The Consummate Politican Apologizes

Folks, there's been a whole lot a noise made by the Democrats about Impeaching the President. As one of the best apologizers in all of politics, I have been nominated by my Party to officially apologize for the President, since he is incapable of doing so himself. My apology shall clear the President of all wrong doing, even though he did nothing wrong, and we can all forget about the President's brain worms and go back to taking this country for everything she's worth, as God intended. Really, I don't understand what's wrong with asking a foreign country to investigate your political opponent. Is there anything in the Constitution about that? I don't think so. Frankly, I just use the Constitution as a buzzword whenever Democrats talk about gun control, so there might be something in there for all I know, but who cares? What matters is that we support the President no matter what he does, because he is a Republican President and I'm a Republican, and that means that he is above the law and common decency, because he has the support of my voters, and how can I go against the wishes of my voters? This is a pretty sweet gig, you know. I get good healthcare and a nice salary, and a whole staff of people to wait on my every demand. Sure, I gotta lick Mitch's boots every once in a while, and sometimes I lose the lottery and have to bring him a child to consume, but hey, one has to pay one's dues, you know? There is no such thing as hypocrisy in politics, folks.

You know, instead of apologizing for the President, what I should be doing is looking into the atrocities committed by Joe Biden and his family. Whatever the Democrats are accusing Trump of, I guarantee Joe Biden is guilty of it, or Clinton. AOC has probably done it. Maybe even Nancy Pelosi. None of them has clean hands, and if a Democrat's hands are dirty, then that means the dirt between the small, sausage-like digits of Trump's nails isn't there. A wrong by the other side erases the wrong committed by our side. That's justice, that's fair and balanced, and that's the American way. You can quote me on that, folks.

The beauty of Trump's brave new world is that he's completely eradicated morality on the Right. Of course, we have to give credit to Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News for doing the preliminary work, but Trump is the true master, the man who's taken the game to a whole new level. I don't really have to apologize anymore. I just do it because I love it. Partisans in my district will elect me to another term, and the only thing I really fear is a primary challenger. Democracy is dead, folks. Long live the rot of Western Civilization. Believe me when I say that a part of me is really, really sorry.

Albums That Made Me: Good Morning Spider

I don't remember how I first encountered Sparklehorse, though it was probably through allmusic.com or another internet site. I remember being put off by the name (one of my friends derisively called the band "Sparklepony") but there's a lot about Sparklehorse that's off-putting by design. Mark Linkous's modus operandi was writing pop songs and then fucking them up with lots of distortion and cheap keyboards. Take Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man: a great alt-rocker is more or less ruined by static simulating a radio station going in and out of range. Ghost of His Smile is another catchy tune coated in Linkous's signature sound. The whole album made me rethink presentation and quality. You don't need a three-thousand dollar keyboard to make great music; some of Linkous's favorite gear was stuff he found in the trash. Linkous committed suicide a couple years ago, which makes me very sad. He only released four albums, with the last one being a collaboration with Danger Mouse (is that guy still around?) and all are worth listening to, but Good Morning Spider is his best. All tracks are excellent, including the bizarre rocker Pig, the pop song Sick of Goodbyes, and the noise rock of Cruel Sun. My own approach to recording my vocals was influenced by Sparklehorse; like Linkous, I don't particularly like the sound of my voice, so I often distort my recordings. On my Soundcloud page, the song Cossacks probably owes the most to Sparklehorse, with its cheap drum beat and weird vocals. Some influences run deeper than appearances, however, for Sparklehorse is still one of my favorite artists.

Albums That Made Me: Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine probably isn't a band you'd figure influenced Theme Park Mistress, at least based on my Soundcloud page. None of the fifty-eight tracks available display fiery political raps or funk-metal riffing. Nevertheless, that debut album taught me how to play guitar. Tom Morello's unconventional guitar solos were cool, but his heavy single line riffs (played, somewhat surprisingly, on a telecaster) formed the meat of Rage's songs. From Bombtrack to Killing in the Name to Wake Up, Morello teaches a master's class on how to write catchy riffs. Most of these are written in E or drop-D, since Rage pretty much exclusively recorded in the keys of E, D, and A, prompting one friend of mine to complain that all their songs sounded the same. He had a point--AC/DC also had a fondness for the same three keys--but this is rock music, not opera. Simplicity has been built into the medium since Chuck Berry utilized the I-IV-V chord progression. As for the politics of this album, at the time I didn't really care or even know what Zack de la Rocha was talking about, even if I liked the delivery. Rap-Metal was an unholy fusion that resulted in some really bad music, but the fact the de la Rocha wasn't a white boy wearing a backwards baseball cap helped give Rage a level of authenticity that others of the same ilk lacked. And besides Faith No More, most of the the other nu-Metal rappers weren't influenced by the same bands as Rage--Korn and Limp Bizket's detuned sludge didn't evoke Public Enemy, Led Zeppelin, or MC5. So unlike their contemporaries, this album is still very listenable today, even if some of de la Rocha's political rants seem unfocused or random. Personally, I think it's a great album to pump iron to, which would probably make the band sick. Fun fact: I actually first bought this back in the day on cassette tape so I could listen to it out in the garage where I had my weight set.