i'll tell you what you can do with your britney spears
I won my first Super Smash Bros Melee tournament yesterday afternoon in the Willets (some dorm at my school) lounge, fielding Peach the whole time. It was fun, especially considering my previous tournament experience. After ignominious elimination from the free-for-all bracket, I joined the 2v2 tournament with my friend Ben from down the hall, who plays Ganondorf.
This is Ganondorf:
This is Princess Peach:
so in case you aren't familiar with the characters, they make a cute couple, where by cute I mean inexplicable. Ganondorf's slow and vulnerable but does a lot of damage, while Peach is more balanced with faster attacks. We played a defensive game, staying close together and controlling the center of the screen in such a manner that anyone who wanted to jump in and attack us was likely to take more damage than they inflicted. Ben and I won about $10 each.
That night from 10pm to 2am was the Mary Lyon Halloween party. It is the largest most drunken party of the year and it takes place at the driest dorm on campus, where the kids who don't like big parties live. You can see the underlying tension here. My costume was "the DJ." I had a huge podium-o-DJ-equipment, giant speakers, and CD's, and then I played music for 2 hours. It was really convincing. Here's what I played:
1 "Vietnam" Jimmy Cliff
2 "Feel Good Inc." Gorillaz ft. De La Soul
3 "La vie est belle" MC Solaar
4 "Method Man" Wu-Tang Clan
5 "The Harder They Come" Jimmy Cliff
6 "Funky Kingston" Toots & The Maytals, Bootsy Collins, & The Roots
7 "We Got the Beat" Talib Kweli & Res
8 "Supporting Me … for Biolizard" Sonic Team
9 "2137" DJ Afrika Bambaataa
10 "DARE" Gorillaz
11 "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood/Esmerelda Suite" Santa Esmerelda starring Leroy Gomez
12 "Got That Vibe" DJ Afrika Bambaataa ft. King Kamonzi
13 "Planet Rock" DJ Afrika Bambaata & the Soul Sonic Force
14 "What Is A Booty" Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
15 "Thought @ Work" The Roots
16 "The Rooster" Big Boi
17 "Bam Bam" Toots & The Maytals, Shaggy & Rahzel
18 "Beware of the Boys (Mundian to Bach Ke)" Panjabi MC
19 "Grippo" Saul Williams
20 "Soul Makossa" DJ Afrika Bambaataa
21 "Me Myself And I" De La Soul
22 "Jogi" Panjabi MC
23 "V.I.P." The Jungle Brothers
24 "Rosa Parks" OutKast
25 "The Seed (2.0)" The Roots
26 "Hey Ya!" André 3000
27 "California Love (Original Version)" Tupac Shakur
28 "Power To The People" Public Enemy
Again, improvement over previous DJ experiences, although I am not experienced at this kind of thing. The equipment we rented from Rattech didn't have a subwoofer, which was severely ghetto; but people liked the music well enough--although no night of spinning goes by without at least one exchange of this variety (here quoted directly):
"Grippo" playing in background.
Drunk Girls: CAN YOU PLAY SOME BRITNEY SPEARS?
Lula with cursory glance at playlist, even though I already know the answer is: No.
Drunk Girls: BUT YOU CAN'T DANCE TO THIS!
Lula: Sure you can. You need me to demonstrate?
Drunk Girls: YEAH, SHOW US!
Lula busts a move so fly they can't understand it.
Drunk girls: THAT'S NOT … uhm … NO! Whatever that means.
And then there's always one of these (also quoted directly):
"Soul Makossa" playing in background.
Girl: Can you play some hip-hop, or R&B?
Lula: Um, this is DJ Afrika Bambaataa. He invented hip-hop. But sure.
And one of these (quoted, um, loosely):
"Some good song" playing in background.
Drunken Fucker: Can you play some rap song which isn't very good, but it's always on the radio instead of the good music that Lula likes? Because I can't dance to this shit.
Lula: First, let me fix your last statement--you can't dance FOR shit, because you clearly wouldn't know a beat if it beat you around the head and shoulders. Second of all, you're intoxicated, and it doesn't matter to you WHERE the beat is because you are just going to wriggle drunkenly no matter what is played. Third of all, do not get up in my face telling me to play some rap music when I am PLAYING some rap music, because I know for a FACT that you are not listening to the lyrics, and if you were then I could write you a ten-page essay with FOOTNOTES detailing why your taste in rap sucks, CHICAGO MANUAL STYLE. In conclusion, get a life, get some rhythm, and get some social skills that are not the result of alcohol, and maybe you'll find that you can dance to good music too. Now fuck off before I start to get racist.
Lula, in Real Life This Time: Yeah, it's coming up in a couple of songs. It isn't.
I think this makes me a bad DJ, because I care about my own taste in music above the crowd's. But I still want to find the golden mean between what the sea of drunken bodies wants and what I want, and I can't help but come at it from my side and not theirs. Regardless of drunken unpleasantness, I still like the ML Halloween party. It closes the gap between campus and ML (well, it's supposed to, anyway), and it is a force of balance--a balance that comes at the expense of our floors, bathrooms, and freedom to sleep, but still. I was disappointed that I didn't get to dance much--too many people, no space to play, and no one with whom to dance; and there's a sad clarity that comes from being in the sober minority at a party, but I'm used to that by now. I was worried about some other stuff too, and I've been feeling kinda lonely recently, so altogether I went to bed pretty upset. This Halloween party business deserves some more thought.
