Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Who Are Teh Futar?

Ta-Nehisi Coates says, "we are":

It's really been enlightening for me to watch Obama's share of the white vote change state by state. It's really obliterated this idea that all white people everywhere think the same about blacks. It's even obliterated the only slightly more nuanced idea that white voters in the South are somehow more racist than white voters in the North. What does it mean that Ohio and Wisconsin whites voted so differently? What do we take from the idea that Obama lost the white vote in Pennsylvania but won it Virginia?

Well, quite a bit as my super-intelligent commenters have pointed out. It seems that it isn't even a matter of poor whites versus rich whites, or educated whites versus non-educated whites, although all of that factors in. We've seen that the percentage of black folks doesn't really make a difference either. There is something beautiful in this, because you see a complexity in the great monolith that is often simply labeled White America. It's a complexity that, as a black person, I often miss. Even the one simple fact buried inside is beautiful--the biggest predictor of the white vote seems to be age. The point? The racists aren't the future. We are.

Monday, May 12, 2008

My favorite political phrase, thanks to PMI, "respect the Dodd:"

"Having been a candidate, it's awfully difficult when you're going 180 miles an hour in one direction and you have a rough night, as ... Senator Clinton did last Tuesday night, to expect to within 48 hours or 72 hours to reverse field, to stop everything and go in a different direction is asking way too much in my view. Give her a chance to breathe, to settle down, to recognize what's going on here. She'll make the right choice"

Friday, May 09, 2008

Saturday, Melting

My funk-punk band The Meltdowns is performing at a record store tomorrow down the street from my place in Greenpoint. Very excited. Sat May 10th, 3pm. We've been working hard to prepare for it, should be a really fun time. Hope to see you there!

The Meltdowns @
Permanent Records
Saturday May 10th, 3pm
181 Franklin St, Brooklyn NY 11222

You're A Laughing Stock, Get Out

Hotline On Call, Jersey City, NJ :
During the morning press conference at Liberty Science Center in Newark, NJ, the senator was flanked by Sen. Joe Lieberman and former NJ Gov. Tom Kean, Lieberman was quick to jump to McCain's defense.

'I just want to report that this morning I personally checked John McCain;'s bearings," said the 2000 Dem veep nom. "He has not lost any of them. They are all in really great shape."
Somebody got lost in the Touch Tunnel. And possibly groped.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

My Mon Bats Don't Shiv

Do you remember that scene in the 1989 BATMAN movie (jesus, it was 1989???) where the Joker's henchmen tear up an art museum while jamming to Prince?

Partyman.

Thanks, Candi.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tank Crash!

Did I ever mention that I started a record label with Adam some time ago? It's called Tank Crash! and it has lain mostly dormant, save for releases from The Meltdowns.

But I'm thinking of a bit of a revival these days for two reasons:

1) I know a lot more people these days, who would either care about the music, or would want to release music on the label.

2) I can pretty easily throw together a Rails app that would handle a page for each release, catalogue them, and provide the download features and all that so that it's just a matter of uploading the zip file and the record cover for the artist. Perhaps a CSS file, too.

I mean, I'm envisioning a system for free releasing music to the Internets. But I suppose a pay system could be plugged into it pretty easily later on...

Another one off the list

"MUSIC WITHOUT WORDS IS CRAPPY AND SUCKS AND I HATE IT, I ONLY LIKE THINGS THAT FUCKING ROCK LIKE PAPA ROACH"

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