I wanted to hear various opinions about how long to stay away from MGM properties in Vegas. I’ll try to keep the context brief:
10 months ago: flat bet while playing rated (unfortunate mistake at the beginning of my career)
Continue playing unrated at all other MGM properties for months. Notice a decline in comps. Play rated at a different property, flat betting for one hour. Comps increase. Return to unrated play; decide to boost comps again, flat bet but begin spreading to 2 hands during positive counts. Backed off within 10 minutes. Ask MLife desk, they confirm that my account is flagged for a “security call” at table games.
Keep playing unrated, return to casino from 10 months ago. Play one shoe spreading 1-12 ($25 unit). Within a few hands of the next shoe am told “no more blackjack, and if you play unrated again we will 86 you.”
Play BJ unrated at another property the next day where I have never been backed off. Pit addresses me by name, says I’m flat bet; returns a few minutes later and says “after further consideration no more blackjack at any MGM properties.”
It’s been about a month, planning to return to Vegas. Should I avoid all properties from this chain or play short sessions at properties I didn’t hit on that last trip? How long do you tend to stay away after a Vegas back off? I give 6+ months at non-Vegas properties but usually only a couple of weeks on the strip.
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“I can't believe this is my eighth studio album and I know I keep telling you that it is my most personal record yet, but its true and I'm really proud of that”
This
quote from
The Legendary Miss Britney Spears would most likely haunt her for the rest of the career, especially because it came in the eve of the release of her infamous 2013 album
Britney Jean, whose title anticipated a rare introspective look into a star with over a decade on the spotlight (most of the times for the wrong reasons)… also, it came right after her previous album, 2011’s
Femme Fatale, became her first full-length effort without any songwriting input from the Princess of Pop, although a Japanese bonus track features a co-writing credit from her.
Of course
Britney Jean deserves most of the criticism it receives and yet, it also deserves way more than just being outright ignored even by most of Britney’s diehard fans:
Britney Jean is more than just
Work Bitch and 13 b-sides, is more than Brit’s most dated-on-arrival release… Britney Jean is a case study of what was pop in its time, what changed and why it stopped being as popular as it once was….
POP BEFORE BRITNEY JEAN
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Early 00s pop music was being left aside by the general public during the heydays of gangsta rap, Timbaland/Pharrell-infused R&B and rock/nu-metal… at least until around the period between 2007 and 2009, the start of the Golden Era for
popheads: The anthemic choruses, the prominent synths, the light and care-free nature of the lyrics, everything was there to pump you up and make you dance… however everything would change in 2013, when streaming was finally introduced to the Billboard formula. After the satirical K-pop track
Gangnam Style by Psy took the world by storm, it was noticed how in the United States the song was blocked from the top spot by the inconsequential
One More Night by Maroon 5, even if
Style had the lead in sales for most of the 12 weeks it stayed at the Top 10 (as you might have guessed, radio had something to do with that), pushing Billboard to update their methodology and
add streaming to the mix.
The first song that benefited from the change in the tracking methodology would prophetize what would come next for the charts in general:
Harlem Shake, a nearly-instrumental meme song debuted at the top spot and stayed there for 6 weeks total. Another novelty song, Ylvis’
The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) would visit the Top 10 later in the year based on virality alone.
Although rap, indie music and more traditional pop music found their way during this year, the presence of outliers like Lorde’s
Royals, genre-defying tracks like Avicii’s
Wake Me Up! (a country/folk tinted EDM anthem) and Florida Georgia Lane’s
Cruise (considered the grandfather of the bro-country genre, made popular on pop radio thanks to a tackled-on rap feature by Nelly), and the aforementioned viral hits not only showed that general audiences were craving something new, but their success would pave the way for a big change in pop music.
BRITNEY BEFORE BRITNEY JEAN
"Sometimes you don't need to use words to go through what you need to go through, sometimes it's an emotion you need to feel when you dance, that you need to touch. And the only thing that can touch it is when you move a certain way."
Britney Spears on the For The Record documentary, one of the rare glimpses she gave us on her life before Britney Jean
Britney, of course, was partially a pioneer and a tail-rider of the maximalistic electro sound of the era,
as proven by the influence and cult following of what most people consider her magnum opus, or at least her more direct and honest album, 2007’s
Blackout, which is ironic considering that Britney only has two writing credits in the whole project and how even The Unstoppable Danja
called it ‘impersonal’.
After
Blackout, Britney would continue to ride the same sonic palette with her follow-up, 2008’s
Circus and then move onto
Femme Fatale, which, in spite of its “forward-thinking” nature (
as described by the label-appointed producer and current persona non grata Dr. Luke) and slick production, it was heavily criticized for its anonymity and lack of input of the singer in the record, which led to Britney to defend herself stating, rightfully, that she had
nothing to prove.
THE MAKING OF A PERSONAL ALBUM
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The mastermind behind
Britney Jean was none other than hitmaker will.i.am, whose involvement on the record came as a surprise to no one given how they have collaborated twice at that point and get along really well (you can read more about it
in this post I made a couple of months ago), however, the Black Eyed Peas frontman doesn’t deserves all of the credit for the record as Britney herself decided that she would be more involved and had a pivotal role into the making of this record.
Although
the early stages of the album
pointed towards a more hip-hop release, will.i.am’s involvement and her chemistry with Britney put her forward into the recording and making of the album.
Realizing that she wanted a more straightforward release that wasn’t as bouncy and genre-hopping as her predecessors, Britney
searched with will.i.am a series of collaborators that could help her bring her ideas to life, as she didn’t wanted to sing impersonal songs that her team just happened to receive; this, unfortunately, ruled out the involvement of the Saint Patron of pop production Max Martin, although it relegated Dr. Luke to a sole bonus track so that’s a win in my book.
Britney Jean is her only release in which she’s credited as a co-writer in each track, including bonus tracks… her closest before that was
In The Zone in which 9 of the 14 (including bonus) tracks sported a Britney co-write.
THE PERKS OF BEING A PERSONAL ALBUM
I have been through a lot in the past few years and it has really inspired me to dig deeper and write songs that I think everyone can relate to […] I want to show you the different sides of Britney Spears.
I am a performer.
I am a Mom.
I am funny.
I am your friend!
I am Britney Jean.
Britney Jean Spears
Britney has never been the kind of performer that would pour her soul into her lyrics, and even have occasionally distanced her private life from her lyrics (she famously rejected the Timberlake-bashing
Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, later given to ex-S Club 7 member Rachel Stevens as her debut single), although in the few glimpses we have gotten from her real persona (the stunning
Everytime and the dubious
My Baby for example) have always leaved her fans with the idea of her getting more involved with the subject matter of the tracks… I mean, the exploration of fame in tracks like
Circus and
Piece of Me are great, but what about explorations of who is Britney?
Britney Jean is her first album released in her 30s, and after finally deciding to get this involved in the songwriting department 15 years into her singing career was no fluke: chalk it up to coincidence, to the fact that it was long due given her background (Britney had lived A LOT of unwanted stuff during her career, married twice, had two kids, survived the most public mental breakdown unimaginable and more while being one of the most successful female performers currently working… also, that year she had ended her engagement with her manager Jason Trawick) or to misogyny (if you wanna go there) but female singers seems to go personal and/or mature in their 30s, with some popular examples including Madonna’s
Like A Prayer (described by her as being "
about my mother, my father, and bonds with my family"), Mariah Carey’s post-divorce genre-bender
Butterfly (if her birth year is believed to be 1969), Beyoncé’s whole post-Matthew Knowles era (
4 was released three months before she turned 30), Nicki Minaj’s back-to-my-roots release
The Pinkprint and Katy Perry’s purposeful woke pop release
Witness (Katy, I love you but 💀) among others.
Another thing to consider is that doing “personal” songs have always being interpreted as tracks with stripped-away or piano-driven arrangement, something that Britney, who had sung about being on the club or having sex (or even both on the same track) so many times it kinda become her trademark, is not something she’s might get allowed to do, especially when the current-at-the-time pop scene and Britney’s then-current sound were a far cry from the kind of sound these “confessional” tell-all songs normally have.
