September 2005 Archives
"A man sorts women into three categories: 'Would,' 'Probably would' and 'Over 70.'"
I also got to see what someone's scrotum looks like when it's swelled up to about the size of a grapefruit. But that's another story.
Anyway, the closest I have to a good work story is that yesterday a box showed up, the shipping guy opened it, saw that it was computer stuff and handed it to Mr. Lewis, who among his numerous other duties, is our network person. "I think these are backup tapes," he said. Mr. Lewis pulled one out, and said, "That's no moon..."
Wait, no, that's not right. What he said was, "These aren't backup tapes. They're iPod Nanos." Fifteen black ones, as it happens.
Mr. Lewis didn't order them. Nobody ordered them. It was a shipping boo boo. Unfortunately for everyone, this is a company with some integrity. They don't belong to us, so we're trying to figure out who they belong to so we can return them.
Wait, no, that's not right either. Well, that's part of it, but not the whole story. No, mostly we're just afraid that if we have the wrong package that someone else might have something we ordered.
But if we don't resolve this mystery, we're keeping them. There's about 15 people in the office, 15 iPod nanos, so I'd imagine we'll do this democratically and give them all to the company president who will keep them all. Either that or I'll end up getting one.
Although I already have an iPod that I'm very happy with, but I'm sure if I got another one, I'd find a use for it.
And there it is. The most interesting work story in a while.
Well, reading this story, it might come up more often.
My favorites are the ones that are close but not exactly it. Like James Teenage Mouton Ninja Turtles or Greg Mathe Maddux or Mario Speedwagon Soto. Since jokes are always funnier if the audience has to work for the laugh.
* If you don't know, Chris Berman is a newscaster who's been doing Sports Center on ESPN for about 25 years. Sheesh! How could you not know who he is? You need to get out more!
It's a fact: the Xbox rocks like nobody's business. It is, graphically speaking, the best console out there. If you've ever played an Xbox game and then played the same game on the PS2, the PS2 version looks like it was drawn with crayon by a four year old compared to the Xbox version.
Okay, so now that that's out of the way, on to the story.
This weekend was the Cub's birthday. I had to get him a present. And I figured, "Hey, why not get him a video game?" And since we were both big fans of the previous installment, why not get Burnout Revenge?
So, when I got to EB Games, I noted that they had Burnout Revenge for PS2 and for Xbox. Which to get? I probably should have gotten the PS2 version. Since the Cub has a PS2 at the Folks' place, and no Xbox. However, it occurred to me that if I got the Xbox version, since I'm the guy with the Xbox, then it'd have to stay at my place. Which would mean that I'd be able to play it during the week! It'd be like getting me my own birthday present!
Oh yeah, and the graphics are better or some such.
Terrible! I know! But that's how it went down.
In any case, I've been playing the crap out of this game these last few days. It's fantastic like you wouldn't believe. Much like the previous version, they have this mission or level or whatever you'd call it called Crash. It works like this: You drive as fast as you can onto a ramp, and then smash into cars. The goal is to get your car where it'll do the most damage.
They tricked it up a little bit where it's harder to get started, and there's a bit of strategery about what kind of car you pick out. I liked the non-tricked-up version. It was more mindless and stupid, and frankly, I like mindless and stupid sometimes. But it's still very entertaining.
And I'm not sure if the actual races are easier in this one than the last one, or if I've just gotten good at these racing games. I think it's the former. The last Burnout was the first racing game I'd gotten into since Pole Position, so I had to ascend the learning curve for the whole genre of racing games.
Although, there's a new feature where, unlike in the previous games, if you plow into traffic that's going the same direction as you, it doesn't cause you to crash. No, the cars in front of you go flying. Which is really cool, I assure you.
Anyway, the reason I mention this is because there's a song on the little game soundtrack that I liked so much, I went on the iTunes and downloaded it. Anyway, this morning, I played that song on the iPod, which put me in a racing mood, which I'm often in, since I'm driving some high performance German engineering. Add to it the fact that, unlike some cities, you can actually get going at a pretty good clip on the interstates, even during rush hour. And I'd spent several hours the night before playing a game where the basic strategy for dealing with inconvenient cars in front of you is to hit them from behind.
Okay, nothing happened. Although my instincts almost took over for a second there. And I shaved about five minutes off my commute this morning.
BARBRA STREISAND
Original: She briefly dated Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the early 1970s, had long-term relationships with hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters and tennis player Andre Agassi, and later married actor James Brolin in 1998.
Vandalized: She briefly dated Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the early 1970s, had long-term relationships with hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters and tennis player Andre Agassi, and later married actor James Brolin in 1998, with whom she has vigorous anal sex.
