El Mercenario

Albert Pujols is taking his talents to South Metro Los Angeles.

I'm sure this news is startling to you, as the media has been pretty silent about the topic, but apparently, Albert Pujols signed a deal with the Los Angeles Angels, better known as "that team that was good that one year Darin Erstad decided to not be terrible for once."  His contract, which will ensure that for the next decade he will not be playing for the defending champions of baseball but rather a team which seems destined to become also-rans with the emergence of their divisional rivals in Texas, is worth $254 million over the next 10 years.

But it's not about the money.

Rather than go back to St. Louis, which I won't argue has the best fans in baseball because it's an arbitrary term but certainly has good fans, and likely get a statue built in his honor, he's going to go to the second most popular team in its own metropolitan area and play in the suburban eyesore known poetically as Angel Stadium of Anaheim.  Rather than play for a defending World Champion who is re-adding one of the ten best starting pitchers in baseball to be their unquestioned ace, he's going to play for a team whose most notable achievement in the last decade, aside from giving out terrible contracts like they're pedophiles giving out popsicles, was having one of its best players suffer a career-altering injury on a walk-off home run celebration.

But it's not about the money.

Rather than get the biggest free pass in baseball since Mickey Mantle, being able to do no harm for adoring fans, to joining a team in the second biggest metro in the country which will be as scrutinized of a team as there is in baseball this year.

Screw it.  It's about the money.


And the thing is, I don't really fault Albert Pujols for chasing after the money.  I know he makes a ton of money, but I can't argue with an additional several million dollars.  I won't even use the overplayed notion of "the few extra million don't matter to him", because although this is probably true, I don't know that.  Here's the thing--I work at a job that I'm generally content with.  At least I don't spend my whole life whining about it.  I would categorize my company loyalty as "some."  But if a competitor came in with a fairly similar job and was offering me several millions dollars more, you better believe I would take it.  That's essentially what Pujols did.  However...

I will freely admit I'm in it for the money.  Most people are.  I don't care how much you make--it's your right as an American to be in it for the money, and while I question the story that a man who attended Glenn Beck's rally because he was told it wasn't political actually aced his citizenship test, Pujols is an American who is allowed to do as he pleases.  But if I got the millions of dollars in raises, I would at least be freaking honest about it.  I'd go into work tomorrow and tell my boss "I'm leaving because I'm gonna make a few million more elsewhere.  I know you guys can't match it, but you and I both know I can't pass this up."  And I can say with 100% certainty that my boss would understand.  But the point is that I, in this hypothetical, made it very clear--while work conditions and my personal happiness are important, my main prerogative is the money.  And the same applies to Pujols.  Through this, he has made the same idiotic and pointless mistake that Alex Rodriguez made in 2001.  You can't leave your obsessive fan base on a strong team for a less tolerant bunch on a weaker team and successfully argue that you aren't in it for the money.  Just do it for the money.  Everybody else is.

But for the Cardinals fans bemoaning the loss as a death blow for the organization (which, I must admit, is an impressively low percentage of fans), the Cardinals won nine World Series titles without Pujols.  We're getting Adam Wainwright back--the difference in wins Pujols gives us versus the wins Waino gives us is, like, maybe three.  Lance Berkman can play first and Allen Craig can play right field once he gets healthy.  And now we don't have to pay $25 million-plus to a guy who for the latter half of the deal will be wildly overpaid.  This is actually a huge benefit for us--once we get Lohse and Westbrook off the books and the rotation is headlined by Adam Wainwright and a seasoned Jaime Garcia/Shelby Miller, things will be looking up.  And unlike when we were going to be paying $42 million for two players (one of whom, and this can't be stressed enough, is the softest player in the history of a St. Louis Cardinals outfield that once included J.D. Drew), we can afford to keep them.

Life is good, Cardinal nation.

P.S.--This title, a Spanish translation of The Mercenary for those of you who are very stupid, is a blatant ripoff of the blog El Maquino (Spanish translation of The Machine, which I guess is slightly less obvious than El Mercenario), which you should read.  http://elmaquino5.wordpress.com/

The Lee Corso "Controversy"--Aww, Fuck It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOBryz4sbm8

Seriously, how great is that?  Just nonchalantly saying "Aww, fuck it" on national TV as a crowd having the time of their admittedly pathetic lives roars?  Unfortunately, some disagree that this was a great moment in the history of television and actually argue the other way.  It should be noted that most people don't seem too terribly offended, but apparently the amount was enough (or perceived to be enough) that ESPN forced Lee Corso to apologize.

Hopefully, it won't go further than this.  I kind of don't think it will, but I'm scared enough that I felt compelled to write this.  But I have a very simple question for those who were offended by Lee Corso's exclamation: Why?

What is offensive about a man saying "Fuck it", even if it was premeditated?  Even if you think it's unnecessary, what about it is bad?  It would be one thing if Lee had said "God damn it" (taking the Lord's name in vain) or if he'd told Chris Fowler to go fuck himself (saying something derogatory and mean towards somebody), but he did neither of these things.  Now, I'm presuming most people who are offended are offended by the word fuck.  This word was created by people at least a millennium after the arrival of Jesus.  Nobody was ever damned in the Old Testament because they said the word fuck, because the word fuck didn't exist.  Jesus never asked his followers not to say the word, because it didn't exist.

An easy parallel would be several other notable gaffes in which the word fuck was used, such as the legendary "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out" or the time Ernie Arnastos said "Keep fucking that chicken."  But while these amuse me, I can at least rationalize why they'd be deemed offensive.  With Bill O'Reilly, he is clearly being threatening and uncomfortable towards a defenseless, unseen man.  With Arnastos (who claims that the line was an accident), there's at least a sexual connotation and I guess you could argue it encourages bestiality or something.  It doesn't make sense, but it makes more sense than condemning Lee Corso.  But honestly, what does "Fuck it" mean?  Essentially it means "Whatever", which isn't typically considered offensive.  It's just a phrase.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason 95% of people who use the phrase use the phrase is to get a rise out of the people who are offended.  Because people get on their moral high horses about the use of the word fuck, it has a special elevated place in the American vernacular.  It's trolling on a somewhat minor and very easy to use level.  People don't use the phrase "fuck it" in spite of the fact that it offends people--they use the phrase because it offends people.  Or at least because it grabs the attention of people.

From a legal perspective, Lee Corso did nothing wrong.  The FCC has zero jurisdiction over ESPN, since ESPN is not a broadcast TV network, and even if Corso had said this on network television, I'm pretty sure the FCC has more important things to worry about.  Like whether or not Janet Jackson exposes her breast to me when I was fifteen.  Still no investigations into showing the ultra-violent D-Day scenes in Saving Private Ryan on network TV.

Basically, what I'm saying is if you want to complain about Lee Corso saying the F word on television, it's your right to do so.  Just be forewarned that most of us don't really fucking care.

The Schadenfreude of Beady Eye

Last March, I spent ten dollars for an album hoping that it would suck.

That album was Different Gear, Still Speeding by Beady Eye, the band formed by the remaining members of Oasis when Noel Gallagher quit the band.  And I, like many, had always followed the belief that Noel Gallagher was the brilliant and talented songwriter who guided a ragtag bunch to musical greatness while the other members, particularly his brother Liam, rode his coattails and selfishly grabbed unwarranted attention.  And given my belief, I wanted to listen to this album and just absolutely fucking hate it.  I wanted to find it a collection of godawful, tuneless mess of songs clumsily attempted by the arrogant, spoiled guys who surely were the ones to blame for the downfall of the greatest band of my lifetime (yeah, I said it).

What I heard, rather, was the best album I'd heard since, conservatively, the Black Keys album Brothers.  But rather than rave about how Beady Eye wildly surpassed my expectations, I'm going to talk about why I'm an idiot.

Whether or not the Beady Eye album was good is beside the point.  I think so, and you all should check it out, but why would I want the album to fail?  Unless you have some kind of personal vendetta against a musician (I don't against Beady Eye; I questioned their collective talents but it's not like Gem Archer punched my mother or something), why would I want Beady Eye to fail?  To substantiate my own bullshit theories that 1. Nobody cares about, and 2. I don't have any sort of stake upon being correct?

There's a big difference between music and sports.  If somebody does well in sports, it means somebody else does poorly, and vice versa.  So if I root against the Yankees, it's also partially because I want to see the underdog (even if relatively so) succeed.  But in music, success (as defined not by record sales but by making good music) benefits the world as a whole.  The fact that The Beatles were changing the world musically in the 1960s didn't in turn make The Kinks worse--if anything it made them better, but certainly there is no good reason to root against the Beatles to make good music.

But this doesn't even just apply to bands you like.  Take Journey, a band that, if you've read this blog, you know that I completely fucking despise.  I hate everything about Journey--their pretension, their sycophantic lyrics, their masquerading as a great band.  But should I root against them?  If Journey, with their stupid little karaoke singer, records the modern day White Album, should I get mad?  Or should I be happy that I can now listen to a wonderful piece of music?  Well, I should be happy, but maybe I'm just an inconsolable douchebag.  And thus it's entirely possible I'd be mad.  Not bad at their success as much as mad that I was wrong.

The absurd Schadenfreude extends well beyond music though.  Look at movies.  For instance, this Friday will mark the release of the new Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill, which will probably be terrible.  Probably.  But what if I watch the movie and enjoy it?  Maybe I will find it hilarious.  Maybe I'll find it life-altering and worthy of Oscar buzz.  Again, probably won't happen, but why should I go into a movie expecting that the next hour and a half plus of my life are going to be a complete waste of time?  Would my life not be better if I watched it and thought it was good?  It's not like I'm in some kind of pool where I'm betting for Jack and Jill to suck.  If Jack and Jill is the best movie I've seen since Fargo, then that is a good thing.  It doesn't matter who makes it.

