The Fall of the House of Usher

I was at my health club the other day riding the bike and I needed something to read. I found the May 2005 issue of Men's Health magazine and started flipping through that. This edition's cover boy is pop star Usher. I'm aware enough of Usher that I know what he looks like, but I couldn't name any of his songs or albums if you put a gun to my head... but I can now, after looking him up on allmusic.com. Judging from the number of songwriters, producers and guest artists propping him up on his most recent album, it looks as if Usher is hardly a self-contained musical genius. Usher probably shows up after all the serious creative work has been completed and then sings the tunes and gets all of the glory.

Regardless, if I ain't got nuffin to read when I'm on the stationary bike, I'll get bored, so if I wanna do 30 minutes or more, I gotsta have me a magazine, yo. So there I was, skimming through Men's Health, reading little bits and pieces while simultaneously realizing that if I was a gay man, I'd totally subscribe to as many men's fitness publications as I could afford, because to describe them as "a little homoerotic" is like calling the Terri Schiavo kerfuffle "a little polarizing."

I made it to the cover feature and sure enough, there's Usher in all his shirtless glory describing his philosophy of fitness and life and otherwise pontificating like he's one of the 21st century's great thinkers. Now, Ush-Dog is in pretty good physical condition (although he and his trainer might wanna take it easy on his pecs -- boy's got some serious man titties going on), but why wouldn't he be? As a manufactured pop star/musical product, he has a personal trainer holding his hand through three-hour workouts and a nutritionist cooking perfectly balanced meals every day (and credit must be given to writer Scott Quill, who said exactly that in his profile).

But it was one of Usher's pearls of wisdom that really frosted my Pop-Tarts. Quoth the Ush-Man: "My life is work, work, work, work, work." Bullshit. Usher is hardly the first celebrity to whine about how much they "work," but he's the one that gets the full brunt of my wrath today. To wit: Bitch, you ain't never worked a day in your fucking life. Yeah, spending 12 hours a day in a recording studio might not be a non-stop party, but try working an eight-hour shift on an assembly line, or driving a bus, or cleaning toilets, you pampered sissy boy. First, you wouldn't be able to pay for that trainer and the three-hour workouts that keep your waist so narrow and your pecs so overinflated, but then, after a full day of real work, not that candy-ass show biz "labor" by which you're so "consumed," you wouldn't have the energy for one of your carefully supervised exercise sessions. So shut your fucking (low-fat, no-sugar) cakehole, Usher.

And what kind of a stupid-ass, retarded name is Usher, anyway? What was his mother thinking? Does he have brothers named "Plumber" and "Busboy?"