You're Not Omanyte, Asshole

For as much love as we have for each other, my girlfriend and I are complete polar opposites. Aside from a love of The Simpsons and obscure Japanese video games (see No More Heroes and Katamari Damacy) we have little in common. She wants to dissect a frog and I would rather dissect a poem. My love of Black Flag is lost on her, and her fascination with Tiesto escapes me. She watches the Kardashians while I prefer oiled up half-naked men wrestling each other. I'm obsessing over the NFC Wild Card picture and she couldn't give a shit. She aspires to be the next Gregor Mendel while all I want to be is Chris Jericho.

Get it? Complete opposites. The phrase opposites attract rings true in our case.


With all that said, we're also both incredibly hard headed and stubborn. Rarely will one of us back down in an argument. My bedroom often becomes a battle ground for two warring samurai to go at it until one of us rolls over an dies. Because I happen to be the male in this relationship, when the argument ends, it automatically becomes my fault. What was a battle of honor, Bushido, and pride gets transformed into a drive-by shooting where I'm accused of leaving my lover riddled with insult-laden bullets.


A quicker way of saying this would've been "Yeah, I get in trouble a lot," I just wanted everyone to feel my plight. Any guy reading this will know what I'm talking about.


With all that said, I'm probably going to get in trouble tonight for this. Certainly with her, and possibly with a few other Facebook fans. I never put warnings in any of my posts because, well, fuck it, but if anyone reading this has a love of the monsters in their pockets I highly suggest skipping this one. Don't un-fan me on the page, just skip this. I'll go back to insulting guidos soon I promise.


My problem tonight is with a Facebook movement. I'm not sure if that is the official title for this, but if not I'm coining the phrase. The last few weeks there has been a campaign for people to switch their Facebook profile pictures to pictures of cute, cuddly, Christ-insulting Pokemon, and at the risk of pissing a lot of potential readers off, you're all idiots.


Why? Because you're the beginning of the end for Facebook. It's bullshit like this, Farmville, and mongoloids who become fans of the most ridiculous shit that make me freebase baking soda and punch nuns. It damages the legitimacy of social network and makes you look like a retard in doing so. Myspace at one point was considered the legit social networking site but eventually turned into an Emo personals site.

Yeah your this;
















Is the Facebook version of this;


















You're profile picture of Ekans (HAHAHA get it!? That's snake backwards!! Clever Japanese!) might as well be a tilted shot of you in the bathroom with shitty makeup, hair, and in this case, bubblegum. They're not too different. I can only assume the goal here is to make a deep seeded statement that you as an individual are in some way 'anti-conformative' to every other asshole on your friend list who poses with a red cup in all their pictures. As edgy and hilarious as you may think you are, you're not. You're digital display of self-proclaimed obscurity and anti-conformity is null when you consider that you followed a group, albeit a minority and all conformed to making your pictures that of giant bugs and flame-ponies.

I completely sound like the goth kids from South Park right now and I'm ok with that. You cretins destroy the credibility of social networking. Go back to bitching about a dislike button or something.

My biggest question is why Pokemon? I know it's that kind of nostalgic, obscure, 'omg 90's' shit you people crave, but it's a poor choice. I'll argue it to the death that Pokemon was and is a silver medal as far as I'm concerned. The two biggest aspects of the franchise (Video games and TV show) are both outclassed by other products. For as much crap as I get for it, I loved Digimon when I was a kid. Every season of the show (there were five) was different, engaging, had a moving plot, and in some cases, dealt with pretty strong themes for a children's show. Season 3 was ripe with overtones about suicide, artificial intelligence, and the ethics of technology. That sounds fanboy-ish, but it's true. The Pokemon anime is 600+ episodes strong with the same six general episode story arcs. It's Ash wants this Pokemon, or fights/helps this trainer, or saves this Pokemon, or hey look a gym battle. Team Rocket tends to interfere and always loses. Wash, rinse, and repeat for twelve seasons. The only progressing part of the series is Ash attempting to get however many badges or whatever for that region's Poke-awesome-league only to move on to another region and do...the exact same thing.

Gripping fucking television there, and I'm aware that lots of television is like this. Hell, Knight Rider is the same episode over and over again, but at least it has a car that can speak full sentences unlike those bullshit creatures who can only say their name.


That's right poke-fanatics. Suck one.



I'm in so much trouble for this.

Acht Fünf Weibchen!

Finals are now over (finally), which means I can get back to a semi-regular schedule. That's probably a good thing considering the Facebook fanpage is about as dead as dead gets, and when I stop getting attention I stop blogging and just go back to being miserable and pissed.

Last week I decided to do a running diary of Jersey Shore, and by all account the couple people who texted me said they loved it, so I'm going to start a running diary of the show I'm entitling The Ham and Water Diary which I hope will be just as surreal and intense as the Hunter S. Thompson novel I stole the title from.

That said, I don't have week two up yet. Tonight I watched the episode with a friend and blogging while your with someone is hardly appropriate. Even I have standards. My goal is catch one of the million re-airings MTV will have between Friday and Saturday and have it up soon.


To keep the masses (43 fans hardly counts as a mass) happy I will now try and make snarky comments about something I found on Yahoo while I was checking my email.



America's favorite number-named athlete is once again considering changing his name. The receiver formally known as Johnson revealed a jersey with the back reading 'Hachi Go' which is Japanese for eight-five. His reason? A Japanese film crew was in town...well that and it's no longer Hispanic Heritage Month.

I kind of like this actually. I know Rodger Goodell doesn't appreciate the antics of Mr. Ochocinco, but this may be a great opportunity for the NFL to strengthen its global audience. Personally I say ditch the Japanese and go for the Germans. An 'Acht Fünf' jersey will sell considerably more than the Frankfurt Galaxy jerseys ever did.


Landung!

Guidorama

I've decided to switch things up tonight and do a running blog of the series premier of MTV's cashing in of Jersey and Italian pride we're oh so lovingly going to call Jersey Shore. I'm catching it at the midnight showing so all my my times will be a little later than normal. Comprende? Let's start.


12:01 - Right off the bat, how do you get a nickname like "The Situation"?

12:03 - My question was answered. Any guy with Rambo abs gets a situational nickname.

12:05 - The educated guido is the real guido...apparently.

12:06 - Jwoww? Jwwhy? I'm so clever.

12:09 - The first real bit of comedy thus far. A Squeakwal to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Pure hilarity.

12:14 - Loving this house. My summers would've been so much better with a house like this.

12:18 - What kind of alcohol do guidos drink anyway? I doubt this group of strapping young Italians have any sort of wine taste. Thank god I'm Irish.

12:24 - Guidetteiquette; Thong bikini > thong. Yes, there's a difference.

12:26 - First laugh of the show. "Quack quack quack! Who the fuck owns a duck phone?"

12:35 - Pukie breath is the primary concern here. Where's my notepad...

12:36 - Guido prayers done right.

12:39 - Can't wait for Disney's Soul Frog!!!

12:45 - "The situation is under control"

12:48 - Seaside Heights never looks this good. I demand reality.

12:53 - How come I never vibe with any ladies? This is depressing.

12:54 - I hope they call her "snickers" the rest of the season.

12:56 - This show really makes me want a hoagie. Just a random thought I want to throw out.

1:10 - My god, all the hair spray. No wonder I burn like a lobster when I'm at the beach.

1:15 - Jwoww and that poofy hair guy could have wacky haired troll dolls as kids.

1:19 - Penis piercing.

1:29 - First (but probably not last) disease of the summer; pink eye

1:36 - That's the fruitiest gayest drink I've ever seen. These guys are all like Adam Lambert.

1:39 - Don't cheat, eat ham and drink water.

1:46 - This "situation" situation will be marketed to death by the braintrust at MTV. Can't wait for those "situation" t-shirts at Hot Topic next spring.

1:50 - "I will cut your hair while you're sleeping"

1:56 - I need that montage song from South Park right about now.




First impressions? Wow, what an experience. As I listen to the sound of 'Lil John screaming "shots shots shots!" I can't help but think this is going to set my state back a hundred years. I'm going to try and make a weekly thing out of this so uh...stay tuned?

