Brother's Little Helpers

The Champion's Chariot

2011-07-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since BLH has served up an offering, and for that, I apologize. I got lazy, experimented with Tumblr, did some other important stuff. Now I'm back, more or less forced to respond to NME's picks for "Greatest Music Videos of All-Time."

It is, at most, an OK list. Respect is paid where due. But they got off to a bad start by dumping "Billie Jean" at #100. I figure this is a consequence of "web strategy." NME probably figures that a sizeable chunk of their readers might not bother to go beyond the top fold of the first page if the very first video doesn't draw them in. "Billie Jean" would serve that purpose, but then you start comparing it to the next 90 videos or so and the anger creeps in. This is better then "Billie Jean"? Seriously, this? There is a Coldplay video which is better than "Billie Jean", so declares NME.

Besides being a great video, "Billie Jean" was a shared experience for millions, an introduction to the new, adult Michael Jackson. I didn't exist at the time, but I'm not young anymore. I've experienced the awe felt at a new artist with a killer song and an incredible video. You never quite shake it.

Artist: Tyler, The Creator
Song: “Yonkers”
Rating: A+

I was at my temp job when I loaded Tyler onto my screen. This was at a time when I was still learning about OFWGKTA, feeling a little dismissive of most of the stuff that I had piled onto my iPod with the exception of Earl Sweatshirt's "Earl," which I kept listening to even if I didn't quite understand what I liked about it. I didn't like the one single I had heard off of Tyler's album and didn't bother with the rest.

I watched this video and then watched it again a little while later, threw it up on my friend's Facebook wall, watched it on his wall, then finally started doing some work. Today, I'm obsessed with Tyler and Earl and a little ashamed that it took a visual aide to make me appreciate the artistic deviance at work with this rap collective.

When Tyler turns from his Thinker pose, the menace on his face is instant and unexpected. His eyes suggest sociopathic tendencies; he's not quite there but still in total control of the situation. The aggression dissolves just as quickly as it came, but it still lingers on unseen, abetted by that sickly shrill beat.

This video aims to entertain with unease, which can be said for the song and the artist as well. The camera focus won't settle, Tyler stops lip-syching at curious moments and we're left with an uncomfortable final shot that doesn't go away when we want it to.

Tyler is a great actor here, conveying "evil" without actually doing anything.
Now, think about that: "evil" is not an emotion. How can an actor convey that without looking foolish, or at least believable? I'm not sure, honestly, but Tyler pulls it off. For his part, I credit the eyes.

I guess his presence loses its' effect once you "get" Tyler and OFWGKTA, and the video does get a little cartoony, but does so without having to comprimise its original intent.

That first view stuck with me like few videos ever have - or will - do. I think the video will end up being the very best of year among the bloggers, and the track should rank high on the year-end singles lists too.

In case you were wondering, "Yonkers" didn't make it onto NME's list. Neither did "Thriller." Draw your own conclusions.

B.B. from The A

2010-07-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

Artist: Big Boi
Song: “Shutterbugg”
Rating: B

Outkast was, in my belief, the best hip-hop group of the last decade. Andre 3000 and Big Boi were the perfect duo, the pop and the bass. They played pop, but their roots were in the rhyme.

All good things must come to an end, but I was pretty excited when it became clear that Big Boi was prepping a solo debut. Now that it's out, I'm sad to report that it's merely decent. I've always been a fan of the heavy rhythm of Big Boi's voice, but I suppose it wore on me ten tracks in. Blame it on the short-attention span, but I'm in need of someone new.

“Shutterbugg” is similarly good, but not great. It ties together the hip-hop video staples (curvy and pretty young things, the posse shot) with sharp, creative visuals: a puppet band, a flipbook head and the biggest red cup pyramid anyone's ever seen.

Oh, and a little product placement at the very beginning. That seems unprecedented to me. Has it always that obvious?

Flipper

2010-07-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

Artist: The Chap
Song: "Even Your Friend"
Rating: B

Here's a video for the young at heart. Remember those triple flap books, where one could mix and match various eyes, noses and mouths?

Even at age seven, I recognized these books to be nothing more than a cheap thrill. Time hasn't made them anymore appealing, even with a decent soundtrack and a few amusing match-ups (my favorite is "surprised glasses" meets "chimpanzee grin.")

Fun, this video is not, but it is "cute." Am I really using that word?

Scary Noises

2010-07-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

Artist: HEALTH
Song: "We Are Water"
Rating: A

I really like Los Angeles' HEALTH. I really like director Eric Wareheim, the TV comic also of the City of Angels who doubles as visionary music director. Doubt it? Click here, here and here. Then try the video above.

Wareheim's videos usually have a lot in common in with his TV show, "Tim and Eric, Awesome Show Great Job!" There's the peculiar pacing, cast with slightly-beneath-average looks and bright colors galore. "We Are Water" doesn't differ (except in terms of palette) but this is the first to ambiguously toggle between funny and disturbing, another important characteristic of his TV show.

I can't bring myself to laugh at the makeup-smeared "damsel"-in-distress flee from her tighty-whitey assailant. At least, not at first blow. It's only funny from a post-viewing perspective, long after one's initial nervous smiles have faded. If you do find this video funny at any given time, congrats; you're likely living in the more bizarre side of life. This is a weirdo litmus test.

The technical aspects are impressive in their own right - degraded colors, excellent cinematography (the superb second-to-last shot will be the most unsettling thing you see in music videos this year.) The creeping motion of the video aligns perfectly with the fast paced track.

I can't say this will be the weirdest thing you see this year, but it'll definitely make "Best Of" lists all across the blogosphere.

Sunn O))): Droners That Do It

2009-08-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, the duo known as Sunn O))), don’t play songs as much as they craft noise, piecing together immense dreg-tone guitar chords one after the other. On Metal’s family tree, they exist on a branch opposing the earth-blistering riff-freaks like Motorhead and Metallica; Sunn O))) is simply a purveyor of Drone-Metal, with an approach disposing of just about every convention of composition.

Sunn O))) tracks truly are open for interpretation. Most fans praise the duo for peeling Metal back to its most intrinsic elements and presenting it as music, of which they enjoy for what it is: sustained distorted chords with a variety of overlaying druidic noises ultimately shaping out a dark minimalist trance. On the other hand, naysayers typically sum it up as pretentious, preposterous or just out-and-out bland.

The two, longhaired harbingers met in inner city Seattle in 1991. Sunn O))), named after the amplifier brand and pronounced simply as “Sunn,” came about in 1998 after both played separately in a handful of underground Metal acts across America. Since then, they’ve released seven studio albums under their self-owned Southern Lord label, the latest being 2009’s Monoliths & Dimensions, where a worldly cadre of experimental collaborators bring strings, horns and a choir of sirens to the ambiance.

In a 2006 interview with The New York Times Magazine, Stephen O’Malley summed up the three types of attendees of any given Sunn O))) show: the music lovers, the spectacle seekers and then the “people who are more interested in the physical aspect of it … the people who are just like, I'm going to stand at the front of the stage for an hour and a half – can I take it? Will I wet my pants? Will I puke? I'm going to be at the very front, in front of these amps for 75 minutes, and then when it's done I'll feel liberated, or I'll feel like I've beaten the band or whatever, no matter how torturous it is."

Singer-songwriter Danielle Ate the Sandwich takes a bite out of YouTube

2009-05-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian, April 30, 2009

Alongside a few million Americans, Danielle Anderson is looking for work.

"I got a call back from K-Mart," she says. "It's like, 'Really? K-Mart?' But things are getting a little grim. I really have to think about this."

Customer greeter might be the best option for the singer-songwriter during the downturn. It's not exactly easy turning a living playing gigs and selling albums, even if her fanbase is in the thousands. Most of those fans don't know of her financial worries, let alone her real name. To them, she is simply Danielle Ate the Sandwich, a bespectacled goofball with a golden voice and evocative lyrics.

They visit her MySpace page, buy her songs off iTunes and watch her YouTube videos. When she does get out of her apartment to perform for them, be it in New York City, Los Angeles or Fort Collins' The Alley Cat, they come to watch.

Danielle represents a new breed of musician, the kind who utilizes the constructs of Web 2.0 to establish herself on a national scale. Her popularity is measured in page views (over 160,000 each for her MySpace page and YouTube channel), and her indie cred is bolstered by blog posts (Boing Boing, Westword's Backbeat Online, Anti-Gravity Bunny.)

The internet fame is starting to spill out into reality; the Fort Collins Musician's Association recently named her the city's Best Female Singer-Songwriter, and she's lined up what'll be her biggest gig yet at Denver's Monolith Festival this September. It's all happened for her over the past four months, a speedy succession that likely never would've happened for any young artist 10 years ago. This CSU grad just happens to be in the right place at the right time.

But for now, a day job might help.

Raising bread
The biggest musical influences for Danielle have been the "older songwriters who said really complicated things in really simple ways": Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Joni Mitchell. Looking back at her earliest days, one must wonder if Raffi played his part, too.

He was, after all, among the first artists she listened to in the Nebraskan household run by her music teacher mother, Sally. Danielle would learn to play piano, violin and clarinet within the span of elementary school, taking up choir in middle school. She moved to Colorado in the eighth grade, attended Arapahoe High School for four years and then enrolled at CSU.

She kept at music during her college years, even started up a band -- Backdraft: The Musical. Bandmate Brandon Wright gave her the ukulele she plays as Danielle Ate the Sandwich.

The instrument is a quaint aspect of her persona. Danielle says the uke is her ideal musicmaker, its tuning and clean-toned sound much to her liking. It's present on most of her recently released second album, "Things People Do," yet she says she's always been adamant about not being pigeonholed into the role of "Girl Who Plays The Ukulele."

Considering her warm, soulful alto, developed over years of school choir, that's unlikely.

"Not only does she have the fundamentals down, but she's got a unique honest voice, not manipulated at all," Greta Cornett, FoCoMA president, says. "It's got that kind of indie feel to it, like you'd expect to hear it on the 'Juno' soundtrack."

As far as lyricism, Danielle tends to write from her own life. Each song is injected with personal experiences, sometimes crossing a certain boundary into sensitive subject matter. Like most songwriters, the characters of her songs are nameless -- not that those close to her don't pick up on who's who.

She's written about family members in ways that can be (and have been) interpreted as negative portrayals, as well as the on-and-off relationship she's had with her so-called "manfriend" over the past two years. He's not the type to take things the wrong way, though, she says.

"A lot of the songs I've written about him, it's not necessarily the truth. It's more about my interpretations, my insecurities, my emotions," she says.

However: "It must be weird for him to hear songs about other boyfriends."

Double layer
Danielle says there is no story behind her stagename.

"I didn't want to call myself Danielle Anderson because people just pass over a name like that," she says. "I would. I just made something up."

She was surprised when the name wound up on the front page of YouTube last December, her video performance of "Conversations With Dead People" under the Featured Videos tab. For about a year up to that point, she'd just been using her friend's webcam to make her own videos.

"I love it," she says. "Combining acting with singing is like heaven in a burrito for me."

She's nearly made 30 of them. The most popular include her 4 a.m. performance of "Ode to Optophobia" and a refrigerator-backed cover of "Dream A Little Dream," in which she gives shout outs to syrup and cheddar-melt topping. Her jokey antics contrast the more serious tone of her music, and Danielle has come to find that some fans would rather see her acting silly then singing a song. She pokes fun at them in her video for "Born in the Wrong Body" with a pre-song skit, imitating an acronym-spewing browser in search of a quick laugh.

"Danielle Ate the Sandwich is more of a performer," she says. "Danielle Anderson is kind of a loner, antisocial, would rather be doing arts and crafts then out drinking with my so-called friends." She adds: "But at the same time, it's given me what I want, gotten me where I've wanted. I'll take it."

The Internet's judgment of Danielle hasn't gone without the occasional rude or lewd comment. Danielle isn't bothered by it -- but her mom is.

"It's like, why would they even say that?" Sally Anderson says. "But I also see that some people, they love her. I've told her that what she does gives so much to so many people -- some an escape, some an opportunity to reflect on their lives. To be able to give that gift is a pretty great thing."

Danielle received her degree in apparel design and production from CSU about a year ago. She's always been a fan of craft making; she sewed the cloth pouches that case the CD versions of her self-titled debut. She'll be selling some of her craft items -- as well as performing at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. -- at Everyday Joe's craft fair this Saturday.She's thinking about moving to Washington in July, citing a need for change. But people tell her she ought to stay in Denver, a budding music hot spot, so she feels conflicted.

Wherever she may go, she says she'll still be making songs. And videos.

"I want to be well-known but not quite famous," she says, adding with a laugh: "I think I'd sell out quick."

The rich joyous song of Paean

2009-04-23T06:10:00.000-07:00

Despite inclusion in the list of genre labels that seem contradictory or downright dumb (a list that starts with Afropunk and ends somewhere around Wizard Rock), Folk Rock really just might be the best label to stick to the sound of Paean.

To describe Paean (pronounced pee-en, named after the ancient Greek term used to describe a joyous song) in greater detail would be to remark on the rich orchestral flavoring of their sound and literary lyrics. Frontman Dave Maddocks (who, by the way, is just fine with a two-word description) has been playing music since his days at Fort Collins High School where he played straightforward Rock ᾿n Roll.

But it wasn’t long before he strayed from the track into Acoustic territory, writing and recording songs at his home recording studio, The Barn. Shortly thereafter, the project snowballed, bringing on instrumentalists Marty Albertz and Jonathan Alonzo, as well as Dave’s high school friend and bassist Andrew Hendrickson. Paean has also grown into something of a Maddocks’ family affair: Dave’s brother and sister, drummer Tim Maddocks and violinist Anna Maddocks, as well as his brother-in-law Adam Delorme on banjo.

Paean dropped its debut, a split with fellow FoCo act Sour Boy Bitter Girl, last summer to some acclaim (Scene critic Matthew Azrael Martin deemed it “the summer 2008 soundtrack.”) Next up is a full-length, due next month. This year’s Paean is much like last year’s Paean as far as musicality, but in terms of songwriting, the band has shifted into a democratic collective as opposed to Dave writing for each instrument as he did early on. “Even if I plan everything and try to write parts for everyone, I’m not good enough,” he says. “Everyone has strengths that I don’t.”

Immortal Dominion Does the Evolution

2009-04-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz, April 2009

They look like they rose out of some subterranean sludge, but Immortal Dominion’s origin story actually begins in the house of God. It was at a youth-oriented ministry, complete with Rock music and laser lights, where drummer Ben Huntwork met guitarist/vocalist Brian Villers and vocalist/guitarist Ray Smith. The three’s membership in the church would be short-lived but the friendship stuck.

Fifteen years later, the Rock continues to Roll as the Death Metal quartet drops their new album, Primortal, this month. As a band, they’ve experienced the typical challenges and lineup changes including the addition of current bassist Ed Schmidt in June 2007, but no time before was comparable to the rollercoaster ride journey of the past four years.

The week following the release of their last full-length, Awakening: The Revelation, then-ex-bassist Stephen Sherwood shot and killed his wife – Villers’ sister-in-law – and himself. Two years later, fortunes were reversed when five songs off Awakening were added to the soundtrack of “Teeth,” a coming-of-age horror film centered on a shark-toothed vagina. Inclusion in the instant-cult flick brought the band considerable attention from the Metal press and a re-release of the album.

Eager to start work on the next album and press on to the next level of the industry, Villers scanned album jackets for producers who’d worked with his favorite artists, shooting out emails to gauge interest. Returning the call would be the name on the back of Hellyeah’s self-titled debut, Sterling Winfield. Winfield has produced for several celebrated Metal acts in his time, Pantera and King Diamond to name a few. Entering the studio with a group whose previous recordings were strung together with little professional guidance presented a “unique experience” for the Texan producer.

“They didn’t have a whole lot of studio experience, yet they wanted to make an album that sounded like they had a whole lot of studio experience,” he says. “I had my work cut out for me on this one.”

Winfield had the band reorganize its recording schedule and pushed the group to develop a keener musicianship. It was, at times, a butt-kicking; the kind of learning experience the four had hoped for.

“I think we get trapped in our bubble here in the local scene sometimes,” Villers says. “To get a more worldly perspective was really interesting.”

Early tracks indicate Primortal will be more accessible than previous works. The guitars are heavier and the instrumentation is more precisely packaged, and the frontman is mixing it up, too. “I do a different vocal styles now,” Smith says. “I can’t really do the high stuff anymore like I used to, it’s a lot of work if I try.”

If it sounds as though this is the making of an entirely different Dominion, don’t fret; Villers assures us that the Death Metal aesthetic has not been compromised. “We’ve always had a lot of these songs in us,” he says. “But when you’re standing up in front of 200 Death Metal kids, you don’t want to be playing a ballad.”

what will be left when you really have 'seen it all'

2009-04-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Sioux City Pete and the Beggars were a group of long-haired mean-eyed Seattleites who had walked into Goodbye Blue Monday, one of Brooklyn’s many free cover music bars, intent on rocking the shit out of me.

It didn’t happen, but they were a fun band to watch. Scraggly scrawny frontman Pete and his buxom red-wigged bassist scowled at one another as they swayed inches apart in consistent sexual rhythm, his thrusting hip nearly impeding her single-chord strumming. The glitter vest drummer and dreadlocked lead guitarist played along, their overindulgent prog-metal melody really mere background music at this point. It was the kind of spectacle that would’ve caused Colorado Springs to implode.

Thirteen minutes later, when the song ended and all eleven patrons applauded, an unsmiling Pete nodded in appreciation. He then told us: “This next song is about having sex with children,” and the band immediately stormed into the next freak fit.

Surrounded by a circle of newfound New York University friends, I scoffed, rolled my eyes, all the necessary showings of disapproval. But truth be told, Pete’s inflammatory remark had filled me with glee (“Look at me, watching the present-day Sex Pistols, I’d never see this back in Colorado.”) The New York kids, meanwhile, watched on stone-faced, no reaction apparent. I was terrified that my attempts to fit in had exposed myself as the outsider I was. But no one seemed to notice.

But I had to wonder what was going on with them. Were they, dwellers of a city that is easily a full year ahead of the rest of the world in the culture curve, already desensitized to (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek references to pedophilia? If so, what does that mean for the rest of us? How long do we have before every shock and surprise has been used up?

In retrospect, this outsider probably shouldn’t have been shocked either. I do, after all, belong to the generation of 2 Girls, 1 Cup. The internet has given us an instant window to the vilest corners of existence and few of us have resisted the urge to keep from at least peeking. It’s been great fun seeing messy dismemberment and puppies thrown off cliffs and gaping buttholes, but it has taken our sense of surprise and compressed it into JPEG format.

Now, not every taboo in the book has been worn down. Human imagination will always expand on ideas. There’ll always be trends. But I don’t think it takes long for long-term NYC residents to stumble across everything there is to see in life within city limits. And if the aforementioned culture curve really does exist, then the morality’s rapid decay will be a global phenomenon by 2017 and nothing will be “shocking” ever again. Enjoy your filth while it’s fun.

It’s disappointing realizing this, but I’m content with the fact that I’m experiencing the last vestiges of inner city shock firsthand instead of on YouTube like all you Northern Colorado losers.

Last month, for example, I caught Les Savy Fav at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Frontman Tim Harrington does his darndest trying to be different from other indie rock acts and even if not being anything new, he is immensely entertaining. He would parade through the audience wearing his not-so-tighty-whities and confront individuals mid-song, shoving his microphone in their face even if they didn’t know the lyrics or tried to avoid him.

For the encore, he disappeared into his dressing room before sneaking back into the audience. In his raggedy overcoat and all-too-familiar hockey mask, the heavyset Harrington made for a pretty convincing Jason impression. He surfed the crowd to the stage to announce that “the makers of the Friday the 13th remake are sponsoring us tonight,” he joked, waving his rubber machete. “Go out and see it after the show.”

Corporate sponsors getting plugged on stage? Welcome to the last days of edgy.

Wiscansin

2009-03-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

Artist: T-Pain
Song: “Can’t Believe It”
Rating: B+

T-Pain is the world’s most hated clown. The top hat hood inarguably soiled the current hip-hop market by reintroducing Auto-Tune, that computer program that can make just about anyone pitch-perfect (only at the cost of a little soul.) I kind of detest T-Pain for having had such an influence on the best rappers of present-day (Kanye and Lil’ Wayne, there is no others) and he is an artist of the R&B, a genre I’ll probably never enjoy. BUT the guy knows how to make a good video. And the day will come when Auto-Tune just ain't what it used to be.

I bet T-Pain made this song thinking ‘Damn this is a good song to sip bubbly/Cris to.’ The scenes barely pause, which can cheapen the value of the images but this video has a pleasurable effervescing effect in that regard; not exactly original concepts in this world operated by hard drives. But at least T-Pain is trying out some different artists, some different visions.

As he promises his lovely lady a world of materials and other assorted goods, the viewer sails through a fantasy world of starry nights and white-hot automobiles. And Wiscansin. As far as I’m concerned, I’m having a much better time taking a ride through this wonderworld than I would be just chilling around in your average R&B video, with color-coordinated backdrops and lounging honeys rolling around looking sexy or shirtless shots of the fine-as-hell artist (which T-Pain is not.)

Hokey-Pokey

2009-02-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

Artist: Sebastian Teller
Song: “Divine”
Rating: B

Robert Moog must’ve had quite a future planned out when he introduced to the world a keyboard machine that made warm electronic hums. Surely he must’ve realized he would become the figure in the history of music; these were sounds man had previously been unable to create.

Okay, so maybe my understanding of the instrument (backed only by Wikipedia) is flawed, but the point I’m stretching to make is as such: synthesizers have had an irrevocable effect on music. The synthesizer became a bridge between popular music and the largely unexplored world of computer music. I have only recently given much thought to the subject until my recent infatuation with Animal Collective blossomed. Just as they are stepping past capabilities and traditional boundaries of song construction and while they’re still bound to some rules of melody, I guess.

But this is really isn’t anything like that; this is a throwback song/video. While there’s a significant chunk of throwback synth ballads that are simply ostentatious, the right kind of artist can access just the right aspects without looking out of place.

Here we have the sex-tacious Sebastian Teller in his white suit, bygone Rush shades and (faux?) full beard. In this video, he’s having fun and as a modern man, I don’t really detest him as much as I want to be him He looks like he’s got some cash and he’s even got a pretty girl in bed with him at one point. The song, somewhat kitschy in its on respect, is superbly presented in this video. It’s not overdone. The joke is not forced down and maybe it’s even easy to digest. I respect that.

And the surfing shot… I think Sebastian can get away with putting it in her for comedic effect, but he’s absolutely the last guy ever that can get away with this.

Boogeyman

2009-02-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

Artist: White Zombie
Song: “More Human Than Human”
Rating: C-

Leave it to Rob Zombie and his former gang to attempt a disturbing interplay of archival amusement park/Halloween footage (taken from Mr. Zombie’s better days) and the typical jamming band scene. You’d expect this kind of video listening to a song like “More Human Than Human.” You can, seemingly forever and always, expect this kind of aesthetic from an artist like Rob Zombie: scratchy grindhouse horror that leans with both arms against the 1970’s. Same as it ever was, same as it ever is.

The best part of this video is the robot astronaut, which I find to be slightly unsettling. I really can’t put my finger as to why. That’s how you know it’s scary.

