A serial killer that only kills bad people is no longer original or innovative. It’s tired. It’s been done. Please try something new.

How about doing some actual character work and make me really like a person who murders innocent people for no reason other than that they want to?

Me and Heather watched The Other F Word last night. A lot of it focused on Jim Lindberg and the events leading up to his split with Pennywise, and it made me want to say something on the subject punk rock and growing up.

Early in the movie, it’s said that punk rock was about not having any responsibilities and never growing up. That was never true for me. Punk rock was about having DIFFERENT responsibilities and growing up DIFFERENT. But then again I was never an anarchist.

To me, the responsibility part of punk meant if your dad was a drunk who beat you, then he was an asshole. Fuck him. None of that “But he’s my family” shit. He was worthless. If you had a friend that treated you like shit, you cut them out of your life. If you had a friend that was hurting themselves or others, you stepped the fuck up. You didn’t hang back and let your shitty friend act shitty because you liked them. If they were racist, it was your responsibility to tell them that they were a fucking asshole and you weren’t going to be friends with them anymore. Your responsibility was to find a job that wasn’t evil. Yea, it would be fucking hard, but growing up isn’t about doing what’s easy, it’s about doing what’s right.

So many people sold out everything, or never believed in anything, so they could have a stupid picket fence and a stupid SUV to drive their stupid kids to stupid soccer practice. I didn’t want that, and its one of the things that brought me to punk rock. Too many people in punk rock want to be 18 forever and live in a shitty apartment and drink their whole life away. That’s fucking stupid.

In the movie, there’s a massive rift between the guys in Pennywise and Lindberg because he wanted to be a family man, and they didn’t. They judged him harshly for wanting to be a family man, and watching interviews with the band after he left, they’re fucking shitty about it! There’s a scene at a concert where Fletcher says something like “We’ve never done this before because its pretty fucking gay, but I want everyone in this band to come here for a big group hug. This is family, mother fuckers!” No matter how punk you are, at 40 years old, that’s some stupid shit to say. Clearly, that guy never matured beyond being a teenager.

That’s what I mean by growing up, but by growing up different. To me, being punk and growing up doesn’t mean I cast off my ideals, and it also doesn’t mean I stay an adolescent for the rest of my life. It means I keep wearing band tshirts BECAUSE I LIKE BAND TSHIRTS. Not because it pisses you off. It’s dying your hair green because you like it. But it’s also understanding that your job is more important than your fucking hair color and if they tell you that you can’t have green hair, then you do not dye your fucking hair.

There’s a number of scenes in the movie where Lindberg is dying his hair to keep away the gray, so that his fans don’t know he’s getting old. This is fucking stupid. Look at Henry Rollins who is gray as hell, Brett Gurewitz, and Fat Mike (who dyes his hair, but isn’t shy about how old he is). Being punk means growing out those gray hairs because fuck you I’m old and I’m going to get gray hair. Besides, if anything, it will make your audience have more respect for you because you’re an elder! You’re a grown up! You’re no longer a peer. You’re a grown-ass man telling us you can have the attitude of fuck you and still be successful and still grow up. We need more of that! Instead of fucking people like Tom from MxPx tweeting shit like “If you’re not establishment by 30, then you have no brains.” People like that are basically saying “I’ve had worldwide success. I have seen the entire world. I have been on TV. I am friends with my idols. I have worked with the people I used to worship. I have lived the lives of 10 men. But it’s not a good way to live because my wife doesn’t like it.”

I’m fucking rambling. I’ve just been so annoyed lately with everyone essentially telling me to grow up. Fuck me, I need a psychiatrist.

“Guns don’t kill people! People kill people!”

If guns were not available, then 50 people would have been injured at that movie theater anyway! The fact that this guy had assault rifles have nothing to do with it.

“He used tear gas, which isn’t commercially available anyway!”

http://www.keepshooting.com/clear-out-6oz-tear-gas-grenade.html

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/11/21/373956/you-can-buy-the-tear-gas-used-on-uc-davis-students-on-amazoncom/

Yes it is.

“We should ban costumes at movie theaters!”

Because if he couldn’t get in with his costume, he just would have turned around, gone home, and possibly adopted a troubled youth.

