“你要編這種風花雪月的男主角，你要找一個像一個人，這種人根本演起來一點都不像。”
-黃睿靜
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKVYX5-xlOo
I'm a big fan of this story, and love 黃睿靜 for coming out and saying what everyone else is saying, "Look at this guy. You really think this is a guy who's sneaking around with prostitutes?"
There's journalistic integrity, and then there's just plain silliness. If you're going to try to pin a prostie story on Chen Zhizhong, you better get some pictures. I can only imagine an editor hearing this story:
"So, we caught Chen Zhizhong with a prostitute."
"The dorky one with the glasses?"
"Yea, yeah, the ex-president's son."
"You think he gets prostitutes? Have you seen him? Are you sure it wasn't someone else?"
"No, it was totally him."
"Let me see the pictures."
"No pictures."
"No pictures?"
"Naw, we missed him."
"No one's going to believe this fucking story."
"Eh, run with it anyway, it'll sell a lot of copies regardless."
“Good point."
I struggled at first with what she said about magazines, saying 不值得說是雜誌, but then I thought about it, and I guess things like the national enquirer would fall so below the standards of "newspapers" that we'd talk about them exclusively as tabloids, and not as "newspapers." I don't think the same scale exists for magazines. I don't look at People magazine and say, ok, still a magazine, and then get to US weekly and think, "nearing non-magazine threshold", and arrive at something really weak, I don't know, what's the print version of gawker?, and think, "nope, now it's a tabloid." I guess the word "magazine" has so little cachet for me (and the language at large) that it's perhaps impossible to debase a product such that it no longer is worthy of the appellation.
2010年7月26日 星期一
2010年5月20日 星期四
Translation and Dickheads
The only difference between giant financial institutions and giant media institutions is that there is no difference. Money blinds people and turn them into complete idiots and assholes.
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/rss/1004140/Guardian-editor-forecasts-vault-darkness-Times/
"The point of [charging online subscriptions] is to make money so we can invest in journalism. Pay journalists decent salaries, send them places, get better reporting," he said, having earlier pointed out it cost The Times a million pounds per year to maintain a Baghdad correspondent.
"The danger of this other model is that gradually the journalism will diminish, it will get poorer and poorer, you won't be able to afford things, you won't be able to do things and so everybody is poorer as a result."
(emphasis added)
Are the journalists really rich now? Besides the bunch of fucks who make bank for large mega-entities? Doesn't most of that money go to boards, managers, editors and shit?
It's very simple. You either believe in progress, reducing costs, capitalism mother-fuckers! Or you just believe in making sure you are rich. Everyone wants free trade when it's some poor kids in China making your microwave and getting cancer, or making your socks and getting cancer, or making your iphone and getting cancer. Then everyone loves markets. When it's your ass that's getting taken down by your own people then all of a sudden it's an existential crisis for democracy.
and more:
"The competition isn't from the bundled newspaper sites, it's from the people who have a much lower cost model who are going to do it for free," he said.
I mean, can people even hear how they sound? Try Globalpost. Try translation. Try to stop being the Britain everyone knows and loves. God.
Keen is right, we are going to build a new hierarchy on the web, but at least we'll be able to get rid of some of these fucks along the way, hopefully. Propublica, Bay Area Citizen, you're on fucking notice! Charity can be evil because it distorts incentives and creates unnatural and potentially unfixable outcomes. It's a bitter pill to swallow, so take it with something sweet.
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/rss/1004140/Guardian-editor-forecasts-vault-darkness-Times/
"The point of [charging online subscriptions] is to make money so we can invest in journalism. Pay journalists decent salaries, send them places, get better reporting," he said, having earlier pointed out it cost The Times a million pounds per year to maintain a Baghdad correspondent.
"The danger of this other model is that gradually the journalism will diminish, it will get poorer and poorer, you won't be able to afford things, you won't be able to do things and so everybody is poorer as a result."
(emphasis added)
Are the journalists really rich now? Besides the bunch of fucks who make bank for large mega-entities? Doesn't most of that money go to boards, managers, editors and shit?
