U.G.L.Y. You Ain't Got No Alibi!

Not to slag on anyone who posts off of blogspot, because it is really cool that you can browse all 95 million jillion of them, BUT some of them look like pure dogshit. I'm not referring to the content because the great thing about this whole doo hickey is that anyone can write about anything and it doesn't matter; much like I do (really, though mine (both of them) are pure god damn gold). What I mean is that some people have some EXTREMELY ugly ass looking blogs. Terrible, terrible typeface choices (not completely their faults), ugly ass color schemes, and shitty photos. I'm not trying to say that both of mine are all that and a bag of salty potato chips, but I feel that since I go to a douchey art/design school and have been studying this stuff for longer than 2 days, I kind of know how to make something look like...not dogshit. So again, I'm slagging anyone who reads this and has a blog because it's great that you do even if it's about going to Walgreens for the day, it's just that your blog might look like ass.


And yes I am aware that writing this has put me in a glass house.

Hilarious!!!!!

Laugh tracks. Is there anything lamer? Okay maybe there is but for the purposes of this, there isn't. If you are a television producer or better yet an actor or writer who is involved with a shitty show that utilizes a laugh track, do the world a favor and quit. If I were associated with a show that had anything to do with a laugh track, I might change my name and get plastic surgery. Seriously it's that lame. Laugh tracks are used on shows that aren't, well funny. Not even a little bit. If a show uses a laugh track, it means that it's not funny and they have to tell you where the "jokes" are. Maybe if the writers wrote better jokes/stories shows wouldn't have to use them. Plus, if you think about it, the people who are on those laugh tracks have easily been dead since the 1970s' and that's being generous. Why can't shows just do one of two things: 1) Get a studio audience, or 2) Be like Scrubs and actually be well written so that you can figure out the jokes on your own and when you are supposed to laugh.

(Applause)

The Second Coming?

So apparently the messiah has already come back to Earth and he has done so in the form of one Nikki Sixx. Yep, that Nikki Sixx. The same guy who wrote songs like 10 Seconds to Love, Hell on High Heels, and lets not forget Girls, Girls, Girls. Really who would have seen this coming? In the 80s' he was busy sucking ass at playing bass but was writing good songs and also the occasional solid album. And he was also doing mountains of heroin. Somewhere along the line, I would have to say maybe...1992ish, he started to have this shift from being you know, a dip shit, into someone who was all of a sudden darker. Then recently he started to shift into becoming this guy who tries too hard to be deep and philosophical in just about every way possible. I think the first real indicator of this would be around the time he wrote The Heroin Diaries (great,great book all around btw; not complaining about that) and that stupid album that went along with it. Now flash forward a few years and he has followed it up with a book that looks very redundant called This Is Gonna Hurt. Why does it seems redundant? Because most everything you need to know about him was covered in either The Dirt, The Heroin Diaries, Behind The Music, or one of the other Motley Crue guys' books.
Reading the press releases for this he seems to be so full of himself these days. Like everything he touches or conceptualizes is a work of pure genius. I would counter that by saying he has people around him who can't give him fair and honest constructive criticism. That or he does and he doesn't care. We get it, you had a really messed up childhood. So did thousands of others, big deal. The funny thing is that in Motley Crue he has only touched upon these "deep" topics in about 2-3 songs tops.
So in closing, I would like to say that while I do like Motley Crue along with The Dirt and The Heroin Diaries, this dude needs to realize that his shit does stink and he is not some creative super genius who is deep and philosophical. He's a guy who is full of himself and trying to be something more than he really is; which is a guy who plays average bass, hasn't really written a kick ass song/album by himself in about 15-20 years, wrote a great/messed up book, and looks like he hasn't aged a day since 1990. And he is NOT the messiah like he perceives himself to be.

Are You Ready To Read? I Said Are You Ready To Read?!

In 2001, an excellent book about excess came out, that book was called The Dirt. To say the least it was crazy. Much like anything that is successful, it spawned other books similar to it. Like when Metallica did S&M and everyone and their mom made a "symphonic rock album", or when Survivor became a hit it spawned "reality TV" (these are GAME SHOWS!, that's a different story), or how Toy Story became popular and other 3-D films were released; okay that's enough examples. ANYWAYS, it lead to more rock stars than you can shake a cocaine covered stick at "writing" their autobiographies. Here is a short list that have been release since The Dirt came out in 2001:

Kiss and Make Up - Gene Simmons
The Heroin Diaries - Nikki Sixx
This Is Gonna Hurt - Nikki Sixx
Tommyland - Tommy Lee
Clapton - Eric Clapton
Slash - Slash
Tattoos & Tequila - Vince Neil
Mustaine - Dave Mustaine
My Appetite For Destruction - Steven Adler
Life - Keith Richards

