Latewire

Tell you what : if there was one 80s/90s youth trend that I didn't think would still be hanging around at the end of the 21st century's inaugural decade, it was emo. When the first subculture began to spread widely in the aftermath of blockbuster albums by Fugazi and then Weezer, most of us in the popwatching vulture community assumed that this soggy genre leftover from the 80s would mold quickly in th' fickle fridge of fads and be unceremoniously tossed out.

Instead, 'emocore' morphed into plain ole emo and proved to be the most durable trend since 'punk.' Unlike genre-bound and ideology-heavy 90s trends like 'grunge' and 'jungle,' emo proved itself highly adaptable, absorbing features of other subcultures and managing to attach itself to a succession of increasingly silly youth musics. The most amusing and puzzling aspect of the emo orientation is that of the dress code, which has grown from its simple 'punk rock' and 'indie' beginnings into an elaborate costume that at its best rivals 'high Goth' in complexity, impracticality, and hilarious appearance.

As most music fans now know, what we call 'emo' had its start, like almost every other bad idea in American history, in Washington, DC. Goofy Italian greaseball kid Guy Piciotto was helming the riotiously-named Rites of Spring, widely considered to be the first group to transcend mere whiny punk and truly become Emo. His buddy, crypto-racist vegetarian Ian MacKaye, was busy creating another, equally-noxious, subgenre, 'straight-edge,' with his drug-shunning nerd chums across town.

These groups, especially MacKaye's group Minor Threat, attracted a fairly substantial number of clench-jawed teen fans. They generally followed the 80s 'hardcore punk' dress code of skateboard-influenced baggy shorts and t-shirts with sneakers. Hair was shortish or shorn, depending on how slavishly one aped MacKaye. One distinguishing factor between the nascent emos and normal skaters was that the emos generally favored black clothing and eschewed the Spicoli palette in order to better express their high angst levels.

In the middle of the grunge boom, Los Angeles weepy cro-mags Social Distortion got a big national break with their self-important plodder "Bad Luck." Due to this group's affectation for ersatz rockabilly persentation, some emos began to roll up their Gap jeans and shoot pool. Doc Martens, Grinders, and various creepers began to be seen alongside Vans and Converse on the feet of emeopaths. Some began to go way out on a limb and experiment with makeup and other adornments, which met with a lot of opposition from the DC crowd.

After the blazing success of Weezer's first record, the tough-guy facade of the typical teary-eyed ankle biter began to soften in favor of the more forgiving thrift-store / what-your-mom-bought-for-you indie-rock look. This was generally easier to pull off, since you're not allowed to look like a wimp under the "harDCore" stylesheet but are actually encouraged to appear as a bookworm pansy if you're indie rocker. This sartorial shift matched the poppification of mope-metal that Weezer enabled, replacing Black Flag copycat mania with a sound that more closely approximated a self-conscious version of 70s arena cows such as the geographically-named Boston and Kansas. The defining bit of emo clothing became the tight sweater, followed closely by the ringer T-shirt.

Things more or less continued apace until the mid-late 90s, and the movement, such as it was, slowly waned as whiny but generally not maudlin California pop-punk in the Green Day / Blink / NoFX vein [ed. note : vane] increasingly dominated the youth market. Pop-punk might have been homogenous and boring, but at least it promoted humor and pink hair. It should be noted, however, that AFI, who were part of this punky pop succotash, had latent gothy tendencies that would provide real tinder for the next phase.

Suddenly, things took a marked turn for the emo. The late 90s brought a swarm of popular groups, including Sunny Day Real Estate, The Get Up Kids, At The Drive-In, and numerous similarly-named entities, that held the emo flag high and codified a number of its essential features. The new standard for emotive singing was a strangled warble that took equal parts from Tom Verlaine of Television and Ian Curtis of Joy Divison in their more tune-agnostic moments, with anguished shrieks added for occasional emphasis. One of the important effects of this emo wave was the gradual lengthening of hair and the acceptance of full beards. Most of these groups appeared to be composed of assistant English professors, and soon their minions followed suit, marching about in greasy mop-tops, pseudo-Afros, and hermit scruff with the latest issue of "Magnet" in their shoulder bags. No satisfactory hypothesis for the sudden proliferation of beards has yet been offered, but it seems likely to be a compensation for the looking and acting like what used to be called a 'wuss.' The tendency of emos to wear t-shirts with grindcore and other metal band logos appeared at about this time, for reasons that are undoubtedly related.

As emo's dominance grew, so did its tendency to absorb other genres. The trend of emos trying to make their image more rugged picked up steam quickly, and so emos started drinking at bars instead of at home. In addition, they glommed onto the body-modification trend in a really big way, taking the extensive quasi-traditional tattooing of punk/rockabilly and the clanky piercing and lobe-stretching of grungy junkiedom to expensive extremes. These costly hobbies dovetail nicely into the self-mutilating orientation of the whole genre as well as allowing those who engage in them to feel tough while they squeeze a plastic flange the size of a quarter into their earlobe.

A pretty big shift in the music of the emo mainstream began to be effected at this time. The subgenre of 'screamo,' which in short is usually ungroovy math-metal with hoarsely-shouted (or inhaled!) Norwegian black metal style vocals and angsty emo lyrics, almost totally supplanted the mewl-n-strum style of Conor Oberst and Chris Carraba (each of these good specimens of emo plumage) amongst the cognoscenti. This was quite a coup, because a casual listener is generally unable to discern the lyrics in songs of this nature and will generally assume that the music at hand is some kind of poorly played metalcore. In fact, this impression is encouraged by emos (who, of course, hate to admit that they are emo at all), and who themselves univerally reject the 'screamo' moniker and call everything "hardcore." In a way, this is full circle : recall that the initial emo boom was born from actual hardcore punk and was known as "emo-core." Some groups eschew the black-metal rasp in favor of more traditional grindcore "cookie monster" style vocals in order to further camouflage themselves. However, one can almost always spot an emo band by its name : if it has a name like "Ashes of November, " "Fail in Flames My Dear," or, say, "As I Lay Dying," it's emo even if they try to sound like Cannibal Corpse.

