Skip to main content
5 Random, Disconnected Thoughts For Today

5. Methinks I have no game, dude.

4. Tim, are we eating pizza tomorrow?!

3. Jamie, give me a call Friday, man.

2. No, I will not mix my milk and cookies; that's just wrong.

1. I would pay money to hear Bob Costas announce a funeral.

P.S. Side Rant: Does anyone realize that hip-hop and R&B are not the same thing? And that today's commercial hip-hop sucks? I mean, truly epically shameful? Are the A&R dudes at record labels even paying attention? Is anyone buying the crap on the Top 40 radio now? The '90s were awesome for R&B and Soul. Even the repetitive throw-away songs were good. And the phase maybe lasted into '02. There were rapper cameos back then, but we understood that it was a dance track or something. Not to mention that people actually rhymed words back then. Now, everything is Ghetto. If you sing a song now, you are either: 1) White, 2) Gay, or 3) Country. Even Robin Thicke can't do a whole album without some hip-hop fake jumping in. People actually ask me, they dare laugh when I say I'm a little stuck on Lionel Richie and Babyface. Geez, hip-hop is so bad I want Puff Daddy back. Yes, Puff Daddy. Not P-Diddy or whatever Sean Combs is calling himself these days. Someone has even kidnapped Usher and turned him into a ghetto-bot. He wants us to like this, when he knows $%#! well that his best song in 5 years is this. They didn't even release it as a single, and it hit the top 20. Are you listening? Matter of fact, no, this is the truth: you have to earn the right to have a ghetto-edge. Alicia Keys has earned it with songs like this. Look me in the face and tell me you won't listen to that in 30 years. Really what this is about is the horrid mixing of genres to the detriment of both. Rap is beautiful and incisive by itself; Soul, the same. But this Frankenstein monster "hip-hop" will be the death of me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Thoughts On The Harrison Butker Commencement Speech

Update: I read the whole thing. I’m sorry, but what a weirdo. I thought you [Tom Darrow, of Denver, CO] made a trenchant case for why lockdowns are bad, and I definitely appreciated it. But a graduation speech is *not* the place for that. Secondly, this is an august event. It always is. I would never address the President of the United States in this manner. Never. Even the previous president, though he deserves it, if anyone does. Thirdly, the affirmations of Catholic identity should be more general. He has no authority to propound with specificity on all matters of great consequence. It has all the hallmarks of a culture war broadside, and again, a layman shouldn’t speak like this. The respect and reverence due the clergy is *always due,* even if they are weak, and outright wrong. We just don’t brush them aside like corrupt Mafia dons, to make a point. Fourthly, I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that the TLM is how God demands to be worshipped. The Church doesn’t teach that. ...

Dear Alyse

 Today, you’re 35. Or at least you would be, in this place. You probably know this, but we’re OK. Not great, but OK. We know you wouldn’t want us moping around and weeping all the time. We try not to. Actually, I guess part of the problem is that you didn’t know how much we loved you. And that you didn’t know how to love yourself. I hope you have gotten to Love by now. Not a place, but fills everything in every way. I’m not Him, but he probably said, “Dear daughter/sister, you have been terribly hard on yourself. Rest now, and be at peace.” Anyway, teaching is going well, and I tell the kids all about you. They all say you are pretty. I usually can keep the boys from saying something gross for a few seconds. Mom and I are going to the game tonight. And like 6 more times, before I go back to South Carolina. I have seen Nicky twice, but I myself haven’t seen your younger kids. Bob took pictures of the day we said goodbye, and we did a family picture at the Abbey. I literally almost a...

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p...