Bringing the crazy straight to us

Memorial Day may have come and gone without incident (well, nothing we immediately need to be concerned about, at least), but as usual we can't be letting our guards down quite yet. Homeland Security should be one this one, kids: freaking Mayhem is coming to America! That's right: Attila, Blasphemer, Necrobutcher and Hellhammer will be darkening the doorsteps of six cities for what is allegedly their last U.S. tour. An evening with the boys is surprisingly cheap: $25 will get you all the kickass shredding action and live cutting you can handle. You may even get beaned in the head with goat entrails! That, along with a fractured skull, would be the ultimate souvinier!

Sadly, the little Mayhem bio on the Ticketmaster website is riddled with inaccuracies. For instance: "Mayhem was the first death metal band from Norway to make much of an impact in their homeland, which in the early '90s developed a burgeoning underground scene rife with violent, sometimes anti-Christian activity—as evidenced by Mayhem's non-musical history." Non-musical history? Obviously, Ticketmaster is unfamiliar with Pure Fucking Armageddon and "Chainsaw Gutsfuck"! What is the matter with you people?? And duh, Mayhem is BLACK metal, not DEATH metal, dingbats. There IS a difference! The bio also reveals, "When police arrested Grishnackh, they found over 150 kg of stolen dynamite in his house, complete with a plan to blow up a large church on a religious holiday", which is news to me, and frankly, smacks of gossip. OK, I just wanted to say "smacks of gossip". Of course it's true!

So the big question is: am I going? The tour includes shows in New York (12 hour drive), Chicago (6 hour drive) and Springfield, VA (6.5 hour drive), which are all within reasonable proximity of Cowtown. The truth is that I think I'm too afraid. My mom thinks the Count is going to come and get me when he gets out of the can and I really don't want to start anything else up. However, the prospect of writing possibly the blog entry of my career is disturbingly tantilizing. I'll tell you one thing: if Mayhem was touring with Immortal, I'd be in the front row. Why in the world didn't they call up Abbath and Horgh and try to glomb on to some of their tour dates? That is a show that Satan himself wouldn't miss.

You know what would be the absolute best ever? If Immortal and Mayhem toured and then they got into a fight onstage. Imagine the sweet, creative cheap shots that would take place in that deathmatch! The flying shinguards alone would be worth it to see that one!

While we're on the subject, a documentary on Norwegian black metal called "Until the Light Takes Us" is currently in production and is slated to feature some profound interviews with such prominent black metallers as Abbath, members of Emperor and Mr. Awesome himself the Count! The film naturally has it own Myspace page, which features some screenshots and promises to "truly shed light on a movement that has heretofore been shrouded in darkness and rumor and obscured by inaccurate and shallow depictions...featuring exclusive interviews and verité with the musicians, a wealth of rare, seldom seen footage from the "Black Circle"s earliest days."

I am practically wetting myself over this! The release date is scheduled for "sometime" in '07. Rest assured that I will keep you all well-informed on the progress of this highly-anticipated film event. When I get more concrete dates on the unveiling, I'll start getting my tent and camping equipment ready to stake out for this one.

For a little slightly-off-topic fun, I dug up some more stupid death metal band names. Read 'em and weep:
Fuck...I'm Dead
122 Stab Wounds
Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Corpsefucking Art
Pungent Stench
Ribspreader
Goatwhore
Hate Plow
Sadistik Exekution
Circle of Dead Children
Drawn and Quartered

I knew someone was going to steal my ideas. Who are these fuckers and how are they all reading my mind?

Midnight tokers

The terrifying clown pictured at left is actually Heath Ledger, if you can believe it. Don't get all excited like I did and assume Heath is taking the stage as "The Emcee" in Cabaret (which, oh my god, I can't even think about)—he's actually made up as the Joker for the currently-in-production Batman movie, also starring Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. If you put aside the Gacy-ness of the look, it's pretty hella cool.

