Fur in My Cap

Catchy little number, interesting visuals, professional, patient, smooth. All tha kiddies at school gonna be sangin' it soon, y'all...which means it is only a matter of time before Rob Roy (no relation) winds up on a reality show about dancing, eating contests, or some kind of Urban Survivor.

The pace of life has been greatly accelerated within my lifetime and I am certain it is a bad thing.

[Thanks for the tip, CMC]


Dessert

_

¿Quieres bailar?

Crack open a six-pack of Heineken, put on your headband, and turn this shit up:



The Ex is a Dutch band that has been jamming since 1979 and that will probably live forever, in one form or another. They used to be punk and now they are something else because they are older and more refined. Their first single was called Stupid Americans and their first 7" was called All Corpses Smell the Same. 1983's Gonna Rob the Spermbank might be my favorite title, though.

If you like good live music, check out their upcoming (starts in 5 days!) US tour schedule, get your tickets, wax your private places, and get ready for a cheap double-guitar stompin' good time!

Of special note to my biggest fans:

Chicago: March 8th at Lincoln Hall
Los Angeles: March 18th at The Satellite

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Elton John Spends a Scary Amount of Coolness Currency Date-Raping "Gnomeo and Juliet" into Existence

Despite whoring himself out to Rush Limbaugh for $1 million and not releasing a good album for a hundred years or so, Elton still has enough coolness currency left over from his seven consecutive number-one albums in the United States and putting the Pope in his fucking place to deserve his place in the sun.

Barely.

Where did he spend all this coolness in such a hurry? On this giant smelly turd:

For those of you not in the know, this regrettable project has regrettably been in development for an eternity. Many, many years ago somebody got stoned at one of Elton John's castles (probably) and he became fixated on the idea of doing a version of Romeo & Juliet with animated gnomes--for which he, of course, would do the music and win another Oscar/Grammy/knighthood.

Flush with coolness, Elton had no problem forcing the project onto Disney Feature Animation while it was roofied on the couch in his pool house, but when Disney bought Pixar (in order to release good movies again--SNAP) John Lasseter greatly increased his own coolness reserves by calling a turd a turd and kicking Gnomeo out the back door without so much as a how's-your-father.

Say "Ahhhh" Harvey. And yes, Bob--you can watch.

So Elton did what anybody in his enviable position would do--he climbed up on Harvey Weinstein's solid-diamond desk and shoved good-ole Gnomeo down Miramax's throat with ease. After all, Elton still had plenty of coolness left to spend [More than one could ever spend in a lifetime. We think. -Ed.] and he was not going to let this brilliant idea die on the vine, goddamnit!

But then Miramax never woke up from the Gnomeo-induced coma, went bankrupt, and the project was dead and buried...until a recent full moon, when that zombie climbed out of the grave, walked over to Burbank incredibly slowly, and put the blocks to Disney's Touchstone Pictures while it was on acid and totally distracted by some water dripping out of a faucet.

Starring the voices of every whore who can do a British accent (sorry, Gwyneth!)

And so now here we are--unrecyclable Gnomeo & Juliet ads coat the town and a bunch of stupid gnomes will grace silver screens all over the country on February 11th. [Bad movie junkies should wait until said gnomes are available for much, much less at Big Lots starting February 12th. -Ed.]

How bad is this movie? Well, let's just say it has NINE credited writers (plus the Bard himself) and that is never a good thing. There were probably, what, fifteen writers who didn't want their names anywhere near this slithering turd that vomited thousand-pound notes all over Hollywood for 15 years?

But that doesn't matter because Elton is happy. He still has just enough coolness currency to skip to the front of the line at Starbucks, he sold the same movie at least three times, he got to be Executive Producer and do the music, his boo (David Furnish) got to be a producer, and some poor team of handsome young PAs got to be fondled while managing Elton's treasured bobblehead collection.

The bottom line here is that if Elton John doesn't become President of Haiti and clothe the entire nation in sequined jumpsuits and velour top hats for a fast-motion, single-take-helicopter-shot music video within the next couple years he might not only have to forfeit his spot in Princess Diana's tomb, but I might also have to leave him off my Christmas card list and get in on some of this Bieber Fever action that's been going around...

