Thursday, May 27, 2010

no wolf, uh...no part?

Yesterday, in the sock drawer, one of my beloved dogs of war left me a link to a youtubed newscast about the gangs or ‘packs’ of werewolves that are cropping up around San Antonio, and presumably elsewhere. That’s right; werewolves. Wow.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, these kids out there, presumably inspired by Taylor Lautner and his ilk have taken to fashioning themselves into ‘werewolves,’ which, to the best of my understanding means that they dress like they’re in Kill Hannah and hang raccoon tails off the backs of their belts. Now, I know what those of you who are lucky enough to have watched the broadcast are thinking: what about the animal style contact lenses, the leashes and the fangs, eh? To that, I’ll respond: ‘um, I think the dudes in Kill Hannah do that shit already too.’

So, anyway, here we are, beautiful San Antonio, just going to school with a bunch of kids who align themselves with werewolfdom. Whatever. I mean, when I was a kid there were vampires all over the fucking place, and they dangled vials of blood and shit like that off their belts. That’s gross. A fucking Daniel Boon hat tail is pretty fucking benign compared to some blood. Blood’s gross. The tails, while kind of gross, are really just more like those rabbit feet that greasers have on their keys: dorky, but likely not swimming with hep B.

The other thing: there are STILL vampires, and these turds are nowadays looking at the new jack Twilight vampires (who apparently don’t really espouse evil and all that, or some such nonsense) and calling them phonies.

Let’s pause to think about this for a second, eh? You identify yourself as a vampire, but of course, you’re not really a vampire, as vampires are, um…not real, but you’re calling someone else’s little dress up version of makebelieve playtime a phony? That takes balls, man. Big, incandescent, white, veiny balls that are doubtless pumping delicious blood through them…but I’m getting off topic. We’re not talking vampires. We’re talking werewolves. My point is just that the dorks that look like they’re standing in line at the My Chemical Romance show who impersonate imaginary characters are hardly new.

Okay, so there are some pretty great things in this little ‘expose’ like when one of the werewolves kind of outs his school’s science program as half-assed when he explains that everyone has a little animal in them, no one is just human. You just gotta look for it, man, or when the news team makes this wild sort of accusation by way of omission about a kid beheading his neighbor’s dog and keeping the skull. They never come out and say this, by the way. They say the dog went missing and then they say the kid was found with the skull, and then they show the kid holding a big ass ceremonial He-Man style sword (something he probably shoudn’t have posed for the news cameras with). They definitely don’t say the kid was arrested, but they let you think it. Crazy wolf kids! They’ll kill your pets (maybe)!

Oh, then there’s the part where the girl in the mall calls other people ‘posers’ while hanging out with a bunch of kids dressed like Metro-Station emulating wolves outside the Chik-Fil-A at the mall food court. That’s pure poetry.

In fact, that’s maybe the best part of this whole culture: the aforementioned decision to call people who somehow aren’t pretending to be part dog or part bat the posers. I mean, I generally hate the term poser. I’ve discussed this before. I think there’s nothing so toxic as mocking someone for their newfound enthusiasm for something that’s outside their realm of expertise. It’s the hallmark of the weak, uninspired, the jealous and cowardly, frankly.

However, when it’s a teenage girl pretending to be a werewolf or a vampire or a mermaid or whatever calling me a poser because I haven’t looked into my soul and found my half animal avatar, well, that’s when it gets awesome. It’s especially awesome because she just doesn’t know. I’m like her. I’m part Santa.

That’s right, kids. When I was in highschool, me and my fellow ‘gifters’ used to hang out behind the petstore and smoke cigarettes and dress up like our own unique brand of half mopey teens, half santas. We were pretty cool, but people just didn’t get us back then. It’s funny that we’ve come all this way only to be called posers by the werewolves. Oh well, you become what you hate, I guess.

And speaking of that, that’s the worst part of this whole newscast: the actual newscast itself. There’s nothing new or even terribly remarkable about these kids but the level of condescension on the part of these newscasters is outrageous. As in: (snicker snicker) ‘everyone needs to be part of SOMETHING, I guess.’ (Snicker).