#BritneyPleaseSavePopMusic
(this was a real hashtag that was worldwide trending topic on Twitter in September 2013) With the anticipation of what a Britney-fied personal record would sound like, anticipation was in an all-time high among fans… so it was natural that her most introspective record would be anchored with an EDM song called
Work Bitch. In Britney’s defense, will.i.am pointed out
almost immediately how the braggadocio track didn’t represented the album but it was rather about Britney Spears herself.
Promoted with what was heavily
rumored to be a 6.5-million-dollars budgeted video which was
supposedly heavily sanitized from its originally sexed-up original version (more on that later), the video itself represented most of the promotion the whole album received, as the album’s second and final single (
Perfume) was left to rot in negligence after the album’s release.
Outside of a couple of TV appearances (not performances, just interviews), including one to promote her then-upcoming “2-year” Las Vegas residency Britney Spears: Piece of Me, and an E! documentary about the making-of the album and said residency, no actual promotion took place for Britney Jean, which led to the inevitable.
BRITNEY UNLEASHES HER MOST “PERSONAL” ALBUM
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Britney Jean was unleashed to the world on December 3rd of 2013, one day after the Princess’ birthday, and was a big commercial disappointment,
debuting at number 4 on Billboard with sales of 107,000 copies (a little bit more than a third of the sales of
Femme Fatale), even lower than those of her debut album
…Baby One More Time; 3 years after its release,
BJ had sold less in the United States than
FF in its opening week, although it was
eventually certified Gold by the RIAA… this February. Internationally, the release didn’t fare any better and debuted at record-low positions for her releases in most international markets, including missing the Top 30 in the UK.
As most of you already know, reviews we’re nasty all around, the worst of Britney’s career. Because of the
somewhat mean content of some of those reviews, I would instead resume what are the biggest perks critics had with the release:
- The album’s production (carried mostly by will.i.am protégé Anthony Preston, who hasn’t done anything ever since) was considered monotone, repetitive, dated, backward-thinking, overproduced and by-the-numbers. The album, full, on EDM beats and synthesizers, doesn’t really have that much of a breathing spot as there’s not that much of musical variety.
- Lyrically, the album was considered a disappointment considered its nature as a “personal album”, with the lyricism being considered somewhat superficial given the self-titled naming and Britney’s hype surrounding the content itself.
- Vocally, Britney Jean was ripped apart by critics and even some listeners. When the opening track’s autotune-less “warm up” vocal sessions leaked in 2014, critics complained about Britney’s (lack of) vocal talent and added fuel to the debate about wherever she’s actually talented at all, accusations that the song producer William Orbit dismissed.
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE, MISS BRITNEY SPEARS
After one of the songs leaked ahead of the album’s release,
there were accusations that backing vocalist Myah Marie (who had appeared on Brit’s previous two albums) was the lead singer not only on said leaked track but also in a large portion of the album (
this is what she sounds like), accusations that Marie
herself denied as well as Britney’s reps.
Her representatives claimed that Marie wasn’t involved in neither
Perfume nor
Passenger, the tracks that were
the source of most of the controversy, and ultimately she wasn’t credited in none of those songs, although she’s credited as a (not background) vocalist in several of the other tracks of the album (mostly the Preston-produced songs as
Work Bitch,
Tik Tik Boom,
Til It's Gone,
Chillin' With You and
Now That I Found You), including
Alien (in which she’s not credited), who
had a vocal steam leak in 2014 which showcases how uncanny is Myah’s
impression of Britney is. A credited background singer is Sia in her co-composed single
Perfume, which was the source of a weird misstep when Britney was caught lip-syncing to a version of the song with
Sia’s vocals forefront in the mix.
A lot has been said about how
Britney’s signature singing ‘baby’ voice is not her real one, how do
they compare and
how much damage has done to Brit’s current vocal chops, and even though she
can still sing wherever she wants to, it’s quite obvious that she’s not that comfortable with it and, as such, she prefers to enhance her voice with the use of technology and some studio trickery… also, she might have gotten used to it considering how effortless and vivid were her earlier performances…
here’s I’m A Slave 4 U at the 2001 VMAs just because how iconic it is.
BRITNEY JEAN… BY BRITNEY JEAN SPEARS
"People can take everything away from you, but they can never take away your truth.
The question is: Can you handle mine?"
Britney Spears in a song that’s not from this album and not originally from her
Described by critics as “
a concept album about the loneliness of pop life”,
Britney Jean actually open with quite a promise with
Alien, a mid-tempo, melancholic, airy, ethereal dance pop opener that works as a more teenage-sounding version of
Ray of Light, which is not surprising considering the involvement of said album’s mastermind (the aforementioned William Orbit) and that sonically picks-up where
FF closer
Criminal left off, but lyrically is quite different, as it portrays Britney having an intimate and personal realization that she, after years of tumultuous and erratic events, has lost grip of who she was and how she felt like an extraterrestrial in her own world; however she realizes that she’s not longer alone as she looks at the glow in the stars as a light to guide her home away from her insecurities of the past, and to feel safe and finally finding comfort in her true skin, as the chorus repeats the catchphrase ‘
not alone’ “
until it is pitchshifted up like a departing space ship”
Originally intended to include Gaga in the song (and also
supposed to be released as a single, which unfortunately didn’t happened),
Alien was considered the conceptual and musical highlight of the project by critics, and is easily the most personal, vulnerable and my personal highlight of the project… which made everything that came afterward a hard pill to swallow. Before that, I can’t help to mention THE GLITCH (
2:14 in the song), which was
apparently, as everything wrong with music of the period, will.i.am’s fault.
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Work Bitch (alternatively known in censored form as
Work Work, or in the explicit version as
Bitch Bitch) is a hard hitting EDM smasher and heavy mood-whiplash, which was definitely
not co-written by Sebastian Ingrosso, in which Britney gently asks us (over a basic club beat which grows more overloaded as the song moves forward) is we want a hot body, an European luxury car (either a
Bugatti, a
Maserati or a
Lambo skirrt skirrt skirrt) or to sip martinis while partying in a big mansion in France, only to disappoint us by calling us bitches and telling us to better work as if we were supermodels and
she was RuPaul.
WB is, if
you wanna practice some mental gymnastics, more ‘personal’ than its given credit for, as Britney details how much benefits she gets from hustling all these years, and inviting us to dance with that smashing wall-of-sound-laden beat that drowns most of the track. Way more forward-thinking and exciting that everything that comes after it,
WB has become somewhat of a new classic for the Princess of Pop, and is pretty much deserved of said designation.
Perfume, co-written by Sia, is another album highlight (
actually Britney’s favorite from the album) and one of the finest ballads of Brit’s late-catalogue. Written about her ex-fiancé Jason Trawick, the song deals with Britney’s insecurity about a current relationship, with Britney singing with some of her strongest vocals in years about how she believes that her partner is cheating on her and how she puts on her perfume in order to mark her territory. Released with a tie-in with her perfume Fantasy, the song kinda flopped worldwide and halted all of the promotion of the album, however it still remains (alongside the rawer
Dreaming Mix, included as a bonus track) as one of the most interesting songs in 2010s Britney catalogue.
The music video, directed by known troll and middling talented videomaker Joseph Khan, has an unreleased director’s cut in which the straightforward concept of a cheating partner
is changed to that of Britney playing the Angelina Jolie role in a gone-wrong version of
Mr. and Mrs. Smith sans the boyfriend who is also an assassin.
It Should Be Easy finds Britney’s voice drown in both the auto-tune setting used by Kanye for the
Runaway coda and the vocals of guest-star will.i.am in the chorus, all while produceco-writer David Guetta rehashes Swedish House Mafia (which originally broke up the same year in which
BJ was released). The song, about Britney imagining a bright-normal-future with a man who had stolen her heart, stating that love “
shouldn't be complicated”. Although I like this song, and her team obviously likes it to as it commissioned remixes to be serviced to clubs, it signals when things start to go somewhat downhill.
