Das Vidanya

Papa Newt

2012-01-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

Mitchell Tucker has made his name as consistently the best-informed, hardest-working man on the politics beat at the Des Moines Register. Always the man with the choicest sources and the scrappiest demeanor, his byline appeared on articles that blew the lid off of some of the biggest stories of the run-up to the 2012 presidential election. Michelle Bachmann's use of taxpayer money to fund an emergency health spa retreat, Ron Paul's admission of having had his blood entirely swapped out in the 1970's, Rick Perry's holiday moon bounce filled with poison; nothing escaped the keen eye of the man who could well go down as the greatest of his era of news jockeys. In March 2012, Season in the Abyss, his memoir of the 2011 pre-election cycle, will be released by Little, Brown. We present here an excerpt detailing his time reporting on the Gingrich campaign.

"Beep beep!" I could hear the former House Speaker make his way forward from the rear of the Newtmobile, the unofficial name of his Van Hool T2145 touring coach. "Comin' through! Oh hey watch out Melissa, I almost spilled this all over your blouse! Haha!"

The tray of cold cuts was quite cumbersome and difficult for Gingrich to maneuver through the narrow confines of his campaign bus. Vacuum-sealed as it was in cellophane, however, I felt confident that Deputy Communications Director Melissa Behan's latest Coldwater Creek purchase would remain unmolested. Nonetheless, she scurried out of the way, relieved perhaps to take part in at least this one moment of levity. It was the third week of June 2011, deep in the darkest hours of the Gingrich campaign's post-resignations period.

When his staff and many of the reporters on the bus first saw Gingrich cradling the tray of salted meats, we exchanged worried glances, fearful that he would consume the entire thing himself. A notorious stress-eater, Gingrich had lately been ignoring his doctor's orders and continuing to help himself to large helpings of fried food and rich desserts. The burdens of a flagging campaign and seemingly nonstop church dinners and cookouts certainly did not help. It had been weeks since anyone had seen a fruit or vegetable pass between his lips.

So it was cause for relief that, rather than locking himself in the bathroom with the deli spread, he swung wide the front door of the Newtmobile, shouting out, "Hey Dave [Parsons, Gingrich's chief aide], watch this!"

Easing himself onto the front steps, Gingrich addressed the considerable throng that had gathered at this latest stop in New Hampshire.

"I just wanted to thank you all for coming out today and showing your support," he said, a raspy tone in evidence from a morning spent defending his campaign on talk show and cable news interviews. "I know it's hot out here and you guys'd rather be down at the pool or cooking up some dogs, but you came out to show your support for building a better future for this country, and I know that's what's going to help make all the difference next November!"

Robust applause followed. Gingrich withdrew the plastic lid from the deli tray.

"Now I just want to say," he said, "and I think you'd all agree with me, that we stand at a great precipice. This country's economy is in the toilet, and it's not getting better anytime soon, and President Obama is ready to press down on that handle any day now!" More applause, along with a few grins.

"But I'll tell you what I think," he went on. "What Obama doesn't understand, and what you and I know about this economy, is that we need to inject a little red meat into the system! And I think that's what everyone out here needs too! A little meat injection!"

Before the crowd could entertain any notion of a double entendre, Newt had plunged his fist into the latticework of cold cuts, extracting some ham here, some salami there, a little turkey. He began tossing the meat into the crowd, laughing jovially, calling out an occasional "Here ya go!" or "I know you're hungry!" The crowd put forward outstretched arms, snatching the treats from the air and eagerly gobbling them up.

Soon people started approaching Gingrich.

"Mr. Gingrich," said a woman of about fifty, "I just think it's wonderful that you would come down here to the Shriners Hall. We really are glad to see you and we're hopeful for 2012."

"Great to see an old snake charmer like you back out on the trail," said an excited young man. "This country's going to hell in a handbasket unless you can show 'em the way!"

"That's great, haha, thank you." Gingrich was gradually building a rapport with the crowd. We had all seen this routine before. Usually he would win the people over, sympathize with them a bit about lost jobs or blown retirement funds, then delve into the wonkish policy talk that was his stock in trade.

"You know," he said, "that meat is from a local deli not far from here. And boy is it delicious, I never tasted smoked ham like that. The guy who ran the place, he said to me, 'Newt, I just don't know whether I'm coming or going anymore. I've been running this place for fifty years and it seems like I struggle just to keep my head above water.' And I see where he's coming from, I really do. You see, small business is the engine of-"

"Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker!" The insistent cry came from a few rows back in the crowd. Gingrich attempted to plunge ahead.

"...the engine of our economy," he continued. "And it's the current administration's failed policies that-"

"Mr. Speaker!" The young woman had jostled her way to the front of the crowd and was now standing before Gingrich on the asphalt beneath the Newtmobile. She looked a bit haggard, and the glimmer in her eyes could have betrayed either devotion or desperation. She cradled an infant child in her arms. "Mr. Speaker," she said, gesturing to the baby, "this is Colin."

"Oh, heh heh," Gingrich responded, a little taken aback and perhaps hesitant to fully commit himself. Nonetheless, duty called. "Well, let's see what little Colin has to say!"

Scooping the child up in his arms, he lofted him above the gathered masses. The baby seemed confused but intrigued, and not at all upset. Gingrich spun the child around, so that he and Colin were face to face.

"You wanna join my campaign?" he asked. "Are you gonna help me fix this country?"

The audience duly charmed, Gingrich began to hand Colin back to his guardian. The woman, though, had vanished as if into thin air.

"Ah hell," I heard Gingrich mutter under his breath. Then, speaking to Colin and to the crowd at full volume, "Well, where'd your mommy go? We gotta find her! We'll take care of you though. Here ya go, Dave."

Gingrich handed the child off to Parsons, who withdrew with Colin in hand to a black Chevy Suburban parked fifty feet away. Neither was seen again for the duration of Gingrich's speech.

I forgot about the Colin hand-off for a good while. Disasters were occurring seemingly left and right in Gingrich's camp, and it was all I could do day-to-day just to keep up with the latest cataclysm. It fell from my mind until later, when I was getting the damage report from Parsons.

"All in all, today wasn't so godawful," he was saying. "Oh, except for that goddamn kid at the Shriners Hall, God I hate when that happens."

I told him I didn't know what he meant.

"You serious?" he responded. "You haven't been on this beat long, huh?"

"Does Gingrich really hate dealing with kids that much?" I asked.

"That's got nothing to do with it," he said. After mulling it over for a moment, he said, "Come with me. I want to show you something."

Parsons and I hopped into one of the campaign vehicles, another Chevy Suburban. The town where we were staying wasn't far from Hanover, and it wasn't long until we were pulling into the parking lot of the RNC's regional office.

After we had checked in, Parsons led the way down a long, drab corridor to an unmarked door.

"I wouldn't be showing you this if any of the staffers were here," he said. "Lucky for you it's two a.m."

Swinging the door wide, Parsons ushered us in. The room was silent except for the shuffling of papers and the hum of an air conditioner. It was a large re-purposed office with old computer monitors and fax machines hustled over to one corner. Long plastic folding tables stretched in rows down its length. Stacks of glossy brochures and other campaign literature were heaped onto the tables, along with even larger stacks of envelopes. Sitting along each row were groups of pasty, undernourished children of varying ages dejectedly stuffing and sealing the envelopes.

"Look alive people!" he shouted. "Outsider! Outsider!"

Some of the children looked up, bleary-eyed. Most continued their work as if nothing had happened.

Parsons turned to me. "Well, this is where they all end up," he said.

One of the more junior staffers approached us. "Mr. Parsons," she said, "All we have to eat is graham crackers and water, some of us are falling asleep a lot-"

Parsons cut her off. "Sarah," he said, "can't you see that I'm talking to Mr. Tucker about the race to the White House?"

"Mr. Parsons," Sarah said, "Tommy can't sit up straight anymore and he says he sees sparkles in his eyes."

"Sarah," Parsons said, "do you remember what Papa Newt said the last time he stopped by to see you all?"

Sarah thought for a moment. "That was a long time ago, Mr. Parsons," she said. "Where is Papa Newt?"

"I would venture a guess that he's a bit upset with his helpers, Sarah. Papa Newt doesn't want to come here anymore, if it means that he has to hear little titterings and yammerings and have his helpers tell him they can't do their tasks."

"Were trying," Sarah said, getting frustrated. "But we're tired and there's not enough room for us all to sleep in the kitchen before the big helpers get here in the morning and-"

"Sarah." Parsons was done negotiating. "I want you to sit your little behind down in one of those chairs and get back to putting those special documents into their envelopes. If Papa Newt is going to be able to race for the White House for another day, he needs you, needs you, Sarah, and all of you, to send out these special documents. No one else can do it in all the world!"

Sarah had clearly heard this before, but she was too weary to put up an argument. She let her arms fall limp by her sides and plodded back to her chair, where she set about folding another "NEWT FOR AMERICA" pamphlet into threes.

Seeing that I still didn't get it, Parsons took me aside. "Hell," he said, "I thought it was an open secret at this point, but I guess not. It's 2011, buddy, Presidential campaigns are veritable traveling caravans of lost or abandoned children. Either they hand them off to us, like you saw today, or they just leave them behind after campaign stops for the staffers to round up afterwards. Tamara, our intern, that's pretty much all she does these days."

I must have looked aghast. Parsons tried to reassure me.

