We in the alternative media - not necessarily the Houston Press and/or Rocks Off, not all the time - enjoy calling out our mainstream brethren. Whether it's ten books that didn't make The New York Times' "Best of 2010" list, or "10 Stories Our Print Version Accidentally Overlooked," us "underground" bloggers like to pretend we're more immediate, thorough and relevant than the folks in the mainstream print-centric press.
However, there are times when we wish we were able to skip right over certain stories the way our more middle-of-the-road competition does, times when the story we're covering makes us so sad and depressed we want to run away and work on a puppy farm. Instead, we slogged through and, unfortunately, forced ourselves to bring you the following stories.
10. Pigeons Poop On Kings of Leon: The Kings of Leon have been experiencing quite a backlash over the past year or two. Their massive success on the backs of twin hit singles "Sex On Fire" and "Use Somebody," combined with their sound having slowly grown poppier after their twangy Southern-rock debut, led to the Nashville band's being ridiculed and resented almost as much as your Nickelbacks and your Creeds.
Deserved or not, the anti-Kings sentiment seemed to reach an apex this year when they played a pigeon-infested Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in St. Louis. After watching their opening acts get covered in pigeon shit, the Kings went out anyway to attempt a set, only to have a pigeon poop directly into the mouth of bassist Jared Followill. The Kings left the stage, understandably we think, and proceeded to get mocked and ridiculed all over the place for their misfortune.
It blew up into a huge story, and this is now the third time we've had to mention an animal shitting into the mouth of a rock star. Tiresome for everyone, we're pretty sure.
9. Kanye and Taylor's Increasingly Boring "Feud": Last year, during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Music Video Awards, a visibly drunk Kanye West leapt to the stage, body-tackled Swift, put her in a perfect Iron Sheik-style Camel Clutch, ripped the award from her hands and wrapped it in a burning American flag, which he then fired out of a T-shirt launcher directly into Beyonce's face, before flipping Swift off with both hands while using a grappling hook and smoke bombs to escape the scene to the strains of Stone Cold Steve Austin's theme music.
Or at least that's how West and Swift both treated last year's admittedly douchey but relatively minor VMA stagecrash. Both performers alluded to the incident in interviews, Kanye took to Twitter in one of his epic stream-of-consciousness rants ending with an apology, and Swift performed a gigantic, overwrought, melodramatic song referencing the event at this year's VMAs, a full year after the incident.
Guys! It really wasn't that big a deal. Never before have two performers involved in a "feud" seemed less interested in actually attacking one another. Whatever animosity there was seems to have died down, and hopefully this is the last time we'll have to write about it.
