BECK
The past week was a weird f-ing week, and for pretty much the last year or so, that would have definitely meant spending the 3-day weekend with a lot of sleeping and Ryan Adams (man, when those words are put side by side, that sounds so much hotter than it is). But for some reason, (and oh, I don't know, but maybe possibly because I'm no longer ingesting a little blue and green life number every single day with the false hope of it "managing" my migraines) I just can't sleep all day and night like I used to. I'm sort of becoming one of those people who gets depressed and - get this - cleans the house. Fucking A, what the fuck, right? <--- That's for you, mommy :)
So, I'm skipping everything on my itunes list because it's just not doing it for me, until my jam, the one and only Nicotine and Gravy, comes up. That song has several times put me in a better mood, but this time it set the tone for the entire weekend. It was the motivation for playing soul jams and organizing my belongings for my impending move (ok, this is putting things lightly... you couldn't even walk through my dining room until yesterday... and that's because it was covered in piles and piles of dirty laundry. I know. I'm a disgusting person.) It was also the catalyst I needed in realizing that you don't have to sleep to escape. Or drink, although, I'm not against it. Anyways, good news: you can rock out and clean, too. It works. For the most part...
By the way, I'm like the only person whose favorite Beck album is Midnight Vultures. I've looked on the internet, and it got relatively bad reviews for him... like it wasn't taken seriously because it was all funky white soul brotha style. I f-ing love it. I listened to Beck and Otis Redding and Roberta Flack all weekend, and I did 10 loads of laundry and packed several boxes and cleaned out one of my closets. I took a nap once, today, and it was horrible. It was raining when I laid down and I woke up in the middle of a bad dream with the sun directly in my eyes. And Hamlet was hogging the blanket. Sleeping is overrated!
Anyways, Beck, you are a tasty treat and I don't even care that you are a Scientologist. I mean, I might if I knew you in real life, but for my purposes with you, I don't care at all about that. I'm not judgmental, Beck, I just don't want to eat placenta or worship a Science Fiction writer. I would like to see Tom Cruise's teeth in person, though. Like, sooooo badly.
I remember when "Loser" came out, and it was a big deal, and I saw Beck in a magazine, and I thought he was really cute. I remember specifically that the article said he was 23 years old and that I thought he was such a full grown man (who's not afraid to cry, as it turns out ;), which is hilarious because of how young that seems now. And also because he was at the beginning of a major career at 23 and I was just living in my dad's basement, partying alot and working at The Lima News when I was 23(not that I'm on the verge of much at 28, but I digress). And also because Beck is 40 now, and to use a word I hate, this crush is quite epic at this point.
Congratulations, Beck, you are my Crush of the Week for the week of May 31, 2010! You look just as delicious now as you did when I was 12, and you may have a lot to do with developing my taste for eccentric guys with a baby face. You gotta pretty mouth.
Okay, this is off topic, but when I googled Beck for the pictures, I got this under the title "News for Beck": "Glen Beck Attacks 11-Year Old Black Girl." I have to take a detour for a second.
You might think I'm going to go on a rant about Glen Beck, but you're wrong. I wouldn't take the time for that, and besides, I love Glen Beck and all of the other turds that have floated to the top of the giant toilet that is Fox News. They consistently give those of us who sometimes need to make anti-Repub points solid evidence of the serious mental disturbance that must be present to lead to the behavior of the Uber-Conservatives. But, what I want to mention here is how disgusting the media has become in its quest for sound-bite style headlines.
The 11-yr old "black girl" mentioned in the title is Malia Obama. Yeah, she has a name, and that's it - you might have heard of her, at least the "Obama" part. She's not exactly a faceless 11-yr old, so why the headline writer thought the combination of her age and race would be more attention grabbing than the fact that she's the daughter of THE PRESIDENT, I have no idea. Well, I have one idea: the headline was targeted toward Glen Beck haters, and therefore any journalistic integrity is pretty much lost. You read "Glen Beck Attacks Malia Obama" and you assume that Glen Beck just spewed some of his usual verbal diarrhea and something inappropriate about the President's daughter came out with it. "Glen Beck Attacks 11-yr old Black Girl" packs more of a punch, since you don't know who this girl is and when, where and why he was attacking her. I'll give a pass for the word "attack" since, although it's way dramatic, I don't think the first thought of anyone reading the headline is that Glen Beck physically attacked a little girl. We'll operate under the assumption that everyone realizes the "attack" was just some of his "insightful punditry," but OMG GLEN BECK HATES KIDS, WOMEN, BLACKS, etc.
Journalism, I think, was at one time designed to report news and by definition fact based. The bias of the media does no service to any of us. The journalist or editor who decided on this headline wanted to make Glen Beck look a little worse, but when I read that the little girl in question was not at all an anonymous figure, I just thought the reporter, writer, editor, whomever was a moron. Helping Glen Beck appear foolish is pointless, as he does not need the help. Getting across as much important information as possible in a headline is a skill. If you're choosing between these two tasks and you choose the dig at Glen Beck, you ARE a moron.
The headline that first got to me and made the above one that much more infuriating was one I read last week after Gary Coleman died. I was checking my email, and the news was in that scroll that appears at the bottom of the page with your inbox stats and whatnot. The headline said "Actor Gary Coleman Dead at 42," which is fair enough. But, the blurb underneath it said something to the effect of "actor struggled on Hollywood's D-List for the last two decades of his career." This is not only gross and disrespectful, but nothing approaching professional news reporting. The "(blank)-List" concept is 100% subjective, not to mention created by the media for, I'm assuming, humor. I think the team of twats that found it appropriate to mention this D-List thing in a death announcement should be banished.
"I have to write this blurb for Gary Coleman's death thing on the website. I have to get something in there about how he was a Hollywood loser, right? It's important that we journalists put celebrities in their place. I don't think we want anyone reading this to think we respect someone like that, do you? Right, so is Z-list too much? Ok, ok... but I think D-List is a little generous. Really? Yeah, you're right, his family will appreciate that. You're a good person."
Disgusting.