So why root against Beady Eye or Adam Sandler or any performer?  Would the world be better if we'd instantly dismissed The Godfather as another of Marlon Brando's underdeveloped vanity pieces or if we deemed Led Zeppelin IV as pretentious garbage by the bunch of stoned hippies who couldn't tell if they were metal or folk because they were too stoned to tell the goddamned difference?  I personally think not.  And if you disagree, than you, sir or ma'am, are worse than Hitler.

Song 2 vs. Seven Nation Army: The Stadium Song Battle to the Death

In one corner, we have a gritty, riff-heavy, grunge-influenced rocker from art rockers from London.  In another corner we have the favorite of scarf-donning soccer crowds throughout Europe, courtesy of Detroit garage rockers.  We, of course, have Blur's "Song 2" versus The White Stripes's "Seven Nation Army."

Now some of you may not be familiar with these songs, and if you aren't, then congratulations on waking up from a coma after fifteen years.  The world has changed a lot.  We have a black president now, too.

Anyway, let's get to who leads in the aspects that make a song a great stadium song:

The Hook: It doesn't matter that Song 2 has a tremendously solid drum intro or that Seven Nation Army has a strong guitar solo--everyone knows the hooks.  Song 2 has the part where Damon Albarn yells "Whoo hoo!" and Seven Nation Army has Jack White's best-of-the-decade guitar riff.  It's hard to pick because both hooks are great, but I have to side with Blur on this one.  There are tons of great guitar riffs, but it's pretty rare to have a scat vocal that's as big of a deal as this one.

The Crowd Impact: Would you rather hear a packed house at a hockey game yell "Whoo hoo!" or a soccer crowd sing along to "Da, dum dum dum, da, dum, dum!"  It's of course a matter of opinion, but give me the latter any day.  It's harder to emulate a guitar riff than a yell, so the gloriously off-key sound of Seven Nation Army's attempts amuse me to no end.  Advantage to the Stripes.

The Versatility: I've heard both songs in basically every type of sporting event, so versatility would *seemingly* be a push.  But Song 2 holds an edge here for me.  Seven Nation Army is more or less just a good song that gets played and sung along with because it's a good song.  Song 2 is a naturally exciting song. It can be played in any situation--when the team needs to rally, when the win is in the bag, and just tow ake the crowd up.  Thus, Song 2 is the perfect stadium song.  Thanks for playing, Seven Nation Army--you put up a valiant fight.  But apparently a Song 2 could hold you back.

The Easiest Decision Mo Will Ever Have to Make

There are several valid picks for who should be the next manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.  There is only one truly correct pick, though.  I'll get to that in a moment.  But the easiest decision John Mozeliak will ever have to make is to pass on Jose Oquendo.

When you're a big deal, and the St. Louis Cardinals are a big deal (they have to be considered a top five managerial job in baseball), you don't have to make weak picks like hiring from within.  Weak because it generally doesn't work.  You remember when Notre Dame hired from within by hiring Bob Davie to replace Lou Holtz?  Or when Bill Stewart replaced Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia?  Does it work?

But let's be fair to Oquendo and just view his resume on its individual merits.  He was a mediocre player (as have many managers).  And now he exists as a base coach.  Bench coaches often get hired, or pitching coaches, but what special expertise does one get from being a third base coach?  And how does it translate to being a Major League manager?

Basically, here is my verdict on Jose Oquendo: He could end up good.  But he's a gamble.  Let the Nationals hire him.  The Cardinals can afford to hire somebody with an actual track record.  The whole notion that Albert Pujols will leave unless the Cardinals hire Jose Oquendo is utterly absurd--what MLB manager would have more of a rapport with Pujols than anyone the Cardinals hire?

But anyway, the easiest decision John Mozeliak can ever make is to hire Joe Maddon.  Maddon, with a huge cast of nobodies and castoffs, consistently wins.  In Tampa Bay.  And he grew up a Cardinals fan.  And unlike LaRussa (and Oquendo), he's a fan-friendly charmer.  This doesn't really matter as much as the record, but it's nice I suppose.  Terry Francona is an acceptable pick, but do we really want the guy who let his players drink beer in the clubhouse during games manage a team whose president verbally thanked Budweiser as their victory parade?  Either way, though, the Cardinals pick a manager worthy of the pedistil.

Let's abandon this insane notion that we need to get a Cardinal for life.  Maddon may not be a "true" Cardinal, but you could not possibly have been less of a Cardinal than Tony Larussa.  Screw sentimentality.

And here is my 100% guarantee: If Joe Maddon is hired as manager, and Albert Pujols reacts by signing elsewhere, and we don't sign anyone exceptional (but still get Wainwright back), we will end next year with a better record than this year.  Craig can play right and Berkman can play first.  Don't deprive the Cardinals of the best manager in baseball because of the fickle nature of somebody who may not come back anyway.

Albert Pujols is Really Good, but...

Albert Pujols is not the greatest player in the history of baseball.

Now, his performance last night in Game 3 of the World Series was nothing short of epic.  Last night he was a phenom, hitting three home runs and becoming the third person to do so (Babe Ruth did it twice, Reggie Jackson did it once, as I'm sure you've been reminded repeatedly).  He's great.  He's the greatest Cardinal of my lifetime (I'm 22 and thus it's not even close) and one of the best players in Cardinals franchise history.  But he's not the greatest player ever.

In light of his inspired Saturday night, Larry Bowa claimed that if he had Babe Ruth on deck, Reggie Jackson in the hole, and Albert Pujols at the plate, he would walk Pujols.  Now that's just silly.  I'm even willing to be pragmatic and say that Pujols is close enough to the Bambino that I would not consider walking Ruth to get to Pujols, but let's be reasonable.  Albert Pujols is a really, really good player.  He's a great player.  He should make the Hall of Fame (I always hesitate to say he will make the Hall of Fame--all he needs is one unsubstantiated steroid allegation and it can all fall apart).  But he ain't Stan Musial.  He ain't even close to Babe Ruth.

For those of you who don't know just how good Babe Ruth is, let's just say you can't simply look at his numbers.  714 home runs is really good but it's not gargantuan on the surface.  But consider his peers.  In 1920, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs: an impressive total by any measure (it's more than Albert has ever had in an individual season).  #2 in the league was George Sisler, himself a Hall of Fame player for the St. Louis Browns.  He had nineteen.  Babe Ruth nearly tripled the second best home run hitter in the American League.  Pujols has never done this.  Nobody has had this kind of dominance.

The most dominant player of my lifetime in baseball was Barry Bonds in the early 2000s (dominant not only in power numbers and whatnot, but dominant in that he had on-base percentages over .600 for seasons--that is not a typo).  Bonds never came close to tripling the next highest guy.  Bonds, often referred to erroneously as the greatest power hitter ever as a result of having the most home runs, had 1.28 times the home runs of Luis Gonzalez in his 73 home run season of 2001.  In 1920, Babe Ruth had George Sisler beat by 2.84 times.  Oh yeah, and Babe Ruth hit at least 54 three more times.  Oh, and for what it's worth, Babe Ruth was also one of the best pitchers in baseball before moving to the outfield so that he could reinvent hitting more frequently.  Basically, what I'm saying is that it isn't sacrilegious to compare Albert Pujols to Babe Ruth--it's just wildly inaccurate.

But anyway, Albert Pujols is awesome.  And now everybody is freaking out about how much money he's going to make in the off-season and how Albert Pujols is going to cash in.  Well, I hate to break it to everybody, but in spite of what the Jayson Werth signing may have suggested to you, MLB GMs aren't that dumb.  It's not as though somebody was only going to offer Pujols $20 million and now after one game that total is up to $30 mil.  Yesterday will have very little, if any, impact on how much Albert Pujols makes.  He's been playing for eleven years--his resumé has been written.

As a Cardinal fan, it actually makes me a bit worried.  Albert is going to cash in somewhere and I'm convinced that it will be in St. Louis--for way too much.  Albert deserves to get paid more than A-Rod got paid a decade ago, but the important caveat is Alex Rodriguez didn't deserve 10 years and $252 million in the first place.  Individual players matter because baseball is essentially a combination of a bunch of individual matchups, but one player doesn't matter that much.  WAR enthusiasts (and I am one) will often point out WAR (of which Albert is routinely at or near the top, because he's a damn good player as has been established by basically any metric) and note something to the effect of: "Oh, Albert Pujols has a WAR of 10 and they won the division by four games; therefore, Albert got them to the playoffs."  But what people often ignore is that 1. The money that would theoretically be saved on Pujols would be spent on something else which would improve WAR at other positions, and 2. There's generally other guys who make up for that total.  If that situation happened and Holliday or Berkman had WARs of eight, didn't he also get them in the playoffs?  That's not to say they're as good, because they aren't, but from a practical standpoint, it didn't matter.  Pujols can't survive without contributions from other players just as they can't survive without him.

To test my theory on WAR, I looked at the eleven seasons in which Albert Pujols has played for the Cardinals.  Of his seven playoff seasons, his WAR exceeded the team's margin of getting into the playoffs four times.  Which is cool.  But in how many of those seasons did he directly make the difference, even just in compared to the replacement level (for those unfamiliar with the concept, imagine a situation in which he's lost for the year and replaced by Mark Hamilton).

The four years where WAR>Margin were 2001, 2006, 2009, and 2011:

• In 2001, his WAR was 6.9 and the team's margin was 3, meaning he needed a WAR of 3.9 to keep them in the playoffs.  Also with a WAR of 3.9 or higher that year: Jim Edmonds, J.D. Drew, Placido Polanco, and Darryl Kile.
• In 2006, his WAR was 8.3 and the team's margin was 1, meaning he needed a WAR of 7.3 to keep them in the playoffs.  He stood alone.
• In 2009, his WAR was 9.2 and the team's margin was 8, meaning he needed a WAR of 1.2 to keep them in the playoffs.  Also with a WAR of 1.2 or higher that year: Brendan Ryan, Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, Colby Rasmus, Ryan Ludwick, Skip Schumaker, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Ryan Franklin, and Joel Piniero.
• In 2011, his WAR was 5.4 and the team's margin was 1, meaning he needed a WAR of 4.4 to keep them in the playoffs.  Lance Berkman also did this.

