UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY

While I appreciate the urge to expose the duplicity of these right-wing politicians, liberals need to let go of the notion that conservatives can be shamed by their own hypocrisy. The motto of the Republican party might as well be "Rules are for thee and not for me." 

They obviously don't care if they look like hypocrites. 

There are two main principles that conservatives--evangelicals in particular--live by:

1.     I can tell other people what to do.
2.     Other people cannot tell me what to do. 

These two principles are VERY closely intertwined with the staunch belief that they are inherently good/moral and "others" are inherently bad/immoral. 

This is why they are adamantly opposed to abortion for "others" and why they loiter in front of abortion clinics to scream abuse at the women going inside (principle #1), while AT THE SAME TIME have zero qualms about getting an abortion themselves if needed, because their abortion is the only justified abortion and others cannot tell them what to do (principle #2).  

I know it's gratifying to dig up blatant examples of conservatives fucking up and getting caught doing the same things they purport to be against, and I totally support this practice. But I think it's imperative to also understand the two principles they live by. 

Bottom line: stop thinking that these people operate from the same basic worldview the rest of us do. They don't, and they never have.    

See, it's not that they don't grasp the irony. It's that they don't care. 
     

RESCUED FROM OBSCURITY
"Dare to Fall in Love" 

A disclaimer: my inclusion of this entry in the RFO series does not constitute endorsement or approval, because, well...it's kind of shit.

In the midst of a recent insomnia-fueled Googling session, I was trying to find the name of a half-remembered song. I didn't even care for the song that much, but some of lyrics had become inexplicably lodged in my brain and that was enough to activate my OCD need for a definitive answer.

I'm a bit surprised that I was able to actually find the song, because the only lyrics I could recall went something like, "One kiss, it's a something something thing, I get what I deserve, if I something something thing." Well, it turns out the song is "Dare To Fall in Love" by someone called Brent Bourgeois, and it was released in 1990. 

According to Wikipedia, the song was only a modest hit but it received a fair bit of play on VH-1 back in the day. This puzzled me, because I was 16-17 years old in 1990 and I sure as shit wasn't watching VH-1. That changed later on in the '90s when the former soft rock music channel started producing fun shows like Pop-Up Video and the insanely addictive Behind the Music series, but in 1990 I was still very much a devotee of MTV, grooving on 120 Minutes, Post Modern, and--embarrassingly enough--Totally Pauly. You see kids, in 1990 I thought Pauly Shore was funny and irreverent with his stoner patois and oddball antics; this was before I learned that his bohemian hippie shtick was merely a gimmick and he was actually a privileged Hollywood brat who lucked into a standup career by an accident of birth (his parents owned The Comedy Store). I also thought Totally Pauly (I didn't yet know him as Pauly Shore) was kind of hunky, a view that some of my high school friends also shared, just so you know I wasn't the only freak who lusted after the future star of Jury Duty.

Give me a break, I was young and naive. We all were.

 

Oh hell, since I'm in confessional mode and we're being real, I also thought Married With Children was funny and irreverent. Yeah I know, but hey, at least I can proudly say I never watched Saved By the Bell. In fact, I didn't know anyone my age who watched that fetid turd of a show. I suspect SBTB was the type of pop culture ephemera purportedly aimed at high schoolers but really only watched by middle schoolers, kind of like how 13-year-olds read Seventeen magazine while actual 17-year-olds were reading Cosmo. 

True story: today whenever Saved By the Bell is mentioned as some sort 

of beloved Gen X touchstone....I die a little inside.   

