Saturday Jukebox Salutes The Nevada Caucuses

With a Mika Nakashima tribute... (Can you guess the connection?)

Without question, she has a great voice, but her performing style seems to be from the Juliette Lewis school of training.

Mika Nakashima - One Survive Live
Uploaded by loluly

Nonetheless, she does come up with the most visually striking music videos...

Mika Nakashima - Crescent Moon
Uploaded by bunnylike

Mika Nakashima - Legend
Uploaded by JMFvideo

...Even if she still acts like Goldie Hawn circa 1969 in some of them

Mika Nakashima - Love Addict
Uploaded by AntiFlag607

And Mika can rock...sort of

Mika Nakashima - Glamorous Sky
Uploaded by chupa0chups

Thursday Jukebox SMAPs You Upside The Head

I'm going to go ahead and admit this potentially embarassing aspect of myself: I like SMAP. I own several of their albums, and I always liked the fact that they (or at least Johnny's) always made musical choices which seemed to be funkier and a little bit more mature than the standard boyband/idol genre would suggest--especially in Japan. I even used to have (and still have a soft spot for) crushes on Tsuyoshi & Shingo.

That being said, I wonder if the guys (you certainly can't call them "boys" these days--I'm younger than Shingo and "boyhood" left me in 2000) are beginning to show the strain of being tied together for so long. Now, I'm only stating this based on reading body language, since I'm not privy to the gossip rags and blogs that somebody living in Japan would be.

Nonetheless, here's Exhibit A, a retrospective from Music Station of SMAP's hits from 1991 to 2003. I don't know if the SMAPers are either tired, embarassed, or just over it, but they don't necessarily seemed all that enthused by glancing back at their past.




And now, here's Exhibit B: The group's recent appearance at last year's Kouhaku (think the Japanese answer to Eurovision). My kingdom to find out what they were thinking while performing. (Tsuyoshi: Stop blocking me! I'm popular now! Shingo: Move it, Inagaki! I'm trying to sing my bit. Goro: I'm still pretty, right? Takuya: I'm not the one singing flat. Nakai: Money!)



Exhibit C: The video for Dear WOMAN. Now, while there's no question that this song is more about praising the women of Japan as opposed to praising the SMAPers themselves, I can't help but wonder as to why the video is shot with each of the guys singing their bits solo. I know they're busy doing tons of things on their own, but is it that tricky to get them all in a studio together? Or at least shots of them doing something together.

SMAP - Dear WOMAN [PV]
Uploaded by NaitomeaGazetto

Exhibit D: A live performance of Dear WOMAN, which--for me--seems to have that energy in it that was around Take That right before they announced that they were knackered and bored with each other. The fact that the SMAPers are eerily wearing the same 1970s inspired haircuts as Take That did around 1995-6, might be a reason. It also isn't the most cohesive performance beyond dancing. (I don't remember a SMAP song being this heavy on Tsuyoshi & Shingo, not that I'm complaining.)

dear woman 2
Uploaded by lannalis

Exhibit E: (And I swear I am going to be well and truly SMAPed out after this) The video for Dynamite, a 1997 single which seems to show the lads at least appearing to have fun together.

SMAP - Dynamite [PV]
Uploaded by skanel

Exhibit F: (I guess, one can never SMAP too much) The presentation of their latest single on their TV show SMAP x SMAP. The ending conversation is quite funny and passive-agressive, like a group of old men (not that I'm saying they're old!) who love bickering with each other.

Exhibit G: (I swear on Nakai's receding hairline this is the last one) The unintentional hilarity that is Five Respect, which features the SMAPers rapping and praising each other while doing their utmost to actually avoid each other onstage.

Despite all the previous, I still like the SMAPers, and hope they're around for quite sometime. (Supposedly, they have another single coming out in this Spring.)

Lift Every Voice And Sing

For those unfamiliar with Lift Every Voice & Sing, the black national anthem:





Performed by Kim Weston at the 1973 Wattstax Festival in Los Angeles.

