Track Review: Iggy Azalea – “Fancy” featuring Charli XCX‏‏

Before we even get started, let me just preface this by saying I don’t intend to heap insane amounts of praise on this artist on this particular track.  The reason I’m looking into this is because recently somebody had told me there was a white female rapper from Australia that had shattered all sorts of records for sales of her most recent single.  She’s the first the first female rapper ever to have two songs concurrently in the top five of the Hot 100 chart, and to make a long story short she’s making someone an absolute fuckton of money.  Azalea is the only artist other than The Beatles to rank at numbers 1 and 2 simultaneously with their first two Hot 100 hits.  So I had to check it out, and took to YouTube to meet my maker.  This review is about the experience I had while examining the product, and it’s not exactly full of something that the artist would retweet.  Here’s what it looks like if you haven’t seen it.

Pretty rough, huh?  That’s why I’m considering pouring bleach into my eyes as of late.  But not everybody is as unforgiving as myself.  In fact, some people who get paid to generally hate on stuff like this are actually smoking its pole all the way home.  This is an actual quote from Wikipedia:   “Fancy” has received an overall positive reception from music critics. Brad Stern of MTV Buzzworthy remarked, “Not since Fergie‘s “Glamorous” has there been such a spectacularly sass-filled ode to the glam life,” praising their chemistry, calling it “a match made in heaven that we never would’ve expected.”

If you haven’t committed suicide yet, you’ll notice a couple of things:  The definition of “music critic” in this sense is very loose, and there’s a journalist out there who actually thinks “Glamorous” by Fergie isn’t the worst song on that record.  Iggy Azalea doesn’t really strike me as someone who is going to have a Madonna-like career.  But she is killing it right now, so I decided to take a look at the different aspects of “Fancy” and what makes it so it exotic.

The video:   This video is loosely based around the movie “Clueless”, which is some awful movie about Valley Girls living in the nineties that was made about 7 years too late.  Somebody really dropped the ball on that piece of shit.  All of the actresses in this movie are either not famous anymore or dead, which should tell you something about the lasting effect it has had on our culture.  (Editor’s note:  I’d also like to add here that there was no “Too Soon” bullshit with the Brittany Murphy death.   She didn’t exactly have Sinatra-like talent, and when she kicked it everybody was acting like it was the end of the world.  The second that shower curtain stopped moving it was hilarious, and everybody reading this knows that.  It’s been somewhere between two and ten years, get the fuck over it)  It’s not exactly the type of image that you’d want to convey in a song where you talk about how unbelievably hard you are.  There’s nothing tough about being in a high school hallway.  As far as I know, there’s not any sector of rap music where standing in front of a locker equals street cred.

The lyrics:

When I say “lyrics”, I stress that it’s a bit of a loose term.  It’s more like just a pool of buzzwords that teenage white girls use when describing things that don’t matter, completely oblivious that they are going to die of alcohol poisoning at a frat party a few years later.  Here are some choice cuts from this piece of shit and why they don’t work.

First thing’s first, I’m the realest (realest) Drop this and let the whole world feel it (let them feel it)

I can live with this.  It’s actually not a bad opening line.

And I’m still in the Murda Bizness…I can hold you down, like I’m givin’ lessons in physics (right, right)

So which one is it?  Are you a hitwoman or a science professor?  And what does science class have to do with holding it down?  Nobody in that room knows how to hold it down, and that’s why they’re in a science class in the first place.  And even if they are truly badasses, they’re only going to be there long enough to figure out how to make meth and then chances are you probably won’t see them the rest of the semester.  Also, you know who uses the word “Murda” spelled with an “A”?  Ja Rule.  I think I’ve made my point.

 

You should want a bad bitch like this (huh?) Drop it low and pick it up just like this (yeah)

But you’re not a bad bitch, you’re a white girl from Australia.  And you used to be a model.  No true hard chick from the streets can be a model.  There are scars everywhere and God didn’t put them there.  And why am I supposed to be impressed that you are familiar with how to properly bend down?  Is this an OSHA training course or some shit?

Cup of Ace, cup of Goose, cup of Cris

I believe this only if Cris is one of the bouncers.

Takin’ all the liquor straight, never chase that (never)   None of these girls drink hard liquor straight.  I don’t drink hard liquor straight.  Neither one of us drink it straight because we’re not toothless hillbillies.  I laugh when somebody tells me they drink shots straight.  What a pointless thing to brag about, and it’s not like I care anyway.  While you’re at it, would you mind sharing how poor your liver is currently functioning because you only drank straight forever so that you could say it in a rap song?  You can’t because you don’t drink liquor straight and you never have.

Rooftop like we bringin’ ’88 back (what?)

All of the following things happened in 1988:  George W. Bush the first was elected president of the United States, a terrorist bomb blew up a Pam Am 747 in Scotland killing all 259 passengers, the head of the NSA pleaded guilty in the Iran Contra case, Jimmy The Greek made a bunch of racial remarks about black athletes and was fired by CBS the next morning, two weeks later the Redskins won the Super Bowl, Lebanese terrorists kidnapped UN truce observer Lt. Colonel William Higgins and then hanged him, videotaped it and put it on TV, Iraq launched sixteen missiles into Tehran, and that was all in the first nine weeks.  Can anybody enlighten me as to why we’d want to relive that awful time period?  Because I can’t find one.  Also, you were born in 1990.  How are you going to bring back a time when you weren’t even alive?

Bring the hooks in, where the bass at?

Why are you asking me this?  You produced this track, if anybody should know where the bass is it’s you.  When a butcher drops off a load of fresh blood at the grocery store he doesn’t leave, come back ten minutes later, and go “Yo, where da meat at?”

Champagne spillin’, you should taste that

No thanks, I usually don’t drink off of the floor.  I’m weird like that.

I’m so fancy You already know I’m in the fast lane From L.A. to Tokyo

If I already knew, what’s the point of telling me again?  And just so we’re clear, there is no fast lane from LA to Tokyo.  I hate to break it to you, but it’s all water and you should know that.  Aren’t you from Australia?

I’m so fancy Can’t you taste this gold? Remember my name ‘Bout to blow

I don’t eat gold, rarely remember anyone’s name, and if you’re going to explode by this point I’m cool with it because this is just the end of the first verse and I’ve already come to terms with the fact that if you die that’s totally fine with me.

I said, “Baby, I do this, I thought that you knew this.” Can’t stand no haters and honest, the truth is

I don’t even know where to begin here.  Originally you told me that I knew you were fancy and dope, now a couple lines later you don’t know if I’m aware of this but you’re still going to remind me anyway?  The second half of this is so far away from being a real sentence it’s not even funny.

And my flow retarded, each beat did depart it

You got me there.  The second statement really reinforces the first one.

Swagger on super, I can’t shop at no department To get my money on time, if they not money, decline

I think part of my brain is leaking out of my head.  When I read this I could hear the cells in my cerebellum screaming “No!!!  Don’t kill us!  We’re still so young!!!”.  I guess it’s going to be really funny in five years when she has spent all of her money and burns the house down like Left Eye from TLC.  The more that I think about this chick, the more I hope her life story is similar to that one.

And swear I meant that there so much that they give that line a rewind So get my money on time, if they not money, decline

…

I just can’t worry ’bout no haters, gotta stay on my grind Now tell me, who that, who that? That do that, do that?

That’s not true.  You are worried about haters because just a few phrases back you said “Can’t stand no haters”, which is a sentence fragment AND Southern fried drivel.  You lose.

Put that paper over all, I thought you knew that, knew that I be that I-G-G-Y, put my name in bold I been working, I’m up in here with some change to throw

But you just said that you put paper over all.  What’s this about change?  Why even keep change?  Why not just lean out of the window in your “100% Bitch” tanktop and throw it at a homeless person?  At least they could get use from it.

Trash the hotel Let’s get drunk on the mini bar Make the phone call Feels so good getting what I want

The first half of this is standard, but this girl continues to lose points with me due to her acting hard.  If she was really a touch chick, she’d just come out and say “We’re getting some ecstasy” instead of dancing around it.  So unbelievably weak.  “Makes me feel good when I make a phone call…”  Go fuck yourself.

Yeah, keep on turning it up Chandelier swinging, we don’t give a fuck

I have yet to see one person successfully swing from the chandelier, save Kurt Cobain from the “Come as You Are” video.  There’s no need to say “turn it up” anymore either, we’re all aware of how volume control works.

Film star, yeah I’m deluxe Classic, expensive, you don’t get to touch Ow…

Here’s that reality thing coming back to get you though…you’re NOT a film star.  I’m sure that in a world where being a Kardashian gets you a Producer credit, that’s where you’re headed.  But in the meantime, you’re just some batshit insane girl who is still mentally somewhere around the age of 13.  Additionally the “film” that you’re referencing in the video sucks elephant dung on fire, so you lose there as well.  And what’s the “Ow!” for?  From the lyrical content, it obvious you’re running the show from start to finish…so what hurts so bad?

Still stunned, how you love that Got the whole world asking how I does that

This is the most severe manner in which I have ever heard one person accuse the entire planet of having awful grammar.

 

Hot girl, hands off, don’t touch that Look at it I bet you wishing you could clutch that

I’m actually fine with not having any STDs, and I usually don’t touch things that are burning anyway.  But thanks for looking out for me.

It’s just the way you like it, huh? You so good, he’s just wishing he could bite it, huh?

You can’t change who you’re talking to in any song without letting the audience know that you’re changing who you’re talking to.  The first line she is clearly talking to a man, while inarguably the second one suggests that she is talking to a woman thinking about a man.  And I guess that I’m not nearly as freaky as those in the hip-hop community, but there’s not a whole lot of biting going on in my life.  Scratching yes, biting no.

Never turn down money

Slaying these hoes, gold trigger on the gun like

Who that, who that, I-G-G-Y

That do that, do that, I-G-G-Y

Who that, who that, I-G-G-Y

About to Blow

“Never turn down money” seems like it would be a good slogan for someone who is working the corner, looking to scrape every dollar they can together to get more money for bad jewelry or bunk decks.  But if it’s in the context of a rap song about how fancy you are, it kind of contradicts everything you just blew three minutes talking about.  Also, nobody would ever dare having a gold plated trigger on a gun – It’s just a waste of precious metals.  The “about to blow” line would work if it was in past tense, because that’s clearly what she had to do to get T.I. to release this piece of shit.

Overall Score:  0.99/10.00   You’re probably wondering why I gave this a point ninety-nine out of ten, so I should probably explain that I give a score of at least one to anyone that I consider to be a legit artist that just had a bad session.

Summary

As far as a structure, it’s catchy and I can’t argue that. It’s incredibly irritating, so that means that they’re onto something because that’s how pop music works. But what pisses me off is the fact that it builds but nothing ever happens in the end. I keep waiting for this track to do something interesting but it never gets busier than the first four bars of Neneh Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance”.  That’s bad company, and I can’t deny.

I also thought it was weird that the artist who is “featured” on this track (Charlie XCX) seems to get just about as much mic time as Iggy does.  She does every verse as well as the bridge.  These two are literally going to fight each other until the death, and that’s fine with me.

The point of all this is:  Talk about what you know.  If what you are talking about isn’t getting hepatitis C, bulimia or shopping, people probably aren’t going to believe it.

