NOT TO BE A HUGE JERK, but there’s This Pop Singer Who Is Really Famous Right Now and kind of bumming me out. I don’t want to shit-talk cause it’s a total waste of time, but it’s gotten to the point in my life where when people mention how much they love this singer, I feel deep pangs of personal guilt, because it means that the person I’m talking to and I are fundamentally disagreeing on some things. It’s like how in the early 00s (‘member?) sometimes you’d be at a soccer game or the supermarket or a PTA meeting and someone would say nonchalantly that they had voted for Bush, and it would just send up a red flag? It feels like that.

The thing that bugs me about This Pop Singer Who Is Really Famous Right Now is that she purports to be something of a Performance Artist. Now, I’m not going to say that Pop Music and Performance Art are mutually exclusive, but I will say that the kind of Pop Music this singer is making is absolutely antithetical to the goals of performance art. According not only to my, but in fact anybody’s definition of performance art. Performance Art necessarily means something that is expressed / transmitted via (you guessed it!) PERFORMANCE. This Singer’s work is almost always mediated through studio magick, the radio, MTV, YouTube, Fashion Photography, Twitter, etc. It’s deliberately a kind of Art that doesn’t need to be performed live, since it’s readily accessible. Just saying. So when I am getting bugged out about this I figure I can either rage against the dying of the light (incorrect use whatever) or I can offer some alternative to This Pop Singer Who Is Really Famous Right Now. So let’s do that.

So, first: ROISIN MURPHY.

Maybe you already know about her. The thing with This Pop Singer Who Is Really Famous Right Now is that she often claims that the biggest misconception about her is that she’s fake, that she’s artificial, and she wants you to know that she is Always Glamorous, Always In Drag, and very Real. OK I’ll bite: BULLSHIT. This video for the title track from Murphy’s second solo album Overpowered plays with a similar idea, in a much more interesting way (I think). The premise of the video is that Murphy’s stage persona never comes off, that she wears her ultra-bizarre high fashion outfit (Courtesy of Gareth Pugh– Murphy was wearing Pugh long before Kylie, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and the Pop Singer In Question) in cafes, on the bus, etc. as a way of juxtaposing the artificial with the real. It makes an interesting comment on the nature of celebrity culture and beauty. Oh also, this came out in 2007.

KYLIE.

HAD TO GO THERE. The thing about Kylie Minogue is that she’s world-famous everywhere except for the USA. In most of Europe, she’s more famous than Madonna. Madonna has, for those Europhiles (and American Fags) who have been keeping track, been ripping off Kylie for decades. SO while This Pop Singer Nowadays rips off Madonna, she’s actually not even citing the Minogue sources. The almost-Goth, sort of vaguely “dark” aesthetic that This Pop Singer employs was much better used, again in 2007, by Kylie in the video for “2 Hearts”. Other than the fact that this song and video are excellent, the fact that the shiny skull is a reference to Alexander McQueen, the skull itself was actually a symbol of triumph. When this video came out, it was the lead single from Kylie’s “comeback” album X. Comeback, I mean, from breast cancer. Kylie has an authentic right to glamorize the macabre because unlike the Pop Singer Nowadays, who’s whole shtick is utterly devoid of anything involving “the real world” or “obscurity”, when Kylie released this video, singing into a skull microphone, she has just beaten Death. Top that.

GRACE JONES. In your FACE BONES.

It’s no secret that I love Grace Jones. I listen her every single day and she is a totally guiding force in my life. It is with no small amount of disappointment that I continually see This Pop Singer referencing her work. Grace Jones’ eccentricity is best exemplified by the video above (total. personal. anthem.) Unlike the current Pop Singer, who equates randomness and embellishment with intellectual weight, this video shows Grace in what appears to be her natural habitat, running from Keith Haring’s studio to the wardrobe closet to the chiropractor. The message here is that even with this totally unsustainable, unreal level of glamour, she is able to look directly to the camera and sing a love song. The layers of artifice serve to create a distance which the song’s message ostensibly crosses, rather than simply mask the singer’s face. Grace wants you to know that you and her are meant to be.

ROBYN.

Look, one of the things that I don’t understand about This Pop Singer, is how she simultaneously seems to be singing about her “feelings” while denying any trace of actual human emotion. She is bloodless. Does pop music have to be this way? Not if Robyn has anything to say about it. The marriage of a human heart and a dance beat may sound strange on paper, but with Robyn it makes perfect sense.

DIAMOND RINGS

Thought it’d be nice to have a non-girl, non-superstar in the mix. Toronto’s Diamond Rings proves that you can do really cool interesting pop music without a multimillion dollar budget. Look, even Kathleen Hanna is a fan. That ought to be enough. This video is really cool and proves that really, real people can and do succeed at aspiring to glamour and art. Who needs a custom haute couture outfit? Just put a sexy kid in a Karl Lagerfeld t-shirt. Signify, baby. This is what postmodernism ACTUALLY looks like.

So whatever. These are some things you can listen to and watch instead. Check them out.

Stay dry, America. Stay motherfucking dry.