It's about funky, smelly people

2009-02-26T16:47:00.000-08:00

Artist: Del The Funkee Homosapien
Song: “If You Must”
Rating: D-

I don’t know if Del’s trying out for the Plain-Faced Respectable Video Channel or what’s going on in this video but there’s one thing that it establishes within 30 seconds: this video is horrible.
It’s a combination of boring and confusing while being one of those infuriating videos that “kind of” sets up a story but everyone just runs around and acts wacky and nothing gets established and everyone goes home disappointed, realizing they weren’t being creative, just childish and subsequently shallow.

Del’s lips don’t even come close to synchronizing with the lyrics. Del’s geek posse shows off some “retro-rad” break dancing moves from 1995 (this video dropped in 2000 for the historians out there, so yeah my insult sticks). The only bit of this whole thing that appeals to me at all is the plaster monstrosity that drops in at the halfway mark. I laughed at the sight of that thing and you will too.

I guess my biggest problem with this video is the simple fact that SO MUCH COULD’VE BEEN DONE AND SO MUCH WAS WASTED. You drop some great rhymes, but drop a couple of dollars and get someone who graduated from junior high to put together all future videos.

FAKE UPDATE: Oh, you got some college super-senior's project? Almost there Del.

Recessed Memories

2009-02-25T18:49:00.000-08:00

Artist: Pavement
Song: “Major Leagues”
Rating: B+

When I think about the end of the summer, I think about miniature golf and guitar and the hammy mug of Steven Malkmus! It’s a recipe for a Pavement coordinated an ideal bummer smoothie here. The stock footage invokes nostalgia, a common ailiment in Americans over the age of 16 these days. But hell, isn’t that what Malkmus is singing about? Bring on the Major Leagues! The big time! The next step. Growing up is inevitable so why not just accept it with a goofy grin- you are still allowed to be goofy and joke about what an asshole your boss/partner/probation officer is. I guess I didn’t give this video an A because I m a little uncomfortable at the sight of rock-humping. Yeah, I understand that he’s just being goofy Stephen, trying to climb up a flat rock but it’s really not working for this pompous manchild.

Click Here to be Cool

2009-02-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

Artist: Animal Collective
Song: “My Girls”
Rating: B

Pleasantly colorful, even with the hackneyed iPod commercial tendencies, the first video for Animal Collective’s recent instant-classic Merriweather Post Pavilion is a pleasant example of the aural translated into the visual.

Aquatics abound! Mood ring landscapes! And those next-gen Rolling Stones’ lips…it’s a well-packaged serving of eye candy. It’s a must-watch on any stoner’s “To Do While High” list, following a listening session of the album itself.

There’s a great deal of talk on how this band will influence the next decade in music, and I believe it. There really never has been a band like Animal Collective, and there really isn’t anything like their music out now. And yet as transcendental as it may be, I appreciate this music for the simplicity exercised in it’s meaning: They just want four walls and adobe slats for their “girls”, their daughters. This a band of dads, remember.

So I suppose I should say I should be happy with the fairly simple concept of this video, but what we see here pales in comparison to the images conjured behind closed eyes during a simple listening session. I know that as an “indie” band, Animal Collective will never see the kinds of financial resources necessary for ahead-of-the-curve directors to play out the canvases of their hyper-minds on video.

Don’t get me wrong; a dance-party on the edge of the universe is cool. It's just not “A” material.

CD Review: Frogs Gone Fishin'

2009-01-26T10:03:00.000-08:00

Originally published in Scene Magazine, January 2009

Colorado has done gone blue! To quote Martha Stewart, “it’s a good thing.” Not only did voters back Obama, but they even dragged self-righteous congresswoman/supervillain Marilyn Musgrave kicking and screaming from her congressional seat.

But living in the land of the liberal isn’t all wine and arugula. When tolerance and respect for the environment are in full swing, there will be the inevitable jam band resurgence, not exactly something to celebrate in a music scene once oversaturated with those messy guitar solos and super-laid-back attitudes. As long as groups like Frogs Gone Fishin’ are leading the charge, maybe things won’t get too stinky.

The Denver quartet’s debut, Tell Me True, is decent enough for a potential forerunner, hefty with summery instrumental fills and vocals that wiggle between Jack Johnson (“Life In A Magazine”) and The Meters (“735”). Standout track “Mexico” is the best of both worlds: funky guitar and Corona-cool singing build into an aromatic “Na-Na-Na-Na” chorus.

Beyond that, the going gets generic. Tell Me True isn’t a bad album by any means, but to call it anything beyond decent is a bit of a stretch. A good portion of the album is just dull, piled on with the same bargain bin sounds available at your local Wal-Mart for a buck-ninety-nine.

Cornball lyrics make matters worse, as is the case in Tell Me True’s title track: “Tell me all you care about is oil, tell me all you care about is greed, the man tells me what to care about… and knocks us on our knees.” Even Republicans have displayed sharper creativity.

www.myspace.com/frogsgonefishin

Might As Well...

2008-12-31T18:14:00.000-08:00

Artist: Van Halen
Song: “Jump”
Rating: A+++

Ever wonder what David Lee Roth meant when he said "Might as well jump"? I reject the kill-yourself-to-stay-alive theory that seems rather popular. I'm taking a higher route and speculate that Roth meant "might as well ROCKKK THE FUCKKK OUT." Happy New Year.

Bipolar Badass

2008-12-26T17:44:00.000-08:00

Artist: Ozzy Osbourne
Song: “Bark At The Moon”
Rating: B+

This Christmas, I was given Fargo Rock City, a memoir of sorts by Chuck Klosterman on heavy metal music. Friends of mine would rave about Klosterman - “Any self-anointed music journalist needs to be familiar with his works,” one said – and after the first three chapters, I can see why. He’s funny. For a writer, to be funny is to be really good. I’ve come to the conclusion that being funny might be my only shot at byline recognition, as you can tell by the attempts at humor that crowd this blog (see Bing Crosby below).

Klosterman is beyond funny though, as one can tell by his serious analysis of heavy metal. He makes the argument that there is quality artistic expression creeping underneath the sludge riffs of his beloved genre and he uses ole’ Ozzy as his shining example.

According to Klosterman’s book, Ozzy’s lyrics were pointedly focused on themes of weakness and despair. He writes: “(‘Bark At The Moon’) was about losing control of one’s personality… There is almost always an unintentional metaphor to Ozzy’s rock.”

Being the curious reader I am, I immediately Youtubed “Bark At The Moon” and found Ozzy playing mad scientist suprisingly charming. Maybe this is because my generation and I would never think of “Bark At The Moon” as anything other than the daunting final challenge of the first Guitar Hero game.

But watching this video, I almost wonder if Ozzy was actually attesting to a more classical struggle within: the battle of two personalities vying for the same brain. I mean, isn’t it obvious? We watch a frightened Ozzy stumble about in a hallway of eyeball-bleedingly bright rooms (presumably the rooms of his harried mind) and then quite suddenly, he’s being chased by his much hairer, almost frightening alter ego.

Werewolf Ozzy is very cool, barely cheesy. The only exception is that bit at the end, after a well-rested Ozzy looks back at his castle treatment center and there’s fucking Werewolf Ozzy looking back. Ozzy flashes it a smile and moves on, and then the camera does a DOUBLE TAKE ON WEREWOLF OZZY as if we hadn’t seen him four seconds earlier.

I was expecting (and would’ve preferred) a Thriller-esque surprise ending.

The Crosby Show

2008-12-25T17:37:00.000-08:00

Artist: Bing Crosby
Song: “White Christmas”
Rating: B-

Sorry Bing. Just because you’re a black and white legend doesn’t make you invulnerable to criticism. Sure, your song might have become another Christmas staple, but is anyone rushing out to buy the Blu-Ray edition of the actual White Christmas movie, as featured in this video here? Surely not!
Be thankful that “Santa” here is giving you anything higher than a D. That fox, Rosemary Clooney, is earning your soggy ass bonus points tonight.

Top Vids of '08: #3

2008-12-24T11:10:00.001-08:00

Any decent blog has to have some kind of "Best-Of-Year" list. Never wanting to be a blog that strays from the beaten path, I bring you...

E-MYERS' TOP THREE VIDEOS OF 2008!

Artist: Kanye West
Song: “Flashing Lights”
Rating: A

I know how frustrating this video is, being that it ends on a cliff hanger, cuts off before the end of the song and will come off as boring to some, especially when compared to other ultra-creative works that came out this year. But when this gorgeousness dropped, all I could say was “Damn Ye.”

Its honey and sugar cinema, flowing gorgeously with West’s flow and hey, the cinematography is pretty great too. It’s inspired my own abduction-by-centerfold fantasies too; who wouldn’t mind getting kidnapped by va-va-voom honeys? Rita here is my video vixen of the year.

Top Vids of '08: #2

2008-12-24T11:05:00.000-08:00

Artist: Santogold
Song: “L.E.S Artistes”
Rating: A

I’ve got a primetime mind and the day hasn’t come when it’s not hankering for some violence! But I like it with a side of iconography and message. Santogold and her two dancer hoods (who apparently go wherever she goes; they even showed up onstage with her when I saw Santi live) are the opening eye candy, but right before the viewer tires of seeing them, the video takes an exciting upward shift in terms of placement and meaning, it’s the sloppy pork n’ beans to be served up alongside one of the best songs of the year.

What’s Santi getting at here with the crimson-less carnage unfolding all around? I’ve got my wordplay theory: the senselessness of violence. Can you dig it?

Top Vids of '08: #1

2008-12-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

Artist: Justice
Song: “Stress”
Rating: A+

Is it so wrong that two of my top three videos are for songs that dropped last year? I guess the artists had to give directors a little bit of time to illustrate their efforts, but I’m so damn happy Justice picked this song out of its impressive catalog for production. The unrelenting horror flick throb was a risk, as was documenting a ragtag group of cross-bearing, mean-spirited Parisian thugs who can escape from even the thickest of situations (I won’t ruin the surprise, but let’s just say when you shit all over the living room, Daddy isn’t going to stand by idly.)

The looming doom and gloom of these beats are effortlessly melded into the story craft. The direction is excellent, the cinematograpy is superb and the dark finality of it all makes for a wildly beautiful portrait of anger. It’s one of those rare videos that augment the song and the artists to its needs, including a self-depreciating “D.A.N.C.E.” cameo!

Should we root for these destructive protagonists or wish the worst upon them? Good luck achieving the latter.

Fate Grab It, Real Snape

2008-12-23T23:43:00.000-08:00

Artist: The Young Knives
Song: “Terra Firma”
Rating: D+

Absurdism is the name of the game in this plain-faced visceral jaunt from Brit rock trio Young Knives. It’s the kind of video musicians would put out to entice foolhardy bloggers into hours of hard analysis, copies of The Republic in hand. I’m no student of philosophy by any means, but I struggle to know where to even begin to seek out a message among off-colored fruit, empty expressions, replicated rabbits and very-much-alive boas. I understand that some bands just like to have fun, but if that’s what Young Knives are going for here, they’re falling a bit short of delivery.

Roe: 93.3's 2008 Hometown for the Holidays winners!

2008-12-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz, December 2008

Backstage at the Aggie Theatre, hours before the release show for Roe’s new album Letters and Lights, bassist Nick Daniluk drops a bit of a bombshell: “This album saved the band. It got to a point about a year ago,” he says, “where we all kind of sat around and were like, ‘Well, we’re kind of ready to go our own ways, or start playing something we all want to play.’”

The end seemed inevitable. Back then, the group’s original four members – vocalist/keyboardist Jake Espy, vocalist/guitarist David Anderson, drummer John Breeding, and Daniluk – considered each other associates rather than friends. The four had struggled to find their desired fifth, a lead guitarist in touch with Roe’s sound and approach. Playing tracks off their 2006 release, Frame By Frame, had gotten tiresome.

Something had to be done, so last winter, the Pop/Rock outfit disappeared from the scene and buckled down in the studio. It was time well spent. The group finally found their missing guitarist in Jake Breeding, John’s brother. The band also took time to revise their songwriting process, using a group-based effort when working out new tracks (Espy had written six of Frame By Frame’s seven tracks.)

The five mapped out nearly 30 tunes using their new method, but they won’t deny that some painstaking breakups along the way helped get the creative juices flowing. “It’s so interesting how you can be so much more in touch with your emotion when you’re sad and depressed then when you’re happy,” says Anderson. “That’s when, I think, true writing comes out.”

“Some of the songs on this record did span outside of relationships,” Espy adds. “’Coming Down,’ the first song on (Letters and Lights,) I wrote about how I struggled with certain aspects of my religion. David wrote ‘Excuses’ about friends, and one of David’s songs is about his uncle, who was going through a really hard time. Outside of the first layer, it seems like a lot of our songs are about relationships, but that’s not necessarily what it’s all about.”

It’s easy to make that impression with Letters and Lights, an album of crooner Rock n’ Roll that swings between autumnal acoustic offerings and bold carnival rides of rhythm and guitar. Just be careful when tossing out comparisons to The Fray. “We get that cause we’re a Colorado piano band,” says Daniluk. Espy adds, “They really thrive on that smooth sound. We’re more raucous.”

http://www.myspace.com/roerock

Clay & Fire

2008-12-13T14:16:00.000-08:00

Artist: Bloc Party
Song: “One Month Off”
Rating: F

What is Bloc Party trying to say here? I’m struggling with this one just a bit too much for my own good.

Is the band unhappy about militarism encroaching culture? Or, conversely, are they making a statement about the consequences dealt in a fairy tale lifestyle?
Then there’s the obvious answer: maybe they just get a kick out of burning down Ray Harryhausen’s unsettling world of clay.

Go to town, I say. But be a little stylish about it; no shitty clip-on explosions and “vaporizations” please. It’s unlikely any clay animator will ever be able to capture the Harryhausen’s aesthetic (the ghastly Hansel and Gretel skeletons attest to this), so why not just hire clay animators to make a similar clay world?

In the probable case of a reasonable budget, it would’ve been better just to go with simple animation, seriously, because Harryhausen’s world simply was not built to be kicked down so easily. Half this video is footage of trees and forests and other nice things digitally aflame, but even when we are treated to some crafty images of fairytale carnage, it looks sloppy. Little Miss Moppet getting fragged is the visual equivalent of a gut punch and the castle carpet bombing is the knee to the face.

Gobbledegunk

2008-12-06T13:48:00.000-08:00

Artist: Sigur Rós
Song: "Glósóli"
Rating: C

I was quite ready to dump a D rating on this video, because the music of atmospheric architects like Sigur Rós really shouldn’t be pegged into a particular image, but into the imaginations of millions. It’s expansive and endearing in that sense, no need to limit it to a movie.

For me, it’s melting polar ice caps and bare winter wastelands- beautiful, but hauntingly so. I was somewhat disappointed with the children-existing-on-an-island concept, which was quite boring up until the 3:50 mark. I cannot spit on cinematic magic with a below-average rating, no matter how dull the build-up might be.

But the fact lingers: these guys shouldn't be making music videos. Even then, they know they can do better.

Crawling on the Planet's Face

2008-12-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

(Be patient. It will load.)

Artist: The Strokes
Song: "You Only Live Once"
Rating: A+

The end of everything really can come any day now. Pretend as much as you want otherwise, but one big explosion would do it. Maybe it'd be a nuke, or a hydrogen bomb. I guess a massive biological weapon could do it too. World War III would last for a few days. Or maybe it’ll be unexpected, like some kind of flesh-eating nanobots, a meteorite.

The possibilities are endless, I suppose, but I hope someone has enough foresight to build a chic satellite containing every little facet of the former existence of those “tiny insects called the human race.”

And I hope this music video is playing on it too; these are the sounds of Earth. This song is synchronized gorgeousness, fitting for this video in so many ways: the emotional stirring, the exciting aesthetics and the straight-forward moxie.

I love this song and I love this video. It’s stunning. The transitions work perfectly. The use of imagery makes me understand that notion of being “reeled in” that movie critics so often toss out in reviews. I suppose it’s worth mentioning this isn’t the only version, but with something as majestic as the art above, why would you even want to click that link?

CD Review: 10-4 Eleanor

2008-12-03T09:53:00.000-08:00

Originally published in Scene Magazine, December 2008

There a couple of reasons I enjoy 10-4 Eleanor’s latest recording.
I’d like to reflect on the nostalgia sparked by its floppy disk jacket boasting the Galaga fighter ship or write out pretentious musings on the meanings of the track titles, but the music of Words is deserving of all attention.

Try as I might to keep from stuffing underground darlings like 10-4 Eleanor into a genre, Words is a smattering of subgenres: here a little surf punk, there a little skate punk. The difference is in the riffs.

There’s no mistaking a West Coast influence in “Celebrity Taxidermy!” which wields Offspring-styled, boogie board guitar. But then there’s the loosey-goosey grime of standout “Dressed To Impresstevez,” aggressive in the way your average skate punk track ought to be. Its barreling riffs are rough, but not to the point where its delicious melody gets buried; 10-4 Eleanor prevents that happening on any of the tracks.

No, these gutter punks have a superb understanding of fun, never really seeking to make a point but rather to get asses moving. “Massive” is a catchy bundle of hooks that doesn’t thrash like the tracks that come before it, opting instead into a merry dish of dance. The closer, “Midwestern Hearts,” is a bit of a downer though, its midtempo acoustics underlining the misery-able vocals.

The rad CD jacket might scream gimmick band, but the 17 minutes of homely punk goodness within will convince you otherwise.

The Test of Time takes another

2008-11-25T10:06:00.000-08:00

Artist: Wu-Tang Clan
Song: "C.R.E.A.M."
Rating: B-

Remember the 90’s? I don’t but I do.

My own experience was a rise into adolescence that has pretty much smeared by years of stimulant use. Everything I can remember from that decade is in still frame images; it doesn’t move and the sounds and other senses associated are made up in my head. A walk to school, a snowball fight, Genesis and Super Nintendo, sitting in the living room with Dad listening to the Pixies and Michael Jackson.

Off the top of my head, that’s it. I don’t really remember anything otherwise.
But there’s always the discovery of hidden memories in objects and pictures and videos. I see them, and presto, I’m back in 1994, a second grader drinking Hi-C in the greenbelt behind my house, wondering where it all goes from here. This video has a similar effect, even though rap music was not allowed into the home and disliked by all my friends.

I didn’t even get into Wu-Tang until last year, however. This song is associated with 3:00 a.m. drives across town, a college junior/senior sipping out of a used water bottle, wondering where it all goes from here. Same shit, different decade.
There’s obviously some conflict of emotions when I watch this video. It’s a timeless song, but a video that’s very obviously aligned with style of hip-hop videos back then: rappers dropping rhymes with their respective armies in the background, slum landscapes, appalling graphic effects and grainy video and not single damn smile to be seen. These are not images that have withstood the test of time, considering the bizarre top-ranked hip-hop video these days. How far we’ve come.

Most hip-hop videos back then didn’t even attempt to set the bar, but don’t discredit the style. An undeniable cool is tied to the 90’s style, and there’s a certain flow to the images that I like. Look at that. I’m getting caught up in my own generalizations. I don’t want to dislike this video, I admit.

You want some real positive criticism? Right here: In this video, Wu-Tang gives a subtle finger to the big money style that was also a popular style at the time. There’s that fabulously cliché scene near the end, with the boys sitting around the table of champagne and money bags, casually tucking cigars into their mouths while sneering at the camera. That’s C.R.E.A.M. for ya kid.

Dressy Bessy crank out album, hit the road

2008-11-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz, November 2008

Lounging in his hotel room in Memphis, John Hill remarks that this is the first time Dressy Bessy has played the city. But just because they were lucky enough to get into town early doesn’t mean they’ll be seeing much of it.

“I always say that if you want to see a city on tour, it takes like about half dozen times coming to that city before you actually see that city,” guitarist/vocalist Hill says over the phone, adding: “Yeah, (the show’s) tonight. We have a fairly late load in… I might actually have to leave here in a couple of minutes.”

It might be their first visit to Memphis, but the Denver-based power-pop collective is no rookie when it comes to the national tour. They’ve even developed their own strategic approach to their current tour: drop the album, then hit the road. Stopping by a few unfamiliar spots doesn’t hurt either, as Hill has discovered.

“The last week we’ve been more or less in the south. We’ve never been down there, thought we’d try it,” he says. “We’ve had good turnouts and actually have fans out in these places we’ve never been… It’s definitely worth doing, but it’s kind of hard. You don’t make quite as much money and the shows aren’t quite as big.”

Hill adds that most fans probably haven’t had a chance to pick up their new full-length, Holler and Stomp, which the group dropped last September before kicking off the tour with a show at Monolith.

If anything, most fans might not even know Dressy Bessy was still cranking out new material; it’s been three years of little-to-no activity since the release of their last album. Hill, who also plays guitar with The Apples In Stereo, notes that his work with the Apples (who released a b-sides compilation earlier this year) took up a fair share of his time, but the group never entirely stopped operations.

“It wasn’t like we we’re really taking a break, we just took a little bit of time off really.” Hill says.

Even when they weren’t entirely active, Dressy Bessy learned new lessons.

“We’ve immediately learned that we won’t wait so long in between records anymore,” Hill says. “We are finding that we have to break new ground in some areas, because the music industry changes so much and has been changing so quickly in the past three years.”

The industry might be subject to change over the years, but since Dressy Bessy took shape in 1998, the sound has retained some similar qualities since Hill and lead singer Tammy Ealom founded the band: short boppy pop powered by catchy hooks.

“When Dressy Bessy started, Tam and I were both listening to and fairly well-obsessed with 60’s pop,” Hill says. “A lot of those songs are 2 minutes and 10 seconds, just quick in-and-out, fairly simple, maybe some complexities. That’s kind of where Dressy Bessy started and then, I dunno, it’s changed a little bit over the years as far as our sound. But the basic root of it all, the kind of quick pop song with the quick hook and kind of get-in and get-out… that kind of stuck with us.”

Even then, Hill maintains, there’s more to the music than its sugary surface.

“A lot of times we get lumped into this bubble gum pop, which is fair enough, but if you read more into the songs, most of the songs are about Tammy being pissed off or something,” Hill says. “Everybody ends up thinking ‘Oh, she’s just La-Dee-Da!’ But almost all of them come from some conflict she’s had with somebody or something, it’s just hard to read into it.”

Hill says Ealom took a different approach in creating Holler and Stomp.

“Tammy approached this one in a much different way, where it was more of a beats-first kind of thing, whereas normally she’d approach it in the opposite way,” Hill says. “It is a little bit of a departure from the last two records in that the last two records we went into a studio and just banged it out, and had a deadline, which when you record an album and you don’t really have a deadline, you just work and work and work.”

There’s also the linear notes message from a very special fan: the quirky mop-haired Missourian who claims to have attended at least one show every day for the past commonly known as Beatle Bob.

“We’ve known for him, gosh, like 10 years maybe. He always comes to our shows in St. Louis, and then occasionally we’ll see him at South by Southwest and things like that,” Hill said.

His Name is Magic Cyclops

2008-11-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian, November 13, 2008

The man isn't interested in talking.

"You don't see me," he mumbles, scurrying past the Collegian reporter, a duffel bag under arm. "Not here."

He, a lanky pale figure who could pass as the Unabomber's protégé in his black hoodie and baseball cap, makes his way to the tiny stage in the corner of the room. Out of the duffel bag comes a mic stand, a vocal effects processor with built-in pedal and a MacBook with a "Regular Joes for McCain-Palin" sticker slapped on the monitor's back.

