Why nobody gets that Sarah Silverman did (and said) the right thing at the TED convention this week

WWW--The reaction to this has been--well--retarded, and that's being far too kind to most who organized and attended TED. As the story goes, Sarah Silverman was invited and paid to do her stand-up routine at the TED convention in the ugly town of Long Beach, California that took place from February 9-13.

Silverman's appearance seems to have been on the last day. Most Americans don't even know what the fuck this convention is or even care (I'm in their ranks), but they made the news with Silverman's routine and are smarting over it for some reason. They're also trying to misrepresent what happened and show a great case of being unable to think laterally or outside of the box. In other words, the public doesn't know or care about TED for most of the right reasons.

This is what TED is: a lot of bullshit propped-up by money and more bullshit to recruit and to not listen to people with ideas, misuse and misapply them, piss the originators of said ideas off, and then watch them quit in disgust a few months later like most employer-employee relationships in the happy old US of A. But hey, when you have a dumbshow of already ossified bourgeois mummies you have to at least go through the motions:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize. ... The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). (Ted.com, "About" page)

That's exactly what they got from Silverman, yet the organizer of the event, Chris Anderson, isn't exactly a genius, and that's why he's not showcased as a real thinker, slagged Silverman for her routine. This was the talk of Silverman's life and she felt very strongly to do what she did, think what you will. Did she take the TED engagement seriously? I believe so, this wasn't a "for the hell of it deal." You see...how soon we forget.

Silverman's repertoire and themes are always changing, just as they have with the great American stand-up comedians and social critics like Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Mort Sahl, and even Noam Chomsky (one of the most often-quoted intellectuals in Western history, yet apparently never invited to speak at TED in its 26 year history). For some reason, the onus is on Silverman for saying the word "retarded" at least ten times in her stand-up routine, and again, remember that she was invited, she didn't crash the event and run up onstage yelling the word without any logical context. That would be the job of another woman named Sarah, a goyische one, a WASP one. Besides, seeing things without any logical context--as we all know--is the job of CEOs, politicians and the public in these here United States. Context is everything, or nothing, if you find thinking painful.

But not more than two weeks ago we had a "controversy" about the word "retarded" and all of its many permutations (my favorite being "tard," mostly because it sounds funny and makes the person saying it look and sound funny), and it was trotted-out all over by a supplicant media and Internet by none other than failed VP candidate, Sarah Palin who has a child with Down syndrome. It should be mentioned here that most women approaching and past the age of forty years old are or should be informed by their personal physician or gynecologist that the risks of having a child with Down syndrome become considerably higher with a woman in this age range. But she had a child anyway, and drags the poor baby around the country while she's trying hard not to get elected. Never mind all this, it's just context, very inconvenient context, and it's all about that evil Sarah Silverman.

It gets better, and in case you've been in a coma, here's a little summary of the last couple weeks of political and cultural idiocy and general human folly:

The latest battle over the R-word kicked into high gear with a Jan. 26 Wall Street Journal report that last summer White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel blasted liberal activists unhappy with the pace of health-care reform, deriding their strategies as "[expletive] retarded." Palin, the mother of a special-needs child, quickly took to Facebook to demand Emanuel's firing, likening the offensiveness of the R-word to that of the N-word. Limbaugh seized the low ground, saying he found nothing wrong with "calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards," and Palin rushed to his defense, saying Limbaugh had used the word satirically. Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took her up on it, calling Palin an "[expletive] retard" and adding, with a smile: "You see? It's satire!" ("The case against banning the word 'retard'," The Washington Post, 02.14.2010)

Yes, it's "satire," but only the elect (not elected, however) get to use the term, and in whatever context they feel they want to use it in. But not anyone else, and they'll use the word to suppress other words if they have their way. Players only, yo.

