Archive for 2010
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[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 24, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 24th, 2010I’m not sure I know how to live in this country any more, they’ve changed too many rules. Maybe we need to start making our own.
I’m not so sure I know how to live in America any more. When it comes to politics, I’ve always been the sort who’s in favor of a mixed economy, believing that a balance of free markets and social programs is the best choice for governing. Regardless of the finer points of my political opinions, I got good grades in Civics class, and was properly indoctrinated as a US citizen growing up. Although what I’m about to say is going to sound like it’s partisan and politically motivated, it’s really not. It’s about lifestyle, and responsibility to my fellow citizens and financial agreements. Like many, I’ve had some credit issues here and there, but as we’ve learned recently, lenders are kind of like drug dealers, offering a magical solution to all your problems, without advising you of the long term dangers of the solution they provide. But by and large, I’ve always believed in hard work and paying my bills and taxes on time. The entire fabric of my basic moral fiber as a citizen of the world’s leading capitalist democracy has been slowly unraveling for a while though, and I find it harder and harder to keep living like the American I thought I was. For me it all started when 19 Saudis engaged in terrorist acts against the US, and the administration at the time perplexed the world by responding to the attacks by starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And as if going against a long-standing tradition of not engaging in wars of aggression wasn’t bad enough, it was clear that a large part of that administration’s motive at the time was personal financial benefit, and a desire to privatize the military, so other “disaster capitalists” could do the same. Check out Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine
The Virtual Revolution On BBC
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 23, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010Ironically, I’ll probably watch the latest TV show I’m excited about on the Internet, not on TV.
It’s a little ironic that I’m as intrigued as I am with the upcoming BBC Television series The Virtual Revolution, because I haven’t had TV since 2002. Since I don’t have TV, I have no idea how well they’re promoting the program through that medium, but I do know that – true to the concept of the series – they’re promoting it rather brilliantly via the web. If you follow any of the mainstream tech blogs like Gizmodo, you may already know about the program, but if you fall a little lower on the Social Technographics ladder, you’ll hear more about it soon. So why am I so excited about it? Well, aside from my minor crush on the show’s host Aleks Krotoski, the PhD-bound tech journalist who (among other things) writes a tech column for the Gaurdian, the show has been open-sourced in a fashion reminiscent of Trent Reznor’s recent concert DVD. The BBC web site for the program features a blog to keep you updated, and they’ve already had a mashup contest to highlight the series’ special content that you are allowed to download, edit and republish under a permissive licence. They even open-sourced the name of the series. View the intro teaser at left, and the mashups and other clips below; the program launches on BBC2 Saturday January 30, 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Two Tuned Tablas And A Microphone Part III – Maybe Bad Boy & Bhangra Don’t Mix
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 22, 2010 by admin in Music
Friday, January 22nd, 2010As we continue to drown in a sea of desi music, we wonder if goa and gangsta really work together, and decide that D is for Detroit, not Desi.
 Sorry, Kidd Skilly. The D is for “Detroit” not “Desi” |
In part one and two of our dip into desi music, we whimpered a lot about the overwhelming amount of material to explore. We’re still whimpering, but after a watching a LOT of video clips and listening to dozens of streams, we’ve reached a few conclusions, even if we have only scratched the surface of the larger desi market. One is that we’ll be doing a part IV. Another is that the best of the current releases are the ones that don’t pander to rap cultural inflections. If you think a rural white guy co-opting black urban culture is funny, you should see what happens when a British Indian guy tries it. As an example, an artist like ADH can turn out a fairly decent live groove like Tu Ni Jaandi and then turn around and produce a rapper-wannabe absurdity like Taubah Taubah. I mean, if I’m not mistaken, the fellow is wearing a “Members Only” jacket in that last video. In part II we mentioned the lack of terminology for desi genres. I’m classifying that one as “Pootyjab”. Along the same lines, ADH’s Kurri – while a cool groove – might’ve benefited from a little less autotune. The guy’s got a great voice, there’s no need to “Akon it up”. In what is nearly the inverse of this problem, you have white Euro swami-wannabes like Prem Joshua jamming around India in their old man ponytails and 70′s facial hair. I can’t help wondering if I might have actually liked a tune like Sharanay if I hadn’t seen the aging Euro-hippies playing it. All these little criticisms serve to point up what does work though, which is when the artists adhere to their own cultural strengths, which in the case of a lot of desi music is either an almost kitschy romantic eroticism, or a passionate and deeply expressive melodic and rhythmic sophistication. If the fusion they reach for is musical rather than visual, as in the case of an artist like Surinder Rattan – who fuses his Indian stylings with Two-Step Garage – the results can actually be gratifyingly original as with his chart-climber Tappe from 2006 (which strangely keeps reminding me of Stereo MC’s Elevate My Mind from the 90′s). So as we said, we’re still only scratching the surface here. We not only haven’t finished digging into the more diverse global desi market, we’ve omitted a huge segment of this market by focusing mostly on the “poppier” material, and especially the UK-influenced bhangra scene. We’re actually bringing in an “expert” on Part IV, in which we’ll explore both the complex distribution channels for this stuff, as well as the more classically-influenced material. Unfortunately, in spite of the wealth of material out there, even sites like Pitchfork.com don’t cover these genres; there’s just not enough money in a single niche to garner revenue-generating readership. For now though, if you’ve been enjoying the material we’ve already explored, you might want to check out sources like SimplyBhangra.com, the UK label Moviebox, and YouTube channels like Felonious Vindaloo. They’re all great launchpads to a mind-boggling world of bhangra. Read the rest of this entry »
Why Democrats Always Lose & Why American Voters Need A Brand
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 21, 2010 by admin in Politics
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Or, If You’re So Smart How Come You’re Losing? Also, help us pick a mascot for the American Voter. Our first pick is a monkey, but would love your input.
