Alex Forrest is considered by most people to be evil incarnate. People still come up to me saying how much she terrified them. Yet in my research into her behavior, I only ended up empathizing with her. She was a human being in great psychological [...]
The Fame Monster is a re-issued edition of Lady Gaga's debut album, The Fame, hitting the shelves on November 24th. Instead of adding just one or two singles to the new package, Lady Gaga unleashed 8 new songs and called it her sophomore album. While Gloriana (WHO?) and Taylor Swift stole her rightful crowns at the American Music Award earlier tonight (not to mention Adam Lambert's over the top sex show stealing everyone's - including Gaga's - performance thunder), Lady Gaga is not bowing out of 2009 with a whimper. Let there be no doubt that Gaga is THE break out entertainer of the year, and the Fame Monster is an appropriate capsule of her success. Without further ado, here's my first bite into the monster:
1. Bad Romance - When I first heard the song, I was too preoccupied with how awesome the video was that the song itself seemed underwhelming. With Gaga music though, it's hard to tell when something is great until it's stuck in your head. The album was supposed to be written as a soundtrack to muted fashion shows and European tours, and it feels exactly like so listening to this suddenly-grand album kick off. I don't know if it's the build-up anticipation or a better headset, but this number is a certified Gaga killer here. Not my favourite, but an epic opening nevertheless.
2. Alejandro - Beautiful opening. I imagine the video to this song could be a 'prequel' to the Paparazzi video. Is this Gaga's version of Abba's Fernando? I think so. And a bit of Ace of Base (Don't Turn around! 'Cuz my heart is breaking!). LIKE.
3. Monster - Don't call me Gaga? He ate my heart then he ate my brain? Haha. Sometimes I think people take Gaga way more seriously than she does herself. I mean this is the woman who wore a Kermit the frog outfit to an interview! Playful, though not a particular stand-out after the first two songs.
4. Speechless - Oh noes. Ballad. Why?
5. Dance in the Dark - Wow a real mishmash of some old school pop tune and vampires and Madonna's Vogue. I suppose if you like these things, then this is the tune to move your hips to?
6. Telephone - The song features Beyonce so it's a big deal, right? There's that hard-hitting club beat that's reminiscent of some old Timbaland beat. Kinda boring? I'd already heard Britney's Phonography? Plus, Beyonce's own Videophone is way, way hotsick-er?
4. So Happy I Could Die - Kinda spacey and ... sweet? I like it.
8. Teeth - She shows teeth and we got a WINNER! Far and away my favourite of the bunch ... uh, other than Alejandro (because of the ... Swede connection). Please please please let this be the next single, because I anticipate things of PERVERSE nature for that video.
Gaga looks to dominate into the new year with this playlist. I await the burn out.
First, Barack shamed America's sense of arrogance by conducting himself in a respectful manner to Japan's hello kitty overlords:
News photos of President Barack Obama bowing to Japan's emperor have incensed critics here, who said the US leader should stand tall when representing America overseas.
Who the hell are these 'critics,' Yahoo? Why, the conservatives! All of them! Critics! We must listen to critics, especially ones published by the uh ... new Elite Leftist Media.
And if you didn't think that was defeating enough, check out this headline:
Michelle Obama tells Colorado high school girls that there's no secret to success
Way to crush America's spirit, Michelle! It's obvious America's being destroyed by the foreign implants and only a Cheney/Palin 2012 could correct America's crushing course and keep it safe from ... the world. There's nothing to fear but Obama itself!
Sky-watchers in North America can expect to see up to 30 meteors hourly tonight as the annual Leonid meteor shower peaks in the wee hours of Tuesday, Nov. 17. Earth will cross the first meteor-producing stream on this date starting at around 1 a.m. PST, experts predict. [..] “A remarkable feature of this year’s shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office on a NASA blog. Your best vantage point is a remote, dark place. (L A Times)
Just how does one destroy power stations without making a mess? I'm averse to the clean up?
I'm one of the snobbiest people I know (as 'snob' is commonly understood), and I definitely am on the other side of 'dirty jobs.' I'm far removed from 'dirty' as the term is used in the video. For example, I would refuse to eat anything that looks like an actual animal - it's part of my skirting the moral pain of having eaten something that once was alive. I would never go hunting or kill anything for food, if I could avoid it. Somebody else does the dirty work, please. I don't want to have to think about it? What I make sure I do instead is to not waste food (i.e. leftovers in the garbage can), in particular meat. I don't throw away meat - I make sure I finish a less-than-perfectly done fish or find someone or some other animal who would. I want to respect what was taken (I wouldn't say the animals give it willingly) and use it as intended.
But I digress. As someone who often finds things to get excited about and be occupied with in almost any work or learning environment, I can be engaged with 'dirty jobs' in the same way Mike Rowe can in the various dirty jobs he did for the show. It's that sense of discovering something new that tickles me, and it keeps me from being completely removed from what people would think as 'dirty jobs.' However, I am quickly bored by things that I don't find engaging or challenging to some degree, and that's a problem I find with this argument he's making: the assumed universal stimulation/fulfillment value of these 'dirty jobs.'
The pig farmers and the scrappers who whistled on the job may not be as happy simply BECAUSE of their jobs as he made them out to be. Happiness has little to do with the content of one's profession - we know, or instance, that happiness doesn't come with intellectual pursuits (which I think is a main component of the anti-dirty job as used here). People are happy doing things that affirm who they are and/or make them feel a sense of competence. The guy who castrated the lambs, I bet, was pretty proud of how efficient he was at his work. The people who make my motherboard may feel very proud that they could do 10 in 20 minutes, or something. There's no need for passion in such a job, but there doesn't have to be presumed intense interest for there to be a sense of worth.
You don't have to be passionate about your job; not everybody is on the passion wagon. But there's no fulfillment inherent in a job that one doesn't find stimulating, or affirming to the self's sense of where it is, dirty or not. A job may not even be a very big part of a sense of self for many people - I'd argue that this is the case with the majority of the working population. Many people work because they have to, and many more work because it gives them something to engage in on a daily basis and rewards with some social and monetary worth that could put more wind in their sails elsewhere.
I understand Mike's advocating for an appreciation of non-poetic or romanticized jobs, but I don't think there is any more happiness inherent in ripping off lamb's testicles with one's mouth either.
The Fame Monster is a re-issued edition of Lady Gaga's debut album, The Fame, hitting the shelves on November 24th. Instead of adding just one or two singles to the new package, Lady Gaga unleashed 8 new songs and called it her sophomore album. While Gloriana (WHO?) and Taylor Swift stole her rightful crowns at the American Music Award earlier tonight (not to mention Adam Lambert's over the top sex show stealing everyone's - including Gaga's - performance thunder), Lady Gaga is not bowing out of 2009 with a whimper. Let there be no doubt that Gaga is THE break out entertainer of the year, and the Fame Monster is an appropriate capsule of her success. Without further ado, here's my first bite into the monster:
