May 2007 Archives
This video for the song "ข้อความที่เซฟเอาไว้ในมือถือ" ("kau kwarm") by 11-girl Thai pop group Preppy G really captures those moments when a dude texts you something cryptic and you're like "WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN?" but you can't figure out how to ask because texts are a truncated, amputated form of communication. I don't know what they are actually singing because I unfortunately do not speak Thai, although there is a helpful phonetic scroll at the bottom of this video in case you don't speak Thai, either, but you want to learn the song and sing along the right syllables.
We love our phones
The triumphant video conclusion seems to say "He texted... It's Love," to which I say: "Don't Believe the Type!"
To all the girls of Preppy G - Praew, May, Beauty, Teen, Tan, Skye, Tina, Ploy, Lek, Great, & Pangou - stay working on your awesome harmonies.
Also: If you are going to be a Thai rap group, I'm pretty sure you couldn't find a better name than "THAITANIUM."
This is Japanese pop n b star Emi Hinouchi, who just released "O'Kay," her first solo single in three years (on my birthday, i might add). The video has a real Bela Tarr meets Pucca "Funny Love" quality - long running shot of girl chasing a boy for a kiss - with Emi interspersed, driving a car and showing off her nail polish.
* In "The Last Days of Lisa Left Eye Lopes," Left Eye speaks on "Creep," how she was against releasing the song as a single because she felt it promoted negative behavior: "If a woman's man is cheating on her, instead of telling her to cheat back, why don't we just tell her to leave?!" Said she almost wore black tape over her mouth in the video. Foreshadowing. The last time I heard a multiplatinum selling artist talk about the consequences of what you speak and weighing social responsibility was approximately last Nevuary. Or I Cant Rememberuary. Love forever to Ms. Lopes. RIP. Watch it, even if you dont have TV or hate TV, find a way to watch it. She was complicated - greater, fuller than we even imagined. Human - a cutter, it is revealed. Her heart fierce and true.
* The June issue of Monocle has a good cover story on how cell phone / ringtone sales are floating the South Korean music industry and how Korean pop musicians see the major phone company SK Telecom as important as any record label, because it actually gets them paid. I would quote it / elaborate but I left the mag in the black plastic bag, which Chantelle has, which she's babysitting since our tour of New York City's finest Lower East Side bars, which started out classy - the spot where the Egyptian owner spotted us with complimentary cantaloupe hookahs cause he felt my magic tattoo and thought I might be Egyptian, too, and we broke it down on the udjat and 5000 years of cultural history - and ended up assy, in its last logical endpoint, NYU undergrad's grimest/hottest barfing-lounge, the Odessa. The Odessa is the kind of place you don't want to be when they turn on the lights. The Odessa was a conduit for us landing somewhere (somewhere!) with an ensemble of Mexican skater/DJs and a cool girl in a Poison T-shirt in Bushwick at 7:30 in the morning, wondering, "where is the subway," wandering, "where is the subway," thinking we would maybe just keep walking east, all the way until we landed into the ocean. That we would step into the cool dip and float across the Atlantic and land in Morocco and no one would ever know. But no, the hot rumble of the train felt fleet beneath our feet, eventually, and we followed its tracks and found homes. Follow the tracks, a good way to find where you're going is to follow the tracks.
"Every man, at some point in his life, is gonna lose a battle.
He's gonna fight, and he's gonna lose.
But what makes him a man, is that in the midst of that battle,
he does not lose himself."
Friday Night LIGHTS!
