The most popular coaster in all the world

I fear rejection. I can't help it. I was teased horribly growing up and I am a sensitive person. I was the kid that nobody would sit with in the cafeteria. I spared myself from feeling rejection by just not eating lunch. I was a long distance runner, so I would do laps around the track after classes and then scurry off to my voice lessons. After that, I would rush home and eat an entire box of cereal in one sitting. God bless my mother who had to do the grocery shopping. I was this extremely skinny boy with twig arms and when I graduated from high school I weighed 134 lbs. I am the same height now and weight 160lbs if that gives you any idea of how tragically twiggy I was.

I was called a faggot on a daily basis in high school and unlike some people who can develop this tough skin or retort with some witty comment, I would cry. Once the tears started to flow from my eyes, I would cry for hours and I would be called a faggot once again for crying so, I would just cry that much harder. Slowly I would drift further and further into myself where everyone and everything around me was nothing more than distant echoes.

Something happened when I turned 13. The girls began to bleed. The boys began to grow stubble and somehow when the hormone button was switched on, it just all went wrong.

Rejection and fear of it... I carry them with me even today as I am in the final stages of completing my first album. I think of disappointing albums I've purchased where I ended up finding some alternate use for these cd's. I once scraped ice and snow off of my car window with a cd. I won't say whose album it was so I don't ruffle any feathers. I just hope that my cd when completed doesn't end up being the most popular coaster in the world.

Serendipity and the Phoenix (Arizona)

Last night I went for a long walk, a seven mile walk, to be fairly exact. I started in the 20's in Manhattan and ended up in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I took the Manhattan Bridge to avoid the tourists and to allow for singing to myself.

I think people see me and think I'm crazy when I'm on my long walks. These are the journeys I take to have conversations with myself and finish the lyrics to songs I'm working on, so I sometimes walk and sing and scat and mumble.

This time, the walk was all about the sirens of Brooklyn. When I started I only had lyrics for the 1st verse, but when I was done walking I had a 2nd verse and the start of the final verse.

'The sirens.." is a song about a relationship with someone who abandoned me in a bar in Arizona with very little money and no means of getting back to my hotel. So, I'm singing lyrics inside my head "I'm sitting here in Arizona..." when a man stops me.

Man: Excuse me, but I'm lost. I'm not from here. I'm visiting from Phoenix Arizona and I need to find the train to get me back to Manhattan.

Me: That's so funny. I'm writing a song in my head right now about Phoenix Arizona.

Man:(awkward smile that implies that he thinks I'm crazy) That's great. So, can you tell me where I can catch the train?

I gave the man directions and we parted ways.

This all seemed like a sign to me. After being left in the bar in Arizona, I walked three miles in green rubber clogs, which felt like the longest walk of my life.

photo credit-Carrie Thomas

The Burrito and the 'Well Formed Man'

There are people starving in China. I'm not sure who they are. I've never seen a picture with a face to attach to this starvation, but ever since I was a child I've been told that they exist. They are always a topic of conversation when there is still food on my plate but my stomach is stretched beyond capacity.

If I don't clean my plate by eating that last piece of chicken or 3 lonely green beans, then I have somehow failed as a human being and let these poor starving Chinese people down. I have often wished that there were a service to overnight my leftovers to china. It would make me feel much better about my wastefulness.

I bring this topic up, because there is a burrito in my fridge that taunts me like the tell tale heart. It is a half eaten shrimp and steak burrito that I keep meaning to eat and now I think it may be unsalvageable. If I throw it away, then I have admitted my failure and disgraced my honor. If I eat it, it could quite possibly make me hurl.
I am a wasteful American and I feel shame.

Last night I was back in the studio with David editing and rerecording some vocals for 'Well Formed Man'. This is quite possibly my most experimental work to date and has been a sort of painful process. The entire song is comprised of only vocals with multiple layers. It has seen multiple incarnations and I have scrapped so many different versions of it, but I have finally hit the home stretch and it is coming together splendidly. I think the final version for the album will be sorted out by next week, which is so exciting.


photo credit-Carrie Thomas

The Sirens of Brooklyn

You held me in your arms that night
under the cold gaze of one street light
after all of the others had gone to bed

and the sirens of brooklyn were screaming and wailing
like something was burning or someone was dead.

