Pictured: Hollywood.

Why do we keep remaking things?

Not to sound like my Dad right now - a man who will really only watch movies that: 1) have dead actors; 2) or are about a historical event (preferably from the turn of the 20th century through the late 1960s); and 3) definitely do not involve Nicolas Cage or Sean Penn (though he did warm to Sean Penn's portrayal of David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way) - but why do we keep remaking things?


And why do we let John Leguizamo be in them?

I just saw the trailer for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ("TGWTDT"). For those that don't know, this is the filmed adaptation of Stieg Larsson's very popular posthumously-published book of the same name (translated from the Swedish ("Man som hatar kvinnor") it means, "Men Who Hate Women." No joke there.).
It is also a remake.
See, the Swedes already made a movie adaptation of this book back in 2009, and it was pretty damn popular. It was like a Swedish blockbuster, if you can imagine such a thing!


Oh, I can imagine it alright....

It made a ton of money (or kroner, I guess), and had a pretty good international release to boot. So, despite the Swedes making the whole trilogy (the last one was just released, in fact) into movies and raking in the kroner, what does America do? Do we let them have their entry into psychological thriller-dom? Do we sit idly by and accept that Scandinavians might have something to offer the rape-revenge genre of movies other than the US and Korea?
Nope. We buy the rights, and remake that shit.
And here it is:



If you can't see it, it is likely that Youtube took it down for copyright infringement reasons. It looked like it was bootlegged in a theater anyway, but I will say that those iPhones sure have upped the quality of former in-theater bootleggings.

Now, this version of TGWTDT does have some things that make it appealing:

• Daniel "I'm obviously not gay, I'm James Bond" Craig as the investigative journalist hero.
• Relative unknown (unless you saw The Social Network, the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street from 2010, or some show called Women's Murder Club...which, with a name like that, should be remade) Rooney Mara as the dragon-tattooed lesbian/not lesbian/tough-as-nails-yet-shy-and-vulnerable computer hacker main character.
  
• David Fincher at the helm.
• Steve Zaillian writing the screenplay. Here's hoping it turns out better than Jack the Bear.
• That title sequence and Trent Reznor cover of The Immigrant Song which makes it look more like Se7en than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

And about the use of The Immigrant Song: Isn't it incredibly ironic that the producers chose that song? A song about Scandinavians that come to your shore to rape and pillage? The movie is about Scandinavians. Set in Scandinavia (read: Sweden). So, is this some kind of reverse-irony or inverted irony, then? Here we have Anglos pillaging a Scandinavian best-seller and bringing it to America, only to export it back to Scandinavia when it goes into foreign release, in order to re-pillage the pockets of the Scandinavians that created and supported the original work to begin with.


Pictured: Scandinavian irony. Not pictured: Vikings.

Further, The Immigrant Song itself was written and performed by a band of notorious pillagers: Led Zeppelin. If you had a song laying around in the 1970s you better lock it up because Page and Plant and going to snatch it, remake it into a hit, and snort the proceeds faster than you can say, "I'm a fan of traditional American blues music."


"Plagiarism never tasted so sweet." - Jimmy Page

But all that aside...Hollywood is remaking a movie that's two years old. Two years! That is simply not long enough before you jump into remake territory. It smacks of two things Hollywood has long been known for:

1. the naked cash-grab;
   
2. a sense of entitlement

Examples? Gladly:

1. THE NAKED CASH GRAB -


Harrison Ford's expression says, "I know you're mad, but there's nothing I can do. Did you see that divorce settlement I got slapped with?"


I know it's easy to take jabs at George Lucas, but seriously - he's been nakedly grabbing cash off this franchise for a generation.


Some cash-grabs are more smash-and-grabs, but they are naked, nonetheless.

2. A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT -


When actors decide to direct and have success (regardless of how overly-lauded that film was in reality (read: Braveheart)), sometimes they take their already inflated egos too far...by making an entire film in maya yucateco - a language spoken only in the Yucatan peninsula - that is enjoyed by no one.


