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The Hood Internet
By Jared on Sun, Mar 30, 2008 8:36 pm
del.ico.us
reddit!Last night, I had the privelage of gracing the Bar Mitzvah celebration of a former camper of mine. His older sister, a good friend of mine from college, persuaded our gentile friends with the prospect of an open bar to get tanked and shake our money-makers to the sweet sounds of the 80s and early 90s. I must preface this story with a few points. First, I did not use a Bar Mitzvah as an excuse to get drunk and make a scene: if that's what you were expecting, I recommend you read Tucker Max's stories or some equally tasteless crap. Second, my wonderful camper's 13 year old friends are much mroe immature than I remember being, the references to my friend E's "tittyballs" ranking at somewhere around 17 or 18 by the time the little shits called it in for the night (at 11...thank God the Rye Hilton's bars are well-stocked and flexible with thier hours).
Anyway, a few whiskey's in I was engaged in a casual conversation with the DJ, who, apart from getting demands for the "Thong Song" by unwanted brats every Saturday, produces mash-ups on his free time. Amsued by my whiskey-fueled demands for "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," Donnie ended up playing me a mash-up between Cyndi Lauper and English rapper Dizzee Rascal's 'Fix Up, Look Sharp' by The Hood Internet, a Chicago-based band specializing in mash-ups of hip-hop with indee rock. You can find it here. Needless to say, I was impressed (although through my Jim Beam haze I mistook Dizzee Rascal for Rick Ross. Anyway, the music is fresh and the mixtapes exceed expectations. Some videos of thier other mash-ups are available on YouTube.
Eve vs. Radiohead:
Omarion vs. Mylo:
The duo recently graced the stages of an SXSW concert in Austin, but the chances of catching these guys somewhere in Boston seem minimal at best. I don't typically follow the works of mash-up artists, but these gents deserve to be watched...
ftw,
J
Instead Of Sitting Around With Your Finger Up Your Ass, Look Around
By Jared on Tue, Mar 4, 2008 11:33 am
c'mon local 718, where are you when i need you?
ftw,
J-
"I Eat Them With Bananas..."
By Jared on Thu, Feb 28, 2008 5:03 am
starting the day the healthy way
i tried to press onward, but it's all in broken german...
i don't even want to think about what you would need to add to make this a "balanced breakfast." i'm hoping it's schnitzl. or beer.
Contest of Champions
By Jared on Thu, Feb 28, 2008 4:16 am
http://boston.craigslist.org/sob/stp/589313745.html
i'm almost excited to throw down a few bucks for the privelage of watching this one, but everyone and thier mother knows that only appropriate venue for this battle is a full-blown casino. unfortunately, deval's casino proposal is on the verge of a messy abortion, so it's more likely that i'll have to risk my ass finding a bookie on the irish riviera.
dear speaker dimasi: please step off my governor's nuts
i'm not claiming that i'm hungry for the opportunity to get clusterfucked into submitting my paycheck to institutionalized gambling (if you've seen "fear and loathing in las vegas," the most common initial reaction to a casino is, well, that. it is an american circus): i just want to be entertained. dimasi's "you're my bitch" attitude is titillating enough that it warrants at least a little attention. it's amusing to remind someone of their upcoming failure, but unnecessary, like shouting "yankees suck" at a bruins game. try it if you want to see patrice bergeron spontaneously lapse into a pcp rampage.
also unnecessary:
does this candidate make my ass look fat?
jesus christ, just paint my goddamn breakfast blue already.
ftw,
J-
Cape Wind Gets a Turn of Support
By Jared on Tue, Jan 22, 2008 4:01 pm
Common sense finally overcomes conspicuous leisure and bourgeoisie consumption
After seven years and over $30 million, the controversial Cape Wind offshore windfarm project has finally gained scientific validity.
The federal Mineral Management Service (MMS) released a 2,000-page report indicating that an offshore multi-turbine windfarm would not significantly effect wildlife, tourism, and property values on Cape Cod.
The report also indicated that Cape Wind would provide numerous benefits, including increased energy independence, the creation of jobs in the offshore energy industry, and, according to Cape Wind President Jim Gordon “the largest greenhouse gas reduction initiative in the United States,” offsetting carbon dioxide emissions by nearly one million tons. With the US facing oil prices of nearly $100 per barrel and a cocainesque dependency on foreign resources, the Cape Wind model could move beyond Massachusetts (New Jersey, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland are also considering similar projects).
Many young Bostonians are breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of lowering their cost of living.
“My utility costs have doubled in the past month, since its gotten cold,” said Harvard student Matt Blake, who lives off-campus in Somerville. “It’s a pretty big hassle when you’re trying to be a good student and pay rent at the same time.”
But he shouldn’t hold his breath on this one. While Gordon says the project’s potential 900,000 megawatts of wind power could be operational by 2011, that start date is optimistic. It could take three years to build the turbines, and Cape Wind is waiting on approval from local advocacy groups and the Cape Cod Commission before beginning construction.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy and former governor Mitt Romney have attempted to block the project. Their concern is aesthetic: the 440-foot turbines could disrupt tourism.
Recent polls indicate 84 percent statewide support for the project, with 61 percent support on the Cape. There will be another round of public hearings in March. Apparently, lowered energy costs are more important than impact on bourgeoisied-out Hyannis compounds. No suprises there.
Even with the upcoming public hearings, Gordon says the MMS report speaks for itself. “This is not a cheerleading document,” he stated. “It was not designed to negate the arguments of one group. Any rational observer who reads this report will understand that this project will not produce negative impact.”
