Amy Winehouse (and how she's all dead or whatever)

Unless you've been locked up in the basement with minimal access to things that arent basic necessities of life, you've most likely heard about Amy Winehouse's death.  Now don't get me wrong, it's sad whenever anyone dies (unless it's crew member #3...that dick) but her death has made me realize that these things get blown way out of proportion just for the sake of having something to talk about.

Before the internet and in the early days of television, coverage for these sorts of things was usually reserved for VIPs like JFK, Marylin Monroe, etc.  Then after that, we started seeing a bit more coverage once television caught on more with the Princess Diana funeral.  Now as I'm sure you're aware, the Michael Jackson death/funeral was a huge ordeal...they even had tv specials and youtube videos come out commiserating his passing.  The thing that's really most interesting about this is the influx in the amount of material we have now...especially since as opposed to "the old days", anyone can get in front of a camera and speak their condolences...no matter how dumb they may be.

He was a light...at the end of a tunnel.  He was my light...and he always beat me at Jenga.

Now the reason I bring up is because I barely even remember anyone even mentioning Amy Winehouse besides my brother-in-law.  At best, maybe someone hearing her "Rehab" song and going "Shit, someone sang that, right?"  Yes, yes someone did sing that.  Now I remember the whole debacle with her when she actually needed to go to rehab (I'll go out on a limb and guess that's what the song was about) and she got a bit of press coverage, but nothing major.  So it just blows my mind to be on youtube and see practically every single channel have some sort of sympathy video for her, along with the endless google news articles, yahoo, etc.  Hell I even decided to try a little experiment.  I googled "John F Kennedy funeral" and "Amy Winehouse funeral".  You know what I found?

         

Yeah, apparently JFK can suck it...They Tried to make us go to rehab and we said "No, no no."  That's right, apparently theres 4.1 million results for one of our nation's favorite leaders passing 58 years ago, and 26.9 million for Amy Winehouse...who died 3 days ago.  You would think just by the sheer fact that he had 58 years on her there'd be more things written about right?  I mean you have the conspiracy theories, the memorials, the actual funeral...google spiderwebs everything together so that you'd have all that material to cover.  But apparently we as a nation like to smile coyly as we sing about drug addiction more.

Now this isn't supposed to be some sort of thing like "She doesn't deserve this attention and to stfu", but it does pose some questions:  such as Do we as a nation struggle to find things to talk about so much that we need a funeral of someone moderately famous to spice up our mundane lives...even if that person didn't necessarily have mainstream fame?  I know she had won several awards, including the Ivor Novello Award and Best Contemporary song for "Rehab", but she still wasn't at the same status level (at least for our country) as say the likes of Lil' Wayne, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, etc. 

Another question is Do we really care about the death of an R&B/jazz singer more than that of one of the most popular presidents of all time?  Things to think about, America.

Youtube High

So several friends recently encouraged me to start a vlog on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/flusterBEAR) in an effort to perhaps reach more followers.  I figured "What the hell, I'm a good rambler...surely I can do this" and away I went to go buy a video camera and tripod.  What I didn't know however is that Youtube is basically an internet High School of drama and popularity contests.  Here's the story of the "new kid on the block" and his first days at Youtube High.

There I was, trapper keeper in hand with my #2 Pencil inside, TI-83, schedule of classes and a map of the building just in case I got lost (I did).  My schedule went something like this:

1. First period was "Getting your shit together", which sounded a bit intimidating at first.  The description said "Coming up with an idea that doesn't suck, hasn't really been done before, and why you probably won't make it happen ever."

2. Next I had "Recording sucks.  You wouldn't believe how long a 2 minute video can take to shoot."  The description included the issues of being "camera shy", "freezing up", "random swearing out of frustration", and "unplanned phone calls during recording". 

3. Then there was "Seriously, most things that get popular on here suck.  Deal with it."  The title pretty much summed up what that class was about.

4.  The last class was "Making minimal money for countless hours of work."  This class was the one which described how to make money on Youtube, albeit it may be small in comparison to how much work is involved in making it.

I paced nervously in front of the door to my first class, five minutes early.  I saw a kid with an Iron Maiden shirt on and 60 pounds over weight.  He smelled like dysentery (or at least what I'd imagine dysentery to smell like), but he smiled at me.  I half-waved and he came over to talk to me.

"You must be new here, I'm Rodney87."  He said while he brushed the dandriff off his shoulders.  Then he extended his hand for a handshake, to which I politefully declined.

