Five Song Friday: Sausage Factory Live Feed
This Week: Creepy Face Sweaters, Sick Beats and Pop Booty
This week I watched the dumbest show on TV.
It’s called The Real Congresspersons of the United States of America.
Maybe you’ve heard of it?
RCOUSA is a reality/game show that features a group of affluent, professional adults behaving like insolent, drunken toddlers.
It’s basically a spoken-word talent competition, like a rap battle… but for whining.
Picture a bunch of catty, sour-faced drama queens who enjoy stirring shit up, but not in that fun, Ru Paul’s Drag Race kind of way.
It’s more like a Hollywood Squares full of Karens calling the fake cops on each other.
This show has been on since 1979, but that was news to me. I grew up in a working class household and we couldn’t afford fancy premium cable channels like C-SPAN or C-SPAN2.
So I’m a little late to the RCOUSA party.
I don’t usually like tuning in to a series mid-season, but I’d just made a sandwich and didn’t feel like looking for the remote control.
Oof. This show is TERRIBLE.
The episode took place at a “hearing,” where (ironically) it seemed that not much listening was going on.
So much yelling! So much bickering! So much BORING!
Are they stranded naked on an island and forced to survive using only their wits and bits? Nope.
Do they have to cook a meal in a fake grocery store while a goateed blowhard with frosted tips keeping yelling numbers at them? Nope.
They just sit around in suits and blouses, pointing out facts and quoting the law like a bunch of NERDS.
Allow me to paint you a picture: Committee members sit in this giant fancy wooden bleacher thing. Each takes turns interrogating a “guest star,” seated at a normal-sized table directly across from them.
This week’s guest was Merrick Garland.
They called him “Attorney General,” but Garland wasn’t in a military costume or anything. No drag getup. No fabulous props.
At least with The Masked Singer you get dancing aliens, sexy llamas and a giant banana in a jumpsuit.
This was just some random old dude sipping water.
I assume the producers wanted the set to look like America’s Got Talent or The Voice or whatever, but there were no spinning chairs or Golden Buzzers. The lovely Sofia Vergara was nowhere to be found.
In terms of stagecraft? I give it a MEH. Too much wood paneling and harsh lighting.
Honestly, it felt like they just dusted off the old sets from Watergate or Iran Contra and hoped nobody would notice.
The whole production was lazy and uncompelling.
As a new viewer, I found it hard to keep up. I couldn’t tell if there were rules or a theme, or if the goal was simply to see who could make the best “disappointed white guy face.”
One fellow would drop a sick burn about January 6th and then some other lady would random freestyle about China and laptops. Are we supposed to be angrier about Trump or Biden? Treason or nepotism?
I got that the teams took turns, and they could save (or “yield”) any unused time like rollover minutes.
But it was not clear at all how they scored points or who was winning.
It was only HOURS later, when I came downstairs and saw that it was still on, that I realized exactly how the RCOUSA works.
It’s a brilliant concept for a game show actually.
We pay them to act like they really care about us.
They spend all of their time pretending what they are doing is 100% for and about us, even though 99.9% of their time is spent showboating, grandstanding, filibustering and eating shrimp cocktail on a boat.
They get ALL the points, $174,000 per year and free parking at the Washington DC airport.
We get to “sashay away” like a bunch of goddamn idiots.
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete
Five Song Friday 082
“SWEAT (An Australian Summer)” - GIMMY
I have never been to Australia, but I can only assume that it is very hot in the summer.
“Gettin’ In The Way” - Cooper T
Usually what happens when I encounter two British hooligan types in ski masks is that I run quickly in the opposite direction. Not this time. This time I am strangely drawn to their catchy blending of “bloke rap” and Manchester pop. Cooper T sounds like the legitimate spawn of Sleaford Mods and Happy Mondays. That’s why I don’t mind if they wear creepy face sweaters, even when it’s balmy and beautiful outside.
“Cha Cha Cha” - MC Lyte
MC Lyte was the first female rapper to release a full-length album. The fact Lyte as a Rock was a hit is a testament to her talent, as is the fact that back in 1988, it shared shelf space with a remarkable murderer’s row of classics: Straight Outta Compton by NWA, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back by Public Enemy, Power by Ice T, Tougher Than Leather by Run DMC, Follow the Leader by Eric B and Rakim, Strictly Business by EPMD, By Any Means Necessary by Boogie Down Productions and Straight Outta the Jungle by The Jungle Brothers. Jesus Christ it was a banner year for dope rhymes and sick beats. Cha, cha, cha indeed.
“Barabajagal” - Donovan, Jeff Beck
I went for years satisfied that my familiarity with a handful of radio-friendly Donovan hits was all I needed to get by. I was wrong. It turns out that hiding in the enormous shadows of “Mellow Yellow” and “Sunshine Superman” was a bountiful booty of pop delicacies, just waiting to be discovered.
“Smoldering Fire” - Ural Thomas and the Pain
File Ural Thomas under the category of “people who seem to have been born in a different time and carry such an authentic sense of song that the fact they aren’t widely celebrated feels like a crime.” I know that’s probably way too long to fit on a file tab, but you are welcome to abbreviate as needed.
“Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music.” - Allan Bloom