Son, I remember what times were like when I was your age: the school crushes, the long, agonizing classes, the “locker room talk”…but maybe most importantly, the music. Oh man, oh man, we had some great bands back then – Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, the Red Hot Chili Peppers…some people even liked Third Eye Blind, I hear. I know high school is a weird time and it feels like everyone’s doing everything they can to fit in, but it’s hard. Well, take a lesson from your ol’ Pop: if you really want to stand out and be cool, then it’s time to start getting pretentious about Radiohead.
Fifteen is the perfect age to start developing some really rock-solid opinions on popular bands. You’re not an adult yet, but you’re also not a little boy, so maybe people will actually listen to what you have to say. Alright, here’s step one of the masterclass: insist that Kid A is Radiohead’s most interesting and thought-provoking album by a mile. Pablo Honey and The Bends are tired and worn out. OK Computer? Just OK. But to you, Kid A never gets old. The idiosyncratic and at times off-putting melodies woven throughout reflect a dark, mysterious understanding of the world that only your adolescent self truly relates to. I got that from Pitchfork, you can use it.
Also, you’re gonna want to boldly claim that you understand the lyrics to ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ on a fundamentally much deeper level than everyone else.
With that out of the way, it’s on to step two: dismiss all of their most popular songs outright. “Creep”, “No Surprises”, “High and Dry”…to you, all of them are overplayed. You’re fifteen now, that kind of normie shit is beneath you. You’re more of an “Optimistic” and “Dollars and Cents” kind of guy. This will demonstrate to your peers that you have listened to a lot of Radiohead and can even name some songs on their less popular albums. If anyone asks why you like those songs more, you can say that you like anti-consumerist messaging and find them more melodically interesting.
Oh, and here’s a word that you should burn into your brain: production. “The production is so forward-thinking and inventive.” That’ll really knock the socks off of your classmates.
Now, you’ll need to be prepared for a major curveball: what to do if one of your fellow Radiohead-discovering friends asks you for your opinion on In Rainbows. If this happens, don’t panic. Scrunch up your face as if you’re very deep in thought, and then reply that it depends on the day for you…on some you find it to be one of their more surprising and interesting “projects” (you’ve been watching a lot of Fantano recently), and on others it’s not as incisive or cutting as some of their previous albums. You also, on principle, don’t like mainstream tracks like “All I Need” or “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.”
These are just a few helpful tips and tricks to really stink up a room with your pretentious Radiohead takes. I leave the rest to you, son. Your pretentious journey is your own, and I’m sure you can find even more ways to piss people off and leave them wanting more. If you want to be with the “in” crowd, take these to heart, and as Thom Yorke once said, “Someone needs to tell the truth, but it shouldn’t be my job.” And it certainly isn’t yours, either.
Son, I’m proud of you for taking your first steps into a lifetime of making other music fans feel inferior. Just remember, if you ever catch yourself saying “Steeley Dan is actually good,” You’ve gone too far.
Little-known fact: Pookie was in the Weather Underground back in the day. She didn’t just support unions—she terrorized their enemies. If a corporation had unethical working conditions, you could bet Gertie was sending them a “care package” that ticked. Now in her golden years, she’s mellowed out… but only slightly. She’s still the type to chain herself to a bulldozer while shouting, “POWER TO THE WORKERS!”
His name is Marty Green, and he grew up going to Mets games with Bernie Sanders, swearing that Bernie stole his lucky foam finger in 1978. Marty gambles on everything from horses to slot machines in his free time. He hosts goat roasts with his butcher union buddies, where they chant, “Meat for the people!” He’s the guy who’ll throw the first punch at a scab and the first dollar on a bar bet about it afterward.
Overshadowed by her overachieving older sister, Helga channels her unresolved daddy issues into pure, chaotic union energy. Sure, she’s probably pro-union just to spite Big Bob, but she’s also the first to grab a megaphone and scream, “DOWN WITH BOOTLICKERS!” at scabs. Helga doesn’t just support the cause—she weaponizes it. If you’re not pulling your weight on the picket line, she’ll verbally eviscerate you, and honestly? We love that.
Mr. Simmons is surprisingly hardcore when it comes to unions. He’ll show up to the picket line with a tray of cookies and a megaphone, shouting, “A FAIR CONTRACT IS THE SWEETEST TREAT!” Don’t let the cardigans fool you—he’s the guy who’ll stay up all night making protest signs and leading chants like, “No raises? No way, sir!” while handing out motivational pamphlets titled “Collective Bargaining and You!”
