Taco Bell - Realm of the Stoned, Plus Me

There’s no point in decrying Taco Bell for its lack of authenticity or its lack of adherence to national food traditions. Taco Bell is a Mexican restaurant in the same vein that Wal-Mart is a place where you can buy goods that weren’t made in a sweatshop. That is to say, to make an argument that this is so is to make an argument you’re not going to win.

Taco Bell exists in somewhat of an altered state - a junction between reality and unreality. After placing my order and waiting for my food, I found my eye being drawn to the drink machine, as its ice dispenser spontaneously dumped several servings’ worth of ice into the little tray meant to catch the spillover from your cup. My eyes then scanned the drink selection. There were the usual Pepsi products (Taco Bell is owned by Yum! Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo, meaning the last thing you’ll ever find at a Taco Bell is a Sprite dispenser), as well as Mountain Dew Baja Blast and Lipton Raspberry Tea, two drinks that I am yet to find in the rest of the universe.

I, your intrepid food writer, sampled them and found the Baja Blast to be aggressively sugary – more so than regular Dew – and vaguely tropical-flavored. Thumbs up. The raspberry tea was overpowered by the raspberry-ness of it all, leaving me with more of the taste of an un-carbonated red drink rather than an actual tea. Still, the thing tasted like it was comprised of only the highest of high-fructose corn syrups, so I ended up drinking an entire cup of it.

Moving on to the napkin station – which, for God-knows-what reason, is on wheels – I found packets of Taco Bell's favored “Border Sauce,” which I’m fairly certain is just the grease that gets strained out of their ground beef, with varying degrees of spiciness thrown in for fun. This totally non-unhealthy product comes in three flavors: “Mild,” “Hot,” and “Fire.” However, none of them are particularly spicy, with even the “Fire” flavor erring on the side of somewhat sweet. The most noteworthy element of these little packets have to be the messages printed on their sides. Much like Keystone Light, which has like five adages (“Unsmooth Moments,” as they call them) that they print on their cans, Taco Bell’s Border Sauce seems to have maybe six different things to say. From what I remember, these include “Marry me?” and “Help! It’s dark and I can hear laughing.” This here is Taco Bell’s Big Reveal – it caters to high people.

Make no bones about it – Taco Bell is beloved by that subculture of young people to whom I will affectionately refer as “potheads.” Indeed, when I sat down in my booth, there were two college-age males who were sitting in a booth with enough tacos, burritos and nachos piled around them to make Takeru Kobayashi give their table a second look. Neither said a word. One focused intently upon his burrito with a loving intensity usually reserved for significant others, burying his face into it in a manner more often seen in snuff films. His associate took short, staccato bites, falling into a routine that involved him nibbling a piece of taco and then scanning the dining room with a suspicious look in his eyes, making sure that he and his friend were not about to be attacked by the gigantic smiling chili pepper on the wall, and then taking another bite, carefully starting the process anew.

Why did these fellows hold this establishment in such high esteem? I have theories. For one, it is reasonably cheap, and when you’ve just blown seventy bucks on a dank zip of Bob Hope but still have to get your munch on, you’re going to be more than amenable to Taco Bell’s eighty-nine cent burritos. And there’s the whole aforementioned business of the place just being a little off, down to the crazy tables that have neon-colored triangles inlaid into their industrial plastic finishes. Finally, the presentation of the food cannot be discounted – the stuff is just waiting for you to bury your face in it and forget the rest of the world even exists. It takes a long time to eat, the employees barely care if you exist, and most of the food is covered in melted cheese. There’s nothing for high people not to like.

Drake's Sprite Commercial

Is here. In it, Drake drinks Sprite so hard that he explodes and becomes a robot, or something. Either way, I'm definitely getting some Sprite along with the gigantic Monday Morning Coffee, because I'm hoping this will happen and piss my Comm teacher off.

It's The Bonnaroo Lineup! Well, Sort Of.

Bonnaroo, which for various reasons you have to assume is staffed by a bunch of recreational drug users, decided that they were going to trickle out their lineup via the artists playing the festival themselves rather than announce who was playing the festival all at once. This is an idea that has never been tried before, mainly because it is a bad one.

Anyhoo, here are the parts of the lineup that I have some interest in seeing (bolded if deemed particularly noteworthy). Also, Paul Simon is probably headlining, which is awesome.

