Knowing is Half the Battle

Just a few more days...

Back on the Scene, Crispy and Clean

Number three on my list of "Person(s) I'd Most Like to Have a Three-hour Dinner With." New song from Bjork, Nattura. Backing 'vocals' from Thom Yorke. The phrenetic drum pattern takes a minute to get used to, but it has an almost hypnotic quality to it. I dig it. I'm honestly at the point with Bjork that if I don't like something, I believe the issue must be with me.

Hopefully this means a new album is on the horizon. Video is a fan-generated piece, an interesting amalgam of many of her previous works. I'd highly recommend checking out her full video collection, especially Bachelorette.

I think Iceland is really the lost land of Faerie.

Joe Biden in Bizarro World

I don't know how BIden manages to keep his calm talking to this creature. You're seriously going to ask the question: "Is Barack Obama a Marxist?"? DIAF. Seriously, DIAF.

Wow...just...wow.

Really? The word 'shameless' seems inadequate. Who are these people?

I Haven't Seen America This Happy Since Bird Beat Magic in the '84 Finals

Can we let it go now?

Not the Way I'd Go About Lodging A Protest...

Photo and caption taken from the AP: Cuba's Angel Valodia Matos, left, kicks match referee Sweden's Chakir Chelbat in the face during a bronze medal match against Kazakhstan's Arman Chilmanov in the men's taekwondo +80 kilogram class at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008. Matos attacked the official, throwing punches and kicks, after being declared the loser in his bronze medal match.

Mr. Matos and his coach, both unrepentant, were banned for life from the sport. Well at least you'll always have the infamy.

When Internet Memes Collide!!!

You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!

Did I Mention Coldplay Sucks?

In a city of the future
It is difficult to concentrate
Meet the boss, meet the wife
Everybody's happy
Everyone is made for life
In a city of the future
It is difficult to find a little space
I'm too busy to see you
You're too busy to wait
But I'm OK, how are you?
Thanks for asking, thanks for asking
I'm OK, how are you? I hope you're OK too

Every one one of those days
When the sky is California blue
With a beautiful bombshell
I throw myself into my work
I’m too lazy I’ve been kidding myself for so long
I'm OK, how are you?
Thanks for asking, thanks for asking
I'm OK, how are you?
I hope you're OK too

-Palo Alto, Airbag/How Am I Driving EP

A couple of weekends ago, I attended the All Points West festival. Radiohead headlined. I arrived fairly late in the day and only got a chance to see a pretty impressive Roots performance before the main event. Black Thought and ?uestlove along with their ever-changing but always tight band are single-handedly legitimizing (large venue) live hip-hop. I've seen Radiohead a few times now, and I get excited the way you would when an old friend comes to town. The concert didn’t rank in my top five live music experiences, but it was still sublime. Don’t get me wrong, I sang along with practically every song and worked myself into a dancing frenzy for a good part of the set.

The problem is that New York Radiohead fans tend to be so passive. If the band only had OK Computer under their belts then I’d understand, but the last few albums have had some really good grooves on them full of jams with compelling bass lines (e.g., I Might Be Wrong, National Anthem, The Gloaming). I think frontman Thom Yorke agrees, because he frequently breaks out into his own spastic dances for a number of songs. If he can do it, so can you. It's that element that really propels a rock concert to the upper stratosphere for me. It's why Bjork at Coney Island in '03 and practically every Flaming Lips show remain the gold standard.

I hadn’t checked the setlists too closely from the previous shows on their North American tour, so I was surprised they played In Rainbows in its entirety. Bold move. Not many groups have a fanbase that would let them get away with such a feat. I wasn’t bothered since I think the album is their most fully realized work since Kid A. Radiohead is such a cohesive unit; the set feels very polished if a bit rigid. Still they manage to at least appear to enjoy what they're doing up there. Thom doesn't banter much, but the crowd eats up every little quip ("This is dedicated to the Kings of Leon. If we were that good-looking, we'd be famous."). I'm glad he survived OK Computer.

Highlights included a great version of The Bends, Bangers and Mash, No Suprises, Fake Plastic Trees (30,000 people singing in unison: "And if I could be/who you wanted/And if I could be/who you wanted/All the time/All the time...un-hunnnnhhhh"), and Weird Fishes. They opened with a beautiful rendition of Reckoner that showed off the best instrument in the group's formidable arsenal, Thom's at times ethereal falsetto. They book-ended the set (second encore--digression: perhaps we should just do away with the "encore" since it's pretty much an expected part of the setlist at this point; people didn't even bother clapping all that hard the second time) with Idioteque, a song from Kid A that showed the band at their (so far) creative peak.

How to Win [Buy] Friends and [Peddle] Influence People

Below is an excerpt from another great Bill Moyers Journal story. This one deals with the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal from a few years back. At least Abramoff was punished (actually more like scolded--5 years in minimum security? Dudes in my neighborhood get more than that for getting caught with more than a few ounces). The scourge of super-lobbyists isn't anathema to our political system; it is our political system. As Thomas Frank notes in an interview with Moyer: "It's not the apples, it's the trees themselves." Does that overstate things? C'mon man:



BILL MOYERS: In the mid-1990s, Russia was like something out of the Wild West.

MICHAEL WALLER: These Russian gangster capitalists had a lot of money, and they didn't care which political party they got involved with. Whether - when it was the Democrats running the White House, they did it with the Democrats, and when they wanted to work with the Republicans in Congress, then they'd buy a Republican, or rent a Republican here and there.

BILL MOYERS: A plum ripe for Abramoff's picking. This time, he registered as a lobbyist for a mysterious company based in the Bahamas connected to a Russian oil and gas giant called Naftasib.

BILL MOYERS: Naftasib - with its headquarters in this unmarked building in the heart of Moscow - was a major supplier to the Russian military. It also advertised the close ties between its Vice President and Russian military intelligence.

MICHAEL WALLER: So, here you have an instructor at Russian Military Intelligence Academy who is one of the top two people in a very sketchy, deceptive-looking, influence operation in Washington where it's hiring people to identify lawmakers and staffers for free trips to Russia, in hotels that were still equipped the way the KGB had always equipped the hotels. This is not an educational exchange program. This is not a pure person-to-person, understanding-type program. This is potentially a very serious operation.

BILL MOYERS: On the fifth of August, 1997, Tom DeLay and Ed Buckham, DeLay's Chief of Staff who had recently set up the U.S. Family Network, left for a six-day visit to Moscow. Abramoff joined them there. DeLay's official report claimed the trip was sponsored by the very same non-profit that paid for his golf vacation in Scotland. In Russia, they were hosted at a lavish dinner and shown around town by the two top Naftasib executives.

JEFFREY SMITH: The oil executives were excited at the possibility that Tom DeLay could help open doors for them in Washington, and they wanted to reward him in some way, and so they asked a colleague of Abramoff's, you know, what would happen if the DeLays woke up one day and found a luxurious car, like a BMW or a Mercedes on their driveway. And the colleague of Abramoff said, "Well, that would be illegal. This shows a motive and desire by the Russians to reward the DeLays in one way or another for work that they expected him to do for them.

BILL MOYERS: Nine months later, the U.S. Family Network received a wire transfer from a London law firm, now defunct, that the Washington Post has connected to the Naftasib bosses. The amount: one million dollars. Pastor Chris Geeslin questioned Ed Buckham.

REV. CHRIS GEESLIN: He kind of looked at me with some disdain, and he said, "You know where the large money has come from, don't you?" And I said, "No, I have no idea." And he said, "Well let me tell you, this is how it works in Washington." He said, "That money came from Russian oil barons." And I, you know, I just couldn't believe it.

BILL MOYERS: One million dollars was an astounding sum. But consider the timing: it arrived just as Washington was beginning to debate legislation critical to Russia and its collapsing economy. Congress was being asked to resupply the International Monetary Fund, the I.M.F., with taxpayer money that would be used to help bail out the Russian economy and oligarchs like the Naftasib bosses.

