Here’s a quick list of things that people say and do that I don’t believe they can actually mean at all.

‘Vegan food tastes nice’
What you’ve basically said to the world is, ‘I like animals so much I don’t want them to die in my name and so I’m never eating something we’re actually built to eat just so dumb cows and stupid chickens can keep living their meaningless lives, and I’ve invented a whole menu of stuff that is supposed to take its place, even though it comes up short in loads of important nutrients and taste, that’s the sacrifice I’m prepared to make’, which is super sweet of you, but it doesn’t make one single bit of difference how many animals die (and you secretly know that).

So whatever, I like your style, you made a sacrifice for a noble cause. But when I offer to buy you some McDonalds don’t do that lame thing where you go “oh no thanks, I’m going home to make tofu lasagne and I’ve got some vegan cupcakes from Wholefoods that I’m really excited about”. Then you make some slurpy “yummy” noise and rub your belly to try and hide the fact that the sacrifice you’ve made is taste, and you’ve decided just to eat to survive and be morally pure. Don’t pretend the dry, rough cupcakes and the soggy, unsatisfying tofu are even a half-substitute for the real versions of either. When you do that fake excited thing, it makes the rest of us remember how deluded you actually are. Just suck it up and admit it’s gross but you gotta do what you gotta do.

‘I don’t like The Beatles’
Liking stuff that everyone else likes is definately not great. Blind enjoyment of everything the media throws at you is for normies - it’s how X Factor is allowed to exist and the reason there are 210 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. So it’s cool that you’re into weird stuff instead of just being a drone like everyone else. Culture’s important, it sets us apart from the animals. It shouldn’t just be consumed, you should form your own tastes and not be swayed by the opinions of the masses.

But you need to draw the line somewhere guys, because not liking The Beatles out of sheer bloody-mindedness is retardo. Besides, I’m pretty sure in your heart of hearts you know they more or less invented every type of decent music including punk. I know the Rolling Stones appeared to be more badly behaved and they had amazing singles about the devil, but they were always one step behind musically - they even copied Sergeant Pepper wholesale and their albums where shit until the 70s.

The Beatles might be what Glen Matlock was kicked out of the Sex Pistols for liking, but the Sex Pistols were a bunch of posers and Johnny Rotten is in a butter advert. Also, John Lennon kicked a guy in the head and he died of his injuries a month or so later.

‘I take performance art seriously’
I’ve known some good, funny guys who are totally up on the latest ways to be sarcastic and the best knowing glances, fantastic hang out material, who fall silent and stony faced when put in a situation where performance art is being done. It’s like they’re all over animated and funny like Steve Martin when he’s exasperated in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and then we get to the gallery and suddenly they’re the lawyer from Arrested Development, telling me to shoosh when I cough and stuff.

I guess their reasoning is “well, someone is trying really hard to express themselves, so I’ve got to respect that”, which is an admirable sentiment and should apply in situations like when a new guy comes to your AA meeting and he’s really nervous, when a small child is doing a dance recital, or when a group of prisoners are putting on an amateur Shakespeare production even when the governor tried to shut down the prison theatre club due to lack of funds.

It shouldn’t apply when some people who didn’t have the patience to learn to paint and couldn’t be bothered to write a real play decide to show their genitals and do some primal screaming for an hour. Especially when it’s cutting into my ‘looking at art school girls in a gallery’ time. Once you put yourself in your art it becomes all about you, and I bet when you try and have a conversation with guys who do it it’s all about them too BECAUSE THEY’RE ALWAYS DICKS. Don’t give them the satisfaction of your attention just because you feel bad.

‘I don’t want to fuck slutty girls‘
“Urgh look at those sluts with their perfect skin, short dresses and boobs on display, dancing provocatively in my face to chart hits. I’d much rather go home with a frizzy haired girl in a vintage dress and talk about books til dawn”. Oh sure, okay. You won’t mind if I check your internet history then, will you? Because I’m pretty sure you’ve not been beating your meat to pictures of short haired illustration students who own cats and have huge bushes. You’ve been beating it to pictures of huge titted, bronzed sluts with no pubes and amazingly sleek hair.

That’s because we’re genetically programmed by baby jesus to love big boobs and healthy looking flesh, not second hand clothes and conversations about French movies in the sixties. If you deny yourself that just to make a point about hating mainstreamers, then you may as well deny evolution happened or that physics works.

‘I enjoy noise music’
I can see why melody would get you down, and why you’d feel like verse-chorus-verse has been done to death. Everything being nice and predictable can make things dull, I suppose. Noise music is the answer to that, I suppose (although a lot of it does sounds the same you’ve gotta admit). There’s no structure, no melody, no vocals, photocopied album artwork and a cheap CDR. There’s no better way to say ‘fuck you’ to Simon Cowell than to be into noise music.

But are you that mad with the verse-chorus-verse structure that you’re going to punish yourself by listening to Merzbow? Isn’t that cutting off your nose to spite your face? And if you tell me you actually like it and it soothes you in the same way people get soothed by listening to Cat Stevens then I am going to call you a fucking liar. You’re telling me when you’re fifty you’re going to go through your old records and reminisce with your buddies while Current 93 in playing in the background? I don’t believe you at all. You’re going to play Fleet Foxes like the rest of us will when we’re old enough not to be snobs about music.

SIMULTANEOUSLY POSTED ON STREET CARNAGE.