Celebrity Death Text, #11

"Case closed."

Celebrity Death Text, #10

From Nate Eppler, via Chris Bosen:


"There are only two sure things in life: death and saxes."

Celebrity Death Text, #9

Leonard B. Stern is no longer (verb).

Celebrity Death Text, #8

From Nate Eppler:


"Don't take your work home with you."

Celebrity Death Text, #7

Two for one today, both from Nate Eppler:


"The funeral will not be televised."

And:


"Greased."

Celebrity Death Text, #6

Quick update for a very sad celebrity death text:



"Ooooooh Noooooooo!" - from Nate Eppler

or

"Snap into a casket!!!" - from Dustin Schletzer

or

"Snap into a pine tree!!!" - from Nick Phillips

or

"Off to the steel cage in the sky." - me

I can't express how hilarious it is that "Celebrity Death Text" has caught on at a local level. I even sometimes get texts from people wondering "what will the text be?" when celebrities die. Is it morbid? Perhaps. Is it tasteless? Usually. Is it hilarious? Always.

The Gay/Not Gay/Definitely Gay Lyrics of George Michael

Dear America of 1985: This man is NOT gay. Not at all. Pay no attention to the multitude of clues you are being bombarded with. This guy wants nothing more than to sell records and sleep with chicks. Love, Sony Records.


[*author's note: Props to Jphive, my good friend who is the genesis of this post. Also, there was so much picture-evidence for this topic that I had to create a "George Michael" folder to manage them all. Seriously.]

Georgios Panayiotou. George Michael.


Trivia tidbit: GM also dabbled in Colonel Harlan Sanders fetishism for a bit in 1985.

We all know the story of little Georgios, no need for me to rehash it for you. It breaks down like this: little Greek kid with a huge voice goes to England and gains HUGE success with his schoolmate in a band with an onomatopoeia for a name, dumps that no-talent schoolmate into obscurity, goes solo and has more MASSIVE success world-wide, decides he wants to be a serious artist, stops appearing in videos and has a protracted legal war with his label, then gets arrested for waving his willy at an undercover cop, comes out of the closet, and then seems to make a career out of getting arrested.


The road to fame is paved with community service.

Now don't get me wrong - I love George Michael. I'm not afraid to say it, either. Yes, I own all three WHAM! albums on vinyl. Yes, I have copies of Faith and Listen Without Prejudice, too. I think he is one of the best singers out there; he has an amazing voice. In fact, I would agree with my old friend Matt Sterling and dub him "King of the (Alive) Gay Singers."


Sorry, GM, this guy still holds the title of "King of the Gay Singers." And not just because he already had the cape, sceptre, and crown.

Are all his songs great? No (ever heard "Too Funky"?...terrible). But did he have some massively popular and catchy hits?
Hell yes.

Can you deny the greatness of "Careless Whisper"? "Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)"? "Father Figure"? what about that duet with Elton John? And did you ever hear his cover of "Somebody to Love"?

The guy had 8 #1 singles in America, as well as 7 #1s in the UK...sold 20 million copies of his first solo record, Faith, as well as 10 million copies of the title single! This guy was a hit machine in the 1980s. I think in 1987 or 1988 he had 3 singles still in the top ten at the same time! Couple that with his successes in WHAM! and you've got a very serious money-maker on your hands.


The double entendres are free, however.

But all this seems to be largely forgotten about GM because of a little legal trouble he had back in 1998 (not to mention all his subsequent legal trouble - lay off the sticky-icky, George). Seems he engaged in a little "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" tit-for-tat (but not really, in this case, is it?) with an undercover LA policeman at a public park/gay hook-up locale. His ensuing arrest made world-wide headlines as now it was clear that one of the the premiere global sex-symbols of the 1980s was batting for the other team. America and Britain were shocked!


Shocked, I tell you.

I mean, you have to understand just how big of a star GM was. From WHAM! to his first solo album, he was everywhere. You couldn't turn on MTV without seeing this guy. And they made sure to sell him to all those hungry teen girls with disposable income the best they could.


Hot pink long-sleeve Tshirt: not gay, as long as you wear it with neon yellow fingerless gloves.

With WHAM!, he and buddy Andrew Ridgeley were popular enough to sell about 20 million albums, have a farewell tour that concluded at Wembley stadium (which was 8 hours long and attended by 73,000 people), and were the first western pop stars to do a concert in communist China. Yeah, WHAM! was the diplomatic unit (no pun intended) sent to extend the hand of goodwill to China in 1985!


Banana-yellow jacket and matching pants (with fringe on each) without a shirt: not gay in the least, as long as your silent partner also wears a get-up that's mono-chromatic and a primary color.

As a solo artist, Faith was HUGE! He made a video for every damn single, each single was catchy and a hit, and he even scored some controversy points with all that "I Want Your Sex" business (but it turns out he didn't want "your" sex, he wanted "that guy over there's" sex).


