Welcome Back

I am a card carrying geek. I was that nerd in grade school, reading comics, watching anime, and larping with his friends during recess. I’ve always loved things like books and film, mostly because my ma had a penchant for the sci-fi and we would share in her hobbies. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who since i was a wee lil’ Smokey and had a particular fondness for Max Headroom’s shenanigans. My chosen proclivities lend themselves to alternate universes, divergent timeless, and the interdenominational doppelganger or two. What i am trying to convey, here, is that i am not stranger to the revisit of a franchise. For me, rebooting an established work or expanding a loved lore is not a transgression. I am a fan of narrative. If you can tell a unique story, it really doesn’t even have to be that good, but something creativity and compelling, i am totally on board. This isn't as difficult a feat as you'd think considering how well Hollywood can adapt international films. The Ring and The Departed are effectively remakes of their original Asian fare and those films are spectacular. Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is the best example of this i can give. His deconstruction of the Batman mythos was one of the best cinematic and storytelling experiences I ever had. If you can take an established narrative, an established universe, and inject your own flavor into it, i am down for that, too. The Kelvin Star Trek timeline immediately comes to mind. Again, comic book guy, specifically a Spider-Man shill.

While i have years worth of alternate Spider-Men in the books to pull from, i think the most concise example i can give for a layman is to think Into the Spider-Verse, only with thousands more Spider-Men and Spider-Women. That’s the world I'm broaching this subject from, where there are decades worth of stories and reboots and remakes and reimagings, basically revisits, of a character that i absolutely love. Some are great like the Ultimate Spider-Man or the world of Renew Your Vows, and some are not so great, like that version Abrams’ kid came up with. That whole story was the worst. We have actually seen a little bit of this narrative reincarnation in the Spider-Man film franchise, itself, both good and bad. If we take the very first Spider-Man films, those campy, Raimi classics, as a starting point, then we had a terrible reboot in the Amazing franchise and a rather brilliant reimagining in the MCU outings. I really like the MCU retool. Tom Holland is THE onscreen Peter Parker and you can fight me about it all day.

Jurassic World and The Force Awakens are an interesting situation in the whole Revisit discourse. Both of these films are effectively reboots of the entire franchise and a whole ass remake of their initial entries. Beat for beat, theme for theme, these two films are basically the same as Jurassic Park and Episode IV, just less than they are in every conceivable fashion. Now, on paper, i should hate this but i don’t. There is a reason both of the imitations made billions for their respective franchise and that is simply nostalgia. We. as a culture, were starved for a Jurassic sequel and new Star War. When we got these movies in earnest, no one cared they were rehashes of the films that made them so important to the cultural zeitgeist. It was like seeing A New Hope and that initial outing to Isla Nublar for the first time, for a second time, but with much better effects. It had been decades since either of these movies had a proper release so we all just accepted that these were refresher courses in the lore. It was with the sequels that these things sh*t the bed so hard.

Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi skewed so far from what these franchises were, from the rules that had been established in the preceding films, including the first in their new trilogies, that they were offensive. Legitimately offensive. Jurassic World and The Force Awakens, as flawed as they were, left their worlds in respectable places. The narratives that could be built from those starting point were incredible. That potential was palpable. Lucas, himself, said that the stories should rhyme and you see that in his six films. Familiar yet different. Nostalgic yet original. Respectful yet original. None of that was recognized in the follow-ups and that is why these two franchises are on life support. It’s sad because there was potential there. Characters introduced were compelling and narrative threads left unties, could have become something great. Instead, expectations were subverted and the world completely sh*t on in an effort to be edgy, to distance itself from the established lore. That sh*t is whack. It’s not about being a fan of the franchise or a zealous istaphobe or whatever else the Twatter mob wants to accuse people of being. It’s about bad story telling. it’s abut a complete betrayal of a decades old franchise. It’s a bout being disingenuous with the property for personal gain.

I said at the beginning of this essay that i love a revisit. That’s why i went to see these sh*tty films. I also made very clear that i love storytelling. Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi lack in that fundamental aspect, that’s why they suck. They’ve done irreparable damage to the entire franchise and canon of these worlds that were so meticulously crafted by proper visionaries. Michael Crichton is rolling in his grave at what became of his Dinosaur Westworld and Lucas effectively bogarded his way into running Lucasfilm again after they sh*t on his legacy and that’s the thing; Legacy. These two franchises are part of American culture. They’re as revered as Apple Pie and Institutional Racism here. They’re not cash grabs or vehicles to push your politics. They’re modern fairy tales, myths, and should be respected as such. The thing is, though, i don’t believe there are actual creatives out there that have the vision to create like Crichton or Lucas anymore. Or, at least, Creatives that are willing to work within the constraints of this ridiculous studio system.

Modern film studios are disgustingly risk averse. That is a problem with anything making entertainment media nowadays but it’s most egregious in Hollywood. Films like Star Wars and Alien were made in a time when budgets didn’t swell to hundreds of millions of dollars so directors had to do what he could, with what they had, and that level of imagination birthed classics. It’s rare that creators get a blank check to deliver their vision nowadays, and even rarer that what they get to make if they receive that loot, is actually good. Zack Snyder and the train wreck that is Sucker Punch demonstrates my point perfectly. the new Lucases and Camerons are rare but there are a handful of directors who carry that torch. Denis Villeneuve is an incredible visual storyteller. He has a distinct vision for the grand and manages to craft proper worlds. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the best films i have ever seen in my life but it didn’t make money because people have been conditioned to ignore great storytelling for great effects. That sh*t is why people can say to me, with a straight face, that they think Batman v. Superman is better than The Dark Knight rises. That sh*t is stupid, shut the f*ck up. Deni was given the reigns to the Dune reboot and i think this might be the film that breaks him through to the mainstream.

Dune is a reboot. It looks like a revisit to the old David Lynch flick but with Deni’s penchant for the epic. This movie feels like what Jurassic World and The Force Awakens wanted to do; A respectful acknowledgment of what came before but an original take going forward. Dune is one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written and Deni is one of the most profound visionaries in the game right now.  I have no doubt the new film is going to be fantastic. This combination is a match made in heaven, similar to Alex Garland with Annihilation or, more accurately i think, Luca Guadagnino and Suspiria. Those two films are f*cking incredible and they adapt the source material in a very, specific, manner. Annihilation is a reimagining of the book and carries its own themes and tones while the new Suspiria is a complete reinterpretation of what came before, that i believe eclipses the original. Dune looks excellent but i don’t know that it will be well received. Deni has his work cut out for him because the world of revisits is riddle with the corpses of films that couldn’t care the weight of what came before or what could have been. Still, i don’t want Hollywood to stop. As unoriginal as remaking things is, i adore a fresh set of eyes on familiar fare. There are infinite ways to tell the same story and that’s the fun of revisiting an old tale.

