pawn shop blues

It looks like there is cursive writing on the bottom, unless that is supposed to be reflected light or part of the design. I have no idea what it says, but it seems like quote/long title.

12 minutes of Lana on a black stage, perched on a giant swing while slowly sipping from a big ass can of Pepsi-Cola and watching the crowd. Alex and Ashley are on either side of her, dancing to literally no music. Chuck is on the side of the stage, taking photos. Then at the end, Lana leans into the microphone, says "you're welcome kiddos," then rides off into the sunset on a tiger. This will be done, of course, during the performance art phase of her career.

Also, I imagine/hope this goes without saying, but for anyone who is upset about this situation (and that's obviously understandable) and thinking about it, please don't attempt to contact this man via Facebook or anywhere else. I have no idea how long he'll be behind bars for, and while I hope he gets help, there's absolutely no guarantee he will. In reality, jail time and a restraining order is the most that will probably happen, and that can only do so much. The last thing anyone needs, especially Lana, is for him to come back to his Facebook page, see a lot of angry responses to him (or honestly any responses at all from fans--based on his other posts, he clearly seems to be dealing with one or several intense issues and we have no idea how he will interpret something), and elevate the situation anymore. Again, I hope no one would, but I know this is upsetting news and sometimes it is natural to want to act on that feeling, especially when the situation involves someone we really value like Lana, but please, for Lana's (and her crew's) safety, and even your own, just leave him alone and let him sort his issues out. Channel those feelings somewhere else, like here or writing supportive messages to Lana on social media or whatever else you want to do, but not to him. He is the literal definition of someone we don't want to upset.

Thankfully no one got hurt and they caught him before he made it into the audience. Hopefully Lana has Ashley and Alex and other good people around her right now. I would imagine this would be pretty unsettling, to say the least. The guy is clearly very unwell and I honestly hope he gets some help, or at the very least a restraining order.

"I got left at the alter but watch me pop my pussy" would be a pretty iconic title, though.

Those vocals, holy shit, so beautiful.

I get that the concept for the video is supposed to be her saying that she's capable of causing harm of those around her/destroying what they once had (car crash symbolizing a relationship destroyed, i guess) but like...it just looks like more of an alien invasion or some shit? Like the entire town got destroyed and in flames because of what? None of the cars even looked damaged? At the same time, it's a fairly simple song production-wise, so a simple video treatment makes sense. At least this is easier to follow than the demon-in-my-toilet Bad at Love video.

I'm in if the rest of the record sounds anything like Trigger Bang.

The 1-2 punch of Florida Kilos and Salvatore. Damn.

I feel like he's doing a similiar thing Taylor Swift has done in recent videos by trying to be "bad"/"sexy" by constantly trying to remind the audience how bad and sexy they are trying to be. "Did you see that face I just made? Did you see that lip curl? I'm so sexy. Did you see that dance move and eye glare? I'm very sexy. Trust me guys, I'm really sexy." Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that he, as an openly gay musician, isn't trying to hide/minimize his sexuality (especially when performing on more mainstream shows like Ellen and SNL), but I think it would go over a lot better if he just tried to get lost in the music/have a good time and let his sexuality come out that way, as opposed to trying to force it.

Stuck with Me is so addictive. Fuck.

His fans should stop giving him flowers and gift him with something useful, like a hairdryer so he can stop with the whole "I just dunked my head in a bowl of water before I came out here" look.

lol at her being done with the song after one verse. or did she sing more that didn't get recorded?

Damn. Who would have thought when he was staring on Glee and such that this was where his life would go. I feel for his family. To be hit with the arrest and now this. There has to be a lot of shock and disbelief and now grief on their end, I'd imagine.

Cherry has always felt like a spring type song, so holding off filming a video until then would make sense for the song and visuals.

First Macklemore, then Taylor, now Bruno. Kendrick just can't get the respect he deserves from the grammys.

