May 2005 Archives
Click here to read my long overdue Feminism & Hip-Hop Conference notes Part 2, from the "Feminism in Hip-Hop" panel starring Tricia Rose, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and Joan Morgan.
Mi Familia Esc0bed0,
If you are reading this, so is Aunt Josie, and she's done way worse shit than I ever will. Also, please note she was not born in 1939, she was born in 1962. Sorry!
love,
julianne.
Notes:
1. EFF A CAPTAIN EO: the shambling movie theater by my apt, Park Slope Pavilion, which is covered floor-to-ceiling in purple casino carpet, is the first theater in the country to get the Christie CP2000 2K projector, with a resolution twice as sharp as HDTV. I saw Revenge of the Sith there and felt like I could reach out and lick Hayden Christiansen's evil face.
2. Peter from Houston writes in to kindly inform us that Mike Jones' "Got it Sewed Up" originally appeared on the Swishahouse mixtape The Day Hell Broke Loose, which came out when I was giving birth to twins that will eventually save the galaxy from the dark side. Thank you Nice Peter.
3. My mom and tia Bea are visiting NY for the first time from Wyoming and Arizona, respectively. In a bizarre twist of reverse cultural-elitism, their favorite game so far is to snap on taquerias in the East Village: they look at the dry-erase board menus posted in the windows and decide whether they're authentic enough. Mole on the menu gets the "thumbs up," they are skeptical of anyplace selling chimichangas, and if a restaurant sells tortillas by the dozen it generally passes on principle. We have not actually tested any of them since I am skeptical of all U.S. taquerias east of California (Texas puts too much Texas in it; New Mexico is OK tho they are a bit liberal with the corn), and also, my mom stuffed nine Ziploc bags of homemade enchiladas into her suitcase, so FACE on a NY taqueria.
4. After the retrospective at the Met, Max Ernst is my new favorite 20th-century man-painter after Philip Guston. If you want to be my date (or dates) to the Rosamond Bernier lecture on June 3, email.
5. After the more highly publicized retrospective at the Met, I still think Coco Chanel is boring and am holding out for the exhibit on Miuccia Prada; I mean, she is a feminist/communist mime!
I WILL take a self-revealing risk: If you'd ever had a dude tell you "naw, just playin..." after promising to "beat up" your pussy, or the equivalent, I guarantee you wouldn't find it defensible, with or without the "bitch." Let me divulge a secret: sometime around junior high school, women learn that the "just joking" clause, when issued after a soliloquy of sexual threats, is a GASLIGHTING power move, meant to make us believe we are crazy for feeling uncomfortable or threatened or violated. It is meant to instill self-doubt and keep us quiet, meant to cut us off at the knees, so we not only shoulder the barrage of insults and sexual predation, but we believe there is something wrong with us for not liking it. That we are squares or that we "hate fun" or that we are Victorian freaks, when we object to some strange dude coming up behind us in a club so we cannot see him (see: the "proper" video) and saying he wants to beat the walls of a bitch til she scrawl.
And to remove this song from its context is to ignore and excuse the fact that the Ying Yang Twins are the men who, in 2003, wanted to "punch a bitch in the breast," and in 2002 wanted to "kill a bitch." So you're right, I have no sympathy for lechers. And as for "date rape": those are DJ Smurf's self-revealing words, and only a person who didn't believe they were at risk of date-rape would be so glib about it. Read the YYT profile in XXL. What's worse, the Voice opinion is not totally original: no less than two other male critics have posed the "nah just joking" defense to me, which by the way is totally groundless hairsplitting: it's based on one-half a lyric in the third line, the INTRO, of a three-minute long song--so if you really want to hairsplit, the "just joking" only qualifies the idea that dude may want to touch lady's ass. But this is what we get in the closed system of men reviewing records made for men by men. (Thanks to Ms. L.S. for the perspective.) At its heart it feels like a desire not only to prove us wrong, but to shut us up, and to shut the mouths of anyone else who's criticized the Twins (um, Florida Atlantic University, anyone?) or any aspect of the rape culture aspect of much of rap music. Because actually thinking about the ramifications of pop culture in the real world, and your level of complicity within it, is a fucking struggle: you are forced to self-examine, to examine your level of privilege, and to acknowledge that the world and life are broad, and that there are more important things than music criticism and being right or even positing a contrarian opinion in order to piss people off. But what no one ever says is that IT IS OK TO BE WRONG SOMETIMES, even if the ILM culture, NYC's neverending phallocentric critical pissing contest, and yr Ivy League pass say it's not.
