Thursday, July 19, 2007
Ri Ri Retracted
I stand slightly corrected. During conversation at work today, I forgot that long before Diddy did the recycled track thing, Robert Matthew (Vanilla Ice) Van Winkle made it big off of a resampling of "Under Pressure". My mistake.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Ri Ri -ella ella
Dear Rihanna:
I have a confession. I secretly really like you, despite a growing negative disposition that many of my friends may have against you. To some, you sound annoying and too poppy. I'll agree to some extent. At the same time, your flavor is different from many other artists currently recording.
That being said, in the same breath that I salute you, I also find myself condeming you for being a rip-off.
Reason A: Your current #1 song, Umbrella (ella ella) is at least an original tune, but once it was on the decline, you rerecorded it with some no-name Jay-Z prodigy to gain some extra mileage. Good business sense, but bad music sense.
Reason B: Over five years ago, Sean P. Puffy do wa diddy Combs invented the idea of recycling musical tracks with new lyrics. It wasn't original then, but it was a novel concept. Here we are in 2007 and you have done this not once, but twice!
Example 1: In your first album, you took the Soft Cell classic Tainted Love and bastardized it (despite my affinity for the actual song) with S.O.S.
Example 2: Last night, I heard your new single Shut Up and Drive and my first thought was "OMG! Someone redid Blue Monday!". Granted, Orgy is more obscure and Blue Monday never hit cult status, but the Candyass album was one of the major LP's of the late 1990's.
Riri. . . please learn some originality!
Sincerely,
Your Closeted Fan and Critic
Jay
I have a confession. I secretly really like you, despite a growing negative disposition that many of my friends may have against you. To some, you sound annoying and too poppy. I'll agree to some extent. At the same time, your flavor is different from many other artists currently recording.
That being said, in the same breath that I salute you, I also find myself condeming you for being a rip-off.
Reason A: Your current #1 song, Umbrella (ella ella) is at least an original tune, but once it was on the decline, you rerecorded it with some no-name Jay-Z prodigy to gain some extra mileage. Good business sense, but bad music sense.
Reason B: Over five years ago, Sean P. Puffy do wa diddy Combs invented the idea of recycling musical tracks with new lyrics. It wasn't original then, but it was a novel concept. Here we are in 2007 and you have done this not once, but twice!
Example 1: In your first album, you took the Soft Cell classic Tainted Love and bastardized it (despite my affinity for the actual song) with S.O.S.
Example 2: Last night, I heard your new single Shut Up and Drive and my first thought was "OMG! Someone redid Blue Monday!". Granted, Orgy is more obscure and Blue Monday never hit cult status, but the Candyass album was one of the major LP's of the late 1990's.
Riri. . . please learn some originality!
Sincerely,
Your Closeted Fan and Critic
Jay
Monday, July 16, 2007
Wawoah
If you aren't from the Greater Philadelphia region of our fine US of A, you may not know the term "Wawa". Similar to a certain four letter f-word in the English language, Wawa can be used a variety of ways. For example:
Noun: "I'm going to Wawa"
Adjective: "Wawa run!"
Verb: "Ima Wawa"
Wawa is actually the region's largest convenience store chain. Similar to the more geographically diverse Sheetz, it is a veritable smorgasbord of good, but not necessarily good for you food. You can purchase your gasoline, your freshly prepared sandwich, pre-packaged salads, cheese sticks, breakfast munchies, coffee, fountain sodas--the whole gamut. If you've ever had the pleasure, you'll agree that their mac-n-cheese hot side dish is among the best inventions ever to pass one's lips.
Between my LAFitness and home, I pass approximately 3 or 4 Wawa outlets (depending on my route). Considering that the gym is less than ten miles from my house, the Wawa concentration and market penetration is fairly high.
With practically a 1:1 store to customer ratio, why are they still so crowded? I stopped at one today to grab a bottle of water. At 10:30 PM, there was a rush of cars in the lot, throngs of people in the store, and various others deciding where to go next. And unlike the Western Pennsylvania tradition of teenagers choosing Sheetz as the local hang-out, none of the 30 people in there were lolly gagging (I love that word)--they were all on some sort of mission.
This mission was most clearly evidenced by the parking lot chaos. I was nearly backed into, had to wait in line for a space, had to meander around several idle and mis-parked vehicles, and wait in a line to exit. This is normal, and tonight was actually slow!
What is with our wawonder? More important, how does arriving at these meccas of suburban life make it OK for people to completely lose touch with rules of the road, courtesy, and human decency.
If you are in the area, don't worry, they're a Fortune 500 company; your Wawaloha Hawaiian coffee and sausage Sizzli will still be there even if you take the time to park like a human.
If you aren't from the area, you should just be so jealous that you can't Wawa!
Noun: "I'm going to Wawa"
Adjective: "Wawa run!"
Verb: "Ima Wawa"
Wawa is actually the region's largest convenience store chain. Similar to the more geographically diverse Sheetz, it is a veritable smorgasbord of good, but not necessarily good for you food. You can purchase your gasoline, your freshly prepared sandwich, pre-packaged salads, cheese sticks, breakfast munchies, coffee, fountain sodas--the whole gamut. If you've ever had the pleasure, you'll agree that their mac-n-cheese hot side dish is among the best inventions ever to pass one's lips.
Between my LAFitness and home, I pass approximately 3 or 4 Wawa outlets (depending on my route). Considering that the gym is less than ten miles from my house, the Wawa concentration and market penetration is fairly high.
With practically a 1:1 store to customer ratio, why are they still so crowded? I stopped at one today to grab a bottle of water. At 10:30 PM, there was a rush of cars in the lot, throngs of people in the store, and various others deciding where to go next. And unlike the Western Pennsylvania tradition of teenagers choosing Sheetz as the local hang-out, none of the 30 people in there were lolly gagging (I love that word)--they were all on some sort of mission.
This mission was most clearly evidenced by the parking lot chaos. I was nearly backed into, had to wait in line for a space, had to meander around several idle and mis-parked vehicles, and wait in a line to exit. This is normal, and tonight was actually slow!
What is with our wawonder? More important, how does arriving at these meccas of suburban life make it OK for people to completely lose touch with rules of the road, courtesy, and human decency.
If you are in the area, don't worry, they're a Fortune 500 company; your Wawaloha Hawaiian coffee and sausage Sizzli will still be there even if you take the time to park like a human.
If you aren't from the area, you should just be so jealous that you can't Wawa!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Jingle Bells Jingle . . . oh wait
Ya. I didn't think it was holiday season already. And Christmas 2006 is but a distant memory now. So. . . why is my favorite neighbor Debbie finally getting around to throwing out her tree?
Need I mention that she solicited my help in chucking it--illegally I might ad--into the dumpster?
"You just happened to get here at the wrong time" she claims.
No no. I happen to live near the wrong person!
Need I mention that she solicited my help in chucking it--illegally I might ad--into the dumpster?
"You just happened to get here at the wrong time" she claims.
No no. I happen to live near the wrong person!
