It's Halloween and I gotta take a piss

And go to bed.

Before that, I dunno if you've been reading my shit. If you haven't, get wise. If you have, go directly to my latest shit. Do not pass go. Do collect $200. I am a generous Monopoly player.

Echo! (Echo! Echo! Echo! Echo on)

I realize now that I started this blog 10 months ago, so we haven't yet had a proper cliched Halloween entry. Well it's time I stopped spoiling you bastards and written one.

Halloween of course is the time where we face our fears, or at least our retarded getups and slutty womenfolk, which isn't so bad especially when they pull off a Sarah Palin. ........... ah yes....... Well anyway, while that's all well and good, I still believe Halloween should still primarily be about scaring the living shit out of you, and I figure now is as good as time as any to face one of them.

Now if I were to go on and on about some of the things I'm really afraid of, it'd just turn into a depressing bore, and if I depressed you I wouldn't be doing me job. But there is one thing I find genuinely unsettling that is also fascinating and I think worthy of giving a good look at.

I'm talking about :thunder strikes: ABANDONED BUILDINGS.

Abandoned buildings are really cool, but also really creepy. They're inherently creepy. If you're in an abandoned building, it means that someone went through all the trouble of building one, then inhabiting or working in one, and then one day... gone in a flash. Everyone left, like an audience that accidentally stumbled into a showing of an Uwe Boll film. It means that you're in an area that everyone decided was better to run away from.

So when you get right down to it, aside from the actual dangers that an abandoned building has (rotting floors, shoddy walls, deranged hobos living in them, the fact that a lot of them seem to be in New Jersey), abandoned buildings are a representative of the creeping horror that sometimes befalls places.

Before you consider this concept alien, keep in mind that some of the most famous buildings in the world are really just abandoned buildings. Angkor Wat is abandoned (sorta). The Pyramids are abandoned, though they were pretty much designed to be off-limits anyway. The Coliseum is perhaps the quintessential abandoned building. Imagine Giants Stadium 150 years from now, assuming they don't demolish it. Oh who am I kidding, of course they will. Just hope the Jets are in it at the time etc. etc.

Of course, none of those places really feel like abandoned buildings. The most dangerous things about them basically amount to German tourists, which can be pretty bad, admittedly, or the occasional Italian-American tourist gal, a gal I want to do outrageous things with. RETURNING TO THE TOPIC AT HAND, the Coliseum may be impressive, but it's not scary. It's history. And history is only sorta scary.

Modern or nearly modern abandoned buildings are a whole nother matter. A whole nother? Really? Anyway, unlike the places mentioned above, these places are not kept up and nobody wants to see them, which makes them prime spots for spook hunters. Why don't we take a look ourselves?

This deligftul snap was taken in Kings Park, NY, not far from me grandma actually. This is a former mental insitution, and there are a LOT like them around the country, but particularly in the northeast. Buildings like these are one of Ronald Reagan's lasting gifts since he didn't think that spending money to keep insane people in asylums was really worth it.

Most of these buildings are right delapidated, but they are still standing and, intriguingly enough, are partially furnished, as if the inmates and workers were just taking off for the weekend. One of my favorite pictures of these places, which unfortunately I have not been able to track down for this entry, is of one such hospital room, its floor littered almost completely with what looked like little pill containers. Why were there all these pill containers on the floor like that? I don't know. But there you have it.


Not to leave the ladies out of it, here's another prominent theme in abandoned building exploration (hereon known as "urbexing"): hallways. This photo came from Worcester Park, an abandoned mental health facility in Massachusetts. Perhaps you've been? Hallway shots always strike me as particularly fascinating because hallways are places where people HAVE to be. A room in any given building can be empty, but there always have to be people in the hallway going somewhere, right? Hallways are also good for channeling wind into scary noise to SCARE YOU TO FUCK on windy days, so they have that bonus.

