Review Summary: A farmer’s market gone mad
Modern culture has become one of aggressive inclusionism. We accept people. We want to nurture their light within. We call rude assholes ‘people affected with Oppositional Defiance Disorder’ now. We refer to hysterically bland people with weird hair as ‘charismatic’ and ‘individualistic.’ We tolerate Johnny Depp. We have successfully passed the buck of the socioeconomic divide entirely onto the ‘government,’ so no one has to account for their own lack of productivity, ambition or capacity at all anymore. We want people to come as they are. And we support local arts. That’s how Mac DeMarco came to be discovered, while rifling through the dumpster of a nature park, looking for half-eaten hot dogs to make shoes out of.
Which brings to mind another issue. Before the white man came around and ruined America, there were Indian casinos as far the eye could see, wild and free. Under white rule these casinos have been replaced by utterly needless nature conservation parks, giving ossified hippies endless space to roam and play didgeridoos in. This Mac DeMarco *** would have never happened at an Indian casino. For shame, America. For shame.
Listening to This Old Dog is like watching three small children turn over a port-a-potty with a fat guy in it. It’s like eating a jar of mayonnaise while Charlie Kaufman does sit-ups in the adjacent room. Like seeing someone have Post-Traumatic Stress on a Ferris wheel. Like a cop trying to handcuff a guy with no hands. Like watching Friends.
On the plus side, the album alternatively functions as a score to a Wes Anderson movie about a sperm’s slow drift through a labyrinthine Fallopian tube towards what it thinks is an egg, but turns out to be Brian Eno’s head. Twee witticisms, Jason Schwartzman, and brightly-colored montages that resemble dreamscapes of a senile pedophile ensue.
But hey, we all deserve a small moment, don’t we?. If there is place on the Internet for fetish websites about shoving kosher pastrami up Hitler’s ass, surely there’s a place for Mac DeMarco, right? WRONG!
As for the album? You know that talcum toilet paper you buy for irritated bottoms, and when you unspool it, a small puff of flecky white dust flies up? It’s like that. But wispier and more boring.
