The Night My Fandom Died

On December 1, 2007, West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh played a football game. It’s nearly impossible to overstate just how much WVU was supposed to win this game. West Virginia was playing at home, at night, against a team that was 4-7 and had lost in embarrassing fashion to teams like Virginia and the University of Connecticut. WVU was 10-1, ranked #2 in the country, and had just blown out that same UCONN team 66-21 the week before. WVU had Pat White, Steve Slaton, and Owen Schmidt. Pittsburgh was coached by a mustache with headphones. Signed, sealed, and delivered, West Virginia was going to the national championship game.

It’s hard to describe to a non-West Virginian what being a WVU fan is like.

My Complicated Feelings on Nirvana

While impossible to separate music from those who made the music, we all make some attempt to do this. If we didn’t, no one would ever listen to Michael Jackson again. Everything produced by Phil Spector would be burned and shunned. Jerry Lee Lewis (modern reference, I know) would have banned from radio forever ago. If questioned, we make some argument about the music standing on its own.

With Nirvana the music never stands on its own. Every song lyric carries the weight of Cobain’s eventual suicide. We look for signs of his pain, as if pain isn’t the reason for 90% of all music to begin with. We give deep meaning to every breath heard on Unplugged in New York. We like to believe that Nirvana’s whole catalog is really a look behind the curtain of an impending suicide case that we all missed in real-time. If we had just recognized the signs from “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle,” then everything would have been different. This is ridiculous.

New Pearl Jam. I’ll always take new Pearl Jam. The song’s called “Sirens.” On first listen I wasn’t a huge fan, but it’s growing on me.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Well, Here’s Jared Leto in a Kurt Cobain Costume Playing Nirvana Covers

Maybe the worst thing on the internet:

 

Should We All Hate Aerosmith?

High on Fire’s Matt Pike appears to hate Aerosmith more than you’ve ever hated anything ever:

I’ve just always had this thing with Aerosmith. The guy sounds like a goat. [Bleating.] “Baaa, baaa, dude looks…” It just gets under my skin. I have this button called the off button or the mute button that I call the Aerosmith button on all my stereos. I just have this weird thing with Aerosmith, where I don’t even care what people say about their old shit. I think they’re the crappiest, most overrated shit band of all time. And I fucking can’t stand them. [Laughs.] And that particular song gets under my skin to where I want to stab people.

The song he is referring to is “Dude (Looks Like a Lady).” I’ve always been fairly neutral on Aerosmith, but this man (I admit to knowing nothing about High on Fire or Matt Pike) does make some good points. Bad Aerosmith is really, really bad. “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” is a stupid song, but have you ever listened to “Pink” all the way through? I bet you haven’t because it’s terrible. The same goes for “Rag Doll,” “Mama Kin,” and “Eat the Rich,” to name a few other Aerosmith hits that do nothing but make me change the station. And don’t even bring up that song from Armageddon. Jesus. That song…

I lost a lot of respect for Aerosmith when I saw them live about 3 years ago. I know that one shouldn’t expect too much from a band that has been touring since the 70s, but I’ve also seen the Stones within the past decade, and they can still bring it. Aerosmith did not bring it. They were embarrassing. Steven Tyler’s voice is still ok, but the whole thing had the feel of a bad Vegas act. The real horror came about halfway through when, well, I’ll let Mr. Pike explain it:

Oh God, I saw a live show. We played at some festival they played on. They were the headliner, of course, and Joe Perry had his little Guitar Hero videogame, and he did a guitar solo with his fucking videogame guy. It’s cartoon him and real him having a guitar-off. That made me want to puke, too.

Can you beat animated Joe Perry on Guitar Hero? No?! You know who can? The real Joe Perry.

Yep, that happened. Joe Perry, one of the world’s great guitarists, had an onstage guitar battle with the animated version of himself. He did this in front of people. Have we all just been giving them too much credit for making “Dream On” forty years ago? Maybe we have, but man do I still love “Crazy.” Oh, and “Cryin’,” and “What it Takes,” and “Livin’ On the Edge,” and, oh hell, nevermind. I still like Aerosmith. Crap.

[A.V. Club]

 

Racist Utah Man Fires Obama Supporters

Are you looking to do business with a racist owned digital forensics company? Then boy have I got the place for you. Here is Terry Lee from Terry Lee Forensics:

“Love it. We had to let two employees go to cover new Obongocare [sic] costs and increased taxes,” Lee wrote. “Found two Obongo supporters and gave them the news yesterday. They wanted the idiot in the Whitehouse [sic], they reap the benefits.”

Neetzan Zimmerman points out that Urban Dictionary defines Obongo as a “play on Barack Hussein Obama II’s last name, citing his roots as a typical Apefrican, bongo beating, bush monkey.” But Mr. Lee doesn’t stop at just being a racist; he is also an idiot. Zimmerman also points out that Obamacare only requires business with 50 or more employees to provide those employees with health insurance. Mr. Lee’s company has nine.

[Salt Lake Tribune via Gawker]

 

Was the Manti Te’o Dead Girlfriend Story a Hoax?

Yes, according to Deadspin:

Did you enjoy the uplifiting story, the tale of a man who responded to adversity by becoming one of the top players of the game? If so, stop reading.

