^^truth

Not true, but a lofty thought regardless

If you haven't heard "All of the Lights" by Kanye yet, I highly suggest listening to it. Someone in the comments said (I know, I shouldn't use YouTube as my barometer for judging society at large) that, while the music was great, the song wasn't saying anything of importance.

Well, I haven't reviewed any music in a long while (and, yes, the Archaic Word of the Day will come...soon), so, I may as well respond.

First off, Kanye easily (okay, probably not easily) accomplishes what I'd want to do with rap if I was any ways along the lines of competency when it comes to producing and sampling.

Essentially, you have the traditional form of beat production which is generally lo-fi samples that stress simplicity. Sure, you also have G-funk but it's generally readily evident that some form of repetition (given that it is a sample being repeated) is at work in the beat.

I would love to really go beyond that. Don't just sample, say, horns or piano but actually have it do something as well. Have it shift and sound live and elaborate while still encompassed by the cadence.

All of the lights is one example where Kanye does this. Rich horns, intermingled with piano. Yet it doesn't just stop there. At one point, the cadence drops out as you just get this fan-fair of horns. At another point, the piano gets its spotlight while a hook is sung over them. "All of the Lights" isn't the utmost best example of this type of dynamic sampling but it's a sufficient one. And it sounds gorgeous.

And the very next thing I love about this track is once again in the production. Loud and defiant, the beat alone (not including the fact it's backed by a great refrain sung by Rhianna) sounds joyous really. Add in the deliciously scattered drums that back most of the song and it really just sounds completely energetic.

And, given the refrain, nothing seems to contradict this: "Turn up the lights in here baby/Extra bright, I want y'all to see this/Turn up the lights in here, baby/You know what I need, want you to see everything, want you to see all of the lights," Rhianna starts off, sounding perfectly fine like a normal pop song. It's uproarious and sounds utterly (simplistically) hedonistic. Rhianna goes on to also mention, "Fast cars, shooting stars, all of the lights, all of the lights," sounding off traditional bravado that we've heard from rap time and time again. But, in the next line of the refrain, she rattles off, "Until they see exactly where we are." Not really menacingly or forebodingly but almost matter-of-factly. What else would you expect with the spotlight/limelight? You want to be watched because you wanted the attention to begin with. In the next lines, delivered in the same vein as the last, she tells us, "If you want, you can get it for the rest of your life," amid harmonizing vocals that continue to build up the soaring refrain. Rather than offer anything new with the last line, she just repeats the fact.

Enter a Kanye that delivers his next two couplets with such perfect building franticness to highlight the utter genius of them that I'm willing to forgive the use of the n-word and appreciate the way the childlike naïveté in his last line (almost refusing to believe it possible that people - or particular people - can die) highlights the point even better: "Something wrong/I hold my head/MJ gone/Our nigga dead!"

Ignoring the many times that Kanye has referenced/used Michael in his work in the past, it perfectly captures 1. the iconic stature of MJ as a figure and, in some cases, a symbol and what that might mean to people but 2. it also gets at how close to home that death really is. For Kanye, he would've grown up with Michael.  Death of an artist who deteriorated just like Kanye often seems to, death of his childhood, death of memories of the very first notions of black artists becoming major (lasting) pop icons during the time of MJ's rise to popularity, to list a few things I've read and thought of off the top of my head. Who's to say whether Kanye meant any of them but it's easy to understand the feeling of the very world you understood falling apart under such gigantic changes.

Understandably, that's what continues to follow. A man (narrated through Kanye) goes to jail for hitting his wife. When he comes back, he goes home to find his wife with another man. The verse ends with Kanye declaring, "I had to take him to that Ghetto University!"

And throughout all of this, Kanye sounds utterly paranoid. Which is perfect. Before Rhianna gets to sing the refrain again, Kanye blurts out in venting fashion, "Cop lights, flash lights, spotlights, strobe lights, street lights," before Rhianna joins his for a sung, "All of the lights," after which Kanye gets in again with, "Fast life, drug life, thug life, rock life, every night!"

Which, of course, only makes sense. If you're in the spotlight, everything you do is going to be shown and fully present: the good and the ugly. And it's under those lights that Kanye is so frantic, so desperately paranoid. Because, the lights ensure one other thing - you can't hide. The world is falling apart, (probably even more terrifyingly because) it's your fault, and all of this is on sight for everyone. It's no wonder that Kanye delivers his lines with a near delirium.

The second verse is about as short as the first, opening with, "Restraining order/Can't see my daughter:/Her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order," and detailing the narrator's desire to see his daughter, even going as far to stupidly say, "Told her, she take me back -/I'll be more supportive." The verse ends with the lines, echoing the end of the first verse, "She need her daddy/Baby, please/Can't let her grow up in that Ghetto University!"

The first time I heard the phrase, I thought it was stupid. Most poor phrasing from Kanye to vaguely describe thoughts that aren't fully fleshed out. But then I thought about the contrast he's making between the first verse and the second.

In the first, he delivers the lines with an almost brag, despite the obvious hastiness in his voice. There's not really a sense that he feels like he did anything wrong, at least. Sure, he hit his wife. But she's with another man; clearly he should teach them a lesson and beat the crap out of the guy. School him in the ghetto: violence. You cross/fuck with me, I beat your ass.

