MILB: "You Will See Me" by Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip

This video right here is why I haven't started to dispair of new music.  I previously did a Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip song, which  I also loved.  However, after seeing the video and hearing the song again, I had to talk about this one.

This is the third release off their album, Repent, Replenish, Repeat.  Usually third releases off an album from an independant record company don't do much, which is a shame because there is good music out there.  This song comes at you from the gut.  "You Will See Me" is both empowering and a little creepy too.  However, that's what good music can do for you.  It can cause different reactions to the same piece of music.

Scoobius Pip has an insane flow in this song.  His words hit like a half-crazed beat poet.  I imagine Allen Ginsberg might actually like this.  The lyrics, as per usual for Pip, start off straight to the point:

"You are my new inspiration/ my muse/ and I mean that not as a compliment."

Whoa.  That's heavy stuff to use even before the beat kicks in, isn't it?  However, we've all been there before, right?  A boyfriend or girlfriend, a teacher or boss, a parent or someone else, that makes you feel less than you are.  You use that feeling to get ahead.  You may forget the plaudits, but you'll NEVER forget the put downs.  It's there, inside, driving you to do more.  Then there's more to come:

"I will take negativity and make it inspire me/ I was not a book from a Library/

As I stand here alone I declare I was not a loan/ to be picked up and dropped off

at a later date/

And you barely even made my own spine bend/ just skimmed through some of the interesting bits

and skipped to the end/"

That's some heavy symbolism there, right?  You can totally get how it feels, and exactly the way some people have treated you in the past.  I know from my past experience that I work as hard as I do because of the naysayers that I've encountered along the way.  I know that Lovely English Lass and I use the "no" that we've received from schools and teachers about Lovely Little Girl to push us harder.

The next bit of the song gets even better:

"The Notes you left in my margins turned from scribbles to scars/

But here's the best part: You didn't even realise you were reading the first draft of a best seller/

The manuscript of a future Nobel Prize winner/ The Book you discarded as a pamphlet will ignite shit."

Are you still with me?  This is heavy people.  This is someone forming the strength inside after something terrible.  It's a rightous rage.  It's saying that the rejection you've gotten won't break you, but take you higher.  This should be printed on one of those motivational posters!

"I will not shout you from the rooftops/ I will tap your name out in morse code on my outer thigh/

As I casually accept plaudits from on high/ I will not try to win you back/ I do not want you back."

This is a man that is hurting on the inside but will use the hurt to bring himself higher than he thought possible. Sometimes, when bad things happen, this thought is the only thing to get you through the day.  I'm taking all these rejections for jobs as a sign that there is something better for me, and it's just waiting for me to come and get it.  I can definitely feel his thoughts.  If I ever make it to be a DCM or an Ambassador or whatever, I know part of the reason will be because of the shabby treatment I got from my first DCM and Management officer.  These are things that drive everyone.  Relationships at work or private.  Any girl that broke up with me just made me stronger.  It hurt like hell at the time, but it did in fact lead me to the love of my life and mother of my children.  So the negative sometimes makes you more focused.  I didn't meet LEL until I'd stopped trying to be everything to everyone and became just me.  Perfect, as they say.

The second half of the song does get very dark.  Discussions of destroying everything they hold dear, and about taking over the world just to break it.  To be honest, these are the flip side of the reactions to the above.  You can either use the negativity to lift yourself up, or just go nuts.  Sometimes it's a fine line, and you need to make sure that you don't slip over it.  

I've said a lot about Scroobius Pip's lyrics, which are brilliant, but I have to add that Dan Le Sac once again just knocks it out of the park with the music.  It's brilliant and dark and adds so much to a song.  Sometimes you have music that just fits perfectly with the theme of the song.  The Stones were very good at this, with "Paint it Black" and "Gimme Shelter" being two of the best.  Dan Le Sac takes this track, which would have been a brilliant spoken word album, and transforms it into something deeper.  It adds a menace to the song, and the unease puts you into the mind of the speaker.  For a minute you feel the anger and dispair, and how you too will rise above and better yourself further than anyone who's put you down.  For the run time of this song, you want to make a point that you're better than the expectations of others.

