Mitchell Vs. Winter

For the last month, I’ve felt like lying in my bed, sipping on tea, and ignoring the rest of humanity, but instead worked my ass off and danced all night long. People told me I would hate winter and to expect worst experience of my life. They called February cold, isolated, and depressing. I laughed at them, ignoring them. What experience do Northerners have, anyway? They’ve only lived here their whole fucking life. When I got a cough, I ignored it and kept on dancing, anyways. “They’re allergies!” I said. “I’m from Florida. I’m invincible. I’ve dealt with crazy people. I can obviously handle this shit.”

But winter is a rude bitch, who, when ignored, grabbed me by the throat, gave me a cold, and shoved me in my bed where I fucking belong. She made sure I walked into my next class smelling like a cough drop. But I battled it out. I went to Lauryn Hill with a box of tissues. I coughed all the way through Robyn. When my “allergies” disappeared, I wrote for hours and then stayed up all night. I was acting like someone in one of those movies about “summer,” except my surroundings looked like a Jack London novel. Every time I recovered, I ended up sick two days later.

Now, I’ve given up. Winter, you win. Winter, you’re right. WINTER, I HATE YOU FOR BEING SO EFFING SMART. After eighteen years of summer, I need to lie in bed and CHILL. As my father says, Mitchell doesn’t know how to relax. I work and I play. I hate sleep. It bores me. I could write, read, or go to a teashop, instead of sleeping! But I need it. That’s why the world has seasons: so we fucking hibernate. So our bodies and minds go through cycles. So we stay healthy. So we put down the homework and stop the chit chat and rest. I’ve fought this battle for a whole month, and now I’m ready to leave the ring. Tonight, I put down the notepad and kindle. Tonight, I let the other dancehall queens dance. Tonight, I will fucking sleep.

Born This Way

For the last six months, Lady Gaga has tweeted about Born This Way, calling it her best work and the first single from the album of the decade. Miraculously, she kept the song hidden, leaking it only to friends like Elton John, who praised the song as “the gayest song ever.” Without a performance, interview, or tabloid splash, Gaga transformed her song into an anticipated event that was supposed to be the monument of her career, a ballad like disco epic about human rights and essentialist theory, and a sure fire controversy ringer that would stay at the top of the hot 100 for months.

On Friday, Gaga managed to shock the world, but not in the way everyone anticipated she would. When I first heard the song, I was underwhelmed. It was a corny, unemotional jingle about loving yourself set to left over nineties house beats. Yes, I anticipated the corniness-she leaked the lyrics two weeks ago- but I was expecting an arrangement more “Total Eclipse of the Heart” than “Express Yourself.” I felt like I had heard this song before, but wasn’t sure if it was called “Express Yourself” or “We R Who We Are.” From the “don’t be a drag, be a queen” rap to the empty bridge, the production was a 100% Madonna rip off, but the blatant gay rights illusions reminded me of Ke$ha’s latest single. The difference in the two songs is that Ke$ha-the Jonathan Swift of the Dr. Luke era- has a cheeky humor that hint’s that she’s in on the joke. Based off recent interviews, Gaga thinks “Born This Way” speaks for a generation, and a lot of people agree with her. Thousands of little monsters have gone on Twitter, declaring the song a momentous occasion and life changing, while others deemed it a rip off.

In an ironic way, “Born This Way” is Gaga’s biggest failure and success. If you, as a fan or critic, believe Lady Gaga is a pop star on the verge of artistic genius or an artist who belongs among her downtown influences, then this song is crap. But if you constantly question if Gaga is aPR woman who sings, than this song is a masterpiece. It’s a piece of craftsmanship, not made to express Gaga’s self, but to gain publicity and momentum for her next album. It's supposed to make her a superstar.

After all, since when was Gaga really about the music? Sure, she plays the piano and has stellar vocal abilities, but she gets attention for her shocking outfits, performances, inspirational speeches, one liners, and “love for fans.” Every aspect of the Gaga story is calculated. Former friends never speak about Gaga in interviews. She has told the media everything she wants them to know about her past, shaping her own myth. Rolling Stone and the tabloids made Michael, Madonna, and Britney. Gaga isn’t a singer or dancer. She’s a genius PR person who has one project: making herself. How could “Born This Way” be a bigger success?

Robyn: Swedish Import With A New York Dream

When Robyn announced her February 5^th show at Radio City Music Hall, I was excited and disappointed. After trying to find tickets, for her five previous New York City shows, I would finally get to see her, since she was playing at the city’s second largest venue that once housed gay icons, like Judy Garland and Britney Spears.

But Robyn’s a club kid at heart. She dances around the stage, with carefully choreographed club kid moves, devoid of bigger pop stars’ background dancers and glamorous extravagance. It’s what makes her unique: she plays danceable pop that has the heart of all her fans. While Gaga sings about nonsensical phone calls interrupting her night at the club, Robyn, a singer with actual clubbing experience, sings about the heartache of every kid “who took the bus to town.” How could Robyn, who easily turns Terminal 5 into Club USA every few months, communicate the heartache of every unknown dancer throughout the massive theatre that’s home to the Rockettes?

Either way, I figured the crowd would match the extravagance Robyn lacks. I imagine boys covered in glitter and hags as wrecked as a raver post day glo. Instead, Alison, Belle, and I found ourselves covered in glitter war paint, in an orchestra full of Lactose wearing queens, boring but drug induced teenagers, and a closet case who brought his wife. I expected the soul of Judy Garland to hover around the theatre, not the audience of “doomed queens” that saw her in the fifties. It felt like I blew fifty-five dollars on a lame show, with a lame audience, dressed for a lame night.

As the curtain rose and Robyn walked backward toward the mic, the audience rose. When she turned around, grabbed the mic, and belt the first two lines of “Time Machine,” she exhaled into the audience, destructing their stereotypical gay facades as they inhaled her lyrics, bringing their heartbroken inner dancing queens to life.

Prior to “Dancing on My Own,” her trademark song, the purple lights shined like ray beams around the tiny singer, as she folded her arms around herself, beginning a series of carefully choreographed poses and club moves that seemed both natural and symbolic. She pointed at the audience, climbed into the mezzanine, dived into the crowd, and held onto their hands, with truth, love, and sadness, in her voice, gestures, and eyes. Lacking midgets on trampolines (I’m looking at you, Britney), pools of blood (Sound familiar, Gaga?), and disco crucifixes (Crucify yourself lately, Madonna?), Robyn’s show matched the size of the stage and theatre. As John Guare says, theatre is not big set pieces and flying cast members. It’s emotional height.

