Lady Gaga's 'Telephone': Exploitation cinemas, homosexual attraction, and the blending of public and private.

The following is an excerpt from a full-length paper entitled "“We’re C-Coming Out”: Lady Gaga’s Postmodern Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona" that was completed in May 2010. For an analysis of the Gaga's depiction of her heterosexual tendencies in her music videos, see my post on irony, innocence, and the death of the heterosexual binary.



In order to experience a bisexual camp reading of the video for Telephone as a comment on one aspect of Lady Gaga’s sexual identity, one cannot expect the song’s lyrics to provide deeper meaning. The actual song does not begin until 2 minutes and 50 seconds into the video, with multiple starts and stops of the track throughout that make clear the point of the video is the visual and not the lyrical content. Although the video is ironically edited to the contents of the song in part – namely when Lady Gaga answers a payphone in prison to begin the song, singing “Hello, hello, baby, you called? / I can’t hear a thing / I have got no service in the club / You see, you see” – the overall context of the video rarely reflects the events taking place in the lyrics except through occasional irony. The video begins set in a prison and then moves to the road and into a diner – and never, ever finds Lady Gaga or her co-star, Beyoncé, in a traditional club setting. Through a reading of the visual elements of key instances from Lady Gaga’s video for Telephone, I will attempt to further the idea that Gaga’s public and private life are indeed blended together in a remark on postmodern authenticity while also calling attention to the presentation of her sexuality in a single video as never bisexual and always only hetero or homosexual.

Telephone opens with blue-tinted shots of the exterior of a prison including images of barbed wire, guards positioned up high on a wall, and the surrounding cityscape all beneath fluorescent graphics and text that announce the stars (Beyoncé and Gaga) and director Jonas Åkerlund). This text and visual style set the stage indisputably for the campy visual style of a cult grindhouse film alá the blaxploitation classic Super Fly (dir. Gordon Parks, Jr., 1972) or
I Spit on Your Grave, Meir Zarchi’s 1978 rape-revenge film. Seemingly being imprisoned for poisoning and killing her boyfriend in her previous video for Paparazzi, Lady Gaga appears dressed in an exaggerated take on the black and white striped jailhouse uniform complete with her (or Grace Jones’s?) signature pointed shoulder pads which both function as a type of androgynous costume play as well as a nod to queer camp aesthetics of exaggeration discussed by Dyer [1] and Bryant [2]. A title appears explaining she has arrived at the “Prison for Bitches” as she is guided along a long line of hard-yet-chic feminine women within their respective jail cells who cat-call, blow kisses, and lick the metal bars, pronouncing their sexually aggressive – and therefore prison-societal – superiority over the new inmate. Each dressed in their own unique and completely more subdued variations of Gaga’s uniform, the women behind the bars look more like femme sex workers than regular prison inmates (and in fact, none of the women in this segment of the video come close to appearing butch), perhaps Åkerlund’s and/ or Lady Gaga’s comment on the type of women who are depicted as deviant jailbirds who might inspire empathy in the women-in-prison films (yet another sub-genre of exploitation cinema showcased in this video) like Chained Heat (dir. Paul Nicholas, 1983) or the original contribution to the genre, Caged (dir. John Cromwell, 1950).

Gaga is shoved into her jail cell and disrobed of all but her fishnet stockings by the transgender guards, who throw her down onto her cot. As she scrambles in an attempt to escape she mounts the bars of the door to her cell, exposing her pixilated crotch just long enough for the world to see the truth of her gender identity. In a direct comment to this revelation, one of the guards becomes the authority to announce this now-proven genital knowledge to the skeptical general public when she proclaims “I told you she didn’t have a dick.” Including proof in the pixilated version of a Lady Gaga’s vulva is perhaps an attempt to dispel this rumor once and for all that she is not “a very well-endowed young man” and is indeed cisgendered.

Lyrics from her previous single “Poker Face,” which Lady Gaga has claimed is about “poker facing with your sexuality,” lead in some ways to the development of this rumor: “I won’t tell you that I love you / Kiss or hug you / Cause I’m bluffin’ with my muffin / I’m not lying I’m just stunnin’ with my love-glue-gunning.” About seven months after her 17 April 2009 appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross – the show on which Gaga was rudely confronted by the host with the rumor about her assigned gender – Gaga reinforced in an interview with Barbara Walters that the lyric “bluffin’ with my muffin” is not a reference to her assigned gender, but indeed to her sexuality as a woman who is attracted to both men and women, albeit to each in different ways. The few seconds of screen time that Gaga’s vulva receives in 2010's Telephone seek to do away with this persistent rumor – a case in which gender has been conflated with sexuality [3] – once and for all.

The scene in the exercise yard in which Gaga is adorned in an outfit complete with heavy metal chains and sunglasses covered in lit, smoking cigarettes (visible in Figure 4) positions her as “the phallic femme” discussed by Chris Straayer. She moves across the yard as two of her previous hits, “Paper Gangsta” and “I Like It Rough,” play through the speakers of a boom box, perhaps a comment on Gaga’s consistent radio presence and media saturation no matter where one might find themselves. As soon as she sits down at a table outside, a “she-butch” female [5] in leather with short hair sits down beside Gaga and begins to kiss her (see below). Gaga kisses her back and even grabs the other woman between her legs, heightening the sexual tension of the moment. Feministe blogger Sady Doyle pointed to this instance in the video as one that plays with transgression from the normative pop culture representations of girl-on-girl sexual expression, especially since “special makeout times Between the Ladies [sic] almost always happen, in pop culture, between two very femme-looking individuals” [6]. Look no further than Katy Perry’s video for I Kissed a Girl to see instances of feminine women implicated as potential sexual partners for other feminine women, or 1998’s feature length film Wild Things in which Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, two traditionally femme females, share an intimate moment together in a pool. For the remainder of the video we only see Gaga implicated in relationships with other women whether as a domestic or sexual partner, clearly aligning the Lady with her attraction for women, or the homosexual side of her bisexuality.

Soon after this femme-butch kiss in the exercise yard a girl-on-girl kung fu-style fight reminiscent of the gloriously camp and stylized Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! (dir. Russ Meyer, 1965) breaks out in the prison and an impromptu dance number begins that combines acrobatics, aerobics, and aggressive boxing moves. Soon after the brawl and the dancing Beyoncé comes to Lady Gaga’s rescue in the Pussy Wagon, loaned to Lady Gaga by Quentin Tarantino specifically for the video, who obviously recognized the parallels between Gaga’s character in this video and the non-normative femme female action star of Kill Bill Volume I (2003) and II (2004). Gaga is dressed in yet another new outfit, this time a slightly more exaggerated and androgynous nod to camp queen Jane Mansfield’s outfit from her famous scene in The Girl Can’t Help It (dir. Frank Tashlin, 1956).

