You know when you’re just minding your own business watching some perfectly good nonsense on television, or listening to much the same on the radio and then some gimmick-laden, shtick-y shtickster appears out of nowhere and involuntarily you’re overcome by a massive eyeroll, coupled with an active gag reflex, mixed with an inner scream – the kind that can only be caused by a thousand fire ants moving up your thigh?
Yeah, these are the people responsible for my current jackass allergy.
Muzak’in White Boys
John Mayer—Take another listen to that douchemania song Your Body is a Wonderland. Doesn’t it sound like he’s singing while brushing his tongue? Like he’s got some sort of throat palsy? Now, of course, hating John Mayer isn’t a new thing. We all hate John Mayer. He’s the reason why white boys never look cool playing the guitar anymore. Just look at him! But seriously it’s his shtick. That smarmy, pseudo doe-eyed, bullshit artist, “I’m too hip and cool to discuss things on your level” amount of asinine fuckery that simply makes you taste bile as you gaze upon his contorted punch-factor face.
Michael Bublé – I’d like to not go into a bookstore, an eatery, or some other consumer-based place and hear the top ten hits sung by Michael Bublé. Yes, yes, I get it. Frank Sinatra! Crooning! Jazz Swing Beats! Urgh. Please. Buy your grandmother tickets, take her down to the Sunday Jazz Brunch in Central Park or whatever and enjoy this blood-stoppingly boring singer, but please leave me alone to find socks in Target. ‘Kay? Thanks.
Josh Groban – He looks like a weasel. Sorry, but he does. And when he opens his mouth and that big sound comes out…I think congested weasel with a chest cold. I’m no longer impressed by the geektastic guy with the curly hair, unassuming looks, and staggering awkwardness who can belt out Ave Maria. And now, yes now, people are working with him on things ironically. He’s doing some Funny or Die stuff to capitalize on his newly found ironic hipster-cred and his popularity with the dinner and diaper set I assume? No, this won’t work. I much prefer you be trapped in an unfortunate Scandinavian vest and hunter green corduroys, since we can all acknowledge that you won’t ever penetrate the wall of cool… Unless you marry someone interesting, and by interesting we don’t mean Zooey Deschanel (We’ll get to her later).
Dave Matthews Band – You know who we thought was cool? The Dude from The Big Lewbowski. You know who annoys us because they believe they’re the equivalent to a slacker, hippie, beach bum, tokin-up, singing Dude who pronounces words like Crash… Craaaa-aassshhhh, it’s you guys, you Dave Matthews flip-flop and Sun Jammer shorts wearing jerks. You are the most frustrating thing in this genre since Hootie had a freaking blowfish. And you just don’t understand that when I haven’t had my morning coffee, when I’m waiting in a crowded line to order one, and I hear you say, “Crasssss-ssssshhhh into me” I want to shove an acoustic guitar into your spleen. Sadly, I think you’d still find a way to strum right along through your sternum, since that insufferable song is cursed to live forever in coffee establishments, and anywhere they sell trail mix.
It’s Magic, Duh.
David Blaine and All Other Illusionists – Street magic. Don’t you love it? This is such a lost art form. Yes, making people believe that you have magically made their watch appear in their pocket, or that you can breathe in a grave six feet under the earth while floating in a plastic bubble of salt water. This is true entertainment. No, no this is a time waste for chumps and people who buy that caricature art in Times Square! We’d like you to either stop all of this immediately or really go to Vegas and sign up for the lifetime Caesars Palace retirement plan, because trust us, we won’t ever go there to see you. Not ever.
Across the Pondscum
Ricky Gervais – Brit humor. Can be wonderful. How many times can we watch Eddie Izzard’s tea and cake bit? Like a million times! How many times can we watch Ricky Gervais’ one overgrown tooth chomp down in his mouth as he tells unfunny jokes either in a painfully boring stand up routine, at an award show, in a cameo on television, or while jogging and showing us his slimmer waistline…like once, and now we’re upset the remote is all the way on the other chair. Sigh.
Russell Brand – You’ve got us all fooled. You did one movie with that How I Met Your Mother dweeb (these guys get their own listicle) and now all of America is supposed to enable your stardom? Really? Bang My Wookie Cock, or whatever your book was named. You’ve got just too much synergy here in the states, mate. You’ve been in movies, done animated voices, written books, hosted award shows and even married some blue-haired, candy-titted, screeching Christian. That’s like full-on domination! I know your plan, you hairy Redcoat. Where’s my frigging musket?
Rocky Horror Picture Pop Starring Lady Gaga, Ke-zapf dingbats-ha, Katy Perry, LMFAO, Black Eyed Peas, Bruno Mars
Pop and “dance music” has been around forever. We get it. We know. However, once your gimmick starts to penetrate your very black soul and stay there like a festering parasite…it’s time to try something else. Like anything else. Like obscurity. Like playing gigs only in Bora Bora? Like trying to assault us less with your visual shenanigans, your weird mouth babble, your horrendous clothing choices, your patent reliability on the creative vision of performers who had your shtick twenty-five years ago, your silly, silly antics that involve more unwarranted theatrics than a Kardashian in front of a film crew, and finally the abhorrent sound your songs make after they’ve been played ad nauseam until we want to gouge our eardrums out with a road flare, and the accompanying visual goo that transforms your videos into cheesy, stupid, brightly-colored, eyeball mashing dreck! Less of this, please. Signed, Everyone, Everywhere.
Movie Queens of Anarchy Featuring Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Zooey Deschanel
Remember when you guys were charming and popular? Maybe you were a bit counter-culture, maybe you did some amazing things once upon a time and stunned us with your acting prowess, or maybe you had that little bit of indie zing that made you stand out in a pack that once included Thora Birch (what happened to her?) and Scarlett Johansson (she was swallowed by her tits). But now, yes, now, you’ve become annoying and out of touch, or just plain irritating to look at or (especially) to hear sing in a commercial. It’s not because you’ve just suddenly fallen out of favor – this has been happening gradually over some time. Perhaps it’s some snide comments you’ve made in interviews, maybe it’s a website that you run named after soiled hair gel, or rotten fish plankton, or maybe it’s one of those things coupled with watching your big-eyed or smug face staring back at us blankly through a film camera. Either way, we’d like you to stop, and especially stop telling us that we should take a voyage to eat pasta, or watch you make shrimp tacos, or see you dance like an oafish spazz in some new television show. There are more important things for us to do like hope our rack looks as good as Helen Mirrens’ at her age.
Kardashians, An Empire Built on One Ass
Just how many people can one ass feed? Apparently something like nine people. I’ve literally never seen an ass be responsible for the financial proliferation of a single family until they are so engraved in our consciousness that the singular solitary moves of said ass, and said ass’ family members must be seared on our brains by tabloids, billboards, magazine covers, and that half-man-half-woodland goat, Ryan Seacrest. And not only are the ass-family foisted upon us, but so are their significant others, like that douche-titan Scott, a failed NBA champion winner, and the owner of 1,000 Weaties boxes from 1978. When will it ever stop? When will the ass domination cease to happen? Now that it’s trying to tie the knot with a second-hand New Jersey Nets player? Or will some sort of badonkadunk climate effecting event need to occur wherein we’ll all need to take cover? I’m guessing it’s the latter. Yes, definitely the latter.
There are more…oh, so much more, but that’s all for this installment. Tell me, who are the shtick monsters you’ve witnessed?
