musical cockblocks

i'm so tired of the supreme lack of creativity in music. i realize that this is not a recent development, but i've just reached my limit. i was driving a friend home last night and the new black eyed peas song came on. it's called "Don't Phunk With My Heart." it has the same beat and rhyming style, actually, as Marky Marks' "Good Vibrations." anyway, so, it starts out "ohh, no,no,no, don't mess with my heart. i wonder if i take you home, would you still be in love, baby." now, that part is from Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam song called, go figure, "I Wonder If I Take You Home." i have a great affection for Lisa Lisa...i am an 80's child... so, i love her. now, it drives me nuts everytime the song comes on, because i think it's Lisa Lisa. i'm all ready to sing my heart out to a classic, and, instead, i hear some dude start rapping like he's actively referencing his rhyming dictionary. i can't stand that shit. i realize that certain songs resemble each other or have little snipets of another. that's fine. when you completely steal the hook of one song and put it in, quite frankly, a lesser song it is ...just wrong. not only are you pissing me off by not giving me Lisa, but now i really don't like your song because you've musically cockblocked me from getting my Cult Jam off.

i think the best/worst song that completely epitomizes this cruelty is Ashanti's "Foolish." Ashanti really fucked up because she used a Biggie song. it wouldn't be so bad if it was one of his lesser known songs or something. it's the song that has one of the most distinctive openings. it's a song that when you hear the first 3 seconds of it...whever you are...you get excited and might even yell out a,"oooohhhhh." the Notorious B.I.G. song she used was, "One More Chance." it has one of the best lines i've ever heard in hip-hop:

"Lyrically I’m supposed to represent I’m not only the client, I’m the player president."

that's some tight shit. so, it's one of my favorite songs and this twit highjacks the whole muscial base of the song and just sings over it. that shit's obnoxious.

my least favorite thing that's come out of hip-hop is the social sanctioning of biting rhymes and music. niggas in the day used to get clowned for that shit. as well they should've. why are you talking if someone else is coming out of your mouth?

i think it all started with a certain Daddy.

that's o.k., i'll address that in a later blog. Puffy, you're on notice.

perfectly appropriate appropriation of slang

open to a man in the gym slyly smiling at a girl walking by. the voice over says:

"you think you still got game? she thinks your game is bingo. ouch!"

i saw that on a commercial for a mens' face moisturizer. i don't remember what it was b/c i was laughing through it.

i approve.

barely

i think i just barely missed a morning of stomach aches and vomiting when i had 2 fig newtons and coffee for breakfast. guh.

elvis

i wonder if Elvis impersonators talk like Elvis on their off time. sort of how people who answer phones at work pick up their house phone and say, "thanks for holding." there are certain things that become so perfunctory that you don't realize it until it's happened. i'm certain for foreplay and parties they do their Elvis thing, but i wonder if, when they go through the Wendy's drive-thru, they say, "thank you. thank you very much." i was just wondering. i was also wondering if they dreamed in blue suede. again, just curious.

upon further review

so, i went to see Star Wars again today. almost immediately after i bought the tickets i regreted it, and went so far as to seriously contemplate bailing on my friends and going home. i did, however, spend $5 on it, so i might as well.

as was well documented in an earlier blog of mine, i didn't like the movie. i later talked to a friend of mine who was trying to explain why Lucas did some of what he did. Jase made some good arguments. i also took into consideration that he is a huge Star Wars fan and, like most other fans and critics, really wanted to like the movie. so, i absorbed what he said, went back and watched the movie again, and, like my divorced parents, applied what was consistant and what wasn't.

i was a whole lot more forgiving this time around. i also think i may have missed some dialog due to my laughter and missed some action due to the perpetual rolling of my eyes. so, there was that. the two primary lame moments are still Padme's "mean ol' lion" look on the balcony and Vaders' "NOOOOO." there was one thing that Jase said that i recited like a mantra this time around and that was this Vader is 20 years younger than the one i'm used to. so, the fact that he didn't sound like James Earl Jones...forgivable. the Frankenstein walk...well, actually, sorry Lucas, i can't forgive that. it really was just lame. i think since my hopes for coolness had already been dashed and the initial shock of lameness had worn off, i was able to appropriately lower my standards enough to enjoy the movie a bit more.

i still stand by my original review that the transition into Vader was poorly developed and hurried. Chewie was still cool, though. Yoda knocking the guards out with the wave of his hand was badassed. and Obi is fucking hot. so, all in all, i don't hate it as much as i did. i'm still deeply disappointed. i will, however, neither see it again in the theaters nor own it on dvd.

fuck you Lucas.

