Rock and Roller Cola Wars

Everybody’s talking about it…

http://blog.blankbaby.com/blankbaby/2006/07/diet_pepsi_jazz.html

I went into my local bodega… (Ok, the APlus Convenience Stores isn’t a bodega, but using the word, bodega, is so Law and Order) and I saw Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla and Diet Pepsi Jazz Strawberries & Cream. While I am a Coke loyalist, I thought, it’s good to sample the other brand, just to see.

While Coke has Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, I felt that Pepsi was going against Dr Pepper with these two products. For those who don't know, Dr Pepper has a line of "Fountain Classics" in regular and diet: Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper and Berries & Cream Dr Pepper.

This Jazz line of Pepsi product seems to be a response to Dr Pepper and not Coke.

It's not an exciting blog entry, but they all can't be winners!

Consider this fair warning: Bikers Beware!

In an entry à la ALT, I’m going to bitch about bikers in the city of Philadelphia. No, not motorcycle bikers (those fuckers are very incon-fucking-siderate, too) but I'm talking about those who peddle to and fro.

I am sick and tired of sharing my sidewalks with inconsiderate bikers. Get off the sidewalk and get on the streets, like others like you fought for. There are bike lanes on Walnut and Spruce to get you into and out of West Philadelphia/University City.

I am royally annoyed by bikers having no regard for pedestrians. We're saving money, conserving energy and making the roadways safer, too, damnit. And with even less of an impact on our environment! Yet, we didn't argue and clamor for access to the roads; we just want our sideways safe and free from hazards. I hate having you bikers come up from behind and get annoyed that I am in your way and that you have to get around me. You shouldn't be behind me at all.

Go to the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and take advantage of the hard work that they did for you.

Worried about riding in traffic? Stay the fuck home, walk or take the Bicycle Coalition's new Urban Cycling Course. It's a one-day Saturday workshop to get bikers to feel comfortable on the road and safely riding. There are three classes left: July 29, August 26 and September 23 and they also post the power point presentation for your information.

In this program that you’ll learn that "bicycles are considered vehicles under Pennsylvania laws and must obey all of the rules of the road." (see http://www.bicyclecoalition.org/urban-course.ppt) When’s the last time that a car was allowed to drive on the sidewalk in the city, eh?

So consider this fair warning, I'm going to be that bastard walking to Center City via Walnut Street that's going to tell you to get the fuck off the sidewalk and take Spruce Street home. Don't be angry with me; admit that you're wrong and use the proper path for your vehicle.

Remember, bicyclists and motorists share the road. Bicyclist ain't supposed to be on the sidewalk, bitch!

Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

(Confessions Tour, part 1)

The concert started an hour late with imagery from Madonna's most recent photo shoot for W - all done in an equestrian theme. A disco ball descended onto the stage bathed under blue and pink lights. It opened and out stepped Madonna then followed by her dancers all dressed in an equestrian cum S&M black outfits. She belted out Future Lovers dancing with the 'horses.' (Many of the songs on the album have riffs from other songs mixed in -- Hung Up has famously ABBA's Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Sorry has the Jackson 5's Can You Feel It? and Future Lovers has I Feel Love by Donna Summer.) What a great surprise to my ears when she started to sign I Feel Love. (Madonna is not heavy into covers, so this was a great treat.) After the spectacle of her entrance, she sang Get Together on the giant stage with two back up dancers performing in front of red, black and white kaleidoscopic imagery. Though only 5'6" or something like that, she was not lost in the frenzy of the stage. She stood out.

I love Madonna. I admire her chutzpah. I am impressed that she has found ways to cash in on being self-important. If we could do that, we'd love our jobs. So, when I saw on the screens X-ray images, I cracked a big grin. It was Like a Virgin. She sat on a black leather mechanical bull seat that was affixed to be like a carousel horse, got up back on the horse and belted Like a Virgin. She stood on the horse and danced on the poll and brought the house down as addition footage of riders getting thrown off their horse were interspersed with the X-rays of her broken bones. We've seen her nude. We've seen her throat polyps in Truth or Dare. We've now seen her bones. Her singing was great and her antics on the horse tickled the audience.

The last song in her equestrian set was Jump. I've recently noted that I love this song (see I'm trying to be self-referential like that Madonna.) More set pieces were lowered to the stage: an adult version of a jungle gym lowered on the central catwalk as two cage pieces lowered onto the far ends of the left and right catwalks that began at the stage's end. Four of her dancers performed very physical gymnastic dance movements all over the set pieces: climbing up and down, leaping off into somersaults, swinging around like pole dancer and like gymnasts on uneven bars, they jumped into the rhythm of the song.