_

Dear Internet: You Have Reached a New Low

Milestones are meant to be reached, right? Congratulations, Internet--that is the only bright side I can see in this travesty:



That piece of garbage was viewed 126,558,675 before I ever heard of it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

There's no way around the fact that I feel dumber for having seen it, I worry that some innocent people out there might have seen it and unwisely viewed it as successful comedy worthy of imitation, there's no stopping it now, and it irritates me that the guys who made it have no doubt profited in some manner as a result of its creation.

On the other hand, it has ostensibly shown a lot of people a good time since its release--only 29,869 people officially DISLIKE it (please ignore the fact that only 24,299 people bothered to officially LIKE it).

Maybe this video is what America craves. Maybe the entertainment provided by this video is the reason generations of hard-scrabble immigrants bled to death tilling our soil and shaping our skylines. Maybe 2011 has ushered in the zenith of mankind's presence on Earth and not its nadir.

Maybe I'm wrong and we're not totally fucked.

_

Racists on Youtube Do the Darnedest Things

The Youtubes makes people famous--there's no way around that, it is one of the few truths in this world, so deal with it the same way that you deal with the fact that there will always be racist assholes waving Confederate flags, laughing at Larry the Cable Guy, and preaching religion and family values as they secretly give non-gay handjobs to random men in the bathroom of the gas station by the highway and their teenage daughters give birth because they were told condoms were wrong.

On Youtubes, as everywhere else, all fame is justified for one reason or another, although most would never admit the reason everybody knows who they are is because they are the biggest asshole on the planet, the worst dancer in history, or a complete moron totally unaware of anything beyond the stomping grounds of their youth.

Enter "Babe 27", who no doubt longs for the fate of her idol, Justin "I was discovered on Youtube" Bieber and will no doubt never receive it. Instead of cruising the world in a pimped-out Rascal scooter with cupholders, parting seas of swooning teenagers in towns whose names she can't even pronounce, Babe 27's flavor of fame will not result in any financial reward, respect, or sex appeal.

Instead, millions will laugh at her, share her humiliation with all of their friends, and move on, leaving Babe 27 to wither in their dust, cruel laughter eternally echoing in her ears no matter how many earmuffs she dons, a three-legged cat her only friend.

Enjoy:



"...and THAT is why you don't post videos of yourself singing in your bedroom on Youtube!"

_

Smooth Moves

Well done, YAK Films:





I wonder how Sir David Attenborough would narrate that?

_

Rivers Cuomo is Officially a Jackass

If the results of Rivers Cuomo's ill-fated decision to use an equation he distilled after studying the music of numerous successful songwriters to replicate infinite variations of the perfect pop song weren't bad enough--the Green album, Maladroit, Make Believe, the Red album, Raditude (really?)--trixie pixie sellout Cuomo just shot the moon with his latest aural turd, Hurley.

In case you were wondering, yes--the album IS named after the morbidly obese guy on Lost, yes--he IS featured on the cover, and yes--he DID sing a duet with Rivers onstage at some sort of asshole convention in Los Angeles.

I feel no need to ruminate on the wherefores of Rivers' decision, since I don't give a shit what stupid reason he had, but I do think it is important for everybody out there to realize, if they haven't already, that the man behind Pinkerton and the Blue album, two of the greatest rock albums of the last 20 years, has officially become an irredeemable, unapologetic jackass.

You have been warned.

Also, I feel the need to warn you of the following forthcoming turds from the Cuomo camp:

- Pinkerton, their best album and the last one worth a damn (recorded 14 years ago) is set for an unnecessary re-release (same music, but with new fan art! probably! OMG!).

- A third solo album--The Pinkerton Years--is also in the works.

Noticing a trend here, folks?

[Puke]

_

The Dark Side of Youtube

For every Scarlet Takes a Tumble and Fat Dad Falls Off Skateboard, there is always a video that makes you stop laughing uncontrollably at the misfortunes of others and reminds you of the frightening power of the Dark Side.

This is one of those videos:

(Thanks, Videogum!)

Shock and awe, folks. Shock and awe.

_

Finally, a Pop Singer Takes Responsibility

The douchebag in the middle--Charles Haddon, lead singer of legendarily obscure British pop band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, which just rolls off your tongue--climbed a telecommunications tower in Belgium yesterday and jumped to his death. Immediately following a performance at a music festival with a funny name, which, when translated, means "PimplePop."

What gives, right? After only three singles, OELSP's transgressions against humanity's ears/minds had already reached a tipping point?

