Irrefutable Proof That I Am Right About Everything, And You My Dears, Are Wrong Wrong Wrong
Current mood: chipper
***UPDATE*** What I'm thinking here, is that you need more proof:
Please, as you were! And remember, if you want your name in lights, send me an email. The more mortifying your dilema, the better.
x V
>>
You know what, faceless hordes? You keep telling me that I am incorrect about, well, everything. And I'm here to tell you that this is just not so. Things cannot be many things at once, they either are, or they are not. This is a physical law. Unless you were Batman, in which case you would be half man, half bat. I can say certainly on this point also, that you are not Batman. Clearly. Not even Michael Keaton or Christian Bale or George Clooney or Adam West can decide who Batman is. So shut up about it already.
It has taken me some time, children, to come to this conclusion. The various slings and arrows of your at times psychotically murderous hatred (remembering that my manservant reads ALL of your comments, then writes each of them out my hand, binds them in leather and passes the seventeen volumes on to me, which I then read over a bottle of red while I soak in a bubblebath) did give me pause to think that perhaps yes, I was wrong. Maybe Nirvana DID have something to offer that I had missed. But then I reasoned no, shooting oneself in the face is not such a great example for the young people and only someone who thought of themselves as a massive fraud would have done such a thing. So no, Nirvana remain the most overrated band of all time.
In the world of popular culture, there is no such thing as 'personal taste'. This is just a fact of deductive reasoning. Something is either awesome, or exceedingly terrible. That is all. You want someone to tell you what to do, say, think, feel, eat and wear. That is why I am here. I will help you help yourselves. So, from now on, you can send me your queries about love, life and the universe, and I will answer them, for all of MySpace to see. So a few things I might suggest doing before you write to me are a) learn to spell, and b) keep swearing to a minimum or else it makes it hard for me to reproduce your splendid prose without having to type '_________' every third word. OK? Excellent!
So lastly, here is some further proof that I, Vonette Cherry am irrefutably right about everything and you, in the main, are wrong, wrong, wrong:
MUDVAYNE:
I'm so glad to see that Mudvayne, based solely on my personal advice, have decided to stop dressing as clowns, and rather, are presenting their true, noble and serious selves to the world:
I mean, why would you possibly want to hide behind facepaint? Shame that your music still makes me want to reach my hand down the throat of the nearest person and rip out their intestine. But still, encouraging! Verdict: Clowns are idiots.
Jimi Hendrix Listens To Me:
Look, you got a bit upset about that whole overrated albums thing, I get it. Not that I'm saying you don't have a right to an opinion, but you're wrong. But really, look what happened after that story -- Jimi Henrix is now playing the guitar the right way!
Verdict: being really, really good at Guitar Hero on Expert is shorthand for being an expert on everything, such as I am.
Teenagers Today Are Truly Insufferable:
And it's not just you emos, with your Jared Letos and 30 Seconds To Marses (by the way, getting there would take a lot longer than that), no. It's worse than that. Your whole generation is without hope -- as typified by this guy:
Verdict: you all need to get off the internet.
That is, unless you put your faith me. I look forward to your letters!
Yes, we've all been riders on a downbound train at some stage or other in our lives. Infact, I used to catch one daily, as the geographical location of my office in relation to my home required as much. However, Joe, not all of us were lured into a life of crime as a result, as we can all surmise you were. To swing a sledgehammer on a railroad gang, as you crow, is not as such a particularly ringing endorsement of your career trajectory since your wife left you. Neither does it do much for your future prospects as regards finding a new wife. Because I'm here to tell you Joe, that things aren't so bad for you. You can, nay, you will find love again. Isn't that your dutiful role as a good Springsteen protagonist of the against all odds variety? Were you not born to run, free, in the general direction of Thunder Road? To, as an American, never retreat or surrender? That's right, Joe! So it is! Joe, buck up! Noone wants to hear your boring stories about your glory days such as they passed you by in the blink of a young girl's eye! You're better than that, Joe. Your tune is infinitely more catchy.
