Fore!, Joe

Come gather 'round, grandchildren.

"Pappy, we wanna hear about Huey Louie and the News."

It's Huey Lewis, you little brats, and if I had any more sense I'd slap you 'round the head for that slip up. Ain't your pappy taught you better than that?

"Sorry, Pappy. We just heard some song in that Back to the Future movie playing at the local theater for its 90th anniversary, and figured we'd ask about it."

That's pretty kind of y'all to be supporting the only movie theater left in the country. Hope you bought some fountain soda to go with those Ozempic sandwiches you no doubt snuck in. Now, Huey, that's a name you need not ask about.

"How come? Was he popular, Pappy?"

Oh, sure, youngins, sure. A bit before my time, even, but definitely popular in their prime. But y'all don't need to ask about Huey. There ain't that much to say. Basic rock 'n' roll himbo shit, ya hear. Don't let that wily Mike J. Fox fool ya, with his charisma leaking out his asshole and stuffed into that shiny red puffy sleeveless jacket thing. Huey and Lewis weren't nothing but some jacked up rock jabronis playing what the kiddos' aging parents convinced themselves they wanted to hear. And besides, "Love Power" ain't even on Fore!, that godforsaken album they released at their peak. Two #1 hits on Fore!, still, you betchyur ass. Puffed up prissy bullshit.

"Pappy, you're drooling."

I'll goddamn do what I damn well please. Huey, pffff, dude thought he was cock of the walk, but was 'bout as as cool as a cucumber sittin in the sun. The man thought he could redo fuckin "Rockin' Robin" without anybody noticing. Please. What kinda lame ass bull crap is that? Step by step by rung by rung my fucking ass.

"But weren't you just saying just last week that it was hip to be square?"

I wasn't lyin, child! Don't be dense. Hip? Hip? Who in their right minds has said the word "hip" in an unironical way in the past 80 goddamn year? The unhip, that's who. You think it's hip to be square? It is. Because it's ain't hip to be hip. So it's lame to be lame, basically. Wrap your puny children minds around that one. Keep up, Pappy's spittin it now.

"Pappy, what's doo wop?"

Some fucking bullshit that shoulda died with Wildwood New Jersey when the town was permanently overtaken by the rising tides. Doo wop, blah, you fuckin believe that Louie Huis tried to tack that fuckin bull crap on to the end of that goddamn Fore! album? A god damned doo wop slinkin next to all those stupid guitar solos, I mean really. Too many drugs in the 1980s. Too many. And you're a goddamn fool if you think this clean-cut chin-dimpled motherfuck wasn't on the fuckin take too.

"Hey Paps, were you always this cranky?"

Why I oughta... come closer so I can slap you upside the head, youngin. Lucky I can't chase you with this oxygen tank attached to my nose like I'ma goddamn invalid or somethin. With the sass, you little pricks. I earned the right to be cranky, and you don't know the half of it. Every season worse than the one before. You ever stop to think why Micky Fly almost wasted those poor '50s soc-hoppers with his Van Halen bullshit? 'Cause there's innocence there. He shoulda done it though. Back in time, he shoulda wasted 'em, one by one. Innocent, ptoooo. You think as a child in the '00s that that hair metal bull crap sound at any time dangerous to me? Fuck no. Prissy ass bull crap. The '80s played down to the '50s, the '10s played down to the '40s, the COVID lockdown seems like a fuckin walk in the god damned park after what happened in the 2030s. But Huey, that sniveling weasel, was right fuckin there, there selling records by the bundle in the 1980s by playing shit that wouldn'ta caused even a minor fuckin headcold in the ear of those prissy ass soc-hoppers. Patronizing ass bull crap. Seven million copies of the album sold my fuckin ass. Bet your fuckin butt that they were popular because they were selling records to the only god damned people who had any god damned MONEY then. The parents. The fuckin mommies and daddies. You think any kid worth his fuckin square hip cool was listen to the goddamn News?! Hell no. Note how the "popular" music got a lot weirder and a lot younger in the '10s and '20s when any asshole eighth-grader could stream the next shitty Jack Harlow bull crap off their god damned phone?!

"Pappy, what's a phone?"

It's what you had to put up to your ear to talk to your asshole friends before they implanted that shit in your brains. And for a while in the 2020s, it was a machine for porn and music, both algorithmed to fucking death by corporate soul-suckers who hated you and hated music and loved nothing but your goddamn money. Always been that way, but I'm trying to explain to you god damned youngins that Huey couldn'ta been popular with the yutes, he was too lame. He was too hip, after hip wasn't hip.

"I dunno, Pap, if we was the ones writing the review for the album Fore!, might just be that it's catchy and that's that. Might be wiser to give into the catchiness and admit this is a good album."

You little shits know nothing. Catchy. Catchy ain't nothing. Catchy is a sign of insanity. Catchy is being stuck in an elevator and humming along to the music that pump into those things to calm you down while you're trapped in a box. Catchy, fuck outta here with that bull crap. Catchy, sure, it was catchy. But what else? Hmm? What else is Louie Lewis and the Ludes? Catchy and what else? Nothing. God damned nothing. Simple ass bull crap, tapping into a previous decade when rock 'n' roll was simple by default, spoonfeeding you that shit like tapioca. Like I was a goddamn old fart with shit for brain who makes a mess in his pants every time the doorbell rings.

"Pappy... what's the smell?"

Oh lord. Oh lord. Huey Lewis, you've done it again.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5