When he reps himself to be on some tantra-level shit but cums in the first 30 seconds... #itdoesntaddup

I have not seen almost any of the movies being nominated for best picture/director/actor/actress except for The Shape of Water, so I'm obviously biased, but Sally Hawkins gave such an outstanding performance in that film. To be fair, the whole cast did, but nothing she did felt like "acting." There wasn't a single false note. Unfortunately, it seems those type of performances are usually overlooked in terms of winning awards because those types of effortless-looking performances are usually not as favored as the more bolder/in-your-face ones. I'm guessing: Three Billboards for Best Picture The Shape of Water for Best Director Margot Robbie for Best Actress Gary Oldman for Best Actor Probably Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor Allison Janney for Best Supporting Actress Remember Me for Best Original Song Coco for Best Animated Feature Get Out for Best Screenplay (Probably) Call Me By Your Name for Best Adapted Screenplay

Wait, has she said when the Soda video drops? I've been waiting 4 years for this.

Oh shit, she looks so beautiful. And confident. I love this.

Okay, this might just be my paranoid little ass finding things that aren't even there, but going through the interview again, I picked up on some things that just felt a little weird to me. *Early in the interview, Lana mentions that one of the neighbor's/resident's name is Dixie (this is the trailer with the crime tape around it). She seems to like Dixie or had some type of bond or something. A little later on, there's a cat that comes out. Lana says that the cat might belong to Dixie and might be named Meredith, but isn't exactly sure who the cat is. Not a huge thing, just seems weird if you lived somewhere for close to a year but weren't able to identify your friend's cat (unless there are a lot of cats there that look the same or something)? *Throughout the interview, Lana talks a lot about how much of a community the place was and kind of insinuates that everyone was a family, but when pressed (multiple times) by the interviewer about any of the residents, the only 2 people Lana mentions is Dixie and Lana's next door neighbor. When asked what the neighbor's name was, she says that they (lana and this neighbor) gave each other a new name every time they saw each other (what? lol) but eventually says the neighbor's name is/was Manuel. She also does say she was in a gardening competition with "the guy who owns the red car" (there is a red car in the distance) but doesn't give a name or really any further details about either this man or any other resident. *During the interview, they pass 3 people (assuming residents, since they are all getting in their cars, but could also be friends/partners of residents, etc.). All of them seem to give Lana a weird look, like "who the fuck is this girl?" Again, they may not even be residents, and even if they were and Lana lived there, they could be new as it was supposedly 3 months roughly since Lana last lived there, but I was kind of expecting at least one person to give some sort of "hey Lizzy/Lana" or something. The last people they encounter (who seem to be parked fairly close, if not right next, to where Lana's former neighbor lived) seem to make Lana particularly uncomfortable and she kind of mumbles an apologetic "sorry" --again, maybe she just feels weird with the camera crew, but it definitely doesn't seem to be anyone she is familiar with. *When the interviewer asks (several times) why Lana wanted to move to a trailer park, Lana isn't really able to give any definitive answer. I think the closest thing she says (if I'm hearing correctly) is that she always knew she was going to try to end up here or something like that. And she talks at least once if not a few times about it being a space of her own, so Chuck is definitely not in the picture at this point (even though I think she describes the trailer as having 2 bedrooms?). *Speaking of Chuck though and where Lana/Chuck were living, Lana says that before the trailer park she was living with Steven Mertens. (So again, if she was living with Steven, where was Chuck living? With Steven too?) It sounds like Steven encouraged her to live in the trailer park (didn't they break up around this time, which would make sense why she would move?). *Lana says that the album was recorded in 3 months (so October 2007 to January 2008 roughly, by her timeline) from 3 to 3 each day (I'm assuming 3 PM to 3 AM). And the rest of her time she was in her room drinking pink lemonade (lol I love Lana) and listening to The Beach Boys, etc. But in an interview she gave with Courtney Love this year (or technically last year, 2017), Lana says she was still in school at this time? Also, probably minor detail, but if the sessions ended at 3 AM, and the transit that she says she took back to Jersey (the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail) doesn't seem to operate until at least 5 AM, what would she do between 3 and 5 AM in new york? *Lana says she wants to return to this park, but the reason she left was because it got too expensive because she didn't have any other job besides singing, so she moved to Manhattan (which at first is like what the fuck, how would Manhattan be any less expensive than a trailer park in New Jersey), but Lana seems to insinuate she moved out to sleep on people's couches ("and now I just live with everyone" is I think what she says, but the audio is hard to hear). So again, where was Chuck during all this? *The name of the lady who rented out the trailer is Meredith (Meredith is also apparently the name of the cat Lana finds during the interview). Lana makes it seem like she was instantly sold on this park as soon as she found Meredith's listing (assuming online), but a little before that, Lana says she wanted to live in a trailer park that was closer to NYC (she wanted Liberty Harbor RV Park but wasn't able to find it on the map) and her current trailer park was the second-closest to nyc. *And going back to the Courtney interview (and this is really stretching it, but I'll just include it anyway), Lana talked about how she felt the interview was embarrassing looking back on it. When I initially read that, I kind of thought that she meant because it wasn't the most professional (in terms of like a camera crew just randomly following her around, there didn't seem to be any really pre-planned questions, etc.) and how since she had clearly evolved stylistically/artistically since then, maybe she didn't want to revisit old times or whatever. And that could still be it. But I also wonder, under the context of my suspicious mind, if maybe the whole trailer park image so to speak was more fabricated than she wanted to admit, like maybe she probably did feel a certain connection to Americana-influences, but maybe wasn't actually living in an actual trailer park and so the whole "here's my former home" interview might be kind of cringey to her in hindsight. I mean, she's incredibly engaging and charming throughout the whole interview (the video one), but there definitely feels like she's not being totally sincere with all of her answers (and I kind of feel like the interviewer picks up on that a bit, but that could just be me). Again, none of these really weak examples/points prove anything either way, I just find it interesting. I feel like Lana is one of the only artists where the more I look into her life, the less I feel I know about her. And to her credit, she was able to give a fair amount of detail about her living arrangements/furniture, the exact amount of rent ($525 per month), the padlocks not working, etc., so if she did make all that up on the spot, it would be pretty impressive. At the same time, it also doesn't help that she's admitted to fucking with journalists in the past just for the sake of it, so at the end of the day, who the hell really knows. There is an endless mystery to her.

