Thursday, May 29, 2008

Limited Edition Pixelated Humping Neon Unicorn Dunks

Too many bands now mistake cultivating an image for starting lifestyle brands and give up on the whole creating interesting music thing, and instead aim to help you define yourself through their little laptop bangers, and their $50 designer tour t-shirt, but mostly their limited edition Puma callobo kicks. All of it is for you and your fragile self identity (and by you I mean 15 year old who need to come to terms with their sexuality and old coke addicts in too small leather jackets), but one day someone will realize that the band is actually a bunch of sad 30 somethings, and the blogs will have moved on to some new fad. But it's ok for the band because the mainstream music machine won't hear up about how uncool they are for like 2 years so they'll keep on hiring them to do Ashlee Simpson remixes. Then they'll split up, retire, one might manage a club in Miami, and one of the dudes will go onto an unheralded outsider folk career.

Then their are bands like Cocorosie. Sure their image and story definitely help sell the music (to the 1% of people who can get over "that voice"), but their lifestyle brand would only appeal to transsexual art students, teenage boys who think they are cat ladies, girls who are very passionate about both Lisa Frank and acid, and your quirky grandmother after she breaks up with your grandfather, moves in with her hairy ladyfriend Ester, busts her hip and then gets addicted to the percs. Also: me.



"God Has A Voice, She Speaks Through Me" by CocoRosie from Touch and Go/Quarterstick on Vimeo.

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Nobody's Perfect, You Live and You Learn It



I'm not sure what's a worse message to be sending to kids: "Go ahead show a little back. Tousle your hair. Make it look like you've just finished a rigorous but satisfying rendezvous with all three Jonas Brothers" or "if you get caught exercising some bad judgment blame every one but yourself, and oh your fame hungry parents. They're innocent too."

You know what I think of Annie Lebowitz, but I'll spear her full blame on this one, and ask where the hell was her father? Busy finding other ways to ride his daughter's success out of the pop culture joke his own had become? He allows his daughter to release a statement whining "oh, I got manipulated" but where's his apology for putting his daughter in a situation where she could be easily manipulated? I really don't care, but God sometimes I'm more concerned for the lake of good role models for parents these day than those for little girls.

All this bruhaha over what is otherwise a pretty shitty photograph.

Savory Edible Lubes

This blog basically has no focus, and is just kind of a place for me to ramble on about whatever I find weird. Maybe I should streamline it. I'm thinking out of context block quotes of stupid shit my friends and "friends" say on the internet.

"I want to discuss flavored lube. mainly, why does that shit always come in candy flavors? there are never any savory edible lubes, only sweet. maybe I am just a fattie (and thinking weird because of sleep deprivation) but a rosemary-and-dick flavor combination sounds so much more appealing to me than a raspberry-and-dick flavor combination. think about the possibilities with me. maybe not like, sour cream and onion, but like tamari? and buttered popcorn, like the jellybean! maybe even hickory-smoked flavor, idk. clearly I put too much thought into this."


It's gold, baby.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Girl Talk on Campus: Please Don't Dance Like That, Please Don't Boo Otto, Fuck It I'm So Out Of Here



Last day of classes possibly (hopefully) ever today, and I would have never dreamed that at this school it would end with an on campus Girl Talk concert. Well actually I've known this concert was going on for weeks, and I kind of had a faint notion I would go. Though it was being held in the on campus sports pub that holds about 500, and the organization putting it on made it seemed like you'd have to blow someone to get in. Never overestimate UM students interest in music not reviewed in US Weekly. I missed getting a wrist band, and kind of shook it off and figured I wouldn't go. Girl Talk is interesting, sure, but I'm on about 2 hours of sleep from last night. But Otto Von Schirach opened (I know... hold on) and I ran into Nastee as he was coming into WVUM to do his show and he gave me his wristband. I got there midway through Greg/Girl Talk's set.The place was 80% full and no one had to blow anyone they didn't want to. Not to say the kids wouldn't blow Girl Talk if given the chance.

Well, as I said Otto Von Schirach opened, because Greg is a big fan and made that specific request. Some one who's last album was titled Spine Serpents of Sperm Island playing at UM is a recipe for disaster. I wasn't there, but apparently he got a solid round of boos.


Blah blah blah Girl Talk played his cute little top 40 mash ups and everyone who bothered to show up loved it, and I saw people dancing I never wanted to see dance ever. Like mother fucker I have gone four years with out of the kids never thankfully shake their asses and, Christ, last day of classes it's there gyrating four inches in front of me.

