Pop Life

Thursday, March 18, 2004

 
EVERYONE LOVES A CHINA BOY


ready for take-off


Pop Life is on vacation in Shanghai from the 19th all the way until the 28th! Look for semi-daily updates from the Motherland starting on Monday. For background, you can read the travelogue for my last trip to Shanghai, back during Christmas of 2002.

Pop Life returns to its regularly scheduled programming after the 28th.
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GOES TO 11
UPDATED 3/18


who's world is this?


  • How to rob a Girl Scout. Remember my story below about Girl Scout cookies? Well, evidently, gully MFers read that too because Girl Scouts are getting held up in Berkeley. Damn.
    (spotted at Aye Train)

  • Digital cameras. I love how newer digital cameras are going retro style. Peep this new Epson - the first digital camera with a range finder.

    (spotted at gizmodo)

  • Time killers. Uh oh, more Flash-powered musical toys to keep you unproductive at work/school/home, etc. Fun as hell though.

  • Back to Idol: Read why Funkdigital.com's Metal Face hates the show.



  • Some American Idol stuff: I said this before and I'll say it again - why is Matthew Rogers still in this? Dude is WACK. He's a totally uninspired singer and acts like a yahoo. I suspect he'll survive further along just because he's a white guy. It's like affirmative action for honkies up in this competition. That explains why carrot-top, John Stevens is still in this running as well. His voice was flatter than his ass, trying to sing Stevie Wonder's "Lately," as if it was a Rat Pack song. Whatever - shit is wack. A blind man could see it.

    Call me a bastard but I'm also totally not feeling George Huff. I agree, he's a totally affable guy but his voice is so thin, I could shave with it. On the other hand, Jasmine...girl is off the chains and I'm not just saying that out of ethnocentric love. I don't really see her as a pop star, but I love listening to her do her thing. Feel that.

    That all said, you know LaToya has this shit on lock.

    I know my man Jeff has the best of intentions but J, Camille is kind of weak sauce. Just because you sound like Lauryn doesn't mean you actually sound like Lauryn, yaoming? And while I don't think Jennifer Hudson oversang, I didn't think she could necessarily sing either. Her voice is better, as Jeff notes, in her inflections but as a sonic quality, I was like, eh. Don't compare her to Aretha. Don't compare none of these women to Aretha. There is no Queen but the Queen.

  • Surreal follow-up to a tragic story. "'Suicide' Beau Tells of Plan to 'Wed" His Dead Love."
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  • Wednesday, March 17, 2004

     
    REA IN THE HOUSE



    I usually don't do this but fuck it. David L., my friend, colleague and former housemate and his wife Anna just had their first child: Rea Jadyn L..

    7lbs! 19 inches!

    And a Pisces to boot (I love 'em but they're mad emotional).

    Babies everywhere!
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    Tuesday, March 16, 2004

     
    THE WRITE STUFF

    f--- an oreo


  • Damn, Jessica Hopper is killing me with all these banned words. Her latest list?
      *"is proof that"
      +"proves that"
      -auspicious
      +++Like _______ on acid
      garnering attention
      *+most notably
      throws down the gauntlet
      +atmospherics
      ____ bliss
      -lilting
      sonic nightmare
      *++sonic equivalent of
      *+bombastic combination
      *+classic combination of
      *pastiche
      -vividly etched
      hearkens
      to surprinsing effect
      +avoids the trappings
      *+surprisingly ( WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME ANYTHING ON A RECORD TOUCHED OFF GENUINE SURPRISE?)
      +Stuff I absolutely agree with.
      -Stuff that I don't.
      *Stuff I've written in a music review.
    I'm secretly worried that Jessica's been reading my past work as a template of what NOT to write.