BILL MOYERS: Long a critic of the IMF, Tom DeLay had disparaged the pending legislation. "The IMF is bailing out the bankrupt," he said. But by the time the vote came, he had a change of heart and supported the legislation he had scorned.

The world's greatest hustle. But of course, we musn't look back or dredge up the past. Just keep looking forward. How do you like those blinders? Not too tight around the temples are they?

Worst. Ad. Ever.

I thought this was a joke, but this is a real John McCain ad. This is complete bush league. Totally ineffective. "Yeah, you're like the most popular human on the planet, and people are really drawn to you and you've inspired people across the globe, but...um, are you really ready for a job that requires people to put their utmost faith and confidence in you?" Epic Fail. I half expect John McCain to blurt out: "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!!!"

Jack Bauer says, "Stop whining"

Bill Moyers interviews Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE WAR ON TERROR TURNED INTO A WAR ON AMERICAN IDEALS

A couple of excerpts below. Emphasis added, mine.

BILL MOYERS: Who were some of the other conservative heroes, as you call them, in your book?

JANE MAYER: A lot of them are lawyers. And they were people inside the Justice Department who, one of whom, and I can't name this one in particular, said when he looked around at some of the White House meetings - he was in where they were authorizing the President, literally, to torture people - if he thought that was necessary, he said, "I can't, I could not believe these lunatics had taken over the country." And I am not talking about someone who is a liberal Democrat. I'm talking about a very conservative member of this Administration. And there was a-

BILL MOYERS: Your source?

JANE MAYER: My source.

BILL MOYERS: And, yet, when these conservatives - as you write in your book - when these conservatives spoke up, Cheney and company retaliated against their own men.

JANE MAYER: People told me, "You can't imagine what it was like inside the White House during this period." There was such an atmosphere of intimidation. And when the lawyers, some of these lawyers tried to stand up to this later, they felt so endangered in some ways that, at one point, two of the top lawyers from the Justice Department developed this system of talking in codes to each other because they thought they might be being wiretapped. And they even felt-

BILL MOYERS: By their own government.

JANE MAYER: By their own government. They felt like they might be kind of weirdly in physical danger. They were actually scared to stand up to Vice President Cheney.


***

BILL MOYERS: What do you think the country would gain or lose from pursuing war crimes?

JANE MAYER: Well, you know, I think that it could be very toxic in some ways to hold people as criminals who were doing what they thought was right for the country. But, at the same time, I have to say I think that we need accountability in this country in order to make sure that people abide by the laws. And I can tell you when I interview people at the CIA, a number of people said that they didn't want to get involved in this because they thought there'd be criminal repercussions. So, if there never are any criminal repercussions, I'm not sure where that leaves us.


***

"Do as I say, not as I do", said Uncle Sam to the rest of the world.

"And then he said 'Goonie-goo-goo'"

After an informal survey of friends and colleagues, I’d say that I’m definitely in the minority of finding this cartoon successful as satire. I saw the image Sunday night on Drudge Report before the issue hit the newsstands and my immediate response was a knowing smile. I understood the artist’s intentions and found the artwork mildly amusing.

Putting an ear to the streets the next day, I heard quite a lot of vitriol and admonishment aimed at editor David Remnick and The New Yorker. Hearing how the cover provoked such a visceral response in some was a bit surprising. I didn’t find it offensive, not to Obama, not to blacks and not to Muslims. I just thought it was satire. If you looked up 'liberal magazine' in the dictionary, it'd say: 'see: The New Yorker'. So it never crossed my mind for an instant that this was some kind of dig at Obama.

I’ve heard some fairly cogent responses as to why it was ineffective satire. The most persuasive argument was that the image was too close to mimicry (indeed, but considering the absurdity of the allegations, it's hard to figure how much room there is left to exaggerate things). Fair enough. The only thing I didn't agree with was this defensive hand-wringing suggesting that the left-wing media better behave itself lest we surrender yet another presidential election. If there are voters out there who will look at the New Yorker cover and go, "Yup, I knew it.", chances are they weren't voting for Obama to begin with. As I've said before, this country gets the elected officials it deserves.

Last thought: instead of being outraged, I wish the Obama camp would have used this to bring up the much more widespread problem of Islamophobia in the U.S. Alas, I don’t think that’s somewhere any public official wants to go right now. Unless you’re working from the fringe of politics, some battles just aren’t prudent to engage in. As I get older and start really paying attention to how these things work, the more likely I find myself thinking about living out my final days in the Siberian tundra.

P.S. - I am curious as to what a successful satire of Obama as Islamo-Manchurian Candidate would look like.

Barry Carcetti For President

So, remind me again why I'm supposed to be so excited about Mr. Obama's presidency?

Just to recap the last couple of months in which Obama:

-tried to court the Evangelicals with a proposed extension/expansion of Bush’s faith-based initiatives program. Oh, but he wants to put in anti-discrimination policies for anybody using federal funds. Yeah, that’s tenable. “Faith-based”-organizations, mainly churches, are already tax-free entities. Let them raise their own funds. Why my tax dollars should go towards organizations whose policies/beliefs I disagree with is beyond me.

-delivered a hawkish speech to AIPAC; back in May he gave a very thoughtful and somewhat nuanced interview with Jeffery Goldberg over at Atlantic Monthly. Sure there was some overt pandering which makes sense given the apparent uncertainty Jewish-American voters have about him, but he came across as fair-minded and willing to engage in actual debate. In contrast, the speech he gave at AIPAC would make you think he had a double-jointed spine.

Alright, he’s a politician and, as Crazy Uncle Wright said, he does what politicians do. I get that. However, if you compare this to how he engages with his black constituency, it makes a fellow feel a bit uneasy. Obama feels comfortable addressing our collective shortcomings (obviously to the chagrin of Jesse "Castrate'em" Jackson") as fathers, brothers and sons, yet he can't do the same when speaking about Israel’s missteps vis-à-vis the Palestinians? He goes so far as to say "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." Is he campaigning for president of the United States or membership in Likud?

-voted for the FISA "compromise" - exactly what was the compromise here? I defy anyone to explain it. Anyone who sees this bill as a compromise seems disingenuous or uninformed. If you have the time, I’d highly recommend reading some of Glenn Greenwald’s extensive dissection and analysis of what this new FISA amendment actually entails.

Let's be clear: this “compromise” leaves the 4th amendment riddled with buckshot. It doesn’t curtail the executive branch’s snooping power; to the contrary: it legitimizes it and expands its breadth. As explained in this article, it's not as if the government (read: NSA) has a room full of guys with headphones on monitoring calls. Nah, this is more like something out of The Matrix. They have supercomputers that are able to snag and sift through terabytes of information and flag keywords and phrases in a nanosecond. They take this culled data and archive it indefinitely in a database. The telecoms who provide unfettered access in clear violation of our rights as private citizens then stand up and say: “Hey we were just doing our patriotic duty when called upon by the President.” Bull. Does anyone believe for a second that these companies didn't do what was in the best interest of the shareholders and the bottom line? How much in government contracts does AT&T have? How big is their K Street office? This isn't conspiracy theory, just an acknowledgment of the quid pro quo ethos of our political system.

So our brave Democrat-controlled Congress just voted retroactive immunity for crimes (and make no mistake, these were felony acts) that we will neither know nor ever be allowed to know the full extent of. Not only that but we're saying: hey, you broke the law and you can continue to do so into the indefinite future. We just got sold out. It’s so egregious, yet this seems to be eliciting at most a shoulder shrug from most corners, and anybody who calls attention to it is being branded a left-wing extremist. I don’t think the people of Wisconsin are in the habit of electing extremists though, so maybe you’ll listen to this guy:



Understand the extent of this: the White House-directed NSA has the authority and capability to warehouse all forms of electronic communication between the U.S. and any foreign location; email, text-messages, phone calls, faxes, voicemails--you name it, they can access it. They can do this whether or not it is demonstrably related to terrorism. They can do this whether or not there is a demonstrable threat to national security. Yeah, no room for abuse there.