The video is dark and mind-blowing.  I won't spoil it, but go watch it.  (A little NSFW because of language.)  Then realize this is the exact same message as Katy Perry's "Roar", just told a little differently.

To all my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving.  I'm thankful for my family, all my friends, my job, and the fact that I'm in good enough health to enjoy it.  My you have safe travels if you're traveling, and enjoy the day off everyone.

Sometimes you just have to keep looking

Well, Bidding season is still upon us.  As you may have noticed, I haven't given out where we're headed yet. That's because I still don't know.

You see, while I still think my job is great, the way we change jobs kind of sucks.  It's not transparent at all, and it can leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.  It definitely becomes more of a who you know type of thing.  If you focus on lobbying for a job that you aren't going to get because of internal politics, you've basically screwed yourself.  That's exactly what happened to me this time.

I bid on a position in a place that had a lot of bidders.  However, I started early, got my name known at post, and also got to the bureau where this position was to let them know I wanted the job.  My boss called into the DCM to let him know I'd be perfect for the job.  I had an interview that went very well, and figured I was a shoo-in for the position.  The school accepted Lovely Little Girl, which is the big problem usually, so everything was lining up.

I did go after one other position as well with the same force, but it was London and I didn't think I'd get it.  Turns out I was at least on their list.  This post I'd spent a lot of time and energy on came back and I hadn't even made their top 3.  Amazing.  Especially when I found out that someone from the bureau back in Washington had gotten the job.  If I'd known they were bidding I wouldn't have worried and focused on somewhere else.  But since I didn't, by the time I found most of the jobs were taken.

So now I'm looking at the wreckage of my bid list, and trying to find a place overseas that will take LLG and now me as well.  It's all very bad for the self-esteem, you know.  I could go back to DC, but I joined the service to serve overseas.  I've done two tours in DC, and that's enough for now, Thankyouverymuch!

See, if I was single, or even just married, this would be easy.  I'd go to Afghanistan for a year with Lovely English Lass, and we'd then go someplace nice afterwards.  Now, I have a responsibility to my family as well to make sure they are taken care of too.

Sorry to dump this on you guys.  It's just frustrating.  I took a vacation last week, and still couldn't shake this.    I know something will come along, but it definitely hurts when you do a great job, but it's still not good enough.  I'll just keep looking, I suppose.  Not like I have any choice, right?

The Craziness of Children

My wife, Lovely English Lass, has written about my son and daughter and their idiosyncrasies.  I've found watching them to be a great study, but also one of the most puzzling things I've ever had to deal with.  (And that includes people whining about their housing for no reason.)  Here's some of the stuff we've had recently.

The other day, Crazy Little Man walked into the TV room while his mother and I were sitting together.  He immediately takes off his shirt and says, "Who am I?"  His mother responds with one of his classic witticisms, "A fighter who fights for sport!"  He replies, "NO!"  Immediately strips down to his underoos, flexes, and growls, "NOW I am a fighter who fights for sport!"

Lovely Little Girl had a wiggly tooth for about a week.  The other tooth had already grown in behind it, and so it was only a matter of time before this one came out.  (I told her mother this was just like LLG.  Not getting rid of something until the replacement has already arrived.)  Last night I looked at it, put my finger on it, and it came right out.  Now, tooth loss can be a bit perplexing for people on the spectrum.  LEL had read up on how to handle this, as it can be confusing.  However, when the tooth came out, LLG just kind of shrugged and got on with life.  All the planning and worrying down the drain.