Sith Is An Anagram

(today's blog is a guest blog from a disappointed Star Wars fan)

The fucking problem - THE PROBLEM - is that they skimped on the force. I am told that this was because George Lucas wanted to keep the level of force use in line with the previous-later movies, but the whole fucking concept of the movie is about the force (not trade negotiations, despite what the review in The Economist would have you think), and the use of the force was the only cool bit.
I thought the four light-sabers on General Wheeze would be cool, but then Obi-Wan knocked them off like he was a character in a platform game. Which, of course, with an eye on merchandising, was probably intentional. And, while I'm fucking rolling:

Why do robots cough?
And why do they scream?
And why did the General cough in one scene and then not need air when he was out in the upper atmosphere/space?
And why is R2 filled with oil? I mean filled with oil like a $50 drum with LEDs on it.
And when did Anny and Padme decide on the names? She was pretty quick with Luke and Leia, especially not knowing that she would have twins in the first place. When did they do the "if it's a boy, if it's a girl, if it's twins?" bit?
And how could they know she was pregnant and not know she had twins? Is there no pre-natal care?
And didn't she have the kids like 3 months early? Shouldn't they have been the size of a bottle of white-out?
And if they've mastered interstellar space travel, why can't they perform a C-section, or give Padme an anti-depressant (as one of my friends said, "lost the will to live? We have drugs for that right now!")?
And how come Obi-Wan's ship goes from zero to near light speed in about 2 seconds but he doesn't become a bloody smear on the windshield?
And how could the emperor take out 3 Jedi in about 4 seconds? Is there a Jedi B-team we never knew about?
And yeah, why would you make Annakin's turn to the dark side so lame? And then make Vader sound like such a fucking poofball punk-ass piece of shit? The only way Vader would scare me now is if he came with a warrant.

There are others, of course (Why do wookie weapons look like cross bows but fire laser beams? Why didn't the trade executives catch on when the emperor said "I'm sending my new apprentice to... take care of you," in a creepy, cackling voice? Why did Mace Windu not realize that the Chancellor was a sith lord even though he acknowledged that he was "surrounded by the dark side of the force." Does that just happen sometimes? Hey Yoda, check it out, your Mr. Pibb's surrounded by the dark side of the force! Isn't that fucking weird?).

You're fired George. Clean out your desk and get out of my fucking sight.

oh, you waky siths

right before i got on the road to come up here, i stopped my Wal-Mart to get my brother a couple of things he needed. as i was leaving i walked past these Darth Vadder masks. they were hilarious. it has three buttons you can push. one does the breathing. the second has 5 or 6 quotes. the third is orange and activates a microphone so that everything you say comes out sounding like Darth. it was so funny. there are three switches on the base of the voice box you flip to adjust it to where you sound the most like Darth. it was funny. my brother put it on and was ordering food like he was at a diner. i put it on and did the robot. it was very funny. the best thing about coming to see my brother is that it is always a good time. we are certainly a silly breed.

lame, i tell you...LAME!

i'm in NYC right now visiting my brother and his fiance. we went to go see Star Wars III last night. oh, man. i should start out by saying that i'm a moderate Star Wars fan. i really liked the first three, as did the rest of the world, but i've been perpetually turned off by the newer ones. however, like the Matrix, i was already enrolled in the class and needed to see the last one to graduate. we went to the 10:45pm showing in Lincoln Square. it was packed and we were full from dinner and didn't have the highest of hopes, but heard it got fairly good reviews, so we were keeping an open mind.

