Totally funked up: The playlist

And now for a visual representation of my recent "Electro Funk All-Stars" mix.



Ah, once again, the limitations of relying on YouTube for educational purposes. For the life of me, I couldn't find the rather excellent video for Morcheeba's "What's Your Name," so instead, I've included the video for "The Sea," my next favorite Morcheeba song, along with a Big Daddy Kane video, "Smooth Operator."

To make up for this obvious crushing blow to art and life, I've also included the original video for Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love," upon which Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" is based. Really, Mariah Carey. I've got my nerve. There are, however, two Mariah Carey songs that I actually will admit to liking, one being "Fantasy," the other, her 2005 comeback, "We Belong Together." The key here is that she doesn't sing either song as if she were doing the vocal equivalent of a Cirque du Soleil routine. She just plain sings. After those two tunes, she's on her own though.

I would have (and should have) included "Genius of Love" in the original mix, but to burn the mix to compact disc, I can have no more than 118 minutes of music in the playlist. Argh. Foiled by technology once again. When I finally invest in that iPod, there will be no such petty limits to my mixography, other than the 8GB confined space of the "Nano" or the 160GB prison of the "Classic."

Finally (or rather initially, as it's the first video on the playlist), I've included a scene from the British comedy show, The Mighty Boosh, which my new online friend Øresund introduced me to. Øresund responded to my rather loopy post about pop music from a few weeks ago. Since then, we have been having some lovely discussions about music and performers, as our tastes overlap greatly, both the low and the high, ranging from Sheila to The Smiths and all in between.

Marvelous that the video links together two key musical components of electro's heritage: Gary Numan and funk.

"Funk? Jazz's deformed cousin?"

You be the judge.

All mixed up: Electro funk all-stars

I've been at it again, mixing music using Mixmeister Express, the poor man's amateur DJ software. This time, I've come up with an "electro funk all-stars" playlist. Here goes:

1. Morcheeba featuring Big Daddy Kane--"What's Your Name?"
2. Melanie B.--"Feels So Good"
3. Olive--"This Time"
4. Toni Braxton--"He Wasn't Man Enough" (extended version)
5. Kylie Minogue--"Obsession" (produced by Kurtis Mantronik)
6. Pizzicato 5--"Love's Prelude"
7. Army of Lovers--"My Army of Lovers" (Concrete Ghetto Mix)
8. Vanessa Williams--"Happiness" (samples Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait")
9. Mantronix--"Got to Have Your Love"
10. M.I.A.--"Galang"
11. Mariah Carey--"Fantasy" (samples Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love")
12. Peter Brown--"Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me?"
13. Nu Shooz--"I Can't Wait"
14. Kurtis Mantronik--"Push Yer Hands Up"
15. The Orb--"Little Fluffy Clouds" (Orbital Dance Mix)
    
16. Röyksopp--"Eple"
17. Richard X vs. Liberty X--"Being Nobody" (samples "Being Boiled" by the Human League while featuring the lyrics of "Ain't Nobody" by Rufus and Chaka Khan)
18. Annie--"Chewing Gum"
19. Change--"Change of Heart"
20. Jamelia--"Superstar"

Whether this is true electro funk is debatable, in part because I'm only half-sure what electro funk is. According to Wikipedia--as we well know, my chief source for all wisdom--electro funk is commonly referred to as "electro" and is "an artistic musical form in the wide world of electronic music culture."

Oh dear. That sounds like a much loftier concept than my playlist warrants.

The article goes on to describe a music I barely recognize--"vocals are delivered in a deadpan, mechanical manner," "rhythm patterns tend to be electronic emulations of breakbeats, with syncopated kick drums, and usually a snare or clap accenting the downbeat"--although it does make mention of the likes of Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, and Mantronix, a triple threat of favorites of mine. That sound was what I was after with this mix: Funked up versions of electropop that the likes of Afrika Bambaataa and Mantronix generated, using Kraftwerk samples as backgrounds and key components of more hip hop- and R&B-oriented fare.

See, we really can all just get along.