After making a sandwich into a phallic object via a nod to oral fetishism and allowing Beyoncé to sing a little bit, the two ladies tear down a dirt road in the neon yellow truck on their way to a diner where they will eventually poison everyone, starting with Beyoncé’s abusive, hyper-masculine boyfriend. After her boyfriend keels over dead onto the table, Beyoncé makes an innocent yet knowing hand-to-mouth, wide-eyed gesture similar to Lady Gaga’s from Paparazzi after she too has poisoned her boyfriend. This positions Beyoncé as a referential figure by drawing a parallel to the previous video performance to create a space for Beyoncé that is indeed strictly performative and is not meant to make reference to her celebrity persona in the same way that Gaga’s gesture in Paparazzi is meant to be viewed. Another aspect of the video that positions Beyoncé in a different light than Gaga is that Beyoncé is allowed to be presented as bisexual in the contexts of this video even though her public and private personae are consistently positioned as heterosexual. The video does, however go to great lengths to situate Beyoncé’s true performance as non-normative and a stark contrast to her typical presentation in the media by her outlandish dress and her robotic movements that mirror the sound of the skipping audio track. Gaga’s videos consistently employ this aesthetic, as do her songs; Beyoncé’s videos and music, on the other hand, do not subscribe to the same “fake authenticity” that are present in the pantheon of Gaga representations. The video ends in a similarly consistently referential manner with a nod to the film Thelma and Louis as Gaga and Beyoncé grasp hands as they drive off together into the horizon. A heart-shaped graphic appears, situating the two as not just friends but romantic lovers, who interestingly enough do not share an on-screen kiss in the video.

[1] Richard Dyer. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004.

[2] Wayne M. Byrant. Bisexual Characters in Film: From Anais to Zee. New York: The Haworth
Press, 1997.

[3] Judith Butler. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge (1990, 1999), 9.

[4] Chris Straayer. Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video. New York: Columbia University Press (1996), 83-84.

[5] Ibid, 94-101.

[6] Sady Doyle. “Nothing That Happened This Week Was Ever Going To Be As Important As The ‘Telephone’ Video.” Feministe. 13 March 2010.

Lady Gaga's video for "Paparazzi": Irony, innocence, and the death of the heterosexual binary

This is an excerpt from a paper entitled "'We're C-Coming Out': Lady Gaga's Postmodern Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona"



Full disclosure: Åkerlund’s video for Paparazzi does not have the rich visual subtext found in his later Telephone, although the lyrical content is far more relevant to the presented visual themes than the words in the Telephone lyrics. The disjointed presentation that occurs between the narrative and the song-and-dance numbers could have something to do with this, or it could be because this video deals with a heterosexual relationship that does not overtly challenge the representations of relationships. Through a close reading of Lady Gaga’s interactions with her male lover in the video’s narrative and by reading into the irony present in the juxtaposition between the song’s lyrics and the narrative elements, one can understand Gaga’s need to be loved by men and her ultimate distrust of the male relationships she has had in her life. The ending of the video will also provide a clean segue into the beginning of the video for Telephone in which Gaga is punished for her actions toward her heterosexual lover.

Lady Gaga is shown in bed intimately kissing her male lover, played by Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård of True Blood fame, until he asks her to come with him out to the balcony. In this moment we identify the gender of Gaga’s sexual attraction for this video as a cisman who likely functions as a stand-in for her real-life boyfriend before she became famous. He carries her outside, propping her body on the edge of the balcony ledge, and the viewer soon finds out his real motivations for carrying her outside were not to be romantic but to have their intimate moments captured by the paparazzi. Once the Lady realizes the motivations behind his intentions she hits him across the face, which enrages him enough to drop her small body over the edge of the balcony. Just after both parties have admitted to loving each other – and indeed, Gaga has admitted in interviews that she has “only been in love with men” although she has had sexual attractions to women [1] – the male half of this couple makes the decision to push the woman he “loves” to her death, questioning the ability for love to exist in a life so comingled with artistic performance.

Interestingly enough, the play with gender that occurs between the lyrics of the song and the actions on screen allow for an ironic, nuanced reading of the video that further positions it within Dyer’s definition of the queer camp aesthetic[2]. The lyrics of the song describe a female fan totally “gaga” over an unidentified male celebrity. The fan swears to him that “I’m your biggest fan / I’ll follow you until you love me” and promises “I won’t stop / Until that boy is mine.” Taking on the role of the female fan instead of the celebrity who is typically the object of fandom, she presents a critical look at both herself as a celebrity persona and the obsessive, bloodthirsty fans who subscribe to the cult/ure of celebrity. If we take her male heterosexual lover in this video as an embodiment of a potential adoring (read: obsessive) fan who is actually thinking “I won’t stop / Until that girl is mine.” It is foreboding that these lyrics play over the image of Gaga pushed in a wheelchair and then attempting to walk with crutches; as her voice is heard in the song singing the lyrics above, she advances awkwardly on her crutches as the video is intercut with shots of Lady Gaga sitting on a couch simulating auto-asphyxiation, indicating that obsessive infatuation with both a celebrity and a lover can lead to suffocation. Using fandom as a metaphor for romantic and/or sexual love, Lady Gaga comments on the sacrifices she will go through as a lover, and the subsequent sacrifices that her lover will go through as a die-hard fan, in order to obtain the object of their desire.

At the end of the Fosse-driven dance sequences that occur for the middle portion of the video we return to a now-recovered Lady Gaga and her lover who share afternoon tea together. Lady Gaga pours a flask of poison – the same poison we will later see utilized in Telephone – into his beverage, which kills him almost instantly. Gaga wears a bright yellow outfit decorated with a graphic print of Mouseketeers and black sunglasses quite similar to Mickey Mouse ears. Looking both like a cartoonish and a childish version of herself, Gaga places her hand to her lips in an innocent yet knowing fashion after her lover is officially dead. By poisoning her boyfriend who literally and figuratively robbed her of her mobility both physically and socially, Lady Gaga the character and the actual celebrity will now self-reflexively steal back her rightful place at the top of the fame food chain by the tabloid coverage that this homicide will afford her. By killing off her heterosexual partner Lady Gaga is effectively doing away with this strict sexual binary that society has attempted to assign to her, leaving open the possibility for new forms of sexual exploration. As she is lead into a police car through a sea of screaming fans, Lady Gaga’s regained fame spins out of newspaper headlines as she drives off into the next phase in her life and in her “career”: a short stint in prison.

