We Needed A Study For That?

I heard a piece on NPR today about a study of how pop music has changed and what it means. The big discovery: more Top 40 songs are in a minor key now than they were in the 60's. I know, shocking, right? The Top 40, with a few exceptions, has been making me sad for at least 20 years, which is why I don't listen to it. After breaking the news that minor keys are generally sadder and more "emotionally complex" than major ones (I knew that when I was 16 and had only figured out a handful of chords on the guitar. F Major = rock out! A Minor = my dog died), the smarty-pants in charge of the study concludes that people now prefer minor keys because they want to appear, subconsciously or consciously, smarter. In other words, happy tunes are naive and sadder tunes are "deep."

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Really?

Anyone who's ever endured someone in a bar drunkenly explaining why their favorite band is the best ever and "LISTEN TO THE LYRICS, MAN" knows this. We're all guilty of it to some degree. I won't hold it against you if you don't love The Ramones or X or The Jesus Lizard, but I'd probably like you a lot more if you did. It's as natural a bias as any other and manifests itself early in life: "You like burritos and Dokken? No way! I like burritos and Dokken, too! Let's be best friends!"

What the study's conclusions come close to - but ultimately fail to address - is why so much contemporary music is so FUCKING pretentious. Whether it's Madonna making Miss-America-level political comments onstage or Billy Corgan insisting he's the new unsung Bob Dylan, there's no shortage of self-importance out there in Music Land. And you know who I blame? Kurt Cobain. (Don't groan, even he couldn't stand himself in the end.)

I won't belabor the point, except to say that The Kings of Leon's first album sounded like rock and roll, and the last one sounded like a slightly revved up version of Coldplay. And the older I get, the better AC/DC sounds. I don't care about your emotional complexity, just rock.

In other non-news, "organic" foods are a scam. I could have told you that a decade ago. In fact, I think I did, I just can't find the post. In short, anything that's available in every Wal-Mart in America was not raised by Old McDonald. Duh. Eat a bologna sandwich and crank the AC/DC, ya stupid hippies.

Hey Kid, Nice Ass

You know your folks have entered the No-Longer-Give-a-Shit years when they start sending you pics and memorobilia from your childhood: report cards, awards and ribbons for showing up, and plastic baggies with clippings of your own hair.

"Thought you'd want these," the note will say.
"Thought you wanted them," your dejected inner-child will say.

Anyhow, I just got another batch of pics in the mail ("Happy Birthday!") and now have amassed a small collection of artifacts that will bore my future biographer to tears before he cancels the project and returns the advance. Artifact #1:



Shorts only a Jerry Sandusky could love.



Dave Dugan!

Dave Dugan!

RNC/DNC

I never understood political conventions. Whenever I want to hear old rich guys being loud, I just go see the Rolling Stones. Their message makes more sense, and they deliver it better. Every four years, the Republican and Democratic parties trot out new faces and new-ish messages, and every four years the people are disgusted. The Stones have been singing the same tune for 50 years, and every year there's a line around the arena to have sex with them. Now that's a Party (ba-doom-PAH!). Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Here We Go Again, pt. 2

Yet another comic (well, in this case an occasionally funny person) has issued yet another apology to yet another group of people with nothing better to do than watch a comedy roast then be offended by what they hear. I've made it clear in other posts how I feel about this sort of thing, so I won't belabor it here. I will, however, point you to a discussion between Joe Rogan and Jamie Kilstein in which the former schools the latter on this subject. Forward to about the one hour and forty-five minute mark.

Hard-Wired, pt. 2

Jerry Sandusky, with the help of his wife decoy, Dottie, is writing a book while in jail. No word yet on the working title, but I'd like to suggest "If I Touched It." Feel free to add yours in the comments.

Not only does this support my half-assed and totally un-researched theory that most people are sexually hard-wired (how else could he maintain the state of denial that he did anything wrong?) but it also demonstrates the sense of self-importance held by some who spend their lives in the public spotlight. A hubris so engrained that they think a significant number of people still care to read what they have to say even after they're caught and jailed for SEXUALLY ABUSING CHILDREN.

Sorry, Jerry, but you are persona non grata. Even your boss' statue got removed. Did you have a statue, Jerry? No? Oh, that's right, you were never a head coach. Anywhere.

At least O.J. Simpson - another celebrity-turned-criminal who thought a book was a good PR move - actually played football after college. Pretty well, too. Did you play football after college, Jerry? No? Oh.

