I started hearing about it sometime last week. “Rebecca Black this, Rebecca Black that. She’s going to be on the news, she’s started her own Twitter account, she’s taking the nation by storm.” Last week was a busy week, so I immediately filed her name under the portion of my brain marked “Things to Google,” along with the earthquake in Japan, the last person Chris Brown punched, and those pole dancers for Jesus.
When I decided I wanted to know a little more, I talked with Mandy about it. She said, and I quote: “Once you see it, it can’t be unseen.” So I pulled up youtube, settled back in my chair, and allowed the following lyrics to wash over me in a see of auto-tuned and mono-rhythmic chaos.
(Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Seven a.m., waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun
You know what it is
I got this, you got this
My friend is by my right, ay
I got this, you got this
Now you know it
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after … wards
I don’t want this weekend to end
R-B, Rebecca Black
So chillin’ in the front seat (In the front seat)
In the back seat (In the back seat)
I’m drivin’, cruisin’ (Yeah, yeah)
Fast lanes, switchin’ lanes
Wit’ a car up on my side (Woo!)
(C’mon) Passin’ by is a school bus in front of me
Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream
Check my time, it’s Friday, it’s a weekend
We gonna have fun, c’mon, c’mon, y’all
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun Lookin’ forward to the weekend[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/friday-lyrics-rebecca-black.html ]
Upon hearing the song AND watching the video, I came to the following conclusion. Anyone under the age of 15 that tries to make music should be shot in the face. The ONLY people I’d let slide on that law would be Taylor Swift and that Billy what’s his nuts kid that was big in country music until he hit puberty. You know, the one that sang about bullying before it was cool to kill yourself over being bullied. The “One Voice” kid. He was a mother lovin lyrical genius, and he made you THINK. Taylor Swift speaks for herself, and she does it beautifully. What is she now, 13? 14? Has to be that, she’s still an A-cup.
Anyway, I’m going to do sort of a lyrical breakdown of the song “Friday,” and once again explain to you just why music sucks so much now.
1. “Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs.” – This has to be blamed on the bombardment of vaginal cleansers on the market today. There’s no other explanation for it, and now these young girls are feeling pressured. It’s sad, really. Unless of course I’m misinterpreting that whole phrase.
2. In the video, she’s gonna have to ride the bus, but apparently she has some legal driving age buddies that pull up right behind the bus. Like they’re just following the bus to school, just to torment the kids getting on the bus because they can drive and the other kids can’t. That’s bullyin, y’all, and I won’t stand for it. Neither would that little Billy kid. Anyway, she’s got this dilemma. Should she take the bus or hop in her friend’s overcrowded convertible? In my opinion, if she spent more than 1 second or syllable thinking about it, I’m out. I’ll leave her in the dust, and hopefully the bus driver would too. Shoot, then she’s singing while she’s walking, and that’s tough.
3. All I have to say about the chorus is this: She ain’t lyin. I sing this song every Friday, and I can tell you that I am personally looking forward to the weekend. It’s Saturday right now, I was singing the chorus all day yesterday. The only difference between her and I is that I haven’t made a music video about it…yet. She sorta beat me to the punch on that one. Freakin creative teenagers these days, I’m still with The Groom, and blaming it on the hormones in the chicken.
4. Also during the chorus, she sort of teaches you about the days of the week. This makes me think it would be a good song to play in both Kindergarten and old folk’s homes. You know, to keep em up to date on the days of the week and their progression. There is a 93 year old man somewhere, all sexual excitement aside, that would love to watch that video just for it’s memory retention powers. I say that because once you hear the song once, as Mandy said, you can’t forget it. Not even Alzheimer’s can take it from you, which leads me to believe that Miss Black has stumbled onto some sort of cure.
5. She got a black dude to do a rap solo, a rap solo that will go down as possibly the whitest rap solo since the last time Wayne Brady did…well, anything. Turns out, this dude produces music videos for a bunch of little rich white girls that have daddy’s money but are not yet old enough to sleep their way to the top. In other words, he’s a got dang financial genius. If I was black and seemed harmless to white people, this is EXACTLY how I’d prepare for retirement in today’s crumbling economic development. Dude is probably set for life, and he’s probably banging the moms of all these rich white girls on the side. That’s win win.
