ATLANTA — Georgia’s governor has signed a bill prohibiting the act of offering water to thirsty audience members queuing in long merch lines, bewildered legal experts confirmed.
“This is a boon for venue owners,” said Phil Stubbs, proprietor of The Vexed Crab nightclub. “All those people in line ain’t drinking, so we ain’t earning. Usually someone will wait in line and their friend will bring them some water. We stopped giving out free water at the bar a long time ago, but these skinflints will just fill a cup in the bathroom sink. All these lousy water drinkers really cut into our bar take. This law means those cheapskates will have to bring their friend at least a $8 PBR tallboy instead. People like beer more than water, anyway, so this is a win-win situation.”
Concert-goers who fought against the law’s passage are disappointed that the state has once again sided with powerful special interests over the consumer.
“Last summer I went to an outdoor festival that was apparently testing the practices that have now become law,” said Miranda Speight, 26. “My friend and I wanted to grab some t-shirts. After standing in line in the hot sun for half an hour, she finally went to get us water. But when she got back, a security guard knocked the cups out of her hands and demanded she go back and get beers, or at least hard seltzers. I wound up in the emergency room from dehydration that day. I never did get that goddamned shirt.”
ACLU spokesman Andrew Gruber argues that the new law is unconstitutional and should be repealed.
“With the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court decided that political donations from corporations were protected as free speech,” said Gruber. “The same logic should apply here. In fact, the Georgia law was passed under the disingenuous premise that a bad actor could influence which band’s merch someone will buy if they’re given water. But anyone can see it’s just a cash-grab by the venues to increase thirst in an effort to sell more beer. Especially since there is no rule in place prohibiting offering beer, liquor or even a basket of curly fries to people.”
At press time, a local concert attendee was released after having been wrongfully apprehended for giving what turned out to be a $22 vodka on the rocks—not water—to a friend.
Nothing wrong with a long, droney interlude on your album, but this one gets pushed just a little too far. The middle section could be mistaken for a slightly-less-dense version of a Sunn O))) record. Closing track “Piss Clowns are Trebled” (did we mention these guys have a gift for song/album titles?) is killer, but it feels like it takes all day to get there, and this is on one of their shortest albums.
Darker and more ominous than most GY!BE records (and that’s saying something), the dirge-like tracks on here are apparently meant to support the entirely reasonable list of political demands included in the album’s packaging, notably “an end to foreign invasion, an end to borders, the total dismantling of the prison–industrial complex.” It’s an admirable attempt, but the people with the power to bring those things to an end are more likely listening to bro country than to intricately-composed instrumental avant-garde post-rock by a bunch of anarchist weirdos.
This EP has two tracks, one of which is perfect entry-level GY!BE, a nice little 10-minute piece that is pretty much the distilled essence of the band’s style. The other is primarily a field recording of some malcontent (who probably stormed the capitol 22 years later) bragging about how he mouthed off to a judge while paying a parking ticket and then reciting an “original” poem that is mostly plagiarized Iron Maiden lyrics. You can listen to it as a nifty piece of performance art, but remember, you really don’t have to.
The band was already selling merch with this album title almost a decade before its release, so it must have been a slow-developing concept. We’re also not sure why a band this transgressive and decidedly non-mainstream felt the need to censor the title, but that’s surely all part of some grand aesthetic plan. A solid album front-to-back, with less emphasis on drone, a return to field recordings as a central (but not overused) element, and some riffs that, played a little faster through the right guitar pedal, would practically be death metal.
This one sort of had to be in the middle of the pack, and there’s a simple litmus test for whether you’ll be into it: Do you like GY!BE’s whole deal? Then you’ll like this, but it probably won’t be your favorite. Do you not like GY!BE’s whole deal? Then you won’t like this, and probably won’t feel inclined to compare it to the rest of their discography. This is just the band doing what they do, but very little really stands out. We’re giving it a break though, because it was the follow-up to “Lift Your Skinny Fists” (see below), which is a stone cold banger.
We’re at that magical point in the ranking where you could shuffle them up in any order and it would be perfectly respectable. This record was such an anomaly in the 1996 music world: In the context of an era of easy-listening pop treacle and post-grunge crapola, this sounds like it might as well be a transmission from Mars. The music is painstakingly weird, and that iconic opening spoken-word piece—”The car is on fire, and no driver at the wheel, and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides.”—not only sets the tone for GY!BE’s entire discography, but also sounds like something from a particularly bleak Cormac McCarthy novel, and ain’t nothing wrong with that.
