fourfour

A supposedly rewarding thing I'll never do again

In the middle of 2011, I spent a week doing what is posted below: An edit test for a publication that sought me out but then didn't hire me. From what I was told, I didn't get the job because they couldn't afford me (that I never discussed salary makes me wonder if they were just letting me down easy -- regardless, I never got confirmation that this edit test was so much as glanced at). I'm not bitter (or...not any more bitter than usual), but putting about a week's worth of after-work activities on hold to prove myself when I had proven enough of myself in the first place to be asked to do so and furthermore have spent the past six and a half years proving my abilities (I'm not trying to say, "Google me," but Google me) was a total waste of time. And if I have a New Year's resolution that can be said aloud it's: Waste less time. Perhaps pulling this out of a void and actually doing something with it (even if that something is tossing it into the world without so much as rereading it -- I can't, but maybe you will want to ) is making up for lost time. Maybe it's a waste of even more time. At the very least, you may want to scroll to the bottom for the Basketball Wives video I did. But I understand if you don't, and furthermore won't hire me. I'm used to it.

(Keep in mind that these 4,000 words followed what was requested: Three short pieces and two long ones. There was some additional programming-type short form stuff that I'm not including because it would just be tedious to read, but know that it was time-consuming, too.)

(Also, I did this because I really wanted the job. I understand that rejection is a risk that comes with applying, but all the understanding in the world won't get me that time back.)

Here's to exorcism...

A very important JCPenney denim fashion show

 

On Thanksgiving, yet another Dancin' on Air reunion/retrospective aired on Philadelphia's local PHL17. It was very much like the first one, so I won't get too deep into rehashing, but I do think I'd be remiss if I didn't share this fashion show of gorgeous denim goods from JC Penney with you. This is so cheesy that it'd make Sue Ellen from Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead say, "NOT IN MY BACKYARD!" Unfortunately, Suell wasn't quite the commentator as the dude who's announcing this stuff.

Merry Jack-mas!

 

This may be one for the amuses-only-me file, but I've long wanted to replace the music from Poetic Justice's "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" scene with something more absurd. So I did. Very TV Carnage move, but I talked to TV Carnage's Derrick Beckles about it this weekend, and I think he's fine with it.

(Spoiler alert! Using this song has nothing to do with Janet Jackson's childhood nickname of "Dunk." At least, not consciously.)

Things I hate about the part of T.I.'s Vibe story about gay people

Man, I will say this, the funniest joke I ever heard Tracy [Morgan] say during a stand-up was, ‘C’mon man, I think gay people are too sensitive. If you can take a dick, you can take a joke.’ [Cracks up laughing.] That shit was funny to me. And it’s kind of true.’ While T.I. makes clear that he supports anyone’s sexual preference, he then connects, in his opinion, a current oversensitivity among gay people with a consequential and ironic offense of the First Amendment. “They’re like,‘If you have an opinion against us, we’re gonna shut you down.’ ... That’s not American. If you’re gay you should have the right to be gay in peace, and if you’re against it you should have the right to be against it in peace.’ [Vibe]

- That five days after first reading about it, I'm still thinking about it.

Sporadic reader

As before, a sampling of my recent day-job offerings:

Music

Kate Bush 50 Words for Snow review (In my opinion, this is the most overpraised album of the year)

Surkin USA review (Probably my favorite album of the year)

Switch & Andrea Martin "I Still Love You" single review (Probably my favorite track of the year)

Mary J. Blige My Life II...The Journey Continues (Act 1) review (Definitely not my favorite album titled My Life)

Morgan Geist talks Storm Queen's "It Goes On"

Niki & the Dove "The Drummer" single review

A feature on disco revivalism (especially re: Escort)

2011 Christmas album roundup

Movies

Olivia Colman Tyrannosaur interview

The Immortals review

Rating the post-Henson, pre-The Muppets Muppets movies

Have you seen Zack Montana?

 

I was watching the local news at my mother's house Thanksgiving night (it's a Philadelphia station) and I just happened to catch a snatch of a child who supposedly performed at Philadelphia's kind of sad, definitely janky Thanksgiving Day Parade (CeCe Peniston, for example, lip synched the original, 20-year-old version of her "song that everyone knows," "Finally" -- no remix or anything!). Except, instead of performing, this child looked like he was batting out an invisible fire that apparently had a tenacious grip on his entire body. I soon discovered that he's a Radio Disney type named Zack Montana. I don't think he's related to Hannah, as she is a fictional character, but I do think that the last name is supposed to remind you of her and/or confuse you (especially if you are old and were previously used to Montana only being a state, a steamboat and a Slim).

