HABLA MIERDA

Picture of the Day

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 25, 2008. 1 Comment.

Hamster Politics

When I was in 7th grade I bought a hamster. That’s not entirely accurate; I bought a hamster cage that came with a free hamster, who I then named Manolo Jose Luis Sanchez de la Rosa de Cienfuego de la Patria Dulce. I decided to get a male hamster because I became adamant that I didn’t want a hamster’s menstruation cycle to ever become something that would cause me the slightest concern. I didn’t know what you had to do about a hamster in heat. I didn’t want to know if there was any special cleaning. I mean, it’s a fucking rat, this much I knew; but actually learning something, anything, about the subject is not knowledge I ever wanted to acquire, a decision that I have been pleased with to this day.

I refuse acknowledging the reality of menstruation. The entire notion is ludicrous, like one of those flaws that we just haven’t figured out how to solve yet. Menstruation is like cancer in that respect. For days an organism, human or otherwise, bleeds, as in blood, as in the stuff you need to keep inside of your body in order for it to continue functioning, and if this organism is frequently around other organisms that also bleed they will all begin to bleed at the same time. The bleeding is actually the organism slowly releasing dead eggs from its body. For the proponents of intelligent design, the entire process calls into question just how intelligent a designer took on the project. It would have had to be a no-bid contract in order for the human species to find itself in a position where reproduction, more often than not a end-result that is actively avoided, involves a man awkwardly shielding his penis with a thin coat of rubber while having to thrust into what amounts to little more than an open wound and praying to the designer that if his protection should fail the woman is having enough sex where she feels the need to take pills to avoid pregnancy. Safe in the knowledge he is lying with a whore, he then has to worry about any one of the myriad of the frightening diseases, some even causing rot, he may catch from placing his most prized possession in a potentially festering petrie dish.

The more sane choice, given the designer is an omnipotent being that is cognizant of all possible futures for all possible inhabitants of the planet it just created and therefore foresaw societies where individuals engage in sexual intercourse without the goal of successful reproduction, would have been for both parties to simultaneously chant an otherwise useless phrase that would telepathically impregnate the female; before last night I would have suggested “Yes she can”, but thankfully the design flaw spared us from a 1,237,696 slack-jawed yokels turning Hillary Clinton into the bloated carrier of a grotesquely large, genetically shrill litter.

Like the Clintons, female hamsters are also known for devouring their own; and science, like the majority of reasonable people that keep up with the nation’s political discourse, can’t figure out why either one does it.

I really didn’t think that even the Democrats could fuck this one up.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 23, 2008. 2 Comments.

Blog-O-Cuss Meter Score, 25%

I came across a tool that measures the amount of cursing on your blog while reading through AdScam. I’m holding steady at 25%, which unfortunately is a good bit cleaner than I speak in real life.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 22, 2008. 1 Comment.

No Deal

I wonder how the booking agent for the show pulled this one off:

Booking Agent: Hi, Mr. President. I’m calling from Deal or No Deal starring Howie Mandel

President Bush: Yeah, Howie. Heh. Heh. I love Bobby’s World. “Toot toot toot do do dodo do do do do”

There’s something unsettling about having the president of your country appear on a massive screen on the stage of a show created and marketed to the lowest common intellectual denominator.

Interestingly enough, even after seven years of fuckup after fuckup, complete and utter ignorance on the job, and an ambivalence to long-standing American traditions and the rule of low, Bush is still able to come off as likable. There’s a part of me that would love to sit down with him, maybe grab a beer as the pundits love to insist, and just be honest with him, “George, now you realize you fucked up right? You can tell me, seriously, just say you fucked up. I’m not even mad at you; just say you fucked up and it’ll be cool.”

