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I don’t hate stupid people. There are plenty of really, very dumb people out there who are utterly harmless in their monumental stupidity. Like this weekend, I was down in Lincoln City and I went to Papa Murphy’s to get a couple of pizzas and the guy running the register was quite possible less qualified to hold his position of employment than the bin of Italian sausage moldering under florescent lights that he shook out over the top of what was supposed to be my cheese pizza. When I pointed out that the accepted recipe for cheese pizza didn’t include Italian sausage, nor did it allow for the diced tomatoes he was about to pepper my pizza with, he looked up at me as though I had just asked him to calculate the area of Pennsylvania. It was a look of confusion mixed with irritation and embarrassment with a strong undercurrent of desire to use his pinky to pick lint from his belly button and eat it. And after the synapses in the vacant haunted mansion he calls a skull finally creaked back to life, he started over and managed not to inadvertently add any unnecessary ingredients to my pizza. But I don’t begrudge him because his is the byproduct of a life in the heavy atmosphere of complete failure that wafts in on the ocean breezes and festers in everyone who lives in Lincoln City. It’s like getting angry at the monkeys for flinging poo and masturbating at the zoo. It’s just their nature. But stupid people who try to play off their stupidity as a conscious decision to dumb down so as to appeal to “the masses” irritate the shit out of me. The levels of narcissism involved in people like this are staggering. And there is nothing worse than a stupid narcissist. Because no matter how hard you try, no matter how convincing your argument, you can never persuade a stupid narcissist that they aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are because neither their narcissism nor their stupidity will allow the truth. So we’ll all have to be satisfied face-palming in frustration as Courtney Love claims that she dumbed down her lyrics so they didn’t fly over our stupid heads. She even rewrote one of her new songs called, 'Skinny Little Bitch' because it wasn't stupid enough and she was afraid of appearing too clever. She said, "I went to the site of the World Trade Centre at 3am and rewrote the song so it wouldn't be clever-clever. It's just completely visceral, kind of stupid. And it's really, really important to keep that stupid part of yourself alive, otherwise you start getting all smart and growing stupid facial hair. Including me. I shave every day." And as I’m sure you could tell by the symmetrical track marks on her arm and the way in which she tries at least ten different takes when flashing her depleted ham wallet in public, she’s a bit of a perfectionist. That notwithstanding she’s releasing this new piece of shit album anyhow. She says, "I'm a crazy perfectionist. I'm never ever gonna put this out unless it comes out. So I'm putting it out."
And a brief update to the Jay Reatard story. If you will recall the original press release, Jay supposedly “died in his sleep” and was found early in the morning last Tuesday. Well, apparently what constitutes “died in his sleep” is a pretty broad spectrum that could include sleeping peacefully as a knife is sunk into your sternum, having a catnap as an axe is plunged into your skull or had your veins pumped full of Draino until your heart gets excessively sleepy and takes a few hours off from beating. That’s because Memphis police are reportedly treating this as a homicide case and are asking the public if they have any details about Jay’s death that could lead to a suspect. No further info has come out about the cause of Jay’s death, but I think we can probably rule out old age.
We start out with a story brought to our attention by Byron Beck and unfortunately it's a sad one. Jay Reatard is dead. The aptly, albeit retrospectively inappropriately named Goner Records writes, "It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public." He was 29 years old. Reatard was found in his home at 3:30 am yesterday morning. I have to admit I’m curious about this “died in his sleep” explanation. I don’t know this guy at all so I don’t know if he was the hard partying type that gets high on whatever powdered substance happens to get past around, but considering that the man chose to get famous by branding himself as “Reatard” for all time I would have to guess that judgment impairing substances probably played a large part in the guy’s life. No word on what, if any plans he had for disposal of his mortal remains, but it is speculated that if he is interred in a burial plot that the grave marker will probably be popular amongst camera wielding stoners who want to get a picture making hurr-durr faces next to the big “Reatard” sign. It is possible that his family (most likely his mother) will choose not to let their child to be known for eternity as Reatard and choose instead to mark his grave with his birth name, Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr.
And either Shavo from System is fucking dumb of he’s a fucking liar, and possibly both. See, when a guy with millions of fans, whose band is for all intents and purposed broken up, goes on his favorite social networking site and says “Are u guys ready for some System?” one would expect that he’s doing that to tease the reunion of his band. Right? I mean, if I walked up to Byron and said, “Are you ready for some cock in your mouth?” he would expect, no demand, that I immediately drop my pants and begin punishing his tonsils with my salty glans. But if I failed to produce all four inches of my German engineering, saying instead, “Dude, I was just asking. I didn’t mean mine. I simply mean are you ready, in general, for a big veiny wiener in your mouth,’ he would feel teased, cheated and used. And that’s pretty much what Shavo just did to his fans. He dangled System’s dong and then yoinked it back through the pee hole just as the fans were reaching out to grab it. On Tuesday he tweeted, "Are u guys ready for System?" The implication is clearly System is coming back out hiatus. He later wrote, "About my 'are u guys ready for System?'... I'm not sayin we are back but, if so, U guys ready? Sorry for gettin u guys amped. I'm just seeing."
