Today in Suicide-Inducing Headlines

or at least lunch-losing:

Bush's Reputation Rebound Likely

(and the above article cites the Democrats as helping to re-write an unelected idiotic warmonger as a "success.")

In other news, Humans Are Not Capable of Complex Thought and Instead Rely On Revisionist History out of Self-Interest.

Music Journalism That Sucks and People Get Paid to Execute

Slate.com's team of "music reviewers" dig as deep and as recent as Kurt Cobain for a musical hero.

This is what a middle aged, well-fed gross miscalculation of trying to remain current sounds like:

"...To say that Scott Stapp, a bellowing repackager of grunge as a bludgeoning, Christian-motivational medium, wasn't a miserable blight on the culture, is to suggest that Kurt Cobain didn't matter as much as we wanted him to[.]"

You can almost see the Columbia School Of Journalism diploma hanging in his wood-paneled office as he types away on his new Macbook Pro, the nanny chasing the two young kids around their Connecticut home as he sneaks another Amstel light before the wife gets home.

More Hot New Tunes!!!!!!!!!!!11 Vol 2

cheer up, sparkly horse!


The second installment of Remix Mountain's up-to-the-minute summer music coverage. (for the first, go here.)


Sparklehorse:
I don't know anything about this band, but at thirty seconds of first listen, they sound like one of those acts who use a heavy rhythm section and some sensitive lyrics/vocals for a "nuanced balance" that tricks the listener into experiencing emotion while hearing their songs, the listener thus forced to attached a meaningful connection to this band, which means they will purchase albums the week they're "dropped" and attending shows when said meaningful band comes into town. I don't know about you, but that's why I listen to Broken Social Scene.
Ok so I just googled them, and apparently it's like one guy who's been around since 1996? Oh well. Sorry, man.
I should've known; he sounds kind of depressed. Everyone knows that now you have to back your feelings to a rad beat for kids (target demographic of urban/suburban youths with disposable income) to like it, because being sad by yourself hasn't been cool since before the internet was invented. Young people want to connect with their peers in a meaningful way, specifically in a combination of danceable beats and meaningful lyrics (see LCD Soundsystem). ok I need to turn this off, its dissonance is making me vaguely think about things/ acknowledge my emotions and I'm getting depressed.
HOLY SHIT that was depressing. I have a tummy ache.
Verdict: Do not listen to alone.


Kanye West:
I seriously could not care less about this music. The most boring thing I've heard since Passion Pit. I think his intense relationship with the press/ the internet/ himself has led to Kanye-oversaturation and I associate him with the mainstream/ everything that really sucks, so I refuse to put in the time it would take to experience Kanye as an artist.
Verdict: I'm going to spend my very limited mainstream time on Beyonce.

Bon Iver:
Like everyone else*, I love to sit around and cry to Bon Iver. I think he is brilliant, and represents a real turning of the tide in "indie music", so much so that music with loud guitars seems incredibly dated and from 2005. Try listening to Wolf Parade after you hear this, and you'll know what I mean. Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes are leading this movement of quiet sincerity, which over-30s will call something stupid like "post-college hippy music" or something. But seriously, this guy is like a silent steamroller. I'll leave it at that.

*with grossly impossible idealistic expectations of life/love and an affinity for bearded men. i.e., everyone.

Beirut:
There are a lot of "Cool New Bands" that the Indie Industrial Complex tries to shove down your throat every week. Said complex likes to take advantage of young people who feel they need to commit to the "large-scale consumer of music" lifestyle to appeal to people "cooler than them" and also attractive to members of the opposite sex. An important part of this production/consumption loop is exposure of new artists by important "music blogs" and word of mouth. This means that you can get burned out on a band before you even hear them. I prefer to weather the first round of hype and see what sticks. Beirut was one of those names that was "on the radar" and I figured it was something stupid and "twee" that probably had some gimmick like a "cute girl and her boyfriend." I am very happy to say that I've been proven completely wrong. Beirut take some major risks in their sound and the results are breathtaking and heartbreaking. More of that return to sincerity, like Bon Iver et al (although Beirut came first). Gulag Orkestar is heavy and dense, where The Flying Club Cup is baroque and melancholy. Both are nearly perfect albums that possess a mature sense of texture; the songs almost have a sculptural quality, built from multiple layers that beg the listener to revisit.
After doing some research, I found that Zach Condon is only 23. Wow. Really makes you think (i.e. drink heavily). Most of the famous people who were younger than me used to be Lindsay Lohan, and that was ok, but this is a little disconcerting.
Verdict: The coveted "Remix Mountain Hats Off" to Beirut.


