I want to start a different band.

Forget Ödynfyst. Ponderous Norse-metal is as dead as Abe Vigoda. Possibly deader, depending. What the world needs instead is a new self-obsessed alt-rock group. Here are a few ideas for band names, along with a rough approximation of their style:

Davy Goes A-Hunting: During interviews on college radio, this Portland-based band will invariably describe themselves as “like Cake, but influenced by X” (where X is defined as whatever obscure ethnic group the bassist just looked up on Wikipedia).

Blind Man Bleed: An emo band whose members become murderously offended when described as “emo.”

Oedipus Mal and His Sounds of Contrition: Their MySpace page will feature photos of them wearing top hats and posing on tombstones.

Ocular Ejaculate: Music for sullen outsiders with learner’s permits.

A Consideration

Is it possible that human brains are incredibly delicious, and it’s just that zombies are the only ones who are ever in a position to find out?

There literally can’t be a movie any better than this. I even asked a guy.

Rickroll! The Musical: The Greatest Story Ever Rolled
All right. So here’s the pitch: there’s a retired CIA assassin who, unbeknownst to even himself, has been programmed to go after a specific target when he hears the opening bars of Rick Astley’s late-’80s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The target? A former Mafia don who has since become a famous philanthropist. When two wacky message board regulars pull a prank on the assassin, they must travel across the country in a race against time to stop him from completing the mission they accidentally triggered, finding the true America – and true love – along the way.

A year or two later, after “Rickroll! The Musical” turns out to be a smash hit, audiences will crowd the theaters in anticipation of “Rickroll 2! The Musical,” which will turn out to be just a grainy YouTube clip of the “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video.

(If you’re not familiar with the concept of “Rickrolling,” it’s a common Internet prank wherein someone will post a link which ostensibly leads to something relevant to the discussion, but is in fact a link to a YouTube clip of Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” For reference, here’s the music video such pranksters link to: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rW6M8D41ZWU)

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(Perhaps the first Reverse Rickroll? I’m a goddamned visionary.)

Ödynfyst: The Göds of Metal

So it’s time I started my own metal band. Our name? Ödynfyst. (The second “y” should be backward, but the limitations of the Latin alphabet prohibit me from truly expressing myself here.)

Our debut album will be titled Rocknarök: Gödwar. One of its tracks – Maximum Deathstruction – will be released as a single, and here are its lyrics:

Flyin’ high on wings of night
Never gonna lose the fight
I’m a steel cowboy with laser eyes
Gonna make sure everyone dies

(refrain)
MAXIMUM DEATHSTRUCTION
MAXIMUM DEATHSTRUCTION
Gonna eat your baby
MAXIMUM DEATHSTRUCTION
MAXIMUM DEATHSTRUCTION
Hand it over

Burnin’ with a mind of hate
I’m an instrument of fate
Claws and fangs and flames and guns
Eviscerating everyone

(refrain)

(4-minute-long bass solo)

Deadly as a dragon’s kiss
My fiery bullets never miss
Spreading fear across the land
A billion dead by my own hand

[At this point during our live shows a 20-foot-tall wheeled skeletal robot named Murdertron 8000 will explode through the screen behind us, which up until then was displaying footage of '50s-era nuclear tests, and roll out into the audience belching flame and flailing its rotary-blade arms.]

(refrain x2)

(end)

It will also contain a mandatory power ballad in which I sing about the woman who left me because I rocked too hard.

Our second album will be titled In the Jaws of Fenrir and its cover will feature a painting of a Viking with robot arms punching through the mouth of a wolf and out the back of its head. Sadly, this will be our last album before the band breaks up due to drugs and personality conflicts and I’m forced to start a new, lounge-oriented band, which I’m tentatively calling D. P. Gordon and His Sounds of Effluence.

Is anyone interested in joining? If so, drop me a line – I need someone who knows how to tune an electric bass so it makes a toneless “CHUG” sound when strummed.

I am going to burn down the Internet.

It’s for its own good, you know. It needs to be purged, and that weighty responsibility falls to me. I just need to find out where they keep it.