The United Belgian States of America

Today is the actual birthdate of Martin Luther King, Junior (as opposed to the "holiday" on next Monday--which to be honest, I have problems with, since like Memorial Day, most view it as a day off, not a day to reflect upon Dr. King's work and how we have progressed/failed), and once again, I find myself convinced that as a nation, we are continuing to step further and further away from equality.

But wait, don't we have a white woman and a black man vying to become president?

Yes, we do.

Isn't that a sign of progress?

Not if they (and their attack dogs) spend time sniping about semantics surrounding the work of Dr. King. And by the way, in 1972, Shirley Chisholm tried to run for president, I think that was inherently more gutsy and revolutionary than anything either Hillary or Barack have done.

As I see it, the United States is a country where the residents of many different ethnic backgrounds continue to live in relatively separate communities and viewpoints that occasionally intersect, but for the most part are isolated. The only thing that seems to unify us is mere geography. Much like Belgium, I'd reckon.

Three years ago, I went to Palm Springs for my birthday and the flights there and back were quite memorable: At the risk of losing crediblity, I flew first class. (A frivolous expense, to be true, but it was my birthday and I'm a believer in that the flight that one takes sets the tone for the trip itself.) The flights from Chicago to Palm Springs and back were completely full in both cabins. As everyone knows, there is that infamous march that everyone has to do past the first class cabin. Never before in my life have I ever been shot so many dirty looks, which I interpreted as having a racial undertone to them (even if those who threw them did not have that intention).

The fact that I did, speaks volumes for the society and country in which I grew up: How many people out there know that there is a Black National Anthem? How many know about the black upper classes and their organisations and communities? They came about because there was and continues to be a schism between the experiences of white and black America, and there is little effort to address it, lo these centuries later.

As Americans, we like to believe that everybody is equal, and everybody is, but the hardest thing to do is to actually practice that belief. We carry the ideological baggage of our ancestors, whether we accept that baggage or reject it altogether, it is a part of us, and we have to deal with it.

That baggage is everywhere we look in this country: from the demographics of Detroit to those of Ellis Island. It is evident in the fact that there are hundreds of communities with Native American names in this country where the actual Native American population is zero and few people would be hard pressed to actually name the tribe who gave the community its name.

I mention this not because of guilt, but because it is important to actually look at our country, what it is, and how to steer it towards an all-inclusive future cognizant of its past. (I find the term "all-inclusive" a bit strange, personally, as it makes it sound like the US should be some sort of continental Club Med.)

Nonetheless, I hope this actually means that by my deathbed (2101, if I'm lucky), there might actually be a truly United States of America. Sadly, at this point in time, I would not surprise if the status quo persists.

Before I sign off on this, I'd like to leave with this very interesting incident from a post on December 20th by Expat Jane over at Where The Hell Am I? , which I think underlines the fact that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the reality of American history (read the whole post as well, and the blog, too--it's excellent):

I remember being on the bus when a Korean man was talking to my white female coworker and was simply ignoring me. That was fine as he was drunk, but when he asked her if she was an "American". She said yes and pointed out that I was American too. Do you know this man had the nerve to say "no, I mean an original American." I thought that was funny because 1) the original people living on what is now American soil weren't white people and 2) when you look at the black American population, the majority of black American families have been in the US longer than most white families. There are only a select few white Americans who can claim ancestry from that first wave of British colonists. I can't remember where I read or heard it but basically to make this point a teacher in the US told everyone in her class to stand up. She told them if they had a parent who had immigrated to the US to sit down. She then asked students who had grandparents who'd immigrated to the States to sit down. She continued and the last students standing were the black students. Black Americans come from multi-generational American families, so that "original American" comment made me laugh 'cause that man was simply ignorant, but it shows how much the world at large has bought into the pop culture images that flow out of the States.

I Think We're Supposed To Care

But it's such a manufactured spat, exploiting our nation's still unresolved racial disharmony for personal gain.

Can I Get A Side of Humbled Peacock?

The once-mighty NBC is beginning to get a littl less bombastic these days: what with their ratings being the toilet and now their OTT coverage of the Golden Globes has become a press conference which can be aired by any network who so desires to.

I'm A Touch Horrified

Inside Edition is 20 years old today, according this article in The New York Daily News.

