Angelina

Verses

"Dolce Vita"
Ryan Paris
1980

We're walking like in a Dolce Vita
This time we've got it right
We're living like in a Dolce Vita
Mmh gonna dream tonight

We're dancing like in a Dolce Vita
With lights and music on
Our love is made in the Dolce Vita
Nobody else than you

It's our last night
Together with our love again
Another light
Before we're thrown in darkness
Say you'll never leave me now
Say you'll never leave me now

We've made it down in the Dolce Vita
Wipe all your fears away
We live like in the Dolce Vita
A game of yesterday

I'm so alone in the Dolce Vita
Oh baby telephone
This magic's gone in the Dolce Vita
Nobody else than you

It's our last night
Together with our love again
Another light
Before we're thrown in darkness
Say you'll never leave me now
Say you're gonna love me

It's our last night
Together with our love again
Another light
Before we're thrown in darkness
Say you'll never leave me now
Say you're gonna love me now

I think Bieb' is a little milagro! Do you see how his hair realigns itself after he swishes it?! Do you see how his "swagger lessons" are paying off?! I've been harping a bit, but it's just dominating mi mente: AMERICA! It is such a thrill to watch French teens weeping over American sensation (for like the trillionth time since the Revolution...).

am to pm (train notes)

"Love in This Club, Part II," Usher featuring Beyoncé and Lil' Wayne___"Love in This Club" was a Dr. Phil-styles changing pop song in my life. Strangely (blame New York City?), I didn't hear it's second half/remix until this winter. A boy-girl duet with a brief Weezy passage, the play is Continental, with its imaging of celebrity-en-clurrrb and a kinda Puerto Rican or Indian melodic narrative. But the players are Omni-American, the host, Usher, and author, Keri Hilson, totes (definitively) Atlantan, the two guests, Be and Wayne, deepSoutherners familiar with (working royalty in) that (A)town, its studios, lounges, fake lakes and SOUND(z) --(note that Usher scrapped the original version with Mariah Carey, who seems rather outside of Atlanta, as a star [however continually relevant] pre-dating Southern cultural dominance, for a Be version). So, beyond the story and fun, is Atlanta....I think "Love in This Club, Part II" is about Atlanta, Atlanta as Hollywood. Atlanta the business district, where, as is ever the case with artists (and the hobnobbing rich), personal life and professional life are unbordered, or just vaguely so. Here are some of Be and Usher's negotiations:

Usheerrrr
Yea thats It right here.
Queen Be Yeaaaah
I'm the king, y'all know that (Usher Baby!!) .
She the queen, came right back (Listen To It!!).
Yeaaahhh... Yeaaahhh
(OH!! REEEMIIIIX!!!)

[Verse 1: Usher]
Now baby girl there ain't nothing more than I can say.
Y' know by now I want it more than anything.
If I walk away and just let you leave,
You'll be stuck in my head like a melody.

[Beyoncé (Usher adlibs)]
I know you want it. (Yeah)
I'm hestitating. (Why?)
You must be crazy.
I got a man; you got a lady.

[Usher]
I know...we here together.
So this must be something special.
You could be anywhere you wanted,
but you decided to be here with me.
No coincidence, It was meant to be.
Don't be shy,
Let your boy get in.
So you can tell all of your friends
You was on the remix like...

****
[Verse 2: Beyoncé (Usher and Wayne adlib)]
Baby you know I'd be down,
But we can't have all these people starin' standin' around.
This right here is only for your eyes to see,
But you gettin carried away
Sayin we can (do it wherever).
The way you touching me
Like no other (I'ma make you feel insane),
You trying your hardest to make me give in,
But I'ma be down to give you what you want,
And if you keep it up,
I strongly doubt this velvet rope will hold me up,
And I don't want security rollin' up on us (I got you).
I'm not hesitating I just don't wanna rush.
You could be anywhere you wanted
But you decided to be here with me;
No coincidence, It was meant to be.
Promise if I mess around I let you get in.
You gon' tell all of your friends
You was on this remix like...

Negotiation, as a trick, a format, reads MARKET but it's the self-conscious lines, "So you can tell all of your friends you were on the remix" and "Promise if I mess around I let you get in/You gon' tell all your friends you was on this remix," sung by Usher and Be respectively, that wink smart, liken sex in public (VIP "public") to work in studio, making a remix, two bodies to the product, the audible commodity. And they're not just talking about the romance of artistic collaboration; both singers expect the other to brag about their breaks, their appearances on the track. The song is made a conversation between careerists in a gossipy Industry town, thick with casting couches, secrets, lies, watching eyes, hunger...


