SHUSH NOW, YOU WHINY TWATS!

Dear Morons Of The Internet,

I hope you’re happy and well and didn’t swallow your tongue during the night while dreaming about hitting yourself in the genitals with a plank of wood with nails sticking out of it. That just wouldn’t do, would it? The rest of us, slightly less stupid people on the internet, would feel so terribly sorry for you. Tears would be shed, I’m sure. Anyway, like I say, I hope you’re happy and well and the tongue-swallowing thing didn’t happen. All the best to you!

Meanwhile, it’s time for me to write another blog. Strangely, this one is about exactly the same thing as one of the previous ones I wrote. It’s funny how things turn out, isn’t it? I thought that the previous blog about this subject was pretty straightforward and easy to understand, but apparently not. I received all manner of abuse from the inarticulate, the ignorant and the irredeemably dim, including one actual threat of physical violence! Hard to believe, I know, but one must take the rough with the smooth, don’t you think? Live by the pen and die by the pen, and all that sort of bollocks.

(At this point, I feel I ought to point out that if you ARE one the “Morons Of The Internet” that I’m referring to, it would probably be sensible to stop reading this now. I know you may find this confusing, but I’m not actually aiming this blog at you. It does seem like I am, doesn’t it? It’s a little trick I use to justify what follows, to be honest. I’m not really aiming it at you, principally because I know exactly how you’re going to react and I’m not remotely interested in your opinions. Because, you know, you’re a moron! In fact, I’m aiming this blog at all the sane, rational and open-minded people that are capable of recognising things like sarcasm, irony and hyperbole, and who will probably agree with me anyway...or, at least, understand that the point I’m making is a valid one and that I’m merely writing it in an aggressive and over-the-top way for comic effect. I think all that stuff is a bit beyond you, to be fair, so if you stop reading now you’ll avoid getting all cross and hurting yourself when you bang your head against your laptop. It’s okay to be cross, of course. Even middle-aged millionaire Fred Durst gets a bit irate every now and then and has to break someone’s face (which seems a bit extreme, if you ask me, but he knows best), so you’re by no means alone in your desperate, impotent rage. Feel free to keep reading if you want to, though, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I will be calling you a cunt at least once before the end of this. Just so you know. Oh, and by the way, if you’re the person that instructed me to “GO SUCK A COCK YOU FAG” recently, could you please tap your Caps Lock key before you make your next sexually-orientated suggestion? I don’t mind the implication that I’m a practising homosexual, but I really don’t like being shouted at. Thanks.)

Anyway, where were we? Oh, I know. Download. Yes. There was an another announcement last night, as you may well know. Another bunch of bands were added to the bill, some of which I was really pleased about and some that I wasn’t bothered about at all. That, my moronic friends, is the way the festival cookie crumbles. And, being a sentient being with a decent amount of common sense, I was able to take this new information and process it using only my brain, ending up with the fairly satisfying conclusion that I will probably have a really splendid time at Download this year, even though the bill does not precisely mirror my own personal wish list of bands. Sadly, it seems that many of you were not quite so willing or able to take the announcement on the proverbial chin. So, for your benefit, I’ve prepared a little list of facts that might help you to cope with any future announcements. You might want to read them a few times, just to make sure that you understand them. Or just read them once and write an immediate and staggeringly cretinous response that basically amounts to a violent dirty protest by a brain damaged chimpanzee. It’s entirely up to you which one of these approaches you wish to take. Now, here’s the list of facts that I mentioned earlier...

1. THE WORLD IS NOT DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

I know. It’s a fucking choker, isn’t it? Imagine my disappointment when I found out! I was livid. I even wrote a stern letter to my MP, demanding that everything in the entire world should be reorganised for my convenience and gratification, but I guess they must have mislaid it because I never got a reply. Honestly, it’s enough to make you spit! Still, I got used to the idea eventually. It’s called growing up and not being a total fuckwit. Not everything in life is perfect. Not everything that happens to you will be positive. That’s just the way it is, as Bruce Hornsby memorably sang. Whatever happened to Bruce Hornsby? He probably got run over by a bus. Or crushed by a falling piano. That would be fucking ironic, wouldn’t it? Poor old Bruce. Anyway, the point is that the world is not designed specifically to make you happy. Your parents may have given you that impression when you were a toddler, and Christ knows I try to do the same for my kids, but there will come a time when things start to happen that will piss you off. You’ll lose things. Electrical equipment will stop working. TV shows that you like will be cancelled and replaced with more banal crap about sexy vampires. Your football team will lose against a non-league club in the FA Cup. Your girlfriend/boyfriend will decide that you’re a prick and cop off with someone else instead. In front of you. While laughing and giving you the finger (but not in a good way). You will become slightly chubby. People you love will die, you will become addicted to some terrible drug and everything you have ever believed in will crumble before your eyes, leaving you in a harrowing and miserable vortex of despair and misery that will eventually cause you to abandon all hope and start listening to All-Time Low. And, as if that wasn’t punishment enough, the Download organisers will put a bill together that doesn’t give you an instant boner and make you dance around your padded cell singing ‘Walking On Sunshine’. That’s just the way it is. And some things will never change. Poor old Bruce.