This will be considered the week that Everything Changed. People when they're 80 will sit back and reminisce about it. "Do you remember where you were when you found out?" they'll say.
Of course, I'm talking about the allegation that Kate Moss did cocaine.
That's right. A supermodel did cocaine.
Will we ever regain our innocence? Of course not. That's not how innocence works.
I wonder what this world is coming to. Next thing you know, we'll find out that guys in fraternities drink beer.
Well, it was Indie Rock. That Sufjan Stevens guy whose horn I've been tooting recently.
As happens quite a bit lately, I felt really old. It was one of those all-ages shows where the big kids got the stamp and the little kids got the big red X. There were way more X's than stamps. And what kids they were. Bunch of West County Indie Rock types. You know the kind I'm talking about. The archetype that Strong Sad was modeled after*.
But despite all that, it was possibly the best crowd of any show I've ever attended. Well, second perhaps to the Flaming Lips show I saw a couple years ago, also in St. Louis.
St. Louis tends to have good crowds. Of all the places I've seen shows, it's a toss-up as to whether St. Louis or Oklahoma City has better crowds. OKC crowds enjoy themselves with more wild abandon, but then, at the St. Louis shows, there's not the really drunk 45 year old with the handlebar mustache who looks like he's ready to break a bottle over someone's head if they look at him wrong. I'll give the edge to St. Louis. Slightly more subdued, but without the threat of impending violence.
But both cities have really good crowds and they're both way better than seeing a show in Dallas. Ugh. What a bunch of pretentious morons. They seem to take it as their responsibility to be seeming to enjoy themselves as little as possible. You paid for the ticket, asshole! Lighten up! Enjoy yourself!
On the other hand, maybe the kids don't do that any more. Maybe it was just my fellow Gen X types. I've heard kids today are getting less cynical and more likely to trust authority than we were. Maybe the flip side of that is that they enjoy themselves more at concerts.
They also don't smoke as much. I think there were three people smoking. There would have been four if I hadn't gotten all lame and quit.
Man, I did love smoking.
Anyway, the opening act was a fairly generic folksy singer songwriter with one of those smokey alto voices who made excellent use of the ukulele†. She wasn't bad at all. And, a sign of things to come, the audience really applauded when she finished.
Who was it who expressed bafflement at people booing the opening act? Was that Henry Rollins? Whoever it was, he said something like: "The audience seems to take the opening act as some kind of intrusion, as something preventing them from seeing the main act. 'Look', I want to say to them, 'Iron Maiden isn't going to come out until 10:30, whether there's an opening act or not. So you can either enjoy yourselves or not.'"
Then it was time for the Main Event. The band comes out in some kind of navy cheerleader outfits with orange I's on them. (Those are, by the way, U. of Illinois colors) All except for Mr. Stevens himself who had on a star-spangled Eval Knievel-style jumpsuit.
The roar of applause after songs was deafening. The whole crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves heartily, and very few of them were doing that hippy-dippy Grateful Dead dance. The backing band, the Illinoisemakers, was really good, and the live arrangements were well done. Sufjan's singing was a bit weak at first, but he got warmed up in no time at all.
I heard about when Grandaddy came through town last year (OU/Texas weekend, the bastards), and they did 90% of their songs from Sumday, which would be okay were it not for the fact that The Sophtware Slump is so much better than Sumday that they aren't in the same zip code. Well, this was like that as well. 90% of the songs from Illinois. The only difference being that Illinois is the best thing Sufjan's ever done, so I'm not complaining.
Another thing they did, since they were all in cheerleader outfits, is cheers. Like cheerleader style cheers. That was fun. The show would have been worth it if only for the cheer leading into the song Metropolis, which managed to mention the two brightest lights from Illinois fiction, Balki Bartokomous and Webster Papadopolous.
Gimicky? Yes! Kinda stupid? Absolutely! (He said so himself before the above cheer) Fun despite all that? Yes, and that's all that counts.
Anyway, if he comes through your part of the world, I'd say he's worth shelling out the money to go see. I know I'm glad I did. Hell, maybe this will be the start of something. Maybe I'll start going out more often. Probably not, but it might happen.
* You didn't follow the above link, did you? Well, you ought to. It's Strong Sad's blog. It serves as the model and inspiration for this one.
† "Ukulele" is a fun word to spell. Go ahead! Try it!
Neither do I!
(And yes, that's the actual title they're going to release the movie as.)
The dream was this: I was on a date with someone, and some frat guy looking douchebag mentions how he really likes her show, and blah blah blah. And I realized that this whole time I had been on a date with Portia de Rossi and it hadn't occurred to me. And then the alarm clock went off, and that was the end of that.
I guess if there's a moral to that story it's that Elaine was right. Other people's dreams are boring. I found that story boring. I can only imagine what you people thought.
