CRACCUM tries to be relatable(TM) with CRACCUM’s Picks of the Week

Here at the Arts section, we’re trying a little bit of restructuring. I’m getting off my ass, basically. I’m also filling space because no one but the editors have contributed to the section this week! We’ve also had a Spotify that I have been absolutely horseshit at promoting, so guess what! We’re changing that. Now, no promises on the permanence of this new running feature, but we’re going to try our best. Each week, we’re going to present a curated playlist for your pleasure, some themed and some not, and we’ll just see how it sticks. Please send a message if you want to get in on this!

Playlist #1: An Ode to Gypsy & Dee Dee

1. Always Be My Baby – Mariah Carey

2. Mommy Complex – Peaches

3. Bad Medicine – Sage Hammond

4. You’re In A Bad Way – Saint Etienne

5. 20 Something – SZA

6. Does Your Mother Know – ABBA

7. Fuck The Pain Away – Peaches

8. Rippin Kittin – Golden Boy ft. Miss Kittin

9. The Knife – Maggie Rogers

10. Little Bird – Annie Lennox

11. Another Chance – Roger Sanchez

Now, I don’t know how many of you have heard of Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter, Gypsy Rose. I still don’t understand why she named her daughter after a slur… but if you’re the kind of person that puts weedkiller in your “mawma’s” soup, I suppose you’re not exactly considering social etiquette. Anyway, I’ve been obsessed with their story over the last week. Doing my Wikipedia searches, watching Youtube videos, checking out professional media, etc. I’ve known the story for years, but it is having a massive resurgence due to the recent TV spotlights on dead ol’ Dee Dee and Gypsy. I won’t spoil it too much for you, but I eagerly recommend that you check out the documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and The Act, the latter currently streaming on Hulu. Which we don’t get in New Zealand. So y’know, figure that one out. But to try summarise their story… it’s a combination of the ‘You were keeping her sick’ scene from The Sixth Sense, the (alleged…) self-delusion of David Bain, and if Tangled ended up with Rapunzel and Flynn sticking the shard of glass in Mother Gothel’s back five or six times. I wish I was exaggerating with literally any of those comparisons. There’s almost nothing like it so readily available in the crime landscape, and it fits in so well with the internet era! Gypsy met her boyfriend on a Christian dating service, and then webcammed with her boyfriend who believes a vampire is his alternate personality, and she gets off by holding a scissor to her throat on Skype! While doing other BDSM acts in a Cinderella costume! THAT SHE FIRST USED TO MEET UP WITH A GUY WHO DIDN’T KNOW THAT SHE WAS FAKING BEING IN A WHEELCHAIR! BECAUSE THAT WAS TOTALLY A WHOLE OTHER THING!

It’s all batshit, and at some point, you’re going to wonder whether Gypsy’s retaliation was really a crime, given the sheer level of enforced insanity that made up her entire life up until 2015. Not that she wasn’t her own kind of batshit, but you feel for her. Overall, you really need to check their story out for yourself, both for your own pure curiosity and so 95% of these jokes make sense to you. But for now, listen to the playlist. I’ve even put the songs in chronological order with the real life drama!

Recommendations & Miscellaneous Comments:

• Pun title aside, “Bad Medicine” features the voice of Sage Hammond, who has a suspiciously similar vocal range to Ariana Grande. As far as I can see, this is her debut song, given that she arrived this year and has had zero promo. She’s not bad at all, I’m gonna keep listening to her. She could definitely use some of Pharrell’s production, though.
• Gypsy Rose being under the Cancer star sign is… interesting.
• This cycle of murder is something only the Greeks would have thought possible over 2000 years earlier – mother kills mother, mother tries to kill step-mother, mother traps daughter + tries to subdue her and then daughter kills mother. That’s some Ouranos/Cronus/Zeus shit right there, and that’s without Cronus pretending Zeus needs xanax just so she can get high off the supply.
• “20 Something” was something you can thank my boyfriend for. I don’t really give a shit about SZA as the trend of singing in italics wore thin three years ago, but the joke was just too easy to not include.
• Check out “Frank Sinatra” by Miss Kittin if you want the best shower sex of your life.
• Oh, “Little Bird”. Definitely listen to this for the sake of empowerment and making your own steps towards freedom – it’s a beautiful early ‘90s anthem that encapsulated Annie Lennox’s career, and the woman really deserves more credit than she’s given nowadays. She’s not just the voice in “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”!
• I felt like “Another Chance” was appropriate, given how Gypsy Rose is literally asking fans to write to the parole board in the prison she’s currently incarcerated within and be character witnesses for her, so she can get an early release and go meet her e-boyfriend for the first time. Isn’t that just romantic? Hulu is changing lives, y’all. 

Listen to  ‘An Ode to Gypsy & Dee Dee’ playlist by following ‘Craccum Mag’ on Spotify.