The disdain this administration has shown for the American people is so palatable and its failures so great in magnitude that a simple admission of error would go a long way to restoring some of the squandered trust we so readily gave our government after September 11th. Instead of an apology, we get pre-recorded scripted jokes about how horrible of an administration he’s run on an even more horrible prime-time game show hosted by a proto-punk version of the guy who wrote a second-teir children’s show where he was portrayed, somewhat fittingly, as an aloof ill-prepared father who was so incapable in his role that he couldn’t even manage to pass on the most paternal of lessons - tying a tie:

It’s telling that I couldn’t actually finish the video. I shut it down about halfway into Bush’s schtick. This wasn’t the president connecting to the common man, this was “Hey, you’re going to start having to back McCain publicly soon, why don’t you get out there on TV and make a joke or something. There’s a show NBC that’s popular with the knuckledraggers, and it stars the same guy from Bobby’s World“.

And, of course, the crowd went wild.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 22, 2008. Start the discussion.

Where’s Obama’s AIDS ribbon?

Inspired by Sullivan’s comments:

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 19, 2008. Start the discussion.

Obama, if you’re going to do it please take it all the way

Start every stump speech with “you’re now tuned in to the motherfucking greatest” and I’ll vote for you.

A priceless moment (at around 2:20) from Obama’s townhall speech earlier today looped for glorious eternity on the obligatory YTMND.

Update: this is pretty funny too:

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 17, 2008. Start the discussion.

Damien?

”This isn’t the time for publicity,’ said his father, a former lobbyist and political consultant. ‘And I certainly don’t want anyone to think I’m taking over my son’s entire existence. The reality we face is that campaign timelines are getting longer in every election, and in the decades to come the candidates who succeed will be the ones who get the earliest start. For us, 2008 is definitely the appropriate starting line.’

Huffington Post

Not that I like being an alarmist, but I do remember this quote from the movie (and probably more importantly, a little something called The Bible):

When the Jews return to Zion [check], and a comet fills the sky [nukes?], and the holy Roman Empire rises [Pax Americana], then you and I must die [shit.]. From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on either shore, turning man against his brother, until man exists no more

If I remember The Omen, biblical scholars had determined the “eternal sea” meant the world of politics. No big deal, right?

‘This isn’t the time for publicity,’ said his father, a former lobbyist and political consultant. ‘And I certainly don’t want anyone to think I’m taking over my son’s entire existence.

The family only agreed to the interview on conditions of anonymity and have mapped out a very detailed plan to instill their kid into the Oval Office in the election 29 years from now.

The funny thing is that I’m sure they’re not the only ones. Who knows if years from now we’re not electing carefully crafted manchurian candidates with absolutely blemish-less backgrounds and have known nothing but the pursuit of power?

They need to shave this kid’s head and look for markings.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 08, 2008. 1 Comment.

Monday Muxtape: Growing up on Power 96

To me, making a tape is like writing a letter. There’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do.

You’ve got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with “Got to Get You Off My Mind,” but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two)

And then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can’t have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can’t have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing in pairs and…oh, there are loads of rules.

High Fidelity

Muxtape is a great new service that lets you upload a 12 track “mixtape” to share with friends online. I thought it would be a good idea to start making these a regular feature on the site, so I decided to start it off with something that reminded me of the old mixtapes I used to make for myself when I was younger.

I remember sitting in my room with a bright red My First Sony radio/tapedeck like the one above, listening to Power 96 and creating shoddy over-the-air mixtapes. It’s probably worth mentioning that a.) that tape deck lasted forever and is in a closet somewhere in still-working condition and b.) it was an absolute pain to find that picture. Nothing will make you feel quite as old as coming across an eBay auction for a prized childhood possession only to find the word “vintage” in the description.

I had mixtapes down to a science. I could go back and record over old songs to make sure I got the timing right and jump back and forth between two songs like a cross-fader. I was the King Popadopolis of radio bootlegging. My tapes were legendary if only in my own mind; but I would give anything to find the one where I got the station to play E. 1999 just so I could perfectly dovetail it with an equally horrible song. I kind of feel bad for the generation that has known nothing but MP3 playlists and burning CDs; someone should really make a piece of software that recreates the mixtape experience without needing a sound engineering degree.

