Allewhorey – A Heartwarming Journey Of Self-Discovery And (Almost) Moral Transcendence

Some of you have been complaining about how I as the Author never truly author anything.  So here you go.  Feast your mind on the absolute best fiction I could write, replete with similes as excruciating as a humpless camel, cookie-cutter clichés, generic and soulless imagery, arbitrary buildup to the part you actually want to read, and doting veiled tributes that are rapidly wearing reflected all over the place as if by a crystalline particle.

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Night had fallen but the desert city still burned, sweating under the sun’s oppressive, scalding hand; and yet she hoped her own blaze was brighter.  The wayward woman of youthful radiance roamed the bright streets of downtown Sin City – so deceitful in its splendor –, scouring its most sordid corners for income, opportunities, but hunger more than anything else – hunger she uniquely knew how to quench.  At night that citadel of carnal transgression would exude an aura of dreck and impurity, wafting like haloes of electronic cigarette vapor into the unholy huntress’ path, but the same hour gave way to life and bustling activity of every sort, rarely a decent or noble vein among them.  The perfect base for her employment, it was fraught with hordes of those beastly degenerates who’d leap to prey upon such vulnerable and desperate workers as herself but unwittingly stumble right into ploys and guiles of her own.

Some scraggly vagrants had unwittingly settled on her turf this particular night with shopping carts and a stringed instrument or two, causing her to recall the dark days before the recession, when she had diligently manned the money box of a burger joint, scraping by on just enough to pay the landlord, the grocer, the government.  It was thankless, menial drudgery, degrading to her intellect and to her femininity, but she had performed it of necessity, up until the day the stock market crashed and her post was sacrificed on that sacred altar of corporate greed.  While the worker suffered for the administration’s spendthrift policies, the capitalist machine had continued to thrive, pushing its newfound burdens onto the consumer and the laborers, just one of which had been she.

The actions she’d taken immediately following her dismissal remained an indistinct progression of wasteful experiments and enlightening cultural run-ins.  At first she had probably scouted around for other low-skill jobs, all in vain due to the scarcity of such highly coveted spots.  Then she had taken to soliciting funds at intersections, brandishing signs that asked work or food and wished God’s blessings and all of that bull____, but the rich country had long turned a blind eye to the poor it had created, and the privileged drove past her diminished form without a thought to her plight.  In final resignation she had turned to the church, which offered her shelter and meals at the very least, if they came at the cost of her independence and dignity.  Compassionate though they were at the best of times, the religious hierarchs could hardly be entrusted with the social welfare of an entire nation’s underclass; their volunteers and resources were stretched thin enough just tending to her, and the archaic views propagated by the church on women’s rights raised many concerns over the nobility and solvency of their intentions, for in their method of liberating the disadvantaged from one set of shackles, were they not at the same time encouraging bondage to another set, of servitude and submission to a wrathful sky-friend invented by warmongers and male supremacists?  She saw the pride, the sickening self-superiority beaming in the minister’s face as he took the podium for his sermon or when he mingled with his congregation afterwards; the clergy was an emblem of the sexism entrenched in the American oligarchy by the country’s very foundations, and the scripture it sponsored was a vicious remnant of the medieval days before the enfranchisement of all genders, before Roe, before women were presumed to have any right to make decisions regarding the sanctity of their own bodies.  They hailed from a bygone dark age where women were expected to submit to their husbands, where people could and would be stoned simply for being true to who they were and whom they loved; she recoiled that such brazen prejudice could still find a home in the modern, enlightened age, and her shame stung all the more fiercely that she was taking charity from these fundamentalists.  Many times she had wanted to halt the processions and show the blind disciples what their leader had really espoused – tolerance for the sinner’s lifestyle, pity for the downtrodden, love and acceptance for those of all backgrounds or characters –, but she knew not the verses that called for these demeanors.

After a wretched, demoralizing month squandered in that haven, she’d resolved to take charge of her own destiny once more, and one night she flew the coop as in a moon trance, intending to seek out more auspicious opportunities.  No longer would she lament her tragic immobility by fruitlessly wailing that pitiful song of a caged bird without end.  She had turned in final, passionate desperation to the independent scene, taking up part-time, self-employment and formulating a routine path of sorts in the lattice of roadways that she had dutifully followed for the last four years to as respectable a degree of success as one could attain in such an ill respected line of work.  She had thought it a thoroughly arduous and unpleasurable occupation at first, one that strained her body to its utmost limits and degraded her female identity, but with time she had eased into it and attained an emotional and physical reprieve that she hadn’t immediately appreciated.  As a writer entered another dimension through the portal of his pen and paper, so she had achieved transcendence of her mortal condition, emerged victorious over all those domineering patriarchs who would coerce her into conforming to their faulty images of virtue.

The gaily illuminated parade of vehicles passing the impatient woman frequently blurred into a diverse rainbow of headlights and stolid faces too concentrated on their current tasks to notice her guarded advances.  She had learned by now to smile invitingly at certain cars that appeared more privy to the wares she offered, simultaneously keeping one eye wary to nearby pedestrians who would likewise deign to make use of them.  Experience had trained her to swiftly and efficiently separate predators from clients as she traipsed along her patrol and to closely estimate whatever payment she might derive from the latter.  As if to test the acuity of her perception, a big-ass, gas-guzzling Ford now plodded by on the opposite side of the road, sounding twangy guitars and raspy vocals from within the front cabin.  She had never lived in the country – what woman could in this hellhole of a state? – but she knew the marks of a redneck well enough to discern this wayfarer as the pest he is.  There was nothing to see from his like but condemnation or, worse, nonconstructive empathy.  She’d heard it all before: that she was going to burn in Hell for defiling her inner temple, she should visit this counseling center or that prayer group or this homeless shelter, was she warm enough in the harsh weather, and all those customary pretenses.  The condescension tired her exceedingly; did she look a little girl lost in this dangerous world, dependent on others to provide for her financial security?  She had now reached 26 years of age, weathered fully eight winters as an adult member of society.  Why couldn’t they concede that she was perfectly capable of handling her own affairs?  Was it so much to ask that they mind their own business and respect that philosophy of “live and let live” they feigned to cherish?

Listening to the din of traffic flow by, she now registered a confusing signal: the country strings, formerly fading to an indiscernible whisper, were rising in volume again, becoming so glaring that she couldn’t focus on anything else.  Her heart rate jumped a beat when she looked left and saw the familiar shape of the pick-up truck; it had made a U-turn at the last light and was creeping towards her in the right lane like a mystical liger stalking an unwary jungle child, slowing as it approached for a climactic, lethal pounce.  Oh, God, she thought as she turned about and fled in the same direction, instinctively conceiving to outrun it as one endowed with anti-gravity or to seek refuge under the towering columns and shadows of the Caesars Palace, a lecherous hive for all outcasts such as herself.  But her own elements seemed to bend against her success, delivering her unto the severely conservative pursuer, who rolled down the passenger window and leaned far over to accost her thus: “Whoa, there. Are you trying to look like a prostitute, ma’am?”

I don’t know.  Do I want to look like a prostitute?

In silent answer she glanced down at the handsome, tightly fitted uniform she currently wore, accentuating her commitment to professionalism and indicating to all passers-by that she meant real business.  Cutting off just above her prime assets on both ends, the one-piece, scarlet-laced dress revealed just enough of her character to arouse interest but also withheld just enough for those interested clients who would like to know her more intimately.  Looking back up, she surveyed her assailant with intense curiosity, her apprehension temporarily supplanted with relentless curiosity.  He sported a scruffy red ring of facial hair and his collared plaid shirt discordantly clashed with the liberated fashion scene of Las Vegas like an electronic keyboard in an orchestral section.  His thick eyebrows were arched in what seemed to be genuine befuddlement, his diminutive ears raised in anticipation, and his lips drawn down in a concerned frown. Was he really so daft as to inquire:

“Are you trying to look like a prostitute?  MAM.”