Anyway, I don't know for sure where I heard this "Dare to Fall in Love" song, but I think I most likely encountered it through the piped-in music station at Milano's Pasta To Go, the Italian fast food joint in Broad Ripple where I began my illustrious, short-lived career in food service during the summer of 1990. The restaurant's sound system played a perpetual stream of the soulless adult contemporary dreck of the day; I swear I heard "Hold On" by Wilson Philips about 35 goddamned times during every one of my shifts. I still get PTSD flashbacks when I hear the opening chords of that syrupy song. There was also a shit ton of Gloria Estefan, Michael Bolton, Peter Cetera, Kenny G, and the like. It was hell. That's the reason I strongly suspect that this barely-one-hit wonder by Brett Bourgeois was foisted upon my tender psyche during the summer I was slinging pasta at Milano's and trying to remember why the hell I'd signed up for this shit.

Man I hated that job, but I guess that's sort of the point of having a fast food gig when you're a kid. It's important that you learn early how much working in fast food sucks so you can spend the rest of your life staying as far away from that career choice as you possibly can. To add insult to injury, I was the youngest employee there, so my dickhead manager Byron made me do like 90% of the grunt work. Whenever business was slow and Byron was around, I could be found mopping the floors, washing the windows, and (shudder) cleaning the toilets. I think since it was my first job, Byron felt the need to school me on having a strong work ethic. Either that, or he was just a prick. Probably a bit of both. 

There were a few high points though. One time I was working a late night shift with a skeleton crew that consisted of myself, Carl (the cool manager), and Doug the kitchen guy, when Don Hein--the sports anchor from the Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR--rolled up in the drive-thru. I remember this mostly because he ordered manicotti and when he got to the window, Carl informed me that, oops, we were out of manicotti, and when I had to break the news to Don Hein he got really pissed off. I think Carl offered him some free breadsticks or something, trying to smooth things over. It didn't seem to work because ol' Don just heaved a loud sigh and said, "Oh for Christ sake, just forget it," then peeled out of the drive-thru in a huff. Carl and Doug and I sort of looked at each other and we were like, hey, wasn't that Don Hein? And then we laughed. You had to be there I guess, but trust me. It was funny.

Do not come between this dude and his manicotti. Seriously, just don't.

Then there was Mike, one of the cooks that I used to goof off with whenever we were left unsupervised. Mike was one of those hip hop loving white guys who sported an early '90s "fade" hairstyle with complicated designs shaved into the side of his head. To be fair, I'm pretty sure he was one of the few white dudes who came by his urban trappings honestly since he was an incoming senior at Broad Ripple High School (David Letterman's alma mater!), which, yeah, it was in Broad Ripple but was also an IPS school, thus a lot rougher than other northside schools. Mike and I had a bit of a flirtation going on, but he was really only interested in ladies of color so I don't think he ever took me seriously as potential girlfriend material. We had a lot of fun, though. We used to hang out in the kitchen where he would crank up WTLC (the local rap/R&B radio station), and he would always go nuts when they played Bell Biv DeVoe's Poison, one of the big tracks of the summer. Personally I couldn't stand that song, but I enjoyed watching Mike dance around the kitchen to it. He could bust a move and was really good at the sort of hip hop/club style of dancing that I now associate with Bobby Brown--lots of running in place and throwing of elbows and such. 

BUT there did happen to be one hip hop tune that even I--the Depeche Mode-loving, 120 Minutes-watching, clove smoking fashion victim that I was--could not resist, and that song was Digital Underground's The Humpty Dance. I think Mike considered it a personal triumph when he got me to do The Humpty Hump with him, right there in the kitchen. (No, it wasn't a sex thing.)

"This is my dance y'all, Humpty Hump's my name!"

Then there were the various "older" (twentysomething) guys that came in on the weekends to line their stomachs with pasta and other carbs before a heavy night of barhopping in Broad Ripple. Yes, sometimes they were cute, and sure, oftentimes they didn't care how underage I looked, and of course, I'd be lying if I said my dumb ass wasn't flattered by their inappropriate attentions. Whenever they asked me where I went to high school, I'd dodge the question by saying, "I go to school in southern Indiana, I'm just here for the summer." (Which was TRUE! You couldn't say that wasn't true, dammit.) And they'd be like, "So you're in college? Where?" And I'd say "I go to a private school down near Evansville. Marian Heights? Yeah, it's really small, you probably haven't heard of it." And with no way to verify what the hell or where the hell Marian Heights was (ah, the joys of the pre-internet age!), they bought into my bullshit. Not that I ever benefited from this in any real way, but standing behind the cash register in my hideously dorky Milano's uniform, a bit of ego-fluffing now and then certainly didn't go amiss. What can I say? I was every inch the Stacy character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. 

