Monday, July 27, 2009

Dadrock

The only good thing that came out of last night (The cap of the worst day ever) was the elaboration on and complete reclassification of rock music, only this time with "dad rock," inherently uncool music from the late sixties to the late seventies, as the cornerstone. Here we go.
*note- I get it, I'm lampooning all of your favorite bands, blah blah blah. If you don't like it there's a nice red X on the top right corner of your page that'll get rid of it.

1940s-1955 Funk, Blues, Rock.
Dadrock and Rock have the same origins with Chuck Berry, Elvis, and the like. It is cool to enjoy these bands as they are the "original" rockers, so while dads may enjoy them, they are not really classifiable as dadrock.

1956-1965, Protodadrock
It all started here, with bubble gum and the British invasion. This music, as it is not the Beatles, has been labelled as completely uncool by every scene and therefore, the origin of dadrock, the uncoolest music around. Protodadrock is characterized by jangly chords, mushroom cuts and ridiculous, senseless lyrics that only a dad could enjoy.

1963-1968, Dad Folk
Every once in a while your dad will put on a Dad Folk album by such artists as Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel. Your dad only listened to this stuff because it was the only crap his dad would let him listen to. (See dadrock revival for the same phenomenon occurring between you and your dad)

1965-1969, The Beatles.
Your dad hated the Beatles. He only says he likes them now because they're "the best rock group of all time" or some shit. Trust me, he thought the beatles were for pussies. At this point, if he was old enough, your dad was probably listening to Cream, Traffic, Canned Heat, The Rolling Stones and the Doors. Only once he and his buddies became sexually active did he realize that you had to like the Beatles to get any, and by the time that came around, your dad had discovered...

1968-1971, Dadadelic Rock
The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers, The Doors, Parliament/Funkadelic (eh, okay, and maybe the Beatles a little bit). Your dad was smoking weed because everyone else was, but trust me, he was not doing LSD. He's your dad for christ sakes. Your dad was listening to these bands because he heard on the news that the Kool-Aid acid tests and all that jazz were hip, but since your dad wasn't participating in any of that, he was living vicariously through this "music." Your dad didn't actually enjoy any of it, either. When he puts this stuff on now, it's only because he's got nostalgia from the time where he thought he was as cool as you think you are now.

1971-1985, The Dad Rock Golden Age
And then, with the breakup of the Beatles, your dad was free to express himself and listen to the Daddiest, Uncoolest music ever. Starting with Led Zeppelin and encompassing Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath and all prog rock, then ending with Dad Rock Jesus, Bruce Springsteen, this was the era of your dad slowly turning into your dad. It was at this point that he, using his leather jacket and bell-bottoms, met your mom. While there are many splinter divisions such as Dad Metal (Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, AC/DC) Hard Dad (Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult) and Nu Dad(Boston, Kansas, and PINK FLOYD), these are all lumped together as dad rock, the stuff you only listen to because your dad likes it and the stuff your dad legitimately thought was cool (come on, all you teenagers listening to Q104.3 or whatever, you can't seriously think it's cool to listen to, right? Your DAD liked it).

1978-1985, Altdad
While most dads were banging their heads to the aforementioned shit, a select few were enjoying bands like Joy Division, The Ramones, and the Clash. These dads died of heroine overdoses before they had you, and they are WAY cooler than your dad.

1985-1991, Progdadrock
Your dad was getting older. At this point, either he was trying desperately to remember the sixties, the seventies, or some other point in time, but at the same time, trying to stay with the times. Bands like Poison, Motley Crue, Def Leppard and ultimately Guns n Roses took the themes presented by their dad rock predecessors and tried to make it as undadly as possible by growing some long ass hair and adding weirdo instruments your dad could barely comprehend (what the hell's a synthesizer!?). These bands still had those rockin' guitar solos your dad loved and remembered, but at the same time made bandanas, long hair, and denim jackets, cool again. This music was the culmination of everything dad adn nowadays it is, in fact, the least cool music imaginable.

1991-2001, The Dad Dark Ages
At this point, your dad was raising your sorry ass and was too busy fucking your mother to care about music. Try asking your dad about Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins, or Jane's Addiction. Chances are, he either never heard of them, or would never listen to them, because from a dad's point of view, NOTHING is as cool as that Ratt bandana.

