Come one, come all!
11.06.2009
I will blog again some day!
But right now I'm kinda busy editing videos that will be shown at this:
Come one, come all!
Come one, come all!
10.01.2009
Polanski
Everyone's already weighed in on this, but I'm trying to write other shit and just keep getting distracted by new and disgusting and ridiculous Polanski defense arguments. Why did the Swiss wait so long to act? Must be a conspiracy of one vague sort or another! Film fests are special "extraterritorial" safe spaces for criminals in the film industry! Plus--guys? Hello, he's a...Holocaust Survivor! Who can blame him for seeking freedom! Did you ever even think about that?!
I don't think prisons have anything to do with justice. I'm not invested in having Polanski serve time, beyond my divergent feelings of anger and fear; anger at the exceptionalism practiced by Polanski and his supporters, leading me to spitefully wish for his incarceration, and fear that if he is incarcerated the romantic star of his outlaw artistry will only rise, and I don't want a child rapist martyr. So, whether he ever goes to prison? I don't care much.
I do care that he did something terrible and violent and violating to a child, and that this hideous act is misleadingly reduced to a "morals charge" in the language of his supporters. It's as if men who drug and rape girls just "slip up", get a little too wild, nudge nudge wink wink. Hey, it was the 70s! Everyone was drugging and raping girl children then, you can't judge historical figures by today's morality!
He plead guilty to a reduced charge, he got a harsher sentence than he was expecting, and rather than appealing he fled the country.
Fuck that guy.
If Polanski and his lawyers want to challenge his conviction, fine--we do that in court. If Polanski's many impressive friends and admirers wish to testify on his behalf or submit letters of character--great, fine, but we do that in court, too. Fucked as the legal system here in the US may be, I see no reason why Roman Polanski specifically deserves some kind of amnesty. There is no evidence that Polanski was set up or that his trial was rigged--there are allegations that the judge acted inappropriately, but he was also then removed from the case. There's no reason to believe that Polanski will be treated unfairly in court. He's not a political fugitive. He has not been persecuted or unfairly targeted. He was not found guilty of a crime that anyone can reasonably argue is victimless, he did not break an unjust law.
Polanski's arrest was not illegal or extraordinary. It sets no "dangerous" precedent for artists or anyone else.
The support Polanski has enjoyed in the name of cinema does set a horrifying precedent, however. It sends an awful message: making a crappy Holocaust movie outweighs raping a child. Especially if the child in question is a girl--if he'd raped a boy, he might be some kind of freak. This is how patriarchy is generated, right here, before our eyes, and I'm appalled by the cultural message this sends, what it inscribes on our collective unconscious. The Greatness of Great Man Artists is Greater than the human rights of girl, so much so that it is treated as reasonable to demand that Great Male Artists be held above such unpleasantries as the most basic accountability.
Haven't we all discussed navigation of the the good artist/bad person quandry a kajillion times? One can respect Polanski's art--even support it, if they choose--without actively diminishing the terrible things he's done, without asking the judiciary to forgive him. Polanski will have to show up to ask for forgiveness, leniency in sentencing, or whatever else he wants, and he has every right to do so. It is disgusting and scary that so many artist, many of whom I respect, would argue that Polanski should not have to contend with the judiciary at all, with absolutely no legal argument to back it up. It doesn't matter (but is disputable!) that he's a "great artist". It doesn't matter that he committed the crime a long time ago (and let us recall he has broken the law by evading justice as recently as his arrest a few days ago.) It doesn't matter that the woman he raped has forgiven him--her civil suit is settled, this is the State of California vs Polanski. It doesn't matter that he'd traveled to Switzerland without incident in the past, or that (just like Kanye!) police upstaged his special awards moment. It doesn't matter that he may not be a threat to children today. None of this is relevant to the legal validity of his arrest and extradition.
ETA: I might feel a little better if I could find any well-know artists criticizing Polanski and his defenders besides Jewel. If you come across any, let me know!
I don't think prisons have anything to do with justice. I'm not invested in having Polanski serve time, beyond my divergent feelings of anger and fear; anger at the exceptionalism practiced by Polanski and his supporters, leading me to spitefully wish for his incarceration, and fear that if he is incarcerated the romantic star of his outlaw artistry will only rise, and I don't want a child rapist martyr. So, whether he ever goes to prison? I don't care much.
I do care that he did something terrible and violent and violating to a child, and that this hideous act is misleadingly reduced to a "morals charge" in the language of his supporters. It's as if men who drug and rape girls just "slip up", get a little too wild, nudge nudge wink wink. Hey, it was the 70s! Everyone was drugging and raping girl children then, you can't judge historical figures by today's morality!
He plead guilty to a reduced charge, he got a harsher sentence than he was expecting, and rather than appealing he fled the country.
Fuck that guy.
If Polanski and his lawyers want to challenge his conviction, fine--we do that in court. If Polanski's many impressive friends and admirers wish to testify on his behalf or submit letters of character--great, fine, but we do that in court, too. Fucked as the legal system here in the US may be, I see no reason why Roman Polanski specifically deserves some kind of amnesty. There is no evidence that Polanski was set up or that his trial was rigged--there are allegations that the judge acted inappropriately, but he was also then removed from the case. There's no reason to believe that Polanski will be treated unfairly in court. He's not a political fugitive. He has not been persecuted or unfairly targeted. He was not found guilty of a crime that anyone can reasonably argue is victimless, he did not break an unjust law.
Polanski's arrest was not illegal or extraordinary. It sets no "dangerous" precedent for artists or anyone else.
The support Polanski has enjoyed in the name of cinema does set a horrifying precedent, however. It sends an awful message: making a crappy Holocaust movie outweighs raping a child. Especially if the child in question is a girl--if he'd raped a boy, he might be some kind of freak. This is how patriarchy is generated, right here, before our eyes, and I'm appalled by the cultural message this sends, what it inscribes on our collective unconscious. The Greatness of Great Man Artists is Greater than the human rights of girl, so much so that it is treated as reasonable to demand that Great Male Artists be held above such unpleasantries as the most basic accountability.
Haven't we all discussed navigation of the the good artist/bad person quandry a kajillion times? One can respect Polanski's art--even support it, if they choose--without actively diminishing the terrible things he's done, without asking the judiciary to forgive him. Polanski will have to show up to ask for forgiveness, leniency in sentencing, or whatever else he wants, and he has every right to do so. It is disgusting and scary that so many artist, many of whom I respect, would argue that Polanski should not have to contend with the judiciary at all, with absolutely no legal argument to back it up. It doesn't matter (but is disputable!) that he's a "great artist". It doesn't matter that he committed the crime a long time ago (and let us recall he has broken the law by evading justice as recently as his arrest a few days ago.) It doesn't matter that the woman he raped has forgiven him--her civil suit is settled, this is the State of California vs Polanski. It doesn't matter that he'd traveled to Switzerland without incident in the past, or that (just like Kanye!) police upstaged his special awards moment. It doesn't matter that he may not be a threat to children today. None of this is relevant to the legal validity of his arrest and extradition.
