November 2002

November 26, 2002
I love rock and roll. And Joan Jett.

An Open Letter to Rolling Stone by Joan Jett.

This letter was written to rolling stone after their "women in "rock" issue was published, but was not printed by their editors.

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I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what I have to say is really quite simple: You guys are completely retarded.

By RS standards, Rock is no longer a style of music but a trendy costume to be whipped up by expensive stylists and slapped onto the latest pop tart barbie doll. Give a girl some tight pants and a spiky bracelet and POOF! She ROCKS!

Your poor choice of cover girls and featured artists brings to mind the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions. There is nothing necessarily wrong With the breast-baring models inside...but we all understand that they have NOTHING TO DO WITH SPORTS--Which just might be offensive to women who are interested in sports or who might even be (gasp) real athletes.

Yes, Britney has a talented stylist and yes, somebody gave Shakira a Guns & Roses t-shirt to wear...but they ARE NOT NOW NOR WILL THEY EVER BE ROCK.

Maybe it's naive of me to expect any glimmer of rock'n'roll credibility OR respect for women from a magazine whose cover shot is regularly a naked underweight actress. The thing is, I AM a woman musician with a rock band, and as we all are I am STARVED for any little crumb of recognition that real women rockers might be thrown. So like a sucker I find myself short another five bucks...and pissed enough to write my first letter to an editor. Avril Lavigne gets some studded accessories from Hot Topic so now she's "upholding the brazen tradition of teenage outrage"???!! Are you SERIOUS? And could someone please explain to me why people keep insisting on referring to PINK as rock? Wasn't she doing the white girl hip hop thing a minute ago? Yeah, she performed on the Aerosmith tribute show --big deal..she was on the Janet Jackson tribute show just before that--Whatever's trendy. WHO CARES. She's a Spice Girl reject...but I digress.

Jewel and Mandy friggin' Moore have full page features as Rock Icons...Meanwhile Joan Jett gets one line. ONE LINE. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who have never stopped touring, recently did 10 days in the Middle East playing for the troops stationed in Afghanistan. In AFGHANISTAN, Joan would come onstage wearing a birkha, which she ripped off and stomped on before blazing through the purest and nastiest rock show ANYWHERE. But even in the RS WOMEN IN ROCK issue, a story like that gets ONE SENTENCE on the bottom of the last page of Random Notes.

Britney's Rock credentials? Well, she butchers the song "I Love Rock'n'Roll" on her latest record, and when asked about it the genius replies "Well, I've always loved Pat Benatar." And SHE is your Rock issue cover girl?? You should be REALLY embarrassed.

Sleater Kinney was the only rock group listed on the cover...and they got only half a page. Ashanti, the r&b back up singer who can't seem to do anything without "featuring Jah Rule," has two pages.

What about the Donnas? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The Distillers? A mag like RS has the power to shine important light on groups like these-- instead they are afterthoughts, and that valuable spotlight is wasted on the same overexposed pop princesses WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK.

In your own letter from the editor you have the hypocritical balls to say "rock radio won't touch female artists, while the pop factory keeps churning out soundalike clones, and ambitious musicians with something to say find themselves left out in the cold."

The pages that follow those words are a blatant display that Rolling Stone magazine is happily working for the factory now too.

If the issue had been called "Women in Music"...or maybe "Some Cute Girls with Top 10 Records out Right Now"..I would have no beef with it. Corny as it may sound, ROCK is something which is still meaningful and even sacred to some of us. Use the word "rock" in bold letters next to a picture of Britney Fucking Spears, and you're turning your whole publication into a joke...and an offensive joke at that.

November 21, 2002
I don't like books.

I'm not a big reader, unless you count glossy magazines with plenty o' pictures or lingerie catalogs. (very little difference between the two, nowadays. Thank you, Jeebus.) I pretty much shun anything bound except cookbooks (which I read like novels - front to back, recipe by recipe). This aversion is due in large part, I'm sure, to the fact that I read slowly. Slowly like frozen molasses flows. Only slower. S l o w. And since it takes me roughly 4000 times longer than the average dillweed to trudge through some prose, it's gotta be some fine, fine pulp to justify the effort. Unfortunately, more often than not, it's... well, not.

Growing up, I read quite a bit. I was in some freaky reading club at school that they stuck you in if you could manage getting through the ABC's without generating a liter of droolpuddle at your feet. All I remember is the kiddies in said club used to go from the school to the house next door where all the nuns lived to discuss what we had read... I forget the name for the place... Sister Hatred's Bigass Nun House? Hell? Father Bad Touch's FunLand? Don't recall, sadly. Oh, and there was this one story we read about a guy... who went, like, someplace cold, with lots of snow, and then something happened.. I think he fell down and broke something... so he was trying to get back to civilization.. and it was really cold, with lots of snow.. and he was dragging himself back home... and it was really cold, with lots of snow.. and then he died.

