Spaceship Mind

4/28/09: Remembered what got me going on all this. And it's kind of silly. I was recently listening to Ice Cube, and had an utter deja vu experience wherein I remembered what caused me to go on and on about my love of Jimmy McBride. At one point in "It Was a Good Day," Cube claims "it's ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic." I was all, "that's not ironic, that's a coincidence. It's Alanis Morrissette-ironic!" I hadn't thought of that song in years (obvs, why would I?), but it was all for the best as it led directly to my recalling the Jimmy the Cab Driver promos. However, until now, this was to the exclusion of remembering how this train of thought started. But then I heard the song again the other day and totes remembered. P.S. BTW, you've got to just love that Isley Bros. sample in there.

So March is nearly over, and I've made nary a post. But fear not -- for anyone out there actually reading this, my excuses, as per usual, are legion. Also, there are a few things I've got to get off my chest, even if they didn't merit an entire post's worth of material. Hence, the multi-topic update post!

Click to see at terrifying full size.

I moved
So this is big. I'm in a new apartment, and yes, though it's only down the street from my old one, that doesn't make for any less packing and/or lifting. This took a lot of time and preempted many important potential blog posts. On the plus however I completely love my new apartment. On the minus, I now have limited excuses for not getting back to work.

My getting back to work has however been facilitated by the amassing of my YA collection on a new bookcase of its own (actually an old bookcase my brother built for me when I was in college, but fully twice the size of the one it was on before). So now if I'm going over field notes or something and find a reference to Sweet Valley High #62 ("Who's Who?) I can instantly look it up. Also, the obsessive collector in me loves seeing them all shelved together in order, even if this also draws my attention to the one casualty of the move -- The A-List #4, "Tall Cool One," which has disappeared to parts unknown.

P.S.: How can you not completely heart a guy who lets you display the Baby-sitters' Club in the living room, but who then suggests hanging your framed Nancy Drew covers right up alongside? Awww!

Twitter
In spite of being an avowed slow-blogger, I joined Twitter. Admittedly, this was mostly in a fit of procrastination. I needed to pack, I needed to grade exams, I needed to wrap up my field papers -- what better time to begin foisting 140-character updates upon the world? Even though I don't know many people who are on it (I guess my friends are Luddites, old fogies, or both?) I enjoy it. Especially for Fashion Week, 140 characters was all I really needed to know that every designer was busting out Dynasty-esque shoulder pads like it actually looked good back in the day. I actually had to write a lengthy comment on a Times blog after their assertion that these indicated a 90s comeback was possibly beginning. As we all know, I announced a 90s comeback in 2001 I think.

Anyway though. Through a convoluted route, this led me to spiff up this blog, and also to add a Twitter widget in the righthand column. Get through the long days and um, weeks without a new post by keeping track of the minutiae of my life! Or don't. But I don't know, I am kind of getting to like how it gives you a weird flavor for what's going on in people's lives. (Possibly this is all the YA seeping into my brain, and I am becoming the world's oldest teenager after Dick Clark.)

New iPod Shuffle
Honestly y'all, WTF is Apple thinking. Just because you can make something smaller doesn't mean you should! Just look at the hideous monstrosities nature never intended known as "teacup" dogs -- okay fine, those ones are cute, but something that shakes constantly, can't grow eyes inside its skull, and lives on a steady diet of Karo syrup probably shouldn't be. Same goes with the insanely pointless new iPod shuffle.

One: The old ones were already hella small, colorful, and adorable. The new ones come in gray and look like tie clips or possibly one of the more boring inventions on Star Trek. Two: The whole point of the shuffle is that it's random! Why the hell would I want the thing to talk to me? Also don't they realize that most people mislabel (or even better, completely misspell) song names? Like how if you try to download say "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" like half the results claim it's a Guns N' Roses song. Fine fine fine, I know Apple labors under the delusion that everyone's comfy, cozy, and legal up in the iTunes Store, but let's be real people.

