The Bubblegum Complex 01.23.03
Posted by Aaron Hubbard on 01.23.2003
Dan Karaty, the man, the myth, the pervy looks...
The Bubblegum Complex
By Claire Flynn Boyle
Welcome to the Bubblegum Complex, the column that thought I saw I man brought to life, he was warm, he came around and he was dignified…
I've got a Natalie Imbruglia thing going on this week. Just go with it!
You know that old philosophical question about trees falling in forests? Well if someone doesn't write a column and isn't missed, did they really miss writing a column? I actually had one ready to go, but I was usurped! A lost column! Oh well, I went to the bar and had a karaoke vibe thing going on instead. I'm writing this from a flat in Acton, London, while two youths argue over the price of a taxi or something. I'm considering telling them to keep the noise down. I won't though and I'll get on with my ramblings. Incidentally I left my country for a while and suddenly Shaggy was in the top ten…so how did that happen!
The general consensus to last weeks ramblings was that the Superbowl half time show isn't always THAT good, but it doesn't come anywhere near our insipid Australian efforts. The search for a football team will generally come down to my usual methods (stupid player name, most fashionable colours, you know the drill). It seems as though the 70s were pretty bad for Superbowl action, but hey, we just had balloons and streamers in those days and the Grand Final sprint. You guys are way lucky.
Oddly before I left for the United Kingdom, my local paper The Herald Sun (the best paper in the world, word up Mike Sheahan) began to feature music news and views that suspiciously looked like they were edited by yours truly. Firstly TATU (the official band of the Bubblegum Complex) got a half page write up calling them one of the hottest new acts on the planet, then in the Thursday music section Avril Lavigne got a total diss and called the corporate rock Britney. Guys, I realise my influence is massive all over Australia (yeah right) so if I could get you to find Sabrina and interview her, that would be great OK Cameron?
No better place then to start this week than with the news from the official band of the Bubblegum Complex, T.A.T.U (or T.A.T.Y to give it a Russian spelling). As the single All The Things She Said continues to monster the charts of Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland, and an assault on the United Kingdom seems pretty much secured with the single coming out next week, not much is going on in T.A.T.U land other than the heady excitement of being on the cusp of greatness. Aside from the excitement that comes with said assault, the girls are toiling away and being profiled all over the place. HOWEVER they did find time to diss Kylie Minogue in Polish magazine Bravo calling her uninteresting, an old bitch and talentless! Is this a new pop feud in the making, or were they misquoted! Stay tuned for more T.A.T.U news as the story develops!
God I'm over doing the ! this week…
More big props to popjustice.com, the best website in the world. Following on from the Rick Astley v sock puppet interview, this week we have popular British fox puppet Basil Brush taking on Mr Flava Craig David! Take it away Basil!
Basil: You're a busy guy on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. When do you get time off?
Craig: Sunday.
Basil: What do you do on Sunday?
Craig: Chill, mainly.
Basil: That would explain the hat. You feel the cold.
THE CFBBC Interactive music poll
We had a tie in the last poll. Nothing could split the twin horrors of Tin Machine by David Bowie and the general naffness (?) of Milli Vanilli and their career. Me I would have gone for Wyclef doing Pussycat but there you go. That's a lesser known debacle! The results in full…
Tin Machine – David Bowie (6)
Milli Vanilli – (6)
Wyclef Jean – Pussycat (1)
Andrew WK – Party Hard (0)
So this week we have two carry over champions, and three BIG contenders.
#1 – Tin Machine – David Bowie
#2 – Milli Vanilli – General contributions
#3 – Billy Idol – Cyberpunk
#4 – Vanilla Ice – Mind Blowin' (replete with rollin' up the hootie mack tribute!)
#5 – Avril Lavigne – Sk8er Boi
Quite the fight this week! Get to voting!
Big news in the world of pop saw Kylie Minogue win a lawsuit against a man claiming he toned and firmed her buttocks. Professional dancer Dan Karaty claimed to have toned the Aussie for her appearance in the Spinning Around video, and thus made a fitness video featuring Kylie on the cover called "The Hotpants Workout". He lied. He had nothing to do with Kylie's buttocks, toned or otherwise. So who is the real Dan Karaty? Let's a trip to the in no way narcissistic DanKaraty.com for a quick look firstly at some of his credits.
He choreographed the new girl group "GLO" for their upcoming promotional dates, a Jiffy Lube commercial and, in collaboration with Michael Rooney, a television special for Kylie Minogue. In addition, he has been featured on MTV's "The Mandy Moore Show", "Sisqo's Shakedown" and on MTV News.
OK I have many questions. GLO? Isn't that an old womens wrestling promotion? The Mandy Moore Show! Aside from the prospect of an Osbournes style swear bear fest, is there one single reason to watch such a thing? And what the freak me is Jiffy Lube? Anyway you'll be pleased to know the merchandise section features a forty dollar bag with DKNJ on it, and further digging will uncover the following credit from Jessica Simpson. Ringing endorsement coming up!