A Super Late Super Thanksgiving Edition...SUPER!

Eighteen years living in this great melting pot has given me a lot of time to form my stereotyped bias of everyone and anything around me. Stereotypes are great because they give us a preloaded template to make quickie judgment calls about complete strangers. It's essentially our mind's RAM, top of the head calculations and projections for any given person.

For example, I see someone with a NASCAR hat and I assume they drive a Silverado, beat their wife, and think I'm a queerbo for listening to From First to Last (although, even I think I'm a queerbo for that fact).

Here's another; I see a girl outside of Starbucks with auburn hair in a pea coat and scarf, her nose is pierced but it's discrete and her green eyes may or may not be hidden behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. She's reading a copy of Catch 22 and I immediately fall in love. My first assumption is that she is that one deep profound person I've waited all my life for. We'll watch the leaves change colors during the day and spend our evenings by a fire drinking moderately priced wine while watching Paris, je t'aime. Our dates will consist of debating Noam Chomsky, how Norman Rockwell was a fucking liar, and the hidden greatness of The Pixies while we adore our newly framed Gustav Klimt print hanging above our black leather couch. I'll endlessly compare her to Audrey Hepburn while she insists I'm her Fred Astaire and we'll be perfect together. A lifelong cuddlefest.



That last stereotype was incredibly well thought out. Let that meticulous rendition of Hallmark love not indicate that's what I look for in a relationship. I do however have a thing for glasses, pea coats, and auburn hair. Just saying.



It's particularly devastating to me when these stereotypes turn out to be completely false. When I find out that the NASCAR guy actually works for Merrill Lynch, drives a Z4, and does not actively engage in spousal abuse I'm crushed. When I get into that girl's Jetta and she's listening to T-Pain smoking Marlboro Red 100's and trying to talk to me about New Moon, I not only lose any hope that love does in fact exist, but I get the strange urge to slit Ben Gibbard's throat to see if his gurgling suffering will make any more sense than the pretentious crap he's peddled to me about love since 2003.



It's sort of like that. Complex emotions right? I lose it when those I stereotype turn out to be 100% different. It's like my powers of perception are somehow fading.


Tonight that happened with an entire country rather than a person. Instead of say...that cute girl outside of Starbucks, it's Switzerland.


Call me absolutely batshit crazy here, but did anyone expect this from Switzerland? When I think of the Swiss I don't really lean towards a nation of extreme right-winged discriminating xenophobes, rather I think of the country that brought us Swatches, those special bank accounts, and fondue. How could a country that has achieved universal health care be so ultra-conservative?

It makes no sense. My stereotypical image of the friendly alps and Michelle Hunziker playing the accordion is fading. I thought the worst you could get in Switzerland were those three guys in Celtic Frost. I don't know what a minaret is and I couldn't really give a shit, I just want my happy Swiss folk back! No more Muslim hating! Please! It's just a god damn building, let them have it! My view of the world is fragile enough as it is. Don't fuck up the Swiss for me please, I beg you.






Once again I go on the internet and once again my beautiful house of cards is blown down by it. It's now time to recuperate. Back to chain smoking and binge drinking it is for me.



What's next? Is someone going to tell me Polish people are actually smart? Like that will ever happen.

An Open Note to Insomniacs and Those Who Hate Sports

As always, it's a late night for me. The only thing I want to do right now is lay in bed and watch some television and slowly drift off into that sleepy la la land where I'm a successful writer, legendary pro wrestler who also happens to be Spiderman, and I get to have hedonistic sex with whomever I please.

Obviously I'm here typing this so that's not happening. Due to the miniature tempest that Mother Nature decided to toss my way, my DirecTV service went out and instead of the soothing lull of SportsCenter I’m given a black screen with a DirecTV logo floating around. Surely anyone who knows me knows that’s not enough to ease me into a hard earned slumber after a rough day in the college trenches, so I decided to update my increasingly successful (I use that term loosely) blo-

Wait, the cable might be back…

Wait for it.

Damn. Alright, never mind.


My gripe about weather knocking out my satellite dish aside, premium cable is a great thing. When my mother told me we were switching from basic cable to DirecTV late last year I was ecstatic. Suddenly I was granted the Military Channel, the NFL Network, another History Channel, and even Toon Disney until is switched to the shittacular Disney XD. I went from under 70 channels to 200 in one Saturday morning and since then it have proven to be one of the worst investments my parents made if you consider how much of it I use.

It’s almost as if the more channels I get the less of them I actually watch. With basic cable I bitched all the time about the lack of entertaining programming and now with DirecTV I’m down to a rotation of maybe 5 channels. I would hate to see how bad I would be if we had FIOS in this house. I would probably just stare at the menu and watch that instead.

To illustrate the whole few channel statement, I should let you know that my television has not left ESPN in maybe 48 hours. I remember going to sleep with it on SportsCenter last night and that same show waking me up in the morning when my television’s alarm went off. When I got home from school I watched SpotsCenter again before going out on my nightly activities. After I finally decided to call it an evening I came home and started watching SportsCenter (now in its late edition) until this cunting weather wrecked my picture.

If you thought this was going to be something about TV, you’re way off. That’s my idea of an extended opening. I’m trying to put myself to sleep here and that failed miserably. Alright, time to carry on.

Generally speaking, I love sports. If anything, they give me something to consistently follow throughout the year and give me something to be devotional towards that will in the end bear little, if any importance.

In not unique having this thought. Lots of people are like me. Facebook and this year’s World Series proved that to me even after I picked out the bandwagoners, there are people who genuinely care about their sports teams just as much as I do.

The 2009 World Series will without a doubt go down as one of the most epic and important World Series in my crazy little Bordentown. Say what you want about the quality of the games, the dizzying social tornado it threw my town was definitely one for the ages. New Jersey being the middle point between glorious New York City and the bastard silver medaled Philadelphia was completely split down the middle when it came to the Yankees and the Phillies in the biggest game(s) of the year. The best part of it all was that I was there on Facebook to experience all of it through a severely flawed upgraded news feed.

I also had to read the people who posted those obnoxious anti-baseball and anti-sport status updates. I have no idea why these people decided they needed to share their anti-athletic opinions during the biggest sports event of the last six months. Perhaps it was because they wanted to feel important, or maybe edgy, or even out of the norm, but rest assured these people on my friends list need to be euthanized.

The stupidest argu-

Cable? You back?

C’mon….almost…

Fuck!

Alright, again, the stupidest argument these idiots made was how fans refer to their teams with a ‘we’ and not a ‘they’ like “Did the Phillies win?” “Yeah we won!” rather than “Did the Phillies win?” “Yeah they won.” There point being that we as fans really have nothing to do with whether a team wins or not and we’re all just insanely devoted mongoloids.

I hate people like this. To me they don’t have faith in anything. Sports are something people are devoted to because they’re not really important and we need something to have faith in. If you can’t put your faith into one sports team to win a meaningless title you’re lost in life as far as I’m concerned. I’ve always had more faith in the Giants than any politician or religion I’ve ever encountered, and when you care that much about a team you actually become part of that team. When Eli Manning drops back to pass and doesn’t see a clearly fucking open Steve Smith, it is me who yells to the gawking fuck that Mr. Smith is in fact open. Because Eli hears me in his head (I know he does), he throws a bullet for an easy 20 yards and a first down. Had it not been for me, Eli would have never seen Smith and therefore never gotten the 20 yard completion needed in order to score the game winning touchdown. Simple logic will always dictate such action.

That entire sentence sounds absolutely batshit crazy but anyone who devoutly cares about a team knows they’ve done it before. If you disagree with that sentiment then fuck you. In not writing this as an argument, I’m proclaiming this as fact. During the 2010 Superbowl or World Series stay off Facebook and bury yourself in the tree you hugged all week you sap sucking mother fuc-

Television is back! Sweet!

Internet Addiction With My World Wide Wife 2.0

I love the internet. After surfing the web consistently since 1996, the internet has become somewhat of a constant presence in my life, and at this point I consider it like my second girlfriend. As sad as that last sentence sounded it's really true. Whenever we're together we laugh, we cry, we listen to music, talk to one another, and argue just like I do with the girlfriend who's made of flesh, DNA, and real reproductive organs.



