9.25.2008
The breast is the best?
| WATERBURY, Vt. -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman. "PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says. PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health. "The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk." "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," said a spokesperson for Ben and Jerry's. http://www.wptz.com/news/17539127/detail.html The day that farms housing acres of lactating females start popping up nationwide is the day that my penis becomes EXTREMELY confused. I will admit that from a logical standpoint, humans drinking another animals milk has always been odd...I drink soy so it doesn't affect me. |
9.24.2008
Props to myself for HORRIBLE photography, buy to be honest I couldn't concentrate on taking pictures. Lupe Fiasco killed it, hands down. I'm still conflicted over him not performing "The Coolest" but there was an abundance of young Caucasians in the audience, and I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with them chanting "Coolest Nigga What" ad nauseum. Great show to experience, great night overall...not sure if I should get into what occurred after said concert.
Aiight, something a bit more interesting later...gotta be a good negro and do my homework.
9.22.2008
Hipsters...
Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization
I‘m sipping a scummy pint of cloudy beer in the back of a trendy dive bar turned nightclub in the heart of the city’s heroin district. In front of me stand a gang of hippiesh grunge-punk types, who crowd around each other and collectively scoff at the smoking laws by sneaking puffs of “****-you,” reveling in their perceived rebellion as the haggard, staggering staff look on without the slightest concern.
The “DJ” is keystroking a selection of MP3s off his MacBook, making a mix that sounds like he took a hatchet to a collection of yesteryear billboard hits, from DMX to Dolly Parton, but mashed up with a jittery techno backbeat.
“So… this is a hipster party?” I ask the girl sitting next to me. She’s wearing big dangling earrings, an American Apparel V-neck tee, non-prescription eyeglasses and an inappropriately warm wool coat.
“Yeah, just look around you, 99 percent of the people here are total hipsters!”
“Are you a hipster?”
“**** no,” she says, laughing back the last of her glass before she hops off to the dance floor.
Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.
But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”
An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.
Take a stroll down the street in any major North American or European city and you’ll be sure to see a speckle of fashion-conscious twentysomethings hanging about and sporting a number of predictable stylistic trademarks: skinny jeans, cotton spandex leggings, fixed-gear bikes, vintage flannel, fake eyeglasses and a keffiyeh – initially sported by Jewish students and Western protesters to express solidarity with Palestinians, the keffiyeh has become a completely meaningless hipster cliché fashion accessory.
The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning. Ten years ago, a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend-follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class.
This obsession with “street-cred” reaches its apex of absurdity as hipsters have recently and wholeheartedly adopted the fixed-gear bike as the only acceptable form of transportation – only to have brakes installed on a piece of machinery that is defined by its lack thereof.
Lovers of apathy and irony, hipsters are connected through a global network of blogs and shops that push forth a global vision of fashion-informed aesthetics. Loosely associated with some form of creative output, they attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties. The hipster tends to religiously blog about their daily exploits, usually while leafing through generation-defining magazines like Vice, Another Magazine and Wallpaper. This cursory and stylized lifestyle has made the hipster almost universally loathed.
“These hipster zombies… are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents,” wrote Christian Lorentzen in a Time Out New York article entitled ‘Why the Hipster Must Die.’ “And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.”
With nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace, the idea of “hipsterdom” is left wide open for attack. And yet, it is this ironic lack of authenticity that has allowed hipsterdom to grow into a global phenomenon that is set to consume the very core of Western counterculture. Most critics make a point of attacking the hipster’s lack of individuality, but it is this stubborn obfuscation that distinguishes them from their predecessors, while allowing hipsterdom to easily blend in and mutate other social movements, sub-cultures and lifestyles.
***
Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.
“I’m not comfortable with that term,” she replies.
Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t know, you shouldn’t use that word, it’s just…”
“Offensive?”
“No… it’s just, well… if you don’t know why then you just shouldn’t even use it.”
“Ok, so what are you girls doing tonight after this party?”
