Hey there e’rybody!

 Usually I’m in Jersey this time of year but because of a few unpredicted events, that tradition had to be broken. That’s life, huh?

My Facebook status from yesterday: Let’s skip tomorrow and go straight to Charlie Brown Christmas specials, cranberry sauce and the Temptations singing “Silent Night”.

I won’t be a total Thanksgiving Scrooge. Today is a day for giving thanks and I have a lot to be thankful for but I’m going to shoutout the little overlooked things in life.

 I am thankful for…

…the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for making me remember past Thanksgivings when I would watch it from my grandmother’s house. As I speak, my oldest children are sitting on the floor ooooing and ahhhing over the floats and performances.

…those little “rubber-finger-condom-thingies” that keep you from getting paper cuts.
Currently, I’m handling a lot of paper on a daily basis and without that wonderful invention my fingers would look like I shook hands with Freddy Kruger. 

…online access via my cell phone. Remember the world before cell phones OR the Internet?! That’s back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, right?

…Breyer’s Mint Chocolate Chip 

well, Breyer’s in general. Ditto for Hershey’s. Yes, my mid-section and thighs are cursing you but my tongue is eternally grateful.

…household cleaning products. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, Shout, Swiffer, Orange Glo and all other domestic blessings.

…every shoe company that makes cute shoes in wide widths. My feet really < heart > you.

…DVR. 

…WordPress and all other blogger host sites that give us the freedom to talk about everything and nothing!

[Sidebar: Much love to Blogs By Black Women !!! They have added this blog to their network. THANKS! ]

Welp, I just rocked out with the kiddies to the Yo Gabba Gabba and Jim Fallon w/ the Roots songs during the parade. *whew * Since I’m not feeling that festive and I have to work tomorrow, I’m going to get ready to go shopping in an hour or so. Yep, I’m making it a Black Thursday. ha! Anyway…

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

1. We’re actually paying attention to you. Here am I, trying to keep the bitey things off your back and when I look round you’re … standing in a fire. GET OUT OF THE FIRE!
2. We’re actually paying attention to you #2: dps may be nice chaps and chapesses but as soon as the fight starts, they’re deaf, dumb, and blind to everything except their optimal rotations (assuming they are paying attention at all) or will get distracted completely by the occasional high crit. SHINY! They won’t care if the healers are turning cartwheels at the back of the room. I, on the other hand, am paying close attention to at least my own health bar and probably yours too.
3. We’re actually paying attention to you #3 (co-dependent argument): So why exactly are you not paying as much attention to me as I am to you? If I had to run up some stairs to grab a boss, I may have assumed you were not nailed to the ground and could follow? Why does nobody love me as much as I love them? IT’S NOT FAIR! Am I fated always to be losing my heart to uncaring unresponsive healers? *sob*
4. We’re not actually paying attention to anyone except you: most tanks don’t notice what the dps are doing and won’t realise you had to run off to heal them. Whereas healers probably keep an eye on everyone by default.
5. We’re not actually paying attention to you. Oh, you were dead? What sort of excuse is that? OK, moving swiftly on.
6. We probably know the instance backwards. When I’ve run an instance enough times, I pretty much know what my health bar usually does in conjunction with a healer who is paying attention. I will notice if it does something radically different for no obvious reason. (This doesn’t mean not making allowances when you know you’re with an inexperienced or undergeared healer.)
7. You just ran off and pulled a patrol by mistake? Oh, it was on purpose because you were getting bored. I see. *RAGE*
8. I know if I made a mistake. If I’ve taken a wodge of damage, I know fine well if it was my own fault. I won’t shout at anyone for that (unless it’s to hide my own incompetence). But if I know that I didn’t stand in the fire then that dismisses one set of reasons for my health to have dropped unexpectedly. You’re probably what’s left.
9. You’re married/ partners in RL. Nuff said.
10. Warriors just like to shout. Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, Shout at Healers (no cooldown on this one but it doesn’t last long either). People also pay more attention if you shout at them, it’s a proven fact. Probably.

OK, so the big reason for all the shouting at healers is because tanks and healers in particular have to work together in fights. And that means sometimes you need to coordinate your efforts and communicate. And when you have to communicate quickly in the middle of a fight with no time for discussion, that may mean shouting. It also means not much time for critical thinking.