Things are not so bad. Times are not as you say, hard. Not especially.
I realise as the mister (no mind that I am a woman, I get where you're going with it regardless) to whom you so vehemently assert that you once had something going in this world, what with your job, and your girl (I don't see that this speaks of an especially ambitious outlook on your part, but whatever Joe. I understand you were previously happy, I'm following), and though you don't mention either your girl by name, or your job by title, I take you as trustworthy, Joe. Let us continue.
Everyone has been fired at some point in their life, Joe. It is a statistical inevitability of the modern age. You should take solace in this. What can have been so great about whatever it was that you did at the lumber yard anyway? The likelihood of accidentally lopping off your own hand with a chainsaw was far greater there than it was at your next place of employment, the carwash. Though I think you are exaggerating somewhat to claim that the location of the carwash was somewhere where it rained constantly, equally you should realise there are people, say people living in the middle of the Kalahari desert, who would give their left leg to live in such a place where rain is reportedly so plentiful. Additionally, I'm sure there were other great things about the carwash that you left out of your story, should you care to remember them now.
Joe, everyone's heart has been broken. Again you are not alone in this, and rather you should look to the many advantages that the clean resolution that was the end of your relationship provided you. Instead of wandering through life in a ceaseless state of unresolved torment, howling into the void WHY?, the reason for the end of your relationship with your girl could not have been made more plain. It is staring you in the face. She even told you, Joe. You had it once, you ain't got it anymore. Simple. It is over. That is why she packed her bags and left with a ticket for the central line, Joe. Relationships end. Plenty more fish in the sea, as they say! You'll feel the kiss of another girl in the misty rain, Joe! Isn't that a lovely thought?
Firstly though, Joe, we should address the issue of what appears to be your severe mental imbalances. It's okay, there are a great number of highly effective drugs available these days Joe, here in the modern age. If you are, as you report, hearing voices in the night, specifically the crying, crying voice of your ex-wife, you must understand Joe, that they are not real. This is not really happening. I guess though, that you discovered as much after running through the woods in your jacket and breaking into a house, which you believed to be yours by the side of a highway. I suppose, bearing in mind your current state of incarceration, Joe, that I do not need to remind you that breaking and entering is illegal. I also suspect, that nothing good can come of spending your nights in the woods. What were you doing out there, Joe?
Neither do I mean to cause you any degree of embarrassment by saying -- and here I speak on behalf of all women -- that there is nothing manly about dropping to one's knees and hanging one's head and crying. This is pathetic, Joe. Not least when your tears where spurred by something as innocuous as the whine of a train whistle! Many thousands of people hear these at all hours of the day, all over the world, Joe, and they are unlikely to be found bawling in an empty room, complaining of a pounding head. Perhaps Joe, if your chest really had exploded, and this was not just a further figment of your imagination, then you would have had something to briefly cry about.
Joe, actually, you know what? There is no hope for you. Your place in Mr Springsteen's canon of protagonist losers remains cemented. I'm sorry to have wasted your time, during which you could have no doubt knocked down several of them cross ties on the railroad. If you are now behind schedule, I apologise. I hope there is no punitive action taken against you. This is very important work that you are undertaking Joe. Please, as you were! (Feel free to supply this letter as a absent note to your on duty officer.)
Apologies.
Currently
listening
:
Born in the U.S.A.
By
Bruce Springsteen
Release date: 1990-10-25
So, if you believe the story laid out here in "All Summer Long", you might believe that before he grew up to become America's favourite yokel/steal Pamela Anderson from the loving arms of Tommy Lee, Kid Rock (or as he was then known, Little Kid Rock) cavorted around Michigan, er, all summer long with a girl who looks a lot like a young, pre-surgery Pamela Anderson. You know, we might buy that bit Kid Rock. And the houseboat full of girls in bikinis, and the spontaneous beach party, and the patently erroneous "Rock" part of your name. Maybe. What we aren't buying though, is the "I swear, I looked just like I do know, only younger and better looking" thing. Because you're lying, Kid Rock. This is what you used to look like:
So D-Rock is all like, "you grow up to marry Pamela Anderson?"