Tik Tik Boom, the T.I.-assisted fifth track, was always dubbed as a potential third single (remixes were commissioned but nothing official ever came up), and it’s not hard to see why: as one of her rare collaborations with a rapper, the static-y, dance-floor ready production presents Britney teasing a male partner with a night of… well… tik tik boom… that means sex, doing so while serving some circa-2001 sexy vocals as T.I. raps about treating her like an animal up to the point that PETA (
which hates Britney) should be called in response. It’s fast, it’s straightforward and yet, it’s kinda forgettable and also very disappointing coming from or Princess Urbanney.
Guetta comes back with
Body Ache, another outdated EDM bop in which Brit (accompanied by vocoder and several dozens of vocal distortion treatments) sings about the kind of ‘I wanna dance so hard it gonna turn you on’ anthem which Miss Spears can do on her sleep, with a backtrack that sounds straight out of the EDM will.i.am was doing with the Peas during the Beginning/E.N.D. era. Also it ends in a somewhat anticlimactic way.
Personal Britney makes a return with this track that wouldn’t be too out of place in
FF: The Guetta co-written
Til It’s Gone, in which Brit realizes that, after losing the love of her life (Trawick), her life would never be the same, or how “
you never know what you got 'til it's gone”. Coming some two years to late sonically, in terms of lyrics the track it’s another story, as some interesting imagery pops here and there and it’s nice to leave the dance floor behind, especially when talking about a woman who (at least in the previous albums) rarely shut up about them.
Katy Perry arrives on the record but not as a feature, but as a writer, in the Diplo-produced, Sia-co-written and
Prism outtake
Passenger, in which some interesting EDM beats moves out of the way after the opening (they come back, don’t worry) to reveal a refreshing and very welcome electropop rock song with some great Britney vocals about letting someone to guide her after she’s willing to let herself be his ‘passenger’. Great lyrics, daring production, good vocal performance… it’s not hard to see why critics loved this track so much, and it’s a shame it gets buried among so much underwhelming stuff.
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Chillin’ with You, the album’s most infamous moment, finds Britney dueting with her sister, ex-Nickelodeon star and attempted country singer Zoey Meredith Brooks, about hanging out together and drinking wine (Brit likes red, Chase Matthews' ex likes white wine) while, as the southern white suburban moms they are, they feel they have nothing else to worry about. Although the lyrics are… well… cute, and the subject matter is decidedly novel by Britney’s standards, the mixture of country and EDM doesn’t mash as well as the producers might had expected… also, the fact that their vocals were so obviously recorded in different sessions (as showed by the kind of chemistry you only see
in cheesy 70s movies starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin) makes the whole ordeal so surreal.
The album closer in the standard edition is
Don’t Cry, a FUCK YOU MR. TRAWICK song in which Britney reassures his man that it’s not worthy to cry as their relationship was always directed to end no matter what they do, and how she’s gonna go to not see him all tear eyed. The bouncy but subdued dubstep back track by pop goblin and producer will.i.am enhances what is arguably Britney’s best vocals in the whole album and some really nice lyrics which still doesn’t work as an album closer.
Sia comes back in the first bonus track of the deluxe edition,
Brightest Morning Star, and she brings with her current pop Pariah (that would be Dr. Luke, but he’s only in this track) to the mix, on a
track about God (or
maybe about her kids, according to Dr. Puke), or at least one that implies to be one; in Sia’s words: ‘
Britney was extremely sweet. She came in with the title ‘Brightest Morning Star’ and told me that’s how Jesus found his way. She wanted to write a kind of gospel song that wasn’t ramming it down your throat’. Despite the good intentions,
BGS is no
Jesus Walks and it gets short in the musical department, with a surprisingly weak instrumental which doesn’t do any good service to the song.
Britney continues her religious quest with
Hold on Tight, a mid-tempo ballad that in which Miss Spears details how God comes into her dreams (or it might be an
Incubus?) showing her the path to righteousness, even when the road is not as friendly with her, and… to be honest, this is my least favorite song on the album, it’s just so forgettable even if it’s quite refreshing in the context of
BJ.
To end the evening, Britney continues her unintentional audition to become a gospel singer with
Now That I Found You, a shameless EDM track (with early-10s euphoric drop and everything) about how incomplete she was until she found Him (to be honest, this could also be another love song, but after two bonus tracks about God it’s easy to see where she was pointing towards with the vague lyrics) and how everything is better now. Unlike the forgettable predecessors,
NTIFY is fun (dated? Sure… but also fun), it’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s happy, and one of my favorite songs on the record… even if co-writer Guetta basically ripped off his own hit
Without You from 3 years before.
u/radiofan15’s UNWANTED OPINION ABOUT BRITNEY JEAN
Britney Jean is not an autobiography, it’s not a tell-all gossip-venting machine, it’s a clean, overproduced product of misdirection and lack of focus… and yet it’s actually fascinating in several ways: it’s arguably the greatest resume you would find of how pop music sounded in between 2008 and 2013, it’s a great bridge between the impersonal heavily-polished
Femme Fatale and the serviceable and engaging
Glory, which saw Britney leading the way on how everything would sound from the start.
It’s quite ironic how the album’s naming (taking a cue from Janet Jackson’s
Damita Jo, her actual middle name) plays against it, as self-titled releases (unless they are debut albums) are associated with being in control of your output or reinventions (pop examples includes
Paramore as their first release as a trio,
Beyoncé to fit the minimalistic sounds and Janet Jackson’s
janet. to showcase independence from the Jackson family) and unless you’re Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel or Weezer, the idea of having a second eponymous release usually means that audiences should expect to experience the performer in a never-seen before way. 2001’s
Britney was the album that give a meaning to the phrase “
I’m not that innocent” spurred in her previous effort, with lyrics talking about womanhood and sexuality being complemented with R&B vibes and rock/hip-hop elements.
Britney Jean, when compared to
Femme Fatale, is way behind the difference between
Britney and
Oops!... I Did It Again, which in retrospective is even worse as the relative freshness and reinvention of
Glory leaves the ‘openness’ and ‘variety’ of
BJ in shambles.
One of the album’s biggest mistakes is in its sequencing: the first three tracks are the obvious highlights, the next three are basically DOA EDM songs, the next four are the most “adventurous” musically speaking and the bonus tracks are all about God. Taking out some of the ‘pure club’ anthems could theoretically create an album more deserving of its ‘personal’ label, going full Spinal Tap and amp up the production values to do something crazier might have given us something that was at least digestible in a single listening.
The album, as it is, is not perfect, but it’s far from the dumpster fire more people called it, including some of the most interesting Britney songwriting in years (or even her career) and some tracks that are already started to show signs of cult classic. The only positive thing most people seems to agree with is how short it is: with the alternative mix of
Perfume included,
BJ is ‘only’ 50 minutes long (the standard edition is just 36 minutes long), which is something most performers (even today) seems to struggle with.
Also, she didn’t came to play games with the art cover and aesthetics this era, the album cover and the booklet is her most gorgeous to date, with the former having her most flattering front picture of any of her albums and the neon typography creating a very pleasing contrast with her elegant black-and-white imagery (in the deluxe edition) or the elegantly, milky pastel coloring of the standard edition.
THERE CAN BE 100 LISTENERS IN THE ROOM AND 99 LEAVE BUT ONE... - BRITNEY JEAN THE DAY IT DEBUTED
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Britney and her team gave up quite easily on
Britney Jean and, honestly, they shouldn’t be blamed: the offer to have a Vegas Residency with
a salary of $15 million dollars per year seems like the kind of offer a pop star and mother of two with enough money already for several timelines would accept, with the album itself being more of an afterthought.
Britney was originally slated to remain on the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino for two years but ultimately extended her run for another two years, before finally touring overseas (without an album attached to the performances) during 2017 and 2018.
Because of the lack of promotion,
Britney Jean underperformed when compared to Miss Spears’ previous releases, with estimated worldwide sales (as of April 2018) being close to 1.3 million copies, less than a third of
Femme Fatale’s sales.
Truth be told,
BJ flopped hard… HOWEVER, not everything would have turned out that terrible (not even in a million years it would have sold as much a
FF but at least the downfall could have been smaller) with some actual promotion and interest from Brit herself.