Welcome Back

I am a card carrying geek. I was that nerd in grade school, reading comics, watching anime, and larping with his friends during recess. I’ve always loved things like books and film, mostly because my ma had a penchant for the sci-fi and we would share in her hobbies. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who since i was a wee lil’ Smokey and had a particular fondness for Max Headroom’s shenanigans. My chosen proclivities lend themselves to alternate universes, divergent timeless, and the interdenominational doppelganger or two. What i am trying to convey, here, is that i am not stranger to the revisit of a franchise. For me, rebooting an established work or expanding a loved lore is not a transgression. I am a fan of narrative. If you can tell a unique story, it really doesn’t even have to be that good, but something creativity and compelling, i am totally on board. This isn't as difficult a feat as you'd think considering how well Hollywood can adapt international films. The Ring and The Departed are effectively remakes of their original Asian fare and those films are spectacular. Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is the best example of this i can give. His deconstruction of the Batman mythos was one of the best cinematic and storytelling experiences I ever had. If you can take an established narrative, an established universe, and inject your own flavor into it, i am down for that, too. The Kelvin Star Trek timeline immediately comes to mind. Again, comic book guy, specifically a Spider-Man shill.

While i have years worth of alternate Spider-Men in the books to pull from, i think the most concise example i can give for a layman is to think Into the Spider-Verse, only with thousands more Spider-Men and Spider-Women. That’s the world I'm broaching this subject from, where there are decades worth of stories and reboots and remakes and reimagings, basically revisits, of a character that i absolutely love. Some are great like the Ultimate Spider-Man or the world of Renew Your Vows, and some are not so great, like that version Abrams’ kid came up with. That whole story was the worst. We have actually seen a little bit of this narrative reincarnation in the Spider-Man film franchise, itself, both good and bad. If we take the very first Spider-Man films, those campy, Raimi classics, as a starting point, then we had a terrible reboot in the Amazing franchise and a rather brilliant reimagining in the MCU outings. I really like the MCU retool. Tom Holland is THE onscreen Peter Parker and you can fight me about it all day.

Jurassic World and The Force Awakens are an interesting situation in the whole Revisit discourse. Both of these films are effectively reboots of the entire franchise and a whole ass remake of their initial entries. Beat for beat, theme for theme, these two films are basically the same as Jurassic Park and Episode IV, just less than they are in every conceivable fashion. Now, on paper, i should hate this but i don’t. There is a reason both of the imitations made billions for their respective franchise and that is simply nostalgia. We. as a culture, were starved for a Jurassic sequel and new Star War. When we got these movies in earnest, no one cared they were rehashes of the films that made them so important to the cultural zeitgeist. It was like seeing A New Hope and that initial outing to Isla Nublar for the first time, for a second time, but with much better effects. It had been decades since either of these movies had a proper release so we all just accepted that these were refresher courses in the lore. It was with the sequels that these things sh*t the bed so hard.

Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi skewed so far from what these franchises were, from the rules that had been established in the preceding films, including the first in their new trilogies, that they were offensive. Legitimately offensive. Jurassic World and The Force Awakens, as flawed as they were, left their worlds in respectable places. The narratives that could be built from those starting point were incredible. That potential was palpable. Lucas, himself, said that the stories should rhyme and you see that in his six films. Familiar yet different. Nostalgic yet original. Respectful yet original. None of that was recognized in the follow-ups and that is why these two franchises are on life support. It’s sad because there was potential there. Characters introduced were compelling and narrative threads left unties, could have become something great. Instead, expectations were subverted and the world completely sh*t on in an effort to be edgy, to distance itself from the established lore. That sh*t is whack. It’s not about being a fan of the franchise or a zealous istaphobe or whatever else the Twatter mob wants to accuse people of being. It’s about bad story telling. it’s abut a complete betrayal of a decades old franchise. It’s a bout being disingenuous with the property for personal gain.

I said at the beginning of this essay that i love a revisit. That’s why i went to see these sh*tty films. I also made very clear that i love storytelling. Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi lack in that fundamental aspect, that’s why they suck. They’ve done irreparable damage to the entire franchise and canon of these worlds that were so meticulously crafted by proper visionaries. Michael Crichton is rolling in his grave at what became of his Dinosaur Westworld and Lucas effectively bogarded his way into running Lucasfilm again after they sh*t on his legacy and that’s the thing; Legacy. These two franchises are part of American culture. They’re as revered as Apple Pie and Institutional Racism here. They’re not cash grabs or vehicles to push your politics. They’re modern fairy tales, myths, and should be respected as such. The thing is, though, i don’t believe there are actual creatives out there that have the vision to create like Crichton or Lucas anymore. Or, at least, Creatives that are willing to work within the constraints of this ridiculous studio system.

Modern film studios are disgustingly risk averse. That is a problem with anything making entertainment media nowadays but it’s most egregious in Hollywood. Films like Star Wars and Alien were made in a time when budgets didn’t swell to hundreds of millions of dollars so directors had to do what he could, with what they had, and that level of imagination birthed classics. It’s rare that creators get a blank check to deliver their vision nowadays, and even rarer that what they get to make if they receive that loot, is actually good. Zack Snyder and the train wreck that is Sucker Punch demonstrates my point perfectly. the new Lucases and Camerons are rare but there are a handful of directors who carry that torch. Denis Villeneuve is an incredible visual storyteller. He has a distinct vision for the grand and manages to craft proper worlds. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the best films i have ever seen in my life but it didn’t make money because people have been conditioned to ignore great storytelling for great effects. That sh*t is why people can say to me, with a straight face, that they think Batman v. Superman is better than The Dark Knight rises. That sh*t is stupid, shut the f*ck up. Deni was given the reigns to the Dune reboot and i think this might be the film that breaks him through to the mainstream.

Dune is a reboot. It looks like a revisit to the old David Lynch flick but with Deni’s penchant for the epic. This movie feels like what Jurassic World and The Force Awakens wanted to do; A respectful acknowledgment of what came before but an original take going forward. Dune is one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written and Deni is one of the most profound visionaries in the game right now.  I have no doubt the new film is going to be fantastic. This combination is a match made in heaven, similar to Alex Garland with Annihilation or, more accurately i think, Luca Guadagnino and Suspiria. Those two films are f*cking incredible and they adapt the source material in a very, specific, manner. Annihilation is a reimagining of the book and carries its own themes and tones while the new Suspiria is a complete reinterpretation of what came before, that i believe eclipses the original. Dune looks excellent but i don’t know that it will be well received. Deni has his work cut out for him because the world of revisits is riddle with the corpses of films that couldn’t care the weight of what came before or what could have been. Still, i don’t want Hollywood to stop. As unoriginal as remaking things is, i adore a fresh set of eyes on familiar fare. There are infinite ways to tell the same story and that’s the fun of revisiting an old tale.

IT IS A HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST GOAT

@fucshias  @jiilys  MY LOVE GOATY. MY MOST BEAUTIFUL GOAT. MY SUN. MY STARS. MY BEAUTIFUL HOOVED CREATURE OF GOD. I HAVE ARRIVED TO SAY SOME IMPORTANT THINGS BUT FIRSTLY I LOVE YOU I LOVE I LOVE YOU U R READING THIS POST RIGHT NOW DUE TO A VERY IMPORTANT REASON AND THIS IMPORTANT REASON IS THAT

*CHOKES BACK TEARS*

IT IS UR BIRTHDAY.

