"Country's Gone Dirty"

I don’t listen to Country music.

I don't pretend that I do.

And as a matter of fact, I have barely a conception of what Country music is. You see, Country music is not – in my defense – relatable to a 24 year-old Asian male living in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. Although at its core the songs of Country music might touch upon and delve into the universal themes of love, hate, and having fun, the surrounding layers of frolicking in the barn, shooting varmints, and chugging PBR in the backseat of Uncle Bubba’s Chevy truck just don’t quite jive with me and my lifestyle.

Lest you declare that I am an ignorant know-nothing, let me at least say that I do NOT hate Country music; I’m actually indifferent to its musicality yet I harbor a ton of respect for it as an art form and a culturally and historically-rich music style born out of an oppressed subculture’s therapeutic need for a creative outlet. I do, however, want to impart several observations that today’s Country ain’t no longer like your dad’s Country. Consequently it’s not within my pedestrian powers to judge Country music, but I will say this: Country’s gone dirty.

To reiterate, I don’t listen to Country music. I’m not too familiar with it, but these are the only artists of that genre that I can readily name: Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre, Johnny Cash, Sara Evans, Winona Judd, Dolly Parton, and Toby Keith. Before you go on and think that I lied by claiming that I have barely a conception of Country music, I have to assure you that I know these names only as a by-product of being familiar with these respective artists’ second-hand careers. I learned of Carrie Underwood by way of American Idol; Garth because he once tried out for the San Diego Padres; Reba through her sitcom on the old WB network; Johnny Cash was portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line; Sara Evans went through that crazy divorce scandal while she was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars; Winona has this hot sister named Ashley; Dolly - obviously for her Parton's; and Toby Keith because he’s, well, that big guy singing angst-ridden lyrics in the late-night infomercial peddling his anti-terrorist album.

Thus, what I know of Country music is random. I’ll glance at a music video or hear a snippet of a song now and then when I’m channel surfing the tube, or my car stereo’s memory buttons might have gotten reprogrammed and I accidentally switched on a Country station. When I think of Country, I think of classically-penned love songs with soft melodies and uplifting harmonies. I think innocence and purity – the type of music that compels you to dance with the pretty girl next door without leading to dry-humping and demonstrating horse riding with the girl playing the role of the horse. In contrast to some hip-hop songs’ obsession with girls and money (dollar dollar bills, ya’ll) and some rock and roll songs fixation with drugs and destruction, Country singers croon playfully about wooing the opposite sex and make records in support of our troops overseas. In that sense, Country music stands noble.

But alas, it is disappointing to realize that even Country is not immune to what has already tainted every other musical genre. Nowadays, Country music is no longer cowboy hats and Southern belles – everything’s become more provocative and risqué. Lyrics have their share of more underlying sexual innuendos and the image of the Country singer has gotten edgier. In one puzzling case I thought NSYNC was reuniting, but I eventually found out that the frost-tipped and designer jeans-wearing dudes I had mistaken for JT and the gang were actually a Country band called Rascal Flatts. I once discovered there was a music video playing on the Country Music Television channel that featured a female singer naked in the bathtub and posing seductively with suds upon her. It simply didn’t make sense – this sordid image paired with a Country tune. I couldn’t comprehend that juxtaposition.

In further evidence that Country has lost its innocence, even Faith Hill – the Queen of Country – provided a moment that would live in Country wholesomeness infamy. This past year in Lafayette, LA at a joint concert with her husband, Tim McGraw, Faith responded to the actions of a front row concert attendee who had unequivocally stepped outside her boundaries. During the course of the show, this gutsy and opportunistic concert attendee copped a feel at Tim’s package. After discovering this, an enraged Faith fired back and confronted the concert attendee from the stage by scolding, "Somebody needs to teach you some class, my friend. You don’t go grabbin’ somebody else's - somebody's husband's balls, you understand me?”

Now, “balls” is surely a common word – diction that’s often used by children and adults alike. But Faith Hill? Unless she’s telestrating football formations or decorating her Christmas tree, it just seems plain wrong to hear it spew from her mouth. Whatever Tim and Faith do behind the curtains as a happily married couple is perfectly acceptable, but once she starts freely brandishing a word like “balls” in public Faith Hill becomes little bit less Country and little more Rock and Roll.

