For folks in New Haven, go see the wowz at york square tomorrow (friday) night. For folks in DC, go see them next friday at Stacatto Lounge, 2006 18th St. NW. I think that sums up just about everyone who reads this thing.
Thursday, December 2, 2004
Post 400 - Who'da Thunk?
Well, I have a couple things i should talk about. The first is that i'm leaving my job. After December 17, i'm going to move back to New York and cease boycott coordination.
I have mixed feelings about this, but i also believe it's what i need to do for several reasons, preeminent among them my loneliness here in Boston, my general incompetence at boycott coordination, and a feeling that despite how exciting and extremely important this campaign is, i really need to be doing something else for a while. I did nothing (four months of it) in between leaving new haven and flying to san francisco for the training in september, and now that the lockout has ended, i would like to look at other kinds of organizing and other ways of thinking about social justice and cities. Boston is a great city. Being here at this local has been great. The folks at the local, particularly the leads and the business agents, and especially the workers who've volunteered their time to make this boycott succeed, are awesome, and i've learned a lot from them. I have very mixed feelings about leaving, and there are aspects of this job which have been inspiring, engaging, fun, and exhilarating, and i'm not just talking about Minnie Driver. But i haven't been able to push myself to really commit to this, and my all-encompassing fear of the telephone makes me, in general, a very mediocre boycotter. I feel deeply privileged to have been able to be on staff at Unite Here, which i believe is the best and most exciting union in the country, and would someday love to return to the union in another capacity - maybe as a worker organizer or as a researcher. Or possibly as a parrot who organizes workers and doubles as the lead singer of a (sexist and homophobic, if you read the interview) novelty death metal band.
I'm going home to New York tomorrow night to take the GRE saturday afternoon. I haven't studied at all or taken any practice tests. I'm understandably freaked. I've made some progress on the grad school stuff in the last few days though, and that's good. And i've also made some progress on the boycott stuff, which is also good, because i want to leave my replacement in a good place. (Flying out to SF on the 15th, back the 18th, moving back to NY either late on the 18th or on the 19th.)
This article is shocking not for the fact that the Sandinistas are making a comeback, but in how baldfaced it is in its description of the Bush Administration's ties to the corrupt right wing elite and determination to prevent a sandinista return to power. Brings one back to the glory days of mined harbors and forty thousand corpses.
Bush saying "we are very firm on the Jan 30th date" makes me giggle. I don't know, maybe it's his tone. Or maybe it's the sheer insanity, the overwhelming violence of this imperial project and the callousness with which the neoconservatives barely even maintain the sham anymore. And then i stop giggling, and i want to cry, break something, or storm something.
I have mixed feelings about this, but i also believe it's what i need to do for several reasons, preeminent among them my loneliness here in Boston, my general incompetence at boycott coordination, and a feeling that despite how exciting and extremely important this campaign is, i really need to be doing something else for a while. I did nothing (four months of it) in between leaving new haven and flying to san francisco for the training in september, and now that the lockout has ended, i would like to look at other kinds of organizing and other ways of thinking about social justice and cities. Boston is a great city. Being here at this local has been great. The folks at the local, particularly the leads and the business agents, and especially the workers who've volunteered their time to make this boycott succeed, are awesome, and i've learned a lot from them. I have very mixed feelings about leaving, and there are aspects of this job which have been inspiring, engaging, fun, and exhilarating, and i'm not just talking about Minnie Driver. But i haven't been able to push myself to really commit to this, and my all-encompassing fear of the telephone makes me, in general, a very mediocre boycotter. I feel deeply privileged to have been able to be on staff at Unite Here, which i believe is the best and most exciting union in the country, and would someday love to return to the union in another capacity - maybe as a worker organizer or as a researcher. Or possibly as a parrot who organizes workers and doubles as the lead singer of a (sexist and homophobic, if you read the interview) novelty death metal band.
I'm going home to New York tomorrow night to take the GRE saturday afternoon. I haven't studied at all or taken any practice tests. I'm understandably freaked. I've made some progress on the grad school stuff in the last few days though, and that's good. And i've also made some progress on the boycott stuff, which is also good, because i want to leave my replacement in a good place. (Flying out to SF on the 15th, back the 18th, moving back to NY either late on the 18th or on the 19th.)
This article is shocking not for the fact that the Sandinistas are making a comeback, but in how baldfaced it is in its description of the Bush Administration's ties to the corrupt right wing elite and determination to prevent a sandinista return to power. Brings one back to the glory days of mined harbors and forty thousand corpses.