"You look like you could still be in high school."

"Ha. Yeah, everybody says that."

Unlike Stacy, however, I didn't have a Linda to fall back on. I was sadly Linda-less. That really sucked for me, because if ever there was an unsophisticated 16-year-old need of a hip, worldly-wise older girl to shepherd me through what would be an increasingly difficult year in my teenage existence, it was my awkward self.  

I did have a Gretchen, however, but she wasn't much help. Although she was friendly enough, my fellow cashier Gretchen was one of those girls who was convinced that any and every male who came within a one-mile radius must be madly in lust with her. I mean, Gretchen was girl-next-door cute in a preppy sort of way, but she wasn't exactly the teenage temptress she fancied herself to be. For instance, like some dude would wander up to the counter to ask for extra packets of parmesan cheese, and as soon as he was gone she'd be all, "Oh my God, did you see that? He was totally hitting on me! You mean you didn't notice? God he's being sooooo obvious, it's really annoying." She pretty much swore that every single male employee at Milano's, even sweet, laid-back, grandfatherly Carl (the aforementioned cool manager), was hopelessly obsessed with her. I didn't see it, but whatever. I wasn't going to be the one to burst her bubble.

I do remember a funny incident where Byron (the dickhead manager) called Gretchen, Mike, and me into his office for a Serious Talk. Apparently it had come to Byron's attention that certain members of "the team" were utilizing the Milano's store phone for personal calls, thus wasting the company's time while they were (GASP!) on the clock! (Yes, that's exactly how Byron spoke: he was your garden variety, cartoonishly sincere, middle management hack.) Anyway, Gretchen immediately piped up and was like, "Yeah, that was probably me. See, my dad called me here at work because he heard a rumor that I'm dating this older guy, and he's trying to keep tabs on me, and yada, yada, yada," and just gabbled on and on for like five minutes as Byron's eyes glazed over, and Mike bit his lip to keep from laughing, and my brain floated off somewhere into the stratosphere. Finally Byron--pissed off that his big Teachable Moment had been hijacked by Gretchen's inane prattle--just cut her off mid-sentence and he's like, "Right. Bottom line, no personal phone calls on the clock. Got it? Good. Back to work."

Besides Gretchen, there were a few other cashiers I worked with. One was Maggie, a pretty blonde Butler student. I was usually paired with Maggie on weekdays, and we would often reward ourselves for surviving the lunch rush by splitting an order of mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce. Milano's was the first place I'd ever encountered mozzarella sticks and I thought they were the greatest culinary invention ever. I mean, cheese--fried AND battered? Yes please! I never got to know Maggie all that well but I thought she was cool, although I remember Mike having some vague reason for not liking her. I think he claimed she was stuck up or something. Whatever. She shared her mozzarella sticks with me. She was a good egg.

Then there was a girl called Christy. She was hired a few weeks after I was, so she was the "new girl" for a while. She was quiet and a bit awkward, but nice enough. I remember us bonding over our shared dislike of Madonna's "Vogue," another song that was everywhere that summer. We both agreed that it was dumb and annoying. (I was a fan of Madonna's first three albums, but by 1990 she'd started in on that "I'm a serious artiste" bullshit, and I was over it.) Then one evening, I arrived to work the dinner shift to find that Christy had just up and quit earlier that day. Apparently, she had refused to wear the sandwich board.

