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Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Second rate reporter says what?

Bark louder, little dog.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

You cannot shame the shameless.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

I was promised a recession.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

You are here: Home / Music / Saturday Evening Open Thread: Sincerely Terrible

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Sincerely Terrible

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It’s the weekend, I’m too tired to write about real news, and it’s too soon for any more Woodwardgate posts. So, since a good critic can let you enjoy reading about something you’d never go near IRL, I give you Paul Constant’s “For Ke$ha, on the Occasion of Her 26th Birthday“:

… I have a conflicted relationship with Ke$ha. She put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, but I was also repulsed by it. It was a massacre of light and color and glitter and context and sex. It was also a giant party and a school play gone horribly wrong (or right, depending on your opinion of school plays). I left with more questions than I went in, and my head was buzzing with the same kind of questions I wrestle with when I leave a very good reading with a very smart author. But there was one question I did not have at all in my head, even for one second: Did Ke$ha mean that? She absolutely meant it, every air quote and sappy lyric and sarcastic comment and ironic joke and promise to always love each and every one of her fans for always. She meant every contradictory statement and mixed message and confused statement, and she meant it with every ounce of herself….

Ke$ha’s music is beyond simple. You can tell how a song is going to go within thirteen seconds, and then it unfolds in exactly that way. By all rights, I should’ve been sick of it months ago. But I can’t get enough of it. I keep listening to it. I keep feeling that strange little flutter just under my neck when one of her songs come up on my iPod, I keep trying to sing “We R Who We R” at karaoke even though everyone else in the room is in visible pain. It feels like something true. It feels like something I’m never going to get sick of.

Of course, so does every song you love at one time in your life or another. Who can say how it will really be in one year, or five years, or ten?…

You want to know what punk rock is, in 2013? Ke$ha owns a headdress made out of the teeth of her followers. That is punk as fuck. If Sid Vicious ran into a woman in a club wearing jewelry made out of human teeth back in the 70s, I bet he’d shriek and run in the opposite direction. That’s some sort of power, right there. That’s some kind of incredible thing.

Be grateful that I didn’t share any of the video clips, which are not nearly as entertaining as “Queen of the Lizards.”
***********
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    WereBear

    I admit I am intrigued by the teeth headdress thing. Do they send them to her as they fall out, or are her followers that young? (Any other alternative is too terrible to contemplate.)

  2. 2.

    Suffern ACE

    In my quest to see all of next years potentional Oscar nominees I’m watching Jack the Giant Slayer.

  4. 4.

    the Conster

    I feel terribly terribly old. Does this mean Shakira is week old lettuce now? On the other hand, I know that Snoop Dogg is Snoop Lion, because Rastafari! Also.

  5. 5.

    Suffern ACE

    Given that I can’t even get the word potential out of my left thumb this evening, perhaps I should skip the movie and go home to practice thumb-mind synchronization exercises.

  8. 8.

    the Conster

    @efgoldman:

    I don’t feel that old.

    ETA: Yay!!!! My two married daughters show no signs of being interested in bringing a child into this fucked up world. Not sure how I feel about that.

  9. 9.

    jl

    From the link:

    ‘ “I’ll usually go out, have one fucking insane night, come home half-drunk, stumbling, and write down a few words. The next morning, I’ll wake up and be like, ‘Whoa, this story needs to be told.’” —Ke$ha, on her songwriting process, to Esquire magazine, August 2009 ‘

    And, what is wrong with that? Eff it, that is my method for coming up with innovative study designs.

  11. 11.

    Short Bus Bully

    NOT listening to any fucking Ke$sha songs. That’s what’s on the motherfucking agenda.

  14. 14.

    Yutsano

    Talent portion concluded. Yeesh. every single one of the singers need to meet a new friend called pitch and then marry it. Unfortunately my cousin didn’t do too well there either.

  15. 15.

    gogol's wife

    @Yutsano:

    I hope one of them did “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” That sounds like a non sequitur, but my favorite part of the Miss America pageant used to be the talent portion, and someone always had to sing that song. I haven’t watched a beauty pageant in decades, but somehow I have a feeling they still do that number.

  18. 18.

    jl

    Inspired by a post at Brad DeLong’s blog, I spent some time ‘nutcase reactionary SCOTUS justices’ web surfing and the results were horrifying.

    As far as I can tell from following links on the DeLong post, the only coherent theory the nutcases have is that recent fads in US government over the last, say, 100 to 225 years or so, have harmed the majesty, dignity and sovereignty of the individual states. Seriously.

