Bunnies-and-Traps Rap

In all seriousness, though, I do need to take a brief hiatus from my hiatus to link to the interview I did with Brie Larson. If she reads my blog, she should comment here.

Would like to converse more about Bob Dylan, really, but I'd need to listen to more of him more closely. I have about three or four of his albums but never really dug into them as much as I probably should.

OK, back to our regularly scheduled non-programming.

C Is for Correction

Woops, need to make a correction to yesterday's post about the benefits of a hiatus, in which the plural form of hiatus was referred to as "HIATUSES." Of course, as we all know, it should have been HIATI. Not to be confused with Haiti, high tea, hi-fi, Hattie [McDonald, Hurricane, or Panama], I Thai [not to be confused with I Am Cuba], Mai Tai, HIAT [High Incidence Accessible Technology], hiati of the dental variety [these are submicronic and can be found in acid-etched dentin and are artifacts of desiccation, not to be confused with dissertation, dessertarian, Desi Arnaz, or decision-making abilities or lack thereof, which I do not lack -- I lack them -- when it comes to figuring out what to blog about during my blog break].

I also need to color correct w/ filter (if I'm shooting daylight balanced film under tungsten lights, what color filter will I need? I'm not actually doing this -- it's just an informal quiz to see who amongst you is paying attention. No one has taken me up on my HIATUS WORDPLAY CHALLENGE yet, see details below.), correct my grammar when I don't write good, correct my posture when I don't stand right, not write when I need to be reading and then writing, and not here, not now, still me.

I also need to correct a statement I made and then deleted, about a year later, regarding Brie Larson's singing abilities. When I claimed "the girl can't sing," I mistyped. What I originally typed: "the girl canary wasn't a stool pigeon so she wouldn't sing." You can see which part was inexplicably and most unfortunately deleted, so I went back and deleted the rest.

Did you know that when you write things on the internet and then privately disown them, people can still see what you wrote in the past without the knowledge that you've since moved on? At least in print publications the materials degrade into nothingness in a matter of decades; the internet is forever, or so I've been led to believe.

Did you know that Kevin Federline has a hit out on him? And this from no less reliable a source than Entertainment Tonight. Who'd wanna kill K-Fed? He should really consider a few hiati from the public hate eye. (Not to be confused with Haiti.)

(K-Fed must be feeling totally k-shitty right now. And just think, before this his only concern was gettin' k-runk.)

The Benefits of Hiatuses (Or, "How David Got His Oeuvre Back")

1. You have more time to pursue other interests, like drinking Diet A&W root beer on a semi-regular basis.

2. Ditto, but you ran out of Diet A&W root beer and are just enjoying a glass of water.

3. More time to listen to music. I understand that you could blog and listen to music, but you miss things. For instance, yesterday we were discoursing on Vanessa Anne Hudgens' "Don't Talk." Via YouTube, V commented, "let's keep it a secret," to which D replied, "ah, this reminds me of a certain class of adolescent relationships in which etc." Well, it occurs to me now, listening to Cassie's "Long Way 2 Go," that this is a theme relatively common in teenpop and teenpop-sympathetic works -- establishing terms in a nascent adolescent relationship -- that can vary depending on employment of sarcasm in establishing said terms. "You got a long way 2 go," sings Cassie, practically winking at her wannabeau. Here she refuses Vanessa's juvenile "test drive" phase -- an easy out -- and spells out her needs up front. Rather, she spells out the fact that she has needs (even if she's unclear as to what these are -- in this respect I'm reminded of Christina Milian's "I Can Be That Woman") and that any suitable suitor would need to acknowledge and, to the best of his ability, fulfill these needs.

It's unclear to me whether or not Hudgens taps into something "truer" in my own life experience -- certainly I've met more young women in Hudgens' position than Cassie's (indeed, her self-assurance is a markedly mature signifier, hence questionable inclusion in the teenpop bracket[?]), and therefore relate to Hudgens' song perhaps more than Cassie's. But relate isn't approve, approve isn't like, like isn't dig.

