America

The typical R&B songwriting process

Before I get started on this, let me say two things. First off, I am complaining about what Wikipedia calls “Contemporary R&B”, not real R&B. Mariah Carey, not Marvin Gaye. Secondly, I am aware that this isn’t a purely American phenomenon, but it’s American enough that I can stick it up here and still sleep at night.

That said, here goes.

I’m not a music afficionado. I like listening to things like Coldplay and Badly Drawn Boy. In my head they’re the music that cool people listen to, but in twenty years my kids are going to regard them with the same sort of scorn as I currently regard Phil Collins. It’s old people’s music, with easy-going chords and three minute songs. I understand that. Hey, I’m not really a music guy.

I’m enough of a music guy, however, to realise that the dribbling genre of musical wallpaper paste that calls itself “R&B” is an offense against taste so vicious that hanging must surely be the only valid public response. If you’re driving along listening to the radio, there are several ways to detect that you’ve accidentally stumbled upon a contemporary R&B station. Check for the following:

• Ability to predict the next line of a song you’ve never heard before (“you’re the one I love / you’re the one I’m dreaming of” et cetera)
• Use of the words “brother” or ”sister”
• Song lines followed by clarifications like “yes he did” or “oh no, no”, just in case you couldn’t grasp the depth of the lyrics and required some further clarification of what was going on
• Prodigious use of “mm-hmm” or “ooh” when a suitable “love-of”/”heart-apart”/”you-true” rhyme is unavailable
• Did that song finish? Is this another one?

Perhaps the most offensive aspect of this Bud Light of musical genres is the fact that it stole its name from a completely unrelated and perfectly decent form of music. In the 1950s, R&B music was the great creative outpouring from a misrepresented black America – as it took off in popularity, it became the unifying sound of the grass-roots civil rights movement in a way that nothing written or spoken could easily manage. There was real feeling behind it, and real power in what it said.

By contrast, contemporary R&B appears to be the disembodied voice of dumpy, angst-ridden fourteen year olds with ill-concieved chips on their shoulders about what a hard time in life they’re having. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the elevator music of the next decade. Watch out, Phil Collins.

Once you get to the age of thirty or so, you’re pretty much done with truly new taste sensations. You’ve experienced the strange dryness of buffalo meat. You’ve savoured the odd nuttiness of a brussell sprout. You’ve gasped at the awkward sharpness of cilantro.

We’re all prone to exaggeration. There’s a world of difference between “that looks like shit” and, well, shit. When you announce “that tastes like vomit”, everyone knows that you’re employing a certain amount of poetic license. No food would actually really taste like that. It’s a turn of phrase.

Nothing, my friend, nothing can prepare you for that first giant swig from a bottle of “beer” which is actually dental fluoride rinse. It doesn’t just taste of dental fluoride rinse. It is dental fluoride rinse. With one crucial difference. Dental fluoride rinse is alcoholic. Root “beer” is not.

I have done some research into how root beer came to be invented. It seems a shame not to share this with the world, so I leave you with the “History” section that I have added to Wikipedia’s root beer page. I hope this will help others who were as confused as I was. Click on the image for a copy of the whole page.

I messed with Wikipedia. I know. It’s not original, and it’s not clever. I didn’t remove anything. I didn’t swear. I wrote in American English. I even gave them $30. But I know it’s a Monstrously Bad Things, because I was actually shaking when I clicked “Save”. I hope nobody dies.

Update: The edit was removed on 14th January – it lasted two days. The good citizen responsible either found this blog posting somehow, or started off here. Looks like this Wikipedia idea works…

Hello! Can we have your liver?

One thing the Americans are very proud of is the ease and effectiveness with which they can remove body parts that were causing their owners no trouble whatsoever.

One thing I am very proud of is my foreskin. I’ve had it since I was born and, at least up until the time of writing, it has not gone gangreenous and dropped off, or revealed itself to be harbouring Anthrax. Most American men, however lost theirs during their very first pointless removal of a body part. The Wikipedia article goes into some detail about how exactly this is removed. Those of you with intact foreskins and delicate stomachs may wish to avoid it.

Having escaped this first pointless amputation by not being born in America, I was caught full in the face a couple of months back by the traditional second wave of pointless body part removal. This began with a seemingly mundane conversation whilst at the dentist.

