June 29, 2006 (2) Comments

A giant and glorious EAT DOGSHIT to the torturers and war-mongers in Washington who would seek to truncate the rights of humans, subvert the law both domestic and international, and further sacrifice the dignity and good faith of this country

Read the details of the case here

Quoth the Times::
Justice Stevens declared flatly that "the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedure violate" both the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the American military's legal system, and the Third Geneva Convention.The majority opinion rejected the administration's claims that the tribunals were justified both by President Bush's inherent powers as commander in chief and by the resolution passed by Congress authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11. There is nothing in the resolution's legislative history "even hinting" that such an expansion of the president's powers was considered, he wrote.

Meanwhile, Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito continue to suck my ass.

June 27, 2006 (1) Comments

Charlie Daniels was the first man I ever met who wore a full beard. It was Frontier Days, I was four and he was drunk and stagger-eyed -- the year was 1980 and this is how I remember him. He stumbled out of the Cheyenne Club, a gills-soaked watering hole known for its frequent fisticuffs and alcoholic imprudence. I was on the sidewalk with my mother, possibly returning from a parade--it was daytime and the sun burned. She asked for his autograph even though I didn't want it, and he scribbled my name on a leaf of notebook paper while I hid behind her leg, terrified by his grizzly gait, black Stetson, acrid stench, booze face. Frontier Days is a synonym for drunk before noon and has been at least since my birth. I still can't smell whiskey without recalling that moment. Still have the autograph, though.

June 27, 2006 (0) Comments

Since I am the most charismatic female in a short list of New Yorkers we know who do not hate country music, Pithymanica aka Recent Vintage escorted me to Madison Square Garden for some unencumbered PDA and fluffy stache action. (Not to mention: deconstruction of the Skinny Jean.) I will admit to attending partly for the sake of my dear old mother, who I will see face to face in the country of my birth within the month, and who would simply murder me if I forefeited a concert with her favorite spousal superstars.

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, in love for life, the latter waxed but beards neither, I suspect.

Faith was easygoing and a fascinating dancer-- she moves like one would move at a 7 pm wedding reception. It was the first time I had consciously heard the majority of her songs, and the one I remember most, "Mississippi Girl," was Hill's equivalent of "JEnny from the Block" -- her fan-promise that mega-stardom, a honey-blonde Beyonce weave, and the spoils of world travel had not, in any way, took the country out the girl.

Only, Hill is the singer alt-country purists (aka backwoods rockists) accuse of commercializing, and thus diluting, the true country aesthetic. Even I can trace this back to 1998's "This Kiss," a transcendent midtempo softrock song about an out-of-this-world smooch that is amped with the twang of a lap steel, which in my opinion makes it no less country than most alt country, except like 1000 times more listenable. (What can I say? I grew up watching the Mandrell Sisters on prime time, leading to a lifelong affection for the shirred blouse. I was country when country wasn't cool.) I was also impressed with Hill's soulful voice and apparent debt to gospel, but Jon reminded me that tradition is long, and lo: revisiting Mandrell's backcatalogue, what do I uncover but a cover of Shirley Brown's 1974 Stax classic "Woman to Woman," replete with strings and Rhodes twinkle. [Also, DUH! Ray Charles! And everyone! excuse my unintentionally revisionist stee. I'm an urban cowgirl and I don't know much about country.]

More importantly: Tim McGraw can eat crackers in my bed anytime. Backed up by loping two-note bass, he's little truer to the old-old-west aesthetic -- handlebar moustache and a horse-rider's posture but, in a post-millennial plot twist, Rock & Republics in lieu of Wranglers -- Tim is an archetypal cowboy and a bona fide sensitive thug who can emote safely thru songs like, "Grown Men Don't Cry" because his prescribed masculinity is never in doubt. How could it be, what with that facial hair. And while rugged individualism cuts a safe rut for cowboy tears, his tone is everything: evocative, soulful (more than Faith, and richer too).

