DC101 R.I.P.

Maybe I am becoming an old man already (I do have the grays for it), but Gergle's little rant got me pretty fired up.

At work we have DC101 on all day, and its a pretty sad excuse for a rock station these days. We count how many times we hear 'The Black Parade' every day, and I'm about to start counting that horrid Three Days Grace song (you know, about how he's an animal and out of control 'cause he's so baaaad), American Idol failure Daughtry and fucking goddamn Papa Roach. At least Hinder seems to be out of rotation. This is without even mentioning Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and the like, which is a whole other rant (then again, it might not be--I just started typing).

Now, I mention Papa Roach with a special fervor. I do this not only because they suck but because they suck in such a specific way. It just seems like they wait a year or two, see what's big and then cut a record that sounds like everything else out there. Remember 'Last Resort'? When they came out they were all not quite rap-rock, with that douche singer doing all that crap 'spoken word' type shit? Trying to be all deep and dark talking about cutting himself. Like he ever fucking was a cutter. I knew cutters. I dated a cutter (who had stopped by that time thankfully), and I found the whole thing just unseemly, as if you could just tell he was trying to sell them something rather than help. I mean, tell someone its going to be better someday. Give us a solution for god's sake. What does he offer as a solution? Oh yeah, suicide. Thanks, dick.

And 'Broken Home'? About, well, you guess....yeah. At least the guitar part (and most of what the band was doing) in that song was kinda interesting. If you don't remember the lyrics, here's a sample:

Broken home/All alone
Broken home/All alone

Jesus...put a hair's worth of effort into it, man. So anyway, there they were in the middle of the shift that saw kids go from Korn to POD to Linkin Park and the rise of...god help me...emocorepowerpunkpopshit. Fast foward seven years (and two or three completely ignored records) annnnnnnnddd they're back. New song, new look. Really, check it out:

Papa Roach ca. 2000

Check 'em out now:

Nice. YouTube! Cuz allth3 kidz r on th youtub3! Rawk! Whatever, can't blame them for adapting to a new environment...but its just so blatant with them. Now singerdouche's new problems aren't cutting or his 'rents, it's relationships and being unable to get deep with groupies he's banging on the road. Really, check it out, from the shit masterpiece 'Forever':

In the brightest hour of my darkest day
I realized what is wrong with me
Can’t get over you can’t get through to you
It’s been a helter-skelter romance from the start
Take these memories that are haunting me
Of a paper man cut into shreds by his own pair of scissors
He’ll never forgive her he’ll never forgive her

Because days come and go but my feelings for you are forever
Because days come and go but my feelings for you are forever

Sitting by a fire on a lonely night
Hanging over from another good time
With another girl little dirty girl
You should listen to this story of her life
You’re my heroin in this moment I’m lonely fulfilling my darkest dreams
All these drugs all these women
I’m never forgiven this broken heart of mine

One last kiss before I go
Dry your tears it is time to let you go
One last kiss before I go
Dry your tears it is time to let you go

Ferlinghetti it ain't. But that's not the point. Dude breaks up with a girl, can't get over it and rather than deal with it fucks groupies (who, by the way, he couldn't have any less respect for as women) while thinking about how fucked up they are and they should listen to him like he's some kind of fucking yogi or something, all the while he's still obsessing over the one girl. What. The. Fuck. Ever. You suck. Tuck them in the file with Nickleback and Hinder and Daughtry and all that shit. Fuck 'em.

But that's what you get on the radio today. That's what rock music is now. You're either some poseur rock star or a fucking eyeliner wearing fop like Pete Wentz or the douche-chill inspiring My Chemical Romance. It's like an eight-hour clusterfuck listening to this shit all day. I've actually removed DC101 from my truck presets. I couldn't take it anymore. I want to rock. I don't want to hear kids whining. I especially don't want to hear dickheads talk shit about girls they're fucking on the road when they should be laughing it up, enjoying the opportunity that most of us never get and thanking god for young, impressionable women. And they should be saving their money, 'cause a lot of us have iPods, and satellite radios, and mammoth cd collections...

We're not abandoning radio; radio abandoned us. I'm gonna go listen to some Tool.

Who do I Have to Fuck....?

Maybe soon to become a regular feature here at The Point. I'm giving it a go and we'll see what happens....

Who do I have to fuck....

-To get a decent glass of beer around here? I know where, I'm just asking for one that doesn't make my wallet vomit in its mouth (which is a little too close to my ass for my comfort).

-To find a job listing that actually explains what the job is? I may have applied for a cabinet-level position this week and not known it. Then again, I may have applied to be the 'mop guy' at a friggin' peep show place. That's my point: I can't tell.

-To find a guitar that's half good, not custom, not tricked out at all, for under $1500? Just one.

-To shorten commercial breaks on terrestrial radio? If provided a name, this is the one I'd most likely be willing to go through with. More on this in the next week or so, as I'm a pretty heavy radiophile. Thank god I have Sirius/XM/whatever-the-hell-it-is this week.

