From the tip desk of Fran Finklestein Esq. comes Forest Fire straight outta Brooklyn, New York (in your face!)
If you like soulful indie folk, sadcore ala Smog, Mark Eitzel, maybe even a little Crooked Fingers and Cat Power then it might be worth it to download their whole album here FOR FREE! (I love that shit)
Then check out their myspace page
P.E.A.C.E. the amazing, talented rapper from Project Blowed, kinda by default (along with Aceyalone, Myka Nyne, Self Jupiter among many, many others) from Freestyle Fellowship (One of the best Rap outfits ever!) and also from Haiku D’etat brings us this new pair of songs. Word is that Connoisseurs have already called it quits following the release of this EP, but at least we got a couple songs from them. Ultraviolet and R&B… Play the jam Ultraviolet below.
From Dis-Joint Records -
CONNOISSEURS
UV / R&B
Dis-Joint Records is proud to announce the release of our first hip hop 12″.
As one would expect from the label, the flavor is not your typical dime-a-dozen sound, but rather a unique, left-of-center dance floor banger with an intense, irresistible groove that is both catchy and accessible, yet groundbreaking nonetheless.
The Connoisseurs are L.A. natives now living in the bay area. The quartet is comprised of P.E.A.C.E. (of FREESTYLE FELLOWSHIP fame), and newcomers Deranged and Mawnstr. The beats are provided by N.O. This is the group’s debut on wax.
While it is impossible and unfortunate to have to pigeon-hole their sound, the track UV will probably conjure up images of the DFA meeting Can in the dirty south. R&B is not really R & B at all, but a short, mid-tempo treat with chopped drums and a resonating keyboard sound. Comparisons to Eric B and Rakim are inevitable, so let us be the first to say it.
TAGS: ep, free, mp3, paris, Rap, SongThe McCain campaign has decided to go all out with a negative campaign down the home stretch. Palin was quoted as saying that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” Cindy McCain wrongly accused Obama of cutting off funding for the troops. A GOP leader, William Platt, twice referred to Obama as “Barrack Hussein Obama,” an obvious attempt to paint Obama as a Muslim terrorist, while introducing McCain and Palin at a rally. That’s something that McCain himself has condemned in the past. Other McCain surrogates have also leveled disgusting attacks at Obama, and it’s clearly the campaign’s strategy at this point.
Not surprisingly, these wrongful and vile accusations have riled up McCain’s crowds, with some in the audience yelling things like “traitor,” and “kill him!” Others have turned on the press, thanks to Palin constantly putting down the “mainstream media” (I guess she wasn’t too happy with her performance on Gibson’s or Couric’s show), and one guy yelled “Sit down, boy!” at a black sound man working for a network. Lovely.
Obviously, McCain’s camp will say that they don’t condone these sorts of things, but they’re the ones inciting these people. They’re giving them the cover they need to yell these things out at their rallies, and they certainly aren’t doing anything to stop them. Why didn’t Palin or McCain pause and point out that the sort of comments these people made were unacceptable? Because they’re thriving in this kind of environment, and they see it as a way to stoke up their base.
Unfortunately, the way that McCain is running his campaign now reminds me of the horrible murders in July, when Jim Adkisson killed two people and wounded six others in a Tennessee church. He said he targeted the church
because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets. Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.
As I said back in July, Hannity, O’Reilly, and Savage did not kill those people. Adkisson was responsible for killing those people. But, at what point does their hatred for liberals, comparing them to terrorists and nazis who are destroying America, and their ability to espouse those views on air go from free speech to hate speech? While Hannity and Co. weren’t directly responsible, their extreme views incited even more hatred in a man who was willing to kill for those views. McCain and Palin are inciting their crowds now, and what we’re seeing in terms of the reactions of some in the crowd are directly related to the hate they’re preaching.
The Palinator (an author published in a couple dozen countries whose agent would hang him for revealing his name) takes you with him on his train-of-thought ride through last night’s debate (complete with brief detours into tales of fatherhood and beach balls).
Enjoy:
(Author’s note: I got home late and watched the debate delayed, so all times are local, as recorded in my living room.)
9:38 – Ooh. Bad color on Gwen…an emerald green muumuu? She looks like she was just kicked out of Oz.
9:39 – Sarah Palin asks Biden: “Can I call you Joe?” Are you fucking serious? How about, “No, just call me VP.”
9:40 – Coin toss? It’s like football?
9:41 – I hate the requisite “Thank you’s.” So stupid. No doubt Palin will thank and thank and thank and thank St. Louis trying to run out the clock.
9:42 – Shit, I’m already bored by Biden. Gimme Palin. I want blood.
9:42 – Joe got me back. He seems relaxed and coherent. Someone must’ve slipped him a valium.
9:43 – Here’s Sarah. Holy shit, one minute in and she already mentioned “soccer” and said “betcha.” Okay, first impressions – she seems coherent, but robotic. Maybe she is a robot. No, a fembot, like in Austin Powers. I think she’s gonnna shoot Biden w/ her breasts.
9:44 – Biden’s hair is really weird. Not just now, but always. A woman I know took a train w/ “Amtrak Joe” during what she described “the plugging years.” Hair plugs = bad.
9:45 – Weird; when Biden talks, he doesn’t move his body. Just his head. Weird.
9:46 – My god, Palin just winked at me. Shit, she said “mavericks.” So fucking lame. She’s looking right at the camera like a deer in the headlights. Maverick count = 2.
9:47 – HA! Gwen called them on not answering the question. But then didn’t press them on it. Why?
9:47 – Palin: “Darn right, it was the predator lenders.” Yeah, wouldn’t expect any Americans to do simple math on what they could afford. Sure, American’s have got ingenuity, but don’t expect them to add. That’s just wrong.