*SCREAMING*

OK OKI DOKI BEFORE I START: I AM NOT ACTUALLY HERE BUT DO NOT BE D I S E N H E AR T E N E D BC I JUST DONT HAVE WIFI BUT I PROMISE U SOMEWHERE OUT THERE I AM SULKING AND FIGHTING A WALL AND ALSO SETTING OFF FIREWORKS BC !!!!!!!!!!!!! ITS UR FUCKING DAY AND IM SORRY I COULD NOT WISH U BUT I LOVE U SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH I AM HERE W/ U IN SPIRIT

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT TURN THE FUCK UP HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY TO MY LOVE HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO U UR EXCELLENT AND I LOVE YOU AND ALSO WHAT THE FUCK BINCH HOW ARE U SEVENTEEN TODAY U ASSHOLE (COPYRIGHT U KNOW WHO) WHO ALLOWED U TO BE LIKE THIS AND ALSO I LOVE YOU. AND ALSO I CANT BELIEVE UVE DONE THIS. UR LITERALLY SEVENTEEN TODAY I AM NOT ALRIGHT AND I NEED U TO HOLD ME BECAUSE I AM GOING TO COME OVER AND FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF BEING A DRAMATIC BITCH I WILL FAINT IN UR ARMS I AM 100% NOT ALRIGHT

like,,,, HONESTLY u are so. fucking. great. WHERE DO I EVEN START. 

FIRST AND FOREMOST I WANNA SAY I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR THIS FOR UR BDAY I LOVE YOU GOATY I AM SO PUMPED THAT UR SO OLD ITS RIDICULOUS @ ME FUCK OFF ALRIGHT BUT. JUST. I LOVE I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY U GOAT UR BEYOND INCREDIBLE

UR OFFICIALLY A DANCING QUEEN UR YOUNG AND SWEET. ONLY. *SMASHES OPEN MY WINDOW AT 12 MIDNIGHT* SEVENTEEEEEEEEEEEEEN

SO OH MY GOD. I AM CURRENTLY YELLING BECAUSE??????????? LIKE???????????????? YOU'RE SEVENTEEN??????? HOW DID WE EVEN COME TO THIS POINT ITS INSANE LIKE HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SEVENTEEN WE'RE ALL JUST STILL TINY SMOLS WHERE ARE U GOING WHY ARE U GROWING OLDER STOP IT PLS ALRITE I DO NOT LIKE. MY PRECIOUS GOAT SUNSHINE WHO IS A PROFESSIONAL PAJAMA CONSULTANT A REAL SOLID BUSINESSWOMAN WHO DRIVES AND SHIT AND COULD PROBABLY RUN ME OVER AND IS 6'3 SO IF U WOULD SIT ON ME I WOULD MOST CERTAINLY DIE UR OFFICIALLY A DANCING QUEEN AND I AM CRYING

but in all seriousness I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU i am FOREVER AND EVER glad that i met u LIKE I FUCKIN HATE U GODMDAN FUCKIBG GOAT MAKING ME REBLOG THIGNS FUCK YUO FUCK O FF but like????? apart from that UR FUCKING BEYOND FABULOUS and i have decided to compile a list of reasons why u are unbelievably great and have earned ur title of being a dancing queen/brilliant goat/actual love of my life. bc u are excellent. AND IT MUST BE WRITTEN OUT HERE SOMEWHERE THAT I LOVE YOU. 

OK OK OK SO HERE WE GO BINCHES. PREPARE URSELF. THIS IS GONNA BE SUPER LENGTHY BECAUSE I LOVE YOU A LOT AND I AM GONNA DO A 'ON THE JELLICOE ROAD' WORTHY REVIEW OF U BUT LIKE A SHITTIER VERSION SO U BETTER FUNKIN BUCKLE UP BITCH

LEZGO:

IS OBVIOSULY FABULOUS

IS A REAL LIFE GIRAFFE 

WE ARE BLESSED TO HAVE ONE ROAM OUT OF CAPTIVITY LIKE............. WE ARE STRONGLY BLESSED

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH

CLAIMS TO HAVE 'barely any leg but a huge torso' and interpret this how u want bUT i just wanna say u r the most fucked up giraffe ever ok what the fuck WHO HURT YOU

apparently dis binch owns a bunny AND NEVER TOLD ME SHE DID

owns a problematic rabbit bc it pees everywhere

said problematic rabbit likes to pee everywhere so much its ridiculous it has no respect for the value of items of modern society and thus in my opinion should be sent to COURT

@ rabbit U NASTY OK PLS GET UR PRIORITIES SORTED???? THIS HAS BEEN A MOTHERFUCKING PSA THANK U (CAROLINE I AM TRUSTING YOU TO SHOW THIS ON UR PHONE TO THE GODDAMN BUNNY I NEED IT TO KNOW)

is 100% excellent at looking after drunk people ALRITE literally THIS WOMAN IS A SAINT who has saved REAL LIVES tbh where would that poor child from your old intermediate be if u hadn't SAVED HIS ENTIRE LIFE from all that tequila he would DEAD thats fuKCIN RIGHT U DESERVE ALL THE MEDALS A TRUE HERO AMONG NEW ZEALANDERS. A NATIONAL ICON. SO BRAVE I AM SO PROUD I LOVE YOU ALWAYS

AND ALSO PULLING DRUNK MAKING OUT PEOPLE OFF EACH OTHER I JUST WANT U TO KNOW THAT UR EFFORTS ARE SO VERY RECOGNIZED BECAUSE ONE TIME I DID THAT AND I GOT PUNCHED IN THE THROAT I THOUGHT I DIED BECAUSE I SAW JESUS BUT IT WASNT ACTUALLY JESUS IT WAS JUST A POSTER TAPED TO A FRIDGE I WAS SCAMMED

her own mum has called the police on her and was 100% ready for some quality fun family jailtime

ALSO ONE TIME GOATY ACCIDENTALLY FUCKED UP SOMEONES REAR MIRROR AND THE VICTIMS OF THE INCIDENT DID NOT GIVE HALF A FUCK HOWEVER, HER MOTHER GOATY REPORTED SEVERAL FUCKS TO THE POLICE AND FILED AN ACCIDENT REPORT AND THAT WAS THE DAY MY GOATY BECAME A DARK CRIMINAL

*OMINOUS MUSIC*

I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE DAY I WALK MY BUTT INTO COURT AGAINST UR MUM COVERED HEAD TO ASS IN $3 PLASTIC BRACELETS BACKED BY UR UNEXPECTEDLY KLEPTOMANIAC SISTER AND A BASKET OF STOLEN WOMANS DAYS AND ALONG WITH BLING BLING JIMMY WE WILL RESTORE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LACK OF CONSCIENCE ON THIS LOVELY EARTH

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ENOUGHT ABOUT UR MUM LIKE ACTUALLY ALL UR FAMILY MEMBERS ARE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF WILD AND..... I AM AFRAID

OK OK IT MUST BE SAID CAROLINE HAS THE MOST AMAIZNG VOICE ????? EVER

like i love her voice sm SO FUCKING MUCH I TELL U i have never heard anything like it and i want caroline to like read me books for hours AND HOURS AND NARRATE MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE because i love how unusually deep and shadowy her voice sounds like deep flowing river water or smth like i LOVE IT SO MUCH it. Is.So. Strange BUT I LOVE IT IT IS THE COOLEST GODDAMN THING THROW A BUCKET AT ME I LOVE YOU