For the uninitiated, this is an example of a sandwich board:

Of course, the purpose of the Milano's sandwich board was not to broadcast the wearer's desire to discuss male genitalia; it was meant to advertise the restaurant. The sandwich board was Byron's bright idea, of course, and he made it mandatory for every single one of us (excluding the managers) to do the sandwich board walk of shame up and down Broad Ripple Avenue. We all thought it was lame, but I didn't mind it too much because it was at least a chance to get outside and away from the store for a bit. I mean, I felt like a complete dork walking around wearing the stupid sign, but I considered it a small price to pay in exchange for an hour of freedom while still on the clock.

My coworker Christy, however, was not so chill about it. When she arrived at work that day to find it was her turn to do the sandwich board shuffle, she put her foot down and said no. Byron informed her that she could either comply or hang up her Milano's apron forever. Christy chose the latter. I remember Mike being livid--absolutely livid--about the whole situation. He was like--what--did this bitch think she was too good for sandwich board duty? I didn't get why he was so bothered about it. Actually, I was inclined to side with Christy. I mean, fuck Byron, and fuck his stupid sandwich board. Damn the man, fight the power, and all that jazz. Good for you, Christy. I hope you're still raging against the machine, wherever you are. 

Image source: Mississippi Mayhem on Etsy

Speaking of The Man, I got called on the carpet myself that summer for inadvertently charging an expired credit card. You see kids, back in the day when a customer wanted to pay with a card, we had to take the card and run it through this contraption that Google tells me is a "manual imprint." It was a pain in the ass, is what it was.

I should mention that credit card transactions were extremely rare, since 99% of our customers paid with cash, as was the norm; Milano's was considered ahead of its time since we were one of the few fast food restaurants that even accepted credit cards back then. It was so long ago that once in a while I'd even get people asking if we accepted personal checks as payment, and I was supposed to say brightly, "I'm sorry, we no longer take checks, but we do accept Visa and Mastercard." 

When we did get a customer paying with credit, we had to ask for a driver's license to check that the name on the card matched up with the ID, and--most importantly--we had to verify the credit card's expiration date. Guess what I forgot to do late one night when some jackass handed me a card that had (apparently) expired the month before? Yep.

Dude, Byron was pissed. When my oversight was discovered a few days later, he made a big production out of calling me into his office to show me a photocopy of the credit card imprint and asking if I saw anything wrong with it. (Can I just say that condescending bosses who treat their employees like they're first graders should be shot out of a cannon and into the sun?) I looked over the paper, and finally I was like, "Okay, I see it. The card was expired." Byron was like, "Yes, very good! Congratulations, you got yourself a written warning." (Oh, the bastard was loving this.) So he pulled out this official looking sheet of paper that basically stated that I'd fucked up, that it had been brought to my attention that I'd fucked up, that I understood the extent to which I'd fucked up, and would I please sign on the dotted line below to acknowledge that I'd fucked up? It probably also said I was a lawless degenerate who shouldn't be allowed to breed or vote. I don't know, I didn't really read it. I just signed the damn thing and got the hell out of there. 

I think Byron was expecting a bigger reaction, probably hoping that I'd burst into tears and grovel at his feet for forgiveness or something, but really I couldn't be arsed. Mostly because it was the beginning of August, I'd given my two weeks notice the previous week, and I had like four more shifts left before I said arrivederci to Byron and Milano's. 

At the end of my afternoon shift on the last day of work, I hugged Mike and Gretchen, promising to visit whenever I was back in town on school breaks (which I actually did a few times), then clocked out and quickly scooted my ass out the door in order to avoid bidding Byron a final farewell. It was real, it was fun, but it hadn't been real fun. As I said earlier, it was a summer job. You weren't really supposed to like it.  

As for Milano's, I'm sad to say that the restaurant folded around 1993 or so--about the time Fazoli's opened up a bunch of Indianapolis locations and swallowed up Milano's customer base. 

Fuck off, Fazoli's. Your spaghetti sucks.

