Wet Blanket Friday

Every so often I look at what the crazies on Pinterest are doing. I guess with this back to basics/foodie/crafty/I'm so unique movement, people think really hard about how they can out-creative other adults and show off how well they take care of their families.

Sometimes I find neat things, but sometimes I want to pour a bucket of organic puke that I found in a dumpster behind Pier 1 and canned at home one Sunday all over the baby whose ghost costume is actually the tutu its great-grandmother wore at her first dance recital (extra points for upcycling a family heirloom!).

Case in point: celery stamps! Forget about eating the negative calorie snack with your children; no! The best way to "upcycle" a leftover bunch of celery (because you only EVER need one stalk of that awful vegetable) is to put red paint on it and make VALENTINES! YAAAYYYYY!!


Pinner Adri Trollip finds ideas like these "So clever!!!!!"

So, following the pin (because how can you refuse to know the perpetrator of something as silly as celery stamp rose valentines) I arrived at "Homemade Serenity" and I think I found the definition of the current Mom Generation:

Yes, I know that Valentine's Day is a Hallmark Holiday - contrived to convince people to spend money on chocolates and cards and roses and jewelry. Exactly the sort of holiday you would think I would avoid with my need to limit consumerism and commercialism in our home. But I can't help it. I LOVE Valentine's Day.

I'm terrified. When will the next Mom Generation start? I can't be a part of this one.

Worst rap....or best rap?

I was relieved a little early for my lunch break today, so I caught the tail end of WKNC's Local Lunch, and boy did I find a gem. You could say I'm not very up on the local hip-hop scene. I only know about Endless Mic (because I know them) and Mosadi Music (because Blaze and jtan's band will be covering them at the rescheduled Band Swap Night 3).

But, LET ME TELL YOU that I was mostly put off by the following chorus by locals Kooley High:

"The sun never goes down when I rhyme/ cuz this is eastern standard time"

In a recent study, 2 out of 2 participants asked if these lyrics corresponded to Sesame Street.

The "emcees" go on to say

"3 hours in front of LA, 24 behind a new day"

and

"Just pause for a second/ because our record/ make y'all wanna slide like a card on credit"

They even fit in a reference to Bobby Boucher!

I need to know: is the current trend in popular music, ie. leaving out the rock and bringing in twee folky tunes about nice, innocuous and/or silly things, infiltrating even the hip-hop sphere?

Back in the day (circa 2000) when my friend Tim tried to make me appreciate rap music, lyrics were a little deeper, less obvious, more intense. Case in point, "Twisted Heat" featuring Drag-On and Twista: "Cuz the only mother fuckin' magazine that I read/ is the one I buy my guns from/ How many bullets you could digest in that one stomach/ I suggest y'all run from it". Full lyrics here (though slightly inaccurate).

Twista and Drag On - Twisted Heat - MyVideo Österreich

So honestly, am I to believe that Kooley High is as good as all the press says (wicked word play?), or are they just the new hipster "I-like-rap-when-it-is-intellectually-punny-and-only-chummily-combative" darlings?