One Time, Too Many

Music these days sucks.

Seems that with every new generation creating music, the previous generations rise up against it.  Our grandparents didn’t understand rock music.  Our parents’ generation didn’t understand grunge, hip-hop or pop music.

Our generation?  Well, I think I speak for all of us here when I say, we don’t “get” or maybe even stand for, this new craptastic music coming out by kids purporting to be rap artists, divas, hot shit… etc.  These kids, five or ten years ago, would have been in Nabisco advertisements, a Sunny Delight ad or skateboarding in a CapriSun commercial.  But singing and rapping? Acting like they have these grand parties with questionable/notable music artists (in this case Usher), that’s total bullshit.

Where has the talent gone?  What is this shit and what the hell do the parents of these kids think? Oh yeah, $$.  Girls dancing and singing like adults, wearing skimping clothes and makeup, how did that idea ever get into their heads?! (cough cough, Bratz Dolls anyone?)

Well, to add on to that list, Justin Bieber.  Now, I normally support anyone sharing my name but holy mother, this is just awful.  Not only is he 15 going on 22, his music just plain sucks.  Sucks so much that I thought I’d go ahead and let you enjoy some of it. Cause I’m nice like that.

Seriously Justin Bieber. You have a “shorty”? You’re 15 and in love?  This video verges into some warped pedophiliac world of young kids partying together in a genre of music where this inevitably leads to sex, drugs and alcohol.

I remember when Bill Clinton was in office, there was a study conducted that discovered or elaborated on the importance of music to children and their development.  That study recommended parents have their children listen to at least 30 or 60 minutes of classical music everyday, prenatal and onward.  I’m pretty sure it never mentioned this.

Someone in the music industry, please put a stop to this shit.  I might fall victim to liking some auto-tuned music, that’s one thing, but this?  I think the RIAA needs to stop worry about people sharing music, ruining the music industry.  Clearly there is some sort of self-destruction going on in there already.

UPDATE:

I did my due diligence and looked further into Justin Bieber.  Turns out, he really is talented, doesn’t need auto-tune and could someday be a recognized singer with a good, if not remarkable voice.  This clip of him singing a Christmas song when he was… 12 (?) reminds me of early Michael Jackson videos, Jackson Five days.  It’s really the kind of music he should be singing, at his age, along with the covers of Justin Timberlake etc, in his YouTube channel.

What I find disturbing in the earlier video is the way the video portrays him and the other kids in the video.

It gives an impossibly illusion to an impractical and largely unattainable lifestyle; perhaps one that kids shouldn’t desire anyways.  The scenes are full of innuendo, the lyrics do not fit the age of the singer or the actors in the video.

It’s an adult hip-hop video with the boobs, booze and blow.

So Justin Bieber, keep on singing, clearly you’ve got talent.  Just, don’t let fame, money and influence change who you are, a 15 year old, talented kid and dilute your future as a serious singer, songwriter and performer.

Wow, since when did I become a child psychologist?

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Wanted… But Only Kinda

Jolie at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sw...Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, Micheal, Ryan and I went together to see the new Angelina Jolie blockbuster, Wanted.  It was billed as a smart, edge of your seat, action packed, assassin thriller type film.

I really wanted to see it.  Headlining the film was of course, Angelina Jolie along with Morgan Freeman and that guy everyone else knows but me, James McAvoy

The basic premise is these people have control over how their body releases adrenaline  allowing them incredible strength, vision, hearing… well everything.  Oh yeah, and they can make bullets curve into a complete circle by flipping their wrists as they shoot.

If you think that’s far fetched, how about how their get their missions…  Supposedly, The Fraternity is over a thousand years old and have been following the same codes since its inception.  One of these is how it gets its information on who to kill.  This information comes from imperfections on cloth created by a not-so-ancient-and-by-no-means-1000-years-old loom.

Yeah, the code it spits out?  It’s binary.  You know, 11101011010100001 etc.

Apparently they used an 1800 year old code, ok that works.  But how they decoded it makes no sense.  Let’s spell out one of the names it supposedly codes out.

01010111011001010111001101101100011001010111100100100000010001110110100101100010011100110110111101101110

And that’s just the name, not the Age, Weight, Sex, Height and Location that it apparently also puts out.  Bah, I just didn’t like that, could’nt it have been anything else?  Seriously…

Anyway, the action is great, the acting is good.  If it didn’t have the lead characters, if this had been full of first time actors, it would have never made a record opening weekend.  It would either have been a cult classic or a total flop (hard to tell the difference between those two).

The actors did make it watchable and at times pretty entertaining.  What I think made me so bitter was the production of the film.  A poorly thought out soundtrack matched with horrendous mixing of the tracks, overly creative camera angles meant for an art film not an action flick and the bending of physics without even an iota of magical excuse is what made this movie a C at best for me.

I really wanted to see this film, but I’m glad I saw it matinee.  Next disappointing action movie I will see is Hancock.  At least I know ahead of time that the story gets pretty weak, and at least it has Will Smith to make it work.

