Posts Tagged megadeth
Metalhead Forced To Remove Artificial Leg With Megadeth Tattoo Before Boarding Flight
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Politics Of Catastrophe on April 1, 2014
The Limb Only Moments Before Takeoff (photo by Matthew Germain)
The greatest threat to Americans today is the looming spectre of terrorist attacks. After all, most people in other countries hate Americans for their freedom and easy access to bread and other such luxury items.
In the wake of 9/11, airport security increased dramatically in the hopes of preventing water bottles and other weapons of possible mass destruction from causing the interruption of commerce and annihilation of innocent human life. That’s why it should come as no surprise to anyone who believes in the values that America stands for that alleged metalhead Mohammad Nidal was detained for 15 hours and eventually forced to surrender his artificial leg at New York’s LaGuardia Airport before he was allowed to board a flight to Akron.
“We’ve seen this sort of thing before,” said TSA officer Ryan Goebbels. “A metalhead takes an artificial limb filled with C-4, brings it on an airplane and boom! Next thing you know airports all over the world close and the airlines and their investors are deprived of millions of dollars of revenue that rightfully belongs to them.”
While most metalheads are harmless neckbeards who spend their time protecting online metal forums from spam and off-thread references, there are a small number of “evildoers” who wish to do genuine harm to others. From not picking up a fallen child in the mosh pit while they are being trampled to death by wild hellions to potentially murdering thousands of innocent shoppers through the use of improvised explosive devices only days before Christmas, these so-called metalheads have been responsible for many of the worst crimes in American history.
The tattoo of Megadeth mascot Vic Rattlehead is also widely known to be a symbol used by metal gangs who have been known to kill innocent Americans for nothing more than whistling a Michael Bolton song in an elevator. Metal cults have popped up through the Southwest where kids as young as eight years old are drugged with meth and forced to worship images of Slayer vocalist Tom Araya, listen to Venom’s first three records backwards and read passages from the Koran. Ritual sacrifice and infant eating are common Saturday night events for these godless heathens. It is estimated that over 1 million people have joined these cults and gangs in the past six months.
Nidal, who was tied to a chair and questioned under bright lights by several FBI agents, revealed that he owned every Slayer album including “Hell Awaits”, which he had on vinyl. He also revealed plans to listen to all of Death Angel’s “Frolic Through The Park” during the flight. Death Angel’s music is so violent that it has inspired several horrific acts including the attempted assassination of then-President and current saint Ronald Reagan by former Raven drummer John Hinkley.
However, in spite of the danger this menace posed to society, Nidal was released after repeated beatings meant to help him overcome his addiction to this decadent and depraved lifestyle. Not only was he allowed to fly but he was provided generously with several in flight amenities like beverage service and a movie (things that he certainly would not have provided his victims with). He was also given back his artificial limb and metal-ridden iPod when he arrived in Akron. We are, after all, the freest country on earth.
Setting The Record Straight: The Truth Behind Five Popular Heavy Metal Stories
Posted by Keith Spillett in Totally Useless Information on January 13, 2014
Often at this website, we are accused of fabricating stories or writing “joke news” articles. While we consider this sort of attack on our jurnalizmcore integrity to be unfounded and patently absurd, we are willing to admit that there is a good deal of fake news out there parading as truth. Tyranny of Tradition’s staff of over 500 reporters, 700 editors and 3,000 fact checkers constantly strive to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The same cannot be said for many of the best-known acts in heavy metal.
The truth is that many of the most memorable stories in metal history are just that, stories. Nothing more than creations of either the artist or the record label in order to drum up attention for the band. Here are a few of the most famous myths in heavy metal history unmasked once and for all.
Myth #1: Dio Invented The Heavy Metal Horns Up Hand Symbol In Praise of The Devil
For a myth to be effective, it often has to have a shred of truth in it. While it is true that Dio first used and popularized the symbol, it was not invented as the shout out to Satan that most people think. While Dio was touring with the band Elf in 1972, the band visited Canberra, Australia. While there, he was performing in front of a crowd filled with mostly deaf aborigines.