"I know how you must feel," he said. "I remember when I first started in this game with Dole in '96, I couldn't believe my eyes. You get used to it though. We put a roof over their heads and keep them busy enough so they stop asking about mommy. Better than leaving them in foster care and letting them become leeches on the system, am I right?"

He went on: "I just wish we had a deeper roster, y'know? Romney, after he ran in 2008, he managed to set up a whole office staffed with the little guys, I think it was the Houston office. Anyway, we're scrambling just to catch up, because he's got all of them this time around again, and they're old enough to use the Internet now and social network and all that, get the word out and all.

"Wondering if it's legal, huh? I don't really know myself. This is just the way we've always done it, and no one's stopped us yet, so Santa's workshop here just keeps chugging along."

We left the envelope stuffers to their work and quietly stepped out of the room.

Mitchell Tucker continues to write for the Des Moines Register. You can also follow his Tumblr account, a season-long enumeration of items stolen from the hotel rooms of various members of the Minnesota Vikings.

Important Announcement

2012-01-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

After much consideration regarding our role as a lynchpin of dialogue and commerce on the World Wide Web, Das Vidanya feels that it is only appropriate that we "go dark" in order to protest Congress's proposed SOPA/PIPA bills restricting freedom of expression on the Internet. Starting at midnight tonight, users will not be able to access this site for a period of twenty-four hours.

We do not make this decision lightly: by taking this action, Das Vidanya stands to lose millions of dollars in revenue as well as the support of uncounted numbers of philanthropists, scientists, professors, and public officials. To them, this site is an indispensable and vital resource to their life and work. Any inconvenience, though, must regrettably be borne. The clarion call has been sounded, and we must let our elected representatives know where we stand on this era-defining issue.

It should be noted that we will not only be suspending the site's content; many of the services normally offered by Das Vidanya will also be discontinued for this period. DVI Financial will not be operating, and any account activity will have to be put off until the following day; this includes deposits, money transfers, and all other banking services. Das Analytics will not be accessible, though staffers will still be on-site at our Sunnyvale campus and can provide any urgently-needed information via e-mail or phone. Make sure to use a land line, as our cellular network will also be down.

True Path Charters will still be making flights, though with only the 737s in use; anything bigger is a logistical nightmare when operating on such a pared-down scale. To the managers of some of our off-shore holdings, I can say only that the sparrow has preyed upon the leopard, and that Maat remains in flux.

We will all have to make sacrifices see us through this day. Some will perish, while those that survive will take their seat upon the throne of glory. Write to your Member of Congress today!

The Story of Disco

2011-09-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

Anyone reading the work of New York magazine reporter Dale Soresley knows his strengths: with a biting wit and a penchant for thorough reporting, he is an expert at illuminating aspects of our culture that once huddled in the dark. Beyond that, his reputation among his fellow journalists is that of the great Confessor. Simply put, no one is better at getting people to talk.

For the better part of a decade, Soresley has been compiling an oral history of the disco era, a tome that has become an all-consuming passion. Whenever I or other colleagues would encounter Dale at some event or function, talk would inevitably turn to the music of the mid-to-late 70's, and some previously-unheard-of figure who was instrumental in bringing this music to the masses. Hard as it may be to believe, the years of blindingly difficult work have finally paid off, and Soresley's Sequined Nights, Dusty Days: the Distention and Demise of the Disco Dynasties is set to be released by Random House on November 15.

Here we present a small slice of the story one of disco's unsung heroes: Mark Devlin, former fixture of the dance music scene and current inmate at the Wallkill Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York.

Marty Crandall, bass player for The Prismatics and Flash!: None of it could have happened without Mark Devlin.

Kate Winterley, promoter: "The Disco Don," that's what they called him, "The Disco Don."

Mark Devlin, Owner, Panama Nights: I, you know, I never wanted to be at the forefront of a vanguard of anything. I mean, look at me, I'm just some fat Jew from Nyack with a bad hip and a mortgage. For Chrissakes, I carry around antacid tablets on me at all times! Look, I've got them right here in my breast pocket! Look at them! But I knew a hot thing when I saw it, and let me tell you, I knew that disco music was the hottest thing around!

Ansel Jones, keyboardist for Irma Witherspoon, 1973-1980: Nobody really knew what he did outside of owning Panama Nights, but he must have had some kind of cash flow because that club made no money before the disco era. There were always rumors that he owned some women's apparel warehouse and treated his employees like garbage, but no one really knew.

Karen Childs, singer: There were other clubs in New York at the time that would play disco music, but it was mostly an after-hours sort of thing. Panama Nights was the first place that really catered to the disco crowd, and I think to Mark Devlin's credit, he saw three steps ahead of the game in that there was a huge untapped market for this music as far as the gay and minority audiences were concerned. That's the other thing about Mark, he was always very open-minded, even at that time.

Devlin: I always said, I don't care what you look like or where you're from, if you want to dance and have a good time at my nightclub, you're welcome. Just don't try any funny business!

Winterley: He's such a kind, funny guy, Mark is. People would always talk and say he was affiliated with Murder Inc. or running arms to secret Israeli paramilitary groups, but I didn't believe it for a second and I still don't today. I remember one time, I had this cat that I absolutely loved named Tinkerbell, and one night he got out, and of course I was distraught, running all over the East Village trying to find him. Finally I gave up all hope and I figured I'd pop over to the Panama for a drink. So I walk in, and there's Tinkerbell sitting on the bar with Mark hand-feeding him corned beef! "Your little boyfriend looked pretty hungry," he tells me. Honestly, just the definition of a mensch.

Ace Franklin, guitarist/producer: I don't even remember the first time I went to Panama Nights. It just seems like something that was always there when I think about that era. Starting in about '76 I guess was when the scene at that place really started to pick up. And of course, it was October when that Karen Childs single was released, "I Can Come When I Wanna."

Childs: We cut it in a pretty run-down studio in Brooklyn with a pet store on one side and a Baptist church on the other. The Baptists would holler and yell while we were recording and some of that made it onto the final pressing, which is where the rumor came from that one of the maraca players got in a knife fight and was murdered during the sessions.

Gerry Murphy, owner, Crosstown Records: We were mostly a soul and R&B label before that 45 came out. I have to admit, I did not want to release it. It was Mark Devlin, that rat bastard, he talked me into it. "Gerry," he said, "The kids love this stuff, I've never seen anything like it." He went on and on about how this was going to be bigger than Elvis and the Beatles and all that. I thought he was selling me a bill of goods on account of his nephew was the drummer or something on the track. But I figured, oh well, the label's broke anyway, I'm filing for Chapter Eleven as soon as the year's out, might as well put the thing out. And of course the record took off, Mark was vindicated beyond his wildest dreams, and he suddenly had a captive market for all the coke he was ferrying into New York through the Bahamas.

Devlin: Listen, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I know a hit record when I hear it!

Jones: That was the record where it all came together. You had the funk, and you had the soul, but then you had that four-to-the-floor rhythm on there too, and that just put the whole thing over the edge and made the people lose their minds!

Crandall: People would just go absolutely insane when that record came on. It was an orgiastic display like nothing I'd ever seen.

Winterley: Oh God, they would cry, throw up, the works. I witnessed all sorts of ecstatic, painful bodily contortions when that song came on. I mean you had people showing up to the club with canes and hastily improvised whips! We had to call the fire department so many times that they finally stopped even showing up. It was great!

Childs: I knew that we had something huge going before "I Can Come When I Wanna" was even released, but I was not prepared for the reception to that record. I had grown men, gay and straight, throwing themselves at my feet, calling me their "lover bitch." I have no idea how that got started.

Crandall: It was a lyric in the song, right? "Tell me where to make it itch/You can call me lover bitch."

Winterley: Karen claimed for years that the lyric was misheard. It hardly mattered, though. The disco era had begun!

Murphy: Pretty soon I had Mark coming into my office every two weeks with some new act he had pulled up from the depths of obscurity. I had my doubts each and every time, but each and every time we hit a home run.

Peter Crindle, singer for Flash!: The first time I met Mark was at my job at Nussbaum's Deli. He used to get these huge sandwich orders, I mean like a hundred sandwiches, at least twice a week. One day he says to me, "I like the way your nose goes with your face." He invited me to some party at a warehouse in TriBeCa, and I felt pretty weird about the whole thing, but Mr. Nussbaum, he said, "Petey, what are you, a moron? He keeps this place running! Get your skinny ass over there!"

Winterley: I'll never forget when Mark introduced me to Peter Crindle. We were in the middle of this raging party at Richard Berenson's loft and Mark strides up to me with this kid who looks like he just walked off the starting line-up of my father's high school basketball team. We shake hands and he says, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Winterley," totally sincere and everything. I almost died. Two days later Mark had him in the studio.

Crandall: We cut the first Flash! single in about the space of an afternoon. It was "Fire Sale," with "Soap and Water" as the b-side. Mark realized pretty early on that as long as you could grab some musicians from the neighborhood and teach them the basic disco backbeat, you could make hit records for cheap. But he knew the song had to be memorable. I had brought in some little numbers I'd been working on at home, and Mark seized on this phrase I had jotted down, "your love is like a fire sale," just some stupid shit. But he built it up into this crazy production, with sirens and clanging bells and even some fake crackling flame noises way down in the mix. He refuses to take credit for it, but he wrote the hook on that thing, which is all anyone remembers now anyway. He was doing rails of blow at a miraculous rate.

Murphy: "I Can Come When I Wanna" was a smash in all the clubs, but "Fire Sale" was the first track to get radio play. It even cracked the pop charts. It helped that their singer looked like your average all-American guy, even if Mark had him done up in a checker-patterned velour tuxedo half the time.