But hospitals aren't the only thing that's been abandoned. As the economy continues to slither towards depression, expect to see more of these: abandoned malls. In fact, there's an entire website devoted to them. Heree's another creepy motif for you: a place of commerce, of people going to and fro, shopping for tennis shoes or ginger snaps or whatever it is ragamuffins buy these days. The noise of people eating, talking, playing arcade games (oh wait, this isn't 1989!!!), of mall cops engaging in savage brawls with skateboarders in front of a Krispy Kreme.

Well, no more. The story of malls closing down is actually rather morbid. First one store closes. Then another. Then another. Before long, entire sections of a mall are nothing but closed stores, shuttered to keep people from rummaging through... the empty shelves I guess? After a while, it no longer becomes economically viable to keep a mall open, and they eventually turn into this.

A good abandoned mall will still have some signage in tact, a reminder of bygone days, of some proprietors holding out until the end, until all that's really left of civilization is a Prada 50% off sale sign, now collecting dust.

(50% off for Prada is still like $300 by the way.)

There are still other kinds of abandoned buildings, but by now you get the picture. The only thing scarier than an abandoned building, though, is of course abandoned towns. Ghost towns.

Above is actually one of the world's biggest ghost towns in the making: Detroit. Imagine Detroit as an abandoned mall writ large, except the suburbs are Walmart, steadfastly holding strong while Trader Joe's and Crate & Barrel (pours a bottle of liquor on the ground) die off. If you think I exaggerate, remember that many of Detroit's skyscrapers are literally sprouting grass. They're that unkempt because nobody is using the damn things.

The quintessential ghost towns can all be found in Arizona and Nevada and New Mexico, i.e. old gold rush towns. But those sites suck because most of them were built with dinky wooden structures that fell over after the last panhandler farted, so there's nothing much to see at all. Actually, ghost towns are pretty rare; well at least a ghost town that's still in tact.

So where are the good ghost towns? Well, old Baghdad is still there, kinda. Jonestown, Guyana is mostly gone so it's probably not even worth the trip.

Ah yes, there is one really big one, and mostly new at that:

Our old friends the Soviets were happy to provide us with one. You know what this is. Someone claims to have taken a bike tour (look here for more info) through it, but even if her story is utter shite, the photos are not. This is perhaps the best raw ghost town on the planet, a view of an entire people disappearing overnight, in many places dropping whatever they were doing. Except not to read, but to get the fuck outta dodge.

Gunkanjima (Battleship Island) is another fascinating place that is mostly in tact, though that becomes less so with each passing year. Gunkanjima was basically a floating coal mine in operation until 1974. People not only worked on it, they also lived there. If you're ever heading back to the Pacific and have time to kill in Japan, you can take a boat out to it as the island reopened for visitors this year.

A more obscure place is Centralia, Pennsylvania. There's hardly anything left of Centralia, actually, except roads that look like this. No, the drivers weren't that bad nor did they keep forgetting to take off their snow tires. The roads, much like everything else that was in the area, were rended under thanks to coal fumes. Centralia was built on top of a coal vein, and when the vein caught on fire, sulfur and CO2 and all sorts of happy shit seeped up through the ground, poisoning the area.

Fortunately nobody died (I think), but naturally the area was uninhabitable, and will be for a few centuries because coal fires are impossible to put out. It turns out that there is not a blanket large enough to smother it, unless everyone in the country wants to make a quilt big enough to cover PA. Hmmmm, actually, now that I think about it, that doesn't sound like a bad idea...

Today Centralia looks like that. You can get a better view on Google maps, actually, but this is the gist of it. Empty suburban lots. I'm not even sure there's a single structure left standing, but there are still roads available. Sometimes I wonder if people attempt to use it as a shortcut when passing through.

Another famous ghost town is the area around Love Canal. The story is baasically the same as Centralia's though, and no, Al Gore was not the inspiration for it. He was the inspiration for the Love Story, get your lies straight. There are a few more ghost towns rendered so by environmental circumstances, but they all basically look like this today.

