Dave Grohl On The Cultural Wasteland Of This Place

And the best part is, the morons are celebrating how bad it is,...

 

TUSK

Land of the wha? (And the home of the brave "a nation of cowards") 

So, looking at the artwork going around (above) whites have figured out one way to give blacks what we want. TMR would prefer reparations and backing-the-fuck-up-off-me but knows, whites never part with what they steal (including us) so, "no go" there. Here's another guy who almost finally got outside their reach - after they reached him, of course:

Black guys and their bald heads - it needs to stop!

"Ferguson police 'mistakenly arrested an innocent man before viciously beating him so bad he was taken to hospital and then charged for bleeding on THEIR uniforms'" 

 Of course, whites missed this 2009 injustice, because who was going to win American Idol was of the utmost importance, and anyone who was so shallow as to mention the country's outrageous racial problems, then, was a nationally uncool party pooper who just wanted to talk about "serious shit," but didn't know what was really going on, right, white people?  It's only been that way, on and off, for the last 400 years. No big deal, right? 

America's been great under your leadership.

Clowns to the Left of me, jokers to the Right,...

Speaking of which, TMR thinks Salon is right - the Kenyan still has enough time to kill an elephant and prove he's a man. Here's hoping he does, and sooner rather than later: 

Whites seem to have their hearts set on meeting one,...

 

Sounds Like Somebody's Going To Have To Get Serious

I'm still down. Not really fighting today, just getting through it. But, in my dark mood, I am enjoying the show:

The man known as President Obama left the building after his Syria speech. What’s left in the White House is Barry Soetoro or whatever he goes by now: a shrunken, confused husk surrounded by court jesters, second-rate ideologues, and sycophants. And while it may be tempting to gloat at his reversal of fortune, the truth is that the collapse of the presidency represents the most dangerous moment in America since the September 11, 2001 attacks. 

Olympus has fallen. America’s leadership is functionally impaired in the face of a thrusting, fast-moving, and possibly brilliant opponent. Of course, the fact that Putin was up against a broken reed made it easier for him. Yet however one may admire Putin’s skills, it must be an admiration tempered by fear, of the kind felt by the British 8th Army in the face of Rommel, of the sort with which Gamelin regarded Guderian. Nothing can disguise the fact that Putin is the enemy and America is less-than-competently led in its contest against him. Something must be done to stem the tide. But what?

"Less than competently led"?  And this is a new phenomena you say? Interesting. "Court jesters, second rate ideologues, and sycophants"? 

You're missing Mitt Romney again, aren't you?

I don't understand what's happening, that's my "problem". I was sure our nation's highest concerns were always recycling, gay marriage, American Idol, and "fun". Anyone who didn't think so was an asshole. I heard it said at the alternative medicine store and it's really popular. Like a celebrity. That's how we judge things, you know:

By how popular they are,...

Another Great TMR Music Break: The Black Lips

While the rest of the interwebs are obsessed with Lady GaGa, American Idol, or Rebecca Black's "Friday", there's still good artists out there, making good music, and being ignored as you wonder aloud - with your awful tastes - how this country is ever going to rise again. I'll tell you:

By you getting your heads out of your asses, quit looking for tits or the next flash in the pan, and start backing quality creators with some staying power, that's how.

America used to be known as the only country that, year in and year out, month to month, could consistently make good Pop music. I know that's still the case. My question now is can we still recognize it?

This Black Lips song is a good little number. If you've got it, I'd appreciate a donation so I can get back in the game, too. Then we'll kick things into high gear.

Lamers Are Given Recording Careers For What?

Hey, did you hear? Rebecca Black just got signed for that awful song "Friday"! And those kids on American Idol are back! What great talents they are, huh? Justin Bieber - he's famous for what? And Lady Gaga. Boy, she dresses up well (or at least she used to) but I can't listen to her music and she's a millionaire. But this guy? This guy? This master musician is on the street busking for whatever handouts he can get.

And that's the state of music today.

Hat Tip: iOwnTheWorld

Only A Matter Of Time (Which You Gave Them)

The Houston Press' TV reviewer caught it (like a virus) even if no one else did:

I thought I imagined it at first, or was suffering the onset of hallucinations brought upon by sleep deprivation, strong drink, and three consecutive nights of watching Steven Tyler undress the audience with his eyes. But for maybe the first time since Season 10 of Idol began, I actually rewound my DVR to rewatch something.

It starts out ambiguously enough that you know something hinky is afoot, then moves into uncomfortably quasi-spiritual territory before flashing the "S"-word. And why am I talking about it so much? Because it was one of the few mildly surprising moments of an otherwise utterly predictable evening.

I included the clip,...because I imagine a few of last night's failed contestants - and not a few of you "suppressive persons" - might need some auditing in the near future.

"One of the few mildly surprising moments of an otherwise utterly predictable evening." Ha! - See what happens, Mr. & Mrs. Conformity-As-Entertainment, when they don't think they can get Charlie Sheen?

They start coming after YOU!

Because you've proven - with your lack of independence, Gawd-awful taste in entertainment, overall low standards, and tumble weed-infested lack of imagination - you're prime-cut cult material! You'll go for ANYTHING! (As long as it blinks and promises to be uplifting at the end, you're recruitable.)