“No s____, Sherlock,” was her reply.

“Well, now, there’s no need for a gentle lady like yourself to go talkin’ or dressin’ like that in frigid weather like this.  You look like you could use a coat or pants at least, something to cover you in that sorry state.”

“No, thanks, I really don’t need anything of the sort.  It’s pushing 90 degrees right now and that’s low for this city.  Based on my place of residence, my trade, and my youth, I stand an approximately 6.02 X 10-23 chance of freezing to death, so I’m not all that worried.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.  You see, this here climate change polar vortex stuff is throwin’ the whole world off balance, including Las Vegas, and it’s way too risky for you to wander ’bout unprotected in this freezing tempature.  You could catch hypodermia or the flu or something bad if you’re not covered right.  I mean, what if you did get sick and you had to pay the druggist $30, $40, $50 to get your cough meds?  See here, ya need to get covered with something ’fore you get stuck with a bill like that you just can’t pay.”

“First of all, hick, it’s ‘global warming’, not ‘climate change’, and I’m no Flat-Earther, but there’s really not a lot of climate change happening here in Vegas.  It’s been a barren and inhospitable wasteland for something like the last hundred years and will continue to be for a hundred more.  Second, human beings have been getting sick since like the very beginning of time and evolving fashion customs have done literally nothing to stop them from getting sick, nor do I suspect I’d take much comfort after the fact in knowing I had been covered when I first got sick, being miserable and ill all the same.”

“Again, with all due respect, ma’am, that’s not really of consequence.  If you aim to ever find yourself a nice job or a husband, you’re gonna have to dress more respectable than that.  Here, I got an extra coat an’ jeans in the back you could put on, and I wouldn’t charge you nothing ’cause o’ your economic difficulties and all qualifyin’ you for my assistance.  If ya don’t get covered now when ya’ve got no preexistent ailments, you’re fixin’ to go bankrupt soon as you happen to get sick.”

“You’re a total a-hole, aren’t you? Fixin’ to go without full clothing is exactly what’s saving me from going bankrupt at present.  If I had been studiously covering myself for the last four years as you so earnestly recommend, I would have lost my single avenue of income a long time ago and been forced to subsist on charity or, worse, welfare.”

“Don’t you think that’s one of those, what’re they called, false dichotomies, ma’am?  Gettin’ covered doesn’t have nothing to do with what you do for a living.  Heck, if you like prostituting yourself, you can keep prostituting yourself.  No one’s going to take that option away from ya.  Period.”

“On the contrary, keeping myself covered as a policy is logically irreconcilable with what I do for a living at this relatively early stage in my adulthood.  The moment you coerce me into receiving your misguided offers of aid is the moment I lose all chances to subsist by own means.  As a physically strong, gainfully unemployed, smoking hot young woman, it makes no financial sense whatsoever for me to get covered and deprive myself of the wage that now allows me to pay my bills.”

“Ma’am, I’m all for paying your bills and living within your means, and you might well be healthy and purty right at this moment, but you can’t count on that to last.  After all, you young people often go acting like reckless knuckleheads, like you think you’re invincible.  Just think of the risks you take in this whoring trade –”

“I’m a sex worker, actually.”

“– in your sex work, then. The way you’re at it right now, you’re just one unprotected customer away from catching a virus, and then you’ll be wishin’ you got yourself covered when ya had the chance.  Kids like you do knuckleheaded things all the time when they go taking their clothes off.”

“That’s a disgustingly ageist and fundamentally absurd generalization based solely in your own arrogance and devoid of reason.  Older people make just as many knuckleheaded decisions and mistakes as young ones, probably more due to their deteriorating senses, and they’re just as prone to getting sick from the cold because of their greater vulnerability to physical ailments.  Aside from that, you still haven’t presented a single reason why my disinclination to getting covered is any of your ___damn business.”

“Forgive my impudence, ma’am, but you’re talking kind of like a child.  Gettin’ covered is just a part of growin’ up and it’s a responsibility we all have to assume some day or ’nuther, lessun we all be looking like lil, naked infants.”

“On the contrary, gettin’ covered has nothing to do with growin’ up; in fact, taking off your covers is an integral rite of passage to become an adult for like 95% of the human race, lessun they all be looking like lil, unsexed virgin children.  Your insipid platitude that conforming to some arbitrary societal standard for what’s becoming of an adult is necessary to actually being an adult is all the more ridiculous because your underlying assumption of what that societal standard happens to be is wrong on its face.”

“Well, then, mightun I appeal to your family to persuade you?  What would your mother think if she knew you were reveling about half-naked in the heart of Dis big city likun one of the pigs on my ranch?  Wouldn’t it give her a better piece of mind to know her beautiful daughter’s at least properly covered wherever she is?”

“Peace of mind.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Right… do you honestly think my mother cares whether I’m covered or not?  What do you think I am: some kind of rebellious, emotionally unstable teenager who needs to be constantly squired and protected by parental guardian angels?  My mother and father cared for me nearly two decades of my life, exhausting untold time, energy, and wealth so that I might emerge with the capability to survive without their guidance when the time came for me to leave the house, and once it did, I left, never to come wallowing back a childlike parasite.  I couldn’t care less about my mother’s present condition and I doubt she gives much of a damn about mine either.”

“Ma’am, I’m starting to lose my patience here. Why don’t you just give me ten for the coat and pants and we’ll part ways with no hard feelings, hmm?”  His blank and botheringly impassive stare had collapsed somewhat, devolving into a look wavering between exasperation and outright hostility.  As if to assuage his mounting anger, he swatted at a fly that was assaulting his forehead.  The act of spontaneous, impetuous violence, so seemingly insignificant in its portent, exposed to her a more sinister aspect of this strange gentleman’s character.  Was this the same helpful country boy who had tried to provide her warmth, hope, and coverage not four minutes ago, who had formerly spoken with such clarity and high composure of diction for his background?

“I’m not giving you s___ for your clothes.  What happened to those donations you were offering, freely given out of charity?”

“You see, ma’am, much as it’s my posture to value charity, I don’t really take kindly to the kind of obstructionism you been showing to me, and I’m definitely not keen on subsidizing obstructionists.  In my Christian ideal of an American utopia, not a single man, woman, or child should have to go without basic covering, no matter their economic class, situation, or upbringing, and no one should have to resort to selling their body in order to make ends meet.  ’Cause after all, if we truly are the wealthiest nation in the world, then what reason can we rightly claim for failing to adequately cover every last person living in our great democracy, or at the very least to make those covers affordable enough even for the poorest among us?  But we both know that to reach such a goal of securin’ affordable clothing for all 310 million denizens of the country is an illusive, nay, an unattainable mirage on the horizon.  Every society, no matter how ordered and micro-managed, is ultimately divided into haves and have-nots, the latter so far outnumbering the former that no voluntary gesture of compassion from the folks at the top nor any surge in supply can possibly effect a market where necessary coverage is available to all at little expense.  The i’stinct for material gain is imprinted on the nature of humankind, and so it is that the religious pursuit of profit will always govern the greedy apparel companies, crushing any fleeting concern they carry for the common good, unless, that is, their cutthroat consumerism is controlled through the law.  No longer should the establishment allow the fashion industry to continue screwing the American people over for personal benefit.  Like most folks with any ounce of common sense, I believe it’s well past time that we as Americans start to value human welfare over business and to substitute our natural selfish pride with a more Christian love for the poor and perennially unclothed.”