Other times, actors choose to direct a project that is so near and dear to them, that they quite literally become the character. Kevin Spacey is a great actor, sure, but you can't decide to make a Bobby Darin movie, direct it, star in it, sing all the songs, and then actually GO ON TOUR with a full orchestra to sing the forgotten songs of Bobby Darin! And you wonder why you haven't seen Kevin Spacey in any movies lately.


And then sometimes one's own hubris becomes so all-encompassing that you believe that the public "must" have the last chapter to your saga. But you are wrong, notwithstanding Robert Duvall's absence. See also Back to the Future, Part 3 (1990); The Two Jakes (1990); Ghostbusters II (1989).

So, while it may make no sense that Hollywood is hell-bent on remaking a very popular and very recent movie, it is not surprising. Remember, Hollywood is the same place that convinced you Tom Cruise can act and that you really do like Cameron Diaz.


You do not like them together, however.

Hollywood will go back to the well as often as they can, so long as it means butts in the seats, money in the bank, and cocaine on the credenza.


Surely you saw that coming?

Even back in the day Hollywood was doing this. Now, some of that was due to the whole silent picture/talking picture revolution, but it came from the same idea: dolla dolla bill, y'all. There were multiple versions of The Wizard of Oz (1925, 1939), The Maltese Falcon (1931, 1941), and Ben-Hur (1925, 1959). Hell, Alfred Hitchcock damn near remade all of his silent movies as talkies once the technology was around. It was as if he got Hollywood to pay him for practicing movie-making.

So, while it's nothing new (get it?), it is disappointing. Not disappointing in an existential "there's-no-new-stories-to-tell-because-we're-living-the-same-life-cycle-over-and-over" or Nietzschean "eternal return" sort of way, but disappointing in that Hollywood is not attempting to try to create something new. Taking a common story and changing the characters, the setting, or the manner in which it is told is fine. In fact, it's what the art of storytelling is, right? But just lifting the same source material that was capably made into a hit movie by foreigners that already had all the trappings of an American action movie is just disappointing.

I guess I can understand the trend in Hollywood to reboot. This is the word they use to describe the process of taking a series that has been ridden so hard and putten away so wet (is that even a phrase?) that the only way they can get any more cash out of it is to start all over. The series is barren, so they must breathe new life into it from scratch. They had to, you see, for the ART! You've seen this happen to:

Batman

• In 1989, the first real cinematic attempt at getting Batman to the screen was a HUGE success (despite Tim Burton obviously never having read one single page of the comic book). A decent sequel followed. Two more were ordered. A new director takes over. All hell breaks loose and we are left with two awfully different Batmen (Batmans?) that are differently awful, the worst in costume design and art direction, and not one marquee actor cashing checks with their god-awful villainous one-liners but FOUR. Not to mention Alicia Silverstone. It is almost incomprehensible how that fourth one got made.

Alicia Silverstone - graduate of the Keanu Reeves School for Acting (1992, summa cum laude; B.F.A. in "Reactions").

• The reboot - Christopher Nolan takes over, hits reset with Batman Begins, takes a more serious tone (despite the addition of terrible female leads), and now people can't wait to see the third and final film. This is an example of rebooting that can work. They made a mint on the back of the bat, not once, but twice!

Superman

• Although it seems that reboots work best for superheroes, that's not dispositive. Just check out A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Halloweens, or the Screams. I sense a trend there.
• Anyway, Superman finally hit the big screen way back in 1978. This was a long time coming, too. It was huge! Flying Christopher Reeve, script by Mario "The Godfather, yeah that Godfather" Puzo, music by John Williams, and Marlon f-ing Brando! They knew it was such a bank-breaker that director Richard Donner was shooting the sequel at the same time. Superman was headed for the big screen!
• Like all good franchises, the Christopher Reeve Superman quickly went downhill. Superman III (which I seem to remember being played endlessly on HBO in the 1980s) had Robert Vaughn as a great villain, but the studio added Richard Pryor for comic relief (and to capitalize on the success of The Toy, maybe? or did he have some community service to do?). Now, I'm not some die-hard Superman nerd over here, but let's just say Pryor was a little out of place:

"My hat's too big." - Richard Pryor

• Then, the death knell was sounded with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, where Superman fought a poor man's Dolph Lundgren (Mark Pillow as "Nuclear Man") on the moon. Awful.

