HEY VH1? GO EAT A BAG OF DICKS! HURRY!

I logged a heroic number of TV hours this holiday break and wow I mined the depths of watchable fare on the Showtime networks. And when I say Showtime networks, we’re all aware that we’re talking about America’s 24-hour source for early-’90s softcore porn. Now granted, Insatiable Cravings was okay, but I had trouble following the labyrinthine plot of Swingers Sex Party and Call Girl Wives required so much exposition that all the vaguely suggestive pubis-grinding felt tacked-on. That last epic earned the coveted 4:45 am time slot, so I dozed through its third act* but I snapped awake an hour later and To Die For was on. Starring veiny Nicole Kidman and directed by Hollywood’s least profound director this side of Tony Scott, that’s right Mr. Psycho remake himself, Gus Van Sant.

The good news was that I was joining 2D4 already in progress; in fact, what woke me up was Nailbomb’s “Wasting Away,” which soundtracks the film’s introduction of the cretinous Joaquin Phoenix character. As usual, awesome metal music is used as crude cinema shorthand for “Loser’s Song” or alternately “Theme for the Sub-Moron’s Short Journey To Death Row.”  Seriously, Phoenix’s Jimmy would struggle in a debate against a doorstop, so in Super Obvious Gus Van Sant Land, of course his music of choice is metal. Never mind that it’s proven that 94% of all serial killers are lovers of Eric Clapton. Really it’s true I read it in a book.

Ok so you’re bored by now, but seriously I’m showing that I got offended as hell by Van Sant’s assertion that metal is the music of semi-retarded criminals in To Die For. So, naturally, I went ballistic — nay, apoplectic — that very night at the conclusion of VH1’s 100 Most Shocking Music Moments. Hosted by Chris Jericho, the five-day event was pretty solid but for some fucknuts reason, it didn’t include THE most shocking music moment ever: the murder of Dimebag Darrell Abbott. Rock stars have met violent deaths before, but among many tragic distinctions, Dime’s is singular because his last moments were on stage, his death the result of an egregious violation of the performer-audience contract. So his murder affects, like, every musician and actor and speaker on earth? Pretty shocking, right?

But VH1 doesn’t think so. Britney’s haircut is more vital (#6); a spat between competing douchestains in Poison ranks higher (#99); shit, the stabbing death of a concertgoer made the list (Stones at Altamont, #22).  Also more shocking: George Jones on a lawnmower (#68), a tussle with an ostrich (#48), Fergie’s peestain/extremely sweaty vagina (#32). And it’s not like VH1 was averse to a mega-downer (the Great White concert tragedy, #7) or metal in general (Mayhem, #86). Fuck, when John Lennon’s murder was revealed as #2, it seemed obvious that top dishonors would go to a fucking quadruple homicide on stage at a concert. That would’ve been the honorable thing to do.

So imagine my ahem shock to see that The Most Shocking Music Moment as determined by VH1 was the death of Michael Jackson, a tragic loss that surprised precisely no one. (Even I knew MJ was pounding mega-drugs; why else would I go to all that trouble to smoke his fingernail clippings?) As for the premature and horrifying murder of a beloved multi-platinum guitar virtuoso/hellraiser and three others? Not shocking enough. FUCK VH1.

–ADF

*SPOILER: The repentant hubbies vow to never again fail to romance and bang their wives, lest the fragile ladies return to service at that elite and misty brothel.