O.J. Simpson was also in the hilarious movie, The Naked Gun, alongside the late great Leslie Nielsen. Were you in The Naked Gun, Jerry? No. Because you look like Leslie Nielsen - if Leslie Nielsen had spent his life drinking cheap scotch and raping teenagers.

Jerry, you're done. In fact, the very first sentence in your Wikipedia entry is this: Gerald Arthur "Jerry" Sandusky (born January 26, 1944^[2]) is a retired American football coach and convicted serial child molester.

A few years from now, is anyone really going to scroll down to "Publications?" Besides, how are you going to have time to write when you're busy getting a taste of your own medicine in the prison shower?

Bitch.

Hard-Wired

This guy worked at the Huck's convenience store not far from my apartment when I moved to Charleston in the fall of 2002, and right away I knew there was something off about him. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was - sometimes you meet someone and just know, as if by telepathy, there are skeletons in a closet somewhere, tiny ones. I'm just disappointed it took the authorities a decade to come to the same conclusion. I'm not cop-bashing - they need hard evidence and witnesses and Google records and all that. So, better late than never, I guess.

It's my (un)expert opinion that most people are hard-wired for what they like sexually and - for that reason - pedophiles can't be rehabilitated. No one walks up to a magazine rack and thinks, "Gosh I'm horny, but I don't have a date tonight. Do I want a copy of this month's Playboy or this month's Boy's Life? Hmm, decisions, decisions..."

Nope. It's hard-wired. Whether it's nature or nurture, I don't know, but if you're an adult and have the hots for 9-year-olds, your wiring is beyond repair. Sorry about your damn luck, but you need to be removed from the gene pool immediately. Preferably by firing squad.

In addition to all the priests, politicians, and teachers who regularly make the headlines for diddlin' the youngin's, there is - apparently - an endless supply of work for the executioner, so it makes good economic sense. Firing squads = non-outsourceable American jobs.

Get on it, Mr. President.

*FUN FACT: One of the people who "liked" the post about Lewis' arrest on the Charleston PD's Facebook page is named Kidd Carver. I'm sure he meant well.

Eat More Mayors

In yet another display of ninja-like political prowess, Sarah Palin waddled into a Chick-Fil-A for a big ol' bag of photo-op in the wake of the company CEO's comments about gay marriage. Deep-fried white meat for the base, I guess. I don't eat at Chick-Fil-A, don't care what their CEO thinks about anything, and care even less about Palin. She's the political circus' bearded lady - wrong in every way but popular with circus-goers who have nickels to burn. What caught my attention was NY mayor Michael Bloomberg's comment on the whole thing:

"trampling on the freedom to marry whoever you want is exactly the same as trampling on your freedom to open a store."

Well said, Mr. Mayor, but why is it not the same as trampling on your freedom to own a firearm or buy a soda that's 16.1 ounces?

Murderers, Muppets, and Marxists (Oh my!)

Predictably, Alex Jones is convinced that James Holmes is just another in a long line of mind-controlled government patsies and that the Aurora shooting was a false flag operation designed to increase support for an upcoming vote on a UN gun control treaty. You know, because Obama's real father is not Barack Obama Sr., but Frank Marshall Davis, a semi-prominent Chicago journalist and unapologetic Marxist/Socialist.

As with a lot of conspiracy theories, it makes sense - if you connect certain dots and not others. It also makes sense that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy (Oliver Stone's coked-up version of events notwithstanding), but in 49 years no one has been able to prove it.

I won't bore you with my opinions on gun control, except to say that some of the worst gun crime exists in places with the most draconian gun laws. Google it yourself if you care. As for Holmes being a G-Muppet, it's an interesting idea for a Christopher Nolan movie, but the probable truth is that Holmes lost his mind. As for conspiracies in general, I tend to agree with the late Terence McKenna:

"I believe that the truth of the matter is far more terrifying... no one is in control."

 Then again...

No News Is Good News

Something I actually heard on the news today: "Residents in the apartment building where the shooter lived described him as a loner, a recluse, someone who kept to himself." Talk about a red flag. All the years I lived in apartments, I hung out in the hallway. You know, so no one would think I was "weird."

This video pretty much sums it up (you can link to the full segment from the YouTube page). Thanks to @PattonOswalt for the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4

I'll just add this: Not long after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the university where I'm employed installed emergency handbooks on the walls of every classroom. Page one: ACTIVE SHOOTER. If that ever happens, and I survive, I'm going straight to Atlanta and shooting up CNN.*

*joke.