Why NY rap crits love country more than some mixtapes is no mystery: I mean, Tim Mcgraw has a nostalgic values song called "Back When," which includes the line, "I like the old and outdated way of life. Back when a hoe was a hoe. A coke was a coke. And crack's what you were doin when you were crackin' jokes." I don't care how country and retrospective and you are, that is some sly, self-aware bullshit right there. That's a real son of a bitch, as we'd say in Big Wyo.

June 27, 2006 (0) Comments

from Steve Manning, beloved Sub Pop employee:

"Dear esteemed friends and supporters of Sleater-Kinney:

I bring this information to you with a bit of heavy heart as all of us here at Sub Pop are exceptionally proud to have worked with Sleater-Kinney over the last couple of years. We were/are fans first and conspirators/supporters second, and we remain tremendously grateful for the opportunity to work with such inspired, motivated, enthused, fun, decent and thoughtful people.

They also managed to make one of the best rock records Sub Pop’s ever released.

The statement below is directly from the band. Yes, it’s brief, and no they won’t be doing any interviews.

After eleven years as a band, Sleater-Kinney have decided to go on indefinite hiatus. The upcoming summer shows will be our last. As of now, there are no plans for future tours or recordings.

We feel lucky to have had the support of many wonderful people over the years. We want to thank everyone who has worked with us, written kind words about us, performed with us, and inspired us.

But mostly we want to extend our gratitude to our amazing fans. You have been a part of our story from the beginning. We could not have made our music without your enthusiasm, passion, and loyalty. It is you who have made the entire journey worthwhile.

With love and thanks,

Sleater-Kinney

The dates below will be your last chance to see the band. Avail yourself of the opportunity.

Sleater-Kinney
Jul 29 Mellwood Arts Center, Louisville,KY
Jul 31 Starlight Ballroom, Philadelphia,PA
Aug 01 930 Club, Washington,DC
Aug 02 Webster Hall, New York City,NY
Aug 04 Lollapalooza (Grant Park), Chicago,IL"

June 27, 2006 (1) Comments

This is fucking New York and there are some truly crazy people here. I'd forgotten that, because at some point (two months into working in Times Square, maybe) I became city-jaded and everyone just started blending into one another, dots of flesh like a Chuck Close up close. The upside is that I no longer feel terrifically lonely among millions of strangers. The downside is that I forget sometimes crazy people have no respect for personal boundary and will get all up in your face and, perhaps, shove their finger in your skull like a gun, execution style, whilst screaming "bitch" for no apparent reason other than your continued existence.

On one hand I can relate. I feel generally hostile a goodly amount of the time I am seeking a navigable path through throngs. On the other hand: what the fuck. My fight reflexes kicked in but so did logic, luckily, and rather than punch her off I kick-pushed, admonished "Don't EVEN be touching me," in ninth grade hallway brawl parlance, without even thinking of it. Later I felt proud for still having default fight slang collected in my mind's recesses but at that moment I rounded the corner, from 11th onto University, and burst into tears. Not from fear, exactly, though it did remind me how quickly shit can get ugly. I wept more from anger and the spontaneous arrest of control. I felt unsettled the rest of the night, after the peeping tom across the courtyard caught me with shades up and watering my herb garden. My sleep ripped open with dreams of him or others leering into the window from the fire escape.

That, and I fucking left my apartment keys at the Crunch, but can defend myself if necessary, because I am presently ripped.

June 21, 2006 (3) Comments

While Dwayne Wade, superhero, was delivering Miami its first title, I was watching a prominent (alleged, ha) Miami drug dealer attempt to rap. Rick Ross should stick to recorded material. Also they should fix the subwoofers on the boat at Chelsea Piers. With Chris Ryan submitting frantic game-related texts -- "HOLY FUCK," "DID YOU SEE THAT?" "OH MY GOD" etc. -- to punctuate the situation, I felt more like a rubbernecker, Ross heaving, an absence of charisma, "Hustlin'" TWICE IN A ROW, me remembering I kinda like the Remy Ma version of "Hustlin'" least as much as the original --"erryday I'm fuckin' him" -- and thinking there's something fundamentally wrong with that, and the whole organization.

