Watching Joe Rogan publicly transform himself, from a curious stand-up comedian into a gullible NewAge sap, has been educational, entertaining, and - because he's so popular - deeply troubling. There's no telling how long an endless repetition of the words "We need more research" will keep his mind stuck in the quicksand of conspiracy theorists.
A ‘dignified end’ with ‘whole person’ cancer care? ("In a nutshell: if I had the choice between ‘whole person’ care followed by a ‘dignified end’ or conventional oncology followed by survival, I would chose the latter.")
An understandable mistake but, still, really misguided. An obvious sign Camille hasn't kept up for some time.
Despite his claim of God status, Em's been out of it for years now. He doesn't want to be coasting on his name today, but he is, and that's what makes Camille's words ring so hollow. He's currently striving and failing. We love him, and all the more power to him - totally no diss - but his best work is (possibly) behind him.
But in Pop, the only "artists" standing are the two cantankerous K's these post-Grammy whites are apparently desperate to ignore: Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. Without a doubt, nobody's made better work than they have and Kanye's Yeesus ("Soon as they 'like' you - make them 'unlike' you") wins by default, because he's the old guy with tenure.
I love the ring of that phrase - and it's ring of truth - like a kick in the gut. So, since that seems to be the case (and since I'm *kinda safe* for the moment) excuse me as I jump in the fray, because culture is wailing on politics with a vengeance:
The Right is so out of sync now, it's pitiful. Everyday is the day before the last election - and then the "unexpected" happens. Again. GlennBoy's even already back to warning Republicans not to get cocky. Why? What are they going to do? Keep coming on like The Party That Doesn't Give A Shit? We've seen that. "Maybe get a black point-man."
He's dead, and still a better entertainer than we've got now. What a wasteland. No, really, a wasteland. And nobody knows the difference, either, so far as I can tell. Everything just slips by.
This is great - one of my favorite NewAgers in the music biz, Lady Gaga, flipped out on the New Music Express about her latest song, Born This Way, which a lot of people happen to think sounds a lot like our other favorite NewAger in the music biz, Madonna. The Amplifier blog called GaGa's outburst "her very own version of the Five Stages of Grief!" except they added one stage I've never heard before:
Religious Pandering:
[Starts crying] "I feel like honestly that God sent me those lyrics and that melody. When you feel a message to give to the world and people are shooting arrows at it... there's no way for something that pure to be wrong."
Now that's a great bit of logic there! But here's my question:
Is there ever going to be a NewAger who doesn't use their feelings ("Nothing more than feelings,...") as the ultimate justification for trying to get their way? (Or, in this case, attempting to change reality?) They need to try a new schtick, if you ask me, because their own feelings ain't cutting it. News to GaGa:
It's pretty weird to have found this right after that last music post, where I mention I was a porcupine, but I guess that just goes to further show how lame GaGa is. It's Weird Al Yankovic doing "I Perform This Way", and it's got a few good lines in it, as all Weird Al songs do:
He, at least, isn't pretending he's making great art.
Other than a few of the fashions in the early days, the fact our NewAge princess was game enough to keep going is the first thing I've seen of her that I applaud - or can you seriously say, as this happened, the music playing behind her sounds good?
While the rest of the interwebs are obsessed with Lady GaGa, American Idol, or Rebecca Black's "Friday", there's still good artists out there, making good music, and being ignored as you wonder aloud - with your awful tastes - how this country is ever going to rise again. I'll tell you:
By you getting your heads out of your asses, quit looking for tits or the next flash in the pan, and start backing quality creators with some staying power, that's how.
America used to be known as the only country that, year in and year out, month to month, could consistently make good Pop music. I know that's still the case. My question now is can we still recognize it?
This Black Lips song is a good little number. If you've got it, I'd appreciate a donation so I can get back in the game, too. Then we'll kick things into high gear.
Scientists discover ‘real-world’ ecstasy use is more dangerous than lab tests:
For a glimpse into real-world drug use, Australian researchers went to parties where people were using a drug known as ecstasy - and discovered that users' brains were at far more risk from the drug than anyone had suspected.
The researchers also found that ecstasy pills often contain a variety of other drugs.
Jim Carrey, that nearly forgotten relic of the '90s, tried to improve his image and box office relevance by getting himself a new haircut. It's not working.
Carrey's wide mohawk is not the sort of haircut that an adult Canadian should be sporting, at least not one like Jim Carrey.
Well, now that he's done killing babies with Jenny McCarthy, maybe it's the best he can do,...
The letters of John Lennon will be published in October 2012 by Little, Brown, the publisher announced Friday. "The Lennon Letters" have been compiled in cooperation with Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow. It's the first time she has given permission for a selection of his letters to be published.
Editing the book and writing its introduction is Hunter Davies, the official Beatles biographer, who has tapped Ono's own archives as well as tracked down correspondence from Lennon that is in the hands of collectors, dealers and the original intended recipients.
In the release about "The Lennon Letters," the publisher points out that Lennon, who died in 1980, never had a chance to convert to email.
The perky refrains in the freaky existential cabaret written and performed by the playwright Young Jean Lee are probably not going to be squeaked out by Britney Spears, wailed by Mariah Carey or even bellowed by the freak-flag-waving Lady Gaga anytime soon.