This isn't a true electro mix, whatever that may be. (Only a real DJ or a British club kid might understand the nuances of various electro styles--certainly not peu vieux je.) There are a variety of pop styles in the mix, with "This Time" by Olive being more trip hop (or trip-pop) than anything, a musical style now more than ten years old and one, obviously, I never quite got over. M.I.A., who made an appearance in one of my "cod reggae" mixes, is one of my favorite contemporary pop musicians, although I would be hard-pressed to classify her sound. Mel B.'s "Feels So Good" is simply 1960s mutton dressed up as very tasty Y2K lamb. And some tunes, such as Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait" and Change's "Change of Heart" are just pure '80s pop/r&b/dance/party music. Electro funk before electro funk was cool.

The only two songs that I think serve as exemplars of electro funk, at least insofar as I understand the genre, are the Kurtis Mantronik/Mantronix and Richard X vs. Liberty X tracks, which couple a certain crunchy, electro rhythm (consistently clocking in at under 110 bpm) with a funky bass and a soulful vocal. The Mantronix track, "Got to Have Your Love," was released around 1990 or so; the Kurtis Mantronik track, "Push Yer Hands Up," was recorded in 1998; and the Kurtis Mantronik-produced "Obsession," performed by Kylie "Ive Since Lost the Plot" Minogue, was recorded in 2003. The Richard X track was recorded in 2003, but is based in part on a song by The Human League recorded in 1978, as well as a song by Rufus and Chaka Khan from 1983.

So there may well be nothing new under the sun, at least from 1978 onward.

When I listen to this mix, I can't help but think of Washington, D.C., where I lived through much of the 1980s. Funny that, as I've spent a fair amount of my adult life trying not to remember my years in Washington. I was young, in my 20s then, and practically fresh off the farm, a small-town Southerner living in a very elite Eastern city. Lots of social faux pas, lots of stupid choices, lots of twisting myself into a pretzel of logic and culture while trying to fit in and not look the rube, only by 1991 or to say "fuck it," chuck it, and get back to my roots.

Any similarities between the me of 1984 and the me of 2008 are purely coincidental I can assure you. However, it's still painful to think about those days, to recall my goofiness, ineptitude, and, yes, even heartbreak. Nonetheless, in retrospect, maybe the times weren't as bad as I recall. If nothing else, I have happy memories of being in a city filled with good music--classic "quiet storm" R&B, '80s electropop, early hip hop and rap on WPGC, and splendid alternative music like The Smiths, The Cure, and everything else that WHFS used to play, at least when it was still an independent radio station.

Ah, the dreams of a middle-aged, middle-class, Anglo hip-hopper into obscure genres of dance music. Just call me DJ Funky Fresh Market, which is a joke only a North Carolinian might understand.

* * *

Acceptable in the '80s

Speaking of the 1980s, my current fave song is "Acceptable in the '80s" by Calvin Harris, which was released sometime in 2007 but has only recently bubbled up into my consciousness. You can watch the video here via the magic of YouTube.

I'm not sure I can fully explain the video, by the way, except to think it's some sort of wannabe commercial for The Body Shop or the Anti-Vivisection Society. That or someone gave a video camera to a gaggle of drag queens and said, "Here gals, do your best. I'll give you an hour."

I think this song may be as good an example of electro funk as anything, although, personally, it kills me that this guy Calvin was born in 1984, way too young to even remember the decade. His other stuff leaves me a little indifferent--it's just all a little too "laddy" on the loose with a mix console and his parents' record collection. As far as Anglo-Saxon funk goes, I much prefer the likes of The Streets or Just Jack.

Still, it's such a good tune, especially with that metallic "wow wow" hook after nearly every verse, that it may just have to make an appearance in Electro Funk All-Stars 2.

So coming soon . . . another mix.

Come on, you didn't think you were getting off that easily, did you?

Chilly scenes of Pittsburgh #2: Hard Target

Editor's note: I started this post sometime in late January, but as winter endures, its truths still resonate.

* * *

My learning curve is a flat line, apparently.