--Rough Lyrics from 'The Sirens of Brooklyn'....
© 2006 Robert German


photo credit- Carrie Thomas

My Bloody Vinyl Time

As a child I was not a good team player.
Whenever we were assigned group projects, I would do all of the work on my own and then tell the members of the group what they needed to know for the presentation the next day.

I have become much more relaxed at my ripe old age, but I still feel on some level that if you want anything to get done, you have to do it yourself. I pride myself on the fact that I am involved with every aspect of my music; writing, playing, producing, and rolling up my sleeves and doing the dirty work.

Friday we had the assembly line going full throttle with the amazing *Censored* at the helm. So, if you received a copy of the limited edition Vinyl for Marlboro Man, then more than likely some part of the process of packaging that vinyl was done by little old me. Oh and I had an accident with a tape dispensor, so if I bled on your cardboard box I appologize as profusely as I bleed. I can truly say my blood, sweat, and tears went into this one. haha. Luckily I haven't lost any fingers yet.

Yesterday I went into the studio to do editing with David. Lately, I've become a nitpicker, focusing on the tiniest things now that the songs are entering into their final stages. I spent the most time focused on "Fishnet Sailor", which is sounding so technicolor. I also removed a vocal intro for "Follow", which I think makes it flow so much better. I never feel like a song is done. No matter what they are always works in progress. It's hard getting to that place where I can listen to something and not want to improve it.

Tomorrow I go back at it, nitpicking, that is.

Right now I'm in the process of writing a new song called "The Sirens of Brooklyn"...well at least for now that is its title...but I feel that this one is an emotional, troubled child, and might just change her name while I'm not looking.

The Finnish Wonder, Miss Helve, sent me an article about a Finnish band that is really shaking things up...haha. A picture is truly worth a thousand words.


photo credit-Carrie Thomas

SoHo, Chinatown, Brooklyn, Today

SOHO-Last evening I had drinks in SOHO with the lovely miss Kim Levering. It was such a beautiful evening so, we sat outside next to chattering French girls. Apparently we chose the intersection I now will think of as hotdog cart highway. Somewhere in the ballpark of ten hotdog carts passed by as we sat enjoying the perfect weather and disconnected conversation.
As we were sitting, we were approached by a small boy holding a piece of paper, followed by his father who was pushing a stroller. The very cute little boy handed the paper to kim who began to read... "I have 6 children to feed..."

Kim: You have 6 kids to feed? You're a little young to have 6 kids.

She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a fistfull of change and handed it to the boy as the father looked on. It broke my heart to look at this little boy with his big brown eyes. I found myself filled with anger that I wanted to direct at the father. He was using his child to beg for him. He did not have the balls to beg himself. This poor child with his innocence, exploited by his father.

The little boy skipped over to the father, handed him the change, and then moved on to the next group of people on the street. The father followed, pushing the stroller. Coming down the block was a woman holding a child and pushing a stroller followed by twin girls wearing kicky red matching outfits. The twins like the boy were approaching people on the street with a similar note. The two scenes merged and there they were together, the two parents and the 6 children...strolling off into the sunset.

CHINATOWN-After our SoHo drinks, Kim and I walked down to chinatown, our hunger doing the steering. We passed the fishy smelling shops with unidentifiable sea creatures crawling around in their tanks and the crazy fruit carts parked outside with all kinds of fruit that look much like they were picked on mars and brought back to our planet for their exotic appeal. We settled at a Malaysian restaurant on Baxter street and shared a noodle dish.

Along comes a woman who looks about 80 wearing an outfit that can only be described as a Vietnamese rice picking uniform, hat and all. She is balancing bags on a broomstick over her back, which she is using to separate the different types of recyclables. Pure brilliance, she was. She looked as though she had worked hard all her life and that it would take a strong wind to ruffle her feathers. I don't know her, but I respect her. I also can't do this scene justice because it was more surreal than I can properly explain.

BROOKLYN

I ended my evening,hanging out with a group of friends, some of whom I haven't seen in quite a while. All in all it was a great day...gotta love New York :)

TODAY
This morning I chatted with my mother about everything and nothing including the fact that my grandmother is turning 85 this weekend.

I spoke with Carrie (Carrie Thomas, not my sister)about our weekend plans. She just updated her photos on her flickr site and I'm in love with this picture of the New York Skyline taken from a cab.