Seriously, who am I voting for? If he can't stand up for something so obvious, what will he stand up for? This is the type of leadership that will reform our nightmarish market driven healthcare system? Hey, we might not stand up to the telecomm lobby, but we'll stand up to the AMA and Insurance lobby? This is the administration that will rein in Wall Street? Give me a f#$#ing break. To borrow a quote from Bubba: “This whole thing is the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen.”

But Obama gets us out of Iraq! Right. Just from a logistic point of view, it seems we'd be out of there regardless of who was in charge. The war is too costly and our army is stretched to its limits. We have 160K troops currently deployed in Iraq plus an additional 25K in Afghanistan. Both candidates will withdraw troops and both will leave a sizable U.S. presence. You can bank on that.

I was never an Obama-maniac, but I was enthusiastic about the prospect of his presidency. Right now, I’m finding it more difficult to call up such enthusiasm. All’s I wanted was a guy who was going to adhere to principle and not allow special interest and the Republicans to bully him. This was the big difference between Clinton and Obama. He seemed rooted in something that went beyond calculating how well a decision would poll. His stance against a gas tax holiday seemed to be further proof of this. He's not the other guy, and I’ll still punch his name come November. It’s just sad to realize that right now, that’s all I can look forward to: him not being the other guy (BTW isn't this the same murky platform that lost Kerry the election in '04? Well, that and those lunatic Swift-boat vets and that goofy wind-surfing photo). It falls so short of what seemed possible just a few months ago.

Last seen readying the duct tape and bat.

The Dark Knight Returns

I imagine if I ran into Chris Nolan and asked him about a random Batman comic book storyline from the eighties or nineties, he'd be able to converse about it for hours. This man knows Batman about as well as anybody. He expresses his respect and love for the character in practically every frame of his follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins. What Frank Miller did for Batman and comic books, Chris Nolan has done in his medium. The Dark Knight should satiate even the most demanding fan. More than that, it should satisfy even those unfamiliar with the source material. It's not just a damn fine comic book film; it's a great piece of cinema.

Nolan the Director

Nolan doesn't so much expand his vision of Gotham as much as he fills it in. He populates it with a colorful bunch of characters and he gives them room to breathe. You believe in the world of Batman, because the actors sell it. Everybody in this film turns in top-notch work. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are their usual sublime selves. Gary Oldman continues to contribute some of his best work as the doggedly honest cop, Lt. Gordon. Maggie Gyllenhaal brings the needed emotional heft to the role of Rachel Dawes. Many considered Katie Holmes who played Rachel in the first film to be one of that film's weak spots. I don't disagree, but you realize she was miscast; she was too young to play the role. Gyllenhaal is much more believable as the conflicted love interest in this film; she actually seems tough enough to be a resident of Gotham whereas Holmes seemed woefully out of place.

Then there's Aaron Eckhart, an actor whose work I've enjoyed since In the Company of Men. He brings just the right blend of humanity, idealism and cockiness to the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent. He's the films "white knight", but he doesn't come off as one-dimensional. Instead he's the parallel of Batman, except he crusades in the light of day. The film is explicit about such symbolism, but it's not as overbearing as the first film was about the idea of fear.

Though Bale spends a much greater portion of the film behind the mask than in the last, he still manages to show you how distinct Bruce Wayne is from Batman and not just through the usual aloof playboy routine. To be sure, that's in there (usually providing much needed levity in a few spots), but Bale develops layers to the character as he exposes how dependent Wayne has become on the Batman persona, how much it has enveloped him. But I didn't expect any less. Bale is probably my favorite actor right now. He's as eccentric as Depp when it comes to selecting roles (in the last few years he's played a Vietnam P.O.W., an unemployed veteran with a homicidal streak, and a warped magician; he's John Connor in the upcoming Terminator 4 for godsake!).

Oh yeah, Heath Ledger is in this film, too


Man, I don't even know where to begin with The Joker. The first time you see him, there's this sound that I thought was just background noise, but then after a couple more appearances, I realized it was his "theme music". And after that, my response almost became Pavlovian. When I heard it, my guard went up in an instant. You soon realize, this is a character that will literally do anything at anytime. He seems dangerous even when locked in a cell, denuded of weapons. He'll have you laughing for a moment and in the next breath gasping at his brutality. Even the way he taunts his victims becomes this sort of warped joke.

The obvious question: Is it better than Nicholson's? Yes. Why? Because it scared the crap out of me. And that's what the Joker was always supposed to do. If your only experience with the Joker is Cesar Romero on the affable but hokey 1960s television show or Jack Nicholson's iconic performance in the 1989 Burton film, then you're in for a shock/treat. This is the Joker in his purest form, the way Dennis O'Neil, Alan Moore and Frank Miller envisioned him. This is the Joker who murdered Commissioner Gordon's wife and left his daughter a paraplegic in the comic books. This is the Joker who killed the Jason Todd iteration of Robin. He is psychotic and never for a moment do you think he is anything less than real. He's a nightmare made material. The Joker is chaos in the flesh, a counterpoint to Batman's rigid authoritarianism. Yeah, I read a lot of Batman comics. And either Ledger did too or Nolan really drilled this role into him. It's every bit as iconic as Nicholson's; actually it's more so because you don't really "see" Ledger, only The Joker.

The film clocks in at 152 minutes. It never feels indulgent, but it does leave you worn at the end. Nolan takes his time in telling the story and I applaud him for it. In too many films in the genre, the dramatic scenes feel like placeholders for the action sequences. Don't get me wrong, the action sequences in The Dark Knight are nothing less than spectacular (which is saying something considering how many comic book inspired action films have flooded the market as of late). What makes them work even better though is that they work in service of the story and not vice versa. The most impressive aspect of the movie to me was the tension that Nolan creates in the film. There are scenes that literally had me on the edge of my seat. There is a pervasive sense of dread that permeates the entire movie. The film certainly lives up to its moniker. This is the movie that all subsequent comic book films will be measured against.

I don't know where the franchise goes from here. As long as it remains in Nolan's hands, I'm willing to follow.

Yes, He's the Best Rapper in the Current Hip-Hop Era...

...but it's sort of like being one of the last emperors of ancient Rome. Generational bias to be sure, but I don't think anyone would argue that hip-hop will see a more fertile creative period than the late eighties to mid-nineties in its future.

Over a decade ago, back in my MTV-watching days, I remember seeing videos for a crew calling itself The Hot Boys. The group consisted of members Juvenile, B.G., Young Turk and Lil' Wayne. I laughed at what seemed like a bunch of backwater ostensible rap artists sporting the de rigueur thug aesthetic--wife beaters, shiny watches and baggy jeans. They had supplanted Master P's god-awful No Limit as the new face of the South. I figured they couldn't be much worse than "The Ice Cream Man" and his ilk. So on the strength of Juvenile's quirky hit song "Ha", I purchased his solo LP, "400 Degrees." I gave it a few spins. Then I proceeded to buy every release these guys put out.

Southern rap acts (with the exception of groups like Outkast) are often derided for the simplicity of their lyrics and song composition. I tend to attribute that to the fact that Southern hip-hop is sort of still in its adolescence. For years, the only notable things coming out of the South were the Geto Boys and Too Short (Luke and 2 Live Crew were always more affiliated with the booty bass scene, hip-hop's cheeky cousin). Now the South is coming into its own with the likes of artists like T.I. and Ludacris who can drop one-liners with the best of them. None of the Hot Boys would ever be mistaken for a cajun Rakim, but the group does have a notable musical legacy. This is thanks in large part to one man: Mannie Fresh, producer for the bulk of Cash Money's output in its nascent years. Fresh is one of the most under-appreciated producers in hip-hop history. Largely eschewing easily recognizable samples, Mannie Fresh crafted some of the most kinetic and idiosyncratic beats this side of Timbaland. Fresh gets frenetic with the primordial elements of rap: snares, high-hats and the thump of the 808 percolate at 120 bpm. You can hear his signature sound in the hit songs that defined and established the label: B.G.'s "Cash Money Is A Army", Juvenile's "Ha" and "Back that Azz Up", and Lil Wayne's "The Block is Hot" (BTW, the video for Juvenile's "Ha" is almost like a cultural artifact with its portraits of life in the wards of New Orleans in the late nineties; worth seeking out on YouTube). Granted many of the songs were lyrically execrable (especially those on any Big Tymers--a group comprised of Baby and Mannie Fresh--record), but the beats never disappointed.