Salivating Dog Public Service Announcement
Don't see the movie Broken Flowers. Don't see the movie Broken Flowers.This point is so vital, I had to say it two times.
Well, I take it back. I can see one scenario where you might want to see it. If there's a guy or girl you've been kinda-sorta seeing, and haven't quite worked up the nerve to put the moves on him/her, you might want to take this person to see Broken Flowers. Because the movie's so unbelievably boring, he or she will probably put the moves on you, just for something to do.
If you saw Lost in Translation, Rushmore, or that Aquatic movie, you've probablynoticed that Bill Murray has been working on this "comedic minimalism" thing. Even in the 70's, he was never the madcap, coked-up kinda guy. He probably was coked-up, but he didn't make it part of his act like, say, Robin Williams did.
Well, lately, he'd been taking it down about seven more notches. The knobs were all at 2, but it was still funny. Just a very understated kind of funny. I think the reason he pulled it off was because it looked like he was right on the verge of breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably. But somehow he did just that was funny to keep himself from doing it. And it was the tension between the unspeakable sadness and the bit of wackiness that made it work.
In this movie, we have the sad part, but we don't have the wack part. Like none. It's just Bill Murray looking sad. Endless, unchanging shots of Bill Murray looking sad.
And the worst part is the ending. I'm going to spoil it for everyone here, in the hopes that by doing so, nobody has any interest in seeing it.
When I say "ending", I mean that the movie doesn't have an ending. It just stops. Like that Jarmusch asshole just ran out of film and said, "I'll just, I dunno, stop there, and people will call it art." Roughly speaking, the story is that Bill Murray's girlfriend leaves him. Later that day, he reads a letter from an old flame, saying he has a 19 year old son. And then he figures out who the prime suspects are, and, at the prodding of his Ethiopian next-door neighbor, he goes on a big trip around the country to find out which one it might be. It takes about an hour for us to get to the part where he actually leaves, although it feels like seven.
About an hour after that -- or was it six hours? -- it occurred to me, "Holy shit, you know what's going to happen? He's not going to find out!" And I was right! He doesn't find out at all! What's worse, he decides it may all just be a joke, that there may not be any 19 year old son. It could just be a trick or something.
So, therefore, and in conclusion, don't go see Broken Flowers. And while you're at it, don't go see Broken Flowers!
I am, however, giving it two Charlie Heads, because the soundtrack was really good. Not good enough to carry the movie, and doesn't make it worth seeing, but it was very good.
A Reverse Record Store--you'd go and pay them $11.99 and they'd take your money and use it (along with the $11.99 payments of others) to bribe Paul McCartney to not make an album that year.
Genius! Sign me up! Although spend my $12 on the Rolling Stones.
Idea shamelessly pilfered from Kausfiles.
Before, I'd had the idea that I'd write some kind of A-Screed-A-Day thing, take inventory of what happened today, maybe throw in some wacky links I came across while goldbricking at work.
Well, that didn't work as well as I might have hoped for a variety of reasons. Like I've found I end up doing stuff in the evenings more often than I might have thought. And sometimes I'll write something at work and leave it there, so I'll have to figure out some way to get the text back home. Which is a Byzantine process, I can assure you.
But no more. I'll add the wacky links when and as I find them and I'll screed whenever the need for screed hits me. And each blurb will probably be shorter than the average one-a-day entry. Unless it's longer. Or about the same size.
A German inventor says he's found a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats.Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers.
They are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter.
He said the resulting "high quality bio-diesel" costs just 15 pence per litre.
Koch said the cadaver of a fully grown cat can produce 2.5 litres of fuel - meaning around 20 cats are needed for a full tank.
He said: "I tank my car with my own diesel mixture and have driven it for 105,000 miles without any problems."
Annelise Krauss of the Dresden Animal Protection Association blasted Koch's new diesel though, saying: "This is as bad as experimenting on animals."
Story here. I've expressed my reservations about biodiesel in the past, and I don't know that this is going to be any better. 15 pence per liter sounds good, but that would be $1.04 per gallon (assuming it's UK pence we're talking about). And then you have to ship it, and the greedy oil companies (who refuse to work for free, the bastards) would have their take, and then add taxes onto it. So, I don't think dead cats are going to be the breakthrough that ends our dependence on foreign oil.
On the other hand, I could gas up the car with dead cats. Which, come on, you have to admit that's pretty cool.
Here's more from my series of new music:
The Ponys
- Where They're From: Chicago
- The Album I Listened To:
Laced with Romance
- Who They Sound Like: any of about 1000 punk bands.
- What I Thought:
Yesterday I said that you have to give credit to The Go! Team, despite the fact that they're awful, because they don't sound like anyone else, and at least they're trying new things.
