Blogosphere: Now officially the Hobbsosphere

Jeez. A guy can’t drink a protein shake in piece? The din over the Bill Hobbs thing STILL goes on -- Kleinhelder, Saracstro, some guy named Eric, et al. The more bloggers continue to post about this story the more Liz Garrigan appears prescient (and Spragens for that matter). You know, if Hobbs had been a Democrat, the sound of silence in the blogosphere would be DEAFENING. I’m sure some of you will claim that you would still fight (Coble probably would). Some of you will be lying. Can’t you envision it? “The lib moonbat lefty zombie pinko commies are getting a taste of their own PC medicine!!! ARRGGHH!” Speaking of Kleinhelder, I’m still wondering what this faux ebonics headline is about. Would you have used it for a headline about, say, Bob Corker, or is this another example of your “ironic” use of rap lyrics as headlines?

lost Voice

I was not really sure what the Voice was thinking when they hired Pitchfork dork Tom Breihan to blog (mostly about hip hop). I had given Pitchfork a cursory glance in the past, and never connected either with their musical taste nor criticism. It quickly became apparent to me that they have someone blogging about rap music who didn’t know all that much about the genre, certainly not more so than your average rap fan born in the 80’s who probably blogs and blogs as well as Breihan. There was solace in that they did not hire Byron Crawford. I have become increasingly dismayed every time I check a Breihan column, however, as he realizes how little he knows about rap music history he’s constantly offering up apologies about that fact. Though the kid is welcome to his opinions (like the one he shares with just about every 20-something rap fan, TUPAC AND BIGGEE ARE AWESOME) if he’s going to speak with authority on the music he should at least sound like he knows what the hell he is talking about. Where is Greg Tate when you need him?

Please please no more Hobbs

Oh God. “Hit Piece?” Conspiracy theories? Bredesen wanted to get Bill Hobbs? BILL F’ING HOBBS? Are you people drunk? Insane? WTF?!?!?!? Jesus H MF Christ. Hobbs is feeling the hot lash of karma. EOS. Right wingers (and free speech loving right leaning libertarian law professors who gave me a good grade in ConLaw) trying to make him into a martyr are just wasting their time. Then again, that’s what some people around me think of blogs . . .

Michelle Malkin likes the Ace of Spades

I wish I had more time to post about this issue with Michelle Malkin’s reprinting of private information over the Internet which lead to death threats to some left leaning college students, and the subsequent racial epithets hurled at Malkin. Malkin is, like many right wing pundits, is a shameless hypocrite.  Of course, I have very serious problems with the use of racial epithets, doesn’t matter who is the subject. However, Malkin claims that the students who received DEATH THREATS should stop crying, grow up, and take responsibility for their actions. Well, if these students have to suffer death threats, then Malkin needs to suffer her own indignities Stop crying about what these morons wrote about you, Michelle. This is her modus operandi. When attacked on something she’s said or done, pull out some Email from a wacko that uses foul language or calls her a racist name. When a conservative, like Ann Coulter, is attacked for making some racist comment, find some weak example of a “liberal” doing something that would be considered racist (BTW, Malkin is far from a saint when it comes to issues of race. She’s just the type who doesn’t like dirty words). The absolute worst example of which is when she offered a defense of infamous white separatist lolitas, Prussian Blue, by claiming that a 7 year old black girl spewed racist poetry. Malkin is one of those people who likes the phrase “playing the race card.” That’s because for her, racism is not a problem to be confronted but a pawn in her battle against liberals, or rather, her fight to be recognized as important.. Malkin wants to be Ann Coulter. She writes these ridiculous, poorly researched books that reach silly conclusions. She uses terms like “unhinged” and “moonbats” to describe liberals, she constantly misrepresents the press or “liberal” commentary, for instance, calling John Spragen’s now famous commentary on Bill Hobbs’ blogging proclivities a “smear.” She wants us to believe she wants to be Colin Powell, that person of color that people of color will fall in love with and then fall for the Republican party. No one buys her act, so no one really cares to come to her defense. I’m not going in the briar patch. Sticking with my principles, I have to argue that no one deserves to have those things said about them. But some people just bring things on themselves.

