You’re Doing It Wrong – Pop Culture Edition
I am a man who enjoys his pop culture. I watch too many movies. I mainline TV like heroin. I know more about the history of the WWE (nee WWF) than I do my own family. And I still read comic books, despite being old enough to be the aged scientist who accidentally bestows powers upon the hero.
But if I had to give it all up tomorrow, I’d be OK. I’d find something new to occupy my time. You can’t take this stuff too seriously.
Which brings me to “New Moon.” *Ahem*
If you are screaming and squealing when a trailer for a movie is shown, you are doing it wrong. If you are emotionally affected by the fact that the actor of the film, whom you will never meet and did not have a chance with anyway, is dating his co-star, you’re doing it wrong. If someone questions the quality of the film and you’re response is unmitigated fury instead of a rational explanation of its appeal, you’re doing it wrong.
Oh, Twi-hards, I cannot tell you how much I have looked forward to “New Moon.” I never saw “Twilight,” nor do I plan to. I will not see “New Moon,” either. I will also avoid the third film, which I assume is called “Mummy Boning.”
But I have been eagerly anticipating the release of “New Moon,” regardless, because when it’s finally in theaters, I won’t have to hear you scream about it anymore. I won’t have to put up with the incessant fast food tie-ins or the non-stop cycle of commercials for that movie. They will fade away and leave me in peace and quiet, enjoying (but not obsessing about) the pop culture that I so love.
Now if I could just tune out all the people who love “Lost,” I’d be in heaven.
Your game is weak, sir.
It is not a lot of fun working behind a counter. Whether you’re checking out the blue-hairs at Ross or taking orders from 1 a.m. stoners at Taco Bell, it’s not easy to put on a smile and just get through the day.
So when I see people who seem happy pulling drinks or ringing up purchases, I really appreciate them. Those people make commerce worthwhile. If everybody manning a register acted like an a-hole, I’d do all my shopping online.
But there are dangers, especially if you’re of the not-bad-looking girl persuasion. (Not-bad-looking guys are a dime a dozen. Buy in bulk.) And I saw, first-hand, one of those dangers this morning.
Waiting to order my breakfast sandwich, I had to witness Lamey McDouchehat hitting on the poor girl making coffee. He was telling her about how he couldn’t eat chicken because he knew what they did to chickens. Pitching woo like that, I was surprised she didn’t fall into his arms, but I guess she saw that episode of “Bones,” too, and decided she didn’t care.
There’s a place for gross dudes to hit on non-gross ladies. It’s located at the corner of Nowhere Near Me Dr. and Get Out of My Way Ave.
Seriously, man? “Chickens are tortured” is your pick-up line? Let me guess your closer. Is it, “I hope you like back hair”?
Allow me to apologize for being creepy…
I am not creepy. OK, maybe I am. I honestly don’t know. That is because “being creepy” is pretty subjective.
Is a person following you or is he just headed to the same place you are? Unless you are also a mind-reader (they walk among us), you probably won’t ever know — barring said stalker saying, “I’m following you! How am I doing?”
That said, I am perpetually worried that I am being perceived as creepy in situations where I am genuinely not trying to do anything creepy at all.
At the gym? I try not to look around. Situational awareness is great if you’re a security guard or Jason Bourne or something. But Greg Elwell will either zone out and listen to his music or watch whatever’s showing on the TV. Look around too much and you’re bound to meet eyes with someone and BOOM! Creepy.
“Does he/she think I’m staring at him/her? I’m already sweaty and gross and now he/she thinks I’m a stalker? Awesome.”
And, honestly, it’s hard NOT to stare at a he/she. I mean, if somebody has half a face that’s a man with a moustache and a tuxedo and the other half is a buxom blonde in a crimson cocktail dress, you can’t not look. And what the hell is he/she doing in the gym dressed like that? You can’t climb the StairMaster in those clothes!
At the grocery store, I am perpetually convinced that people think I’m going to steal their babies. And I cannot make this clear enough — I’m not even sure I want a baby that is half me, much less some strange baby being pushed around Crest.
So, you know, if you see me out and I appear to be creepy, please accept my regrets. I certainly don’t mean to be creepy; though now that I think of it, the hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses and ski mask (and the lack of pants) might be giving everybody the wrong impression.
Again…sorry.
Normal is whatever you are
My friend’s mom cooked green beans with almonds. I freaked out.
As a kid, you get to know things as “normal” because you do them all the time. My mom cooked canned green beans with a little bacon fat and a little sugar. I didn’t know what a fresh green bean tasted like until I was in high school and I didn’t learn to like them until much later.
So when I went to my friend’s house and got this alien green bean almondine, I politely ate a bite and a half and thought, “I’m never coming here for dinner again. These people are insane.”