“Ummm… We’re going to the after-party.”
***
Gavin McInnes, one of the founders of Vice, who recently left the magazine, is considered to be one of hipsterdom’s primary architects. But, in contrast to the majority of concerned media-types, McInnes, whose “Dos and Don’ts” commentary defined the rules of hipster fashion for over a decade, is more critical of those doing the criticizing.
“I’ve always found that word [“hipster”] is used with such disdain, like it’s always used by chubby bloggers who aren’t getting laid anymore and are bored, and they’re just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable,” he says. “I’m dubious of these hypotheses because they always smell of an agenda.”
Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it.
***
“He’s 17 and he lives for the scene!” a girl whispers in my ear as I sneak a photo of a young kid dancing up against a wall in a dimly lit corner of the after-party. He’s got a flipped-out, do-it-yourself haircut, skin-tight jeans, leather jacket, a vintage punk tee and some popping high tops.
“Shoot me,” he demands, walking up, cigarette in mouth, striking a pose and exhaling. He hits a few different angles with a firmly unimpressed expression and then gets a bit giddy when I show him the results.
“Rad, thanks,” he says, re-focusing on the music and submerging himself back into the sweaty funk of the crowd where he resumes a jittery head bobble with a little bit of a twitch.
The dance floor at a hipster party looks like it should be surrounded by quotation marks. While punk, disco and hip hop all had immersive, intimate and energetic dance styles that liberated the dancer from his/her mental states – be it the head-spinning b-boy or violent thrashings of a live punk show – the hipster has more of a joke dance. A faux shrug shuffle that mocks the very idea of dancing or, at its best, illustrates a non-committal fear of expression typified in a weird twitch/ironic twist. The dancers are too self-aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion.
Perhaps the true motivation behind this deliberate nonchalance is an attempt to attract the attention of the ever-present party photographers, who swim through the crowd like neon sharks, flashing little blasts of phosphorescent ecstasy whenever they spot someone worth momentarily immortalizing.
Noticing a few flickers of light splash out from the club bathroom, I peep in only to find one such photographer taking part in an impromptu soft-core porno shoot. Two girls and a guy are taking off their clothes and striking poses for a set of grimy glamour shots. It’s all grins and smirks until another girl pokes her head inside and screeches, “You’re not some club kid in New York in the nineties. This **** is so hipster!” – which sparks a bit of a catfight, causing me to beat a hasty retreat.
In many ways, the lifestyle promoted by hipsterdom is highly ritualized. Many of the party-goers who are subject to the photoblogger’s snapshots no doubt crawl out of bed the next afternoon and immediately re-experience the previous night’s debauchery. Red-eyed and bleary, they sit hunched over their laptops, wading through a sea of similarity to find their own (momentarily) thrilling instant of perfected hipster-ness.
What they may or may not know is that “cool-hunters” will also be skulking the same sites, taking note of how they dress and what they consume. These marketers and party-promoters get paid to co-opt youth culture and then re-sell it back at a profit. In the end, hipsters are sold what they think they invent and are spoon-fed their pre-packaged cultural livelihood.
Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.
An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over.
***
“If you don’t give a damn, we don’t give a ****!” chants an emcee before his incitements are abruptly cut short when the power plug is pulled and the lights snapped on.
Dawn breaks and the last of the after-after-parties begin to spill into the streets. The hipsters are falling out, rubbing their eyes and scanning the surrounding landscape for the way back from which they came. Some hop on their fixed-gear bikes, some call for cabs, while a few of us hop a fence and cut through the industrial wasteland of a nearby condo development.
The half-built condos tower above us like foreboding monoliths of our yuppie futures. I take a look at one of the girls wearing a bright pink keffiyah and carrying a Polaroid camera and think, “If only we carried rocks instead of cameras, we’d look like revolutionaries.” But instead we ignore the weapons that lie at our feet – oblivious to our own impending demise.