By late 2000 and into 2001, emos had essentailly attained their current recognizable form. The thrift-store nerd look had been almost completely supplanted by a generic black-t-shirt-and jeans-with-Vans uniform adorned by as many nautical-style tattoos and shiny face jewelry as could be afforded. Hair was, more often than not, dyed black and / or worn longish. Emo jewelry began to incorporate elements taken from the similarly-multilated 'rave' culture, such as brightly colored acrylic ear-gauges. Likewise, many emo groups began using drum machines and recasting the tiresome genre of 'electroclash' (read : house music for dorky nerd punks) as even whinier than before. One more innovation would soon be introduced, however, that would vault emos into their well-deserved place; more on that in a moment.

When Green Day went emo to promote their blockbuster comback album, it was a sign of the times. The group most responsible for flossing the grunge and sad-rock out of our collective teeth now realized that the best way to sell records was to slop on the Social Distortion eyeliner and wear all black outfits. Their music changed too, though it sounded more like arena-rock a la Creed than any emo band in particular. Concurrently, a whole slew of mopey, blackhaired rock bands including "My Chemical Romance" and "Fall Out Boy" (can you spot the emo names?) sold zillions of records and officially cemented emo's status as the new mainstream rock look and attitude.

The success of these groups meant that all parents now had to deal with their kids being emos, not just those unlucky paterfamiliases whose kids wanted to be underground hipsters. Jocks began affecting emo hairstyles. As a reaction to the mass adoption of emo tropes, the emo rank and file decided that it was time for drastic action to differentiate themselves from the star halfback who had hair hanging over his face and blasted "Atreyu" in his F-150. This turned out to be a simple matter of doing in public what many had long suspected emos generally did in private : wearing womens' clothing.

Ironic trucker / New Era caps off to the first emo 'male' to take tight jeans beyond standard pegged rocker convention and solidly into the androgynous realm. The new emo look circa 2004 was based on the wearing of jeans so tight from waist to ankle that they truly looked like they belonged on a "fly girl" from the 80s. This may have been a kind of hearkening back to the spandex rock of Britney Fox, or it may have been purely reactionary. In any case, it made a big difference in the public's ability to distinguish the casual longhair from the true weeper.

An amusing side effect of this trend was that, likely due to the fact that emo jeans are not only tight but actually too small for the wearer, the seat of the jeans generally does not cover the posterior of the individual. This creates a 'sagging' effect, which incongruously bring to mind images of WC and Mack 10 circa 1996. Disgustingly, many male emos have as of 2007 begun to sartorially regress to prepubesence, opting to wear briefs over boxers while sagging in girl jeans -- and nobody wants to see that.

Most emos also listen to rap music as long as they can stand it in order to emonstrate their musical erudition. Also common is the affectation of certain hip-hop clothing elements, such as gun / oppression motifs and the aforementioned New Era hats. Other common accessories include nail polish (stolen from the goths and just won't die), bracelets and wristbands borrowed from rivetheads and hippies, iPod headsets, and the absolutely ubiquitous white and / or studded belt. The white belt rose to prominence in 1999 and has annoyingly persisted.

Distended lobes, elaborate tattoos, architectural hair, and sagging girl trousers combine to make the modern emo an impressive specimen. Naturalist Bob Roberts notes :

"The North American emo is now prevalent in all climates and has no surviving natural predators save for the marmot, the lamprey, and the 11-year-old BMX punk."

If you see an emo, don't laugh too loudly. Remember that they have become what they are today by a defined chain of events that you helped create by your participation in culture. It's all a part of natural emolution.

Next time, be more careful.

Every video you have ever watched on youtube is logged. These logs are now in the hands of Viacom.

In the effort by Viacom to sue Google (owner of youtube) for $1 Billion, a judge has ordered Google to turn over these records to Viacom.

Have a nice day!

I recently got an iPod "Touch" for free.

Here is my review:
Touch screen keyboarding sucks.
Uses proprietary headphone jack (so only Apple headphones).
Web browsing is slow as hell, even with a perfect connection.
Can't install my own apps without hacking into the stupid thing.

The screen is nice though.

Verdict: Unless it's free, get an iPod Nano, save $100.

I don't know which is potentially more arousing, the thought of disgusting and drooling beta-amyloid ridden bald men banging the everloving shit out of nubile young nymphettes or knowing that I'm not the only one who has a cornucopia of boogly-eyed anime porn stashed into every nook, cranny, crevice, battery compartment and cubbyhole I can find. I am the human equivalent of a squirrel in some respects, although you won't catch me dead working for that scumfuck Willy Wonka... rumor has it the Oompa Loompa's ferment hot chocolate into potent inebriating substances and proceed to get shithoused and sodomize everything in the factory, including each other. They even wrote a song about it those orange-skinned jungle jumping jiminy jack dandy's!
I always wondered how 20+ year old 'men' got away with dating 12-15 year old girls anyways. Where is that charismatic young gentleman from the TO CATCH A PREDATOR program when you need him? Raping inmates of the local neonatal intensive care unit no doubt...

When I was in high school, there were these things called "Crushes". As we all know, a "crush" is a strong attraction to a person that you usually have to suppress because they're dating someone else or they think you're a serial killer or some other logistical quandary.

Some things never change, but over time I always expected people, including myself, to become more mature, more in control, more assertive, and more wise.

Decision making is key. You can think about buying that lottery ticket until your mind rots away and you're left with a cranium full of cream of spinach soup. You don't become an idiot, however, until you walk into that Circle K and commit your dollar to the populist rebellion against basic mathematics. In short, actions define how much of a dumbshit you are, not your thoughts.

When I was in high school, many of the girls I really liked, even freshman year, had older boyfriends--sometimes 20 or 23. How do you compete with a guy who can grow a full beard and has a car? You can't, really. I was so jealous, and short on options. I made a decision there and then that when I got to be that age, I'd pilfer the high schools too.

This seemed like a great idea at the time, but by the time I got into college, I realized that the guys who do that are all fucking losers who have to date girls who are too naive to realize it.

This phenomenon is known as "creaperism", the afflicted men known simply as "creapers" [sic].

At the same time I was realizing the folly of my cradle-robbing male peers, I noticed that collegiate women sometimes fell victim to the next tier of creapers--mid to late 30-somethings who are still underachieving and hang out at popular college bars and concerts. Most of the time, they moved to the college town in their late teens/early twenties to go to school, dropped out due to drug abuse or some other dumbass move, and stayed in the town for a decade because they're better at partying than at not being a douchebag.