Not only that, but you're too dumb to be insulted by their backhanded flattery (oh yeah, they want you, because you're fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked UP!) and, of course, you won't cause a fuss or a scene. You're not going to stop watching American Idol over some little ol' commercial, are you? Of course not, not you. Us, maybe (well, we never watch American Idol to begin with) but not YOU. Your brain's already turned to fucking mush. There's tons of commercials on T.V., right? What's one more?

Now turn over all of your money and let them fix you:

And then get in line to scream at Charlie Sheen,...

We'll Never Tell What We Did (We Trusted You)

This is the kind of article that either cracks us up or makes us cry, because the answer to the question ("Are religious people easy targets for scams?") is obvious. If you'll believe in (as one reader put it) "a virgin birth, global flood, speaking in tongues, faith healing, a 7000-year-old Earth, et al" then, yeah, you're a sucker who's ripe for the picking:

Major frauds exposed by federal investigators in recent years have targeted Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists and other religious groups, from $190 million lost in a three-year scam promoted by a Christian radio host in Minnesota to an estimated $1.4 billion conned from thousands of Utah Mormons.

Is it simply too easy for con artists to prey on people of faith?

“We’ve seen where it’s an outsider who has come into the fold, and we’ve seen some where it’s a person who has been a member of the community for decades,” said Lori Schock, director of investment education and advocacy for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“We’ve had cases where people quote Scripture, that the Lord wants you to make money. And when the house of cards comes crashing down, the victims sometimes lose more than just their money. Sometimes, they lose their faith, and it’s extremely sad.”

Why do religious groups make such easy targets? For one, a swindler who professes the same faith, or belongs to the same congregation, has an easy time earning trust, however misplaced. Duped investors, meanwhile, also hesitate to suspect or report on one of their own, Schock added.

Although the FBI’s Utah Securities Fraud Task Force has issued a warning to members of the Latter-day Saints, the SEC hasn’t examined whether religious groups are more susceptible to “affinity fraud”—scams that target specific demographics, whether evangelical Christians or the elderly. But researchers say it’s a question worth considering.

But few chose to consider it - or anything else - beyond who's going to win the Oscars tonight, or American Idol tomorrow.

Meanwhile, this nation's dreams - and hard-earned cash - are just being frittered away,...

Radiohead's "Lotus Flower": Faggy NewAge Shit

Radiohead's got a new album out. We're not the biggest fans, but we do admire how they're staying true to themselves - committed to their art - because we're sick of the crass commercialization, and the lowest-common-denominator American Idol-ization, of everything. Thank goodness there's no girl in the group, either, just dying to show us her tits or whatnot.

This track ain't bad, but it reminds us why we're not crazy about the band - they're elitists who won't deign to make music for the rest of us - and that can fuck up the iPod flow.

As a matter of fact, it does every time.

UPDATE: You can listen to the whole thing, but pay special attention to track number six, because KROQ reinforces our assessment of the band in their album review by saying:

A modern, sophisticated piano-based track, “Codex” is full of glistening echos and groans, stunning silences that give way to sonic epiphanies, almost New Age-y traces of culminating violin and the brassy swoon of a meditation bowl. Yorke indulges a naturalistic spirituality, asking you to “jump off the end into a clear lake/no one around.”

Folks, we know Faggy NewAge Shit when we hear it - enjoy:

Wash Dishes. Clean The Bathtub. Re-Assemble Cosmic Relationship Of Everything To Itself Again

Dear Ann,

What's an honest man to do when "you can't handle the truth" is the only honest expression of the truth? Listen to Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal giving it to you straight:

"Let's be real. This is what happened the past 10 years. You, for political reasons, both Republicans and Democrats, finagled the mortgage system so that people who make, like, zero dollars a year were given mortgages for $600,000 houses. You got to run around and crow about how under your watch everyone became a homeowner. You shook down the taxpayer and hoped for the best.

Democrats did it because they thought it would make everyone Democrats: 'Look what I give you!' Republicans did it because they thought it would make everyone Republicans: 'I'm a homeowner, I've got a stake, don't raise my property taxes, get off my lawn!' And Wall Street? We went to town, baby. We bundled the mortgages and sold them to fools, or we held them, called them assets, and made believe everyone would pay their mortgage. As if we cared. We invented financial instruments so complicated no one, even the people who sold them, understood what they were.

You're finaglers and we're finaglers. I play for dollars, you play for votes. In our own ways we're all thieves. We would be called desperadoes if we weren't so boring, so utterly banal in our soft-jawed, full-jowled selfishness. If there were any justice, we'd be forced to duel, with the peasants of America holding our cloaks. Only we'd both make sure we missed, wouldn't we?"

In other words, it's now an open secret America's a nation of suckers.

That's the BIG TRUTH, Obama-voter.

And are we ever going to get to the bottom of it, in order to get out of it?

Nope, not a chance.

Because you can't handle the truth.

See, I'm more of the macho type that'll buffalo my way through, saying we launch a special investigation into the possibility of that celebrities-being-"forced to duel"-idea being implemented, right now, what do you say?