And while your internerd-critic 'puters were busy 'putin', the real feminist hip-hop work--flesh'n'blood women and men discussing how misogyny in pop culture directly impacts our lives (and vice versa), because as you put it it's not just a fantasy-- was going down at Spelman College, it was going down at Florida Atlantic, it was going down at the University of Chicago's Feminism in Hip-Hop Conference--this week there is a women in hip-hop summit in Minneapolis called B-Girl Be; field trip, perhaps?
PS Did anyone besides me read Jon Caramanica's profile of the Twins in XXL? Did you not think that was real talk? Do you think three dudes in the safe-space of a studio with a male journalist would be just jokin about that stuff?
"Where I'm from, the whole society is based on drugs. It's like the ghetto in South Houston in that there's no hope. Either you sell drugs or you're out of the loop. As a result, way too many people I grew up with wound up missing or dead. My own father has been in a Mexican jail since I was in fifth grade. The irony of it all is that many of the Norteño artists that are hugely popular in Del Rio are telling the same sort of stories that gangsta rappers like N.W.A tell. Los Tigres del Norte have so much in common with hip-hop. They just happen to be fat, 40-year-old Mexican guys."
just filmed segment for culture documentary, where I'm in Jarmusch-type conversation with very awesome internet reporter who I don't think I'm allowed to name. offered writerly commentary on music, the internet and politics. found myself mid-conversation explaining "hip-hop culture" and... yes... defining the four elements. unfortunately did not have copy of Can't Stop Won't Stop on hand. but thanks for asking. AND: uprocked on-cam while sound guy, lacking stereo, beatboxed. no shit. (Joe Schloss... erm, lean back?)
since the nerve.com thing i have found i no longer possess a sense of shame. Speaking of which: the Scriabin ex in question would like to clarify to all ex-girlfriends everywhere that he has never played that Scriabin symphony for anybody... he "doesn't even know what a poem is." obviously, we should get back together.
Ashanti must be owing some serious back-taxes. And yes, I am watching it now: LIVE BLOGGING THE MUPPETS WIZARD OF OZ. WHAT?! It's a disaster--an American Idol metaphor for a young trailer park Kansan who wants to go big-time singing-career, with constant, kinda-obtuse inside-jokes about Hollywood, the velvet rope, and authenticity in pop music... and for a kid's movie, that was certainly a gratuituous and rather unsettling violent dismemberment of Kermit the Frog, now wasn't it. TV violence in wartime is like whatevs--Tarantino plays himself in this thing, after all--but even where Kill Bill cast lady-murderers inna apres-Shampoo "girl power" stylee, Muppets are still lugging around those heavy '70s gender imperatives (except maybe for Janice, the Kim Gordon of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem). I think Miss Piggy needs to get fat-rights on Jim Henson's dead ass. (RIP.)
Ashanti hasn't done a song yet. Based on the look on her face as she interacts with a riot of three-foot-tall foam rubber pigs in leather bustiers and bad extensions, I'm guessing that as the camera rolled, she was plotting revenge on Irv Gotti and creatively visualizing her paycheck. If it gets real bad maybe her co-star Queen Latifah can get her a contract with Cover Girl.
Thanks to the girlgroup yahoogroup, the mondo spahnktahnkular Daphne Brooks reads from her new Continuum book on Jeff Buckley's Grace:
Thrs. May 26, 7 pm
Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow
go! daphne brooks is inspiration and like, my favorite live-paper-reader ever
If you're not off bestowing gifts upon Britt Barton-Lindsay, you have no excuse but to support hip-hop ladies in yr city at the INtermedia Arts open forum:
SATURDAY:
Open Forum: Women in the Twin Cities Hip-Hop Scene
Saturday, May 21
Noon–1:30 pm; free admission
A space for us to build on local energy and local artists and to
discuss ideas to support each other in this community.
LOCATION:
Intermedia Arts
2822 Lyndal
I think they have been radiating the water in Portland, as evidenced by Ainu's new tracks, digging deep in the floppy post-nuclear electro. Bazonkers! Cascadia may secede after all.
I am fully aware of my desire, some say questionable, to bathe in new jack basics, i.e. seven-layer effects and slow jams 23-6--but I think Amerie and Al B. Sure are the same person, or serving the same purpose in their respective time zones, or at least girl's "Falling Down My Face" has the same chord progression as Sure's "Off On Your Own (Girl)," anyway. In Effect Mode was practically a shoegazer album for its amniotic production qualities, and Touch ain't, but Kyle West and Rich Harrison both like wearing baubles and counter-rhythm in their beat-making hats. Thank you for the dense production, minimalism is so passe, right now I wanna look up into a song and see some junk and clutter. (Or I just want to hear Ciara--Touch can't touch C's right-now single "Oh," but then songs about rolling low on cars like sharks are finally the pop zeitgeist, so oh well.)
Dear Patrick Dempsey,
Yes, of course I'll marry you, even though I'm 29 and I still have so many oats to sow or whatever. What a lovely birthday surprise.
