Why Coke is better than Pepsi (The same reason that the Ramones are better than modern day punk)

To many the following will seem completely trivial and pointless, but this is the kind of shit that fills my brain. These are the kinds of thoughts that are a product of a media soaked lifestyle. Some people probably couldn't care less about the difference between Coke and Pepsi. I on the other hand have always cared about these minor details. Complacency has never been an option. I'm sure that there are also people out there who couldn't care less about the difference between The Beatles and the Rolling Stones or 50 cent and Run DMC but to people who care to look into it the differences are huge. I should add that when I go into a restaurant and order a Coke and they say is Pepsi alright I will never never say yes. I will invariably order something else.

Coca Cola and the Ramones burst onto the scene in much the same vain, they were fresh, original, exciting,and filled with cocaine. In time both cleaned up their ways but still maintained their hard and energy fueled edge. They were originators
in their respective fields and by all accounts perfected the recipe in which they set to create.

over the next few years both Coca Cola and the Ramones secured their position around the world as more than just an American brand/band but as true Icons of American culture. During their career the Ramones were much more popular outside of North
America than they were in their homeland. Coca Cola became the most recognizable and known brand on planet earth. Why was this? People from all different countries and cultures flocked to them to experience just a little bit of the American way. If for only in a small way it connected them with American culture. But why else? Well they offered a good product.

As with all good things they are imitated (but never duplicated). For Coke there was Pepsi and for the Ramones there is today's modern day mainstream punk rock* .What do these followers have in common? They are both sugary sweet renditions of the originals (also losing the edge), they have obviously tried to lift the iconography of the originals, and they cater themselves directly to the youth (or feeling youthful) market.

Too sugary sweet:
The bottom line is Pepsi is nothing more than a third rate Coke clone (2nd rate would be RC cola) it tastes horrible, its as if they said lets make something like coke but with 3 times the sugar. To me it honestly tastes no better than the generic brand of cola any and every supermarket produces. As for losing its edge Pepsi has never even had and edge. There is something compelling about drinking a soft drink that was once laced with an illicit substance. Even though it has long since been removed we still know that Coke was once "slumming it" for real. In a three legged cauldron no less.

Modern day punk rock is the same way. It is a candy coated, sugar filled version of what punk rock is supposed to be. Sure the Ramones played punk music that was poppy but they certainly didn't play pop music that was punky. There IS a difference. The difference is in terms of motivation . Modern punk has no edge. The Ramones weren't just writing songs about Forest Hills Queens, Sniffing Glue and shooting heroin. They were living it. Suburban kids certainly don't know what it's like living in the city or what it's like carrying a $50 mosrite in a shopping bag on the subway to rehearsal. You simply don't have the same motivations if you drive to band practice in your parents SUV with your brand new Les Paul in the back.

Attempted Iconography:
It is fairly easy to see that Pepsi recognized and tried to bolster Cokes status as an American Icon. You really need to look no further than the fact that Pepsi chose Red White and Blue as their packaging choice. The problem is they missed the point you cant just slap the colors of the flag on your product and expect to be viewed as something.

Modern day punk in the same way slaps on all the punk rock packaging yet they forgot one important detail. The clothes don't make the music and beneath it all there needs to be some substance. Modern punk really represents nothing. The Ramones stood for something (even if they weren't overtly political). If nothing else they were honest and real and even without a political agenda that IS something. They weren't listening to punk records. They were defining the genre.

Focus on youth culture:
Pepsi's Marketing tactic has always been clear. Sell to the youth. Just look at their slogans throughout history (The choice of a new generation, Be Young, Have fun, Drink Pepsi, Generation Next etc) It is easy to sell your product if you focus entirely on youth because for the most part your market is naive and doesn't have a refined palette (which is good if your product tastes like shit). Pepsi has always tried to sell an idea rather than a product. If you are selling to the youth it is an easy market to manipulate. Young children don't understand the concept of advertising and think that commercials are public service announcements and tweens-teens are heavily influenced by peer pressure. And once they have these ideas firmly planted in peoples minds years down the road they can re-sell them on the product claiming it will make them feel young again. Clever marketing yes. Evidence of a good product NO.

Modern Day Punk. I hardly find it necessary to go into the details of how this genre is marketed to the youth because it is so clearly evident. It is marketed the exact same way that Pepsi is. The difference with the Ramones is that yes they appealed to the youth but they also appealed to music fans as well. This is very important and shows the mark of a good band. (you may be saying hey why cant the youth be music fans? I am referring to people who are fans of any and all genres of music and not just "fad fans". To be a music fan you have to be open minded to the whole spectrum of music. If you are the type of person who says "I only listen to punk rock" Then you most likely aren't a fan of music. You are just probably trying to fit into one specific sub-culture. This has nothing to do with being a true fan of music. (I say "probably" and "most likely" only because there is a minimal chance that someone out there has been truly open minded to every genre of music known to man but by some freak occurrence they only like one specific type))

In closing I should say that these sugar coated imitators aren't all bad we can at least give them credit for reminding us just how good the originals really are by comparison.

