fourfour

Yeah, so about that song...

I mentioned earlier this week that thanks to prolonged exposure to Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" (via L.A. radio), the song is permanently lodged in my head. I complained about it, but, in fact, I not-so-secretly love it. And I know that's wrong. Soulja Boy Tell 'Em is a talentless, toxic waste of space, who couldn't even come up with a coherent moniker. Seriously, is it a name or a command, and if it's the latter, who's Soulja Boy telling to tell 'em? Us? Himself? And what are we supposed to tell 'em? That he's Soulja Boy? He could have done that himself by choosing a simpler name! In fact, I don't want to tell 'em anything because it all seems so unclear. I might make a mistake. I'm not expert in these Soulja Boy matters.

And yet, I don't hate myself for loving "Kiss," despite the fact that it is maybe the stupidest song this side of Flo Rida. "Baby, you know that I miss you / I wanna get wit' you / Tonight, but I cannot baby girl and that's the issue," sings anonoteen Sammie. I'm really glad he explains what the issue is, because I really wouldn't have gotten it otherwise. I seriously would be sitting in traffic, screaming at my radio, "What's the issue?" without Sammie. So, thanks Sammie. I appreciate it so much that I'll tell 'em for you. Whatever you want, I'll tell 'em.

Soulja Boy's raps (if you want to call them that, and if you're like me, you don't) are devoid of ideas enough to make Sammie sound like Thomas Edison. "Baby, I know that you like me / You my future wifey / Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, yeah! / You can be my Bonnie..." he sing-songs, making narcissism seem less like a disorder and more like a syndrome (as in Tourette) as he drops his (did I mention?) really fucking stupid moniker for no reason beyond reminding us how stupid it is. "I can be your Clyde / You can be my wife," he continues, which: really? I can be your wife? Because I thought that "You my future wifey" already implied permission, but I suppose no amount of commanding is enough from a manchild who calls himself, in case you need reminding, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. "Baby, I been thinkin' lately / So much about you / Everything about you / I like, yeah, I love it," he says, and then later, "I miss ya / I miss ya / I miss ya / I really wanna kiss ya, but I cain't." In these examples Soulja Boy Tell 'Em is using repetition for effect. The effect just happens to be more support of the notion that he is an idiot with nothing to say. And then, the bridge: "She call my phone like, 'Dah-dah-dahdahdahdahdah-dah Dahdahdahdahdah-dah Dahdahdahdahdah," he intones, proving that he doesn't even have the musical talent to imitate a ringtone worth illegally downloading.

I'm dogging this hard after professing my love for it, but that's the point. When you think as much as I do about all the pop culture that passes through your senses, there's something wonderfully refreshing about surrendering to the charms of something you know is terrible. There's something primal and basic about loving a piece of shit like this: like oxygen, you take the pop song in and it does what it's supposed to and you don't have to think about it. (The guttural bass line that contrasts with the bubblegum nature of the song, as well as the insanely catchy chorus don't hurt, either.) To call "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" mindless seems almost too obvious, but it's worth doing since this song does stupid particularly well: it makes sense that someone dumb enough to believe that a kiss can be placed through the phone would be dumb enough to rap any and all of the lines quoted above. Bravo, Soulja Boy! You really told us.

Look at me I touch your breast

For the second time in two weeks, I saw Throbbing Gristle at Brooklyn's Masonic Temple. I'm not really an obsessed fan -- there was a point when I thought I wouldn't be able to make the first show, so when they added the second, I jumped on those tickets. It turned out that I was able to catch both, but I'm not complaining. There are worse things, certainly, than having to watch Throbbing Gristle play one of their meager handful of shows twice, plus last night's show was longer and more energetic than the first -- the band's mini tour warmed its members up well.

But that's not the point of this post. I just want to share with you this very special woman I spotted in the balcony, who's pictured after the jump. I won't give anything away, but I will warn you that what you're about to see is NSFW:

Nat, a pretty girl

She was a bitch until the bitter end, and I, for one, wouldn't have wanted it any other way. You were robbed, baby girl!

Unbeweaveably tired

I had to travel again this weekend. So the bad news is that I have no ANTM recap today (I actually wonder how the recap is going to turn out once I get it up, as I am out of it). The good news is that after having to drive around L.A. so much, I'll never ever ever get Soulja Boy and Sammie's "Kiss Me Through the Phone" out of my head. Oh wait, no. That's bad news, too.

Tomorrow...?

This is funny

As porn becomes more amateur (via Xtube and its ilk), it becomes more amateurish. One of the most hilariously awkward symptoms of this is the appearance of pets in videos featuring their owners getting physical/animal. Notice I used the word "appearance," and not "participation." The distinction is, you know, vital. Anyway! Someone close to me has started a Tumblr of edited screen shots to document this sort of furry awkwardness. It's called Heavy Petting, and I think the brilliance of the idea is only reinforced by its execution. (Full disclosure: I kinda wanted it to be called Accidental Bestiality, but I guess the b-word is a total no-no.) Anyway, go there (it's somewhere between SFW and NSFW), and love it.

Bonus: Check below for an animated gif that I contributed to the site. Again, notice I didn't say "participated in."

Staunch characters

I know that last week was unofficial Grey Gardens week on the Internet, and five days after the HBO movie premiered, I've yet to post anything about it. Do I just move on like time, or am I so passe as to write about something that should already be in the yellow room, eating cat-food pâté, according to Internet time? Like Little Edie says, it's awful both ways.