So jump ahead ten years and Lil Wayne is the last Hot Boy standing (all the others having left the label, Cash Money Records, due to alleged financial improprieties by the co-founder of Cash Money Records, Bryan "Baby" Williams--infamous for his platinum dental work). I'd been aware of a growing groundswell of support championing 'Weezy Wee' (as he sometimes refers to himself) as the next greatest thing in hip-hop. Apparently he appeared on every third rap and r&b record released over the last few years. Prolific? Undoubtedly. Great? I was skeptical to say the least until I listened to a freestyle he did called "Dough is What I Got" on which he rapped over Jay-Z's first official un-retirement track, the oddly tepid "Show Me What You Got." The old guard (Jay-Z, Nas, Wu-Tang, etc.) had recently been lamenting in the press the perceived slow death of hip-hop in the last few years (ironically, the same death knell sounded in the late nineties during that generation's ascendancy). "Dough is What I Got" served as a rebuttal of sorts with Weezy launching a salvo directly at Jigga himself ("When it comes down to this recording/I must be Lebron James if he's Jordan"). After he threw down the gauntlet, the pressure for Lil Wayne to deliver a record on par with previous crown-claiming albums such as Paid in Full, Illmatic, Life After Death and Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life increased exponentially.

Is the Carter III the greatest thing since yogurt with fruit on the bottom? Well, not exactly. It's still serves as pretty solid testimony to his dominance over the current field of contestants.

What makes Lil Wayne so appealing? He's a singular personality in a genre full of clones, wannabes and interchangeable voices. It comes down to his charisma and inventiveness, his willingness to attempt things that might fail (e.g. his fondness for riff-heavy guitar-backed tracks). You get the sense that when he steps in the studio, he just follows whatever impulse enters his mind. This is simultaneously his greatest strength and weakness. Take a song like "A Milli"--simple driving beat, repetitive sampled hook; he takes it and runs roughshod over the track with an at times haphazard flow, creating something that feels both ephemeral and classic in the same breath. Then he'll follow that up with a fairly derivative track like "Got Money" that wears its pop aspirations on its sleeve (but again, he miraculously saves even that effort with a few playful lines, specifically his riff on Rhianna's ubiquitous "Umbrella" song). He carries the album the way Will Smith is able to carry a movie with a mediocre script (*cough*I Am Legend*cough*).

The Carter III suffers from the same maladies as many contemporary rap albums: too much filler, too many guest stars, inconsistent production. Still it manages to overcome these faults on enough occasions to make it a worthwhile purchase (or if you prefer ala carte, I'd recommend between 8-10 of the albums 18 tracks). I don't know how long the reign of Wayne will be, but I'm not mad about it.

On a side note: I'm not sure what to make of Wayne's Zapp-like obsession with voice modulation. I swear at least a third of the tracks on his new album use Auto Tune.

Tracks worth a listen, or two:

• A Milli


• Dr. Carter - concept song about him literally saving hip-hop


• Phone Home -Wayne expands on his "I'm a Martian" conceit


• Tie My Hands - moving piece about the aftermath of Katrina


• Mrs. Officer - gives a new meaning to a classic NWA song


• Lollipop - infectious melody, showcases Wayne's eccentricity perfectly


• Lollipop Remix - ft. Kanye who's much less annoying on other people's albums

Movie Recommendation of the Year (So Far, Or At Least Until July 18th)

I'm pretty much in awe of Pixar at this point. Forget the commercial success of their films. In the last decade plus, they've turned out a level of quality cinema that rivals the output of any studio you could mention. They're so far beyond their competitors that it's no longer a competition. I'm speaking not only in terms of story quality but somehow technology as well. Wall-E is the best looking computer-animated film I've ever seen.

A lot of critics have talked about the brilliance of the film's opening act, but this makes it seem as if the movie falls off in the latter parts. It doesn't. Not one iota. Andrew Stanton, the film's writer/director, doesn't sacrifice the poignancy of the early scenes with the ending's unbridled optimism. It felt like a natural conclusion to me. Stanton knows how to craft a tale. He showed that with Finding Nemo and cements it with Wall-E.

Everyone at Pixar knows the key to a great story and that's character development. Every film they make is character driven. Compare this to Dreamworks' most successful franchise: Shrek. The initial Shrek was a character driven story and by far the best of the series. After Shrek, the series devolved into a loose collection of pop culture references and sight gags held together by an extremely thin story. There was no growth of the core characters from one movie to the next. The creators way of expanding the story was to literally add more stock characters. And the result has been an unmemorable (and depressingly high-grossing) series of disposable celluloid candy.

Wall-E is equal parts love story and environmental cautionary tale. Stanton never lets either aspect overpower the other and that keeps the film from being too sentimental or pedantic. The social satire is fairly barbed for a kids' movie, but I loved it for being somewhat daring in that respect. It accomplishes what I think Mike Judge was trying to do with his little-seen film, Idiocracy, a film that had similar ideas and roughly the same message, but went about delivering it in a much more blunt (and subsequently less funny) manner.

Wall-E is the best film released theatrically so far this year. It's also one of the best things Pixar has ever done. I still give Ratatouille the slight edge in that respect. I'm admittedly biased towards Brad Bird, but considering the difficulty of turning a movie that deals with the intricacies of running a restaurant's kitchen into something entertaining to an audience, let alone a predominately child audience, I have to give his project a slightly higher props. Still, Andrew Stanton and his team have crafted a work worthy of Disney or Miyazaki. I can't pay a higher compliment.

P.S.: Sure we could argue about the irony of a movie with a strong environmental/anti-consumerism message being distributed by a company that has reaped tens of billions off of Happy Meal tie-ins and will undoubtedly reap more from sundry promotional knickknacks related to this film, but that'd be no fun.

Finals Post-Mortem

• The '07-'08 Lakers are the worst team to make the Finals since, well, the '06-'07 Cavaliers. The only difference is that it took the Finals to expose the Lakers while everybody knew last year that Cleveland was a joke from the outset.



• Pau Gasol makes Dirk Nowitzki look like Charles Oakley.



• Lamar Odom spent four of six games doing a Carmen Sandiego impression. For chrissakes man, you're the third option! You've got no pressure. Take a deep breath and just play next time.



• The Lakers' defining image of this year's Finals should be Sasha Vujacic petulantly swatting away the hand of someone trying to pat him on the back as the Celts were unraveling the Lakers thread by thread in game 4.



• The '07-'08 Celtics are the first (and I don't mean this in a bad way) mercenary team to make the "Big Three" formula work. Remember the '96-'97 Rockets? '03-'04 Lakers?



• Boston's Big Three wouldn't seem to have enough collective ego to fill a Gatorade bottle. How can you hate these guys? How can you even mildly dislike them? And this is coming from a lifelong Pistons fan.



• Rajon Rondo shook off his rep and made himself a legit NBA starting point. Yeah, he still makes indefensible decisions, but once he develops a consistent shot to go along with his speed and harassing defense, he'll be a force. Remember a few years ago, people were talking about trading Tony Parker. Takes a few years for most players to fully develop as NBA PGs.



• In a perfect world, the first two rounds of the playoffs would be best-of-five and there would never be more than a two-day layoff between games (and that would only be to travel between coasts). Since that won't happen, I'll settle for the games starting at 8:00 EST. I guarantee the only people who saw the end of game 6 were Bostonians and sports writers. Stern, you're killing the league chasing a few extra advertising dollars. C'mon, I'll even take 8:30!