Although I’ve got dozens of perfectly valid reasons to choose from, the reason for my resolution is the hubbub – or possibly rigamarole? – surrounding one of Will Smith’s recent statements. (I’m not typically the sort of person who keeps up with celebrities and the sorts of things they say, but I became aware of this while reading the News Channel on the Wii between bouts of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, so that ought to preserve a bit of my geek credibility.) Anyways, apparently Smith made the comment during an interview that there’s a little good in everyone, and that Hitler probably didn’t wake up each morning desiring to do evil. Not a very controversial statement. Actually, as a humanist – despite years of exposure to the Internet – I’ve got to point out that this is an extremely mature and wise viewpoint, not least because it agrees with mine.

The Internet being what it is, this was immediately interpreted as “WILL SMITH XOXO HITLER 4-EVAR ALSO PROLLY THEY SEX EACH OTHAR IN TEH BUTT.” Celebrity rumor-mill TMZ, embodying the sort of journalistic integrity that the Interwebs are known for, posted this, which bears two exciting titles: “Hitler, Schmitler; He Wasn’t That Bad” and “Jews Not Jiggy with Fresh Putz of Bel Air.” That alone is profoundly stupid in ways that only a crossbreed between entertainment culture and Internet culture can be, but, as always, the corruption is revealed in sharpest detail in the comments section.

Some observations:

These guys really like to pretend they’re addressing the celebrity himself, rather than a bunch of neckbearded forum-posters like themselves. There’s something oddly unhealthy about that. You get the feeling that, if left alone in his house, they’d immediately gravitate for, and start sniffing the contents of, his sock drawer.

One of the most common comments was “he needs to learn to shut his mouth and just read the lines written for him.” A worrying sentiment – that people in certain segments of the population shouldn’t be permitted to voice opinions – and one that I’d hoped would have sort of evaporated in the post-post-9/11 world. Guess not!

I’d like to think that the reason for the hullabaloo is this: Smith suggested that Hitler wasn’t some sort of monster with entirely alien motives, but rather a human being with understandable albeit deeply flawed goals, and that made people uncomfortable because they’d prefer to believe that Hitler somehow falls outside the range of human behavior – that there are levels of evil which humans are simply incapable of, handily redefining anyone who is capable of that sort of evil right out of the human race. It’s a comforting notion, and it’d be okay (if a bit cowardly and puerile) if the people who reacted so strongly to Smith’s statement were in fact discomposed by the thought that perhaps anyone, given a certain set of conditions, could have become Hitler, but I don’t think that’s what’s bothering them. I think what actually happened is this: a celebrity said something that, with a little imagination, could be taken as not adequately negative about Hitler, and it is the nature of pop culture junkies to tear down the very idols they raise up.

I guess I Am Legend sort of sucked? I don’t know, I didn’t see it.

Blargh.

Been sick lately. Feels like I’ve been kicked in the lungs and brain every day for the past five days. Best part? Got sick after visiting the Bodies exhibit at a museum in Cincinnati, so I know exactly what the body parts look like which are now filled with phlegm.

Read Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World as Stage. Good book. Bryson is a hell of stylish author who makes the English language look like a drunken brawl in a brothel – violent, unpredictable, not particularly classy, but a fun time for everyone involved. Apparently there’s no actual scholarly doubt as to whether Shakespeare authored the plays, but Sigmund Freud thought for a time that the true author of Shakespeare’s works was a “Jacques Pierre.” Jacques Pierre. That is the most magnificently French name imaginable. It’s like a German guy named “Gunther Wilhelm Deutschlandmann.” Glorious.

Revelation!

For an instant – with perfect clarity! – I saw it. While that brilliant insight has since faded, I still retain a shadow of a memory, which I will now pass on to you. Safeguard it well.

The Revolution is dead. You know what killed it? I’ll tell you – a joint venture between Clear Channel and nostalgia-based clothes retailers. Clear Channel overplayed the Revolution’s songs until their countercultural content became meaningless, and nostalgia-based clothes retailers began selling Che Guevara T-shirts and People’s Republic of China messenger bags, diluting the Revolution’s icons.