When I was growing up, Power 96, Miami’s local “urban” station, was at its peak. They had DJs that were becoming famous because of the bourgeoning “Booty Bass” scene, which to this day is the only genuine local music style that developed almost entirely in Miami. Because of the timing needed to create mixtapes from radio broadcasts, I soon became intimately aware of the drum loops, sound effects, and lyrics (yes, there are lyrics) in almost every booty bass song to come out of the city.

I decided to kick off the Monday Muxtape series with my tribute to the heyday of Power 96 (Muxtape Link).

Track 1: DJ Uncle Al, Mix It Up

As soon as it starts, you know with no uncertain terms that it’s time for the bass to blow your mind. A lot of people don’t know that the more popular radio version of the song wasn’t on the original album, an album I proudly owned and recently repurchased through iTunes. The thumping drum loop reminds me of the Gombey riffs beaten out on the sides of lockers by kids between periods in the 700 building of Ponce de Leon Middle School. Yes, people used to bang on lockers in between classes yelling “GOMBEY! POP DAT COOCHIE! GOMBEY!”. One of our the units in our workshop class was a mini radio station, Mix It Up was how I opened my set then, so it’s how I’m opening up this tape today.

Track 2: 2 Live Crew, Shake a Lil Something

This song came a little bit later, but was part of the great 2 Live Crew reunion in the mid 90s. Since its release in 1996 (holy shit, this song is 12 years old), I’ve racked my brain to figure out where the intro comes from: “Ok, man. Are you ready to go? I’m ready to go, now. Come on, crank this mother fucker up. WOOOOOOOOOOOO”. I also can’t believe it’s taken me almost the entire twelve years to figure out what “Pump, pump. Get it. Get it” meant. 2 LIve Crew proved that no matter what problems existed between their members, they were always down for a tabletop.

Track 3: B Rock and the Bizz, That’s Just My Baby Daddy

Bless my mom, I don’t know how in the hell she used to let me play some of this shit in her car. I wasn’t allowed to buy or listen to music that had the dreaded Parental Advisory sticker, so I think she was somewhat relieved when a song I would play wasn’t censored to the point where it sounded like a skipping record. I vividly remember the horrified “WHAT DID HE JUST SAY” when she misunderstood Freak Nasty’s command that his dancing partner put her hand up on his hip as a being a request for a tug-job. But she instantly fell in love with “the baby daddy” song, cranking up the volume whenever Slammin’ Felix Salma would decide to play it. It bugs me to this day that neither B Rock nor the Bizz get credit for the phrase.

Track 4: Luke, Scarred

Scarred was the North by Northwest of booty bass. Like Hitchcock, Luke knew his era was waning and crafted a masterwork brining together elements he had so effectively used throughout his body of work. Hype-building intro with Leisure Suit Larry sex puns? Cap’n D cumming… Cap’n D cumming… Undecipherable lyrics? “Te fra ba ru, fuck nigga rup too”. Objectifying women to the point where they are nothing more than masturbatory apparatuses?

‘Cause in the sack, I hit it from the back, Split her in two
Nigga, after the fuck n’ screw, there’s nothing left to do but send her back to you
With the pussy beat up, while you discuss who’s job it is to keep the winner

The song also introduced Trick Daddy, who would come to rule Miami hip-hop for the next decade; and possibly the most filthy dance of all time, Hydraulics (and not that crappy new “hydraulic”, but the good old fashioned putting your hands up high, your ass down low, and dropping that pussy down to the floor).

Track 5: Poison Clan, Shake What Ya Mama Gave Ya

Like B Rock and the Bizz, Poison Clan is never credited with coming up with the phrase “shake what yo mama gave ya”; one of those phrases, like bling, that white people picked up and immediately made uncool. But for one brief moment in time, Poison Clan took the turn of phrase to its apogee, paving the way for women in the new century to have the choice between shaking it like a polaroid and/or a saltshaker. Lil Jon will never have anything on JT Money asking ladies to grab that pole, bend down low, and show that booty hole. Miami loves strip clubs, and rappers in Miami love telling strippers how to do the direst shit this side of a hentai flick.

