Sunday, March 30, 2008

Best Left in the 90s

I know I harp on about music alot, it's one of my great passions in life. However, there's some music which just makes me want to hurl. For the moment, we'll excuse pop with the likes of girl/boy bands(consisting of 30 year old MEN, none of whom play any instruments-spot the irony if you will)and we'll excuse trance/house/blahblahblah( not really worth giving an opinion on this,because well I'm still deciding whether to classify it as music or whether it belongs in the category of noise.mp3). We will not even discuss Indian music or more specifically Bollywood rubbish (and no, I don't care how beautiful the lyrics are when you translate it into English, it (tune/melody/beat) sounds like crap/pop/regurgitated 70s disco beats to me).I won't venture to hip-hop either, which was once the sound of the streets and the poor and is now the sound of the rich who get off condescending at the poor. What I want to discuss is the most disgusting music ever- RnB.

While music history teaches one that it might've had very noble roots and gave hope to slaves and farm workers and was the American equivalent of Umshiniwam. Take a listen to the rubbish lyrics that they churn out which I would assume is supposed to be sexy...but it actually sounds like the musical version of 12 year old online cyberers who pretend they're 16 and spell without vowels. In other words, retards.Typical dialogue of the species goes something like this:

Kewt-boi "hi asl,i cn c u gt sxy nik,want 2 cybr" (rant: WHY CAN'T PEOPLE TYPE NORMALLY? IT TOOK ME LONGER TO TYPE THAT THAT THEN THE WHOLE PREVIOUS TWO LINES-/rant-another debate.

So anyway you get the picture. Poor lyrics, bad language, filthy images and general scummy values allow the fan-base masses to indulge their senses in a cheap-sex thrill.

While this might not exactly be RnB (or maybe it is, I'm outside of my genre here so I could be wrong) Ludakris at the 46664 Concert in Johannesburg last year belted out the following lyrics to a crowd of thousands "I won't stop til I get them in they birthday suits so give me the rhythm, and it will be off in they clothes" followed by "we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed". Please take note that the concert was in aid of Aids awareness. And here you have someone who sings about easy women, easy sex etc. Spot the irony? This is just an off the top of my head example of how music of this sort, just promotes bad values and demeans women, it might not necessarily be the best example. Sure, RnB fans might make the case against some shock rockers like Marilyn Manson and co, but to Manson's credit, when you dig beneath the surface of his lyrics, you often find a surprising bit of social commentary or unveiling of the standard hypocrisies.

I find RnB too "turn-off"ish for lack of a clearer phrase. Which gets me thinking, whether I'm missing out on something, after all the legions and legions of fans must be picking up on something I'm not. My neighbours are classic examples of this(wonderful people though, in every regard besides their music taste). Almost Sunday morning whilst washing their cars; (yeah, they've got American flag bandanas hanging off the rear-view mirror, and the uncle does have a pair of black Ray-Bans with the ivory and gold bridge bit over the nose); I am subjected to the Blaaaaahnians playing a cd(at full volume it seems)consisting of Boyz II Men's End of the road, followed by I'll make love to you, followed by In the Still of the Night. And then the aunty will shout out "OOO I like this song, don't make it slow, put fast volume" and then queen_Lestat groans and pulls her pillows over her ears and curls up into foetal position and shrinks deeper into her bed. I mean wtf? A little consideration for the grunger in your vicinity would be nice people!

Now here's a classic example of the crap that is RnB, and (as you shall hear in a bit) the song which inspired the post. I REFUSE to watch this video(and I won't name it either,so you're all forced to watch a few seconds to know what I'm on about! i R ev0ln355 :P), so I don't know if it's the original or what, but here goes:



DISGUSTING!!!! YERGH!

Anyway here's the story. While it might've been the hit of 1992/3, there was Nirvana to listen to as well at the time. There was also Snow's Informer (which proved why only one White Boy should rap per decade) and the cult classic Whitney (pre-crack revelations) Houston with I Will Always Love You (and iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-hee-iiiiiiiiiii, jis, the dramatic overkill in that song teh_lol) and UB40 was pretty big then too, and Meatloaf (well, Bat Out of Hell was on the charts for 9 years.True story and random bit of music trivia for you there).