Next: the epic finale of this month's music coverage. It will change your life.

Sometimes when i check my email

i wish i wasn't a human.

What It Feels Like To "Work"

One unfortunate result of "work" is that it has spawned its own sad "humor" genre.

Sent at 12:30 PM on Wednesday

Meredith: here's a haiku:

Unfortunately
Not addicted to yoga.
I’d stretch for beer, though

Sent at 12:35 PM on Wednesday

me: hahaha Lolzzz

love it

barfed last nite, speaking of beer

Meredith: you've reached your goal!

Now that I’ve been in the “work world” for about three weeks now, it seems I know all I need to. Which amounts to the following: sit down, shut up and try to look busy.

After sliding into the “swivel chair” at my “desk”and exchanging niceties with my “coworkers,” it takes almost four minutes for me to start glancing at the clock and wish that the next eight hours were over immediately. Staring at a computer screen for the entire day feels like a rare and very effective form of torture when you’re hungover, and even when you're not, but I suppose that’s the price one pays for waking up in a pool of their own indulgence. So throughout the day, I sit and engage in various non-work activities, including but not limited to: g chat, email, trying to think up a gimmicky blog that references the late nineties a lot and will therefore make me like a lot of dollars, drawing animals on post-it notes and imagining that they will sell for like a lot of dollars because I am actually a genius, and contemplating whether or not the world is an evil place, all the while attempting to gage if the person walking behind me has the clout to fire me for playing spider solitaire (and kind of hoping they do).

About five hours into the “work day,” every ounce of life has been drained from my soul, and I’ve lost the will to go on, as by this point I’m pretty certain that the world is an evil place, and that human existence is indeed a sad one in that it has resulted in the invention known as the “spread sheet.” My skin has turned the pallid shade of the walls and I’m fantasizing about running out into the street and setting things on fire. And the fact that nobody else seems to feel this way ostensibly means they are satisfied with carrying out their lives in a cell, breaking only to eat dinner and sleep with a boyfriend who won’t marry them (gleaned from intra-office fodder), and for that fleeting forty-eight hour reward for sitting and staying known the world over as “the weekend.”

All I’m saying is that this little tableau amounts to a little less than a legitimate reason for being a living human. And I’m really not sure if others have failed to notice this, or just decided not to do anything about it. Some may think this entire argument (work is dumb!!!11) is completely asinine, and that one should be “lucky” to have a “job” as a “productive member of society.” These people are full of crap. I sure as hell didn’t sign on for a lifetime of florescent-lit purgatory when I was born, and I’m also sure that even about five minutes into my tenure as a non-fetus, I would’ve had the good sense be like “fuck that.”

So, humans, what’s the deal with “work”? Give me some idea of what this whole “work” thing does to your sense of being a live human being (ie whether it makes you want to stop living or not) and perhaps we can figure out an alternative to this crime against humanity together.

8 ways to ruin your life

this picture is hiLARious

College grads:

this list just out to ensure that the rest of your life is as meaningless and boring as this guy's!

Happy graduation!

Cogito Bloggo Sum

The only thing more annoying than blogs in the first place is when people who have blogs get all self-referential; the blog is then nothing more than an attention-seeking device available to the entire world, ten times more effective than that middle-school eating disorder. But to assume that a blog is or should be anything more than a declaration of love for the self might be embarrassingly presumptuous. This damn thing hasn't exactly stared a revolution, and only serves as a reminder of all my own short comings as a human being. It used to be cute, but now it's dropped out of high school and got a job at the video store, prompting all the familiar hand-wringing, shouting matches and "where did i go wrong?"s.

The blog itself is still a medium in its infancy; collectively, blogs are culturally significant, but individually they're nothing more than a means for the author to think they're contributing to the world in some constructive way. Anyone who doesn't get sick of the sight of their own type, blogs, and people who have blogs is either delusional or talented.

If the specific cause of my disillusionment with this completely worthless endeavor is of any interest, check out www.datingdylan.blogspot.com and you too will be robbed of the will to live. Read on an empty stomach/ far from sharp objects.

