Out of the Loop

My Grandfather died last week and I've been out of town for his funeral. My mother's computer seems to have something against blogger so I haven't updated while there.

It was only a short time ago that my grandmother died, and it is a sad thing to know that neither of them will be there anymore. My mother pointed out a spot under a tree at my grandparents house where I used to play and was known to eat mud (in my defense it was more than two years ago).

When we were going through their now strangely quiet house I saw lots of things that I hadn't thought about in years, like the furniture and things in the rear bedrooms of the house where I spent many nights when visiting them.

It's funny when you think about people who are gone the things that come into your head. When they were asking me if there was anything in the house that I wanted to take with me the only thing that I was fixated on was a lamp in the living room that is made from an old hand-waterpump. For some reason that is the one item that I identify most with their house and them. It's in my room here now, and it makes me both sad and nostalgic to look at it.

Be a Man

Chuck D spoke at MTSU recently, and I read in the campus newspaper that he said something along the lines of "The current state of rap is sorry. Kids are sitting at home listening to this stuff and thinking, I can do this, and they're right."

Macho Man Randy Savage's Be a Man is the album that proves Chuck right.

Anyone can make a rap album. Anyone.

Take one out of work wrestler with a reasonable amount of celebrity, mix with semi-talented writers and producers, stir in a song challenging another 80s wrestler and one in honor of a dead one, and shake. Out pops this album.

This is quite possibly the most craptacular thing ever produced by man. Never before have the worlds of rap and wrestling been merged into a seamless whole such as this.

There were glimmers of such a thing in Hulk Hogan's 1995 Hulk Rules album, where the Hulkster laid down some fresh rhymes, and NWA-TNA wrestler Ron "tha Truth" Killings is a rapper who has put out a few albums, but nothing in comparison to this.

Nothing.

I think they missed out on something by not cursing more. Just the new horizons for rhyming words ending in "-it" would have added alot to the songs, rather than relying on "That's the slogan" being used more than once.

After listening to this album the 14 times that is legally required for writing a review I have a few questions for Randy. In one song he talks about how he won't cheat on his lady because she's stuck by him, but in another he talks about how they're wanting to have some fun with ladies at the club. Which is it Macho?

Of course he didn't actually write any of the lyrics.

Macho Man is credited as a co-writer on only one track, the titular "Be a Man," where the chorus chants:

"Be a man Hulk,
Come on don't be scurred,
You're runnin from Macho
That's what I heard."

The rest of the album is credited to K. Keene and a few others. Either Keene isn't a very good lyricist, or he's saving his better rhymes for himself or somebody that might be a bit higher profile, but the rhymes here are some slaw.

You'd almost start thinking that I don't like it, wouldn't you?

Not hardly.

This is the greatest album ever produced. Ever.

The RIAA is worrying that file sharing will kill the record industry, that's bull. This will kill it. After hearing this album everyone will be so crestfallen by it's brilliance that they will not be able to continue on. In the future there will only be a succession of Macho Man albums, all rappers and producers will only be able to hope to one day work for him.

All hail Macho.

'Cause Randy don't play. Oh Yeah!

Playing Undead

Playing Undead a good article from 1995 by Douglas Rushkoff on live action role-playing in San Fransisco.

Permanent Damage

Stephen Grant's Permanent Damage column over at CBR is a good read if you like commentary and criticism on the comic industry and television/movies as well as a bit of political observation thrown in there as well.

This week he talks about Bush's (or the Hand Puppet as he calls him) trip to feed thanksgiving dinner to some troops in Iraq and likens it to Lyndon Johnson's trip to Vietnam in 1966. Neither of them were for campaign purposes, right?

Also he covers the swiping of artwork that is done by many artists in the comic industry and compares it to plagerism in writing. Swiping refers to the using of another artists layout and style for a page or panel. It was very prevalent in the older Bullpen days of comics, and continues through today. It even happens that you'll see someone steal their own layout like Jim Lee did in an issue of Wildcats where he used the exact layout of one of his x-men pages. It boils down to much the same idea of master studies done in art school where you copy an artists works to find out how the produced an image, the only difference is that if you try to sell a master work you may be arrested for forgery.

Jangle bells makes them crazy

An Austrian trade union has claimed the repetitive playing of Christmas Carols in department stores is nothing short of "psycho-terrorism" for salespeople.

From morning to night, for weeks before Christmas, there was the same Christmas music in department stores over and over again, said Gottfried Rieser of the Union of Private Employees.

"Many staff in the retail sector suffer psychologically from it. They get aggressions and aversions against Christmas music. On Christmas Eve with their families, they can't stand Silent Night or Jingle Bells any more," he said.


Yes, we all know it's Christmas time, but the stores don't need to beat it into your heads. I think it becomes apparant if you are in stores that play an excess of Christmas tunes that there are only so many versions of songs out there.

It'll be nice when January rolls around for just this reason.

Lost in Translation

Here's a translation of the red-riding hood japanese video from a few posts back:

"This is Anabuki Construction Company's Campaign Girl, Anabukin-chan! She tries to be good just like any good girl, this Anabukin-chan!"

Anabukinchan, [go for it]!
Okay!
Expanding dreams,
Service mansion!
Expanding hopes,
Service mansion!
Expanding chests,
Expanding, expanding,
Wow!
Service mansion!

"Good service!"

Actually it is reasonably similar to Gunny's translation.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Found via Boing-Boing.