May 2011
28 posts
For Wale, from Washington, this is his second major-label dance — he was signed to Interscope after becoming a blog favorite in an earlier day, the era of the streetwear-obsessed hip-hop hipster. (His Seinfeld-theme mixtape, “The Mixtape About Nothing,” helped too.) After one unsuccessful album, he and Interscope parted ways. While Pill exudes smooth menace, and Meek Mill impending havoc, Wale is the odd man out, a less nimble and less promising rapper whose boasting sounds uncertain, especially in impressive company. →
nytimes.com
1. it’s amazing that Wale is already old school/from an earlier era. but i can’t disagree. 2. did jon caramanica just RIP Wale’s rap career? Your boasting sounds uncertain, homey! that probably means no more lindsay lohan love for you, mr. wale. *cue debbie downer wop wop noise*
How to Pray to the Booty Gods
(from the inbox)
To: TAN
From: TAN2
Subject: Friday night
The “booty gods” have conspired against me once again, the [redacted description] just canceled our rendevouz for manana [ed. note: love the tri-lingual email!] *As a solemn tear rolls down my cheek*. So maybe we can get a “guys night out” popping for tomorrow?
Holla.
~~
To: TAN2
From: TAN
Subject: Re. Friday Night
oh, that’s killer. you should prick your penis (be careful!) and put one drop of blood in a condom, then bury it near a tree somewhere. In three fortnights return to the tree and there will be a girl there ready to give you some booty.
good luck!
Notes on Comedy, Cultural Fingerprints, and Blacktags in the Twitter era
Hi there. Headline is a little hifalutin, sorry. But I was quoted in the NY Times on the subject of Black people using Twitter, and predictably there’s been some backlash, erm, BLACKLASH.
The dynamics of “blacklash” are nuanced and sensitive enough to require a dedicated post sometime in the future. I was originally going to discuss it here, right now (f it, we’ll do it live!). But my full-on responses to the original questions about whether there’s a racial divide on twitter were TL;DR enough that I’ll just save the subject for later.
For now, I’ve paraphrased the original questions to protect the journalist. and I hope my notes add some more color and context to the conversation, but also help w/r/t transparency in how these these pieces are written.
this was all one email response to a handful of questions:
First, I should say that I’m not on Twitter at the moment. I imagine myself as part of an across-the-board trend of “normals” going to Twitter more for information and updates. both casually and for dedicated research. so personally, i have been scouting more per the book and new writer gig. but generally, especially in the circles i sometimes hang in, I’m light on info w/r/t the mechanics of Twitter and hashtag memes that become trending topics. how the broader algorithms work. There was the high profile slate article on black people and twitter last summer, and I’d probably just abide by that reporting for the science of trending topics angle. but on the cultural dna front…
here are my answers to your questions. I erred on the side of the conversation, but feel free to whittle down and take whatever letter or punctuation mark works for you.
1. Notes on what i make of the trend: I don’t think there’s much more of a reveal than young black people making jokes, at the heart of it. there’s a cultural conditioning at play, yes, the same way a tumblr meme, or a loosey-goosey comment thread on a site like The Awl has definite white cultural fingerprints. I think on the internet this is illustrated best by exclamation points usage (my post linked). more recently, a tumblr writer I enjoy, tyler coates, wrote this post complaining about an article on the new Jane site. and in the big ocean of internet content, it’s innocuous. but up-close you can deconstruct it for the currency that works on tumblr. there’s the voice, and the usage of caps, and the “I. Can’t.” formulation, all very “white culture” to my reading. not to say it doesn’t translate — which will lead to question #2, is it funny — but the beauty of language, and the bubble-busting of Trending Topics allows us to more easily see the infinite array of choices in how we talk, couch ideas, etc. borges said something like “to speak is to fall into tautology” mcluhan probably said something relevant too, heh…so i guess what i make of it, as someone who branded/bylined as The Assimilated Negro, is that I’m fascinated and amazed that more often the cultural trend pieces highlight the cultural differences over the human similarities. to me it’s much more of a cultural conditioning matrix at play, another somewhat related blog of mine, on black people boob video vs. white people boob video stabs at that. and so the hashtag meme joke that pokes fun at the new jane pratt magazine doesn’t exist as an issue of cultural interest and priority (more white internet users will know jane mag and sassy), but even if per wikipedia information age, everyone knows the same stuff, then the joke formulation would still look different. #janesnothittingitright, #uknowurwhitegirlfriendhastogowhen …are off the cuff riffs.
