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Safeway vs. Twitter: What Is a Marketplace?

 

Dr. Cushing from Tales from the Hood vs. Kanye West (Rest in Peace, Rosalind Cash)

 

Edwin Starr vs. The Gimp, I mean, Your Average ICE Agent

 

Your Average Kiwi Farmer

 

Voice of Reason

CHORUS

No one would believe me when I had a story to tell

They bent the knee to the powers that be

They’re too afraid of burning in hell

You’re not the voice of reason, you’re enabling treason

You’re handing out forgiveness like it’s Christmas season

A seat at my table should always be earned

Fuck the crosses you burned

What are the lessons you’ve learned?

 

VERSE 1

You want me to compromise with the ones who tell lies

And give them any credence like they’re just as wise

Shake hands with the Klan for your economic plan

Where we come together for this capitalist cheddar

One for all and all for one

But what will you do now that the damage is done?

Marginalization is institutionalization

But at least we can agree this is a badass nation

 

CHORUS

No one would believe me when I had a story to tell

They bent the knee to the powers that be

They’re too afraid of burning in hell

You’re not the voice of reason, you’re enabling treason

You’re handing out forgiveness like it’s Christmas season

A seat at my table should always be earned

Fuck the crosses you burned

What are the lessons you’ve learned?

 

VERSE 2

You call it unity when you fit the square pegs

Into the round holes while the beggars beg

We’re all equal because we all look the same

As we’re playing Monopoly, a real-life game

Say nighty-nighty, give your dreams to the mighty

It’s for the common good even with the white hoods

In the end, we’ll all be ground up into sausage

But at least we won the war, ‘cause the street trash lost it

 

VERSE 3

You’re not riding the fence, you’re riding the dick

Of Agent 47 who should be 86ed

You say you love us all, but you won’t answer the call

You’ll be so far away when another tower falls

Of course you’re apathetic and it’s kind of pathetic

How you use your privilege to rewrite and edit

The story of history through your eyes, not theirs

You’re so rich and lionized that you don’t have to care

 

CHORUS

No one would believe me when I had a story to tell

They bent the knee to the powers that be

They’re too afraid of burning in hell

You’re not the voice of reason, you’re enabling treason

You’re handing out forgiveness like it’s Christmas season

A seat at my table should always be earned

Fuck the crosses you burned

What are the lessons you’ve learned?

 

OUTRO

No small surprise where the center really lies

You’re the center of the universe, now everything’s worse

You sang kumbaya with jackboot-wearing thugs

Future civilizations will wonder if we’re on drugs

Vanilla ICE-Holes

Is that “ICE” on your vest? It should say “snowflake”

Surrender and comply? No way, Jose

Don’t worry about us pulling your mask off

Instead we’ll pull your pants off, force you to jack off

To Orange Hitler, on your knees, bootlicker

My trigger finger’s quick, so you better be quicker

Don’t half-ass the fash, go the whole nine yards

You do it long enough, you can play your race card

Forget the mask, we know you’re Vanilla ICE-Holes

You’re doing Pulp Fiction and the gimp is your role

Bring out the gimp! Bring out the gimp!

Come on, everybody, let’s bring out the gimp!

Slap you like a pimp for being a right-wing simp

Kick you in the dick ‘til it’s permanently limp

The age of drum circles is a thing of the past

Unless we play the drums on your stupid ball caps

With your head inside, now you can go and hide

Behind your daddy’s legs like a doggy who begs

Schoolyard bullies have more balls than you

Look in the mirror, it’s no one’s fault but you

You couldn’t cut it as the next John Rambo

Gassed out in five seconds while learning Sambo

If Sambo was easy, it’d be called White America

Chilling on your porch calling everybody terrorists

Shotgun in your hand, but you sawed it in half

You shoot prematurely, make your girlfriend laugh

Just kidding! You couldn’t be a Prom King either

You got no personality, you’re the new rag and ether

Putting us to sleep with your nothingburger status

So you pretend to be a badass ‘cause no girl would make passes

Without a few shots of whiskey in little glasses

Drop the Xanax in the drink, make her slip off to a dream

That’s your whole life in an itty-bitty nutshell

Your whole villain arc for why you pump the gun shells

Into innocent civilians, you do it by the millions

Call it “welfare cuts”, give your masters more trillions

You live by the sword, you die by the sword

‘Cause you got nowhere else to go except the psych ward

You're All Nazis

To every boomer who told me to get a job

To every victim blamer who laughed when I sobbed

To every ableist who called me lazy

To every bully who labeled me a baby

To every dude bro shouting from their cars

To every mean drunk who frequents all the bars

To every cop who ever patted me down

To every invalidator who told me not to frown

To every teacher who tried to break me

To every pervert who wanted to rape me

To everybody who threw their insults

Got a name for you all if you get that impulse

 

You’re all Nazis! You’re all Nazis!