“Did pop culture cause this?”

The guy said he was the Joker. First of all, Joker doesn’t wear body armor and has green hair. So if this guy genuinely thought he was the Joker, he probably would have thought he was anybody. Clearly he doesn’t know anything about the character he was claiming to be.

“If only someone in this theater had a gun, they could have taken him out.”

Yes, because in the midst of chaos, its always abundantly clear who the bad guy is. Also, real life is exactly like Die Hard, so no one else would possibly get hurt.

People, you need to use your fucking heads when you talk about this shit.

tonysatiger:

I was reading tumblr and saw a post along the lines of 

“if rapists can restrain from their ‘urges’ because it’s a choice, then so can homosexuals. Being homosexual is a choice, just like being heterosexual and just like raping people.”

I feel like i’m overlooking a serious aspect of this, because i really can’t see why this is incorrect. 

Any insight?

So I left a calm and reasoned ask in this kid’s ask box. But this is my blog. So I don’t have to be calm and reasoned here.

THIS WILL PROBABLY BE VERY TRIGGERING

You are overlooking a very serious aspect of this. That very serious aspect is that you’re a fucking moron who should really just clock out of life altogether. That’s not a joke. You really should kill yourself. If you cannot see the difference between a RAPIST and a HOMOSEXUAL then you are literally too stupid to be fucking alive on this planet.

You see, a RAPIST is someone who steals from people. A RAPIST is someone who hurts people. RAPISTS have sex with people against their will. A rapist will break into your house, throw your mother down onto the kitchen floor, and forcibly enter her. I want you to really get that fucking image in your head. Your mother is on the floor. She is crying. She is frightened. No one is coming to help her. A man’s hands grip her throat to the point where she will have bruises on her neck. He is thrusting into her. It’s painful, because she’s not wet. He ejaculates inside of her. She may be pregnant. What happens then? Does your mother have an abortion, or does she carry the child to term and you have a rape baby as a brother and your dad has to raise this despicable human’s offspring.  She may have an STD like herpes or even AIDS now. After its over, she will have problems even hugging you, let alone making love to your father. Their marriage suffers, and probably ends. This happens to your mother. Are your picturing these events? And you know what? It’s not about sex. It’s about power. The rapist didn’t think your mom was hot. He didn’t rape her because of her sexy sexy housedress or whatever the fuck it is she wears. He raped her for power. He raped her because he knew the events would unfold as I’ve told them, and he wanted to be their catalyst. He didn’t want to fuck, he wanted to destroy.

A homosexual is someone who loves members of the same sex. They kiss, they hug, they hold hands. Now you say that they can fight their urges. They could! But why the fuck should they? If one penis loves another penis, who fucking cares?

So if you want to think about in simple terms (which I feel would be best for your poor, feeble mind), rape is about violence, homosexuality is about hugging.

When I was little, Spider-Man was my favorite superhero. I could relate to him. The bully, being a wise-ass, and the older lady role model who reminded me a great deal of my grandmother. It even inspired me to go to a science day camp. This was a stupid idea, as I don’t know the first fucking thing about science.

I loved that he wasn’t super angsty. I loved that he was smart. I loved that he didn’t take himself too seriously. I loved that it never had to be brought up that Spider-Man had some sort of code to keep him from killing people. It just wasn’t going to happen, because fuck that its Spider-Man. He’s not going to kill anyone. I love that he didn’t view crime-fighting as a job or a detriment to his personal relationships like Batman did. It was simply his responsibility.

In recent years, I had forgotten about all this. Peter Parker was now a happy grown up with a hot wife and a good job. I was happy for him, but we had simply grown apart, as people and fictional characters sometimes do.

Tonight I saw The Amazing Spider-Man, and I was 6 years old again. This movie is to Spider-Man what the Dark Knight was to Batman. This is everything I’ve ever wanted from Spider-Man. It’s the movie I’ve been wanting to see for 20 years, and there it was. I had no idea it would be that good.

Granted, your mileage may vary here as my early experiences with Spider-Man came from haphazard reprints of the 50s and 70s Spider-Man comics, with a dash of the current 90s stuff. I really have had no idea what Spider-Man has been up to since I was 13, but as far as I’m concerned, if you don’t like this movie, then you don’t like Spider-Man.