it starts out and it was alright. a lot of dialog that was necessary to establish the plot, but stuff we already knew, since the sole reason 98% of the people were there was to see Darth Vadder. but, ok. they need to explain the progression. fine. it was getting very boring, very quickly. i, actually, started to nod off a couple of times. it's not that the initial fight scenes were bad, but they were just repeatative.

then we get to Padme. oh, jesus. the first scene that we see the two of them together they are out on the balcony and she has her back to him. she turns around and my brother lets out an audible, "ugh." she looked crazy. he said later that she looked like a Lisa Lisa backup singer. she looked aweful. the conversation between her and Ankin was so ridiculous that the theater erupted in laughter. i leaned into my brother and said, "if George Lucas was here right now, he'd be ashamed of himself." to have the driving force for Ankin to turned to the dark side and, eventually, into Darth Vadder so unbelievable really undermines the whole thing. but whatever. so then Ankin has these dreams...for all of the special effects Lucas so brilliantly creates and executes, those dream sequences looked like an episode of Dr. Who. at this point i was laughing so uncontrollably i was crying, gasping for breath, and had to plug my ears and block out everything to calm down.

all of this wasn't helped by the jokes. the mechanical sith with four arms that was coughing and weezing the whole time was hilarious. my brother leans into me and said, "if he's a robot, why is he coughing?" i said, "because he has a virus." we laughed. then his fiance pointed out, during a fight when a window was knocked out and everyone of breathless but him, "if he doesn't need to breathe, why is he weezing." good point. we supposed later that the common quality of the sith dudes is that they're hybrids of man and machine. even still, lame. then R2 was fighting off these driods and starting squirting oil all over the floor. i leaned into my brother and said, "hey guys! slick shoes!" the night progressed in very much the same tone. there was this guy next to me who, when he wasn't checking his cell phone messages, was sitting there with his hand on the side of face in the universal position of disbelief. at one point my brother was sunk way down in his chair in the same position. it was funny.

now, we come to Darth. oh, man. we had suffered through 2.5 hours for this moment. when it comes, Darth walks out of his restaints in his new body like Frankenstein. he lurches out and stiffly moves foward. he asks about Padme and is told she is dead. then he lifts his arms and yells, "noooooooo." the place erupted in laughter. it was embarrassing. later on my brothers' fiance justifies, at least the walking, by saying that he was unaccustomed to his new legs and such, so it made sense. my brothers' and my position was that we didn't care. Darth Vadder was supposed to be badassed and slick. no one wants to see him and check for bolts in his neck. she was trying hard to defend the movie, but it wasn't working.

there other things that we thought were really lame. like the naming of the kids. it seemed like there was just more story than Lucas had time for and things were hurried. when Padme was giving birth, as the kids came out she named them. of course, this explains how Luke and Leah came to be, but it was so forced. at no point did Padme and Ankin say, "i'm so excited about a child. if it's a boy, let's name him Luke. if it's a girl lets name her Leah." that'd be cool. the way it was done was too need-to-be-consistant-with-future-movies. the one thing we all agreed on was that the fight scenes were repeatative and boring. the few bright spots were when people, oh i don't know, used the force. at one point, Yoda walks in to see the emperor and without flinching knocks his guards out by slamming then against wall with the force. that was cool. the force was what everyone was talking about. "use the force," but no one did. there was no symmetry in the teachings of it either. it would've been cool to see Ankin mentored and trained in using the darkside as Luke, later, will be trained in the swamps by Yoda. it was just, all of a sudden Ankins' eyes were red and he was mentally throwing shit around.

it was lame. it was too much in too little time. Lucas should've cut out a bunch of other shit from his last two movies to spread it out and really develop the characters and their motives. as it stands he has bored me. on the ride home my brothersaid, "already the movie is fading," and it was. i likened the movie, and the last two as well, to an infomercial. he's peddling this crap for $19.95 and it doesn't matter if it works. it doesn't matter if people like it. all that matters is to break even he just need a certain number of people to buy it one time. that's all this is. these last three movies are his get rich scheme that's ridding on the backs of three amazing movies and preying on our loyalty to them. that is corny and lame.

