Allow me to take you on a trip back through the Illogical Archives for a moment, all the way back here, where I ranted about "indie rock" and hipsters, and fake rock, and THE UNICORNS, a band who (thankfully) no longer exist, but who inspire rage in me nonetheless, a band who I described as such:"... The Unicorns might be my LEAST favorite band (musically speaking) of all time. Their twee, pathetic little quote unquote pop songs are the antithesis of ROCK, the ultimate soundtrack to a life of of self-conscious self-absorption and resulting FAILURE. FUCK, I HATE THEM SO MUCH."
Well yeah, it's true--my spiteful anger has not diminished at all since writing this stuff last year... If anything, it's grown: you try living in a city where fixed-gear bikes and skinny jeans outnumber Sodom patches and bullet belts 10 to 1, a city where the Noise Pop Festival (ugh) reigns supreme, where the constant need to be "cool" by being "uncool" has turned the entire Mission District into a Mobius Strip of ironic detachment. Don't get me wrong, I love this city. But the "cool kids", man...
Anyhow, I digress.
Lets get back to The Unicorns. Namely the, uh, "creative"(?) force behind the band, one "Nick Diamonds" (below), who also went on to play in the equally-despicable Islands.
Go ahead, take a minute to let this picture FULLY sink in.
So apparently, "Nick Diamonds" has formed a new indie rock band with ironic-moustache enthusiast "Honus Honus" (left), who is pianist, songwriter, and vocalist for the terribly-named "Man Man". Reason enough to be worried, am I correct? No good could possibly come out of this particular pairing. I mean, to be fair, I'm not really familiar with the work of "Honus Honus", but something about him is giving me a bad taste in my mouth already... Look at the guy.And I've never actually heard "Man Man", but check out their band photo:
... I think it's safe to assume that their music sucks and that they're all bad people.
So yeah, this new Diamonds/Honus project (I heard there's someone from Modest Mouse in there too--OMG INDIE ROCK SURGROUP!) is called "Mister Heavenly", and they've been making the rounds at South By Southwest or whatever, and everyone who loves bad music seems to have a huge boner for them right now. OK, great.
So why do I even bother talking shit? Why even acknowledge the existence of this sad abomination? Just ignore it, right? There's so much negativity in the world already, why dwell on bad art made by misguided turds?
Well, it's not quite that simple...
I consider my own hatred for pretension an unimpeachable personality trait, which might sound conceited, but I'm pretty sure there are worse ways to expend your frustration. Just back off, OK? This is healthy.
Here's where it gets SERIOUSLY FUCKED.If there's one thing I hate MORE than the twee indie-pop of Nick Diamonds, it is the filmography and onscreen persona of Mr. Michael Cera (right). Something about the guy just drives me absolutely FUCKING NUTS: the nervous stuttering, the falsetto non-sequitirs, the forced "nerd charm"--sure, Arrested Development was pretty sweet, but everything he's been in since seems to be custom made to give me rage-induced aneurysms.
Morbid curiosity drove me to watch Juno (below), and as Sweet Baby Jay can attest to, I left the theater that night white-knuckled with murderous anger. And part of me must enjoy the feeling, because I watched Scott Pilgrim a couple weeks ago too, with quite the same result.
Sort of off-the-subject here, but Scott Pilgrim seemed to be a pretty polarizing film: people either loved it or hated it. I've heard several people rant about how great it was (Doug Benson and Asa, to name a few), but to me, that movie was the summation of everything wrong with modern cinema--all flash, no heart. Big stupid special effects. The "rom-com" banality. Ugh.
And the whole "indie rock" subplot? Don't get me started...
And here, my friends, is where our topics converge:
MICHAEL FUCKING CERA (left) HAS JOINED MISTER HEAVENLY.Which is actually kind of amazing. Imagine: all of my most reviled pet peeves in one place! One-stop shopping for the spiteful Hessian! A singular object, a tangible THING to encompass every negative, ugly, malicious fiber in my being!
Michael Cera is in Mister Heavenly.
Wow.
He went from "pretending" to be a shitty, sniveling wuss-bag indie-rock bassist in Scott Pilgrim to being an ACTUAL sniveling wuss-bag indie-rock bassist in Mister Heavenly. There's kind of a poetic justice to it. Now Nick Diamonds and Michael Cera can dry their tears of unrequited love together, possibly even upon the enormous moustache of Bonus Honus!
More LULZ from Mister Heavenly's Last.FM page:
"Spurred on by a mutual appreciation for doo-wop and doomed love songs (aka doom-wop), Nick Diamonds (Islands/Unicorns) and Honus Honus (Man Man) set out to record a one-off instrumental 7” but soon found, within a span of a few late-night sessions, themselves writing an entire album." (more on DOOM-WOP HERE)
Last.FM also calls them "similar to bands such as: Rabbit!, Oh Jollity, and Marshmallow Overcoat."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Yes, I certainly do hate you, Mister Heavenly. But I also kind of love you, for proving one thing: THE CHASM OF FOULNESS THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT CAN ACHIEVE, WHEN CHALLENGED, IS INFINITE--JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE FOUND ITS ABSOLUTE BOTTOM, THAT BOTTOM FALLS OUT, REVEALING AND EVER-EXPANDING PIT OF DESPAIR BELOW. THERE IS NO GOD AND NO REDEMPTION. WE ARE ALONE IN THIS LIFE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. BUT AS LONG AS WE CAN LOOK INTO THAT PIT--TO FACE THAT SICK HORROR AND SPIT IN ITS FACE--WE ARE CHAMPIONS.