This is old, but I was listening to it today in the heat in the park, day off dodging babies (in strollers) and trying to jog despite the cough and the sun: "Poppin RMX" - Chris Brown featuring Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana, a song that burns bright like a blue flame, Young Chris icy like buttercream. As various coworkers triumphantly pointed out like four times in the new issues of VIBE (50 cover) and VIXEN (Mya cover), Chris Brown is finally 18, so it's now legal when Lil Wayne spits (spits!) this:
brat-dat-dat when you back back back i smack-smack-smack-dat
and i'm strapped wid an automatic tongue and it goes brrrrr-at-dat-dat-dat
There are navels, and then there are navels. Jadakiss, Fat Joe and Ja Rule hitting the "New York is Back!" trope on the "Predator's Back" mixtape is just like... Did you really just shout out the entire roster of Hot 97 employees as your example of New York's imminent return? It's just like, I adore Kiss across the board, I really liked 6 tracks on Fat Joe's last album ("DAMN" BANGED) and Ja Rule is not totally hateable - but for them to rail on this topic... I get it, but still... zzzzZZZZzzzzzzz.
How fucking cold is "Ride Around Shining" freestyle:
one way another ima handle it
even if i gotta get your nana hit
and as much as i love women and kids
the art of war is what it is
serious biz
Al Qaeda Jada took Pharrell's challenge and rose to the chilly glower of the beat. Upped the ante putting threats on family. So Sopranos.
Can someone please design a widgeted page that does not make me feel like I am walking down the aisles at Wal-Mart? Thanks.
DIY pages, please,
gracias,
yours truly,
dr. j. escobedo shepherd
ps. semi not related: word to that famous designer guy who's making "Frankie Says Relax" style t-shirts with fashion commentary, who made the "I SPY A TEEN VOGUE DIY" shirt (though it woulda been better if he hadn't made it specifically for the Teen Vogue DIY section).
we got a couple new blogs over at the house.
Jalylah Burrell's Hello, Babar
Mark Anthony Neal's Critical Noir.
I am wicked pumped to read more by these smart people.
"All right, listen up. I am supposed to give you some fatherly and wise advice at this time in your life. Listen up. If you're wondering if a boy's thinking about you, he's not. He's thinking about sex or if he's hungry. Those are the only two options. Listen to me. Boys think about sex every single minute of the day. That's why they lie. They're going to leave you waiting around for them to call, and they won't call. They're gonna be cruel, and they're gonna be misleading. And your mother wanted me to add that by and large, football players are the worst offenders, however I think that it pretty much crosses all lines. You are beautiful, you are sensitive, you are sweet and I don't want to see you get hurt.
You're a terrible ping-pong player, though."
"I love you, dad."
"You know, the Riggins boys came over for dinner the other night. You an Tim, you still best friends, aintcha?"
"I guess so."
"You guess so. Well the parents did a number on those kids, that's for sure."
"Well, uh. Everyone's got a sad story. Doesn't excuse anything."
friday night lights
Friday Night Lights. Two boys whose critical opinions I esteem highly, who know about these things and like them for the right reasons, they have been tryna convert me to this show for a year. My general response: "I don't give a shit about football." Or something to that effect.
I still don't (give a shit about football), but Friday Night Lights is amazing television, storytelling, writing. A football show about philosophy. Converted. Late, but converted. Inspired, even.
But I'm only on episode six so don't spoil it kay.
"I don't know how to talk to you when you're like this. I mean, God! It's not even seven o' clock and you can barely stand.
You can blame me if you want, Tim. You can blame the whole world for all I care. But if you think being drunk all the time's gonna make this any easier you're wrong. It's not cool. Or charming. It's just pathetic. And gross."
Friday Night Lights
I have never seen a set
so straight, so clean.
Jason Street,
You are a good man.
I'm sorry it's medically dangerous for you to evacuate [sic].
Why the hell am I weeping over a two-point conversion?
What the hell IS a two-point conversion?
Friday Night Lights
(The above-linked five-page spread in the times on Tokyo cuisine is pretty good, and mostly not written from the "stranger in a strange land" high chair where many Times travel pieces tend to sit. Just fyi.)
I was wondering what Jermaine Dupri got Janet for her birthday (my birthday) and lo! GOT THIS ON THE MYSPACE BBS:
Once and former Barcelonans: is there a craigslist-style thing for the city? for flat swaps / permanent housing? jawnita@gmail.com is calling.