Crindle: The whole thing was just crazy, and so totally unexpected. We even got to go on "Express 4-5-6"!

Murphy: "Express 4-5-6" was this New York dance program, basically a two-bit "Soul Train." It was hosted by this old fossil, Bensonhurst Freeman. The guy had been around since the jazz era and just kind of hung on. He's still alive to this day! He hosts a radio show where he never plays music and just talks for three hours straight about the drop-outs hanging around in front of the corner store in his neighborhood. Anyway, we went on the show and it was a disaster.

Devlin: It was categorically not a disaster. Gerry thinks it's Pearl Harbor if everything doesn't go exactly as planned.

Crandall: Some fairweather moral crusaders got wind that disco was "gay music" and decided to picket the studio before Flash! went on. They shouted down the producers, the camera operators, everybody. I'm not going to repeat the things they said.

Devlin: "Faggot" and "queer" and every variation you could think of. They poured a can of blue paint on Terry Terrell, the keyboard player. I just missed getting hit in the face with a full beer bottle. It was quite a scene!

Winterley: Somehow they managed to break down the studio doors during the actual performance and throw paint all over the set and make a big show of smashing the Crosstown 45s in full view of the cameras. The show aired live so everyone from Newark to Great South Bay saw it happen. Some poor young thing got up on the bandstand with a sign that said "SODOMITE" and a big arrow pointing at Marty. The audience just kept right on dancing, and pretty soon I realized they thought it was part of the act! It was the saddest thing having to listen to Marty afterward on the payphone with his dad, explaining to him yes things were fine with Stacy and no he wasn't a fag.

Devlin: That week we sold more copies of "Fire Sale" than we had in its entire run up to that point.

Murphy: Listen to me, here I am bitching when really, we had it pretty damn good back then. Better than we were gonna have it, anyway. And that's probably why you detect a hint of, shall we say, a caustic tone: I know about everything that happened later. You have to remember, this is before the bust and the mansion fire and the Noriega thing. So it's easy for me to feel bitter now. But I have to admit, those were the salad days.

Sequined Nights, Dusty Days will be available on Amazon and at all major retailers. Watch for Dale Soresley's feature in the upcoming issue of New York about a continental breakfast based on the life of Katy Perry.

The Letters of Albert Einstein

2011-08-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

It is natural, in viewing Albert Einstein, that the legendary and nearly mythic figure of the man should eclipse the very human essence of the individual. Beyond being simply iconic, he is one of the few scientific or even scholarly personages that figure so fixedly in the collective consciousness. But Einstein's private correspondence reveals the conflicted, often disturbing world of one of history's great minds. Many of the letters recently uncovered by the Paris Einstein Foundation were stained with tears and rum, the paper scratched and torn sometimes beyond comprehension. Three of the letters are reproduced here unabridged for the first time ever.

A note on reading: Einstein himself was of course blessed with a comically exaggerated German accent, and it does him no small measure of justice to read these letters using just such a voice. Enjoy!

May 26, 1892

Dearest Ilsa,

It is known to all that I am a man of science, and as such, I can say without hyperbole that your milky thighs are certifiably one of the great wonders of our vast universe. Even to glimpse their firm, quaking mass is to call into question the rational and dispassionate cosmos in which I so steadfastly believe. Does their existence not prove the beneficence of some lovely Dionysian God? Indeed: a God with a visage smiling down upon the hour when I was fortuitous enough to glimpse the momentary slipping-down of your bathing trousers and bear witness to the marvelous gams contained therein!

Sadly, though, I must recall myself from such reveries in order that I might apologize for my behavior in front of your aunt and grandmother this weekend past. It was inappropriate for me to call your aunt a "revolting bitch," especially in the presence of one so noble and serene as your sworn guardian and forebear. It is not for me to festoon enlightenment upon those who insist on maintaining such a closed-minded view of the world they live and work in each day. If your aunt, fine and elegant though she may be, insists on calling into question all of my work and the work of those many brilliant men of science who have come before me, based solely on the scant reasoning and base superstitions of a worldview that can barely glimpse two feet in front of it but for the dense fog of idiocy clouding its mind, I suppose I must greet this with patience and good humor, and must resolve to avoid the line of thinking that results in outbursts such as the one you were unfortunate enough to witness.

This evening finds me in low spirits. I fear that my insights into Brownian motion are but the ravings of a madman, and as such have suffered from a desperate bout of indigestion. My room is damp, my neighbors are loudly fornicating, and a cockroach has just now skittered across my hand, chilling me to my very spine. Ahh, what ignorance there is in this world!

Yours always,

Albert

January 30, 1900

Herr Lipschutz,

Possessed as I am of a rational, scientific mind, it is puzzling to me that you now insist on payment in full of your loan made to me in September of last year. Have I not paid in each month since then at least three quarters of the agreed-to installments, plus or minus some of the interest? Is this not enough to prove to you that I am a man of my word?

There is no need for me to review with you once more the facts of my predicament: how I, wishing to test the laws of probability governing each sequence of events that occurs in this boundless universe of ours, made a series of "wagers" with myself as to the outcome of a number of horse races taking place outside of Vienna. How I, in a fit of what I in hindsight can only believe was sprightly good fun, decided to place a sum of money on these wagers in an amount equaling roughly forty-eight thousand kronen. How, in the course of things, essentially all of my hypotheses were proven to be incorrect, and I was summarily divested of the funds I had put forth.

I have already professed my gratitude to your generosity in this matter. Without the benefit of the money you forwarded to me in my time of need, much of my research would have been left in the lurch and potentially abandoned. You are indeed a benefactor of the world of science! It is not to call your magnanimity into question, though, to point out that the interest being charged on this loan is positively usurious! You know that these are lean times for me. I have accepted the lot of the "starving scientist," and it falls upon me to carry that burden, but I do not need you hounding me at every turn over financial matters! In any case, once my current paper is completed, it is assured that I will win scads of prizes and piles of money, and you will have your precious loan repaid, WITH INTEREST I MIGHT ADD, and you will rue the day you defiled my good graces with your oily ways!

Regards,

Einstein

February 10, 1908

To My Darling Mother,

I was so delighted upon receipt of your letter last week that I could scarcely speak! One would think that I, dispassionate researcher and scientist, would not be given to such paroxysms of emotion as the one that overtook me when I saw your unmistakable hand impressed upon the seven sheets of double-sided paper that arrived in my post box. I assure you though, it is true!

As always, I found your correspondence to be suffused with such wisdom as to rival the great sages of ancient Greece and Rome! I have long been accustomed to the lion's share of your advice as being characterized by such even-handed erudition, but in this case I feel you have outdone yourself. "A nice brisk walk never hurt anyone, Alby," you write. "Why don't you get out more for Christ's sake?" On the nose as usual!

If there is a passage from this latest (and welcome!) missive with which I could take some slight umbrage, however, it would be the page and a half dedicated to the subject of my darling wife, Mileva. I hardly think your description of her is quite fair, and it strikes me as unseemly of you to make such mockery of her dark features and prominent nose. Can you not see the beauty in her that I do?

It is tedious for you to hear me carry on so! Nonetheless, mama, this is the woman I have chosen to be the mother of my children! Her often short temper has on many occasions been the source of consternation for you, and it pains me to remember the scathing language that passed between the two of you during your last visit. Why can you not accept the woman I love?

I suppose it should not be of any surprise to me that you would feel this way. Although I have never doubted your love, I can call to memory many different occasions in which you, perhaps through no conscious thought of your own actions, have sought to undermine me. I do not like to dwell on these things, but on nights such as these, when the street lamps shine through my window and cast such an eerie light onto my writing desk that they seem to illumine the deeper recesses of my soul, I recall as if it occurred just yesterday the request I made before my eighth birthday for a young boys' chemistry set. "What do you want that for?" is what you said to me. "Why should I walk about the fish market with a scrawny little brat casting spells and potions under my feet?" You did not know, mother, and perhaps could not know, what that was to me!

These and other sad vignettes parade before my mind's eye on this cold night. I can call to mind few instances in which my youthful enthusiasm was met with anything other than a cold stare, a snide remark, sometimes even mocking laughter. Many nights I lay awake, torturing myself in confusion as to why you had chosen to bring me into this world. It is a question I cannot resolve even now. But I know that tonight, as I have drunken, angry sex with the woman you can barely bring yourself to look at, I will have my cosmic revenge. And you will have no choice but to face this reality when we meet you at the hot springs for next summer's holiday!!

With love,

Albert

Tough Bar

2011-08-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

"I don't know about this," Cal said, his hands tucked firmly into his jacket pockets as he and Doug stood at the threshold of the biker bar.

"Come on, man," Doug said. "I've been wanting to try this place out for months. A real biker bar!"

"Dude, it's just, this whole thing seems way too 'Blue Velvet' for me," Cal said.

Doug had seen this coming, and had prepared a counter-argument.

"Tim and Frank went here last week," Doug said, "and they said it was fine! At least it can't be worse than another night at Twistee's."

This struck a nerve. "All right," Cal said after a moment's consideration. "Let's give it a shot."

The bar seemed calm, even serene. There was no sign of the violence and dystopia that Cal had dreaded. Most of the regulars were content to nurse their beers and smoke resignedly.

"What'll it be, boys?" asked the bartender, a man with a gentle bearing despite his immense size and imposing facial hair.

"I'll have a Schlitz," said Doug, fearlessly.

Cal mulled his options. "Do you guys have Yuengling on tap?"