Maybe more Harry Hamlin than Dolph Lundgren.

• The reboot: after many (like many - including one by Tim Burton and Kevin Smith starring Nicolas Cage (my Dad would HATE that!) that is hilariously recounted at the above link) attempts to get Supes back to the big screen, Warner Bros. decided to hand it over to Bryan Singer. At this point, he had had a little success with The Usual Suspects and the X-Men franchise (another example of these trends, in itself). The result was a no-name Superman in a forgettable movie. Well done.
• Either way, you're glad you didn't see that Tim Burton one get made:

Like, really glad.

And this rebooting trend is continuing. It's as if this is the new plan for Hollywood - take what the public already loves and sell it back to them, because times have changed and this product really needs to be updated so we can play on nostalgia for the original while introducing the same old thing to a new generation, paving the way for a third reboot 5 years from now!

Some reboots in the works:

• Total Recall - but this time with Colin Farrell. As if the plot wasn't confusing enough, now you've got Mumbles McGillicutty to watch for 2 hours.
  
• Teen Wolf - MTV is turning this into a TV show. Why? Were all the best elements of the story not mined in the 186 minutes that make up Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too?
  
• The Amazing Spider-Man - again, with the superheroes. The last entry in this series was 4 years ago. They've taken the Batman reboot doctrine and sped up the timeline considerably.
• Judge Dredd - maybe this one is ok. Judge Dredd might be an interesting character, but I think the stigma of the Sly Stallone/Rob Schneider shitstorm of 1995 is still looming.
• Footloose - because Hollywood hates your memories. Directed by Craig Brewer of Hustle and Flow fame.
  

So, there's just a few examples for you. Make what you will of Hollywood's intentions, but I think it's lame. I can understand remaking a movie that was not widely seen, or taking a new look at a classic to get different results (see True Grit by the Coens). And I can understand the notion of tapping into a collective nostalgia for the movies of our youth, or to take the reigns of a once-great franchise and make it great again. People can really appreciate it when it's done well, and it's not like great art hasn't been remade ad nauseum before. But the naked-cash-grabbing of most of these titles just makes me lose what little respect I had left for the movie business.

But it's not like they have a complete lack of conscience, right?



Not pictured: restraint.

A Very Serious Look at the Second Amendment

[*Author's note: I must give props (or a terrorist fist bump, if you watch Fox News) to D. Eric Setterlund for the subject of this post. It was our conversation and his info that put this into my head.]

As law school semester 4 draws nigh, I figured it may be time to write a law-related post.


Not to be confused with this law-related Post.

No, the issue we at Boss Blog would like to tackle is one of much more importance, one of much more gravitas, one that is much more topical:

The Second Amendment.

Now, perhaps you've heard of the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Sure, that sounds familiar. Popularly, the Second Amendment is constantly being overshadowed by the First Amendment, who perpetuates the idea among all the other Amendments that the Second Amendment is just the "first loser." That First Amendment sure can be a dick. It's like he just gets to say whatever he wants.


Except "tits."

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the Second Amendment's meaning or anything (you can enroll in law school or join the NRA for that), but I do want to talk about a particular ruling from the Supreme Court and how that could affect the Second Amendment's application, and how that could potentially ruin your world. Now, don't worry, this isn't going to get political - we're all going to laugh along the way, and maybe at the end you'll have learned something, too.

NOTE: for all you legal-types that might be reading this, you can skip ahead to the part below about the Second Amendment specifically, as I will be discussing the Citizens United case and how rights are incorporated for the uninitiated. Or you can read it, and then call me out for my oversimplification of what is probably a very complicated issue...

We turn our attention first not to the Second Amendment, but instead to the prevailing notion that corporations are treated like people under the law, receiving many of the protections citizens have, because of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Notwithstanding a compelling argument that this is not case precedent, but instead an erroneously over-cited headnote to a case (see Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)), the modern American system of jurisprudence does extend many rights to corporations as if they were people.