  • Meanwhile, Julianne Shepherd drops her own rules of wisdom:
      "If you're a man, and you intend to court a woman, here is a list of things you must never do:
      * tell her she dances like she is in the '90s, and expect her to believe you are not dissing her (unless you specify "'90s Fly Girl... you know, like Rosie Perez")
      * tell her you don't understand why people like Justin Timberlake, or attribute it to irony
      * embrace her as if you've been dating for 2 years, rather than having a first date--boundaries, people!
    And here's my personal favorite: "Unreciprocated saddling of your woman with your emo probs is the new "bitch get in the kitchen and make me a pot pie." Testify, sister!

    Suckas, take notes.

  • "According to this weekend's New York Times, the Thin Mint, that so-incredible-it-must-have-crack-in-it cookie that Girl Scouts sell, is the third-best selling cookie in the world, even though it has a sales cycle of one month."
    (spotted at the blacklist)

  • Is Urban Outfitters pulling an Abercrombie? Checkout their new "Asian Girl" t-shirt series.
    (props to Hua for sending me this)

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  • Monday, March 15, 2004

     
    LISTEN UP


    forget loving me, just leave me alone


  • Here's the goddamn deal: If you're going to be try to be some wanna-be DJ Danger Mouse and come up with some derivative, eye rollingly hip idea like mixing Weezer with Jay-Z, here's one little piece of advice: quantize your beats, b!tch. Listen to their version of "Threat". The guy who put this together admits that, "I am completely clueless when it comes to rap music" and "I am not a DJ" (no, really?) which, if they are excuses, are pretty weak ones at that for not having your vocals on beat. Dude, it's 2004. I know toddlers who can rock Pro Tools and they can at least figure out how to keep something in rhythm, it's really not that hard. Quit wasting our time otherwise.
    (spotted at bestweekever)

  • F'real - Cocaine Blunts has been mad blunted of late. Not only is he killing it with some hellafied-tastic rap MP3s but he's dropping the news knowledge, yaoming? Here's his latest:
      "Q-Tip called into british dj Gilles Peterson's show (I guess Funk Flex couldn't pull the exclusive?). Not surprisingly, he announced that the on-and-off Tribe reunion is officially off (this week). Maybe it's for the better, "the love movement" tarnished their legacy enough. But can Jarobi fucking eat or what? Tip's currently signed to Interscope where he will be releasing a new album featuring a super impressive lineup of Ghostface, Common, Andre 3000, D'Angelo and Mary J. Blige plus production from Madlib (who Tip calls "really really really super advanced" ha ha ha...). They debut a new track from those sessions, which has an unexpectedly dope beat, but Tip still sounds kinda corny.
    Just as a bonus, they also put me up on this video of Rakim Allah hawking gold teeth. This shit is either really, really funny or really, really sad. Your choice.
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  •  
    AWWW DAMN IN THE HOUSE


    runner-up for the Kanye West
    look-alike contest


    How come I'm always last to learn about cool people I know who have cool blogs? The latest fam member is Audrey aka DJ Awww Damn who doesn't just have one blog, not even two blogs, but is running three, plus a separate, strikingly designed WWW site devoted to her mixtapes and galleries of her photography work. Holy christ, she puts me to shame, she's so off the chain.

    Plus, as if she wasn't cool enough on her very own, she's also the younger sis of DJ Lily Tran, who, back in the mid-1990s, was one of the finest DJs to ever grace the Bay Area and an indelible influence on my own craft. Now Awww Damn's inherited the turntables and is taking the beat science into the new milleneum (yo A, you still rockin' my Tascam?)

    And just when you thought it couldn't get better, you learn she makes wallets out of hip-hop albums. Hot damn, Ms. Damn!
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    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - LORD OF THE RINGS: THE MUSICAL?

    Somewhere, out there, Wagner is shaking his fist from the spirit world. And Tolkien is probably having a good chortle. But yeah, they're turning Lord of the Rings into a $12 million musical. According to co-producer Kevin Wallace: ""If Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth and tell the story of the entire trilogy over that time," he said."
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    Sunday, March 14, 2004

     
    KING KONG AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON ME


    (courtesy gossiping bitches)

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