• In DC comics, they had this thing called Crisis on Infinite Earths years and years ago. One of the outcomes was a re-written history of Superman. The pre-Crisis Superman could do stuff like balance the Earth on his pinky finger while drinking a fifth of vodka. Post-Crisis Superman, while still the strongest character in the DC universe was considerably less 'super.' (He was able to be killed after all.) In my geek-oriented mind, this is the perfect analogy for Jordan and Kobe. Jordan did things (the flu-game for example) that nobody should be able to do. You never doubted for a second after the '91 Finals that a Jordan-led team would go anything less than the distance. He could have won 10 titles if he so chose. Despite his inexplicable performance in this year's Finals, I still think Kobe is the best player in the NBA. Nonetheless, he'll be spending the next couple of years trying to rehabilitate his on-court image. Who'd have thought that considering the NBA's spin masters' Herculean attempt to transform The Mamba into the NBA's greatest teammate and family man? There is a contemporary athlete who compares favorably to Jordan; he just happens to play golf and not roundball.



• Seriously, I'm expecting Kobe to hold another press conference. Teary-eyed, he'd explain his execrable Finals performance while a stone-faced, steely-eyed Jack Nicholson icily sat next to him.



• Also in my dreamworld, Barkley and Bill Walton would do the color-commentary for the Finals. Throw Magic in there just for extra comedic effect.

You Can't Get There from Here

So, it ends the way I think most Pistons fans expected it would end. Not the series per se, but the "If It Ain't Rough, It Ain't Right"-era. I can't even say I'm all that sad. For the last four years, life as a Pistons fan has been full of nothing but frustration.

The Pistons have the best overall level of talent of any team in the league excepting only the Spurs perhaps. Yet each of the past four seasons, we've watched them fall to teams that quite simply wanted it more. Last year it was the Cavs, the year before that the Spurs and prior to that the Heat. Two of those three lost series are completely inexcusable.

I grew up watching the Pistons in the 'Bad Boys'-era and that kind of set the standard for what I expect from a Pistons team. I expect a team that come playoff time leaves everything out there on the court, every game--every single game. When the Pistons lost to the Celtics in '88, it was heartbreaking not only for the team, but the fans. You saw the pain on those guys faces. You saw how badly they wanted it. And as a fan, it made you want it too. The next year when Isaiah finally led us past the Celtics, we lost another heartbreaker to the 'Showtime' Lakers. These were my formative experiences with not only the Pistons, but pro-basketball itself. I rooted for a team back then that played as if the fate of the free world depended on boxing out properly or getting back on defense. I cheered a group of guys that even if they didn't win, you absolutely knew without a doubt that they'd played as if each game were the last 48 minutes of basketball that would ever matter.

Suffice it to say, today's Pistons haven't lived up to that legacy. I don't blame Joe Dumars who has been an exemplary GM over his eight-year tenure (note: Darko was a respectable gamble and even if we'd gotten Carmelo, I don't think the Pistons would have been appreciably better due to his attitude and off-court issues; Bosh would have been nice though...). I don't blame Flip Saunders either. There's nothing wrong with the Pistons' 'X'-es and 'O'-es. He's just not the type of coach who can impose his will and temperament on a team. I do wonder if Larry Brown would have had more success had he not felt that wanderlust well up in his heart. Maybe he could have stopped the team from believing too much of its own press.

The blame for the latest collapse falls squarely on the players' shoulders. Let's start with 'Sheed. I really felt he should have been traded after his inexcusable meltdown last season in the Cavs series. I don't care what he gives you on the court; he's a liability. He probably should have gotten his seventh technical last night and the mandatory one-game suspension that goes along with it (obviously a moot point now). I can't fathom how the significance of his foul situation doesn't alter how he carries himself on the court. That shows a total disregard for the team, the coach and the fans. And that's been his M.O. for a while now. I don't care if his game is all-world. It does a team no good if you can't rely on him when it really matters. Last night's offensive woes I can forgive, but antagonizing the refs? Inexcusable. The Pistons lost last night and Rasheed was a big part of that. Billups shouldn't be guarding KG, because our most talented big man can't keep his head in the game.



Rip, McDyess, Stuckey and Maxiell all get passes in my book. Rip slumps from time-to-time, but that's the life of a pure shooter. He runs his man ragged with endless screen-and-rolls and curls and loops; I get dizzy just watching the guy. I've never seen any of the other guys dog-it on a nightly basis. I was so impressed with the play of Stuckey and Maxiell. These guys have the composure of 10-year vets. Two solid pieces for the next iteration of the team I think we can safely assume. McDyess is like a figure from Greek-tragedy. Once an all-star forward whose game has changed to accommodate his diminished athleticism, he found the perfect role on a team with enough talent to get him to the promised land. Except nobody around him seems to want it half as much as he does.

That leaves Billups and Prince. Prince's problem isn't attitude so much as consistency and decision-making. He's always tenacious on defense, but he seems to slump too often offensively when he has the option of adjusting his game. I don't need him to be 'Melo, but you should be able to pencil '15' into his box score every night. He's typically a defensive mismatch for whoever the opposing team puts on him-- too quick for most forwards and too long for most guards. He's got time though. Chauncey I reserve my biggest criticism for. Unlike Wallace, Chaunce is mentally stable. He's a top-five point guard not just in the East, but in the league period. If the team seems to take games off, it's because the floor general lets it. You've got one of the best technically proficient SGs in the league, two Fs that can create their own shots against practically anybody and a bench that most of the league envies. How do you let your team come out so flat in game 3 against Boston? Too often these Pistons seem to look at their wins as 'cushions'--or reasons not to worry too much. Too often I've watched the team go on autopilot. 'Zeke never let that happen, especially not in the playoffs. Is it fair to compare Chaunce to arguably the greatest undersized-point in history? Not entirely, but despite what he lacks in the skills department, Chauncey has no excuse for the gulf between the two when it comes to having heart.



It's almost as if the worst thing that ever happened to the Pistons was the '04 championship. It must break the old team's heart to watch. Here these guys are squandering the prime years of their basketball careers for whatever reason. The Bad Boys spent those same years battling the Celtics and Lakers to the bitter and bloody end seemingly every game. Their end came at the hands of His Airness and the ascendancy of the greatest team in the modern era. That Pistons fans could all live with. Watching Rasheed Wallace sulk, curse out the cameraman before throwing a towel over the lens while the Pistons blow a 10-point lead and another prime championship run opportunity, well that's just too rough for me.

Hitting the Links

Overseas on vacation in Dubai, but still can't help sticking a finger in the soup:

Nothing unreasonable or inflammatory here, right? Right?

Obama on Israel

Guess not, but then again these people are professionals:

The Right on Obama on Israel

I can respect that:

McCain Divests

Not so sure I can respect that, Mr. NYT Bigshot (that clip is scary):

Down boy!

Cultural Artifact C-198P - Category: Decline of American Empire

Blackhole sun, won't you come.

Oh Snap! You Got Served, B-Rock!

This is becoming so tiresome.

Does Obama really have to defend himself for articulating the obvious? People in the Rustbelt are bitter because they’ve been economically disenfranchised for nearly three decades now. This is somehow slanderous and/or elitist? What? Oh, that’s right: HRC completed her law degree via a correspondence course and spent her nascent legal career doing pro-bono work for unwed mothers working in sweatshops. Nope, wait: she graduated from Yale and worked for a white shoe law firm. Yet somehow she understands the working-class better than fellow Ivy-leaguer Obama? You can almost hear the machinery in her head clicking as she cranks out this disingenuous drivel.

I feel like Roddy Rowdy Piper once he gets the sunglasses in “They Live"; can’t anybody else see through this $#!t? Didn’t the Dems lose the White House and Congress precisely for the reasons Obama stated? Didn’t these “optimistic” working-class people turn to Bush whose basic platform was: “Hey, I’m a decent guy, just like you! And I don’t cheat on my wife, because I love Jesus!” Are you really going to tell me Americans aren’t angry about the ramifications of globalization? Really? And Obama’s out of touch?

All respect I ever had for the Clintons has completely evaporated. The needle’s going into the red in that respect; I’m actually starting to loathe both of them. Man, I cannot wait until August.