ETA: I might feel a little better if I could find any well-know artists criticizing Polanski and his defenders besides Jewel. If you come across any, let me know!
9.15.2009
I wanna talk about Kanye/Beyonce/Swift for a minute
In the age over over-coached celebrity, where stars are styled and handled to the point of polite blandness, Kanye West's penchant for occasionally actually speaking his mind in public is refreshing. The uproar that has met Kanye's short disruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs would be mind boggling if we, as a culture, had our priorities remotely straight. If only the internet was this offended by, say, Obama's ongoing torture cover-up. Of course, I'd imagine that's received significantly less press.
Let's look at what happened and why people are upset: Young swift beats out Beyonce for best female video. She comes to up accept her award, and Kanye jumps on stage for a few seconds, grabs the mic and says "I'm really happy for you, I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! Of all time!" before leaving the stage. He was eventually ejected from the premises. Videos of the actual broadcast getting taken down all the time, but this stupid news brief contains Kanye's entire outburst at 40 seconds in.
Was Kanye rude? Yes. As someone who has a strange and obsessive attraction to award shows (they make me cry) and has fantasized about winning an Oscar since I was in short pants, I might be furious if I got my Big Moment and had it disrupted by someone else's urgent opinion that another person should have won instead. So in a sense I feel bad for Taylor Swift, and think Kanye was in the wrong. Then again, Taylor Swift may be young, but she's been in the industry for years. This isn't her first or most prestigious award, and it won't be her last. Kanye didn't say anything mean to or about her. How enormous is her personal tragedy here, really? Especially considering that she now is America's Sweetheart and probably got a sympathy boost in album sales, in addition to acres of fawning publicity. I'm sure she's just fine.
Kanye, on the other hand, is being raked over the coals. The internet isn't always the best judge of public opinion, but I'm coming across more hatred of him than I did of, oh, let's say Chris Brown after he battered Rhianna. I can't help but notice that Kanye is being crucified for disrespecting a young blond white woman (while kinda-defending a black woman, no less,) and that Beyonce, who ended up winning video of the year, was ultimately the one overshadowed. Her positive publicity came from bending over backwards to share her spotlight with poor widdle Swift. Meanwhile, Li'l Mama, who jumped on stage and mugged at the end of Jay-Z's steller (if uncharacteristically raspy) performance of "Empire State of Mind" (a more egregious offense, in my rulebook,) has become a joke, not an egotistical villain.
Obviously the two disruptions are not directly analagous, but I'd wager that the racism that is coming out explicitly in some of The Public's anger at Kanye plays a role in the wide divergence in general reaction. Jay-Z is a black man, he can take care of himself in the face of a young black female who raps about lipgloss, nevermind that she was able to steal the spotlight and disrupt the vibe as effectively as Kanye was. Which is all that really happened here, in terms of offense. Meanwhile, Kanye's Scary Black Man is of course some kind of a threat to Taylor Swift's pristine white womanhood. Harry Allen's Media Assassin has a bit on this, as well as screencaps of some among the the mountain of racist tweets that immediately clogged the tubes of Twitter post-outburst. At this point it is the ugliness of the angry reaction that is of interest to me. Of course a swarm of assholes of Twitter don't represent everyone who thought Kanye was tacky (he was tacky,) but racism is a lot like roaches--for every white person who angrily drops the N-word in public, there are thousands more that remain hidden. Post-racial America my ass.
Among those who are not so slur-happy, why exactly are people so mad? Are you Taylor Swift's mom? Then why do you care? I guess I understand if you're a big fan, but more than a day after the big event I'm still seeing a lot of people who I'm sure don't (or didn't, perhaps) give a fuck about Swift or her music covering Facebook with their disgust at Kanye's "inappropriate" behavior. I can't relate to that. From where does this deep disgust spring? As my partner responded to a friend of his who was offended by his status message ("is glad Kanye did it") "I don't want pop stars to be 'appropriate." So what's left to be mad about, to feel invested in?*
Honestly, my worry is that Kanye and his near-empty bottle of Hennessey aren't doing too well. This was a poor career move, and one he seems to sincerely regret. That concerns me. He's a great talent and I'd hate to see him go into a self-destructive spiral of one kind or another.
Let's also not forget that, ill-advised as his sharing may have been, Kanye was right, Beyonce's video is amazing. She absolutely deserved to win.
*::cough::white supremacy, cult of true womanhood::cough::
Let's look at what happened and why people are upset: Young swift beats out Beyonce for best female video. She comes to up accept her award, and Kanye jumps on stage for a few seconds, grabs the mic and says "I'm really happy for you, I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! Of all time!" before leaving the stage. He was eventually ejected from the premises. Videos of the actual broadcast getting taken down all the time, but this stupid news brief contains Kanye's entire outburst at 40 seconds in.
Was Kanye rude? Yes. As someone who has a strange and obsessive attraction to award shows (they make me cry) and has fantasized about winning an Oscar since I was in short pants, I might be furious if I got my Big Moment and had it disrupted by someone else's urgent opinion that another person should have won instead. So in a sense I feel bad for Taylor Swift, and think Kanye was in the wrong. Then again, Taylor Swift may be young, but she's been in the industry for years. This isn't her first or most prestigious award, and it won't be her last. Kanye didn't say anything mean to or about her. How enormous is her personal tragedy here, really? Especially considering that she now is America's Sweetheart and probably got a sympathy boost in album sales, in addition to acres of fawning publicity. I'm sure she's just fine.
Kanye, on the other hand, is being raked over the coals. The internet isn't always the best judge of public opinion, but I'm coming across more hatred of him than I did of, oh, let's say Chris Brown after he battered Rhianna. I can't help but notice that Kanye is being crucified for disrespecting a young blond white woman (while kinda-defending a black woman, no less,) and that Beyonce, who ended up winning video of the year, was ultimately the one overshadowed. Her positive publicity came from bending over backwards to share her spotlight with poor widdle Swift. Meanwhile, Li'l Mama, who jumped on stage and mugged at the end of Jay-Z's steller (if uncharacteristically raspy) performance of "Empire State of Mind" (a more egregious offense, in my rulebook,) has become a joke, not an egotistical villain.