Track 6: 12 Gauge, Donkey Butt

Jumping back to middle school, people used to start mouthing the chorus to this song whenever they asked one of the girls in gym to do donkey raises on the calf machine. I know, what kind of school had 7th and 8th graders doing weights? Ponce De Leon, a merit school of excellence - that’s what kind of school. The song also introduced me to James Brown, something that has forever indebted me to 12 Gauge.

Track 7: 2 Live Crew, Face Down, Ass Up

This song must have been a shock to any parents that might have been screening the albums their kids were buying. It starts off innocently enough with the first few seconds being a sample of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way (I like it)”, but soon thereafter began the first really dirty song I ever heard. It must have been 3rd or 4th grade, and David Barco, Julio, and I were walking back towards my grandmother’s house after we got out of class at Auberndale Elementary in Little Havana. David had a Walkman knockoff with a bootleg copy of Banned in the USA. He placed the headphones on me and from that point on I knew, even if I didn’t understand, that my preferred manner of intercourse would be with a morally upstanding woman’s face buried into a pillow and her backside in a position that would afford multiple points of entry. Of course at 8 or 9 years old you don’t fully comprehend why you would ever have such a preference, but I’d be lying if the thought didn’t cross my mind while I was losing my virginity: “What would Uncle Luke do?”

Listening all these years later, I’m realizing that I was learning about anal sex, double penetration, gang bangs, and that “pussy ain’t nothing but meat on a bone” at the same time I was learning to write in cursive. There’s something I find wholesome about that.

Track 8: Splack Pack, Scrub Da Ground

I first danced to this song with Shaquanda Smalls during a middle school dance. I ended up going with her because we were paired up after some compatibility test that apparently was administered to make sure that any 7th graders who were not yet pregnant would soon be paying for their lunch milk with a WIC check. Shaquanda Smalls was exactly as her name would suggest, a 7-foot tall, 300 pound black girl that looked intent on beating “my cracka ass”. She scrubbed the ground, I still cry to this day.

Oddly enough, they also would play this song at dances during high school. I went to La Salle High School, a private Catholic school run by the Order of Don Bosco; I could only assume the nuns thought scrubbing the ground was a form of penance.

Track 9: DJ Laz, Mami, El Negro

As with most things in the “latino” culture, Cubans tend to do them right, like DJ Laz’s infusion of Latin music with modern hip-hop instead of those “other groups” that end up fucking things up with bullshit like reggaeton. Instead of some half-Rican asking for gasoline, we started our songs with Alvarez Guedes warning non-spanish speakers that what they were about to listen to was not for them:

Un Americano, que no sepa hablar español, que vaya a una fiesta de Cubanos, tiene que estar loco. Ño.

The introduction to the song is almost a warning for non-Cubans who aren’t familiar with our own particular brand of race relations to not read too much into a song who’s chorus (which really doesn’t come across this bad in Spanish) literally translated to, “Mommy, the negro is rabid”.

Track 10: Proyecto Uno, El Tiburon

I don’t think I’ve been to a quinces or local wedding that didn’t play some variant of this song. The all-spanish version is by El General, and the spanglish monstrosity that was continuously broadcasted throughout Dade County was by Proyecto Uno, who have gone on to, well, perform at quinces parties and wedding receptions. The story is simple: some guy is trying to cheat on his wife and gets ratted out by “el tiburon” who swoops down, blows up his spot, and steals the girl. El Tiburon is how I learned the importance of a good wingman.

Track 11: Bass Patrol, Don’t Stop the Rocking

All the filthy, sexually-explicit booty bass songs of the late 80s, the 2 LIve Crew era during the 90s, and even today’s electronica and awful southern dance rap have their roots in the freestyle groups of the early 80s - and the best place to jam out to freestyle, at least for people my age, was Hot Wheels, a roller skating rink out in then unincorporated West Dade. This was the evolution of the Debbie Debs warning the weekend to look out; just thunderous bass, fog machines, and shitty pizza.

