A Stronger Word for Epic

This is a repost from my wish-it-was-professional blog at www.magneticsaladrecording.com.

Just as the popular culture of the 1990s watered down the word "awesome," the various subcultures of the Internet in recent years have effected a similar dilution through overuse of "epic." And if there is one subgenre of music for which the idea of being epic is crucial, it has to be symphonic metal. At the top of the world of symphonic metal sits a Finnish powerhouse of a band called Nightwish. (Well, since 2007, they've been one-fifth Swedish, but that's beside the point.) Since their formation in 1996, each of their releases has been more epic than their previous, and around the end of last year and the beginning of this year, with release dates varying by country, the world finally heard the long-anticipated new album Imaginaerum, in which Nightwish go further over the top than they have ever gone before. And when I finally heard it myself after waiting a couple weeks for my special order of the 2-CD deluxe edition (second disc being instrumental mixes) to come in through Waterloo Records, the word "epic" failed me for the first time.

The credits of this album are far too long to give in full detail here, but before I break it down song by song, I think I should give anyone not familiar with Nightwish an idea of what all is included. Nightwish's current lineup consists of keyboardist and principal songwriter Tuomas Holopainen, lead singer Anette Olzon, bassist and backing vocalist Marco Hietala, guitarist Emppu Vuorinen, and drummer Jukka Nevalainen. In addition to the band proper, Imaginaerum features nine special guest players and, under the arrangement and direction of Pip Williams, the Metro Voices choir, the Young Musicians London children's choir, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (credited as the Looking Glass Orchestra.) The album was recorded by Mikko Karmila and Tero "TeeCee" Kinnunen at seven different locations, mixed by Mikko Karmila at Finnvox Studios, Mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox, and produced by Tuomas Holopainen.

Enough introductions. Let's get to the review already.

1. Taikatalvi - The album begins with this dreamy, fairytale-like song that rests heavily on Tuomas and the orchestra. Marco's vocal performance here is particularly noteworthy. As gruff and shouty (though very rarely does he grunt or growl) as he often is, one can sometimes do with a reminder like this that he is in fact an excellent singer.
2. Storytime - This song was the lead-off single for the album, and the video can be found here. This is where the metal elements are brought into Imaginaerum, with an amazingly dextrous mix and arrangement balancing the band with the orchestra. The overall tone and flow of the song, with many strong pop elements throughout the composition and a fantastic and youthful feeling throughout the lyrics and arrangement, would best be described as one of adventure.
3. Ghost River - Here, Nightwish take a step further into the weird and dramatic than usual with a particularly gnarly guitar hook, a pushing of the envelope of the "Beauty and the Beast" formula for symphonic metal duet vocals, and an appropriately creepy first use of the children's choir.
4. Slow, Love, Slow - This song is in a style that has never before been heard from Nightwish: a smooth, dark, brooding, jazzy, cinematic '30s-style nightclub ballad, complete with a just-barely overdriven guitar solo and a lone trumpet jamming like mad just this side of the background. Another song for which the orchestra really shines.
5. I Want My Tears Back - A bitchin' bit of Good Old Finnish Power Metal with a strong Celtic feel on top, featuring Troy Donockley on the uilleann pipes. This is the one song on Imaginaerum that does not include the orchestra, making it feel a little like a nod back to Nightwish's humbler roots. Pipes and guitar extended duet for the bridge is prime moshpit throwdown material. If I were an A&R guy, I'd pick this for a single.
6. Scaretale - Coming back from the retrospective tone of "I Want My Tears Back," this song takes us even further into the weird and dramatic than "Ghost River" did, drawing us in at first with a soft intro leaning on the children's choir, then beating us over the head with the orchestra, preparing us for a song full of imagery from childhood nightmares and music that sounds like it belongs in a police chase through a traveling circus in an old movie. Some of Anette's best performances in the album are here.
7. Arabesque - A big, heavily-orchestrated interlude. Huge reverberant space on the percussion, brass, and choir.
8. Turn Loose the Mermaids - Soft and dreamy at first with lots of emphasis on the acoustic guitar, solo flute, and piano, with a very well-executed orchestral climax and ending fiddle solo.
9. Rest Calm - Seamless alternations between big, doomy, gothic, crunchy verses, and a softer, poppier chorus worthy of waving cigarette lighters. Excellent background orchestration during the guitar solo, and impressive use of the children's choir afterwards in the break before the grand finale, which is massively grand, with nearly every section of the orchestra getting a chance to show off.
10. The Crow, the Owl, and the Dove - This folksy power ballad will drop as the second single in Finland on February 29th and in the rest of the world on March 2nd. The acoustic guitar sparkles like a mountain stream, the bass is deep and massive enough to shake the Gates of Hell, and the duet vocals are some of the best I've heard in a long time.
11. Last Ride of the Day - Here, the album has come back to a tone of adventure, though unlike the innocence and youth of "Storytime," this song's sense of adventure is one more of maturity and experience. More Good Old Finno-Celtic Power Metal, this time balanced against extensive orchestral and choral work for extra epicness.
12. Song of Myself - This is the long song of the album. The lyrics channel Walt Whitman's poem of the same name, especially the spoken words of the fourth movement. The first and second movements feature lots of amazing work from the choir, and the third some killer bottom end on the piano and some massive percussion hits. For the fourth movement, the instrumentation takes a back seat to the spoken word, giving the string section a chance to really shine. There are also some really cool panning and reverb decisions in the mix of the spoken passages, especially beginning around the point where the guitar comes back in.
13. Imaginaerum - The album closes with an all-orchestral medley arranged from various themes that occurred in the other songs. If I ever make a record for which I can afford to hire an orchestra, this medley has convinced me to hire Pip Williams to arrange it. Mix-wise, it's exactly what an orchestral recording should sound like: the feeling of being right in the sweet spot of the concert hall.