Per usual practice, my train of thought upon viewing this pic chugged faster and faster before dramatically derailing and killing all coherant notions innocently standing in its' homocidal path. "Hey, the Joker," I thought. "That totally reminds me of the Steve Miller Band!" Then, I had a sudden urge to Photoshop a speech balloon next to Heath containing the words, "I'm a lover and I'm a sinner, but I sure don't wanna hurt no one!" Once again, I've turned a perfectly logical discussion about an upcoming movie into a reference to cheeseball classic rock that no one except me would find amusing. Why stop there? I'm already thinking about midnight tokers, so I may as well post a few stories on some jokers who have hit the news in the last week for some general snark. Sorry about that. But, you know, what the hell. No one's calling me Space Cowboy, the Gangster of Love or Maurice, so why not see how far I can run this lame-ass joke into the ground, shall we?

• People talk about me, baby/Say I'm doin' you wrong
History's grossest sex tape purveyor and all-around douchaholic Scott Stapp was arrested this weekend for throwing a bottle of Orangina at his wife's head. The bottle missed, which means I owe her a bonk on the noggin simply for marrying a prick of such astounding proportions. And is it wrong that I was disappointed that it was a bottle of pop? I was hoping it was a Blatz 40, which would have been way funnier. The other horrifying footnote to come out of this tale is the news that Stapp and the missus live in a $5 million mansion in Boca. That's it: I'm taking a nap on the train tracks.

• Lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey all the time
Am I the only asshole watching
Celebrity Fit Club? If so, I'd like to know what's up with Dustin Diamond. Remember the episode of Saved By The Bell where Jessie got hooked on speed for a half hour and danced around the room screaming "I'm so excited!! I'm...so...SCARED!"? Well, I'm scared and not excited about Screech's alleged career in the porn industry, where he is attemping to profit from a sex tape of his that was leaked to the 'net, as well as market a line of adult toys. Even as I type this, I can feel the bile rising in my throat. You may remember that I rarely turn down an opportunity to view and assess celebrity sex tapes, but this is the second one that I wouldn't watch for a million bucks. I'd rather watch green Paris again than this.

Speaking of which, this raises an interesting, albeit stomach-churning, question. Say you have some vital information that could bring down the church of Scientology, and the Sea Org caught you and is now torturing you as a means to confess your betrayal. You've already had sharp sticks driven under your fingernails, your teeth yanked out and your toes chopped off. As one last means to make you crack, they decide to force you to watch a celebrity sex tape. Now which one would do it: Screech or Stapp? I have no clue how to answer this myself and am tempted to simply choose suicide as an option. We should all carry around an emergency cyanide tablet to eat in case such an instance should arise. It's always best to be prepared.

• Really love your peaches/want to shake your tree
Pretend for a moment that Britney's boy toy of the hour is singing that lyric to her, because it seems like she would go out with someone who would. And pretend this is the face she makes upon hearing this romantic gesture from her latest honey.
Aww, ain't that cute? Actually, no, it's totally not. And since this was taken of Sarah, Clean-and-Sober while she was whooping it up in Miami over the weekend, it seems that she's still shaking her peaches in a lot of trees. Plus, what is up with that budget weave she's sporting? It looks like she cut off Trigger's tail and Fun Tak-ed it to her bald head. Janis from the Muppets' hair looks more realistic than this polyester mop. It kind of reminds me of that scene in Sixteen Candles when the popular bitch gets drunk and gets her hair caught in a door and then Jami Gertz cuts it off with scissors and when she holds it up later, it's like five shades darker than the hair that's left on her head and you can totally tell it's fake. Remember that?

Anyway, while Bargain Weave '07 is funny in itself, the best Shitney story of the week is that during her 12-minutes-of-meh "mini-concert" in Orlando, her stupid CD skipped and left our little lip-syncing tartlet blinking vacantly and unable to summon the hamster in the wheel that powers her pea brain to spring into action and cook up a fast fix. A reader from the delicious gossip site Dlisted saw the whole sordid scene go down:

Tonight's show in Orlando at the House of Blues during "Do Somethin'" Britney's track starting SKIPPING and then the vocals went out. Bitch looked like a deer caught in headlights—looked frantically around to the backstage wings, then turned her back to the audience and kept dancing. I was totals hoping for a wig slip, but OMG wha a M.E.S.S.