Manti Te’o did lose his grandmother this past fall. Annette Santiago died on Sept. 11, 2012, at the age of 72, according to Social Security Administration records in Nexis. But there is no SSA record there of the death of Lennay Marie Kekua, that day or any other. Her passing, recounted so many times in the national media, produces no obituary or funeral announcement in Nexis, and no mention in the Stanford student newspaper.

Nor is there any report of a severe auto accident involving a Lennay Kekua. Background checks turn up nothing. The Stanford registrar’s office has no record that a Lennay Kekua ever enrolled. There is no record of her birth in the news. Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there’s no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

The photographs identified as Kekua—in online tributes and on TV news reports—are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua. She is not a Stanford graduate; she has not been in a severe car accident; and she does not have leukemia. And she has never met Manti Te’o.

The entire piece is a must read.

So Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theorists Actually Exist? We’ve All Failed.

I realize that there are lunatics who believe in conspiracies of all shapes and sizes. The moon landing was filmed in a studio in someone’s back yard. Everyone, and I mean everyone, shot J.F.K. Bush organized 9/11. Obama was born on a foreign planet or Kenya. Examples of lunacy are not hard to find. But, the Sandy Hook massacre? Come on, people.

For a conspiracy to have legs, there must be a real reason that the conspiracy would be carried out in the first place. So, the government organized an operation with multiple shooters to EXECUTE 20 ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCHILDREN in Connecticut. For what? So Obama could propose universal background checks and ban assault weapons? Really? Obama, or someone in the government, conducted a black ops mission to KILL CHILDREN so that assault weapons could be banned and more people would have to get background checks? Seems kinda extreme considering President Clinton was able to pass an assault weapons ban in the 1990’s without KILLING CHILDREN.

And that doesn’t even get into all of the other problems with this theory. If the United States government had concocted this plan to ban assault weapons BY KILLING CHILDREN, they would have to bring in a lot of folks in on the conspiracy, including all of the news organizations, all of the parents, all of the school employees, all of the local law enforcement, etc. If mistakes in news coverage are used as part of the basis for these theories, then these organizations must have really failed in the cover-up responsibilities. I bet Obama is pissed that everyone didn’t play their parts exactly how they were rehearsed on the mock Sandy Hook stage erected in his Kenya mystery bunker.

Your theories are so believable.

Oh, and then there’s Adam Lanza. I know when I first saw a photo of him, I thought “definitely a part of the United States black ops program.” I mean it’s obvious that he was born to play a critical role in KILLING CHILDREN so that someone couldn’t buy an assault rifle at Wal-Mart. I mean, so obvious. Am I right?

Bottom line: if you believe in this, you are an idiot. You should be shunned. Sure, you watched a video put together by a random person somewhere that looked mighty convincing, but you also have a brain. Let’s try putting it to use.

Just Another Review-Slash by Slash w/Anthony Bozza

Slash by Slash with Anthony Bozza
Published October 30, 2007

Slash is the autobiography of, well, Slash, written with Anthony Bozza. If you know anything about Slash then you know the highlights of his story: Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, drugs, sex, Axl Rose. Those are the things you read an autobiography of Slash for and those are the things you receive in large doses. This is not The Beatles Anthology. You will not get an in-depth description of the creative process that surrounded each song on Use Your Illusion II. You’ll find Slash much more in line with Life by Keith Richards. This is a story about dealing with an enigmatic (to say the least) lead singer, drugs, women, more drugs, and more women. This is not a bad thing.

Early on Slash suffers, as all autobiographies do, with too much time spent on Slash’s childhood. One’s childhood, is always infinitely more important and interesting to the person who lived it than to anyone who is reading or hearing about it. Slash’s childhood stories are more interesting than most, but that’s a low bar. I wish all autobiographies would cut the childhood stories down to no more than one chapter, but I know that’s wishful thinking.

Things pick up quickly when Guns N’ Roses begin to come together. Guns was easily the biggest band in the world for a short period of time and the behind the scenes stories are fascinating. With all the turmoil that has surrounded the eventual breakup of the band and the strangeness of Axl Rose, it’s easy to forget that this was the band that released Appetite for Destruction. Slash does a wonderful job of providing interesting, and often hilarious, storytelling

Let’s Have a Listen to R.E.M.’s “Country Feedback”

From the Album Out of Time
Released March 12, 1991

R.E.M. has always been one of those bands that I have a tremendous respect for, while also caring little about. I’ve never owned a R.E.M. album. I’ve never had a passionate discussion about the merits of R.E.M. like I have about a thousand other, and sometimes lesser, bands. R.E.M. just was. However, I recently stumbled across “Country Feedback” and have since become slightly obsessed. This may finally be the song that forces me to dig deeper into the R.E.M. catalog.

Let’s have a listen:

This flower is scorched
This film is on
On a maddening loop
These clothes
These clothes don’t fit us right
I’m to blame
It’s all the same
It’s all the same

Note: According to Wikipedia, the first verse he sings in the video (the best version in existence, btw) above is from the song “Chorus and the Ring.” The lyrics posted here are the first lyrics to the studio version of “Country Feedback.” We clear?

This is not my typical type of song. I’m usually adverse to lyrics being read to me (sing those words, singer!), but not here. Maybe