Until I've overcome this crippling fear of self-published work, here is a word from Chuck Klosterman, whose incredibly self-obsessed excuse for "journalism" finds an audience with the similarly afflicted and those with no personality of their own and a subscription to Spin: "I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know."

We Barely Knew Ye

(The white and Christian children of America pray for Burberry snow boots.)

Goodbye America.
You know things are dire when Wall Street bonuses shrink and people can only afford one $600 purse a year.
Hark! A loaded broker sings: resurrection is possible.

One of the sadder celebrity deaths in recent memory: but why does it even matter? Is it because he was good looking, talented, a father? Or is it because we are a sick and deluded people, empty and believing that famous people are worth more than the rest of us? Or Them?

In other news, sociological proof that men are just as self-serving and morally depraved as we'd been told: so much for a gender-balanced utopia. Not sure if this deserves rage or pity. Discuss.

At least we still have Keith's badassedness on this cold January day.

All The Terror In the World

Humanity is at risk, says the UN, due to our lack of action on environmental problems that will flood/starve/thirst/heat us out of our HummersTacobellMacVisawwwCashbackVotingboothsNewShoes.

No idea how to respond to this: sincere fear (oh.my.god.) or ironic relief (well, goddamn, the world sucks anyway, put us out of our Two and a Half Men). All I can say is that we are inheriting a strange world. People always talk about the damn commies in the 50s or something and how they could have destroyed the world. Who the hell cares? They didn't. Stop crying, McCarthy.

Since then, in what some would call an ironic little twist, we've all united for the destruction of all being-kind (and by WE, I of course mean the heirs to the throne the World Bank has constructed with the flesh and bones of "developing" nations. WE, those few, proud, Western White people with lots of money, lots of confidence!, lots of teeth and God's blessing). How did we get here? Here's a theory that draws on Freudian subconscious and probably some other dead white guy who believed we all just really want the end: what if the insane level of capitalism we all devour/choke on was really constructed as a quick way out? Could those European leaders at Breton Woods have seen the chaos Man can wreak on His own self, and figured, either consciously or subconsciously, that large-scale globalization and its resulting CO2 emissions and repressed self-loathing was the most efficient bullet to our collective temple, the quickest way to that big mall in Heaven? But that's giving Truman, et al way to much credit. Closer to the truth is far less Romantic; it lacks the drama of Capitalist-as-Christ/Satan. This is a lazy Satan, a Christ who would rather shop. The rapidly deteriorating world in which we now exist was founded on the very real, and realized, belief that Whoever Dies With the Most Toys Wins.


"Capital, now in its imperialist stage, will only disappear with an ecological solution of production (and of consumption) which will constitute the only possible elimination of the outdated structures of dominance, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and absolutism in order to replace them with those of cooperation and equality between individuals (thus between the sexes) and of the species with the environment."
- Francoise d'Eaubonne

End the Madness

she typ'd
into the void
whilst list'ning to her itunes

"this sure is sick"
a hyperlink to the end
maybe someone can do something about it
"Ratatat is awesome"

The ERADICATOR

Somehow the following entities survived the turn of the century. Here are my suggestions for what should phased out for a russer world.

1. College.
The perfect place to whittle down all your aspirations, hope and love of life into a slick marketable package who knows how to create an excel sheet. The only thing worse than spending $100k + to secure a spot in the "workforce" you couldn't care less about is realizing that millions of drunk idiots in t-shirts more interesting than they are do same thing every year. Now in my fourth year of being talked at and told to regurgitate information for a letter grade that will supposedly determine my future, I realize the only things I've learned are:
1. the world is in bad shape,
2. I could've spent this time and money doing more important things, and
3. saturated fats are solid at room temperature.

Could've bought that information for 15.95 at Borders, or absorbed it from a Romantic Comedy major motion picture starring Kate Hudson.

2. The News
The news needs to stop. No, I don't mean newspapers (useless) or TV news (even worse). I mean the wide variety of "newsworthiness" that occurs. Things in general , i.e. human history, seem to have been going consistently bad since the start of time. So I propose we try something new. Or rather, don't try something new. Stop the war, stop diverting Mexicans' food source for our cheap ethanol, stop the World Bank from holding developing nations as indentured servants. Then we can all (as in humans, not only white, college-educated Americans) pursue what we'd like to and things might actually be pretty great, or at least not cripplingly awful.

