7: Music-3

The other day I was wandering around youtube watching music videos and I stumbled across this: (Warning: F-Bomb)

That's right, it's a Weezer cover of Green Day's immortal "Brain Stew" performed by Rivers with two random people while wearing onesie pajamas. Personally, I think that this is a really good cover. Not necessarily better than the original, mind you, but I think that a good cover doesn't totally HAVE to be better than the original, just different enough to give you another perspective on the song itself.
For example, here's another cover I like of The Beatle's "Eleanor Rigby":

Kinda creepy, check. Slightly sacrilegious, check.
Now, I'm definitely of the opinion that The Beatles was one of the (if not the) most important bands ever to be assembled from a standpoint that their music is awesome, still holds a great deal of sway and influence in the world today and is transcendent in that it seems to have an unsurpassed ability to span generations that I believe music today just doesn't have. But that doesn't mean that the stories they told through their music can't be told from a different perspective. Godhead's cover is extremely different from the original while still holding on to the same form and general mysterious nature of the original. Once again, different, but not necessarily better.
I will say however that there are certain covers that should not have been made. Case in point:

Come on, Plain White T's, I really want to like you guys, but then whenever you lull me into a false sense of security with a decent single you record something like this. Quit screwing with me.

6: Stereotypes

Alright, so I had a really good summer, but all you really need to know about it is that I got married and moved to New York where I am now happily living and going to school some more.
So ever since moving here to New York, I've been very much in shock about the cultural and racial diversity that exists here. Mind you, this is coming from someone who just moved from Bend, OR, where there's probably a total of 8 black people. Now, one thing that you must understand about me is that I'm not necessarily a horrible person, but if I were to say all of the off color, racist things that creep into my head, I would offend the bulk of non-white-christian-males that I come across. And this is primarily because I find stereotypes hilarious.
And the thing that troubles me a little bit is that I don't see anything wrong at all about them, mostly because I don't take them too terribly seriously. In no way do I think that all white people are stiff and awkward or that all mexicans are dirty and lazy or that all jewish people are extraordinarily greedy. Just enough to where a sweeping general statement that is made by a stereotype is not only excusable, but very funny. Also, since when does enjoying fried chicken and watermelon make you black? My general point of view has been that all worthwhile people enjoy fried chicken and watermelon because it's delicious.
I just think that this whole avoiding stereotypes being a horrible thing that should never be brought up thing is just really dumb. Maybe it's just because there isn't a ton of bad press out there against Asians, but I think that there is generally something wrong with people who can't laugh about themselves and are too sensitive to be able to, for lack of a better term, embrace all aspects about themselves.
Which brings me to the other thing that really bugs me about stereotypes. I absolutely hate it when people will gladly accept any positive stereotype about their ethnicity and then freak out about any negative one. For instance, many black people that I know often make jokes about being outstanding athletes, but then absolutely freak out at the hint of a black man joke. That just doesn't seem right to me.
And to me, it shows a certain amount of insecurity with one's self to find offense in parts of yourself while elevating other parts. I, like many Asians, am a terrible driver, but I really love being Asian for many reasons including a generally large prowess in mathematics and so I take the downsides gladly. Why can't it be okay to be an awkward, stiff white man who is in charge of everyone else? Or a lazy, Mexican berry farmer who is really good at boxing and baseball? Or a greedy jewish jeweler who has a very well funded 401k? Show some pride by not freaking out.

5: YouTube

Could I just say that I despise YouTube? The other day, my friend Jim was telling me about a funny episode of Family Guy that I needed to watch. So I said to myself "That sounds like a laugh." and decided to go and look for it on YouTube (after being unable to locate it on Hulu). I typed in the name of the episode into the YouTube search engine and clicked on the video that looked most like what I was looking for only to find that this was not the episode of family guy that I was looking for, but rather was the remixed version. Some kid with adobe premier apparently thought that Family Guy wasn't funny enough on it's own so decided to help them out by adding a bunch of skips and lame techno music. Really freaking hilarious, you made Stewie say that he likes balls. The really crazy thing is that this isn't a rare occurrence. And each one of these remixes have like 100,000 hits and dozens of inane comments from equally stupid people that read something like "rofl!! toooooooooooooo funny!!!!!!! X-D"

I have trouble deciding which YouTube video I hate more, the remix or the random compilation of a bunch of douchebags doing something douchey. I really can't stand either and both really make me worry about what is passing for entertainment now and days. Also, YouTube has shown me that there is a fairly alarming number of stupid people in the world these days and I find that really troubling.

