IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!

Behold, my Spotify Wrapped! Yes, that brilliant marketing gimmick that gives us all an opportunity to do a little navel-gazing, and I'm here for it.

My genre sandwich for 2023 (on multi-grain bread, natch):

Top 5 artists: 

My top song is no surprise to me, since I've been playing it at least once a day since its release:

Speaking of.....

More selections from my Top 20: 

You know how once in a while an artist comes along that makes you think, "Holy shit, I must now listen to everything they've ever recorded?" This year Noah Kahan (see above) was that artist for me. His catalog does not disappoint; he's like the love child of Paul Simon and John Prine, if such a union were possible.

Psst, wanna guess the Velveeta in my Indie/Classic Rock/Country/New Wave/Indie Pop sandwich? Buried way down my Top 100 playlist, number 82 to be exact....

You don't have to guess, I've got it circled. Hey, if digging the occasional hair metal power ballad is wrong, I don't want to be right. 

 ADVENTURES IN SCAMBAITING PART VIII:
EAT A DICK, ELON

With apologies to the late Warren Zevon:

Poor, poor, pitiful me

Poor, poor, pitiful me

These fake accounts won't let me be

Lord have mercy on me

Woe is me

Well, this one was certainly topical, I'll say that for him. Here's a hint: which famous shithead has been stinking up the news cycle over the past two weeks?

If your answer was THIS jackhole:

Congrats! You win a blue checkmark.

Use it in good health.

I was in a shitty, morose mood yesterday morning, having just learned of Andy Taylor's stage four cancer diagnosis. I was so psyched about Duran Duran's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and looking forward to watching Andy rock out with his former bandmates on the November 19th broadcast. Being blindsided with that horrible news about Andy sucked big time. And when I noticed I had an IG message from "creativeelon," well....I was a bit bitey, to say the least.

 

^^^^^ Yeah, this fuckface actually tried to call me through IG. Declined!

Guess I pissed him off. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, whatever. Time for some self-care, as the youngsters say. This song does it for me.

 IT'S DURAN DURAN DAY, BITCHES!!!

I actually had another post written but I'm going to shelve it for a few days because how could I NOT commemorate this? 

I'm really digging the new album so far. The new single "Anniversary" kicks ass. 

And the video? FABULOUS.

Some thoughts....

Nick still rules.

Love the bit with the young Duran Duran cover band.

It's nice to see Roger prominently featured (and smiling!).

John getting kidnapped by the Daniel Craig lookalike is hilarious.

Okay, so there's a lot of the Kardashian lookalike in it, but I don't mind too much because they're mostly just making fun of her giant fake ass. (Yeah not very feminist of me to say, but you can't inject your ass cheeks with 30 pounds of window caulk and expect to be taken seriously. The giant fake ass trend can't die soon enough for me; it doesn't look sexy, it just looks painful. The lower back strain!)

I don't know what the Billie Eilish lookalike is meant to be doing, but I LOVE that they have the Ariana Grande clone licking a tray of pastries. I feel like that's a shoutout to Gen Xers like me, because seriously the only thing I know about Ariana Grande is that she was once caught on camera licking a donut. (No, it's not a euphemism for something dirty--she licked a donut in a bakery. God, the pop star scandals of today are so boring.)

And the Queen is there! YES! (I'm a big fan of The Crown. Betty RULES!)

40 YEARS OF DURAN DURAN, BITCHES!

ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING, PT. II: 

THE LEGEND OF BALLSACK GIRL

Well, at least he's not pretending to be Rod Stewart, but he's still a trolling POS. 

This one messaged me out of the blue under the pretext of "Nice Guy looking for love." If you haven't seen my Instagram--and there's not much reason for you to follow it unless you know me in real life--it's just photos of my cats, John and me, and whatever else I feel like posting. This guy obviously didn't look at my Instagram before messaging me, which is typical; I've deduced that most scammers just message several random women without looking at their profiles, then wait to see who bites. Lucky for robert_paul124, it was me. 

This is where I decided the theme for this one would be lyrics to John Mellencamp's Small Town, hence my name-checking Seymour, Indiana. 

It's pretty clear from my Instagram pics that I'm married. Lazy ass can't even be bothered to check. But whatever, I'll play along with some confusing responses. 

I think this asshat just copied and pasted a bunch of words. That's still no excuse for that hideous sentence structure.

Below: yes, I used "Nail Polish Tester" as my job title again. I pulled that out of my ass, thinking it couldn't possibly be a real job. Then I Googled it and turns out that it actually is, according to spammy clickbait site Mashable. 

ALSO, note that he claims to be a badass bomb disposal specialist in the army. What is it with these jackasses pretending to be in the military? 

Yes, I have a special man, you nipplehead. He's called MY HUSBAND and if you'd bothered to scroll down on my Insta, you'd see the evidence. And nice question about whether I rent or own. That's not obvious at all. 

Below: buckle up for the best part, "I invented Post-Its"! It's a reference to Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, because that movie is fabulous as all hell and I happen to love it. 

If you haven't seen it, a bit of background: Romy and Michele are two ditsy L.A. girls who travel to their hometown for their 10 year high school reunion. At the last minute, they decide their lives are not cool enough to impress the popular douchebags who harassed them back in the day, so they cook up a story about how they invented Post-It notes and (presumably) became multi-millionaires. No one at the reunion buys it, of course, but the girls still triumph in the end, and it's awesome. There's also some flashback scenes with everyone sporting hilarious '80s hair and clothes, an insane dream sequence, and a choreographed dance to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time."

