It's That Time Again

It's that time again, where I gripe about dumb things I see and, particularly, dumb phrases and expressions I wish would just die.

Item 1: Baby Bump, always uttered in a sentence like this one: Dimwitted celebutard shows off baby bump! We have pictures! I guess saying Dimwitted celebutard is pregnant just isn't cool or chic. And I really don't want to see the pictures either. I don't even care.

Item 2: Keep it real. What on earth does that mean? I like so-and-so because he keeps it real. As opposed to what? Keeping it unreal? Imaginary? Fantastical? As far as I can tell, people who use "keeping it real" as a justification for saying things are just rationalizing the fact that they're thoughtless bastards.

Item 3: Status Shuffle. Apparently some people can't come up with snarky, sarcastic Facebook updates on their own, so they go to some application and pick one. Usually more than one. Five or six. In a row. Arrrrrgh. And as if that isn't enough, someone who's apparently been sniffing too much model glue comes along and says "Ur so funy!" It reminds me of the movie Life of Brian, where Brian shouts to the crowd "You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!" And the crowd shouts back in unison "Yes, we're all individuals!"

Item 4: Speak truth to power. American politics is chock-full of worn-out aphorisms, but this one is one of the more worn-out. Plus I think it's grammatically incorrect; shouldn't it be speak the truth to power? Or even Say things that are true to people who are in positions of authority? But never mind, we're too busy giving it to The Man, speaking truth to power, to be bothered. As if The Man gives a shit. And if someone is "speaking truth to power" and I happen not to agree with them, where does that leave me??

Item 5: Trustworthy. If speaking truth to power is a worn-out motto of the Left, trustworthy is a worn-out motto of the Right. The implication is that liberal things are by their very nature untrustworthy. A good example is Conservapedia, which bills itself as the "trustworthy" alternative to Wikipedia. Someone apparently decided that Wikipedia is a seething cesspool of liberal thought. One of their data points? The fact that some of the people who write Wikipedia entries may not - gasp - be American! I guess you can't be trustworthy if you happen to have been born in Iceland, Japan, or Australia, to cite just a few of those awful, untrustworthy non-American countries. I'm particularly amused that they are bothered by the fact that some people use spellings like "colour" or "flavour" or "tyre". There it is, prima facie evidence of extreme untrustworthiness. There are other words for that, by the way, like xenophobia and Amerocentric jingoism and plain foolishness.

Bleep Rights!

One or another of those cable channels has been advertising the daylights out of the "First Amendment Comedy Tour", or whatever they're calling it. And they have the comedians (and I use the term guardedly) express their ideas of what the First Amendment means. One said something like "It means I can say whatever the bleep I want, however the bleep want to say it."

Actually, that isn't what it says. It merely says that the government cannot infringe on your rights of speech, press, religion and assembly. But it doesn't mean you have the perfect right to tell me, as a private citizen, whatever the bleep you want to say.

In other words, the First Amendment doesn't give you carte blanch to be a bleep, you bleeping bleep and bleepity-bleep bleepitude.

But since I have no intention of watching the show anyway, it's immaterial. It isn't that foul language bothers me, or that their edge "challenges me" in some way. I just don't think any of the stuff on the previews was funny, and since I reason that the best jokes always appear on the previews, the lack of yuks from the previews don't augur well for the show itself.

But I am not historically a big fan of stand-up comedy in general. There have been a few stand-up comedians that I thought were quite funny - Mitch Hedburg comes to mind, who should be immortalized for the forklift joke, if nothing else - but by and large, stand-up comedy leaves me cold. (I am reminded of the antacid commercial where the guy in the audience gets up because his heartburn is killing him, and the comedian lays into him. Meantime the poor sufferer stands there in the spotlight while the git on the stage mocks him. Just keep walking, you moron, there's no rule that says you have to stand there and be made fun of, especially when you're in pain. Geez. I had no idea stand-up comedy was such a minefield of angst and despair.)

Meantime, I'm too busy watching Firefly episodes to pay any attention to unfunny comedians who can't say "water fountain" without throwing in a few expletives. Firefly is pretty good. I missed it when it was on actual TV (and thus I was an unwitting accomplice in the poor ratings that got the show canned prematurely) but now I've decided to go back and catch up, and it's good. It's like Star Trek, only grimy. This isn't your clean, tidy, Utopian future; this is more or less Deadwood in space, though without E.B. Farnum's operatic manner of speaking.

