» Archive for September, 2005
On Beck, 112, Clipse, peaches and cream, onions, and men's grooming products
The best satire is able to parody something BEFORE it actually happens out in the real world. Beck‘s hilarious pastiche Midnight Vultures, released in 1999, fit this bill perfectly. It was one of the few albums I owned at the time that was actually acceptable to crank up in your vehicle, if you were suburban and in high school, which meant you were probably disaffected, ironic, sarcastic, and self-conscious–all qualities that the album shared. Midnight Vultures, which I could write about at length but won’t, included the track “Peaches and Cream,” which is a dirty piece of slang that I will leave for you to look up on Urban Dictionary, if you are unaware of its meaning.
In 2001, two years after Beck’s song came out, the R&B group 112 released their own single, also titled “Peaches and Cream.” The songs shared more than just the same title: Beck’s mocking song was sung from the perspective of a guy bragging about his affinity for a certain activity, while 112′s song boasted about the same thing–minus the mocking part. Here are some lyrics from 112′s version:
Won’t stop girl you know I can’t get enough
Wanna taste it in the morning when I’m waking up
Like peach cobbler in my stomach when I eat it up
Got your legs around my neck so I can’t get upOh girl I need it
I gotta have it
It’s always on my mind
Know what I mean?
Peaches and cream
I like it in my car
Or even in my bed
Or baby on the stairs
Know what I mean?
Peaches and cream
Apparently people didn’t know what they meant, to answer their question–and neither did the radio censors. In this way, “peaches and cream” was 2001′s “skeet”–a slang term that artists undoubtedly relished getting past older, probably whiter, censors.
Not that I want to make this site into a repository of dirty lyrics–I just find it interesting that all these songs are played heavily on the radio, including ClearChannel Top 40 stations, which white 13 year-olds listen to the most. But regardless of age, there are a lot of people who hear these songs in a bar, on the radio, or in a club, and “like” the song without having any idea what they’re really about. Not to exclude myself from this–I had to ask a friend what, exactly, Clipse were talking about on their 2002 single “Grindin”:
Clipse: Grinding, and you know what I keep in the lining…
Me: What, exactly, do they keep in the lining? A flask?
Friend: No, a gat. That means gun. You actually thought it was a flask?
I actually did. Anyway–getting back to my original point, which was this: the tone of Beck’s version really nailed the boasting tone of 112′s track of the same name–and Beck’s parody came out first. When I heard 112′s song on the radio, I felt that the genius of Beck was confirmed.
And then, here in 2005, I’m disappointed by Beck’s new album, and find out he’s become a scientologist, which kind of ends his career in my eyes. I hope not.
After a ridiculously long lead-in, we now proceed to another piece of satire that nailed something before it actually happened: The Onion’s article Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades, which was published a year and a half ago, back in The Onion’s heyday. These days The Onion is still funny, but a lot of its writers left a couple of years ago and it hasn’t been nearly as consistent since (many of them reportedly went to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which is not-coincidentally consistently genius now). Here’s an excerpt from the Onion article, narrated by fake Gillette CEO James M. Kilts:
[Then Schick] came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That’s three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I’m telling you what happened–the bastards went to four blades. Now we’re standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we’re the chumps. Well, fuck it. We’re going to five blades.
The whole piece is so pinpoint-accurate that I had a hard time picking out a single block quote–in fact, I may venture so far as to call the article genius. “Genius” is a word I normally don’t like to throw around a lot, but I already used it once in this post to refer to a singer who got his career started by singing “Soy un perdedor,” so my genius-proclaiming credibility is shot anyway.
Well here, now, a year and a half after the Onion article was published, Gillette is indeed releasing a five-blade razor (seen above). The New York Times article that covered the product launch is eerily reminiscent of a certain Onion article, in terms of the language used and the boasts made by the real, actual head honchos at Gillette:
[Peter K. Hoffman, president of Gillette's blades and razors unit] promised that come early 2006, when the Fusion products hit stores, Gillette will mount a “blockbuster marketing program, absolutely huge, the biggest launch of a Gillette shaving system in history.” And, yes, that is true even if adjusted for inflation, [James M. Kilts, Gillette's CEO] chimed in.
Note that it’s not called a razor, it’s called a “shaving system.” And it’s the most expensive launch ever, even adjusted for inflation? Wow. That’s big. That’s manly. That has balls. Which you can shave. Or not–after all, it’s not “Gillette: the best a metrosexual can get.”
Until I just pulled his name from the NY Times article, I didn’t realize that The Onion had used Gillette CEO James M. Kilts’ real name atop their own piece–which is completely legal under parody law, since he’s a public figure–which makes their article seem even that much more prescient.
I think that covers it–how Gillette, Beck, 112, Clipse, peaches and cream, and The Onion (kinda cheated by saying “onions” in the title) connect. That is, not at all, except for the fact that I wrote about all of them here, in a meandering, unfocused, and largely pointless post.
Here, then, a final quote from Mr. Kilts. At this point, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a real quote or not; if it’s fake, it might as well be real, and if it’s real, it might as well be parody:
“Put another aloe strip on that fucker, too. That’s right. Five blades, two strips, and make the second one lather. You heard me–the second strip lathers.”
David Banner‘s new album Certified was released today. It contains the single “Play,” which would qualify as a Dechievement, except for the fact that it is essentially the same song as The Ying Yang Twins’ “Wait (the Whisper Song),” which I included in my original definition of the Dechievement.