There's actually a clip of this floating around YouTube, but sadly it's not close enough for us to see her panic-striken terror, and instead of racing off the stage like Milli Vanilli or breaking into a bizarre jig like Ashlee Simpleton, she simply does what she usually does when trying to distract people from her latest failure: turns around and shakes her ass a little bit. Of course, this drives the stupid crowd into a frenzy. These people should be ashamed of themselves. Who in the world would pay any amount of hard-earned money (let alone hundreds) to see this dumbass lip-sync for less than 15 minutes. Shameful. Let's hope this wonderfully snarky correspondent from Dlisted managed to wedge herself into a pack of skanks and sneak in without paying a dime.

Time to get some lovin' on the run, peeps...

Y Kan't Tori Not B Preetensuss?

I'm saying up front that this post is totally biased because I hate Tori Amos with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns. Her smug, pseudo-intellectual performance art; her rapturous, pseudo-sexual piano playing; her pouty pseudo-feminist posturing...she's just so fucking overdramatic and so, so proud of herself. Not to mention she's behind the worst cover of all time—that godforsaken version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"—that made me want to douse myself with gasoline and turn myself into a human bonfire. It's something I can't even talk about.

I also generally hate concept albums, which always spell trouble because I really don't want my rock stars to think that damn hard about any one topic. Give me all the hate, sorrow and angst you want, but show me your descent into madness in the tabloids.

So I bet you'll be stunned to hear that lil' Tori has just cranked one of these babies out. Make way for the American Doll Posse! If that title alone doesn't make you want to swallow a stick pin, wait until you hear the "concept." Tori performs the songs as five alter-ego characters, each inspired by a Greek goddess. So avant-garde! Just in case you weren't bludgeoned with the Sledgehammer of Meaning, each one of the characters is meant to illustrate a deeper aspect of Tori's oh-so-complicated psyche. If that isn't enough, Tori has ALSO selected five words to match up with each member of the posse, with some deeper meaning of course, and also containing the word Tori: hisTORIcal, terriTORIes, expiraTORIal, sanaTORIum and, naturally, cliTORIdes. It's all just so vaginal that even Maude Lebowski is starting to get a bit uncomfortable.

So without further ado, let's meet these bitches, shall we?:

• Isobel, a photographer/political activist based on Artemis; has a terrifying blonde bowl cut and dresses like Dorothy on The Golden Girls; quote: "The place I hold in a group of women is that of a Lens. [sic] A lens that records an actual happening. Objectivity can only be attained if you are open to another perception, even one that is contrary to your own."

• Clyde, a pouty art gallery drone with orange shadow, who "wears her emotional wounds on her sleeve," based on Persephone; quote: "When I meet a person I try and see not their mask, with it’s [sic] defenses, but what’s underneath...if no one sees their potential then they may not ever see it themselves and that would be tragic."

• Santa, a passionately sensual white-haired cheetah based on passionate goddess Aphrodite who is passionate about being a woman and is also really, really senusal; quote: "No one gets to be born a butterfly, not even Butterflies. [sic] The only way then to achieve beauty is through slime."

Pip, a "confrontational warrior woman" with punk-via-the-Ashlee-Simpson hair and Toni Basil for a stylist based on the goddess Athena; quote: "To think that some cheerleaders don’t have razors in their snatch [sic] is to be foolishly unarmed." (OK, WHAT?? Aww, sounds like someone got cut from varsity!)

The final doll is Tori herself—a complex embodiment of all of these characters! And with such great hair! Maybe she can take Britney wig shopping some time.

I bet you're wondering where I got quotes from each of these ladies. Surprise! Each character has "her" own blog! And even though they are all meant to be separate entities with their own ideas, they are all relentlessly wordy, incoherant and lack the same basic understanding of punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure.