[1] In an interview with Barbara Walters, Gaga states “I’ve only been in love with men, I’ve never been in love with a woman but that’s really what the song was all about: why, when I was with my boyfriend, was I fantasizing about women?” Walters reacts with far more dignity than Jonathan Ross, who, when she makes a similar proclamation on his show, reacts with “Oh, good lord…blimey.”

[2] Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: Routledge, 2004.

"We're C-Coming Out": Lady Gaga's Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona

Below are some preliminary thoughts on a term paper for my Sexual Personae class.

Musical artist, performer and stylistic savant Lady Gaga's gender and sexual identity have come into question ever since the release of her first album The Fame in 2008. Reactions to her on- and off-screen persona bring to light the public's discomfort with a contemporary performance artist whose display of her body is not overtly sexualized to the preferences of the male gaze. Clearly taking influence from artists like Madonna and turning the costumes and visual styles up to maximum volume, Lady Gaga's music is in no way what makes her unique - this young woman is clearly an artist in the age of the viral video, incorporating hyper-contemporary and shocking images into her repertoire of dance and filmed and live performance. Lady Gaga's outrageous costumes, videos, and stage presence are all part of that repertoire, and paired with her public appearances at LGBTQ Rights rallies make for just an off-kilter enough performance of gender and sexuality for the general public to begin to question her identification as a woman. Even after Gaga admitted to identifying as a bisexual woman, rumors surrounding her sex organs did not subside - a rumor that her recent video "Telephone" goes to almost graphic lengths to disprove.



Lady Gaga's videos never shy away from sparking conversation and inciting controversy - especially in the fluidity of her sexual affections and attentions from one video to the next.

In this paper I would like to address the representations of Lady Gaga's sexuality in both her music videos as well as her public life of advocacy. I would like to begin by analyzing the discourse surrounding Gaga's gender and sexual identity in the popular press and on gossip blogs and in magazines, as well as some of her appearances at LGBTQ rallies and publicized support of those who have experienced discrimination because of their sexuality. The paper will then move into a contextual analysis of the sexual content of both "Paparazzi" and "Telephone," two videos which depict the fluidity of her sexual affections for first a male ("Paparazzi") and then a female ("Telephone") sexual subject.



I will analyze the ways that these two videos break from while simultaneously reinstating certain gender roles, depictions of heterosexual and same-sex relationships, and ideas of the male gaze of the female subject.

Preliminary Sources:

Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge, 1990, 1999.

Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Second Edition, London: Routledge, 2004.

Straayer, Chris, Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Tyler, Parker, Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality and the Movies, New York: Holt, 1972.

Some history on Marconi, FDR, and Disruptive Technologies

Throughout the history of mediated communication, beginning with the telegraph and Morse code technology, one finds the trend of disruptive communication technology becoming the eventual mainstay that wins out over the older, antiquated models, but usually not without a fight. Tracing the history of the medium of radio and the individuals involved in its restriction and ultimate essential freeing up of government restriction, one sees a pattern that is eventually initiated and successfully negotiated within the medium of television and the Internet.

If it weren’t for Marconi’s invention of the antenna and the founding of Marconi of America in 1899, the precedent for radio and all subsequent technologies might still have occurred; however, this is difficult to say emphatically. Spontaneous simultaneous invention seems to be the way that this creative world operates as exemplified by photography, film, and other such technologies, so who is to say that without Marconi there would be no antenna? Nikolai Tesla, the credited inventor of the radio, certainly had a huge role in the development of the technology, as did inventers Reginald Fessenden and Lee DeForest, all of who can be recognized as the “fathers of radio”. However, for the purposes of this argument, Marconi will take at least partial imperative responsibility for causing radio to become a popular mainstay in American homes through his invention of the antenna.

In the initial years, the possibility of obtaining a license to broadcast over the airways was not blocked by any substantial hurtles; nearly everyone interested in transmitting could obtain a permit to do so. With the help of other aforementioned innovators, along with many parallel advancements and inventions in India and Europe, the amateur radio transmission trend was sweeping the world. This presented problems for copyright issues: many private residences and infrastructures began to broadcast music recordings over the airwaves without first obtaining permission from the artists or from the recording companies. It was for this reason, and with the country being on the brink of WWI, that FDR deemed radio a disruptive technology and made the decision to coordinate and effectively control the radio airways.

Under the banner of national security, the Navy set aside all patent claims to radio. All amateurs had to go off the air, and all antennas were taken over by the government. Essentially, the US government shut down all civilian transmissions in order to allow the US Navy full control over all transmissions and airwaves. This was a political move on the part of FDR, but this raised a question: Does the government have the right to turn off or take away technology? This was a direct violation of 1st Amendment rights in that it “abridge[d] the freedom of speech [and] of the press”, but in times of war the Navy and the President felt that it was their responsibility to monopolize the airwaves for the sake (and under the guise) of national safety.

This military-mandated ownership of the medium of radio continued until the end of World War I in 1919, when the Navy announced they wanted to introduce the radio to everyone; however, they wanted to still maintain ultimate control over the medium. The government completely disagreed with this concept, and thus the home-grown monopoly of the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) was born (a natural monopoly because there were no other competitors, much like the successive situation with AT&T). This technology was initially seen as a threat to national security, but odds are this “disruptive” technology instilled notions of fear in the military, hence FDR’s move to suspend all civilian access. With the creation of the RCA, however, this once disruptive and seemingly threatening technology became a mainstay, including regulatory laws, the foundation of the first public radio stations, and the eventual domestication of the medium as a part of the fabric of everyday American life.

An older example of remix

Mostly because of my New Media and Global Affairs class, I have been reading extensively on networks, collective authorship, and copyright issues as they apply to the contemporary digital platforms that encourage and support media output such as videos, music, animation and text, especially when it comes to intellectual property rights and the remixing culture that we see with the musical artist Girl Talk, DJ Dangermouse, and a slue of others (read my comment on the article "Copy and Persist: The Logic of Mash-Up Culture" for more on the issue).