I’m going to call it right now, the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland is going to suck. And I mean hard. Now, the internet has been all aflame ever since clips and stills started coming out a few months back. I don’t have an issue with the computer generated environment or the seemingly flat, lifeless appearance of many of the characters or the fact that Burton seems to be incapable of making a movie without Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. I don’t think any one of those things is enough to shove this movie into the neighborhood of hard sucking. In fact, I think all the other Burton crutches will work to counteract any downside that may come from those perceived drawbacks. You’ll still have quirky characters in the heavy fabrics of the Victorian era, you’ll still have dialogue ready made for any 14-year-old Goth girl’s journal and you’ll still have, well, Johnny Depp who, despite his ubiquity in Burton’s filmography, is a great actor and can usually salvage a character who in other less Depp-y hands would destroy a movie. Plus, Alice in Wonderland will be available in 3-D, which will probably make that CG environment look pretty damn cool. So what could possibly make this movie, a movie that should otherwise be a serviceable and possibly visually impressive Burton flick, a steaming pile of regurgitated suck? The soundtrack. Now, unlike just about every other Burton movie, this film will come with a traditional Hollywood soundtrack. In the past, Burton movie soundtracks have typically been comprised of a darkly goofy Danny Elfman score with the occasional pop song tacked on because it was used in a memorable scene. This one will be pop and rock stars contributing their covers of songs from the original animated Alice. The list of artists has been released. Tell me where you think it goes off the rails. Robert Smith of the Cure, Franz Ferdinand, Wolfmother, All American Rejects, Plain White Tees, Tokio Hotel, Avril Lavigne, Mark Hoppus and Pete Wentz and Shinedown.
Living in Portland has its hazards. Every corner presents the possibility of getting berated by a scruffy homeless person because you weren’t willing to contribute to their very obvious paint thinner and dog turd habit. Whole sections of town are off limits if you drive a car that gets worse that 30 miles to the gallon due the roving gangs of neo-hippies armed with eggs and protest placards, unless said vehicle has a VW symbol on the front, is shaped like a bright orange loaf of bread and smells like a rotting dog corpse stuffed with ditch weed. And then there are other whole sections of town where one is under constant threat of a withering hipster sneer in the event that you happen to be wearing a fashion that was popular at any other point in time than the last 25 minutes. But hey, that’s what makes Portland weird, or at least that’s what the backs of the Subaru station wagons in Laurelhurst keep telling me. But it is also this environment of general batshit craziness that attracts artist types to hang out and make cool shit. Like musicians, for instance. Over the last ten years more famous established musicians have moved here than our over-worked population of butt-huffing homeless people can berate. Just as they’re starting to ramp up on Ben Gibbard, Johnny Marr strolls by, utterly disrupting Stinky McWildeye’s flow. And just as he about to recover by launching into an anti-Smiths screed, along comes Issac Brock of Modest Mouse. Well, another full-time famous resident is pulling in even more famous-types for the purpose of making a middle-aged alt-rock supergroup. REM’s Peter Buck moved here a few years back and has attracted Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody and Belle and Sebastian’s Richard Coburn to the area to form a band called Tired Pony. It is apparently in the alt-country vein, which should be interesting to hear with Lightbody’s very obvious Irish brogue.
We all recall the horror show that was the summer of 1999. No I’m not talking about Phantom Menace, nor am I talking about the 30th anniversary of Woodstock. What I’m referring to can be summed up in 1 word said once, partially started three times and said once again. “Thong tha-tha-tha thong.” For a summer the world was enthralled by a song essentially reducing the act of romantic interaction to what one would expect from 5th graders. “Let me see your undies. Un-un-un-un undies.” As if there was something especially enchanting about a woman who can ignore the feeling of a strip of fabric dragging across her butthole all day long. And actually I’m pretty grossed out by thongs because you know those things aren’t pristine when they’re finally pried free from the dirt trench at the end of a long day. And for the last decade Sisqo, the author of the epic masterpiece that demanded that every woman in the world show him the thin swatch of shit-smeared nylon that was wedged between her meat flaps, has been kicking back and enjoying the spoils of having a one hit wonder. Oh. That and fucking a 14-year-old. Yes, it appears that Sisqo’s next hit may likely be “Show me your bra, your training bra-b-b-b bra.” To be fair to Mr. Sisqo, it’s not like he’s been fucking 14-year-olds for the past 10 years, but it does appear that the first thing he did after scoring his insipid little hit was to celebrate by committing statutory rape. But that’s not all! Don’t forget to pick up Sisco’s latest hit, “She had a kid. An illegitimate statutory rape ki-ki-ki-ki- kid.” A Swiss court has decided Sisqo is the father of the child which resulted from a sexual encounter he had with a Kenyan-born girl he met at a VIP reception following a concert in Zurich in 1999.
