jack’s musings

Body art has been around for thousands of years, and the medium is rich with numerous great pieces that are loaded with symbolic and cultural references. There are also plenty of tatoos out there in modern society that depict stories, military service, or perhaps even an outward display of the wearer’s feelings. None of these examples apply to the tribal armband; unless of course that feeling is I’M AWESOME.  Wearers of this piece are trying to say, “LOOK AT ME I’M TOTALLY MANLY AND I SHOULD BE LISTENED TO AND I SCORE WITH A LOT OF CHICKS AND I THINK BRET MICHAELS’ ROCK OF LOVE IS THE BEST TV SHOW EVER MADE BECAUSE OF HOW IT EXPLORES THE DEEP COMPLEX INNER EMOTIONS OF THE HUMAN CONDITION.”

I’m guessing sometime over the past twenty years, a pioneer of a douche made his way into a tribal culture of some sort (no doubt lost while on his way to find the nearest Armani Exchange), liked what he saw, decided to rip off their custom without knowing its full cultural context, and then tried to pick up chicks with his new manly tat at the nearest club. Then I’m betting other douches saw that tattoo, thought it was totally sweet, ripped it off, and tried to pick up chicks with their own chicks with their own sweet tat. Thus the cycle of douchedom began again. (At least I hope it’s a cycle.)

One of the many recent disturbing trends of this decade has been the emergence of the bluetooth headset. In a technology obsessed world, it seems like everyone is trying to get on board with the latest gadget trends. And while I’m as tech obsessed as the next guy, you will NEVER see me wearing these one-ear bluetooth headset monstrosities. For one they remind me way too much of profoundly nerdy days in my past. However more importantly they’ve turned into a near cultural status symbol. It’s a device that allows its users to finally tell the world what they’ve been dying to for years: “Hey look at me! I have money and am expecting many important phone calls from many important people! I mean just look at this expensive thing in my ear!” Statements which reek of the mentality synonymous with the douche.

I guess I should qualify my thoughts a bit. I’m all right with the usage of these things in a car, while taking phone calls around the office, etc. My complaint is against people who wear them around everywhere. Just take them out in situations that might warrant their use and then put them away! Are you that desperate for attention that you have to have your headset jammed in your skull while at dinner or wandering around the mall? Is it that hard to reach into your pocket and take out your phone?

However while my main complaint here is against Bluetooth headsets, there are still some throwback douches out there like the one featured below that have earned my ire. You know who I’m talking about, the geniuses out there who rock their wired “hands-free” headsets while holding the microphone close to their face. A questionable move that both requires a strikingly similar movement to holding a phone normally and negates the whole “hands-free” element. Nothing like a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of gadgetry.

I have no idea when or how these stupid shirts came to be so popular, but I’ve noticed a strong correlation between people who wear them and douches. (Well actually, it’s around 100%) I’ve told several friends over the years that if I’m ever caught wearing something like this or any other clothing item with some weird, elaborate faux-gothic design, then they should crush in my skull with the nearest blunt object they can find. My time will have come. When did junk like this become cool?

If you who don’t have the same stupid amounts of free time that I do, you might have missed the news that Jackass “talent” Steve-o was recently hospitalized, charged with felony cocaine possession, and put on suicide watch. I’m assuming he either posted bail or kicked a guard in the nuts, as he’s back out in the world now. So what’s the first thing he does after he’s released to the free world following a charge for felony cocaine possession? Well he makes a rambling cocaine-addled video of course, and it’s complete with cocaine smear under his nose! Sometimes I feel if one were to ask the world why they dislike America, all the world would just point to videos like this and say, “Pretty much that.”

As mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of irony. It rejuvenates and sustains me. Perhaps there has been no better example of irony than New York Governor Spitzer’s entanglement in the same prostitution and racketeering laws he so vigorously tried to enforce. I’m sure most are already aware of the details, so I’m going to concentrate on today’s apology and resignation. There’s just something about criminal charge related press conferences that guarantees to produce something ridiculous. Who could forget when Michael Vick’s lawyer read “Michael’s words” and cited that Vick is sorry he’d be missing “spring training” with his teammates. Spring training? Oh yeah, I’m sure those were Michael’s words, but I digress. Spitzer’s press conference today also had a similar such gaff when he stated that, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Ummm…did he just quote Spider-man? Is he going to web-sling his way off the podium? Do people even read these things out loud before they release them to the press?