In a culture saturated with Lady Gaga’s ten-minute music videos, meat dresses, and “little monsters,” I forgot the power of truthful emotions. Whereas Lady Gaga reminds crowds of her fan adoration, Robyn never mentioned it. She grooves across the stage, dancing with us, for us. She climbs into the top of the theatre, taking a risk as she dives into the mezzanine, trusting her fans to hold onto her, saving her from death. She only talked to the audience to thank us for being her largest audience, as she jumped into the air, fist pumping.

Saturday was Robyn’s triumph. It was the night the indie girl, the Z-100 reject, and the import sold out the most famous venue in America. It was a night fit for Radio City, an American icon, where Fantasia premiered and Judy Garland belted about the rainbow. Standing outside of the venue, posing with my friend, a long time New Yorker, as if we were tourists basking in legendary lights, consumerism, and dreams, made me feel 100% American.

Deciphering the New Britney Spears Cover

Critics, fans, and Jive Records have called Britney Spears a role model, a protégé, a rock star, an ingénue, a corporation, a concept, a puppet, a mime, a write off, a hypocrite, a country bumpkin, a train wreck, a punk rebel, a mother, a tragedy, a pawn, a recluse, and, quite symbolically, an Obama era comeback queen. Her label, enemies, and own rebellion fuel these roles, ensuing public debate and the biggest question of all: why does Britney, an artist who comes across as unaware and controlled in interviews, lip synchs and strips at concerts, and has nothing thematically relevant to sing about, capture and symbolize America at every moment. Twelve years into her career, it seems, whether lip synching at Madison Square Garden or grabbing a mocha at the bowl, she’s possessed by a pop spirit, that, even when auto tune disguises her voice, brings her to an other worldly level we know as “Britney,” capable of selling hit records and pissing someone, even country has beens, off.

Ironically, we come to a moment where Britney Spear’s public image matches her artistic and commercial role as an icon, because during her iconic meltdown (get ready to hear the word iconic in this blog post), she shattered the corporate images that imprisoned her from critical success. Sure, In The Zone sold more copies than Blackout, but hearing the Britney, who dated Justin and asked if the old lady dropped it in the ocean at the end, sing about massaging her clit is cringe educing. Yes, “Baby One More Time” was provocative, but still only provocative enough that Britney could sing a line reminding us that she’s “not that innocent.” The label made her strip in public but claim she never got it in. But after she shaved her head, dropped her babies, lost her babies, regained her babies, declared that “she’s country,” stripped at a strip club, and told a fan that she’s not “that bitch,” she finally overcame her public puberty. She was finally Britney, bitch. Britney the icon, not the person, was made or possessed by an artistic demon, to sing tongue and cheek songs about sex. Now that she had a whole mental break down, she could also sing “Piece of Me” and “If You Seek Amy,” unsubtle stabs at the public’s perception of her. Her differentiating public image and previous success gave producers enough material to make her their muse, an actual icon, and her mental break down and recovery proved that she belonged with MJ and Madonna, because the public would only forgive and sympathize with an icon after she abandoned her fans and children.

When her management, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Jive Records created the cover for her new album, Femme Fatal, a work a press released called “non conceptual,” they wanted to remind consumers of Britney’s history and that they need no concept, because Britney’s a concept, herself. Even though Britney Spears now hides from the public, she still has that “crazy quality.” She wears smoky eyeliner and BRITNEY SPEARS, as the cover prints in huge letters, is a FEMME FATAL. She’s dangerous but no longer unstable, because she made it to ALBUM 7. Yes, they even print the number in huge letters, because yes, against everyone’s wildest predictions, the girl who stripped to a song called “Oops I Did It Again” is STILL more relevant that Radiohead, because the crazy- that deranged spirit that even made her pop in her “innocent” “virginal” days- is within. It’s so present they don’t even need a scandalous video to remind you. They just need the name Britney.

First Love and Snowy Parks

January 31^st

I woke up in Central Park house, a hotel on the Upper West Side my friend stayed in, cold and stressed. It was nine a.m. and I had less than four hours to ride the A, grab breakfast, board the metro north, and get to work.

With only a collared shirt and a leather jacket to cover my dry skin, I speed walked- not like a New Yorker, but like a South Floridian trained from birth to get the fuck out of the swampland- down Central Park West, breezing through white slush. I passed old rich woman, who were once the glamour pusses of their day, stroll with their dogs as their long coats drape across the pavement. If they were downtown, they’d blend in with the homeless men in Avenue City, but they’re not, so they’re just rich old vamps, future fossil fuels that once roamed this city and have seen all the faces of this place.

As I get on the A and realize it doesn’t stop at Grand Central, I remember the last time I got this lost and felt so cold. That time, on a cold morning in November, I left a boy’s apartment, thinking he would return my call, and dashed through Chelsea, smiling like a dancer from the dance. But then, like Malone or Sutherland, I felt rejection, hopelessness, and stupidity two weeks later, when I never saw him again. I thought I was a boy of the future, incapable of loneliness, but I’m just a boy. Nothing changed since all those seventy novels I love, that the old ladies, full of morals, used to hate.

It’s funny, I thought, as I exited the A and climbed the staircase out of the subway and walked, regrettably, into Times Square, ready to trample through midtown all the way to the train station on Lexington Avenue. People always say that they can kiss someone, without feeling or hope, but even a peck on a cheek or a simple goodbye means something. Maybe- I hate to say this, but it’s human nature to care after a little touch. There’s no way not to crush.

And there’s no way to avoid the feeling everyone gets when someone refuses to crush back, because they find you ugly or smelly or stupid or smart or glittery or masculine. It sucks, because it’s all, constructed or natural, fate.

Standing outside of Chevy’s and Riply’s Believe it Or Not, two corporate mega giants who, with the help of Mickey, took over the midtown reigns from the sleaze joints my LGBT literature and history class loves to hate, I regret that last November never transformed into a first love. Images of Mr. November and I strolling down Central Park West, cold and covered in slush, play in my mind until my mind says PAUSE.

Remember the age of eight, Mitchell, when you lied on a bed in the plaza like Eloise, flipping through the program you bought at The Lion King. You met your first love eleven years ago on a sunny day, during a long walk half way across the city.

When I was eight, I met New York.

Wanda Jackson and Jack White

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Two Dollar Radio, an indie publisher that resurrects seventies classics. Now, I read today that Jack White is releasing Wanda Jackson's new covers album. Hmmm... the world tis a changing. I could not feel more excited.

