Younger, Dumber

3eanuts: January 3, 1969 — see The Complete Peanuts 1967-1970

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:57:17 -0500

January 3, 1969 — see The Complete Peanuts 1967-1970

"You should never just read for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt..."

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:25:09 -0500

“You should never just read for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behaviour, or better yet, your own. Pick “hard books.” Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for God’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, “I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.” Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of “literature”? That means fiction, too, stupid.”

- John Waters (pg. 178 Role Models)

Okay, Jen. Here Goes: "Stop Being Mean To Women On The Internet"

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:34:00 -0500

dcpierson:

My fellow comedian Jen Kirkman is boycotting Twitter until men stop using it as a medium to be awful to her because she’s a woman yet still has the audacity to express her views on occasion. Or more specifically, until her male counterparts speak up against this kind of treatment.

Alright, Jen. I’m in. And this isn’t something I should have had to wait until it got this bad to be “in” about. This is something we should’ve done on our own and I’m sorry about that. But anyway, here goes.

The rest of this post is addressed to men in general, more specifically straight men who use the Internet to be mean to anyone, and more specifically, straight men who use the Internet to be mean to women.

Alright, guys: Imagine you’re a woman.

Shouldn’t be that hard. Don’t bring any baggage about “Women are like THIS, man” along with you. A lot of things about your life would be different but the overriding feeling would be one of just being a human being, which is the overriding feeling most of us feel all the time without even realizing it.

So, you’re a woman. Now, because you’re a woman, everything you say or do is judged out loud, by any stranger that feels like shouting or tweeting their opinion at you.

On its merit? On its logic? On its coolness or funniness? Not exclusively. Not at all.

Instead, all too often, it will be judged based on that person’s idea of what should be coming out of the mouth of someone who has the same sex organ you have. You are no longer whatever you are. Now you are a “female (whatever you are.)”

Fail to comply with each and every person’s individual set of standards about how a “female ______” should behave, and you will hear about it, and it will hurt.

Imagine that.

Imagine that your every word and action could be held to an outmoded sense of standards by a bunch of strangers because you have one kind of sex organ instead of another kind of sex organ.

That each one of these strangers had a slightly (or in some cases wildly) different set of standards regarding how you should behave given the sex organ you have, and God forbid you should point out that these standards are outmoded, unfair, or downright backwards, because HEY THAT’S JUST HOW THEY WERE RAISED.

After emerging from the Imagination Chamber, maybe you say: “Well, if somebody’s offended by something I say, that’s just because they’re too sensitive. If I were them, I would take it in stride.”

Would you? I’m not sure you would. But even if that were true, it doesn’t matter. You are NOT them. And you demonstrate a shocking lack of empathy and imagination by being unable to place yourself in their shoes, to feel what it might be like to be them, to be subject to the torrents of abusive crap somebody like Jen, somebody like your girlfriend, somebody like your sister, somebody like your mom, has to put up with on an hourly basis.

If you find yourself saying “You’re too sensitive” a lot then it is entirely possible that you are, in fact, being a jerk.

Read More

Great points. Reminded me a lot of being younger, when I had friends who would insult me and then quickly follow it up by saying “JK, JK” as if that defused the insult. Granted, they were 12 and they don’t do it anymore. Similarly (hopefully) I bet a lot of these anti-Jen Kirkman tweets were from people who maybe aren’t that cruel in real life. Pointing out the lack of distinction between IRL insults and Twitter/Facebook/etc insults in terms of how they hurt the insultee is an especially important thing to mention that isn’t mentioned very often.

"Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting..."

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:47:44 -0400

“

Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But the marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “they’ll remember me now, ” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. You coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.

We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless, but I am an animal like any other.

We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad to leave a lesser scar, but it’s not sad, it’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.

The real heroes aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox.

”

- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars (with omissions to avoid spoilers. It’s a good book, you guys)

99% of women on OkCupid say:

Sat, 05 May 2012 19:06:31 -0400

“please be: funny, good looking, college educated, creative, goal oriented, have impeccable style and love dogs.”

The other 1% prefer cats.

In the immortal words of Hoobastank: “I’m not a perfect person/Occasionally I wear sweaters that have holes.”

tothemaxxx: Numan Parada’s “fantasy public transit map” for Los...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:47:25 -0400

tothemaxxx:

Numan Parada’s “fantasy public transit map” for Los Angeles, 2007.

spiegelman:

This is a thing of beauty.

What a nice future this would be for Los Angeles!

illmont: iLLmont presents: Allen Thomas - I Want A Gun Serenity...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:49:00 -0400

illmont:

iLLmont presents:

Allen Thomas - I Want A Gun

Serenity Prayer

Untitled (Yes!)

