What is Hashtag Basic?

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably have heard the term 'basic' or it's more prevalent incarnation; 'basic bitch' applied to someone, usually someone you're not a big fan of. I think 'basic' stretches to much more than pumpkin spiced latte's and Cosmo tips. Sadly, it probably applies to most if not all millenials. As someone born in 1984 (there I said it), I was born kind of on the cusp, and don't really know where to place myself. The generation before me was awesome; Gen-X? Everything Portlandia is nostalgic about? Yeah great. Grunge music, clown college, contentment at being unambitious, sleeping until 11...ok now I'm just playing the theme song in my head. Then came us...people born in the early-mid 80's. I think they called us Gen-Y because there was no term for us, and we really didn't have a place in this world. On that logic, I would say millenials are anyone born in 1990 and up. The reasoning for this being, those of us that came into this world in the decade preceding it remember a lot of shit that seems totally foreign to let's say...Kendall Jenner (ps, if you follow her on Instagram, you're basic). Ask her to dial a rotary phone. I bet you it would be hilarious. 

Mean Girls ...porn for Basic Bitches

The millenial generation is one of entitlement. It's very much the me-me-me generation. Selfies were born from technology made for millenials, and as much as Mark Zuckerberg himself is not a millenial, Facebook is definitely a product for them; those starved for attention and a need to broadcast almost everything. 

I remember newspapers, I remember internet cafés, phone books, caller ID, etc. That doesn't mean I'm not basic. I don't follow Kendall, but I do follow Gigi Hadid, and yes I use Instagram for selfies. Crucify me. I think basic stretches beyond going to Coachella rather than the Met Opera House, reading Cosmo instead of The New York Times, and pumpkin everything. 

Going back to my generation, if I could label it ANYTHING, it would be the Fucked Generation. We really were. By the time most of us graduated college, the economy was lodged in the toilet, and a year later it had been flushed down along with many hopes and dreams. We overpaid for our overpriced education so we could have a degree from an elite school that no one deems anything more than 'fancy degrees', and no amount of Instagram selfies, viral videos, or followers on Pinterest were going to save us. Tuition was at an all time high, and employment was at an all time low. A lot of us took jobs that we were way too good for with hardly any salary, but I digress. 

I think this excludes us from being basic because we have more important shit right now, and a lot of us (myself excluded because fuck it) are raising families and have no time to think of the perfect hashtag...I remember when that was just called a pound sign yeesh. 

Entitlement is not in our blood because we had to scrap for everything in adult life. We thereby have some sense of dignity. Living in the epicenter of the tech capital, Silicon Valley I'm subject to a lot of basic. It's more of a generational thing than a lifestyle thing. And by the way, if you're a hipster who brews their own beer, and only drinks PBR because you think you know what 'bourgeoise' means...guess what you're BASIC. And stop throwing around the term 'artisanal' like you give a shit. Who cares if the coffee comes from a ridiculous contraption at a corner store in Brooklyn hand pressed for 3 hours by some tattoo'd 40-year-old who loves being a professional barista or from a Bodega on Crenshaw, just drink it.

An artisanal basic bitch hipster, who dresses like a hobo but has a trust fund and spends all of his money on anachronistic Sherlock Holmes pipes. And those mom jeans? 400$.

I am aware I'm coming off like I'm saying that I did things before they were cool, which is the ultimate hipster battle cry, but in my various interactions, I'm lucky not to have choked on too much basic. Once in a while, I stumble upon a basic bitch who tells me that she went to Coachella because she got to dress up all 'bohemian and stuff'. And it hurts my heart. 

Side note: I especially hate how Taylor Swift who's latest album breaks records every day (or used to) called it 1989 even though she spent 5 days in 1989. As if to escape from her basicness. That's an insult to everyone who was actually born in the 80's. 1989? Really? Did ya see the Berlin Wall come down? Didn't think so. Stop trying to resurrect an era you know nothing about. And your music videos are basic AF, just so you know.

Yes, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when this happened. Do you? Or did you watch it on The People vs. OJ Simpson?

So before you go on how you 'can't even', remember that there were people whom you call 'old' who are in their 30's now who remember a time when they had so much student debt that they couldn't even, and that was an actual struggle. I'm reminded of the Louis CK joke about how people in their 20's stand around thinking if they just stand around and hate their job someone will appear and be like 'well let's make you a director then, that's how that works'. And no I don't want to go wine tasting with you. I know you make more money than I do, but I've been to Italy, and to France, and to Napa, and I know the difference between a Bordeaux and a Burgundy. Unless you're paying. So if you're reading this, and you're basic, get your butt back on Pinterest. Those weddings to your imaginary boyfriend yet aren't going to plan themselves. Oooof, that was a lot of shade but I do feel better. 

