Woah, Kick Ass

The Best of Even Stevphen

If you don't like this, the terrorists win. Or you are acutally a terrorist. Hi Omy!



And if you love Stephen Colbert, here, he effectively "loses his shit".



Up next: I'm still tired of these mothafucka snakes on my mothafucka plane.

Welcome to the Terrordome

So the coolest moment of my life had a post script.

As I said earlier this week, I had a chance to see Chuck D speak at this college I just can't get away from. And as I said...I got to meet him. Bonus Points.

Anyway, the tenor of his lecture was awesome. He's pretty gifted at speaking and he really held the audience, which was about 900 deep, of all sorts of socio-economic status and crazy different shades of whiteness.

Among some of his main points:
1. Anti-intellectualism is the biggest threat to personal liberties.
2. People older than you have experience, listen to them.
3. "Thug Life" rappers are shit.
4. 18% of Americans have a passport. That means 72% don't want to go anywhere.
5. Culture transcends race and nationality. It's the one thing that really binds us together as humans.
6. Go Red Sox
7. Technology like IPods, cell phones, and Blu-Tooth recievers are designed to keep people isolated.
8. The state of rap is going down hill because there are no more rap groups, Americans no longer control the genre ("You're talking about guys in France that can rap in 3 languages, and some of the people over here can't rap in one."), and there are no women involved anymore.
9. The N-word is bad. It make you sound idiotic using it.
10. DJ'ing is a lost art...when was the last time a mainstream act DJ'ed? Dilated Peoples was the closest thing we could think of as a collective.

Nice.

Needless to say, I generally agree with him. I don't think I'm describing the tone well enough, because it wasn't him telling us how much we suck for 2 hours, it was pretty light, but informative. He told some anecdotes that revolve around how he formed his ethos, and did something that most speakers don't do...if he goes on a tangent, he will tie it back to the central theme (which in this case was "The Songs of Social Change".)

The best part about his lecture was that he challanged us...when someone asked a question, it wasn't a canned responce. He wasn't a minstrel up there to get paid and then go back home.

Much like in his music, you can really tell how passionate he is about...well everything.

It's been a few days, and I'm still impressed by the lecture. He still doesn't need a gun.

Up Next: I'm tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane.

Meeting One of My Heros (and he won't appear on no stamp)

After class today, I went to the top of campus to get a piece of baklava. Having purchased said pastry I walked across the street right next to the Edwards Auditorium towards the quad...

Let me say now that URI has a nice program they do every year, called the Honors Colloquium bringing speakers in for a semester long topic. This year is Songs of Social Justice...the Rhetoric of Music. Kicking off the colloquium tonight is the founder of the greatest rap group of all time, Public Enemy.

I started listening to PE when I was 11, right after Apocalypse '91 came out. Now, it's 15 years later, and I get to listen to one of the few guys in music that touched me on an intellectual level. Though there are definately places for bitches and hos, and for poetic rap (think: Common), there is something about unrepentant anger coming out over well-expressed beats. It makes me hate Whitey just thinking about it.

Back to my travels. I see the head of the URI bookstore talking to a black guy, and they shake hands and seperate. Now you guys can guess who this guy is, seeing as though I doubt you are suffering from a gaping head wound. We walk past eachother and the ex-Carlton Ridenhour nods to me. I ask how it's going and he does the awesomest thing ever.

He stops, and tells me.

I set the record for removing my IPod buds from my ears and we talk about 5 mintues just outside the URI quad.

I'm usually cool around people more famous than me (I've met a good number of professional athletes and various performers from living in the Foxborough area as a kid and now working in an arena), but I turned into a babbling fan boy (at least in my head...I don't think I drooled on him).

Most of our conversation centered around me being a fan of his ("Thanks man, I always love hearing that."), where he found insperation behind his music ("There are a lot of fucked up situations out there that get more fucked up because you were born poor or black."), and if he watches "Flavor of Love" ("No, but it's better Flav is doing that insted of being in jail or getting more kids"). And like that, we were done.

I was planning on writing about his talk tomorrow, and I still will be, but that will be more a look at what he had to say, than how cool it is to still be overwhelmed by someone you meet.

Even if you are 26 years old.

Up Next: Welcome to the Terrordome.

The Only Station That Alternatively Rocks

Where have you gone, Krist Novoselic?

I live in Rhode Island, but I grew up in Massachusetts. I graduated high school in 1999, which means that this was before the IPod thing and the only way to get portable with music was via Walkman, Discman, or by installing an antenna directly into your brain.

I had a plethora of choices when it came to listening to music. WFNX was for when I was feeling alt rock-y. WBRU when I was feeling alt rock-y, and wanted to listen to a college kid prattle narcissistically about how Radiohead saved his life in 1996. WAAF when I wanted to Only Station That Really Rocked. WBCN for when I fell asleep listening to Patriots games. You know, a 17-year-old had options!

I went down to the University of Rhode Island, and the radio options disappeared. I started "buying" music on the Internet, because the dorms down here completely kill radio signals. BCN (thank god) and AAF ([sad]) didn't come in down here in cars anyway, replaced by Rhode Island FNX, and WHJY.

