The Dislike Button

What are you doing this Saturday? Will you be heading out to a bar or club with friends? Will you sit around a fire, roasting marshmallows and arguing over why the fire is nothing but smoke? Will you catch a movie…hopefully The Other Guys because Will Ferrell is a comedic genius (side note: I really hope Will Ferrell doesn’t go off the deep end like every other comedic genius before him, i.e. Eddie Murphy and Jim Carey. Both Murphy and Carey were at their comedic pinnacle when they made adult oriented comedy movies with adult content. After they made millions off of making “dick jokes” they flipped their script and began to make family-friendly movies with a PG-13 rating or lower. We’ll also throw Adam Sandler into this mix because Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore have now led to 8 Crazy Nights and Click…much more family-oriented. These comedians lose their touch with reality and basically sell themselves to the PG devil. Ferrell has dabbled in it before with Kicking and Screaming and most recently, Land of the Lost. Don’t do it Will! Don’t you dare jump off the cliff and abandon your fans.) Whatever you end up doing this weekend, odds are at some point you will reach in your pocket, grab your phone with both hands grasping it as if you are about to receive communion from a priest, bend your head down as if you are on a weight scale and are attempting to look over your belly and you will begin to type with your thumbs feverishly as if you are thumb wrestling with your phone.

People are socially inept these days. More and more people show more personality thru electronics than they do in person. It’s a lot easier to come up with a one-line zinger on Facebook or Twitter than it is in a social setting…a social network is not a social setting either. Let’s take it back to the late 80’s. (By the by, I am obsessed with the 80’s. I was born in the 80’s and it is very easily the worst decade of humankind’s history for very obvious reasons.) Imagine you’re at a dance club listening to Bowie’s latest attempt to keep his music contemporary or Billy Ocean’s Get out of my Dreams – Get into my Car. (Why the hell do DJ’s insist on continuing to play “Pour Some Sugar On Me” to this day? Horrible song and every chick in the bar seems to sing it when it comes on which let’s us further-know how old you really are.) Imagine you’re rocking out with friends and after a few seconds of awkward silence between you and said friends, a point in which you feel you need to physically do something to stop yourself from feeling irrelevant. You can glare into the eyes of your friend next to you with one hand in the hair all while head-banging and yelling “I’m hot, sticky-sweet, from my head to my feet, yeah!” or you can slowly and deliberately bob your head while slurping your drink because every time you get the feeling of being nervously awkward there’s only so much you can do. I wonder what they did back in the 80’s during moments like this? People must’ve actually conversed with each other. What a novel idea! Let’s flash forward 20 years…what are you doing in these same awkward moments now? Go into any bar/club/restaurant/movie theater/hell, we’ll even throw in a Target store into the mix and I can guarantee you that someone is sitting or standing there in that same familiar position. Head staring down as if you are staring at a weight scale, hands firmly grasping a cellular phone with thumbs in full-on wrestling position and you finding something to text or tweet to your friends. The text might look something like this…”At Pub 13 with Monica, Kelly, Diane and Diane’s loser bf Jimbo. All Diane and Jimbo do is fight, idk why they even bother coming out but we’re having a blast…BBM me!” The text could also look something like this…”At Applebees with Dave, Maria and Mike eating spinach dip with stale-ass chips. I don’t know why we always come here, the food sucks! We should’ve gone to Chili’s, their margaritas are better anyway!” You’re doing this because you are socially inept. You cannot carry a conversation for longer than a few minutes and there’s only so many times you can stare into a friend’s eyes while belching the lyrics of some god awful Pitbull song. (Side not: Pitbull is officially the biggest sellout of all time. I dare you to listen to his rookie album and compare it with the rest of his music. I get that party music is what sells and he didn’t start selling until he made the switch but fuck man, show some pride and integrity. If you weren’t famous these hoes would not be meeting you at the hotel or on your boat…get your mustache lined up son!)