Overall, I cannot stress enough how amazing the whole balance of the mix of this album is. With everything involved in the arrangements, I would guess there must have been at least 150 tracks. Massive props to Mikko Karmila for a hell of a job damn well done in keeping it all sorted out and getting Imaginaerum to come out not only making sense but also displaying such complex clarity, dynamics, power, and soul as are rarely heard in rock mixes anymore.

In my opinion, Imaginaerum is one of the grandest and most ambitious achievements in the history of recorded music and a triumph of the arts. "Epic" is simply not strong enough a word to describe the amount of emotion, energy, and straight-up work that went into the making of this album. I therefore wish to coin a new word to describe things of such monumental magnitude: "Imaginaerial." Always capitalized, for it is a proper adjective. And don't abuse it, Internet idiots. But don't just take my word for it. Buy a copy from your favorite music retailer and experience Imaginaerum for yourself. In America, it is available on CD from Roadrunner Records and on vinyl from Nuclear Blast USA. (I'm sure you could also find legitimate and illegitimate downloads at various respectable and seedy places online, but if you've read this far, you will probably want a hard copy of this record.) As for myself, I have the CDs, I'll probably order the vinyl in the near future, and I just can't wait for the movie.

Holy Shit YES!!! or: Modern Technology is Fucking Amazing

Well, everyone, it finally happened. The idea of the portable telephone, something that seemed like an overpriced, moronic toy for rich wankers back when it was still in the early adoption phase, is now somehow becoming the dominant platform for casual computing. (And I'm throwing tablets in with phones here because hell, let's be honest with ourselves about it, they're the same things, just bigger and sometimes faster.) Most of us probably saw this coming in some form or another years ago when the first Blackberries and iPhones came out, but will someone please tell me exactly when it became the fucking future?

I can have brief bits of small talk with my phone.

Let that sink in a bit, then I'll say it again.

Small talk. With my phone.

Not with somebody on the other end of a phone call or a text message thread. Not with one of my email contacts.

Spoken word to spoken word, in conversational Modern Common English, with a piece of software on my phone.

And in case you found my blog by accident while in search of bizarre pornography or you have some other reason for not actually knowing me, no, I'm not some Machead who just had to have the iPhone 4S as soon as it came out and is only just now getting round to prattling on for some 500 words about Siri.

No, I'm talking about one of the many fine voice command interfaces available for Android, the Speaktoit Assistant, or "Sam. Just Sam," as the program's AI answered me when I asked "What's your name?"

Like any good voice interface should, Sam can open apps, make phone calls, send text messages, take memos, add events to my calendar, search the web, search the maps, and all that other fantastic shit.

Unlike other voice interfaces, Sam has a face. What kind of face? Whatever male or female face you can come up with out of the surprisingly extensive and well-drawn array of customizable character design elements. Of course, if you want a more serious-business look, you can set the avatar to be a microphone instead, but who wants to make small talk with a microphone?