6. Finally, I’d like to address the fact that she’s “partyin.” In all seriousness, how lame are 14 year old’s parties? If I ever have to go to one of those when I’m raising kids, I’ll probably fake sick. You can go to exactly 2 places. The skating rink or Incredible Pizza. (For the record, if the party in question is at Incredible Pizza, I’ll go.) All these hormone riddled teens stare awkwardly at one another while the girls talk about how cute the boys are except for that one kid with the acne who’ll later go on to build a space shuttle, and all the boys try not to stand up too quick because they’ve gotten a surprise erection while staring at little Kimmie’s C-cups. I’m telling y’all, IT’S THE CHICKEN. Meanwhile they’re all talking about how lame stuff is, and what they’re going to do on spring break, and how that one kid’s mom is too strict to be a chaperon.
So in closing, did this song need to be made? No. Does it suck harder than a single mom of 3 in a strip club? Yes. But seriously, leave this girl alone. She made a music video. I’ve been planning on making a music video for over a year now, and I haven’t done it. She not only has one upped me in the “gettin stuff done” department, she also probably has already blown my music video out of the water in both quality of the video and quality of auto-tune. Also, she totally had a better music video than you, unless of course you’re any band from the 90’s.
Rebecca Black, you’ll never read this, but if you do, I commend you for what you’ve done. Now. Please stop doing it.
Thanks.
Mmmmm. Sandwiches…
You can, of course, click these charts to make them bigger.
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| The Sandwich Flowchart |
Or, for the simpler minded person, a graph!
And that’s all I have for you today.
None of the memories I have are what anyone would call “crystal clear.” For some reason, time has robbed me of that spectacular 20/20 hindsight that people are always talking about. If I had to place a number/number on the strength of my hindsight, I’d have to say that at best it would be what most doctors would call, “legally blind.” That being said, I’m very fortunate to have 3 younger brothers who all seem to have better memories than me. They can recall vividly each time I tortured them, each time I made them bleed, and each time I was punished for those transgressions.
Today, we’re going to talk about the time I almost caused the oldest of the younger brothers to lose an eye. Now, you may remember an incident that happened here recently where I almost caused the middle younger brother to lose his eye as well. Suffice it to say, I’m bad with eyes. If you value your sight, you shouldn’t play tennis with me…or get on a trampoline with me.
Who here had a trampoline growing up? How much fun did you have on it? I’m telling you, as a poor white family, I don’t think it gets any better than having a trampoline. They’re kind of cheap, they’re durable if you set them up right, and you barely have to try at all if you want to kill someone on it. A couple of double bounces and a shove, and you’ve taught Tommy the neighbor kid that it’s not cool to come over uninvited and jump on YOUR trampoline.
One fine day, me, a couple of my friends, and The Groom were all outside having fun on the trampoline. All the sudden, someone looked at us and said, “Have you ever played Crack the Egg?” We all kind of shook our heads, because creativity was discouraged around our house. I can’t say that I blame my parents for that, if only because of what happened next. The kid went through the rules of Crack the Egg. 1. The egg scrunches into the fetal position, and tries not to “come apart.” 2. The other people on the trampoline double bounce the piss out of the person until they “come apart.” To a bunch of pre-teens, this sounded like the most fun you could have with your pants on, literally.
The Groom was the youngest of us all. He was, naturally, going to be the egg. However, it didn’t take much coaxing, and I think that’s because he wanted to impress us. So he got into position, and the mayhem started. We started bouncing and double bouncing and close bouncing and maybe even a bit of “punch” bouncing went down. I’m not saying we played fair, mostly because…my brother was awesome at being an egg. Dude was impenetrable, y’all. He curled up in that little ball and acted like he had been traumatized by a violent family episode, which consequently was about to take place.
Everyone here knows how a trampoline works. It’s mostly in the springs that surround it and attach to a metal pole. The springs are also metal. When those springs uncoil, there is a little gap between the coils. When they coil back up, that gap closes. In the meantime, if something gets in between those coils and doesn’t get removed, it gets the ever loving mess pinched out of it. I know, because I had fingers, leg skin, arm skin, neck skin, and a toe pinched in those coils, and each time I thought I’d been shot.