The sticker is somewhat ironic in a dive bar like Surfside 7, the only joint in town that proudly blasts the likes of Slayer and Turbonegro over its speakers and where piercings hang from bartenders' every appendage.

He turns on the microphone: "Test, test, hello, hello."

He toys with the processor, suddenly sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk: "W-w-whoa dude. I'm high on drugs."The bored female bartenders laugh. A small tweak in the controls and his voice drops into the hulking tone of a "60 Minutes" anonymous source: "I sound like a sexual predator."

Eyeing the bartenders, he adds a flirty purr to his monstrous baritone: "Hey there little boy. You like candy?" Pleased with this pitch and the responding laughter, he disappears into the kitchen behind the pizza counter.

Fifteen minutes later, a strange character swaggers out, bearing a black muscle shirt. His eyes are tucked away behind dark tea shades, while his long black hair is held to the sides of his face by a neon purple and blue bandana baring a single word: "MAGIC." He introduces himself: "It's legally Magic Cyclops. Legally."

One eye, one dream
Consider Cyclops to be many things.

"Magic Cyclops is the ultimate performance artist," says Nate Clark, sound engineer and production manager at the Aggie Theatre, who claims to have been a Cyclops fan since his earliest performances. "He's a musician, a character, an actor, a hero and a villain."

In less esoteric terms, Cyclops is the "Weird Al" Yankovic of Fort Collins, minus the direct parodies and PG rating -- he once told a heckler, "If I wanted any lip from you, I'd unzip my pants." He alternates between musician, with a berth of original songs, and professional disc jockey, never straying from an 80s sound.

"I've just always kind of been into music. Ya know, your Def Leppards, your Journeys," Cyclops says. "New music is crap. I enjoy what most people would call bad music nowadays."Then there were the heroes of the decade -- Hulk Hogan and other professional wrestlers -- who had a considerable impact on his life as well. Cyclops had sported a "HOGAN" headband up until this year, realizing that his idol "was the biggest douchebag on the planet."

But when pressed for details on his newfound hate, Cyclops ponders, retracts.

"I have been watching his celebrity wrestling lately, which is making him seem a little less douchey. I still think he wants to date his daughter and I kind of find that a little 'insane in the membrane,'" Cyclops says, drawing the classic "coo-coo crazy" signal with his finger. "Although if I had a hot daughter, I'd probably want to date her. Can I really condemn that? I dunno."

Sipping incessantly from a mixed drink, Cyclops says his hometown of Davenport, Iowa had a bad habit of inbreeding. He admits the possibility that his own mother and father might have been a little too close on the family tree.Cyclops often uses the words "unfortunate" and "sadly" in describing his early years.His impoverished upbringing, for example, left a permanent mark. BBC programming on PBS was the only entertainment he had access to as a child, manifesting in the British accent that he has never shed. The peer torment that followed never entirely faded either.

But escape was found in the music and icons of the times, the very subjects Cyclops clings to today. He recalls various babysitters taking him to concerts around Iowa and lesser-known acts like Mr. Mister and Centro-matic inspiring his decision to pursue a music-making career.

His arrival in Fort Collins was, at first, nothing more than another stop in Cyclops' 2000 nationwide tour. But when his car broke down, he says he decided to make Fort Collins his new home. There wasn't much back in Davenport, except some serious gambling debts.

Hot hits
Tonight at Surfside, Cyclops is doing the DJ thing.He greets the pooling crowd: "Time to get wicked. But first, I'm gonna play my theme song."

He turns to his MacBook and unleashes it, a startling 20-second blast of high-pitched wailing on the crowd. Just another Cyclops "hot hit."

"You know, a lot of people are just astounded and amazed, so much so that it causes them to get very angry," Cyclops says of his music's reception. "I could only imagine it's what, you know, your Stones, your Beatles, your Michael Jacksons had to go through in the early days."

Ben Prytherch, bassist with local band Motorhome, recalls an early Cyclops performance at Surfside that sparked such anger in one patron that he wrote a letter to the bar declaring he'd never come back.

"It used to be Magic Cyclops versus the audience," Prytherch says. "It was really fun watching a lot of people getting really angry."

Most Cyclops fans are of the "love-to-hate" variety, taking delight in the camp and comedic edge of his music, regardless of the artist's original intention. But it's hard to believe he meant anything else, considering song titles such as "Rainbow of Pain" and "Wrath of (Chaka) Kahn." There's also his most popular release, "Teen Pregnancy Don't Do It," a Casio keyboard ballad that's part song, part public service announcement. When asked about the inspiration behind the song, Cyclops refers to "growing up in Iowa, hoping that I didn't get the ladies pregnant."

"I saw most of my high school class had sons and daughters that are almost as old as I am now," Cyclops says.

There are very few specifics when it comes to the song-writing process for Cyclops.

"Like every musician, I just write about stuff," he says. "Stuff inspires me. Some days I'm over there at the Wal-Mart, and I'll see something like a muffin top. That inspires me. And then I'm like, going to get milk or something, and then a minute later, I'm like 'Oh, that'd be a hot hit, Muffin Top.'"

Most would argue Cyclops' talents are more concentrated in his stagemanship, particularly his air guitar antics. Earlier this year, Cyclops won the Denver Regional Air Guitar Championship, earning a trip to San Francisco to compete in the U.S. Air Guitar Championship in August.

"I picked the death sentence spot of going first," Cyclops says. "No one's ever advanced to the second round going first."

There's always next year. Cyclops says his steady performance schedule has kept him conditioned, and he eagerly anticipates the chance to redeem this year's mistake.

"I'm not like your average DJ; I lip-synch, I air-guitar, air-drum, it keeps me in the realm. It's like practice," he says. "And sometimes, late at night in my room, I'll kick on some Colt, put on my BVD's and rock it on out."

Expect a sizable showing of talent on Nov. 22, when Cyclops opens for 12 Cents for Marvin at the Aggie Theatre.

The man behind the Magic
Cyclops declined to give or confirm his supposed "real" identity for this article. While Cyclops will insist he is who he is, there is another personality behind the one-man show.

"He's not like Magic Cyclops at all," Clark says. "He's just a guy, a guy that loves punk rock, indie rock and music in general... nothing like Cyclops. Cyclops is an asshole, a prima donna."

"I see him around town," says Dayton Hicks, bassist with local band Arliss Nancy. "He's a nice guy -- kind of an introvert, I guess. He does his own thing."

"A lot of people, I think, mistake him for a complete goof-off," says Darren Radach, instrumentalist with Motorhome and Glove Trucker. "But he's one of those guys who, if he continues to take it as seriously as he does, could end up being on Comedy Central, Saturday Night Live. He's got that kind of talent and that kind of conviction in his comedy."

CD Review: Project Moonbeam

2008-11-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

Originally published in Scene Magazine, November 2008

Immersive at best and boring at worst, progressive rock is often considered decades past its time, particularly when based in the synthesizer style that gave nerd bands like Rush an unexpected place in pop culture. As cutting-edge as it was then, listening to Project Moonbeam’s self-titled debut makes it pretty obvious that some sounds are best left on classic rock radio.

The man behind the Moonbeam is Loveland musician Chris Fournier. Project Moonbeam, as he writes in the liner notes, was a three-year learning activity to get his high-end music studio, Earth Shaper Audio, “understood and operational.” Fournier self-produced the final product, and considering the elegant layering and flawless effect placement, it’s apparent that he has learned much. However, the music itself doesn’t quite hold up in comparison.

It’s not that the pedal-heavy guitars or poky rhythms feel a few decades late, it’s just that there’s little fun to be found in listening to the same tawdry track over and over. Project Moonbeam’s album has a tendency towards that: an intergalactic assortment of rising Satriani solos melded together with crunchy riffs (“Air,” “Quarkz”) and soft-shelled keyboard melodies (“Depths Unknown,” “Man I Was”).

Also to be stressed is that in this day and age, drum machines are only permissible when they’re buried deep in the audio layering and don’t resemble a drum machine whatsoever, a rule that Fournier has regrettably chosen to break in “Reality Is.” The opening electro-percussion kick in that track caused me Baltimora flashbacks. For that, I say shame on you Project Moonbeam.

My band is no ripoff

2008-10-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

I had a good laugh when it happened to Avril Lavigne.
I can't remember a more exaggerated smirk pooling on my face then the time it happened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Probably the best musical ripoff to ever take place? Well, that'd be when Nickelback ripped off themselves. Nothing will ever fucking top that.

But for one of my favorite bands of all time to get hit with that painful accusation of plagerism? Say it ain't so!

I'll let you read the article for the details, but basically this guy is charging that the riff off of The Hives' "Tick Tick Boom" is lifted off of a track he put together in the late 90's. This story ends with a sigh of relief though; take a quick listen to the opening sections of both tracks and it's easy to tell that, while the riff is indeed somewhat similar, it's clear these are two completely different songs. Chalk up another for the Swedes.

Live Review: Santogold, Mates of State, Trouble Andrew

2008-10-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

Note: I didn't happen to take the video, that honor belongs to YouTube user adventurefit. I'm sure he/she won't mind a few more views, right?

I traveled down to Denver’s almost-intimate Gothic Theatre for a three-act show earlier this October: pseudo-rock group Trouble Andrew, indie rock duo Mates of State and then headliner Santogold.

While its structure and acoustics might not be much different from several other Denver venues (it has an odd similarly to The Ogden Theatre in that the standing room sections is divided into thirds while special VIP high rises line the walls), the Gothic generally showcases college radio acts and as such, typically draws a young and eccentric crowd. The sound carries well in the Gothic’s high hall, but to really watch the show is to stand in the front section. There, one’s ears can surf on the finest timbre while dancing with the crowd.

Opening act Trouble Andrew was undoubtedly the weakest act of the night, barely rousing the crowd members out of their stand still positions with their quirky downbeat skateboarder jams. Lead singer Trouble played up a strong stage presence, talking with the crowd and promoting the acts that were to follow. But it couldn’t excuse the fact that Trouble’s pitch couldn’t keep in tune with the backing guitar or bass melodies, and he constantly struggled with his intervals. I was particularly disappointed to listen to the offbeat live version of “Chase Money”, a song where Trouble’s uptempo delivery flows perfectly with the mellowed out melody. At the Gothic, however, he could barely keep up.

Following Trouble Andrew was Mates of State, a band I had only experienced a couple of times prior to the show, never really forming much of an impression. They did a decent live show, the two never moving from behind their microphones and Casio keyboards. Harmony is an essential in the music of Mates of State, who put forth forward energy throughout their set, their songs often lapsing into one another. Their set, which kept a fluffy up-tempo dissonance, was a stark contrast to the previous moodiness, throttling me into a bubblier attitude. By the end of this set, I was dancing along with the erratic nigh-nonmetric fills.

In the moments before Santogold took the stage, two schoolgirl uniformed dancers wearing oversized sunglasses high-kneed their way on, exciting the crowd with a minute-long synchronized stiff dance. They’d flank Santogold for the rest of the night, purveyors of minimalism in a setting that flickered between drone dub and jungle dance beats.

Santogold’s standout performance was “LES Artistes”, a fan-favorite track that builds off a mixed meter electro-percussion beat, eventually blooming into an orchestral synth chorus. Santogold nailed her vocal accentuations, allowing me a newer pleasant access to the hope-under-stress emotions I was filled with during my first listen earlier this year.

The only disappointment of the show was a decision to perform a bare-bones version of “Lights Out”; Santogold turned a song that has pretty pop chorus and succinct guitar riff into an acoustic solo vocal performance of the opening verse, and then promptly transitioning into the next song’s melody. When an artist performs a stripped-down version of their song, he/she owes it to their fans to make sure it sounds good without a backing beat and the other six-sevenths of the song.

She closed out the set (excluding her unspectacular encore) with jungle blaster “Creator”, inviting up some colorful characters from the very front up on stage to dance along with her. Santogold navigated through the crowded stage fairly easily, dropping each verse with a smile on her face and an occasional laugh at one goofy guy she stared down during delivering the final zipping verse.

Reject Responsibility!

2008-10-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Artist: Tom Waits

Song: "I Don't Want To Grow Up"

Rating: B

Ok, I fucking hate videos that get some guy and dress him up and have him run around like a moron, like the devil in the first minute of this video. It'd be the death knell for this unusual video for a song that feels a little run-of-the-mill. But damn, I laughed when Tom Waits emerged from the curtains onto that tiny stage. He's a kind of weirdness all artists going for avant-garde should study before they even put their pencils to the stanzas.

Xiren undergoes strange journey in 08

2008-10-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz Magazine, October 2008

Considering the scams, bus crashes and wedding vows, 2008 has been a monster year for singer-songwriter Xiren, real name Daryl Xiren Kenny. And it’s not over yet; he believes his new album, Trip-R, could be the breakout recording he’s been seeking since his move from Detroit to Denver 12 years ago.

“When we look back at all the great records that were ever made, the people making them knew that they had something special at the time, and it’s a little bit of that feeling,” Xiren says. “We’ll see if there’s any legitimacy in that.”

His fifth original recording, Trip-R swings like a designated hitter, wielding supersonic sensibility and aggressive theatrics and a theme of “rock n’ roll revenge.” It’s a style similar to that of U2, a group Xiren “holds up on the pedestal.

Besides the music, there’s the Irish heritage he can identify with; Xiren’s father is an Irish migrant who gave him the Gaelic middle name he goes by now. Perhaps above all, however, Ciren admires the international supergroup’s humanitarian efforts. It’s why he works charity into each of his concerts: the Trip-R release party last month donated a portion of the tickets sold to The Chanda Plan Foundation, a group dedicated to making Eastern physical therapy available to those with physical disabilities.

“There’s so much self-promotion in music,” he says. “Your name and photos are on flyers and marquees, and my god; it has got to be about something else.”

Being kind to the world doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be nice in return. In May, Xiren journeyed into India to participate in an organized tour with ten other artists from around the world. What he’d find there, however, was “a relatively well-executed scam of some level.” It was discovered that the promoter running the show had created his own record label, taking on several identities with various cell phone numbers and email addresses, and had barely booked the artists; Xiren says his two shows were booked at a flea market and a tiny bar. He says the company that had set him up with the tour via contest, Sonicbids, had assured him that he’d was partaking in a legit operation.

“They obviously didn’t vet the client at all,” Xiren says. “There’s no selection process, no background check, no credibility check. Pretty much anybody can sign up. They start taking independent artists’ money and literally offer nothing. I think it’s possibly the biggest fraud perpetuated on the independent music community today.”

Things looked to be on the up upon his return with a nationwide tour with his backing band. Three weeks in, a devastating bus crash scrapped those hopes and left ruined equipment scattered across a Midwest highway.

It also shook up several band mates to the point of resignation, and Xiren is currently seeking replacements. He says those interested should check out his Jack-o-Launch show at Pumpkinfest in Aurora on October 12 and catch the band after the show.

Life’s been much better to the man lately; besides dropping Trip-R, he married his long-time girlfriend in August. But looking back on the year, he says the hardships had their place: “It’s like Jane’s Addiction said: ‘Sometimes to realize you are well, someone must come along and hurt you.’”

Asianahone

2008-10-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

Artist: Passion Pit

Song: "Sleepyhead"

Rating: B+

Look at me ma, I'm cruising like a madman on the blogosphere, playing up bands like I know what I'm doing.

I admit, I don't really know what I'm doing. I put on this facade, but any sharp-eyed internet reader will know I pulled this creative flip book-box vid from Stereogum. At least I've got the gall to admit it. I am a responsible, respectable blogger who delivers nothing but the truth and full disclosure to all three of his readers.

But I'm going to give a go at generating blog-buzz too, just because I read about it all the time so I'd like to at least fancy myself as someone who's taste and writings actually influence the market.

So, yeah. Passion Pit. Based out of Boston. They're like a tangy MGMT with an extra layer of sugar added on top. Besides making fun songs, it looks like they'll be stacking together a strong collection of music videos, considering the crowd they worked with for this video.

This video is cool-looking, synchs well with the music without trying hard or even being 100% on time. You know you've got a good video on your hands when you can get away without perfect synchroization. I also like the flip book effect in this video; might not be entirely original, but again, it's doing so WITH CUBES! Who else has done that? Maybe many, but none come to mind. I challenge you, dear reader, to prove me dumb.

Rocky Mountain Electro-Emo: The Epilogues debut review

2008-10-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Scene Magazine, October 2008

When I told a friend I’d be reviewing the Epilogues’ debut album for Scene, she caught me by surprise with her fawning: “It made me fall in love again… and I’ve never been in love.”

That’s a special kind of passion, no doubt. But for me, The Beautiful, The Terrifying is more like a post-breakup medicinal, good for any lover without a warm body to cling to: heavy on the synths and the woe, it starts off with ache-breaky melodies before transitioning into danceable “loving-the-single-life” synth rock.The Epilogues must have studied some arty encyclopedia on somber electronica in preparing their debut, as their sound draws a wide variety of comparisons. Singer Chris Heckman’s vocals have a coolly punch, comparable to those of Morgan Quaintance of Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Openers “King Arthur” and “Hurting You” especially reflect this. And like DIOYY, both sail on an unmistakable electro-emo beat and catchy chorus. It’d get repetitive if not for a few gems of different color: standout track “On The Radio” rides on a sullen Radiohead-esque synth line as Heckman muses on the complexities of escape. “Caroline” is a similar slow-burner about desperate jealousy lined with throbbing mental images of exes embracing new lovers.

Comparisons aside, there’s a fair chunk of dance amidst the bleakness, particularly apparent in “The World is Yours” where rampant hooky guitar breakdowns remind us that it’s okay to move on.

Ultimately, this heart hasn’t been moved, but I’ll be keeping The Beautiful, The Terrifying handy for the next time some girl breaks it.

www.myspace.com/epiloguemusic

My Favorite Archduke

2008-10-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Band: Franz Ferdinand
Song: “Darts of Pleasure”
Rating: A

Franz Ferdinand is going to be up there along with Radiohead and Queens of The Stone Age and a couple of others that I'm forgetting as one of the defining rock bands of the naughties. If we are so lucky as to have electricity 20 years from now, “Take Me Out” will be spun on classic rock stations for decades until the inevitable nuclear holocaust. They are fun, the music is original and catchy and they’re videos are all top-notch.

I admit, the main motivation behind charting up a video that’s just barely out of date is a sudden excitement for the band’s upcoming album, Tonight. Seriously, take a couple of listens to their new single, “Lucid Dreams”, spread out over several days and you’ll be just as hungry as me.

But I digress. This video is another golden chunk of Ferdinand video magic, stocked with color and clever shadowing techniques and absolutely super sweet editing. Lead singer Alex Kapranos has a face made for fronting a band and I’m so glad he doesn’t mind getting his goof on for these superb pieces (his entrance at bar practice with the single second shot of his bug-eyed glare makes me smile.)

Final points go to the mouth cam shots interspersed throughout. Kapranos probably isn’t much of a mouth breather, but for this video, I’m glad he’s letting his jaw hang loose; it makes for a fun ride.

BOOM Money

2008-10-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Artist: Cadence Weapon
Song: “Real Estate”
Rating: B

I don’t know much about finances, but I’m still a student. A student who’s eagerness to learn is fueled almost entirely by a fear by a dark future devoid of much of the luxury I so thoroughly enjoy today. I’ll admit; without some financial support from Mom and Dad, this blog would not be before you today.

So, I’m doing as much as I can to learn about why the recent Wall Street implosion was as significant as it is and what I need to do to prepare for a future that no one can really predict. So bless the lord above for artists like Cadence Weapon, whose latest video hams up the bleak reality of things, all while he spins lyrics from the point of a view of a negligent real estate broker. The beat is catchy and the vocals/lyrics flow so superb, that is, whenever Cadence isn’t dropping that nauseatingly-repetitive chorus.

In conclusion, this is a decent video; cheesy, but not unbearably so. Cadence has got a new look, and be it in a business suit or chilling poolside with models, I like it. Maybe it’s the hair. It's obvious that Cadence isn't spinning a story here, but I've got to admit , I would've liked to see a few desolate faces of business execs and daytraders, burned by a few greedy business decisions

Special Local Edition Music Video review: The Black Apples

2008-10-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

BAND: The Black Apples
SONG: "20 Years At Sea"

RATING: B+

The audio quality isn't perfect and this is, in fact, a video made by a good friend who has gone off to LA in pursuit of a career that won't ebb away at his soul. But most importantly, this was a Fort Collins band that I got the opportunity to interview earlier this year. They dropped their new album earlier this fall- "Enjoy!"- only made 100 copies and I couldn't make it to their farewell show (they too have flocked to LA for similar reasons, the idea being a record deal) and my sister somehow screwed up and got me a copy of another band that is good in their own rights, but The Black Apples are something special mark my words.

This video is fun, and actually quality for being filmed by a college student. Can't give it a perfect grade, because of the audio, but I will say this song is aural magic. The main reason I'm posting it is because I'm immediately taking advantage of their "super up-and-coming" status. Four years from now, when their first national release takes college radio (followed by commercial radio by at least the second album) by storm, I'm going to get the claim to major cool status and boost this blog by three more readers. Also, check out their other catchy-and-cool-as-hell songs.

Getting Better

2008-10-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling down.
The day has been long and unproductive. I've been racked with guilt for making bad choices, the wrong choices. Instead of exercise, I take an extra hour of sleep. Later, I half-ass my way through a paper and an article, projects I put off for gratifications that left me just as quickly as they came. Recognizing this, I make a half-hearted pledge to do better in the future. Whatever.
At the end of the day, I don't do the assigned readings and tell friends I'm too sick to go out and socialize. It's one bad choice after another, but some days a guy just doesn't want to step out of his shitty dirty box, a comfort zone with a carpet of crumpled paper and coins and crumbs.
To ward off guilt and shame before bed, the keyword is "deformities." There's a million to choose from, but three or so usually will do. I can look at these people/human things/genetic disappointments and remind myself how good I have it. I don't feel very sorry for these people; they'd probably be just as terrible as me if they had all of life's greatness at their fingertips. That is what I tell myself as I lie down.
Tomorrow will be better.

YouAge

2008-10-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

Wired put out a fascinating article on the resurgance of the music video that I just had to blog about. Notice, if you so please, that there is heavy emphasis put on videos from indie artists. YouTube has fueled the coming of a new music video era, evidently, and I'm lovin' every minute of it.

It's a fairly fine selection (I highly suggest checking out Keith Schofield's awesome 'Toe Jam' video at the bottom of the list), but I would have to lodge my one complaint with the inclusion of Matthew Cullen's 'Pork and Beans'. I like the song, but damn, did he really have to go with a viral star-studded collection of internet celebrities (or their lookalikes) for a music video? I don't want to see all that shame bagged together in one scooping... ugh, come on Wired, you know you could've done so much better.

Indie Effects

2008-09-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Artist: Radiohead
Song: “House of Cards”
Rating: B

It’s probably the most-talked about music video of the year, a year where music videos almost, sadly, feel passé. But then Radiohead goes and pulls something slightly cool like this and everyone jumps onto YouTube to watch and enjoy.

I like this video. It’s cool and it fits the song well, and it really is something different from everything we’ve seen before, even with all of the CGI that floats along the music visual highways.

I really like the part, say about 1:20 into the video, when Thom’s head starts dissolving slowly. It’s pretty. Ultimately though, I can’t give this video an A; the scratchy rendering parts irritate me to no end.

