tonight, i'll be your

FROM March 25, 2004

My extraordinary housemate Connie has been vacationing/housesitting for some rich people in le West Hills (mere blocks from Sheed's vacated mansion) and so last night, pre-Aceyalone, we enacted our own temp. version of cribs in the upstairs den (attached to the master bath, swank) and watched MTV on the flat plasma screen thingie. After being there, I can see how it's possible for wealth to be taken for granted, simply due to sensory overload; they had so much amazing stuff it was impossible to process--a palette of so many sheer items, I felt blase. If I lived there, I think all I would do is sit on the balcony on a rocker, wrapped in a ralph lauren home non-fur throw, watch MTV, read books I bought off the internet, and look out upon the twinkle-lights of the city. And chortle.

Cable television as vestigal accoutrement is, apparently, an insane concept, or so I have been told; this was cemented last night as I got my first dose of the Chappelle show--the first dose that wasn't re-enacted in detail by friends, anyway. An entire cast of puppets representing STDs (crabs, the clap, the herp) sang cautionary tales to actual 10-year-olds. The gonnorhea puppet was purple, and conical. The line "I'm gonna beat my dick like it owes me money," was sung in melody of the showtunes variety.

But what I'm here to tell you: there's somethin else. The new Beyonce video. For "Naughty Girl." On some 9 1/2 Weeks, you-can-leave-your-hat-on stripper outtakes; Beyonce is wearing a garter belt and negligee which looks like Barbra Streisand's 1971 slumber party. The Usher/Beyonce courtship freaking is hot, but even for a song as steamy/breathless as "Tonight," it's an overextension when a woman as unequivocally talented and beautiful as Beyonce is pouncing around her video like she's gunning for lead extra in Stepford Wives remake: weirdly cheap. Slathering on the sexiness like storebought frosting in a tub. Maybe it worked for Donna Summer, but that was 1975, when "love to love you baby" was proving lady orgasms weren't feminist propaganda, if anyone was even having non-procreative sex at all. Beyonce in a negligee is too much, like items: excess results in moderate disinterest.
Props to Be's choreographer for the caterpillar vibe, though I will say her trad shoulder-pop as interpretation of bass hit is fairly spent.

If anyone wants to hire me to conceptualize/ choreograph their video, I work fast and cheap.