My 35 Most Influential Albums

List the 10, 20 or 30 albums that had the greatest influence on YOU. Tell me why, if you want. Props to Jay for the meme. http://www.hotfreelayouts.com/music.php 1) Prince - 1999. He's the artist that probably had more influence on me personally AND musically. After I heard Dirty Mind, I was never the same. Moreover, I didn't feel quite so strange anymore. Of all his works, 1999 had the most impact on me personally. 2) Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy. Ever start listening to a band because of a girl or boy you liked? This was one of those records for me. I'd thought Zep was corny, "Stairway to Heaven" was like "Freebird" to me, until I heard "The Rain Song." 3) Bad Brains - I Against I. Again, another band that confirmed I wasn't the only black person in the world who loved punk and rock. See also Fishbone, below. 4) Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions . . . I realized the potential power of rap and encouraged my participation in politics. 5) De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising. Until this record (and P.E.) rap was like a set up/like a game/ a lotta suckas with colorful names/I'm so and so, I'm this I'm that/But ya all just wick wick wack 6) Elvis Costello - The Best of. . .. I think this record helped make me a more thoughtful person. 7) ACO - The Other Side of Absolute Ego. The first Japanese artist whose music I connected with beyond curiosity. Blows the myth of the Japanese as copycats out of the water (even though she loves to cover US pop and R&B songs). This a remix, however I highly recommend both versions of this record. 8) Star Wars Ep. IV soundtrack. Expanded the horizons of a young lad. 9) Fishbone - Fishbone. See Bad Brains above. Was my favorite band for 10 years running. 10) Portishead - Portishead. A lot of people like Dummy better, however this was the first Portishead music I heard. It was like nothing else I'd heard before, and kick started my interest in electronica. 11) Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland. I'm sure I heard Hendrix before my pre-teen years on my brother's record player, yet he didn't impact me until later. Made me want to pick up a guitar. 12) Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life. I really could have picked any record from this cat, however this one probably had more impact on me. I heard his music in the house when I was a tyke. We played "Sir Duke" in a 5th grade band concert. 13) Run DMC - Rock Box. The first real rap LP, kind of a milestone in the genre. 14) Final Fantasy VII Soundtrack. Huh? Video game soundtrack? I listened to this while writing my second screenplay. The composer, Uematsu, is a hidden gem. 15) The Clash - Combat Rock. Some are with you rather than against you. 16) Bob Marley - Kaya. I listened to this a lot during the year my brother's health took a final turn for the worse. Also, have you seen my hair? 17) Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club. Another band which I could have really picked any number of records. This might have been the first Beatles record I bought that wasn't a comp. 18) Funkadelic - Uncle Jam's Army. Something about the music got into my pants. 19) Dj Shadow - Entroducing. Helped to reinvigorate my interest in rap during a time when I had given up on the genre as turning into a blackface version of hair metal. 20) Curtis Mayfield - Superfly. Made a very young boy think about the dangers of street life. Music can sometimes still give me chills. 21) Elton John - Greatest Hits. My brother loved this record, so then did I. What happened to this Elton? Sad. 22) Sly and the Family Stone - Greatest Hits. Never not in the mood for some Sly. 23) Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club. After this, I wanted to see what this band Talking Heads was all about. 24) English Beat - Greatest Hits. I never owned the record, they just didn't have a cover for the Beat record I did have. At any rate, I backed my way into reggae from listening to ska and two-tone like this. 25) Miles Davis - Kind of Blue. Until this record, my idea of jazz was David Sanborn. 26) Sugarhill Gang - Sugarhill Gang. Really, just for "Rapper's Delight." The first rap record I could get my friends to like, and for a lot of people their first rap song. 27) Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstacy. There was a period, believe it or not, when I was all about this Lilith Fair type of stuff. This record led me to those estrogen powered records of the early 90's. 28) Jackson 5 - Greatest Hits. Another case of them not having proper covers. I had mostly singles of Jackson 5 songs anyway. The first concert I ever attended was a Jackson 5 show, with the Commodores opening. 29) Rage Against the Machine - RATM. Saw them at Lollapalooza and bought the record as soon as I got home. Gave me hope for humanity, or something. 30) Cure - The Head on the Door. Another horizon broadening experience. 31) R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction. One of my long time friends hipped me to this band. My Fishbone loving Chapel Hill friends thought I was insane for listening to this band. 32) Soul II Soul - Keep On Movin'. I probably had not listened to an R&B record for 10 years before this one. Gave me hope for the genre, and would help spark both the Neo-Soul and "downtempo" movement. 33) The Police - Reggatta de Blanc. First song I learned to play on guitar is a Police song. 34) Badfinger - No Dice. No matter where you are/I will always be with you 35) Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders. Part of the Native Tongue movement with the likes of De La Soul, their first record affected me in a similar way to Three Feet High and Rising, however, the crew didn't produce anything with a profound effect on me until Midnight Marauders. I coulda done 40, but I was staying up way too late as it was.

