When you’re a Rolling Stone and want a five-stringed guitar, you get a five-stringed guitar.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Author: Thoughts On The Dead (Page 86 of 1031)
Please. I tried. I looked. I googled. Nothing. Someone explain why Keith Richards is playing bass in tandem with Bill Wyman. Were they covering Big Bottom? Because if they were, then the Rolling Stones are in possession of Time Sheath technology, being that this photo is from either their ’75 tour of America, or the ’76 European run. (Ollie Brown, the guy in the back with the giant afro, only joined the touring Stones for two years.) What the fuck is this bullshit?
And it’s not a soundcheck fuck-around one-off, either:
I repeat: What the fuck is this bullshit?
Hey, Bobby. Whatcha doing?
“I guess I’m doing one of those fantasy camp deals.”
No.
“Always managed to avoid ’em. God bless the Deadheads for that. There were some lean years, but ticket sales were never so bad I had to jam with randos.”
It’s a bit disheartening. But that’s not what you’re doing. That is a young man named Matt Jaffe. He was playing Sweetwater, and you were there getting drunk, so you jammed with his band.
“That sounds like me. Gosh, he’s young. Shouldn’t he be playing an app?”
Kids still play guitar, Bobby.
“Yeah, well, maybe. Tell you one thing: I dunno if I trust his haircut.”
Me, either.
Sure, it’s eight grand, and isn’t technically a Travis Bean, but think of how much joy I bring you on a near-daily basis.
On Passover, we answer the Four Questions, but on Hanukkah, only one: Who was the most Jewish Grateful Dead (excluding Mickey)?
Let us immediately declare Bobby and Billy out of the running: these two men are astoundingly goyische. The double-n in “Kreutzmann” is a red flag to all Hebrews, and Bobby may as well be made out of bacon and milk. We can similarly exclude both Godchauxes, under the rubric of “Just look at ’em.”
TC was too smart for his own good, which is a rather Jewish way to be, but he was only in the band for ten minutes and Jews stick around forever. Garcia had a beard just like a rabbi, but also like Santa: that is ambiguous semitism. Phil wears glasses, wants most of his old friends to rot in hell, and is now in the restaurant: pretty damn Jewish.
But the Jewiest Grateful Dead was Vince: no one ever quite accepted him, and he got blamed for shit that wasn’t entirely his fault.
QED.
- Instead of talking about Star Wars: Rinse of Skywalky, maybe we can just all hang out and drink some Claws and watch old Tina Turner performances.
- Like this:
- You see that shit?
- That’s some good shit, bro-heim.
- Those back-up dancers brought the energy.
- And there were no enormous plot holes.
- Nor did watching Tina’s performance seen like a chore that must be endured lest one’s Social Affability Index be degraded.
- That’s what I need to know: is there a way to stop watching Star Wars movies without being sent to Disney’s reeducation camps?
- I mean, I certainly don’t want to turn into one of those assholes that watches films.
- Me, I like movies.
- ‘Splosions and punching and wisecracks.
- Which Star Wars: Rime of the Skymariner had in spades, but they were the wrong kind.
- Remember that poem about the Hollow Men?
- I think T.S. Eliot was talking about Tobacco the Space Monkey; he just made it about men because he had had just done all the ones about cats, and he was afraid his peers were gonna start calling him a Furry behind his back.
- Enthusiasts, this bullshit here is the Death of Fun, and if young people were radicalized into Luddism by it, I would cheer them on.
- BURN THE LOOMS, MOTHERFUCKERS!
- Just stop making these movies.
- Everybody’s dead or fat or Harrison Ford, and no one cares about the new characters except for Sexy Space Mexican, and all the plots are recycled.
- But not recycled in a First World way.
- Like, how your empty bottle of banana schnapps gets taken to a factory, broken down into its component parts, and reconstituted into a jar of half-sour pickles.
- Recycled in a Third Word way, where a broken-down Ford gets welded to half a bootleg Schwinn and used as both a taxi and a brothel.
- Wait, wait, wait.
- From here on:
- “Totd,” you ask, “why have you posted a picture of KISS’ semi-competent drummer Peter Criss?”
- Because according to Peter Criss’ biography, his penis is so large that it was nicknamed “The Spoiler,” as that was the effect it would have on women.
- “I wish you hadn’t told me that,” you say.
- Well, fuck you for being curious.
- Remember what it did to the cat?
- Anyway: spoilers.
- The good guys win.
- I did not want them to.
- I wanted the Emperor to win, because I love that scrotum-faced maniac and his joyful malice.
- Conflicted villains are boring; gimme a fucker who wants to masturbate using the galaxy’s tears as lube.
- Oh, remember the Emperor?
- He’s back.
- How?
- If I gave you a 24-oz collector’s edition bottle of Johnson’s Baby Yoda Shampoo, would you retract your query?
- Johnson’s Baby Yoda Shampoo: Tears, No More There Will Be.
- There is no explanation for Palpatine’s resurrection.
- Even the Friday the 13th movies went through the motions of “explaining” how Jason came back in each installment.
- Disney respects you, the viewer, LESS than Friday the fucking 13th.
- And he’s Rey’s grandfather.
- I swear to God.
- Which is not as dramatic as Darth Vader being Luke’s father.
- He tells Rey, “I am your grandfather,” and I desperately wanted her to answer, “Peepaw?”
- “No. Stop calling me that.”
- “Awww. You’re my mean ol’ Peepaw.”
- “Cut that out. I’m eeeeeeevil.”
- “You’re cranky is what you are. Did you take your pills?”
- This does not happen.
- Instead, he and Rey pull weird faces and make Jedi-gestures at one another while EVERY SPACESHIP IN THE GALAXY shoots at each other.
- Here, look at this:
- Falcon versus four TIE fighters.
- Wouldn’t even count for a skirmish in Star War: The Rimbaud of Skyjellyfetti, and yet it’s more exhilarating than anything in that flick.
- Quick cuts, lateral motion of the guns and ships, big ‘splosion at the end: it’s almost as if filmmaking has a language all its own.
- And in said language, this…
- …just registers as noise.
- Look at that and try to give a shit.
- Try your hardest.
- Work at caring about that under-designed, colorless schmear of spacey garbage.
- And the bad guys were just as bad.
- DO NOT AVERT YOUR EYES, SINNER!
- This is what you wanted.
- This is what we asked for.
- And this is what we deserve.
- I dare you to say America in 2019 deserves better than Star Wars: the Roomba of Spaghetti.
- Two minor points relating to Tobacco the Space Monkey:
- He is taken prisoner by the Empire (or whatever the fuck they’re called) and his bandolier is removed; when he is rescued, he runs around without it for a couple scenes but no one says to him, “You’re nakey,” and I think that was a missed opportunity.
- At the end, the little CG creature who ran a bar in the first one gives Tobacco the medal he should have received in the first film, saying, “Leia wanted you to have this,” and I said, “Oh, go fuck yourself,” to the screen out loud. (I make a lot of shit up, but not that. Ask Brother on the Dead. He shushed me.)
- Anyway, Luke and Leia and Han come back, and also Lando.
- Delightfully, Lando is just as horny as the last time we saw him.
- Mark Hamill, on the other hand, is over it.
- I’m talking Harrison-Ford-levels of apathy.
- And HOLY SHIT did Harrison Ford phone in his scene.
- I think they might have shot it in his pool house and just CG’ed him into the movie.
- Dude didn’t even shave.
- His hair was all messy.
- HARRISON FORD’S BENTLEY SCREECHING UP NOISE
- “Just gimme the goddamn vest and the check. You got an hour.”
- “Harrison, in this scene–“
- “I love you, Billy. You’re my son or whatever. Don’t worry about killing me. You’re a good kid”
- “Harrison, that’s not the line and his name is–“
- HARRISON FORD’S BENTLEY SCREECHING AWAY NOISE
- “We’ll fix it in post! Moving on!”
- What was the plot?
- I saw the movie ten hours ago and can remember just snatches of it.
- I recall a bit of zippity, some zoppity, a whole steaming pile of pewpewpew, but not the actual plot.
- Oscar Isaac did get himself a girlfriend in this one to combat the perception that he and what-his-face were humping.
- She was dressed like the Rocketeer and did…something.
- I can’t remember her name.
- Zoopy Doopy?
- Something like that.
- Also: the Force can do fucking ANYTHING now.
- Used to be that the Force was mild telepathy and a li’l bit of telekinesis.
- Maybe some soothsaying, but that was only for the high-level users.
- Now?
- You can Force-heal fuckers back from the dead.
- Or teleport solid objects between discrete locations.
- Light speed also has new rules.
- Wait.
- No.
- Light speed now has no rules.
- Except that you can’t do the bullshit from The Last Jedi where Laura Dern turned her spaceship into a rail gun and obliterated the entire Imperial Fleet at once.
- The reason for this is that J. J. Abrams literally reversed every decision from The Last Jedi.
- Rey’s parents being nobodies?
- NOPE!
- She’s a Palpatine.
