Heaven Sent

Folk Art for Friday

Love in this Club

Digging on roughnecks?...check out this picture of Croat chiefs from Roger Fenton's 1855 Crimean War portfolio!
(Click image to enlarge.)

"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."

Amusement for Thursday

Obviously a parody, but early on makes some rather interesting points about skankiness in America.

Would You Excuse Me? I'm Feeling Emotional...

I don't know why it took Alpha so long to post this, but I saw Shirley Manson on that awful Chelsea Handler show the other night, and the next day spent a long time deciding between her's (Chelsea's) and Carrie Fisher's books at *that* local bookstore, and decided (klar klar superstar) on Carrie's...The one thing keeping me undecided was that Shirley Manson has never appeared on Carrie's Lifetime television project, Interviews From The Edge...

In any event, the Chelsea Really? interview reminded me of exactly how much I love the Shirley. I have loved her since the first day I met her (see below for details). Pillow and I saw her live (with Corsica) a few years back, and the bitch is still on fire. Nearly 6 feet tall, she kicked some random line-stepping fan in the head, a story we do still regale the younguns with...And I figure, since we're all about the 90's redux here, I'd just give you another great throwback...

I remember my first day with Shirley quite vividly. I discovered Garbage The Rock Band (as Chrissie Hynde so lovingly refers to them), infantalized and fresh from my morning routine (at age 10. Please do check yourself into a clinic if you think that's hot). Seemingly out of nowhere, this video came on, and I decided at that exact moment, this woman was going to be the end-all-be-all for me.

First off (even at 10), blue eyeshadow on a green-eyed redhead? Crazy! (although Able, on her first meeting with Alpha, would dare the same thing... on HIM...). Then, upon further review, fishnets and goth and actual clinical depression and everything Gwen Stefani at that time was not (despite their apparent lifelong friendship).

Y'know, it's all quite possibly why I'm gay; it's probably why my love for alt-rock prevents me from keeping a man (or an actual gay one, at least, who doesn't love Sonic Youth more). And her current run (acting!!!) on the FOX television thing, Sarah Conner Chronicles, is most certainly why I act even more like a robot these days. ..

Regardless, this is the video that made me the Alpha we all know and love. Enjoy. Listen to it many times if you don't have the CD nearby. Because, deep down, you know you want to...

Second Careers

"It's no fun being an illegal alien."

Lawd

Casual Hex

Reunion (Early March Jam)

Senior year of high school was awash in 50 Cent (and Cam'Ron and Lil' Kim and Missy and Jahiem and Mr. Bigg and Beyonce and Justin Timberlake and Sean Paul and Pharrell). "21 Questions" (Nate Dogg, I love your work.) was the radio song of lazy, hazy, dazy, teenage truant spring afternoons. Or, really this was...but still, hearing any of that G-Unit stuff (from between 2003 and 2006) makes me feel like a happy, dancey fool, like I want to bob my head and snap and sing the hook and drink pink wine, like I'm at a reunion, like I'm forty (or 18?), like I'm listening to a pop relic. The sound is easy and shameless and always/already past.

"Hate It or Love It" was a hit collaboration between 50 and The Game released amid stories of the rappers' (non-event) falling out. The Trammps sample and nostalgic rhymes are evocative of this general "reunion feeling-notion," the whole, familiar and right. Oh the pure, aughtsy aspirationalism of it all! Dig that last shot of the black and red limited edition U2 AIDS Ipod. GGG-G.

Folk Art for Tuesday

Disco Bloodbath

If you haven't been watching RuPaul's Drag Race on LOGO, then...well, what the hell is wrong with you? Seriously, it's the best reality "game show" out there (although that one with Vivica A. Fox is pretty choice, I never know when it's on, which is my burden). This week was the most severe episode yet. I'll try to make the synopsis brief:

Everyone hates beautiful "fish-like" bitch, Rebecca Glasscock (note: "fish-like" is used to describe a drag queen that goes more realistic than artistic), but she won this week's challenge (making tough female competive fighters into their drag "daughters") and thus stays in the competition. Her archenemy Shanel (who says she's only 29, but she's really 89) is livid.

The problem is, despite winning this challenge and being the hottest bitch there, Rebecca is the weakest competitor at this point. RuPaul had no other option than to place bubbly man-girl Ongina and Grace Slick's long-lost sister Bebe Zaharra Benet in the bottom two. In my opinion, both should've at least been in the TOP 3 at the end of this thing, so seeing either of them (cue the lightning and thunder) LIP-SYNC FOR THEIR LIVES was devastating. So devastating, that RuPaul had to excuse herself from the stage to contemplate who would have to go. I assume this involved reviewing the girls' overall work in the competition, and a big ol' cigarillo packed with the good shit, but I digress...

