Month: July 2020

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Great Job, David Garrick

You might have read that title and asked yourself: “Who the hell is David Garrick?” Exactly. Who the hell is David Garrick?

The David Garrick of consequence was an actor and playwright from the 18th century. The David Garrick I’m writing about is some goofball who reviews music, despite barely being able to write, and seemingly not understanding how reviews are supposed to work.

I chanced upon this fellow because I got nostalgic for the sweet tunes of late-90’s Turbonegro, after listening to a Ramones song that reminded me of a Turbonegro song, because Turbonegro often referenced their influences on their albums, including the Ramones, whom they were influenced by. Nice.

It was then that I decided to do a good old Google™ search to see what Turbonegro has been up to these last few years. Imagine my shock when the 4th result that showed up on Google™ was an article titled “Is Turbonegro Racist or Completely Clueless” on a website called Houston Press. The article is from 2018, but I’m perfectly fine writing a critique 2 years after the fact.

Mr Garrick evidently writes music “reviews” for this site, but literally nothing he writes even remotely passes as a review.

He wrote a “review” for a band called Grand Old Grizzly that is 215 words long, consists of 4 paragraphs, and just throws out a few adjectives to describe a few songs. This post is already 241 words long as of here, and this is just some bullshit I’m writing to entertain myself and perhaps anyone else who happens to chance across it. I’m not getting paid to write this, nor do I have the gall to declare myself a “music writer”, despite the fact that I’m currently writing about music with this very post.

The Turbonegro “review” also doesn’t quite meet the requirements to be considered a review. Though to be fair, maybe he doesn’t consider his aimless ramblings reviews, so much as a loose assortment of words meant to meet some sort of word count quota.

Here is his third paragraph:

When it was announced that the band had a new record called ROCKNROLL MACHINE coming via Burger Records, I thought, who cares?  I mean, the band is on singer number four and their sound is typically for people who live in the past. When was the last time you heard someone under 30 talk about Turbonegro?  Not having relevance in the music world has seemed to be this band’s forte.

Phenomenal way to start off a review of an album.

“Hey guys, who even cares about this band? Only losers listen to this type of music. I really couldn’t care less about this band, yet for some reason I’ve decided to spend the time and effort on writing a review about their latest album.” -David

This is really doing a great job of qualifying yourself as an objective voice for the ensuing review.

He then proceeds to spend the next five paragraphs complaining about a single line from a single song, before ending the review. Yes, he literally reviews one line from one song on an album of eleven tracks, then calls it a day. Great work. Very informative. Quality writing.

In the offending track, the line “I’m cheaper than a Mexican” is used, which had the following effect on our intrepid reviewer:

…which threw me for a loop. I listened and re-listened to make sure I was hearing it correctly, because as a journalist, you don’t wanna’ call out anyone and be incorrect.

Evidently he’s a “journalist” now, and doesn’t wanna “call out anyone and be incorrect”, despite the fact that he wrote an entire article about a band he doesn’t even care for, predicated solely on the premise that the band is racist because of one line from one song. Even then, he got that part wrong.

The band released a statement clarifying that the album is about a reactionary, bigoted cyborg “bragging about how he is going to take over the world and destroy the job market”. Kind of a goofy premise for an album, but the lyric in question suddenly makes more sense in that context. Seems like someone reviewing an album would have been a little better at actually listening to the lyrics before writing a screed condemning the band.

Perhaps David didn’t even care to listen to the whole album. Perhaps he stopped after hearing the word “Mexican” three songs in, so he could devise the best way to go on a self-righteous crusade to smear the band and feel a sense of superiority. Based on the following lines from his “review”, I feel that perhaps this is the case:

…how does this type of trash find a label to release their records?

The truth is, it’s not funny. No matter who you are, or who you’re trying to reach, the lyrics are racist, especially when sung by a white man.

There’s zero excuse for these lyrics being out in the world

As it stands, this kind of racist garbage needs to exit music sooner than later, or bands like this can exist on the websites of White nationalist groups, but not on any streaming site or digital storefront.

In this time, with this president who seems hell bent on dividing us, maybe this kind of garbage has a home, somewhere.

Yes, a grown-ass adult human man wrote all this in an article “reviewing” an album he seemingly didn’t even bother listening to all the way through. This article is from 2018, but in 2020, this gentleman would appropriately be referred to as a “Karen”. He even asked to speak to the band’s “manager” as it were:

We reached out to Burger Records as to why they’d release an album with such blatantly racist lyrics..

What an embarrassing man.

