Many Americans cannot stomach even a single viewing of American Idol, and I can certainly understand why. Completely. It is mind bogglingly corporate; a music industry whore playing up the worst of American culture; the contestants are bafflingly ostentatious for the amount of talent they have to offer; the show goes into painstaking detail about the lives of the contestants, but to the best of my recollection I never asked for any of these details (because I do not care to know), and the end result is programming that has been bloated to, at times, 5+ hours a week of pure filler. Would you assholes shut up and SING, already?

Yet I cannot bring myself to turn away.

The reasons why are clear. Firstly, there are rare moments when a young singer actually impresses the shit out of me. But even more so, I cannot get enough of that dastardly Simon Cowell. He is a trend setter for modern television: the viscous, truth-telling judge of the talent show, intent on bringing down the façade of niceties that have caused such a glut of painfully pitiful products in the entertainment market. The difference between Cowell and the countless spin-offs he has inspired is that Simon seems to know what he is talking about. I don’t always agree with his opinion, but it always appears to come from a pragmatic place.

None of this is new, and many have said this before, to be sure. However, it is extraordinarily impressive—to me, at least—that after 7 seasons (we are currently in the 8th), Simon is still just as doggedly dedicated to clearing the crap out of the road as he was in the beginning (more below).

The beauty of the clip you just watched is this: a minutely talented (at best) and hugely annoying contestant gets the boot. Paula Abdul (the nice one) takes the time to carefully keep this borderline-retarded, show-tunes wannabe, punk-ass turd’s ego intact by propping him up with lies, and we watch Colton’s face as he beams at the news Paula gives him, only to have Simon dash it apart. I love it. Watch his face fall—and right in front of the guy’s parents, at that. It’s painfully beautiful. Although, to Colton’s credit, he takes the news well.

I love watching this kind of thing happen to Americans. If ever there was a group of people with a distorted sense of self, it is us. Our sense of entitlement has grown to grotesque proportions, and I only wish we had more straight-talking limeys to knock us down a few more pegs. I love this country, and I’d like for us to all forget about what horrible things we think Hillary is doing to it (OMG how weird that she has a Myspace page), and concentrate more on what the COLTON’s are doing to it.

“Why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself?” Paula asks.

“Then don’t ask me,” replies Cowell. Touché.

Tags: American Idol, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell

Rumor has it that when David Lee Roth was the front man for Van Halen, he would do his damnedest to prevent Eddie from playing all of that poppy crap he kept tapping out on his little Casio at night (under his covers with a flashlight and a cigarette while Valerie tossed and turned and labored under the nightmares of Alex peeking through the window at her and Eddie’s lovemaking…but wait, was it really just a dream?). Obviously a few keyboard items would end up on the records from time to time—and in the case of Jump, ended up as the band’s only number one hit.

I believe the rumors. Granted, I haven’t had the time to do all of the research (I do have some kind of life), but for me, once Sammy Hagar joined the band, the songs took such an incredibly candy turn to pop music that the albums could dissolve in water. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I know for a fact that many people less inclined to ROCK THEIR ASSES OFF actually prefer the watered-down beer of Van Hagar, and this opened up a lot of people to the virtuosic guitar playing of the toothless wonder.

Decide for yourself. Because I love all of you so and would do nearly anything for you (except Michael Cesari, aka Medium Happiness, the guitarist for the explosively popular band the Shallow Divers—he can kiss my ass with his bizarre and cruel hatred of the victims of theft; see his blog article here) I have included in my article a little jukebox player I have concocted with some songs from both eras. As you listen, please try to note how much freaking better the guitar playing is on the Roth era songs. For more regarding the controversy between the singers themselves, click here.

For more on the Gary Cherone era, please slam your head in a door.

Tags: Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Jump, Medium Happiness, Michael Cesari

When will people get it through their fat heads?

January 7’s Business Week has a very percolating article regarding a certain type of medication called “statins,” which are used to lower cholesterol levels in people who have proven themselves unable to find a treadmill.

The main thrust (sexy word alert) of the article ascertains that these stratospherically high-selling drugs do very little to actually help prevent heart attacks in people; actually only benefiting 1 in 100 of the poor slobs that have been taking these drugs—in some cases for five years or longer. Yes, these people have been told to pop an expensive, side effect-rich pill everyday for the rest of their sad lives when in fact, like always, diet and exercise would have been a much more effective form of treatment. From the Business Week article:

What would work better? Perhaps urging people to switch to a Mediterranean diet or simply to eat more fish. In several studies, both lifestyle changes brought greater declines in heart attacks than statins, though the trials were too small to be completely persuasive. Being physically fit is also important. “The things that really work are lifestyle, exercise, diet, and weight reduction,” says UCLA’s Hoffman. “They still have a big NNT, but the cost is much less than drugs and they have benefits for quality of life.”

