I was born on the 16th of January, in 1980. So what do I get to see on television, having survived this cruel and often Osmond-filled world for over two decades? A preview for John Travolta's new movie "Swordfish" (where he plays a fat guy with bad facial hair who is probably a scientologist) and Laura Prepon, possibly the sexiest woman on the face of the Earth, dancing around in giant, tinted sunglasses and Brady Bunch bell-bottom pants for a GAP ad. No, not while she's on "That 70's Show." When she's on an ad for clothes that are supposed to make you look cool. I don't know if anybody was watching closely, but I thought the "Brady Bunch Movie" taught us all how stupid those pants looked. Then I flip past MTV and see TRL B-teamer Dave Holmes sporting a new Mike Brady jew-fro hairdo.

What else do I see on MTV? Disco. I'm used to seeing unpleasant Disco content on Monday Nitro, but not on MTV.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Bee Gees were a great bunch of foreigners when they weren't screeching at each other. And Welcome Back, Kotter was a great show. But in the 80's we replaced the Bee Gees with Def Leppard and Welcome Back, Kotter with Head of the Class. These things should be buried and gone, but MTV - the channel that tells us (if "us" is the mentally and reproductive organ-impaired) what's cool and what isn't - is playing disco. Disco sandwiched between ads for giant, tinted Gorilla Monsoon looking sunglasses and pants that stop below your knee. Highwater pants and old-man sunglasses. If we keep going at this pace people will take to the streets to get Family Matters back on the air, so they can see what a fucking fashionplate Steve Urkel was.

The worst part of this is that most of the people "performing" the CUTTING EDGE disco beats weren't even alive in the 70's. They're people just like me, people who came out of the womb and landed on a soft pillow of Reaganomics, the MTV generation that paid GOOD MONEY to see Cyndi Lauper grab some old woman's hair on Pay-per-view. Sure, they've been slandered by malfeasance like Snow or the Power Rangers, but there's no need for bright-eyed television tube babies of the 80's to regress. They should be covering songs by Phil Collins or Peabo Bryson...people who took a festering shit on the world of entertainment while they were ALIVE.

With eyes barely open (from sleep depravation and mostly fright at what's gonna come from my fingertips) I begin my trek to rationalize and understand "Lady Marmalade," the women who've chosen to perform it, and its ramifications on our lives and society. And somewhere, along the way, I hope to learn a big, important lesson out of all this. What will that lesson be?

Only the sacred texts of scientology know for sure!

Click above to download the ENTIRE "Lady Marmalade" video. Don't say I never did anything nice for you. Say I tried to kill you.

"Lady Marmalade" was originally released in 1975 by the group "Labelle," which was just DIVA Patti Labelle before being a DIVA meant you could get your own television special. After an unnecessarily long run on the Billboard charts, "Lady Marmalade" fell into oblivion, where car commercials and punk rock remakes live.

This remake follows closely to the lyrics of the original, including the infamous "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir" line. In French, the phrase means "I want you to go to bed with me tonight." The phrase is sandwiched between gibberish ("Gitchi Gitchi Ya Ya Here...Mocca chocalata Ya Ya") and intense sexual situations (Seeing her skin feeling silky smooth, color of cafe au lait...
Made the savage beast inside roar until it cried).

What better song to market to the 13 year olds who watch Total Request Live! They've been hearing about "skin the color Mocha" for years, it's time they moved up to "skin the color of cafe au lait."

The song is featured on the soundtrack to the movie "Moulin Rouge" due out this summer, about Ewan McGregor (famous for showing his schlong in everything but Star Wars Episode 1) and Nicole Kidman (famous for showing her ass in everything but Star Wars Episode 1) hanging out and singing songs about sex. I think, anyway. I'm avoiding the film like I'd avoid Paul Reiser if he had flesh-eating disease. Especially now that Nicole Kidman got divorced! What a hussy she is!!! OMG!!!

As much as I'd like to take credit for the humor in this video and song, it's completely out of my league. The video (which airs every day on TRL at 3 in the afternoon) is (essentially) America's youngest pop singers showing tits and ass. Normally I wouldn't have a problem but...but look for yourself.

Mya

Singing style: You ever turn on the radio in the afternoon, and hear one of those generic R&B song where some chick is barely audible over the drum machine, and she's singing about her "baby" and how she don't "want no game" or "scrubs?" "I'm a do right" and define Mya as one of those.