I don't know what it says about the state (actually I do know and I'm just trying to be noice), but New Jersey has an awful lot of abandoned sites in it. It's a pretty good starting place for urbexing, a "target-rich environment" as we say in the militurry.

The closest I've been to an abandoned building (aside from driving past Kings Park's mental ward a few times) has been in my own town. A house down the block-ish had its inhabitants abruptly take off, leaving behind a rusty ol' house. Actually it wasn't rusty, bricks don't rust you fool. YOU FOOL. The inside was almost totally empty and the outside was remarkably unkempt. I don't think the owners gave much of a rat's ass, which frankly I think is great because if I (we) ever get a house, you can be damn sure I'm not doing any siding, no roofing, MAYBE I'll clean the gutters like once. And don't get any ideas about adding a new wing, we're not doing it. Honey... no, honey, I said no. NO.

Alas, the house was only abandoned for like a week before someone new came in. Now they're renovating. Actually I think they're done renovating. Who cares. For a while the entire front lawn was dead and it was great and we had fun and shit. The house and I, I mean. We had fun. You can't take that away from us!!!

Where will the future's ghost towns be? I can't say for sure, but Detroit is already on its way. With my help, it could be the biggest urbexplace in the planet. Dubai is another candidate now that people realize that building a theme park in the middle of a desert is a less than ideal idea (a lettandealea, if you will). Las Vegas is another candidate. Basically any city that's going to be fucked royally hard by even the slightest bit of climate change, so all of the southwest USA is on notice, as is Florida and New Orleans.

The problem is that abandoned buildings and such are not that accessible. I mean sure, a determined soul can break into an abandoned building, as many have, but it's illegal to do so and there are usually fences and wild animals around to deter you. And exposed metal. Oh my God they're all tetanus factories! Ewwwwwwww...

Nevertheless, a good birthday gift (ahem ahem) I think would be a trip to one of those places, just to wander around in a world that people decided to flee from. I'd just like to see what people leave behind, because you can tell a lot about people from what they leave behind. If you had to flee your home right this second, what would you leave behind, knowing that future archeologists like the famed Indiana Jones would be rummaging through your shit, looking for the Arc of the Covenant in your stash? (Note to Indy: If you're reading this, it's in the other seat-box thing. Next to the basement fireplace. Just lift up the seat. You'll know what I'm talking about. Basically don't look through my shit though. It's... um, it's really boring. Really really boring. Yeah.)

(In lieu of an abandoned building, I would accept a certain photoshoot of you in a certain football jersey of a certain football team, particularly of a certain football player named a certain Eli certain Manning, certainly. Ahem ahem.)

Well there you have it, kids. Did that creep you out? Well don't be scared, it's not like there are ghosts in them. I mean, why the hell would a ghost hang out in Asbury Park? You're a goddamn ghost, you can go anywhere in the world, and you're just gonna hang out at an abandoned movie theater? Okay, ghost man, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but...

Still Rock 'n/'r Roll to Me Part 2: The Part 2ening

When we last left our heroes, they were locked in a sex factory closet war of words over the state of rock. Is it dead? The negative side went first, valiantly defending rock against the assholes of unrockertude. But now the affirmative weighs in.

But before we begin, let's give a round of applause to my favorite gal Tina for giving her two ZLOTYS or whatever barbaric currency she's using now. It took her a long time to get to this place so we wanna make her feel welcome so that she'll come backstage and then we can do very, very, very sensual things.

Also I'd like to say that LI is not NJ's hat. No. No, we are NYC's bedpan, and we are quite content to take in that lovely city piss, thankyouverymuch!

Now on with the show!

"Is rock dead?" We ask that question not because we don't know the answer, but because we do. And that is definitely YES. The analogy of the doctors asking if a patient is dead is stupid because all doctors have to do is whatever witchcraft things they do to figure out if someone is alive, and then they know. That's why they're doctors and why I'm not. Okay, look, how was I supposed to know that the lungs were an essential organ? C'mon, look at them, they look so stupid!!