However, by the second verse, each line seems to be increasing the fear in his voice. By the time he hits, "Baby, please," it sounds like a terrible beg that's fighting to hold back tears. The Ghetto University line, however, sounds like downright fear. And it isn't the same as the first verse; no one is getting beaten up here. But both times something is getting schooled in the ghetto.

And, really, what is a university? It's not just a school. It's higher education, that which is supposed to prepare you for life, give you the life lessons that you keep for life and will ensure your survival in the world. Yet this is not what he wants for his daughter. What would be the result? We might imagine it'd be the exact same as the father. When he shouts for her not to grow up in the Ghetto University, he's literally pleading for his ex-wife to not continue the cycle. Beautifully, Kanye is illistrating the way in which systems like the ghetto just wind up creating a cycle that falls back on itself (father's not there, kid grows up messed up, winds up in jail, repeats the same thing for his kids).

Does this forgive the father? No; just as much as it doesn't forgive Kanye's outburst on the stage with Taylor Swift (or many of the other uniquely Kanye things Yeezy's good at). But it does make him more sympathetic.

Honestly, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an incredibly impressive album. I'm not sure if it's a perfect album yet (Kanye has an incredible knack for getting guest apprearances that completely don't realize what he was intending to do with the song. Nicki Minaj doesn't ruin "All of the Lights", though she doesn't add much either; though, in her defense, Kanye gave a lot of his guests strangely small space (Fergie's verse is, literally, like 4 lines), plus Nicki Minaj delivers one of the best verses of last year on "Monster"). Regardless, though, there are utter gems like this one on the album, plus - even if the verses aren't perfect - all of the production is absolutely perfect on every song. No lie. I'm not exagerating, 100%. If anything, it'll be wonderful ear candy for you.

I highly suggest getting it.

What is it with me being drawn to German rap these days?

Foreign rap has always interested me because I know the history of American rap rather well. And, when you truly understand its roots, it's almost impossible to separate its cultural roots from those with the black community in America.

So I have to wonder in what way foreign countries come to love the genre. Because, let's be honest, the above video screams pure hip hop - not rap, the culture of hip hop. It makes me miss 90s rap all over again. It's probably the most pure thing I've seen in a long while during this decade of anything resembling hip hop culture.

Which is interesting because how do such pure aspects of the culture get picked up by Germany? Which, while I ask that, I'm being somewhat ironic about. After all, I'm working on my own album that draws off of the history of hip hop though it doesn't represent hip hop in its most pure form, linking the stuggles of urbanization, etc. to other struggles.

But I still find it interesting. Of course, there is no answer to this question with what little I know already. Something to look for in the future.

I so wish I could steal that beat, btw. It sounds absolutely gorgeous.

 

You know, for such a keen distributer (since that's really Disney's main focus these days), Disney can't seem to find that they'd probably sell a ton more if they didn't ingrain all of their characters with inane stereotypes and actually peddled gender and race politics of a higher caliber. If I had a kid, I wouldn't let him/her/zir near the Disney channel.

 

And, on an utterly unrelated note, this music video is astoundingly awesome:

So, I've mentioned many (many) times on here, often in (sometimes snide) off-handed remarks, that I think very (very) highly of the album Reasonable Doubt by Jay-Z. The natural follow up question would be, "Why?"

If you even remotely know me, you'll know that I often and readily complain about pop music. While I think there can be decent arguments made in defense of it (and the stuff often makes fantastic character studies, as you'll see soon enough), I think most of it (if not all of it) is the industry and often artists trying to cash in on a quick buck. This is particular true for rap music. For a genre that was born out of the really screwed up black experience starting back towards the 70s, it was not a genre that should have gone commercial so soon.

While Rock 'n' Roll (amongst other genres) were able to articulate (initially) uncomfortable human experiences and taboo emotions in a relatively safe, artistically healthy, and (often) sane way, rap has taken all the gritty and uncomfortable aspects of (majoridly) black life in America - you could make an argument for just referring to it as urban life these days, though that notion steals away some importance from the origins of what birthed this monstrosity - for the past 4 decades and blasts it in defiance, realized it can capitalize off of it, and, in a mix of the mentality of getting out any way you can and honest gusto, twisted and convoluted the stereotypes that came to frame the genre and cemented them. Again, fascinating to study, not so good in terms of being an art-form.

That's why something life "Airplanes" by B.o.B. feat. Haylay Williams or even "Billionaire" by Travie McCoy feat. Bruno Mars (even though the honest reciting of the mental effect of being starved of monetary value on the latter song does honestly annoy the Hell out of me) are welcome changes to the scene of rap. After all, the genre was built off of sampling music.

To quote No Good Advice, "after all, techno was invented by escapist black kids in Detroit who were obsessed with Kraftwerk, and disco bands like Chic (as if the name wasn't enough of a clue) based their aesthetic on a Roxy Music-derived euro-penthouse cool a million miles removed from '70s funk. Disco evolved into house, and early hip-hop went from sampling Chic to assimilating European synthpop and inventing electro. Only in the late '80s did acts like Boogie Down Productions, Eric B & Rakim and Public Enemy transform hip-hop's sonic palette by dropping the more synthetic elements in favour of samples from pre-disco funk, particularly James Brown."

That rap might sample rock or use rock influences only recalls back the (rather thin and in the past) connection they have from being birthed out of the conglomerate of many jazz influenced genres, of which include funk (Jimi Hendrix, anyone?).