A very good friend of mine was seduced and had her life wrecked by a creaper. He even got her pregnant and then skipped the country to avoid paternal obligation. When the kid was born with a very serious heart defect that nearly killed him, the creaper responded (by email, of course): "oh that sucks."

As much as we all despise creapers, the obviously ill-fated unions formed between creapers and their victims shouldn't be blamed solely on the creapers alone. Women, especially over the age of 21, should really know better.

Creaper Victim Regret

Many women of my generation are progressing, mentally at least, less like a fine wine and more like Dorian Gray.

A close associate of mine (24) was robbed of his girl by a creaper only a few months ago. The girl (23) was told by her family and friends that this was a terrible move. Her friends thought Creaper was so "icky" that they wouldn't even come around if they suspected he might be there already. In spite of this, she felt compelled to terminate her relationship with her boyfriend of many years in favor of this 35 year old chump who listens to "Train" and more than likely has a secret hoard of anime porn in his car (you know, just in case). She even made a big show of it and announced to everyone her intention of swapping out the old and young for the new and old.

Just a few weeks later, as predicted, Creaper moved on and she wised up. Naturally, she tried to set things back to the way they were, but it was far too late. Nobody forgave her, and why? Because she should've known better.

Creapers care only about themselves. With that in mind, realize that they're not even capable of getting reasonable jobs or healthy relationships. In the parlance of our times: They are an epic pile of FAIL. That said, creapers wouldn't exist without naive women and indulgence of society. Friends don't let friends date creapers.

As a straw boss on the production floor, I field a lot of questions from people who are either interested to know about the dynamics of personnel management or eager to gather laughable information from me a la "The Dinner Game."

One of the most common questions is "Why do people work for peanuts?" This question is better phrased as "what is the difference between someone who can climb the ladder of servitude and someone who will be forever trodden in the very most noxious of low-earning realitypain?"

Let's get one thing out of the way straight off : there is no substantial difference between earning a living via a job at an enterprise that is owned by someone else and being a slave. If you depend on a paycheck signed by somebody else to get by, you are their indentured servant. This understanding helps us to grasp the nature of the entire concept of employment and why people behave as they do. It's what Roland Kirk called "volunteered slavery."

Now, to address the question above. There a several basic qualities that managers and owners (you know what that means) value in employees. Here they are, presented in ascending order of value :

5) Aptitude for the job at hand
4) A cheerful attitude
3) Ability and willingness to follow instructions
2) A strong 'work ethic,' that is, an internal drive to do things efficiently
1) Reliability of attendance

The most valuable thing that an 'employee' can do is to show up. If you can spin Ethernet cables into gold, it's no good if you're not there to do it. If you're supposed to do task 'X' on day 'Y,' and you don't show up to do it, it causes a lot of hideous ish to take place. Though you may believe that task 'X' can wait, it probably can't, and the person who was supposed to do task 'Q' will have to pick up the slack. This is an evil domino effect of yipe that creates bad dreams for managers. Most -- most! -- people don't grasp this concept. They have a gut feeling that it is their right to show up more or less when they feel like it. Statistics [ed. note : lies lies lies] on absenteeism in America are staggering. If people get a twinge in their throat, or if they have a stomach-ache, or if they are a little hung over, they just don't show up most of the time. How many times a year are you really and truly too ill to do any work? Maybe once? Less? While people are at home watching golf with a big bottle of NyQuil on ice, all hell is breaking loose and their boss' hairline is retreating.

This is all well and good as long as folks who like to not show up don't expect to escape the grinding depression of the low-wage lifestyle. Fact is that if an 'employee' can't be counted on to show up daily, they're never going to be promoted to or recommended for a job that has significant responsibility.

Many people, especially those in the tech industry, believe that aptitude and skill alone ought to be the criteria of merit in 'employment.' They say, "well, I can program / troubleshoot / assemble my way out of a tar pit, what does it matter how often I'm here? I'm like a Navy SEAL of tech!" These guys have big degrees, big skills, a big ego, and an entitlement complex that severely limits their value as 'employees.' These people are usually the ones that find themselves stuck in low-mid shunt positions at age 35, and they have a huge collection of Japanimation on DVD, a Miata, and no future.

On the other hand, some dropout with a GED and a freakish drive to prevail can be on the grind for a few years and wake up with the bullwhip in his hand.

The short answer to the popular question is that people work for peanuts because they don't want to give up the autonomy of laziness. Calling in sick once in a while gives people a comforting illusion of self-determination, and 'employees' are in general loathe to relinquish this security blanket. These folks inevitably become bitter and feel like they deserve 'more' from their 'jobs,' but deep down they know why they remain in the dregs. Or, from another perspective, they believe that their time is worth more than they could potentially gain by demonstrating reliability. It's just another trade-off, similar to forgoing a cool vintage car in favor of a gas-efficient new compact, or trading five years of your life for the pleasure of eating a delicious cheeseburger with fries.

As Basil Fawlty so pithily put it, one has a choice. In the end, the guy with the bullwhip and the drum is in the same boat as the rowers. Witch dooyoo like?

More fun and games next time on 'Waking Nightmares'

RIP Carlin

Aspect of a snake
Demons in the frame
A broken house gives off
A broken down name

A flame blanket shelter
Absence of a way
The season of neglect brings
With it a frayed wind

Mud occupies the valley
Dust blows across the plain
Ice streaks the mountain peaks
But regret's always the same

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other news, the spam levels in my inbox indicate that the botnets are back. Storm ain't just for 'X-Men' fanatics anymore.

SELECT * FROM Jobs INNER JOIN Job_Types ON Jobs.Job_Type_ID = Job_Types.Job_Type_ID WHERE ISNULL(Jobs.Finished_Date, '') = '' ORDER BY Entry_Date, Job_Type, Job_Title

Sometimes when I'm dealing with reality, the true monstrosity of human faces appears with such clarity that I have a hard time dealing with the fact that when I go home to brush my teeth, I'm going to confront another terrifying face and that that face is going to be attached to my own head.