"4 My Town (Play Ball)," Birdman (heavily) featuring Drake and Lil' Wayne (Young Money+Cash Money, father+son!)___I've written here before about my unconditional, tween-borned love for Birdman and Wayne (the Cash Money lifestyle brand), and my attempts-at-love for "their kid," (nice cardigan) JimmyDrake, who was on Degrassi and half Memphian and debuted all plum with hot beats at back, though spitting some nuts mixture of yess ("I've always treated my city like some shoulder pads") and awful ("I love ya sushi roll/hotter than wasabi/I'm race'n for your love/shake and bake Ricky Bobby"), and I was torn, and it was hard to be supportive...but there was also this bit of civilian copy, where he came off like sugar with a Jewish mom and then I had a crush, so...
Here, Drake's verse is good (on reals), but it's in the languid chorus, a signature, as with "Successful" and "Money to Blow," where he's maybe trying to do a Nate Dogg thing that is soo superior to any other thing he does. Usually, in verses, he sounds amateurish.
I think most pop songs are written to me, for me (the point, no?). And in this vein, I've long been preoccupied by instances of rappers addressing schoolgirls. They're rare and often imagined (I'm sure), like schoolgirls are just a (my) figment of a whole population, young, well-heeled consumers, acknowledged by anybody trying to get known and paid. But iffin' I haven't projected the discourse, "4 My Town (Play Ball)" contains a loud instance. The chorus (which I'll paste in full):

Take yourself a picture when I'm standing at the mound,
And I swear it's going down, I'm just reppin' for my town,
Off a cup of C.J. Gibson, man I'm faded off the pound,
And I'm easily influenced by the niggas I'm around,
See that Aston Martin when I start it hear the sound,
I ain't never graduated I ain't got no cap and gown,
But the girls in my class who were smart enough to pass,
Be at all my fucking parties, grabbing money off the ground.

It's probably some lame ish about how girls with diplomas become strippers because there's scarce bill-paying hustle in a French or Sculpture degree or whatever. But I wonder. Back when (and I'm repeating myself), I was at Bungalow 8 for the first and only time. There were a couple of bankers making it rain on a woman some ten years my senior, who was un-poled and fully clothed and just dancing to the shite mix like me and everyone else. I was (obv) appalled, and, after an hour of glancing at the bills, damp and stuck to the rug, I grabbed them up and ran out to see my boyfriend and listen to whole, unadulterated songs. So, when I first heard Drake's chorus, I imagined some 20-yr-old cash-poor but clever Canadian stoner who went to prep school with him and showed up when he was in Toronto to say hey and maybe peep Wayne and have some bub and sweep the floor for small paper. I bet this isn't what he means....but maybe, hopefully, because smart girls having to work the shake junt is a yawn, he's referring to those bankers and lady, that Travis Porter song I posted last week, the habit of throwing bills at any kind of non-professional girl dancing, which glosses the problem of smart girls bending for the gaze, serving, regardless of the payoff, the widening disconnect between mind and body, sex and self, the way an education can be swallowed, disguised...I'm not sure Drake is spitting social consciousness, but maybe social-criticality...?

look i planned a wedding, y'all!

More Hump Day

Hump Day

"Lines Written in Dejection" from The Wild Swans at Coole
W.B. Yeats
1917

When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.
The holy centaurs of the hills are banished;
I have nothing but the harsh sun;
Heroic mother moon has vanished,
And now that I have come to fifty years
I must endure the timid sun.

cowboy actor (yayo) (love) (AMERICA!)

Verses

"The Highwayman"
Alfred Noyes
(1906)

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping
the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin;
He'd a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!
And he rode with a jeweled twinkle--
His rapier hilt a-twinkle--
His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred,
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler listened--his face was white and peaked--
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter--
The landlord's black-eyed daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart; I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

He stood upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the sweet black waves of perfume came tumbling o'er his breast,
Then he kissed its waves in the moonlight
(O sweet black waves in the moonlight!),
And he tugged at his reins in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon.
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon over the purple moor,
The redcoat troops came marching--
Marching--marching--
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord; they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets by their side;
There was Death at every window,
And Hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had bound her up at attention, with many a sniggering jest!
They had tied a rifle beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say,
"Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it, she strove no more for the rest;
Up, she stood up at attention, with the barrel beneath her breast.
She would not risk their hearing, she would not strive again,
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight,
And the blood in her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love's refrain.

Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hooves, ringing clear;
Tlot tlot, tlot tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The redcoats looked to their priming! She stood up straight and still.

Tlot tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight--
Her musket shattered the moonlight--
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him--with her death.