We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html
The “DJ” is keystroking a selection of MP3s off his MacBook, making a mix that sounds like he took a hatchet to a collection of yesteryear billboard hits, from DMX to Dolly Parton, but mashed up with a jittery techno backbeat.
“So… this is a hipster party?” I ask the girl sitting next to me. She’s wearing big dangling earrings, an American Apparel V-neck tee, non-prescription eyeglasses and an inappropriately warm wool coat.
“Yeah, just look around you, 99 percent of the people here are total hipsters!”
“Are you a hipster?”
“**** no,” she says, laughing back the last of her glass before she hops off to the dance floor.
Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.
But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”
An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.
Take a stroll down the street in any major North American or European city and you’ll be sure to see a speckle of fashion-conscious twentysomethings hanging about and sporting a number of predictable stylistic trademarks: skinny jeans, cotton spandex leggings, fixed-gear bikes, vintage flannel, fake eyeglasses and a keffiyeh – initially sported by Jewish students and Western protesters to express solidarity with Palestinians, the keffiyeh has become a completely meaningless hipster cliché fashion accessory.
The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning. Ten years ago, a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend-follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class.
This obsession with “street-cred” reaches its apex of absurdity as hipsters have recently and wholeheartedly adopted the fixed-gear bike as the only acceptable form of transportation – only to have brakes installed on a piece of machinery that is defined by its lack thereof.
Lovers of apathy and irony, hipsters are connected through a global network of blogs and shops that push forth a global vision of fashion-informed aesthetics. Loosely associated with some form of creative output, they attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties. The hipster tends to religiously blog about their daily exploits, usually while leafing through generation-defining magazines like Vice, Another Magazine and Wallpaper. This cursory and stylized lifestyle has made the hipster almost universally loathed.
“These hipster zombies… are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents,” wrote Christian Lorentzen in a Time Out New York article entitled ‘Why the Hipster Must Die.’ “And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.”
With nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace, the idea of “hipsterdom” is left wide open for attack. And yet, it is this ironic lack of authenticity that has allowed hipsterdom to grow into a global phenomenon that is set to consume the very core of Western counterculture. Most critics make a point of attacking the hipster’s lack of individuality, but it is this stubborn obfuscation that distinguishes them from their predecessors, while allowing hipsterdom to easily blend in and mutate other social movements, sub-cultures and lifestyles.
***
Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.
“I’m not comfortable with that term,” she replies.
Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t know, you shouldn’t use that word, it’s just…”
“Offensive?”
“No… it’s just, well… if you don’t know why then you just shouldn’t even use it.”
“Ok, so what are you girls doing tonight after this party?”
“Ummm… We’re going to the after-party.”
***
Gavin McInnes, one of the founders of Vice, who recently left the magazine, is considered to be one of hipsterdom’s primary architects. But, in contrast to the majority of concerned media-types, McInnes, whose “Dos and Don’ts” commentary defined the rules of hipster fashion for over a decade, is more critical of those doing the criticizing.
“I’ve always found that word [“hipster”] is used with such disdain, like it’s always used by chubby bloggers who aren’t getting laid anymore and are bored, and they’re just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable,” he says. “I’m dubious of these hypotheses because they always smell of an agenda.”
Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it.
***
“He’s 17 and he lives for the scene!” a girl whispers in my ear as I sneak a photo of a young kid dancing up against a wall in a dimly lit corner of the after-party. He’s got a flipped-out, do-it-yourself haircut, skin-tight jeans, leather jacket, a vintage punk tee and some popping high tops.
“Shoot me,” he demands, walking up, cigarette in mouth, striking a pose and exhaling. He hits a few different angles with a firmly unimpressed expression and then gets a bit giddy when I show him the results.
“Rad, thanks,” he says, re-focusing on the music and submerging himself back into the sweaty funk of the crowd where he resumes a jittery head bobble with a little bit of a twitch.