A pretty significant portion of the time, I feel like I'm in some kind of dangerous, terror-sodden Habitrail for persons. The problem is that the expanse is so vast that I can't begin to examine the system as a whole to look for possible escapes, and worse, I can't see the joints of each pipe secton to gnaw through them. It's also possible that the Habitrail in question is of the normal hamster variety, and that I'm just a very small individual with a distorted view of reality. Or, for that matter, an actual hamster. In fact, the frequency with which I perceive myself to be the subject of cruel vivisections suggests that the latter is likely the case. This would also go a long way toward explaining why my clothes fit so poorly.

The Habitrail syndrome is most evident while driving, since then, any illusion of mobility freedom one may experience on foot is completely obliterated in favor of a forced linearity and exciting 'Frogger' type mortality potential. The reasons for driving are practically never autonomous (unless you have the luxury and inclination to replicate certian Beatnik fantasies), and the general reality is that one is swept into a river comprised of self-loathing animals piloting 75 mph skins of doom.

More next time on "Waking Nightmares."

We now have piclens support for the mirrored images on this web page.

If you don't know what Piclens is, to avoid endless ridicule you should Get Firefox and then Get Piclens.

Piclens is a FREE plugin for Firefox that automatically takes media RSS feeds and parses them into a stupidly-fast, smooth, and cool looking 3D interface.

This is a good website to test it out on. Works great for myspace and youtube, as well. Much faster than regular web browsing when all you want to do is view images or video on a site.

Just install piclens, go to a site, and if the site supports piclens, the button will light up. Click the button and it looks like this:

Have fun.

Here's th' text of th' best spiritual written since 1950, Larry Sparks' "The Testing Times." To my knowledge and surprise, this has never been transcribed. Note that most of this could equally be an Iron Maiden lyric.

The testing times
Are just ahead
For the children of the King :
Just press along
And do not dread
But pray, and shout and sing

The time of sorrow
It will come
When the beast shall arise
And set his god upon the throne
To deceive the blinded eye

And what that beast
May be to me
No mortal can tell
But if we do not take his mark
We can not buy or sell.

Our children, they
May cry for help
And some of us will die
But, praise the Lord
I'll trust in one
Who rules the range on high

His children he
Will not forsake
And when he hears his own crying out
In agony
The Son will leave his throne

His angels He will bring with Him
And send them East and West
And North and South
To gather in
The ones that stood with Him

Oh won't you come, and go with me
The transportation's free
Christ Jesus paid the debt for all
On dark Mount Calvary

We can't help it. We are addicted to that special VIP lifestyle. It's true. What's so wrong with that you ask?

The neo-American dream is "VIPism" and it is a dangerous habit of wanting more. A addiction only on a scale that out matches any habit. But it just makes us all become empty shells. Sellouts to our own demise. But it isn't like we didn't know it was coming, right? Oh...wait I'll let that sink in for a moment.

That's why you should always live by these rules:

1. Never sellout.
2. Don't die.
3. Stay alive.

And that's how you can maintain success in life. This has been an educational statement about something.

I'm taking a break -- again -- at my job here, trying to fend off another "Pi" headache and chewing a wad of aspartame-laced cud.

There's only one thing scarier than being alone in a huge warehouse with a known space alien, and that's getting a call from a space alien when you're alone in a huge warehouse.

See, I'm about 97% certain that this guy I work with is a space demon, possibly from another dimension. What tips me off to this is that he is fluent in English but unable to communicate a cohesive thought, and in addition to that he looks kind of like a snake crossed with a Martian bird.

I was relieved when he wasn't at the jobsite today. But then later, my office phone rang, which it rarely does on Sundays. I hard-focused on it just like in those Hitchcock movies. I didn't pick it up.

When I checked my voicemail, it was full of threatening-sounding alien jabber that may or may not have been a death fatwah or some kind of warning. After listening to it, I started to sweat profusely and my throat became very dry. I'm now coughing approximately every thirty seconds. Have you seen that flick "The Last Wave?" I fear that this might be a similar situation.

I just thought that I'd warn the Latewire. If you see an alien, RUN! and don't give it a job.

If I read a few more Philip K. Dick books as I've intented to do so for quite some time now... will I run the risk of being called a Philip K. Dickhead? Or will I just end up wasting my time; as The Man in The High Castle, supposedly one of his best, didn't really do much for me.

Latewhore alert : Dell's support forums are down and have been for at least 14 hours. Either Somebody did the right thing and torpedoed the hideous beastly hardware-shilling slimebucket that is Dell, or this is yet another salvo in Dell's ongoing campaign to drive all tightwad IT folks to suicide so that everybody else can pay for Dell's costly support contracts.

So Apple announced more details today about its upcoming OS, version 10.6. Versions 2, 3, 4, and 5 have all been $130 for new or current users (no discount for upgrades).

Though they haven't explicitly said so, it's likely 10.6 (AKA "Snow Leopard--no joke) will again force users to pay to upgrade, or be left behind.

The worst part is, about 6 months after the every OS X release, 3rd party software updates start rolling out which act kind of funky on the previous release. Just like with Windows, you have to upgrade because your software stops working. However, other software wont work with the new OS version, sometimes requiring a paid incremental patch just to even open the program. Just a reminder from before: you pay for this experience. What a deal.

Here's a quick rundown of the versions so far:
10.0 - Unusably slow, a total embarrassment, a laughingstock
10.1 - Same thing but barely usable, Apple was forced to give the upgrade away for free to make up for the previous version
10.2 - Hardware accelerated GUI, finally making it okay to use for non-trust fund babies who have all day to waste and the fastest Powermac
10.3 - Added Expose (the fast app/window switching), also bug fixes and speed improvements
10.4 - Added Spotlight (fast searching) and more bug fixes
10.5 - Time Machine (backup software) and a heap of bloat.

As you can see, every version so far has brought something to the table. Sometimes it's a little light, like with 10.2/3, but generally, the "Apple tax" yielded something for the money.

With Apple's upcoming "Snow Leopard" release, they've stopped even pretending that they've got ideas. Their new OS offers built in M$ 'Exchange' support (which 90% of users wont ever know is there), along with multicore and 64bit support that's supposedly better than 10.5. That's it. That's all they've got for us.

Keep in mind, 10.5 has great multicore support already, and can handle up to 4TB RAM, which is probably good enough for the next 7 years or so (the "best" Mac you can own right now can be CTO @ 32GB of RAM, at a cost of $11,800).