Glad to see Miami getting so much love, anyway, because according to Al Gore, scientists, and An Inconvenient Truth, the entire city will be swallowed up by the angry ocean, submerged under melted glacier water, in the next quarter-century or so if we continue using energy, burning coal, and driving cars in the same wasteful fashion as now. Ross and his donk are in fact contributing to the apocalyptic demise of his hometown. Doomed humans - Sweet irony!

June 20, 2006 (0) Comments

I'm kicking back w/ la ladies in an hour for my job, and selfishly, what I really want to know is this: how can I perfect my snap? That's the point, of course, but it's also a vestige of taking dance classes four days a week: songs become inextricable from my body moving itself. I can no longer hear Chamillionaire's "Ridin Dirty," for instance, without thinking of crunches. We crunch up halfway whilst "driving" with alternating arms, targeting both our obliques and our ability to look cool. That's what my teacher always says, he of the old school b-boy and the house warm-ups: "You got the step. Now make it look cool." Backhanded encouragement.

Louise Erdrich's Painted Drum, which I am just now reading, is exquisite and excruciating. Her devices are fiction 101, i suppose -- person, dilemma, mysterious object, quest, discovery, denouement -- the DNA of all stories but somehow hers are more transparent -- but they are also tried and true, and no object, scene or character is extraneous. The paragraphs are snap together, fitted. Some people call this economy: deliberate, which takes craft. But it's hard to read, 'cause the the detail of grief, death, debt and rebirth, though, and abuse, abandonment, neglect; and how anger, compulsion and fear keep life from living, they're nigh too palpable. She describes a scene in which a grieving father does not like tree stumps, because they look too much like people. People suspended in time. It's all so immediate, the backstory echoing through the pages. For instance: the man who believes he's Ojibwe but cannot find the evidence, and thus practices a caricatured, white-man version of Native American living. (Interestingly, that character repulses Faye, the first person narrator.)

And nearly a decade later, it's still difficult to imagine her writing without Michael Dorris, her ex-husband and writing partner, his voice still present. It is not at all like how Joan Didion's book without/about John Gregory Dunne felt hollowed out, a chilly absence. But then voices lingering long after they've gone is what the Painted Drum is about. And it was probably always Erdrich's voice, anyway. Her economy and rhythm. Persia Andromeda, Pallas Antigone, Aza Marion: the names of their children together, the children she bore.

June 16, 2006 (3) Comments

Mary J Blige marries Kendu and we get "All My Love." Xtina marries Jordan and we get "Ain't No Other Man." '

Beyonce and Jay-Z's self-obsessed and sexee summer dud "Deja Vu"? The Phantom Menace. As long as the tie-in Taco Bell goblets look cool, the buyer believes in the blockbuster. Heard it in the club last night and it didn't register, even with Soho Bape hipsters in neon windbreakers and dookie rope chains, or the three twee boys gesticulating in air and screaming the chorus to "What U Know" like they, themselves, were Jacob's boys.

I fear I am boring you, like a ringtone you can't delete.

June 14, 2006 (0) Comments

THE SYNCHED NIKE-NANO FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL JOGGER.

Between this and the new Xtina Aguilera/Primo single, which is fire pon fire pon fire, my life is pretty complete.

June 13, 2006 (0) Comments

JAGGED EDGE FOR FREE IN NYC ON FRIDAY.

not my neighborhood, but SO my turf.

June 12, 2006 (0) Comments

Eben just emailed that the new website for World Up is up, where he's listing new shows, conferences, panels etc. Up tomorrow is French hip-hop group Saian Supa Crew at SOBs. Saw them last december in Paris and remember thinking "only in France can a hip-hop group get away with a 15-minute beatboxing solo in 2006" (but that was before the Roots show at Radio City Music Hall last month). Despite the ill-advised post-millennial beatboxing, their live show is pretty entertaining -- tight, extremely musical, political -- vibe is vaguely Cascadian Valley Region Hip-Hop Show ca. 2000, but that was in France. I dig this video.

