(I thought about breaking this up into two normal-sized posts instead of one giant one, but then I decided that the people who read this blog are too savvy to fall for that, and probably smart enough to stop reading on their own if it’s not interesting. It’s good to know that I have three papers due next week, and I’m putting all of my writing energy into blogging about the Insane Clown Posse. If anyone can think of a way that I can print this out and turn it in as a South American Geography paper, by all means, let me know.)

So I have some bad news, for me.

There’s been a ton of people making fun of Insane Clown Posse’s new song “Miracles”, which is, unsurprisingly, Insane Clown Posse saying dumb things over terrible beats. In this case, they’re talking about how “gee-whiz, the world is s such a neat place, it must be a miracle!” Here’s the video, in case you’ve somehow avoided it or you’re reading this post a week after it was written, which is about how long I’m expecting it to be before everyone completely forgets that this video ever existed.

This latest episode of everyone piling on to Insane Clown Posse for being stupid has had two effects on me, both of them negative.

1. I wanted to be part of the fun, laughing at how dumb they are, but I can’t enjoy it anymore. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. There’s no denying that their new video is dumb, and the sentiments expressed in it aren’t anything that anyone older than fifteen will find clever or insightful, but isn’t that kind of the case with every song that they’ve ever done? I mean, normally it’s about killing people and smoking weed, but it’s always hard not to roll your eyes when you hear them rap.

2. After watching the “Miracles” video, I dug around some other Psychopathic records videos, and I’m getting dangerously close to getting into their music. There were several songs that I found myself starting to enjoy. Here are a few of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely in love with any of this. It’s not like I’ll be playing any of it at my wedding (Actually, maybe I should. That would be really funny. Yet another reason why I will end up never getting married.)

But I don’t hate it, either. In fact, I kind of like it.

Should I just admit that I like this music and become a Juggalo? Naturally, I decided that it was time to make a pro/con list to decide. That’s always what I do whenever I’m trying to decide if I should start consuming a type of pop culture that I previously ignored (note: no, it’s not.)

PROS:

It reminds me of being 18: As I’ve mentioned many times before, I’ve heavily romanticized my late teens. Whether it’s true or not, I remember that being a time where if I had a bunch of Dr. Pepper, a Playstation, some rap-metal CDs and a connection to the Internet, well, I had everything I needed. When ICP and Twiztid and all those other goofballs aren’t rapping about killing people or having sex with dead bodies, it’s usually about living a blue collar lifestyle, so even though I’ve never really listened to any of these artists, they seem to evoke a weird sense of nostalgia for me. The fact that they have such hardcore fans also reminds me of being able to shit my pants over the awesomeness of a band, which brings me to my next PRO:

Is it really any less ridiculous than the music I listen to now?: The answer is a shameful and unequivocal “No”. Up until my mid-20′s, I was in love with a band named “Limp Bizkit”. I used to listen to a band named Mudvayne, a heavy metal act who wore goofy makeup while they played. At various points in my life, I have loved the band Slipknot, a group of guys who wear SCARY MASKS and sing songs with tough-guy lyrics. At least, that’s what they did until Summer’s Eve started sponsoring them and they started singing songs about breaking up with just enough distortion in them that teenage girls could feel hard while they were listening. Compare this video, which I loved harder in 1999 than I will ever love anything again, with the ones above:

What are the discernible differences? As near as I can tell, there are only two: It’s a little heavier and harder to understand. More on that in a minute, but when you look at the music I currently like, becoming a fan of Insane Clown Posse seems less like a sea change and more like a logical progression.

Fly Juggalo Bitches: Okay, so, not exactly. But there are girls who listen to this music, and there are not girls who listen to metal. Don’t believe me? (Just kidding. I know you do, but humor me) My friend Christina shared the following study with me the other day:

‘Hard and heavy’: Gender and power in a heavy metal music subculture, Krenske, Leigh; McKay, Jim.
Conclusion: Study found gendered regime of power in heavy metal club. Women claim to gravitate to the heavy metal scene to escape, however they end up in another oppressive context where men dominate the scene and women are kept in their place.