movie review: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (The Kind Hearted Mrs Geum-ja) Tartan Films Dir: Park Chan Woo Lee Yeong-ae Choi Min-sik Park’s last crimson art-house marvel, Oldboy, Cannes runner-up, sparked an ill-conceived attack on the film’s fans from New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, whose opinions on the movie (hated it) ran secondary of importance to sticking it to some bloodlusting cult of juvenile fanboys who get wood at the sight of a splatter pack exploding on screen. Though I didn’t find her issues compelling evidence for a dismissal of Oldboy (loved it), I agreed with what was implicit in her diatribe, that those fanboys who giggle at beheadings and such are annoying. Apparently, they annoy Park as well. He believes a viewing of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance to be penance for those who loved Oldboy only for the more outré elements. Certainly those who rush towards celluloid violence with dick in hand will find the new film a buzz rape. The kind hearted Ms Geum-ja (Lee Yeong-ae) begins the film on lock down, on her last day, back story presenting her as the unjustly imprisoned patron saint of women convicts. However, when she hits the street we learn Ms Geum-ja ain’t nuttin’ ta fuck wit as she delivers a pimp slap to her devoted fans. Geum-ja is less kind hearted, exchanging favors for good will, than she is an embittered ex-con, conniving to get payback on Baek (Choi Min-sik of Oldboy), the man responsible for her being up in the bing. As she sets about her plan, her true nature unfolds and Park really challenges the audience to continue sympathizing with cold hearted woman. Park’s strong formalistic bent, his aesthete’s eye for beauty, his humanist’s desire for transcendence are the winning parts of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. The dank atmosphere he creates is often undercut by vivid swaths of red at night and intense sun lit moments, suggesting the pulsing light within the broken black coal of Geum-ja’s heart. Though neither as visually stunning as Oldboy or viscerally shocking as Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Lady Vengeance is actually more risky than the predecessors. Park could have easily had Lee swinging blades and popping caps left and right, striking with great vengeance and furious anger, one upping Uma Thurman’s Bride and satisfying fanboy desires. Park clearly wants to challenge our predilection for sympathizing with protagonists who go about the act of revenge of the violent sort. However, by presenting Geum-ja as the not-that-innocent victim who is really "teh bitch," he ironically ends up increasing the identification of her character with those who he wanted to challenge. Still, with the cinematography and direction in service of theme and not the converse, Park proves Dargis wrong about him, he’s much more thoughtful a director than he’s given credit for. Lee and Choi, performances are pitch perfect. Lee never goes through any obvious transformation as we uncover her character’s truths, she remains as distant and melancholy at the beginning as at the end, and her work is all the more effective for maintaining the strangely beguiling distance. Despite Park’s prowess, it is on your engagement with Geum-ja the work lives or dies. If you find her simply either the victim or sadist, meaning is lost. Choi, who is little seen until act three, is so matter-of-fact nasty it’s scary. Assault is just something you do before breakfast. If there’s anything lacking with Lady Vengeance, it’s Park’s desire to serve us with a summons for being so enamored with his other revenge flicks. The conclusion seems a forced into the plot, though it certainly fits thematically. Park, I’ve been with you all the way, I knew you weren’t all about mayhem for mayhem’s sake, and yeah, eye for an eye leaves us all blind. So in the end, I started to feel like I sat through a boring lecture I’d heard before even though I thought the subject needed to be heard. That said, I loved the path to the lecture hall, one I’d gladly take again.

