Yeah yeah yeah....hiatus sorry long time do better. What you have to understand, fans, is that it is VERY, VERY COLD in my house. (If you think I can put off blogging or uploading a podcast for a long time, you should see how long I can put off insulating a floor. Especially when it's cold.) My feet are cold and my computer is cold and my typing fingers are cold, and that's my excuse. For this episode of the podcast--"episode 6"--Thomas and I went to an east bay birding location selected by Thomas: "Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline." The whole 10 minute drive over, Thomas was going on and on about how dope it was gonna be, and how many birds he'd heard were there. "It will be like nothing you've ever seen before," he said at one point. The episode before this one, if you can remember that far back, was the "zero birds, and I get poison oak" episode, so I was really hoping we'd knock it out of the park this time, to get things back on track. Did we knock it out of the park? Will Thomas and I be podcasting more frequently in the future? Will there be photos from our expedition after the jump? Listen right here, or on iTunes or Stitcher, to find out! Expedition photos after the jump.
I took the "What Passion Of The Christ Character Are You?"
quiz and got "Booing Villager."
I took the "What Cuss Word Are You?" quiz and got
"Bitch-ass."
I took the "What Type Of Friend Are You?" quiz and
got "Fat."
I took the "What's Your Type?" quiz and
got italic.
I took the "What Kind Of Owl Are You?" quiz and
got "Spotted."
I took the "What Comic Strip Character Are You?" quiz and got fuckin' CATHY!!!! Shit!!!!!!!!!!
THE PURE AND THE IMPURE is a book written in French in the 1930s that teaches you about how love and sex works. I read the whole thing (translated into english) and I still feel like a love and sex novice, but it did two of the things I'm looking for when I read a book: it articulated some things that I've observed and felt, but never told anyone, and it broadened my horizons by showing me the world through a different brain. Two things that it didn't do is make me laugh or have any lesbian sex in it. Which is OK. Neither of those things are "deal breakers" for me. A book called "The Pure and The Impure" is just not going to be funny. (Plus, French people aren't that funny. Except Marcel Marceau and Le Pétomane.) The lesbian sex thing was a bit more of a letdown, since this looked like the type of book that was going to have a lot of lesbian sex in it, but that's fine too. I don't read to get aroused. I just thought I should warn you. The format of the book is basically a big rant. Each chapter is about a person or couple who Colette has known, who was queer or promiscuous or both. Like a lot of rants, it can get tedious, and sometimes you want to shake the ranter and say "what the fuck are you talking about?" but as a ranter myself I found it all kind of endearing. Sometimes Colette seems to be overthinking things, and sometimes she seems to be painting with a broad brush, and that's how I am too. The most relatable part to me was when she said, of herself and one of her male friends, "He and I and others like us come from the distant past and are inclined to cherish the arbitrary, to prefer passion to goodness, to prefer combat to discussion." AMEN, sister! Unfortunately, since she's French, Colette also comes across as a know it all. She'll say things like "I am alluding to a certain hermaphroditism which burdens certain highly complex human beings" and you just want to smack the cigarette out of her hand. Really, Colette? Are you and your friends really so highly complex? Passages like this, for me, evoke Leonardo DiCaprio's slave owner character in DJANGO UNCHAINED, who talks in a refined, intellectual voice all the time to mask the fact that he's dumb as shit. But, like I said, I'm a ranter too, so I can forgive these things, as long as you're not measuring people's skulls. The most horizon-broadening thing for me was the "sensuality" of the writing. I don't mean this in the erotic sense (remember, there are NO LESBIAN SEX scenes in this book) but in the sense of talking about the senses. Colette, since she is French, is very in touch with the smells and tastes of things, and reads into what people are wearing. I never describe smell, taste, or fashion in my own writing, and this book made me feel a little "basic" for that, in a helpful way. Overall, I'm going to have to give this book a 0/1, because it got a pretty tedious at times, and probably should've just been an essay, but I'm glad that I was forced to read it. (It was this month's selection in my book club.) I like Colette, and in fact I think I have a crush on her. The description of the acoustic qualities of the word "pure" at the end was fantastic, and tied the whole thing together. (The word "pure" in French is "pur," so it translated well.) Also, this book looks good on my shelf. It makes me look like a "highly complex human being." Maybe--hopefully--the kind of human being another human being would want to have sex with.
-Boring Hat of the Month is back! Please follow me so I can amass more followers than my mother,
who is currently beating me by one follower. (I could unfollow her to catch up,
but she posts such good photos!) What gives, Ma? Don't you know you're not
allowed to BEAT YOUR CHILDREN anymore??
-The Buies Creek Astros, a minor league baseball team from
North Carolina, has rebranded themselves as the Fayettville Woodpeckers, in
honor of a beloved local bird known as the red-cockaded woodpecker. The new
name was elected by local residents, who said that they admired the woodpecker
for its looks, tenacity, and baseball-esque affection for BORING.