THE WEAK IN REVIEW, OR “COMMENTS ON TWO OF THE WEEK’S EVENTS THAT I HOPE DON’T SHAPE OUR WORLD”

Obviously this was a tough week for those of us who write about sports and entertainment as Tuesday we lost legendary linebacker Junior Seau due to an apparent suicide, and on Friday we learned that MCA of the Beastie Boys finally succumbed to cancer.  We wish the families of those individuals strength and hope during this very difficult time.   
 
But, I’m sure that people who are into this more are focused on their passing and will do a much better job than I will chronicling their lives, so I’m going to go ahead and use this space to do what I do best:  Sit here with my jaw on the space bar and hope what I’m reading isn’t real.  Here are two news stories that happened this week that I had sadly wished were links to “The Onion”, but in fact were two real occurrences:
 
1)  New Jersey Woman accused of hauling a 6 year old into a tanning salon

“Mommy looks like chocolate! Chocolate is yummy!”

 
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57425720/nj-mom-arrested-over-6-year-olds-alleged-tanning-visit/
 
44 year old Patricia Krentcil was charged with second degree child endangerment after her 6 year old daughter went to the school nurse complaining about a burn on her leg.  When the nurse asked where she got it from, she said “I go tanning with mommy.”
 
Okay, let’s discuss this for a moment:  The woman is saying that she has never or would never put her six year daughter in a tanning bed.  That’s her side of the story.  And my guess would be that the tanning salon’s argument would be “we don’t allow anyone under the age of 14 to use a tanning bed”.  So let’s just assume that’s the angle they’re going with and rip that apart. 
 
Just because it’s against the law to do something doesn’t mean that it won’t be done.  Teenagers buy alcohol and tobacco before the legal age limit all of the time.  The kids know which shops will not card them, and word gets around.  The shopkeeper gets his money, and since his liquor store smells like curry, he knows no undercover cop would ever dare go in there.  I hear a similar line of bullshit when it comes to driving a car without a license or insurance:  “You can’t drive a car without a license or valid proof of insurance” – Bullshit.  If you can get in the car, turn the key, and the fucking thing starts, it makes that entire statement invalid.  I’ll come back and disprove myself later on in this piece. 
 
I’d be willing to bet that whoever was running that tanning salon on that particular afternoon wasn’t doing their best work looking out for the safety of that child.  And the reason I say that is because the types of people who work in those tanning salons are obsessed with self image and probably have their head buried in Cosmopolitan or some other magazine that is telling them to abandon all of their social skills and spend 22 hours a day making sure they look “fabulous”.  There’s probably a lot of blame to go around, but I would guess the people that work at the tanning salon weren’t watching these two like a hawk.  
 
Back to Ms. Krentcil herself – even if she can present a case in court, could you imagine the initial conversation between her and the judge if our culture wasn’t so concerned with due process?

44 years young and doesn’t look a day under crazy…

JUDGE:  Ms. Krentcil, the State of New Jersey has charged you with the crime of child endangerment in the second degree, how do you plead?
 
KRENTCIL:  Not guilty, your honor.
 
JUDGE:  Okay, we’ll…wait a minute, did you say not guilty?  (After looking at her badly burnt mug)
 
KRENTCIL:  Yes, your honor, not guilty.
 
JUDGE:  Ms. Krentcil, with all due respect, the state gives you the right to plead “guilty” or “not guilty” as you wish, but if you plead not guilty the jurors are likely going to laugh you out of the fucking courtroom.  Are you aware of this?
 
KRENTCIL:  Yes, I did nothing wrong to harm my daughter. 
 
JUDGE:  All right, fair enough.  I just want to warn you ahead of time that there are no tanning beds in county lockup…
 
KRENTCIL:  In that case, can I change my plea?
 
But, just when you thought she couldn’t possibly get any more arrogant, Friday morning she his us with this blast via CBS News:
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57427817-504083/tanning-mom-patricia-krentcil-blasts-her-critics-theyre-jealous-theyre-fat-and-theyre-ugly/
 
I’m going to save the most obvious insult here because none of this is the child’s fault at all.  Her mother on the other hand, is fair game. 
You look at that picture and tell me that you’re jealous of some wackjob white woman who basically looks like she’s walking around in broad daylight painted in blackface.  Who would ever be jealous of that? I think she looks awful – her teeth are a complete mess and if anyone fell off of the ugly tree it’s most certainly her.  And where does being fat have anything to do with this?  Do tanning beds magically burn fat?  Is this something I missed?   

It always blows me away when people who are facing certain jailtime feel the need to publicly insult other people as if it’s going to help their case.  How can you go from “The facts will come out and I will be exonerated” to “Y’all are nasty!” within less than 72 hours? 
 
2)  Woman who takes daughter to zoo in what’s essentially a zebra costume

Come on, people…

 
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/babys-zebra-hoodie-attracts-hungry-lion-oregon-zoo-135549930–abc-news-parenting.html

So in a nutshell, this woman put her 13 month old son right up next to the lion cage in a black and white striped hoodie.  For those of you who don’t know much about cats, they are colorblind.  Since a majority of these animals were raised watching their parents devour zebras in a shower of blood, they naturally think that everything with white and black stripes should be eaten.  Now, for those of you who don’t know a lot about zebras, they’re pretty much black and white striped horses that are nothing but food for larger animals in the wild. 

I do realize here that the glass at the Portland Zoo was probably about three inches thick and it’s almost unthinkable to imagine an animal that strong could ever break through it, even with those big paws.  That’s not really the point.  You wouldn’t put your child in that situation for any reason.  You’d likely know that the second the cat saw your child, he’d be horrified.  But not according to Heather Baltzor, the mother in this case.  Read this excerpt: 

It was only after a video of a hungry lion aggressively trying to paw at her son through a glass-paned wall went viral that she realized perhaps a hoodie that made her son look like a zebra was not the best zoo attire.

“Not until after we got home and put the video on Facebook, We just thought it was hilarious.”

(Faceplant)   Don’t you think maybe you should go to the zoo by yourself first or read about which animals eat the other ones and then make the decision about how not to do dress your kid?

“She must have thought he looked very tasty,” she said.

 Up until this moment I never realized why the smh (shake my head) acronym may have been necessary.  Now I know what that’s for. 

“He [Jack] loves kitties, so he was waving and saying, ‘Hi kitty kitty…,'” said Baltzor.  “We weren’t scared at all.”

Right, but it’s not a kitty.  It’s a fucking mountain lion.  Let’s not confuse ourselves here to make excuses.  My cat may not be the friendliest thing on the planet, but it’s not going to kill anything bigger than a moth.  

Killed Something much bigger than a moth

I enjoy going to the zoo myself as I love animals, but I have to admit it does break my heart a little bit when I see all of these animals that are supposed to be running in the wild caged up for public display.  It makes for a very bizarre and archaic situation, and I can’t help but thing that taunting these animals (whether intending to do so or not) only makes things much worse.  And I don’t want to suggest that no one should take their kids to the zoo, because zoos are full of a lot of useful information that we can use to draw parallels to our own species.  But if you are going to go to the zoo and take your children, DON’T DRESS THEM UP LIKE ANIMALS THAT ARE PREY.  That should be a given, nobody should have to tell you that. 
 
What did we learn from all of this?

If we learned anything, it’s that I’m a hypocrite.  Take for instance the example of car insurance earlier.  Maybe we shouldn’t do everything that we can do.  I think that’s where a lot of these instances of the “unplanned” raising (or not) of kids comes from.  I might be a hypocrite, but I also don’t plan on having any kids anytime soon, and it should be viewed as a sign of respect.  I guess I’m just out of the loop.   But to my defense, that loop seems to include an awful lot of child neglect these days .
 
Bonus Comment: 

Since both of these issues seem to be the cause of bad parenting, I’d like to add one more tidbit of my own personal opinion.  Recently I was alarmed to learn that one third of all women have admitted to lying about taking birth control to their partner.  One third?  That’s almost as disturbing as our literacy rate.  One in every three women may have not been honest about the fact that my wages may end up being garnished to pay child support for the next eighteen years?  That should be horrifying to anything that has chest hair.  If that number should ever get up around 40%, I’m putting my dick in a safety deposit box, because I can’t afford to toy with those odds.  Plus, I’ve rubbed my dong on just about everything at the bank anyway and I could probably get away with renting one of the smaller boxes. 

But seriously if we’re going to raise kids in this country, maybe a heightened awareness couldn’t hurt.  And maybe we need to think about if we’re even READY to be parents.  I know I’m not.

NFL WEEK SEVEN WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan

For the most part week seven brought us some very poor football. There appears to be a little bit of controversy over what was said or what wasn’t said by Cliff Avril and Ndamokang Suh after they sacked Matt Ryan and it looked as though he was going to be injured badly. As fate would have it, Ryan is fine and Suh and Avril are getting blasted on the air and will likely face some sort of fines. Oh, and Vikings defensive end Brian Robison kicked Packers guard square in the crotch, there’s very little debate about that because it was captured on film. Let’s take a look at what else went down:

Bears 24, Buccaneers 18

This game was played in London, England and we gave the Brits a good product this time. Matt Forte is hands down the NFC Offensive player of the week, with 145 rushing yards and a touchdown. Cutler didn’t have a great day, but was able to run the offense well even though I’m sure he’s still not cool with all the play calling. Chicago almost let this one get away, thankfully Josh Freeman is still very much in the developmental stage of NFL quarterbacking. Devin Hester caught 4 balls for 46 yards, which should excite you if you’re a Bears fan because it means they’re trying to work him into the offense more. He can’t run a reverse to save his life though, maybe it’s too obvious the ball is coming his way.

Chiefs 28, Raiders 0

Yep, you read that right. I have to admit I had no idea this was going down. Oakland used both Kyle Boller and Carson Palmer, switching to the latter in the third quarter. Each threw three picks (one pick six each) and looked very shaky at best, and combined for a QBR of 19.8. The Chiefs are back to .500 but trust me, they’re really nowhere near that good. This is a rough loss for the Raiders because this is one that could literally destroy their whole year. Think about it: They got shutout at home by four touchdowns against a Chiefs team whose quarterback went 15 for 30 and passed for only 161 yards. They deserve all the shit that will be talked about them this week and then some. End transmission.

Broncos 18, Dolphins 15

To be brutally honest with you, even though Tim Tebow engineered a great come from behind victory in this one we didn’t really learn any new information about him. We already knew he was a tireless worker and wouldn’t give up, and that he is a born leader. Beating the Dolphins in overtime doesn’t really show me a whole lot. The biggest question mark here is why Tony Sporano decided to go for the two point conversion instead of the extra point, which would have won the Miami the game. I don’t give a shit what that chart says, if it’s a 6-0 game through three quarters and both teams are struggling to get across the field, you settle for having 13 points and you’re happy with it. I expect Sporano to be fired here sooner rather than later, and personally I think he’s trying to expedite the whole process.

Texans 41, Titans 7

I told you the Titans were toy. And I knew that once the Texans’ schedule eased up they’d be able to show people what they were truly capable of. I wasn’t exactly sure who Tennessee thought they were kidding besides themselves thinking they could actually win the division, even with the Colts playing as poorly as they have been playing. Arian Foster caught a screen pass that he took 78 yards to the house, proving that a running back that can catch short passes can end up being the most valuable player on your roster. Schaub shut a lot of his fairweather haters up in this one.