Do your salute for the swarming paparazzi

Tell the world who you really are

Expose your evil like a fascist superstar

Be honest about your status as an asshole

Make it obvious that you should lose the battle

The war too, let’s not forget the bloodshed

Clean sweep you all, never be an upset

Victory, you’ll all go down in history

For being on the wrong side, the ones who cause misery

Admit to my face that you’re worthy of hate

So I can pack a 45 and seal your fate

A bullet to the dome is what you needed all along

So much evidence against you, how could I be wrong?

Close your eyes, here comes a non-surprise

Bang-bang-bang! Now you lay down and die

Inglorious Basterds

MOVIE TITLE: Inglorious Basterds

DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino

YEAR: 2009

GENRE: War Movie

RATING: R for violence, language, and sexual content

GRADE: Mixed

With all the political tension in today’s world, who wouldn’t want to escape into a world of Nazi-slaying fun? Cutting off their scalps, beating them with a bat, shooting them up, burning them down, if there’s a way to kill a Nazi in World War II, Aldo Raine and his troops will make it happen. You know who else will make it happen? A lone Jewish woman named Shosanna whose family was slaughtered by the Nazi war machine. That’s a lot of vengeful desires from anybody not involved in the Third Reich. There’s no possible way that this movie could be anything but perfect, right? Well, that’s where Quentin Tarantino’s biggest fault comes into play: sometimes his movies drag on for an excruciatingly long time. Inglorious Basterds was no exception to that rule. I realize a movie can’t be all action and no drama, but the reverse is also true if the idea is to make a revenge flick: it can’t be all drama and too little action. Some of the chapters could have been cut short and it wouldn’t have hurt the movie in any way, especially the chapter where the Nazis play the card game at a bar. If you want your bloodthirsty fun, you’ll have to get in line like everyone else.

But when you get exactly what you wanted out of this film, it’ll be exactly as you expected. The outcome of the story was never in doubt for even a second. Aldo Raine and his troops are overpowered in spite of the fact that some of them get killed along the way. Shosanna’s own plans for revenge are so brilliant that detailed that no German soldier could possibly crack her code. Everything that could go right in this movie did go right…except for the element of surprise for the audience. I guess when the genre is described as a “revenge flick”, it doesn’t leave much to the imagination. No serious detective work has to be done. But can I at least believe for one small minute that the good guys have a chance of losing? Having a few of their soldiers killed vulnerability does not make. I want to see some flaws. I want to see some cracks in the world’s most impressive plot armor. Maybe if the German propaganda machine took these kinds of notes, their films wouldn’t look so ridiculous on screen.

If you think this review is going to be a nonstop bash-fest, you’re wrong. It was enjoyable for what it was. Quentin Tarantino’s dialogue will always deliver no matter what the genre of his movies. The subterfuge his characters engage in is also an impressive feat that required an extraordinary amount of creativity. Above all else, however, I must give my highest praise to the character work of Hans Lander, the Nazi colonel nicknamed the “Jew Hunter”. No, I’m not condoning his belief system, just his villainy. Whenever he interrogates someone, he knows he’s got his victims by the throat. He purposefully tiptoes around the answers he receives to give his liars a false sense of hope. I’d call this a perfect game of cat and mouse…if the cat had drill bits for fangs, battleaxes for claws, and venom for drool. I’d dare say that Hans is even more intimidating and dangerous than his boss Hitler himself. He’s so believable as a villain that he can almost negate my earlier point of the outcome being too predicable. Key word being almost.

It wouldn’t be fair to call Inglorious Basterds my least favorite Quentin Tarantino movie, because all in all I did enjoy it. Having a least favorite Tarantino movie is like having a least favorite flavor of ice cream: in the end, it’s still ice cream and it’s still going to be more delicious than the creamy strudel Shosanna and Landers shared in the high scale restaurant. This movie gets a mixed grade from me, but it’ll be a high mixed, which means three-and-a-half stars out of five. In the interest of being decisive and honest, I’ll round it down to a solid three. Being average doesn’t have to be a bad thing, right?