SOME REACHING… I MEAN… THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BRITNEY JEAN
BJ is, in my opinion, a compilation of the era, the resume of “in the previous episode of” that you get on serialized TV shows, a farewell to the bombastic era of synth-heavy EDM club anthems with gratuitous drops and interchangeable lyrics. During the genre’s opus, some performers tried to bend this sound (and their equivalents) to their benefit, either mixing it with their style or playing with the boundaries of the sound: it could be a Taylor Swift doing a
We Are Never Getting Back Together to get a broad crossover hit, a Lady Gaga mixing multiple genres to create a sonically complex pastiche called
Born This Way, or even straight-up jumping almost seamlessly from rap/R&B to club bangers like Nicki Minaj did in
Roman Reloaded. Britney in
Britney Jean did almost the opposite of that.
Britney Jean is, in some ways, a time capsule of the era in its rawest and purest form (some might differ and replace those buzzwords with generic and bland), with the average user being able to trace mostly any track to a style, influence, sub-genre or even performer. Listening to
BJ is like watching a 70s movie in VHS in an old, square TV, basically an
unintentional period piece that reflects the volatile, bombastic and extravagant style of those golden years of 2008-2013, which, within the mindset of
Britney Jean sounds kinda tired and bland, surprising no one when that branch of pop went back into obscurity and irrelevance almost as fast as grunge music did when Kurt Cobain died.
Britney Jean came up in a time of transition of popular music, with streaming showing the kind of power it had on the charts and more subdued, minimalistic music taking the world by storm. Popular music, as you might already noticed, evolved into a slower, more melodic, calculated, numb, almost anticlimatic entity which was more fitting with our current social and political climate. To
paraphrase Todd in the Shadows: 2013 had a hit literally called
Happy and 2018 had both a hit called
SAD! and another called
Happier with a video about a dog that dies.
In terms of Britneyology (both the study of Britney Spears and the religion dedicated to her persona),
BJ is also a glimpse into Britney the full-fledged artist. Britney has never been the kind of performer that gets heavily involved into her music, with Britney’s role being generally limited to the choice of songs, sequencing, development of sounds and themes with her assigned team of writers and producers, and performing of course; sometimes Britney gets involved into the heavier portions of her music (the classic
Everytime is a great example of it) but most of the time she remains quite anonymous, with her voice and choice being overwritten by the men on charge, something that became quite apparent during and after the Dark Ages (2004-2008) with the cancelling of the legendary
Original Doll, her lack of songwriting credits in both Blackout and Circus, and her much-criticized anonymity in
Femme Fatale.
BJ was Britney deciding who does want to work with, what does she wants to sing and even how to equilibrate her musical and visual persona. Britney has always being in control of how is she portrayed on official media, most famously rejecting an animated concept for the video of …Baby One More Time in favor of a Lolita-inspired take on catholic school girls, and then the slow process from jailbait to grownup woman. During the post-production of the Work Bitch video,
she clashed with director Ben Mor over the kind of content the video should show, as she was a mother in her 30s now instead of an unreachable male gaze fantasy.
With
BJ, the Legendary Miss Britney Spears showed us how much she has changed since that controversial 2003/2004 period (the last time she was that involved with an album) in which she received the Kiss of Death from Madonna, suffered her infamous accident and, of course, married twice in a calendar year. This new Britney was a much-different person, and her voice deserved to be heard, and even if the results weren’t the greatest, it was a step into the right director for Britney to get what she always wanted: being a full-fledged artist capable of taking her own decisions and learning from her mistakes.
POP AFTER BRITNEY JEAN
https://preview.redd.it/382f3hucce221.png?width=1500&format=png&auto=webp&s=b270179e2de3c085b7dd38ea838588f2f45d9e4b Coincidentally in 2014 most of the ambassadors of the dominant pop sound of the early 10s were either taking a musical break, flopping or changing lanes, so that year paved the way for the transition of what do we define as popular music, with the winners of the evolution race being trap (Fetty Wap’s
Trap Queen), meme music from awful people (Bobby Shmurda’s
Hot Nathans) or untalented losers (T-Wayne’s
Nasty Freestyle, Silentó’s
Watch Me), trop pop (OMI’s
Cheerleader, Justin Bieber’s entire
Purpose era) or whatever outlier track dared to pass through those filters.
What happened afterwards is a horror story most of
popheads tells in fire camps a la Are You Afraid of the Dark?
BRITNEY AFTER BRITNEY JEAN
Glory , the follow-up
Britney Jean, received very positives reviews and was considered a strong return-to-form for Britney, and even if it wasn’t as successful as her label might have wanted, the truth is that, at the end of the day, whatever Britney decides to do next (and considering the direction she seems to be taking) it can be as underwhelming as
Britney Jean.
https://preview.redd.it/t7rph8g4ce221.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b8d0a459f5caed0d41c087c7658cce2e79f2210 While society never quite got over the 20th century, it certainly wasn’t exactly the same for 120+ years either. Let’s go over what happened between the Divergence and the Great War.
In the 1960s, America
declared and won a war on Vietnam. It probably wasn’t televised or otherwise covered in mainstream media and therefore sparked no significant controversy. The mural in the Museum of Concord features a helicopter which was deployed in the sixties, plus the ICBMs in the Divide appear to be mounted on old Saturn V rockets.
When the oil crisis hit in the 1970s, we doubled down on nuclear power well into the Reagan administration with
Generation II fission reactors. Look at the containment spheres
in the Fallout 4 intro and across from County Crossing.
The first half of the 21st century was the Age of Poseidon Energy. Poseidon
flirted with renewable energy when they built Helios One but as petroleum dwindled, ethanol and other biofuels seemed like a better long term investment. Hundreds of Poseidon Energy refueling stations popped up along the miles of elevated highways criss-crossing the US. Poseidon brand commercial reactors appear too, supplying power grids in the
Commonwealth and the
Core Region. Before fusion was available, some gas station attendants had to wear
special hazmat suits to safely dispose of spent radioactive waste from vehicles with fission engines.
Despite claims that electronics were never miniaturized, a terminal entry in Cabot House confirms
the transistor had been invented by 2023. Transistor radios & silicon are mentioned across the franchise and ordinary nineties desktops can be seen as background props in fallout 1 & 2.
The 2016 Presidential election is won by a candidate who denounces globalism and career outsourcing in favor of business deregulation and American exceptionalism. His administration’s policies lead to a prospering manufacturing industry and a booming economy. By the late 2010s, the foremost national ideology leans towards business deregulation and American exceptionalism, eschewing globalism and career outsourcing. The policies made during this time lead to a prospering manufacturing industry and a booming economy. Fallout's America was far more industrialized than in real life, prior to being converted for wartime production there were factories in almost every town. The Pittsburgh steel industry was still going strong, and
Prometheus operated a coal mine in Utah until they sold it to the government in 2066.
2017
Clout goggles are popular.
The 2020s saw the continued usage of
switchboards, microfiches, electric typewriters and
two way wrist radios in order to prevent cyberterrorism and secure personal information.
REPCONN’s
Delta IX Rocket was commissioned in 2020. It played an important role in the Battle of the Sea of Tranquility when the US fought an unknown party on the moon. During the Resource Wars space travel was relegated to orbital missile platforms and
nuclear shuttles for the Enclave.
Robert House is born in 2020 to the founder of the
H&H tool factory in Las Vegas. His parents died in a freak accident when their helicopter was struck by lightning. He later attends MIT in 2038 after his brother Anthony cheats him out of his inheritance.
2021 Hubris Comics is established and begins publishing Grognak the Barbarian.
2025 The Lucky 38 Casino has been built by this year at the latest, going off
the new vegas intro. 2026 The Vim factory
burns down and is rebuilt. The original building is recreated next to it as a souvenir shop.
