Dirty South: some thoughts

This post will be long, but I hope you can hang

OK, so this is why I say it all comes down to Juvenile: not only was he a very popular artist in his own right (400 Degreez certified 4X platinum), BUT he may arguably have invented the New Orlean's dance music style "bounce" with the song "bounce for the Juvenile", which came out way before he was famous, when he was like 16. 

Now, bounce is a whole other thing, that never really translated out of New Orleans I don't think, but it's pretty interesting.  Big Freedia and other "sissy rap" acts are a part of it, and you may have seen her on Jimmy Kimmel? It was rad.  Here's a good example of classic bounce. I like it even though it's really abrasive, and you can see that it's strictly for dancing, not listening to at home,.

According to wiki, the phrase shake it like a salt shaker and the slang "twerk" are both from bounce, too.  Its influence has trickled down into rap since the mid/late 90s.

I would also argue that Juvenile was a projenitor of trap, which is all the rage right now.  Maybe this one is a little bit of a stretch.  I guess Three 6 Mafia was more involved with both.  T.I.'s "Trap Musik" album (which is really good) is considered one of the first in the genre.  I wish I could link to more of this stuff but I keep being paranoid that my  new IT department are sitting in their office keeping notes on what I'm doing or something.

I would also like to say that Pastor Troy sucks.  And Lil Jon does not hold up at all. Super obnoxious.  Maybe a "yeahhh" here and there but not his actual songs which feature mostly aggressive chanting.

It's fun to listen to this stuff again and realize I know a lot about it.  And it was so influential that it sounds pretty current.  I love how Drake gives props to Juvenile, like by sampling Back That Ass Up.

I went to SF and in the hotel room got to watch some busted-ass semi amateur UFC, which was still awesome.  I learned that elbow drops and heel hooks are only legal once you turn pro, although if I got that wrong I'm sure DN will correct me.  Also that Muay Thai training seems to have taken the place of Brazilian grappling as the preferred training.  There was an ad for a soap called "defense" which they said is a guard against "grappling related skin infections" yeesh.

We stayed at the Sir Francis Drake and went to the Starlight Room 22 stories above the city.  MS and I had both envisioned it as a piano bar filled with courtly old men and maybe a lady who had been a Ziegfield Follies girl (never mind that that would make her about 120 years old).  Instead it was THE MOST AWKWARD CLUB IN THE WORLD.  Weird men leaned against the windows on all sides.  It was the most random assortment of people ever.  Pretty funny.

We also went to Bar Tartine and I highly recommend it.  The food was bomb.  It's expensive but the portions are really big so two people could easily split three dishes.  The wine and beer list is so good.  And you get baskets of the best bread in the world.  My favorite dish was smallish purple potatoes that had been smoked for three hours served with ramp mayo and chopped dill and flat leaf parsley.

I watched a documentary about the photgrapher Francesca Woodman, who mostly photographed herself nude in gauzy black and white. She threw herself out a window in 1980, when she was 21.  I like her work but she seems like she was the big pain in the ass.  She reminds me of Cal Arts students I've met (not WB!), and she went to RISD of course.  Anyway it's good.

You know what is not good?  A Place Beyond The Pines.  I went to see it by myself on opening day, since it has Ryan Gosling in it (I am a middle aged lady after all) and it's 2 hours and 20 minutes long and I walked out after about 2 hours and 5 minutes because I didn't give a shit.  Terrible.  It's from the guy who directed Blue Valentine, a movie I found to be emotionally devastating.  Ha that sounds so pretentious.