The other big reason for shouting at healers is pure frustration. I noticed myself doing this on our attempts at heroic beasts this week, and I hope I apologised to them all afterwards because I felt pretty bad about it.

In the first part of that fight, once your cooldowns and consumables are blown, you just have to sit there and take the hits. As a tank, there’s not a darned thing you can do to reduce the damage you are taking. You can’t move out of the way, there’s no avoidable damage to avoid. You just have to go through your standard tanking threat rotation and hope like crazy that healers are on top of it.

I think it’s that sense of total powerlessness that fuels the shouting. Because when people ask afterwards why you died, the only thing you can possibly say is, ‘Not enough healing.’

Forgotten by whom, to clarify. Obviously, the mainstream didn´t forget about this gem as it´s still high in all sales charts across the world. It is, however, the self-proclaimed hardcore-crowd that seems to have forgotten about this outstanding, so far unique masterpiece.

Just to make this clear: WiiSports Resort is the ONLY video game AT ALL to feature 1:1-motion controls in a variety of games.

Gamers on all boards still talk about how they want to swing a sword, how the wiimote is but waggle, how the Wii has no games. Yet, noone appears to have played WiiSports Resort. It isn´t mentioned in Game of the Year-topics, it isn´t mentioned whenever someone talks about oh-so-superior upcoming motion controls by another manufacturer. And yet it is what everyone always wanted. The controls are great and fell natural. There´s several great games, and in multiplayer this game could last forever. Visuals are crisp and are tripping from lovely details. It´s a shame that the gamer-crowd dismissed this fantastic game and isn´t talking about it anymore. In a world where all hype goes to games where you shoot people, WiiSports Resort offers a fresh, high quality fun-experience that gives cool hints at future MotionPlus-using games. It´s almost as if Mario 64 was ignored at its release. What a strange video game world we´re living in today…

We have much to be thankful for.

No matter how some people try to re-write our history, the United States began with clear acknowledgment of God and expressions of dependence on Him. It is time to restore a heart of praise and thanksgiving to God.

In 1789, George Washington made a public proclamation for Thanksgiving. Here are some of his words: “By the President of the United States of America, A proclamation: Whereas, it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor . . .”

“And whereas, both Houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God . . . “

“Now, therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26^th day of November next, to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will.” So read the very first Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation!

Of course most people know the story of the pilgrims and how they and the Native Indians of the area had a Thanksgiving feast in 1621—long before Washington’s proclamation. Even earlier than 1621—we find people offering up thanks to God. In the Old Testament the people of Israel sing a Psalm of Thanksgiving:

Psalm 100 has a very unique title. Where most Psalms tell who wrote it, this one simply states:

A Psalm for Thanksgiving. (Reflect on each word and put this Psalm into practice)

This Psalm has Five commands:

1. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.
2. Serve the Lord with gladness;
3. Come before Him with joyful singing.
4. Know

• that the Lord Himself is God;
• It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
• We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

5. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

It gives Three Reasons for Thanksgiving:

1. For the Lord is good;
2. His lovingkindness is everlasting
3. And His faithfulness to all generations.

Our thanksgiving and praise is not based on our circumstances, but on our Lord! We can have joy as we come into His presence as Psalm 16:11 states: “In Your presence is fullness of joy.” No matter what you’re going through, “in everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thessalonians 5:18). We are also warned that the wicked “even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks” (Romans 1:21).

I want to encourage you to focus your mind on the Lord and tell Him, “Thank You!” Counting your blessings is a great way to gain a proper perspective. We celebrate Thanksgiving once a year, but we should all try to make it a daily practice. I thank God for you, whoever is reading this now and I pray that you will know God personally and experience His love and forgiveness.

