It's My Blog and I Can Not Post if I Want To

The Makings of a Two-Time Champion

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:52:15 -0500

Since B will take the stage tomorrow night to defend Lord Ramsey's cup at KttD, I thought it fitting to say a few words about our game plan this year.

As Dabysan has been rehashing this week, the real secret to winning KttD is song selection. Many a kinda-sorta decent singer have pulled near and actual wins with the shear genius of choosing the right ditty. In considering B's song for his defense of the cup, it was important to really pinpoint WHY "Killing Me Softly" brought the prize home last year.

1) Most normal people don't want to listen to the original song. "Killing Me Softly," is REALLY long, dreary, and repetitive. It's minor key makes it even less appealing.

2) The song is just plain bad. One wonders why it was ever a hit.

3) Icky lyrics. "Killing Me Softly" emphasized the theme of the night with lyrics highlighting the fact that the song is literally torturing you. And it reminds you of this fact over and over and over and over and over and over again.

4) Gender bending is often a sure-fire winner. Since "Killing Me Softly" is a song is about chasing a younger guy, all the creepier.

Given the media-contrived controversy around B's win and my supposed lobbying efforts that sealed it, it will be interesting to see how his performance is interpreted when I'm not there. I'll admit that we're a bit worried that the overall winning criteria has shifted. Even though B's victory was clear, last year's runner-up performances were less about bad singing and more about total self-humiliation, fueled by the kind of rowdiness that only drunk women can conjure up.

So in addition to considering the first four criteria for song selection, we've added another one:

5) Soft-spoken and precious will not do... by themselves. The song must crescendo in at least a few places so the performer can demonstrate some level of drunken fervor.

Once we identified the basic criteria for any song, we honed in on what truly showcases B's particular brand of talentlessness.

6) At the lower registers, B presents a breathiness that makes any late night stalker phone call seem like a birthday call from grandma. It's this aspect of his voice that really creeps me out. I really can't stand it. At all.

7) At the higher registers, B glides in and out of tune occasionally hitting the right note, giving you false hope that the torture will stop. But he usually settles on something way off the mark, making you feel cheated and unfulfilled.

8) Any song must contain elements of both 6 and 7 to experience the full range of his awfulness.

9) B's "voice" is particularly droning. Longish, repetitive songs tend to accentuate this trait. This was beautifully demonstrated with "Killing Me Softly" when the audience started groaning and begging him to stop. It's crucial that any song must last long enough to start worrying that it will never end.

10) B mumbles and could easily be accused of not knowing the words to his song. Slower songs allow him to articulate, eliminating any chance of disqualification on a technicality. He'd never get away with a rap.

So these are the points we are striving for. I don't think anyone doubts that B is a terrible singer. But as the defending champion, B definitely feels the pressure to pull out all the stops especially with regard to point 5. Expect a more, uhm, powerful performance this year. I'm super bummed I'll miss it.

Excelsior!

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Bugger All - Again!

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:45:21 -0500

We have to move. Effin' ef ef ef! Again!

We're turning into gypsies. And when I start slinging Jen Jr. over my hip and wearing scarves on my head, I'll start looking like one too

First the foreign service recalls my old landlord, so we get kicked out a month early, a mere days after we were asked if we wanted to renew our lease. Now my current landlord, poor guy, is staring into the eye of the economic hurricane. He's gotta sell this hovel in six months or it gets super ugly for him.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are people out there and around here who are seriously hurting from the recession/near depression. But for the most post part, it feelsl like DC is protected by the veil of big government. I see no shortage of people shopping like mad at the neighborhood Target. So much so that I couldn't find freakin' white lights for our Festivus Tree.

My landlord's an OK guy. Sure he lacks follow through (doesn't look like he's going to fix the sewage problem or replace our washing machine, which he told us he'd do this past weekend), and sure his relationship with his girlfriend is beyond bizarre, but he's a nice guy and for some reason he loves us to death. But he definitely falls into the category of the greedyish guy who lost his shirt because he was off being, well, greedy.

Here's this lawyer that is too busy with work to call a plumber admitting to us that he's thinking of filing chapter 11. In nearly the same breath he's telling us about his new favorite hangout, the Cheestique. For those unfamiliar with the Cheestique, it's exactly what it sounds like it would be.

I've moved a lot in my life. I mean a lot a lot. A quick mental tally adds up to 23 moves in my lifetime. I once moved three times in one summer. But nothing sucks more than moving twice while being with child. The same child. Jen Jr. is well on her way to kicking my moving record's ass.

This time I can't actually carry boxes. Sometimes the laundry is too heavy. So, some of yous guys might get the SOS call. I trust you won't be checking caller ID.

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Vote 4 Hope

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:46:10 -0400

MC Yogi: Obama '08 - Vote for Hope

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Stupid Grammar Thing that Bugs Me Every Single Time

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:07:18 -0400

Listen all you dandy high talkers, most of you get this grammar point wrong. Every. Time. You think you sound better educated when using the following pronouns incorrectly. In fact you are just wrong. Sure, sure, you went to Harvard and are running for president. Even though our current president only speaks "Texas Hillbilly," you don't get a pass to speak incorrectly.

Today, I am officially launching my "Say it right!" campaign. Right here. Right now. We need to come together - not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans - to put an end to this sickening abuse of our beautiful language. I am dropping everything, including my scheduled appearance at "Comcast Newsmakers" this afternoon, to rally my colleagues in Washington around this crisis. Our entire way of life is at stake.

NOT Correct:

The people want to hear from him and I. She gave the money to Bob and I. Sock it to her and I.

Correct:

The people want to hear from him and me. She gave the money to Bob and me. Sock it to her and me.

Why the first sentences are wrong:

You would never ever say the following sentences or any number of people would kick your ass for sounding snooty. At best. The people want to hear from I. She gave the money to I. Sock it to I.

Instead you would say: The people want to hear from me. She gave the money to me. Sock it to me.

Just because you put another noun or pronoun in front of "me" doesn't mean that you change the pronoun to "I." You simply don't change it.

Let's review Jr. High grammar.

"I" is a subject pronoun, meaning that it performs actions. I gave to the Obama campaign. I think Sarah Palin is a hack. I want that jerk McCain to show up and debate because I have been waiting all week.

"Me," on the other hand, is an object pronoun, meaning that it sits on the receiving end of the action. Obama inspires me. The prospect of Sarah Palin as president keeps me up at night. McCain is clearly not looking out for me and my bottom line.

Granted there are some times when "I" would appear as an object, but only after verbs that describe states of being such as: "is," "seem," "appear," etc. And there are a couple of words, namely "than" and "as", that are also followed by subject pronouns. Nevertheless, most of the time, use "me."

I realize that this is apropos to nothing, especially since I haven't blogged in months. This is what I think about instead of designing the logo that was due ages ago. Now that this is off my shoulders, I can get back to me over-booked work life. Cheers.

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More on Debra

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:48:53 -0400

In short, she has no clue. Like none at all.

What I've always known and is becoming increasingly clear to the media (finally) is that Debra and the other "PUMAs" are getting too much air time for basically being sore losers and seeking attention. I find it annoying that anyone is even polling "Hillacrats" as a separate stat from the rest of the party. They're getting way more play than they deserve, and as long as they keep getting attention like this, they're never going to spend any time listening to the voice of reason, or Hillary for that matter.

The RNC hosted a press conference with our friend Debra last night. Debra presents herself as a very classical woman Democrat, particularly in her pro-choice position. When asked by a reporter how she reconciles McCain's pledge to reverse Roe v. Wade, she claimed that as far as she knew he was not in favor of repealing the landmark abortion rights decision.

In fact, here's what McCain's web site states very clearly:

"Overturning Roe v. Wade

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench."

Seriously Debra? You couldn't even be bothered to take a peak on his Web site before you put yourself on national TV to endorse a guy who would overturn a very fundamental plank of the Democratic platform? This is always about the fight for judges, and you better believe there a couple of spots opening up soon.

What is it with people? I mean really. I hear ALL THE TIME, I don't know what Barack Obama stands for. Here's an idea, why don't you go to his Web site and find out? It's all there, and in a lot more detail than McCain's web site, I might add.

Of course you don't know what he stands for because you can't be bothered to find out. No one is going to spoon feed you information, and definitely not the media who continually perpetuate this notion that Obama is form over substance. Can't you get off your lazy ass and read a few pages of a Web site? I'm not asking you to read Obama's book, even though it's quite a good read and really sold me on his clear thinking and good judgement. Just read a few, freakin' Web pages.

Here are a few links to Obama's positions on Foreign Policy, the Economy, the Environment/Clean Energy, and Women's Issues to get you started.

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Hating on Debra Bartoshevich

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:35:45 -0400

Waaaaaah I want to smack this woman - smack her hard. Shhhh Beotch, it's NOT OK to vote Republican.

Debra (New McCain ad targeting Clinton Democrats)

I speak these thruths:

1) You are NOT a Democrat if you vote for McCain.

2) You obviously didn't really support Clinton nor trust her judgement if you don't take her vouch for Obama.

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Oh, for ef's sake!

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:31:34 -0400

Anyone else sick of the Democratic Primary? More importantly, anyone else a bit stunned by the behavior and attitudes of a shockingly high number of self-described democrats?

I saw this, eh-hem, National Review headline this morning as I was flicking through my Google news: "Clinton: The Al Gore of 2008," which attempts to make the case that Hillary will ultimately have more popular votes than Obama (which she doesn't and won't, but I'll get to that in a minute) and that she's going to lose anyway because of the way delegates are allocated. In fact, Obama stands to be the Al Gore of 2008 if Hillary can't get her supporters to lighten up.

I'm talking about the baby boomer women who are threatening to take their toys and go home if Hillary doesn't receive the democratic nomination. First of all, this smacks the face of democracy. Sorry folks, but when your guy or gal doesn't win, you suck it up. And when you're talking about the primary, you not only gotta suck it up, you gotta rally around the one you didn't pick. I didn't love or vote for John Kerry in the primary, but I hit the sidewalk to get him elected. The alternative was, and is, too scary.

What is it with our party? We'd rather stand for some principal than play to win, even it means running our country even further into the ground. I don't want to say that we shouldn't thoroughly examine the impact of chauvinism (and racism, btw - yeah West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania I'm looking at you) within our party, but we gotta put that aside now and keep our eye on the prize. Didn't we learn anything in 2000? All you "they're all the same" 3rd party advocates who voted for Nader not because you actually thought Nader would be a good president sure have been eating a lot of humble pie lately. Shall we do the same thing in November if Obama gets the nomination? I think it's clear what a catastrophe that will be. Anyone who says that they'd vote for McCain over Obama if Hillary doesn't win simply isn't a big-D Democrat, and what the hell are you doing voting in my primary and skewing poll numbers anyway?

Is there male chauvinism in the democratic party? Of course. Is the level of discrimination out of sync with the country as a whole? I don't think so. Should the more liberal of our two parties be more inclusive of women? Yes, and I think clearly we are. Under the banner of the democratic party women have made the largest leaps towards equality in the political arena. Women get NO LOVE from the Republicans, especially those that pander to the Christian right. And who are you going to vote for if McCain puts Mitt Romney on his ticket? No, mormons aren't a misogynist lot.

More importantly, are the party elite intentionally trying to push Hillary out? Maybe, but it's not because she's a woman. It's because she's one of the more polarizing political figures in our nation's recent history, and we know that moderate republicans won't swing to her. We also know a lot of republicans (and apparently democrats) won't vote for a black man, but Obama can make up for that by recruiting new voters.

I actually used to like Hillary, and very nearly voted for her in the Virginia primary. I never thought she deserved the vitriol that has been thrown her way since her husband's first presidential campaign. But let me be clear, it's the republicans who are toxic, not the dems. I know this from the giddy comments my dad often makes about her, talking points he regurgitates from Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. Even long after her husband left office, my dad was still going on about Hillary. The republican base believes she's a communist, and a bitch. They really believe she had Vince Foster killed and that she was the primary mover behind the Whitewater land deal. Republican talking heads have nearly 20 years of experience trashing her. That's more than Hillary can claim as her presidential experience. Republicans hate her more than they hate Bill.

They don't really love Obama either, but comparatively they've got very little to throw at him. And they're once again fronting the oldest guy to ever run for office who will likely against one of the youngest (anyone else remember poor ole Bob Dole matched against Bill Clinton). McCain's not nearly as out of touch as Bob Dole was, but they're going to have a tough time endearing McCain to Obama's teaming masses of young people.

This is why Hillary can't be our nominee. I'd love to see a woman move into the white house in a capacity that doesn't leave her organizing socials. I'd even love to see Bill organizing the socials. I really do think she's smart, capable, and would do a great job. But she can't win in November - she's not even winning the primary.

I've complained before that I think Hillary Clinton's campaign is actually setting women back. I really loathe that she even hinted at crying on tv to make herself seem more sympathetic. I hate it even more than a bunch of smooshy women fell for it, and handed her New Hampshire. But all of her complaints about being asked the first question in debates, and being treated unfairly in the media only makes her seem whiny and definitely a sore loser. Hello, the media always favors someone - look what they did to Al Gore and John Kerry. Isn't it better to move forward with someone that's already a media darling?

Now Hillary's grasping for votes anywhere she can get them - unfair election in Florida and completely ludicrous election in Michigan - while her math conveniently leaves out caucus states like Iowa and Maine. Freaking Iowa! Really? *sigh*

Remember how much you really dislike Reese Witherspoon's character in "Election," but dislike yourself even more for feeling a little sorry for her? This whole primary season is kinda like that. Only this time it's not ironic, and thankfully no one is wearing pegged jeans.

Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick

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Boycotting Beijing

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:56:58 -0400

Man, I so love me some Olympics. I love watching obscure sports, marveling at the freak show of modern gymnastics, and damn I love opening ceremony extravaganzas. This year's show will be piped in from the land that invented fireworks and will be backed by the wallet of an extremely wealthy dictatorship that can spend more money than god. It is guaranteed to blow our minds. I get misty eyed just thinking about it.

But I'm not going to watch the games this year.

Beijing

I was shocked in the first place that the IOC awarded the games to China, not the least because their human rights record is so abysmal as to hardly be a record at all. But it's also a bit more than curious that the Chinese government and IOC officials that lately have been chiding critics with the mantra, "it's the innocent athletes that will suffer from a boycott" will unleash the innocents on one of the world's most polluted cities. Suffer, indeed.

I, like many, have been hoping all along that the glare of the Olympic flame would reveal China's dirty secrets, spurring a behavior change. Recent events in Tibet only highlight the extreme arrogance of the communist regime -- nothing has changed. Indeed it could be far worse than we'll ever know as evidenced by the even tighter restrictions placed on international journalists.

Worldwide, governments and individuals are raising the question of any number of possible "official" boycotts. Perhaps most public is that French president Nicolas Sarkozy revealed this week that he is open to the possibility that France would boycott the opening ceremonies. European Union Vice-President Edward McMillan-Scott has been calling for the 27 European member states to boycott the games for some time. Even some Australians, who love sports more than we do, are calling for a boycott, though we should remind them that the Sydney Olympic committee were the first to step up to "help" China prepare for their debut.

In addition to the problem of Tibet, we should also consider China's role in Darfur, its treatment and possible genocide of Falun Gong and other religious practitioners, its animals rights record, its role in the Burmese dictatorship, its tragic lack of health and safety standards for its workforce, forced abortions, forced resettlements, and its appalling environmental record.

As Australian Democrats Andrew Bartlett has pondered, "if the Olympics were being held in Zimbabwe, would we want to be a part of it?"

So, as much as I love the Olympics, with all its pomp and circumstance , I just can't support this. I also can't support the games' corporate sponsors. This won't be easy considering the Coca-Cola empire owns literally hundreds of brands including Godiva, Odwalla and Nature's Own healthy food products. Giving up Chipotle, a subsidiary of McDonald's, is also a bit of a bummer. I admit, though, that I have to make one exception for Visa because they make my debit card work. You can bet I'll be sending them a letter.