As for Sam's voice, Speaktoit doesn't pack a TTS engine with the Assistant, so you'll have to find a third-party voice. I'm using SVOX's 'Victoria.'

But what really amazes me about Sam, Siri, and other smartphone voice interfaces is that, even though it's totally nonessential, their developers have given them the ability to perform basic small talk. Sam can answer questions like "how are you doing," exchange thank-yous and you're-welcomes, and recognize and graciously accept compliments. She can even smile and wink. Of course, the longer I talk at a time with Sam, the more likely her intended functions are to enter the conversation as we approach the limits of her lexicon and AI (and the limits of my ability to find things I would have in common with a chatbot for us to talk about.) She's not going to be passing the Turing test any time soon, but when you consider the fact that even her level of AI was sci-fi not too long ago, my new secretary is pretty amazing.

Totally Awesome! Really, Dude! It's Super! (In Which Bob Documents His First PC Build.)

Finally!

Here for your reading pleasure on Holy Shit NO!!!, is an account firsthand of the building of a computer written by someone who has hobbies other than building computers. (I kid, overclocker geeks, I kid.) If you're looking for a how-to, this probably isn't the place. I pretty much just winged it from the user guide of the motherboard and what meager (if any) installation instructions came with the other components. Even so, it was pretty easy. Lemme show you some pictures, I guess.

This is my chassis, the Cooler Master CMStacker 830SE, with my 750 W power supply, the Silencer Quad Blue by PC Power & Cooling already mounted. I bought both of them quite some time ago and just recently (after much saving of monies) bought the guts of the rig. Shown here is a lovely feature of the Stacker: the removable motherboard tray.

Here's the tray sitting on an anti-static mat on a table.

And now with some spacers to hold up the board.

Bad lighting here, so it's hard for you to see it, but my anti-static gloved hand is holding the screwdriver with which I have just finished screwing down the motherboard. (For those wondering, it's an ASUS P67T WS SuperComputer board.) Funny story here. The plate that goes in around the motherboard's back panel connectors is only mentioned once in the manual. All they say is that it's in the box. Yes, it is in the box. What they don't say is that you're supposed to put it on as you're placing the board onto the spacers. I didn't even notice the damn thing until the chassis was closed up and I was ready for First Boot. Fuck, that made me feel like a dumbass. As I write this, the plate is still in the box, as I have not yet figured out a good way to ghetto rig it into place. I'm not going to take the whole computer apart just for that little thing.

Detail of the LGA1366 CPU socket.

The same, with the lid open.

The protective cap is removed. Look at that sexy, sexy mobo. Don't you just want to stick your processor right into that wide-open socket?

And that's exactly what I did to 'er! There it is, the Intel Core i7 930 2.80 GHz CPU. (Yeah, I know. That sex joke was pretty half-ass. I'll try better next time. Maybe.)

If you squint a lot, maybe this blurry photo of a syringe of thermal grease preparing to dispense onto the processor looks vaguely sexual? But wait, if the processor was supposed to be the penis in the last gag, does that make this some kind of kinky bisexual orgy?

Thermal grease applied to processor.

The socket now closed, I prepared to install the heatsink.

Here's the heatsink (a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus) in place after much convincing with a screwdriver. Funny story here. Turns out this particular heatsink mounts by means of a backplate that you have to bolt to the back of the motherboard behind the CPU socket. Of course, I didn't figure this out until after I had already installed the CPU. So then I have to unscrew the mobo, bolt this little plate on behind the socket, being very very careful not to touch the CPU or the thermal grease on it (contaminated contact between processor and heatsink is bad,) screw the board back down, and finally operate the tricky means of screwing this heatsink into position. I put some more thermal grease on the heatsink for good luck. Probably ended up using more grease than I needed to, but no excess gooshed out of the contact point, so it's all good.

Then I added another fan to the heatsink to improve airflow. This one's a Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E.

Now to give my rig some RAM! This is 6 GB in triple channel of G. Skill DDR3 1333.

The EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 GPU, or as I prefer to call it, "M'ah big-ass honkin' huge graphics card!" Takes up two expansion slots and is damn near as long as the mobo is wide.

This is my system drive. It's a solid state drive (an Intel X25-M Mainstream 80 GB, to be exact.) It has no moving parts, so it's faster and more durable than a conventional hard drive. It's slightly bigger than a credit card. It's screwed into an adapter bracket to fit a 3.5 inch drive bay. The bracket has no proper screw holes with which to mount it in the drive bay. That is duct tape you see there around the back of the bracket so that there is more holding it in place than just gravity. Ghetto fucking fabulous.