Obviously this is not all of them, I mean Bobby Blotzer from Ratt wrote one, Steven Adler's mom wrote one (for reals?), Steven Tyler is writing one, Tom Hamilton is writing one, Duff McKagen is writing one, and I've heard that Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are both writing one. The real kicker is that they ALL say that "...this isn't going to be about backstage drama; who did what drugs, who slept with who..." yeah and that sitcom Emeril Lagasse had was great. BAM!
Not that I am one to say that people shouldn't do this but for reals, when multiple people in the same band write an autobiography what is the point? Also this is directed to Motley Crue; yes The Dirt came out ten years ago but do we really need FOUR more books from you guys? Half of it is going to be a recap of the main book while you catch us up on recent things and bitch about your band (that's how all of these go btw).
I know I just complained about these things but I do like to read them. They tell me some combination of these things: 1) save your money 2) do drugs in moderation 3) don't get AIDS 4) casually document your life so you can throw people under the bus later and in a public setting.
I guess what I'm saying with all of this is that I love reading! Unless it's brail, that shit is hard. And also I want to check out DLR's book Crazy From the Heat, I heard is awesome!

Two Thumbs WAAAAAAYYYYYY Down

This is something little and maybe stupid; BUT I think that the "thumbs up" sign needs to go away. Really what does it mean? It could mean: "Yes! Those cobras attacked me but I'm fine!" or it could mean "Yep, I shit my pants and these boxers are going in the trash." But instead what we have are total and complete douche nozzles on sites like facebook giving the thumbs up in dumb ass poses in about 90,000 of there photos to be funny. Guess what? You're not and you are ruining a very useful and easily understood gesture. You know what is funny? Puppies, Alf, Black Gallagher, the entire country of France, and America's Funniest Home Videos (the Bob Saget version naturally). If I were to come across someone giving me the thumbs up, because of facebook I would interpret it as this " Hey! I'm a fucking idiot, look at me trying to be funny!"

Blast From The Past

I was surfing the interweb the other day and ended up on youtube for awhile and instead of watching dogs play with shopping bags or guys getting hit in the garbage, I was watching something that made me hate when I grew up. I was watching a ten part "best of" series of Headbangers Ball (the old one) and it made me feel bad that I missed out on such a great show. No instead I lucked out and got stuck with that show the second time around and boy does that suck ass.
Back in the early 90s' they had great, great ass rock/metal/alternative stuff that they just don't have anymore. Bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Alice In Chains, Prong, Pantera, Sepultura, Faith No More, Soundgarden, and the list goes on. Plus there were good interviews and segments that made the show entertaining, you got to see and get to know some of these bands; now, I don't want to know these bands. They are all generic knobs who sound the same and look the same, the show is so generic and run of the mill. It's screaming this, downtuned guitars this, and blast beats galore. Plus it's like you can't even acknowledge the fact that you like music from the 80s'-90s'. What the hell is the deal with that? It makes me cringe. I don't want to say that all newer bands suck giant wieners BUT for the most they do and it's not just heavy bands. Throw in the alternative bands, the indy bands, and the metal bands. It really is a sad state of affairs these days. Anyways that's my little rant, fuckin' MTV.

The Brown Sound!

Van Halen. Shit they used to be awesome. I feel unfortunate that I was born too late to experience them in their prime. I mean they had everything. Great songs, great vocals, and obviously great harmonica playing. If you watch some old videos of them playing in the Roth era, man there wasn't thing that they couldn't do. To quote John Mellencamp "...even their bad songs are good..." Hell yeah to that statement.
Of course like any band they went through changes; like from Van Halen to Van Hagar to Van Cherone, finally back to Van Halen...minus a key member who really wasn't all that key I guess. We've seen DLR go from the definition of a rock star to a bald guy. And we've seen Eddie turn into a fricken weirdo. He gets cancer, blames it on his metal guitar picks, does music for a porno, then gets a haircut and gets sober. All in like the span of a weekend.
It's great that DLR is back, but it seems like it's too late. Plus since the man with two first names isn't there to play bass and lend his awesome backing vocals; it just feels.....weird. Anyways this was all brought upon because a) Van Halen is bad ass b) I love Van Halen, and c) I was watching some bad ass Eddie Van Halen guitar videos. I mean he was playing "Eruption" and in the middle he starts to improvise and  he starts playing what turned out to ultimately be "Mean Streets". Damn that sucks when one person is that good.