It's good. Better than the First Amendment comedy crock, I bet.

Crystal Blue BS

Once again, I wasn't paying attention and missed the memo. But apparently a new order of being is upon us - the "Indigo Child", whom we are assured is the next step in human evolution. Here is a list of "indigo child" traits as listed on the website www.indigochild.com:

As a summary, here are the ten attributes that best describe this new kind of child, the Indigo Child

• They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it)
  
• They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others don't share that.
• Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents "who they are."
• They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
  
• They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.
  
• They get frustrated with systems that are ritually oriented and don't require creative thought.
  
• They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like "system busters" (nonconforming to any system).
  
• They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.
  
• They will not respond to "guilt" discipline ("Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did").
  
• They are not shy in letting you know what they need.
  

And these are their good traits? Geez. Where I come from, someone with a royal sense of entitlement, impatient inability to get along with others, and the belief that the rules don't apply to him isn't an Indigo Child. Where I come from, such a person is just a plain old asshole.

But if it makes you feel better to call yourself an Indigo Child, knock your socks off.

When Did That Happen?

I've been working nights for a while, which means I'm on my way home somewhere around midnight or a little later. It means, primarily, that I can't listen to NPR, because the NPR station changes to incomprehensible jazz at some point in the evening. (I know it's un-American to not like jazz, but I don't. Four guys all playing four separate songs at the same time isn't "innovative", it's just plain irritating.)

So I've tried listening to the local FM radio stations, and I don't know when it happened, when the change came, but man, they suck!

I don't know who established the formula for modern FM rock radio stations, but whoever it was needs to be punished, and by that I mean in the Frank Castle fashion. KUPD establishes a new low, as its "DJs" just sit around and talk about bodily functions and sex acts. No, they don't. Talk implies an exchange of ideas and information; they might as well just sit there and read lists of "bad words" for all the communication that goes on. Feces. Anus. Coprophilia. Oh, what fun. What, do 15 year old mallcore aficionados listen to this nonsense and think that it makes them macho? Whatever the case, it isn't meant for me.

And the music! Good heavens. I never thought I'd live to see the day that they made "metal" music that was whiny and spineless, but there it is. I don't know what kind of metal it really is. I don't think it's metal at all, because it violates the Basic Precept of Metal, which is this: Metal Doesn't Whine. I think I'm going to refer to it as "mallcore". Take ye a metal tune. Dumb it down and take out the hard, technical stuff. It's best if you can somehow turn it into a single monotonous riff that goes on and on and sounds really heavy but is really just kind of dumb. Add to that some scratching from rap, and some electronic effects from God knows where. Make the lyrics whiny. Dwell on the hideousness of your 15 year old white middle class lifestyle. It isn't even real hideousness; it isn't real pain or loss or suffering. It's the bogus bullshit suffering of some clod who bought a t-shirt at Hot Topic and then had an emotional meltdown because he saw some clod wearing the same t-shirt. It's hard for me to take very seriously the suffering of a high school kid whose parents give him a car, a cell phone, and enough money to buy Slipknot t-shirts at the mall. But oh, how they suffer. Woe is me and my affluent lifestyle, I ran out of eyeliner and my brother Timmy ate the last of the Cap'n Crunch ::cries:: I'm sure that someone one or another of these hideous bands is writing a song extolling the virtues of self-mutilation as a means of dealing with the pain of second period PE.

It's like emo, only loud. And worse. At least I could tune emo out. Oh no, another Dashboard Confessional song; well, at least I can not listen to it and amuse myself by thinking about neutron stars. But not this stuff.

I have got to get a car that my iPod will plug into. That's all there is to it. Between the vile (not to mention screamingly unfunny) FM DJs and the whiny mallcore, I'm fixing to go clean off my feed. Better to just the radio off and listen to the wind.

(And I haven't even started on the stupid FM radio commercials.)

The only bright spot in any of this is the late-night show Alice Cooper does on KSLX. The music isn't much to write home about, but at least Alice can assemble words into intelligible, occasionally funny and sometimes even reasonably interesting sentences. Compared to the hooting simians on the other radio stations, whom I imagine are easily flummoxed by bananas hanging on strings just out of their reach, he's a breath of fresh air.

