I know it's kind of late. I hope I didn't wake you. But
there's something that I've just got to say. I knew you'd understand.
Back when I started converting my diatribes about wrestling from,
"If Joey Styles called a Master P match, would there be a 'Hooten-hoo Canrana?'"
to the more accessible pop-culture of, "Hey guys do you also remember 'The Tomorrow
People?" I made popular music one of my favorite targets. Early articles like Rating the Boybands made popular music outings a
favorite amongst my readers, too, long before VH1 made these "awesomely bad"
easy targets even too easy for Patrice O'Neal to hit while wearing a blindfold. When
you make a joke that could also be made by Mister Doug Benson of The Marijuana-ogues
you force yourself to take that step back before you take yourself so seriously that
everyone hates you and you're starring on Broadway in La Cage aux These Bongs.
I chose to only strike out at the people who I felt deeply deserved it (Creed, People who
make more money than me, et al.). All the while I kept getting these e-mails...
"Do a post about Avril!"
"OMG HAVE U SCENE AVRIL LEVINE SHE IS THE WOR'ST SINGER"
"Avril Lavigne thinks she's punk, tear her a new one!"
There was this little obnoxious girl on my music television throwing up
horns and pretending to play guitar. I ignored it. She looked like she was
eleven. And in a world where Justin Timberlake is being chased by the dogs of a sexy
puppeteer is the flagrant misuse of quality men's neckwear something to get up in arms
about?
"aVriLL sUx0rz rite ab00t her plz"
"I don't know why she thinks she's so punk! She isn't!"
"Tell me all your thoughts on God Avril. 'Cause I'd really
like to meet her!"
The world started fading away and somehow it became more fun for me to
photoshop a picture of Clyde Drexler dunking over a screenshot of Akira Terao than write,
"What's the deal with Avril Lavigne? Who are the AD WIZARDS who came up with
THAT ONE?" While I wrote a book and tried to live my life Avril and the
thousands of faux-Avrils who followed like so many orcs out of so many uprooted tree-holes
of doom began to nudge acts like O-Town off the charts. Avril sucks. She sucks
ass. We all know it. Saying it is like saying the ocean is wet. The sky
is blue. Avril's imposters became Avril and Avril herself began to change. She
became less "something to make fun of eventually" and more that part of me I
hate and don't want anyone to know about. Do you have a secret fear or habit that
you keep to yourself? Are you sexually confused? Do you eat food that isn't
kosher or hit the dog a little too hard or masturbate too often? These things are
all Avril Lavigne to me. And I guess it's finally time for me to write about her.
Every time I try to tell you, the words just came out wrong. So
I'll have to say I love Avril Lavigne in a post.
First, a little background.
There are two major arguments against the proliferation of Avril and Avril
Accessories.
1) Avril Lavigne says she is "punk" and is not
actually "punk."
2) Avril Lavigne sings formulaic pop music that sounds like it was written
by a jilted fourteen-year old drama student wearing Chris Sabo retard goggles, all of her
songs follow the same concept (we were in a relationship and now we are not for whatever
reason), and she's about as classy and subtle as Joanie "Chyna Doll" Laurer
having her nose repeatedly smacked by Sean "X-Pac" Waltman's penis.
To address this first point, you must realize that much of Avril Lavigne's
"punk attitude" is thrust upon her by the media and is only ever brought up as a
negative. Rarely will you hear a person say "I like Avril Lavigne because she
plays punk music" but you would have to have a conversation with a Swahili
Grandmother if you wanted to mention Avril without someone commenting on her punk and
lack-thereof. The most "punk rock" thing about Avril is that she doesn't
wear booty-clothes and do choreographed lapdance routines with folding chairs in her
videos which, oh, everyone else on the fucking planet who plays music right now does.
I swear to God I just saw a Snow Patrol video where the guy was riding the seat
like a bull. Avril is only "punk" in that she is an abhorrent brat.
She's a pop singer who sings pop music that has a guitar in it. She, Ashlee
Simpson's hardcore T-shirts, and that guy who looks like a penis flash animation from
Yellowcard are all on the same level.
To address the second point, that is all totally true.
