Politik

I don't know when it happened.

I grew up a staunch supporter of everything that the Republican party had come to represent. I dreamed of marrying a gorgeous Christian girl in a large church and spending the rest of our lives making fun of poor people and Democrats.

Then there was the whole, 'oh I'm a "social moderate" but I still believe in fiscal conservatism thing.' Really this just meant I was largely apathetic about social issues and I wouldn't go out of my way to bash gay marriage, legal marijuana or abortion. But selfishly, I didn't care, those things don't affect me.

But then one day I just stopped caring about anything. People should be able to do whatever they want, even if I think it's stupid. I think it is stupid to self-identify as a fish. But if self-identifying as a fish makes you happy, then you should fucking do it. I do a lot of stupid stuff. But it makes me happy, and no one tries to stop me. So I figure this is a fair trade.

This doesn't mean I can't root for certain things. And while I don't have much of an agenda, there are a few things that I hope for, one of them being anarchy.

Like what if...

Donald Sterling was in the middle of his legal battle with the NBA and LeBron James pulled a Samuel L Jackson by storming the court room and shooting him in the fucking face with a shot gun.

"YES I THINK HE DESERVED TO DIE AND I HOPE HE BURNS IN HELL."

Of course the surface result of this is that Donald Sterling is dead and the best basketball player in the world goes to jail (unless he has McConaughey for a lawyer) but deeper down there are the questions of, well shit. The King just murdered Sterling in cold blood and now his wife is the owner of the team.
But clearly you can't take the team away from the widow of a murdered husband while the HazMat team is still clearing pieces of his brain off of the judge's gavel. The case is halted, the Sterling family retains ownership, and only half the players decide to strike the following season. Chaos.

And what if, on that VERY SAME DAY, a sex tape of Michael Sam and Kendall Jenner surfaces, mind you it is timestamped 2012 OMFG she's 17!!! And then a bunch more girls come forward claiming Michael Sam hit them raw when they were in their mid to late teens. What happens then?

Or, Aaron Hernandez is acquitted of triple homicide and goes on to have a career season with Oakland.

This is the shit that I am into. Things that make the collective head explode. I love a good scandal, and the only thing better than some athlete killing his wife, is a crazy twist in which his wife was actually an international drug warlord.

Sure maybe I'm a monster, but I'm fair. I universally loathe inflated public outrage. Twenty years ago you could speak your mind, now if Jennifer Lawrence makes a rape joke it becomes an international incident. And I think that's silly.

All of the faux outrage is silly, and it's largely an indictment on the internet and social media as a whole. And if it was just a collection of people getting overly worked up over things that in no way impact them. Fine. Look, Aaron Hernandez is a dick. Donald Sterling is a dick. And Michael Sam? I wish him the best.

But the groupthink is not contained exclusively to hating on dicks. Nay, there is collateral damage...and I am here today to say one thing...

Leave Coldplay the FUCK alone.

Honestly, let me tell you fucking hipster contrarians something. If you think it is an original thought to hate on a popular band, you need to trade your skinny jeans in for a nice pair of croakies. I will concede that Coldplay is a band that has made a living off of an affable lead singer making formulaic radio-friendly hits. But there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that.

I think there is a clear distinction between the people that have jumped on the Coldplay-hate bandwagon and those that enjoy it when they find an old iPod mini (lime green) and see that they had 3 different live versions of "In My Place."

You either did or did not get a hand job at a Coldplay concert in high school. That's all there is to it.

It's not that the Coldplay hating hipsters were incapable of receiving hand jobs in high school, only that to do so at an outdoor concert would pose a challenge due to the tight constriction of the denim and the awkward design of the button fly. Abercrombie and Fitch shorts though, the definition of convenience. They may have been lambasted by the screenwriters of Superbad, but my guess is that a pre Freaks and Geeks Seth Rogen never tore a whole in the lining of his shorts so he could get jerked off through a cargo pocket.

Ahh, nostalgia.

The truth of the matter is, I'm not even THAT big a fan of Coldplay, but I like them enough that I felt the need to stand up for them when their album dropped this week and they were given a collective FUCKKKK YOUUUU. Maybe people don't remember the first time they heard 'The Scientist.' Or when they heard 'Don't Panic' in Garden State whilst simultaneously falling in love with Natalie Portman.

And in the same year that Chris Martin divorces megacunt Gwyneth Paltrow, I thought for sure, Coldplay would be embraced now more than ever.

In 2005, Coldplay dropped X&Y which escalated them from British alternative pop band, to international superstardom. 'Speed of Sound' was all over the place, 'Fix You' became a melodramatic anthem that they rode to 15 million albums sold and deeper cuts like 'Swallowed in the Sea' I would play on repeat while driving home from a girls house.

Looking back, this was my emo phase. While many of my contemporaries were blasting Simple Plan and Dashboard, I was listening to Coldplay (and lots of rap music) In my opinion there was nothing else better to drive to, super loud with the windows down.

In 2008, I was living on my own for the first time. I had a house in Wrigleyville and I was selling cigs. But it turns out, I didn't do much that summer aside from listen to Viva la Vida amplified on airport through the whole house...drinking copious amounts of vodka. Coldplay was finally a band that you could party to! I remember people coming over to my house and doing coke off the counter during 'Strawberry Swing' and thinking oh shit, this is NOT your older brother's Coldplay.

At their concert at the United Center that summer, I remember sitting outside a liquor store in Garfield Park at the corner of Madison and Western (not a nice area!) I was with 2 dudes passing a handle of vodka around a circle while someone played 'Clocks' on an iPhone first generation. The only explanation for us not getting stabbed/robbed must have been that the local hoodlums legitimately thought we were crazy. We snuck a second handle into the United Center and then moved down from our seats in the upper deck to the lower level right before the intermission.

Somehow the band went down some sort of secret elevator that lowered them below the stage, moved them across the arena and raised them, right in front of me, where they played 'Green Eyes' (unfortunately I was no longer wearing cargo shorts at this point or the nearest girl to me would have immediately given me a handjob...I assume)

My friends and I met some 19 year old Wilmettte chicks on the red line back to Wrigley and had an after party until noon the next day. It is largely agreed upon that this was one of the greatest nights in Chicago.

So maybe I don't subscribe to musical theory, but I associate my appreciation of music with the life experiences that accompany them. And sure this was a pretty crude account of my Coldplay experiences (a majority which were fabricated) but I can say with certainty I have had a good time whilst listening to some of their songs.

And maybe you did too, or maybe there is another band that you reflect fondly on. Leave mine alone.

See the problem with keeping the status quo is you're essentially endorsing the message of a High School Musical song. You know who fucked with the status quo? Zac Efron! He started doing a lot of drugs and quit doing Disney movies and look at him now.

(Side note: I would be very interested in a HSM where are they now. We all know that Efron went to rehab for coke/heroin and every man in America has spent significant time with "leaked" photos of Vanessa Hudgens, but I really want to know what happened to Ashley Tisdale's gay brother or the piano player, what the fuck are they up to)

So in closing...I'm sure I've lost all of you by now, but in closing, the shitty (or not shitty) music from our youth's will always hold extreme sentimental value to us. I will never stop loving DMB, OAR, Coldplay, Third Eye Blind, Blink 182...etc. And you should equally treasure your Tool, ICP if you were one of those weirdos.

And let's save the collective outrage for a real tragedy, you know like a war or terrorist attack. If someone gets drunk and tweets something mildly offensive, how about we let them off with a free pass?