9:48 – Fuck. She used “hockey moms” AND “Joe Six-pack” in the same sentence. Double fuck – she’s not blazingly incoherent. But she doesn’t believe in using the “g”s God put at the end of words. Everythin’s hurtin’.
9:49 – This format sucks. It’s too fast, all bullet-points, not enough follow up by Gwen. I don’t see this getting contentious at all like Obama vs. McCain got. That’s good for Palin.
9:50 – Boorrrrrrring. Talkng points, talking points, talking points. I think Biden is actually talking, Palin is just spewing. But she’s doing well. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hate her.
9:51 – Nice rebuttal, Joe. Ooooooooh, McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes. AND the governor didn’t answer the question! Yeah, you go Joe!
9:52 – Palin: “I’m still on the tax thing.” And then: “I may not answer the questions like the moderator wants”?? WTF? Why not just go Faulkner on our ass and do the stream of consciousness “thing.”
9:53 – SNAP! Gwen cuts Sarah off for time. HA!
9:53 – Joe seems empathetic. Nice, I feel like he’s talking to me. I like the “value set” comment. Joe seems to be better at timing his answers.
9:55 – Oh, here it comes. Lambasting Biden for the “patriotic” paying taxes comment. Oh right, McCain’s always been in the middle class. Son of an admiral. Right.
9:56 – I hate this smiling bitch. And I think that’s the biggest flag pin I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised she can stand.
9:58 – “ULTIMATE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE!” Biden gets the first laugh and first “moment.”
9:59 – Biden wants to slow down doubling foreign assistance. Good answer. Americans hate foreigners. I think Biden’s hitting his stride. Or as Palin would say “hittin’ his stride, you betcha.”
10:00 – My wife is yelling at me. She wants me to stop blogging. I have to blow up an insanely large beach ball for my son’s second birthday.
10:01 – Oh fuck, Palin’s referencing the stupid “telling one thing to one group and another thing to another group.” Right out of her stump speech. Bitter, ain’t she?
10:02 – Oh, if Biden doesn’t go after her for the—
I stopped blogging for five minutes to blow up the beach ball. It’s enormous. I’m not sure if I made any progress.
10:07 – Palin: “Your ticket’s energy ticket.” Nice quote, Sarah. Shit, “East coast politicians”? You know what she means, don’t you, middle America? Jews! She means Jews!
10:09 – Ooooh, she’s the governor of the “nation’s only Arctic state.” Is that good? Maybe she should be president of Canada. Though I todn’t think they have presidents. I don’t know, I hate Canada. Blah, blah, blah. Palin doesn’t want to argue about the causes of global warming. Right. Okay, so far, absolutely no answer.
10:10 – Biden: “[Climate change] is man made.” Nice answer, Joe. Simple, makes Palin’s answer look like what it was – a non-answer.
10:12 – “Drill, baby, drill!”
10:13 – Did Palin just call him “Senator O’Biden?”
10:13 – What is this “All of the above” bullshit? Do you lead the country by taking a multiple-choice exam? If so, I think I’d do really well. I’m great at multiple-choice tests. I’d kill to find out Palin’s SAT scores. Do they even have SATs in the “Arctic”?
10:15 – Fuck, going into gay rights. I’m pro-gay marriage, but it’s a loser from an electoral standpoint on the Democratic side. Can’t wait to see what Sarah says. Okay, nice gay-bashing, Sarah. Ooooh, she’s “tolerant.” Wow, she has friends that DON’T EVEN AGREE WITH HER! Amazing. No, she doesn’t know any gay people, but she does know non-gay-haters! How tolerant.
10:17 – Fuck, could Gwen press Sarah on her answers? So far, I give Gwen a C-minus.
10:18 – My wife’s still blowing up the beach ball. It’s insane. Christ, now it’s my turn.
10:25 – Okay, I’ve been blowing up the ball for seven minutes, mostly w/ this pump we have. We’re not sure it’s working. Okay, I’ve checked and it IS working, but slowly. Jesus, this is ridiculous. It shouldn’t be this hard to prepare for a two-year-old’s birthday party.
10:26 – Oh crap, the stupid “preconditions” comment. So tired.
10:27 – Right, Sarah. B/c who’s more passionate about diplomacy than Kissinger?
10:29 – Ah, the stupid McCain won’t meet w/ Spain comment.
10:31 – Ooh, Joe Biden’s referring to himself in the third-person, Bob Dole-style. He’s goin’ old school, bitch! Remember Norm MacDonald’s Bob Dole impression? Fucking priceless.
10:32 – I don’t think ANYONE has mentioned Bush yet. Why not? Gwen, Joe, wake the fuck up.
10:33 – Palin: “Finger-pointing backwards”? How the hell do you finger-point forward? Christ, another maverick comment. Maverick count = 3.
10:34 – Biden’s saying “George Bush’s” every other word. It’s like he read my mind. Jeez, Joe’s goin’ to town. Never noticed this, but it sounds funny when you say “George Bush’s” again and again and again. Try it, you’ll see.
10:35 – Palin: Nuclear weapons would kill “too many” people? So, other weapons would kill “just enough” people?
10:37 – Joe’s doing a nice job making McCain seem extreme.
10:38 – Okay, I know I’m biased, but Palin just sounds like she’s reading off cards.
10:42 – I hate the way Palin says “Americans”. Sounds like “Amerhikens.” And I hate her smile. Goddammit I hate her smile.
10:43 – Biden does a nice job of conflating McCain-Cheney.