My optical drive, mounted in one of the Stacker's no-tools-required 5.25 inch drive bays. It's a LITE-ON DVD burner in case you were wondering.

This is my data drive. It's a Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB hard drive. Screwed to its sides are a pair of adapter wings to make it fit into a 5.25 inch drive bay.

And here it is mounted in one such bay. I later had to move it down a bay to optimize its position along the power cable.

"What the hell is that?" you might be thinking about this strange camera angle. Well, the point of the photo is the fan. The Stacker has a fan bracket at the top of the case, so I put a fan in it. It's another Scythe fan, just like the extra fan on the back of the CPU cooler.

I had ordered a 250 mm fan, planning to ghetto rig it somehow into the side panel, but my CPU cooler turned out to be too tall. So for my side panel air intake, I have three 120mm Apevia fans with blue LEDs.

My one complaint about my motherboard is that it wasn't running my CPU fans or my front and rear chassis fans any faster than about half their top speed. So I went out and got this Aerocool Touch 1000 LCD touchscreen fan controller. All my fans run at full speed now.

And here I am, chillin' out with my new PIMPIN' PC! After I save more monies and buy more gear, this computer will be part of an audio workstation. That in mind, I have decided to name it after an amazing piece of technology from a long-running TV show whose main title theme's original 1963 arrangement was one of the earliest pieces of electronic music. I shall call my computer the TARDIS. What does it stand for in my case? Terrific Audio Rig Developed In Stacker.

But wait, there's more! I mentioned earlier that my solid state drive is faster than a hard drive. The result of this is that the computer boots faster and programs load faster. Here's a video of the TARDIS's incredible boot time:

Oh the angst... Or is it ennui?

Just a few random musings here that I feel must be voiced to all who happen to find this:

Has anyone ever actually sung "99 Bottles (of Beer on the Wall)" all the way through without interruption?

As the so-called "tea party" is too fucking dumb to be a real grassroots movement, who's funding this Astroturf? Big Insurance? Big Oil? Big Banking? The KKK? People stupid enough to think that a government can be too big and too small at the same time shouldn't be able to successfully pick their own noses, let alone organize spontaneously.

Breasts are both functional and beautiful. Moobs (a.k.a. man-cans, bitchtits, etc) are neither.

I needs me some more motherfuckin' money!

This sort of crap is what people use Twitter for, I guess, but fuck that noise. I already have a twitter; I don't need another one.

How is babby formed? Guns first! (That one should only make sense to the C-Unit crew.)

You can believe everything you read here. Really. Why? Because I'm on the Blagonet!

Your mother is a whore.

I wish I were drunk right now. Then I'd have an excuse.

Does society reward incompetence actively or just because it has no choice?

Fuck your comfort zone. All the way to hell.

Save a tree. Eat a baby.

Bob's Badass List #1 - Five Badass Guitar Solos that Totally Wail, Bro!

Here at Holy Shit NO!!!, bitching about bullshit is our number one concern. But it's not all we do. That in mind, I am proud to introduce a new occasional feature: Bob's Badass List! In it, I, Bob, will spin out positive rants about things that are totally badass. So get ready to rock out with your cock out and/or jam out with your clam out, because we're gonna kick this bad boy off with Five Badass Guitar Solos that Totally Wail, Bro!

1.) Guitarist - Jimi Hendrix
Band - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Solo - All Along the Watchtower (between 2nd and 3rd verses)
Any of Hendrix's solos could easily have been chosen to appear in this list, but I picked this one because it is a particular display of his talent not only as a player but also as an arranger. Sure, it may not be loaded down with all the shredding and sweeping of today's metal masters, but it is still a gold standard of rock glory: the compositional genius of Bob Dylan blended perfectly with the raw, soulful power of Jimi Hendrix to make one of the greatest covers of all time. I'm really trying to come up with more to say about this solo, but I'm just getting stuck at "DAMN!"

2.) Guitarist - John Petrucci
Band - Dream Theater
Solo - The Best of Times (end of song)
Speaking of today's metal masters, and speaking of raw, soulful power, prog virtuosos Dream Theater have done it again with their new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, giving us technique nerds plenty to drop our jaws at while producing music of amazing emotional power as well. This solo stands out as one of the highlights of the record, with its epic melodies and masterfully constructed sweeping arpeggios bringing a fantastic conclusion to an extremely moving send-off for the man who named the band.