In the end, sadly, Ongina was given the size 14 stiletto boot, only because Bebe is a madwoman on the stage. Seriously, she's a beast. Last week, Jenny Shimizu pointed out that she would be doing coke with Bebe if it were still the 90s. She's a brilliant throwback to that early/mid 90's 7-foot glamazon drag queen in a sea of club kids thing (...and who does that remind us of?).

Below is the final 7 minutes of the show. Takes about 2 minutes before the lip-sync, but OMG, it's worth it.

More Gay & Lesbian Video At LogoOnline.com

Snow Day

Last night, betweeen 1 and 3 A.M. about a foot fell over the five bouroughs (another ten inches to come today). After waking early and determining that I would not have to go to work, I turned on NY1. Joel Klein, New York City School Chancellor sounds despondent. After "deliberation deep into the night," Joel and co. chose to close schools, a thing that's happened twice in the past 20 years (for much larger blizzards). Evidently people in Manhattan are miffed, because this is really an outerbourough and commuter issue. The Staten Island Ferry is closed; there are train delays and suspensions, tricky bridges. I find this dourness and uncertainty really nutty, because in Memphis, literally everything shuts down at the least sight of snow, our school-closers quick-to-action, our citizens happy. So, Pat Kiernan (who gets dishier with each repeated news segment) is surprised that schools are closed, but I'm not. Snow days are made for pausing. And, in the first week of March, we are SICK of winter, and none are equipped to trudge and argue with it.

I'm OK. You're OK.

Eh, somebody I'm friends with on the dreaded MySpace added this song on their profile...that's not so important. What is important is that it reminded me that this is my mom's 2nd or 3rd favorite GNR song ever...

Somewhere in 1991, there's a little boy riding to catholic school in a Mazda 626 with this song blasting, quietly wondering what will become of him...

Nail Color For Sunday

Essie Infatuation. The name smacks of Tova Borgnine, but the actual shade is perfecto, bubblegum with depth.

Party

Brilliant Guardian scribe Marina Hyde has one and two interesting things to say about the post-Cold War (now that Bush is out of office, we can declare it through) East today.

I'm OK. You're OK.

Lone Ranger

A few years ago, I was inadvertantly (items of clothing had been lost and replaced in the course of the day) dressed in this bonkers outfit with a purple mini fashioned out of a t-shirt and a neon yellow something on top and these peach platform flip-flops and my friend said, "You look like you're trying to prove a point."

Folk Art for This Weekend

Very limited back story: I know a chick whose grandmother dates this guy. She has Thanksgiving dinner with this gentleman. We should all aspire to do the same.

Tijuana Boob Job

Josh Freese, legendary drummer, who's played with The Vandals, Devo, Dweezil Zappa, Guns n' Roses, The Replacements, and, perhaps most perplexing, Sting, presents his manifesto on how the music industry can best hoist itself out of the gaping tunnel to Middle Earth it started digging in 1991.

This isn't the first time Freese has shown himself to be an intuitive, forward-thinking comrade. Here's a clip of his video diary from 2007.



And here, just for kicks, is a video tribute Freese composed for his friend Tommy Lee.

Grant City Getdown

I've been feeling tropical lately. Maybe it's the lure of our soon-to-be neighborhood or maybe I'm just craving giant black cock but here's a dancehall throwback for Wednesday.



Keeping in line with much of the dirty, sexist, back of the school bus party jams of the early 90's, 'Heads High' by Mr. Vegas is an ode to hygienic oral sex. Girl, I don't know where that thing's been gettin' into.

Shake a move.

Let's Hear it For the W--

I really can't remember the last time I applauded a spread of pictures in a fashion magazine. This month's Steven Klein portfolio of Madonna (and her blue-eyed, 30-years-junior, ashamed-looking Latin lover, Jesus Luz) is damn fine. I love the lighting. I love the styling--Madge as we know her best: platinum hair and black eyebrows and prim and gothic lace and crosses and gloves and a rough and lean dancer's body and a general air of having come straight from a humid, Catholic country. No need for reinvention; this is essential.

Happy Halloween!

Most. Jubilant. State of the Union. Ever.

The right side of the room was dazed and confused. Arlen Specter didn't even wear a suit. John McCain boiled. But lifted is the pall of Dick Cheney's sneer! I don't think Nancy Pelosi ever stopped smiling. The assembly spent most of the night on their feet, clapping, cheering, laughing, asking for autographs. And would you look at this room-workage: Obama winks at and then kisses Hillary Clinton. I'm pinching myself.

Best Thing Going (For Ash Wednesday)

The name of this blog is unforgiveable, but . . .

"Badly Done, Emma."