The building (strip mall, actually) that housed Milano's is still standing, and although 1035 Broad Ripple Avenue has been home to various small businesses over the last few decades, it's now a Mexican cafe called Biscuits. I've never been there, but my sister tells me they serve a really good brunch. Looking at their Yelp page, it's changed a lot on the inside. The biggest difference (besides the Mexican-inspired decor) is that they've rearranged things to a diner-like setup where the kitchen is front and center and you can see the food being cooked right there, whereas with Milano's, the kitchen was hidden in the back where the cooks could goof off 80% of the time and the cashiers like me were at the counter on the frontlines.   

But I am happy to report that the storefront proudly sports 

the same green awnings from the Milano's era.

Oh hell, now see what I did? I got all carried away talking about my teenage years and summer jobs and fast food pasta joints that I completely forgot the reason I started writing this post in the first place. 

Anyway, yeah, Brent Bourgeois and "Dare To Fall in Love." There's not a lot to say about the song, it's just your typical soft-rock yuppie ballad. The video is nothing to write home about either; just some arty shots of bored-looking models floating around a hotel room while Bourgeois (apparently that's his real name) lounges around lip syncing moodily. One notable aspect is Brent's hair, which manages to combine two of the worst early '90s hairstyle trends: long, thin, 90210-inspired sideburns and a greasy, over-gelled mullet. 

According to his Wikipedia page he now records Christian music, which I can totally see because he looks a lot like the lead singer from Creed. 

Damn, I mean....he really looks like the guy from Creed. WOW. Are we sure he's not Scott Stapp's dad? (Apparently he's not, but holy shit, the resemblance is spooky!)

  

I HATE MYSELF FOR LAUGHING AT THIS

I do. I really, really, really do. It's a clip of a murder suspect (spoiler: he did it) getting interrogated by the police. However, I keep watching this because it makes me laugh. 

*Look, I know I'm wrong for laughing at it. And you know I'm wrong for laughing at it. 

And now I know that you know that I know that you know I'm wrong for laughing at it. 

And I agree completely.

*(Although I don't know why sometimes Blogger randomly centers my text blocks. Blogger sucks.)

Two things: 

1. The murderer morphing into a monosyllabic, monotonal Paranormal Activity-style demon.
2. The uber-country, southern-fried, straight-out-of-Mayberry cops. 

I only found out about this video because John and I got the Peacock app and our newest guilty pleasure is old Dateline NBC mysteries, which I also hate myself for watching. I hate violence, I hate the public's obsession with murderers and serial killers, I hate the way society has turned this shit into entertainment. That said, DAMMIT, I get suckered in by Dateline mysteries every time. I'm not proud of it, but at least I'm "owning" it, as the kids say. Whatever.

So I looked up more info on this case. Why? Morbid curiosity. I guess I'm as susceptible as the next person. That's when I came across this interrogation video and found myself laughing inappropriately throughout the whole thing (awful) and was slightly comforted to see in the comments that I wasn't the only one. Cold comfort, but still.

First white shirt cop questions Stephen: "Look at meh when ahm talkin' to ya, son."
(The cop will soon regret saying that.)

Then pink shirt cop joins the fun. 

("Wha, Stay-vin? Wha? STAY-VIN!")

The only reason I feel (sort of) okay about posting the vid is because they don't really delve into the details of the murder and the discussion doesn't get particularly graphic. That's because the suspect/murderer sits there blank-faced, answering almost every question with "Yes," "No," or "I don't know." It seems to me that he's trying to freak out the cops with his unemotional robot routine, but after a short time it stops being creepy and just becomes funny and increasingly absurd. The interrogators get more and more frustrated and southern with each passing minute. You can tell they're itching to shut off the camera and just start bouncing this little pissant off the walls like a hairy basketball. "BOY, you ain't rahhht in the heed!" 

