Fuck Me, I Won’t Do What I Tell Me

I just had another “moment of clarity” (as the alcoholics call it) into what a monumental douchebag I am.  I’m getting dressed, about to head out to the DVD shop, and I stuck on some music.  Today’s selection was Rage Against The Machine’s self-titled debut album.  The second song, Killing in the Name Of, came on.  You can read the full lyrics here.

First, it’s weird that I’d even listen to something like this because RATM are a bunch of Chomsky-idolozing, Castro-worshipping socialist commie-supporting left-wing dickheads.  That being said, this album fucking rocks, and I’ve been listening to it since it was brand new.  At any rate, near the end of the song there’s a big build up before the chorus, which consists of the following line repeated over and over again.

Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me

So I’m standing there in my kitchen, with this song fucking CRANKED, and I’m mentally sticking my middle finger in the air, thinking “Yeah!  Fuck you!”

Then it dawned on me.  I’m a fat, balding, middle-aged white guy.  I’m as establishment as they come.  I’m the antithesis of everything that this band and its music stand for.  Who, exactly, am I saying “fuck you” to other than people who are exactly like me?  If anything, I’m the guy that people should be saying “fuck you” to, not the other way around.

The song still fucking rocks, though.  I think I’ll put it on again.  Fuck me, I won’t do what I tell me.

Update: You know what this is like?  The Who’s My Generation.  Roger Daltrey, who was born in 1944, is still singing this song, which contains the line “I hope I die before I get old.” He’s in his mid 60s, and somehow he does it with a straight face. 

Hey, if Daltrey can do it, why can’t I?

Update 2: I just remembered this brilliant 2000 article in The World’s Greatest Magazine™ about the left-wing nature of political music, and the hypocrisy of performers who decry capitalism and corporations while making full use of both to turn themselves into fabulously wealthy bourgeois pigs.

To justify its compromised position, Rage Against the Machine drags Noam Chomsky into the debate, making the twisted analogy that Chomsky wouldn’t object to Barnes & Noble–a big, bad company–selling his books, because that’s where people buy books. That analogy might explain why Rage would allow its records to be sold at Tower megastores, but not why its members would become employees of and sell ownership of their music to Sony, which makes far more money selling Rage records than Rage itself does.

Leftists desperately want to avoid real discussion of such contradictions. That’s because such contradictions suggest that if it’s impossible to escape acting like capitalists, maybe there isn’t anything wrong with openly being one.

Read the whole thing.  Tear the system down!

Good, you’re just about to the last level.  Now, repeat after me - “Hey, you kids get the fuck off my lawn!!”

Which, of course, assumes that someday I’ll actually have a lawn. 

I could be like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode where he puts a screen door on his apartment door and hangs a flag next to it.  That seems fitting.

Kinda like that cell phone commercial where the executive tells his lackey that he is ‘sticking it to the man’.  The lackey replies ‘But you are the man, so are you sticking it to yourself?’ ‘Maybe’ is the only reply.

HAH!  My thoughts on the song and group are almost exactly the same… the real “meaning” of the lyrics and such are something I don’t agree with, but the song (and they have several) still rocks. 

Of course, I also love the irony on their lyrics in songs like this when what you know they mean, “Screw the establishment… but only the one(s) we don’t like, but you should do anything the one(s) we like say you should do;” but if many can apply the same lyrics/thinking to the types of establishment they prefer.

SO, I’m only (hah.. only) 35 but I’m long past that step.  I do the “damn kids today” thing with my sister’s kids all the time.

Some of my recent “good god I’m getting old” moments:
- Seeing kids that look like they’re maybe in the 3rd grade getting out of the local elementary school while walking the dog.. the girls are wearing short skirts[*] and look like tramps and they ALL have cell phones.  I remember when my dad got this phone that’s a monstrosity by today’s standards, but was the smallest with decent power at the time (it was a Motorola case w/ handset model).
- Watching my sister’s kids txt at about 1000 wpm.  I can type like a demon and that still amazes the crap out of me.
- Getting mad at the nieces/nephews about having no concept of the value of money/things.. when they’re in their mid teens and should have at least some by now (I know I did).

To the first point, if I ever end up having kids (less and less likely as time goes on) I’m going to make damn sure I can send them to the private school I went to, or something close.  Mostly for the better education, but also just to avoid the whole fashion show at school crap and make them wear uniforms.

[*]BTW, when the hell did denim skirts come back into style?

[*]BTW, when the hell did denim skirts come back into style?

I have to admit I dig this.  When I was 17 I had a 15 year old girlfriend named Alison.  As was the fashion at the time she wore short denim skirts and little white canvas shoes with no socks.  She always had great tan legs, and I *still* look back on that outfit with a huge degree of nostalgic lust.

I’m not a molester or anything, but when I see girls wearing 80’s clothes, which was the era in which my sexuality came into fruition, I can’t help but skip a breath and think back to the good old days.

Shalom Lee,

As I learned from Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Gray Panthers, many years ago, there’s a huge difference between growing older—something we all do, and getting old—something I intend to never do.

B’shalom,

Jeff Hess