Lady Gag-a

I feel obligated to preface this post with a disclaimer: Your opinion of music or enjoyment/rejection of Lady Gaga should not come into play when I present the following argument. I am well aware of her(his) virtues and I can appreciate your opinion. Having said that...............


Preface:


I've always thought that playboy is the most sinister of all pornographic material why? because it pretends that it is soft and sincere. playboy reminds us that if you are going to take off your clothes for money it is the "classiest" way to do it. There is no way to be classy or decent once you have decided to remove your clothes for money and show millions of people. Either you are a whore who is doing because you are too lazy to actually work for your supper or you are so vain that you want to be admired for your body. Either way you have crossed a threshold and you can't have it both ways. sure we've grown into an accepted all of these things as natural in our lives but they are completely unnatural. Playboy in essence pretends that it's not porn and we have accepted it and its dirty little secret. 

In a similar way a less offensive version of pop music is still pop music. Just because it is the best of the worst does not make it in any way good.

The Argument:


These days pop music ascribes to a formula. good beat, strong chorus, short. the most important part of pop music however is the performer.


Point #1:


 lady gaga is not hot. i've seen scantily clad images of lady gaga everywhere and I don't objectively find her stimulating. One of the most important components of being a pop star is the infatuation/imitation aspect. Do young men have posters of her on the wall or pictures of her on their computers? Do pervy old men watch her music videos? do young girls wish that they could look like her? Are girls jealous of her hot bod?  The answer to all of these questions is no. Of course over time with money and media influence all of this can change.

Let me use an example to make this clear. My own father has no reason to like Avril Lavigne or Britney Spears but when they first came out his pervy eyes were all over it. He actually listened to Avril long enough until he started liking some of the songs. I don't think that Avril is conventionally attractive but she was an alternative niche type. She is the type of girl that all of the sk8ter bois think is attainable. In a mans mind attainable is good. Viola! lust is created and Avril has a career. Britney had that whole school girl sweet/innocent thing going for a while and the minute she lost that she lost her career. More recently she has been able to resurrect her image but not before a decade of misfires and a complete change in image.

In both of these cases there existed lust and idolization. All the guys want to pop the pop star and all of the girls want to be her. No one wants to schtupp Lady Gaga. She also has an elogated torso, strange eyebrows and a man ass, all things that are not seen as conventionally attractive.


Point #2


Let's dispel the idea that pop music is about the music. I could hit youtube and find 50 people who sing/dance better than any pop star out there. Their only problem, they are fat or ugly or both. Lady Gaga is not distracting to look at upon a cursory glance. There aren't any damning flaws about her exterior appearance that make her unfit for television. People don't get hired in the music biz let alone the pop music biz because of their technical talent. They have to be a particular package and that all begins with looks. Look at Taylor Swift she can't sing or play guitar and she sells a ton of records. She didn't even originally have musical ambition she just knew that she was pretty to look at. Unfortunately the modelling world didn't want her so she fell back on country music and parlayed that into a music career.

You could argue that of all the people who play pop music that Gaga is pretty good and she plays her own instrument. 1) Alicia Keys does it better and I don't like her either. 2) Since when did we start heaping praise on people because they play an instrument? Last time i checked every member of every band that ever failed could play an instrument. The whole point of being a musician is being talented...musically.


Next, Gaga's music really isn't that good. I am a guy and i can hit all of her notes. puh-puh-puh-puh-poka-face. Papa-Papa-razzi! no big deal. If you like the music it's probably because you were big into the club scene back in 99 when techo was still cool. Beyond the driving recycled nostalgic beats and her perhaps (and i'm being nice here) slightly above average vocals what does she have? her image right?


point #3


What hasn't been done yet? We haven't popularized creepy or strange. But, not the real creepy and strange because that's too creepy......and strange! so what I am going to do is put coke cans in my hair. What i am going to do is watch Marilyn Manson's sweet dreams video from the 90's and pilfer select images and copy them. I will splice this stolen creativity into my wardrobe and people will find it shocking because it's ten years later, I play pop music and I'm a girl. The rest? I'll just blatantly steal from every other female "artist" who came before me and not even veil it in a poorly crafted facade. But wait, Lady Gaga isn't just a singer, she is a performance artist. To which I say, the only thing less interesting than pop music is performance art (Blue Man Group exempt).