Well, my brother was still being the Rhianna of eggs, and we were trying to be the Chris Browns of cracking him, and I’m still not sure how it all went down, but somehow we got an epic double bounce out of him. This bounce sent him to the edge of the trampoline, onto the springs, which weren’t coiled, which is great. But. Whenever we launched ourselves into the air again, those spring coiled back, and he hadn’t taken the care to move his face, again, because he was awesome at being the egg. The part of his face stuck in the coils? Oh, yeah, that would be HIS EYELID. About the time the springs closed on a rather tender part of the eye, his body was LAUNCHED back into the air, pretty much ripping his eyelid from the semi-permanent if not somewhat uncomfortable new home they’d chosen. He screamed bloody murder, but I’ll be danged if he didn’t stay in an egg position. Now, I’m sure most physicians would have moved on to calling it the fetal position, and they would say he was in it because of the “massive trauma.” We just thought he was a trooper, and all that screaming was a battle cry to get him hyped up. We even tried to crack him a little more after the incident, just because we thought he was that good.
It would be pretty cool right now to be able to say that the eyelid came off, but it didn’t. It just bled for a while. The thing of it was, we had to pry that kid open just to figure out why he was crying. To this day, I don’t think anyone will ever top my brother when it comes to being the egg. I should probably get him a trophy sometime for it. Something that just says, “Crack The Egg Champion, 1990-present.”
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| Yeah, that’s it. |
My day to day routine goes something like this:
1. Wake up way too late.2. Take a very fast (but thorough) shower. 3. Grab a Diet Cherry Pepsi and a bottle of water, some lunch, and all my personal effects. 4. Walk to the door, saying, “Keys, wallet, cell phone. Keys wallet cellphone,” in a Rain Man type fashion along with checking pockets for those items. 5. Start my truck, look in the mirror and say, “You’re beautiful, and everyone loves you. You have an iron constitution and a sexy smile. Go get em, tiger.” 6. Turn on my iPod.
I think millions of Americans probably do number 6 as well. For one, there isn’t anything decent on the radio anymore. An MP3 player gives you control of what you hear, and you don’t have to suffer through any idiotic morning DJ’s or commercials. I usually spend two or three valuable driving minutes actually surfing through the music on my iPod wondering why I never have any GOOD music on there. Mandy would say it’s because I don’t have enough Pantera or Steely Dan on it, and I would tell her that the songs she told me to download never get listened to. Music doesn’t fuel me like it does some people, but I enjoy it, and I listen to it daily.
This morning however, I came across a gem. Back in the 99, a song came out called “Swear it Again” by a band called Westlife. I know some of you don’t want to admit it, but you loved that song as much as I did. As a matter of fact, it is the very first song I ever downloaded on Napster. That’s right, Napster. Back in the glory days of piracy and musicians claiming they never made any money and getting 50 cents a song was going to make them all millionaires again. I loved that song, and I sang along romantically as I barreled down the highway. I’m telling you ladies, it’s panty dropping music. If you had been in the truck with me, it would have been a struggle for you NOT to do me right there.
Then I got to work, and I got the worst news I’ve heard all week.
Nate Dogg is dead. 41 years old, and he’s dead. I don’t even know the details yet, and I don’t know that I WANT to know. All I know is that we lost a hip hop legend today, and I’ll be singing “Regulators” all day long in memoriam. As a matter of fact, I’m posting the music video here so you can pay your respects. Nothing really funny here today, for the first time in a long time, a musician I’ve actually liked and respected and cared about has died.
Rest in peace, Nate.
Mount up.
Is probably going better than yours, and I haven’t even caught anything yet.
I got this idea from Sal over at You. Me. No adult supervision. If you aren’t reading her blog, you should be. Obviously these words don’t count towards my 100. So shut it.
There were 3 seconds left on the clock, we were down by one. The time out was over; the play had been drawn up. I needed to be positioned under the basket, acting like I didn’t want the ball.
The truth was, I didn’t want the ball. Responsibility loomed, an eerie dark figure in the shadows.
But I got it.
0:03 the ball is inbounded.
0:02 the point guard looks up and sees me, wide open. The pass flies through the air.
0:01 I grab the ball, turn around, and put the ball on the glass.
0:00 it goes in.
Yesterday, about 2 miles from my house, two knucklehead teenagers set a fire that burned 20 acres and, more importantly, almost an entire neighborhood. They were arrested and could be charged with a bunch of stuff, including arson and endangering lives. That got me to thinkin, how many times have I endangered lives? So I decided to do…
I’ve been thinking for a while, and the first story that pops into my head is the time that I got my first slingshot. Most of you know what a slingshot is, some of you don’t. Here’s a picture.