“But mere selfishness ain’t the only thing sealed in human nature.  Out in the countryside, away from the empty rules and institutions of civilization, the only law of right and wrong is physical power: whoever has the stronger arm, wields the better gun, commands the larger posse gets to call the shots without deference to any other authority.  Which of us do you suppose is the more dominant in these ’spects?”  The question was rhetorical, as he proceeded with nary a pause for the ominous words to rest upon her skin like the sickly palm of a non-committed lover unilaterally taking their contract past the stipulated boundaries.  “Thing is, me and the rest of my brothers in the movement for universal coverage don’t much care for the impediments of this or that legal provision, nor do we go deluding ourselves with false hopes that individual action alone will ever recturfy the crisis we’ve identified in the country’s wardrobe, so to speak, nor are we especially sensitive to the potential costs that mandating coverage might impose on those like yourself who woulda rather go without it.  By right of our superior coercive strength and higher moral enlightenment, we fully intend to take whatever courses we deem necessary for your own good, and ifun that means we’ve got to sell you covers against your will, so be it.”

“Are you threatening to rob me?  Not only do you have no respect for my independence as a grown woman, but you also have a total disregard for the law.”

“Like I says, ma’am, I only honor the laws insofarus they can be twisted to let me enact whatever agenda I want.  If you don’t mind my observing, you’re not much one for the laws either, cuttin’ way short of Nevada’s minimum requirements for publicly acceptable attire, but we can change that now, can’t we?”

He spat the last clause with a sudden rush of GMO-like venom as he hurled a mangy coat and mangled pair of jeans outside the window at her unprotected figure.  The pant legs were so shredded that she might as well go bare with as much comfort, and the weighty, long-sleeved top reeked like sulfur of a computer that had exploded from the perverted, chemically reactive experiments of a dubstep music producer entrusted with too much pure beauty to leave unembellished.

“Hey, dude, this crap is broken. Torn. Unusable. How am I supposed to cover myself with something that doesn’t even accomplish its designated purpose?”

“I wouldn’t say they’re broken, ma’am; there’s just a little rip in the fabric here and there, but the whole thing still works just fine.  The holes and tears just show how great the material is that so many people tried it on.  One great thing about gettin’ covered is the sheer diversity of options you have in what you buy at the marketplace; if you don’t like that outfit, for example, you can head over to the Old Navy ’cross the street and shop around for items that best suit your needs, so long as they cover your legs, cover your chest, cover your feet, and cover your abdomen in the event of prenatal swelling.  Heck, I’ll be darned if it’s easy as buying a high-definition TV on Amazon.”

“Do I look like I have 2000 frickin dollars to burn on a brand new television, let alone a permanent home to store it in, a computer to buy it with, and internet access to shop for it?  You have to be the most presumptuous, thick-headed bastard I’ve ever had the ill pleasure of meeting, and you don’t even have a name that I know of.”

“They call me the one who knocks.”  And with that ambiguous introduction he promptly rolled up the passenger window and slipped away from the curb, dissolving back into the restless flow of the night traffic as if he had never emerged.  Flustered and frightened by the encounter, the wayward woman stared at the truck’s wake in silent astonishment, momentarily disconnected from her order of affairs and distraught at the unbelievable stupidity of every clumsy pretense of self-righteous wisdom that had lofted from that puritanical, right-wing fool’s tongue.  Discarding the pitiful garments into the gutter, she returned anew to her interrupted procedure, and once again she roamed the bright streets of downtown Sin City.

The Only Divergent Article You'll Ever Read Here

Articles written by George Stefano Pallas.  Prudishness, prejudice, and musical progressivism expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect nor should be construed as those of the Author.

“Divirgins” Converge In Droves Upon Opening of Popular Saga

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It’s the biggest, most anticipated, teenage girl-oriented movie event of the fourth weekend of the month of March of the year 2014, with entertainment analysts comparing its potential magnitude to such multi-billion dollar franchises as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, which some say isn’t altogether inappropriate, but not everyone is crazy for the pop-culture phenomenon-to-be that is the first installment of Veronica Roth’s young-adult, dystopian “Gents” trilogy.  For all the love that the series has garnered, like any other it’s had its fair share of vocal detractors, and the opposition took an especially ugly dive two days before the release of the movie on March 21st.

A fiercely disenchanted group of social protestors dubbing themselves “divirgins” announced plans to swarm theaters on Friday and harass innocent moviegoers in front of the box office, employing such disreputable tools as Facebook, mailing lists, and evites to coordinate the nationwide picketing events. Said the anti-fan movement’s self-asserted progenitor Parr T. Popper, “We are taking full advantage of modern technology’s capabilities to counteract the offensive of this unholy abomination called Divergent and to ensure it doesn’t, you know, stick around.  If you thought the shaky camera of Hunger Games gave you a tumor, that was not a tumor.  Not a tumor, at all.”

Strong words, no doubt, especially from one who proudly claims to have never so much as looked into the book, let alone seen the big-screen picture.  Divirgin members would argue that they have only safeguarded their purity in abstaining from a morally corrupting, intelligence-frying ripoff, yet many more have dismissed their fears as unfair and unfounded given their total lack of familiarity with the work.  “As the old adage goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover,” said Clee Shane of the American Library Journal.  “Though I have to admit: the Divergent movie poster really does – how do the kids put it?  Oh right – it really sucks a___.”

The divirgins’ motives are twofold: on the slighter level, they see themselves as standing up to an undisguised hit piece on Atheists that may inadvertently spark spontaneous demonstrations in more unstable regions of the world.  “Atheists have historically faced indescribable persecution for their convictions, and not just in my state of Cali-for-nia [sic], but throughout the world.  Countless wars have been waged in the name of Christianity, like the first crusade, the second crusade, and all the other crusades, and Atheists have always borne the brunt of this violence.  That Divergent-the movie would try to cover up the sufferings of this great religion and portray it as an oppressor of other sects is not just irresponsible, but a stunning reversal of history.  Consider that a divorce from reality.”

But the divirgins are much more concerned with confronting a recurring weakness in the American conscience, a propensity to go with the crowd and submit to the demands of one’s comrades.  “Peer pressure has consistently exerted a negative influence on the youth of the country, causing them to lose sight of who they are and to make costly mistakes which harm their souls and which they later want to totally recall.  Kids keep hearing the old lies: ‘You have to see Divergent if you want to be cool.  You have to see Divergent if you want to be grown-up,’ but we know that’s not true.  You never have to go with the group in order to be cool, and that’s why we started a Facebook page championing the virtues of divirginity, which you can join at http://www.facebook.com/groups/dontjointhegroup.  With your help we can spread the message among our peers that peer pressure – giving into pressure from your peers – is never okay and that you don’t have to read the latest young-adult, semi-dystopian, action-packed romance novel in order to be a grown member of the community.  In fact, having the spiritual vigor to abstain from whatever social ill is trending shows far more maturity and dauntlessness than just going with the flow for the sake of amity.”

Lionsgate doesn’t expect the inflated rhetoric, sign-waving, and pencil-pushing of Popper or his divirgin fellows to make much of an impact on the ticket sales either way, though their widely publicized efforts to ruin its performance have certainly piqued interest in the forthcoming film, which generally translates to stronger turnouts.  Uncredited co-screenwriter Tristan Wiggam said that Potter “needs to take his own advice and let off some steam.  If he could only lay aside his constricting views on male-female roles and take a chance on a more divergent narrative, he would find a really inspiring and empowering story about a strong, resourceful female protagonist who doesn’t need any man to rescue her, thinks for herself, and ends up leading a revolution for change.  Isn’t that a novel idea?”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a southern center specializing in promoting poverty through the law, has since labeled divirgins a “hate group” for their figurative attacks on Divergent fans, an action which is certain to marginalize their influence because of the center’s glowing reputation among the 1% of Americans who have any idea what they do besides calling out random haters for spreading their hateful hate.  “While we respect the right of divirgins to peaceably assemble and advocate their puritanical causes, we would vehemently deny all misconceptions that they are representative of the Atheist community at large, which has contributed immeasurably to the betterment of American society through such exemplary institutions as Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Department of Health and Human Services, the NAACP, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and others committed to securing a future where people who believe in an immutable moral right and wrong can’t refuse to pay for their employees’ sexual intercourse and/or abortions on the basis of their God’s commandments, which don’t even mention ‘fetus’ or ‘abortion’, let alone ‘pornography’, ‘self-pleasurement’, ‘narcotics’, or, the very worst of all sins, ‘cyber-bullying’.”