Early 2030s - Sometime around now, a room temperature superconductor is discovered. This allows the
bulky, stationary fission reactors to be replaced with
compact portable ones that can be installed in your household basement in under an hour. General Atomics’ Mister Handy, first released in 2037, requires RTSC components to function; as do
Railguns which are
slated to see real-life military use by the 2030s. In Fallout, West Tek developed the X277 “Viper” magnetic rail cannon but it was deemed impractical in 2044 and abandoned.
Nuka Cola was formulated by John-Caleb Bradberton and his beverageers following the Great Passion Fruit Famine of 2044.
In 2049, electrical engineer Karl Oslow leaves Poseidon Energy
and founds Mass Fusion, marketing a line of power distribution boxes and municipal plutonium wells. His claim to clean power is a total hoax. Beryllium-9 fusion is not clean, it produces intermittent bursts of radiation.
Mr. House graduates in 2042 and founds
Robco Industries. They begin churning out projects like the Protectron and the
64 kilobyte holotape. The
Pip-Boy 1.0 was an obvious prototype, most likely made around 2048 or so. West coast vaults received
Pip-Boy 2000s while east coasts vaults got the more advanced 3000 and Mark IV models, not being completed until much later.
Project Safehouse kicks off after
terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb in Tel Aviv, irradiating much of the Middle East. Following the New Plague outbreak and the Invasion of Mexico, a neo-gothic
version of Art Deco dominates the visual landscape. Stern steel faces stare down from the sides of buildings reflecting the authoritarian nature of society.
A ZAX series supercomputer is created in 2054, and the first truly self aware AI is switched on in 2059. At some point,
Gaston Glock’s mind is revived and uploaded to a mainframe where it continued to design weapons for the United States.
Microprocessors & integrated circuits existed by 2067 and saw
widespread military applications. Fusion is perfected in the mid to late 2060s. Consequently, energy weapons, power armor, microfusion cells and
molecular assemblers all become relatively commonplace. The first fusion driven cars hit the market in 2070; the Chryslus Corvega. Red Rocket establishes its iconic coolant refueling stations.
China invades Alaska and the
Anchorage Front Line mobilizes to defend the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline.
America annexes Canada while food riots sweep the country. Those who can afford it bury their heads in long-gone memories of 1950s Americana as the world goes to shit. The Sole Survivor settles down in the new “blast-proof” suburban projects northwest of Concord with their family. One October morning, the bombs fall.
I suspect that the 2070s culture we see is really nostalgia for 2040s nostalgia for 2010s nostalgia for 1980s nostalgia for the 1950s. (I hope that makes some kind of sense.) Modern cultural revival happens in generational cycles of about 25 years or so. For instance, lots of people associate that popular
pink-turquoise-and-chrome color scheme with the eighties, but it’s actually derived from
fifties diners. It’s not implausible to assume this trend will probably return in the 2040s, and then again 30 years after that.
The fifties influences in classic fallout feel more subdued compared to the warped caricature we see in the Bethesda games. When the first game came out twenty years ago, the Cold War was still fresh in many players’ minds, having ended less than a decade before. If they make another Fallout game in twenty years, it will feature an even more exaggerated 1950s aesthetic. As we become more separated from a time period, we tend to remember it as a mythologized over-the-top version of that time. Otherwise it ends up blending with the rest of “the past” as these differences become less and less distinct to mainstream audiences.
Maybe it’s just me, but the Fallout world seems a lot more plausible in 2018 than it did back in 2008. The future is more similar to the present than we’d like to believe. People still wear t shirts and blue jeans, they still work in brick buildings and live in houses with vinyl siding. Especially in small towns and individual neighborhoods, decades can pass with very little evidence of change. “Contemporary styles” are over fifty years old, and shall likely endure for at least as long.
So tonight was just going to be some regular ordinary night. My girlfriend asked me what we should do for dinner and I suggested we go to the casino buffet since I had free vouchers. We were both at work so we were going to meet there. Now originally I had planned on not playing at all since I was just going to have dinner but I was gonna be there about 30-45 minutes before she got there so I pull out $500 and head to the craps table.
When I got there they only had one table open where every spot was taken, but were in the process of opening a new table so I waited for them to do their thing since I hate very crowded tables.
When they were all finalized, I was the only player so I put down a $15 pass line bet (That’s the minimum here) and a $5 fire bet (I always play it, I know I know house edge blah blah blah, but I always tell myself I rather have skin in the game then miss out on a 4, 5, 6 point fire bet). Stick man passes me the dice and my first toss flys off the table. Great start huh?! I get the dice again and roll an 8. Place a 6 for $18 and next roll.........7 out. Down $38 and not even 1 minute in. Geez maybe I shouldn’t have played. Well I had time to kill so I put down $15 again and another $5 pass line bet. Still the only play so I get the dice again and hard 4. Oh good I should easily get that /s. Place a 6 and 8 for $18 each and off we go.
I roll a couple times, hit a 6, take the money and then Bam hard 4! Alright we got ourselves a point. Next roll hit that 8. A few rolls later bam 8! Ok I’m getting some money now. I’m playing 1x odds and I started pressing my place numbers by one unit each hit. Coming out! There’s the 9. Next roll.........9! Hell yeah! That’s a three point fire bet so far which pays 6-1.
Table is starting to get attention as the dealer yells back to the pit “Fire bet 3 points”. A few players come up, they start putting money on the pass and place some numbers. Coming out! And it’s a 5! Alright boys here we go let’s get this 5! Hit a couple 6 and 8s and then not long after a 5! 4-point Fire!!!! That’s 29-1 so far. Now people are coming in from all over. Every one wants in on the action. I need a 6 or 10 as the point. Coming out! And it’s a 9. Shit I already have that one. Now this is where it gets frustrating, now there’s like 10 people at this table. Throwing money at the poor stick from all around. Hop this! Hop that! Hard ways! Give me a Yo! Just completely slows this game down to a screeching halt. I’m not kidding at least 5 minutes the dice are sitting in front of stick, while the stick and dealers are figuring everything out. Finally I get the dice. I don’t even have to explain to you veterans what happens next. 5-2. Ughhhh. I know dice have no memory but sometimes there’s just a good vibe going. I immediately color up kinda salty and leave the table up $275.
My girlfriend is still a little ways out so I take my buy in and pocket it (Purple chip y’all) and head to blackjack to kill the remaining time. Well blackjack fucking sucked I took my $275 in winnings down to $11 in about 20 minutes. Yeah blackjack! /s. Luckily I was able to get that $11 up to $110 somehow and that’s when my girlfriend arrives and I color up.
I head to dinner with $100 more than I came in so I’m happy but a little bummed I just blew $175 at BJ. Now you’re probably pissed that you’ve read this far to find out I’m only up $100. “Wow $100 a big win for you, thanks for wasting my time” hold on there bucko, this night ain’t over yet!
We have a nice casino quality buffet meal and we’re getting ready to leave but I pull out of my pocket my $10 free bet. (And I got to thank this little piece of paper cause I wasn’t going to play again if I didn’t have a reason too)Well I’m not gonna let that go to waste. So I tell my girlfriend I’m gonna go play my free bet and then cash out my chips so she heads home and I will meet her there.
I go back to the craps table I originally started at and it was down to 3 players so I was thrilled. Place down my free bet with a nickel on top. Now this time I was going to try playing different than I normally would. Normally I play pass, fire and place the 6,8. This time I was going to play pass, fire and come bet every roll. I had tried it in my app and had moderate success but never tried in real life.
Well here we go $5 of my money on pass, $5 on fire. The shooter is to my right and he hits a 6. I place a come and he hits a 9 for me. I place odds and another come. Then he hits a 5. Another odds and come. And then he 7 outs. Fuck. There goes $80 ($5 pass, $15 odds on 6, $5 fire, $15 come 5 and $20 odds, $15 come 9 and $20 odds, but I won $15 on the come bet). I’m down to $45 profit from that $125. Well I did what I normally don’t and pull out that purple and get $400 green and $100 red.
I’m the shooter now, Fuck it $10 on the fire. Place the pass and here we go! 6! Alright that’s an easy one. Place a come and then a 5. Odds and another come. 8. Odds and another come. Then 6! Alright there’s a point. Come goes to the 6 and I hand the dealer my odds. Lets roll again! 10! Put my odds behind my pass and throw out another come. Now this is where I started having some real fun. I start throwing all my numbers that I have come bets on. Bam $45 here Bam $33 there. Now I start hitting the missing spots. Got a come on 4. And then moments later got a come on 9. I got all the numbers covered with a come/pass bet with odds now. I keep throwing good numbers. Keep reeling in chips. Start pressing my odds. Bam bam $60 here, $75 there, oh look more green. My entire first row of my rack is completely filled. And then I hit that stinking 10! That’s two points! A guy come over to the table. Sees that two point shave been made and I have all come bets out. Puts $200 on the DONT pass and then boom YO-Leven! Best case scenario I keep my come bets and that guy loses for not believing (I know play your own way I’m just teasing). Next roll is a 9 and then bam 9 again! Three points again for me! I establish a new point.....8! Alright good chance to get another 4 point fire bet! I throw a bunch more times probably another 5 minutes hitting my comes. I’m pressing and got a black odds on my 4 and 10. Still reeling in a shit ton of green and pressing. Then that dreaded 7 came to ruin all the fun.
Ok time to go home. I yell color up and place this behemoth amount of chips on the table. Had to been over $1k in green alone. Dealer hands them to the box man and he stacks em up and counts them all. He double checks his math and says $1543! Oh hot damn! He grabs three purples and hands them to the dealer. I tip the $43 and head right to the cage. My minds going a mile an hour. What a rush! I finally made $1000 from craps. In the last my biggest hauls were $500. And to think that I wasn’t even planning on playing, let alone a second time after dinner. I’m taking this money and going to use for Christmas gifts cause we all know what happens when we go back the next day expecting the same thing to happen again. It’s certainly going to be hard to top this night, I may never but you never know. Next thing I need to do in my craps career is to get that 6 point fire bet. Well if you read all the way through congrats and thank you. May you hit all your points and roll forever!
submitted by Disclaimer : This isn't an orignal work. It was lifted entirely from
a Middleeasy article. I just put it in text format because, if you click the link, you'll realise that it's completely messed up. The headliners & the text following them are a mismatch. Also, some links are broken. Just wanted to make it easier for the readers.
Somewhere deep within an ashram in Tibet, a corner of a room has been sectioned off to pay homage to a handful of truly unique MMA fighters. We’re not talking about the obvious here. Guys like Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, Georges St. Pierre and Fedor already have their respective cult following. They no longer need our spiritual guidance. This section of the room in this undisclosed ashram is dedicated to a group of guys (and girls) that took the MMA world by the scrotum, gave it a firm yank and then raided our fridge as we all rolled around our living room floor in excruciating pain.
Only a select few deserve their own effigy constructed out of spare plywood, leftover Christmas decorations and half-empty cans of spray paint. I present to you ‘The Top Ten MMA Fighters You Should Build A Shrine To’ only at MiddleEasy.com – Because MMA is everything.
Michelle Waterson Whatever you do, try not to let your girlfriend know Michelle Waterson exists. If you have bikini photos of her, don’t hide them in a folder on your desktop called ‘Work’. If you do have a potpourri of Michelle Waterson pics under a folder on your desktop called ‘Work’, don’t hand over your laptop to your girlfriend and disclose your Windows login password. If your girlfriend finds these photos, she will threaten to smash your laptop against a hampster cage and kick you out of her apartment. You will then have to hop on the nearest train and book a hotel for the rest of the night (everything about that story is true).
We can all agree that Michelle Waterson is beyond hot. That’s already an established fact humanity has come to accept like…the Lakers are the most dominate team in the NBA history or Kimbo Slice is already a UFC champion. It’s not even debatable. The only thing the world needs to see is more of Michelle ‘The Karate Hottie (that’s her real nickname)’ Waterson. She holds a record of 6-3 and she trains out of Greg Jackson’s camp, the same guy responsible for the equally hot Julie Kedzie (yum) and Georges St. Pierre (hot only if you’re a chick…or a Mets fan). Her last fight, she
chalked up an ‘L’ to Elena Reid last April which inevitably turned out to be the hottest fight in MMA history. Before that, Waterson grabbed a ‘W’ against Tyra Parker (she’s cute too, they’re all cute).
I woke up in a frenzy this morning thinking about Michelle Waterson. If aliens landed on the White House lawn right now it still wouldn’t be as exciting as knowing that Michelle Waterson mounts other chicks in the cage…with hot pants on. If you’re still not convinced that you should raid your local Home Depot to build a shrine to Waterson, just Google her and make sure your girlfriend isn’t standing over your shoulder (double check just to make sure, trust me).
Here’s
a little blueprint to get your shrine started. No, that wasn’t some sexual innuendo.
Beau Taylor Ah man, the story of OMA. If you were alive on July 21st 2009, you probably remember waking up to the news that Kimo Leopaldo died of a heart attack in Costa Rica. TMZ picked up on the report and the New York Post quickly followed. Within a couple of hours, the entire MMA world gave their condolences to the Leopaldo family in a variety of blog posts, news articles and guys that still proclaim if Royce Gracie fought Kimo again, Royce would lose. It took Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports several tries to eventually get a hold of Kimo Leopaldo on the phone in which he replied with:
‘I knew I wasn’t dead, so when I was reading this I wondered if I was jinxed or something was going to happen
‘It was really strange. I was surprised at how nasty it was. I guess it wasn’t a good thing. I’ve always had strange things written about me but nothing this bizarre. I couldn’t believe it when I searched for my name and I wrote in ‘Kimo Leopoldo’ and it added the word ‘death.’’
His publicist press released a statement that Kimo was in fact not dead, but just sleeping. The next day, dude even held his very own ‘Look people, I’m alive’ press conference.
And the guy behind it? Undefeated mixed martial artist Beau ‘One Man Army ™’ Taylor. Hold up, it gets even more bizarre.
Shortly after the incident happened, Beau Taylor spoke with TheSmokingGun.com about how he duped the entire MMA world. Everyone needs to read this TSG report in its entirety because it will be the funniest thing you will read today (regardless of current time or location).
JULY 22–The fabricated claim yesterday about the purported death of a former Ultimate Fighting Championship star was the handiwork of a self-described “Internet troll” with a “weird mind.” Beau Taylor, a 31-year-old Oklahoma man, created a thread on a popular mixed martial arts (MMA) web site reporting that Kimo Leopoldo had died in Costa Rica of a heart attack. Taylor told TSG that he selected Leopoldo as the subject of the hoax in light of the fighter’s arrest earlier this year on drug charges. “I thought it would be a good fit,” said Taylor. The fabricated account of Leopoldo’s death leapt beyond MMA web sites and bulletin boards when TMZ.com reported yesterday afternoon that it had “confirmed” the 41-year-old athlete’s demise (this confirmation was presumably delivered by one of the gossip site’s paid sources). The erroneous story was later yanked from the site, which is now batting .500 on recent death exclusives. For his part, Taylor’s eventful week has also included a public intoxication arrest. He was busted early Sunday morning after security officers at a shopping center found him passed out in his car with the engine running, with “an open container of beer in the center console,” according to a Tulsa Police Department report. Cops noted that Taylor reeked of alcohol and had difficulty standing. “Taylor said that he had left his house intoxicated in order to buy cigarettes,” noted cops, who reported that Taylor said he had consumed three glasses of wine and six beers. Asked about his beaming mug shot, seen below, Taylor spoke of trying to strike the right booking photo balance: “You know, I didn’t want to look like Nick Nolte,” he said. “Or that I was too happy to be arrested.”
For his antics, Beau Taylor was banned from The UG (the forum in which he created the hoax) but his account was later reinstated just for the sheer rawesomeness of his trolling ability. OMA even created a parody of Kimo Leopaldo’s press conference where he claimed Kimo was still deceased and the previous Kimo press conference was just a hoax. Besides becoming an internet legend over night, OMA also claims he is the World Champion of the American Southwest (dude does have a belt) and is currently recovering from an injury that has sidelined him for much of 2009. You can find Oma/Beau Taylor still doing his thing on The UG to this day. Have fun with that.