2. notes on whether it’s funny: this is the beauty of comedy. a good joke can walk through territory riddled with cultural landmines, engulfed in racial flamewars, and the laugh creates an insulated oasis. jokes are like hurt lockers. so for me, like anything else, it’s hit or miss. per the coates tumblr. “I. Can’t.” makes me laugh. but i know some of that is the assimilation talking.
so I turned to Patrice Evans, a satirist and author of the forthcoming “Negropedia.” He likes some of them. “A good joke can walk through territory riddled with cultural landmines, engulfed in racial flamewars, and the laugh creates an insulated oasis,” he told me. “Jokes are like hurt lockers.” →
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
I helped Virginia Heffernan explore #blacktags, hashtag rap, and the [alleged] racial divide in Twitter culture…
“I think what mainstream culture would benefit from is looking beyond the kind of Christian culture that gets its stamp of approval from Pat Robertson and James Dobson and recognize that there are a lot of really thoughtful, intelligent, tolerant, good-natured, and creative people making art that reflects their view of the world, and their interpretation of Jesus’s teachings, and some of it is pretty great. Seeing the world through other people’s eyes is always a good way to broaden your own perspective.”
—From a 2008 interview I did with Daniel Radosh about his book “Rapture Ready”. We also talked about the Christian Eminem (KJ-52), the cultural divide between black and white christians, and what it means to be a provocateur in Christian pop culture. you might want to revisit it now before it’s too late!!
Too Late Now
Wes Montgomery
So in one of my scripts I have a female character whose parents died and left her as sole proprietor of a Ghetto Chinese Spot. And she has to give up on her burgeoning modeling career to hold down the restaurant and support the family. She’s sort of like a manic pixie dream girl, functionally, story-wise, but with a twist of ghetto General Tso’s in terms of character. I like the aspirational betwixt-socio-classes assimilated space she occupies (embraces!).
The girl is a HUGE Wes Montgomery fan, and her GCS plays STRICTLY Wes Montgomery and nothing else. It’s also very quirkily decorated. And in the scene where Manic Bi-Polar Ghetto Chinese Girl from the Real World discovers, announces, that the rising tide of emotions she feels for the main male character will afford them no lovesurfing anytime soon (does that make sense? they like each other but can’t make it happen), this song, Too Late Now, is the one I hope makes the soundtrack. so wistful! Wes has Wistful on LOCKDOWN!!
The Olivia Wilde talking magazine cover makes me think how awesome it would be if technology could allow scripts/screenplays to play audio in the appropriate parts. I mean, music is such a big part of good cinematic storytelling. And in some ways it’s cheating a little bit, but in some ways it’s just the power of music to communicate what no actor or dialogue can. Sometimes music writes the scene. Wes is strumming the exposition here. If you listen to this song, and feel it, then you can probably write the “Parting Ways in the Ghetto Chinese Spot” scene as well as I could.
A Conversation about Exclamation Point Usage (with no white people included)
This discussion started because I shared some of my responses to a journalist inquiring about Black people and twitter usage. In my response I included an old post of mine on how white bloggers use exclamation points on the internet. So that’s the starting point.
Then:
30-something, Black, Male says…
Didn’t know you had that post on exclamation points (I am fully down with a reduction in the use of exclamation points)… Am I the only person that get’s exclamation point guilt and angst about whether I can get away with not using them when I want to show appreciation? I’ve have been wringing my hands lately over this business. I hate when I write a reply or need to say thanks for something and have to stop and lose a full minute or two to thinking about whether I can get away with not including an exclamation after my salutation of Thanks. I kind of want to tell people in the office that I’m going to cut back and that they shouldn’t take it personally or as unenthusiastic if I write “Great, I really appreciate your help” One of my team members emailed me on Monday and asked me if I’d have a few minutes to discuss a project and when I told her that I actually would be in the office later because we were released from jury duty (sick juror) she replied “Awesome!!!”. I came really close to replying and saying that I thought the 3 exclamation points was excessive. It was though, what could be that awesome about me coming into the office. If I backflipped from the entrance to my desk it might warrant that but that’s not the case, it’s just a dream of mine.