we ultimately decided that we are dropping out the theatrical university. between the Matrix and this, i clearly need to change my major.

a bit much

i'm listening to NPR and there was a report about the naming of some grizzly bears somewhere in CA. apparently, the zoo had an auction to allow the highest bidder to name the bears. i think the top bid was $40,000. now there's an uproar, because there had originally been a lottery type deal and a bunch have people have already sent their info to win. so, there's a question of fairness and they've dubbed this situation...Grizzlygate.

i supose it's clever to some. certainly not original. sort of the obvious choice, but really, a dispute as to the fairness of a chance to name a couple of grizzly bears is far different that implicating the president of the united states in breaking into the democratic headquaters to, essentially, spy on them for political gain. bear named Jude v. Larry or abuse of power and commission of crimes but the highest ranking official in the country. i don't know. they just don't really compare.

man people certainly love hyperbole.

retraction

so, i said something in a fit of rage that was not only cold, but untrue. in a previous post, i said that loving this person was one of the worst things that's ever happened to me. i reread that later on last night and realized that i can say some cold shit when i'm mad. i'm certain i said it on the phone to him. some things i mean. some things i feel that moment, but time and perspective prove the feeling to be passing. i've said some cold shit in my day. that certainly ranked as one of the meanest things. i'm not a mean person, and as angry as i was with him, there certainly have been worse things that have happened to me...and he's actually one of the best things. things were just taking their emotional toll on me.

so i officially apologize for that statement. it is not true and being with him is something that i'd never regret...of course i have yet to tell him that. i think i'll let him stew a little bit longer. i know that's mean, but what can i say? i'm still mad.

preach, Marv

Marv: That's the thing with dames, sometimes all they gotta do is let it out and a few buckets later there's no way you'd know.

so, i talked to my ex and we worked most of it out. he fucked up. he knows. what more is there to say?

it was funny though, because i spent a good portion of our conversation crying and the other portion of it yelling at him. once i got it all out, i felt so much better.

then i made a first cousin to Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde call to him. i was all calm and joking and shit. it all stemmed from my mom. i was talking to her only vaguely about the situation. i told her my ex was going to handle it. i told her that if this person didn't keep my name out of her mouth that i was going to punch her in the face. my moms' response was, "my little bundle of violence." that made me laugh...a lot. i'm really not a violent person, but sometimes mutherfuckers just push you too far. anyway, i thought it was funny and called to tell him what my mom had said.

he knows what he's done. he knows what he's cost me. he knows he has a long, windy, dark, pot-holed road ahead of him back to me. he also knows, fundamentally, that i care about him and we worked far too hard to get to where we are to let some shit like this break us down.

maybe tonight i'll get some goddamn sleep.

final verdict

i've been trying out these courty crock side dishes and have come to a conclusion on them.

homestyle mashed potatoes: delicious
macaroni and cheese: nasty, yet fairly palatable...texture's a little weird.
chicken rice with herbs: looked entirely too suspicious to try.

too much

there comes a point when someone just asks too much from you. i have reached this point with him. there is only so much you can take and recind before you break. i'm a mutiple fractured person right now. my ex has put me in quandry which forces me to chose between protecting myself and protecting him. i've given all that i can to him, but i care about him and don't want anything bad to happen to him. what i had intended to do to resolve the situation was certainly bold. i know that he's not a very confrontational person, so it was to be expected that he wouldn't like it. however unpleasant, people need to held accountable for their actions.

the bottom line is that i don't trust him. i don't trust him to take care of me. i don't trust him to have the fucking balls to do what needs to be done to end all of this, even if it means hurting peoples' feelings. i don't think that he has the nerve to stand up for me. yet he asks me to not stand up for myself and leave it to him to take care of it. how do you ask that of someone? how do you ask them to trust you when you've done little to inspire it? how do i put myself, and my social integrity, into the hands of a man who has done little to protect me in the past? how do i do that? how do you ask that of me? when someone has so completely- and repeatedly-betrayed you, how do you take a leap of faith for them?