If you didn't watch the video above, congratulations. You're a much better person than I am. However since I've come this far (and so have you, presumably), let me post some memes I found--turns out this generated a wealth of memes--and I'll get out of your hair and go back to work and finish my NaNoWriMo project and start my Christmas cards and get some shopping done and do the 500 other things I'm putting off right now. 

 

Okay, I'll just see myself out now.

 

Ok, millennials. If we #FreeBritney will you kindly SHUT UP about it?

I don't mean to sound insensitive about Britney's plight, but let's have a little perspective here. Britney Spears is an obscenely wealthy white celebrity living in Malibu, not a political prisoner sleeping on the dirt floor of a Belarusian detention center.

Pictured: not Britney Spears

Okay, I know I've ripped on Britney a lot in the past, but over the last several years I've mellowed a bit (yes, really), and it's dawned on me that I never actually had a problem with her personally. True, Britney's music has never been my cup of tea and I found her ubiquity circa 1999-2008 vomit inducing. But it's always been painfully obvious that Brit-Brit was never in the driver's seat of her own career anyway. She's a former Mouseketeer for Christ's sake, groomed and tossed onstage by her creepy parents, thrust into the limelight by Disney, polished and packaged by MTV, then foisted on the public for decades now by the corporate media. So it's not so much Britney that I detest; it's the relentless PR machine that's been shoving her down our throats since the late '90s.

I don't plan on watching any of the roughly 37 documentaries released this year about the whole Britney brouhaha, but I've read enough internet think pieces and editorials to get the idea. Basically Mom and Pop Spears, The Mickey Mouse Club, various managers, agents, handlers, the paparazzi, tabloid newspapers, celebrity bloggers, gossip websites, Justin Timberlake, some hanger-on named Sam Lutfi, her rodent-faced baby daddy K-Fed, Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Tucker Carlson (ew), and pretty much any regular Schmoe who ever publicly expressed a snarky opinion about Britney Spears should be hanging their heads in shame at how spectacularly they've all failed her. 

While I agree that Britney was undoubtedly shat on from a great height by lots of people over the years, I'm not sure most of the world's population is at fault for her mental health issues and whatever else she's facing now. I'm sure as hell not shouldering any of the blame; if I could cross my arms, flip my ponytail and erase Britney's stardom I'd do it in a shot. In fact, the poor girl probably would have been happier if she'd stayed in Louisiana and lived an anonymous existence raising kids or corgis or whatever and blowing off steam on karaoke night at the Downtown Daquiri Lounge once a week.

And also? I'm really fucking tired of seeing stupid headlines like this:

I don't know Kevin, you talent-free hack. It wasn't my turn to watch him that day.

Speaking of Timberfuck, can I just say again for like the 1000th time that I never got the appeal of that dude? When he was with his lame boy band (and by the way, why do they call these dancing, lip-synching, trained monkey teenybopper acts 'boy bands'? They're boys, sure, but bands? Bands play instruments, goddammit! I think it's an alliterative thing for lazy music journos, hence 'boy bands' and 'girl groups,'), why was Justin the breakout star? He was so mediocre in every way, even when contrasted with those other Backstreet Boys erm, N'Sync dullards. And remember the music press when he went solo? They pushed him so hard, it was baffling. Rolling Stone was especially determined to make me care about Justin's crap music.

    Rolling Stone in the 2000s: all shit, all the time.

If you've been paying attention to the Free Britney movement (heh, "movement), you'll know that Justin Timberlake is now problematic and possibly canceled. Not because of his musical output, which still sucks, but because he acted like a giant jackass when he and Britney broke up. It has mostly to do with his skewering of Britney in one of his sucky music videos, and also because he admitted in a radio interview that he and Britney had S-E-X. 

Yes sir, they did the no-pants dance. The four-legged foxtrot, if you will. Made the beast with two backs. Played hide the cannoli. Took a trip to pound town. Sent out for sushi. Ate out at the Y....over the panties, no bra, blouse unbuttoned, Calvins in a ball on the front seat, past 11 on a school night. 

