Spick and span.

I'm wandering around my apartment in the most threadbare of T-shirts, and the rattiest pair of shorts. This is the way I get before I travel.

I'm off for a little break, over Christmas and the New Year, to the US. As usual, I get a case of anal retentive psychosis before I go: I cannot leave anything that could even remotely be construed as a loose end lying around. I file away the stack of CDs on top of my stereo that I had been playing. I give the flat a better cleaning than it's had in months, even if the dust will have built up agin by the time I return. (Because if burglars break into my house while I'm gone, it better damned well be orderly.) No dirty dishes, of course -- but no clean dishes still sitting in the drying rack either. I throw out food, even Twinkie-like stuff that have no chance of going bad. Basically I act like I'm never coming back, which is a little strange.

Most of all, I can't seem to stand the idea of having dirty laundry sit in the hamper while I'm gone. At first this is not too abnormal: possibly I'm washing everything in sight just in case there's something I decide, at the last minute, that I simply cannot travel with. But even after the bags are packed, I feel compelled to keep laundering. Right now the machine is scrubbing the hell out of a shirt and a couple pairs of socks, while I'm dressed like a refugee. In a pinch, I can always throw out this outfit, and then my laundry hamper will be completely empty. Frighteningly, the idea is so alluring.

Posted at 3:21 PM ||

 
Career counselling.

Look, if you don't know that men's trousers sometimes come in different lengths, then maybe you shouldn't be working in retail, or at least ask to be transferred to houseware.

Posted at 11:54 AM ||

 
Catfight! Catfight! Catfight!

VS.

It's clear that the world has only one place available for a fabulous Norwegian pop songstress, given how the other slots are occupied by crappy boybands, posturing rock groups, and Clay Aiken. But who will it be? We're here to decide, in a special musical edition of 2 Stars 1 Slot (apologies to Fametracker; please don't sue me).

In one corner we have Annie, the It Girl in music blogland, whose debut album Anniemal came out this year to wide acclaim. In the other corner is Bertine Zetlitz, an underdog despite being a veteran of four albums (the first of which even which got a US release, which now can sadly be picked up for 74 whole cents), but whose fourth album, Rollerskating, is terrific.

1.
I'll begin by pretending to be scientific. The girls help us out here, because Bertine's album is eleven-songs long, while Annie's has twelve tracks -- but the first, "Intro," is just, um, an intro bit. So we start on level ground. Exciting.

Anniemal has a few tracks that aren't exactly duff, but certainly not 100% wonderful: "My best friend," while poignant because we know it's for her dear departed lover Erot (who remixed one of Bertine's older tracks: the connections keep on coming), is pleasant enough but no great shakes, while "Come together" is not quite hooky enough, especially for a 8-minute song. "Happy without you" has a rumbling, rolling bassline but not much else, and "Helpless fool for love" sounds to me as if it might have been better if they went the whole hog and produced this as a ethereal stomper.

For my money, Rollerskating has only two middling songs: the title track (although it does boast the line "Angry girls are so fascinating"), and "If you buy the blue one" (a Matrix-referencing ballad that doesn't completely work).

But the rest are ace, and no less than five numbers have threatened at various points to become my favorite thing from the disc: "Ah-ah", "Kiss me harder," "Broken, " "Wicked wonderboys," and "If you were mine." I didn't think I knew how to body pop, or that body-popping still existed in our collective memory, but "Ah-ah" in my ears made me do weird things while walking down the street. Then for a while I couldn't stop half-singing, half-hiccupping the line "and all the wee-cake - WONDERboys!" at everyone I saw. And somewhere in between those times I might have imagined myself in a music video for "Kiss me harder," because that would have allowed me to mime, with deep and absolute expressiveness, the lines "I like to go...fast. I mean, rollercoaster slow."

Advantage: Bertine.

2.
But Annie's "Chewing gum" is zeigeist-y. The lead single from Bertine's album, "Fake your beauty," seems unlikely to break through in the same way. There's something to be said about having a song that will always recall 2004, even if the time eventually comes when we don't want to recall 2004.

Advantage: Annie.