As a matter of fact, the herding instinct has already set in and very naive and pathetic people are taking pledges like it's go time at Masada. In that same Jewish tradition, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel fell on his sword, but probably not without a lot of prodding from his ostensible boss, the president, a man who seems intent on fucking-up and showing no vision or leadership skills unless he's left with no other alternatives. Hey, it's America.

But what did Silverman say exactly? This is where things get kind of sketchy since we're not seeing any footage with audio yet, but I would imagine we will eventually. Tech Crunch.com seems to have the most cogent version so far from a female attendee in the audience:

“I want to adopt a special needs child (to which one person applauded), because adopting a special needs child, who would do that? Only an awesome person, right?” I looked around the room and I knew exactly what was coming next. She was going to say retarded and not only was she going to say it, she was going to drop it like 10 times. I knew it wouldn’t be ok, but I was excited about it.

Words are powerful. They are mightier than the sword and all of that, but if you let them have too much power, you can create what I feel is evil. You create a society of people who are so concerned about what they say and what is PC and you destroy creative expression. ...

She went on to say:

“The only problem with adopting a retarded child is that the retarded child, when you are 80 is well, still retarded and that she wouldn’t enjoy the freedoms of setting them free at age 18, so she was only going to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness so it has an expiration date, because who would adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness? Well, someone who was awesome like her”.

The room went silent and she went on with her show and sang a song about how all of the penises in the world couldn’t fill your heart holes. ... ("TED Organizer Trashes Speaker [Silverman], Fails Social IQ Test, Tech Crunch.com, 02.14.2010)

According to the attendee, roughly half of the audience applauded, and out of those, half appeared to have "gotten" the real message. We're a slow culture, so bear with me, please, since the future hinges on it. Apparently they, and a few others in attendance, have a clue where Silverman and the nation have been and what actual stand-up looks and sounds like. It's no secret that she's a shock comedienne, she's even on Comedy Central with her own show, and has been around for over twenty years. It seems TED is as ignorant about Silverman as the public is about them.

Certainly the well-heeled puds that were populating some of the ranks of the audience that received her well-aimed cultural assault on the suppression of words had little idea of who she is and what kind of a comedienne she represents. Silverman is a social critic and a satirist. She is brave, and she's cut through the bullshit of our culture...if only we had eyes to see it and ears to hear it. At least some of us do. Sarah Silverman just did America a very big favor and she's a hero, you betcha!

"Is Sarah Silverman Retarded, posted 10.13.2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRegd02Qiew

"TED Organizer Trashes Speaker [Silverman], Fails Social IQ Test, Tech Crunch.com, 02.14.2010: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/14/ted-organizer-trashes-speaker-fails-social-iq-test/

TED (not your uncle): http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/7

A word of advice regarding the pundits on the right...

WWW--Quit feeding them.

Here's the deal: you don't talk, write, or buy anything by or about these people, the Limbaughs and the others whose names I'm not going to invoke.

Seriously. Watch the politicians, don't watch the fucking clowns on the right on TV, and quit reacting to them. You're feeding them and keeping them on the air, making them rich, and pushing their message for them. To say this is stupid is redundant, like reacting to them. Reacting to reactionaries doesn't speak well for anyone, I'm as guilty as anyone, and it has to stop, and now, today.

If you want these turds to shrivel-up and slink back to the used car dealerships, the crooked law firms, and the gutters they were dragged out of, cleaned-up, put into a power suit, drugged, and propped-up in front of television cameras, stop watching and following them. There's literally no burning reason to. Lenny Bruce hit the nail on the head when he mocked 60s liberals for going to American Nazi Party rallies to heckle its leader George Lincoln Rockwell. In that sketch, the liberals were the only ones at the rally. Do the math. Quit feeding the tantrum-throwers and the Shibboleths, the frauds, put out there to distract you from the politicians, the lobbyists, and the crooked rich.

God Bless Kathy Griffin

tv--Yeah, I was watching this--because I'm aware that CNN producers have a sense of humor and touch of genius in pairing her with the annoying Anderson Cooper™, who referred charitably to an accurate statement someone made that he's "the Carrot top of news journalism." That he is.

