Piracy is back baby.
There has been a lot of talk in the news this week about the Somali Pirates who are currently holding 16 ships and more than 300 crew members hostage off the coast of Africa. The word “Pirate” carries somewhat whimsical connotations, since it’s almost impossible to separate the term from it’s historical context (note the “Jolly Roger” in this Associate Press article). These days Pirates are beloved, familiar characters, closely associated with wonderful things like Peter Pan, Johnny Depp, corsets and cheap rum. Pirate appreciation is firmly ingrained in our culture and I’ve seen more Pirate costumes and theme parties than I’d care to remember.
Given this, I think it’s time to retire the word “Pirate” as the technical term for modern day acts of violence at sea; there are just too many adorable associations. We’re talking about a bunch of desperate murders and thieves with guns, they just happen to travel by boat. However when I hear “Pirate,” I get an image in my head very much like the one above. This feels highly inappropriate considering the seriousness of the situation, and I move that from now on we try to avoid using the word outside of it’s historical and mythical meaning.
I can think of no other instance in which a crime carries such a loaded label due to it’s context, instantly casting the criminals as cute cultural caricatures.
When someone shoots up a bar in Dallas we don’t respond with “Ah yes. Cowboys.”
When someone is beaten to death in Japan, we don’t necessarily attribute it to Ninjas.
I wanna get with you tonight but I cannot babygirl and that’s the issue
I read an astute cultural observation the other day on the “Stuff White People Like” Blog. If you haven’t checked out this site yet I think you may be in the minority. The Canadian genius behind it has so many people reading his astute cultural observations that he was able to leverage a book deal out of it. That would be pretty sweet right?
Right?
(sound of internet-crickets chirping)
Right. So anyway, this guy makes a nice living pointing out racial differences, and I thought this one from several months ago was especially fine: White People like Black Music that Black People don’t listen to anymore. You can read his detailed and well-phrased analysis here, but the basic gist is that what’s chic in African American culture right now won’t become popular with White Hipsters for several years. You can extend this argument through the histories of jazz, blues and rock n’ rock, but it’s most applicable to my life in terms of hip hop. I will be the first to admit that I love “old school hip hop” (i.e. anything that black people were listening to in the mid-nineties), but much of the music being released today that is wildly popular with African Americans is completely lost on me.
This is most true in terms of R&B.
It seems to me that R&B lyrics have gotten pretty ridiculous in recent years. I think the tipping point was R. Kelly’s epic “Trapped in the Closet” video series. With this seminal work, Kelly took the standard R&B template (passionately speak-singing over two chords and a stuttering drum machine) and wrote lyrics so beautifully banal and conversational that he created a work of comic genius.
In case you are the one person on the planet who hasn’t seen it (hi Mom!), Kelly narrates a series of ludicrous events as if he were barreling through the libretto of an urban opera. And much like opera, the inherent style of R&B drips with passion and sincerity, so that the topics he’s singing about (infidelity, murder, midgets, etc.) are in hilarious contrast to the way he’s singing about them.
Here’s an example:
“Hurry up and get in the closet”
She said, “Don’t you make a sound
Or some shit is going down”
I said, “Why don’t I just go out the window?”
“Yes, except for one thing, we on the 5th floor”
“Shit, think, shit, think, quick, put me in the closet”
And now I’m in this dark ass closet, tryin’ to figure out
Just how I’m gonna get my crazy ass up out this house
Kelly bravely shattered the stigma that lyrics should be composed rather than simply transcribed from everyday conversations, and was innovative in establishing that just because the musicality of R&B is akin to an aural roofie, you don’t necessarily have to sing about love, or seduction, or really make any kind of sense at all. And if you DO sing about love, Kelly teaches us that it’s okay to focus on the practical rather than the poetic, to speak-sing about the logistical realities and complications of modern love. His message is warmly embraced in this new song from Soulja Boy, a very successful artist whose current popularity baffles me (but I’m sure in ten years I’ll love him):
Baby you know that I miss you
I wanna get with you tonight but I cannot babygirl
And that’s the issue
Girl you know I miss you
I just wanna kiss you
But I can’t right now so baby kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you later on..
Kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you when I get home
I mean that’s kind of romantic. It’s just hilarious to me the way he crams these awkward run-on sentences in between the thumps of the 808 drum machine. I also like to imagine the rampant high-fiving in the studio when he realized he could rhyme “miss you” and “kiss you” with “issue.”