Three, and most important: The controls are in the headphone cord. This is not a bad idea except for the fact that most people hate the headphones that come with iPods. I don't mind them (in spite of the fact that the left earbud continuously pops out of my left ear, which is apparently either too small or simply misshapen), and so I've amassed a huge collection as people give them to me when they buy alternate earphones. Putting the controls on the headphones = the device is pointless without the original phones (and you likely have to fork over $$$ when you lose them, rather than having the thing still be usable with any ol' pair!). Long story short, I'm keeping my little pink clippy one running as long as humanly possible.

I Love You, Man
So Manohla Dargis' review of this movie has me up in arms. I'm sorry, Rush, "between this and its appearance last year on The Colbert Report, is definitely riding a pop cultural wave." Excusez-moi? Just now this is happening? For christ's sake Dargis, as soon as Paul Rudd walked into Jason Segel's "man cave" and said "I've never seen anything like this before," I immediately said, I HAVE. It's Nick Andopolis' basement from Freaks and Geeks. And who played Nick? Jason Segel. And what band was Nick obsessed with? RUSH. This was what, like 10 years ago now? Sorry for all the ital, but my disbelief is staggering. Does the NYT not have Google or something?

As if the innumerable mentions of Rush in that series weren't enough, let's review: Hipsters love Rush. The "Black Watch Plaid" episode of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law." The "Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary" episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Pavement's "Stereo." Pretty much the entire viewing audience for VH-1 Classic. The Rush revival is nearly as old as the freakin' 90s revival you "just" announced, NYT! Do I have to tell you everything!?!

P.S.: This movie actually wasn't too bad -- it's pretty funny, and didn't harp on dichotomous gender difference as I feared. Plus it has like a jillion hilarious people in it, including Joy from My Name is Earl, Karen from The Office, Jay Chandrasekhar of Super Troopers, Lieutenant Dangle... the list goes on.

Jimmy the Cab Driver
Something reminded me recently of this character Donal Logue used to do on MTV in the 90s, and I have gotten completely re-obsessed. This was I think because I was badly using the Alanis Morrissette definition of irony (a.k.a. coincidence), and it made me remember Jimmy McBride's take on "Ironic". This led me to discover that, as per the inevitable, all of these promos are on Youtube! (Okay, at least until Viacom figures it out and spoils everything.) Seriously though, if you didn't see these back in the day (that would be the early '90s), you must watch them now. Jimmy is sort of like the bastard son of Carl from ATHF and Milton from Office Space (he's particularly Carl-esque in his anticipation of the Page/Plant reunion).

If you can only watch one, make it Jimmy's commentary on Green Day's "Basketcase" (for all of these it helps to have seen the video, but is not a necessary prerequisite). Okay except maybe for "Sabotage" -- you do need to know that one. It also doesn't hurt for "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang". Also, if you only have time to watch two, watch "I'll Make Love to You" as well, 'cause damn that's funny. Oh all right lazy bones, here are links for the original videos (everything above is to the McBride promos): "Ironic," "Basketcase," "Sabotage," "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," "I'll Make Love to You." Crap, now I've got "I'll Make Love to You" stuck in my head, again.

Okay, that was a zillion links, but one last thing -- I love that these free-associating meta-commentaries often have some grain of truth in them, especially this one. This is basically the exact critique media scholars as well as some industry types made when MTV first came out (of course, they found this undesirable). Luckily, we can use spaceship mind to come up with our own visual accompaniment to music. But this reminds me of one of my favorite academic pieces of all time -- "'But Beavis, everything does suck': Watching Beavis and Butt-head watch videos" (Melinda Morrow, Popular Music and Society, 1999, 23: 3: 31-40). It talks about how the boys essentially cull the weak videos from the herd (often watching videos that would likely never otherwise be aired), but also how to disagree with Beavis and Butt-head implies that one actually believes Ace of Base to be "cool" rather than to "suck" -- putting critics of the show in the position of having bad taste. Jimmy more unabashedly enjoys all videos, but it's the same thing -- you're laughing, but at the same time you kind of have to take joy in his joy, and agree with him at least a little bit. I like it.

P.S.: I just realized on a normal blog this probably would have just been 5 separate posts. Maybe I should move toward faster/shorter....