10:45 – Shit, Palin is doing well. Oh Christ – McCain “knows what evil is.” What the fuck does that mean? Oh, and McCain “knows how to win a war.” How? Did he win in Vietnam? Or is he just really good at World of Warcraft?
10:47 – Palin on whether she & McCain agree on everything: “What do expect? We’re two mavericks!” Maverick count = 4. Oh, and Palin’s gonna get rid of greed on Wall Street. That’ll be easy. We can just replace all those greedy people that work in banks with money-hating socialists.
10:49 – Yeah! Evidently Joe spends TONS OF TIME in Home Depot! He practically lives there. Ask Joe where the nail guns are, he’ll tell ya. He knows Home Depot.
10:50 – Palin says “Doggonit.” Makes me wonder if she ever saw Deadwood. Cocksuckers. Okay, so Biden’s wife’s reward for being a teacher is in heaven. Cuz she ain’t getting’ a raise! That should be the new recruitment policy – become a teacher, go to heaven. Oh, and a shout out to 3rd graders. Awesome. And here’s to my dead homies.
10:51 – My wife just finished blowing up the beach ball. Halle-fuckin-lujah.
10:52 – Shit, Palin’s hit her stride. She’s in the home stretch.
10:53 – Oh no. There are 10 small beach balls that also need to be blown up. We’re fucked.
10:57 – Palin references Reagan’s “Shining city on a hill.” My wife says Reagan didn’t say it first, that John Winthrop said it on some boat. I just Wikipedia’d it – my wife’s right. Winthrop said it in 1630 on the Arbella. Learn something new every day.
10:59 – Shit, real human moment from Biden about his dead wife and daughter. Joe just won.
11:00 – Oh god, Palin response to Joe’s human moment was to call McCain a maverick. Great response. Maverick count = 5. Whoa, there’s another maverick. Maverick count = 6. Oh, wow, McCain’s even got the support of the biggest fascist in the world—Rudy Guiliani! Awesome! What a maverick!
11:01 – Whoa, Biden just countered Palin and personally threw out FOUR MAVERICKS IN A ROW (as in “John McCain’s not a maverick”)! There’s another maverick! Biden’s on a tear! Another one! That’s six! And another one! And another! We’re at eight mavericks, folks, do I hear nine? YES! A NINTH MAVERICK! In one fell swoop, Biden exceeded Palin’s maverick count by a stunning 50%!
11:02 – My wife has officially declared Biden the winner (and last debate she said McCain won, so she’s not as crazy-biased as me).
11:04 – Sarah Palin claims she’s never compromised. Well, except for that time Todd convinced her to do anal. But that was the only time.
11:08 – Nice shot across the bow at the mainstream media from Sarah Palin. Yeah! Fuck you, Katie Couric! You… you… mainstreamer!
11:09 – Another Reagan shout out by Palin. That’s two Reagan’s and six mavericks. Ooh, in the future, “we’ll tell our children how once we were free” before the robots took over. But John Connor will save us. I know he will, b/c I’ve seen all three Terminator movies (T3 sucked) AND I watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Seriously, though, are we really heading to a time when we’re not free? Is someone going to enslave us (besides the robots, I mean)? And what IS Sarah’s Robot-policy.
11:11 – Nice ending monologue by Joe.
11:12 – Sarah’s thanking everyone. Thank you, thank you, thank you… she’s so fucking thankful that she didn’t fuck up. Holy shit, looks like she’s going to kiss Biden. What is wrong with this woman? Oh look, there’s little baby Trig. They really love trotting out that kid. I’ve got to say, as a father of two, if I know one thing it’s that babies love debates.
11:13 – Commentary: David Brooks is “amazed” at Palin’s performance and thought she came across as Joe’s equal. I hate to say it, but I agree. She didn’t win, but she held her own. Bitch. Mark Shields says that he bets Democrats are disappointed that Palin didn’t “implode.” True dat. True dat.
Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ve got beach balls to blow up.
TAGS: Babies, banks, bullshit, Bush, climate change, David Brooks, debate, dog, ep, fascist, free, George Bush, global warming, god, Jesus, Joe Biden, John McCain, mccain, Movie, NATO, NSA, obama, President, Rap, Sarah Palin, war
A good portion of the Left has been begging Obama to satisfy their hunger for “red meat” by bringing up the Keating 5. While it would be gratifying to watch McCain relive his biggest political embarrassment, next to getting punked by George W. in 2000, until recently it could have been extremely dangerous for Obama to invoke it.
Democrats want to use the Keating 5 scandal to attack McCain’s character and call into question his ethical center. In any other election, this would be fair and reasonable, but McCain is probably immune to the Keating virus. He has already survived by being re-elected to the senate three times (!) since the scandal broke. He only received a slap on the wrist from the Senate Ethics Committee, he confessed his mistakes and begged the voters of Arizona for their forgiveness, and they forgave him three times over.
As a character assault, the Keating 5 provides little traction for Democrats. McCain knows this. He is at his best when the political climate allows him to be pugnacious and confrontational, and bringing up the K5 would give McCain the freedom to dominate the news cycle with Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, and William Ayers, rather than addressing our current economic crisis.
McCain would win the game of character assassination because these attacks play off the racial stereotypes that blacks are militant, untrustworthy, and violent. Wright and Ayers are especially damaging because they allow Obama to be seen as a radical. And, in Middle America, radicals with black skin are far more frightening than criminals with white collars.
That is why McCain has recently been trying to bait Obama, daring him to bring up the Keating mess. When Obama briefly mentioned the Savings and Loan crisis of the 80’s in his comments about the current crisis, McCain released an ad, basically a warning shot, that tries to connect Obama to the disgraced former CEO of Fannie Mae, Frank Raines. There is no connection between Obama and Raines other than their skin color (well, Raines is more amber hued, while Obama is a burnt cedar). McCain most recent ad features Rezko and Daley, Jones, and Blagojevich (three dudes no one has heard of outside of Illinois). Count them up; that’s five, The Obama 5.
