Month: November 2014

Here are some television things I watched on the internet

by margotsmokes

I’ve been on a Jack Whitehall binge lately. I found an episode of him guest hosting Nevermind the Buzzcocks that I hadn’t seen yet, and it was faaaabulous. If you happen to hate Razorlight, it’s even better. I didn’t even know Razorlight was still a band. I genuinely do not think I have heard them mentioned since 2006. I didn’t even know they were English. I guess they did the whole failed crossover/retreat to England thing. As a partial Canadian, I am very familiar with this phenomenon and people who are only regionally and shamefully famous. But yeah, Razorlight. I remember Mischa Barton praising them in a mid-2000s issue of Elle Girl or something (for the record I loved Elle Girl.) I am like 90% sure she had on a Beatles shirt and a ballet pink satin bubble skirt on the cover, which is about the most 2006 outfit ever. That feminine/rock n roll counterplay. I am a fan, but I am so glad the distressed concert tees stopped, it got incredibly weird and sad.

I forgot how good Fresh Meat is. I think it takes a lot of restraint to depict teenagers/young adults accurately. It’s so easy to go for the glamorous/philosophical The O.C. route, or make everyone a one-dimensional moronic child who is either screaming or humping everything. Or go Canadian and everyone is overly mature and humble and ethnically diverse (for a disturbingly good Degrassi parody, Kroll Show‘s “Wheels Across Ontario” is the most brutal thing I’ve ever seen.) Fresh Meat always finds the perfect line between that awkward, awkward struggle for independence punctuated by profound moments of personal growth and being a self-absorbed douche child you want to beat the shit out of. The episode where JP struggles with his sexuality after his high school friend comes out (Season 2, Episode 1) is one of my favorite things that I’ve watched in a long, long time.

I also binge watched It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 9 which I guess wasn’t too bad since the episodes are like 20 minutes long. The other favorite thing I’ve watched in a long time is the convenience store robbery episode (The Gang Saves The Day, Season 9, Episode 6, which is also their 100th episode). Oh my God, the animated dream sequence Charlie has about he and the waitress’s future? So unexpected. It was delightful. Delightful. I would watch the movie version of that. I know it’s a parody of Up, but I want Charlie’s version. More rats.

So basically England wins, England always wins. Not historically or culturally but in terms of television, yes.

 

NES inspired/8-bit Twin Peaks Intro by The FilthyFrackers

by margotsmokes

Kim Kardashian’s Paper Mag ass vs. the internet with a Keurig

by margotsmokes

This is so stupid and thus I love it immensely.

Fuck you Bryan Adams

by margotsmokes

When I was in sixth grade I discovered Audio Galaxy, and in keeping with the overall momentum of the universe, shortly thereafter discovered pop punk. I was a big fan of the band MxPx, and I would be lying if I said alternating capitalization and the presence of x’s in their name had nothing to do with the appeal. So bootlegging my way through their catalog I eventually came across a file titled the “Summer of ’69,” hit download, waited the three days for it to download, then opened that bitch in Real Player.

Then immediate, crushing horror

I got my first real sexing
In the summer of ’69

I immediately x’d the Real Player window,right clicked that .mp3, and sent it to the recycle bin like I was banishing it to hell. I then emptied the recycle bin, then emptied the now empty bin a few more times just for good measure. Then threw some more files in there, and emptied it again, because I thought computers were like when the trash compactor gets clogged and you throw some orange rinds down there or old pieces of bread to help things along. Just keep on opening blank Notepad documents, saving them, and chucking them in the recycle bin.

I never thought ’69 referred to an actual 69. That seemed too obvious and childish even for an eleven year old. All I wanted to do was be punk rock and now I had downloaded smut onto the family Hewlett Packard. For a decade I was terrified that .mp3 would mysteriously reappear, like Samara climbing out of the well in The Ring, and I would have to defend my morals to my parents, who would never believe me, because what idiot doesn’t think 69 means 69.

Even when I was much older this experience was incredibly traumatizing. It never made the transfer to the part of your brain where you recognize the distance between you and the event and can find the humor in it. Summer of ’69 was always there beside me, staring me down, threatening to expose my sexual deviance.

Then one day I heard Bryan Adams. This motherfucker is saying six string. This is a semi-ironic cover of a shitty Bryan Adams song about a guitar. I know I should blame MxPx and their marble-mouthed pronunciation, but I just hate Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams made me feel like a sexual deviant. Bryan Adams made me afraid to try new things. Bryan Adams made me empty the Windows XP recycle bin obsessively for two or three years.