It gets weirder. I saw Raheem Devaughn’s video “Text Messages” the other day at Radioshack. By this point artists are actually making the banal romantic. I can’t think of many things less romantic then text messaging (maybe kissing through the phone) but this guy pulls it off. An excerpt:
I’m sending you some text messages
But you can call em sex messages
And IDK when I’ll be there
But I’ll TTY later & we’ll be loving ASAP
And we can X-O-X-O
Do it all night long
Soon as I get home
You’ll be making smiley faces
Switch positions, trading places
Girl you gonna get it
As soon as I send my sex message
Just to clarify Raheem’s updated definitions of texting terms, X-Oing is intercourse, smiley faces are orgasms, and “IDK when I’ll be there” means “Bitch stop calling me. You wanna kiss someone through the phone try Soulja Boy.”
The winner of course in the ridiculous R&B lyrics contest that I am apparently having is last year’s groundbreaking, “Let Me Smell Yo Dick.” If for some reason you haven’t heard about this yet (Mom, you’re still reading this?) then you should probably click the link so you can see for yourself that this song is all too real and deadly serious. It’s the first release from up-and-coming artist and prime girlfriend material Riskay (pictured here preparing to smell your dick) and it takes Kelly’s conversational crooning to a new level: she’s not singing about love, or even the trivialities associated with it like sex texts and phone kissing. She’s gone to the other end of the spectrum. While it’s still an R&B song with sugary synthesizers and drum machines dripping seduction, the subject matter is actually a brutal argument about infidelity and dick-smelling as a reliable means of discouraging it. The lyrics in R&B songs have officially become polar opposites of their romantic style. It’ll still be a decade before the white hipsters catch on, but I think the following excerpt should make one thing perfectly clear to everybody: If you X-O with Riskay, be sure to kiss her through the phone, or IDK what she could be capable of.
Nigga this is the 15th muthafuckin time
That I called and left yo ass messages
I done text yo bitch ass,
And u ain’t respondin to nothin
What the fuck is you doing
Who the fuck is you out there with
You think I’m stupid,
My gurlz already done put me up on your ass tonight
When u get home I got some news for yo bitch ass
[Chorus]
Why you comin home 5 in the mornnn
Somethins goin on, can I smell yo dick
Don’t play me like a fool, cause that ain’t cool
So wat u need to do is lemme smell yo dick
Nora Roberts
I’ve been seeing a lot of posters around town advertising “The Nora Roberts Collection,” a series of Lifetime movies based on romance novels so smoldering that one of them caused it’s lead, country music singer Leanne Rhymes, to cheat on her husband with her chiseled costar. I decided to look into Roberts herself, the writer who supplied the material for this erotic controversy.
As usual I began and ended my research with Wikipedia, uncovering the following juicy tidbits:
During her sophomore year in high school, Roberts…met her first husband, Ronald Aufem-Brinke. They married, against her parents’ wishes, in 1968, as soon as she had graduated from high school.
Sounds a little bit salacious, right? Two young lovers, striking out on their own in direct defiance of their families, finding their way through the world by the light of their love. But wait, it gets better:
Roberts met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, a carpenter, when she hired him to build her bookshelves.
WTF!?! If that’s not the plot of a romance novel I don’t know what is. A lonely, recently divorced novelist…the humble but passionate carpenter she hired to build her bookselves. His calloused but gentle hands…
As a man who experienced much of his sexual awakening flipping through romance novels in grocery stores, I know a thing or two about pulpy plots.
My conclusion: Roberts is not a novelist.
She is a very skilled and prolific autobiographer who just happens to have lived the MOST ROMANTIC LIFE EVER.
OMFG Addendum: ManSluts
Here is one further thought on the preceding definition of the word “slut.”
If you haven’t yet read it, please scroll down and do so.
Your back, good. So we agree that, for better or for worse, this phenomenon exists. Society places pressure on other genders to limit their number of sexual partners, creating these sometimes hurtful stigmas. However, what these other genders don’t realize is that men suffer from this same pressure, only in reverse:
THE OMFG LAW OF MANSLUTTERY
The pressure that society places on women to avoid sex without intimancy is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to the pressure that society places on men to avoid intimacy without sex.