What I didn't know (probably because my knowledge of Woody Allen's extensive body of work is still in a growing period because, really, you need an entire lifetime to familiarize yourself with everything he's done, and I didn't get started until I was maaaybe 20) was that Allen's filmic debut was with what he calls the "very stupid enterprise" What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), which was not even his film to begin with: Allen and his friends took the Japanese film International Secret Police: Key of Keys and dubbed over the actors' original dialogue, making the espionage action film into a comedy. Although in Stig Björkman's book Woody Allen on Woody Allen Allen himself discredits his first attempt at filmmaking as "a sophomoric enterprise", it completely mirrors what kids and adults alike are creating and posting on YouTube and Vimeo today.

I just love it when ideas from the past come to prominent fruition in contemporary times. See below for the trailer for Allen's first film, which interestingly enough is credited on IMDb as having two directors: Allen and the original Japanese director, Senkichi Taniguchi.

Kenneth Goldsmith sings works by media theorists

My professor for my Imagining Language class sent us a link to a site by an NYC radio DJ named Kenneth Goldsmith who has recorded himself singing the works of media theorists over music, and I thought it was just too hilarious not to share. If the guy's voice wasn't so awful I could probably learn something from him -- oh, and if I hadn't already taken the time to read most of these works.

I particularly enjoyed his rendition of Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" and, of course, his musical version of Baudrillard's critique of Disneyland.

I'm not quite sure if my professor thinks this is brilliant or just plain ridiculous. I guess I'll find out in lecture tomorrow.

Enjoy!

A fun way to pass the time...

Sleeveface's headline best encapsulates what can be found on the site:

"one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion"

Totally awesome.

Thanks to Jason for tweeting this.

Happy Birthday, Dear Bloggie...

...Happy Birthday to You!


Today marks exactly one year since I posted my first blog entry as You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet!, and look at the forms it's taken as it's grown up to a walking, talking, free wheelin' space for my thoughts, rants, observations, and musings. What began as a place to document reviews of music shows (my first entry is a reflection on Coachella 2008) and films slowly morphed into a space where nothing I post is not somehow media-related, stretching the boundaries of what I originally intended into a far less restrictive arena of new media, advertising, television, audience studies, etc (the most recent entry is on the evolving nature of YouTube's social networking capabilities). Sure, there are other themes that I've incorporated throughout this weblog's first year, including but not limited to politics, gender issues, a series entitled "Things Grad Students Love" (that I hope to continue as an on-going contribution...ideas for Part 6, anyone?), and reviews of art exhibits, but I try, sometimes in vain, to always dovetail the issues I discuss with media studies and analysis.

While I certainly maintain this space for my personal benefit as a portfolio, as a way for family and friends who don't live in my city to keep up with my life and interests, and as my own contribution to the on-going meta-dialogue on the media, I have also gotten recognition for my work here from professors, administrators within my Masters program, fellow Media Studies students, and non-Media Studies friends, as well as some comments from a few strangers. While this certainly boosts my ego and restores faith in my abilities, this is not why I am writing. I want my writing and ideas to be public to inspire conversation within the Media Studies community and the Internet community at large and hopefully cause someone, even one individual, to think a bit differently about the way they interact with the visual environment surrounding them.

Some may think that my quiet voice in a sea of millions of others may not make an impact, and I don't expect it to. But it does instill a sense of purpose in the work that I am doing, and has even allowed me to chart my growth and decline of interest on certain issues and topics, guiding me in (god, hopefully) the right direction for future areas of study. I started this blog wanting to be a film critic. But because I have been given a space to air out my ideas that is communal and includes much-welcomed comments, questions, and discourse, I have decided that writing solely about film would be selling myself short, as the Internet is quickly replacing film as the most influential visual media in the world. I will never give up my passion for film and what it means to me as an art form, as a social commentary, and as a form of entertainment, escapism and fantasy, and I will continue to write about film when the mood strikes. However, I will also never again pigeonhole myself into such a narrow category.

So, for all of you who have been with me from the beginning and for those of you who have just started participating in the discourse I offer here, thank you. Your readership, comments, participation, kind praise and constructive criticism are more important to me that you may ever know.

Coachella 2009: Reflections from Friday, April 17th

Sorry it's so delayed...Rinaldi, I hear you man! Been busy with school work and apartment hunting, so I recognize the posts are a bit delayed.

Let me just start by saying that of the now five years I've been to the Coachella Music and Arts festival, 2009 was my first year camping on the festival grounds. While sweaty, dirty, shiveringly cold at night and hot as hell by 9 AM, it was nothing short of a completely unique and surprisingly comfortable, amazing experience. My boyfriend (woo!) made the last minute decision on Thursday that instead of worrying about driving somewhere to sleep each night at 1 AM he would buy camping passes for us, as well as a tent, a lantern, a small flashlight, and a flat of water. My mom and stepfather were kind enough to loan out their air mattress, some pillows, a blanket, and their cooler, which added extremely to our level of comfort. The grounds had ample bathroom facilities and several shower trucks that skirted the edge of the campsite complete with sinks and mirrors along with multiple food and beverage locations, cell phone and computer charging stations, a general store, and a large tent under which one could consume bloody marys as early as 9 AM.

Some of aforementioned details will be included in this description, as I give you now a rough play by play of Friday's events:

Friday, April 17th

(Photograph Geoffrey Anderson, 2009)

4ish PM: After driving from Echo Park to La Habra Heights to the Indio Rite Aid for snacks and ice, Geoff and I arrive at the campsite with the things we need for the day, where we attempt to check in. Dude at the gate informs us that we can only check in with all our camping stuff as late as 8 PM that night. We trudge back to the car, where we run into Eric, his girlfriend, and Bryanna. Matty & Galina and Brook & Justine wander by Geoff's car as we are unloading the trunk with all the weekend's necessities. After we finally make it through security without getting anything taken away (including our lantern that was, indeed, made of glass, a material not supposed to be taken in to the campsite or festival) we find where Ken, Laura and Zach have set up their canopy (thanks to Zach's very accurate description) and set up the tent within 5 spaces of them. After everything is inside the tent and we have everything we'll need for the next 7 hours, we walk in to the festival.

6:25 PM: Geoff and I walk over to see a bit of Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band at the Outdoor Stage. Oberst is wearing a ridiculously huge black hat, and we both agree that the man has lost something as he's matured. While the orchestration and sound were pretty nice, his angst-y-ness and soul have been kind of sucked out of his new project, leaving his performance and the songs a bit flat.