See, the 14th Amendment is a really important Amendment to the Constitution. Before we get into how that works, though, a little background:

You probably didn't learn this in high school or college US History (I guess you have to spend another $80,000 or so to get the real knowledge, but I'll give it to you for free), but it turns out that our forefathers were REALLY concerned with the government they were creating having too much power. These were guys that rejected the English monarchy, after all, so they were very protective of states' rights, and wanted to make sure their Federal government didn't overreach. As a result, all those "rights" in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, jury trials, freedom from having to quarter troops, etc.) were rights you had as a citizen of the US, but not necessarily rights you had as a citizen of your state. They wanted to make sure the states were sovereign and could decide things for themselves. As a result, the Constitution had to be ratified by the States for them to be part of the Union, but not everything in the document was binding on the States.

Say what?!


Don't make him say it.

Yeah, I know, Arnold, but it's true. Over time, a lot of these rights were extended to citizens of each state, meaning their local governments weren't allowed to pass laws that infringed on them (e.g. Tennessee can't pass a law that says Tennesseans are not allowed to protest in a public park). This process was called "incorporation", meaning some rights in the Bill of Rights were now "incorporated" to the states.
So, how did they decide which ones were incorporated and which ones weren't? Well, we could spend an entire semester on that (and if you enrolled in Steve Mulroy's Constitutional Law class you did ... my God, did you), but basically the rights that were deemed "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" and "deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition" were the ones the Supreme Court said were incorporated. Slippery test, eh? Anyway, like I said over time a lot of these rights were incorporated.

Enter the 14th Amendment.

The 14th Amendment guarantees "due process" to all citizens of the States before they can be deprived of their life, liberty, or property. Further, all citizens of a State are guaranteed equal protection under the laws of their jurisdiction, and no state can abridge the privileges or immunities guaranteed to these state citizens by the federal government.
So, that's a lot, right?
The 14th Amendment said no state can pass laws that take away your federal "privileges and immunities" (like speech), no state can pass laws that don't provide for "equal protection" (like de-segregating the schools), and no state can deprive you of your life, liberty, or property without "due process" (meaning you get a proper trial on the one hand, or if the right is SO fundamental, they can't touch you at all - like marriage, oh wait...).

So you see the 14th Amendment became the shortcut to "incorporation" of those other rights that weren't incorporated yet to the states. If a right given by the Constitution to the citizens of the US (but not necessarily the citizens of the States) was "fundamental," then the 14th Amendment came along and said it was incorporated to the states.

Let's add that up:

If a right is fundamental, then it is incorporated to the citizens of the states. If a corporation is a citizen of a state, then it also is guaranteed the rights of citizens of the state.

Exactly. So a corporation, even though it's definitely not a person, has rights.
Weird.

This is where Citizens United enters the picture.
Maybe you remember this decision? It's the one that President Obama called out the Supreme Court justices for during his State of the Union address in 2010.


"I'm looking at you, Samuel Alito."

Basically (like very basically), it said that there were not differences when people spoke or when a corporation spoke, because they both had First Amendment protection.

The case was about campaign finance. Citizens United wanted to show Hilary: The Movie via On-Demand TV within 30 days of a primary. This is not allowed under a previous ruling and statute that said corporations can't use their general fund for "electioneering," and that regulation of political speech is OK if you're talking about a corporation as the speaker.

Well, the Supreme Court came along and overruled that stuff, saying that based on the First Amendment, which is "incorporated" to all citizens of all states, corporations have the right to political speech just like you and I do. So a corporation can engage in political speech and no one can stop them.

Without getting into a huge debate here, can anyone see how that could be bad?
Maybe/maybe not.

So let's add that up:

If the First Amendment has been incorporated to each state in the US, then all citizens of those states have the right to speech outlined in the First Amendment. If a corporation is deemed a citizen of State, then they have the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment (even political speech) just like a citizen of the state has, too.

Exactly. That's what Citizens United says.

Great, so how does the Second Amendment play into that? "From my cold, dead hand," and all that hoi polloi?

Going back to our initial discovery that not all the rights in the Bill of Rights were guaranteed to every state, it turns out the rights in the 2d Amendment are some of those. So that whole debate on gun control that raged throughout the 1980s (and through today) needed to be decided by the Supreme Court. Could a state ban the sale of a weapon? Could there be any regulation of firearms in this country?