During the first song, many in the crowd realized that Dio’s fly was unzipped. The symbol in Aboriginal Sign Language for “your fly is down” is the horns hand gesture. Hundreds of people began flashing the sign to Dio, who, thinking it was a spontaneous show of enthusiasm for his music, began flashing it back. Finally, he realized why they were doing it and took care of the embarrassing situation. However, he was so impressed by the sea of horns up hand signs, he began incorporating it into his stage act. Satan had nothing to do with it.
Myth #2 Suicidal Tendencies Singer Mike Muir Is A Jehovah’s Witness
We are often astonished at how many people in our culture are members of this religious movement. From Prince to Venus and Serena Williams to Abbath, there are many recognizable cultural icons that you wouldn’t think are Jehovah’s Witnesses but are. Some, like Abbath, even still go door to door preaching The Word. Mike Muir, however, is not one.
An article appeared 3 years ago in USA Today about the religions history in which Muir was described as an active member of the faith. The reporter confused Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies with Mike Muir, a carpenter from San Luis Obispo, California. Don’t expect Cyco Miko to come a’knocking at your door anytime soon.
Myth #3 Dave Mustaine Was Once in Metallica
In many ways, this is truly The Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle. It started as a joke between friends Lars Ulrich and Dave Mustaine. The two concocted a pretend feud centered on a made up story about Mustaine being kicked out of Metallica. This was completely untrue. Over the years, the joke has gotten somewhat out of control with Mustaine going so far as to put a song exactly like a Metallica song on a Megadeth album (Mechanix, a direct copy of The Four Horseman) and several doctored photos and videos of Mustaine with Metallica floating around on the internet. Things really reached a ridiculous level in 2004 when Ulrich and Mustaine created the hysterical “little Danish friend” scene in the Spinal Tap sequel known as “Some Kind of Monster”.
Myth #4 Happy Days Actor Scott Baio Was The Original Drummer For Slayer
This is yet another in a series of examples of how, as Mark Twain once said, “A heavy metal lie can go halfway around the world before the truth can put on it’s combat boots”. Scott Baio, known for his work on sitcoms “Happy Days” and “Charles In Charge”, was linked to the band on several websites earlier this year including a Facebook site called “I Bet I Can Get A Million Lithuanians To Tell Kerry King To Let Scott Baio Back In Slayer.” The rumor, as strange as it sounds, wasn’t all that far from the truth. Baio is, in fact, a die-hard metal head and played drums briefly in the 80s thrash band Forbidden, but was never in Slayer.
Myth #5 Cronos is The Uncle of British Princess Kate Middleton
This ridiculous, unfounded rumor was circulated around the Internet by some 3rd rate metal Onion site. Why an Onion would be made out of metal is beside the point. Typically, Mother Nature is capable of producing both metals and vegetables, but rarely has she seen fit to create a hybrid of the two. And what would be the point of such a vegetable?
Anyway, this rumor got so out of control that the Royal Family was forced to issue denials and actually barred the writer from ever visiting England. But, he was not planning on going there anyway, because he had heard that British people eat fish and chips off of newspaper. Which is disgusting.
SPECIAL REPORT: Metallica Looking to Stage Leveraged Buyout of Megadeth
Posted by Maximus Frank in Uncategorized on September 3, 2013
(The Chief Executives of Metallica, pictured above with President Obama, Senator John McCain, and other Federal Reserve Officials in a meeting about the legality of their proposed Megadeth buyout)
We all know about the Super Collider debacle: with the collapse of their latest dud product, the executives of Megadeth have been circling the drain for months. Rumors of a top-line overhaul have leaked out of boardroom minutes, but it seemed as though the crisis was contained, at least, to the 42nd-floor offices of the company’s CEO, CFO, and CDO. Of course, Megadeth has been bleeding capital since at least 2004, but now it looks as though Wall Street is looking to turn the fallen eagle into a veritable vulture’s picnic.
Here’s how the story began: Metallica, one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street and former owners of Megadeth, gradually began buying back Megadeth stock earlier this summer. The bank announced in early July that they would be purchasing up to 20 million Megadeth shares at prices between $52 and $58 a share, supervised by Iva Harrison’s firm, Lazard Freres. In August, they bought even more – 21 million shares – at $53.50 each. Megadeth, which had traded around $52 a share in anticipation of the buyback, immediately fell back into the mid-forties. Metallica had spent more than $1.1 billion buying Megadeth stock, and its price was lower than ever. Private equity analysts began sweating about what this spelled for Megadeth’s future.