"Nope, sorry."

A voice reached them from the other end of the bar. "First time here, college boy?"

"Excuse me?" Cal replied.

Cal and Doug could just make the man out in the dim light with which he had cloaked himself. He was grotesque in his elephantism, his girth spread across at least half of the bar and the three bar stools he placed in a row to support himself. His skin was sallow and pasty, shimmering with perspiration where the scarce light chanced upon it. His speech was kept to a minimum, as he was shaken by racking coughs with every few sentences that escaped his mouth.

"He's new all right," the man said, ignoring Cal. "Better give him the Brown Bag Special, Tommy."

Tommy, for that was the bartender's name, chuckled softly and shook his head. "I dunno, Patrice, he doesn't look like he's got hair enough on his balls to handle a Shirley Temple much less the Brown Bag Special."

"Ain't that the rule?" Patrice was working himself into a huff, punctuated by an abhorrent run of very wet coughing and wheezing. "Ain't that always been the rule that first-timers gotta drink the Brown Bag Special? I swear Tommy, sometimes I don't even know what kinda establishment you're runnin' anymore."

Tommy considered this. He eyed Cal somewhat cagily, then made up his mind. "All right, I guess you got to do it."

"God dammit!" Patrice gleefully pounded the bar in front of him, causing Cal to jump nearly out of his skin and knocking over several tumblers which had luckily been emptied of most of their contents. "I ain't seen a Brown Bag Special been drunk around here in a dog's age!"

Before Cal could give voice to the many questions racing through his mind at that moment, Tommy produced a brown paper grocery bag from a compartment beneath the counter and set about filling it with Bud Light from the bar's tap.

Cal was growing increasingly worried. "Uh, sir? If it's all the same to you we'd be happy to go on our way, we don't have to do this Brown Bag Special at all."

Tommy did not look up from the tap. "Sorry boy. Doesn't seem like you've got much of a choice."

It was then that Cal realized that the bar's exit was barred by two menacing individuals, one of whom was brandishing a pool cue.

Cal tried to protest. "Wait, now just hold on a second..."

"You got to do it boy." Patrice was beside himself with delight. His wheezing had become truly offensive, and flecks of spittle were gathering on his lower lip and chin. "You got to drink the Brown Bag Special."

By now the paper bag was full to the brim with beer. Tommy carried it with no little difficulty to the bar, and placed it before Cal, where it writhed and jiggled, spilling over the top.

"Doug." Cal was fully in disbelief. "Doug, I-"

"Dude. I think you have to drink it." Cal was staring fixedly at the sack of beer, his eyes betraying the zeal of the converted.

"Can't you help me out here, man? Or at least...you're new here, too, shouldn't you have to drink the Brown Bag Special too?"

Doug looked at Tommy, who gravely shook his head no.

"No," said Doug.

Cal could see that he was out of options. He approached the beer bag, leaning his head over the brim and taking little sips.

"Uh-uh," Patrice said. "You can't be doin' that. You got to hug it close up to you, like a lady."

The grocery bag full of beer was extremely damp by this point, so it was with a great deal of disgust that Cal attempted to negotiate the act of lifting it up and bringing it to his lips. He managed it, though, and began now to take full gulps of the brew, pausing to hack up pieces of bag that had peeled off in their saturated state and become lodged in his throat. These he placed on a pile that grew larger with each sip.

After twenty minutes of this, Doug offered some sage advice. "Dude, I think you should just dunk your head in the bag."

Cal was drunk and desperate enough by this point to see the wisdom in Doug's statement. Positioning the bag on his lap, he submerged his head fully into the beer, opening his mouth wide and inhaling the Bud Light in truly awesome quantities. Patrice guffawed and clapped his hands together, shaking the entire bar and sending some glasses and beer bottles crashing to the ground. "Woop!" he shouted.

Cal finally looked up from the bag. His eyes were red and he looked as though he held onto sanity with but a tenuous grasp. "I...I can't..."

A dull tearing sound followed by a splash was heard. The bottom of the bag had fallen open, soaking Cal's lap and the ground beneath him. Cal tried to stand, but slipped on the spilled beer and smashed his lip open on a nearby table.

Tommy was unmoved. "You failed the Brown Bag Challenge," he said.

Patrice was inconsolable. He smashed several ashtrays and was overcome by a coughing jag so monstrous that even Tommy had to look away.

Doug turned Cal over onto his back and could see that he was weeping.

"I just," he blubbered, "I just wanted to...to...try this place and...and you made me...YOU MADE ME."

"You blew it man," Doug said.

"I need a...I need hospital."

"What you need," said Doug, "is to be a little more open to new experiences."

Vegas

2011-07-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Amanda could see that Renee was out of sorts. A half-eaten Lean Cuisine was in evidence beside her computer's keyboard, the plastic seal not even all the way ripped off. A pile of paperwork was close to spilling off the edge of her desk; it was unlike Renee not to stay on top of that sort of thing. The newly instituted fruit-smoothie-in-the-morning regimen was not having the desired effect.

Amanda knocked softly on Renee's office door. Renee looked up, smiling weakly. Taking this as the invitation it was, Amanda sat down across from Renee, placing her leather portfolio on her lap and crossing her wrists atop it. She looked at her coworker in what she hoped was a commiserating fashion.

Renee's face said it all: she had been G-chatting with Mark again. Amanda was not surprised, but upset and certainly disappointed. Poor Renee, she and Mark had been together for two years, and it can be hard to break something off just like that. Amanda of all people knew that only too well. And certainly the stress from this latest round of layoffs wasn't doing Renee any favors either. What Renee needed, what they both needed really, was some time away from it all.

Suddenly, it came to her. Of course! Why hadn't she thought of it before?

"Renee," Amanda said. "Vegas."

"Vegas?" Renee replied after a beat.

"Vegas," Amanda said.

Slowly, and with a radiance that was stunning to behold, Renee seemed to wake from a deep stupor. Her soft eyes reemerged to display their shimmering beauty, much as a lone flower unfurls itself to greet the new dawn.

"Vegas," she said. "Vegas."

"Vegas," Amanda confirmed.

The open road was like an elixir to their wearied spirits. They listened to all their favorite songs again, singing along to every lyric and collapsing in laughter. They ate junk food at diners and argued over which of the truckers was the hottest. They rolled down the windows and let the dry desert wind whip their hair to and fro. Renee, overcome by euphoria, stood up and put her head through the sun roof, feeling the night scream past her and paying no heed to Amanda's panicked protests.

"Vegas!" she shouted to the stars. "Vegaaaas!"

When at long last they clapped eyes on the strip itself, it was beyond anything their imaginations could conjure. It was as if they had stepped through an unseen portal in the earth into another, stranger, more beautiful land saturated with bright light, crystal, and gold. Everywhere were signs beckoning them forward, each more uncanny than the last. "'O' at Bellagio," they said, "Criss Angel Believe" and "Lance Burton Appearing Nightly." The blinding beacon shone from the bowels of the Luxor, seemingly as old as time itself.

"Vegas!" said Amanda and Renee. "Woooo!"

There is little that needs to be said about that weekend except that it was the greatest of the two girls' lives. They forgot all about work, family, their love lives and mortgages, threw caution to the wind and had an incredible time. Vegas was like a wonderful drug that hit all of their pleasure centers at once. Time stopped, or better, was forgotten entirely. All that existed was the moment: the moment they first stepped blinking onto the casino floor; the moment Celine Dion sang directly to Renee; the moment they spilled sangrita on the cute waiter; the moment Amanda upended a tray of finger foods outside the casino's restaurant; the moment Renee, compañera that she was, held Amanda's hair as she vomited onto the hood of a rental car; the fire.

Back at the office on Monday, both were unable to speak because they were too hungover from all the liquor they had consumed. A passing mail clerk, though, on his way to the lunch break that was his sole island of peace and sanity in an otherwise absurd and horrifying work day, swore he heard a single word pass from Renee's lips before another round of dry-heaving into the Target bag she held beneath her.

"Vegas..."

Living Legend

2011-04-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

“Whoa…oh my, who are you, sister?”

Emma choked on a scream. No sooner had she tacked up the dead rocker’s photo, freshly sliced from the Ultimate Rock Countdown issue of Rolling Stone, than the icon in question began to rub his eyes of sleep and stare at her in a deeply puzzled fashion.

“Ohmigod…ohmigod…”

“Can’t seem to get my craniality in order, you dig?”

“ARE YOU REALLY JIMI HENDRIX.”

“Shh shh slow down little lady, this isn’t exactly my proper, er, cup of tea, ah hah. Where have we found ourselves?”

“Um…um um we’re in- at my house…in Plainfield.”

“Oh goodness, Jersey? That’s tough stuff, you know, I can’t really mesh with that in a cosmic sense. It’s dissonant, one could say.”

“Mr. Hendrix, I just want to say, you’re my absolute favorite singer. All the kids in my school listen to, like, Justin Bieber, and Lady Gaga and all that crap, but like, they don’t know about real music.”

“Did I meet you in Soho? You got groovy hair, it’s all the way down to your face.”

“I have to call Gabi.”

“No don’t worry about Gabi, Gabi’s on her own trip, dig? See when Gabi and I play music it’s kind of a spiritual thing and sometimes we take it to some far out places and we need a little time to re-tune our energies. Say, who’s that fella on the wall?”

“What? Oh um that’s Kurt Cobain, you probably don’t know about him. He’s my second favorite musician ever.”

“I can groove on that. So listen missy, do you know why is it that I can’t seem to move more very far in one direction or the other?”