Through your eyes I found confidence. I saw who I could become and who I will be.
Who I will be? A shoe shop worker in five years time? Now I do realise that Danny boy isn't entirely without charms. After all, his yahoo group has 84 members (roughly 81 more than my group would get after I told my mum and dad how to work a computer) even if it is a little on the out of date side. However Dan can be assured that he does have his admirers, if this little exchange is anything to go by…starting with a post by "talupafisha".
ok....first of all im totally shocked that there is a fanclub for dan. hes awesome and hot as hell but u guys need lives. half of u have never met him. hes my dance teacher at in the spotlight in new jersey. thats his familys dance studio. i havent seen him in forever cuz hes been so busy. last thursday the 18th of october i saw him and i almost cried. its so sad. hes so close yet so unnattainable. oh and by the way hes taken. this stupid wh"ore from my school. She graduated last year. her name is bobo mcbobo. in the yearbook she was like "dan my knight in shining armor. No one should have to go through what we did but it only made us stronger. u make me a better person etc. and I hope to spend my future with you...for real" how gay! she better not think shes marrying him. ooh and when he used to actually teach my class rather than send video tapes of dances for us, he would always stare at me in class lol. like hed be like 2 more times and then id do it perfectly in one time(im really good at hip hop lol) and hed be like ok lets move on...and I saw him watching me in the mirror. go me! so yea...i want him so much. its crazy. i guess i win...i know so much about him. hes like a local celeb. anyways bye guys.
However girls being girls, the matter couldn't rest there. Step forward Samantha 15_1 with a wonderful reply
HOW PATHETIC!!!! ARE YOU??? oh my gosh you need a LIFE!ok really you tell other people that they need a life,when you come in here and post!HELLO DUMBASS!if your posting then OBVIOUSLY YOU NEED A LIFE!!!!Who cares if Dan is taken , we DONT like him because he CUTE!UNLIKE YOU!!!!!but because he's talented!!!!so whats so wrong w/ that? and how do you figure you win???? WIN WHAT????? GET A LIFE!!! NO ONE CARES IF Dan was looking at you WOW!!!YIPEE FOR YOU!!!!!!
You see I liked Hayden Lomaro because he was a great football player and all! Anyway, the matter didn't rest there. Oh no…
ok u are soooo lucky that this is online and not real life cuz id so deck u in the face. i dont even remmebe what i wrote but it couldnt have been that bad. and u think i dont think hes talented?? hes the best hiphop dancerin the world. like u cant take ur eyes off him when u see him. and hes an amazing choreagrapher as well. i like tear when i see him. so dont tell me all in think is that he is cute cuz thats not the full story.
There is more of course, but this pretty much sums it all up. Anyhow good luck to Dan in his future endeavours. Just stop looking at your dancers in strange ways, never fret on HOW PATHETIC!!! YOU ARE!!! and stop telling lies, and maybe I'll buy your forty-dollar bag…
However all this svengali like posturing from a mere dance teacher got me to thinking: whatever happened to Wade Robson? You may remember Wade from his work with Britney and N-Sync, and the proclamations from pops uber couple as to what a special friend he was. Anyone know why Justin doesn't mention him as a special friend anymore? Anyone know? I know this is the wrong demographic but still…
Speaking of JT as no one really ever calls him, he's on the front of Vibe magazine wearing a T-Shirt from Kick Out The Jams band Mc5. If you don't know who they are, they were essentially a kind of crazy stick to the man punkish band from the 1960s. They were part of an equally stick it to the man counter group called the White Panthers (nothing to do with white power by the way) of which this was the mission statement:
Our program is Cultural Revolution through a total assault on the culture, which makes us use every tool, every energy and any media we can get our collective hands on. We take our program with us everywhere we go and use any means necessary to expose people to it.
Our culture, our art, the music, newspapers, books, posters, our clothing, our homes, the way we walk and talk, the way our hair grows, the way we smoke dope and fuck and eat and sleep - it is all one message, and the message is FREEDOM!
We are the mother country madmen in charge of our own lives and we are taking this freedom to the people of America, in streets, in the ballrooms and teenclubs, in their front rooms watching TV, in their bedrooms reading underground newspapers, or masturbating, or smoking secret dope, in their schools where we come and talk to them or make our music, in their weird gymnasiums - they love it- We represent the only contemporary life-style in America for its kids and it should be known that THESE KIDS ARE READY !
They are ready to move but they don't know how, and all we do is show them that they can get away with it. BE FREE, goddamnit, and fuck them old dudes, is what we tell them, and they can see that we mean it. The only influences we have, the only thing that touches them, is that we are for real. We are FREE. We are a bunch of arrogant motherfuckers and we don't give a damn for any cop or any phony-ass authority control-addict creeps who want to put us down. For the first time in America there is a generation of visionary maniac white motherfucker country dope fiend rock and roll freaks who are ready to get down and kick out the jams - ALL THE JAMS - break everything loose and free everybody from their very real and imaginary prisons - even the chumps and punks and honkies who are always fucking with us. We demand total freedom for everybody! And we will not be stopped until we get it.