Nice. Something good n' uplifting for the tots.

Anyhow, this brush with literacy faded about the time I discovered the guitar, and so that was that.

Another reason I'm not down with the print is that I constantly get tripped up by authors' choices of words, sentence structures, shit like that. Not to get all highfalootin on you. I know I'm ducktarded, no worries. And I'm not saying I can do any better at throwing letters together, but then again, I'm not trying to feed the baby by putting jabber down on paper. I mean, if I'm gonna put in 60 year's reading time (that's what it takes me to get through the average 100 pager), make that shit pop, damn you. Language is so rich, offers so many options, and so often what I read just leaves me limp. Like noodle.

Case in point:

I'm currently struggling through Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk. Now, maybe I should've known to stay away. I hated the screen version of one of Mr. Palahniuk's earlier works - Fight Club. But Choke was recommended by a friend, and a couple other pals had also been reading his stuff, and yadda yadda here I am reading a book.

I'm not digging it. I'm about a third of the way through. I've invested so much time in it (12 years) that I feel like stopping now would be a Pyrrhic victory, at best. So, I'm sentenced to finish the damn thing.

The writing just doesn't pop, damn you. I don't care about the characters. I don't care what happens next. About the only exciting thing I can imagine happening with the book is for it to catch fire while I'm reading it.

Fie on reading. Fie.

November 20, 2002
Thank you for visiting tenpoundhound.com. I am currently unable to blog for you. Please hold and I will take the next available opportunity to blog. Estimated hold time is:

22 hours.

November 14, 2002

Professor Gunther von Hagen introduces his "good friend," Fleshy - one of his preserved, cut and sliced bodies - at an exhibition in Cologne, Germany in this February 11, 2001 file photo. Hagen, the creator of a controversial exhibition of flayed human corpses, holds the record for longest running consecutive nominations for "Creepiest Fucker of the Year," winning the accolade in '92, '93, '94, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, and '00. Von Hagen lost a hotly contested decision in '01 to an unusually-nominated triumvirate of Catholic priests.

When asked to explain the impetus behind the exhibitions, Dr. von Hagen clasped his hands, narrowed his eyes to slits and hissed at reporters.

November 10, 2002
By my estimation, Sting is now 137 headhairs away from becoming Phil Collins.

Sting:
Phil:

November 8, 2002
This article pisses me off.

To put that in context: Rainy days and sunshine and you piss me off too.

If Winona stole, and the verdict says so, why the fuck are we trivializing this crime? Because she's cute? Because it was a "victimless" crime? Well, no, not victimless, according to Mensa member/boutique owner Billy Tsangares, who characterizes Winona as both a "martyr" and "the victim". Is he fucking high? She's the victim of... haunted scissors? I have no goddamn clue what this fuckknob is yapping about. I'm too busy fantasizing about this dilltard choking to death on a lollipop. No worries - my therapist assures me this is a "step up" from my former fantasies. Woo hoo!

Virtually moments after the verdict was read, the prosecution announced they wouldn't be seeking jail time. Ok, maybe she shouldn't do thirty years in the hole (I favor beheading), but anything short of some jail time can hardly be considered punishment. I mean, are they going to fine her? Let's say they do. Let's say they make her pay back double what she pilfered. No, triple - roughly $16,500. "Hahahahaahahahaahahhaaa," millionaire Ryder offered to reporters, as she peed her stolen pants.

To quote the pawnshop owner in The Crow: Well, shit on me.

The gal didn't pull an OJ, I understand. Still, the items she took are worth more than my car. A lot more, sadly. (Christ, it's not so much sad as it is a Greek fucking tragedy. Winona escapes jail time and I'm sentenced to drive a Tercel. Don't you try to tell me there's a God.) And I'd hope that someone who took my car would at least cool his shitheels in a cell for a fucking day or two. Well, not exactly, but I'm loathe to share my actual hope, since I'm not clear on the whole web-blog-as-evidence thing. Put it this way - I'm for decapitating shoplifters, so you can extrapolate for yourself here.

I'd say she'll just turn any potential stigma that could be derived from this into an asset, but she already has - appearing on SNL and joking about the cast keeping their doors locked around her, and appearing on some magazine cover in one of Billy "I'm living, breathing medical waste" Tsangares' "Free Winona" t-shirts.

Free you from what exactly, Winona? The bondage of having your wrists slapped with a feather? Go screw.

Happy Friday, folks!

November 5, 2002
Election days make me a bit queasy. Flag waving, "Get The Vote Out" admonitions from SuperPatroits always make me feel like I'm stuck on a ferry in 12 foot seas. People who are all, "It doesn't matter who or what you vote for, as long as you exercise your suffrage!!!" make me want to visit some serious suffrage right on top of their heads. With my Sceptre of Voter Beating.