When a woman is bucking wildly against you, it's not because she wants you to pull back and slowly swirl your cock around her vagina like you're mixing a cake batter up there. It's because she wants you to hold down her arms, or grab her hips, or push her legs above her head, and fuck her harder. Don't be too afraid of what this means as far as gender equality goes - I am a raging feminist bitch, but I still want to be penetrated like you are planning on fucking my throat from the inside out. →
craigslist.org
uhhhh…can’t think …this is uhhhh…oldish….like 2008, best of craigslist, …..seattle, uhhhh….not just starbucks and rain anymore, apparently…
……………..shouldn’t this be, like, the female pledge of allegiance? or at least like the second verse or the bridge or something?…..
uhhhh…OK. i’m good. but yeah, I feel like the carnal sex stuff, and the intellectual theorizing around feminism and liberated women is the primary source of all the dissonance in terms of gender roles and how to behave in society. this is a great I Am A Woman and I Want What I Want rant, but surely it’s going to be conflated or abused somewhere by someone. but yeah, great read. (oh, and NSFW!)
One afternoon, at her direction, we brought in our pages, scissors and tape, and told to bring several drafts of an essay, one that we struggled with over many versions. Now cut out only the best sentences, she said. And tape them on a blank page. And then when you have that, write in around them, she said. Fill in what’s missing and make it reach for the best of what you’ve written thus far. I watched as the sentences that didn’t matter fell away. You could think that your voice as a writer would just emerge naturally, all on its own, with no help whatsoever, but you’d be wrong. What I saw on the page was that the voice is in fact trapped, nervous, lazy. Even, and in my case, most especially, amnesiac. And that it had to be cut free. →
themorningnews.org
lots of good tips and reflections in Alexander Chee’s nostalgic piece on studying the craft of writing with Annie Dillard (at The Morning News).
You Go To My Head
Ella Fitzgerald
nothing but Ella Fitzgerald and a guitar, tough to beat that..
You Go To My Head, Ella and Joe Pass
Beware of the Pigeons
What do you think about pigeons?
I’m very suspicious of them. I mean, what are they here for really?
They run in packs, but like to project an air of independence. They have absolutely no sense of discrimination about where they eat, shit, and piss. There’s no manners, always begging for food and whatnot. It’s like they’re permanent bird-teenagers.
But I have a theory on pigeons. I think they’re roving spy-cameras for the government.
This is not a passing notion here. I’ve had this thought for years. My body is now conditioned to physically respond to pigeons as if they’re roving spy-cameras for the government. When they’re around I behave as if someone’s watching me.
Here’s an example:
Silverman compares Shandling's new approach to what Eminem did for rap. "You know how rap has always been my phone and my car and I'm awesome and saying my name over and over again and my jewelry and my money? And it wasn't until Eminem came along that vulnerability was brought to it? He raps about the embarrassing things about his own self instead of posturing." →
gq.com
This is from the same GQ profile I got the Ali anecdote from. Makes me want to borrow Molly’s line, “OOH, GIRL, WHERE DO I START WITH YOU?” — which, by the way, is it me, or is it the case for the internet/twitter generation that young white people are the new black people, and black people are the new white?
But yeah, I mean, totally worth it to discuss Eminem as a huge figure for Emo-rap, but please slow down with the ignoring everything prior to 2000. I’m sure she’d recant or phrase more specifically if she weren’t using Em as a side reference to illustrate a larger point about Garry Shandling and comedy. but still, it’s almost natasha l-offensive territory.
For the record, my money’s on Redman/Reggie Noble as a primary influence in this regard. Em himself listed reggie first on his list of rappers (in ‘till i collapse), Andre 3K is also a big emo-dude on that “list”. More so than Andre though, Redman has the same deranged humor, and east coast rhyme style. A lot of shared DNA there. I think Reggie’s still sort of underrated, especially in the hip hop crit/deconstruction circles, and relative to Em’s popularity, so anyone studying Em will be particularly rewarded by revisiting the Redman portfolio, especially those first 3-4 albums that take you up to the period where Em blew up.