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICk9odcxj9U

Real Boys

I told my friends that real straight boys attend Sarah Lawrence. My friends laughed. In their dictionary, "real straight boys" (whatever the fuck "real means." That's another blog post!) drink beer, punch each other, and ignore their own feelings. SLC boys get emotional and read Camus. Today, at our swim meat, we played against a team that had so called "real boys." I decided, for my own humor, to record quotes from the other team, while they changed in the locker room, and post them next to some SLC boys' quotes.

"REAL BOY QUOTES:"

"I'll rape you in real life and then I'll rape you in Madden."

"You're a faggot. You're a faggot. You're a faggot."

"I never get to masturbate because my roommates always home."

"I could have had her pussy."

There's so many things wrong with these statements. They're homophobic, stereotypical, and anti-women. Rape, like the clap, is never funny. Meanwhile, I hear Sarah Lawrence boys says things like this:

"Camus is God."

and

"I love Nicki Minaj."

Straight boys said all these things, but if they went to the other college, people would call them "fags." Since when did homosexuality make you sensitive and intelligent? Yes, there's many bright queers, but like any group, we have a lot of stupid folks, too. Why does society expect heterosexual men to lack emotion and be stupid as shit. It's as wrong as Disney movies telling little girls they need a prince to find happiness. Yet no one seems to be standing up and saying that boys can be smart and sensitive too.

TIDBIT

Today, I'm only blogging a tiny tidbit, a passing thought. When scanning blogs today, I found an interesting Rolling Stone news piece about how Britney Spear's new single, "Hold It Against Me," debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making her the second artist in history to have multiple singles debut at the top spot, without any publicity, aside from her recent tweets. The magazine found this odd, calling the feat something only expected from "icons" like "Madonna and Michael Jackson." That's what Britney Spears is: an American icon. She's the only artist from the nineties still considered a megastar. Sure, JT now acts and P!nk still delivers hit singles, but Spears is pumping out more hits than she did when she was eighteen. "Womanizer," "3," and "Hold It Against Me" became instant guilty pleasures, probable pop classics from their era. You probably only remember a few Backstreet Boys songs, and when was the last time they recorded a hit? Britney's one of the most successful singers in history. All she had to do was buy a decent weave, record a few songs, and get back and shape and in eight months after her visit to UCLA's mental ward, she was back. Only icons do that. Sure, she lipsynchs and never writes her own material, but her name's iconic. She stands for something I don't understand, but people respond.

Workaholic Unanonymous

The last two days sucked. When I vented to my girlfriends, they told me to go out for dinner or hang out. In other words, they said "SIT DOWN AND RELAX." So I lied down. I tried to breathe, which made me want to hurl a bag against my wall. I tried to sleep, which made me want to scream. I tried to rest, but I only wanted to do jumping jacks. What should I do? Work, my brain said. Fucking work, Mitchell! So, in the midst of crisis, I started brainstorming a project due in May. I made a list of ideas and sources. It took me away from everything: the stress, the problem, and any other worries, including deadlines.

My friends, my bosses, and teachers all ask if I am overworked, about to break down because I'm worn out. No, I tell them. I love it. Then they always squint or roll their eyes. Maybe, I operate this way because I watched my mother and father "work" like dogs, picking up dog shit and selling puppies, or perhaps I just like control, the ability to handle a situation, like a project, when everything else gets fucked up.

Either way, I live for writing, reading, and selling things online to support my writing this summer. I refuse to give "work" up.

"Shameless Skins"

In a recent press release, MTV described its American adaptation of Skins as "shameless" and realistic. It only took the first five minutes of the pilot to realize that this was a mimicry of shameless, a.k.a. market tested and compromised. MTV felt no need to change the opening shots, instead choosing the same angles and inflection for the opening scene from the British pilot.

But they changed Tony's bedsheets. It went from sheets showing a nude woman to sheets embroidered with flowers. I see these sheets as a symbol of this American version's bullshit. In theory, its the same scene, but they took away the reality of Tony. He would never buy hipster sheets for hipster's sake. He has sheets with woman on them, because he's a senseless perv.

Then they made Maxxie a lesbian cheerleader, instead of a masculine gay male. MTV probably calls this decisions racy and "real," but it's chauvinism. Why could they not show a positive homosexual male? Why do they have to create a hot lesbian CHEERLEADER? Because homophobes are fine with that the same way they love "I Kissed A Girl." It fulfills the fantasy of two hot girls kissing. If MTV showed a gay male, who fails to act like a purse carrying stereotype, they would offend people.

Even when intoxicated and sloppy, the characters looked hot. Effy, or whatever her American name is, looked like Mary Kate Olsen: like a well groomed hottie trying to look like a homeless slut.

There's nothing original about the concept of Skins. It's essentially a realistic, well written version of Degrassi that chronicles nine kids' lives. MTV missed this fact and believes that by carrying out the original stories, playing Robyn songs, and showing kids get fucked up they have a hit. Wrong, you have a mimicry of a hit. The kids on Skins should look thin, fat, pimply, and human, not like models. Of course, MTV thrives on controversy and shock, hence Jersey Shore's success, but they seem to forget that Snookie doesn't try. She's really that big of a mess.

If MTV wanted Skins, they should have bought the US rights, instead of remaking Gossip Girl in the fucking suburbs.

My First Winter

I have seen snow multiple times, but I have never lived amongst it. With only a little more than two weeks of winter experience, I've experienced an array of emotions.

First, it was magical. After hours of studying, I walked out of my room and discovered my campus, already full of an island's worth of misfit toys, transformed into a snow globe version of Antarctica: snow falling, white light, and a bunch of twenty somethings sliding down a hill to get free french toast.

Then I return Sunday, and it looks like Colorado after a heavy blizzard. Piles of snow line the walls. I'm told I will freeze. "You will die," everyone said, but it feels warmer than fall. It feels like a Steamboat winter, where it feels warmer than a thermometer says it is. I recognize a familiar scent, the indescribable smell of snow, evoking my memories of happy times like the ones where Nana pushed me down a hill.

Until today, when ice cold rain fell from the sky, I thought it matched the idealistic version of a snow globe imitating Bahamas. It seemed fantastical. Then, as Lauryn Hill said, I got reality, what people need. I felt cold. The snow became ice. I nearly slipped. But it's new. Times goes past slower, giving my hectic life space, allowing me, a workaholic always looking ahead, to wallow in the joyful present. When piles of snow line my walls, winter seems never ending. Happiness becomes a way of being, not a passing mood, giving people hope that happiness will never end.