Conclusion:


To steal a line from The Usual Suspects: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Lady Gaga like Playboy is the most sinister of ploys because it presents itself as something other than what it is in order to achieve extra credibility/consideration. Ms. Gags preys on the notion of the underdog, the unheard masses to uplift, confuse and trick you into buying into her. She is neither a talented performer nor a creature of beauty. If she has done one clever thing it was to play both image and musical talent against each other, then run her ass through a fast closing door before the world realizes the one and only element to her pop culture greatness, misdirection.

Friends

I don't know whether it is my horrible body odor or the fact that I find fault with someone the moment that I meet them but I have trouble getting friends. Before you sound the introverted dorky loser alarm, I'll have you know that I am probably only one of those things I mentioned above. Sadly, I think the reason that I don't have any real friends is that my standard for friendship is very high. Also, I think that we often confuse an acquaintance with a friend. 


My standard for a measuring a friend is this: Picture yourself stranded on the side of the road at 3 A.M. You just blew a tire/battery/engine/something you don't have the tools/knowledge/money to fix. Who among your "friends" would you feel comfortable calling and asking them to pick you up 30 miles away? Be careful the way that you answer this question. If you first instinct is that you have many friends, then consider that you might be a selfish person with a greater focus on having your own needs met rather than taking into account the thoughts and feelings of others. This list, it should be a short one as very few people are willing to climb out of bed, drive thirty miles AND put on a cheery face to meet/help you in another town. Of the few of these people whom you have narrowed this list down to, how many of them would you confide in, in a time of need? If you have any people that remain after this filtration process these people are you friends. Either that or you have an acquaintance who drives a tow truck with a minor in psychology.

 Over the years I have had several acquaintances and I have turned down several offers to be someone else's acquaintance. When I was a kid making "friends" was easy. All you needed was a basketball, baseball mitt or new Nintendo game. Kids especially guys will get together for any form of competition that resembles a sport. These childhood relationships may evolve or dissipate. Other surface friendships might replace old surface friendships. During our formative teenage years we are often thrust into friendships in order to battle against our parents and gain a sense of independence. During this time some real friendships might develop as a reaction to controlling parents. The teenage need to be free engenders reliance and a desire to confide in other people of the same age. Alas, none of this ever happened for me.


After I missed this stage I did develop some casual friendships in my late teens and early twenties. These friendships however were tantamount to childhood friendships. The only thing that changed was that the basketball became a bottle of whiskey and the new Nintendo game became a car. NOT IN THAT ORDER! There was no drinking and driving. By this I mean, that as long as there was bottle of whiskey and a trivial activity to participate in, all parties were entertained. When it came to cars, the conversations were stimulating with phrases like: "Did you see that car?" and the reply "Yep, it's a fast one!" 

No one in these situations was ever pressed to change their behavior or outlook on life due to our collective interaction. We were just an assembly of people brought together based on our collective desire to participate in that activity. The names and faces could have been swapped out with a million different people from a thousand different places on earth. We only drank together because drinking alone makes you an alcoholic. We only cruised together because racing up and down suburban streets in your mom's Pontiac sunfire by yourself is kinda lame. Okay, racing your mom's sunfire is kinda lame no matter how many people are involved. All we were doing was stifling the loneliness and isolation, not building important or interesting relationships. 

I fondly remember leaving one of my friends houses after a party early one morning to find the aforementioned sunfire had a smashed in front fender. I was so pissed because I couldn't get the door open and I had to climb over the center console from the passenger side in order to drive it home. Worse, the person who hit it didn't leave a note or their license plate number. Worse, it was my mother's car and I foresaw her yelling at me for driving carelessly and smashing her car up. What kind of asshole smashes a car and then drives off right? Well as it turns out, two of my "friends" just so happened to be in the car that smashed into my car and one of them was driving. 


I fondly remember another friend whom asked to borrow my stereo for a house party to which I obliged. He stated that it if went over well that he would consider buying the stereo from me. The next week I saw him he called me over to show me the new car that he had purchased. After we popped the hood and revved the engine a few times I asked him if he still wanted to buy the stereo. "The stereo?" He said. "I sold the stereo to buy the car." He said. A few days later he broke into my garage and stole my old license plates from my car while I wasn't home. Apparently the car that he bought with the help from the stereo he borrowed and sold could not pass the smog test, thus it could not be licensed. Lucky for him one of his friends had an extra pair of license plates in the garage and he was out racing up and down the streets in no time. I have never been so close to murdering someone in my entire life.