6:40 PM: We decide that since the weather isn't as hot as we'd both expected that we'd make a stop over at the beer garden by the Sahara tent before going in to see Crystal Castles. After swiftly polishing off two beers each, we run in to catch some of their set. While the music was a total electronic dance party, I have the extreme disadvantage of being a mere 5 feet and 4 inches tall, which left me standing in a sea of people questioning where this shrill yelling was coming from. I could see a miniature Alice Glass jumping around and passionately expressing herself into the mic, but maybe it was my low audio-vantage point that left her words muddled. I kind of wished she would stop shrieking for a little bit so I could just get lost in the music, which was just as spot-on as their record.

7:30 PM: While I'm not well-versed in Leonard Cohen's catalogue, Cohen was really the first performance of Coachella that left me feeling something. He performed during sunset, always a coveted time slot for the Coachella performer at the Outdoor or Main Stage. His voice was flawless, and at 74, that's saying something. Geoff, being over a foot taller than myself, graciously lifted me up a few times so I could see Cohen, who would occasionally break into a little grove under the low brim of his amazingly suave hat. Of course, he sang "Halleluah", and of course, persons of every generation sang along as the sky turned indigo behind the palm trees that border the grounds of the polo field. His lyricism was what impressed me the most, because, like I said, I'm fairly uneducated when it comes to Cohen. The image of him crooning into his mic is really the first that impressed me of the festival that day.

8:30 PM: Geoff and I wandered over to Beirut in the Mojave tent, where we try for the maybe fifth time that night to meet up with Ken, Laura and Zach. Not able to find the kids and figuring we'd just meet up with them at Girl Talk, we watch most of his set. Much like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who I'll talk about in my entry on Sunday), Zach Condon and gang played a delightful mix of old and new, and made me loose myself as I swayed along to "A Sunday Smile" and several other horn- and accordian-infused tunes. The dry heat had absolutely no effect on Condon's sweet, sophisticated vocals, and he sounded just like Prince Charming on a white horse even in the desert's 80 degrees. My only regret is that I wasn't a little closer for his set, since there's a certain intimacy that I think is required to fully appreciate what Beirut has to offer.

9:10 PM: After obtaining what proved again to be extremely accurate directions from Zach, Geoff and I enter through the side of the Sahara tent and meet up with everyone to see Girl Talk's set. While Gillis knew when to slow it down just a bit to give the crowd a much-needed dancing break, I had to forcefully stop myself from dancing until I fell over toward the end. The music definitely took control of my limbs, especially, and I say this with no regrets or qualms or embarrassment, when Beyonce's "Single Ladies" was mixed with ______ (I'm totally blanking right now). My sister would have been so proud. There were some amazing mash-ups, and maybe my brain will remember a few as time goes by. There was one mash-up that emplored the audience to "jump" repeatedly. It was because of this that half of my phone's front screen got totally cracked, and now I can only see who's calling me if it's someone with a very long name. Looks like it's time for a smartphone...

9:50 PM: Very wisely, all of eight of us slip out of the side of the tent and move toward the Main Stage to get a decent spot for Paul McCartney. Geoff and I wander off to get a beer quickly before Sir Paul takes the stage, and come back to the same spot in enough time to find Ken, Zach, Laura and Kelsey. McCartney took the stage, and to all of our surprise, wonder and wish fulfillment played only 5 post-Beatles tracks. All the rest were songs we all know and love from childhood, including "Eleanor Rigby", "Blackbird", "Hey Jude", "Baby You Can Drive My Car", "Yesterday", a ukulele version of "Something", "Live and Let Die", "Give Peace a Chance", "Back in the USSR", "Birthday", "Got to Get You Into My Life", and oh so many more. He did two encores, finishing his set around 1 in the morning. Look here for the full McCartney set list from this amazing, once in a lifetime performance.

1 AM: Geoff and I leave the festival grounds as just two individuals in the herd of people making a mass exodus. We discuss Sir Paul's performance, which Geoff described as "transcendent", as we schlep back to the car to hang our parking pass from the rear view mirror so as to avoid getting towed.

2 AM: Zach stumbles by our site, helps us secure the rain cover, then disappears into the sea of tents mumbling "I gotta find some fuckin' food." Geoff and I fall asleep with visions of music notes dancing in our heads, shivering from the damp cold air rising from the grassy ground below us. Reminder for next year: bring at least two blankets and pants, not shorts, for bedtime.


Check back soon for more details from Saturday and Sunday!

I study Wikipedia.

Um...not really.

Let me explain.

In anticipation for Coachella I am listening to the four Beirut albums that I have on my iPod on shuffle as I get ready for my day today. And as I am listening I am reminded of a certain incident with a friend that occurred before a Cat Power show in Los Angeles about a year ago. There was a banner hanging at the venue announcing that Beirut would be playing in a few months, and my friend from college and I got very excited. Naturally: this man is very very easy to listen to. My college friend and I decided that his voice is like what we would expect to come out of Prince Charming's mouth, and the fact that the man can play something like 8 instruments is just damn impressive. And it makes him all the more attractive/interesting, and his songs make me want to dance down the Seine wearing stripes on a Parisian fall afternoon...Anyway, the other friend who was there with us wasn't familiar with Beirut, and inquired, "Beirut? Like the drinking game? That's pretty funny."

My response was, "Or, you know, like the city."

She turned to me with a snarky face. "What, did you like study the term on Wikipedia or something?"

I sat their quietly as she laughed at me, and it was today as I was listening to Zach Condon's sweet melodies that I was reminded of this, one of the few times in my recent adult life that I've been made to feel embarrassed about my knowledge.

But really, this is something I should (and have) turn(ed) into pride. My mother had a similar experience during the interviewing portion of jury selection. After answering a question on (what I believe was) her opinion of the role of law enforcement, she answered very astutely, unfaltering in her view even though it wasn't necessarily the answer the attorneys wanted to hear. During the lunch break, a woman who was sitting on the jury with her approached her and asked, "Do you, like, read the dictionary or something?"

Remembering my mother's account of this incident, I note that she told me the story with pride in her voice, and she should have. Because really, accusing someone of knowing something as if it were a huge negative thing is just such a teenager thing to do.

Thanks for sitting through that. I was telling a certain someone last night that I give myself flack when I don't update frequently enough, and I've certainly been feeling those guilty pangs lately. As a reward for actually reading my self-indulgent account of being made to feel nerdy, here's a little Condon for your eyes and ears. (For those of you who haven't seen this video series, it's pretty amazing. Thanks, Ken.)

Acts to see at Coachella (in a perfect dream world where I can be 3 places at once)

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

This will make my fifth year that I've attended the festival (the fourth consecutive year), and I couldn't be more excited that it's only 20 days away.