See? It’s science. Metal is not an accommodating environment for the ladies.

On the other hand, as near as I can tell, the ladies love this trash. Observe:

Granted, I get strong vibes of  ”Crazy”, more than a hint of “Wal-Mart cashier” and a disturbing touch of “Still in high school” off of these girls, but it’s also pretty clear that they’re girls, and not fat sweaty dudes with long greasy hair, which is the demographic I normally share space with at concerts.

CONS:

You have to wade through an ocean of shit to find the good music: As near as I can tell, Insane Clown Posse and all of the groups on their record label make twenty or thirty albums a year, and most of them are filled with trash. As an experiment a few years ago, I listened to the entire ICP discography from start to finish. It took me about a week of constant listening. I don’t know how many albums they had out at the time that I did that, but they currently have 36 available for purchase on iTunes, and I don’t think it was much less than that. It certainly seemed like a lot. Twiztid have 18. Based on my original listening marathon, ICP averages about one song that I like every four albums or so. That’s, what, about a 40 hour week of listening for 9 songs I like, just to get through the Insane Clown Posse? I considered listening to the discography again and doing a running blog of it, but I don’t think I can handle it again. Maybe if I completely run out of ideas I’ll subject myself to that.

It’s painfully easy to understand the stupid, stupid lyrics: Most of the music I listen to is considered garbage, and falls into two categories: Metal and Techno. Techno doesn’t have any words, and it’s usually really hard to understand the lyrics to Metal. This is a good thing, because the lyrics to the music I listen to are typically embarrassingly bad. Insane Clown Posse is just as bad, but unfortunately, those assholes really enunciate, so when they say something like “Water, fire, air and dirt/Fucking magnets, how do they work?“, I can understand every syllable.

It's dripping blood, so you know it's hard.

Wardrobe: Essentially, I’m going to have to throw out every article of clothing that I own. To fit in, I’m going to need to invest in faux hockey jerseys, those goofy giant jeans that were cool in 1997 and oversized black t-shirts, all of which will need to be covered in that dreadlocked-clown-with-a-hatchet silhouette. I will also need to invest in a car, something equivalent to my previous ’91 Toyota Camry, and cover every available surface of it in those decals. A few tattoos wouldn’t hurt either. Juggalos take that shit seriously. Speaking of,

Some of the dumbest terminology ever: Like I said, I used to listen to a band called “Limp Bizkit”, but I can’t get over the fact that ICP fans are called “Juggalos”, a term that everyone knows the Wicked Clowns stole from the Dr. Seuss children’s story “The Juggalo”, a tale of a whimsical creature that teaches two inquisitive children the importance of recycling. I think everyone remembers sitting in second grade and listening in nail-biting anticipation when the children in the story first discover the Juggalo sleeping in their back yard:

“Then we saw us a sight that was something to see! A creature, asleep by our Muz-a-wump tree! Its fur was bright blue, which I found a bit weird, and a-perched on his face was a red bushy beard! Then the creature awoke from a slumberous sleep, and he stared at us both without making a peep! ‘What ARE you?’ I asked with a lump in my throat. ‘A Murfewlus Slark, or a Diddly Groat?’ Then you will not believe what that animal did! It blinked twice and said “I’m a Juggalo, kid!”

I’m just kidding. The Juggalo is actually a character in a Roald Dahl book, by the same name, about a little kid who’s really smart but badly mistreated by her family until the Juggalo comes and saves her and gives her family their much-deserved comeuppance.

I’m just kidding. It’s a monster in Alice in Wonderland.

I’m just kidding. It’s a slang term that the main character in A Clockwork Orange uses to refer to doughy, unpopular teenagers.

I’m just kidding. I don’t actually know what it means. I just know that it’s a really stupid word, and all the fans love it, and all the artists constantly say it in their songs, and I can’t take it seriously.