The Author didn’t offer to weigh in on the controversy, feigning ignorance of what Divergent is and dodging around the issue when questioned.  “More than just resisting peer pressure, which can really refer to everything and even encompasses noble courses such as going to church, helping out around your community, and upgrading to Xbone so as to play Titanfall, I tend to abstain from anything that I suspect will wreak irreparable harm on my brain; that includes Divergent-the movie, Divergent-the novel, Divergent-the movie novelization, Divergent-the I Can Read children’s edition, Divergent-the world encyclopedia, Divergent-the character guide, Divergent-the coloring and activity book, and especially the Divergent & Dragons role-playing board game.  Ever since about four months ago, I have kept a commitment to save my brain for marriage so that I’ll be a better, wiser husband, and a more discriminating writer as well.   Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must get back to these you-know-who covers which cost me a ton of iTunes credit and didn’t come with a photo booklet.  Like, that’s soooo stewpid.”

Divergent opens in theaters everywhere today and is rated PG-13 for the customary amount of bloodless violence, ‘s-bombs’, unfulfilled sexual advances, and disturbing images.

KISS FM to Debut Lost Vivaldi’s Concerto In F-minus

In order to stem a downward ratings slide caused by literally playing Timber, The Monster, Counting Stars, Demons, Royals, and Story Of My Life ad nauseam auctoris, 102.7 KISS FM Los Angeles has announced plans to enliven its programming with fresh new spins on classic and classical hits that aren’t as familiar to millenials raised on a healthy diet of synthesizers, bass, reverb effects, auto-tune, and empowering lyrics about going all the way and/or giving it all at night.

The struggling music station is seeking to expand a series of modern, progressive remixes conceived by D.J. “Skill Wrecks” that are momentarily holding it above water as the producers continue to wage their fruitless quest for upbeat, appealing songs that aren’t attributed to Katy Perry, One Direction, Lorde, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Imagine Dragons, Ellie Goulding, or Katy Perry.  So far Skill Wrecks has enhanced John Legend’s All Of Me by adding some much-needed CG thwumpuwhumps and bee bee bee bee bebebebebes to the original recording, which formerly consisted of just a piano and a human voice.*  Now he’s looking to take on the real greats, namely Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi, whose bygone Baroque and Classical eras he claims are in desperate need of some 21st-century renovation.

“While these famous artists certainly made the most of what limited resources they had at their, like, disposal – brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion, and other tribal tools –, their work was totally constrained by like the inaccessibility of dubstep, synthesizer, digital voice alteration, and fake sound effects to the majority of disabled and the middle class in his time,” explains the disc-spinner.  “I love Vivaldi’s four cycles [sic] like the rest of them; he made like a freaking awesome album given his class and societal position, but if he had the state-of-the-art technology we all have today, it would have been like stupid awesome.  My goal is to make that stupid awesome album a reality.”

Most concur that Skill Wrecks’ is a stupid awesome album, although they stand divided over what exactly that signifies.  To roars of applause, composer Rand Pauchelbel condemned the initiative on behalf of the Classical Preservation and Accuracy Committee, ranting loudly that, “The country doesn’t need a Classical artist; what it needs is a rebirth of Classicism.  I file this protest today for all American citizens who own a radio and stand to have their cars tapped by the policy of elites like Skill Wrecks, because I believe what we listen to on our devices is none of their damn business.”  Expressing the same cynicism with markedly less grandiloquence, senior congressional star Rep. Patrick Leaky, D-B.B. told realistic talking fish heads that the idea “may be stupid, but it’s also dumb,” and competitive archer/nunchucker Na’Polly Ung curtly drawled, “Skill Wrecks doesn’t have any special skills.”

On the opposite side of the aisle, President and World Diplomacy Leader Barack Obama took a rare break last Monday on Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifinakis (“The Hangover”, “The Hangover Part 2”, “The Hangover Part 3”) to praise the D.J. for his “courage and forward-looking vision” and to declare he that he has “a lot of rspct for what he’s doing to make the future of music a brighter place.”**  KISS’s own celebrity-in-chief Ryan Seacrest couldn’t be more satisfied with his employee’s artistic approach, calling it “stupid good” and comparing his work ethic to that of viral violinist Lindsey Stirling, whose classical-electronic crossovers have won her a devoted following of 4,440,000 illiterate saps and one author.

As a matter of fact, Skill Wrecks revealed that he has since approached Ms. Stirling to arrange the dubstep backtrack of the Spring concerto.  “I hella loved the beat of Electric Daisy Violin, really catchy, made me want to move, you know?  Then someone told me there was a violin in it and I was like, ‘Woah.  First of all, whaduheck is that and, two, why would you ruin your music with it?’”

“Random Asinine Dismembering” is still in the programming stage and it remains to be seen whether Stirling will take up KISS’s generous offer to do Garage Band mixing for their hotly anticipated record, but the first single from the album, “#Summertime,” is already making waves with its sadness-streaked fake drums and fake strings.  One thing is certain: somewhere in Italy, these violin things must have Vivaldi rolling over in his grave.

All the feature and/or Top 40 reviews we missed the last time in easily digestible love/hate verdicts – by the Author

Best Day Of My Life – Ha-a-a-a-a-aaate.  Hands down the worst rendition ever of Spongebob Squarepants’ best song ever.

Happy (From “Despicable Me 2”) – It might be crazy what I’m ’bout to say, but it gets a Love, even though I don’t think this song was ever in DM2.  If it was, one can only wonder why nobody noticed until that movie was long out of theaters and no longer a hot commodity on DVD.

Payphone feat. Wiz Khalifa – Hate.  What does “all those fairy tales are full of it” mean anyway?  Full of what?  Oh, I get it.  This is like that cleaned-up P!nk song…

Team – Hate.  Lorde has basked in critical praise for writing allegedly smart songs addressed to mostly stupid listeners.  Royals at least had evanescent themes of the celebrity complexes which compel people to make public spectacles out of their private lives, but Team is just nonsense, even if it does impressively half-rhyme “the ladies in their finery” with “a hundred jewels between”.

Pompeii – Meh.  It really would be better without the gratuitous heyeyeyo-ayos, but it has some cool drum beats and the lyrics are positively erupting with dramatic visuals.               That was bad.  Sorry.

Stay feat. Micky Ekko – Also Meh.  It’s quite a departure from every other Rihanna song in existence, which I warrant is a step in the right direction, and the minimal production generally works the piano and vocals to its overall favor.  Still, there are much prettier love songs out there and I can’t tell for the life of pi why this is a feature instead of a solo performance.

#Selfie – Love.  The monologue parts, anyway.  “Was he totally looking at that girl to make me feel jealous?  Hold on, let me take another selfie (selfie selfie selfie)…”  “Is that guy sleeping over there? Yeah, the one next to the girl with no shoes on?  That’s so ratchet.”  A very auspicious and socially reflective beginning for – um, let me make sure I get this right – “The Chainsmokers”?

She Looks So Perfect – Hate.  There’s no such thing as a lipstick stain like a work of art, but what would you expect from a writer who can spin such a couplet as “you look so great just standing there, in my American Apparel underwear”?  Seriously, was everybody drunk throughout the entire production of this drivel, or did they all just choose to forget about the lyrics for the hour or two it took them to throw it all together?