I'm not saying Albert Pujols isn't the best Cardinal of my lifetime.  He is.  He is a fantastic player and I truly hope the Cardinals re-sign him.  I'm just saying that the team will survive with or without him.  The Cardinals had the NL record for World Series titles before he ever donned a Cardinal uniform and it will still be a proud organization once he leaves, whenever that may be.  From a practical standpoint, think of it this way--Berkman goes to first, Craig plays in right, and how much worse are they?  Craig had a WAR of 2.9 in limited time this year; theoretically this means we lose 2.5 wins.  And we get Adam Wainwright back.  And we have over $20 million to spend on upgrading the roster at large.

Yes, Cardinal fans.  We are going to be fine.

Ten Famous People Everybody Irrationally Hates

It's one thing to hate Bin Laden or somebody who actually, you know, warrants derision.  But for some reason, many of us are such cynical bastards that we must hate even people who enrich the world.  And here's ten of them.

10. Buster Olney--This entry could have been tons of people, but Olney symbolizes it better than anyone else I could think of.  Basically, he's mocked by fans (most of whom played no higher level of sports than Olney) as a dweeb who doesn't know sports.  When in reality, the criticism is not only unfair but also inaccurate--Olney is not a sports analyst, by and large, but is a sports reporter.  Woodward and Bernstein couldn't hit a ball 450 feet ever and they got played in the movies by eventual Oscar winners.  See also: John Clayton.

9. Spike Lee--Critics call Spike Lee a racist hate monger, a man who uses his platform to spread a propagandist message of hatred towards white people.  But, well, this doesn't actually happen.  Did people actually see Do the Right Thing?  The most sympathetic character other than Spike's protagonist was Richard Edson's (white) friend of Spike Lee.  Basically none of the characters come off as total saints and even the ostensible villain (Danny Aiello) isn't a complete ogre--subtly racist, maybe, but it's not like he was burning crosses at black churches or something.  And given that Spike Lee's second most important movie is about an assassinate black civil rights leader, it's fairly hard not to make white oppression of African Americans are a fairly critical theme.  Those who don't hate Lee generally overrate him--Spike Lee is basically one of many good directors of his era, like the Coen Brothers more than like D.W. Griffith.  Michael Moore also fits into this category, because his reputation of propaganda is overrated and his reputation for film-making is underrated, but, well, it's kind of sort of warranted a little bit.

8. The Speaker of the House--It doesn't matter to me if we're talking about when it was Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner, they both have a reputation of being politically narrow-minded douchebags that really come from nowhere.  They're both slightly more partisan than their party at large, but neither is an extremist--they're both hard-working civil servants who got elected heads of their hundreds-strong delegations in the House of Representatives because they have earned respect.  But the thing that really doesn't make sense is how much more blame Pelosi or Boehner get than, say, the heads of the more powerful body of Congress.  Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell get free passes by comparison.

7. Joe Buck--I say the reason people dismiss Joe Buck as a condescending douchebag is that there just aren't notable announcers in the way that there was in his daddy's day.  Besides Al Michaels, where are the iconic voices?  And while Buck may occasionally come off as smug, there's also a reason he's the top choice to broadcast baseball and football for the flagship networks of the sports--he's good at it.  The next time you hate on Joe Buck, consider this--would you rather him or Thom Brenaman?  Would you rather have Joe Buck or Dick Stockton?  Joe Buck is to modern broadcasting when guys who hit nine home runs a year were to the dead ball era--it may not look that good, but you have to consider it in relative terms.

6. Jay Leno--People hate on Jay Leno either because he's not Johnny Carson or because NBC screwed over Conan O'Brien.  Both of these things are true.  But while Leno may suck at that time slot compared to Johnny Carson, why does nobody mock the wildly unfunny David Letterman?  And regarding Conan O'Brien being pushed out of the Tonight Show slot, do you think Leno had a hand in this?  If Billy Devaney, proving his infinite genius, decided to push Sam Bradford out of the Rams QB role and bring back Tony Banks, it would be a terrible move.  You'd feel bad for Bradford for being the victim of such idiocy.  But would you blame Banks?  I know I wouldn't.  How do you pass up that opportunity?

5. Mark Zuckerberg--I'm going to limit this to his day-to-day operations of Facebook rather than his Social Network persona.  People regularly trash Facebook for its constant layouts changes and its seemingly hellbent desire to condense all social media into one all-stop shop like Wal-Mart.  But, like people who hate McDonald's, the point of it all is that EVERYBODY USES IT.  Facebook is free to use and thus free to exit; Facebook has steps which invade privacy, but ONLY IF YOU VOLUNTEER THE INFORMATION.  The people who knock Facebook and decide it must be stopped seem to not realize that it's voluntary.

4. Bill Gates--Bill Gates, the evil corporate raider who build the evil corporation that allows me to write this blog today.  The world hates Bill Gates essentially because he's really, really successful.  And thus he must be corrupt.  Perhaps he was ruthless, but consider that the primary side effects are an interconnected planet and the biggest individual charity in the world.  Bill Gates gave the world exactly what it wanted and want more.

3. Tim Tebow--Tim Tebow is vilified in the media for being overrated, overhyped, and being a Jesus freak.  But he also might be the perfect human being.  Tebow is the child of missionaries, he has a deep and unsanctimonious faith (Remember when he was asked about his virginity as a presser in conference and said he was a virgin and the media jumped on the story?  Did anyone actually care?), he is an extremely hard-working player, and he seems like one of the nicest people possible in interviews.  Even Colin Cowherd, who continuously bashes on Tebow's playing, referred to him as "The nicest person I've ever met."

2. Derek Jeter--Nobody likes Derek Jeter.  Similar to Tebow, he's a hard worker who is very successful and clutch.  Unlike Tebow, he parties in New York City and dates supermodels.  Nothing wrong with that either.

1. Bono--"Oh, Bono is an arrogant douchebag.  He thinks he's God.  I hate him sooooo much!"  Here is a list of observations about Bono, most of which aren't even all that subjective.

• Bono is the greatest rock frontman since Freddie Mercury
• Bono is the voice behind some of the most widely loved songs in rock history
• Bono has displayed an unprecedented range in creating Earth-shattering songs, going from edgy post-punk like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to heartbreaking ballads like "One."
• Bono, unlike most rock frontmen, devotes a lot of his time and money to improving the world.  Even if you don't like when he is compared to Mandela or Mother Teresa, the fact is that he is still devoting more time to charity than basically everyone else in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Besides maybe Sting, who's even close?

That dick...

Steve Jobs and Michael Jackson--Partners in Capitalist Evil

Some may want to make irrational comparisons like comparing the recent death of Steve Jobs to the death of Jesus of Nazareth, accepted by like a billion people as the Lord and Savior of the universe, but I recognize this as a shortsighted comparison.  Clearly, Jesus is no Steve Jobs.

For if you've heard any media attention around Steve Jobs's death, you know the truth.  You know that any comparisons to Steve Jobs to Thomas Edison are, if anything, too generous to Thomas Edison.  Because who needs a light bulb or recorded audio?  Steve Jobs invented the motherfucking iPhone!

But, beyond Steve Jobs being truly the greatest American in history, he is actually pure evil.  Now, I'm not a total Apple hater like some people, but I think I have a relatively balanced and even-handed stance--Apple is a consumer electronics manufacturer who makes slightly better than average products and charges above average products.

And that's all they are.  Apple didn't invent anything, Steve Jobs didn't invent anything, all Steve Jobs did was market the shit out of his products and help spearhead technological innovations.  Does this make him an important person?  Sure.  Does this make him comparable to actual inventors, guys whose products actually changed the path of the world and not just the brands people used?  Not a chance.

Basically, the most enduring and important legacy of Apple, besides the completely fucking over Steve Wozniak, is giving limousine liberals somebody to champion.  Now, to be fair, I'm a liberal myself, but I'd categorize myself as more along the lines of a blue collar and social liberal.  But the point is that people perceive Apple as being a significant and important company because of how it makes customers feel.  People use iPhones, iPads, iPods, iLikeSpendingWayTooMuchGoddamnedMoneyOnElectronicsOtherCompaniesMakeJustAsWell and they feel like they're using products which resonate with their left of center ideals, their creativity, and their general selves.  And Apple, by selling an esoteric concept which is completely and utterly impossible to define, made a lot of money.

Now, every company has a right to earn a profit.  Except drug dealers.  And in spite of the psychological addiction that seems to befall Apple fanboys, I won't categorize Apple products as drugs.  But only, it seems, Apple is given the right to earn a profit and be considered above it.  For Microsoft to make a profit is evil--a sign that Bill Gates, who actually donates money to charity, actually treats other human beings well, and actually has come up with truly innovative products (making slightly better phones or slightly better MP3 players can't compare to, you know, getting the internet established as a primary form of communication), is doing something malicious.  But Apple profits are clearly accidental--Steve Jobs, as a man who dresses casual and doesn't eat meat, is incapable of capitalist greed.  And again, I don't even mind that he is a greedy capitalist--I'd be if I were him, too--but he needs to be treated for what he is, a mildly important guy who made a lot of money.

The only death I could even remotely compare to Steve Jobs that I've seen is the death of Michael Jackson.  And truth be told there are some similarities between the two.  Essentially, both Jobs and Jackson are of fair talent and immeasurable fame and hype.  Michael Jackson got famous relatively young (I know he was ten and Jobs was in his twenties, but you have to consider the relative age of fame for musicians and corporate CEOs).  Michael Jackson had his creative peak in 1983.  Michael Jackson died and all of a sudden, all of his (considerable) sins became ignored and anyone who pointed them out was vilified.