After what felt to be a short set, we had the first costume change or interlude. Three dancers dance out the horrible secrets of their lives to monologue that they have recorded while the screens played out the imagery of their tales: one's being abused by his father, another's suicide attempt and a thirds hope for belong leading him into a gang and killing someone. No, it wasn't pleasant, happy concert fare, but it's a Madonna concert. It's not a Madonna concert unless she got something that makes you uncomfortable and gets you to think.

The middle Dancer Confession from the suicide attemptee left me with something very uplifting and profound. During her ordeal, she copes and says that she believes in angels and that all of us can be messengers from God. It touched me.

The dancers leave the stage and the screens opened up to show Madonna on a mirror-plated cross with a crown of thorns. The cross is placed upright and she sang Like to Tell. Again she sounded great! I was so excited to see this. I've been waiting to see something like this from her: a crucifixion. She's Madonna, named after the Mary, the Mother of God. Is it blasphemic to emulate Jesus' sacrifice for drama effect? If so, better close down all the high school and community productions of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Godspell." For God's sake, her French-Canadian mother gave Madge her own name after the Madonna. And Madge has turned into a pop icon who defined Girl Power way before my darling little Spice Girls (Oh, that Posh is a lucky bitch). So, it's about time that Madonna takes Christian/Catholic imagery and credo by the thorns and use it!

In the background, a counter ticks out of control to 12,000,000. The number of orphans in Africa due to HIV and this number will explode to 20 million in 2010. Quoting from Matthew, the imagery ends with "what you have done to the lest of your brothers, you have done unto Me." Then she plugs two charities: Raising Malawi and The Clinton Foundation. Did you know that? No, too many people were bitching about her hanging from a cross.

She came down from the cross and sang Forbidden Love with two of her male dancers doing performance movements of holding hands-showing affection/not holding hands-showing affection into which Madonna joined.

A man came out on to the stage with a shofar. My jaw dropped. "No, no, no!" I thought, "This isn't, is it? She's really going to do it. I love this song. I didn't think that it would have any commercial appeal, but she's doing it in concert!" The shofar is blown. "Isaac?" I gasped and whispered to Brian. "Yes." He confirmed in just as much of a daze as I was in. This is another song I love and for me it's the verse "Wrestle with your darkness. Angels call your name. Can you hear what they are saying? Will you ever be the same?"

Another heavily vocal song, she and Yitzak sang as a dancer danced like a caged bird. The dancer, covered in a brown cloth, fought in the performance to get out of the cage. Finally, the cage opened up and this dancer is revealed to be a beautiful woman dancing her way to freedom against the backdrop of a hawk flying, searching out in the desert. Heavily with the start of a disco beat Isaac ends into Sorry. Dancers energetically perform as Madonna sings and the song climaxes into the fight scene of boys versus the girls as in the video. After the heavy action, the show calms down as Madge walks down the cat walk to dance on a chair, crooning "You can call me a sinner, you can call me a saint. Celebrate me for who I am, don't like me for what I ain't." Like It or Not reminded me of Bye, Bye, Baby from the "Girlie Show". She impressed us with her voice and the crowd loved it. She and the chair lowered down through the stage, and we knew that the set donned the Religious set was over and the second costume change/interlude was about to begin.

And Life's Gonna Drop You

"And life's gonna drop you down like the limbs of a tree
It sways and it swings and it bends until it makes you see"

These lyrics remind me of a hymn we sang in grade school, called Hosea. It's one of those songs (Hosea and not Jump) that I want at my funeral. The irony being that I already want 2 Madonna songs and Hosea is really a hymn.

But I digress. I'm less then 24 hours away from a Madonna concert on her "Confessions Tour." As you can expect, I am excited. I've been doing my best to avoid the reviews; I don't want to know too much. However, it's been noteworthy enough for me to know about the crucifixion set up for Live to Tell and Like a Virgin performed to the backdrop of her X-rays from falling off a horse. (Brilliant, how effing self-referential is that?! Look at me, dancing in front of MY X-rays. Self-indulgent! But I'm jealous that she did it first.)

Back to the lyrics from Jump, they have been striking a cord with me lately. I just don't know yet what I've been so stubborn about and what I need to do before snapping.

Maybe that's the soul searching I need to do now. What am I too stoic, rigid and unforgiving about? How will I change it?

One thing's for sure, that the Madonna concert will be one of my topics of conversations for the next 2 weeks. Then I can focus on self-actualization.