An Ode to Metal Heads

I love metal heads.

They have to be the most endearing bunch of fans and music makers you could ever come across. Even metal God’s such as Metallica are sweet puddings underneath all those leather vests and whisky sweats. Take their “Some Kind of Monster” documentary of last year. Instead of the boozing, blaspheming, groupie banging fest of nastiness you’d expect of a band with such delightful song titles as “Ain’t My Bitch”, “Die, Die My Darling” and “Am I Evil?”, you get four be-jumpered dads going through therapy because they can’t do anything without a row.

I love that metal-heads are generally lumbering social misfits who have side-stepped their lack of rhythm by inventing a whole new way of getting down to the groove by simply nodding their heads up and down.

I love that regardless of quality or quantity, if they’re under forty the hair is long, long, long. And that post forty it’s the mullet/goatee combo a’la Jon Bon Jovi/James Hetfield all the way.

I love that they wear rings that are large skull heads. I love that they wear leather jackets – even in August – and that under the jacket is a t-shirt with the arms ripped off so you can see all of the armpit hair and some of the torso. I love that they are able to fix my computer when it breaks and neither of us will mention the fact that he’s wearing black nail varnish on his little finger.

I love that metal isn’t just metal. You have death metal, doom metal, grind core and, my personal favourite, hair metal.

That the big guns get away with names like Megadeth, Mr Big and Dangerous Toys. That local metal heads make local metal bands and call them Embalmed Alive, Bird Flesh and Bathtub Shitter. And that these doting dads and studious students write songs about committing mass murder and drinking too much and eating someone’s heart for breakfast. That they don’t sing, they roar like angry lions. That they know four chords each but can play a twenty minute guitar solo that will blow your mind.

And I love that metal heads are like one big family who, when they see a fellow metaler they will exchange a cow horn of recognition. I mean, come on.

Metal heads are the most perfect example of the best type of music fan – they are loyal, they are committed and they are passionate. When was the last time you saw a 50 year old man cry when five other men, clad in too little ran onto a stage screaming that they were going to fuck your sister when she was dead?

Long live metal heads, may you reign in satanic glory forever.

Popsicle

Ah, Channel 4's new series Baby Race started last night.

Oh, it's depressing in so may ways - the truth about fertility, the devastating anxiety and injustice of the adoption system. All very sad.

Then there's the woman who has gone down the artifical insemination route. Fair enough. Except that every shot of her that wasn't in her bathroom as she keened for ovulation was inside a Chiquitos, Frankie & Benny's or a Harvester. Let's face it: the child is doomed.

The future is clear. In 20 years time, her beloved child is going to be sipping Archers in the corner of some space-age Brannigans trying to pretend that the 55 year old woman standing on a table, exposing dog-earred breasts from an ill-fitting white boob-tube, bellowing for more Sinitta isn't its mum.

Oh, and did I mention that she's paying for her artificial insemination(£500 a pop) out of her bingo winnings?

You've gotta love her.

And the winner is ...

I can't believe that the only nominations King Kong received was for all the oh, they were good but, you know, ones: art direction, editing & special effects. When a film like Titanic which was SO much less than Kong swept the board.

Fucking cretins.

It's not that I don't rate art direction or editing or special effects. And it's not that I don't like any of the films nominated for best picture and best director. It's just that they're mostly all so frickin' worthy. Where's the acknowledgement of being blown away by something bright and simple and intensely enjoyable? Why do the ones where people don't smile or get on with anyone and suffer things like being a tormented gaylord or having to do something they're morally opposed to mean that it's an oscar-winner?

Worthy-loving fucking cretins.

And why, when they show the Best Actress nominees in action, do they always pick a scene where they're howling like a drunken hen? Rib-shattering sobs, threads of drool twanging from a letter-boxed mouth, that nauseating gem of mucus. Like it's the best an actress can do.

Worthy-loving women-ugly-loving fucking cretins.

And, has anyone noticed that, even after One Night at McCools, John Goodman hasn't received a single nomination? The academy clearly hates big men. Ergo they wouldn't nominate Kong.

Worthy-loving women-ugly-loving ape-hating fucking cretins.

I wish nothing but complex narratives based around 9-11 on them all.