Big Yellow Taxi

So, it may be trite, but my train of thought definitely has driven me to Joni Mitchell tonight. The whole "Don't know what's you've got till it's gone thing" is always applicable, so I'll just move past that one.

On the contrary I was thinking more of "They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot." They so did.

We won't even get into the commercial, McWorld ramifications, and we'll focus on the musical implications. As I have mentioned/ranted about before, one of the things that bothers me about music today is that nothing is new. We consider bands like The White Stripes, The Vines and The Hives revolutionary, but all they are is a send-up of real bands circa 1979. Bands who actually had and cultural social circumstances against which to react; bands who had commentary.

Nowadays it's all about me-me-me. (And, yes, I realize the irony of this statement coming from blogging, but...)

White Stripes lyric: "It might sound silly for me to think childish thoughts like this, but i'm so tired of actin' tough ,and i'm gonna do what I please."
Hives lyric: "Do what I please, gonna spread the disease - because I wanna./ Gonna call all the shots, all the no’s and the not’s - because I wanna."

Versus

Ramones lyric: "Well I don't care about history 'Cause that's not where I wanna be.... I hate the teachers and the principal. Don't wanna be taught to be no fool."
and even a decade or so later,
Nirvana lyric: "Load up on guns and bring your friends. Its fun to lose and to pretend. She's over bored and self assured. Oh no I know a dirty word."

You get the picture...

So I've lost my point somewhere in here, but the gist is that nothing today is new. Bach we will not birth, but we will sample him and throw a techno/hip-hop beat behind him while putting it on a commercial and market our product to 13 year-olds spending mom and dad's food stamps/social security check. How have we come to this?

So that's, I think, a legitimate frustration. I'll leave it here for the night because I'm sure I'll revisit this point over and over and over again...

Don't forget to fall back tonight (Oct. 26)!

Mix Tape for the Moment

1.) Alanis Morissette - Front Row ("And I'm wanting your undivided attention. I like the fact that you're nothing like me.")
2.) K's Choice - Life for Real ("With you I can get there, with you I can start to feel.")
3.) Ani Difranco - You Had Time ("You are a china shop, and I am a bull.")
4.) SNL - Gap Girls ("You are the queen of phone trickery!")
5.) Ryan Gosling - Put Me in the Car ("And you're whispering in my ear that all these years I've been dreaming.")
6.) John Mayer - Why Georgia ("It might be a quarter life crisis or just the stirring in my soul.")
7.) Lifehouse - Fool ("First teach me how to walk and then I'll learn to dance for you like an honest, clumsy clown, tripping along the way.")

Yeah, so that's hardly adequate, but i'll have to do...

The Shit Parade Marches On
(Thanks to young Michael Powers in Philadelphia, PA, for that one)

Serious broodings tonight, folks, serious broodings. With that in consideration, I'll try not to humor them too much because self-pity is sickly validating, and I shant have that for long, I shant!

Johnny Castle once said, "I'm balancing on shit, Baby. Just like that *snap* I could be down to nothin' again." Ain't it the truth? I continue on my emotional rollercoaster but instead of the fun, stomach-flipping excitement of the Georgia Cyclone, I'm feeling the nauseous, head-achey irritation of the Ninja. (If you're unfamiliar with Six Flags over Georgia, which I would imagine most of you are, then that analogy will be completely lost on you.) Anyhow, it seems the life of the consummate singleton is not agreeing with me. My shelf life has run out, and my indepen-DENT woman glee is beginning to stink. I talk about it more in terms of loneliness on a higher level than that of Bridget Jones's perpetual man-hunting insecurities (however, I will mention that she was getting lots of sex and being admired by a brilliant, rich lawyer when she was feeling worthless... beep-beep, the bitter train stops here). I guess once it comes down to it, I realize that 2 real friends is still a lot more than zero, and through my last several months of honing my skills adapting to alone-time, I haven't been appreciative enough of that fact. Woe is me, said Damocles (I think) after the sword dropped down his head. (And this is where I stop making sense entirely...)

Another note for any of ye that are ever considering joining a band: stop at one encore! For the love of God, stop at one encore! (And by one, I do not mean five... not even one, one song and a 10-minute drum solo. One means one.) Jools Holland had me like putty in his arms, I was enjoying myself, lovin' his lady singers and ready to get out of the LCR with a new fondness for him. Then he just had to bring out that second encore. Well, Jools, thanks for nuttin'.