I can only assume so, since only forty people have ever heard any of their music. And two of them are now dead.

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool's first album--Christ Died for Our Synths (how's that for agonizing guilt?)--is scheduled for an October release.

The real question, though, is whether or not Christ will finally forgive the band for their synths and move on, stop torturing all mortals by lording his own death over millions of guilt-ridden believers.

Something tells me that won't happen, but I'll keep my finger on the pulse for ya.

_

Everybody's a Critic

Pigeons are assholes, granted, but nonetheless I happen to love it when their taste aligns with mine:

The popular and Grammy award-winning band Kings of Leon were forced to end a concert in St. Louis last night after playing just three songs because a pigeon pooped into bassist Jared Followill's mouth.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! That'll teach you to put your boring songs on the radio 500 times a day! Even the pigeons got tired of that shit...

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Snoop Dogg Hits a New Low

I don't know anything about poptart Katy Perry except that she is married to an unfunny comedian (Russell Brand), purchased her breasts, looks like a trashier version of Zooey Deschanel (which I didn't think was possible), and really likes the fact that she once kissed a girl.

After watching her latest video, however, which a friend recommended due to its supreme awfulness--it did not disappoint--I am mystified both as to why she is a success and, more importantly, why Snoop Dogg would want to be associated with her in such a public capacity.

Why? Well, because Snoop Dogg used to be cool. His wacky aesthetic, chronic misoginism, and stoner thuggery used to blend perfectly with his clever lyrics, Dr. Dre's beats, his ungainly frame, and the playfulness inherent in anything 'West Coast.'

But ever since he stopped smoking pot--or at least stopped owning up to it--his goofy style has suddenly become the worst thing about him and his every decision (save his generous support for PeeWee football in CA) has been atrociously uncool, if ultimately profitable for Snoop Dogg, Inc.

Every boy from Long Beach's dream come true

Nice murse, Cordozar Calvin Broadus...

This should have been a much tougher Photoshop job--because Snoop

should never have been that close to Martha Stewart in real life.

Even that little girl can't believe Snoop is on Ellen.

And the worst part is that I bet he danced with her. Shudder...

The long and the short of it is that Snoop can do what he wants, but he should realize that he's now an irrelevant, fame-addicted, greedy asshole in the same league as Josh Groban, Nicholas Cage, the Coldplay dude, Garth Brooks, and everybody else he and his buddies probably used to make fun of when they were younger and cooler.

_

Satchmo Wednesday

Make sure to listen to some Louis today. Why? Because you should.

_

Thought of the Day

Karaoke would be so much more enjoyable if all those people who love karaoke were never allowed to sing.

_

Chuck Berry's Ghost Must Be Stoked

Ditto for those of Louis Armstrong and Blind Willie Johnson (no relation to Jack White's hero, Blind Willie McTell, who evidently did not try hard enough in life).

Why are these three specters so totally pumped, prancing around the shadowy netherworld like king shits in the outhouse?

Because they each have a song on a 12-track gold-plated copper record aboard both Voyager 1 & 2, which were launched in 1977, passed Pluto in 1990, and won't encounter another planetary system for approximately 40,000 years.

One side of the record in question

The other songs were either classical--interestingly, Bach got 3 tracks, Beethoven 2, and Mozart only 1--or tribal, which isn't surprising.

For the full track listing, please visit the fantastic Lapham's Quarterly.

This oddball mixtape could merely be a reflection of the musical tastes of Carl Sagan, who chaired the selection committee, or it could be the result of a powerful equation devised by the Brains Trust to scientifically weed out the most representative music ever recorded on planet Earth, which would be great to get my hands on, in case I am ever called upon to update the mixtape by factoring in the music of the last 33 years, or in case I just want to play around with it when I'm bored.

Either way, questions inevitably spring to mind:

1. Why no Rolling Stones, Beatles, Fats Domino, or Elton John?

2. Was Roy Orbison, aka The Big O, [a fascinating wikipedia entry, btw -Ed.] pissed at being snubbed? Something tells me he was, and that, as was his wont, he blamed the success of Pretty Woman for it.

3. Why send only one record? Was cargo room really that tight?

4. Couldn't it have been a double-LP gatefold, with some beautiful Richard Avedon photographs on the cover?

5. Shouldn't they have consulted me on this before I was born?

If anybody knows where Carl Sagan's ghost hangs out, I'd love to accost him and get some answers. So, you know, let me know...