-To snap MSNBC out of its Anna Nicole obsession? They're making all non-right-wingers look bad with this crap. Jesus, you're just giving them a gun and asking "Please Sir, please shoot me?".

-To get Van Halen to go on tour anyway? God, I was so ready for this. The kid in the band? Dave with his shot voice trying to sing Fair Warning stuff? This was gonna be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. You owe us Eddie. You owe us at least that much.

-To make the NBA interesting again? I grew up with the greatest talent pool ever playing their asses off making it happen every night. Now I can barely sit through a quarter of a Mavs/Suns game, and I like both of those teams. A lot. It's like when after Tyson lost the title and every champ after did his best to simply not lose the belt. Man, I have a whole thing under the surface with the NBA that I didn't know was there, but that will be coming out soon. Oh yes, it will.

-To find a bottle of Cherry Smash? If you remember what that is, congrats--you're not only old, you're half a hick. Take a number, I'm still waiting.

-To kill half the shows on Adult Swim? I'm looking at you, 12oz Mouse, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Awesome show, Bleach, Trinity Blood and Squidbillies (so close). It should be the big shows (Family Guy and Futurama), Aqua Teen, Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, Venture Bros., Space Ghost (make new ones, rerun old ones, I don't really give much of a shit), Brak, and Frisky Dingo (with some Sealab reruns thrown in). And Aqua Teen, come here: You're pushing it. You know I love you most of all, but you're really pushing it. I don't know if it's the movie distracting you or what, but you need to get it in gear. Ok, sport? Ok. I love you.

-To make sure I never see Fitness Personality John Basedow on my TV ever again?

-To put Tyra Banks and Rachel Ray on the same one hour talk show? I mean, let's just condense the crap if we're not going to get rid of it.

-To outlaw quarter-taking community washer and dryer rooms from apartment buildings? We're already paying rent; now we get to pay for crappy appliances that don't work as often as they do and when they are are being completely occupied by the same family's 12 loads of laundry? Fuck off.

Ok, this is long enough, I think. I gotta save up that anger, you know. I think we'll be seeing this again. I find it cathartic. Of course, if you have your own, add them as comments or e-mail me and I'll include them in a future 'Who do I Have to Fuck...?'

Email bergle79@gmail.com

Random Thoughts

Hey there,

Had about three things I wanted to write about and never got to so I'm going to just throw some stuff out there.

--I'm so going to the Police show. That made me so happy when I saw them playing together.

--Beauty and the Geek rules. I can't believe that I got sucked into watching crap like this but man does that show payoff. Nate essentially tanking his team because his partner is cunty is maybe the highlight of the television year. God I need to go out more so I don't find myself reduced to blogging about reality shows.

--I'm on a job hunt right now, and I have to say it's a frustrating thing. You find one job that you're not really into, but the pay seems to be good and the hours are livable. On the other hand, you find a job that you might actually enjoy but it means never seeing anyone you know ever again. And forget about any other interests you have. If I could combine the hours of one with the other I'd be pretty well off. Oh well.

I guess that's all I wanted to talk about. More later when I'm not so distracted.

My 78th Annual Academy Awards Review, or: Oscar? I Hardly Even Knew Her!!!

Ok, late? Yes, but I feel like sometimes we need time to absorb and reflect before bloviating.


That and I took notes, and they aren't going to write themselves, so I'm gonna write most of this the way I was thinking at the time and mix in other stuff along. Anything in quotes in parantheses is directly from the notes...


First--R.I.P. Ali Farka Toure, Dana Reeve, Kirby Puckett. What's with the Death right now? Do they know something we don't?


From Hollywood, Producers of 'Three Days of the Condor' as well as 'The Stoopids' (sigh). Jon Stewart hosts.


I feel wary about this going in. He's smart, he's observant, if you ask my girlfriend he's hot--but he has less pull in that room than OJ, and that could be trouble. Unless the host is kissing their ass (see Crystal, Billy) or are just too 'powerful' to ignore (see Carson, Johnny), the Oscar crowd is just brutal (Chapters Rock and Letterman). Maybe there's hope...


...and hope is good for about 30 seconds after a funny opening movie that got laughs 'cause it had people that the crowd wanted to laugh at. Oh boy. I guess if there was a dance number or something he would've gone over, huh? Fuck you Hollywood. Fuck your dance and music numbers.


-Supporting Actor: Nicole Kidman comes out to present and talks about, um, well, ("blah blah blah gorgeous"). Really, wow. And it goes to Clooney! Clooney Buddy! Little Known Fact: There was a second envelope that contained a list of five women for him to bang later. Apparently he did them all so, you know, everyone wins. He makes a nice little speech about why all of these movie people are good for the world and my Man Crush on him is officially back on ("Too funny too handsome too charming love him hate him he's great"). Good to have you back Cooper. Was that his name on 'Rosanne'? Matt Dillon should have had it.