It's Fucking Paper

In this week’s New Yorker, a columnist criticized AOL CEO Tim Armstrong for only reading the news on the Internet. Of course print publications, like the New Yorker, have a better reputation and track record than the Internet as a whole, but there’s no difference between the New York Times’ printed and online editions. It’s the same articles in different media platforms. I love a printed book and reading it inside McNally Jackson’s, but that doesn’t mean a kindle has less respectable content. It publishes the same fucking words. Intellectuals are attached to paper: the smell, the texture, and the insistence that it contains better work. I love books and think they should live on like a vintage record, but we have to respect online media, too. Let's live in the present, people!

Songs For This Sunday. Mixtape #1

1.) “Torn”-Natalie Imbruglia. I associate this song with two things: middle school and masturbation. It’s the song that fuels every angst filled seventh grade melodrama. The boy don’t like you? You’re torn. Mom took away your gameboy. Should you give her the silent treatment or suck up and get it back? You’re torn. I have a breakup playlist on my computer. When a future boyfriend cheats on me, I will turn it on and sing away my misery. This song is the first on the playlist. All of this makes sense for a song with lyrics like “He was warm/ he was dignified/he showed me what it was to cry…I’m lying naked on the floor.” Then a bunch of straight dudes told me that they watch the music video on mute and jack off to Natalie rolling around on the floor. Driving alone at night, crying, hasn’t been the same since…

2.) “Strong Enough”-Cher. With Cher’s late ninties comeback record, she delivered the best break up songs of all time. I pray that someone cheats on me so I can sing these songs, alone, throwing things, at night. Alternative snobs would love to say the album meant nothing to the history of music, but it introduced the world to Auto-Tune. T-Pain and Z-100 hasn’t been the same since.

3.) “All is Love”-Karen O and the Kids. I really hear nothing but children on this record. I will never have kids. I’m too independent and paranoid to make a good parent, but I respect them. I wish I could write a whole post about this song but it really comes down to one thing: the song sounds like everything great about childhood.

4./5.) “Thirteen”-Big Star/ “1979”-Smashing Pumpkins. Now that I listen to the mixtape, I see that I put together a bunch of songs about growing up. Is this because I feel older or just because I left Florida, again? Either way, this song defines middle school the way “1979” defines driving in a car and singing with your friends, later at night.

6.) “The Man That Got Away”-Judy Garland. I also seem to be obsessed with breakups too. What the fuck is wrong with me, today? Am I a love feined Peter Pan or something? Either way, Judy knows how to sing that pain.

7.) “Silver Stallion”-Cat Power. Lyrics never sound like the music. “1979” has the worse lyrics ever, but it sounds like high school. As Cat Power gently unrolls her cover, she whispers the way I imagine a stallion running on a hill should sound like in a romantic movie.

8.) “Total Eclipse of the Heart”-Bonnie Tyler. It’s as tacky as the video, as nonsensical as dancing ninjas, and as emotional as Bonnie Tyler’s tears. It was the greatest song ever, but I associated it with a friend. When we stopped speaking, I realized how songs and places are associated with people, and how easily something can ruin because of old memories.

9.) “Science Fiction/Double Feature Reprise”-Rocky Horror. I think Rocky lives on, because despite the tackiness, it drags emotions out of people. It’s about freaks tearing each other apart. It’s ridiculed like those who love it. That’s why they watch it every weekend. I went to Rocky after a friend died and I associate this song with her. It’s not a sad song, but it’s sad for me.

10.) “Free”-Cat Power. “True romance when you dance/free/don’t be in love with the autograph/just be in love when you scream that song on and on.” No lyrics ever told the power of pop fandom, it’s freeing quality, as well as this song.

Chauvinist PIckup Truck Rant

I hate driving. It's one of my biggest pet peeves associated with South Florida. Since I leave Sunday, I spent all of today driving around, finishing errands. I went from Hollywood to Plantation to Fort Lauderdale to Hollywood, again. Between this and my trip to Orlando, I drove for at least fourteen hours this week, spending nearly a hundred dollars on gas. In NYC, everyone's complained about the subway hikes. If only New Yorkers knew what it was like to pay four-hundred dollars a month for transportation. My biggest aggravation, during my days on the Ronald Reagan turnpike, has to be pickup trucks. At least twice this week, some fat bald man in his Chevy flashed his lights at me, telling me to change lanes, when I was driving at a decent pace. Why doesn't he move over? That's right, because every jerk in their pickup wants to control the road. I'm convinced half the people who own those monsters choose SUV's because, they make them feel powerful. Their mighty big car can CONTROL the road, with it's SIZE. Who would have thought a car could become a chauvinist?

How Do We Label Mrs. Sarah Palin? And Other Rambles

Good Ol Britney

Remember those days? The controversial Britney. Although I LOVE the new song, I hope she can match it with a provocative video and performance. She's rumored to open the Grammy's with a medley of hits. Let's hope so...

America at it's finest? I think not.

First off, I refuse to blog about the whole "blood libel" fiasco. I'm not a political blogger, and I think it will not ruin her shots at winning the primary election. I think she will run, because why else would she cancel her hit show and start her book tour start in Iowa? What I find more interesting than all the latest controversy is her role as a media figure. She's reinvented the term "politician" the way Lady Gaga reinvented "pop star."

For decades, Svengali figures have ran political candidates. Everyone from Clinton to Bush had multiple advisors. According to Time, Palin has four and she only speaks to them via email. Her husband is her manager, and she calls the shots. How else would she, an eminent politician, go on a reality show and get a talk show. No one would advise that, let alone her decision to leave office. Entertainment Weekly has reported this week's controversy. What the fuck does the blood libel issue have to do with entertainment? Well, she has a reality show. They report when Kate gets a divorce, so they must report when Palin gets her antisemite on.

On paper, and in theory, the show, the new controversy, and her family's status as the Alaskan Kardashians should ruin her political status, especially after she stepped down from office. Yet she's one of the most influential politicians in this country. She, despite her poorly researched arguments, has reinvented American politics. She has great instincts when it comes to fame, and she's the culmination of the postmodern age: a failed governor turned celebutante turned probable presidential candidate. Now, imagine her running against Obama. A&E should pick up that reality show.

In other news, I forgot how much I loved Hedwig. I think it's my favorite movie after Almost Famous.

Blog on, friends. I'm signing off for today!