He turned, he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the casement, drenched in her own red blood!
Not till the dawn did he hear it, and his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down in the highway,
Down like a dog in the highway,
And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,
The highwayman comes riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred,
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Only about 20% of university students participating in a 2007 survey agreed that oral-genital contact constituted sex, yet the majority believed that penile-vaginal and penile-anal intercourse did (98% and 78%, respectively), according to “Sex Redefined: The Reclassification of Oral-Genital Contact,” by Jason D. Hans et al. The article is currently available online, and will appear in the June 2010 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. Participants in the survey were only about half as likely as those in a similar 1991 study to classify oral-genital contact as sex, suggesting that young people’s notions of what behaviors constitute sex have changed as oral sex has become increasingly acceptable among youth as a less-risky alternative to intercourse......The authors suggest that school-based sex education programs and popular media, as well as the infamous Clinton-Lewinsky incident, may have contributed to the changing conceptualization of oral-genital contact.
(the rest of the brief is here...)

****

I like this study. I think more work should be done along these lines, discoursing rapid shifts in sexual order/disorder/valuation through language. And I think the findings (sweetly obv) point toward the absurdity of Neo-Con morality-marketing tactics, the failure of abstinence-only edu. and the failure of the Starr Report, all of that Clinton character bashing de los 90s. Clinton and Lewinsky's affair, even the bit about the Oval Office, was not extraordinary, but its airing-out and politicization was. House Republicans and their mouthpieces are responsible for the promotion of non-sexual bj's as much as, if not more than (?), William Clinton, who certainly would have, if possible, avoided describing "sexual relations," entering into the mad, post-OJ law-gossip vortex.
This survey of college students was taken while I was an undergraduate three years ago. The Starr Report was published my (our) 8th grade autumn. And it was salacious; I (we) read every word. It's wide publication was revolutionary, a revolution in smut (a prelude to the celebrity sex tape golden era--just after Larry Flynt's Hollywood folk-heroism and Pam and Tommy's wedding cruise, just before Paris Hilton's career-making teen, night vision submission and high speed Internet access). It seems quaint now. We, born mid-80s, may have been the last hip youngsters who had to fake like we knew what "creample" meant. But, to me (us), it's a big deal how differently we think and speak, not only from our parents, but from Gen-Xers, the students of '91 (our almost-peers, babysitters, older boyfriends). And we can do much by parsing out why and how we casually approach(ed) an act that was once considered more intimate than vaginal penetration. What texts did we read? Do we feel isolated by our differences/choices/speech? Liberated? How and when will our 'laxness' be out-moded by those a decade+ junior?

El Niño Rey

Morrison's TV report also showed an 18th-century building in Cárdenas which was previously used as a fire station and which was renovated and inaugurated on July 14, 2001, as a museum, called Museo de la Batalla de Ideas ("Museum of the Battle of Ideas"), which includes an Elián exhibition room with a life-size bronze statue of Elián raising a clenched fist. Ironically, the former González home in Miami has similarly been turned into a museum, with the boy's bedroom left unaltered.

late easter

story

Ivanka Trump's accused stalker freed on $10K bond

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 1, 8:01 pm ET

NEW YORK – A self-described celebrity stalker obsessed with Ivanka Trump threatened to kill himself in her jewelry store and "commandeer" her husband's newspaper in e-mail and Twitter messages to the couple, prosecutors said Thursday.

"I won't just be ignored," Justin Massler wrote in an August e-mail to the newspaper, The New York Observer, according to a court complaint filed at his arraignment Thursday.

He added in another message that unless he got an autographed photo, he would commit suicide at The Ivanka Trump Collection boutique to damage its reputation, "or my only other option will be to simply stalk Ivanka Trump in a maniacal manner for this picture by becoming nothing other than a deranged celebrity stalker," according to the court documents.

Massler, 27, didn't enter a plea. His lawyer, George Vomvolakis, said the messages didn't amount to crimes, and Massler "at no point intended to follow through with any of these comments."

Massler was released on $10,000 bond, with orders to get psychiatric care as he awaits trial at his mother's home in Reno, Nev.

Trump, the daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump, declined to comment.

She co-hosts NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice" and is a vice president at her father's real estate company. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is the publisher of The New York Observer and an executive at his family's real estate business, the Kushner Cos. The couple got married in October.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lucrece Francois told a judge that Massler had stalked Trump for about two years.

In Twitter messages directed at Trump, Massler said his "dream in life" was to marry her but also called her "a diseased elitist," according to the court complaint. In e-mails to Kushner and the Observer, he demanded that Kushner "surrender" a Fifth Avenue office tower, asked where Kushner lived so he could "talk some sense into him" and discussed "commandeering" the newspaper, the documents said.

Vomvolakis said Massler never came closer to Trump than trying unsuccessfully to send her an $800 pair of earrings he'd bought online from her store.

Massler, who had his name legally changed to Cloud Starchaser, has grappled with psychiatric problems for years and spent time in a mental hospital, his attorney said.

"He's got a very eccentric sense of humor, and he thinks it's funny, declaring himself a celebrity stalker," Vomvolakis said.

Blessings

Could you imagine if this was reals????