this isn't cool... this sucks...

Flipping channels tonight (something I rarely do in the TiVo age) I stumbled across MTV's Headbanger's Ball (yes, there is still such a thing) and caught the second half of some kind of awful heavy-metal answer to "We Are The World" from the '80s featuring everyone from Dio to David St. Hubbins, with lots of members of Quiet Riot (and way too much hair spray) in between.

It all seemed vaguely familiar, until I saw the name of the benefit - "Hear 'N' Aid" and it all became... well, slightly more than vaguely familiar.

Anyway... it was a very Beavis and Butthead moment.

Then it got to more "contemporary" headbangy music of a type that I wasn't even sure anyone was still making anymore. It was bad. So... bad.

Which reminds me!! Does anybody out there listen to "System of a Down"? Because I'm having a problem. It's a recurrance of my "Flippance Detector" problem. I think I've mentioned it before. The latest... I was driving in the car and listening to the hard rock station I discovered during NPR pledge week, and they played this song... and I was utterly perplexed. At first I thought it was like... Weezer or something... because the lyrics were all... "It's the most loneliest day of my liiiiife... yeah, i'm so loneleeeeey, oh a day like this shouldn't even exiiiiiiist... the most lonely of days ever that waaaaaaaas" and then the guitar would go CHOONK-CHOONK-CHOONK "the most loneliest daaaaay" CHOONK! CHOONK! CHOONK!!... and then the guitar solo went "wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle...." and all the while I'm getting angrier and angrier and thinking - "IS THIS A JOKE???"

Because seriously... if it was a joke, then it's the funniest thing since Spinal Tap. But if it's not a joke... god help me... it's the most horrifying pile of crap that has ever been recorded. And then they back-announced the song as being by "System of a Down" ... which from what I know about them, doesn't really seem like a band with any kind of sense of humor. See... if it WAS Weezer, then I would KNOW it was a joke... but now I'm not sure and I'm very very afraid that it's NOT a joke. I mean - I know most "emo/screamo" stuff sucks... but... it doesn't suck THIS bad... does it?

I need a 19 year old boy around to tell me that it's a joke, becuase these kids today with their irony.... I just can tell anymore.