[I am flat on my back in the chair - my dentist is peering into my mouth]
Dentist: Ah-hum. You have some decay on the back of your ante-posterial pre-prandial molar.
Chris: Gar.
Dentist: [Strains a little] It’s really… hmm, it’s really quite far around the back.
Chris: Oark.
Dentist: Yes, as I thought, it’s really right up against your wisdom tooth.
Chris: Gung.
Dentist: Well, I think the best thing is probably to have the wisdom tooth out before I try and cap it.
Chris: Gout?!
Dentist: Once those are out, it’ll be easy to get at.
Chris: GOSE!?
Dentist: It’s really quite a simple procedure – I can recommend a great guy just down the hallway.
[Dentist retracts from my mouth, and casually steers me back to an erect position]
Chris: Do I really have to have them out?
Dentist: It’s really a very simple procedure. You’ll hardly feel a thing.
Chris: But… umm, I mean, is there something wrong with them?
Dentist: Look, I’m just talking about taking your wisdom teeth out, it’s really very simple.
Chris: Are they decayed?
Dentist: It’s all covered by your insurance.
Chris: How many of them are there?
Dentist: Three. They’re not under the skin or anything, so it’ll really be quite easy.
Chris: Just to get at this one tooth?
Dentist: Chris, really, pretty much everyone has them out.
Chris: Oh.
Dentist: It’s all covered by the insurance.
Chris: I see.
[The dentist reaches for his pen]
Dentist: I’ll write you a referral.

Obviously I realised that the dental industry had some sort of vested interest in this particular pointless body part removal, so I decided to raise my concerns with some friends. This is how this conversation went.

Chris: So, the dentist says I have to have my wisdom teeth out.
Steve: You’ve not had them out yet?
Chris: Well, no, I didn’t really think -
Ryan: Man, you’re going to hurt for days.
Steve: Yeah, jees, you’re going to be sore.
Chris: Why did you have yours out?
Steve: Oh, years ago.
Chris: Not when, why?
Steve: What?
Ryan: They’re wisdom teeth, dude, everyone has them out.
Chris: Were they rotten?
Steve: I don’t know, I have them in a bag somewhere, I could look at them. They had bloody bits of gum stuck to them.
Ryan: You’re really going to hurt. I was eating soup for a week.
Steve: Yeah, I was off work for four days.
Ryan: It’s going to be brutal.
Chris: Steve, do you have a foreskin?
Ryan: Steve’s Jewish, man.
Steve: Are you being racist again?
Ryan: Why do you have to keep on with the Jewish thing?
Chris: Forget it.

So I went to the wisdom tooth removal guy. He quickly and efficiently removed my wisdom teeth. It cost somebody $1800. I hurt for a few days. He gave me a selection of Vicodin pills, which turned out to go very nicely with beer but created the mothers of all hangovers. Once all the Vicodin had gone I slipped into the silent mass of people in American who’ve had limbs removed on the advice of people they barely know.

I’m starting to realise how Bush got elected.

Many of you will remember with fondness my recent post concerning restrooms which contained a urinal and a toilet in the same room with a single lockable door. Several of you were good enough to share with me your own ideas about correct etiquette for such a restroom, and I think it’s fair to say that the majority believed that one should lock the door when using the facility.

Naturally I decided that that should indeed be my own personal policy going forward. The world had spoken.

Imagine my confusion, therefore, when I walked into the restroom in Martin’s Off Madison on Sunday evening and encountered this feast of abomination.

Restroom of the angst-ridden

If what we agreed about locking the door is true, why would there be a curtain? Is it in case the person on the toilet is offended by the very sight of a nearby urinal? No, my friends, it is because dual occupancy is the very ethos of this restroom.

Frankly, I didn’t know what to do. There was another chap heading towards the restroom at the same time as I went, and now he was standing outside the door. I’d already locked the door before I noticed this. I broke out in a cold sweat. I could just imagine him standing outside the door cursing. Was I such a little princess that I needed the whole restroom to myself? I turned around. He’d hear it if I unlocked the door now. And what if – well, I mean, what if he thought that – because, well, it’s possible that Martin’s Off Madison is a gay bar. It has a lot of men in tight T-shirts and an old lady playing the piano. Not that gay bars are bad, of course. Although I am not gay. But if I were gay, that wouldn’t be bad. At least, it wouldn’t if I wasn’t already married. To a woman, obviously. Sorry, I mean not obviously. Gay people can get married too. Some of my friends are gay. Well, one of them. Maybe one other one.

Anyway, look, whether you are gay or not, any sort of “I’m ready” signal in the restroom of a gay bar is bad if you’re not willing to go through with it, which wasn’t something I was mentally prepared for. Gay people don’t like being dicked around any more than anyone else. I mean messed. Messed around.

I looked at the toilet, and back at the urinal. Maybe he would be less upset if he thought I’d been having a number two. I waited for a couple of minutes, then flushed the toilet. I noticed that the seat was up, so I put it down. I tried for a few seconds to break wind, without success. I sighed, washed my hands, took a deep breath and opened the door.

The man was still there. He looked me right in the eye and gave me an ambiguous smile. I held the door open and he went in. He did not lock the door.

I realised at that point that I had forgotten to pee. The bar wasn’t busy, and the restroom was in full view of the main seating area – how could I now get back into the restroom without that being a sign?

I turned around and walked back to the table where my wife sat.

“We need to go home now,” I said, simply, “I’ve been let down by the internet”.