No, the better analogy is coming across a car accident and seeing rock 'n roll, splayed out on the pavement a la Elvis if he drove, and saying, "Is this dude dead?" If you have to ask, then the answer is probably yes.

But what do we mean when we say "rock is dead?" Well, there are still rock acts, rock is still on the radio, it still has a very large following and still has concerts and shit. So how can it be dead? Well I got two words for you: Disco. ... Frankenfeuter. But the important word is disco.

Disco is dead. But you can still hear it on KTU and shit. But disco as we know it is dead. Nobody makes any more music for it. I mean sure, if someone really wanted to, they could make a new disco song, just like people still make new country songs and new freestyle songs and new house songs. But good luck getting anyone to listen to that without rolling their eyes. That's what we mean as being well and truly dead.

It's more accurate to say that rock is dying. It's spitting up blood and its life is flashing before its eyes and some hobo is going through its wallet. Well too bad, hobo, I already cleared out its cash and AAA card, have fun with its library card!!

In 20 years, good luck hearing rock on any Top 40 station outside of the "goofy oldy song we play once in a while" context. And good luck having those songs be ANYTHING other than U2 or something. Rock is in dire straits and it doesn't take a record mogul to see that (and they are seeing it).

Let's wind the clock back a bit. In the gay 90s, the "Is rock dead?" question first started getting asked because Kurt Cobain decided to end it all. At the time, grunge was going to revitalize rock music, if it's possible for grunge to revitalize anything, that is. But Cobain didn't play along, and now rock was doomed to fall into the pop rock routine. This was the fatal blow to rock's future because pop rock turned into a black hole from which no decent rock music could hope to escape.

So basically all mainstream rock we hear today is basically a repackaging of mid-90s pop rock, give or take a few gimmicks. Look at the "big" acts of today (not counting old acts coughing up new records): OK Go (one hit wonders), AFI (dead), Paramore (struggling), The Killers (ha), My Chemical Romance (double ha), Evanescence (holy shit). Simply put, no new musical act since 2000 has had any kind of staying power except Coldplay and MAYBE fucking Fall Out Boy.

Who is dominating the market? Linkin Park (amazingly still), Green Day and occasionally Weezer. Ah yes, it's 2000 all over again.

And there's the key indictment: "all over again." Only Linkin Park really sounds different from other rock groups, and they STILL have trouble getting any real wide recognition (because they are just not that good). But basically everyone sounds the same. Everyone. And people are starting to notice.

When Cobain died, the other question on everyone's lips (not mine, though. I was wondering when the fuck were we going to get personal jetpacks, motherfuckers) was "Who will save rock?" Who will save rock? Is that the question you ask of something that is supposedly alive and well? If your musical genre needs a savior, it's done for.

Cobain was supposed to be that savior, but he failed to rise on the third day. So the industry turned to Indiana Jones to find the lost saviour of rock. Remember those awful days? First it was U2, but people realized that U2 was already an established rock group. Then it was Foo Fighters, but they never really caught on beyond the rock genre. Then it was the Smashing Pumpkins, but then they vanished. Then it was Oasis, but they went nowhere. Then it was Limp fucking Bizkit but even that was too much of a joke to maintain. Then it was the White Stripes, who couldn't follow up anything for shit.

After that, people stopped asking that question. They knew the answer. Nobody can save rock music. Something is wrong with the genre at a fundamental level. Maybe the record companies are too incompetent to give the right people to push rock into a new creative direction, but after decades of rock in a noticable decline (the hair band days did a lot more damage to rock than anyone really wants to admit), rock producers are starting to realize that we've hit peak rock and that indeed motherfuckers would rather do something than rock out.

