Bad Indie Rock Vs. George Bush (Guess Who Wins?) Also: Conor Oberst Is A Vagina.

Since MySpace has begun posting group bulletins on its homepage, and since apparently I'm a member of about eighty different anti-Bush groups, I have begun to notice a daily barrage of "Bush sucks!" blabber posted by pseudo-activist 21 year olds whose idea of "protesting" involves little more than preaching to the MySpace choir by passing around anti-war catch phrases to their digital friends. Among these posts, one in particular caught my attention. One that is so laughably pathetic, I couldn't help calling your attention to it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bush Agenda has new enemy, and it's...

This guy:



That's right. We're saved. Today, as I was reading the news from Iraq, wondering if there was any hope left, I stumbled upon the following MySpace bulletin from a stunningly mediocre New York indie band called Rockets And Cars:

Subject:
Protest Bush!

Body:
If you are against the Bush agenda, check out our site, and listen to the song "The Protest." We wrote it in response to the Iraqi invasion early in 2003, hoping it would help rally up national resistance, and help turn America into a more democratic state. Well, Kerry lost, and we still have no voice. Hopefully this song will catch on, and incite some resistance against Bush's stupidity.

We walk the city streets every day, and play what we see.

The Beatles promised you a revolution. We're carrying out phase I.

Rockets and Cars

Yes, oh yes. Hope has arrived. I'm not sure if it's the brazen arrogance or the hilarious delusion that offends me most about this bulletin, but it definitely holds no shortage of either. Yes, you self-righteous, fire-crotched, tiny leather jacket wearing dipshit; if there was ever a way to "rally up national resistance," it's through another shitty song by yet another derivative New York® band that no one listens to. Certainly, if there was ever a way to turn the heads of Bush loyalists, the message should come from a group of snotty little "ironic" hipster twats shouting a fourth rate Clash song which effectively paints a protest rally as a social event where trustfund babies can smoke cigarettes, watch their favorite local bands play, show off their new anti-Bush shirt that they spent all afternoon silkscreening from a faded, 15 year old rock tee they paid $60 for at Search & Destroy, and regurgitate half-truths they saw on "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "The Daily Show," which was as much effort as they put into researching the situation. I'm sure the Republicans are trembling in their loafers.

But who knows, maybe I'm just being cynical. Maybe, as they suggest, "the song will catch on, and incite some resistance against Bush's stupidity." That's a good point. I'm sure the crowd at The Continental at 8:00 on monday night who are only suffering through your band because they they thought happy hour was still going on - I'm sure they're really on the fence about Bush, and your song playing in the background as they try to shout over it to order a drink is really going to open their eyes. I'm sure both of the people who bought your record were huge Republicans until they heard those inspired words of yours: "I'll see you down at the protest." Ah, now that's the voice of a disaffected youth! And John Lennon, were he with us today, God rest his soul, would be nothing short of elated to pass on his vision of a revolution to such a worthy group of well-informed activists and - might I add - talented musicians.

What all of this brings to mind is the general misconception throughout MySpace - and youth in general - in regards to protesting, what it is, and what makes it effective. Young people like to think that having an obvious and often ill-informed opinion and sharing it with like-minded individuals makes them activists. Guess what? It doesn't. Posting a bulletin to your fellow anti-Bush MySpacers with some funny quotes about Republicans does not mean you've contributed to a social movement. Starting the 900th "BUSH SUCKS!!!111" MySpace group does not qualify as civil disobedience. Passing around a chain-letter petition of names of people who oppose the war in Iraq is not a progressive form of dissention. It's not even remotely effective. And, most of all, jumping on the indie rock "I wrote an anti-Bush song, look how proactive I am" bandwagon and advertising it on MySpace is certainly fucking not, under any circumstances, even the most meager form of protest. You want to make a difference? You genuinely care about all of this? Give up on your self-righteous high school wet dream of "being in a band" and devote your time to organized protest groups who are smarter than you, and actually know how to make a difference on a large scale. Oh, what's that? You don't want to do that? You'd rather just be in a band and voice your dissent through songs no one wants to hear? Well then write songs about haircuts and cigarettes like every other shallow garage rock rip-off, and shut the fuck up.

