Four Word Reviews: To The Extreme

Everybody knows “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. It’s a cheesy old 90s rap song with stupid lyrics. While we can all laugh at it and perhaps in some contexts even enjoy it, Vanilla Ice himself and his music were hated by an awful lot of people at the time. Genuine rap fans hated him because he was the product of a record company, just some guy who was recruited to become a white rap star. Queen and Bowie fans hated him because he changed the bassline to “Under Pressure” so that he didn’t have to pay them royalties for sampling it on his biggest hit. He had no credibility. For those reasons, and a whole lot more, I wasn’t looking forward to listening through the entirety of his debut album, 1990’s To The Extreme.

Let’s get straight to it, then: there’s nothing here to like. It’s just awful. This CD arrived in the post a while ago, a gift from a Beans member unknown, and I can safely say that this is the worst thing anyone has ever given to me. It is beyond worthless. The music itself is pretty poor, the lyrics are atrocious – you can tell they’re written by committee in a record company’s meeting room, ticking off a list of phrases young people and rappers say until they’ve all been shoehorned in one by one – but worst of all is the actual rapping. You can’t believe for a second that this nice middle class white guy wrote it or had ever lived the sort of life he’s talking about, and he would certainly never have said phrases like “you kno’ I’m sayin'” or “yo, you insane”.

Here are some phrases from the songs on this album:

“You can call me dad”
“Let me tell you how it is makin’ love on an inner tube”
“People under forty, yo, let’s get down”

Let’s see the damage, track by track.

Track	Title	Word 1	Word 2	Word 3	Word 4
1	Ice Ice Baby	Fake	gangsta	rap	classic
2	Yo Vanilla	Five	seconds	of	terrible
3	Stop That Train	Mysogyny	with	bee-bop	sample
4	Hooked	Synth	sax,	unconvincing	accent
5	Ice is Workin’ It	Unclear	what	Ice	worked
6	Life is a Fantasy	It	thinks	it’s	sexy
7	Play That Funky Music	About	race,	mentions	Nazis
8	Dancin’	Nauseating	use	of	stereo
9	Go Ill	Mostly	tuned	it	out
10	It’s a Party	Sampled	women	shouting	“yeah”
11	Juice to Get Loose Boy	Stupid	high	pitched	interlude
12	Ice Cold	Every	eighties	sample	ever
13	Rosta Man	Actually	offensive	Jamaican	accent
14	I Love You	Breathy,	creepy,	genuinely	distressing
15	Havin’ a Roni	Beatboxing	disaster,	mercifully	short

Almost all the songs on the album are really long – proper five minuters – and a lot of them drag it out with stupid samples and repeated choruses. Tracks 6 and 14 both think they’re sexy and seductive, but they’re both creepy and actually quite repulsive, like Vanilla Ice’s tongue is coming out of your speakers and trying to lick your ear. “I Love You” comes complete with a fake telephone call where he tells his girlfriend how much he loves her. Track 7 is all about how he’s a white man making black music – so there is some self-awareness to the whole project at least – that then finds a way to mention the Nazis. Track 13 picks up the theme of borderline racism with Mr. Ice adopting something like a Jamaican accent and claiming he is a “rosta man”. It’s like he didn’t think he’d stuck two fingers up to enough of black culture and decided to go after Caribbeans as well as rappers.

In short, my favourite thing about this album was that the CD was correctly manufactured, meaning that when I finally ejected it, it came straight out with no trouble and didn’t play for a second longer than was strictly necessary. My least favourite thing was the fact that such a thing is in my possession at all and that I actually listened to the whole thing, god help me.

It looks like the next Four Word Review will be a toss-up between “Dead Letters” by the Rasmus and “Love Situation” by Gary Wilmot, either of which will be an actual pleasure after this ordeal.

Remembering is Fun – May 2014 Edition

Hashtag. Hashtag. Like. Dislike. FaceTime Instagram Mcdougall.

All of these things make sense to a lot of people. What these people fail to remember though is that remembering, above all, is fun. They’re too busy trying to WhatsApp a soup bowl to Pinterest to remind themselves that all of it is nonsense and unless they start doing things that they can remember, they will never experience the fun that is remembering is fun.

You can’t remember tapping a slide trap on Tinder or going live on Facebook when Charlie chundered into a sieve. These aren’t the kinds of stories you can recount to your grandkids when you’re eighty-five. Where’s the joy? Where’s the laughter? Who is the fun?