UPDATE: STEVIE WONDER IS HEADLINING HOLY JEEZ THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

Jay-Z
Nas & Damian Marley
The Flaming Lips w/ Stardeath and White Dwarfs, performing Dark Side of the Moon
Phoenix
Kid Cudi
Weezer
Baroness
OK Go
Kris Kristofferson
John Fogerty
Chromeo w/ Daryl Hall
Neon Indian
The Melvins
The Black Keys
The Gaslight Anthem
Steve Martin (yeah, that one) & the Steep Canyon Rangers
The xx
Regina Spektor
Mayer Hawthorne & the County
B.O.B.
Lucero
Wale
Jimmy Cliff
Baaba Maal
The National
Japandroids
Dr. Dog
GWAR
Jay Electronica

This lineup is a far cry of Bonnaroo lineups of old - whereas past lineups have been full of bands that embody a certain philosophy or theme or something, more than anything this looks like "a list of bands that people like." That said, I'll still probably attend the fest if I'm not studying abroad or otherwise precluded from going, .

MY PARENTS WENT TO VEGAS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID CAR CRASH

In the history of all of the really terrible drivers who have terrorized America with their inability not to cause damage with their vehicle, I am perhaps the worst driver of them all. On Friday, I (probably) totaled the second car of my career, which is a shame not only because the ‘buru/Millenium Forrester/Forrester Whitaker was a most noble steed, but also because my insurance is going to go up approximately one million points.

BUT SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS, this one wasn’t my fault. Here’s the sad, sad saga:

It was rainy outside. Shit was straight torrential, son. I was in Raleigh, where I didn’t know my way around so I felt significantly more trepidatious behind the wheel than usual, and let me tell you I’m not the Paul Walker of driving even on a good day. But THE SITUATION was this: it was rainy, I couldn’t see well, and I wasn’t sure where I was.

I was trying to turn left on a four-lane highway, which meant that I would have to cross two lanes of potential traffic. I had waited for everthing to clear up and it was looking pretty gravy, so I decided to creep out into the road.

I get through one lane safely. Lane two, not so much. Hurtling towards my driver’s side door at the speed of a meteor was a Saturn (pun!). I cannot stress enough that THIS CAR WAS ABOUT TO HIT ME IN THE FACE. I did not wish to see this happen, so I gunned the ‘buru to 88 miles per hour, but instead of sending me back to 1955 to take my own mother on a date, I managed to make it about five feet ahead of where I had previously been. I was fairly certain I was in the clear.

Then I looked left again, and I was all like, “Oh, shit.” And then the car hit me. I did not enjoy it.

Here is an exact transcription of all of the thoughts that went through my head directly after my vehicle had been struck.

1. This is not happening. I have been in a wreck before and it’s way worse than this.
2. If this isn’t happening, THEN WHY THE FUCK IS MY CAR SPINNING???
3. HOLY SHIT I AM GETTING IN ANOTHER WRECK AHHHHH!
4. Damnit.

Turns out what happened was that the Saturn ended up hitting my rear wheel and sent my car spinning like a top, which is generally not a thing cars are designed to do. Thankfully, there wasn’t any traffic coming in the other direction so I could limp the ‘buru onto the side of the road, where the real fun began.

The girl who hit me was, on a scale from one to ten, one being completely normal and ten being just completely batshit hysterical, about a seven. So I decided to make some moves and call the police, because you have to do that when a car crash happens. Soon enough, Raleigh’s finest showed up to assess the situation. They look at her car, look at mine, and decide that the wreck was my fault and give me a ticket.

I disagree with this, and here’s why. When the girl got out of her car, the first thing she said to me was this: “I was looking down, then I looked up, and then all of a sudden I hit you.” You know why people look down when they’re driving? BECAUSE THEY’RE MOTHERFUCKING TEXTING, THAT’S WHY.

Anyway, I ain’t no snitch so I didn’t relay to the police what my new friend told me. I called a towtruck, and then the cavalry came in the form of Ross/Nolan/Justin, who brought lots of candy, plus a car that worked.

However, the most hilarious moment of the incident occurred thusly: The police car was about twenty or so feet away from where my car was, when the girl who hit me came up to me and said in a conspiratory tone, “You don’t have anything ON you, do you?”

I had no idea how to answer this question. Evidently, I go out of my house every day looking like a drug dealer. So instead of actually bothering to engage this question, I decided to act like an idiot.

“Wait,” I said, “What do you mean?”

Her eyes darted towards the cop car. “Y’know, like, drugs.”

I replied, “NO. . . You don’t have anything on YOU, do you?”

She got annoyed and walked away. I probably need a new car. The end.

Anyway, here’s a picture of what happened to my car. My wheel is rocked pretty hard, and in all likelihood my back axle is bent. Note the jaunty angle at which my wheel is perched. I am beyond excited.