Kid Rock: "Yup."
D-Rock: "You?"
Kid Rock: "Yup."
D-Rock "..."
Kid Rock: "Yup."
D-Rock "..."
Kid Rock: "Yup."
D-Rock "And you sell millions of records?"
Kid Rock: "Yup."
D-Rock: "You?"
Kid Rock: "Yup."
D-Rock "Shit is fucked up."
Kid Rock: "Yup."
Currently
listening
:
Sweet Home Alabama
By
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Release date: 1997-03-10
Emos Today Are Ruining Teenagers For Everyone
Current mood: sore
Category: Games
Look, I understand that being a teenager is difficult/riddled with horrendous fashion faux pas/clumsy sexual encounters or the lack thereof. I don't have first hand experience of this phenomenon, however, as I was born in a time before teenagers existed. That's right, you little punks, you think you've got it bad? Noone understands you and your insistence on listening to Marilyn Manson while capturing a new profile picture with the just the precise amount of smouldering angles not at all reflective of your actual face? Well, suck it up! In my day, teenagers didn't even EXIST. And not in that 'God, why can't anyone SEE me? Not even with my 48 facial piercings?' way. No! The term was not yet coined. Though I would have loved to have sat idly around, penning horrible poetry for my negligent boyfriend and railing against 'the man', in my day you worked from the age of seven for slops and a space on the floor to sleep with the all the other worker bees. Or so I was told by the people who I think are my parents. Look at me! I'm not bitter. I'm not complaining. At all!
Yes, much like a seamonkey, I was instantly transformed from adorable, cherubic infant to the well-rounded, fully formed and high-funtioning adult you know and love today--just by adding water. I turned out fine. Teenagers of today however, the so-called 'Emos' (from where is this term derived? It is completely nonsensical), are pussies. Look how badass teenagers of the past were. Not to mention their music was a thousand percent better than yours:
MODS AND ROCKERS:
This was style, kids. Who says teenagers can't look good while beating the hell out of eachother for riding mopeds and not motorcycles? Nothing looks better on a Mod's tight white shirt than someone else's blood. A switchbalde and a motorbike was all it took to get noticed. You're listening to: Elton John, 'Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting' (or at least you were later on, once you were old and nostalgic):
PUNKS:
Punk is not something I'm hugely familiar with, but my, they certainly were angry about something. Societal illls, having to work, not very fond of the Queen, apparently not many future prospects. Whatever! You're listening to: The Saints, (I'm) Stranded:
You're pretty much killing it as a metal kid. Noone's messing with you. Your idiot peers call you a loser for not liking Duran Duran, but you grow up to have impeccable taste, loads of sex and a high paying job in a corporate environment by the age of 32. You spit on the grave of My Chemical Romance that you dug with your own hands. You win at life. You're listening to Motorhead, 'Ace of Spades':
Goths are just like emos, only totally fucking awesome. In other words, not at all like emos. They had superior taste in literature, dabbled for real in the black arts and made a life-long aversion to the outdoors look romantic, and not like you've got jaundice. It's been done before kids, only with music that was worth contemplating suicide to. Then recanting, because you looked so cool. You're listening to A Forest by the Cure:
There was so much to rage against in the 90s! So many machines! Male, white, corporate oppression; McJobs; AIDS; snickers bars; Winona Ryder and the Knack. At least that's what I learned from Reality Bites. We watched that and it was like, whoa, is this a documetary of our lives, or a movie?! Just, so so accurate. So much sucked about the nineties, but teenagers couldn't be bothered because it was all about not caring, and how deeply you could not care. Only not too deeply. A fine balance which required smoking a lot of pot. You're listening to 'The Rooster' by Alice in Chains:
No wonder you're so upset all the time. If I had to listen to, and possibly pretend to like 30 Seconds to Mars for fear of being razored by my peers, I'd be feeling like topping myself too:
Know Your 90s Music Video Cliches
Current mood: drunk
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
Whither the 90s? Well, around 8 or 9 years ago, depending on which calendar you adhere to. More specifically I mean, whither the 90s rock music video? Where's all the good stuff? Like oversaturated colour schemes, small children in various guises/en masse, distended, pointless narratives, misappropriated religious iconography and A LOT of people wearing animal masks? What about things exploding in slow motion, garish make-up, tearing at one's skin, wandering abandoned forests crawling with insects or stalking deserted black and white beaches? Or recreating school plays with stupidly high production values in order to symbolise what a terrible, terrible time it is in everyone's life. I'm looking at you, Crash Test Dummies:
A combination of any or all of these elements, and you are watching a 90s music video, fertile birthing ground as it was for a crop of future Hollywood directors/car commercial makers. Here's a rough spotter's guide with a few curve balls thrown in.