The lovely Carrie Thomas is a fellow Brooklynite and additionally she is a very talented writer, photographer, and Jacqueline of all trades. I think her photography really captures New York and the soul of her subjects and yet always has a sense of humor.

ooh... I was excited to discover this morning that Logo Online wrote a little snippet about the single. Yay! :)

Purchase Brokeback Mountain and get my single

I'm very excited to announce that when you order a copy of Brokeback Mountain through Wolfe Video, you also receive the limited edition single for my song,
Marlboro Man.

I'm so excited to place my order as I still haven't seen the movie.



The CD includes

1. Marlboro Man(Single)
2. Marlboro Man(Radio)
3. Marlboro Man(Jefrodisiac's Italo-Disco mix)
4. Marlboro Man(Joeski's Ride Captain Ride mix)

An additional mix was done by Joeski, called the Dirty Cowboy Mix for the limited edition 12" vinyl.

This is such an exciting time and I send heartfelt thanks out to those who have been so supportive of my music and have contributed hours of their time and love.

Get your copy

Valley of the Dolls

Yesterday,

I watched the movie, Valley of the Dolls.
This experience just affirmed my love for Patty Duke.
I used to love the Patty Duke Show reruns on Nick at Night. Oh, the good ol' days.

Neely O'Hara: Boobies, boobies, boobies. Nothin' but boobies. Who needs em?

Quote courtesy of IMDb



photo credit-Carrie Thomas

Diary of an Addict/a cry for help

10:30 am
I have dirty little secrets. These are songs that I listen to as guilty pleasures. Right now it is Natasha Bedingfield's 'These Words (I love you I love you)'. This is not even something that I would normally listen to, but it's infectious.

12:00 pm
I can't get it out of my head. I find myself walking down the street humming the tune or full on singing the lyrics. I admit it. I love it. It's a good song.

1:30 pm
It makes me smile. I don't care. I feel no shame. Natasha. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

4:00 pm
I can't stop myself. This song is pure uncut Crack!
I may just disappear into an alley with an i-pod and neglect personal hygene and
all obligations to listen to this song on repeat. You may never hear from me again.


10:00 pm
This is a cry for help.
Someone, play some Joni Mitchell Court and Spark fast. I need smelling salts.

Etiquette, I will adhere to this.

Recently I was sitting with my friend,Richard, perusing the pages of the most recent book of Etiquette from Emily Post. Well, now it's Peggy Post who is the authority carrying on the family business.

It is proper etiquette to return someone's call in a timely fashion, if they leave you a voice message. There are times that I have not myself been the best at this and for any of you who have been on the other end of my rudeness, I apologize.

For those of you who have not returned my calls and claim to be my friend, please re-read the paragraph above and understand I expect this of you.



photo credit- Carrie Thomas

Attached to my meals

Barely an eyebrow had lifted when I turned around to the woman and told her
that she should shave her legs more often. Mind you, she was not a stranger. We had become familiar enough that I could tell her these things. After all, my hand did graze her leg and I did lose a layer of skin. There was justification no chauvinistic malice involved in my statement. So, please forgive me if I have offended your sensibilities.

We forget at times that women and men are both just beasts, groomed and polished for a walk through the park and then down to the meatpacking district. We can pretend to slum it like the people who actually have money, but want to look like people who are barely getting by. We actually don't have money, and we wear no pretense.

I've never been one to even desire having lots of money or fame or any of those things that constitute some sort of American dream. I just want to know that the next meal will be coming and that I have somewhere to rest my head, even if it is someone's couch. I just want to be happy and maybe to be loved and held. These are simple desires.

I like dives. I like motels with missing letters and movie theaters that play only one movie about a week before it comes out on Video. I grew up mostly in Kansas and Oklahoma in small towns. These are the towns that have been forgotten by the rest of the world, in dire need of a new coat of paint, but barely getting by. These are towns where people "come to town" from their farms actually wearing cowboy boots crusted with cowshit, not a fashion statement.

We milk cows not because we're Paris Hilton doing the simple life, but because we need milk for our oatmeal. We slop hogs from a bucket of odds and ends leftovers kept under grandma's kitchen sink. We go into the dark creepy chicken coup and remove eggs from underneath angry hens as they peck our hands. We fry those eggs in a thick black cast-iron skillet with the grease from bacon that came from a pig we killed with our bare hands. We are closer to nature and family and life and poverty and God, than many will ever be.