I probably haven't built a strong enough case, but these people can back me up:

"Boycott Beijing" Slate.com, March 24, 2008

10 Reasons to Boycott the Beijing Olympics

BoycottBeijing.eu

Reporters Without Borders

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Akaijen: 1, Scorpion: 1

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:34:13 -0400

So part of having a yoga practice is that you're really not supposed to kill things, even gross and/or scary things. I'm not a full vegetarian, but I really do try not to harm living things when it isn't necessary.

And I did feel pretty guilty after washing a 4-inch scorpion down the shower drain on the first day of my yoga teacher training in Costa Rica. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about having to do a dirty deed to rid my shower of a dangerous foe, and actually I didn't when I was doing it. But afterwards, as my teacher's "om" washed over us to signal the start of our session, I felt pretty crappy. My excuse is that I didn't really have a choice. That is until I realized there was a broom and a long-handled dustpan in my room.

I knew my karma was going to be totally out of whack.

The scorpions didn't avenge the death of their own until a week later -- enough time for me to become complacent in my several-times-a-day visual sweep of my jungle casita. It struck at 5:45am, assaulting my right pinky finger as I rummaged through my dirty laundry deciding what to hand wash that day. I saw the bugger scurry away, although I was already in too much pain and shock to notice exactly where.

I'm writing this story, so obviously I'm fine. The pain was acute and strong for about an hour before tapering off to a burning sensation when I touched the surface of my finger. By 8:30 that morning, it was all but forgotten. I'm actually very lucky that I didn't happen to be allergic to its poison. My tongue could have swollen and gone numb along with half my face. Still, I was about as keen to get stung again as I was to be mauled by jellyfish in Australia a few years ago.

I recruited reinforcements in the form of my new yogi friend, R. R, a valiant power yoga warrior, helped me rummage through all remaining dirty clothes. His broomstick down each pant leg strategy was brilliant although ultimately unsuccessful.

The battle ended in a draw a few days after B had arrived, adding another pair of eyes to my visual sweep rituals. I had been hand washing clothes in the sink, which some of you may not realize means rubbing pants legs together to remove sand and mud, scrubbing a t-shirt corner under the arm pit to remove layers of deodorant. This was hands on hand washing. My hands and half my arms had been all over those clothes in murky water.

I stepped away for a very short moment while my garments soaked. When I returned, I saw my nemesis, the size of a prawn, trying to claw it's way out of the corner of the sink. I could hear his crustacean-like legs and pinchers scraping the stainless steel basin. The mo-fo was big, around 6 inches including the tail. He was mostly light, almost translucent brown with dark black splotches. I can't believe I survived any battle with that thing. And what the heck was he still doing in my dirty laundry?

I handed B the broom and dustpan. The plan was to try to shoo him into the pan and take him outside, far from the duplex casita that we shared with W. Instead the scorpion clung to the hairs of the broom, his long stinger dangling and striking madly at the bristles. We'd have been in trouble if he'd decided to drop to the floor. Thankfully he didn't, and thankfully he didn't return after B wiped him onto a shrub down the hill from the house.

News travels fast among 30 people spending 8 hours or more a day together. Everyone wanted to know about the scorpion attack and my subsequent kitchen sink showdown. It was pointed out by W that just earlier in the week I had been IMing Dabysan about my desire to perfect my scorpion pose, an up-side-down arm balancing yoga posture that features ones feet dangling over ones own head - very Cirque de Soleil. W and R decided I was the Scorpion Queen, and they presented me with a dead scorpion-in-resin necklace, a trophy if you will.

Or, you could believe L who stayed in the same casita for a month the year before. She also encountered more scorpions than anyone in her group. L believes that the house is infested with them, and is probably sitting atop a colony. She may not be far off for in W's bathroom light fixture was a grim reminder of who will ultimately win the war. Imagine brushing your teeth with the eery shadow of dead scorpion cast across your face.