Main point being, this and other revelations would never have been possible if the pressures of blogging had impeded my thought processes.

4. More energies put toward impressions of various Sesame Street characters offering dubious words of encouragement from the covers of the children's juice boxes that I'm required to drink when my blood sugar drops to a crisis level (technically under 60, in practice closer to 70). Here are the available characters*:

(a) Elmo ("Elmo's Punch")
(b) Bert and Ernie ("Bert and Ernie Berry")
(c) Cookie Monster ("Orange Tangerine"**)
(d) Big Bird ("Apple")

*Grover's "Grover's White Grape" is an option dismissed for these purposes, as (1) its carbohydrate count is too high for diabetic consumption and (2) whenever I try to do Grover it comes out as Yoda.

**not available in the Philadelphia area (at least not where I shop).

I've worked out a few character-neutral phrases which I'm now algorithmically pairing to maximize effectiveness in a given hypoglycemic episode.

(i) "Don't die, David!"
(ii) "Gee, Bert, he doesn't look so good!" "Ah, shut up, Ernie."
(iii) "C IS FOR CORRECTION!"
(iv) "Wow, you're feeling better already! That's super!"

Through a purely random generator, I've systematically determined that the following pairs achieve the purest harmonic and humoric co-valence:

a-i
b-ii
c-iii
d-iv

(etc.)


5. I find out about new Type 1 diabetes complications, such as:

Depression
Feeling down once in a while is normal. But some people feel a sadness that just won't go away. Life seems hopeless. Feeling this way most of the day for two weeks or more is a sign of serious depression.

6. Hiatuses are an excellent way to create more time to complete important work in other fields, such as semiotic analysis, Marxist analysis, post-colonial analysis, psychoanalysis analysis, cat dialysis <--this happened to Emily's first cat :(.

7. Hiatus rhymes with _______. Haven't figured it out yet, but a hiatus would provide a perfect opportunity to further explore this uncharted wordplay enigma.

8. Ross is moving from Philly to Austin, from brotherly love to brothelry love. This observation marks an undeniable high point in his myriad intellectual achievements.

9. Hunh, hunh, hunh, hunh. CAN YOU FEEL IT?

10. YEAH!

Don't Call It a Hiatus, I Been Here Since the Last Time I Posted, Which Was Yesterday.

IT'S VANESSA -- BITCH.

1. So Janelle Monae's album is basically Andre 3000 and Mira Craig collaborating to do Joe's Garage. At least from listening to the first three of five songs released from Metropolis, which is some kind of EP song suite bullshit.

Radiohead take note: THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. Here's why: EVEN IF YOU DO THE BEST ALBUM EVER, NO ONE CAN REALLY COUNT IT AS AN ALBUM. BECAUSE IT'S AN EP. AND NOT AN ALBUM.

I mean maybe if every song was fifteen minutes long, I could count it. But it's a suite. One of like four or something. I'm not even paying attention to it because I'm so pissed off that IT IS NOT AN ALBUM. But rather FIVE SONGS. And two of them don't even COUNT (one's an intro and the other's a glorified skit).

Should note that Mira Craig and Andre 3000 doing Joe's Garage is immensely appealing to me. This might put me in a minority. It's unfolding about as well as I expected it to so far, and if she kept it up over, y'know, the course of an album, it'd be in my top ten on principle alone. But alas.

2. So Kanye West's albums seems pretty good after four tracks (and that includes "Stronger," which I still don't like). Plus I've already heard "Barry Bonds" and "Good Life," which are both good. I will likely listen to this album in its entirety at least once. But will I care?