*yes there are punk bands of today that are making real, honest and exciting music but I am focusing on the one's who have floated to the top, the one's on the radio and in the magazines Mostly the bands who have co-opted the punk rock image and or ideals such as Good Charlotte, New found Glory, Sum 41 and Avril Lavine etc.

tags: music, punk rock,ideas,

The good, the bad and the ugly or The legend, the bullshit and the aliens

The Good: Walk The Line
Last night I saw Walk the line the bio pic about Johnny Cash (and June Carter). The movie was great Phoenix and Witherspoon were completely believable in their roles and disbelief was indeed suspended. I think it undeniable that they will be up for oscars. There's no need for me to go on about it, you've heard the hype.

The Bad: The Postman
After getting home from the theatre I turned on the TV and for some reason I stayed up until 4am and watched Kevin Costner's Trainwreck The Postman. Holy shit this movie was so incredibly pointless, unbelievable and insincere and to make matters worse it was about 9 hours long (give or take 6 hours). I shouldn't have even kept watching it but once you get locked into something for an hour you figure hey how much longer could it be? I might as well see what happens. What the Fuck. Just when I thought the movie couldn't get any worse Tom Petty shows up (PLAYING HIMSELF!!!). This movie is set in the future by the way but that didn't make it suck any less. If the movie Battlefield earth mated with the movie Rollerball** their child would be the Postman (and I think even they would give it up for adoption).

The Ugly: Fire in the sky
I just finished watching this one on TV. I should preface this by saying I saw this movie in the theatre when I was 14 and it was the only movie to ever truly scare the fucking hell out of me. I watched horror movies all through my junior high years and was not scared in the least by any of them. Fire in the sky is the only movie that made me sleep with the light on in my room for a week after watching it. I was terrified of being abducted by aliens. I should however note that while watching that movie in the theater a guy showed up about a half hour late and sat directly in front of me and proceeded to put a little white plastic baggie over his face and huffed glue for the remainder of the film. All I could smell for the rest of the showing was fumes so my feeble 14 year old brain may have been half in the bag thus adding to the intensity of the movie (at this age I had never touched a drug or a drop of alcohol, I believed the health class propaganda and had decided firmly in my mind that I was never going to touch an illicit substance. (that only lasted a little while longer)) So I watched it again tonite and I guess I wont really know the effect until I try to go to sleep, but I don't think its going to be an issue because nowadays I know the sting of the electric bill and there's no way in hell I'm leaving a light on all nite.

** Those of you who are extraordinarily attentive may have noticed that "Battlefield Earth" was written by L. Ron Hubbard the creator of scientology and "Rollerball" stars the box office poison Chris Klein who used to be engaged to Katie Holmes before she was swept away by Scientology poster boy Tom Cruise. This pseudo connection is purely coincidental.

tags:movies, film, entertainment

Dropping out like the first winter snow.

Well today was the first snow. It makes me think back to the beginning of summer. Being the ultra pessimist that I am whenever its the beginning of summer I just think of how it will be over before I know it and low and behold here I am staring down the barrel of winter and summer has come and gone.

Of course the older I get the quicker time passes, the time since the start of summer has happened so quickly. I saw a show on Discovery quite a while ago that had done a lot of research into age and the perception of the passage of time....

You know when you're a kid and time seems to pass so slowly ( I remember probably my first year of school, the summer seemed so long that I thought that you went to school for a year and then you had another year off). Anyway in the study they found that this is in fact true and that the younger we are the longer we perceive time (that's why kids have such short attention spans and get bored so easily). The study didn't really offer any reasons as to why it is this way but here's the scary part. Our mental middle age is 20 years old. Meaning that from age 0 - 20 will mentally seem like the same amount of time as age 21 - 80. I don't think anyone can deny that after they leave high school time seems to pass much more quickly. I cant imagine what it would be like being 70 something. By this study a year would pass as quickly as a childhood day (or even hour).

tags: winter, science,

Breakfast in the future

One thing I often like to think about after watching a movie is what else has or will happen(ed) to the characters. By watching a movie we accept the reality of the characters being presented to us. By this token I believe that we must also accept that these characters continue to live after the end of the film. In many cases we only see a small slice of their existence or a chapter of their lives but obviously there is a lot more going on than just that.