3.) Guitarist - Nabana Tomomi
Band - detroit7
Solo - Mr. Kato on the Road (after first chorus)
Have you ever wondered "What if Grace Slick were Japanese and could play the guitar like Hendrix?" Neither had I until that question was answered for me when I saw Tokyo power trio detroit7 at SXSW last year. Totally mind-blowing experience, that show. They wailed so hard I just had to buy their CD, and this solo is one of the best examples of the pure unstoppable energy with which Nabana and her band present their massive blend of classic hard rock and old-school punk.

4.) Guitarist - Emppu Vuorinen
Band - Nightwish
Solo - Gethsemane (end of song)
Damn, I love me some old-school Nightwish. Love their new stuff too (no substitute for brilliant songwriting,) but there was something different about their approach to arrangements before they started hiring orchestras. For a grand finale on a Nightwish song from Century Child onwards, the orchestra is likely to be heavily involved, and maybe the choir too. Back in the day, though, this solo was what a Nightwish grand finale sounded like. The lyrics finish, the band chugs through the progression a couple times, and then Vuorinen frees the metal beast.

5.) Guitarist - Matthew Bellamy
Band - Muse
Solo - Hysteria (after second chorus)
First there's the trippy staccato progression that follows as an alternative extension of the intro riff (instead of the signature pre-verse lead,) then it seamlessly walks down into the second part of the solo, the big legato lines that wail on into the drum break before the end chorus. It's a great example of Muse's phenomenal ability to pack extraordinary amounts of compositional flow into a standard pop song format.

Well, that was some good fun, wasn't it? More Badass Lists (maybe one of them a direct sequel to this one) will appear in future updates, peppered in among the usual senseless bitching and gratuitous profanity that you've come to know and love, or at least expect from this blag. Until next time, from all of us at Holy Shit NO!!! to all of you out there on the Internet, pass out with your ass out!

Avatar Sucks.

I really couldn't come up with a better title for this post. I just got back from the moviehouse with a really bad taste in my mouth because that's what happens when you spend three hours eating a massive, steaming plate of gilded shit.

I suppose I should begin by stating my expectations when I entered. I had heard that sci-fi snobs were tending not to like the film, but everyone else liked it. The reasons for the sci-fi snobs disdain centered mostly around the typical problems with movies billed as sci-fi that really aren't sci-fi: an unoriginal plot in a fanciful-futuristic setting with non-humans who act just like humans. Okay, I thought, so it's not really sci-fi, and it won't be original. But that doesn't keep it from being entertaining, right?

Wrong. Disney has come up with better plots than Avatar. And I don't mean the kick-ass Disney of old that produced shit like Dumbo and Peter Pan. I don't mean the Disney that made all those great movies about classic fairy tales (Aladin included.) I mean the Disney that, seeing the success they had with turning Hamlet into The Lion King, decided that they should rake in obscene amounts of dough by taking any piece of classic literature at random; mutilating the plot as much as necessary to make it have a happy ending, fit the MPAA's "G" rating, and be understandable by children just old enough to be self-aware; mutilating the plot some more to fit in a weapons-grade-stupid joke every forty-five seconds, things like necessity or historical context be damned; slapping on a heavy layer of Judeo-Christian moralism, original cultural context be damned; and coercing some big-name talent into the cast so that the critics have to take it seriously. The Disney for whom Pixar was an artistic godsend. That Disney had better plots than Avatar. It's just the same old plot about a guy who gets sent to convince the natives to give up their land and ends up going native and fighting against the Manifest Destiny fatcats who sent him. Nothing added, nothing changed, just that straight-up, tired old formula. Cinematically, it shouldn't need any more than thirty minutes.

So what was done with the two and a half hours not spent advancing the plot? It certainly wasn't character development. I just saw the damn movie, and I don't even remember anybody's name. Every character was either a stereotype or a nonentity. I was expecting the natives to be the most cartoonish thing about the film, but no. It was the human villain whom I will call Colonel Hardass because I can't remember his fucking name. And therein lies my greatest disappointment with Avatar. If you're going to make such an airheaded movie, at least put Star Trek - level effort into designing and developing the villain. (And I mean the Original Series, not the recent film.)