That is how the Revolution died, and the ones who killed it did so ingeniously. The trick isn’t to treat the Revolution as something that’s dangerous and must be quashed. The trick is to treat the Revolution as something that’s cute but sort of boring.

Jesus Christ, guys.

I freely confess that I enjoy a lot of stupid shit. The Sonic the Hedgehog series? Big fan, despite the games’ declining quality. Transformers? Spent way too much money on the figures in high school and college, then went on to hotly anticipate the movie even though I knew it’d be a mindless explode-a-thon rather than, for example, a sociological examination of robotic culture as viewed through the eyes of humanity which is only punctuated by explosions. But despite my fondness for stupid shit, I like to think I retain a sense of perspective. Rare has been the occasion that I’ve beaten off to Transformers porn (and let me tell you, friends, it does exist), and I’m deeply fearful of the burgeoning Sonic fanfic community, which is so dark and moist mushrooms can grow comfortably in it. Bottom line: I try not to identify too closely with the consumer products I appreciate.

Now, I’ve never really been a fan of G. I. Joe. I watched the cartoon a few times during my misspent youth, of course, but I don’t even remember owning any of the figures. Maybe it was the relative lack of giant alien robots as compared to its sister series. Maybe it was the fact that, owing to either the cheapness of the materials or possibly Hasbro’s desire to teach children the horrors of war, the figures’ waists were held together by a flimsy rubber band which seemed designed to snap instantly in the hands of a seven-year-old. Maybe it was the fact that the theme song sucked someone’s dad’s ass. Whatever the cause, I am unable to count G. I. Joe among the stupid shit I like.

And it looks like I dodged a bullet there. Hardcore G. I. Joe fans can be scary-ass bastards – they’re like (choose one, depending on personal tastes):

• BotCon meets NeoCon;
• The Allspark forums and FreeRepublic.com had violent sex in a filthy alley somewhere and the hardcore G. I. Joe fanbase is their hideously deformed bastard child; or
• Transformers fans with a prominent far-right component, to paraphrase David “Walky” Willis of Shortpacked! fame, who said something similar at one point but you’re going to have to trust me on this.

I didn’t realize until now how bad it was. It happens that I had just visited Shortpacked!, and was Googling around to find out what GIJOE stood for now that the upcoming live-action film had changed it into an acronym. Turns out it means “Global Something Something Something Something.” And there are certain people who get really angry whenever the word “global” is used. That’s right – the perpetually outraged neoconservatives who, it seems, make up a small but enormously vocal percentage of G. I. Joe fandom. As if that weren’t enough to really rile the FOX News viewers, the heroes in the film are apparently going to be based out of Belgium.

You should hear the sort of things people are saying about this.

From here:

“Our negative image across the globe is because of the Bush administration, not our military, so why the makeover? One word – money. …Sigh…its always about the money with these companies. What a way to support the troops.”

Okay, two things. “It’s always about the money with these companies”? Really? Holy shit, what an observation. This is a movie based on a cartoon series whose sole purpose in existence was to sell action figures, and they’re lamenting that it’s a cash-in? It’s not like these guys are remaking Schindler’s Goddamned List over here. This isn’t art. This never even met art. It’s G. I. Joe. It’s going to be a movie about jetpack-wearing ninjas kicking tanks, and you’re expected to go to Toys Backwards R Us immediately after exiting the movie theater to buy five-inch-scale versions of the ninjas and tanks. Yes, it’s about the money.

And as for supporting the troops – Christ. I can only speculate about exactly how much of a morale boost it’d be for our soldiers to hear that Snake Eyes and Roadblock totally approve of what they’re doing.

It gets worse. From here:

“Outrageously, a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line might see Joe’s American soldier identity scrubbed to be replaced by membership in an ‘international force based in Brussels.’ …it is looking like the G.I. Joe that we all loved, that ‘real American hero,’ is going to be replaced with ‘Action Man,’ a member of an ‘international operations team.’ It appears that the American soldier, a liberator and protector, isn’t a good enough role model for the execs at Paramount!