Oh, and who could forget about Keith Urban's stint in rehab?

Country music has lost its luster and shine as the last remaining squeaky-clean music genre. It seemingly grew up and started hanging out with the goth kids and cheerleader sluts. Although I never avidly listened to it or even had the desire to want to, I always looked at Country music as that surviving remnant of musical purity. Despite being disconnected to it, there was a certain richness of traditions held within the songs of Country music – a remarkable history as told through Country’s lyrics, illustrating a time and place that is uniquely American. Its colors and warmth is fleeting, and in the end it sort of makes me yearn for the days of frolicking in the barns, shooting varmints, and chugging PBR from the backseat of Uncle Bubba’s Chevy truck. That, indeed, was an innocent time.

The future of arranged marriages

I wish America had arranged marriages. We will eventually, but not in my lifetime. Shucks.

Think about how much more pleasant everything would be, knowing at 16, who you would be stuck with the rest of your life. It would allow you ample time to develop a personality that can tolerate the other person – and you won’t face the pressure of locking some chick down before going bald (for women, locking a guy down before the wrinkles come).

Arranged marriages would also save on clothing and you wouldn’t have to buy a nice car or a shiny watch.

At its base, Capitalism is simply founded on trying to score. So America will never have the traditional form of arrangement with the opposite sex. But there will be a futuristic form. It will come full circle.

In 200 years, the world will have arranged marriages, but with pre-selected clones.

Once human cloning becomes a success and is cheap enough to market to the public, outstanding individuals of society (those with excessive beauty or intelligence) will sell their DNA to scientists and make commissions off of it when someone pays for their model to be created.

Considering how technology continues to isolate us from forming meaningful relationships and a sense of community (quick, name three other people who live in your apartment complex) with each passing generation, we will be totally incapable of meeting ordinary people on our own. Other humans will scare us. We will assume the woman living next door is a “tranny” and the mailman molests his poodle.

So being awarded a clone of your choosing will then be a rite of passage. Families will take their teenager to the clone lab, where they will create their perfect mate (Petra Nemcova, but 5’3” for me). Over the next several years while the teen is in college, the clone will grow (in an environment that promotes rapid growth - a clone’s childhood will be accelerated so in 4 years they’ll really be 20).

The Future of Marriage will completely eliminate poor self esteem, disappointment and struggle in the mating game. Everyone will get the perfect significant other, and we can also remain solely focused on our careers, because of course the clone stays home with the kids (That is unless you buy the Steve Jobs clone or the Oprah clone. In that case, you get to stay home while they foster an empire worth billions. They might be too tired to service you at night though – Oprah especially never allocates any time for her minge).

What's your favorite thing about being human?

By Brandon Tucker

What's your favorite thing about being human? For me, it's undoubtedly the fact that we go through our daily life knowing something isn't trying to eat us.

Do you think you could enjoy a night out with friends at a bar, knowing at any point, some giant animal could just rip off the roof and take his pick of any tasty treat? What if you're macking some chick and a giant Man-bear-pig type thing stuck a claw through the window, ripped her face off and started eating her in front of everyone (it probably means she was a little chunky...and Man-bear-pig did you a favor).

I think we all take the fact we're not on the menu for other animals for granted in our daily lives. That's also a selling point for guns. Thanks to gun powder, over the last few generations we've been able to impose an inherent fear into animals that humans mean death. It's bad because sometimes you feel like petting a squirrel and it runs away, but when you try and imagine a life where animals aren't afraid of humans, well it's a lot like the flash-forwards in Terminator 2.

I also think the reason why we've evolved to the top of the food chain isn't because of opposable thumbs but because we're the only species that controls our bowels. Think about it, once you start controlling your bowels is really when capitalism begins, because now the bar is higher. You have to smell good now, look better and buy nice clothes. If we were like monkeys and just relieved ourselves whenever we wanted, life would be much simpler.