But some assholes were heckling Kathy, and she let them have it as any self-respecting seasoned comedienne would have: "Shut up! ...You know what? Screw you! I'm working! Why don't you get a job, buddy? You know what? I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!" Amen.

You have to lover her irreverence, her brutal honesty, and her unwillingness to take any shit from anyone. Her comments on receiving awards and thanking Jesus are spot-on: "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."

So mote it be. I would marry a woman like this tomorrow, just without the plastic surgery scars. Kathy would agree, and violently.

But what's so enjoyable about the Griffin/Cooper dyad is that she knows what scares him, likely half the reason she made a comment about oral sex. Yet, he's starting to go along with her, he "gets" it, and I think they're both starting to enjoy the interplay. Yes, he reported rumors in New Orleans as truth--he's no journalist, which is OK--but he at least has a sense of humor about himself. Good show for both of them, and here's to a coming decade of Jacobean irreverence.

America could use more women like her, the kind who stir shit up for all the right reasons. Prudes and Puritans everywhere are running for cover, and you gotta love that.

http://www.kathygriffin.net/

"Lohan refers to Obama as 'first colored president'"

New York, New York (not the Scorsese film, silly)--She's at it again: Lindsay Lohan has stuck her foot in her mouth, and not her new g-friend's. You know, she's 22, and she's in the spotlight. How would your youth look if it was on billboards, televisions, in print, DVD, downloads, celebutante rags, and all the others forms of media?

And she didn't choose this, her parents did. They made her be a child star, just like Fatty Arbuckle's did. I assume they ripped-her-off too, because what's family for in America, after all?

Look, she blogged about her sincere support of Barack Obama on her own personal blog, it's OK, calm down. Have some dip (thanks George Carlin), relax.

There was a time--and for some there still is--where referring to a Black American as "colored" was a far cry from what the rest were calling them--namely, "niggers." It's shameful, all of it, I know. I can assure many readers out there that the Amish still use this term when referring to Black people, but they hate most all outsiders whom they refer to as a bloc called "the English" (English-speakers).

She meant well, but it came out very-very wrong. People make mistakes, like getting tit-jobs. This is getting down to human anthropology here, it is what it is, but I don't think Lohan meant anything derogatory by it, she's just young and naive, and apparently gay for now. Great, now many Black Americans are really gonna hate her now...did I mention that she has poor taste in friends? That too.

Religulous (2008)

You know, Bill Maher is a smarmy, egomaniacal asshole, a complete jerk. I wasn't going to bother watching this movie when my brother called me about wanting to see it. We almost never see movies together, maybe every five-years-or-so. What did I have to lose?

So I went, and my brother showed-up about five-minutes-in claiming it took a flying saucer to get him there--something like that. Then he started shouting at the screen unintelligibly, throwing popcorn everywhere like a Hunter S. Thompson sidekick. Anyway, I would have been missing-out had I not taken him up on seeing this very provocative movie.

I can't say that I expected much: Maher's HBO shows like "Politically Incorrect" and "Real Time," are reasonably popular but also tend to showcase Maher's egocentricity and brand of reactionary assholism. The comedian frankly reminds me of his personal friend Dennis Miller whose long-lost career as a comedian caused him to go begging around at Fox News for a job at...being who he really was all-along, an arch-conservative, reactionary asshole. Maher strikes me as different, but with tendencies towards the same direction as his pal Miller. It's isn't that I don't agree with him much of the time; it's how he tends to come-off, which is as a cocksure materialist Hollywood asshole.

And yet, here in his film "Religulous," he's correct again and a much more restrained kind of asshole.