It's very simple. You either believe in progress, reducing costs, capitalism mother-fuckers! Or you just believe in making sure you are rich. Everyone wants free trade when it's some poor kids in China making your microwave and getting cancer, or making your socks and getting cancer, or making your iphone and getting cancer. Then everyone loves markets. When it's your ass that's getting taken down by your own people then all of a sudden it's an existential crisis for democracy.
and more:
"The competition isn't from the bundled newspaper sites, it's from the people who have a much lower cost model who are going to do it for free," he said.
I mean, can people even hear how they sound? Try Globalpost. Try translation. Try to stop being the Britain everyone knows and loves. God.
Keen is right, we are going to build a new hierarchy on the web, but at least we'll be able to get rid of some of these fucks along the way, hopefully. Propublica, Bay Area Citizen, you're on fucking notice! Charity can be evil because it distorts incentives and creates unnatural and potentially unfixable outcomes. It's a bitter pill to swallow, so take it with something sweet.
2010年5月4日 星期二
Three Diamond
Skip to minute 36 for full effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBttGY5Okg
What happened to Jim?
Wake up Claire, Jim's dead. They're dead, they're all dead!
Some people seem to think that the publishing industry somehow made the right move by not embracing the internet/getting their audience used to a free model to consume their content. They are wrong. The publishing "industry" will survive, in a radically smaller, less profit-rich, and influential form, but like the other media, factors outside of their control are the controlling ones.
I don't feel like mentioning sites who are talking about this, but I read about this and listen to stuff about this all the time.
Publishing, it's true, still has people paying for their stuff. However, they're off the map now. Radar can't even find them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBttGY5Okg
Publishing, like music, and news, existed based on a scarcity model. The sites that add value (curation, commentary, convenience, etc) are the sites that actually exist in the online world. And the online world is the one that matters. CDs still sell, and they still sold 5 or 10 years ago, but they're dinosaurs. They might not be completely gone in 5 or 10 years, but the joke won't even be funny anymore.
There's an idea that the physical book may survive longer than say, the newspaper, or the magazine, (obviously the "physicality of music" is out), and there may be something to that. I think that's more what e-paper is about. I'm not sure how serious the dead-tree business is long-term. Undead sand, a little bit of plastic, maybe some metal, yes, but wood pulp? Not so sure.
It's never easy to give up your base (single women in their 60s) and embrace a new world where the world has moved on without you, where what you sold as scarce (words, ideas, communication, etc) is so passe that people don't know the word passe anymore, and you can hardly get them to care about anything other calling Tommy is a douche on his wall, watching Hulu, or staring at all the girls pics in FB (turns out there are actually three drivers of the internet, one, porn, of course, and two, talking/chatting/etc, and three, anonymously creepily stalking/staring at people's pictures, (and 4, whatever the fuck farmville is, crack?)). So where does that put publishing and writing? Well, there's defeat and retreat route, academia. 1, force kids to keep on reading books, and be that provider. 2, leech off the post-secondary world which exists in its own time-capsule (peer-reviewed journals?, tenure?, teaching "duties" transferred to "assistants" while you do "real research" to earn "prestige" for yourself and the school? Even the profs are starting to get that they can't exist in a bubble forever. And no, MIT, you can't win either. You're just a bunch of dicks. But until we fix the "I need to see your certification" problem, the academy is going to be able to pull this shit. You see it more often, but it used to be a cold day in hell when normal people would openly say shit like "college is for suckers". The rise of the online schools and the for-profit, schools, B-schoools (I know, redundant) all point to the same thing. The old system is for shit.
So where can the publishing/"book" industry move to do not die? Well, that's a good question. Is there even any money to be made? Perhaps, at least through indirect means (optioning for movies, video games, etc (other forms of media that still bring in cash). At best, however, I think the industry can get on the internet and make their presence felt. They have to become the new curators of the world of ideas/thoughts, and somehow make people notice and care about them. Is there room for this kind of monolith when you have the social monolith opposite? That's a good question. People seem to think it's there for news (no one thinks ALL news orgs will die, just most of them) and for music (no one thinks the major lables will dissappear altogether). But "books" is perhaps the most problematic of the three. Judging by the people who run the "major" media empires, I'm guessing they simply lack the ability to do this themselves. There's no other reason to explain why the NYTimes is still a giant clusterfuck, and why it took Apple fucking computer to get them any money at all on the internet.
Like the other areas, it may very well be that the internet will have to build this shit up by themselves because the companies are so pathetic. Places like bookslut might have to expand their presence and turn themselves into giant hubs that do conferences, consulting, publishing, reviews, job boards, etc, (yknow, the things the industry should have been doing/getting involved in the past 10-15 years). Old media really sometimes can't fix itself. It's got this staff, and all these office chairs, and a legal department, and all this legacy shit. All filler, no killer.
I hate writing long posts, but I was just reminded recently about how backward/conservative some people are about these things and how unknowing they are of their unknowing that this is going to be a disaster. Whatever I intended to write here, I've long since forgotten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk
Good follow up, Jim.
A Diamond record is one that sells ten million copies. You usually hear people talk about platinum, one million. Only people like Eminem can talk about being "multi-diamond", no one even understands what the means, because no one ever talks about it. Needless to say, those days are gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBttGY5Okg
What happened to Jim?
Wake up Claire, Jim's dead. They're dead, they're all dead!
Some people seem to think that the publishing industry somehow made the right move by not embracing the internet/getting their audience used to a free model to consume their content. They are wrong. The publishing "industry" will survive, in a radically smaller, less profit-rich, and influential form, but like the other media, factors outside of their control are the controlling ones.
I don't feel like mentioning sites who are talking about this, but I read about this and listen to stuff about this all the time.
Publishing, it's true, still has people paying for their stuff. However, they're off the map now. Radar can't even find them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBttGY5Okg
Publishing, like music, and news, existed based on a scarcity model. The sites that add value (curation, commentary, convenience, etc) are the sites that actually exist in the online world. And the online world is the one that matters. CDs still sell, and they still sold 5 or 10 years ago, but they're dinosaurs. They might not be completely gone in 5 or 10 years, but the joke won't even be funny anymore.
There's an idea that the physical book may survive longer than say, the newspaper, or the magazine, (obviously the "physicality of music" is out), and there may be something to that. I think that's more what e-paper is about. I'm not sure how serious the dead-tree business is long-term. Undead sand, a little bit of plastic, maybe some metal, yes, but wood pulp? Not so sure.
It's never easy to give up your base (single women in their 60s) and embrace a new world where the world has moved on without you, where what you sold as scarce (words, ideas, communication, etc) is so passe that people don't know the word passe anymore, and you can hardly get them to care about anything other calling Tommy is a douche on his wall, watching Hulu, or staring at all the girls pics in FB (turns out there are actually three drivers of the internet, one, porn, of course, and two, talking/chatting/etc, and three, anonymously creepily stalking/staring at people's pictures, (and 4, whatever the fuck farmville is, crack?)). So where does that put publishing and writing? Well, there's defeat and retreat route, academia. 1, force kids to keep on reading books, and be that provider. 2, leech off the post-secondary world which exists in its own time-capsule (peer-reviewed journals?, tenure?, teaching "duties" transferred to "assistants" while you do "real research" to earn "prestige" for yourself and the school? Even the profs are starting to get that they can't exist in a bubble forever. And no, MIT, you can't win either. You're just a bunch of dicks. But until we fix the "I need to see your certification" problem, the academy is going to be able to pull this shit. You see it more often, but it used to be a cold day in hell when normal people would openly say shit like "college is for suckers". The rise of the online schools and the for-profit, schools, B-schoools (I know, redundant) all point to the same thing. The old system is for shit.
So where can the publishing/"book" industry move to do not die? Well, that's a good question. Is there even any money to be made? Perhaps, at least through indirect means (optioning for movies, video games, etc (other forms of media that still bring in cash). At best, however, I think the industry can get on the internet and make their presence felt. They have to become the new curators of the world of ideas/thoughts, and somehow make people notice and care about them. Is there room for this kind of monolith when you have the social monolith opposite? That's a good question. People seem to think it's there for news (no one thinks ALL news orgs will die, just most of them) and for music (no one thinks the major lables will dissappear altogether). But "books" is perhaps the most problematic of the three. Judging by the people who run the "major" media empires, I'm guessing they simply lack the ability to do this themselves. There's no other reason to explain why the NYTimes is still a giant clusterfuck, and why it took Apple fucking computer to get them any money at all on the internet.
Like the other areas, it may very well be that the internet will have to build this shit up by themselves because the companies are so pathetic. Places like bookslut might have to expand their presence and turn themselves into giant hubs that do conferences, consulting, publishing, reviews, job boards, etc, (yknow, the things the industry should have been doing/getting involved in the past 10-15 years). Old media really sometimes can't fix itself. It's got this staff, and all these office chairs, and a legal department, and all this legacy shit. All filler, no killer.
I hate writing long posts, but I was just reminded recently about how backward/conservative some people are about these things and how unknowing they are of their unknowing that this is going to be a disaster. Whatever I intended to write here, I've long since forgotten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk
Good follow up, Jim.
A Diamond record is one that sells ten million copies. You usually hear people talk about platinum, one million. Only people like Eminem can talk about being "multi-diamond", no one even understands what the means, because no one ever talks about it. Needless to say, those days are gone.
2010年4月19日 星期一
美國不是我們的家 - 野火集 龍應台
Slow Learner
Part 1: http://transliterationisms.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post.html
America isn't our home
Wildfire
Long Yingtai
Part 2
It's very admirable; Socrates was an ideal citizen because he believed in following the rules. However, let's notice that there were two conditions embedded in his statement. First, he said if he was unable to accept the rules, it was his right to leave the country. Second, he said the country was required to provide him a way to change the aspects of the system he did not like. If Athens forbade him from leaving, and provided no opportunity to reform the system, he was under no obligation to follow its rules.
So what is the situation like for us today? The environment around us is horrible. The choices available to ordinary citizens are exactly those Socrates had. Although he could have done so only after great difficulty, he would have been able to leave Taiwan. On the other hand, would he have been able to follow the rules and change the status quo? Do we have a legal method for doing this that isn't obstructed?
I received a letter from a doctor telling me about a painful experience he had. One day, out of the blue, an underground iron-working shop opened in his housing complex. The noise and exhaust coming from the shop made the entire community irate. He tried everything from begging in private to threatening to sue, but he didn't get anywhere. One agency said the laws weren't sufficient to do anything about it, another department said it wasn't their responsibility. A police officer even took pity on the owners, saying what hard work it was to run an iron-working shop. Having lost all hope, the doctor asked, "What exactly is it that our government is supposed to do? The laws are something even 17-year old high school students, Taiwan's future, can see through, 'Who cares if they're useless! I'll just leave for America.'"
Are you worried about our future yet?
Who exactly is the cause of our despair?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pckAR29EZrY
Part 1: http://transliterationisms.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post.html
America isn't our home
Wildfire
Long Yingtai
Part 2
It's very admirable; Socrates was an ideal citizen because he believed in following the rules. However, let's notice that there were two conditions embedded in his statement. First, he said if he was unable to accept the rules, it was his right to leave the country. Second, he said the country was required to provide him a way to change the aspects of the system he did not like. If Athens forbade him from leaving, and provided no opportunity to reform the system, he was under no obligation to follow its rules.
So what is the situation like for us today? The environment around us is horrible. The choices available to ordinary citizens are exactly those Socrates had. Although he could have done so only after great difficulty, he would have been able to leave Taiwan. On the other hand, would he have been able to follow the rules and change the status quo? Do we have a legal method for doing this that isn't obstructed?
I received a letter from a doctor telling me about a painful experience he had. One day, out of the blue, an underground iron-working shop opened in his housing complex. The noise and exhaust coming from the shop made the entire community irate. He tried everything from begging in private to threatening to sue, but he didn't get anywhere. One agency said the laws weren't sufficient to do anything about it, another department said it wasn't their responsibility. A police officer even took pity on the owners, saying what hard work it was to run an iron-working shop. Having lost all hope, the doctor asked, "What exactly is it that our government is supposed to do? The laws are something even 17-year old high school students, Taiwan's future, can see through, 'Who cares if they're useless! I'll just leave for America.'"
Are you worried about our future yet?
Who exactly is the cause of our despair?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pckAR29EZrY
2009年12月16日 星期三
迪斯科二
二章：Blame Sweden
And Canada of course.
A while back I wrote complaining about the internationalization of english in music as a means of allowing artists to be servants of power. I talked about Hitler Youth tryout (unsuccessful, I guess) and Canadian alumni (when you graduate from Canada do they give you a US passport?) Avril Lavigne and tried to compare the kind of thing she was doing with your average run of the mill mildly successful pop act, Panic at the Disco. What I forgot to do was take the blame off of L.A. Reid and Lou Perlman and put some of it on Sweden.
Yes, people like Reid and Perlman are the true enemies of talent and quality. They are interested in creating acts without talent so they can be replaced again when this shows through and the newness wears off, permanently allowing an industry like theirs to survive. Celebrity and notoriety used to spring from talent, not marketing. People would want to work with you because they thought you were good, not because they thought they could make you good. Finding a 16 year old who you think is hot (sicko) and can kind of sing, and assembling a script for her to read for the next two years is just sad. Although I can't claim to have ever watched an American Idol (or any other version) in entirety, I have to believe the popularity was/is in some sense a repudiation. (Or just another shallow step in our permanent drive for everyone to be on tv and be famous. Either way, you cynical prick.)
Anyway, these dicks like Perlman are the enemy, but they get these Swedish people to 'produce' as well. Well, if some american wants to shit on the language and make everyone sound about as complicated as the beatles on drugs in their early years (my michelle...boop boop boop. Was it a children's record?) I can deal with that, but cross-border warfare touches on the blog's premise, heretofore unstated, (or at least the title, kinda.)
We don't even need to go into the britney back catalog (or most pop songs from the past 15-20 years, before that you have the doughnut hole before you get back to abba days), we can take the high road and go for something like The Knife, Heartbeats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ow0bA4H3BQ&feature=related
So, you probably look at "mind is a razorblade" and think the best of them, but I know better. I know Swedish when I see it. So the next time you hear some pop song and think about the gap you have with mainstream culture, or reminisce about when you were younger it was the same, you can probably partially start to think about blaming the swedish, because they really didn't get your culture. Their words didn't match up with yours, they were silly, and ungrammatical, and non-local, and maybe even non-linear (but probably just more germanic.)
Contrast: Motion City Soundtrack, My favorite accident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDodJuuSrr4&feature=quicklist
I got the message long before you said you knew
There was no chance of us at all
With no velocity and empty-headed hard and far-too-long
I spent two years alone with you
Just when I thought I had forgotten
You came back soft without a sound
Long winded promises of future company
Up close the sound remains the same
Without the reign of terror over every momentary change
We are exactly as before
You hit the road and left me an ocean
I can't swim in the silence of your skin-skin please let me in
Bedsides the time I had to forget you
Inside no chance of us at all
"reign of terror", god forbid we actually make reference to anything. Long sentences with meaning rolled over lines to create texture and amiguity. Actual english poetic stylings (mind is a razorblade vs. long winded promises of future company, up close the sound remains the same), yknow things that show a sign of being part of a cultural community (a language community), not just a language user.
It's very difficult to get local. There's a million places where you can mess up. That is if you're writing slow pussy shit like Motion City Sountrack (or Craig David). Sweden can't really keep up with Tupac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHhJvjyeJ2s
Born in the ghetto as a hustler older
straight soldier bucking at them busters
No matter how you try niggas never die
We just retaliate with hate then we multiply
see me striking down the block hittin' corners
Mobbin' like a motherfucker livin' like I wanna
Ain't no stoppin' at the red lights I'm sideways
Thug Life motherfucker crime pays
astray? "I got raw when I came to Cali", you just don't hear that in Sweden. gang-related? Do they have gangs in Sweden?