“This reeks of classic hostile takeover,” said J. Tonlimson Heartvord, founder of Clearer Markets, a nonpartisan financial accountability firm. “Metallica purchases Megadeth stock en grosse. The stock price then falls, making the company vulnerable to a takeover.”
In a leveraged buyout, a bank, company, or hedge fund takes another, publicly held, company private. The buyout is “leveraged” because the purchaser usually needs a good deal of debt to finance it. Metallica has owned large shares of Megadeth stock since 1984, but according to classified “top-drawer” reports prepared by Metallica’s Mergers & Acquisitions arm, Mergertacquisitionallica, the bank is preparing a complete takeover of Megadeth. One such document obtained by Tyranny of Tradition, “On Megadeth Civil Service Examinations” could be straight out of Orwell:
“This report concludes by stressing the need for “report cards” to furnish conclusions concerning Megadeth staff, expressed in arithmetical terms… This includes personality, which deals with intangible elements the existence of which do not readily admit of proof, but nevertheless, each employee must be rated on personality.”
Another, “Special Report On Megadeth Research & Development” stresses the need to cut back on Megadeth staffing, by “eliminating unnecessary employees,” in order to concentrate capital on R&D projects.
Edvard Robinson and Henry Henderson, formerly of Shearson Lehman, expressed concerns about the vulnerability of Megadeth. “I hope Metallica has a plan for what to do about Megadeth, a company that has been a cash drain for nearly a decade,” said Robinson. “If they can pull off this takeover, we’ll be sure to see some major overhauls of Megadeth personnel, from the top down.”
Henderson speculated about other, far scarier, scenarios. “This could blow up in Metallica’s face – we’re already hearing whispers that other private equity firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), The Dillinger Escape Plan (TDEP), The Ocean Collective (TOC), and Lamb of God, LLC (LOG) are taking a serious look at Megadeth.”
KKR defeated Dillinger and Metallica back in 1989 to complete the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, which at the time was the largest buyout in history. Subsequent layoffs, downsizing, and restructuring spelled doom for RJR Reynolds and Nabisco employees across the country, as well as the ruin of towns like Winston-Salem. In that sinking ship of a business deal, the executives, financiers, and lawyers floated to safety on golden-parachute life rafts, taking home millions in bonuses while thousands of employees of both companies lost their jobs.
Help Us Raise $250,000 Dollars For Bolt Thrower to Play My Daughter’s Birthday Party
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on August 5, 2013
We have always been a Bolt Thrower family. Many of our happiest, most memorable times have been spent listening to their music. Whether it was me soothing my son on his first trip to the dentist by playing him all of “In Battle There Is No Law” or my wife and I making the long car trips from Atlanta to Minnesota go by quicker by singing “Cenotaph” with them, Bolt Thrower have almost been like relatives. This is why, on my daughter Jo-Anne Bench Spillett’s sixth birthday, we’d like to hire Bolt Thrower to play the party.
However, as you probably have figured out, hiring a death metal band to fly from England to Atlanta to play can be expensive. My wife and I talked about how to make it happen financially, but short of working nine more jobs and selling the platinum grill I had made during my brief rap career, it didn’t seem affordable. Enter the miracle that is Kickstarter! We have seen several projects from a Veronica Mars movie to an Obituary album to a nose job for Sebastian Bach all get funded this way. Why couldn’t our dreams come true as well?
Therefore, I am proud to announce that The Tyranny of Tradition will be starting its first Kickstarter campaign to raise $250,000 dollars to get Bolt Thrower to play my daughter’s 6th birthday party on November 22nd. Sure, $250,000 is a lot of money, but I want to assure each and every one of you that each and every penny will be put to good use. In the spirit of transparency, here is an itemized list of what the money will be used for.
Band Compensation $25,000
Bolt Thrower is a legendary band and they won’t come cheap. Being metal legends, they deserve to be well compensated for their time. They will, of course, be responsible for their own airfare.
