Before I pump out whatever reviews I've got coming along I wanted to share with you an interesting experience myself a several others had yesterday. This week instead of attending our World Religions class, we get to go to the World Humanities Expo. Basically it's several projects done my students in humanity courses on display as well as lectures and movies about things in the world. Exciting. On Monday ( we have this class three times a week) we endured the hour long tale of the head of the humanities department's trip to Mexico that he takes every other year.This might have been a mildly entertaining story except for his lack of any interest while talking about this junk and his various photographs displaying... well what we know is in Mexico. Nothing more, nothing less. Think of him as the professor... excuse me... doctor that we've all met. Wednesday however brought possibly the best day we've ever had in that class. The schedule we were handed had our alloted time slot as "Open Mic". This is a term that should always be met with caution and those attending such a thing should fear for worse than whatever they think the worst is. And indeed we got some shit.
The following is going to be a transcript mixture of things written and said during the four performances we bared witness to. I will however add in the necessary information so the comments make more sense in context.
Writers: Devon, Erin, Ben and Guy
*The young man with a guitar from my theater class is on stage singing Incubus, followed by Hootie and the Blowfish. Judging from his backwards "TAPOUT" hat, a Nickelback song isn't too far behind. I can't imagine anything good coming from this. More information forthcoming.
*Our professor has just given us the introduction explaining what's about to happen. Basically we're hearing music that's uniquely American based. Apparently rap is uniquely American. Another class as also entered. One of their students resembles the Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr. not Benicio Del Toro). We are informed that at some point we will be listening to Christian rapper (I assume this is the connection with religion so we feel like we 'learned' something today)
*The two rappers who open the show approach the stage. They are short, fat and rather frumpy looking black guys. They're led by a skinny balding white man with circular glasses and light brown hair. I joke that perhaps he's their manager or producer, but is in fact a North American studies teacher. Ben and I also joke about how he discovered to two guys.
Ben- See by doing this, he can get away with not feeling bad about not giving a homeless black man a dollar.
Devon- (impersonating teacher) Yes you boys'll do.
Ben- (impersonating teacher) Your pants are significantly baggie enough so you must be rappers!
Devon- (impersonating teacher) Yes I believe you people call this... 'hood-fabulous' right?
*They take the stage and introduce themselves (I have no idea what their names are) and prep their first song called "The Eye" (not based on the Asian or Alba horror movie).
Devon- This is SO American. I hope they play 'Fuck her Gently' by the greatest American band, Tenacious D.
Erin- This certainly is Christian Rap at it's finest. (the song was implying sex. Something I'm sure neither of these boys know anything more about then what their right and left hands have taught them.)
Devon- That man (N.A. teacher) is thinking 'This is the best Negro song I've heard since Swing Low!"
Erin- This is the best day I've ever had in this class.
Devon- AMEN.
Erin- I love how annoyed some of these people are. If they aren't laughing, their looking like they want to get the hell out of here.
*The duo were slated to play 5 songs... and they did. This was probably around song 2.
Devon- Now I know what this has to do with religion! By the end of this song you'll pray for ARMAGEDDON!
Erin- Look @ the Wolf Man. (He seemed to be annoyed and itchy. Perhaps more research is needed into his... existence to understand.)
Guy- This is literally the best/worst thing I've seen all month. I love it. And teach left the room.
Devon- Right now we need a Kanye interruption...
Erin- You're black. You could get away with doing it.
Devon- I think the jewish guy (guy in our class... possibly only half jewish) needs it more than I do.
*Song 3 begins. Their explanations before each song are terrible and the sad applause after each one is done more so that we can all get our ears back to hearing a harmonic tone, instead of their crappy singing. The third song also sounds like a poor Kayne West slow-mix. Very poor.
Devon- I think they just referenced 'Jizz in my Pants'.
*The other class walks out of the performance. Teacher included.
Devon- Anybody got any throwing rocks? I'm surprised they're still going.
Ben- White liberal guilt makes some people do the most bizarre shit ever. (refering as to why the hell did this man think these boys could rap, sing, perform, speak publicly or even dress.)
Devon- THAT'S A BINGO!
*I forgot someone.There was a man standing in the auditorium handing out flyers. He was older, somewhat Mickey Rourke like (before he got 'cleaned' up) and was wearing a black leather vest over a white shirt. We joked that this was what happened to Han Solo after years of adventuring and drinking.
Devon- I wanna hear Han Solo rap.
*Song 4 begins. Almost finished with them. The crowd is silent and either bored to death or tearing up holding back laughter.
Devon & Guy- WORST BANDS EVER: 5. Good Charlotte & Kid Rock 4. ICP 3. Nickelback 2. Creed 1. These two rapping ass clowns.
Erin- Their raps are the shit.
Devon- Their raps are shit.
Erin- Right, Might, Night (mocking the rhyme scheme they used in the song)
*The final song is about to start. One of the two boys explains that he was just told about the song the night before, so he'll be reading it off a paper. We're not worried, we figure it might only be an improvement. Also the story about the song titled 'Vanilla Rain' is based on a character created by a girl they know. The character is a stripper. Also we figure the name is an easy rip from better songs with similar titles (i.e. Purple Rain, November Rain, Chocolate Rain...)
Devon- If these songs aren't funny, then I don't know comedy.
Erin- Crazy theater girl likes this! She's bobbing her head.
Devon- I haven't felt this patriotic since Bush got re-elected.
Devon- Nothing says North American culture like a candy coated stripper song...
*Finally they're done. However the next performers aren't ready yet, so the North American studies teacher grabs a guitar and states 'I know a buddist song!'. We're about to get worldly.
Devon- He's about to get jiggy with it. Please God let him sing in Chinese!
*Ben notices something about a girl in our class who has a reputation for attempting to subtly debunk religions she's not a member of. I.E. anything that's not buddism. She's large, pale, cartoonishly nerdy and makes asinine comments frequently.
Ben- That girl over there, that always asks the insane questions, I couldn't remember what/who she reminds me of. I realized it's the "feels good man" frog from message boards.
*He is correct.
Devon- (nearing the end of the song) I hope he plays FREE BIRD for an encore.
*Now we're in for a real treat. Two older men with guitars take the stage and tell of us a story about America's history with railroads and trains. Ben muses about the death of thousands of Chinese laborers during that time. The folk-like song begins.
Devon- BREAKING NEW 2 rapping ass clowns over taken by 2 ass clowns singing 'Old McDonald'.
*They finish up their boring goddamn song and we're left with but one rapper. The real Christian rapper. He resembles Lil' Jon. However there is a sound issue that needs fixing. The teacher goes to work on it. Ben looks over and states 'ah... the white mans burden'. I find the timing of it ridiculously funny and my gum falls out of my mouth while laughing. He takes the stage.
*Funny enough he's not bad, but because of the music being so loud you couldn't understand a word he said. However his rapping skills could one day help him out.
And that's that! Hopefully Erin can post the videos she took of the first act online soon and I'll update this post. This was a direct transcript from a book passed around between the four of us during the show. We can only imagine what tomorrow, the final day of the Expo will bring.
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