Stickers

She said she’d got it on “nine twelve” and that it was “one of them fee nickses rising from the ashes” and it got me thinking.

Humans have a basic need to stick things on other things. We stick buildings on property, we stick property on soil. We stick meanings on words. We stick fake stuff on our heads when the real stuff falls out. We do this at a rate which far exceeds anything resembling the instinctual marking of one’s territory and in this respect we are alone in the animal kingdom. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that this lone quality is what separates man from beast, never mind our alleged free will; chimpanzees do not plaster their SUVs and Jettas with logos and dolphins do not get tattoos. Certain livestock do, but that’s no choice of their own — they’re just breathing property, m(e)re things for people to stick other things to.

Cattle are not individuals, but make for good eating, footwear and saddlery. Their lives are valuable, but not in the same way as ours. We are beautiful and unique miniature Gods so, unlike cattle, we need to stick things onto other things to demonstrate our divinely sanctioned individuality. What better way to do this than by going to a place of business, buying a glossy piece of adhesive-backed media, removing the waxy backing and then smacking it onto the back of one’s already unique automobile? Well, there’s always the little blue dolphin ankle tattoo, tribal bicep markings or some tasteful characters from a foreign language with which you have no personal investment.

The ubiquitous lower-back tramp stamp is the corporeal equivalent of a “No Fear” sticker on a jeep; tattoos, while still an artform in conceptual terms, are about as edgy as SUV-driving, middle-class suburbanites embracing dog park Buddhism.

But, yeah.

There is no such thing as individuality, dead since the first time someone uttered either “just be yourself” or wrote “don’t change” in a yearbook. Every possible combination of clothing, accessories, haircut and, yes, stickers has been fed through the cultural garbage disposal of demographic marketing; somebody somewhere is all ready to sell heaps of lowest-bidder ephemera to someone who looks just like you, regardless of how many times you might change your mind in the process — they are always at least 1.97 steps ahead of you.

So just cut to the chase and wear it all on your sleeve. Just go with it. Wear it permanently. Embrace your alotted slot in life. After all, life’s a mall and the hours are getting longer every day.

Get a few generic band pins while you’re at it. Get a life, even.

Just leave the stickers alone for awhile. Support our troops, support a cure, support the ballsack. Knock yourself out, just leave the stickers at home.

Whatever happened to the simple Calvin pissin’ sticker? That, my friends, was a product — entirely bootlegged to satiate the simple buying power of a public that made the F-150 the staple vehicle of the Ford family of fine cars. Where have ye gone? No Fear? No, scared stiff. Petrified.

9/11 Man. Niine Eeeleven. That’s what did it. Pushed the freedom down, man.

Osama Bin Laden killed the almighty pissin sticker and I don’t expect him to apologize any time soon. Still, hope lives on in the eyes of eagles and other such shit as now pollutes the prime rear-window real estate once occupied by that mischievous sprite Calvin and his impish stream of piss. Occupied no more.

Pretty vacant.

Where was I on 9/11? Being a good human and looking at internet pornography and thinking up new and better ways of sticking things to other things.

The Mellifluous Methadone of The Undertones vs. Pop-Punk Junk

…with the stress on junk. These days, bands which get labelled Pop-Punk are purely commercial investments assembled or handpicked by A&Rs looking to strike while the soulless garbage-music iron is hot. Simple Plan, Hedley, Avril fucking Lavigne and any number of other bands I will (hopefully) never see or hear who are currently polluting the airwaves of modern-rock radio and TV with their hypercompressed guitars, stylist-selected American Eagle wardrobes and precious hairdos — staining the legacy of their supposed genre along with their pillowcases and killing the braincells of teenagers at a rate which has solvent abuse green with envy. Ten years ago they would have been N’Sync, The Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys. Err, wait a minute. Make that 98 Degrees,LFO, or some other retread vomit-burp echo of the original article.

I know I know. Easy target. Especially for an embittered pushing-thirty curmudgeon who has yet to fulfill his dream of fronting a kickass rock and roll band. Or, at least, playing rudimentary rythm guitar for one. I’ve got my imaginary set-list though, and lately it’s been heavy on the pop-punk element — mostly rip-offs of the first two Undertones albums.

I checked The Undertones listing on last.fm today and was dismayed to see that the vast majority of listens belong to Teenage Kicks. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Teenage Kicks, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg, or any other overused metaphor.

The first Undertones album is pop-punk heroin — excuse me, pop-punk methadone, designed to ween one off the commercial junk being pushed on unsuspecting ears as of late; A relief from the nasty withdrawls, scabs and Irvine Welsh characters that have been hanging about harrassing your mother for cash.

The ‘Tones are the good shit. Starting with Family Entertainment, my stupid grin spreads from ear to ear and I get a tinglin’ in my extremities. Then the opening rip of Girl’s Don’t Like It is like the proverbial orgasm in my ever-expanding belly. I go on the nod, coming to somewhere around Listening In, worries gone. Depression chased to the hills, faith restored in mankind.

It’s not a long ride, but it’s well satisfying; one that more people need to take and it’s legal. Although in most towns around here, and elsewhere, it’s probably a lot easier to find opiates than it is to find an Undertones album.

So turn off your radio and switch off Muchmusic and MTV. Listen to the Undertones. Or end up sucking dick to score dilaudid.

You’ll thank me.