jewel eye

Ten years ago this June, Jennifer Lopez (who is 40 today!) released On the 6. It was the summer before we (our generationally uniform A&P staff) started high school. And it was the last of some wine, at once blissful and terribly depressing/ive. I was becoming aware of finite-ness (the finite-ness of any mini-epoch, any happy afternoon, any--oy--childhood?). I went to Venice with my grandmother. I went to a house in New Mexico with my parents and sister. I listened to On the 6 throughout. Pillow and I had a mutual love for the record, forged while staying up all night listening to it in her cedar closet, getting high on pure conjecture: video images, foggy notions of adulthood, choreographed dances, stretchy and flared denims, inside jokes about the less attractive members of boy bands.

There's not so much to say about the music. I loved it then because I was 14. I love it now because I'm sentimental. But the album cover. As far as I'm concerned, gold hot pants, beige chasmere sweater, and ponytail really add up. J. Lo is most iconic as a beauty, a dresser, as a glam caricature (and a Nueva Yorker), as the demander of culticle oils and fresh-cut flowers. Her musical and filmic successes, whatever they've been, are directly linked to her personal excesses (and thank G-d!). The two favorites from Summer '99:

Misty

While doing a little bit of Brit-Brit research, reviewing the 1999 Dave LaChapelle spread from Rolling Stone (you know, the one with the phone and the bed and the tricycle and the shorts that say "baby" on the butt), I came across Miss Aguilera's cover from the same year. I was shaken, not only by the yucky, yucky line, "Guess What Christina Wants," but by the ALARMING similarity between young Christy Aguilera and young Christy Meth-Genius, our all-time favorite Intervention subject/Lucite-shoe-wearer/raver/Arizonan. Beyond that heaviness, can you handle the eau de 1999? That unbuttoned denim mini?! Lawd.

"stay carried"

I've been watching Season 1 of The Sopranos for the first time since it aired on HBO in winter 1999. It's a theatrical joy (as remembered), and I am once again hearting/lusting Tony and Christopher (in all of his tracksuit-and-chain-wearing glory!) and the John and Junior Soprano of Tony's late sixties flashbacks, a den of violent, narrow, philandering gangsters.

My dear friend PMC decries this sort of archetypal male role, "the lovable misogynist." And I agree--the hero who blithely (or with a scant few pangs of regret) commits crimes and uses up a string of adoring/sad/angry women is a threat to culture, a dumb, toxic product of patriarchal art-making, a pin-up for femmes who hate themselves. But, try as I might, (sorry Ma) I can't apply good politics to sex--I'm one of those suckered femmes--I find "lovable misogynists" irresistible.

When I was eighteen, I was on a date with a nice, Jewish boy, a little older than me. We were on our way to a bar in Allston-Brighton, cruising through tunnels in his zippy little silver, CA-plated Beemer listening to "Let's Get High" off of Dre's Chronic 2001, an album with quite fond High School associations. He asked if the song bothered me. I laughed, said, "Sorry, I'm confused." He explained that it had just struck him (stoned) how "sexist" the lyrics were. He was embarrassed.--

[all together]
All these niggaz and all these hoes in here
Somebody here gon' fuck! (repeat 4X)
[Hittman]
Talkin that, walkin that, spittin at hoes
Smokin this, drinkin that, hittin at hoes
Fuck this I'm hittin that I'm hittin em both
Have one ridin dick, one lickin my toes
When I'm lovin these hoes there ain't no love involved
No hugs, no kisses, bear rugs, bear britches
Rare bitches like to pose in them Black Tail pictures
Bitch jumped off my dick, "Is that Dre over there?"
[Dr. Dre]
Yeah -- I just took some Ecstasy
Ain't no tellin what the side effects could be
All these fine bitches equal sex to me
Plus I got this bad bitch layin next to me
No doubt, sit back on the couch
Pants down, rubber on, set to turn that ass out
Laid the bitch out, then I put it in her mouth
Pulled out, nutted on a towel and passed out
[Kurupt]
Come on let's get high (hiiiiigh..) let's get high (hiiiiigh..)
Come on let's get high (hiiiiigh..) let's get high
All my ladies let's get high (hiiiiigh..) high (hiiiiigh..)
Let's get high (hiiiiigh..) Come on let's get high
I make the four hop {*hydraulic sound*} pull up at the spot
Weed by the barrels in my G'd up apparel
Stompin in the party, Kurupt, Young Gotti
I'm fuckin somethin in this bitch, hit em with some gangsta shit
Put somethin in your mouth bitch real tasty...
...Kurupt with an ounce an' got all the hoes in this motherfucker bouncin {*hydraulics*}
Down to.. YO WHATTUP SCRAM JONES?
Mel-Man what's crackin? Whassup wit all these ol' punk ass hoes in here?
[Ms. Roq]
Nigga WHUT??! I'm a hustlin bitch!
I like them get rich niggaz, them hit the switch niggaz
Niggaz bout the sex and which bitch to hit next
While I'm kickin my game and collectin them checks
Got all y'all niggaz vexed to fuck this triple-X rated hoe
You say you ain't eat it - you ate it though
And uhh, Roq don't stop, can't be droppin no drawers
To the niggaz how you figure got you shittin in yours
Yeah, little dicks always runnin they mouth
While a bitch is better off to masturbate and be out
All you bitches up in here know what I'm talkin about
Get the loot, get the ice, fuck the wife, no doubt
Tryin to live lavish, marry a big dick and stay carried
Holla back at them niggaz that hollered at me
Pop the Cris', whip the six and shit
And have all y'all niggaz limp when I twist my shit
Yeah! Bitch ass niggaz!

--I said, "Oh, it's never occurred to me. I mean, there's the part with the chick at the end. I don't know. I'm not bothered by that stuff."