BONUS: Watch the behind the scenes video, it too was pretty cool.

shut up shut up shut up

2008-09-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Artist: The Ting Tings
Song: “Shut Up and Let Me Go”
Rating: D-

There’s so much to dislike about this video from catchy British duo, The Ting Tings. From the trippy, if not nauseating, triangle montage (a trick ripped straight from one of music’s more classic music videos), to the queasy color schemes and graphic slices to the retarded fight sequence halfway through.

Seriously, this video just sucks. It synchs up, but it’s horribly boring and naïve for a band who’s songs sound pretty damn good, so its a shame this video does it such terrible justice. I'd also like to comment on the desperate lack of sexual energy between Jules De Martino and Kate White (who is actually really hot), despite their obvious attempt to achieve that kind of tension to the level of The Kills. It just ain't happening here in this cut-and-paste craptastrophe. I give this video a low grade based on its massive lack of appeal. Really, there’s not much more to say.

Sit Outside and Dream review

2008-09-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Scene Magazine, September 2008

CD: Sit Outside and Dream
Artist: WoolEye

Ever since Hendrix rocked 20 arms on the cover of Axis: Bold As Love, Hindu imagery has been psychedelic rock’s colorful totem. But don’t let the Tridevi on the cover of WoolEye’s latest effort fool you; the trippiness comes in bits and pieces.

While the far-off space guitar is present in a handful of tracks, Sit Outside and Dream is dominated by a boppy jazz rock sound, heard across the synth landscapes and hooky keyboard. What lifts WoolEye above the archetypal fusion four-piece is a willingness to dabble in genres far outside their range without compromising their jazz-based approach. Most of the time, it works.

Try the neon bluegrass sound of “Cherokee Bill” – though the lyrics feel uninspired, there’s something surprisingly fun about the rocking electric piano and guitar bridges.

The Technicolor techno-pop of “New York Spinnit” is aural deliciousness. The succulent synth keys bubble when mixed with vocalist Michael Rouse’s rock n’ roll drawl. It’s speedy and clever and catchy as hell. “Tune For The Sun” is another überfun stretch with vocals and piano embracing an Elton John elegance.

Occasionally, the genre-bending polish wears off and leaves the listener with a failed experiment - the stiff dub rock of “Snapback Fission” - or peculiar contemporary rock that takes way too long to pay off - the itchy “New Dawn Plowing”, which takes off about four minutes in, when the instrumentation picks up on that psychedelic flavoring mentioned earlier.

But you gotta give it to them; Sit Outside and Dream proves that as long as it fits, it doesn’t have to belong.

The iPod effect

2008-09-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

Artist: Silversun Pickups
Song: “Well Thought Out Twinkles”
Rating: C-

I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing the Silversun Pickups take the stage at the gorgeous Red Rocks Amphitheatre this Saturday, in between Vampire Weekend and DeVotchKa. It was a gorgeous concert, but then again, every show you see at Red Rocks tends to be a chunk of splendor. Lead singer Brian Aubert, between songs: “This is probably the prettiest venue we’ve ever played.”

I loved the Pickups live; they thrashed to the beat and each performer seemed to have character (the crazy drummer, the shy bassist, the cool slick-haired guitarist/vocalist) but it is rather unfortunate that they couldn’t bring the same aesthetic to this video. I do realize it came out in 2006, so maybe they were just playing to the visual style of the time: washed-out figures rocking out to raw music, a style undoubtedly born of those quickly tiresome iPod commercials.

I watch this video, and that’s all I can think of- iPod commercials. C’mon guys, this is a pretty badass song. I suppose I’m glad they could’ve done worse; it’s scarily easy to picture the guy-chase-girl story that permeates some of the videos of some of the better songs out there. But this isn’t much better.

Common Anomaly

2008-09-15T23:55:00.001-07:00

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz, September 2008

It’s hard to tell if Nick LoFaro is joking when he lays out the pre-show ritual for his band, Common Anomaly.

The others laugh, but no one attempts to refute, so I let my guard down. “We don’t really try to drink any substances or drink or anything like that, but we all slap each other in the face before we go on stage,” LoFaro says, laughing.

This, they tell me, lounging in the parking lot behind the Aggie Theater, is just the typical brotherly love of the Common Anomaly family: Vocalist/guitarist LoFaro, synth keyboardist Ian Walsh, bassist Sean Joyce, and the true brothers of the pack, vocalist/guitarist/occasional violinist Paul Simmons and drummer Adam Simmons.

Listening to their style of catchy cruising garage rock, it’s not hard to imagine these five pelting one another till the energy is right.

But this isn’t screaming-mad music. The roots of Common Anomaly are actually set in the acoustics, beginning a year ago when LoFaro and the Simmons brothers first took their act to the stage.

“It was basically tailored to fit a small acoustic venue,” Adam noted. “A drum set would be a little too overpowering for that, so we did everything on a Jambe and acoustic guitars.”

The addition of Walsh “plugged our asses in”, as LoFaro describes, “to a huge sound scheme” and “a huge attitude and a lot more depth to a lot of our songs, which were originally very earthy at first”, while Joyce, who moved from Chicago to join the band in July, rounds it all out. While keeping a regular routine of shows in FoCo and Denver, these up-and-comers plan to start recording immediately at The Farm, a barn studio owned by FoCo musician Jonathan Alonzo.

The band says “family” is the term to describe the group’s chemistry, and expect it to be essential to churning out their debut album.

“(Family) gives you the opportunity to tell each other when we’re off or when we suck, or when we’re doing really well,” LoFaro says. “It’s flat honesty, hard love and good s#!t.”

I'm a Cat Cowboy

2008-09-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

Artist: MGMT
Video: Time To Pretend
Rating: C

It isn't easy giving a less-than-stellar grade to the video of a song you happen to like, but I'm determined to remain firm in my writing. This smattering of clip art and cheesy computer graphics, brought to you by the boys of MGMT, does not deserve anything above a C+ (I took away half a grade because those assholes don't let users embed their video, and using a hyperlink is just so outdated these days, really.)

I'll admit, I got teeny tiny goosebumps early on into the video, when the drums kick in and we're treated to a sea of (who I'm guessing to be) Andrew VanWyngardens smashing away while lead singer Ben Goldwasser muses on. And the video plays along quite nicely with the song's concept of an imaginary life of excitement and meaning. Seeing Goldwasser (or maybe VanWyngarden... you can barely tell the fucking difference between the two) surf along the colorscape brought a smile to my face.

But trippiness is a little cliche, and because this song had so much potential, I believe the director just got lazy and scrambled on some "ironically cool" effects, synched it up with music, and the only real filming took place on some beach, where a group of ignorants dressed up like savages battling crab monsters (that released several hundred dolphins upon explosion, apparently) and riding giant cats.

And the constant barrage of images, ugh, it makes me a little queasy. Child psychologists, know this: the video for "Time To Pretend" is the kind of shit instills attention deficit disorder into 6-year-olds.

Explanations

2008-09-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

ARTIST: Deerhunter

SONG: "Lake Somerset"

RATING: D

It'seasytocallthisshitbutiguesstheressomethingadmirableaboutdoingsomethingdifferentinthecasedressinguplikearetardaretardjayreatardandmakethisvideobutimonanothersugarbingeicantpeelmyowneyesoffanotherwinfor thefoggyfrontlinesinsideandalliguessthisvideoreallyisapersonificationofiraqortherussianinvasionofgeorgiaorthepeoplethatgotrunoverbyfranzferdinandshorsewhenhewasassasinatedbutidontcarethethingseemstosaywithhisgrufflookimjustgoingtosithereanditmypizza.

The Nerve Magazine writes:

“I wanted a video of a turtle eating a piece of pizza. A few days later I received a link to youtube in my e-mail,” Cox says. What he saw was a man dressed in a turtle suit eating pizza for almost four minutes. That’s it.

TLDR: Random makes not a good music video.

Your Money or Your Life

2008-09-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

BAND: Adam & the Ants
SONG: "Stand and Deliver"
RATING: B+

There are two reasons I cannot put this video at that treasured “A” grade, as trite as they might seem:
#1- The audio only really synchs with Adam Ant’s yapping jaws during the chorus.
#2- Somehow, this video pops into my head every single time I hear it. It kind of ruins the original mental imagery I had going originally (it involved spaceships.)

But who am I to care? The song is fucking fun, and the video almost lives up to its energy. I get the giggles every time Adam peers at me through the computer screen with his full-on goofiness. And there’s no denying the nostalgic charms of the early eighties production values.

For one, what the fuck is going on when Adam flies through the window during the King’s dinner? There seems to be at least five stand alone slow-motion sequences in this video, and that’s the only one that feels necessary throughout the “highwayman” bravado. During the slo-mo, our hero looks a little like Adam, but Adam mingled with a bit of bat DNA or some such shit. I cannot help but smile at that. Bravo!

BONUS: I highly suggest checking out Young Knives’ “Stand and Deliver” cover if you like fun.

Marrow Melodies

2008-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

What kind of creature is this, you ask?

Known in most parts as "Carnivorous vulgaris" (others debate the true classification being "Eternalii famishiis"), this canine subspecies is particularly notable for it's extravagant and often ill-fated methods of capturing prey.

Never before has this figure's bone structure been assembled for display until now. Follow the link and see the assembly of other rare and interesting creatures in their entirely bare forms.

Best of luck beating back the nightmares.

On Wolfmother's breakup

2008-08-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

So, if one hasn't already heard, the Zeppelin-rockin' boys down under, Wolfmother, has split. I, for one, couldn't be more heartbroken.

For me, this is the end of the Wolfmother I fell in love with on a plane ride from Australia.

Instead of movies, we had the option of listening to music, and on the Austrlian artist page, Wolfmother was prominently featured. My talks with folks from down under further sealed the deal that Wolfmother was probably the hottest rock band to be rolling around the country at the time, even to the point where Aussies were getting sick and tired of the "bloody" riffs of this trio.

While a break-up of the original lineup might not mean the complete end of a terrific sound, I find it hard to think that Andrew Stockdale will be able to continue Wolfmother, as he plans to do, without commandering the musical direction. Again, if that direction will be for better or worse, it's hard to predict. I remember reading that Stockdale has a passion for those long, sweeping epics that only work so often for my own ears.

I thought Wolfmother had a great sense of timing when it came to those drawn-out tales of discovery and adventure ("Colossal", "Mind's Eye", "Where Eagles Dare"), but for their shorter, catchier stuff ("Woman", "Joker and the Thief", "Love Train", "Pyramid"), they were fucking incredible. The riffs would reel in my head for days, the sweet delicious meshing of Stockdale's brawny tiger drawl and the fast-tracked heavy-settled guitar was just so much fun.

It wasn't until the three split that I discovered quite a bit of unaccounted hate sprawled across the internet. You'll hear it come mostly in one arguement: They're nothing but a Led Zep/Black Sabbath cover band who's sound is entirely tired and unoriginal.

And I frankly feel that's horseshit. I'll admit, there's definitely a classic rock vibe to their sound, but they make it feel modern, their first album was hard-hitting rock n' roll with crisp riffs and a knock-you-on-your-ass mentality, and what is so unoriginal about that? I maintain that these guys were doing their own thing and they were having a helluva time doing it... until recently I suppose. It seems pretty obvious that drummer Myles Heskett and bassist Chris Ross were quite pissed at Stockdale for reasons we will only learn of years and years from now, and even then those just might be rumors.

I look forward to seeing what each band member has got up his sleeve for future productions, but I worry nothing will ever achieve that classic feeling that debut album had. And to think... it'll be a couple years at least before we get a taste... that's a harsh realization right there.

Iowa-based Euforquestra sets up camp in Fort Collins

2008-08-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Scene Magazine, August 2008

The men of Euforquestra are Colorado boys at heart.

Guitarist Mike Tallman takes on the tone of a giddy 80-year-old when he looks back at the summer vacations at his father’s cabin in Routt National Park.

“I spent pretty much every vacation as a child going up to that area and just spending a couple of weeks every summer getting away from everything,” Tallman recalls. “People tend to enjoy life to the fullest in the mountains.”

Among other reasons, a longing for purple mountain majesties inspired the Afrobeat ensemble to leave their home state of Iowa and settle down in Fort Collins, where the living is cheaper than Boulder and life functions without the big-city frenetic of Denver.

Despite the apparent excitement, the decision to move didn’t come easy to the seven twentysomethings who have spent the past five years carving their worldly beats in Iowa City.

Tallman spent his high school days in Des Moines, alongside keyboardist Eric Quiner and drummer Josten Foley. The three teamed with another buddy on bass to form Euforia, the funky rock predecessor to Euforquestra. Following graduation, the group took to Iowa City, where they crossed paths with percussionist Matt Grundstad and tenor saxophonist Ryan Jeter.

Other members would come and go as the years rolled by, but latching on for the long haul was alto saxophonist Austin Zalatel and bassist Adam Grosso. When the lineup began to resemble what Tallman describes as a “rock-band-orchestra kind of thing,” Euforia became Euforquestra.

The group has established a sizeable following in Iowa City’s community, largely attributable to Camp Euphoria, an annual musical festival on the edge of Iowa City that Tallman and the boys have been putting on since the summer of 2003.

It’s with the same eager nostalgia he expresses towards the mountains that Tallman talks about the music and arts of Iowa City: “I see it as a kind of an oasis among the cornfields out here.”

He describes the music scene as a tight-knit community, where competition takes a backseat to companionship. Each bar serves a specific set of genres. Then there’s the University of Iowa, a sizeable school that is always pumping in fresh faces and new listeners.

It’s the kind of environment that every band looking to break big would desire as a starting point. So why would these guys leave it all behind to start anew in the average-sized Fort Collins?

“Fort Collins has a very similar feel to Iowa City; it feels like it moves at the same speed, a really laid back place.” Tallman says.

Tallman adds that the group feels there’s a better market for their funked-up sound in the Western region, particularly in the jam band haven that is the West Coast. But don’t stick them with the label; Euforquestra is a rhythm-heavy flash pan of world music, seasoned with vocals from all seven members, and as a result, the music pulls from a wide variety of genres: jazz, bluegrass and rock, to name a few.

But there is always a familiar Afrobeat sound; their top influences include Fela and Femi Kuti, Steel Pulse and Burning Spear. And the one disc that never strays far from the tour van’s CD player? Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars’ definitive Living Like A Refugee.

“I can’t even count how many times we’ve listened to that entire album in our van,” Tallman laughs. “Over the course of one tour, we’ll listen to that album like twenty times.”

While Euforquestra has performed in Fort Collins in the past, their residential debut will be a cannonball entrance. Besides several August shows, including a Bohemian Nights performance at NewWestFest on August 16, Tallman expects the group to begin laying down tracks for a second album by October. So much for a transition period...

“It’s gonna be hard to leave,” Tallman said. “But just like anything, it’s turning over a new leaf. When one thing ends, something else begins.”

Otem Rellik puts on a show

2008-07-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

During her opening act at a small gathering in a middle-of-nowhere house in Fort Collins, singer-songwriter Danielle Ate a Sandwich interrupts her own show.

Without stopping her sandy ukulele solo, her voice acquires pronounced perk: “Hey, its Otem Rellik!”

Her listeners follow her gaze to peer over their shoulders at the rapper, one Toby Hendricks, a husky 25-year-old who sports an unkempt chinstrap beard that dribbles out of his trucker hat with redneck finesse. Faced with a room of eyes, he shoots a smile and a wave before taking a seat near the back of the room. Attention then returns to Danielle, whose performance continues as if nothing’s happened.

But something has happened; Otem Rellik, the white guy whose experimental brand of electronic hip-hop has put him among Colorado’s “best kept secrets”, has just walked into the building. He’s the biggest name playing tonight. This is the guy whose gone on tour in Europe when the other acts still dream of booking a bar gig in Denver.

Despite this, the expected Kanye-bravado is absent; Hendricks looks like he’d rather go unnoticed, at least until he is safely behind a mic.

“He’s a quiet kid,” says Braden Smith, who signed Hendricks to his label, Denver-based Ponowai Flora Records, in 2006. “I wanted to get (his music) out there more than himself.”

“Toby is probably the most harmless guy I know,” adds friend Jonathan Alonzo. “He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, and I think it was kind of surprising, because it was like ‘Oh, he’s the hip-hop guy, he’s probably got an ego.’”

True to the quiet nature that his friends and associates speak of him, the soft-spoken Hendricks has few comments to offer about his upbringings, unless music is somehow involved.

He says he has enjoyed growing up in Fort Collins, the city where his love for music was cultivated.

“Back in the day, it was mostly Public Enemy and N.W.A.,” Hendricks says. “I grew up listening to whatever my brother and my older brother listened to.”

A decade later — after a “ska and punk phase” in middle and high school — Hendricks said a friend introduced him to the synth-stocked sounds of Anticon, a San Francisco hip-hop label.

“It was so much different than the hip-hop I was currently listening to,” Hendricks said. “It turned me on to a lot more experimental stuff, not just in hip-hop but in indie rock and electronica and everything.”

Hendricks lists the entire Anticon lineup as his influences, specifically citing Doseone and Sole as artists who sparked his interest in using cold, crunching electronics as a backdrop to fast-paced rhymes. Discovering Anticon “opened the doors” for Hendricks.

“The more I listened to it, the more I wanted to make something,” Hendricks says, adding that he was eventually compelled to purchase a Casio keyboard and a TASCAM four-track recorder one afternoon in 2003. “I just tried laying out songs the best way I knew how. I was just like ‘What can I do with this?’ with no expectations whatsoever.”

Where he might have relied on expectations to drive him into furthering his art, Hendricks had his experimentations.

A particularly rousing session on the World Wide Web introduced Hendricks to circuit bending, a practice in which musicians rewire electronic devices to generate new sounds. Inspired, Hendricks began to explore the innards of his Casio, toying with wires and rerouting circuit points. The result: a weird lo-fi piano machine with every key purring displaced pitch. Hendricks says he isn’t entirely satisfied with his first creation.

“It’s kind of hard to work it into music… you’re trying to have a chord progression or something and you have a really weird, out-of-tune Casio,” he says.

Regardless, Hendricks has made a hobby of circuit bending, a pastime that has powered him through three EPs and five albums; he’s manipulated everything from Speak & Spells to talking-string dolls to achieve his musical mischief.

Smith admits that Hendricks’ brouhaha was a little off-putting in his first listen. Smith, who performs under the moniker Ancient Mith, first met Hendricks after a performance at the Larimer Lounge in late 2006. Knowing of Smith’s label, Hendricks handed him Petrified Human Project, his then-latest recording.

“I got like six or seven CDs that night, and seriously, that was the only one that was worth a shit,” Smith says. “I didn’t even like it at first… then I gave it another listen and was like ‘Yeah, I need to get a hold of this kid.’”

Hendricks signed onto Ponowai Flora Records later that year, working closely with Smith to improve his melodies and musical connectedness to produce his most recent album, Chain Reaction Robot, which dropped in March 2008. When asked what appealed to him about the music, Smith points to the lyrics, which Hendricks barely brings above a mumble as he softly pours his words into the mic.

“I don’t think Toby’s music is for everybody, I really don’t,” Smith says. “But I think there’s a realness and a emotional connection. I’ve even learned from watching him in that sense of taking just absolute personal issues and just airing them, whether they be the stupidest smallest thing, or just the biggest thing.”

The critics haven’t entirely agreed.

In his semi-approving review of Chain Reaction Robot, Rocky Mountain Chronicle music critic Elliot Johnson dug at the rhymes of Otem Rellik: “…his subject matter is obsessively confessional (i.e. anyone who uses the word “emo” as derogatory, which is most everyone who uses the term, will run from this album after Track One.)”

Hendricks remains entirely vague about the experiences and situations that inspire his lyrics, even with the curious journalist. His simple answer: “Most of the stuff I write about is generally about bad things.” But he takes offense at being labeled as “emo”, even when it’s directed at him offhandedly.

“There’s so much associated with that word, and a lot of it is negative to a lot of people,” Hendricks said. “Tupac made emo music according to what emo music is. His lyrics are emotional, but he’s making gangster rap, so why would you call that emo?”

It’s about 1:22 a.m. back at the house, and Otem Rellik is making preparations.

Most of the crowd has petered out, but the few who’ve stuck behind watch as Hendricks arranges his magical table of wire-crossed gizmos: two circuit-bent Casios, an iPod, a drum machine, a row of pedals set to distort and echo with the turn of a knob, a Speak & Spell and one disembodied doll head at the bottom of the mic stand.

“I’m not one for hip-hop, but Toby really makes me like it,” says friend and fellow musician Marty Albertz. “It’s his style. He’s not at all musically trained, so everything he’s doing is different.”

As Hendricks introduces himself to the crowd, his fingers hover above the various gadgets, which gleam like fluorescent fairies in the darkened basement of the house. And even now, behind that safe and warm mic, his bashfulness is showing; his eyes keep to his table, directing his fingers with clockwork precision, stabbing and twisting and dialing and flipping as he sings along with the melancholic fuzz he’s creating.

Here, among friends and dedicated friends, including a fawning girlfriend, one has to wonder why Hendricks has such a hard time with eye contact. This is, after all, his place to be.

“At a (concert) venue, you don’t know the people and they don’t know who you are. Half the time it’s just people going there to drink, which generally is a crowd of people who aren’t even into what I’m doing anyway,” Hendricks said. “House shows are definitely more appealing to me: more relatable people there, and they’re more fun, generally a lot more fun than playing at a venue.”

Folk meets coffeehouse rock: Guitarist Josh Dillard draws influence from darker days

2008-07-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Josh Dillard had to laugh.

He stood in his Cleveland apartment one winter morning in 2003, and while brushing his teeth, he began laughing.In an hour or so, he'd be in the post office, and in the next couple of hours, he'd be delivering mail.

By the time he returned to his apartment, some 13 to 14 hours later, exhaustion would bar him from working on the one thing he had come to Cleveland to do: music.The irony of it all hadn't yet driven him entirely insane, but right then, Dillard couldn't help but laugh at his situation, a time he recalls as one of the darkest in his life.

Dillard, today, is a soft-spoken 27-year-old CSU graduate with a degree in social work. These days he serves with Timberline Church and CSU's Campus Navigators, yet finds plenty of time to practice his craft. His weapon of choice is a Gibson 45, and when combined with his feathery-bare vocals, he has produced a coffeehouse acoustic sound that has defined his first album, "The Kate EP."

While he says his sound isn't original, "The Kate EP" has fared successfully for Dillard since its release a full year ago, drawing an audience and recognition from Fort Collins' local music scene. This Saturday, he'll be appearing at Everyday Joe's for a 7:00 p.m. performance. While Dillard has enjoyed the emerging success, he says he owes much of it to those darker times in life.

"Sometimes, we don't seek the things we need when we live comfortable," Dillard said. "We need to be challenged before we realize it, before we look into ourselves."

Running down a dream
Six months prior to his giggling-toothbrush revelation, Dillard had completed an unfulfilling freshman year at CSU.

"I had completely set my mind on leaving school to pursue music," Dillard said. "We were young, na've."

With his best friend Dan Graeve alongside him, Dillard dropped out and took to Cleveland, floating on dreams of bringing together a band and signing with a label. There, he and Graeve conspired with Dillard's cousins, forming Beggars & Thieves. Mere months into existence, Dillard's group quickly fell apart.

"(Graeve) left pretty early. Probably three or four months after we moved out there, he went back to (CSU)," Dillard said.

It was the beginning of darker days for Dillard. Graeve's departure, he says, got him thinking about his own existence, bounded to Cleveland by a year-long lease, taken up with the long hours of various odd jobs which included the role of mailman.