Take for instance the following photo:

This was taken almost three years ago when a certain someone turned thirty. But that was merely something going on in the background that nobody really took any notice of. The main event was the filming of what is commonly known as ‘Essex Highway’. As Chris decided to mention David Bowie earlier on this month, I remembered how remembering was fun and that something involving Mr Bowie had occurred once which was fun.

This was before filming had started. Kevin, a keen perfectionist, had spent three hours getting his hair just right. At the point where he uttered such a bilious scream, and we rushed to expect him having trapped his hand in the plughole, only to find out he had just finished styling his hair and it was the smoothest it had ever been. The hair, donated by Crystal Park zoo, smelled of custard creams and answered to the name Alistair. Kevin would high five it after every successful shot.

Alistair would take most of the directing and producing credits for ‘Essex Highway’ and started a successful catering business once filming was over.

Kevin bought a wind farm and fathered seven children.

Stepping Up The Beans – Kevindo Menendez Style

New year. New style. New everything.

That’s the Kevindo Menendez way. When you’ve worked in the bean industry as long as Mr Menendez you know when it’s best to stick to your guns and when to branch out into new territory. While his competitors will be falling back on traditional recipes and boring, predictable flavours in 2017, he looks to the future with a flashy star in his eye and an idea that will break your heart.

Milky beans! All the goodness of milk mixed together with beans for a cockle-warmingly good time. You will get your daily portion of dairy and fibre from one single tin of ‘Kevindo Menendez’s Milky Beans’.

Even though his established, award-winning bean labels went for a more cartoony and playful look, Milky Beans takes that approach and dunks it in a tin of geese. Nothing says glim glam gloop like the Menendez one hundred billion dollar smile. Take a look at those pearly whites!

No more queuing for hours to buy six pints of milk. No more waiting by cows for that perfect moment to strike. No more mixing tomatoes in with your cereal in the hope that it “works”. Milky beans have got your back.

They’re…. reasonable!

Logical Dreamscape: Bowie Flashback special

It’s a year since David Bowie himself – best known as a regular guest on daytime TV series Essex Highway, of course – passed away. To mark the anniversary, let’s look back now on one of the most poignant and touching parts of his life, which is when he appeared in my dream a few years ago.

(harp music, screen goes wibbly)

It all started when I was driving a caravan around a giant campsite. We were trying to find somewhere to set up camp for the night, but most places were full and everyone was sitting outside their tents and caravans having dinner. Eventually I ended up accidentally leaving by a back gate that wasn’t for public use. I drove under a very low railway bridge – which luckily the caravan fitted through – and then went the wrong way around a roundabout to turn around.

I must have eventually got the caravan parked up because the next thing I remember is being at some sort of communal dining table – a big, long, wooden table with people sitting down both sides of it. The atmosphere was like a cross between a picnic and a viking feast. The table was in a long wooden building and it was dark outside. To my surprise, I was sitting next to David Bowie.

There was a lot of food on the table and people were passing plates around and helping themselves to all the lovely food on offer. I served myself a modest plateful, as did most people, but to my surprise Bowie reached across me to a plate piled high with thick slices of ham and helped himself to almost all of it, heaping his plate with lots and lots of ham.

I thought it was very rude that he would selfishly take so much ham for himself, but obviously I didn’t say anything, because he was David Bowie.

(harp music again, screen goes wibbly)

It has to be one of the best dreams I’ve ever had, hands down. It had it all: the feeling of being on holiday, a musician I hold in high regard, and of course an opportunity to go the wrong way around a roundabout. I hope you’ve all enjoyed sharing in this experience as much as I have.

A taste of Scotland

Where’s this guy been? He’s been taking a month off, is the answer, choosing to suffer the ignominy of a nasty dried pea on the Bean Counter for the sake of enjoying a month free of the obligations of blogging and commenting. Those arduous tasks take their toll on a man, even one as handsome as me, and a few weeks away from it make all the difference. I’m back now, fully recharged and ready to write more glittering blog jewels.

If you want a more literal answer to the question “where’s this guy been?”, then the answer is Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a city in Scotland, famous for the coldness of the weather, the vivid orange of the Irn Bru, the fakeness of the tartan sold in tourist shops and the whisky. The other thing it’s famous for is its castle, an amazing fortress sitting high atop a rocky mountain in the centre of the city, and though few believed me when I told them, it is made entirely of whisky.