Both lovely ladies have also caused me to lose a considerable amount of sleep throughout the years. Looking at the clock now it's 2:14 in the morning and even though I have to be at work in seven hours I show no signs of actually getting my ass off this chair and into my bed that is literally less than a yard away from me.



Simply put, I love this invention. At times I would probably fuck my router, and it's moments like that and the consistent sleep deprivation when I consider the thought that maybe I have an internet addiction



Consider no more James! Finally there's a test out there to tell me if I have an internet addiction! It's here and it's brought to me courtesy of....the internet!!


Insane hyperbole aside, after I took the quiz I scored a 39 which apparently makes me a normal internet user. I guess that means that it's the standard for people to treat their DSL line like a living breathing woman.


At least now I can sleep a little easier (whenever I do actually go to sleep) knowing I don't have an addiction.



What a relief.

GoGo Gaga Rangers!

I really shouldn't be writing this right now as I have a paper to write. What I should be doing right now is analyzing a book for English class and writing an essay on it.


I've been watching this instead;




I know I know, I didn't think they made Power Ranger music videos either.


From what I can gather this all takes place at Lord Zedd's palace on the moon and Lady Gagaranger is attempting to seduce Goldar. She does this with an army of Lipstick monsters in what looks like a sad attempt to replicate the Thriller dance. After impressing his lord evilness she kills one of Goldar's monsters, skins him, and wears him as a coat and proceeds to immolate Goldar to an unrecognizable crisp.


There's some more dancing in between and some sunglasses made of razor blades, but I didn't think that mattered. As far as plot is concerned that's all filler.




How the fuck did I understand all this when I was 5?

Random Judgements (And Vampire Jokes)

Random people are standing out to me in the media right now. He's a few to note;




San Francisco Giant and Cy Young Award winning pitcher Tim Lincecum was caught with marijuana in his car after being stopped for speeding on October 30th. He's only facing a misdemeanor which is cool I suppose. If anything this gives me a reason to sort of like the Giants next season. This is where I make the obligatory joke about him and Michael Phelps smoking pot together and everyone laughs at me for how current I am. Did you laugh? Alright, moving on.




Rivers Cuomo fronted alt-mainstream-mega-geek-hip-rockband Weezer released their latest CD last week. For the uninformed, Raditude is the 7th album for a band that hasn't been relevant (or good) since 1995. Rivers Cuomo seems to be working hard on alienating his fan base while trying to up his street-cred by having 'Lil Wayne rap on one of the tracks. I'm having a hard time convincing myself I still love this band when I listen to a lament about an alcoholic father from 1993 to songs dealing with wanting a pool in Beverly Hills and Partying in 2005 and 2009 respectively. Rivers also took time to dance in his underwear with Taylor Swift for a Band Hero commercial. The jokes never seem to end. Sidebar to Activision here; Stick with Heidi Klum.



Finally, after years of trying to either look like a woman or Lestat (I've yet to figure out which one exactly), lead singer of AFI Davey Havok has finally cut his hair. I've yet to decide if this is due to the fact that either a) He's going bald b) He's pulling a Metallica or c) He realized that long haired vampires are so 1998 and is trying to look more like Edward Cullen.




There you have it. Another blogger complaining about Weezer, talking about pot, and making vampire jokes.



With original material like that I'm bound to finally make this a success.

Free! Free is Great! We All Love Free! Hail Free!

Free shit is great shit. It's also unappreciated shit though. For some reason we get something for free so it's almost automatically regarded as having little to no worth. Example, I blog for free so this blog is regarded as to having little to no worth. See?


Last.fm is one of those unappreciated things. It may just be the best non porn website on the internet behind the Wikipedia and YouTube, yet I've never met a soul aside from myself who uses it. If you haven't already clicked on the link (you lazy fuck), Last.fm is a free music site. No registration required and absolutely no money to be paid. It's 100% legal, safe, and won't cause your inbox to flood with emails about penis enlargement. It has virtually every artist and genre one could think of and is easy to navigate and use. It's supposed to be sort of a social networking place for music fans to discuss music and share artists, but the main attraction to the website is the radio feature where you can type in any artist or genre and get a personalized radio stream of whatever you want and artists similar to what you want.


Did I mention it's free?

How more people don't use this service boggles my mind. It's as if they enjoy contributing to buying Steve Jobs another yacht by paying a dollar per song on iTunes. Granted with Last.fm you don't own the song like you do when you buy it from iTunes, but I don't think people are bursting with pride over paying ninety-nine cents to own Taylor Swift binary code to begin with. Every time I introduce someone to this website they are amazing with what it has to offer and then proceed to never fucking use it. So to illustrate how great Last.fm is I'll run through a radio stream to demonstrate the quality of this fine interweb establishment.



I'm feeling like System of a Down tonight. Why? No idea. Probably because I don't have them on my hard drive and I heard Toxicity on the radio today.

Let's start;

Song 1 - System of a Down. Awesome, that's just what I asked for.
Song 2 - Deftones. Not what I asked for, but similar style and time period so it works
Song 3 - Serj Tankian. Again, not System, but, well, Serj WAS the singer for them so this is fine.
Song 4 - Sevendust. Must be an error in the stream or something.
Song 5 - System of a Down. See? I told you! It was an error.
Song 6 - Limp Bizket. This isn't making sense.
Song 7 - Dope. What in the fuck?
Song 8 - Slipknot. Because that sounds so similar to System of a Down.
Song 9 - Ill Nino. This is starting to really suck
Song 10 - Dope. Alright, fuck, I'm done here.


I stopped the stream at the second Dope song because I'm absolutely convinced that there is no band shittier than Dope. They make Coldplay sound like The Beatles, and Kittie the musical equivalent to Opeth. When my System of the Down radio was one-fifth Dope songs there is a problem with not only the quality of the Last.fm product, but also in what I'm assuming is the script the streaming program is run with.



So maybe there is a price to free after all. Had I been asked to pay for Last.fm maybe they would have better service and keep the Dope out of my music endeavors.




Fucking worthless.

The End of Personal Liberty Oh, and Clove Cigarettes Too

I haven't really discussed any sort of politics on here. There's a reason for that though. My entire idea here is laughter and somewhat of a means of catharsis for me. I skirt around the idea of talking about politics, policy, and Washington here because it's a touchy subject and I feel I'm not equipped to write about it without horrendously offending people into never coming back here, and frankly I don't have enough notoriety to let that happen.



I think that so far I've been pretty ambiguous as to what my political affiliation is, but let it be known that officially I label myself as an independent with liberal leanings, which to the rest of the world would equal democrat. I never come out and say democrat because I feel that would pigeon hole me into one party. Even though I strongly disagree with the republican party ninety percent of the time, there's still that ten percent where I do swing to the right, thus I am not a devout democrat and therefore label myself independent.


I am extremely liberal though. Chances are when I finally decide to register to vote I'll be registering as a democrat, and if that's the case, what the hell am I saying? I must have party commitment problems. I need a like party/member marriage consoling or something. Where's Dr. Phil for that huh?


Shit, sorry, I digress.




On this note of political affiliation, I support Barock Obama. Had I been able to vote in last year's election it would've been for him. Sadly, I didn't turn 18 until May of 2009, so that was one vote he didn't get (not that he needed it).

I've agreed with everything he's done in office so far. I do believe he will be the one to guide us out of the recession, and well as improve living quality for everyone, and aid in the restoration of our environment. He was the perfect choice for the country to remodel itself in the eyes of the world post-Bush so every other country doesn't think we're this fat, impotent, fear obsessed, culturally vapid, terror-mongering, Muslim-hating statehood of idiots.


But with this he's crazy.


The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act goes into effect today. The law now gives the FDA the power to regulate the tobacco industry. The FDA is setting out to, at least in their mind make it so no one but the scum of society smokes cigarettes. The first actions under the new law is to make warning labels cover fifty percent of a tobacco package, completely end advertising of tobacco to minors, and regulate what is in a tobacco product, which effective today, means no more "flavored" cigarettes, including clove cigarettes.