A Rough Guide To Knowing Your 90s Rock Video Cliches:
I don't know about you, but I really miss the days when a record label would dump a few squillion dollars on a music video which is actually part of a maddeningly confusing trilogy, a la November Rain. They employed an actual helicopter to whip dirt into Slash's face at just the right moment in his solo! That's commitment to art! And all that money later, we still have NO IDEA why she died. Mysterious! We do learn however, that the best way to get out of the way of a freak thunderstorm is by diving through a wedding cake:
Are you watching a mercilessly elaborate set-piece which employs liberals does of both dramatic beneath stage lighting and left over footage from an episode of Law & Order: Wall Street? Then you are watching Aerosmith's Janie's Got A Gun! Also notable for the factual error where "put a bullet in his brain" somehow translates as "or one in the chest, if we ever want to get this on TV."
This has everything: mechanical birds, Jesus wearing a Santa hat, the subtle symbolism of poppy fields. A forest that grows fetuses, an obese angel and a child who looks to have escaped from the KKK. I have no idea what any of this means, but it's Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box, one of which appears eventually when Dave Grohl uses it to send secret signals. I'm confused.
This scores pretty well on the cliche check box: high contrast colours, destroying stuff in slow motion (instruments! Garbage are taking apart the whole notion of music!), man wearing eyeliner and the introduction of the 90s video stalwart; fields populated by monster children dressed as half-demon animals, wandering around in out of focus slow motion for some reason.
Are you watching a by then dead-in-the water megagroup attempting to co-opt what they perceive to be the elements of an edgy 90s music video (Black and white = intense! Children! Noirish, slanted lighting!) and failing horribly? Behold, KISS: Unholy!
Back in the 90s, Cher could convince the United States Navy to let her borrow a gunship to shoot a music video, in the downtime between wars! If she could turn back time, indeed. Perhaps even, to remember to put on some pants:
This is like a poor man's November Rain, re-imagined as as un-aired episode of 90210. Ok, wait. So the storyline here is that he cheats on her with Felicity. She then cheats on him in return with the guy from the show about firefighters, whose art career affords that aircraft hangar apartment. She then calls him from the amazing apartment where she just cheated on him to invite him over? Ok. So it's alright by her that he cheats on her with their roomie Felicity, but on seeing this horrible, priceless painting, the Most Smug Dude To Ever Look Like A Girl burns down the other guy's apartment? I'm right with you, Bon Jovi.