Of course, Tori has some complicated, existential explaination for all of this absurdity: "What I'm trying to tell other women is they have their own version of the compartmentalised feminine which may have been repressed in each one of them. For many years I have been an image; that isn’t necessarily who I am completely. I have made certain choices and that doesn’t mean that those choices are the whole story. I think these women are showing me that I have not explored honest extensions of the self who are now as real as the redhead." Wow, that, like, blew my mind! I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother! This totally stupid quote illustrates one of the things I hate the most about Tori: her fake feminism. In case you haven't noticed, Tori is attractive. And skinny. And loves to have her picture taken in super-high-fashion getups, looking smugly pleased with herself. Kinda negates all of her pooh-poohing of the fashion industry, criticism of cheerleaders and whatnot. When you strip it all down, Tori is just a music-world version of CosmoGirl: gussied up as some ostentatious prom-queen revolutionary who is fighting for women while simultaneously embodying every stereotype she claims to be against. Plus, didn't she do all this I'm-A-Complicated-Woman-Look-At-All-My-Facets-And-Let's-Play-Dress-Up-At-The-Cover-Shoot already?

As if this contrived mess weren't mind-boggling enough, we are also treated to a barrage of grandious artsy-fartsy lyrics, including the profound gems "I am a MILF/Don't you forget", "Victory is an elusive whore", and "I salute to you, commander, and I sneeze, 'cause I have now an allergy to your policies it seems". She's kidding, right? People consider this woman a genius? Well, I guess she did rhyme "sneeze" with "seems", so what do I know?

The album has been getting decent reviews, but with a few delicious slags thrown in. From Entertainment Weekly: "Posse is a conceptual wreck." From Stylus, who rated it D+: "Downright stifiling...Talking about 'girls' was reasonable ten years ago, but Amos’s strain to identify with the twenties decade of life or obsess over her own gets old after nine albums. It would be refreshing to hear honest talk about one’s forties instead of glamorous, plastic doll-face parodies of it." From NOW: "Emotive ivory tickler Tori Amos once again proves she's the musical equivalent of your one friend who just says the same shit over and over whenever you have a conversation. That is to say, on her latest the angsty icon has all but phoned in an unbalanced, redundant and unnecessarily bloated 68-minute album." My personal favorite comes from The Onion AV Club, which brilliantly compares each of the dolls to the Spice Girls and Tori to Garth Brooks' infamous alter-ego Chris Gaines! Ah, you can always count on the Onion to put the tchotches in their place!

Fun fact: Tori's real name is Myra Ellen Amos, which is far catchier than her adopted "I really, really, REALLY wanted to be a cheerleader!" moniker. Poor Tori: so self-involved, so unable to laugh at herself, so obsessed with appearing creative and intellectual. When your id overrides your super-ego, this is the result. Have a laugh and see what happens...and for the love of god, stay away from the Nirvana!

Most beautiful bullshit

I'm so glad that People Magazine recently unveiled their 50 Most Beautiful People issue. I was desperately in need of breathless reminders that Halle Berry and Patrick Dempsey (who does nothing for me, by the way) are born of a nether world filled with high-cheekboned creatures with six-packs and pert boobs who always have shiny, happy hair, big teeth and glowing tans. I don't know about you, but I forgot. Good thing People reminded me because I was starting to get a little too cocky.

It's so refreshing to read how beautiful celebs have insecurities, just like us! People gives us the lowdown with a healthy spattering of "What, ME sexy?" comments from the winners. "My hair is such a disaster. I never blow-dry!" coos It Girl Scarlett Johansson. "I'm always examining [my skin] with a large mirror and always looking at the flaws!" admits songstress Katherine McPhee. "Some people are effortlessly glamorous and sexy; for me, a lot of that stuff is difficult!" laments Oscar darling Reese Witherspoon. Such brave admissions from these icons of perfection. I feel better already!

My favorite part is the requisite secondary feature on how it doesn't matter if you have dry skin or stubborn extra pounds or gray hairs because these flaws can be beautiful, too! Says country sweetheart Carrie Underwood, "I had a couple of freckles on my face that I didn't like, so I had them removed and I remember one kid said, 'Now I can't play connect-the-dots on your face anymore!' I'll never forget that." Which is officially the stupidest quote ever. Has anyone ever besides Cosmo ever said freckles are unattractive? Carrie Underwood is a fucking moron. Bo got robbed.