Miami, Orlando, and the Shit Holes in Between Those Two Shit Holes

No, I’m not blogging about Virginia Woolf. I’m blogging about two of the biggest tourist attractions on Earth and what lies in between. While driving here last night, I noticed that between South Florida and Central Florida is an expanse of nothing: swamp land, forest fires, glowing street lights, and caravan after caravan of Chrysler mini-vans leaving one tourist attraction, my home, to go to another, Disney. Who the fucks lives off the turnpike? Everyone I see on this road trips-the families, teenage druggies, and migrant workers- are on a journey. I assume some of the people who work at the rest stops, i.e. one toothed Betty, live here, but how do they live? Everyone knows the extreme wealth of SoFl is a cycle of tourist money into luxury businesses. No one visits Lake Halawhatever.

Although most people assume only retired snowbirds live in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, I understand the culture of daddy problems and the endless midlife crisis known as Weston mothers. In Orlando, I expect bros, making a final attempt at Valencia Community College before returning home to their rich mommies, and hipsters, riding their bikes before they dress up as Minnie Mouse for work. I know South and Central Floridians are cra cra because they’re on endless holiday, which is not good for the soul, but that’s not even a separate blog post. That’s a whole fucking book. But why do so many serial killers reside in between these places off the turnpike? I really want to figure it out and know what goes on in those off road warehouses. If I try, I might die though. Probably not worth it.

I guess I can wonder…

Why Do I Watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians?

CAPTION: The Kardashian Christmas Card, as tweeted by Roger Ebert...

Since my first semester in college, TV has bored me. It even takes effort to watch Buffy reruns. I spend more time reading books and writing my novel than watching television. I pretty much hate tv, now.

Then I saw my sister watching an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a show so plotless and artificial that I feel that I shouldn't italasize it. It's more an ad for Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney's tabloid careers than an actual show. Reality television revolves around crazy people, has beens, and cultural trash. The Kardashians, excluding crazy old Scott, are sane, relevant, and classy. So why do I care about them? I understand why I'm addicted to Snookie (she's unapologetically herself, which is what we all wish we were), but why the fuck am I watching the Kardashian sisters argue about opening a new boutique no one will shop in, when lately, I find even Mad Men boring?

It's because the Kardashians, Kendra, and the Jersey Shore cast have replaced television sitcoms. Yes, critics and hipsters adore Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but when was the last time Julie Bowen graced the cover of Rolling Stone or US Weekly? Do you even know who Bowen is? I don't. I just had to wikipedia Modern Family to find a cast member to use as an example.

On E! and MTV, they come across as happy, simple, and rich, without an ounce of privcledgeness in their voice. Of course, the Kardashians are privileged, but name the last time you saw Kim say something snotty. In a world where people struggle with debt, foreclosure, and war, the Kardashians are living the dream, without any knowledge of it. To them, it's called normal life. They make the dream seem plausible. I would never want a reality show or to be a Kardashian, but it's nice to watch a show, unlike Lost or anything on CNN, where the world isn't falling apart. It's nice to spend thirty minutes in a world where the biggest problem is whether or not the tabloids know Kim started dating Miles.

The sitcom is dead.

Welcome to the age of reality. (Which is ironic, because there's not an ounce of reality on those shows and today's reality can see scary!)

Five Quick Responses to Hold It Against Me

1.) Critics love the track. Instead of calling it a guilty pleasure, many blogs that usually favor indie artists are telling Lady Gaga and Beyonce to beef up.

2.) People keep on saying this is Britney's first dubstep song. She's been doing dubstep since 2007. Here's proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwJNFAls-0A

3.) Am I the only one who hears a bit of good ol crazy Blackout Britney during the experimental section, where her heavy breathing gets creepy?

4.) People keep on saying they missed Britney Spears. Her last song only came out thirteen months ago...

5.) It really sucks to be Lady Gaga today!

What Happened to Flipper's of Hollywood?

I only left South Florida six months ago, but so many things have changed. After two weeks of SoFl craziness, I felt exhausted and needed a night at the temple of Mitchell. My house suffocates me, so I decided to go see Black Swan and then Rocky Horror at Flipper’s.

I expected the usual scene: the androgynous cop who calls me a girl, the pedophile in the wheelchair, trannies watching wannabe gangsters fist fight each other, the “alleged” heroin addict who runs the shadow cast, and an array of losers that find their escape, away from their pathetic life, one night a week at Flippers.

I found fourteen year olds, who never swore, never cut each other, and called me a fag. I wore cut offs and a t-shirt last night. I’ve worn a sparkly dress to Flippers and only received casual stares. Management remodeled the place, shut down Rocky Horror, and raised ticket prices. All of the front lights WORK. It’s impossible to win a knife at the arcade.

Management took everything that made the place original-it’s grimy safeness- and transformed it into another piece of shit movie theatre across from a graveyard.

I loved Flipper’s because any kind of reject could go there. Former criminals, trannies, and young tweens from crappy situations could sit in the dark and watch a movie together. That only happened because the theatre was falling apart. Now, it’s just a grade c theatre. Why would I give them my six fifty if I could pay the same price for auditorium seating? I would give them fifteen dollars to sit in the old wreck and watch Kyra and company give everything they have at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. That’s what made it, like a great movie, great. There was so much want in the theatregoers, and Flipper’s, the shitiest movie theatre in the south, was all they would ever get…

It sucks, man, it really sucks what they’re trying to do with this place.

Two Dollar Radio: A New Reason to Read

For three decades, independent record labels have ran like chic clothing stores: they handpick select artists, focus on specific genres, and build a reputable brand. The major labels, which are all boarding on bankruptcy, have produced product like Wal-Mart: they sell artists of any genre, without specific branding. Lady Gaga and King of Leon could have signed with Interscope, Universal, or Epic. Cat Power could never represent Ed Banger. She’s pure Matador.

While the indie model has failed the film and publishing industries for decades, the independent music industry has flourished, but things are about to change. Last year, indie novels won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.

Two Dollar Radio, an independent publisher, has garnered much attention in the last few months. Launched in 2005 by a married couple, the publisher releases six books a year, mostly new fiction, but also reprints of underground classics like cult icon Rudy Wurlitzer’s Nog. While other indie prints imitate the major leaguers by releasing a variety of genres, Two Dollar Radio is a brand. Although the company claims it releases any fiction that has great originality, each of their books, from cover to conclusion, feels like a Two Dollar Radio production: nostalgic, experimental, and relatable. One only has to look at their website to get a feel for their books. Like Matador Records, I would buy anything Two Dollar Radio releases.