Greg at the end was like "I'm not blowing smoke up your asses, this place is fucking awesome." Yeah, they booed the shit out of someone you specifically requested to play, but, no, they're totally awesome. Fuck U (Except WVUM). It's probably more a result of built up rage from all the kids who have walked past the VUM offices and loudly let there friend now how much our station fucking sucks than being really worked up that they booed Mr. Maxipad Detention , that was pretty much a forgone conclusion. Y'know, but don't disrespect the music, it makes you look dumb. Four years of some of the students at this school has worn me down, and God I'm so glad it's almost done with.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Phone Calls From Yo Mama

Kyle: Hello
Mom: How do you start a blog?

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Exclusive Breaking Important Political News



Hillary Clinton may have been sort of cute back in the day. Obviously a mass right wing, anti-feminist conspiracy with roots deep inside the media establishment has suppressed all pictures of a presentable young Hillary, and only allowed photos of a her looking like some sort of androgynous, amateur folk singer in circus pants being all like "maybe I do eat paper. What's the big deal?" have been allowed out to the general public. Due to my expert skills of misspelling words in Google Image Searches I have stumbled apon the truth. Because the truth, well, it's out there.

Anyway, this discovery comes on a day when I was doing major thinking about Hillary's total fuck up in reaching out to youth voters, and how most of them aren't very aware of her accomplishments at their age. Also on the fact that Hillary's support of child's right issues and SCHIP have done more to affect their lives that anything Obama (Love him, but not as much. Hillary is the Barbara to my Bill Henrickson, while Obama is like my Margene. Chloe Sevigny is still my Nicki Grant, because I will love her most of all over anyone ever at all times) has done. It doesn't matter, because the olds in Pennsylvania love her and this is going to go on forever and ever until.... SUSPENSE

Monday, April 14, 2008

"We have shamefully allowed ... those pencil-pushers up in Washington to determine that incest is ...a sin." I'm sorry, what?


I thought this little bit from USA Today would be the most surreal thing I read in a newspaper today
William Livingston, an immigration attorney who specializes in mail-order brides, says a $20,000 tax problem from 20 years ago has swelled to nearly $300,000 owed to California today...His business — bringing brides here from Russia and Ukraine — is struggling. His own mail-order marriage didn't work out, so he's a single parent living in a small apartment with a son, he says.


Of course I hadn't cracked the latest The Miami Hurricane . Their sole opinion column was entitled this: Keeping an open mind about incest.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

im dying squirtle



This web comic has been making the rounds this week. Yes, I'm not that big on webcomics, and yes, I'm usually the last person to know about 4Chan derived stupidness, but this made it's way to me pretty early. So I took delight in showing all my lil' friend with out fear of them saying "ummm, I saw this two years ago, and actually my Mom sent it to me in a chain mail last week. My Mom saw this before you." Everything was just going smashingly (my preferred way for things to go) until I showed it to someone who didn't get it. I tried explaining ("Well, first off this is not the way you expect pokemon to talk, and then you have to realize that Squirtle has the power to put out the fire with his surf move but would much rather go on singing the song. Are you following so far? Then you have the beat in the third panel, before Bidoff reminds us of the severity of the situation - that he is in fact on fire and dying - but most of the times pokemone are on fire they don't die, and we haven't even touched on the stylistic choices..." Then I stopped, and suddenly realized how frustrating it must be for every person I've ever asked to explain Achewood to me.

TIGHT AS A DRUM! SNAP SNAP! LISTEN TO MY DRUM SONG!

Monday, April 07, 2008

Semiserious Fanfiction

I can add literary muse to my list of accomplishments! My friend Mick is hard at work on her latest fictional masterpiece.
After Kyle hung up the phone with Art, he decided to go downstairs and find an apple. Typically Kyle would find a bag of chips and a chocolate milk, but after starving himself for several months and getting down to a designer size, chips have lost their appeal. Being emaciated has become a priority and way of life.

Kyle reaches for the handle on the refrigerator and opens it with a long grunt.

"Ugh where is the diet soda?" He pushes aside day old salad and a cut up pineapple, yet he still sees no soda. "What the fuck?" He decides to just have water and takes one of the refilled water bottles out of the side shelf and opens the bottle cap. One large gulp and Kyle realizes how lonely he really has become. He looks out the window. It's bright outside and no sign of rain. "What to do..." Kyle walks into the living and falls onto the couch. He isn't sure if he wants to spend the day outdoors. Of his friends, who does he want to hang out with? None of them.