3. Chick Lit
I find it personally offensive that I might be labeled a "chick" and thus inadvertently identified with this crime against literature, chicks and non-chicks. When a literary genre exists solely to either augment or diminish its readers sense of accomplishment based on their ability to recognize a "new" brand of jeans or stilettos, it must end. This genre is would be laughably inconsequential were it not so damn popular with the apparently mammoth population of idiots that stumble into bookstores before vacation to pick up US Weekly (poor Owen! Seriously, but that's a different story) and something like a book that they think involves "reading." Here's to public humiliation of all those who write and read books with hot pink and lime green covers, featuring a cartoon stick-figure weighted down with shopping bags/martini/miniature schnauzer/suave boyfriend. Sadly, a somewhat large percentage of these authors are ivy-league graduates (I don't care enough to google up a real number), which only further proves my point for number one (1) on this list.

4. Clothes
This one is self-explanatory. See above.

5. Irony
Seriously, this has got to stop.
I know people now like to toss around the term "post-ironic" to describe our current place on the cultural theory time line, but it seems they themselves may be ironists as well, as irony is the language that continues to eclipse sincerity as our primary, and "coolest" means of communicating. (If you think I'm wrong, watch a commercial for hamburgers or soda. Chances are it's finely tuned to appeal to our ironic side of our money-spending sensibilities. Or more precisely, the "it's so crazy it's like the opposite of an advertisement! Geico totally gets me! I love car insurance!!!" side.) This is clearly evident in contemporary style and humor.
Now, I like saying the opposite of what I mean as much as the next morally bankrupt product of our twenty-first century American culture, but what are we really saying if we don't mean any of it?

Since I asked:

It seems that within the context of environmental collapse, economic crisis, political ridiculosity, the fact that America seems to be falling fast while taking down as much as it can with it, the current developed/developing world paradigm of exploitation and neglect, the T-word*, undefined roles of gender and place of self, and a million other uncertainties/reasons to want to head right the hell out of here, (before realizing that there is no better off) Irony as a cultural mechanism reflects the unfathomable situation we're in now: everything could disappear in an instant and therefore nothing means anything.
But irony itself is a response, not a remedy, and it seems that we can't fix anything if no one is saying anything.
Stewart and Colbert are doing a thorough job reacting to the inanity of it all, but we've got to wonder when irony itself is a legitimate political tool. It's only the first step in regaining any sense of stability or "truth," that great postmodern non-entity, which we seem to be 180 degrees from right now, hence having no reason to do anything.

Talk amongst yourselves.

This all being said, I am already cringing at how sincere this all is, because it's so uncool. Also, sincerity can be attacked, it can be "wrong". Irony is bullet-proof.

*----orism

Also, two examples of what is not irony, but is often mistaken for it:
1. High postmodern literature such as Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work. Most definitely a novel means of expression, but completely sincere, therefore not ironic.
2. Coincidence. For example: If Devendra Banhart, who is heavily influenced by (some would say a rip off of) Marc Bolan of T. Rex , were to die in a car accident after his wife drunkenly drove into a tree, just as Bolan did in 1972, this would not be ironic. It would just be weird and a guarantee that Devendra's albums and paraphernalia will increase in sales and make millions (at least tens of thousands) until the end of time. Which, don't forget, could be next week.

G N R RAWKS!!! part 2

Where we left off: JUST how great IS Paradise City???

The song sucks. Axl Rose was a talentless heroin fiend who thought
he was the second coming of Mick Jagger, except so much more badass
because he lived in ghetto of LA and spent all of his advance from
the label on drugs and Jack and stirrup pants. Guns and Roses for
some reason went with the same catchy-yet-hardcore-
hook-then-gnarly-breakdown-that-actually-is-annoying-and-lame
formula for every one of their 7 minute songs. And they tend to
rhyme things like "city" and "pretty" all while trying to have us
believe that Axl cares about green grass, while at the same time
wanting us very much to believe that he sits in the corner of a
dark, unfurnished room all day drooling on himself and hallucinating,
in the most awesome way possible.