Browns 6, Seahawks 3

If you pay money to get into see a pro football game, somebody better score a touchdown. But then again, if you paid money to see the Browns play the Seahawks, I don’t really have a whole lot of sympathy for you to begin with. The stat sheet from this game is nothing short of hilarious. I was watching NFL Live earlier and there was a receiver from the Browns that caught a pass in Seahawks territory and the promptly got up and made the move all of the receivers are making where they mimic the official’s first down signal, only he did it in the wrong direction. That was pretty much this entire game in a nutshell.

Steelers 32, Cardinals 20

When Ken Wisenhunt wakes up this morning he’s going to have a lot of thinking to do. The Arizona Cardinals are 1-5 and it looks as if they are stuck with a quarterback that is in way over his head. Kevin Kolb is missing easy throws and looks very uncomfortable. He’s not exactly getting fantastic pass protection all of the time, but even when he is it still looks like he doesn’t have a very good concept of the overall pace of the game. The team as a whole is in a very rough spot when you consider that San Francisco is running away from the other three teams in a division where there’s absolutely no chance of producing a wild card whatsoever. Ben Roethlisberger had a hell of a day, going 26 for 39 and throwing for 361 yards. But this was a game that I expected them to win, and I’m sure they will find it to be more of a test next week when the New England Patriots come to town.

Packers 33, Vikings 27

As formidable as the Packers look in the win column, teams are slowly finding ways to expose their weaknesses but in the end it never seems to be enough. Minnesota controlled the first half of this game and the Packers had me legitimately worried. Aaron Rodgers completed his first 13 passes, and the fourteenth was placed perfectly in Randall Cobb’s hands but he dropped it. For the life of me I can’t figure out how Green Bay only scored 33 points here. They were behind the entire first half, but what I really like about the Packers is they remain calm when those types of things happen and end up on top. Christian Ponder made a couple good throws but overall he only completed 13 of 32 so he’s got a lot of work to do.

Jets 27, Chargers 21

It’s safe to say that the team that needed the victory the most prevailed here. Whereas this didn’t have to be a game that the Chargers expected to win, Rex’s Jets had to have this one and they were lucky enough to mount a comeback. The Chargers can afford this loss especially when you consider what happened to the Raiders. But they are going to likely keep it in idle and coast their way to another AFC West Championship. I heard a really, really dumb quote from San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers after the game. He said something along the lines of “For the last six months everybody’s been talking about how the regular season doesn’t matter, and now everybody wants to talk about the regular season all of a sudden”. Couple things about that verbal abortion: If you don’t play well in the regular season, chances are that you aren’t going to get to the playoffs to begin with. Also, the media is concerned with what’s happening right now…BECAUSE THEY ARE THE FUCKING MEDIA AND THAT’S THEIR DAMN JOB. If the playoffs were in progress right now, everybody would be discussing that. And for as much as these guys say that they ignore what the media is saying, they sure seem to be well-versed with what’s been said about them the second they start losing. And here’s another reason I don’t play fantasy football: Think about how many people benched Plaxico Burress this week instead of someone else. He would finish with three touchdowns on the day.

Falcons 23, Lions 16

And just like that, the Lions have lost two straight home games. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time considering the Bears are now red hot. I’m hearing some debate on sports talk radio today about whether or not the Lions are a dirty team. I don’t think they are necessarily a dirty team collectively but I think a couple of those guys (and yes, Suh is one of them) need to scale back the excessive celebration. It’s just a sack anyway, it’s not like it’s a Safety in the Super Bowl. I understand that some of them are pumped, but seriously…settle down. The real news here is that the Lions could be in real trouble as Matthew Stafford might have injured his ankle on the last series. (As of Monday night coach Jim Schwarz is saying he’s day to day) As for the Falcons, they have no real reason to change their gameplan. Give the ball to Michael Turner between 20 to 30 times every game, then split everything in the air between White (who made a hell of a touchdown catch Sunday), Douglas (who is a bit of a third wheel but is playing excellent football right now), and Tony Gonzalez (who passed Cris Carter on the all time receptions list and is now number two). Monday their coach Mike Smith gave them an entire seven days off due to their bye week next Sunday.

Panthers 33, Redskins 20

So Washington played very poor defense in this game. Looking back on it I can’t really say that this was even an upset. The Redskins aren’t nearly as good as they appeared to be a couple of weeks ago. And while they had previously been able to avoid the injury bug that had bitten other teams so severely, they’re in real trouble because they just lost leading rusher Tim Hightower for the rest of the year to a torn ACL. It’s a shame because he was having a great season. Now, let’s look at Carolina. Previously on the Cam Newton show, he had been putting up some great stats but not getting the Ws. Sunday he went 18 for 23 with no picks and they got the win. Go figure.

Cowboys 34, Rams 7

Rookie running back DeMarco Murray rushed for 253 yards against the Rams, which was a franchise record. While 253 yards is usually a pretty large number that you would expect to be a franchise record, remember that this is a Dallas franchise that in the past employed the services of both Tony Dorsett and Emmitt Smith. That’s the fascinating thing to me, that neither one of those guys ever had a game where they had that many rushing yards. The passing game looked to be spread around pretty well: Both Jason Witten and Dez Bryant had a touchdown. Other than that, nothing much to see here as I expected Dallas to win big.

Saints 62, Colts 7

I actually enjoyed watching this even though it was a blowout. The “Suck For Luck” campaign has started for sure. For a moment, I thought the Saints might actually make it to seventy. You know a game is getting out of hand in the middle of the season when a team pulls their starting quarterback before the third quarter ends. Drew Brees had 5 touchdown passes and passed for a measly 325 yards, and Sproles would have had a lot more than 88 on the ground if they had actually needed a running game. Marques Colston also have seven receptions, two of which were touchdowns. Hopefully Mark Ingram’s bruised heel won’t be a long term issue for the team in the weeks to comes.

Jaguars 12, Ravens 7

I have to take serious issue with this because Baltimore was my dark horse. Explain to me how this works: The Ravens beat the Texans, but lose to the Jaguars AND the Titans? I don’t understand that. Jones Drew had 105 yards and Scobee kicked 4 field goals and that’s all it takes to beat the team that a lot of analysts were saying was the 2nd best team in the league Monday morning? I’m very, very disappointed in the Ravens. I think age might be finally catching up with them.

Bonus Comment for the week:

Since “Suck For Luck” seems to be a popular tending topic on Twitter, I’ll go ahead and address it now. And now is a great time to address it because I don’t want this bullshit clogging up the internet week fifteen when we should be spending our time discussing good teams that are vying for playoff positioning. There are three teams that are currently winless in the NFL: The Colts, the Rams, and the Dolphins. The Rams can’t be the worst team because their schedule is pretty tough this year. And it can’t be the Colts, because even with Manning on the bench, they’re still a very talented football team that employs the likes of Dallas Clark, Dwight Freeney, and Robert Mathis. The Dolphins are easily the worst team in the NFL. They have no idea who they want to be their quarterback, they play like shit at home, and have one of the worst coaches in the history of professional sports. So at the moment, they deserve Andrew Luck the most. They certainly are doing their best to suck, that’s for sure.

We are East End Philadelphia and we don’t fuck around.

Meehan

NFL WEEK SIX WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan
 
The NFL is unpredictable this year:  The Indianapolis Colts are 0-6 and the San Francisco 49ers are 5-1.  Thus proving that this is hardly an exact science and the playoffs are going to look much different than a lot of us expected. 

The team that suffered the most severe injury this week was the Oakland Raiders, who lost Jason Campbell for the remainder of the season due to a broken collarbone.  From everything I’m hearing today the Raiders are doing everything in their power to try and convince the Bengals to trade Carson Palmer to salvage their season.  Although I’ve thought that Cincinnati’s front office has been extremely stubborn with the way they’ve held on to Palmer, I’m flip-flopping here and saying they shouldn’t make the trade because of how similar those two teams are.  Think about it:  Both teams are 4-2 and it’s highly unlikely either of them will win their respective divisions.  That might mean that they’re going to be fighting for one of the two remaining playoff spots (the other one will likely be filled by someone from the AFC East) so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense from a strategic standpoint to essentially give Palmer to a team they might find themselves head to head with week seventeen.  I’ve also heard that they are going to take a look at David Garrard, but it’s going to have to be a very long and hard look to see both where his focus has been and how much weight he’s put on since the Jaguars cut him in August.  If that doesn’t work out they’re going to have to drop down to the next level and start surveying the Trent Edwards-type players and maybe even some CFL starters now that their season is winding down. 

Let’s take a look around the rest of the league and see what happened in week six. 
 
Patriots 20, Cowboys 16
 
Tom Brady did not have a great game in this one.  But as he’s done so many times, he led his team down the field with two minutes to go and left virtually no time on the clock for Dallas to retaliate.  There’s a certain awareness of the pace of the game that all of the greats have had.  Montana had it, Elway had it, and Brady’s got it too.  They only scored twenty points and he had two picks, but he always brings it with the game on the line.  Dallas really didn’t play poorly, but they were expecting to see much more disorderly defensive schemes than what New England showed them on Sunday. 
 
Giants 27, Bills 24
 
This was an awfully intense matchup from start to finish and thank God the Giants won.  The two long touchdown runs that the Bills had worry me not just because New York is prone to giving up big plays, but also because both guys ran into the endzone completely untouched.  But when the smoke cleared, the Giants were on top in the NFC East.  Ryan Fitzpatrick made a very key mistake late in the game throwing an interception to Corey Webster on a drive that could have very easily sealed the win for Buffalo.  The Giants’ problem here is you can’t always wait for the other team to make such an obvious mistake in order to set yourself up to win.  You have to actually go out and put yourself in position to do so. 
 
Packers 24, Rams 3
 
Other than the Jordy Nelson touchdown there was really nothing to see here.  I expected the Packers to win by more but a win is a win.  I thought the AJ Hawk thing was funny, flipping off his own sideline.  People need to lighten the fuck up anyway.  Coach McCarthy was trying to downplay the offense getting shut out in the second half, but I find it hard to believe that he didn’t give the whole “OK guys, we’re up by 21, let’s just make sure that nobody gets hurt here and still win.”  I’d give that speech, it’s not like the Rams could overcome a 21 point deficit against even the second stringers on a Super Bowl champion team.  And that Super Bowl champion team is the only undefeated team left in the NFL. 
 
Bengals 27, Colts 17
 
The Bengals are 4-2 and playing some good football behind Andy Dalton.  They won’t win the division I can guarantee you that, but at least they are giving the fans something interesting to watch.  The Colts seem to get worse every week.  Dallas Clark’s one handed touchdown grab was pretty impressive, but something tells me it didn’t really mean a lot to him.  And I’m sure the two late turnovers didn’t perk up his mood either. 
 
Ravens 29, Texans 14
 

Baltimore = Meehan’s Dark Horse.  It’s time for people to start taking the Ravens seriously.  Of course it’s their defense, we all know by now that’s their bread and butter.  But on the other side of the football, Ray Rice is slowly making himself a household name.  He’s a great all purpose back because he can run those short routes and break one for a twenty or thirty yard gain if the opposing team isn’t expecting it to be thrown this way.  If I was playing the Ravens anytime soon I’d certainly point that out in the film room as a lot of teams don’t seem to be taking note.  The rest of the league is doing almost everything possible to make sure the Texans are completely set up to succeed this year and finally take that next step and there they are stuck at .500 poised for yet another second half collapse.  Unreal. 

