Already I know I'm going to hate doing this blog. Normally I stop reading blathering bullshit as soon as I get too pissed off to continue. But no more. Now I will sit through achingly long broadcasts of hate mongers and lazy pundits just projectile vomiting gobbledygook to keep the camera on their pancake lathered faces. I will read, all the way to the end, the rambling contrite works of opinion passed off as news reporting or observation. I know giving name to one's enemy makes them stronger but I just gotta point out the flaws in the Emperor's tailor.
For example: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-09-01/music/in-defense-of-courtney/. Go ahead, read it. Then come back to this. I'll list the flaws in this diatribe in order of appearance.
1. "It's not her, Seattle, it's you." No it isn't. At no point in this rant does the author provide any evidence that Seattle and its citizens have ever unfairly criticized Courtney Love. In fact, she does point out that all of the things Ms. Love has been criticized for are either reasonable or unimportant to her, the author. Except for one parenthetical aside...
2. "And maybe she has been: a jerk, a bad parent (a trait male rockers are rarely called to task for), ..."
Sure, male rockers are not often criticized in the media for not taking care of their kids. Famously, so many male rockers, for decades, have peppered the countryside with their wanton seed. All of them leaving the shit factories with their wives or with newly made single mothers. And few people give them much grief for it because those drooling afterthoughts have all been left with a mother to care for them. On the other hand, everyone and their cousins know what happened to the father of Courtney Love's child; he died while she was a toddler. That makes Ms. Love the only parent to care for that child. Her running around guzzling tainted Kool-Aid or whatever she hops herself up on makes her doubly neglectful since there's not some single father, forgotten in Albuquerque, cleaning soggy generic cheerios off the carpet, waiting for the day that Hole comes back to town; grudgingly confident that he'll get back stage again and all will be right with the world. She, Ms. Love is probably a bad parent but I wouldn't know because I wasn't there.
3. Nor was I in some, "800-person town in North Dakota," when Live Through This came out. Maybe that is why I didn't like that record but probably not. It's likely the reason I didn't like that record had nothing to do with where I was living at the time. Or maybe it did. I don't know, I just didn't like it. But my not liking the record does not make the record, itself, bad. In all honesty, I've never heard the whole thing. What I have heard i disliked so I stopped listening before I had to hear too much.
The author here, however, equates liking it at the time to it's being a good record. It was a, "rallying cry," and she, "needed to hear those words come out of that mouth..." That's all well and good but just because she liked it doesn't mean everyone, or really anyone, else has to like it. It's a piece of art, and no one can say anyone has to like it or even appreciate it. Going back to the tag line of the article in point #1 "It's not her, Seattle, it's you." The author is really only proving, 'It's not her, Seattle, it's me.' She, the author appreciates Ms. Love's work. Why the fuck should anyone else have to?
4. The fourth paragraph is about Seattle sports teams. Seattle teams, according to the author, "strive to be just good enough to keep attendance up, but they never shell out the 'Yankee Cash'." I don't know if she bothered to actually research attendance in Seattle stadiums but they have been on the decline for a few years now. And that "Yankee Cash" isn't the only thing that win championships. Out of the last ten World Serieses eight different teams have won. Sure the Yankees won twice. And the Red Sox won twice. But of the six other teams that have won only two had salaries higher than the Mariners: The '01 Diamondbacks ($11 million more than Mariners but $27 less than Yankees) and the '06 Cardinals ($1 million more than Mariners but $106 million less than Yankees. Yes, $106 million less.). That means four teams in ten years have won the World Series with even less "Yankee Cash" than the Mariners had. Sometimes less than half as much.
I'm not saying Seattle teams are more successful than the author states. Far from it. I'm just pointing out that she has no idea why our teams fail so often.
5. Paragraph 5 reads like tea leaves in a dirty toilet bowl. I had to reread it a few times just to figure out what the fuck her point was. I'm pretty sure she is saying uppity seattlelites fake being middle class in order to not come off as uppity seattleites. And because they do they can't like Ms. Love due to her fame. However, cool people in L.A. and New York, where people aren't fake, like Ms. Love without being jealous or ashamed of her.
Even trying to paraphrase that confused me. I'm putting on some pajamas and going shopping at Uwajimaya.
6. Now after all this bull hockey, she tells you, dear reader, to go see Hole and be passive aggressive. Fuck her. I will say whatever the fuck I want to Ms. Love's face if I was put in front of her. But I will not pay her, Ms. Love, any of my money so thet she, the author can fail to make a point. And nobody, I mean nobody, is going to punch anyone for talking shit about Hole. Ever. Anywhere. It's totally OK to talk shit about Hole everywhere in the world at any time to anyone. Go ahead. You're safe from punches. Unless you are two fourteen year old girls ten years ago in North Dakota.
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