Forgive Yourself

If you read this, remind me about it when you see me. I mean it.

Forgive Yourself

"I'd Rather Be With You" by Bootsy Collins

I have this song stuck in my head in a good way.

Civil War in Rap (Over Oral Sex)

I have joked for years about writing this, so I will begin now...

Over the course of many years of listening to (mostly) trashy rap, I have noticed a regional disagreement. Rappers from New York and the vicinity will often rap about performing oral sex on women, and its implicit that to do so is a socially acceptable and even a macho act. Rappers from the South are generally anti-cunnilingus, and seem to view the act as disgusting and un-macho. In both cases, artists bring the issue up with conspicuous frequency.

Below is a list of songs where the issue comes up, perhaps with some brief discussion from me. Note that this list is nowhere near exhaustive, and will perpetually be a work in progress. Note also that henceforth I will refer to the act as "the dolphin kick" (which is an inside joke I will not bother to explain) because I find it amusing to do so.

The South- Anti- Dolphin Kick

Juvenile "I Got That Fire"

Its actually one of the Fresh brothers who speaks out on the issue in this song, but Juvenile brings it up in about every other song he puts out as well. If I ever have a week to piss away listen to old Juvenile albums, I will create an exhaustive list.

Petey Pablo "Freek-a-leek"

Note that Petey Pablo says its desirable for girls to go down on each other, but that he's "not drunk enough to do that shit." Classy guy.

Ying-Yang Twins "Georgia Dome"

The North- Pro- Dolphin Kick

Nas "The Flyest"

One of my all time favorite pro-references: "Eat em so much the girls call me seafood lover"

50 Cent "21 Questions"

This one is especially significant, because I would consider 50 Cent the champion of ridiculous macho posturing in popular music today. There are quite a few more 50 Cent songs with references. I am not interested in figuring out what they are, however, because 50 Cent sucks.

More to come on this

Interesting Quotations from Odd Sources

I was on a wikipedia binge and I happened on this quotation from Lexington Steele, who is a famous adult film star (did you guess from the name?)  I think this is about as real as a Baptist porn star can keep it.  Check it out...

"Yes, I am religious. I am Christian, Baptist. I grew up in as close to a Cosby-show lifestyle as you can get. Doing porno, on a repeated basis, I am committing adultery; I’m not married, so I’m fornicating for a living; I’m paid to have sex, which means what? I’m prostituting by definition. These are things I have to reckon with my God on a daily basis. I knowingly do these things.

My decision to do porno has forced me to take my religion within: because of my job I am stronger in my relationship with God, because now I take God with me everywhere I go; if I don’t, I’ll fail. I didn’t know that god blessed me with an abnormally large penis that allows me to make porno. But I feel blessed. I believe I am blessed because I am meant to please one woman for the rest of our lives together. True, I haven’t met her yet."

All-Time Greatest Ultra Secret Crushes (Two)

If you're out there somewhere, call me. Also, if you're out there somewhere, I apologize in advance for the following use of the third person.

(In chronological order)
Pegi Fogerty [sp?]-
Oh my god Pegi! When I was in high school, I took guitar lessons one hour a week, and Pegi was an (amazing) girl who took guitar lessons at the same time and place. So many things were amazing about her. First of all, she was a beautiful girl. The kind you could take home to your mom, and your mom would have no choice but to high five you afterwards. It made me feel warm inside just to see her.

She also had a totally awesome personality. Sometimes, people would hang out after their lessons and shoot the shit with David ("of the guitar," the studio owner). I would go out of my way to be there when she was. I loved to talk to her; she had some amazing, casual, comfortable conversation. She had really good sense for what was interesting, and she listened really well. She also had sweet interests! Sometimes I would talk about a movie only weirdos like me enjoy, and she would have always seen and enjoyed it (example: Freddy Got Fingered). At the time, she was amazing to me in every way.

I knew she had a boyfriend, and I have never believed in coming between people, so I left it alone. Later on, she moved her lesson to another time of day, and I never saw her again. Pegi, where are you now?

Sarah Schell-
This one is a bit weirder.

Sarah was the neighbor of some of my good friends in college. At that time, I was in the business of getting ridiculously drunk at least once a week, and I spent a lot of time staggering around their dorm. One night I wandered into Sarah's suite and ended up hanging out for a while. Its possible I was really creepy and / or really awkward, but at the time being out of control just felt so good I wouldn't have noticed either.

I vividly remember I was talking to her by a door out onto a balcony. She was standing akimbo on one leg, kind of running one leg over the other, and I thought "This girl has the sexiest legs I have ever seen anywhere." We were talking about different physical sciences and the relationships between them, and I thought "This is the deepest girl I have ever met." Never before or since has a girl bowled me over so much the in the first few hours after our meeting.

Thats the end of the nice part of the story, unfortunately. Later on, I got the feeling that her roommates and my friends didn't get along, and I didn't feel comfortable staggering in. Maybe today I would be loyal enough my feelings to just go for it anyway, but at the time I was still shy and fearful of being awkward.

Sometimes, when I am drunk and I meet a beautiful girl, I have an intensely spiritual and religious feeling of how beautiful and terrible the world is. I am not even going to attempt to explain what I mean, and I am aware that I might sound vaguely ridiculous. But for those of you with an idea of what I am talking about, the night I met Sarah was the perfection of that experience.

Great Music Videos (Great for mostly ridiculous reasons)

Alright, what are some of my all time favorite music videos?