Spin it Back: Appreciating the Golden (Not-Really-That) Oldies

I've purchased maybe one full-fledged hip-hop album in the past five years I think, the thoroughly satisfying debut album, "Below the Heavens" from a duo named Blu and Exile. I guess I should count the last two Kanye albums, but those are just empty calories--the music equivalent of summer tent-pole movies. I don't know if I ever thought hip-hop would necessarily grow with me, but it pains me to find how much it's regressed and remained stagnant for the last I don't know decade and a half?

I'm not about to go off on a "$#!t was way tighter in my day!"-rant, but for the record it was. There's no subjectivity applicable here. It just was. Anyways, I recently picked up "Blowout Comb" the second and sadly last LP of new material from the Digable Planets. I owned the album when it first came out in '94 and gave it a few spins before burying it in my burgeoning record collection in favor of exploring the strange sounds of the newly emerged Wu-Tang Clan.

Unfortunately, the disc was also a casualty of a car break-in many years later (why take somebody's music of all things? Stereo, fine. Whatever you can find! But stealing music is like stealing memories--some things are just irreplaceable.) Now nearly fifteen years later through the magic of iTunes, I've been reunited with Butterfly, Doodlebug and Ladybug Mecca. I have to say, the album's aged really well. The heavily jazz-oriented production along with the trio's mellow deliveries meld into one fluid groove over the album's thirteen tracks. In retrospect this may have been one of the last great records of hip-hop's Golden Age (1987, period beginning with Eric B. and Rakim's "Paid in Full"-1995, period ending with Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx"). The hip-hop landscape was so diverse in that period. And the quality was uniform coast-to-coast. Random groups would just drop solid albums out of nowhere (Heltah Skeltah, Boogiemonsters, Goodie Mob, Lords of the Underground, Das EFX, Black Moon, Pharcyde...).

Uh, oh. Let me stop. I'm headed down Nostalgia Ave. Alright, so today's music isn't so bad. Timbaland gets crazy praise for his inventiveness and seemingly inexhaustible supply of infectious compositions. As much as I'm loathe to admit, Lil Wayne could very well be the best rapper around--and that's not meant to be a backhanded compliment. I'll admit that much. Now get off my lawn.

Lyrics from Digable Planet's "La Femme Fetal" off their first LP Reachin'...
it was 8:49 on a beautiful 9th day of july
there was not a cloud to speak of so the orange sun hung
lonely in the sky
i was laying prone in my cabby home
listening to fine nappy jackie and his jazzcat's horn
sliding in a tape of bird on verve when suddenly rang my phone
hello butterfly , a voice said
slip on some duds comb out your fro and slide on down to my pad
the vibe here is very pleasant and i truly request your presence
a problem of great magnitude has arose
and as we speak it grows
damn, what could it be i thought
a juice i bought and rolled on down to her spot
seeing bros i know slapping fives i arrived and pressed G-5
and there was nikki
lookin some kind of sad with tears fallin from her eyes
she sat me down
and dug my frown and began to run it down
"you remember my boyfriend sid that fly kid who i love
well our love was often a verb and spontaneity has brought a third
but do to our youth and economic state we wish to terminate
about this we don't feel great , but baby that's how it is
but the feds have dissed me
they ignore and dismiss
and the pro-lifers harass me outside the clinic
and call me a murderer, now that's hate
so needless to say we're in a mental state of debate"
hey beautiful bird i said digging her somber mood
the fascists are some heavy dudes
they don't really give a damn about life
they just don't want a woman to
control her body or have the right to choose
but baby that ain't nothin'
they just want a male finger on the button
because if you say war they will send them to die by the score
aborting mission should be your volition
but if souter and thomas have their way
you'll be standing in line unable to get welfare while they'll be out
hunting and fishing
it has always been around it will always have a niche
but they'll make it a privilege not a right
accessible only to the rich
hey, pro-lifers should dig themselves
cause life doesn't stop after birth
and to a child born to the unprepared
it might even just get worse
the situation would surely change if they were to find themselves in it
supporters of the h-bomb and fire-bombing clinics
what type of shit is that? orwellian in fact
if roe v wade was overturned would not the desire remain intact
leaving young girls to risk their healths
and doctors to botch and watch as they kill themselves
now i hate to sound macabre
but hey, isn't it my job
to lay it on the masses and get them off their asses
to fight against these fascists
so whatever you decide make that move with pride
sid will be there
and so will i
an insect til i die
rhythms and sounds
spinning around
confrontations
across the nation
your block
my block
dreadlocks
what a shock
land of the free - but not me
not me
not me
not me
not me
not me
not me
not me
not me
not me

Needless to say, you should pick them up if you don't own either album. Later!

At Least the Baltimore City Tourism Board is Happy

I recently “marathon-ed” my way through the fifth and final season of David Simon’s “The Wire.” I watched episodes 3-10 (8.5 hours) in about a thirteen-hour period, stopping only for bathroom breaks. I am now barred from watching any televised media for at least 6-months. My brain has reached its supersaturation point. No mas.

David Simon and HBO (even if they short-changed him a few episodes in the final season) deserve a standing ovation for producing a series that examined arguably the greatest tragedy of late twentieth century America: the decline of the inner city. Throughout its run, despite tackling unwieldy issues such the drug war, municipal politics and public education, the show never came across as pedantic or exploitative. The writers created a painstakingly detailed and realistic portrait of a decaying metropolis. The show was often thought-provoking and never less than entertaining. It must be noted too that this show was perhaps the most important dramatic series for African-Americans since Roots. How many prime time dramas with a predominately African-American cast have there been? There are no less than two dozen black characters worthy of discussion from the show’s five season run. I can’t think of any series that has ever come close--not even Good Times.

The fourth season of The Wire eclipsed anything I have ever seen in American television and I don’t think it was necessary for the last season to try and top that. That’s not really what The Wire was about. Season 5 was about bringing everything full circle, completing the various cycles we’ve seen over these seven years. Simon and his crew have examined all the major facets of a city’s infrastructure from inside and out. Some might feel the show ends up being too steeped in cynicism, but it seems Simon only wants to spur reflection on how/why this has been allowed to happen. In our apathy and detachment, we're all just as culpable as the drug dealers and corrupt pols. Maybe that's too harsh. I'm not so sure though. The Baltimore he depicts could just as easily be Detroit or East New York or South Central or any number of places that get routinely neglected. So what's to be done? I guess stick it out like Mr. Prezbo.

So what about Season 5? Well, all I'll say is that in the end the finale feels quite satisfying. In fact, the last four episodes all contain some of the most memorable highlights of the entire series as the fates of some long-standing favorites play out. It is odd that the newspaper subplot feels so unsatisfying considering David Simon was a newspaper man for fifteen years. Maybe the material was just too close to his heart. Reading around, it seems he had quite the ax to grind with his former employers. Simon's defense of the Baltimore Sun storyline makes perfect sense from an academic perspective. I get what he's saying. It's almost impossible to disagree with him. The problem is that it's just not dramatically compelling. This is unfortunate, but it doesn't detract from the overall impact of the series. Heck, I watched it for five consecutive hours at one point, so it couldn't have been that bad.

Looking back, it's amazing HBO ever put this show on the air in the first place. So encourage them to take more chances with this kind of material. I hope this series finds the success it deserves on the home video market. I've done my part. You do yours.

My man Bobby Drake raves about this place...

Call me crazy, but I really want to make a trek to the Ice Hotel in Kiruna, Sweden. It's located 200km north of the Arctic Circle. Each year they build it with ice that is "harvested" from the Torne river. Also the proprietors invite a diverse group of artists to come and design the interior of the hotel (completely from ice, natch). What a unique experience it must be. Who cares if the average temperature is 20 degrees Celsius (which is warm compared to the below freezing exterior temps)? Considering the extraordinary lengths the creators of this place have to go through each season, the cost per night for the suites and regular rooms are surprisingly reasonable ($900/$600 respectively). I figure it'd be worth dropping a few grand to fly to Sweden, stay a night in the Ice Hotel and a few days in the adjacent normal hotel.

Check'em out on the web: The Ice Hotel.

"I win for me! FOR ME!"