However, as No Good Advice also (rather well) points out both here and here, recent pandering to both rock and Euro-pop/dance influences seem to be, once again, intents to just sell as much as possible and appeal to as large an audience as possible. I've considered, quite seriously, of using the phrase Artistry is Dead for the past decade. Leastwise, it seems, when it comes to commercial rap.

There's a reason some rap-heads get caught in a certain time frame. In the 90s, they were complaining that rap had died and it should go back to the 70s/early 80s. The entire past decade, we've wondered what happened to Hip Hop's golden age and why we can't go back to the 90s.

And, admittedly, rap for me still is turn-tablism/sampling and lyricism (flow, wordplay, and rhyme) - gritty production and sparse sampling. But the sampling has changed; that's fine, even to be expected. I don't want to mire the genre. Better production or sampling outside of jazz/funk is not going to make me say that it isn't Hip Hop or bad rap. But, while the production towards the end of this decade has shot utterly up in quality (it had to - that's how they sell), I have yet to get any decent lyricism. Leastwise, not to an astounding extent. And, I mean, the production has been good. Kanye almost never ceases to amaze on that end and, while I dislike the song, the production on "What You Say" by Jason Derulo is enough to make my legs go weak.

But, I'm a Hip Hop purist. I want lyrics. I grew up off of underground Detroit rap. I grew up listening to freestyles done in random radio studios in low-lo-def quality. I've listened, readily, to tracks with so much noise that you can barely make out the mc.

At the end of the day, I breath lyricism. Often times, a track (that has a heavy beat/percussion) without sufficient rap over it won't cut it for me. I almost wanted to personally thank Kanye at the beginning of "Good Morning" because he had finally used multi-syllabic rhyme out of all the songs I had listened to of him at the time (it was like, "Please, do something relatively lyrical!!").

As you might guess, I love the Hip Hop culture (and how rap fits into that). But I'm not above calling out its flaws. That's part of the reason I do find myself often looking for alternative rap. I just want good rap, even if that rap has ventured into new places so that only the roots are still present (much like jazz and funk did with the blues, only less so).

So, while I love 90s rap...I can't just straight up say that it's satisfying.

"Juicy" by the Notorious B. I. G. is a great song...but ultimately it's the basic rags to riches story. Admittedly, I love (rather guiltily) "Got a Story to Tell" and it's a fantastic demonstration of a minimalist beat and the power of story telling and delivery in rap. But it also furthers the black-on-black harm so prevalent (and socially ingrained) in the black community and the way that it continually diverts attention away from the real problems that could be dealt with.

"N. Y. State of Mind" offers one of the best phrases out of rap (I still have a hard time thinking it's not some common saying made up a longer time ago) - I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death. Plus "Never put me in your box if your shit eats taps" remains one of my favorite (and best delivered) punchlines ever. Not to mention the production is defining, iconic, and to die for. But beyond that...damn it, I just can't get into this song. The description of the shoot out always seemed corny to me and the album as a whole doesn't seem to tell me anything or give me any useful character insight. It's a vague description of a poorly defined immature youth that doesn't give me any sympathy for him. Maybe they were right in that you couldn't understand it unless you lived it - but I still don't see how that's not a flaw in the album.

Sure, "Dear Mama" by 2Pac is a touching song. But this is also the same guy who proclaimed so loudly "M.O.B. - Money Over Bitches 'cause they breath envy" along with many other equally questionable lyrics.

And, yes, The Chronic articulated the culture at a time when no one was listening - it's lyrics are still utterly ugly.

Now, I'm being cursory. I've never believed in so black and white of arguments. But, for being cursory, this is accurate (of the stuff I've mentioned). Hip Hop had an amazing ability to bring out important aspects - without ever resolutely dealing with them. My brother recently showed me rapgenius.com. And it actually has had me gain slight more respect for artists such as Lil' Wayne. But I still stand by my previous statement.

 

So...why Reasonable Doubt? It's the only album that provides lyricism and a greater sense of subject mater that resolutely deals with itself rather than seeming to be a spewing of streaming consciousness laid out on a track.

Not to say that hasn't been done before. "Somebody's Gotta Die" by Biggie is a perfect song, as far as I'm concerned. While not necessarily preachy or with a sense of preaching, it details the situation with realism (and beautiful story telling) while keeping the cold facts of reality in the picture (i.e. yes, violence opens up many possibilities and opportunities - but you're not the only one living in this world and others will be affected); this was what seemed to have fallen out of the picture on "Niggas Bleed".

Which isn't to say Reasonable Doubt is a perfect album either. Admittedly, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how Jay ever though "Cashmere Thoughts" ever fit on an album about hustling. Yet, outside of two songs, Reasonable Doubt presents an album that acutely focuses around a topic and, through the tracks, examines and assesses this topic through what seems like a very solid and singular character. It's a fascinating personality study that has so many aspects that seem so utterly intended  so aware that I have a hard time thinking that much of this album could have been done on accident. And, really, this is mostly clearly illustrated on "Feelin' It".

 

"Feelin' It" is the track I give to people who I want to hook into the album (or just rap in general). Backed by the smoothest piano loop possibly ever, it sounds just gorgeous and catchy, complimented by a hook by Mecca that just tops it off. It's a clear demonstration of sampling back in the 90s and the essential origin of rap, yet it doesn't have the still blatant evident sound that it is only one piano snippet looped over and over (unlike "D'evils", which sounds like it was picked freshly off a record, with the scratching and all). In fact, for the longest time, I even thought it had accompaniment melodies until I really listened to it. Yet it's not as seamless and complex as "Can I Live". Beautiful Hip Hop still evident, from a purely physical level.