Well, states certainly tried that, and garnered both failure and success. We're not going to debate gun control pros and cons (save that for family gatherings with relatives from Arkansas or Michigan, right?), but we are going to cover the next development in our discussion of this "incorporation" business:

Two very important Supreme Court decisions that decided the fate of the 2d Amendment and whether your state government or federal government could pry that gun from your "warm, alive hand."



Too soon?

The first, D.C. v. Heller, held that the 2d Amendment was incorporated to the District of Columbia, because that's federal territory, and that the 2d Amendment guaranteed an individual right, so the powers-that-be didn't have as much regulatory power as they thought they did.

The second, McDonald v. City of Chicago, held that the 2d Amendment outlined a fundamental right, thus it is incorporated to the States because of the 14th Amendment.

Now, these cases didn't do away with regulation of firearm possession completely (much to the chagrin of militia-nuts across the country), but it did go a long way in saying that it is a fundamental right to have a weapon, thus there are very strict rules about the regulations that are allowed.

So now that we have all the pieces, let's add it up:

If the 2d Amendment is a fundamental right, then it's incorporated to the states, meaning every citizen of every state has a right to keep and bear arms.
If a corporation is a citizen of a state, then it has the same rights as a citizen of that state.

Thus, a corporation has the right to keep and bear arms.


Go ahead and say it.

That can't be right, can it? Surely people can see why this would be bad, right? Regardless, it could be true. I wouldn't doubt that a few corporations will try, and it will take a Supreme Court ruling to decide the matter.

Why don't we go ahead and look into the future and see how this will play out.

If Corporations Have 2d Amendment Rights, the World is Over as We Know It,
by Carl Eppler:

If corporations are extended the rights of the 2d Amendment (since they are considered citizens and citizens are guaranteed the fundamental right of arms bearing) then the following things will happen:

• Corporations will begin purchasing weapons. Not to stockpile or anything, just to have them, you know, because they have to protect themselves. Don't worry, we'll keep them in a locked safe, unloaded.

• Corporations will hire private security forces. Now that other hostile corporations have weapons, we really need to protect ourselves from those other irresponsible gun-owning corporations. Some of those guys really put the "hostile" in "hostile take-over." Zing!

"They threw in the reflective face-shield for free!"

• Corporate CEOs will start off looking like this:

"Your options have vested. Fully."

then become this:


"Your options have vested. Partially."

quickly devolving to:


"The only option is: Death to all who oppose me!"

• Board meetings will start off like this:

"Listen, we really need to get those quarterly reports done, okay?"

then become this:


"Listen, we really need to get these launch codes ready, okay? And are those quarterlies ready yet?"

ultimately ending in:


"Listen, we really need to get those quarterly reports done, okay?"

• Shareholders and VPs will look like this:

"Yeah, I didn't wear a tie today, we're just really down-to-earth here at Blackwater, Inc."

then become this:


"You really need to come to GRIPS with the stock-splitting plan. Har, har har!"

resulting in:


"No, I don't mind the title Vice President of Henchmen, I just feel like whenever I put a proposal in the shareholder report, no one takes it seriously."

I think I've made my point, right?

We know exactly how this will play out, America! We've seen it for years in important societal commentaries like G.I. Joe and James Bond films. We have to be alert to the corporate menace that are "ruthless, terrorist organizations determined to rule the world and also turn profits each quarter in order to keep their stock price high!"

Again, I bet this happens. I have no doubt a corporation will push the issue of: stockpiling weapons, or making their employees carry guns, or hiring mercenaries in the HR department, or holding another company hostage with a hydrogen bomb, and eventually the State will step in and shut them down, and then they'll sue the State and the Supreme Court will have to decide. That, or we'll have to start a daring special missions force to stop them. Worse yet, we may have to hire a British secret agent to infiltrate them and have sex with their most beautiful corporate assistants (I guess that's the same thing, isn't it?).

It's like inventing a robot that can punch people. Everyone agrees that's stupid, right? We know how that will end because we've seen Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Wargames. Who would be dumb enough to put money into researching that?
Oh. My. God.

So please, Supreme Court, be aware of the warning signs and don't let this happen. Don't let yourselves become the next robotic punching bag for "science" ripe for eventual enslavement by machines.