And my final thought, based off of a (paraphrased) quote from American Idol's Jaded Journalist: "Carson Daly -- what's with that guy? Everything about him is set to medium, but the girls are screaming for him." Well maybe that's my problem (as if I only have one). Carson Daly is so likeable (to some) because he is utterly non-threatening. If everything about you is set to medium, people will pick whatever "Medium" they like about you in hopes of turning it on. With me, some thing are set to Highx2 and others are at Zero. This way, it's really hit or miss. And if the last 20 1/2 years go to show, not many people have hit. So there's your lesson for tonight, kids: Make yourself generic and conventional. People will throng to you.

Okay, so I honestly cannot let this be the entire blog because it's all too depressing. Aren't you glad you've been reading and reading and reading? Now there will be a reprive from this pseudo-philosophizing and self-deprecation. Here I give you an excerpt from Saturday Night Live's "Gap Girls" --

Lucy = Adam Sandler
Christy = David Spade
Cindy = Chris Farley

Lucy: Hurry up and munch those fries. We've got to get back to work soon.
Christy: Noooooo, I can't fold anymore. My hands are killing me, I think I'm getting that carpet tunnel syndrome.
Lucy: You don't have it, you can only get it from a computer.
Christy: Well I definitely think I'm getting some sort of syndrome.
Lucy: Maybe you're getting cheeseball syndrome from folding all those cheesy sweaters we just got in!
**Hehehehehehehe**
Christy: No joke, I'm so sick of that place. The next time a customer walks in, I'm gonna go, "Welcome to the Gap, can I sell you some crap?!"
**Hahahahahahaha**
Lucy: I daaaaare you!
Cindy: Hey girls, I miss anything?
Lucy: Nothing, Christy's being stupid again!
Cindy: Hey that reminds me, I have a joke: I heard Michael Jackson went shopping at K-Mart because he heard there was a sale! **Guffaw/snort**
Christy: You screwed it up, dumbo. He went shopping at K-Mart because he heard little boys' pants were half off.
Cindy: Oh yeah, 'sright.
Christy: He's so out of it, he's such a freak.
Lucy: That's not fair, you already convicted him. All of his charges are based on hearsay and conjecture! It's all circumstantial and anecdotal evidence!
Christy: What are you talking about?
Lucy: I'm just telling you what I heard.
Christy: Do you even know what those words mean?
Lucy: No.
**Hahahahahahaha**
Cindy: You guys have been watching too much CourtTV.
Lucy: Have you guys been following the Men-en-en-dez trial?
Cindy: Yeah, did you see their lawyer's hair?
Christy: Oh my God, she's guilty of a bad perm.
Cindy: Really... I object! I mean, it's like being represented by Sammy Hagar!
Lucy: Hey, which one of the brothers got his thing cut off?
Christy: Ummm... I think it's the older one? ... God, I looove these fries!
Lucy: If you love 'em so much, why don't you marry 'em? **Hahahahaha** Can I have some? **snarf, snarf**
Christy: Um, sure, Cindy, go ahead.
Cindy: Oh God, these are good
Lucy: Cindy, can you leave some for us?
Christy: I thought you were trying to lose weight?
Cindy: (monster voice) Lay off me, I'm starving! (chipper again) Diet starts Monday!

The perils of a cleaning service

Here at UEA they have someone come in every day to take out your trash, yet you have to ask to use the vacuum cleaner. This seems backwards to me, but then again I do come from the mixed-up American way of thinking. Apparently, also, British students might as well be common thieves -- so says the cupboard full of "borrowed" Union Bar pints in a friend's house -- and have no problem with that.

So my cleaning lady is named Elaine. We think that Elaine is bitter that we're always sleeping when she comes to empty our bins. I understand, though, why Elaine would be bitter. You see, her job is not really to empty the bins -- that's only a thin veil for the "real job" of checking to make sure we kids are still alive in the morning. So basically here are Elaine's options:

1.) Discover dead bodies,
2.) Piss off/be ignored by sleeping students
3.) Discover students who are very much alive and very much in flagrante.