The Ponys are like The Go! Team, only without the trying new things bit.
They're also going for that super-Lo-Fi sound. Even with headphones on, it sounds like it's coming from the basement. They use so much reverb and distortion they don't so much have melodies as a smear of sound. If the sound quality were any higher, though, it would be easier to make out the music, such as it is. So I think the listening experience is enhanced by the low quality.
The experience would be enhanced further if they had tried for "No-Fi", and just not recorded anything at all.
If there's anything that distinguishes them all the other bands, it's the singer. I tried very hard to put my finger on what he sounds like, and finally it came to me: he sounds like what Robert Smith would sound like if he'd had a stroke.
The lyrics may be the most enlightening words ever set to music. However, the world will never know, since the singer slurs all the words together, to the point they're completely unintelligable. Lord knows I couldn't make them out.
I also mentioned yesterday that there's nothing wrong with being from England, and it's nice to hear people sing like it. Well, there's also nothing wrong with being from Chicago, so I don't know why he feels it necessary to try to sound like he's from Leeds. Although it could be the after-effects of the stroke.
- You Might Like Them If: you're one of those people who mistakes "loud" for "good". I used to be one of those people, so I understand. And they play with lots of energy. People will probably like them, and they won't have to trick themselves, either.
- Highlights: "Chemical Imbalance" started out strong, but then the singing started.
- More info: http://www.theponys.com
The Magic Numbers
- Where They're From: Ealing, London, England
- The Album I Listened To:
The Magic Numbers
- Who They Sound Like: some kind of 60's pop band. The Byrds, maybe.
- What I Thought: If I hadn't known any better, I would have thought these guys were Canadians. I don't know if you've noticed this, but the Canadians make music that Americans stopped making for some reason or another.
Name an American power pop band since Starship. The closest we had is that song "No Rain". Whereas the Canadians have bands like Barenaked Ladies, The Tragically Hip, Shania Twain. Okay, that last one isn't exactly power pop, but still.
Anyway, that's the subject of a much longer discussion that has nothing to do with The Magic Numbers. Maybe I'll share it sometime.
So that's the broad genre these people belong in. Power pop. Although more pop than power.
As I mentioned above, it sounds like more uptempo 60's pop. Something akin to the Beach Boys, although not nearly that ambitious. The effect is helped by the fact that the singer sounds an awful lot like Cat Stevens. Everyone sounds polished. It sounds like they started playing less recently than last month.
The songs are catchy, pleasant, and decent, though far from great. My biggest problem with it: it's inoffensive. Like way too inoffensive. The only reason this isn't Top 40 music is because, well, I'm not sure why not. I mean, it's Top 40 style music, I just don't know why it isn't selling appropriately. Just part of the capricious nature of the business, I guess.
Or maybe this is Top 40 music, and it's all over the radio, and everyone's wondering why I'm writing about these people.
In conclusion, I decided someone could probably get into them, although I'm not that person. Although if anyone thinks they might want to give these people a try, I think it might be worth waiting until their second album. I suspect they'll get a better handle on what they're trying to do between now and then.
- You Might Like Them If: you like the aforementioned Canadian power pop. If you like the Barenaked Ladies, you might like these guys.
- Highlights: They make a nice counter-point when English folks start talking about how fat Americans are. "Yes, Americans are fat. It's too bad we can't all have svelt English physiques, like, oh, I don't know, The Magic Numbers."
- More info: http://www.themagicnumbers.net
Note: This link is not intended for children or mothers of blog authors.
J's Commentary: I was one of those nice, sensitive guys who whined all through high school, "How come the jerks get all the girls? You know how come? Because girls are stupid!" Reading this, I realize that 1) the guy writing that could be almost any guy I know (it could even be me, if my life had taken a slightly different turn), and B) guys are stupid too.
What's more, they're stupid in almost exactly the same way.
There was a time in my life when I was really concerned about being on the cutting edge of music. Being the first guy to have heard of bands. Although listening to the cutting edge stuff brings us into direct contact with Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Thus 90% of all snot-nosed 17 year olds with bad skin and a dream involving five groupies and a cereal bowl full of cocaine will put out a CD that is dreadful. It's just how the world works. I could prove it mathematically, (seriously, it can be proven using statistics) but that's a lot of trouble (and boring trouble at that), so you'll just have to take my word on it.
Say what you want about the music you hear on the radio, but it's usually not just completely unlistenable. It might be dull, insipid, formulaic, derivative, pick your favorite music snob adjective, but it not zero-out-of-ten bad.
The same cannot be said for the stuff that isn't on the radio. Some of it is just noise. And of the stuff that isn't noise, there's quite a bit of it that's also dull, insipid, formulaic, and derivative. It's just, if it's derivative, it's derived from bands that nobody's heard of.
