The Jerk of the Year Award

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Guys, this has to stop.  It’s like, “Hey, Best Friend Ben, you’re an artist who’s also dumber than dirt with zero self awareness or accountability; why not just throw your life away competing for attention with artists who have both legitimate talent for aesthetics and something insightful to say?”  And to this I say, k thx.  Who wants to get their MBA with me?  This time, not in the fine arts.

Wow, these Brits just don’t seem to know when to stop, which is a good thing, mind you.  While we’re over here still trying to determine if drinking cough syrup and mumbling on about spending procedures can be considered “high art” or not, the other side of the pond is taking every single important sound aesthetic (the good ones, that is) of the last twenty years and baking a casserole that both burns your tongue and melts in your mouth all at once.  It’s like sucking on a helium balloon except instead of making your voice higher, it makes you say the most interesting things I’ve ever heard in my sad, pathetic life.

Hi, my name is Best Friend Ben and I dream in memes.

Sometimes, I'll ask a question in a public place that I know the answer to just to strike up a conversation: "Hey, do you know where the Starbucks is?  I have an asinine half baked vaguely political statement to embarrass myself in front of some unfortunate bastards with and I have no self control."  Most of the time they just look at me, especially in Seattle where it's hard to tell who is serious or not (the answer is everyone).

This week’s reason to live is presented by the aesthetic of Drive making succulent love with the ghost of vapor wave while being filmed by Com Truise.  When your dad asks you why rock and/or roll is dead, just throw on this album.  I’d write more but I’m trying to determine whether or not I should even keep writing music or just throw the whole thing out for a career in juggling in one of those weird redneck hippy communes in central Arkansas.  RIP my balls.

Imagine having being born into a family that can give you piano lessons at age six.  Imagine participating in youth concerts, high school band, state sponsored arts programs, extensive scholarships, hours of rehearsal and performance.  Now imagine throwing that shit away for your new dolphin trap MDMA weekend trip to PCB for your annual “bang everything that moves” getaway with the boys and tell me who is the wiser. Just tell Mom that you’ll be “dolphin splashing when you whip it” in some redneck Floridian utopia and she’ll be like “You’re 32 and this wasted life you’re parading neither shames nor amuses me so I’ll see you at Christmas”.

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Feel the waves blast over your depressing and marginally useful scalp.  Pick up pieces of sandy earth with those horrible, stubby digits.  Push your feet into course, damp muck and please just shut the fuck up about it.  Can’t you see I’m krautrocking out with my existential crisis out?  If you’re ever trying to figure out what to put on to drown out your pathetic and ill advised attempts at “making love” to whatever unfortunate deplorable you manage to drag back to your gamey air mattress, just pop this bad boy on and don’t bother putting it on repeat.  You’ll do great, tiger.

Thanks, Eric.  You really outdid yourself.  I MEAN IT

Some of you may be wondering what the song on that 5 second Youtube Red ad is.  I know I did.  Remember when we couldn’t just Google something to know the answer?  If we didn’t know, we probably wouldn’t know, at least not anytime soon.  Try to remember that when your parents ask for directions or what a merkin is.  Life was tough back then.  Actually, it was better because you weren’t expected to know everything at a moments notice.  Anyway, I can’t figure out how Mura Masa did that vocal effect.  The kids in this video have undoubtedly Googled it and are wondering why I even bothered to ask.

Holy hell, has this guy ever beaten me to the punch.  It’s just not enough these days to write, record, film, publish, and promote a song: You have to de-tune every instrument, smear whatever grime is available across your face and lips, smash acidic fruit onto your wide open eyelids, and lay on your back in some remote swamp staring at the sun and awaiting your rescue helicopter, all while collecting that fat $17 royalty every year.  Anyway, this guy gets it.  Not sure what’s going on with his buddy though, he’s scaring all the ducks.

Remember that Postal Service album that was on every tech type advertisement 10 years ago?  Wait, maybe that was just for UPS (”what can brown do for you?” lol).  This is what it would have sounded like if it was not sung by a castrato with a real bass guitar in a state with recreational dispensaries.  Is that the singer on the cover?  I’m too old to figure out anyone’s sexual orientation these days so please just leave me a hateful DM letting me know I’m out of touch.  THANKS

“We’re gonna do some medleys off the tape that’s for sale here, but I ain’t plugging it cause this here is some kind of art thing, man, and it’s not commercial...” udders the Deacon, eyes fixed on his cowbell and tin bucket.  I was seven years old when the Atlanta based poet passed tragically in an auto accident in 1992 but if I were thirty years older, I’d have gotten an Omni beer and a steak as big as a steering wheel with him somewhere close.  “PIGS EAT SHIT ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS A PLATE”.

This is a hell of a group.  Eric, the singer, does this thing where he piles on whatever garbage he finds from the ravine outside my apartment and then punches himself in the face for fifteen minutes before the show to get in his zone.  It’s kinda endearing, really.  Six dudes recorded the choral vocals for the bridge in his old apartment and didn’t even wear headphones.  It’s like DIY except you say it like a backhanded command.  They used to close every set by playing this song but the new drummer, Scheetz, put a stop to that by throwing his drums at the audience every time he hears the band play something in a similar key.  These dudes make their own rules or, at the very least, buried the rule book somewhere deep in the same ravine.  Maybe that’s where the master copy of our new single is, too.  Eric, you big meanie.  How about sharing that ravine with the rest of us who pay rent?

Every single time I go to a Herimit's (as I call them) show, Ty invites me onstage to dance like a stroke victim.  This isn't particularly important but it does bring us to today's topic: Buzzfeed is like E! with the intellectual integrity and attention span of a guinea pig sitting politely under a blanket.  The only remedy is to briskly trot headfirst into oncoming traffic dressed like a doughnut hole. Just make sure that when you do, this song is runs through your head and someone is there to make a gif of your demise for your colleagues with the mental aptitude of one of those "Nashville" actors.  Maybe it'll make it to Buzzfeed!  This band is awesome.