Growing up television enfeebled my mind. It suggested to me that every protagonist had a collection of friends who interacted with each other on a daily basis. Not only this but in most cases a friend relationship was much deeper and more involved than a parental/familial relationship.  In every sitcom or dramatic series there was always that scene where the friends were sitting down for Thanksgiving turkey or exchanging Christmas gifts amid dispensing helpful advice toward living. Maybe it's me. Perhaps my harsh, abrasive, insensitive comedic tone only draws the eyes and ears of assholes who are akin to me. These people are not the same as me but they are assholes of a different color karmically returning all of the bad that I put out into the world. But, I don't believe that to be true. Just this once I will confide in you random internet audience and say that without exception I have always been the better friend. 

For The Troops

Disclaimer: If you don't agree with the gross generalizations I make in this post or if you are an exception to them please feel inclined to withhold that information from me.


This post is for the troops!

Allow me to disclose something, I am a coward. Like many other socially awkward introverted hermits I marvel in dreams of being heroic. However, if the opportunity ever presented itself in real life I would probably just scream and urinate in my pants until the threat was forced to vacate the area to escape the wailing and stench of my piss. I am not a fan of war but if we have to rape and pillage a country every couple of years so that I can continue to get a 99 cent burrito from taco bell, so be it. I admire people who serve in the military. Whether they do it because they were preyed on and recruited due to their lack of education/income or because they are legitimately brave I am glad that someone who is not me is willing to stand in front enemy gunfire. I want to be clear before we move on that my following criticism is in no way related to the military.


Recently I was watching a television show where they take a shitty car and convert it into a freshly painted car in a short period of time. These types of shows are the equivalent to cheap home makeover shows but they involve men and cars and as such allow males to maintain a veneer of masculinity while they watch them. This particular episode involved a Ford pickup truck. In this particular series two competing teams are given the same vehicle and are pitted against each other in a competition to decide who makes the best vehicle in the alloted time.  

At some point during the design phase one team decided that they were going to make a vehicle and dedicate it to the troops. Predictably their finished product was a raised up, garish nightmare covered in stars and stripes. First off, I'd like to point out that while most soldiers are probably patriotic that the American flag on its own does not directly show support for the troops. If that was the case then every car, article of clothing or tchotchke that you purchase with an american flag sticker or tag would be in support of the military.

The real reason why anyone on a television show does anything for the troops is because it is a cheap, gimmicky manipulation. On a small scale especially when being judged it gives one team an unfair advantage. To not vote for the car that was made for the troops would be unpatriotic! The contest is no longer about which car is better, it is about which vehicle loves his countrymen more. On a slightly larger scale the television network uses it as a cheap ploy to tug on your heartstrings and get more viewers to watch. The show is no longer about the craft of fabrication now it is a communal healing experience. Now it's about all the people who lost their lives in 9/11. Now it's about justice and the symbolic killing of Osama. 

So the network has got you hooked and feeling good but are the network execs as patriotic with their advertising? Do they feature only American products during that hour of television or do they still sellout to the highest bidder? Do they donate the proceeds from the episode to the continued medical or psychiatric care of injured soldiers? Will these fleeting haphazard moments of gooey patriotism get crooked Joe out of his wheelchair? He took a bullet in the spine for his country and now he's addicted to painkillers and Jack Daniels to ease the suffering. Are you going to to wheel his contorted body into frame, hands covered in bruises from beating his wife because he can no longer stifle the pain of losing his entire life at such an early age? probably not. The people who put this shit on television and exploit the military for monetary gain would never pick up a gun and defend you or their country. Don't be fooled into believing that a small collection of greedy assholes  care about or value your contribution to freedom in any way. 

Honesty Is Never The Best Policy

Fat, dumb, ugly, annoying. One or more of these words applies to you, does it feel good knowing that? Though we've never met are you glad that I was honest with you or would you rather that I just kept that to myself?


No one wants to hear the actual truth. What's the first thing you do when someone says something about us we don't like? We try to convince them that are wrong. If you thought that I hurt your feelings and think I'm an asshole, you would not be wrong in that feeling. No amount of me logically explaining my behavior is going to make you think "Yeah, I guess he's not an asshole."

The only reason people will claim to admire honesty or to be "brutally honest" is because they want to excuse themselves from the horrible things they are about to say to you. In a perfect world we could all be narcissists surrounded by a bunch of androids, built to pay us flattering comments and accept verbal abuse. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and people don't want to hear the truth especially in the vile, offensive way in which you present it.