"After three months at the post office, it just got too hard," Dillard said. "I was living by myself, not seeing anybody, working crazy hours … I decided I needed to get out."

In the summer of 2003, Dillard made his way back home to Fort Collins, were he worked for a year and a half before returning to CSU. With a degree in one hand and his Gibson in the other, Dillard said that he has turned his attention to the art of sharing.

"I try to use the small Gibson I have as a vessel to love people, to help people get into the music," Dillard said. "When I'm playing an instrument to just share an experience, I just hope someone could grab onto a little bit of wisdom from a trial I've gone through."

Dillard said he is also focused on his church and the Campus Navigators, sharing his beliefs with others. Cleveland, he says, pushed him closer to God, and he's considering a future as a missionary.

"I've gotten a lot closer to Christ," Dillard said. "I've had a greater passion to know him personally, to share him with others, and I'm continuing to see that grow within me."

And while Dillard says his beliefs have influenced his music, he refers to various life experiences as his music's foundation.

Sharing is caring
His folksy acoustic sound is influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, while his lyrics are born out of experiences of both light and dark natures. The entirety of "The Kate EP," for example, centers on a previous relationship of Dillard's.

But there's a certain responsibility in writing about oneself, he adds.

"I think a struggle for a lot of musicians is, for a lack of a better term, self-clarification," Dillard says. "It's easy for music and art to be about the artist, when it might have much more value from sharing that experience with someone that might gain from it."

Dillard is currently writing music for a future album, and hopes to start production by the end of winter. As for the future, Dillard has some sense of where he'll be heading with his music. All it took was a year in the heart of rock n' roll.

"The winds have changed since the beginning, my focus has shifted," Dillard said. "Music is no longer a priority of making a label, no longer the end-all-be-all. I've found other things in my life that mean a lot to me, and I always want those things to be a part of my life."

Music of Dillard's album "The Kate EP" can be heard at Dillard's MySpace page and is available for purchase off of iTunes.

Christina Dietz Tries On Different Fittings in New EP

2008-07-11T14:28:00.001-07:00

Originally written for Colorado Music Buzz

The first time Christina Dietz played the role of street performer was on a “delicious” summer afternoon in Laguna Beach, where the blue ocean chortled endlessly from across the street.

It was a picture-perfect setting, but a less then comfortable situation for a 14-year-old girl who would need to loop her five-song set list — a collection of lovey-dovey tunes she had written herself — across the span of three hours. However, the attitude and atmosphere somehow clicked, and Dietz’s passerby audience put her up $200 in donations by the end of the day.

“My sister just had her first job at Cold Stone that day, and she was heartbroken when I came home with $200 from playing all day,” Dietz says, speaking from her Monument home. She adds, with a laugh: “She had made, like, $20.”

It’s a cherished memory in the present day life of the pale-skinned 18-year-old singer-songwriter. Dietz said that day inspired her to pursue music and continue performing throughout the streets of her native home, Orange County, until moving to Monument two years ago. Since moving to Colorado, Dietz has risen from the streets to the stages with a slew of performances across Colorado venues (and a few back home on the California coast during the winter.)

This July, however, could prove to be Dietz-less. The guitarist will be heading out to California to meet up with her new producers, Craig Zarkos and Anthony Catalano, and begin preproduction for her new EP, Let’s Just Kiss. Dietz and Zarkos have been close acquaintances for years, but it was only recently when Zarkos and his new friend Catalano approached Dietz about putting together a new, sweeter-sounding set of tracks. For her, approaching the new album has meant honing the fundamentals.

“I want to sharpen my voice as much as possible before I record.” Dietz said. “It takes a few hours of a capella practice every day. It’s a lot of work, but it’s good for me, it’s like my vitamins.”

It’s also meant rethinking her sound; Dietz is looking to depart from her former acoustic style and slip into something more comfortable.

“I’m really inspired by European burlesque, cabaret, theatrical music,” Dietz said. “It’s something I’ve always been curious about… that whole atmosphere, burlesque girls and their little songs and dancing.”

The title track of the album is a mystical mix of alluring backing strings, corrosively catchy vocals and a psychedelic electric guitar solo to notch. So far, it’s the only track off the new EP that Dietz has laid out, as she plans on recording the rest of the album in August. She expects Let’s Just Kiss to be available for purchase by the beginning of September and hopes that when people take a listen, they’ll come away impressed.

“I think it’s going to be different,” Dietz said. “I don’t know if that’s too much to say, but I personally haven’t heard this special sound that I’m going for. I just want to create something that’s so special that people can’t really quite tag it.”

What Is And What Never Will Be

2008-07-06T19:04:00.001-07:00

What comes to mind when you hear this song?

Maybe it was the first time you heard it. You were six years old and you were poolside, waiting patiently for adult swim to come to an end. You were watching some paled fatass carefully waddle around the water, pleased that his hair would remain dry. Page’s riffs came without warning through the loudspeaker radio, roaring like a pissed circus tiger that had escaped its cage after being beaten one times too many.
By the second verse, you were wiser to the bullshit. You knew it, you felt it all around, engulfing your everyday existence.
And upon Bonham’s boisterous drum outro, you soared into the pool, landing an inspired cannonball that drenched the fat guy. You may have forgotten the tears he had shed and Dad’s subsequent roar, but the fuller movie magic of that moment will be yours forever.

Perhaps it was the 700th time you heard it. It came on the disc player one May evening, back in high school, when you were cruising around town in your shitty car because you had nothing better to do with your time. While you carried the rock n’ roll persona — an apathetic attitude, a 2.1 grade point average and a Ramones haircut to go along with your Ramones t-shirt, the only CD you owned was the second disc of the Led Zeppelin box set, which you stole from your friend’s house.
Right when Robert Plant had begun the “oooh-yeah” succession, the traffic light, twenty feet down the street, went yellow. In that definitive fight-or-flight moment, you gave it your all. Your miraculous vehicle sailed like a ragged Spartan, breezing past the intersection at around 50 miles per hour —probably, easily, ten miles over the speed limit. You had just enough time to watch the light blink red in your rear-view mirror. “Fucking badass,” you whispered to yourself, suddenly urged to roll into the Adult Book Ranch.

It’s too bad that neither of these scenarios are associated with this song for you or any person in modern society. If you are reading this blog, then you listen to this song and you see that fucking car.
You hear the chorus, and you can see the dust fly as Grandad’s slightly souped-up beast drifts over a dune. You hear Page’s crunching solo and you see the parked product glowing in the orange stage light, smirking with the satisfaction of a successful stunt run.
It wasn’t your fault. You just happened to see the commercial that one time, and as a result, it literally burned through your memory bank and replaced your livid memory with its product.
These things happen all the time, it’s okay. This is just the multinational corporation’s response to the rebel rock, which had raged against it since the beginning; literally, never had a bigger middle finger been flashed. You were just blinded by the light.

Fair and Balanced

2008-07-03T11:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Media Matters revealed that the scheming crew behind Fox News morning program "Fox & Friends" had digitally altered the photos of a reporter and editor from the New York Times, giving them receding hairlines, yellow teeth, and giant Jew-noses. I'd like to think Fox News is just the biggest troll in the history of media, sneaking in these little travesties just to send media watchdogs into a foaming frenzy. I mean, with something like this taking place behind the scenes, and seeing that Fox News Organization has yet to respond to the charges, just leaves me thinking they love to piss off as many people as possible.
In that sense, well, I can't help but chuckle.
It is Fox News after all, America's #1 source for news for grandmas and grandad everywhere.

Behold, JOURNALISM

Slick heart-aches & Sordid hair-cuts

2008-07-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

BAND: Foals
SONG: Cassius
RATING: C

Let’s dissect, you and I.
This is the video for post-punk nerdlings Foals’ catchiest single, “Cassius.” It’s a video that features the gang playing around in nothingness, dancing and flag-waving and playing with pills. Pretty random, but not necessarily new.
-For that, subtract one letter: A-1=B

Then there are the colorfully gross hearts swinging ever so daintily from a string. These ugly little metaphors buzz throughout the video, and while you wish they’d go away, I think their presence really makes this video effective. Maybe I need to get out more I can’t quite say I’ve seen something so grotesquely gripping as those strung-up hearts in a while.
-For that, add half-a-letter: B+(+)=B+

Lead vocalist Yannis Philikappis has a really terrible haircut and we are subject to him and his blackened gelled curve just too often. You want to reach through your monitor and punch him in the face.
-For that, subtract one letter: B+-1=C+

Finally, the video just doesn’t really fit my idea of cool factor. I am not left with any kind of desire to watch this video again.
-For that, subtract half-a-letter: C+-(+)= C

Neat Effects

2008-06-24T23:21:00.001-07:00

BAND: Nine Inch Nails
SONG: Only
RATING: A

I hurried online the day I heard you could download Mr. Trent Reznor's latest creation (http://theslip.nin.com) at your own price. I wasn't dissapointed to find his new album continues that unmistakable sound that appeals to millions: perfected electronic hate.
It ranges in terms of song structure, veering in and out between dark dystopic ambiance to those solid verse-chorus-verse chart-knockin' thumpers. My mind has been engineered by years of radio and ADD medication, so it shouldn't come as a suprise that I prefer the latter.

It might be, like, two albums old now, but "Only" falls into that category with the classic simple-but-cool guitar riff that ties together a grabbag of synths and the obsessively talky vox of Reznor.

It's a good song, but it's a damn genius video. The coldly quaint office setting getting stirred up by a push-pin Reznor might be serving an obvious kind of message, but I'd be damned if I wasn't aesthetically pleased with my force-fed message. By seeing those pins rise and fall, push and pull; it's cool! It looks cool. I've got to give credit here; this video cost quite a few nickels to put together, but it was well worth skipping out the Dollar Store for.

A quick jaunt to Wikipedia reveals the director to be master of the eye-catchingly uncomfortable, David Finch. Figures.

The Man Who Wasn't There

2008-06-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

Holy shit.

I find Vladimir Putin to be a fascinating characther, a man who definitely earned Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" award, but this article seems to stamp away at the fact that he is a manipulative, power-driven leader who'll do whatever it takes to keep him and his party in office and out of the line of questioning.

This particular "behind-the-scenes" censorship has hit home for me, the budding, unjaded journalist. What good is any kind of media that doesn't constantly question authority? It appears as if this crackdown has even resulted comical criticism being barred from the airwaves, done away with the puppets and actors poking fun of administration leaders.

Here's a pro-quote from current president Dmitry Medvedev, straight from the NY Times article:

“Our television is very often criticized,” Mr. Medvedev said in April. “They say it is boring, it is pro-government, it is too oriented towards the positions of state agencies, of those in power. You know, I can say that our television — in terms of quality, in terms of the technology used — is, I believe, one of the best in the world.”

Gotta give it to the guy, the quality of Russia television would bring tears to any Kremlin-proud eye. They even remade Grace Under Fire. Lack of dissent and pumpkinhead children do not make for quality programming Mr. Medvedev.

Copy-editors: More bitter than being

2008-04-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I've gotten to know real-life copy editors, the people who are responsible for making sure my story looks neat and professional by finding errors and asking questions. This, essentially, is all they do: correct stories.

This weekend, I've been attending the conference sessions of the American Copy Editors Society in downtown Denver, and though the sessions are geared mainly towards copy editors and all the great work they do, its been a great learning experience for me, and its been paid for by my beloved student newspaper, The Rocky Mountain Collegian. I am fortunate and for that, I am happy.

I've acquired all the latest info on the various free internet devices that have been available to me for years but I just never bothered looking for them: RSS feeds, Twitter, Furl and the mystery that is the Wiki. I also picked up some tips on legal terminology, plagerism-finding tips, and how I can contribute to making a better headline for the paper edition, and the online edition (there is quite a bit of importance in creating search engine friendly heads, as my friend Virgina told me.)

But beyond all that, I think what astounds me the most is that these real-life professional copy editors are some of the most bitter human beings on the planet. I can understand- copy editing seems like the worst job on the planet. These people boast themselves as the "last line of defense between the news room and the front page", but they don't get any kind of public acknowledgement for such work. It just sounds so horrible, and doing this for years, well, it looks like it'll leave more than a few wrinkles on ya.

The sessions are set up in a way as to where the lecturer kind of engages the audience, and gets them to discuss and even debate. But holy shit, some of these people just love to hear the sound of their own voice, and they will do what it takes to get themselves heard, even if it means interrupting the session leader.

My "Web 2.0" session was a fantastic example. There were several people there who'd just sit back and instead of taking notes, they'd wait their turn to bitch.

"The I-reporter is not a real journalist," one man would say, his chins pushing forward as he nodded in agreement with himself.

"What about people who don't use the internet?" Another woman would say, in response to the session leader's comments that journalists would be required to keep to the internet in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Another woman droned on and on about how terrible it was that everything was becoming so quick and how much was being lost in translation. I really couldn't believe it; these assholes were wasting everyone's time, coming to an internet course, trying as hard as they could to convince everyone in the room that it wasn't too late to return to the world prior to the web.

Thankfully, our session leader had accessed an anger similar to mine.

"Look, no offense, but in the economic sense, you're nothing," he said to the angsty copy-editors among us. "In the economic sense, you're worth nothing. You have to adapt."

And at that, he turned away and began discussing the exciting advantages of Soople, refusing any further conversation. A hardass, by and large, this man was.

I've come to accept that the internet must be embraced if I ever hope to feed my babies. I'm prepared to do so, and I'm prepared to use every little tool to my advantage in carving out amazing media: I want to be the guy who's writing the story, taking the audio, shooting the film, and then bringing it all back to the newsroom, sitting down at my massive three-screen computer, and pumping out something that'd be worth a net value of $500. I'm the new, and I'm going to do what it takes to make it all happen.

Here's to the future; hope I don't end up as bitter as the average copy editor.

The April Fools Edition that Never Was

2008-04-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

RON PAUL TAKES GOP NOMINATION
Duncan: "May God have mercy on us all"

By Eric Miers

Following weeks of wild speculation, GOP Chairman Mike Duncan yesterday declared Congressman Ron Paul as the new nominee of the Republican Party.

“In lieu of recent events, my colleagues and I find Ron Paul to be the only candidate who remains eligible… for the presidential nomination,” Duncan said. “The rEVOLution has begun. May God have mercy on us all.”

Paul was then delivered to the stage via a gold-plated blimp to give his victory speech, in which he condemned the Iraq War, the War on Drugs and the media.

“(Mass media) have labeled me and my supporters as racist, gold-hoarding schizophrenics,” Paul told the massive crowd of supporters at the event. “Well, the free market has cashed in their chips, and the people have spoken. Let me be the first to say: the good doctor is in.”

Following the acceptance speech, Paul’s blimp dumped 400,000 golden coins onto the writhing crowd below as they cheered and screamed Paul’s name. Although hundreds were injured in the resulting golden shower, only two have been confirmed dead.

The stunning surprise victory comes weeks after several medical experts went public with records revealing former frontrunner Sen. John McCain as a victim of “severe Alzheimer’s.” In his speech, Duncan deemed McCain to be “unfit for the presidency”, but hoped he enjoyed living a “life free of politics and worry.”
McCain has since been interned at the Smilewide Retirement Community in Arizona, unavailable for comment.

Across the nation, self-described “Paulsies” emerged from computer labs and underground bunkers to celebrate the wildly long-shot victory of their candidate.

The phenomenon was witnessed at CSU, as several clubs and organizations rallied in support of Paul outside the Lory Student Center. For three straight hours, supporters stood and chanted Paul’s name with wild, revered passion. Every now and then, people cheered “free market” or "no fiat currency."
“I don’t know what it is about his name, hearing it gets me all hot,” said Lorraine O’Connell, junior engineering major.

Derek Alfonso, freshman philosophy major and president of the CSU Students for Ron Paul, led supporters in the chant, proudly sucking on a burrito-sized joint throughout. Alfonso said Paul’s stance on constitutional rights won him over instantly.

“I support Ron Paul because he supports my constitutional right to be ripped as shit,” Alfonso said. “Also, he wants to get rid of the income tax and make sure that everyone is responsible for themselves. Seriously, welfare is for pussies. If people don’t want to starve, they need to learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and earn their food, not suck up all my money. Free market! Ron Paul!”

Alfonso continued into his diatribe, explaining the intricacies of the free market and the three shadow organizations corrupting its “sparkling” flow.

Get your Groan On

2007-12-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

I’ll admit, I am known to browse pretty carelessly through Wikipedia from time to time. I even use it in my work; when trying to define a concept or add context, I’ll do research via Wikipedia.
It’s an ever-flopping internet goldmine of facts, definitions and information and it’s simple and much more precise than typing it up through Google. You could even make the argument that because Wikipedia is constantly monitored by teams of dedicated geeks, it’s likely more accurate than most of the first page results Google will cough up. In this age of academic restrictions, which often forbade listing Wikipedia pages as sources, you can always just click through the list of sources that are typically listed at the bottom. I’d to say that Wikipedia is the Quiznos of the Internet: by no means is it “fast food” cheap, but it’s not exactly a high end bistro either.

I try to turn to old-fashioned books to do my proper research, but it’s just so hard when all your needs are at your fingertips, when the precise required chapter can be found within several clicks and a minute of skimming.

Still, Wikipedia really isn’t an end all to research, and will never find widespread recognition from the intellectual community: the information offered, some encyclopedia experts argue, is too one-sided and is far too heavy in fan-based material. Basically, that which is more historically relevant is outweighed by that which is popular. There’s no greater fact behind this belief than the acknowledged “Art of Wikigroaning”

If you’ve never heard of this before, I highly suggest clicking my hypertext. Wikigroaning, essentially, occurs when you pair together two Wikipedia pages side-by-side: one page containing hard-line, real world, educational material, the other matted with useless nerd trivia.

The catch to Wikigroaning is that two pages must be linked either verbally or topically, and the geek fandom page has(b) is to be the longer of the two. You might be surprised just how one-sided some of these topics are, here are some examples I’ve conjured on my own:

Rock band
to
Rock Band (video game)

Animation
to
Anime

Andrew Jackson
to
Ron Paul

Taylor’s theorem
to
Sean Taylor (American football)

Sailor
to
Sailor Moon

Doctor of Medicine
to
Doogie Howser, M.D.

Newspaper
to
Blog

Nightmare
to
A Nightmare on Elm Street

Carl Bernstein
to
Hunter S. Thompson

Fun, huh? I could probably do this for hours. If you’re looking for a special challenge, try grouping together Wikigroans: multiple important topics, all of which are smaller than the useless trivia page. Ch-ch-check it:

Ball
Sphere
to
Dragon Ball Z

Equation
Equilibrium
to
Equilibrium (film)

Thomas Paine
Painting
to
Paintball

Ideology
Aristocracy
Communism
Conservatism
to
Libertarianism
to
Libertarian Party (United States)

Video of the Day:
BAND: Animal Collective
SONG: Peacebone
RATING: B

This is a pretty good music video. It’s stylized, offbeat, and flaunts its high quality production, even in an era where music videos have taken a back seat to shitty reality television. The song flows along nicely with the video; we are given what we want when we want it, and I’m proud to say it delivers. This is a good video. But I’d hope that a band as offbeat as Animal Collective would be able to drum up something completely different.

I want music videos that are just completely different. It’s not impossible to do, really. The general concept of weird isn’t that hard to capture; I suppose I’d just like to see something completely different. No, it’s not easy to pull off, but I felt like this video wasn’t even trying to make that gap. Gnarly alien beings and speed-blur lights just don’t do it for me anymore.

Final WEBSITE Reflection

2007-12-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, after a little confusion, I am delivering my Final Website Reflection about this pretty pony of mine.

The purpose of this website was for me to flaunt my news writing and my experiences with specific articles. By linking the articles from each page, and then discussing in detail the trials and tribulations I faced with each one, I have accomplished what I intended.

My readers may not be fans of my work, but they would still log on to this website if they were curious about specific articles, and what it was like to write them. Constantly, I find myself curious, as a reader, to hear the “story behind the story.” Everyone loves the classic exciting tale of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward and their exposure of the Watergate Scandal. Personally, I’d love to know how Seymour Hersh manages to develop sources in such hard-to-reach spots, or so he says. But that kind of lesson is kept pretty guarded honestly. I provide my readers with a puny version of such tales, but it still manages to serve that purpose to those who would be interested by describing the focus of the article and the side stories that came along with the article that never saw print.

My site makes precise use of linkages, and takes full advantage of the archiving function that is basically required of all newspaper websites. By using Google Page Creator, another newer piece of web-technology, I was able to more easily develop my website without having to struggle entirely through HTML code, as I did when I created my Geocities website.

Google Page Creator, however, also happened to be my curse. Far too often did I struggle with my website’s coloring. Often, I’d assign a color to, say, a link and then preview the page, heartbroken to see that my change had not occurred. After a several experiments of the trial and error variety, I finally managed to make it all work. Or so I believe. A few times, a page which had an orange link originally in the preview version would turn grey when I refreshed the page. This shouldn’t happen again, but if it does, then I place the blame entirely on Google Page Creator.

It was a mixed experience for me to look back on the work that I haven’t even thought of for months and months. While I, like any other self-respecting journalist, always enjoy patting myself on the back, there are quite a few articles that I would like to forget. Each Mirror article dragged up the acres of unpleasant memories of UNC, even if they had nothing to do with the article itself, or wasn’t even included in the writing. I could’ve gone on for pages about what was going through my life at that point, about my emotions and all that bullshit, but I’d rather not delve any deeper than I had to. Keep the thoughts on the surface when the water’s black, that’s what I say.

Video of the Day
BAND: The Notorious B.I.G.
SONG: Juicy
RATING: A+

The ultimate kickback song/video. The semester is done. It's good to be alive. God bless.

Online Writing Reflection

2007-12-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

Overall, I enjoyed this course. I found it to be challenging yet stimulating. I actually learned things from this course, things I'm likely to retain many years (or at least months) after this final week: the workings of the blog, the Web 2.0 concept, the Semantic Web, and probably most importantly, HTML basics.
I feel pretty confident in saying that somewhere down the line of my life, I will encounter HTML again, and having some knowledge of it (or at least knowing where to find codes that I can copy/paste from) will undoubtedly benefit me. I've also enjoyed blogging and plan on making a consistent effort to actually continue this blog for many days to come. We'll see; there's always that chance that it will blow future career opportunities for me, but for now, I'll have fun with it.
That said, the one thing that absolutely drove me insane about this class was the projects and the grading. I felt consistently cheated when I turned in a paper that had been shined to perfection, following all of the criteria asked for on the original assignment rubric. But the paper was returned to me, it would always seem like I was being graded down for criteria that never really existed until the instructor decided to add it on during the grading process.
Also, I found the peer-review sessions to be completely worthless. For this last project, I told my reviewers to suggest anything at all for my website, and out of the six or so comments, only one actually made a suggestion. All the others said "this looks nice." I would've gained so much more from just sitting down with the instructor for five minutes, hearing what she had to say about the website just from glimpsing over it, and then I could do my best to fulfill those requirements instead of trying to guess EXACTLY what she wants as I am doing with my final project.

Is Bush-hating passe?