CLM is quite the ham when it comes to groups.  At first he acts shy, and won't say anything, but then he needs to be the center of attention.  Much like Glen Close in "Fatal Attraction" he will not be ignored.  We went to Durban the other week for a weekend.  It was a lovely time, and we got to see our friends that live in the area.  LEL met Ms. Brightside through her work in Autism.  Her teenage son is on the spectrum, and is much more reserved around people he doesn't know than my kids are.  However, that didn't stop CLM.  After dinner, CLM went to watch cartoons with him while the rest of us sat and talked in the other room.  Suddenly, we hear this low-voiced sustained laugh coming from the other room.  When we went to see what was going on, we found CLM hitting this person he'd only met briefly twice with couch cushions, and piling them on top of him.  They were having the best time!  CLM just decided he wanted a reaction, and he wasn't going to stop until this stranger laughed with him.  

Both of my kids are super good at doing puzzles.  LLG does lenticular puzzles easily, which I could never do.  Although he's only 4, CLM has really started doing puzzles with a vengeance.  He does 48 piece puzzles in minutes, and is ready probably to move up to a new challenge.  The other day he did a Batman puzzle.  LEL told me that when he got to Batman's face, he got really close to the picture, scrunched up his eyes into a squint, and finally popped up to exclaim, "That looks like Daddy!"

Finally, CLM has decided that he loves space.  He has memorized the planets and how many moons they have.  He will also occasionally bust out with a factoid for you.  One of his favorites is to tell you who the first 4 men who walked on the moon were.  (For those of you keeping score, they are Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean.)  Not many people can tell you that.

So after being married for 8 years and being a father for almost 7, I can safely say I still have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm happy to be along for the ride with these two.

MILB: "Summertime Sadness" by Lana Del Rey

Never really bought into the Lana Del Rey hype when she first came out.  She was supposedly found on a YouTube video, but that's not exactly true.  She really had a recording contract back in 2008 with a small company.  However, she bought herself out of the contract, re-branded herself, Lana Del Rey (she was born Lizzie Grant) and hit it big.

 Let's be honest here, though.  This song should owe royalties to Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star, since Lana sounds JUST LIKE HER in this song.  Listen to "Fade Into You" and tell me Lana isn't biting her style.

That being said, it's still a good song.  Described as a Trip-hop romance song, it certainly hits that.  Right now in Johannesburg, "Summertime Sadness" is a huge hit, so I've been listening to it on the radio a lot.  The lyrics are repetitive, but also some very evocative ones as well.  The discussion about putting her "hair up real big beauty queen style" really paints a picture.  The bridge offers: "Oh, my god, I feel it in the air, telephone lines, above, and sizzling like a snare."  Hey, I've heard the power lines here buzzing, and it definitely sounds like a snare drum.  That's not too bad.

Then it hits the trip-hop portion of the song.  Lots of beats, synths and laser sounds.  Basically it tries to be a dance floor mover.  The staccato repeated lyrics, the changed voice, the echos.  It's a bit much.  You see, without it I think this song would end up like "Wicked Games" or "Boy of Summer".  One of those songs you keep hearing and really never sound dated.  But with the trip-hop, it'll sound just as bad in a few years as a 2 Unlimited song.

(Which reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Never mind the Buzzcocks.  Sean Hughes had to act like he was playing a song without singing it.  His song was "There's no limit" from 2 Unlimited.  He hums the first part of the song and then busts out with, "There's no talent!"  guess you had to be there.  See if it's on YouTube.)

Anyways, it's a very good song, but I hope Ms. Del Rey stops with the trip-hop portions of her song.  If she tries, she might be able to pull off a Dusty Springfield type vibe.  (Editor's note: I am in no way comparing Lana Del Rey to the sublime talent of Dusty Springfield.  I am just saying she could have a career with songs that last longer than 2 years without sounding dated.  Heck, "Fade into you" by Mazzy Star sounds just as good today as it did back in 1997.)

So the moral is, go listen to "Summertime Sadness", and then go listen to "Fade into you" by Mazzy Star.  Afterwards, just put on Dusty in Memphis.  Might as well finish on a VERY high note.