i don't know. my head is spinning and i'm losing sleep. i'm furious. i'm hurt. i'm humiliated.

loving you has been one of the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

i've got plans

i've decided, in light of the discovery that i'm going to be a bride's maid at my brothers' wedding, which is in 4 months, that i might want to get my ass in gear. there are a number of things that need to be modified before i stand before God and my scrutinizing relatives to bear witness to this most joyous of occasions. the first things are my dark, mysterious, yet, slighty unruly eyebrows. the inside of the left one dons a punker-esk pike and the ends of both of them are...well, ridiculous. then i decided that i might want to go to the gym. i, personally, think i'm adorable... not ideal, but i have my good points. i just figured that perhaps, cute though i may be, that i could stand to have a little less of me be so cute. you're welcome ladies. i'm not going to do one of those crazy crash course diets, primarily because i lack a whole heeping helping of will power. i can tone down some things and make better decisions, but there's no way i'm going to see a movie and not have my reese's pieces. there, i said. however, i could eat, you know, fruit instead of chocolate. i could make a sandwhich instead of wolfing down my second bagel of the day for lunch knowing full well that it'll satiate me for a little over two hours.

the major thing is the gym. i have a membership. i've had a membership for months. do i use it? now, why whould i want to do such a fool things as using something that i pay for? pussies. today, however, i picked up a class schedule. i figured that to be relatively close to where i want by late september i'm going to have to hit the gym like i'm the next Lara Croft. this shit is going to be crazy. i do have two pluses on my side. one, when i lived overseas i did it in 6 months. the second, it's coming up on summer and i am nothing if not swimming. so, i'll naturally want to spend every non-working, and now non-gyming, hour in the water. that'll help.

i imagine the only thing about that's actually going to suck is the cooking. i can cook. some things rather well. i just don't like it. i'm single. i live alone. every goddamn recipe makes servings of 4+. there're lots of leftovers and i'm not one to eat the same thing everyday. i'd just as soon fast. so, that's the down side. i guess, to sort of alleviate that is that fact that my friend is all brokedown and fucked up. he needs a job. he needs to get his shit together...but he also needs food and he likes my cooking. so, there's my culinary silver lining.

come to think of it, perhaps after all of this...if things go well...i may start looking for a boyfriend. so far, with the men i'm around, i've been less than inspired. i tend to like my men with...oh, wait, what are they called? um, oh, right...balls. i like to know that there's more testosterone running around in there than just enough to put hair on their chest. this place is slowing sucking my soul out of my eyeballs. maybe it'll be less painful if i can actually find someone as silly, irreverent, and interesting as...me. am i asking for too much for a guy to have presence and charm? perhaps, yes.

political self-congratulatory masturbation

topic:
bill maher is little better than michael savage

bottom line:
no one likes a know-it-all
rancor is a basic unifying human condition...yet not conducive to reason.

moral:
superciliousness bores me.

one more thing:
it's easy to make sense when you invite no opposition. yea, bill, i'm talking to you. what ever happened to your split panel? filling your guest seats with fans is like having your mom as your taste tester. for shame.

i'm that girl

i was walking from the livingroom to my bedroom when i felt my ass. i think i have a rather nice ass, and sometimes i just rub it...(down boys). i'm a fan of putting my hands inside my clothes. i'll walk around with my arms tucked in my shirt. i'll hide my hands in my sleeves. i'll stick my hands down the sides of my pants and rest them on my thighs. what can i say? i don't like clothes very much...plus i only use baby lotion (strictly for dermatological reasons) so my skin is wicked soft.

i said all of that to say this, i ran my hands down my pants and felt the applique on the ass of my underwear and realized that i'm one those girls. most of the underwear i have have some sort of writing on them. much like Britney and her fucking t-shirts (which i have a couple of those too...mine just don't have trailer park trash sayings on them). most of my underwear are really cute. one says "angel," another says "princess," but those are the tame ones. some are full of sayings or quotes. the front of one says, "three strikes" and the ass says, "you're out." my current pair says, "hot tracks" on the front and "catch me of you can" on the ass. shit like that.