[Note: Chuck Berry is supposedly still alive, aged 83, but I see no reason to alter an otherwise adequate blog entry... -Ed.]

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Try to Make It Real Compared to What?

I watched Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre this evening and it of course sent my mind running around its hamster cage at full tilt, leaving me unfit for slumber despite a tiresome day.

And so here I am.

For those of you who have not seen it, the movie is little more than a (monumental) dinner conversation between a struggling playwright (Wallace Shaun) and a wealthy theater director / mystical wanderer (Andre).

If you have seen Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, then just imagine Alan Alda's character as a parody of Andre, although I use that word loosely, since they are both pretty hysterical. I laughed out loud tonight louder than I have at any comedy I can remember, although it was not a comedy. [Note: Bob Odenkirk's interesting Melvin Goes to Dinner also owes a great debt to Andre -Ed.]

Andre is one of those fascinating, might-be-on-to-something, faux-humble, name-dropping emotional yo-yos who seem always to be weeping or getting naked in the woods with strangers, who inevitably mentions how he recently had a total breakdown and realized he was little more than a mindless one-dimensional robot when he was wandering around a desert in Africa for months with four toothless gypsies who subsisted on nothing but sand--because they wished it to be so--and then, in the next breath, tells a long-winded, riveting, story about how everything you are doing is wrong because when he rolled around in the grass in Tibet, imaginary monkeys kissed his nose and whispered a nonsense word and then 6 months later that word showed up as a drawing in a book he was reading to his child in Japanese--since he and his wife are trying to teach their kids Japanese, since a renowned physicist who gave up everything to become a brain-dead psychic once told him they are the future--and the funny thing is, the Tibetan language and Japanese couldn't be farther apart, so the character was probably just a meaningless squiggle to the author, but don't you see how it's all connected?

Wallace Shaun is, appropriately, very much the opposite, in term of temperament and opportunity. He is a struggling artist from working-class NY stock, a short, balding, unattractive man who takes pride in crossing meaningless errands off a list, believes there is still a chance for art to be profound, and who only asks that he not find a roach in his coffee mug when he gets up in the morning.

On the intellectual level, Wallace understands all of Andre's soul-searching, emotional journeys, even agrees with him on most of his criticisms of day-to-day life in the Western world, yet he cannot picture his world any other way, has no regard for the vague primal emotions that seem to occasionally rule Andre's tenuous existence, and actually takes pleasure in many of the things Andre despises.


I won't give too much away, yeah right, but one of the most interesting theories mentioned in the movie is that New York City (or any city, really) is actually some sort of 'perfect' prison, built by its inmates--who are schizophrenically also their own guards--who are too proud of their construction to ever leave it. Instead, they mill around giving themselves pointless-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things tasks, meaningless concerns to occupy their minds, trivial reasons for continuing to live there.

Yet, if they escaped, where would they go? To the woods? Would they dance around a fire all night and sleep during the day, making love atop wildflowers? Would they hold a flute in the wind and listen to the beautiful song forever? How long would that peace last until a new prison was built? Is it our nature to build prisons?

Who knows.

But I do know this--the first record I put on after watching the movie was Les McCann and Eddie Harris' Swiss Movement (recorded live at the Montreaux Jazz Fest in 1969; a gem).

Wouldn't you know it, the main refrain on the very first track--my all-time favorite jazz song, if you're keeping track--is "Try to make it real compared to what?"

The song was somehow intended as a critique of the Vietnam War, although I don't fully understand how and I wonder if that was just a cover story for the reality that it was, in actuality, a secret message sent to me from the future, since people/beings in the future would of course know I was watching My Dinner With Andre tonight (today being "Charlie Watched My Dinner With Andre Tonight" Day in the years 2041 and beyond).

If this is the case, I think the future is pretty cool for three reasons:

1. They can send messages through time

2. They have the patience to wait for those messages to be delivered 41 years after they were sent

3. They've not only got it all figured out, but can boil it down to an efficient eight-word sentence.

While we're making lists, I think the future is totally uncool for one reason:

1. The futuristic beings can do all those amazing things and, yet, they haven't found a way to make everything perfect for me. Wait...is there a lesson here?

Maybe...

