Perfunctory Polarizing Pukes and their Fickle Fanbase: Jim Cuddy & Neil Young

I like the way this guy thinks:

Read all about it! Pop-rock stars from yesteryear are still anti-establishment! 

The Facebook posting above, if you haven't guessed, is actually mine. I posted it on the Sun News Network's Facebook link to an article addressing Canadian pop icon, Jim Cuddy's recent announcement that he's officially aligning himself with Neil Young's stance against Alberta's oil operations.

Personally, I care how many shit-tons of bitumen and crude are harvested from the Athabasca region about as much as I care what a couple of whiny-jangle singer-songwriters think about it. What does concern me, is the genuineness of people's musical 'tastes' when I read the barrage of "anti-Cuddite" malice from people commenting on the subject. People announcing they'll stop listening to Cuddy's smarm-pop tunes, the same tunes they claim they once liked, over his decision to pull a notice-me-aligning-myself-with-Neil Young, CBC stunt. It'd be like me suddenly starting to listen to cringe-worthy Nickelback's music upon Chad Kroeger revealing he too happens to be a pro lifer or something. Ridiculous.

Do you ever get the impression that these are the sorts of fair-weather fans who will bob their heads to whatever enervating piss-pop is cyclically pumped over the airwaves and into their cars' radios? Do you think that their obsequious music sensibilities manifest like everything else they claim is 'pretty good' in life? Deriving their tastes from a trickle-down stream of sensibility that drips from the tips of their masters' penises?

Like Cuddy and Young, writing and recording songs is something I like to do too, but since I'm a never-was as opposed to a has-been, nobody cares if I make some flippant and inflammatory statements about Canada's premier primary industry.

At least I'm not a hypocrite. I know how the beer I drink gets to the booze mart. I like modern conveniences and I'm sure happy the computer keyboard I'm using to write this doesn't cost a fortune because it's made from exotic wood or hammered copper instead of cheap plastic made possible by petroleum.

Anyway, I'm fortunate in that I don't have to endure some oil boss cranking "Five Days In May" every day on the way to work in the oil and gas industry to appreciate when Ezra Levant blows the lid off the huckster brigade by merely scrutinizing the records of the shim-sham sector's financials. These fucking actors who pretend they care about environmental issues are no match for Ezra! Keep pumpin' that petrol!













  

    

Unhappy New Year

Judging by a quick parsing of some of the sentiments on Twitter, it seems most people look forward to a new year with a sense of rekindled enthusiasm and confident optimism:

"Happy New Year Everyone! Love starting off fresh and 2014 is going to be incredible!!
I am focusing on my Goals..." -Chelsea

"Oh yeah, happy new year!" -Ciara

Everyone's making resolutions - pledging to quit smoking, quit eating fried chicken, or quit whatever. Focusing on one's goals. Exercising more. Not me.

2014 will be the worst year yet for most (Africa, India, Middle East) people's lives. What I see are escalating tensions in a world already plagued by famine, disease, malnutrition, war, etc. Sure... we here in the western world can make a "fresh start" in terms of our own insular first-world lives, but we know that for the vast majority of souls on this earth, shittiness is so deeply entrenched in the fabric of their reality that a "fresh start" would be as simple as not having to worry about a band of machete wielding marauders invading your mud hut and raping your loved ones before hacking them to death.

For only a few cents per day, you can ensure that a starving kid will grow-up strong enough to be recruited to fight for some despotic warlord's personal power struggle. Perhaps such a perspective is shortsighted, and of course it breaks my heart to know that innocent children are in serious distress, but the fact that I can't even produce the $6.00 CAN each month to keep my website running means it's unlikely I'll be making-out any checks to Unicef or World Vision this year.

Record levels of Wasteful spending, increasing taxes, and scandalous backroom deals. Honest and hardworking people getting fucked harder than ever up the ass by arrogant bureaucrats and sadistic banksters. Dwindling privacy and heightened surveillance. Disappearing jobs. I'm only belaying the obvious, I suppose, but that's my prediction regarding what we'll see in 2014, and I'm sticking to it! Addressing my own pointless existence seems... pointless?

Rest assured, my miserable sense of worthlessness shall grow ever stronger as my tangible value to society continues to diminish. The only resolution I've resolved to keep is to try and drink more often so I can enjoy delusions of grandeur while slopping around on the guitar as I sit around... contributing nothing to the advancement of mankind.