I finally listened to Kanye West’s new album event. I think it’s called Not Only Is The Emperor Not Wearing Any Clothes, The Emperor Is Not Even An Emperor. Let me get my bias out of the way. Kanye West is a fraud. He has been a fraud his entire career. The promotion of Kanye West is one of the great snowjobs of post-2000 music. At least Taylor Swift never sold $120 plain white t-shirts.
Taylor Swift, who also sucks, is nowhere near the culture vulture that Kanye West is. “Bound 2” from Yeezus sounds like a bunch of browser tabs with audio playing at the same time and the lyrics are the wrong kind of dumb (“I wanna fuck you hard on the sink/after that, fix you something to drink/Step back, can’t get spunk on the mink). He made a terrible video for it with his fame-whore wife on a motorcycle that even she seemed to be embarrassed to be in. His main influence while making that album was a fucking lamp.
The choir sound nice on the the new album’s first song, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Oh, it’s an intro? How was I supposed to know? All the songs are so short. The album is twenty-seven minutes long.
“On God” is pretty good. “God Is” proves he’s finally using Autotune as it was originally intended instead of the weird way that he did on 808s and Heartbreaks that T-Pain made an entire career out of. Or maybe Kanye isn’t using Autotune and that’s his real voice. Somebody should ask him, especially if they don’t mind never talking to him again. “Closed On Sunday” is embarrassing. The main problem with “Water” is Kanye being on it. Kenny G is on this album, because The Lord commanded it.
In 1979, Bob Dylan made his first of three Christian albums. Bob Dylan wanted to tell everyone about Jesus because he’d been a Christian for about twenty minutes. Kanye is not a new convert. After all, he made “Jesus Walks” but he also sang “If I fuck this model and if she bleached her asshole and I get bleach on my t-shirt, I’ma feel like an asshole”. So fuck this guy. I can’t help it. I hate him.
Maybe he felt like an asshole because he paid $120 for that shirt.
Nobody’s asking him to pull a Cat Stevens and go away for 25 years I am. but who wants to hear a guy of newfound faith preach about something he just learned? I mentioned Bob Dylan because every new convert does this and IT IS IRRITATING. We already have Christian music, made by people who won’t ditch it as soon as it stops being profitable. . . or as soon as they start taking their meds again. Whichever comes first.
It will be easier for Kim Kardashian to pass through the eye of a needle than it will be for Kanye West to get into Heaven. How dare this rich prick lecture anybody about Christ? This album is Hell. The value system behind it is Hell. Kanye’s enduring fame is Hell. Jesus isn’t dead, he just smells bad.
There’s one and two halves of a good song on this album and those two halves are on different tracks. Anyone who says it’s better than that is a liar.
It’s real early morning No-one is awake I’m back at my cliff Still throwing things off I listen to the sounds they make On their way down I follow with my eyes ’til they crash
When you struggle with depression long enough, you come to realize that it is a daily struggle. No matter how well you function with it, the inevitable thrust of depression is to recover the spark that makes you want to experience the fullness of life. If you’ve been there you know that the spark is fleeting. Such is the beast: the fear that cloaks your mind and the paranoia that finds you while your walk down the sidewalk minding your own.
(Suggested listening: “Hyperballad” by Björk, “The Spark of Life” by Todd Rundgren)
Some days you win, and others you don’t. Nevertheless, you try to get up and do it all over again or else you end up waving a white flag in your room or on your couch or from the safety of any place where you’re free from the world outside that goes on without you. You will do anything to protect what little you have, not realizing that your coping mechanism is getting you nowhere. Not seeing that you need to try something different to maybe get a better result. Even a bad step can be a step forward if you think of it that way.
Misao understands this all too well. The current Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling (TJPW) star is currently on an upswing, in the middle of a long win streak and one-half of her league’s tag team champions. But a few years ago, she was one of those people struggling to function. . . a virtual recluse, a self-described “shut-in”, saved and redeemed by the power of pro wrestling. She found the spark that gave her life meaning.
When one of her friends and fellow wrestlers retired, she led the resistance against it. Friendship.
I started watching TJPW last year. It’s an Japanese women’s subsidiary of Dramatic Dream Team (DDT), one of my favorite leagues. It’s silly fun and the performers are endearing and entertaining. I’ve previously written about former idol and cult TJPW wrestling star Maki Itoh.
Maki Itoh is entertaining in her petulant madness but Misao is more compelling because of her life story. While Maki came to TJPW out of idol culture, Misao came to TJPW out of. . . her shell. In 2018, she wrote a four-part blog post about living with her family as a shut-in, staying in her room all day, subsisting on a bag of mini chocolate cream puffs from 7-11 simply because it had the necessary amount of daily calories and because it required minimal amount of chewing. She lived without the spark of life, which is to say barely living at all.
Her mother took her to a local festival where she saw wrestlers fighting in the street. They were having a falls-count-anywhere match and it amazed her. Chaos reigned and the men fought everywhere. A man in a shark mask bit his opponents. Jun Kasai, the hardcore wrestler and self-proclaimed “Crazy Monkey”, jumped off the top of a ladder and crashed for the victory. All of this excited Misao. She then realized that it excited her. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she was excited about anything. It made her want to be a pro wrestler even though she didn’t understand it. She found the spark of life, a reason to get up in the morning.
In 2015, she began her professional wrestler career in earnest at TJPW as the green-clad masked superhero Hyper Misao. She wore a cape at all times and flew at opponents saying “I Am A Hero”. By 2018, she had a match with “Crazy Monkey” Jun Kasai, the man she had seen wrestling at that street festival years before.
The match came with a special stipulation that nobody could go for a pinfall until they finished a bag of mini chocolate cream puffs, the only food that Misao lived on when she still was a recluse.
Kasai defeated her after a wild match by splashing off the top of a giant ladder (naturally) but that was unimportant. Hyper Misao won a place in fans’ hearts by sharing her story and reaffirming why fans watch wrestling: because when it’s good, it makes us feel something and takes us out of ourselves. Just like any other entertainment at its’ best. Wrestling can be fulfilling, redemptive and celebratory.
Hyper Misao vs. Jun Kasai
The first time I tried to write about Misao, I wrote a lengthy and detailed bio covering her origins and storylines. Maybe that’s interesting but not as much as trying to figure out why people still watch wrestling when there’s so much of it available to get burned out on. Moments like Hyper Misao’s match with Jun Kasai keep me watching. It wasn’t a technical classic or an artistic masterpiece but it didn’t matter when I watched it live or re-watched it much later.
I want to feel something when I watch wrestling, both for the people in the ring and for myself. By telling us her story, she gave us more than temporary amusement. She gave us something of herself. She was willing to be vulnerable in a way few artists are. It was an act of giving, pure without self-aggrandizement or self-gratification. It was touching and inspiring and she did it in the forum of pro wrestling where damn near nothing is like that. Almost nothing in entertainment is like that, full stop.
In February, Misao turned heel by renouncing her superhero persona. Frustrated with constantly losing, she took off her mask in the center of the ring and cut it to pieces with a pair of scissors. To emphasize her point, she spiked the scissors into the ring canvas, before aligning herself with NEO Bi-Ishiki Gun leader Sakisama and walking off into the cold February night. It was a symbolically destructive act, killing off the old to make a new start. Misao stared into her past accomplishments and saw an abyss.
Misao: Sakisama, teach me your ways.
Sakisama: HUH? You ready to show me how determined you are?
Misao (removes and cuts up her mask): I have just let go of everything I cared for.
When she returned to TJPW as a member of NEO Bi-Ishiki Gun, Misao (no longer Hyper) returned as Sakisama’s imperial guard. Her gear was a gothic black variation of her past life of a superhero. She no longer flies through the air proclaiming “I Am A Hero”. More importantly, she wrestles without a mask. Sad that such a face that beamed so brightly with joy under a mask would be so expressionless now.
On November 3rd, Misao and Sakisama will defend their tag titles on one of DDT’s biggest shows of the year, DDT Ultimate Party 2019! in one of the prominent matches on the card. Misao has come a long way from being that girl who hid in her room all day living on chocolate snacks from the convenience store. Fans and fellow TJPW wrestlers still miss the fun-loving, crowd-pleasing wacky Hyper hero, including her Ultimate Party! opponent Rika Tatsumi. She among others have tried time and time again to bring that side of Misao out but failed miserably.
A champion, but at what cost?
Wrestling is built on moments, as is life. Misao had that moment of clarity when wrestling helped her rescue herself from reclusion. She had another one when destroying the old Hyper hero persona (admittedly, her in-ring ability has improved greatly since then). She will have more in her career and life.
“No, no, no, no. . . a little more humanity, please.” – Todd Rundgren
courtesy Twitter @misao_tjp
When she started, she wanted to be the superhero of TJPW. Just by getting in that ring, she did something far more heroic. By turning away from her Hyper past, she turned away from that heroic act, practically denying it. It’s cold and it’s cruel but it feels true: there is still sorrow and light inside of us that we struggle to reconcile and that is the nature of the beast that we know as depression. We all want to be something other than what we are. If we change, we yearn to forget the past, to deny it. To deny how it felt to be so low.
There’s a beautiful view from the top of the mountain. Every morning I walk towards the edge. (photo courtesy @oystersearrings on Twitter)
Don’t lose hope for yourself. We’re all capable of having moments, breakthroughs, epiphanies. So much good is possible in this life. Joy, love and happiness is possible in a world that seems inhospitable to such concepts.
UPDATE: Misao was pinned at DDT Ultimate Party! 2019, ending her winning streak and losing the tag team titles in the process. Such is the nature of wrestling, as the story continues. The titles and winning streak were the underpinning of her confidence. It remains to be seen what will happen now they have been taken from her.
(Reference information and photographs were used courtesy DDT English translation fan account @ddtpro_eng on twitter and DDT WordPress fansite which keeps up with DDT and all its’ subsidiary promotions including TJPW. Many thanks.)
October 25, 2019 is a momentous day in music history as the release date for the new Kanye West album, the much-delayed Jesus Is King. More than fifteen years and now nine albums into his career, Kanye has proved to be as controversial and thrilling as ever.
Jesus Is King is a four-disc set consisting of two concerts recorded Halloween Night 1973 at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. The band features drummers Ralph Humphrey and Chester Thompson, percussionist Ruth Underwood, bassist Tom Fowler, trombonist Bruce Fowler, saxophonist/vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock, and keyboardist/vocalist George Duke.
One might think that this era is over-represented, what with last year’s release of The Roxy Performances, which came literally two months after this Halloween performance. This goes double if you own 2016’s Road Tapes, Venue #2 which took place two months prior. Three bands, slightly different changes in personnel and repertoire, four months apart.
This much-cherished era of Kanye’s career (1973-1974) represents the last high water mark before plunging headlong into controversy. A song like “Penguin In Bondage” presages more shocking variants like 1975’s “Carolina Hard-Core Ecstacy” and 1979’s “Bobby Brown Goes Down”. Combined with 1974’s “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow” becoming an unlikely hit, the future looked bleak for fans of Kanye’s high-minded material as novelty humor became an added staple of studio and live repertoire. Jesus Is King represents the beginning of the end of an era of Kanye’s music.
The band on Jesus Is King is strengthened by new additions Thompson and vocalist Brock who makes his presence felt on the Nixon/Watergate commentary “Dickie’s Such An Asshole”. The Humphrey/Thompson tandem-drummer lineup with Brock sing-shouting over “Cheepnis” sounds at times like James Brown chasing Sly Stone through a fun house with a flamethrower.
Just finished Kanye West’s new album.
What does Christianity mean if you support a man who locks kids in cages, grabs women by the pussy, calls racists “very fine people,” lies about a black man’s birth certificate and won’t apologize to the wrongly accused Central Park Five?
