Black Market Kidneys » Words (In Print) I Hate

Remember when we used to watch WWF on Saturday (or was it Sunday) on Free TV? Back when Andre the Giant & Sergeant Slaughter roamed the canvas, bouts were scheduled for “one fall” & 3 of 5 wrestlers hailed from “Parts Unknown”. I do, at least. I don’t remember much else, except that if somebody got kicked, punched, or bludgeoned in the nads, they announcer would describe it as a “Blow to the Midsection”. Glad to see that Chicago now shares a lexical link with crotches of greased up juicers.

On a sadder note, email forwards are a constant reminder to oxymorons such as “Military Intelligence”, etc… but can somebody really be an “unwitting suicide bomber“?

Thank God it is Strong Beer Month. Leap year to boot.

Power Rankings: 10 Reasons I hate a Village Voice article

Tito — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:25:31 +0000

As Young MC once said, “break it down for me, fellas”. And so I do. If only.

Reading this piece of Village Voice “I’m slightly more aware than the supposed hipsters I’m pandering to” j~~ournal~~ism, I struggled¹ to continue to the Okkervil River payload promised in my goolge alert. But dammit. Three paragraphs of what is/is there such a thing as “indie”² before I can get to anything even remotely apparently about music? And then all I get is some kind of Radiohead³ messianic rhetoric that just brings back bad memories.

In closing, I leave you with a list of words & phrases that Mr. Brad Gladstone (or is it Camille Dodero — can’t quite make out the byline hierarchy) foisted upon us (me) which are tell-tale markers of vomitorious⁴ music writing:
1. asymmetrical haircuts
2. sublimated self-loathing
3. commodifying
4. accelerated culture
5. mimetic (2x !)
6. anomie
7. neo-traditionalism
8. signifiers
9. â€œmetaâ€ (in quotes, no less)
10. Barthelmesque

And to prove that I’m not just a hater:

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¹ If you read past this point, it’s your own damn fault. Really. It’s all down hill from here.

² A debate I’ve been bored with since high school debates about “Alternative” music in a post-REM world.

³ and why no praise for DJ Quick’s “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense” in lieu of Thom Yorke?

⁴ aka “The Pitchfork Thesaurus”. And no, this does not make me anti-intellectual. I like the big words. I don’t like the bullshit.

Judged by the company you keep

David — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:24:09 +0000

So if you wanted to sell yourself, I mean, really sell yourself, why not list that you know me?

Disclaimer: I, on the other hand, may not necessarily claim to remember you, though I’m sure it was real, Larry…

Iconic?

Tito — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:12:10 +0000

Thus spake the Associate Press (at ESPN.com) [emphasis mine].

NEW YORK — The Upper Deck Co. has made a pitch to buy The Topps Co., a bid that would join two iconic baseball card makers that have sold sports memorabilia to generations of fans young and old.

And if you trust wikipedia:

Upper Deck Company, LLC (colloquially as “Upper Deck,” Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd. in the UK), founded in 1988, is a company primarily known for producing trading cards.

I know it’s only baseball cards — but who is the ad wizard that put together this report? Really. Generations of fans (young and old, natch) since 1988?

Believe That

Tito — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:25:49 +0000

It isn’t as if “reporters” haven’t long be regurgitating press releases in tech publications, but Ryan Faas earns his distinction as Today’s* BMK Jackass©:

There truly is no better word than revolutionary to describe the device [iPhone], which is slated to ship in June pending Federal Communications Commission approval.

- taken from his article at Computerworld, purportedly:

the most trusted source for the critical information needs of senior IT management at medium-size to large companies.

* He would have earned it for the week, if he’d replaced “truly” with “literally”. Sincerely.

The Most Pointless “Commentary” Ever?

Tito — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 22:58:46 +0000

“To all the moviegoers of India, I apologize for not giving you the chance to despise me. And I mean that in the best possible way.”

Funny…I think I read the same thing in Pitchfork last month.

Tito — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:46:11 +0000

“This single scientific paradigm hegemony has resulted in a privileged ‘regime of truth’ as well as ladder of success that scientists must align themselves to for industry recognition.”

If “if” was a fifth…

Tito — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:20:10 +0000

Literally: “If Stephen Hawking could play guitar, he would most definitely be a member of Omaha band Cursive.”