Dear michelle,
What exactly is rageaholism?  I think I get angry too much about things that are inconsequential.  Like yesterday I wanted to punch someone to death because they were standing too close to me on the subway.  What do I do?  Quietly counting to ten doesn’t work.  I’m afraid I’m going to have a rage-related heart attack and die young.
Sincerely,
Angry Anna.

Dear Psycho,
I think you have some unresolved issues that are making you angry at strangers and other annoying douchebags. It’s easier to think you are angry at that lady standing too close to you than to acknowledge that you are just really upset about personal shit that you can’t control.  However, I am the same way.  People should really stand further away on the train, this isn’t fucking China.  I suggest you start drinking more.  It’ll relax you, and then you can always blame yr rage on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

Dearest Michelle,
So lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my best friend’s lip tattoo and “accidentally” seeing them in nothing but stretch pants. Does this make me gay?
Munches,
Doris Gay

Dear Dorian Gay,
I’m assuming your friends a girl and you’re a girl? Cuz if you’re a dude and you caught your dude friend in some stretch pants, I’ll have to go ahead and say YOU’RE IN. Ya’ll are totally gonna bone later and weep about how great it is.
You are what we in the biz like to call a Friendasexual.  You only wanna bone yr friends.  That’s cool and all cuz it means you like to get to know people first before you sleep with them (I hear that’s a good quality?). But, you’re also being lazy and don’t want to put in the time and effort to find a real date amongst the general population.  Before you know it, you’re gonna turn around and have no friends to hold your hair back while you’re puking after a supreme penny-beer power hour.  I suggest that you a) compliment your friend for looking so good in stretch pants that it makes you gay and b) stop trying to fuck people that you’re already friends with. Go out and find yourself a proper date to humiliate yourself in front of while eating and/or drinking.  And then come home and cry to your friends about it.

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Dear USAA,
Yo quit with the emails. We hooked up ONCE. And now you wanna send me green debit cards? That shit is soooo embarrassing when my roommates find them.  Seriously, what is this? My first grown up bank account? And then I gotta use it at C-Town!? You know those cashiers already hate me. You do this on purpose!!
Thanks for the no fee ATM withdrawals tho, that always gets me boo…
Come over,
Michelle

Okay so I have a not-so-secret love of all those “Dream” tags around this town.

I’m not sure but De La Vega seems the likely writer, although he has said that after being arrested he doesn’t do graffiti anymore. Either way I think he’s kind of the jam, his sort of street artist proverb thing he’s got going on, moving from Spanish Harlem to the Ivy Leagues and back, and especially his philosophy regarding being one’s own validator and creating value for your work yourself– D.I.Y. in a nutshell.

I started keeping track of my “Dream” encounters in the summer of 2007, which was of course the summer Paps and I started recording stuff together (back then I couldn’t even touch GarageBand we used Quicktime) and the summer I renounced my future career in medicine/medical sociology for more artistic pursuits (Peter Pan). I noticed this wall on my walk between our apartments–

OK lets be honest I was not dating the best caliber of dudes (never have I ever I guess), and I was getting dumped so often that I had a “getting over” mix on my ipod (it started off with Sade and ended with Kelly Clarkson [btw I'm a CATCH ppl are just FLAKES]). The wall was reading my mind! And even though I happen to believe in witchy shit, it sort of freaked me out that as I processed I would see new phrases –

to

(I drink)

to finally, outside of San Loco–

The walls were processing with me. And then one day, months or maybe even over a year later, I realized that the “Do Not Fall in Love” wall was–

–blank.

And I was pregnant (j/k its my backpack! lolololz).

I’m sort of a late bloomer, and even though I flirted with Riot Grrrl in high school nothing about D.I.Y. really stuck. It was only that summer when Paps and I started to record our songs that I really began learning the benefit of doing things to do them; not needing a recording studio; publishing myself instead of waiting six months to get rejected by some literary journal that doesn’t even publish stuff I like. Whatevs man we got birdsongs now so fuck you mountain of rejection letters.

Last weekend I started noticing the tags again, for the first time in a long time maybe a year even.

First–

to (with Paps)–

I don’t know yet what they’re telling me this time, only that I feel on the cusp of something really great and special and exciting. Considering that De La Vega wrote:

“I started to write inspirational quotes on the ground as a way to give people hope. I wanted to encourage others to really think about themselves and their dreams. I believe that you can be whatever you want to be. It will take a lot of hard work but great things do happen. Become your dream.”

He is so positive! and I would say his intended effect is not lost on me. Growing up on a reservation doesn’t really engender too much hope, I mean its engineered that way. I think thats true too if you’re a woman or gay or a person of color or poor (or all of those!) etc. So feeling this way, creating your own value, is subversive and confusing and empowering. And making zines or Garage Band tracks and imovies and all that, pushing outward in all directions, is that’s expression. And now that I think about it, the new “Dream”s I’ve been noticing are just this.

so without further ado I present to you—-

“a day in the ocean with blood” (all I did was eat a banana and feed the cat [and almost throw up] the rest is the genius of Paps btw our techno band name is Paps Peaks)