Kanye West (feat. Nicki Minaj) -- "Monster" (2010)

Pink wig, thick ass, 

Give them whiplash

I think big, get cash, 

Make them blink fast

In today's 2 or 3 lines, we conclude our conversation with the fabulous young critic, essayist, and blogger, Brienne Walsh -- or as I like to call her, "The Next Big Thing."

Author Brienne Walsh

(I suck up to all the young musicians and writers I feature on 2 or 3 lines, hoping that one of them will hit it big some day and I'll be able to ride on his or her coattails.  I think there's a pretty good chance that Brienne will be that person.)

Click here to read part one of the Brienne Walsh interview.

I really enjoy Brienne's blog, A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.  I've never lived in New York City, and seeing life there through her eyes is compelling stuff.

Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

She recently wrote about the trials and tribulations of living in Brooklyn in a post titled "A Dispatch from White Yuppie Utopia."  

Brienne used to live in Williamsburg, a section of Brooklyn that is known as a major hipster neighborhood, and she describes life there as noisy and chaotic, but liberating.  Carroll Gardens, the Brooklyn neighborhood she and her boyfriend live in now, is quite different:

[Carroll Gardens] is white yuppie utopia.  Everyone knows how to follow the rules.  No excess noise.  No drug addiction.  No mixed race coupling, unless the female is Asian.  They’ve been following the rules all of their lives, which is how they ended up in white yuppie utopia. 

Brienne worries that she and her boyfriend have changed since moving to Carroll Gardens -- and not for the better:

Caleb and I have been transformed.  It’s like the f*cking body snatchers over here.  We’ve gone from being fun people to being uptight white yuppies.  Next thing you know, and I’ll be running a corporation while Caleb stays at home and plays nanny with our two adorable children named Edith and Jerome. 

(I'm not sure about those names.  A boy named Jerome would definitely get his lunch money stolen every day in just about any school in the country.)

Brienne and Caleb with their white yuppie car

Brienne and Caleb have few secrets from their upstairs neighbors:

[O]ur upstairs neighbors have] heard all of the fights that Caleb and I have had.  They know all of our darkest secrets.  Until you live in an apartment in an old building in New York, you have no idea what intimacy really means.  They hear us when we f*ck.  They hear us when we fight about money. They hear what television programs we watch, and they can smell what we cook when our friends come over.

Of course, Brienne knows all their secrets as well:

Sometimes, in the bathroom, we could hear them fighting through the air vent.  “Maybe we should walk the dog,” I heard her say one day.

“Maybe I’m taking a sh*t on the toilet,” he said.

Things went from bad to worse when Brienne's Yorkie, Franke, got loose one day and went for the neighbor:

The turning point in our relationship with them came when the girl upstairs walked through the front door just as we were putting on Franke’s collar to take her for a walk.  Franke ran straight for her leg, and latched on hard. “Franke!” we screamed. “Franke!”

Brienne with Franke

When we finally got her unattached, we apologized profusely.  “I’m so sorry,” we said.  Apologizing for Franke is a routine we’ve rehearsed many times before, considering she bites f*cking everyone we’ve ever known.

“It’s not a big deal,” she said in a chilling tone.  To my ears, it sounded like: “I f*cking hate you.” 

Click here to read the entire post (and to see the rather surreal selection of photos that accompanies it).

Brooklyn-style dog

Actual dog

Now let's continue our conversation with Brienne Walsh:

2 or 3 lines: Brienne, you know how much I enjoy reading your blog, A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.  Speaking of blogs, I know you're a huge fan of 2 or 3 lines.  In your opinion, what is it exactly that makes 2 or 3 lines so special?  Don't hold anything back -- be honest!

Brienne:  I love 2 or 3 lines because even though we've never met, you seem like you're middle-aged, and you still love hip hop!  It's sort of awesome!

[NOTE:  I'm sure Brienne meant that answer to be complimentary, but it is  depressing.  I'm not middle-aged, I'm old -- or, as Brienne might put it, "f*cking old" -- so I should be happy to be described as middle-aged.  But I'm not happy to be described that way.  I'm not happy at all.]

2 or 3 lines:  There are a lot of interesting female rappers out there today -- most of whom are even  dirtier than their male counterparts.  You introduced me to Iggy Azalea, whose song "Work" was the subject of the previous 2 or 3 lines.  Iggy looks a little like Gwen Stefani, but I think her rap style is more reminiscent of Nicki Minaj.  Are you a fan of Nicki's?

