Here’s my theory on Gnarls Barkley: somewhere out there, some music critic gave a shining review to this completely unremarkable duo. This, in turn, led other critics to give it similarly shining reviews, because the first critic was a respected tastemaker and was obviously right to give the completely unremarkable duo a shining review. Then people started buying the record and playing it at gatherings (“It’s not a party, man… it’s really more a gathering“) where people would then ask their hosts, “Hey, man… what is this, Jamiroqui?” Their hosts would laugh heartily, then shake their heads. “No, no…it’s Gnarls Barkley! You know… the collaboration between Goodie Mob’s Cee-Lo and hit producer Dangermouse!” Then they all grooved out, or blissed out, or whatever people do at gatherings where they play Gnarls Barkley, and the next day the guy who (understandably) thought it was a new Jamiroqui record ran out and bought the record himself. He played it for his girlfriend who thought it was totally catchy and made him burn it for her. Then she made it her official “shower soundtrack” so it got stuck in all her roommates’ heads, who then in turn played it for their boyfriends. Their boyfriends all thought it was kind of gay but figured maybe they’d get blowjobs if they all bought tickets to the Gnarls Barkley show. So now everyone likes Gnarls Barkley, and yeah, maybe a few dudes got their bones smooched, but c’mon… is it really worth it when a band sucks this bad?

“Shit. I knew I shouldn’t have sat in a reserved seat. Now there’s an old lady getting on the bus and I’m totally gonna have to give up my seat, even though I’m used to sitting. I should have just stood the whole time. That wouldn’t have been as bad as having to get up. Ah, well. Here we go. Hup! Ahhh, yeah. Stretch those hammies. Get the blood flowin’. You know somethin, Wolinsky? You’re a good guy. You give up seats for the elderly. That’s noble, buddy. You are really something. That old woman is gonna tear up when she sees that kindness still exists, even in this day and – hey! Is that girl seriously taking my seat? Holy fucking shit! She did! She’s probably even younger than I am! What the fuck?! I’ve been at work all day and she’s been, what? Oooh – Whole Foods bags. Yeah, awww. I’m sorry you’re so worn out from picking out organic kale that you need to sit down… in a RESERVED SEAT. While that OLD WOMAN over there clearly needs… oh. Okay. Some other guy got up for her. At least she’s got a seat now, I guess. Fuck. I should just say something to her. I should say ‘Hey… you know, actually, I got up out of that seat so that old lady could sit down.’ Then she’d say ‘Well it looks like she already found a seat.’ Then I’d be completely speechless because, well, wow. She’s really cute. What is that tattoo, anyway? Is that a band logo? And those sunglasses… wow. They’re so BIG. I should go grab the old woman, drag her out of her seat, bring her back over to mine, tell the hot hipster chick to get up, and then physically force the old woman into my seat. She’d like that. Then the hipster chick would totally swoon cuz I’m so nice and she’d give me her phone number but I’d be like “Sorry, I actually already have a girlfriend” and then she’d dump her tits and I’d be like “Jesus Christ… you don’t have to do that. You should respect yourself,” and everyone would applaud. Ah, shit. Is it really my stop already? Ah well. You know what? My inability to confront hot girls when they’re doing something fucked up kind of sucks, but it’s not nearly as bad as having to stand on the bus.

“Well I’ll be a son of a … Larry! You old salty dog, you! How the hell have you been? Wow! That’s great to hear! Really? Married? No shit… that’s crazy. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Geez. Oh… wow. Sorry to hear that, Larry. 47 days without a drink? Can you imagine us going that long back in college? No, no… I know. Well, you know what they say about the road to recovery. 12 steps and all that… How’s things otherwise? Oh… cool, cool. How IS the automated parking meter industry these days? I’ve always wondered about that. I keep seeing more and more of those, umm… what do you call it? The kind where there’s just one parking meter for the whole block. Crazy. Anyway, hey, I gotta get going, man. Yeah… I got some stuff I gotta go take care of. But hey, listen, man… we should totally hang out sometime.” Yeah, right. “We should totally hang out sometime” totally fucking sucks!

You don’t want your daughters running around at the beach looking like a couple of whores, do you? Of course not. Thank god for WholesomeWear – a website that sells stupid-looking waterproof dresses. Citing a “need for modesty in swimwear,” WholesomeWear bathing suits “highlight the face rather than the body.” What are these people gonna do at the beach anyway? The kind of person who buys their daughter WholesomeWear probably won’t let them have any fun there anyway. They can’t build sandcastles cuz shovels are forbidden, and they can’t play volleyball cuz nets are for devils. Look at that chick on the right in the picture – the lake water is burning her skin. Get off my beach, you weirdos!

