Oh white people...

I recently received this link from a friend of mine:
http://www.catsandbeer.com/music/the-top-10-rap-songs-white-people-love

I don't know much about the reputation of a website called "Cats and Beer", though I reckon they don't specialize is veterinary "medicines", but I do know about the other two things mentioned in this link:
1. Rap Songs
2. White People

I was certainly intrigued (as I love lists, usually hate the rap that white people love, and click anything in front of me), so I headed on over.

Luckily for me, it was a list populated with songs going back much further than the current dismal state of hip-hop. I could go on (and I probably will soon) about the current state of hip-hop and how it has devolved from a striking new art form into incessant Jay-Z car waxing/material wealth centrism/club banger-only style hooks (enough of the "hey!" on beat 3 of every bar in the background, please)/derivative music. It's pretty disappointing really. Hip-hop used to be so great...but again that's a post for another time.

So onto the list. I will reprint their list, from 10 to 1, and add my comments. Also, take the time to watch the videos, you might enjoy yourself!

#10 - Positive K - I Got a Man

• I'm pretty surprised this made the list. I remember seeing this video pretty much every week on Yo! MTV Raps from 1992 on, but I wouldn't think other typical white folks (who this list is written about) would have liked it...although it does empower women with its, "What's your man got to do with me?" lines.
• Positive K is not a great rapper, but he sure can wear a sweet day-glo wind breaker! He named the album this appeared on The Skills to Pay the Bills...how long before your utilities were cut off, K?
  
  
  
  

#9 - Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance

• First off, this should be #1 or #2 on a list of hip hop songs white people like. I think 90% of us can at least quote a few lines after "All right, stop watcha doin'...".
  
• Secondly, if a DJ puts this song on at a place white people frequent (like a dance club with "Ugly" in the name, a coffee shop, a library, a bowling alley, or a wedding), the worst in white dancing will ensue (don't bite your lower lip too hard, now!). It's like cheating in the DJ world.
• Last, if you happen to see my rendition of this at a karaoke bar, your life might be changed a little.
  
  
  
  

#8 - Biz Markie - Just A Friend

• Again, this is a weird one. I think it deserves inclusion because white folks have heard the chorus, combined with Biz's "knack" for singing, a like the combination.
  
• I'm pretty sure it's not on the list because a) kids in the 'burbs bought the album; b) there's a battalion of underground Biz-heads; or c) people love the Freddie Scott sample.
• This wouldn't make my list. 'nuff said.

#7 - Young MC - Bust a Move

• I agree with this one. Maybe it could have been higher...it was pretty damn popular, and with the inclusion of Flea (stuffed-animal-pantsed Flea that is, like Mother's Milk era), this gave white people a way in to understanding that Young MC was reaching out for equality. It makes white folks feel good to know the rap they listen to transcends the race barrier, right? Or was it because Young MC just raps so fast and talks about stuff I know about? (i.e. "tell a funny joke just to get some play/then you try to make a move and she says no way").
• Excellent use of the drum break from "Scorpio".
• And, is it just me, or does the back up dancer in the vid with the "Body Glove" spandex shorts look a lot like the girl that played Vanessa Huxtable's fast talking friend Kara on The Cosby Show? This question has plagued me for years...turns out her name is Elizabeth Narvaez-Scott, thanks Google! Now next time she googles herself, my blog will come up. You're welcome, Elizabeth.
  

#6 - Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock - It Takes Two

• Now you're talkin'! This list must have been compiled by someone in my age group. If you ever went to a skating rink between 1986 and...hell, maybe today, you've probably heard this one. I think they are right that whiteys dig this, and probably just for the opening line of "I wanna rock right now".
  
• White people tend to like lines with "rock" in it (see also: "We Will Rock You", "I Wanna Rock", "Rock You Like a Hurricane", "Rock Around the Clock", "We Built This City on Rock and Roll"...scratch that last one, no one likes "We Built This City").

#5 - Naughty By Nature - Hip Hop Hooray

• A bold choice, Catsandbeer.com. If I were making the list, I would most assuredly pick "O.P.P." as a representative early 90s, east-coast club anthem. But they've done me one better and gone with the second (maybe third? if you count "Ghetto Bastard" or "Uptown Anthem") hit for ol' Naughty By Nature.
  