I’m in class with the sound on mute so I hope this is the right video, but enjoy:

I’ve often found that I dislike ultra left idealists for the same reason I can’t stand far right religious conservatives. Neither have any sort of understanding on the way the world operates. Here’s a good example of the grossly unaware left end of the scale in Berkeley, California.

I feel my disdain for modern popular hip-hop has been pretty well documented. And while this particular “artist” won’t appear on my “list” as I blame Lil’ John as being the impetus for this wave of crap, I think my particular hatred of Souljaboy and everything he stands for should be noted. I was recently pointed by a friend to the hilarious reviews of this abomination on Amazon.com and the iTunes music store and I think a small sampling will best serve as an introduction to my comments:

Hip Hop is Dead and the undertaker is named Soulja Boy

Then you wonder why hip hop is dead

“Stop! Think About This, Man… You Don’t Want to Buy this CD… You Couldn’t Possibly Hate Yourself THAT Much, Right?

Can’t crank my IQ over 70 Yuu-ahhh!

Truly we haven’t seen such a poor attempt at an album in many years. I remember listening to Young Joc’s awful single “It’s Going Down” and thinking that Joc might have inadvertently released an ironic masterpiece accurately describing the state of hip-hop, “It’s going down”. However if we’re going down, there has got to be a bottom, and I think we found ROCK bottom with Souljaboy.

Certainly there have been other absolutely horrible recent releases, but none have really served as such a direct insult to anyone who has ever recorded a song in the way than souljaboy.com does. The production and songwriting value on this album are so horrible that I can’t even really express its awfulness in words. (For the record, if the new single “Yahhh!!!” becomes popular, I’m going to have to spend a night sobbing in my apartment.) I mean, say what you will about the Creeds and Linkin Parks of the world, but at least they all put out an honest attempt!

So this leads to me to a question, is this album a joke? Are we being hoodwinked? Surely there has got to be some sort of mockumentary being filmed here. Perhaps a satire decrying the state of popular music? If this turned out to be true I would officially worship Souljaboy, however since it’s clearly serious, I can only wallow in its sheer awfulness. I can only hope that this album is a low as we go, but I know it won’t be.

What’s with my obsession over people screwing up the National Anthem?

Well my travel to Europe was completely painless, so I suppose it was only appropriate that my return trip to Nashville would be wrought with delays.  Firstly, my flight from Paris to Houston was an hour late due to the daylight savings shift in the U.S. (it doesn’t happen in Europe for another couple weeks), and how they can’t correct for this delay I’m not entirely sure.  Next, the flight was delayed another hour due to a flight caterers strike and a security officer who decided to use a stairway to the gate as a slip n’ slide took a tumble as they say.  “No problem,” I say.  I’ll just have less of a layover in Houston for my connecting flight to Nashville, but the pwnage continues as my flight to Nashville is 2 hours delayed for some unknown reason.  So basically I won’t be returning to Nashville until 11pm CDT or 5am on whatever time-zone France is in, and this all adds up to a grand total of being awake for 20 hours and a total travel time of 17 hours!  Hooray modern transportation! With this context in mind, I’m hoping you’ll excuse whatever gibberish that follows.

I’ve always found interesting the way in which the way Europeans (or any culture) have handled engineering problems that were also faced by their American counterparts. For example, telephone poles I’ve seen around France appear to be made out of pre-stressed concrete as opposed to the standard wooden ones you see in the U.S., and both are perfectly valid solutions. Additionally it would seem that suburban European shopping centers have found their own unique way of looking equally as depressing as their American equivalents.

Maybe I’m just way too large of a nerd for noticing things like this, or maybe I’m just way too tired.

I do hope this is real, because this cop is incredible.