I’ve seen some stuff here and there about the lack of women in films, and while its a fair thing to complain about not being represented, there are a lot of issues regarding the finer points which I’m going to bitch about here:

1 - It’s nobody’s job to represent you in any particular media. You don’t get to complain about someone else’s art when its only crime is being for someone who isn’t you. Obviously this doesn’t affect complaints about sexist films. If something is genuinely sexist, by all means, complain about it. Rail against it! Rage against that fucking machine! But you don’t get to complain because The Hangover didn’t have any female main characters.

I’ve heard complaints about movies where the only thing women talk about is the main character (a man). Well, yea. Its his story. The other characters are supporting characters, their job is to support the main character. That’s not sexism, that’s moving the story along. Again, and I cannot stress how annoying it is that I have to say this, is that if its actually sexism, by all means, fuck that.

2 - If you feel that women are under-represented in film, make sure that your idea to fix it isn’t incredibly insulting to women and moviegoers. A family member of mine saw Tintin and said that there was a distinct lack of female characters in the film, and there should have at least been a scene where they “threw in” two women who spoke to each other. So the idea was to just toss some chicks into a movie based on a media that originally didn’t include women? By doing things like this, you’re insulting the source material, the moviegoers who have to sit through a scene that has nothing to do with the movie, and most importantly, you’re insulting the intelligence of women by insinuating that all women need to be represented is a couple of ladies chatting it up in a movie for no reason.

3 - Pay attention to the movie you’re watching. Katherine Heigl has complained about Knocked Up because all of the men are fun-loving goofballs while the women are awful shrews. Well yea. That’s the point. At the end of the movie, when the characters have completed their emotional journey, the women have learned to lighten the fuck up while the men have learned to grow the fuck up.

We can’t pretend that this a problem that doesn’t exist, but for fuck’s sake, be aware of the implications involved in your arguments.

I was with my girlfriend in downtown Philly and having a hard time parallel parking. I made a fucking crazy mess of it. We were seriously there for 5 minutes with me pulling in and out of the spot, popping the curb, etc. Finally she offers to park the damn car. I’m relieved so I get out to guide her and she gets in driver’s side. Right after she gets in the car a group of 3 guys walks down the street and sees my girlfriend in the driver’s seat in this horrible mess of a park job. As they pass, they look at me. So I shook my head, pointed at the car and go “pfft! Women!”

Everyone knows what the Uncanny Valley is. If you don’t, look it up. Or don’t. I’m not your mom.

So if there’s an uncanny valley for sight, can there be one for sound? And do records that are quantized and auto-tuned fall into that valley? Is that why no one’s buying records? Do the sounds we hear coming out of the radio sound TOO perfect, to the point where we don’t really want to listen?

Think about it, will you?

All of the art in our culture is a reflection of the world we live in. That’s what makes it art. The artist absorbs his or her experience and slaps it on canvas/wax/film/etc. I want to talk about punk, because I likes it.

So in the 80s we had songs about TV and record covers featuring mushroom clouds. That’s because TV was (as it has been for 30 years), a huge part of our culture, and the mushroom clouds come from the cold war. People were always waiting for the Russians to bomb the fuck out of us.

What do we do now? No one’s waiting to get blown up anymore, and while TV used to be the king of culture, its now some kind of crazy cult leader, with a small but rabid following. Because of the way the internet works, nobody is a slave to it. Don’t like the information on one website? Just head on over to another. Whatever crazy bullshit you choose to believe is backed up somewhere. The only thing TV offers anymore is Fox News and Jersey Shore.

What are people afraid of these days? What are they enslaved to? What do we feel is holding us back? What catastrophe is hanging over our heads? What’s going to be on the covers of punk rock records today? Dollar signs? Riots? Rich white people? Healthcare bills? Our culture is changing so quickly that art can’t keep up. That’s probably why there’s so many covers of video game themes and not enough angry young people. Nobody can make heads or tails or anything, so they just give up and retreat to silly nostalgia.

Where does punk rock go now? Where does something based on rebellion go in a culture where everyone acts like the rebel or the underdog?