I dunno, Cera was pretty good in Zombieland.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that's him, actually.
ReplyDeleteI'm no lawyer, but this is a fully acceptable alibi for misanthropy.
ReplyDeletePrefabricated "culture" like this creates a soulless, catatonic mode of throwing out integrity in order to promote deceit and give a megaphone to lies. A sanitized, sugar-coated prison wall. Empty posturing masking greedlust and infantilism.
This is the cult of everything's OK/sucks/"whatevs" that breeds exploitation, that shrugs off genocide, that laps up shit like a thirsty, sanitized maggot and vomits it into the face of adoring comatose forms and asking them to lick its wounds. The perpetual motion of supply and demand awash in self-loathing and addicted to its own ignorance like the sweet opiate it is. It is whistling nihilism tipping toward a fevered decibel.
Like Chaka Khan said, "IT AIN'T ALL GOOD... and that's THE TRUTH."
We might share the same brain. I just ranted my friends to utter bored with my hated of Michael Cera. And Man Man is shit too, just as the name implies. Keep up the vitriol.
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ReplyDeleteSee comment #3
ReplyDeleteDood! You are seriously cracking me up with this post! I was in line behind Jesse Eisenberg getting coffee in New York last week and his hair was all matted in the back, like beyond bedhead. And he was short. Ummmmmmm... doesn't Sweet Baby Jay like the Unicorns? Oh oh...Is that a bone of contraption?
ReplyDeleteYeah Jay's down with the 'Corns. And while I would never talk shit on my girl's taste in tunes (I'm quite lucky to blessed with a woman who thoroughly appreciates and enjoys METAL), I won't deny that repeat exposure on road trips/at parties/etc miiiiight have something to do with my extreme dislike for same.
ReplyDeleteIf SF is 10 to 1, it must be 100 to 1 around here. They're breeding like rats in the sewers. Rats with big moustaches.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand Cera either. I was pretty bummed when Edgar Wright followed the utter brilliance of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz with that Pilgrim garbage.
DUDE!!! I can't even listen to them because your passing your hatred off on me...i find myself questioning slow motion scenes, unrealistic train movie plots, why directors create creepy CGI dudes.. Guilty for loving Unicorns, not so stoked on wussies who don't fuckin' rock. Apocryphon Rulez!!!!
ReplyDeleteI love you guys but living where you do and complaining about hipsters is the definition of futile outrage. Not that these turd merchants don't deserve to be flayed alive and boiled in urine. It remind me of the radio hate monger Michael Savage, big annoying New York accent, right-wing radio blowhard, hates hippies and gays so he moves to San Francisco with him little toy poodle. It's not logical. Please don't beat your selves up like that. Draw the line between righteous indignation and self flogging. Thanks for all the cool metal.
ReplyDeleteFrom my outward appearance, one might lump me in with those douche-nozzles. I wear tight jeans, cut my hair only once a year, have a ton of 'merican 'pparel clothing (I used to work there,in the backstock, where everything is free) and I ride a (gasp!) fixed gear bicycle. However, despite this superficial appearance of unity, I can't stand these dicks, or their limp-wristed, pandering, appropriation of rock and metal culture. Besides, I'm too old to be hip. The Unicorns have one good song: "Les Os", which perfectly encapsulates the 1966 pop music vibe. Michael Cera is terrible, except for Superbad. This union is bound to be terrible. I hope I never hear one of their songs. Scott Pilgrim, as you predicted long ago, was awful. And I really wanted to like it, but it was just BAD. Minneapolis (specifically Uptown) is one of the most hipsterish, pretentious, post-post-ironic areas of the country. Imagine all those loft-living, trust-fund, bearded wimps in SF crammed into a tiny neighborhood in a small mid-western city. I refuse to even go there, even though it's only a few blocks from my Apt. In summation, I hear you, Brother. I feel your hate as my own. We shall bring the slobbering, snarling beast of Metal to these infected areas and cleanse the population. The False will suffer, whilst the true disciples of subterranean heavy music shall always thrive in the shadows and dark clubs of all metropolitan areas.
ReplyDeleteIt might help if the object of your hatred was actually the subject of the numerous photos you posted. Pictured douche is not Michael Cera, but Jesse Eisenberg.
ReplyDeleteI've gotta admit...I think Man Man is a pretty sweet band.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Again, see comment #3
ReplyDeleteThat frame is not from Juno; it's from Adventureland. And that actor is Jesse Eisenberg with Kristen Stewart.
ReplyDeleteyou need a haircut, you need a shoeshine, you need an aristocratic glow in the dark erotic magnet
ReplyDelete