The point? If you're writing music that can be outsourced to Sweden you're probably doing something wrong. It's our fault as much as theirs, and by ours I mean, the organs of power. Didn't seem to have much effect on the people actually using their brains and not writing tunes for Barney or the teletubbies. Sweden can't really compete with Panic or Tupac. But they can write Shakira's english lyrics for her (blind leading the blind, as if shakira wouldn't already be god awful awkward enough without being forced to wear flesh-colored full-body suits and literally howl about she-wolves in cages, really, really?) And she was such a nice girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMQCbNeUd70
What happened? Where have all the cowboys gone? I guess it's inevitable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHv07UYpOcY
I was a daisy fresh girl and look what you've done to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrprrzQfZns
conmigo nada es fácil
Yes, people like Reid and Perlman are the true enemies of talent and quality. They are interested in creating acts without talent so they can be replaced again when this shows through and the newness wears off, permanently allowing an industry like theirs to survive. Celebrity and notoriety used to spring from talent, not marketing. People would want to work with you because they thought you were good, not because they thought they could make you good. Finding a 16 year old who you think is hot (sicko) and can kind of sing, and assembling a script for her to read for the next two years is just sad. Although I can't claim to have ever watched an American Idol (or any other version) in entirety, I have to believe the popularity was/is in some sense a repudiation. (Or just another shallow step in our permanent drive for everyone to be on tv and be famous. Either way, you cynical prick.)
Anyway, these dicks like Perlman are the enemy, but they get these Swedish people to 'produce' as well. Well, if some american wants to shit on the language and make everyone sound about as complicated as the beatles on drugs in their early years (my michelle...boop boop boop. Was it a children's record?) I can deal with that, but cross-border warfare touches on the blog's premise, heretofore unstated, (or at least the title, kinda.)
We don't even need to go into the britney back catalog (or most pop songs from the past 15-20 years, before that you have the doughnut hole before you get back to abba days), we can take the high road and go for something like The Knife, Heartbeats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ow0bA4H3BQ&feature=related
One night to be confused
One night to speed up truth
We had a promise made
Four hands and then away
Both under influence
We had divine sense
To know what to say
Mind is a razorblade
To call for hands of above to lean on
Would not be good enough for me, no
One night of magic rush
The start - a simple touch
One night to push and scream
And then relief
Ten days of perfect tunes
The colors red and blue
We had a promise made
We were in love
To call for hands of above to lean on
Wouldn't be good enough for me, no
To call for hands of above to lean on
Wouldn't be good enough for me, oh
So, maybe you look at these lyrics and see poetic stylings. No, you have fob english here. And by fob I mean foreigner english (no contracting "would not", odd violations of grammar that are characteristically english learner mistakes ("choices") "mind is a razorblade", odd collocations "speed up truth", short simple sentences, germanic cadences, etc)So, you probably look at "mind is a razorblade" and think the best of them, but I know better. I know Swedish when I see it. So the next time you hear some pop song and think about the gap you have with mainstream culture, or reminisce about when you were younger it was the same, you can probably partially start to think about blaming the swedish, because they really didn't get your culture. Their words didn't match up with yours, they were silly, and ungrammatical, and non-local, and maybe even non-linear (but probably just more germanic.)
Contrast: Motion City Soundtrack, My favorite accident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDodJuuSrr4&feature=quicklist
I got the message long before you said you knew
There was no chance of us at all
With no velocity and empty-headed hard and far-too-long
I spent two years alone with you
Just when I thought I had forgotten
You came back soft without a sound
Long winded promises of future company
Up close the sound remains the same
Without the reign of terror over every momentary change
We are exactly as before
You hit the road and left me an ocean
I can't swim in the silence of your skin-skin please let me in
Bedsides the time I had to forget you
Inside no chance of us at all
"reign of terror", god forbid we actually make reference to anything. Long sentences with meaning rolled over lines to create texture and amiguity. Actual english poetic stylings (mind is a razorblade vs. long winded promises of future company, up close the sound remains the same), yknow things that show a sign of being part of a cultural community (a language community), not just a language user.