Race.
Race is what ended McCain’s 2000 presidential bid, not the Keating 5. The Rove rumor that McCain fathered a child with a black prostitute didn’t sit well with the voters of South Carolina. Race is why Keating was potentially off limits for Obama.
I say ‘was’ because the current meltdown has given the Keating 5 a new relevance, and made market regulation sexy again. Democrats want to show McCain looking scared for his life during those senate hearings, with his bad comb-over flopping around, but they need to forget about the sensational aspects of the scandal and focus on the fact that John McCain is a puppet of deregulators. Aggressive deregulation led to the S&L crisis and John McCain’s Keating problem, and it has led to the mortgage crisis and John McCain’s Phil Gramm problem. Why is it that whenever our economy is driven over a cliff John McCain is in the passenger’s seat?
Wisely, Obama has resisted the Left’s cravings for the red meat of personal attacks, and has given them the tofu of regulation instead. Eat it. Tofu is good for you.
TAGS: 2000, attack, economy, election, free, John McCain, mccain, NSA, obama, political, Race, war
This has been getting a lot of attention today. In a radio interview, McCain floundered when asked whether he would meet with Spanish PM Zapatero. The question came after he was asked about Chavez, Raul Castro, and Morales. At first, it seemed like McCain didn’t quite understand the question about Spain. But, the questioner said she was talking about Spain, but McCain said the following:
All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.
The questioner again clarified:
“But what about Europe? I’m talking about the President of Spain.”
McCain: “What about me, what?
“Are you willing to meet with him if you’re elected president?”
McCain: “I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not.”
Now, the charitable interpretation here is that McCain had some trouble understanding the questioner at first, perhaps because of her accent. But, instead of asking her exactly what she was talking about, he went off about how he’d meet with leaders who are for human rights and democracy, as if the Spanish PM is against human rights and Spain isn’t a democracy. He also kept talking about Latin America, and Spain isn’t exactly in Latin America. Even if you think McCain didn’t understand her (again, that’s charitable), it still shows that McCain would rather come up with some bogus answer than admit that he wasn’t sure what her question was about. Well, McCain’s camp cleared up the confusion. His chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Sheunemann, emailed this statement to reporters:
The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain’s willingness to meet Zapatero (and id’d him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview.
Of course, if McCain knew exactly who the questioner was talking about, then why exactly did he start talking about Latin America and take such a sharp tone with a NATO ally? So, either McCain didn’t know what he was talking about and confused Spain with Latin America, not exactly coming off too well, or he knew exactly what he was saying, and he and his campaign just wanted the Spanish PM to know that he blows. That’s exactly the kind of foreign policy we need…telling our allies to suck it.
TAGS: Campaign, free, Interview, mccain, NATOFrom an article, aptly titled McCain Embraces Regulation After Many Years of Opposition, in the Washington Post today:
A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.
Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation’s largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end “reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed” on Wall Street.
“Government has a clear responsibility to act in defense of the public interest, and that’s exactly what I intend to do,” a fiery McCain said at a rally in Tampa yesterday. “In my administration, we’re going to hold people on Wall Street responsible. And we’re going to enact and enforce reforms to make sure that these outrages never happen in the first place.”
I wonder if the mass media will pick up on this. On one of the two most important issues of our time (economy + war = America today), John McCain is not just flip-flopping in position, he’s fucking pole vaulting across the field. The man is practically blaming himself (without actually implicating himself, of course — just the general lack of oversight that created the issue…you know, that stuff he, and all his Republican conservative friends, voted for), while simultaneously claiming that only he (and the Republicans) will be able to fix the problem.
It’s unprecedented dishonesty (especially insane, given that his campaign — from stories about Palin’s background to comments on Obama’s voting record — is by-and-large rooted in dishonesty at this point)…absolute head-spinning, mind-blowing, bullshit-raining disingenuousness.
And it is tarnishing what’s left of McCain’s vaulted position in American politics beyond repair — all in pursuit of the Presidency as apparently nothing more than a status symbol, he’s willing to sell out everything he claims to believe in. For, what’s left of a leader if he is willing to uproot every single one of his values and principles?
John McCain doesn’t have any real ideas — good, new, or otherwise — other than “keep doing what we’re doing” and “keep people good and scared on everything from taxes to faith to war.” And he certainly isn’t called to lead out of an honest desire for change, or common good, or peace, or equality, or anything else a Democratic, shining-light-of-the-free-world nation should strive for.
I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that, however skewed his world view, his heart was in the right place. But, hey, the more this campaign rolls on, the more I’m becoming certain that the guy is just power-hungry. Truth and consequence be damned. Awesome.
That said, this is brilliant.
*edit: Here’s to Frank Rich at the New York Times — he nailed it in his op-ed a few days back.
TAGS: Bush, Campaign, economy, free, John McCain, mccain, New York, New York Times, NPR, NSA, obama, Politics, Race, Republicans, spin, warThe Anchorage Daily News said that hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000 showed up to protest against Sarah Palin. Organizers put the number at 1,500. There were a few dozen Palin supporters as well, but they were clearly outnumbered. The protesters gathered about two hours after she’d given a speech to supporters and hopped on a plane back to the Lower 48.