It’s fitting that a forty-six year-old song about a President facing a impeachment inquiry be released now when history repeats itself for crimes making the original pale in comparison.
You know you put me in office So you must have wanted me in office I’ve did you no harm I’ve did you no harm You know I’m not a crook You know I’m innocent They say I had twenty-five tapes I only have ten I don’t know what happened to the rest Musta gave ’em to a friend
So how does this compare with The Roxy Performances? For one thing, four discs is a lot more manageable than seven discs. On the plus side, “Pygmy Twylyte” does not turn into an overlong skit about selling someone drugs or a gym sock rolled up into a high school diploma (don’t ask). Unlike Roxy which was also a movie shoot, the Halloween shows are just concerts and there’s no distraction from playing good music. There’s a neat extra on the Jesus Is King rehearsal disc when “Magic Fingers” from 1971 is tried out by the new lineup.
Thread: Kanye said today that y'all called him a "coon" for saying "slavery is a choice."
This is a thread about how slavery was ACTUALLY a choice and the choices they made.
Warning-This post contains stories that will probably make you cry.
On the down side, I don’t need to hear rehearsal versions of the songs that I just heard, “Magic Fingers” exempted. There’s also this tendency with archival live releases to include extra between-song chatter. Is this necessary? I would argue that in the main it’s not.
In my final analysis, I’m not listening to Jesus Is King ever again. Kanye’s brain broke a long time ago and he needs help. Everybody kept telling him he was a genius and they didn’t reverse course after Yeezus came out. Sometimes you have to tell a talented person when they’re fucking up. Otherwise they might make a real piece of shit like Thing-Fish.
A few months ago I was invited to do some phone canvassing at the county Democratic party headquarters., which I previously wrote about.
If you read that original post, you’ll remember it didn’t go well. I tried it again Saturday and it went even worse. How bad? Eugh. I was berated several times. I was told that the Democrats were blowing it. I was told to go to hell because I was a Democrat. I was told “hey I work midnights, please lose my number”.
I’m too sensitive to hold down a job. Nobody likes being berated by customers, bosses, co-workers. People take it anyway because they need a job but I can’t take it so I don’t. I haven’t had a job in years. Because I was a volunteer for the Democrats on this deal, I left and nobody minded.
Matt Bevin is one of the most unpopular governors in the country. Given the circumstance, one would think that Americans would acquiesce to doing the right thing when backed into a corner. Four more years of Matt Bevin would be horrible for Kentucky.
But you know something? I don’t give a shit about Kentucky or most of the people in it. I care about myself, my friends and family. If everybody else decides to submit to the will of a lizard man like Bevin, that’s on them.
I hate to admit it but I loathe most Kentuckians. Mostly because they do it to themselves. I’ve seen things get worse in my lifetime under the leadership of a six-term Senator who only gets his feelings hurt if you add the word “Moscow” to his first name to make it more alliterative. He is as unpopular in Kentucky as Bevin is and likely to get moreso and yet will likely still win in November 2020 because Kentuckians don’t fucking learn their lesson.
Of the ten counties in America with the shortest life expectancy, six of them are in Kentucky’s Fifth District, represented by Republican Hal Rogers who has been in office. . . since 1981. They don’t fucking learn. Is the short life expectancy his fault? Of course not. But I’d be ashamed. Rogers isn’t. They call him the “Prince of Pork“.
Two of the other counties are in Kentucky’s Sixth District, represented by Republican Andy Barr. They don’t fucking learn.
And why don’t they learn? Because of some God/Guns/Gays/Abortion/Coal mumbo-jumbo. There’s so many crosses all over this state, Kentucky is like Italy with most of the art and culture stripped away. It’s almost as if they think they won’t get into Heaven if they vote Democrat.
But let me assure you that if my fellow Kentuckians get what they deserve, I won’t enjoy it because I’ll be caught in the crossfire and so will many of the people I care about. I’ll simply go on not forgiving them. Just like in 2015 when Bevin won in an upset over Jack Conway. That doesn’t mean I’ll forgive them. Not in this lifetime, which thankfully is not in the Fifth or Sixth Districts.