And, with such an instrumental, it sounds like it should be nothing but bragging. Rather foolishly, on my review of Reasonable Doubt, I said that's all it was. It feels good, doing it's basic task really well. Not much wordplay, but the flow is righton (and incredibly hard to imitate). Plus his delivery, the enthusiasms in his voice, are all perfect. Not to mention it's some of the most intricate rhyme-wise that Jay ever gets. It does the job.

How deceptive.

Surely, it is bragging. It starts in the first bar, notably, "Crystals on ice; I like to toast, I keep on spilling it." The decadence is clear, as he actually brags about how tipsy he is. The most offensive line of the song comes with, "Transactions illegitimate 'cause life is still a bitch/And then you die - but for now, life, close your eyes and feel this dick..." Yet, his character is so firmly planted there. The delivery is perfect - he almost pulls it off so that it sounds like a classy and cool comeback.

Admittedly, it's the addition of the alliterative, almost fast-paced rhyme that makes it so damn catchy. Just listen to this:

 

Since diapers, had nothing to live for like them lifers but
Making sure every nigga stay rich within my cipher
We paid the price to circle us, success - they turned my mic up
I'm about to hit these niggas with some shit that'll light they life up
If every nigga in your clique is rich, your clique is rugged
Nobody will fall cause everyone will be each others crutches

 

On its own, it's not all too impressive. Admittedly, there's something to like about a confidence so large that you think you can enlighten another's life ("I'm about to hit these niggas with some shit that'll light they life up"). And the crutches line is barely ingenious, maybe a clever spur-of-the-moment quip. But backed with his delivery and the seductive rhyme, you can't help but enjoy it (I mean, listen to that rhyme! "that'll light they life up" Oh, that's so delicious...). Again, he has the gall to claim the ability to provide enlightenment ("I hope you fools choose to listen; I drop jewels, bust it/These are the rules I follow in my life: you gotta love it"). And then you can't help but smile at the last bar:

 

Jiggy-jigga looking gully in the joint
If y'all niggas ain't talking bout large money, what's the point?

 

Even if it's just rhyming shit several times, the vocab and choice of words here is immaculate for every section of the verse. The use of gully and then the confident quip of confidence at the end continue to be addicting. Admittedly, this is well done bravado, artistically well done (even if not escaping the offenses that bravado can bring). It's not the blunt, often uninventive stuff you often hear now. There's definite talent being employed here.

The second verse continues the absurd over-confidence with "Even if it ain't sunny - hey, I ain't complainin'/I'm in the rain, doing a buck 40, hydroplanin'" (I said to my brother once, and I repeat now, "hydroplaning"? Who rhymes that??).

And almost as another blatant show of confidence, he pulls off using "shit" several times in a row on the ending, stressed rhyme:

 

Ya feelin' it? To all the girls that bought a girdle to conceal my bricks
No doubt, they can vouch, my life is real as shit
95 South and Papi on the Hill and shit
And all the towns like Cambridge that I killed with shit
And all the thorough-ass niggas that I hustle with
Throw your joints in the air one time and bust your shit
These fake rappers can't really know I'm lovin' it; ya feelin' it?

 

Yet notice that last line. They can't know that he's really loving it? Since when, once, in this song did he lead us to think otherwise? In fact, he's made it seem like the totally best thing in the world! From being able to drink Crystal until you can't stand up straight, to being as real as it gets with all the illegal activity - I thought he was living the life, right??

Enter the third verse. Interestingly enough, of all things, he bring up his mother: "I keep it tight for all the nights my momma prayed I'd stop/Said she had dreams that snipers hit me with a fatal shot". Yet he brushes it off immediately with, "Those nightmares, ma..." And yet, he immediately contradicts his claims that there's no reason to worry with, "Those dreams that you say you've got - give me the chills/But these mils, well, they make me hot. Y'all feel me". But I don't think we do at this point. That statement of "Y'all feel me" sounds more like a weak attempt at reassurance.

And notice that. For a character who was confidently telling us what to believe, what we should do in terms of him, he's now asking us for reassurance. It's not a demand anymore - it's seeking confirmation. His statement are no longer (really) rhetorical, though he might be trying to pass them off as such.

And then the interesting line - "Enough to stop the illin', right?" I personally think he's referencing a desire to turn to drugs. Yet the connotation is clearly negative here. Illin' is now being used as a negative phrase, a desire for drugs, acknowledging that they hurt your body. And yet the irony is delightfully there - usually illin' is used as a slang for "killin' it" or something of that nature. Or you're "ill" if you have tons of money. But this line is immediately followed by "But at the same time these dimes keep me feelin' tight". Sounds a little confusing, right? He agrees. This is immediately followed by this almost diminished, "I'm so confused..."

Wait, hold up? What happened to our ridiculously pompous and confident individual? The confidence is completely gone. The character is confused, backtracking over what he's said and retracting statement. If you want anymore evidence, look at the next bar: "Okay, I'm getting weeded now: I know I'm contradicting myself/Look, I don't need that now". He seems paranoid (which might make sense, seeing as that line is followed by: "It's just once in a blue moon when there's nothing to do...and/The tension gets too thick for my sober mind to cut through").