Din Thomas Raise your hand if you’ve operated
an unsanctioned, underground fight club entirely in your gym in Palm Springs, Florida. If your name isn’t Din Thomas then you should slap yourself in the face and give me everything in your kitchen (including that six-pack you bought for this weekend). Din Thomas is the friggin man. I know that expression is used more than ‘Machida is elusive’, but it’s true. Din Thomas is the friggin man. Who else
has a DVD where they teach you 1,001 submissions in a 52 volume set. I bet you didn’t even know the human body was capable of 1,001 submissions (it’s cool, I didn’t either). When Chris Brown was accused of assaulting Rhianna earlier this year, Din Thomas got on the mic after his win over Gabe Lemey and called out Chris Brown. Dude announced in front of an audience of drunk fans that it was wrong to beat chicks and if Rhianna ever needed his assistance, he would readily be available. See, I told you Din Thomas is truly the friggin man.
We ran into Din when we covered The Ultimate Chaos, we even took
pictures of him in his undies. His opponent was supposed to be Javier Vasquez but due to some incompetent confusion, he wasn’t allowed to fight (matter of fact, no one really knows exactly what happened). But let’s get back to the underground fight club Din Thomas operated in his gym in Florida…
Din Thomas constructed a full size UFC octagon at his American Top Team gym and charged admission to a crowd of over 150 heads. Din Thomas was later arrested and managed to post a $10,000 bail to be released from prison.
Shine Fights has signed Din Thomas to an exclusive contract along with the former WBC and WBA welterweight champion, Ricardo Mayorga. When Din got word of Mayorga’s signing he issued the following statement:
”Ricardo Mayorga just signed to fight in Shine. I think he is afraid of me. If he does accept the fight I will put him into retirement and send him back to his fruit stand in Nicaragua. He will be wearing a straw hat, smoking cigarettes, and selling bananas once and for all. This is MMA and I will beat him standing or on the ground. I will let him pick how he wants to lose his first MMA fight.”
Dude got his wish. Shine Fights has slated Ricardo Mayorga’s first MMA bout to be against the same guy who defeated Clay Guida, Matt Serra, Rich Clementi and Jens Pulver. Good luck Ricardo.
Koji Oishi Out of the many people that have crossed Nick Diaz’s path (in or out of a hospital in Las Vegas), Koji Oishi definitely gets the award for being the most desperately inventive. Dude had a plan unlike any MMA fighter out there. He was a visionary. Koji Oishi was ahead of his time. If we went back 300 million years, Koji Oishi would be that one fish who tried to walk on the beach but failed miserably and died of suffocation. Charles Darwin would have been proud of Koji Oishi. To avoid getting punched in the face, most MMA fighters would either dodge or block with their forearms. Not Koji Oishi. In fact, if Oishi got a hold of your gameplan he would urinate on it and right hook it into the ground.
Koji Oishi gave the saying ‘a good defense is a strong offensive’ an entirely new meaning. On June 4th 2005, Oishi’s trainer convinced him to execute the most awkward and impossible defense in UFC history. Instead of blocking and dodging strikes, Koji Oishi was instructed to intercept Nick Diaz’s fist with his own. Koji Oishi believed that if he were to punch Nick Diaz’s fist as Diaz threw a strike at him, he would create enough force to break Diaz’s hand. We’re serious.
Bobby Green On January 24th 2009, the world was introduced to a guy from Riverside Submission Camacho MMA team that had an impressive record of 7-1 (with all eight fights occurring in 2008). On two weeks notice he made his PPV debut on one the biggest cards of 2009: ‘Affliction: Day of Reckoning” (RIP). While you were contracting a staph infection from training your Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Bobby Green was busy thwarting gang turf wars with his fighting style. The fact that Bobby Green’s fighting style is categorized as: “Hood” should be enough for you to sacrifice a few goats in his honor.
Just before Bobby Green walked out to the ring, dude was so preoccupied with jumping in the stands and dancing amongst the crowd that he missed his walk-out cue. Affliction ended up announcing his name before his intro video was shown on the monitors at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. Bobby hopped down from the stands, ran back-stage to redo his entrance but it was too late. Everyone was going nuts and Bobby Green had already premature ejaculated his entrance. It’s ok, we’ve all done it before.
Once Bobby Green’s bout with Dan Lauzon ensued, we all realized what fighting style: ‘Hood’ entailed. Essentially it meant kicking a guy in the testicles three times in the first round. Big John wasn’t officiating the fight but he said the first groin shot didn’t even land but the other two were fair game. After the first testicle punt, Bobby Green rested on the ropes, looked at the crowd and the camera caught Green saying ‘Oh sh__ it’s Oscar De La Hoya…and Donald Trump’.
Unfortunately ‘Hood’ couldn’t keep Bobby from being submitted by Joe Lauzon’s brother. With five seconds left in the first round, Bobby was caught with a rear-naked-choke that forced him to tapout. Bummer. Dude still pocketed a cool $4,000 which he probably used to further improve his ‘hood technique’ (compared to Andrei Arlovski who made $1,500,000 for not listening to Freddie Roach’s gameplan).
Charles 'Krazy Horse' Bennett Krazy Horse is better than your favorite MMA fighter. Alright, maybe not better but astronomically more entertaining. If the entire MMA world were condensed to Marvel comic cliches, dude would undoubtedly be Deadpool. Damn, that was pretty friggin nerdy. I hope that chick I met at [insert name of Gentleman’s club I was too drunk too remember] didn’t just read that. If a place is called a ‘Gentleman’s Club’, it really just means that you’re going to be searched at the door and charged $15 for a Bud Light. Watching Krazy Horse’s old Pride Bushido fights is stuff of legends. Dude plays to the camera, loves his audience and is known to never train prior to any MMA match. 21 of his 40 fights have occurred at King of the Cage so it’s safe to say he’s like a demigod over there. His knockout of KJ Noons (and subsequent freakishly high back-flip) at EliteXC earned him a spot on CagePotato’s Eight Most Insane Victory Celebrations of All Time. In an interview with MMAJunkie (via Fightlinker), Krazy Horse says that he had to change his name to ‘Kid Khaos’ in order to calm his image and be a role model.
Long known as one of the more unusual – and, at times, skilled – fighters in MMA, Bennett is looking to reinvent his character. He’s a father now, he says, so he needs to be a role model.
He’s training, committing himself to the sport, cleaning up his image and hopefully heading into the best part of his career….That includes a move from Krazy Horse (and all that character entails) to Kid Khaos, who, despite the name, is meant to be calmer and more controlled than his former incarnation.
Yeah, we didn’t think it made sense either which, of course, makes it exponentially better. If Krazy Horse isn’t one of your favorite fighters, then you’re just lying to yourself.
Looking up Krazy Horse’s arrest record is like opening up one of those little Russian Matryoshka dolls. Every account of Krazy Horse being arrested usually has ‘again’ in the title. As of June 27th 2007, Krazy Horse has amassed
a collection of twenty separate mugshots. We’re not sure whether Krazy Horse immediately stopped doing illegal activity in 2007 or perhaps he just stopped getting caught. Maybe this Kid Khaos transformation is working after all. But before you start building your shrine to Krazy Horse, you need to check out this video of him rushing Cristiano Marcello, a member of the Chutebox Academy, after an entire evening of ragging on Wanderlei Silva. Dude gets some good blows in but Marcello eventually triangle chokes Krazy Horse into the next dimension.
Harold Howard Harold Howard lived in a different time. If this were the 1400s, dude would be pillaging villages and sloppily drinking wine from the skulls of lions. The general population just couldn’t fully understand Harold Howard. He was too raw for his own good. On December 22th 2009, Harold Howard
intentionally drove his flatbed truck directly through the entrance of the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada. Police have now charged Harold with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a weapon, attempted break and enter, fail to remain, flight from police, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, mischief and two counts of breach of recognizance. Dude racked up 11 charges in one nutty vehicular escapade (luckily nobody was severely injured or killed).