“Paramount is even turning Joe’s name into an acronym adding insult to injury. Instead of just being the main character’s name, it will become G.I.J.O.E., meaning ‘Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity.’”

The author of this article, who appears from his photo to be some sort of toad with a Romulan haircut, is pining for an era in G. I. Joe history that didn’t exist. I am, as I mentioned before, no huge fan of the cartoon, and even I know that “G. I. Joe” wasn’t the name of any specific character, and that the cartoon has always had a multicultural cast of characters. Hell, a glance at the Wikipedia article informs me that they released a black G. I. Joe figure in 1965, during the height of the civil rights movement. Looks like G. I. Joe is way more progressive than its fans; check the comments section of the above article and you’ll see it degenerate into discussions of whether showing interracial kissing on an episode of Star Trek means that Gene Roddenberry was a Commie.

So what sort of G. I. Joe film would these people have been happy with?

(The scene: a desert. Some suspiciously swarthy-looking people are standing around, tending to goats or praying or whatever. Suddenly, one of their heads explodes. A tank with a “Support Our Troops” ribbon on the back rolls up.)

Duke: (emerging from hatch) Why don’t you take the towel off your head and use it to mop up that blood?

Random Foreign Person: Infidel! You will die for your trespass!

Snake Eyes: (decapitating Foreign Person) Looks like America is staying one step “a head” of you!

Duke: Uh. Aren’t you supposed to be mute or something?

Snake Eyes: No, I just didn’t have anything to say. But now I do! Vote Republican in ’08!

(Duke and Snake Eyes give each other high-fives.)

Chuck Norris Facts are Played Out

As if you didn’t already know that.

Instead of using bizarre lies to elevate our elderly martial artists to the status of gods, let us instead use mundane yet hurtful lies to tear them down! Some examples:

• Steven Seagal once ran over a kitten on the way to the laundromat. He didn’t stop or anything, but he felt kind of bad about it later.
• When Steven Seagal needs money, he goes to an ATM, gets money out of it, stares – tight-lipped and sullen – at his bank statement, then goes home and hits his wife.
• Steven Seagal once leaned under the sneeze shield at a Golden Corral to get at the Thousand Island dressing and sneezed directly into the beets.
• Steven Seagal has a blocked tear duct and has been putting off making a doctor’s appointment about it even though he’s pretty sure it’s infected.
• Shortly after the release of Under Siege, a 12-year-old fan approached Steven Seagal and asked for his autograph. Steven Seagal pretended not to hear him and walked away. That boy grew up to be a dissatisfied, lonely teenager who spent a lot of time thinking about suicide.
• Steven Seagal experiences a guilty thrill of pleasure whenever he changes lanes without signaling.
• Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal once got into a fight over who was the better martial artist. Steven Seagal said some things he wasn’t proud of and had trouble getting to sleep for a couple of days afterwards.
• Steven Seagal once went on a date with Farrah Fawcett and spent the entire night trying to turn the conversation toward himself. She eventually made an excuse and left early.
• With the recent increases in gas prices, Steven Seagal is starting to consider using public transportation more often, but he’d prefer not to because he’s sort of afraid of homeless people.
• Steven Seagal isn’t very good at math, and harbors a secret envious resentment toward those who are.
• Steven Seagal once feigned a back injury so he could avoid going to his daughter’s graduation.

(Please note that I harbor no ill will toward Steven Seagal, and that these are all, so far as I know, fictional. There we go. That ought to cover any possible libel suits if, you know, Seagal reads my blog in between delivering vicious drop-kicks to terrorists.)

Huh

I learned two things today.

Thing the first: before it was destroyed in what the Wikipedia article describes as a “suspicious fire,” there was a bar on Edwards Air Force Base which was frequented by astronauts and test pilots. Its name? “Pancho’s Happy Bottom Riding Club.”

Thing the second: astronauts and test pilots don’t have anything to prove to anybody.