June 7, 2006 (5) Comments

Where can one cop a copy of the "Boss Baby" mixtape by ATL crunk n b debutantes Bella? My regular suppliers, 2 Gs Blazin Ent (corner of canal y broadway, holler at them), do not have it, nor do the usj 'net haunts, far as i can tell.
Either way, cannot stop listening to "Caught Up". Is that Oh'So Krispie on the hook there? Nah, that's Shannon, in actualement.

June 6, 2006 (1) Comments

Today:

The grim reapers guerilla-film-promoted outside Viacom Country. They marched in a figure-eight loop on Times Square, waving picket signs: "6.6.6."

The shelf-life of the skull t-shirt was shorter than a quart of 2% in a bodega cooler in August.

The pop singer I interviewed thought she wanted to be a criminal justice lawyer, until she realized she *really* wanted to be a dancer/choreographer for an NBA halftime dance squad -- a dream she realized and sustained for seven seasons, whilst moonlighting as a battle rapper named Seven (because she is lucky). Her website describes her as "twenty-something."

The other pop singer I interviewed did not graduate, but she will never return to high school. She is a junior now, and she'll have a tutor while she tours the country, promoting her album through the fall. "My love songs don't actually come from my own experiences," she leveled. "I am only sixteen."

I bought a ticket online for the Omen, after reading that it is a play-by-play recreation of the original. A review: "Who the fuck still uses darkrooms?"
How will Julia Stiles handle the act of "dying"? I wonder.

I email Charles Schumer (D-NY) approximately three times a month, and have only ever received an electronic form letter in return. Michelle renounces her American citizenship on an hourly basis, yet she receives letters in the actual mail, direct from Schumer's Brooklyn office. How can this be?

I can hear sporadic cheers and whoops and claps, wafting up the vents: Alicia Keys on TRL. Or, perhaps some of the secondary guests have engaged themselves in an antic, hoping to be remembered past their time.

That's all any of us can hope for, but too many people mistake glory for longevity, I think.

June 6, 2006 (0) Comments

Watch the entirety of this Cherish promotional video to differentiate between the snap dance, the poole palace, the lean wid it rock wid it, and the west side walk, at least according to Jamaica Craft, Cherish's choreographer. D-Roc calls it "the younger generation of crunk." Jamaica Craft says, "Now, guys are dancing a whole lot more." I am not mad.

June 6, 2006 (2) Comments

it's approximately two months old, which in internet time qualifies it for carbon dating, but i cannot stop listening to Qualo's Black Sheep-style sendup of crack rap, entitled "Crack," over the beat for Mobb Deep's "Put Em in their Place." They get away with such cleverness. Where other rappers might preach, they deploy deep, withering sarcasm.

Mobb Deep were one of Summer Jam's least compelling performances, at least after they finished "Shook Ones p2" and launched into "Have a Party." The transition from the former song to the latter was a truly perfect illustration of a group selling out. But then, this is the first year they were asked to Summer Jam, thanks to cliquing up w/G Unit. That's the way - that's the way- that's the way that shit goes goes, as Ms. Jackson sorta said.

Ms. Jackson and Ms. Carey, my two idols por vida, cameo'd onstage at summer jam per Jermaine Dupri, just to wave and cosign Dem Franchise Boyz, and both looked like lovely fawns: gorgeous, thoroughly mascara'd and noticably shook.

As a former dance teacher and choreographer, and not in a "so you think you can dance" way neither, I feel qualified to observe that the snap dance, aka the Poole Palace, which overtook the entire Summer Jam audience, is the freshest dance move ever... I will only do the snap dance from now on. (Not to be confused with "Snap!" or the "bend and snap.")

Chris Brown came out wearing a creepy phantom of the opera mask to "Tell Me When to Go" and was hyphy as fuck. Better popper than singer, even? Better dancer than Usher, for sure.

Summer Jam was held in Giants Stadium and 50,000 people attended. That is roughly eight less bodies than the population of the town in which I grew up. All snapping. En masse.

June 5, 2006 (1) Comments

playa = beach = summer jam =
I CAN DIE HAPPY

(per Marisa... speaking of which: CONGRATULATIONS TO MARISA AND KARA FOR FINISHING THE BOOK!)