So what's 10.6 really have? Bug fixes and bloatware cleanup. Why are we paying for something that should already be there? Well hell, I wont get into that, but let's just say it's annoying. This is like having to pay for an XP service pack or something. Not even M$ does this shit.

Oh, and as a bonus, Apple is most likely dropping support for PPC (all macs made before 2006 some made as late as 2007, including G4 & G5).

So I went on Macrumors Forums today to see the word on the street. Guess what I found? The fanbois are out in force--defending Apple.

Check out this classic post:

"I think it's AWESOME they're charging me to clean up their bloated horse-shit. Can I pre-order a year in advance? I keep my credit card in my descending colon, why don't you reach in and grab it for me!"

He even loves Alter Bridge. It doesn't get any more real than this.

Hank: I'm totally unable to install this critical software from a linux tarball here
Hank: it's killing me
Bob: I wish I could help
Bob: but linux may as well be a language composed of different tangerine jello shapes
Hank: I thought it was
Hank: that could be part of th' problem
Hank: I mean, I have a f*&%^&% tutorial here
Hank: but it apparently doesn't apply to mission critical installations
Hank: only "My Little Pony" video games
Bob: I have a note from my doctor saying I need to rock
Bob: you should quit your job
Bob: and travel the world with a truckload of hand grenades
Hank: that's a pretty good idea
Hank: kind of a saturated market though
Bob: nah, you wont be selling
Hank: that's pretty commie
Bob: share the wealth
Bob: but keep the pins

Sneak preview of th' Latewire theme song (no really) :

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If you don't wanna work, and you're far from tired
LATEWIRE
When caffeine and your thoughts conspire
LATEWIRE
Writers, weirdoes, and freaks
No telling who you'll meet
Avoid the ambush of sleep
LATEWIRE
LATEWIRE
LATEWIRE

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"November Rain"-style video coming soon to a YouTube near you

I just found out that Tool did a cover of No Quarter by Zeppelin.

I hope you get raped

She sucks my kangaroo pounder like a honey laced sweet.

with drool-slathered chops, the jocks berate
criticizing my eye-shadow and pentagram necklace
and my man-boobs
they fear what they do not understand
and they fear me
with an eye for justice I cast my spells
a drop of cat's blood, which fluffy fought hard to keep
a piece of parchment seals their fate
a spaghetti-O's can serves as my cauldron
a spinning, naked dance around the hot-plate catalyzes my intention
mother speaks of bed time, mutters "freak" under her breath
they will all get their comeuppance, when satan heeds my call

the darkness echoes the homes of my soul
where the ravenbeaked moonlight clips howled wolves
level 60 in world of warcraft and the new cure album fails
my miserable screaching banshee life wails
cruel harpies of living despair
i think i need to re-dye my hair
disembodied awful thing slithering crawl
i think i'll have mom drop me off at the mall
requiems twilite the shivering pale
wear proudly your tunics of chainmail
abysmal poem comes to a close
forgotten orgies of the winterpeak verbose insane asylum atrocities wash the bathroom floor...with blood
death

Goth Contest Entry #1
Grand prize is total self-negation!

______________________

Get out of my skull
Your thoughts defined me
Now you're a husk

Your deception reflects
Shards of dead light
Into my being

Night cracks like a clove
Heaves my deeds into sight
They look different in the shadow
Of your lies

Special Needs Kid Voted Out Of Class By Fellow Kindergartners...

Department of Homeland Security joins forces with ABC for reality show...

PAPER: Video that purportedly shows a living, breathing space alien to be shown Friday in Denver...

CONGRESSMAN WEINER: I'm hot for Huma, Hillary Clinton's 'body woman'...

I think there's a pretty strong amount of evidence to support the hypothesis that Roy Orbison was a ghost even before he died.

1) The tremulous falsetto voice. If you loop a random one-measure selection of any Orbison ballad, you can use it to scare kids at your next haunted house. OOOOOooooooOOOOoooOoOoo

2) Ghostly pallor. Compare :

3) Orbison is morose. Ghosts are also morose.

4) Orbison's eyes are empty and black, just like your average Halloween ghost.

5) Orbison was famous. Ghosts get a lot of press.

Somebody should call up Kirk Hammett and tell him to try and contact Orbison using his stupid Ouija guitar. Look, th' pointer is moving! D....O...U...C.......

There's a hideous bat a-lurking
In th' hallway to th' left
So don't walk down there nohow
Unless you wanna barf

I saw a lone dark rider
High upon a hill
It caused me greater terror
When I saw it was on a House bill

Your face is streaked with anger
Your hands are injured birds
Your t-shirt bears a played-out mark
And you're a goofy nurd

Sometimes I ponder secrets
Sometimes I ponder crime
But mostly I sit in darkness
And LATEWIRE all th' time

Exemplifying dork cool, 1992.

I think there should be a limit to how many applications you can have on your facebook profile.

However, instead of giving you a notice about how you've reached the limit, they should set you on fire.

Here's me, trying to find your email so I can send you an important file you asked for. Here's your facebook profile, covered in horse shit, making it a bitch to find said email address. Back to me again, closing my web browser prematurely and opening a beer.

I toast to your stupidity. I hope you were joking about needing that CV edited by tonight.

Google really needs to snap out of it.

It's more or less too late to try and even think.

=====

I had a job punching wafers on that wafer fab line
Never had to be up before nine
But then the fab plant closed, and what once was fine
Turned to shame when I got laid off th' wafer fab line

All I know is wafers, clean rooms, and miles of silicon
My car got repossessed last week and my wife is gone
Th' kids feel sorry for me, the looks I get are long
At interviews, my age and skills are old and wrong

Wafer fab blues
Wafer fab blues

Topic stoled from Slashdot :

Folks are suggesting that th' correct medium for interstellar communications is neutrinos as opposed to photons, due to the latter's high susceptibility to interference.

Of course, many of th' th' same characteristics that allow photons to get interfered with are th' same ones that allow them to carry rich information.

Neutrinos, for those of you who have lives and don't sit around reading 101-level physics textbooks, are particles that interact with other particles 'weakly,' as they say. This means that they're a real devil to detect or manipulate. Fact is, frillions of neutrinos are passing through your body at this moment, but you'd never know it -- they don't interact with the particles in your body at all. In fact, to detect neutrinos, scientists generally resort to filling huge tanks with dry cleaning fluid and waiting until a neutrino happens to shake hands with a molecule in there (neutrinos are natty dressers). Seriously.