風が午前中に打撃を開始
世界の笑顔に日に始まり、同じ時間
鳥に伴う冷気
と露の滴を見た

美しい鉱山
ワード嫌い言うことができなくなります
停止しない
を停止しないとここまで

地球
最愛

Yay.
It’s been a long time since Buffalo Bills have had anything to be happy about. The Immaculate Deception. Rob Johnson. Gregg Williams. Drew Bledsoe. Fourth and Stupid. J.P. Losman. Trent Edwards. Dick Jauron.
It’s been 10 years since this team made the playoffs. For a decade, those of us who consider ourselves to be members of the Buffalo faithful have wondered whether the present ownership would ever show a commitment to righting this sinking ship.
The jury’s still out on that one, but Bills’ owner Ralph Wilson finally decided to shake things up today by firing head coach Dick Jauron after he led the Bills to a 3-6 mark so far this year.
Does this mean the end of bad times at 1 Bills Drive? Not by a longshot.
The Bills have a ton of problems, mainly by entrusting the offense to an underconfident, scared, brainiac quarterback from Stanford (or a no-skilled, scared brainiac quarterback from Harvard), a patchwork offensive line and a defense that couldn’t stop a paper bag from blowing down the street.
It’s probably going to be awhile before things are totally turned around. Hopefully, in this “win now” National Football League, “awhile” won’t be too long.
But today’s move is a start. It shows that Ralph Wilson may actually have a sliver of pride.
Jauron wore out his welcome for good after that 6-3 loss to the Cleveland Browns in Week 4. After two straight games of being outscored 46-0 in the fourth quarter, especially when they were leading after the third quarter against the Texans and tied with the Titans after three, even Ralph could see the writing on the wall.
I won’t go so far as saying that the season has been saved. This year’s version of the Bills isn’t good enough to make a playoff run and is probably staring down the barrel of an at-best 5-11 finish.
But getting rid of a major source of the Bills’ current mess is enough to make me want to shout.

What is wrong with people do you think?  Why do so many ‘Trolls’ exist?  If we met them in the street, would we know that they had some personality disorder?  That they had failed to take their medication that day?  That they were close to a full mental breakdown?  Or do they in fact work in our offices, at the next desk to us?  Fine by day, completely bonkers the moment they get in front of that keyboard at night?  Is it stress, do you think?  The sheer pressure of modern life?  That really they’re apparently normal, coping with life, but inside they’re a seething mass of rage, a maelstrom of mad, disjointed thoughts?  Ready to snap?  Go ‘postal’ if just one more small obstacle gets in their way?  What do you think?…because I’m genuinely intrigued.

I received a series of emails recently via another website that I run – and the person sending them (named ‘Christopher’) screamed and yelled at me in the  !!  LARGEST!  POSSIBLE!   TYPE!  !!  (Yes, it was the usual Troll format – embellished with plenty of emboldening and exclamation marks).  They ‘informed’ me of various inaccuracies in the information on a single page of my site.  Seriously, it was as though I was confronted with a screaming toddler in a terrible tantrum, writhing on my living  room floor.  I toyed with whether to respond at all because if this person is a genuine nutter I really don’t need to be dealing with that right now.  Then I thought that I should afford him the benefit of the doubt and I responded as below (only, as it seemed appropriate, I also did so in the largest possible type):

I acknowledge receipt of your emails.  Do you use some special kind of keyboard that only allows you to type a few words at a time?  I only ask because I wondered why it was necessary to send me a whole series of short notes.

I shall assume that you have some kind of disability or physical impairment and that you are not, in fact, being so rude as to yell at me – hence the very large text of my response here.