Captivated (feat. Olde English)

Motion #1

Dexter Gordon

Front Porch Jawn

Thing 1-Thing 2 (feat. Khalil Who)

Love Conversation

Motion #2

Posts On The Internet (feat. EyeBeiLLin and Powl Abraham)

CPU Tower (The Dotted Line)

January 27th (feat. Felix Von Soco)

SoLonGoodbye/Motion #3 (Outro Isn’t a Real Word)

[BONUS] Seth Speaks (Scrambled Intro)

[BONUS] Scrambled Eggs (feat. TMNT*)

tracks: 2,5,6,8,10,12,13 produced by Felix Von Soco
track 3 produced by Plex Major
track 7 produced by L7one
track 11 produced by Con The Master
and track 15 produced by AJ

TMNT is: AJ, Ziggy, Khalil Who, Seth, KC, and Callum

Bandcamp
Mediafire

a huge thank you to everyone who were forces in the making of this. a large thank you to my iLLmont brethren who were patient with the features and production and the final little stretches of this whole process. ESPECIALLY my manager Powl and L7one, both of them had to be the MOST patient working with me and so thank you for not pullin’ my shit back in the process. thank you to my extended family over here in East ATL, ya’ll gave a nigga shit to write about and held me down. especially Ashley. for gracing my album with your ashy ass arms. Thank you Gaelon for letting this bum nigga and your couch have an ongoing relationship. thank you Cass and Mike, both of you have taught me more about music than either of you could grow to know, R.I.P. Cocaine Adventure. alot of my ideas for music come from you all. thank you to my turtles, ya’ll were some of the few kids to hold me down before you even knew I was rapping and taking it seriously and then supporting my corny ass.special thanks to Brandon and my BKdub folk, and no I’m NOT performin at Afropunk. thanks Ian for sitting still and drinking wine for me. thank you Street Sharks, it was a humble beginning to something that’s not really that much huger hahahaha. thanks Javis, now where is that song at!? and of course every single person who ever listened to a song that I was on and enjoyed what I had to say. this LP is for you.

so pay attention.

illmont: Allen Thomas - I Want A Gun trailer. Esto Gaza?...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:01:01 -0500

illmont:

Allen Thomas - I Want A Gun trailer.

Esto Gaza? I’m even more excited about this Allen Thomas album now.

boston: Tim Wakefield calls it a career - FORT MYERS, Fla. -...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:55:19 -0500

boston:

Tim Wakefield calls it a career

- FORT MYERS, Fla. - After 17 seasons, Tim Wakefield has decided to end his baseball career.

Nooooooooooooooo :(

(But seriously, I love Tim Wakefield. He is pretty old now I guess, but I figured he could throw a knuckleball forever and therefore pitch until he was, like, 60? Sounds reasonable to me! Oh well. I’ll always remember how he was the starting pitcher for the Red Sox pretty much every other time I would go to games with my dad when I was younger. Good luck, bud.)

Some of these pieces of conventional wisdom are easier to follow...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:55:38 -0500

Some of these pieces of conventional wisdom are easier to follow than others, but there’s hope in my mind that those will help pave the way to the tougher ones.

Oh no! Sara Crow: Never Get Tired Project Update

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:40:36 -0500

Oh no! Sara Crow: Never Get Tired Project Update:

saracrow:

2011 was the year of a lot of e-mails, facebook messages, and anonymous Tumblr “asks” about the status of the Bomb the Music Industry documentary. I realize I haven’t been in good communication, and I apologize. Promise 2012 will have better, more thorough, and hopefully more exciting updates.

…

magnolius: TarGetBooks Shelf - designed by Mebrure Oral, an...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:47:01 -0500

magnolius:

TarGetBooks Shelf - designed by Mebrure Oral, an Istanbul based industrial designer.

This special shelf is basically designed for separating the books that we have read and we will read. It shows you your target books all the time. You don’t need long books list anymore, just buy books on your target and put them on shelf and never forget and postpone your reading plans. It stimulates you, attracts your attention and encourages you to read more.

Good design will change the world, or at least our relationship with reading.

teamteamwork: First NOW PLAYING of 2012. Get amped. Punch a...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:06:59 -0500

teamteamwork:

First NOW PLAYING of 2012. Get amped. Punch a stranger in the face [indirectly, via a Wii-mote]!

This is blowing my mind right now.

Favorites of 2011: Best way to solidify the end of a friendship

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:10:08 -0500

A few months went by and I realized I had no idea what was going on with one of my best friends from high school. Like so many people (probably, I don’t know that many people, just assuming) who feel out of touch with old friends, I thought, “You know, I haven’t heard from her in a while. What’s she up to? Let’s check out her Facebook page,” only to find out that the reason her updates were no longer appearing on my newsfeed was that she had defriended (unfriended? antifriended?) me.

Naturally, a bout of friendship-evaluation followed. Should I have called her more often? It’s not like she ever called me. Did I leave an inadvertently offensive comment on a status update? I thought she liked my sense of humor. Would she be happy to hear that her transgression was used for personal gain, leading to this blog post that few people will read? She’s not much of a Dave Eggers fan, so probably not.