HAS A VIDEO OF HERSELF DOING THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE AND I KNOW I HAVE PRAISED IT FOR TWO YEARS IN A ROW ALREADY LIKE @ ME PLZ CHILL BUT i will not i will NEVER it is solid entertainment a+++ QUALITY I AM LAUGHIGN IM LAUGHING I AM LAUGHING FOREVER those beautiful hops of pain across ur backyard ARE THE LAST THINGS I WANT TO SEE BEFORE GOD TAKES ME FROM THIS EARTH

WRONGFULLY FRAMED ME FOR HAVING SHIT DICK TENDENCIES AND THEN YELLED AT ME AND CALLED ME A GARAGE WHAT A BINCH I AM IN LOVE

loves yellow flowers AND ALL THE FLOWERS AND HEAVY ROSES AND IS A FULL OUT FLOWER HOE

IS DESPICABLE TEEN WOLF GARBAGE LIKE.... ive been scrolling through our fanmails AND MY HEART HUR T S G O A T Y hOld mE we were sO Y O U N  G and like no lie i shit u not 80% oF THE FUCKING MESSAGES ARE U YELLING 'STYDIA IS GONNA HAPPEN THIS SEASON' AND 'OH MY GOD DID U SEE THAT STYDIA SCENE' AND DECLARATIONS OF LOVE FOR LYDIA MARTIN AND THE OTHER 20% IS U ASKIN ME IF IVE SEEN THE NEW TEEN WOLF I LOVE IT I LOVE YOU I AM SORRY TEEN WOLF KEEPS DISAPPOINTING US BOTH BUT STDYIA IS. DEFINIETELY. GONNA. HAPPEN. THIS. SEASON. IT HAS TO OR I WILL FUKIN FITE ALRIGHT GIVE US STYDIA OR GIVE US DEATH I LOVE UR TEEN WOLF LOVIBG ASS

anyway caroline is an utterly excellent person

if u were an ncea paper i would grade u with excellence

*FINGER GUNS*

like ?????deals with my stupid yelling ALL THE TIME

whenever i had a problem and went to my goaty she was so very understanding and patient AND DID NOT CALL ME A DUMBASS WHEN I DESERVED TO BE DECKED

TOLD ME THE TRU DEFINTION OF THE PHRASE 'SHOT'

TWO YEARS OF UTTER CONFUSION. ERASED FROM MY LIFE. PERMANENTLY.

MY SKIN?? CLEARED . MY FUTURE BILLS ??? PAID MY HUSBAND MARRIED MY STATUE FOR CAROLINE FULLY ERECTED

ok but like i can never say this enough goaty IS SO NICE TO TALK TO PLETAHE TALK TO ME FORVER SHE IS FABULOUS??? it blows my mind constantly that someone this incredible and special walks along this earth NONE OF US DESERVE THE GOAT

also ???? WHAT IN THE FUCK HOW HAVE I NOT MENTIONED THIS YET CAROLINE IS THE BEST WRITER I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE SHE IS SO TALENTED EVERY TIME I READ ONE OF HER FICS I END UP THINKING ABOUT IT AFTERWARDS FOR 958495894 YEARS ALRIGHT THEY FUCK ME UP THEY WAY SHE HANDLES WORDS FUCKS ME UP HOW CAN YOUT TAKE FUCKING LETTERS AND THEN SHOVE THEM UP MY ASS LIKE THIS I AM NOT ALRIGHT I AM NOT ALRIGHT I AM NOT ALRIGHT I am Not Strong Enough For This

i am not even kidding ok THE WAY U HANDLE WORDS IS IN.FUCKING.CREDIBLE whenever u use them its like?? u turned them into something precious and all your writing have this feel to it like as if im holding a delicate bouqet of a thousand yellow flowers like im holding a butterfly in my hands like im holding a box of eggs and i am scared shitless to drop it bC MY DAD WILL PERSONALLY CRUCIFY ME

I AM AWFUL AT DESCRIPTIONS BUT I HOPE U SEE WHAT I MEAN. LIKE. IT IS SO *SCREAMS* MINBLOWING DECK ME WITH ALL UR WORDS EVER

I AM ONE HUNDRED FUCKING PERCENT NEVER OKAY WITH ANYTHING YOU WRITE IT HURTS SO GOOD AND I LOVE IT

ok ok this hoe right here has written THREE fics with a dedication for me at the beginning and like.............. ..... do u ever just cri

i have 'the glorious everywhere' printed out and FUCKING PINNED TO MY WALL WHERE I CAN SEE IT FROM ALL CORNERS OF MY ROOM ALWAYS back in my apartment in russia like it is legitimately the best thing. i love everything about this piece it should be adapted into a novel or a short film like PULL SOME FIFTY SHADES OF GREY SHIT W/ IT OK the imagery and REALNESS of this fic gets to me all the time and im crying im crying im crying I ABSOLUTELY ADORE IT PLS @ CAROLINE WHY ARE U SO TALENT

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT LOOK AT THIS BULLSHIT FUCKIG I THINK ABOUT THIS FIC EVERY SINGLE DAY WHEN I WAKE UP FUCKING LOOK ' You see her hair dripping down her head and spinning out over the seats in the back and lighting them on fire. You see her pale skin and electric veins as she puts her hand out the window and tries to catch the sky and stuff it up her sleeve. You hear her voice, “Just drive James, you’ll know where we’re going when we get there.”  

REALLY I AM NOT FUCKIGN Okay CALL AN AMBULANCE CALL IT NOW I AM UNWELL I AM SICK I AM DYING FUK ME RITE UP

i am fully convinced this is the greatest thing thats ever been written.like. How. the. FUCK. tbh i want this paragraph ENTIRELY TATTOOED ON MY ASS I AM ZCRYING @ CAROLINE YOU HAVE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BRAIN AND I AM SO VERY GLAD THAT IT EXISTS

i will not go into depth abt yelling about ur fics bc tbh i think u Know but I JUST WANNA SAY 'oh darling i have coloured blood (that i stole from you)' is the most iconic piece of literature to this day ever the and i zcri all the time because you are a goddamn bloody genius and you shine in colours beyond my comprehension and i love you so so so incredibly much

MY LOVE IS SO FUCKING TALENTED I AM YELLING I AM YELLING I AM YELLING

DOESN'T EAT FRIED SPERM

writes the BEST emails in history

UR SO LOVELY U GIVE ME SO MANY BEAUTIFUL SPELLING ERRORS FOR ME TO WHOLEHEARTEDLY ENJOY I AM GIGGLING *GIGGLES* IT BRINGS ME SO MUCH JOY WHEN U FUCK THINGS UP

tbh it is how fried chair came to life like it was actually in one of your first fanmails to me u said that two years ago and to this day it remains the Most Iconic Thing Ever

STRONG SUPPORTER OF WEETBIX

LOVES WEETBIX

FOUGHT TIGERS AND LIONS FOR HER FAMILY AND WAS SAVED BY WEETBIX AND WEETBIX ALONE 

ACTUALLY HAD A THING CALLED ‘WEETBIX DISCOURSE’ ON HER BLOG LIKE IT WAS ACTUALLY A THING THAT HAPPENED A REAL THING THAT OCCURED AND WAS PASSIONATELY ARGUED ABOUT AND I HAVE SEEN THINGS THAT CANNOT BE UNSEEN

