The boys of summer's meta musings: Jonas, Telford, U2, Miller, Perez Hilton

June 24, 4:12 AMLA Pop Media ExaminerAdrienne Gruben

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the LA Pop Media Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Self Re-Flexible

This is the summer of entertainers writing about entertaining -- not the Martha Stewart kind.  Though the image of an aproned Nick Jonas making a trellis out of frosting would please the fetishists.

And by fetishists, I mean eight-year-olds from Chino.  No, artists like to write about the craft -- theirs and others', and this summer is no different.

Take the Jonas Bros new album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times.  The track "Keep it Real" depicts staying grounded amidst rising fame, but the impressive exercise is Nick Jonas' "Black Keys", a song on trying to write a song, using only the piano's black keys.

I*'s, like, *rying to *ype wi*hou* a "t". *o*ally hard!

From U2's latest effort, No Line on the Horizon, comes "Stand Up Comedy" and the lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas."

Self-reflexive and impressively self-effacing.  Next up: a song about wearing shades on the can while talking to Nelson Mandela -- and the perils of having to press "mute" when the audio gets shady.

A truly hilarious example comes from poet Bradford Gray Telford's debut collection, Perfect Hurt.  "Dramatic Monologue in the Voice of the Low Mound from Samuel Beckett's Happy Days" describes a play about a woman sinking into a muddy mound -- from the perspective of the dirt; dirt who is at once disgusted and hurt, but also grateful for the acting gig.  Telford also gives good stanza in "Portrait of a Memory of a Portrait" with pop references to Walter Cronkite and the Zapruder film.  And how could you not love the humor of a poem titled, "Self-Portrait on a Need-to-Know Basis"?

Those intimidated by poetry will find his work approachable, like meeting a famous rockstar who turns out to really "get" you.  If the poems were a text message, you'd be typing back LMFAO.

And with all of the whining on Twitter from people who warn, "Just you watch, when Twitter gets old, the new thing will be REAL, old school, face to face contact!", poetry is the answer; it's equally at home in tweeterspace and face to face.  Note: face to face, you may actually feel the REAL sprinkle of spit from a particularly zealous orator.  But you can tweet about it.

From his excellent titular solo album, Old 97's frontman (and Telford's old school chum) Rhett Miller, comes "Sometimes," a truly sweet song about a song that his daughter sings in her crib.  I call for a Brian Eno re-mix that integrates the crackling of a diaper change and the sticky application of Desitin.  Did I just show my age?  Has Desitin gone the way of Anacin and Bufferin?

The last example unites the power of meta-text with Deadwood-like grit.  Perez Hilton, once a blogger on celebrity gossip, has become a gossipy, blogging celebrity, but his fame took a hit this week.

will.I.am, fed up with Perez writing "FUGLY" over photos of fellow Pea Fergie, began a verbal attack that escalated to violence -- for no reason!  Wait, maybe it was because Perez called him a fu!#ing fa*got.

But the Peas' manager did diffuse the situation; he clocked Perez in the face. will.I.am's "Pump It" lyrics, "Dude wanna hate on us/Dude need'a ease on up/Dude wanna act on up/But dude get shut like flavor shut (shut down)," now seem downright prophetic.

The Black Eyed Peas' will.I.am, and an actually black-eyed Perez then raced to the blogosphere. They created contradictory video testimonials, but cell phone video evidence confirms Perez's account.  Don't these people watch Law & Order?!  The attorneys are always screaming "DON'T SAY A WORD!" as their handcuffed clients are spirited away. 

The layers of self-reflexivity here would make even the most decorated post-modern theorist's head spin, inspiring perhaps, an exorcism about an exorcism.

What I wouldn't pay to see a will.I.am/Perez re-match in the form of a Sharks-and-Jets-like dance, replete with crouching and calf-level snapping.  And then I'd like to see a dance about the dance.

Fore more info on the Boys of Summer: Jonas Bros tour dates, are here.  U2 tour dates, are here.  For more on Bradford Gray Telford's debut, Perfect Hurt, go here.  Rhett Miller tour dates are here.  Black Eyed Peas tour dates are here.  Perez Hilton updates can be found here.