The dance floor at a hipster party looks like it should be surrounded by quotation marks. While punk, disco and hip hop all had immersive, intimate and energetic dance styles that liberated the dancer from his/her mental states – be it the head-spinning b-boy or violent thrashings of a live punk show – the hipster has more of a joke dance. A faux shrug shuffle that mocks the very idea of dancing or, at its best, illustrates a non-committal fear of expression typified in a weird twitch/ironic twist. The dancers are too self-aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion.
Perhaps the true motivation behind this deliberate nonchalance is an attempt to attract the attention of the ever-present party photographers, who swim through the crowd like neon sharks, flashing little blasts of phosphorescent ecstasy whenever they spot someone worth momentarily immortalizing.
Noticing a few flickers of light splash out from the club bathroom, I peep in only to find one such photographer taking part in an impromptu soft-core porno shoot. Two girls and a guy are taking off their clothes and striking poses for a set of grimy glamour shots. It’s all grins and smirks until another girl pokes her head inside and screeches, “You’re not some club kid in New York in the nineties. This **** is so hipster!” – which sparks a bit of a catfight, causing me to beat a hasty retreat.
In many ways, the lifestyle promoted by hipsterdom is highly ritualized. Many of the party-goers who are subject to the photoblogger’s snapshots no doubt crawl out of bed the next afternoon and immediately re-experience the previous night’s debauchery. Red-eyed and bleary, they sit hunched over their laptops, wading through a sea of similarity to find their own (momentarily) thrilling instant of perfected hipster-ness.
What they may or may not know is that “cool-hunters” will also be skulking the same sites, taking note of how they dress and what they consume. These marketers and party-promoters get paid to co-opt youth culture and then re-sell it back at a profit. In the end, hipsters are sold what they think they invent and are spoon-fed their pre-packaged cultural livelihood.
Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.
An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over.
***
“If you don’t give a damn, we don’t give a ****!” chants an emcee before his incitements are abruptly cut short when the power plug is pulled and the lights snapped on.
Dawn breaks and the last of the after-after-parties begin to spill into the streets. The hipsters are falling out, rubbing their eyes and scanning the surrounding landscape for the way back from which they came. Some hop on their fixed-gear bikes, some call for cabs, while a few of us hop a fence and cut through the industrial wasteland of a nearby condo development.
The half-built condos tower above us like foreboding monoliths of our yuppie futures. I take a look at one of the girls wearing a bright pink keffiyah and carrying a Polaroid camera and think, “If only we carried rocks instead of cameras, we’d look like revolutionaries.” But instead we ignore the weapons that lie at our feet – oblivious to our own impending demise.
We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html
9.16.2008
9.15.2008
9.13.2008
A Belated Reflection (You're Lucky You Got That Much)
Two days ago was the anniversary date of the event that littered thousands of automobiles with commemorative vinyl bumper stickers and ribbon shaped magnets.
I distinctly recall sleeping. Soundly. My girlfriend at the time ran into the bedroom and dragged me in front of the television. The buildings were already smoldering.
I went back to bed.
I NEED AN ADULT!
They could NEVER get away with this in today's media climate. And honestly, is a PSA going to stop young Erica from "digging through her purse for a quarter" or Matthew from visiting "Palmela?"
Por Favor
Do you remember that "Jump To Conclusions" mat from Office Space? If not then what the fuck, here's a refresher for your THC-addled memory:
Remember now? Asshole. Well, normally my mat either ends in "strike out" or "no!"
If there was an option for "go fuck yourself" or "you're fucked!" I'd never have to jump again. This past week I endured a self-induced symposium; in the most basic of terms I had been trying to do to much, at the wrong time. Vague? Possibly, but I have a reason to be. Whenever I do this to myself I end up having a personal "vision quest" of sorts....deep introspection with bouts of depression and elation. Now don't get confused, i am not by any means manic-depressive...if I ingest Xanax it is purely for recreation or research...^_^
The last few weeks of my life have been like a drive on a familiar country road with a headlight out--I know exactly where I need to go but the way isn't as visible as it could be. For once in my life I'm actually choosing the smarter decisions over the most....enjoyable let's say, but smarter does not equate to easier. Is there such a thing as a quarter life crisis? Actually, since I don't see myself making it past 55 then this could be the fabled "mid-life crisis", where one questions himself and everything around him. Whatever the case, this week has led to a few conclusions on my part (see that? Full circle.)
