I don't fucking get it (get off my lawn edition).

So, ok, first of all, I kind of like not stressing on coming up with nuggets of mental quicksilver over the weekends.  I like spending quality time with the wife, watching bad movies on Netflix, getting baked and generally putting my brain on autopilot for a couple days and letting the soil regain ferility.  That's not to say that I won't get a wild hair up my ass to throw something up here on a Saturday or a Sunday night or whatever, but in general I'm not going to beat myself up for taking a day or two off.  Hopefully you, my loyal readers, will understand.

That being said, Monday is here and I'm up at the crack of noon ready to churn out more excellence.  I've felt kind of weighted down by the strongly political posts I made to end the week, and as much as I like to pontificate about my ideology and try to indoctrinate people into my wonderful world of common sense whenever possible, it has a tendency to turn me into a cynical old bastard.  Case in point, I'm watching TV and seeing all the previews for shows and it occurs to me that there is a lot about pop culture these days that I just don't get.  Not that I don't understand it, but that I simply don't get it.  I am aware that this is the inevitable result of cultural tectonic shift, where the plates upon which pop culture is built gradually shift and move around so that after a few earthquakes and tremors, you now find yourself on the other side of a huge generation gap.  I was once the young kid, trying to explain to my parents how the music I liked, the clothes I wanted to wear, the shows I wanted to watch on tv were all cool and that they just didn't get it.  However, I still liked plenty of stuff that was cool long before I came along and still remains cool today, stuff like Bugs Bunny, Black Sabbath, punk rock and blowjobs.  At the same time, there were aspects of popular culture for my generation growing up that I thought was absolutely stupid and I simply didn't get, and it wasn't an age thing at all, because I was the age of the people who loved this shit, I just didn't see what the big deal was.  Like when Pretty Woman came out, and everyone was raving about what an amazing movie it was and every girl I knew in school LOVED it, almost as much as Dirty Dancing, and I just thought "It's a movie about a streetwalking whore who gets hired by a billionaire, and he pays her a bunch of money and only fucks her a couple times and then falls in love with her and wants to marry her and never makes her get a single fucking AIDS test... I don't get it!"  I mean I guess I kind of do get it, it's a Cinderella story and it's every girl's fantasy to be swept off her feet by a rich and handsome prince charming and oh that Julia Roberts is just so beautfiul and elegant and she really is Hollywood royalty and blah blah fuckity blah blah.  Ok, except she's playing a STREET WHORE.  I mean, no offense to the hard-working street whores who are out there every day sucking dirty cocks in alleys for crack money, but... well... THAT'S what being a street whore is all about!  In what fucking world does Julia Roberts have to suck dick for money on the street and she doesn't even have a meth addiction?  For fuck's sake, she was well-educated even!  Not only that, but in what parallel universe does a billionaire who looks like Richard Gere have to pick up a street ho to get laid?  Didn't he get the black book of eastern European escorts that comes with the keys to the executive washroom?  For the amount of money he plunked down on Roberts' corner ho ass, he could have got Miss Ukraine 1990 to wear a collar and be his dog for a month.  Worst part of all, those weren't even her real tits in that one and only scene in a movie about a prostitute where titties were actually shown.  She used a body double.  Not that I give two shits about seeing Julia Roberts' tits, her being considered "One of the most beautiful women in Hollywood" is yet another thing I don't get, but it's sort of a metaphor for her character in the movie... she takes your money, doesn't deliver even close to what you expect for what you paid, and leaves you wishing the other girl would have got in the car instead.  So yeah, there's a lot of stuff I don't get, and I don't think it's just a generation gap thing, I think some stuff is just not that great and people just mindlessly buy into the hype.  Case in point...

Glee

I get it, but I don't get it.  It's a musical comedy, I get that.  It's got a talented cast and one of my favorite female comedy actresses working right now, Jane Lynch, I get that.  It's about an inexplicably talented high school glee club that sings well enough to make half the shows on Broadway look like shit, yet only cares about making it to "Nationals", which seem to happen about every 5th episode... and you're starting to lose me...  It's funny but yet it's not funny funny.  I have watched a few episodes, because everyone I know who likes it insists that I would love it if I just "give it a chance," and I have chuckled a time or two here and there, but I don't LOL at it, and I certainly don't LMAO or ROFL.  Yet, all I hear is how it is so "hilarious".  I hear how awesome the song performances are, "Omg, they did this awesome mash-up of 'Stop In the Name of Love' and 'Free Your Mind', you gotta hear it!"  I'm thinking, ok, that sounds fucking horrible.  Really?  Then, finally, last Halloween they had this big promotion about how Glee was going to do a Rocky Horror Picture Show tribute episode and I was thinking "Ok, this could make me a fan..."  Because I love TRHPS.  I was wary, as I always am when I hear someone is going to do a tribute to or a remake of something that I am a genuine fan of, because the odds are high that they will completely fuck it up and make a disasterous trainwreck out of it, but then I figured hey, Glee is obviously a very pro-gay show and they don't seem to shy away from taking on controversial themes about sexuality and alternative lifestyles, so I figured if any musical TV show could pay homage to the greatest, campy, musical, gender-bending freakshow musical of all time, it's a show about campy, musical, gender-bending freaks produced by a gay dude.  Alas, as I suspected, they blew it, and not like in the way Frankenfurter blew Brad.  I mean, they had a girl playing Frankenfurter... A GIRL!  The whole point is that he's a TRANSVESTITE!  There's an entire song about it in the movie!  As bad as that show made me feel for fans of the original Rocky Horror Picture Show, it made me feel even sadder for the poor kids who are going to go to a midnight showing of it, expecting a nice, funny, vintage version of what they did on Glee only to be scarred for life by the cross-dressing, neo-fetish orgy of flying props and bisexuality that is erupting around them.  Also, Ryan Murphy, the producer of the show, is an asshole.  He berates bands who don't fall all over themselves to let Glee use their music on the show, as if having your songs butchered by his cast was the greatest accomplishment in an artists career.  Dude's a pompous douche and while that has nothing to do with why I don't get the show itself, it helps me feel better about not getting it.