The film is a kind of documentary with more than a few nods to Michael Moore's style, interspersing the interviews with rapid-fire retorts from Maher and company in the form of excerpts from cruddy Hollywood biblical epics (think Cecil B. Demille), dorky religious "educational" films, and from news archives. It's a very effective style, especially when Maher goes as far as to have text-comments responses and observations on the screen when he's sparring with various religious idiots of various persuasions. This makes for a very funny approach that gets a lot of well-earned laughs for their wit and concision. At times, Maher competes with Lenny Bruce in how astute and unique his observations are, but like Lenny, he has similar limitations.

But how can you beat those Christian creationist-themed museums and amusement parks? One can imagine hipsters running-roughshod over each other to get into the places to experience them in an "elevated" state of consciousness...

One might call the film's approach to its subject unfair, but this is also entertainment, let's face it. It's hard to say how much input the oddly-attired director Larry Charles (Borat) had in all of this, though it appears that most of the time all he and Maher had to do was to concoct a few meetings and scenarios, write a few questions, and let their camcorders record what happened after that. This is a simple and economical way of film-making in many respects since the comedian has a decades of improvisational experience. Several reviews have stated that Maher picked straw-man opponents who were easy targets for a man who's done stand-up comedy and media appearances for 30 years, yet you don't tend to get this impression watching the film. That's a red herring argument. He approached believers, the main criterion. It's about faith, stupid.

Yes, sometimes one could say that Maher's "rude" and even "pointed" in his interrogations (sorry, couldn't pass on that one), that he's "unfair" and "biased" in his sense of "superiority," but they're simply missing-the-point. It's doubtful that very many religious thinkers and fundamentalists were going to talk to him at all, so he took a more "populist" approach and went out to talk to the rank-and-file, really the most important part of religion as a problematic part of human life and culture.

One specific interview with a UK Pakistani rapper Aki Nawaz (aka Propa-Gandhi) who extols religious intolerance and war makes a good argument for the renewal of Paki-bashing, though his his subject does a much better job at undermining his arguments than Maher does. Nawaz is clearly an idiot and a hypocrite, but you have to show these people for what they are. Some have written that Maher won't let the bizarre rapper get a word in edgewise, but when you see the lyrics to his raps on a split-screen, it's forgivable. It's one of the few times he does it in the entire film.

This is what's so impressive about the movie itself: Maher is generally known for being much more hyperbolic and confrontational than this, and he tends to let his subjects skewer themselves, often just posing a few reasonable questions and listening to the absurdities flowing from them. Granted, when he hits, he hits hard, but he's not being unfair here. The man has certainly grown and I'm impressed.

But then, there's the faults in the film (though they're few): Maher does a strange thing and trots in Jewish Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta sect who's against the existence of the state of Israel (an "anti-Zionist") on theological-grounds. This is where Maher strays badly, as there's an inverse to the rabbi in the far-right Israeli and international Jewish community's--and strongly religious--reasoning of a sole Jewish stake in Palestine. This is just one example of the comedian's arch-conservatism inside and outside of the film. Indeed, Maher shows us how truly bizarre and wrong Judaism and most other major faiths are, but he makes an exception with the rabbi, exposing his own very slanted bias about the Palestinian question. This isn't to say that he's "wrong"--his very strong opinions for a Jewish state are valid after the Holocaust. They ring true, as Western history has amply illustrated. As a matter of fact, the core of his own reasoning here is more-than-valid, and Jews have good cause to aspire to statehood for logical security reasons. But he's making a very odd exception here that's troubling, and like most Jewish statists, he goes too far, just as Yisroel Dovid Weiss and his inverted opponents. When Maher walks-out on him, it's unsurprising, and I don't support his views here at all.

Yet, with 1 billion Muslims in the world, and 14 million Jews, his opinion is not unwarranted. What he misses, however, is that Israel is still being used a client state to control, destabilize, and divide the Middle East for geopolitical aims. Once it was the Romans, now it's the Americans and the rest of the West, hungry for cheap oil. In some ways, he misses his own point underscored at the end of the film. Whether his omissions are intentional or just a matter of running time, or just too many roads to go down, is the question. One could go on-and-on about the Palestinian question, and Maher probably saw a real quagmire in his section on Judaism and so just stuck to more superificial-aspects of how wacky the Orthodox version of the faith really is (trust me, it is). For the record, this writer believes that Israel has the right to exist, as does a Palestinian state and that it should be brokered diplomatically rather than through violence by all parties.