Now, how are we (or in this case, 'they') supposed to encode information in such hermetic particles? Oh, turns out that th' science goons making this suggestion are saying that it's more or less like Morse code (on / off time-lapse encoding). How boring is that? Somehow I doubt that Morse code is good or rich enough for folks that have mastered galactic travel. How are they gonna watch Soundgarden videos?

Check it :

http://arxivblog.com/?p=426

UPDATE :

Grayson Q. Monster, actual CERN physicst, points out that digital information is encoded in on / off patterns, as well -- that is, binary code. And, as he says, you can watch "Flesh Gordon" using it, so there's no reason why neutrino morse can't be used to encode rich data. This essentially proves that I'm a fool too addled by caffeine and zombified* by lack of slumber to make any damn sense. LATEWIRE

-----
*Zomby woof

Bomb her womb from your huge cannon!
Bomb her womb from your huge cannon!
Bomb her womb from your huge cannon!

For those who may have missed the earlier wires on this subject :

Latewire knows you're watching. And if you're watching the Latewire, and you're not a CIA spook, you're probably in tune with what Latewire is about.

Therefore, remember that th' Latewire hungers for your input. You're invited to contribute -- just click th' registration link (spam-free and no cost) and sign up to prove that you're not a robot.

Avoid th' ambush of sleep. Plug into th' Latewire.

I can hear th' beetles rustling in th' leaves under there
And th' dogs are acting skittish
There's a smell in th' sky

When th' sun beats last night's frost back
And my bad leg loosens up
We'll take th' bravest hound and find out why.

It's time for me to come clean. I'm a guitar player. I'm also a Mac user. Based on these factors, you'd think that my cerebrum would have about 16 neural pathways and that I should probably be crawling around on my belly looking for insects to munch on. However, G_d cruelly saw fit to endow me with the ability to type, so you'll be subjected to a continued flow of verbal drool. Let's start, 'Boondock Saints'-style, with a joke.

Q : How do you get a guitar player off your front porch?

A : Pay for th' pizza.

This wire is about guitars, the people who manufacture them, and the idiots who play them.

As a guitar player, I'm more or less a rhythm monkey. For over a decade, I've played a guitar made by Rickenbacker (the 360V model), that sounds fantastic and works just dandy for playing the big barre chords and simple twangs that have generally characterized my swing-based style. However, over th past few years, I've begun to incorporate elements of what is generally called "modern" (that is, post-Van Halen) technique into my playing.

Common elements of "modern" guitar playing include rapidly and cleanly played arpeggiated chord patterns ("sweep picking"), playing melodies using wide intervals ("string-skipping"), and modulating between related scales when playing modally over chords. Taken together with several other techniques, these are known collectively as "shredding" or "getting radical." [For further instruction, see "Point Break."] Most of these techniques are rooted in jazz theory and practice, particularly in the work of math-intensive folks like John "Sheets of Sound" Coltrane (sax) and Dave "Clinical Precision" Brubeck (piano). Most people don't look to other guitar players for inspiration when they're trying to get really radical. While they'd like to think otherwise, th majority of jazz guitar players are just that -- guitar players. And you know what that means. So, with the exception of a couple guys like Tal Farlow, Sonny Sharrock, and Les Paul, few traditional jazz guitar players have really been sources for inspiration of the modern advanced guitar style.

When I started to ladle some of this grease into my technical stew, I realized that my instrument was designed in a way that hindered easy execution of many of these techniques. For one thing, the neck of the instrument is very narrow -- maybe 1.6-some-odd inches wide. That's fine for chording, but it's a pretty small space to cram six strings onto when you're trying to move cleanly between them. Similarly, the fingerboard is fairly curved, which is supposed to increase "comfort" while playing chords but plays merry hell with finger memory for complex passages. The next big problem, and maybe the most vexing in terms of speed, is that the frets are very low and flat, meaning that you have to press down fairly hard to fret a note and you get a lot of fingerboard contact. A fourth, less major problem is that the fingerboard is finished in a high gloss, which makes string-bending difficult due to the friction created on the fingertip.

Now, as I said, I love th' sound of this guitar. Rickenbacker guitars have many adherents due to their unique, singing tone. Though it has a "short" 24.75" scale length (the vibrating lingth of the strings) that often causes other guitars to sounds mushy, it rings out with crispness and chime. Now, of course, a really good guitar player can play fine on any instrument, but I'm just a hack trying to learn some new styles and needed an instrument that would help, not hinder, me in this. So what I wanted, I figured, was another similar Rickenbacker with a neck suitable for modern playing.

I checked online at Rickenbacker's available range, but even the most shred-worthy candidate was all vintaged out with the same curved fretboard radius as mine, and on top of that, it only had 22 frets where mine has 24. More frets = better for high-register wheedling. So that kind of put me out. I emailed Rickenbacker's customer service -- three times -- to see if they had plans to release a model suitable for my needs or if they would make me a 360 to modern specifications. I got no reply.

Now, at this point, th' intelligent (read : non-guitar-player) reader will probably be asking "why then don't you just get a guitar that is designed for your shredding needs, as they are surely widely available?" Well, folks, th' reason is that 95% of guitars designed for th' type of playing I want to do look like bad dreams from th' 80s and are endowed with particularly useless and troublesome little gadgets called "locking vibrato systems" that wankers use to go "WHEEEE" and "SCRRREEEOOOW" when they can't think of a decent note to hit -- which is often. Th' other 5% of such guitars look cool but cost more than my car.

Cool guitars are exemplified by the timeless, hip, and highly functional designs by Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and Gretsch. All those designs are still available. But here's th' problem : all those manucaturers are so into being "true to their vintage roots" that they build th' damn things exactly like they did back in th' 50s, complete with dumb fretboard radii, few frets, and narrow necks. On top of that, th' latter 3 are vastly overpriced (and Gretsches are made in th' same factory as numerous Japanese knockoffs). Fender, whose modular construction methods are ideal for offering a wide range of neck choices, offers shreddable necks on only a very few of their guitars, all of which are 'signature models' of idiot heavy metal players and look mad ugly as a result. ("OK, guys, you can get this in black or...black!" What is this, Ford Motor Co.? Next up, we'll see pro-Nazi propaganda... oh wait, Rickenbacker already released a bass with SS-inspired decorative patterns! Ja.)

