Happy Valentine's Day

Today marks the celebration of the solemn Feast of St. Valentine, a day devoted to the celebration of gang violence. On this feast day commemorating a celibate martyr, we celebrate love and passion by purchasing lumps of carbon gathered by desperate, brutalized peasants and the fermented embryos of a tropical tree. On the topic of love, a wiser man than I said:


Love crops up quite a lot as something to sing about,
cos most groups make most of their songs about falling in love
or how happy they are to be in love,
you occasionally wonder why these groups do sing about it all the time -
it's because these groups think there's something very special about it
either that or else it's because everybody else sings about it and always has,
you know to burst into song you have to be inspired
and nothing inspires quite like love.

These groups and singers think that they appeal to everyone
by singing about love because apparently everyone has or can love
or so they would have you believe anyway
but these groups seem to go along with what, the belief
that love is deep in everyone's personality.
I don't think we're saying there's anything wrong with love,
we just don't think that what goes on between two people
should be shrouded with mystery.


Of course, I'd remiss (un-loving even) if I didn't post a video for the amazing Anthrax by Gang of Four:





Now I feel kinda bad... like I came across as bitter and cynical. That's no way to spend Valentine's Day. How about something tender? Here's a little number that's sweet, yet fuzzy- like a piece of bubblegum that was idly stuck in one's pocket, and is covered with lint:





Last night, the Ramones won a lifetime achievement Grammy award, almost ten years after the death of Joey Ramone. Effin' Grammys, how do they work? To show how out of it the Grammy nominating commission is, this guy damn near swept the Grammys in 1981. Gadzooks, the music industrial complex cannot crash and burn quickly enough.