3. Missed Skye Friday this week in favor of a temper tantrum that has once again led to a pretty good conversation. She has a new single out, if ya hadn't heard. It's called "Human." It's good. I dunno what I was expecting (wasn't that, but wasn't not that, either). Sounds a bit like Britney (I still dig Britney/Max Martin as an influence, but maybe not that direct an influence. She can sing tho). From the sound of a recently-surfaced live show, "Music Is My Boyfriend" should be pretty massive. "Ghosts" may or may not be a trainwreck. Good or bad variety? Hm.

4. Meanwhile, Britney also sounds a bit like Britney, if slightly moreso. But not as much as Marie Serneholt did last year. Or Ashley Tisdale for about fifteen seconds on her album from this year. IT'S ASHLEY, BITCH. NO, NO, NOT ASHLEE, ASHLEY WITH A "Y." ...TISDALE. FROM HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL...THAT DISNEY MOVIE. NO, IT'S NOT A SHOW; IT'S A TV MOVIE. I MEAN, IT'S BIGGER THAN THAT, WHEN YOU SAY "TV MOVIE" IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE JUST SAYING...DO YOU HAVE KIDS? THEY PROBABLY KNOW WHO I AM. ASHLEY-WITH-A-"Y"...I MEAN THEY DON'T CALL ME THAT, I'M JUST CLARIFYING. YEAH, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, RIGHT...NO, THAT IS NOT ME IN THOSE PICTURES, THAT'S VANESSA -- I DON'T KNOW. I SAID I DON'T KNOW. WHAT? NO. I DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER...LOOK I THINK WE'RE GETTING SIDETRACKED HERE. I'M ALSO ON A DISNEY SHOW, THE ONE WITH THE TWINS. NO, THAT'S THE PARENT TRAP. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU EVEN...? LINDSAY WAS LIKE TWELVE IN THAT MOVIE. HAYLEY WHO? HOW OLD ARE YOU? AND YOU DON'T HAVE KIDS? NO, NO, NO, NO, LOOK THIS ISN'T WORKING. JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT THAT A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM. BITCH.

5. Oh, I didn't say anything about my favorite Vanessa Hudgens song. It's called "Don't Talk." I thought it was about sex, but now I think it's about the kinds of girls who went out with me on a dare in middle school. And now look at 'em...DIRTY PICTURES FOR THEIR EFFEMINATE BOYFRIENDS. ALL OVER THE INTERNET. I don't mean to gloat, but, uh, I've got way more respectable ways of gettin' my innernet celebrity on. You think he's just gonna meet you at the movie theater and sit behind you one or two rows, like oh, what are you doing here, heh heh well I guess maybe I'll see you after Volcano is over so my friends can SNICKER AT YOU. And I can just IGNORE YOU. Look, don't act like you ever cared about me, all right? You can break up with me, I don't even care. I'm not saying I'm GLAD those pictures got out, I mean, that's kind of a shitty thing to have happen (even though you probably sorta planned it to get out of your Disney contract -- that part was pretty smart), but c'mon, it's not like I'm going to go outta my way to support you after this mindgame bullshit. Like you've got a friggin' restraining order against me when you were the one who INVITED ME out in the first place, and now you're talking shit and acting like you're so far above me, well GUESS WHAT, it turns out other people are interested in me, too! Many years later, right, but that's why I've got something called HINDSIGHT. Er, foresight. I have something that gets me through this sorta humiliation, generally related to my being the bigger person.

It occurs to me that no guy could ever write the counter-teenpop song (relegated to bonus track) about how it turns out he didn't actually want to have SEX with you in the first place, just wanted to have a good time and go to the mall or something, yeah, I mean you can invite your friends, whatever. Just wanted to like HOLD HANDS. That's all. And is now totally ashamed of himself because of your cold-ass ambivalence. YOU were the one who brought all that crazy shit up, seriously, I mean I still got excited when we talked on the phone or whatever and you told me about that science teacher that everyone else hated, too, so I probably heard that story from one of my closer friends already (I had a life before this, y'know) and was just happy to hear you talk about anything; you could have recited something from a recipe book for all I cared. You were chewing gum, I think, that was nice, too. I wasn't even thinking about that stuff yet until you wrote a song about it and pretended you did it all as a joke or something just to save face with YOUR friends (oh, right, it's all about me talking to MY friends, like my friends give a shit -- WE PLAY VIDEO GAMES IN THE BASEMENT). Late bloomer, right, but jeez my life wasn't half as complicated before all this shit.