Trigger warning: this has words in it. You may not like some of them.
Lindsey Graham hates cats because their dicks aren’t big enough.
That is the sentence that got me suspended from twitter for a week. Again.
This is not my first twitter suspension. You’ll notice that I am not capitalizing twitter. Some people don’t capitalize tv or god. For me, my word is twitter and being suspended from twitter is like being let out of Shawshank. I should be thankful but I’m pissed. What a miserable hellhole. I can’t believe they kicked me out. Let me back in.
Let me repeat: Lindsey Graham hates cats because their dicks aren’t big enough.
The implication being that Lindsey Graham loves barbed penises. Cats have barbed penises. Cats are too small for a fully-grown human to receive penetrative intercourse from.
If Lindsey Graham is going to receive a cat’s barbed penis, he wants it to be thick and large enough to accommodate him.
I was surprised how fast it was. It took less than an hour from initial posting to suspension. The last time I got suspended it was for a tweet I’d posted two weeks beforehand.
@donaldtrumpjr Your father is retarded. Therefore you are at least half-retarded.
This could be considered targeted harassment according to twitter terms of service. I considered it a low blow but well-deserved insult. Insults are protected speech by the First Amendment. Not on twitter, though.
This may offend you but I think we should make an exception for Trump. Let’s call him a retard until we make him cry and resign from office. We can do it. We could be heroes. Just for one day. When they go low, we call them ret- no, no, stop. . . it’s a slippery slope.
By the way, do you remember when the Iranian president called Trump “mentally retarded“? Good times.
So this is my little corner of the Internet where I can insult whoever I want without getting suspended. I might as well get it out of my system. You may not like some of this. For you cuckservatives, I’ll try to be somewhat bi-partisan.
“Nancy Pelosi” + “fat tittay” + “rule 34”
“Nancy Pelosi” + “AOC” + “BDSM” + “rule 34”
(I tweeted those two above and never got flagged. Apparently, only Republican males got triggered.)
Amy Klobuchar has a cleft vagina.
Mayo Guiliani was originally going to be “Mayor” but I misspelled it. Then I realized it looked better that way.
Mayo Guiliani married his cousin.
No, really. Mayo Guiliani married his cousin. Look it up.
I assume Mayo Guiliani also fucked his cousin, repeatedly.
Why would anybody marry their cousin? To keep them in the country?
“The Legislative Graveyard” is what Mitch McConnell named his taint.
Joe Biden isn’t as horrible as we all think. He’s just whatever.
Steve King is so ashamed of his interracial fetish he masturbates to the yin/yang symbol.
Chuck Schumer envies eunuchs.
Lindsey Graham’s nickname amongst elder Republicans in the Senate: “Suzanne Sugarbaker”
Ben Carson is a n. . .o good man.
Pete Buttitieg’s “gay Christian technocrat” is a bit he got from a Twitter account called Cumtown Character Generator.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will never kiss Ben Shapiro, no matter how much he picks on her.
When Elizabeth Warren cums, she makes excitable Julia Child noises.
Donald Trump is retarded.
Therefore, all of his adult offspring are at least half-retarded.
Lindsey Graham hates cats because their dicks aren’t big enough.
It hasn’t stopped him from trying to get them to fuck him.
Those were my words at the end of the premiere of WWE Friday Night Smackdown on Fox. Brock Lesnar had just defeated Kofi Kingston in about ten seconds for the WWE Championship.
Sometimes you have those moments when you’re watching something and you go “what the fuck”. The Fonz water skiing over the shark. Indiana Jones hiding in a fridge to survive a nuclear blast. Brock Lesnar beating Kofi Kingston in ten seconds.
You know that wrestling is choreographed. The participants have to work together, right? Watch the video. See the problem?
Kofi jumps right into position where the guy can do the move that finishes him off.
A wrestling match is a little story. Some of them have a backstory. In this case, the backstory is the champion (Kofi Kingston) is the underdog against Brock Lesnar who is taller, stronger and most crucially a former UFC Heavyweight champion. There’s a strong chance that Brock will beat Kofi and become the new champion. David vs. Goliath, except this time David has championship gold.