Below clips to better illustrate my point:

Honest (Interprative) Oscar Best Picture Noms

Schizophrenic Batman

The GOP Approves This Message

Fake Noses Win Oscars (Right Nicole Kidman?)

Wes Anderson Presents: Quirky Ralph Fiennes 

Hot and Smart Brits You Want to Bone

Varsity Blues: The Musical 

Eddie Redmayne's Eye-Acting

Selma is Amazing. Not going to be snarky here. 

It’s Been a Year Since Spring Breakers and What Have We Learned?

Ok I jest it’s actually been a year and a few months, but still, since the cataclysmic world-altering event that was James Franco’s grillz first hit American theaters and mainstream America finally knew who Harmony Korine was. But has the earth appropriately shattered? And with the talks of a Spring Breakers 2 already abuzz on the internet, will our perception of the best thing that ever happened to the 21^st century be ruined?

Anyway, back to life lessons.
Point #1: Now everyone not just Silicon Valley hipsters know who Megan Ellison is, as more than just the eccentric daughter of Larry Ellison. Suck it, Silicon Valley?

Point #2: The Disney channel is not just one giant black hole of mind-numbing content and jail-bait and can actually produce genuine talent. I know, I was shocked too when I found myself saying the following; Selena Gomez can act, ya’ll.

Point #3: St. Petersburg, Florida is a toilet.

Point #4: Where did Gucci Mane’s ridiculous face tattoo disappear to? Was it ever there in the first place?

Point #5: Rachel Korine is married to Harmony Korine, you guys

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And finally, let’s wrap things up with the man that encompasses the most important life-lessons of all, Mr. James Edward Franco of the Palo Alto Franco’s is a Renaissance man.
Let's face it folks, and fellow Columbia students who saw him walking the circumference of Dodge Hall smoking two cigarettes in his mouth, fiddling with his smart phone and then falling asleep in class. Maybe he had just shut off that part of the brain that actually does stuff so he could meditate on further projects...Like perhaps reading the script of Spring Breakers in that labyrinthine craziness that is his mind. Anyway, no one would give you any kind of argument if you say that James Franco completely stole Spring Breakers for himself, so much so, that he could stand head and shoulders next to his directors like they both contributed equally to the outcome. Most of Alien's dialogue, mannerism, and general debauchery was ad-libbed and conceived by Franco himself (case and point the sucking a gun like a dick scene as well as the infamous 'Look at my shyyyit' speech). Alien is truly one of the greatest anti-heroes in contemporary cinema.

But lets please give credit where credit is due. This film is the brainchild, and the labor of love of longtime contraversial director Harmony Korine. But let me back up. There are two kinds of iconoclasts in the film world, ones who do it in the face of art to break rules in order to make their own artistic artistic statement which almost always comes of preachy and pretentious, and then you have a real iconoclast like Korine; 

He breaks the rules because it's in his bloody nature. It is completely impossible for him to make a film that is not completely his, and just his aesthetic and talent are so out of bounds of anything, they force him through his art and process to not only break the so-called rules, but not to give a shit when they are. He's a real whistle-blower, devoid of pretension and personal gain or loss. He just wants to make a film damn it, it's really that simple. And when he does, it's pandemonium. Critics are ripping their hair out deciding whether to like it or pan it knowing that when a Korine film comes out, you better be en pointe considering no one likes to be the unpopular voice in that cannon, not even Armond White. But the one thing that's sure is that whether achieving any kind of indie box office success, the film culminates with instant cult status, and films haven't done that since the 70's...or Verhoeven. The wild success of Spring Breakers (2013) is just proof of how multi-faceted Korine has always been. Not only can he make a quirky bizarre indie cult hit a la Vincent Gallo, but he can make it a huge commercial success considering its modest budget and also make it the film du-jour of not only snooty New York intellectuals but right down to your average, run of the mill, dumb it down teenagers. He had us all saying 'Look at my Shyiit!' He has impacted not only as a film industry but society as a whole with his free wheelin', devil-may-care attitude and proletariat filmmaking approach that shakes us, provokes us, and ultimately makes us deeply admire his spirit, and an aesthetic that danes not to take itself seriously at all and yet still maintain a serious impact with its precedence. I smell honorary Oscar.