Tonight, instead of going straight home from work to avoid the cold, or to the gym for a reasonably thorough workout, or back to my place to shovel snow for an even better workout, I went to one of my favorite shopping areas in Pittsburgh, The Waterfront, located in the Homestead-Munhall area on the southside of the Monongahela River.

Now let's get this out of the way first--I'm not sure why they call the area the Waterfront. Technically, yes, it is near the banks of the Mon, but any sort of frontage or view or even a stench of stagnate water in summer is effectively blocked by condos, railroad tracks, and an industrial wasteland, which, as best as I can figure, was the lifeblood of Pittsburgh's economy up until 1985 or so.

But Waterfront it is so dubbed, and it has, to my great fortune (or, more accurately, my credit card company's), a Filene's Basement, a Macy's, a P.F. Chang's, a Barnes & Noble, at least one really exceptional shoe store, and my favorite-named store--Dick's!--so I can forgive the lack of orientation to the local geography for some decent retailing that doesn't require me to drive 25 miles from my home or take on a seek-and-destroy mission for parking in Squirrel Hill, Oakland, or Shadyside.

It is, however, essentially a strip center wedged in between the river and the railroads, just a more attractively laid out one than, say, the entirety of Monroeville or Robinson. I don't pretend that it is the best shopping district in the region--it is lacking an H&M, a Nordstrom's, a World Market (apparently unknown in Pennsylvania altogether), a Wegman's, a Restoration Hardware, and a Pottery Barn to make it a little piece of American suburban consumerist heaven. But it's still highly acceptable, at least by my increasingly loose standards of urban cachet.

Oh, to think that when I lived in Washington, D.C., years ago, I felt as though I was slumming it at a mass-market, big-box retail strip center when I went to the Neiman Marcus at Mazza Gallerie . . . .

Given that Waterfront is a strip center, it is generally lacking in mass quantities of mass transit. There is a bus stop near the Target I frequent, always filled to overflowing this time of year with the coldest looking people in America. But that's about it. To me, frustrated urban and regional planner that I am (it was my major for a brief semester in college; I gave it up when for one class we spent half the semester trying to define a region by a mathematical formula), this place begs for one of those fake trolley buses, something to go up and down the strip and drop off people and packages at the most convenient location to their cars.

While I don't think those lumbering aesthetic bastardizations convey the charm they intend, such a system would be convenient and helpful. And it would prevent (or at least limit) the amount of parking and re-parking that everyone seems to do, especially during the holidays. The strip must be at least 2 miles long from end to end. Thus, if you have a lot of packages or a lot of shopping to do, you end up moving your car from place to place in order to get a spot close to where you're feeding your retail fix.

Or you could do like I try to do, which is leave my car in one place, ideally centrally located, and walk to all the stores to shop. I am such a good greenie I can hardly stand myself most days.

* * *

This staying-put-instead-of-reparking routine only works so well, though, and, as in most of life, no good intention goes unpunished--or at least un-laughed-at.

First of all, it's a personal injury lawyer's dream, the white-knuckle experience of trying to walk through that Nullarbor Plain of a parking lot and not be maimed under the wheels of some crazed Chevy Suburbanite who thinks that the little lines indicating parking spaces and driving lanes are some sort of unintelligible heiroglyphic whose secret message does not pertain to, nor particularly interest, him or her.

But more puzzling to me, at least heretofore, is the poor quality of the shopping carts, especially those I've wheeled out of Target and attempted to push to my car at the far end of the lot--or worse, to the neighboring lot in front of Filene's or Dick's or Michael's or any other self-referentially named department store in the complex. I can't tell you the number of times--OK, I can; it's been three or four--that I've pushed the cart out into the lot, only to have the wheels jam at the farthest end of the lot, as far away as possible from the store, the shopping cart storage, or even a convenient median or berm upon which to abandon the cart.

So more than once I've found myself stuck in the middle of the asphalt ocean with a lame, rudderless shopping trolley and no easy way to get it back to port. I shove it, I heave it, I drag it, and I even try to do this weird sort of roll-twist-turn with it across the lot, like it's an ungainly piece of furniture that needs to move from one end of the room to the other (which it is). Cursing all the way. Of course. It's one of my talents.