Certainly the uncensored lyrics (caution, they’re quite dirty) would qualify “Play” as a “dechievement.” The fact that it has received considerable airplay (albeit in a censored form) both on the radio and MTV (and, presumably, in strip clubs nationwide) only furthers the song’s strong case to be a bonafide New Low.
But does piggybacking on another New Low really qualify as a New Low? Let’s examine part of the original definition:
[New Lows] became popular not by really doing anything entirely new, but by being more violent, more explicit, more misogynistic, or just plain dirtier than what had come before.
By this definition, ripping off another recent New Low (that is still being played on the radio) qualifies as “not really doing anything entirely new.” In fact you’d think that this would therefore make “Play” even more of a New Low because it’s even less original than most New Lows strive to be. And as dirty as “Wait” was, “Play” does successfully lower the bar.
But I think a heretofore unmentioned aspect of achieving New Lows is that, in order to do so, there has to have been a certain amount of time since the last New Low, so that pop culture’s fast-acting amnesia can set in. In order for something to really be a New Low, it must actually seem “new” to the average consumer. Six months may be too little time, but a year is certainly plenty. Either way, “Play” is a) too similar to “Wait,” and b) came out too soon after “Wait,” to garner any real shock value. It therefore fails to qualify as a New Low, and just ends up being low.
Another reason for Banner’s failure to achieve New Lows is the fact that he may actually be too outwardly intelligent for people to really believe that “Play” represents his honest take on the world. According to Allmusic, his album is full of “protest songs” wherein he “fearlessly and descriptively expresses the rage he feels for the way his people have been treated throughout history.” Armed with this knowledge, Banner’s attempt to stoop to the level of the dechievement seems like an obvious attempt at mainstream commercial success, and therefore lacks authenticity (note that I know nothing about Banner himself, nor have I heard any other songs off Certified). A pizza delivered to your door by Bill Gates may taste the same as any other pizza, but you know that it wasn’t a genuine delivery–he must have been doing it for a TV appearance, or a promotion of some sort. He didn’t mean it, or need the tip. And that’s “Play”: it seems like a New Low because its more sexually explicit than any other recent mainstream release, but Banners pragmatism is too transparent. Not to say that delivering pizza is anything like writing a song. Except that both people may be high.
In other related news, I’m thinking that perhaps the “New Low” term itself should be re-christened the “Dechievement.” Which one is more descriptive? Which is catchier? Let me know.
Breaking your ankle in two places? Fun. Breaking it after you’ve just finished six months of shoulder rehab? Even more fun!
It’s not really swollen much anymore, although it was a week ago. You didn’t need to see that, though. In fact, you didn’t need to see my foot at all. Sorry.
I wrote “hilarity ensues” in the description of this site because I figured there’d be a lot of obstacles preventing me from establishing a film career in NYC, and it’d be fun to document them. I didn’t expect that breaking my foot before I even got to New York would be one of them, though.
EMPLOYER: Hello, is this Mr., um…?
ME: Bilsborrow-Koo, yes.
E: Right. We received your resume and we’d like to get you in for an interview next week.
M: Ahhh… I can’t really do that, see, because I have to elevate and ice my foot five times a day right now, and, well, I can’t really travel 500 miles–
E: I don’t see where on your resume it says that you’re an unhealthy bastard.
M: I shoulda known from the kids! They called me Mr. Glass!
E: I thought it was Mr. Bilsbor-whatever.
M: It is. I could probably make it up there in, say, a month?
E: Hahahahahahahaha.
[click]
These past few days I’ve been working on a grant application, which is often tedious work (e.g., trying to come up with cohesive answers to questions like “what are your career goals?” in 50 words or less). So what does one do when engaged in something tedious? Find a diversion! Here it is:
Yes, it’s a rip-off MPC, the popularity of which I honestly did not understand until I was at a Guitar Center recently and realized why they’re so ubiquitous: you just mash on the damn thing. It’s like drumming on your desk with your fingers, except instead of sounding like wood, it sounds like… whatever you want it to. Welcome to the wonderful world of sampling! Also, it takes no special talent or knowledge whatsoever because, and excuse my non-PC-ness, it’s fucking retarded.
I love it.
Well of course this thing, which I didn’t think was going to arrive at my place for another few days (“this thing” being the M-Audio Trigger Finger, which is approximately 1/10th the cost of a real, sampling MPC) shows up the day before the grant application deadline. No human being in this world possesses the superpowers necessary to resist a shiny new toy when there is important work to be done. So there it is, sitting in a box next to me, as I sit there trying to explain to a committee of people why they should give me money. For a short while I managed to avoid it, not unlike the Bush administration manages to avoid accountability, but as soon as writer’s block set in… Out the thing came, like a replacement FEMA head.
And of course it didn’t work. After a half hour of messing with the shiny, slightly-too-plasticky device, I finally got it working with the computer (for non-Asians, it’d probably take at least an hour). And when I finally did? There’s a delay between when you hit the pad and when the drum sounds! Useless! Like an Arabian Horse Association commissioner put in charge of a life-and-death federal agency responsible for managing national emergencies!
Further investigation has revealed that I have to actually buy a sound card in order to avoid this delay.
Maybe I should ask for more money.
“Oh, so you girls are in college?”
“Yeah, we’re all in school together.”
“So, wait, that means you were born when?”
“Nineteen eighty-five.”
“Nineteen NINETY-five?!”
“No, nineteen EIGHTY-five. If I was born in nineteen NINETY-five I’d be, like, seven.”
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