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| This is almost the exact model I had. |
I got one of these things when I was a young kid, probably in the 5th grade or so. My dad thought it would be a good idea for me to have one, and I’m absolutely certain my mom was horrified. However, my dad won out, and I got a slingshot, along with some nifty “slingshot BBs.” These things were made out of steel, and about the size of a marble. They were for killing things like squirrels, birds, rabbits, etc. Unfortunately, I never got to shoot it at any of those things.
Y’all remember when I blogged about the only accuracy I’ve ever had has been accidental? Well, that trend started with this story. My dad took me out to the back yard, and then he started setting up a target (a coffee can with a bullseye on it) in the yard while I sat on the porch, impatiently fidgeting with my brand new toy. I thought, “Man, I should load this up. That way as soon as he gets done, I can shoot.” So I loaded it up. Then I thought, “Man, I should sight this bad boy in, that way I know what I’m doing.” So I pulled the band back, sighted in the target, and sat there for a second, my father blissfully unaware that his son was pointing a loaded weapon at him. Then, it happened. I slipped. I didn’t even have time to gasp before that steel ball bearing slammed into the can, knocking it from my fathers hands as he was trying to get it set right. Accuracy? Only on accident. That was the last time I shot a slingshot until I bought my own about 3 years later.
There was another occasion I endangered lives, only this time it was with homemade mustard gas. My brothers and I were playing “Keep the other one out of the bedroom.” It was a game where you had a certain amount of time to set up defenses to keep the sibling out of the room they were trying to get in. Creative, eh? Don’t judge us, we made do with what we had. The way our trailer was set up was with two bedrooms on either end, and a long hallway that led back to ours, with the washing machine, dryer and bathroom all situated in that hallway. It was my turn to set up the defense system, and I had just recently watched Home Alone, and I thought, “Man, I should set this up to where he slips and slides all the way down the hallway, then crashes into the door.” So I got started. First, I bleached the floor. It was probably the cleanest that floor ever got. However, it didn’t get it slick enough to be really slippery. I searched and searched, and finally figured out that if I used Windex, it would create a film on the floor that would rival the slipperiest of slides. So I got to spraying. After about 10 minutes, I ran into the living room coughing and crying and about three quarters dead, and that prompted my dad to go check things out. He wasn’t back there 3 seconds and he started choking to death. My whole family had to evacuate the trailer, and that’s the day I learned how to make mustard gas.
My third and final story also involves gassing people, but this time I did it in a different way. When I worked at the jail, they upgraded from a meager, fear inducing facility to a brand new, state of the art fear inducing facility. Of all the changes that took place, one of them was a giant carport where officers could park and bring the freshly arrested or transferred prisoner in for processing. One night, I parked in the carport for giggles. It was night off, and I was up there talking with officers, joking around, all the stuff that you would expect to go on in a jail after midnight. After a while, I noticed that some of my jokes and stories were killing. You know how you get in a joke telling zone and people are about to piss themselves because they are laughing so hard? That was happening. I felt good. Then, a couple of us started to have a headache. Then all of us started complaining of a headache. About that time, someone asked me if my truck was still running. I got to my feet with some help, went in to the carport, and sure enough, my truck was running. Turns out, I had gassed the whole place up with exhaust fumes. I don’t know how much longer it would have taken until we were dead, but I’m sure it wasn’t too long. And that’s how I almost killed several county officers of the peace at one time.
So yeah, those two “juveniles” are idiots, but who among us hasn’t almost killed a few people on accident? You should leave me a comment telling me about yours. Or you can link up with me and tell everyone on your blog!
I got a Facebook invite yesterday for this blog carnival where all we do is make fun of Charlie Sheen. This is my go at it. I’m pretty sure you can click his face up there to go to the original post and see others. Stay away from his lips though. Your mouse pointer could get herpes. Want to know the first thing that pops into my brain when I hear the name Charlie Sheen? It was 1995 or so, I was in the 7th grade and just starting to rebel against my parents by watching movies I wasn’t allowed to. I was at a friends house, and we started watching “The Chase.” You know that scene where ol girl starts hunching on him in the car while he’s trying to outrun the cops? That scene is forever etched in my post-pubescent brain. I remember thinking, “Sex in a car? That’s amazing! While he’s driving! That’s awesome! Get naked get naked get naked take your shirt off get naked get naked.”