At first, I chalked it all up to cheap or overused carts. Wheels get rattly, the steering goes wonky, the cart quits under stress and overuse and locks itself in place, refusing to make one more trip across the asphalt. And whose fault is that?

Then, as the first snows fell in winter (which at this point feels like it began last July) and the lots became thickly crusted with a layer of salt that the rim of a margarita glass would envy, I figured, oh well, a combination of winter road salts, gravel, and dirt must be gunking up the wheelworks. This shopping trolley lockjaw continued through the Christmas shopping season, then into January, and now into late February--but so has winter. So I thought my argument had a certain perfect, scientific reasoning about it, even if the evidence upon which my scientific reasoning was based was still massively pissing me off.

Here's where my learning curve flatlines with not a defibrillator in sight. This evening, I was visiting Waterfront once again, this time eyeing iPods and smaller-sized jeans, when, while attempting to push my cart to my car, I spotted this sign.

You see this picture? Can you read the sign well enough to understand its message? Let me transcribe it for you so that you receive the full import of its meaning:

"Attention shoppers!

Our shopping carts will lock if taken beyond the parking lot perimeter. While distinctive yellow lines mark normal exits, the entire lot perimeter is protected."

Then the text is repeated in Spanish for Pittsburgh's, I dunno, Bolivian community. All two of 'em.

(Editor's note: Really, I'm not trying to be a racist jerk here. Pittsburgh must be the only major city in America that has no visible Latino population, no Spanish-language channels as part of its cable line-up, and--please let me stress the cruel reality of this fact--no decent Mex-Mex food, at least as far as I can discern [although it does have good Cal-Mex in the form of Mad Mex, I'll grant you that]. But Harrisburg and Gettysburg--they have good Mexican food. There is just so little justice in this world.)

So what a fool I've been, caring about environmental and automotive damage, straining flagging muscles under the weight of a disabled steel cage on wheels. Why if I'd only paid attention to the small, awkwardly worded print of one nondescript sign on a median near the edge of the "perimeter" and the beginning of Dick's own parking lot, as well as to those "distinctive yellow lines," I would have known that I could not take the precious cart fifty paces (oh, you bet I counted) beyond the Target entrance. Silly, ridiculous me!

The sign, however, would not have told me that no amount of pulling and dragging the trolley back across the line would seem to have any effect on releasing the locked wheels, that once locked they appear to stay locked until some Target official says the magic word, waves the enchanted wand, calls in the girls from Charmed to wear tarty clothes and recite an incantation, something, to put the wheels in motion once again. Golly, I am such a dope for not understanding this somewhat unique method of shopping cart organization.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to store management's plight. People steal steel carts (although Target's appear to be chiefly plastic in nature with a steel underwire bra of support, making them somehow both unattractive and heavy)--the carts cost a lot of money and can probably be dismantled and melted down or kept intact and relabeled for a pretty profit. Nonetheless, this lock-and-don't-load-on-the- back-of-a-truck approach to cart organization is frustrating for me, the wannabe greenie, and for anyone who has to dodge the stalled trolleys in the very busy parking lot. And, trust me, the lot is littered with carts--not to mention the dashed hopes and crushed vertebrae of many a Pittsburgher who attempted (and grandly failed) to return a trolley to its Target.

Again, the clandestine urban planner kicks in--I start thinking thoughts like these: What about instead of a "yellow bike" program like some cities have adopted, we created a Waterfront "red cart" system, where all the stores shared the same type of cart? It wouldn't matter to which store the trolleys were returned because everyone would have the same carts. You could still use the yellow Maginot Line of cart control, but you'd have a wider area in which to use the trolleys. Thus, maybe you'd encourage a greener approach to shopping at Waterfront, as well as a safer, less obstacle course-oriented parking lot. An added bene to corporate beancounter types would be that you might share the cost of the carts with shopping center management, instead of footing the bill all on your corporate lonesome.