Instead of striking up conversation with your friends or even a complete stranger you divert your attention to your phone to make is seem as if you are actually saying something meaningful to the person or people on the other end of that text. Truth is you’re not. You’re nervous because you can’t think of anything to say and you want everyone around you to think you are the most interesting person in the world. I want to open a bar/club where instead of asking for your id or a coat check you have to turn in your phone at the door…then let’s see what happens. You know what might happen? People might actually start talking and it might be about something meaningful. Men and women might actually start meeting each other in bars again. Whatever happened to giving someone an actual home phone number?!? These days some dude tells a chick “hey hit me up on the tweet @douchebagsmallballs” or a chick giving out her facebook site www.facebook.com/I-have-pictures-I-took-in-the-mirror-of-myself-and-you-can-totally-see-my-cleavage dot-com dot-org dot-slutbag.

Stop texting everyone on your friends list every little thing your doing. I’m sure you live an interesting life but I don’t want to know what bar your at, how drunk you got last night or if you’re at the beach on a hot summer day. Odds are the beach your at is not a Michigan clean-water beach and you will die from dysentery. Maybe instead of Facebooking you should’ve googled clean-water beach. If you’re going to tweet or text give me something real and of substance. Tell me you and your mom had a blowout fight and you’re not going to talk to her for a month. Tell me you had a child and the baby’s daddy probably won’t be around much longer. Tell me you’ve met someone new. Tell me you got the promotion. I’ll even respect a soon-to-mother for texting “At the hospital…they induced me…baby’s head is poking out.” At least it’s something of substance. Fuck Farmville! Fuck the “Like” button! Give me the “Dislike” button because I dislike 95% of the stuff you write. Every time you text a meaningless moment (and I say meaningless because it’s meaningless to me but it shouldn’t be meaningless to you) you’re missing out on an opportune moment to actually experience the moments and events that occur to you. Let’s go back in time. Big hair, Bangles on the radio, CD player’s were crazy expensive, Michael J. Fox, Top Gun, The sausage king of Chicago, John Hughes, for a historical reference, The Berlin Wall, and no laptops, no cell phones and NO SOCIAL NETWORKS! So release the firm grasp you have on your phone, give your thumbs a rest and remember to look up.

I've seen crazy before.

If you were born anytime after 1990 then you probably don’t remember the insanity-filled, sex-driven pop act that was Madonna. “Like a Virgin”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, “Like a Prayer” and “Vogue” are just a few of her biggest hits. The 80’s were probably the worst decade ever. Bad music, bad television (Miami Vice and Family Ties are enough proof that tv sucked in the 80’s…except 21 Jumpstreet, Johnny Depp before he was an asshole and Richard Grieco…Richard Grieco was fucking harsh son.) bad hair, bad movies (except any movie made by John Hughes…he was ahead of his time and if it wasn’t for him it would not be cool to fuck an apple pie.) bad everything! If you weren’t listening to horrible rock ballads by the likes of Poison or White Snake or watching Tawny Kitaen (highly overrated model who coincidentally now resembles a cougar…no, not a hot milf but an actual cougar) roll around on the hood of a fancy automobile then odds are you were probably listening to Devo, George Michael, NKOTB and Madonna.

Like The Beatles and Elvis before her, Madonna realized that sex sells. Crazy also sells too. Act as crazy and sexy as possible and have a decent tune every once in awhile and people will adore you. It’s a formula that has been copied and retried over and over but has a minimal success rate…it’ll grab attention for a short period, but over time will fade away with every other fad that has faded…except Iggy Pop…his sex crazed antics come from a true background of a tortured soul. If you are musically inept and don’t recognize how long this has been going on…Britney Spears falls in this category, except 2 things…#1 her music does translate over generation to generation like the aforementioned artists and #2 she has the biggest C-section scar I’ve ever seen and I’m from the hood son, I’ve seen some C-section scars. Eminem is another good example. A sex-crazed egomaniacal maniac who actually just plays crazy, but is not in-fact crazy. The man got in trouble for pointing an unloaded pistol at someone in a club. Totally premeditated as “hey, I’m gonna overreact and take this unloaded pistol, which might as well be a toy gun because it holds no value, and I’m gonna show “the streets” how hard of a rapper I am.” The man went to rehab for sleeping pills…sleeping pills? Rick James once snorted 10 ounces of Cocaine in one sitting and Eminem goes to rehab for sleeping pills. Also a premeditated act to trick the masses into thinking that this “starving artist” might have something of substance to say on his next album so you should probably go buy it and support this “recovering addict”. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Which brings me back to my point…

For the past 60 years musicians have borrowed this theory of sex and craziness and testing the waters of censorship and have used it to their benefit but no one has ever borrowed the exact act itself. Lady Gaga must be killed. She has taken the exact model that Madonna took and modeled for so many years and is driving it into the ground. You have to be a moron to be a Lady Gaga fan or born after 1990. Either way your memory does not serve you justly because this act has been done before. The crazy thing about it is that it was only 25 years ago. Listen to “La Isla Bonita”, does it not sound eerily similar to this crap that Gaga just released “Alejandro”. Yeah, Madonna already went thru that Spanish-influenced rhythm with hot Spanish men in the video phase. In an age of Youtube, watch any late 1980’s award show and you’ll see that Madonna wore imaginative ensembles that grabbed attention…last time I checked Gaga had a damn bird’s nest on her face. You’re not doing anything I haven’t seen, honey.


About 12 years ago a shipped docked on the continental U.S. full of young white teenage girls with mediocre voices and ample dance moves and they have terrorized us with the same old song and dance since then. Cristina developed mothering hips, a sure sign that giving birth will drive you into hitting the wall a lot sooner than you want to. Britney went crazy, but it was mostly because of drugs and enablers, not because of a chemical imbalance. Mandy Moore’s career got so bad she had to date an imaginary actor in a filmed television show while portraying herself in a classic case of art imitating life and vice versa. (I mean really, is there any way Mandy Moore ever gets cast in a James Cameron movie? Cameron may be an asshole but he’s not retarded.) When Gaga hopped off that ship some years ago she decided that in order to be different she would have to portray herself as crazy. She would replicate the exact science that Madonna gave birth to just 25 years ago. I am here to expose you Lady Gaga. You were raised in a middle-class family with both parents and grew up in a privileged lifestyle. You have tricked so many people into believing you are the new-age radical for all young people to follow and imitate and adore. You have failed to grasp the concept of taking the sex, drugs and craziness model that Lennon, Elvis and Madonna perfected and made their own and make it your own. You are a clone. Your fans are too young to remember. Your music sounds like something I heard in my childhood just with better sonic production. Your act smells of unimaginative imitation. And I pray that one day very soon that Mark David Chapman is paroled and approaches you for an autograph…you know what happens next…unless you’re just too young to remember.

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My lines are down, you can't call me.

"All things are created equal"...and are always "loosely based" on another idea. These days we have reality television shows such as The Jersey Shore, Atlanta Housewives, The Hills, Survivor and Lebron's The Decision. Horrible tv that sucks ass and is full of people trying to become famous without having to go to some fancy art school to hone their craft. Reality tv is the easy way out! It's the lazy way in! All of these horrid shows are direct descendants and "loosely based" on a little show entitled The Real World. The Real World premiered in 1993 and the idea of it was a few cameramen following around young people and waiting for one of them to snap and do or say something crazy. What an ingenious idea! Until, fast forward 17 years and one ugly black man with a clock hanging around his neck chasing around stinky tail and reality tv has made an ass of itself. I watch The Real World to this day because I've got the utmost respect for it being the godfather of all reality shows. You can have Flava Flav! I've got Pedro Zamora bitch! You can take Jeff Proebst. I've got Eric Nies bitch! Don't know who that is...google that shit!

I've got a great movie idea. This entire nation of people overtake a certain region of a country and occupy it for a long period of time, like Chinese Dynasty shit. For defamation of character reasons we shall refer to these people as "The Stingy's." The Stingy's control everything that happens in the city of "Boobieland" located in the country of U.S.F....no not the football league..we're pretend naming things. Anyways, The Stingy's produce films in Boobieland and more often times than not they sink money into horrible action movies and chick fliks while low-budget independent films receive all the awards. In Boobieland there's a genius actor that is also a highly underrated director. Again for defamation of character reasons we shall call him Biff Webster. Biff has written, directed and starred in blockbuster movies and some have received awards of the highest honor. One day Biff directs and produces a movie that exposes The Stingy's for what they are and reminds everyone of their past sins. The Stingy's have always been associated with one huge historic event that doesn't make them look like the greatest people. (Side note time: Mexicans have never had one major screw up as a people. Sure they're in the news and most of the time it involves immigration but can you name one time when we as a people have completely embarrassed ourselves? You can't and if you can then I pray a man named Hector Elizondo shoots you in your sleep tonight.) Anyways, Biff's movie is misunderstood but does great at the box office by industry standards and is of course hated by The Stingy's and anyone doing business with them. The Stingy's do not make their feelings public but take every opportunity they get to ruin Biff's life. They paint Biff into a bad picture and drive him and his career down the drain (side note time: in Russian accent "Hops down the fucking drain" ~ John Malkovich). Biff actually goes on a racist tirade against The Stingy's and it becomes a highly publicized event. Biff's life goes into a downward spiral and since The Stingy's control Boobieland and everything in it, Biff is no longer seen as a true movie star. Even Biff's bitch wife gets in on the act and extorts him for money. By the way Biff's wife is not a Stingy even though, at times, she behaves like one. Biff's life has effectively gone to shit!