15. "Complicated" video, AKA
Avril Classic
When Avril Lavigne dies of old age in a hyperbolic chamber with Happy Bunny stickers
all over it the lasting image of her career will be the first image of her career, Avril
Classic. Wife beater, wristbands, tie. Rampant, smelly children who are so
pissed off by the current status quo that they will, nay, must drive the Rascal electronic
wheelchairs meant for handicapped shoppers into things and around the mall. Hey
there Common Ideas of Tact and Decency, you can't tell me what to do, YOU AREN'T MY REAL
FATHER. Avril could theoretically land on and colonize the moon in a few years,
ushering in a new age of exploration and human history, and we'd still think of her as the
kid who is sarcastically trying on deodorant she has not purchased in a department store
this time because her Mom did not just smack the fuck out of her the first time.
The song "Complicated" also set the tone for some important themes and topics
in Avril's music. For example, consider these lyrics:
I like you the way you are
When we're driving in your car
And you're talking to me one on one
Okay, so Avril enjoys the boy she likes. But there's a problem!
You become somebody else round everyone else
You're watching your back like you can't relax
You're trying to be cool
You look like a fool to me.
TELL MAY-HAY
Why'd you have to go and make things to complicated?
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me FURSTRATED.
Yes, the most "furstrating" thing about Avril's relationship is that he's
great and perfect when they're alone, but whenever they're around everyone else,
and that does say "everyone else" and not "some specific people," he
puts on preppy clothes (or, "preepy clews") and becomes something completely
different, all the while looking over his shoulder and trying to keep anyone from seeing
him with Avril. From Avril's point of view he's confused about his social identity
and she sees the person on the inside. From the point of view of anyone with a
decent amount of deductive reasoning THE GUY IS JUST ACTING LIKE THAT SO HE CAN
FUCK YOU WITHOUT ANYONE ELSE KNOWING ABOUT IT.
Avril's very first single has defined her as one of the world's greatest character
types -- the delusional girl who knows everything and couldn't possible be wrong or
bothered to think this through.
14. the hockey jersey
The most important thing you must know about Avril is that she is Canadian.
That's why she says things like "frustrated" and they come out all stupid.
Let's get this out of the way:
- Avril likes and drinks beer.
- Avril has at one point seen and possibly petted a moose.
- Avril eats a bizarre amount of macaroni and cheese dinner.
- Avril's head becomes severed in half whenever she speaks.
- When Avril goes sailing she requires "about."
- Avril was born in a nation in North America originally settled by the French in the
seventeenth century.
- Avril likes and plays hockey.
On Avril's episode of MTV Diary the crew catches her between moments of having no
respect for herself and having no respect for others as she suits up to play hockey in an
empty professional rink with a bunch of her friends who for some reason all kind of look
like Terry Taylor's Red Rooster gimmick.
Back in 1998 I wrote that there's nothing sexier in the world than a girl in a hockey
jersey and I stand by this; however, there is a big difference between the jersey
and full hockey gear. When she's in a jersey (and, ideally, little else) you can
appreciate a woman's soft, natural beauty draped in her swaddling appreciation for
organized team sports. It's a holy combination of things you love and should be
celebrated. When she's in full hockey gear you're about two steps away from putting
your dick in Jaromir Jagr. And that's a blue line you do not want to cross.
That being said, this gives me the opportunity to do to Avril the two things which I
fantasize about the most: Pulling her shirt over her head and punching her
repeatedly in the face.
13. the pretending-to-be-Mad Hatter
Another thing you should know is that Avril is not fully responsible for her unique
style of never minding the bollocks; She is accompanied at all times by "The
Very Handsome Haha Wait Band." Pictured above left from left to right are lead
guitarist Gandalf the Gay, bassist I Look Like The Lower Half Of Rowdy Roddy Piper, lead
singer Avril Lavigne, drummer Class of 2008's Wittiest Senior, and critically-acclaimed
music coordinator DJ The Rest Of Us Are Old Enough to Know Better.
Here we catch up with the gang at the Grammy Awards, where they've decided to make a
mockery of the ceremony that has already inadvertently made a mockery of itself by
inviting them. They then stuck it to the man by sitting in the audience and clapping
after Nelly thanked um God and um his fans for the strength to call a woman a bitch well
enough to earn an award.
If you look closely you can see that Avril's jacket has both a peace sign and a skull
and crossbones on it, thereby bringing her macabre experiment in the dichotomy of humanity
to a close. Judges, where does this rank on the Misuse of Hot Topic scale?