• I agree this is a good song, and it has the feature that whities love: an easily memorizable/sing-back-able chorus that you can wave your arms to while downing buckets of Rolling Rock, jello shooters, and "just getting crazy" with tattered ball caps and sorority girls on Thirsty Thursdays at your local waterin'/shit-talkin' hole.

#4 - Tag Team - Whoomp! (There It Is)

• Whether I like it or not, this deserves to be on the list. How many girls in your sophomore class made up a dance to this that they wanted to teach everyone at the school dance? Too many to mention.
• Interesting side note, Tag Team's tour manager/lawyer was my Copyright Law teacher at Belmont back in 1998. I guess Tag Team's success didn't last...why would that be?
  

#3 - Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby

• It was inevitable, and as much as it pains me, this is properly included. I certainly can remember it being very important to me that I learn the words to this song. Oh, 1991, where have you gone?
• If you missed it on its first go-round, then you probably can't appreciate how big of a hit this was. Now, don't get me wrong, it was almost immediately dropped to ironic status after, but initially Robert Van Winkle was treated like the "great-white-hope" for rap music. Maybe this was because hip-hop was one musical art forms that became popular without it being stolen by whites first?

#2 - House of Pain - Jump Around

• Again, I've got to give it to catsandbeer.com, this should be on the list. I would not put it ahead of "Ice Ice Baby" though.
• Well, maybe I might given that this is another DJ cheat...I mean when you hear the bagpipes at the beginning how many of us don't instinctively act like a frat a boy and start the "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww yeah..." crescendo? Guilty.
  
• Plus it allows (nay, implores!) white dancing without technique - just jump around, you ninnies!
• I do kind of like the song though..."don't try to play me out, as if my name was Sega".
  
  
  
  this is what they had in mind, right?
  

and finally, we come to their #1...

#1 - Sir Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back

• I think this is right on. Again, the premise of this song got white people's ear (c'mon, it is a little ridiculous when you hear this on the radio...but it worked, my God did it work!), and then the unabashed approach got them hooked.
  
• I would agree with catsandbeer.com that if you go to a karaoke and they only have one hip-hop number, this will be it.
• My personal highlights of this song are the whip cracks - proof that Mix-A-Lot is in on the joke.

I rest my case.

So that wraps up their list. I think my list (again, for what white people in general would love) would have to include "Nuthin' But a G Thang" or "Gin and Juice" (yet not "Trap Goin Ham"), but this one was pretty good.

This is fantastic news for me and you:

I was recently made aware that there is a soon-to-be-released documentary about Bill Withers.
For those of you that don't know who Bill Withers is, you'll probably find out that you do know who Bill Withers is. I have done what I can as one man to spread the gospel of Bill Withers (more than one person has recounted to me how turning them on to Bill has 'changed their life a little bit'), and I always thought someone should make a movie about him.

So who is Bill? He was a regular guy from West Virginia working on 747s installing toilets when he decided to take music more seriously, and when he did that at 32 years of age, he got a record deal. What followed? -

Ever heard, "Lean on Me"? Of course you have. In fact, you already know the words to it and don't even remember how you learned them.

Yeah, well, Bill Withers wrote that gem back in 1972. In addition to that, Withers penned "Ain't No Sunshine" (an oft-covered classic), "Use Me" (which you heard on the "American Beauty" soundtrack), and "Lovely Day" (which was used in that Gap commercial a while ago).

After Bill had all these hits (there were more that you should check out...a list is coming), he quit the music biz completely in 1985. Poof. Gone. Into reclusive-mode like Sly Stone and JD Salinger (RIP). From what I understand, he didn't like the way the music business worked (not too shocking of an indictment) and so he left it. Big balls on Bill Withers, it turns out.

So this documentary is a long time coming...to me this will hopefully be not only the story of a fantastic artist who is one of the best living songwriters, but it should also be a great way for people to learn about the greatness of Bill Withers, someone who really has languished in obscurity in my opinion. Plus, there aren't too many successful artists that will tell you how much they hate the biz.

Not sure when it will be released (website just says "Spring 2010"), but I look forward to it.

A new post, that's not totally new, but new to you...maybe.