-Welcome back,
Nyquil510! The gang from the Nyquil510.tumblr.com comment section missed you.
-What do you guys
think about the movies and stuff that've been coming out? Here's what I think: SUSPIRIA
(2018) is dope, Bud Smith's weekly column in The Nervous Breakdown is dope, and this
"Letter of Recommendation" about Old English is dope. THE
FAVOURITE (don't you just love leaning into that extra British syllable, when you
say it out loud? I know I do!) is pretty
dope, but the dopest Yorgos Lanthimos movie is THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER.
BIRD BOX, surprisingly, had something to do with birds, but was BAD. THE PANTY SYMPHONIC is dope.
-No One Dies Forever HQ was attacked by a bear the other night! This is true. It knocked
down the company trash can, ate some of our trash, and then ran off into the
woods to take a shit. He never tried to attack us or anything, but my roommate
was so freaked out by the experience he ran right upstairs to the gun vault and
put all of our honey in it.
-Birders from all over the country have driving
down--"flocking," you might even say--to Los Angeles to catch a glimpse of the red-flanked
bluetail, an extremely rare siberian bird that has mysteriously taken up residence in a
hedge near the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of UCLA. Apparently, this
is only the 3rd such bird ever spotted in California. When asked to comment, birders and library-goers told reporters
to "keep it down."
Do YOU know how magnets work, shithead? That's how I feel
about people who make fun of Insane Clown Posse. Like bros, vegans and DJ's, ICP has become a go-to target for people for unfunny people who think they're funny.
Even Troma movies make fun of them, and
Troma fans (pointing at myself) are some of the most contrarian, unfuckable
people on the planet.
I don't listen to ICP (except Chicken Huntin', I Want My Shit, Thy Unveiling, and The Neden Game. And Bitches) but I often find myself drunkenly
defending them to people at bonfires. Their
music might be grating, and they might make too many sex puns, but at the end
of the day ICP is funnier and more interesting than 95% of the people making
fun of them--and they have better taste in music, too is the gist of
my arguement. It's rare for me to take the "anti-hater" position like
that, but for some reason I always felt strongly about it. This book, given to
me by Nyquil after he lost my copy of SWEET JONES: PIMP C'S TRILL LIFE STORY, proves that these feelings are valid.
Raised on the sultry nocturnal sounds of Esham, Sir Mix-A-Lot,
Geto Boys and Awesome Dre, The Insane Clowns are wiggers of the most endearing
sort. They're wiggers from a time before the internet, when kids were beat up
and socially alienated for being wiggers. It was a lot harder to copy black
culture then. You couldn't just buy a Cam'ron shower curtain and start saying
lit. As an unpopular person and obscure regional rap afficionado myself, I
found this "early years" section of this book--usually the most
tedious part of an autobiography--to be fascinating.
One problem with the book, which I'm remembering as this
review gets longer and longer, is that it's too long. If you include the
annotated discography, and the "what Psychopathic records means to
me" section at the end (by everyone on the Psychopathic records roster), it's
596 pages. I suspect that the book wasn't "written" so much as
dictated by Violent J, while he was high, and this technique makes for hilarious
reading ("I was like, 'Whoa, this is
the shit! Slash likes my song! The chick he fucks likes it, too.'") but
600 pages of reminiscince is a lot from any man. If I was the editor, I'd probably cut some
of the wrestling stuff. And give it a better cover.
Ratings-wise, I have no choice but to give this 1/1 stars. BEHIND
THE PAINT was funny, inspirational and full of rap gossip, and how much more
can you demand from a book? You want it to have a neden?
-DIAL B FOR BIRDER is on iTunes now, and also SoundCloud and "Stitcher." Tell your friends, if you ever make any. -In case you're not savvy enough to know yet, the Nyquil510.tumblr.com comment section is home to one of the most vibrant fan communities online. - Follow Thomas on twitter. -Sorry To Bother You is dope, the new Byron Crawford book is dope, and the new episode of Tarantula is dope. Music is still mostly bad. -This crazy crow lady's blog post about crow necrophilia has gotten a lot of attention lately. How can I get a picture of a crow doing something even more fucked up? Sound off in the comments... -Speaking of hot news stories, I've been running into a lot of news coverage of these so-called "bird scooters" recently. Are you guys up on this? I'm not. I've heard of the bird Scoter before, but this sounds different. -According to an article in The New Republic that came out last year, white people living in rural areas of the South make up the highest percentage of birdwatchers in America. Yeah--too bad they're watching em through the scopes of their AK-47s. -You know, I've been thinking about it, and maybe Ben Franklin was right: Maybe the bald eagle shouldn't be America's National Bird. Maybe America's National Bird should change, based on who the president is. For Lincoln, it it's an owl. For LBJ, it's a rooster. And for Donald Trump? Scrooge McDuck. (UPDATE: Shit, Penn Jillette beat me to this comparison.) Maybe a cuckoo bird.