If you look again at my site you will see that I clearly state on the ‘Home’ page that it is a hobby site of mine.  It also clearly states that it was last updated in August of 2008.  Maybe I should have put all that in larger type and in capital letters, so that people such as yourself would be able to see and therefore understand that, as a hobby site, I don’t always have the time to keep the information contained therein right up to date.

~~~~~~~

Yes I did get a response.  Why d’you ask?  I’ve cut and pasted it, ‘as is’  here:

Well, at least you replied, now spend time getting your HOBBY up to date.

Yes I do  have  a disability, thanks you for mocking it!

Angelcel to Christopher:

Christopher  – me too.  Which is why I find it difficult to keep up with my hobby and why I found your emails unnecessarily abrasive in tone.

He’s gone away, for the time being.  Maybe he’s just taking time to re-group and then attack me again.  What I’m hoping, however, is that our little exchange will make him think twice in future before blustering into someone’s home, spitting venom like some kind of Benzedrine puff adder. 

The internet seems to have encouraged this kind of behaviour.  Most of us still don’t resort to yelling and screaming  at one another in the street at the drop of a hat (thank goodness), so the closest equivalent to this is probably nuisance phone calls, which are also, thankfully, a rarity.  Yet the prevalence of  Trolls on the internet seems to be on the increase.  Why?

You’ll have gathered by now that, yes, he annoyed me, but that I’m also a very old-fashioned type of a girl, still fondly holding on to the idea that if we all treat each other as we would like to be treated then the world can and will be a better place.  My husband, on the other hand, who deals with rude numbskulls way too often in everyday business, takes a slightly different approach.  I have to tell you that when I showed him the series of original emails he was quite adamant that if I felt the need to respond at all then the best wording would be: 

Fuck Off.  Strong letter to follow.

His approach does have the merit of simplicity.  Maybe he has a point.

What is wrong with people do you think?  Why do so many ‘Trolls’ exist?  If we met them in the street, would we know that they had some personality disorder?  That they had failed to take their medication that day?  That they were close to a full mental breakdown?  Or do they in fact work in our offices, at the next desk to us?  Fine by day, completely bonkers the moment they get in front of that keyboard at night?  Is it stress, do you think?  The sheer pressure of modern life?  That really they’re apparently normal, coping with life, but inside they’re a seething mass of rage, a maelstrom of mad, disjointed thoughts?  Ready to snap?  Go ‘postal’ if just one more small obstacle gets in their way?  What do you think?…because I’m genuinely intrigued.

I received a series of emails recently via another website that I run – and the person sending them (named ‘Christopher’) screamed and yelled at me in the  !!  LARGEST!  POSSIBLE!   TYPE!  !!  (Yes, it was the usual Troll format – embellished with plenty of emboldening and exclamation marks).  They ‘informed’ me of various inaccuracies in the information on a single page of my site.  Seriously, it was as though I was confronted with a screaming toddler in a terrible tantrum, writhing on my living  room floor.  I toyed with whether to respond at all because if this person is a genuine nutter I really don’t need to be dealing with that right now.  Then I thought that I should afford him the benefit of the doubt and I responded as below (only, as it seemed appropriate, I also did so in the largest possible type):

I acknowledge receipt of your emails.  Do you use some special kind of keyboard that only allows you to type a few words at a time?  I only ask because I wondered why it was necessary to send me a whole series of short notes.

I shall assume that you have some kind of disability or physical impairment and that you are not, in fact, being so rude as to yell at me – hence the very large text of my response here.

If you look again at my site you will see that I clearly state on the ‘Home’ page that it is a hobby site of mine.  It also clearly states that it was last updated in August of 2008.  Maybe I should have put all that in larger type and in capital letters, so that people such as yourself would be able to see and therefore understand that, as a hobby site, I don’t always have the time to keep the information contained therein right up to date.

~~~~~~~

Yes I did get a response.  Why d’you ask?  I’ve cut and pasted it, ‘as is’  here:

Well, at least you replied, now spend time getting your HOBBY up to date.
Yes I do  have  a disability, thanks you for mocking it!

Angelcel to Christopher:

Christopher  – me too.  Which is why I find it difficult to keep up with my hobby and why I found your emails unnecessarily abrasive in tone.

He’s gone away, for the time being.  Maybe he’s just taking time to re-group and then attack me again.  What I’m hoping, however, is that our little exchange will make him think twice in future before blustering into someone’s home, spitting venom like some kind of Benzedrine puff adder. 

The internet seems to have encouraged this kind of behaviour.  Most of us still don’t resort to yelling and screaming  at one another in the street at the drop of a hat (thank goodness), so the closest equivalent to this is probably nuisance phone calls, which are also, thankfully, a rarity.  Yet the prevalence of  Trolls on the internet seems to be on the increase.  Why?

You’ll have gathered by now that, yes, he annoyed me, but that I’m also a very old-fashioned type of a girl, still fondly holding on to the idea that if we all treat each other as we would like to be treated then the world can and will be a better place.  My husband, on the other hand, who deals with rude numbskulls way too often in everyday business, takes a slightly different approach.  I have to tell you that when I showed him the series of original emails he was quite adamant that if I felt the need to respond at all then the best wording would be: 

Fuck Off.  Strong letter to follow.