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Anthony Fantano And Cancel Culture

Things have been slow in the Covid realm, so I’m gonna take a quick detour. Anthony Fantano, “The Internet’s busiest music nerd” has dropped yet another stupid take on twitter. I say another, because the guy consistently says stupid stuff on twitter. He says stupid stuff because he desperately wants to be famous and taken seriously, and not relegated to merely a music reviewer on the internet.

Its no different than when someone who has a viewer base solely from something like acting or music decides to start sharting their opinions out on topics they know little about all over social media. It’s a symptom of arrogance. I have a lot of online followers, therefore I must be intelligent and enlightened on all matters, even those I literally know nothing about. Therefore I must chime in on absolutely everything, all the time.

So, he chimed in and gave his melon-headed opinion on “cancel culture” recently.

Why is this an astronomically stupid take? Because when most people refer to cancel culture, they are referring to the toxic act wherein people attempt to ruin other people’s careers or even lives over things as simple as mere disagreements.

When people make these terrible sweeping generalizations that “only bad people get cancelled”, they’re being dense at best and disingenuous at worst. This isn’t just about people reacting to other people being shitheads. This post is me reacting to someone being a shithead. This post isn’t a representation of cancel culture. I’m not trying to hurt Fantano’s career or finances. I’m not trying to incite mob justice against him. I’m just expressing my opinion about him.

People regularly get doxxed (the illegal posting of personal information), simply because someone else disagrees with them online. People rat on their co-workers and try to get them fired simply because they disagree with them. People project lies into the public sphere, that often result in lives being turned upside down.

Anyone heard of Johnny Depp? He’s this guy whose last wife made up lies about abuse that were spread via publications and social media. Despite the fact that there was no credible evidence of abuse other than allegations, Depp’s image and career were impacted. Everyone was bandwagon hating on this guy for months. The Harry Potter cult even spearheaded petitions to get him removed from a Fantastic Beasts film.

Turns out, his ex-wife Amber Heard was the abuser, being caught on audio recordings stating as much. Whoopsie! She also attacked him on one instance that almost resulted in him losing part of a finger. So all those people jumping to conclusions and clamoring for mob justice were wrong? The mob isn’t always right? Who would have figured?

This is what people who complain about cancel culture are fighting against. This isn’t simply about individuals being held accountable for things they say or do. They’re against this unthinking mob justice wherein people who should probably mind their own business feel the need to interject themselves into conflicts that don’t involve them. They are obsessed with feeling like the judge, jury and executioner. It gives them purpose.

The people engaging in this behavior don’t always do their due diligence to make sure they have the right person. They’re not particularly concerned with the ethics behind what they do, and sometimes just engage in this behavior for personal gain. Putting someone on blast on social media nets you a lot more “likes” than simply confronting that person one-on-one. Internet likes are worth more than another person’s well-being to many an online narcissist.

This isn’t a harmless endeavor. Numerous people have been bullied into suicide by this “culture”. Countless people have been wrongly accused of things they didn’t do. At its worst, it often devolves into a type of witch-hunt.

This dipshit recently used her platform as a game designer to direct her mob of followers after someone involved in a hit-and-run. Problem was, the person she accused of the crime wasn’t even involved:

Turns out it wasn’t a “white supremacist”, but some random black dude in the car, who was later arrested.

This isn’t the first time she’s been a horrible person online either. This is a pattern of behavior and not just a one-time thing. She never faces repercussions, and never learns her lesson. She’ll continue to behave like this because it draws traffic to her account. She just locks her account when inevitable backlash comes her way, then goes back to being an asshole when the coast is clear.

This is why random people with an online presence shouldn’t attempt to be detectives. Leave this kind of thing to the people who are actually trained to do this. The empty online validation isn’t worth the life you may put in harms way to obtain it.

Which brings us back to Anthony Fantano. His tweet above is especially stupid because he himself was a victim of this cancel culture.

In late 2017, the publication The Fader produced a hit-piece accusing Fantano of being alt-right. Alt-right is a cutesy euphemism publications and pundits use to legally skirt calling someone a Nazi. Richard Spencer is alt-right. Anthony Fantano is just a run-of-the-mill leftist. He also has a black wife, which in a non-stupid world should probably discredit him from being alt-right, aka a Nazi, aka a white supremacist. We live in Stupid World™ though, so inconvenient facts don’t matter.

He was accused of being alt-right because he had a second YouTube channel called “thatistheplan” wherein he posted meme videos. Anyone with a functioning brain would have seen these videos and realized they were just comedic meme videos. But because he had Pepe The Frog™ in a video or two, obviously he must be alt-right. You can click here to read what I wrote back in 2016 about the idiocy surrounding Pepe being deemed racist, if you’re in the dark on this subject.