Photo by BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News
Some of the more colorful anti-Palin signs from the protest:
Bush In A Skirt
Palin: She Be Failin’
Jesus Was a Community Organizer
Palin: Thanks But No Thanks
Smearing Alaska’s Good Name One Scandal @ a Time
Candidate To Nowhere
Rape Kits Should Be Free
Voted For Her Once: Never Again!
Community Organizers are the Real Patriots
Barbies for War
I Shall Not Be Pandered To
Sarah Palin: So Far Right She’s Wrong
Coat Hangers for McCain
Sarah Palin, Undoing 150 Years of American Feminism
Hockey Mama for Obama (on a hockey stick)
Hey all. This is my last post here at Medicine. I had a great time writing about dumb shit for the past 8 or so months. Thanks to John for giving me such a great experience in cyberspace.
I started a new site with Inigo, Jeff N, and a few others called Shiite Happens. (Below is the first post.) For now, it will be a political, arts, and culture blog with a young-ish voice, much like Medicine, but with more original video content. We’ll have a redesign and hopefully our own url soon. Please ignore the generic design for now. There won’t be any ads or commercial aspect and it will operate as a cooperative. We’re looking for writers, so give me a shout at wormetheperm {at} hotmail(.)com if you’d like to contribute.
Anyway, I’ve been out in Denver and Minneapolis for the Conventions with Inigo Gilmore, a filmmaker friend. And tomorrow we’re going moose hunting in Alaska. Despite our being robbed twice over the past two weeks, a video diary of the RNC was still able to be cut for Britain’s Channel 4. Note the shot of Inigo getting shot at by police (with rubber bullets of course) during a riot in St Paul.
Sarah Palin and the Re-Rise of the Republicans: An RNC Diary
1
I’m in Minneapolis, having arrived from Denver on Sunday night. With me: Inigo Gilmore, a British journalist and filmmaker who recently relocated to New York after a year’s stint in Bangkok for Channel 4 UK. That morning, we’d awoken to find our rented SUV had been broken in to, and someone had stolen the tapes from Obama’s stadium coronation. The video and still cameras were safe, but everything else—chargers, bags, tripod, batteries—gone.
So our arrival at the Republican Convention came without glory. Luckily we were staying at a nice loft in downtown St. Paul, just blocks from the Xcel Center. To forget about our Denver loss, we trekked across St. Paul’s quaint downtown looking for a bar. It’s 10m. The bars, which normally close at 2am, are supposedly open until 4am all week, but few people are out.
“The thing about St Paul is that it’s only a few hundred thousand people,” says the local who’s guiding us. “It may be the smallest city to ever hold a national Convention.”
We stop at a dive-y bar on 7th Ave, St Paul’s pedestrian mall. Neon beer signs dangle on the windows. Dart boards and pool tables are visible inside. Sitting outside, we realize 20 or so Texas delegates surround us. Clustered around two pitcher strewn tables, the Texans meet every cliche: loud, foul mouthed, cross bearing, light beer loving, and cigar chomping. They wear orthopedic shoes, unrevealing dresses, snakeskin, denim…
Our next stop was another bar filled with boozing Texas delegates. Third stop: booze, Texans. Later, we even stumble on a hotel with a sign reading, “WELCOME TEXAS DELEGATION! Crowne Plaza Hotel…”
Aside from cowboy hats and generic clothing, what else did these Texans have in common? A shockingly passionate love for Ron Paul and his post-libetarianism. Few of the Texans we meet even like John McCain.
“We support McCain because we are Republicans,” one says. “But Ron Paul is beyond partisian politics.” Then comes a detailed Paul “Revolution”-ary spiel, which I block out. Yet as Convention eve came to a close, the Paul insurgency made clear that this year’s GOP was indeed a fractured party.
2
Monday. The Twin Cities got hit by twin bombshells. First, due to Hurricane Gustav, day one of the Convention was canceled, meaning no President Bush. Second, Sarah Palin, the dark horse Alaskan Governor McCain chose for VP, has a 17-year-old pregnant daughter. Some Convention so far, eh GOP? No opening night and so much for the whole family values and no sex before marriage thing.
Around noon we hear about a anti-war protest. Venturing from the loft, on 4th Street, up a block or two, we quickly realize this is no mere protest. On a street corner stood fifty plus cops in full riot gear—helmets, bulging pads, gas masks, sticks and tazers at the ready. The police surround about twenty black-clad, masked anarchists. The anarchos are backed against a building and all have their hands up, but they yell to the few onlookers and journalists on hand.
“We did nothing!” one kid in googles yells.
“These are our streets!” they chant.
A few blocks away we spot a beat-up blue Volvo blocking a major intersection connecting St Paul to the highway that leads to Minneapolis. About two dozen cops cordon the area. Inside the car I see a black clad youth chained to the steering wheel. A big yellow forklift arrives. I hear a buzzsaw. The cops are cutting the anarchist out of the car. Once he’s been removed and arrested, the forklift removes the car and dumps it on a grass lot.
Pushing further downtown we cross paths with about two hundred “direct action” folks. They even have a trance/techno soundtrack (c/o a red wagon with a stereo and “Funk the War” signs). But the mostly black wearing bandana crew seem confused as to where they’re headed.
“C’mon, this way,” yells one.
“No, this way,” shouts another, who eventually wins out.
But the confusion ends when it comes to the marchers’ intent. These folks want nothing short of destruction of the capatilist state. I’ve witnessed a few dozen riots in my day—mostly sports related—but I’ve never seen such a long, uncontested orgy of smashed windows, popped tires, trash can flipping, road blocking, and wreckage. Inigo captures a long shot of people running up the road by a big Macy’s, where a black woman sits on a bench smiling, Macy bags at her feet. Just then, two anarchists charge from behind with a metal grate. It takes a few tries, but they smash the windows.