Fun stuff below

Lessons We Learned From Vanderpump Rules

(L to R: Jax, Stassi, Katie, Lisa Banderpump (sans Jiggy), Tom, Scheana, and Kristen) 

Officially could be the worst show on television, in constant competition with Toddlers in Tiaras and Couples Therapy, Vanderpump Rules is really a terrible. Like we needed ANY spinoff of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and in its defense, at least the women on that show are older, somewhat more sophisticated, yes they are swimming in money while the rest of us are trudging by struggling inside a recession, but every season there's a whole new set of superficial drama that actually makes it quite fun to watch. But this show has absolutely no redeeming qualities. It follows quite frankly the most spoiled, entitled, materialistic empty shells of human beings without too many brain cells missing that work at Lisa Vanderpump's West Hollywood hotspot SUR.

Now, I've been to SUR on occasion, and taken a few friends there, the only person from the show that I've ever seen actually working there was Tom Sandoval from the cast and that was ONCE. I'm starting to think that these people don't actually work there at all. Or if they do, they are actors pretending to do so. And the funny thing is, Bravo doesn't ever try to cover up that non-reality part of this reality series. All of them have aspirations of being famous in show business, in the dumbest ways if I might add. Whether it's a recording contract to being auto tuned, to being 'not AS famous as Michael Jackson but close' for whatever the fuck, it's clear that these pretty yet dumb-as-hell people aren't there just to serve and pour wine. 

Stassi and Jax, the couple that for some reason are still together even though all they do is fight. 

In the last few episodes, surprise surprise, the drama stems from a dirty little secret coming out about one of the pretty boys cheating on one of the pretty girls, and the way it comes out is the most hilarious of moments I've ever seen on reality TV, or on TV for that matter. Stassi, resident bitch on the show, and Anna Torv doppleganger decides to take the 'staff' to Cabo for her birthday and while drunk and topless in a pool confronts her ex, the selfie-king, Jax about a lie he's been keeping secret regarding another male server cheating on his longtime girlfriend...also a server. Draaaaaaaama. And if this show teaches us anything is that ladies, if you are topless, you can get a man to confess to ANYTHING...seriously anything. If you tell him he's actually a woman, he'll say it back to you with conviction. 

Kristen, in her signature SUR server's dress posing for a promotional still, but when she's a hot mess (always) it's not that pretty. 

Another lesson we learn is that entitled twenty-somethings living in LA playing chicken in the pool while 'average Joe's' as Stassi puts it 'sit behind a desk all day' make really terrible life decisions. Instead of the girl who's being cheated on (Kristen) just walking away with a middle finger out, she decides to stay for the weekend get as drunk as possible, and eventually sleeping with said cheating prick (Tom). And the other girls in the sewing circle get pissed about that, saying she has no self respect. Really girls? Weren't you just on television with your tits hanging out? How much respect are you retaining? 

At this point it's beyond me. It's a hard watch. You might want to be close to the bathroom in case you have to puke the last remainder of dinner out dealing with knowing that these kind of people share breathing space with you, but twenty-somethings will be twenty-somethings...until they hit thirty and then they'll still be twenty somethings...because after all, this is LA and you can stay as young, stupid, and irresponsible forever, and not only will you be rewarded for it, you might even get your own show. Biggest life lesson there, kids. Put down the PhD manual and run over to the Louboutin store because no one cares about your mind when you've got 6-inch stiletto heels and a plunging neckline. Oy to the vey. 

Why Spring Breakers is the Best Film of The Year and Deserves an Oscar

Let's get shit straight. I've seen almost all of the big contenders for this year's Oscars, and I know that Spring Breakers (2013) is so goddamn controversial it won't even be nominated for the bullshit MTV Movie Awards, but you know what? In 1969 Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture, and it was Rated X, back when they had a 'Rated X' title and not a bullcrap NC-17 title. 

Remember a time when a film about a man-whore and a drug dealer won Best Picture? Me neither.

Yes, 12 Years a Slave (2013) is a masterpiece and if you read my blog you know I sing its praises, but for crap's sake people, if you look back on what defined our culture of the past year, Spring Breakers has got to be in there. It basically encapsulated not only our sad state as idiots in limbo in an unforgiving world in the midst of a financial crisis, war, and recession, but also basically touched on what that has reduced us to as human beings. And it does it in such a profound and unapolagetic bite-your-tongue and slap-your-cheek way that it's impossible to overlook it's relevance. 

All of the 'against-type casting was genius, we all knew Franco would jump on the bandwagon, but it was surprising to see Disney moguls like Hudgens and Gomez partake, I guess they're smarter than we thought.