Bush saying "we are very firm on the Jan 30th date" makes me giggle. I don't know, maybe it's his tone. Or maybe it's the sheer insanity, the overwhelming violence of this imperial project and the callousness with which the neoconservatives barely even maintain the sham anymore. And then i stop giggling, and i want to cry, break something, or storm something.
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
And Your Bird Can Sing
earthpigbornc (5:57:34 PM): have I told you about hatebeak?
hydrarchy (5:57:41 PM): no
earthpigbornc (5:57:48 PM): parrot-fronted death metal band
hydrarchy (5:58:18 PM): holy living fuck
earthpigbornc (5:58:23 PM): yeah
earthpigbornc (6:01:17 PM): oh shit
earthpigbornc (6:01:23 PM): I just discovered caninus
earthpigbornc (6:01:26 PM): guess what they are?
hydrarchy (6:01:31 PM): dog?
earthpigbornc (6:01:39 PM): two pitt-bulls
earthpigbornc (6:01:46 PM): the vocals sound sick
earthpigbornc (6:01:53 PM): just fucking snarling
earthpigbornc (6:02:01 PM): and dogs barking in rythm
earthpigbornc (6:04:43 PM): hah
earthpigbornc (6:04:50 PM): they did a split with hatebeak
edit: here's more on hatebeak for your amazement. (Also, earthpigbornc is my not-so-little brother, Lev.)
hydrarchy (5:57:41 PM): no
earthpigbornc (5:57:48 PM): parrot-fronted death metal band
hydrarchy (5:58:18 PM): holy living fuck
earthpigbornc (5:58:23 PM): yeah
earthpigbornc (6:01:17 PM): oh shit
earthpigbornc (6:01:23 PM): I just discovered caninus
earthpigbornc (6:01:26 PM): guess what they are?
hydrarchy (6:01:31 PM): dog?
earthpigbornc (6:01:39 PM): two pitt-bulls
earthpigbornc (6:01:46 PM): the vocals sound sick
earthpigbornc (6:01:53 PM): just fucking snarling
earthpigbornc (6:02:01 PM): and dogs barking in rythm
earthpigbornc (6:04:43 PM): hah
earthpigbornc (6:04:50 PM): they did a split with hatebeak
edit: here's more on hatebeak for your amazement. (Also, earthpigbornc is my not-so-little brother, Lev.)
cuts like a knife
I just slashed my thumb on an aluminum foil food container. What kind of idiot cuts himself on tin foil? This one. Clearly.
"He's such a fucking jerk" - Le Tigre
"He's such a fucking jerk" - Le Tigre
All the words past the margin
Jay-Z and Nas are both great rappers, and they both excel at different things. Jay-Z has always been more proflific and more consistent. His microphone presence, his choice of producers, hius lyrical confidence, and his ability to market himself are superior to his rival from queensbridge. Nas's work has been at times wildly inconsistent. Sometimes he sounds barely present while rapping. His hustler pose was always far less convincing than Jay's. Butr besides a vastly superior lyrical vocabulary, what Nas has that Jay-Z has never really had for me is a poetic virtuosity - a smooth flow with impossibly powerful symbolic content, as evinced in the first verse of "The World is Yours," (which Nas samples on "Theif's Theme," and Which Jay-Z himself sampled way back on Reasonable Doubt.)
I actually like the second verse more in some ways, but the opening four lines of the song are among the most stunning verses i've ever heard and left me speechless the first time i heard the song.
I sip the Dom P, watchin Gandhi til I'm charged
Then writin in my book of rhymes, all the words pass the
margin
To hold the mic I'm throbbin, mechanical movement
Understandable smooth shit that murderers move
wit
The thief's theme, play me at night, they won't act
right
The fiend of hip-hop has got me stuck like a crack
pipe
The mind activation, react like I'm facin time
like
'Pappy' Mason with pens I'm embracin
Wipe the sweat off my dome, spit the phlegm on the
streets
Suede Timb's on my feets, makes my cypher,
complete
Whether crusin in a Sikh's cab, or Montero Jeep
I can't call it, the beats make me fallin asleep
I keep fallin, but never fallin six feet deep
I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say
what?)
I actually like the second verse more in some ways, but the opening four lines of the song are among the most stunning verses i've ever heard and left me speechless the first time i heard the song.
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