Although this video makes my hipster irony sense tingle like crazy (which makes me wanna run down to the corner of Damen, North & Milwaukee and scream to every latte-sipping doofus within earshot, “David Hasselhoff rules!”), the fact remains that the song is absolutely atrocious. I feel so conflicted: I can’t decide whether to tag this as a “thing that rules” or a “thing that sucks.” You know what? Fuck it – it’s both.

[gv data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ykSzwYQV6PU”][/gv]

Here’s a concept: let’s make a show where people who think they can dance try to dance. On national television. Then, after they’re done dancing, “experts” tell them whether or not they’re actually good at dancing. Oh – then, after that, the people who are good at dancing will stay on the show and compete with each other to find out who the best dancer is! Isn’t that a great idea? Yeah – it’s called an “audition.” It’s what they used to do before the actual show was filmed to find people with talent and stage presence. You know – to figure out if they’d be good ON TELEVISION. Now the audition IS the show. Oh – and the show is two hours long. Super. The worst part of it is that as it goes on and they weed out the people who really suck at dancing, the show actually gets less entertaining. Why not give each contestant their own episode where they dance for as long as they can until they collapse? Whoever’s episode is the longest wins!  That would be awesome!  I’d totally watch that, but for now, sorry FOX: So You Think You Can Dance totally sucks.

The site was down pretty much all day yesterday.  Now it’s back up, but a week’s worth of posts are gone.  Kaput.  Donezo.  One of ’em was funny, too.  Drat.  My host kinda sucks.

The “izzle” phenomenon apparently dates back to the early 80s, when The Gap Band recorded a cover of a Frankie Smith song called “Double Dutch Bus.” It was then reintroduced by a guy called E-40 who influenced Snoop Dogg to add “izzle” to everything he said. It was then that “izzle” gained acceptance at suburban shopping malls across the country. Historically, this is super fascinating stuff. It’s important too because, you know, hip hop culture is, like, totally important and a purely American form of music or whatever, but all that glosses over the fact that “izzle” is one of the most obnoxious fucking trends on the face of the planet.  I passed four people on the street the other day who were on their way to lunch. One of them, an overweight white woman in a pair of black stretchy pants, called out to the other three. “Hey, guys! Wait for C-Jizzle!” Then she started laughing like she’d just said something really funny. Seriously. Though now relegated to the same tragically-lame folks who still raise the roof and feel sentimental about Eiffel 65 (you know – “I’m blue da-boo-dee-da-boo-dow), “izzle” just won’t die. People still add it to words and laugh like they made a joke. Like “Marcy’s cancer spread – she’s about to start chemo therapizzle!” You wanna know why adding “izzle” to that didn’t make it funny? Because “izzle” is not in and of itself a joke. It’s not even a word. I don’t know what it is. Maybe you could consider it a noise or something. I do know one thing, though: “izzle” totally fucking sucks.

Yeah, I know – you’ve got a packed briefcase in one hand, a grande skim latte in your other hand, and the fucking Boeing account papers in a folder tucked under your arm which, incidentally, is ensconced in 500-thread-count Egyptian combed cotton. How could you possibly answer the phone if it weren’t for your headset? You need your wireless headset, right? That’s what you’re trying to tell me? Bullshit. You like your wireless headset because deep inside, you never wanted to be an investment banker, did you? Think back to your childhood – what was the one thing you wanted to be more than anything else? That’s right, buddy: Robocop. You think you look a little bit like Robocop, swishing around in that fancy little suit you’ve got there, chattin’ it up with some blinking monstrosity strapped to the side of your face. Don’t you? Admit it. Well guess what, tiger? You look like a fucking asshole. Wireless headsets suck.

Okay. So you’ve got some bees, some Goodyear blimps, the singer from Morbid Angel, and a bunch of painted horses. Throw in Houdini, some Freemasons, and some mythological references and you somehow end up with some kind of statement on the nature of creativity. Right? Did I fuck that up?

I used to live an apartment that shared a porch with this art school freshman. He had some people over one night, and this one kid started blathering to us about the performance art he does in the subway. Then he said that he owned a copy of the Cremaster Cycle on LASERDISC and that Barney handmade all the packaging for every copy and that they cost like $10,000 each but it’s worth it because, like, DUDE, you’re not just buying a movie, you’re buying a piece of ART HISTORY.

I only bring this up because dude has a new movie coming out. It will probably suck. Know why? Because Matthew Barney Sucks.