3.
Annie's voice, she might be the first to admit, is thin. But that thinness works really well on most tracks, and especially on "My heartbeat," which was produced by Röyskopp while they were listening closely, it might seem, to the themes of Pet Shop Boys' "Heart." As the melody forces her voice to climb higher and higher ("Feel my heartbeat, drowning to the beat..."), the possibility that she will jump right out of her range just makes the song just that much more unbearably ecstatic.

But Bertine's voice is strong, and she knows how to do the fragile thing with it too. Girl is fierce on "Ah-ah," and on "Broken" all soft and tender. On the closing track "If you were mine" -- is there any kind of song sadder than one written in the conditional, by the way? -- she's both, and here Bertine completely makes the baby Jesus cry, in the good way, with her singing.

On the verses, Bertine sounds lovelorn in a numb way; but then the chorus comes around, where she thinks about what could have been, and the song, rather paradoxically, becomes infused with wonder even though what she sings about is impossible. Here, she goes into her higher register, and the vocals become double-tracked, as if the simultaneous wonder and sadness has split Bertine into two. "That is what I'd do if you were mine/I would keep you spinning till the end of time/That is what I'd do if you were mine/Sugarcoat my kisses till you're feeling fine." Quite possibly the most sublime moment in pop music, for me, this past year.

Advantage: Bertine. Although, yes, I know it's rather old-fashioned to talk about "voice" like it's a requisite for pop.

4.
Annie sounds a little like Madonna circa "Lucky star": the heliumesque voice, the delirious disco grooves. Indeed, "Greatest hit" is famous partly for its sampling of "Holiday." Bertine is more like Madonna circa "Music." On tracks like "Fake your beauty," she perfects that French disco beat, except that the tunes she sings over them are better than what Maddie could come up with on "American Life."

Advantage: This is a closer call than it might appear. Just because Annie looks back to 80s Madonna doesn't make her citation any less potent. She's not channeling Bedtime Stories, folks. But if we sit back and conjure up a picture of Madonna, surrounded by tea and crumpets, and ask which album she is more likely to sell Guy Ritchie's ass in order to sound like today, the edge has to go to Bertine.

5.
Mmm, let's talk about sex appeal. Who's va-va-voom? Who's slutty? Who has the Sex Factor that will sell records?

Wait, I'm sorry -- I'm not heterosexual, so I don't care.

Okay, fine, we can compare the sex appeal of the music. "Chewing gum" may or may not be about giving blowjobs. Bertine is probably too intentionally weird and a little scary -- on a song from an earlier album she sings about being "the sickest girl you'll ever meet" -- to be a mainstream fox. On America's Next Top Model Bertine would be the high-fashion one who Janice and Tyra like, and Annie would get booted 3rd or 4th for being "too commercial" and end up doing spreads for FHM.

Advantage: So, um, Annie? I can get behind the idea of blowjobs, after all.

6.
Both women have worked with Richard X, that slave-to-the-80s producer whose star went from super-bright (Sugababes' "Freak like me") to somewhat diminished (his album surprisingly didn't set the world on fire) to back on the rise again. (Although, if more people heard his very ordinary remix of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the silence 04"? No telling.) X did two tracks for Anniemal, but before that he also produced two tracks for Bertine's third album, Sweet Injections. He only works in twos, apparently.

Advantage: You might think that Bertine wins because she got X-ed first and was in that sense ahead of the curve, but there's nothing to say that X in 2004 isn't better than X in 2003. Indeed, although the single "Girl like you" is pretty good, the other X contribution to Bertine's disc, "So beautiful," is filler. In contrast, "Chewing gum" seems destined to be one of the pop singles of the year -- if everyone hasn't gotten sick of it by now, because, let's face it: a little annoying after 327 listens -- and "Me plus one"? Well, "Me plus one" shamelessly steals its melody from the Human League's "Fascination," so of course it's good. This one goes to Annie.

7.
The title track of Anniemal is inhabited by the ghost of Stacey Q. "No easy love" samples, gulp, Shakatak. Annie, honey, there's such a thing as being too influenced by the 80s.

Advantage: Bertine.

8. Bertine is way more interesting lyrically.

"It occurred to me you might be broken, like a sinking ship or a car. Yes, it dawned on me you might be damaged goods, won't get very far. It occurred to me you might be injured, cause my dress was stained from your touch. And it dawned on me we've never kissed this hard, never tickled this much.

Will you stay? Will you stay in my arms? Will you stay? Will you stay in my arms?