Like peak oil, industry folks will keep digging deeper and deeper for a decreasing amount of rock. I mean sure, you can write a new rock song and shit, but will it really be that interesting? It'll likely have the same chords, the same beat, the same melodic structure. Like country music, it'll be one giant self-referential mess. Worst of all, everyone will have heard it before and go, "Yeah, I liked that song... when it was fucking called 'Love in an Elevator.' Wait no, I hated that song. AND I HATE THIS SHIT."

Most of rock's glory is rooted firmly in the past. U2, the E-Street Band, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, what's left of the Beatles, all old. Most aren't even truly active. McCartney and Joel have grown bored with rock and are writing fucking classical music now. When two of your giants are bored with your music, you have to realize that rock's creative potential seems to have tapped out.

Really, rock hasn't been taken in a new direction since 2000, when Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park pushed rock/rap hybridization to the fore. But that never really took off, and now rock/rap has been pushed to the fringes where it can do precisely 0 to help mainstream rock. This is a serious problem. Rap and hip hop continue to dominate the airwaves not just because of saturation, but because they do new things, and people will listen to something that is new over something that they've heard before.

No matter what direction rock takes, it winds up back in the mid-90s pop rock funk (and not real funk, lame funk). If it's not Oasis trying to channel the Beatles (stupid move, by the way. If people want to hear the Beatles, THEY WILL FUCKING LISTEN TO THE BEATLES), it's the White Stripes trying to ape psychadelic rock (ditto) or today's modern bands trying to incorporate vaguely punk elements into their style (nothing turns off people more than people trying to act edgy for MTV's cameras, I believe).

This is not a question of rock being successful relative to pop or R&B or rap or whatever. This is a question of rock's ability to entertain people in new and exciting ways. Whatever you think of other musical genres, they are still innovating while rock keeps falling back on the same formulas. And people will get tired of it because they love SHINY NEW SHIT.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it's Top 40 music so the majority of it will always be shit. That can't be helped. But rock being shoved to the fringes of everyone's musical conscience can't really be a good thing. Rock is still a distinctive sound no matter how much pop borrows from it, and it should be preserved like the panda. Because rock is so fucking cute and dawwww look at it go down the slide! You are so precious rock! Yes you are! Yes you are!

Unless someone truly comes along to take rock in a new direction, in 20 years' time, there we will be, attending the 15th Oasis reunion concert, kids on our shoulders, you bellowing out "Wonderwall" and me checking my watch, hoping we get home in time to watch the Space Rangers play tonight's Space Stanley Cup Space Playoff game, the only people on earth still listening to rock music unironically. And you'll still be the sexiest thing I ever laid eyes on. Yes you are! Yes you are! BUT I DIGRESS.

Well thank you, affirmative side. So there you have it, the definitive argument over the state of rock 'n roll. I'd ask you what you think but you already weighed in. Unless you have more to say. Do you? DO YOU????? Only YOU can decide who won.



































































* not really, I decide that.

It's Still Rock 'n/'r Roll to Me

Keeping with our (my) musical theme, as someone who frequents Top 40 stations (in no short supply all over Long Island), there's one thing that keeps hitting me, something that has hit me for years. No, not low-flying birds, dumbass. I'm talking about rock music. Get it? That's a line from a song. If you liked that you better leave because that's as witty as this shit will get.

"Is rock dead?" is a question that has been asked for years now, since the mid-90s, really. With Oasis breaking up, The Smashing Pumpkins collapsing (again), Green Day fizzling and most of rock 'n roll's usual players turning up AWOL or DOA, it's a fair question to ask. A book has even been written about it, and since it's $27.95 on Amazon, you can bet that it has at least some clout. By the way, this is the most scientific inquiry into music ever.

But is rock dying? Does it need to be resurrected? Or is it merely asleep, still vital but othewise occupied, ready to jump up and kill the nearest thing when someone pokes it (rock suffers from PTSD, unfortunately)? There are only two people on the planet who can settle this question once and for all, and they both happen to be me. Yes, I will argue with myself this most vital of questions. To start off, I have flipped this two-headed coin. The negative side has won and chosen to go first. Very well, asshole, IS ROCK DEAD?