Even on occasions when I say I want the absolute truth, I still want a softer version. I want to hear: "Yeah, unfortunately we're going to have to lay you off due to cutbacks." I don't want to hear "We're firing you because you are a lazy inept piece of shit worker who brings down the productivity of the company whenever you are here." Both of these statements achieve the same result, but one is less hurtful. Even if my wife was having a sordid affair I'd rather her say "Yeah, me and my friend Thomas were just exchanging massages, that's why we had our clothes off."

From what I know about society everyone recycles, no one watches television and no one eats fast food. Yet streets and garbage cans are littered with bottles, American Idol consistently gets 30 million viewers and there is a fast food chain of every name in every town. The reason we claim to recycle without fail is there is nothing but a negative connotation carried with not recycling. If people say that watching television is bad for you, then you project the image that you don't watch it. Fast food is unhealthy and you don't want to be seen as unhealthy or fat, so you deny it. Let it be known that your individuals reflections on each of these things mentioned do not concern me. These are merely rhetorical to drive home the bigger point. The bigger point is that people are dishonest when the doing or not doing of something carries a stigma.

If we are honest with ourselves we like a little dishonesty spliced in with our honesty.

The Shamwow is Amazing

The Shamwow is the greatest infomercial ever. We have know for ages that the crap they sell on late night television doesn't work and is merely a gimmick to extract our hard earned dollars. Previously infomercials dedicated a lot of effort into convincing you that their product was reliable. After purchase the item would undoubtedly fail or what once seemed useful about the device no longer mattered. That was how they got you. A big promise up front followed by testimonials and demonstrations. In some cases they even included a money back guarantee which only about 5% of the unhappy public ever claimed. This formula of bullshit and lies continued for about 15 years until one day the mighty Shamwow rode in to save the day.

We believe that it is called Shamwow because it is the combination of the words Shammy(chamois) and wow. In other words the greatest chamois to ever have been created. This is our mistake, look closer. The first word is actually sham.

The definiton of sham is as follows:

a trick that deludes, cheap falseness, a imitation or counterfeit purporting to be genuine.

The second word used is wow which is a word used to express a strong feeling usually pleasure.

If we put these two words together we get Shamwow, a false, counterfeit pleasure.

During the entire production they never endeavor to lie to you. They tell you upfront that the product is made in Germany and the the Germans make "good stuff." I surmise that the shamwow was probably called the Guntersham and the company was failing horribly. They were most likely failing because the chamois works up to and including as well as a regular chamois, you know the kind you buy at Walmart for 2 bucks to wipe down your car. There was no incentive for people to purchase the Guntersham because there was nothing to be excited about. That was until some brilliant marketer decided to sell a shitty product for exactly what it was, a shitty product.

We have come to know the head of the company as the Shamwow guy. I don't know if he had a part in creating the title and the method of sale, but if he did he gets kudos from me. Every part of his uniform from the penis shaped microphone hanging phallically in his face to his Shamwow embroidered collared t-shirt and crack head eyes only help to sell the product further. It is clear that he is trying to appear as an infomercial impersonator gathering all the techniques and famously bad deliveries of dead end actors, musicians and anyone else who has ever tried to squeeze a buck out of the American public.

Finally we are purchasing an informercial product for the right reason and that reason is because the Shamwow is part of American culture, not because it is good. We know that the Paris Hiton's and the Kim Kardashian's and to a lesser extent the Justin Bieber's of the world are not talented. We have grown to be interested in them only because someone else has told us that we should be interested in them long enough until we finally are. The same goes for the Shamwow. Any person with common sense instantly recognizes the product as a piece of crap but now that it has become a fixture of our culture don't you kind of want one?

Happy People

I'm sorry happy people, I don't mean to harsh your mellow. I was recently logging onto my barren Twitter account where I have up to and including 1(one) follower and I read some of the days most popular tweets among them was one that said "stop being so negative people" which was retweeted 100+ times and one by E! correspondent Giuliana Rancic who said:

"Spent last five minutes in car with no radio saying what I'm grateful for. The more grateful we are the more good comes our way, Try it!"