I tasted it, and it was delicious. Then I went home. #tastinghistory #edinburghmems

Making Christmas

Christmas is a time for miracles. It is also the time for blatant commercialism and funny hats. That said, which it just was, it is also the time for ingenuity and improvisation.

This year Audrey asked for a copy of ‘The Lady in the Van’ on DVD for Christmas, the film based upon the book by Alan Bennett. It was a bit of poor choice really because the film is being shown on terrestrial television for free on Christmas Eve. Nevertheless, prior to being in receipt of this important piece of information, I still went ahead and purchased a copy. Neither I nor Reuben have ever read or seen ‘The Lady in the Van’ and so we decided, based upon the front cover of the DVD, that we would guess what the story was and write and illustrate our own version as an additional present.

It is called ‘T’Lady in T’Van’.

The end result was, quite simply, amazing. I cannot for obvious reasons include a copy here for fear of spoilers for the intended victim, I mean recipient.

What I can include though is a piece of concept art that Reuben came up with during the development process. He decided that the story should involve 80’s martial arts hero and general good egg Chuck Norris and thus drew a picture of him. This was then improved by adding three dimensional eyes.

Special doesn’t even come close.

Newsboost – The Unexpected Return of Perry Chuffin

The world is reeling from the shocking and unexpected return of one of the most successful crooners of the 1980’s.

Award-winning one man laundromat Perry Chuffin is rumoured to not only be touring across the world in 2017 but also that not one but three new albums are expected by this time next year. The details are sketchy, and mainly come from a tall woman in a very quiet room about three miles away. Most importantly though if this is correct then it will mean an end to the self-imposed exile that Chuffin brought upon himself just after the turn of the century.

Chuffing retired in 2003 after almost three decades in the business, citing exhaustion and a general lack of distrust for the general public. He has rarely been seen outside of his multi-million dollar mansion, located on the cusp of Morley, West Yorkshire, except on occasional trips to the local Spar for lightbulbs and sandwich bags.

Chuffin’s manager, Drippy Peptide, has refused to comment at present although a full statement is expected to be issued by his management team after the Christmas period. Even though he has missed the lucrative festive market, the demand for a follow-up record to his quadruple platinum selling album ‘Hold Your Horses’ released in 2002 is so high that fans have pre-ordered this before it has even gone on the open market.

More news will follow as we hear it.

Kareech Mantell and the Key of Destiny

Kareech looked at the ground. Sitting there, isolated from the rest of the bunch, was a singular key. For some reason Kareech always assumed that keys traveled in groups rather than by themselves.

The key shone in the mid-morning light and in it was reflected a distorted, bendy view of the street he currently stood in. There was nobody else around and so, with nothing much to lose, Kareech bent down in the incorrect fashion and picked up the key. It was much smarter than it should be; there were marks along the long edge, little nicks where the key must have been used to open a parcel, help with a struggling tin opener or possibly used to pick food out of an old woman’s teeth. No discernible indications as to whom owned the key or where it should be left in case of emergencies.

It was Sunday, the lazy day, the day for not doing much. Kareech had a very limited ‘to do’ list; other than picking up some salt for his mum and tying his shoelaces that was it for him. The world does not expect much from a fourteen year boy.

At first he left the key in his pocket, to jingle against the metal fixtures of his sad, faded foldy out velcro wallet. Maybe next year he will get a proper wallet rather than something that resembled a permanent reminder that adulthood was still way too far away. At the top of Evershed Terrace, however, he stopped to take in the brisk air and his hand grazed the intimate sides of the key. It was then that he made a decision, a decision that would ultimately change his Sunday and make it the kind of Sunday that he would look back on as an old man and possibly point a pipe up into the air, desperately trying to remember what happened.

Kareech tried the key in Number 1 Evershed Terrace. The metal reached about half a centimetre in before the mechanism forced it to stop; this key was not the key for 1 Evershed Terrace. And so onto Number 2 Evershed Terrace. It reached a little further in before stopping. Another failure. And so onto Number 3 Evershed Terrace. It barely got the tip in before the inevitable prevention and overwhelming sensation of failure. And so onto Number 4 Evershed Terrace…