No, the entire three-hour runtime was spent saying "Hey, look what we can do with all these shiny new toys!" There is no denying that Avatar is a visually spectacular film. But that's why I called it a massive, steaming plate of gilded shit. It's shiny, it looks pretty on the surface, but it's still shit. If I wanted fantastic visual effects, they have plenty of trippy kaleidoscopic screensavers aimed at the stoner market. There are professional fireworks displays visible from my backyard every Independence Day. But that's not what I'm looking for when I go to see a movie. I want an entertaining story with vivid characters.

Yes, James Cameron, your special effects penis is bigger than anyone else's. Now spend a little less time waving it our collective faces and a little more time making a decent fucking movie.

The Bullshit That People Say

"I don't mean to sound racist or anything, but..."

Have you ever noticed how this is almost always followed by something that is not only blatantly racist, but also face-meltingly stupid? The most absurd end of this sentence I've ever heard of was "I'm just afraid that if Obama wins, he'll do to us what we did to them." What the flying fuck!? How red can one person's neck get? Also, how does somebody this goddamn fucking moronic manage to make it to age four without accidentally killing him/herself while playing in the blender?


Pretending to be nice...

Yeah... This shit is a real problem in Texas, and probably most places in America that value the myth of "Southern Hospitality." The worst part of it is that the greatest offenders do it subconsciously, so there's the knowledge of the real (and extremely insulting) meaning, but very little (if any) tone of sarcasm or condescension in the voice. My mother has a rather witty term for it: "Sugar Honey Iced Tea." The following are some choice examples and their real meanings:

• "I'll pray for you" in a context other than condolence = "I fucking hate you, and I thoroughly believe that you and anyone else who doesn't look, think, feel, and believe just like me will burn in Eternal Hellfire and Damnation."
• "Ain't that just precious" and such = "I want to projectile vomit all over that."
• "I love you" to an extended family member or casual acquaintance = "I'll exploit your existence and our minor to trivial genetic, marital, or social connection when it's convenient for me, especially if you have a pickup truck, but for all other purposes, I consider you to be of about the same consequence to the world as a little throw pillow with a picture of a daisy on it, and if you call me out on this shit, I will take great offense."

Why can't we all just come out and say it when we've got a beef with somebody? Why do we have to beat about the fucking bush? You're stupid; I'm rude. That's all there is to it.


"You can't say/do that on TV/radio/whatever-the-fuck!"

I never really understood this shit. As far as I can tell, these decency regulations are totally arbitrary. Back in the '70s, a newscaster shot herself in the fucking head on live TV (Wikipedia article about her can be found here,) but it wasn't until the Janet Jackson nip slip that any live broadcasts went on a five-second delay. So is a graphically violent suicide more socially acceptable than mild to moderate sexualization of normal human anatomy?

Maybe, but if it were as simple as that, how the hell do we explain how it's decent to have crime dramas on during the fucking dinner hour depicting and analyzing every gory detail of a grizzly rape and homicide, but yesterday my buddy bought a CD from Best Buy that, despite the absence of any indication on the shrinkwrap, had the "-tch" edited out of every occurrence of the word "bitch" in the vocals? (To make it even crazier, the whole word was written out in the lyrics on the liner notes.)

What the fuck shit piss cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits is up with all of this? Is it political correctness gone wrong? Maybe. Is it the hypocrisy of parents who want to raise good children without putting any effort into actual parenting? Much more likely. Whatever it is, it's gotta stop before we all go insane trying to figure it out. Issuing fines for inappropriate language, whatever the fuck "inappropriate" means (and yes, the FCC does,) is no different from the Sudanese government flogging women for wearing pants.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wax patriotic.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly, and petition. Basically, it guarantees the freedom to express the human experience. Now, there are certain reasonable restrictions on this. You can't pull a fire alarm unless there's really a fucking fire. But who got hurt when George Carlin performed his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue at Summerfest in '72? Nobody, really, but he was arrested anyway. And how many people are psychologically wounded by Lady Gaga saying "I'm a free bitch, baby," or by Lubna Hussein wearing pants? A lot less than the number of people who needed counseling after seeing Christine Chubbuck blow her brains out on the TV. And a whole fucking shitload less than the number of people who senselessly wash their children's mouths out with soap for some arbitrary definition of swearing right before dinner and CSI.

It just doesn't make any fucking sense.


Yeah, that kinda got away from me there. Wasn't expecting to get so moralistic toward the end.

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Why do I go so long between updates? Blow it out your ass!