So why—in the face of evidence that not only makes perfect common sense, but also adds weight to an argument that many doctors have been trying to press upon their legions of fat, greasy, American patients for decades—do so many physicians exalt the use of a worthless product? Because of the money, stupid! Surprised? Again, from Business Week:

Drugmakers, however, do make sure that the researchers and doctors who extol the benefits of medications are well compensated. “It’s almost impossible to find someone who believes strongly in statins who does not get a lot of money from industry,” says Dr. Rodney A. Hayward, professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.

So where are we going with all of this? As it turns out, LDL cholesterol, or BAD cholesterol, might not be the killer we have all made it out to be. The article has quite a bit to say on this subject, but it boils down to:

Add it all together, and “current evidence supports ignoring LDL cholesterol altogether,” says the University of Michigan’s Hayward.

As always, everything in moderation, people. If someone is telling us that there is one clear cut answer, and that they are one of the only providers of that answer, AND the answer is gonna cost us a lot of dough, then warning bells should be going off in our collective heads. I propose that doctors be forced to post in plain site, in their waiting rooms, all the companies they are currently getting paid to endorse. Other people have to do it, right? Don’t we have the right to know? Why should my well-being be placed at risk just because some asshole with a medical degree needs to make his boat payment?

There’s nothing else for it, friends. Have an egg or two, and then do some push ups. That’s the way it’s always been.

Tags: Business Week, doctors, exercise, LDL cholesterol, pills, statin

If there’s one thing we can ALL agree on in this tepid cesspool of a world, it’s this: there’s nothing worse than a big fucking phony. It’s even worse to take your own faults and blemishes and claim they are the actually the negative qualities of another. Steve Jobs and the good people of Apple Computers have turned these despicable attributes into—quite literally—an art form.

This is not to say that Apple does not make an array of fine products. They do. Their computers are elegant in form and just as reliable as anything else you can purchase from the other numerous assholes of the world; the iPod is popular for a reason; the ubiquitous iTunes music service changed the industry. But as soon as you begin to take a closer look into any of these wonder-gizmos, something much more sinister is found under the “gee, neat-o” veneer.

I’m not going to break it down product by product because it’s all related. And it’s all centered on one of the most diabolical creations of recent times; the most twisted and surreal of all of man’s creations; the Achilles’ heel to keep the human race out of the vast cosmic annals detailing the great civilizations of the endless galaxy: marketing. It is the way Mr. Weirdo Dad-jeans Jobs markets these products to his public of adoring suckers that really sets my teeth on edge. Take the following advertisement. I’m sure you’ve seen this, as well as the numerous others in this campaign of well made, cleverly written, and completely baseless commercials (more below):

This may—MAY—be the purest example I have ever seen of an uninformed American public being led like senseless zombies to spend their (sort of) hard-earned cash based purely on witty dialog and cool t-shirts. Most of you out there are in fact reading this on a pc-based machine—more than 90% of you, as a matter of fact. How hard was it for you to use the latest digital camera you purchased? I am willing to bet that most of you were up and running out of the box pretty quickly. Okay, now, all you Mac users out there, I’d like for you, if you have the means, to try something for me: plug any mp3 player OTHER than an iPod into your Apple computer and tell me what happens. On second thought, don’t. I don’t need you to. I’ve tried it and I know damn good and well that NOTHING happens. The Mac doesn’t even register that a device has been slid into its sexy, curvy, white, box. What a shitty date you are, Mac. A horrible lover. I hate you, Steve Jobs, you dirty bastard. You deliberately made your sensual hub resistant to any other portable music device other than the one your own damn company makes. And then you have the fucking BALLS to broadcast advertisements saying your computers are more tolerant to outside devices than those of your competitors. LIAR. ASSHOLE. Black turtle necks on men SUCK.

The fact is that Mac users as a whole tend to be older (which I assume is an income thing seeing as Macs are so god-damned expensive; so much for the bullshit stance Apple tries to take about being for the young at heart and hip). I think older people have less time and inclination to mess around under the hood, so to speak. They don’t get into the guts of a computer, so they fuck it up less. I’ve been messing up computers since I first laid my hands on one years ago—mainly because I opened up the system folders and started screwing around with all the stuff that wasn’t meant to be touched. People who mess around with the inside of computers tend to buy PCs.