Buccaneers 26, Saints 20
 
Drew Brees became the first player to throw for 350 yards in 5 straight games, and Saints head coach Sean Peyton was hit on the sideline by one of his own players and suffered a fractured tibia.  I was shocked by the outcome of this game: a big loss for the Saints here against a team which I still believe they are better than.  I’m still not a huge believer in Josh Freeman.  Sure he threw for 303 yards, but his completion percentage wasn’t astounding and he didn’t make any extremely impressive throws.  It will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure of playing at Wembley Stadium in England next week against a revitalized Bears team.  The brightest spot for the Bucs was that they got 109 yards from one Earnest Graham who was starting due to a knee injury to LeGarrette Blount. 

49ers 25, Lions 19
 
Obviously everybody’s talking about the overhyped “confrontation” between the two coaches at the end of this game, but the real story here was the Lions losing at home where they have played very well as of late.  Frank Gore was able to do this week what Matt Forte couldn’t do agains the Lions last Monday night, rushing for over a hundred yards once again.  This might be a potential playoff rematch come January.  It feels as if I should have more to say here but I don’t. 
 
Falcons 31, Panthers 17
 
Atlanta needed this game very badly and they got it.  Michael Turner ran for 139 yards and two touchdowns and their gameplan was 60% rush and 40% pass.  It’s not a guaranteed recipe for success, but I think against mediocre teams that’s what they have to stick with for now.  Carolina keeps losing and Cam Newton is now leading the league in interceptions.  They definitely need more pieces around him to ensure that they’ll end up in the postseason at some point.  He did have a pretty telling quote after the game:  “At some point, you’ve got to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what can you do to make it better,” Newton said. “I’m doing a self-evaluation as we speak. It’s not the time that you point the fingers and say, ‘It’s his fault.’ It’s time that we as a team take ownership of ourselves.”  What he’s basically saying is “I can only do so much, everybody throws picks, I need a little bit more out of the rest of the squad.”  He does appear to like to throw to Shockey quite a bit, and Steve Smith is still Steve Smith, but without that two headed monster in the backfield that they used to have, that puts a lot of pressure on a rookie quarterback.  And the Falcons?  Zero turnovers. 

 
Raiders 24, Browns 17
 
One of the good things about having a reliable kicker like Sebastian Janikowski is that the opposition almost never expects you to run a fake field goal.  But that’s just what the Raiders did, and it worked.  As stated earlier, the Raiders lost starter Jason Campbell and replaced him with Kyle Boller, who threw for 100 yards but was unable to punch it in.  The jury is still out on Boller as an NFL starter, and there’s no way Terrell Pryor is ready yet so I’m sure they have plenty of phone calls to make this week.  Either way, the Raiders are doing a majority of their damage on the ground so they’re still in great position to make a wild card run. 
 
Steelers 17, Jaguars 13
 
Mike Tomlin didn’t seem too amped after the end of this one, and with good reason.  Pittsburgh should have won this game by WAY more than 4 points.  There was a strange moment in the late minutes of this one where Troy Polamalu made a great play and suffered what appeared to be a concussion, and some dumbass (I think it was Ryan Clark) came over and knocked helmets with him on the sideline.  Talk about friendly fire…yikes.  The Steelers are banged up in general and that certainly isn’t going to help.  As for the Jaguars, they’re going to make for an excellent punching bag for the Ravens next Monday night.  (And who the fuck scheduled Jacksonville to play on Monday Night Football anyway?)
 
Eagles 20, Redskins 13
 
Rex Grossman threw four interceptions (three to the same guy, Kurt Coleman) and was benched shortly thereafter for John Beck who you won’t become familiar with as soon as the Redskins sink below .500 again.  The Eagles had to win this game and although they didn’t play to the best of their abilities, they are starting to show some return on investment from some of those position players on defense, particularly Nnamdi Asomugha.  I read something really interesting about him this week – he has a condition called Deuteranomaly which is a form of color blindness that causes him difficulty when it comes to distinguishing between lighter colors.  (You’ll never get that five seconds of your life back)  But when you look at the numbers from this game, I’d think that Philly wouldn’t have won this game if Rex Grossman hadn’t done such a shitty job all afternoon.  They dominated in time of possession, LeSean McCoy rushed for 126 yards, and picked off four passes – you’d think that would add up to more than a seven point victory.  I can’t put my finger on it but there’s still something really wrong with the Eagles. 
 
Bears 39, Vikings 10
 
When Jay Cutler gets the blocks he needs, he can be a top-tier quarterback.  He got them ALL night in this one, and the Bears looked very convincing.  It was the absolute opposite of what we saw from the OL in the Monday Night game in Detroit.  Cutler made some really quality throws and just like that the Bears are at sea level again.  The Vikings on the other hand are a different story.  They benched McNabb and finally put in Christian Ponder who didn’t really look all that bad for his first time in a regular season pro game.  Now, I’m not sure if they put him in because the game was out of reach or because they thought that now was the time to make the change but from the way it looks I think they have seen enough of McNabb.  He didn’t throw a poor game, but he didn’t throw a great one either even though plenty of analysts were saying he played decent afterwards.  I’ve been saying Donovan’s career has been over since 2009 and I don’t know why teams continue to give him one more chance, but this is likely the end of the line for him and I don’t believe he’ll get another job.  While I’m laying into the dude, he isn’t a Hall of Famer either.  He also beats the shit out of his wife and he’s a horrible father.  I kind of made that last one up. 

Jets 24, Dolphins 6
 

I can’t think of a single thing that the Dolphins are doing right at the moment.  To say they looked flat would be a serious understatement.  Very predictable, and a bad game.  Tony Sporano = Corey Hart.  Jets got their passing game back but until it’s against a real challenger they aren’t stable just yet. 

Overall comment for the week: 

It may be out of place to point out something that something has become blown so far out of proportion, but I’d like to talk about the way the media has treated the misunderstanding between Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwarz at the end of the Lions-Niners game.  It was really no big deal at all, and I say this for a couple of reasons.  First, these guys just sat and coached a game where for three and a half hours guys on the field beat the living hell out of each other, and you mean to tell me that one guy walking over to another guy and patting him on the back only to have the other guy go “What the fuck was that for?” was the biggest story of the week?  That’s insane.  The other thing that you have to remember here is that now more than ever coaches are younger and closer to the ages of those playing on the field.  A lot of them are only about a decade removed from the field so it’s easy for them to get so excited about a win in what was a very big game.  I just didn’t see the whole thing as being that big of a deal, but that didn’t stop ESPN from shoving it into our eyes and ears for the following twenty four hours.  The media gets a big fat fucking F for this one.  Between that and the coverage of FOX’s camera crew capturing AJ Hawk giving the middle finger to the sidelines, week six was more like a reality TV show than stack of football games. 
 

Let’s hope that next week is devoid of any such meaningless drama.
 
We are EEP.
 
Meehan

NFL WEEK FOUR: MAILING IT IN

by Ryan Meehan
 
The one thing I won’t do in these pieces is lie to you, so I’ll just come out and say it:  I am mailing this one the fuck in.  I haven’t had a lot of time to dedicate to an article about anything, let alone football.  However I did catch last week’s action and there are some really good matchups this week, so don’t let my lack of preparation somehow convince you that this weekend shouldn’t be awesome.  So here’s my abbreviated version of Week four’s picks: 
Detroit (3-0) at Dallas (2-1)

 

Last week I mistakenly declared that the Bills’ undefeated season would stop short as a result of the Patriots.  I won’t be wrong about the Lions this week. Dallasis going to be on a roll for a while, so get used to it.  (I know, I hate it too…) 

 

Cowboys 26, Lions 23
Tennessee (2-1) at Cleveland (2-1)

 

To be brutally honest, I didn’t realize that both of these teams were 2-1.  What’s even scarier is that one of these teams will be 3-1 after the end of this game.  The Browns are in first place?  Weird… I like them to break Matt Hasselbeck’s heart here though. 

 

Browns 27, Titans 12
 
Buffalo (3-0) at Cincinnati (1-2)

 

Regardless of whether or not Buffalois the real deal, they should fucking destroy the Bengals.  If I hear Chris Berman say “No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills” one more time, I’m going to stab myself in both of my nostrils with an open pair of scissors.  It doesn’t matter there’s no way that Cincinnatiwins here. 
 

Bills 37, Bengals 16 
Minnesota (0-3) at Kansas City (0-3)

 

In this week’s “I’d rather get fucked in the asshole with a hot curling iron than watch this bullshit” matchup, someone’s dreams are going to be crushed here because unfortunately one of these teams is going to have to win.  That someone is me. 

 

Vikings 7, Chiefs 6 or Vikings 52, Chiefs 51
 
San Francisco (2-1) at Philadelphia (1-2)
 

I’ll get to records not mattering later.  Even if you’re biggest Michael Vick fan in the entire world, you have to admit this week to week drama with his status is tiresome.  Because of the style of football that he plays, he’s going to end up being hurt a lot.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an ankle, shoulder, knee, whatever…he’s going to have some type of minor injury almost every week.  It would just be nice to get through a Sunday night episode of Sportscenter without every reporter, anchor, and beatwriter inAmericafreaking the fuck out about Vick’s supposed injury, only to find out Wednesday that he’s fine and is going to play.  He’s becoming the NFL’s new week-to-week Brett Favre…the constant “will he or won’t he” dialogue is wearing me out, and the fact that the sports media makes it impossible to ignore certainly doesn’t help.  San Francisco is full of shit. 

 

Eagles 21, 49ers 10
Washington (2-1) at St. Louis (1-2)

 

Home field advantage doesn’t do anything for the Rams anymore, and the Redskins lost a close one last week so I’m taking Washingtonbut just barely. 

 

Redskins 22, Rams 18
 
Carolina (1-2) at Chicago (1-2)

 

What you hope for and what you actually think will happen are two very different things.  I hope that Cam Newton will have a huge day and work the Bears over in every facet of the game.  But the reality is, they just don’t have the defensive strength to contain Matt Forte, so I’ll take Chicagoat home against a team that isn’t the Packers. 
 

Bears 28, Panthers 25
New Orleans (2-1) at Jacksonville (1-2)

 

The Saints look very hot at the moment. Jacksonvilledoesn’t.  On the bright side, they will get to play the Colts twice this year.  It’s quite possible that a lot of analysts looked at the Saints as incapable of being a Super Bowl contender after the playoff loss to the Seahawks last year, but that game should have never been inSeattleand they wouldn’t have lost it if it wasn’t.  The Saints can be great, they just need to score 32 to 44 points every game to win because their defense is so piss-poor. 

 

Saints 28, Jaguars 20
 
Pittsburgh (2-1) at Houston (2-1)
 

I’m looking for this to be the game of the week.  Which is interesting because eight days ago I thought Houston/Pittsburgh was going to be the game of the week, and it was.  I personally hold the opinion that the Texans are no bullshit.  And hating the Steelers is in my blood, even though I’m not quite sure why. 