    Scalia/Thomas in particular, has a problem with the 17th Amendment. Because of the 17th amendment, the states don’t have a proper voice as states in the federal government.

    Effing nuts.

    Do these clowns think that they are on the Supreme Cour of the Articles of Confederation (SCOAOC)?

    And last I heard, the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I do admit, I looked it up on Wikipedia, which is not always the most reliable source, but best I can do right now.

    Does it not occur to Scalia that the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and since amending the U.S. Constitution is a long arduous process, just perhaps back 100 years ago, people thought about the fact that it would take the state governments down a notch in influence, and maybe, well, that was a good thing?

    In fact, did not the U.S. Constitution of 1787 do the same to the individual state governments, and just maybe, the people who thought that up knew it would take the position of state governments down a notch, and just maybe, that would be a good thing?

    Apparently there is some very rare ethereal Constitutional doctrine of the majesty, dignity, and sovereignty of the effing individual state governments that trump stuff like, the Constitution itself?

    IANAL, but really, it is nuts. I think time for a salutary impeachment or two, and were I in the House, I would try to introduce one every day I came to work.

    SCOTUS nutcase justices out of control and out of bounds.

    The Fishkin link in the DeLong posts suggests Kennedy is angling for an alternative ‘bail-in’ option for Section 5 coverage, and his motives are not quite as hideous as those of others, but he too has this hang up on the majesty, dignity and sovereignty of state governments. Sorry, Kennedy, maybe you are not as awful as some others, but you mind is gone, you should retire.

    Can any of the BJ lawyer squad help me out on this. WTF is this hangup on the effing majesty, dignity and sovereignty of the effing crummy little crap ass state governments (which Hamilton wanted unsovereigntied and undignified into practical non-existence, IIRC)

    Brad DeLong
    Nobody Has Any Business Voting for These Republicans: Nino “I Want to Have a Constitutional Moment” Scalia Tudor-Dynasty Villian Weblogging

    http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/03/nobody-has-any-business-voting-for-these-republicans-nino-i-want-to-have-a-constitutional-moment-scalia-tudor-dynasty-vill.html

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jl:

    Can any of the BJ lawyer squad help me out on this. WTF is this hangup on the effing majesty, dignity and sovereignty of the effing crummy little crap ass state governments (which Hamilton wanted unsovereigntied and undignified into practical non-existence, IIRC)

    I trace a lot of it to the slaveholding states. Others may differ.

  20. 20.

    MobiusKlein

    @jl: It’s part of the libertarian modality, where they disdain everything after Maybury vs Madison, or some such.

    It’s honestly sad.

  22. 22.

    hitchhiker

    Rearranging the living room. This involves dealing with the roughly 400,000 wires that make my beloved’s massive & impressive musical/technical/audio equipment run smoothly. Luckily, he knows how. Unluckily, I must stand by endlessly and assist.

  28. 28.

    Yutsano

    @efgoldman: Young women. Cuz is 17. She needs to stop growing up dammit.
    @gogol’s wife: One did a song from “Wicked”. Another did an aria from “Romeo & Juliet”. The rest were various pop songs. None very good.
    @Omnes Omnibus: Closest there was the girl who did a rifle routine. She wasn’t half-bad, but could have used more oomph. But a solo rifle routine is very difficult to pull off.

  33. 33.

    Spaghetti Lee

    There’s always good music being made somewhere, right? Maybe I should start checking under rocks and such.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    homemade meatballs for dinner.

    So, no horse d’oeuvre from Ikea.

    Congrats on the soon-to-be grandkid! Any news yet on sex, name?

  36. 36.

    West of the Rockies

    Is there any reason why she has a dollar sign in her name? It just seems crass. If she’s trying to make a pithy statement, it escapes me. Is it the name-equivalent of wearing a big, ol’ rhinestones-in-goldplated-tin dollar sign around your neck?

    Crap, I’m probably coming across like Alan Simpson complaining about “Snoopy-Snoopy Poop Dog”.

  38. 38.

    OldBean

    You want to know what punk rock is, in 2013? Ke$ha owns a headdress made out of the teeth of her followers. That is punk as fuck. If Sid Vicious ran into a woman in a club wearing jewelry made out of human teeth back in the 70s, I bet he’d shriek and run in the opposite direction. That’s some sort of power, right there. That’s some kind of incredible thing.

    Someone needs a history lesson.

    “Our band could be your life”. Does that really apply to someone wearing a necklace of her fan’s fucking teeth? Punk is (ok, fine, was) about the value of your own expression, not freaking teeth-necklaces.

