration here. Now, I generally love my country and always want the best for it, but over the last few years, it’s been really hard to walk outside and see the utter decay of our people and culture. I particularly liked this part:
You have the unimaginable chutzpah to declare yourself a bastion of freedom while summoning the lynch mob to hang anyone who dares to point out the truth that lies in front of your eyes.
Hell, that defines our modern media and entertainment outlets.
Speaking of American Entertainment, this same post at In Mala Fide talks about an article, written by an Australian, about how the world views the U.S via our movies, music and television. I’ll save that for tomorrow.
Until then…
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