In other words, a woman who sleeps with a man on the first date faces the same kind of criticism from her female friends that a man receives from his male friends when he DOESN’T sleep with a woman on the first date. In addition, the criticism of male peers is often more harmful than that of females, who will mainly limit their attack to snarky comments. Men will actually whip you with rolled up towels and draw penises on your face while you sleep.
If a man allows himself to get a reputation as someone who will take a girl out several times without pressuring her into sex, he becomes a ManSlut. Like a woman’s insecurity as to whether or not a man will continue to date her after she’s put herself on the line by sleeping with him, a man will lie awake at night wondering if a woman will ever sleep with him now that he’s put himself on the line by taking her to dinner several times. Both parties run the risk of giving up their most precious resource and getting nothing in return. So the next time that you other genders complain about feeling like a slut, think about all the wayward ManSluts out there…the nice guys who let a girl get inside their wallet and then never hear from them again; the emotional trauma of a $150 dinner without even a trip to 2nd base. Have some sympathy for the men who took no for an answer.
And gentlemen, do not let yourselves fall into this trap. Beware the plight of the ManSlut.
Remember OMFG’s words of wisdom:
No one fucks the cow when he’s buying them milk for free.
OMFG Vocabulary – Word of the Day “Slut”
Okay. It’s time to start some shit. Specifically with the person who wrote this book:
Much kerfuffle has been made by other genders about the “double standard” when it comes to the use of the word “slut.” The argument is essentially that the inclination to sleep with many people whom you barely know is viewed by society as a negative trait in women and a positive trait in men, and that this is unfair. My refuffle (i.e. rebuttal of the kerfuffle) is many-layered:
LAYER 1: It’s easier to be a slut than a stud. Every man knows that sleeping with a woman, any woman, especially one that you just met, requires a great deal of work: lying (mostly), back-handed complements, spending money, beating-out other males, wearing uncomfortably tight pants and reshaping your body in strange and unnatural ways. Men, on the other hand, require little or no effort to seduce. While a woman may have to put in some work to sleep with a man of very high social status or a reality TV star, it is a safe bet that 3/4 of the men in any given bar on any given night will sleep with a slice of pineapple if the opportunity presents itself.
It follows then that society would place greater value on the more difficult task, just as video games offer greater rewards at higher levels, while the “princess” is obtained only at the highest level of all. (Please note that I am not nerdy, this is just a good analogy).
LAYER 2: Men and women, though similar in many ways, have some biologically differences. Can we agree on this? Furthermore, these differences have to do chiefly with their sexual organs (i.e. bait and tackle vs. whale eye). Still with me so far? Now, doesn’t it seem to make sense that their attitudes towards sex could be just as different as their naughty bits? Therefore, is it not right and good and just that we use a different social standard to interpret their sexual behavior? A “double standard” if you will? And thus OMFG’s gender politics come beautifully into focus: we are all in favor of social and economic justice, fair governmental treatment and equal opportunities for all genders. But a double standard for sexual behavior? That one we might want to keep.
LAYER 3: RETURN TO LAYER ISLAND
The following is copied from an evolutionary psychology article that I found floating somewhere in the internet’s bastion of truth:
Since a man cannot be sure he is the father of his mate’s children, he would be more upset by a mate’s sexual infidelity than a woman would because women are always sure the child she is bearing is her own. In contrast, a woman who can benefit from a mate’s contribution to child rearing, would be more upset by a mate’s emotional infidelity (and the risk of economic abandonment it might presage) than a man.
(Buss, Larsen, Westen and Semmelroth, 1992; Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, and Buss, 1996; Daly, Wilson, and Weghorst, 1982; Wiederman and Allgeier, 1993)
In case you’re dazzled by the long list of phycologists that support this theory and the use of the fancy word “presage,” I will codify (double fancy word bonus) my argument with the OMFG translation of the preceding statement: Men stress about sex, women stress about love. This is the SOCIAL result of the BIOLOGICAL differences discussed in Layer 2. THERE-MUTHAFUCKIN-FORE, men have created a social stigma, “slut,” to discourage women from promiscuity and to ensure paternity of their offspring. Other genders have a similar social invention that fills their biological needs, insuring the male’s continued economic support of their children. It’s called marriage.
It is important to note that there is another significant usage of the word “SLUT:” as an acronym for Seattle’s new public transportation system, the “South Lake Union Trolley.” In this usage, the word is an example of urban planning gone terribly, hilariously wrong and can be enjoyed by people of all genders.