And next time you see a memo at your workplace that says:

"TO: All partners
FROM: Destro Labs, Inc.
RE: Increasing Global Presence via Weather Domination"

please take heed, and don't say I didn't tell you so.

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.

Serendipity or Plagiarism? You decide.

Not to be confused with this "Serendipity", which everyone has decided is crap.


Driving home today, I heard the following on the radio.



That's Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun In The Summertime" from 1969. A fantastic song for a summer day like today. Hearing Sly Stone is usually a great experience and I highly recommend it.

As I was listening to the chorus, the encyclopedia of pop music in my head was cross referenced to the volume "L":



That's Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" from 1979's In Through the Out Door. Strikingly similar? You betcha...and I can guarantee those English blokes had heard a Sly record or two by the late 1970s.

As the Family Stone continued another volume of my inner encyclopedia of pop music was brought down from the shelf...Volume "G":



That's Genesis' "Misunderstanding" from 1980's Duke. No hiding here...more English blokes, led by a drummer (Phil Collins), taking liberally from an English band with a pretty damn famous English drummer (John Bonham of Led Zeppelin), who took liberally from a pretty damn famous American band (and really, who made a career out of 'taking liberally' from anyone and everyone who wrote a song and didn't become famous for it). I think serendipity might be out on this one.

Then there's this piece to the puzzle:



That's Toto's "Hold the Line" from 1979's Toto. As far as it fitting into the lineage (before Genesis), here's what Toto's famous drummer (Jeff Porcaro) had to say:

That was me trying to play like Sly Stone's original drummer, Greg Errico, who played drums on "Hot Fun In The Summertime." The hi-hat is doing triplets, the snare drum is playing 2 and 4 backbeats, and the bass drum is on 1 and the & of 2. That 8th note on the second beat is an 8th-note triplet feel, pushed. When we did the tune, I said, "Gee, this is going to be a heavy four-on-the-floor rocker, but we want a Sly groove." The triplet groove of the tune was David's writing. It was taking the Sly groove and meshing it with a harder rock caveman approach - from Modern Drummer Magazine, 1988

So, I can further guarantee that Genesis knew of Toto (since they were a band made up of very famous, very employed session players that got together to lay down all-too-perfect music of their own), and just ripped them off too.

Nothing against Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks, mind you, I like "Invisible Touch" as much as the next guy...I'm just hoping Sly got his props.

-C Murder

Genius at Work

True genius knows no bounds.


The title of this post is "Genius at Work", and it in no way reflects the author, but people the author considers genius.

There's something about people that produce great things (whether they be works of art, music, literature, etc.) that I find completely compelling. In fact, I have no problem DVR-ing an hour-long documentary about the making of the Sydney Opera House (Jorn Utzen you clever bastard!) or full length features on the evolution of 8-track recording (about that rapscallion Tom Dowd, see "Tom Dowd and the Language of Music") or the making of Duran Duran's Rio on VH1 Classic.


Duran Duran: Genius comes a-yachtin'.

What intrigues me about these endeavors is the process involved. We look at something like the finished product of the Sydney Opera House, for example, and we see a cool looking building with some spheres and cones and shit. Pretty sweet. But what's more interesting to me, is how in the hell:

1. They came to that design.
2. They actually made it!


The Sydney Opera House, which its architect has never seen in person.

I think we take for granted the process of execution when we see the finished product. I don't have to be a world-famous (or relatively obscure) architect to appreciate how f***in' hard it must have been to create those spheres out of concrete, put them up, and make sure the building didn't crash down around them!

So, yeah, I'd say that's pretty genius. Now, that's genius by committee, but still pretty bad ass.

The same can be said for the way I approach music. Now, this is not to say that all musical endeavors are genius (see Michael Bolton, The Jonas Brothers, and Soulja Boy), but there are some that certainly are.

To wit:
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" by The Beach Boys.