Why would Fader publish such a blatant hit-piece? The writer was new, and this was his first published article for the publication. Online media thrives on click-throughs and ad revenue. A hit piece on a famous person will definitely rack up the numbers and make a name for some budding young nobody journalist. That article blew up at the time and led to negative repercussions for the music nerd.

So given all this, you would think Fantano would be fairly well-versed on the dangers of cancel culture. You would think that since he had once been a target and dealt with the negative effects, he would be against “cancel culture”. Well, you would be wrong. Here is how he handled people calling him out for his hypocrisy:

That is him calling people “bitch boys” for pointing out it’s somewhat hypocritical for him to downplay cancel culture as merely a reaction to people being shitheads. The guy literally had to cancel a tour over a hit-piece and the ensuing backlash. He had to do damage control in the wake of the article to clear his name. Even Vince Staples called him out for being “alt-right”, which no doubt had an effect on him:

This exchange was eventually deleted off twitter, but the internet never forgets.

As news spread of the previously cancelled Fantano seemingly cheer-leading for the very thing that cancelled him almost 3 years ago, Paul Joseph Watson joined the fray:

Paul Joseph Watson then proceeded to pivot to insulting Fantano’s looks and saying his wife is ugly, because Paul is a dickhead. The above exchange however, is one of the few times Mr Watson has actually had a good point.

Anthony proceeds to dig the hole deeper:

Rodrigo, aka the guy who called Fantano a “bald retard” makes a good point. Anthony seems to be making the case that his cancellation was no big deal because he simply had to lawyer up to get his life back in order. Ok then. Also, cancel culture is somehow a product of capitalism (what?), and capitalism is to blame for everyone not being able to lawyer up over a false accusation and cancellation. There’s some serious mega-brain logic going on here.

He also responded to someone posting a Pepe meme with this:

As we already established above, he was called alt-right 3 years ago in an article for having cartoon frogs in a video he put up. So is he being disingenuous here, or is he admitting that he was alt-right three years ago when he posted those “frog memes” on his YouTube channel? I’m gonna put my money on disingenuous.

It might just be that he posts this stuff for validation. His original tweet ended up getting 25k likes. Getting that much validation is probably a factor in someone deliberately downplaying something that personally affected them. He’s not the only person who lends credence to this theory. There are a lot of people claiming cancel culture doesn’t exist, who were singing a different tunes earlier on:

Interesting. The thing that doesn’t exist, existed when you tweeted about it numerous other times, all of which are searchable on your twitter page.

Cancel culture is a myth guys! I was guilty of engaging in it a mere 5 months ago, but suddenly it doesn’t exist now. It’s a miracle guys! Cancel culture stopped existing once I simply denied it!

This kind of seems like people saying something they don’t truly believe, knowing that they’ll receive positive feedback for doing so, doesn’t it? Look at all those likes for saying something that completely contradicts what they said just months earlier. The people liking these tweets are now probably going around regurgitating these same horrendous takes, because “they must be valid points if they got all those likes”.

This got a lot of likes too though:

It seems there’s a lot of bad actors out there willing to toe a line for online validation. It’s cool though. These people will miraculously start believing in cancel culture again the second they end up in the cross-hairs. Then they’ll use their platforms to cry about how life isn’t fair, and how they’re a victim. When that happens, someone like me will be ready to supply receipts and call them out for being weaselly little turds. It’s the least we can do.

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Post-Quarantine: Day 113

Covid19 is powering back up. The last month of it not being taken seriously has really rustled its jimmies, whatever the hell that even means. Some states are slowly starting to close things back down:

Quarantine: Phase 2 might just be around the corner.

A few of the “red” states are starting to institute basic closures, limitations, and mask requirements, and the citizenry aren’t taking it all that well. Texas has finally issued a mask requirement while in public, and the conspiracy theories are pouring out of the woodwork.

Evidently it’s a liberal position to believe that masks can control the virus, at least according to Val🌴🤠🐚Life’sabeach over here. She should probably stay away from the beaches for a minute if she doesn’t want to end up contracting the ‘rona. This is of course assuming she even believes it actually exists and isn’t just an elaborate government mind-control conspiracy.

A lot of the conspiracy theories surrounding Covid19 are quite ridiculous. Most tend to revolve around the government using it to control us. There are others who claim that masks are actually harmful and cause “carbon dioxide toxicity”, despite a large portion of the medical industry wearing masks all day and being just fine. They commonly believe that masks don’t work, often citing those early tweets from health officials that in fact said masks don’t work:

It’s here that I have to point out for the 7th time, that the “experts” really screwed up royally around February and March. We’re still dealing with the repercussions of this. Masks have literally always worked to varying degrees, but because of tweets like those above, swaths of people think that masks don’t work, hence the conspiracy theories about this being a control issue.