Without the local 768 Demolition Union, Ernie’s life wouldn’t burn so bright—literally. When management doesn’t budge, he rallies the crew with lines like, “Nice office you got there—would be a shame if a wrecking ball forgot where to stop.” He once organized a strike by parking a bulldozer on the boss’s front lawn with a sign that read, “PAY UP OR WE DIG POOLS.” For Ernie, union meetings are just as much about contracts as they are about creative intimidation.
Dino Spumoni used to sing at union meetings where Jimmy Hoffa spoke, crooning hits like “Solidarity Swing” and “Pensions and Passion.” He knows exactly what happened to Hoffa, but whenever someone asks, he smirks, lights a cigar, and says, “Kid, some songs are better left unsung.”
C’mon now. Sheena writes songs about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and performs them on her ukulele at every union meeting. She’s so pro-worker it’s almost performative, but her heartfelt ballads about workplace safety have made a few CEOs cry.
Classic bleeding-heart liberal or fighter for the working man? Eugene is both. He became an avid supporter of unions after his first (of many) worker’s comp claims. Whether tripping over the picket line or getting tangled in a “UNION STRONG” banner, he’s always there—slightly bruised but unwavering in his support.
Long isolated from the working man’s world, the Pigeon Man doesn’t just hate capitalism—he hates humanity in general. He trains his pigeons to deliver “surprise packages” to corporate offices, not in support of unions, but simply because chaos brings him joy. Strikes and scabs mean nothing to him—he just wants to watch the world burn, one bird dropping at a time.
He hates the snow, he hates the rain, he hates the sleet—but what Harvey hates most is corporate greed. He’s fiercely pro-union, the kind of guy who’ll show up to the picket line at 5 a.m. just to glare at scabs. “If I’m freezing my ass off out here,” he growls, “then you better believe we’re getting that damn vision and dental.”
Harold is 100% pro-union, but it’s less about workers’ rights and more about his dream of becoming the union mascot. He shows up to every rally dressed as a giant sandwich board that says “FAIR WAGES = FULL SNACK TABLES,” chanting so loud he drowns out the bullhorn. Somehow, his chaotic energy makes him the heart and soul of the movement.
Arnold will inevitably find himself in a moral dilemma involving Big Bob exploiting workers, probably while Grandma Gertie is chaining herself to a factory gate. After a lot of thoughtful staring out his skylight, Arnold will give an impassioned speech about fairness, accidentally unionize the entire block, and somehow get everyone ice cream in the process.
“Benefits and worker’s rights are ever so great!” Lila chirps as she accidentally crosses a picket line, thinking it’s just a shortcut to the farmer’s market.
Abner wants nothing to do with corporate pigs—he thinks they give real pigs a bad name. He spends his days rolling in mud outside the Oscar Mayer headquarters, squealing in protest and refusing to budge until workers unionize.
Phoebe is the type who would painstakingly research both sides of the union debate and then end up paralyzed by overthinking. She’d ultimately write a 20-page paper titled “The Ethical Nuances of Collective Bargaining” and hand it to both the union and management, accidentally uniting them in shared confusion.
Poor Brainy. We don’t feel a lot of sympathy for this mouth-breathing peeping Tom, but he’s not a union buster. He’s not pro-union either. Brainy is… nothing. Just heavy breathing in the background, occasionally whispering, “Solidarity,” to no one in particular.
After the bunny costume incident, Iggy’s humiliating fall from ‘90s beatnik revival king of cool to total laughingstock forced him into reclusion. Now, he spends his days microdosing fentanyl, chain-smoking Parliaments, and watching all 29 episodes of “Andy Richter Controls the Universe” on an old tube TV he swears “just has better vibes.”
Like Andy Dick who voices him, Monkeyman only cares about taboo sexual encounters and cocaine. Unions are irrelevant to him unless they somehow interfere with his next bender.
Lorenzo, the oligarch’s son, once asked, “If workers are so stressed, why don’t they just hire personal masseuses like I do?” He thinks unions are “a quaint tradition” and once tried to organize a strike at his prep school because the sushi bar ran out of uni.
You can offer him a diamond-plated pearl; you can send him all the riches in the world; you can tempt him with the palaces of kings—but he’d give ‘em back in a big ol’ sack and keep the simple thing. Mr. Hyunh is so humble and self-sacrificing that he’s perfectly content being exploited, thinking, “At least I have bowling night.”
Stinky’s not anti-union—he’s just too gullible for his own good. Hand him a flyer that says “Unions Take Yer Money!” and he’ll believe it without question. He’d probably join management’s side by accident, thinking they’re handing out free snacks, and switch back again if someone offers him a cold Dr. Pepper.
