Monday, December 15, 2014

Went From Nuttin' to Suntin'

I love good salads.  A good salad to me has firm greens, vine ripe tomatoes, Vidalia or red onions, and bonus fruit and shamefully, a meat.  Nuts are a major plus too.  Topped with a freshly squeezed lemon vinaigrette.  So alive and crisp.  Fruit in salad is like chocolate chips in cookies.  Sometimes you just want something cool and tangy even in winter.
Sometimes you need a break from the normal.  I was fortunate enough to also get three glorious days off the floor at my job to work on a project in a back room, away from all the bitchy customers and bullshit.  I could do my thing, and just zone out for my shifts.  I was feeling jovial so I even turned on the speakers to hear the pop Musak-like station they play in the store.  Finally able to ascertain whether I hate each of these songs I hear every day or if they have any merit.  Three days of solid study and uninterrupted inner thoughts, in other words, bliss.
I decided to obsess over Iggy Azalea and by accident Sia, where I discovered the video that seemed to be viewed by the entire population of the world for that song Chandelier.  Dang, pretty powerful for pop, mainly the dancing and that magical little girl.  I kinda bawled a little.  But I needed to find out more about this Iggy.  I read Wikipedia and some reviews, music magazine articles and Tweets. I talked to the 'kids' at work to gain some insight.  She had come up for months, little tags and beefs but I barely paid attention.  She did look like the Wayan's brothers in the movie where they played white girls. I wasn't that intrigued but maybe secretly yes, yes I was. My old manager told me he liked her when she was raw and raunchy. Gosh, what was she now? We watched her on a couple of award shows and couldn't help but notice her.  Another guy told me she was 'made', just as I suspected, another rapper's caucasian protege.  But she did bring something all her own.  My jury was out.  On one hand I say, good for her.  What white woman is bold enough to sport a spot on blaccent straight outta our toughest southern neighborhoods?  It shows either complete ignorance and lack of respect or authenticity.  So I imagined for a moment, wow, had some Ukrainian or Polish girl perhaps from immigrant parents actually come out of say Atlanta's poverty, one of those white girls that sounds black and you want to slap them but then you realize it's real and they really grew up in the projects and have completely assimilated to the culture.  But no, I find out she's from New South Wales, which I know nothing about but a kid at work tells me it's sort of the bad side of Australia.  A young girl that leaves for the states when she's 16 is probably gonna be something to reckon with. Is she fresh and interesting or not?  This does remind me of Eminem and how I wasn't sure if I should be pissed or impressed at first listen after discovering he was white all those years ago.  This wasn't Vanilla Ice, this was fresh and new.  But the whole Dr Dre connection was a either telling of his true talent or a new face of exploitation.  So the accent is completely false though huh? ....  I guess my three day study conclusion is that I don't care if she's real or if she's just another puffy lipped girl on the tv twerking her ass. It used to matter about the role someone would play in the history of music and the changes it could provoke.  But it just doesn't anymore I don't think.  Everything is just fragments of something substantial that existed a long time ago.  Sort of like going to the Village or to Haight Street in San Francisco.  There are no more barriers or walls or principles in music for anyone to crash through or break down, it's just a big open room that smells like ass.

Iggy is nothing like my Roasted Chicken Green Apple Salad.

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