Even with its problems, Maher and Charles have made a very accessible argument for why religious belief is a "plague" (stated not by Maher, but by a Vatican astronomer) infecting humanity.

One of his finest-points is about Islam: like Christianity, it's undeniably a conquest faith that nowadays has very little tolerance for the beliefs of others on almost any level, and that's coming directly from the Koran. Judaism is essentially the same these days in its statist incarnation, but a quick look at the Torah (the "Old Testament" to Christians) offers-up numerous examples of conquest and even genocide by the tribes of Israel.

What's so interesting and enjoyable about Religulous are the gaggle of morons he interviews and just how obviously hypocritical (and possibly nuts) many of them are. His interview with Senator Mark Pryor, a faux-Democrat from Arkansas, must be seen to be believed. At one point, Pryor admits, "There's no I.Q. test to be a senator." No shit? There should be, even trumping election results if they don't pass. While we're at it, how about a mandatory psychological examination for office-holders as well? The audience I watched the film with all laughed very heartily over Pryor's statement, their chortles coming from the news of our current economic crisis and the last eight years of misgovernance. Hey, people still went to the movies when the Great Depression was on, so why can't we?

Perhaps the biggest hole in the film is the exclusion of other major religions, though they're tapped by the film by-implication. Surely, though, we could have seen how ridiculous many Eastern religions are, especially Hiduism with its castes and absurd rules and laws dictating behavior. There are so many other examples as to be dizzying, and that's part of the answer. Maher goes after the "worst offenders," the major world religions. He might have included Buddhism, though it really does struggle to match the absurd credulities required to be a follower of Islam and Christianity.

Maher's most successful accomplishment is in illustrating that religion has enslaved humanity to the few for millenia, and he deserves a great deal of credit for stating it where he states it. The majority of us know about the Inquisition, the witch hunts, the crusades and Islamic holy wars that spread the faiths across the globe, and violently more often than not. We all know this. Truisms don't need repeating. That's one of the main messages of the film itself--the toxic-effect religion has had on humanity is well-known from the historical record, and talking with biblical scholars isn't going to shed much more light either as they tend to agree generally with Maher on the oddness of literalism and fundamentalism in religion rather than a symbolical or allegorical reading of the "sacred texts." No film--even one five-hours-long--could adequately address all of this. Good job, and we "non-believers" have a lot of work to do.

On Peter Falk's Beverly Hills Freak-Out

Beverly Hills, California--According to the elder statesman actor's wife, he couldn't remember where his car was parked. It was April 22nd. Do you know where your vice president was? Hey, we've all been there: every time I go see a really great movie, I can never remember when I parked either. For that matter--who am I? Where am I? Who are you? These are existential questions we'll never have answers to, and that's OK.

The world's a mess--was it really all about the car? Is it ever just about the broken-shoelaces in the morning, when we're running late for work? No. Mr. Falk still shows-up in little cameos in little independent films, and he's even purported to be selling his own artwork from his own registered website. He's always been weird, get over it. And enough of these headlines that "fears grow" over Mr. Falk's freak-out. It sounds newsworthy, but it's misleading and unethical.

 Look, the war in Iraq is in its fifth year, and we've been meddling with Afghanistan a lot longer. We're now viewed as a nation that kidnaps, drugs, sexually humiliates, and tortures human beings from other countries (because we do), then denies it. Because of the war in the Middle East, and financial mismanagement by the Republicans (and many Democrats), our economy is crashing.

This world is not the world Peter Falk--or most of us for that matter--are used to. America doesn't seem like America anymore. Many of Peter's old friends are gone, some long-gone, like John Cassavetes. He's been dead since 1989, of cancer. Not that those hungry photogs had any of that in-mind, they just wanted to take advantage of a confused old man. Yes, it does resemble the Edvard Munch piece, "The Scream," and for the same reasons.