Obviously the two disruptions are not directly analagous, but I'd wager that the racism that is coming out explicitly in some of The Public's anger at Kanye plays a role in the wide divergence in general reaction. Jay-Z is a black man, he can take care of himself in the face of a young black female who raps about lipgloss, nevermind that she was able to steal the spotlight and disrupt the vibe as effectively as Kanye was. Which is all that really happened here, in terms of offense. Meanwhile, Kanye's Scary Black Man is of course some kind of a threat to Taylor Swift's pristine white womanhood. Harry Allen's Media Assassin has a bit on this, as well as screencaps of some among the the mountain of racist tweets that immediately clogged the tubes of Twitter post-outburst. At this point it is the ugliness of the angry reaction that is of interest to me. Of course a swarm of assholes of Twitter don't represent everyone who thought Kanye was tacky (he was tacky,) but racism is a lot like roaches--for every white person who angrily drops the N-word in public, there are thousands more that remain hidden. Post-racial America my ass.
Among those who are not so slur-happy, why exactly are people so mad? Are you Taylor Swift's mom? Then why do you care? I guess I understand if you're a big fan, but more than a day after the big event I'm still seeing a lot of people who I'm sure don't (or didn't, perhaps) give a fuck about Swift or her music covering Facebook with their disgust at Kanye's "inappropriate" behavior. I can't relate to that. From where does this deep disgust spring? As my partner responded to a friend of his who was offended by his status message ("is glad Kanye did it") "I don't want pop stars to be 'appropriate." So what's left to be mad about, to feel invested in?*
Honestly, my worry is that Kanye and his near-empty bottle of Hennessey aren't doing too well. This was a poor career move, and one he seems to sincerely regret. That concerns me. He's a great talent and I'd hate to see him go into a self-destructive spiral of one kind or another.
Let's also not forget that, ill-advised as his sharing may have been, Kanye was right, Beyonce's video is amazing. She absolutely deserved to win.
*::cough::white supremacy, cult of true womanhood::cough::
9.12.2009
Jay-Z at Madison Square 9/11/9
Last night I saw Jay-Z at Madison Square Garden, which probably qualifies yesterday as my best 9/11 ever.
I normally shy away from 9/11 events, unless they're you know, protests. Or taking place at the Brecht forum. This seemed like it would be more about New York, less about patriotism, and that's fine sounded good to me (plus: it was Jay-Z. At MSG. A sight I've never, in person, seen.) I get weepy on 9/11. I like to be around other people who were in New York in 2001, and may not want to talk about it with people who weren't here. Like, that's great that you were totally weirded out over in Portland. That must have been quite an experience for you. At the show: I could have done without the pledge of alligence at the beginning or the US flag on the (John Mayer designed!) commemorative T-Shirts. I would have bought on of those shirts had it been flag-less. I would have liked less talk about strength and more talk about love, which is probably the hippiest thing I've said in awhile. I would have liked something to have been said against the wars.
But let's be serious. The show was fucking awesome.
Jay opened with my favorite song off The Blueprint 3, "Empire State of Mind". I cannot express how much I love that song right now. He stood in front of enormous cut outs of the NYC skyline, onto which to-scale video of the actual skyline was projected. The words don't capture anything, It looked amazing. It looked like the actual fucking three dimensional skyline was behind him. I got all weepy. He performed the hell outta it; I'd never seen Jay-Z libe before and he is phenomenal. He held the Garden in the palm of his hand through almost two effortless-seeming hours of classic material. I'm including the new stuff, it already sounds classic (okay, I'm excluding "Give Me What You Got", which I've never liked.)
Here is a (partial?) list of unannounced guest appearances:
Kanye, Rhianna, Beyonce, Santigold(!!!), John Mayer (can't all be winners), Kid Cudi, Swizz Beats, Pharrell, Mary J. Blige, Diddy.
MNBFBW leaned over and said "Honestly, at this point I wouldn't blink if Obama came out."
Jay-Z effectively psyched out the audience on Kanye's appearance by performing his own verse from the "Diamonds are Forever" remix sans West early in set. Ah, I thought, too bad, that's fine. A few songs later Jay launched into "Run This Town", joined by a radiant Rhianna. Sure enough, when time came for Kanye's verse, out he came. Afterwards he performed "The Good Life" and the still awesome "Can't Tell Me Nothing".
A word on Rhianna: I saw her open for Kanye at MSG during the Glow in the Dark tour. Chris Brown came out on stage with her which was kinda exciting to me because other people seemed excited but: eh. Rhianna was amazing, love love loved her set. Loved her album. Love her part on "Run This Town"--it gets me choked up. I moves me to hear her sound so strong and defiant, surrounded by perhaps the two biggest names in hip hop as her supportive comrades-in-arms, just a few months after photos of her after being battered by Brown became the toast of the internet. Last night I teared up to see her again take the stage at the Garden, without the fucker, looking so fierce and sounding so good. It's also nice to hear her sing without the autotune.
I'm thrilled I was there. One of the best shows I've ever been to, hands down. I hope they release a DVD. Amazing, amazing set.
I normally shy away from 9/11 events, unless they're you know, protests. Or taking place at the Brecht forum. This seemed like it would be more about New York, less about patriotism, and that's fine sounded good to me (plus: it was Jay-Z. At MSG. A sight I've never, in person, seen.) I get weepy on 9/11. I like to be around other people who were in New York in 2001, and may not want to talk about it with people who weren't here. Like, that's great that you were totally weirded out over in Portland. That must have been quite an experience for you. At the show: I could have done without the pledge of alligence at the beginning or the US flag on the (John Mayer designed!) commemorative T-Shirts. I would have bought on of those shirts had it been flag-less. I would have liked less talk about strength and more talk about love, which is probably the hippiest thing I've said in awhile. I would have liked something to have been said against the wars.
But let's be serious. The show was fucking awesome.
Jay opened with my favorite song off The Blueprint 3, "Empire State of Mind". I cannot express how much I love that song right now. He stood in front of enormous cut outs of the NYC skyline, onto which to-scale video of the actual skyline was projected. The words don't capture anything, It looked amazing. It looked like the actual fucking three dimensional skyline was behind him. I got all weepy. He performed the hell outta it; I'd never seen Jay-Z libe before and he is phenomenal. He held the Garden in the palm of his hand through almost two effortless-seeming hours of classic material. I'm including the new stuff, it already sounds classic (okay, I'm excluding "Give Me What You Got", which I've never liked.)