Man, I feel bad for big Yao. Seems like every year he gets better and then catastrophe strikes. This is his third season-ending injury in as many years. He's averaged over 20ppg and over 10 boards for the last three years and seems to only be getting better. He's inarguably the best player over 7'2" to ever play the game (Need we even compare him to the likes of Shawn "Lurch" Bradley [7'6"], Manute Bol [7'7"] or Gheorghe Muresan [7'7"]?). Only Ralph Sampson showed comparable skill, but injuries cut his career short. With three leg/foot injuries in such a short time and his massive frame, you have to wonder if he's not headed down the same path.

Yao has the potential to be up there with Olajuwon and Shaq as modern great centers, if he can stay healthy. This is what's so frustrating about his commitment to play for China in the Beijing games. He should be up on the shelf resting until the pre-season rolls around. No question about that. Yet as soon as it was announced that he'd developed a stress fracture in his foot, the Chinese were on the phone like, "But you're still playing, right? Right?" It's insane. Wouldn't China benefit more if Yao has a successful decade long career in the NBA than if he plays this summer especially when their chances of grabbing gold are just slightly better than North Korea's? Maybe this is a part of the current Five-year Plan. What maroons.

Yao, for the sake of your career and China's basketball future, you need to defect. We'll get the CIA to get your parents out. Don't sweat it.

The Great American (Televised) Novel

So I've finished the first four seasons of The Wire and I'll probably be cozying up to anybody with HBO On-Demand so that I can watch the final season. I've never watched a show where I was more invested in the characters and the ebb and flow of their lives. Producer/writer David Simon has shot to the very top of my "people I'd like to have a three-hour lunch with"-list.

Season Four was such an accurate portrayal of the issues facing our public education system from the classroom all the way up to the city council chambers. The story-line never struck a false chord or overplayed its hand. How the creators of this show managed to juggle three major plot threads plus innumerable subplots boggles the mind when you actually begin mapping the various plot progressions in your head. Not one uninteresting narrative thread among the bunch.

Through four seasons The Wire has mined nearly every aspect of the modern urban metropolis. What began as a show about the seemingly intractable drug trade in our inner-cities, has grown to encompass politics, education, our transitioning economy and (currently) the media. The show doesn't sermonize: it merely lays out the issues and gives views from a few different perspectives. And it's not just that the show subverts your expectations of what the characters do, what choices they make, etc.; there is genuine depth to even the minor characters. The show never makes things easy. I love it.

This isn't just great television; it's thought-provoking television. I've refrained from talking about specifics until I've finished watching the whole thing. All I can do now is suggest anyone who hasn't do himself a favor and check out The Wire.

"I missed, I missed the bus/And that is something that I'll never, ever, ever do again..."-Mac Daddy (or possibly Daddy Mac)

I hate good television. People always complain about how much crap there is on TV. Too many reality shows. Too much celebrity faux-journalism. Too many pundits. Just too much junk in general. Well that's true. I stopped regularly watching television probably seven years ago. I haven't followed any currently running show during its original broadcast since maybe the first season of Survivor. Don't get me wrong. I've seen plenty: four-and-a-half seasons of 24, a couple of seasons of The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, all but the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Curb Your Enthusiasm. This is by no means an exhaustive list. And that's the problem: despite the torrents of offal that clog the airwaves and cable lines, there are still a ton of good, even great shows out there. I didn't stop watching because there was nothing good on. It was just the opposite.

Relapse. I just watched twenty-five hours of The Wire in less than a week. And a few minutes after I post this, I'll be headed to Virgin Megastore to cop the next twenty-five. I can barely look at myself while I shave in the mirror. Damn you, David Simon. Damn you and your crew for being as brilliant as the f@#ing sun.

The show deserves every accolade thrown its way. Over the years, I'd read about how the producers of the show were left in limbo at the end of season after season wondering if HBO would re-up. Watching the show, you can understand why it never took off the way The Sopranos did, but it doesn't stop you from shaking your head and thinking how criminal it is that this show isn't as popular as say your average episode of CSI: Topeka. (Note: I can't watch Law and Order, CSI or any of their infinite spawn. I just don't get enjoyment out of watching procedurals on a regular basis. It's like the way my grandmother used to watch Murder, She Wrote. Every episode is the exact same, only the players change.) Two seasons in and the show has one of the most diverse and rich ensembles of individuals you could ever hope to find on one screen. Creator David Simon likened the show to a novel. He's dead on. That's exactly what it's like. It's unreal how deftly the show's writers negotiate the various plot threads running through each season. It never relies on cheap melodrama or explosive violence to keep the audience invested. Most impressive is how The Wire creates this morally complex universe where the motivations on both sides are never as straightforward as they initially seem. The further into the series you get, the deeper into the characters it takes you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go make a quick run. See you in twenty-five hours or so.

Rent it, buy it, download it. Whatever it takes. Just watch the darn show.

Yeah, I'm about five years late, but what else is new?

"It kind of looks like Godzilla without fur."

That beautiful quote comes from a co-worker of mine describing the Cloverfield monster a couple of days before I got to see the movie. Having seen it now, I guess that is as apt a description as any. I remember seeing the trailer for Cloverfield during a screening of Transformers this past summer. I turned to my friend Matt and said, "That is one of the best trailers I've ever seen." It showed you just enough to make a genre-whore salivate. Flash-forward six months and I'm hearing that the movie doesn't live up to the hype. I felt a bit disappointed since very few things are capable of living up to the onerous hype these deft modern marketing campaigns generate. "Oh well," I thought, "I'll still see it anyways." Lucky for me that I did.

Cloverfield delivers the goods as advertised.

It's not Godzilla-meets-Blair Witch. First of all, Blair Witch works completely as a total mind-f@!k. Your imagination generates every scare in that picture. I still think it stands as one of the most innovative pieces of horror I've ever seen. While Cloverfield (for the most part) keeps reveal-shots fleeting, it still shows you something. Still, the film doesn't really linger on the monster for any significant amount of time until the end. The camerawork takes a minute to acclimate to, but it does manage to amp up the tension. You feel like what you're watching could actually be happening. And anyone familiar with Manhattan will love all the little touches of authenticity (it's a blast trying to figure out exactly what neighborhood the protagonists are in during any given scene). I wanted to personally congratulate the filmmakers for making the movie on a budget of only $25 million. I can't wait to check out the DVD and find out how they did it.

The film is a brisk hour and change. I couldn't complain about the length, because it told its story efficiently and I was entertained every step of the way. The characters while not memorable are certainly believable and the actors never detract from what's happening on screen. The whole production just feels well executed. Even though you only produced it, this effort almost makes up for Mission Impossible 3, Mr. Abrams. Almost.

Apparently producer J.J. Abrams (Lost and Alias) got the idea to do this movie after a trip to Japan. He wondered why we didn't have an iconic mutant monster of our own in the States (King Kong is too cute for his tastes). So he dreamt up Cloverfield. Whether or not the unnamed beast in the flick will ever attain such status will be up to audiences. Either way, the film is a welcome addition to the club.

Behind the Green Door

Las Vegas , NV - The Adult Entertainment Expo (now in its 10th year) is where Silicone Valley descends on the desert each January in order to showcase its seemingly inexhaustible supply of products ranging from hi-def DVDs to anatomically-accurate-to-a-disturbing-degree inanimate companions. The weekend's festivities culminate in an awards ceremony, a sort of Bizzaro Oscars, where awards such as “Best Director – Bi-sexual Video” are distributed to a cavalcade of the industry's brightest and horniest. It follows right on the heels of the CES, one of the largest electronic trade shows in the world. Thus two of America's favorite obsessions, technology and sex, are spotlighted for a solid week within licking distance of one another.

As luck would have it, I recently spent an extended weekend in Vegas to celebrate an old friend’s birthday and got a chance to observe the bacchanal spectacle firsthand. As I stood in line with the other perverts curious attendees, it struck me how many women were in the queue. We could just as well have been lined up to get into a Knicks game at the Garden. The demographic still skewed heavily towards white males in their late thirties to early forties, but there were also quite a few young people. Some were alternative-types, tattooed and pierced in various uncomfortable looking places, but there were also a lot of average Joes and their girlfriends. It was a surprisingly diverse cross-section of America. Such is the power of porn.

