MOGS: Before I vanish back into the depths of The Anabasis...

Yes it's MOGS.  Yes.  I am in grad school.  Yes I should be working on grad school.  Yes I have had a few drinks.  Yes I said I was leaving.  And yes, I read Antitool's last post, and the site it linked to, and smirked, laughed, and nodded in agreement with most of it.  Here's a few things I want to add to it:

1) I don't own a SUV.  I find them rather annoying.  They are the vehicle of people who don't want to admit they are in the family, suburban living stage.  Get over it.  Who am I kidding, I drive a Grand Am, the car of people who don't want to admit they can't afford a real sports car. 

2). I find that the gay people I have met to date have been exceptionally annoying.  There, I said it.  No, I am not kidding.  You can call me a bigot all day long, I really don't care, I will not lose sleep over it.  Gay people annoy me because it seems most of them have nothing else to talk about besides being gay.  Please, for the love of God, find something else to talk about.  Me (and I am willing to bet, most other people) could honestly care less. 

3).  Hip Hop vs Grunge: I grew up in the suburbs.  I  cringe now when I think of all the well-to-do kids in the Catholic school I went to, whose moms bought them those gigantic puffy Raiders jackets in 1991-1995-ish.  They looked ridiculous.  We listened to Snow, dammit.  We had no street cred.  And a bare few months later, we convinced out parents to buy us flannel jackets and combat boots, way overpriced, because of some drug-addled asshole named Eddie Vedder.  No excuse

4) Hip Hop Part 2:  White suburban kids like to _PRETEND_ they listen to A Tribe Called Quest or Pharcyde.  None of us actually do.  It's a pose.  The only rap song any of us know is "Tennessee."  Or Slam, but only because we saw a video with them and Biohazard on MTV once.  It's like the "indie rock snob" who says he's listens to Sonic Youth.  Few people, if any, actually listen to Sonic Youth, and to tell you the truth, they kinda suck .  There's a reason why they had to OPEN for Nirvana in 1991 despite being around since the punk days of the '70s, and I guarantee you it had little to do with "oh the audience just doesn't get it."  Let me tell you something:  the so-called phillistine and stupid "common people" ain't that stupid, not if they actually have money to throw around on music.  They have to make an economic choice on what will make them _happy_ for their hard earned bucks, and Sonic Youth don't cut it, for anybody near as I can tell.  How many well-adjusted, functional indie rock snobs have you met?  How many of these people don't wear out your patience or your sympathy after a few minutes?

5) Speaking of Sonic Youth, here's some more overrated bands:  R.E.M, U2, but mostly R.E.M, Talking Heads, XTC, the Ramones (yes, I am a punk fan, and yes, I just said the Ramones are overrated, and I'll tell you why, all their so-called "admirers" couldn't be bothered to ever spend ten bucks on a record - the Ramones never had a single gold record until 3/4 of the original lineup DIED, and then their first gold release was a POSTHUMOUS DVD MOVIE.  Sorry guys, I gotta call bullshit on this one), Velvet Underground is another one - I am sick of hearing how "Velvet Underground only sold 1,000 records, but everyone who bought one formed a band.  Yeah, any bands YOU ACTUALLY LISTEN TO?  Get a life.  Big Star.  The music critic's wet dream.  Here's something for you - Big Star was OKAY.  The bands they inspired are better than they ever were.  Cheap Trick is just the tip of the iceberg on that one.  I can name _three_ Big Star Songs off the top of my head, and I dare any indie geek to find someone who can name different ones than me without trying:  "September Gurls," "The Ballad of El Goodo", and "In the Street" - the theme from "That '70s Show" which was actually performed by...Cheap Trick.

6).  Hip Hop Redux:  Gangsta rap sucks.  Sorry, at age 30, I can no longer nod my head to people telling me how bad the white race is and how "I just don't know" how bad the streets are in East L.A."  As far as I am concerned, East L.A. could fall in the goddamn ocean tomorrow and I would not shed a tear.  Not when I can't say a thing about race relations in this country without being chastised, but some huckster idiot of a preacher can scream "God Damn America" and that we created the AIDS virus to kill brown people, and that is somehow treated as legitimate speech.  I really question Hip Hop's claim to high culture, and to tell you the truth, the hell with KRS-1.  If he can sit there and nod and smile like an idiot when someone says that "graffiti is one of the four elements of hip hop culture" and can seriously look himself in the mirror the next day, sorry, I can't pretend I actually have any respect for that.  I owe people more honesty than to humor a false respect and reverrence.  I actually love graffiti art.  I think there's really something there, but please don't ask me to elevate it or DJ scratching to the level of a plank of an entire culture.  Maybe you think so, but please respect my right to _respectfully_ disagree.  If you happen to treat the side of my building as a canvas without asking my permission first, I only think of calling the cops, not giving you a grant to the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