 

Texans 31, Steelers 24
Atlanta (1-2) at Seattle (1-2)
 

This will be the week where the Falcons trick everyone into thinking they’re back on track.  They’re not.  Even thoughSeattlewon at home last week, the Falcons will win this game because people are starting to get really impatient with them.  The last thingAtlantawants to happen to them is to end up being this year’s 2010-2011 Cowboys.  Which is funny, because the only thing right now that would give them an excuse for their poor performance is if Matt Ryan got hurt.  Isn’t life disturbing? 

 

Falcons 23, Seahawks 21
New York Giants (2-1) at Arizona (1-2)
 

The Cardinals lost to the Seahawks last week, shocking me even though the twelfth man was in full effect.  The Giants are a total fraud and I love it. 

 

Giants 29, Cardinals 24
Denver (1-2) at Green Bay (3-0)

 

This one has all of the ingredients for a murder.  Fantasy nerds who have Aaron Rodgers will be loving the box score after this one.  If I’m the Broncos, I just accept that our team is going to lose and start Tim Tebow.  That way it’ll be over with, and he’ll get to see what life in the NFL is really like against a high-caliber defense.  But then again, that would mean Tebow would be all over the highlight real every time he handed the ball off for a two yard running play, so maybe I retract my previous statement. 
 

Packers 41, Broncos 14
Miami (0-3) at San Diego (2-1)

 

Did I mention I have a huge mancrush on Darren Sproles?  I do.  I really think Sporano’s days are numbered in Miami.  And why won’t he ever take off his goddamned sunglasses?  That’ll be a long flight home.  Philip Rivers will eventually be judged on whether or not he can get to a Super Bowl and make it at least competitive.  (We’ll worry about him winning one IF he ever gets there)  In other words, when you look back on his body of work at the end of his career you probably won’t remember week four of 2011 against the Dolphins. 

 

Chargers 34, Dolphins 11

 

New England (2-1) at Oakland (2-1)

 

This is also going to be awesome.  I think for once the AFC West might actually go down to the wire this year devoid of whichever teams fighting for it floating around the .500 mark.  The Patriots don’t want to lose two in a row but Oakland’s a tough place to play at home, and you have to figure the only game the Raiders have lost this year was at the last second.  Sorry Chad…

 

Raiders 30, Patriots 28
 
New York Jets (2-1) at Baltimore (2-1)
 

I’m surprised we haven’t heard more shit talking from this one, seeing as how both of these teams are perennial league leaders in that category.  Rex Ryan will head home to face his old team where he will be greeted with a whole boatload of the defensive looks that he made popular in that same stadium.  But in the end, I can’t seem to erase the memory of the Titans running up an inexcusable 26 points on the Ravens’ defense a couple weeks back.  SorryChad…again…

 

Jets 17, Ravens 16

 
Indianapolis (0-3) at Tampa Bay (2-1)
 

Should be easy.  Like I said,Tampais overrated as hell be right now.  My cat could run on the Buccaneers.  But my cat could also eat the Colts’ defensive starters.  Monday Night Misery, don’t have a whole lot to say about this one. Indianapolisalmost gets shutout, but not quite. 

 

Bucs 24, Colts 3

 

Did You Notice?

 

How many average, sub-average, or just plain shitty 2-1 teams there are?  This is why even though it is important to get off to a good start, you can’t totally immerse yourself in the standings after three games.  We’re all guilty of it (look at how many times I just mentioned them) but in all reality it doesn’t mean much of anything.  I guarantee you 60-70% of the teams that are 2-1 right now won’t make it to the postseason. 

 

What to watch for this week/Odd Prediction: 

 

People throwing weird shit on the field at the Oakland/NE game.  You’ll know which ones are Raiders fans because they either dress like they’re in Gwar or they actually ARE in Gwar.  And since there’s just a general dislike for the Patriots around the league, (be it the fallout from spygate or just the fact that they’ve won three Super Bowls with Brady at quarterback) I can see things getting out of hand in the stands real quick like in Oakland.  I don’t wish for it to happen, but it really surprises me there isn’t more violence in American professional sports.  When you compare our sporting events to everything that gets set on fire during a soccer riot, it’s easy to forget events like the one that happened at Dodger Stadium earlier this year. 

 

Enjoy the weekend, and I promise to bring my A game back…at some point.  

 
WE ARE EEP

 
Meehan

 

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU THOUGHTLESS AND WASTEFUL

by Ryan Meehan
 
Late Summer/Fall is here and that means that the weather will still be insufferable, road construction crews will be everywhere, and everyone will continue to be irritable in general.  Oh, and we’re right in the middle of wedding season.  As should be no surprise to anyone, I fucking hate weddings and with good reason. 
 
Now, I don’t have any immediate problems with the institution of marriage.  It seems like a very good idea:  Two people vow to spend the rest of their lives with each other, cohabitate, and pay higher taxes.  Sounds great to me.  But our society isn’t really intelligent enough to handle to concept of being dedicated to one person the rest of their life.  Aside from our 50% divorce rate in America, infidelity is a rampant issue.  I know plenty of married men who consider it a game to see if they can cheat on their wife and get away with it, and I know plenty of women who do the same.  

Maybe this is why the whole gay marriage debate is so frustrating to rational individuals.  If half of marriages fail anyway and there’s so much dishonesty amongst married couples to begin with, what the fuck difference does it make?  Everyone should have the right to feel awkward and miserable.  Let it be available to the masses. 

Back to the ceremony itself:  As if traffic wasn’t already bad enough, now every Saturday afternoon I’ll likely be stuck behind a limo occupied by some unspeakably hot woman blowing some four hundered pound software designer that she already has plans to cheat on as soon as they get back from the honeymoon.  Nevermind the driver just got over here from Iran, so he has no concept of how the whole “stop light” thing works.  Add that to the fact that one of those clunking cans they tie to the back of the car will probably fall off and slice my tire open, and you can see why I might be inclined to hate not just that part of the ceremony but the entire process.  
  
The biggest issue I have with weddings is the financial side.  Here we are in an economic crisis, where everyone is panicking their asses off, yet no one seems to have a problem wasting tens of thousands of dollars on an event that lasts mere hours.  I’m constantly hearing newlywed couples bitch and moan about how broke they are and how high their mortgage payments are just months after they spent twenty grand on what’s essentialy a kegger for grown-ups.  Maybe if they would have taken one of my helpful hint mentioned below they would have been able to use more of that scratch for a down payment. 
 
Here are a couple of ideas to save money if you do get married, so excuse me while I get all Suze Orman (or Jim Cramer if you hate lesbians) on your dumbass: 
 
1)  Do it in court like a normal person. 
Gals, your man does not want a big wedding ceremony.  If he does, he’s “just not that into you” if you know what I mean.  (That’s a PG-13 way of saying “he’s a faggot” by the way)  The more you spend on this moment, the harder it’s going to be to start your lives together from an economic standpoint.  Think.  The biggest price of the marriage should be the rings or the actual license itself.  If you want to do the rings you can, but just remember you can lose jewelry quite easily.  So if you’re clumsy give it a lot of thought before you drop 4 large on a pair of wedding rings. 
 
2)  If you can’t do it in court like a normal person, keep it small.
At least save what’s left of your remaining dignity by not making a huge issue of it.  Have the wedding in your backyard like a close friend of mine did.  He tells me over and over that he had no regrets and that he has nothing but fond memories of the event.  (He also didn’t spend a whole shit ton of money on it either)  This rule also goes for the hi-fi stuff that people want to tack on-No fireworks, none of that shit.  You ARE allowed to have a band at your wedding if they are inexpensive and don’t have a huge stage show with pyrotechnics.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire for more details)

3)  Plan on doing it inside because weather happens

Whenever I am flipping channels late at night I run into these “Bridezilla”-type shows where these silly gashes hire all of these expensive makeup consultants to ensure all of their mascara will be properly applied on their big day.  And of course they also want their wedding on the beach as well, yet can’t seem to ever put these two things together and think that their makeup might fall victim to the elements.  (But you’ll know when you see the tears race the precipitation to wreck her pretty fake face)  And the makeup is the least of your worries…a good healthy rainstorm will ruin everything about your wedding.  I’ve heard of people who want a wedding in a remote outside location that gives them no backup plan whatsoever.  And then when it starts raining they scream “WHY?  WHY?  WHY ME AND WHY ON MY BIG DAY?” And the answer to that is:  you’re just not very smart.  You should have thought about the fact that water falls out of the sky all of the time.  That’s a pretty big item to overlook. 

Summary:

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me, perched right at the top is how people are obsessed with certain milestones in their lives.  High school graduation, college graduation, weddings, anniversaries, childbirth, retirement, et cetera.  Yet most of these people don’t write wills and don’t have a plan in place for when they pass away.  I blame vanity for this, because at all of those other points in their life I just mentioned, they can visualize themselves as how they will be seen by others.  They don’t care about their funeral because they won’t be able to react to other people seeing them, therefore it has no intrinsic value. 

When you’re dead and gone, people shouldn’t care how you looked on your wedding day.  They should care about what you’ve created and what contributions you’ve made to society.  Did you make people laugh?  Did you help someone who’s less fortunate become better at something that you were already good at doing? 

This is one that’s been stuck in my mind a lot lately:  If everyone had their own Wikipedia page, what would you want yours to look like?  Would you want the “personal life” section to be full of examples of domestic abuse?  How about your “professional history”?  If there was ever a great starting point to work backwards from, what your page would look like would be it. 

The point here is don’t get so caught up in whatever moment you’re involved in so much that you surrender your own principles for that moment.  I hear a lot of “Well, I usually don’t do this, but…” anymore these days.  Fuck all that.  Stick to your guns.  Sometimes you have to read between the lines, even if it’s tucked inside the second amendment.  If you’re going to believe in something, believe in it all the way. 

I guess on the bright side hurricane season is still going strong and that’s always fun to watch on television.  There will be plenty more hate on this website coming soon so stay tuned. 
 
We Are East End Philadelphia

Meehan

IT’s HIGH TIME ONCE AGAIN FOR SOME GRAPHIC HATRED

by Ryan Meehan
 
These introduction paragraphs are getting harder and harder to write without repeating myself and making all of these articles sound the same.  So fuck all that noise, let’s get to the things that are making me want to shave people’s eyebrows off with a belt sander this week. 

1.  The phone company continuing to print phone books

When are all of these people who can’t figure out how to use Google going to die off? And when was the last time you used a phone book for something other than to prop something else up?  There are stacks of these goddamn things at my apartment complex and they’re everywhere.  In the days before the internet skyrocketed in popularity there used to be only a couple of them were left lying around, now if they drop twelve off at a unit they’re lucky if two of them get picked up after a month. 

And I don’t want to hear anymore bullshit about how they have to be recycled a certain way as some of these tree hugging assholes would suggest.  If you recycle them, you put them in the recycling bin with everything else or you throw them away.  There doesn’t need to be a whole separate recycling procedure for phone books.  Of course, this entire mess could be avoided if they weren’t printed in the first place, but I digress. 
 
2.  Fast food companies on The Social Networking sites “wondering” what I’m doing this weekend

This is typically on a holiday such as Labor Day so that’s why it comes up.  Wendy’s caring what I’m up to?  Highly fucking doubt it.  The only reason that I started following any of these companies on Twitter to begin with was because I expected them to let me print out coupons for free food, but they never have.  And as for the people who really do answer seriously, well…that’s just plain sad.  “I’m going to go grab a number 4 later!!! OMG!!!”  These people shouldn’t even be on the internet in the first place, they should be in their car with the garage door shut and the gas pedal to the floor. 
 