Remember that whole 'I'm a democrat blah blah' speech I gave earlier? This is that ten percent of the time where I'm right winged. I believe this is the government exercising too much control regulating how Americans live their lives.


The law's goal seems to be keeping tobacco out of the hands of young people. I'm all for that. Kids shouldn't smoke, hell, no one should smoke really.

Just we do anyway.



Why we do is a tricky subject. Either because it relaxes us, makes us look awesome, or the people who smoke strictly because it's bad, as well as a variety of other reasons.


Overall the people who do smoke do it because it makes them happy. Remember the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that our God-given unalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? This is happiness for some people. I doubt someone would smoke for any other reason besides the fact that it makes them happy. There would be no point in jumping through these the back-asswards hoops and stigmas American society has set up for smokers to do it unless it made them happy.



Abolishing advertising to minors seems a little redundant to me. Cigarette companies don't advertise to kids. Cigarette companies hardly have a place to advertise in the first place. You don't see cigarettes on television, in commercials, movies, videogames, internet ads, children's books, or in most major magazines. That happened almost twenty years ago when I was a kid. We all joked about how there was a joint funeral for the Malboro Man and Joe Camel remember? I haven't seen an ad for cigarettes in a magazine other than Playboy (and what minor is allowed to read that?), and no one smokes in movies since John McClane. There is no more cigarette advertising to begin with, so why bother with this in the law? There is no purpose, it's just there to drill in a fact.

I have had a problem with how the United States government handles smoking with minors forever now. I think I have perfect reason to complain, as I am a product of that system and the kids I've grown up with are the results of it just like me. I've seen where it works and where it fails, and its success isn't enough to make up for the failures.


At the age of six American children are exposed to the Drug Abuse Resistance and Education, or DARE. Our young minds get bombarded with anti-drug-smoking-drinking facts and propaganda through merchandising and classroom lectures. Police officers come into the classroom and tell kids that smoking a single cigarette will eventually kill you and rape your mother. They make first graders afraid and scared in order to coerce them into making drug-free pledges so they can report the program works.


DARE has a constant presence in elementary schools until the sixth grade. From here the program is dropped completely and we're left on our own. No further education, just you, your friends, that fucking DARE pencil that never sharpened evenly, and a bullshit drug-free oath you took in first grade. You end up becoming so sickened and annoyed with everything you've been told that you decide to pick up a cigarette and see what the hype was all about. You smoke it, your friends smoke it, and there, now you're a regular smoker, the pariah of health and every single hour of DARE education is thrown out the window.



Maybe a reform in education is in order instead of blaming it on the tobacco industry and everything else under the sun. Maybe the reason we teach DARE to from first to fifth grade is because those kids are more malleable and more easily influenced than older kids. They're easier to get an immediate response from so we can claim the program works. Younger children don't question and won't question things older ones will, so it makes life a whole lot easier to teach when it's a second grader who picks his nose and rubs it on the carpet, rather than the seventh grader who may ask you the horribly difficult yet important question of 'what the immediate effects of smoking will do to me'. Kids who start smoking, at least in my experience have done it for one of two reasons; One, they get sick of the spin that is consistently put on smoking and decide to use their developing minds to try it for themselves, or two, they see older kids smoking, and at a time (sixth, seventh, up to high school) where an adolescent friends become more than just ones in their grade, but become more immersed in other age groups and people, they decide to try it too.


An educational reform wouldn't hurt new generations of kids. Bump up the drugs are bad speech for a few years instead of killing it when kids arguably need to hear it the most. Let first graders be first graders and not worry about shit that doesn't concern them yet. Let them bathe in their own ignorance and innocence for once. That way by the time children are actually confronted with the choice of smoking, they'll be taught the education and won't be sick of it, and therefor, won't decide to reject it. You could save many more potential smokers, drug users, and drinkers that way if you utilized DARE in those years where they would be the most effective.


Of course, some kids are going to smoke anyway because it all goes back to the liberty of being able to do it, and the endless pursuit of happiness.



This all sounds like babble from a voracious smoker doesn't it? Truth be told I do smoke, but not a lot. Hell, I probably smoke less than the president does. I chose not to smoke until earlier this year. It wasn't to look cool, or to do something that was bad or anything, it was simply because I enjoyed it. I lived 18 years of my life under not smoking and realized I should try it before I condemn it. I don't smoke cigarettes though. I prefer pipe tobacco. I smoke a wood pipe as well as Black & Milds about four times a week, typically on the weekends. I'm not a heavy smoker, or even a pro-smoker. I'm simply pro-happiness, which is what this boils down to in my mind.


This pretty much started off as a eulogy to the clove cigarettes I'm going to miss so much. Why the FDA chose to ban cloves is a different story for a different day though.




I wasn't funny tonight. I was just pissed. This probably isn't me at my best, but again, this is catharsis.




Quote Dr. Denis Leary, "This is your captain speaking, um, light 'em up! Because we're going down."

Supergroups

I had so many jumping points in my head earlier. I had everything musical on my mind. I wanted to do something either about genres, music formats, or Kanye West, which by now is so played out who the hell would want to listen to my take on that. On top of that, it's late and I feel like taking the easy way out.



So tonight I bitch about supergroups in music.




There's really nothing I hate more than a supergroup. I always found them to be nothing but an easy way to capitalize off multiple band's fame in order to fuck over a wider spectrum of fans with generally the same shit they play in their original bands. You would think that if four or five genius minds from various bands collaborated they would...you know...try something new right? Maybe diversify a bit and try and turn their respective genre on its ass?

No?



Usually you get the same exact product you would from all four of their bands, just in a diluted. seemingly money driven, muddled result that you piss away $15 dollars on (who am I kidding here, no one pays for music anymore) and ends up on the bottom of your cd rack for an eternity as the supergroup dissolves and the members go back to where the they belong.


Example time;

• The Glove - Brain child of goth mopes Steven Severin (Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Robert Smith (The Cure), they proceed to collaborate and make...more depressing goth music with no redeemable value. I love Disintegration and I love Kaleidoscope, so what the hell happened here?
• The Traveling Wilburys - George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and two other guys who wrote Beatles-esque songs for Bob Dylan to mutter to. No Paul, no John, no deal.
• Damn Yankees - A guy from Styxx, a guy from Night Ranger, and Ted Nugent. I'm stopping there.
• A Perfect Circle - Trent Reznor, the singer from Tool, and other 90's alt-rock gods making the same gloomy shit, and this is coming from somebody who is one of the biggest Trent Reznor marks out there. Those who really know me know I don't worship anything as closely as I do him (maybe William Gibson), and I still think this sucked.
• Tapeworm - See above. It was the same idea and just as bad
• The Transplants - Rancid + Blink 182 = musical-dysentery. It's a fact, Google it.
• Velvet Revolver - Guns 'n Roses minus Axel. 21st century 80's cock-rock. Slash has sweet hair though.
• Damnocracy - While they have the most clever band name in music history, I'll let the VH1 show explain the rest of this.
• Chickenfoot - Really? Just look at the name? And it's got Sammy Hagar. If you need an explanation for this go fuck yourself with barbed wire.

Ok, so that's a really big list of bad. I understand that music is as diverse as the people who speak its language. Just like in life, musicians work together to create new things. It's inevitable, and I get that, but for the love of god make something dynamic, make something new, make something that merits your pairing with three other famous douchebags so you get more of my money to roll around in.


Now I know there is going to be someone who says there are good supergroups out there, and for that asshole, I'm going to now steal their spotlight.

Temple of the Dog, the 90's grunge-child of guys from both Soundgarden and Pearl Jam created an album that somehow mixed the sheer raw intensity of Pearl Jam with the eloquence that is Soundgarden. Awesome.

Lagwagon, NoFX, Swingin' Utters, and No Use for a Name gave us Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies. A supergroup cover band that played punk rock covers of virtually everything.

Multiple figures from the Post-hardcore (whatever that means) scene got together to create The Sound of Animals Fighting, and you know what? It sounds odd and great.