Profiles in Good - Freddie Gibbs

Stories like this are why only musicians with the business acumen of a flying squirrel sign to major labels.

Freddie Gibbs is a rapper. In fact, he is a very good rapper. He is from Gary, Indiana, former home of one Michael Jackson, and, if you listen to Freddie Gibbs tell it, current home of many murderous drug dealers. In fact, according to his music he is the murderous-est and drug-dealer-est of all of these fellows. He also hates the government and is worried that he might have some illegitimate children that no one has told him about.

He gained renown off the strength of a bunch of songs he made about the very topics of drug/woman slingin’, so it’s only natural that after signing to Interscope, he would record lots more songs about being a murderous pimp/drug dealer. However, Interscope failed to see this logic, so when he turned in two albums’ worth of such songs, they were all like, “Freddie Gibbs, we know that we signed you to our label because of how good you are at making songs about killing people, but we have had enough of that. Please make some songs about how many nice things you have.”

Freddie heard this criticism, took it to heart, and then went and hooked up with Polow da Don for “What It B Like,” which I can only assume was meant to be his first single, and is about how many nice things Mr. Gibbs has only in that he offhandedly mentions owning both an ‘68 Oldsmobile (as to why he would brag about this, I have no idea) as well as a Jaguar and then spends the rest of the song threatening to kill the listener and shouting out various gangs with which he is affiliated.



It might be the best song I’ve heard in a year, and keep in mind I’ve been listening to lots of Steely Dan lately.

Anyway, Interscope got really mad at Senor Gibbs and dropped him from their label, leaving him with mountains of material, so he put out three mixtapes and called it a day. Midwestgangstaboxframecadillakmuzik has a bunch of beats that are reminiscent of the keyboard-tastic stuff that characterized No Limit/Cash Money releases in the late 90’s, except the rapping is WAY better. The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs is his best release in my opinion, with a sound that evokes early Outkast if Big Boi did all of the rapping. And then you have the 80-track behemoth The Labels Tryin To Kill Me, which has the best things from the other two tapes plus a bunch of other stuff too, but since it’s his “best of” compilation it just has a bunch of minute-long verses culled from the actual songs. The point is if you like rap music you should download The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs if not all of his other mixtapes too.

Regardless, one of his main strengths as a rapper is that he possesses a lexicon of unlimited unreal terms, and I do not mean that in a math-type sense. Here are a few examples of his magical way with made-up words:

Zip = Sellable amount of marijuana

Fuity = Marijuana

Len Bias = Cocaine (this is not a term rooted in any degree of sensitivity)

Cock = A female prostitute, because that makes sense

Dick Cheney = To shoot someone in the face

Burner = Gun, probably used for the purpose of Dick Cheneying someone

Anyway, there are more, but I have a paper due tomorrow so it's whatever.

iPad?

Saying that I keep abreast of current events is one of the larger lies that one can tell, kind of like saying that Santa Claus is real or that La Chupacabra will not attack you if you steal her eggs. For example, did you know that the State of the Union Address was last night? So it came as a complete shock to me when yesterday, Nolan informed me that Apple had managed to make a tablet, and then decided to call it an iPad instead of the much more obvious and less cringe-worthy iTab. I get that they’re trying to forge a connection with the iPod and everything, but still. The iPad?

Seriously. The iPad.

Moving on. Nolan hates most everything, so I took his claim that the iPad was nothing more than a gigantic iPod Touch with several grains of salt, especially after reading Stephen Fry’s excellent essay on how the iPad was beautiful and a dream to use, set to revolutionize the way we use technology and live our everyday lives, even going so far as to claim that Jack Bauer would one day use one on 24. While Fry is indeed an excellent writer and an extremely funny man, it is my opinion that in this matter he is incorrect.

I looked at the iPad’s specs on the Apple website, and they are admittedly impressive. Its touch screen is fancy-schmancy and seems pretty responsive, and the fact that the device looks like a MacBook Pro minus a keyboard is undeniably cool. Basically, the iPad’s selling point is that it’s this bizarre intersection between computer and iPod. Apple seems to be saying, “If you want to be on the cutting edge of technology, buy this New Apple Thing we have created.”

Okay, it's pretty. Whatever.

On the other hand, this New Apple Thing feels purposeless, kind of like when a bunch of scientists decide to genetically engineer a monkey with three arms, one leg and a set of fins, just because they can. My gut tells me that the good people at the Apple Corporation decided to create a gigantic iPod Touch with a ten-hour battery life because nobody thought it was possible.

In fact, my main issue with the iPad is that we’ve already had the such a device for a few years in the form of the iPod Touch, which offers the internet, iTunes, video, an e-book reader, email, and pretty much everything that iPad stands to offer, all in a smaller package for a smaller price.