Hey, did you hear? Rebecca Black just got signed for that awful song "Friday"! And those kids on American Idol are back! What great talents they are, huh? Justin Bieber - he's famous for what? And Lady Gaga. Boy, she dresses up well (or at least she used to) but I can't listen to her music and she's a millionaire. But this guy? This guy? This master musician is on the street busking for whatever handouts he can get.
Alright - I admit it - like everyone else of a certain age, I heard it, hated it, and then didn't say anything. Why not? For the same reason I didn't blog about Justin Bieber until he spoke out about abortion - it's kid's music. Who cares?
Apparently everybody.
So is it the worst music ever? Hard to say, considering all the adults creaming their jeans over Lady GaGa (GaGa - get it? Kids music!) if anything's lamer than that, well, I haven't seen it lately. I just don't bother myself with nonsense, unless it's significant in some way and, to me, "Friday" just don't cut it. It's bad, yes, but so is most teen music now:
Even after making one startlingly dumb video after another, in this Pop world of Lady GaGa "monster" mindlessness, and empty Britney Houston crack whoredom, the return of a real female artist is some welcome news - finally, a new Kate Bush album is on it's way:
The reason why Bush remains so important today: her intelligence. In today’s X Factor-saturated music world, a song-writer who chooses to write about subjects as diverse and rarefied as Ulysses, Wuthering Heights, and the 1957 horror movie Night of the Demon (to name but a few), continues to stand out as much as she did in her 1980s heyday, if not more so. With the honourable exception of a few – Florence Welch, Laura Marling and Natasha Khan aka Bat for Lashes spring to mind, though there may of course be more - today’s crop of female singer-songwriters tend strongly towards the bland and insipid, their songs strictly limited to sex, love, or the pursuit of both.
Bush’s influence on today’s intelligent and creative female performers has already been widely noted. But it’s worth pausing to remember just what a pioneer Bush has been for women in music. In 1978, when she was just 19, her debut single Wuthering Heights made her the first woman ever to have a UK number one with a song she had written herself; two years later, she became, unbelievably, the first female British solo artist to top the UK album charts with her record Never for Ever, and the first ever to enter the album chart at number one.
She has also consistently resisted the inevitable attempts to have her undeniable good looks promoted over and above her music – something that the primped and preened female musicians of today, forever encouraged to drop their clothes for the covers of men’s magazines (stand up, Lily Allen), would do well to bear in mind. In 1982, Bush complained to NME about the fact that her record company, EMI, had chosen a picture of her in a low-cut pink top for the cover of Wuthering Heights. “The media just promoted me as a female body,” she said. “It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist in a female body.”
No you didn't, Shug:
You had to prove they're a bunch of idiots - and you did - over and over again.
You may be flakey as a 1970s dandruff commercial, but it's yours, and in the end that's what's always counted most.
Unlike probably everyone else watching Charlie Sheen these days, we think this "train wreck" (as some are calling it) is probably the best we've seen him, and (having mutual friends) we applaud him mightily for it. He looks and sounds more like his father than ever. His nothing-can-take-me-down attitude, in the face of this wimpy, middle class, wet rag nanny state finger-wagging opinion is winning. This is a man, owning his actions and insisting everyone else come clean and take responsibility for theirs as well. (Our favorite line? Interviewer: "One of the women said she was afraid she might O.D.". Sheen [incredulous]: "What's that got to do with me?") Seriously, considering the most this loser culture can come up with now is awful Lady GaGa (and Britney Spears) records, vs. watching Beibermania or Kim Kardashian's ass from afar, do you really think everyone is, or wants to be, stuck in this same lame no fun existence the rest of you seem, if not enthused by, at least comfortable with? Really? Are you kidding us? This completely stagnant creative period has shown us nothing but the cultural and artistic equivalent of adults playing with bubble gum - and you think every living breathing person wants to be limited to that? Again, are you kidding?
Everyone can say what they want, but we've said, all too often, we see too many powerful beta males in this country, and where we've been going, both financially and culturally, is reflective of that. We've become a cautious, conformist, inoffensive, non-risk taking, arrogant, lying bunch of NewAge pussies who think if any woman, like this interviewer, says she or others don't approve, then some form of public contrition and apology is called for. Well, screw that. Neither she, or the public, are Charlie Sheen's mother and even if his parents disapprove, he's a grown-assed man who refuses to be a part of whatever milquetoast existence the rest of you think is good for gaining social approval from a worthless feminized culture-killing clique. He didn't ask for it, doesn't need it, and isn't angling for it. He's a man. He's rich. And he's free.
The question is, what the hell have the rest of you become?
We already knew, as a high-ranking member of Billary's administration, that George Stephanopoulos was a Democrat partisan, but the way this man - who covered for Hillary during her "psychic" period - shifts his interview with Michele Bachmann to Obama's religion and Birtherism is both hilarious and scary silly. Then, after Bachmann tries to keep the conversation on issues of substance, he shifts again to something even more outrageous - whether Bachmann is "a fan" of the NewAge performance artist Lady GaGa! (He must have thought he was talking to Ann Althouse!)
If this isn't a clear example of the frivolousness - and NewAge biases - of our leading media figures, then we don't know what is:
George Stephanopoulos needs to get a grip before he drifts from reality for good.