Here is where life got douchy. By the time I moved out of the dorms, RIFNX (different producers and whatnot) turned into kind of a weenie AAF. WHJY appeals to the part of my brain that likes music ironically, but there is only so much Guns and Roses or Poison one guy can take without breaking out the acid wash. And thus, admitting that you cannot be a contributing member of society.

Then RIFNX died...replaced by RI WEEI. Whoopie. WBRU, the last bastion of rock music in my listening area, decided the best way to piss me off was to do a "classic alternative" during the lunch hour meaning playing things that came out in 1999 as "classic" and then playing nothing but Fall Out Boy, and the Killers.

Now, left to me is the same Brownies that I hated in high school, and the same guys that love Whitesnake!!!!!!!!!!!

Why is that?

Well, now I get my music only in IPod form, and new stuff is "bought" based on word of mouth, or if it's the theme song of "Veronica Mars." Satellite Radio was one of my binkies for a while, but I walk to work now, leaving just the IPod. I'm thinking I'm not alone here. There are a lot of alternatives to listening to the radio for music. Especially if you like rock, where there is the anti-establishment ethos built in ( was so much better before they sold out!) or rap, because you can always find underground stuff that's good, and fuck whitey.

The business model (who I gave all kinds of orgasms), I'm guessing is to take money from places to play their music, even if it isn't all that good. See: WBRU. Not because of any cognizant appeal to the lowest common denominator, but for survival against better options. It's economic, Homes.

I have no economic background, so I'm probably talking out of my ass. I will say this though...radio=sucks, IPod=rules, ergo Tibor=rules. You knew this already.

Coming Next: The List returns!

VMA's: Now with more GOLD!!! (followed by whores)

Hey, it's September! I told you (Jose) I'd be back.

One of the rights of passage of early September for people around my age is the MTV Video Music awards. They've evolved into Grammys for retards, but I can't help but get sucked into one of their 500 showings over the week after they air. You never know when you're gonna stumble upon Nathaniel Hornblower might come on stage to bitch about REM.

Anyway, in this showing of the boringest of modern Americana, there was one thing that struck me. In the best hip-hop video category (named for hip-hop inspired songs, which explains "The Thong Song" winning in 2000. Actually, it doesn't.), you had basically two real nominees.

Common isn't really MTV's style, because he's not exactly the most marketable rapper...he cares more about things like making meaningful music than self-promotion (not that they are mutually exclusive). Three 6 Mafia is still kind of away from the mainstream too, despite the Oscar win...it's not like they have their own brand of energy drink out yet. And Rompe is the most annoying song I am writing about right now. Fuck you, Daddy Yankee.

No, the real contenders for this particular award were "Gold Digger" by Kayne West, and "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. Without touching on whether these songs are rap, hip-hop, or crappy (I'll let you guess which one is crap and which is enjoyable), you have songs that give two completely different messages.

In "Gold Digger", you have Kayne rapping about how you have to be careful about women out there, especially if you have money. The three verse treatise on fame and women is basically a fun little warning about the dangers of thinking with your dick. The conflict is that she loves your cash, you love her pussy, and the kid isn't yours. Bitch a ho.

Of course the ancillary warning is that if you get mixed up with a guy that has talent and ambition when he's young...you might love him, but he's got plenty of white girls down the line that want a part in his movie. And he has just the part for him.

"My Humps" is a silly song that is a way to get the pants-pissing Fergie more attention/pub for her contribution to music, which is her ass/tits. And by silly, I mean "fucking awful".

Anyway, she brags about how guys are so in lust with her that she gets mad ices. Also, if you sexually assault her in the club, she's gonna start some drama. And you don't want no drama. If you do grab her ass, be sure to get some disinfectant to go with the handcuffs.

She doesn't want all these expensive things that guys are tripping over themselves to give her, just to get love drunk on her humps, but dammit, it would just be rude to turn them down.

The target audience of these two songs are basically the same, white people, but the demographic is much more nefarious. You have Gold Digger, which is a mainstream song from a talented KayneWest Corp. There is no real target demographic, because it's so easily marketable. Jamie Foxx is in the song doing Ray Charles. He was in Booty Call for Christ's sake!

But the very specific target of "My Humps" is teenage girls (and into their 20s). And the pederasts who want to pederast them. They have a girl singing about a girl-power topic (which usually is the one thing that will always separate actual feminism [not even militent feminism] from "I'm just a stupid girl. Tee Hee."), getting all these loser guys to buy her shit. Why? Because she has a body like Fergie!

But the song's message is lost in this particular brand of bubble gum shit. Most girls don't look like Fergie, and most guys are loath to spend most of their money on whores. Not when Madden 07 is about to drop. Basically, this song is an irritating way to make the 14-25 year old girls that listen to it all the more insufferable. Give me my Veruca Salt!

So of course, MTV caters to the greater evil, giving the Moonman to the Black Eyed Peas (henceforth known as Fergie and Three Unknowns). And I get to listen in pain next time I'm in a bar and one of these girls wearing jeans a size too small muffin-top her way to the juke box to totally play her anthem. That's why the "Play it First" option and Danzig were created.

Coming next: The only station that alternatively rocks!

Gone till September

Hectic summer so far, which means it will be September 'for I post again.

Things to look forward too...
*Completion of the Simpsons list
*Other lists
*Why I hate stuff

Every time I make a run...