RIGHTFULLY SO BC WEETBIX >>>>> JONAH GRIGGS I AM SORRY IT IS THE RULES

FUCK THE H8RS

like ??? is hilarious af QUEEN OF HUMOUR AND MAKING ME SNORT MY GODDAMN CHOCLATE MILK LIKE CAN U NOT BE SO EXCEPTIONAL U HO HAVE SOME CONSIDERATION U LIL BITCH but YES a++ top notch QUALITY storytelling skills in both fic writing and tequila struggles I APPRECIATE IT TO DEATH

ok ok ok also the most beautiful person ever??? LIKE ???????????????? BITCH WHAT THE FUCK ??????????????????????????????????????????????? WHO ALLOWED U

THE MOST PERFECT HAIR. ur hair is like waves of a golden ocean cascading from ur hEAD AND IT IS SO MAGICALLY FITTING B/C U R AN ETHEREAL BEING AND THE FACT THAT U HAVE AN ENTIRE WILD SEA RAGING ON UR HEAD JUST PROVES TO ME THAT U ARE A GOD AMONG MORTALS. UR HAIR IS SO PRETTY OK OK OKAY FUCK ME UP. STRAIGHT UP GORGEOUS. SO SOFT TOO AND SO SHINY AND IT FITS U SO WELL I AM FOREVER SCREAMING

THE MOST ANGEL FACE. GOATYS FACE LOOKS LIKE GOD OR WHOEVER THE FUCK WAS RESPONSIBLE CARVED IT OUT OF ROSE PETALS AND MARBLE LIKE. IT. IS. TRULY. THE MOST GORGEOUS THING ur face is softer than clouds tbh AND UR SMILE SAVES MY LIFE ITS BRIGHTER THAN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE CONDENSED AND SOMETIMES WHEN I SEE UR SELFIES I HAVE TO GO GET LASER EYE SURGERY BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN B L I N D E D

U R SO UNCONSIDERATE TO MY FRAGILE HEALTH HOW DARE YOU

SO. GODDAMN GORGEOUS SLAY MY ENTIRE LIFE I BEG U ID PAY U TO SIT ON ME WITH UR HUGE BONES AND SLOWLY CRUSH ME INTO AN ENDLESS DEATH I HAVE $4 LEFT OVER FROM MY LIFE SAVINGS DO IT BAE

has the best taste in music omg WHAT A BLESSING WE LIKE THE SAME SONGS AND IT ACTUALLY KIND OF SCARES ME B/C IT FEELS LIKE WE ARE THE SAME PERSON AND THIS DOES NOT HELP MY CONSTANT STATE OF EXISTENTIAL CRISIS

HAS THE BEST TASTE IN BOOKS and adores skam as much as i do AND LOVES CHRIS/EVA AS MUCH AS IDO AND WROTE A FIC FOR THEM AND THE SNIPPET FROM IT ????? MY SOUL. GONE.

so tol and will never stop accusing me of being smol but listen up aight. imma FUCK YOU UP. REAL GOOD. ONE DAY. WHEN I CAN AFFORD TO BUY A LADDER. UNTIL THEN SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN BINCH BC I AM COMING TO GET U

and is also the smartiest smart to ever smart LOOK AT MY U GO WITH UR EXCELLENCE ENDORSEMENT when i buy that ladder I WILL CLIMB IT AND HOVER AROUND UR HEAD LOTS SO I CAN ABSORB UR POWERS AND ALSO BREATHE THE FRESH AIR UP THERE WHICH IS NOT AVAILABLE TO GROUNDED PEASANTS SUCH AS ME

AND IS THE BEST COOKIE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE LIKE IF THIS ISNT ENOUGH TO CONVINCE ANYONE THAT CAROLINE IS BEYOND EXCEPTIONAL FOR OUR GALAXY THEN THEY CAN FUCK OFF PLS OK

like honestly,,, MY LOVE I COULD GO ON FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND CENTURIES UNTIL MY TEETH FALL OUT AND I GROW SENILE WITH MY LOVE BUT THE POINT OF THIS HOT STEAMING LAME MESS IS THAT I LOVE YOU TO BLOODY PIECES UR SO F U C K I N G INCREDIBLE I AM SO GLAD I MET YOU AND THAT YOU TAlk TO ME AND WE EMAIL EACH OTHER AND I AM BLESSED THAT YOU EVEN THINK OF ME AND THAT FREID CHAIR LOVES ME AND THAT U R MY GOAT BC UR MY ONLY GOAT AND UR THE BEST ONE THERE IS NO SHADE @ ALL OTHER GOATS BUT LIKE. IM SORRY I CANNOT TELL A LIE

IT IS THE COLD HARD TRUTH. 

and like??? i did a /search/deadgwen ON @jiilys BC I WANTED TO LOOK AT ALL OUR OLD STUFFS FROM 2015 and I Regret it I Regret it So Much theres a selfie from like when i was 14 and an idiot still on Ur blog and I look like an actual tragedy I Want to Die  we have known each other for so long its RIDICULOUS UR STILL AS AMAZING AS U WERE BACK THEN AND I AM MORE OR LESS CURED OF MY CONDITION OF BEING AN EMBARASSING DIPSHIT AND ITS CRAZY HOW MUCH YOUNGER WE WERE THEN LIKE UM WTF BUT UR STILL AS BEAUTIFUL AND 9384930X TIMES MORE AND I STILL LOVE U BC UR PERFECT AS EVER AND THAT IS WHAT MATTERS

NOW. I WAS GONNA MAKE YOU A PRESENT LIKE I REALLY DID BAE I TRIED SO MUCH SHIT ITS HORRIBLE BC LIKE ??? I WANTED TO MAKE YOU A PRESENTATION ON UR GOAT SUPERIORTY LIKE I DID LAST YEAR EXCEPT Like i am a fucking asshole™(COPYRIGHT JONAH GRIGGS THE MAN TEH MYTH THE LEGEND) who cannot do shit FOR SHIT it turned out so Awful and i cANNOT GRAPHIC BABE I TRIED TO MAKE YOU THIS EDIT AND THEN I REALIZED IT WAS Bad AND FOUGHT MYSELF FOR SIX HOURS AND I CANNOT WRITE AND YOU DESERVE ALL THE GIFTS EVER BUT I AM TRULY AWFUL

*ZCRIES*

I KNOW IM  LAME AND MY ONLY TALENT IS YELLING FOR HOURS ON END I WISH I COULD HAVE MADE YOU SOMETHING REALLY COOL BC ITS UR SEVENTEETH AND 17 IS THE BEST NUMBER AND UR LOVELY AND I LOVE YOU SO PLEASE FORGIVE ME BAE FOR BEING AN ACTUAL GARAGE ASSHOLE (COPYRIGHT JONAH GRIGGS THE EXPERIENCE) SHIT DICK 100% TERRIBLE DICKFLUTE OKAY I LOVE YOU AND I CAN NEVER IMAGINE WHAT I WOULD BE WITHOUT YOU IN MY LIFE AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD YEAR LIKE FUCK SHIT UP BAE UR GONNA BE IN YEAR 13 ITS ALL GONNA BE SO AWFUL AND WE WILL ALL DIE aND WERE SO O L D JESUS CHRIST IF HEART ATTACKS DONT TAKE US OUT NCEA LEVEL 3 WILL BUT I HOPE THIS WILL BE A SUPER GOOD YEAR FOR U IN REGARDS OF EVERYTHING BECAUSE U DESERVE IT U DESERVE IT U DESERVE IT I HOPE THINGS WILL LEAD UP TO U GETTING THAT APARTMENT IN NEW YORK AND ALL THE HIGH HEELS THAT U WILL WEAR AND ALL THE YELLOW FLOWERS THAT U WILL BUY AND UR CAREER AS A LIFECHANGING LITERARY GENIUS OK OK I LOVE YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE

ok ok ok but. 