it's not that i'm ashamed, necessarily, but it does tend to steer me into the dizt lane. i'm not sure how i feel about that. it's sort of how i felt when i went to go see Maroon 5. i got there, looked around, and felt a little more than slightly ashamed to have something in common with the hoards of over make-uped, "crack-kills" lowrise jeaned, bleach blonde girls scurrying around the pre-show aisles.

on the plus side, at least my script is on the inside. it could be worse. i could walk around in some rolled-at-the-waist sweatpants that say "babygirl" on the ass.

then again, my pajama bottoms are pink and have the Supergirl logo on the left thigh, and i'm sure as shit not ashamed of that. so....

peace out homies

yea, so basically, i'm about to be out to columbia to see my peepollss. so, i'm not going to be able to update you sucka fools on my, really, only mildly interesting life. don't cry for me, argentina, the truth is ...i'll be back before that Demi-Moore-in-Ghost tear hits the floor.

in the meantime, i'll leave you with this:

JAZZ HANDS!!

the silliness that is Walker...and a wedding sent from the gods

my uncle won't shut up. i think he may actually be incapable of self-discipline.

god love him for it

today was my oldest brothers' wedding and it was fantastic. more on that in a minute. back to my uncle...or "big head," as i like to call him. at the reception, he gets the microphone and begins to toast my brother. i went over to my mom and whispered, "i think every Walker in this room is holding their breath." she laughed and agreed. you really just never know what's going to come out of his mouth. sometimes it's the most despicable thing you've ever heard:

Big Head: "you know, the best place to find a woman is at either a baby shower or the maternity ward. especially those single mothers."
Me: "that is so fucked up. ooh, you know you're a predator."
Big Head: (laughs) "yea."

other times is something fairly nice and sincere. fucking with him is like fucking with vegas. that shit's all a gamble.

so, the wedding. the wedding was at the st. louis botanical gardens. ever since i flew in on wed. it's been raining buckets here. seriously, yesterday was the first day of sun i've seen since i touched down. the weather couldn't have been more perfect. it was warm enough where all of the ladies could wear their respective fly-ass outfits, but not hot enough to sweat your hair out. it was a good look.

the wedding itself was really cute. his, now, wife is from spain and so they said their vows in both english and spanish. the dude performing the ceremony butchered the spanish and my brother had to read out of the book the dude had to get his vows right. you could see him cracking jokes to her the whole time, which clearly relaxed her, but also made for great shots.

i was really glad to see his father there. i have always liked him, and watching him today with everyone was so dope. at one point my older brother had him laughing so hard he was buckled to the ground. that made for a couple of great shots. everyone was laughing and having a really good time.

the reception was in this hotel...a rather sha-wanky hotel, actually. there were rose petals on the tables, an ice sculpture, and bottles of wine. the good news is that most of my family is muslim and can't drink alcohol, so i made out with three bottles of red wine. now i just have to figure out how to get them back up north without fucking up my clothes. my brother and his wife danced their first dance to Sade's "Your Love Is King." it was really very sweet. once the dance floor was opened up to everyone, the DJ started out with Prince's "Kiss." i had my eye on one man to dance with. i sauntered up the table, shaking my ass in my cute little dress and high heel shoes and said, "grandad, you don't have to be rich to be my girl. you don't have to be cool to rule my world. ain't no particular sign i'm more compatible with. i just want your extra time and your...kiss." he got up and we danced our hearts out. after that, you couldn't stop us. it was so much fun. all kinds of soul trains, electric slides, and good ol' fashioned ass shakin' was the order of the day. trust me...with all of those Walkers around, there was a lot of ass to shake. we worked it out. shit, don't sweat the technique.

the one thing i can say about Walkers is that we may be unpredicitable. we may be a handful. we may work your nerves...but you will always have a good time with us.

tonight was no different.