And all the while she still has to deal with our trash every day. She also has to clean out our "pods" (bathrooms). (But really, think about how much Elaine knows about us. Because we don't have dining service here, Elaine knows when and what we eat. She knows when the ladies of my flat go on and off the rag -- even though we're supposed to put stuff like that in the "sanibin" that NEVER gets emptied. She knows the insides of our rooms and bathrooms, what kind of products we use in the shower, whether we use flippers or not. And in my case, she knows that I sleep entirely too much.)

So today Elaine comes in to clean my pod, and I ask if I can use the vacuum. She says, "Now?" and since I used it right after I asked her last week, I say, "Yeah." Well, as I'm very making a very inept attempt at vacuuming, Elaine is basically standing in the background watching me. It's not a lesson! If she were a master pastry chef, she wouldn't be standing there while I made my creme tarte. Then I finally finish, after the vacuum comes apart several times. Apparently she'd been neading it the whole time. Sorry, Elaine. Then I go into my pod, and it smells like old people, and by old people I mean urine. Now I know this ain't my urine because I run a clean pod. Must be the new cleaning products. l personally think that's a ridiculous idea for a bathroom cleaning product: "Smells JUST like urine!" So either you know your bathroom is really clean or really, really dirty. Good choice, cleaning administration of UEA!

That is all.

The Couch Potato Critic Steps Up To Bat

Behind Closed Doors
Went to see Gosford Park tonight and am now even firmer in my resolve that Memento/Christopher Nolan got ripped off at the Oscar's this year. Sure Gosford Park does have its subtle, sharp humo(u)r and a mastery over about 30 characters (and the wonderful Bob Balaban & Richard E. Grant, among others), but it is truly conventional...

Am I naive in thinking that Hollywood should honor innovation? The fact that Gosford Park won and not Memento probably answers my question. Take the former: a stuffy, British comedy/murder mystery set in the 1930s on a hunting weekend. The latter: a groundbreaking, time-warping whodunit that gives you the answer before the question and Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss and Joey Pants to help you figure it out along the way. While the former makes you pay attention to understand what the hell the characters are saying, the latter necessitates your attention because you literally have no idea what's going on. It's riveting and it's something different and thank God for that!

Think about it this way: Clue had a set of all-star servants and richies, set itself around a murder mystery (several, actually) and merited many laughs. Yet Gosford Park wins a screenplay Oscar because Robert Altman is slated as the director? Obviously something is awry in Hollywood -- maybe it's because Mr. Feeny is no longer the President of AMPAS.

You're a Good Man, Denzel Washington!
Also saw the 80s movie Cry Freedom last night. It's set in 1970s South Africa during the conflict between natives and the British power-villains of Apartheid. Kevin Kline, Denzel Washington and someone who definitely looks like Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air star. I think everyone in the world should see this movie, especially racist Southerners. Despite the fact that the movie seemed about to end at several points until it finally finished where it began after 2 1/2 hours, it was truly powerful. What's more, it didn't "whitewash" the truth, coat it with sugary goodness and gratify us with the ubiquitous Happy Ending common to American movies. It told the truth, harsh as it often was.

And I have officially decided that you can't go wrong with Denzel Washington. It's truly unfortunate that he won an Oscar for Training Day of all his movies. That alone makes it clear how pandering Hollywood is. They were thinking, "Well, we've got to give it to Halle Berry's breasts, so we might as well make it 'Black Appreciation Year' and let Denzel win, too. After all, he did stretch himself by playing a bad guy..." Don't get me wrong, no one deserves an Oscar like Denzel. He consistently chooses parts that are important and about subjects that the Tom Cruises, Michael Caines and even Kevin Spaceys of the world don't even touch with a ten-foot pole. I tell ya, watching Cry Freedom definitely took a lot of steam out of the subversion of American Beauty. For once, I was watching a movie that didn't make me reference back to my own life and bitch about how hard it was coming from upper-class, white suburbia.

So yeah... that's all I have to say... for now. (mwahahahahaha)

Dream: Mission Manhunt

Reality:
“Everybody’s always wishing they had a boyfriend. We all picture how he’d look, how he’d sound, how nice it’ll be to have someone to share your dreams, your dental floss. So how come so few of us have one? It’s because we’re lying. Most of us couldn’t commit to a houseplant, so how can we commit to a boyfriend?” – Michael, Queer As Folk

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