On a related note, my least favorite thing about being human is that men have do attract the women, not the other way around. We're really one of the few species in the animal kingdom where the male is the selected and not the selector. Usually, it's the female chasing after the male, who is 'peacocking'.

I think the male lion has pretty much the sweetest gig in the world: you have at least two noble lionesses at your side all the time and worship you. They kill your dinner but let you eat first, and you get to sit in the shade and be lazy all the time.

And you also rarely deal with any predators, aside from poachers, but I'd just go to a national park and I'd be set.

Facebook faux-paux: Girls, stop exposing ‘fat arm’!

By Brandon Tucker



The biggest problem I have with Facebook is that many of the girls in my friends list have at least one photo gallery called “Good times” or “crazy nights”, featuring 40 or so variations of her and friends the bar, holding a drink and offering a drunken, glazed grin to the camera.

But there is a horrendously unflattering problem in many of these photos, something these women need to be more conscious about when they’re out chugging Sugar-free Red Bull and Vodka and getting camera phone-happy, because it can be prevented.

Fat Arm.

Fat Arm is what happens when you are shot from the side, and the camera makes your upper-arm look disproportionately wider than the rest of your body. Look at the girl on the right in the upper photo. She’s probably in fine shape (other shots in the gallery reveal she’s not bad at all), but because of Fat Arm, our first impression is that she’s a prime candidate for “Shaq’s Big Challenge”.

There is a solution…



Recently I was on a shoot with a fitness model/hostess. I noticed that even in her casual snap shots off-duty, she would strike a pose, where one of her legs was in front of the other, her hand was on her hip and her elbow jutted out (like one of Bob Barker’s gals).

I made fun of her a little for it, to which she explained if she didn’t pose like that, her arm would look like one of Rosie O’Donnell’s calves.

This girl is a twig, size zero, but even she knows Fat Arm can bite her. Think about all you females out there who are simply average in weight. You don’t stand a chance against it.

So, women, I urge you: stop feeling the urge to post 50 pics every Monday morning of you at the bars the weekend before. It’s really not all that interesting – even if you caught your friend puking in the bushes or pissing herself in the cab.

But if you insist, please, please, go the extra mile and protect yourself from Fat Arm.

Good Idea: it's time to go interracial

by Brandon Tucker

The only way the world will be able to rid itself of religious wars and racism is if the entire human race inter-breeds enough to achieve a single face - and consequently one jumbled mess of faith so complicated no one can really be sure what they believe in.

This uni-race will eventually happen naturally, but at the current rate in about 10,000 years. We need to speed up the process because weapons and radicals are making it seem like we don't have 100 years before we blow each other up, nonetheless 10,000.

***I think we've got about 82 years, give or take.

Countries should begin encouraging interracial offspring. If governments can "ethnic cleanse" (negative), it should be just as easy to "ethnic blend" (positive). Each nation should impose benefits (tax breaks, more property, 'free beer night' etc.) to those who produce offspring with a mate of a different race.

Mainstream media should follow suit. Movies can be released where the super hero always chooses saving the latino woman over the white ones. In horror movies, the black guy doesn't always die, but nails the WASPy Sarah Michelle Geller-type without fail.

The more different of you and your partner's skin tone the better too. This means a white man would receive more of a tax break for mating with a black woman over an Asian woman, because any white woman who is looking into the sun looks Asian anyways.

Those who marry someone of the same skin should be taxed like a millionaire, because they are slowing down the evolutionary process. Their only way to avoid such rampant tax is if they agree to produce off-spring with a man or mistress of different skin.

*** In my proposed government, this adultery cannot be legal grounds for divorce.

I am calling on Swedish guys to organize an Afro-Swede mixer. Middle eastern women: holler at some Canadians.

Curvy South American chicks, you can find me on MySpace.

ES MUY CALIENTE!

Holy Telemundo – have you ever noticed how all the chicks – be it talk show hosts, news anchors, talk show audiences, soap opera actors, talk show crew members – on the Spanish television channels are insanely hot? Well, maybe not everyone single female, but I think it would be safe for me to make an educated guess at saying that 90 percent of the ladies within any capacity that they appear on those “latin” channels are pretty darn attractive. But why is that? Why is that every night when I come home and perform my daily post-work channel surfing that my thumb comes to a complete halt around channels 14 through 18 – the Telemundo, Univision, et al networks? I want to take “uno momento” to discuss this burning topic.