Check out their latest book, my new read, Orange Eats Creeps: http://twodollarradio.com/books-oec.htm

Album Discussion #1

The Fame

I listened to “Just Dance” four months before it hit top forty radio. Scrolling through Britney Spears blogs, I read that some new singer wrote a song on the upcoming Circus album. Unlike most people, I bought The Fame its first week and hated it. The Fame seemed like the generic debut album from any other wannabe. Lady Gaga sang about “love games,” “dance,” and “fame,” perhaps the most cliché subjects for a pop songs Only her video looked weird, and by weird, I mean it resembled cheap furry porn.

Not until Gaga revealed herself as a postmodern artist in the “Paparazzi” video did I fall in love with the album. Till then, “Poker Face” sounded like catchy, annoying, nonsense. It took a queen I went on a date with to make me realize that Gaga was “bluffing with her muffin” and that her gender politics bled into her lyrics and her clothes. As I watched interviews with the odd singer, I started thinking about The Fame more. Early in her career, Gaga praised Warhol and explained that The Fame has nothing to do with money, sex, or love. Really? Songs like “Beautiful Dirty RICH” and “LOVEgame” have nothing to do with their titles? They seem like garbage!

But unlike its follow up, The Fame Monster, a great pop album that is literally just about love, fucking, dancing, telephones, and gay men, I didn’t realize that Gaga’s debut discusses something: Warholian philosophy. Her Vanity Fair cover explained how much of Gaga’s fame came from writing songs about fame before she became the biggest pop singer since Britney Spears. She fulfilled her own prophecy by making fame something tangible, something her fans could possess. To Gaga, fame means confidence: having money and love on the inside. Feeling like everyone’s watching you. She made into an emotion.

During the title track, she chases a teenage dream, where she possesses everything she ever wanted. “A life of material” isn’t cash, it’s something “untypical”, a happiness Americans associate with the Hollywood dream. She wants a man who loves her as intensely as the paparazzi follows Britney Spears, not Britney’s creepy paparazzo boyfriend. Gaga sings about fame as a metaphor for everything us Great Recession kids want and need: the ability to feel happy without a penny.

A Portrait of My Tribal Sister at a Roller Disco

Two nights ago, I went roller-skating with Melanie, a friend from high school. I met her four years ago. During my freshman year of high school, I stage managed my school’s production of Cats. I ran the show like a fourteen year old with a power complex; I screamed at the cast, demanded respect, and would make a ruckus for the fuck of it. I was a little prick, because I wanted to rise through the ranks of my high school, get a scholarship, and get the fuck out of South Florida. Melanie couldn’t have cared less. She showed up late to tech rehearsal, could never turn the fog machine on, and laughed when I screamed at her. A lot of the techies drove me nuts, but even before I befriended her, I only remembered Melanie.

Over the years, we bumped into each other in the dark room. She seemed like a lazy party girl, so I would roll my eyes whenever she crossed my path. Her and my photography teacher constantly argued. Melanie turned everything in late, which isn’t the best way to get a teacher to like you.

Then, on what seemed like any other day, Melanie started carrying. She printed like a machine and lived in the dark room. She talked about going to art school, winning awards, and becoming an artist, not for fame or ego, but because something inside of her told her to shoot and print. She printed, failed, and printed again. When I was fourteen, I misinterpreted her. Melanie had the same spirit as me. She was motivated and wanted to get the fuck out of the Sunshine State on her terms, because she needed independence, her own life. Her terms were just different than mine.

Still, we never spoke again until senior year. She overheard me making fun of some ridiculous party I went to over the weekend, where I saw one hundred white girls singing Biggie’s “Juicy” on a lifeguard stand, and asked me to tell the story again. She laughed and then after that, we would photograph each other, go to lunch, and talk about life.

Last time I saw her, we still lived in Florida. Now she photographs Patti Smith and Cat Power in the Bay Area, and I write and attend college in New York. Twice a month, we send each other our work and talk on the phone. Even though we barely see each other, when we reunited I felt the connection I remembered from our first encounter.

Four years ago, I felt anger. On Tuesday, I felt love, friends, and something I typically hate: family, the feeling of a connection that surpasses understanding because it’s otherworldly, shouldn’t exist, and typically genetic. On the surface, we seem like polar opposites, but on the inside and on the rink, we sing the same song.

Skating in circles, to “Billie Jean,” she looked at me and then slid out of the ring. Across from me in a booth lit by neon rays, she says that this “is so spiritual” and it is. Right there, we remember the first day we met and our mutual hatred for each other. For years, we caught each other’s eyes but thought we belonged to separate worlds. I hung out with AP girls and she hung out with skater sluts. We figure we knew each other from another life. We talk about this in circles, getting nowhere and also getting somewhere. This conversation has come up before, but today I understand it for the first time.

It’s something that could only happen at a roller rink, because when you travel around and around the same broken, wooden rink, you enter a trance. You hear the music, forget the face of your friends, and skate. We can only hear the language of the other world, where we all come from. We leave our bodies, until we skate off and transition back to earth, where Melanie and I speak separate languages but understand every word.

Why Do People, Including Myself, Care About Lindsay Lohan's Lunch Dates?

Lindsay Lohan left rehab yesterday. Already she has launched a hilarious comeback website, moved into a townhouse next to Samantha Ronson, gone to lunch with Jamie Lee Curtis, and faces probation violations, resulting from an incident in rehab. The sad thing is that every blog, including this one, is talking about these miniscule events, as if its breaking news. Her website features a picture of her and some butterflies. That seems rather newsworthy, right? No, it does not.

Considering Lohan has not starred in a movie in nearly four years, we should consider her has been by now, a former celeb washed away by years of drugs and booze, with Celebrity Rehab looming in the corner as her only career option. Yet the media hounds her more than they stalk Snookie, Lady Gaga, or Blake Lively, women of culture prominence. Only Britney Spears received more media attention during her “hiatus” from music, and she was shaving her head, making failed comeback performances, and beating up cars. Lindsay Lohan went to lunch…with her Dad and former costar.

America could give a shit about male star’s personal life. Bet half of you never heard about Bruno Mar’s cocaine arrest or even know his name despite his two number one hits last year. I could usually attribute this type of media behavior to the media’s chauvinist ability to destroy young girls, but TMZ and Perez Hilton are fucking rooting for Lindsay Lohan. “Get better, bb,” Perez wrote. Shouldn’t he get back to drawing semen on her face?

I could sit here and blog forever, trying to figure this out, and would get nowhere. I give up. Whether she’s in rehab or on the silver screen, Lindsay Lohan will be out there, with everyone watching. Get used to her.

Publix: Where Shopping is a Creep Show

CAPTION: ANNOYING FRIENDLY WOMAN. BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.