In short: no. In long: this is a stupid question and you should feel bad and should go to bed without dinner tonight. This question has been asked for years for a reason: nobody can say YES. Do you see people still asking if the Pope shits in the woods? No, because they figured out the answer to it: HE CERTAINLY DOES.

More pertinently, do doctors keep asking, "Yo, is this patient dead?" for over a decade? No, they know right away. If he's dead, they prop him up like a puppet and use him to entertain the cancer ward. If he's alive, they prop him up like a puppet and use him to entertain the cancer ward. No, cancer, I mean, rock is very much alive.


Who calls rock "dead" when it's still on the radio? It's a proposterous proposition. A propostition, in fact. MTV still is down with rock, rock stations are still on the air, rock concerts are still going strong, rock may be weak right now but it's not disco.

I don't even know what constitutes it being dead. Record sales? Rock is still profitable. Concerts are still selling out. They're even making rock video games (bideo games if you're from the ORIENT). Does that look dead to you?

Rock detractors point to the failure of rock to come up with superstars as evidence. Just because we don't have anyone equivalent to Elvis running around does not mean that rock is devoid of talent, especially long-lasting talent. Pearl Jam has come out with a new album. So has Weezer and Alice in Chains. Are they dead? There's not as much churn as people think. Rock acts still have staying power.

Trying to point to sagging sales is itself idiotic. As you can see, the entire music industry is sagging. Rock is not doing any better or worse than anyone else.

When we get down to tin tacks (brass is too fuckin' expensive), rock is still the "it" genre, and I hate myself for calling anything "it," but there it is. It's the truth. People still dream of being ROCK stars. Just like baseball, the numbers may be down relative to other genres, but it's still the standard for popular music excellence, and it'll take a lot more than a bunch of limeys having a tiff or a bunch of washups flaming out to spell rock's doom.

So why don't we end this stupid feud and acknowledge that rock is here to stay. It's here, it's queer, get used to it, as they say in Afghanistan.

Okay, negative side, thank you for that wonderful report. Tomorrow we will hear from the affirmative side who will no doubt destroy this chicken-shit argument, and then swing in through the window to ravish the ladies. Tune in next time on MACGYVER (MACGYVER... MACGYVER... MAGYVER... MACGYVER)

What happened to our love?

One of the little things that fascinates me the most about EVERYTHING is that there are songs that I like at first, but then after a while, they lose their luster (or lustre if you are a bastard limey). It rarely happens. As someone who has the ability to identify a song after hearing just a few notes (it's an amazing ability, trust me. I can also READ YOUR MIND. Mwahahaha! Whoa shit, I didn't know you liked Cheetos... My god we really are meant to be...)

Anyway, finishing that sentence off, as someone who can identify songs by hearing a few notes, I take pride in being able to identify a song I'm either going to like, really like, not care about, or despise like it killed my father. YOU FUCKER, I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU, "LIKE A VIRGIN."

But sometimes, there's the song I'm down with at first, but as time goes on, something goes terribly wrong. Terribly, awfully, no good very badly wrong. I've done some studying of the issue and I'm ready to release a final report. And to help me with this (and in an effort to get myself associated with him so as to better win the heart of a certain Boston bum), I've asked celebrity chef JUDE LAW to illustrate! Everyone, give him a round of applause, he really needs it! Jude!

"Hello everyone. Can I be fed now, sir?"

No Jude, I told you, you have to both START and END each sentence with "sir." Come on now.

Without further ado, let's get crackin!

Culprit: Ray J feat. Yung Berg - "Sexy Can I"
Release date: 2008
Reason:
What is that, Jude asks? It's the discovery of some sound (or noise, to be precise) in a song that totall derails it! Allow me to eplain:

"Sexy Can I" is a decent song. Decent enough that I'll listen to it if I have nothing better to listen to. That was until my ears picked up on something, some noise in the background. See if you can hear it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMl6koRXo4M.

