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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
This is a song I recorded last summer. I am still working on more songs and so I haven’t put it on the internet yet. But I kind of just felt like sharing it right now. What do you think?
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hannah kessel: Dear Common,When you leaned over the front row and asked for a girl’s... →
Dear Common,
When you leaned over the front row and asked for a girl’s name, I was not surprised. This happens all the time, right? The girl said her name, and you began to freestyle for her.
How do I put this? You began with a joke about how you wanted to get to know her better. Connotations…
So glad I slept through it. Shame on you, Common.
Okay, wait. Are you serious? Are you serious? Because I am finding it hard to believe that you are mad about this.
Yeah, hey, this happens all the time. And this might be a problem at like a normal concert, where the girl could be any age, but this is at college. Where basically everyone is over 18. I am not seeing the sodding problem.Was the joke especially raunchy? Was there some sort of vastly inappropriate thing that he said? What was the actual joke? Because if it was only about “getting to know her better”, oh noooooo, a rapper made an innuendo, it’s the end of the woooorld.
There is a video out there somewhere at one of Drake’s concerts, where some guy is carrying his girlfriend on his shoulders and Drake stops in-between songs and goes “Is that your girl? Man, if that’s your girl you’d better not be holding her up like that, I’d fuck the shit out of that girl.”
This? Is nothing. Again, I’d understand if there was some sort of age-inappropriate thing — I’d probably still think it was a little silly that people were upset about a rapper making an innuendo (seriously?), but still — but there more than likely wasn’t, and if there was, he was assuming otherwise because it’s college. There is nothing wrong with a legal adult hitting on another legal adult.
Plus, if she was in the front row and didn’t like him, why would she even be there? If you’re not a huge fan of the performer, you can, in fact, choose to be farther away from the stage.
Edit: Okay, I didn’t go. And if he freestyled a lot, using a lot of cheap innuendos, then that basically just means that he’s not all that great at what he does. But if a lot of what he did were established raps, then everyone that went should have been fully prepared for this experience when they went. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, because his music is out there for anyone to listen to. If he played the dirty old man the entire time, then I guess that would squick some people out. I mean, not everyone wears the right fangirl brains.
Your response tells me that you’ve completely missed the point. Telling a girl that she’s going to go have sex with you, even if it’s not serious, is sexual harassment. “This is college” does not justify sexual harassment. The fact that you think it does only serves to further the main point of this post: that we have developed a collective mindset that finds the sexualization and objectification of teenaged girls appropriate.
It is not.Innuendo are okay (although still kind of an idiotic idea— just fucking perform songs that don’t offend people, it’s not hard). Innuendo that connote a powerless and voiceless woman are not okay. Common was obviously not serious about having sex with those girls, but what does that matter? He suggested sex, and then spoke on behalf of the girls to say “yes.” Joking or not, it’s absolutely inappropriate to remove her voice from the conversation because that validates the culture of sexual abuse and harassment at which we’ve arrived.
I do not care whether that girl likes Common. I do not care whether anyone knew what to expect. I do not care if Common is not good at rapping (which, incidentally, he is, you just couldn’t tell from that shitstorm). I care that a 40 year old man said to an 18 year old girl “We’re going to fuck after the show … I’ll take you to places you’ve never been,” and that you don’t find that inappropriate. That bothers me a lot. -
Other Blog
To my millions of adoring fans:
I have started a second tumblr for more personal kind of stuff. Well, not “personal” stuff. Just… whatever. I’ll be posting whatever there. I want this blog to be just for things I make, and the other one will be for whatever. Check it out if you feel like it. It’s… whatever.
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I went to a great concert with Scars on 45 Monday night, and I got to take photos. Click the image to go to my review (on my music blog), and from there you can find the whole gallery of photos I took. This band is amazing!
If you really just want the photos, they are here.
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This is really important. And it’s really easy to help. Watch the video.
It should be noted that the group responsible for this, Invisible Children, has many imperfections, and has not done a particularly good job of explaining the issues in-depth or working toward feasible solutions. But the information in this film is useful and good, and you should still watch it. The goal is still the same. -
WELCOME, LONE NEW FOLLOWER!
lawnmowers of my mind, you are the first in a long, long time. since this blog was a fauja singh appreciation blog i have not gained a single new follower until you. welcome to my shitty blog. <3<3<3<3
ps. WHO ARE YOU
I know who it is! Also, I followed you like a month ago and your blog was definitely not a Fauja Singh blog then. What gives?
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I, Anonymous
Dear Musical Genius in Shower Number Three,
What an invigorating morning in our dormitory’s shared bathroom facility! Here I am, standing in the shower, mentally recounting the unusual dream from which I have recently awoken, when I hear a sound not unlike the ignition of a piece of 1920s farm equipment mere meters away. I am, understandably, terrified. But my terror is misplaced, as this sound is only the artistic introduction to one of your favorite songs, the redundant bass line and indecipherable lyrics of which now commence. You will forgive me for being so startled when you pressed “Play” on the stereo system which you carried into the shower with you, I simply was not prepared to hear its emissions.
The song you have selected is not the same song that I would have selected, were I in control of the stereo system, but musical taste is, of course, subjective. You are quite obviously aware of this, playing your music loudly and without fear of retribution. I applaud you for courageously sharing your preferences with the world. I must give my thanks and applause once more for informing me that volume is subjective as well. After living for so long under the impression that loudness was absolute, and that a certain volume would suffice for everyone, I was finally liberated by your deafening display. I do not wish to know where I would have ended up without the knowledge you imparted to me.
Ah, see? Now I am entirely over my distress, and am in fact settling into the groove of the song. This was actually quite easy for me to do because the song’s melody and structure have remained unchanged and ambiguous from the start. It’s a very interesting production method that lulls me into the song, almost boring me. Quite avant-garde, and fully respectable. I can see that you have an artistic mind.
But oho! What is this? You can rap as well? My, you are more skilled than I would ever have given you credit for! Just as I thought I had the whole situation figured out, you prove me wrong once again. And yes, now I can hear the indecipherable lyrics even better. It must be difficult to rap those lyrics so indecipherably and over a tune so ambiguous. You are clearly something of a musical prodigy. If you were to release an album of your own, I feel certain that it would be Grammy Award material.
Ah, well, the water is getting cold. As enjoyable as our time together has been, I feel that it would be most appropriate for me to leave now. Thank you for the informative and pleasurable interaction. I hope to repeat it many times in the future.
Sincerely,
The Musically Illiterate Occupant of Shower Number One
(Note: if the person responsible reads this, I didn’t actually care that much. I mostly thought it would be fun to write this thing. And it was.)
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I think this will turn into a song at some point, but I like it as just words too, so I decided to share it.
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Haiku: Politics
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Movies: An Exercise In Pretentiousness: The Best Films of 2011 →
Here’s what my friend Nick (who is in Film Studies at Chapman University) thought of 2011 in movies. Check it out. Good list.
At the end of each year, most film critics despair about the state of movies. I rarely think this way, especially in a year like 2011. There are five movies on this list that I feel comfortable calling masterpieces. And of those masterpieces, I think one is an all time classic. All in all, this is…