So yes, I know, it’s no big shock. Marketers are liars and pigs and should try to find something more meaningful to do with their lives. However, here’s a small anecdote that, when I was first told the story by my co-worker and fellow gadget head Mark (aka zenpvnk to the cyber world), drove me to distraction; it became the basis for my ranting for at least two days. It goes a little something like this: My friend Mark recently purchased an iPod Nano for his wife. A fine gift. Very thoughtful. Mark is a sweet teddy bear of a hubby and we are all very proud of him and his accomplishments. So. If you have ever purchased a similar piece of equipment, you know that most come supplied with a cable that allows you to hook your new, fun, quality-of-life-improving device up to the blessed television, therefore allowing you to completely bore the shit out of your friends much more effectively. Not so with the iPod. The cord must be purchased separately. Fine. This isn’t all that deviant or singular of a business practice; many companies try to keep the costs of production lower by not including such niceties, and in doing so have kept Radio Shack in business for decades. Fucking Radio Shack, right?

Mark explained to me that in the past he has purchased the cords he needed for Mac products from third-party retailers for around five dollars. Apple of course sells their own cords for the devices, but charges upwards of $40. This is their prerogative. The world is about choice, right? To save money or be brand loyal is a common dilemma. However, Mark quickly discovered that Steve “The Prick” Jobs has once again fixed the game. Now the iPod device’s proprietary cords include a computer chip built in that PRECLUDES them from using any other brand! And…AND…the damned thing costs $50! FIFTY DOLLARS! Five zero dollars, people! An insult. An outrage. And Steve claims to be at the head of some kind of imaginary revolution enabling the whole fucking world to create even more intolerable, crappy, digital dance music while holed-up in their basements all night.

Steve Jobs, bite my ass.

Get it together, people. Open your eyes. Stop swallowing every load shot at you simply because you were told you have an expressive singing voice. Business people freaking LOVE Steve Jobs. They put his bearded face in nearly every PowerPoint presentation they make (a delicious irony…if he’s so smart, why aren’t these very business people using Keynote). Have you ever thought about why?

Oh, and by the way, I have never purchased an iPod for my own use. I use Creative Labs Vision M, and I can give my songs out to whoever the hell I want. Screw iTunes. Stupid freaking entertainment industry servant. Oh my god. I could go on forever, so I won’t.

Tags: Apple Computers, Asshole, iPod, iTunes, Liar, Mac, Marketing, Rip Off Artist, Steve Jobs, Sucky

Envision the scenario:

Johnny Lab Coat saunters into the laboratory on a sunny Shanghai morning (OK, so maybe his name is Li Zhen Huan) wiping the last of his breakfast rice from his chin. Shrugging off the latest in a series of blistering “disagreements” with his so-called better half, Johnny (Li Zhen) gathers his notes from the previous day, and, tipping a wink to nearly every cutie poised in front of a Petri dish, he approaches a cage marked #596454 and checks the clipboard hanging cavalierly from the front. He scratches his head. He checks the clipboard again. He opens the front of the cage and nudges the lethargic monkey inside with distant curiosity. He lifts the primate’s left eyelid; he shines a light, and then lets it snap shut. Again he scratches his head. Somewhere inside of his mind, he makes a decision. Another part of him agrees. Another corner isn’t so sure, but that part of him isn’t in charge of paying the rent, so Johnny Lab Coat pulls the droopy monkey out of the cage and places him indifferently on the sterile counter.

The lights are very bright.

Johnny almost walks away, but then stops and, grabbing a restraining stand from the immaculate cupboards above, balances the sad monkey up inside, closing the cold latch around the its neck. The monkey struggles, but not much.

Johnny Huan crosses the lab in short, but purposeful, strides, and collects several containers full of pig fat, red dye #107, something ethyl alcohol-ish, and a sulfuric acid mixture of a patented nature. He eyeballs this amount and that, mixing them into a fairly standard beaker, and makes his way back over to Mr. Monkey. He calls over a leggy assistant, and asks her to record his observations after he spreads the shit he just made all over the monkey’s lips. As she turns to grab the clipboard dangling from the front of the cage, she pinches his little ass and says brightly, “Sure, Johnny!”

Johnny Zhen Huan reddens slightly and says, “Xie xie, baby.”

Johnny digs into his pocket and pulls out a brush applicator, removes the plastic sheath, and as the leggy assistant turns back to him with the clipboard, he tickles her playfully under the chin with the soft bristles. They both giggle sheepishly.