Flash back to 2008 and you're coming back from a night out and stop at a petrol station, where about 15 guys (men) are listening to the song (at a volume that would make a jet engine seem mute) in the video above and dancing with one another in the most horrifically obscene way.Literally bump 'n grind. Quite revolting really, makes seeing the side of the road pee-ers (the members of the uri-Nation) seem tame-like. Not the ideal way to end a Saturday night. No Sir, not at all.

After that episode, I'm sufficiently traumatised to say,
"It's raining, it's raining, tears from my eyes..."
rah*

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Friday, March 21, 2008

Worthy of Emo-ness or Not?

All credits are due to cujo who managed to make me simultaneously want to gag and LOL. But in all seriousness, with my terminal geekiness I was more zOMG and sad than LOL at first. It took me a while to see the funny side of this.

So without further delay, ladies and gentlemen, I hereby present the horror of the week:

Now in case you don't see the horrific part, the bald guy is Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and the other guy is Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) and they're very cosily playing guitars together.

Still don't get it? Skinner's Mulder and Scully's boss and he tries to save them from the duplicios Krycek. And look at Skinner's feet language!! Positively yergggh man. Skinner and Krycek that's not a very attractive couple man :/.

Still don't get it? You really should update yourself on your X Files knowledge.


zOMG this is undefinable, this feeling, it's like warm and fuzzy (cos on the surface it's an awww pic) but at the same time there's this rising bile feeling. Does anyone know if there's a 12-step programme for Chronic Geeks?


The Truth is Out There,
rah*

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Better than Toasters

To the young paduwan yearning to be Yoda, and to the village carb addict.
I know that with at least one of the duo, this wedding present will be spot on, but what the hell :P
Hope you guys have many,many years to well...



Lots of love, luck and happiness,
rah*

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Thursday, March 13, 2008

I R teh_rememberz!!

So yeah about that last post...

Well I remembered the arb thought I had before I wanted to post that thought and then forgot it and then posted on my forgetting instead.

A combination of an old Organ Harvester post (Note: old post in Organ Harvesterish is about 2 weeks or so ago)and the whole Irvin 'K'hoza debacle brought back the memory of the original thought I had. And so here it is.

A few weeks back I was flipping through channels because (yeah, I'll admit it) I was looking for Gilmore Girls reruns. (And not a word shall be uttered about this after this ever again.)(I happen to think that show has/had the best dialogue on tv.)(Excessive bracket use for no apparent reason is copyright and trademark blah blah blah to The Chronicles.)(Thought I'd shove my stylistic disclaimer in there, three years down the line.)

So back to my point, this advert comes up for this new show (dunno if it's new or old, my tv habits don't go much beyond Gilmore Girls and The X Files reruns when I'm really in the mood to watch a show, or the over dramatization and exaggerated acting styles of the mid-life-crisis-drop-out-of-work-and-take-up-night-school-acting-and
-drama-classes- students-who-find-bit-parts-portraying-historical-figures-for-
The-History-Channel-documentaries-but-acting-in-a-style-which-makes-me
-wonder-if-they-really-think-they're-in-a-major-cinematic-epic-thingy.)

The show portrays this mainly Black suburb/town in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and this town is plagued by crime, violence, corrupt cops, gangsterism, drugs etc on top of the burden of homelessness and displaced citizens. And the few good cops are struggling to make arrests and have safety and order because none of the locals will co-operate or provide information on the criminals in their midst. Now for my point.

I watched the advert and then when the name came up of the show immediately went all zOMG! And then told the nearest sibling "Damn, you know, you know you're South African when your first thought after seeing an advert for a show about a community/theme like that is "RASCISTS! How can they call a town where black people live that and still name a show that and then ADVERTISE on SOUTH AFRICAN TV...""

Yep, people, you guessed it, the show's name is ...

K-Ville.


Shall we play some spot the irony?
rah*

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