The Latin channels are arguably the same as their American counterparts in programming except for the fact that, yes, they’re in Spanish. Their programming adheres to the types of shows that are universal – variety shows, talks shows, news, telenovelas, and badly dubbed Stallone movies. The common denominator in Latin television is that every show contains at least one gratuitously hot sex kitten-ish female with long standing legs supporting a buxom torso and a perfectly symmetrical, angelic face. Even commercials constantly featured drop dead gorgeous chicas (I recall watching a cheesy used car dealership commercial and seeing two hot chicks in their bikini’s advertising a ’94 Dodge Minivan once). It’s almost like these ladies are manufactured and shipped out of a factory that specializes in making beautiful women.

An example is the news. I remember surfing and stopping on a news program that featured two gorgeous Latinas with long-flowing hair and low-cut tops. Now, I work in news and am totally aware of the obvious notion that it’s a given requirement to be good-looking and eye-pleasing to be on camera. Superficial, yet true – ugly doesn’t get ratings. So, being cognizant of that I shouldn’t be alarmed to see two hot chicks reading the news at night. Oh, but this was different, a couple of little details different, nevertheless still significant. These two ladies looked like ex-models who have enhanced their chests and have an entire wardrobe consultant crew consisting of Pam Anderson and Tara Reid. As a blatant reminder that these women were hot, the anchor desk was a clear table, and during every commercial break the camera would pull out from the set aerially so that the viewer can be reminded that the anchors were wearing mini-skirts and do in fact shave their long, slender legs. Clearly, I can see where the Fox Business Channel’s hiring department gets their inspiration.



Then of course there are the telenovelas, or Spanish soap operas. They’re just as bad in acting and convoluted in plot as any of the American daytime crap, but with less ugly folks. One would be made to believe that every female on those shows is either an ex-porn star or an old lady. There’s never a representation of a female in-between. I mean, there is no Ugly Betty!

I’ve also observed that on the myriad of variety shows that air, there’s usually the scantily-clad, energetic and exuberant hot chick paired with the old, geeky, chubby, and pervy male. Their relationship feels like a big brother-little sister or uncle-niece dynamic because although the male might make references or oogle at the beauty of the female, he also seems to know that he has no shot at sleeping with her and instead serves as comic relief in trying to attain that lusty goal. It’s quasi-creepy, but it does make for some interesting comedic riffs and – on another level – hope for dorky perverts at every cantina that they would be able to get close to hot chicks.

Much like MTV’s Real World with their recurring character archetypes – the innocent Southern blonde, the angry minority, the homosexual, and the meathead frat boy -- the old ladies in the telenovelas and the unattractive male along with the hot chick are staples of the Latin language channel cast of characters. It makes me wonder whether this unspoken facet of Latin television programming – mainly the hot chick phenomenon – was intentional or just an evolution of sorts. Is it due to the correlation between beauty and on-air talents? Or is it because there are no ugly chicks in Latin Americana?

Perhaps it’s difficult to arrive at a correct answer from my standpoint because there’s only a small cross-section of Latin television programming available here in the States. The three or four or five Spanish channels I have can only adequately portray so much of the Latin culture. Imagine conversely if Latin Americans were sitting at their homes in uh, Latin America, and only received four channels from the States. In that scenario, your average Latin viewer of American television would think America is just full of innocent Southern blondes, angry minorities, homosexuals, and meathead frat boys. And maybe that all Americans like to end up in the hot tub after a heavy night of drinking with strangers.

I highly doubt that in these Latin countries that girls are either really hot Victoria’s Secret model-caliber looking or plain old ladies. And I’m positive that all the old, chubby perverted males aren’t running around with hot chicks on the streets of Rio or the beaches of Cabo. But at least on the Spanish language channels that’s what they lead you to believe. And dammit – I have come to the realization that I’m working at the wrong television network.