Why do manufacturers think that everybody who wants to use modern techniques also wants to look like Steve Vai onstage (or, more likely, in th' bedroom mirror)? Granted, th' pointy "super-Strats," as these shred sleds are known, offered by th' likes of Jackson and Ibanez have a certain "Wayne's World" appeal. But after a decade of playing th' coolest-looking guitar ever, I'm not trying to step on th' bandstand holding something that looks like a prop from a Skid Row video.

Th' next question is always "Well, why don't you shut your face and get a guitar custom-made to your specs, muso?" Th' answer is threefold :
1) I don't have custom money to throw around
2) Even if I do, I don't want to buy something that will essentially have no value after I buy it (as is th' general case with custom guitars)
3) Th' whole point is that I shouldn't !@#$% have to. I'm sure there's an army of players just like me. Why th' *&^% are we being shafted by th' manufacturers? We need real specification choice at reasonable price points, not a zillion iterations of th' same damn specs in different colors and faux-vintage wear 'n' tear levels.

Of course, I know th' real reason why th' market isn't responding to my desires. It's because guitar players are stupid. See, th' guys who have enough money to buy new guitars and aren't emo kids with big allowances (who generally like th' pointy shred-sled look) are old stupid white guys who have more money than brains and know only that they want a really cool guitar just like (insert name of washed-up and / or dead guitar hero here). They don't give a hoot about fretboard radius. They give a hoot about whether or not it's exactly like th' one they remember drooling over when they were 12 and reading "Creem" magazine. These guys spend most of their evenings clipping stock coupons and maybe get together with their lawyer buddies once a week to crank out blustery versions of “Purple Haze” and, if they’re really crazy and they just got back from their weekend Harley ride, “Highway to Hell.” They’re not sitting on th’ edge of their beds trying to figure out new chord formations and doing string-skipping exercises. Playability means something totally different to these guys. To them it means “will my buddies know this axe cost $2300 and be envious when I’m ripping out th’ lead to ‘Cocaine?’”

At this point in th’ invective, haters will generally say “What is your problem? If those guys are making music and being happy and th’ guitars fit their needs then why are you being such a meanie, etc, etc.” To them I say CHUT UP and suggest that they eat a decroted piece of crap. Th’ weekend warriors’ merrymaking becomes my business when it starts messing with my choices. If these guys could escape th’ tar-pit of guitar player stupidity, Fender would be putting less effort into making th’ guitar equivalent of ‘destroyed jeans’ (“’62 Telecaster Custom Heavy Relic! $3850!”) and more into making some instruments that people can actually use. If these BMW-driving sports fans actually put some thought into their ease of playing, it’d be a whole different availability scene.

For their next act, th’ haters retort, “Why do you even care about your so-called advanced techniques, wanker? Aren’t you just a pretentious goon? Don’t you know that Kurt Cobain revitalized rock music with licks a 6-year-old could play? Is your mastery of new techniques going to result in actual listenable and memorable music, or is it just to stoke your ego?” To which I reply CHUT UP! As examples, Charles Mingus and Prince have plentifully demonstrated that ‘advanced’ techniques are readily employed to enhance good compositional ideas. So just CHUT UP

So what does this all mean? For starters, if you’re a member of th’ benighted race of guitar players, do like this : if you’re just burning for a new axe (and all guitar players are), go find one that looks like you want it to. If you don’t like something about its playability, ask if there’s a version with the specs you want. If not, DON’T BUY IT. Instead, go home and write an email to th’ manufacturer about why you didn’t buy it. Don’t get it just because you’re hot for a new guit. That’s how they guit you. To paraphrase ‘Ratatouille,’ if you don’t love it, don’t eat it. Maybe then th’ corporations that flog these planks will take notice and respond with some product that actually meets functional needs.

This thinking applies to any purchase, come to think of it. Don’t be a slave. Unless you get it together, you might find that th’ choice between oysters and snails has already been made for you.

I live for it.
There is nothing in the world like it.
It is the ultimate sensation of power.
I dream about it when I sleep at night.
I wake up and it is all I think about.
And I drive myself to campus, after drinking my five dollar cup of seventy-five cent coffee.
I pull into the parking lot, listening to the same song I've listened to for the past 3 months on absurdly high volume on a stereo system which my parents paid astronomical sums to purchase and I cannot properly configure.
I pull into the parking lot and I see my opportunity, this moment I have been longing for.
I see him.
I see him there.
He is walking, his head hooded and slowly nodding to a riff I will never hear by a band I do not know.
He is walking.
He is alone.
I see him.
And then, then it happens.
I drive right by him.
My pupils spastically fluctuate.
My anus clenches and unclenches, rapidly dilating. Pulsing in anticipation, expressing my excitation.
I see him.
He does not see me.
And I do it.
I turn off my stero.
And I do it.
I rev the engine of my truck which my parents bought for me.
I rev it hard.
I fucking rev the shit out of it.
And it makes the noise of a tiger dying after mistakenly jumping off of a very jagged cliff.
The sound is unleashed.
He hears it, I know he hears it.
But he does not respond.
He must have heard it.
He must.
I roll down my window.
I yell, "Fag!" as loud as I can.
I have won.
I am right.
He wants me.
He wants my truck.
He is envious.
He must be.
Who wouldn't be.
And I pick up my girlfriend after her Intro to College Reading class.
And I take her home and fuck her gaping and ragged axe wound, its labia replete with dentata and mucus.
I fuck her hard. I fuck her fast.
I ejaculate in minutes.
I make the sound of a rusty cabinet hinge while I ejaculate my inadequate seed from my tiny penis.
When I ejaculate inside her unfertile womb I do not fantasize about men.
I do not close my eyes and think about AberCrombie & Fitch models frolicking erotically on sandy beaches.
Because I am not gay.
I do not love men.
I do not lust for cock.
My truck tells me so.
My truck tells me I am not gay.
My truck makes me a man.
Every time I rev its engine I reaffirm my heterosexuality.
I am not gay.
I love my truck.
My parents bought it for me.
I sell enough low quality drugs to afford it but they bought it for me anyways.
Because they love me.
And I love my truck.
I am cool.
I am not gay.
I love my truck.
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

After a great deal of soul searching, I have decided on a candidate whom I will support in the 2008 presidential election:

I am currently waiting on an approval. You will here from me shortly. Thank you.
The sales team isn't ready to sell. And the organization isn't ready to support customers.
The first one is the one I believe you are looking for.
They are coming today to pick that unit up.
Is this one ok?
I have adjusted your request.