“Uh, Mr. Hendrix, I cut you out of a magazine. I’m almost positive you’re two-dimensional.”

“Groovy, groovy. So what does a chick like you like to do in Plainview?”

“Ugh, nothing, Plainview sucks. Mostly just watch a movie or go to Dairy Queen with my friends and make fun of people there.”

“Dairy Queen, that’s a trip, baby. Sometimes, in Seattle and all, I’d get a chili dog down at Dairy Queen, and a root beer float sometimes.”

Super Bowl XLV: The Nightmare

2011-02-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

The room is slathered in a patina of garish mauve, the walls are seeping. A lava lamp glows upon the dresser.

"Have a seat," says Ben Roethlisberger.

"I've never been here," I respond. Ben roots around in his burlap NFL-issue Steelers satchel; I hear rustling, crinkling.

"Yo Ben." A voice from outside. "The cops are here man and-"

"SHHHHHH." Ben's intonation is soft, yet fills the room and the inside of my frontal lobe. Finally he has the desired item.

"Try them." He has me by the throat.

"No thanks I'm not a fan of cool ranch-MMMPHHHH"

"DON'T YA LIKE DORITOS BOY HEH HEH HEH"

I catch a glimpse of the big game on the hotel TV. The Packers punt and Will.I.Am signals for a fair catch. From my perch in the broadcasters' booth I see Jerry Jones throwing a flag. Then he picks it up, then sits down on the field Indian-style. He seems confused. It is snowing.

Chris Berman and the PC from the Mac commercials are talking to the Cowboys cheerleaders on the sidelines about how Paul Westerberg just died. A thousand puppies roll Betty White down a jagged cliff for a bottle of Miller Lite.

I see you've noticed my books.

2011-01-05T22:23:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, a little hobby of mine. You might even say it's grown into a passion. At first it was just, hello, what am I going to do with all these empty shelves? When I bought the stupid condo in the first place, they sold me on those shelves, really they did. Something about a tabula rasa, a gradual accrual, who can remember now, it's been two years for mercy's sake. Suffice it to say I had real hopes for my shelves in the beginning, but after a few months all I'd put up there were some unpacked boxes and a half-read copy of The Help . Languishing, really.

Well! They started to eat at me, these shelves, just nipping away at my psyche. My God, I would say to myself, I mean, look at the things, you could park a city bus in there! I tell you, it must have been some sort of divine kismet when I heard Delilah simply gushing about this fellow she'd hired for her place in the Vineyard, about how she felt energized to be in her space, really living in it, I think is what she said.

So I thought to myself, oh what's the harm in bringing this contractor or specialist or what have you over to see my shelves at least for a consultation. He wasn't asking all that much just to take a look at the dear things, and anyway, I thought, I might be able to pick up some pointers on the cheap. And I tell you, Diane, after half an hour he had changed my entire way of looking at, you know, not just the shelves but the whole condo, what a home meant to me and about me! "These things are a void," he said, which I thought was a little heavy-handed but still I could see where he was coming from. And he said, "But I've got a solution. A book solution!"

That was it, my darling, I was sold on this thing, this whole concept, this slippery slope that I've spiraled into, haha. Pretty soon it was vellum this and anachronistic typeface that, and I was finding myself at places I would have never dreamed I would be setting foot in just a month earlier: rare book auctions, estate sales...he must have dragged me to at least thirty Goodwill stores in April alone, if you can believe that!

There was method to the madness, of course, and he must have explained the whole thing to me fifty times, but again it's a bit hazy. I recall the phrase "welcoming me into my aesthetic comfort zone," and that he kept mentioning Basquiat. The whole thing is based on the map gallery at the Vatican, I remember that much. It's very subtle though, most people can't tell.

I mean, of course I read the things. That is to say, well, some of them are so ancient that they'd just turn to dust in my hands if I so much as thumb through the pages, so I leave those alone, and all those old Russian masterpieces he bought, I don't know, when I think of those miserable winters and all that heavy cream I start to feel dizzy. Oh and I got rid of The Help, too. He made a face when I showed him that one.

Unsolicited Concepts For Donovan McNabb and Alexander Ovechkin's Capital One Ads

2010-10-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

CONCEPT 1: Donovan is leaving Fed Ex Field after a particularly tough defeat. Alex pulls up in his whip for their Sunday visit to Dairy Queen (a dietary indulgence that each man can afford once a week at most).

"I'm am sorry Donovan," says Alex. "That was a truly heartbreaker."

"Thanks, man," Donovan replies. Then: "Oh SHIT! I had to pay the pool guy to fish out that dead squirrel right before the game, I'm out of cash!"

Suddenly, like a lightbulb: "Capital One Bank," says Alex. "They're everwhere."

"Oh man, you're right Ovie!" Donovan is effervescent. "When we get to DQ, I'm treating you to a chili dog and a Blizzard!"

CONCEPT 2: Alex is spotting Donovan as he works on his bench press. Donovan finishes his set, grabs a towel.

"Whew!" he exclaims.

"Make sure you always are locking it out," Alex reminds him. "That last set was not looking so good."

Donovan concurs. "You're right man. It's just, I feel like I'm not getting the kind of pump I need from my supplements. I'm worn out lately!"

"I know of a guy," Alex offers. "He is super underground, only having the shit that is not in the Vitamin Shoppes yet. However he is taking cash only."

"Hell man, I don't feel like driving across town to BB&T just to get some cash," Donovan replies.

Alex grabs Donovan by the shirt collar and pulls him Eskimo-kiss close, staring unblinking into his eyes. "Capital One Bank," he hisses. "They're everywhere."

Donovan is nonplussed.

CONCEPT 3: Donovan is trying to book a seat on a flight to Saint-Tropez five minutes before it departs National Airport. His credit card is declined.

"I'm terribly sorry Mr. McNabb," the firm but accommodating young lady at the ticket counter tells him.

"No, no, it's fine," he replies. "Damn! I knew I shouldn't have put all those cases of Orca caviar on that card right before this trip! Orcas don't even lay eggs!"

Almost before he can finish the sentence, an enormous hirsute hand floats before his face, clutching a freshly minted American Express black card, issued by...

"Capital One Bank," says Alex. "They're everywhere."

"Alex!" Donovan exclaims, dumbfounded. "You're a lifesaver! But aren't you supposed to be playing a game right now?"

"Yes." Alex gestures to a nearby airport bar, which is broadcasting a live feed of a Caps-Sharks game in the first period. Alex has already scored twice and is attempting a penalty shot.

"Woooowww," Donovan says. "You really are something else, man!"

"I got to go," Alex says.

Hells Yeah

2010-09-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

Xtranormal is fun

330,003 Structural and Hygiene Issues From Beyond The Rig Veda

2010-09-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

Does it count as schadenfreude if I'm merely impressed that so much could go so thoroughly wrong?

Unsolicited Catty Remarks for US Weekly's "Fashion Police"

2010-09-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Looks like Jessica's taking fashion tips from her man Tony Romo!

Ri Ri needs to learn that there's a fine line between hippie chic and hippie FREAK!

Sorry Lady Dada, Slipknot auditions were last week!

Belly button rings are SO over!

She went for Betty Boop, but ended up making Harvey Keitel turn to drink in "Bad Lieutenant"!

Johnny Depp is a true fashion original and can do no wrong in our eyes.

Kate Hudson Has One More Oscar On Her Shelf Than You Losers

2010-09-05T20:42:00.001-07:00

If you're ever at a loss as to what to make the premise of your latest rom com, just remember you always have "assuming custody of your dead friend/sibling's child" to go to in a pinch.

Unsolicited Pieces for Pitchfork's "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990's"

2010-09-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

94. Puff Daddy - Come With Me
What does it mean when such bold, genre-defying music is used to accompany such unadulterated schlock entertainment? Can we shake the fetid memory of the 247th godawful CGI retread stomping the shit out of NYC and focus solely on Puff's unfuckwithable flow, reminding ourselves that the phrase "from and inspired by" is merely a sly marketing ploy? Or do we just accept that it is impossible to remove the presence of Godzilla from what is otherwise one of the freshest hip-hop tracks of the last 20 years, and appreciate the dichotomy contained therein? All I know is that when the "BMM-KCH-BAH" beat kicks in on top of that HUGE violin riff, all considerations of pop vs. art, real vs. fake, whether or not that really is Puff in that Fine Young Cannibals video, go out the window like yesterday's molted lizard skin. In the words of Matthew Broderick, "Holy shit!"

176. Seven Mary Three - Cumbersome
Seven Mary Three are often dismissed as being merely Puddle of Mudd in chrysalis, but listen again to that chorus: "I have become cumbersome/To my girl". What always set frontman Jason Ross apart from the rest of his post-grunge peers was his sometimes shocking vulnerability, and it's never more apparent than in this track. The really incredible part, though, is that he has a crack band willing to follow him into the abyss. As the chugging guitar of the verse snags and hangs over the lyrics like an unanswered question and Ross lays bare his (really, all of our) emotional trials and tribs, you can feel it: something's about to drop.

26. Everclear - Heroin Girl
Props if you can make it through this one: picking up where Lou and Neil left off, Everclear mastermind Art Alexakis crafts one of the most harrowing drug yarns in recent memory. Even if you're not chasing the dragon (I've never sampled the stuff myself), you'll still feel drowsy and incoherent when the Black Flag-caliber punk evisceration has whirled you through every minute, wrenching detail of the lives a long-gone chick and a guy who didn't see the future coming. Everclear: pure, undiluted, straight to the gut.