And how would you like some brand new Jimi Hendrix music. Well it’s just a simple matter of going to your computer, downloading the schematics for a time-traveling Delorean, heading down to your local Delorean dealership, robbing some Iranian terrorists with a handy supply of loose Uranium, calibrating your flux capacitor so that you not only land in the correct place in time but the correct place in space, since as we know time and space are directly connected, going back in time isn’t enough, you also have to find the Earth in its orbit around the sun once you’re back there. And once you do all that it’s just a simple matter of kicking in Hendrix’s hotel room door and slapping the wine bottle out of his hand before he’s able to shotgun the whole thing. Or to stop the ex-manager from dumping the wine down his throat as was alleged by a former roadie trying to sell a book last year. THEN Hendrix will live long enough to write some new material. Simple. But, if you’re fine just hearing some really old music that’s been tucked away in a vault for the last 40 years, I have good news. The tapes from Jimi Hendix’s final recording sessions have been found and will be released on March 9th on an album called Valleys of Neptune. Valleys of Neptune will include 12 tracks recorded at various studios including a never released song called “Valleys of Neptune” and studio versions of Hendrix’s covers of “Bleeding Heart” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” plus rerecorded versions “Fire,” “Red House” and “Stone Free.”
If you’ve been saving your “Choose Life” shirt and special cock-enhancing white denim jeans in the off chance that Wham gets back together, go ahead and drop them in the mail to Byron Beck because you won’t be needing them anymore. That’s because George Michael, not Bluth, the other one, says that he’s more likely to get aroused by an Amy Winehouse lap dance than tour under the Wham banner again. Taking a moment away from manning the glory hole at the Gloucester truck stop on the M5 in England, George says that the reason isn’t the typical “I hate my ex-bandmates” sort of explanation. It’s actually a respectable reason. He’s too old. Michael says, "Wham! was about being young and exuberant and you can't recreate that feeling at a certain age. Andrew Ridgeley and I are still good friends but I'm afraid we'll never get back together. We both agree on that." Ridgeley, seen stuffing a summer squash in his pants and feathering out his remaining hair to the respectable 80’s proportions was quoted as saying, “The fuck?”
Why do people always have to try ruin everything for me? First the so-called "authorities" tell me I can't use my Spyhunter oil slick attachment on my bike so that when spandex-wearing Lance Armstrong wannabes start drafting on me coming across the Hawthorne Bridge I can put them in the Willamette River with a flick of a switch. And then these so-called authorities tell me I can't hop up on the rail and drop a deuce on the Tour de Fucko while he shouts expletives at me from 60 feet below. Like that biker douche didn't just land on a pillow of shit pouring out the nearest sewage pipe. That turd's gonna end up in the river one way or the other, I'm just saving it the trip through the pipes. And now some bastards in New York are trying to keep me from spending time with my future fourth wife, Norah Jones. For those of you keeping track at home, Rachel Weiss will be my second wife, Katee Sackhoff will be my third and Norah will be my fourth. Norah is remodeling her house in New York which is some sort of historic Greek styled thingy. One of the sides of her house is a solid wall with no windows, which she is trying to remedy with a little remodel that will cut in ten windows allowing me an unobstructed view inside from the birch tree in her back yard. But these cockblocking tight asses had to go running to the city to complain that because it's a historic neighborhood and that certain architectural restrictions prevent her from the remodel. Norah has acquiesced and decided to remove 3 windows from the original 10 widow plan effectively reducing my chance of seeing her inadvertently standing naked in full view of the back yard at which point I would throw a rock at the window and flash her my dick and she'd be so impressed that she'd immediately invite me in to rut like feral wildebeests. I'm actually considering suing the neighborhood association. I mean, if by some chance that I don't drill Norah Jones like an Iraqi desert, it's their fault. Because I know that once she sees me dangling pantsless from her shrubberies that she will immediately want to know what my wiener tastes like. I do have a backup plan, of course, because Norah also plans on installing a pool in the back yard. I'm thinking waiting until she's sunning herself on a pool float. I'll slip into the water, remove my shorts and back stroke toward her with a hard on and making the Jaws duh-duh, duh-duh, sound.