When I first noticed this, it seemed far too important a distinction to let go. I mean, think about it. We're used to rap by now. We're used to the notion of bragging and saying you're the best. We're used to singles (this was a single when the album came out) being used to generate buzz and fitting a certain format. In fact, clearly Jay did, seeing as the clean (e.g. censored) version of the song actually has a completely different ending. Without spoiling too much in the next paragraph, let's just say that the fantasy he dreams about is presented as real in the clean version. And that's significant! Even he knows that won't sell. You have to be determined to put this in here and you have to be aware that you are completely undermining the very instrumental and hook that you're using.Are you feelin' it...I'm actually calling into question entirely what I've just bragged about. Umm, what? Most radio listeners don't like introspective (leastwise, not too much) characters. They want it nice and easy, black and white.

But it gets better. After puffing some weed, Jay gets

 

...to zonin': me and this chick on the L and then we're bonin'
I free my mind; sometimes I hear myself moanin'
Take one more toke and I leave that weed alone, man
It's got me goin'! Shit...

 

Whoa. Did he just admit to masturbating to himself while high? Mr. "hit these niggas with some shit that'll light they life up"? I don't think that's what they had in mind, Jay.

And that's the beauty of the track. It builds up this overly confident, borderline unlikable character - just to utterly rip him down. That's the life? Masturbating in your room alone, dreaming about a girl because of the stress? I particularly love (and, of course, his delivery of) the line, "I free my mind; sometimes I hear myself moanin'". It perfectly catches that emotion notion - that idea of accessing his own emotions. He frees his mind and sometimes he can hear himself moaning. It's an eerie image. But it notes that he's hiding from his own activity. And yet, that activity is the only recognition of his own feelings (when he's, otherwise, pretending life is just peachy for everyone else). He's hiding from it but at the same time he sounds like he's looking for it, trying to find it. It's ambivilent.

And it's such miniscule details like that that make this track so delightful. And, in its own way, it captures it all. If you wanted a track which got at the reality of black life (in this case, hustling drugs), this is the type of track that does it well. That "feel this dick" line doesn't sound so harsh to our sensibilites because we know it's a cover up, a show. We're allowed the bravado while really getting to the inside of the character and understanding him, given the reality with the fiction.

 

Complex, artistic, perfectly executed and well done, plus musically sound - THAT is what rap should be. Screw that commercial junk.

My mother in a nutshell: "Tell your mother not to speed because this is Waukegan so there's a ton of cops out looking for Mexicans selling drugs."

 

 

Okay, maybe not a nutshell, but it gives you a good idea of who she is.

My brother once said that things got better around at home when I left for college; there was less arguing. Which wouldn't surprise me. I'm driven by logic. My mother rarely uses logic. There was tension; there was clashing.

So, as we were sitting at this party today, I found myself once again trying to push how far they were willing to actually think.

I honestly don't remember how it started. But it wound up in me mentioning my major peeve: that the government actually treats suicide as a criminal offense. As I believe I said, "It's preposterous that I do not have control over the most – the most – personal thing in my possession; no one should have the right to say whether or not I wish to terminate my own life." My parents, of course, chose to differ.

Of course, they both pointed out that a person who commits suicide isn't thinking about those around them, that they know, who will miss them (not always the case, but I got what they were getting at).

Of course, that's not quite how they put it. I think it was, "It's a completely selfish act."

So, I retorted instead of bothering to say it in a way that may logically convince them, "If those that know him or her can't bother to take a moment to consider what would drive him or her to take his or her own life, then it's them who are the selfish ones for putting their own feelings ahead of the suffering of him or her." Of course, I think this is a logical enough argument, but it doesn't suit in an emotional discussion.

To which the other often-made argument was made – there's always another answer. You know, Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

They told me the same thing in Health class Sophomore year of high school. For my response paper I wrote that such a mentality was insulting in its simplicity and solved nothing. Never a permanent problem? Talk about arrogance.

In any case, their argument was that life is too precious. It's too great to just give up and that "those people" are clearly not in the right state of mind and just need to be held over until they get it. So often I want to actually believe that.

 

 

So, I was kinda stuck. Haven gotten out my retort, how do I honestly make them understand this situation? See, I know I'm kind of being an asshole as I write this right now. Sarcastic and dismissive, I'll be surprised if you've tolerated my writing thus far.

But I don't often claim to be right in things. I'll usually claim I might know better, but I almost always admit I could be wrong. My ideas now aren't what they were 2 years ago. I change, I get proven wrong. I value humility and try to live up to such an ideal.

But when I think I'm right? I don't bother with being nice about it. Because my entire life is motivated by the treatment of others. And if you disrespect that – well, I don't respect you. And, of course, I tend to write about when I'm certain I'm right on xanga more than those moments where I think I'm wrong.

See, I've been through too many suicide talks to particularly want to hear someone else lecture me on the subject. I've talked close friends up and down the depression situation and, well, there's something kind of sobering about being told that they've decided to swallow the pills anyway, despite everything you've tried saying for the past two hours. And there's something about not being able to do anything about it.

But what's even more sobering is trying to come up with words to even mount an argument when she's just looking at the bruises up and down her arms.

Or that dead feeling inside that just eats at you. See – it almost feels ridiculous saying it – I've got it lucky. Suicidal periodically throughout the year, anxiety that I can barely publicly control some days becoming more and more frequent, an inability to ever get enough sleep, and a diet that's been so badly thrown off that I don't want to eat half the time and the other half finds me hungry at the most inappropriate of times, and I've got it lucky.