Okay, that's off my chest. Now it's time to talk about this guy:



Conor fucking Oberst. I hate this guy. I hate his stupid face, and I hate his army of weeping teenage girls going fucking Beatlemania over some sissy-ass, 90lb. little poetry-writing vagina. But mostly, I hate his fucking music. Bright Eyes can slurp my fucking ballsweat, it sucks so Goddamn hard. Conor Oberst is not "the Bob Dylan of our generation." He's a whiny little emo bedwetter faggot scribbling in his diary about how he couldn't find a date to the prom. Fuuuuuuck offffff.

Okay, maybe what I hate the most is the unending avalanche of respect this twatburger manages to command from every corner of the music world, just because a bunch of suburban high school kids with stupid haircuts were dumb enough to worship him and his subsequent tidal wave of testosterone-less crybaby imitators contributing to the pussyfication of indie music. If you're a music critic, somehow you're just not allowed to say bad things about Conor "Please Insert It In My Butt, But Be Gentle" Oberst, and what reminded me of that was reading a vomit-inducing page of shameless Conor-worship in this week's issue of The Onion.

Now, before I go any further, I should say that I love The Onion. I adore it. Satire is the most difficult form of comedy, and they do it flawlessly, spot-on, week after week. It's some of the smartest shit out there. However, their music and movie reviews are some of the most pretentious bullshit I've ever read. Consider this quote I dug up from a recent Onion movie review of The Machinist:

Like far too many contemporary neo-noirs, The Machinist feels hermetic, overly deterministic, and secondhand, less an honest reaction to the cruel absurdity of existence than a shallow attempt to ape the claustrophobic, fashionable despair of post-war noirs. Scott Kosar's script and Anderson's direction fetishize despair in ways that border on comic. The copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot sitting in Bale's apartment qualifies as light reading for the film; if Bale were ever to take Sánchez-Gijón up on her offer of a movie date, they'd no doubt take in a double feature of The Sorrow And The Pity and Shoah.

What the fuck? Who the fuck writes like that? Oh wow, you took "History Of Film 101" AND you own a thesaurus? I'm really fucking impressed! Movie reviews aren't meant to be exercises in linguistic self-appreciation, you smug fucking dicks. Anyway, my point is that it didn't at all come as a surprise that The Onion's talented crew of critical wordsmiths had nothing but big sloppy orgasms over Bright Eyes' latest two albums. Yeah, that's right, Conor is just SUCH an important artist that he needs to release TWO albums at the same time! Oh Conor, you're so fucking brilliant! Shower me with your genius! Let me spurt my manseed upon you in a glorious emo-gasm of shameless devotion!

This is my favorite line from The Onion's review:

"In its way, the companion record Digital Ash In A Digital Urn is even more exciting. Just as Ryan Adams met the challenge of The Strokes and Interpol by writing his own '80s post-punk record, Oberst responds to The Postal Service's popularity by taking a stab at neo-techno-pop, with a validating guest appearance by Jimmy Tamborello."

Jesus fucking Christ. Hold on a minute. RYAN ADAMS, the most insincere of all New York® retro-post-punk trend-following Wynona Rider boytoys, "MET THE FUCKING CHALLENGE" of The Strokes and Interpol?? You mean the way The Strokes "met the challenge" of a hundred better New York® bands who had already "met the challenge" of a dozen or so far more innovative bands from the late 70's?? You mean how Interpol "met the challenge" of Joy Division?? Why is it that snotty music critics are the first to call out bands who rip off better bands, UNLESS it's some genre-defying musical genius like Ryan fucking Adams, or an untouchably cool hipster icon like CONOR OBERST, and then somehow it's not a rip-off when he says "Gee, that guy from Death Cab did an electronic emo album, I'd better do that too!" No, of course that's not ripping off. It's "meeting the challenge." You fucking pillow-biting dickbiscuits. Go slurp on Wynona Rider's disease-ridden twat and die of syphilis.

Alright. I'm done.