Of course, the way I live my life now would have been just as insane to 8-year-old me. Sleeping without a night light? Wearing a tie? Eating macaroni and cheese that isn’t straight out the box? That kid would have an aneurysm.
But I’ve come to view the arguments I made as childish, which isn’t surprising, because I was a child. Sadly, too many people still make those arguments now, and they’re supposed to be adults.
Normal is whatever you are. Normal is however you live your life, because normal is relative. There are things I do that would seen foreign to lots of you and vice versa. But guess what? You don’t have to live my life. You have your own. Live it however you see fit.
A co-worker told me today that she doesn’t have a TV at home. I couldn’t live like that, I told her, but if she can survive with two kids and a husband and no idiot box, go for it. Who am I to judge? I probably watch too much TV. But that’s how I choose to live my life and I like it just fine.
It’s time to condense
If ever there was an argument for better health care, it is the state of our pop culture. There is simply too much going on for us to understand and enjoy in one lifetime. Either doctors need to figure out how to keep us alive and lucid for longer, or we need to start putting our brains into robot bodies, a la “Sealab 2021.”
But since Congress is busy screwing up healthcare and scientists are busy coming up with “the new cigarette,” we have to take steps of our own to sort this mess out.
That is why I think we need to condense. Let’s take all of this pop culture ephemera and blend it together — like a smoothie, but useless celebrities and stupid fads in place of yogurt and berries.
For instance, there are vampires everywhere now. There are literally more vampires on TV shows right now than there are high school kids pretending to be vampires.
And with vampires comes all the other MGM movie monsters, so we have to deal with wolfmen and mummies and zombies and Frankenstein’s monsters.
At the same time, we have far too many useless “celebrities” who are famous for a) sex tapes, b) having too many kids and c) being rich and stupid.
I can’t keep up with them all, nor should I have to. So let’s mash the crap out of this stuff and get what we really want — an undead Jon Gosselin with a harem of middle-aged, not-particularly-attractive vampire ladies, while his shrieking ex Kate walks around screaming, “Fire bad! Jon bad! Fire bad Jon!” And, I don’t know, maybe the kids are zombies? They certainly will be soon enough.
Paris Hilton? She should be a mummy. And that’s more for our safety than anything. In fact, let’s wrap all the Kardashians up in bandages, too. If you have a “celebrity” sex tape, you need your brain removed through your nose. (As if most of these people still have brains.)
Tune in next week as I cram together the confusing plotlines of “Lost,” “Flashforward” and “The Sopranos” with the Washington political elite!
Insulting advice from people smarter than you
Hello, you drooling, unwashed sacks of germs. How are your disgusting lives today? Good, good. What’s that? You’re afraid of catching swine flu? Then might I suggest you stop wallowing in your own filth?
Every year since all the newspapers and TV stations made a pact to stop covering real news and just make stuff up (re: 1997), reporters have been forced to “report” on nonsensical things. Like how not to get sick.
“But I’m very interested in that! How is it not news?”
Well, news usually means something is new. Something needs to happen for it to be news. (I suppose news could be nothing happening, but only if it was something we were used to happening, like Old Faithful not going off.)
And there’s nothing really new about flu and cold season, at least when it comes to prevention. Here is a list of the most common sense crap in the world which you should be doing regardless of airborne illnesses.
#1 Wash your hands.
#2 Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. (And do #1 again.)
#3 If you’re sick, stay home and get better.
#4 Try eating a vegetable that isn’t french fries. And maybe drink some water instead of soda.
And every year, people ask the same questions, even though those rules never change. And then people get uppity when a doctor is “condescending” to them. Maybe it’s because, if you can’t remember to all of those things without a doctor telling you, you’re on a lower level.
That’s when condescending has to happen — when you’re below the norm. Morons.
Stay Away From My Wife!
My wife has been talking more lately about having a kid and, frankly, I’m against the whole notion.
It’s not that I have anything against children in theory. They learn things and say cute malapropisms and sometimes they sleep. But the practice of having kids seems…ugly.
There’s poop, for one thing. And crying and snot and sometimes they don’t sleep. And you get in trouble if you leave one alone for a few days at a time because they “can’t feed themselves” or “roll over.”
And kids in general tend to have unhappy consequences on things I love. Like pictures of inappropriate nudity. And ribald humor. And alcohol.
People are always saying, “Think about the children!” And I do think about them. I think, “Why are these children screwing up a good time?”
But if I had to nail down my biggest objection to my wife having a kid, it’s that I don’t want her sleeping with some other guy. I mean, she can’t possibly be thinking about having a kid with me. Let’s be honest, nobody is eager to have my genes polluting the pool for generations to come.
I’m like Hitler and Tila Tequila rolled into one. I’m history’s greatest monster. A smaller version of me won’t do anybody any good.