Don't worry, my depression is exaggerated to the same extent as my waist line.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

I Wish I Was The Tackiest Person In The World, But Sadly I'm Not Even Close

Perhaps it's morbid, but certainly not uncommon, to search for the facebook of a recently deceased school-mate you didn't know at all. I felt a little weird when that was my instinct when an email went out this afternoon that a freshman girl at UM had been found dead bellow Hecht Residential College, possibly after falling from the exterior stairwell. It's always tragic when a young life is cut short, and it's probably normal to want to know a little bit about who was lost. My Death Space, for example, still averages about 1 million hits a day according to Alexa, and this is from people looking at the profiles of people they had no connections to. I guess I can excuse a fascination with something that we'll all eventual face.

What I do think is unquestionably morbid, and hopefully uncommon, is finding things to mock about the deceased's profile. Not in very good taste, but that didn't stop a certain obnoxious offspring of a certain director of certain 80's popcorn classics from doing it, in the middle of the crowded campus library no less. I guess he felt that the "R.I.P." postings on her wall were ridiculous, and had to let a friend who stopped to say 'hi' know. Even reading one aloud, and I mean loud. The only reason I'm even aware of this kid is because he seems to do everything loudly and for attention. He then got up and called a friend to talk about it some more.

A girl who overheard him looked at her friend and said "tacky". I agree, although I guess I'm the one who just blogged about like a blind item (I probably just should have posted this on Juicy Campus). I'm loosing my ability to gauge tackiness, but I'm pretty sure blabbering ridicule about a sensitive subject in a crowded public space is pushing the tacky limit, and writing your feelings down in a quiet corner of the internet, whether it be condolences on a facebook wall or stupid blogs, is much less so.

I Must Muxtape

semiserious.muxtape.com

Yes, most of these are on my latest WVUM tape show.

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Friday, April 04, 2008

Lila Engle


Klaus Dinger has left us with motorik, amazing music and apparently one lone solo picture. I think you could do worse than going down in visual history as an androgynous mad scientist. Yoko Ono has been working the look for years.

This of course means I have even less hope of seeing a beloved krautrock band live (if Os Mutantes can get back together and play 10 minutes from my house everything is possible). As a large potion of my heritage is German, the genre, along with minimal techno and Karl Lagerfeld, is pretty much the only pride I can take from the last 100 years of the motherland's history.

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Thursday, April 03, 2008

The Miami Hurricane is a Great Bastian of Student Thought

So next time you think about bashing a hipster, just remember they're a generational group that is not influenced by society or social events, but rather a group that adapts to their surroundings, no matter what they may be. - from an opinion piece in UM's student newspaper The Miami Hurricane, 'Hippies were Hipper than Hipsters".


5 years after the topic has been beaten to death, The Hurricane finally chimes in on this whole hipster thing.

Obviously, we soak up movies like Juno because even though we don't act like her, it's nice to escape into the world of hipsters for a taste of the lifestyle.


At least I think that's what they're doing. I have no idea, because I can't figure out what point they're trying to make, except that everyone who saw Juno is secretly a hipster. Your Mom is a hipster. Jamie Lynn Spears is a hipster. We are all hipsters now. Why didn't they call up the Misshapes on their hamburger phones for a quote, homeskillet?

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Time For My Moby Story

Mystical music gnome Moby was hanging out all around Downtown Miami last night, and a lot people were freaking out like "Omg, it's Moby. Can I get a pic for my myspace? Let's go in the bathroom, the lighting is better in there. Omg so awesome, you scored all my favorite late 90's commercial, you're like my hero". I saw him at White Room, but I was totally cool because me and Moby have apparently partied before.

At CMJ in October I dropped by a DFA-connected party where Matt Cash was spinning. I'm a little bored because I don't know anyone there and finishing my drink, when I see this guy going around taking pictures like he's the next Merlin Bronques - except you can totally tell that he's some rich Euro-asshole who's only doing it as a way to approach busted chicks, and his creepiness is seriously annoying me. So, obviously I need to take a picture. I upload it to my computer latter and "HOLY SHIT IS THAT MOBY?"

Photobucket

I didn't even know he was there. The funny thing is apparently he was supposed to do a set at the WVUM party latter that night, which I don't think ever happened, but I'm not sure because I got lost and didn't make it there until 3 am [this was my first night in New York since I've been 21 really], and I kept asking people where this club "APT" was and finally some girls were like "ugh, it's over there, but it's soooooooooooooooooooooooo over."

Moby if you're reading this a) stop haunting me b) I have to agree with Miami Nights that "Southside" still is pretty much the jam.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

What We All Aspire To



I am totally facinated that this self proclaimed "it" girl has posed with a varitable Hallf of Fame of c-list stars and assembled the photos on her website. How c-list? She has pictures with every notable member of the Hilton family except Paris. Though somehow she snatched Leonardo DiCaprio. Then again, I'm not really sure how he managed to get to the a-list anyway.