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Thursday, November 2, 2000

disabled girl gang raped by 20: the most troubling thing i've read in some time. i like to think that i'm someone who's hard to shock, but this did it. another reason i think man is inherently evil.
-fred solinger | steal this link!

Wednesday, November 1, 2000

OUTKAST - STANKONIA
"o-u-t-k-a-s-t...live from the center of the earth. 7 light years below sea level we go. welcome to stankonia. the place from which all funky things come," and the mood is set by these introductory lines. for some time now, i thought outkast were in their own world. i didn't mean it literally, of course; it's just one of those things that people say about others who just seem to be doing their own thang. well, apparently, i was right: they do have their own world, and it's called stankonia, which also happens to be the name of their new album. stankonia, the duo's fourth record, is probably the loosest concept album ever recorded: loose in terms of the music but also in the way that there is no overriding theme: very few things are said about stankonia itself, but all of the words and sounds , with the occasional exception, combine to create a record of a day in the life of the average stankonian, whether intentional or not.

as mentioned above, stankonia is seven light years below sea level, so obviously it takes music a long time to travel down to those depths. that being the case, stankonians are still enjoying the golden age of funk, of the ohio players and parliament and funkadelic and bootsy, etc., and it shows on stankonia. (also, thankfully, down there, all they can pick up are the vibrations and grooves so that none of the gross materialism that pervades current day hip-hop infects the thoughts of andre 3000 and big boi.) since their debut album, southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, outkast have made use of the p-funk sound. the two albums they've released since then have proven them to be among the few progressive heads in hip-hop, never afraid to experiment with subject matter or new sounds. now with stankonia, on which they share production duties, under the name earthtone iii, with long-time producers organized noize, they have made their own p-funk album, a 21st century amalgam of ahh...the name is bootsy, baby and motor-booty affair.

the first shot in the revolution, as everyone knows by now, was "bombs over baghdad," and one can hope that it's every bit as influential as eric b. & rakim sampling james brown or dr. dre breaking out his keyboard. it's the most dynamic hip-hop single in years and the sound of limitless possibilities. it's also misleading: i've noticed that a lot of fans, particularly those who aren't feeling "b.o.b.," think that the rest of the album sounds like this, which isn't the case. yes, "b.o.b." is the most forward-thinking track on the album, but it is just one of the many highlights. on the rest of the album, outkast mainly jack an older tradition, recuscitate it (because, frankly, funk in 00s is a joke), and proceed to add their own flavor. "gasoline dreams" is a fuzzed-out, raw-as-hell track that sounds like the band of gypsys jamming with early parliament; "call before i come" is silly-funky like much of bootsy's work; "xplosion" is ominous and spooky with a creeping harpsichord line taking shit back to the middle ages and dark torture chambers; "humble mumble" is, at times, gentle and then rushing, suggesting a fresh-era sly stone track; "toilet tisha" is a sad, sparse tale of an unwanted pregnancy, recalling early 80s prince; and "stanklove" is flat-out funk & soul, a hidden track on the second half of ahh...the name is bootsy. only on the admittedly quite funky "we love deez hoez" does the group come up for air and catch a whiff of current-day misogyny (and it was obviously big boi as andre doesn't appear on this track).

to call stankonia a rap album would be too limiting: out of all of their albums, this one probably features the least amount of rapping, and the musicianship and melodies are on par with any group out there being called "pop" or "rock." the duo have advanced steadily, beginning at quite good and now they're at the excellent level: for comparison's sake, call this their innervisions, an album that's stronger than the considerable sum of its parts (aquemini is their talking book, a collection of very strong songs). the only question left now is "what's next?" who knows, but i bet somewhere at the center of the earth, outkast are in the lab, preparing to answer that one. until that day, then, i wait with bated breath for the next transmission from planet stankonia.
-fred solinger | steal this link!

Tuesday, October 31, 2000

one reason why 192 kbps mp3s burned to a cd will never beat the real thing, for me: the kick drums on "bombs over baghdad." dear LORD. sure, they sounded somewhat booming on the mp3 i had, but the cd version: DAMN. they're fucking thunderous.
-fred solinger | steal this link!

"it's halloween time in the city...": this is my first halloween in new york, and it's also the first halloween where i'll be giving out the candy instead of receiving it. as some know, i grew up in new jersey, in an area so rural that it was like one big farm. i did the traditional door-to-door "trick or treat" thing for a number of years. thinking about it, halloween in manhattan seems like a strange thing: do the homeless go around asking for treats, saying that they're dressed up as the homeless (good idea!)? and how do i know if someone's in costume or if they just normally dress like that? do the kids go door-to-door? and how exactly does that work? entrances into apartments either a security guard or a lock: is it unprofessional for the guard to let kids in, and do the kids ring random doorbells, hoping that someone will open the door for them?

it strikes me as a sad thing, being a kid on halloween in the city. the grown-ups have their fun, what with their parties and the village parade. but what about the kids? first off, while new york city can be very frightening, it's not the kind of ancient horror that halloween represents. when i was kid, we had these deep, dark woods behind our house, and you never knew what might leap out at you at any time; maybe the kids are used to it, i don't know to be honest. secondly, if you don't live in a big apartment building, it seems like you're not going to end up with a nice bounty. do all of the kids head out to queens to do their trick-or-treating?