The older I get, the more I miss this kind of simple existence. You lose respect for the planet and for life when you buy your food from a grocery store. The first time you eat the meat of an animal that you raised and loved and became attached to, is such a life changing experience. Maybe it's why I was a vegetarian for 4 years. I became too attached to my meals. I wish I were more attached now.



photo credit- Carrie Thomas

Discipline

I recently stumbled upon a definition for the word discipline, that really resonates with me.

Discipline: Doing what needs to be done, even when you don't want to do it.

I like this definition. I printed it out and I'm going to put it on my wall.

Alone with 8 million

From time to time, generally though not exclusively with the changing of seasons, I feel blue and alone. There has been this weight in my chest for about a month now. It is the weight of undeniable and monumental loneliness.

During these "blue periods" I step back for a second and laugh. How is it that one can be sifting through a city crammed to the gills with people, 8.1 million to be fairly exact, and feel alone? I ride subway cars, sardined with business types in their finely pressed and starched suits, rushing to the important jobs that make the world keep on turning and churning. These people make the decisions to buy and sell and play chess with companies and people. If you make under $100,000 a year, consider yourself a pawn.

One thing about New York is that things are constantly shifting and changing. My favorite place to get a sandwich in NOLITA before it was even really called NOLITA by anyone other than realtors, bread and butter, is now a Cuban restaurant. My favorite German Pastry shop is god only knows what. I just know it closed. My very first gig was at a bar called "the rising", which is now a Mexican restaurant. My very first open mic was at a bar which is now a clothing store.

This change also applies to people. I think New York is a really hard city to forge and maintain lasting friendships. Someone can be your best friend one day and then the next day, they move to another neighborhood, still in the same city mind you, and you never hear from them again. I think of Astoria, well queens in general... It's like a foreign country to me. I never go there and I have no reason to do so.
Friends have moved to queens and have never been heard from again.

I guess at times I wish there were something I could hold onto like a rock, but although New York is built on Bedrock, it feels more like sand. The tide comes and goes and sweeps people away and brings them back or they get caught in the current and are lost forever.

I was having a beer with my friend, Carrie, the other day and ran into a group of friends. One of these friends has just acted weird towards me for almost a year now. This occasion was no different. I can't fully explain in words, but I had confronted him about how hurtful he was being. He is someone who I have valued so deeply. Well, all of the group said goodbye to me when they left, except for this friend. He went outside and acted as if I didn't exist. It cut me to the core. God, I am a stupid sensitive little creature.

I think this experience sent me face first into a puddle of blue. The one good thing I can say is that I do have a remedy for the seasonal blue periods. It's my guitar, black Swan. Last night we had a really in-depth conversation about the end of the summer and I ate Ecuadorian chicken and rice and contemplated buying a ford escort. So, I am not alone after-all with 8 million. I have black swan and fatty chicken and in the end, who could ask for anything more?



photo credit- Carrie Thomas

I kick children, pass the tums

I was talking on the phone yesterday, walking down the street, and not looking and I kicked a small child by accident. He fell flat on his stomach. His parents were horrified and looked at me like I was the devil. I felt so horrible. I'm now kicking small children down. God help me. Maybe I should stick to phones that are firmly coiled to the wall.

Nothing is ever what it seems when you see it from a distance coming at you. It looks like a bunny rabbit and then you see it up close and it's a hyena. It looks like a toy train and just before it hits you, you realize it's a real train. You think you stepped on a piece of garbage that missed the trash can on the corner, but instead it's a toddler.

This is life. Sometimes someone offers to spraypaint your baby and you think, hmmm is that a good idea? but then you say, hey, why not go ahead and spraypaint my baby. I've never seen my baby with purple skin. This is remixing. That has been the biggest occurrence lately. I've been giving people my baby to take apart,spraypaint and put back together. It's both beautiful and horrifying.

I'm eating fatty foods again because I'm stressed. I am so ridiculous. I'm like a 300 lb black women with her period. I could basically dip fried chicken in mayonnaise right now and feel like I've found nirvana. So, many deadlines and so little time...remixes, artwork, doing gigs on the DL. It's enough to make my head spin off into outerspace... Just a side not. Guacamole flavored tortilla chips taste amazing dipped in processed cheese and topped off with spicy sausage and fried chicken. Can someone please pass the tums?

czech please!