Another bit of newsies read over the shoulder of my neighbor in public transportation (and an example of the Paper of Record doing what it does better): evidently Bloomberg (Dowager Empress of Manahatta) has purchased most of the townhouse next door in order to build a little real estate monster, a proper mansion on E. 79th street. For a civilian billionaire, this would be the best moment to swoop in and buy up a much desired property from a cash-strapped seller. But for the billionaire who chooses to dabble in politics, this seems the worst worst kind of timing, just poor taste. Then again, the story reeks of journalistic digging and stirring, not so much "new" in "news." We've always known that M. B. lived in marble frieze. It's just that these days, it doesn't look so good. Our mini-guilded age is done, but a finance oligarch still rules City Hall. Can Koch run again?

Cholera

So, the internets version of this article lacks the breathtakingly tacky headline of the print version that I read over a girl's shoulder on the train this morning--Now in Brooklyn: The Nineteenth Century-- Earnest Vibe, Handcrafted Food, and Plenty of Facial Hair. It proves my theory that the New York Times, though still the Paper of Record in matters of business and politics and science and theater and so on, is blind and miserable in matters of trend. Being written up by these folks is the yuppie kiss of death. I like Brooklyn and beards and Olde New York and good restaurants, but now that the Times has invoked the "Now" and the "Vibe"--I'm feeling queasy and uncertain.

(Ugly) Verses

Tearful Atlanta Cops Express Remorse for Shooting 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston, Leaving Her To Bleed to Death in Her Own Home While They Planted Drugs in Her Basement, Then Threatening an Informant So He Would Lie To Cover It All Up

—Atlanta Journal Constitution headline, Tuesday February 24, 2009

Rooty

My recent rehash of the mid-nineties is not just about following up early nineties redux in an orderly manner; it's also about some serious middle school memory rambling. The other night I was in the midst of one of those brief, cursory conversations about how awful and damaging middle school can be. And word, it was brutal sometimes, but it also marked the beginning of a particular kind of experience--secret-keeping, in-cahoots-ing, cigarette-and-liquor-stealing, drop-me-off-at-the-mall-ing friendship. Sure, I have a criminal tendency toward rose-colored glasses, but I'm pretty sure Pillow and I had a good time shopping and staying up late and making up languages and rumors and generally trying to look older and cooler. I've previously touched on pop cultural stylings of that moment (stuff we gathered from MTV), but we, being wildly smart and sophisticated, spent a lot of the middle school middle nineties gearing up for the mad reduxing of the next millennium.

Although we were in a certain amount of isolation from burgeoning "hipster" ideas, we shopped vintage and generally became obsessed with the seventies and eighties in film and song. I recall a pair of dark denim late seventies Gitano jeans I loved to wear with my inherited seventies concert tees and a load of bright, big eighties and raver jewelry. After three years of art school, I hate to use the word "organic"; but I look back at that time, and think, we were organically finding this future style. We just knew that it was correct to look backward.

Pillow used to live across the street from me in a big, lovely, dark, haunted, Victorian house that was much easier to get lost in (lose parents in) than mine, which was lovely too, but bright and circular and sound-carrying. So it was the site of most of our ecstatic, sleepless sleepovers. I recall the day she first played Blondie for me. "Heart of Glass" positively blew our minds. I recall the day I brought over a copy of T. Rex's Electric Warrior. It was all new to us, a window onto tight glamorous and shabby clothes, slim, slow sliding, drugs, decadence, something totally removed from the pink and green we were presented with at school and club and such. (Though, I should note that a lot of this stuff came directly from our parents, not always the pink and green types. Por ejemplo, as a yout', Papa Able wrote for Creem.)

These days, those first redux loves are so much in the/our canon that I've been dismissive or disinterested. It's not like I've ever not loved them; I just get full of other stuff. But lately I've listened to "Life's a Gas" and been muy moved. I'm hearing Marc Bolan as I did in 1997, in Pillow's living room, as a damn revolution of a voice, as an aesthete hippie (just like us, a brother, a key). Below, I've included a performance from 1971(ish). And the color scheme is right in step with my memories of all those, much-posted-about middle nineties MTV images . . . hmmmm. Pillow and Able--endlessly onto something.

Assorted Colors: A Progression

Again with the 1996. I can't help it. I had a strong desire to watch the "Crush on You" video this afternoon. And, after some reflection, I decided that Lil' Kim's wigs directly affected Apple's late nineties design choices (like the candy-colored iMacs seen above, which were produced in 1998). This video also directly affected Pillow and me all the way to a beautiful stripper resale store called Betty's, a 6th grader's dream in fishnet, patent leather, glitter, fake hair and platform shoe. Watch and enjoy.

Up With People

These look so good to me all of a sudden.