today, i'm going to buy a bag of candy. i don't even think we have any kids in our (very) small building, but God knows what city kids will do as a "trick" if you don't have something for them. and i don't know if we're supposed to let in anyone who yells over the intercom, "trick or treat," cos who knows what you're letting in? worse comes to worse, no kids end up dropping by and i have to eat the bag myself: there have been bigger tragedies, i'm willing to bet. all of that said, a happy halloween to all!
-fred solinger | steal this link!

halloween pick-up line:
"that must be a mask you're wearing, because i've never seen an actual face that beautiful."
-fred solinger | steal this link!

MORE halloween humor:

from a co-worker: "i'm dressed up as someone who enjoys his job."

to which i replied: "i am wearing a 'content worker' mask."

for the co-worker who's never there:
"i see someone is dressed as (name) today. i mean, it's not like (name) to be at work."
-fred solinger | steal this link!

two bad signs for al gore: first, george w. bush won the scholastic student poll which has successfully picked the president since, i believe, 1968. also, the redskins lost last night. going back to 1940 or so, the outcome of the redskins' game the week before the election has predicted which party would be in the white house: if they win, the incumbent party remained in office; if they lost, the opposition party would win, and in this case, that's the republicans and george w. bush.
-fred solinger | steal this link!

AAAAGGHHHH!!!!: on a day full of frights, this may very well be the scariest thing you see all day. warning: this is not for the faint of heart.
-fred solinger | steal this link!

halloween jokes sure to make you the SCREAM of the office:

"so...i guess you decided to come in costume this year."
(only works if they're not wearing a costume!)

"hey, boss, don't you think it's unprofessional to come to work wearing a MASK?!"
-fred solinger | steal this link!

Monday, October 30, 2000

MEET THE PARENTS - dir. jay roach
robert deniro doing comedy. ben stiller. cats. individually, these are not things i'm interested in; together, it's like someone scientifically engineered a film for me to hate, all it's missing is leonardo dicaprio and golf. however, meet the parents is exactly those three things and yet i found myself enjoying it greatly.

the story is fairly simple: greg (stiller) is ready to pop the question to his girlfriend, pam (teri polo), so it's time that he meets the parents. they catch a flight out to long island where the trouble begins for greg as the airline loses his luggage with all of his clothes, etc., plus the engagement ring he'd bought for pam. pretty bad, yes, but it gets much worse.

robert deniro's recent "comedic" films include turkeys like analyze this and rocky & bullwinkle, yet here, as the head of the w.a.s.p.-ish byrnes clan and retired "rare flower salesman", he's excellent. perhaps it's just that being a fearsome father isn't much of a stretch for deniro -- the only person i can think of who i'd be more intimidated to meet would be harvey keitel -- but he and director jay roach, of the austin powers films, are content to let simple expressions and carry the weight of the humor. stiller, likewise, is great in his role as greg: i actually felt bad for the guy, and i got the feeling that maybe i was the only one, based on all of the laughter at what seemed like inappropriate times: maybe it's a guy thing, akin to when someone gets hit in the crotch. ben stiller as sympathetic character: who would have imagined?

while the film is massively entertaining, it's not without its flaws. the female characters are incredibly thin and seem to only exist for the purpose of pitting deniro and stiller against each other and setting up stiller for a pratfall. i was audibly groaning when pam, for the fourth time or so, said "oh, i can't believe i didn't tell you about such-and-such. that kind of information would certainly have given you a better chance to fit in with my family!" like the austin powers films, there was a tendency to rely on the repetition of certain jokes for cheap laughs, e.g. the many, many puns on greg's last name. finally, the ending is far too tidy: after all that's happened, it's hard to believe that everything would go off without a hitch and nobody would be upset with greg.

still, meet the parents, if i gave ratings, is a solid three-star flick. there are many laughs to be had and it's paced very well. the interactions between deniro and stiller and deniro and his pet cat are very funny. it's not as good as best in show, which is the best comedy out there as far as i'm concerned, but few blockbuster comedies in recent years deserve their success, e.g. there's something about mary: meet the parents, however, deserves your money and all of the money it has raked in. imagine that.

(ed. note -- yes, i had free passes, but still. it's worth it. honest.)
-fred solinger | steal this link!

the answer: not: sadly, i am NOT hot and amihotornot.com has given me the proof. i received a 2.6 with 314 votes in and i'm now out of rotation. (guys are in for a lesser amount of time because, well, no one really looks at the guys.) i will go over to my corner now and face the wall, never to haunt mankind again.

i'd also like to take this opportunity to say i like ratemypicture.com better. why? well, for one, i got a 5.8 on that one. beyond that, the voters seem less sadistic. the people who frequent rmp seem to have a better chance of having their picture on the site, whereas hot/not appears to be a place where people go for a good laugh and to be cruel. and how cruel they can be.
-fred solinger | steal this link!