7) Apologizing:  I do not believe in apologizing for anything I did not actually do myself.  It is not my place, nor do I presume the utter uncouth _arrogance_ to apologize on behalf of "my race" or my country for things like slavery, Indian Wars, beating Mexico like a red-headed stepchild in 1848, or anything else that I can not trace to the work of my own two hands.  If I did wrong somewhere, then I DID WRONG, not my dad, not my grandad, not my neighbor's grandpappy, and not the United States of America as answered for by MOGS.  When someone says "they apologize, on my behalf" all I can think is "HOW DARE YOU?"  I did not ask for, nor do I need your, apology.  The US deported Italians by the bushel in the early 20th century.  The US prosecuted bushels of Italians for organized crime and other things in the early 20th century.  And I am sorry to say this for all my hypersensitive wanker "paisans" who have a problem with the Sopranos, but most of the goombahs they went after absolutely _deserved it_.   I sure as hell don't see Italy apologizing to France for Caesar's Gallic Wars, and I don't feel a need to apologize for Lucky Luciano or the Antebellum South for that matter, either.

8) The environment:  You know what?  When I was a kid, the big fear was an ice age.  Now it's global warming.  Make up your friggin' mind.

9) Women's rights:  You want to be equal?  Cool, then sign up for Selective Service, and then no more chivalry, or priveleges, ever.  I've had it with the whining.  No more endowments, no more "Women's Resource Centers" no more "Women's History Month" no more "guy picks up the check" no more "I can have an abortion and he gets no say in the matter" no more alimony, no more affirmative action.  That's the price of equality.  I will give you all the equality you want, but I will not tolerate "I want it one way today, the other way tomorrow, and you have to accept it."  Sorry honeys, being equal means I treat you like one of the guys.  That means growing a thick skin, and that also means your feelings have no bearing whatsoever on job performance.  You can have equality or the pedestal treatment, but not both.  Take your pick, I'm actually pretty easy, and so are most of us, when you get down to it.  This is how guys _really_ feel, but too many of us have been whipped to come out and say it.  Well, I'll take the goddamned spear right in the chest.  We're tired of the bitching, we're tired of Oprah, we're being told we're not "sensitive" enough, and we're tired of people treating the psychotic, unhappy skanks from "Sex and the City" like they're some sort of uteran messiahs.  The only remotely attractive one out of the whole lot of them was Kim Cattral's character, because at least she was honest. We're men.  We like sports.  We like beer.  We like attractive females.  Most of us do not find "fat" attractive.  Most of us do not think "big is beautiful." We really don't.  But generally, we're too nice to fight it. We like war movies.  We like competition.  We mistrust "teamwork" because in every team, there's always a superstar, and there's always a leech, and we also don't think that "everyone has something worth contributing."  We like brotherhood and comradeship.  We like all these things just like you have the things you like.  We are very, very tired of being told how stupid, smelly, primitive and useless we are. We need our space and guy time too, and if you keep crapping on us, we''ll just accelerate the current trends and - avoid marriage for one.  Why should we pay into a game that we have better than 50% odds of losing at?  Do you really think we're that dumb?  Oh, and any "male" who claims to be a "feminist" is a liar.  He says that because he thinks angry hippie chicks are easy, but he doesn't have the guts to actually ask any of them out like a normal male.  Think I'm being insensitive and Neanderthal?  Well, put up or shut up.  TRY ME.  Put your money where your mouth is.  You think I'm the only one?  The backlash is just getting started...every episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" should be burned.  I would love Raymond if he, just once, grew a spine and told his miserable bitch of a wife where to get off at, and told his parents to take a hike.  They need to hear it.  Oh, the Vagina Monologues suck too.  Madonna ceased being relevent years ago, slut does NOT equal "empowered" and Maureen Dowd really ain't as bright as y'all think.

10)  Multi-culturalism:  I happen to think Western culture, in general is superior to the other options, all other things being equal.  I'm results focused, and at the current time, I'm kinda at a loss to identify a better working paradigm.  Sorry.  Villages don't work all that well to raise children apparently.  Furthermore, I think the number one reason to study defeated cultures is to ascertain somewhat how to avoid becoming one yourself.  I have dedicated my entire adult life to that pursuit, and I still find it a worthy endeavor.  I am not apologizing for this either.  I do not plan on converting to anything, anytime soon, except maybe a variant of Christianity that can somehow incorporate feasting, Valhalla, hot valkyries who kick ass and look good while doing it, MMA, righteous tailgating, and loud boisterous song into its visions of peace, love, and understanding.  Any takers?

11) The nanny state.  Kids getting scraped and cut on the playground is the best thing in the world for them.  Kids getting to learn about cause and effect, action and consequence, is how you PREVENT boomerang kids and overgrown, dependent adolescents.  The state of males in our culture right now absolutely sickens me.

12) Boomers:  With a few, sadly very few, exceptions, I can not wait until they truly start fading away.  I am sick and tired of their geriatric stranglehold on the culture.  I am SICK to death of hearing about "TEH SIXTIES!!!!" .  I simply can't respect anyone who holds it as a point of pride the fact that they got high and danced naked in the rain while their bros died in foreign mud.  I can't respect anyone whose sole great life accomplishment was they protested a war and went to a concert in a shitty part of New York state, and who still act like the same whiny asshole they were back then.

Done.