After a rather long and grueling day, I decided to stop into a local bar, cheers if you will. I sat alone at the bar. Few patrons had arrived and I was happy to be solitary and write in the little black book that I carry everywhere with me. So I lamented about loneliness and pressure and everything good and bad and ugly that had transpired through my day and week.

Just a note:::: I know the owners of this bar pretty well and they were sitting across the bar with a guy I had never seen before. I paid little attention to this.

So, I drink my one glass of wine and was preparing to leave when the bartender approached me.

"The gentleman at the end of the bar would like to buy you a shot. His name is Joe and it is his birthday"

I wanted to politely refuse but decided to just go ahead and take my medicine instead of insulting birthday Joe. So, I said that I would have a Lemon Drop shot and down the hatch it went. Now, I grabbed my coat and my bag and prepared to leave, but I thought I should thank dear Joe for making me feel obligated to take a shot and of course to wish him a happy birthday.

I go over and say my thank you's which turns into him throwing a fifty dollar bill down on the bar and saying shots for everyone....everyone being the 6 people in his vicinity. I say..oh hell, why not, it's the guy's birthday. He obviously doesn't have friends. They aren't here. I should oblige. So I do. Another lemon drop shot down the hatch. I still just want to go home. Joe by the way is from the czech republic. I start talking with him as he keeps throwing fifty and hundred dollar bills down on the bar and buying shots for anyone with an open mouth and a rotten liver. I'm starting to see double. I don't like shots. I don't like to do shots. I just wanted to have one glass of wine, go home, play my guitar, and sleep like an angel.

Instead I'm here with Czech Joe destroying brain cells. So, I ask him a question....a very simple question.
"What do you do?"

his answer=" You don't need to know"

I still do not know what he does, but I have a horrible feeling that it involves breaking kneecaps for a mob boss of some sort....ugh. Is there a czech mob?

So, of course the next thing out of his mouth is

"I want to go home with you"

I say "No, You're not going home with me. I don't take guys home with me. I have a boyfriend"

his response= "I will buy hotel room. I pay"

my response="I'm not going to a hotel with you"

his response=" not hotel. Motel. I pay for motel. You go with me. I pay"

my response=" I'm not going to a motel with you"

The next sentence out of his mouth was something about me using him for booze and that I'm a slut.

I pack up the little dignity I have left and go home.



God help me.

Remixed, Lonely, and Blue

At times I think of myself living in a world that is black and white in rooms filled with too much smoke, perched atop a piano singing the blues. The audience is filled with people who are dressed to the nines in a way that was just everyday clothing if you lived in my film noir world. I hear the clinking of the ice in their drinks. I am this enigmatic figure, the singer.

I am blue because that is what I am. I probably drink too much and maybe I have a problem with insidious substances. The counter culture of the grainy black and white world welcomes me yet I look down on them and I don't quite fit in the audience with their neatly pressed suits and flower-pinned lapels.

After my weekly engagement singing my songs of heartbreak and longing, I step off of the stage and ask the bartender to give me my regular, a scotch on the rocks. His name is Jimmy, because it just seems appropriate. He's heard it all. His face is stone. His heart is velvet. I know nothing about Jimmy. He's all ears, but doesn't get involved. I probably once had a crush on him but realized that like the Berlin wall, he's too tough to crack and too tall to climb.

After my third scotch, Jimmy asks if he can call me a car. I refuse and walk down the empty streets alone. I quite possibly should have used the bathroom before leaving the bar and have to duck into a dark alley to pee. There's a blind man playing the saxophone and I throw him a nickel. For some reason I envy him. A black cat crosses my path. I think nothing of it.

I reach my small apartment in a bad part of town, climb the stairs sloppily running my fingers against the cracked paint, intentionally making pieces crumble and fall onto the rotten wooden steps that creak with every step. I collapse into bed, alone, so alone. A part of me needs this loneliness. Another part of me so desperately craves love. I have resigned myself to be alone, a tragic enigmatic blues singer who smells of smoke and scotch and of dark alleys.

They will find my body two days after I die and wonder if it was suicide or murder or an accident. The papers will write about it. People will claim to know the answer. Big flash bulbs will pop and newsies will yell "read all about it".