Hotel: $3,000
While we’d love to have them in our home for a one-time, special birthday concert, the wife and I are not particularly keen on letting them stay in our house overnight. We live in a gated community with an extremely active homeowners association. I’m not sure they would be willing to tolerate Baz Thomson walking out at 7 o’clock in the morning holding a Miller Lite and wearing nothing but his boxer shorts to get the newspaper. Let’s face it, they are kind of, well, dirty looking. Not any more than most metal bands, but certainly not the type of people we necessarily want the neighbors to see us with. They’ll fit in fine at the Super 8 motel out in Snellville.
Permits: $20,000
According to the City of Atlanta, I’m not technically allowed to have a death metal band play in my backyard without a permit. Because of the potential noise and disruption, several local city officials have told me that it will be impossible to get a permit for the event. The $20,000 will be used to bribe the necessary City Council Members needed to get us the permit or, in case they are unwilling to be bribed, to hire a private investigator to dig up humiliating blackmail information on them.
Security: $10,000
Instead of hiring one of those costly, pretentious professional security companies, I have contacted a local motorcycle gang, known as The Disciples of Satan, to make sure that things don’t get out of control. Not only will they be tasked with crowd control, they will need to go door to door in the days leading up to the concert and threaten my neighbors with violence or the potential kidnapping of their children should they complain to the police about the noise or lack of available parking. The Rolling Stones used a similar approach to security with great success.
Home Renovations: $80,000
Our home is simply not ready for a concert of this magnitude. The backyard will need to be equipped with arena style seating, a stage and adequate bathroom facilities for the 10 or 20 children that will be attending. Also, a hot tub will need to be added overlooking the backyard in order to allow me to help loosen up my back from moving furniture to ensure the children don’t break anything if they wander into the living room. We will also need to add marble countertops in the kitchen and a new family room in order for us to spend quality time together.
Opening Bands: $10,000
Bolt Thrower is an older band who probably can only do a one hour set without risking collapse. Most parents expect these parties to go 2 to 3 hours. So, the show will feature several talented local bands including Spectrecide, Butter Knife Appendectomy, and Dysrythmic Sphincter Valve who will perform while the kids are playing party games like Pin the Murder Rap on Randy Blythe.
Live Pokémon Characters: $5,000
Besides old school death metal, both of my young children love Pokémon. What would make them happier than if people dressed in Pokémon suits came out during Bolt Thrower’s set to really get the pit moving? We’d have Snorelax, Charazard and even, during the encore, a visit from the one and only Pikachu.
Incidentals: $10,000
It’s amazing how many things need to be rented or purchased outright in order to make something like this work. Lights, speakers, smoke machines, animal parts to be tossed into the crowd, a cake, and goodie bags filled with Bolt Thrower merchandise can really add up.
Remaining Money For Personal Compensation: $87,000
This is America. No one works for free. My wife and I plan on working hard to make this day very special for our little girl. Thusly, our effort should be rewarded in the form of monetary compensation for our time and labor.
Hopefully, this campaign will raise the funding necessary to make my daughter’s birthday a day to remember. If it is successful, this is only the beginning. I am already in the planning stages of several possible Kickstarter campaigns including a $300,000 campaign to stop Megadeth from making another album, a $5 million dollar drive reanimate Dio and a $250 million dollar fundraiser to take over the nation of Botswana and declare it a Heavy Metal Republic. So, take a moment of your time and help us to make November 22 the best 6-year-old birthday party ever. You’ll be glad you did.
Ulysses Stern, Actor Known For Playing Dave Mustaine in Megadeth, Dies at 83
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on June 30, 2013
Ulysses Stern With Megadeth Bandmates Michael Corbin, Humberto Quintero and Phillip Riesling
Veteran character actor Ulysses Stern, who played the controversial singer and guitarist from the heavy metal band Megadeth from 1992 until 2007, died earlier this morning in his Pomona, California home of a heart attack. Stern had been battling Alzheimer’s Disease since he retired from his role as Mustaine in 2007. He was 83.
A veteran of hundreds of plays, movies and television shows, Stern made his acting debut in 1958 in the Broadway version of Tennessee Williams’ classic “A Streetcar Named Desire”. From there he moved on to television, where he was featured on several hit shows including The Twilight Zone, Wagon Train and Petticoat Junction. He briefly replaced Eddie Albert in the role of Oliver Wendell Douglas for six episodes on the television show Green Acres in 1968 during Albert’s highly publicized bout with leprosy.