  39. 39.

    dance around in your bones

    Who the hell is Ke$ha?

    I know who Jethro Tull is (looking at you, efgoldman!)

    P.S. Congrats on the imminent grandkid. It will drive you nuts in the years to come, but in the meantime – have fun! Especially if you can visit and give him/her back. Mine are in my room at 6am playing Minecraft on their iPads. Gah.

    I do get great hugs, though.

  40. 40.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @the Conster: I am thinking of the movie Idiocracy where the high IQ couple, finding excuses for not having children or waiting for the right time whilethe Low IQ couple is just doing it and after a few years the Low IQ couple is just breeding like rabbits. A funny movie, but who get the feeling we are on the fast track there. The Tea Party Republicans need to nominate Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as their candidate for president, in 2016.

  47. 47.

    OldBean

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    @the Conster: I am thinking of the movie Idiocracy where the high IQ couple, finding excuses for not having children or waiting for the right time whilethe Low IQ couple is just doing it and after a few years the Low IQ couple is just breeding like rabbits. A funny movie, but who get the feeling we are on the fast track there. The Tea Party Republicans need to nominate Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as their candidate for president, in 2016.

    Idiocracy is…. well, idiotic. XKCD can explain why.

    I’ll also add that just because people have dumb political beliefs doesn’t mean they’re carrying some sort of genetic deficiency. My wing-nuttiest uncle had perfect SAT scores, for instance. He has a tremendously capable brain, he just doesn’t make good use of it for various reasons. His kids are very intelligent, and 2/3s of them are solid democrats.

    (And yeah, anecdote is not data, but a stupid movie ain’t data either.)

  48. 48.

    The Other Chuck

    Since Ke$ha allegedly brushes her teeth with Jack Daniels, I suspect they’re the teeth of her followers that have fallen out from adopting her lifestyle.

    Tick Tock Alla Dolla Go To Yo Dentist.

  51. 51.

    dance around in your bones

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ok, she has a cartoon ass like Shakira. Thanks!

    The dog just started horking in the house and I had to rush him out to the back porch.

    Nothing to do with Lily Allen, I’m sure.

    eta: My Gawd! hawt, she is. Got the butt IRL, too. Plus, fuck me pumps.

  56. 56.

    I am not a kook

    Hey, thanks for the post – I’ve never knowingly listened to her before. I’m an old fart but I’m glad I did. Irreverent anthemic dance pop on a Saturday night, not bad!

    So she’s a song writer and multi-instrumentalist. And she’s writing songs like a 26-year old strong young woman with an attitude (and a foul mouth). There’s punk in there, it’s just that her musical vocabulary is contemporary, not 30-40 years old. Simplicity? Well, it’s pop music! Iggy Pop makes an appearance on the last album if you need an elder statesman’s approval :)

    I don’t get why some people want to sound like their parents talking about that terrible rock and roll music?

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @I am not a kook:

    I don’t get why some people want to sound like their parents talking about that terrible rock and roll music?

    It is possible to not be a fan of Ke$ha and not be a fogie. I don’t really like autotuned talk-singing. OTOH I like dubstep.

  60. 60.

    I am not a kook

    @dance around in your bones: Oh I’m with you, I grew up with 70’s pop myself. I fled that horror by listening to lots of 60’s shit. And punk. But listening to some people it’s like *their* stupid pop is Real Music and all this newfangled stuff is crap. I guess it was ever so.

    Onions on belts were out of fashion by my time. I wore brown velour and cords and shirts that telegraphed my nationality to orbit.

    I still can’t wear corduroy.

  61. 61.

    Peter

    I don’t know what that particular writer has been listening to, but there is absolutely nothing genuine about Ke$ha’s image or music. The best you could possibly say is that she’s fake in a winking sort of way, and even that seems to be reaching.

  62. 62.

    dance around in your bones

    @I am not a kook:

    Corduroy makes a weird noise when you walk.

    Here’s an old lady singing one of her best songs – let’s see if Ke$ha makes it to Patti Smith’s age and her music endures.

    Her early version ….

    I guess maybe it’s because I remember driving around with my best friend coming out from a movie and listening to this song and just wanting to drive all night listening to this song. All the way across the country.

  64. 64.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano: You may have already seen Miss Congeniality, but if you haven’t seen Happy, Texas… you should do so. Among other delights: William H. Macy as a macho, closeted small-town Texas ranger, and Illeana Douglas as a pageant teacher for a band of little girls (complete with flaming baton routine).