Because I am operational almost all the time. I still know what it's like to be happy a majority of the day and I actually haven't attempted suicide in 4 years or so, plus I've never actually done any serious attempt to boot.

 

 

But I honestly don't think all of that really gets at how it feels to realize that you aren't really sure how to mount an argument for living for some people.

So I found myself going back to something I had heard at a talk at college last year or so. The exact facts might be off but the general idea is what to take away.

In 1950, upper class whites felt that there was equality amongst the races and that anyone could successfully move up or down economically if they wanted to.

In 1950.

Now, these probably weren't all KKK members. They were probably the average Joe or Jane, who didn't see the problems others were facing in their communities (even if those people, blacks, weren't in their communities to begin with) and, so, assumed, those problems must not exist. Same way people view equality today. It's the way privilege works.

And it's how this works.

Of course life is precious to you. And, for you Mom, there probably is another answer.

But I can honestly say that I don't fear death these days anymore. I'm not bothered if I died tonight. Slightly saddened, maybe, but not bothered. It's, really, just another path to take.

Because, while I'm not counting on committing suicide any day soon and would choose to live than otherwise, I'm not fully convinced that living is the smarter, more sane, or less painful choice.

At the end of the day, my reasoning is that if the end will be waiting for me no matter what and it'll be the same no matter what, why not make the most of this? It's waiting for me. I'll get there. I've only got this life for so long.

And that's good reasoning. But that doesn't make living better. It hinges on me not knowing which will be better in the end.

And so I don't fear death.

And, yes, it'll be terrible that my friends and family should have to suffer my going. For those who've seen far too many suicides than I'd like them to (not to mention those I've talked out of suicide numerous times...), it'd be awful.

And maybe it helps that I think we're going to the same place in the end, so I'm not really bothered (though I am saddened) if either of us go early.

Maybe it's my pesky emotional distance (whether I want it or not) cropping up again, though I doubt it.

 

Or maybe it's the simple fact that happiness...it's so brief for me. It's great and all. And, as people say, isn't worth it? But I find myself, as the days go on, taking after those who live in the moment. Enjoy it. Find it precious. Look forward to it.

But it's just a moment.

See, happiness is fleeting for me. It doesn't last. It can't. My "normal" is set on depressed. Happy moments are like shooting stars. Was it great? You betcha. Would you take it back? No way. Can you survive off of the thrill of seeing shooting stars?

No.

 

Do I think life should be given a shot?

YES.

I think it should be given every shot. Follow my logic I gave you above. I'd rather go through life and say at the end, "That SUCKED – but I made the most of it, no regrets."

But it is selfish and arrogant to assume that it's so easy for everyone as "It's just a temporary problem."

No.

I've seen pain I never want to look upon again – not from myself but other people suffering through it. And I wish, I so wish, I could just swoop in with the answers. But I don't have the answers.

So don't tell me that living is the better choice. Only that person knows that. And, regardless of who's right or personal opinions, they should always get to make that choice themselves.

To quote the Suicide FAQ, "The most basic difference in opinion between me and those who have mailed me telling me I'm a monster, seems to be that they think that death is an inherently Bad Thing, while I don't."

But that's neither here nor there. This isn't really about my own opinion or stance. Point is, it's their life and their own suffering.

You don't get to make that choice.

Okay, the census doesn't have an option for multiracial....?**

We're in 2010, right?

If I was a real A-hole I'd just write in the margins, "Race is a social construct," but I know better than to preach to federal officials.

 

 

**someone so graciously pointed out to me that I clearly didn't read the directions fully. I'm supposed to mark mulltiple races, not just one.

I watched District 9 a couple of days ago. While I had very high expectations for it...I was disappointed. I was actually surprised how much so. I was going to write in detail about it, but I'm tired and have already done so on Facebook. Therefore (while I still do love you all), I'm simply going to quote what I wrote on Facebook:

First, I agree entirely with you, A-----, that the special effects and acting were phenominal. And I loved the documentary style and how they did it, maybe because it was just so different from normal movies.

Second, my complaint actually wasn't that it wasn't happy. I like the depressing, the warped, etc. The aliens got away, anyway - to me, that's a happy ending (at least partially).

R------ - the basic plot of the movie is that a alien mother ship stops over a part of South Africa and is unable to move further on. Eventually, the government drills into the ship to find millions of starving aliens aboard.

The government builds a bunch of low income housing and the place easily turns into a ghetto. Poverty, crime, et cætera. People stereotype the aliens, assume they want to kill humans for the fun of it, ban them from different establishments (there are signs reading Humans Only), et cætera.

The idea is that it's supposed to be an allegory for apartheid South Africa (or, at the very least, racism or marginalized group descrimination).

Here's my complaint. While, yes, it opperates quite well like a regular action flick (actually, too much so; without the advanced concepts, it's strickingly like a formulaic action movie) and has the basic concept of this allegory of suffering and prejudice, let's shed the allegory for a bit and actually look at the aliens as a suspect class and marginalized group.

While some parts are *perfect* (like the woman commenting about how the aliens will take over a buisness and kill everyone while, in the background, an alien is digging through the garbage for food), there's the aspect that nearly ALL the whites in the movie are in position of power, all the blacks (except a select few) are in positions of poverty, gangs, etc.