Whatever cable channel I'm watching just aired some Mother's Day bit about Blythe Danner, glorious mother to Gwyneth Paltrow, and how she passed on her genetic ability to look simultaneously demure and fragile in a ball gown or some shit. And I thought, with all the celebrity mom-coms airing this weekend, there's someone else who totally deserves memorializing: My personal mom-com, Paula Escobedo, who never wore a ball gown to my knowledge, but who can rock the shit out of a ridiculously sized piece of costume jewelry and a swipe of fuschia lipstick.
All things considered, my mom is pretty fucking awesome. Didn't get hitched to pops til she was 32 - an age that, to me, in late-stage-capitalist NYC, seems almost untenably young for marriage. But for a pre-feminist Mexican Catholic in the early '70s in Wyoming, it was a major decision - she chose her own will and desire for adventure above cultural and familial expectations. 'Course, she would have married if she had met better than a bunch of drunks and deadbeats before my dad. But still she was brave. She took road trips in a '72 Monte Carlo she bought with her own money and later handed down to me (it was a donk and a half, believe it). Before she found dad, she worked. A lot. First as a cocktail waitress, then as a secretary, then as a florist in a shop.
When my parents got divorced she had to start over again, to stake out more lucrative prospects. I remember helping her with her resume, her face bloated from tears, slumped over the cherry desk Aunt Luce gave her as a present when she graduated from high school, a Catholic school. It was the '80s and she was sweating it. College degrees were really starting to gain cache in those days, and she didn't have one. I remember looking at her resume, I was like 10, and feeling stunned that she could be so old. She was 50. Half a century. The reality of mortality hit me first. Then I thought: How do you start all over at 50? But you just do. You carry on because if you don't, you stop. And you can't stop. And she didn't. Sometimes she worked four jobs, sometimes funny ones - she sold that godawful costume jewelry for awhile, bags full of dangling earrings made of conch shells and plastic anchors, asymmetrical squiggle brooches in cloisonné and pewter - truly ugly shit, but she made it happen. And now, she still works down at the racetrack, does all her crafts and florals and interior design, art shit on the side. So maybe there's no ball gown stance to carry on ('sides, if I ever need it, I can teach myself). But to me, she passed down her ability to keep a plant alive - no small feat - and maybe I got a little of her mettle, too (which will hopefully make up for the Catholicism I gave back).
Happy mother's day, P.Esc. Thanks for havin me.
Also, thanks to my mom for making me listen to Harry Belafonte "Sings the Blues," one of her few non-mariachi records of my youth. If you haven't heard it, try to get it on record - it's better for the crackles. Listen to it from start to finish and really listen, cause it's deep. (That's advice I'm passing on to you from my mom. A gift!)
Sean posted this thing I made, but I would be remiss if I didn't credit William Guillermo del Creeley aka "Caps-from-the-hours-of-6-8" for nicely telling me about this thing in which it could be made, which will definitely occupy my life for the next... 64 years.
I just want to point out that R. Kelly is wearing a t-shirt of himSELF in that photo.
THAT IS WHAT I WANT FOR MY BIRTHDAY:
A T-SHIRT OF R-KELLY WEARING A T-SHIRT OF ME.
P.S. My birthday continues to fall on the selfsame day as Janet Jackson's birthday, which you may remember as May 16, unless you're slacking in Jacksons/JSHeP trivia knowledge.
To honor chica's and my shared pending b-day: Janet's best video / best outfit / best choreography. BEST choreography. Best meaning "BEST," superior to all others. It's not up for debate.
I'm not here to feed your insecurities
I wanted you to love me
This has become an all too familiar scene
It's not the first time I paid the fare
Where'd you get the idea of material possession?
Thank you for the ride nowhere
This nine-year-old is a meticulous typer. BARACK AND ROLL!