Suspenders, a high-waisted belt, and an Amish-looking hat: definitely not gay. It was just popular for men to dress like "Downtown" Julie Brown in 1987.

And yet...looking back, did he leave us some clues as to which way he swung? Was it really all so shocking in hindsight (no pun intended, but see what I did there)?


Mesh shirts: not gay as long as they're tucked into your jeans. Without a belt.

To wit:

"Freedom '90."

Here's a song that was released on GM's second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. Still waiting for Volume 2, actually, but see what GM did there? He was so tired of all the success and money and fame from his first solo album (the multi-platinum Faith, which scored him an endless supply of cocaine, cash, and women, I'm sure) that he wanted to do what all artists do: show the world that they are "serious" about *insert art form here* and focus on that. They want to make sure their audience knows they're mature artists, not just money-grubbing fame-whores. And they want their same audience to come along with them (i.e. keep buying all their albums because they're artistic, not because they want money) for their "journey". Can you please just listen to my music, without prejudice!? So, GM does this and is actually pretty successful with it. Listen Without Prejudice made it all the way to #2 in America, stopped only by this man:


If you dress ridiculous enough, you will be #1 in America.

And, GM did it without ever appearing in his own videos. This was the heyday of MTV, people, so that's a big deal. MTV was literally making pop-stars via videos from 1983 until probably 1996 when they stopped showing videos and replaced them with reality television (and now they're making stars out of those attention whores...this is how a person named "Snookie" can be famous without irony). But GM, who plastered his unshaven face and tight-jeaned ass on everything possible in 1987 and 1988 to promote Faith,


Feathered hair and state-trooper shades: not gay at all. As long as you wear a leather jacket over your wife-beater.

decided to forego all that "promotional" hoopla on Listen and just sing the songs. Often, he would use super-models as the actors in his videos, helping foster a relationship between pop music and fashion that seemed to be something people cared about in the 90s.


An unholy alliance, to be sure.

This brings us to "Freedom '90" and its hidden/not-so-hidden lyrics. The video was the first to use super models instead of the pop star, and was directed by David Fincher, who would later bring you "Vogue", "Janie's Got a Gun", and Fight Club.



All this is fine and good, but it's the lyrics we're concerned with here:

Heaven knows I was just a young boy
Didn't know what I wanted to be I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy
And I guess it was enough for me
To win the race? A prettier face!
Brand new clothes and a big fat place On your rock and roll TV
But today the way I play the game is not the same
No way
Think I'm gonna get myself happy

Ok, that's not too obvious. Just a guy singing about his boyhood dream of being a little bit famous, being popular, and getting on TV. Cautionary tale though in the last couple lines..."today the way I play the game is not the same"...what could he mean?

But then we get to the pre-chorus bit:

I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man


These clothes certainly don't make the man...I mean, a lot of people wear sleeveless Ts and bright white shorts that are cut to show off maximum thigh, right? Wham!, indeed.

Oh. I see. Yeah, that's not really veiled at all, is it? People actually thought this was just about GM being a "serious artist" and not "just a pop star" or about him wanting out of his record contract. Sure.

And then the chorus:

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me

Pretty clear.

In all, knowing what we now know about GM, it makes the song better. He was able to craft a kick-ass pop song (I mean, you can't deny how great the song is) that also had a cathartic element that worked on 3 levels. 1) his opposition to his own fame, a theme that is rampant in music industry whores; 2) his need to get out of his contract with Sony; and then 3) the actual matter of his hidden sexuality, that could have been the catalyst for all the self-loathing and self-promotion in the first place!
It's pretty brilliant, in a way.

Now if only Tom Cruise or Christian Bale had a recording career...


Impossible.

Is this Swedish girl from the Future? Pt. II

Funny, she doesn't look like a Japanese robot. Because, seriously, Japan has singing robots.

So, after a long (like, very long) absence, I have returned to satisfy the 10 or so of you out there who have been patiently awaiting our follow-up to the "Is this Swedish girl from the Future?" post from almost a month ago.

In our last blog, we explored the first part of my two-part thesis to explain the Swedish musical phenom known only as "Robyn". Recall that the first prong of my thesis was that Robyn was a musical genius, akin to WC Handy or Little Richard. Further recall that this prong was thoroughly and quickly debunked when it was revealed that it was not Robyn who was the musical genius after all, but her songwriter, Max Martin.

Crestfallen, we dive into prong two of the two-prong thesis: that, in the alternative, Robyn is from the future.

Now, I know this is yet another incendiary thing to say. Surely Robyn cannot be from the future, for time travel has not been invented, right? And if it was invented, surely it was not invented by the Swedish, as they spend their time inventing safe automobiles and expensive-yet-cheap furniture for young professionals to covet.