But wait a second, what are you, eighteen? Shouldn't you be in college? So basically not only are there no "secret relationships" anymore but you're gonna blast that shit all over THE FACEBOOK anyway. Maybe that's where the pictures came from. Now I don't feel so sorry for you. Whatever, it was a k-shitty "dare" and my feelings were hurt. Maybe I won't hold it against you someday.

6. Hey, Electric Six are pretty funny. Huh.

AXIS OF SHEVIL (A Brief Exejeeeeeezus of a certain awards program performance that I'm losing sleep over for not losing sleep over)

It's just wordplay, people. The Axis of Shevil, of course, is Britney/Paris/Lindsay, and I don't think anything more needs to be said of 'em for the purposes of this post.

Except Britney.

I need to talk about this stupid thing. Stupid stupid stupid stupid. Thing. Everyone. Everyone comes out very ugly in this whole thing (tho Britney still looks good, y'all just jealous). Metallic VMA? No, doesn't even get the self-destruction mythos cred! It's a culture collapsing with exhaustion. I mean seriously, it's gotta be hard to riff on Mean Girls to make a living, right? Draining? A little...y'know pointless?

But everyone's riffing on Mean Girls, from the gossip blogs to the anti-gossip-blog gossip blogs to Nick Sylvester, who's kind of like the Lindsay Lohan Tina Fey in this whole mess. And where am I in all this? I feel like my dad or something. Who cares? I've got shit to do.

NO! I am not my father. (Nor am I my Big Ather.) I AM ME. Still me...uh, yes. Still me. (Still, now? Now? Yes.) And I really don't/do give a shit, just like I didn't/did give a shit about Paris. But something's different -- there's nothing for me to hang on to here; there's nothing (no thing) to support.

Here's what I tried to say first:

This wasn't *that* bad, was it? I mean, aside from her not lip syncing very well and the dance not being well choreographed, I didn't think she was any more embarrassing than anyone else is in recent VMA history. Thought she looked good!

STRIKE ONE. TRY AGAIN.

Part of me is reluctant to judge her so harshly when everyone else seems pretty much gleeful to do it.

CUTE BUT YOU TRIED THAT ONE ALREADY. STRIKE TWO.

I'm reminded of Lester Bangs saying something about how "we may well be watching a human being slowly commit suicide," and how that attitude is being somewhat projected onto Britney (how accurately I wouldn't know), but in a way that robs her of any ability to INTEND to be slowly committing suicide, hence robs her of any discernible "message" (not that killing yourself because you can is much of a message.) Tho it's not so much suicide as a sort of collapse from exhaustion; a total denial of life almost as a default position when nothing else seems to have worked. More like throwing your hands up in the air and taking a long nap wherever you happen to be standing. Running on empty, maybe.

YOU'RE OUT. OF ENERGY. AND IDEAS. WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE.

Maybe we're all kind of exhausted. Maybe that's what happens when school starts, especially after you've dipped your toes into the real world and pretty much wussed out. And why shouldn't I? I've got issues, people, I need health insurance and security or I will not feel very good.

Jayzus, what an idiot she was. Whatever. Oh, she's telling the world to fuck off! No! No one's doing anything! And I can't ignore it because there's nowhere else for me to go right now, except to bitch about semiotics or something. Not like there aren't enough people who do that already.

Yeah, we're all exhausted. Something isn't working right now, and everyone knows it. One thing that isn't working: not enough Haloscan conversations. Period, let alone there being any good ones.