Well, it occurred to me you might be broken, cause your eyes seem weary and bright. And you made me wish I could be miles away; you held me too tight. Well, it dawned on me you might be broken, cause your skin was cold to the touch. And it dawned on me there will be other nights that won't twinkle this much.

Will you stay? Will you stay in my arms? Will you stay? Will you stay in my arms?

If I say it's now or never, will you hang around forever? Will you make me feel like love is due? Will you write a thousand letters, will you have me feeling better? Will you make my broken threads come true?"

I'm not sure I finally understand what is for me a mysterious lyric, but I haven't had my headphones on to listen to a song while frantically transcribing its lyric, since I was, like, fourteen years old (or, you know, since google was invented).

Advantage: Bertine.

9.
Nowadays a perfect pop vixen needs to have some hip-hop leanings, and here both girls oblige. As folks wiser than I have pointed out, the fantastic "Kiss me harder" sounds like Bertine's version of Tweet's "Oops (Oh my)," while "Ah-ah" comes across all "Buffalo stance."

But Annie raps! And that rapped bit, on "Me plus one" is ridiculously woozy (and vice-versa): ”Mrs B, Mrs E, Mrs A-U-T, Mrs I, Mrs F-U-L, I’m gonna reach the top, I ain’t ever gonna stop and I’m sure gonna ring your bell! Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs F-F-I, Mrs C, Mrs U-L-T, if ever there’s a girl that can rock your world then that girl sure is me!” (followed by a "RIGHT!" that sounds like it was sampled from ABC's "Be near me": extra points!)

Advantage: Annie.

Final verdict: It was a close race, but with the final score 5-4, I'm giving this one to Ms. Bertine Zetlitz. But, really, we all win. (Link to MP3 expires in 7 days.)

Posted at 4:32 PM ||

 
I wish it could be Christmas every fucking day.

Look, I know it was most likely not your idea, that your boss probably made you do it. But, regardless of who is responsible, if you have to walk up to every customer who comes into your store armed with a seasonal salutation, for god's sake don't mumble. If I have to go "Sorry? What?", and you as a result have to clear your throat and say, "Um, I said, 'Merry Christmas'?", it's really just awkward for everyone concerned.

Posted at 10:22 PM ||

 
Product placement.

The supermarket keeps packs of those protein weight-loss shakes next to the checkout. Is that really an impulse buy kind of product? Like should I be thinking, "Oh, yeah, I need to find out who Colin Farrell has knocked up this week, some batteries, a handful of chocolate bars, and I'll start on an unsupervised regime to shed those pounds today..."?

Posted at 9:52 PM ||

 
Living in a box.

It's been a while since I've had a TV in my bedroom.

1994, to be precise. That was the year when I moved to the Boston area, and shared an apartment with a couple of people. One roommate -- Mr. Ding-A-Ling, in fact -- didn't believe in TV. You know the type. So our other roommate, A-Font, and I, neither of whom was afraid that the telly would steal our souls, kept our respective sets in our bedrooms. A-Font had hers on a TV rack that was on wheels, and she welcomed us rolling it around the apartment if need be. So of course Mr. Ding-A-Ling often did overcome his objections to the capitalist entertainment machine long enough to transport the set into his bedroom to partake of some instructional massage videos. Seriously. Don't get me started on him again.

One result of being a poor student is that your world is much more contained within small rooms. This apartment wasn't bad in that respect (especially when compared to a dorm room I lived in circa 1991, which was so small that I could literally reach every major piece of furniture -- stereo, mini-fridge, desk, bookshelf, the sole window...but not even a TV in this one -- from my bed). But, despite having common living areas in Boston, my room was where it was at. There was actually something I liked about that. Indeed, an ex-boyfriend once laughingly told me that he never met anyone who enjoyed his bed as much as I seemed to (no dirty jokes, please): I did everything from watch TV to read to make three-cheese omelets amidst the comfort of nice soft pillows. As a gag, he even bought me a magnet with the graphic on the left, which to this day is still on my fridge.

Since that shared apartment, I've been lucky in being able to live by myself. Three apartments, specifically, in the past nine years -- all with separate bedroom and living areas. So for a while I had my TV out of my bedroom, and actually lived in the whole damned space.