People shouldn’t be surprised at this behavior. Back in 1994, Harold Howard issued a general warning to anyone that dare venture in his vicinity: ‘If you’re coming on, then come on!‘ (but be sure to take off your sunglasses before you do).
But let’s get to the meat of exactly why Harold Howard is ranked number four on our Top Ten MMA Fighters You Should Build A Shrine To. It’s not his 2-3 career MMA record and it’s not the fact that he was ‘technically’ the first person to beat Royce Gracie. It’s because of the friggin scissor kick that refuses to go away after over 15 years of endlessly being replayed. In the UFC 3 finals, a fresh Steve Jennum replaced the worn and highly discouraged Ken Shamrock. Apparently Ken wanted to avenge his UFC 1 loss to Royce but upon hearing the news that Royce’s corner actually threw in the towel at the beginning of his Harold Howard bout (due to exhaustion from fighting Kimo Leopaldo), Ken Shamrock decided to drop out of the UFC 3 tournament.
To open up his final UFC 3 match against Scott Jennum, Harold decided to do something that has still puzzled virtually everyone who has ever watched the footage. In short, Harold does a scissor kick that completely misses his opponent. Realistically, if he would have landed the kick, the damage would have been minimal and left Howard vulnerable on his back. Maybe he was just in the moment or just ecstatic that he made it so far in the tournament. Whatever inspired Harold to execute this
infamous scissor kick has inspired a new generation to basically bite and perfect Harold’s style.
And of course Tom Lawlor’s UFC Fight Night 20 weigh-in entrance where he pulled off the scissor kick garbed in authentic Harold Howard regalia. Lee Murray Jason Statham is like a substitute teacher version of Lightning Lee Murray. In 2006, dude kidnapped a bank manager and forced his way into what was supposed to be a high-security bank. Not like Bank of America or Well’s Fargo…we’re talking about the ones that have red lasers everywhere and can only be penetrated by Catherine Zeta Jones doing backflips in tight spandex. This bank was like one of those you would see in a cartoon with a 600lb diamond guarded by Elmer Fudd. Apparently, they hired Warner Bros security because Murray, along with a few of his buds robbed the bank of $96,000,000.00. $96,000,000.00! The dude must have been drinking whatever Bernard Madoff had that morning. It was the biggest bank heist in history. After knocking off the bank, the dude fled to Morocco and claimed citizenship because his father was born there. Authorities couldn’t do a single thing about it. Dude just masterminded and got away with just about enough money to satisfy my ex-girlfriend. He was enjoying a ballerish lifestyle until the police arrested him for having bricks of cocaine in his pad which (probably) broke local laws. Note to anyone stealing $96,000,000.00…try not to give a reason for the police to arrest you and take your loot. Don’t trespass, look both ways when you cross the street and try not to litter. The cops recovered all but $50,000,000.00 of his bank heist profits (which is practically like not recovering any) and threw him in jail. Lee Murray was somehow was released from prison on the claims that he was ‘a citizen of Morrocco’. What? That makes about as much sense as Clay Guida pretending to be human. We’re assuming the dude threw some cash their way and, as you read this, he’s sipping dirty martinis on a bear skin rug in his villa. War Lee Murary.
Now the director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and The Wrestler is slated to direct a movie based on Lee Murray’s life. Besides the above mentioned rawesomeness, Murrary also had open heart surgery that took seven hours to complete. Dude had no heart for seven hours. Of course this was due to a knife puncturing his left lung, coming out the other side and lodging right into his heart. Oh, and on top of all that…he was knifed twice in the head on a separate incident and survived. Breaking news, the role of Lee Murray is going to be played by Shia Labeouf. Just kidding, let’s not let ‘suck’ enter this movie.
Walid Ismail You can’t call yourself a true MMA fan if you’re not familiar with Wallid Ismail and his beef with Ryan Gracie which has perhaps given the MMA world the greatest sound bite ever. In a time when the Gracies were running things in the jiu-jitsu game, Wallid Ismail stepped up and defeated Royce Gracie, Ralph Gracie and Renzo Gracie. Then in 1999, the feud began. In November of 1999, Ryan Gracie agreed to fight Wallid Ismail in WEC on Janurary 2000 so he moved to New York to train with Renzo Gracie. Wallid Ismail had to pull out of the fight because he was on the verge of signing off on another fight with Pride FC sometime early in 2000. The Pride FC contract fell through and Wallid signed on to the WEC fight with only six weeks notice but Ryan Gracie suddenly dropped out of their bout. In December of 1999, both fighters unexpectedly met at PePe beach and nearly scrapped on the sand and a few days later Ryan came to Wallid Ismail’s gym to confront him. Dude constantly reached into his fanny pack (yeah, 10 years ago people still rocked fanny packs) and threatened to pull a gun on Wallid (later it was discovered dude didn’t have a gun in his fanny pack). Wallid Ismail backed down and Ryan Gracie eventually left the gym.
On October 2000, Wallid Ismail and Ryan Gracie crossed paths at the after party for the Bad Boy fashion show in Brazil. The reports are a little cloudy, but the general consensus is that Ryan Gracie and a few dudes snuck up on Wallid Ismail and caught him off guard. Wallid’s boys eventually jumped in and the fight ended with Wallid Ismail guillotine choking Ryan Gracie.
The next year, Wallid Ismail and Ryan Gracie agreed to fight on a WEC card that was planned for April 2001. Everything was good until Ryan Gracie was arrested after stabbing a man in a bar fight in February, needless to say…he dropped out again from the Wallid Ismail fight. Unfortunately,
Ryan Gracie died in a jail cell in Brazil from an apparent overdose so the MMA world will never get to see an official Wallid Ismail vs. Ryan Gracie showdown (one that didn’t happen in a bar at least).
However, we are blessed with two of the greatest interviews of all time…both of which belong to Wallid Ismail. If you’re drinking milk, be warned that it will immediately eject out of your nose after listening to these interviews.
If your neck hasn’t exploded in laughter at the previous interview, check out Stephen Quadros bringing up
the one name that is guaranteed to get Ismail heated. Got to love it.
Genki Sudo However cool you think you are, Genki Sudo has exceeded everything you’ve ever accomplished in your life and he did it with a synchronized team of Japanese dancers riding shotgun. Genki Sudo is the living embodiment of everything you’ve ever wanted to accomplish in your life manifested in the body of a 16-4-1 fighter. Genki has only been stopped once in his career and it was by the stand-up of Kid Yamamoto. That was back when Kid was pound for pound the best in MMA, since he left his wife…dude can’t get a win.
Genki Sudo retired at the age of twenty-seven solely because he wanted to transition to the 4th dimension. Genki said that he was finished fighting in the 3rd dimension and his next ‘fight’ would take place on a mental/spiritual plane in the 4th dimension. However, Genki stated that he would have to reside in the 3.5th dimension in order to effectively get his message across. His message is simply: We are all one.
It’s actually not as simple as you may think. In his documentary, Genki Sudo breaks down his message and says that we all exist in exactly the same moment. The perception of past and future is merely an illusion. If one makes too many plans in the future, a portion of their present ‘self’ is lost in an unobtainable moment. Of course, if one chooses to focus on their past ‘self’, their present ‘self’ will never be fully realized. Genki stresses living in the moment and to rely as little as possible on material objects. In fact, the physical world prevents Genki Sudo from fully transitioning into the 4th dimension.
Genki has said his greatest accomplishment in MMA was his K-1 – Premium Dynamite!! submission of Butterbean back in 2003. Despite being outweighed by 260lbs, Genki managed to dive in Butterbean’s general direction and grab a heel hook only forty-one seconds in the second round.
Call him the ‘Neo-Samurai’ or the the ‘Transforming Trickster’, Genki Sudo is by far the most shrine worthy person who has ever graced the MMA world. He’s the author of eight philosophy books and even manages his own amateur baseball league for players over thirty. Genki Sudo also has a role in the pseudo sci-fi film entitled ‘The R246 Story‘ and that is why you should raid your garage for spare materials to construct a shrine for Genki Sudo.
Check out
the first part of Genki Sudo’s documentary just because I love all of you so much. We are truly one.
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