The Breakfast club was on TV a few days ago and it got me wondering. Did John Bender become a fuck up (more so) in 5 years like the principal had predicted. The Breakfast club is the perfect example of my theory because it shows all the characters for only 1 day of their lives. Since none of the characters die in the film we must assume that they all go on with their lives in a virtually endless amount of possibilities. Virtually endless because we naturally place certain controls on the way the story would progress based on the amount of information given to us in the hour and something on screen (of course all of this applies to the pre story as well. But in that case we do find out information of what has happened and we (rarely) see the future).

This is probably why in 99.9% of the cases a sequel or prequel will never stack up to the original. A part of human nature is to tie up loose ends and have things left in a neat little package so even if it occurs subconsciously we create our own satellite stories to the films we watch (maybe that's what makes a good film good, it engages us and lets us become a part of the process). So when someone comes along and creates a sequel it crushes any and all of what we may or may not have created in the dark regions of our brains. This doesn't apply to trilogies or stories that are meant to span over several films.

You may be thinking I'm crazy and that a movie is just a movie and it begins and ends there but whatever.

tags:movies, films, entertainment

Really Bad Tattoos Part 2

What the hell is that supposed to be? A groundhog?

This is the reason you see some people with their shirts buttoned all the way up to the top button

Why the hell is that dolphin asleep on the sun?

As you can see this tattoo was well worth the pain it would have been getting a tattoo on the fucking palm.


Candy tattoos? Really? Do you really like that shit enough to commit it to yr body for life?

Remember that mediocre movie "The Crow" from like 10 fucking years ago? Well this guy does and he wont forget about it until he dies.

Is that supposed to be Mickey Rourke?

Not Funny! Simply NOT FUNNY!

No Comment.

What's that old expression again? You catch more fish with fire than you do with vinegar? Something like that.

Do you work in a lighthouse? Or do you just like them a lot?

This is about as annoying to look at as getting a mosquito bite so I guess it makes sense.

Did Jeep pay you to advertise for them or are you just an idiot?

you can never have enough tattoos directly on your head. Especially when they're hilarious.

This joke will never get old.

How cute you let your 13 year old design a tattoo for you.

the picture speaks more than words.


Check out:
Really Bad Tattoos Part 1
REally Bad Tattoos Part 3
Really Bad Tattoos Part 4
Really Bad Tattoos Part 5
Really Bad Tattoos Part 6
Really Bad Tattoos Part 7
Really Bad Tattoos Part 8

tags: tattoos, art, misc,

Tarnation by: Jonathan Caouette

Part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip. A psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. The story begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Renee, has overdosed on her lithium medication. He is catapulted back into his real and horrifying family legacy of rape, abandonment, promiscuity, drug addiction, child abuse, and psychosis. As he grows up on camera, he finds the escapist balm of musical theater and B horror flicks and reconnects to life through a queer chosen family. Then a look into the future shows Jonathan as he confronts the symbiotic and almost unbearable love he shares with his beautiful and tragically damaged mother.

The film is both tragic and compelling at the same time. As we see Jonathan grow up we also see his mother deteriorate due to mental illness. In the field of documentaries I think Caoette has brought a fresh vision to the table with the mix of psychedelic elements and pop culture tidbits. Also the soundtrack is great and fits the visual elements perfectly. I recommend this film if for nothing else to get an in depth look at an American family that is not considered A-Typical.

tags: film, documentary, mental illness,

5 shitty sitcoms that begin with the letter M

Now I realize that criticizing sitcoms is redundant. 99.9% (Seinfeld probably being the only exception to the rule) of them are total crap, relying on the lowest common denominator of comedy all intertwined with a nauseating laugh track.

Major Dad
I have long been of the belief that Major Dad is one of the worst sitcoms of all time. The less said about it the better.
















Mama's Family
When I was a kid I remember that there was a half hour after school where nothing good was on. The only show I remember being on during that void was the torturous Mama's Family. What a fucking abomination. I would rather watch that sitcom where the family has a daughter who's a robot.**






Mr. Belvedere
or as anyone who was in it calls it "acting career poison" was a painful spectacle where a fat imperious British housekeeper moves in with a family for... who the hell cares why. If it had turned out to be true that the kid from this show was Marilyn Manson that would have been the best thing about it. But that's like saying "The best thing about regaining consciousness in a ditch after getting hit in head with a shovel and having your wallet stolen is the fact that you're getting some fresh air from being outside."

Murphy Brown
For some reason this show was popular and was on for like 10 years. That's 10 years that the broadcast world will never get back. It disturbs me that these broadcasts are still floating through space somewhere, one day to be picked up by an alien race who will surely plot the earth's destruction for producing such tripe.



My Two Dads
Most people don't remember this one. Here is the premise. 13 years in the past 2 guys were dating the same woman. They reunite in the present at the reading of the woman's will to find out that they are both to share custody of a 12 year old girl because she didn't know who the real father was. The one guy (unfortunately played by Paul Reiser) is the uptight guy and the other guy is the artistic free spirit type. They all move in together. This is one of those bullshit premises that would never fly in today's age of DNA tests and it probably shouldn't have flown late 80's either.

