St. Vincent-Cruel

Some people have a problem with Valentine's Day. They say it's too commercial, and puts too much emphasis on materialism. Eh, whatever. If the two people in the couple really know each other, and their values are fairly similar, I don't see it being an issue.

HOWEVER. There is something rather insidious about the marketing of Valentine's Day. Something that has been subtly manipulating the minds of millions of consumers. That thing is Jared. The most prominent Jared of recent memory is the company name that is squealed in those slightly annoying, overenthusiastic jewelry commercials. But Jared goes much further back than that. Back to an ad campaign that began before most people had even heard of Jared Jewelers.

Jared Fogle has been Subway's pitch guy since 2000. He lost a bunch of weight while supposedly eating only Subway turkey sandwiches. Good for him. Awesome story. However, Subway has saturated U. S. consumers with Jared commercials like an inexperienced sandwich artist using oil and vinegar bottles with the tops too loosely screwed on.

Because both campaigns have been so incessantly hammered into the collective American psyche, I have a feeling that there might be some subconscious confusion. And on Valentine's Day, food doesn't always supplement love. Sometimes it fills the gaping void where love used to be.

Scenario 1 (internal monologue set off by **) :

Teresa: Somebody's at the door. OMG it's UPS. It's probably from Fred. Open it!!!!

Mary: *opens box* He went to Jared's!!!! Isn't he the greatest?!

Teresa: Yaaaaaay! I'm so happy for you! **Hmmm... Just a locket?! What a tightwad!**


Scenario 2

Teresa: How's Joe been doing since he broke up with Tina?

Mary: I don't know. He seems kinda down. I think he went to Jared's.

*cut to Joe at Jared's house*

Jared: Ummm... Hey Joe. You might want to switch to a turkey sub for this round. I think you're on your fourth meatball. Haven't you heard that all of our subs are just five dollars in February?

Joe (through a mouthful of meatballs and cheese) : Shut up, Jared. Why don't you go fetch a turkey sub for Michael Phelps? I hear Apollo Anton Ono just finished skating in circles and is absolutely jonesing for a cold cut combo. Go make yourself useful. As for me? I'm gonna bathe in a swimming pool filled with marina sauce and meatballs. After I get out, I'm gonna dry myself off with day-old slices of white American cheese. Then, when I'm good and full, I'm gonna lay my head down on a bed of stale sourdough bread. Happy m*t*e*f*c*i*g' Valentine's Day!

(Here's a great song from the new St. Vincent album)

Madonna-Borderline/Get Into the Groove/Live to Tell

Madonna owned the 80s, and thanks to a strong setlist, smart choices for guest artists, and M. I. A.'s naughty little middle finger, she owned the Super Bowl, too. Good for her, cause the only thing she's been owning lately is a rather expensive plastic surgery tab.

I enjoyed hearing all the old hits, and it's a testament to her ability to churn out great pop songs that there were at least five others I wished she had also played. Below I will put some of my favorites, along with a few comments about the videos. Note: The video embedding fascists won't allow me to post the Borderline video, so I'll post the audio and the link to the video under it.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSaC-YbSDpo&ob=av3e

In my humble, completely correct opinion, this is by far the best song Madonna has ever done. I feel like I can hear genuine emotion in her voice (CAN IT BE???!!!), and the backing vocals are soulful. This song has an innocence that Madonna kinda lost when she started putting gigantic yellow cones on her chest and starring in Basic Instinct ripoffs. As for the video, she does this awesome swiveling dance move with the spray paint can at 3:06. There's a much better chance that that can is filled with Aqua Net than actual paint, but it's a good prop-integrating dance move nonetheless. And of course there's the older rival for her affection in this video. She's big on those. In "Material Girl" there's this bearded creeper who keeps bringing her flowers, when it's obvious that she's gonna end up with the twenty-something guys who dangle-dance those diamonds in her face.



Ok, let's make one thing clear here. Madonna was the biggest thing on the planet at this point. She was a pop star, a movie star, and I think she could have been the head of the United Nations if she had bothered. Rosanna Arquette is actually good looking, and in this movie she looked like the Elephant Woman next to Madonna. Wait. I forgot. There's another old dude in this video! Apparently the only way to ward off a mid-life crisis in the 80s was to buy a Delorean or throw yourself at Madonna's feet. The plot of this film had more holes than Pebble Beach, but if every scene was simply Madonna flopping onto the bed with her pointless pyramid jacket and cultivated insouciance, that alone would bring half the American population into the theatres.



Madonna in an Amish dress! Introspective Madonna! Dating Sean Penn Madonna! Almost too many jarring transformations to handle at once. Almost. This is my favorite Madonna slow jam, and though I never saw the film, Christopher Walken looks super-scary in the clips. Like even scarier than he normally looks. Madonna looks fairly relaxed considering she's sitting in a darkened room with nothing but a rotating camera and a subtle wind machine. She was still milking the Marilyn look here, and if it works for Sean Penn, I'm certainly not going to argue. He looks pretty irritable.

Radiohead-Talk Show Host

My good friend told me over winter break that she lucked into a ticket to a Radiohead concert. She doesn't know that much about the band, but is very excited to go. The person she's going with, on the other hand, is a huge music dork like me. My friend joked that she needs a Radiohead primer to sound informed during the show.

Now she might have been joking to the extent that she wasn't hinting that she desperately wanted me to make her a chronological best of accompanied by a one to two page synopsis of the band's career arc. There's definitely that chance. But juuuuuuuust in case, I decided to do just that!

While putting together the best of was a bit of a challenge, I knew that the best way to avoid the potential psychological trauma created by cutting tracks was to put a time limit on the creation of the mix. I needed to just cut myself off at some point from vacillating between such life or death choices as whether to put two or three tracks from Amnesiac. In fact, I just remembered that I didn't put "Pyramid Song" on the mix, and I'm on the verge of some sort of mid-blog-post psychological breakdown. Surely there has to be a medical term for this by now.

The most troublesome part of this whole process is the one to two page synopsis of the band's career. I mean that's not to say I couldn't write it, because I've definitely read enough Radiohead fanboy books in my day to know which brand of paper towel was most popular in Thom Yorke's childhood home. But it's so boooring to write (and thus read) something like that. So since it's Superbowl Sunday, and 750 gazillion people will be gawking at ads costing up to 7.3 quadrillion dollars per second, I've decided to incorporate some advertising themes into my Radiohead discussion. My message aims to fall in line with Radiohead's sometimes borderline cliche anti-corporation, anti-politicians, anti-making-consistent-albums-anymore stance. Here goes:


Radiohead. A band you can believe in. A band at the forefront of cutting-edge technology, with a wealth of new songs utilizing the newest gadgets, gizmos, and sometimes even musical instruments. Feeling disenchanted with modern life? Tired of disingenuous politicians mudslinging and lying to your face? Tired of the the everyday grind of all work and no play? Well have I got a band for you!!! Radiohead sings about the monotony of the morning commute, conniving conservatives disseminating propaganda, as well as the necessity of bringing small snacks like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a potentially protracted gunfight.

Radiohead is a band for the people, by the people, that is deathly afraid of the people. You know. THOSE PEOPLE. The people that are out to get you. TURN AROUND!!!! See? Them. This healthy distrust of people with any sort of authority or muscular tone has helped the band connect with the special people of the world. Special people like you. If you want a band as unique, intelligent, and cripplingly insecure as you are, you need to try Radiohead today. In fact, we'll let you name your own price! We know that you've been manipulated through guilt your entire life, and will somehow rationalize paying more than what we were originally going to charge anyway. Enjoy!