I Want To Get A Tattoo Of Thomas Jefferson

I try to keep a level of transparency on this blog. I’m not really trying to maintain any level of “professionalism” here by pretending that I can truly compartmentalize writing this with my jokes and then the real everyday world. Currently my little Myspace mood is FURIOUS. I would say 90% of it has to do with this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253. Sure, there are things going on in my life causing me frustration (technology, work, Alice Eve’s cleavage), but right now Texas is the basis of my fury. If I had 6 problems, Texas would be 5 of them.

There is a lot to be angry about with these changes. Instead of being angry about all of them, which I most certainly am, I will just hone in on the one change that is ABSOLUTELY MOTHERFUCKING INSANE. And that would be:

Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs.

I do have a humorous topic of sorts to talk about. But if every once and awhile, I break into a rant about how THOMAS JEFFERSON IS THE MOTHERFUCKING FOUNDER OF THIS GOD FORSAKEN COUNTRY AND YOU INGRATES IN TEXAS ARE FUCKING TREASONOUS PIECES OF SHIT TO TRY AND PRETEND OTHERWISE then you will at least understand the context. I just want to forewarn you there may be, as in definitely will be, outbursts about how Thomas Acquinas HAD BEEN DEAD FOR FIVE HUNDRED YEARS before the Declaration of Independence was even written for the United States.

Pop quiz Texas: who wrote the Declaration of Independence? MOTHERFUCKING THOMAS JEFFERSON YOU INSUFFERABLE PRICKS! I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU TREASONOUS FUCKS! YOU HATE AMERICA! YOU HATE ALL THAT AMERICA STANDS FOR! YOU ARE DAMNING THE FUTURE OF AMERICA WITH WHAT YOU ARE DOING! I’m just giving you a little bit of a heads up.

In light of my HORRENDOUSLY foul mood, I think I should tread on an even lighter subject like shitty pop music. Over the weekend, I was hanging out with a friend and no it was not Dawgz. There is more in my life than Kristen Stewart, Dawgz, the Steelers and HATING THE 10 PEOPLE WHO VOTED TO PASS THIS EDUCATIONAL REFORM  IN TEXAS. I mean there isn’t much more in life that one needs than those things, but I do have other friends just in case you were worried. This friend and I were watching music videos, which is crazy – who knew you could still watch music videos on the television?

One music video was particularly memorable/interesting: Bon Jovi’s “Till We Ain’t Strangers Anymore” featuring LeAnn Rimes.

I am from New Jersey. I am proud of being from New Jersey for many reasons. One recent reason is that my educational system is not trying to pretend that THE THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES DID NOT MATTER IN THE INTELLECTUAL CREATION OF THIS COUNTRY. Even with my love for New Jersey, I outright dislike Bon Jovi and pretty much all their music. At their very best, Bon Jovi has 3 or so songs that are fun to sing-a-long to when absolutely plastered at a bar. And when I’m plastered at a bar the list of things I find “fun” are very questionable when sober. I hold no critical praise for any of their music. Couple this with my dislike for popular “country” music like LeAnn Rimes.

Either way, if you like the song or don’t – you cannot deny it is wildly disconcerting and/or plain creepy. First and foremost, let’s setup the “givens”. The song is a duet between Jon Bon Jovi and LeAnn Rimes and the title of this song is “Till We Ain’t Strangers Anymore”. One can assume a lot of things. Just as one can assume without hearing the Bruce Springsteen song “Prove It All Night” it is about a man and a woman “getting it on” – scientific term. Jon and LeAnn will be doing “something” until they are not “strangers” anymore. What could be an activity that a man and a woman who are alone together can do until they are not strangers anymore? Play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2? Watch reruns of Arrested Development on IFC? Maybe name all the Presidents of the United States in chronological order conspicuously not skipping the THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE FUCKING UNITED STATES NAMED THOMAS JEFFERSON?

Or they could be fucking. That’s my guess. Or is that too crass? Maybe I’m just imagining… oh wait a minute what’s this? There are lyrics to this stupid song? Do you think that the lyrics may help?

It might be hard to be lovers
But it’s harder to be friends
Baby, pull down the covers
It’s time you let me in
Maybe light a couple candles
I’ll just go ahead and lock the door
If you just talk to me baby
Till we ain’t strangers anymore

Huh? That’s exactly like I said. So Jon and LeAnn are going to go into a bedroom. Lock the door. Light candles. Get into bed together. “Talk”. Until they are not strangers anymore. This is at the point in the song (the beginning of the damn song), I would like to mention that Jon Bon Jovi is a married man. Jon got married on April 29^th, 1989. Jon is still happily married. There is a crazy twist; Jon is not married to LeAnn Rimes. What was LeAnn Rimes doing on April 29^th, 1989? Probably eating paste because SHE WAS SEVEN.

The majority of the lyrics to the song are like the above posted. It is a lot about Jon and LeAnn hanging out in bed together “reconnecting”, if you know what I’m saying. It would be really easy to just write a bad song with extra marital affair connotations, but they went a step farther and made a video with even more extra martial affair connotations. I would like to submit evidence “A”:

Here is a picture of LeAnn Rimes and Jon Bon Jovi doing, what I call, the “twilight”. It isn’t “making out” per-say, but even more creepy it is just them rubbing foreheads, noses and chins. This sequence is replicated several times throughout the video. Very intimate close-up shots of Jon and LeAnn lightly grinding their faces on each other, but leaving just enough separation between their lips to breathily whisper the arduously terrible lyrics that Jon and/or some random music producer wrote.