Spongebob Squarepants

I know I'm going to catch hell for this one, because I have a lot of friends who swear that Spongebob is the shit and I'm crazy for not loving it.  Like Glee, I have tried to get into watching Spongebob, but I just don't get it.  Ok, it's a dude who's a sponge, and he's square shaped and he wears pants, fucking awesome.  He's got a pet snail named Gary who meows like a cat... ok?  He's best friends with a pink starfish named Patrick and a squirrel that lives in an underwater dome tree for some reason named Sandy Cheeks... ...

I guess I'm doing the wrong drugs...

My friends tell me that the completely fucked up and random nature of the cast and similarly chaotic storyline is why Spongebob is so great.  Personally, I think it's why 80% of the under-18 population is on Ritalin.  I've probably watched a dozen episodes, like a kid trying to learn how to smoke and choking his way through pack after pack until he can finally take a drag without coughing like a pussy, and I'm still not addicted to the nicotine.  I don't get Spongebob, and I don't care.

The Kardashian Family

I'm sure a lot less people will disagree with me on this one.  As with the other examples, I get why the Kardashians (well, Kim at least) are popular, but I don't get it.  Ok, Kim is a hot piece of ass (aside from her horse face), and by hot piece of ass I mean her ass is a hot piece, and she's got big titties and all that good shit, I get that.  Also, she made a sex tape and posed in Playboy, so I get that she should have all the fame due to a porn star and titty model.  What I don't get is how she becomes a fucking A-List celebrity, and what I really don't get is how her family becomes almost as famous just by being related to her...  Somehow, Paris Hilton managed to figure out a way to parlay sucking cock on camera into A-List superstardom, but at least to her meager credit, she had already worked long and hard to establish a name for herself as a shameless attention whore who was known for nothing else except always being around when cameras were flashing.  Making the leap to amateur sex tape starlet was almost as expected as the news that she has herpes.  Since launching her career into the stratosphere by having loads launched onto her face and tits, Paris has done movies, television, released a perfume line or two and is even talking about following in her grandfather's footsteps and opening her own hotel chain - which is the one career move that actually makes perfect sense for a hotel heiress.  All in all, while she may have made a name for herself initially by doing nothing, Paris is at least now trying to maintain her brand by doing something.
In contrast, Kim Kardashian seems perfectly content rising up the ladder of fame by doing absolutely nothing to deserve it.  She made a sex tape and posed nude, and then like all good infamous porn whores, she parlayed that notoriety into an E show, because apparently E loves making celebrities out of talentless cocksuckers.  So, ok, fine.  I don't begrudge anyone capitalizing on their 15 minutes of fame by milking it for all it's worth, but then something completely ridiculous happened.  All of a sudden, Kim is appearing on red carpets and is all over the celebrity gossip circuit and her show is a huge hit and now we're being introduced to her even more worthless and untalented sisters...  You know, I don't even blame the Kardashians, I blame America.  What the fuck is wrong with you America?  Are you really this stupid and easy to please?  Everyone I know says they can't stand the Kardashians and wish they would go away, and yet her show was a big hit, and now her sisters have a show and people are watching it as well, so somebody's lying!  Also, I love how major corporations are paying her to do commercials for them.  If they're gonna use porn stars to sell burgers and jeans, might I recommend Sasha Grey?  She's just as annoying and full of herself as Kim K, but she sucks milk out of a chick's ass and lets guys piss on her, way cooler if you ask me...

Step your game up, Kim...