Track 12: DJ Laz, Journey Into Bass

A few years later, DJ Laz would help centralize freestyle and bass music in the Miami area with songs like “Journey Into Bass”, a song deliciously aware of its own limitations. From the flight attendant welcoming us to Flight 808, this song had no pretension of lyrical complexity. This was about low frequencies, booty dropping, and car shaking. This wasn’t meant to rattle your brain, it was meant to rattle the trunk of the guy stuck in traffic 4 cars behind you.

It’s even a bit hard for me to realize that I just spent over 2,100 words waxing nostalgic about booty music, but I didn’t have the Beetles or Jefferson Airplane as my childhood soundtrack. I didn’t even have the heavy rock influence that people growing up in other parts of the country were exposed to. I was over at Bacardi & Diet’s place when I started putting the songs together for this piece, and she barely recognized any of them. But each one of these songs reminds me of different periods growing up. As much as I might not like to admit it, booty music and Power 96 went with me from elementary all the way through high school; and while my taste in music has substantially expanded in the subsequent years, I will always have a special place in my heart for songs that save me from having to ask bitches to shake their asses and letting me see what they’ve got.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 07, 2008. 6 Comments.

My New Officemate

Earlier this week a new performer appeared on Lincoln Road, an extremely overweight freestyle rapper (although, to call him a rapper is both an insult to the genre and his genius). He has some sort of boombox with a mic input and stumbles over himself as he tries to rhyme about people walking along Lincoln Road. He started right in front of the Apple Store, but I guess the Sunday natural food kiosks forced him to move into the doorway of the old Tropical Cigar spot right next to my office, the Starbucks on Lincoln and Meridian.

Apart from lyrics so awful that they’ve actually crossed over into Kaufman-esque brilliance, he’s perhaps unknowingly making one of the funniest references of any of Lincoln Road’s regular semi-schizophrenic characters. He hasn’t drifted into his own manufactured reality like Mitch Chonin, the Flash-dancing attraction that tourists love to photograph; nor does he parade around on a bicycle with his cock sitting in the basket, like Rooster Guy. No, this guy is reaching back and making a reference that only few will have the background to grok. You see, every day he wears a different hat.

That’s right, a street performer that reenacts one of the greatest films of all time: Fear of a Black Hat. For the majority of people unfortunate enough to have never seen this brilliant movie, it’s a mockumentary in the spirit of Spinal-Tap that follows the rap group, N.W.H. (Niggaz with Hats). I’ve only seen it once, on Starz 3 West, at llke 3:30 in the morning, but it was amazing - as is this guy.

“Hey, Blondie / You look very sexy / Makes me thirsty / I’m gonna drink a Pepsi / Woooooooo!”

Every once in a while, he locks up and can’t come up with anything so he breaks into a DMX-inspired series of dog barks. Passerbys alternatively clutch each other’s arms and scurry away or hand him their mobile phones so he can kick a freestyle to their friends.

After about 2 hours, he packed up his gear and started to walk away. In a sort of role-reversal, I asked him his name:

“Dr. G. I kick it old school”.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 06, 2008. 2 Comments.

Blogging will kill you, or not

According to the New York Times, blogging can be dangerous and even deadly as it turned out to be for Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, bloggers who died at 60 and 50 years of age respectively. NYT:

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

Now I’m thinking two people, who I’m sure took great care of themselves before they started blogging, are dead because they had to compete in a global information war. Help me Mr. Richtel, writer for a keystone American media outlet:

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic.

Ok feeling better. Go on.

There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths.

Um… weren’t you just saying that these two bloggers died from blogging? Isn’t the article entitled “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop”?

But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

Well, fuck me standing - a diet consisting of Mountain Dew and Ramen Noodles isn’t going to lead to a healthy and sustainable lifestyle? Maybe I should register imadumbfuckthatdoesntknowthehumanbodyandwillgetblogsblamedforit.com before one of the “friends and family of the deceased” snatches it up, builds a huge pagerank, gets co-opted by Gawker, and dies because the stress of virtually publishing drivel on the internet for a living is just too much to bear.

I expect a little, not much, more from the New York Times. If you’re going to call an article “Writers Blog Till They Drop” make sure you have some pictures of cold bodies hitting the ground still clutching their iPhones. The folks over at Red State would be a good place to start.

