Real Super Quick

Hey y'all. I'm toying around with an idea (and by "toying around," I mean simply thinking about it and considering it) for a much more substantial column to be posted later. Last night, as I battled a bout of insomnia, I read Thomas P.M. Barnet's article "Old Man In A Hurry," on Donald Rumself and his transformation of the American military, in the July 2005 issue of Esquire, and it got me thinking. I've been mulling it over, and there may be some kind of a critique/response/rant using that as a jump off at some point in the not so distant future. Not promising anything, just saying (and if anyone wants to read the article and discuss it with me, that'd be sweet too. You know how to get at me)...

But I wanted to call attention real fast to letter from Nike, retracting their "Major Threat" campaign which ripped off Minor Threat.

Basically, they blow smoke up Minor Threat's and Dischords asses (and even manage to take the blame off of their advertising agencies!) for two paragraphs, and then they get to the most important bits:

"Every effort has been made to to remove and dispose of all flyers (both print and digital). Again, Nike Skateboarding apologizes to Minor Threat and Dischord Records."

That was pretty goddamn fast. I'm impressed, Nike.

Congrats

Congrats to the Spurs for stopping Detroit from winning two titles in a row. For the entire nation that doesn't live in Michigan, I say thank you. As cool as Rash-Weed is, I hate Detroit (except for the Red Wings, who have a soft spot in my heart thanks to many hours of my formative years spent playing NHL '94PA on Sega Genesis, wreckin' kids with Steve Yzerman, Sergei Federov, and Bob Probert).

And as a thank you to Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Big Cock Rob Horry, Greg Popogich and the rest of the Spurs, I'm giving you a present.

Wanna hear the joint that will eventually get the Game shot?

Listen to this.

RELATED: Read Uncle Grambo's quarter-by quarter analysis of Game 7. Even though I said I hate Detroit, I understand where he's coming from. If by some miracle the Mets get into the playoffs or even are competitive (Hello? Carlos Beltran? Yeah, I'm looking in your direction), you'll probably be seeing something similiar from me.

UPDATE: My roommate Bryon, after I sent him "300 Bars & Running," posted this as his away message:
"Auto response from (2:17:28 AM): "the game dropped 300 bars and he wants a new beef?fuck that bitch, I'll slap him till his vag goes quief!Just cuz he's from the west he thinks he's the new pac?come to alexandria, son, i'll school you on my new block."(note: five greatest rappers of all time: bry-on, bry-on, bry-on, bry-on and bry-on!)"
And he wanted to make sure I recognized this:
"(2:18:39 AM): and make sure to mention that the reference to "my block" from the E-L-I K-W-I-N-T"
There ya go, for those that know. For the three people that understand that joke, holla back. For those that don't, go watch the Chapelle's show Season 2 DVD and get to know your super underground Connecticut hip hop.

Since we're here and all.... on a completely different note, there is one track that has been blowing my fucking mind right now.

Deep Dish - Say Hello (Dylan Rhymes Acid Thunder Mix)

Oh shit, does this mean your boy is back into house (or "dance," if youi prefer)? It just might be, in part to this two hour jumpoff that's full of fire.

Deep Dish - Essential Mix 06-19-05

Are you a fan of Fleetwood Mac? Know that song "Dreams"? Yeah, download this and fast forward to 1:18:45 and listen until 1;29:00. Hot shit right? Yeah, you know what's even cooler? That's not a sample. Stevie Nicks went in to the studio for a few days with the Irianian house music kings to record that. How hot is that shit?

And since we're still here (and because I just figured out how to post music files on this site!), why don't I hit you with this, the joint that started my re-interest in Deep Dish (and house music in general-- oddly enough, the only reason I downloaded this song was because it was feautred in a Yoshitoshi email I just happened to open):

Deep Dish - Flashdance

"Uh-oh. Happy learned how to put."
- Happy Gilmore

Hostile Takeover

Just read this Pitchfork report on Nike's co-opting the artwork of legendary hardcore punk band Minor Threat for their new Nike skateboarding East Coast tour, dubbed "Major Threat" (Get it? So witty, those swooshy bastards!). If you click the link and compare the images (I really do need to figure out how to post pictures, don't I? I mean, it can't be that hard, can it?), you'll notice two differences: the color has been changed from red to blue, and the word "Minor" has been changed to "Major." That's it!

Let me tell you: This is complete bullshit.

I know that punk rock stopped being relevant and truly rebellious somewhere around the time I was bar mitzvah'ed, and I know that corporate culture circa 2005 holds absolutely nothing sacred, no matter how important or iconic it may be to some, but this is crossing the line. Some might even say that Nike, in this instance, is behaving as a "habitual line-stepper," if you were so inclined.