Michael Jackson, also, is an ultracapitalist.  Now, in spite of most of what I say, Americans aren't that dumb and won't literally just buy anything.  Americans will only buy things they want.  And Michael Jackson, for years, provided Americans what they wanted--uncontroversial pop music.  There's a reason Hendrix had one top forty hit and the biggest hit of the Summer of Woodstock was from The Archies--people are lame.  Jackson, unlike Motown contemporaries like Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye, and unlike era contemporaries like Prince, didn't take his fame as a platform to launch unprecedented creativitiy.  Jackson enjoyed his fame and he got a lot of money out of it.  Fine.  He's allowed.  But why must we celebrate him as some kind of deity?  Take the money and run, quoth the Steve Miller.

But regardless, Steve Jobs and Michael Jackson won't always be viewed as immortals on the insane levels they are now.  Time will fade their legends.  Hopefully Bill Gates and Prince get their due respect.

Five Reasons Nickelback is Better Than Journey

Unlike my previous, similar list where I wrote about why Saving Silverman is better than Citizen Kane, I am making the prohibitive statement that Nickelback is better than Journey.  Nickelback, though generally considered to be a pile of utter dogshit musically, cannot yet hold a candle to the awfulness that has ruined mainstream pop-rock radio for the last thirty some-odd years.  These are the reasons Nickelback is better than Journey, in no particular order.

1. Nickelback songs are about real emotion, no matter how fucking retarded: Rock Star is about wanting to be a rock star.  Never Again is about how you will never again abuse a woman.  How You Remind Me is about how you remind me of the first single from my previous album.  Regardless, these songs have a point.  I'm not saying the point is good or that the songs are good, because they aren't, but there's a reason behind the lyrics.  In the same way that some kid writing angst-riddled poetry in his journal in high school about how much he hates all the popular kids and how they're all phonies and all those cliches has written SOMETHING and the artsier equivalent who just draws a bunch of irregular squares to symbolize their anger has, in effect, drawn nothing.  The motive of Rock Star is clear.  What's the motive of Don't Stop Believin'?  How you shouldn't stop believing?  That would be fair enough, but what the fuck does the small town girl and city boy have to do with any of this?  The answer--nothing.  The point is to make Steve Perry sound like some kind of deep and beautiful soul rather than a talentless twat.  But more on that later...now.

2. Chad Kroeger is a Better Singer than Steve Perry: Chad Kroeger's vocals are bad, but this doesn't really matter.  Jimi Hendrix's vocals were technically speaking bad.  Johnny Rotten's vocals are bad.  But they work.  Not that Chad's work is in any real way great, but the point is that the lack of technical ability isn't in and of itself a deal breaker.  Steve Perry, though better on the technical scale, lacks talent on the "Do you like to hear this man sing?" scale.  He goes on high pitched runs during whiny power ballads, but do you want to hear this?  His voice gets really high on Open Arms without cracking.  Cool.  The song still sucks.  Figured You Out, while a sexist and deplorable song, has exactly the kind of straightforward, dumbass vocal delivery the song requires.  There is no deeper meaning.  The point is what it is--that Nickelback will sexually assault you.  Again, not a good point.  But it's a point.

3. Nickelback has a Preferable Volume: I don't generally want to listen to Nickelback, but if you make me choose between listening to them at full blast or as quiet ambient sounds, I'm opting to turn it up to eleven. Because Nickelback music, at least the non-ballad majority of their songs (think Burn It To the Ground), is invented to be played loud.  This doesn't show a lack of musical creativity, really, any more than AC/DC being invented to be played loud in dirty pickups.  Now, AC/DC is better because their one generic sound is better than Nickelback's, but the point is that Nickelback has enough depth that altering something as simple as volume can possibly enhance your listening to pleasure.  Now, if you say "I'm going to play Any Way You Want It, how loud do you want it?", my answer is going to be "As fucking quiet as possible."  This matters.  Music that you want to hear inaudibly is probably a good sign the music isn't good.

4. Nickelback fans are more realistic: I know a decent number of people who like both Nickelback and Journey.  I have never heard somebody say Nickelback was the best band in the world, much less call them an all-time great band.  They are what they are--a popular band who makes really easy to handle rock music.  Journey fans, on the other hand, have been convinced that their bullshit music is good.  People actually complain that Journey isn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I would give you a baseball parallel to Journey, but you'd have never heard of the mediocre bastard.  Consider that when they were making Don't Stop Believin, Talking Heads and The Police were redefining rock while staying popular.  Journey went nowhere.  What band since Journey was inspired by Journey?

5. Nickelback has Better Music Videos: Nickelback videos have clocks counting down peoples' lives.  There's nothing even remotely great about this.  But here is their opponent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LatorN4P9aA&ob=av2n

Billy Devaney is Really Bad At His Job

A quick rundown of major moves by the St. Louis Rams during the Billy Devaney era:

• Hired Steve Spagnuolo as head coach.  I'm really not going to get too intense about whether this was the right move or not, since in general, it's argued by Rams fans that Spags should be fired due to the Rams poor performance so far in 2011.  Since the whole point of this post is essentially comparing Spagnuolo and Devaney, I think it's best that we stick to the task at hand.
• Drafted Jason Smith with the #2 overall pick.  Hilariously, some in the St. Louis media will try to justify this move on the grounds that the 2009 draft class was quite weak.  Which it was.  But let's consider the guys we could have had instead of Jason Smith.  This may not be selecting Carriker over Revis or Chris Long (a decent player) over a ton of far better players but it's still guys who aren't, you know, really fucking terrible at football.  The following guys were first round picks the year we threw money at the walking tub of goo known as Jason Smith: Brian Orakpo, Brian Cushing, Alex Mack, Sandra Bullock's retarded friend from The Blind Side, Jeremy Maclin, Percy Harvin, Hakeem Nicks, and CLAY FUCKING MATTHEWS.  These guys were a little bit later and you could argue it's too revisionist to argue we should have taken guys who fell into the twenties over Smith, but what basis did anyone in the Rams organization have to believe Jason Smith would be any good?  He hardly ever run blocked and gave up 3 1/2 sacks his last season (by comparison, Bryant McKinnie gave up zero sacks IN HIS ENTIRE COLLEGE CAREER).  Devaney doesn't deserve a free pass here--the hype behind Aaron Curry could have warranted a trade down.  And frankly, no matter who the Rams pick, merely having traded down and paying less money to a player who, by definition, couldn't be worse than Jason Smith would be an improvement.
• We released such competents as Orlando Pace and Torry Holt.  Now, these guys were getting old and inevitably were going to decline, but perhaps finding replacements would have been preferable to "Let's get fat, lazy guys to fill in."
• The big move that everyone praises Billy Devaney for--drafting Sam Bradford #1 overall.  Uh.  The #2 and #5 picks are Pro Bowlers already.  I'm not saying it was the wrong pick, but can we stop pretending there was some kind of divine genius to drafting the Heisman winning quarterback with the first overall pick?
• The secondary continues to be pourous.  We replaced Todd Lyght the year after he won us the Super Bowl--Justin King still has a job in the NFL.
• The receivers remain atrocious.  Mike Sims-Walker just can't be the best receiver of the last five years for a successful NFL team.  He's a second or third receiver at the absolute best.  No particular effort has been given to actually make a move for a receiver.

Billy Devaney has a job and Terry Francona doesn't.  If you can explain that one, you deserve to be given an automatic passing of the Bar exam.

Three Stupid Cardinals Superstitions (and why I'll be following them)

"Very superstitious, wash your face and hands.  Rid me of the problem, do all that you can."--Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder, in this lyric, seems to be opposed to superstitious behavior--he believes that superstition "ain't the way" and it's just silly.  I, on the other hand, have a different life approach.  It's probably a vision thing.

But anyway, enough with taking cheap shots at Stevie Wonder--he's a musical genius who has more talent in even his benign eyes than I do in my entire body.  The point is, the St. Louis Cardinals made the motherfucking playoffs.  For me, the last week has been more exciting than the 2006 World Series--for whatever reason it seemed anti-climactic, particularly at the end of the series when the series was obviously going to be won by the Cardinals/I had the ACT the next morning.  But anyway, somehow that happened and in spite of excruciatingly long odds, the Cardinals surpassed the Braves as NL Wild Card.  I can't figure out how it happened, but I do know what factors have changed and, whether by correlation or causation, were followed by a tremendous surge by El Birdos.

Basically, I treat these superstitions as kind of like generally nonreligious people who still classify themselves as believers because they figure if there's a 0.00001% chance of a God, they'd rather be safe than sorry.  So in this case, I recognize these superstitionsprobably aren't the reason the Cardinals are doing well, but I'm not going to take that risk by abandoning them.

Step One: Be a Cynical Bastard About the Cardinals
Basically, on a good day, I am to being a Cardinals fan what Ron Paul is to being a Republican--nominally speaking I am one, and it could be argued that my approach is more in line with what my dogma is all about than the mainstream alternative, but by and large my style just scares the other people of the group.  I am a Cardinal fan who holds specific grudges against players, managers, staff, and ownership.  I consider Jim Edmonds to be deplorably arrogant, Scott Rolen to be an all-time under-appreciated Cardinal, the current closer situation to be a symbol of underlying racism within the Cardinals fanbase, Matt Holliday to be a pampered and overpraised hick, and the movement to retire Willie McGee's number a dark cloud over the collective intelligence of a generally informed fanbase.  I dislike Tony LaRussa though consider him to be less of a problem than Bill DeWitt, who I consider to be one of the worst owners in professional sports.

Yes, I consider myself a Cardinals fan.

And when the Cardinals were nearly ten back early in September, nobody was more insistent that the season was over than I was.  Yes, Albert Pujols was getting back into his MVP-caliber rhythm and yes, the Braves were losing Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson.  But ten games?  I realistically figured the Cardinals could close the gap a little bit, but make the playoffs?  Please.  So I started telling overzealous fans I know that they needed to give up or they'd be in for a major league disappointment.