So that's the downside of listening to the indie music. When it's bad -- and it usually is -- it tends to be absolutely putrid. On the upside, when it's good, it's good in surprising, unexpected ways. And you get to be the first kid on the block to have heard them.
The problem is that at some point I stopped caring what anyone thought of me. So the benefits of being the guy who was listening to The Asshats before they sold out and became all corporate were seriously diminished. Bragging requires that you be concerned that someone is going to be impressed, and I wasn't.
Granted, if I was the first guy to listen to them, I could get tired of them before the radio made me get tired of them. But then, since I never listen to the radio, that doesn't matter either.
So there was an increasingly diminished payoff to being adventurous musically, and the downside was very far down indeed. So I just stopped listening to new stuff. Better to stick with something like 70's R&B. It'd take, well, a decade to listen to all of it, and it'd been around for long enough that they'd pretty well been able to sort out what's good and what isn't. So sticking with the good stuff was painless and simple.
But all that changed this last month. I've started listening to new music once again. Like stuff that's come out in the last year or so. This probably has something to do with the fact that I got really sick of everything in Marla the iPod all at once. And the fact that I just had one of those birthdays with a zero in it, and was feeling less-than-with-it.
Anyway, I've been in full-on Dian Fossey mode, and I've returned from the jungle. So, for the next few days, I'll be giving a rundown of people I've been listening to and my take on them.
Kaiser Chiefs
- Where They're From: Leeds, England
- The Album I Listened To:
Employment
- Who They Sound Like: Almost exactly like The Clash, only with one of those 80's keyboards.
- What I Thought: Not bad. They're very peppy, and I take it that they're really enjoying themselves. That's what we need more of, in my hogtied opinion. We need more bands that are playing music because playing music is fun, not because it's some kind of therapy for themselves.
The songs "Every Day I Love You Less and Less" (which, now that I think about it, sounds like might have been written by the guy who wrote the above open letter) is very catchy, as is "I Expect a Riot". This is the kind of CD you put in the player when you've had a long day at work, and you're in the mood to mix yourself a screwdriver and dance around by yourself in your boxer-briefs in the style of Molly Ringwald during the pot smoking scene in the Breakfast Club.
But, there's something kind of lightweight about this band. I found myself wanting them to do something a little less upbeat for once. Even the down tempo songs seemed upbeat. It's like how the guy who smiles a lot seems chipper, but the guy who smiles constantly seems retarded. Not that these guys seem retarded, but they aren't showing a lot of range here.
And, I agree with Strong Bad about bands that try to pass off Na Na's, La La's, or Doot Do's as legitimate lyrics. These guys are prime offenders of that. Why, they even have a song entitled "Na Na Na Na Naa".
All that said, these guys were pretty good, and I liked this album. This might be one that sneaks into my rotation fairly often.
- You Might Like Them If: you often find yourself in the mood to listen to something really peppy. Like if, when you're in a really good mood, you want to listen to something sunny, these are your guys.
- Highlights: The fact that they sing with these obnoxious British accents. There's nothing wrong with being British, and I've never understood the desire for all these fine English folk to sound like they're from Cleveland.
- More info: http://www.kaisercheifs.co.uk
The Go! Team
- Where They're From: Brighton, England
- The Album I Listened To:
Thunder, Lightning, Strike
- Who They Sound Like: ???
- What I Thought: The first point that should be made about these people is that they don't sound much like anyone else out there. They're trying something new. So they get credit for that.
It's been my theory that, musically, all the good ideas are taken. Anything you can do with pop music that sounds good has already been tried. And therefore, the only ideas left untried are bad ideas. So if you hear someone doing something different, it's probably going to blow.
But then, how will we know for sure? Maybe one day a band will come along and try something different that really works. And it'll blow everyone's mind. And musicians across the world will slap their foreheads and say, "Holy crap! Why didn't I think of that?!"
The Go! Team is not that band.
But still, they've tried something new, and despite the fact it was an abysmal failure, as any engineer can tell you, sometimes you learn as much from the experiments that fail as you do from the experiments that succeed. And you're always going to learn something, even if it's just "Don't try this again".
So, what went wrong here? Goodness, where to start? These guys are apparently going for the "Lo-Fi" sound. By which it sounds like they recorded themselves in their garage on one of those casette recorders you could buy at Radio Shack for $10 in the 80's. And then they made a copy of that tape by holding that Radio Shack tape player up to another Radio Shack tape player. Then they threw the copy into a swimming pool, and let it dry off on someone's dashboard for a month or so.
I could deal with that lack of quality if it was some kind of rare Syd Barrett-era live recording of Pink Floyd, and this is the only copy, and that's just the quality it is. If it's a recording of a bunch of semi-talented kids I've never heard of, we're already off to a bad start.
The singing is, um, I'd describe them as Spice-Girls-esque, but the audio quality being as bad as it is, I suspect they might be a few steps down from the Spice Girls. There's no way to know for sure. And sometimes, instead of singing, they'll do that shout/rap that the British girl bands are wont to do. ("I'll give you everything on this I swear!/Just promise you'll always be there!")
Musically, it's a combination of original material and samples. And not like the occasional guitar rif from a Curtis Mayfield song, but like several bars of what sounds like a 60's folk song, a bit of a Bollywood soundtrack, and someone playing the drums and guitar (loudly) over it. I think part of why it's as low-fi as it is is because that enables them to combine the sampled material with the original stuff pretty seamlessly.
In all, it's very interesting and original, it just isn't, you know, good.
- You Might Like Them If: you are the mother of someone in the band. (There are lots of people who claim to like them, but I think either they're fooling themselves, or P.T. Barnum was right).
- Highlights: "Junior Kickstart" is a very good. It's sounds like a 60's action movie theme song.
- More info: http://www.thegoteam.co.uk
Allow me to suggest one:
I offer this name free of charge, as a service to you, my readers.
So don't say I never did anything for you.
I've been thinking about this Kanye West imbroglio. I know, that happened like a million bazillion years ago and I'm just talking about it now. Well, bear me out. I didn't have anything to add to what everyone else was saying until today.
The thing you need to know about Kanye West is that he's one of those guys who believes that AIDS was invented by the government to keep down the black man. Well, it's either that one or the one where the government didn't invent AIDS, but they are intentionally infecting black people.
I've listened to enough rap to know that he's not the first to suggest this. I'd heard the similar theory about how the CIA invented crack to keep the black man down.
I'd never really thought too much about it. There's all kinds of stuff they mention in rap songs that I'm not too interested in. It's just background noise.
But I've been thinking about it now. Where do these theories come from? Did someone hear about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, and somehow it got jumbled up in his mind, and syphilis became AIDS and the 50's became right now? Did he read some Palestinian propaganda (where this exact story comes up all the time), and decide "If the Jews are doing it, the US goverment must be doing it too"?
I don't know. But I do know this: If you think the government would deliberately infect black people with AIDS, is it really such a stretch to assume that they would drag their feet to airlift supplies or evacuate people? Would you describe that government (or its leader) as one that cares about black people?
So, I guess if we've all learned anything, it's that conspiracy theories are poisonous.
But that's really not what I was going to talk about. In fact, I was going to share with you my all-new conspiracy theory.
It's pretty simple:
Where has meth hit hardest? Rural America.
What part of the country is most reliably Republican? Rural America.
It all makes sense. Just ask yourself: who, aside from the oil companies, stands to gain the most from this meth epidemic? That's right! The Democratic party!
Therefore it's obvious that Bill Clinton instructed the FBI to invent meth to keep down the voters in the red states.
Anyway, that's my theory. Ridiculous, but it popped into my head today, and I thought I'd share.
And it's worth asking yourself, whatever that person's music was like, if someone actually espoused that theory in all seriousness, how likely are they to be referred to as "the smartest man in pop music"?
I was at a stoplight, on my way to work, when I looked over to the left and noticed a man who looked exactly like Cedric the Entertainer, star of numerous Bud Light ads and deliverer of a notorious rant in the Ice Cube movie Barbershop.
Although I should say that I'm not 100% certain it was him, but I'm over 80% certain. First off, Cedric is from St. Louis. And while I only saw him for a second, it looked exactly like him. And he was driving one of those Porsche Cayennes. If we'd draw our Venn Diagram with circles for "guys who might be in St. Louis", "guys who look like Cedric the Entertainer", and "guys who can afford a Porsche Cayenne", I wouldn't imagine that intersection would be very big.
Although I have to give you the context. Because the context is what makes this a "near-brush with near-greatness", rather than merely "at a stoplight next to near-greatness".
I was on my way to work, in a very good mood (for once). When I'm in a good mood, all music sounds good. So, I pull up the stoplight as I'm getting off the highway, and what song should come on the iPod but "Rock Your Body," by Justin Timberlake. This is a good song regardless of what mood I'm in*. So I'm singing along, "Don't be so quick to/ Walk away!/ I wanna rock your body...", and I glance over th the left, and there's what was probably Cedric the Entertainer, looking right at me. Right at me.
It didn't register immediately that that's who it probably was. I just saw some guy looking at me while singing. And bobbing my head. Wait, did I mention I was bobbing my head? Yeah, I was doing that too. And I got sheepish and looked ahead. Although I did keep singing.