Sure, it's got a few kinks that need to be ironed out (cable rights and that kind of thing) but it still sounds like just the kind of family-oriented American Idol-type entertainment that could also have a lot of serious political potential these days.

I'm sure you can see that:

To The People Over Here
To The People Over There
To The People, The People,
The People, People, The People, The People,
People From Everywhere Watching The Show
Paying Top Dollars Because They Know
When We're On The Stage, We're In A Mothafuckin' Rage
So Dre [What up?] Why Don't You Get The 12 Guage [Yeah]

Chuck Woolery enters, stage right.

See, I'll pay for that. Hell, after you asking about the effect of NewAge conspiracies, I think we just have:

"Oprah, or Oprahism, has often been called a secular religion, and [Kitty] Kelley’s most plausible insight is that Oprah has, from the beginning of her career, been propelled by a nearly messianic belief in herself. 'She did not believe that bad things could happen to good people,' Kelley writes. Her faith in her instincts is immovable, although not immutable. Oprah was close to the Clintons; when she was to receive a lifetime-achievement award at the International Emmys, she asked Hillary to present it, and, from the lectern, said she hoped that Hillary would 'do us a privilege' by running for President. Then Oprah watched Barack Obama deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and her vision changed. In 2005, she approached Obama, standing under a tree at a gospel brunch that she was holding at the Promised Land, her estate in Montecito, California, and asked, 'If someone were to announce one of these days that he was going to run for President, don’t you think this would be a sweet place to hold a fund-raiser?' It was as though she could create a black President through sheer force of will, and maybe she did."

Damn it, don't look at me like that, I told you "you can't handle the truth". That was an accident. It just slipped out.

It's becoming pretty obvious I totally understand it all now.

Except for the question of what's an honest man to do?

I'll let you know when I "discover" it.

OOs and XXs,

The King High: Your God (Lord Of All You Survey) If You So Believe It

TMR's Fade To Black: The Beginning Of The End

"It's always been in large part about being kind of bad and loving somebody who doesn't deserve it and failing to appreciate somebody else who was better."

--Ann Althouse, on what American Idol - and, by extension, NewAge culture - is all about.

Well, I think it's safe to say, my time online is about ready to come to a close. I've seen and heard enough "infantile pop philosophizing offered by an ignoramus" to make me sick of people all over again, so there's not much point in me engaging their "ideas" any longer, even if it's just in the form of a post with pictures.

You can have your madness. I don't need it. You can't be helped. I'm done.

Sincerely: I'm as tired of being grossed out by you as you are of being insulted by me.

The blog is now inching up on 5,000 posts, so I'll try to meet that number and then decide what I want to do with it - I may keep going or I may not - but multiple daily postings are definitely coming to an end. As is my involvement on other sites.

Yea, I'm going completely back to the real world where, if I want to see a train wreck, I'll walk out to the tracks or listen to a "progressive" (or sit in the back row of some "spiritual gathering" or another) rather than read another blog.

So - long story short - that's that. If you want to know more about the wages of NewAge, you can either check out the previous posts, or visit my sister site, Panda Bear, M.D., or even the highly informative (and much loved) Mystic Bourgeoisie.

Like I said, I'll still put *something* up here for a little while but, at this point, I don't know what.

I've got to care about people to do what I've been doing but, after learning what "the good people" or "the smart people" are capable of, I just can't fake it any longer: I've lost all compassion for you.

My online experience has taught me that people, generally, are vile and stupid beyond belief and it's probably best just to leave them to their various "spiritual" entertainments - especially the vicious humping of each other's legs under the guise of showing "love for your fellow man". (Special note to Roger Ebert: enjoy your cancer, I am.)

You've sickened me enough to last a lifetime so, now, I'm doing something else. Anything else.

Even if it's just hanging out, alone, and playing music for no one until the day I die, it's gonna be better than spending time with the politically ineffectual, the rebelliously delusional, and the defiantly ignorant. Trust me on that one.

I've been there: I know.

What Happened To Talent?

Y'all, this ain't no American Idol, and seeing it makes me wonder how a nation that produced the level of talent seen here could think what we have today is satisfactory as entertainment. How it's not noticed that we've lost something vital about ourselves.

I've asked people what they do, specifically for "entertainment", and most would describe places they like to go camping, or sightseeing locations, or drinking at a meat market mingling spot, without a clue what actually being entertained - or being entertaining - is. Flirting (or the Paris Hilton-like expose' on YouTube) is about as far as most can muster.

There's also the tendency for groupthink now'a'days, which can kill individual achievement, or even aspiring to more, because to suggest that something else is possible, necessary, or even wanted, is almost always taken as an insult to the group - which is to be expected because they've literally been through decades of "sensitivity" training - and who wants to make those bozos smile when A) they outnumber you and B) they're busy making life difficult but never so much they can't do more?

Many artists would rather play video games. Which brings up the John Henry Vs. The Iron Horse competition between Man and computers today (sorry but, for my money, I'd rather see more of this than anything in Avatar.).

We've really let ourselves go.

Hat Tip: Boing Boing and Instapundit