Dear Publix,

When I first moved to New York, I missed Publix, where lines were short and finding yogurt was not the equivalent to uncovering the Holy Grail. I anticipated a twelve-inch Publix sub the way Lord of the Rings fans anticipated Return of the King, with excitement, nervousness, and nostalgia. I wanted it to taste as perfectly as I remembered it. Then, I get to my Publix-the store closet to my house that I went to every week during high school-and I find an obnoxious “associate” in every aisle, following me around and asking me if I need help finding rice pilaf. If I needed help, I would fucking ask for it. When I say I’m fine, I MEAN I’M FINE. At the counter, the cashier asked me FOUR TIMES how my day was. My day’s fantastic, now can you shut the fuck up and scan my bologna? I understand the recession deepened in South Florida, but harassing customers with politeness will not get Floridians to buy an extra roll of toilet paper. Florida’s a libertarian state. We are rude and like to be left the fuck alone. So take your extra toilet paper roll and shove it up your ass, Publix.

Love,

Mitchell

Pop Ramblings

I’m a bit of an obsessive-compulsive pop flip flop. One day, Cat Power rules my iPod. The next day, I only play about Britney Spears.

As record companies release their 2011 schedules, bloggers have been hyping up two pop records: Lady Gaga’s Born This Way and Britney Spear’s untitled seventh EP. Hipsters, rappers, folkies, and punks admit to loving Gaga, but Spears is this nation’s biggest guilty pleasure. Rolling Stone loves to mock her but they tend to place her on their best of lists every year. Even in 2010, when Spears became a pop hermit, the magazine named her “Telephone” demo one of the year’s best songs.

With Gaga’s new CD, I feel immense momentum. I can’t go on Twitter or facebook without seeing people quoting “Born This Way,” a single that she has yet to drop. I hear no one talking about “Hold It Against Me,” Britney’s single that Z-100 premieres in four days. Then I go on MTV.Com and find a poll asking who fans think will rule the pop charts in 2011: Gaga or Spears? I figured Gaga will win by seventy five percent, but she lost…BY NINTY FOUR PERCENT, which brings me to another question: twenty five years from now, after Gaga and Spears have battled each other for thirty years, who will have put a bigger dent in pop culture? After all, in the eighties, many people predicted Cyndi Lauper would release hit pop records for decades while Madonna would never have a hit record after “Holiday.” Only ten years ago, critics praised Christina Aguilera and called Britney Spears a future blast in the past. Did you hear Bionic, Xtina’s latest CD? Probably, not because no one bought it, but I’m sure you know “Womanizer” by heart. Everyone does!

Yesterday, I went to Best Buy to use a gift card my brother gave me for Christmas. I despise that store. They over price everything and I have yet to find a good buy there. Still, I wanted to burn the gift card in my wallet, buy something before I forgot about it. So I bought Lauryn Hill Unplugged 2.0. I loved to own my favorite artists’ discographies. Look at my iTunes and you’ll find every Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, Fiona Apple, Girls, Britney Spears, and Madonna song except a few Madonna and Britney Spears CD’s. I’m that dedicated!

I read reviews of the Unplugged disc and they ranged from celebrating Hill as the best female M.C. ever to calling her a pretentious loony-tune, who should invest in counseling. Unlike typical MTV sessions, where artists perform acoustic versions of their classics, Ms. Hill only performed original tracks. Listening to disc one on the way home, I laughed at some of her interludes. She claims no one knew her till the early 2000’s, the time she performed these original tracks. I saw her interview with NPR last year, and she sounded logical, making me wonder if the press created the image of Lauryn Hill as a reclusive nutty zealot. Then I listened to this album, and I believed every article I ever read. “Fantasy is what people want. Reality is what people need.” What is reality, Lauren? Is reality stripping the self of anything aesthetic? She claims wearing a bandana at a concert is REALITY, but its still a costume. If reality means bare, then get naked, Ms. Lauryn Hill. Take off the fucking jean jacket! A folk outfit is still and outfit. Go ask Bob Dylan.

I thought she sounded nuts, but then I agreed with her. It only takes one semester with Julie Abraham to realize that our families, neighborhoods, and experiences create both our outward and inward appearances.

“Reality is what we need…Fantasy is what we want.”

That concept of fantasy makes every Howard Ashman work. Humans love to WANT. Once we buy something, the high disappears, and we want something else. Want drives us. Hill gets this.

When I heard that Ms. Lauryn Hill showed up four hour late to her comeback show and proclaimed, “I know I’m worth the wait,” I was scarred that she was going to be a shit show like Bob Dylan at his Terminal 5 show. I wanted to punch her, but she is worth the wait. Otherwise, why would people stay for the show? Sure, Prince left, but maybe he’s the crazy one. He puts on a show. She gave up performing. Now, she only tells the truth. Maybe, Lauryn Hill is the sane one and we’re all the crazy bitches blind to the world.

5 Reasons 2011 Excites Me

I could write about all the great things happening in my personal life, but I want to keep that to myself.

1.) Sure, my Sarah Lawrence education has convinced me no one's BORN THIS WAY, but such energy and momentum surrounds this album, building it into the biggest pop culture event in years. From her gender politics to her genrelessness, Gaga belongs to Generation Y. The Beatles gave our parents The White Album. Thriller defined the eighties. The Gen Xers claimed Nevermind. Based on the early promotional tactics that focus on transforming the album's release into an event, Gaga not only gives this album to us, defining an era, but she lets us claim her. Face it, when MJ died a hole existed in the pop culture universe. Like when he took Elvis's spot, Gaga fills it.

2.) Madonna may seem saintly, and Gaga may sit on the throne, but Britney Spears defines pop. While Ke$sha has entertained us with her glitter and Santa Claus rides, we've been missing Miss Spears. What's y-100 without her? This week she returns with HOLD IT AGAINST ME, the first single from her second dubstep influenced album. (That's right, hipsters, Britney Spears was making dubstep four years ago when you had never heard of it!)

3.) JOAN DIDION releases a memoir about aging this year. Nuff said.

4.) For the last decade, LAURYN HILL looked like a crazy person. She delivered one album, a collection of live acoustic tracks and sermons, and hid from the public. Last year she owned Rock the Bells and performed a series of live concerts. She just embarked on her first tour in a decade, and rumors claim a new album waits in the wings. Like Gaga, there's a mysterious force hovering over Miss Hill, and I can feel the excitement.

5.) Broadway shows have lacked buzz in the last few years. They felt like forced commodities, made with safe artistic choices for test audiences. Sure, the reviews suck, but SPIDERMAN: TURN OFF THE DARK is what theatre should be: dangerous, risky, big, and beautiful. I refuse to miss it.