ONE MORE THING.

LISTEN.

THE FUCKING

*CLECNHES JAW*

REBLOG FIASCO

*FLINGS MY ASS INTO THE SUN*

WHEN IT IS GOOD AND DAYLIGHT. U HAVE UNTIL THEN. LIKE I KNOW THIS IS UR BIRTHDAY WISH AND I LOVE YOU BUT FUCK OFF HWO COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME I FUCKING TRUSTED YOU I FUCKING FUCK JUST FUCK YOU FUCKING DICK i will RIOT 

OKAY BABE ITS MIDNIGHT AND ILL BE UP IN ABOUT SIX HOURS AND LIKE. ANYTHING. ANYTHING ELSE FOR UR BIRTHDAY WISH OK BABE IM GONNA FUCKING DIE THIS IS IT THIS THE END I WILL GO DOWN SWEARING PROFUSELY WITH A HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND U WILL BE WATCHING AND LAUGHI G ANF @OFFICALTALL FUCK YU FUCKDUCKUD CUDCKUD DNUSJNDJF FUCK U @GOATY FUCK. UFCN WHERE IS UR HOOF WHY ARE U NOT FEELIN THE TEMPERATURE ITS EBOLA ITS GOATBOLA I WONT MAKE IT UNTIL DAWN I WONT SEE THE SUNLIGHT GOATY I CANT *FAKE CRYING SOUNDS* I WILL DIE. IT WILL HAPPEN. AND I WANT IT TO BE KNOWN THAT U ARE THE BITCH THAT KILLED ME. *MORE FAKE ZCRYING SOUNDS* I MUST SEND MESSAGES TO ALL MY DEAREST KIND FRIENDS WHO HAVE NEVER FUCKED ME LIKE THIS ALRIGHT *FAKE COUGHING* TELL THEM THAT I *MORE FAKE COUGHOGN* LOVE THEM *THROWS KETCHUP PACKET EVERYWHERE WHILE UR NOT LOOKING AND BUSY BEING WORRIED ABOUT MY HEALTH* AND I WILL REMEMBER THEM EVEN IN DEATH

ANYWAY HERE IS MY WILL:

WHAT U GET:

nothing

u get nothing

bINCH

zero. zip. nada

0 potato 4 u

U CAN HAVE THE SALT FROM MY KITCHEN SO U WILL BE PERPETUALLY REMINDED OF MY LAST EMOTIONS TOWARDS THIS LIFE

maybe like the one half a potato that was randomly in my drIVEWAY THAT ONE TIME 

M A Y B E

WHAT GOOD KIND LOVING FRIENDS, SUCH AS MILS AND FRIED CHAIR AND ELLIE AND OTHER ASSORTED PEOPLES WHICH I SHALL ADDRESS IN CLAUSE 4.20 OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF MY WILL, GET:

actually mils is a hoe and can choke but u r the evil here rn aND FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS ARGUMENT WE WILL PRETEND THAT I LIKE MILS

ANYWAY. REALLY GOOD THINGS I OWN

I HAVE SOME SOCKS I DONT WANT U GUYS CAN HAVE THEM

AND LIKE

MY DUVET

SEE GOATY THESE ARE THE KIND OF HEART TOUCHING POST DEATH GIFTS U MISS OUT ON WHEN U MURDER ME IN COLD BLOOD

ALSO NO TOUCHING MY MANGOES THAT I BOUGHT TWO DAYS AGO BECAUSE I STILL WANT TO EAT THEM AND IF ANYONE EVEN BREATHES IN THEIR GENERAL DIRECTION I WILL BEAT THEM UNCONSCIOUS WITH A TELEPHONE THIS IS A T H R E A T

I HOPE UR TAKING NOTES AND I HOPE U FEEL GOOD ABOUT BEING A 6′3 KILLER BECAUSE UR AN ASSHOLE ™LIKE UR ASSHOLIER™ THAN THE REAL ASSHOLE THAT IS JONAH GRIGGS™ THE LABEL™ (COPYRIGHT JONAH GRIGGS™ THE ANT MURDERING HOT PIECE OF ASS™) BUT I WILL DIE FOR U MY GOAT *strokes ur pretty face* BC IT IS UR BIRTHDAY WISH FOR ME TO SUFFER AND I LOVE YOU AND I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR U THEREFORE . DESPITE THIS SICKNESS *FLAILS* I. WILL. BE. BRAVE. I WILL REBLOG THOSE TWENTY POSTS I WILL FLATLINE BY THE THIRD POST AND MY BLOOD WILL BE ON UR HANDS *CAREFULLY ARRANGES MY STUNT GOAT IN POSITION* AND I WILL BE YELLING CURSES AT YOU IN THE TAGS BUT I WILL DIE IN THE NAME OF HONOUR I WILL GO DOWN AS A GOAT NEVER HAS BEFORE 

BUT LIKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU AND I I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC I AM SO HAPPY U EXIST. HAVE THE BOMBEST ASS 17TH BIRTHDAY BABE I HOPE UR PARTY IS LIT AND HAVE FUN GETTING DRUNK AND HAVING ALL THE BANTS AND LAFFS AND ALSO I WILL SEND U THE AWAITED EMAIL IN A FEW HOURS WHEN MY INTERENT IS BACK ON  BECAUSE IT IS A CONTINUATION OF THIS BULLSHIT WITH SOME STRUCTURED DISCUSSION AKA WHAT THE FUCK DO U HAVE AGAINST SMIRNOFF ICE how is it not HARDCORE enough for u IT IS LITERALLY FLAVOURED VODKA DOES IT NOT KNOCK OUT UR 6′3 ASS OR WHAT EXCUSE ME 

ANYWAY IN CONCLUSION.

HAPPY. SEVENTEENTH. BIRTHDAY. MY. CHUM.

