"at the end of the day/The bottom line is..."

This is one for American management, the biggest losers of all time, the unwanted babies of modernity (and postmodernity), the essence of redundancy made flesh that's going to look like the joke that it is down the road, in the annals of our national history, and of the species.

I'm not even going to go into examples and contexts here, but we all know some douchnozzle who's spouted this line either as a preface to something more inane and meaningless, or an equally meaningless addendum, maybe a lame parting shot because they lack any wit. OK, that's untrue, because you only need to add a "t" to create the word that describes them best.

This is related to the more recent "mansplaining," by the way, since it emanates from the same crowd of stupid males who are constantly out of their depth, who lack any real intellect, but sure know how to spew crap from the wrong orifice. No, this isn't merely about your asshole boss at the office, or politicians, but it does start with domestic tyrants, people whose families would be doing the world a favor by beating them down every morning into their bowl of gruel, and with luck, drowning them in it, but really, doing anything to make them shut the fuck up for once in their unimaginably pointless lives. These are the assholes who killed God. He died of disgust, committed suicide: "I created that? Well fuck me..."

Diagram a sentence--if you dare--and you'll find that "At the end of the day" and "The bottom line is" add nothing to the meaning, try it some time, you'll see. That's never going to stop assholes whose souls died shortly after birth from spewing it. How else are they going to be the assholes they are? All it does is underscore their own lack of meaning and purpose in a universe that doesn't care because it can't. At least they're dead forever too. If they found a way around it, I'd be leading the mob of torch bearing villagers to drive a stake through their blackened hearts.

AP: "Brooks & Dunn: Out of new ideas after 20 years"

AP Universe--Who said Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn ever had any ideas musically? Them. "You know what, I think we've just exhausted it," said the duo to a CMT audience member during a taping for the unwatchable "Invitation Only" show. Get the fuck outta here. There haven't been any new ideas in country music since the early 1970s, and I love old school country, but let's be honest. Country music is dead and the corpse has been walking around for over a generation unaware of its own cultural demise, the death of its actual relevance.

There is no country music, just listen to it. Does it sound like country music? No, it does not. What it sounds like is country-rock or pop-country, but it's not country music. Brooks & Dunn were quaint-at-best. What they remind me of is that music arising organically from people--real "folk" music, meaning "music by folks"--is more alive in underground genres like hip-hop, garage rock, and yes, even techno. Just "little people" making music to express themselves and their take on life; their joys; their longings; the despair; the anger, and so on.

There was a time when these kinds of music makers could percolate up into the mainstream, getting radio play locally, regionally (how do you think Hank Williams Sr. became well known?), but decades of unregulated music industry greed and criminality have snuffed-out those routes to distribution. Word-of-mouth was crucial. Perhaps the wheel has turned a full-revolution again with the Internet and we'll see something old become new again. But people want more from their culture and they've been tired of having it sold back to them along with everything else for some time. We got an interesting example of this just nine years ago.

Around 2000, the music-buying public had had enough and wanted to hear something with soul, something that actually said something they could related to, and they unexpectedly made the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers' "O Brother Where Art Thou?" a multi-platinum hit. The dog began to wag the tail again, if only for a time. Nobody in the music industry could get it at the time--that people want sincerity in their music--because as top-down corporations, they can't and won't. Corporations aren't about serving people, and they're not about innovation, honesty, or sincerity. What they are is dumber than a box of rocks. People want to feel something when they listen to music, something that touches their hearts and their souls. After that, people began downloading the pop garbage that they were previously paying $16.99 for in-droves, and I can hardly blame them for it.

Frankly, good riddance to this recent model of cultural transmission, it sucked, like just about every business model ever devised by our moronic managerial class. Good riddance indeed, but at least Brooks & Dunn had the honesty to finally admit they had no ideas. More people need to take this responsibility upon themselves, they'll feel liberated. But enough about Washington D.C. and the corporate board rooms...