Something else that really clouds the Covid19 discussions, is that people tend to solely focus on either the numbers of cases, or number of deaths. Both are relevant stats. Number of cases can go up merely from increased testing. Plenty of people have Covid19 and are asymptomatic. It’s hard to get good data on where we are because people who want to over sell, or under sell the virus tend to focus on whatever stat fits that narrative.

Tony ain’t gonna wear no mask. I thought this was America. The founding fathers didn’t sign the Constitution so that I gotta wear a mask.

😢 CHAZ Update 😢

Hey guys. I don’t know how to break this to you… uh… The CHAZ aka the CHOP isn’t with us any more. It finally got shut down due to it being a phenomenally dangerous shit hole and all. There was one more murder and one wounding right before it shut down, bringing the number of shootings to four.

Rest in piece the CHAZ aka the CHOP. You will always be remembered for your pizza parties and scuffed attempts at gardening. Too bad the power-hungry Che Guevara LARPers had to start running around with guns shooting things and doing ironically fascist things. Maybe next time some trained, accountable (hopefully) group of people can handle security. We’ll call them “the pulice” or something like that.

Oh yea. Here’s some weirdo Seattle voted into the city council with an astronomically bad take on the tragedy at the CHAZ aka the CHOP:

Yes. She’s blaming “capitalism” for two shootings at the hands of designated armed security within CHAZ. Security that I would assume Raz Simone installed (he was handing out guns a few days earlier), who shot up a car two teenage kids were joyriding around in. This was a completely CHAZ related incident. Based on her profile, she appears to be nothing more than an anti-capitalist grifter, so actually, this make perfect sense. The last few years have been an absolute boon for grifters.

☭ CCP Update ☭

China has found itself back in the news recently. It turns out all those Uyghurs they rounded up and put in “re-education” camps are also being systematically sterilized to control their population.

There was another government who once put people into concentration camps and practiced eugenics. I can’t quite remember which one it was to save mein life. Oh well. Maybe it’ll come to me later on.

China did something else completely, totally, non-fascist lately. They penned a “National Security Law” that criminalizes anyone who speaks out about the politics surrounding Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This means all the free Hong Kong protestors are now subject to imprisonment, merely for protesting, and the penalty can be a prison sentence of up to forever. Sounds reasonable.

It actually gets worse though:

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/885900989/5-takeaways-from-chinas-hong-kong-national-security-law

China is out here taking draconian measures to unforeseen new heights. If you’ve ever expressed any pro-Hong Kong sentiment on your social media, you should probably just go ahead and cross China off your list of vacation spots. There’s no telling what type of gulag or camp you could end up in if they’re maintaining some sort of database of dissent.

It seems they’ve already started snatching people up over there:

Wait just a minute. What is that? Computer… enhance.

What a curious account. No picture of any sort. Lets take a closer look at that profile.

Hmmmm. Interesting. This account only has 1 tweet, yet it was created five months ago. That certainly seems suspicious. It doesn’t quite seems like the account of an actual person. Lets see the 3 people who liked that “Well done, They deserved” tweet:

Interesting. Computer… enhance.

Two more iffy accounts. The first has no tweets, no followers and is following nobody, yet it somehow found and liked minfengxu’s “Well done, They deserved” tweet. I don’t need to state how suspicious that is. The other account has been around since 2016, but has only tweeted 4 times? Probably not a bot account, but perhaps a wumao account.

Wumao are people online who are paid by the Chinese government (CCP) to spread propaganda, or to like pro-CCP posts and dislike anti-CCP posts. I’d be open to the idea that this is just a conspiracy theory, if not for they fact that these accounts are literally everywhere and often not very convincing.

This account also commented on the Wall Street Journal tweet above:

Yes, “great jobs” indeed, real actual human being. Let’s look at those likes. Computer.. enhance.

Two of the same accounts who liked the last tweet, plus a new one. Let’s look at one more account that commented on that Wall Street Journal tweet:

Similar to “great jobs” from above, but this time with decent grammar. Let’s look at those likes, shall we? Computer… enhance. *beep beep boop boop beep*

Yes, it’s the same 3 accounts that liked the last tweet, and yes I copied and posted a separate screen capture for each list instead of just reusing the same image from above.

Here’s the accounts from the last two posters:

The dog account now has zero followers a day after I took this screenshot. That seems completely natural.

I’m gonna end this here. I could keep this going until the end of time, but you get the point of the massive tangent I just went off on. There’s tons of propaganda accounts all over twitter, liking and posting on all sorts of political tweets, mainly from news agencies. I do find it kind of funny that so much was made of Russian meddling on facebook, yet twitter is flooded with these types of accounts and they don’t seem to be concerned about it in the least. What if..