Here is an old blog (from Detroit, the Internet - aka Myspace) that I was recently convinced (not that it took too much convincing ctrl+c/ctrl+v is nay that taxing - but you were right anyway, Adam) to post on my new, fantastically different blog, "Boss Blog". By the way, do you like the name of the 'blog? I really hesitated to name it, to be honest...when it came down to it, it seemed like The Blogfather was a bit contrived, as well as setting the expectation bar a little too high.

Anyway, without further ado (but maybe a few edits and additions), here is a pretty funny post from 2 years ago that I have affectionately titled, "The Buckcherry Blog".


Blogging is great in ’08!

Recently I've heard some comments about people liking my blogs, so I've come out of my self-imposed exile to return to the blogosphere.

Why else have I returned you ask?

One word: Buckcherry.

See, I listen to the radio when I drive. I have an in-dash CD player in my sweet Accord, and since I own an iPod now, I can't go back to CDs...too much time. And since I don't carry CDs around, I turn on the radio (this is how I found out I like Kelly Clarkson...and Evanescence).

Well, today, friends I had a little life changing experience at the hands of Josh Todd and Buckcherry.

I don't know if you know it, but these guys are at the forefront of songwriting and music in general:


(*that's Josh Todd at the forefront of Buckcherry, so you know he means business).

To wit: "Too Drunk" is the new standard in rock and/or roll.
I mean, I knew they were on to something before...remember "Lit Up"? A song that glamorized cocaine and partying...as if that needed glamorizing!

And what about "Crazy Bitch"? That's their more recent endeavor that got them a lot of airplay/money/drugs/Herpes simplex-2...with classic closing lines like "you're crazy but I like the way you fuck me!"

Well, "Too Drunk" takes it to another level altogether. As I sat in my car, I was transported to another land - a land of poetry and beauty, complete with bluesy guitar riffs, booming drums, and the whiny cry of Josh Todd at the helm of a completely rocking steam boat of rock christened "Buckcherry".


"All aboard!" - Cpt. Josh Todd, piloting the S.S. Buckcherry


I mean this song has it all, and boy could I relate...the chorus is your basic rock and roll partying type chorus, but it's like it was ripped out of the pages of my life:

I'm gettin' drunk all night/I'm gettin' drunk all day/
I'm sorry but I have to say - I'm too drunk to fuck.

Yeah, that's right...too drunk to fuck.
We've all been there. Who hasn't had a case of the whiskey dick, right?
Well Josh Todd and Buckcherry certainly have, and now they've had it in my car. Thanks.


This is the first result for a Google image search for "Whiskey Dick".


Buckcherry's lyricism is plugged into the pulse of Americana with a song like this, and it's certainly a step above other songs glorifying excess and erectile dysfunction (move over Springsteen, Dylan, and Levon Helm!).


"Who said my name?" - Levon Helm, ca. The Last Waltz

In the past we've had songs that deal with fucking, but not the more personal side of it, the more tender side, if you will. This line comes straight from the heart like Mystikal in "Shake Ya Ass" did: "Beat the pussy up ain't no smooth fuckin'!" - which was spoken like a true sexual batterer.


This is how you get into trouble, Mr. Mystikal...

And I thought Ol' Dirty Bastard had the best line in history of songs about fucking with:
"I don't have no problem with you fuckin' me/but a have a little problem with you NOT fuckin' me"
...but I was just denying the true power of a Josh Todd song. He kicked ODBs ass (RIP).


Dirt McGirt succumbs to the powerful death-blow of a Josh Todd chorus.

Another line I like in "Too Drunk" is Josh Todd, et. als use of "Young, dumb, and full of cum", a triple not oft used anymore outisde of rural Tennessee backyard gatherings and National Guard Armory wrestling events. I think Dick Van Dyke and Mel Brooks would really appreciate this use of their tell-tale comedic device (the triple) used in this fashion. Plus, it's just a truism of life. If you've been young and dumb, you're certainly full of cum. Not sure if this is transitive or reflexive, however (if Y+D=FoC, then D+FoC=Y? or FoC+Y=D?) probably so on the last one.

