I want my Rock-and-Roll & Thank God for Dave Grohl!

I am very disturbed by the current state of affairs regarding Rock and Roll -- or rather, lack of -- it seems to be disappearing.  I simply cannot stand idly by while the music-business-machine-corporate-engine effectively drowns out rock and roll in a dull beige fuzzy electronic artsy emotive loopy sea of manufactured sonic garbage. The kind of music being produced and arranged and promoted and played these days sounds like it was made in a very boring assembly line-type factory full of state-college-music-business-management-school MBA drones.  Quite simply, the music business has taken the emphasis off music and focused squarely on business for a long time now.  Too long, and it's gotta stop.

Creativity is being shoved aside and swallowed up by the music execs and computerized producers who determines what type of 'sound' will SELL, SELL, SELL tracks to the kids in America.  Computer geeks and video game nerds have suddenly become the record producers 'du jour.'  Yes, it's true -- they have evil names like Dr. Luke and they record and 'create' songs on their MacBook Pro's. Instruments?? What instruments??? Who needs a guitar or a keyboard when one can simply download music production software for free.  And, terrible, terrible bands with terrible, terrible names like One Direction and Nickelback are catapulted to the top of the music-corporation-universe, riding a wave of perfectly polished, albeit horribly bland, generic beats and licks and melodies that make me dry heave when exposed to such crap. That kind of 'music' has no heart. It has no soul. I want my rock-and-roll back dammit! Where did it go??? 

Jimmy Page

The guitar god...                    

Robert Plant

The androgynous frontman...      

John Paul Jones

The mysterious, obscure bassist...

John Bonham

The hard-pounding/partying drummer...

Dave Grohl

The BAND, man! The B-A-N-D is disappearing. Thank god for guys like the Foo Fighters, struggling to keep rock and roll alive. Dave Grohl, former drummer for Nirvana, current frontman/axeman for the mighty Foo Fighters. Without guys like Grohl, rock and roll would die for sure. Thank god for Dave Grohl. 

And don't even get me started on MTV. Does anyone even remember what the "M" in MTV stands for?? Well?? "Music." Yep, music, man. Music television. 'Music television' my ass. MTV? Fuck MTV! MTV sold out long ago, straying far away from anything that even remotely resembles "music." MTV used to be cool -- about 25 years ago. MTV used to be awesome -- Headbangers Ball -- the Unplugged series. Now?? NOW??? Jersey Shore and Hip-Hop -- that's the MTV of today. Pathetic. 'M' TV....more like   Monstrous Television.

 I have news for the kids out there -- they are being brainwashed by a very slick, commercial group of very large companies who have been buying up decaying and depreciated pieces of the music business over the past 10-15 years as the music business itself struggled for its very survival through the age of free-file-sharing-Napster-Limewire-bit-Torrent-etc.

The music business has sold itself to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder cares about one thing, and one thing only -- MONEY -- yes, money, the root of all evil is now trying to take down rock and rolll as we know it. Something must be done about this.  And fast.  So here's my message to the next generation of music lovers -- the younger ones who haven't been exposed to really great music:

Okay, kids, listen very carefully. Put on some noise-cancelling headphones -- make sure they're good quality. Okay. Now, go to your little I-Tunes "Genius". Do you follow? Okay, good. Now, I have 2 words for you to input into the machine. And those 2 words are -- now pay attention -- the 2 words that you must very carefully enter into the music "cloud" -- 2 words that will blow your mind and change the very course of your life. Those 2 words are (1) Led and (2) Zeppelin.

When Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham took the Mississippi Delta Blues and shook it up -- and beat it against the wall of sound that was THE British music scene at the time and gave birth to "Hard" rock -- modern rock-and-fucking-roll. Learn it. Embrace it. Love it. Pay it forward. It is your duty.

Stop the Insanity!!

 I just walked through a protest in downtown Toronto.  A frenzied group of Palestinians and Palestinian supporters, yelling all sorts of nonsense over megaphones on Front Street across from a convention center where there happens to be a UJA event going on (UJA stands forUnited Jewish Appeal).  I had to bite my tongue as I walked right through the middle of this crowd of hostile, misinformed, mostly young people.  I feel sorry for most of them.  They know not what they do (didn't somebody important say something like that once?).  

Anyway, I wanted so badly just to take one of them aside and reason with the person.  Yes, "reason" -- the forgotten human ability -- in fact, the only human ability that allows one to acquire any sort of knowledge or information at all.  Reason is based on 'logic,' which comes from the Greek logikē, which literally means "the study of arguments." 

Well, let us study this argument for a moment.  The following facts are indisputable, easily verified by your own independent research==>>>     

Hamas terrorists, whose stated intentions include the destruction of Israel and death to all of the Jews in the world, armed with newly acquired long-range Iranian missiles, fire indiscriminately into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  Air raid sirens go off in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, causing hundreds of thousands of people to immediately fear for their lives and go scrambling for cover to the nearest bomb shelters.  

Some of the missiles kill and/or hurt people and some don't, since the Hamas terrorists have no clue what they're firing at several miles away.  Even if just a few people are killed, it's still a few PEOPLE -- innocent people, being targeted by Islamic terrorists.  Not to mention the hundreds of thousands who have to drop everything and run for cover in sheer terror.  Who could be expected to live like this?

Israel, in response, naturally tries to take out any known Hamas missile installations in Gaza.    This would be the logical thing to do after all.  Logic.  Based on reason.  It's pretty simple.  This isn't calculus.  