Moves Like Jagger (Studio Recording from "The Voice" Performance) [feat. Christina Aguilera] – Love/hate.  On the one hand, it’s all about controlling and owning women through one’s moves in the bedroom, which makes the happy-go-lucky whistling that backs up Adam Levine either cleverly symbolic of the fundamental inanity or unintentionally ironic on top of being egregiously annoying.  I’m opting for the latter.  The funky and obscenely long title is itself a missed opportunity, supposedly alluding to the dancing chops of Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger instead of to, say, Michael Jackson, an entertainer just as renowned in retrospect for his dance choreography as for his music.  Also unexplained is where the heck Blake Shelton and CeeLo Green got lost in this recording, which basically served as a big commercial for The Voice cast when it first hit the charts.  On the other hand, it’s really, really, poisonously catchy, ’cause it hooks upon your tongue and it holds you, worms into your ears and it owns you with the mood and blabber, with all its mood and blabber, gets you in the moo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oood with its blabber.

Somebody That I Used To Know feat. Kimbra – Mostly Love.  The unusual bells-and-chimes instrumentation contrasts well with the bitter, forlorn story related herein, and I applaud it for breaking the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus mold, but Kimbra and goatee, er, Gotye aren’t the strongest stingers in the Author’s playlist, which may explain why just one of their songs has gone anywhere.  Again, I can’t comprehend why the feature is even there, being a fraction of the main singer’s part and not adding a great deal of depth to his perspective.  This tune was made to be covered.

Love The Way You Lie, also by Eminem feat. Rihanna – And I Hate the way Rihanna and Eminem do everything else.  This would be painful even if it hadn’t started the whole rap/pop trend back in 2010 or whenever it was.  As much as Eminem sounds like he wants to break something in every one of his recordings, his wake of mental devastation pales next to that your own Author wants to leave upon hearing mindless junk like LTWYL.

Stay The Night Feat. Haley Williams of Paramore – Hate computer solos so much.  Hate the words “night” and “tonight” in music so much, and there are a lot of them, since 9 out of every 10 songs written today are nothing more than glorified portraits of sex and for some reason the vast majority of songwriters have fallen into the habit of associating nightfall with sex.

Clarity Feat. Foxes – Hate computer solos so much.  Hate shrieky vocals so much.

Sleeping With A Friend – Hate.  Needless to say that this is the most morally abhorrent and obnoxious sham of alternative music that I’ve ever heard.  Thank heaven the American people appear to be of the same mind, as this hasn’t even cracked the top 50 singles on iTunes, despite the godless radio networks’ ceaseless strides to force it down our throats.

Talk Dirty Feat. 2 Chainz – Hate.  From the pitchy, whiny, womanizing lyrics to the totally derivative “get jazzy” cue to the horrible rap, everything about this needs to go back in chainz.  It’s not even that “dirty” relative to other gangster rap; it’s just generic made-for-radio junk.

Wild Wild Love Feat. G.R.L. – I hate that they intentionally misspelled “girl” in the name of this song.  I hate that one of the ‘subtler’ lines goes something like, “That itty bitty kitty, let me pet it.”  I hate that the chorus reminds me of the now age-old Can’t Be Tamed by Miley Cyrus, which reminds me of Timber Feat. Ke$ha in addition to reminding me of Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus, reminding me of Party In The U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus, and, worst of all, reminding me of Miley Cyrus.  I hate that Pitbull stole the “I know you want it” refrain right out of Blurred Lines Feat. T.I. & Pharrell.  I just Hate this POC all around, I guess.

Feel This Moment feat. Christina Aguilera, current Guiness record holder for highest feature-to-lead ratio – It must be Pitbull I Hate, because he seems to ruin quite everything that comes into unfortunate contact with him.  This sounded great in the Lego Movie trailer where it didn’t have any words.

* This is where I should cross-reference the original recording of All Of Me for conveniences of demonstrating the disparity between its quality and the radio edit’s.  But the only reason I even found or like the original recording is because of the not-original recording John Legend made with a particular dynamite gal, and that one’s not even for sale, goshdarn it.

** Of this episode, Mario Lopez said, “Very cool of the president to do that [improvise his own ‘awkward’ lines], but also kind of surprising, because he has a lot of very important duties to attend to.”  Of this episode-within-an-episode, the Author mentally stood up and cheered, “Preach it, brother!  I knew you had a brain tucked way, way back in that skull.  If by ‘surprising’ you mean ‘unconscionable’ or ‘inconceivable’ and not ‘splendid’ or ‘awesome’.”

The Author's Playlist Feat. The Author's Friends

First off, an acknowledgment: I couldn’t have pulled this particular issue together without the contributions of my dear friends Clyde, Hilary, Dolph, Alex, Karen, Sheldon, Hal, Keith, Bill, Bonnie, Brock, and the Middle Dude.

Actually, that’s a lie.  I could easily have done it without Clyde, Hilary, Dolph, Alex, Karen, Sheldon, Hal, Keith, Bill, and Bonnie, as I was forced to do in the end.  The punch line of this particular post was to feature a lot of my friends writing reviews of features, but only three of those I emailed ever responded and Brock and Middle Dude (who recently started to publish a newspaper called The Com. Poste which I highly recommend) were the only ones to ultimately send me anything, so please give them a huge shout-out for their community service.  I really couldn’t have pulled it off without them.  No, really.  I couldn’t have pulled it off because one of my ears blew out Katniss-style in the course of listening to Timber for the 44th time.

The challenge of this post is a slight variation of those written previously; to my knowledge, all the notes contained herein are honest in content but some are flagrantly misleading in attribution.  Point out which reviews are forgeries of the Author’s style or forgeries of forgeries of the Author’s style (I tried my best) and you may direct where we take this series next.  If you can point out which identity thief wrote which sections or if your name starts with L and ends with G, you may direct where we take this entire website next.


The Hunger Games soundtrack feat. a lot of nobodies –

If any single album could convince me of digital media’s advantages over traditional CDs, vinyls, or cassettes, The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 And Beyond makes a pretty compelling case.  Of the sixteen temperamentally diverse songs compiled on the film’s soundtrack, only three actually appear in the movie’s credits, and for good reason, as the other thirteen tracks are either mediocre, boring, bad, or all of the above.  While I no more favor the concept of plucking a select few digital parts from a physical whole than I approve the regrettably surging preference for text databases over book libraries, this $18 bunch of crap may possibly have made an iTunes convert of a really stodgy technological conservative.

As an “Inspired” album, the soundtrack consists of tracks by unassociated, predominantly indie-leaning artists that are supposed to unite under common themes related to the source material or setting, which in this case is heroine Katniss’ rural homeland of District 12.  Accordingly, most of the songs have some kind of half-baked country or folk tinge to them and encompass feelings of hope, fear, and desperation, or at least I think they do, as it’s rather hard to discern just what they’re saying in the seeming absence of a lyrics booklet (see Figure 1), which is almost a prerequisite of CDs in any other circumstance.  Instead of that helpful resource we get a crumpled-up, unfolding poster of Jennifer Lawrence’s face, something that’d only appeal to fangirls who aren’t buying the disk in store anyway and would probably end up hating the music collected herein even if they did because it has far less than the industry standard of synth and bass to which they’re hopelessly attuned.

Figure 1: A possible use for the lyrics booklet.