What's an elder of the stage going to do when the world has changed so much, and life's become so crazy? He freaked-out, he yelled and muttered to himself, and he waved his arms wildly, just as most of us would like to do right now. Peter Falk's 80. Leave him alone, he doesn't need your help. He's going to be in a new movie with Val Kilmer called "Cowslip." If you ever wondered what Lenny Bruce's life would be like if he'd survived...well, it wouldn't have been like Peter Falk's, he's not as fucked-up as Lenny was.

(www.peterfalk.com/)

Boogie Nights: The Midnight Blue Collection Vols. 1-5 review

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Dave Mustaine is an Asshole.

Call me biased, but I never liked this asshole and his shitty non-music. Call me crazy, but it was always Black Sabbath (Ozzy-era, the only good one). The Sabs wrote "War Pigs" ferchrissake! In the lyrics of "Master of Reality" and "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath," they challenged God himself as a hypocrite, and so they challenged all authority. That's fucking cool! Heavy music began as a music of protest, but I never thought Megadeth was anything but pandering crap. Megadeth is a cop-out to thinking. Slayer has been the same over the years, though I'd take their early-period any day (River's Edge!).

Megadeth: Did the MC5 and the Stooges suffer for this shit?! Did Deep Purple? The Sex Pistols? Blue Cheer? Motorhead? Leave it to metalheads to misinterpret something done better by someone-else. Take the New York Dolls--how did that become Poison and Motley Crue?! The irony is that those bands made glam more homoerotic. The shitty music is bad enough, but do you have to make a clumsy attempt at politics too? If you polled all the metalheads in the world, I guarantee the vast majority would be reactionary conservatives. Real rebels. Neo-nazis like Megadeth, too. Do a google-search for "Aryan Nations Megadeth," and tell me what you find.

During Operation Desert Storm (Bush War I), some Air Force pilots contacted the band Slayer and told them how great it was listening to their music while they were bombing-and-strafing Iraqi civilians. Naturally, Slayer was thrilled! That is a far cry from the glory days of Black Sabbath, the true cornerstone of metal. What happened? They got fat and lazy, dumbass--just watch that pussy Mustaine crying his eyes out over how lousy his career has been in "Some Kind of Monster." He sucks, and he knows it. So you can play fast? How juvenile is that mentality?!

It's scary to watch people parading their unwillingness to grow up, kinda like Grateful Dead fans used to be. It just gets creepy after awhile. With metal, it's CREEPIER. But anyway, look at some Megadeth fans, it isn't pretty. You've seen them at the County Fair, and you've seen them leaving the parking-lots out at the drag strip. But when there's a sports-riot, or a carnival and cheap-beer...they are there. I know this, because I have lived my entire life in a museum dedicated to the childhoods of these kind of turds.

You might even know them, and I'm sorry if you do. My next-door neighbor definitely is, but I won't let him borrow anything and he also likes Lynyrd Skynyrd. Unlike Dave Mustaine, I don't think my neighbor was a supporter of H.Ross Perot. Dave's grandstanding for Perot must have been during the "cocaine period" at MTV, which would be his only excuse. But did he freebase it? Did he ever do crack? Crystal-meth? Maybe this is why he's such a spastic-idiot.

Yes, my Northern Indiana has East Chicago where John Dillinger was assassinated by the FBI, the dunes, and Notre Dame has her fans...but the rest is Mennonites and ass-rockers in tights. There was a time when Chicago gangs could hide around the country lakes, hiding in their safe houses. Hoosiers have never been that skilled, but nowadays slobs abound, people who were genetically programmed for factory work. Maybe they're just mentally lazy. It doesn't matter. They're simply dull. Some of them resemble "Z-man" from "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," only they're faggier.