Coachella is not for the faint of heart. The heat is deadly. The dust is dirty. The smells can be...smelly. The days are long and the walk to the car after the show is over is even longer. But man oh man, I wouldn't miss this festival for anything (Ok, so I can think of some instances in which I would miss the festival, but hyperbole is fun sometimes).

Coachella is also not for those with a strict agenda. There will be acts that one misses, and sometimes that just has to be dealt with. I missed Simian Mobile Disco last year because my Coachella buddy for the past 3 years running (this will be our fourth year going together) lost her wallet and had to go reclaim it in the VIP lounge. I missed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs because I was just too hungry and plain forgot that they were playing at that very moment. I missed Regina Spektor because myself and my friends just couldn't get motivated enough to leave the pool. But I hold no grudges, and every year the acts I miss are quickly forgotten in the afterglow of the numerous acts I am able to enjoy (last year, I think Hot Chip was the definite highlight of the weekend. Chilling out to Animal Collective's surprisingly mellow set was also a treat).

So, I make this list of acts I want to see without knowing who will be on what stage, and at what time any of these acts will commence. And I know I will have to miss some. But you know what? I could care less.

Friday, April 17th
Noah and the Whale
Peanut Butter Wolf
The Hold Steady
M. Ward
We Are Scientists
Crystal Castles
Ghostland Observatory
The Crystal Method
Girl Talk
The Black Keys (yes!)
Beirut (swooooon)
Conor Oberst (I've seen him so many times, I won't care if I miss him actually)
Leonard Cohen
Franz Ferdinand (seen em. They were fun, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to miss them for...)
PAUL McCARTNEY

Saturday, April 18th
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Gang Gang Dance
Blitzen Trapper
Liars
Hercules and Love Affair
Jenny Lewis (please play only stuff from Rabbit Fur Coat...)
MSTRKRFT
Fleet Foxes
Band of Horses
TV on the Radio
Thievery Corporation
MIA
(there's also a lot I'm unfamiliar with on this day. If you have any recommendations, enlighten me)

Sunday, April 19th
Friendly Fires
No Age
Brian Jonestown Massacre
Okkervil River
The Kills
Lykke Li
Devendra Banhart (although I've missed him twice before and didn't care)
Public Enemy (umm...How can I not?)
Antony and the Johnsons
Peter Bjorn and John
Throbbing Gristle
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
My Bloody Valentine
The...Cure? (ok, maybe. But I've seen them before, too)

There ya go folks. Gimme suggestions, lemme know what you think, etc., etc....

A Convenient Call to Action: Fantasy-Theme Criticism of Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up”

(Paper number 2 for Methods of Rhetorical Analysis. I wrote on this song for its topic, not for my love (or even like) of the song.)

When Al Gore paired up with David Guggenheim to produce the 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth, their hopes were to inform the world about the impending threat of global warming through a filmed version of Gore’s informative and chilling slide show. Structured in a straightforward, documentary format, Gore lectures the on- and off-screen audience and, accompanied with stunning charts, graphs, and statistics, attempts to spread his message worldwide, targeting mostly an adult audience and those who might understand the rhetoric of numbers and foresight. This film won the Best Feature Documentary Oscar for 2006, and Melissa Etheridge’s song that plays over the ending credits, “I Need to Wake Up”, also captured the hearts of the Academy, winning the Oscar for Best Original Song. Summing up the zeitgeist of the nation (and possibly the world), Etheridge’s song functions as a literal wake-up call, placed in juxtaposition with different ways, presented textually, we can conserve energy and make this planet a greener, healthier, more sustainable place to live.

I will attempt to analyze “I Need to Wake Up” utilizing the guidelines of fantasy-theme criticism in order to look at the ways in which the rhetor attempts to call a nation to action through the themes of inclusive and identifying characters, inspirational and isolated settings, and clearly defined actions, ultimately coming to a cohesive rhetorical vision based on the patterns found in these fantasy themes.

Character Themes

The song “I Need to Wake Up” is sung in first person while still attempting to be a call to action for the listening audience, and therefore functions on two levels. The lyrics of the song include the characters I, mine, youth, and child, and at the basest level are all self-referential to Etheridge herself. The I character is woven repeatedly throughout the lyrics, emphasizing the personal importance of the actions of the character in the song. However, as Etheridge also encourages others to sing her song (i.e. through repetition on the radio as the film, and consequently the tune, gain more popularity), the first person I and possessive mine characters become not just Etheridge herself, but also the singing audience member. When the chorus states clearly I need to move / I need to wake up / I need to change, Etheridge is using very simple language with which her audience can relate, stopping just short of explicitly stating what she and her audience need to move towards or what they must wake up to. If the audience had seen An Inconvenient Truth or was even slightly familiar with the context of the lyrics, they should understand clearly what Etheridge believes need[s] to change.

The other character present in the lyrics of “I Need to Wake Up” is the child/youth character, one that appears in only a singular verse of the song but is nonetheless integral to the rhetor’s story and message of change. One of the biggest motivating reasons most purveyors of sustainable energy cite to underscore the importance of green living is most often future generations or our children’s children. By stating that she remembers dancing as a child but now knows she must be rid of the carelessness of youth, Etheridge reminds us that there are real troubles to face in this world, troubles that we never could have recognized as children and troubles that will one day be facing our children if the calls to action cited in the action themes are not taken. Since the action themes are so dense and many, I will save them for last, first moving on to a brief description of the setting themes Etheridge employs throughout her lyrics.

Setting Themes

All of the setting themes employed by the rhetor’s lyrics evoke places of aspiration, or places that contain a certain element of personal isolation and therefore ignorance (one of the two action themes. Keep in mind that all of the setting themes in the lyrics of this song are very much in tune with and connected to the myriad action themes expressed in the lyrics). These themes of aspiration and isolation are also in conjunction with the setting of the present.

When Etheridge mentions this new world and somewhere where [she is] supposed to be, the rhetor is speaking of places where she longs to be, and therefore places where the song’s audience should also aspire to be. This could be argued to be now, yet another specified setting that comes up several times in the song; at the end of each chorus, she ends her list of things she needs to do with the word Now, a place which becomes a temporal setting in the song that is equivalent to the present. Especially since the song was written to be played during the final credits of An Inconvenient Truth, the audience is aware that this “place of longing” setting can only be achieved now if the audience decides to become aware of the problem addressed in the song (awareness being an action theme specified below) and commit to the actions that will move toward fixing the mounting problem of global warming.