I want to yell, “Hey asshole! You’re a fucking small market local tv ‘news’ man and you’re reporting about highschool kids following a trend. These are teenagers who have nothing to do and are cycling through their identity options before hopefully not winding up soulless narcissist talking monkeys who are qualified only to wear suit jackets, read off cards and wear makeup all while not-so-subtly mocking children (who are going through one of the toughest periods that life offers, mind you) on crappy local television.”

What’s with the attitude? These kids aren’t hurting anyone, at least according to their parents, teachers, and the pudgy kid with the cat eyes just chilling at the penny fountain by the Macys. They’re not a story. They’re, in the words of the broadcast ‘not emos, not goths’ but hey man, they’re not REALLY that different from that shit. They’re dumb kids who are into a movie. For me it was santas. For the next kids, who knows? Centaurs? Robots? Whatever. I’m sure it’s gonna be strange and newsworthy, whatever it is.

Yeah, in closing, I’d rather my kids grow up to be werewolves than tv ‘journalists’ any day of the fucking week.
That said, those werewolves are dorky as shit.

19 comments:

Unknown said...

Lose Your Illusion Pt 2....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI5H82Tmy0E

Iron Chic is cool and all but still.


Out in the West suburbs, kids are dressing up like lizards according to my younger sister. I guess they do the whole tongue splitting like a reptile and stuff. Get spikes in their hair. 16 year olds with way too much time.

Maggie said...

dgibby, that sounds like stuff that went down in Batman Beyond (at the risk of exposing my inner nerd). Why lizards?!

If I was going to pretend I was half-anything, it'd be half venture-capitalist.

Garfield Roscoe said...

What is wrong with the youth? They should be way too high on the pot to put this much effort into playing 'dress-up.'

Scott said...

half centaur would be half of something that is already half horse and half man, to me, that makes 3 halves of awesome

Unknown said...

the only way to make this awesome is half dinosaur.

Trace said...

I really hope that people are into dressing up as centaurs within the next ten years.

Sean said...

.... half-Simpson's character would be pretty ridiculous as well heh

Westward The Wagons said...

I literally discovered this link right before I checked your blog...crazy. The wolf-gods are smiling on us.

Ted Yang said...

Yeah, I couldn't grasp why they called one, I believe, a hero when mentioning that a dog went missing and then this kid has its skull...what about that is heroic?

Owner Operator said...

hey westward the wagons. get your own lil picture in that box thing! i had the flower chucker first ever! haha. but really. nice choice.

i wanna be half billy bragg. is that possible?

Drunken Acorn said...

My cousin dresses like anime characters and sings songs in Japanese, it's kinda dorky but hey she taught herself Japanese. And did I see someone mention Batman Beyond, I have all three volumes on DVD thats nerdy.

Anonymous said...

When is the tenth anniversary show DVD coming out? I would really like to get my paws on it.

For The Night said...

hey Drunken, that anime thing is REALLY common here in Japan. If you go to certain places in Tokyo you can see every anime Character possible. I don't watch anime but it is still pretty funny. There is also girls who try and dress like "cali" girls. Dye their hair blonde which really makes it orange. wear short dresses and TONS of makeup. Ahh I love living in this place, its like a alternate universe.

Sean said...

JUST BOUGHT TICKETS TO SEE THE MENZINGERS PLAY THIS SATURDAY IN CHICAGO!

STOKED!!

Bridgett said...

I wish we had a Chick-fil-A.

kylewagoner said...

Brendan, if my band came to Chicago, would you come see us? It's an AWFUL long travel and I've been loyal! 'Cause we're now friends with some Chicagoans who play music, so it's plausible for once...

love,
Kyle

FranklinStein said...

that iron chic song kicks ass upon first listen. i'll take that chord progression as a nod to lose your illusion 1.

Zach Murphy said...

Top 20 Reasons Why Twilight Fans Suck:

http://www.therantking.com/2009/12/top-20-reasons-why-twilight-fans-suck.html
http://www.therantking.com/2009/12/top-20-reasons-why-twilight-fans-suck_08.html

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.