THE VERDICT:

Pros: 3

Cons: 4

Looks like the small amount of dignity I have is safe until I come up with one more reason why I should become a huge Insane Clown Posse fan! At least, as far as you guys know, because that’s my official stance on here. Anyway, It’s time for me to do something productive with the rest of my day, which certainly does NOT mean getting in my brand new 1983 Plymouth Voyager that’s decked out in hatchet man decals, bumping some Great Milenko, and cruising the Wal-Mart parking lot to try and find some hot methed-out 21 year old cashiers to impress with my bleached blond dreadlocks and tent-sized Jnco jeans.

FAM-I-LY!

There were some signs on campus today as I was walking home from class (Article here). The first was a smaller sign that said “WARNING: Graphic Images Ahead”. About, I’m going to say 10, maybe 20 feet behind it, there were various two-story-tall gory abortion pictures. Here are my thoughts, which are less about abortion and more about the marketing strategy the pro-life group was using today:

"That's so interesting! Lemme grab you another Zima, and then how about we go in your tent and you tell me another story about your cat?"

- Suppose, hypothetically, that there’s a forest with a gang of hoodlum bears in it. These bears patrol the forest searching for berries, fresh salmon, picnic baskets and unsuspecting campers to seduce and then have unprotected sex with. You know how bears are, too – real smooth talkers. They always say they’re going to pull out, but they never do.

Suppose that you want to warn people about these bears, maybe with a nice warning sign. Where do you think the best place to put the sign might be? Here’s my vote: In a location where people who read it are still in a position to avoid the bears. Maybe on the road leading into the forest, for instance. That way, when you see the sign, you’re still in a position to decide if you’re willing to risk a wild night in this specific forest when it might result in a scorching case of bear-hepatitis.

On the other hand, an example of a bad place to post the sign would be, for instance, on a chain around the bear’s neck, because by the time you actually see the sign, you’ve already shared a bottle of wine and are listening to records with him in your tent. The sign won’t warn you of danger until you’ve already been exposed to the thing that the sign was supposed to be warning you about. I feel like the people who set up the abortion protest on campus could’ve done a better job of placing their warning sign, since you couldn’t even read it until you already had a very clear view of a bloody fetus arm sitting next to a quarter. Bottom line: If they were really serious about warning squeamish people about their display, they should have consulted me when they were deciding where to put the sign, although I also probably would’ve suggested that they replace all of the dead fetus pictures with photos of Bootsy Collins while blasting his music. I think they would’ve gotten a lot more support, not to mention the fact that their protest was COMPLETELY devoid of funk.

I don't care what your cause is - if this is the face of it, you have my undivided attention.

- In the age of the Internet, I’m not entirely sure that bloody pictures have the same impact that they used to. Through regular Internet surfing, I see about ten or twenty things in a month that are thirty to forty times worse than the pictures that were up on campus (Don’t believe me? Google “Bear Porn” or spend a few minutes looking around www.stileproject.com. It’s fucking filthy). Hell, Cannibal Corpse album covers make me squirm way more than anything I saw walking home today . I’m not sure if my lack of a reaction to the pictures I saw today is a sadder commentary on the protesters or me, but either way, if you’re trying to sway people with shocking images, I think that it’s a much more difficult task now than it was twenty years ago.

- Speaking of shocking images, I think using them to sway people is a kind of cheap tactic, especially when they’re only tangentially related to what you’re actually protesting. Let’s head back to the forest full of grizzly Don Juans who will sweep you off your feet and then, after a night of smoldering bear-romance, will never call you back: Suppose that I am morally opposed to all of the free bear-love going on in the forest, and I want to orchestrate a protest to convince people that they should never be receptive to the advances of a bear, and that they should always say no even if the bear says that all he wants to do is put the tip in to see how it feels. Then, to do this, I print out some gigantic murals of bears having sex with morbidly obese men with swastikas tattooed on their butt cheeks. When people see the images, they have a very strong visceral reaction, but most of it has to do with the terrifying image of horrifically fat Nazis, not the bear sex.