Dancing Shows

I am impressed by people who can dance, because I can't dance and I always wished that I could.  I always admired the kids in school who knew all the latest dance moves and showed them off at the school dances.  I appreciate the talent and hard work that it takes to be a professional dancer, as well as the work it takes just to dance as a hobby or a form of exercise.  I respect artists of all types and the work that they do and I don't disparage them at all for it.  What I don't understand is Dancing With the Stars.
I don't get this show, never have and probably never will.  I don't care about watching pseudo-celebrities riding their 15 minute wave and falling stars trying to grab every handhold they can on their way down flopping around like turds with inner ear disorders with their frustrated professional dancer partners trying to make them look good as they do it.  It's the same show every year, a bunch of celebrities who can't dance for shit compete to see who's going to be popular enough to get voted off last and a couple who actually have a modicum of dancing talent make it to the end and the one who had years of dancing experience in their past miraculously wins.  Boring.
Like the Kardashians, I have to blame America for the popularity of shitty dance shows of late.  Burgeoned by the success of Dancing With the Stars, a whole slew of hackey dance shows have cropped up on television.  From Paula Abdul's terrible dancing competition, which combines both the baffling national obsession with dance shows with their love affair with chicks who are a total trainwreck, to all the other dime a dozen competitions that last about a season, if that, to So You Think You Can Dance?  Which is good for basically two things, clips of people eating shit in spectacular fashion and making fun of that annoying WOOHOO! bitch.  Still, that alone is not good enough reason for a show to be popular, people need to put down the crack pipe.  Speaking of untalented, annoying, shit-eaters who can only possibly rationalize their popularity as a perfect storm of public boredom and crack abuse...

The Jersey Shore

Unfortunately, this doesn't happen every show. :(

The national obsession with the lowest common denominator of society is not a new phenomenon.  We've always been riveted by watching the outrageous behavior of people who are classless, trashy, amoral and wonderfully oblivious to it all.  MTV has dug in to this niche like a deer tick with Jersey Shore.  After lubing up our holes with relatively tame reality trainwreck fare like The Real World, The Hills and such and sticking the tip in here and there with outrageous little ditties like Jackass, Rob & Big and Wildboyz, they have finally started thrusting balls-deep with Jersey Shore.  It's all out there now, the human garbage that litters the Jersey coastline like so many used syringes and empty beer cans.  I'm convinced the Jersey Shore is like crack, because everyone I know who's addicted to it says they only tried it a couple times before they were hooked and they're all totally ashamed to admit they have a problem.  What's really fucked up though is I keep getting hits of second hand smoke from the media, who just can't get enough of shows about self-oblivious, shameless, douche-chill inducing fuckwads and keep beating me over the head with that fucking oompa loompa Snooki and all her idiotic friends and fuck buddies.  It all comes full circle with Dancing With the Stars though, because the second most often used cast member name from that show that I hear - The Situation - was on there last season with yet another "Why are we having this person forced upon us as someone we should care about by the media?" personality, Bristol Palin.  In this glorious moment of synergy, we got to see a cartoon characature of shameless, self-absorbed Jersey trash interacting with a textbook example of the suburban consumer of said trash and the quintessential product of absentee parenting by a hypocritical conservative shit head, all thrown into the "we'll make a fucking star out of anyone" dance competiton sensation.  It was like that old Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial "You got douche in my fame whoring!  You got fame whoring in my douche!  Great, we both have herpes now and I'm pregnant again!"

These Bathing Suits

Sorry Taylor, I'm really happy for your success and I'mma let you finish, but that is the ugliest bikini of ALL TIME...

Wake up in the morning looking like P Diddy, got the torso of a man and some pancake titties...

I don't get why women want to look uglier the less clothes they have on.  This is a disturbing new trend among celebrity ladies, these retro throwback God-awful granny panty bikinis.  It's not as if the tops are any prize either, it's as if the entire outfit is designed to make the female body as undesirable as possible while at the same time putting it on display... oh wait, that's exactly why these bikinis were designed.  They're a product of the prudish 20's and 30's, when people were just starting to become progressive enough to allow women to take off their floor-dragging full dress and corset combos at the beach and wear something slightly comfortable and suited for warm weather and playing in the ocean, but they still wanted to make sure cock-stomping modesty was the rule of the day.  Back then, this shit was probably risqué as hell and got dudes harder than Chinese arithmetic, but today it's like the opposite of viagra, it's what I picture in my head now so I can hold out longer during sex.  I don't get why this look is popular.  Whatever happened to being pretty?  Right now, somewhere in America, Sisqo is like "Man, remember when I made thongs popular as hell?" and then some dude hands him the keys to his car and says "Who the hell are you talking to?  Just park this somewhere well-lit and don't scratch the paint getting out like the last guy did."

Twilight

Ugh, I don't even want to fucking get started on this shit.  You know what, I'll just do a whole seperate post one day about how much Twilight fucking sucks and how it sets back not only the vampire and werewolf genres, but pretty much the entire literary world 200 years, and not the good 200 years where like great American novels were written and shit, but the bad 200 years, when people thought leeches cured colds and the moon was made out of green cheese.  Fuck Stephanie Meyer, fuck teams Edward and Jacob, fuck Bella and fuck the 40-something "Twilight Moms" who have no problem shamelessly lusting after 17-year old boys.

Ok, I'm gonna go have a drink, I'll be back later...  You kids GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!