This is Ganondorf:
This is Princess Peach:
so in case you aren't familiar with the characters, they make a cute couple, where by cute I mean inexplicable. Ganondorf's slow and vulnerable but does a lot of damage, while Peach is more balanced with faster attacks. We played a defensive game, staying close together and controlling the center of the screen in such a manner that anyone who wanted to jump in and attack us was likely to take more damage than they inflicted. Ben and I won about $10 each.
That night from 10pm to 2am was the Mary Lyon Halloween party. It is the largest most drunken party of the year and it takes place at the driest dorm on campus, where the kids who don't like big parties live. You can see the underlying tension here. My costume was "the DJ." I had a huge podium-o-DJ-equipment, giant speakers, and CD's, and then I played music for 2 hours. It was really convincing. Here's what I played:
1 "Vietnam" Jimmy Cliff
2 "Feel Good Inc." Gorillaz ft. De La Soul
3 "La vie est belle" MC Solaar
4 "Method Man" Wu-Tang Clan
5 "The Harder They Come" Jimmy Cliff
6 "Funky Kingston" Toots & The Maytals, Bootsy Collins, & The Roots
7 "We Got the Beat" Talib Kweli & Res
8 "Supporting Me … for Biolizard" Sonic Team
9 "2137" DJ Afrika Bambaataa
10 "DARE" Gorillaz
11 "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood/Esmerelda Suite" Santa Esmerelda starring Leroy Gomez
12 "Got That Vibe" DJ Afrika Bambaataa ft. King Kamonzi
13 "Planet Rock" DJ Afrika Bambaata & the Soul Sonic Force
14 "What Is A Booty" Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
15 "Thought @ Work" The Roots
16 "The Rooster" Big Boi
17 "Bam Bam" Toots & The Maytals, Shaggy & Rahzel
18 "Beware of the Boys (Mundian to Bach Ke)" Panjabi MC
19 "Grippo" Saul Williams
20 "Soul Makossa" DJ Afrika Bambaataa
21 "Me Myself And I" De La Soul
22 "Jogi" Panjabi MC
23 "V.I.P." The Jungle Brothers
24 "Rosa Parks" OutKast
25 "The Seed (2.0)" The Roots
26 "Hey Ya!" André 3000
27 "California Love (Original Version)" Tupac Shakur
28 "Power To The People" Public Enemy
Again, improvement over previous DJ experiences, although I am not experienced at this kind of thing. The equipment we rented from Rattech didn't have a subwoofer, which was severely ghetto; but people liked the music well enough--although no night of spinning goes by without at least one exchange of this variety (here quoted directly):
"Grippo" playing in background.
Drunk Girls: CAN YOU PLAY SOME BRITNEY SPEARS?
Lula with cursory glance at playlist, even though I already know the answer is: No.
Drunk Girls: BUT YOU CAN'T DANCE TO THIS!
Lula: Sure you can. You need me to demonstrate?
Drunk Girls: YEAH, SHOW US!
Lula busts a move so fly they can't understand it.
Drunk girls: THAT'S NOT … uhm … NO! Whatever that means.
And then there's always one of these (also quoted directly):
"Soul Makossa" playing in background.
Girl: Can you play some hip-hop, or R&B?
Lula: Um, this is DJ Afrika Bambaataa. He invented hip-hop. But sure.
And one of these (quoted, um, loosely):
"Some good song" playing in background.
Drunken Fucker: Can you play some rap song which isn't very good, but it's always on the radio instead of the good music that Lula likes? Because I can't dance to this shit.
Lula: First, let me fix your last statement--you can't dance FOR shit, because you clearly wouldn't know a beat if it beat you around the head and shoulders. Second of all, you're intoxicated, and it doesn't matter to you WHERE the beat is because you are just going to wriggle drunkenly no matter what is played. Third of all, do not get up in my face telling me to play some rap music when I am PLAYING some rap music, because I know for a FACT that you are not listening to the lyrics, and if you were then I could write you a ten-page essay with FOOTNOTES detailing why your taste in rap sucks, CHICAGO MANUAL STYLE. In conclusion, get a life, get some rhythm, and get some social skills that are not the result of alcohol, and maybe you'll find that you can dance to good music too. Now fuck off before I start to get racist.
Lula, in Real Life This Time: Yeah, it's coming up in a couple of songs. It isn't.
I think this makes me a bad DJ, because I care about my own taste in music above the crowd's. But I still want to find the golden mean between what the sea of drunken bodies wants and what I want, and I can't help but come at it from my side and not theirs. Regardless of drunken unpleasantness, I still like the ML Halloween party. It closes the gap between campus and ML (well, it's supposed to, anyway), and it is a force of balance--a balance that comes at the expense of our floors, bathrooms, and freedom to sleep, but still. I was disappointed that I didn't get to dance much--too many people, no space to play, and no one with whom to dance; and there's a sad clarity that comes from being in the sober minority at a party, but I'm used to that by now. I was worried about some other stuff too, and I've been feeling kinda lonely recently, so altogether I went to bed pretty upset. This Halloween party business deserves some more thought.