If I were to do this, it would be kind of intellectually dishonest of me – nobody likes to see a naked six hundred pound white supremacist (actually, I should probably say “almost nobody”, since that’s more likely), and those photos will cause a negative reaction in the people that see them, but it won’t really have to do with the erotic bear action, which is what I’m claiming to be upset about.

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY SUPPORT SOMETHING THAT LOOKS THIS UNAPPEALING? HELP US STOP BRAIN SURGERY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

The pro-lifers were doing the same thing, in my opinion. There’s no doubt about it – abortion is a gory mess; you’re cutting a fetus out of a person, so there’s going to be blood, and whether or not you consider a fetus a person, no one can deny that they have a lot of human-like physical qualities, so it’s alarming to see one in a pile of gore. But even though they’re trying to sway people with alarming pictures, pro-lifers oppose abortion because they think fetuses are humans, not because abortions are gory. A whole lot of surgical procedures are bloody messes that can produce shocking images. You could get some really horrifying pictures if you brought a camera to an appendectomy or a root canal, but that doesn’t mean that those things are inherently bad because of it. I mean, let’s be honest here – in terms of grossness, actually giving birth to a baby gives abortion an honest run for its money. There’s vernix and blood and afterbirth everywhere – it’s a fucking mess. That’s not really the point of birth or abortion, though, so I feel like using bloody pictures is a trick. They know most people will have a negative reaction to those images and hope that they can translate the negative feelings about how abortion looks into negative feelings about abortion.

- I’d be interested to see if a protest like that actually has any effect on the student population’s perception of abortion. I don’t have hard data on this, but abortion seems like one of those issues that people are for or against, and there’s essentially nothing you can do to change their mind once it’s made up. When I was younger, I was convinced that people who had different opinions than I did felt that way because they didn’t know as much about the issue as I did. Since then, I’ve realized that most of the time that isn’t the case. We’ve both looked at the issue, thought about it, and

On the ice or off, you'd better believe that this motherfucker is always going five hole.

just ended up coming to different conclusions. I’m not pro-choice because I didn’t realize that abortions are bloody and traumatic, so showing me pictures of them isn’t going to make me have an epiphany. On the other side, pro-lifers are equally aware of the facts and have come to a different conclusion. It’s one of those issues like religion, or Coke or Pepsi, or Republican or Democrat – people are in one camp or the other, and there’s not a whole lot that you can do to change anyone’s mind.

All things considered, I felt like I should’ve been more angry or shocked or something, but I found myself mostly interested with the techniques that the protesters were using that I considered manipulative. I guess I was just a little bit preoccupied with a more pressing problem. I’m speaking, of course, about erotic bear-lust.

I can’t keep you out of the woods, but for the love of God, please just take some condoms with you, and make the bear wear them, no matter how many times he tells you that it “just feels better” without one.

Good night, and be safe.

I'm only 45 more minutes of downloading away from jacking off to a small, grainy black and white scan of a swimsuit model! Jealous?

I always write about wishing that I could go back and relive certain parts of my life, either because there were things that I wish that I would have done differently or I’m convinced that a certain period was a fun part of my life, which is almost never the case, but just a matter of my brain taking the six fun events from a three year span and then deciding that they’re the only things that happened. Who can forget the delightful summer nights in Jr. High when I would stay up all night listening to music and playing around on America Online with a 2400 baud modem? Not me! What I apparently CAN forget is the awkwardness of 8th grade, my extreme discomfort around everyone, having a curfew, a soccer mom’s haircut, a body being ravaged by a scorching case of puberty and the painfully slow speeds one could expect from a 2400 baud modem.