REM have a lot to answer with this video. The existence of the Cell and Jennifer Lopez's acting career, for starters. This is where it all started with the freaky angels and cirque de soleil costuming and the medical fetishes and religious imagery and people standing in the dark corners of grimy-walled buildings. Killer song though, but sue me if I know anything about what this it is meant to mean:
And lastly, a video that manages to pack in almost every single 90s video cliche into one confusing package, Metallica's Until It Sleeps. They're crazy! Blurry! Tearing up the earth! Eyeliner! Not only a forest, but people made of trees! A baby! Lars Ulrich wearing an electric blue feather boa! A weird religious tableau, a crucifixion, body paint and half beast people! It seems like a lot of trouble to go to to distract people from the fact you've had a haircut:
The Top 10 Most Overrated Albums of All Time
Current mood: calm
Category: Food and Restaurants
Further UPDATE!! Everyone, please be assured that I read every single one of your comments, which are each printed off and FedExed to me by carrier pigeon. Mainly, it seems you are upset. Is this correct? In which case you may take solace in this support group which has been set up for you. While I've got your attention, does anyone know the best way to get tickets to Celine's shows in Vegas? I don't want to miss out! Thanks in advance.
WHOA EVERYONE, stop hating on Celine! She re-animated Elvis, who then duetted with her, which I think speaks volumes of her powers:
You know, I'm not sure that I really "get" this whole rock music thing. I mean, I realise it is immensely popular. It seems, if nothing else, like a really good excuse to play dress-ups. Which is super fun! So I like, totally get that part. Also, I see that it's defined as "a genre of popular music originating in the 1950s; a blend of black rhythm-and-blues with white country-and-western" (Thanks, Princeton University modern dictionary!) and that people generally agree that Elvis is the first rock star. Also, wearing eyeliner made him kind of the first face-paint guy, which I surmise to be totally badass. Ok, whatever.
Anyway! I have listened to all of the following albums at least part of the way through, and find each of them lacking in some fundamental way. So why they are always at the top of such time-wasting exercises as the Rolling Stone Top 100 Albums of All Time is beyond me. Who's got time for lists? Certainly not me.
So if I may present to you, the definitive list of the Top Ten Most Overrated Albums of All Time:
10. The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street
OK, The Rolling Stones. Sure you do that whole British version of Muddy Waters thing pretty good, but come on, couldn't you come up with a band name that wasn't already a major magazine title? LAZY! Also, your singer seems to have cribbed his look from this guy:
Lazy again.
9. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Now from both the looks of the cover, and its patently misleading title, it would appear to be that the skiffle band from Liverpool has invited the wonderfully named Sgt Pepper and approximately 50 other people to appear on this record, including Marilyn Monroe, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud - which I would have thoroughly enjoyed. But, no! Turns out it's just the four of them, their dreary harmonies and psychedelic odes to drugs, of which I do not approve. AWFUL. Also, they've incorrectly spelled 'Beetles'. If you like bugs enough to name your band after them, LEARN TO SPELL.
8. Metallica - The Black Album'
First of all, it's practically impossible to know what to call this album. Is it called 'Metallica'? In which case, why is it not called 'Self Titled' for clarity? How do I know to refer to it as 'The Black Album' and not 'The Black Album That Also Has A Coiled Snake From The Gadsden Flag In The Corner'? (which I'm sure you'll agree is much catchier.) I get it, metal is heavy -- and in the case of a certain genre, black. Didn't the Beetles have a White Album already? DERIVATIVE, Metallica! Oh wait, I get it: binary. Am I right? Either way, the songs are all played waaaaaaay too fast.
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
I doubt I am alone in voicing my extreme displeasure on discovering this was a vile, filthy record loaded with references to sex, and again, drugs. These are hardly the subjects to be addressed by four terrifyingly buff, tattooed scoundrels from Los Angeles. I thought this was about dessert cooking with exotic, extremely potent South American capsicums! Maybe also a little bit about voodoo -- but mainly cooking! I did not expect these explicit references to fornication. Where are this band's morals? APPALLING.
6. U2 - Achtung Baby
I much preferred Bono when he wrote songs about Jesus and other such clear cut, straight-forward subject matter as With Or Without You (which was a clear choice, clearly). But this? I mean, what's with all the guitars sounding like buzzsaws and singing in that high register? You sound like a girl, Bono! Man up! Come on. Noone likes it when people experiment! STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW. I also expected many more excerpts from Springtime For Hitler. I do like musicals.
5. Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
It should be patently obvious to anyone with ears that Bob Dylan cannot sing. At all. I realise that people are always going on about how he is supposedly America's Greatest Living Poet or some similar rubbish, but really, Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat? That's just verbatim describing an item of clothing that has long ago gone out of style. Get with the times, Bob! You also could have hired a photographer who knew how to focus the camera. Rubbish!
4. Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
This album has apparently sold 15 million copies, which can only mean that the world contains at a rough estimate, 15 million tone-deaf morons. Guitarist Slash -- if that is his real name -- was often seen parading the world's stages playing his hugely fogettable solos on a guitar with not one, but two necks, as if that would somehow make up for his hideous lack of originality. What, does he think he's some kind of guitar hero? And their singer is about as tuneful as Bob Dylan, only screamier.
3. Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?
Listen up, Jimi Hendrix, I've played Guitar Hero and I can tell you, YOU ARE HOLDING IT THE WRONG WAY AROUND:
You are clearly not at all experienced, now are you?
2. Radiohead - OK Computer
God, why is everyone always going on about this album, as if it were the second coming of Jesus, or as if Radiohead where the new U2 (non-Jesus version)? So groundbreaking! They say. Such sublime, insightful songwriting! The bleat. Hardly. If you ask me, this is just a fancy way of saying "whining", with lots and lots of guitars. I much prefer Coldplay, a far superior and totally original band.
1. Nirvana - Nevermind
The mother of all overrated albums. Firstly, children should not be exploited in this way. I mean, how embarrassing for this young man to have grown up as the 'Nirvana Baby'! Can you imagine?! You would never live it down. Also, with all the angst, loud dynamic range and screaming, this was not exactly the result I was hoping for when I ordered this meditation tape via direct mail. I don't think it worked too well for Kurt Cobain, either.
Sometimes when I have nothing else to occupy my feeble mind, I become consumed with solving the burning question of our age: how can I possibly soothe the pain that being Angelina Jolie must surely be causing her? I mean, think about it. It's got to be terrible, right? I know. Marrying Brad Pitt in order to conceive and deliver humanity's most genetically perfect child on the one hand, while deftly rearing 3 adopted/fashion conscious children on the other, all the while making time to secure your pilot's license in your downtime not spent riding motorcycles while getting tattooed by monks, is more than any woman should reasonably bear. Additionally, she has with Brad Pitt's help, recently taken the quota of genetically perfectly humans to a staggering THREE. Also, she was once in a Rolling Stones video:
I remember an amazing Rolling Stone interview with Angeline Jolie which I read when I was about 16. In this magazine spread there were frankly unforgettable photos of Ange wandering the desert of Nevada with nothing but a pair of leather pants, a panther on a leash and her long rockstar hair somewhat strategically placed. In this interview she talked about such favourite past times of hers as buying abandoned houses and inviting her friends over to ride motorbikes up and down the stairs. As you could well imagine, being 16 at the time, reading this made me pretty well obsessed with Angelina Jolie, how I could be friends with Angelina Jolie, be more like Angelina Jolie in general, or in the least, how I actually BE Angelina Jolie.
So, in short Angelina Jolie needs the strength of 10,000 Lara Crofts just to continue on her awesome quest to be Angelina Jolie. There is after all, only one of her and she is a rare and precious commodity, much like diamond encrusted gold, or good U2 albums. So I am glad that she (or her manservant, or Brad, or whichever of them) picked up the phone that you get given once you reach a certain height of fame; the phone that only calls Bono, and asked Bono to be the Chosen Twins' Godfather. Though I wonder why they bother with the whole "father" bit, which must just be a formality, as every man and his panther knows that Bono is actually an Earth-walking deity. And so with God's blessing, we can rest assured that Angelina Jolie will continue her good works being Angelina Jolie for some millennia to come. Also that her children will get a lot of sunglasses for their birthday from now on.
Currently
listening
:
Crying
By
Roy Orbison
Release date: 2006-08-08
chipper
sore
drunk
calm
thirsty
impervious
amorous