Hamas happens to store their missiles in and around schools and mosques.  They do this intentionally, hoping that when Israel tries to destroy the missiles maybe a few kids or praying people will be killed or maimed in the process, so they can then "show the world" that Israel is    killing and maiming civilians in Gaza.  

Meanwhile, pictures go viral on the Internet of Israeli soldiers shielding Arab children in Israelfrom the missiles being fired by other Arabs.  These pictures tend not to make it onto CNN and BBC and Al-Jazeera.  Does this make any sense to anybody at all???

I really wanted to take one of these virulent protesters aside and lay out the facts as I did above and ask him point-blank, "How can you logically defend Hamas terrorists in Gaza shooting missiles into the population centers of Israel??"  I mean, really, they're shooting into Jerusalem for Christ's sake, where there happens to be quite a large Arab population, now being protected by the bodies of Israeli soldiers.  Please help me to understand the "logic" behind this kind of support and protest.

How much more explaining does Israel need to do to convince the world that they are the good guys and Hamas are the bad guys?  How much more evidence does the world need?  In a court of law, we would already be way passed the level of "reasonable doubt."  What more does the world want from Israel?  What?  This is clear-cut 'good' versus 'evil' -- nobody can deny it.  Yet, I just walked through a crowd of young, energetic, youthful human beings, right here in Toronto, who are screaming all kinds of incomprehensible bullshit at a UJA Federation dinner across the street.  What the hell is going on with humanity??  Where is the logic?  The reason?

There is no logic.  No reason.  These people are either insane or in total denial of the truth.  There is no other option.  Either CRAZY, or stubbornly refusing to believe that much of what they have been told for most of their lives was a lie.  At some point, even the most simple-minded dimwitted moron will be forced to acknowledge that shooting missiles into cities is bad.  Very bad.

Now, being that I am, after all, Jewish, the witching hour is upon me and I must bid you all farewell for the evening.  As a Jew, it is my duty to drink the blood of a young child at least once a week, and Sunday is that day for yours truly.  I'm rather thirsty, so I might actually drink the blood of two children tonight.  Yes, I think I will..........And then I will get back to the business of conspiring to do all sorts of other horrible Jewish things, like learn and read and build and succeed and create and innovate and advocate truth and justice and FREEDOM for all men, women and children in the world.........I know, we're such a terrible people. Horrible.

-peace/warm regards:
jeremy

Brokeback Iceberg: The Gay Penguins Saga continues...

Every word of this story is true, easily verifiable through your own independent research/'googling'/etc, if you so choose.  I couldn't possibly make this stuff up -- it is simply too strange to be fiction.  It is also, in my humble opinion, quite funny.  The following headline is taken directly from today's Toronto Metro daily newspaper:  

"Ex 'gay penguins' part of egg-stravaganza"

The story goes on to explain what happened to with the world-famous bromance of Buddy and Pedro, the Toronto Zoo's 'formerly' homosexual African penguins.  In case you don't remember the story that shocked decent folks all over the planet, the two forlorn lovebirds (pun intended) were forcibly separated last year after a long, scandalous affair -- disgracefully split apart by overzealous zoologists selfishly concerned with the biological advancement of the endangered African penguin species.  

Buddy and Pedro during happier times

Forced into a new life of lies and confusion over their true identities, Buddy and Pedro were imprisoned against their will with respective female counterparts and made to do the unthinkable -- they were forced to mate.  Yes, I'm afraid it's true.  Buddy and Pedro and their female mates have been laying eggs at the Toronto Zoo, under a veil of secrecy, misinformation and deceit. 

Unfortunately, however, the consequences of such unspeakable cruelty have been less than ideal, to say the least.  For example, Buddy and his partner, Farai, laid eggs that hatched last February, but the "excited new parents built a too-tight nest and smothered the chicks accidentally" (metronews.ca, 11/14/2012).  I'm not surprised.  My theory on this is that Buddy, obviously traumatized by the experience of being pimped out to a ghastly, all-too-willing female penguin, is suffering from acute post-traumatic-stress-disorder.  And, as such, the stress caused him to act impulsively and carelessly, thus resulting in the smothering of the aforementioned newly-hatched penguin chicks.  Now, saddled with the additional burdens of guilt and shame, Buddy remains in a state of hopeless despair as he is resigned to a life of heterosexual penguin hell.

Such a disastrous outcome should have been expected by a society of zookeepers and hyper-idealistic scientists who are more concerned with the notion of 'saving' a supposedly endangered species of penguins.  These monsters trampled all over the identity and emotional well-being of two harmless penguins whose only 'fault' in life was that they happened to have been born different from most other penguins.  I'm beside myself over this.

First of all, I'm sick of this nonsense about 'endangered species.'  Human beings are the most endangered species on the planet, without question.  Yet, we allow human homosexuals to marry and adopt children here in Canada and a growing number of U.S. states.  Shouldn't we allow penguins the same right??    The concept of saving an endangered species is preposterous to begin with, as George Carlin explains in the video below).    And, by the way, what the hell is an "African penguin" anyway.  Last time I checked, Africa wasn't exactly known for its penguins, but I could be wrong.

I'll continue to do my part to update my stateside friends of ongoing saga.  If the province of Ontario is kind enough to grant me a law license in the next year or so, I promise to see that this injustice does not go unpunished.  What goes around comes around, and I have some particularly perverse  punishment in mind for the perpetrators of this inhumanity.

-peace/warm regards:

jeremy