And then there’s my early 20′s! I was young, I had a full head of hair, dreamy blue eyes and a hot little ass. College tuition was a little less than 1/3 of what I pay now, I had a job flipping burgers that I was just stupid enough to find kind of fulfilling and the ability to go for weeks without sleep. I kind of wish I would’ve spent those years plowing through a college degree, participating in extracurricular student activities, drinking too much and putting myself in a position to be an adult when I turned 30. Instead, I played a LOT of video games, worked a lot, only kind of pretended to go to school and stuck to hating myself. Hilariously enough, I’m willing to bet any sum of money that if I would’ve plowed through college, I would now maintain a blog filled with entry after entry lamenting the fact that I didn’t spend more time in my early 20′s playing games, relaxing, and finding my way through life at a more leisurely pace.

I realized today that for all my talk about the futility of wanting to travel through time so I can relive parts of my life with my current brain, that’s kind of what I’m doing right now. A large part of the reason that I had so much fun for most of this semester is because I feel like what I’m doing right now is what I should have been doing when I was 20, which is kind of cool and kind of depressing all at once.

The most recent part of this was joining the student radio station. There’s a guy that I’ve had at least one class with every semester since going back. He’s pretty awesome – tuned in, pretty interesting, and really sharp. I get a sinking feeling that someday, he will be my boss. Anyway, we were studying for a test a few weeks ago, and he suggested that I apply for a slot on the student radio station. I did, and now I’m on from 12-2AM on Sundays playing metal. I had orientation on Monday, which was basically “This is how to use the knobs on a mixer”, and tonight I sat in and watched one of the directors do his show, which was pretty wild, because the theme that night was music from his middle school and high school years. I never asked him when he graduated, but the night essentially went like this:

“That last song is from way, WAY back by a band that released their first album back when I was in middle school! Their hit single ‘Don’t Trust Me’ shot up to number 7 on the Billboard top 100 back before I had gone through puberty, that was 3Oh!3 on UNC student radio, I’m DJ Nick and the gentle sobbing that you hear in the background is our newest DJ, Johnny Castle! Coming up next, more oldies but goodies from my youth including Girl Talk, Electric Six and Justin Beiber, quit crying Johnny you’re scaring me!!” I was originally kind of worried that I wouldn’t sound professional enough, but not only will nobody be listening at midnight on a Sunday, I’m listening to the station right now and the DJ has been playing youtube clips and crank calling his friends and talking like Cornholio for the last hour or so. About half of the people aren’t answering, so he’s leaving crank voicemails. I think I’ll probably be okay.

"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ."

Either way, I’ve been kind of torn about the past few months. On one hand, I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job of being 20, in a way that I wasn’t when, well, when I was 20. It’s kind of satisfying. On the other hand, really nailing being a 20 year old when you’re 30 is kind of a hollow victory for obvious reasons. It’s like being a star forward on a middle school soccer team or getting a perfect score on a 5th grade spelling test. It’s neat, but I’m excelling at things that are designed for people ten years younger than I am. I also never quite feel like I belong there. I’m like the protagonist in “Never Been Kissed”, except instead of going back to school and trying to blend in order to get a hard-hitting news story, in my version Drew Barrymore is going back because she never got her G.E.D. (Coincidentally, “Never Been Kissed” came out in 1999, which means that most of people I go to school with were six when it came out and have never heard of it.)

I guess that the bottom line is this: most people say that their college years are some of the best of their life. If that’s the case, then I guess that there are worse things for me to do than stretch my college years out for over a decade.

Just call me Peter Pan, motherfuckers. And tune in on Sunday nights to hear my terrible, terrible show.

(Funny story – My lack of blogging is completely out of control. I tried to rectify that today, and as I was combing through my blog, I realized that I have a giant pile of 1/3 completed posts that I abandoned before finishing. As part of my attempt to begin putting information about myself on the Internet that ranges from uninteresting to dangerous again, I am going to start completing these old, crappy entries and then posting them.