Here is a (partial?) list of unannounced guest appearances:
Kanye, Rhianna, Beyonce, Santigold(!!!), John Mayer (can't all be winners), Kid Cudi, Swizz Beats, Pharrell, Mary J. Blige, Diddy.
MNBFBW leaned over and said "Honestly, at this point I wouldn't blink if Obama came out."
Jay-Z effectively psyched out the audience on Kanye's appearance by performing his own verse from the "Diamonds are Forever" remix sans West early in set. Ah, I thought, too bad, that's fine. A few songs later Jay launched into "Run This Town", joined by a radiant Rhianna. Sure enough, when time came for Kanye's verse, out he came. Afterwards he performed "The Good Life" and the still awesome "Can't Tell Me Nothing".
A word on Rhianna: I saw her open for Kanye at MSG during the Glow in the Dark tour. Chris Brown came out on stage with her which was kinda exciting to me because other people seemed excited but: eh. Rhianna was amazing, love love loved her set. Loved her album. Love her part on "Run This Town"--it gets me choked up. I moves me to hear her sound so strong and defiant, surrounded by perhaps the two biggest names in hip hop as her supportive comrades-in-arms, just a few months after photos of her after being battered by Brown became the toast of the internet. Last night I teared up to see her again take the stage at the Garden, without the fucker, looking so fierce and sounding so good. It's also nice to hear her sing without the autotune.
I'm thrilled I was there. One of the best shows I've ever been to, hands down. I hope they release a DVD. Amazing, amazing set.
7.31.2009
Thoughts on Eminem's Mariah Carey/Nick Cannon Dis track
It's called "The Warning" and you can get it here.
Eminem sounds engaged and energetic, which is nice, but the song is so...stupid. And (shocker) misogynistic and lazily homophobic (why even toss that throwaway "faggot" at Nick?) After the pile of dreck that was Relapse, my tolerance for Eminem's default sexism is really low. Why I found the misogyny on Relapse less defensible than that on earlier records is a post for another day, but suffice to say I thought the album almost completely sucked and one part of why it sucked so bad was the boring,bored-sounding, repetitive, and pandering sexism, so I'm not in a forgiving mood when faced with the patriarchal cliches that comprise "The Warning". Oh, Mariah's Obsessed video could be about you, boo fucking hoo, you're the one who stretched the currency of that relationship well past viability with that irritating, confusing (in a bad hangover kind of way) "Bagpipes" bullshit. It's been almost a decade, get over it. As my bf points out--go after rappers. Why are you going after singers? What's she gonna do, sing at you? It's no fun if there aren't dis tracks going back and forth. This beef looks like its more ready made for Perez Hilton than eagerly awaited mix tapes. but I digress.
Em comes off like a bratty little boy having a tantrum, but not at all cute. He's firing a warning, supposedly he has all this shit on Mariah that he'll let fly if she doesn't...what exactly? Stop making videos? The track itself is vicious yet largely devoid of content. Mostly he slams his ex in classically illogical patriarchal style for being (all together now) both a prude and a slut. Which is it, Em? Oh, you don't have to choose cuz this shit has nothing to do with reality, it just has to do with slamming women for being women. It's not even like Ally Sheedy said in The Breakfast Club [paraphrasing] "If you do, you're a slut, if you don't, you're a prude: it's a trap." It is a trap, but the rules aren't that clear. A woman can be a slut and a prude at the same time because some dude (or asshole of any gender) said she was, for reasons that have to do with the slurrer's anxiety rather than the actual behavior of the woman.
Apparently discussing a woman's sexual experience is inherently damning, even if there's nothing that really reflects badly on her in the discussion. Em claims that he once got a little over-excited and prematurely ejaculated on Mariah's stomach, grossing her out. Yeah, I didn't need to know that either, but "If I'm embarrassing me/I'm embarrassing you" Em claims after sharing. Really? Is that how it works, now?
Em spends the rest of the track flashing his late pass on Mariah's alleged alcoholism, superfluously reminding listeners that back in the earlier aughts she had a public meltdown, threatening to publicize some "pictures" (yawn), and finally, using some very un-scandalous clips from old voicemail messages that are way past their expiration date.
Earlier today Jay Smooth tweeted that, in his opinion, the track was a self-Ethering. I think that assessment is apt on a number of levels, and hope it's widely shared.
Eminem sounds engaged and energetic, which is nice, but the song is so...stupid. And (shocker) misogynistic and lazily homophobic (why even toss that throwaway "faggot" at Nick?) After the pile of dreck that was Relapse, my tolerance for Eminem's default sexism is really low. Why I found the misogyny on Relapse less defensible than that on earlier records is a post for another day, but suffice to say I thought the album almost completely sucked and one part of why it sucked so bad was the boring,bored-sounding, repetitive, and pandering sexism, so I'm not in a forgiving mood when faced with the patriarchal cliches that comprise "The Warning". Oh, Mariah's Obsessed video could be about you, boo fucking hoo, you're the one who stretched the currency of that relationship well past viability with that irritating, confusing (in a bad hangover kind of way) "Bagpipes" bullshit. It's been almost a decade, get over it. As my bf points out--go after rappers. Why are you going after singers? What's she gonna do, sing at you? It's no fun if there aren't dis tracks going back and forth. This beef looks like its more ready made for Perez Hilton than eagerly awaited mix tapes. but I digress.
Em comes off like a bratty little boy having a tantrum, but not at all cute. He's firing a warning, supposedly he has all this shit on Mariah that he'll let fly if she doesn't...what exactly? Stop making videos? The track itself is vicious yet largely devoid of content. Mostly he slams his ex in classically illogical patriarchal style for being (all together now) both a prude and a slut. Which is it, Em? Oh, you don't have to choose cuz this shit has nothing to do with reality, it just has to do with slamming women for being women. It's not even like Ally Sheedy said in The Breakfast Club [paraphrasing] "If you do, you're a slut, if you don't, you're a prude: it's a trap." It is a trap, but the rules aren't that clear. A woman can be a slut and a prude at the same time because some dude (or asshole of any gender) said she was, for reasons that have to do with the slurrer's anxiety rather than the actual behavior of the woman.
Apparently discussing a woman's sexual experience is inherently damning, even if there's nothing that really reflects badly on her in the discussion. Em claims that he once got a little over-excited and prematurely ejaculated on Mariah's stomach, grossing her out. Yeah, I didn't need to know that either, but "If I'm embarrassing me/I'm embarrassing you" Em claims after sharing. Really? Is that how it works, now?