- I need a roommate. I know, I've spoken against it, but the monetary benefits are too great, especially considering my goals for the next two years.
- I need a house. See the contradiction? I need space that I can change, that I can call my own. Especially since...
- For the first time in a while, I'm homesick. I haven't been to Ohio in years...
- I now realize the importance of family. Live for a while as I have for the last 9 years and you will fully understand.
Now...one more thing. On September 19th, I will be "going out" as the kids say, for the last time for a month. A full 30 days without clubs, bars, hopefully not without the indulgences of the opposite sex; regardless, an extension of my focus needs to happen. Now why Sept 19th you ask? Well, 30 days from that date allows me to still act reckless on MY holiday, Halloween. But more importantly? September 19th I will be in full out W.A.V.Y. mode for....
LUPE
FUCKING
FIASCO
9.09.2008
just a re-up...
of the ElectroRock mixtapes...shout out to Turbo---^_^
disc 1 http://www. sendspace. com/file/hrd8yy
disc 2 http://www. sendspace. com/file/sxsi8b
disc 3 http://www. sendspace. com/file/afkdwd
download...enjoy, and hit up myspace.com/scrambleupwards ...show the man some support.
disc 1 http:
disc 2 http:
disc 3 http:
download...enjoy, and hit up myspace.com/scrambleupwards ...show the man some support.
9.06.2008
Local H is still around?
So myself and The Goldin Chyld decided to grace Saranac Thursday, apparently the last of the event to be held this summer. I've been there a couple times previously, most notably with fellow blogger Dystopian Bite. That night ended with physical abuse at the hands (or feet) of a stripper. I digress...anywhoo, I laid back from my usual "imbibe to the point of losing charm and awareness", only partaking in two coronas with lime(fuck shwayze!) and a glass of Bacardi limon with coke. Why i'm divulging this, I don't know. After seeing some old friends, particularly Raphael(MARRIED?!?) and a woman who will only be known as "Tanner"....after dancing to some admittedly CLASSIC songs, the place we were at, Sickenberger Lane, shuts down at 1:00am. Not piff, not whats hot in the streets. So myself and TGC elect at that point to go to Hollyrock which we've both been to many times. Mind you, for the past few weeks I've been hearing rumblings that Hollyrock is terribly racist...they do have a sign at the door which reads "If you're dressed like you're in a rap video, don't try to come in." Not necessarily racist, but when you see people of every lineage BUT African wearing chains, baggy jeans and the like socializing within without any consequence, it raises your eyebrow. And honestly, what does "rap video dress" constitute? I've seen mc's that wear my type of clothing(I'm more Lupe or Kanye than Jeezy). I've also talked to a friend of mine who is a prominent dj within the area and actually used to dj at said establishment, he himself said the owner doesn't want "that type of crowd." When my friend asked him what he meant about that type of crowd, the owner asked him if he'd ever been to the Bogie, one of the other clubs in Utica. A club that a lot of blacks in Utica go to, if only for lack of options. "Oh, THAT type of crowd."
If you can't guess, we tried to get into a place that we've been multiple times and were told that our pants were too baggy, we can't get in. Now not to get all T.M.I. on you, but i was wearing 32/30 straight leg jeans. My pants fit, these days I'm not a fan of the baggy aesthetic. My friend while a bit more "hip hop" than me at the time had a basic printed t-shirt/jeans combo--nothing in the least offensive. No guns hidden, no E pills to distribute in the bathroom. Average, fun loving Negroes just trying to stretch another hour of women and whiskey out of the dying night. I could clearly see past the bouncer a group of three Caucasians, fitted hats, baggy jeans, even sporting chains. My friend and I just left, not dejected really...this kind of situation is par for the course in Upstate NY.