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“We have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich.” — Gore Vidal
Well, who didn’t see this coming? Yep, it’s official — the American Taxpayer is collectively cleaning up after Corporate America…again.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the potential economic collapse associated with a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac fall — and I understand the history of the two institutions (dating back, in Fannie Mae’s case, to the late 1930s and the New Deal; it was a nationalized company until 1968…high five, privatization!). However, that doesn’t excuse the fact that they’ve been a corporation (though “government sponsored”) for the past four decades and have fallen into a serious state of disrepair in their new owner’s hands.
What now? Well, it seems that those that so relish “market freedom” when dancing to the tune of “Rich Getting Richer” turn on a dime (or a gaggle of them) to embrace a form of neo-liberal socialism after they’ve pillaged and plundered so much that the whole house of cards is threatening to come tumbling down — backing their corporate wagers with the collective American wallet. So, the bailout may be necessary to stave off economic crisis, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do a good deal of bitching and moaning until we get a better idea of just how the hell we ended up here in the first place.
In the words of one “SuperJesus” (…nice) from back in July:
I can’t fault the Bush administration for using taxpayer money to prop up and recapitalize these two banks. However I can be outraged that the collapse of proper regulations and oversights illustrates that the Republicans have once again nationalized corporate risk while making sure that the profits and the pay scales of the bank’s executives remain private.
Conservatives fall over themselves talking about the powers of capitalism and how regulations aren’t needed in a “free-market” because it will self correct and adjust. And yet here we see in all its glory yet another example where you and I get to shoulder the burden of Wall Street socialism and pay for corporate losses while the regulations that would have prevented such reckless behavior are abandoned… More.
But hey, that’s how they run the show. And they’re everywhere.
And then there’s those people over at Harvard Business Publishing. Maybe they have some ideas:
Our goal is to make home ownership affordable and safe for the many and is not to turn homes into commodities that can be traded like pork-belly futures, right? If so, is the best means of financing home ownership opaque markets anchored by the likes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—private companies whose executives and shareholders reaped handsome returns while taxpayers assumed the lion’s share of the risks?
As we move ahead to claim our universal rights, let’s remember that markets are a means, not an end, and that we can and should shape them to do our bidding. More.
Gosh, those guys/gals are smart.
It’ll definitely be interesting to see how this plays out as far as the housing/mortgage crisis, international markets, and Wall Street are concerned.
In closing, anyone else find this just a bit depressing?
Anarchy sucks!!!
If I recall correctly, New York Mag’s Jada Yuan smoked a blunt with Snoop Dogg for a blog post earlier this year. Now she’s hitting democracy’s frontlines, documenting the squelching of free speech via Denver police tear gas. Classic:
TAGS: Denver, dog, free, immigration, Nas, New York…cops used pepper spray and 100 protesters were taken into custody. Reports have focused on the police’s use of force (they claim protesters were carrying rocks), but it’s perhaps more disturbing that no one, including those who were watching the action, could articulate what the protest was about in the first place…
…other than bandannas, though, the protest didn’t seem to have any organizing principal. James and his friends weren’t with any group; they’d just come to meet fellow anti-capitalists. Their goal: to create a new society that eliminates greed and corruption. It would’ve helped if James and his friends had actually found their comrades. But they’d gone on a side trip to counter-protest a protest by the right-wing anti-immigration group the Minutemen, and by the time they rejoined the original protest, they couldn’t find it, and the cops were blocking their path. So they stood in the intersection and did charades, “just three of us, maybe five people at most,” surrounded by twenty journalists and around 100 armed officers.
This is music. “I ain’t no god damned son of a bitch,” says Matt Caplicki, who took this cellphone photo of Yo La and friends doing the Misfits’ “Where Eagles Dare.”
Yo La Tengo are the rare live band that, on any given day, can totally suck or be better than Zeppelin at the Garden 75. Yesterday, at the last free show ever at McCarren Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the trio made Page, Plant, and co look like pansies.
Playing a sun-soaked late afternoon set before 6000 nostalgic drunkards, YLT meandered through a 2-hour career spanning set, with styles careening across sonic oceans. In what was undoubtedly the best set any band ever played at this venue, the band seamlessly moved from free jazz to hardcore, ambient post-rock to solo-ed out fuzz jams, minimalist maraca and organ soul to ye olde style rock n roll. By the time they welcomed the opening band onstage for a cover of the Misfits’ “Where Eagles Dare,” my ears had heard more variety than a Kim’s Video clerk’s iPod shuffle. And YLT’s just one band—with only three people! Mind numbing.
Did I mention YLT are the masters of site specific setlist-free shows? Example: at about 6:40pm an August sun blindingly spiked the stage. So Yo La played their song “Summer Sun.” I’ll stop…It was great. The end.
RIP pool shows (though I must admit I only attended one before this—so “best show ever” would be hyperbolic had everyone I spoke to not said so). Mayor Bloomberg has announced plans to return the Bob Moses-built pool to it’s former self (a swimming pool), at a cost of a lot of millions of tax dollars. But smart money says the city will have no money come next year. Expect the pool to rock again next summer…
TAGS: Brooklyn, drunk, free, iPod, Music, Video, williamsburgNOTE: I originally posted this up here in Feb. But since Joe Biden was named VP, and this story is about his nephew Jamie’s band, I figured I’d repost it to remind you that other Bidens besides Joe are cool…I should’ve titled it “Just Don’t Make This About My Uncle…” Anyway, enjoy and check out Bloody Social.