Well, this is just accuracy of current South Africa (caused by apartheid) - fine. But that means different levels of damage against marginalized groups (the descrimination and isolation of the aliens) and the results of the above on sociol-economic issues for blacks. This isn't addressed. Rather, all humans are treated in a color-blind fashion (despite the obvious racial division throughout the movie) and the aliens are thought of sadly only because of the actions taken against them by the humans. The movie could have probed these different levels and effects of descrimination through these different levels - but it doesn't.

My second complaint was the blatant descrimination toward the alien within the movie itself.

First off, Wikus is pretty much an abhorrent character at the beginning. On top of clearly being xenophobic, he happily massacres tons of babies, and he's a spineless twat.

Of course, that's just the beginning. And I like the concept of giving us a character like that to see his development. I actually really like that concept.

Here's the problem though - he doesn't really adequately change. The worst part is when he decides to steal Christopher's ship and doesn't bother to even flinch when he hears the poor guy being beaten above him as his son looks up, asking "Father?". In fact, as the boy then looks toward Wikus in fear, Wikus just lies to the kid and says it'll be alright. I mean, how do you do that and live with yourself?

And THEN, after crashing the only means that Christopher has to get home, he has the audacity to try to fun away when he's in a full metal body suit and could have easily saved Christopher when he's, once again, getting the living shit beat out of him.

And then there's the fantastic aspect that Wikus continues, way until the end of the movie, to refer to Christopher as a Prawn, a term already clearly defined and well known to be derogitory towards the group. If we are to use the allegory of an apartheid South Africa, the aliens can be thought of as blacks. It's essentially like calling them niggers the whole movie through.

The issue with this slow and rediculous character development for Wikus is...he's the main character and he's gets so much focus it's rediculous. I mean, it's one thing to have the plot like this but then we focused on Christopher. But, no, it's pretty clear our sympathies are meant to go towards Wikus.

Christopher is the one who's been isolated in South Africa, has his people shot with no issue, has them starved and cheated in this ghetto - and we're focusing on Wikus.

I mean, there wasn't even much sympathy given towards Christopher. In the scene that *should* have been really powerful (when he finds the room where they're expirimenting on his people) - the damn camera stays on Wikus most of the time! I mean, is it human-centrism? I don't get it. Regardless, for a movie trying to point out the cruelties of one to another, it's a pretty bad slap to the face to focus on the human so singularly when the cruelties are happen ten-fold to the other species.

Basically, District 9 had amazing potential. They could have really probed the different levels of descrimination in a really creative way, as I mentioned above. Rather, they just ignored it.

Then they could have *at least* given attention to the plight of the aliens. There are racist movies from the 90s with a black and white main characters thatare more sympathetic and better at highlighting the marginalized character as a multi-dimentional character than District 9 was.

Sorry; I was really disappointed.

 

I think I'm going to do an album review of Darkness On the Edge of Town. Music makes me happy and an album review would require me to submerge myself in the album for a while in order to do a proper review. Plus I actually want to go through old Bruce stuff that I've listened to for ages but never given a critical eye to. It also lets me probe and explore this music I love in more depth.

In other news, I have to write a 10 page paper for my Atheism class by Thurs. While it's a topic I actually will enjoy (arguing that religion is not the cause for evil but often the tool used by others to cause evil)...I don't want to write a 10 page paper (that's longer than anything I had to write for last semester, with my 4 English courses. Then again, had I not been given caps on pages, I could have easily hit 10). Plus it means doing research for it.

Alright, it probably won't be that difficult, but I feel lethargic. Heh, and second semester is coming up. Joys and yays.

taken from: http://reasonradionetwork.com/?p=497

Letter to the White Race

White Man!

We regret to inform you that your kind has been slated for termination. We, the various Third World majorities of Africa, Asia, India, South America, and the Middle East assert that your long history of success at building civilizations, developing new technologies, creating stable governments, fostering good will, feeding much of the world, and increasing peace and prosperity even amongst the riotous hordes of our own homelands, has made us envious and resentful of you. We, who make up 92% of the global population, feel that we can no longer accept the great disparity between your success and our abject failure. The solution to this inequality should be obvious to all concerned.

We are planning to invade your ancestral homelands, little by little, and to facilitate this, we have the full cooperation of your controlled media and government, academia, and law enforcement organizations. While we, personally, do not control any of these entities ourselves, we are profiting endlessly from the crypto-Marxist system put in place many decades ago by an ethnic “fifth column” which operates with complete impunity at all levels of your political, academic, and media culture. Their interference in the natural development of your constitutional republics has been indispensable to our efforts to wrest from you the control of everything that you’ve struggled to build and maintain over the last century. Indeed, were it not for them, none of our present plans would have even been possible.

By carefully controlling and managing the schools, universities, media, and press, this “out group” has managed to convince the great bulk of your racial kinsmen that not only is resistance futile, but that it is immoral, barbaric, depraved, and unworthy of a “thinking” individual. By promoting the stereotype of a “racist redneck resistance”, they have made the idea of a struggle for White Identity a veritable sin in the minds of nearly every White person. In short: they have convinced European-derived peoples that a prolonged suicide is preferable to the unmitigated evil of “racism”.

While doing this, they have pushed, inch by inch, to open the borders of ALL White nations to our own sullen masses, throwing open the gates to invasion while assuring the public that “race doesn’t matter”. Since race, in fact, DOES matter (and no one knows it better than We), they have likewise put into place a totalitarian system of “hate speech” and “hate crime” laws, to further alienate and penalize those few Whites who might harbor some simmering resentments at the increasing decay of their society and culture. All of this is in keeping with the far-reaching plans of this particular ethnic “out group”, and has been sometimes referred to as the “Long March”.