Now I definitely don't mean for this to be my big dissertation on race in America, but that night was a microcosm of the Racist mind. "We want you to be more like US, but we don't want you near us." No matter how we dressed or acted, that club didn't want us in. I come from a diverse city that actually seems to embrace culture, and I hate to admit but I'm still shocked at some of the attitudes that prevail around me. Some bars I walk into....you can almost hear the needle skip on the dusty record player...conversations stopping as the "dark man" steps through the door. I'm not here to ply you with Crack cocaine or impregnate your white daughters (well...) I'm just here because there's nothing else worth doing around here.
...I gotta fucking finish college, move to Atlanta.
If you can't guess, we tried to get into a place that we've been multiple times and were told that our pants were too baggy, we can't get in. Now not to get all T.M.I. on you, but i was wearing 32/30 straight leg jeans. My pants fit, these days I'm not a fan of the baggy aesthetic. My friend while a bit more "hip hop" than me at the time had a basic printed t-shirt/jeans combo--nothing in the least offensive. No guns hidden, no E pills to distribute in the bathroom. Average, fun loving Negroes just trying to stretch another hour of women and whiskey out of the dying night. I could clearly see past the bouncer a group of three Caucasians, fitted hats, baggy jeans, even sporting chains. My friend and I just left, not dejected really...this kind of situation is par for the course in Upstate NY.
Now I definitely don't mean for this to be my big dissertation on race in America, but that night was a microcosm of the Racist mind. "We want you to be more like US, but we don't want you near us." No matter how we dressed or acted, that club didn't want us in. I come from a diverse city that actually seems to embrace culture, and I hate to admit but I'm still shocked at some of the attitudes that prevail around me. Some bars I walk into....you can almost hear the needle skip on the dusty record player...conversations stopping as the "dark man" steps through the door. I'm not here to ply you with Crack cocaine or impregnate your white daughters (well...) I'm just here because there's nothing else worth doing around here.
...I gotta fucking finish college, move to Atlanta.
So it finally happened.
I'm writing at the end of a day in which i found evidence that at a mouse, at least at some point, had shared my apartment. I was cleaning my pantry(in no way is that sexual) and discovered a box of Jell-O pudding ripped open. Not necessarily an uncommon sight I guess but not only was the outer cardboard devastated, but the interior plastic was torn with powder strewn about. Of course the black droppings around the "snowstorm of chocolate" were a neon flashing sign that could have said "MOUSE." This all triggered an "A-HA!" moment where I remembered myself, sitting exactly where I'm sitting right now, hearing rustling sounds coming from that exact area and paying it no attention. I'm as dense as Dolly Parton's tits sometimes. I also write this after dropping my freshly prepared Sam's Choice pizza Hot Pocket(Of course its not TECHNICALLY a Hot Pocket if its store brand) on the floor, and in one of my weaker or stronger moments, depending on how you feel, promptly picked it up from the carpet, vigourosly blew it off(yes hetero), and consumed. Now you may ask "Why Capitol, was that a low-fat hot pocket?" To which I would reply "Sir or madam, how in the fuck do you know my name?" I kid, I kid. The offending "hot pocket" in question was in fact NOT of the low-fat variety, and is probably doing a russian cossack dance in my arteries as I type. But this brings me to the whole point of this post...
A couple of days ago I was in the bathroom, freshly showered, mahood proudly swinging in the summer breeze. Actually, there's no breeze in my bathroom but whatever. Anywhoo, I'm standing there, naked as Tera Patrick on payday(what?), when I get the idea to weigh myself. I've dropped a few pounds lately and have been monitoring off and on. I'm mostly amazed that right now is the least I've weighed since Ninth grade. I digress....So I stand on the scale that my weight-conflicted ex used to stand on before she would get depressed at the results and eat a whole box of low-fat cookies....I stand, look down and see 150. 150. Now that number may pose no significance to you but you see...the last time I checked I weighed 145. 145. let that resonate for a second. I GAINED FIVE POUNDS! That right there...that's what I never wanted to become. But yesterday I found myself working out intensely, and today I started taking vitamins and flaxseed oil again, hoping to jumpstart my metabolism. I guess the health "kick" is here to stay.