Misuse of Hot Topic Red - Good Charlotte making
a video where they are all Edward Scissorhands.
Misuse of Hot Topic Orange - Blink 182 writing a
verse about The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Misuse of Hot Topic Yellow - Anyone on a forum or
messageboard with a Heartagram avatar.
Misuse of Hot Topic Green - Avril's poorly matching
patch decals.
12. Sk8r Boi Video, AKA Ok so I see your
point
See, look. She isn't throwing up horns! She loves you!
This is the continuation of the "Avril is ungrateful and sure of herself"
theme that started in "Complicated" and comes full-circle here. In the
grand tradition of great story songs Avril takes on the role of sage orator, eloquently
expressing the internal conflict of relationships via allegory.
He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?
He was a punk. She did ballet. What more can I say?
Avril takes a stand here and says what we're all thinking: "THERE ARE PEOPLE
WHO HAVE HOBBIES." We follow her Dante-esque descent to learn that a ballerina
turned down a date with a punk because her friends didn't like the way he dressed.
Fast forward to find the ballerina as a single mother who finds out that the punk she
turned down that one time is now a music superstar. Or, as Avril puts it
Turns on TV
Guess who she sees
Sk8r boi rocking on MTV
Immediately the ballerina, possibly thrown by the fact that they just totally rhymed
"TV" with "TV," calls up her friends but they already know. And
they all have tickets to see his show! She then also attends this show and stares up
at him. And then SWERVE, SWERVE, SWERVE. It turns out that the Boi in question
is the boifriend of Avril, the storyteller herself, and the ballerina in question is the
person Avril is relating the tale to! AND THEN THAT GUY FROM SUM 41 GOUGES OUT HIS
OWN EYES WITH A BROACH.
Avril reassures the woman that she made a big mistake and that she needs to be steppin
off they man, because the two are "more than just good friends" and "this
is how the story ends." So effectively Avril has set herself up as her own Deus
Ex Machina, and to make matters more confusing are the whereabouts of Boi himself...
"He'll be in the studio
singing a song we wrote
about a girl he used to know."
Wasn't this also a song about a girl he used to know? And didn't Avril just sing
it to the lady? Oh who gives a shit. She looks like Ashton Kutcher's arm in
this video.
11. Before you die, you see Lavigne
What's scarier, Avril Lavigne crawling out of your television set to kill you or me
telling you this is a screenshot from the video for Avril's remake of "Knockin' on
Heaven's Door?"
Either way I still they they should make a movie about Sadako killing people in Italy
and call it "RINGU: Old World Style."
10. More like "not Much Music."
Tuck your thumbs in and make a clenched fist with each hand, palms facing inward so
they are mirror images. Now bring them together in front of you. What you have
here is a shape and scale representation of the most important part of the human body:
Avril Lavigne's ass.
It's actually quite fantastic. On an Internet where every "famous
babes" or "nude celebrities" website is filled to the breaking point with
Latin actresses and models you've never heard of holding up 300 pounds of ass with a
glittery thong in that over-the-shoulder "oh my my ass has fallen out" pose it's
nice every once in a while to get that off-peach 10-year old water balloon bottom peeking
out at you.
This is a photo of Avril at the Canadian video awards, spoofing her wardrobe
malfunction the previous year when the speakers attached to her belt that make the guitar
sounds come out pulled her pants down and gave her plumber's crack for the entire
performance. To keep with the jovial atmosphere she wrote "MMA" on her
butt to show her continuing support for Pride FC 2005 Grandprix winner Fedor Emelianenko.
9. n8ive American boi
*You have entered The_Green_Room*
GoDirectly2JayLeno: Hey
there Avril, it's uh, great that you're coming on the show there!
eubank_on_it: lol
xxalavignexx: ya ok i
think i will dress like an indian 2nite
xxalavignexx: on ur show
GoDirectly2JayLeno: Why?
xxalavignexx: i thought
it wo
xxalavignexx: would be
totaly funny
xxalavignexx: whatever
nevermind
GoDirectly2JayLeno: No,
it's okay, you can dress like an Indian if you want, I was just trying to figure out why.
eubank_on_it: lol
xxalavignexx: i dont
have 2 explain myself 2 u
xxalavignexx: f u leno
xxalavignexx: \m/
^_^ \m/
GoDirectly2JayLeno: So
I hear Monica Lewinsky is in the news today!
eubank_on_it: boy you a
trip
8. That one picture where she is flipping
off the camera and it is pretty cool.