- Rose Tattoo (or whatever the fuck the lovely-seeming Asian-American actress whom the internet was so unpleasant to was called) as a main character?
- NOPE!
- She has three lines.
- Kyle Reddit destroys his cheesy helmet?
- NOPE!
- Puts it right back together.
- Do not mistake my mockery of these reversals for an advocacy of The Last Jedi.
- It suuuuuuuucks.
- Watched it last night.
- It’s still boring and miserable and overlong and stupid and tonally schizoid.
- Final topic: Star Wars must be taken away from Kathleen Kennedy.
- The Disney era of SW has been marked by nothing by reactionary movement.
- Directors fired in the middle of shoots, movies announced and cancelled, the flagship trilogy shoddy and forgettable: far closer to DC’s cinematic offerings than to Marvel’s.
- The best we’ve gotten so far is The Mandalorian, and the shine is off that helmet, mostly because after the second or third episode, the Mandalorian became functionally retarded.
- “Hi, Mando. You’re probably surprised to hear from me, seeing as how I tried to kill you last time we met. And the time before that. And the time before that. But I got a job for you.”
- “Okay.”
- “Meet me in an abandoned alley in the bad section of the galaxy. Come alone and bring Baby Yoda.”
- “Sounds good.”
- Enough.
- No more.
- Let us stand athwart Star Wars, yelling stop.
Marley was dead, to begin with, but that didn’t stop Bob Cratchit from blasting his Greatest Hits in the office. When Ebeneezer Scrooge entered, he turned off the stereo and yelled,
“Reggae? In this office?”
Cratchit went back to his desk, where he alternated between dipping a device that would evolve into a pen a hundred years hence into an inkwell, and blowing on his hands. He didn’t actually write anything, just dipped the pen and blew on his hands while Scrooge grumbled.
“Cratchit!”
“Yes, Mr Scrooge,” he answered.
“That boy of yours, Fucked-Up Frank–”
“Tiny Tim.”
“–is he still a mess?”
Bob Cratchit laid his utensil down, straightened his waistcoat, and said,
“He is, sir. I was meaning to speak to you about that. You see–”
“Shouldn’t have been so poor, slackbody. You’ve seen my boys. Ten or twelve or them, heaving giants to a man, and that’s because I raised them right. With money. Stuffed food down their gullets until they burst their pants with healthfulness. Two of them beat the crap out of Admiral Nelson the other day. Spirited lads. But not your boy, Polio Pete.”
“Tiny Tim.”
“Kid’s just depressing. Your little mutant kid’s a downer, Cratchit.”
“Sir, I–”
“Time for bed!”
………………………………..
Ebeneezer Scrooge changed into his nightclothes, which were made of linen and silk and the skin of several street urchins. He was masturbating to Queen Victoria when the sound of clanking chains broke his concentration.
At the foot of the bed was Bob Marley.
“Blackamoor!”
“That’s not necessary.”
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
There was silence in the room.
“You like what you see?”
“Ebeneezer Scrooge! You are the most loathsome prick in the entire fucking world, and so you shall be visited by three ghosts this eve!”
Scrooge nodded his head, and re-started his wanking.
“STOP THAT!”
“I’m in the pipe, man. Can’t stop now.”
“Knock it off!”
“Oh, fine. Three ghosts?”
Marley shook his chains and dreadlocks, then skanked easily, and said,
“Yes. Three ghosts.”
“Huh. Okay. So…two more after you?”
“No. I don’t count.”
“But you’re a ghost, right?”
“I am, but–”
“You said I would be visited by three ghosts. You’re a ghost. You’re visiting. That leaves two.”
“Not including me. Three ghosts not including myself.”
“So…four ghosts?”
Marley stopped skanking.
“Why are you making this so difficult?”
“Is it three ghosts or four, jackass? How many spooks are gonna–”
“What the fuck did you just call me?”
“–be showing…I didn’t mean ‘spook’ like that.”
“Suuuuuuure you didn’t.”
“Can we just get on with the haunting?”
“Asshole.”
…………………………
Around midnight, the windows of Scrooge’s bedroom flew open. All the candles lit of their own accord. Though there was no pipe organ present, a tremendous blast of organ music played. Very ominous.
“Spectre! Show yourself! Reveal thy nature to me,” Scrooge called out.
The apparition apparated. It was a small woman, but see-through, and with hands the size of Christmas trees.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Noogies!”
“The what now?”
And then she was upon him, cradling his neck fiercely and noogying him with her mammoth hands.
“Ow!”
And then she grabbed his left wrist, and began bashing him in the face with his own palm.