So, I have taken my baby and given it to others to twist and mold and paint as they please. I now have two remixes in my hands which will be part of something soon to come. It's exciting and scary and different. I'm a protective mother who doesn't like to let others hold her baby. I'm learning that she can walk on her own and I have to let her play with other children for her to really be a part of the world. It's so hard watching them grow up.

Maybe I am not fit to raise my baby, but I pushed her out and I feel her with me, still inside me moving. She will always be there. When I'm up on stage, singing the blues with a flower in my hair, she is sitting there up past her bedtime, smiling up at me. I have probably corrupted her, but someone had to do it.

I Love Hate New York

Depending on the day I should either be wearing a shirt that either says
"I love NY" or "I hate NY"
I find that there is rarely an inbetween with this city. We have maintained a dysfunctional relationship for quite some time. NY beats me upside the head, backhands me, burns cigarettes into my clothing.

The next day there is the apology, the flowers, just the right words. I always come crawling back because NY has made me dependent on it. It's taken away my car and convinced me that the subway is the only way to go. It has made me actually fear leaving NY because I don't know how to function outside of the dysfunctional relationship.

I can get pretty much anything I need most times of the day...access to works by almost every famous artist. I pass models on the street. They live amongst us. I can hear every major language spoken in the street and eat pretty much every type of world cuisine.

Yet, I can also see the dark disconnected parts of humanity...the homeless the smell of urine as the subway train approaches...absolute wealth ignoring absolute poverty as it begs for a penny to buy an apple..or maybe some booze. who knows. After you live in NY for a while you become jaded and need convincing that a homeless person isn't just an NYU student pretending to be destitute for extra drinking money.

In other unrelated news and to prove that I have A.D.D. Today, my count of friends on Myspace hit the dreaded number 666. God help us all.

Hollywood Fire Hydrant for reelz, not for fakes

Imagine driving through Hollywood at 2:30 in the morning.
a few blocks ahead a giant gyser of water is shooting up into the air 40 feet high.
the source of this magnificent ?natural? disaster was a car which had crashed into the hydrant. The water had blown the hood off the car, which had blossomed into a beautiful fountain. It was magnificent. I wish I had a picture to show you, but I didn't have a camera. It will live in my memory forever.

My new favorite bar is a place called The Abbey on Robertson and Santa Monica in West Hollywood.

obviously my irrational fear of LA has fallen away, and I apparently had some sort of weird experience that makes no sense to even people who live there. At night, the air smelled like flowers, sweet and sickening, reminiscent of the magnolias from my early years in the south. I drove all over including the 405 freeway and it was enjoyable. nobody cut me off. People stopped to let me merge into traffic. It was pleasent. The weather was beautiful. The people were beautiful, well most of them. The food was delicious and fresh.

Have a found Utopia? Los Angeles is tricking me. It is hiding its underbelly. I must return and seak it out. I'm not fooled by this show of fragrant blossoms and friendly drivers.

and yet, I think I want to move there. oh god.

Fear of Los Angeles

I think I may have an irrational fear of Los Angeles.
I've never wanted to go there, and yet I never really had a reason to loathe or fear the city of angels.

My only real theory is that it is my grandmother's fault. My grandmother was an okie, the people from Oklahoma who fled the dustbowl and ended up in California trying to find a better life, but basically spat on and treated like scum.(see Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath)

Maybe it's a deep resentment of California's treatment of my grandmother, passed down in my genetic makeup. Regardless, I have never been to Los Angeles and I have never had a desire to go.

Regardless of how I feel, I will touch down in Los Angeles on Monday and will not see my beloved New York again until Thursday night. I am keeping an open mind, and who knows I just might fall in love with LA.

Tomorrow I'm back in the recording studio reworking an old recording. I have a feeling that you're all going to pee your pants with glee when you hear the ear candy that will be coming your way. Alright, I'll just come out with it. It's the Walking song.

I'm told people look at you strange if you walk in L.A. I'm going to be driving a mini-van, so I'll be super hot driving through West Hollywood.

Is Faster and Harder Better?

I find that sometimes I become attached to songs after they have been recorded in a certain way at a certain speed. This week, I went into the studio to record a more uptempo version of a song. It sounds hot in its new form, but it will take me a while to get used to this flashier version. Is Faster and Harder better?

It's like a nun wearing sequined high heals. At first, it shocks you, but eventually, you say a few hail marys and settle into the idea.