I realized recently that it’s a lot easier to think and talk about politics if you don’t take the topic seriously. I came to this conclusion while having dinner with my liberal friends the other evening. They were mostly talking about what they’ve donated to help Haiti, and how shocking it was that Scott Brown had won in Massachusetts. I accidentally started an argument by asking if they had put their donations on credit cards, asked how much personal debt they carried, what they thought about the federal deficit, if they had thought about Haiti much prior to the earthquake, and what they had done about military spending lately. It really was an accident, but the ensuing brouhaha made clear a point a conservative friend of mine had made recently, which is that people in power love it when the liberal intellectuals get engaged in political discourse, because then they get so busy debating the finer points of the issues at hand that they end up not doing anything about them. And that’s why I reckon we’ll have no new health care plan, a couple new wars, a quadrillion dollar deficit, and a Republican president in 2012. Seriously. Sure, America elected its first black president and the first democratic congressional majority in a while last year, but it took two wars, thousands of deaths, a nationalized banking and auto industry, a massive loss of privacy rights, and a thoroughly gutted economy to do it. And what are liberals talking about a year and a half later? Haiti, a health care bill, and a single republican senator in New England. Don’t get me wrong, this works on conservative voters too. Tell a bunch of hillbillies in a bar that Cat Stevens hates Jesus, that Asians and Mexicans are taking all the jobs, and that allowing gay marriage will turn their kids into atheist homos, and the next thing you know you have George W. Bush in the White House. The Lutzian/Rovian strategy of pandering to voter ignorance is now standard operating procedure for campaigning; ironically the Obama campaign is one of their best proofs of concept. So given this profound dopiness on the part of the American populace, it occurred to me that if the GOP has its elephant, and the Dems have their donkey, the American Voter needs a mascot too. I figured a monkey was a good choice. What about you? Any suggestions? Read the rest of this entry »
Steve Jobs Wears iPatch To Pitch Pre-Hacked arghPod?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 20, 2010 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Everyone seems pretty sure that Steve Jobs will announce the new Apple Tablet on Monday. But the fact is that they’ve predicted this before, and been dead wrong. It could easily be a real iOpener, like an iBrator, an iPatch, or an iPotty.
What is Apple’s new arghPod? An anti-piracy device? Did they finally decide to save iPhone users the trouble, and jailbreak the phones for them? Is it simply a symbolic expression of the frustration we’re all feeling as we await the release of some kind of Apple tablet device? Argh. Everyone seems pretty sure that a tablet called iSlate is what Steve Jobs will announce on Monday Wednesday, and as we pointed out recently, that would be the perfect name, because it iS late, is late indeed. But maybe it’s something else. The image released to the press isn’t very informative; it suggests that maybe Apple is getting into the Splatball gun market. Or maybe they’re just announcing the new iTunes cloud music venture. I don’t know why I fret so much about the release of the thing; I probably won’t buy one for a year after the release date anyway. Whatever Steve Jobs announces on Monday, the fact is that no-one who knows for sure is telling yet what it is, so the speculation can continue. Which is why we dredged up our favorites from old Worth1000 contests for imaginary Apple products, as well as a couple of other parodies, including our own. See our selections below. Read the rest of this entry »