I'm taking a temporary hiatus from this BLOG. No more teenage kicks for me. Well, at least for a couple weeks (or months) until I sort some stuff out.
In the meantime, I hope this compilation of internet snacks from Weezer's new video “Pork & Beans” tides you over until my (inevitable?) return:
And if you're wondering, just what “Pork & Beans” is about, let me take a go…
The silly title and Weezer's ultra-efficient pop sheen masks what is, in fact, a frustrated scream about our ever-more disposable contemporary pop culture. It's a song about what it means to write a successful modern pop tune (“Everybody likes to dance to a happy song / With a catchy chorus and beats so they can sing a long”). It's a song about the stupidity of our brand driven marketplace (name drops of Rogaine, Oakley sunglasses, Timbaland). And most of all, it's a sympathetic tip of the hat to contemporary culture's ultimate insider outsiders: internet celebrities. It features cameos by many of them, including the “Numa Numa” guy Gary Brolsma; the “Chocolate Rain” guy; K-Fed; the dramatic Prairie Dog; and even this fellow…
…who gets a loving hug from Weezer's lead singer & songwriter Rivers Cuomo.
When the phrase “I don't care” is repeated seven times at the song's climax, it's hard to tell if Rivers is dissing these folks as an irrelevant freak show, or giving them voice. They don't care how freakish they may appear. They know that whatever anonymous comments may say, the traffic on their YouTube vids, MySpace pages, and temporary websites is, in a way, a justification of their existence.
In any event, the video serves as both a tombstone to internet memes and a canny encapsulation of them. Either way you want to take it — as pro-internet freak or anti-internet freak — you are enthralled.
So kudos to Rivers: Nice way to jump a shark dude.