I'm a bit shocked in that:

1. It lasted so long.
2. It still claims newsmagazine status (but then again Entertainment Tonight and TMZ are technically newsmagazines as well).
3. How anyone takes Bill O'Reilly seriously knowing he was the first host of Inside Edition.

Iowa & Mitsuhiro Oikawa

Today is the Iowa Caucus, an event that quite honestly has too much weight given to it--solely because it's the first electoral event of the US primary season. Therefore, Iowans (who aren't really that representative of the whole nation, although in a nation of 300 million plus spread out over a continent, no state is, and is proof positive of the need for the interregional primary system) get to essentially do the first vetting of candidates, and the rest of us (especially those of us who won't be able to vote until after the absurd Super Tuesday) have to do our pickings based on the opinions of Iowa & New Hampshire.

Or to put it in an even more absurd perspective: residents of 2 barely urban states choose the candidates for a majority urbanised nation who will go to the polls in November to participate in an election which is not decided by the popular vote.

In all fairness, I like the quaint notion of the caucus, and for a state like Iowa, it makes sense to have that format. That said, it's no bellwether.

So what does Mitsuhiro Oikawa have to do with this? Nothing really. Much like how Iowa & New Hampshire's status during primary season is out of proportion with the rest of the nation, so is Oikawa's status in relation to this post.

But he is a cute little aging pretty boy, isn't he? (That's him swaying on the left in the video.)

????????????
Uploaded by rosa1987

Fearless Leader's Video Message for 2008

By the way, Anderson Cooper & Kathy Griffin are a brillant pairing.

Out of the ashes of one British Mark...

...rises a phoenix of another.

This is a rather dramatic way of saying that the disenchantment with Mark Ravenhill has been replaced with the discovery of Mark Steel, a Socialist comedian, whose book Vive La Revolution I've been reading.

Listen to him speak from the book at Marxism 2003 here. (Part 2 here.)

The Year That It Was (On Here): 2007

It wasn't as busy a year as last at this corner of the internet, but there were some moments.

January

• I drink myself sober on New Year's and turn all Pollyanna-like.
• Don't drink with the ex.
• There is a programme better than The Closet, and it is subsequently picked up by here!
• The Polish final which is surprisingly low on actual Poles.
• A forecast for life in the next century.
• 700 posts!
• I dissect Eurolaul and irk prissy Vanilla Ninja fans for merely mentioning the strange resemblance between the band members and Lindsay Lohan.

February

• Jump in the time machine, because it's Eurovision 1992.
• Atlanta is not fun...especially when it is colder than New York (in more ways than one).
• A poll to see which Melodifestivalen act was aiming for the gay vote.
• A moment of reflection.
• Praising Ms. Nanne.
• Fun with the Spanish Eurovision selection (part 1).
• Fight for your right...to pick up hustlers.
• Cocaine is a helluva a drug...to watch Spanish National Finals with.

March

• Matt Sanchez and his idiocy.
• Escape from the land of muscle worshippers.
• GLAAD slides toward irrelevance.
• Me vs. Tacky theatre.

April

• We are saved from the possibility of President Tommy Thompson.
• Yet another Russian Eurovision entry with catchy music and lyrics by Babelfish.
• Praising MISIA.
• Eurovision Preview Reviews galore!
• He speaks.

May

• We Love Bitchy Nordics
• I am bewildered by the Eurovision Qualifier, and indifferent to the Final.
• Inane questions run amok on New York local news.
• Like many others, I fall for the daft Endemol joke.

June

• Shut up, Bono & Bob.
• The Tonys slide towards irrelevance just a touch slower than GLAAD.
• Bloomie gets a partial clue
• Take That revival.
• I Love Elliot (Spitzer).

July

• Oh, to be on the wrong side of the housing boom.
• I try to get religion...and realise I am my own church.
• Nobody likes Dick
• Milwaukee: test market for terrorism.

August

• My name is Hikaru Krispy Kreme, how may I serve you?
• I'm getting old, people...old & crotchety.
• Siberian independence NOW.

September

• Just a sampling of the GOP idiots running for President.
• Sensenbrenner needs to get eliminated....again.
• The Loonie reaches parity and then surpasses it. (Perhaps we're the real Loonies.)
• Janet Jackson makes a true lapse in judgement.
• Guess what? The Closet is coming back!