He spent most of the 1970s and 80s playing colorful roles in major motion pictures starring some of the most popular names in Hollywood. He was in four films with Burt Reynolds, including a memorable two-minute performance as a police detective in the Oscar winning film “Sharky’s Machine”. In spite of this, by the early 90’s his career was in a tailspin. He had reached the point where the only roles he could land were in Lifetime movies and Budweiser ads. That was when he caught the eye of talent agent Mickey Krantz.
Krantz was so impressed by his performance as Jimmy Nolan, a Vince Neil-ish grifter, in the Lifetime movie “Baby Monitor: The Sound of Fear”, that he offered Stern the chance to play Mustaine. Carmine Trovatelli, who currently plays Robb Flynn in the band Machine Head, had played Mustaine through a good part of the 80s and 90s, but left the role in after a nasty contract dispute. This paved the way for Stern to take over the role upon the release of “Countdown To Extinction”.
Although critics were often fond of Stern’s portrayal of Mustaine, the public had mixed feelings. Megadeth achieved its greatest period of commercial success under Stern, but many of the fans believe the songwriting was far superior when Trovatelli was playing Mustaine. “Megadeth was the thrashiest, most inventive band in the world when Trovatelli was playing Mustaine. When Ulysses Stern became Dave Mustaine, Megadeth sold out as far as I’m concerned.” wrote Lemmy von Corpsegrinder on the “RIP Guy Who Played Dave Mustaine When They Started To Suck” Facebook page that appeared seconds after Stern’s death.
Funeral services for Mustaine are planned for Wednesday. Hector Bayley (the actor who currently plays Mustaine), George Lemansky (the actor who plays Bruce Dickinson) and Arnold Weismuller (who recently took over the role of Rob Halford) all plan to be in attendance. However, Victor St. Pierre (best known for his work as the post-ReLoad Lars Ulrich) has already gone on record stating he wants no part of the funeral and will not attend along with the rest of the actors playing members of Metallica.
New Megadeth Song So Bad It Will Give Your Kids Hepatitis, Says Controversial Doctor
Posted by Keith Spillett in Health Tips for An Early Death on May 1, 2013
While many reviewers and enraged Megadeth fans have panned the new single “Supercollider”, one man has taken his criticism a step further. Dr. Josef Kranken, a researcher recently fired from the Monsanto Corporation, claims that, in a study conducted using one hundred volunteer 8-year-olds from a Phoenix elementary school, he has found evidence that repeated exposure to “Supercollider” could lead to inflammation of the liver consistent with the Hepatitis X virus.
Of the 50 children infected with the new Megadeth song, 46 of them developed symptoms within 3 to 5 hours. The other 50 students, who only listened to songs off of “Rust In Peace”, showed no immediate health issues and, in fact, scored higher on standardized tests the following day.
Up until recently, Hepatitis X was referred to as Hepatitis D. The virus changed its name during its conversion to Islam while in prison in 2010. It is best known for causing an enormous growth in the size of people’s ears and large, droopy sacks of skin to bulging from a person’s forehead. If not treated within 48 hours, it can lead to teeth growing out of the back of the victim’s neck.
This is not Dr. Kranken’s first foray into studying the health effects of heavy metal on human beings. He authored a paper two years called “The Great Radikult Syphilis Epidemic of 2011” where he forecast a major worldwide outbreak of syphilis due to Morbid Angel’s release of the album “IIud Divinum Insanus”. The study was debunked by several doctors, including noted Harvard immunologist Dr. Steven Copley, who went on to famously quip “the only possible way to catch a venereal disease listening to heavy metal is by standing too close to Vince Neil during a Motley Crue concert.”
Kranken, who graduated from University of Phoenix in 1979 with a degree in botanical psychology, was a top researcher for the Monsanto Corporation for over 20 years. He worked on some of Monsanto’s most infamous projects including the one that convinced the company to market Posilac (or rBST), a chemical that has been known to cause extreme suffering in cows. In his 1993 review of the effects of Posilac, he concluded that cows “might actually grow to enjoy the feeling of having gargantuan, swollen utters”. Monsanto fired Kranken in 2009 when he refused to work on a program designed to create 1000-pound flesh-eating rats for the Chinese military.