Denim Diapers

I saw an ad on TV the other day for disposable diapers printed so they look like denim shorts. On the one hand, this sort of agitates my WTF instinct. It has nothing to do with actual babies, who would be just as happy running around entirely nekkid. It has everything to do with the smug self-satisfaction of the hipsters who think this sort of thing is cool, and I am as a general rule dubious of practically anything that makes the average hipster's sense of smug self-satisfaction any more smug or self-satisfied.

But in another way, I wish they had had Depends printed with various fabric patterns back when I was going through chemo and had to wear them because I was, for lack of a more delicate phrase, an unpredictable fountain of loathsomeness. It would have saved a lot of time - buy a package of tweed-printed Depends and you're good to go. And no laundry! You just throw the things away and that's that.

Some people think things like Depends are funny. I invite such people to undergo six months of chemotherapy and see if it's still so funny. But I still think denim-printed diapers are, well, kinda silly.

Farcebook

Facebook gets a lot of attention these days, especially on the CNN website, where I guess there isn't enough real news to keep the alleged journalists busy so they write stuff about Facebook. I'm not normally in the business of defending Facebook from its detractors, and I sometimes find the gush about "social media" a little nauseating. But sometimes the opposite camp nauseates me a little bit too.

You're talking to a guy at work, and you happen to mention Facebook in passing. AHA! He leaps on the comment.

"I'm not on Facebook," he cries.

"Well, good. As I was saying..."

"No, you don't get it, I'm not on Facebook!"

"I heard you. The point is, if you take the..."

"No, listen to me! I'M NOT ON FACEBOOK, WHICH MEANS I'M SMARTER THAN YOU!"

You don't want to be on Facebook? Then don't be; I don't care either way. But spare me the self-satisfaction, if you would, because being on or off Facebook has nothing really to do with anything except whether you're on or off Facebook.

The implication of these Luddites is that somehow being on Facebook makes me a tool of corporate interests - as though they never buy anything or watch TV commercials. Or being on Facebook somehow exposes my vital bodily fluids to contamination by hackers - as though anything on the Internet is secure and safe. Or that being on Facebook somehow makes me a narcissist who strokes my own ego by having umpteen jillion "Facebook friends", or that being on Facebook somehow makes me a lemming who follows whatever trend comes along.

Yeah. I remember when I was 17 I wouldn't go see Star Wars either because the thought of liking something that was popular bugged me. But then I grew up and realized that it doesn't matter.

So I'm on Facebook, and I use it for my own purposes. If you think that makes me a lemming, or a tool, or a retard, be my guest. But do shut up about it, would you? If you're so insecure that you think not being on Facebook makes you cool, hip or mature, well, you have issues you need to spend some time thinking through.

What I find most amusing is the way these people moan about how "Nobody seems to enjoy face-to-face communication any more, except me." Uh huh. And they're the same guys who sit in their cubicles texting their friends about YouTube videos. I may be a lemming, a tool and a retard, but I can still smell hypocrisy. Or, just about as fun, the guys who say "I prefer the human touch; that's why I use my cell phone." So one artificial means of communication is okay, but another is uncool? Okie doke.

I'm also amused by the people who say "I'm an engineer and I think Facebook sucks because of X, Y and Z." Or "I'm an IT professional and I think Facebook sucks because of X, Y and Z." Or "I'm an MBA and I think Facebook sucks because of X, Y and Z." The implication is that their educational status gives them unique insight into Facebook. Well, I happen to be an engineer, and I know a lot of engineers and MBAs, and I know that some of them believe some frightfully stupid things. So spare me the credentials, would you? You may be an engineer, but you also believe that Croatian troops are massing in Canada to invade the United States... And I happen to be an engineer, and I chat with friends on Facebook about the goofy stuff their cats did. So there.

The "horror story contingent" amuses me too. You run into some guy who says "My cousin posted pictures of himself smoking a huge joint on Facebook, and now he can't get a job. Damn Facebook, damn it to hell!" I don't mean to sound snippy, but how is it Facebook's fault that your cousin is a moron?

Get a grip. Here's a news flash for you: Nobody cares if you aren't on Facebook, and nobody thinks you're smart or cool or hip because you aren't, because ultimately, it just doesn't matter one way or the other.

And now, back to my usual nonsense.

Fungible Resources

Wouldn't it be fun if attention was a fungible resource? Wouldn't it be a hoot if one could gather up all the interest, outrage, splutter, time, effort, energy, worry, anxiety, in short, all the attention, that we give to celebutard dimbulbs and convert it into something useful?