Em spends the rest of the track flashing his late pass on Mariah's alleged alcoholism, superfluously reminding listeners that back in the earlier aughts she had a public meltdown, threatening to publicize some "pictures" (yawn), and finally, using some very un-scandalous clips from old voicemail messages that are way past their expiration date.
Earlier today Jay Smooth tweeted that, in his opinion, the track was a self-Ethering. I think that assessment is apt on a number of levels, and hope it's widely shared.
7.01.2009
Michael & Me (scapegoat yr idols)
The day after Michael Jackson died I found myself waiting for hours and hours in the Secaucus NJ train station. There were mishaps going into the Catskills to see my grandparents. Amongst the time-killing activities of buying corn nuts, searching for soy milk and searching for Wifi, I read a piece in New York magazine about the Chew-Holdens; some hippie family in Prospect Heights who bought a brownstone and grows gardens and shops at the co-op and all sleep in the same bed. “Co-sleeping”, it’s called? I’d heard about parents and babies “co-sleeping” together, and I’ve obviously heard of various different family members sharing beds because of space and/or financial constrictions. I’d never heard of a park Slope co-op family choosing to push a twin against a king size mattress to make one enormous bed for the parents and two (six and ten year old) girls to “co-sleep” in together because it’s, like, wholesome and qualite´*. “If [husband] and I ever need privacy,” the mother explained “there are plenty of other places in the house.”
To be blunt (and probably bigoted) I have a lot of problems with this idea of “co-sleeping” with children that old, at least when it's Park Slope hippies deciding to do it. It sounds like a nightmare of horrible boundaries and lack of privacy to me, for everyone involved. Are the parents freaks who want to make sure their kids don’t masturbate or something? Seriously. Do they really like having their kids in bed with them every night? Despite the fact that there are like one million rooms in the brownstone that could easily be different bedrooms? Why? Is their sex life that uncompelling?
I don’t think the Chew-Holdens are going to be tarred and feathered, and I don’t think they should be. I don’t think they should be investigated for possible child abuse based on their choice of sleeping arrangement, however much it grosses me out. But one big happy “family bed” when there are so many other options so readily available does raise a red flag, automatically. The possibility of sexual abuse does flash in my mind.
Over the weekend I watched a lot of coverage on Michael Jackson’s death, on both the news and music networks.
My sister and partner and I talked about how important Michael was and is, at least to anyone who cares about music, pop culture, or racial politics. His role in popular music can not be overstated. He was at the absolute top of his field in so many areas— a great, great singer, dancer, writer, music video visionary…we couldn’t think of anyone who was that amazing in that many different fields. Watching the video network specials really reminded me of how fucking good so much of his work was. I remembered how I felt when I was five and got Thriller. How much I loved--with my heartLOVED --that music, how I stared at the photo of him in the gatefold with the tiger cub and fell in love, how beautiful he was. How the hooks dug in and wouldn’t let go. How Billie Jean used to always give me chills. My 80s trinity was Michael, Cyndi, Madonna, but Michael was the first. First vinyl I ever owned. I remember when my dad brought it home for me and my older sister, and my mom put contact paper on a big piece of cardboard for us to “breakdance” on while we listened to it.
I stopped following Michael Jackson news after awhile. I didn’t buy any of his music post-Bad, though I enjoyed a lot of his videos and singles. I loved the “Scream” video. When it came out in the mid-90s I knew someday it would look dated, but couldn’t imagine it, it seemed so NEW. I have to admit, I still kind of like Michael and Janets’ wardrobes. Shiny vinyl pants with those black shirts with the…ridges? All over? I still kinda think that’s a hot look.
I was an alternateen then, so Michael was no longer a staple. I avoided most media coverage in those later years, which all seemed to come from the “what a freak” angle. I didn’t want to read that. I didn’t want to hear lurid speculation or offensive jokes or revel in diagnosing the man. I didn’t care that he dangled his baby out the window. Yeah, bad move, but why the obsessing? Based on the infamous Living with Michael Jackson interviews that I saw for the first time on MSNBC this weekend, it seems like he was in a bad way in those days. It was very sad. He seemed in ill health, and was not handling whatever Valley of the Dolls uppers/downers combination he was on very well; though for all I know, he wasn’t on any drugs and was having some other kind of issue that was making him act doped up then manic and twitchy and shaking. It’s possible, the fuck do I know other than that he really did not seem okay, and it made me really sad to see.
The thing that makes me saddest about Michel Jackson’s death is, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, that he never seemed to find any peace, he never seemed to have healed.
I saw Deepak Chopra on Larry King, talking about his friendship with Michael. He said that once upon a time Michael called him up, wanting to learn how to meditate. Deepak went to Neverland one weekend and they became friends. Eventually, Micahael asked him for a prescription for Oxycontin (if you’re like me and didn’t know, that’s Dr. Deepak Md to you,) which Chopra refused. He didn’t give much detail, but said Michael was abusing prescription pills, which he got through crappy Hollywood doctors who get their kicks (and ka$h) enabling celebrities with drug problems. He rightly pointed out that more people are dangerously addicted to prescription drugs than illegal drugs (and yet—no drug war on the pharmaceutical companies!)
Anyway. Deepak Chopra also said his kids spent time with Jackson, had traveled with him, and that he felt completely comfortable leaving his kids with Jackson unsupervised.
I’m told that one of the big scandalous revelations in this interview was that MJ admitted to having sleepovers with kids, including sometimes sleeping in the same bed with them. He didn’t apologize for it, and lashed out at those who found such behavior problematic, for turning something loving and innocent into horror.
Now. People talk about juggling your appreciation for Jackson’s music with your reservations about his personal life. I don’t give a fuck how “weird” he is. When I was young and watched the Muppets, I most identified with Gonzo--the “weirdo”. I think I identified a bit with the MJ under tabloid attack--why are we supposed to condemn him, exactly, even if he did sleep in an oxygen chamber and try to buy the elephant man’s bones? Fuck, if I were Michael Jackson I’d probably want the Elephant Man’s bones too, if they’re not buried, if they’re being gawked at in some exhibit somewhere. The plastic surgery makes me sad, makes me angry at white supremacy, but it doesn’t make me hate him--who the fuck am I, as some white girl, to hate on or ridicule him for that?
The only thing that really makes me uncomfortable being a fan is the possibility that he molested kids. That’s fucking horrible. I’m not going to defend the behavior of a fucking child molester.
Some people seem to accept that Michael Jackson was a child molester. Why?
I can empathize with the visceral horror one feels when it seems like sexual abuse of any kind is being swept under the rug, that victims are slandered while perpetrators walk away. I understand if someone can’t deal with Michael Jackson because of the abuse allegations. But most mentions of it seem to lump it together with his plastic surgery, just another freaky scandal, another handful of mud to throw.