I would have posted the video that introduced me to this wunderkind, but the quality of the clip posted on ABC 6's site is so poor, you can barely make out what's going on. That's jank on top of jank (spread jank, it's the Philly way). Luckily, Zack's act doesn't seem to change very much between performances, so I was able to find a much sharper, slightly older version of his up-to-the-syllable interpretive dancing on YouTube. It is above. This kid's got swagger like nothing I've ever experienced. It's like a drag show, except he's impersonating not a woman, but an adult, and since he's 13, Justin Bieber soooo qualifies as a grown-up.

(Am I wrong for kind of digging the song, though?)

Innocence lost

 

Mariah Carey appeared on HSN last night (and will throughout today) to "celebrate" the first anniversary of her HSN debut last year. It was full of yet more moments and love. Facts were learned all around (did you know that Mariah Carey didn't know that there are 26 letters in the alphabet until last night?). But also, as you can see in the video above, there was an added layer of self-consciousness, one pronounced even for a person who won't be filmed in elevators because of the ill effects of "elevator lighting." She came to the fold referencing the fact that her appearance would be edited and put on the Internet (she had previously shouted out to Gawker for Matt Cherette's edit of her July appearance). How...disappointing.

Look, far be it from me to suggest that anyone on earth should refrain from laughing at Mariah Carey, even the woman herself. But this knowingness (the presumptuousness, even!) that people will be obsessively collecting and presenting her appearance to their liking means that it at least behooves her to act goofily. The kind of eccentricity she offers works best when there is a degree of ambiguity ("Oh no she didn't!" becomes a point of rumination), and her being in on the joke turns unintentional comedy to comedy. Truthfully, she didn't feel much less herself, but her awareness of the scrutiny makes the sport of hunting and gathering a little less exciting. I like my food to be moving.

But good on her for having a sense of humor about herself. It's undoubtedly driven by narcissism (Mariah has long been obsessed with those who are obsessed with her), but she's a good sport about such things in a way that someone like Tyra Banks isn't (the only jokes at Tyra's expense can be made by Tyra, and then they aren't jokes they're auto-cunnilingus).

So Mariah is wacky, hyper-self-conscious and better than Tyra Banks. Eh, tell me something I don't know next time.

The diva chain

 

Not to incite a stan war or anything (HAHA, I WOULD LOVE THAT), but the practice of female singers being asked to comment on their peers (or taking it upon themselves to do so) is endlessly fascinating. (Is it sexist to play women off of each other? It it bitchy for women to take the bait? Is it sexist to think that they're bitchy?) So here are a bunch of clips of divas talking about divas. I gave myself an organizational rule when assembling this: The person speaking in each clip must have been talked about in the preceding clip.

Weekly reader

My still-new day job (at The Daily) is taking up a lot of the brain space I've devoted to this blog, particularly because I can basically write about whatever I want within pop culture (which is what I've always done here). Since it's sometimes hard to track down stuff from The Daily, I'm going to start to post regular link roundups of some of my stuff. I usually tweet that stuff, but that's so ephemeral, too. The idea of self-promotion has always made me feel ill at ease, but the idea of coming off as less active makes me feel worse. The former wins out.

Here are some things I've written since starting a few weeks ago:

On music

Justin Bieber Under the Mistletoe album review
Bai Ling "Rehab" single review
Mary J. Blige featuring Drake "Mr. Wrong" single review
David Lynch Crazy Clown Time album review

On movies

Paranormal Activity 3 review

On TV

Horror TV essay (Walking Dead, American Horror Story, etc.)
Fairy tale TV essay (Once Upon a Time vs. Grimm)

On books

Chuck Palahniuk video Q&A (this is heavily condensed, which is unfortunate since we talked about Judy Blume, among things that were excised, but whatever -- editing me shorter is best left to others)

I'll do these about once a week. Hope they don't make you puke!

Everything amazing in Céline: 3 Boys and a New Show

How could I resist? How could you?