Reality is what stares back at you in the mirror, what you see out your window, that mysterious smell in your closet. It is the only plane of existence of any importance and you can't hide from it in the woods, in a narcotic haze, by running away, by reinventing yourself. The human brain is too powerful, perhaps too powerful, imagination its Achilles heel.

People are the way they are. Twenty people running off into the woods with grandiose dreams will always wind up with a microcosm of New York, a governing body as petty as Congress, the same personal problems catching up with them.

There are too many variables at play in the world, too many ingrained biological/social/cultural traits to think you can escape from them by disengaging your brain. Reality must be dealt with at face value--get your kicks when you can, sure, but don't be so arrogant as to think that your lingering discomfort and fear won't follow you everywhere.

Death always finds a way.


Or something like that. Hey--thanks for picking up the check, by the way.

_

I Mean...He COULD Have Been, Right? It's Not Like He Ever Had Sex With a Woman. Or Did He? Wait, Are You Avoiding the Question? Hello?

Perhaps as a return blow for being conspicuously absent on the Pope's list of the Ten Best Pop Albums of All Time, Elton John let him have it this week:

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems," John said in an interview posted on the website of US celebrity news magazine Parade.

"On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead," said John, who is gay.

(courtesy Yahoo News/AFP)

The Pope responded with a brief comment uttered between naps on the expansive veranda of his opulent palace in Rome:

"You're probably right."

Kidding. The Pope didn't even realize Elton said this because his ears were inadvertently blocked for days when an avalanche of gold coins nearly buried him alive after a retaining wall in one of his numerous vaults gave way under the obscene load of charitable donations to the Catholic cause.

When staffers went to check on him during their weekly rounds and realized what had happened, they quickly rescued His Supreme Excellency, Ruler of Earth, from the eminently-avoidable catastrophe, but chose not to inform him of Sir Elton John's inflammatory speculation, lest their figurehead have a heart attack, which would necessitate another pesky search for a replacement bag of bones. Besides, why dignify that comment with a response, right? Right?

The Catholic League (the largest U.S. Catholic rights group, which, let's be frank, only exists because, goddamnit, the Catholic Church just can't get a fucking break...), however, was quick to respond:

"Jesus was certainly compassionate, but to say he was 'super-intelligent' is to compare the son of God to a successful game-show contestant," league president Bill Donohue said in a statement.

"More seriously, to call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant. But what else would we expect from a man who previously said, 'From my point of view, I would ban religion completely'?"

Huh. So...Jesus was not super-intelligent? Was he just 'kind of smart-ish, but regular' so as not to offend potential followers, who seem to only be drawn to the dumbest figureheads you can think of (Sarah Palin? Pat Robertson? Mitt Romney? George Bush?).

Also, "ban religion completely?" Did I need another reason to love this guy? No. Do I have one? Yes.

Long live the real King of Pop!

_

The Pope's P.R. Man is Cooler Than You Thought, But Still Lame

You can do whatever you want as long as you confess before you die, you'll never get into heaven unless you buy these indulgences, the Earth is flat and revolves around the sun, God built the world in six days, condoms cause AIDS, fish is the only meat that should be consumed on Friday, rock'n'roll is the Devil's music...the Catholic powers-that-be have said some really funny shit over the years.

Luckily for the meek, the Church always flip-flops once it's clear that all of its followers are disobeying them in secret and they can be sure there will be no push-back for suddenly changing God's opinion on things.

With that in mind, here are the Pope's Top 10 Pop Albums of All-Time, courtesy of L'Osservatore Romano, via The Guardian:

What can be learned from this list, aside from the fact that God likes lists to be ten items long and carved into stone tablets sitting in my bathroom?

- The Pope only listens to men playing music, specifically men from England/Ireland and the United States. Oh, yeah--and a Hispanic afterthought to quell the biggest Catholic base in the world.

- He has good taste (Graceland, Revolver) and bad taste (Achtung Baby, Rumours).

- He never liked Santana until he paired himself up with a series of douchebag Gringos (I'm looking at you, Dave Matthews and Rob Thomas!)

- The best pop music was recorded between 1966 (Beatles) and 1995 (Oasis), a bold statement that I'm sure Lady Gaga would love to vomit on, if only out of respect for Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Peter Bjorn and John, Of Montreal, and Elvis.

- Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, and Mick Jagger are peeing in the holy water at St. Peter's as we speak

- The Pope has a soft spot for albums that have sold a shit-ton of copies:
Thriller - 110 million
The Dark Side of the Moon - 45 million
Rumours - 40 million
Supernatural - 27 million
(What's the Story) Morning Glory - 22 million
Achtung Baby - 5.3 million (as of 2003)
Revolver - 5 million (as of 2003)
Graceland - 5 million (as of 2003)

Along with a couple dark horses from industry veterans, to appear interesting:
The Nightfly - 1 million+
If I Could Only Remember My Name - ?

Is any of this surprising? No. Does anybody really care? No. Will the Pope win any religious converts with this pandering list? No. Will any artist on this list experience a sudden increase in back-catalog album sales? Definitely.

I wonder if Catholic Church, Inc. has arranged for a cut of said album sales. I mean, come on, they're not idiots over there--let us not forget they've been running an international cult for almost two thousand years, own more real estate than you can fathom, and made a $9 billion profit in 2001 alone.

Developing...

_

Dick James

(photo by Goodtime Charlie - Caesar's Palace, LV, NV)

Eureka!

I have finally discovered the link between Lennon/McCartney and Elton John/Bernie Taupin, two of the greatest musical partnerships the world has ever known.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dick James, courtesy of wikipedia:

Early Life

He was born in the East End of London.

Early days

James sang with North London dance bands in his early teens, and was a regular vocalist at the Cricklewood Palais by the age of seventeen. He joined the Henry Hall band, and made first radio broadcast in 1940. Joining the Army in 1942, after World Was II he continued to sing with top post-war bands, including Geraldo's. Later still, James was also a part time member of The Stargazers, a popular early 1950s vocal group.

He was the singer of the Robin Hood and The Buccaneers theme songs, from British television in the 1950s, and was a friend and associate of renowned record producer George Martin.

Switch to publishing

James entered the music publishing business as his singing career tapered off, and in 1963 established Northern Songs Ltd., with Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, to publish Lennon and McCartney's original songs. (Fellow Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr were also signed to Northern Songs as songwriters, but did not renew their contracts in 1968). James's company, DIck James Music, administered Northern Songs.

What initially began as an amicable working relationship between the Beatles and James disintegrated by the late 1960s; the Beatles considered that James had betrayed and taken advantage of them when he sold Northern Songs in 1969 without offering the band an opportunity to buy control of the publishing company. James profited handsomely from the sale of Northern Songs, but the Beatles never again had the rights to their own songs.

During the 1960s he also handled Billy J. Kramer and Gerry & The Pacemakers.

Later Days

James signed Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin as untried unknowns in 1967, and formed DJM Records in '69. Indeed, all of John's early releases (up to 1976) were issued on the DJM record label. The label also carried Jasper Carrott, RAH Band, and even John Inman.

John formed his own Rocket label in 1976, but in 1982, John was involved in a long court case with James about royalties.

Death

James died of an heart attack in early 1986, at the age of 65.

Dick James, the leftmost of the two dorks in this photo

The guy sounds like he was probably a real asshole, but according to a story that I read once, he got Elton John and Bernie Taupin together via a classified ad, so ya gotta at least give him credit for that oh-so-perfect marriage of poet and musician.

Speaking of Elton John, he may not have handled his balding, age, or gayness as well as he should have and currently resembles a fat, depressed, androgynous penguin, but the guy used to be pretty cool:






_

I Wish I Could Throw Up All Over Her

Guess what? When Rihanna things something is really cool or sexy, she says "Barf!"

“Barf!” Rihanna squealed, at the sight of a pair of pale pink satin Brian Atwood stilettos. In her world this is a compliment. “Usually it’s ‘ill’ or ‘I want to throw up on it,’ ” she explained. “But barf is the worst,” meaning the best. “Barf is 10 out of 10.”

If you haven't already thrown your computer out the window in frustration at her idiocy, check this: Rihanna has a new album coming out and it's super introspective. Viz:

Rated R is her fourth album, and in some ways her most risky, another step in the evolution of a persona that is, as the title of her multiplatinum 2007 album put it, Good Girl Gone Bad. It is also, she said, her most personal album, a response to her breakup with the singer Chris Brown, who assaulted her in a car in February after a pre-Grammy party.

(courtesy NYTimes.com)

Huh--now that is surprising. I never would have guessed that her publicists and record label executives would have tried to capitalize on the interminable press she received for getting hit in the face by her loser boyfriend. I was totally expecting them to ignore it and force her to experiment with a career-ending foray into Norwegian death metal or a Madonna cover album or something.