This is the first time pro wrestling has aired on an over-the-air network in decades. One of the big four. Not basic cable. Fox, home to The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers. Mostly known for their Fox Sports package because they show NFL and MLB games, as well as NASCAR. This was perhaps for the biggest television audience WWE has had in years. . . and this is the shit they pull? A ten-second main event?
The great thing about wrestling is the participants’ ability to bend reality. There’s a chance that the underdog might pull off an upset. They give you a reason to believe. You root for them, you begin to hope for something to happen against all odds. You’re sad for the underdog when that belief is snuffed out and the inevitable conclusion is reached.
You could say that this was an UFC-esque surprise finish (a recent UFC fight ended in five seconds by KO). In this case, a guy who successfully defended the world championship for six months was ragdolled for one move and then pinned. That’s not even a UFC-style surprise. It’s just lazy.
You could excuse them for having to be out in time for the local news. Brock vs. Kofi had to be over in time to do the thing where Cain Velazquez comes out to challenge Brock after the match.
That is 100% not my problem. They’re the professionals. I’m not going to bend over backwards and make excuses for them or try to justify the bad creative decisions they make. There’s no set minimum on what a full match has to be, but I can tell you it sure as hell isn’t ten seconds.
WWE would like to have me back. I’m a lapsed fan. Sometimes I check in just to remind myself what drove me away in the first place.
The McMahon family was all over the first Fox Smackdown. From Vince and Stephanie in the opening to Shane’s match. Vince and Steph said “hi” and if they could have they would’ve taken longer to do it.
Shane lost to Kevin Owens in a loser-gets-fired ladder match, which means he’ll be back before the end of the year. I’m waiting for a loser-gets-attacked-by-pitbulls match.
Speaking of suspension of disbelief, watching Shane wrestle means having to pretend that the 50-year-old son of the owner of the company can actually go toe-to-toe with real professional athletes despite looking like his heart could explode any minute.
So what does any of this have to do with Kofi Kingston and Brock Lesnar? Maybe if the family that ran the company could ease off their ego trip just a teeny bit, maybe two things: maybe last night, Kofi and Brock could have had a actual match instead of the wrestling equivalent of tipping the king over. AND maybe in the long term they could actually create new stars (like they used to in The Rock, John Cena and Batista) instead of bringing in ex-MMA champions like Ronda Rousey and Cain Velasquez to get some buzz for the product.
But that’s overly optimistic. And in two years when they’re kicked down to Fox Sports 1 like a shitty Spanish football team, mark my words that October 4, 2019 was WWE’s high water mark and the beginning of the end.
It’s not going to happen. Oligarchy will continue to prevail. Oh, but I can dream! Fair enough. Don’t forget to put a quart of motor oil under your pillow so the oligarch fairy shows up while you sleep. When you wake up, BIG SURPRISE!
Nice roses, socialist.
Yes! Let’s get them! Guillotines for billionaires! Let’s drag them out of their mansions and chop their heads off. Security will be lax so it should be easy to get in. No guard dogs or armed response whatsoever. And it’s easy to get a guillotine. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have one. They’re practically like AR’s.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. We’re never using any of these things ever again. The billionaires will be brought to heel!
You hate to see it. And I am here for it.
It’s amazing how a teenager with Asperger’s can expose the raw nerves of our divisiveness just because she’s a climate change activist. This “RT to show your support” got 80 retweets and hundreds of likes. I’m sure Greta Thunberg felt all of that support.
"You took my childhood away"
Said a child who came to NYC on cool boat chose fame over gaining knowledge at school because famous parents and few liberals told her to do so.
Greta said “You took my childhood away” at the United Nations. So this person shoots back with . . . other children have it worse in impoverished nations? Also children should be seen and not heard. Slam dunk!