“Why are you hitting yourself, Scrooge? Why are you hitting yourself?”
“What the fuck!?”
And then she was gone.
………………………..
Scrooge had finally managed to fall back asleep, when there was a great clamor in his chambers. He sat bolt upright, and at the foot of his bed was a tall man in sweatpants.
“Are you going to strike me?”
“No,” the spirit said. “I am the Ghost of John Travolta’s Bad Career Decisions.”
“I have no idea how to respond to that.”
The ghost made Scrooge watch Staying Alive with him, and then Gotti, and also the movie with Jamie Lee Curtis that was based around aerobics.
“Is there any popcorn?”
“It’s 1843,” Scrooge said. “I don’t know if it exists in England.”
“They have it in America.”
“Good for them.”
“They call it maize.”
“Don’t care.”
And then the ghost popped in Be Cool.
“We can’t watch Get Shorty? Gene Hackman is so good in that,” Scrooge pleaded.
“No.”
“Rene Russo! Love the Russ!”
“That’s an entirely different ghost, man. I just do Johnny T.’s bad films.”
“Don’t call him that.”
…………………………………………..
KA-BLAMMO! went Scrooge’s shotgun as the third (or fourth, depending on how you’re counting) spirit entered his chambers. The shot went through the ghost and embedded into the wall behind.
“Really? You tried to shoot a ghost?”
“Well, why not?”
“I’m a ghost, dumbfuck. You can’t…y’know what? Just forget it. Let’s start fresh. I am the Ghost of Buttholes.”
Scrooge nodded his head, more out of habit than understanding.
“Buttholes, you say?”
“Yuh-huh. You know buttholes?”
“I do. I do.”
“Welp, I’m the Ghost of ’em. Ever smell a fart in a room where it’s only you, and you know you didn’t fart? That was me.”
“Can I be completely honest with you?”
“Oh, I insist,” the ghost said.
“You four–”
“Three.”
“–are the least impressive spirits I’ve ever heard of. There’s not even a overarching theme. It’s as if this whole evening was being made up by a lonely weirdo just to amuse himself.”
“Be that as it may, I’m here now. Let’s just make the best of it. Oh, shit, Be Cool! Vince Vaughn is so fucking good in this.”
“Don’t make me watch that crap again.”
“THIS IS YOUR PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR EVIL WAYS, EBENEEZER SCROOGIE!”
“Scrooge.”
“CHANGE YOUR WAYS OR EVERY MOVIE YOU SEE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WILL BE BE COOL!”
Scrooge felt himself falling into an infinite pit, flames all around him, and he screamed until…
……………………….
Sunlight flooded through the room. Scrooge threw his legs over the side of the bed, and felt his head and butthole.
“It was a dream. A dream! It’s not too late!”
He ran to the window and leaned out. A small boy was passing underneath.
“You there! Boy! What day is it?”
“It’s Wednesday, sir!”
“Sure, okay. Just Wednesday?”
“Are you looking for the date? Its the 25th of December.”
“Right! Right! And the 25th of December is…?”
“Well, this year: it’s a Wednesday.”
“Listen, you little shit. Is it Christmas or not?”
The boy tugged his forelock and said,
“Begging your pardon, guv’nor. It is indeed Christmas Day.”
“Huzzah! Then I–”
“Which you could have made your first question, I suppose. Instead of beating around the bush with the vagaries. ‘What day is it?’ There’s a million ways to answer that question. It’s my brother’s birthday, but that wasn’t the answer–”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP! Tell me, is that enormous goose still in the window of the butchershop?”
“The one as big as me, sir?”
“Oh, what a delightful boy! Yes! The one as big as you! Is it still there?”
“No, sir. It escaped in the wee hours. Been rampaging through the city for hours now. At least two dozen people are dead.”
“You don’t say. Two dozen people?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Poor people or people people?”
“Poor people, sir.”
Scrooge shut the window and was halfway back to bed when he returned and called out to the boy again,
“I don’t suppose any of those two dozen were named Cratchit, were they?”
“Well spotted, sir. They were the first to go. The little one tried to defend his family with his wee crutches, but it was no use. The goose was just too fast.”
Scrooge breathed in the crisp, cold London air.
“Well,” he said. “I guess sometimes problems just solve themselves, huh?”
And he shut the window again, returned to bed, and slept easily. Perhaps later he would rent a whore. It was, after all, Christmas.
‘Specially you, Pig.
It’s Hanukkah, baby, so move that ass over.
Some YouTube videos can be weaponized. Just a matter of finding an unsecured WiFi network.
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