2007-11-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

Is it necessarily bad for one to openly announce hatred when making an argument?
Peter Berkowitz thinks so.
In his article, Berkowitz points out that a powerful passion such as hatred blurs one’s perspective, which means logic can sometimes be lost in when we assign a particular figure to an element of evil. Bush is widely and wildly hated throughout the entire world, arguably more so than any United States president ever before.
He represents the quintessential elitist, who consistently favors business over the environment, war over communication, creating his vision of the world regardless of those who see it differently. While there are many among the population who loudly and proudly declare him evil, very few give him their vocal support. As Republican candidates make their cases for the 2008 presidency, they work to keep the President within arm’s length.
In my own opinion, it’s become somewhat cliché to hate the President because, really, everyone else is doing it.
Bush (alongside his administration) is the worst president this country has ever seen, in terms of the damage he has done to everything we hold this country to be. Frankly, I hate him, and won’t hesitate in answering otherwise.
So though I can’t relate, I tend to think Berkowitz tends to make quite a valid argument.
When a government is overthrown by its own people, who takes up the position of power? Just from a quick glance at history, its obvious that more often than not, effectively cruel and “evil” (so to say) leaders take the reigns from a wildly hated leader, backed by millions supporting the downfall of their prior oppressor. Not to say that the present-day American society will desperately support someone who could ultimately be worst than Bush, but my example just acts as a case-in-point.
Anyway, Berkowitz makes his argument much more clearly than I can, but I think that one other point that I’d make is that as humans, it’s some kind of difficult not to get passionate about issues that affect the world we live in, especially when they affect us directly.
Like Pat Robertson! Fuck him.

Video of the day
BAND: Los Mono
SONG: Promesas
RATING: C

Wikipedia tells me these guys are the shit in Chile, and I don't doubt it. The song is catchy. The wacky shifting head is simple and obviously cheap, but it looks cool. The concept just gets old. He spends the entire video walking down the hallway with his cool head, a head that holds so much potential but is never ever utilized for whatever reason. I'd like to see this thing stroll off into the street, people don't even have to pay attention to it, I just want some goddamn change.

Snowshine

2007-11-21T11:55:00.001-08:00

After months of warm November weather that would be considered pleasant if it were not for the terrifying connection to global warming, all of our fears have finally been covered up, if you will, by that magnificent white blanket. Truly, there’s nothing like the first snow of the season, especially when you wake up to a wild white world. This is what foreigners think of when they hear of Colorado.

Video of the Day:
BAND: Folk Implosion
SONG: Natural One
RATING: B-

You’ve got to give props to the band for putting out a super-chill lo-fi song that’s pretty much forces images of dark hookah parlors and long skinny airheads slowly making out with their skinny stoned girlfriends. The plastic animals, bobbing their head in tune with the song, make for a cool touch. And the apathetic singing might usually make a viewer feel cheated, but every now and then it is incredibly appropriate, and this song is one example. The trippy images are heavy and, for the most part, unexpected. The one problem I have with this video is has that feel of sunshiny grit it has to it…this is a consistent theme you’ll see in alternative rock music videos in the 1990s: Beck, Soul Coughing, Tool…hell, even in a few Nirvana videos.
But, this video somewhat strays from that norm, at least I think it does. The astronauts on the dirt and the spinning rustic toys are the only aspects that remind me of that sunshine grit (that is my copyrighted term by the way; I just can’t find the stupid fucking tiny circle-c symbol). When we cut to the growing grass or the mopey lead singer with a bad haircut, we deviate from the norm, and I like it. Still, not original or groundbreaking enough to get anything above my ranking.

That Plunging Feeling

2007-11-20T20:01:00.001-08:00

The cost was enormous, but I couldn’t help myself.
I gave in to my desires and gave up about $200 for a video game. I suppose it’s not that bad, compared to others who have surrendered hundreds more to those dreadful massive multiplayer online role-playing games, which have not only sucked up their funds, but their lives as well, damning most of them to a long sexless young adult tenure. I’m glad I haven’t fallen to that level of disrepair, but sometimes I worry I might be sliding ever so closely to it with each purchase of a video game or other object reeking of that indescribable geek scent.
But as of now, the descent has been worth it. The game is unbelievably fun, every single step of the way has just been enjoyable, and I haven’t even used the microphone or drums yet (the drums were a bitch to put together). Out of all of the games ever created, Rock Band easily has the best set list ever assembled. Seriously, all it’s missing is some Led Zeppelin and maybe a Rage Against The Machine song or perhaps an indie rock song or two…I’d go with Arcade Fire or Minus the Bear or maybe The Go, but they are a generation of rock that ought to have been acknowledged, even if they aren’t as awesome as Queens of the Stone Age or The Hives or the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Dani California was a good pick, as Stadium Arcadium really was one of the biggest let downs of my life).
So, here’s to five-starring songs and struggling to balance all the other shit floating in the air above me right now, especially that huge fucking cloud I acknowledge as my “election series” articles. So, lets all hope that I get all that done and still manage to have fun and still manage to get laid after all of it.

Video of the Day
BAND: Gym Class Heroes
SONG: The Queen And I
RATING: C+

See, when I hear this song, I’m not sure what to expect. The girl talked about in the song sounds like a bitch, but then so does the asshole whose “perspective” is being laid out in the song. I like the song, nice catchy line with great mainstream appeal, but I’m just not feeling this whole video so much.
Eh, it’s kind of different in the way the story is told. I mean, its not like we’ve never seen the whole story book take, but I will say that it has been a while. Production values are alright, the characterization is pretty good (who doesn’t hate that make-up caked crown-wearing woman?) But if you watch this video and feel like something’s missing, then you’d be right. Something is missing, and I say its special effects.
Sorry for offering up such a crappy complaint, but that’s my take. This music video serves smoother cinematography than what people usually expect though, and the ending is pretty good, so I decided to add the plus to that unforgettable mark of mediocrity.

The beginning of new blog era for me

2007-11-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

I suppose I'm just not meant for this online writing surface.
There's much to talk about. The life of Erik Myers is one filled with constant thrills and amazement and good feelings and masturbatory awards. So why is it so hard to blog about?
And why is it so hard to find something to blog about? I've been reflecting on my past few blogs, and they've just been geniunely horrible: sloppily written and no real attempt at depth. And what's worse, it'll still be floating around the web once I try to make my leap from college to the real world, and my employers will decide to make a routine web run to try and find some dirt on me, some reasoning as to why I should not be hired at their esteemed newspaper/magazine/supermarket, and they'll come across my little corner of shame built out of cyberspace and that's all they'll ever need.
Okay, so let's talk about my video of the day. Maybe that's what I can blog about: a new music video for every day that I can bother logging on! I love music, and I love music videos, and now with the advent of YouTube, I can go and link them on my blog and then talk about the video and the song, and how much I love them and why.

BAND: Datarock
SONG: The New Song
RATING: D

Wow, footage from the fifties! And unironically shitty backgrounds and fuzz effect and costuming! The sarcasm couldn't get any better, but I'm gonna go for it with as many apostrophies (SPELLING) as possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know, for a badass song, this is quite the shitty video. What's worse; everytime I hear The New Song, I'll think of this shitty horrible video. I can understand why artists might not bother to put much effort into their music videos anymore, now that MTV doesn't bother playing music videos anymore and the only stations that do are on supreme cable or whatever it is called. Yeah, I can understand that, but man, this video is just really terrible, like, bad band from 1989 bad. Like, this is the kind of music video Devo would put out after they stopped coming out with good music, and if memory serves me correctly it was right around 1989 so the circle evens itself out. I'm expecting better from you Datarock next time we meet.

Fuck Fantasy Football

2007-11-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

This has been a wildly horrible season of make believe for me. My fantasy football team, the creatively-titled Calgary Cretins, has been a sack of shit throughout the season. As of yesterday, the team's record is 1-8. That's just not right; I've done my fair share of wrestling with surfing the free agent market and making sure I didn't have any players on the bye in my lineup, and I carefully weighed my bench and lineup in accordance to the skills and types of players and even taking into consideration of the teams they're up against, and making sure I had the best possible combination of players, but it never seems to fucking matter.
I suppose it'd be fair to push off some of the blame on the players, man so many of them suck shit. Shaun Alexander is an asshole who played well for one season but has sucked on for years at a time. Same goes for Larry Fitzgerald; man, why can't just carry the kind of momentum he had with him back in the days of Pittsburg. And Calvin Johnson...to hell with Calvin and the entire fucking Detriot Lions. Seriously, they've got Jon Kitna as quarterback, and for some reason he's lead them to a 6-2 record. What the hell; Jon Kitna ought to be dead by now, I don't think he ever was considered even a decent player until recently. It's unfortunate that he just doesn't pass to Calvin Johnson, but then again, I'd be suprised if any member of the Lions organization could manage to break away from cornerbacks.
To hell with fantasy football, it's time to focus on things that matter. Perhaps Tom Morello will help lift the heavy lashes of my eyes and save me from my apathetic existence. Or maybe he'll just play a bunch of crappy folk songs, talk about Bush and what a shitty president he is, and give a shoutout against NAFTA too. Please save me Mr. Morello.

A Short Story

2007-11-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

I’m pleased with the state of my party, even if I’m a little concerned about the potential destruction of the few nice things that me and my housemates didn’t hide away prior to tonight. That doesn’t matter though, because the party is going strong. No resuscitation necessary.
“Do you know them?” Kate asks, her hand gesturing towards this small group of guys wearing football jerseys and helmets, chatting away with the well-endowed Anna, her witch’s hat askew, ready to fall from her head at any moment, not that she’d care.
I shake my head, but am without concern. The group has brought a box of 40s, which they’ve left open and accessible on the dinner table; these are classy party-crashers, people who know how to stay within the good graces of the people they don’t even know.
Kate stares on at the group, her arms crossed, her chin puffing in and out like she’s chewing on something. She’s jealous of Anna, as far as I can tell. The only guy that’s paying Kate attention, myself, is pretty gay.
There comes a succession of thumps from the staircase followed by a mixture of laughter and cheers.
“Yes. Yes. God, Yes.”
My heart quickens. My mind burns with the image of the fifty-dollar Jimmy Buffet glass parrot that hangs above the stairway.
I come to the base, where Andy stands. A massive bed sheet, fitted into a toga, hangs off his massive blubbery frame like an overstretched skin layer. Andy is pumping both fists in the air. His round face is flushed from his continuous laughter, mixed in with a few excited screams. Andy does not get invited to parties much, as one can tell by the rather inappropriate toga costume. Despite this, I can tell that he’s not just desperately trying to fulfill his idealized frat-boy college lifestyle. His upward gaze, fixated on two figures at the top of the carpeted stairway, tells that he’s excited about what’s about to take place.
At the top of the stairway, Joey and Derek are taking positions. Joey, a five foot nothing dressed as a hillbilly, presses his bare feet into Derek, one after the other. Derek is lying belly down, body rigid, his eyes too wide for his own good. Joey, now positioned upon Derek’s spine, grips the banisters of the stairway. His expression is flat, giving the impression of total concentration. He begins to sway back and forth, like he’s about to push off into a bobsled race. I watch with fixated horror, unable to bring myself to stop what might just turn out to be awesome if nothing remains destroyed.
What follows is exactly as I suspected. Joey sways backwards one more time, digs his heels into Derek’s back, and pulls forward. It’s something of an incredible sight as the two of them surge forward: Joey actually manages to keep balanced halfway down. Derek finally breaks, groaning loudly as he doubles up beneath Joey. The two of them spill forward, miraculously missing the glass parrot that I have forgotten about.
Joey collides with me, and we fall into Andy’s massive frame, slamming him into the wall. We bounce off of him and stumble forward, missing the banister pole by mere inches. My knee manages to connect with the bottom step, stings, and remains sore for the rest of the night.
Derek is lodged on the lower half of the stairway. One arm dangles from the right banister, keeping him aloft as rubs his back. His laughter is interlaced with coughing. I’m surprised to see him pull himself up, his legs still functioning.
Joey has escaped paralysis as well, pushing himself to his feet. As I rise, Joey runs towards the crowd staring towards us.
“We did it, yuh-yeah.”
He jumps up and down as he pushes his way through people, a maniac laugh pouring from his throat. The disgusted faces of the crowd pull away from Joey as spins around amongst them. Kate suddenly appears from the kitchen, pushing her way towards him, her arm stretched upward and above the crowd, clutching a massive paper towel roll. I factor in the clues and look down to see a small pool of blood a few feet in front of me. Joey, I conclude, did not miss the banister after all.
All the while, Andy remains slouched against the wall, his face wringed and his hands frantically rubbing his neck. Yet he continues his cheer, albeit a whisper.
“Yes. Never ever can that be topped. So awesome.”
The groan emerges from him without warning, loud and guttural. Joey may not feel his pain, but I’m satisfied to see Andy is fully aware of his. The mental picture of mashed Funyuns pressing upwards from his stomach and stinging his esophagus is a pleasing picture.
Derek has descended from the staircase, joining me as we watch Andy rub his face and groan.
I notice him, and he looks back at me, smiling, saying nothing.
He’s come to the party dressed, quite literally, as himself. He’s gone out and purchased some blank white shirt, upon which “Derek #1 Alfonso” is scribbled in black marker. The lettering has already become slightly smeared.
His mask, however, is what truly achieves the comedic effect I’m sure Derek was working for. A cardboard mask has been carefully cut out to achieve the shape of his head, which it’s strapped onto with cheap elastic bands. There are holes for his eyes and his mouth in accordance to the blown-up paper image of his face, pasted on. The mask doesn’t line up with his face, and I assume he continues to wear it off the side of his head so it can be quickly thrown on for photo opportunities. It’s not as funny as it is frightening. Seeing it stirs up the emotions that’d occur when wandering through some abandoned basement, and coming across a leathery mask of a friend’s facial skin.
His grin withstanding, Derek hangs his arm off my shoulder, while his other hand snatches my limp hand, which he proceeds to shake as if we were greeting each other for the last time.
His breath is cheap vodka and cranberries.
“Sorry about that,” Derek says, and with a clap on the back, he steps away, avoids the smatter of blood, and walks towards the crowd.
I watch him go, then look back at Andy, who has stopped groaning, but is merely breathing loudly as he continues to rub his neck. I make a mental note to find a trashcan and place it between his open legs. He won’t be able to move from that spot for the rest of the night, making him a prime target for bullying from whomever. I leave him there.

Troublesome Turkey

2007-11-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

While I could easily write about how shitty the new Saw movie was or my new radio show, or even bitch about how work sucks, I’d much rather write about something that matters. There’s always a million different things going on in the world, but does anyone care about anything that doesn’t concern the 2008 presidential election, Darfur, or global warming? Yes, but then again, no.
Oh, of course, no one likes a child solider, and as I’m told, racism is as prevalent at CSU as ever. But then again, we should pay attention to the issues of countries on the other side of the earth. Human life is just as important in Turkmenistan as it is in China or Myanmar (Did you know that the new Rambo movie is SET in Burma? Talk about being time relevant! My guess is that they filmed it knowing that there was some massive violence going on in Southeast Asia; the jungle-setting could’ve been anything from Indonesia to Cambodia to India/Pakistan border and so on.)
So, time to delve into what’s happening. Hmm, child soldiers in Myanmar, Obama pisses off gay community with anti-gay gospel singer, kids found to have tiny percentage of industrial chemicals in their bodies…
Ah, here we go.
So Turkey is cracking down violently on some insurgents, and want to make an incursion into Iraq to stop one particular group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (better known as the PKK) and their violent ways. Ok, here is something I can half-assedly relate to: If such a crossing of borders were to occur by Turkey, it’d throw the northern half of Iraq into chaos, as the self-governing Kurds of the region don’t want to deal with that kind of shit right now, as they’ve got their own IEDs and stuff to deal with, or so I assume. I suppose assuming is bad, but for now we’ll allow it.
When your general smart person population thinks of Turkey these days, they think of that proposed bill that would allow the US government to recognize the murder/deportation of 1.5 million Armenians from Turkey back in the early 1900s as the Armenian Genocide, the scholarly title. From a glance at the timeline of the massive deportation, such a title seems fitting, but Turkey refuses to call it a genocide, and many of our former leaders have said that we would lose a powerful Middle Eastern ally by recognizing it as such: Daddy Bush, Bill Clinton, etc. It’s an interesting situation, calling into question how much do we as America care about a title if it means losing a lot? You have to acknowledge that a title means a lot, really: what would happen if the country had never recognized the Holocaust as a genocide? But frankly, I’m a little torn on the issue, though I lean towards the idea that we should recognize genocide when we see it. Maybe it’ll happen after we get out of Iraq, but then again, I doubt it.
But I digress: This will shake things up, so I only hope Turkey takes precautions before crossing any borders.

Scary Movies

2007-10-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve always felt a tingly excitement around the latter half of October, the days leading up to Halloween. It is only in this time of year that society acknowledges all of which is frightening, be it the jack-o-lantern or the ultra-gory horror film.
I’m a relatively massive horror movie fan, always searching the web for upcoming films, most of which I decide whether I’ll go see just after reading the synopsis or, more fairly, seeing the trailer. Sadly, I’ve somewhat fallen out of my practice as I watch myself morph into a respectable member of the public. Time spent scavenging for a good visual scare in cinemas and bargain bin video stores such as Village Vidiot (which boasts a fantastic collection of obscure horror movies) is now spent working, studying, or interacting with other people. My seventeen-year-old friends have grown up; they’d rather watch a meaningful film filled with clever references and social commentary over a movie produced solely for the violent effects and disfigured monsters. Bring these elements together, and terrifyingly enough, you can feel your own passion begin to wane, and I can only frown as it slowly dribbles out.
While I’m not starving, am not plagued with any terminal diseases, and nearly everyone I have ever loved is still alive and well, it is the little events in life such as this that really make me wonder if I was only put on the earth to suffer.
So, before I am dropped into the congealed soup that is the real world, allow me to take you by the hand to see a small slice of my time with scary movies.

Childhood
Right around 2nd or 3rd grade, I started to realize that there was some pretty cool things about scary movies. Of course, I limited myself to childhood frights, like scary-themed cartoons, anthologies (which were pretty cool), and of course, scary-theme books, like R.L. Stine’s classic Goosebumps collection. I did my best to keep my distance from the horror that was rated PG-13, or massively worse, R. But there were just some things you couldn’t avoid.
For me, it was this little monster. God, I can nearly pinpoint the first time I saw it on a video box while we were carousing through a video store, and almost instantly I found tears welling up in my eyes.
If you think that’s bad, just think about what it’d feel like innocently flipping through the TV channels and coming across it as it moved around.

Teenage
I’ll always remember watching John Carpenter’s The Thing and flying up in the air in total horror during the part where they’re testing all of the blood. See, this creature sort of got up inside people and you’d never really know who or what converted, it was pretty fucking scary, even if it was hard sometimes not to understand how the creature got inside these people. And of course, the blood test, cripes, it’s probably the most frigthenting “jump” moment I’ve ever had to deal with. Of course, this scene was pretty good too: “You got to be fuckin’ kiddin me.” It was only a shame that such obsessions kept the women away for so many years.

College
College is an academic community; no room for senselessly violent movies such as the ones above. Sure, they were scary, but were they artful? Apparently university librarians. I never could find any good scary movies scanning through the collection of movies they had for rent at the library, but there were quite a few “instant-classic” foreign films that were available, one of which was Audition. Yes, this movie is pure horror, even if it’s packaged as a thriller. It’s not a thriller; it’s a horror movie, right down to the torture porn scenes. Seriously, movies like Hostel or Saw got nothing on this suspenseful sickening movie. It’s scary and disturbing, and it manages to get inside you regardless of how detached you are to horrible things.

Blastin on all over your airwaves

2007-10-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working my way towards achieving a DJ position with CSU’s very own radio station, 90.5 KCSU. I’ve been born and raised in Fort Collins, and I remember listening to 90.5 probably early on in middle school, after my Dad introduced me to it’s non-mainstream ways. I have to respect the old man for giving me the direction of music that has truly given my life more color. I shudder to think where I would’ve been otherwise.
It was on KCSU, as I clearly recall, where I first heard of the first airplane crashing into Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. I remember having some big argument with Mom ending just as she pulled up on the curb to drop us of, and as I opened the door, some guy got on the air, saying “I’m sure you’ve all heard about the airplane crash on the World Trade Center now,” or something very similar, and my mom opening her mouth and saying “Oh my god”, and that was it. This was before the second tower was hit, mind you.
But enough recollections, KCSU has held a special infatuation in my heart for a little while now, and this entire training process has been pretty damn exciting. As of now, I’ve collected the signatures of four of the seven managers at the stations (there is quite a lot of behind-the-scenes work that takes place at the studio, quite a few employees don’t even have their own show), and now I’ve shadowed for two shows, and I’m feeling more confident going into my next two tests.
The hardest part, in my opinion, will be this first test. I basically have to take a pass/fail test: miss one question and you lose. I’ve got to study the names of the managers (I guess they ask you to recall three specific names and match them with their station), know the difference between payola and plugola (feeling pretty confident about this one, I wrote an article about payola scandals at Clear Channel…actually, I remember speaking to the KCSU station manager for that one!), and some of the rules, regulations, stuff like that. I just pray we don’t go into specific technical details, because I seriously don’t remember any of that stuff, and what’s worse, I’ve lost my training manual.
Part two is show auditions. This is the spot that separates the staff member from the DJ. Pass this, and you get your very own show! Of course, being a newcomer, I’ll be placed into a spot that goes no earlier than 11:00 p.m., and should to go on at 11:00 a.m., it’ll be on Wednesday night, the night before my beloved 8:00 a.m. Online Writing course. Any other day, and I’ll be going from possibly 1:00-3:00 a.m., or 3:00-5:00 a.m., or maybe 5:00-7:00 a.m., so many options! I guess I shouldn’t get ahead of myself because that is all far into the future really, if I do have a show I won’t get a start on it till mid November and that’ll be if I’m lucky.
Here’s to making the grade.
Also, Erik’s video of the week: there’s something about 1:40 that made me laugh loudly.

Wailings

2007-10-18T21:03:00.000-07:00

So, earlier this week, while carousing through Best Buy, I happened upon the small white pyramid of Xbox 360s, and I couldn’t make myself walk away, I couldn’t ignore them any longer. It had been some time since they had seen a nice solid price slash from the unbelievable 600 to the barely more reasonable 450 dollar mark. The fact that those Microsoft bastards had thrown in two free games alongside the console was too much to resist, I was forced to scrape out funds for it.
And right now, it sits in my room, not plugged in, and I feel agitation of the worst possible kin; it’s that heavy realization of knowing that perhaps you made a bad decision. I haven’t had any time to play the goddamn thing, nor have I had time to play it at my apartment. My roommate has made it clear that he gets in five or so hours of TV every fucking day, and I only allow it because in turn, he does my dishes. As I type, I wait for him to finish with his movie or perhaps his episode of “Sex and the City”, and as much as I’d like to say my bitching is justified, it really isn’t. Usually he turns in around 10:00 p.m., but for some horrible reason, I feel like he purchased a move “on demand”, and will spend maybe two or three more hours watching it. I staggered into the home around 11:30 p.m. last night and lo and behold, he was watching Transformers. Goddamn him and goddamn those stupid fucking instant order movies and goddamn his cable subscription, fuck all of you out there in TV land.
It’s been a long frustrating week, and I feel like I could really benefit from some visual violence that horror movies just can’t provide anymore. His antics, that terrible roommate of mine, are the only reason I’m behind the keyboard as of now. I don’t want to bully him, I’m not so sure I could, this truly is suffering in silence. I feel myself slipping into a ramble, imagining myself playing the games, oh god it’s getting bad.
Nothing else really holds up in terms of what matters, god it hurts to admit it’s true but it is and I just want to make this pain end. I’ve got work to do, there’s always work to do: journals to be updated, contacts to be call, progress to be made on the massive side projects that seem to barely have much of my time. Here I am, able to do such secondary important things, but I cant bring myself to do them. I can only sit here, before the keybard, and let all of my misery flow out onto the keyboard. Oh, how I’d love nothing more than to just have a TV of my own, so I could finally toss aside that useless notion of patience and simply fucking live. Nothing else matters anymore; not Iraq or Iran or the onset of World War III and the very possible notion that everything will soon be gone, same oes for the environment and the monks in Myanmar and the starving children in Columbia and the great pieces of literature strewn around the room, unread and unloved, likely to be burned before opened. I cant stop rambling, but I continue on, it’s letting the tiniest little bit of pressure squeeze out of my skull so as to prevent a terribly painful end. I try to be a good guy but then the big man upstairs, whoever the hell he is nowadays, he punishes me and I don’t understand why, oh how hard it is to be me, unable to play my overpriced video game console that I will certainly pump more dollars into to improve my gameplay experience, buy/rent more useless games, and whatever else that one could do to waste their time/money when involved with video games, of which I’m sure there are many. It is time for this blog to end before I lose anymore faith in my ability to write.