Sorry, I digress.  Having slogged through this rubbish twice, I was only drawn to two tracks especially, those being Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift with The Civil Wars backing and Kingdom Come by the latter duo. The first stands out as an alternately calming and harrowing lullaby, sharply contrasting visuals of a blazing, hostile world with a pledge by the speaker that the coming dawn will wash away all troubles.  It opens softly before escalating into a broodingly beautiful chorus of ooooohs that probably owes more to Joy Williams and John Paul White than to Swift, whose style is generally much cheerier and carefree, at least vocally.  Even this top-selling song of the album is unfortunately weighed down by subpar recording or weird production choices that leave the artists’ voices sounding distant and grainy, if that makes sense in a non-visual sense, which it doesn’t really.  The Civil Wars’ contribution evokes some of the grittier folk songs from their first album, carried only by John Paul’s acoustic guitar, some drums near the end, and the pair’s chilling harmonies.  Like Barton Hollow, it’s written as a dramatic monologue about fleeing from some unseen demons, impelling the listener to “fly high across the sky from here to kingdom come”, and like the vast body of their work, it uses mesmerizing images to establish dark mood (“A cold wind’s whispering secrets in your ear / so low only you can hear.”) and is sung with an emotional intensity that’s altogether unfitting for a concept album based on the screen adaptation of Hunger Games.  Regardless of its excessive merits comparative to the movie, it makes a worthy addition to The Civil Wars’ already fabulous repertoire and marks itself as the most captivating song of the album.

Unfortunately that’s not saying much, as all the songs besides these two are discardable.  Granted, a couple of them can be appreciated within their own niche genres, but the appeal of these few rarely extends beyond the usual fans of these performers.  The opening tune by Arcade Fire is a bit of an oddity on the album overall, mixing synth, percussion, slow guitar strings, and almost indiscernible vocals by a young girl in a way that shouldn’t sound good but somehow works. This more than anything else on the album captures the action of the arena and spectacle of the Capitol processions that precede it.  Entitled Abraham’s Daughter, it tries to imagine just how this nameless daughter of Scripture would have reacted had she witnessed her father preparing Isaac for the altar at that “lonesome hill”.  Having surveyed the theories of various Hunger Games nerds online, I now suppose the daughter is meant to stand for Katniss, Abraham for Snow, Isaac for the tributes, and the mountain for the arena, but none of that makes a whit of sense given that Abraham was sacrificing his son out of piety rather than malice, that Isaac was ultimately spared in lieu of a ram, and that the Bible says nothing of a daughter present at this scene.  Hence this is essentially the musical parallel of that upcoming Noah disaster for which Paramount has already stooped to doing damage control [“we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity (of the Biblical story)”], but you can hardly make out the lyrics, anyway.

Maroon 5 does a decent, mostly stripped-down cover of Glen Harsand’s Come Away To The Water, which is basically a lyricized entreaty addressed to a lamb that’s due to get the axe.  “Come away, little lamb, come away to the slaughter / To the ones appointed to see this through / They are co-ooooming for you.” It’s a troubled little song, externally soothing and inwardly unsettling, and Adam Levine infuses it with just the right amount of creepiness.  It’s hard to picture a music video that would preserve the same effect (then there’s that whole sexy thing acting against his creepiness).  Devoid of the chipmunk notes and atrocious arrangements that permeate their mass-produced pop, it’s probably the best song of their whole career – no thanks to them because they didn’t even write it.

Miranda Lambert and the Pistol Annies show up in a collaboration called Run Daddy Run which is straight-up country for all intents and purposes.  Vocally it’s strong but clocks in rather short at under three minutes.  So too does it measure short in new content, as its central themes of outrunning the devil are virtually lifted right from the Civil Wars’ song that played two songs before.  The second massive single from the album is another Taylor Swift song called Eyes Open, but this has far more in common with her latest, more edgy hits from Red than with the country-crossover music that won her a following.  It’s straight-up bubblegum pop mixed to overly noisy electric guitars and set to vapid lines about standing tall, believing in yourself, and “keeping your ey-eyes open”.  Some people like it, but it all just sounds like empty volume to me.

I won’t even bother touching on the other ten songs because they’re so insipidly dull.  The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 And Beyond is the kind of album that was made for sale in digital media stores.  Otherwise, in order to hear a brief eight or so minutes of artistic brilliance, one has to pay for 7X as many minutes of artistic blech.  Hey, Barnes & Noble, where do I go if I wasn’t completely satisfied with my purchase?

Singles Reviews
Timber Feat. Ke$ha –

“Swing your partnuh round and round / End of the night is going down. / One more shot, another round / End of the night is going down.”

Ah, romantic poetry at its finest.  To be honest, I’m actually diggin’ (that phrase is like totes current, right?) the harmonica jingle that opens this great American love song; in fact, I could probably listen to the isolated harmonica for an hour or half or a minute without succumbing to insanity.  It’s a terrific sound.  Then Ke$ha and Pitbull start blathering about taking their clothes off, twerking till the end of the night is going down, and I don’t really know what because it sounds like they’re garbling marbles.  Timber will continue to enjoy its 10 seconds of fame as society indulges the current fantasy that guy-girl rap-pop combos are cool, but we all know that trend will be felled when classical electronica conquers the world.  Or at least when we’ve heard the crap out of it in public, on television, through radio, etc.  That the song makes corny references to has-been Miley Cyrus and hails from an album entitled after a has-been crisis (it’s ‘Climate Change’, not ‘Global Warming’, Mr. Bull) is all the more testament to its thankful impermanence.

Tick tock goes the clock for this piece of junk and the junk singers behind it.  The end of its night is goin’ down, it’s goin’ down…  I don’t know what that means, but it sure sounds catchy enough to get me a couple million hits.  That and the word “diggitydogs”.  My authorial dictionary just grew a little.

I love how the way they spruce up these totally moronic hedonist hymns, making the most classless things sound so classy, which just shows it doesn’t matter what you sing so long as you do it with the right image and inflection.  That reminds me of debate.

The Monster.  Ain’t that right.  Feat. Rihanna. –

I wouldn’t even give this monstrosity the favor of my acknowledgment under ordinary circumstances, but the rancorous cacophony of “whur-hoooah, whuh-ooooh” all across the airwaves* has driven me over the edge of sanity, compelling me to face this bull by the horns.  Conspiracy theorists have always fretted about government elites controlling citizens’ behavior through chem trails and public television, but their most dangerous instrument of mind control by far is channeled through the radio.  In truth, I can’t suffer myself to try deciphering any of the Eminem speed-raps, which sound just like every other Eminem speed-rap and are about as legible as a typical college debater’s rebuttal, but the gratingly hypnotic Rihanna refrain about the monster that’s under her bed and voices inside of her head is more than enough to stir even my own, deeply suppressed zombie impulses.

Words fail me to describe the utter loathing I hold for this BS.  It even flubs the most basic of rapper songwriting standards: “you’re trying to save me / stop holding your breath” doesn’t need to be logically coherent, but it should at least rhyme with “head” or “bed”.  But then maybe it’s my fault for trying to pick apart the artistry of a self-indulgent rap by Eminem about other raps by Eminem where the hook has no logical, thematic correlation to the verses.  Does that make me craaaazy, do you think I’m craaaaazy?

I just thought of another song with the same chorus right as I was typing that.  A much better song. Probably…

Animals Feat. No Real Instruments, Voices, Rhythm, Or Anything Else –

As its title indicates, this song doesn’t have any lyrics, real instruments, or components one might generally associate with music, so why is it all over the map on my radio?  You can’t sing along to it, as there’s no singing, you can’t relate to it, as there’s no plot, message, or emotion to relate to, you can’t work or drive effectively to it, as it’s painful to the ears, and you can’t even hum it, as the whole thing consists of computer-generated sound effects that jump around in a mad disorder.  Dubstep killed the music artist.  What a senseless culture we live in where a teenager can punch a couple buttons in GarageBand and call it ‘music’ and actually get it picked up by FM channels.

