If there's one thing I have my finger on the pulse of, it's today's youth culture and what all the kids are listening to these days. When I was younger, in the 60s, we railed against hypocrisy and the establishment with their oppressive rules. In my day, anybody over 30 was such a square and was so out of touch with what we were thinking. I promised myself that when I became older, that I would always be in tune with the vibe of modern youth culture, to include their music, fashion, and their political beliefs. I promised myself I would always support what they were doing! Nobody could accuse me of being an out-of-touch, uncool, relative. MC Hammer? Yeah, I know all the kids love it. "You Don't Touch That" by MC Hammer is my favorite song!! Who's down with ODP? Yeah, you know I am!! So when my niece asked for "Five Leaves Left" by Nick Drake on vinyl (which was an album made in 1971 apparently), I told her, "No, you don't want that! That's old people's music! How 'bout I get you a nice Sisqo CD instead!" A little thong song, anybody? Even though I find that song highly degrading and insulting to wymyn and wish he would have changed the song title to something more like "PhD Student Wymyn (I Respect You For Your Mind, and If We Were To Get Married, Then I, The Man, Would Take Your Last Name)" or something catchy like that.
Part of being in touch with youth culture is watching the Grammy Awards. If you really want to learn about what good music is these days, there is no better place than watching a Hollywood-produced mainstream awards ceremony on a major commercial television network! However, this year, the Grammy Awards went horribly awry. They chose Macklemore as the best new artist over Kendrick Lamar. Salon Magazine's Brittney Cooper wrote a scathing article criticizing the choice. You can view that article here: www.salon.com/2014/01/27/macklemores_useless_apology_grammys_and_the_myth_of_meritocracy/
She claims that Macklemore had no right to win that award. He, in fact, apologized and said that Kendrick Lamar deserved it more than he did. But did he surrender the award to Kendrick Lamar? No. It was an empty gesture. Furthermore, Macklemore has never done anything original. He's never had an original thought in his head. His songs are composed of samples of other people's songs! This is in contrast to Kendrick Lamar, who even though uses samples of other people's songs to compose his songs, does it in a original way, as opposed to Macklemore, who does not. Once again, this is just another example of white people stealing African American's ideas and receiving credit for it. White people are just terrible. There hasn't been an idea that White People have had that wasn't stolen from the African Americans. The light bulb, railroads, sushi, alternating current, the internet, and Ron Popeil's RonCo Chop-O-Matic were all invented by African Americans. Even Ron Popeil himself was invented by African Americans. Most people don't know that he was assembled from parts of other inventors in a laboratory owned by African Americans.
This is also terrible because if you want to validate your artistic integrity and validate the quality of your music, then you must win a Grammy. Did Beethoven ever win a Grammy? No, because he sucks.
Today, because Macklemore won and Kendrick Lamar lost, I am ashamed to be a (mostly) white person. I am 1/256th African American, but the 255/256th of me that is not African American is deeply ashamed. I look in the mirror and I see that I am too white. That is why every morning, when I get up, I take a frying pan and beat myself with it until I am black and blue, which is a more acceptable skin color. Plus, when people look at me, I can see the fear in their eyes. This is how I imagine what it must be like to be an African American.
Well until next time, this is Hippie Liberal Feminist signing off. Recently Liberal Feminist Hippie approached me and tried to offer me an olive branch and make amends. I immediately hit it from her hand and said, "Piss off, bitch! I'm the new sheriff in town!"