The election of Sarkozy as the President of France seems fairly disastrous for immigrants and the poor, who have been adversely affected by his policies of profiling and anti-immigrant sentiment. Riots expected - esp. since his characterization of youth living in the banieules as "scum" and "thugs" helped spark the 2005 riots. Since the 1999 protest of the WTO in Seattle, however, it seems that a standard global policy for protestors: when you can't silence them, toss in a canister of tear gas.
- Fascinating article on Liberation theology in Brazil as counter to the conservative Catholic church, as headed up by our old friend, the scaryfying Pope Ratzinger: "We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action,” said Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here. “We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the Gospel." Si! Si! Si!
- Alessandra Stanley writes about how Grey's Anatomy paints most of its female stars as narcissists coming apart at the seams: People complain that hip-hop stars use obscene lyrics and lewd music videos to demean women. Sometimes, so do even the most bourgeois women’s television shows. A manipulative kicker, tho Stanley's cutting sentiment is respectable. I like the spinoff, though - fully aware of its silliness - however, I'm disappointed in the new version of Addison as slightly less intelligent / focused, but slightly more unhinged/loosey. Not circumstantial - seems out of character, the way she's playing it. Remember season one, when Grey's was a soap opera that wasn't really a soap opera? Is it possible Shonda (check the) Rhimes has Josh Schwartz (oc) disease, where success pokes holes in an otherwise good show? too many yes people? too many executives pressuring her to broaden the fanbase by lowest-common-denominatoring? I still watch - every week - but don't obsess like I used to. (Please, God, please do not let this happen to my beloved Ugly Betty.)
RIP Ozone Records 3, Portland, Oregon. Thanks for letting me spend hours listening to records and loitering and talking shit about what bass is bassier and noisier. Miss all you guys.
Related: the new album by Strategy is excellent. Recommended for electronic dub enthusiasts, Cascadian secessionists, stoners and interpretive modern dancers - or people who like low end w/ wispy ephemeral texture. I need to listen more to give anything better than adjectival description, but hook it up.
In the Namesake, Kalpenn Modi wears a shirt that says, simply, "GRASS."
Clinton's crossword : the clues are slightly sarcastic. Love that man. (I haven't finished it yet.)
BEYOND THE DANCEFLOOR. REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS IN MUSIC.
"AY BAY-BAY. OH!!!"
I almost fell off the elliptical trainer at my gym because of the "2 Step Remix" (Unk, T-Pain, Jim Jones & E-40). 2 stepping while working out on a machine is hazardous = who knew? GRANTED, this song is inevitable - the tin-can synth sounds so bananas with Tallahassee Pain's extra-layered roger troutman chorus skipping and crackling "ohs" all on the bass like oil in a fryin pan. Jim Jones says "now catch us 2-steppin/ i got my goons reppin [dipset!]" - the most self-aware moment of his career? - "we turn the VIP into the do it do it section." That's riiiight. And getting E-40 on this remix was such a genius idea - tho his verse isn't his hottest, he's a non-southern dude with enough swagger / unique style to do justice to the whole party-with-fresh affair - and from a purely musical standpoint the tone of his voice is a nice touch :
"two faces not us two faces at once
grittin gettin it in
hustlers R us never no punks
ill 2 step on your chin"
This morning, Shanel caught me dancing on the street to this song. I had forgotten I was in public. Not that it would have mattered... but I had.
---
"AND IF YOUR FATHER REALLY HATES ME, WAIT TIL YOU'RE CARRYING MY BABY."
If you are trying to get five numbers before you even make it to work, listen to Chico Debarge's "Virgin" and make eye contact with fly fellas on the train. It's like sending out an estrogen alert. I know I said Al B. Sure was an "immaculate conception" song - so sexual you are already pregnant before the inevitable rhodes solo - but it applies here, too. This shit comes with the babies already made for you. No, it's true. He puts it on thick, in a voice with fingertips: "Before the night is done, I'm givin you a son." GET BUCK, CHICO. GET. BUck.