The SLUT: Come on and ride it.
Movie Review: Creepshow
I have selflessly waded through some real crap in the last few weeks, searching through my massive stockpile of Steven King movies for those few gems that stand a cut above the rest. We all know that Carrie, The Shining and The Green Mile are legitimate, well-made pieces of cimema. I’m talking about sorting through the really, truly crappy stuff; trying to determine which of his bad movies are bad enough to be funny, which one’s don’t take themselves too seriously, which ones are scary not just for their content, but because they have a production quailty similar to that of the VHS in The Ring, and may actually be haunted.
Creepshow is one of these gems. Released the same year I was born, It has become a cult classic, so I am far from the first person to point out it’s brilliance, but I may well be the first person to point it out to the four people who read my blog. Creepshow is great because it hits all the highs and all the lows at once. It is hilarious, both intentionally and unintentionally. It has parts that try to be scary and fail, and parts that try to be scary and really succeed. It has laughably bad special effects and images that have haunted me for weeks. Best of all, it has great performances by unknown actors and atrocious performances by future stars.
Creepshow consists of five short stories woven together by a flimsy framework featuring Steven King’s own son (giving possibly the worst performance by a child actor in the history of film) as a boy who can’t get enough of his horror comic books. The first story is a classic zombie revenge fable featuring a young (but not that young) Ed Harris. The second is a short rip-off of The Blob featuring a one-man cast of Steven King himself. It’s interesting to note that while his son is a bad actor on the level of Ali Larter, King himself is pretty fun to watch. He’s the only one who seems to be consciously playing this comic book movie in a comic book style. In fact, King’s cameos in all his movies have a sort of winking awareness to them, unlike Stan Lee’s cameos in all the Marvel movies, in which he seems overly enthusiastic and occasionally disoriented.
The next short features my favorite star turns of all: Leslie Neilsen versus Ted Danson. The film catches both men at turning points in their careers; Nielsen has just done Airplane, but has yet to embrace his transformation from dramatic actor in campy films to campy actor in brilliant comedies. He plays it his deadpan best, but you can sense his sneaking suspicion that this film, and his entire career for that matter, might soon be enjoyed only ironically. Meanwhile, Danson has recently booked Cheers and quite visibly doesn’t give a fuck about this movie. He seems barely interested in his scenes (which feature his death, reanimation, and death again) and becomes the film’s second victim of “Larterism” (speaking English as if you’re reading it phonetically, with no knowledge of meaning or context).
The final short is another one-man nightmare featuring the scariest image I have seen in months, and I watch a horror movie almost every night. I can’t think of any clever way to allude to it, so I’ll just tell you: dude gets HIS WHOLE BODY FILLED WITH COCKROACHES. Now I will be the first to admit that cockroaches freak me out. A few crawling around my apartment, let alone my body, are enough to reduce me to the physical and mental state of an 11-year-old girl meeting the Jonas Brothers. For me, this short scene was one of my few tastes of genuine terror since I saw a live birth in 9th Grade Health.
Even if you’re not in it for the scares, or the gross effects, or the camp value, this movie is worth checking out for the IMDB credits. It’s a wonderful example of low budget horror movies as the great star-finders that they are. Doing a horror movie is one of the only ways that an unknown actor can get screen time, since horror movies are one of the few genres that don’t require stars to sell them; the scares themselves are the stars. Consequently you see more horror movies at the bottom of A-List resumes than soaps & commercials combined. So if that body filled with cockroaches turns you off, just think how that effect helped get this movie made, and how this movie and many like it launched the thriving careers of some of our most popular and respected stars.
Here are a few of my favorites, and the secret shames that gave them names:
Paul Rudd – Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Johnny Depp – A Nightmare on Elm Street
Jennifer Aniston – Leprechaun
Kevin Bacon – Friday the 13th
John Travolta – Carrie
Julianne Moore – Tales from the Darkside
Doug E. Doug – Dr. Giggles
Meryl Streep – Sophie’s Choice
Piano Fight
Alert citizens: awesomeness has occurred. The good people at Piano Fight Productions in sunny San Francisco have agreed to include my new show “TMZ TV: Too Many Zombies!” in their Shortlived Festival this spring. I went back to the script and devised a tight, 12-minute, California-exclusive version of the show, so what you see in the Studio 250 Theater at 965 Mission Street on Friday and Saturday nights starting April 3rd has never been seen before and will most likely never be seen again. It’s a competition, so my show runs every weekend until it’s voted out. I’m obviously not a local, so if you’re reading this from California (admittedly, very unlikely) please go over there and check it out! If not, just check out this company. They seem really dope. In fact I like them so well that I’m spattering their link all over my blog like a loveless back ally facial.
