YOUR FAVORITE STRAPPER'S FAVORITE STRAPPER

[courtesy of Magnum Russ]

Plotting on the mousetrap

From Rhino's forthcoming What It Is! comp, a happy discovery for Ghostface fans other than RZA (and probably this guy).

Baby Huey & The Babysitters "Hard Times"

P.C.H.U.M.P.S

Two Thursdays ago I take a car from West Hollywood to Brentwood, climbing high up to the place Fergie shares with her boyfriend. This is the day after she learns that "London Bridge" is going to be #1 on the Hot 100, and she tells me, after some hemming and hawing, that ummm no, nooo, she's never - wait has she? - no she definitely hasn't ever kissed a girl while they are both being done doggystyle by two men high fiving each other across them.

She is very sweet to answer this question and still gives me a very warm goodbye when I leave a half hour later. We are doing our jobs, maybe?

Wait for "Clumsy," which is even better than "London Bridge," and actually produced by Will.I.Am, rather than - thanks Nick - Polow Da Don.

Then LA happens, then the PCH happens, meaning a lot of this happens:


...often with no guardrail. Forgive a Brooklyn boy for indulging his crap CyberShot skills as California is HEAVILY RUNNING NEW YORK as far as coastlines go. In Big Sur Erin & I sleep on this beach:


YES MANG THAT IS A CAVE OCEAN DOORWAY PORTAL. Then we get to an enchanted redwood forest joint where Kim Novak said "Here I was born....and there I died" in this and this kind of view happens a lot:


Seeing as how infinitely, devastatingly gorgeous Vertigo is and infinitely DONLY Bullitt is, though, SF is, on my second visit, a disappointingly un-donly city. Sorry. Just feels that way. What did I miss?

Good to be back! Inanity ensues...now.

In July I spent 6 hours watching the video for Beyonce's "Ring the Alarm" get filmed (they were doing the Basic Instinct stuff, which became my lede), and all I got was this YouTube link:



You will be happy to know that Beyonce is even smarter than you suspected.

With a soda on the side

#2 in my YouTube dance seminars. Again, as hard to find a conclusive Chicken Noodle Soup as it was to find a conclusive Poole Palace, although there were a bunch of kids on 106 & Park doing a version that made sense: flapping arms like chicken wings, flapping legs like noodles.

Close readers will notice that, like the Poole Palace video in seminar #1, this one features a fan (non-oscillating) dancing backup. Unlike the PP, it also features a plastic-enclosed couch and no sound, meaning you can play whatever song you like (I recommend the Knight Rider theme).

$36

If you can stomach it.

Prismatic

New Ghost Blazer here. "2 The Top" plus album artwork. Strict plane game mane!

Knapsack

So *this* is where Justin was holding all the work at!

Stream the Justin Timberlake f. TI "My Love" (via Perez Hilton) here. Single 2. This is more the sort of Timbo beat I was waiting on...

Ferg E Ferg

I recently was the odd man out in a debate over whether or not "My Humps" is beyond any critical rehabilitation, ironic or otherwise. (Hua weighed in on Slate with a yes-it-is after the song's release). I was saying no-it's-not - the beat is fine, and one of Fergie's non-raps ("I'mma start some drama, you don't want no drama/ no no drama, no no no no drama") gives me as much pleasure as Cam'ron's. The hook is monstrous and stunning: powerfully anti-erotic imagery (camels and cancer) functioning as its opposite. It borders on unintentional quasi-satire: isn't it kinda radical for Fergie to come up with a slang term for breasts that makes choad lexicon staples like "funbags" sound appealing by comparison? I guess, in effect, it was an "awesomely bad" argument. Not simple ironic reclamation, but pleasure derived through some cognitive jumping jacks. My friends were telling me that, no, the shit is abhorrent.

So above we have the Fergie single. I've heard this one and another one that had a very 8-bit vibe, at least as I recall, and the beats are both really good. It's very funny to me that Will.I.Am *looooves* the same early 90s golden age enshrined by purists who hate him. Witness "Like That," featuring Q Tip, Talib Kweli and Cee Lo. The "London Bridge" beat, boom bap and funk samply, is totally hot. If Kanye West had produced this instead of Will, there would be no hesitation whatsoever in deeming it incredible. And Fergie's flow is hot, too - corny, duh, vapid, duh, but somehow still reminding me more of Missy Elliott than Missy did on the Cookbook.

The hook is not gross but it *is* inscrutable - so inscrutable, I'd wager, that this is going to become a massive hit, hitting that nursery-rhyme-playground-chant psychic substratum that has turned many happy inanities into massive hits. Or it's too inscrutable.

And a quick shot as I head out the door: "London Bridge" is much better than "Bossy," but "Milkshake" is much better than "London Bridge" and Kelis put together. To the extent that it is possible to make such distinctions, this is a 'purely aesthetic', 'gender-politics-blind' judgment. If it weren't, I'd be saying, of course, that bossy Kelis is way cooler than lumpy Fergie.

***Magnum Russ draws my attention to a heretofore gladly unnoticed connotation: "considering her obvious oral sex motif, i can't help but read "London bridge" as a reference to dental implants. ew. fergie does not exercise good judgement in her sexual metaphors.***