While the industry’s revenues are undoubtedly as exaggerated as the purported, uh, attributes of most of its male performers, there is no denying the depth of its cultural penetration. (Couldn’t help myself, sorry.) No longer relegated to the area hidden behind the slatted wooden doors of your local mom and pop video store, pornography has become as mainstream as the personal computer. Or more precisely, the internet. The advent of the web has been the biggest development in porn since VHS. (Ironically for porn purveyors, the ‘net has also posed the biggest quandary they’ve had to face: on the one hand it has increased the ubiquity of their product exponentially, but they face a piracy issue that’s arguably worse than the music industry’s.)

The web has made porn pretty much inescapable (not that we were actually avoiding it to begin with) and that has de-stigmatized it to a large extent. Just think: in 1984, a few racy photos forced Vanessa Williams to resign her title as Miss America and retreat into obscurity for a few years; in 2004, the release of a homemade sex tape magnified Paris Hilton's celebrity after clips of the notorious tape spread across the net like herpes in Cancun. Now pornography has significant value as cultural currency (think how we all bonded in revulsion over "2 Girls 1 Cup"). It seems there's no shame in indulging in a few 10-second clips every now and then. Think about the scenes in “Knocked Up” where the guys are talking about making a website that tracks nudity in mainstream movies. True understanding of the joke is predicated on the audience’s familiarity with the Mr. Skin web site and judging from how many people in the theater laughed at the scene when I saw it, I'd say most of us were pretty familiar. Superbad has a similar scene with the whole Vag-tastic Voyage bit. I’m not sure if you can make a qualitative assessment of this development just yet, but I don’t think we’re worse off for being unashamed of looking at Pandora’s box.

"Greatest. Game. Ever"

After coughing up my $80(!), I made my way through the convention center which housed a reported 300+ exhibitors. The largest exhibition booths resided at the front of the hall. Representing the industry heavyweights such as Wicked Pictures, Vivid and Red Light District, these massive displays drew the biggest crowds mostly due to the bevy of high-profile names signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. Digital Playground’s booth had large LCD flatscreens all running a looping clip of CG water and boats with a literal skeleton crew seemingly generated on a Playstation 2. This was a teaser trailer for “Pirates 2,” one of those “big-budget” porn films (meaning it didn't have the production budget of a public access show on cable). I’m not sure who these “high concept” (given that it’s porn where most films are filmed in somebody’s well-lit San Fernando Valley home, I’d say screwing on a pirate ship counts as high-concept) films appeal to. I’ve actually watched one (or five) of these big-budget productions and found them to be wholly entertaining but only in an unintentionally comedic way. I remember this movie “Flashpoint” that starred Jenna Jameson at the height of her career (what a mess she’s become; she was actually booed at this year’s awards ceremony for stating to the crowd that she would never “spread her legs for the industry again.”). In the movie she plays a firefighter. Near the beginning of the film, a member of the company dies in a blaze and after the funeral two female firefighters console a fellow fireman by engaging in a ménage a trois. I believe this is the fourth stage of grieving as described in the Kubler-Ross grief model. Anyways, I think such departures from the industry “bread and butter” productions are interesting, but ultimately a waste of time. Of course, the mammoth sales numbers prove me wrong, as I believe Flashpoint is one of the best-selling adult movies ever.

The smaller booths were fixed like satellites around the major displays. They were mostly no-frills, consisting of a few long tables topped with sample DVDs, posters and glossy one-sheets advertising upcoming productions. Most had between three and four company representatives (mostly ladies) who would sit and chat with enthusiastic fans without hesitation. Behind the ladies, there were usually a couple of bored looking men in baseball caps fixing up the booth or re-stocking the table with freebies. Although I’ve never been, I imagine that this is what a Star Trek convention must feel like.

At these booths, fans didn't have to wait long for autographs and photographs with their favorite stars. I would often watch men engage in extended conversations with booth girls, as if they were old friends oblivious to their surroundings. I’m curious to know what the performers thought of all this. I imagine many are contractually obligated to come to this event each year. I’m not saying they don’t enjoy the attention. It’s just the nature of the attention that I find problematic. The fan in his enthusiasm is basically saying, “I enjoy fantasizing about you sexually.” It seems fair to conjecture that when men watch adult films, the male performer in the film acts as a surrogate for the viewer. Despite being a level removed, there is still a sort of pseudo-intimacy shared between audience and performer. Granted in mainstream movies, we are encouraged to fantasize about actresses/actors (this is why Halle Berry could command a premium to appear topless in the forgettable Swordfish years ago). But we don't actually watch them engage in graphic intercourse. So what happens when an actual face is put to the invisible audience? What are you really saying when you compliment a performer on her (or his) work? To borrow an idea from Seth in Superbad, you’re basically saying, “Wow, you take d!ck really well.” What goes through a performers mind knowing that almost without exception, every fan she encounters has fantasized about having sex with her? Maybe it’s an ego trip. I think it’d just be skeevy.



Obviously, there is a misogynistic component to pornography, but maybe this is balanced by the fact that most pornstars are probably misanthropes. I mean if my entire raison d’etre in the eyes of these fans was to act as an instrument for their sexual gratification, I’d have a fairly low opinion of humanity (not to mention myself). Is this fair to speculate? The women didn't seem miserable, but maybe they lacked self-awareness? Well that's a pretty condescending thing to say, but how else to interpret a scene like this: you walk past a booth where a woman smiles and chats about the latest offerings of the studio she works for while not a couple of yards to her right, a large flat-panel television loops clips of her vigorously copulating with a nameless pony-tailed drone. Surreal isn't even the word.

I remember having a conversation with a stripper (the lengths I go to probe the darker sides of human consciousness, I tell ya...) and I asked her how she handles the day-to-day stress of allowing various unwashed hands to paw her for hours on end. She replied that she was a naturally very sensual person and that she actually enjoyed it. Now granted she could have been lying to me, but at the very least I have to believe that she was lying to herself. Doesn’t sensuality naturally imply some sort of sincerity? Some honesty? Some intimacy? Doesn’t the commercial nature of the interaction inhibit these things? I mean when this girl is at her most flirtatious, she is selling a manufactured sensuality. How well she sells this fantasy determines how much she makes. But it is still a charade that both participants knowingly engage in. So what about the porn performer? How thick must that wall be? She has to sell the idea that she enjoys having rigorous intercourse with random men. I don’t know if it’s possible to leave the industry unscathed. I mean most of these films don’t even pretend towards any sensuality. They revel in a sexual violence that appeals almost exclusively to men. ( I can't imagine any performer is able to maintain a normal sex-life let alone relationship after his or her career in the industry.) What does this say about us? I don’t know, but it makes me want to take a shower using industrial strength chemical decontaminants.

Seeing the stars up close also illustrated just how physically deleterious the business can be on a person. I did quite a few double-takes when I spotted a couple of performers that I recognized. You remember how stunned you were when you saw Mark Mcgwire just a couple of years after he’d retired from baseball? It was that same feeling. I saw this one woman who at some point was the most popular black female performer in the business. She’s in her mid-thirties now, but she walked with a slew-footed shuffle that gave her an old woman’s gait. She appeared bloated and tired. I can’t imagine what middle age has in store for her. And then you have something like this which just defies all forms of verbal expression:

"The goggles...they do nothing!!!"

One of the people who attended the show with me commented that none of the women seemed particularly attractive. That was true and probably one of the biggest surprises. A lot of the women just looked comically unnatural from the bleached hair and teeth to the absurdly inflated chests. To be sure, there were a few genuinely attractive performers, but they were definitely in the minority. Overall, the scene just reinforced all the negative things you associate with pornography. It was like Scared Straight for porn consumers. I don't think I'll have to worry about hiding any embarrassing DVD titles from company anymore.

Of course, this thread is useless without pics.