Speaking of odd and great, no one does avant-garde metal quite like Faith No More's Mike Patton. Him, the singer from The Melvins, and the drummer from Slayer formed (aguably) the best avant-garde metal band ever with the Fantômas.


Look at that, four amazing supergroups. Compare that to nine bad groups above. Bad groups double the amount of good in this scenario.

But I could be wrong here, of you could simply have a dissenting opinion. If you do comment this so we can argue into the night.



Oh, and I saved my last example for last. Example number ten is the Psychopathic Records, Insane Clown Posse loving Dark Lotus.




Enjoy.

Battle of the Brow: Low vs High

I've added a site counter to the blog, so those of you who tell me you read the blog and like it, I'll be able to tell which of you are full of shit.


I'm beginning to think no one is reading because I'm too highbrow. Aside from calling out Lil Wayne yesterday, the blog hasn't had many controversial statements.




Autism is bullshit.





Ok, there's another one. I may or may not actually mean that, but it's sure to piss someone off and at least that's something. The same thing worked for Denis Leary when his book came out last year. He said the exact same thing and ended up on the front page of Amazon.com. Here's to hoping for the same success.




Maybe I need to dumb the quality down a bit here. Perhaps I've gotten too highbrow for a blogging audience. It's not fucking likely, but I'm running low on reasons.


Yeah, I need to TMZ-ify this shit up. Start responding to Angelina Jolie nip-slips, and start rumors that Miley Cyrus was caught snorting coke with Nick Jonas on a donkey in their hotel room.




Aiming low is really the way to go. You go for the legs and bring down anyone with senses. I'm beginning to learn that the hard way. It's the most effective form of spreading your product. You aim low, and the people who are actually lowbrow soak it up and enjoy, while simultaneously higher brow people view it and laugh because they perceive themselves to be above it.

But that's the key. They view it. You capture 100% of your market that way.


The same isn't true for highbrow media. Appealing to the...although I use the word loosely here, intellectual, is much more difficult. Even if your product is lightyears better than what Mr. Lowbrow is offering, you won't sell as much of it because his market is bigger than yours.


The smarter you get, the more niche you get, the less of you there are. That explains why Entertainment Weekly outsells National Geographic even if the National Geographic magazine is better written, has better photos, and is presented better than Entertainment Weekly. Even though National Geographic is clearly the superior publication, their audience is smaller because of their subject matter, therefore they're not as profitable.




Lowbrow media is probably easier to come up with anyway. I live day to day trying to come up with discussion topics and witty things to say and get no feedback from anyone, while Perez Hilton opens a picture of Chris Brown on MS Paint, draws a penis on it, puts it up on his website, and proceeds to get 10,000 hits. I would like to think I put more thought into my work.




People watch Family Guy, which is nothing but fart jokes and 80's references in drones, but refuse to watch 30 Rock on Thursday nights.





You all love Dane Cook, but no one knows who the fuck Bill Hicks was.






You listen to Katy Perry!





Ugh.

This has certainly been an ulcer-inducing update, however, I'm left at a crossroads now. Sell my soul and turn out mindless, bottom-scraping, monkeyfeed to the adoration of millions (I call it the Twilight Option), or truck on with whatever the hell I feel like trying to retain some form of intellect, integrity, and the soul-crushing fact that I'll probably be doomed to obscurity.







Alright, fuck integrity. I want an Absolut commercial. Lucifer come take thy soul.












Check back tomorrow. I'll have pictures of Megan Fox's ass in a thong I swear.

Lil Wayne

Remember around spring break this year when MTV had coverage in Tampa and they had the boys from The Lonely Island do the intro to shows in obscure 80's-like fashion complete with DayGlo lettering and vomit inducing synthesizer tracks? They were kind of like the VJs of yesteryear. It was good even if it was only for a week.



Lil Wayne was there performing the single from his upcoming rock album Rebirth too. Remember that? Thank god you don't, it's probably for the best.




The album was supposed to come out around April, but got pushed back for some reason. I once read it was so it didn't distract sales from Eminem's comeback album, Relapse. Why you would push an album due in April back so it doesn't compete with an album that came out in May is beyond me. I really hope Lil Wayne and the fine business people at Cash Money Records didn't think Rebirth would be selling like water after a nuclear fallout. Mr. Wayne can't be that egotistical can he? Maybe it's a rap month-turf war kind of deal. May must be Slim Shady's month, kind of like it is for George Lucas.


Regardless of the cause the album will be released in November, which gives me just enough time to rally a campaign against it. It'll be the Wayne Crusades, or Waynades if you prefer.



Everyone is probably asking me why Lil Wayne, and what did he do to me. The answer is absolutely nothing. I'm just tired of seeing his face around. For someone who lacks any discernible talent it'll be difficult for me to see him permeate 104.5 and 94.1 with his genera-brand of rap-rock music. He's already ruined what could be casual listening to The Wired for me.


Article 1 in my defense is the first single off the album. Behold as I give you The Prom Queen.


I wish I knew what Mr. Wayne was thinking when he decided on embarking on this musical journey. Vanilla Ice tried it in 1998, and it didn't work, hell, he's still trying to make it work and it's not. Maybe Vanilla Ice is working as Lil Wayne's agent to make a few extra bucks in-between Surreal Life spin-offs or something. I can only imagine how the recession has hit him, what with people not having money to spare on 'Ice Ice Baby' ringtones.



I could be wrong though. This could be album of the decade material. A quick peek at the Rebirth Wikipedia page shows that he's recruited Fall Out Boy for a song. I know the kids love Fall Out Boy. I only see Pete Wentz on the cover of Non-Threatening Boys Weekly all the time, so that may be good. He's paying homage to the Beastie Boys too. I'm not exactly sure how, but I'm sure MCA and Ad-Rock will be thrilled. Top that off with a tune he's describing as 'Viva La Vida' with a rap. Grammy material indeed.


Don't go thinking I hate rap or rappers either. I'm listening to The Chronic as I type this, I'm just against auto-tuned lyric-abysses that have plagued rap since the start of the century or so.



Lil John I'm looking directly at you.








What pisses me off is that I know this is going to sell like crazy, while I sit every day struggling to find an audience. Fuck you Lil Wayne. We're in a war at words at this point unless you remix this entry into a song and feature the Ying Yang Twins and The Alchemist on it.




East side fo life bitches.

Nothing is Original (A Letter to J.K. Rowling)

The last post was way too Livejournal. I got too personal, no one wants that. This is going to be my attempt to make up for that, and simultaneously make it seem like these two entries were companion pieces all along.

That last bit was very autobiographical, which would be cool if I was important or if someone gave a shit. I had a point to it though. I was trying to show how everything sort of came together for me as an aspiring writer. Almost like I'm writing my own author bio on the back of the imaginary paperback novel I have published (in my head).

I mentioned Jhonen Vasquez as a major influence on me. While he wasn't the only person who has shaped myself or my writing, he was definitely the one person I always vividly remember. There are more too. Throughout the years dozens of artists, musicians, authors, and whoever have come into my life and influenced me in a way that I've put into my own works that in turn, influence nobody.


That's just the way it works. Nobody can claim that their artistic expression is 100% their own creation. If they do, they're lying fucks and I'll be the first person to tell them that. An example here would be J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, which, as time progresses, I'm starting to hate more and more. She names Stephen King as a primary influence on her writing. One of King's biggest influences was William Faulkner, who was influenced by Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky was a fan of Dickens, who himself was influenced by Victor Hugo. Hugo's writings contain allegories to the philosophical work of the French political and religious visionary Voltaire. Voltaire's writings (which I'll get around to reading one day) were heavily influenced by Isaac Newton.