October

• Bye bye Jimmy.
• Obama self-destructs.

November

• Writers' Strike!
• WTMJ thinks moral indignation is the key to ratings success.
• ...And Al Roker is on Court TV.
• NBC slides towards irrelevance, faster than the Tonys & GLAAD.
• How not to do an interview.
• The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade review...not for those incapable of comprehending context.
• Crap shows reopen.
• I hate Judd Apatow, but not as much as I despise La Perry.

December

• Perhaps we all really can't get along?
• Mourning a role model.
• Silver lining in Wisconsin's bigoted anti-SSM amendment.
• Edwards = JFK-meets-FDR and I'm all for it.
• Yes, MISIA has lost her mind, but it's catchy.
• Drunk Kiwis...awww.

Perhaps you've noticed something different this year, particularly a big drop in posts. I haven't mentioned it all this year, but there's been an underlying theme in my posts particularly in the second half of 2007: Cancer.

First, my aforementioned ex was diagnosed and treated for Prostate Cancer in July & August. The next month, my mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. (Fortunately, it was caught very early.) Two weeks later, my great aunt died from Lung Cancer. (My extended family--like my immediate family--is very small, so this was quite a huge deal.)

As for myself, I've so far been declared healthy by several doctors, which is good, especially since this year, I seem to hear and see cancer everywhere. Yet, as a result of these medical issues, I've taken on some extra non-writing work in order to lighten the load of those recovering.

Although it's likely I'll post again before January: Good health to all who read this (even Jonathan Capehart) in 2008.

The Running of the Drunk Kiwi Santas

Several times a year, a story comes along that allows us to basically laugh at a certain nation ad its foibles.

This Christmas, I would nominate the running of a bunch of drunk Kiwi students in Santa Claus (or as the accent seems to suggest: "Center Klaus") outfits through a Christchurch movie theatre.

The coverage on TVNZ seems to be pleading for the world not to judge all of New Zealand as bored drunkards bent on terrorising young children.

Modern Life Is Absurd (Part 100)...and touchng

The Daily News's David Hinckley goes all existential on disembodied voices.

And while several media outlets picked up the story of Lee Thomas, the black anchor whose skin is losing its pigmentation, I think the best and most poignant coverage (albeit solely on presentation...since it is an AP article) is on The Sydney Morning Herald.

Tuesday Jukebox Thinks MISIA has lost her mind

Damn catchy, and she's still in great voice, but what on god's green earth inspired that title?

MISIA - Royal Chocolate Flush
Uploaded by HANNYA

I'm Coming Out (Politically) Part 2

The other contender for my primary vote is John Edwards.

There, I said it...and god, am I shocked that I did...I mean, I was STAUNCHLY Clark in 2004.

Lest you think it's actually brought on by the recent uptick in Edwards's political fortune, it actually came after looking at The Washington Post's Candidate Selector.

Quite frankly, the man never really was on my radar, because he really never seemed to get the media's attention. So it was interesting actually reading what he does actually have to say.

First, quite honestly the man screams JFK revival, but since I was born 16 years after JFK was shot, that means social policies to me as opposed to pretty spouses and children all in a row.

I do like that he's basing his campaign on economic disparity, which is quite frankly running rampant and no one is really doing much more than paying lip service.

Secondly, he's improving his stance in respect to GLBT rights, and with him it seems to boil down to equal treatment under the law, which is a stance I can get behind. Now here's where I have to hold my nose a bit and hope that he gets some sense: he's against same-sex marriage personally, but is for civil unions and against a constitutional ban. On the plus side: it allows for wiggle room. On a down side: Does it mean that he would impede legislation against same-sex marriage? I honestly don't know.

Ultimately, the Edwards & Richardson decision came down to a process of elimination.

(NB: all these statements have an implied "at the moment" following them.)

Kucinich: Just no. Idealism without practicality

Biden: Milquetoast and in it "just because"

Obama: Pre-McClurkin: Too Green. Post-McClurkin: No. Way. In. Hell.