Then, as I was thinking the guy I'd just seen looked a lot like Cedric the Entertainer, the light turned green, and I saw that he was driving a car that cost more than I'll make this year.
And that is my near-brush with near-greatness.
For the girl who has everything.
(Probably not work safe. (But then, I suppose that depends on where you work.))
* It is too, and you know it.
The basic thesis seems to be, "New Orleans, to a large extent, you brought this on yourself." It's not polite to kick people when they're down, but then, all we've been hearing since the hurricane hit is how much we've let the people of New Orleans down. Like it's my fault the New Orleans police disappeared. Like I'm the guy who convinced those people to loot all the DVD players at Walmart.
Okay, I said I wasn't going to start raving, and I can feel it coming on. So read the aforementioned story.
Katrina Factoid of the day:
- Money budgeted by Louisiana in 1998 for levee improvements: $1.98 million
- Money budgeted by Louisiana in 1998 for expanding the New Orleans convention center: $35 million
Although I really feel for their kids, if and when they get around to making them. I have the feeling they're going to be those 50-somethings who are still all kissy around A) their kids and 2) their kids' friends. The only thing more yucky than 50-somethings being kissy with each other is when the 50-somethings are your parents. And when your friends are present, that's just humiliating.
In any case, it was good to see them. It was also good to go to the top of the Arch. I don't get to do that enough.
The interesting thing we saw was looking over the river, we saw water shooting like crazy mad out of East St. Louis. Turns out, it's the Gateway Geyser. I hadn't heard of it, and didn't know what it was. We weren't sure if it was supposed to be there or if someone did a boo-boo on the water main over there. It wasn't until we got to the top and saw the reflecting pool, and figured, "Oh, I guess it was intentional, all the water."
I dropped them off on Monday morning, and went to see the air show and do some fraternal bonding with Trav.
And, as per usual, we went to Imo's at Old Orchard, i.e. the greatest Imo's in the world.
I had a thought: I wonder to what extent the great taste of Imo's pizza is because of the delicious Provel cheese. Like, if you were to start making Chicago-style deep dish pizza with Provel, would it be just that much better?
Other than that, we just sat around and played video games, and listened to music.
Speaking of which, I'd made the claim that "Still of the Night" by Whitesnake is the pinnacle of hair metal. Trav said something that I hadn't even thought of. "The genius of 'Still of the Night' is that it manages to rip off not one, not two, but four Led Zeppelin songs: 'Black Dog', 'The Song Remains the Same', 'Kashmir', and 'The Immigrant Song'. Most metal of the 80's only saw fit to steal one Led Zeppelin song at a time, but not Whitesnake. They ripped them off four songs at a time."
And if you don't care, don't read. That's how this thing works.
What's more, I haven't mentioned anything about the Hurricane, which I ought to, since I've been thinking a lot about it, and it's my people that are involved.
In the meantime, I'd suggest everyone who doesn't have a mortgage and a car payment to find a place to donate. And everyone who does have those two should donate. You think you got problems? You don't have problems.
Here's a big list of places to donate.
If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm in many ways the least with-it person any of you know. For instance...
Did you know that I hadn't actually heard Coldplay until like three months ago. Seriously. I'd heard of them, just hadn't heard them.
Although after I got around to listening to them, it turns out I actually had heard them -- hundreds of times -- but I had just assumed it was something by Dave Matthews. I wonder how I could have gotten those two confused.
Anyway, keep that in mind when I start griping about this. For all I know, it's all anyone talks about these days, I just don't know it, because that's how not-with-it I am.
First, listen to this song.
Okay, now listen to this song.
Notice anything similar about them? How's about that it's the same freakin' song! Well, obviously not the same song, since one song has a dude saying "Computerliebe", and instead of over-reverbed drums it has a really cheesy drum machine.
And is this a cover? No! Once the lyrics start, they're totally different! It's not even the English version, it's a totally different song!
When I heard what was going on, I was shocked and horrified. "Just straight-up stealing rifs from people! This is an outrage!"
But then I reconsidered. I mean, isn't that what those rappers do? De La Soul takes part of "(Not Just) Knee Deep" from Funkadelic, and repackages it as "Me, Myself, and I". Vanilla Ice takes part of "Under Pressure" from David Bowie and Queen, and it becomes "Ice, Ice, Baby". It's called "sampling". Happens all the time. So what's wrong with a rock band sampling another band's stuff, and then playing it live?
Here's what's wrong with it:
Rock isn't rap. Those people, while they may not get paid more than Dr. Dre, they get a more respect than Dr. Dre. And in exchange for that respect, we assume they're going to push back the frontiers of creativity, they're going to make the world a richer place by inventing something new. Granted almost all new bands sound exactly like Gang of Four these days, but there's an ideal they can shoot for. When they put out an album, it should be the greatest Gang of Four album of all time. One that everyone agrees, had it actually been from Gang of Four, it squish Entertainment! *squish* just like grape, as Mr. Miyagi would put it.
