I Hate It Here

Dear Sons And Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts – Wolf Parade

I hate sportswriters. This has to be one of the most ridiculous jobs in the world doesn’t it? You get paid good money to write insights on a fucking game. Who cares? Are we such lemmings that we can’t form our own opinions about the sports we watch? I know, I know, you’re thinking some of these guys have insider information that we need. Fuck that. I hate ESPN.com these days. I hate Chad Ford. Ford is one of the writers on the website whose articles can only be read if you pay up and subscribe to be an “ESPN Insider”. Ooooooh, I’m so fucking impressed. You would think that he would be able to give us information that we can’t get anywhere else. Recently, he reported that sources had informed him that the coach of the Detroit Pistons, Larry Brown, had spoken to Cleveland Cavaliers management about becoming their team president. After Brown all but denied that he was taking the job, a fan wrote in questioning Ford’s report. Here’s some excerpts from Ford’s response:

“As I said in my initial report, I do think there’s a chance that Larry changes his mind.”

“But I still stand by my story that he told two credible league sources that he had decided to take the Cavs offer. Whether he follows through on it is anyone’s guess.”

So in other words, you have NO FUCKING CLUE. Other shit this guy writes about includes bragging about how he gets to go overseas and watch 7 foot European guys practice drills, which allows him to make statements like, “Nikoz Kazanzakistoupoupoulos might be the next big thing. Or maybe not. Who knows? I licked my dog’s asshole this morning.” I wouldn’t read this guy’s articles if they were free (which they are if you know which message boards to visit). Chad Ford isn’t a sportswriter, he’s a dickless piece of trash with a press pass.

I hate Dan Shanoff, another writer for ESPN.com. He writes this article called The Daily Quickie, which I used to think was pretty good. He’s got a decent sense of humour and it is a good way to keep up with top sports stories without having to click a bunch of links. The one annoying quirk he’s always had is that he’s a fan of “instant history”. Like, you know when you watch a movie with someone and they go like, “Oh my God, that was the best movie EVER!!!” I remember, William was saying that about Van Helsing for months. And he was right, but that’s besides the point. That’s what Dan Shanoff is like with sports. If a pitcher wins a couple of games, that guy is the best…pitcher…ever. If a basketball player has a good game, that player becomes the most important player since Jordan. If a horse wins a fucking derby, that horse is now the Horse God and in his presence we must all grab our ankles and submit. The incident that really set me off also involves one Larry Brown. Last year, when the Pistons won the NBA championship, Shanoff was declaring Brown to be the greatest…NBA coach…ever. I disagreed, but I was like, “Fine, it’s just the way this writer is.” Recently, with the controversy mentioned above, Shanoff has described Brown as being both “a distraction to his team” and “absolutely pathetic”.

Fuck you, man!

Again, I’m not Brown’s biggest fan, but if you are then how about standing by him for one second, eh? It was even more glaring when Scoop Jackson, a writer who I wasn’t a big fan of before but who is now doing the best work of his life, did a piece on Brown that week that equally weighed his strengths and his flaws while maintaining loyalty to a coach he appreciated. How can you be allowed to write about sports when you don’t offer anything that I can’t get from talking to a friend or just listening to some random drunk in a bar. Shanoff isn’t a sportswriter, he’s a sports fan with a big, shiny soapbox full of shit.

Oh, and I almost left out Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star. I really hate this motherfucker. He’s Vince Carter hater #1. Hell, he hates everybody. Everytime something goes wrong, there’s always someone to blame. It’s Vince’s fault. It’s Rafer Alston’s fault. It’s Sam Mitchell’s fault. It’s Rob Babcock’s fault (okay, it usually is). Just the other day he was blaming Babcock for declaring Alonzo Mourning medically ineligible to play and letting him go, when the Miami Heat’s recent series against the Pistons (third time this post, hm…) has proven that he is still able to contribute to a team. Babcock is an idiot, but this wasn’t his fault. Mourning was not going to put in the effort to get back into playing shape for the Toronto Raptors, so Babcock had no choice but to buy him out. The situation could have been handled better, but really, there’s nobody to blame. Feschuk has no concept of this. He isn’t a sports writer, he’s a politician.