Thus Spoke BlaK Dan
Posted by Keith Spillett in BlaK Dan's Theatre of Cruelty on March 11, 2013
(translated from the original grunts and pig noises by Walter Kaufmann)
I.
When BlaK Dan had turned 37, he put down his autographed Burzum album collection and left the comfort of his basement and went into the mountains. He was alone. He waited for the one pure note to emerge from his body, uncontaminated with the essence of those creatures he had survived being around all these years. He did not tire of the solitude, for it is all he had ever wished for. But, at last, a change came over his heart, and one morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and spoke to it thus:
“You great star, what would your happiness be if you realized you had to shine on all those who rest below you? If you realized that your light was illuminating the way for others, would you not extinguish yourself in a lake of tears?”
“Behold, I am weary of my own purity. These chumps at the bottom of the mountain, they spend their time waxing poetic about how much weight Snooki lost and what Jessie James Dupree will do for an encore. Even the ones that try to be pure of the world end up owning Metallica’s Reload on vinyl.”
“Bless the cup that wants to overflow and drown those at the bottom of this mountain with the righteous torrent of nothingness. For I am BlaK Dan and I am full of emptiness!”
II.
BlaK Dan descended down the mountain and came upon and old man. The old man was wearing a Dio shirt. Blak Dan sneered.
“It has been a long time since you passed this way, BlaK Dan. The last time I saw you, you were carrying the ashes of the church burned by Samoth. Do you fear that arsonists do not get all the girls?”
“Out of my way, you old fool. I have no time for your false metal jokes or your tales of pits gone by. I have no time for women. Nor men for that matter. I have a world to cleanse of humanity. For I am BlaK Dan, and I have come to philosophize with the blastbeat.”
III.
When BlaK Dan arrived at the next town, he found many people gathered together in the market place; for it had been promised that Black Sabbath would be performing a cover of N’Sync’s “Tearin’ Up My Heart”. And BlaK Dan spoke thus to the people:
“I teach you the Overman! For you people are something that is to be overcome! Ten years, ten long years, I sat in that cave at the top of the mountain pondering how to escape you forever. For even ten years of solitude couldn’t cure me of the memories of watching you simple-minded beasts jump from trend to trend in the name of impressing other people with your metalness. Well, I am here to tell you that I am the most metal. And I know this, because I am the most empty.”
“Behold, I cannot stomach any of you anymore, so I teach you the Overman. This one time I will tell you how to live correctly. Because I am bored. You will probably ignore it, because you are animals. But, at least at the end of your sorry, pitful existences, I can proudly tower over your coffin, telling anyone who will listen “I told you so!” But they will not listen either. Because they too are morons.”
“A polluted stream is metal and you donkeys lap it up as if it were the best thing you’ve ever tasted. One must be completely empty of all moisture to truly be metal. And I know, because I have emptied myself of all that is moist. All that is caring. All that is kind. I spit in the face of all that come to me seeking solace. I turn my back on humanity. I have emptied myself of melody. Of harmony. Of style. Of substance. I am the Overman, because I am Post-Everything!”
IV.
“And you say, ‘But what of God?’ And I say “God is dead! There is only me.” And you say, ‘But what of the joy music brings?’ And I say, ‘But what of the mud a pig wallows in. If the pig is happy, is that mud, in fact, holy?’”
“Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died and now you’re stuck trying to piece together who you are from a bunch of copies of Slayer records. And so you replace your old God with Slayer and perform the same old silly rituals, only this time with the knowledge that you are a unique and clever fellow. You jump up and down and repeat evil words and think you are something special. You are no different than the idiots who came before you. The only difference is you buy more stuff.”
“You ask me what meaning has life. It is a contest that is already over. I got there first. You lose. Sucker. For you are still winding your way through Megadeth’s early discography and I am on Z. I have heard it all. I have done it all. That which I haven’t done isn’t worth doing anyway. I have come to the end of the road. You are a bunch of pimply-faced kids trying out your death stare on old people in the mall. I am the end point of history.”
V.
