But in honor of the recent IU conference on Black impact on Rock , I thought that it was worth mentioning the rapper from “the only place more dangerous than Kandahar, and that’s kind of hard”,
In my previous post, I linked to an interview of Buyer from CBS, but I missed THIS link to an amazing video of him singing in session about smoking lettuce. There’s also a cameo by Joe Biden. No further words could do this video justice.
A battle is waging now between two Chinese government agencies, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture regarding the regulation of online gaming, particularly the widely popular World of Warcraft. The game literally has China divided over the issue of online media regulation.
Here’s an article about it from Friday’s issue of the New York Times.
Apparently there’s billions of dollars at stake. That aside, the impact of this game is a bit frightening to me. I guess I don’t really see the allure of a virtual fantasy world. Or maybe my issue is that I don’t have much of a problem with actual reality.
Take a walk or go camping. Or if you are infatuated with the world of medieval fantasy, erect a paper mache dragon and slay it with your mighty cardboard battle axe. That’s cool too!
I swear, the real world isn’t so bad once you give it a chance.
And finally, here’s a link to a hilarious parody of World of Warcraft produced by The Onion. Oh, the irony…
Salon had a great piece on Michelle Bachmann and the wingnut teabag teaparty group protest over the health bill on Thursday. I’ll leave the obvious jokes here to others, and point out the main thing that caught me off guard -
“C-list Hollywood celebrities (Jon Voigt, John “Cliff Clavin” Ratzenberger) made their way to the microphone to gleefully bash President Obama, Pelosi and everything about the healthcare legislation”.
I knew Jon Voight has made a habit of going on right wing shows and making a fool of himself, just as much as Ben Stein, Dennis Miller (that’s nothing new at all) and evenCoach!? have done. But now Cliff Clavin is out as a wingnut! Geez. Way to let me down Cliff. You do realize that the Postal Service is the definition of Socialism, right? But I guess it doesn’t matter. After all, you’re not a mail man, you just played one on tv. Next to Sideshow Bob. Stalwart leader of Springfield Republicans and previously elected Mayor.
November 2nd, 2009 by
Stephen Hammoor, IDS Columnist
This is a friendly note to keep on searching the internets for interesting and original blogs that will keep your mind off of the grind and wind of exams coming up, not to mention family time. Here’s a sprouting one with both meaty commentary and a few surprises to keep you up to date in the visual arts world: http://www.theredcircle.com.
You might even be able to convince yourself that it is part of your cultural education. There may be hundreds more that are similar, however, there are only a few that are worth the time you could be using to study Finite.
Creed is Here! Thank god! They’re back! That’s right! The folks who brought you such classic third generation washed out crap as “With Arms Wide Open” “Higher” and so forth… have come back. And good to know it took less than a week for Slate to post an article reminding us how only the Music Snobs who ripped on Journey still hate them. That’s right. You have to be an uptight, effete snob to not like a band that rode the backs of the bands that rode the backs of grunge bands and used a poor version of Eddie Vedders’ voice and Child Worship to a multi million dollar career. Because money is the sole thing that determines artistic merit. Hello, Wiggles! When did we become a nation where every band must be treated as being as good as every other band simply because they sold records? If you can’t feel the plasticity and inauthenticity of these godawful bands, the problem lies with you, not everyone else. When the next M. Night Shayamalan movie comes out, most people won’t flip out because it’s the same formulaic drivel that he’s been puking out for nearly 15 years now. I love Rallys, but I don’t deny that it’s nothing but greasy fast food. And I don’t cry and throw a fit when someone points out there are great real restaurants. Great music can be art, and shlock is schlock. Keep your Creed and Journey cds in their proper crap schlock bin, and stop trying to pretend there’s some higher value to that drivel. I prefer artists who play from their heart.
If you had asked me last week what the biggest threat to the artistry of music was, I would’ve replied one of two responses:
1) Albums that indulge celebrities’ whims
Track 3: Lay Your Head Upon My Awesome Rack
2) Auto-Tune and it’s ability to pitch correct any singer into a modern-day eunuch.
AutoTune: The Voice of our Generation
Neko Case, singer for The New Pornographers, solo artist, and goddess on Earth had this to say about Auto-Tune:
When I think about Jackie Wilson or the Platters and then I think about modern, Top 40 music that’s really horrible, it makes me mad. Singing isn’t important anymore. I’m not a genius– if I had been around during the time of Jackie Wilson or Rosemary Clooney or Patsy Cline, I would be shit. I would be singing in some bar somewhere for $5 a week and that’s as far as I would ever go. But I’m living now and I write songs, it’s different. There’s some part about the craft of singing– craft is too important of a word, I hate that word but I just used it anyway– in a lot of places, it hasn’t really made it. It’s not to do with the people who are doing it as much as the people who are producing it. There’s technology like auto tune and pitch shifting so you don’t have to know how to sing. That shit sounds like shit! It’s like that taste in diet soda, I can taste it– and it makes me sick.
But now, a greater threat has emerged: Microsoft Songsmith.
These previous obstacles were nothing but a distraction. Sufficiently fed off the sorrow of music lovers, Songsmith rises from their shadow towering above us all. It is then that we realize that the potential for its evil was always around us, but somewhere in the balance between life and death something happened that allowed this technological devil to be summoned. Perhaps Bill Gates realized he was tired of lying in his house made of money and that the world needed something interesting to happen. To Mr. Gates, all music being reduced to five pre-set melodies and rhythms is “a good day”.
This is the equivalent of SkyNet from “Terminator”. This will bring about the End of Days.
December 16th, 2008 by
Nick Wallace, Assistant Opinion Editor
In an intensely comical moment, a 29-year-old Iraqi journalist – Muntader al-Zaidi, chucked his shoes at George W. Bush during the President’s final visit to Iraq.
It made me glad I chose to study Arabic:
It seems Mr. al-Zaidi was yelling “Ibn al-hooza,” what international news organizations have translated as “son of a shoe.” It is one of the worst insults in Iraq.
When the firey journalist was finally floored by a posse of security guards, he continued screaming, in the midst of which I believe I can make out the words “dog” – kalb – and “forty” – arbiyoon.
I’m dissappointed in major American news organizations. So many reported only that Mr. Bush had been called a dog, completely missing on the opportunity to highlight the “son of a shoe” line for their audiences. Then again, what can you expect from the country whose linguistically inept president has to giggle to himself when he hears himself speaking one of them “fo-rine” languages two seconds before the shoes are chucked?
Americans missed out on much of the humor of the incident thanks to the lack of contextualizing their news did for them. It was a funny scene. Projectiles and a lot of international anger were heaved at Mr. Bush even as he managed to escape unharmed. If anything worse had happened to the President, the incident would hardly have been funny.
The lesson of the day seems to be that until Americans learn to speak the languages of the world, we won’t share in laughter – the international language – as much either.
November 15th, 2009 by 
Matt Straw, IDS Columnist
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