It's very difficult to get local. There's a million places where you can mess up. That is if you're writing slow pussy shit like Motion City Sountrack (or Craig David). Sweden can't really keep up with Tupac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHhJvjyeJ2s
Born in the ghetto as a hustler older
straight soldier bucking at them busters
No matter how you try niggas never die
We just retaliate with hate then we multiply
see me striking down the block hittin' corners
Mobbin' like a motherfucker livin' like I wanna
Ain't no stoppin' at the red lights I'm sideways
Thug Life motherfucker crime pays
astray? "I got raw when I came to Cali", you just don't hear that in Sweden. gang-related? Do they have gangs in Sweden?
The point? If you're writing music that can be outsourced to Sweden you're probably doing something wrong. It's our fault as much as theirs, and by ours I mean, the organs of power. Didn't seem to have much effect on the people actually using their brains and not writing tunes for Barney or the teletubbies. Sweden can't really compete with Panic or Tupac. But they can write Shakira's english lyrics for her (blind leading the blind, as if shakira wouldn't already be god awful awkward enough without being forced to wear flesh-colored full-body suits and literally howl about she-wolves in cages, really, really?) And she was such a nice girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMQCbNeUd70
What happened? Where have all the cowboys gone? I guess it's inevitable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHv07UYpOcY
I was a daisy fresh girl and look what you've done to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrprrzQfZns
conmigo nada es fácil
2009年12月5日 星期六
阿平
你知不知道，從前的人
要是心裡有了秘密，不想別人知道
你知不知道他們會怎麼樣？
You know what people used to do if they had a secret and they didn't want anyone to know?
You know what they would do?
你怎麼知道?
How the hell do you know?
他們會跑到山上找一棵樹
在樹上挖個洞
然後把秘密·全說進去
再用泥巴分起來
那秘密就永遠留在樹裏，沒有人知道
They'd go up a mountain and find a tree.
They'd carve out a hole, whisper their secret into it, and then fill it in with mud.
That way it would always be be stuck in that tree, and nobody else would ever know it.
這樣辛苦，找個女人發洩一下不更好
C'mon, life doesn't have to be so hard. Why don't you find a girl and relax a little bit.
誰都像你阿
Everyone thinks just like you.
說的是阿，像我這樣的人
是個直腸子，哪來的心事
你可不同，什麽都往心裡擱
說來聽聽嘛
You're right. Simple people like me,
we don't worry like you do.
You take everything to heart.
Tell me what's going on.
我哪有心事
I don't know what you're talking about.
你別瞞， 一場朋友
我不會跟別人說的
C'mon,
we're friends.
I'm not going to go tell anyone.
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/TuABSgzisZ8/
我沒想過你會回來
I didn't think you would come back.
我們不會跟他們一樣的
再見。
We'll never be like them.
Goodbye.
我還以為我們能 不同於別人
要是心裡有了秘密，不想別人知道
你知不知道他們會怎麼樣？
You know what people used to do if they had a secret and they didn't want anyone to know?
You know what they would do?
你怎麼知道?
How the hell do you know?
他們會跑到山上找一棵樹
在樹上挖個洞
然後把秘密·全說進去
再用泥巴分起來
那秘密就永遠留在樹裏，沒有人知道
They'd go up a mountain and find a tree.
They'd carve out a hole, whisper their secret into it, and then fill it in with mud.
That way it would always be be stuck in that tree, and nobody else would ever know it.
這樣辛苦，找個女人發洩一下不更好
C'mon, life doesn't have to be so hard. Why don't you find a girl and relax a little bit.
誰都像你阿
Everyone thinks just like you.
說的是阿，像我這樣的人
是個直腸子，哪來的心事
你可不同，什麽都往心裡擱
說來聽聽嘛
You're right. Simple people like me,
we don't worry like you do.
You take everything to heart.
Tell me what's going on.
我哪有心事
I don't know what you're talking about.
你別瞞， 一場朋友
我不會跟別人說的
C'mon,
we're friends.
I'm not going to go tell anyone.
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/TuABSgzisZ8/
我沒想過你會回來
I didn't think you would come back.
我們不會跟他們一樣的
再見。
We'll never be like them.