Anyway, please buy her totally barfy new album--full of songs about how she's "strong again" and "wants a man who will treat her right"--so she can finally feel good about herself. Rihanna may seem like yet another young female industry puppet who isn't worth a damn, but she really needs your love and support right now; her wounds are still fresh and there are just so many $5000 dresses out there that she wants to throw up on.

_

Maybe Michael Jackson DID Inspire the World...

...and we have him to blame for all our problems. Check these lyrics from Man In the Mirror (to be sung to the tune of Man in the Mirror, written and composed by Siedah Garrett, not MJ himself):

As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favorite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That's Why I Want You To
Know

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah)

I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not
Alone?

He saw the world for what it was--a bad place. He tried to change it, tried to inspire other people to change it ("We Are the World," for example), and...they listened to him. They believed in him. They followed him. The Kool-Aid was guzzled. It worked.

Well, congratulations to Michael then, for successfully leading us unto this shitty promised land racked by unemployment, bankruptcy, landfill mountains of bric-a-brac, and the Gosselins.

The case:


Defendant: Michael Jackson
- quick to blame somebody else for all his problems
- over-medicated on legal drugs pimped by the pharmaceutical industry
- had a penchant for justifying whatever he did, no matter how ill-advised
- sexually dysfunctional
- firmly religious, despite his thoughts and deeds
- spent more money than he made, mostly buying useless shit to decorate his house/body
- lost his house to a bank
- died in order to provide for his family



Plaintiff: The People of the World
- quick to blame somebody else for all their problems
- over-medicated on legal drugs pimped by the pharmaceutical industry
- have a penchant for justifying whatever they do, no matter how ill-advised
- sexually dysfunctional
- firmly religious, despite their thoughts and deeds
- spend more money than they make, mostly buying useless shit to decorate their houses/bodies
- lost their houses to several banks
- died in order to provide for their families, but forgot they had AIG insurance that was void upon death, as explicitly stated, in Aramaic, on the inside of an anonymous envelope they were sent once
- HUGE Michael Jackson fans

The Charge:
That Michael Jackson did, willfully and with malice of forethought, mislead The People of the World and plunge them into utter financial ruin and a life chock-full of sexual deviance and drug abuse.

The Verdict:
Well, I suppose that, considering it is possible Michael was instead a martyr who not only frittered away $500 million on total shit in order to have more in common with the average American but also became an overly-vain, sexually-perverse freakshow for the same reason, the least I can do is give his corpse the benefit of abstaining from this useless verdict. Case dismissed.

Uh-oh...wait a minute...I hope no crackpot religion starts out of that off-hand courtroom comment, like it did around 30 AD when my ancestor said that thing about that Jesus lad...or is it already too late?

My opinion, as strange as it seems, is that if it becomes clear that he did not abuse those children, he was very close to being a saint. And even if he was not, this is the first time in my life when I feel the presence of God's hand in what had happened. I am not religious person at all. But the whole story is so amazing, it contains some message, which I do not quite understand yet. I keep thinking about it since he's gone. It is also strange that the person like him could have such a big impact. You never know who will be chosen to convey some message from above. There are people who are not as rich as he was, not that confused, not keeping pornographic journals at home, doing much more for the humanity than he did. But he is the only one who looked like he had that divine spark. Isn't it strange?

(posted by Stranger on this fascinating blog entry. Seriously, just read through those comments at the end and a whole lot of questions about our why our world is in the shitter will slowly come into focus as you hear from some of its inhabitants...)

Shit. It's too late--the idiots have already had time to mull it over and make irrational decisions (also known as faith). I wonder if this new religion will be some sort of cocktail of Jackson's own diverse religious beliefs--maybe its cult members will have to wear a veil, knock on each other's doors to preach the word, and have weekly sleepovers with little boys. Or will they be more literal and pull their doctrine from his song lyrics...hmm...

Or perhaps this is all a bunch of lubbock and, like Mr. Hyde or The Emperor, Michael Jackson was simply an evil man who grew more physically detestable as his dastardly deeds grew more numerous and revolting, as he embraced the Dark Side, and neither he nor his adoring fans want to believe it.

Anything's possible I guess, I mean, we're in America, right? Go us!

_