If you didn't hear it, pay very close attention to the background noise, particularly in between the words of the lyrics. It is there. If you're still stumped, imagine some kind of bizarre muffled honking noise, like leather being rubbed together to create a leathery burp.

It took me a while to fully realize that there was indeed a noise, and like the FedEx arrow, you can't unsee it. Well, in my mind, I can't unsee the noise. Every time I hear the song, there it is, staring at me, getting in the way of everything else. The rest of the song recedes, leaving nothing but an ugly honking noise. This is the shit of nightmares, people.

I don't know exactly what they were thinking of having that noise in the song, but whatever it is (or is supposed to be), it ruined the whole damn thing. Not that the song was that great anyway, but when you're on the razor's edge, don't give me a reason to bump you off. :chews cigar menacingly:

"Sir, well done sir, but was the scar really necessary?"

Because, Jude, the scar is there to show everyone that despite our supposed perfection, everyone is flawed. Including you. The scar is a reminder of that fact, so as to not fall into hubris. Or something. And before you point the finger, my face too is imperfect, as shocking as that may sound. I've told you about ol' chomp, after all. So yes, that's the imperfection of my face. The only imperfection. DON'T YOU DARE CRITICIZE MY FACE YOU BASTARD.

"Sir, may I eat something now, sir?"

No Jude, you didn't end the previous sentence with a "sir." You'll never learn if I go easy on you. Next!

Culprit: Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo - "Knock You Down"
Release date: 2009
Reason:
Poor Mr. Law is being bombarded with a song. Over and over and over and over and over again. And like cheap perfume, Nachos, a thorough back massage, and being stuffed into a trash can and rolled down a rocky hill, too much of even a good thing can get boring after a while. Unfortunately, that's what happened to this one.

"Knock You Down" is a decent enough song. It's got a good beat and kind of a peppy attitude that makes me want to root for it against the evil preppy hockey team. And in the interest of full disclosure, if there's a song I really like, and depending on the mood, I can listen to it over and over again for hours on end. I just DON'T GIVE A FUCK sometimes and feel like I just wanna keep hearing it. Excuse the fuck out of me, Ms. High and Mighty!

But "Knock You Down" is NOT good enough to earn that honor. And I don't know why, but this song got played the fuck out of during the summer. I counted on three separate occasions the song being TRIPLE-PLAYED. That's unheard of. Absolutely unheard of. Yet there it was.

Poor Mr. Law is getting overwhelmed. This isn't fun anymore. This song has overstayed its welcome, and now he is musically frazzled. The only solution is to turn the damn thing off. For good.

Let this be a lesson to songs out there: If you're only just good enough, don't overplay your hand. Yes, it's often a good idea to go the extra mile to impress someone, but constantly showing up and taking over the airwaves when "He's Just Not That Into You" (now in softcover!) is a good way to get a fast ticket to Get the Fuck Outsville. Population: You. And a bunch of other bad songs. And now you can join them!

Incidentally, if you want to hear it for yourself (not that it should be a mystery to you by now), here ya go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Q8FFckHYY.

"Sir, that was wonderful sir."

It sure was Jude. But brown-nosing will get you nowhere. BACK TO WORK.

Culprit: Fergie - "Big Girls Don't Cry"
Release date: 2006
Reason:
Usually when I hear a song, especially a pop song, I ignore the lyrics. They're just not a top priority when it comes to enjoying music.

Such was the case with "Big Girls Don't Cry," a passable effort (especially for Fergie, who basically defines "cookie-cutter" in the current pop scene). Yeah yeah, it has a kind of dreamy melody to it, but it was good enough.

But apparently my brain was getting bored with just riding the notes and started paying attention to what she was blathering about. And then suddenly the song went from being tolerable to deeply flawed. Simply put, I was not kidding when I used the word "blathering."