Gravel: Great policies, but he's not the right messenger because it comes through a bunch of babble that makes you wonder as to what he would actually do if elected. He came VERY close for my support.

Dodd: See Biden.

Clinton: I really wanted to like her, but she's too moderate and if Edwards (who seems just a little bit more left of HRC) is also in favour of health care, I don't see any reason to go with Hillary.

And I have yet to hear who the DSA is in favour of, they are probably as flummoxed as I am.

For what it's worth, SP-USA is putting up Brian Moore for president, like Gravel, I like the policies, but not the babble.

Skeptical Optimism in Wisconsin

According to The Advocate (has the Journal Sentinel dropped the ball on this one?), a straight political science professor is challenging Wisconsin's year-old ban on Same-sex marriage and civil unions.

And for all the right reasons.


Says the aforementioned professor, Bill McConkey: "If you don’t like gay people, who’s next? Short people? As a student of history and an educated person, I know the history and the implications of that mind-set."

All Hail Tim Cuprisin

For those of us who are cynical about the constant hyperbole coming out of television stations whenever there is a snowstorm on the way, take a gander at this video by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Tim Cuprisin, who lightly pokes fun at the phenomenon.

And for a more sharper attack, read his blog posts from yesterday.

I'm Coming Out (Politically) Part 1

So I figure it's time to get off the proverbial pot and fess up which candidate I'm voting for in the primary.

Well, it's now narrowed down to 2 main contenders.

MAJOR faux pas aside, I cannot completely discredit Bill Richardson, because I think he is the kind of statesman that this country would benefit from. I think that his verbal missteps, as Rod McCullom mentions in this article at Rod 2.0 are mere nerves.

Yet is that enough? More to come in Part 2.

Puppies grow into dogs that get old and DIE!

The above is one of my favourite movie quotes, and I find it particularly insightful when applied to this article in The Guardian by my own playwright role model, Mark Ravenhill, whose play Shopping and Fucking convinced me of the power of writing for the stage and how subversive it could be.

Essentially, it's the standard "I'm too old for this shit" treatise that anyone in any profession is apt to echo, but it's interesting to see how Ravenhill claims that he is holding onto his rebel status by choosing to write heterosexual themes at the moment:

Now, I'm surprised to say, I'm happy never to write another gay character
again. It feels as though every aspect of the gay experience has been narrated,
performed and picked over in the past 30 years. It has left us with some
brilliant work. Alongside all the bad generic gay work, artists such as Derek
Jarman, Alan Hollinghurst, Tony Kushner and others have left a body of work that is both gay and great. But that work seems over now.

Right now, I'm eager to explore the strange, twilight world of the
heterosexual - to expose its anguishes and mysteries and unconscious
comedies. Maybe one day there will be something to pull me back to the gay
experience, the sense of something new to be said about the gay world. But, for
the moment at least, my lavender quill is at rest.

Something seem odd there to you? It does to me.

One of the major tenets of performance writing--especially for stage--is that character comes first. Personality, history, all the things about life experience are present whenever a character speaks. Now perhaps my naivete is showing, but one thing I remember very clearly being affected by is in how the playwright creates and reveals these aspects. If these characters were gay, then it was a part that informed them and also my own understanding. If they weren't, I didn't view it as a stumbling block.

I wonder whether Ravenhill--and his success--has lead him to distrust in his own abilities to create characters that are incidentally gay. As a fan, I've always read his characters that way, so I wonder why he feels they were always GAY with capital letters lit up like a rainbow.

Ravenhill's work for the most part has always been intimate in terms of setting--at least in my view. I always had the sense that he was using the insularity and self-obsessiveness of the characters to make a comment about society at large.

So why refocus on heterosexuals?

He claims they offer him more vision of a modern Britain, but do they?

I would say chances are likely not.

What I see hiding underneath the words of the article is well...a Don Quixote...or perhaps Stockholm Syndrome.

While I agree with his themes of the homogenised gay characters, I suspect that his statement is triggered more by fear of unemployment/relevance, rather than fatigue.

Another dead old puppy.

Are The Oughties All About Rolling The Clock Back?

That was my thought when I read this article (admittedly from this past September) in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the rise of resegregation.