Attention paid to the one true problem our nation faces: super-quiet buses inaudible over human dialog.
C’mon, Obama. Get on this! We need to mandate louder buses now! (Fake) blood has been spilled, people, and is on our hands!
Defending Taylor Swift. Okay, not really.
Jokes about Taylor Swift dating a lot feels like unsavory slut-shaming. I don’t dig that.
Taylor Swift sings hyper-produced songs with gimmicky hooks. Good. Inane. Fine. She also has a penchant for dating male celebrities. It’s an old showbiz move: two celebrities date, both are kept relevant in gossip circles, careers extended. Lovely. Go, kids, go.
What’s the frequency of her dating? Whom she’s dating is in the news a lot, but the pace of her dating doesn’t seem that unusual. Not that she needs anyone’s approval, but is it that much different from high school or college dating?
What rankles most is her using her dating history to sell records, over and over, then the objection to comments on her relationships/marketing strategy. She’s profiting from the national hobby of assigning each of her songs to a particular boy/man she’s dated. Nifty. It works. Adds some needed flavor to her Applebee’s blandness.
Okay, strike what was said earlier, what bothers me the most about her songs that blame bad behavior on, and screeching her independence from, these purported villains is that I’m sympathizing with her targets, who typically don’t respond in kind to her histrionics. Things are so warped that I feel empathy for her targets, including soporific talk-singer John fucking Mayer!
One of Swift’s ex-boyfriends, Harry Styles, who is in English boy band One Direction gave an interview where mumbling about Swift came across as dignified. She mocked him in her Grammys performance, a truly weird dyspeptic fantasia disturbing and tedious simultaneously, using a British accent. Styles’ response? “She’s always good on the stage. She’s been doing it a long time. She knows what she’s doing on stage. It was just another good Taylor Swift performance. It was good.” Boring yet classy.
Taylor Swift or her advisors have set on the strategy to keep milking the dating song dedication angle over and over until it doesn’t yield anything anymore, but she may be authentically motivated by a lot of rage. Choose one or the other, but don’t muddle them up and wonder why people are laughing. It would show some character if she realized “Hey, I’m just an angry beast, and I’m going to re-launch the riot grrl concept for Millenials and be the new Kathleen Hanna or a less scabby and bewildered Courtney Love.”
In defense of Love, her dating Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan got them to help her out with songwriting and production, making her art better.
On Timberlake, on Timbaland
Even in a boy band, Justin Timberlake awkwardly showed signs of wit. “Pop” by N’Sync had some funny, self-aware parts in the video. No, I never bought any N’Sync songs. I confess, under duress, to buying “I Want it That Way” by Backstreet Boys: a pinnacle of the Max Martin formula! The enigma about “that way”! During “Pop” there were already rumors about N’Sync members splintering off, commencing the inevitable “Now I’m a solo teen idol with a boner” phase. Oh, the heap of bodies lining that path. Don’t look. Walk on.
I eyerolled when Timberlake’s Justified album was released. Ugh. Does it come with a packet of Axe Body Spray, the external douche for douchebags? Whatever. Ignored the first few singles. Then I started liking “Rock Your Body” (video warning: Timberlake’s facial hair tries too much in the “Imma man” department. Cf: DiCaprio, Leonardo). A well-produced tribute to Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album, with Janet Jackson in the backing vocal. Okay, at that I nodded a little cred Timberlake’s way. Also heard Howard Stern confessing to liking the album. Hurm.
Then “Señorita” came out and seemed to prove all the over-the-top Axe Body Spray milieu I feared. Especially the call & response at the end.
Then, although it had already been released, I gave a closer look/listen to “Cry Me a River”. Like the rest of the world, I initially saw the video and thought “Ah! Justin’s mad at Britney. He’s got an angry edge. That’s a lot of venom given they both told us over and over they were virgins. Whatevs.” But then I realized it was THE Timbaland in the video, and that he must have produced the song. I like Timbaland’s work with Missy Elliott: he has a good ear, daring, and the confidence to be funny in a field of dour faces.
Timberlake was an utter chickenshit during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, acting as if it were an accident and leaving blame on Janet Jackson. The cue for tearing at Jackson’s dress was “I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.” The moment was deliberate. Shame on him also for causing the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” to be added to our pop culture lexicon. But, worse, was the media and government fines imposed because of the shock, SHOCK that we mammals have mammary glands. The rest of the world laughed at our puritanism and prurience. Again.
Years pass. His album FutureSex/LoveSounds is released. It’s a full-on Timbaland production. They have great rapport. I bought the whole album. Interesting, solid stuff. No wisdom within it, but catchy and melodic and fun.
When punchy one night with friends, “Sexyback” came onscreen and I changed the refrain from “Go ahead be gone with it” to “Go hippie gone wigga.” It summarizes the life path of many of us males grown in hippie-strong Eugene, Oregon. That’s still what I think of when it plays.
I have considered taking a sample of the “Ya!” that ends each lyric to play in my real life to punctuate every sentence.
“Do you have any more wheat hot dog buns?” (Ya!)
“No, I’m not interested in giving money to the University Alumni Association.” (Ya!)
“Will you PLEASE pick up your juice bag straw wrapper?” (Ya!)
Seven(ish) years later a new Timberlake/Timbaland album is en route. I’ll buy it on faith.
A few whiffs of Axe Body Spray emit from the computamer/phone-amajig in the new official lyric video for “Suit and Tie” the lead single for the upcoming album. “Lyric” videos are a new-ish thing where the artist doesn’t promise to have much in the way of visual production effort, but does provide a relatively accurate transcript of the lyrics onscreen. I appreciate the anti-art of emphasizing vapid lyrics by making them visually prominent.
And am I now, in 2013, rehearsed to karaoke “Señorita” at some point, including the call & response? Yup. Le douchebag? C’est moi!
Hippie gone wigga,
D.
Brilliant
“Brilliant” has long been the British equivalent of our saying “awesome” or “tubular” in the 80s. So used for inanities, used to mock such inanities, then used in defiance of such mockery it has become a space filler in British pop culture.
When it’s used in the U.S. as a weird cultural sophisticate affectation, as I’ve heard it twice at lunch during a business conversation between strangers today, it buries the usefulness of the word for maybe half a generation. Gag me with a spoon.
Mr. Rogers: “Your thoughts and your feelings are your own.”
Read an excellent post at The A.V. Club about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood to start the day. Fred Rogers is a wise, serene presence. A role model in many ways. I don’t know if it’s a state possible (or worth) maintaining at all times. As humans we are wired for conflict and strife with our large adrenal glands. But Rogers’ demeanor is worth recalling when needing a model for calm.
The Lady Elaine puppet scared me as a kid. There. Got it out. Shaking it off my arms now. Better.
The A.V. Club article linked to a segment where Rogers chatted with Jeff, a child in a wheelchair who explains his medical condition, challenges, that he gets frustrated like other kids, and they sing together.
When Rogers was inducted to the T.V. Hall of Fame, a grown-up Jeff was there to present the award. Rogers is surprised and genuinely moved. Then he commands the room of hardened showbiz professionals, telling them to do better (the Presbyterian minister in him comes out). It’s quite a spectacle.
I believe human beings need coarse spectacles and entertainments and catharsis of a nature Rogers may not like. But his points are food for thought.
Switching from outdoor loafers to indoor sneakers, then back again when heading out, is still a trip.
Haunted by Dark Night Rises: does the touchdown count?
Does anyone know NFL rules well enough to say whether this kickoff return counts as a touchdown for the Gotham Rogues?
Will see ‘Batman Live’ only if stoned & can yell the whole time
Yesterday I caught a commercial for “Batman Live”, a traveling stage show. I was overcome with hysterical loathing and laughed. Official commercial:
So, it’s like a roller skating show without roller skating. Batman looks inflated, can fly, has a velvet cape he flicks about inefficiently, and has acquired Robin as a gay pet. Not judging, hope they’re happy if Robin is of age, but I prefer Robin/Batman with a platonic relationship.
I understand the urge to veer Batman away from the attempts of big sociological points like the Christopher Nolan films. Who wants to see a stage show full of plot and dialogue complexities where you can’t rewind it after one of many “Huh? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Am I missing something?” The end of The Dark Knight is an example. “he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero.”
I wish the boy in this clip would say: “Shane!” If you bravely “can take it” like the not-heroic hero Dark Knight here’s a longer clip of the stage show that makes it look hammy and corny and sorely in need of songs. No question those songs would be HORRIBLE, but there’s a palpable anguish to these scenes where the characters WANT to break into song, any song, yet cannot:
In the 1970s at an Atlanta shopping mall I saw a live Batman show with Adam West and Burt Ward. They were bumping and moving around each other, reacting to audio tracks of the Joker and I think Riddler. It was scrappy. Did West and Ward have the rights to do that even after their show had been cancelled? Don’t know. But with that cheap, grungy show in memory among the things I would yell at “Batman Live”, which I would only attend if interdimensionally stoned out of my gourd, would be “SELLOUT!”
