Who The F**k Are These Kids?

I’ll admit that I did not pay too much attention to the Grammy’s. Award shows are becoming ridiculously overblown and phony. The one show I used to watch with great regularity, The Oscars, is slowly dropping off my radar with every year. James Franco nearly killed it all together, last year.

However, I did manage to see a few performances, like Katy Perry, who looked and sounded awful. I also saw Adele win for album of the year, which I applauded. Her voice is reminiscent of singers from decades gone by and whoever wronged her has now made her a rich woman.

Frankly, I really don’t give a rat’s hind quarters about half of those musicians out there. They all suck in my book. I don’t think I need to beat that dead horse like I have in the past. And another thing… what the hell is Country music doing infiltrating the Grammy’s? Don’t they already have 15 award shows throughout the year? Though, Taylor Swift losing made me smile.



But on a more disturbing note, a trend developed on social media services where people, mostly kids, said, “Who the ‘eff is Paul McCartney?” 

Come on, parents! This is sad. This is my generation’s offspring running around out there praising Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga and they don’t know who the ‘effing Beatles are?   And not just because of Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

My daughter is four years old and she knows most of the words to “Eleanor Rigby”!   She loves The Beatles. She sees commercials that use Beatles’ songs and says, “Hey, it’s The ‘Yellow Submarine’ guys.” She loves that movie, even though The Beatles had little to do with the acting. I remember watching an intimate performance, by Scott Blasey of The Clarks, in our hometown a couple years back and his daughter knew all the words to “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” She’s roughly the same age as my daughter.

Folks, we are one step closer to Idiocracy. It’s pretty sad when Dave Grohl, of all people, has to come out and say, “Musicians, knock that autotune shit off or I will cut a bitch!” OK, he didn’t say that. In fact, his speech was a little hypocritical because he has done some electronic work on some of his music awhile back. Still, the fact that one of the Foo Fighters has to come out and shame you is ridiculous. That’s like putting Katherine McPhee out there as the poster child for saving Country music. “Y’all need to start drinking more and having heartache or Country will die!”

Rock is dead. I get it. One of the greatest rock bands ever found a replacement singer on YouTube. Another is touring with an American Idol winner. We get it. Rock died before Kurt Cobain did. But it only ceases to be memorable if parents do not educate their kids on what it used to be like for those of us who remember bands like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and The Who. Kids need to know that Elvis Pressley was more than a guy who does weddings in Las Vegas and died on a toilet. They need to hear Jimmy Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn both play “Little Wing” and then have a healthy discussion on which version is better. Even though it was Jimmy’s song, I love Stevie Ray Vaughn’s version better. Though, I love Hendrix’s version more than Derek and the Dominoes’.

The point is that the current pool of artists, if you can call K-E-Dollar Sign-HA an artist, are lazy and are given fame and prominence for nothing. There was a time when you had to bleed and starve to get a sniff at stardom. You think Blues artists back in the first half of the 20th century were able to hit it big thanks to a hack singing contest?  No. John Lee Hooker was not auto tuned nor on Fox being judged by a British twat with a horrible haircut.  And yet, we should praise Miss “Tik Tok” because she can string together a mess of rhyming couplets about drinking some Jack and smelling of crack?

Who the ‘eff is Paul McCartney?

Who the ‘eff are you? What have you done to earn anyone’s respect. Go out and learn a little about the world. Get a clue!

Parents? Teach your damn kids about real music. Class dismissed!

Lies I believed in Childhood

As a kid, we take the word of adults or at least those in our family as gospel.   We never question their credibility because we haven’t learned that people lie to us for whatever reason.  Sometimes, we formulate our own truths and those authority figures around us never correct the notion because the fact that we believe it makes it seem cute and adorable.  Meanwhile, we lie in bed, awake, worrying about the consequences of those actions that we believed to be set in stone.

Lie #1: Crossing your eyes for an extended period of time will cause them to stay that way.

I believed this myth well into my teens. But being of a rebellious nature, I always tried to push the limits of that timeframe

Lie #2: A swallowed piece of gum will stay in your system for seven years.

Growing up, I enjoyed stuffing almost an entire pouch of Big League Chew into my mouth but never had the need or urge to swallow it. However, when it came to smaller pieces such as Big Red or Juicy Fruit, sometimes you accidentally could swallow a piece and then dread set in, “I just swallowed my gum! It’s going to be in my stomach for seven years. CRAP!” Of course, the truth is that is does digest much, much quicker than that. It may be a week but it won’t be seven years.

Lie #3: If I eat watermelon, orange, or apple seeds a tree will grow in my stomach.

Apparently, at the age of seven, I had not learned the basics of horticulture. After ingesting a few orange seeds, I was pretty sure that I had a the beginnings of an orange tree growing in my tummy. I imagined the tree growing inside me, like an alien, and it would eventually burst a branch full of oranges out of my navel. I had no concept of the makeup of the digestive system containing acids or the fact that there was no light or soil for those seeds to grow in while it churned away in my stomach. Nor did I realize that it if not already dissolved, I would pass the seed naturally before it could germinate.

Now, the ingestion myths did not hold up as long as the eye crossing one, but to this day I’m still convinced that I shouldn’t swim after eating.  Worse yet, I still need to remind my father-in-law that going outside without a coat will not cause you to get a cold.  He continually tells his daughter, my wife, “It’s no wonder you’re sick.  Put on a damn coat!”  To which I say, “We have a four year old in Kindercare.  That’s why we’re sick all the time.”

 
Still, the worst lie my family had me believe was that I was the mailman's kid.   I'm sure they were joking but you kind of get a complex when they keep repeating it like they did, year after year.

Maury, can I get a reading on this one?

YouTube Ad Fail… or Win

Let’s face it. YouTube ads suck.  I spent last year catching up on Yogscast episodes of Minecraft only to have to suffer through that stupid Xfinity… sorry Comcrap song, “Fun for you…Fun for me…” I was reaching for a gun by about episode 15.

ARRGGHH! YOUTUBE ADS SUCK. THEY SUCK. THEY REALLY SUCK! They suck almost as much as Zynga ads during games. Honestly, I have five seconds to harvest these crops before they die and the effers put up a pop up ad telling me to spend real money to get fake money. WTFBBQSTD!!!


Now, I am glad that the newer ads have a five second skip feature, but still, Who cares about the 5AM warrior, or whatever it is?

But are the ads targeted?  Is the video content I'm about to watch paired with an ad that speaks directly to the subject matter? 

If so, count this as a fail... or win, depending on how you feel.
I watched the trailer for The Hunger Games and the ad before the trailer was for McDonald’s.
I watched a stupid video depicting how bad Siri fails at understanding questions on the iPhone 4S and the commercial before it was for Android. 

The iPhone 4S thing wasn't even a good video.  I was expecting to find some humorous instances where Siri didn't work as expected.  What I got was a couple of haters, with bad accents, that Siri couldn't understand when they pronounced certain words.  Hell, I couldn't understand them.