If there’s one group you never want to make an instructional video for, it’s the cool kids. I know all you want to do is teach 4th Graders what a nollie is, or help Somebody’s Aunt learn to rap about her joint pain, but the cool kids will find you. They’ll tear you apart. They’ll start a whole hot dog themed website about you. You’ll be ridiculed into a legacy of shame, and at best you’ll live out the rest of your days as an ironic folk hero. If living as Tommy Wiseau is your best case scenario, is that really living? Ask Tommy Wiseau. He’ll tell you about his Suicide Hotline Rewards Card.
So really, this video about making “trippy music” for the kids was doomed even before this internet harbinger showed up:
The eHow logo is like the Nintendo Seal of Quality — if you’re lucky it means nothing, if you’re unlucky you just brought home the bronze medal in the Shit Olympics. Here’s our instructor for Trippy Music Class:
The least funkadelic person to ever live.
Coincidentally, this is also the first frame in eHow’s popular How To Spot A Narc video. If somebody walks up to your smoke spot and does this, I promise you they are either wearing a wire or else they’re caught in a Freaky Friday body swap. That is your call to make. It might actually be worth it to smoke them out if you’re banking on a mystical body exchange — sure you might get busted if you’re wrong, but you also might get to make out with somebody’s mom and score points with their daughter after they learn a lesson about how hard each other’s lives really are and switch back. That’s called the Two Birds With One Stoner Maneuver, and it is as rewarding as it is difficult to execute.
Of course her name is Kendall. She’s wearing that shirt; they only sell those to Kendalls. She talks like the Mickey Mouse Club rejected her for being too disingenuous and she says the word “trippy” like it’s an obscure sexual slur.
Her very first piece of advice is “let’s just improv!” When a person who looks like this says “let’s just improv!” every muscle in your body seizes in anticipated terror. It’s like PTSD from an event you haven’t experienced yet. It’s Deja Trauma. “Let’s just improv!” has never ended in a worthwhile piece of art, it only ends in a lady named some shit like Kendall ‘accidentally’ saying something homophobic, or a guy named some shit like Ashley ‘accidentally’ taking it too far with his one and only character: Captain Boobgrab.
Sure enough Kendall’s improvised tune is just every vowel she knows in order, moaned into her own throat.
It’s a whalesong from the loneliest whale who is that way for a very good reason. Kendall will break into song with no warning even though it is legally required in every state but North Carolina. Nobody gets through a short chat with Kendall without her going into a Christina Aguilera-style hand scale.
She describes her own vocals as “breathy and really chilled out,” and again there is so much constrained resentment in her voice. From Kendall, even the simple word “fun” sounds like a vile curse. Like so many people have left because of what happens after she says “fun” that she missed a step between cause and effect and now blames the word itself for her cat family.
About halfway through the video, Kendall suggests that all trippy music could use a little Middle Eastern or Indian slant.
And now we need to pause for a moment.
There’s a unique facial expression that you will only find on bored suburbanites when they’re about to say something racist. It’s a complicated mix of glee and self-hatred; an eagerness tempered by questionable rage from no clear source. They’re going to say it, you can’t stop them from saying it, and they kind of want you to call them out on it — they’ll coast on the adrenaline rush from that argument for weeks. It’s the only thing that will keep them from secretly crushing the class gerbil on Parent-Teacher Night. That expression looks like this:
Kendall, god damn it. Don’t do it. You haven’t earned enough goodwill to make a controversial statement about the Middle East or India, you-
Oh shit!
You might’ve been expecting Kendall to throw a curveball eventually, so she threw a fucking dart. She literally changed the game on you. She region-locked your expectations by throwing the Middle East out there first, then nailed you with the Native American racism. And look how fast she’s out of there — two seconds of slashing arteries and she’s moved on before you can even register the damage. That is minimalist, brutally executed, pro-caliber racism. Kendall is the John Wick of Applebee’s bigotry.
When pressed to describe the kind of psychedelic image she imagines as she’s playing, Kendall says “maybe a bird flying in the air or something weird.” That’s so far from weird that I worry I’m mocking a head trauma patient, like she got into a motorcycle accident and left her imagination smeared across the 405. I am sorry that Reading Rainbow taunts you now, Kendall, but trying to defunk an entire generation of budding musicians is a disproportionate revenge. Just tell them to wear a helmet and never fall in love with a man named Chain. You could help instead of harm!
I have this theory that the most annoying people use their neck more than the average human, and Kendall is the only proof I ever need of that:
Those tendons are the strongest material known to man, and they’ve only ever been used to put zany emphasis on words like “stanky.” She can bite rebar in half thanks to the exercise she gets by wildly overpronouncing every other phoneme. Because she says the word “Chinese” with such venom, now no ballgag can hold her.
Take us out, Kendall:
“Enjoy making trippy music! I’ve taught you two classical techniques on a violin and why you don’t like people who describe themselves as ‘on a journey,’ goodbye!”
…
Brought to you thanks to a tip from Br At.