Last Friday, Robert Foster From The Internet called me a liar. Colleague, slow down. I aint perfect, but I’m not exactly Richard Nixon, and you’re not Frank Wills, so quit taking the tape off my doors. Here’s the reasons why I think you may have been a little hasty.
“VEGAN FOOD TASTES NICE”
It may be the case that Tofu looks and tastes like the kind of dog shit bad comedians are always claiming you don’t see anymore, but you can’t argue that vegan food tastes bad and suggest McDonalds as a better alternative. You might as well be a vegan when eating McDonalds, for all the meat they contain (does bone count as meat?). A Big Mac is to meat what Jordan is to femininity, not to mention that Jordan might well be a little more real and leave a slightly less bitter aftertaste.
The other good thing about veganism is that you’re not going to die of bowel cancer. Vegans may be a bit nerdy and precious, but that’s way more attractive then shitting your spleen into a bag, dying young and leaving a corpse that looks like a snooker player. Not so hot.
“I DON’T LIKE THE BEATLES”
OK, so this is the big one. This argument has nearly cost me friendships and just this Christmas led to one lifelong pal claiming that this is “the thing I hate about you the most”. And he hates a lot about me. People get pretty serious about the Beatles. That’s kind of the main problem.
While I recognise that those four scouse kids may have positively influenced a lot of the bands I love (and a shitload of bands that make me sick), there is no point I can recall in the last ten years when I have ever wanted to listen to a Beatles song. I never want to hear another Beatles song again. And just because they influenced something good doesn’t in itself justify their existence. Paedophilia influenced “Lolita”. Just saying…
Worst of all, for having this opinion, I am treated like Maxine Carr in a Myra Hindley T shirt at a “Victims of Child Abuse” group meet. They’re untouchable, a sacred cow that renders notions of taste and subjectivity obsolete. While they might be positioned as the apotheosis of musical artistry, The Beatles come on strong like the evil dictators of popular culture. You either like them, or you’re being “deliberately subversive” and should probably be locked up in some sort of Eastern European concentration camp with all the other impure heathens.
But excuse me, would it be OK if I just didn’t like them? I shouldn’t even have to justify it and it almost seems too obvious for me to say, but Sergeant Peppers is THE most overrated album ever made. And if you can make a case for “When I’m 64” or “Penny Lane” being anything other than obnoxiously knowing substandard Music Hall wank, then forgive me if I suggest you’re trying a little too hard. But at least you can go to Q magazine for back up. That must be some consolation.
John Lennon may have “kicked a guy in the head and he died of his injuries a month or so later”, but guess what? He also kicked his first wife in the head too. Hey John, why don’t YOU give peace a chance. John Lennon is the proto-Bono and the reason why Mark David Chapman should be fucking knighted for sparing the world of more patronising, hypocritical neo-liberal bullshit by some guilt-riddled musician with a wealth complex dwarfed only be his insatiable ego. Alongside Bono and Geldof, Lennon triangulates the Holy Trinity of Cunts and should be recognised as such.
And while we’re here, Led Zepplin and Pink Floyd, you can both fuck off too.
“I DON’T WANT TO FUCK SLUTTY GIRLS”
Looking at fake tits plastered on pre-cancerous overly tanned skin is something I’ve spent a long time doing. I’ve almost gone blind about 50 million times because of these girls, but that’s only because these girls are the only girls that exist in porn. Only fourteen year olds with dicks so hard they knock themselves out every time they go for a piss find these girls attractive. It’s why anyone with a conscience tears up a little after a porn-assisted selflove (the irony) session. That was a little bit of your soul escaping out of your dick (and lets not even get into the gender politics of why women have been idealised in this way).
Yeah, sure every man would fuck a slutty girl given the chance. Of course we would, we’re men. We’d fuck anything. But given that or the choice to get dirty with any one of the millions of amazing nerd girls in the British Library (for example) who never put out (or pretend they never put out) isn’t even a choice. Slutty girls break one golden rule of sexual attraction – inaccessibility. If you can’t get at it, you want it more than anything. So bad, that like that bad guy in Karate Kid, you’d break a child’s knee to get it. By making themselves ever ready, slutty girls take away the fantasy, leaving only aggressive senseless rutting which gets so boring and hateful that eventually you turn into Patrick Bateman. And good luck with the whole meeting the parents thing too (not to mention all your friends who’ve already fucked her).
Also, what’s with these girls being so smug? They spend every weekend night in Jumping Jacks dancing to Akon looking like a bad drawing of Girls Aloud but with less education. A stereotype maybe, but I don’t know what’s worse - being a stupid boring slutty girl, or being a smart boring slutty girl. Either way, you just poured cold water on my pants.
“I ENJOY NOISE MUSIC”
Claiming that noise music fans are all image-concerned liars is the equivalent of saying that all lesbians are faking because there isn’t dick involved, cos, yknow, doing it with a dick is the proper way. Don’t be a homophobe. Maybe it’s just that, well, you don’t get it? In 5 years time there will be a noise band in the Top 40 and slutty girls will dance to it at mainstream clubs and you’ll buy the CD from Tescos and basically be the last kid to join the party. Except you wont be a kid anymore, just an old dude reading Q and wanking yourself into mental illness.
And FTR, the backlash on Fleet Foxes is way overdue. Forget metal (or noise, for that matter), this is the Devil’s music.
“I TAKE PERFORMANE ART SERIOUSLY”
OK, fair enough Bob, I’ll give you this one. I call bullshit on this too.