I just took you through a time warp there. In a way Rowling's work has influences that go all the way back to the guy who discovered the concept of gravity. The modern day celebrated by thousands as the literary equivalent to Jesus author hasn't really published anything original. Not many of us do, rather, we expand upon the ideas we've absorbed from our experiences and mix them together with other ideas and influences and create Frankenfucks of art we pawn off as our own legit original work. It's a fluxing give-and-take as we paint other people's ideas onto our own canvas to update the concepts for a new audience. That audience absorbs the work, and then uses it for their own artistic purposes, silently (and maybe unknowingly) passing new combinations of thoughts to the next generation. That's why you watch any love story and it has some connection to Romeo and Juliet, we usually call them clichés. There's only so many original stories to be told. Most authors just update them. It's a subconscious system that has been in place forever. That's the whole idea of art. I have no complaints about the system, more the people who think they're not a part of it, or in J.K. Rowling's case, the fans that think it doesn't apply to her.



I'm stopping here. I'm afraid if I don't this will turn into a long drawn out rant about how much I hate the Harry Potter franchise, which will piss off a decent amount of you and you'll stop reading. I don't want that.




I'm more than sure writing about how no one, including myself, writes original work will surely get me a book deal. Here's to hoping Random House has a spot for me on the Del Ray roster.

Writer: A Metamorphisis from Crazed Child to Desparate Blogger

I would like to think that I'm a creative individual. It's a lifelong goal of mine to get a piece of my work published and enter the pantheon of authors. As long as I can remember I have tried to come up with stories, mostly to entertain my young brain and to give me something to do when my parents were watching television, my brother was on the computer, and my Game Boy was out of batteries. I started with action figures. I would sit in my room (at the time without a television) and have Goku from Dragon Ball Z fight the Sandrock Gundam robot, then come up with some ridiculous story as to why there were resorting to fisticuffs. Why? I have no clue, but it gave me something to do. Eventually, I got a pro wrestling ring and made a fake wrestling federation with my wrestling action figures (with the occasional Digimon and Mighty Duck). I became the booker for my fantasy federation. Everyone had a story and a feud they were involved in. I would come up with a backstory to why Blastoise beat Triple H for the World Heavyweight Title, and why the Blue Power Ranger turned on his tag team partner the Green Ranger and crush his ankle with a Tech Deck. This also started me down the path of fantasy wrestling booker. An activity I still regularly engage in.

It seems stupid to me now, but it kept me entertained, and above all established a love of storytelling that stuck with me. I have all my action figures, minus the wrestlers and ring, sitting in a box in my basement. I even kept my favorite Digimon and two Gundam models in my room. I'm staring at them as I type this. They're simply too sentimental for me to throw away. They nurtured the creative side in me that's never gone away. I'm hoping one day to hand that box to my son and tell him to go nuts.


Eventually I got a TV in my room and stopped playing with toys. I was growing up dammit! No time for toys now...






So I moved on to playing more video games.







Oh and video games of the late 90's and turn of the century. Pure abominations! Shitty sharp polygonal graphics, atrocious audio that makes BrokeNCYDE sound like the London Symphony Orchestra, wonky controls, and storylines that often made no sense (or had no story at all).

So again I made up stories for the games I was playing. If for any reason, to justify why I was playing such a turd to begin with.



Time moved on and I started actually reading novels. Because I felt the need to impress my parents I never spent much time in the children's section at Barnes and Noble, and even as a sixth grader, the 'young adult' genre made me want to regret any urge I had about picking up a paperback.

I ventured into the Science-Fiction / Fantasy aisle instead. I became drawn to the epic covers of pulp fantasy books, they looked more like reading a video game than those Pendragon books in the kid/teen/tween/whatever section of the store. I picked up some book (I don't even remember) and showed it to my parents. They were impressed I wanted to read such large book with small print. It was way above my reading level at the time, but I wanted to take a stab at it anyway.

Reading these books gave me two things. First off, it showed me how expansive a story can be. Fantasy novels drop you in a setting and immerse you into a world (something I've tried to adopt in my writing) and leave you there in an expansive story arc that would often last three books. The second gift it gave me was a massive increase in my vocabulary. Not to blow my own horn, but I was always gifted with a large lexicon and from an early age I was very well spoken. Reading always gave me a new word to wiggle into my daily conversations in some subconscious way to impress and dazzle others.




7th grade then descended upon me, and I was in that awkward, geeky, self-discovery phase everyone encounters in middle school. I didn't want to do my work, I hated everybody, girls didn't like me, and I was going through that goth crisis that seemed to hit my town in 2003. It was like a prelude to the emo scene thing, only in my opinion, much much worse.

All I wanted to do with my time was dress in black, be 'misunderstood', not give a fuck, and maybe kiss a girl. There was no reason to read or do school work, certainly not a point in my life where I consider myself an intellectual, or even sentient at that rate.




Life sure is angsty and bleak during that time between your testicles dropping and palming your first tit.


It was during this time I picked up my first comic book. I found a copy of Art Spiegelman's Maus in my school's library. I read both volumes in two days. A month later a friend handed me a comic book that has changed my life both better and worse.





I was given Jhonen Vasquez's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.




It could not have come at a more perfect time. I was a young misanthrope and the book stuck to me like Anne Rice on vampires. It was mind bending, ultra-violent, surreal, random, and most importantly, it made violence funny.


The collected graphic novel ran the circuit through all of my friends and eventually got destroyed by being in too many backpacks and lockers. We've replaced it over time. My copy is sitting to my left on a bookshelf stacked with all my other comics.





Both books had a deep impact on me. They showed me that comics could be more than just Spiderman saving Mary Jane, or Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Comics could be anything and everything. Vasquez's artwork for Johnny showed me that I didn't have to be a great artist (something I always lacked) to make a comic. His drawings were crude compared to a Marvel or DC comic book. He relied more on shading and greyscale to convey emotion more than anything else.


After being near-obsessed with Johnny the Homicidal Maniac I decided the one thing I would try doing was draw comics. I began to keep a marble composition book with me at all times. During school I would scribble down thoughts for stories or write in a journal I labeled my 'Die-ary', an homage (or blatant rip off) of Johnny's journal in the comic. Clever no? I began drawing comics, mainly of people I didn't like at the time (which was everyone) getting killed. My style was an exact copy of Vasquez's as I couldn't really draw any better than he did, nor did I care to try and improve my technique. Eventually, by the time 8th grade rolled around I had decided that drawing wasn't for me, and I ditched the composition book in favor of scribbling ideas in the edges of my notebooks.



Around this time I started my first blog as well. I joined Xanga and started blogging about my interesting middle school life, which, as I gaze at this Xanga from yesteryear, was horribly boring. I also used too many ellipses. Really, every other word is punctuated with a "..."


I also copy and pasted lyrics to show how I was feeling...

It wasn't a great start to blogging, and there I go again with the ellipses. Shit.


I think I went through three Xangas. One apparently for every year of school (7th, 8th, and 9th grade). All about my life. Nothing of interest whatsoever.




After reading that Xanga I'm glad I stepped away from blogging and writing altogether. I was too self-absorbed. I channeled any hatred I had towards myself rather than the world, which, in my opinion, makes for 80% of the interweb's social and cultural bloggers. Perez Hilton hates himself I guarantee it, he just attacks Hollywood the same way I attacked Hot Topic.



Sidebar to Perez Hilton; Read this, I mentioned you in it. Give me a mention. It's proper netiquette, and I need the site traffic.




I took a break from writing period until this came along, well the King of Ants LiveJournal specifically, but you get it. I took a break from my pulp sci-fi / fantasy and started examining classics, as well as historical non-fiction to become better well-rounded. There wasn't any time to write in high school, and I was better off without it.


This helps my creative pangs that I get day to day. Writing a bit about Slasher movies is a lot quicker than a novella about pain, the internet, and machismo-driven consumer-culture.



Did I just give something away there?

The Vanguard: Horror Movies

So this is the debut of The Vanguard. In this column (well, the only column so far) I'll take whatever piece of culture that is ridiculed and bastardized and try and defend it for it's merits. Think of it as giving the beaten red headed step child the Annie treatment.


I debut the column discussing horror movies. Why such an odd debut? Because I will be attending the Monster-Mania Con in Cherry Hill, New Jersey later today.


That doesn't sound like good grounds for me writing an entire piece about horror films does it? Well considering the looks I get from people when I tell them I'm attending this convention, I'm more than sure this deserves some time.