New York Magazine commissioned this feature in summer 2007, but it never ran. My job was to spend a few months following the band Bloody Social, who feature Calvin Kleun male model Jamie Burke on vocals, Joe Biden’s nephew Jamie Biden on guitar, and Drew Beat from Bold on drums. My editor quit right as the story was finishing up. In summer 07 no downtown crew raged like Bloody Social. Endless thanks to Adam Fisher. Also to Vegas and JZ…
Bloody Social Nights: The Ballad of Burke and Biden
Jamie Burke and Drew “Beat” Thomas
1.
Downtown rock band Bloody Social are about to perform at a party sponsored by Myspace at Irving Plaza. But first the band has to takes some pictures. Every lens angles towards singer Jamie Burke, the London-born Calvin Klein model, a lanky, grunge-y longhair. His two black suction cup eyes mesmerize the paparazzi as they yell “Jamie, Jamie” without pause. Burke leans left and whispers to Bloody Social’s guitarist, who’s also a tall long hair named Jamie—Biden. He’s the nephew of Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden. The two Jamies wear all black, save Burke’s grey suit vest over a sleeveless tee and Biden’s grey bandana. The rest of the band is blurred among Bloody Social’s dozen-strong posse: a crew of club promoters, fashion designers, pro skateboarders, hairstylists, rockers, and models.
At 22, Jamie Burke is already an established playboy. A scan of Google images shows Burke in various states of boldface. Snowboarding in Aspen with Kate Moss. Smooching Lindsay Lohan outside Pastis in the Meatpacking District. Massaging a topless Sienna Miller on a Caribbean beach. Chilling with Boy George outside a club. Walking hand in hand with Courtney Love. Gracing Calvin Klein’s premier Soho billboard space on Houston at Broadway, his nose ringed blue steel stare and sexy man locks embracing model Lara Stone. A New York Times Style article headlined “Another Summer Of Love” using said billboard as a prime example of a neo-hippy fashion trend. Burke and crop-top Armani model Agyness Dean hugging nude in Vanity Fair, dubbed “Models du Jurs 2007.”
It’s 11pm, show time, but the thousand-capacity room is only half-full. Even amongst this sophisticated, guest list-only crowd of publicists, assistants, bloggers, editors, and label reps, Bloody Social are a band most have heard of but never actually heard. Taking the stage bathed in red smoke and feedback, Bloody Social blasts the spacious club with heavy Hollywood influenced blues-punk, a unique sound in New York’s current Brooklyn-centric 80s influenced rock scene. Burke shimmied across the stage doing a swerve dance, singing in a raspy, Weiland-y, voice. Biden breaks into a deep space solo.
A few songs in, the crowd polarizes. Men flee towards the (open) bar at the club’s rear while women swoon to Burke’s sermon. A girl at the bar points out that two of the band’s song choruses, “where do we go now” and “kick start my heart,” are already taken by Guns N’ Roses and Motley Crue respectively. Another girl, who works at Bumble and Bumble salon, says she could “never date a guy with better hair than me,” admitting that the entire band does.
Bloody Social formed just six months ago. Cocooned within a nightlife-fashion-celebrity nexus, the band has fast earned a reputation for unruly club shows and sordid after-parties. But with the record industry’s 20% annual decline hitting year seven, Bloody Social has no label bankroll and are in the unique position of being rock stars without a record. Leaving them stigmatized as male socialites trying to capitalize on connections. Still, the band’s first six months have been a montage of pure rock n’ rock mythology, complete with meddling starlets, battling egos, magazine photo shoots, tabloid gossip, and decadent trips to Miami, LA, and Brazil.
Ten minutes after Bloody Social’s set ends, I’m downstairs in the men’s room. Suddenly Burke bursts in with two sweaty, skinny women. All three huddle into a metal stall. This being a Live Nation venue with a North Korean police state vibe, one had to be impressed by Burke’s public Columbian orgy. A third girl pops in a few seconds later screaming, “Jamie, you fookin’ bastard!” in an Oxbridge accent. Burke opened the stall door and yanked her in too. Cheers, mate!
2.
“Just don’t make this about my uncle,” says Jamie Biden, 28, hiding behind thick plastic aviators and a newly grown beard. It’s a hot August afternoon outside the Belmont Lounge on E 15th St near Union Square. Biden is the Belmont’s newly hired “creative director,” and a previously upscale bar is now effectively a rock band’s clubhouse.
It gets better after jump…
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Inside a half-finished five star hotel in Djibouti this past July, several hundred foreign dignitaries, investors and journalists gathered for the first look at an ambitious plan to unite continents. Dubai-based Al Noor Holding Investment Company hopes to build a bridge — to be the world’s largest suspension structure, at points boasting 800-meters-tall pilings — between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The bridge, spanning 29 kilometers of the Red Sea between Djibouti and Yemen, will be anchored by brand new cities on each side bearing the same name, Al Noor City, or City of Light. The estimated cost of the whole venture is somewhere around $200 billion. The visionary of this project, Tarek bin Laden, Saudi oligarch and brother-in-law of the notorious Osama, hopes in 15 to 20 years time to see his dream of the bridge and both cities become reality. But just how realistic is it?
Perhaps Djibouti’s only real asset today is its location at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It has one of Africa’s smallest populations, estimated at around 500,000, and its land size is comparable to the US state of Massachusetts. It is also bordered by Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia — three nations who are embroiled in multiple conflicts and whose names have long generated images of famine, despotism and anarchy.
Along the road between the Djibouti-Ambouli Airport and the hotel hosting the project launch, people wandered between single-storey concrete buildings and shacks — some carried jerrycans or bundles of sticks, but most walked empty handed. Less than a kilometer away from the hotel, a naked child squatted beside a wall while groups of shirtless men slept in ditches beneath the shade of trees.