"Use the giant screwdriver on the giant screw and hold a map in front of your upset tummy while putting together this miserable furniture." - IKEA instructions for the Bjarnum.

Or, no, only the Japanese are from the future, because that's the only logical explanation as to why they would produce such weird toys, literature, and anime?


I mean, seriously, this is weird, right?

The reason I'm positing that Robyn is from the future is because after she had moderate success as the proto-Britney Spears, she went on to have (probably) less-than-moderate success being the progenitor of another pop singer: Fergie from the (hopelessly embarrassing) Black Eyed Peas.


U-g-l-y, Fergie has no alibi.

Now, wait a minute, you say. How can this Swedish chick be both the forerunner or Brit-Brit and the forerunner of meth-faced Fergie? There hasn't been that much talent in one person since at least Michelangelo!


At least not since this Michelangelo...

But yes, I do believe Robyn was the talented forerunner of the talentless Stacy Ann "Fergie" Ferguson. And here is the song that helps me prove it:

Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches.mp3

That's Konichiwa Bitches, from Robyn's 2005 self-titled album. For those scoring at home, Robyn also speaks Japanese (or at least knows the same amount of conversational Japanese as I do), which helps lend some credibility to the whole future hypothesis a little more, don't you think?
Also, check out this creepy video with a sock-monkey playing drums while she inhabits a 2D cut-out world reminiscent of a Tex Avery/Pee-Wee's Playhouse acid trip:



But back to the music, doesn't that song sound a whole lot like a little hit Little Miss Devil's Dust had in 2006, Fergalicious?

	Fergie - Fergalicious .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I know the songs are not EXACTLY the same...but just like in our Britney/Robyn comparison, I think there are strikingly similar elements in the delivery of the lyrics and some of the melodic content. Not literal copying here, but copying of the "essence" of Robyn, which I think lends credence to Robyn's talent outshining the talent (or lack thereof) of Stacy Ann "Hillbilly Crack" Ferguson.

Now, this time around we don't have the songwriting link between the two works (will.i.am wrote Fergalicious, while Robyn and Klas Ahlund wrote Konichiwa Bitches. Actually, there were ELEVEN writers listed for Fergalicious. Yeah, ELEVEN. I guess it's really difficult to come up with lines like: "My body stays vicious/I be up in the gym just workin' on my fitness" or to rhyme "I'm tryin' to tell" with "clientele"), so it's not a Max Martin-type thing. Further, we don't have the connection of working with the same producers at subsequent times, either (as Britney Spears worked in Sweden with the same team that had worked with Robyn). So, without any other evidence, I think it's pretty obvious: Robyn brought back her musical genius from the future.

Or, said another way, Robyn was simply born too early. The world wasn't ready for the slow-rhyme-talking and disinterested style of Robyn in 2005. Perhaps it was the inclusion of the Japanese word that people didn't respond to? Perhaps it was the "Bitches" in the title, as the world was maybe a much more conservative place in 2005 than it was in 2006?


Glenn Beck didn't get on TV until 2006, so there was no one in the country to compare Hitler to everything while using "air" "quotes" in 2005.

Probably not. I think it's just another case of poor Robyn getting passed up, in the right place, but a little bit early.

Or...maybe they're just both rip offs of this (start at the :29 second mark):

Supersonic.mp3

That's JJ Fad's Supersonic, from 1988. I definitely spent some time roller skating to this jam back at Doyle-Ryder.


Uh...yeah, something like that.

Turns out Arabian Prince (a former member of NWA, no less, which proves that gangster rap was not nearly as threatening as white people would have you believe) wrote and produced this song. He eventually sued will.i.am for the striking similarity to Supersonic. Looks like he won, or at least settled, too, as 3 of those 11 writers on Fergalicious are the writers credited on Supersonic.


Arabian Prince is the guy you don't recognize over there on the far right.

So, perhaps my second prong of a well-crafted thesis has also been disproved: it wasn't that Robyn was some Swedish angel from the future coming back in time to give us a glimpse of the music Americans would spend their dispensable incomes on; it wasn't that Robyn was only a conduit for the fame and fortune achieved by a Crank Skank and a man who uses lower-case letters and punctuation in his own moniker in order to appear ironic or artistically wisened (Fergie and will.i.am, respectively); it wasn't that Robyn really got screwed over for being too talented, either.


"Scante" Ferguson and Billy "i.am.william" Adams, Jr.

It was that they both probably had old copies of the same JJ Fad record.


Stockholm was rotten with copies of this record in 1989.

Not nearly as groundbreaking or sexy a proposition, if you ask me.

Celebrity Death Text, #5

This one came today from my brother, Nate, as a response to my own. He definitely one-upped me regarding Harold Gould, the actor who played 'Kid Twist' in The Sting:



"Stung."

Nice work, Nate.

A Hilarious Celebrity Death Text I Received...