*BLOWS U A KISS*

*PUTS ON TWO FÜR COATS TO REMAIN UNDETECTED* 

*STEALS ALL UR WEETBIX AND RUNS AWAY TO ALASKA NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN*

*still replies ur emails tho cuz i love u bitch y u do dis to me*

Music and Politics Rant

This is a long one. If you're looking for the TL;DR version, sorry oh denizens of Short Attention Span Theatre, there isn't one. This is cross-posted from my other blog. My oldest (Thing 1) and I recently had a debate over the relative musical merits of Kate Bush: I think she has merit, Thing 1 thinks she does not. It was one of those debates and ultimate disagreements that reasonable, educated people have that, far from being destructive, add the sort of spice to life to keep it from being an unrelieved death march. I'm not a fanboy for anyone, including Kate Bush. I long ago started thinking of her as the Charles Ives of pop music: a pile of interesting ideas that often deliver something significant but at least as often get in each other's way. Like Ives, people tend to either love her or hate her and have legitimate reasons for both positions, but tend to simply entrench for "reasons." And this sort of "debating" got me thinking (a dangerous prospect). The whole discussion with Thing 1 started when I watched a 2014 BBC documentary on Kate Bush. I thought it was pretty well done. It showed a number of intelligent, talented people who find merit in Bush's work. It interviewed Lindsay Kemp, who still had four years left in the tank at that point, and showed his influence on art rock at the time (basically everybody from Bowie on) (It also showed a couple of other things, perhaps without meaning to. It showed through Kemp's gestures the extent of mime vocabulary's influence on what might be characterized as "gay mannerisms", Kemp being a dancer and choreographer with heavy mime influence, having studied with Marcel Marceau. It also shows the difference between European artists and intellectuals and US pseudos. In the interviews, several people casually remark on having seen Kemp's "Flowers", based on Jean Genet's "Notre Dame des Fleurs". You would be hard-pressed to find any in the US to this day, outside of core LGBTQ+ culture, who have heard of Kemp, "Flowers", or even Jean Genet other than by reference.). And then toward the end it shows why rock critics as a group are ignorant, vicious little parasites. More on that below the fold, wherever the Hell that might be. Once upon a time I was in newspapers, and one of the things I did was write music reviews. It was a paycheck, and as I’ve noted elsewhere, I’ve always been closely involved with music. I wrote by two rules: 1) Be consistent, and 2) make it about the music on its own terms. On the first point, it doesn’t matter if the readers agree with you; they just need to know what to expect from you. If they know you don’t like a particular artist or a particular type of music, they can read you through the appropriate filter. The second point breaks in two. First, it’s about the music, not the people. I did not savage Van Halen because they were pricks who brutalized the little people who had to service their every whim. I went after Eddie Van Halen (who let’s face it was the real core of the band) who went shredding up and down the fretboard at random with no regard for chordal or modal structures (In fairness to Mr. Van Halen, he no longer plays like that and is a far superior musician than when every blockhead with a K-Mart electric six-string thought Eddie was God and gave us a generation of speed monkeys with zero musicianship.) (The speed monkey syndrome unfortunately spread to other instruments. It was the overwhelming norm among the Celtic fiddlers who followed Bonnie Rideout to Ann Arbor and insisted on playing faster than their talents, compensating by dropping notes out at random, and then blaming all the rest of us for all the ensemble issues. To all of you, I give an eternal, “Fuck you and the banshee of an instrument you tuck under your hiply stubbled chins and rape with your bows.”). Second, you have to put it in the music’s own frame of reference. It makes no sense to pan a Metropolitan Opera performance of Cosi fan Tutte because it isn’t a Black Sabbath concert. I realized early on that almost no rock music critics could grasp either of my rules (From this point on, you may assume that “Robert Christgau is a wanker” is flashing subliminally in the background.). From the beginning of such things, Rolling Stone has been the center of rock criticism (I just damned near wrote “crock recidivism”. I’m not a nice person.). It has also been the center of what is wrong with rock criticism for just as long. These guys were groupies. They were wannabes who couldn’t cut it, so they hung out with the guys who could, basking in the limelight. The reviews weren’t reviews, they were hagiographies. “The music must be great because I party with these guys.” “They must be significant because I party with these guys.” Everything was on a chummy, first-name-only basis (“Mick and Keith were really rockin’ it Thursday night.”) that became the norm for roughly forever (Cam Crowe slipped a screamingly funny joke about The Rocket’s review style in his movie Singles.). As tastes changed and their substance-abuse buddies died, faded away, or became arena bands (and now nostalgia bands playing the Peppermill in Wendover), Rolling Stone found itself unsuccessfully playing catch-up, jumping on every bandwagon that rolled down the street in a desperate attempt to get in front of The Next Big Thing and failing miserably. If it weren’t for Matt Taibbi, that rag would have no reason to exist. In the 70s other rags stepped into the breach, but they took the Stone’s style sheet and were all clones of one another. They couldn’t comprehend my rules, either. I remember one of these rags (probably Circus, but who honestly gives a shit at this point, they were fungible) going after every Harry Chapin recording because it “wasn’t rock.” Well no shit, Sherlock. Chapin wasn’t a rocker, he was a folkie, self-proclaimed, and condemning him for not being what he wasn’t was…well…not even wrong. Congratulations, rock critics, you just earned Stephen Frys’s second-greatest insult, right after “I almost care.” There was one exception to the Clone Wars: Creem. But that didn’t make it good, just different. Admittedly, Creem was covering a lot of things no one else was, including the early days of punk and all that was happening over at CBGB. But my gods the pretension. Memo to Lester Bangs: Just because you covered something doesn’t mean you invented it. Just because you came up with the label “punk rock” doesn’t mean you created punk rock. Punk rock was created by garage bands (US) and pub bands (UK) (I always envied the UK guys because no matter how, frankly, BAD you were, there was someone willing to book you. Here in the US? Not so much. Although you could always get homecoming and prom gigs if you were just another shitty cover band.) (Punk was spawned by my half-generation, the Late Boomers. The reason was simple: We were fucking sick and tired of the hypocrisy of the Early Boomers, our big brothers and sisters. They were the 60s Children, the Flower People, and they were still peddling that bullshit even though the wheels had fallen off the wagon and there was a global recession. They accused us of being self-centered for not “working for change” like them while they busily leveraged the huge advantage of having sucked up everything before we ever got on the scene. They took their 60s, corporatized, commoditized, packaged, and slapped a smiley face on them, and expected us to swallow it all without question. The problem was that we just didn’t believe hard enough in the dream. Meanwhile we were saying, “The fuck? Our dreams hit the wall at 110 per in Fall ’73! The wreckage is everywhere, but you dicks and everybody else is just stepping over it like it isn’t there!” We wanted to wave our private parts at them, so we did. Which is a long way of telling you Millennials that, if you lump the Early and Late Boomers together, your ignorance is showing. Yeah, there are plenty of Late Boomers who sold out [You hear me, Barry Obama? You sold us all out, but history will always remember you fondly because you landed between the Texas Turd Tornado and Hitler 2.0.], but we were the first ones to face the New Normal you folks are now dealing with. You need old wise men and women for your villages? Trust me, we’re available in hordes.) As yet another aside, there were garage bands, and there were garage bands. None of us were very good, but most of us wanted to improve to something resembling competency. The early punkers simply didn’t care (Hell, a lot of them, such as the New York Dolls, were so bad they made The Kingsmen sound like conservatory virtuosos. And the Noo Yuck critics, apparently on permanent bad acid trips from frequent visits to Andy Whore-wall’s Fucktory, kept rubbing out one after another for them all. “Daringly campy!” “A raw, animal sound!” Shit-shoveling