My New Year

My New Year’s Resolution

I take my pride in scratching goals off my bucket list and accomplishing New Year’s resolutions. Last year, I attended a Hi Christina event, saw Bob Dylan in concert, and met Kelly Cutrone. On the resolution front, I saved more, let people use the l-word (love, not lesbian, silly) in front of me, joined a swim team, and got the fuck out of Florida. This year, I’m setting three bucket list goals and three resolutions.

Going to Sarah Lawrence, a college only twenty minutes away from New York City, I try to take full advantage of the city. Sure, the city lacks an over the top Miami style scene, but it has a kind of insanity and artistic events I’m unaccustomed to. I’ll take great art houses and performance art parties in SoHo over a SoFl party. I need to see more revivals at Film Forum, first runs at Chelsea Clearview Cinemas, and performance art at Ps 122 and attend a Todd P organized D.I.Y. venue, dance at a warehouse party, and perform at an open-mic night.

Resolution wise, I want to write, read, write, read, and write more every day. Right now, I’m writing for four hours and reading for another four everyday. I want to keep this up and eventually get my reading to five hours a day. I want to finish two huge pieces by mid 2012. Other than that, I need to find me a boy pal. Perhaps all this is too personal for a blog, but who cares. Ain’t that what blogs are for?

Ten Best Songs of 2010

Last year, I wrote a ten best singles of 2009 blog post because the year lacked cohesive albums. Even The Fame Monster, the best and slimmest album of the year, had a few duds. (“So Happy I Could Die, anyone?) I declared the album dead, an artistic relic of the twentieth-century. Yet like the Disney princess genre, the album made a comeback. Established artists like Kanye West and Robyn released flawless LP’s that defied genre conventions. West, like pop artists Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, hired a factory of collaborators to blend rap, pop, and classical music into an entertaining and heartbreaking mental breakdown of Kanye proportions. The New Yorker found it so genre breaking that they called its genre “Kanye.”

In Europe, Robyn crafted three mini albums, the Body Talk trilogy. The first two EP’s included eight songs each, part three included five songs, and then the final Body Talk included the full third album and the best songs from parts one and two. She let us into her artistic process. She included singles like “Dancing on My Own,” along with hit worthy grooves and, what would otherwise have been b-sides, acoustic versions of her later singles, “Hang With Me” and “Indestructible.” Some criticize the obscure release as a market strategy, but who gives a fuck, she released fifteen of this years best songs that had more hooks than Katy Perry and more heart than The Suburbs. Even the b-sides are top forty worth.

Despite the album’s comeback, I chose to focus on songs because Free Wired, Ke$ha, and Nicki Minaj wrote songs catchier, stranger, and more powerful than the other eight albums I would include on an album list.

10.) When I heard that Courtney Love announced her comeback, I got on my knees and prayer to baby Jesus that she would deliver a record that matched Live Through This and lived up to hype Courtney created for Nobody’s Daughter through years of tweeting and youtube videos. I feared she would return with a bag of songs similar to a comeback from a member of Celebrity Rehab. After all, Courtney called her latest disc her rehab record. Somehow, against the odds of twitter rants, custody battles, identity theft, and the other eight thousand problems facing Courtney, she, with the help of frienemy Billy Corgan, wrote “Samantha,” a stripper anthem with the best refrain about a hooker since Sting wrote a song about a whore named Roxanne. “People like you fuck people like me,” Courtney wails, bringing about more than four innuendos too complicated for this list to explain.

9.) “Grow A Pear”-Ke$ha. A girl, who spells her name with a dollar sign, singing about manginas should not sound melodic, moving, funny, or memorable, but it does.

8.) “Infinity Guitars”- Sleigh bells. While rock stars like Kings of Leon sang about sunshine, electro newbie Sleigh Bells took beats, guitars, and synth and created the angriest record of the year, revealing the inner badass that hides behind the genre conventions used by Europop divas like Robyn. Rock is dead. Electro is king.

7.) “Freak”-Smashing Pumpkins. Zeitgeist’s apocalyptic gloom and heavy guitars felt putrid, all noise and no feeling. Early songs from Teagarden by Kaleidoscope sounded experimental, yet forgettable. Then Billy Corgan found two new twenty-something’s to replace James and Darcy, and within two months, he delivered a song as nonsensically catchy as “Today.” Sure, the lyrics about “pouring salt from your soul” make no sense, but Corgan is finally feeling something again. On “Freak”, he forgets about reinventing rock music. He just sings a song, letting his heart, not his brain, make an epic sing-a-long for all the freaks and ghouls to sing.

6.) “Roman’s Revenge”-Nicki Minaj and Eminem and “Monster” Kanye West featuring the whole entire world. A female rapper with a psychopathic gay alter ego, who tops Eminem, Jay-Z, and Kayne West on two of the best songs of the year, should not exist. Yet Minaj, without references to “a magic clit,” not only lyrically murders the big boys, she tops them, rapping in four voices within one verse. She’s not the baddest bitch, she’s the best player in the game.

5.) “Not in Love”-Crystal Castles. Purists call techno cold and robotic, devoid of emotion. Beneath Crystal Castle’s synth, vocodizers, and inaudible lyrics is a melancholy worthy of The Smith’s. They take the genre’s conventions and transform them into a mask for discomfort. No acoustic Lilith Fair headliner ever wrote a song this sad and beautiful.

4.) “Whip My Hair”-Williow. My fifth grade teacher was right. With confidence, people can do anything well.

3.) “Runaway”-Kanye West. Is it rap, pop, or experimental rock? Is he mocking himself, crying, or both? In ten haunting minutes, “Runaway” leaves listeners with an array of questions it never answers.

2.) “Like A G6”-Far East Movement. All year long, David Guetta, Usher, and Will.I.Am tried to write dance songs LITERALLY about clubbing. The Dj “got” Usher “falling in love again” and the Peas were having “the time of their lives.” They became so tangled up in their frency house beats that they forgot Madonna’s cardinal rule of simile. It took five nobody’s and a Latino call girl to remind the big boys that silly similes, mindless comparisons to gravity, virgins, and prayers, make a hook, not a beat.

1.) “Dancing on My Own”-Robyn. Robyn sounds as heartbroken and strange as Gaga looks. She takes power ballads about real loneliness, not Gaga’s “Speechless” crap, and hides them beneath synths and dancehall beats, making a catchy disco anthem too weird and sad for Z-100 and too catchy and poppy for the underground. Guess she’ll have to settle for gay icon!