Austin City Limits Music Festival: Wrap-Up
Toward the end of Pearl Jam’s show-closing performance, the last of their songs Eddie Vedder sang was “Alive.”
The final lyric wrapped up the show for those of us who braved through a sea of mud, which turned out to be mixed with a certain amount of sewage.
“I’m still alive”
Three days, more than 150 bands, monsoon rains and the perfectly manicured, golf-course quality grass metamorphosed into a soupy swill that rendered all footwear save for rubbers useless.
But that didn’t stop the B-52s, Arctic Monkeys, Ben Harper, Michael Franti & Spearhead, or Pearl Jam from putting on a spectacle worthy of the final day of a festival of this magnitude.
Vedder said at the beginning of Pearl Jam’s set that because he’d received so many gifts during his three days at the festival, he felt obligated to do his best to give something back in return.
Pearl Jam drew from their nearly two decades of discography to keep the beaten, mud-caked crowd on its feet and away from the horror within which those feet were planted.
Ben Harper and Perry Farrell were among special guests who joined Pearl Jam during a half hour of encores.
Pearl Jam, Flogging Molly, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The Walkmen, Arctic Monkeys and White Lies stood out this weekend.
Friday provided the finest weather this eight-year-old festival has ever seen grass laid just after last year’s event. The result was positively pastoral.
But then came the rain. Then came the realization that the very green practice of using sewage to fertilize the grass also created the very repellant realization that the mud 65,000 fans wallowed in was at least partially poop.
As I walked out of the festival, the giant Exit sign above me, Pearl Jam was just finishing their final number, a cover of Neil Young’s “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World.”
Sometimes to do that, you have to slog through a little manure sauce.
See you next year.
Austin City Limits Music Festival: Day 2
Mother Nature struck back with a vengeance on day two of the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
Twenty-four hours the best weather this festival has ever featured, rain plagued the entire day.
But that didn’t keep fans from showing up in droves or stop the bands from delivering more outstanding music.
Less than a day after Kings of Leon put on a show that not only lacked volume but showmanship, Flogging Molly put on a show that the young Folowills could learn from.
At a three-day festival, the crowd loses steam and Flogging Molly is the cure.
Sixty minutes of rude Irish folk had fans on their feet from front to back. People who wouldn’t know Ireland from Scotland danced figure-eights around each other. Near the stage the rain made a mosh pit unavoidable. But it was kindly, brotherly mosh pit. A few brave lads surfed the crowd. When moshing got to intense, the seemingly rude embraced arm-in-arm and danced a Celtic merry-go-round.
Lead singer Dave King played the crowd as expertly as he strummed his guitar and delivered his barroom-brawling vocals.
For an hour the rain was welcome. For an hour we were taken an enormous Irish Pub in Dublin.
I’ll never buy as many Flogging Molly CDs as I buy Kings of Leon CDs. But I’ve seen Kings of Leon three times now, and the only place they’ve never taken me was into their basement for a run-through of their catalog.
Neither are a bad place to escape a stressful life and maybe a rainy day.
Next time you get a chance to see Flogging Molly, and it’s they have been to Oklahoma a number of times, don’t miss it — rain or shine.
Austin City Limits: Day 1
This festival has been bedeviled by curious weather every year since I started coming back in 2005, but not today. Highs were in the mid to high 80s. As night fell, it was clearly in the low 70s.
The Walkmen, who play Meacham Auditorium tonight, performed at 3:30, delivering their usual dose of all-out performance. Just as all you can ask from your favorite sports team is that they leave it on the field, that’s what this New York-based quintet gives. Lead singer Hamilton Leithauser appeared literally at the point of self-destruction at different points throughout the show. No member leaves the stage who isn’t in a full sweat.
Kings of Leon, who play the Ford Center tonight, was easily the draw of the day — perhaps the entire festival. There is no band on the face of the planet riding more positive buzz than these Grammy-winning kinsman. The Followills, two brothers and two cousins, are nosing their way to U2 hype. With two members born in Oklahoma City, they might even be a more important act to see than Bono and the gang in a couple weeks.
While the attendance Friday was more than 60,000, it’s difficult to believe any less than 55,000 of those were anywhere but the Livestrong stage as the night came to a close. Unfortunately, some shoddy sound engineering muted the sound. Fans in the middle to the back of the stage could barely make out songs. That won’t be a problem for Ford Center fans.
Kings of Leon is brand-new to headling, and it shows. I saw them in 2006 at the Diamond Ballroom, and their style on stage hasn’t progressed much. That’s not to speak ill of it, but simply to point out that you shouldn’t go expecting a dynamic stage presence. This is a hardworking band who lets their music speak for them. Not a bad idea when your music is this good.
Kings of Leon play at the Ford Center tonight, doors open at 7. The Walkmen play at Meacham Auditorium on the OU campus at 8.