Today, we’ll start out with one of my traditional “Let me reiterate that the Internet is awesome and that my brain is different now than it was when I was 19!” posts that I put up every few weeks or so. On top of that, I’m not entirely sure what the point was that I had in mind when I started writing this, so it doesn’t have a coherent ending. Unfortunately for you, I haven’t posted in two weeks and I’m not wasting 2000 words. I need the momentum so IT GOES UP!)

A few weeks ago, my friend Dan gave me a copy of Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman. As I’ve mentioned before, I really like Chuck Klosterman – at least what I’ve read by him. All of the books I’ve read are essentially collections of short essays, each one exploring a random topic that up until that point I didn’t think that anyone else cared about. One of his essays documents a short span that he spends following a Guns ‘n’ Roses cover band. In another, he documents an interview with Val Kilmer. Another is about Football.

As it turns out, Fargo Rock City is a collection of essays about metal. I’m only about half way through, but he’s dedicated a lot more time and critical thought to Motley Crue and Winger than I’m guessing all of the other authors on the planet combined, and it’s a delight.

A lot of it is just the music. My enthusiasm for screaming and finger tapping in the music I listen to is at best tolerated by people who know me, but is more often met with irritation and condescension. I go through a very specific cycle with pretty much everyone that I know: At first, they think that it’s kind of funny that I really like metal, and they think it’s sort of cute that I say everything is “metal’ instead of “cool”, and that I throw up the horns for everything that I have even remotely positive feelings about, and always suggest that every movie, television show or awards ceremony would be way better if Pantera were somehow involved. Then, after a while, the novelty wears off, like I’m the drunk guy at a party who tells a joke that gets a laugh and then keeps repeating it again and again until no one can even muster fake pity laughter and kind of just slinks off. At this point, people usually just shrug it off and come to terms with the fact that if they’re going to be friends with me, it’s one of those things that they’re going to have to tolerate – Johnny’s an okay guy, but he’s always late, sometimes he just disappears into his room for a few days at a time, and when he is around, he won’t shut the fuck up about how excited he is for the new Deftones album.

Part of me knows that I shouldn’t do this, because I know people who are this way with music I don’t care about, and I find it kind of irritating when they do it. I had a conversation with a slightly to moderately drunk guy a few weeks ago where he told me that John Mayer was one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and that his music was amazing. Some comparisons to Jimmy Hendrix were made. He’s a nice guy, and I’ll probably chat with him again if I ever run into him, but I hope that the next time we talk, it isn’t about how amazing John Mayer is. Another time, a girl I know (Who had told me that she used to be a “music snob”, which should have concerned me, since no one who identifies themself as a music snob is going to think Slipknot is cool) wanted to see my iPod to see what was on it. She had to give it back in disgust after a few minutes because there was nothing good on it, specifically citing the alarming lack of Led Zeppelin and The Black Keys. In my defense, I have plenty of both on my computer, but only bring what I need to rock on my iPod. I like the Black Keys, but they’re not really driving or running music, and I have a weird hangup with Led Zeppelin because my Dad played them so much when I was a kid. I can tell that they’re good, but they just make me think of my parents, which is not very rock and roll.

The point that I’ve just spent the last three hundred words failing to articulate is this: I spent a lot of time convinced that the quality of music was an absolute value, and that music I liked was better than music I didn’t. After all, why would I like it more if it wasn’t better? Once I realized that this wasn’t true, and that taste in popular music is no different than taste in food or clothing, I also realized that liking metal didn’t mean that I knew something that everyone else didn’t; it just meant that I liked music that everyone else thought sucked. My friend Atkins kind of likes the same sort of music that I do, and my friend Brian appreciates it in a “This is like a joke that’s so stupid that it’s funny” kind of way, but other than that, there aren’t a lot of people who I can share my enthusiasm with who don’t think it’s annoying.

So it’s exciting for me to read a book by a guy who’s life was changed by Motley Crue’s Shout At The Devil and is willing to spend the duration of a chapter of a book analyzing the music videos that Winger and Bon Jovi made. Basically, it’s a subject that I haven’t really been able to relate to anyone with ever since I quit spending a significant amount of time hanging out with pancake house employees.