Then, something happened that made every mouth gape open and every finger point. A cute puppy wandered into the center of the courtyard. The adorable animal jumped up and startled an infant. The infant giggled wildly. People pulled out their phones in order to record what was left of this magic moment and send it to thousands of different people all over the world. Finally, after all the commotion had died down they turned back to BlaK Dan. They all had forgotten what he was saying.
VI.
BlaK Dan left the town muttering under his breath. He found an uncomfortable place to sleep and lay down for what seemed like a thousand hours. At last, however, his eyes opened and gazed into the distance. He rose quickly, like a drunkard whose CD player had begun skipping, and announced to no one in particular that he had discovered a new truth.
“An insight has come to me: ‘People are perishable!’ Sure, everything about them disgusts me. They always want to play you the songs they like and use your mini-refrigerator to store food. They ramble on and on about useless ideas. They make funny noises. They smack their food when the chew. They fall asleep during the best part of Headbanger’s Ball. Will it not be better when they are all dead?”
“But I did not pay attention in Biology class, so I know not how to create a plague to wipe them all away. And I have neither the training nor the patience to seek out members of terrorist cells. And I have not the time nor the funding to buy weapons grade uranium. But I know this one thing. Eventually, they will all die. Sure, I too will die, and that will be a sad day, but I can take comfort in the thought that the rest of them will experience a fate at least as bad as my own, in some cases worse.”
“Some may outlive me, yes, but they too will eventually yield to their own mortality. Everyone on this earth will be dead at some point. Maybe even soon. As I ascend back to the top of the mountain to look down upon this tainted world, I can finally rest in the knowledge that no one ever gets what they want from life and it all ends brutally.”
“Life is a curse of which I hope they are soon cured. But, until then, they can have their dumb little lives. Let them bounce from one dumb crisis to another. Let them anxiously wait by their computers for news on who will be playing drums on the next Doro Pesch record. Let them get worked up over what Dave Mustaine thinks about the customer service at Men’s Warehouse. I am cured. It no longer matters. They are dead to me.”
Metallica Names 2,000 Pound Walrus as New Bass Player
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on October 3, 2012
Ending weeks of speculation, Metallica has chosen Nessie, a 2,000 pound performing walrus, to be their new bass player. The search began back in 2011 when bassist extraordinaire Robert Trujillo was eaten by a pack of feral orangutans at the Jones Beach Toll Plaza in Long Island, New York. The band had auditioned over 62,023,017 potential bass players before finally settling yesterday on Nessie. Before being selected by Metallica, Nessie has had a storied career that included a stint as halfback for the New York Jets and three years as a backup singer for the Isley Brothers.
Nessie is relatively new to the metal scene, but has already made a big impression. During a freezing cold outdoor concert in Oslo, Norway, Nessie laid on top of Megadeth singer Dave Mustaine for the entire song Tornado of Souls in order to save him from frostbite. However, not all of Nessie’s experiences with the metal scene have been positive. Controversy followed Nessie after he knocked Kerry King unconscious after a Slayer show in March. King had apparently tried to eat one of Nessie’s fins, driving him into a wild, murderous rage.
Nessie will begin his tenure in Metallica next month when the band gets to work on recording its next album, the nautically themed “A Porpoise Driven Life”. The new record will feature several exciting new tracks including “Of Wolf and Manatee”, “Trapped Under Ice Fishermen”, “The Cod That Failed”, and “Saint Angler”. They are also planning another in the long series of Unforgiven songs, this one called “The Unforgiven Mambo Number 5”.
Industry experts expect the album to come out sometime in late 2015 in order to coincide with Red Lobster’s yearly Endless Crab Legs promotion. Red Lobster became the official sponsor of Metallica earlier this month.
Metallica Names Former Ethiopian Emperor Halie Selassie As New Bass Player
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 27, 2012
Ending weeks of speculation, Metallica has chosen former Ethiopian Emperor Halie Selassie as their new bass player. The search began back in 2011 when bassist extraordinaire Robert Trujillo left the band after being named US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. The band had auditioned over 30,000 potential bass players before finally settling yesterday on Selassie. Selassie, who died in 1975, was known for shepherding his nation through a war with Italy and years of internal strife as well as being a member of Ethiopia’s top Metallica cover band “Purify”.