The setting themes that suggest a certain level of personal isolation include an island and the rhetor’s dreams. These dreams are in connection with the other setting theme of this new world, expressing a certain imaginary space that is very personal to the rhetor and includes prospects for the future that most of the audience once envisioned as hopeful children. The song reminds its audience through the negation of the isolating image of an island (Etheridge states: I am not an island) that we are indeed not alone in this world. The rhetor, the audience, and indeed the nation are not in isolation when it comes to the issue of climate change. Etheridge conveys to her audience that in standing alone as an island one does not stand in solidarity with anyone, but in fact stands outside the popular and necessary actions that must be taken to solve the problem.

Action Themes

Since the rhetor’s lyrics and ultimately the song (and the film, for that matter) can basically be seen as a call to action, it makes sense that the majority of the words in the song are based around actions that Etheridge employs the audience, through herself, to take. I have divided these words into two prevalent action theme categories, including 1) initial ignorance of the problem of global warming, and 2) eventual awareness and acceptance of the problem.

The first set of words to be analyzed involves actions that refer to the rhetor’s ignorance of the dilemma of global warming; the terms sleeping/asleep, been still, been careless, dismissing, dancing, and (can’t see what to) comprehend all refer to actions the rhetor describes that lend to her (and the audience’s) former unawareness of the topic at hand. Etheridge uses the action of sleeping or being asleep as a metaphor for literally being ignorant to the prevailing issue of global warming. The audience is reminded that by sleeping through the current debates surrounding the topic they have been careless and been still on the issue, not progressing the dialogue further and therefore not making conscious changes. By dismissing all the distant rumblings and not understanding what to comprehend about the situation, the rhetor calls attention to her audience’s ignorance and inability to grasp the weight of the problem. And by suggesting the imagery of a child dancing, Etheridge is reminding the audience of the naivety they too experienced as children in believing that the world would be forever beautiful regardless of how it was treated.

There is a shift, however, from this ignorance of the problem to the action theme that represents awareness and acceptance of the problem, especially when one analyzes the oft-repeated chorus of the tune. By bringing to bear the fact that the audience need[s] to move, wake up, change, shake up, and listen, and that something’s gotta break up, the rhetor moves away from the unawareness involved with the ignorance of the problem and moves into terms that should inspire change and awareness of the problem. The rhetor directly addresses the action of sleeping by commanding I need to wake up, a line that she employs at the beginning and end of every chorus. She also dismisses having been so still by forcefully reminding the audience that they need to move, that staying so still is no longer an option. In addition, the audience is told that they need to listen in order to stop dismissing all the distant rumblings that forced them to adhere to the passivity of ignorance, and hopefully their listening will allow them to become aware of the crisis at hand.

Conclusion

Melissa Etheridge is essentially putting forward two different rhetorical visions in her song “I Need to Move” but is hoping that her audience will listen to the more important of the two. She presents the characters that act in conjunction with ignorance of global warming as persons that, in comparison to the characters that come to awareness and acceptance of the problem, are blind, are in her eyes asleep to the subject. She compares those ignorant characters to herself as a child, characters who have no regard for all the distant rumblings that those characters who realize they need to move see so clearly as setbacks in the environment’s future. These characters that realize what they need to do will indeed no longer be asleep, will have woken up to the reality of the dangers that face the environment if we as a human race continue living the way we have been living. The characters that have been careless can no longer afford to live their life this way, and really need to change the way they live. In the end, Etheridge presents the audience with only one rhetorical vision: that of waking up to reality.

“Copy-and-Persist: The Logic of Mash-Up Culture”

"Copy-and-Persist: The Logic of Mash-Up Culture" from the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication in June 2007.

This article discusses a type of rhetoric that most of encounter in our daily studies of media: the rhetoric of piracy, illegality, and copyright issues surrounding our entertainment media. For those of you unfamiliar with mash-up culture, the article explains it as thus: “Using MP3s and audio-editing software, ‘bedroom disc jockeys’ spliced together two or more pop songs to create unlikely combinations, which they distributed through peer-to-peer file-sharing services or posted on websites”. Examples of well-known artists from mash-up culture include Girl Talk (Feed the Animals is his most recent), and Danger Mouse, who famously spliced together Jay-Z’s The Black Album with The Beatles’ The White Album to produce The Grey Album.

There is a club in Los Angeles (I believe there is one in San Francisco and probably here in New York, too) that does a mash-up night once a month, combining Nirvana songs with 80s pop hits or other ridiculously unexpected examples. I have experienced what this means in a live venue; people getting extremely excited to hear old favorites produced in a new way, or maybe dancing to a song the lyrics of which one never thought one would hear in a dance club setting. The other side of the “mash-up culture” token comes in the form of listening in one’s bedroom, a private experience in which the cleverness and nuances of the mash-up can be appreciated.

On to the analysis of rhetoric present in the article: the author looks at the way that the music industry discusses illegality of file-sharing and copyright infringements that go along with using at-home editing software to isolate vocal tracks, remove them from their original setting into a new song, and speed up or slow down either track to produce an entirely new product. In the example of Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, EMI released “cease-and-desist” orders to record stores, websites like eBay, and Danger Mouse himself, stating that these tracks were an encroachment of their copyright on The White Album. The author of this article is arguing that a different rhetoric is represented among those responsible for mash-up culture: one representative from the group Downhill Battle spoke up, saying “Artists are being forced to break the law to innovate”.

In the postmodern age in which we live, isn’t appropriation quite common in visual art? Why is it that artists like Sherrie Levine (who I do not appreciate, if I must insert my personal opinion) can get away with blatant, barely re-contextualized appropriation but music artists who are trying to create a collage of sorts are met with so much resistance? This article argues that the popular corporate and copyright rhetoric is what holds these artists back from moving their work into the mainstream. Or, independent of restrictive rhetoric, does it make it kind of cool that these artists are doing something subversive, and maybe once popular rhetoric changes the mash-up culture will be no more?

Coachella 2009 Line-Up

Wow. Just, wow. I can't wait.

Nostalgia...

Can you listen to the wind outside?
You know it's whipping through the trees in the night
Bringing to the ground troubled branches and broken dreams.
But here I can't be scared
Despite your silver tongue and whispers in my back.
You're choking on my breath but we're making room to breathe.

Under the guise of darkness we'll finally meet.
Where the sky pours down to flood the streets
We'll try our best to stay lucid together.
Light cracks in
There's a turn and a smile
Thinking, I could rely on this one for a while.
My face it feels the comfort,
Like the feathers of a dream.