Then again, it’s past three in the morning as I type this so…

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 06, 2008. Start the discussion.

It’s not the puppy, it’s your souls

I’m sitting at Starbucks on Lincoln Road trying to get this site in order - I had the brilliant idea of wiping out my all of my RSS subscriptions in an attempt at some e-spring cleaning - when two ladies, a term that is more than generous, sit at the table next to me.

Ugly Older One in White [reacting to some beautiful blonde on quads]: You know what the hardest part about roller skating is?

Overweight One in Pink with a Huge Back Tattoo [sucking on her Double Fudge Caramel Frap]: What?

Ugly Older One in White: Telling your parents you’re gay.

Wonderful, I’m going to have to drink my Berry Blossom Iced White Tea while listening to two disgusting women make bad jokes and undoubtedly lament about their shared loneliness. As their entire conversation played out in my head, they seemed to mimic every annoying possibility I could conjure.

First came permanent vaginal hair removal. The Older Ugly One in White isn’t a fan because, after all, what if a few years from now large bushes come back en vogue. It took every remanent of restraint left in my body to keep from interrupting their conversation and assuring her that the thickness of the locks hiding the arid wasteland of her womanhood would have nothing to do with the sense being forsaken by one’s creator any man unlucky enough to find himself in between her speckled thighs would be feeling.

Soon thereafter, a large group began to congregate around an extremely cute girl with a beautiful beagle puppy. Locals and tourists alike were coming up and taking pictures with Mr. Big Paws, and I’m calling him that because that’s how absurdly adorable he was, while the girl joked how he’s been modeling for pictures all day.

As she walked away, the two beasts to my left started the entire “We should get dogs; look how many guys are coming up to talk to her” conversation.

Stop.

Let’s take a look at why guys were talking to her and, more poignantly, not to either of you. This is the girl and her puppy:

Note the tanned skin, great legs, and (although you can’t see it in this picture) beautiful smile. The girl was absolutely radiant, had a personality that was shining from a block away, and had me kicking myself soon after for not holla-ing at her.

And this is you:

I see a lot of differences. Ms. White, you are the very definition of busted. Your face is craved by decades of smoke encountered in dive bars while you preyed on men who were too inebriated to leave the establishment after first glimpse of your leathery vessel. You have a horse voice and a crass manner of speaking - and not in the oddly sexy Joey Lauren Adams sense, but rather in the my-vocal-cords-are-shot-after-too-many-years-of-crystal-meth-abuse sense.

Ms. Back Tattoo, I don’t know which biker gangbang inspired the lovely design forever scarred between your deeply insulated shoulder blades; but the combination of grotesque artwork caged by a mountain range of back rolls makes your reverse side look like the exoskeleton Dr. Brackish Okun began to dissect in Independence Day. I didn’t approach you because I wasn’t attracted; instead I was afraid that if got any nearer one of your dreadlocks would grab me by the neck and inform Bill Pullman of your species nefarious plot for global extermination; I refuse to be a party to your locus-like pillaging of my home world.

Notice that I never mentioned the puppy. The first girl could be some sort of sick bitch that loves to torture dogs and you two could run a rescue shelter for all the puppies that she’s maimed, and I would still eat the stink-nuggets out of her asshole before I would ask either of you for your numbers.

I realize these comments may be a bit unfair - short massive and costly reconstructive surgery there’s not a whole hell of a lot you can do about the way you look; but I am trying to help. If you’re thinking about plastic surgery or a dog or some sort of Face Off procedure, save your money. After 20 minutes of listening to the two of you, I’m sure that regardless of how attractive you may end up looking thanks to the wonders of modern medicine nothing will make up for how repulsive both of you are on the inside. My advice: Take your friendship, go the lesbian route, and stay the hell away from dogs, Starbucks, Lincoln Road, and, hopefully, South Florida in general.

There’s a reason Arkansas exists. That reason is you.

— Alex Cabrera, Apr 05, 2008. 2 Comments.