Does the marketing department do anything but laugh at these pathetic people either?  You can’t sell me on the idea that they actually use this information for research.  Facebook and Twitter have now created these weird sort of forums where McDonald’s can ask a question about what everybody is doing and thousands of brainless douchebags will gladly surrender that information without even flinching.  And you didn’t think that the internet is going to backfire at some point?  Shit…

3.  Event invites on Facebook

Speaking of the social networking sites, there’s WAY too much of the event invites going on.  I talked with Weibel about this the other night.  It’s bad enough that my phone goes off whenever I get invited to one of these things (which I never attend by the way) but the fact that it creates a whole separate website for that page and that EVERYTIME ANYBODY POSTS ON THAT WALL I GET AN ALERT is way off the deep end.  If you’re really my friend then you’d know that I never go out, let alone go out to any of the inane bullshit I get invited to.  Enough with it.  Text me if it’s really important and then I’ll show up.  Plus, you’re going to use that Foursquare application to check in once you’re at the event anyway to let everyone know what an awesome time you’re having, so what’s the need for the event invite?

Additionally, there’s no need for a follow-up contact on these.  “So are you coming to my party or not?”  I don’t know…we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.  (But now that you’ve asked me that there’s no way we’re ever going to talk again so it doesn’t matter)  I don’t schedule times to hang out with my friends and this is no exception.  (See next complaint)  I’ve still never invited anybody to anything on Facebook and it’s highly unlikely that I ever will.  
  
4.  Anybody that tries to make definite plans and/or takes offense when you can’t make time to “hang out” with them

This is a huge one for me.  Whether or not I’m going to hang out with anybody now depends on several factors.  The most important of those being “Can I fit this into my schedule?”  If I can’t, I’m not going to be able to chill.  Period.  Additionally, almost everybody who isn’t on some sort of government assistance has to have two jobs and even I’m no exception to that.  They say things like “You work too much”  Piss off.  These are usually either unemployed people or soft motherfuckers whose feelings get hurt whenever somebody has to break their appointment to go get a pointless cup of coffee.  Get some more friends, a new hobby, or both. 

Here’s a bonus tip for anyone you know who might feel emotionally affected by you not hanging out with them:  They’re never going to become anything and you shouldn’t even be talking to them in the first place.  Anyone who will tell you “You know, when you didn’t come out last night it really hurt my feelings” is a worthless fuckwad.  End of story.  There are no exceptions to this rule, ever.  If I can hang out I will, but if I’m tired that night I’ll jack off and pass out and it’ll be my decision in the end. 

5.  Observational Comics who mention something that’s debatable without thinking about why it might be debatable

If any of you were on the debate team in high school, you know debating is a lot like chess in that you have to always think one move ahead of the next guy.  Comedy is the same way in that you wouldn’t make a joke that ends with a question that can be easily answered.  I heard a guy use the following example not too long ago, which is fascinating because it seems like a really old joke. 
“So I went to a Mexican restaurant with my girlfriend the other day and the restaurant was called “Jalapenos”, but when I went to order something with Jalapenos on it, they said they were out.  How could a restaurant with that name be out of Jalapenos?”
 
Well, actually dipshit…you just answered your own question:  They just didn’t have any.  There’s no conspiracy against you, it’s a dried vegetable and they’re out.  And since they are out, what do you expect them to do: close the whole place down?  “Well, we’re out of the hot stuff so it’s shutters for us until the truck comes in on Thursday.  Everybody just go on home now.”  And how selfish do you have to be to think that they would even go to the store to get them for a guy who was a theater major in college and somewhere along the line decided that everyone in the world might think he’s funny because he doesn’t have a creative outlet anymore so he feels the need to be a standup comedian all of a sudden? 

You can also leave out the “with my girlfriend” part because if you have jokes like this we already know you’re alone.  Just say you were there by yourself and it will save you the awkwardness for both parties.  And you shouldn’t even be upset when this is giving you more shitty material to torture the other comics with, nevermind the crowd who is obviously bored as hell and that’s why they’re at an open mic in the first place.  

6.  Anyone who says “blah blah blah” to fill space during a conversation

I would honestly rather listen to an Australian guy say “and so forth” for an hour and a half than listen to someone fill space with this verbal abortion.  Didn’t we all learn how to summarize at some point?  What’s the use of telling part of the story and then leaving a majority of it out?  This also goes for “such and such” as well. 

This is Jerry Seinfeld’s fault for that “yadda yadda yadda” shit.  We are way too selfish as a culture to be able to use a space filler like this without somehow bending the story in our own direction.  “Oh, I guess I left out the part where I got drunk and ran over her dog”  You didn’t necessarily leave that part out, you just covered it up with “blah blah blah” so I would favor your side of the story and not think you are an asshole.  And you had to have known you were doing so, otherwise you wouldn’t have used that technique in the first place.  

I’m sure there are plenty more things that are bothering me at the moment but this is all I can think of for now.  Get out and do or fuck something interesting this weekend.

We Are East End Philadelphia

Meehan

THE TEN TYPES OF PEOPLE I HATE ON FACEBOOK

by Ryan Meehan
 
Facebook was one of those ideas that was supposed to enhance the way we connected with each other.  Instead, it’s turned into an addiction that allows people who shouldn’t even be allowed to speak to share their every thought.  First was the awful status updates, then they went and made a movie about it, and before you knew it my entire family was on the site.  I work at a cell phone company and when there is a tower outage you wouldn’t believe how many fifty year-olds come in here screaming that their Facebook account won’t load as if every one of their great grandchildren got their faces mangled by a boat motor. 
 
There’s a difference between use and abuse:  Use means you’re functioning; Abuse means that you’ve let it take over your life.  You can be a user and not be an abuser.  So without further ado, here are the ten types of people on Facebook that I cannot stand.  
 
1.  FarmVille or Mafia Wars Douchebag
 
Defining Characteristics:  VERY slow, sometimes unemployed or just underemployed

 

When was this stuff ever fun?  I certainly don’t remember any of these applications being so intriguing that I actually stopped what I was doing to play them.  If you’re going to play this shit, for the love of God please takes the feeds down off of the main page so I’m not informed about which days you’re super lonely and feel the need to fake farm. 

 

And as for the Mafia Wars, we probably didn’t need to let this go outside movies or television.  Goodfellas was amazing, Casino was great, The Sopranos was OK.  But when it started crossing over into video games it was too much.  Now it’s all over the social networking sites, and the people who are playing it are the last people that you’d expect to be doing so.  It’s always the fifty year old mom of three or the bunhead who went to your high school.  This goes for the survey takers too…that shit was OK in MySpace because you could at least fill the survey out, but now it tells people you answered a question about them when you DON’T fill it out.  What the fuck is that?

 
2.  Couple who breaks up every other day
 

Defining Characteristics:  Heavy Drinking, more heavy drinking

 

This is the couple who is constantly changing their relationship status only to change it again a day later and have the website inform you that they are “friends” again.  The same couple who had the police at their house at three thirty in the morning because they were wasted and started throwing kitchen appliances at each other, they love each other again all of a sudden.  These two people never seem to be on the same schedule when it comes to partying and because of it their relationship suffers dearly.  (And so does our attention span) 

 

I’ll probably never understand why people who mistreat each other so often find their way back together.  This is where all of the domestic violence comes from.  If he’s an asshole, why do you keep going back to him?  Is the sex that good?  And if she’s clearly insane, why prolong your own anguish?  I don’t get that.  And say you’re getting married…how do you plan with all of that shit going on?  The wedding’s on, the wedding’s off, then it’s on again.  You wouldn’t want your wedding planner to stick a shotgun in her mouth the week before your big day would you? 
 
3.  Left-Wing Extremist Guy Who Thinks Everything is a Conspiracy
 
Defining Characteristics:  Unemployed, smelly, liberal, predictable, doesn’t own their own vehicle and talks constantly about how great it is to not own a car but always needs a ride
 
9/11 was a hoax.  The government is archiving everybody’s status updates.  Where do these people come up with this shit?  And better yet, why are people so obsessed with wanting to believe it?  These are the people who think that they are the first to hear about anything that doesn’t add up.  They think they’re the only ones who have ever watched a documentary on a particular subject therefore they are an expert. 
 
And here’s another thing I don’t get:  Why is it that people who always feel that they are being watched by the government people who the government would never have any interest in?  If I worked for the CIA, I would be researching people like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, trying to find out how they got rich so that I could apply the same techniques to whatever department I worked in.  Listen, the government couldn’t possibly care less about you or your “experimental” band.  Trust me, they give less than a shit about what you’re up to. 
4.  Guy Who Thinks He’s Buff Who Constantly Takes Pictures of Himself
 
Defining Characteristics:  Well-toned, poorly educated

 

Big shocker here:  I’m about to utter something extremely sexist:  Taking pictures of yourself is something only women do.  And no matter what you’re into, ONLY women do it.  We understand that you have a gym membership.  We also understand that membership costs a lot of money, but you need to understand I don’t want to see pictures of you with your shirt off. 

 

Now say that I was a woman.  Say that I loved nothing more than having my vagina stuffed with cock all day long.  Do you think I’d really be turned on by a guy who posted such pictures?  Probably not.  And if they were attractive and even somewhat interesting, don’t you think they would have found a girlfriend by this point? 

 
5.  Crazy Chick
 
Defining Characteristics:  Hung Up, Usually Unemployed
 

This is the girl with either “daddy” issues, or “ex-boyfriend” issues.  She’s chronically obsessed with how she was “wronged” in some way or another by someone, and instead of getting up and kicking life’s ass instead she’s been diagnosed with some type of “disorder” by some jackass doctor who’s now confined her to a life of being addicted to pain medication.  Sounds exactly like somebody that I’d never want to hang out with.  And what’s sad is that now she will never recover.  Those doctors and those meds have now also convinced her that she’s agoraphobic and can’t leave her own house. 
6.  Jesus Freak
 
Defining Characteristics:  Knows lots of bible verses and is not afraid to use them, Poor grammar otherwise

 

I am a Christian and I love Jesus.  However, I am not IN LOVE with Jesus.  For some reason, a lot of the uber religious people on this site can’t decipher the two.  They see Jesus as a mortal man instead of a supreme being.   I see Jesus as the type of deity that would hate Facebook.  Could you imagine having to roll out of your cloud every morning and decline all of those event invites?  Holy shit…

 

Now back to the “IN LOVE with Jesus” thing.  I certainly hope that no one is in love with Jesus, because that’s just messed up.  Although it certainly exposes the great lengths we’re willing to obsess about things, it’s also completely disgusting.  As a Christian, I find these nobodies repulsive.  Maybe “God Loves Everyone” isn’t such a great mantra.  I would like to believe that God is more selective. 