But it should be their stuff, ("their" meaning The Assclowns or whatever the new band's name is, not Gang of Four).
But on the other hand, what about just covering a song? Like if they'd just done the Coldplay version of Kraftwerk's "Computer Love". If they'd done that, I'd probably have though, "'Computer Love'? That's an odd choice for a cover," but I probably wouldn't be writing a screed about it.
So, how is borrowing the guitar melody from a song any different from covering the whole song? Who passed a law saying that you can't decouple the lyrics from the guitars? Unlike just covering the song, they've actually done some creative heavy lifting.
And, truth be told, "Computer Love" is probably the weakest song on "Computer World", whereas this "Talk" song is pretty good. So, they've improved the music. Not that they couldn't have improved it if they'd just covered it. There are dozens of covers that improve on the original, like the Guns and Roses version of "Live and Let Die" or Devo's cover of "Satisfaction". But still, they did improve it. So that ought to be worth something.
So, I think my outrage stemmed from the typical reaction to something that is new and unexpected. I became confused and frightened and angry. Although, in the darker recesses of my psyche, I was probably pissed that I didn't think of it first.
I finally finished the latest CD I'd been working on. Actually I think I finished it a few weeks ago, but haven't bothered to give it a blessing until now.
Here's the tracklist. If you want a copy of this, or perhaps a copy of my award-winning compilation of songs about masturbating, drop me an email at the address to the right, and we'll work something out.
And just FYI, yes, the title is all about the fact that I'm 30 now, and thus, really old.
Songs for the Elderly
by Grandmaster Famous J
- The Meters - Live Wire The Meters are like the Velvet Underground of funk, the band that started something huge, the band that every R & B musician (and many non-R & B musicians) lists as their #1 influence, but nobody who isn't a musician has heard of them. This song is also Charlie the Dog's theme song.
- The Fall - Mr. Pharmacist A punk song. A snappy one at that. Well, it's either punk or the harder rockin' of the 80's alternative music.
- Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger Something about this song puts a really big smile on my face. Or maybe it's the name "Pussy Galore". Not sure.
- Chaka Khan - Fate Speaking of sampling, this song is sampled by another song on here.
- Huey Lewis and the News - The Power of Love This song actually saved my life so I thought it was worthy of inclusion.
- The J.B.'s - Pass The Peas Classic. That James Brown musical minimalism.
- Don Williams - Tulsa Time One of the selling points about country is that those guys (often) sing about real-life adult stuff. Pop songs are about how great it is to be in love. Country songs are about how shitty it is to be broke. This song is about going off to the big city full of dreams, and slinking back to the small-ish town you came from, tail between the legs.
- Dead Kennedys - Stealing Peoples Mail This is the second punk rock song. Probably snappier than the other one.
- Mighty Ryeders - Evil Vibrations This song has an excellent bass line, and I'm a sucker for a good bass line.
- Beck - Satan Gave Me A Taco I wouldn't know where to start.
- The Stooges - Loose Punk song #3. Wait, are the Stooges punk? I don't know. I think so, but it's arguable.
- Grandaddy - Charatsengrafs This whole album, The Sophtware Slump, is genius. I would have put my favorite song, "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot" on here, but it's 9 minutes long, and you just have to make these sorts of compromises sometimes.
- Devo - Mongoloid I was having an argument with Ben about whether "Mongoloid" is the best Devo song, or whether it's "Gut Feeling". I'm probably in the minority saying that it's "Mongoloid", but then, it's my CD, so there.
- De La Soul - Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa This song is really compelling. And despite listening to it about 150 times, I'm still not sure how it ends.
- Hall & Oates - I Can't Go For That I don't know why I like this song as much as I do. Or why I like Hall & Oates at all. But I do.
- Public Enemy - Brothers Gonna Work It Out My favorite part of this song: the sampling of the guitar from the very end of "Let's Go Crazy". Or is it "When Doves Cry"?
- David Bowie - Warszawa Listen to this song in the dark. Loudly. It might well change your life.
- Stardust - Music Sound Better With You This song probably won't change your life. But I like it.
- Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Apparently I've been listening to lots of depressing music. Here's another depressing song.
- R.E.M. - These Days I know R.E.M. jumped the shark sometime around Monster, but the stuff before then was genius of the first order. Like this song.
- Ryan Adams - Wonderwall I should have brought this one up when I was talking about covers that surpass the original. Although unlike the original, this song is darker than a bull's tookus on a moonless night.