"I'm flusterBEAR, nice to meet you."  He commented on my trapper keeper and he liked the design.  He asked if I had any work that I had done yet and I said I did.  I showed him my vlog inside my trapper keeper and he grinned, obviously impressed. 
"Wow flusterBEAR that's really neat!  Do you want to see my work?!"  as he fumbled over his trapper keeper with dorito dust all over it.  He showed me some video with low lighting and awful video quality about how school sucks and he can't get a girlfriend.  I force-smiled and told him to keep up the good work.   Just then there was laughter down the hall.  A long-haired boy was talking in a big group of people, who all seemed to be fixated on him.

"Who's that?" I asked Rodney87, and briefly looked in my direction and frowned.  "That's SceneKid," Rodney mumbled, "He's a hipster kid who only says things ironically and gets irate over mundane things.  Everyone thinks he's sooo cool and sooo funny.  Pssh, he just doesn't know when to shutup, that's what I say."

I told him, "Oh, but he might be worth getting on my side though." Rodney rolled his eyes and turned the other way.  It was time for class, so we went in and learned about how our ideas most likely sucked, and would never make it anywhere.

After class, I saw SceneKid and I went up to go introduce myself.  He responded by questioning my existence,
"Oh, you must be new.  Well don't think you're getting anything out of me, because you have to earn your place in this school."  he replied with a condescending smile.  I flipped him off as he turned to leave and a girl with blonde hair and a short blue skirt came up to me with an "I can't believe you just did that" smile on her face.

"Haha! Wow, you just flicked SceneKid off, you must be cool.  I'm SaraS, but you can call me SARS." She said.  I told her my name and that I was just trying to get around in this new school and make some new friends.  She told me,

"Well, that's exactly what you need to do because you can't make it otherwise.  Be sure to strike out and randomly talk to people, and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS give a video response to popular people's work.  But don't do it to crappy people's work- because then people assume you're just as bad.  Oh, and if you do it to the wrong people (like SceneKid) then his fans will crucify you and hang you by your own testicles.  But don't worry you'll get the hang of it!"

I then proceeded to have sex with her under the stairway of course, as we promised to subscribe to each others trapper keepers and comment on every piece of work that came out of them.  (Okay, well maybe I didn't have sex with her but we still made that promise). 

Once people saw me hanging around SARS, then more people started coming by and wanting to see who I was, and what I did.  Other people though, started despising me because I associated with SARS and not SceneKid, so there was a turf war. "Hey," they would say to me, "Why do you just copy off of SceneKid?  Can't you come up with your own ideas?"  Then they would all laugh and high-five each other.  There were others who were less direct about their hatred, but instead agree with whatever I had to say and discredit me in another way.  "Not funny kid isn't funny" they would say to me.  Their teeth were Mountain Dew green and generally were found on their knees with mouths wide open beside SceneKid or one of the other popular kids, like BWJ.  What was really strange though was that all these kids looked like they couldn't have been older than 13, but they still had the audacity to try and approach me.

By the end of my first semester, SceneKid decided that there needed to be a showdown between me and him.  He was feeling threatened as he saw more and more people were following me, due to my network of friends I was making.  We decided to have a "vlog-off".

"The rules are simple," he stated, "We make a 3 minute vlog, new topic, new music, and it can be about whatever you want.  BUT, we can't say anything directly about each other."

We shook on it and scowled at each other as we walked away and went to work.  My plan was perfect- I would rant about public transportation and how fat people take up entire seats and make normal people have to stand.  I could work in a sketch, a new song, and maybe a closing heart-to-heart to try to motivate people to lose weight.  But what came next, I could have never predicted.

The day came for our showdown.  The clock struck noon, and we bust open our trapper keepers to display our work.  I showed mine and it had a positive response (I even saw a few SceneKid fans laugh), but some called me a noob and said it was offensive.  After the round of applause, it was time for SceneKid to showcase his work.  He started it up and it was a vlog about some indy-folk band he went to see.  Then he threw a curveball- Fifty Cent showed up on his show.  Fifty fuckin Cents gave SceneKid a high-five and then there were gun shot sounds, and special effects and a helicopter with Jason Bourne Matt Damon.  To top it off, the London Symphony was playing over top of the whole thing.  Everyone oo'd and aah'd, and I retired to my car to go home.

"Where you goin?" SARS asked as I got inside.

"Fuck this, I can't compete with these people.  They have unlimited budgets, resources, and a network of people to help them out.  I got nothin'."  I told her.

She gave me a blowjob and told me, "Don't give up yet.  I know you can do this.  And why do you keep trying to put my head down by your crotch?"  Okay, maybe she didn't give me a blowjob, but I know she thought about it.  I got back in that theoretical school and went to work...

(Stay tuned for part 2)