Reality TV: America's Ultimate Democracy, or Learning to Live Life Without Ever Leaving Your Home
By Jared on Fri, Jan 11, 2008 11:15 pm
This article was inspired by a commercial for “Scott Baio is 46…and Pregnant.” Naturally, I was upset. Everyone and their poor bed-ridden Chelsea relatives have noticed the deluge of reality programming in the lat few months. Some of us even remember its jump into broadcast whoredom with Fox’s two-hour vomit-inducing romp of “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” in 2000, which climaxed (in the fakest of senses) with millionaire Rick Rockwell asking for Darva Conger’s hand in marriage. Even though I was the peak age for manipulation and imprinting by television (I was 12 at the time), I was still disgusted over the proposed reality of the whole thing. Was this really happening? I find myself tickled by the very fact that following their annulment (big surprise there), Conger made numerous public comments about how she was offended by Rockwell's forcibly kissing her on stage, that they never consummated their marriage, and “how the entire episode went against her morals.” This from a woman who competed to be married specifically for the money on national television.
Television networks of every type are accountable to their viewers. They have a responsibility to remind people that Peter Griffin and Jack Bauer are not actual people, but fictional characters. But the Conger shitshow only illustrates the beginning of the end of accountability. Reality television is an accountability paradox. These are real people, doing real things, in real situations, but at the same time it’s just TV. You can be as morally questionable as you want, and as long as there’s a camera, all your sins are wiped clean before they hit the viewing audience.
Television is in some ways America’s ultimate democracy: if you don’t like what’s programmed, chances are it won’t be on much longer. The emphasis on “reality” programming in the past decade is in this sense a reflection of the desires of Americans everywhere: they want real life, but they want it soaked in booze and hopefully with celebrities involved. While some programming has proven valuable (I LOVE “Little People, Big World” on TLC, and not because there are little people involved). Mainstream reality television, the genre of Kim Kardashian and Lauren Conrad, is a blight on human nature. It turns life into a spectacle; something viewed rather than actually lived. And that spectacle is terrible. It’s false and fake and trashy and morally indigestible, but enthralling and valid in its own right because it’s actually happening. The people have spoken.
MTV’s “The Real World,” one of the best and brightest of the reality TV’s inception, used to actually cover real issues involving real people. The best example that comes to mind was the friendship between HIV-positive Pedro Zamora and now well-known comic book artist Judd Winick in 1994’s San Francisco season. There was a sense of seriousness, of legitimacy surrounding that friendship, strengthened by Winick’s presence at Zamora’s bedside at his death in November of 1994.
Today, the Real World is filled with the most megalomaniacal, self-absorbed, batshit crazy people I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’m the same age as half of these bourgeois-dogs who are pussy-footing around in Sydney or Orange Country and even I’m more disgusted than hypnotically envious. Shows like “The Hills,” which follows the lives of self-absorbed shitheads while they deal with “the horror” of being pursued by bevies of beauties, are a sickness more pervasive than the common cold and more deadly than Ebola. MTV itself has become a haven for television unappreciated (read “unwanted”) programming misfits. My personal favorite is “Parental Control,” where two hip-again parents pick blind dates for their daughter in an effort to separate from her boyfriend. The daughter is followed around by MTV cameras and applauded by her parents for using her body rather than her brains to snag a different meathead dumb-ass. The first time I saw it I wasn’t sure if it was a real show or if I’d smoked some really, really bad pot. It could have been both.
During the 1980s, evidence began to coalesce about the bad effects of TV on kids: inattention at school, interference with homework, use of violence to solve problems, sleep disturbances and nightmares, overexposure to products (kids see between 15,000 to 20,000 commercials per year), and numbness or insensitivity in the face of dramatic real-life situations. To some extent, parents could always safeguard their kids, reminding them that what they are seeing “isn’t real.” But with reality TV in particular, a whole generation is becoming both castrated in their ability to make critical, thoughtful life decisions by having the answers basically spelled out for them by spoiled, histrionic crack-heads, and at the same time transfixed by the lives of others.
I must admit, the influx of newer and trashier reality dramas into the dorm rooms and iPhones of people everywhere isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault, but it is certainly indicative of American capitalism. The Writers Guild of America strike has definitely served as the impetus for television networks to seek out new types of seizure-inducing banality (don’t even get me started on “I Love New York 3”), but it has only brought about the inevitable. Reality TV is cheap (all you really need is a camera and maybe some pheromones if you want to induce love drama a la The Real World: Las Vegas) and as addictive as coffee with two teaspoons of PCP. It’s no wonder that the number of complaints received by the FCC about radio and TV programming jumped during reality TV’s metamorphosis into its mainstream, situational form – from 13,922 in 2002 to 240,342 in 2003.
American capitalism, with its incestuous relationship with our vaunted liberal democracy of “you can’t judge me, I’m my own person” multiculturalism, has yielded the bastard child of reality TV. Cheap, efficient, realistic, and desirable, American media has succeeded in commodifying life itself. Unfortunately, we no longer master life around us and shape it to our will in the way the Constitution affords us as a natural right. Rather, our own creations are shaping us, molding us: life, “reality,” is our new teacher, but it teaches through 30-minute lesson plans in “The Hills” and prime-time college review courses in “The Real World.” The line between “reality” and “real” is becoming gradually blurred. I don’t expect the writers strike to yield any tangible results now that reality has developed into something bought rather than lived. My prediction: only rioting will bring back the good-natured inauthenticity that reminds us that life is ours to experience and television’s to mock.