Nicki Minaj

Brienne:  My favorite female rap moment is Nicki Minaj rapping on Kanye West's track "Monster."  I'm also into Azaelia Banks's "Harlem Shakes" video.  I aspire to twerk like her in that video.

Click here to read the 2 or 3 lines post featuring Nicki's "Did It On 'Em."

2 or 3 lines:  What other music are you listening to these days?  You like new stuff, old stuff . . . ?

Brienne:  I'm listening to Kanye West's Yeezus and the Solange EP right now. [NOTE: Solange Knowles is Beyoncé's younger sister.]   The rest of it, I won't tell you, because it's too embarrassing.  I have terrible taste in music. 

2 or 3 lines:  Final question.  Where do you envision your writing career going in the future?  Where do you see Brienne Walsh in ten years?

Brienne:  I want to write for the New Yorker.  I want to be Joan Didion.  I want to be David Sedaris.  I want to be Julie Hecht.  I want to be James Salter.  I think I can do it as long as I don't sabotage myself emotionally.  I have the luck of the Irish on my side. 

Novelist James Salter

2 or 3 lines:  Oops, I almost forgot.  I want to ask you about Kim Kardashian -- I know you find her fascinating, and so do I.  Plus I need an excuse to insert this pic, which always does wonder for my page view numbers.

You once wrote this about Kim:  "It’s no secret that I love Kim Kardashian. I love her so much I made a nickname for her: Kimmy K.  I love her so much, I check her Instagram up to 50 times a day.  I love her so much that if she doesn’t leave the house, I know it, and want to call 311 in New York to ask them why."

What is it about Kim that is so intriguing to you?

Brienne:  For that, I will refer you to my Kim Kardashian post.

Click here to read Brienne's post, "On Kim Kardashian and Her Pregnancy Weight."

She's hot but struggles with things that the average girl struggles with -- weight, dressing for her body, criticism, bad relationships. I guess she is average in all ways, except for the fact that she's gorgeous and extremely famous. 

2 or 3 lines:  Brienne, thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed for 2 or 3 lines.  If you ever want to interview me for the Village Voice, or feature 2 or 3 lines on the Huffington Post, just ask -- always happy to do you a solid!

Brienne:  It was my pleasure, and I can't wait to interview you considering that I just found out that you're a famous lawyer, and friend of the guys at Rap Genius.

"Monster" was the third single from Kanye West's 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart and sold almost half a million copies in the first week after it was released.  Many critics ranked it as the best album of 2010 on their year-end lists.

Baby papa Kanye, baby mama Kim

"Monster" brings together an impressive group of musicians -- in addition to Kim Kardashian's baby papa, Kanye West, it features Bon Iver, Rick Ross, Jay-Z, and the larger-than-life Nicki Minaj.

Nicki was a relatively new artist when "Monster" was released.  In fact, at the time this song was recorded, she had yet to release an album of her own. 

But she had proved in her guest appearances on other rappers' songs -- like Ludacris's "My Chick Bad" and "Bottoms Up," by Trey Songz -- that she could steal the show in just one verse.  As she says in "Monster,"

So let me get this straight

Wait -- I'm the rookie?

But my features and my shows ten times your pay?

Fifty K for a verse, no album out

Kanye didn't let egos get in the way of talent when it came to assigning verses to the rappers who contributed to "Monster."  He let Nicki anchor "Monster" over established superstars like Jay-Z and himself, which is a tribute to his musical perspicacity.

Nicki absolutely pones all the other featured artists on "Monster."  She crushes them.  

Click here to listen to "Monster":

Kanye West, Jay-Z & Nicky Minaj - Monster - Official Music Video (Final Version) sur wat.tv

Click here to buy the song from Amazon:

Steppenwolf -- "Monster/Suicide/America" (1969)

'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy

Now their vote is a meaningless joke

Only two weeks left in the 2012 campaign – we're getting down to the short strokes, boys and girls!

"Monster/Suicide/America" is from Steppenwolf's 1969 album of the same name.    The group's first three albums all made it into the top ten in the U.S., but Monster peaked at #17 and was the first Steppenwolf not to feature a top ten single.

The three-part title of the song reflects the fact that it consists of three somewhat disparate segments joined together.  But let's just refer to it as "Monster" – OK?

"Monster" is nine minutes, fifteen seconds long, and I remember hearing it on the radio a number of times the year it was released.  I'm pretty sure the station I heard it on was KWTO-560, an AM station in Springfield, Missouri, that played a lot of rock album tracks before that format had become popular.  (The other l-o-n-g song I remember hearing on KWTO was "Midnight Rambler" by the Rolling Stones.  KWTO was a great station.)