My basic, political, position is that I believe people when they say they have been abused. If a kid says they were molested, they were molested. But. Shit happens. There are situations where parents decide a kid was molested for purposes of getting money, and/or some other whacked-out reason. Maybe Michael Jackson was a child molester, but at least as plausible to me is that some greedy or disgruntled parents decided to call Michael Jackson a child molester. I didn’t follow either molestation scandal much, I found them upsetting. Based on my limited knowledge of both cases, after reading up a little now to try to better understand, I don’t really have any reason to believe that he’s guilty, and tell me if you’re more educated than I am and feel differently.
The sleepover admission was apparently near-tantamount to an admission of criminal guilt in the public imagination. I don’t think Michael’s sleepovers make him any more guilty of child abuse than the co-sleeping habits of the Chew-Holdens do. I see both as potentially problematic, but neither as necessarily sexual. Yet “he got away with it” is an accepted sentiment in many circles.
Why is Michael Jackson a pervert and the Chew-Holdens qualite? Well, the Chew-Holdens are wholesome white liberals in park slope. Amongst their peers, they are probably admired or jealously scorned out of insecurity, hated with the kind of misplaced anxious energy that often manifests in peer-pressured CSA memberships where the vegetables never get eaten and the parents feel resentful of their produce burden. If fellow liberals took issue with the co-sleeping, it’d likely be out of a fear of their own inferior, less dedicated parenting.
Michael Jackson wasn’t a qualite white liberal, he was a Black man whose presentation stirred race and gender panic. His ambiguity triggered anger, bigotry, hatred. The way he talked, moved, transformed physically, pushed buttons and freaked people out, especially, if the post-death fallout is any indication, white men who felt threatened. He couldn’t be easily boxed into race/gender/sexuality categories except for the all-encompassing "freak”, within which all is possible except recognition of humanity.
The racism in the “he got away with it!” vitriol is hard to deny. There’s a special place in pop cultural hell for black men accused of harming whites. An obvious point of comparison to Michael’s not guilty verdict is OJ Simpson’s--white America is still not over that miscarriage of justice despite the many many more wrongful convictions and acquittals that have piled up (and could be organized around) since. If we want to stick with The Fame, before the recent turn-about Phil Spector had a long time as a legally not-guilty man after murdering his wife. I don’t recall the same critical mass of (white) outrage.
There’s another reason the Chew-Holdens are role models and Michael’s sick. My partner said, “Well, I guess if it’s an adult that’s not in the family, people find it more suspect”. But WHY? A child is far more likely to be sexually abused by someone in their family than by Michael freakin’ Jackson. Isn’t that the unfortunate, less politician-friendly reality of child sexual abuse? Kids are usually abused by those closest to them, and often the abusers are respectable members of the community. Scandals involving such are meant to reaffirm the status quo misconception of sexual abuse—OMG, this respectable businessman raped his daughter! That’s a story because it’s seen as an exception. Our culture displaces this epidemic, which cuts across demographic lines and effects a horrifying number of people, onto pervs and trash and freaks. MJ was a freak par excellence.
The sleepovers are the smoking gun? It’s Michael Jackson, for god’s sake, who everyone knows had a traumatizing non-childhood and thus was obsessed with an idealized version of the state, with saving the children from what he needed saving from. He wanted physical affection rather than abuse, he wanted to feel loved and cared for, so he recreated this such relationships in his adult life. Many of us work through these dynamics in our romantic relationships, he didn’t seem to have that option. It’s unusual and eccentric, and, beyond that, it absolutely raises red flags. But: I can conceive of such strangeness without molestation. His sleepovers don’t make him guilty. And there’s something wrong with a media that congratulates the Chew-Holdens for being closeknit, loving, and GREEN, while blasting MJ as a sick freak. Especially as the Chew-Holdens all sleep together every night, not as some special occasional fun thing. The thought of sleeping in the same bed with my parents every night at age ten causes me to hyperventilate with privacy deprivation, instant panic attack!
Jackson is a scapegoat that allows us to ignore and misrepresent the reality of sexual abuse. It usually doesn’t involve satanic rituals or complicated “games” involving whole pre-schools of kids and adult accomplices, or fanciful sleepovers with the king of pop. The reality of most child sexual abuse is much more banal and quiet and private and devastating. I haven’t seen the MJ scandals raise public interest is stopping child abuse, developing resources for victims, figuring out how to viably treat perpetrators, changing our culture to build respect for children and listen to them...no, as is so tragically often the case in instances where child sexual abuse becomes part of a media spectacle, actually helping abused kids and preventing future abuse has nothing to do with the story. That story would be hegemony-threatening rather than reifying. It wouldn’t be a good old times Coney Island freakshow.
The fact that Michael was one of the artistic geniuses of my lifetime and one of the most commercially successful, and still got treated so disrespectfully saddens me greatly. The fact that anyone is complaining about all the coverage his death is getting angers me. Ok, yeah, I’m disgusted that the news networks were all MJ all the time all weekend, even as no new information came in, even as there was a whole rest of the world where things were happening that should be news, but this kind of news media spectacle isn’t new or unique. I’m a bit less offended by the constant coverage of the sudden-seeming and untimely death of one of the biggest public figures of our time than I am when it’s “breaking update: young white lady still missing”. He certainly earned the non-stop coverage on music or entertainment-oriented channels, and should have been a top story elsewhere as well. I don’t remember much outrage when the media obsessively re-chronicled all the details of Princess Diana’s death. She wasn’t even our Princess, whereas Michael was certainly our King.
Let’s remember why:
*Qualite (adj.)
Definition:
Of or pertaining to wholesome goodness with marked bourgeois connotations, inherently alienating to me, often w/ marked liberal connotations.
e.g.: Terra Blues, off-white, activists who are always happy, yoga pants, anything that could be described as tastefully messy, The Park Slope Food Co-Op, anyone in good standing at the Park Slope Food Co-Op, Angelica Kitchen, NOW, being anti-makeup, being anti-porn [i just realized this would make an incredible category in $25,000 pyramid!], muted colors, obsessive cleanliness, no worse yet - people who just smell like shampoo ALL THE TIME, people who academically/anthropologically "take an interest in" social movements though have no interest in taking part in them, etc. (from here.)
To be blunt (and probably bigoted) I have a lot of problems with this idea of “co-sleeping” with children that old, at least when it's Park Slope hippies deciding to do it. It sounds like a nightmare of horrible boundaries and lack of privacy to me, for everyone involved. Are the parents freaks who want to make sure their kids don’t masturbate or something? Seriously. Do they really like having their kids in bed with them every night? Despite the fact that there are like one million rooms in the brownstone that could easily be different bedrooms? Why? Is their sex life that uncompelling?