Oh man, that is so sweet. Nobody can tell her what to
Oh...okay. Well still, I think it's pretty awesome and counter-culture that she
would
OKAY I GET IT ALREADY, JEEZ, YOU DON'T HAVE TO KEEP FLIPPING OFF THE
*dies*
7. Lisa Low-Brow
Avril is a beautiful girl when her everything other than her appearance
isn't messing it up. If she were a tap-dancing epileptic who cried pretty tears a
lot of you would leave skid marks the size of Bob Sapp and his power punches in your
underwear. She isn't that. She's a normal girl who is kind of a bitch.
So oh well, such is life. SORRY THAT I HATE YOUR MOVIE ZACH BRAFF.
6. Losing Grip (on the Gulf War)
Quick
Somebody get Ashlee Simpson some pointy elf boots and pants that say "IRAN" down
the legs.
IT'S TIME FOR A BUNKHOUSE BRAWL
5. Getting you in her pants/having to kick
your ass
Portrait of Avril Lavigne as an Empowered Female:
You held my hand and walked me home, I know
Why you gave me that kiss it was something like this it made me go ooh ohh
You wiped my tears, got rid of all my fears, why did you have to go?
Guess it wasn't enough to take up some of my love
Guys are so hard to trust
Did I not tell you that I'm not like that girl?
The one who gives it all away
On Avril's second album she's moved away from "we are/were in a relationship" to
"this is why we/why aren't we in a relationship." Oh come on, it's a more
believable "maturity" than Christina Aguilera turning into the tar baby. The
message here would be a good one for this nation of young girls who wear shirts that say
"slut" on them "cause it's the stall." Yes, Avril, no woman should
stand for a man assuming she's going to fuck them just because they're being nice to her.
The message gets a little messed up when the video starts off with a fully dressed man
sitting on Avril's bed in the early morning as she pouts in her underwear. Then it becomes
less "you shouldn't think you can fuck me just because you are being nice to me"
and more "hey keep thinking I'm going to let you fuck me because I have a series of
needs that include the following." Then he leaves and she starts flipping out
"Rachael Leigh Cook Hates Your Drug Abuse" style, throwing glasses and breaking
mirrors in her cute little skull and crossbones knee socks. Then she follows the guy
around and eventually floats into the sky, for whatever goddamn reason.
4. WHOA, check out My Happy Ending
Let's talk this over
It's not like we're dead
That seems like a logical request. I mean if I were dead I wouldn't have the cognitive
functions necessary to talk to you abo
Was it something I did?
Was it something You said?
Don't leave me hanging
In a city so dead
Yes, the maturity of Avril Lavigne does not include her realizing she shouldn't rhyme a
word with itself. This ballad of the damned finds Avril at, you guessed it, the
South-bound end of a North-bound relationship. Only this time she's being grown up enough
to admit that it might've been SHE who made the mistake that soured the relationship. She
humbly cries out for an explanation, comes { } this close to
being a rational human being, and then we get
You've got your dumb friends
I know what they say
They tell you I'm difficult
But so are they
But they don't know me
Do they even know you?
Ladies and gentlemen the most accurate aged recreation of her earlier
"Complicated" hypothesis: Avril is delusional and correct, and can't be bothered
to assume differently. I mean for Christ's sakes does she even know what these words mean?
She had this thought in her head, and I mean, yeah, we all have thoughts like this.
Hypocritical moments where we lash out at someone for doing what we ourselves do. She had
the thought and wrote it down. Okay, sometimes it's good to get these thoughts out. Get
them out in the open and reflect on them. Then she added music, and sang the song. And
then made a video. AND NOW TRAVELS AROUND THE ENTIRE WORLD SINGING IT. It's like she
pissed out her backwards-ass teen angst out of her cushy little backwards-ass and bottled
it, and is now selling it to people who can somehow listen to these verses on CD
repeatedly without paying attention to what the words actually say.