Goodbye.
我還以為我們能 不同於別人
2009年12月2日 星期三
Classic 經典
I wanted to post a follow up to the whoreification of the the pop industry featuring the new 50 cent single "Baby by me" complete with translations and comments (And the fact that it's little less than a lift of T.I.'s "Whatever you like" from less than two years ago). Maybe I'll do that eventually, or maybe I'll just comment that once a rapper goes solidly from content, or hard content, to how girls are his thing, that's when rap turns to hip-hop. Remember Method Man? Remember the 90s? From Gangsta, to I'llsexya. (Ok, back in the 90s it was still I'lltakeyaouttodinner. I know, lame.)
But then Tiger came out and he is just great. Nothing like that Swedish supermodel wife and mother of your two young kids just not doing it for you. You know when really attractive girls insist they aren't good looking and go to gay guys for style advice, and hair cuts, and manicures, and cuddling, and crying, and lots of other shit? How they insist no one likes them or that they are too fat or never good enough? How they have no self-esteem and let guys cheat on them, treat them like crap, or even abuse them? Well, ok.
Tiger was known for his clean image (and by known, I mean people who didn't know anything. People who were close to him, or the media or others probably knew that guy was scoring serious off-set tail. I'd love to go off on celebrities here, but I won't. They're probably just regular people who get a chance to act out the dick dreams that most regular people have.) He was also known for his privacy. People known for their privacy are sometimes nice, quit people who just want things private, want things simple. And sometimes people like privacy because they got lots of shit to hide. Tiger apparently had at least three.
Just listen to this guy.
http://www.mahalo.com/tiger-woods-voicemail
Hey it's uh, it's Tiger, I need you to do me a huge favor. Um, can you please, uh, take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and um, may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. And um, what do you call it, just have it as a number on the voicemail. Just have it as your telephone number, that's it. Ok? You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye."
http://news.sina.com.tw/article/20091203/2476439.html
嗨，我是，我是老虎。我真的需要你幫忙。嗯，你可以把你的名字從你的電話中刪除掉嗎？我的太太檢查了我的電話，嗯，她或許會給你電話。如果你可以的話，請把你的名字 刪掉，嗯，叫什麼來著，只用在語音留言中留下一個電話號碼就可以了，電話號碼就好了，就這樣，OK？你需要為我這樣做。非常重要。快點。好了。拜拜。
都被改過。
But then Tiger came out and he is just great. Nothing like that Swedish supermodel wife and mother of your two young kids just not doing it for you. You know when really attractive girls insist they aren't good looking and go to gay guys for style advice, and hair cuts, and manicures, and cuddling, and crying, and lots of other shit? How they insist no one likes them or that they are too fat or never good enough? How they have no self-esteem and let guys cheat on them, treat them like crap, or even abuse them? Well, ok.
Tiger was known for his clean image (and by known, I mean people who didn't know anything. People who were close to him, or the media or others probably knew that guy was scoring serious off-set tail. I'd love to go off on celebrities here, but I won't. They're probably just regular people who get a chance to act out the dick dreams that most regular people have.) He was also known for his privacy. People known for their privacy are sometimes nice, quit people who just want things private, want things simple. And sometimes people like privacy because they got lots of shit to hide. Tiger apparently had at least three.
Just listen to this guy.
http://www.mahalo.com/tiger-woods-voicemail
Hey it's uh, it's Tiger, I need you to do me a huge favor. Um, can you please, uh, take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and um, may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. And um, what do you call it, just have it as a number on the voicemail. Just have it as your telephone number, that's it. Ok? You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye."
http://news.sina.com.tw/article/20091203/2476439.html
嗨，我是，我是老虎。我真的需要你幫忙。嗯，你可以把你的名字從你的電話中刪除掉嗎？我的太太檢查了我的電話，嗯，她或許會給你電話。如果你可以的話，請把你的名字 刪掉，嗯，叫什麼來著，只用在語音留言中留下一個電話號碼就可以了，電話號碼就好了，就這樣，OK？你需要為我這樣做。非常重要。快點。好了。拜拜。
都被改過。
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