But look, the movie is such a gem that I've grown increasingly anxious as each day goes by without getting this out. So, let me quickly say: wow. At its heart, Grey Gardens (2009) is a movie about a movie. I believe that this is the primary reason why it shares its name with the 1975 documentary (it's eponymous like Gandhi). It begins with the Edies Beale watching the Maysles' work, and continues returning to the filming of the doc throughout its duration. This makes sense, too, as the documentary was the climax of these natural entertainers' lives. Of course, the draw of this cinematic biopic is its display of how former society dames came to live in squalor. They had their cake, loved it, masticated it, chewed it and then became extremely sick from food poisoning.The film devotes itself to the cause of how and, as such, is a building of the ruins.

It seems to intuitively know what the fans care about and hone in on that. We meet Gould. We understand the melancholy in Big Edie's voice when she talks about her "terribly successful" marriage. We see that Little Edie isn't quite the dreamer that her mother makes her out to be: that the "chance" she missed out on to become a professional entertainer really did seem attainable at one point, and that the "married man" really was quite fond of her (he outfitted her with the coat she's wearing in the film's poster).

As much as it all satiated my natural curiosity, though, it sort of had the opposite effect on my primal amusement at the documentary: so much of the 1975 film's appeal is wrapped up in the WTFness of these women's language. It is at times impossible to tell what they're talking about (and that's why the original documentary comes off as boring at first, because it's much easier to tune out this buzzing nonsense than to parse out the absurdity of it all). Watching the Maysels' 1975 Grey Gardens with no outside knowledge of these women's lives makes them seem a lot crazier. While Little Edie's speech pattern was naturally expository (a device brilliantly employed in both the documentary and the 2009 film), she clearly wasn't capable of conveying the extraordinary circumstances that led to their destitute. Watching the fuller story, I couldn't help but wonder if the slice of life the Maysles offered was, in fact, half-baked.

But you know, it does little to diminish my love of the original film, I just now see it for what it is: a piece of the pie that is the Beales' legacy. What's so wonderful about this new movie is that it fits so well onto that plate. I would have thought it impossible to create something worthy of these phenomenal women, and yet first-time (!) director Michael Sucsy did just that. From the structure (rigid, to compensate for the house's) to the appearance (so gorgeous it's a pity that most of us never got the chance to see it on the big screen) to the pacing (as deliberate as decay, just like the original) to the performances of Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, which have received heaps of praise and deserve mountains more. These women have the Beales down to the gesture, like when Big Edie touches her face twice before rhapsodizing singing while sitting in bed, or when Little Edie glances up ever so slightly after informing the Maysles that she and "Mother" had "quite a fight" over a kimono earlier that morning. The attention to detail is ecstatic. I've seen people recommend watching the original doc before seeing this; I recommend loving it before seeing this. It's your only shot at truly appreciating its greatness.

I love that it keeps you on your toes, like when Big Edie comments to Gould that the sky is the color of saaphire (she says that, in fact, to Edie in the first film), or when Edie does her spiel about being afraid of locks on the beach (she says it on the porch in the movie). But even more than the little winks this movie gives fans, I love that Little Edie gets a happy ending...and then a happier one. To know little Edie is to know why this is crucial. If you don't get that, well, you wouldn't understand: it's a Grey Gardens thing.

"Am I a boy or a girl?"

The video below is seriously one of my favorite things I've ever seen on YouTube. It comes courtesy of MyToeCold, this high school student whose YouTube oeuvre includes funny reviews of pop songs (a reaching trend piece in some lame-o publication or the Times might dub what he does Music Crit 2.0). The thing about this kid is that he's somewhat androgynous, aesthetically and vocally (that his name is Drew doesn't help matters). I thought he was female for a really long time. He gets that a lot, and unlike about every other person on earth (especially those of the emotionally fragile high-school-attending variety), he has a tremendous sense of humor about it. He posted his initial response to the what-are-you discourse in January last year, but then he followed it up a few months later with what is embedded below: a man-or-woman-on-the-street piece, in which he polls strangers (mostly old people) about what they think his gender is. The results are uniformly hilarious.

My favorite thing about this is how willing everyone is to give their verdict on the spot. This is an embarassment of shamelessness. Despite it being a year old, this video has just under 17,000 views. It should have, like, a thousand times that amount. I think the biggest problem is how loud the background music is -- it forces you to really pay attention and that doesn't exactly jibe with the ADD-influenced atmosphere of YouTube. I wrote to Drew to see if it would be possible to upload it again, but without music, so as to maximize its marketability, as it were. It seems it was made on his old computer and the edit file no longer exists. Oh well. Not that he cares about my opinion, anyway, I'm sure.

Winston mocks you

He's been so weird lately. We got new furniture and it's turned his world upside down and made him more playful than I've ever seen him in his life. It's a new frontier in Winston. Be excited.

LOLRLY?

From Yahoo!:

"...Only half the population understands what a precipitation forecast means well enough to make a fully informed answer, a new study finds.

If, for example, a forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain, many people think it means that it will rain over 20 percent of the area covered by the forecast. Others think it will rain for 20 percent of the time, said Susan Joslyn, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Washington who conducted the study."

That is soooooo reality show cast of the population.

Lards of London

Yo, I feel so fortunate that these stills are subtitled and that I can present them as an introduction without commentary.

It's a delicate subject, particularly when it's regarding a girl who has struggled with an eating disorder. You know?