The friends think she's difficult. But they don't know Avril. So Avril tells them that
THEY ARE IN FACT the ones who are difficult, and also dumb. Even though she doesn't know
them. For once I think I could actually, realistically get with a celebrity. I've got her
figured out. Act the way she wants me to act when I'm around her. Act differently when I'm
not around her. She'll be doing laps around my house for months! If they ever make an
Olympic Event out of being a dumbshit I'm going to tape Avril to my leg and take off
running.
3. Nobody's Home video, AKA Fun With
Homeless Avril
This video presents a psychological struggle: Do I prefer Avril dressed up as a classic
movie star with raccoon eyes, or do I prefer Avril homeless and in pain? Do I make note of
her budding, serious womanhood or do I laugh because I don't feel bad that homeless Avril
has to take a whore's shower in a gas station restroom?
Open your eyes and look outside, find the reasons why.
You've been rejected,
and now you can't find what you left behind.
It's the same thing she was touching with her helpless cat yelping at the end of "My
Happy Ending." Avril, at least fictional song parallel Avril, is beginning to
understand that she is the root of all of her problems, and I guess since she's clinically
brain damaged the best way she can express that is "I AM NOW HOMELESS."
But does she even DESERVE a home after all that she's done to us? She wore a TIE without a
COLLAR for the fucking love of Sayama. She's like Bizarro Yogi Bear. And even here she's
one part Elsa Lanchester and one part drowned sewer rat.
2. Getting on up/Getting on down to Hooters
Have I ever wanted a Canadian waitress smaller both horizontally and vertically than
the stool I'm sitting on to sit down next to me and pretend she likes me and my
hypothetical chicken wings personally, all in the hope that I will drunkenly leave her a
hundred instead of a five?
HAVE I!
This is Avril Lavigne's Halloween costume for her October 31st performance last year in
Philadelphia. This entry doesn't tell you anything about her personally, critically, or
artistically, but she's wearing blaze orange booty shorts and that's all right with me.
Even if it looks like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family is face-hugger attacking a shitty
foodserver.
The worst thing about this is that Freddie Mitchell spent the three weeks before the
concert going on and on about how awesome it was that he had front row seats. We were all
excited for him, but when the day of the show came he just sat outside on the steps and
only listened to the songs when somebody going in or out would open the arena doors.
And that brings us to what Avril Lavigne truly is.
1. The Devil: Avril
Lavigne in Hell
The devil represents everything that is evil in the world, but the entity himself is
not purely evil: He is a fallen angel. He was once at the left hand of God,
right there beside Van Helsing, (van) helping the no people in Heaven do whatever they did
in Heaven before God made them people. And like M. Bison eventually would the devil
fell from Heaven like lightning. He killed the dinosaurs and pulled us from grace.
It was his stubbornness and pride, his arrogance that became the downfall of us
all.
Avril Lavigne represents everything wrong with the world, but she is not evil.
She's a girl who grew up listening to Shania Twain and wishing she could be a
singer. She made it, too. She went from ice fishing with Nanook to nookie with
Hoobastank. She is a young girl who has gotten everything she could ever wished for
and can't figure out how to live happily ever after. Her success is grand and
troublesome. She flips birds and picks her nose and shows you her little boobies and
it's all okay, because what else is she going to do? Why should she know who David
Bowie is? Why should she learn to skateboard if she can make more money just holding
it? What is fun to her? Is it this?
Satanism isn't about hitting a goat with a knife, it's about giving in to all of the
sensory urges you feel on a day to day basis. It is about being open and free with
yourself without fear of something external and facing no consequences. Be like the
boy. Do what you feel. Don't worry about what anyone else will think or feel
because this is YOUR LIFE, and you're going to LIVE IT how you WANT TO. Conscience
isn't your real father, either. It's just something to have. Something to be.
True zen is knowing that you know nothing. It is having faith in...whatever.
Faith that your Dr. Pepper is going to taste like Dr. Pepper. Because who
knows, it might not. If you ever hope to understand yourself you have to have faith
in the things you feel. Whether you tell anyone or not you have to feel bothered.
You have to feel excited. You have to feel happy or sad. You have to
get out of line in your head about trivial bullshit and you have to let some important
stuff slide. You have to feel SOMETHING. And you have to know why.
Avril Lavigne feels something, and she doesn't know why.
I would like to feel Avril Lavigne, and I know why.
And here we are. The devil and I at the crossroads.