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Economic Stimulus Payment Notice

I got my Economic Stimulus Payment Notice in the mail the other days.  It says I should get $300-600 from the IRS this May because I make over $3,000.  Wow, that’s all you need to make?

First off, I am totally against the this “stimulus”.  The people that are making $3,000 probably aren’t saving their money.  They are spending it.  Yeah, I know that’s the point of this thing, for Americans to go out and shop.

However, it’s not the lower class people that need to go out and spend money, it’s the top 20% and greater.  The more you ear, the more you spend.  But it is relative and obvious.  When you make $12,000 a year and get a check for $600, that’s 5% of your income for the year as a bonus.  That is only 1% above inflation!

The bottom 80% of Americans will use this stimulus payment to go shopping, not to pay off debts or to put into a high yeld savings account.  The only people who will benefit from this stimulus are the rich.

The money is basically going from our government to the rich elite of America via the person who makes $3,000-75,000 a year.  This money will be spent paying for the outrageous gas prices (it will fill your car ten times), it will be spent buying iPods and video games.  It will be spent on vacations to Disney World.  It will be spent going out to eat.  It will be spent going to see movies.

This money will be put back into the hands of who had it first, the rich.

Economic Stimulus Payment Notice… ESPN, parent company?  ABC.  Parent company? Walt Disney.  Sister companies?

Film
Walt Disney Pictures
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Miramax Films
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Pixar
Broadcast Television
ABC Network
Owned and Operated Television Stations
WLS – Chicago
WJRT – Flint
KFSN – Fresno
KTRK – Houston
KABC – Los Angeles
WABC – New York City
WPVI – Philadelphia
WTVD – Raleigh – Durham
KGO – San Francisco
WTVG – Toledo
Cable Television
ESPN
ABC Family
Disney Channel
Toon Disney
SOAPnet
Lifetime Network (partial)
A&E (partial)
E! (partial)
Radio
ABC Radio
WKHX – Atlanta
WYAY – Atlanta
WDWD – Atlanta
WMVP – Chicago
WLS – Chicago
WZZN – Chicago
WRDZ – Chicago
WBAP – Dallas
KSCS – Dallas
KMEO – Dallas
KESN – Dallas
KMKI – Dallas
WDRQ – Detroit
WJR – Detroit
WDVD – Detroit
KABC – Los Angeles
KLOS – Los Angeles
KDIS – Los Angeles
KSPN – Los Angeles
KQRS – Minneapolis – St. Paul
KXXR – Minneapolis – St. Paul
KDIZ – Minneapolis – St. Paul
WGVX – Minneapolis – St. Paul
WGVY – Minneapolis – St. Paul
WGVZ – Minneapolis – St. Paul
WABC – New York City
WPLJ – New York City
WQEW – New York City
WEVD – New York City
KGO – San Francisco
KSFO – San Francisco
KIID – Sacramento
KMKY – Oakland
WMAL – Washington DC
WJZW – Washington DC
WRQX – Washington DC
KQAM – Wichita
KKDZ – Seattle
WSDZ – St. Louis
WWMK – Cleveland
KMIX – Phoenix
KADZ – Denver
KDDZ – Denver
WWMI – Tampa
KMIC – Houston
WMYM – Miami
WWJZ – Philadelphia
WMKI – Boston
WDZK – Hartford
WDDZ – Providence
WDZY – Richmond
WGFY – Charlotte
WDYZ – Orlando
WMNE – West Palm Beach
WEAE – Pittsburgh
WDRD – Louisville
WPPY – Albany, NY
KPHN – Kansas City
WQUA – Mobile
WBML – Jacksonville
WFDF – Flint
WFRO – Fremont, OH
WDMV – Damascus, MD
WHKT – Norfolk Radio Disney
ESPN Radio (syndicated programming)
Music
Buena Vista Music Group
Walt Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Lyric Street Records
Publishing
Book Publishing Imprints
Hyperion
Miramax Books
ESPN Books
Theia
ABC Daytime Press
Hyperion Audiobooks
Hyperion East
Disney Publishing Worldwide
Cal Publishing Inc.
CrossGen
Hyperion Books for Children
Jump at the Sun
Volo
Michael di Caupa Books
Disney Global Children’s Books
Disney Press
Global Retail
Global Continuity
Magazine
Automotive Industries
Biography (with GE and Hearst)
Discover
Disney Adventures
Disney Magazine
ECN News
ESPN Magazine (distributed by Hearst)
Family Fun
Institutional Investor
JCK
Kodin
Top Famille – French family magazine
US Weekly (50%)
Video Business
Quality
Parks and Resorts
Disneyland Resort
Walt Disney World Resort
Tokyo Disney Resort
Disneyland Resort Paris
Hong Kong Disneyland
Other
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
The Disney Store
Disney Cruise Line
ESPN Zone
Disney Toys
The Baby Einstein Company
Walt Disney Internet Group

Basically, they now own you.  For more proof, just scroll down, and down, and down and down and down until you see how much the Iraq War has cost compared to the government actually trying to fix our economic/energy crisis.

I’m clearly in a mood…

Oh, and I will probably spend my $600 check on a new lens, because I don’t want to disappoint the American People.