We all love a good scare. Something that will make you jump, scream, look both ways when you open your door, and give you nightmares for weeks. Lord knows I do, and considering that the Saw franchise alone has grossed around the 350 million dollars in the United States, I'm sure you do too.

So why is it that the devout horror fans are ridiculed for their love of films everyone watches? We look down on them for whatever reason. They're gore-hounds, violence-fanatics, something clearly is wrong with these people.

Why are the rest of us are in the horror closet? Too ashamed to admit we crave the violence, the gore, the dismemberment, decapitations, eviscerations, cannibalizations, and complete terror these films give us that we treat them (and their fans) like giant jokes, only to secretly help that god awful Friday the 13th remake take in 19 million dollars on its opening day.



The dichotomy lies in society really. The reason we watch horror movies is because of the fear it brings us. The fear that we feel raises our adrenaline levels providing us with that same rush you get when you ride a roller coaster or vandalize someone's car. We're attracted to these films so easily because it gives us that rush without endangering us. A theater playing oh, say, A Nightmare on Elm Street, is the ultimate safe haven for someone still craving that rush.

Ok, so that's why we all love horror movies.



So why do some of us not show our love openly?

It's our society. A society that admonishes the very violence that makes up our lives. In the minds of the populous violence is the barbaric trait that separates man from beast. It is our duty as civilized individuals to repress any notion of violence we may have, no matter how instinctive it may be. It's people who believe violence is a virus rather than an instinct, who feel the need to repress it instead of find a creative (and safe) outlet for it. It keeps people who view and enjoy these movies from expressing themselves lest they become social pariahs.

Sorry, I got a little Reverend Lovejoy there.


It's because of the violence that horror movies are consistently regarded in having no class. Rodger Ebert has been quoted calling slasher films "Dead teenager movies" is a prime testament to this. As we all search to climb the ladder of social hierarchy, the last thing we want is to be bogged down liking Halloween H20, so instead we hide it.


What I've always found interesting about horror films is how the majority of people fail to see the social commentary that they can provide. After all, we look at the films of the past to analyze them for their social content, so why not horror movies? I'm not saying that EVERY slasher flick in creation has some deeper meaning hidden in it, but there are a few cases where there's some extra meat on the proverbial thinking bone. Scary movies are a true reflection of what society currently fears. What you see in the theaters and on your couches is a glimpse into what our collected conscious is afraid of. Art imitates life after all.

Take the Godzilla and B-monster movies (Try Them!) of the 1950's. Typically, they're stories about ordinary creatures ingesting some sort of vile nuclear ooze and becoming 120 feet tall and causing destruction. When released in the 1950's, these films capitalized on the public's fear of science in the fallout from the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. The fear of the nuclear unknown and of science in general is what these drive-in classic symbolizes.


Not a real stretch right?

Consider the "Dead teenager" slasher movies that filled up cinemas all throughout the 1980's. Images of masked strangers stalking, hunting, and preying upon young adults and then killing them in the most gruesome ways. The big slasher movie boom occurred during a period when child abductions and kidnappings were at an all time national high. We were a culture of fear in the 80's, our greatest enemies were our next door neighbors, the boogieman, the fear that what you saw wasn't exactly true. American cinema reflected this by giving us Michael Myers, a demented killer who stalks suburbia, the one place families move to because they're deemed safer than the city. This theme is immersed in most slasher pieces of the era (Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, Maniac, The Prowler, etc...). Wes Craven being the genius he is, wasn't happy with just those underlying themes. In his now classic entry to the genre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven treated the film as an allegory for enlightenment, dealing with struggling through the last level of consciousness to achieve enlightenment.

For Craven, Freddy Krueger became the enemy that stops us on the path to nirvana. He was the final challenge one must face to either break through to enlightenment, or fall all the way back to step one (or in this case, get sucked through a bed). Craven has stated in interviews that he viewed the journey of Nancy in the first film as himself battling through his struggle to reach inner peace with the eastern religions he studied in the 80's.



Wes Craven is also to be credited for re-sparking the horror genre in the 1990's, which had grown dull, predictable, and boring, with Scream, Craven's attempt to satire the entire slasher wave of the 80's. His infusion of irony and parody mixed with classic genre elements are a fantastic example of meatier horror films of the last few years. Way better than Leprechaun in the Hood.





I know a lot of my defense here has been centered around the work of Wes Craven, but I'm giving premier examples of the genre to examine. I'm well aware that there are more than a fair share of horror movies that are crap-tacular.

My point is this; There are a lot of action movies that are shit too. Not every action movie is Die Hard, hell, just look at the filmography for Jean-Claude Van Damme. Comedy movies are the same way, you don't compare Animal House and You Don't Mess With the Zohan in the same sentence do you? No, you don't judge the genre as a whole, rather on a film by film basis, and horror should be no exception. I'm not going to try and find a way to rationalize Children of the Corn for you. I mean, I could, I'm very good at bullshitting symbolism and meanings of things, it's what's gotten me this far hasn't it? Some movies have no redeemable value other than to look at them and judge by what the film is discussing the overall status of the culture at that period when the film was made, I get that so there's no need to critique every movie. I'm aiming at the gold standards here.



I have nothing to say post-Scream honestly. This is where the genre has let me down and given holes in the defense I've so neatly assembled in the above paragraphs. The horror movies that aren't soulless remakes of past films do nothing but glorify gratuitous violence, which is all fine and dandy, but doesn't really give you much food for thought. I loved the first Saw movie. I thought it tapped in 21st century voyeurism and morals. The idea of the victim elaborately killing themselves instead of some mega killer slicing their throat's was intriguing the first time, just not the second, third, fourth, or fifth time, and the sixth time around won't be any different. Saw has become the consumer mass marker horror film like the ChildsFreddyWeenRaiser13th films did twenty years ago. A new one every year to add the same formula to the mix. The Saw franchise to me was always like the story they portray, they are slowly killing themselves for all of us to see. As I said above, unless it's a remake of an older film, new horror movies try not to deviate much from the Saw formula. The "torture porn" sub-genre of the splatter film is growing rather thin, therefore I don't have much to say about it. I know Eli Roth likes to think he's transgressive with Hostel, but he's not. He's just a sadist who can't make a good movie. Suck on it Roth.





This all comes from someone who isn't a horror movie buff. I just find the glares and stereotyping their fans receive irritating, so I opened The Vanguard to it.





And honestly, if your going to judge anyone for attending Monster-Mania Con, you better have some words for the thousand in attendance at this.

New Idea

I've done a poor job setting goals for what I actually want this blog to become. So far no one reads it and the only comment was on the opening post from fellow blogger and friend Michael Johnson (who opened a new blog, updated four times, and hasn't been seen since). My Twitter account which I thought would be used as a gateway for people to read this is usually filled with "@McFuckerton You Have a blog? Where!?" When it's in my page frequently.

I'm going nowhere fast, so being the idea machine I claim to be, I'm attempting to organize my thoughts into columns that I would type up instead of me just going on about something ridiculous. My problem has always been organization. I can come up with a million different topics or stories, but fail to execute them on paper. That's why figuring out what's coming next on here is like trying to read House of Leaves in the dark. It sucks, and is ultimately impossible.

My first thought was a column called The Vanguard where I'll defend topics, people, subjects, whatever that usually get bashed. In my opinion it's perfect. It has slowly dawned on me that I tend to be a fan of things that are generally looked down upon in the vast echelon we call pop culture. Expect pieces on the heavy metal genre, horror movies, pro wrestling, and anime in the near future.

That's not to say you, the reader can not influence what I write. If there's something you feel I should defend and write about you should comment or (more preferably) drop me a line on the Twitter @LobsterBloggerJ, and I'll strongly consider your idea as long as it's in the realm of reasonability and decency.


Ultimately, my goal is for this to actually have readers, and readers who will come back again and again, and communicate with me on how to make this project better.

On a side note there may be some talk about a podcast stirring with the above mentioned (and good friend of mine) Mr. Michael Johnson. We've worked together in the past (See Grief Digestion Theater) and seem to have a good ping-pong effect off one another. It maybe not be in an Abbott and Costello way, but in a way dammit.