His approach does have the merit of simplicity.  Maybe he has a point.

writers_block

Ack! I’ve got Writers Block, what should I do?

Calling all you NaNoWriMo Writers.

Don’t sweat it!

Just take a few minutes, go for a walk, pop in a CD and dance around your office.

Read the newspaper, or watch TV for about 30 minutes.

Start writing anything about what you’ve just watched or listened to.

This will get your writing  juices going.

It should help with what your working on.

Or it will give you a brand new idea of what to write about next.

Ideas are wonderful and music is inspiring.

I find typing to 80’s music is the best thing in the world.

Try and keep up with the tempo, it’s fun!

how to tell? cause a one-minute power cut and sink the hall in utter darkness. a good orchestra should be able to keep playing as if nothing happened. no need to read the score just play from the heart. a good audience should be able to keep listening from the heart and not bother to shout ‘lights please’

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Another disaster movie from Roland Emerich. Saya selalu merinding kencang setiap menyaksikan film bertema bencana. Hingga detik ini pun seharusnya saya bersyukur masih bisa jauh dari bencana. Bencana adalah pemberian Yang Kuasa agar umatnya mengerti bahwa ada kekuasaan paling tinggi di dunia ini.

2012. Ini adalah tahun terakhir masa berlaku DUNIA versi bangsa Maya. Bangsa mereka membuat kalender abadi dan ternyata penanggalannya berakhir di tahun 2012.

Sekarang sudah tahun 2009. Berarti ?

Jangan taruh masalah ini ke masalah percaya atau tidak percaya terhadap satu ramalan. Lihat lah secara ‘iseng’ dari sudut yang lain. Bagaimana bangsa Maya seperti ingin memberikan peringatan kepada warga dunia bahwa masa hidup manusia pun ada batasnya.

Bersyukurlah dan beribadahlah pada Yang Maha Kuasa dan terus berbuat baik terhadap dunia di sekeliling kita.

Mari kita tunggu film seperti apa “2012″ ini.

2012 URL

Oh, hey, im glad your reading this, but only if you going to join our protest against random subjects….

Hope you all had a great weekend. A great one in The Sun today by Alex Peake, who’s noticed yet another Youtube sensation on the way.

Did you ever want to shout something from the rooftops?  Mental South African (and there are so many! – I should know, kind of being one myself) Sam Wilson has the answer with illscreamyourtweets.com. Find him on Twitter here. His genius business model involves, well, going up the 1km high Table Mountain (Cape Town) and, err shouting your tweets really loudly.

Table Mountain, Cape Town (Keith Hull)

Don’t worry – the mountaintop is easily accessible by cable car.

He started nearly 2 months ago but has found fame in today’s piece because 30-year-old sales manager Luke Bunnage (“Romantic Luke Bunnage” according to the Sun. I’d say “A Bit Lazy Luke Bunnage”) saw a piece about it in the Metro and popped the question via the service. 40 volunteers turned up for the unusual proposal, which ended up looking like this:

And believe it or not, girlfriend Sarah Hollis, expecting their third child next week, said yes. Hooray!

But the crazy entrepreneur (and/or “geek”, as he performs the service for free) has more ideas. I’ll Tweet Your Screams involves sending him a Youtube video of you screaming, which he will covert into a tweet for his page. There’s nothing there yet – but watch this space. I’m expecting a screaming hoard of time-rich hobbies-poor people to start flooding in any day now.

Yes, it’s very silly, but it’s also a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll start flooding him with my own to see if they get yelled from the world’s flattest mountain. But for now, I’ll leave you with this: Cuz if you like it then you should have put a ring on it.

Hey, just a little bit of surprise news. I stumbled over an AMV for Pokémon Battle Revolution on Youtube and got to hear two Italian songs of the Pokémon-series. And I like what I can hear. Maybe you will experience a pleasant surprise as well. Go here:

Pokémon Advanced Battle

Pokémon Advanced Opening

By Con George-Kotzabasis

This is a question that I was to put to Clemons from another thread but at the time I was under the surgeon’s knife. Since my question, however, is not completely unrelated to the present thread, I’m posing it here.