Here's the deal. The right to vote includes, by the very nature of a right, the converse right not to vote. And, most of the time, I don't. Vote. That's the beauty of freewill, freedom, free... ness and all that good shit that makes America, The Land of the Free People Who Don't Have to Goddamn Vote Unless They Fucking Want To.

Stumpy has voiced just about dead on how I feel about politics, and well, so I'll just cover what he didn't. Mostly. Just for the record - it sounds like he's going to hit the polls today, so this isn't meant to imply he's a bad citizen, like me.

Alright, then.

First of all, you wouldn't want someone to order dinner for you at L'Espalier who didn't speak a word of Frog. Well, ok, maybe that isn't a pristine example: French and clean just don't make such good dance partners and they prolly have some English on the menu. I wouldn't know. I couldn't afford to lick a breadstick at that place. I mean, Jesus, was the fucking cow gold plated before it was killed and grilled for me?

What I'm getting at is, I'm a completely uninformed (non) voter. I have no idea what the candidates pretend to believe or how they lie about what they are or aren't going to do once they've connived my vote outta me. (I'll leave the cynicism out of this, so as not to cast my opinions in a less-than-objective light. You know, like usual.)

Mayhaps, the responsible thing to do would be to edjumacate myself on the politicians'.. Um... Guh... platforms... phew, sorry. I almost threw up there.

So... that's not going to happen. And since it's not, do you think the patriotic thing to do would be to blindly toss a vote to either candidate? Cause if you do, I would be interested in voting you right out of the country.

Ok, so we've covered that I'm stupid. Let me check that off my lil list here....

The other main reason I don't part the curtain (and I might've alluded to this earlier) is that I don't believe a word I hear from the mouths of politici...an...s.... Whew. Just about engaged in some lovely reverse peristalsis there. The only type of person who I would want to see as a politician (dry heave) wouldn't be caught dead accepting the position. I think that anyone with the goods - the real deal - would have the smarts to recognize that being a poli... tic.... ACK! ian would be nothing short of an exercise in frustration. Complete and total wasted effort. You're simply not going to go up against the system and win. There's an unending supply (read: LIMITLESS, read: UNENDING) of money earmarked to keep that from happening. I can't go into it all here. Trust me on this one. Nutshell: There's bad people. And they're really, really, fucking rich. And that makes them powerful. And they like being rich and powerful. You tell them you're going to change things. Anything. Enjoy.

Now, before you dismiss that as quackery (too late, I know) or the rantings of a bitter pessimist (much, much too late, I know), understand that I think we have the best system in the whole, gigundous VORLD! It's the greatest! It's better than any other one out there, bar none. But, alas, the greatest still really sucks. And I have no illusions that anyone is going to change it. Certainly, you can call that the nonsensetalk of a lame bastard (cause it is), but it am the troof as I know it.

Do I think all is lost, all is hopeless? Certainly not. I actually think things will change. Eventually. But it won't come from a switch that you or I or anyone else throws. It will come from revolution. Things will likely get worse and worse (see: Rome) and eventually those that have been taking it on the chin for years and years will simply say, "Hey. Know what? I don't have to play by these rules anymore! I have absolutely nothing to lose! Cause rich and powerful bad people have taken it away from me! Luckily, I know where some of them live!" And, boom. Things will change.

There's more, but it involves the faked moon landings, crop circles, and EL CHUPACABRA, so I'll spare you.

If you're voting today, I hope you know something I don't.

November 1, 2002
CNN.com started charging their website visitors to view their online video clips recently (ok, maybe not recently recently, but it wasn't like, in the 70's). Possibly coincidentally, around that time, I began frequenting MSNBC.com for my mass-media-administered spoon feedings of newsgruel. I don't fault them for trying to make a buck off the interwebdriveway (many have tried, porn sites have succeeded), but I also don't see myself cracking my wallet for postage stamp-sized choppy vid clips of the same stuff I can view on my 56 inch flat screen at home (riiight) for more-or-less free. (I mean, the cable bill, at this point, is simply understood - like the subject "You" in this sentence: Don't get any funny ideas about charging me for shitty content.)

I admit, I still frequent the CNN site. And it was on a recent visit (and I mean recent recent) that I noticed this banner (below), extolling the virtues of their compelling 24/7 news footage.... of some guy getting his beard trimmed with scissors.

Now, in the ad's defense, this is only a static shot - the actual ad was animated - that is, the picture of the guy getting his beard trimmed with scissors kept sorta sliding from left to right, and then jumping back to the left. Over and over.

Ah.

Huh.

DON'T MISS A THING indeed.

I've kinda sorta been keeping abreast of the news recently, but I've missed the hot scoop about the guy getting his beard trimmed with scissors. And what really pisses me off is that I purposefully signed up for CNN Breaking News "Guy-Getting-His-Beard-Trimmed-With-Scissors" e-mail alerts.

My compliments to CNN's marketing department. And, by "My compliments," of course, what I really mean is, "suck."

The "You" is understood.