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

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via GIPHY

Word to the wise: never trust anyone who can't have fun watching Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. 

And now, back to our story.

And here are some more Mellencamp "Small Town" references. I love the notion of someone becoming hugely rich off their invention and choosing to stay in a cow town like Seymour, IN. "Welcome to my estate. It's so peaceful here, most days you can barely smell the hog farms! Would you like to see the tennis courts?" 

There are some quaint, picturesque towns in Indiana--Ferdinand, for example, and James Dean's hometown of Fairmount--but Seymour ain't one of them.

***BTW, that song is misleading, because Mellencamp didn't stay there as the lyrics imply. I know he's got a place outside Bloomington, Indiana, and probably Beverly Hills or somewhere, too, but not Seymour. But anyway....

"Dancing to the oldest music." Yeah, I don't know what the fuck he means by that, but it gave me something to riff on.

Re: "Shadow Chant" below--that was an autocorrect gaffe--the oldest known song is actually the "Shaduf Chant." I learned this from Duran Duran's "Planet Earth" video. (Everything I needed to know, I learned from Duran Duran.) 

Sure, Wayne Newton, Nine Inch Nails, and The Osmonds. I'm wasting all my smartass answers on this guy, he's not even reading them. 

Asking for a photo of me because, AGAIN, he hasn't looked at my photos on Instagram. That's really a good thing, though. I don't think I want him rooting around in there.

So I Googled "weird model photos" and found this meme:

I cropped out the poor girl's hair, trying to make it look like a "selfie" (although it still doesn't look like a selfie, the angle is all wrong). 

And here's where the story ends. He never replied after seeing this pic, like he's too good for Ballsack Girl? It's not her fault some asshole hairstylist decided to give her that nasty 'do for a runway show. I feel strangely protective of Ballsack Girl. Sure, her hair sucks but she's got nice skin and her bone structure is poppin'.

I got news for robert_paul124. Ballsack Girl wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. She is still miles out of your league, with or without ballsack hair. Besides, she heard from her sister's ex-boyfriend's brother that you have gross backne and your breath smells like French onion soup. 

So there. 

Oh yeah, this is also the point where I blocked this guy and reported him for spam, natch. 

***OMG, you guys, I just remembered that John Mellencamp is dating Meg Ryan. What a weird, random celebrity coupling that is, no? Although, I can see their '80s versions hooking up: 

Oh yeah, DEFINITELY. 

Donald Trump is a Fart in a Mitten

Yeah I don't know what that means either, but I remember someone writing that about Paris Hilton back when she was a thing, and I thought it was funny. 

I also wrote that because there is a fairly good chance that someday DJT himself will stumble upon the phrase "DONALD TRUMP IS A FART IN A MITTEN," because if there's one bitch who stays up Googling himself at 3am, it's The Donald. That's a proven fact.

I was watching a clip of some rabid Trump supporters last night, and something dawned on me. It wasn't a particularly smart or insightful revelation, but here it is: Remember when Charlie Sheen had his public psychotic break a few years ago, and he had that disturbing fanbase of aging fratty white dudes cheering him on?  

This is all I could find on Google for "Charlie Sheen fans."

Still, I feel like it's a pretty fair representation. 

And these douchebro types were all like, "WOO HOO! Finally a guy who says what I think!"

An example of Charlie saying what they're thinking: 

"Ugly wives?" "Loser lives?" Ummmm......America? Does that sound like anyone else we know? 

I guess what I'm saying is--seriously, America--don't do it, don't fucking elect this blathering orange turd. And don't you dare be a dick and vote for Gary Johnson or do a write-in vote for your penis or whatever. VOTE FOR HILLARY. Stop crying about Bernie Sanders not getting the nomination. I don't care that Hillary is not who you want, because guess what? You know who I want to be President?

I want Simon Le Bon. Yep. I want Simon Le Bon to be President and Debbie Harry to be Vice President and the two of them can come to my house and bring me a pony and then Simon and Debbie can fly me around in a helicopter and we can wave at everyone and throw Duran Duran albums and candy to the adoring throngs below and land on the roof of the White House and have a picnic and both Simon and Debbie will tell me that I'm their favorite author ever and that they're going to declare Thanks, That Was Fun, like, the National Novel of America, whatever that is (I assume it's a special honor they'll create just for me) and that they want me to help them make all the important decisions and come to all the fancy White House dinners and help pass a law that requires everyone everywhere to become vegan. 

Also, there are unicorns.

Pictured: America under a Le Bon presidency. And that's the castle where John and I live with all our rescue cats.
 Plus my pony.

Realistically, however, that's not going to happen this time around. Maybe in another four years, who knows. But this election? I voted for Hillary.

And now here comes the obligatory video that every Duranie posts on election day. But for me, it has a deeper meaning (see above). 

Because Bon. SIMON Le Bon.

"Hi guys, by the way..."

Duran Duran

"New Religion" 

New Year's Eve

1982

On the last day of 2014, may I present Duran Duran on the last day of 1982 at the Palladium in NYC. "New Religion" has always been one of my favorite classic Duran tunes, and it kicks ass live. I especially love the way John (bass) and Andy (guitar) play off one another. And of course there's Simon. He really knows how to shake his.....tambourines.

Excuse me sirs, can I bum a ride?