Just Give Me A Reason Feat. Nate Ruess –

Unlike many songs littering pop culture today, Just Give Me A Reason is unique in its message.  Where most songs concerning the topic of love will be about the writer’s tragic break-up with his/her boyfriend/girlfriend, P!nk’s chart-topping hit told the story of a couple who decided to get back together and make up for their past troubles and arguments.  So it’s no wonder why I found this “make-up” song a nice relief from the monotony of failed romances being paraded on iTunes.

Just Give me a Reason is also different from many of P!nk’s own songs.  Instead of the customary swearing and severe sound editing, P!nk sings to a single piano, making use of the power of her voice rather than hiding behind voice editing.  Nate Ruess, known for, well, not much really, also performs well.  The gist of the song is that two true lovers begin to think the other doesn’t love him/her self, despite reassurances from the other.  The song sends out mixed messages, implying that both of them are subconsciously imagining things so as to be able to break up with one another, but at the same time it seems to say that they love each other more than anything.  I’m not usually much for love songs, especially ones concerning the troubles of one’s romance (although I did buy Red several weeks back, a review of which is forthcoming), but yet I found this song to be appealing, most notably because it didn’t any one message, but rather encouraged the listener to dissect the lyrics and emotions heard in the song.

Of all P!nk’s works, this is undoubtedly my favorite.  I had also enjoyed The Great Escape, and Try, although I still don’t prefer them to Just Give me a Reason.  But I’ve disliked some of her previous works, including Bad Influence and ****in’ Perfect, and I’ve had mixed feelings toward Sober and Who Knew. P!nk’s career isn’t broken, just bent, and she can learn to sing again… See what I did there?

Dark Horse Feat. Juicy J. –

“(Sirens blaring in background) Katy Perry.  Juicy J.  Uhuh… Let’s rain.”

Uhuh.  Bring the rain – sounds like a movie I’ve seen a tad too many times.  I must accede, that part’s kind of funny, mostly because this is the only song that “Juicy J” (why is it that all rappers insist on going by ridiculous stage names?) will ever make in his life, he reads about as many lines as Perry, minus the idiotic echo effects and vocal tuning, and he still gets stuck as a “feature”.  It’s also an appropriately awkward, contrived prelude to Katy Perry’s least worst album of her career, Illuminatipyramid Prism, which is full of D-songs like her past endeavors in the secular, bubblegum pop realm but stands apart for featuring a rare and refreshing C-song as its lead single that will make you want to stand up and roar in enthusiasm at your radio set.  Or in fury.

I’m joshing you, of course.  Neither Dark Horse Feat. Juicy J. nor Roar hold a candle to the hauntingly sensual vocals of Teenage Dream or Last Friday Night, nor do they retain the powerful symbolism and explosive energy of Firework, Wide Awake, or Hot And Cold.  But those are reviews for another time, as in never ever ever.  Like, ever.  Especially not after she pulled that Obama 2012 T-shirt stunt at various concerts.  Or that anti-Islam something or other in the Dark Horse music video that the Muslim thought police rallied so hard to remove that someone finally caved and digitally sliced it out of Youtube.  I don’t know what it was exactly, but supposedly it was hurting a lot of people’s feelings, so I’m glad they censored it.

Heh, did you notice how I said next to nothing about the song itself and passed it off as a review anyway?  Like a BOSS.

Can’t Hold Us Feat. Ray Dalton –

Say what you want about Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis’ shameless hijacking of a black art form for astronomical profits, pop-laced bastardization of the hip-hop name, intermittent misogyny, pompous rejection of objective, immutable sexuality, nutty interpretation of the 9/11 terror attacks, and inability to write or say anything that means anything (no, licensed music critics, Thrift Shop isn’t a pointed comment on rap luxury culture – it’s just stupidity for its own sake), but the dudes can sure as annual debt ceiling increases write a catchy beat, which is why theirs are the only raps on which I’ll ever bestow the honor of a place in these Files.  Mackelmore shoots off ‘verses’ like a military-style assault weapon of war, so blustery and rapid-fire that I can hardly isolate a single sentence in my mind; that’s a good thing. But I can still belt the chorus with the best of them – probably have in the shower on multiple occasions. There really is nothing so visceral and hypnotic to turn a guy on as this or the provocative sax tape of Thrift Shop, which incidentally is getting plundered all over the place by the likes of Jason Derulo.

I hear your groaning now: too much information, and none of it remotely trustworthy.  Only automated, church-going lemmings tuned into visual cues (“I’ll STAND / With ARMS HIGH and heart abandoned…”) could throw their hands up for this anthem to… something or another.  Fightin’ till it’s over, ’cause it’s the moment, and tonight is the night, and we give it to the people, or whatever New Age balderdash is currently trending in Seattle.  It all just sounds like: Na na nana / na nana na.

No-no-not that that’s bad, though.  In all seriousness, this is infinitely hummable with or without lyrics.  From the entrancing keyboard/piano part and unexpected trumpet solo to the seamless transitions between Haggerty and Dalton to the madly boisterous and cinematic music video that doesn’t reflect the words in any way, everything about it is superb.  This is the rap of all raps; if any single could vindicate its tradition against all critics and deliver its genre from the halls of infamy, it would be this, a testament to what “hip-hop” could be and, hopefully, an ambassador of what is to come.  That is, once we get rid of Eminem, Pitbull, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Derulo, Nicki Minaj, and anyone who’s “feated” on The Heist except for Ray Dalton.

This guy almost plays as well as Lindsey Stirling.

These guys don’t play half as well without Lindsey Stirling.

And these guys have nothing to do with Lindsey Stirling, thank goodness.  Maybe I should feel guilty for thinking this is the 38^th best music video I’ve ever seen (I don’t really like the Starships, Pokemon, Eppic, or LMFAO ones; I’m still a little bewildered that the LMFAO one even exists).

SexyBack Feat. Timbaland –

When you write a song called something like “Sexy Back” that’s all about, um, bringing sexy back (to a woefully undersexed industry, I presume), you unavoidably set a very high bar for yourself to match.  While I can briefly commend Justin Timberlake for trying to reach such an ambitious goal, I can just as briefly close this review by saying he doesn’t.  Sounding sometimes like a songified Fifty Shades novel by Ayn Rand with its grueling portraits of love in all its torturous, sadomasochistic passion and other times like the clean edit of P!nk’s “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” with its awfully timed bleeps of certain four-letter words, it’s only depressing that “(Bringing) Sexy Back” does anything but that.  On the bright side, it no longer holds the distinction of being the most overproduced pop club song, having officially been bested by “Mirrors”.

Ready Or Not Feat. Lecrae –

If I were to hear this song on some random radio station, I would most likely not categorize it as inherently Christian.  I would probably call it either pop or hip-hop.  The only possible references to Christianity are a vague metaphorical reference to “this little light inside a me” and “showing the world where the love is”.  But, alas, it is generalized as part of the Gospel/Christian genre when it should be labeled as pop/rap.

The song is all around obnoxious, indulgent, stupid, and thoughtless garbage.  Britt Nicole sings alongside droning, stereotypical pop music and [C]rap “singer” Lecrae, whose inclusion is unnecessary and only included so as to fit in with the Christian rap sub-genre.  The song is blatantly stereotypical in just about any conceivable way, from the Christian/pop lyrics to the ridiculous switchboard sound effects to the incessant repetition of important lyrics.  The whole song falls into the typical four-line verse/insert chorus trend that’s so popular in pop music at the moment.  The writers also heroically managed to condense the words “I am going to” into “I’mma”, a feat that will be marveled at for centuries to come.