Record Review: Murray's Revenge

Murs and 9th Wonder Murray’s Revenge (Record Collection) Murs hooks up with 9th Wonder for a record that sounds a whole lot like Little Brother’s latest, The Minstrel Show. There’s even a Joe Scudder guest shot. One could call Murray’s Revenge Murs 3:17. It’s an entirely serviceable chill out rap record. 9th Wonder’s predilection string music and R&B samples and early 90’s West Coast beats give the record a hazy, weeded out ambiance, which the track “L.A.” exemplifies. Murs spits clever phrases about love (“Love and Affection”), racial identity (“Dark Skinned White Girls”), and sneakers (“Barbershop”). The team works best on “Yesterday & Today” and “L.A.” With the exception of “Lovin” It,” Little Brother’s works have been middling records. 9th Wonder and Murs work together so well, perhaps each should abandon their respective teams and form a permanent bond.

DWB

Hey, Belle Meade cops, I’m on to you, finally. When I was young and naive, I drove through your SUBDIVISION late in the evening towards Blockbuster, in a bit of a hurry to beat the late fee. At 50mph, I was unconcerned about you sitting on the opposite side of the road, less concerned that you pulled up next to me, running parallel for a moment, then dropping back to light me up. Oh golly jeepers officer I was just on the way to return some movies. 50 in a 40? Well, it seemed like some other cars were going at that speed, but oh well. No, there’s no drugs or guns in my car. Search the messy hatchback if you like, there’s only smelly gym socks, a football and soccer ball. Now I know. I know about the negro alarm that goes off when darkies dare to travel through your fine SUBDIVISION. I know what you were doing, sitting there doing nothing until you saw a brown skinned man in an Infiniti and you pulled up along side me, parallel again, careful not to pass. What did you find when you slowed down and dropped back? Tags? Check. Seatbelt? Check. No probable cause? Check. Move along, Johnny Law, there’s nothing to see here.

Do sheep dream of acoustic androids?

Brittney of Nashville is Talking posted about her strange cat turd dream. I’ve been thinking about outing my own strange recurring dreams. One overarching theme appears in my dreams (and/or nightmares) -- alien invasion. Maybe it’s because I fall asleep watching X-Files reruns and Galaxy Express 999. These dreams are usually apocalyptic; it isn’t as if I’m dreaming about ET or Vulcans. Aliens = doom. The last time, I dreamed I was a producer on The Daily Show, however it was a hard news show rather than satire. On the eve of the invasion, we were in the building that housed the show, and I’m hanging out with Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore (I find them both really annoying now, however we were best buds in the dream.) My family was away somewhere safe. The building was on some coast, and as the invasion started the ocean water rose. We had to run for the broadcast room, though I wonder why that saved us from a flood. Did I mention Jon Stewart was in a wheel chair in the dream? Did I mention that when the building started to flood, he got out of the chair and ran? My mother was with me. I couldn’t save her. What gives? I dreamed last night. Something to do with a rabid dog. I don’t remember much else.