I brought up Ashlee Simpson during a break the other day, and someone said, "oh I don't know about her." I expected her to follow up with some dismissive jaw-dropper or other, like "trashy queen of the knock-off-Avril/grunge-lite rock ballad." But no! She said, "her first album was pretty good, but after that...I dunno."

HOLY FUCK! That's the first time I have ever had a reasonable conversation with someone about Ashlee Simpson in the real (non-internet) world who I didn't try to brainwash at some point (Ian took it in stride). It was seven words! "Her. First. Album. Was. Pretty. Good. But." That should be the name of her (print version) autobiography. "HER FIRST ALBUM WAS PRETTY GOOD BUT" [insert the rest of her life/career]. Reductive, sure, but I mean I can deal with reductive! We can talk from here! I don't have to ignore this person! It's great! I mean I can talk for an hour about this shit and learn nothing -- basically just spin the wheels and get out some residual ADD juice. Maybe end up knowing LESS afterward, like I spilled brain fluid on the ground outta my big mouth. I NODDED. I ASSENTED WITH NOD. NOD. ASSENT. YES. HER FIRST ALBUM WAS PRETTY GOOD BUT.

What kind of world would we live in if Ashlee Simpson's first album was pretty good but? Would we all turn in to hyperactive (wo)manchildren with bug juice ooze dripping from our chins? Would the world slip a notch further down toward CREEPY? Would the music industry dust itself off and try again? Would this blog turn into a zip file dumpsite, what with there being nothing left to say?

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

But! Ashlee's First Album Was Pretty Good.

Let's try to remember this in the future. That's the absolute conversational minimum from which everything needs to start. Yes. I mean, I disagree, because her first album is more than pretty good. And there are reasons for this. Which have been articulated and will be articulated again. But it might save me from yet another hiatus. Or maybe that's just my problem.

MY TEENPOP YEAR (AND A HALF)

EDIT: COPIES STILL AVAILABLE! (check back throughout the day for the other links)

DISC ONE: LAUGH (82 MB)
(*note: Reggaeton Ninos should be #17 and Bratz should be #14, order was screwed up)
DISC TWO: LOVE (82 MB)
(*note: t.A.T.u. should be #19, ditto)
DISC THREE: CRY (85.5 MB)
DISC FOUR: THINK (83.3 MB)
DISC FIVE: FUCK (83 MB)

1. Hello again. Still me, still now.

2. Still in film school. WTF. But I did manage to dash off a little teenpop essay before I re-enrolled, which will be up at Stylus all week.

The TEENPOP MEGAMIX (TP1-5) will be is now available here. The mix is divided into five CDs in five categories (LAUGH, LOVE, CRY, THINK, and FUCK), each spanning 20 songs. Should note that I don't necessarily LOVE all of these songs, but they make for a faskinatin' mix.

More commentary as the piece unfurls -- today is day one: LAUGH!

3. IT'S BRITNEY, BITCH.

4. IT'S V.A.T.U, BITCH.

5. IT'S DAHV, BITCH. <--new song, "Suburbia Disturbia," whose lyrics go a little somethin' like:

Suburbia disturbia
Suburbia disturbia

There once was a teen from suburbia who had a little case of disturbia
She pulled her shirt up for all of the boys in her classroom

There once was a man from suburbia who had a little case of disturbia
He came home drunk and drove his car into my bedroom

CHORUS:
These are the people in your neighborhood, most of them have kids
They babysit, they carpool and do pilates (5,6,7,8)
These are the people in your neighborhood, shopping at the GAP
They drive around in SUVs and are always full of crap

Starbucks is the place where divorcees and soccer moms stand on common ground
(Finally!)
There are mini-mansions in suburbia
But the mortgages are disturbia
Yet they always find a way to have a party

CHORUS

There once was a mom in suburbia, who had a little case of disturbia
She ran off with the pool guy and now lives in Brazil (real nice)