The “Bridge of the Horn” is to have a six-lane highway and three light rail lines for passenger and commercial traffic, with a goal of one day handling 100,000 cars and 20,000 rail passengers per day. There are also plans for a natural gas pipeline to run the length of the bridge from Djibouti into Yemen and onto the Persian Gulf.
If completed, the bridge will cross the aptly named Bab el Mandeb, the Gateway of Tears. It is the shortest point between Yemen and Djibouti and is named after the treacherous waters made famous for centuries of taking ships and lives. There is also the deadly threat of Somali pirates operating in the area, enough to warrant the permanent basing of an international pirate task force and several thousand French Foreign Legion and US military troops. Europe’s supply of oil from the Gulf passes through these straits making security here all the more vital.
And just as the Suez Canal controls sea traffic at the northern end of the Red Sea, the Gateway of Tears owns the shipping lanes of the south. Not far from the hotel there was a sight common to every port city from Buenos Aires to Shanghai: shipping containers. Stacked like a multi-colored set of Legos, rows of metal boxes waited to be filled with goods, loaded onto ships and sent out across the globe. This is the Horn of Africa. (more…)
TAGS: 2000, attack, economy, free, HBO, insurgents, Iran, Iraq, Islam, long island, model, Muslim, NPR, Pirates, Schools, Singapore, Slam, Suspension, Trade, Travel, Vice, Video, warNo pictures needed. I’ve highlighted key findings in this dispatch from The Independent UK:
The bewildered boy clutches his fruit salad and searches for a seat at the back of the bar. He’s wearing a vintage flannel shirt and skinny jeans, a pair of pointed brogues and pink plastic-framed sunglasses. His hair is a peroxide crop in the androgynous, Agyness Deyn style. This hipper-than-thou hangout in the Truman Brewery on London’s Brick Lane, with its indistinct electronic soundtrack, is a popular spot. Emos, nu-folkies and post-post-punks mingle on Moroccan-style cushions. A guy in a ripped white V-neck T-shirt is stretched out on the leather couch in the corner, his face lit by the pale glow from his MacBook. For an aspiring scenester like the boy in the flannel shirt, standing out from the crowd is going to be a struggle.
We’re in the crucible of London cool, a district so packed with poseurs that it attracts as many satirists as it does followers of fashion. But forget any tired talk simply of Shoreditch twats and Brooklyn hipsters. Across the developed world, from Copenhagen to Cape Town, from Tokyo to Sao Paolo, from Kreuzberg to Williamsburg – from Grangemouth to Guildford, for that matter – today’s scenesters all wear the same clothes and accessories, listen to the same sounds, ride the same bicycles, and read the same magazines, e-mailouts and style blogs.
“There always used to be a particular city that was the centre of cool at a particular point in time,” says Ted Polhemus, style anthropologist and author of Streetstyle: From Sidewalk to Catwalk. “But now there’s no longer a place where it’s ‘at’; there’s no longer any centre of the world’s popular cultural universe. For a time it seemed it would be a simple matter of shifting from London to Tokyo. But instead, street style is everywhere and in places you’d never have guessed it would be.”
The Truman Brewery is a microcosm of an international phenomenon. Across the alley from the bar, Rough Trade East – London’s coolest independent record store – is celebrating its first birthday with a limited edition run of Rough Trade-branded Converse All Stars, the global scenester’s shoe of choice. Next door, there’s a hairdresser cutting the “do” of the day, its clients reclining in Japanese Belmont Cadilla styling chairs “for ultra-comfort and design”.
There’s the local scooter dealership with a rank of Mod-ish Italian Vespas lined up on the pavement outside. And at the end of the row is a clothing store that specialises in stitching together two old pieces of clothing to make something new. Want your pinstripe suit grafted to a hoodie? This is the place for you. And this is what global scenester culture has come to in the Noughties – a succession of styles from the past half-century, patched together to form a single, strangely familiar whole. There’s a bit of Eurotrash here, some British punk there, a swatch of Asian minimalism, and a sizeable off-cut of blue-collar chic from both sides of the Atlantic. So how, exactly, did hip get globalised?
Like every other American Apparel clothing store worldwide, the East End branch – a stone’s throw from the Truman Brewery – stocks Spandex hotpants and sequined tube dresses, white Eighties gym socks and DayGlo sports sweats, maroon corduroys worthy of Woodstock, even the latest album by French electro-auteur Sébastien Tellier. The shop is so popular it’s moving to bigger premises.
American Apparel is an archetype for the globalisation of “cool”. The retail chain was founded in California in 1997 with an outsider ethic. Most of its clothes are produced in an 800,000-square foot factory in Los Angeles, and its Canadian founder, Dov Charney, actively associates his brand with the city’s multicultural melting pot.
Today, American Apparel is the largest domestic clothing manufacturer in the US, and boasts around 200 stores worldwide – in Canada, Mexico, Israel, Japan, Korea and most of Western Europe. There are outlets in Glasgow, Brighton and Liverpool, and the locations of its London branches read like a historical tour of capital cool: Portobello Road, Carnaby Street, Covent Garden, Camden. The further its global reach stretches, the more easily the company can study and copy street style, before repackaging it and selling it back to the originators of that style, with an American Apparel label attached.
Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing giant, is another outfitter of the global scenester. Until 2004, the chain was known as a cheap and nasty Asian C&A equivalent. Its first move into the UK, in the early Noughties, met with little success. So Uniqlo executives went back to the drawing board and hired top creative director Kashiwa Sato to transform its fortunes.
Sato’s strategy was to make Uniqlo a global brand, but one unafraid of flaunting its modern Japanese origins. Now the company’s website is world class, its store interiors sleek and m