Alright, now having said that, I love YouTube. When you can actually find what you're looking for, it brings so much joy into one's life. Where else can you find a fat kid pretending to duel with a lightsaber? Or a horrified cat being forced to sky dive? Or a really stupid kid trying to fly with a makeshift jet pack made from bottle rockets that of course don't make him fly but instead start exploding on his back? Or even a surprised kitten? Speaking of which...

4: Music-2

So I've been finding myself listening to music that I'm not 100% proud about lately. As many of you know, I despise douchebags. I hate them. They piss me off with their popped collars and their wide brimmed baseball caps and their over aggressive take on everything. But I digress, I've been finding myself listening to an inordinate amount of douchebag music (music recorded for a douchebag by a douchebag (FDBBDB)). Here are a couple of examples of douchebag music that I've been into lately.

1. Good Girls Go Bad by. Cobra Starship

Dude, you look absolutely ridiculous. Even if you do need corrective lenses, which I don't think you do, what on God's green earth makes you think that those frames are normal or acceptable? But I digress, could I just say that I'm actually pretty pleased that everyone gets arrested at the end of this music video? There's no way that they managed to get that butcher shop zoned for a secret night club/casino. Which raises another question. How exactly did it take this long for them to get caught? Noise and droves of people going to a butcher shop at midnight aside, your first clue that something was amiss should have been when they were loading craps tables and giant DJ equipment into a freaking butcher shop. Whoever was in charge of the investigation was totally not on the ball.

2. Don't Trust Me by. 3 Oh! 3

So much douche...

It's just like...

They're all...

Uhhh...

Alright, I actually really like this song and music video... Dangit... Although I will say that they look really greasy and/or slimy and I think that you could probably contract syphilis by touching them... Also, did I see someone humping a rhino?

Bedrock by. Young Money

... Yep that's totally a song about doin' it... That is both classy and respectful to women, good job guys.

As I said, I freaking hate douchebags, but I must shamefully admit that I have purchased 2 out of 3 of these songs and in so doing, assisted in the spread of worldwide douchebaggery.

Questions?

So one thing that I like to think about is what actual rational people would say if they were around during certain events and subsequently what other people said to convince them that these things were a good idea.For instance, a few weeks ago, Abi and I were looking through an issue of National Geographic and we saw an article about geoglyphs in South America (picture shown below)

I mean, the things are cool, but look at the size of these things. Unless they happen to be built next to a cliff or a really steep mountain or something there really isn't a way to ever see the things. They're not like crop circles or anything. A lot of these things don't even get noticed until someone flies over the thing in an airplane. Which begs a few questions. How did these people know what they were even making and how did they get the man power necessary to pull this off all lined up? I kind of imagine a conversation along these lines:
- Man, what are we even doing?
- How many times do I have to tell you? We're making a giant freaking monkey in the ground miles in diameter.
- ... Alright... Why?
- Do you need a reason? It's a giant freaking monkey.
- Well all I'm saying is that this seems like an awful lot of work. Who's even paying for this?
- Don't worry about that, it's taken care of.
- Is anyone even going to notice this?
- ... Birds...
- ... Birds?
- Dude, it's going to be sweet! We're going to freak the heck out of these birds!
- What? We're going to freak out birds?
- It's going to be rad!
- How did you even come up with this?!
- ... You know what, the Gods told me to do this... Yeah, they'll be pissed if you don't help out...

And then everyone did it because everyone was really cautious of pissing off the Gods back in the day.

Anyway, this kind of got me thinking. If people would just stop and ask rational questions every now and again, a lot of pointless and often stupid situations would be avoided. Like if anyone ever asked any Scion owner "Are you sure you want to drive that car? It looks retarded and kind of makes you a douchebag by association." then perhaps there wouldn't be so many boxes on the road today (this same principle applies to the PT Cruiser). Or maybe something like "Will I. Am. are you sure that another Black Eyed Peas album is a good idea?". Or "Do you think that the world really needs another movie about a though New York high school couple who fall in love after discovering that they share the same passion for dancing?" (the answer to that is no). All I'm saying is that we as the human race would miss out on an amazing amount of trouble and heart break if we just stop and ask ourselves "Will people make fun of this later?"