Yes, it's fucking ridiculous, but this revelation was actually deemed shocking at the time. To put it in '80s terms, dig if you will a picture...

It's 1986 or so and Billy Idol is doing a promotional tour for his new album, Whiplash Smile. Billy has just broken up with his longtime girlfriend Perri Lister (actually it seems they broke up after having a kid together in 1989, but just humor me here). 

Radio Interviewer: So Billy, I hear you and Perri broke up. That sucks, man. 

Billy Idol: Yeah well you know. Shit happens. 

Radio Interviewer: You guys dated for several years. While I have you here in the studio, Billy, tell me, did you and Perri ever, you know.....DO IT?

Billy Idol: Oh yeah, we did it. Lots of times. I saw her naked, too. 

Radio Interviewer: Dude, high five! 

But no, people in the '80s weren't asking Billy Idol or Perri Lister if they boned, because back then there wasn't endless speculation over whether or not pop stars were having sex. I'm guessing because it was generally assumed that they were all fucking like bunnies, and also due to the fact that back then nobody cared enough to make a goddamned federal case out of it. 

I understand that the public debate about Britney's virginity is explored in the current crop of #FreeBritney documentaries, and it sounds like they all share my view on the topic, which is to say "What the fuck was up with that, anyway?" I read some old articles and interviews, trying to figure out whether the virginity narrative was originally floated by Britney and her "team," or if it was something a reporter asked her about and she gave the "I'm waiting til marriage" speech of her own accord, but it's not clear how (or why) it started. I just know it was a really creepy thing for the media and the public to fixate on, and anyone genuinely invested in the "purity" of a teenage girl--celebrity or otherwise--is a damned pree-vert.

And the obsession with virginity wasn't limited to Britney back in the aughts. I seem to recall Dubya signing an executive order to declare Jessica Simpson's hymen a national shrine around 2002 or so. 

Pictured: a proud day for Amurrica

"My fellow Amurricans, today we recognize Miss Simpson's tireless commitment to chastity and her steadfast belief in church-sanctified marital sex. Jessica, you are an inspiration to the unfulfilled loins of our country's youth. Thank you, and may God continue to bless Amurrica. Karl Rove, you get to cut the ribbon."

No that didn't really happen, but the post-9/11 climate was so bizarre that it sure as shit seems like something that could've happened. Come on now, I'm not wrong.

Not to rip on Bush some more, because now that we've lived through the horror of The Orange Menace, Bush looks like goddamned Churchill in comparison. BUT, is it any wonder that millennials are so irony deficient? They grew up in the era of freedom fries, inbred sister wives destroying Dixie Chicks albums, and, erm, whatever the fuck this was: 

When the media shows footage of homophobes President Bush and Prince Abdullah strolling hand-in-hand looking like Archie and Betty on their way to the malt shop, and you're meant to take it seriously? Well, I think it would tend to warp your sense of irony, especially if you're still in your formative years.  

This trend of teen pop stars advocating virginity seemed to peak around 2008. I remember seeing the VMA's that year when Russell Brand hosted, and he made some sort of crack about the famously chaste (at the time) Jonas Brothers and the purity rings they wore to signal their pledge to remain sex-free. Well, Brand's comment did not sit well with American Idol "winner" Jordin Sparks (who?) and later that night when she took the stage to present whatever bullshit award she was there to present, she snotted, "I just wanted to say there's nothing wrong with wearing a purity ring, because some of us aren't filthy whores." (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.) Of course, times have changed a bit and if Jordin said that today I believe she'd get her prissy ass canceled by the Twitterati for "slut-shaming" and be forced to make a groveling social media apology. Personally, I think that if this sort of dreck is representative of her musical output, Jordin Sparks should have been canceled for trying to bore everyone to death.   