The two main thoughts I had when I was sixteen were “I’d like a girlfriend and I want people to stop picking on me.” So if a kid is a climate change or gun control activist, fine. If a kid is an anti-abortion activist, I don’t like it but I’m not gonna yell at them. Unless it’s a boy.
Went to a show with a friend the other night. ‘Twas a good’un for the most part. Was gonna write a review of it but things came up and I’m writing this instead. This one’s for the ladies.
Actually it’s for the men. But it’s about the ladies. Fellas, take a knee.
After the show, my friend went to the parking garage to get her car. A girl from out of town going into a dimly-lit parking garage by herself, late at night.
She stepped into the garage elevator only to be joined by. . . three older guys who went to the concert. Probably in their sixties. No big deal, right?
One of them said something weird to her. Very weird. He went into some strange rap that made her nervous. When she told me later on what he said, I recognized it immediately. It was a reference to the band we saw that night. She went to the concert with me out of curiosity. She didn’t understand it because she’s not familiar with the band.
(I’m keeping the band out of this. It’s not their fault. I’ve written about territorial fandom in the past and there’s a bit of that here. If you didn’t you know what he was talking about, you would have been weirded out too. Trust me.)
When the elevator doors opened, she bolted for the car hoping they wouldn’t follow her. I apologized the entire trip home, sorry that she had to deal with that.
My friend had no clue that the old man was doing a bit from the band’s first album. I can only guess what reaction he wanted from her. Was he high or drunk? Was he just messing with her? I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter.
I felt bad as a friend and as a fan of the band. But the more we talked about it, the more I began to see how she feared something bad was going to happen to her in that parking garage.
Fellas, the women tell us what it’s like to be them. Sometimes they post about it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Having to be careful and taking caution when they go out in public, especially at night. Taking the mace and the pepper spray. Taking precaution to walk with a friend if possible.
Women don’t know what men are capable of. That’s not entirely true. They know, they just don’t know which men.
We see what the women write but we don’t usually retain it because we’re not that dude. Some men get defensive and say #notallmen. Don’t be that guy. Here’s why.
#notallmen attack women, it’s true. But other men use #notallmen to discredit women and the rest of us have to remember that. Women don’t know when we’re just messing around, especially when they don’t know us. The lesson parents teach their kids about strangers are lessons women have to heed for a lifetime.
Maybe I’m the wrong guy to give this message. I’ve said all kinds of crazy nonsense to people. Granted, most of it was on a stage. Is that better or worse? I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone fear for their lives. Definitely embarrassed a few people. I wonder if I ever alienated anyone over something I said without thinking. Just because I was “messing around”. Who am I kidding? Of course I have.
I hope I’m not like that old man in the elevator when I grow up. I hope I’m not like him now.
A lot of people want mob rule so long as it’s their mob that is in charge. Just wanted to get that out of that way because it has been on my mind recently.
Every so often I get it in my head to try something I have never done before. Saturday was that day because for the first time I manned a voter registration booth.
I reached out to KFTC (Kentuckians For The Commonwealth) and they asked me if I wanted to participate in a “new citizen celebration”. I thought that meant that immigrants would be taking oaths to become new citizens. I figured there would be a reception or something where, among other things, the new U.S. citizens could register to vote.
Me and another guy were given a box of voter forms and materials. We didn’t register anyone.
Turns out they weren’t swearing in new Americans. This was simply a celebration for new citizens. The county clerk’s office sent someone to help people register, so we weren’t needed for that. There was a lady from the census office giving out information about next year, and some other booths I can’t remember for. They had a boombox playing Burmese music and snacks. It was sparsely attended, but relatively nice.
Me and the other guy ended up giving out some forms to some people who might need them in case they need an interpreter when they go to vote in November. So we weren’t totally useless.
I feel like it is important for us as citizens to do more beyond bitch about politics on social media. I was glad to be there at the event, yet I don’t know what I was supposed to do there. I thought I knew, but then I got there, and . . .