Selassie remains a controversial figure in the metal community since he ordered Metallica to stop using chemical weapons against Megadeth back in 2009. He has always been wildly popular among large sections of the Rastafarian metal community, but is universally despised by most Italian Fascist metalheads. Selassie is perhaps best known for his speech in 1936 in front of the League of Nations where he argued that Iron Maiden, not Manowar, should be considered the rightful Kings of Metal.
Selassie will begin his tenure in Metallica next month when the band gets to work on recording its next album “Exile in Ponyland”. The new record, due to come out sometime in late 2013, is a concept album that is based on both the popular My Little Pony toy series and Dante’s Inferno. The album’s story will focus on the travels of Starlight and Bright Eyes Pony as they journey through the darkest regions of hell. On their journey, they meet and befriend several lovable, unforgettable characters that are suffering eternal damnation.
Unlike some previous Metallica bassists, Selassie will be a major part of the songwriting process. He has an impeccable reputation throughout the music industry as a top-flight songwriter and has even scored Top 40 hits in the 1970s with the song “Devil Went Down To Georgia”, performed by The Charlie Daniels Band, and in the 1990s with the song “Crossroads”, recorded by Bone Thugs’n’Harmony.
Many different bass players applied for the job, including several well-known names. Veteran actor Burt Reynolds was initially considered a shoe-in for the job, but fell out of contention last month when he and guitarist Dom DeLuise joined Corrosion of Conformity. Former Pittsburgh Steeler coach Bill Cowher, 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill and Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman were all leading candidates for the position, but Selassie was able to win out due to his leadership and vision for the future of the band.
7 out of 10 Republican Voters Believe Mustaine Endorsement of Santorum Is “The Most Important Factor” In Presidential Race
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on February 28, 2012
In a recent Rasmussen poll of Republican voters, over 70 percent cited Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine’s endorsement of Rick Santorum as being the critical factor in their choice of candidates. Mustaine’s endorsement ranked ahead of the economy, international terrorism, the myth of global warming, contraception, electability, a woman’s right to vote, the return of the messiah and abortion as being the most important factor in who they will choose to represent the Republican Party in November. In spite of Santorum’s recent flood of absurd, borderline insane comments and Mustaine’s later remark that he had not, in fact, endorsed Santorum, the Megadeth connection has the former Pennsylvania Senator leading in the polls by as many as four percentage points.
Mustaine’s role as Republican king maker started back in 2004 when he announced his intention to vote for George W. Bush. Bush was victorious. Since then, many Americans have turned to Megadeth albums to help explain many of the difficult problems that face the nation. Mustaine, whose recent record Endgame railed against wireless tracking chips being put in people’s heads and Americans being forced into FEMA concentration camps, has become the snarling voice of the moderate wing of the Republican Party.
At a town hall meeting in Michigan, people were still abuzz with the news of Mustaine’s “endorsement”. “I feel like Mustaine and I have a lot in common,” said 83-year-old Jane Summerville of Ypsilanti, “We both support a candidate who doesn’t follow the instructions of the New Ways Evil Book of Rules. And that man is Rick Santorum.”
Agnes Murphy, 63, of Auburn Hills was even more impressed. “I have been unhappy with many of the Republican candidates this year. It’s like I told my husband, ‘If there’s a new way, I’ll be the first in line. But it better work this time!’ Santorum has some radically new ideas. I don’t care what the liberals say; it’s still we the people. Right?” announced Murphy while pacing, foaming at the mouth and waving her arms wildly.
According to James Sullivan, Santorum’s campaign manager in Detroit, Mustaine’s endorsement gives them an excellent chance to vanquish Obama, their hated foe. “Obama is like the Pied Piper, leading rats through the streets. And Americans are dancing like marionettes,” howled Sullivan at a room full of shrieking, Megadeth tee shirt wearing Republicans.
Mustaine’s foray into politics may be the most successful attempt for a metal artist to influence a major election, but it certainly isn’t the first. Quorthon, of Bathory fame, actually spent much of 1984 away from music helping to run Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaign in Utah. Back in 1956, Slayer vocalist Tom Araya made history by supporting Adalai Stevenson in his battle against Republican incumbent Dwight Eisenhower. And who could forget when Tom Angelripper of Sodom threw his weight behind Rutherford B. Hayes in his election campaign against Samuel Tilden in 1876.
The Tyranny of Tradition 