My second favorite part is the yearly Glam Starlets Without Makeup! photo spread. As if we are actually being led to believe that any of these whores would seriously appear in front of a real color camera without their faces on. All the pictures are either black and white, solar flared or taken at an "artsy" angle...didn't fool me, assholes! The quotes in this segment are even funnier.
Jessica Biel: "There's a vulnerability to being photographed without having your eyes defined or your eyebrows filled in!"
Jessica Alba: "Things I was made fun of for--thick lips and a curvy body--got better as I got older!" (And, yeah, right. I'm sure Jess was a regular Dawn Weiner as a teen.)
Eva Longoria: "Tony [Parker, her fiancé] says he loves the way I look when I wake up in the morning, which is the reason why I'm marrying him!" (Really? I thought it was that kick-ass rap album he just put out.)

Anyway, the real reason I wanted to lament on this nonsense is because this year's list of unmatched beauty includes my nemisis Pete Wentz. That's right. That filthy emo ape is one of the most beautiful people alive, if these doofs are to be believed. When I think of the words "Wentz" and "beautiful" in the same sentence, it's more along the lines of: "If Pete Wentz got swept away in a river of molten hot lava, it would be a beautiful miracle." It's bad enough they continually try to push off Aniston and Orlando Bloom as hot, but this is beyond the realm of anything approaching logical. What's worse is that they actually include lessons from Petey on how to correctly apply "guy liner". Time to get a new keyboard; I just puked all over mine. If he wants some nice dark circles around his eyes, I'll be glad to hook him up with a new look.

In the meantime, the best prettifier of all is simply to remember that just being you is always enough. "Smiling is definitely one of the best beauty remedies!" says toothless meth addict Rashida Jones, daughter of model Peggy Lipton. "Outward appearance is just secondary to the confidence that I feel inside!" reveals Jessica Simpleton, through a sinister case of cyctic acne. "It's about the whole picture and just being comfortable with who you are!" advises a crosseyed and clubfooted Rachel Bilson. Thanks, girls!

You know what I think is hot? Sweat socks. Especially when they are pulled up to the knees and paired with dirty rotten All Stars. Don't ask me why, but I love that shit. I'm glad none of the People beauties have adopted this style because I really don't want everyone and their brother running around like that, and the look only really works on a select few people. I prefer to keep the RockitQueen-approved styles separate from the main drag, if you know what I mean. If Pete Wentz starts wearing them, I'm going on strike.

Battle Royale: Can Dethklok kick Mayhem's ass?

I fully expect that any of you who have ever seen Adult Swim's brilliant cartoon "Metalocalypse" immediately think of me whenever it comes on. And if you do, you're automatically my favorite person. If you haven't seen it, "Metalocalypse," is an animated series that follows the adventures of Dethklok, an American/Scando death metal band. Translation: pure genius and pretty much the most RockitQueen-approved show EVER. I'm not sure exactly when it comes on, but you can watch all of the eps on YouTube, which is probably better anyway so you can rewind the hilarity again and again. As an added bonus, regular Stupid & Contagious readers can make a game of looking for the black metal references throughout the series (such as the movie producer named "Grishnackh" and the fast food restaurant called "Burzum Burgers"). See...inside jokes that you understand thanks to this very blog!

So now comes the real reason for this post, besides blowing smoke up the ass of the Cartoon Network: could fake animated metal band Dethklok kick the asses of real-life metal band Mayhem? Through careful compare-and-contrast research in a highly scientific study, I've measured each of the members of Dethklok against their Mayhem counterparts and determined who would come out of each matchup on the top of the heap. Who will win the final battle royale between the bands? Balls out, mano y mano, no killing allowed because that's too easy. Place your bets and let's get ready to rumblllle!