I love San Francisco. I yearn to escape there someday. I’ve got some family and a few friends out there, the people smile at you on the street, and the cost of living is one I’m familiar with (unreasonably high). It’s a fast town with a happenin’ scene (my cousin is a successful DJ there) but it also has access to the kind of natural beauty that I grew up with and that, I’m forced to admit, is firmly stitched into my DNA. The only think missing for me up to this point has been the comedy community, and Piano Fight seems to be filling that need in an aggressive yet tender way. Right on boys.
Dear Robot that Writes Comments on my Blog,
Dearest Robot,
Thank you for taking the time to read my humble musings and post intricate comments on them many, many times each day. I need every reader I can get, and far be it from me to quell your admiration. However, I feel that your observation the other day was so inflammatory that I am moved to open a dialogue with you. In response to one of my recent posts, you brazenly commented:
bunfmom
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How dare you sir? The temerity of this robot. Honestly, dinmfeglzpen? And as if that’s not enough, [url=http://gzzorcprdqjj.com/]gzzorcprdqjj[/url]? Grow up asshole. I have a good mind to 63.115.180.130 you right back, all over your face! 5×46TC my left nut! You think you can just come in here and http://uaqtkenfgdaa.com/ on my blog? On my website?!?
Fuck off short circuit.
(i.e. – stop spamming me, assholes)
On an unrelated note, over in in-joke corner:
DEENA! Ooo child
Your good at SO many thangs
SO muthafuckin many thangs!
The least Irish thing ever
Confused Asian woman wearing a pink kimono.
In Midtown Manhattan.
On St. Patrick’s Day.
GIRL YOU GON’ GIT PINCHED!
Movie Review: The Mangler
I have recently come into possession of about 50 Steven King movies. In an effort to feel productive as I lie on my couch, watching them one by one, feeling the prime of my life slip away, I am taking the liberty of reviewing my findings here for your education, saving you the valuable time and brain cells it would take to absorb them all yourself. You can thank me later, since if you are reading this it is highly likely that I know you personally.
(Note: since most of these aren’t worth seeing if you have a life, I will be SPOILING THEM ALL).
The Mangler: I was drawn to this title because “The Mangler” to me implies a serial killer, and a gruesome one at that; the kind that escapes from mental asylums and leaves hooks on the car door handles of young lovers. Therefore I was shocked to learn that the Mangler, in this case, refers to a WASHING MACHING.
Yes indeed, a large industrial laundry machine like the one pictured here. I read in his biography that Steven King used to work in an industrial laundry before he became a bazillionaire, so this story was no doubt an idle workplace fantasy that he dreamed up based on the things around him, much like I often daydream that the letter opener at my desk is the Sword of Power and will transform me into He-Man if properly invoked.
The problems with this movie are twofold:
One: It stars Ted Levine, who you probably know as Buffalo Bill from “The Silence of the Lambs.” As that character, he talked in a kind of affected drawl that sounds like a cross between Forest Gump and Jeff Bridges with a loose filling. When I saw “Silence…” I thought it was a nice character choice for the creepy villian. After seeing “The Mangler” I now realize that no, that’s just the way he talks. It kind of starts to grate on you when he plays the lead.
The other small problem with the movie is that the villain is a WASHING MACHINE. It is incapable of movement and therefore cannot even chase you as fast as a re-animated corpse or a lumbering serial killer. Therefore, as the body count rises, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that people keep standing so close to it. Most of the deaths on the latter half of the movie play out much like this:
Hapless New England Factory Worker: “This machine just mangled that old lady!”
Evil One-Eyed Employer: “Which machine?”
Hapless New England Factory Worker: (pointing to it) “Why this one right here…OH MY GOD! IT’S GOT MY POINTIN’ HAND! I’M A GONNER FOR SURE!”
It’s amusing, but makes distractingly little sense, and needless to say that an object lesson in workplace safety was not what I was looking for when I threw in “The Mangler.” I was looking for the sociopath with the hook for a hand who, even if he’s too crazy to sprint after the escaping teens, will at least chase them at a brisk stroll.