The question is related to Clemons ‘sweet’ emotional rapprochement to the leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, in the face of the ‘bitter’ realities of the Middle East. Is the West including that outpost of Western civilization, Israel, and especially the U.S., currently engaged in a mortal fight with a hard core fanatical Islam which includes its terrorist satrapies Hamas and Hezbollah or not? If the answer to the question by the “hybrid” realist Clemons, to use his term, is in the affirmative, then the latter is the grand appeaser toward fanatical militant Islam. If he answers it in the negative, with all the expected equivocations that he is capable of, then he is afflicted by an incurable virus of political necrophilia.

But in my humble opinion, Clemons will go down in the chronicles of American history, if he ever makes its footnotes, as the mini American Chamberlain in contrast to Churchillian mettle and sagacity. Appease! Appease! Is the shout of Clemons and the prophets.

Before getting around to discussing the tragedy at Fort Hood yesterday, OBAMA gave a SHOUT OUT: ” I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It’s good to see you.” I am amazed that he even decided to ease into discussing Fort Hood, and I am even more amazed that he recognized an individual in the crowd who was in attendance. The worst part is: Crow is not a Medal of Honor recipient (medal of honor is the highest award for the armed forces given for valor in action against our enemies). See for yourself whether old Joe “Medicine Man” Crow made the list on the  Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Our President is a dipshit. But, Crow was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor by……wait for it…..President Obama. It was way back in August though so I can see how he could have forgotten, especially in the middle of a shout out. Shouldn’t Obama know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom?

Why do we treat our rich
with wine and medication,
while the poor receive
water and uncured cancer?
Do our heros who stand
on a pillar of fame and fortune
deserve more than us,
the common people?

Just to get this out there: A lot of people seem to think that Super Mario Galaxy was the new direction that the Mario-franchise needed after getting stale with Super Mario Sunshine. That is incorrect. What Super Mario Galaxy did was to perfect the typical Mario-formula. It did so by combining the modern star-collecting with the linear level-design of old 2d-Mario-games. It is a great combination, but it isn´t new by any definition. You still have the hub, you still jump into worlds, you still collect stars, and so on.

That´s why Super Mario Galaxy is to the Mario-series what The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is to the Zelda-series: Both perfected their respective franchise´s gameplay. Galaxy took all the best aspects of its precedessors, while Twilight Princess, at least in many fans opinion, is a gorgeous almost-remake of Ocarina of Time, with a bigger world, better dungeons, better story, and so on.

While almost every fan wants the Zelda-series to get fresher, many Mario-fans are wearing rose tinted Mario-glasses and don´t see how Mario is in the very same situation as the Zelda-series is. If both those series really need something fresh could be debated (i ABSOLUTELY think so), but it is quite annoying when gamers talk about Super Mario Galaxy like it´s a concept never been done before (maybe not in that quality), while Twilight Princess is complained about with stuff like “the Zelda-series needs an overhaul like Mario Galaxy”. Galaxy is nothing new, Twilight Princess is nothing new, and I hope both series will evolve.

I was just watching one of my favorite channels on YouTube. Link is below this post in case you are interested to know what my interests are and would like to watch it…

Anyway…

She wears a dress and she looks even hotter!

After the appearance of the one and only square lamp, she mentions my user name Yaaaaaay for me…

So here’s a shout out to her (lobi89) and her channel.

Visit her on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/lobi89

And here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaVCH4dmemM

~Peace ouT~

This blog is undergoing some active updates. This week, we have been putting some more images of Laemtong Shopping mall, Bangsaen. Plus the Design aspect of Big Mountain Music Festival in its processes almost real time from our working table. We brought back the thumbnail gallery format for easier image viewing.

Please keep checking our contents.

And my friends Gemma and Mike who used to do the Shout! night, have come back with the new and improved – Trout!

For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.
—Walter Pater[1]

The point of concentrating on hooks in music is to glory in the self-sufficiency of radiant moments.  But that self-sufficiency is illusory.  No hook is an island.  Every highlight has a setting and a history.