(Okay, just between us, I did raise an interested eyebrow during the commercial when Catwoman flicks her whip and then is shown from below in haughty one-quarter profile. At the 0:36 mark. You’re welcome.)
Movie/social critic “poisoning nation’s soul”
Caught a link to this pernicious, hand-wringing article by Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Violent media poisoning nation’s soul”
Photo linked to the awful article, read at your moral peril!It’s ignorant, muddled, terrible, and awful.
I understand some people feel there is a correlation between violent media and violent actions, and believe in the free choice people have to not see violent entertainment. Hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. take in these entertainments and do not behave violently.
Watching violence is cathartic, whether in theater, song, movies, video games. They are scapegoats for our fantasies, and for opportunistic politicians not wanting to look at true root causes. We’re not far from the days of blaming Catcher in the Rye or Ozzy Osbourne or Marilyn Manson for the acts of people who have severe mental breakdowns or illnesses. In our Western history we had public executions, hangings, and gladiatorial combat as everyday occurrences. Shall we talk about human-written magic books promising eternal bliss to suicide bombers? No? Video games are easier political points? Uhm, yeah, okay.
The author compares marketers targeting the young male demographic to what the Taliban does. He pretends to be pro-free expression, but this section speculating on how a movie reviewer may soft-pedal a scene with a movie theater massacre smacks of Carry Nation hysterics:
And so the critic would end up writing something like this: “The movie contains a disturbing yet highly effective scene of violence transpiring at a movie theater.” Forget any mention of the insidiousness of inserting such poison into the national mind, of the morality or decency of feeding audiences crack.
Barf. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds had a movie theater massacre as its climax. It was a fantasy piece about mowing down Nazis and the power of cinema. Jewish soldiers got to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders years ahead of time. A hail of gunfire and a blazing inferno and it felt shocking and great. To my knowledge, no one tried to replicate that in real life. It was not treated as poison in the national mind. Art should not be required to have a moral or social obligation. When it does, people become tightly wound and societies get even more twisted and weird. Catharsis is necessary, imagination is necessary, otherwise we get sick inside.
I recently rewatched the Michael Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine, which tries to get at why the U.S. seems to have so many more violent gun deaths compared to other nations. The film doesn’t get into per capita statistics, but other things I’ve read still show the U.S. as significantly higher per capita, even though gun ownership rates are comparable in Canada. The movie throws a bunch of ideas into the air for consideration, fair enough as there aren’t any tidy solutions, but compellingly speculates that heightened social anxiety drummed up by the news media may be a factor. Overrepresentation in the news of crimes by minorities, especially compared to white collar/corporate crimes and environmental crimes, makes us fear incipient personal criminal attack from the mysterious Other.
My feeling (the truth may be different) is that there’s something to the movie’s point about the news media. I make a distinction between social violence in the news portrayed as “real life” resonating differently with people and how those same people engage with art/entertainment, something they know is fake and not an imminent threat.
Growing up I remember adult media debate over whether television should air violent cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Road Runner on Saturday mornings. I don’t recall anyone I knew ever dropping anvils in real life, or playing with dynamite, or running off a cliff to see whether flapping their arms could hold them up in the air. However the news media has recently flapped its arms over the “fiscal cliff crisis” as a real thing we all need to be concerned about and panic over. And we did.
2012 highlight: Chaos on Bullshit Mountain
One of the best moments of the year was the leakage of the video of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” speech. Whoever took that video is a hero. It’s the only time I’ve really respected Romney – he was finally speaking as himself.
Good commentary by Stewart here as Fox News tried to show that Romney was deliberately wise and delivering pearls of wisdom BETWEEN the divisive language. Crazy like a Fox … News.
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Chaos on Bulls**t Mountain | ||||
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‘Trek’ spoilers: lens flares, machines go BWAAAAMP
Second trailer for the upcoming Star Trek movie is out. Lots of speculation Benedict Cummerbundsnatchenhosen will be playing Khan. I hope not. Hope this tells an original story.
I liked the first movie. It was clever and inspired, giving itself a lot of license to veer into new directions. Lens flares all over. Looks like they’ll be in the sequel, too. Too many lens flares to count in the theater. SPOILER: someone, eventually, will post online the total number of lens flares.
And that metallic “BWAAAAMP” that happens in every action trailer nowadays. It’s a cliché. Especially with footage of people’s bodies being knocked around by stronger forces, or feeling “Uh oh.” The new cliché of trailers that have voiceovers that say “beyond imagination” or “In a world…”. What is it about a house-sized rattling tuba fart noise that makes us think “Yeah, shit’s about to get real. Better see THIS movie.”? Machine-phobia? Whatever. Stop using it, Hollywood. PFFFFT.