-I don't know who Bill Hurt was with, but WOW. Just, WOW.


-Something I have to get out of the way right now: I HATE the music during the speeches bit. HATE. Even the second in charge guy who gets one for Best Makeup did something right, the show always runs long so fuck it let them talk.


-Apparently Jack does the seating chart for the show, 'cause he's next to Kiera Knightly for no reason other than he's Jack and I'm not. Nice work, my liege.


-It's not that the crowd doesn't get Jon, they just don't want to. I haven't seen a Collective Dick Move like that since Bush couldn't find the door in China and everyone stood there taking pictures. Except that was funny.


-Ben Stiller doing the green screen bit is less funny now, but at least it was something.


-Narnia wins some tech award, but I can't even hear the word Narnia without hearing that 'Lazy Sunday' bit from SNL in my head.


-Attention people of Earth: RESSE WITHERSPOON IS NOT HOT


-A big rock on for Wallace and Grommit winning the Animation award. In other news, the in-speech music is driving me to drink. More than I was already.


-I dont care how far Naomi Watts's nipples stick out, I think she's beautiful. And yes, I will be judging every actress I see tonight on how they look without shame--If I'm giving you $10 to entertain me for an hour and a half and oral sex isn't involved, you're goddamn right you better look fucking good.


-Our first nominated song of the evening is Dolly Parton. Singing alone on stage to track. Now, this is a significant moment: There was a time when it was ALWAYS done like this. In the early days of televison it was impossible to mic mix and send out a live band to broadcast and have it sound good. Even now in a fast paced live show like award shows its difficult. But the era of the singer out on stage alone is past, and now it just looks awkward and old-timey, and it's not like it takes 20 minutes to get a couple guys with a banjo and a guitar on stage and off. So fuck you again, Hollywood. Dolly deserves better.


-They have the token Kiddy Bit with the CG Chicken Little. I hate the fucking Kiddy Bit. Kids don't care. It's true: I watched the Oscars the year Batman came out and was so outraged that it wasn't nominated for EVERYTHING that I didn't watch for a long time. True story.


-Jennifer Aniston. Girls, she's NOT a star. She's NOT hot. She was on the right show with the right hairdresser at the right time. You fuckin' go, Brad. You did the right thing.


-Will Farrell and Steve Carell come out and actually make me laugh. Thank you, gentlemen.


-Camera pans to Kidman and...Keith Urban? Man, I forgot about that. ("Keith Urban? Really?")


-Rachel McAdams comes out and breaks my heart ("Blonde...bad lighting...too skinny...dreams ruined..."). Bad look.


-Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz. Love her, always have. She's a hot pregnant chick, isn't she? Really, just glowing ("BOOBIES!").


-For a guy who isn't really a breast man (I'm about the ass, and was LOOOONNNGG before J-Lo or any of that shit) I'm a little all about the boobs watching this. I guess I'm working with what I'm being given.


-A commercial for Tab Energy Drink? THIS is what the world was waiting for? I can't find ONE goddamn bottle of Cherry Smash anywhere in this world and there's a fucking TAB energy drink? Fuck that.


-Lauren Bacall's prompter goes screwy, causing me to briefly wonder if we were watching her stroke out on live TV.


-Is Charlize Theron a goddess? It's possible. I don't even notice the goofy dress enough for it to bother me; she's THAT beautiful. But just when I think I'm out...


-...Salma fucking Hayek pulls me back in. Wow. She still rules whatever land I walk. Strong showing.


-Jen Garner has been visited by the boobie fairy and is climbing my List rapidly.


-Memoriam: Pat Morita, Chris Penn, Sandra Dee, Brock Peters, Shelly Winters, Anne Bancroft and Richard Pryor all get drinks from me. The notes thankfully start to taper off at this point.


-So I just mentioned the List. Within the List there is a subsection. The Pantheon, if you will. I'm giving myself some time to think it over, but I'm considering adding Ziyi Zhang to the Pantheon. Unbelievable.


-Three Six Mafia steals the show with their speech. I never found it to be so hard out here. Maybe it's just easier here for a pimp. The cost of living's hard out here for a pimp, I'll tell you that for goddamn sure.


-Hilary Swank comes out in an awful dress but I forgive her, she meant well.
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom I've loved ever since The Big Lebowski.


-Best Actress: WILL SOMEONE SHUT REESE WITHERSPOON THE FUCK UP. Anyone who does this for me shall receive....ginger snaps. They're pleasant and go well with afternoon coffee.


-They do. Shut up.


-Best Picture: Crash! Wow, the best picture won Best Picture. Huh. I guess all's well that ends well.



All in all, not a bad....well, yeah bad show. Boring, packaged, tight-assed and no Jennifer Connelly makes this year's Oscars blasphemy on many levels. Unless they get Chappelle to host next year and he turns it into the Academy Awards and Roast and Cultural History Extravaganza, the Oscars will be in 5 years what it tries so hard not to be: Just another award show.

Late,
Berg