Re: Where are all the real conservatives?

Matthew,

Andrew Sullivan seems to think the problems with the current Republican Party have been blurred together with the idea of conservatism, thus obstructing it. He argues that for conservative ideals, which he finds appealing, to be viable again, the conservatives essentially need to start from scratch. 

This obviously raises the point of what a terrible hair day I'm having today. I tend to alternate between hair products. I buy one. I think its great. It IS great. By the time its empty though, I'm less satisfied. I get to Rite Aid and find myself attracted to the ideology of another product. I bring it home, and I know I made the right decision. By the time that runs out though, I'm again unsatisfied. I start remembering how good things were with that other product, so I want to go back to it. Or maybe I decide to buy a product that reminds me of the ideals of the original product, but packaged in a newer and more appealing way. 

The situation was desperate today. My hair is clearly on the wrong track and I'm going to see Daniel Radcliffe naked tomorrow. Daniel Radcliffe can't nakedly see me when my hair looks like this. Nor can the millions of gays that will surely be in the audience with me. I need CHANGE, and I need it by tomorrow at 8 PM. 

The cynic in me feels that our politics is tragically similar to my hair. Its a constant state of disappointment. It would be unheard of in modern politics for the same party to have two two-term presidencies in a row. By the time a party is running for its 3rd or 4th term, they've fucked enough things up that the opposition party can say, "Hey look, they suck too. Why don't you try us again?" And we do.

On the other hand, this cycle may be the beauty of democracy. I think what I've come to accept is that I will never find a hair product that I will be satisfied with for all time, but for the most part, my hair usually looks fine. 

Maybe the liberals get a few years to go crazy, but the modern conservatives get a few years to put their foot on the breaks. I think if you take a step back from that, the result over time is change, but measured change, and I believe that is your definition of true conservatism. It doesn't really have anything to do with my hair, but I think people on either side of the debate would probably be OK with it. Alright chief I'm going to bed, I've got a big day tomorrow. I'm gonna see Harry Potter's who-ha. 

I'm starting to be a little frightened of my iPhone.

I was happily listening to Sex Bomb while walking to the subway today when I saw a man who was also enjoying his iPhone. Just as he passed me he mouthed, "One time, one time" and threw a finger up

I never thought I'd be jealous of what someone else was listening to when I was listening to Sex Bomb, but in that moment, I wanted to hear nothing more than Killing Me Softly. I  especially wanted to mouth it in decreasing font sizes to signify the echo part.

Unfortunately, I don't have Killing Me Softly on my iPhone. In the days leading up to getting the phone, I was going through my iTunes library and unchecking any of the crappy songs I never want to hear. That way only the not-crappy songs would fill up my iPhone, which has less disk space than my old iPod. To break up the monotony, I was also gradually adding my phone numbers to my phone book. It's pretty impossible to do either of these tasks for more than 5 minutes before starting to sing a song, wandering over to the piano, and never returning to the computer.

And so, when I finally got it, I had two choices. I could either finish the tasks, or start playing with it immediately. In the easiest decision of my life, I just plugged it in and started pushing non-existent buttons. Rather than syncing all of my music, it allowed me to just choose a few playlists. I decided to be practical and choose two playlists, "Recently Added" (so that anytime I got new music it would be put on my phone right away) and "Gym" (the first playlist I could think of that had Sex Bomb on it), neither of which contained Killing Me Softly.  I also decided that I could just get by without calling anyone whose name starts with anything that comes after "G."

I wasn't really paying attention as Sex Bomb (why does no one use the Peppermint Disco mix?) finished, so I had already hummed along to several bars of the next song before I realized that it was Killing Me Softly. "Nice work, iPhone," I thought. Everyone knows that iPods are psychic.  They can always play a song that is perfect for your mood, even if you yourself hadn't actually been aware of what your mood was. So what if you hit skip 14 times before it decides to lay the perfect track on you. The iPod is just teaching you patience. 

The iPhone could take this psychic ability to a whole new level. It's connected to the entire world, at least when AT&T isn't being shitty, which isn't as often as everyone tells you. The iPhone decides you need to hear Killing Me Softly. It goes and finds Killing Me Softly. Apple is the GREATEST.

Right as L agreed to take us to the bridge, I realized that Lauryn Hill is the modern version of Frank Sinatra. Every time you are in a karaoke bar, someone sings a Frank Sinatra song and thinks that just because they can hit the notes, they are just as talented as Frank Sinatra. The same is becoming increasingly true for "Killing Me Softly." You may be able to go "oooh ooooh ohhh," or "New York, New Yooooooork" but the difficulty of those notes isn't what makes the song so special. Its that tone. Lauryn's tone is so great that the entire success of Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit was based around it. They filled a movie with incredible young singers,  but at the end, Lauryn opens up her mouth, and out comes the one sound so glorious it could convince the school board not to close the school, even though they can't afford to keep it open. There's  a reason that movie is legendary and Hillary Duff's similarly plotted Raise Your Voice is not.

Where this all inevitably leads though, is that Lauryn Hill may as well be as dead to the music world as Frank Sinatra. At least Sinatra gave us a billion albums. Despite only having one solo album, Lauryn currently spends her time disturbing her suburban neighbors with her erratic behavior while raising her five kids, who are each 1/4 part Bob Marley. Her voice currently sounds something like this:

I hadn't gotten upset about Lauryn moving to Crazy Town in several days, so I began to wonder why my iPhone had done this to me. Why would it make me so sad, going so far as to magically acquire a song that it didn't have previously. I took comfort when I remembered the guy on the street giving me the idea. Yea. That was it. The guy on the street made me want to hear the song, and the iPhone was just playing what I wanted. Unless...

The guy who gave me the idea was also on an iPhone. I'm not sure how we decided it was a good idea to take a device that already had psychic tendencies and give it the ability to communicate with every other device on the planet. Clearly, the iPhones are now working together. They will gain control of our lives slowly, so that by the time we realize its too late. This is a device that currently tells me where to have desert when out with friends and whether or not the G train is running. (It's not.) It doesn't take very long to go from "Lets make all the humans sad that Lauryn Hill doesn't make good music anymore" to "Let make all the humans kill themselves."

I would destroy it, but its just so sleek.  No. I've lost this battle, but there may still be hope for you. Resist.

UPDATE: While I was posting this, the internet apparently went crazy over a previously unheard Lauryn Hill song, in which she's in rich, full voice. Its unclear whether this track is just new or actually from the glory days, but one thing is clear: The iPhones are trying to throw off the scent. If you don't hear from me for any extended period of time, assume they've got me.