Nathan Explosion vs. Dead (vocals)
Nathan: Narrated a Shakespere book-on-tape entirely in metal voice; forced band to record in nuclear submarine in Mariana Trench for darkest possible sound; accidentally unleashed mythological troll on Finland by singing ancient folk tune; only wears underwear 65% of the time; kind of looks like a cross between Peter Steele and Robert Trujillo.
Dead: Buried clothing in dirt for grimy, bug-infested stage look; carried around dead bird in plastic bag so he could smell "stench of death" at any time; once cut himself on stage so badly he had to be taken to the hospital; committed suicide by slashing his wrists AND shooting himself; left note reading "excuse all the blood."
Advantage: Nathan Explosion, because Dead's suicide is far too emo.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf vs. Euronymous (lead guitar)
Skwisgaar: Band pretty boy; screws tons of chicks; headbutted a Danish prince; tried to host pay-per-view guitar clinic but swelled up due to cilantro allergy and couldn't play; refers to supermarket as "food library"; kind of looks like Daniel Lioneye.
Euronymous: Ran gothy record store and gothy record label; lead goth of black metal "inner circle" in Oslo; took photos of a freshly dead Dead, put said photos on EP cover, allegedly ate Dead's brains and made jewelry out of his skull; met bloody demise at the hands of his bass player while in his underwear.
Advantage: Euronymous, because god damn, that guy's scary.

Toki Wartooth vs. Blasphemer (guitar)
Toki: Won award from Make-a-Wish-ish foundation then refused to visit cancer kid; best pals with Dr. Rockso the Rock n' Roll Clown; killed Christian rock singer in freak mosh pit accident; kind of looks like Jerry Cantrell with a fu manchu.
Blasphemer: Doesn't do much; lives in Portugal.
Advantage: Toki, pending any good dirt on Blasphemer.

William Murderface vs. Count Grishnackh (bass)
Murderface: Played bass with his penis; owns diamond-encrusted codpiece; has side band called Planet Piss; appeared on "Celebrity Spelling Bee" and spelled "technicality" p-i-s-s-fuck-you; referred to Dr. Rockso as a "painted dildo"; guest-starred on sitcom "Dating Penelope"; licenced notary; kind of looks like a mix of all members of Black Sabbath.
The Count: Allegedly burned down historic stave churches in Norway; currently serving extended prison sentence for stealing station wagon, stockpiling weapons and running from law; writes endless wordy missives about everything from folklore to his domain name; and, oh yeah, killed his bandmate.
Advantage: Murderface, because he's my favorite member of Dethklok. And because the Count is a jackass.

Pickles vs. Hellhammer (drums)
Pickles: Former member of glam rock outfit Snakes & Barrels; drinks a lot; shot at comedy club audience when they failed to laugh at his jokes; accidentally maimed legendary actor with forklift; kind of looks like current, dread-era Axl.
Hellhammer: Only original member of Mayhem still left; member of about 18 other bands and played with Immortal; former mental hospital attendant.
Advantage: Hellhammer, because dreads are not metal.

Dethklok vs. Mayhem
Dethklok: 12th largest economy in the world; drove band shrink to madness; sliced the London Philharmonic in half with a laser beam; backstage rider menu includes mashed potatoes in the shape of a dead lady; plays music so depressing, audience was driven to mass suicide; starred in horrible big-budget blockbuster "Blood Ocean", but set premiere party on fire to halt release; survived multiple assassination attempts; song titles include "Briefcase Full of Guts", "Inner Child Tied and Beaten in My Trunk" and "Crush My Battle Opponent's Balls"; is a cartoon band.
Mayhem: Currently in their 21st year; banned from Malaysia and Indonesia; one member murdered, another member jailed for the murder, another member dead of suicide and another member confined to mental institution after suicide attempt; currently features only one remaining original member, and it's the drummer; song titles include "Impious Devious Leper Lord", "Chainsaw Gutsfuck" and "In the Lies Where upon You Lay"; is a real-live band.
Advantage: Dethklok. Despite the hardcore-ness of Mayhem, Dethklok defines the fine line between stupid and clever by bringing the rock and, despite their endorsement deals, still managing to consistently drive their fans to suicide in their honor.

WINNER: DETHKLOK!
Sorry, Mayhem. Maybe next time. Start hanging around with a rock n' roll clown to boost credibility, please.