Yes, 12 Years a Slave is a history peice full to the brim of great performances so it will probably take home the top honors, and Spring Breakers won't even be looked at seriously because it's cynical, full of transgression, nudity, and hedonism, (all of which the Academy frowns upon) but mostly I believe that it will be ignored because it's a blatant spit in the face/middle finger to society and all of the 'social norms' that we accept in order to convince ourselves that we are good people when we are soooooo not. There is no redemption, ascention, or even any kind of forgiveness to this movie. It's brutal, farcical, and violent as fuck. At least with 12 Years, while being violent as fuck as well, it portrays the violence as if to say; hey remember white people, this is something that actually happened. In Spring Breakers, the violence comes from a totally unnecessary and non-sensical place. It's violence for the sake of violence, and that is something that we as a society can't understand, so why should we expect the Academy to? 

My favorite contemporary filmmaking genius, yes above Aronofksy, Fincher, Cuaron, Bigelow etc. An auteur among pretenders. 

But here's the thing, it fucking happens all the time, and it's incomparably painful. Harmony Korine in all of his genius is utilizing every aspect that defines our stupid contemporary culture to bring it to it's massive decaying zenith and throwing it back into your face as if to say 'this is all that's left of you, pathetic morons' and he does it so effortlessly and subliminally that yes, he deserves not only an Oscar but a fucking parade in his honor. Why? Because he's the only one brave to do so. His films never end on a high note, they always end with people walking out going '...why' and then having a few shots and reflecting on it thinking 'fuck, we really ARE that horrible as a species'. 

He doesn't give you any answers...much like Spike Lee always refused to, and do you know why? Because some times in life there are no fucking answers ok people? Sometimes we all do stupid shit and get into trouble for the bad choices we make, and no one is responsible for it but ourselves. Some times we don't win, and some times we don't triumph, and sometimes life is shit until the bitter end. But the genius of Korine reminds us that until we get to that bitter end there are some absolutely fucking amazing moments that though irrational, we know we all have in ourselves to act upon and that's what's so goddamn scary. And...that's exactly why the Academy won't give him shit this year. They will never admit that they are not the classy, robustly moral, paragons of this brave new world, when we all know that of course they are not, and neither are we. So all I can really say is; Thank you, Harmony, don't ever stop pushing our hypocrisies right back into our stupid bloated faces until we choke on it like we deserve to. Thank you sir.

Trailer below.

What Comes After Hipsters?

If we wore these unironically, they could double as reading glasses.

Well I guess we have to start answering that question with another question, which is; what determines culture? In this technologically dependent world of the new millennium culture is dependent on the following in order of importance; television, Internet, music, film, and finally fashion.  

It didn’t always used to be that way, the order was completely diversified and whatever was the new fad would take over for a while, but television has a level of constancy which I hate to (love to) allude back to Warhol when he said; everything will go, books will go, films will go, television will stay. He also said (lest we forget) [that] ‘in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’. And if we look at what television has allotted us, it is exactly that. The big revolution in television is the reality juggernaut, which allows nobodies to be somebodies for 15 minutes, just for as long as they’re interesting. 

Adele is a perfect example of reversal of hipster culture and return to nostalgia for how things used to be and how things used to sound in particular.

This is key to the hipster sect because young people we call as ‘millenials’ following generation Y (my generation) have an attention span of a worker ant. Therefore, things only exist for them for no longer than 15 minutes. Bands become popular and unpopular in short spans of time, as do fashion fads, shows, etc. Just like Hipster-skewering show ‘Portlandia’ (2011 – present) parodied; ‘something something is OVER!’ 

(Still from 'Portlandia') It's all OVER!

 So if this is all to be true, then the hipsters are running out of time on their 15-minute meter, and who’s to take over? I remember a film from the 30’s, a beautiful piece of art called The Petrified Forest (1938) starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Leslie Howard where Leslie plays what he refers to as ‘one of a dying breed – the intellectuals’.  I do hope that this is the time for their resurrection. 

Leslie Howard plays the prophetic intellectual who stumbles across a crime set-up in The Petrified Forest (1938), desperate to leave some of his dying legacy behind, which never comes to fruition. His outfit is now worn ironically.

If you look at trends in the media, which as I earlier mentioned dictate popular culture of the moment, it seems that my predictions might be true. People have grown to be more meditative and concerned. Films like Argo (2013) and shows like 'Downton Abbey' (2010 – Present) dominate in accolades and awards, reflecting that our culture is ready for more serious reflection and thought processes. Also instituting a dreamy nostalgia indicating that we’re not exactly amused by our own times anymore. 

The enormously successful 'Downton Abbey' has become a pop-culture institution unto itself, quite unexpectedly strangely enough.

No one wants to be a culture that people look back at with cynical laughter and resentment like we do to the hippies of the ‘60’s, so let’s look forward and strive to not be dictated by pop culture but to define it.

Good god that was serious, now I have to bath in sin, excuse me.