2001-Present, Dadrock Revival
Finally, Shit your dad could listen to again! With bands that you think are god awful, such as Nickelback, Hinder and Wolfmother, getting big, you wonder why anyone listens to any of it. It's because these bands have put their own flare on dadrock and have "brought it back" so to speak. The only people who listen to these bands are dads, children of dads who listened to way too much "classical rock," and you because this is the only music your dad will let you listen to in the house. Dads think that they're cool because they've started listening to these CDs instead of cassettes and records, but most people just look on in disgust. Some of these bands actually are good, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but these bands usually are crossovers and incorporate enough elements of non-dad rock to be pretty cool.
Also, I heard Green Day on Q104.3 last week, automatically qualifying "American Idiot" as Dadrock revival.

So, you're probably thinking, okay, I get it, but what about Mo-town? Disco? Ska? Rap? Stuff I listen to?
Well, the first two genres aren't really "rock" so I'm not classifying them with dad rock. Ska is too fast for your father and there's nothing rock about a trumpet. Rap, even old school rap, is still cool today, and your father won't like it until you've completely forgotten about it. Anything you listen to today won't be classifiable dad-music until he starts listening to it, and he won't start listening to it until it's presented to him, and that won't be for another twenty years, so don't worry about your dad jamming to 3oh!3 or any emo shit or whatever you like, be it lo-fi, punk, art rock or whatever, because, well, that'll be your dadrock.

Thanks for reading, and remember, always remember to rock out with your pops out.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Caviar

I work as a busboy at a country club. It is an awful, humiliating job, but the most amazing, humbling experience I've ever had. I've had countless bouts with the antics of rich people, and have been looked down upon many times because of my "lowly" position as busboy, but I'm not going to talk about any of those experiences; I'm going to talk about sturgeon eggs, Catnip for the wealthy, caviar.
Last night I was in charge of the caviar stand during cocktail hour for some event. I arrived at the table with some mini spoons; on top of the table was an enormous bowl of ice with bowls of egg, onion, and parsley , and in the center of the three foot tower was a flimsy tin with a black paste in it. It looked kind of like Floam but creamier and slimier.
I stood still by the table for a while, inspecting a spoonful of the stuff. I felt it, squished it between my fingers, and ultimately put some in my mouth. While the essence of dead fish wasn't pleasant, I wasn't repulsed; just interested. The first connoisseur arrived just as I put my fingers to my nose, and as I grimaced, he whispered
"hey, smells like a 90 year old's unclean vagina, right?"
I nodded my head, face still contorted. "Yes, yes it does."
"Do you know how much it costs?" I shook my head no. "That can? Probably 200 dollars."
I stood back, perplexed.
"Can I let you in on a little secret?" he leaned in closer. "We only eat this stuff because we're rich. That's why the egg and onion's there. No one actually likes it."
He backed up and asked for a heaping spoonful.
Suddenly, I was enlightened. I saw through the lady who complained to the manager because there was no lemon to squeeze on (read as hide the taste of) her caviar, through the man who asked for three spoonfuls to impress his friends, through the lady who told me it was "Crapiar" because she had eaten beluga caviar the night before, and through the lady who complained that I was wasting valuable caviar by throwing a way an empty can with three eggs left. People were shoving each other to get to it, pushing me out of the way and forcing me to let them serve themselves, calling me over so I would get them six or seven little pieces of toast full of caviar.
I called my boss over and asked, "Why is it that the most expensive foods also happen to be the worst tasting and the worst smelling?"
Some things just can't be explained.

I'd rather be a bum and live on McDonalds than have to eat grandmapussy just to prove to people I'm rich.

Monday, July 20, 2009

A Portrait Of The Blogger As A College Student Who Stopped Giving A Fuck Too Soon

Google Analytics says I still get about 5 readers a day, two or three of whom stay on the site for more than no seconds, and surprisingly few of them being unique visitors. So those readers may notice that my updates have been coming less and less frequently.
Well, that's because I stopped caring about everything. Oops!
I was gonna write a blog post about how much I was enjoying the book that inspired this title a couple days ago then thought, hey, I just don't give a fuck.
I was gonna go out the other day, eh, nah.
For example, my daily schedule-
9-10- Not doing anything
10-1030- Not caring about the speed limit
1030-300- Standing thoughtlessly by a computer, usually belting one of the three songs I know by heart
330-530- Not caring about anything
530-1200- Who Cares?
Showering? Who cares what I smell like? Brushing My Teeth? So my teeth are yellow, what do I care. Getting Dressed? This stained t-shrt has just enough holes for me not to care. Combing My Hair? Psh.
I don't know, I'm at the part of my blog post where I'm rereading and it doesn't sound like I'm saying anything. Maybe I should just delete my blog. Nah, too much effort. You know, I kinda feel like Adam Sandler's character in Click when he's on fast foward and stuff. Whatever.
I was going to write a poem to describe how little I care but that would take too much effort, and in all seriousness, I don't care enough to make this blog post good.
So I'm going to express how I feel again only this time I'm going to try to make it rhyme, I guess.