Ah, millennials. Ya gotta love 'em. I'm not being sarcastic, I have a lot of friends who fall into the millennial category and they're good eggs. Much more socially aware than us Gen Xers, but we're trying to catch up. Yep, some of my favorite people are millennials. And it's not entirely their fault that the music of their generation sucks so hard; with public school arts programs being systematically gutted over the past few decades, is it any wonder that many millennials consider people like Drake and Katy Perry purveyors of good music? At least they have a valid excuse. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for people like Rob Sheffield. And that sort of breaks my heart.

Yes, my fellow Gen Xer, Rob Sheffield. It pains me to say this, because I enjoyed his book Love Is a Mix Tape and of course I appreciated him giving my favorite band their due in his second memoir, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. But Rob also talks a lot of shit, and he is oddly, inexplicably worshipful of Britney Spears. For instance, he once claimed that Britney's music is actually punk. Yeah, okay. Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Slits, and....Britney Spears. "Punk." Lester Bangs is spinning in his grave.

I guess if Avril Lavigne is your idea of punk, so is this.

Then in 2019 Sheffield penned a think piece marking the 20th anniversary of Britney's debut album Baby One More Time, calling it "avant-garde." (Rob, you ignorant slut.) Seriously, Laurie Anderson should kick his ass for that one. 

I remember Britney's first music video where she's dancing down the hallway of a Catholic high school, all tarted up like she's about to hit the main stage at Spearmint Rhino. I also remember a standup comedian around that time who quipped, "When I see that Britney Spears video I think two words: JonBenet," which I found funny and creepily on-point. 

But the video that stands out to me more is her follow-up, "Sometimes." (I'm not posting the video, instead here's the 1986 Erasure song of the same name.) 

Much better to have this "Sometimes" stuck in your head, trust me.
        

If I were in a less charitable mood, I might call Britney's song "music to slit your wrists to," but the thing is, it's not terrible. It's not even that bad; it's not interesting enough to be bad. The bland melody and generic lyrics are formulated to be as inoffensive as possible. The video is noteworthy as a meticulously crafted commercial for a brand new product: Britney Spears. The "Baby One More Time" vid was a showy, risqué ploy to get your attention. Now that they have it, her marketing team has put together an easily digestible promo to showcase the wholesome Britney, the all-American, all-things-to-everyone, all-purpose pop star. 

It opens with Britney gazing through one of those beach telescope things, mooning prettily over her designated love interest.         

    

      

Her dreamboat is shown clutching a football and walking along the surf with a dog. These quick shots tell you everything you need to know about him: he's a sports-loving, dog-owning, red-blooded dudebro, lest you think he'd be caught dead doing something femme-y like petting a cat or reading a book. 

Then Britney heads down to the pier to bust some choreographed dance moves with her, erm, peers. Everyone is decked out in white. 

Britney lounges on a picnic blanket clad in a virginal white dress....

 

.

...and hangs out with some girlfriends, still wearing white. Even her car is white.

You know, maybe the biggest difference between Gen Xers and millennials is the latter's affinity for synchronized dance routines in their music videos. Something about a clutch of plucky kids dancing in formation is so cringey and off-putting to me. 

I mean, they're all just so sincere about it.

Call me jaded, but I prefer my music videos firmly tongue-in cheek. For instance, Simon Le Bon trussed up to a windmill....

"You got sirens for a welcome, there's bloodstains for your paaaaaain."

Debbie Harry rapping with The Man From Mars....

"And you don't stop, just blast off, a sure shot."

Or George Michael pretending to be sexually attracted to a woman....

(Wait, you mean he wasn't being ironic here?)

What else is there left to say about Britney? Well, I don't dislike her. I hope she is completely freed of her conservatorship, I guess. I can't abide her musical output, but reportedly she has no plans to subject us to more of her vocal stylings anytime soon.....although we'll see how long that lasts because I can't see her team wasting all this free publicity without cashing in with some new project. Maybe she'll release another fragrance and spare us any more albums. 

I just hope we've heard the last of this #FreeBritney bullshit, because it's doing my head in.

 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!