Please listen to the Velvet Underground’s “Stephanie Says” and tell me what it means (or listen to “Caroline Says (II)” and tell me what that one means, for that matter).
Or then again, don’t. I think I’m okay with my wide-eyed naivete here.
I don’t really have much to say–been kinda busy lately, and business during the day leads to laziness during the nighttime–but I had to share a quick comment with my imaginary audience before it escaped me.
First, check out this article from Yahoo! on NOLA’s rebuilding efforts post-Katrina:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080823/ap_on_re_us/katrina_repeating_the_past
Then, in case you didn’t happen to catch the source of my particular bemused ire, go ahead and take a re-read at the eighth paragraph in. Hell, I’ll even quote it for you here:
“This wall here wasn’t there when we had the flood,” Stanford said, radiant in a bright kanga-style dress. “When I look at it now, I say maybe if we had had it up it there then, maybe we wouldn’t have flooded.”
Since when does the AP have a fashion beat? Radiant? Really? Really, Cain Burdeau–If That Is Really Is Your Real Name? Seems Cain hasn’t quite gotten his portfolio together for Elle yet. Soon, Cain, soon. Keep squeezing descriptions like that into your wire stories and soon you’ll be at the top of the bottomest heap in Fashion Reporting.
This actually wasn’t my first sarcastic thought. I originally labelled Cain Burdeau some kind of condescending racist. Was he so taken aback by this black woman’s clothing that he felt the need to take special care to describe it for the readers? There’s a photo accompanying the story; isn’t that enough description? Perhaps his mom wasn’t the kanga-style-dress-wearing type. When Cain Burdeau interviews a white dude, does he say “Smith said, dapper in his Ralph Lauren pleated khakis**”?
Pointless, I know, but this is the sort of thing that unnecessarily riles me up (having my cable go out on the one day I have free time to watch television also riles me up, but I suppose I’ll let it slide. For now).
In an effort to continue the stream-of-consciousness style I’ve worked so little to perfect, I just received a call on my cell phone (ring tone: Stephanie Says–see? It’s not that random of a segue!). Some dude who sounded suspiciously like Colonel Sanders (not that I’ve ever heard the Colonel speak, this is just the type of thing my imagination naturally fills in for me) accused me of calling his phone earlier in the day. I’m sorry, Mr. Sanders, I was probably asleep when you received that call. Please go eat some Original Recipe and kindly leave me alone.
Sigh. My life is so hard. I’m like a salmon swimming upstream in a Sea of Stupidity.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Says
**I guess I kinda doubt that Ralph Lauren makes pleated anything. I think that might not be ‘in’ any longer.
the sloppy copy 