Songs with political themes were fairly common in 1969, and "Monster" is certainly a political song.  It  summarizes the entire history of the United States, warts and all – it decries witch-burning, slavery, the displacement of native Americans, the Civil War, and so on.  

But the song saves most of its bile for contemporary American society:

The cities have turned into jungles

And corruption is strangling the land

The police force is watching the people

And the people just can't understand

Not surprisingly, the song alludes to the Vietnam War:

We don't know how to mind our own business

'Cause the whole world's got to be just like us

Now we are fighting a war over there

No matter who's the winner we can't pay the cost

In 1969, we had no idea that American involvement in Vietnam would drag on for several more years.  It officially ended in May 1975 – not quite eleven years after the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001 – so it has lasted longer than the war in Vietnam.  

The number of American troops in Afghanistan grew gradually under the Bush Administration.  There were roughly 34,000 soldiers in Afghanistan when President Obama was inaugurated.  Obama ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan as part of a planned "surge" in troop levels within weeks of his swearing-in.  

There were 71,000 American soldiers there at the beginning of 2010, and almost 100,000 there at the beginning of 2011.  The gradual withdrawal of those troops began late in 2011.

American troops in Afghanistan

Joe Biden got a little confused a few weeks ago, telling a New Hampshire audience that there were 650,000 troops left in Afghanistan.  There are actually about 68,000 soldiers left in Afghanistan.  

President Obama has said that the drawdown of American forces will continue through 2014, but about 20,000 troops will stay in Afghanistan – perhaps for years to come.  (The week before the Democratic convention, Obama mistakenly said that "[w]e will have them all out of there by 2014," but his press secretary later said that "[h]e never said that all the troops would be out.")

When he originally announced the withdrawal plans in June 2011, the President declared that the U.S. had largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan.  But everything that I've read indicates that the Afghan government will likely lose control over more and more of the country to local warlords as the Americans leave.

Here's what Michael Cohen, a former Democratic speechwriter, had to say about how Obama would likely handle the Afghanistan issue during the rest of the campaign:

He will take credit for winding down the war, he will claim that the surge blunted the Taliban's momentum – which is partially true – and he'll argue that Afghanistan is on its way to security and stability – which is not really true, but isn't quite a lie either.  That things are falling apart and that the administration is making no effort to ensure that there is a viable political process after we withdraw combat troops – I'm guessing that won't come up.

I'm guessing that's a pretty good guess.

There's been almost no substantive discussion of Afghanistan in the campaign to date.  It's an unpopular war, and both candidates seem to prefer just to pretend that it doesn't exist.  

The third and final presidential debate – which took place last night – was supposed to focus on foreign policy, so perhaps there was some discussion of Afghanistan during it.

I have no idea, because I didn't watch a minute of that debate.  I'm a big baseball fan, and I was watching the World Series.

You say the World Series doesn't begin until tomorrow night?  OK, OK – I told a little white lie.  To tell the truth, I wouldn't have been watching the World Series even if it had been on last night. 

I was hoping for a St. Louis win so I could rant about a World Series matching the 5th-best team in the National League and the 7th-best team in the American League.

The Cardinals lost their division to the Reds by nine games – their regular-season record was much worse than any of the other NL playoff teams.  If they hadn't added a second wild-card team this year, the Cardinals would have been on the golf course a couple of weeks ago.

And the Tigers were even worse.  If the Tigers had been in either the AL East or the AL West, they wouldn't have finished first – or second – or even third.  They would have finished FOURTH.  Their only hope of sneaking into the playoffs this year was to win the AL Central.  That shouldn't have been much of a test, considering that the other teams in that division are the White Sox, the Twins, the Royals, and the Indians – whose cumulative won-loss record was 66 games below .500.

I vividly remember the 1968 Tigers-Cardinals World Series.  The Cardinals were led that year by their unhittable pitcher, Bob Gibson (who had 28 complete games, 13 shutouts, and a 1.12 regular-season ERA – all of which were truly mind-boggling accomplishments).  They had a 3-1 lead in the Series after Gibson shut out the Tigers (and hit a home run) in game four.

Bob Gibson and Lou Brock

But the Redbirds proceeded to lose three games in a row, including Gibson's start in game seven.  It was the third-most shocking baseball game I've ever seen.

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Click here to listen to "Monster/Suicide/America."

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.