And you know what the bitch of it is? Minor Threat isn't even getting paid! From the Pitchfork report:
"No, they stole it and we're not happy about it. Nike is a giant corporation which is attempting to manipulate the alternative skate culture to create an even wider demand for their already ubiquitous brand. Nike represents just about the antithesis of what Dischord stands for and it makes me sick to my stomach to think they are using this explicit imagery to fool kids into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike's mission. It's disgusting," a representative from Dischord Records (Minor Threat's label) said.

How can that be? I'm no lawyer (perhaps I should consult my parents, who are indeed lawyers, about this-- feel free to enlighten us in the comments, Mom and Pop!), but that's gotta be illegal, just to up and straight up steal someone's artwork, right? My first thought was that Dischord should sue the shit out of them, but then I realized that Dischord is a tiny, DIY punk label, and Nike is a huge corporation with its tentacles in everything. Swoosh lawyers would manipulate and maneuver, and at the end of the day, Nike would probably end up owning it's own boutique punk label on legal fees alone.

Now, as I said, I realize that the true punk rock, challenge everything, DIY spirit died a long time ago. Most people's perceptions of punk rock are bands like Green Day and Blink-182, bands that cover themselves in tattoos and piercings and utter punk rock quote-by-numbers in the media to dress their flimsy little pop songs up in edgy, punk rock clothing. I know that the individualistic spirit of punk died when the first Hot Topic store opened.

Except that didn't happen for Minor Threat, and Dischord. Dischord still do everything DIY, from the production of the records, to the touring, to the distribution. Sure, you can buy Dischord records in most major retail chain stores nowadays, but if you flip to the back, you'll notice a little sign that says "This record available for $10 post paid." Minor Threat frontman Ian McKaye went on to form Fugazi, a much beloved band famous for charging a measly $5 for tickets to their shows. These guys still believe in the ideals that sound so great at age 14 when you first discover punk rock, yet usually get discarded by the age of 20 after the Real World has slapped you on your ass.

And that's why I'm so pissed off by this. Nike co-opted an image which stands for something much more than a simple band when they ripped off Minor Threat. They co-opted a culture, a belief system, an ideology that represents a great deal to many people. It's almost as if Nike sat down and said "Let's find an image that is the exact opposite of us, an image that resonates with a large number of people, and fuck with it, just because we can." As Dischord themselves notes, this is the very antithesis of what Dischord and Minor Threat represent. And indeed, it is disgusting.

Ian McKaye and Minor Threat once declared "I'm seeing red."

Well, right now, so am I.

Back In The Building

Your boy back on his hustle, like Dame, Puffy, and Russell...
- Kanye West

Your boy back in the building, yes I is!

OK, I know it's been a minute or two since I did this whole blogging thing, but like I warned y'all, life's thrown your boy a few curveballs over the last few weeks, and a few of 'em were of the 10-6, fallin' off a table variety, but I'm hangin' in there, foulin' 'em off, still battling. Basic life recap: This post is coming to you directly from my bedroom in Alexandria, VA. Still don't have a job, but I'm on the grind, hoping for a sprinkle of good look or two in the nearness.

Anywho... since I haven't done this in a minute, I'm just gonna run down a few things, scattershot style, that have been on my mind, and then hopefully we can get back to regular posting (and by regular, I hopefully mean more than one post every two weeks-- you'd think I was deliberately trying to destroy any traffic I have/had!).

-- Phil Jackson returns to the Lakers. Boy, I really wish someone gave me a cool $30 million to smoothe over a "psychological war," which is what Phil got to kiss and make up with Kobe. Nice scratch if you can get it, and I guess if you're gonna drive yourself crazy, $10 mil a year is a good price.

If I were Phil, I woulda thrown my hat into the ring as the Cavs coach. I mean, can you imagine a better player to run the triangle offense through than a still on the come up LeBron? LeBron not only has the same skill set as Kobe, but he actually likes to pass, something on which the triangle is predicated. If you resign Biz Z, you've got your poor mans Shaq, and you go get Michael Redd or Ray Allen, and you're in business. Maybe it's just because I'm a LeBron jock rider, but I've got to figure that nucleus is closer to winning a championship than the current Lakers team is.

Phil's definitely got quite a mission on his hands if he wants to pass Red and win his 10th title. But hey, it coulda been worse-- he could've taken the Knicks job. And, as much as I would've loved to have seen that, you can file that under "Career Suicide." (On a side note: I've seen some mock drafts which have the Knicks taking a PF, usually one from Europe. While I realize that the Knicks need all the help they can get, do we really need another PF? I mean, didn't Isiah trade for every power forward under the sun this year? Can we get a swingman or two, please? I'd pay to see Isiah's face when Nazr Mohammed wins a ring tonight in San Antonio and he realizes that he traded him for Malik Rose, a useful guy but one who would have gotten exactly zero crunch time burn for the Spurs in the playoffs).