Thanks for asking,
julianne.
Note to self: become Dadaist? Perf art party at my apartment, RIGHT NOW--BUT YOU HAVE TO FIND IT FIRST! And you don't get in unless you wear a mask and a tailfeather. We're going to smear Bliss spa mud on a wall-sized blow-up of Tony Blair.
Speaking of radiant skin: tonight some bored friends and I watched and "deconstructed" two hours of gay male porn with the sound turned down, the iPod up. Some of that porn was 18 & Horny, which would have been more accurately titled 47 & Sweaty. Mostly, we viewed one 1998 tape called Images of Lust, which was so low-budge that, during one kissing close-up, the "filmmakers" switched on some trippy VHS effect to obscure the giant zit on one of the actors' chins. Luckily, I had a crew of eight to support (or goad?) me through this journey--three gay men, two straight men, three straight women--and I discovered two things:
1. The "Crut's Hush-Up Mix" of "Wait (The Whisper Song)" is the "Fallen (Polow da Don Mix)" of 2005. (Meaning: flat parts get full and swing.) Download it RIGHT NOW. You cannot continue hearing that stale-ass wannabe "drop it like it's hot" day-old hamburger of a Smurf beat after 1 taste of the "Hush Up Mix"'s luscious lascivious pregnant breaks, chirping birds, wurlitzer melody and outro lady-humpery.
(Content note: the "Beat that pussy up" lyric is erased, "Wait'll you see my dick" is now "wait'll I show you this," which is fine by me. Special to K.S.: now, if only Gwen Stefani would just stop perpetrating with the Harajuku girls, my role here would be finis.)
2. After said two hours of gay male porn, I went dancing with the porn posse, and my objectification quotient NOTICABLY increased. It took me a minute before I realized I was staring at half the men in the bar with "images of lust" in my head--not unusual in and of itself, except these images had nothing to do with my normal images of lust--for one, my normal images of lust don't include two twinks and a police baton. No, my objectification directly corresponded to the images of lust in Images of Lust. Not enough evidence to form a hypothesis, but vaguely disorienting. As Karen O said, "I wish I could buy back the woman you stole."
Happy birthday to Terrance, whose Portland birthday party I missed, but which earned me FIVE early-morning calls from the left coast. There is a thing called time zones, but god bless you all.
Secondly, happy birthday to me and Janet Jackson on May 16. That's a Monday, and I'm giving you a heads up so you can messenger over a fruit basket to the Dupree HQ or whatever. Below is the list of what I want. I've been working on it for a week.
1. bass
2. barcelona
3. the knicks move their practice facility across the street from my apartment
My dear friend and ex-housemate, Joe Faustin Kelly, source of many "Julianne, get yourself together, woman!" pep talks--a man who used to go on 2-hour jogs, come home and FRY a can of tuna still wearing his sweaty sweatpants every night--and regaled me with roboto dances whenever we put on mr. de's "what u like"--is also an amazing furniture designer and has a website. You should order something from him before he gets super famous and quadruples his asking prices.
some background on mr. de: coming from Detroit "ghettotech" scene, or creating it, rather, he was partners w/ DJ Assault (and I think better, as his post-Assault shit can attest). His electrofunk is the heartbeat of Detroit in-the-garage production, nasty-ass lyrics and the proper shrines for old soul & funk (or new ones like Prince), sampling or vamping the melodies of old soul songs over electro thumpers. In 2000 he released Mr De's Electronic Funkyshit one of my favorite albums, like, of all time--YES: of all time!--and "what u like" is a courting-ritual number which, considering how dirty it is, is surprisingly cheerful and matter-of-fact (possibly because it's Mr. De and his wife on vox--the jolly interplay of best friends forevz). Their conversation is a checklist of pre-sex requirements ("nigga, what's your cheddar like?" "bitch, you know my cheddar tight") but it's not violent --it sounds like they're discussing last night's PTA meeting or doing overdubs for a shampoo commercial, and later they're going in for the wildtimes. Cause, oh, duh, people fuck and it's fun and mutuality is sexy and here it is in a song for the dancefloor.
The production is swiped from a '70s (early '80s?) soul song but I can't remember what it is, someone help me out.
Can the man get some love, please. "You took away my pride" as compliment is truly gangster. On repeat, makes up for missing Mint Condition.
All I'm saying is my birthday is coming really soon.
Joe Gross had me and Dulli pegged. In his Whigs entry for Rolling Stone's album guide he wrote "'Gentleman,' [Afghan Whigs] will take to their grave. Inside a brilliant, knowing record sleeve hides one of '90s rock's messiest psychodramas: reportedly written after a particularly nasty break-up, the Gentleman song-cycle portrays the artist as a grandmaster headfucker, the kind of guy you would keep your slightly obsessive sister away from at all costs even as she is, once again, climbing into his car. Dulli chronicles the melodramatic chess of maximum co-dependence with vengeful loathing, self- and otherwise."