Now, I got a little bit weak when the deficit got to two games or so.  Like, on Wednesday, when the race was tied and we had Carp going to the mound against the Lastros, it was hard not to feel good about it.  But for the sake of St. Louis, I maintained my cynicism.  I didn't just tell people the season was over--I tried my best to truly, truly believe that making the playoffs would be impossible.

Step Two: Playoff Beard
The last day that I fully shaved my face was September 2nd.  On that day, I was to go to a Cardinals game against the Reds in which Chris Carpenter was facing Johnny Cueto.  And they got killed.  For no real rhyme or reason I grew tired of constantly shaving and decided to try going back to facial hair, as I have done several times presumably because of a subliminal desire for attention.  And the Cardinals got better.  Now, this seems like a ridiculous correlation, but playoff beards have existed FOR YEARS.  Largely in hockey, but occasionally in sports that non-racist Americans care about, such as baseball.  While it's not a true playoff beard--I do shave my lower neck to avoid irritation, there is a certain Wolfman effect going on.  The beard may be here to stay--it will certainly last at least as long as the Cardinals in the playoffs.

Step Three: Stick to My Lucky CD
On Sunday, before the baseball games started, the Cardinals were two games back in the Wild Card race.  By Wednesday, they were one game up.  What changed for me in that brief period?  I put a CD in my car that I really can't recall ever playing in the car before--Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers's Greatest Hits.  And, well, things turned good.  I guess there's some logic to this--I've always considered Tom Petty to be a good time kind of artist--he's kind of like Springsteen but his music doesn't generally make me want to drown myself in Hudson Bay.  It's good time in the visceral sort of way, not Poison's contrived "Nothin But a Good Time" kind of crap.

So, barring a total Breakdown by the Cardinals as they're Running Down a Dream, I'll be Waiting for Astros Refugee Lance Berkman to contribute to the Phillies Free Fallin' out into nothing.  Hopefully they'll Stop Draggin My Heart Around as Pujols's moon shots will be Learning To Fly Into the Great Wide Open.  Despite my pessimism, I Won't Back Down from watching the Cardinals, but I Need To Know score updates every once in a while.  Hopefully ESPN text alerts Don't Do Me Like That.  But Cardinals fans, don't forget: You Got Lucky that strong season endings Don't Come Around Here No More for the Braves.  Because Even The Losers should be able to entertain all the American Girls pulling for them--they just need to Listen To Her Heart.  Sidenote: There's no logical way to insert "Here Comes My Girl" or "Mary Jane's Last Dance" into this massacre of a paragraph.

But don't let this come off as optimism.  Because we're completely and totally fucked and don't you ever think I believe otherwise.

Three Reasons Anheuser-Busch is the Worst Thing in the World

http://blog.seattlepi.com/thepourfool/2011/09/14/why-i-dont-drink-budweiser-and-why-im-not-alone/

Before I start, credit must be given to this article, which inspired me to write this similar but hopefully not identical diatribe.



Okay, now that credit has been given, Anheuser-Busch is awful.  Just the absolute worst.  Anheuser-Busch is a company which does not have redeeming qualities.  The fact that I'm listing only three negative qualities about A-B may seem narrow and pedantic but let it be known that I kept these three as general as I possibly could.  The full list of my grievances with Anheuser-Busch could fill a library.  But here are the big three.  It's not in a particular order--like ranking Hitler and Stalin, it seems arbitrary and borderline offensive to act as that one form of evil is somehow more justified than another.

1. Anheuser-Busch Has Retarded Advertising
In fairness, this grievance really applies roughly equally to Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors.  They're all pretty damn terrible at this factor.  The point is that Anheuser-Busch is one of the most advertised companies in the world--they advertise like crazy during the Super Bowl of Advertising (the Super Bowl), they have naming rights all throughout sports, they're the official everything of everything, and they even had a goddamned NASCAR series named after them for years.  But in this marketing plan is a horrible, evil, despicable method.  Essentially, the success of A-B advertising is contingent upon you being an idiot.

Their best commercials are essentially nonsequiturs, such as the Whassup ads or Real American Heroes (also known by complete fucking sellouts as "Real Men of Genius" post-9/11). Now, these ads didn't really have anything whatsoever to do with the taste or quality of the beer being advertised--they basically just were there to be mildly entertaining for the audience and hopefully improve public relations with A-B.  It actually takes a while to even recall that Whassup or Real American Heroes is associated with Anheuser-Busch, which is unusual since they're the biggest goddamned advertiser in the stratosphere.  But they're cute so I'll give them something of a pass.  Especially compared to most of their ads.

The mediocre level comes from the sort of absurd high-concept commercials that became popular shortly after the previously mentioned ones.  Take, for instance, the Super Bowl ad where a skydiving instructor jumps out of a plane in pursuit of a six-pack of Bud Light.  Now, this is obviously hyperbole, but it begs the question of why this hyperbole was deemed necessary.  Nobody that I know of is dumb enough to see that commercial and suddenly believe, "Wow, this Bud Light shit must be excellent, if somebody is willing to endanger their employment and lives in order to get some of it."  But it elevates Bud Light and Bud products to an insane plateau of necessity.  But does even the most ardent fan of Bud Light believe that it is that great? I don't consider any product on Earth that great.

The worst level, and the one which seems to be increasingly permeating throughout American macrobreweries, is the "If you don't buy our product you're a pussy" style.  Miller admittedly is worse at this type than Anheuser-Busch, what with their man card, man law, and various other commercials designed to show that real men eat barbecue, objectify women, and drink terrible beer.  But A-B continues to imply that only real men drink their beers.  The worst commercials combine the following elements: An unrelated to beer yet still completely moronic concept, excruciatingly lowbrow humor, and exploitation of women.  And that commercial is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th0Z97l3Zfg

And just to take another shot at retarded ideas by large American beer companies, this simple yet brilliant attack of Coors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeJPJDpq3-Y.  And sure, this knock from the same folks regarding Miller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tks1RxUJbUo&NR=1.

2. Anheuser-Busch unbearably suppresses its competition:
I'm going to use a comparison of Anheuser-Busch to Coca-Cola, as both are the leaders in the clubhouse of their specialties, A-B with American Pale Lager and Coca-Cola with highly carbonated and sugary colas.  Now, Coca-Cola does a ton of advertising and a decent share of it involves comparing it favorably to Pepsi.  This is unsurprising, since Pepsi is the biggest competitor that Coca-Cola has, but it should also be noted that a vast majority of the time Coke compares itself to Pepsi, it's based on taste.  Which is completely fair.  Now, I personally believe Coca-Cola tastes (marginally) better than Pepsi, but it's really just a matter of opinion so it would be difficult to argue with the premise.  A-B doesn't really argue on taste that much when competing with competitors that aren't Miller or Coors.

Anheuser-Busch bases a large amount of advertising based on being the (italics for emphasis) Great American Lager.  They even released Budweiser in stars and stripes cans which made it look, to paraphrase Stewie Griffin, like it was the beer of the Statue of Liberty's pimp.  An advertising campaign not too long ago that still appears every once in a while was based on the premise that when soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan, there's nothing they would rather do than invite their boys to a party in a barn (since, given the disproportionate number of African-Americans, Hispanics, and other racial minorities in the military, is obviously an accurate reflection on the cultural tendencies of the armed forces).  But I digress.  The point is that Anheuser-Busch, far moreso than even its macro competition, positions itself as the beer of America.

For an obvious comparison, let's go with the second biggest beer brand associated with St. Louis--Schlafly.  Schlafly doesn't do a ton of advertising, but when it does (usually through billboards or signs and not through television), the focus is on the actual product.  They have a few billboards on highways with the slogan "Witness a Beeracle" and showing an appealing looking glass of Schlafly Pale Ale.  Simple and elegant.  When I see those ads, I think "Huh, Schlafly looks like it must taste good or something."  But then if I tried Schlafly and hated it, I probably wouldn't go back to it.  Their advertising is meant to get your foot in the door, not to sell you on becoming a lifelong Schlafly fan from the moment you see scantily dressed bikini models cavorting around while sipping from a bottle of Kolsch while having vacuous conversation with who are essentially the cast of Jersey Shore but WASPier.

Anheuser-Busch advertising, on the hand, is a motherfucking trap.  It's brainwashing.  The concept they push isn't "Here is a tremendous tasting, robust product that we believe you will consider above and beyond other beers you've had"; it's "If you don't drink Budweiser, the terrorists win."  It also brilliantly ignores that fact, to keep it on a Missouri level, that buying Schlafly or Boulevard is FAR more beneficial to the economies and regional identities of St. Louis or Kansas City than buying A-B.

3. Anheuser-Busch products are fucking terrible:
All of the previously mentioned digressions are forgivable, they truly are, if it wasn't for the simple fact that not only does Anheuser-Busch produce excruciatingly awful products, but it doesn't seem to bother them in the least that they're doing so.

The lowest tier offering A-B produces, one which is consumed almost exclusively by frat boys and my dad, is Natural Light.  Natural Light is hard to top in terms of cheapness--only Big Flats (the Walgreens brand), Milwaukee's Best Light (which I've never had but what I'm told is essentially Natty from Milwaukee), Keystone Light (keep everything I said about MBL except replace Milwaukee with Denver), and Pabst Blue Ribbon (which is by far the best tasting of the ultra-cheap beers, though it would feel dirty to drink PBR without wearing an ironic mustache and listening to Pavement) are in the same class.  There are two important things to note about "Natty"--it tastes like complete shit, and while it is cheaper than high-end beer, it's still more expensive than water, soda, or a large compliment of beverages which are infinitely preferable to drink in every regard than Natural Light.