** In case you're trying to remember the show where they had the robot daughter was called "Small Wonder".

tags:TV, Sitcoms, entertainment,

You ain't nothing until someone tries to steal your identity

Yesterday evening I received a phone call from the head office of my bank. They informed me that they were canceling my debit card because they suspected it may have been copied and that I should monitor my accounts to see if anything unwarranted is going on. They couldn't provide me with any specific information except that I had to go to my bank branch to get a new card and find out the details. I just returned from my branch and it turns out that the ATM at the convenience store around the corner from my house is suspected of having one of those false fronts that copies your card and a mini camera video tapes your pin number.

There are a million scams like this out there and I've always thought that it would be really easy to pull a lot of them off. The only problem is I could never bring myself to do any of them because I would feel way too guilty ripping innocent people off. I heard somewhere that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths (that seems high to me) meaning that they have no conscience and are incapable of remorse. These people could commit any crime and not feel bad about it because they literally were unable to. The guy who was going around to all the coffee shops and stealing the Tsunami donations boxes would probably be one of these people although there are definitely other motivations for criminals as well and they aren't necessarily all sociopaths.

Dr. Robert Trestman, a professor of psychiatry and vice chairman at the University of Connecticut Health Center who has done 20 years of research on severe mood and personality disorders, said sociopaths are people who

"really do not demonstrate a sense that you're a human. From their perspective, it's them, and everybody else is just as useful to them as a chair, just as meaningless as a chair. So if you hurt or kill, it's no worse than hurting a chair. It's just the utility of the chair as it relates to them."

If that's 1 in 25 people or 4% of the population that's pretty fucked!

tags:crime, criminals, sociopath

Everyday is Halloween

A friend of my sister's came up with an idea which she relayed to me. It's basically as follows: Imagine someone emigrated to North America from another country (for the sake of this idea lets say a rural area in a country that is not a part of the "western world")Now Imagine that the day they arrived it was Halloween, they would probably think that the way we do things over here is pretty crazy. When she first presented me with this I thought it was funny and imagined this person looking at hordes of children dressed up in bizarre outfits going door to door for an unknown reason. I wondered if the person would think that this is everyday life for us over here. But the more I thought about it the more I came to think that Halloween (to someone from a remote region of a far off land) would be no more strange than how we DO live our everyday lives. If you look at the large scope of western fashion alone (even what the average person wears) it would probably be virtually impossible to tell the difference between most peoples clothes and a Halloween costume. From the middle aged woman with an inch of makeup, a spray on tan, and bouffant hairdo and a dress from 1965 to some decked out goth kid how would a new arrival really be able to tell the difference. I also think that Halloween would probably be a mere blip on the radar compared to all the other sights and sounds of any town USA.

tags:Halloween, ideas, misc

My Soul Stamped "Return to Sender"

An absurd line of thinking I have been exploring lately is this: What if (no matter what religion you subscribe to) when you die the wonderful afterlife you were promised is gone. Now I'm not saying that it didn't exist but that it has either moved or has been "re-formatted". The best analogy I can come up with is this: When a acorn falls off of a tree it hopes to find a nice piece of earth to burrow itself into and start its new life, Now lets say that the earth is long gone and the acorn finds itself landing in a parking lot. The acorn is basically doomed to roll around the parking lot for the rest of its existence. The acorn would have no idea that once it left the tree that the promise land it had always believed would be there would be altered. I think that somewhere in my mind I fear that when I die my soul will float off to wherever its going only to smack right into the proverbial parking lot and spend the rest of eternity floating around on the surface.

This brings me to a another line of thinking. What am In the dark about as a 27 year old. When you are a child you believe in certain absolutes, the most obvious examples are Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, more complex and less absolute are issues like believing that television commercials are public service announcements. When we get older we realize that these things are completely false and its really just a part of growing up etc. But what if this doesn't only happen when we leave childhood but at other parts of our life as well. How do I know (as a 27 year old) that once I hit 30 I will be let in on truth about some of the things I fundamentally hold to be true (also at other points down the line as well). Of course no one who has passed those ages would divulge the truth, the same way you wouldn't (or shouldn't) tell a small child that there is not Santa Claus (they probably wouldn't believe it anyway). So getting back to the original point what if we spend our whole lives believing in something to be an unshakable truth only to hit a paved afterlife.

I am aware that there are some religions that don't believe in afterlife, I was just using the basic Christian "heaven" type framework for my example.

I also realized that this is full of "What If's", that's just the mood I'm in today

tags:ideas, religion, what if