But then I go too far. I start thinking thoughts like these: What if we did away with the corporate branding altogether, except maybe a little sign to indicate that the carts belong to Waterfront and if found, say in Reykjavik, Iceland, or Bangui, Central African Republic, please return to Pittsburgh, postage paid, no questions asked? And what if we moved the big buses away from the stores and onto the street where they belong--or better still, got back to building Pittsburgh's "T" with stops to more locations all over town, not just one line to the South Hills?

Add in those fake trolleys for good measure, keep the cars away from the pedestrian crossing zones in front of the stores, put some trees in the parking lot, make the pavement more porous, and voilà! You've got yourself a little exemplar of semi-socialist planning in the steel-and-stone heart of a late capitalist landscape!

Yes, too much, definitely too much, especially for a minor issue like cart control, especially in a country where using a word like "socialism" in a public forum is liable to make you the roasted meat and veg kabob that gets skewered and devoured by the ilks of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

But it's this plan or my other--silently, passive-aggressively boycotting all the big-box retailers that tick me off (in person, not necessarily online) until they fold, one by one, close up shop, tear down their buildings, rip up their parking lots, and return the environment to its natural state. Whatever that might be--given Pittsburgh's recent heavy-industry past, it could just as easily be a Superfund site.

Nonetheless, one way or another, I will bring capitalism to its knees.

As soon as I'm done shopping.

Chilly scenes of Pittsburgh #1: Have a seat

While winter still trudges onward in my little corner of the world, I hope to share with you a few random images and observations about life in the snow-capped hills and vales of our fair burg(h).

Here's the first, a little composition I've entitled "Have a Seat," which I snapped on my walk to work earlier this week, after our last "major snowstorm." More about that in a sec.

The story behind the picture is that parking is at a premium in most inner Pittsburgh neighborhoods, with most residents and visitors parking on the street, rather than in driveways (what are those?) or garages. Despite the initial allure of housing choices when I first moved to Pittsburgh last summer--a dirty, third-floor walk-up in Bloomfield or a recently mortgage-flipped rowhouse along a crack alley in Brighton Heights--yours truly counts himself lucky that he was able to find a nice-if-small apartment with an egregiously pink-tiled bathroom close to work that also has a detached garage. Must keep that 12-year-old, 150,000-mile, teal-colored Subaru safe at all costs, of course.

Thus, many people in urban Pittsburgh value the spaces in front of their homes, even if they don't actually pay directly for them. So they will do their civic duty and shovel snow out of the space--but with a catch: They'll put a chair in the space, which means don't you dare try to park there; it's reserved for the now-exhausted homeowner who shoveled the snow, not for some upstart drive-by visitor who might try to claim it as his or her own.

I have one friend in town who, whenever he sees the ol' chair-in-the-parking-space routine, is instantly annoyed. "Oh whatever! Like they can claim the space as their own! It's public property!" goes the lament.

I just find it amusing. I mean, this may be a socially binding contract--I clean the space in front of my house, thus you don't park there--one I am willing to go along with, as long as everyone doesn't do it and as long as the Citizen Shoveler also bothered to scrape the sidewalk in front of the homestead as well.

However, I can just as easily envision driving a Hummer (well, no I can't actually envision myself doing this, but for the sake of argument . . .) down the street, seeing a snow-free space occupied by only a rusted-out folding chair or a little, handmade, wooden bench (see picture), and without further thought, riding over the top of the "obstructions" to claim the space, resting my multi-ton, 12-miles-to-the-gallon-downhill vehicle comfortably over the now-flattened pancake symbols of proprietorship.

Ha. I'm older and I have more insurance, as the saying goes.

***

Ah, if the local news and the Weather Channel have taught us anything, it's that even the most mundane of climatic events can be, well, climactic. The case in point here is that this past week, we had maybe 5 inches of snow in town, then some melt, then maybe an inch or two more a couple of days later. I had *thought* this was no biggie for you Northerners out there--you and your "Well, in Chicago, we don't ever close the schools because of snow" and your "In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we don't stop playing outside until the windchills get down to -50F"--but, unfortunately, every moment in American life, at least those portions validated by television, has to be full of drama--or at least enough noise to fill the chasm-like (chasmatic?) void of our existence.