Next up the evolutionary chain comes the three main brands of A-B: Budweiser, Bud Light, and Bud Select.  Now, first I want to point out that Bud Select is something of a misnomer--while it is arguably slightly better than the other brands listed in that group, it's still essentially watered down crap compared to more carefully crafted fare.  Also, Budweiser and Bud Select are something of misnomers compared to Bud Light because, the truth is, all three beers are pretty damn light.  Even compared to the pale and summer ales of bigger microbrewers such as Sam Adams or Sierra Nevada, the main Bud products are quite low in ABV and caloric content.  But the thing is, most beers really don't have that many calories.  If you only drink one or two, it won't make a significant dent in your diet.  But how many people do you honestly know that drink Bud Light responsibly?  Or, even more hilariously, Natty?  You ever seen somebody grab a can of Natural Light, slowly pour it down the side of a slightly tilted glass, savor its rich aroma, and slowly sip it as a dinner beer?  Or do you see people drink it in order to either become intoxicated or maintain intoxication?

The "highest" tier of A-B products would be products like Bud Light Lime, Michelob Ultra, and Shock Top.  Bud Light Lime basically combines the mediocre beer taste of Bud Light with the mediocre fruit taste of lime.  Michelob Ultra is a low-carb beer, which means if you're on the Atkins diet (under which you will probably lose weight but also lose the ability to have blood flow properly through your veins, defeating the purpose of dieting for the sake of health), you can slam a few.  Shock Top is easily the best offering under the A-B banner, presumably because it is virtually autonomous from the Budweiser producing end.  Though I don't want you to think that Shock Top is necessarily all that good--it's so so--it just is brilliantly crafted by comparison.  It was also created as a direct reaction to Blue Moon, a better product which is created by Coors (my if-you-put-a-gun-to-my-head-and-made-me-choose macrobrewer of choice).

Basically, Anheuser-Busch is to beer what Green Day is to punk rock.  Both, in the loosest sense of the word, meet the description which they are given.  And both diminish the term by producing it for idiotic masses.  Green Day, as a "punk" act, has sold far more albums than The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones combined.  Just like Anheuser-Busch sells more beer than Schlafly, New Belgium, and Sierra Nevada combined.  This doesn't mean the bigger entity is better--it just means it's more popular with an often retarded public.  To use a more offensive example--Anheuser-Busch is to beer what Al Qaeda is to Islam.  Al Qaeda does really bad things (namely blowing up shit and killing innocent people) while the larger group upon which they are associated has done some really good things (namely inventing algebra and being really progressive in terms of women's suffrage and rights--look it up).  In the same sense, Anheuser-Busch may give the impression that beer must be bland, it must be dumb, and it must be consumed for the purpose of making one's self dumber.  This doesn't make it so.  Because of this, Anheuser-Busch must be condemned.

The Ten Greatest Songs in the History of the Universe

I'm just going to go ahead and admit it--this is a fairly terrible subject for an entry.  First of all, there have been millions of songs written in the history of the universe that I have never heard.  Second, it's entirely subjective.  Third, every damn song on my list is from the 1960s or later, which implies that of the millions (or, for creationists, thousands) of years of humanity, pretty much all the really good songs ever made were written in the last fifty years.  So basically what I'm saying is don't take this list seriously because I'm mostly talking out of my ass.  I'm a guy who listens to a decent amount of music who is ranking his favorite songs.  But I guess I should give you my criteria.

• I do not give a shit how influential a song is: Just save yourself the effort of complaining how I snubbed Robert Johnson or somebody like that who supposedly influenced Eric Clapton or Keith Richards because I do not care.  This is a list of the best songs, as in the songs that I, in the year 2011, would most desire to listen to.  It's the same reason that when people list their favorite books they usually don't list The Canterbury Tales--they don't care enough to learn Olde English to learn how to read it. By the same token I'm not going to become a pretentious dweeb who pretends to care about bluesmen who died when my grandparents were kids.
• Good lyrics don't hurt but they really aren't essential.  Songs aren't literary works--their essential purpose is to make you feel a certain way, not to make you think a certain way.  So I guess I'll apologize to those who think Bob Dylan, The Doors, or Rush belong on the list because they ain't (these acts are mediocre at best with lyrics, but that story is for another day).
• It's not just about making complex songs.  So save me your complaints about the lack of Eddie Van Halen guitar anthems or (gasp) Yngwie Malmsteen 15-minute guitar solos that bore the hell out of even his hermit fans.  A song can be fun and utterly simple and be a great song--Clerks was budgeted for under thirty grand and is a classic movie, while Pearl Harbor cost $140 million and may have been the biggest catastrophe since the actual attack on Pearl Harbor (it's called hyperbole, folks; spare me your letters).

Well, here goes.

10. Need You Tonight--INXS: It's just about the catchiest song in the history of the universe.  It was an enormous hit when it came out in 1988 but some people will insist that it doesn't really stand the test of time.  It sounds from the 80s but in the best possible ways--it has an excellent funky rock guitar riff.  But for being essentially a 1980s dance track (or "new wave", if you prefer) it's actually quite simple--pretty straightforward drumming, bassline, and alterations on the guitar riff depending on whether it's in the chorus or verse.  Also, I'm confident enough in my heterosexuality to admit that Michael Hutchence is straight up gorgeous in the video.

9. Columbia--Oasis: There's a ton of Oasis songs that are worthy of being called their best, but for my money it's the first song that ever got them any attention whatsoever (it was a demo and when it was released on their debut album it wasn't even a single, but whatever).  It's not really influential in any sort of way but as far as intensely layered, guitar heavy hard rock anthems, Columbia is tough to beat.  When the guitar riff finally kicks in about a minute into the song, it feels like a jet taking off.  The closing guitar solo which takes up almost half of the song is the best guitar solo of Noel Gallagher's career.  But the thing about the song that really sends chills up my spine is the chorus.  The combination of Liam Gallagher, the lead vocalist who has a famously narrow range, and Noel Gallagher, whose vocals are less endearing but are generally more diverse, singing the chorus is absolutely perfect on the studio recording.  The live versions are good, too, but never quite capture the harmony of the brilliant album version.

8. Hey Hey My My--Neil Young: According to people who care about this sort of thing, this song is the most important contribution that The Godfather Of Grunge gave to the genre.  But, as I said before, screw influence.  If I was just listing influential songs I'd say Marty McFly's classic "Johnny B. Goode" and move on.  But Hey Hey My My is a great song regardless of influence.  The guitar work is quintessential Neil Young--he basically just plays one note throughout but it's just the absolute perfect note.  The vocals are technically average but evoke the anger of the song--the song is essentially Neil writing about how he's not just going to be a shadow of his old self because it's better to burn out cuz rust never sleeps.  Note that I said Hey Hey My My and not his acoustic version, titled My My Hey Hey.  This cannot be overstated.

7. Good Times Bad Times--Led Zeppelin: It's their first single and still their best song.  The four geniuses of the band are all in top form on this song--I'm not a Jimmy Page or John Bonham worshiper like many others, and I prefer when the whole band is doing their thing.  Robert Plant evokes his signature scream when he yells "I know what it means to be alone", Jimmy Page rips off an insane guitar solo in the middle of the song, John Paul Jones contributes a bassline that makes the song border on funk, but most importantly, Bonzo gives one of the all-time great drum performances by just pounding the shit out of his drum kit throughout the song.  The song is pure energy; I'll take this song over Stairway any day of the week.

6. I Wanna Be Your Dog--The Stooges: For clarification, this song is by The Stooges.  It's not by Iggy Pop or Iggy and the Stooges or Iggy Pop and the Stooges.  This song is all to the credit of the entire band, and it's a damn good one.  The song has some of the most underrated guitar playing I've ever heard--besides being an excellent riff and having a strong guitar solo and having a legendarily insane beginning, the guitar also stops in just the right places.  These stops allow Iggy to throw in his nonchalant little lines to purely wonderful effect.  Depending on who you ask the song is either an indictment of Vietnam or just a purely sexual song.  Doesn't really matter.  It's a perfect example of protopunk at its finest.

5. Holidays in the Sun--The Sex Pistols: Fine, Johnny Rotten can't sing.  Fine, Sid Vicious is such an awful bassist that Steve Jones, not himself a virtuoso, had to overdub the bass parts on this and most Sex Pistols songs.  Who gives a damn if the Sex Pistols were musically talentless?  They made good songs!  Would you rather listen to a Sex Pistols concert or an Emerson Lake and Palmer concert?  Thought so.  This is their best song because it has one of the best intros I've ever heard, it includes the perfect Steve Jones guitar solo (it doesn't deviate too terribly much from the main riff, but the main riff is fucking awesome so this is okay), and Johnny Rotten gets to yell to his fullest effect.  It's also one of the better Pistols songs lyrically--rather than just being a blind attack at everything (which there is nothing wrong with), it's a direct attack at rich snobs who viewed East Germany as a vacation hotspot rather than an oppressed area.  Kind of like the Dead Kennedys did a few years later with Holiday in Cambodia, but way more fun.

4. My Generation--The Who: It's still the best goddamned song they ever made.  Not that their later epic ballads aren't also good, but the first punk song ever written was The Who at their best--rebellious, yet still full of immense talent.  It's a well written song by Pete Townsend, the best bass solo in the history of the universe by John Entwistle, charismatic and enthusiastic as always drumming from Keith Moon, but the real start of the song is Roger Daltrey.  It may not have the epic grandeur of his singing in, say, See Me Feel Me or Love Reign O'er Me, but the stutter vocals were an essential step in the evolution of rock and roll.  Rock singers don't have to be fucking Sinatra up there--they aren't crooners.  They're there to excite and to entice.

3. Sympathy for the Devil--The Rolling Stones: This is the point where songs become effing perfect.  I really can't justify this song being behind numbers one and two, but it's hard to rank them.  Sympathy for the Devil, though, is about as perfect as a song can get.  Keith Richards has never played guitar better than on this song,  with his weird and scattershot guitar riffs and solos.  Charlie Watts, possibly the most underrated drummer in the history of rock, gets quite the task on this song but he lives up to it.  Mick Jagger, not a great vocalist most of the time, is as good as it gets for this one brilliant song.  This song is also one of the most quotable rock songs ever--for a band who mostly writes about how they can't get no satisfaction and how they were born in a crossfire hurricane and how if you start them up they'll never stop, the lyrics on this song are unbelievable.  It's a rare rock song that actually is enhanced immensely by lyrics.  "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste."  "I shouted out who killed the Kennedys when after all, it was you and me."  "Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints, as heads is tails just call me Lucifer cuz I'm in need of some restraint."  God these lyrics are great.  Allegedly they're from a book I never read.  I don't care.