2. OTHER FESTIVALS ARE AVAILABLE

I know it’s hard to accept. You’ve only ever heard of one festival and you go every year, expecting the bill to be an accurate representation of your CD collection and the beer to be free and that you will be transported from one end of the site to the other on the shoulders of people you’ve never met before...and they’re all chanting your name and offering you sexual favours and as much Hog Roast as you can eat without getting worms. That’s pretty much what Download 2009 was like for me, to be honest, so I know where you’re coming from. But what you might not realise is that there are some other festivals taking place this summer. That’s shocked you, hasn’t it? Well, it’s true. I’ve checked. In the UK alone there are several other rock/metal festivals which may or may not cater for your needs and/or send you into a blind and pitiful fit of anger. Sonisphere. Bloodstock. High Voltage. That other one in Hyde Park. Stevie Wonder’s playing, apparently. Furthermore, there are literally several festivals taking place in Europe, some of which are exclusively metal-orientated, which means that if you are genuinely allergic to listening to anything other than Slayer or Pantera, then you may be able to last the weekend without feeling outraged or threatening a music journalist with a kicking. Personally, I’m hoping to attend the very marvellous Hole In The Sky festival in Bergen, Norway. It looks awesome. However, I will definitely not be attending Glastonbury, despite the fact that Willie Nelson is on. The rest of the bill looks rubbish, but rather than going online and leaving a stream of illiterate insults on the Glastonbury forum, I have decided to exercise free will and put the whole sorry incident down to experience. After all, there’s always Download. I rather like the look of the line-up. How do you feel about it? Actually, don’t answer that. You fuckwit.

3. SKINDRED WERE THE BEST BAND ON AT HAMMERFEST THIS YEAR.

They just were. I’d love to be able to tell you that it was Iced Earth, Devildriver or Akercocke, all of whom were brilliant, but I guarantee that if you took a straw poll of everyone who attended Hammerfest this year, Skindred would be overwhelmingly voted the band of the weekend. They’re not a metal band in the traditional sense of the term, of course, and there’s no reason at all why anyone should be obliged to like them, but the fact remains that they tore the place apart and made a large room full of people very happy indeed. You can squint, dribble and bark “It’s not metulz!” at me all you like. But I’m right. Just saying, like.

4. BEING NEGATIVE ABOUT EVERYTHING IS NOT AWESOME!

It’s just dull, really. It makes you seem dull. It makes you seem extraordinarily self-absorbed and misguided and ignorant and petulant and spoilt. It makes going onto the Metal Hammer website to see what people are saying about the music we write about a tiresome experience, rather than a joyous one. It makes everyone’s lives a little less enjoyable and a bit more stressful. And, perhaps more importantly, it achieves absolutely fuck all. There are plenty of bands I don’t like, festival line-ups that don’t appeal to me, TV shows that irritate me, celebrities that I’d like to hit with a bat, alcoholic drinks that make me do sicky burps and people – lots and lots of people – that I find mind-rapingly stupid and pointless, but other than occasionally writing a moderately amusing blog about such things, as a cheap substitute for proper therapy, I really have no desire to spend any more of my life focusing on any of it than I already have to. Maybe it’s something you learn when you get older and pull your once beautiful face out of your own arse. I’m not sure. But there are few things more likely to spoil your own life than the sound of your own whining, moaning, self-important, flatulent voice, droning on and on and on about how everything’s shit and how everyone else is a wanker and WAH WAH WAH MUMMY DOESN’T LOVE ME AND I’VE GOT A CRAP MOBILE PHONE AND SMALL SEXUAL ORGANS AND A DAFT HAIRCUT AND TWILIGHT ON DVD AND WAH WAH WAH I’M SO DESPERATE TO BE COOL PLEASE LOVE ME MUMMY PLEASE LOVE ME MUMMY WAH WAH WAH DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT? WAH WAH WAH!!!!!

Seriously. Chill the fuck out. You don’t like the Download line-up. Big fucking deal. It’s still going to sell out and we’re all going to have a brilliant time. Stay at home. Enjoy some re-runs of Two Pints Of Lager. Eat some cheese. Slit your own throat. Whatever. Just stop fucking moaning. You cunts.

Lots of love,

Dom “Sucking A Cock And Really Rather Enjoying It” Lawson