But as great as all these formulas are, J. Todd goes one better and follows up "Young, dumb and full of cum" with a reference to his "Sugar coated candy cane". Now there you have it. He's done 50 Cent's "like a fat kid loves cake" one or even two better.


wrong kind of 50 Cent's cake...

Maybe even better than Prince's "...do you after school like some homework" (*but probably not). Hats off. Jimmy hats, that is.

Could it be that Buckcherry is just so intense that it can only be compared to a night of doing cocaine rails off KISS's ass, plus applying eyeliner in Poison and Cinderella-like quantities, culminating in the posturing of Van Halen (spandex-pantsed Diamond Dave, of course)?

So, I encourage you, nay, IMPLORE you to get out there and listen to the modern marvel that is Buckcherry. Their song "Too Drunk" certainly places them on hallowed ground as the new bards of this generation. Just look at the closing message they use to pull their debauchery together, while telling a little truth on society:

I could spend my lifetime gettin' high/ never wanna live in a suit and tie/ Most of us are just livin' a lie/ drink gettin' fucked up every night.

So true. So true. Buckcherry sees right through my "suit and tie" and into my soul that just wants to "get fucked up every night"...they know I'm just a cog in a wheel, gettin' no grease. Damn, Buckcherry, I am living a lie.

Can you believe this guy got kicked out of Velvet Revolver? WTF!?


Slash and the gay apparatchik Velvet Revolver hired instead of Josh Todd.

Celebrity Death Text

C-Murder. Eppi Pen. Amon-Ho-Teppler. Epp. Soul Brother No. 2.
I've been known by many names, but I'm here to let you know that I'm for realz on the intehnets.

The last time I blogged, it was over at Myspace. I'm sure you all remember Myspace, right? That fake social networking site (so 2005) that my brother Nate dubbed, "The Detroit of the Internet"? Well, for all its shortcomings, the one feature I did like on Myspace was that it had blogging built in. I found that when I did blog, it turned out pretty funny. And 2 or 3 people even read the thing! Minimal interweb celebrity was at my fingertips...
But then Myspace got played out by Facebook (just like Detroit got played out by...every other available city in the US), so I had to make the switch.

So this brings me to my first proper post: Celebrity Death Text.
What is Celebrity Death Text?
Celebrity Death Text is a competition my brother and I inadvertently came up with (due to the advent of text messaging, picture phones, and the continuing trend of celebrities dying) back in 2005.

• a little background may be in order: my brother Nate is the smartest and funniest person I know. He would tell you that I'm smarter, but I know the only reason he tells people that is to make me feel better about myself, so maybe I am smarter than him since I can see through his facade? But maybe he knows that I know, thus making it all the more apparent how much smarter he is than me under those circumstances. Either way, he would not tell you that I'm funnier.

So, back in 2005 I get this text message from Nate:

"I bet his last words were: Motherfucker."

I laughed out loud. I had not heard that Richard Pryor had died, and I was saddened to find that out, but this was the best way for the news to be delivered.

From that day on, whenever a celebrity died, it was sort of a race to see who could send the text first, and who could be the funniest. It really didn't matter the level of celebrity or notoriety either, we Epplers are equal opportunists. There were a couple that were untouchable though (James Brown, Michael Jackson, Steve McNair, I think Ted Kennedy - that one would be too easy anyway), we're not totally bereft of hearts, you know.

Some highlights from this endeavor:

Peter Tomarken (the former host of Press Your Luck, died 2006)- "...and stop"

Howard Zinn (famous historian, activist; died 2010) - "History."

Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul, and Mary; died 2009) - "Maybe she should have hammered out cancer."

Paul Gleason (character actor, best known for Principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club; died 2006) - "He got the horns."

And there were others, all distinctively hilarious...but the undisputed winner (authored by me, I might add) was:


"See you later, alligator."

So, the tradition continues to this day (as celebrities will not stop dying), and I encourage you, dear reader, to get in on the action. As soon as you see a celebrity has died on AOL, get out your phone, take a pic, come up with a cold-heartedly hilarious tag-line, and send it off. You'll make someone's day, as long as it's not the widow/er.

I started a blog...that started the whole world crying.

So, I decided to start a blog.
What can you expect from this?
Hilarity, thought-provocation, pop-culture references, maybe a few tears...
We'll see what happens.
I'll be back with a proper post.