It’s not all about the music, though. I’ve never heard Shout At The Devil all the way through, and when I’m being completely honest with myself, I thought Van Halen was kind of stupid until my mid 20′s, when I suddenly decided that they were awesome. A large part of what I love about that book is that it’s reminding me about the kind of excitement that music used to elicit when I was a teenager. I still get excited about music, but there’s no good way to completely replicate the level of enthusiasm for a band that a typical 14 year old has.

I write forty or fifty posts a year about how things excite me less now than they did when I was a teenager, and one of the times I did that, my friend Anthony brought up that he used to spend hours watching Vh1 waiting for them to play a video that he was dying to see, and that people who don’t really remember life before the Internet don’t really know what it’s like to have to wait to get your hands on a song you like or to see a video that you’re into. I completely agree, and feel like part of what I really liked about music when I was younger was the amount of effort that went into getting it. They’ve done studies that people value things more when they have to work for them. I’m guessing that’s one of the reasons that boot camp is the first step in joining the army, why it’s so important to make fraternity pledges drink a handle of tequila and blow a Doberman pincer on live television to get into a frat, and part of why I was so obsessed with whatever band I thought was new and cool when I was in my teens.

First, I would hear it on the radio or see it on Musiclink (I barely remember any of my high school teachers or the people I went to school with, but the name of the public access music show that I used to watch as a teenager is apparently burned into my long-term memory permanently), then I would have to hope that they played it again so I could find out who the artist was and maybe get it on tape. Then, I had to scare up the funds to buy the record. Finally, I had to go to the record store, see if they had it, and then special order it if they didn’t. Now, it’s all there and it’s all instant.

I realized something else kind of interesting (to me, at least) – a lot of pop culture was more or less unaccessible after it’s initial popularity before the Internet. There was a window of about 15 years where if you wanted to see the music video for a Skid Row song or watch the pilot episode of a show that was cancelled after three episodes, you were basically fucked. If you didn’t tape it while it was popular, it was gone. I typically think of the Internet in terms of it’s ability to make it much easier and faster to find information, but when I think about it, a lot of that information wasn’t just more effort to dig up before Google and youtube, it was essentially impossible.

The more I think about it, though, I don’t think that the absence of the thrill of the chase is entirely to blame for my diminished enthusiasm. I think that if I woke up tomorrow and the Internet didn’t exist and I had to go back to camping out by my radio with my finger on the record button to get my hands on some song that I was excited about, I probably wouldn’t be willing to do it anymore. I’ll never be able to enjoy any album as much as I enjoyed Slipknot’s first album when I was 19, because my brain doesn’t work that way anymore. This is especially weird for me, because I don’t really like Slipknot’s first album that much now. I remember how it used to make me feel, but I don’t have that reaction to it anymore.

Now’s the point where I have to try to figure out what I was thinking when I first wrote this, and wrap up three different subjects (Chuck Klosterman likes his metal, it’s easier to get music than it used to be and I my brain chemistry no longer allows me to get “Teenage-girl-hearing-the-Beatles-on-the-Ed-Sullivan-Show” excited about a band.) I can only guess as to what my intent was with all of this rambling, so I’m going with this:

I almost always hate going to bars or parties where music is playing, not because I don’t like music or am just a bitch, but because it’s never music I like. If you love John Mayer, it has to be a fucking delight when you show up at the bar and some dude is playing his acoustic guitar and singing. It pisses me off, because I know that it means that I’m going to have to yell over Jack Johnson covers all night and clap and pretend that I really enjoyed the amateur rendition of a Sublime song that they just played.

So it’s nice to read a book by someone who likes the same kind of goofy, trashy music that I do, and know that somewhere out there, there’s someone else who grits their teeth when they hear the guy at open mic night start grinding out an atonal rendition of a Bob Marley song.