	BEACH BOYS - 01 - Wouldn t It Be Nice .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Now, it seems rather innocuous on its surface, as a lot of Beach Boys' songs do, but I ran across this, and it helped further embed Brian Wilson as a genius of popular music and music production. Take a look:



Listening to Brian Wilson direct that assemblage of studio musicians (that's the "Wrecking Crew" who played on just about every song that came out of LA in the 60s/70s) I am blown away at how he can put those layers together.
Keep in mind that this is also 1966. At most they had 8 tracks (if Tommy Dowd was there, see supra note), but they probably had 4. So, they had to have all the music played live, no room for overdubs, no individual tracks to punch in and out of, and according to [*ahem*] Wikipedia, it only took 21 takes...pretty amazing. Then you've got the tight harmonies of the vocals, that blend with that overall production. It really is amazing (and this is before The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, too, an album that everyone tried to replicate once it came out in 1967...yet that album and Pet Sounds, from which "Wouldn't It Be Nice" comes, sound like peers).

My appreciation for it skyrocketed once I saw/heard the process of recording. There is so much value to the end product that is not seen because the end product is so good! The process is invisible, and you're left with a work of art. Also, I find this stuff incredibly interesting. To see Brian Wilson's process is to peer inside of his creative mind a bit. Obviously, he's not the best communicator, but the ends justify the means here, for sure.

I also think the construction of the song itself is pretty genius. To me, as is said in that short tube YouTube documentary above, it's "a happy song about not getting what you want". That's pretty apt. And pretty genius. Brian Wilson wrote a song that could come across happy, and yet be pretty depressing when you look at it through that lens.


Robert Smith of The Cure did not invent 'happy to be sad', after all.

That's how I've always viewed the song. Though, in my frame of reference, I don't even think it's all that happy.

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn't have to wait so long,
And wouldn't it be nice to live together, in the kind of world where we belong?

That's not really that "happy" of a sentiment, you know? It's framed by the "Wouldn't it", which really makes it a song that laments the current state of the singer, while couching it within an upbeat context. He's saying, it's not great or nice right now, but wouldn't it be if the following things happened? Really, it's no different than the lamentations of say, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", "I'll Follow the Sun" by The Beatles, or "I Wish" by Skee-Lo.


Skee-Lo probably wishes he had 8 'D' batteries.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up, in the morning when the day is new,
And after having spent the day together, hold each other close the whole night through?

Ouch. That right there is heart-wrenching, isn't it? I mean, if you've ever loved and lost (author's note: check that box, 'yes'), then this is a kick-in-the-stomach kind of line. When you find yourself in that category of people then that's how you feel: it would be nice to do those things, but they are past. So this can also be read as a lamentation of the past, when things were better, and you wish you could return to them (see also, "I Wish" by Stevie Wonder, and "Glory Days" by Bruce Springstein). And yet the music remains pretty happy throughout. Damn you Wilson!


5 out of 5 experts agree: getting dumped feels like this.

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true,
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
And then we'd be happy

Wouldn't it be nice?

Again, taken from the perspective of the singer that wants these things but can't have them, or has lost them along the way, this takes us further down the spiral of depression. He says "maybe if we wish and think and hope and pray"...so he's trying to be positive about the possibility of all these future things out of reach that might make him happy, yet he really can't bet on it. How true is that, Brian Wilson?

And again, it closes out with "wouldn't it be nice", which is a question, not an answer to all the problems the singer has presented us with throughout the song. Does the person he's singing about know he feels this way? Does that person want these things, too? Does the singer even want them, or is it just a comfortable nostalgia for a relationship that never was? At the end of the song, there isn't an answer to Brian Wilson's question; we don't know if it "would be nice". We think it would, but instead of answering definitively, he just lets it linger.

I'd call that genius.

Further proof of the powerful juxtapositioning this song can provide can be seen in Michael Moore's film, Roger & Me, a fantastic little piece about my depressing hometown of Flint, Michigan. Seen in the clip below is Ben Hamper, an auto worker who had a bit of nervous breakdown the day he lost his job and heard "Wouldn't It Be Nice" on the radio on the way home. He recounts a bit of the story below, and then Moore uses that to jump into a montage about the Flint of 1985. Check it out:



So, yeah, that's kind of what the song embodies for me, too: a lost ideal that we will still hold on to, even when everything around us begs us to question the ideal's very existence. But for me, I believe it does exist - and it would be nice.

Genius.