2. Marcy Playground - Sex And Candy

Kurt Cobain. Mulder. Beck. Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction." Stephen Malkmus. Not even one of those icons (or, shit, all of them combined) could step to the nonchalant shrug that this song dropped on our collective consciousness circa '98. MP's John Wozniak (this is before his solo outing as 5pyramidz, remember, he was still John Wozniak back then people) couldn't even be bothered to SING the damn thing. It's a testament to the ethos of a decade now long past that people would positively CRANK this shit like it was Daddy Yankee.

It does make some weird sort of sense: everyone knows the '90s were the most chilled out decade ever. We had a pothead for a president, Nintendo 64 had just come out, 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were just a twinkle in Dick Cheney's penile implant. A lot of people wouldn't rank this song as high as it is on our list (hell, "Save Tonight" only clocked in at number 41), but it can't be denied that in some way, at a remote but cherished time in our lives, this track spoke for a part of all of us. All together now: "Hangin' round/Downtown by myself/And I've had too much caffeine/And I've been thinkin' bout myself." Mama this surely is a dream, indeed.

Predictions for the Series Finale of "Mad Men"

2010-08-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

Following the dissolution of his third marriage to reality TV starlet Kim "$o Hood" Schleidenbach, Don retreats to Bobby(now Robert Francis)'s McMansion in the Atlanta suburbs. Desolate and beyond redemption, he pilots his son's Lincoln Navigator into a river and drowns laughing after seeing this commercial in hi-def:

Souleyman in the Citay

2010-06-29T19:22:00.001-07:00

When Omar Souleyman strode onstage at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on a crushingly hot June 27, he was flanked by at least two official videographers, along with a hype man who hovered about the stage continually snapping photos with an iPhone, often directly over Souleyman's shoulder. The internationally celebrated purveyor of hyperspeed Dabke seemed utterly unfazed by the bordering-on-overbearing presence of these documentarians; in fact, the impression conveyed by this performance was that Omar Souleyman was, is, and shall remain utterly unfazed by anything at all.

Coolly, purposefully prowling the stage, Souleyman wasted no time with superfluous gestures, pausing only to make measured exhorting signals to the gesticulators below, or to receive lyrical coaching from his onstage adviser (the guy with the iPhone). Decked out as he was in full-body thawb and keffiyeh in the oppressive heat, not one bead of sweat manifested itself anywhere on Souleyman's visage for the entire performance.

Souleyman is a consummate entertainer, and every aspect of the show from the circling cameras to the cool-customer nonchalance was carefully calibrated to project the idea of capital O capital S Omar Souleyman; the unflappable, deeply intense figure hailing from a place utterly remote to most Westerners, a man who clearly lives to engage and entertain but who remains to a large extent mysterious and unknowable.

This is not to imply a cynically calculated approach on the part of Souleyman or his musicians and handlers. Of course, one must be familiar with Souleyman's music to really get the full complexity and character of this concert. For the unschooled: it basically sounds like Excepter at triple speed played on pitch-shifting keyboards while Souleyman intones Syrian poetry and candy coated digitized Oud flies in from the top of the Burj Khalifa here just watch this and this. Basically, it's really intense and out-there. Souleyman's impenetrable attitude onstage actually served to heighten the intensity; since he stayed so reserved for the lion's share of the show, the moments in which he really threw himself into a phrase or lyric (especially when he was met by an immense shifting wall of psych Korg)were genuinely transporting.

But that's all just so much talk. I guess that what I'm ultimately trying to express is that of the two concerts this past weekend at which an iPhone played a crucial role, I think I chose the right one to attend.

Unsolicited Suggestions for Nicholas Sparks

2010-04-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

Missed Connection: A recent divorcee strikes up a steamy romance with a human rights lawyer turned Zen Buddhist practitioner when he sells his grandfather’s mahogany armoire over Craigslist in an attempt to rid himself of earthly constraints. They must struggle to balance their love against the demands of her newly-opened bakery and his duties running a Northern California Zen monastery. Soul-searching trips to wine country abound until he is killed in a helicopter accident.

Mystery Fax: A harried travel agent and single mother starts receiving strange faxes at her Cape Cod office. At first she believes they are solicitations or a wrong number, but then discovers they are desperate dispatches from a brave handsome journalist held captive by FARC guerillas in Colombia. They continue to exchange messages through this rapidly-disappearing form of communication; non-platonic feelings erupt. Finally, with the help of her ex-husband David Morse, she goes to South America to attempt to rescue him. He is tragically killed after eating a poisonous jungle plant but not before giving our heroine the courage she needs to open the tearoom of which she had always dreamed.

Texts from Ocracoke: A 40-something CPA and recent divorcee is taking some time to herself on the Outer Banks when she meets and falls in love with a ruggedly handsome pediatrician who had his larynx torn out by a leopard while working in Namibia for Doctors Without Borders. Since he has lost the ability to speak, they communicate with each other largely through text messages. She must overcome her long-standing technophobia (“I never use anything fancier than an adding machine,” she admits at one point) so that love can blossom in this coastal paradise, and so they can open a rare book shop together, thus fulfilling her lifelong dream. Tragically, though, he is killed when a really heavy book falls on him.

Coo-Coo for You: A young American doughboy fighting in World War I meets a beautiful French village girl while AWOL from this horrible, pointless fighting that is tearing this world apart. He is eventually found and brought back to the line, but continues to send poetry and communiqués to her via passenger pigeon. Cruel fate conspires to make it impossible for them to reunite after the war, but they meet again in Paris when they are both 120 years old and he happens to walk into her granddaughter’s créperie. They live happily ever after but passenger pigeons go extinct because of their overuse in wars.

Happy Birthday: Das Vidanya

2010-04-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Das Vidanya marked its one-year anniversary a few days ago. What has changed since April 3, 2009? Let's run this down in bullet form, but with dashes:

-Posts are generally shorter: It's hard for me to believe that I was able to write posts longer than four paragraphs towards the beginning of this blog's history. These days, Das Vidanya topics rarely gestate in my mind long enough to be crafted into posts, and those that do are ineffable and fleeting at best. Erring towards short and sweet has kind of become a thing with Das Vidanya.

-More erratic posting: Boy, I sure was a Talkative Terrence last spring, eh? Yeah, not no more. I'll refer you to the explanation above: Topics - ineffable! fleeting!

-More embedded videos: Everyone knows that it is important to utilize visual aids when dissecting important topics e.g. L'il Wayne. More videos! Plus you can call your friends around to watch them and when they ask "Dude what the hell blog is this" you can say "I dunno". Increased video embeds should in no way lead you to infer laziness on my part.

-I moved back to Northern Virginia: I don't want to talk about it.

Thanks again for your loyal readership and let's make this next year the specialest one of all!

Fancy

2010-03-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

"You know how L'il Wayne came up with saying 'no homo' when you do [gay] stuff like that?" said the man at the gym a couple days ago. "Well, my whole life is no homo."

All I Do Is Kill Nazis Of You The Whole Night Thru

2010-03-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

Oscar weekend is here, and there are those who believe that Inglorious Basterds is likely to become your 2009 Best Picture recipient. I don't think that this will happen, but I fervently hope that it does.

Basterds was my second-favorite movie of 2009 (after this masterpiece). Here's my third grade book report version of why:

I thought Inglorious Basterds was a good movie because it was really fun and awesome. The main themes were revenge and Nazis. The main Nazi was really scary and the actor playing him was really good. The plot did not make a lot of sense sometimes but that was okay because it was very hilarious and I had a great time at the movies.

Listen, everyone: that is the only appropriate reaction to have after seeing Inglorious Basterds. It defies any trenchant analysis and is pure entertainment. It is an utter mess of a movie, which is quite common, but also a completely and purely entertaining mess in which a famous director follows his various unique obsessions down their respective rabbit holes for no real reason at all and is hugely successful, which is not as common.

To be honest, though, the movie could have been an absolute pile and I would still be rooting for it to win the Oscar, if only to demonstrate that the movie industry is so narrow-minded and bankrupt of all original thought that they will literally hand out an award to anything with a Nazi in it. Hell, they gave one out last year to Kate Winslet for jackbooting up after she and Ricky Gervais mocked the very concept mercilessly.

So at this year's Oscar party, tell your friends to root for the coronation of ludicrousness, and remind them that The Hurt Locker didn't have even one single Mexican standoff.

Secret Grilled Cheese Party

2010-03-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

Like it or not, Being a Man in the 21st Century means living in paralyzing fear of being emasculated in any and every situation. It should be accepted as fact that if you are a heterosexual male between the ages of oh let's say 18 and 35, day-to-day life is a constant process of shoring up your defenses against threats to your power, virility, and unassailable dudeitude.

That being said, the ad snippet that I'm about to foist upon you made me drop my Axe can mid-spray and pause 300 right at the good part:

Is nothing sacred? Now I'm halfway between a mincing fairy and a cringe-inducing manchild if I order a grilled cheese sandwich?

The people at Hardee's (Carl's Jr. on the west coast) have obviously never been in any sort of dire financial situation. They can't even fathom the enormous bite that six 24 DVD sets and a full tank of gas for an all-black Hemi V8 Dodge Charger can take out of a Man's budget. Thus, they clearly do not realize that when dining out, a delicious and cost-effective grilled cheese is often the best option.