Obviously, I hate Simple Plan. I swear they used to have “A” before their name. I thought these guys were harmless after I’m Just A Kid. And I actually enjoyed Addicted. Perfect should have tipped me off to what these guys were all about, but it wasn’t until the musical abortion that is Welcome To My Life that I realized these guys were spawned from the deepest depths of musical Hell. And now Untitled (How Could This Happen To Me?). Where do you start with this atrocious song? The lyrics, obviously. The contrived screaming. The even more contrived video (standing in the rain, looking to the sky, wondering what it all means…ugh). For me, it’s just the title. The song is NOT FUCKING UNTITLED YOU RETARDS!!! Just because you call it “Untitled”, doesn’t make it un-fucking-titled. The song is called “How Could This Happen To Me?” It’s in the fucking chorus and it’s right next to your precious fucking “Untitled” in fucking parentheses! Stop trying to be artistic and go back to counting your money you worthless shits! And enjoy it, because if I ever, EVER, see one of these guys on the street I’m going to fucking kill him. No joke. Whatever’s at my disposal. Hopefully, some sort of firearm. But I could see myself on the streets of Toronto randomly spotting them and having to grab one of the many pipes lining the downtown alleys, ripping it from its restraints and tossing it through however many of them there are. And then I say, “Hey faggots, let off some steam.” That or just, “Eat shit and die motherfuckers!!!” It’s like that drug dealer in Pulp Fiction says, “No trial, straight to execution.” Would any jury in the world convict me?

Oddly, I also hate bands like Queens Of The Stone Age, Weezer and now, Wolf Parade. Everytime I hear one of their songs, I’m struck by the reality of how amateurish my own compositions are. I finally found some time to listen to the Wolf Parade EP I bought at the Arcade Fire concert a while back. It’s only 6 songs, about 22 minutes long and I’ve already listened to it 8000 times over the last 5 days. They’re fucking brilliant. The CD drops in September.

I hate my job. More specifically, I hate the customers. I cannot go through one day of work without being reminded how inconsiderate the pieces of shit that make up our clientele are. The parking lot alone is enough to convince one that instant sterilization should be a viable deterrent for the police. People park in spots reserved for the handicapped, spots reserved for people with children, spots that are not so much as spots as ROAD IN FRONT OF THE FUCKING STORE!!! And when they do shit right in front of you, I mean, that’s the worst. Customers leave stuff in front of the cash registers at the last minute when they decide they don’t want to buy something. And at the end of the day, it’s like a hurricane has ravaged the place. These people are supposed to be fucking adults! And the shopping carts…oh, the shopping carts. If you’ve ever visited the Food Basics I work at, you’ve seen rows of carts spilling out onto the street. That’s because people insist filling up the same row! Sure, they could actually check and see if there’s another row to put the cart, but noooooo, that would require them to walk a couple of extra steps into the corrals and that’s just too much to ask, isn’t it?

My customers are scum and the reason that the world is the way it is today. I do not exaggerate. If these people could take one extra minute every day to think about how their actions might affect someone else…what a world it would be, eh?

And the pay is shit too.

I hate the cast of Sin City. What a cast! I know the movie came out, like, 4 months ago and I’ve talked about it enough, but I have to just say one more time: The orgies! Can you imagine the orgies! It keeps me up at night. I was also reminded of this by the fact that I suddenly find Angelina Jolie extremely attractive. I’m glad that she ditched the goth look and is now more Hollywood glamour. Wouldn’t she have been perfect in Sin City? More importantly, can you imagine how she would have performed in one of those orgies? Elijah Wood might have been killed.

I hate myself. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wake up wishing I was somebody else. I hate that I keep finding myself attracted to underage girls. 16 year olds. I thought this thing I had for Adriana at work was just a weird occurence, a fluke. But there were these girls at my in-class driving lesson who I thought were pretty cute. Now I’m afraid to walk down the street because I might see some girl who I think is pretty hot and we’ll make eye contact and then she’ll have to go because recess is over.

I hate the way I treat my friends. After our field trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario, I was talking to Nitasha and I told her that I should call her or she should call me and we should hang out. Just the two of us. Did I ever call? No! Why? I forgot, that’s why. What the hell is that? I haven’t seen Erica in a few weeks. Before that, I had some good times hanging out with her and suddenly I can’t be bothered to even call? My friend David invites me to his kickass birthday party where I get a kickass caricature of myself that he and his sister made and I haven’t seen him since. Honestly, do you know anyone that preaches the sanctity of friendship so much, while at the same time being completely unreliable and unloyal, as me? I’m sick of myself, I swear.

And I hate that even though things are going real well, I still find myself writing these stupid, petty, self-obsessed posts.

(I’m stopping the Preacher quotes for a bit, not that anybody read them. I’ll probably bring them back, seeing as how I saved the best ones. For now, in honour of this bile-filled post, I leave you with Warren Ellis’ words of wisdom.)

Transmetropolitan Quotes:
These are the new streets of this city. Where the new scum try to live. You and me. And here in these streets are the things we want: Sex and birth, votes and traits, money and guilt, television and teddy bears. But all we’ve actually got is each other. You decide what that means.