At this hour, two phenomena are competing for the status as Most Annoying Thing. One: the new trend in hip-hop of announcing ad nauseum that THIS IS THE REMIX. Two: the lyrics to Bob Geldof's "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
To demonstrate the dunderheadedness of yelling THIS IS THE REMIX! forty-four times in a three minute single, I will randomly insert the phrase THIS IS THE REMIX! throughout today's blog.
Annoying Thing Two must be thoughtfully examined, though. When you hear "Feeeed thuuuuuhh Wuuuuuruuuld" playing at Circuit THIS IS THE REMIX! City or wherever, you probably ignore the lyrics. I think that's by design: the song seems to be a Britney-grade example of success thriving on charges of idiocy.
But you cannot THIS IS THE REMIX! ignore the lyrics when they're being sung at you. Such was my fate at lunch. A band was getting ready for its annual Christmas party: Six Ghanaian guys THIS IS THE REMIX! playing bass-drum-guitar-drum--flute (?), and they just kept banging out one chorus of "Let. Them. Know. It's. Christ. Mas. Time" after another.
So I'm in Africa, listening to an African vocalist singing "And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time," like he's lamenting tribal machete hackings. And then,
"Here's to you
raise a glass for everyone
Here's to them
underneath that burning sun
Do they know THIS IS THE REMIX! it's Christmastime at all?"
And my brain just short-circuits. I'm watching the globlized cultural equivalent of what happens when the snake that eats its own tail tries to take a dump. The dumb has circled the world and come home, but none dare call it dumb.
I finish my sandwhich, head THIS IS THE REMIX! to the bathroom, where there's even more dumb in the air.
A Ghanaian guy in a nice shirt and nice pants is on his cell phone, half inside the stall. "I have a family in Ivory Coast," he says into the phone, "I'm very worried THIS IS THE REMIX! about them. I don't know if you've seen the news, if you watched CNN this morning, but there are very bad things going on there and I am worried about my family." Scam! I've walked in on an episode of Scam The Jackass!
Pause.
"Can you send me money?" I begin washing my hands as slowly possible, fascinated by the sound of swindling. I hold my fingernails up to the light, looking for dirt beneath. The conman gives me a look in the mirror, but then appraently gets the news he wants.
"Alhamudillah, my friend. Enshallah. THIS IS THE REMIX! Alhamdullilah." Scrub scrub scrub.
"Wait there is one more thing." And then he takes the thing to a new level. "I am having a dream this morning. When I am praying this morning I have a vision about you. About some business of yours that you are not telling me about." Red! Blinking! Flag! "There is something wrong with this business. In my vision, I knew that your business partners are--" think fast! "They are imposters. Yes! They are imposters!"
I've THIS IS THE REMIX! been drying my hands for over a minute now. If I'm going to maintain the illusion that I'm not eavesdropping, I have to give up and leave the room. If I had any cajones I would offer the guy in the stall $20 to try can convince this dupe that he needs to beware of body snatching pod people.
Ethan Zuckerman (link on the right there) had a good post a few weeks THIS IS THE REMIX! ago about why 419 scams ("I am the Prince of Zamunda, and I need you to give me your bank account number and pin so that I may store six billion dollars in your account for a few weeks..."), are always purported to be run out of African countries. You never get an email from someone purporting to be from the House of Saud or the Prince of Siam.
"Is it possible," wondered Ethan, "that there's a widespread public perception that Africa, as a whole, is a lawless, corrupt no-man's-land?"
No!