It’s a masterpiece, and most people’s gateway not only to this band, but to experimental turn-of-the-millenium instrumental music in general. It’s a straight line from this to Explosions in the Sky and This Will Destroy You, but it’s also more ambitious and audacious than anything either of those bands, excellent as they are, have ever done. Unlike on “Slow Riot,” the spoken word and field recording bits mesh so well with the music that you can’t imagine them not being there, especially the moody street preacher on “Static.” But even some guy waxing nostalgic about Coney Island or a looped recording of a grocery store PA announcement add depth and nuance to the album. And musically, “Static” is a master-class in the slow-burn payoff. It’s not just that it spends 15 minutes (!!!) building upon a simple muted guitar riff with more and more layers and intensity—that sort of compositional trick is a dime a dozen in this genre—it’s that the tempo picks up right alongside it, and by the time the crescendo hits, the song is cruising at practically 200 BPM and you feel like you just got pummeled by the experimental music equivalent of a crowbar-wielding mob enforcer. But, like, in a good way.
The band’s first album after a 10-year hiatus, and unequivocally their greatest. “Lift Your Skinny Fists” is incredible, but this record is an absolute triumph. The two longer tracks steal the show, with opener “Mladic” culminating in a weird, loopy drone that will make you think the record is skipping for a few seconds before the payoff comes in a beautifully-composed crescendo. “We Drift Like Worried Fire” is built around a simple but gorgeous riff and is, at least by GY!BE standards, practically a ballad in its gentle simplicity. The shorter tracks are less memorable, and it’s almost like the band wants you to see them that way (the vinyl version has them on a separate 7-inch while the longer tracks are on each side of the LP), but you should take the time to alternate the discs accordingly, because experiencing this album as a complete work is deeply rewarding. Five stars, two thumbs up, 10/10, perfect album.
Scruffy the Janitor, long-time fixer of toilets and boilers, boilers and toilets, the one boiling toilet, and lifelong pornography enthusiast would despise Peterson for his abhorrently sexist views and recognize that the “12 Rules for Life” are pretty much basic common sense that can be learned anywhere. Mhm.
Let’s discuss the factors. The Amazon Women: Matriarchal giantesses who execute men by pelvis-crushing snoo-snoo. (Nice). Jordan Peterson: A frail, fragile psychiatrist who once melted his brain with bennies, and who believes that women are the embodiment of chaos. Not only are the Amazonians fundamentally opposed to Peterson’s philosophy, but they also have good critical thinking skills and can see through the fundamental flaws in his philosophy, ardently opposing this wee man.
Intelligent, beautiful and self-possessed, LaBarbara thinks Peterson’s philosophy is nonsense. She wasn’t too concerned when Hermes came home talking about buying a copy of “Maps of Meaning,” but when he started talking about the “crisis of masculinity,” she put the book in a pot of her famous curried goat.
Leela started reading “12 Rules For Life” mainly because there was a section on cleaning your room, and she needed an excuse to clean her apartment. She got two paragraphs in before karate chopping the book against the wall and now dreams about putting a combat boot up Peterson’s ass.
There’s actually not a lot of jokes you can even make about this one. Peterson and Gore are pretty much on opposite ends of the political spectrum and Peterson is a prolific climate denier. Which honestly, at this point, one has to wonder… how many of these right-wing nut jobs actually don’t believe in climate change and how much of it is just toeing the party line? Al Gore doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.
There’s something about the phrase “an antidote to chaos” that rubs Robot Santa Claus the wrong way. He loves chaos. It’s his whole thing. Oh sure, he loves the idea of an author who sits in constant judgement of his fellow man and calls them weak little weasels, but wishes that instead of writing boring books about it, Peterson would go out and decapitate them.
Or perhaps the remains of a spaceship that crashed into God. Either way, one of the most notable quotes from God’s episode is: “When you’ve done it right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” This runs antithetical to Jordan Peterson, who never met a talk show he wouldn’t go on, a college student he wouldn’t try and debate, a trans person he wouldn’t misgender, or a hill he wouldn’t die on. All in the least subtle way possible.
And Grand Lunch Lady, Grand Priestess, Funeral Director, etc. This grand woman clearly has a lot of life experience, skills and education, allowing her to see through much of Peterson’s smoke and mirrors. When she attended a lecture on Peterson’s approach to parenting, she stormed out and even clocked ole’ Kermit with her cane, finding his rules simplistic, staunch, and stanky.
Fiercely independent and at times promiscuous while planning to have a family on her own time, Amy Wong is the type of woman who Jordan Peterson despises. Amy was once enrolled in a course taught by the head of Professor Peterson, and she quickly dropped the course to boogie board in the time she would have spent at the lecture.
Son of Hubert Farnsworth and Mom, Igner would fear the weird Kermit man and his mean comments about women, since he is a momma’s boy at heart and would interpret Peterson’s misogyny as an attack on dear old mom.
Fry would have discovered Jordan Peterson while on a break from his relationship with Leela, he is admittedly exactly the right sort of person to be suckered in by Peterson’s… charm? Specifically, a prospectless, messy, unsuccessful man in his mid-twenties, with a tendency toward not thinking for himself. But thankfully, Leela was there to pull him back from the edge before he was too far gone.