So maybe one day we can take this outside
Dancing like children with our arms spread wide.
But now we can't be bothered
We'll just hide in the stars
The swimming solar systems really know what they are.

Under the skies of kindness we'll fall asleep
Where the moon wears a crown.
Frozen teeth it's a secret sunken treasure.
Light flashes in your eyes before you die
Like a movie
Steal the reel and hit rewind.
It's a history in reverse
For better not for worse.

So don't walk in that parade of empty paper mache
Cause all pinatas've broken open
Spill my heart on the floor
Pick it up and jar it in a bottle
Freeze it up in the stars
Like a trophy panorama on your mother's display.
Or a memory that's drifting to your shoulder's embrace,
Or a swimming solar system on the crest of a wave.

[Fancy Claps by Nice On Ice. Lyrics by KJ Relth and Kenrick Phan, 2007]

Andrew Bird's New Album Art

Standard cover for "Noble Beasts", which I might like more for its simplicity:


And the special edition, which is more in the style of "Mysterious Production":


Now the only question is: which one do I want on vinyl? Quite possibly the special edition if only for the bonus instrumental song. Thank god I have until January 20th to decide. Listen to "Oh No," the single from "Noble Beast," here.

What a great day will be inauguration day!

Jamie (and 6th grade), this one's for you.

In the midst of reading a stack of cranky, pretentious Theodor Adorno essays and excerpts this evening, my best friend called me from California. The conversation basically consisted of us gushing about how much we missed each other (home is only 30 days away!), me talking to her son who would have honestly rather been watching Blue's Clues, and her telling me that she was importing all of her old CDs, including some really old stuff.

"What is that one other Boyz II Men song?" she asked me. "It's not on the album with 'I'll Make Love To You'."

"Uhh...'End of the Road?'"

"No no no..."

"Umm...I'm down on bended knee!?"

"No no, the other one!"

"...Ohh!! You mean the one that goes...uh...Back in school we used to dream about this every day. Da da dada happen, or do dreams just fade away, yeah. That one?"

"YES!!"

And here it is, ladies and gentlemen (and in particular, Jamie), your moment of zen:

I Heart Brooklyn

Ok, so I really haven't spent much time there, but I think somewhere between The Academy Annex record store, the book slangers on the corner and Blackbird Parlour, today I fell in love. Williamsburg just needs to gain some weight...seriously, could the people there BE any thinner? Also, someone needs to send this memo to all the scrawny long-haired males out there: Just say "No" to saying no to deodorant. Baklava is far more enjoyable when it's void of pungent underarm stink.

P.S. I need my turntable out here so badly it hurts. Look at this selection, consider the fact that they have records from The Beatles starting at $5, and try to convince me otherwise:
And that's only one half of the store. And they have used, reissued, imported and new vinyl. And and AND they have TWO listening stations. Wait wait wait...I was trying to convince myself that I need my record player. Instead now I just want to hop on the L, gather about 25 records under my arm after knocking three balding forty-somethings out of my way and hog one of their turntables for the rest of the night. If it wasn't for the fact that an absolute asshole said this me I would repeat it more often, but this city certainly reveals itself to you a little at a time. I walked by this place completely oblivious about two months ago on my way to The Music Hall. I'm guessing it was hiding that night because it was closed and it was being kind enough not to taunt me with its enticing treasures.

So on top of today's newest finds, the fact that Williamsburg is also home to a Salvation Army, a vegetarian taco truck, at least one used book store and the Charleston (plus hundreds of possible yet-to-be-discovered boutiques) has completely sold me on spending more time there. As an excuse to get some loose-leaf tea and finish The Double I might just visit the Blackbird Parlour again tomorrow...

"Bankrupt on Selling"

After listening to my favorite podcast yesterday (This American Life on NPR, duh) and hearing this Modest Mouse song related perfectly to the commercial paper market and the type of fiscal language that is usually used by a small percentage of highly educated bankers in episode #365 entitled "Another Frightening Show About the Economy", I've decided it's the anti-anthem for the current economic situation, especially the lines I've put in bold.

"Well all the apostles - they're sitting in swings
saying "I'd sell off my savior for a set of new rings
and some sandals with the style of straps that cling best to the era"
So all of the businessers in their unlimited
hell where they buy and they sell and they sell all their
trash to each other but they're sick of it all
and they're bankrupt on selling
And all of the angels
they'd sell off yer soul for a set of new wings and anything gold
They remember
the people they loved their old friends
and I've seen through 'em all seen through 'em all and seen through most everything
All the people you knew were the actors
All the people you knew were the actors
Well, I'll go to college and I'll learn some big words
and I'll talk real loud
Goddamn right I'll be heard
You'll remember all the guys that said all those big words he must've
learned in college
And it took a long time
I came clean with myself
I come clean out of love with my lover
I still love her
Loved her more when she used to be sober and I was kinder"
-----

You can hear this song on Modest Mouse's album "The Lonesome Crowded West"

I may have found the best feel-good movie ever...

Call me pretentious. Call me a film snob. Call me an elitist. And I might very well be all these things. But don't ever call me a killjoy.

I just watched Footloose (dir. Herbert Ross, 1984), maybe the best feel-good movie ever with the most quintessential '80's soundtrack I've heard since Dirty Dancing. With not just one but two Kenny Loggins songs, "Let's Hear it For The Boy" by Deniece Williams, "Holding Out For a Hero" and "Dancing in the Sheets", how can you go wrong?! I'm such a sucker for movies with dancing (ask anyone what my favorite movie is), and I have to admit I was skeptical about this movie at first, especially since I'm not the biggest Kevin Bacon fan. But he's just so darn cute and likable, especially with that almost-mullet thing he has going and those painted-on denim pants.

Bacon's character Ren (which is also my sister's cat's name, by the way) moves to a small town with his mother where dancing and listening to rock and roll is against the law with religiously-instigated sanctions put forth by the father of Ren's love interest (played by John Lithgow, although unfortunately not as entertaining as his Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai role). Being from "the big city" of Chicago, Ren's just aching to jam a rockin' tape into his car stereo and dance his skillful feet all over town. Below is a scene of him dancing in anguish that this pent-up town will never see his ways:



Ok, so it's super cheesy. Like gouda and mozzarella and pepper jack all melted together and then eaten with Cheez-Its. But god damnit, it was so entertaining. Especially when Kevin Bacon starts quoting scripture.

All I know is that I was having a pretty stressful day and this movie completely melted that all away. I think I'll be wanting to kick off my Sunday shoes all the way into the weekend.