--Record Industry Continues To Shoot Itself In The Foot.

What a brillaint idea! Never mind that mixtapes have promoted artists as diverse as 50 Cent and M.I.A. and helped them, ya know, actually sell records-- SHUT IT DOWN! I've talked about mixtapes before, so y'all know how I feel about them. I just can't believe that the record industry has been handed this golden grassroots marketing tool, and yet they feel they've got to shut it down. Just another classic case of the record industry scrambling and making the wrong move. Why am I not surprised in the least?

-- Various Music Ramblings

OK, so I know that it may be somewhat cliche for your humble blogger to mention this, and that every cool blogger is already up on thangz, but I've gotta say: That Dipset Memorial Day Mixtape is straight FIRE! Seriously, I don't know how many times I"ve bumped this the past two weeks, but it is absolutely ridiculous. There's so much niceness, I don't even know where to begin-- Cam'ron's "Get 'Em Daddy," Juelz with Fabolous "So What's It Gon Be," Juelz with Paul Wall "We Don't Give a Fuck," Juelz ripping "Wait (The Whisper Song)" on "See My Clip," new Jim Jones jumpoffs, this thing has everything.

I used to really not like the Dips, but slowly, they're becoming one of my favorite rap crews.

Related: Ok, so I know that alot of people have been jockin' the new Sleater-Kinney record for a minute now. But, as someone who's been down with the SK since Call The Doctor, at first I wasn't feeling The Woods. However, after several listens, I can now tell you: Expect The Woods to show up on my top records of the year list somewhere.

At first, I was definitely missing the old Sleater-Kinney grooves that had seemingly been replaced by the "sludge" or "drone" or some other rock critic type word that is featured on The Woods. It took me several listens to realize that the grooves are still there, they're just not as obvious before, and that the girls have indeed taken on a more rocking (dare I say "heavyy"?) sound. All you gotta do is listen to the beginning of "The Fox," with the rollicking drums and crunchy guitars, and you know that it's different, yet still so good.

Don't believe me? Listen to this lil live set and judge for yourself.

Quick Little Musical Thoughts Before I Bounce: "Old School Hollywood," by System Of A Down, might be the best commercial rock song to come out this year so far. If I was an executive at American Recordings (and oh, how I wish I was, if only because I'd get to kick it with Rick Rubin and his bison), I'd make this the next single and watch it absolutely blow the doors off radio. I mean, the grooves? The vicoder on the vocals? The awe-inspiring guitar crunch? Everytime I play this song (at obnoxious volume, obviously), my roommates fear that I'm gonna destroy our apartment (and they might be right). Hypnotize will also have a slot on my Year In Review list, that is if Hypnotize doesn't come out and blow it away (as the band swears it will).

And since we're on the topic of commercial rock monsters, I don't quite know how I feel about Out of Exile, the new one from Audioslave. On one hand, you've gotta be docked serious points for writing a song as cheesy as "Be Yourself," but on the other, you can't front on Tom Morello's guitar pyrotechnics. Maybe it's just that I miss Zack and the dynamic that Rage had, but there are definitely times that Chris Cornell just straight up annoys me on this album. I will say, though, that I can't seem to get the guitar solo of "Yesterday to Tomorrow" out of my head. It's not your usual bombastic Tom Morello airraid-siren-wailing-fire-raining-from-the-sky, but maybe that's why it appeals to me, because it's unexpected. It's also just straight up beautiful, and as I said, I just can't dislodge it from my head.

If anything, Out of Exile does alot to move the band away from the "Hey. that's a Rage track, with Chris Cornell singing instead of Zack rapping!" dynamic, and moves them towards a more cohesive sound, a more distinctive Audioslave sound, rather than simply "RATM+Soundgarden= Audioslave" equation, and that's definitely a good thing.

One Last Thing: Wanna hear a "a seminal throwaway B-side" from the Pixies? Of course you do. The best part is indeed Black Francis' moaning "Theme From Narc" throughout the song, as noted by Pher.

Alright kids, I gotta go find a job or something. But I'll be back, haunting your dreams and providing the soundtracks to your nightmares again in no time (I swear to God, no more two week lapses!). Show the kid some love in the comments.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

So, I returned home to NY (home for a blessed few more days only, but we'll get to that in a minute) from Las Vegas late Friday night, and only just now am I getting a chance to post a recap of the events. It has taken this long partially because I needed the time to recuperate mentally and physically, but also because I just had to attend the Mets-Giants doubleheader on Sunday afternoon, and well... I'm lazy. Anywho...