Ok
so you are going to hate this and I think I hate this too, but it's
super interesting and worth talking about! The song starts out with a
solid verse from our friend Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and then it
hits: probably the weirdest delivery I have ever heard. It sounds like this
guy is actively crying and also cannot touch his lips together. This got
me thinking about how people make music today and its effect on the
music that is created. Can you imagine if this guy existed in the 90s?
Chances are he would never record music and if he wanted to he'd have to
rent studio time and there would be an engineer or producer of some
type there that would tell him "No! Stop doing that with your voice!
That's bad!" But instead this guy can just do weird stuff with his voice
in his room on his laptop and release it to the world. The result is A
LOT more music out there and a lot of it is boring or bad, but there is a
greater opportunity now for truly unique and different sounds to
emerge. The internet is pretty rad IMO.
Drippin So Pretty
Drippin So Pretty is
a new to me rapper that writes songs almost exclusively about being in
love and shooting heroin (take a min to process that please).
SHORT
SONGS ARE DOPE. This beat is really insane, there is so much going on
here. When the bass drops at :25 it's so good! When I first heard this
song I got super stoked on it and emailed it to Jesse and he replied by
saying he "hopped off the rap train at mumble station", which made me
think he might secretly be 48 years old.
I
can't quite figure out what he is saying for the hook, either "I don't
fuck with lil shorty, she ain't right for me" or "I don't fuck with lil
shorty, she don't ride for me." The more I listen to it the more I think
it's the latter, but I'm going to go with the former because it makes
the song 100X more endearing.
SHORT
SONGS. SHORT SONGS. SHORT SONGS. I legit get upset when I see songs
within this genre that are like 3:30 plus. Real rude of the artist to
assume a high-powered businessman such as myself has that kind of time
to waste.
Controversial
opinion: I like the cheesy tire screech sound effect in this song.
Anyways, I like the melody and soul in this song.
My
Lord this beat is amazing. Bladee just sort of floats over this beat
with his melodic voice getting chopped up by the autotune.
This song also produced one of the most endearing YouTube comments I've seen in a while:
Haha I just want to give that guy a hug and scruff up his hair.
Bladee came out with a new album recently and I like it a lot! It is not on the same level as Eversince, which is probably my favorite rap album of the last 5 years,
but it is a very engaging listen. Once again, the production drives
things, with beats that don't sound like anything else out there.
The
production of this song is so warm and soft, it feels like my ears are
getting a big hug. Also this beat is so layered, I keep picking up on
different elements, like the subtle guitar strumming that comes in @
:56. There's a lot of song here in around two and a half minutes. I
appreciate that Bladee utilizes his autotune to do something interesting
for the chorus. For most of his songs the autotune sounds like it is
just there to distance him from real life, because I think he legit has a
good singing voice.
This
is the "lead single" off the latest album and it took me a while to get
into, maybe because I was distracted by the music video? I highly
recommend people listen to songs for the first time without the visuals,
to get an actual opinion of the music before watching the video. There
is nothing worse than sending a video of a song to your friend and they
come back at you with "wow, what a silly hat he has on!" Or maybe I
should just accept the importance of visual aesthetics in music and how
they are forever intertwined. IDK.
Hella Sketchy
Jesse has accused me of only liking depressing rap and he is only 90% correct. Here is part of the 10%:
IMPORTANT
WARNING: don't watch this music video! Forget everything I wrote above
and don't let your eyeballs taint this song. Hella Sketchy is a rapper
that makes extremely light and catchy rap songs. He also looks like a 15
year old kid that I instinctively want to stuff in a locker. But dang
this song is so catchy!!! Also it is that rare breed of song that is
super poppy, but does not wear thin immediately. I have been listening
to this song for over a year and still think it is tight.
Don't
watch this music video either! It is chopped up clips from the "Spent a
Check" music video. This beat is great though. I was talking to Jesse
in person about this one, trying to figure out what the production
sounds like. I think we settled on a Nintendo tropical paradise.
More Lil Peep
Do you remember last post
where I was talking about how Lil Peep released so much music before
his death and I'm amazed how I keep discovering new songs of his? Well
just since writing that last post I have discovered two more songs that I
absolutely love:
The
vibe of this song is so sick. It sounds like I am listening to
something real important. I feel bad for the feature, because this beat
is huge and Peep always layered the shit out of his vocals, so Wulf's
verse sounds oh so meak. Hellboy is such an interesting album
and I have come to really enjoy it after being initially turned off by
some of its cringey moments. Peep's angst is going to sound bad to some
listeners, but there is a lot of interesting moments, and wonderful
expressions of his emerging pop sensibility.
Hey speaking of pop sensibility, this song is super catchy! Very enjoyable 2 minute plus track
that always leaves me in a good mood. I have a lot to say about the
feature, Yung Bruh/Lil Tracy, but we'll save that for next post.
Ok that's all for now. Remember, you get what you give in this life, so don't walk around being a selfish shithead.
