Golddigger

"Golddigger" -- Kanye West (Late Registration, 2005)
On the way home from piano lessons, Haley asked me to play Outkast's "The Way You Move"---its in heavy rotation at Rob's "Daddy Dance Parties" and it has a really infectious groove so I was happy to comply after an hour of quarter note, two pitch song lessons. Yeah, the rap portion is risque but it takes something more than a 6- or 8-year old perspective to get it so its not a problem---plus the mix is such that those parts are really hard to catch.

So we sang and "danced", as did Kimo the hula dude. As it finished, Anna asked if I'd play "the golddigger song"...I was a little confused but after a couple of minutes I realized that she was referring to the Kanye West song you are hopefully hearing now.

(She did me wrong)
Now I aint sayin she a gold digger (When I'm Need)
But she aint messin wit no broke niggaz
(She did me wrong)
Now I aint sayin she a gold digger (When I'm need)
but she aint messin wit no broke niggaz
get down girl go head get down (I gotta leave)
get down girl go head get down (I gotta leave)
get down girl go head get down (I gotta leave)
get down girl go head

Rob bought Kanye's cd a couple of months ago. It is NOT an album for children or anyone who might have trouble distinguishing between fact and fiction---lots of misogynist and racist stuff---you might want to check out Drew's recent post on racism and scrutiny of internal dialogues. The thing is that the song is relentlessly catchy and you can't help but enjoy it. Apparently Rob played it in the car on the way down to switch out kids for piano lessons and upon hearing only once, Haley and Anna were both singing "I ain't sayin' she a gold digger..."---so how many more times would it take for them to continue...?

Word Nerds
So this reminds me of one of my favorite podcasts, the Word Nerds. I find lots of reasons to enjoy their chatter, not least among them is their recurring feature "Rude Word of the Week"---not always curse words. They did a nice (and funny) discussion of why it is most folks under the age of 35 don't get the vulgarity of the euphemism that something "sucks". Its a slippery slope with some kinds of expressions. I say that things suck with a fair amount of frequency but I do know what the original context is for that expression and I'm fairly successful in refraining from its use in polite circumstances. And that's the problem with songs like "Gold Digger"---kids hearing it in 2006 are not likely to understand how volatile some of the ideas and language are. And they can unwittingly stumble into conflicts over the references and those kinds of situations potentially damage the understanding of differences... so Rob and I talked (again) about Kanye West. If I have to listen to sports radio when I ride with him in the Lexus, so do the girls.

President and Terrorist
How's this for a shift in the collective American psyche: all zillion of the neighborhood kids were outdoors playing together yesterday---I love it when that happens. They were playing "President and Terrorist"---essentially an updated, over-informed version of Cowboys and Indians. I could not believe it. There appeared to be four roles playing out: The President(s) (the younger girls), the Terrorists (all the boys), the Secret Service (the older athletic girls) and the water girl (gap-girl). Yep---we figure this last role came right out of the Clinton Administration.

Budding Musicians
We had a BALL at piano lessons. Lindsay is a little timid in her group but she gets the rhythm stuff and was easily identifying middle C on the keyoard by the end of the lesson. Haley and Anna did great in their session and are playing a simple little ditty with thumb and first right finger. I'm lovin' it. I think we'll play some duets later; I'll pull out my flute. This may be my favorite Mommy thing to date. I'm very excited and so are they.

Ciao