Fry’s old Boss and noted reader of Big Whoop magazine, Mr. Pannuchi exercised notoriously lax quality control over the ingredients at the Pizzeria, even letting Seymour (yes that Seymour) rummage around in the Pizza Sauce makes for an unclean room, and life. Plus the Pannuchi slouch is in direct opposition to the first rule for life, “Head Up Shoulders Back.”
At first this Peterson guy seemed to be nice and proper, but he made the ultimate mistake, by mis-clamping the clamps. A crime punishable by CLAMP CLAMP KEBAMP! Ironic since Clamps is the closest thing to a crustacean Robot in the Futurama Universe, what with the clamps and everything.
Kif is also the type of fella to get suckered in with Peterson’s rhetoric. He’s lowly, depressed and quite literally spineless. But you all forget one thing: Kif is actually a nice guy. Not a “nice guy.” A nice guy. And through that genuine niceness, he was able to pull Amy Wong – a straight-up baddie. I think there’s a lesson in that somewhere.
Jordan Peterson once gave a lecture on the Ball Planet. He began with bouncing, followed by rolling, followed by bouncing of the 69th kind, a societal faux pas on the ball planet. An embarrassed, slightly drunken Peterson proceeded to “bounce” from the ball planet, before any more chaos broke out, and oh boy imagine the chaos if Jordan brought a lobster to these inflatable intellectuals.
Ndnd is very familiar with the works of Dr. Peterson, mainly because she always has to read them to her husband. Lrrr can’t read. Ndnd doesn’t take Jordan seriously, mainly because she’s convinced he’s not a trained psychologist and college professor, but rather a provoking – but ultimately harmless – meta comedian. Like Andy Kaufman when he used to joke about wrestling women.
The Robot Devil used to be big into Peterson, taking a number of notes from “12 Rules For Life.” Ultimately, he was pretty convinced that Jordan was a robot himself and was champing at the bit to one day have his soul in Robot Hell. He was disappointed when he found out the truth and has since gone on to regret giving Jordan the idea to tell his patients to write angry letters to his critics.
I LOVE THOSE MAGNIFICENT 1X ROBOTS! A pinnacle of efficiency and flawless space-age engineering, Robot 1X considers Jordan a ranting, raving dark age lunatic, babbling about sorcery and myths. Even more cretinous is the concept of only having twelve rules for life. The 1X Robots have at least 7,000 and are among the most well-organized and high-functioning beings in the whole “Futurama” canon.
Due in large part to his unwavering belief in superheroes, it would be safe to say that Mayor Poopenmeyer is also a disciple of Joseph Campbell and the “Hero With a Thousand Faces.” Or he would be, if he actually took the time to read Campbell. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) like most American politicians, the mayor of New New York City hasn’t picked up a book in several years and thinks that every picture of Jordan is just from a remake of “Tales From the Crypt.”
Joey Mousepad is, without doubt, the least problematic of the Robot Mafia’s upper echelon. He’s tall, well-built, easy going and ultimately secure in his intelligence and frame. People like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Tate, and Dave Rubin have nothing to offer him. Unfortunately, Joey Mousepad has also listened to every single episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” so he has absorbed some bad takes through pure osmosis.
The ultimate middle child in Mom’s evil empire, Larry is neither as conniving as his older brother Walt nor as brashly unintelligent as his younger brother Igner. Larry is the sort of resentful man who might easily go down a red-pill rabbit hole. Fortunately, the one time he tried standing up to Mom and told her that “women belong in the kitchen, Mommy,” she had him spend a weekend in the tiger pit.
Dwight is a shining example of why smoking weed is actually one of the best things a teenager can do. Dwight first encountered a snippet from “Maps of Meaning” in an English class and – like many young men – thought Peterson had some pretty great ideas. Fortunately, LaBarbara discovered this and accidentally left some of Hermes’ stash out in the open for Dwight to find. After a couple tokes, he forgot all about it.
Through cleaning his room/data storage, the Donbot was able to find his mercy file for the first time in years. With this renewed sense of kindness, the Donbot fronted Peterson a large amount of Clonazeham from the Robot Mafia, and the good doctor went on his way, never to pay back the Donbot for this generous gift, who proceeded to put out an open hit on Mr. Peterson and delete the mercy file.
An antidote to chaos would inevitably lead to the end of “All My Circuits,” since chaos is a prerequisite for drama, soap opera drama especially, and good ol’ Television storytelling, no matter how basic. This would lead Calculon to lump thinly veiled criticism against Jordan Peterson during interviews, inevitably leading the two onto a talk show together, and being the spotlight hog he is, Calculon would double down on these conversations to boost his own career at the expense of the very show he is a star of.
B’GAAAAK! Hyper Chicken is no one’s favorite person, a famously incompetent attorney with a tendency to fly off the handle at anyone he thinks is actually corn. And yet, there’s something about him that doesn’t scream: “I like to read books by public intellectuals.” He’s in touch enough with his rural roots to know that “public intellectual” isn’t a job people should be allowed to have.