And most importantly, could I call her again and catch up and have the whole thing be forgotten? I still haven’t decided; I’ve been left cold from the Facebook burn.

In February I traveled to Middletown, Connecticut to see Bomb...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:43:00 -0500

In February I traveled to Middletown, Connecticut to see Bomb the Music Industry! play in a Wesleyan dorm building basement. Curious about the opening act Static Stamina, I went to their Facebook page and clicked on a link to hear their apparently brand new song, “We Bought the Ocean,” and oh man! It’s so crazy! “What is even happening in this song?”, I thought, all the while sitting in my room eating chips and salsa and pressing the ‘play’ button on their Bandcamp page over and over (that’s a pretty picture, I know). Sampled dialogue from Mad Men precedes mile-a-minute rapping about buying the ocean and charging people for access (presumably on top of the $15 fee one must already pay to park their car by the beach) fueled by frantic guitars and drums. It’s a rap-rock hyrbrid, but with pop-punk instead of nu-metal (Limp Bizkit, duh) or hardcore (The Transplants, I guess? Sure). It’s actually a really smart song and the chorus, which is simply “We bought the ocean! We bought the ocean! We bought the ocean! Pay the toll, pay the toll, you wanna go in you gotta pay the toll!” is a total earworm. The crowd went nuts for this song at the show.

The band’s essentially split up now; members spent the rest of the year pretending to be the band Girls on the Static Stamina Facebook page.

Favorites of 2011: Best live show

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:23:00 -0500

Low played in Boston on April 29th. I went with my friend Ian, who also was there with me when Low opened for Explosions in the Sky at Radio City Music Hall earlier that month. That was a great show, but this was even better.

It was a rarity among shows I go to: there was absolutely no talking during or between songs (only at the end, when Alan Sparhawk mentioned that he wasn’t sure what to play next, did people talk, shouting out suggestions. Hey, he asked for it). It was what I imagine seeing the Boston Symphony Orchestra to be like, but that respect was finally reserved for musicians working in a rock context rather than a classical one. It was nice to be among others with respect for music like this. Not that Low is a band that ‘rocks really hard’ or whatever, but I’ve still been to a lot of shows featuring quiet, softer bands whose primary instruments are guitar, bass, and drums, and there are always a few people who can’t be quiet long enough to pay attention without shouting something stupid or talking amongst their friends near the stage.

They mostly played songs from their good-but-not-great new album C’mon. The music sounded better live than on record though, especially with the great acoustics in Boston’s Paramount Theater. I zoned out during “Especially Me,” “Nothing But Heart,” and “Murderer,” getting lost in the repetition and slow increase in volume - both are classic Low tricks that, for me, never get old.

While they turned down some song requests I’d have liked to have heard, the encore was still great due to the band’s nearly flawless playing that night - they could have played anything and the crowd would have still loved it. While people were still relatively silent then, it was easy to feel the collective happiness as Low dug into their discography. It felt as though everyone in the venue was communicating telepathically, saying “Fuck yeah!” when Low started playing “Shame” from 1995’s Long Division, as well as when the keyboard kicked in for a performance of “Violent Past” from 2007’s Drums and Guns, and finally, during a performance of “When I Go Deaf” that overpowered the audience with both tenderness (the opening verses and the lyrics within) and force (the rest of the song). Upon leaving, Ian and I both voiced our opinions: that show was so good. Like, ridiculously good.

It’s still something I think about fondly almost eight months later.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-18)

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:49:00 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-18):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Logged a lot of plays from Emperor X’s new album, Western Teleport, last week. I’m not super intense about list-making this year, but Western Teleport is probably my favorite record of the year. It’s probably the most lyrically engaging, and it has two of my favorite songs in quite some time: “Sig Alert” and “Allahu Akbar.” Emperor X was quoted in an interview with Huffington Post as saying that some of the songs on Western Teleport reimagined Middle East-esque conflicts in places like Los Angeles, and he paints a vivid picture in those two songs especially.

I don’t know what it means that an interview like that ended up being what tipped me over the edge in supporting Western Teleport as the album of the year. Maybe all artists have equally engaging stories behind their new albums, but just weren’t interviewed about them. The music we end up liking is so arbitrarily chosen sometimes.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-11)

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:18:00 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-11):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

The Secret Boyfriend split LP with Horaflora that was released in January is so good. It’s free on Bandcamp now.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-4)

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:49:00 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-4):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My sixth most-listened-to artist was Taio Cruz (no it wasn’t).

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-27)

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:43:00 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-27):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

The biggest surprise that came with the Andrew Jackson Jihad/O Pioneers!!! 9” that I recently bought was that two free live recordings, one from each band, were included in the download unlocked by the download card that came with the album. The AJJ live recording was really good, obviously.