The main thrust of the video, outside of their facial thrusting, is Jon and LeAnn wandering the lonely streets of New York City’s borough Manhattan. Why Manhattan? Who the fuck knows? Jon is from central New Jersey, so I guess that is close enough to Manhattan. I would venture to guess Jon really has a bigger following in southern New Jersey and he spends a great deal of time in Philadelphia, but whatever. Meanwhile, LeAnn is from Mississippi, which you may remember as being such an overly patriotic state that it SECEDED FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and there had to be a WAR fought to bring it back as well as TEXAS which also SECEDED because it “loves” this country so much.

They’re not just walking the streets of Manhattan, but also lying around on beds on the streets of Manhattan. This is both dumb and dumb. The first “dumb” is that it is just dumb looking having them sitting on these beds randomly on an intersection in New York City. Secondly, it is “dumb” because it is highly dangerous. There are cars everywhere whizzing around in Manhattan. Don’t lie around on the streets on a bed or not in any city let alone the most populated and busiest traffic city in the country. This country in particular is the United States who actually uses currency with THOMAS JEFFERSON’S FUCKING FACE ON IT.  

Here is LeAnn on her bed in the street. Wildly unsafe as mentioned. It gets worse though: no shoes and I would say she is not properly dressed for the weather. The shoes idea is a no brainer. You need to wear shoes when walking around New York City. I’m not talking about the parks, but the damn streets require shoes. Even if you are precariously laying on an even precariously placed bed in the middle of a street in Manhattan you should be wearing shoes. Jon is wearing shoes LeAnn, so take a tip, Hester Prynne, and wear some shoes on the city streets of New York City. Also, they are in winter coats the rest of the video and those silk sheets and that thin sweater will give her little to no warmth. Oh wait, what will give her warmth? The adulterous hands of Jon Bon Jovi.

I think this is the point in the post that I mention LeAnn Rimes is a well-known “home wrecker” – scientific term. LeAnn was married. While married LeAnn started getting a little frisky and cheated on her husband with some guy she made a movie with that I have never heard of – the guy and/or the movie. That guy was also married at the time. And he got a divorce as well. I’m not saying that Jon Bon Jovi is having an affair with LeAnn Rimes, but I am saying that Jon Bon Jovi’s wife should be real creeped out that her husband chose a woman who is pretty well known for recently breaking up an 8 year marriage with some guy who she worked on a project with.

Jon looks like a man who is tortured not by a fictitious failing marriage in this video, but a man who is currently getting way too involved in what was supposed to be a few flings. Just one singer and one a lot younger singer having some fun without their significant others around. The type of stuff that LeAnn’s costar thought they were getting into until LeAnn got all clingy and made everything dramatic. To me Jon’s expression denotes, “I can’t believe I fucked this broad and now she is talking about our ‘relationship’, ‘our future’, ‘our feelings’. Damn it. I should have gotten Shakira or some other chick who doesn’t even speak English. Why did I try to appeal to the South? Those people are stupid. They want to stop teaching about Thomas Jefferson and instead want to teach about obscure British property lawyers from the 18^th century whose beliefs were denounced by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and later who died before Thomas Jefferson was even in the preparation stages of writing the Declaration of Independence which is the document and that this country is founded on. Damn me and my wandering penis.”

Shit. She is right behind me on this bed. Why are we on this stupid bed in the middle of the street? Oh shit, she is pretty much naked. If I tilt my head just right I think I can see right down her satin nightie she is wearing. LeAnn gets the freakiest in the sack too. Oh man, I can’t believe I’m going to do this again. But she wants it.

Uh, no honey. This is just work. I’m just working late. Where am I? I’m on a bed. Yeah, LeAnn is here. Yeah, I’m playing with her hair. I’m also putting my lips like a nanocentimillimeter from her youthful lips. Yep. We’re pretty much fake doing it. Yep. Oh no, I didn’t come up with the idea. I’m just a slave to my craft. Ok, I’ve got to go. LeAnn is wearing very little clothes and she gets cold easily with the wind going right up her slip and everything. I have been put in charge of warming her young body with my hands and breath. So, I’ll see you later. Love ya, honey.

The song and video continue with Jon and LeAnn getting closer to fucking on the bed. And the lyrics culminate with this bit:

Tell me who you think you see
When you look into my eyes
Lets put our two hearts back together
And we’ll leave the broken pieces on the floor
Make love with me baby
Till we ain’t strangers anymore

It is all metaphors about “talking” in bed or “holding each other” in bed. That is until the final stanza where they just “make love”. I mean at this point they are lying in bed, candles, door locked, holding, staring – I doubt any significant other would think that at that point they weren’t just banging each other anyway. I would imagine a spouse wouldn’t be cool or wouldn’t believe you if you said something along these lines, “Me? I did nothing of the sort. Yes, we were in a bedroom. Yes, the door was locked. Yes, it was just the two of us. Yes, there were candles lit – you know how much I love candles. It just seems to be a shame not to use the candles if they are already there. Yes, we were in the bed and under the covers. And yes, we did hold each other all night while staring longingly into each others’ eyes while whispering about our feelings for each other. But! We did not make love!…. oh you heard that? The part where I said to her ‘make love with me baby till we ain’t strangers anymore? Well that’s interesting isn’t it? I’ll pack my things.”

We’re not strangers anymore
We’re not strangers
We’re not strangers anymore

Yeah! They fucked! Yeah! They balled each others’ brains out! Yeah cheating on your spouse! Yeah, this song being perfectly acceptable for channels like PAX and middle American family values or something!

I have not seen a music video on television in forever and I get subjected to this and that D’Angelo song where he is naked. I’m never watching music videos again. And fuck Texas. Even Austin – stupid hipsters! Go drink your lattes and talk Malcolm Gladwell in HELL!