Drunk In Love Feat. Jay-Z –

There are a lot of really bad Beyonce songs out there, but all of them look relatively sober next to Drunk In Love, which is sung in quite the same tenor as you might infer from the title.  The Obama family’s perfect role model sounds completely intoxicated in this record, from the chorus’ overly processed and shrieky wails to the awkward, stuttery delivery of the verses to Yonce’s intermediary rap that’s terrible even by rap’s own standards, which the Jay-Z part in the conclusion proves demonstrably.  Hey, Magna Shawn Carter – whatever your stupid, made-up Latin pseudonym is –, why don’t you let your wife do the singing without distractions and stop trying (successfully) to up-stage her?  Yo the feature in this song, not the star, but no one could discern that by ear because you so monstrously out-perform the real starring act (keeping your clothes on in the music video and live shows doesn’t hurt, of course).  Then again, I suppose one can only sound so professional when singing along to such elaborate and poetic conceits as “grinding, grin-grin-grinding on a surfboard, swerv-swer-swerving on a surfboard”, “drinking awwauughall night”, and “Monica Lewinskying all over my gown”.  Oh, wait.  Sorry.  That’s a line out of the one you won’t be hearing on the radio.

As if it wasn’t already bad enough, it also plagiarizes the fake finger-snapping percussion from Royals, and not the infinitely superior Puddles version.  Did Beyonce just roll out of bed in the morning, go up in the club, drink beer with the guys, put together whatever she wanted, and go with it?  Alas, there aren’t any halos to see on this album – only skin.

Say Something Feat. Christina Aguilera –

I like that this song doesn’t use any rap segments or distracting instruments to gloss over weak voices.  I don’t like that it’s as slow and boring as any elevator music and has just three or four piano notes repeated over and over again.  Let’s retract that first statement: the piano in this drives me crazy.  Dun dun dun dun dun… agh!  Why is it even there if it only makes one sound?  If you’re going to incorporate such a versatile and evocative tool, at least do something with it.  The same goes for the human voice: with some of the least difficult and lyrically interesting melodies short of, um, Jingle Bells, it’s no large wonder why reality show contestants and cover artists the nation over flock to give their uniquely melancholy spins on Say Something, knowing that they can easily equal if not surpass the original recording. That the lead singer of Great Big World bungles all efforts to infuse his part with any audible emotion only makes his imitators’ jobs all the easier.  Dude, you’re losing/have already lost the love of your life or whoever the person you’re giving up on is.  Say something like you mean it!  Anything!  Your supposedly profound and heartbreaking ballad would be obnoxious even if it wasn’t playing everywhere and drilling the most rhymey of rhymes into our craniums. Notice to aspiring poets/songwriters: not every one of your lines needs to end with an “ou” or an “eye” or an “all”.

In the end, I think Tobuscus put it most succinctly when he said that “they wrote this song just to depress you / when this song is done you’ll need a tissue.”  Christina Aguilera and G.B.W. (never too late to change your acronym) probably “won’t be satisfied / until everyone in / the whole world has cried.”  Or everyone in the whole world minus one, as they won’t be getting any tears from this auth – wait a minute.  What’s this I just found?  Oh my…

*Sniff.*

NO, I won’t!  Keep it together, man.

*Sniff.*

Ah, what’s the use in holding it down?  So BEAUTIFUL.  That’s gotta be the saddest violin cover of Say Something in the universe.

Say Hey (I Love You) Feat. Cherine Anderson –

As similar as they may appear, Say Hey Feat. Cherine Anderson and Say Something Feat. Christina Aguilera couldn’t be more diametrically opposed.  Where the one is a deliberately dreary and down-beat adagio that takes a long time to ironically say just about nothing, the other is a delightfully joyous and upbeat song about a boy and girl that wastes no time in saying that most simple and beautiful something known to man: “It seems like everywhere I go / the more I see the less I know / but I know one thing / I love you.” This is the kind of (dare I use a cliché?) uplifting, carefree tune that can only make you feel happyyyyyy… Who needs ghetto games or another love song for the world when you can listen to Say Hey instead?

Everything Is AWESOME!!! Feat. The Lonely Island –

I thought that Everything is Awesome was a socialist song with a line including working together.  It would have been much better off if it had Lindsey Stirling in it.  The song was so vapid that it should be remade by Puddles Pity Party.  It made as much sense as flambé being a word.  The rap part was also extremely vapid.  I mean what is an awesome possum?  Well I presume I have insulted that annoyingly nonsensical song enough.  DON'T SPEND YOUR MONEY ON THIS SONG.

Wake me up when this post’s over, when I’m wiser and much, much older… Feat. Aloe “Bacon” Blacc –
…

Senior Executive Vice-Assistant of the editing board to the Chief Editor: Mr. Rex, you’ve fulfilled your critical quota.  The word count hit 4400 a while ago, and you’re just skirting the 1 MB limit.  Sir?  Hello?  Anyone home?  Mcfly?
Unpaid staff intern: My God, he’s sleeping on the job.  I never realized the toll that all this Top 40 trash can take on a guy.
The Author’s D.J.: I don’t think God cares about his sleeping patterns.  Hold on.  This’ll wake him up.



Shnaaaaughpheeew – whuhsthat?  Who?  Oh.  That video.  Transformers girl.  Meh, she’s ok.  For a moment I thought… never mind.

I suppose I have to review this one too, don’t I?  So tired of doing this unappreciated job… let’s get it over with, then.

The lyrics to Wake Me Up don’t make a lot of logical sense; for one, the act of waking someone up requires that the person aroused be asleep to begin with, in which state he is rather poorly disposed to grow in either age or wisdom, unless “waking up” is supposed to be some kind of trite symbolic image for discovering the meaning of life that the writers considered really insightful and novel and all that cal.  Nor do the bits about “finding oneself”, “carrying the weight of the world”, “being lost”, etc. ever achieve any real substantive import, and even if they somehow did, they would still be drowned beneath the out-of-place electronic track that follows.

Wake Me Up kind of feels like two respectable but radically different singles that a lazy, ADD-afflicted producer forced together without much care to tempering either’s extremes or adapting either’s strengths for the other.  Aloe Blacc’s voice is adequately soothing on its own with just a supporting guitar and the isolated dance beats of Avicii are perfectly passable as energetic workout-type fare, but the two never play off each other that well.  As a purely acoustic and lyrical song, Wake Me Up is fairly enjoyable by brain-dead pop standards, and as a purely synthy, instrumental song, it’s fairly tolerable by the standards of its similarly brain-dead genre.  When it stabs at being both old and new, traditional and liberal, natural and produced, it’s just kind of brain-dead.



* I don’t even listen to the airwaves that much, even to hear a select few talk radio hosts. There are around three or four stations available in quick succession on a handheld radio that I impatiently flip through as “research” for this series, and there are times when two of them are playing the exact same junk simultaneously, one being introduced by Ryan Seacrest or a fill-in and the other by hopeless Seacrest-imitator Mario Lopez.  One Direction’s Story Of My Life fired on each just a minute ago, for instance.  Oh, the pains I subject myself to for my readership.  (This is where an obligatory “I love you guys” is due.)

** Half and hour later, it just happened again with that gahforsaken Katy Perry Feat. rap song. Ack.

*** And the third channel is doing some kind of Beatles marathon.  Hashtag Overrated.  Is this what hippie easy listening sounds like, and am I really to think these guys are the best band ever?  Ha!  Maybe in a yellow submarine.

**** And guest-host Demi Lovato summed up her Neon Lights tour in one word as “AWESOME”.  A really intellectual reformed coke addict, she is.  There’s just one concert I’m looking at this year, girl, and it’s not yours.  But you all know what I’m talking about, right?  It’s not like I have to spell it out or crystallize it for you.

… What’s that, George?  Miley Cyrus “Bangerz”?  The hell… Have you even been reading this website?  Gaaaw.  What do I pay you idiots, again?  Oh right – nothing.  Well, I suppose that’s the kind of imbecilic commentary one gets for free around this joint.