First off I'd like to say, please die. Is it wrong for me to wish death and cancer on these people? probably. I'm tired of happy, employed and established people that condescend to the rest of the world claiming that happiness is just one good thought away. Happiness isn't a mindset, it is a condition brought on from having a lot of money, beauty, adoration, power, respect or all of the above. I guarantee if some sciency person made a sciency chart it would reveal a correlation between unhappiness and a lack of the aforementioned things. Well, I guess I forgot to put drugs on the list. Copious amounts of drugs could also lead to temporary happiness.

Secondly, if you are happy (and I mean in the absolute sense) you are either five years old or you are dumb. No one who is aware of the suffering and dying of others around them should be happy. If you are, you are living in a state of denial. Either that or you are so selfish at your core that the panged hungry cries of an emaciated inner city child mean nothing to you.

Telling people that you are happy is a dark and dirty device. It's just like telling people that you lost 100 pounds. We can see visually that you lost weight. The only reason that you seek to tell everyone about it is because of the power it gives you. "Look at me and how special I am because I have found the solution to my problem, please envy me." It is the same thing with happiness. People want to rub it in your face, half to convince you and half to convince themselves. "Once I found Billy, I knew he was the one and we lived happily ever after."

I also despise the way the news picks and chooses news stories to push a happy agenda. Every week you'll find some upbeat strong willed person who is fighting cancer. They will tell the world that sickness isn't getting them down if anything it has only made them appreciate life more. Perhaps I come from a cynical family but I don't remember my grandmother telling me how good her ovarian cancer made her feel before she died. I don't remember my grandfather feeling satisfied with his Alzheimer's. I do on several occasions recall him remembering that he was losing his mind. An 80 year old man sobbing like a child, they must have been tears of joy!

Finally, what is so wrong with being a pessimist? I think the general public feels as though telling people that you are pessimist is like telling them that you don't recycle. Pessimists see the problems before they occur so they can fix them. Pessimists protect the feelings of other people from being hurt because they anticipate bad situations. Somewhere along the way we have bought into the belief that thinking positively makes positive things happen. I would argue that more good is done by pessimists trying to prevent bad things from occurring than by optimists hoping that good things will happen. For example, I'll expect that the world is chaotic and I'll get screened for cancer. If cancer exists I will expect it to be the worst kind and I will seek the most vigorous treatment. You just keep chugging along expecting good things to happen and being grateful for whatever happens in your life. Should you get cancer, stay positive, wish it away. See how well that works for you.

Unrealistic Love Songs

I recently had the misfortune of hearing some American Idol contestants sing a Bruno Mars song called Grenade. Before I tear off into a tangent about what a talentless hack that guy is I'll stick to my point. The lyrics I heard being sung were as follows:

I'd catch a grenade for ya,

Throw my hand on a blade for ya,

I'd jump in front of a train for ya,

First off, I'd like to test this theory on Bruno Mars but more importantly is this sentiment really true?  I think claiming to be heroic and so deeply in love with someone that you have no regard for your own life sets an unrealistic standard. Sure you'll catch a grenade, but will you take the dog out for a shit at six in the morning, every morning? Sure you'll jump in front of a train, but will you cook breakfast and drive the kids to school?. It seems to me like Bruno Mars is trying to get away from this woman any way possible. Who else would be so eager to jump in front of a train unless they were contemplating suicide? Please stop making your wish for the death the reason why millions of husbands and boyfriends are punished for being insensitive. Realistically speaking:

I'd run away from a grenade screaming wit cha!,

Cut up some veggies with a blade for ya,

I'd inform you from a safe distance that a train is coming and you are on the tracks

for ya!  

Isn't the divorce rate up to over 50% now? Does that not imply that most people in relationships are eager to do significantly less than their partner expects of them? I wonder if Bruno Mars in his post coital refractory period feels the same way about his honey. Let's check back in on ol' Bruno in six months and see how many trains he's fixing to jump in front of for a woman's love.

Another song you might remember from a decade or so ago is called Everything I do I do it for you by Bryan Adams. If you haven't heard it, all you need to know about the song is the title. Everything you do, you do it for her? really? So that bulky toilet clogging dump you took after eating some stale Chinese food, you did that for her? You wore the same clothes and didn't shave or bathe for 3 days after you got fired, for her? You slept with your much hotter secretary over a period of 11 months, for her?

I'm all for being loving and treating a lady right but as I already mentioned, making grand promises only sets you up for failure later. Just tell the girl that you love her. Perhaps you'd walk 500 miles and then walk 500 miles more for a girl but I suspect after you make a good first impression you'll resort to a more sensible form of transportation the next time.