I received this celebrity death-text recently:


"Gary Coleman's casket - it already has his name on it."

Amazing. Big ups to Jennifer Sutch, knocking it out of the park on her first celebrity death-text!

Celebrity Death Text, #4

"Wha'choo talkin' 'bout, St. Peter?"

or

RIP Gary Coleman, cause of death: different stroke. [*thanks, Nick Phillips!]

Celebrity Death Text, #3

from Nate Eppler:


"Over, Under. Under, Done."

This is reprehensible.

Ok, I don't get offended easily. It's true, I try to keep things "above board" most of the time, but I'm not actually offended by a lot of what people say. I'm a firm supporter of the 1st Amendment (it comes first you know, so it's probably pretty important), and though I don't like what you say, I support your right to say it (unless it's about my Mom, and then we've got problems).

So the other day, as I'm tooling about (and I do mean, "tool"), I was listening to the radio. It was great hearing Top 40 music again (Memphis doesn't seem to have those stations readily available), and I stopped on 101.1 The Beat Jamz, I think, to hear:

"Whee-ooo-Whee-ooowhee, Whee-ooo-Whee-ooowhee/like a cop car..."

What's this? Onomatopoeic introduction to what should prove to be a sufficiently hilarious R&B/hip-hop song. I'll stick around. It continues:

"When I get up all in ya/ We can hear the angels calling us"

Ok, that's pretty silly, and that it's whisper-ey singing makes it that much more ridiculous. Does any woman out there want to hear "going up in ya" compared to the "angels calling us"? Maybe female fans of Bullet Boys?


The original "Smooth Up In Ya" operators.

So, it turns out this is Bobby Valentino, some shitty singer that rappers hire to flesh out (pun intended) their mediocre songs that suburban white kids will flock to with their wallets out.



Bobby Valentino: Successfully sings about cop-sex and makes pants out of picnic table-cloths.

As I continue listening to this song, it goes on and on with the cop-sex metaphors and similes, complete with pretty terrible rapping provided by Lil' Wayne. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Weezy, but I know a lot of people are, so I'll give it a chance.
As we move through the song, here are some highlights:

"Doin a buck in the latest drop/
I got stopped by a lady cop/
Ha Ha... she got me thinking I can date a cop/
Ha Ha... cause her uniform pants are so tight/
She read me my rights" [nice reference to Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966)]

and -

"And she know I'm raw, she know it from the street/
And all she want me to do is f**k the police" [nice reference to NWA's Stright Outta Compton album, Priority Records 0499-2-57112-2-6 (1988)]

and -

"And I beat it like a cop/
Rodney King baby yeah I beat it like a cop/
Ha Haaa... beat it like a cop/
Rodney King baby said beat it like a cop"

What the f**k? Did he just say "I beat it like a cop/Rodney King, baby, yeah, I beat it like a cop"?!!

Yeah, he did say that.

I don't care how much weed you smoke and how much sizzurp you sip on a daily basis, I don't think anyone thinks it's ok in 2010 (or any other year for that matter) to compare having sex with a cop (or the fantasy of that) with beating Rodney King. Taking one of the most horrific events of police brutality and turning it into a sexual simile is offensive, and downright reprehensible. I am offended by this.


No cop-sex for you in the joint, Weezy. Keep an eye out in the shower, though.

Maybe Mr. Carter was not really aware of what was going on in our country in 1991 and 1992, but the King videotape, the sham trial of the officers, the resulting riots, the destruction of those riots, and the slow healing of the city of LA and our country was the polarizing event of the day and for the hip-hop movement. The events surrounding that time period have influenced and informed hip-hop from then until now. This was the first time the whole of America got to see what all that "dramatized gangster rap" was talking about. The whole genre went from being attacked on Donahue and Oprah as inciting violence to the nightly news where you saw the brutality of the LAPD first hand. Now, the resulting riots didn't really help gangster rap's reputation for a while, but people did take notice.

And let's be honest, whether you buy the "resisting arrest" defense of the officers that beat King to a pulp or not, the video is horrific to watch. These guys are getting enjoyment out of beating a helpless motorist.

If you can stomach it, here is that video:



As a result, Mr. Lil' Wayne Carter has completely destroyed that legacy by calling out Rodney King in his ridiculous cop-sex fantasy song, "Mrs. Officer". I really can't believe the record company would allow that to get out, and I can't believe I haven't heard any criticism of it from the public. If someone came out with a song that had the line:

"I'm a shoot like Oswald, yeah, from the 6th floor/
blow your mind like you JFK, f**ckin' on the floor"

I bet there would be angry calls, protests, and a special on MSNBC within minutes of it hitting iTunes.

Here's the video from youtube, please bootleg it and the song so they won't make any money from it and this will stop right now:

Celebrity Death Text #2

Lost Boy.

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.