Most of these are first few outside what I normally listen to, which is what I love about music video TV back in the day. It was all the trendiest music getting shoved down your throat, and you would watch it just for the spectacle of the video. And you know, after a while some of it grows on you.

Pearl Jam "Do the Evolution"
Whenever I hear this song on its own, I don't even like it, but with this video it blows my mind. The song is just scratchy and weird and it sucks, but when you put this angry hippy's nightmare behind it they mesh diabolically well.

Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
Once again, a song that doesn't thrill me on its own. It sounds kind of sloppily produced and I find the Beastie Boys vaguely ridiculous. But this video, man... It takes this perfect 1970s cop fantasy and brings out everything ridiculous about it. Its deliberately shittily produced and has these great sequences of white guys with afros and aviator sunglasses clambering over random obstacles. It makes me feel just silly enough to love the Beastie Boys for 5 minutes.

Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight"
I won't say too much about this one. Don't like this song at all. But I still have dreams about the video (which I see on TV about twice a decade, tops).

These next few are videos that filled me with frustrated adolescent lust in those first few golden years of puberty. Its normal to be nostalgic about that, right?

Christina Aguilera "Come On Over, Baby"
In the 8th grade, this video gave me a kind of a boner I had never experienced before. There were weekends when I would just sit at home watching The Box (if anyone remembers The Box) all night waiting for this to come on, and when it did it was always worth it. It had all these different sets with ridiculous color schemes, and for each she had a matching outfit. They were all sexy, in a way that was (to an 8th grader) marvelously overpowering.

Notice that I include no videos in which I think Britney Spears is sexy, because I could always sense that that ho is crazy. I only include this remark because at the time, she and Christina were competitors. I want people to know what side I am on.

Christina Aguilera "What a Girl Wants"
In this video, Christina Aguilera pulls off the aggressively flirtatious routine spectacularly. So you know, its great right there, but thats not all. The video has these changes in mood that really play with your emotions, and it really enhances the effect. It starts out shitty and poppy, and you're like (imagine again that you're in 8th grade)

"this chick man, shes hot, but her hotness might be too ditsy."

So at this point you're profoundly torn.? Then in the end it goes all R & B and you say

"oh yeah, shes sexy for feal. M! MMM!"

Its the tease that makes it great.

Mariah Carey "Fantasy"
I will admit to you that I have a secret crush on Mariah Carey, but that is a terrible shameful secret which will have to remain between you and me. Its just so great to see some titties in Hollywood. Specific to this video, her body looks so sexy and she still holds on to that girl next door feel, which is an amazing combination. There are a couple other Mariah Carey videos I would put on here, but I am already too embarassed.

Arlight, now for some stuff I might normally listen to.

Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"
Love the song, love the video. The images are so trippy and vaguely terrifying, and the music just has a dark malaise to it. Its like being depressed in another dimension. Timeless classic.

Juvenile "I Got That Fire"
First of all, I had to include some classic Cash Money from The Box, for those of you that are down with that. Shots of people throwing money in the air, cruising around in ridiculous SUVs, and (of course) lots of random shots of people in white tees rapping. Second, you have to love Juvenile's crazy ghetto Louisiana accent "I got somethin foo ya." It's almost hypnotic. Finally, we all love the ridiculously explicit lyrics. Also, one of the great ridiculously explicit anti-cunnilingus references in southern rap. More on cunnilingus in rap later.

Big Tymers "Get Your Roll On"
To a real Cash Money connossieur [sp?], this is the ultimate. First, imagine shots of ridiculous sports cars (which they almost certainly don't really own) doing donuts in a parking lot. The rapping sucks, but its so filthy and ridiculous that you love it! I just can't rave enough.

To be continued

animals

A while ago I was watching BBC Planet Earth, and there was a scene where an arctic wolf was stalking some reindeer (or one of those other tundra-deer critters) in this field. It started chasing them, and they all bugged out across the tundra (awesome photography by the way). Eventually it ran down one of the younger sicklier ones and ate it.

When I was watching it, I wondered why the reindeer didn't just kick the wolf's ass. Reindeer are pretty big, and one healthy adult buck could certainly give a lone wolf a run for its. And thats just one; there are a zillion of them and together they could totally wreck the wolf's shit.

A couple weeks later, I was thinking about really dark events in history and how people respond to them. Like, if I had lived 150 years ago, would I be risking my neck to smuggle escaped slaves into Canada? If I had lived in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, would I have Anne Frank hiding in my attic? I would like to think that I would, and that other people would too, but I know that a lot of people would not really internalize what was going on, and a lot more would tolerate it in order to protect themselves. Looking inside myself, I had to admit I would find it terrifyingly difficult to do the right thing and risk terrible punishment when I could just as easily say

"I have an obligation to take care of myself first"

and leave it at that.

I thought about it some more and it reminded me of all those reindeer. If only one stayed to tangle with the wolf, it would probably get pretty messed up; I guess none of them want to be that first one. It just seems that its the same as a lot of the evil shit that goes on in society. A lot of people might know its wrong, but the first person that stands up and says it is fucked, no matter how many people quietly agree. So nobody tries to be the hero, and the villains get away. The really sad thing is that if everyone just reflexively resisted, you couldn't martyr them fast enough. You couldn't keep slaves or industrially murder Jews if even 10% of the people who sensed it was wrong resisted reflexively, and people were stepping forward to be the hero every day.

More on this later...