2: Music-1

Alright, so it's time to talk about a topic that is very near and dear to my heart; music. Anyone who knows me to any significant degree knows how in to music I am. It's like a second religion. By and large, I like to believe that I have fairly good taste in music and a fair ability to pick out what people will generally like. However, my taste in music is extremely wide and fairly random, so many people may not 100% agree with my taste or what I have to say. Having said that, my plan here is to let you know what is going on in my head at a given moment as it pertains to music. That means that it won't always be a positive outlook on something. Sometimes it will be very cynical, but I'll try to give you both sides of the coin...

What I've been listening to lately

So, the other day I was shuffling around on my itunes and this song came up. It's a cover of house of the rising sun by one of my all time favorite bands, Muse. Once I had actually figured out what was going on, I was pretty thrilled with what I was hearing. The song is a little bit harder than I prefer, but still I dig the intensity and it's a very interesting take on the song. Not necessarily a better song than the original. The original Animals version is and always will be amazing, but it's cool to hear new takes on classics on occasion. Also, I couldn't figure out how to get this one to show up on here for some reason, so here's a link... Sorry about the lame pictures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtsmMCIfZzI

Something I think deserves to be made fun of

So something that I think deserves to be made fun of this week is James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". We're all familiar with this song, so you don't need me telling you about it, but for the sake of taking up time and space, I will. The song has a very chick flick, completely directed at girls feel to it that seems to be very prevalent these days. The sad thing is that I will openly admit to enjoying this song (... Sorry, Matt), it's one of my guilty pleasures. The plot of the song is that James sees a really hot girl on the subway with another dude. He gets really depressed about not being able to be with her but then says that "[he] won't loose no sleep on that 'cus [he's] got a plan" and then he just kinda says how beautiful she is for a while. The only thing is that we never really figure out what his plan is, but get the vibe that he kinda creeps her out by staring at her. As far as we can tell by the music video, his only real plan was to go out on a snowy cliff, get half nude and leap off the cliff... That'll do it... James is missing a few glaringly obvious holes in his logic though. First of all, the creepiness of jumping off a cliff to get a girl's attention aside, killing yourself won't help you get her, and secondly, if she IS an angel like you seem to believe that she is, you're not going to get to see her much by committing suicide because that's a sin and will send you to hell...

1: "That Guy"

Alright, so this is my first time blogging. I, like many others in this day and age have decided that I have something to say to the world as a whole. This has forced me to say a phrase that I have found myself saying saying a little too often lately, namely "I've become 'that guy'". Now, I kind of hate saying this phrase mostly because it's almost an admission of defeat to the fact that I'm changing into something that I don't necessarily want to become, which isn't the case 100% of the time. Here are a few examples of "those guys" that I've been becoming:
1. The "way too into Lost guy": Ok, so I haven't totally turned into "that guy" yet. I just find it a little troubling that the other day, I had an hour long conversation about the final season of this show and what we believe is going to happen and what Jacob means in every single one of his cryptic one-liners.
2. The "brings his guitar everywhere guy": My little sister has given me a lot of trash about this one. I would say that about 70% of the time that I'm driving around, I have a guitar in the back seat. The really interesting thing is that I hardly EVER play the thing. I realized that I had a problem a few weeks ago when I was around someone else's guitar and, upon receiving permission to play it, retrieved a guitar pick from my wallet. I then realized that at any given moment, I have 3-5 guitar picks on my person just in case.
3. The "way too into his dog guy": Alright, so this one I will openly admit that I am a little ashamed of. I find myself feeling bad that my dog has been in his kennel for a bit too long, constantly searching for new and more exciting toys that he will more than likely destroy within the first 24 hours of purchasing it, allowing my dog to sit on my lap as I drive my car and occasionally I will talk to my dog... Yeah, I've become "that guy". I can take a measure of solace in the fact that he isn't talking back yet. Perhaps with a few less friends and a couple of crushing failures... Who knows?!