The Out Group, who maintains a sense of racial cohesiveness hitherto unknown among even the most tightly-knit of all dispersed human peoples, maintains a grip on the press and electronic media that is nearly monopolistic in its all-encompassing reach. Since they are so thoroughly in control of these organs for the dissemination of propaganda, they are in the best position to spread hostility against the White peoples of Europe and America, inciting the minority against the majority in these lands: Black against White, Latino against White, Asian against White, Arab against White, Indian against White, and so on, and so forth.

This is facilitated by decades of brainwashing, beginning in early school years, portraying Whites not as the builders of a great civilization, or the admirable leaders of the Free World, but in a lopsided, entirely slanted way as oppressors, enslavers, genocidal “Nazis”, southern Klansmen, imperialistic Colonials, and toothless hillbillies just itching for a chance to lynch the first colored individual that comes along. This brainwashing not only inflames the minorities in these now racially-mixed “schools”, but also inculcates a sense of “White guilt” that the Out Group finds particularly useful in maintaining control.

Hence, you Whites have become a neutered, egoless herd of cattle, easily manipulated and posing no threat to the Out Group, who live in perpetual terror of your ever waking up to their plans. The Out Group has a long-running resentment and fear of White civilization, and thus have worked within that civilization to undermine its cohesion and sense of purpose. The promotion of homosexuality, pornography, drugs, divorce, illicit sex, moral relativism, atheism, communism, gun control, “anti-racism”, and “civil rights”, has been the greatest boon to this subversive faction, who are but a tiny minority among you, but who wield awesome, incomparable power.

Thus, in light of the fact that you are socially, morally, mentally, intellectually, and even legally castrated, We, the teeming masses of the Third World who thirst for what you have and what we can never obtain, are going to finally swamp your once noble and advanced societies, your pristine cities and unsullied neighborhoods, and rape your countries for everything they are worth.

We are going to move in, right under your noses, and set our churches, mosques, synagogues, and strange gods up in place of your own. We will ensure that OUR celebrations and festivities and holidays are observed, while YOURS are erased from the pages of history.

We will drain the public coffers of welfare, food stamps, and all forms of social aid available. We will swamp your children’s schools, change the language in which lessons are taught, form street gangs to terrorize and torment your family, steal, vandalize, harass, threaten, and cajole you until we get what WE want.

That it will be entirely at your expense is irrelevant to us.

We will beat and murder your sons; we will rape your wives and daughters.

We kill twelve Americans every day; your government could care less.

We have shut down hospitals with our teeming numbers. We have flooded the streets, demanding “special rights” for those millions of us that are here illegally.

We nearly had your major politicians ready to grant all of us an “amnesty” in the name of “diversity” and “equal rights”. We are filling up the ranks for unskilled labor. We are raping pre-teens. We are doing the jobs Americans won’t do.

As your global economy crumbles, and it gets harder and harder to feed your families, as your birthrate plummets and you face the eventual dispossession of the country your forefathers founded for YOU and YOUR posterity, just remember: there is nothing you can do to stop us. The Out Group has made sure that the law is on OUR side, not yours. No matter how piffling your criticism of us is, the Out Group will use their media to label you with shocking epithets and broad smears: racist, hater, bigot, neo-Nazi, nativist, White supremacist, domestic terrorist, etc.

If we want to, we can assault and kill you with near impunity. The media will not report it, and if they do, they will place the blame for the assault squarely on YOUR shoulders, not ours. In Jena, Louisiana, a White boy was beaten mercilessly by six black criminals. The media made the criminals into the victims.

We watch these developments carefully, and we like what we see. Soon, you will be a minority even in your own homelands (you are already a minority worldwide), and we will continue to squeeze and squeeze until there is nothing left of you. We will crush your countries, your cultures, and eventually, we will snuffle out your lives.

Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, and all other bourgeois manifestations of your high culture will be vanquished forever. All of your legends and heroes will be spat upon, purged, and finally forgotten. Your cultural folkways will be transgressions; your identity will become a crime.

We come for your JOBS, your MONEY, your WOMEN, and eventually your LIVES. It will not be much longer now.

In closing, We, the huddled masses of the Third World yearning to “breathe free”, would like to thank the Out Group, the media monopolists and political plunderers who made all of this possible. We wish them well, and we know they wish us well, just as long as we don’t trespass upon their own homeland, which they stole fair and square several decades ago.

Adios, White man! You had a good, long run, but your day is over, and ours is just beginning. Your empire is at an end, and your race is no longer wanted here. We’ll have our fun with you while you still hang on by a thread, but soon, the thread will be cut, and the abyss yawns beneath you and the civilization your kind spawned.

Besides, many of you are even anticipating this with something akin to sick glee. After all, that’s how the TV set told them to feel. The brainwashing is almost complete, and the sheep are in line to shear.

Have a nice day!

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

If you can tell me what's wrong with this letter (extra points if you go point by point), you'll be my hero of the day. This allows for multiple heros of the day for the first time; get excited.

 

Oh! The best part? They're not joking.

*edit* I hadn't read it all beforehand. It's so bad, you don't have to break it down point by point. Just read it for a good laugh.