No Day But Today

Monday, May 29, 2006

Just Look the Other Way

sun bounces off
a statue
of a little girl
she holds a tiny crane
in her outstretched hand
she beams up at it
behind this monument
to peace and happiness
a man sleeps
on the wet ground
he wears
a ratty parka
and lies in his old
blue sleeping bag
the sun doesn't shine
on him
why?
I don't know
all around
there are people
who walk quickly
heads down
they could stop
they could
take the man home
give him food
and a shower
then send him
on his way
but no
they just
look
the
other
way
it's his own fault
they say
to rid themselves
of guilt
what if someone did stop?
would things change?
after all
it's just one man
what would happen?

a girl staggers
out of an alley
tears are flowing
down her cheeks
she clutches her thin jacket
around her bony frame
what happened to her
in that alley
that could make
her looks so terrible?
there really is
no question
they all know
the people who walk
right by
as she slides down
the brick wall
of a building
she's lying
on the sidewalk
sobs shaking
her small back
but they walk right by
just
look
the
other
way
and it will go away

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Kidz Bop--Insanity on Crack

So there's this dude in my class named Jake (all names changed to protect the guilty) who brings his wiped to school a lot. Since this guy is geeky dork numero uno, I got curious. Just what do geeky dork numero unos listen to on their baby-blue-leather encased ipod minis? I ask to see it. What do I find? Eragon book-on-MP3 (no surprise there), and a strange band called "Kidz Bop." Since the Jake wouldn't let me listen to his pod, I felt the need to go to my own ituned store and look up the oddity "Kidz Bop." Up come the search result. I look in the "songs" column and I see familiar titles like "I'm a Believer," "Toxic," "Because of U," and "My Immortal." I listen. For all of about two seconds. My ears are assaulted by a barrage of about fifteen eight-year-olds singing the chorus of Toxic, a song about making out with boys--well, men really. Am I the only one who notices something wrong with this picture (or this sound, for that matter)? All of the other songs were exactly the same--Pop/Rock hits, sped up, then sung by tone-deaf preteens. By now I'm intrigued.

My next step was the world wide web. I googled Kidz Bop and headed off to the official website. The premise behind this website seemed to be "How can we take the drug-induced hallucinations of the 60's and present them to preppy preteens via a band homepage?" There was no color that was not at some time used in a Lisa Frank drawing of some rainbow kittens. The background consisted mainly of purple silhouettes of kids(z) jumping up and down like freaks. I spied a survey--I love surveys--that is I DID love surveys until I came across this one. The question: Which Kidz Bop music video is your favorite? A) Because of U B) Sk8r Boi C) D) . These people make music videos?! For you, my dear readers, I subject myself to the horror that is the Kidz Bop Sk8r Boi music video.

A twelve-year-old dressed as a poser-punk "croons" the opening of Sk8r Boi. Spliced in are shots of just her lips, just her eyes (so heavily made up that she looks permanently blue) and shots of more twelve-year-olds skateboarding in the background. The chorus arrives. Ten invisible kids join in, and the pitch shoots up an octave. The poser-punk begins bouncing up and down like she's got knives in her shoes. Her face looks like it, too. More shots of kids skateboarding. I nearly died.

What am I doing now? I'm in the school computer lab, watching two slightly insane boys throw themselves at a conglomeration of office chairs, trying to knock over as many as they can at one time. There's another guy taking pictures of them doing this from his camera phone. They're listening to "Damn it's good to be a gangsta"