Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

What’s The Best Way To Put This? I’m Out Of Debt.


in

4 years and many, many thousands of dollars later – I am officially out of debt. Evil incarnate was Discover Card issuing checkbooks to out of work 20-somethings after the dot com bubble burst. Rent? No problem. $1,000 to go to Phoenix for a wedding? No problem. 80% interest rate? Wait, excuse me. I didn’t realize “Discover” was actually a Russian last name, and since when are your offices located in a Southie dockyard? Wicked.

It’s a happy day. Time for pizza and cokes at the Pushcart, then tomorrow I am off to Toronto for Venditti’s wedding. I will attempt to squeeze a quizzlet in tomorrow, but new projects (seo blog) and a crazy workplace are eating up a lot of my bloggy time. But I shall return. I always do.

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Indiana Jones And The Cult Of Ray.


in Musical

The only supposed pop culture happening more tenuous than whether or not there is going to be an Indiana Jones 4, is whether or not there will be a new Pixies record. The only person who cares about both simultaneously, who isn’t wearing Spock ears in their parent’s basement while feeding crickets to a tarantula, is me. So I was very excited when Nate sent me this today. It’s not logical that you won’t come get your dinner, Charlotte. There’s a good girl.

“Since we got back together we’ve played almost everywhere we can,” explained Black to the NME website. “I know we like playing and everyone likes touring together, so to keep doing that and not record anything is kind of like being a county fair band. We don’t want to do that, so the only thing we can do is become a vital band again. So it’s just a matter of doing it, I guess.”

And the timing couldn’t be better, as I’m off to see Frank Black at Axis this very evening. Oh what a wondrous time to be a music/movie nerd. A copy of Bossanova and a bullwhip, and I’m gonna be just fine.

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Leave Sexy Right Where It Frigging Is.


in Musical

Where has “sexy” been that so many people seem intent now on bringing it back? All praise be to Justin Timberlake for bestowing this special gift upon all of us. Just Google it and click a few pages deep. It’s frightening. How many times have you heard it said now by TV presenters? How many of your MySpace friends have it as their profile tag line (probably shouldn’t have said that one out loud)? How many times have you seen it used clumsily in newspaper headlines? “Missing Teen’s Parents Doubt She’s Coming SexyBack.”

“The saying “bringing SexyBack” has become somewhat of a catchphrase since the song came out. It was heavily used at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. Al Gore, for example, said he wouldn’t have come to the VMA’s at first but then he heard that “Justin Timberlake is bringing SexyBack”. Lil Kim and Jared Leto also said they were “bringing SexyBack” during the show. Also, while hyping his debut on ECW, professional wrestler Shannon Moore made a reference to the song when he quoted “I’m the Prince of Punk and I’m bringing SexyBack!”

Many other artists could have benefitted from this innovative strategy. Aerosmith could have been SexyBack in the Saddle. The Hoodoo Gurus could have sung I Want You SexyBack. ACDC might have been SexyBack in Black. Frank Black could have gone SexyBack to Rome. Paula Abdul and that silly looking cat could have gone “… one step forward and two steps sexyback”. I mean, it’s almost tragic that this wasn’t thought of 10 years ago. I’m so clever and sarcastic, eh?

So I’d officially like to do my part in bringing sexyback. Back to the exchange counter at HMV.

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How Sweet It Was. Bitch.


in Reminiscent

I have touched upon how much I think new rap sucks before. I have also asked myself the question “Am I just old now?” Perhaps I’m just following a cycle, the way my Grandmother must have looked down her nose at my mother’s Elvis ’45 collection. The odd modern rap song (I like Clipse a lot) will turn my head, but en masse – compared to how much I loved it circa 86 to 94 – it’s just awful. Look at my car, check out this tacky spinning crap rim I tacked on to my wheel, Look at my diamond plated necklace which also looks like the wheel of my car, look at the ass on this girl, listen to the blippedy beep I made on a synthesizer in 2 minutes.” Ya feel me?

I am not saying that these themes haven’t been prevalent since the days of the Treacherous Three. I’m implying it’s all anybody bloody talks about now. Sure there are the Talib Kwelis and the like who opt for message – but they are few, far between and rarely on the charts anywhere. And by old school, I am not referring to pre-1988 but all the way up to the mid-nineties. The golden-age of rap occured, for me, about the summer of 92 and then dropped off sharply when Biggie died. You can almost trace it back to the month.

My thoughts are on this today because I watched the VH1 Hip Hop Legends Awards on Sunday night and thoroughly enjoyed the shiznit out of it. The way it works, is 6 seminal rappers are picked to join the legend ranks. Then, after a “Story of…” video is played on the big screen, a medley of that artists’ songs is performed by current rappers, often with the honored artist themself joining in at the end. It was really well done – Beastie Boys songs were performed by Q-Tip, Fabolous and Diddy before they joined in at the end. Rakim was honored and performed as did MC Lyte, Ice Cube and Wu Tang. Segments were punctuated by great old songs by EPMD, Das Efx and the like. It made me wonder what the phunk happened.

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