I'm writing a poem
Fuck how it sounds
I guess this'll show'em
Mngrghgmmmghounds.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here till Thursday.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Schrodinger's Poem

I live in a box with high walls
And may have left many appalled
While pondering nuclear decay.
Both new and old atoms, I say,
Live as the same until I
with one last "meow!" do die.
Or do I?

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

24 Hours


It's been a little more than a week since my last update, and though I could talk about just about any of the weird things that have happened in the past week, I think I need to get the past 24 hours down because they were fantastic.
12AM, July 7th. Best Day Begins.
Me, Paul, Ashley and Danielle had just finished playing a few rousing games of blokus and were sitting around the table playing with the pieces on the board. Paul decided to put the four cross pieces in the middle. Then, we decide to all put the same pieces down. We kept going for a while, then finally placed down our long five, corner three, line four, line three, two and one pieces... and got this.
Yeah. How fucking awesome is that. HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT, YEAHHHHHHH.
Okay, so after the spiral we had about and hour of picture taking and merriment because we were still stunned with how awesome we were, my friends left and we went to sleep.
10AM- 3PM, work. Doesn't matter, stood by a computer and looked pretty.
4PM.
Paul texts, "CAT DROPPED OUT, WE NEED A THIRD PERSON TO COME TO RICHARD CHEESE TONIGHT!" Of course, I new exactly who I needed to call, Kyle. Me, Paul and Kyle were all going to see Richard Fucking Cheese.
6:30PM
On the L train, going towards Williamsburg. Paul and I had been sitting and chatting, when suddenly, some fat lady in a black dress, who had been encroaching upon my personal space the whole train ride, turns to the lady next to her and says "Look here. Not a single lady sitting down in this whole row. Look at what kind of world we're coming to. No manners. None of these men even offered to get up."
She gazed angrily at Paul and I.
"Uh, do you want to sit? I'll get up, I didn't realize." I said.
"No, it's fine. I don't want to sit."
"Uh, okay."
Three seconds pause, and then, very melodramatically, "I just wish your generation would realize the importance of chivalry. I mean, who taught you these awful manners? How on earth were you raised?"
Paul and I looked at each other and at the same time said,
"Jewish."
"Yeah, that's why." She said.
"Well, you know," said Paul, "Rosa Parks did some great things by not getting up. I mean, just imagine..."
She didn't like that answer. "Maybe one day you two will grow up and learn the importance of chivalry."
We arrived at our station and sprinted off the train.

8PM- 11PM, Richard Cheese.
Though the show was 18 and older, Paul and I got in, and Kyle arrived soon after, for the greatest concert experience I've ever had. After Natalie Gelman, the opener who was alright but absolutely bangin', Richard Cheese came on. His act was two hours of lounge singing, molesting audience members, and making fun of the drunk people who yelled shit out. Never have I laughed so hard in my entire life. At one point, he walked down into the audience right behind our row and turns to a man with long hair. He turns to the man, then to his girlfriend, and begins to sing, "Somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend..." Seriously, bliss. Everything from Cheese's comic delivery to his bashing of "Matt" who screamed out "I DRINK IT" when he warned about the dangers of bubble fluid to Markos and Missy who were just friends but would be "More than that by the end of the night" to Sasha who wandered around the theater until he trapped her in a "chair prison," then later in the show took her top off so she wouldn't have to sit down, to his throwing a bottle of bubbles down a girls shirt, to the "Richard Cheese Dancers" Kickline at the end of "Down With The Sickness" was fantastic. Everything, best concert ever.
THEN WE MET MATT ON THE SUBWAY RIDE HOME (which smelled like a bathroom with a toilet made of meat, then dumplings)
He was a twat, but whatever. Fucking rad.