So, not only was Rolling Stone wrong about "Appetite For
Destruction" five years ago, but they continue to lie by putting
these wasted AARP members on the cover RIGHT NOW, because Appetite
For Destruction came out TWENTY YEARS AGO AND CHANGED THE
WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!! (or at least spawned 200 Ratts and Whitesnakes
and Motley Crues, all soon to be made to look very fat and make-up-
wearing by Nirvana, but that's a whole nother story.)

But in a way, Axl is the second coming of Mick because he's old and
embarrasing, but while Mick shops at Limited Too, Axl is bloated and
has cornrows and a plastic face. And, they both outlived Kurt Cobain
so YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for them.

Bottom line: Classic rock radio is for castrated males who
quote Spinal Tap without grasping the irony of that since the whole
thing makes fun of the music they so sadly RAWK OUT to, and I want
a full refund from Rolling Stone for at least half the albums I
bought off of their stupid list(i.e. Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet).
I think I may have caught on to their lies after re-reading the
list and seeing two Eminem albums on it.

Of course, this entire rant is rendered null and void by Rolling
Stone's most recent cover, which makes Axl & Co look like the
Beatles. Some 12 year old boy is getting naked in what is sure to
be the first of his many steps to career suicide: Britney was all
underage and naked once too. At least they're exploiting some young
boy rather than the next olsen twins, etc.
Way to go, Jann Wenner!!!

HELLO VIRTUAL WORLD!

The power to change to world lies nowhere if not here, in this corner of the information superhighway on the Blogtrack To The End of the World, at emle.che.com or whatever it is. Surely the revolution will be poorly punctuated. I look forward to my 8 millionth post in which I will ruminate how self-conscious I was when just a (real) babe in the (virtual) woods.

Keh, this one's for you, since you fanned the embers of my quest for worldwide fame, which is now a fullblown fire since I am now an internet celebrity with my very own weblog.

PART I of GNR RAWKS!!!!!!!!!!

So, a while back, when little me was all about trying to know what was cool, I got a subscription to Rolling Stone. This was in the summer of '02, a mere 16 I was, soon to be led astray by the rotting corpse of a pile of gloss and cigarette ads that hadn't really mattered since 1972, when David Bowie was trying to rescue his career by acting gay. One of the first issues that arrived in my rabid little hands featured a (sooooo wrinkled-- HAHA the eight millionth joke about how the Rolling Stones are old!) Keith Richards clutching a guitar and wearing little more than that Mick Jagger eating smirk and those bedroom eyes glazed over from the routine cooking of the morning junk.
Wide eyed and seeking refuge from the wasteland of the top 40, little did I know that the cover itself so perfectly embodied, reeked! of the cultural decay that was occurring with each passing second as we speed toward the apocalypse. This issue happened to feature a "Top 100 Albums of All Time!!!!!!!!!!!!!" list. Naturally, now-old white Americans and Britons were well represented, with the occasional non-white/male thrown in to keep the damn ACLU happy. I, misguided as I was, having grown up in affluent 1990s America and therefore aurally inundated with the 99 problems of now-affluent black people set to a damn catchy beat, made it my goal to amass all 100 of these great albums.
I set to my path to awesomeness straightaway and wracked up a hefty amazon.com bill. Queen! Yes!!! Bad Company! Maybe! Sex Pistols!!! I am so much cooler than all my friends!!! Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet! On sale for 9.99, the soundtrack of adolescence I never had! Van Halen! Wow, David Lee Roth sure sounds like a sex offender! Appetite For Destruction! My friends don't even know! I RAWK SO HARD!!! Paradise City!!! Rhymes with Pretty!!!

So FIVE long years later and it still snows in the winter of my discontent. Classic rock is full of stupid guys whose poetry consists of unimaginative metaphors to titillate sad members of our regressive society. (See ACDC's "I want to put my love into you.") Classic rock radio is formatted to fit the needs of the 18-64 year olds who consider this sort of thing a fitting soundtrack to their own lives. ("Yeah, George Thorogood, I am SO bad to the bone!! I crank this to ELEVEN in my car on my way to work where I sit for 8 hours looking at pictures of Lindsay Lohan online!!!") In fact the station I listened to this morning billed itself as "the only station that doesn't make you feel like you've had a vasectomy!!!" and then had some guy looking for his balls. (This is all completely true.) Then, they played Paradise City.


next: the anti-climactic ending to my 78th of many more disillusionments with everything under the once more shrinking o-zone layer.