I don’t think the Chew-Holdens are going to be tarred and feathered, and I don’t think they should be. I don’t think they should be investigated for possible child abuse based on their choice of sleeping arrangement, however much it grosses me out. But one big happy “family bed” when there are so many other options so readily available does raise a red flag, automatically. The possibility of sexual abuse does flash in my mind.
Over the weekend I watched a lot of coverage on Michael Jackson’s death, on both the news and music networks.
My sister and partner and I talked about how important Michael was and is, at least to anyone who cares about music, pop culture, or racial politics. His role in popular music can not be overstated. He was at the absolute top of his field in so many areas— a great, great singer, dancer, writer, music video visionary…we couldn’t think of anyone who was that amazing in that many different fields. Watching the video network specials really reminded me of how fucking good so much of his work was. I remembered how I felt when I was five and got Thriller. How much I loved--with my heartLOVED --that music, how I stared at the photo of him in the gatefold with the tiger cub and fell in love, how beautiful he was. How the hooks dug in and wouldn’t let go. How Billie Jean used to always give me chills. My 80s trinity was Michael, Cyndi, Madonna, but Michael was the first. First vinyl I ever owned. I remember when my dad brought it home for me and my older sister, and my mom put contact paper on a big piece of cardboard for us to “breakdance” on while we listened to it.
I stopped following Michael Jackson news after awhile. I didn’t buy any of his music post-Bad, though I enjoyed a lot of his videos and singles. I loved the “Scream” video. When it came out in the mid-90s I knew someday it would look dated, but couldn’t imagine it, it seemed so NEW. I have to admit, I still kind of like Michael and Janets’ wardrobes. Shiny vinyl pants with those black shirts with the…ridges? All over? I still kinda think that’s a hot look.
I was an alternateen then, so Michael was no longer a staple. I avoided most media coverage in those later years, which all seemed to come from the “what a freak” angle. I didn’t want to read that. I didn’t want to hear lurid speculation or offensive jokes or revel in diagnosing the man. I didn’t care that he dangled his baby out the window. Yeah, bad move, but why the obsessing? Based on the infamous Living with Michael Jackson interviews that I saw for the first time on MSNBC this weekend, it seems like he was in a bad way in those days. It was very sad. He seemed in ill health, and was not handling whatever Valley of the Dolls uppers/downers combination he was on very well; though for all I know, he wasn’t on any drugs and was having some other kind of issue that was making him act doped up then manic and twitchy and shaking. It’s possible, the fuck do I know other than that he really did not seem okay, and it made me really sad to see.
The thing that makes me saddest about Michel Jackson’s death is, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, that he never seemed to find any peace, he never seemed to have healed.
I saw Deepak Chopra on Larry King, talking about his friendship with Michael. He said that once upon a time Michael called him up, wanting to learn how to meditate. Deepak went to Neverland one weekend and they became friends. Eventually, Micahael asked him for a prescription for Oxycontin (if you’re like me and didn’t know, that’s Dr. Deepak Md to you,) which Chopra refused. He didn’t give much detail, but said Michael was abusing prescription pills, which he got through crappy Hollywood doctors who get their kicks (and ka$h) enabling celebrities with drug problems. He rightly pointed out that more people are dangerously addicted to prescription drugs than illegal drugs (and yet—no drug war on the pharmaceutical companies!)
Anyway. Deepak Chopra also said his kids spent time with Jackson, had traveled with him, and that he felt completely comfortable leaving his kids with Jackson unsupervised.
I’m told that one of the big scandalous revelations in this interview was that MJ admitted to having sleepovers with kids, including sometimes sleeping in the same bed with them. He didn’t apologize for it, and lashed out at those who found such behavior problematic, for turning something loving and innocent into horror.
Now. People talk about juggling your appreciation for Jackson’s music with your reservations about his personal life. I don’t give a fuck how “weird” he is. When I was young and watched the Muppets, I most identified with Gonzo--the “weirdo”. I think I identified a bit with the MJ under tabloid attack--why are we supposed to condemn him, exactly, even if he did sleep in an oxygen chamber and try to buy the elephant man’s bones? Fuck, if I were Michael Jackson I’d probably want the Elephant Man’s bones too, if they’re not buried, if they’re being gawked at in some exhibit somewhere. The plastic surgery makes me sad, makes me angry at white supremacy, but it doesn’t make me hate him--who the fuck am I, as some white girl, to hate on or ridicule him for that?
The only thing that really makes me uncomfortable being a fan is the possibility that he molested kids. That’s fucking horrible. I’m not going to defend the behavior of a fucking child molester.
Some people seem to accept that Michael Jackson was a child molester. Why?
I can empathize with the visceral horror one feels when it seems like sexual abuse of any kind is being swept under the rug, that victims are slandered while perpetrators walk away. I understand if someone can’t deal with Michael Jackson because of the abuse allegations. But most mentions of it seem to lump it together with his plastic surgery, just another freaky scandal, another handful of mud to throw.
My basic, political, position is that I believe people when they say they have been abused. If a kid says they were molested, they were molested. But. Shit happens. There are situations where parents decide a kid was molested for purposes of getting money, and/or some other whacked-out reason. Maybe Michael Jackson was a child molester, but at least as plausible to me is that some greedy or disgruntled parents decided to call Michael Jackson a child molester. I didn’t follow either molestation scandal much, I found them upsetting. Based on my limited knowledge of both cases, after reading up a little now to try to better understand, I don’t really have any reason to believe that he’s guilty, and tell me if you’re more educated than I am and feel differently.
The sleepover admission was apparently near-tantamount to an admission of criminal guilt in the public imagination. I don’t think Michael’s sleepovers make him any more guilty of child abuse than the co-sleeping habits of the Chew-Holdens do. I see both as potentially problematic, but neither as necessarily sexual. Yet “he got away with it” is an accepted sentiment in many circles.
Why is Michael Jackson a pervert and the Chew-Holdens qualite? Well, the Chew-Holdens are wholesome white liberals in park slope. Amongst their peers, they are probably admired or jealously scorned out of insecurity, hated with the kind of misplaced anxious energy that often manifests in peer-pressured CSA memberships where the vegetables never get eaten and the parents feel resentful of their produce burden. If fellow liberals took issue with the co-sleeping, it’d likely be out of a fear of their own inferior, less dedicated parenting.