You know that shit they say about what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Definitely true. I mean, when you've got six red blooded American males between the ages of 22 and 24 running around Las Vegas... we'll, you're gonna have some interesting times. Definitely things that I'll remember for the rest of my life, some things I probably wish I didn't remember, and a few things that only five other people will ever know about.

The best part about the trip? Just getting a chance to ball out with five of my best friends. It was an amazingly fun trip, but it also did a lot to solidify and strengthen relationships with people who I was already strong friends with. So many laughs, so many crazy times, so many moments to remember... it was just terrific. I read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time on the plane ride over, and it was definitely a good introduction to the insanity and ridiculiousness that awaited me upon touchdown in Nevada.

Any kind of recap or write up is going to wind up leaving out alot of things, so I apologize in advance. Nevertheless, I'm gonna try and sum up a few key points of the trip here as best I can. Here are some of the highlights:

-- Gambling. The first night, I played poker at Mandalay Bay (where we were staying) and found myself up $175. Not bad, right? Too bad that was the only luck I had on the trip. After that, I lost $100 playing Poker with a bunch of goddamn pricks at Bally's, and lost many dollars at many different casino's playing Blackjack. It was so frustrating to watch my friends get lucky and rake in the dough at Blackjack, only to have me slide in and routinely get 3-4's and busted 22's. You know it's bad when you've lost a hundred bucks before the waitress returns to the table with your free beer or extremely watered down cranberry vodka! All in all, I managed to lose around $300 gambling, including a busted $15 bet on the Mets. On the brightside, I did manage to stay away from those nickel slots (thanks for the tip Jane, although I don't know how much that helped me!), so I got that going for me, which is nice.

-- The food. We ate at some spectacular restaurants. The first night we ate at Aureole, which was mouthwateringly awesome. The decor was impeccable, the wine list extensive, and the food absolutely scrumptious. I realized that we were in Vegas when we sat down at a restaurant called Aureole (supposedly meaning a flash of light or something) and I looked at my plate to find a little circle smack dab in the middle of the plate, giving it the appearance of, well... an aureole (Get it? I admit to stealing that joke from my boy Matt. If you found it funny, thank him. If you didn't, blame him). Charlie Palmer's steakhouse and Emeril's fish restaurant were also incredible, and I did enjoy eating at Red Square as well (if only because I ordered a drink concoction dubbed Chernobyl, and had to make the inevitable joke about already having had a meltdown). I also couldn't hate on the Kobe beef burger I had at the Burger Bar either... all in all, your boy ate real, real nice on this trip.

-- The women. My Lord, it seemed like every time I turned around, there was one beautiful woman after another passing me by. And it's not like all of those women worked in Vegas... these were the fellow tourists and Casino dwellers such as myself, looking dressed to the nines and ready to kill. I thought NY in the summertime was great... but all you can say about Vegas is WOW. It's almost worth going to Vegas just to people watch.

-- The vibe. It shouldn't come as a surprise to you, but everything in Vegas is focused on having a good time and making sure you have fun. As such, the vibe is usually pretty good, especially at a blackjack table that is playing together and winning. But even away from the tables and the Casinos, having fun is clearly priority number one in that town, and it shows. It's almost impossible to have a bad time, especially when you've got your five best friends flanking you on either side and watching to make sure you don't get in to too much trouble (or, in some cases, opening the door and inviting trouble right on in!).

My only regrets? Not popping Cristal as we'd planned (just so I can be like Jay-Z for a precious few moments), and not taking any pictures (guess the memories will have to stay burned into the brain, rather than on my shitty disposable camera).

However, next time I return, I'm only gonnna go for a long weekend. Five days and four nights was a kind of long time, and it definitely took its toll. On Friday, I told everyone that it was a good thing we were living that afternoon, because if we stayed any longer, the city might have killed me. It was that intense (and that much of a financial drain!).

IN OTHER NEWS: At the end of this week, I will be turning my back on my beloved New York and moving to Alexandria, Virginia. I am hoping to find a job in Washington, D.C., doing writing and research and/or working on political campaigns. While this move frightens me, it is something that I feel I have to undertake at this point in my life. I am excited yet nervous at the same time, and the idea of putting your entire life into boxes is extremely daunting. However, if anyone reading this knows of any good spots to go to, people to talk to, or just general ideas to help, it would be much appreciated.

As such, it may be til the end of this week before I get back to fully operational status and resume posting on this blog with any kind of regularity. Just bear with me, and you'll soon be receiving that MSF goodness you know and love, broadcasted to you live from my apartment in Alexandria.

Wish me luck.