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @I am not a kook: I do have to say that, while I try to keep up with modern music, I do have an affinity for the stuff that was considered cutting edge from about 1977-94. From 13 to 30 for me. I can like the newer stuff, but it doesn’t hit me the way, let’s say, Debaser did.

  67. 67.

    Anne Laurie

    @Southern Beale:

    Possibly the worst thing I ever read about Ke$ha was in The Atlantic last fall, a story titled Why Ke$ha’s New Memoir Is 2012′s Answer to ‘The Feminine Mystique’.

    Just, no. No no no no.

    Ke$ha is one of those of-the-moment pop artists the discussion about whose work is infintely more culturally significant than the music itself.

  69. 69.

    Anne Laurie

    @dance around in your bones:

    I guess maybe it’s because I remember driving around with my best friend coming out from a movie and listening to this song and just wanting to drive all night listening to this song. All the way across the country

    Ugh, my college roommate’s bestie-from-high-school showed up with that then-brand-new album and something like a half-pound of weed. Since I did not inhale, 72 hours of listening to the vinyl scratch on repeat gave me a permanent allergy to Pattie Smith!

  70. 70.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:

    Yeesh. every single one of the singers need to meet a new friend called pitch and then marry it.

    They think they have. It’s called Autotune, but unfortunately they won’t let you use it in talent contests.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @jl:

    And last I heard, the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I do admit, I looked it up on Wikipedia, which is not always the most reliable source, but best I can do right now.

    You could always try the National Archives, who should be definitive enough for anyone. If they say there’s a 17th Amendment, there’s a 17th Amendment. Bookmark it, Lib!

  72. 72.

    dance around in your bones

    @Anne Laurie: Oh, Anne Laurie – maybe it was the weed?

    My sister has never been able to tolerate it – I remember once when a bunch of us were ….uh….bakin’ it? and she just freaked. “You are all insane!” she started screaming.

    Kinda freaked us out.

    Have you read Patti Smith’s book Just Kids? about her and Robert Mapplethorpe’s relationship? It’s pretty good.

  73. 73.

    NobodySpecial

    I just…prefer that my artists have at least a little bit of non-fabrication to them. I don’t really need costume changes, light shows, and multiple dance routines in my concerts, either. If you’ve got something relatively original to say and say it well (no matter how well you sing), I’ll be amenable to listening.

    The closest I get to music like that is probably Robbie Williams, and that’s because he’s always thrown off the vibe that he knows he wasn’t the member of the boy band that was supposed to go solo, and he made it anyways. He knows he’s lucky as fuck and never seems to take himself too seriously. Plus, you know, he has Trevor Horn’s seal of approval, so that’s going for him.

    No Autotune, either. Can’t stand Autotune.

  74. 74.

    Anne Laurie

    @Anne Laurie: Only problem I had with the weed is that it enabled the two stoners to listen to the same vinyl record for three days straight, no lie, falling asleep with the needle scratching into the center and waking up just enough to flip the disc & start it again. I can barely look at a photo of Smith, much less listen to her voice. Classic aversion therapy — you could probably cure me of eatin potato chips if you could figure out a parallel method of claustrophic overdose!

  75. 75.

    dance around in your bones

    @Anne Laurie: Well yes, I can see how that could be a problem.

    Having spent many an hour back in the day perusing album covers and liner notes while listening to the same songs over and over, I bet you wouldn’t have liked hanging out with me.

    I miss album covers and liner notes.

    Actually, that brings back a memory of hiding in my friend’s closet while her parents were fighting like cats and dogs and Paperback Writer kept repeating over and over on the record player. Kinda ruined that song for me.

  76. 76.

    Del

    I’m sure I was never really the target market but I sure as hell don’t feel old, I’m only 28. I love Lindsey Sterling, Pink, Adele, Fun, and a whole bunch of other current “chart toppers”, but Ke$ha is pretty much manufactured crap. She has all the appeal of a rhinestone studded ‘personal massager’. I’m sure they sell ’em at Spencers, but it’s just not my thing.

    About the closest I’ll ever listen to autotuning is anything by will.i.am, but that guy puts it’s to good use and he’s creative as all hell in a fun sort of way. Ke$ha? Not so much.

  77. 77.

    Anton Sirius

    “About the closest I’ll ever listen to autotuning is anything by will.i.am, but that guy puts it’s to good use and he’s creative as all hell…”

    You’re slamming Ke$ha for being manufactured crap but praising will.i.am for his creativity… that’s some Tea Party-grade cognitive dissonance right there.

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