“you f’ing do-gooders, too bad you couldn’t do good at marriage”
—Eminem (Renegade)
Suddenly he launches into a story about Ali during the fifth round of the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, when Ali said to George Foreman, "This would be a bad place to get tired." →
gq.com
the recent hubbub over Obama’s stand-up skills made me think of this funny anecdote (from a 2010 GQ profile of Garry Shandling). Ali quipping like this, during the tense melodrama of a “Rumble in the Jungle”, totally makes me laugh, and seems in sync with what I see as a somewhat-suppressed comic sensibility. His energy, charisma, and use of language feels like there may have been a comedian buried under the boxing exterior. I find it fascinating in the same way a Brian Williams, or an Eminem, or, now, an Obama clearly have a talent for producing comedy, but have chosen, for whatever reason, to pursue other things. Yet the gift invariably reveals itself. The Funny cannot be contained. Here we have a champion fighter, a grammy-winning rapper, a celebrated news anchor, and the POTUS, all about as professionally distant from being a comic as you can get, yet, to me at least, it’s so clear that if they chose to study the craft and really work on it, they’d probably be very good comedians. They have the natural gifts that would lead to success with any sort of work ethic towards joke writing or performing. Extending the thought further, and the latent comic gifts are also a big, perhaps necessary, part of their non-comic success.
It’s sort of what I get at with the “you might be a rapper” idea. Some of the “career paths”, for lack of a better term, use skills that are much more fundamental to the human condition. The métier of an actor, comedian, or poet is human experience. So if a comic-artist is, through their work, exploring a sort-of “neurotic egotism”, or maybe call it engaging in a “nuanced study of humility”. Then rappers, as a platonic ideal, are exploring “aggressive egotism”, or maybe a “nuanced study of confidence”. When people complain or harp on how rappers boast, to my mind, they just don’t get it. It’s like telling a comedian to stop hating on himself. The whole point of the craft is to express this particular component of the human condition. Rappers boast, and in so doing, we all get to boast with a little more wit and sophistication. (it’s also why some rappers can’t rap, if they feel wounded)
Comics explore and excavate our humanity, our flaws and limits, and rappers would mine our ability to transcend limits, to be superhuman. It’s an impulse more Dionysian (Nietzsche, you might be a rapper) in its roots. Comics, in the abstract, wish for us to enjoy our life, the good and the bad, and they work towards including everyone in a good laugh at the tragi-comedy of life. But rappers, in the abstract, are about rising out of your circumstance. Being better than the life you’ve been given. Which makes sense looking at the culture from a distance, a culture that helped turn slave chains to platinum bracelets. the impetus and energy behind it needed to be something more ambitious and superhuman. I love to quote Jeff Chang calling it, “the art of the impossible”. Rappers come from nothing and talk about becoming billionaires, through their beats and rhymes. Ha. They’ll all soon be comics! But fact is, if you’re in the struggle, existential self-doubt is not a good look. That’s some hipster shit, and it’s not even on the radar.
To tie it back to the beginning, cause that’s what us comic-rappers do, call-backs, etc. ….maybe there’s a spectrum, or continuum, and on one end we have rappers, and their outsized egomania. on the other end we have comics, and their self-conscious realism. I have to mull on that, but I know that just as I clearly see a “comic” sensibility, and comic skills in many people, I also see a “rapper” sensibility in people (all of the folks mentioned before come to mind). When shit needs to change, and you’re the only person who can make it happen, well “put me anywhere on god’s green earth, I’ll triple my worth”. You might need the rapper in you to come out. After the difficult task of molding your life beyond some unjust circumstance is taken care of, then your comic side can come out and poke fun at how ridiculous you were. The hood would be a bad place to get tired, or somesuch.
How to Ethically Dispose of an Unwanted Caterpillar
1. THINK about what this is like for the caterpillar!
2. kindly help the caterpillar onto a card, or paper towel, or other means of caterpillar transport.
3. transport it someplace where it has a chance, outside
4. say goodbye!
[insert emotionally-resonant photo of released caterpillar here]