2. Tomorrow Never Knows--The Beatles: It's really, really hard for me to describe how much I love this song without mentioning influence.  So fuck it, I'm going to anyway.  This song was written in 1966.  If it was released in 2011, it would still sound ultra-modern.  The song has been covered a decent number of times given that it's not really in the upper tier of Beatles songs in terms of popularity and yet none of the covers have even come close to the insanity of the original.  The song sounds like a remix of some kind of John Lennon folk song.  But enough about this song's timelessness--it's also a damn great song in its own right.  The distorted Lennon vocals are changed up just right, the off-kilter drumming and backwards guitar loops add to the insanity of the song, and the lyrics may not be very direct poetry but they add to the insanity of the song.  I can't even imagine being around when this song came out--I can virtually guarantee that if I was fourteen or older in 1966 I'd have bought Revolver and lost my shit when I heard this as the album closer.  To give you some perspective, the biggest hit of the year before was fucking Unchained Melody.  This song's a tad bit heavier than that one.

1. Girls and Boys--Blur: I have never seen this song listed as an all-time great song.  Pitchfork, a terrible source, put it on their list of the best songs of the 1990s but nobody wants to say that Girls and Boys is an all-time great song.  But it is!  It is simultaneously hard rock and electro-dancepop, a gay anthem and a sexually conservative putdown, a stadium-worthy anthem and an indie ditty.  Girls and Boys is, in one song, everything.  Damon Albarn goes with his full British accent getup, Graham Coxon doesn't play as much guitar as he's used to but the riff is efficient, Alex James has the best bassline of the decade, and Dave Rowntree exists on drums (I kid, his drumming is proper for the song--a pretty basic disco type four on the floor beat).  The song's video is one of the most intentionally moronic things ever--it's just a bunch of hedonistic partiers who look like tremendous tools dancing around and enjoying being young and rich.  The cheesiness works to grand effect.  Why I've never heard this song at a dance or party or something seems insane based on how fun musically it is--maybe its underlying anger is too much for some people to handle.

The First Step of the Aging Process

"Old man, take a look at my life.  I'm a lot like you."--Neil Young

Let me just point out that I don't feel particularly old in the grand scheme of things.  But right now, I'm twenty-two years old and I'm starting to feel what I figure is going to be a lifelong process of feeling old.

I'm sure that if five people read this, at least one of them thought, "What the hell, John?  You're fucking 22 years old and you feel old?  How do you think I feel?"  My answer would be, probably old.  It's not to say that you are old; it's just to say that you feel old.  And it's the negative form of old that I'm feeling.  Not like being a senior in high school and feeling like because of your relatively advanced age (compared to the rest of your school), you're the shit.  But feeling like you're no longer the hottest thing out there.

For instance, when I was seventeen years old, a senior in high school, and able to actually drive rather than depending on mommy for rides, I felt cool.  This isn't to say that I was cool--at least the people I went to school with would probably disagree.  This isn't some kind of moaning about high school session--like 95% of people in high school, I had some friends and therefore couldn't logically be cast as a social underling but I also wasn't friends with every single person in my graduating class and therefore wasn't really trying to be the king of the castle.  But what's important is that I felt cool.  Seventeen year old me wasn't that radically different from twenty-two year old me: Slightly less chubby, a decent bit more shy, but not overwhelmingly different on the grand scale.  The thing that made me not feel old wasn't merely being five years younger--it was experiencing the unknown.

The first time I ever drove a car without somebody in the passenger's seat was the day after I got my driver's license in July of 2006--I drove my mom's van up to my school to work on some stuff for the school newspaper.  Now, by any reasonably standard, driving a van to school during the summer to work on a freaking school newspaper is not "cool", but it was the first time I'd done it.  Hell, I felt that same sense of exhilaration in August when I drove to my first day of my first full time job.  It wasn't because I was particularly excited to be on the road at six in the morning or because I really wanted to do the job--it was because I was turning a new page.  A couple of weeks ago, I drove my 2002 Mercury Cougar--both the first stick shift I've ever driven and the first car I've ever actually fully purchased on my own--and I felt completely and totally alive.  It didn't matter that most of the time I was stuck in a traffic jam and it wouldn't have mattered if I'd killed it a couple of times--it was new.

I started to feel old earlier today when waiting in line at Taco Bell (normally I'd go drive thru, but a combination of wanting to thoroughly research the menu and not being crazy about drive-thrus in a stick shift yet brought me inside).  The guys after me in line didn't seem considerably different in age than I was, but I noticed that they were wearing Class of 2012 high school t-shirts.  So it dawned on me, I'm five years older than these guys.  When they began high school I was a fucking college sophomore.  I can vividly remember back in 1996 when the St. Louis Blues traded for Wayne Gretzky.  Granted I was pretty young at the time and fully realize it.  But they were two years old.


So all of a sudden I felt old.  I figured I wouldn't feel that way until at least my thirties, and I'm sure I will feel that way in eight years, but I felt it to some degree today.  So I started thinking about music, because it's the entertainment medium that I consider the most reliant on being "cool."  Now, to me, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, there are three definitive albums I consider to be on a different level than pretty much every other album in my collection--Prince's Purple Rain, The Sex Pistols's Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, and Oasis's Definitely Maybe.  For the latter two albums, the vocalists (John Lydon and Liam Gallagher, respectively) were twenty-one years old when the albums were released.  Prince was the old man of the group.  He turned twenty-six earlier that month.

Now I realize this is a somewhat insane comparison--I'm not a rock musician nor do I intend to become one. But I do consider these to be gold standards of cool.  But then I thought, why do I consider these three frontmen to be "cool"?  It's really pretty simple reasons.  Prince is cool because he's overwhelmingly talented--he's a tremendous singer, guitarist, songwriter, and stage presence.  John Lydon is cool because of his persona--he's rock's most beloved smartass and even though he can't carry a tune, he became a rock star because of the intense respect of his blunt honesty.  Liam Gallagher is cool because he approaches the microphone with unbelievable swagger--he's a somewhat mediocre vocal talent but when you walk in and sing like you fucking own the room, it rubs off and makes you cool.

The traits that make Prince cool, as you may have noticed, are completely different than the traits that make Lydon and Gallagher cool.  And if you look at these three men today--respectively aged 53, 55, and 38--it's hard to deny who is the coolest today.  John Lydon, while still an entertaining interview, spends most of his time publicly trolling and reuniting with the Sex Pistols when he wants to make a quick buck.  Liam Gallagher fronts the adequate band Beady Eye while being mocked the world over for being a guy born in 1972 who wears his hair like he graduated high school in 1973 (and also that said man is currently living in 1975).  Prince, however, while utterly reclusive compared to the other two, remains cool.  Because style, while cool, doesn't last.  Looks don't last.  Talent, passion, and heart does last.  And those things are cool.

I kind of realized after thinking about it that I don't have a lot to worry about.  First of all, I'm probably not cool (and if I am not, I don't really give enough of a shit to try to become cool).  And second of all, the traits that I imagine would make me considered cool (all of which I imagine are based on personality, since I look pretty damn ordinary) are intangible.  The people who have to worry about aging are the vacuous morons I knew in high school whose entire life motivation was looking good, drinking, driving a fancy car, and looking good.  As for me, I'll just sit back and say fuck it.  Bring it on, old age.  I won't be giving enough of a shit to notice.

5 Reasons Saving Silverman is Better than Citizen Kane

Before I start, two things that need to be clarified.

1. I'm not saying Saving Silverman is a good movie with any of these arguments--I'm merely saying it's better than Citizen Kane

2. I'm not concluding that Saving Silverman actually is better than Citizen Kane--these are just five arguments which I feel utterly true which present a side most people would not agree with: that a semi-popular immature comedy from 2001 is better than a movie widely considered the greatest film in history.

Here's the reasons:

5. Color--Now, I'm not saying that black and white movies are inherently worse than color movies; I will go ahead and say Raging Bull and Casablanca are better than The Hottie and the Nottie.  But color generally helps. Unless you're gonna do like a Schindler's List kind of thing where you go out of your way to make the black and white work, color is preferable.  Why?  Especially in the case of Citizen Kane, which is an attempt at a gritty film which evokes the world in which it was made, color means realism.  I'm not going to say Saving Silverman has great cinematography by any means, but it does feel like 2001 if you were a slacker moron.  It may not evoke the most exciting or glamorous part of the world, but it's still a part which exists.

4. R. Lee Ermey--Citizen Kane has the ever-expanding Orson Welles, the mom from Bewitched, and pretty much nobody else you've ever heard of.  Just by having Jack Black you could argue that Silverman has a casting edge (no, seriously, have you considered Welles's filmography beyond Citizen Kane?).  But the real key to Saving Silverman is the presence of the greatest character actor of the last twenty-five years: R. Lee Ermey.  Now, Ermey's character is always a drill sergeant type--he's most famous for playing the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket and for hosting shows in a drill sergeant guise on History Channel.  Now, Ermey doesn't exactly have the most range in the world, but for the one character he plays, he's really damn good.  The guy probably deserved an Oscar nomination for Full Metal Jacket--he's the king of his field.

3. Not Being a Troll--I say this with the full knowledge that a major plot element of Saving Silverman is that two dumbasses are convincing a nun to leave the convent in order to hook up with their friend, but Citizen Kane is the bigger troll of a movie.  The reason that Kane got so much buzz before it had time to become deemed the definitive cinematic classic of all-time is because it was allegedly an expose about the life of William Randolph Hearst, known today for being the grandfather of a terrorist but known in the 1940s as a news magnate.  Yet, is there anything about Citizen Kane that's really that necessarily specific to Citizen Kane?  Even in 1941 it wasn't exactly original to have a movie about a guy who gets rich and feels unhappy.  He didn't have to be a newspaper publisher--it was done because it stirred shit.  Saving Silverman stays in its own element--the only tied-in celebrity, Neil Diamond, makes a cameo and is therefore not a trolling.