This new apartment that I've been in for the past month -- well, things have gone further. The place came with a nice, biggish TV set, so I put my own idiot box in the bedroom. Officially, then, there are more TV sets in the place than there are people. Which is a bit much, but you see I had no choice.

I had forgotten how nice it is to have a TV set in the bedroom. You can turn it on first thing in the morning and never get out of bed. You can fall asleep to some bizarre late night program, relying on the timer to turn the TV off. You can even watch, from the comfort of bed, instructional massage videos.

Thankfully, there are built-in limits to such self-indulgence. For one thing, my TV in the living room is hooked up to cable, but the set in the bedroom isn't. So I get, like three pathetic English channels. Further, in the morning, it seems as if all that's on are reruns of Wonder Woman on one channel, and Young Indiana Jones on another. It also feels like it's the same damned episode of the latter every single morning -- young Indy is always in France. That can't be right, can it? Well, at least the insipid programming keeps me from lingering in bed.

Now I'll going to crawl into bed and watch The King of Queens and drift off. Good night.

Posted at 1:35 AM ||

 
Mmm, tastes like bupkis.

I'm a little confused. My meal at your restaurant will be "worth every dollar spent," but I will end up spending nothing thanks to the 100% rebate. So I should expect the meal to tickle my tastebuds with its complete and utter worthlessness?

Posted at 7:02 PM ||

 
Eeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Last night the first ever Zingerbore Idol was crowned. Try to contain your excitement.

As it happens, the person who won was probably the right choice, at least over the other finalist. Although he seemed like a nice guy, the runner-up was an excruciating singer who could only reach the high notes if he was trying to shit a brick at the same time. Plus, he fancied himself a fan of the rock music (by which he meant Jon Bon Jovi ballads), and Chinese R 'n' B (which meant that he mimicked pretty much everything about Jay Chou, from the girly hair to the frying-pan face). Compared to that, the winner was reasonably deserving.

But not technically the best singer, of course -- that honor goes to the woman who eventually finished third. She was a huge dyke, who throughout the show kept being told by one judge that she "needed to appeal to the masses, and not just to a niche market." The "niche" presumably being Lesbians Who Buy Records. I hear they exist, but are a small group and mostly spend their disposable incomes on folk music. Sadly, therefore, Third Place Dyke went from being fairly open about her predilections, constantly joking about never wearing dresses, to a horrifying performance on the aptly-named (Sell Your) Soul Night, when she donned, not just a dress, but such a mother of a dress that it practically parodied dress-wearing, sang "When A Man Loves A Woman," and dedicated it to "her future husband -- he's out there somewhere." In a gender reassignment clinic, perhaps? After that, I wasn't too sad to see her booted. Given how the votes were probably cast only by screaming teenage girls, I think Third Place Dyke should have played it up, not down.

When the program started, I thought I would care about it more than I have. I even watched the first few shows intently, because the judges had some insults to fling that actually seemed novel, at least as compared to the tired Cowell zingers. The fact that one judge -- the one named Dick -- is emphatically not, I said not, a bitchy gay man, might have been why.

But there was no way I could follow the show, because of the atrocity that was the host. To call him the tooliest tool that ever tooled would be an insult to allan wenches everywhere. I would get so furious watching the fucker that I had to hide the remote control lest I hurl it at the TV. And then how would I mute the asstard? Not only was he a bad speaker, but he insisted on yelling at the top of his voice, ostensibly because the studio audience was always so loud that he said he had to struggle to be heard above them. Dude, if you just listen to them, you might realize that they are screaming at you to shut the fuck up. You can't blame them, especially because you are so bewilderingly stupid at making small talk with the contestants. If a contestant responded to the host's question by saying that "he felt nervous during the performance," the host would then "smoothly" "segue" by saying: "If you want John to keep feeling nervous, call in and vote for him!!!" Every. Single. Inexplicable. Time. "If you want Danny to do better next time, call in and vote for him!!!" "If you want Susan to sing even with her cold, call in and vote for her!!!" Brilliant. I hope Baba Wawa was taking notes.

So now an average singer who did improve a lot in the course of the show is Zingerbore's first Idol. I feel compelled to present to him some words of wisdom as he steps into a lifetime of performing at crap national entertainment events. And the words are: hey guy, go easy on the eyeliner.

Posted at 3:10 PM ||