That being said, I can't fault Hardee's for their incredibly simple solution to the problem of having your identity called into question by a sandwich. To wit: PUT A BURGER IN THE MIDDLE OF IT

Raquetball, Tennis, Pool, Whatever

2010-03-01T21:31:00.000-08:00

Forgot to mention Wooooo threw my wigged out letter up onto their blog a few weeks back. There's a link in there you can follow back to this blog, which you can use as a jumping-off point to go back to the Wooooo post, then back to this blog again.

Get well soon Guru

Cakes In The Home

2010-02-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

Crash Course In Science!

Day of the Dead (Malls)

2010-02-20T17:14:00.000-08:00

What is it that's so addictive about Labelscar and its attendant Flickr page, and by extension the drive to track down and document dead malls across the nation/world for the public record?

Going beyond a retail history, socioeconomic, or even an architectural standpoint, there is something charged and visceral about viewing and obsessively cataolguing these rotting cathedrals slashed across our landscape. The "living time capsule" aspect is surely a huge part of it. "What transpired in this place ten, fifteen, twenty years ago?" we ask ourselves. "Who tried on clothes under these light fixtures, amidst this stucco and wood paneling? Who cried during their smoke break on this loading dock, now overgrown with weeds? What Sophoclean dramas played themselves out in this food court?"

For this blogger, though, the most enthralling aspect of the dead mall sites is the way in which they reveal and obsessively elaborate on hideous emptiness. An abandoned mall suggests something more than a mere ghost town. A bright, loud, exapansive enclosure catered entirely to the needs and desires of the American human being that has been cast aside and left to decay is both pitiable and frightening. "Please enter us," these malls said before they were shuttered. "We can give you so much, we want only to help and serve you, we can make you happy"; shadows of echoes from the past, now, that are sucked into a yawning void.

Outrage!

2010-01-25T22:06:00.000-08:00

It's an old cliche that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I regret to report that after much soul-searching, I can find nothing in myself but disgust and indignation at the usurpation of my nom d'URL by the dream pop band "Beach House."

I understand that, as artists, Beach House probably find the fact that they must put any effort into labeling the utmost expression of their very souls to be unnecessary and superfluous, even perverse; the name of the band itself attests to this fact. But to appropriate the name of their favorite blog without so much as a word of notice to its creator is really beyond the pale. While I'm glad that you enjoy reading this site, guy and girl from Beach House, I must express my disappointment that you could not even acknowledge me in the Thank Yous section of your album's liner notes.

In short: :(

Just Make Sure You Flush Staten Island

2009-09-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the first and last installment of Das Vidanya's "Remember The Daze" series. Today we address Soap shoes.

These shoes were once worn by many people at my middle school who would grow up to not be ashamed of owning a Trapt CD. There was a gnarly rail in the back of this middle school, and the same five or six guys would be out there Soapin' it up each afternoon. This rail has since been skate-stopped, but since the cream of the crop of this group could only average about a foot per grind, it doesn't really matter.

Soap shoes, as the reader has no doubt realized at this point, had a brilliant invention on their hands. They provided a common-sense solution for every young man around the turn of the century who fancied himself a latter-day Bart Simpson but who could not afford the risk of having his skateboard confiscated while carving it up on school property. Of course, now every kid worth a damn has those shoes with the wheel on the back of them, and Michael Jackson is dead.

Taylor Swiftboated

2009-09-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

So who saw that Pitchfork best music videos of the 00's list? What a crock, right? No 99 Problems or Hurt for one thing, but they also missed these masterpieces:

Speaking of Yelle, she's amazing right? I mean, Rihanna is good and everything I guess, but how much better would the "Umbrella" video be if she was wearing french fry sunglasses and a McNuggets blouse? And if Jay-Z was wearing a Sacred Geometry BAPE jacket?

Institutionalized

2009-08-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Whenever life gets me down, I just turn to this video and remind myself that things could be much, much worse. You should probably watch this:

You see, it only takes one viewing of that video (that is if I can mentally prepare myself to watch the entire thing) to remind me that whatever my problems might be, they can in no way compare to those of Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies. What a burden it must be to have parents who are genuinely interested and concerned in the mental well-being of their son; they even go so far as to commit the heinous act of letting Mr. Muir know that they are there for him if he needs to discuss his feelings. The breaking point, as you have no doubt seen through your tears, comes as Mike's mother cruelly informs him that she will not wait on him hand and foot. Truly a punk classic!

Everything In Moderation

2009-08-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

At work the other day I made a moustachioed man a protein smoothie. While I cleaned the pitcher, spatula, and other implements used to make the drink, the man departed the smoothie bar to pay the cashier four dollars. As I scrubbed away the stubbornly caked-on protein powder, I saw the man return out of the corner of my eye.

"I don't know if you're the manager on duty or what," the man said, "but you need to start implementing some cross-training at this gym, because I just had to wait for this guy at the front desk to figure out what kind of smoothie I'm buying and what I had to pay for it. This is BULLSHIT!"

I stared at the man without responding. Less than a minute had passed from the time he left the smoothie bar to the time when he began his rant. He stormed off.

This sort of thing happens almost every day where I work. I don't like seeing things like this on the news.

Just Remember

2009-07-19T12:30:00.001-07:00

It was all better before you were born

Is Steve Wozniak My Hero?

2009-07-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

THA WOZ is riding around on Segways and doing local car ads that seriously bite Auto Connection's shit.

Can someone from VH1 or Bravo please, please convince him to do an Eccentric Rich Boomer reality show with Richard Branson? Would it really take that much convincing? Wozniak already did Dancing With the Stars and Branson is no stranger to MTV, seeing as how he showed us his island that he rents out to Mariah on Cribs. This seems like the next logical step. And you KNOW that together they could figure out how to fly to the moon and make it affordable for at least the lower rungs of the super rich; this would of course be a reality show in itself. Nicole Richie and the son of the Executive Vice President of Brookstone dealing with the effects of zero gravity and a liquid diet? S'il vous plait!

Make that check out to cash if you could, Brian Graden.

Ernie Pyle

2009-07-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

This man was awesome

Immediately above the fires the sky was red and angry, and overhead, making a ceiling in the vast heavens, there was a cloud of smoke all in pink. Up in that pink shrouding there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing light – anti-aircraft shells bursting. After the flash you could hear the sound.

Up there, too, the barrage balloons were standing out as clearly as if it were daytime, but now they were pink instead of silver. And now and then through a hole in that pink shroud there twinkled incongruously a permanent, genuine star – the old-fashioned kind that has always been there.

Ordinary Hood Shit

2009-07-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a toddler walk face-first into a glass window. His mother crouched down to pick him up, attempting to comfort the child while at the same time not letting him see that she was laughing.

"Is he okay?" I asked.

"This has really never happened before," she responded.

His older brother, who was not too far advanced from toddlerhood himself, looked me straight in the eye and flashed me a knowing smile.

July 4:

NJ

2009-07-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

My family vacations here sometimes

Weekend Movie Spotlight!

2009-06-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Street Dreams is finally out; you can catch a sneak preview here.

The brief YouTube clip begins in a somber, almost elegiac tone that suggests impending tragedy. For my money, I'd bet on Paul Rodriguez being cast in the Morris Chestnut archetype of the promising young'un cut down before he has the chance to really show his potential. Ryan Sheckler will clearly play the Ice Cube role. A few other things:

- "I thought you got popped!"
- Being a true skater means making fun of the filmer who almost got busted by the cops alongside you because he is a nerd.
-"Aw shit D, look like he talkin bout yo moms man"

A Journey Into Darkness: Liveblogging the June 11, 2009 episode of Jeopardy!

2009-06-11T16:24:00.001-07:00

7:27 PM: Unlike ordinary sprays, Comet Gel sticks to mildew.

7:28 PM: Pat and Vanna make some imaginary small talk. I wonder if they ever Facebook chat?

7:29 PM: This Domino's commercial is making me so hungry. Will I make it through an entire episode without a snack?? Oh wait it just started.

7:30 Pm: The contestants look like weirdos, big surprise. There is always someone from the DC area on this show, and today is no exception. Trebek's suit isn't all that great but it could be worse.

7:32 PM: Contestant Kyle looks like he could use a Queer Eye makeover, but I don't think he is a straight guy in the first place. Haha Contestant Beth just said "Deep Throat." This stuff is all pretty boring, it won't get really rolling until Alex talks to the contestants.

7:34 PM: Commercials time; maybe I will go for beer instead of snacks.

7:35 PM: I can't wait to get to know factoids about the contestants, but I know it won't live up to the contestant I saw about six months ago who made up songs to sing to her cat.

7:36 PM: Beth likes to knit.

7:37 PM: Kyle likes to hold little pieces of Darwin in his hand. Actually his story was pretty cool, I'm worried about myself.

7:38 PM: Contestant Jason just crushed a whole category, in much the same manner that I am crushing this beer.

7:40 PM: Kyle's hair and goatee is really 90's, but his waistcoat screams "I'm going to screw up this Daily Double!"

7:43 PM: Nobody is going to pick "The Music of Ballet."

7:45 PM: Alex's supercasual Canadian sweater is by far the highlight of this evening; it's perriwinkle!

7:46 PM: Hey Beth, Carson McCullers wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, not Cormac McCarthy, YOU DUMB BITCH!!

7:47 PM: I bet Kyle loves to do "The Saber Dance."

7:48 PM: God I would love to have a job on the Clue Crew, no matter how many silly hats they made me wear.

7:49 PM: "One-Word Movies" could have easily been renamed "Shitty Movies of 2008."