Whatever you guys
decide is the best route to take is fine with me.
Also let me know the return tracking info when its available so I can process the credit memo.
My search results by PO# did not bring anything up.
Please let me know
if you need a hard copy faxed to you
I had my tech format the drive,
It did so without any problem,
I don’t know what the issue could’ve been
Feel free to contact me if you need any additional information.
Thanks and have a great day!

There are two groups that have gone by the name of "The Grief Brothers." One is a bunch of old geezers from Wales who play "[their] own brand of country and rock." The other, the real, Grief Brothers were lightning rod interpreters of the American songbook and our best alco-folk duo. This is about the real Grief Brothers, whose demise in 2007 left a smoldering crater in the roots music scene.

Bobby and Nicodemus Grief moved from their home in Duluth after a bad drought and several scrapes with the law had made their household unable to support the growing family. Bobby in particulary was unsuited for Duluth's hardscrabble rural lifestyle due to a fragile constitution he'd been left with after a miraculous resuscitation from still-birth that earned him his nickname "Stillborn Bobby Grief." Bobby and Nicodemus, the oldest boys, decided to strike out on their own and try their hand at earning a living with the songs they'd learned at their parent's knee. Hearing that jobs and music were plentiful in Arizona, they sold off everything but their guitars and caught a Greyhound bus for Phoenix. Working odd jobs and playing in their apartment at night, they were discovered by Dave Stevens, a field recordist who worked as a cop and had been called to respond to one of many noise complaints against the Grief brothers. When he found them, they were drunk, playing the most unique, toe-tapping, and wrenching version of "Long Black Veil" he'd ever heard. He got his recording machine out of his police cruiser, and the rest is history.

Over the course of a few years, the Grief Brothers recorded a massive catalogue of songs ranging from folk gospels like "Peace in the Valley" to original drinking laments like "Faceplant City." Their early sessions were collected as "Introducing the Grief Brothers in True Stereo." The "True Stereo" title came from Steven's use of a single live stereo setup to record the GBs -- no overdubs or other studio trickery, just the brothers live and inebriated from their tiny living room in real stereo sound. Many of the songs were prefaced by live converstional introductions that ranged from the acrimonious ("Runaway") to the humorous (as on their now-classic reclaimation of "Love Hurts"). Stevens hired Phil Jacobs to put the "True Stereo" album up on the Internet at http://GriefBrothersUSA.com as a teaser for the planned full LP "Going Places," which featured some old favorites such as "Weary Hobo" and more stunning, raw originals. Fuelled by whisky and a desire to capture songs nearly lost in the tide of slick contemporary country radio and plodding arena-emo, the Griefs blazed a rocking trail with two pounding acoustic guitars and quirky unison singing. Appearances on Ten Thousand Percent Radio brought them to a wider audience in the Internet community.

The Grief Brothers had one of the most distinctive styles in music, and one that set them apart from other acts in the various genres they were lumped into, from "Alt-country" to "Folk-edge." Bobby's deep, soulful voice and chiming guitar meshed with Nicodemus' percussive chording, unusual spooky solos, and backing vocals to create a powerful unified sound that only sibling acts can produce. With clear ancestry in the Louvin Brothers, Everly Brothers,and the Carter Family, the Grief Brothers modernized guitar folk and galvanized it with an uptempo power.

Just as the Grief Brothers were gaining recognition and momentum as America's best alco-folk act, a cascade of tragedy struck the Grief camp.

In late February 2006, Phil Jacobs was arrested on charges stemming from a questionable real estate deal in 2003. This put the Grief Brothers website in a stasis. Then, Nicodemus suffered a bad fracture of his left pinky during a basketball game, leaving him in a cast and unable to churn out his distinctive block chords for three months, which halted work on "Going Places." Just as they had begun to resume work, Stevens married his childhood sweetheart Betsy Mae Gibbon, and on her insistence moved back to Scranton to raise a family. Without a webmaster, recordist, or any funds, the Grief Brothers seemed dead in the water, and their fans gave up on them after a few months of inactivity.

A ray of hope shone through when Nicodemus got a raise to $8.00 per hour at his warehouse job, and soon they had enough money to hire Ed James of Skull Hill Records, a record producer who had worked with collegiate blues phenom Avant Johnson, and webmaster Tim Frank.

Thanks to James' excellent work on "Weary Hobo," the Grief Brothers had another hit and were ready to play a few paid gigs to shore up their reputation (which had been based solely on the free performances they gave for drifters in the park and on their Web site). They bought matching blond Rickenbacker guitars and planned to "go electric" on their next record, the Bakersfield-influenced platter 'Hot Cats On Top.'

This revival was doomed. "Stillborn" Bobby Grief was killed in February 2007 under terrible and truly awful circumstances. An allegorical account written by a fan at Ten Thousand Percent can be found on that site. Bobby's tragic and untimely death earned him one last bit of fame : "Stillborn" Bobby Grief is the only folk artist known to have died twice.

After Bobby's death, Nicodemus moved to Scottsdale to become a sign painter, vowing to abandon music forever as he had been abandoned by his G_d. (Later, Nicodemus was reconciled with his G_d and came to see Bobby's death as the calling home of a suffering soul. However, the bitterness of losing his brother drove Nicodemus further into drink and he never picked up a guitar again.) Ed James' Skull Hill Records, having invested most of its capital in bringing the GBs back, went under and was bought by Recombinant.

Today, the Grief Brothers are remembered mainly for taking "Love Hurts" back from the plodding Scots Nazareth and for their original songs "Why Do We Drink?", "Faceplant City," and the powerfully ironic "Hideous *****." Their catalogue is deep with many other unique and inspiring interpretations, originals, and hilarious banter that needs to be rediscovered.

Testing out the RSS feed here

http://latewire.com/rss.php