I don't have an ending to my movie yet but I'm thinking Biff goes on a killing spree, murdering all of The Stingy's in Boobieland and then turns himself in during the Oprah Winfrey show...because everything that is dramatic and pretentious happens on the Oprah Winfrey show. I also have come up with a title for this movie. I shall call it..."The Passion of the Mel Gibson".

I blog 5 miles a day.

Went to see Inception this past weekend. The MJR in Southgate, MI and the AMC in Adrian, MI no longer carry Reese's Pieces! I call shenanigans on that shit. How can you not sell one of the world's greatest candies? Anywho, don't worry about the big intellectual words that Inception throws out at you...it's just to get your mind working. The movie is about stealing and implanting ideas into people's minds thru their dreams. Or at least that's what I gather from it.

Let me tell you, Chris Nolan is a sick individual. I believe in order to be a great writer/director you have to be seriously fucked in the head. Tortured souls just have a bigger imagination and a brain that never stops working. Chris Nolan has only done a few films but all of them are great movies...he's no M. Night Shyma-two-hit-wonder, Nolan is consistently good. If you don't believe me you can imdb him and see that he's done Memento, The Prestige and The Dark Knight. Inception is "deep" but the script is not the most complex script ever. I maintain that that dubious title belongs to Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams.

Inception does hold the title for most baby-faced actors ever on one screen. Leo will never escape his boy-like features and will always look like "match in the gas tank, boom boom." Ellen Page will never escape her Juno role...I was just waiting for her to say something cleverly sarcastic to Leo the entire movie. And don't get me started on the Angels in the Outfield, 3rd Rock from the Sun kid...he will always be young and annoying. Not the best casting job. Leo is a good, solid actor. He's been in a lot of damn good movies but he will never be a great actor. He's been blessed with great screenplays and great directors but he has never really "carried" a film. Have you ever walked away from a Leo movie and said "Damn Leo was bad ass"? Brad Pitt has been bad ass numerous times, Matt Damon was bad ass in Good Will Hunting, Rounders and the Bourne movies, Heath Ledger was bad ass in Dark Knight, even Tom "Foos" Cruise has been bad ass in the past...The first Mission Impossible was a damn good movie.

I will say that the movie is damn good and worth the money. It's not the best movie I've seen this year but it definitely lives up to Chris Nolan's hype...Leo's hype will never live up to it's hype...he's the new Al Pacino...he yells in every movie. The ending can be looked at as clever, but not by this movie critic...I thought it was too obvious of an ending and that it was trying to be a mind-bender a little too much. By the by, Marion Cotillard was in last year's Public Enemies and is still amazingly hott! I do want to scratch off the mole in the middle of her forehead though.

Introduck mothafucka!

"I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT WE WILL WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE MIAMI HEAT!!!"

Always wanted to say that in all caps...well not always...since Thursday, July 9th I've always wanted to say that in all caps.

Instead of reading about Lilo on TMZ or fighting giraffes caught on camera on MSN why don't you feast your eyes on my random thoughts with input from some creative friends.

Let's get this party started right.....let's get this party started quickly...right...play that beat, play that beat, right!

I will have a wide range of eclectic topics here. We can talk about music, anywhere from Zeppelin to Jeezy, from Jigga to Devo...haha Devo. I'm also a huge movie buff! From Braveheart to Memento to the cocaine Jesus known as Quentin Tarantino to even the Twilight saga and why I think if we were in the "real world" Bella would choose Jacob because chicks dig corny dudes with hot bods.

"Next week we'll talk about Freud and why he did enough cocaine to kill a small horse." ~ Robin Williams