2. Relatability--Are you a multi-millionaire?  Maybe you are, in which case I'd like to point out that I could blog a lot more on this non-commercial site with donations from readers like you.  Well, I'm not (yet).  And as such, the ability to relate personally to Citizen Kane is low at best--I guess I've striven for something, gotten it, and then ultimately felt hollow, but it wasn't due to my failed mayoral campaign.  Saving Silverman, on the other hand, I can relate to.  I suspect most men and some women know the feeling of having a good friend being driven away from you by his lady friend.  And even when she evokes the homoerotic subtext of your need to be with this guy, what you're doing makes complete sense to you.  I've always thought that Saving Silverman could have a terrible sequel in which the would-be nun turns out to be a total bitch to Jason Biggs and in turn, Zahn and Black reflect about how they really don't want Jason Biggs to spend his time with a less controlling woman--they want him to spend time with them!  See that?  That was analyzing of a movie with a 15% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  It can be done if you put your freaking mind to it.

1. Lack of a Major Plot Hole--Now, the plot to Saving Silverman is simply retarded.  The point of the movie is that they kidnap a woman and hold her in a basement until she escapes and then Neil Diamond  gets involved and for some godforsaken reason Jack Black and R. Lee Ermey hook up.  The plot doesn't really make a lot of sense and it's incredibly implausible that it would happen.  But it's not impossible.  Citizen Kane, on the other hand, in spite of its guise as a realistic and gritty movie, has an unforgivable plot hole.  Kane's last word is Rosebud--we know this, but the news reporters don't.  They go throughout the movie finding out what he said and what it meant and it turns out it was his goddamned sled (this isn't the plot hole, but it's still stupid).  But anyway, how do they know?  Kane died alone.  Yet they find out.  Was there some kind of espionage?  Would it have killed Orson Welles to break down and put in the horrible cliche of a bedside last word with his nearest relatives nearby?  I guess that would ruin the point of "capitalism leads to loneliness", but at least it would make sense.

10 Musical Acts Closest to Being "The Next Beatles"

The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of the universe.  Their total sales are over a billion, which sounds impressive in and of itself, but here's a fact to consider--enough Beatles albums have been sold in the United States that it averages out so that if every Beatles album ever sold was still in existence (I know this isn't the case, but given that my parents have every stupid Hall and Oates vinyl album in our basement, my guess is most are still intact somewhere), it would average out so that almost every single American fifteen years or older would own one.  And this is for a British band.  Americans like buying American music, but the Beatles seem to be as American as steak and kidney pie.

But anyway, for the last forty years since the dissolution of the Fab Four, many musical acts have been touted as the next Beatles.  Some more legitimately than others (perhaps one of the most famous cases of such hype, The Knack, fell well short of inclusion on this list).  Here's a rundown of the musical artists that came the closest to earning the title of The Next Beatles.

10. Led Zeppelin--Now, Zeppelin existed a couple years before the breakup of the Beatles, which hurts its stock.  Also hurting the stock is that the styles are generally considered quite different.  But once you look past the surface, the bands are similar.  Besides the superficial similarities of both being British and both being extremely popular bands capable of selling out football stadiums on both sides of the Atlantic, Led Zeppelin were extremely noteworthy among the early "heavy metal" (I dispute using this term on Zep, but others don't) acts by utilizing many different styles.  In the same way that the initially very pop Beatles ventured into folk or hard rock territory, the initially hard-edged blues rockers Led Zeppelin went folk (Going to California), funk (Trampled Under Foot), and world music (Kashmir).  Few bands can be true innovators and insanely popular--The Beatles and Led Zeppelin are among them.

9. Blur--Of the British bands since 1980, I'd argue that Blur is the one whose sound most resembles that of The Beatles.  Their run as a band lasted about as long as The Beatles and they followed a similar trajectory of musical evolution (beginning with an already-popular style and then doing their own thing).  Like The Beatles, Blur had an extremely charismatic frontman who went on to tremendous success outside of the band (Damon Albarn went on to make some solo music, but most notably is the frontman for the animated band Gorillaz).  But, not to be America-centric, Blur wasn't nearly popular enough in the United States to make them The Beatles.  The Beatles are defined by having a global impact, and Blur was basically a pretty popular (think the popularity of, say, Pearl Jam or RHCP in the 90s) British band who had one American hit (Song 2, a song you know whether you know it or not, and which has absolutely no resemblance to a majority of the band's work).  To be the Beatles, you can't just be popular with relatively small pockets of people, no matter how good you are.

8. Radiohead--Argument's basically the same as Blur.  Both are really popular in Britain, and while Radiohead is bigger in the states than Blur, they aren't in the same freaking stratosphere as The Beatles.  Radiohead arguably comes closer to the Beatles pattern of becoming popular in the existing style and then gaining the artistic freedom to do whatever the hell they pleased.  Radiohead is also the polar opposite of The Beatles when it comes to personability.  A bit part of the Beatles appeal was that they all seem like likable fellows--Thom Yorke, on the other hand, is considered an obnoxious prick even by Radiohead fans.

7. David Bowie--He began just before the breakup of The Beatles, but he really didn't become a musical trailblazer until just after.  Perhaps no musical act ever, including the Fab Four, is more known for musical diversity; in 1975 he was recording straight funk albums and by 1977 he was in Berlin recording krautrock.  His fans absolutely adore him for his weirdness.  The one thing, however, which keeps him out of the Beatles league is that a lot of people detest Bowie.  I myself will admit to not being an enormous Bowie fan.  The Beatles, however, are loved by everybody.  Let's put it this way--if somebody tells me they prefer Lynyrd Skynyrd to David Bowie, I will nod my head and acknowledge the merits to the argument.  If they say they prefer Skynyrd to The Beatles, I ask them where they're holding their slaves.

6. ABBA--Now, ABBA is not a rock band.  But in terms of being a band that became a worldwide phenomenon, it's pretty damn hard to beat ABBA.  For a band you probably can't name any members of, it's hard to imagine a band could reach #1 in ten different countries, as ABBA did with Dancing Queen.  Of course, The Beatles were also a damn good band, and ABBA isn't.  I'm not trying to sound like some kind of condescending metalhead who can't appreciate lighter music, because I'm not, but what's ABBA's best song?  S.O.S?  Waterloo?  Can these songs really be compared to even mediocre Beatles songs?

5. Nirvana--They have a John Lennon equivalent in Kurt Cobain, they have a Yoko Ono equivalent in Courtney Love, they defined fashion for a generation and they made really good pop music under their own little umbrella.  But for as much attention as Nirvana gets as the biggest band of the era (which is true, but this era was really only about two and a half years), do non-rock fans know their music?  I could name a dozen Nirvana songs off the top of my head as a relatively casual fan of theirs, but if I asked every single person on my Facebook friends list, which consists primarily of people within a few years of my age, to name as many Nirvana songs as they could, I'm predicting that at least 90% come up with one or fewer.  They're arguably more known for Next Beatles hype than for Next Beatles credentials.

4. The Rolling Stones--I know what you're thinking.  Well, I have a decent idea.  And yes, the Stones were a well-established band who had made most of their classic hits before The Beatles broke up.  But the fact is, The Rolling Stones were heirs to the throne and they held it as the most popular rock band in the world for quite some time.  Let's keep it fair and limit it to iconic rock songs that everybody and their mother knows that have been released since 1970 (the year the Beatles broke up)--Brown Sugar.  Wild Horses.  Angie.  Miss You.  Beast of Burden.  Start Me Up.  And a bunch of other songs that you merely probably know.  They might be peers of the Beatles, but they are also worthy successors.

3. Oasis--I'll be honest: As a die-hard Oasis fan, I never saw the Beatles comparisons.  Wonderwall and Don't Look Back in Anger, relatively weak songs by Oasis standards--sure.  But overall, the reason Oasis to The Beatles comparisons are valid outweigh the fact that Oasis is more of a hard rock band akin to Led Zeppelin 80% of the time.  Oasis is an insanely popular band--their popularity in the United States never really exceeded "able to perform in arenas as a co-headliner" (as they did with The Black Crowes), but I think most Americans under the age of 30 are at least aware that Oasis exists.  And in most of the world they were a stadium band until they broke up.  They also covered The Beatles more than any other act I'm aware of other than Joe Cocker (note: Oasis covers of Beatles songs generally sound quite different from the originals, notably I Am The Walrus and Within You Without You).

2. Queen--Freddie Mercury is one of the few rock stars whose status as an icon can be compared with the individual members of The Beatles.  They made a bunch of great rock songs that everyone knows and are absurdly popular throughout the world.  The one thing that keeps Queen from being Modern Beatles is diversity--other than possibly Crazy Little Thing Called Love, basically all of their hits fall into the stadium rock vernacular--unless I'm really missing something, Brian May never polished off a steel pedal guitar or picked up a fiddle.  Queen merely has to settle for being a really good band.

1. U2--Popular across the world, check.  Iconic frontman/frontmen, check.  Musical diversity, check.  Inspired by The Beatles, check.  Good, check.  So is U2 the modern Beatles?  No.  Nobody is.  There also isn't a modern Jimi Hendrix or a modern Pink Floyd for that matter.  It's over, guys.  There will never be another Beatles, nor should there be.  People like to ask hypotheticals like "Would Hey Jude have the same impact if released today?"  The answer is pretty damn simple--no, because it was already released in 1968.  We don't need a bunch of carbon copies walking around--thanks to relatively arcane technology, we all can listen to Beatles songs today.  This ain't Mozart--all the music of the rock and roll era is right there at our fingertips.  So let's enjoy the ride.