by rapidly deteriorating white guys desperate to continue being perceived as bleeding edge.). Fortunately, this only lasted a few years before a lot of the punkers decided it maybe would not be so inauthentic if they actually learned how to play their instruments. I don’t care what John Lydon continues to blow out his ass, Black Flag was never boring. But I really can’t leave the topic of pretension without a mention of The Village Voice, the self-proclaimed font of all things cool and hip for over six decades and running. In reality The Village has been overrun with gentrifying yuppie scum straight off the set of Thirtynothing since before Rudy Giuliani parked his malignancy in the Mayor’s Office, and The Voice has followed suit. And Robert Christgau was at the center of it all. It has never ceased to amaze me how someone so admittedly ignorant could be such an expert on everything. He admits he is “not at all well-schooled” (understatement) in 50s and 60s jazz, yet he has reviewed jazz artists such as Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins without any of that context and has declared Frank Sinatra the greatest singer of the 20th Century (A meaningless statement. How can you compare Sinatra and, say, Pavarotti? You can’t, and anyone with a lick of humility and two brain cells to rub together doesn’t even try.) while apparently ignorant of Nelson Riddle’s role in creating Sinatra’s best albums. He was an early promoter of punk, right through all the “authentic vs. poseur” wars, blissfully unaware that this was not a rebellion unique to punk but rather was a recurring fight in music, most recently before that in the “this is jazz/this is not jazz” that started with the rise of bebop after the Second World War, that caused a butt-ton of damage to the genre, and that Miles Davis was a pivotal player in until he finally got over it and put on that shiny red leather suit and released Bitches Brew, which Christgau unironically nominated to Jazz & Pop as jazz album of the year in 1970. He considers the New York Dolls one of the five greatest artists of all time. Please. The Dolls were influential, true, and for two reasons: 1) Their show was cheap and entertaining and so readily copiable and copied, and 2) their musicianship was so crude a half-trained baboon could cover it. Not exactly reasons to put them in GOAT contention. Finally, Christgau doesn’t like and is nearly completely ignorant of classical music. This tells me so many things, but two bubble immediately to the surface: 1) He has neither the music history nor the music theory to hold 90% (at least) of the opinions he’s been paid for over the last half-century, and 2) he’s a shallow little shit who needs to sit in a corner and STFU. And believe it or not, all that was just a warm-up to get around to John Harris. Toward the end of the Kate Bush documentary is a roundtable discussion of her latest album (Aerial) by several UK rock critics, including Harris. Harris makes the remark that the music sounds like something you’d hear in a department store and that it’s obvious Bush hadn’t been in a studio for 12 years. I’ll start with the statements themselves and then turn to their wider ramifications. Department store music? I’d like to know where Harris hangs out that this is the ambient Muzak. Let’s chalk this one up to hyperbole and move on to the “12 years” remark. He doesn’t really elaborate on this (not entirely his fault, given the roundtable format) so we can only speculate on his actual point. Do her pipes sound rusty? Not really. Does the technology sound dated? No (And trust me, I keep up. It’s not like I sit around listening to Sergeant Pepper’s going, “Oh wow, they played those tapes backwards!”), and even if it did, that would be one to lay on the producer and the engineer. Is the music dated? An ambiguous word, “dated”, but I’m afraid we’ve finally reached what Harris was driving at. By “dated” do we mean it doesn’t sound like other music being produced now? First, when has Kate Bush ever sounded like anyone else, and second when did sounding like everyone else become a standard of musical quality? It hasn’t and it shouldn’t, but I’m afraid this is the point Harris is trying to make. Perhaps, though, he meant this sounds like her old material. Saying that an artist is repeating themself is a helpful criticism, especially if you explain why you think so. Frankly that’s a point I can agree with; I find a certain sameness in her work since Hounds of Love. But that isn’t even remotely what Harris says. He says she sounds old-fashioned, which is never a useful comment, merely a pejorative one, and worse, a pejorative aimed not just at the artist but at the listener. You are listening to old-fashioned music. You are old-fashioned. You are outdated. Catch up! Under the best of circumstances, this is unmitigated bullshit. Coming from Harris, it is unmitigated bullshit that is part of a career full of it. Harris’s cred as a “serious person” essentially rests on his 2003 book The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock (repackaged in 2004 as Britpop: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock) and the follow-up BBC Four 2005 documentary The Britpop Story. His thesis is that 90s Britpop was the last great shining moment for UK pop. No, really. At this point, let facts be placed before a candid world. The UK has been a popular music powerhouse for quite awhile, and by “powerhouse” I mean a global influence. Let’s start arbitrarily with Gilbert & Sullivan, pass the baton to Ivor Novello, and then to Noel Coward. The Second World War made hash of it all, and the post-war generation found that the US had stolen the baton, but rather than going gentle into that not-so-good night, both the rockers and the mods invaded the US and stole much of the thunder back. This continued into the 70s, whether you’re talking about arena bands, metal, prog rock, or punk, and on into the 80s, again whether you’re talking about power pop, synthpop, or New Wave. Big influences that can still be heard around the world. Compare Britpop. The whole point of Britpop was to be a calculated foil for Grunge and as safe and marketable as possible, the perfect theme music for the Tony Blair years. It has so little edge it couldn’t leave a mark on a piece of talc. Its influence has been negligible except as a template for profitable pap. In 1997 the whole sham came unraveled as Oasis released the bloated disappointment Be Here Now and Blur abandoned the field to join the US “lo-fi” movement. Their lasting influence is Coldplay, and let’s be honest, if Coldplay is your gold standard, I’m afraid you actually have a pyrite mine. But Harris thinks Britpop was the shining end of UK rock. There are a number of holes in this assertion; two are glaring. First, there are still plenty of new bands in the UK churning out good stuff (That Harris seems blissfully ignorant of these bands makes me wonder just who is out-dated and needs to catch up.). Look them up yourselves; I’m not falling into the trap of naming a few here. Suffice it to say they’re diverse, and you’re likely to hit on several you consider acceptable regardless of your musical tastes. They’ve even been having an influence in the EU, but we’ll see what Brexit brings (Influence in the US? Not so much since we have reached a level of insularity here that rules out anything beyond our borders having merit, in spite of having access to it all on The Interwebz.). And these bands have a Hell of a lot more to offer than the Britpop slag did. Which brings us to glaring hole two. As noted previously, Britpop didn’t really have an impact. None outside of the UK, and damned little in the UK on any time scale longer than the life of a mayfly. Britpop was a nothingburger with a side of flies and a So? Duh! Harris, though, raises this localized, ephemeral phenomenon and turns it into the last scion of the UK pop tradition. This should just be considered a bad case of the sillies, except that Harris’s new schtick is political commentary, especially for The Grauniad. In keeping with The Graun’s policies, his position is “Support Remain but maintain that ‘both sides have merit’.” Which raises his Britpop position from silly to ironic, because Harris’s thinking on Britpop (“It was important in the UK, ergo it was IMPORTANT!”) is just the sort of insular, UK=World mentality that made Brexit possible. Brexit happened, for the most part, because of a bunch of people who believed that, whatever the puzzle was, the UK was the only piece that mattered. Harris’s elevation of Britpop on so high a pedestal rests on the same belief, even though he’s a Remainer. So it’s unintentionally ironic. It’s symptomatic of a malignant mindset. And it’s still silly. And so I give you Christgau and Harris, Exhibits 1 and 2 in my case for the beyond-uselessness of rock critics. And the former is still being allowed to write revisionist histories of the music of the last half-century while the latter is still being allowed to…well…write. What a world.