I felt the same way when the local MoveOn said they were having a protest at Rand Paul’s office in Owensboro a few years ago and I was the only one that showed up. Not even the guy who was the contact for the event made it. The security guards at the building looked at me like I had three heads. Then there was the time where I went to phone bank for the Democrats. I wrote about that. Five pages of numbers and I got through to six people. There’s a few more of these I blotted out of my memory because they are so embarrassing.
It’s not even like I tried to help on a policy measure like a fairness ordinance and failed. I never got that far. I couldn’t possibly recommend getting involved in community organizing based on my own personal experience.
To be fair, my comfort zone is about >>>>this<<<< big. When I leave the house, I’m not comfortable unless I’m surrounded by at least a half-dozen people I know. So don’t listen to me. I take to things like a duck to baseball.
I don’t do this often because I don’t have the time or energy but I do it because I feel like everybody can do a little bit. I’m frustrated with the state of things right now. I don’t want to look back years from now and say I didn’t try at all. Even if I turn out to be bad at it.
In my last post, I wrote about my hatred of the stans, the fanboys, you name it. Toxic fanbases.
If there were anything I came close to fanboy-ing over it would be Queen. I’m hardly alone.
A lot of people love Queen, and some people wonder what the worst Queen songs are. The Queen discography is small enough to hash this over: fifteen studio albums. It’s hard to get a consensus.
A few people will say “all of them”. They can go to hell.
1982’s Hot Space is generally regarded as the band’s worst album, the one where they attempted to expand on their unlikely funk/disco success with 1980’s “Another One Bites The Dust”. That album gave us “Body Language” (a classic of ironic bad taste and actual hit single) but it also gave is the Freddie-penned “Staying Power”.
Let me show it to you yeah
See what I got, I got a hell of a lot Tell me what you feel Is it real is it real You know I got what it takes And I can take a lot
I’m not ready for any song about Freddie’s dick. Let me show it to you. No thanks. #Metoo
I could choose plenty of songs throughout the band’s career. Roger Taylor’s “Modern Times Rock ‘n Roll” from their debut album is under two minutes long, and sounds like it took less than that to both write and record. Brian May wrote “Sleeping On the Sidewalk” for 1977’s News Of The World. It’s a blues song, and though Queen are legally allowed to perform in the blues idiom doesn’t mean they should.
On purely musical terms, the worst song is “My Baby Does Me” from 1989’s The Miracle. They’re using a drum machine, which is never a good sign. Freddie sings as if he’s saving what remaining strength he has for better songs. The song is credited to the whole group but it sounds like a John Deacon song that everybody else said “fine” and helped out on just to be nice. I’m not linking to these songs because I care about you.
But the absolute worst song that Queen ever did is one that nobody ever talks about. It’s “White Man” from 1976’s A Day At The Races. Just listen:
I’m a simple man With a simple name From this soil my people came In this soil remain Oh yeah, oh yeah
We made us our shoes We trod soft on the land But the immigrant built roads On our blood and sand Oh yeah, oh yeah
At the start, there’s a Hollywood-esque Indian riff on guitar while Freddie sings with a trace of Tonto in his voice.
It’s written by Brian May, a white guy from England. The longer you listen, the worse it gets lyrically.
This is a song about the Native Americans and their suffering at the hands of the white Europeans who colonized North America, sung from the perspective of a Native American himself.
Famous white people assuming the voice of the repressed and the voiceless. Queen were hardly the first to do it nor were they the last, unfortunately. Like an actor assuming they truly understand what its like to be poor and impoverished because they played a poor person in a movie. It’s insulting and patronizing.
Musically, it’s a decent rock song. That’s not the issue. It’s Hollywood elitism by way of London, England.
“White Man” is the Washington Redskins of Queen songs and that’s why it is the worst one. “My Baby Does Me” is actually worse but y’know what I mean.
The band member most qualified to write that song was right there the whole time.
Y’know. The Parsi guy from Zanzibar who had to flee with his family from their war-torn homeland in his teens? What would he know about having his homeland taken from him?
Just to recap: never let your fandom get in the way of the truth. Sometimes your faves make shit. The sooner you realize that, the better you will be able to appreciate when they create something great.