 
7.  Parent Who Feels The Need to Constantly Update Everybody On The Expulsion of Their Child’s Bodily Fluids
 
Defining Characteristics:   Bad at using condoms, Bad at making decisions, Permanently Stuck in Freud’s “Anal” Stage

 

This one is just downright nasty.  Never while navigating any of these sites have I said to myself:  “I wonder if so and so’s kid is pissing/shitting”.  Leave it alone.  I’m not exactly the type of person that seems to be impressed if you can change a dirty diaper.  Granted, I’ll never do it myself but I have no interest in doing it so I’m not going to hold you in a higher regard because you can fold a cloth of baby shit and then tape it shut. 
And this goes for anybody else who feels the needs to lecture us non-parents about how difficult it is to be a parent.  “Well, you don’t know how hard it is to be a parent…”  That’s right, I don’t…nor do I care.  You’re not a hero.

 
8.  Hell-Bent on Revenge Chick (See also “Crazy Chick”)
 
Defining Characteristics:  Watches a lot of reality television, hell-bent on revenge

 

This girl is very similar to “Crazy Chick” with the added bonus of being motivated by revenge.  She thinks that for some reason it will validate her existence (It won’t) if whoever had been previously out to get her comes up short in life or is unsuccessful in some way.  She will also take credit for anything that happens to her nemesis even if she had nothing to do with it.  Funny part is if you held a gun to her head she probably couldn’t tell you why she started hating the people that she does in the first place. 
 

Now, I’m not saying revenge is a bad motivational mechanism.  I’m in favor of whatever will work for you, use whatever technique you like.  However if you end up living your entire life driven by something negative that happened in the past, then when you DO finally get the chance to enjoy the fruits of your labor, you’ll still be distracted.  
 
9.  Guy Who Posts a Thousand Videos a Night (See also Left-Wing Conspiracy Guy) 
 
Defining characteristics:  Drunk, Hammered, Stoned, You get the picture 
 

This is actually acceptable every once in a while.  If I haven’t heard a certain song or seen a certain video in a while I might be inclined to watch something like this.  But every night?  No way.  I’ll gladly check out the video for Cracker’s “Teen Angst”, which I got robbed of seeing a live performance of when I was in high school, but there’s no need for me to watch the new Lil’ Wayne video.  Some dude (yes, dude) the other night posted a video on the feed of Taylor Swift “rapping”.  That screams “Don’t ever message me”.

 

This could also be conspiracy theorist guy, and that’s a double whammy right there.  “Check out this one nut job’s theory on the Gulf War”…As I’ve stated before, the great thing about some of these websites like YouTube is that anybody can get an account, but the horrible thing about them is that ANYBODY can get an account.
10.  Stripper / Porn Star Who Posts Inspirational Quotes

 

Defining characteristics:  Massive cocaine problem, no high school diploma, just “working her way through college” 

 

Yes this is a little bit of stimulus generalization.  But let’s face it, not many strippers or adult film stars are very smart.  It’s not like when their looks fade they will be able to get an office job.  (They may however get a job blowing some guy who works at an office)  But then again after all, “The Constitution only guarantees you the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin said that.  Or maybe it was Hitler.  It was definitely one of those two guys. 

 

Now, as for the porn stars themselves:  I just saw a movie where you blew fourteen guys next to a pool, don’t be hitting me with any Henry David Thoreau quotes:  It will never mean as much to the people who follow you as seeing the look or your face when that fifteenth guy shows up late for the shoot.  “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mohandas Gandhi – That’s funny, because on your website it’s pretty obviously defined as being triple penetration.  Can’t wait to see you on “Intervention”. 
Summary: 

 

What pisses me off most about Facebook is that the whole “status update” thing should be used just to say something funny.  That’s it.  If you don’t have anything funny to say, don’t speak.  We’ve heard every political angle imaginable by this point, seen every YouTube video, and if you read the right publications and do the right research, nothing you read or see on Facebook should change your mind about anything. 
 

Social Networking is supposed to be a tool, not a box for tools.  Post carefully. 
 

We Are East End Philadelphia
 
Meehan

RESPONSE TO ANTONY

by Ryan Meehan, In response to:

“The Internet might be useful for creating revolution, but all it’s creating in the Western world is more passivity, more disconnection. It’s a fucking nightmare. When I was 20 years old in New York City, do you think you walked into a coffee shop and saw 40 people staring at $2,000 purchases all made from the same company? And those are all the artists! I talk to young musicians now, and they’re just happy to be making records that get released. They don’t even consider that, in the old days, they could making a living by selling records. They don’t even get paid for their work. All that money just goes to Apple and they’re happy to just have people going to their shows. It just took two generations for Apple and similar companies to convince artists they don’t deserve to get paid and that they should just be grateful for the tools that Apple is providing us to make our work, as if we need them to make our art. It’s very, very fucked up.
I’ve stopped using the Internet, basically. I text, but I’ve whittled that down. I’m trying to just revert to a landline. I don’t want to live in computer time. The Internet doesn’t care if we’ve had enough.” – Antony of Antony and the Johnsons

To Anyone who is in on this thread:

I have to take issue with a majority of what this guy’s saying so the earlier we get started the sooner you can get back to whatever you were doing. 
 
The internet is the greatest technological development in your lifetime.  And, you’re child’s lifetime.  The internet is pretty much as far as connectivity will go.  I do understand how there could be some dark alleys.  I think Craigslist showed that the internet CAN be a horrible, horrible thing sometimes but for the most part, the internet is used to make our lives easier.  
 
Now usually, guys who make statements about technology in a negative light seem bitter, and I can’t help but wonder how many of them are just out to blame technology for something their cousin didn’t invent.  This same Antony guy who’s complaining about this probably owns an Ipod.  You know he does. 
 
iTunes is a great thing and all of thes guys complaining about it know it.  Since people were downloading so much music that it threw off Soundscan for a 41 month period, iTunes found a way to quantify how many songs by a certain artist were downloaded in the week period, and it worked beautifully.  iTunes lists everything you want to listen to in one simple playlist.  Is Apple making a ton of money off of this?  Of course they are.  But these same indie rock shitheads who are raising a stink about their music don’t seem to realize the fact that they SHOULD be lucky to have Apple plugging their music.  They ought to be honored that apple would even host some of the bullshit they put out because they never learned how to sell themselves due to being so “troubled”. 
 
Of course there will be people who plow on about the lack of funds received by the artists.  But here’s my question about that:  Since when have album and download residuals ever been a primary source of income?  Artists don’t make their money with downloads and record sales, they make it on tour selling T shirts and through their guarantee.  Those checks are miniscule at best.  No female is sitting in her loft with $0.33 on a Starbucks gift card left going “Wow, if I don’t get at least 335 more downloads, I’m not going to be able to pay the rent here anymore”.  Because if it gets to that point, she’s probably a stripper the next week no matter how many times her family calls. 

 

Look at Aerosmith.  They were playing under contract for a guy that wasn’t even working for them for over a decade which stipulated that he get 50% of EVERYTHING off the rack during that time period.  The guy made millions and he didn’t do anything.  So now we’re saying artists just all of a sudden started getting screwed and that we can wad that fact back all over the face of home computers?  The same home computers that we do everything on?  That’s just wrong.  And haven’t these computers helped these same artists stay in contact with their fans?   
 
Which leads me to another idea as to where the money’s disappearing:  The promoters.  I’ve always hated promoters.  They’re janky, slimy dudes and as a musician, there’s nothing that pisses you off more than having to meet one of these guys because they aren’t in any of the bands that are playing.  They get way too much money to do basically nothing and it’s not fair to any of the musicians and that’s where a lot of the money gets lost.  These promoters want to look like hot shit so they’ll book a band in Ohio for two nights, one in Cincinnati the next in Cleveland, and they will both be middle of the road semi-successful shows.  When that same guy could have saved himself by doing one night in Columbus on campus of one of the biggest colleges in the world.  Shit like this happens ALL of the time.  And it’s all the promoter’s responisiblity to avoid doing that because he’s playing with someone else’s money. 
 
And finally, with all of this discussion about how it’s technology’s fault, where is the blame being redirected away from the artists themselves?  What, so people figured out how to make records a better way and you’re so “old school” that you have a problem with it?  Don’t you ever consider (just for a second) that it might be “You’re not doing a good enough job songwriting”?  And this baffles me because even athletes (the most pretentious of all professions) are willing to at least admit when they’ve made a mistake sometimes.  You would never hear that from a musician ever.  Rob Thomas will never come out and tell you how shitty the new Rob Thomas album is.  And where’s the legislation that we’re supposed to be working on that says he should have to?  It’s probably still stuck in the system because they’re trying to finalize the fucking Napster hearing. 
 
Speaking of tech stuff, what is the music industry going to do in a hundered years when all of this “vintage” recording equipment REALLY starts to fry out.  Like when David Gilmour’s son requests it for some session and they kind of have to explain to him that there are no 2-inch machines left outside of Germany. 
 

It sounds to me like this guy is just looking for something to barrel into because he’s mad he chucked an empty beer bottle against his television.  Apple is getting music out there, let’s not be so quick as to go after corporations that are helping us live our everyday lives.  I though it was ridiculous when the Feds went after Microsoft.  Your computer is your friend!!!  You can use it to send messages to your friends, and book airline tickets, gamble on greyhound racing three states away, and YOU CAN STILL USE IT TO BUY MUSIC.  When Amazon’s stock starts to go down, that’s when I’ll be worried about the artists not getting “their” money. 
 

In the time being, I’ll listen to a record if I like it and I won’t feel any different about it.  Seriously, what difference could it possibly make?  If I “steal your album” online and I like it, we should both be happy.  If I buy it and it sounds like rhino semen, I get screwed because the artist still has my cash and you don’t see me in court suing the lead singer of Staind for everything he’s done in the past ten years do you?  I just don’t understand where it becomes their war on us.  If you’re good at what you do, we’ll come to the shows where you make most of your money, buy your merch and all will be well. 

 

But rest assured, if we’re standing outside by your tour van smoking before you guys take off, and all you do is bitch about Apple and how they’re stealing your money, when you leave, some guy in that circle is going to point out that you get to tour the country and play your music and see all of the wonderful scenery that this great country has to offer and you’re sitting here bitching about how iTunes has destroyed your life. 

 

And then someone else in the group will pipe up and go…”Yeah, fuck those guys” 
Meehan
East EndPhiladelphia Dot Word Press Dot Org

THE TEN TYPES OF BLOGGERS THAT CAN BURN IN HELL

By Jonathan Werner and Ryan Meehan

Well, we’re at it again. You need not bother pointing out the pseudo-irony of pointing out what is wrong with the world of blogs on a blog. Don’t get me wrong, in a vast majority of cases, blogs are a tremendous thing, but some of you are seriously fucking things up for the rest of us. Having said that, there are ten types of such blogs which need to go away…Now.

1)       “The Crusader”

This is the pontificating asshole who a) thinks they can save the whole world by using a keyboard and B) ironically thinks removing words from the language somehow solves the problem those words represent. I have news for you, “Mr. I’m going to save the world from the comfort of my laptop:” If you want to help the environment, spending a Saturday picking up trash along the highway will do a fuck of a lot more than putting a “Save the Polar Bears” bumper sticker on your Prius.

And as far as being the “language police” is concerned, doing things like stigmatizing the word “retard” for the sake of the self-esteem of those afflicted is ridiculous; as if the fact they can’t count their balls and get the same number twice has no effect on them. Words are just words. If you’re hurt by words, you’re going to be fucked should anybody ever throw a knife at you. The way the world seems to be headed, there’s going to be quite a few knives flying around in the very near future.