So now we get "severe" weather reports on the local news, even though its the same ol', same ol' daily forecast. It might rain, it could snow, the sun may shine (which would be something of a newsworthy surprise during a Pittsburgh winter), but these events do not necessarily qualify as "severe," at least according to me, Life's Great Deskchair Arbiter of Reason.

The Weather Channel, of course, does this, too, so much so that my mother, Vivien Leigh, and I both noted sometime in January that we had to make ourselves stop listening to their reports because we had grown anxious to leave the house and head to the store for groceries, take a walk around the neighborhood, or go to work (and we get paid to do that). Really, sometimes the sidewalks in Kansas and Pennsylvania can be a mess, but the streets and highways are normally safe. Maybe a plague of flying monkeys, a rain of blood, or a few old Russian spy satellites might keep us indoors, but some sprinkles or a snow shower elevated to "severe weather" status? Pish-posh.

Nowadays, the Weather Channel has added sound effects to its "local on the 8's" forecasts, so no longer do you merely read the daily forecast or hear it intoned by a generic male voice, you also get to hear rain! And wind! And thunder! Just in case you've forgotten what they sound like!

I'm not sure they've figured out a sound effect for snow or sunshine yet, but give them time, give them time.

It's not just the Weather Channel that has added sound effects, however. Again, one of the local weathercasts now features this annoying, electronic, emergency-infused dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee sound when the weather is about to be acted out. ('Cause let's face it, it ain't read or reported anymore; it's played out more like an overcaffeinated, pantomime version of the Genesis story.)

My personal favorite "sound fills the emptiness in our souls" moment happens on CNN Headline News during the "Morning Express with Robin Meade" program--formerly, a perfectly simple, news report for the bleary-eyed with a charming, if somewhat cheerleader-esque host, which now has been repackaged as information for the Harried Generation. Whenever there is a "breaking news" item--which as best as I can tell involves anything from a bad road accident in Ohio to an "ooh snap! oh no you din't!" moment between presidential candidates--you hear this drum rat-a-tat-tat, which means you're supposed to stop what you're doing--eating, breathing, sharing a quality moment with loved ones--and snap to attention. It's all very Winston Smith, if you ask me.

What makes me giggle, though, is that rat-a-tat-tat. It's like that children's wind-up toy where the monkey bangs on a drum or crashes cymbals together. After the tattoo, I half-expect Robin Meade to appear on camera, bare her teeth, and do that slow eeeeek-eeeeek-eeeeek that the toy monkey always does.

If only. Then and only then might the broadcasters get my undivided attention.

Little antique mall of horrors

A day in the country. I could write for hours about it--what all I saw, what all I did--but I'm still trying to finish posts I started last month. Why delay, dear readers, the wit, insights, and perverse takes on reality you have come to know, expect, and flinch from?

So here we go--especially for you, the SmartBlogtucky, the iBlogtucky, the GoogleBlogtucky, simplified for quick sale and abbreviated for the ADHD Generation, I present you with . . . Little Antique Mall of Horrors. Not many words, just mainly pictures taken with a medium-quality, 3-year-old Motorola flip-phone.

Enter--if you dare!

We'll get to the lead frightening image in a moment, but first, let's have a chat about PeeWee's Glen or Glenda doppelganger cousin. Why, it's none other than Marilyn Monroe! And Marilyn again! And even more Marilyn! All painted (or something) onto the most lurid-colored Fiestaware you could probably not even imagine, not even with the aid of hallucinogens. Colors so Timothy Lear-ish, acid-is-groovy, that it isn't so much the case that they do not exist in nature but, in fact, do not even exist in synthetic form.

Sort of Phoenix lawn green with an antifreeze chaser. Or maybe a Texas bluebonnet blue in desperate need of a gall bladder operation. Hard to describe. Even harder to fathom. And, unfortunately, its essence not fully captured through the lens of a flip-phone. Alas.

Now at the risk of offending the artist as well as members of my very own homo queerectus tribe--and trust me, I'm about to--I just have to ask: What was this queen thinking? I mean, Marilyn Monroe?! On Fiestaware?!?! Isn't that some kind of a double whammy of limp-wristed nancy-ness? Doesn't that kind of double-gilding the calla lily cancel out the previous gilding--plus run the danger of tilting the world off its axis and sending it spinning uncontrollably into a David Gest-like face-sucking blackhole filled with glitter, sequins, and showtunes?

All I can say is, I sure hope you know what forces you're messin' with, Princess.

Let's take a moment: Of course, it's me writing this, so everything has to have a gay angle. If you were expecting something other than fruited tropical rum drinks, sodomy, and the eyelash, I'm so sorry to disappoint you, but really, you should have charged a clue or two on your AmEx when I led this post with references to PeeWee Herman and Marilyn Monroe.

For you see, observing the "gay thing" and its bizarro incarnations on our semi-fabulous planet--well, it's what I bring to the rather impeccably decorated table, if I do say. As long as there is breath in my body and evangelical ministers with rentboys on speed dial, I'll be there, deskchair quarterbacking life's more homo subtextual moments. And I suspect to have a long and happy career at this, as the wowser populace, despite recent political upsets, lives on and will forever need something to rail against, as well as someone to go to when their straight-laced lives get them down--or it's time for their roots to be colored. Whichever comes first.

So, a tip of the appletini to Mr. Romney. A waft of smoke from the Gitane for Mr. Huckabee. Kisses, darlings. You need me as much as I need you. Let's don't call the whole thing off, chitlins, for I'd be left with nothing to write about.

Perhaps, though, I jab this particular stiletto of innuendo a little too early, a little too often, although, admittedly, not very deeply (and of course when I say "stiletto," I'm referring to the high heel not the weapon, dollface). Still, there's truth lying in the grooves of the surface scratches I inflict on the linoleum of life. For just a case or two down from the Housewares Department's shrine to Marilyn, I found another photo op--G.I. Joe (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in all fetish gear.

Once again, the photo doesn't quite bring the scene to life, as it were. So let moi offer vous the haute couture reportage: Joe here is wearing a black leather zip-up jacket and matching black leather trousers. Always a classic, masculine look, one sure never to go wrong with the ladies--and a fair number of the fellas as well. Strut, pout, put it out, Joe!

But, oh dear, he is, as you say, sans shoes. A fashion faux-pas, Monsieur Joe!

However, this can be explained: If I remember correctly, Joe was missing a foot as well.

Stepping away from the catwalk for a moment, I can honestly say that I don't quite get the point of dressing up one's doll in last season's leftovers from the Folsom Street Fair. Still, perhaps I am misreading the visuals. Is this a rare example of the line of failed action figures from Al Pacino's 1980 gay-baiting celluloid fiasco, Cruising? Or perhaps plucky props are in order to some seamy seamstress out there. She/he seems to say, gals, why go out and plop down a wad of pesos on one of those expensive Billy, Carlos, or Tyson dolls when you can run up one of your very own with the remnants of an old Naugahide sofa and a remaindered Butterick pattern?

Regardless, Barbie's main squeeze Ken is cowering in the corner, I'm sure.

Or maybe not . . . because in the same case, a shelf or two above, I found this disturbing image--naked Ken. Or maybe naked G.I. Joe. Or perhaps even naked Big Jim. Naked somebody. With a price tag affixed to his rather ripped torso. Oh, if only it were that simple, that all men came with price tags attached to their chests . . . .

This Jim did at least have both feet, but his head didn't match his body, as the body was tanned and the face pasty white--although this does sort of reflect an odd Pennsylvania reality, given the obsession with the tanning bed in these here parts. Personally, I love how Jim's legs have been crossed discreetly at the ankles. Nothing whispers modesty more.

The more I explored, the more this little antique shop of horrors continued Flickring its depravity to me (and now from me to you). Look at this scene--as best as I can figure, it's some sort of dismembered ceramic naked body, just splayed on the floor, alongside of a cooking pot. A nice touch in window-dressing, I'll give you that, but next time, a tip for my friends in store-merchandising--do go the extra dimension, remove the pot lid, and put a spare leg in it for optimum ghoulish effect.