Reflections on the Golden Land

2007-10-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve always known that when it comes to shitty third world countries with oppressive leadership, Myanmar was the country to beat: forced labor for citizens and children, rampant human trafficking, secret police and state-run media to name just a few. Fun fact: Myanmar is technically known as Burma, a title which it is less referred to for some reason.
Seriously; before all of this national coverage of monk protests kicked in, I already knew things were pretty fucked up over there, and no one really gave a shit until now. Myanmar was MY insane military regime of choice before anyone else’s, especially that fucking bitch Laura Bush, who likely knew nothing of the country’s existence until White House officals showed her a videotape about what was going on and wrote up a nice little speech for her to use to condemn the actions.
Seriously, Laura Bush has spoken out about jack-shit since her husband, our own supreme military dictator, began his quest for oil-blood of brown skinned children to satisfy his vampire cravings (Bush is a Nazi as well.) Okay, actually, I remember her talking about the importance of books but that died out pretty quickly thanks to the First Lady’s secret dyslexia.
But anyway, it’s especially enjoyable to see how the Myanmar government is handling all of it on their fabulous website hosted by Geocities, where you can read about the dastardly insurgents most recent attacks and the proud and swift on-the-spot executions that take place proceeding.
Also, check out the tourism website that uses sweet lulling synthesizing music to lure unsuspecting Americans and their fat wallets into their rotten districts.
Truly, Myanmar is the new Sudan, which was the new Yugoslavia, which was the new Iraq, which was the new Cambodia, which was the new Chile, which was the new Uganda, which was the new Russia, which was the new Germany and so on, even farther than I care to go.
Who knows what country will be next? At this point, it really could be anybody, quite exciting, I know. Let’s just hope the human face doesn’t get too dirty when it's being stamped on.

Collegian controversy continues...

2007-10-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

So, before things blow up (which they may or may not), let me allow my opinion on the issue. There’ve been people upset with the editorial cartoon in the Monday’s issue of the Collegian. I can’t find any online images of the cartoon (I don’t have a scanner either,) but the issue date was October 8th.
But anyway, if you’re too lazy to read The Collegian article, people have been claiming that the cartoonist’s depiction of CSU football player Gartrell Johnson was racist, as his image is somewhat similar to the “pickaninny” images of years long past, with bulging white eyes, literal black getup, and long feet.
Frankly, I believe those who find it offensive have got a point. If you look at the cartoon, and compare to any racist caricature of the black population, I don’t think it’s possible to deny any sort of resemblance between the two.I’m not black, so I don’t know what it’d feel like to see something like that. But I entirely doubt that the cartoonist had any intention of making a racist statement whatsoever.
In fact, I’d argue that artist might have been acknowledge Johnson’s efforts instead of just recognizable white players like Kyle Bell or Caleb Hanie, who could’ve easily stood in Johnson’s place in the cartoon, but I’m not the cartoonist either, so I can’t really speak for him either. The good is a good artist, but I haven't met him. It’s a shitty deal, really, but things will sort themselves out in the end. I just hope we don’t have to deal with any of those assholes from FOX 31 or CBS 4 again.

Reading on Writing

2007-10-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

This blog is about several different essays on writing, written by a three particular authors:
-From Anne Lamont’s book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life: “Getting Started”, “Short Assignments”, “Shitty First Drafts” and “Perfectionism”
-Kurt Vonnegut: “How to Write with Style”
-Amy Tan: A section of The Opposite of Fate: Memories of Writing Life
-From Julia Cameron’s book The Right to Write: “Begin” and “Bad Writing”

It’s always enjoyable to read about the various tactics and approaches famous writers take on in their own writing, but it was somewhat disappointing to see that there wasn’t much there that I hadn’t read before. Frankly, the only bit of advice that really stuck out to me as different was Vonnegut’s praise of a person’s “first language”, and how that can really stick out when it’s smoothly adapted into another language. I never really realized that, but it makes complete sense. I’ve read a lot of books of writers who have taken on English as a second or third language, or whose writing has been translated over, and it can be amazing how boldly they challenge the norms of English writing.
For example, I recently read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. The story plays around with subjects that are taboo in any cultures, but it also incorporates that “magic realism”; something you don’t see in much Nobel Prize-winning literature, something that gives the whole novel an extra layer of originality. And even when you look at that conversion of language, there’s that underlying dusty tone throughout the book. His writing reminds me of Steinbeck (articulate and strong structure telling a surprisingly depressing story), but then again, it’s easy to pick out differences between the two writers.
As far as Anne Lamont and Julia Cameron’s advice: I’ve always been a firm supporter of the “I just don’t give a fuck” attitude when it comes to starting out. As a guy whose solitary goal is to write a book, I find it important that writer’s write at different levels in the world of writing. While I’ve been writing for fun since third grade, I realize that I still need to improve on so many levels it’s almost disgusting. Not to say that I lack ego when it comes to my work, because I certainly do, but only because I am constantly practice different fields of writing.
It’s important that writers, when they can, practice those different fields of writing: journalism, creative non-fiction, creative fiction, poetry, and most definitely journaling.
Journaling is the essential “I just don’t give a fuck” style because you are free to write whatever you want without worry that someone will come across it and judge you (as long as you don’t leave your work lying about, or if you commit some illegal activities and then they pull up your journal to prove that it was all premeditated). Even if a writer chooses to stick to their particular field, then they should at least journal every now and then, I tend to think it can help a ton with one’s own personal development as a person and as a writer. And it’s always an emotional experience looking back at all of your adventures and hopes from days long gone by.
Also, having read several different books on writing, I think it's important that every wannabe writer read Stephen King's On Writing because that book can truly change one's perspective on the craft.

New Kids on the Block

2007-10-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

I look forward to the day when The Ram Republic joins the CSU’s paper pile, which according to the Chronicle article, should be about any day now. I really am curious as to how it’ll be matted out; will it be entirely columns or opinion pieces? Or will it feature “news” articles too, except with a Conservative spin? And I have to wonder what Collegian staff will migrate to the Republic; frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole of the advertising staff shifted allegiance. I wouldn’t blame them either; they’ve worked pretty damn hard to get to the spot they were at prior to the “FUCK BUSH” editorial and, despite being pissed, have kept on working. Now that McSwane is here to stay I cant help but wonder how much longer they’ll be around.
The newsletter won’t be a part of CSU’s student media, and because of a blatant right wing status, they probably won’t be. So its pretty impressive to see the College Republicans start up their own publication because they think The Collegian is trash. They saw something that they thought wasn’t right with their college community, and so they’ve gone out of their way to attempt and make things better. One cannot deny that; this goes to show that college students are no where near the inactive juvenile assholes so many “businessmen” claim them to be in their online posts.
Bringing up those “businessmen”; these are they guys who have left comments on the website claiming that they are doing everything in their power to make sure that Colorado State students do not get jobs at their corporations or any of the corporations they have connections with. This is quite the bluff; unless they’re associated with an ultra-conservative and vastly small company that really didn’t have room for future employees as it were, then there’s no way they’d have the balls to reject a student because they came from CSU. My guess is these people are posing; no true professional would write such a comment. Maybe they’d feel that way, but there’s no way they’d actually go through with it unless it was a situation as I mentioned above.
So, it’ll be good to have the Republic among the paper crowd, it’ll give the Collegian some competition, and will force everyone on staff to work harder for those advertising dollars.
In my opinion, The Collegian is a pretty legit operation when it comes to its news section, being the one section I’m familiar with. I know that I do my best to report accurately and objectively, and I think the same can be said for my fellow senior reporters.
I look forward to reading The Republic, and hope that they are able to maintain some credibility in whatever purpose they might choose to serve.
That being said, I can’t help but wonder which of our old advertisers are eager to support a right-wing agenda.

Nothing turned into something

2007-10-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

As of now I feel drained but force myself to write up a blog anyway.
Probably not a great idea, I know. No one wants to read writing that the writer hasn’t put any care into; anyone knows this. I’ve written more than a few worthless research papers that were C- material, I know how it goes.
And to think, I call myself a writer. This isn’t even really structured writing, there are no limits really as to what I can write about for my Writing Online class. Some days, I’d be more than happy to blog about happenings, but I really just don’t care to talk about all of the exciting things going on right now.
Like the Rockies making their first playoff run in, like, 12 years, and all off a fucking awesome tie-breaker match with an ending that’ll be remember as the most exciting moment in Rockies history (for now…I’m not going to jinx the Rox but who knows what the future holds.) I watched the game and got all excited about it and just thought that it’d be awesome to write up a blog reflecting on my memories of the Rockies and how Dad and Grandad and I and maybe even cousin and uncle every now and then go to a Rockies baseball game at least once every summer. Most of the time when I’ve been in attendance, they’ve lost; be it to the Marlins, the Padres, the Braves, the Mets, and even, yes, the fucking Devil Rays. And I will claim that I’ve been following the Rockies since 94’, but I’ll admit, every single season after their first wild card run, my heart and attention sank with each losing season, until now. Holliday has become the new Larry Walker, and Suzuki stands become the next Galarraga. And yes, I think its safe to say that Helton has become the new Helton.
Wow, I’m a little amazed at how easy it was to splurge out all of that. That’d probably constitute as a whole blog right? I mean, I could go on and on about how great it is to watch the Rockies while they kick ass year after year, but then again I could be setting myself up for disappointment. This is how we do it.
I’d like to end this blog with a song that really sums up those elementary school years when the Rockies were fresh and fun and if you didn’t like them you were pretty much an asshole. This one’s for you Blake Street.

Art outside of the Museum

2007-09-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of it before, it's called "culture-jamming", and it's one of the more fascinating arts emerging in culture today. Above, you'll find a lovely little painting that has had a habit of popping up in art galleries or within the halls of large-scale media headquarters. To the left, you'll see one of a fine example: a "remixed" version of Paris Hilton's last album...just a glimpse at the front cover, and one can immediately tell that there's a noticable difference in the attitude generated. Over 500 copies of these CDs were covertly distributed through music shops across London.

There's no need for longer introduction, as the man behind this elaborate prank is possible the greatest culture-jammer in the known world, whose identity has yet to been uncovered: Banksy

He is a world-renowned artist whose mysterious origins began with in the early 2000's with recognizable graffiti stencils in the United Kingdom. His exploits have grown across oceans. His work can be seen in London, Edinburgh, Madrid, New York, the West Bank barrier, Mexico, Los Angeles, and Disneyland.

There's not much for me to say about this artist except that I find what he has to do rather incredibly amusing and moving. His use of a "real world" canvas is truly unique, in that he hadn't received permission to make his mark. Even more enjoyable are the messages that his art leaves upon it's viewer, and whether they be dreadful or simply humorous. Police hate him, but his use of quick-draw stencils and late night painting has left him practically undetectable.

As much a fan as I am of Banksy and the whole "culture-jamming" movement, I would certainly hope that this sort of art remains outside the clutches of the commerical realm as long as possible. As any quick-thinking marketer will tell you, subversion can be a fantastic advertising theme: There's a large market of people who'd like to think that buy buying a product, they are circumventing the tightly-regulated system of society (i.e. Sprite). Even more depressing is the fact that someday, it could be extremely difficult to tell whether there is a real human message in such efforts, or if it's all just a ploy to get it's viewers to buy or live in accordance to a corporation.

Group Projects: A life-long hell

2007-09-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

I would’ve thought that group projects would’ve been an activity left behind in middle school, but lo and behold, it’s shown it’s twisted head in my Online Writing college class.
I simply hate group projects, and our class today was certainly exemplified the amount of learning and time wasted by working with three other individuals who are just as apathetic, tired and miserable as you are.
We had to pick a website, then analyze the site using ten “agreed upon” criteria points. It was pretty quickly established that everyone in the group had listed the exact same kinds of criteria on their blogs, so we went ahead with a rather hilariously crappy website.
Not exactly sure what to do, we forged ahead, wrote out an introduction, and applied two pieces of the criteria to the site. It was time-consuming, but rather simple.
After criteria point #2, I went to the bathroom. By the time I had come back, the group had decided on doing a completely different website, reason being that the other site would’ve been repetitive in each of the categorical points. No one had the foresight to point this out before we had spent a good 4/5ths of our allotted time writing out this one part of our analysis. Even more enjoyable was the fact that two of my group members started lightly bickering with each other over completely unrelated shit, wasting more time and there was little me and the other group mate could do.
Looking around the room at the time, and seeing other groups sitting before their computers in a dull silence was even more annoying. Discussion, so it seems, is few and in-between in these group settings, and everyone feels uncomfortable in completely expressing themselves.
The whole idea of peer review is pointless: Despite everything that’s been said about human kindness, it’s rather shitty knowing that my grade will be (partly) determined by other students in my group, who could easily mark me down if I make a suggestion they don’t like or do not speak as often as they do.
Honestly, I’d much rather write out such a project all by myself. If I hadn’t learned yet how to work within a group environment by the time I applied for college, then I wouldn’t be in college. I certainly hope group projects that I’ll inevitably deal with in the future feel more structured and contain more students who actually give a shit then the busy-work dribble I’ve had to put up with in Writing Online.

2007-09-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Friday’s editorial of The Rocky Mountain Collegian broke it down into four simple words:
Taser this…FUCK BUSH

Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle

2007-09-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

Massive now is the story of 21-year-old college student Andrew Meyer, who was arrested and tasered during a town hall forum featuring John Kerry. Upon reading the various accounts of the story that have emerged, and watching the YouTube video, I’ve come to two very different conclusions about the incident:

-This kid was an arrogant jackass who completely deserved having his mic cut off. With his ranting non-stop list of questions, he was going over the time granted to him, and cutting into the opportunity of others to ask their questions. In that sense, he was denying them their freedom of speech. I doubt he was immediately being arrested when the two officers first moved in on him, only when resisted against them in the back of the room did they have to be more forceful. When he got zapped, I really couldn’t help but chuckle, just by the way he cried. He had the aura of an asshole, and the cops responded procedurally. People shouldn’t be so quick to claim that his freedom of speech was being violated when it’s difficult to tell what exactly happened. People shouldn’t place complete and total faith in a YouTube video.

However…
-The taser is the only thing that makes this story a national sensation and not just some second page article for the local newspaper. Time and time again I hear that the kid had already had been put in handcuffs by the time the officers used the taser on him. Yes, he had been warned that he would be tasered if he continued to resist. It’s really impossible to tell if he had continued to resist, but by that point, I still doubt the tasering was necessary when they had him in cuffs, and being that there were at least four officers on him, it would’ve been easy to carry him out of the room. He still seemed to struggle against them as they ushered him out. Also, even if he is found guilty of disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, it should be sensible that the charge of inciting a riot will be dropped. He called out for help and asked if the crowd “was seeing what was happening.”
Even everyone’s favorite conservative blowhole Bill O’Reilly agrees that the tasering was just a bit much (fast forward to 5:10, watch until the end of the video.) Not that anything that O'Reilly spews out of his mouth is worth giving any sort of credit to, but the irony just hit me like a electric volt to the chest!

Yes, I used a taser joke. From this moment on till a couple of months or so, the taser will recieve more attention than any other tool on a policeman's belt, even more than the fucking gun. It'll become a staple of American culture. I think it’s pretty safe to say that “Don’t tase me bro!” will be remembered as the catchphrase of 2007.

Your guide to writing on the Internet

2007-09-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

I didn’t think I’d have to write anymore blogs this weekend, other than the previous two “independent” posts. Of course, that wasn’t the case, as I discovered this morning. So, about internet writing…this shouldn’t be too hard to cover. Among the many important things to consider in internet writing, these are the top five:

1) Prim and proper: The only way to achieve internet credibility in your writing is to maintain a sense of proper spelling and grammar, maybe even a few sophisticated wording here and there. That way, people won’t imagine a TV-obsessed fatso when they read what you’ve written, and you’re a lot less likely to get made fun of.

2) Fun and laid back: For some, it’s far too easy to come off as a pretentious asshole unless you keep track of yourself now and then, especially if you’re an English or philosophy major/degree-holder who actually enjoys reading literature prior to the 20th century. If you throw out obscure allusions, using pompous speech, you’ll be immediately regarded as worthless, ESPECIALLY if it’s discovered that you don’t understand the very things you are writing about.

3) Keep it simple, stupid: Keep things in neat chunks of text. Don’t forget the instantaneous effectiveness of the picture, a device that says a billion words when used on the internet. No one wants to read a block of text that’s longer than their pointer finger, that’s the way it goes.

4) No internet poetry: Simply put, don’t post poetry on the internet. Much like painting a picture using dog shit, you might think you’re being edgy by displaying your poetry on the internet, but everyone will know that it is still shit, no matter how much symbolism you’ve managed to stuff in there. The internet has such an effect on poetry, unfortunately.

5) Remember, this is the INTERNET: You might enjoy reading the insightful viewpoints of some web user from Ghana, and decide the world would be better off with some detailed happenings from your own perspective. While this can’t stimulate growth within one’s self, never should an internet writer expect to be taken seriously. There is a damn good reason that certain writing is “internet-exclusive” and not printed for all the world to see when they really don’t care to. Sorry, but unless you’re making death threats to the public safety or our glorious President-Leader, then no one will take what you have to say with utter seriousness, unless it’s your employer who doesn’t approve of your internet mischief, in which case just make sure your internet alias is as untraceable as possible.

Calling All Creepers

2007-09-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

Last month, Rolling Stone released the article: “'To Catch a Predator': The New American Witch Hunt for Dangerous Pedophiles”
The article displays a, at the very least, interesting suggestion: Is this wildly-popular program is nothing more than a slimy unethical grab for ratings?
This article dances quite the fine line between objectivity and mere sensationalism, portraying both sides of the coin in the murky grey waters between good and evil. Simply put, by the end of this article, one won’t be able to decide if cheering for Chris Hansen is a bad thing.
They cite the falsified stats used by the show, its fear-mongering techniques, and the harsh life pedophiles have to deal with following their bust (damned forever to a national registry complete with personal information is a typical punishment.)
I have to applaud Rolling Stone for presenting another viewpoint for the millions who’d be so easily to accept that these men are just plain evil, just as Dateline presents them to be.
That said, I really don’t think there’s a single thing that’d make me feel sorry for a pedophile. There is no excuse for being such a sick son-of-a-bitch.
I’ll admit, reading the article made me feel a little sorry for these guys who just fucked up their entire lives within the span of a single afternoon. They can only sit it out now and wait until 10-15 years later when the show is long forgotten if they ever hope to find a decent job or get a girlfriend ever again, and it’ll still haunt them till the day they die.
But I stand by my belief that better their life fucked up than the life of a child, or in some cases, multiple children. There’s no way to spin it otherwise; children who are sexually abused come out with some sort of terrible problem, be it mental or sexual. It’s just unbelievably cruel to deny a child of their innocence like that.
While I think “To Catch A Predator” has run it’s course and should leave such busts to professional law enforcement, I can’t say it that it had a negative effect on our culture. For all the child-lovers out there struggling with their inner desires, the show will probably scare them into silence for many years to come. There are better ways to deal with such a problem then scarring the life of a child forever.

NCAA First Two weeks

2007-09-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

While it seems like at least one completely crazy thing happens once every season in College Football, it seems like it’s just been one thing after another from my perspective.
CSU’s overtime loss to CU was a heartbreaker, but one’s got to expect that when dealing with such an intense rivalry. Why this game doesn’t get national coverage is beyond me; those damn east coast network bigwigs don’t seem to gave a damn about the mountain states. Honestly- it is extremely rare to hear an announcer give us the “Mountain Time” of a broadcast…always with the “Eastern, Central, and Pacific”, but never (so it seems) Mountain! It seems like a petty thing to complain about, but really, at least Colorado deserves some credit.
The ones calling the shots at the networks are straight-up ignorant when it comes to selecting games for national television. Seriously…there were a couple matches of powerhouse teams playing FCS teams on national broadcast while there were thunderously exciting matches going on between schools who weren’t exactly powerhouses, but were by no means bad. Fortunately, we got to witness one extremely insane upset, but there’s a strong chance that’ll happen again in at least 50 years. And yet the network heads will still show these first week burnouts that only the purest of fans will actually bother to watch.
And a week passes, and we see a match-up of Oregon against Houston, and the most unbelievable part of the game occurred on the sidelines.
I can only imagine whoever was dressed up as the Oregon Duck must have been completely shitfaced, and the heat was getting to him…just seeing him mosey up to the Houston Cougar like gives complete credit to my suspicion. The cougar gets a little testy, sure, but when the duck is on him like that, he doesn’t even bother to fight back! What have mascots come to these days when they won’t even bother to fight back against the other mascot, especially when said mascot is being slammed into the other mascot’s crotch. I would’ve been ashamed to see CAM take such shit. Even ESPN analysts were able to call out the Houston Cougar like that.
So, ultimately, I have to give credit to Oregon’s duck. Sure, his career as a mascot may be over, and if he really wanted to pick a fight with another mascot, he could’ve picked a much more worthy opponent (Stanford’s Tree, anyone?) Despite all of this, he still managed to snag YouTube glory, and there certainly is nothing childish about that.
I'm hoping for something to top these two events this week. Here's hoping Ralphie breaks out his pen and gores Cody Hawkins three minutes into the first quarter.

Reflection on Facebook articles and "Decline and Fall of the Private Life"

2007-09-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

Summary: Articles one, two, and three all focus on the concept of an internet lacking in privacy, and the consequences of posting without discretion.