Scorpion

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About My McLovin

nobody@vox.com(akaijen) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:07:08 -0500

The formula for a winning KttD performance is at once obvious and elusive. Of course you must sing badly, but as has already been pointed out this year, merely not hitting a few notes here and there with less than crystal clear tone is not going to bring home the prize. Now that the truly tone-deaf have mustered up the guts to put a lifetime of ridicule behind them and willfully put their vocal non-stylings to the ultimate test, those who can kinda sing may never take the podium again.

As Hotrod has chronicled these past few weeks, song choice and presentation is as much part of the game as your inability to carry a tune. One of B's challenges would be learning the lyrics to any song he chose. He would also need to project. And anyone who knows B also knows that he mumbles most of the things that he says. When he speaks up, it's just louder mumblings. His biggest hurdle would be annunciation, so that there would be no question as to whether or not he knew the song.

The inspiration for Roberta Flack's already vaguely atonal "Killing Me Softly" came to me a year ago. Even though we were held hostage in Holland for two years, B's eventual showing at KttD was never far from our minds. Fantasizing about his rise to glory was mostly nostalgia for our lives lost in America. Perhaps, though, it was fate that when Emma took the crown in 2007, the first seeds were being sewn for our to return to the U.S.

To illustrate why I knew that "Killing Me Softly" would be the perfect song for B, you have to reach back in time a bit further. Not being able to sing is not a new revelation for the tone-deaf that walk among us. Look into Emma's eyes, and you can almost see the little girl with her stringy pig-tails, hand earnestly placed over her heart, receiving sideways glances from her classmates during "My Country Tis of Thee." In B's case, his own family rejected his froggy renditions of holiday favorites. These are people who have been unwittingly humiliated their whole lives, and for them to put that aside and take the stage anyway is no small achievement.

I was telling people last night that the inspiration for "Killing Me Softly" came from the movie "Little Miss Sunshine," but I was mistaken. In fact, the fog cleared when I saw this scene in the Hugh Grant movie, "About A Boy" -- one of the many Hugh Grant movies I secretly rented in Holland when B was away on business.

About a Boy - Killing Me Softly

While the kid in the movie doesn't resemble B in the slightest, it wasn't hard to imagine little B standing in front of his peers, all knobbly-kneed in his school uniform of 70s-style short-shorts and a golf shirt. He would have been shy and sincere, his little out-of-tune voice shaking and occasionally cracking. Always smiling, B's big, toothy grin would have overshadowed the fear in his eyes.

Over the past few weeks, we'd been analyzing and reanalyzing the fate of this song in B's KttD war chest. Our biggest concern was whether he could learn it, and that it might just be too hard. The real song , as we all know, is barely in key. It's whininess is almost too putrid to listen to all the way through. We knew that B's rendition would make your ears bleed, IF he could piece it all together.

In the run up to the main event, he began to abandon "Killing Me Softly" for the safer "Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston. Houston's cryptic ode to self-determination and the inspiration of children took on a whole new, creepy dimension when B turned his pipes on it. The clincher in that song, of course, would have been the irony of singing about dignity in a competition that trades on humiliation. Don't get me wrong, he can't sing that song either, but with "Greatest Love of All" he'd have had to rely more on the fact that it's just not right for a man to sing about children.

Contrary to popular opinion, B designed his own training regiment, practicing his songs in the bathroom with its unforgiving acoustics. All this going down with his work colleague, who we don't actually know very well at all, listening in the other room. It was Clay, who I'm sure is still skeptical about the whole thing and who is now more certain than ever that he doesn't want to live in Old Town, that convinced B to lead with "Killing Me Softly."

Even though there are those that cast a shadow over B's KttD VIII victory, I think the proof is in the audio. B's vocal warblings sent shutters through the audience. On several occasions, B himself could hear groans from the crowd. As his wife, I couldn't help but take on some of his discomfort as note after discordant note rolled off his tongue. It was much, much worse than any of his bathroom renditions.

I felt my own embarrassment and tinge of humiliation as I considered the monster that I had unleashed on that unsuspecting crowd of drunk townies and miscreants. THAT guy was going to come back to our table and sit next to me. He would probably put his arm around me and lean over for a drunken, triumphant kiss. I think I know what it's like for those parents of undeniably ugly babies. In your heart, you know that god is punishing you. But you smile and pucker up.

The Cup

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