My next thought on Charlie Sheen? That scene in Hot Shots: Part Deux, where the chick is about to bone him, and she does like a triple axle somersault off a balcony and lands on him cowgirl style. I’m almost positive you see some side boob in that shot. It was one of those scenes where I couldn’t get out of my seat for a while because hormones were raging and an embarrassing situation would have…ahem…”arisen.” That scene is also partially responsible for an injury I sustained on my honeymoon, and no, I won’t elaborate.
But now? All my mind has been filled with over the past few days is about how the man has tiger blood, how he has the genetic make-up of a god, and how he hates the Jews or something. I’ll be real honest with you, Chuck. I’ve let “Two and a Half Men” go. I’ve let the fact that you like cocaine and prostitutes go. I’ve let a lot of stuff slide, and it’s mostly because of the amount of tang you got in your films in the 90’s.
All those good, wholesome memories I have of you getting laid in exciting new ways have been tarnished. Now every time I look at you I wonder when they’re going to find you dead on the floor of some crappy apartment in Key West, over dosed on a mixture of powdered sugar, Cascade dishwasher detergent, and kitty litter. You know, something you mixed up because you were bored of coke, but didn’t want to lose the look of coke. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you Chuck?
I’m going to leave you alone now, Chuck, but not before I tell you how you can redeem yourself. Now I know that you probably have people pitching you movie ideas all the time, but this is a can’t miss, Chuck. It’s good stuff. It will also pretty much clear you of all of this “crazy” talk. I know you’re not crazy. I know you’re just bored. So pay attention, and you’ll get through this.
Scene 1:
The mood is set with the song “All I Do is Win” by DJ Khaled
The camera pans in from an ocean view to a balcony. On that balcony is a topless woman. That woman is none other than the legendary Halle Berry. Then the camera sweeps down a cliff side, revealing a view of a man sleeping on the beach. That man is none other than you, Chuck. You’re smiling like you know what’s about to happen. Camera up, Halle Berry is running to the edge of the balcony. She launches herself off of the balcony, does 3 flips and sort of a superwoman flying thing, and lands on top of you, straddling you, smiling and ready for the lovin. Just before you begin, a great white shark jumps out of the water with a condom for you. You say, “No, I got this. She’s clean.” You immediately satisfy her, then you go get in a car. In your car is Alyssa Milano. She smiles at you. You say, “Already?” and kind of smile at the camera. You know the smile, the one where you channel your inner Adonis. You punch the gas. The camera view is now through the windshield. In the background are a large number of Borg spaceships. They’re coming at you, warp 10, but you’re not worried, you’re driving a 1993 Mercury Cougar with the turbo on it. You gun it. Keeping both hands on the wheel is important, but Alyssa needs help taking her bra off. Why? Because y’all are about to get it on. That’s right, while the Borg are chasing you. She hops on, briefly taking your eyes off the road. This causes you to run off the road, but it’s a slow fall off the cliff, Inception style. As you’re falling, you make the sweet, tender love to Milano, then the car crashes to the beach, intact. IT’S THE SAME BEACH THAT THE LAST CHICK IS ON. She’s still laying there with a dazed and pleased look on her face, but she sees you get out of the car with an equally dazed and pleased Alyssa Milano. They both look at you expectantly. Quick cut to the shark, who is still there, only this time with two condoms. The camera zooms in on you, smiling, and you wink and say, “AGAIN?”
Then the car explodes.
End sceneCredits roll
And THAT is how you redeem yourself, Chuck. Holla at me if you need a director, but save some of that coke for me. I’ve got some pounds I could stand to lose.
Well, today is the day! Someone is going to win $30 in iTunes gift cards from yours truly! I briefly considered “testing” the cards to “make sure they worked,” but then I realized I’m trying to get a posse over here, and I don’t think that would help.
Anyway…
Time to announce the winner!
All told I had 426 entries, and as you can see I used random.org to get my winner. The winner in this case is Momma Fargo!
I want to thank all those who participated, and also those who have started following as well as my loyal followers! Blah blah blah, you’ve already tuned out because you didn’t win.
There is more to life than winning. Go eat a cookie, you’ll feel better. Oh, and I love you.