All right, says pop music, but I will push against that necessity.  I will effloresce, erupt, slash free of the cobwebs of time.  I will choose sounds so compelling you will forget they were chosen for reasons.  Even when I take up the tools of language, I will speak words of raw presence and affirmation, summative words that say it all.  I will say—quoting here the Isley Brothers in “Shout”—“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”  When I say yeah, I’m saying it all in the best way possible.  When I unroll a chain of yeahs, I’m saying it endlessly.

But words, so far from being purely present, always come with arrows attached.  They have about-ness—even the self-absorbed “ooh” points (barely) to something going on in the world—and they have to-ness as well, pointing to someone.  The affirmation “yeah” gives something and someone a green light.  True, the something and someone are sucked into a blast of presence, but we still have to be mindful of a certain distribution of things to get the sense of a given yeah.   This means that I, alone, cannot ever be saying it all by saying yeah; but you and I together could come much closer to a completeness if we make a call and response, yeah/yeah, and better still on and on, yeah/yeah / yeah/yeah.  It’s nicely done this way in Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me” (1961).

In “Shout” (1959), however, the Isley Brothers short-circuit the call and response structure.  There is plenty of convivial back and forth between voices in the track, but the main “yeah yeah” line is taken by just one voice, both arrogating and sharing the power of achieving this effect by oneself.  Unlike the alternation yeah/yeah, the line yeah-yeah becomes a unit of utterance, a button of excitement to push, a phrase of romantic enthusiasm—which is how the Beatles use it in their epochal “She Loves You” (1963).  (Lennon and McCartney originally intended to throw in some “yeahs” as a response to the thesis statement “She loves you,” but they ended up putting in a yeah-yeah-yeah to complete the statement line.)[2]

So the meaning of yeah, yeah has a history.  We shouldn’t have to date and sequence songs to explain their hooks, but for this hook we do.  It sounds like a revivalist stunt when Tommy James and the Shondells use the old back-and-forth yeah/yeah in “Mony, Mony” (1968).  When the Clash confronts the “phoney Beatlemania” heritage of rock’n’roll in the punk revolution of the 1970’s, one of the choicest gibes they shoot in that direction is Joe Strummer’s mocking “yeah, yeah” in the middle of  “Clash City Rockers” (1978).[3] Once the acute punk phase passes, it’s fine to use any rock value any way one likes, post-ironically.  In 1995, yeah, yeah becomes a massively popular stairway to God (Joan Osborne, “One of Us”).  Still cool in the 21^st century, yeah, yeah is now high concept for a band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (listen in particular to “Bang,” 2001).  But there can never again be the ingenuous surge of “She Loves You” or the pointed criticism of “Clash City Rockers.”

We have to hold all this in mind to appreciate the greatest yeah, yeah, which, I contend, is Strummer’s.  What we have heard through the years has made us realize that one of the supreme verbal gestures of immediacy cannot be as free as it wants to be.  It has to drag historical baggage with it.  Strummer’s is the yeah, yeah that does this lucidly.  He makes a peak moment of a burden of awareness.  In a song suffused with anger and scorn, following a chorus that tells us “Don’t complain” and “Shut your mouth and pretend you enjoy it” (your life prospects in Thatcher Britain, that is),[4] he underlines the message by twirling us about an axis of joy—we are rocking, this is fun, no pretending about it—with a wickedly buoyant delivery of yeah, yeah that doesn’t kill it or even dampen it, but lets its feathers flutter in the sarcastic gale; and then, like a smirking MC, the yeah, yeah bounces us right over to the next battered institution of joy, the lead guitar solo.

It’s over! —a quick thing that you’re lucky to hear, the very opposite of the million-dollar hook in “She Loves You” that you can’t escape.  But it’s the pivotal midpoint of the whole history of yeah, yeah.

If you don’t like the freighted yeah, yeah of the Clash, you can go back to the exuberant “Shout” (or, earlier still, the swing band jive of Louis Prima’s “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” circa 1950) or forward to the overheated “Bang”—yeah, your choice.

See the Yeah, Yeah mix

[2] “She Loves You,” The Beatles Ultimate Experience:  Songwriting and Recording Database.

[3] “Phoney Beatlemania” is a phrase from “London Calling” (1979).

[4] But see Comment 1—Thatcher came to power in 1979 (thanks, Tim).