Now if only they made these vitamins a bit smaller...
A couple of days ago I was in the bathroom, freshly showered, mahood proudly swinging in the summer breeze. Actually, there's no breeze in my bathroom but whatever. Anywhoo, I'm standing there, naked as Tera Patrick on payday(what?), when I get the idea to weigh myself. I've dropped a few pounds lately and have been monitoring off and on. I'm mostly amazed that right now is the least I've weighed since Ninth grade. I digress....So I stand on the scale that my weight-conflicted ex used to stand on before she would get depressed at the results and eat a whole box of low-fat cookies....I stand, look down and see 150. 150. Now that number may pose no significance to you but you see...the last time I checked I weighed 145. 145. let that resonate for a second. I GAINED FIVE POUNDS! That right there...that's what I never wanted to become. But yesterday I found myself working out intensely, and today I started taking vitamins and flaxseed oil again, hoping to jumpstart my metabolism. I guess the health "kick" is here to stay.
Now if only they made these vitamins a bit smaller...
9.03.2008
What the cool kids listen to...
As a preface, if you are a woman who is of age to carry a purse, you have no reason to ride a damn bike. Honestly. The same goes for men...it is in no way WAVY to ride a huffy whilst carrying a case of old milwuakee...just...no.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let me put you on to some albums you should be checking for... First up, we've got Kenna-Make Sure They See My Face. I've always been into alt-hiphop such as M.I.A., N.E.R.D. and K-os..I'm actually not sure what I'd classify Kenna as since he shifts genres repeatedly throughout the cd. The song "Say Goodbye To Love" might be my favorite song on the cd as it features N.E.R.D. as his backing band and the familiar Neptunes synthesized sound adds an 80s new wave aesthetic to the track. My other favorites are "Static", which sounds like a Sting or U2 era arena ballad, and "Better Wise Up" which...I can't even describe the sound of it actually. Go out and cop especially if you liked his first album New Sacred Cow.
I've been listening to Jedi Mind Tricks for a while now and even though Vinnie Paz's voice and rhyme style can get grating at times its some of the best barfight music you can find. So I wasn't surprised that his entire crew Army Of The Pharaohs LP Ritual Of Battle was full of the same gritty, raw hip hop and some rock tinged beats. Tracks to check for include "Pages In Blood" which has this distorted metal guitar sound..I actually use this song to amp me up for anything...and "Blue Steel" which marks the return of my favorite mc from JMT"s past, Jus Allah. He already had an awkward, off beat rhyme style-but the beat itslef is awkward so it allows his alliteration to really shine through. I stay quoting his "I am unpaid, unkempt, underfed" line--no bragging about money on this ENTIRE cd.
Mickey Factz has been running the independent rap game for a minute now, using myspace as his primary medium. He's been putting out free cds almost every 3 months and that what put me on--anyone that shares a love of N.E.R.D. is kosher with me and his In Search of The N.E.R.D. album was pure piff. Acutally just go to his myspace, downlaod his newest cd The Leak Vol.2, listen to "Overdose" and try not to download his back catalog. Its free, don't be an asshole.
I only listed the Lupe live cd because on Sept 19th I'm FINALLY getting to see him live at the Stanley...hopefully intelligent hiphop won't go over Upstate heads. Also, as much as I burn on Mainstream music The Game and Young Jeezy's new albums are some of the best hiphop out right now, its sad that the Game is retiring supposedly but with the current state of things I can't blame him...artistry is being cast aside for whoever can create the hottest dance. It's all bullshit but it will never be 1997 again...
enough posting for now, Capitol just started college again and its time to study...until next time..
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