It wouldn't even have to be very useful for it to please me. All the sick worry and attention devoted to Jon and Kate Plus Nausea converts into the equivalent of six months of dedicated research into Egyptian funerary practices? Bonus! A deeper understanding of Egyptian funerary practices might not make the world any better, but at least it doesn't make it any worse, which is more than can be said for the TV show in question.

And Britney Spears? Jesus! We might well have cured cancer by now with all that attention!

Hipsters I Have No Use For

Today I went (against my better judgment) to read stuff on "Stuff Hipsters Hate". I saw them on CNN the other day and couldn't believe that such irrelevancy was given space on the CNN website. But it was, and I was curious if their blog was as irrelevant, so I went to go see for myself. And yes, by cracky, it's at least as irrelevant, if not more so, and just as stupid.*

Normally I don't waste much time criticizing hipsters or uber-hipsters. What they do doesn't matter to me, and what they think is irrelevant to me.

But after I got out of the shower after scrubbing the oily self-satisfied residue off my person, I came to this realization: I don't know what hipsters hate, and I don't care. But I do know what hipsters I have no use for.

After almost dying twice and going through 18 months of chemotherapy and two bone marrow transplants, there's no room left in me for hate. If these irrelevant twits want to hate everything that they don't like, I don't much care. If they want to hate me, I don't much care. But I can say that it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever go back to their site.

(What I find particularly unamusing about their site is that despite their literary pretensions, they can't seem to go a paragraph without saying "fuck". Does that make you feel like a grown-up, talking like that? Good for you. Now go find a poetry slam or something to infest; I have more important things to think about.)

*Their CNN bit was something about snazzing up Tweets so you sound suitably status-conscious and ironically hipsterish. You can't say "I ate lunch"; you have to say "Had an ironically hip wrap at [insert oppressively hip-for-the-moment watering hole here] in Manhattan." Yeah? Well, what if I had two tacos at Filiberto's in Phoenix? Only 99 cents, and just as tasty at four times the price, and I didn't have to put up with any buffoonish hipsters while I was eating. But having said all that, the only appropriate answer to the question of how one makes a Tweet "more acceptable" is to say that as a first approximation, no Tweet is acceptable. It's only when you get down to the fourth or fifth approximation that any of them start to serve any useful purpose at all.

Thanks, AOL

I was reading news headlines on AOL, such as AOL news headlines are - lots of gushy nonsense about stars that I don't care about, let alone have ever heard of. Somewhere along the line I slipped and accidentally clicked on a Justin Bieber link.

Now I need ritual cleansing and purification by a team of tonsured monks. Maybe even make a huge donation, crawl on my knees like a pilgrim, drag something heavy across the desert in a gesture of hair-shirted penitence. It isn't just because Justin Bieber is pretty much a train wreck (though he is - and they laugh at my music!). It's more the comments appended to the news stories that made me feel defiled and unholy - annoying gibberish "written" by people who can't spell the word "you" and who can't think their way out of the simplest of logical traps. Ugh. How horrible.

My favorite comment was something about how "all u haters think he can't sing shud shut up cuz he's HOTTTT." One hates to argue with geniuses of this ilk, but "hot" and "able to sing" are two different things, and neither one implies the other (just consider Neil Young, who is uglier than twenty miles of washboarded road but has a certain facility with music). This leaves entirely unasked the question of whether he's actually hot or not, but I'm inclined to believe that anyone not old enough to get a driver's license, register for the draft, or buy a beer legally is unhot by definition.

Another comment I greatly enjoyed (in a perverse, self-hating kind of way) was something like "All U HATERS stop hatin". Once again, one hates to argue with such a mental heavyweight, but thinking that someone's pop music drivel is drivel isn't the same as "hatin". And besides, if I stopped "hatin" I would no longer be a "HATER", and who am I to deny my own essence? If I'm a HATER, I hate, it's what I do.

All of this leads one to the inevitable and unhappy conclusion that something has gone haywire somewhere along the line. Not so much with J.B. himself, who seems pretty laughable, and the less energy I expend on him, the happier I am. No, mostly it makes my flesh crawl to witness anew just how low our standards of writing and critical thought have gotten. What must it be like to inhabit the minds of these comment-writers?

Ugh. Send for the priests, I require purification in the worst way imaginable.