Tickle My Kittens

This is the worst kind of blogging, but seriously, funnyordie.com is the best site ever.

I got married this summer surrounded and supported by friends and family, all whom I love dearly. I realize now that it was a terrible mistake.

Not getting married. It will probably be years before the ghosts of what could have been will start haunting me. I’m talking about inviting my friends to a wedding where alcohol was served liberally and my female relatives felt safe. I should have kept them separate. I should have eloped.

It all happened that fateful Saturday evening in June. Drunken Astronaut, fellow TMK blogger and confirmed sexual deviant, had a belly full of wine and a glint in his eye that would make any father subconsciously shudder. He was looking for a victim, and he found my cousin.

He started slowly at first, methodically testing her defenses. A casual joke followed by a deliberate brush of the elbow. A round of drinks for everybody. Another joke. Slow dancing. Another beer. There was no need to rush this time. She had nowhere to go.

By the end of the evening she was his. Her pale, expressionless face said everything as they boarded the shuttle to leave. It was inevitable. Once they got to the hotel, he proceeded to defile her in one of the most filthy and uncomfortable places imaginable - the stairwell of a Holiday Inn.

Once upon a time, no self-respecting musician ever lent their music to television commercials. Even the most carbonated of the bubblegum pop stars refused to sink so low as to sell out to Madison Avenue (with the possible exception of Michael Jackson schilling for Pepsi…although his spontaneous combustion on the set of that commercial pretty much conclusively demonstrated what happens when musicians sell out and anger the music gods). Even rock stars that had sold out in just about every other possible way, eschewed the money offered by the advertising industry because they realized that once their music was used to sell products they would—in essence—become nothing more than cheap salesmen, prostituting their art in an effort to make just a little more money.

But a few years ago, something changed. The advertising industry managed to get their hands on the rights to a few classic rock titles and then all hell broke loose. I think it started with some Rolling Stones or Beatles song, but to my mind the most egregious offenses came when I heard Led Zeppelin in a Dodge truck commercial or, worse yet, when Pepsi used Jimi Hendrix in a damned Super Bowl commercial (although that one was, admittedly, kind of funny). I’m not a musical historian, but I think that the use of classic rock somehow paved the way for younger, significantly less talented musicians to sell out to the advertising industry without so much as a second thought. After all, if the music of a rock god like Jimi Hendrix can be used in a commercial, then why the hell can’t Britney Spears sell some Pepsi too?

To be sure, there was a certain inevitability to the alliance between Madison Avenue and popular music. After all, anybody who has ever watched MTV knows that these days a musician’s popularity is based upon marketing as much, or more, than any of their merits as an actual musician.[1] I’m quite certain that I’m not the first person to notice this phenomenon. But what’s gotten me riled up is that these days is the fact that musicians seem to be gaining exposure for selling out.

In particular, I’m a little bit disturbed by the way that Feist and Ingrid Michaelson sold the hell out…and then became significantly more popular for it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Feist or Ms. Michaelson, they’re the ones who sing those catchy tunes featured in the latest iPod and Old Navy commercials. Given my perspective on music in commercials (or commercials in general), I was deeply distressed when I first heard these songs—songs I listen to and enjoy—being used in advertisements.

But that’s not the worst part. After all, I live in the real world and once a few indie bands noticed that their peers were making scads of dirty money by selling the rights to their songs to Gray’s Anatomy I’m sure everybody wanted on the Gravy Train. No, the worst part is that lately these songs have skyrocketed on the music charts after being featured in commercials. As I type this, Feist’s “1,2,3,4” is the 18^th ranked song on iTunes and Michaelson’s “Way I Am” is 22^nd. To be sure, these are fairly new bands, but I bought Michaelson’s “Girls and Boys” CD last winter. It sure as shit wasn’t breaking the top 20 back then. It only shot up the charts once that Old Navy commercial hit your television screen.

I don’t know why, but this trend really bothers me. I think part of it is that the snobby elitist in me hates the fact that I am listening to the same music as the people who invented Old Navy Performance Fleece. Or maybe I’m just pissed because I can no longer put these songs on the sensitive, High Fidelity-style mix CDs I make for the women I’m trying to bed without being accused of lifting them off of television commercials.

Whatever the case, I’m clearly fed up with the advertising industry. Next thing you know, we’ll have Bob Dylan singing a jingle for an Eastern Motors commercial featuring Peyton Manning. I think that just might make my head explode.

…oh, and in case you don’t know which commercials I’m talking about, go ahead and drape those earbuds around the shoulders of your Old Navy hoodie and enjoy….

UPDATE: So apparently I’m not the only one who’s noticed this phenomenon and the WaPo just wrote about this very trend. Some might say that this makes my post painfully unoriginal or even “plagiarism”. Those people are probably right, but i really hadn’t read this article…..and i really was totally into Feist before they made commercials………or maybe i’m just a liar.

[1] Anybody who thinks that this perspective is jaded and cynical should take a look at Frontline’s “Merchant’s of Cool”….yes, this is a footnote. Clearly being back in school has broken my brain.

I’m tired of this shit. Why do we have to be the only city with a retarded taxi system? Nobody likes zones, not even our Federal occupiers. The current system does not benefit anyone except the taxi drivers. Luckily, we elected Fenty and Graham to serve the interests of the taxi drivers. Bullshit, Fenty. I don’t want zones. I don’t want zone meters. I want the cost of my cab ride to be proportional to the distance/time of that ride. I know that may seem like a radical concept, but every other city has embraced it since, I don’t know, the beginning of time. As for the cab drivers, let them strike. I would like to see them try. This isn’t exactly a unified group of people we’re talking about. In their native countries, many of these drivers would be at war with each other. So what’s stopping Fenty from giving the people what they so obviously want? I knew he was going to end up being a douche bag mayor.

 UPDATE:  Oh.  This is one time I don’t mind eating my words.  Sweet, delicious, zone-free taxi system words.

I don’t know why I find these pictures so amusing, but I do.  And just when I thought it couldn’t get any funnier, somebody combined lolcatz with with postsecret to get the hilariously warped lolsecretz (via my friend Seattle Scribe).