The lights in the laboratory drone with buzzing electricity.

Johnny smears the brush with the reddish concoction by dabbing it in the beaker with Bob Ross aplomb, and teases the assistant by feigning a move to dab it on her nose. She shrieks with delight, and throws her hands in front of her face. “No! Get that gross shit away from me, Johnny! You’re so nasty!” Johnny Zhen laughs out loud, and without a second thought, smears the nasty red shit all over the monkey’s lips.

The air is immediately rent with shrieks of pain as the monkey suddenly snaps to life, peeing all over the counter as he struggles, thrashing against the binds that hold him, smoke wafting from the angry blisters spreading across his furry, almost child-like face. The restraining stand jerks to and fro, finally slipping from the top of the sterile counter and clattering to the floor with the monkey still clamped helplessly inside. As a small amount of blood pools across the floor under the monkey’s broken nose, Johnny Zhen Huan nudges the wretched creature clinically with his toe.

“Most interesting,” says Johnny.

“Oh Mr. Monkey, you better mind your manners!” chides the leggy assistant with juvenile good humor as she scribbles furiously on the clipboard. “Johnny, you want me to say that he fell off the table?”

“Huh? Oh. Nah. Let’s get Shi Dun Wang up here to clean up…” he pulls the clipboard still held in vivacious assistant’s hand closer to his face so he can see more clearly, “#596454.” Johnny scratches his head one last time. “I think I need to cut the dye some. The color is terrible. Let’s get another set-up ready.”

*******

It’s a sad scenario, no? If you’re anything like me, your heart goes out to that poor assistant as she deals with the advances of the lascivious lab tech. But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to focus for a second on the monkey. I think you’ve probably gathered by my narration of the fictitious situation above that I think the monkey’s getting a bit of a raw deal. And it’s not only the apes of the world getting crapola smeared all over their faces for the advancement of the sexiness of women everywhere–think of the dogs, rats, and mice. And even if you’re all like, “Hey Jose, come on now, who gives a rat’s ass about mice?” well, you know we all kind of give a shit about the dogs and monkeys. At the very least, the rodents cost money, hombre.

It doesn’t have to be this way—and as you might have guessed by now, Jose el Retardo has an answer for you: they’re called hardened criminals, baby, and America makes them by the truckload. Nationally, in the year 2005, we incarcerated 726 per 100,000 residents. Neat. So, what does that mean? Well, Mr. Lazy, let me pick up my calculator and tell you. It is estimated that the United States currently holds about 300 million souls. That means that you are talking about over 2 million people in our prisons. Let’s say that the number of people in jail for violent crimes hovers around 50%. Now you’re down to a million. If you want to cut the number in half again for repeat offenders, well, that’s ok by me. And cut that by three quarters to isolate the repeat offending premeditated murderers, rapists, and child molestors—which I think is WAY low-balling, by the way—you’ve got AT THE VERY LEAST 125,000 test subjects at your disposal. That’s a lot of hairspray.

Would you like to know how many monkeys are currently incarcerated for violent crimes in this country? Would you be surprised to find that the answer is zero? If you are, well then, you’re a complete idiot.

I can hear somebody in the back of the room shift slightly in their chair, uncomfortable, yet still on the fence. “Jose, I can see why you’re saying these kinds of things, but I think I could only be comfortable testing our new-fangled cold remedies on the worst of the worst.”

The number of people on death row as of 2006: 3,228. It’s a gold mine, people.

Your average inmate sentenced to die spends an average of ten years on death row, in a small cell for 23 hours a day, every day. The least we can do is give them a way to pay us back for the money we’re putting out. Those fancy jumpsuits and scratchy sheets aren’t free, folks; neither is the toilet paper. Can’t we give these poor souls the chance to help us cure cancer, legionnaire’s disease, and chicken pox? Imagine wiping out hemorrhoids forever.

Let’s not forget how much faster we can find the answers we so desperately long for by not having to wonder whether or not the new-formulation of Tums will work the same way on humans as it did on a bunch of rodents. Jesus, do rats even GET gas? And if they do, who gives a shit?

Here’s irony for you: testing anti-addiction drugs on rapists so we don’t have to lock up a bunch of fucking 22 year-old junkies anymore. Now THAT’S justice, people. And if you think your god is going to hate you for it (like he didn’t hate us for playing god and putting people to death in the first place), then click here and take a look at this.

Tags: Animal testing, breakfast rice, capitol punishment, death row, drug testing, hemorrhoids, incarceration, Li Zhen Huan, Tums