I made the mistake of turning on the radio on my way home from the grocery store tonight. I don't listen to the radio very often, and when I do it's usually talk radio (one way to tell you're getting old--political talk radio is actually INTERESTING), but tonight I was in the mood for music and I didn't have my iPod with me to plug in to the cassette deck. Anyway, there was only No Doubt on my favourite station, which I happen to hate with a passion, and then really unremarkable things on the succeeding stations, even the oldies.
Side note--have any of you noticed that 94.1 (which has previously been where I go for Beatles, Crosby Stills and Nash and the Monkees) has started playing 80's music? Does anyone else find that a little...disturbing?
Anyway. Radio. I ended up on a "HOT NEW MUSIC" station which sometimes plays some fun stuff and settled in to listen--they'd just gotten in the "HOT NEW MUSIC" of the week and were talking about how great it was. "It's called 'My Flow is so Tight'," the announcer said enthusiastically, which caused me to blink more than a little, but I listened on. It started like approximately 85 billion other hip-hop/"R&B" "songs" with some beat that's all base. The beat kept going, adding a little this and a little that--and then a distorted voice came in with the moving and memorable line:
"My flow is so tight, the beat is so sick, Chris Brown should get his butt* kicked."
Total mystification.
There was no way I could turn it off at that point--I HAD to find out who this Chris Brown person was and why he needed this indignity perpetrated upon his hinder end. Surely the song would explain it, right? So I persevered and l kept listening.
I discovered that it's apparently perfectly acceptable to repeat the same inane line over and over and over while just adding more looped bits to your "sick beat" and then call the resulting piece of musical detritus a "song". I was getting nowhere with Chris Brown, so I changed the channel. Still nothing--I listened for a little bit to someone who wanted to sell me a book of "Secret Remedies T-H-E-Y Don't Want You to Know About!" and a few other things, then began to scroll through the stations again. Finally arriving again at the station with the "HOT NEW MUSIC", I discovered to my horror that it was still going. And the singer--er, speaker, whatever--was still repeating the same line! It had to have been at LEAST five minutes.
So I turned the radio off.
Pink fish are an absolute MUST this season. Why? Because I am weird enough to like to use different coloured pens to take notes in my classes. That alone isn't so bad--it the combination of weird colours and my snobbish attachment to liquid ink pens which has proved my ultimate downfall.
Somehow my violet pen came open in the little purse I bought in Japan. Honestly, the thing is falling apart and has already been through an encounter with a leaky Drano-bottle (and Maceys tried to make it right, bless their hearts, but I had to admit that the purse had only cost me eight dollars, when REALLY it was worth far, far more than that. You can't put a price on a piece of Japan). But there on the outside were several large and malignant purple stains, visible despite the fact that the fabric is dark green. It's also got these adorable little quilted-look fish on it in light colours on the background--darling, just darling. I'd buy bolts and bolts of the fabric if I could find it. Anyway--I decided that it would probably not be too bad to wash the excess ink out and just deal with a few dark spots on my purse.
A word of warning: purple ink is extremely pervasive--kind of like a bad mother-in-law. It gets in all the cracks, runs all over the place and changes whatever is around it to match itself. I spent probably 20 minutes at the sink soaping and rinsing and scrubbing and rubbing and succeeded in making the water that I was rinsing down the sink a lovely electric pink colour--but that was an improvement from dark violet. By the end I was getting rather satisfied with myself and how easily the ink was coming out--until I noticed, to my horror, that all the little pale fish are now a rather distressing shade of pink.
This could be worse.
But I don't WANT pink fish. So I set the bag to soak in diluted colour-safe bleach (And how is THAT supposed to help, I ask you? Colour is colour!) and only got a little more pink water for my troubles.
My purse has now been soaking in a bowl in the sink for a little over eight hours, and still my cheerful little Japanese fish look like they've had a run in with a bad 80's anime. Tomorrow I will call my aunt, who is the guru of all things fabric and see if I can do something to preserve the dignity of me and my Japanese hand bag.
Post script--
ZOT
KHII: Backfired? by *Chajiko on deviantART
*I have inserted a relatively socially acceptable term here in lieu of the one used by the "artist".
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5 comments:
From Andy:
...seeing as I don't have a google account to use to respond to your blog and even if I did, this computer is doing a wonderful job of now showing me the word picture thing I'd have to type in anyway.
I almost only listen to talk radio and I'm only 21 so does this mean that I can claim Glenn Beck is making me old?
Chris Brown is a celebrity (singer or something) who beat up his girlfriend Rihanna recently so the song is about them... and those two idiots are still together.
(supermarket tabloids are the source of all my celebrity news, by which I mean just the covers of them so the fact that I actually knew this is coincidence)
For all I know, pink Japanese fish could be great this season (if we could just pull one of those darn fashion experts away from going over every outfit Michelle Obama owns we could get an asnwer to that), but I hope you figure something out.
I love 80's pop/rock but I can't believe 94.1 is playing 80's. So, so lame.
I have teenage boys. Does that say enough? In other words, our radio is always hopping from country, to 80's, to rock, to rap, and every once in awhile Colin gets his way (if mom butts in and demands he get his turn) and gets to listen to classical.
Last night on AI (yes, we've stooped to watching this year) this rapper guy came on. Couldn't understand a word he said. Probably is a good thing. After, he gave his plug about how he is touring "worldwide" this year and come and support him. Come to his concert.
I swear if he weren't on public television the bimboes dancing in the background would have been wearing less and would have been dancing around poles.
It would seem that it is sex selling music now a days and not the lyrics, vocal ability, talent, etc. anymore.
Then again, sex has replaced good writing as you well know also. Sex is being used to sell pretty much everything these days.
That is....everything but the things that are important. Thank goodness for the gospel, for our prophets, apostles, and leaders. Find comfort in that.
This is a great piece of writing, ms. foo. Timing is good, syntax tight - you allow your quirky cleverness to shine right through the language. Not easily done. And besides, it was funny. I don't really lol much, but I did a couple of times and would have read it out loud to G but I'm too tired and my voice wouldn't carry.
Eighties music can't be classified as "oldies" because it's plastic. Some antique places do have a place set aside for plasticine, so maybe that's how they work it on the radio.
here's hoping Les can save your fish. I feel for them, you know - except I'm getting paler, where they're sort of - in the pink???
I think the fish have still got to be cute, even if pink. From how they sound anyway. I don't think I ever got to see that purse somehow!
And I'm not a big fan of R&B myself. Some of it's great, and some of the old stuff I really liked, but the current stuff is pretty boring and lame. Thank goodness for NPR and CD players. I never listen to music stations on the radio anymore. They're really awful out here.
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