So consider yourselves warned, all you crusading retards…To prepare you for the upcoming “knife-throwing” era, we may just hide a few “offensive” terms in the following text. Don’t read further if you pussies can’t handle it.

2) Hip Hop Music Review Sites That Type How Urban People Are Supposed to Talk

“Yo, dawg!! Like, we’s be bloggin’ up in this heezy!!!” Eat a giant bag of rotting shit or anything else that will shut you the fuck up.  If you’re so “hood,” from where did you get a computer and internet access? You can call it stimulus generalization, but it’s highly unlikely that any of the people who would be able to give you a respectable opinion on hip-hop would have a computer in their apartment. Even if they did have one, it’s also highly unlikely that it hasn’t been stolen. Computers don’t have feelings of their own, but if they did, the spell check would probably want to commit suicide halfway through one of these assholes’ first posts. It would probably be so tired of having so many words that end in “a” added to its dictionary that it would just keep generating the phrase “Please kill me.”

 

J-Dub’s Bonus Note: As a black guy, nothing infuriates me more than dipshits who think it is cool to pretend to be black. It’s bad enough that too many black guys think it is perfectly acceptable to walk around looking like an outlet mall vomited on Homey D. Clown, the last thing is need some scrawny little Asian kid strolling up to me with his sideways hat, complete with tags hanging off of it, to blurt out “Whazzzup, G?” in that “no testicle,” high-pitched Chinese accent.

If you are a Chinese guy pretending to be black, you are a “Chigger.” If you are a white guy preteneding to be black, you are a “Wigger.” If you are a Mexican guy pretending to be black, you are the first, because I have yet to see one.

3) “The Cuddle Bunnies Fuzzy Duck Hour”

This is usually written by fat, suburban girls named Megan or Cindy who have led really sheltered, yet dysfunctional lives. It is all about happiness, sunshine, and other things which most people know are complete bullshit. We all know you write all this flowery crap because it is your coping mechanism from that time when you were fourteen and one of your uncles had some “boundary issues,” and your resultant love of Haagen-Dasz means no other white guy is willing to cross that border. Do us all a favor, take a night off from the keyboard, go down to a club in the city and get a hefty dose of black dick. It’ll do you a world of good. In fact, it’s the only reason they still produce Rohypnol.

I was going to address this in the poetry section below, but it fits here so I’d like to once again point out how fucking exhausted I am with hearing about people’s feelings. Here’s an analogy for you: “Life is like a shitty metaphor…it makes those of us who don’t have our heads crammed up our assholes want to kill the person who wrote it.”

4) “Look at how clever I am”

Yeah, so you think you are funny. I’ve got news for you, even though you have a degree in English Literature, any blog tagged with “humor” automatically sucks runny, grass-filled dogshit shit through a crazy straw. Even we’re willing to admit that we aren’t nearly as clever as we’d like to be. If we were, then we wouldn’t have to work for a living and we’d be able to write this shit in our underwear. Again, if we were that funny, do you think this would be on some 4th-rung blog that would have trouble getting readers if you printed it on Jessica Alba’s ass?

We could even screw that up, and not in the good way.

Instead, we write this shit while at our “real jobs,” as all that keyboard-pounding creates the illusion we a) are hard at work doing whatever it is we are supposed to do and b) give a frog’s watertight ass about whatever it is we are supposed to be doing.

So before you sit down in front of your keyboard to write another one of your bullshit “Dave Barry” rip-off pieces, stop to consider this: As I’ve stated before, the great thing about the internet is that it allows anyone from anywhere to get famous. Conversely, the horrible part of the internet is that anyone from anywhere can get famous (such as that parasitic dick-smoker Perez Hilton). The bottom line: As much as we’d like to say we support anybody who wants to become a writer, the truth most people who fancy themselves as writers really are just producing so much printed syphillis.

5) Any Blog About Poetry

Poetry sucks. I used to be a musician (thank God those days are over) and people love to throw that shit back in my face and say “Well you used to write music and lyrics are poetry…” and then I explain to them what it feels like to be wrong.

J-Dub was a bass player and a drummer who grew up to be an engineer, and he would be the first one to agree with my point that music is mathematics, pure and simple. There’s thirteen notes, there was thirteen notes yesterday, and there will more than likely be thirteen notes tomorrow. It’s all a basic mathematical equation.

Whether or not all of those indie rock douchebags would like to admit it or not, the same applies to lyrics. If the lyrics don’t have some kind of mathematical structure, then the music probably falls under the category of “avant garde” or “experimental”, which are just euphemisms for “shit” unless you’re in Mogwai or Sonic Youth. If all of my years in statistics and probability courses have taught me anything, it’s that 99.999956% of musicians have never been in either of those two bands.

What were we even talking about again? Oh, poetry, that’s right. I had almost forgotten. That might be because poetry is FUCKING POINTLESS. It’s not exciting, it’s not edgy, it’s not anything. The same people who get stoked about poetry are the same people who die from icicles falling on their head, and both sets of those people deserve it.

I was actually thinking about starting a website where anybody could submit their poetry and I would post it, only on one condition: That they start every poem with the phrase “As I am surrounded by my shitty poetry…” This would serve a dual purpose as either they would have to come up with something really creative to follow that, or they would realize they are throwing their lives away writing inane garbage.

6) Any Blog About Photography

If your blog is full of your pictures, and a picture is worth a thousand words, then why the fuck are you writing anything? Oh, because you want us all to you are the next coming of Ansel Adams. If you pictures weren’t shitty, you wouldn’t need to do that. Put that nonsense on Flickr and leave us alone.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing photographers out there. But photography is art, it’s open to interpretation. There’s no need to describe in detail what you’re trying to get me to feel. “I wanted the observer to see the delicate surface of the water to remind them of the fragility of life.” Hey dickbag, how about I look at the picture and decide what it means to ME? I mean, I’m the one looking at it right? Quit acting life such a self righteous dumpster muff and get back out there and take more pretty pictures for me to look at on the off chance that I might actually bookmark your website.

Meehan’s Bonus Note: There’s not even a need for Flickr. All of those other social networking sites allow you to post pictures, so delete the app from your phone, it’s only taking up space.) This is another one of those fields where there’s no need to advertise your blog, because if your work is good enough, you won’t need to promote it. Everyone will see that your pictures are great and you’ll make a lot of money. It’s called capitalism, get some.

7) “The Box Score Guy”

As a sports blogger, there is nothing I hate more than guys who write like they work for ESPN. Want to know where I can go read that kind of shit? ESPN! The world is dripping with “box score” websites…try offering an opinion or anything not being done by 90 billion other people.

I understand the sabermetrics stuff because it requires a lot of computing, but some of these assholes are just copying and pasting the basic stats so what’s the point? Just because you’re forming an opinion based on statistics doesn’t mean it’s right. Over the past twenty years there are hundreds of examples of situations in competitive sports where statistics end up not having any effect on the outcome. Even the Royals beat the Yankees every once in a while, and the law of probability says someday the Washington Generals will beat the Harlem Globetrotters.

8) “My Life is So Much More Interesting Than Yours”

Wow, so you were an Eagle Scout, you graduated from college at age 18, and last summer you climbedMount Everest. And yet, after all that accomplishment, you spend your evenings the same way I do, writing shit on the internet no one will ever read.

If your life is so fucking awesome, why isn’t your blog dripping with pictures of you getting blown by strippers two at a time at a time on your private jet? Oh, that’s right, because that shit doesn’t happen to you. The last time anything hot got near your crotch was when one of your microwave pizza rolls blew its load on you.

You live vicariously through the internet, the exact opposite of doing so in the real world which is why you claim to be such a badass in the first place. However the good news is not all is lost, that Eagle Scout badge is going to help after all. When you finally realize your life sucks as much as the rest of ours, that knowledge of noose-tying will at last be useful.

9) Role-Playing/Fantasy Game Opinion Blogs

Speaking of vagina repellent, this whole World of Warcraft thing has actually gone so out of control there are now individuals who have started blogs based on the ethics of how these games are played.

You’ve GOT to be fucking kidding me.

Sadly, this is not a joke. Look, if you want to play those games, that’s your business. Not to mention, your zeal for your chosen hobby should be admired. At least you aren’t being half-assed about it.

There’s just one small problem. YOUR HOBBY IS THE FUCKING STUPIDEST THING EVER! It’s even dumber that shoving your dick into an electric pencil sharpener. The only thing dumber than sharpening your dick is writing about sharpening your dick, unless it is writing about World of Warcraft while sharpening your dick.

In fact, perhaps you should write about this shit WITH your sharpened dick; at least that way you would be getting some use out of it other than when it ends up playing a game of “grease and grunt” with your role-playing buddy’s asshole. Of course, since you are used to a fantasy world, you can pretend that your secret gay sex isn’t gay as long as a) you don’t tongue-kiss and b) you both understand you are ONLY doing this because nothing with a vagina will come within 500 yards of you.

But I digress…don’t just trust my word on this, take a look for yourself. Forget about how stupid fantasy gaming is. Forget about the exceptional silliness of the concept of “ethics and etiquette” in a completely made-up world. Forget about the ear-raping music you will hear if you follow that link. To speak in this loser’s language: “…As webmaster of this cyberspace domain”, I grant you full authorization to go to this guy’s website and ruin his fucking day.  While you’re at it…check out the graphics!!! Not only is the resolution of the screenshots amazing, you can feel a little bit of yourself dying inside knowing that slowly but surely, content-specific material is disappearing everyday like so many dying brain cells.

10) One-Sided Political Blogs

You know that old adage: The two things you don’t discuss at a bar are politics and religion. The same rule applies to the internet. The reason these blogs tend not to work is because whoever administers it decides arbitrarily which posts he’s going to leave up and which he’s going to take down, thus defeating the purpose of an open forum.

In other words, if some guy makes a great point that the administrator can’t argue with, he simply doesn’t approve the comment and we never see it. Fuck that; what’s the point of having a blog if you are simply going to act likeNorth Koreaby simply censoring that which you don’t like?

However, if you think about it, that’s not any less fair than our current political system and may in fact be indicative of where we are as a society. However, you have to wonder how much these people worry about getting called out in front of their weekly traffic, which usually isn’t more than twenty people. Let’s be honest, how can you value the opinion of somebody who is such a complete pussy they can’t “man up” if somebody makes a point contrary to what they would like to believe?

Honorable Mention: Either of Our Blogs

Really, this is “best case scenario” for us.

Let’s be honest, who the hell are either of us to be bitching about any of this? We suck just as much as you; the difference is we have the self-awareness to see that, and the balls to admit it. Meehan is just another educated white guy who is pissed off at the fact he bought the great lie that a college education guarantees you a bright future and copes with that by running up Olympic-level bar tabs, and J-Dub is just another broke-ass black guy who married a white girl with a “big backyard” who pays all his bills while he pretends he’s running his own business.

If you’ve read this far, obviously you have nothing better to do, but you are also not easily offended. Now stop reading shit like this, go find more people like you, organize, and fix the shit that has gone so totally over the edge in this country.

More importantly, Thanks again for visiting Dubsism and East End Philadelphia for more of the internet’s finest in advice on how to be undeniably fucking awesome.

-J-Dub and Meehan