Biggest pluses: I'll confess not knowing much about Mya, other than that her TV show about the bees was really crappy. However, she IS the only female in this video that doesn't look like a bench-warming science-fiction villain. She actually looks more like a mouse. A fifteen pound mouse with fourteen pound hooters, mind you, but a mouse regardless. Also, she made that "Case of the Ex" video where she's doing kung-fu in the desert and looks like Donatello from the Ninja Turtles.

Biggest minuses: She's got the thinnest voice of all the women in this video, possibly because her sixteen ounce frame can't support lungs large enough to hold air. This doesn't stop radio and music television from playing her...constantly. I can remember a time when the radio stations in my area DIDN'T play "Case of the Ex" all day every day. I'd just gotten back from the war, and Harry S. Truman was dancing around in the desert with a bo staff. I guess it's always been with us, really.

DOWN IN OLD MOULIN ROUGE: From what I can tell, Mya's role in all of this is to sing the first verse of the song while the others prepare their voices for severe screaming. Also, she spends the first verse of the song actually looking kinda pretty, while the others prepare their faces for the attempted giving of nightmares to children and the mentally handicapped.

Pink

Singing style: Whatever talent she may possess is completely marred and hidden by the fact that she's making up words half the time. I'm a firm believer that anybody who wants to start making up words (like "bling bling" and "tha ching ching") in songs should be riding in an expensive car surrounded by strippers. Except for "Nelly," who should be riding in an expensive car to the gas chamber. Pink's lyrical mastery is evident with deep thoughts like "Shorty got a car" and "I don't need no G to validate MEEEEEE." From where I'm standing, "shorty" got a problem and is in need of the validation that comes with looking heterosexual every once in a while.

Biggest pluses: She doesn't have much (real) hair, so if she's in a wrestling match she can do that awesome heel thing where the bald guy acts like he got his hair pulled.

Biggest minuses: First of all, her name is "Pink" for God's sakes, named after the color of the aisle that no little boy would walk through in the toy store. Where did she get such a stupid stage name? According to her "you hear it first" blurb that fell outta the back of Loder's throat a year or so ago, Pink got her name because she really "liked that Aerosmith song" and she wanted to be like Gwen Stefani from "No Doubt." According to her "now-I'm-famous-revisionist history" (and a REALLY great feature on American Online...which I checked out before it crashed seventy times) :

"My friends named me Pink. It's been following me my whole life. The movie 'Reservoir Dogs' came out, and Mr. Pink is a character in that. My friends named me that because I get embarrassed easily and I turn bright pink."

If they called this chick "pink" in high school it wasn't because of Reservoir Dogs and a penchant for being embarrassed. Maybe it was because she was a goofy little white girl (like "most girls") who was always spreading for the black jocks on the football team. And the black jocks on the basketball team. And the black jocks in the A.V. Club. And the black jocks who were able to stand on two feet.

Second of all, she's a puzzle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a big honking sack of ugly. If you're going to try to give me an erection by acting like Mena Suvari, you sure as bling blinging well better look like Mena Suvari.

Because otherwise, you're just some bitch who fell into the bushes outside my house. And that's when I start beating you in the head with a broom. Now GIT!

DOWN IN OLD MOULIN ROUGE: Pink, is that really you? I couldn't tell under your eleven feet of fluorescent wig. Pink appears to have been possessed by the spirit of the fictional bastard love child of Madonna and Michael Jackson in this video, combining the idea of taking off one's clothes with the idea of grabbing one's privates repeatedly. Music's overflowing with people who were inspired by the Material Girl and the Elephant Man, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Why can't more people be inspired by the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Currently Known as Prince? At least he wore pants without an ass and sang about wanting to fuck all the time. Now, I could get into that. Instead I keep expecting Norm from Cheers to burst into Moulin Rouge and tell Macauly Culkin to turn the music down.

Li'l Kim

Singing style: Going "YEAH....YEAH... UH UH UH UH UH UH UH!!!" like she really means it. But I think she DOES really mean it. It's hard to fake honest emotion like that.

Biggest pluses: Kim helps to increase the banality of the disco hit by adding a very Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez-esque rap in the middle. The rap (of course) is about how she is a whore who really, really, really likes being rich. Li'l Kim, Da Brat, Foxxy Brown...all women rappers inherently end up sounding the same, because all they (can, or tend to) sing about is how they want the male rappers to fill their twats with diamonds. I'm sure this is a big conspiracy against women's rights, but looking from outside Moulin Rouge in, it looks more like the time-honored Lita Ford boobs-to-business deal. If you don't have any respect for yourself you can go far in the world.