Damn, I have mad respect for your investigative skills. Like if I was Lana, I would be low-key freaked out lol. As for the New Jersey thing, if I remember right, she said in the interview she did at the trailer park that she moved in there around October 2007 and moved out October 2008? Let me double check. (She says she stayed there until "late August" of 2008, so October 2007-August 2008). The interview took place in November 2008, at which point she had moved out, which is why they weren't able to go inside her place during the interview. To address one of your questions about living in New Jersey....k, this might sound like a little conspiracy theorist or whatever, but what if Lana literally never lived in the trailer park and just did a filmed interview? Like she just found a random trailer park the day before the interview and everyone at the trailer park was just watching through their blinds at some random blonde woman with a camera crew walking around the park naming random people (here's where Dixie lives, etc.) and talking about where she supposedly lived and the garden she planted and the general community and making up everything as the interview went on. I mean, I don't want to call her a liar, and I know she's gotten a lot of unfair shit about making up her backstory from the press just because of her looks and assumptions about her family and just a whole bunch of other bullshit, and I don't want to fuel that, but I would also find it low-key hilarious if she did this just for an interview. But that would take a little bit of commitment on her part, especially since she's not only referenced the trailer park so many times in her work and interviews, but even as recently as 2017 (I forget which interview) was able to be fairly specific about where the trailer park was. idk...this might be too much of a stretch. do we have any other photographic evidence of her actually in the trailer park (and not just walking around the park like she does in the interview)? Also, it seems strange that Chuck wouldn't have lived with her during this time? According to them, didn't they say they shared an apartment while going to college together? Chuck went to Parsons, Lana was in Fordham, and they shared an apartment (though obviously Lana graduated first). So why would Lana suddenly go move in to a trailer park for 10 months? I mean, she (Lana) got a $10,000 advance for her record, which she said she used to move to Jersey. It just seems...really random, especially since her sister probably was still living in New York and it would make more sense for them to stay and split costs? Especially since it seems like they've spent a good amount of their adult years living together, and NY is notoriously expensive particularly for young people without a lot of money who can't afford cocoa puffs (according to Lana)? Unless they just wanted personal space or something? Am I reading way too much into this? I might be a little drunk, just sayin.

Not surprising at all, unfortunately.

I can't imagine this would sound that good, honestly. They are both good in their own right, but together it would just be...strange. Like it would be one verse of Lana singing calmly followed by 10 minutes of Christina trying to sing one vowel. Just wouldn't work.

I would be so down if Lana wanted to make an 80ish inspired album. Not like full-on 80s, but something like this that seems like a mix of modern and throwback. I've always wondered what that would sound like ever since the magazine cover that Courtney Love interviewed her on (Dazed, I think?), and now I can totally picture it.