We are bad.
There's only two kinds of people on the planet: those who make up the problem and those who make up the solution. WE ARE THE SOLUTION. We have no problems. Everything is free for everybody. Money sucks. Leaders suck. School sucks. The white honkie culture that has been handed to us on a silver platter is meaningless to us! We don't want it!
Our program of rock and roll, dope and fucking in the streets is a program of total freedom for everyone. We are totally committed to carrying out our program. We breathe revolution. We are LSD driven total maniacs of the universe. We will do anything we can to drive people crazy out of their heads and into their bodies.
ROCK AND ROLL music is the spearhead of our attack because it is so effective and so much fun. We have developed organic high-energy guerrilla bands who are infiltrating the popular culture and destroying millions of minds in the process. With our music and our economic genius we plunder the unsuspecting straight world for money and the means to carry out our program, and revolutionize its children at the same time.
And with our entrance into the straight media we have demonstrated to the honkies that anything they do to fuck with us will be exposed to their children. We don't need to get rid of all the honkies, you just rob them of their replacements and let the breed atrophy and die out.
We don't have guns yet - not all of us anyway - because we have more powerful weapons - direct access to millions of teenagers is one of our most potent, and their belief in us is another. But we will use guns if we have to - we will do anything - if we have to.
We have no illusions. Knowing the power of symbols in the abstract world of Americans we have taken the White Panther as our mark to symbolize our strength and arrogance.
We're bad
Fair enough you might think: now read it again and imagine Justin Timberlake saying it. In fact, what with the Justin Timberlake foundation and a fan website called "Dreaming About Curly", try and imagine an artist who should LESS be wearing an Mc5 T-Shirt…
We're curly
The following piece is pretty similar in tone to Mc5, but I'm a little perplexed. As you may know I wrote a little tiny piece about Avril Lavigne that seems to circle around the place and get me some nice e-mails (at last count: 71 for, 3 against, one that sort of argued both ways). I'm now way more concerned about exposing both Pink's dysfunctional family, and yes Mr Daniels, Pearl Jam (or Pearl Jamuary as wonderful Hobart radio stations love to say). However I'm VERY confused about something. One of my readers, a girl (A GIRL! A GIRL READS THIS! Geez I was stoked!) sent me to a website called www.avrilution.com and I can't tell if it's a joke or not. I think it's a joke, I hope it's a joke, but judge for yourself with some statements from the mission…er…statement…
From this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable right to cultural self-determination through the free selection and consumption of artistic expression. Together we will win.
My fellow Avrilutionaries, our cause is too awesome for any of us to feel worthy of it. Our task would be impossible, if not for the inspiration and guidance of Avril Lavigne and the Avrilution™. And from this day forth, let every fiber of our being be consecrated to this magnificent cause, that nothing shall be lacking from the struggle that can be brought to it by enthusiasm, by devotion, and plain hard work.
Now my fellow Avrilutionaries, the tide has been running against cultural freedom. We've been listening to drivel…foisted upon us by corporate behemoths driven by greed. Their lyrics are inane, their intellect vacuous. They seek neither to enlighten nor to commiserate. They have no empathy for our angst. Like a pack of wolves they viciously seek only to exploit what they perceive to be the vulnerability of an impressionable mind.
Those who seek to live your lives for you, to relieve you of burdensome choice, those who seek to elevate the inoffensive and degrade the innovative, must be made to see a world which rejects their totally lame vision. No corporate power can be substituted for divine will of the people.
Fellow Avrilutionaries, it is the cause of the Avrilution™ to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which seek to monopolize and edit the content on which we thrive. Do not suckle the singular Rosenite teat of the Recording Industry Association of America. These forces see us merely as a herd, to be fed and fattened as they see fit, then slaughtered and commoditized for their solitary benefit. Should you find yourself feeding from this collective trough, keep a wary eye on the funnel through which the grain flows. Destroy those who with conceited self-interest would see fit to force our cultural sustenance through a filter of their own design.
So here's the gist: the music industry will be only be saved by true visionaries like Avril Lavigne. I SO hope these people are joking. If they are, I laugh. If they don't, I am WAY concerned…
Incidentally there is a brand new music term for 2003: Tetris Pop. It covers acts created to fit a specific youth demographic identified by marketing executives. For example: Avril Lavigne.
I'm on a kick with that.
One for all UK residents: Tiffany is appearing at the Loughborough University on January 31st. Roughly two pounds entry, all the drunk blondes and free vodka you can drink. You won't think you're alone now. I wish I was still there cos I would SO go!
Well that's all I can think of for this week. Just the usual garbage, but stay tuned next week for all the details of the American Idol movie and Charlotte Church going hip-hop!