Maybe this whole machismo act in metal is about overcompensation? Lenny Bruce nailed it when he said, "There's nothing sadder than an aging hipster." That's Michiana, the place I live, filled with aging white trash rockers who hate culture. And THAT, is Dave Mustaine's audience, the people who think that their years in Middle and High School were "the best years of their lives." Yes, and then we all had to grow up and work, and do whatever.

During my Senior year of High School, the person who told me, "I'm so glad to be graduating. Now I'll never have to read a book again," was a Megadeth fan. Frankly, you have to be a reactionary idiot to be a fan of this band. So, today, it was with little surprise when I happened to see Megadeth's new album cover. It features the UN's NYC building exploding, with the title "United Abominations". Yeah. It says nothing, just like everything Dave Mustaine has ever touched. OK Dave, you say you think the UN is ineffectual (as he implies on the cover of "Peace Sells..."), and who knows what the hell the new-cover is saying? You have two Jack Kirby-era Marvel supervillains on the cover, and these explosions dotting the UN's headquarters coming from...what? Who did it? Or is it the World Trade Center? What the fuck does this yearbook-drawing cover say, you Libertarian asshole?! Pay your taxes, chumpzillas, tax cheats.

You see, this is what's so annoying about Dave Mustaine. It's his political-posturing, as though he were the mental equal of a Joe Strummer or a John Lydon. He's not, he's a dumb-fuck who should shut-up and not-not play guitar. But he's not alone in metal, that domain of the sub-intellect. But first, understand that I'm a fan of most of the classics of heavy metal. I even like early Judas Priest and Motorhead. At one time, metal was populated with reasonably intelligent people. It didn't last long.

But take Black Sabbath's bassist, Geezer Butler: he was the mastermind of the most- mportant of Sabbath's lyrics during the Ozzy era (part of why Ozzy can't remember them?), and his lyrical points were always clear. War Pigs is obviously an antiwar song. Sabbath even had lots of anti-drug songs, though that is another story! But you always knew where they stood as a band from their lyrics:

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Mustaine's lyrics never make any sense, his postition is usually unclear, and his vocals make Ozzy Osbourne sound like Pavoratti:

What do you mean, I dont believe in god?
I talk to him every day.
What do you mean, I dont support your system?
I go to court when I have to.
What do you mean, I can't get to work on time?
I got nothing better to do.
And, what do you mean, I dont pay my bills?
Why do you think I'm broke? huh?

Sounds a lot like a moron with no credibility, doesn't it? Oddly, it's almost like a weird metal version of Stan Ridgeway and the Wall of Voodoo. He sounds like a politician, using a lot of words, but saying nothing. At least Ridgeway said something with his lyrics. That's OK if you're doing art-rock! Mustaine literally sounds like he's whining the lyrics, a kind of preverbal grunt/whine of a rat. He has had the worst haircuts I have ever seen, forget mullets.

Mustaine's guitar work: a lot of multi-layered crap with bad guitar tone. It has too much treble and not enough mid-range or bass for heft. It's thin. Solos: the usual unexpressive scale-exercises for beginners, with lots of grandstanding. Worse than mullets. Not even Steve Jones could save their disastrous cover of "Anachy in the UK," it's awful. The Shocker soundtrack--what a classic. In fact, Mustaine's entire catalog is spectacularly bad. He has bigger problems.

Wearing glasses actually made Mustaine look stupider. We can be assured that "United Abominations" lives up to its title. Now we hear that Dave has a fixation on the number 11. Yes, 11, as in 9/11? The CD/MP3/8-track/Reel-to-Reel/Mini-disc will have 11 tracks (12 in Japan, which means WHAT DAVE?! WHAT?!). The artwork was the 11th entry in a contest for the best cover. Get it? Me either, and thank God for that.

[ED.-OH WAIT!! WOW! SHIT! I get it, like in Spinal Tap!! You got me, the 60s-70s weren't worth this shit.] http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/24/music.megadeth.reut/index.html