So today I call both dudes--Dulli, then Joe--for a quickie Q&A and emotional consultation, respectively. Joe and I have talked Greg's misogy sex gallavantry, his being famously "sloppy," but having the whole suavish sexual carnivore act down like he invented it.
Dulli starts calling me "babe" after two minutes of conversation and we're talking Angie Stone which gets me going really good, and his voice has a rasp like a dud sputtering firecracker about to put out my eye. And I know he's bad, he's bad bad bad-- there are like, novels and independent films about it. But I'm on the phone with fucking Cool Hand Luke. He tells me to watch The Wild Bunch, teases me for not having cable, tells me I have inspired him to cover "Everything is Everything" by Lauryn Hill, and before I know it, I'm climbing into his car, so to speak, mildly amused by the "babe"s even though anyone else I would have phone-clocked five minutes ago. It's like being on the line with fucking Elvis or something. So now I REALLY understand his music: it's all in there, smelling sweet and deadly like whiskey and cigarettes. (I also understand the obsession countless of my exes have had with Dulli--his magic works on straight males, too, though there is probably a fair amount of "I want to be him" attached. Ezra, for one, calls him, "A lot like John Reis, where despite being a macho/dickish UBER-MAN, he's mad charming and clever as hell." P.S. I always thought Ezra was going to leave me for the Hot Snakes.)
I relay this to Joe later and he tells me a lot but his first answer is the rightest: "Dude's game is TIGHT."
According to Don, the lovely French man who is sleeping on my living room floor, The Naast and The Brats are the hottest rock tickets in Paris right now. I am either an inefficient googler, or I am having probs finding anything substantial on the internet, which is possibly a side effect of the fact that they are "happening at this moment," so says Don.
like, on jessica's blog, my friend/ex-coworker katia dunn aired her npr spotlight on fugazi, starring jessica, among others, like ian mackaye and... katia.
one time for a story, back when we were working together, katia slaughtered a chicken and cooked it to find out if she could, ethically, remain a meat-eater. she still is, but no longer kills her own food. katia is a super-genius and did all the WBEZ coverage on how the "no child left behind" shit was leaving children behind in Chicago. then she moved to DC to work for NPR and she made this piece.
Yay for Dan M, my first ex-husband, who survived the Coachella sandstorm in a pink LaCoste and white pants with nary a speck. He's really cleaned himself up since we were married. Double Yay for Maxine Velvet Daley, who looks like a little sea monkey with a mon-chi-chi head, but give her a break, she is only five days old.
Finally, Riversong fulfills the public want for musicians who integrate history, Libertarianism, born-again Christianity, cowboy poetry and healing with harp playing, which is sometimes improvised according to the energy of the audience. He is also in recovery. Niche? Forget it. My advice to Joanna Newsom: step easy, woman.
Meanwhile, Prof. Kun gets down for the cowboy cause, drops Jewish rodeo gems on us like he owns the microfiche, which he might. Yodelayheehoodicles, young young. Yodelayheehoodicles.
from the top of the roseland balcony, king sunny ade + 9 person band looked like sparkle motion, flash-flashing deep funk, those deeply funky polyrhythms, the blinding magnitude of the best concert i will ever see, probably, ever. if you are ever going to hire someone to play talking drum on your record, and you have maybe like, $12,000 and a few plane tix from Nigeria, you should hire those guys.
CONFESSION ONE--starving and locked in the roseland for like five hours with nary a snack that didn't involve lamb shank, snail meat or beefy eggrolls, i ate meat for the first time since 1997. the verdict? i don't know, ask the surgeon who performed the cesarian. ick.
also last week caramanica and i saw erasure play one of their eight-night sold-out stretch; apparently jon thought the band had a niche fanbase that included only the asian kids who went to his jr. high smart camp--but that's his story to tell. mine ist that neil hamburger, or whatever the erasure guy's singer's name is, was fully wearing no shirt, green sequined hotpants, gigantic white angel wings and sang "don't give up don't give up, together we'll break the chains of love"--i'd break the chains of love solo if i had that dude's stylist, though. I am currently working next on obtaining giant feather cabaret fans.
CONFESSION TWO: we missed rapid ric because of erasure.
they were on point, as on point as you need erasure to be, "on point" not precluding "en pointe." and the audience sang along like it was karaokethon 1987--dude might have used a guide track but who cares, get out of the 20th century, authenticity is ripply and hologramic. get over it.
i am just freestyling, you can tell by the shitty grammar.