Reaction:
I feel more confident giving a more general response to all three blogs, because they all, basically, focus on the same thing. I had read the first article before, and even reading it now, I still find the idea of seeing some chubby-cheeked freshman prominently post his crazed rush onto the football field, a trip he carefully chronicled to make sure everyone knew he had been out there too, and then receive a visit from campus police three days later. After his academic hearing suspended from the university for a year, I could see him running out of the conference room screaming about the violation of all of his amendment rights and that the police really were. Really, that is a fucking fantastic image.
Granted, I’d be pretty pissed if that had happened to me. If CSU beat a team like Ohio State, I could easily see myself following the surging crowd onto the field. But even before this article came out, I knew the consequences of letting my mischief be documented by camera or videotape. The temptation to do so, though, would be incredibly difficult to avoid.
As presented in both articles #2 and #3, personal websites are ENTIRELY about image for those who frequently access them. As much as these websites are useful to building a cyber-network and expressing oneself, I really can’t imagine any other reason for people to spend time crafting their profile in a way so that they appear exactly the way they want to appear.
Facebook is the essential example: One’s profile picture can say a million words, so one must make sure it says every single word they want others to hear. Look at the photos of people prominently displayed with his’/her’s significant other, fully embracing each other for the photo to prove without a shadow of a doubt that they are a real couple. For me, it just seems to scream “LOOK HERE I AM WITH ANOTHER WHOM IM BANGING EVERY OTHER NIGHT, I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND, IM NOT WORTHLESS AFTER ALL.”
Then there are the profile pictures that you can tell have had quite a lot of careful planning. Most of the time, such photos have been digitally altered, with overlapping color layers or use of sepia coloring or special shading. For me, people spend such time on photos so they can create an “artsy” image.
Without wanting to drag on too long, I’d also like to point out that when someone uploads their profile picture of an image other than themselves (such as a movie/cartoon character or sports logo or their baby picture), I’d say 75% of the time, they have some sort of self-image problem. Note that I’m not saying this is the case all of the time, but being one who has a handful of ugly friends, they seem to be very careful about what kind of image they want to use to portray them without actually using their face.
As for me, I’ll often resort to goofy pictures of myself for my profile picture in the hopes that people will associate me with funny and/or laid-back and/or unique. Having held my previous theories, these images must seem like they haven’t been posed for, so others won’t suspect me going out of my way to create an image for myself. It’s impossible for me to imagine others not doing the same, whatever kind of image they want to project.

Reflection on "Techno idiot" articles and Digital Divide

2007-09-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

Summary: The first article was a report on the new concern that students are information illiterates, based on professor observations and testing results. The article listed educators’ suggestions for improvement, including hiring certified librarians who could pass down their info-literate skills to students, as well as making info-literacy courses a part of core curriculum at universities.
The second article was a response to a multitude of articles touching upon info-literacy (the article above included), suggesting that educators were responsible for teaching students how to examine information critically, and that the method of teaching this needed an upgrade from focusing on textbooks to focusing on websites.
The Wikipedia entry featured the “digital divide” term, its meanings and origins. The article also contained a view of the digital divide in a global setting, and listed arguments for the need to improve information accessibility to those who need it.

Response: I don’t think it’s possible to take on all three articles at once, as they represent two different topics, despite the parallels.
The articles, I found, both support the idea that it’s essential for students to obtain info-literacy, and it’s an opinion I completely agree with. Having existed within this realm of students during this Information Age, I’ve come across at least a few examples of fellow students being unable to avoid the inaccuracies spotted across their information sources, and unable to detect sources that portray opinion as fact. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that this was the case with articles I have written in the past either. From my memory, the idea of critically examining internet sources didn’t really surface until mid-junior high, or even until early high school. I was pleased with the suggestion of requiring info-literacy courses for university students; I would hope CSU administrators would already be prepared to address that need. My only complaint lies with the first article; I felt the reporter had done a mediocre job in giving the reader details in the definition of info-literacy provided. “The ability to use technology to solve information problems”… what is meant by this? I’m left to figure it out on my own.
I was pretty disappointed that our third reading assignment was a Wikipedia entry, especially when it’s topped with a blue box that blares “This section does not cite any references or sources.” Complaints aside, I suppose I hadn’t really realized the severe disadvantage faced for one who is unable to access the internet. The arguments listed for the importance of bridging the digital divide focus on that idea that with access to information, growth and an improved quality of life can be more easily achieved.
One thought that occurred to me when reading this entry was the idea of complete information access being just as necessary. There are a number of entertainment websites that I’ve come across that boast about having had their page banned from the servers of a certain country. From my understanding, this is applied mostly to countries in Southern Asia and the Middle East. China acts as a notorious example: banning websites, deleting posts, and censoring search engines. Following the bridging of the digital divide gap, I would a movement to end such censorship would take form, if it hasn’t already.

Flail on

2007-09-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

A disturbing new trend in YouTube these days is the homemade music video. This is not to say that music artists are using handheld cameras to do their own work, but rather, thousands of douchebag take an artist’s work and make their own music video with the song dubbed over. Never has this ever produced something worth watching, yet I have scourged the YouTube shit-o-sphere to bring you, the reader, some idea of how bad it really can get.

Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight
Here we have a “creative” attempt by three teenagers (including one visibly disheartened banjo-playing girl), featuring audio synched to a slideshow rather than flowing video. You have to wait for a little while before the actual music kicks in, and suddenly we’re treated to one guy thrashing around as if he just downed his entire bottle of Ritalin with a Red Bull. The only reason this video is exemplified in this post is because of his overly-flamboyant personality, the kid that probably got picked on a lot early in life. Like many people who reach out to the internet for attention and perhaps even understanding, our vest-sporting friend is among the many whom I’d like to take a baseball bat too. Is that unnecessary violence? I’d like to think not.

Somebody's Watching Me
Do you ever find yourself watching a YouTube video, wondering if it’s a homemade music video? Using simple logistics, I’ve managed to create a formula that accurately deciphers the difference between a normal YouTube video, and the homemade music video. If you are what you are watching contains at least three features described below, you are, in fact, watching a homemade music video. As an example, I’ve used this formula for this particular video.
-Long, overdrawn intro? Check
-Shaky camera? Check
-Desperate grasp at comedic effect using shitty 80’s song? Check
-Cast composed of mildly autistic teenagers? Check
-Pointless lip-synch attempt? Check
-Severe lack of female presence? Check

Chocolate Rain
For all those who prefer to spend their time socializing and exercising and getting grades rather than spend hours and hours on the internet, I bring you “Chocolate Rain”, an original song and, as of recently, a massive internet phenomenon! This still counts as a homemade music video, because even though the guy is actually singing the song (so I’m told), it shows just how frightening this world can get. This little shit actually got featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he sat before a live-studio crowd and sung his song, complete with creepy stare and square-rim glasses. Fast forward to the last minute of the video, and Jimmy gives our friend some time to bring out the human behind the alien, even though I continue to be a skeptic.

Super

2007-09-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

If you were a super hero, what would be your super power?
I would love to have the ability to look into the face of my enemy and find their darkest secret, and in turn, use it against them. In theory, every human being holds some really low secret, something that they have nightmares about, or maybe something they've completely blocked out of their minds. I'd dress up with a oversized blue robe, and strap on a giant plastic eye ball that would be centered on my forehead. The eye would act as some kind of symbol of my power of limited but far-reaching insight, and I'd be known as "The Eye-Cologist." I would've gone with Cy-Cologist, but there's already a bike shop in Fort Collins that uses that name, and for me originality is a must.
Here are some situations in which my power would be more useful than any kind of flight or heat vision:
-A robber robs from a bank, gets a cool mil into his pillow sack, and runs towards the door, laughing with delight. Suddenly, the Eye-Cologist steps out from behind some giant pillar, blocking the entrance.
Out would come the glock, which he'd wave in my face, telling me if I like my brains in my skull, I'll get out of his way. But already, I have penetrated his mind, and from it ripped the one thing he's been hiding for his whole life.
"So, you're gay?" I'd say, loudly enough so that the terrified people on the floor could hear. He'd be taken aback a bit, not sure how to respond, having been accused of this for the first time in his life. Of course, I'd use his own pulsating homophobia against him.
"Not that it's a big deal," I'd say. "I know a lot of people who are gay, it's a pretty normal thing these days. I've got a couple of friends who are gay, nothing to be ashamed about, no one cares."
He'd snicker, telling me about all of the chicks he's banged in his 25 years of life.
I'd smile and say "Come on dude. I've seen 'Brokeback Mountain'. I'm guessing you're a particular fan of doggystyle, huh? A little too much of fan though. You'd feel a whole lot better if you just came out with it."
And it would go on like this for a couple more minutes, the guy'd be getting angrier as we continued our conversation, but before he decides to jus kill me, we hear "FREEZE POLICE", and I'd jump back behind the pillar and the cops would open fire and hopefully none of the people lying on the floor would get shot up, but the robber would have no chance.
The great thing is, there really is a variety of dark horrible secrets that one could pull out on a bad guy and keep him from finishing his evil plans:
-"Wait. You broke that puppy's neck on PURPOSE? That's really fucked up dude, I mean, really fucked up."
-"Your dad molested you too? Whoa...WHILE grandad was watching? I'm sorry dude, no one should go through that."
-"Ever heard that Phil Collins song about the guy who watches some other guy drown, and he doesn't do anything to help, he just stands there and watches the other guy drown? I bet you can identify with that one, huh? You make me sick."

Reflection on "Technomania"

2007-09-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

Summary: The internet revolution is here, according to Steven Levy, and it means people have the ability to reach farther and expand their abilities and personalities farther than ever possible before for the ordinary person. But this means clutter, and this means transitions, some of which will require time for people to become fully accustomed to. Such technology is decentralizing, and needs to be keep in check, balanced out with order from those in power, who will certainly fall if they’re unable to do so. Also discussed are the issues of privacy, free speech, education, and reality and their current roles in the internet.

Response: I enjoyed Levy’s practical and objective observations on the status of such important subjects and their potential altering with the arrival of the internet.
The whole concept of order and chaos battling out over the internet was one I suppose I hadn’t given much in-depth thought to until now. I was pleased to see that Levy was able to break it down in such a way that he didn’t give any sort of approving nods to either the holders of power nor to the teenage anarchists, but rather showed the clashing relationship and the potential that lies in wait. In my own opinion, I have difficulty believing that the internet does not have boundaries that a user is forbidden to step into. This thought sort of merges with the whole privacy vs. surveillance argument (as well as his observation of the free speech battle) Levy touched upon; investigators can track down the information they need to bust down on some unknowing child pornographer. It would not surprise me if it became nearly impossible to hide from the government in the folds of the internet.
The last paragraph, detailing Negroponte’s theory of atoms and bits is absolutely fascinating when applied to how dramatically the very way of human life might be changing is unsettling, something I never truly contemplated. I still believe that a life void of human contact is unachievable, and will be until we become mentally enslaved by machines, but the idea of co-existing between the reality we know and this “second dimension” of cyberspace is something I believe is already taking place.

Reflection on "The Internet? Bah!"

2007-09-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

Summary: In his stirring 1995 Newsweek piece, Clifford Stoll claims that we will come to know and depend on the internet as some predict. Stoll argues that the laptop screen will never replace a book, and that the raw information feeds of the World Wide Web will render online research unusable. Technology, Stoll says, will never replace human contact.

Response: It’s a little pleasing to read this article, a piece that didn’t stand true to the test of time even though it’s a little over than a decade old. It’s like reading those far-flung rare writings criticizing the idea of aerial transportation, or those suggesting humanity in slavery.
I don’t think Stoll really could’ve seen what would’ve happened, what tools would’ve been offered, and just how easy everything could’ve been. I do believe, however, he should’ve spent more time piecing together more examples to support some of his statements.
The idea of buying books and getting your news online? “Uh, sure,” Stoll writes, walking away from this sudden statement, forgoing any kind of logic to fuel his argument. This, in my opinion, accented the ignorance we witness when we look back on this article.
No Stoll, the internet does not do as much business as your mall does in 1995, but there’s no reason for you to believe that there could be any number of factors that shift the scale. At the very least, you should’ve acknowledged that this was the internet in its extremely early prime, that it had finally become something an ordinary person could access.
Stoll didn’t want to compromise, didn’t want to acknowledge that technology could make a great teacher’s education experience ever better. Or, in the cases of bad teachers, more important.
I have faith that Stoll is right in that nothing we can produce with our hands will ever match pure human contact, that no virtual reality, no matter how detailed and realistic, will replace those that surround us. In today’s day and age, most humans would struggle to survive without the dependency of others. We still need food, water, health care, sex, and all those other encounters that make us feel alive.
But unlike Stoll, I’m far too cowardly to predict that human contact would never willingly be replaced with artificial simulation. Who knows the number of pale monstrosities spending their lives locked at a computer, taking their online universities, chatting with their World of Warcraft friends online, ordering their pizza and Pepsi without having to speak a single word, and indulging themselves in the bottomless sea of porn that can make all of their misery go away for a couple of hours.

Relfection on "We Are The Web"

2007-09-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

Summary: In this article, author Kevin Kelley gives us glimpses of the internet’s timeline thus far: past, present, and future. Kelley starts off recalling the early days of the internet, his experience in watching it begin to rise from the ground and the heavy amount of criticism/pessimism the internet faced in the mid-1990’s. Kelley continues by recalling the growth of the internet since then, represented in the amount of tools we have at our dispense now, as well as the audience’s newfound ability to make their own entertainment. Kelley continues on into the near future, tossing out the varied theories of the intellectual community about what lies ahead in the world wide web: a community without consumers, of a solitary computer running the internet, and the extinction of the familiar desktop.

Response: As much as I enjoyed the glimpses of Internet’s past Kelley provided, I was turned off by his masturbatory personality that popped in and out of his writing early on in the article, describing his personal instance with ABC, who didn’t listen to his “dire” warning of purchasing a domain URL as soon as possible.
The matter-of-fact tone he used when describing the foolishness of those who doubted the internet’s arrival seemed unprofessional for a writer who was attempting a critical analysis of the internet timeline, as can be seen here:
“Where's Cliff Stoll, the guy who said the Internet was baloney and online catalogs humbug? He has a little online store where he sells handcrafted Klein bottles.”
You can almost hear Kelley’s nasally giggling as he punches the keys: “I sure showed them.”
But I cannot deny this article provided some interesting insight for a college student who really didn’t give a shit when the internet first emerged.
The idea of some massive, hive-minded “god” computer somewhat surprised me, offered an idea that I never really thought could be applied to the internet, a web built by millions of small hard drives and their sole supporters. Kelley undoubtedly expresses excitement over the idea that our entire world connection, and perhaps even our own hard drives and computer systems, will come to depend entirely on a single eclipsing machine, of which we would view through our monitors. Kelley describes its growth, comparing it to the neural pathways of a brain, always growing with every incident, or in the case of this massive machine, every click.
When Kelley mentioned that this machine would take to recognize human faces with the millions of postings and name links, my feeling of concern first blossomed. When he continued, talking about how such a device would make decisions about what the human race wanted, based on what we search for, the true horrifying image came about: could such a machine achieve self-awareness? With such capabilities and a information shower that never ceased, James Cameron movies have made me see such a machine as nothing but evil incarnate, a being fully uniting the world before completely deleting every connection and every user for the sake of it’s own magnificent survival.
Or perhaps Kelley's optimistic prediction will be fulfilled, and the super-machine will win Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", and families will skip the Grand Canyon just to go see the great black box of information.

Web Literacy Narrative, the most painful blog yet

2007-08-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Describe the first time you used a computer. What are your earliest memories of using the Internet? How old were you? Where were you, who was with you, what was the occasion? How did you use the Internet when you were younger? When did you first have access to a computer and the Internet at home? What about at school?
The earliest memory I have of using the computer was for some simple art game, where I’d use computer markers to color in between the lines, then later print out the poorly done pieces for friends and family members. My little presents. I must’ve been about 7 at the time, using the computer by myself in my old home, with no reason except the desire for some fun. The internet really didn’t come in to my knowledge and general use until around 13, when it was mainly accessed for library research. It was about the same time it came into use at my household, for strictly library research, as it had extremely little appeal to me at the time.

What Websites do you remember visiting at 10? At 15? Did you regularly use the computers or the Internet as part of your schoolwork?
The internet had not yet come into popular use, as I recall, by age ten. By age 15, it was mostly accessed to look up research for homework, guides to video games, funny videos or stories, and women, generally naked and objectified. By then, computers and internet became a critical part of the education experience.

How has your use of computers changes since that first time? Describe your current computer uses. How much time do you spend using a computer and what are you doing with it (them)?
The only way I’d say it has changed is that I also use the internet for news, regular email, Facebook, and, as of now, blogging. I still use it for all that I have in the past, perhaps to an even greater extent and most definitely at a larger time: I’d say I spend at least three hours a day with some kind of computer usage, either to write up essays, articles, research, do some kind of homework or online class activity, or just for personal amusement. This time spendage never has exceeded five straight hours, to my knowledge.

What do you like best/least about the World Wide Web?
The best always comes in the form of Facebook/Worthy entertainment of some sort. The worst comes whenever one crosses into that dirty corners of cyberspace where only the desensitized can truly push themselves to. It’s almost inevitable to end up touching that dark spot every once and while.

Do you read from the Web? What do you read? Do you read traditional, paper-based texts? What sorts and why? Who is your favorite author and why? How is reading a paper text different from reading on the Web? Do you have different expectations, are you a different reader, etc.?
I still enjoy my funny stories and articles (websites like http://www.somethingawful.com/) and the authors who write for them, usually are the only writers that I find enjoyable and actually funny. Paper-based texts, from time to time, are easy to access, but generally contain boring material, so they are often avoided when possible. My favorite internet author would be Zach Parsons, one of the writers from Something Awful who obviously spends as much time as possible behind a laptop, churning out often hilarious and sometimes insightful pieces of writing that is always makes for quality reading, regardless of how hard I might (or might not) laugh.

Do you have websites that you visit on a regular basis? What are they and why do you keep going back? What influence have these sites had on your life?
I visit Facebook, Something Awful, New York Times, and my online subscription to The Rocky Mountain Times almost every day possible. I keep going back to them generally because they are interesting, or funny, but they’ve had little impact on my life rather than acting as entertainment or sometimes thought material that never really drives me into action. The internet is still the internet; it just doesn’t stack up to the real world, for me at least.

How is your use of your computer different than that of other technologies?
I’d say it only does in the amount of time I spend using it, as it is the only piece of “newer” technology (besides a cell phone) that is critical to my piece of life. It’s the main source of my entertainment.

What do you do when you have a problem with your computer?
Unless it’s something simple that can be figured out, my computer will be taken to the nearest computer repair station in the hopes that they can drive out the evil hidden within the silicon and wiring.

Describe your attitudes about writing in general and your attitudes about writing with computers in particular. Do you enjoy writing?
I love to write! Be it in newspaper articles or short stories or even, surprisingly, these blogs. Writing on the computer is enjoyable and easy, and it can triple the experience when there is so much information to draw upon when writing out something. When I write a news article, I always am required to search for names, phone numbers, old stories, things I never knew about before, what ever I may need to make my piece of journalism make sense and not be labeled ignorant by whoever will be reading the article. But I’m sure that can’t be avoided every now and then.

Do you prefer to write by hand, or are you equally comfortable--or more so--writing with computers? Is the writing you do with computers different than the kind you do by hand? How are they different? Who reads this writing?
This is a dependable situation. When journaling (which I highly prefer to blogging and try to do as often as I can) or writing short fiction, doing it with the strokes of a pen seems to make my mind function much more easily than throguh the clickty-clack strokes of a keyboard, so in that case, I suppose it’s all about perspective and style. Maybe the fact that, usually, no one reads the written writing while it seems that the typed writing gets read oh so much more is the reason why it’s easier for me to go by the pen.

What is the one thing that you really want to learn about in this class? What is the one thing you are worried about?
More than anything, I suppose I’d like to understand and maybe even discover something out of the blog culture. I’ve never be very receptive of the blog culture, never really giving too much thought or care to the individuals who I don’t know in real life, and I don’t expect them to care what I think either, because I’m much more likely to become bored with their bluntness or lack of originality or even abundance of originality that overwhelms my simple mind. The one thing that I worry about this class is finding the blog culture to be just the boring landscape that I so terribly fear it to be. The coding sounds like a rather intimidating aspect as well.

You are the person of the year

2007-08-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

BEHOLD THE INTERNET, THOSE WORTHY OF TIME'S "PERSON OF THE YEAR":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjV0DKCCJbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRuxCs-Ojno

As much as Time might be supportive of it’s Person of the Year award, this year’s winner goes to show just how meaningless and empty this award can truly be. You, all of the pasty faces self-diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, the light of the monitor screen lighting the otherwise blackened room filled with empty chips bags and hokey gimmick t-shirts and stacked collection of DVDs/pornography, YOU are the person of the year because you were smart enough to figure out how dub Japanese music over a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon and then posting on the internet, your delicate contribution to the world wide web. Time’s choice personally sickens me; this is the kind of schlock that gets critics like Andrew Keen all worked up over the state of society today. Time Magazine ought to be ashamed of their choice, no matter how difficult they attempt. The editors of the magazine should’ve spent a thorough 24 hours observing the internet in it’s finest and crudest forms before declaring YOU the winner: the sex fetishists of a horribly wide variety, the empty headed preteen “vloggers” (who chose video cameras to do their writing work for them), and the inane journeys made in the name of mongloid science (see clip #3). Then they might not be able to truly call YOU the person of the year. This is not the same Time magazine that once voted Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year back in 1938. (http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa050400a.html)
This is the Time magazine that voted in Rudolph “Jerk-off” Giuliani over Osama bin Laden at the end of 2001. For those not in the know, Time says it bases it’s decision on the person that changed the world the most within one year, and regardless of your political philosophy stance, it’s hard to argue that the man who masterminded one of the most without-a-doubt-world-changing event would be beaten out by a greasy smiling city mayor who walked around Ground Zero just to make sure he looked good in the photo-ops, and earn that spot in American hearts that would one day propel him for a shot at the Presidency. If Time Magazine didn’t ruin its credibility right then and there, they have certainly done so now.

Reflection on "Internet Smackdown"

2007-08-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/theluddite/2007/06/luddite_0621?currentPage=2

I enjoyed reading Tony Long's piece, not just because I agree with him, but because he makes some very encouraging points about the state of journalism.
Especially his point about the "on-site" insta-journalist. A fantastic example of this would be the ten second or so cell phone video some college student took outside of the Norris Building in Virgina Tech. What we were treated to on every single news channel was a grainy video in which one or two men are running about on the screen, almost immediately running off screen, and then the popping of several gunfire shots. Nothing more than this, and the empty roars of criticism were heard loud and clear across the nation about the inability for a camera crew to "capture the action" like this "brave" college student standing by the window of a building did with his trusty cell phone camera. As much as I dislike television media, it was rather senseless to place such shoddy footage of the incident on the air. For all we, the viewer, could tell, this could've been any college campus in the country, or any business square for that matter, dealing with some crazed gunman who's walking around with his gun in the air, popping off shots until his brains are finally removed from his head by the assistance of an officer's rifle.
Only when the amaetur proves himself worthy of our attention should it be granted to him.

Reflections on "The Cult of the Amateur"

2007-08-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

Once again, it seems that Andrew Keen is repeating his belief that Wikipedia and Digg will be the sites that bring the downfall of man. Does Keen even associate himself with an educated crowd? Wouldn't he have figured by now that the majority of the educated (if not of all internet users) have forever conddemned Wikipedia as a simple playground where morons can go and shift and shape history however they please? Does he truly not understand that there is specific criteria taught throughout grades 6-12 to define what makes a website trustworthy and what makes it empty of useful knowledge? Why would any person who had at least attended a semester of online community college leave it up to Digg to determine what was important?
Facts have not yet been abandonded, and it's unlikely that Wikipedia, as condemned as it is, will be responsible for it's toppling. No one is looking to morons telling us about the minute details of their life in a day-to-day setting to replace actual entertainment, to replace a newspaper or a news report. No obese thirtysomething living in a Cheetos-encrusted environment (which he leaves three times a day) will replace our beloved smiling news anchor. If there even is any truth left in the media at all, then people certianly won't look to the common blogger to become their source of information.