And, finally, there's our lead photo--PeeWee Herman stuffed in the bottom of a basket. Ah, too many words, too many images. So I'll give it to you in one sentence: It's like a scene from some weird porno as directed by Charlie McCarthy.

Oh, the humanity . . . .

From Morocco with love

Just to annoy you with my musical predilections for a little bit longer (oh please, of course I will do this more in the future . . .), through the magic of modern, YouTube-esque technology, I present to you Ahmad Soultan and his tune, "Ya Salam."

I first heard this song played in heavy rotation on Radio France Internationale Musique throughout last fall, but I only recently discovered this video. This is the kind of sound that truly appeals to me: a mid-tempo, seductive beat; an exotic, trancelike quality to the music; yet completely contemporary as well, with its undercurrent of hip-hop.

The song doesn't even have to be in English for me to appreciate it. I wish my language skills were better (old joke: What do you all someone who speaks three languages? trilingual; what do you call someone who speaks two languages? bilingual; what do you call someone who speaks only one language: an American), and I could offer you a rough translation of the song itself, other than relying on the images in the video (surfing in Morocco, too! who knew?) or the vibe conveyed.

However, knowing what's being sung may actually be incidental to my enjoyment of song.

Sounds funny, dunnit? Well, consider this: So much of contemporary music is performed in English, and yet not everyone speaks English, so already much of the world hears a sound they like, even when they don't understand what's being said. In other words, they appreciate the song for the sound and the way it makes them feel. It's very impressionistic, don't you think? And that's often why I like music so much--for the way it makes me feel, for the emotions and feelings it conjures, rather than for its literalness, for what it makes me think or interpret intellectually.

I have little patience for anyone who says they don't want to listen to songs performed in other languages because they can't understand what's being said. I'm not saying the lyrics don't matter--of course they may, when you understand them. I know enough to know that Ahmad Soultan is from Morocco and that the song is sung partly in Arabic and that "Ya Salam" roughly translates to mean . . . well, I don't know what it means. "God is great"? "Pass the surfboard wax"? "Get the hell out of my country, you imperialist invader"? An article in Wikipedia, my source for all wisdom, about another Arabic-language performer translates "Ya Salam" to mean "How Fantastic."

Maybe now you see better my point about knowing what's being sung being incidental, even detrimental, to my enjoyment of the song. The lesson here may be that sometimes too much knowledge is a boring thing: I might have been far happier not to understand the language, to just let my mind wander in the oasis of the exotic rather than get stuck in the muck of the somewhat banal.

Yes, yes, I see the ghost of Edward Said hovering over my shoulder as I type this. Bad Westerner, baaaaad Westerner. Exoticizing the East and the Other once again. I may be guilty of that in fact, but it's really not my intent. Via the internet, I listen to RFI Musique. I listen to Medi 1 and Africa No. 1 as well and enjoy the different sounds I hear. It reminds me of childhood and using my shortwave radio to expand my horizons and experience the world beyond my bedroom. The Voice of Turkey. Radio Moscow. Paris Calling Africa. Radio Rumbos, Caracas, Venezuela.

Therefore, am I exoticizing the East or just appreciating the differences and savoring qualities in its popular music and culture that seem lost or in hiding in our own? I mean, when was the last time you heard a pop song on American radio and felt the pleasure of the hook, commented on the trancelike quality of the chorus, experienced the seductiveness of the 3 minutes and thirty seconds of it all? In fact, when was the last time you bothered to listen to American Top 40 radio, which has basically been reduced to advertising messages interspersed by the same 20 songs played repeatedly over a 24-hour period?

I thought as much.

Perhaps it's a fine line, this world music appreciation versus orientalism. Perhaps I cross it on the "wrong" side at times and the "right" at others. But perhaps, too, whenever I hear the latest news from Iraq or Afghanistan or Egypt or Palestine or Israel--no matter how bad it is (and it often is), no matter how badly we misunderstand each other (and we often do)--I pause for a moment to remember that somewhere in another part of the world, a group of friends is getting together to hang out, listen to some music, and enjoy the moments of pleasure life offers us.

How fantastic, indeed.