I understand that artists rarely write their own songs, but-- oh, it turns out that she actually co-wrote it. Well then fuck it. Fergie, you can't write lyrics for shit, I'm telling you right now. Take a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRBoJU-MTY.

That shit is ugly. As in the kind without an alibi. I don't care if she was drunk, I imagine the lyrics to this clunker were written on fucking crayon. Even rappers don't sink to this level of base rhyming. This is below minimum effort.

The most galling part has to be the shitty "Uno cards" lyric. UNO CARDS? Oh great, rhyme "yard" with "cards." That's real clever, Fergie, calling the game of Uno "Uno cards." I can't wait until she rhymes "lame" with "Monopoly board game" in her next hit song.

Once you hear something that stupid, there's no turning back. I was actually offended by it on a spiritual level. And so, like the song's idiom, we parted ways. Except I hope you know, Fergie, that it was entirely your fault. You can pick up your SHIT in the YARD, and yes I AM keeping the ring.

"Sir, fascinating, sir. Sir, am I doing a good job so far, sir?"

Yes Jude, you are. But don't keep asking me, that's a sign of weakness, and I crush the weak. DO YOU WANT ME TO EAT YOUR BONES, JUDE? NEXT!

Culprit: The Bee Gees - "You Should Be Dancing"
Release date: 1976
Reason:
This was a shocking outcome, even for me. "You Should Be Dancing," is nominally a pretty good song. It's danceable, it has a nice hook and it nicely uses the Bee Gees' style. So what went wrong?

Well, Jim (let's pretend you're Jim. I'll be his dad. His sexy dad, so keep that in mind when you're no longer Jim. Also I am a single dad :winks:), you see, sometimes life is funny. And not funny ha-ha or funny ha-ha that guy fell down the stairs and is in severe pain, but funny as in not funny at all. Which in itself is funny. Funny ha-ha that guy fell down teh stairs and is in severe pain.

What I'm trying to say, Jim, is that sometimes things happen for no reason. Like dice landing on boxcars, resulting in your college savings going down the drain. But I'll be damned if some woman will tell me what to do with my "play money!" And in this case, Jimmy, sometimes a wonderful love just disappears.

Except this wasn't a wonderful love, it was merely a pretty okay love. But as time wore on, the song just lost its spunk. Sometimes a song can survive without its spunk, like "Beat It," but not all of them can. Unfortunately, "You Should Be Dancing" cannot survive without its spunk. It's become lifeless and bland, and rather than deal with that, I just go past it (unless there's absolutely nothing else on, then I'll give it a listen for old time's sake).

Here it is if you're curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaXdTe2TYhs.

The Bee Gees still have "How Deep Is Your Love" and "Jive Talkin'" as their biggest hits, so this is not a terrible loss. But it is still kind of melancholy.

Okay, you can stop being Jim now. So, baby, what brings you to a place like this? How about we check out my... Bee Gee...

"Sir, was it really necessary to draw a Hitler moustache on me earlier, sir?"

Oh, you're still here... Yes, Jude, it was. Because I was making a point, being that we are all Hitler. Even in the right circumstances, we can become Hitler, a neurotic one-balled Jew-hater with a penchant for magnificent military fuckups. We must not fall victim to hubris and think that we can save the world, one Slavic country at a time. If we're not careful, a new Hitler will be born and ruin the world. Are you a Hitler, Jude?

"Sir, no sir."

Good. You can go now.

"Sir, thank you sir. Come see me play Hamlet!!"

Yes, come see Jude play Hamlet in New York. You can go away now.

"Awesome. Get lost you fuckin' weirdo!"

YOU SHUT UP, JUDE. GO BACK TO SIENA, YOU BIG BABY. WAH WAH I'M JUDE LAW I'M A BABY WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LIKE MY MOVIES WAH WAH JOAQUIN PHOENIX GETS ALL THE GLORY WHY? WAH WAH WAH MY WIFE IS HOT WAH WAH nobody cares Jude. NO BODY CARES.

Oh, he left. Well, bye!