And oh, the pricing! Placing the iPad at $500 is impressive, especially when you consider that they managed to make something so pretty-looking so affordable. But who’s going to buy it? The iPad too expensive and bulky for someone who’s looking for a music player (iPods start at $150 and, y’know, fit in your pocket), and the its storage capacity and functionality are both too limited for someone who would consider using it as a low-cost Apple computer; I feel like such a person would just spring for the $999 entry-level Mac notebook, or just buy a $600 Mac mini desktop.

Maybe this is more of a “me” problem than anything else. I use my laptop for three basic things – writing, surfing the internet, and listening to music via iTunes. As it stands, the iPad only allows me to do two of those things, because it comes without a keyboard and touch keyboards in my experience are more trouble than they’re worth. What definitively kills the iPad for me is that you can only have one application open at a time. For someone who constantly bounces between checking e-mail, writing in Word or Final Draft, and messing around on the internet, having an iPad just doesn’t make sense.

The basic purpose of technology is to solve a problem. For example, mp3 players solved the problem of how to take all of your music with you without having to lug a CD binder around with you all of the time. The laptop computer allowed us to take all of the usefulness of a computer with us wherever we went – I’m currently typing this blog in a coffee shop, which would be impossible without a laptop. However, what problem does the iPad solve?

A Few Words About The State Of Our Jay Electronica

In hip-hop, there’s a sense that out there within the ethereal boom-bap there lies in wait a rapper who’s on the cusp of being “the next big thing,” who can release a song that brings about a sea change in the type of rap that’s legitimately popular – we’re talking “radio” popular, as opposed to “sell out Cat’s Cradle” popular. One after another, dudes come along with talent, wit, and beats to back it up, yet inevitably fail to live up to the hype. Generally, I enjoy these rappers much more than, say, Soulja Boy, but on the other hand, these artists are yet to release a song nearly as catchy and awesome as “Turn My Swag On.”

Enter Jay Electronica, toting “Exhibit C,” the track that has become his calling card. This could (okay probably not but it’s fun to think so) be hip-hop’s paradigm shifter; hip-hop’s “Smells Like Teen Sprit.” It’s produced by Just Blaze, who offers easily his best work in years, a soaring soul sample that manages to knock while retain a certain elegance, and Jay raps hard without posturing. This is one of those songs that doubles as personal myth-building – in it, Jay alludes to being homeless, claims that an angel gave him his name, references Nicola Tesla and raps a few lines in Arabic because he’s a Five Percenter like that.



Pitchfork backhandedly claimed he was “the next Nas,” then contradicted themselves and implied that he was slightly better than Nas, which is obviously bullshit, mainly because the last rapper that Pitchfork anointed as the next big thing was Gucci Mane, but also because we don’t need another Nas. There already was one. He put out Illmatic. It was awesome. We have to move on from that – someone has to advance hip-hop from a position of popularity, and there’s just a shimmer of possibility that it could be Jay Electonica.

There is, however, an issue. Does dude have popular appeal? The hip-hop industry seems to like him; he has co-signs from pretty much everybody, including Diddy. But now that “Exhibit C” is finding itself on radio playlists, will it stay there?

Certain roommates of mine (cough, not mentioning any names) have questioned Mr. Electronica’s image, dubbing him a “hipster rapper.” Well, John Tyler Mills, in my opinion you are incorrect. First of all the term “hipster rapper” is meaningless, something that gets applied to rappers who neither want it nor have any use for it, as almost a way to deny them their masculinity and imply that they are somehow impotent because they don’t talk about how they sell drugs or murder people for fun, or can be used to denigrate a rapper based on his choice of dress, implying that he is seeking an overtly fashionable image, an accusation that's the last thing a rapper wants to face.

That definition is troubling, to say the least. What about rappers such as Gucci Mane and Freddie Gibbs, who don’t fit the “hipster rap” definition but are two of the very small group of rappers who consistently receive positive notes from “hipster” music sites like Pitchfork and The Fader? Or Jay-Z, who often speaks about his love for Grizzly Bear and is reported to have sought MGMT’s help for his most recent album? Or early rappers who emerged in the early nineties who count hipsters as a large part of their current audience? Certainly any of these rappers could be saddled with the term "hipster rapper" depending upon how you define it. If anything, the term “hipster rapper” should be applied to rappers who self-identify as hipsters and whose music often contains ironic or contrarian meanings, such as Das Racist. Das Racist are a bunch of hipster-ass motherfuckers. Here's a video for their newest song, which isn't nearly as good as the one about the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.