That's all for now. Tomorrow I'll debut The Vanguard.

Snob

Going for a drive with my girlfriend usually starts with the same question, "What are we going to listen to?" Now I come from the thought that the music choice in the car is the driver, aka me, to decide, but anyone who is in a long term relationship knows that isn't the case. I'll look at what is in my car CD wise. Thursday? No, she hates them. Isis? No, we listened to them yesterday. Mitch Hedburg? She says yes but I have that album memorized, so nada.

Eventually we say fuck it and listen to the radio. 104.5 to be exact. Let them pick the music for us, after all, it is their job.

Alright, so we're on the road now. 30 Seconds to Mars comes on,

"Fuck this." I say,

"Turn this up!" she says.

We bicker back and forth and eventually the song is over and she hasn't heard a single verse. She's sorta pissed at me now. Nine Inch Nails is next. I smile and turn it up. I sing the entire chorus to "Closer". That song hasn't aged a bit in my mind. She's silent. Kings of Leon are on next. Neither of us say anything. Keep on driving. Beck is next. We both agree we love the song "Loser", she's smiling a bit more now. Driving to the mall seems to be taking forever today... Anberlin follows.

I groan and she yells at me, "What is wrong with this song!?"

"Nothing." I say.

"You hate everything this like."

She's got a point there.

"I'm sorry hon, there's nothing original about this song. It's all Pro Tools copy paste bullshit."

She groans again. Practically foaming by this point. Back to the silent treatment. I'm giving up on 104.5 so I switch to 94.1 in hopes of finding something to equally like (or hate). They're halfway through the guitar solo on "Man in the Box". I turn it up again. Almost simultaneously I hear,

"And you think MY music is shitty?" I ignore that. I don't want to get into an argument today. I really want to enjoy our trip to the mall. Maybe go into Hot Topic and make fun of people, eat at Chik-Fil-A, dance in Forever 21, the normal stuff we do together. No more music please. Commercial. Thank god. Sweet, I can sell my old junker and get a certified pre-owned Kia. Who would've known?

"You a snob."

Shit.

"What hon?"

"You're a music snob. You're a horrible critic. You think your tastes are better and hate others taste in music."

"How am I a-"

"You're like those AP bastards. The Hipsters you say you hate so much."

Ouch, she really hit a nerve there.

I have nothing to say after that. Luckily the mall is close and we go and enjoy the rest of our afternoon. We go into F.Y.E. and I say nothing as we go by the music section. We're distant but not at each other's throats like I feared. I break the silence by dancing to a Miley Cyrus song in Forever 21. All seems well now.

Just something is bothering me.

I never considered myself a music snob or hipster. I just have a passion for what I like and I'm opinionated. That's a deadly cocktail sometimes though. Actually, having a passion for something and being opinionated is the makings of a critic. Shit, she's right.

I think the reason my girlfriend gets so mad at me with music is simple. It goes to my life's philosophy of never following anything 100%. That's a different topic for a different day, but essentially I don't devoutly follow any one artist or particular genre. I've tried to be as eclectic as possible when it comes to my music. I try and sample a little bit of everything and my influences and likes come from every edge of the music pantheon. If I liked one genre or only listened to top 40 radio or MTV I wouldn't have the influences I have today.

I'm sorry I'm more open. If that makes me a snob fuck it. I am. I give up at this point.

Nostalgia

Everyone loves nostalgia right? We love looking back on what was and hyping it up like it was the pinnacle of life, I know I do. I've been doing it a lot since I turned 18 on Saturday, and to be frank, it's something I need to stop.

I understand that some things are like wine and they get better like age. For example, I'm watching the Stone Cold vs Bret Hart submission match from Wrestlemania 13 (about 12 years ago) and it's still in my mind one of the best wrestling matches of all time. I think it's even better after a decade. Other things seem to fall into this realm with people, like Sinatra or the Blue Album.


No one seems to mention the things that age like milk though. I mentioned on my Twitter yesterday that I was watching the pilot to Power Rangers? Why? No idea, but I did, and I realized that even if I was 4 at the time, the show was truly a horrible abomination of spliced foreign footage and early 90's teenage stereotypes. It gives me hope that in another decade people will look back on Katy Perry like I looked at the Red Ranger.


Overall nostalgia is pretty worthless. It serves no purpose and you know it but you indulge in it anyway. I'm the same way and that's what sucks. TV, movies, videogames, music, whatever wasn't better 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago. It's pretty much the same thing. There was no media genesis just because you decided Toonami was better than Cartoon Network today. It's all the same.


That's my public service announcement for the week. Now if you excuse me I'm going to go play Goldeneye 64 because back in '97 they knew how to make a good first person shooter.

Hot Topic

I'm not a man who enjoys fashion. There, I said it. When it boils down I'm a very simplistic person who is more than comfortable wearing jeans and a t-shirt all my life. As I stare at my wardrobe (conveniently in a pile on my floor) I'm looking at maybe twenty t-shirts and two, yes, two polos that I bought just a few weeks ago. My preferred foot wear are a pair of flip-flops my girlfriend got me three years ago and have severe indentations in the soles because I wear them from March until the middle of November. I'm almost positive I've spent more money on Magic: The Gathering trading cards this year alone than on clothing my entire time in high school.

All of this brings me to my topic of rage tonight.

Hot Topic

Your local Hot Topic. Surely you've been there before? Everyone has because now it's socially acceptable. Five years ago it was that creepy goth store next to Pac Sun, now, at least according to the Wikipedia, it is labeled as a "downtown store." Whatever that may be. It should be noted that I am a recovering Hot Topic addict. For you see, Hot Topic is the leading store for people who don't give a shit about clothing, with Kohls being a distant second. It's essentially clothing for the fashion and taste impaired such as myself. For the better part of my years as a teenager I wasted countless Jacksons on band t-shirts and shirts with random 80's 'remember this?' you would find in a typical episode of Family Guy.

Thankfully my girlfriend has finally knocked some sense into me and dragged me into an Old Navy, among other places. At least now I've seen the light and I can look somewhat decent. That said it's sad that every time I walk by a Hot Topic in the mall I get the urge to walk in even though I know I'm doing wrong. Although I would never compare the two things, it must be what an recovering alcoholic feels like when they walk by a bar (damn, I just compared the two). I always walk in to be surrounded by ugly Tripp pants, horrible purple hair extensions, the Nightmare Before Christmas items (can't forget those), and the assclown employees who tell me someone like myself wouldn't understand why Slipknot is on vinyl.

I bought a Mastodon shirt last time I was there too...

Modest Opening

So this is the new blog. If you count both the LiveJournal and the Blogspot incarnation of King of Ants this marks my fourth attempt to get a decent blog going. The third blog was my horrific attempt to start a wrestling blog which lasted two posts. I have deleted both King of Ants and Death Valley Driver to focus on my the future. Lucky for me I was able to save a particular update about anime that got me over at least with a few people.

When I looked at why KoA failed I believe it was the complete lack or direction I had. Instead of being some sort of power washer I was a hose on that mist setting. Most of the time I went from something sort of meaningful to a bit about pro wrestling the next day. Wrestling actually seemed to dominate the blog until it's very death when I discussed John McCain on Twitter (which I'm now on).

What I find even worse is when I tried starting a wrestling specific blog I got one true post in (not counting an intro such as this). I ended up falling asleep the next week for Raw and it was all downhill from there. That said it's now buried underneath the three Xangas I had in 7th grade and hopefully they stay there.



So now we have my newest creation, Digital Lobsters. What that means really I don't want to explain now. I thought it was kind of funny though, and the acronym DL is better than KoA. Plus King of Ants sounded too narcissistic for me. I'm not king of shit (yet).

I'm going to make a serious attempt to update this blog at least three times a week. I'm not 100% sure what this will turn into exactly. My goal here is to be able to mention wrestling only in passing so it does not dominate the blogscape. Here's to hoping this is somewhat intelligent and quasi-witty.


I would love to actually post something tonight, but I'm reeling over a last minute Chelsea defeat to Barcelona, and for that I'm going to need mass amounts of gin and sleep.