Michael Jackson wasn’t a qualite white liberal, he was a Black man whose presentation stirred race and gender panic. His ambiguity triggered anger, bigotry, hatred. The way he talked, moved, transformed physically, pushed buttons and freaked people out, especially, if the post-death fallout is any indication, white men who felt threatened. He couldn’t be easily boxed into race/gender/sexuality categories except for the all-encompassing "freak”, within which all is possible except recognition of humanity.
The racism in the “he got away with it!” vitriol is hard to deny. There’s a special place in pop cultural hell for black men accused of harming whites. An obvious point of comparison to Michael’s not guilty verdict is OJ Simpson’s--white America is still not over that miscarriage of justice despite the many many more wrongful convictions and acquittals that have piled up (and could be organized around) since. If we want to stick with The Fame, before the recent turn-about Phil Spector had a long time as a legally not-guilty man after murdering his wife. I don’t recall the same critical mass of (white) outrage.
There’s another reason the Chew-Holdens are role models and Michael’s sick. My partner said, “Well, I guess if it’s an adult that’s not in the family, people find it more suspect”. But WHY? A child is far more likely to be sexually abused by someone in their family than by Michael freakin’ Jackson. Isn’t that the unfortunate, less politician-friendly reality of child sexual abuse? Kids are usually abused by those closest to them, and often the abusers are respectable members of the community. Scandals involving such are meant to reaffirm the status quo misconception of sexual abuse—OMG, this respectable businessman raped his daughter! That’s a story because it’s seen as an exception. Our culture displaces this epidemic, which cuts across demographic lines and effects a horrifying number of people, onto pervs and trash and freaks. MJ was a freak par excellence.
The sleepovers are the smoking gun? It’s Michael Jackson, for god’s sake, who everyone knows had a traumatizing non-childhood and thus was obsessed with an idealized version of the state, with saving the children from what he needed saving from. He wanted physical affection rather than abuse, he wanted to feel loved and cared for, so he recreated this such relationships in his adult life. Many of us work through these dynamics in our romantic relationships, he didn’t seem to have that option. It’s unusual and eccentric, and, beyond that, it absolutely raises red flags. But: I can conceive of such strangeness without molestation. His sleepovers don’t make him guilty. And there’s something wrong with a media that congratulates the Chew-Holdens for being closeknit, loving, and GREEN, while blasting MJ as a sick freak. Especially as the Chew-Holdens all sleep together every night, not as some special occasional fun thing. The thought of sleeping in the same bed with my parents every night at age ten causes me to hyperventilate with privacy deprivation, instant panic attack!
Jackson is a scapegoat that allows us to ignore and misrepresent the reality of sexual abuse. It usually doesn’t involve satanic rituals or complicated “games” involving whole pre-schools of kids and adult accomplices, or fanciful sleepovers with the king of pop. The reality of most child sexual abuse is much more banal and quiet and private and devastating. I haven’t seen the MJ scandals raise public interest is stopping child abuse, developing resources for victims, figuring out how to viably treat perpetrators, changing our culture to build respect for children and listen to them...no, as is so tragically often the case in instances where child sexual abuse becomes part of a media spectacle, actually helping abused kids and preventing future abuse has nothing to do with the story. That story would be hegemony-threatening rather than reifying. It wouldn’t be a good old times Coney Island freakshow.
The fact that Michael was one of the artistic geniuses of my lifetime and one of the most commercially successful, and still got treated so disrespectfully saddens me greatly. The fact that anyone is complaining about all the coverage his death is getting angers me. Ok, yeah, I’m disgusted that the news networks were all MJ all the time all weekend, even as no new information came in, even as there was a whole rest of the world where things were happening that should be news, but this kind of news media spectacle isn’t new or unique. I’m a bit less offended by the constant coverage of the sudden-seeming and untimely death of one of the biggest public figures of our time than I am when it’s “breaking update: young white lady still missing”. He certainly earned the non-stop coverage on music or entertainment-oriented channels, and should have been a top story elsewhere as well. I don’t remember much outrage when the media obsessively re-chronicled all the details of Princess Diana’s death. She wasn’t even our Princess, whereas Michael was certainly our King.
Let’s remember why:
*Qualite (adj.)
Definition:
Of or pertaining to wholesome goodness with marked bourgeois connotations, inherently alienating to me, often w/ marked liberal connotations.
e.g.: Terra Blues, off-white, activists who are always happy, yoga pants, anything that could be described as tastefully messy, The Park Slope Food Co-Op, anyone in good standing at the Park Slope Food Co-Op, Angelica Kitchen, NOW, being anti-makeup, being anti-porn [i just realized this would make an incredible category in $25,000 pyramid!], muted colors, obsessive cleanliness, no worse yet - people who just smell like shampoo ALL THE TIME, people who academically/anthropologically "take an interest in" social movements though have no interest in taking part in them, etc. (from here.)
6.17.2009
How I spent my weekend
I went to shows and shot stuff.
Saturday: Here are The Shondes performing their new song "Miami" for the first time ever at the Exit 44 Festival at Wonderland in Astoria where there were delicious veggie dogs. Other venues: take note. Having good, reasonably priced (vegan-friendly) food makes me want to patronize your establishment.
This is one of my favorite of the batch of songs likely to end up on the next album.
Sunday: The Martin Bisi-curated evening at Spike Hill during the Northside Fest. Here are some choice clips from Alina Simone's steller set.
The as-yet unreleased "Beautiful Machine":
The also as-yet unreleased (and fucking gorgeous) "My Love is a Mountain":
...and here's a Yanka Dyagileva cover, "For a Rainy Day":
After Alina Simone, Martin Bisi himself played a set with his band. Here is the song "Rise Up Cowboy" from his brand new Son of a Gun EP out now on Contraphonic.:
Saturday: Here are The Shondes performing their new song "Miami" for the first time ever at the Exit 44 Festival at Wonderland in Astoria where there were delicious veggie dogs. Other venues: take note. Having good, reasonably priced (vegan-friendly) food makes me want to patronize your establishment.
This is one of my favorite of the batch of songs likely to end up on the next album.
Sunday: The Martin Bisi-curated evening at Spike Hill during the Northside Fest. Here are some choice clips from Alina Simone's steller set.
The as-yet unreleased "Beautiful Machine":
The also as-yet unreleased (and fucking gorgeous) "My Love is a Mountain":
...and here's a Yanka Dyagileva cover, "For a Rainy Day":
After Alina Simone, Martin Bisi himself played a set with his band. Here is the song "Rise Up Cowboy" from his brand new Son of a Gun EP out now on Contraphonic.:
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