Biggest minuses: Kim says she won't pose for Playboy magazine because it would "compromise her Christianity." On her last CD she's naked in the liner notes, naked on television, naked on Pokemon, whatever. Plus, she's got at least fifteen-dozen references to cum in her songs. What a good Christian. Jesus will let you into Heaven no matter WHAT you do, as long as you don't let people see the coloration difference between breast and nipple. When the world ends and Jesus destroys the world from his giant white horse from Heaven, I'm gonna be looking to see if he's got an "I BRAKE FOR MONSTER BOOTY" bumper sticker slapped on it's ass.

DOWN IN OLD MOULIN ROUGE: Kim's role in this video is to disturb the audience with her camel toe.

AAaaaaaughhhh......(runs to the bathroom to vomit)

Christina Aguilera

Singing style: Constant and loud. Likes to add multiple clips of herself saying things in a whisper behind the actual music. Goes "Ooooh Whoa Whoa Whoa Yeah yeah" after EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE SHE COMPLETES. Often on her knees.

Biggest pluses: She's a complete cum-dumpster. I've seen people who hump their dogs and then eat the gook that comes outta the dog's butt that have more moral integrity than Christina. Other than that she gave us some good Eminem television moments. Scientists are working round the clock to figure out how her body supports her head, so that's pretty cool. If you look at her from above she kinda looks like Krang from the Ninja Turtles.

Biggest minuses: Looks like someone cut Calista Flockhart in half and then starved her to death. Is a proud "Latina" role model, instilling an invaluable hope in young Hispanic girls that they too might one day have white hair and blue eyes. I'm serious, her hair gets whiter and whiter every time she's on television. Maybe it's the year-supply of poorly done make-up on her immense cranium that's throwing me off.

DOWN IN OLD MOULIN ROUGE: Christina Aguilera does the impossible by being in the same video with Missy Elliot and STILL being the person in the video I'd least like to rail. I would say that she'd be great if you put a paper bag over her head, but that raises two big problems:

1) Even if I put a paper bag over her head, I'd get the creepy feeling that I was having sex with one of those hungry people from the Sally Struthers commercials. I think my wiener is wider than her body. And I'm not complimenting myself.

2) I'm not sure I could fit a paper bag over her head. I'm not sure I could get a pair of fuckin' jogging sweats over her head. Even IF I could find material versatile enough to stretch around her skull I'd have what appears to be eight nautical miles of hair to navigate. Personally, I don't want to go digging in that stuff. I might find bugs in there. Big bugs. Or gay dancers.

Without a doubt she's got the best voice of the Moulin Rouge girls, and we know this because she spends the last two minutes of the song trying to sing over everybody else. The fact that she looks like she should be piloting a giant robot over Tokyo screws that all up the ass. It's like somebody created an imperfect clone of Gwen Stefani and let it loose to run amuck over popular music. Her next song's just gonna be her going "CHOMP A CHOMP A CHEWY CHOMP."

Aguilera should wise up and curb her creepy downward spiral before she ruins her career, and builds an amusement park so she can have illicit sex with monkeys and little boys. Nobody ever said she was wise. I guess it's hard to read a book when you've got so many different colors of weave to try out.

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot

Ah, this is too easy. A horsey looking fat chick who dances around in a trashbag.

The good thing - Missy's only in the video at the very end, and doesn't do anything but say everybody's names.

The better thing - She's not doing that annoying "tunnel vision" lens thing that you see in every rap video now, that makes her lips look bigger than her head. I had nightmares about that for years. I'd dream I was getting eaten by a giant pair of lips and then I'd wake up and find out I'd fallen asleep while eating out Rosie O'Donnell. And then I'd wake up again.

Screaming.

As loud as I could.

For HOURS.

The best thing - Missy's not in her underwear. Hooray for the power of the human mind.

So what was this big lesson I wanted to learn, in my quest to justify the seventies returning to devour me? It's quite simple, really.

I need to buy a shotgun. And I need to load it with as many shells as possible, and take cover in an abandoned old cabin in the woods. That way, the only thing that would come to kill me would be spirits of the undead.

I think I speak for all of us when I say I'd rather do battle with zombies than see Li'l Kim's camel toe again.

Je veux que vous cessiez de chanter, s'il vous plaît. For the love of God.