7:50 PM: Beth is in the lead but I think Jason is going to pull out the win. Too bad, I kind of wanted Kyle to win even though half of all these posts have been for the sole purpose of making fun of his gayness.

7:52 PM: That hip couple will never stop reading the New York Times. They even like the Jayson Blair articles!

7:55: I really don't see why they had to change the Final Jeopardy music. KYLE LOSES.

7:56: Jason has vanquished all foes and is given the honor of finishing out the week with Alex and the Judges. I can now see Kyle's entire wardrobe and it is blowing my mind. Peace Connecticut.

Beef and Broccoli

2009-05-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

Can't stop watching this

2009-05-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

Frank Sinatra in Richmond, VA ca. 1950. Photo by Stanley Kubrick.

c/o Vanity Fair

Nick, Russell, and Delia

2009-05-06T16:35:00.000-07:00

Can this be real? I love Nick Cave, and The Proposition was pretty good (albeit thanks to a big assist by Ray Winstone), but this thing sounds only a cut or two above a piece of Gladiator fan fic. I think Australia is trying to put one over on us!

Meanwhile, in cool dead people news, I only found out about this chick the other day. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME

Auto Connection

2009-05-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

When the time comes to purchase a new car and your credit is terrible and you need that car or else you're so fired from Kinko's AGAIN and you live in the Richmond/Norfolk/Tidewater area, there is only one place to go SEE VIDEO:

Confidence: INSTILLED. That dog will sell you a car for 300 bucks, and since he's the bank and the law, he can get Will.I.Am to write him songs.

Auto Connection commercials occupy a strange netherworld between terrible-on-accident and terrible-on-purpose. The pop song adaptations, horrible production value, and endless, endless uses of Mack Mack are obviously tongue-in-cheek to an extent. But there is still an inextricable awfulness to these commercials, regardless of how self-consciously budget they are.

A huge part of the inescapable seediness derives from the customer testimonials. Obviously, no attempt is made by anyone to sound convincing, and whatever is said is so clouded by the garishness that is going on around them that it really doesn't matter. Also, I have to say that on YouTube and in the link above, the audio is much, MUCH better than I have ever heard on TV. On my $40 set, everything the satisfied customers say is completely unintelligible.

In fact, no one can really get a sense for these ads without seeing them on television. This is because no one can ever be fully prepared to see an Auto Connection ad. Witnessing, say, "I'm On Fire" sandwiched in between two other relatively normal commercials is a complete sensory overload; by the time the wicked discofire effects, sweet views of Midlothian Turnpike, goateed Jimmy Buffet fans (I think that guy owns the place), real Mack Mack, anthropormorphic Mack Mack, and Virginia residents dropping down and getting their eagle on have clattered to an abrupt and jarring halt, any normal person will have lost all will to watch the denouement of "Frasier," no matter how wickedly farcical it might turn out to be.

Strong Steps

2009-04-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

BBC:

Pyongyang says the test of the three-stage Taepodong-2 rocket was a success, putting a satellite into orbit which is now transmitting data and revolutionary songs.

Watched a show about the Antichrist on the History Channel recently. They trotted out a bunch of possible explanations for what some of the more cryptic passages in Revelations could mean. Needless to say, they missed the most blatantly obvious one:

GOD, David Thewlis is an underappreciated actor. He basically made up all the shit in that scene off-dome, ya know. Last I heard he was playing a British Nazi in a WWII movie that wasn't as popular as "Valkyrie".

Peace out

Event!

2009-04-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

On May 29, 1913, Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" premiered in Paris. The crowd at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, confounded and angered by the atonal, primal nature of the music and the racy theme of Nijinsky's accompanying choreography, descended into a riot that could not be quelled even by the Paris police force. Stravinsky's ballet itself, of course, is now recognized as a milestone in classical music and perhaps the gold standard against which all modern classical music is judged.

Everyone knows that the classical music scene has been mad boring since then, with the only excitement coming from the occasional theater fire or recital at Stonehenge. For the last 96 years, palms have been sweating, hearts have been palpitating with anticipation for anything that would compare even in the slightest to the epochal event that took place that day in 1913.

That's why, if you live in the Richmond, VA area, do not even THINK about being out of town on April 25, 2009; that is when VIDEO GAMES LIVE is coming to the Landmark Theater.

REAL TALK:

Video Games Live is a spectacular concert event featuring music from the most popular video games of all time. Join the Richmond Symphony and Richmond Symphony Chorus for exclusive video footage and music arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists, live action and unique interactive segments that create an explosive entertainment experience!

Don't even call yourself a member of the human race if you miss this opportunity.

Ok but seriously though what is the deal with this phenomenon? How can anyone love video games so much that they need to experience what was once just a midi file blown up to ridiculous proportions and synchronized with lights and dancing I guess? Maybe I just don't understand because I'm not a big video game guy (except Goldeneye; if anyone knows how to beat the Aztec level btw, hit me back).

But wait! I like other things!

Like movies, for example. Like Bernard Hermann, for example.

The man created some of the greatest film music of all time. But for me, personally, like speaking from my heart, I would never go to a recital of his music in any form. I think that in removing his music from the context of the films in which they appeared, something is inevitably lost; something not worth forking over like 50 bucks to see performed live. Why wouldn't it be the same for video games?

So I dunno, if you want to get high on Sour Patch Kids and go see Video Games Live, do it. But you won't find me in the Landmark Theater on April 25! I'm getting fitted for new dentures that day.

Pop Music: Early 2009

2009-04-03T15:32:00.000-07:00

Working as I do at a gym equipped with Sirius Satellite Radio that is ninety-five percent of the time tuned to a top 40 station (Sirius Hits 1), I've become familiar over the months with the latest and surely the greatest tracks that 14 year olds and gay men are sweatin lately.

Sirius Hits 1 mostly concentrates on a heady and aromatic blend of confectionary electro-pop, blond-streaked Tapoutdouche rock, and the All-American Rejects. It is almost interchangeable with the hip-hop and R&B station that is sometimes played ("K-'s a hip-hop faggot," as one of my coworkers put it to me recently), yet the gym members are very wedded to SH1, and complaints are inevitably logged if another Sirius station is chosen in its stead.

Since the gym is a warehouse-sized echo chamber and I have things to do during my job that prevent me from focusing all my attention on SH1, I have only a vague grasp of what the majority of these songs actually sound like. Nonetheless, here are my reviews of some of the standouts:

Britney Spears - "Womanizer," "Circus," "If U Seek Amy"
Confession time: it took me forever to figure out that "If U Seek Amy" spelled out "F.U.C.K. Me" or "Fuck Me." I even read an internet news article about the hidden meaning and couldn't piece it together. "IfYOUSEEkamy?" I said out loud to myself. "IfyousEEKAMY? Well, I don't see what's so objectionable about that."

These are three of the worst songs I have ever heard in my life.

Eminem feat. Dr. Dre and 50 Cent - "Crack A Bottle"
I think it's fair to say that for anyone within about five years of my age, Eminem and Dr. Dre played a monumental role in shaping their worldview as it pertains to, among other things, women, black culture, stress management, and marijuana. These men taught us how adults function in society, and for that we owe them a debt of gratitude.

This song, which I guess is supposed to be either on Eminem's new album or Dre's thing that's supposed to have been coming out for the last ten years, represents a clean break from Eminem's previous woe-is-me angst tales; from the title, there is abundant evidence that Marshal Mathers III is now all about partying and having a good time. Em's verse and the song's chorus name-drop a number of fun things, like condoms, group sex, and Chevy Tahoes. Dre has a whatever verse and 50 Cent stops by for literally about 10 seconds.

I don't know if Dre produced this but if he did it sounds really phoned in and if Eminem produced it, it is the best song Eminem has ever produced.

Adem(?) - Song about blowjobs
This song is really annoying because it goes "So addicted to/all the things you do/when you're going down on me/in between the sheets" so immediately you have to picture a guy who looks like Criss Angel without the goth fixation receiving fellatio. It is also annoying because it is a really, really bad song.

Lady Gaga - "Just Dance," "Poker Face"
These songs are so, so catchy, which is funny, because there's not really anything exceptional about them. They're pretty Kylie-y, you know, pulsating electrobeats that would sound good at a really clean-looking club, don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about Kylie.

Anyway, whoever wrote these hooks (the man I'm picturing looks something like Giorgio Moroder with a gold lame tracksuit and Osiris D3s) is a genius-caliber svengali, because they are mad going through my head right now. Actually, he probably looks more like Scott Storch than Giorgio Moroder.

Theory Of A Deadman - "Bad Girlfriend"
This is a song about how the lead singer of Theory Of A Deadman's girlfriend acts all Coyote Ugly when they out at da club but then he says something like "but she's comin home with me tonight!"

For the longest time, I thought this was a song about how the guy's girlfriend slept around on him. That was until one of my coworkers started singing his own made up version of "Bad Girlfriend" along the lines of "She likes to shake her titties/She likes to suck my dick/Yeah yeah/She's a bad bad girlfriend" and I insisted that we look up the real lyrics. It was then that I discovered just how nuanced this song really is, while still being absolutely god-awful.

T.I. feat. Justin Timberlake - "Dead and Gone"
This is definitely my favorite song that is currently being played on SH1. The production is cinematic but gritty, Tip's flow is on-point, and Justin is unobtrusive and effective, sticking to singing the hook and the bridge. See, I can't stand it when guest singers on hip hop songs decide to become the main focus of the song. I'm looking in your direction, Mary J. Blige (more on this later).

WELCOME

2009-04-03T14:58:00.000-07:00