The Wife alerted me to the hilarious, completely unsubtle cover of today’s NY Post:
C’mon, Post, you can do better than that! At least come up with some clever pun. You just stated what everyone is thinking.
I also love the irony of a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch calling anyone a greedy bastard. The term “greedy bastard” definitely applies to the clueless morons at AIG, but it should also apply to a man who owns every media outlet in the known universe.
This has to be the least imaginative Post cover since this trio:
For previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.
Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.
These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.
Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:
* “Fuck the Pain Away”, Peaches. This would be especially inappropriate if, as you come up to bat, they play this video on the Jumbotron.
* “The Red Telephone”, Love
I went through a very rough patch in my life where I listened to Forever Changes at least once a day. In case you don’t know, Forever Changes was the result of Love frontman Arthur Lee realizing in 1967 that all the hippies were full of shit and that the Summer of Love would soon spiral into violence and horror. So he freaked out and convinced himself that he was gonna die at a criminally young age. To counteract the intense depressitude of this album, I would listen to Ted Leo’s The Tyrrany of Distance. This is the oral equivalent of doing a fistful of ‘ludes and following it up with some crank. And it’s about as healthy for you, too.
* “Puss”, Jesus Lizard Or substitute any other Jesus Lizard song. They’re all equally inappropriate, especially when accompanied by “The Tight and Shiny”.
Okay, St. Patrick’s Day, I call a truce. I’ve spent way too much time being angry at you for reasons I don’t even fully understand. So I’m not going to write any more angry anti-St. Patty’s Day screeds. In return, if you could make sure that my stoop doesn’t have puke on it when I get home from work, then we’re cool.
I inherited my resentment against the holiday from my father, who had wildly schizophrenic views on his homeland. He lived the first 10 years of his life in an Ireland that was extremely poor, extremely repressive, and just overall depressing. I think he blamed Ireland for the misery of his early years, and the issues of his later ones.
Mind you, he had a healthy amount of pride about being Irish. But he also couldn’t stand a lot of phonus balonus that goes along with Oirish-American celebrations. He loved to cite historical instances of the Irish getting the shaft from world, but he also hated when Irish people would insist on the MOPE Syndrome (that they, and only they, were the Most Oppressed People Ever).
He loved to point out famous/accomplished Irishmen, and also loved to point out that a large number of them had leave Ireland to get any measure of success (or at least not be stoned to death). Conversely, he was a huge fan of English comedy in general, but when he was offered a job at Reuters, he scoffed, “I can’t work for them–they’re an English company.” This statement was notable for its lack of sarcasm, as my father rarely said anything not sarcastic.
I’ve spent much of my life mimicking his stances on Ireland, St. Patty’s Day, etc. But I now realize it’s more of a burden than anything else. I’ve been to Ireland a few times, and it’s nothing like what it was in his youth. In other words, I’ve been carrying around his resentments so they can live on somehow, even though they’re resentments for a place that doesn’t exist anymore.
So you wanna get shitfaced on St. Patrick’s Day even if your last name is Lewandowski? Knock yourself out. I shan’t take part, but who am I to keep you from destroying your liver?
I should be grateful that I’m part of an ethnic group that is so assimilated into American culture that it can totally revel in all of its unsavory stereotypes. When people joke about how the Irish are drunks and fight all the time, what do Irish people do? Laugh, usually. They know it’s true, and they don’t have to waste any time defending themselves, because they no longer have to fight true, institutionalized discrimination.
That’s my wish for every ethnic group: That one day you shall be able to freely give vent to the worst aspects of your character, and everyone will think it’s hilarious.
If you’re in the mood for some green-tinted Haterade, peep these two posts from years past: