DUNCE CAP QUARTERLY

DCQ is movin' on up!

2009-09-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

Only 90 posts deep and our new site is ready to mash, with a big shout-out to the talented people at design collective onethousandohms.

Continue to follow us at duncecapquarterly.com

Conflict journalist Christian Poveda killed

2009-09-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

Journalism lost one of its most courageous members earlier this month (via Lightstalkers): Photojournalist-turned-filmmaker Christian Poveda was murdered in El Salvador last week, possibly by the same gang he famously documented in last year's "La Vida Loca."

Poveda was found dead with gunshots to the head on the outskirts of San Salvador, near a slum where he'd infiltrated and documented the Mara 18, chief rivals to the Mara "MS-13" Salvatrucha down in the homeland. True, he could have chosen a more original name, and yes, the work covers fairly predictable (albeit wholly fascinating) fare -- gnarly facial tats, drug use and distribution, hookers, ultra-violent children. But Poveda succeeded where some had failed and many more had feared to venture in the first place. Born in Algeria to Spanish parents who raised him in France, Poveda gained his first exposure to El Salvador as a photographer covering the devastating civil war for Time in the early 1980s (a 12-year conflict whose atrocities were exacerbated by a little good ole covert Amurrican intervention and whose destabilizing effect helped bring about the emergence of the Maras and other powerful, barrio-governing gangs). He returned a decade later with a video camera and no obligation to present his work sans motif.

It's trite to revert to the "died doing what he loved" platitude, but in this case, it's absolutely applicable: Poveda was returning from shooting more gangland footage when he was slain. Regardless of whether his killers were Mara 18 members unhappy with their portrayal, MS-13 guys unhappy with their chief rival's increased exposure, government operatives in need of a martyr to force the politicians to provide more anti-crime funding, or the proverbial Man on the Grassy Knoll, Poveda lived his passion, his life's cause, to the end. And for that he deserves our greatest respect and, sadly now, our remembrance.

On a side note, Poveda's self-styled brand of photojournalism -- entrenching himself in communities on the periphery of acceptable society for long stretches, befriending fringe characters, and generally pissing off assigning editors under pressure to keep down costs -- is nicely summarized by a former collaborator here.

BREAKING: White Musician Targets Underground Rap Fans!

2009-09-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

A year or so ago, Peanut Butter Wolf, who our buds over at the seemingly-moribund TheHeathersKnow saw last weekend at the Save Our Parks/Fuck Yeah Fest in downtown LA, signed a late-20s white kid from Detroit to his Stones Throw label.

His name is Mayer Hawthorne. He sings sixties-style black soul.

I repeat: Dorky white dude from Detroit. Sixties soul.

All signs say Mayer Hawthorne's set to blow in Echo Park/The Mish/WBurg. Tickets for his two shows in NYC later this month -- one of them at Brooklyn's new Knitting Factory -- are reportedly selling briskly.

Ernest and Ironhead go to Heaven

2009-09-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the childhood reminiscence tip we've been on recently, today we reflect on two men who provided us with some of the weirder sub-pop culture moments of our youth before dying too young. Jim Varney, known for his franchise-friendly "Ernest P. Worrell" redneck character, succumbed to pack-a-day-spawned lung cancer in 2000, further proof that the bulk of those who provide America with good, wholesome family fun are not themselves living that same charmed portrayal of "life" (see: Ray Kroc, anyone from Disney).

Varney's influence on much of DCQ cannot be overstated. But we'll try. Another day. For now, let's just say we miss the guy. And that wherever he is, we know a turtle's biting his nuts, or he just tripped over a tree trunk, or the chef just made him eat something green and gloppy.

Then there's Craig "Ironhead" Heyward. He was Zestfully Clean for a good chunk of the 1990s. He was also 300-plus pounds! And a competent running back! !Ke increible!

For the fashionistas out there, the always-reliable Wikipedia credits Heyward, via commercials aforementioned and embedded below, with "introducing a generation of American men to the modern version of the Luffa that is now a fixture in many showers and bathtubs."

Ironhead died of brain cancer in May 2006. We'll tip one tonight to the last of the fat backs.

F* you, F* Yeah Fest!

2009-09-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

(photos courtesy of Angela Gail of Stereogum, because my camera's broke)

LA's 6th annual Fuck Yeah Fest took place yesterday in Chinatown's Los Angeles State Historic Park. As expected, the hipsters were out in full force and the watered down cocktails were way overpriced, but on the plus side, the music roared and the park provided an open and accessible venue. Additionally, the decision to name California State Parks the beneficiaries of the event rang true with concert-goers, and most seemed fine with having paid $20-24 for tickets.

The park is long and fairly narrow, and the three stages were staggered effectively, so as not to musically contaminate one other. The fun began at 1:00pm, but keeping in line with DCQ staffers' notorious tardiness, I didn't show until shortly after 8:00. I scurried over the park's grassy hills just in time to catch FYF's first ever hip hop performer, Peanut Butter Wolf (who also maintains my favorite hip hop name of all time). The crowd seemed sparse at the stage, but the set was pure pleasure for the ADD generation, with much fun had by all via the visual scratch machine (is there an official name for this machine?). I then ran to see the disappointing Fucked Up (seems they wanted to continue the event's namesake), and mere moments later, The Dillinger Escape Plan, who felt like an enjoyable alternate universe after PB Wolf.

After forking over $8 for a "vodka & lemonade," which was actually only lemonade I think, I found myself sequestered in the fenced off booze area. Though I could see two of the stages from the lawn in said area, I still felt that this was a limiting way to control alcohol consumption. Whatever happened to plain old wristbands? Whatev, I understand that they may have been under stricter-than-usual surveillance, being that we were in a State Historic Park.

My overall experience was grand and I'll certainly be attending next summer, but sadly, my stay at the event was short lived and I missed out on these guys:

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DCQ???

2009-09-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Give us pristine walls, a savaged Merry Prankster bus and A LOT of pies, and we'll come through...

Immortality has its Drawbacks

2009-08-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

What to do when you're one of the exalted few actors who will forever be identified with one indelible role?

Voiceover, that's what.

Six weeks till Tony Soprano becomes a Wild Thing:

Ricky Watters: "BBQ potato chips are the ultimate"

2009-08-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

When we were wee bitty Dunces growing up in the Bay Area, we idolized our 49ers. This was before we knew (or cared to know) about collective bargaining, steroids, domestic violence and salary caps (or even 'salaries,' for that matter). They were Niners, and they kicked most everyone all over the field, and they were awesome.

We knew them all -- even the offensive lineman. We had Joe and Jerry and Roger and John and Harris and Guy and Jesse and Steve (Wallace) and Steve (Young) and Charles and Eric and Ronnie and Keena and Brent and Tom and even Mike Fucking Cofer. The only question was whether we'd beat the Vikings, then the Giants, then later the Cowboys, and finally the Packers, in the NFC Championship Game. Sometimes we would and sometimes we wouldn't, but we'd almost always get close (I vividly remember winning 'only' 10 games and missing the playoffs in 1991). Either way they'd riot in the Mission, which, though only a mile and a half from where I grew up (which wasn't a perfect place, either), might as well have been present-day Juarez for all I knew (though it looked OK from the Laidlaw bus on the way school every morning).

The Niners, good guys that they were, played a charity basketball game in Kezar Pavilion every offseason. This was your chance to see these heroes in the flesh, up close and without all their armor. We were there. With much trepidation I approached John Taylor and asked for an autograph. He asked, "You got 10 bucks?" I said "N-noo" and started retreating to the bleachers. He hollered out something and I turned around and he signed my ticket stub. I still don't know if he was messing with me or actually trying to extort 10 bucks out of an unemployed, half-grown person, but I've since concluded that this was the moment when I realized not all athletes were as great as I'd previously assumed they were.

Years passed and we grew somewhat and saw the Niners in a different light: They were still very good -- not dominant, but very good -- every year. But the cast had changed: Where there had been Joe, there was now Steve. We were OK with that because he, like Joe, tore up defenses without fail, which was nice. We also had Charles and Deion and Richard and Rickey and Ricky and William as new complements to Steve. It was this year -- 1995 -- when I became aware of the concept of 'buying championships.' But we were still the Niners, and kicked everyone's asses, and it was awesome. A precocious tween with no bills, job, nagging wife or serious work ethic, I had all kinds of time to absorb every number on the Chronicle's sports section. And it was decided: Ricky Watters was the new BEST PLAYER EVER. He scored five -- FIVE! -- touchdowns in one playoff game. He could run, catch, spin, high-step...the Man. Like Taylor, he came to the local basketball gym to play a charity game with other Niners, and we all got him to sign stuff and he was the coolest. I think he even threw down a dunk, but maybe not.

But Ricky, like the Niners of the mid-to-late 90s, never achieved greatness, though he was consistently very good, and occasionally spectacular. Then he bolted for Philly and had a couple decent seasons there and places beyond before retiring after, according to the omniscient and infallible Wikipedia, reportedly turning down Cleveland's contract offer out of fear that terrorists would blow up the next plane he boarded (this being the age of 9/11 hysteria, and he being a man not paid for his intellect).

Recently, our thoughts returned to the guy. An extensive Google search followed. His modest personal website indicates he does promotional speaking, helps run football camps and bankrolls a positive-vibe rap label.

But he also proffers up a glimpse into his personal life:

FAVORITE ACTIVITIES

Writing and Producing Music

Martial Arts

Reading poetry and self-help books

Playing Chess

Watching SyFy, Chiller and Kung Fu movies

Traveling

Tennis

Riding his Segway

Eating BBQ Middleswarth Chips

Keith Murray is "Complicated but Simple"

2009-08-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

T-Bird brings us some old Keith Murray inanity today. Skip to around minute four if you, like us, find the We Are Scientists guys mildly yet consistently annoying.

DCQ's Guide to Sneaking Shit In

2009-08-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

On a recent Friday eve, DCQ's New Yeez contingent ventured out into the wild bacteria stew of the Hudson on a decrepit ferry stocked with booze, 150 people and one RJD2. With payday a distant glimmer on the horizon and said booze bogarted behind a "cash" bar, we resorted to the familiar tactic of "sneaking shit in (SSI)."

This is an art form we've refined over the past dozen years, with the primary media being sports and concert venues. Our first stab at SSI came in September 1997. Giants vs. Padres. It began with a friend's spectacular fake ID, used to procure an armload of Mickey's 40s from the Oak Grove corner market ('bodega' hadn't yet entered our lexicon) behind school. We had the angles scoped: Malt brew transferred to green 7-Up two-liters and hidden in closets overnight, then carried in hoodie cocoons as we pulled up to Candlestick Park. This being the glorious buyers' market of pre-South Beach Giants baseball, security shoved us through the turnstiles with nary a sideways glance. As it happened, the game was actually sold out, and we sat in the second-to-last row of the upper deck in center field -- approximately 1,200 feet away from the plate. But all was good: By the third a sickly Mickey's buzz was had, by the fifth we were bouncing off the walls of the concrete spiral stairways that encased the hulking mass, by the seventh we were taking turns calling earl in the nearest bathroom stall, and by the end of the ninth, as Barry made his famous stand atop the home dugout, we were passing out where we sat.

In the years since, we've became more efficient and creative. The prevailing opinion is that hard liquor's the way to go, and a fifth is the biggest you can pull off with confidence. If it's a day game and you're nursing a hangover, long pants and knee-high socks filled with tall boys are acceptable. The fifth -- whiskey or rum only, please -- goes right-side-up directly in front of the jimmy, belt buckled as tight as possible so as to secure the bottle with the bare minimum of above-waist frontage. If possible, go for the male security guard -- he'll be less inclined to check certain essential areas. In rare cases, through extensive field research, you may uncover a unique perimeter flaw that allows you to do wondrous and otherwise unimaginable things: At the Giants' new(ish) stadium, for example, you can bring in giant beers in styrofoam cups, purchased for a pittance at the pizzeria across the way, by entering the park through the team store.

Large sporting events are fairly easy. The latest innovation came in the recent discovery of an MLB-sponsored DUI prevention program that doles out free Cokes to attendees who identify themselves as designated drivers. These make cheap grog more palatable. AND you get to show all the college girls your hero-status DD bracelet! Bonus. Where it gets tricky, however, is at certain music venues where organizers seem to expect most patrons to be carrying some form of intoxicant. In such situations, we've come to employ a tactic used for decades by certain Suburban-driving Sinaloans: The mule wave. Break the juice into as many pint-sized water bottles as possible. Give one or two to each person you're with (better make it two or three if it's a festival). Use the same crotch placement process as with full fifth, tightening belt to keep bottle from sliding down to your ankles (mysterious bulges are to be avoided). Spread out as you enter so that security doesn't recognize you're together. This way, you're virtually guaranteed a passable stock of booze even if one or two of your homies takes a fall.

As any nimrod (that's you, Jack) can see, we've had some time to fine-tune our playbook (though perfection, as always, remains elusive). Which made it surprising -- nay, stunning -- when the token security guy checking passengers boarding the RJD2 boat nabbed the bulk of our supply during what experts had estimated would be a harmless formality. We suspect it was an inside job because the guy went straight for the above-junk area without any attempt at acting out the proper pat-down pattern (ankles-legs-hips-ribs-arms-back-THEN abovejunk as an afterthought, if at all...everybody knows that). Luckily, despite all signs pointing to an SSI Level Green, we'd divied the stash up beforehand, and our backup made it in.

So you see, DCQ nation, the key to a successful SSI operation lies in the artist's ability to assess and adapt -- that is, to change up the strategy on the fly and on the sly. But even the most practiced and universally-lauded practitioners sometimes slip up.

A skeezy Little League baseball coach once told us a common off-color joke he'd blessed with a personal touch: "Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and fat chicks." We were only 10 at the time, so we didn't really get the last part, but the rest seemed to have some sense to it. In any case, replace "fat chicks" with "SSI operations," and it rings true. But it still won't make sense to a 10-year-old.

Enjoy. And use responsibly.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DCQ???

2009-08-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

It don't get much better...

We dint do it.

Marry Her, Save on Food

2009-08-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Meet Jyoti: Fifteen. Female. Indian. Mega-dwarf.

When she get sleepy, she crawl in her backpack for a nap.

BADA-BING!

She so tiny, Muggsy Bogues be making fun.

BADA-BING!

She so little, her suitors don't offer the whole dowry -- they just bring the 'd.'

BADA-BING!

Seriously, though, that Jyoti's some kind of cute. We're trying to find one on eBay to keep our sugar glider company while we're out stealing hot dogs and huffing glue.

"Might be Mine"

2009-08-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

Today, R. Kelly -- pictured above (far right; looks like 2Pac) on a wall with other Chi-Town musical immortals during a DCQ jaunt to the South Side a few summers back -- does the heavy lifting. Leaked a while ago from his as-yet-untitled-nor-released latest album, "Might be Mine" is Robert Sylvester's answer to The Juice's If I Did It. Enjoy!

Might Be Mine - R.Kelly

A couple of days ago, I got a phone call

Saying 'how you Mr. Kelly' and I said, 'who is this'

Then he said it's Tameka's lawyer, and I'm calling on her behalf

And then he said I got some news, that I think you'd wanna know,

And then he said she's pregnant, and then I sat down real slow

Then said who's this again, he took a breath and said you heard me the first time.

And then I said wait a minute, mister--we talking about the same girl then she's a stripper,

You represent that girl man she's a freak, so how she know that baby belongs to me?

Then he asked me did I met her two months ago

I said yeah

And he asked me was it in a club in Chicago

I said yeah

He said "Well get ready to raise it, cause she says that you're the one that she's laid with." OH!

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (oh I k now I hit it, yeah)

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (KNEW I shoulda used protection, yeah)

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (out to get my money, yeah)

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (man, I don't even like this girl)

I hung up and called my lawyers, and I told them the situation

And the first question out they mouth, was did I sleep with the girl

At first I hesitated, then said yeah, went on to tell 'em that I hit it raw

And then they said that there might be a chance that you may have to pay the cost,

I said "Good Lord"...and then I put the phone and just thought about it for a couple seconds

They asked had me I seen her recently, I sayd no,

Then asked did I do it with her frequently, I sayd no,

all I know is that I left the club with this lady, and now here I am this baby's made it

[Chorus]

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (see I admit I hit it, yeah)

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (Man I knew I shoulda used some protection)

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (she bout to get my money, yeah)

There's a very good chance...that it might be mine (oh man I don't even like this girl)

Man I could slap myself, for getting involved with this lady.

And if I could turn the hands back, I would have went on home to my baby,

Now I'm all caught up, yeah...all from a measly late-night creep,

One year later, I get a picture, and I'll be damned this baaaby looks just like meeeee!

[Chorus]

(Guess I'm gonna have to take the test, yeah...
...See I'm on my way to take the test, yeah...)

Death of Newspaper Re-re-reconfirmed

2009-07-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about his politics or his dubious interpretation of 'objectivity' -- Rupert Murdoch got it right this time around. Back in the spring, when a very few brave souls produced a muffled murmur that resembled "Newspaper Bailout," pundits praised Ol' Rupe for charging readers to browse his Wall Street Journal online -- a tactic eschewed by nearly every other daily in the nation.

Among the papers fearful of instigating a reader revolt, of course, was New York's Paper of Record. The other day, we came upon this sordid scene at a craft fair in McCarren Park:

Our photo work could stand to improve -- standing there, shooting away, we felt like the proverbial foot thwacking the proverbial dead horse -- but the sign reads "50% Off!" The Times didn't even bother to send out a proper sales rep -- the poor sap here appears to be the laid-off mother of one of their delivery boys (they can still afford those, right?). Sad, sad days for the dead tree industry...

Respectable Men do not Wear Moustache Tattoos

2009-07-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

We're a day late on this, but the LA Times piece on Norteño-turned-faux accountant Richard Rodriguez has us mulling and pondering: a.) How long till the cop gets sent up the river? And, more importantly; b.) Is an upper lip tat necessarily detrimental to the credibility of a court testimony? Mightn't it bring in sympathy points in some cases? An example: Say you're on trial for a petty crime in Australian ranch country -- shearing sheep out of season or disparaging Chopper Read, I dunno. The jury is composed entirely of poor ranching folk whose cattle compete with kangaroos for a shrinking stock of grassland. Your upper lip reads "kangaroos are great...for dinner" in Olde English. Helpful or harmful? I say helpful. Chopper would probably agree.

The moral of the story is that sometimes growing a moustache to cover up a tattoo is not always a smart legal maneuver, though in the case of Rodriguez it would seem to be a good move because without it he basically looks like your standard-issue Dodgers bleacher fan slash Latino gangbanger. And no jury in the world likes both of those things.

For our sadistic brethren, graphic video of some fat (and hopefully soon-to-be-indicted) policeman steel-booting Rodriguez here.

You Have Corn on the Cob...

2009-07-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

...we have fire hydrants and streetball. When the temp breaks 80, the people of Los Sures break hydrant caps.

Then grandma breaks out the oil-drum barbecue, and it's officially a summertime Saturday afternoon.

The only question is whether or not the firefighters will be able to get the thing back together. In this case, the answer was a resounding 'no'; two weeks later and it's still gushing Catskills clear onto brown pavement.

Meanwhile, next to the BQE, a team from Rodney Park is eternally playing some other team from Rodney Park. Or so say their jerseys. I don't even know if Rodney Park is a place or a man (or maybe the requirement for joining the team is you are a Rodney Park?!), but these guys can run. The teams seem to play one of only two styles: Aggressive, flashy and mistake-riddled with lots of sensational dunks or aggressive, flashy and fundamental with no dunks whatsoever. Either way, the Caucasian baller here is regarded as rare a sight as the post-Giuliani Manhattan street whore or the red panda courtship ritual.

Summertime's just the best, right guys?

Pimpin' Benches All Over the World...

2009-07-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

From SF to BK to LA to ??? The DCQ crew gets around...

The Old Girdle Factory

2009-07-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

A full half of DCQ's editorial team was walking south from the L train on Bedford Ave. this past weekend when it stumbled through a gauntlet of collapsible store signs that virtually funneled passersby through the glass doors lining the sidewalk and into a grungy corridor.

Inside, we found a mix of viable businesses (coffee shop, hairdresser, snobby craft beer outlet) amid empty display windows. We got the scoop from George, the manager of said beer purveyor -- a place called the Spuyten Devil Grocery that has an accompanying bar with myriad unpronounceable brews a few blocks away. George informed us that the compound was originally a girdle factory, and when people stopped wearing those things it turned into a Goodwill of sorts before its owner subdivided it into its current composition.

This latest transformation, Spuyten George continued, happened about a decade ago. The place now carries the familiar North Williamsburg air of hipster funk, but with a bit of a heroin chic nose -- if we were in a depressed I-5 corridor town that lacked a Greyhound station, this would serve as the local shoot-up spot. There was no identifiable urine scent, but twenty bucks says people pee here with some regularity.

The timing of the building's renovation again became relevant a few moments later, when we noticed this sketch, covered with scuffs and adorned here and there with old gum wads, in the corner. Early, overlooked Sam Flores? We need Art Direction here.

In any case, tenants like the place because rent is significantly cheaper for everyone except the coffee shop, which fronts the street. Additionally, more petty operations can take out smaller lots than one would find in street-fronting retail in the neighborhood, creating a few select opportunities for small businesses to establish a physical presence in a neighborhood that's only a couple of credits short of max gentrification (though Hipster Heaven becomes Trinitarios Slashing Your FaceVille real fast a couple blocks south of the Factory).

Telefon Tel Aviv, coming soon to a smallish venue near you

2009-07-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

Telefon Tel Aviv is half the band it used to be: Charles Cooper died in January in Chicago at age 31, with media reports suggesting he may have committed suicide. TTA's surviving member, Joshua Eustis, has remained mum on the circumstances surrounding his bandmate's death. In any event, Eustis recently tapped a longtime friend and collaborator to join him on tour this summer. Telefon's playing a number of September shows in DCQ territory -- find a way to get there (dates below). And if you still don't have Immolate Yourself, cop it stat or follow the album's instructions.

Sept. 11th: Bell House, BK

Sept. 12th: Mercury Lounge, Manhattan

Sept. 25th: Spaceland, LA

Sept. 26th: Bottom of the Hill, SFC

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DCQ???

2009-07-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hint: It may be one of the locations in the opening montage of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, which we're not saying we've seen, but we might have talked to someone who's seen it, so don't even go thinking what you're thinking of thinking. Because really. Have some faith.

Lenny's Down!

2009-07-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

The man-boy who bragged last fall (while chewing on a gob of Twizzlers for dramatic effect, mind you) that one of the myriad entities suing him had "folded like Mitch Williams in the ninth" in settlement negotiations has pulled the ultimate fiscal implosion: Lenny Dykstra is bankrupt.

Dykstra's well-documented rise from scumbag athlete to Wall Street darling for bored bankers in desperate need of cocktail party fodder begs a number of questions:

a.) Why does anyone listen to Jim Cramer anymore? Or, more accurately, why did anyone listen to Jim Cramer up until Jon Stewart reduced him to a blubbering, goateed effigy for financial media's rather long shortcomings during the subprime buildup and collapse?

b.) Who brings Twizzlers to a closed-door meeting in a federal courthouse? During which hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake? "Ashtray money" aside, Lenny either planned out his Twizzler feast hours in advance and stashed the goods in his briefcase, pockets, underwear and/or socks, or employs an assistant whose sole duty as such is to keep Mr. Dykstra with Twizzler-in-hand at all times. "Where's my fucking Twizzler brick, dude? I didn't hire you and buy probably one of the top-five most badass Twizzler briefcases around for you to carry everywhere I go and not open and give me Twizzlers LIKE NOW!!!!"

More to come, without a doubt, sooner or later, but hopefully frequently for the rest of our natural lives.

So Longo, Bongo

2009-07-08T22:32:00.000-07:00

A long-overdue RIP to former Gabonese president-for-life El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, who died of what may or may not have been advanced intestinal cancer in Barcelona on June 8th. In a sequence of events that should register as eerily familiar to Eazy-E fans, Papa Bongo didn't seek international (read: first-world) medical care until early May. It clearly didn't take.

Under Bongo, who rose to power in 1967, Gabon proved anomalously tranquil amid the ever-convulsing border lines of West Africa. As Gabon's neighbors in the continent's armpit slaughtered each other, Bongo built one of the world's most prolific kleptocracies, rooted in his country's substantial oil reserves (at present, Gabon still has more miles of pipeline than of paved road). While no conclusive estimate of his total wealth exist, Papa hung his hat in an $800 million palace and owned properties in Nice, Malibu and the like. At 4'11", Bongo may, indeed, have boasted one the highest dollars-to-inches ratio of any current or former head of state. He apparently spent freely: The New York Times reported that Bongo shelled out $9 million to Jack "Definitely Not in Gen Pop" Abramoff in 2003 for a promised meeting with Dubya; ten months later, Papa was sipping tea and noshing on crumpets in the Oval Office.

To the littlest Big Man there ever was, happy trails (and yes, 'death' buys you one free post that ~~fails to note~~ mentions only in passing a decades-long pattern of rampant corruption, ambivalence toward human trafficking, and disregard for human rights).

Willie T. Coleman biopic forthcoming

2009-07-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

When they adapt the life story of Willie T. Coleman, Jr. for the silver screen, there shouldn't be any discussion as to which African American A-lister will portray the guy:

I know, Wesley Snipes, right!? Right? He'd be perfect: "Always bet on black...when betting on landmark civil rights cases, that is. In games of chance, it's pretty much 50-50, really."

In reality, Coleman's a hugely important guy -- not long after becoming the first black Supreme Court clerk, he co-wrote the legal brief that brought down segregation in public schools nationwide and made for a wholesome and mildly entertaining moment in Forrest Gump.

No, but seriously, that guy looks just like James Earl Jones.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DCQ??!?

2009-07-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

Ancient Mycenae? Kosovo? Sleeping under the Williamsburg Bridge?

Only TigerCat knows for sure...but that there wall sure looks Cyclopean (HINT HINT).

DUSTYKID on the Ones

2009-06-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

For the last couple weeks, DCQ's art director has been predisposed. At first we feared he'd drowned whilst surfing off SF's Ocean Beach. Then we suspected he'd holed up in a Sixth Street flophouse with a ragtag bunch of characters as he dealt with his latest bout with delirium tremens. Fortunately, we discovered last week in Athens that he's been doing something more productive than being a.) dead; or b.) red, bloated and semi-dead:

He's thinly disguised himself and become one of the Balkans' hottest drum-n-base/go-go mashup artists, distinguishing himself from the genre's three other DJs and going on tour through the Balkans and the better countries surrounding the Balkans. He tore it up last Friday.

On a side note, we were floored -- absolutely floored -- to learn that aside from Mythos, Amstel and Heineken, one of this land's favourite brews is none other than Carib -- literally the only alternative to Stag ("A Man's Beer") if you want to drink beer in Trinidad & Tobago.

Kalistera...

2009-06-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

...desde Grecia. That's a semi-sorry attempt to merge a language I haven't yet learned with one I've already forgotten. A couple quick observations from my brief stay in the country:

- America doesn't have a copyright on public parks littered with used condoms and needles.
- Spain doesn't have a copyright on placing copious amounts of crane next to heavily-touristed national treasures.
- The exterior of the National Archaeological Museum is very similar to that of Cairo's Egyptian Museum.
- The interior of the National Archaeological Museum is much more impressive than that of Cairo's Egyptian Museum.
- Greeks like Dead Prez.
- Those wildfires everyone (BBC) was talking about in 2007 were no joke.
- The dollar is weak.
- The dollar is weeeaaaaaakkk.

More gems to come...kalinihkta, jovenes.

Puerto Rican Takeover Oh-Nine, Pt. 2

2009-06-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Walking south from 86th on 5th Ave, something seemed odd: Bootyshaker Basin -- appropriately located in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- was missing its bootyshakers. Cops blanketed the museum's steps; no trademark freaking to be seen. Moving south, it became clear that the tenor of the day was, perhaps, a bit less flirtatious than that of years past:

Not a happy woman...

and then an innocent sociopolitical debate turned nasty; out of frame, some young guy cold-clocked another grrrl and everyone went "aaaaahhhhhh" and started pushing each other. It was great fun...

until the cops came and ruined it for everyone...

A peaceful procession resumes:

So creepy:

Dees ees no Cahnival, who let ya een?

All in all, the standard hot vibe, a disappointing freakage level, mediocre pics, and many men (and women) with whom you would not want to engage in argument. 51 weeks till next year...

Puerto Rican Takeover Oh-Nine, Pt. 1

2009-06-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

Puerto Rican flags and bandanas were flying off the shelves in Los Sures and Spanish Harlem and on D-Block over the last few weeks. On recent weekend days, you couldn't round the block without catching Big Pun blaring from a passing SUV. The PR trinket hawkers crowded out the Halal cart guys and the Mexican mango stands, pushing them off the corners with sprawling setups dripping red, white and blue. Then, finally, Sunday came: The one day of the year when browns outnumbered whites on 5th Ave. With the JAPs and WASPs retreating to their Hamptons cottages, the Upper East Side belonged to the Boriqueños.

Def Jam's street soldiers came out:

As did the hooptie crews:

And the merengue fellas, with the requisite porcine drummer man:

Then there was this guy; photos don't do it justice, but as you'll pick up, the owner's clearly a fan of vintage Pacino:

Backside deail; just so excessive it might be genius. Or ridiculous--jury's still out:

Chicken trike man rocked a picture of the chicken trike on his chicken trike. A proud soul:

Jewish hipster or hip Jewster?

Puerto Ricans do MDMA too:

Disclaimer: Not a real horse:

Yiamas!

2009-06-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

A portion of the DCQ team is currently en route to Greece for a month long sabbatical. You may ask, how can he vacation for a whole month, and not lose his esteemed position as a DCQ contributor? Well, he's just that smooth. And also, he's promised to provide some Greek-related posts during his travels. Enjoy some ouzo for us, buddy.

Opportunistic Lefties Strike Again

2009-06-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

Nice, gay marriage proponents: Stealing the concept of nonconventional marriage support from Ben & Jerry's. How very Obama of you. You liberals are shameless. Shameless, I say.

Puerto Rico Day 2009...

2009-06-15T21:51:00.001-07:00

...was tight as always, albeit a little light on the underage freaking. So tight, in fact, that we're gonna let it marinate for another day or two before attempting to describe it. In the meantime, Long Island City looked nice the other day (realtors: photography skills for hire -- yes, it's true, I'm still available):

We ventured across Newtown Creek for LIC Artists' Open Studios and, in typical DCQ fashion, set aside enough time to visit the workspaces of three of the 150-plus participating artists. Converted old factories and warehouses on barren industrial blocks slicing through a neighborhood trending residential housed the studios...

...which held, along with paint-splattered daycare centers, rotting staircases and freight elevators, some nice stuff from relative unknowns:

The Moss impact on Culver City

2009-06-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

Culver City is experiencing a major re-development at present, spearheaded and contributed to by architect and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss. Mr. Moss and his team of 25 at Eric Owen Moss Architects have dubbed the revitalization Conjunctive Points, and have and continue to work on more than 20 projects in Culver City, many of which are located on Hayden Street alone. Known for unique interpretations and a diversity of form, Moss' varied projects fortify Culver City's hefty reputation as a community teeming with arts. Pictured above are the Ince Office Complex and a city-sponsored Architecture as Art public artwork entitled What Wall. Pictured here is a rendering of the Gateway Art Tower, an "information tower" and office building, constructed at the corner of Hayden and National, marking the primary entry point into the revitalized zone of the city. The building includes 5 screens that advertise messages to passersby pertaining to local tenants' events and news. Another of the Architecture as Art public art works, the Beehive, occupies the front section of a two story office building housing medschool.com.

Finally, this image depicts 3535 Hayden Ave, a uniﬁed working environment for a high proﬁle graphics company.

Symptoms: Robbed.

2009-06-06T11:22:00.000-07:00

We were robbed. That we knew immediately. Musty clothes covered every inch of linoleum floor, from the cinderblock walls to the kicked-in back door. Two worn, ransacked backpacks lay somewhere underneath. The passports! Still in their place, alongside the credit cards and insurance cash under the plastic-sheathed mattress. Amid the tumult of the floor, an iPod stood out in its fluorescence, headphones disconnected earlier and stashed separately. They’d left this behind. They didn’t know what it was.

The cameras! The cameras. Gone. They got the motherfucking cameras. The ones with the photos of the beaches and the waterfalls and the jungles and the strutting street kids and the islands and the funeral pyre and the dirty fish markets and Waterloo and Maracas Bay and San Juan de las Galdonas. The cameras packed in our bags an hour before as we’d left our rented, windowless apartment to drink one last Carib with friends and close the book on Port-of-Spain and Carnival Tuesday. To bring closure to three days of round-the-clock costumed, painted, sweaty revelry and three weeks of haggling and tromping our way through Trinidad and northeastern Venezuela. Upon reaching Tragarete Road, we dove into a pulsing current of celebration, each participant a member of a “band” clothed in the stereotypical vision of cultures real and imagined -- ”Egyptians” in full King Tut headgear, “jungle warriors” with leaves covering only the most forbidden of body parts, “Americans” channeling John Wayne.

The coordinated costumed pranced alongside flatbed semis alternately carrying full bars and stacks of speakers blasting the designated soca songs of the year (and there were about eight of those, played with according frequency). But this was day three -- and we were out of Puncheon spitfire rum, with a plane to Tobago leaving in three hours. Our gang was easy to find -- they were usually hanging in the steel-pan yard on the corner, shirtless and stinking from too many consecutive days of music and beer and just trying to “maintain” through the weeks of nonstop practice leading up to the festival proper. We said goodbye to Nigel and Kurt and Tommy and the kind dreadlocked guy Lennox whose canines were chiseled down to vampire fangs and walked back to the unkempt, ground-level unit to collect our packed bags en route to the airport. Only they were no longer packed.

Suspects abounded: Bryan, our drug-dealing landlord with stitches sealing a two-inch mystery gash above his Adam’s apple. Anthony, the skinny dark-skinned man who charmed us weeks earlier with his sordid story of growing up in The States for 35 years before being deported in the ‘80s for smoking a joint in San Fran’s Washington Square Park, who had led us to Bryan when we were in desperate need of shelter? The group of standoffish teenage boys loitering outside Bryan’s apartment when we left for the parade earlier? Nigel, the band leader and our entree to true Trini culture, our unofficial Tragarete Road tour guide? Could he have!? Someone who knew we wouldn’t have time to call the cops over for a report. Someone poor; that eliminated nobody. Someone who knew our schedule -- someone who knew us. Someone we’d never find.

The Number of the Day is '300'

2009-06-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

Sincere props to RJ, though we admit it feels a bit like bowling a 250 in the bumper lane. Walnut Creek represent (and how often do you get to say that!?).

California Love Redux

2009-06-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Something led us to that old Dr. Dre/Tupac "California Love" video the other day -- you know, the apocalyptic one where they're running around in rags and ramshackle Hummers, all early Gibson-like? We couldn't help but admire the stylistic shout-outs (ha! get it? hip-hop reference) they squeeze in there: Aside from the obvious overriding Mad Max trilogy theme, the video opens with vintage Chris Tucker doing his 5th Element thing (you know, the outerspace-crackhead schtick he used to land more lucrative gigs playing comic relief to Jackie Chan's unintentional straight man) and is followed with a scene lifted from The Warriors before descending into full Road Warrior mode; this later tiptoes quietly into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome territory when they move to sweeping aerial shots of the stars rapping inside a, yes, Thunderdome. The whole video's simply fantastic, but why waste it on "California Love?" I know Australian apocalypse-themed jams don't usually chart, but still: "California Love" is one of the few songs that actually warrants your classic mid-90s rap video -- you know, 64s, Cristal, ladies in thongs, egregious materialism, guest spots by other definitively regional rappers.

What's that you say? Oh.

Fuck you world

2009-05-30T20:10:00.001-07:00

I just watched a Southwest Airlines ad whose selling point was "Your Bags Fly Free!" This strikes me as analogous to Craigslist apartment ads highlighting "Free Use of Toilet!" and hookers throwing in handjobs with Eliot Spitzer specials.

That is all.

Two months late and 94 short

2009-05-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

Detroit photographer Kevin Bauman has 100 Abandoned Houses (via Volts, Amps and Ohms). We have six. But we swear we shot these before his site blew up earlier this fine spring. Check the trees if you don't believe us. Ha. Moted.

Nobody's out but the ruffians

2009-05-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

One of the first warm weekends of this nascent summer in New York, and the streets on Saturday night were quiet where they should've been cracking and chaotic where they should've been silent. Los Trinitarios seemed to be staying in playing Mob Wars, leaving Los Sures to the older crowd: In the five minutes after I left my house, I exchanged pleasantries with a trio of homeless folks on the shelter steps, passed a heaving circle of Dominicanos going verse-for-verse in front of the mechanic's garage, came upon an impromptu taco stand--complete with two-man mariachi band--in front of an apartment building, and ducked and weaved through fifteen twentysomething men streaming out of a row house to watch a brawl in the making.

Later, walking to the train through an eerily silent LES, a beater Camry packed with Latino teenagers screeched up alongside me, veering onto the sidewalk across the street and almost hitting a hydrant. On the phone, I glanced over long enough to gather that the driver was fighting with a girl in the passenger side, with another girl riding bitch most certainly not real thrilled about the whole scenario. Before I turned the corner, I looked back in time to see homegirl square up and punch the dude in the jaw, hard, before he drove away. An hour later, after an empty train ride back over the river, I stumbled down from the platform to see a white guy in a Warriors-inspired getup talking to three cops--one uniformed, two plainclothes--with blood caking the left half of his face and big welts rising on his forehead and right cheek. Jumped by kids on the train: "And the worst part was--listen to this--the worst part was, they were videotaping the whole thing! Check Youtube, I think they were doing it to put up there..."

And so on.

Kentridge proves poignant

2009-05-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

South African artist William Kentridge's solo exhibition at SFMOMA explores the myriad themes and mediums of his body of work. Known primarily for his stop-motion films and commentary on apartheid, this presentation provides a more well rounded sampling of his oeuvre from the 1980s to present.
From the charcoal drawings to the film, collage, and sculpture, Five Themes reveals Kentridge's criticisms of political inequalities. Many of the drawings, particularly those done in charcoal, contrast a soft lyrical stroke with somber subject matter, even incorporating comedic self deprecation at times. The artist manages to delicately balance sobriety and humor. With a background in theater, Kentridge maintains an interest in combining performance and static art. In conjunction with the SFMOMA show, he teamed with Seattle's Pacific Operaworks to design and direct a run of Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses.

Who's up for a taste?

2009-05-22T21:48:00.001-07:00

Mindblowing Hip-Hop Guest Spot of the Year:

Little late on this, but eh. Reckunize? Another brother whose inebriated persona made him a star. And no, Eminem is not the guest. If you're still at a loss, consider that mystery doc's pals are trying to get their crossover on too, with mixed results.

Dude's back with Relapse, by the way, if ya ain't heard it (even though the resurgence of the psycho homophobe comes off as stale on a couple tracks). It doesn't hurt that he channels the cadence of DCQ OG faves The Pharcyde and Brotha Lynch Hung on "3 a.m." and "Stay Wide Awake," respectively.

From the Welsh woods a hobbit house springs

2009-05-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

~~Byrne and Mogwai~~ Catherine Zeta-Jones and corgi dogs are no longer the only worthwhile things to come out of ~~Scotland~~ Wales: Today, SFGate introduced to the non-paying American mainstream Simon Dale, a woodsman of sorts who built an earthen yurt/hobbit barn/mudhut for him and his clan as a big "fick oof" to conventional residential building norms and Western consumerism. Dale and another ~~Scot~~ Welshman or two slapped it together in three months for less than $5,000. No mortgage, no neighbors, no meter maids and no ~~Trainspotting bathroom scenes (AGAIN!? Really, is there a difference? Is there?!?)~~ more lamenting Christian Bale's abandonment of his native accent every time a Terminator ad comes on.

And on a minor yet essential side note, it's come to our attention that a significant portion of our fanboys and girls, as well as members of the more general public, are under the impression that the aforementioned Welsh dog breed is pronounced "cor-ghee," and thus flaunts one of the English language's few relative consistencies (see: bunGEE/GEE whiz/GIZZmaster). Also, according to the omniscient canine authority The Westminster Kennel Club, 'corgi' means 'dwarf dog' in Welsh. I had begun to construct an impassioned criticism of the corgi creator's choice of nomenclature, because everyone knows abnormally tiny creatures with disproportionate limbs and heads are technically considered 'midgets,' when I learned through the endless miracle of Wikipedia that I had the dwarf/midget distinction backwards. Of substantially more use was my discovery that the term "midget," a leftover from the glory days of the circus freak, is now considered taboo. Instead, one should refer to the small-statured by using "dwarf, "little person," "LP," or, as the Little People of America suggest, "their name."

One Month and Counting, Papi

2009-05-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

The responsibility inherent to this blogging business has had us all flustered recently, so we decided to just sit around and eat corned beef hash out of the can and wait for someone to finally invent the remedial device that will read our Cleverest/Poignantest Thought of the Day and transcribe it onto this limp-wristed blog. Seems basic enough, right? But Jackass Scientist Man is evidently preoccupied with more trivial matters, so we regretfully return to pounding the keyboard with our middle fingers and opposable thumbs while eating more corned beef hash out of the can, because that shit is delicious.

In keeping with tradition, then, we once again eschew literary substance in favor of photos and throwaway captions while celebrating the now-rapid approach of the Day the Puerto Ricans Retake Manhattan. It's a mere month away now, so maybe it's time I overcome my newly perfected machete phobia and saunter over to Sazon Perez for a mound of greasy, crackily pernil, since it's allllmost as delectable as corned beef hash and it doesn't typically come with aluminum splinters and other tasty surprises that sometimes make non-crunchy canned foods crunchy. Oy...hurry up, Jackass Scientist Man. For now, shutup, you, and marvel upon the shiny soul-drawrings:

Shouldn't wear a wife-beater for the same reason I don't wear an afro: Because it just looks stupid

Shake it, mami

"Frommer, you've failed us again"

"Not...ideal..."

No links for you! Jimmy Kimmel sleeps with Jones Day

2009-05-04T22:47:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, somewhere along the daily descent from online work research to tangentially work-related online reading to Youtube animal porn, Emily Gould became a known name to us me (disclaimer: much of DCQ experienced a near-total internet blackout from 2002-2005, which partially overlaps with the time period in which subject Gould rose to infamy). She's a competent and compelling enough writer, but Jimmy Kimmel got drunk and punched his grandma and then disappeared Larry King before verbally eviscerating Gould on national TV over the dire threat her employer's Gawker Stalker app poses to ~~celebrities like him~~ free societies everywhere. Other bloggers ragged on Gould's performance, she meekly defended herself, others came to her aid, still others doubled up on the attack, and the celebrities themselves were able to leave their Cloaks of Invisibility at home that week when they picked up their frappuccinos.

Then, in February, a Cleveland startup that tracks high-end real estate deals and IDs the players involved found itself the target of some strikingly Kimmelesque criticism: Farcically malevolent legal giant Jones Day sued Blockshopper for daring to evoke the firm's name and link to its website in articles describing condo purchases by two Jones Day attorneys. The site's founders chose to settle with Jones Day rather than blow their wad on legal fees fighting an army of 2,000-plus smarmy Ivy League grads.

For the curious, the firm claimed the site's usage of links constituted copyright violation. If that's the case, Jones Day, you've got your work cut out for you. The real motivation for the suit was most assuredly the fact that Chesters One and Two didn't appreciate their addresses being sprayed all over the virtual world of realty. (If you're still struggling with good guy/bad guy, let this guide you: Jones Day is the firm that helped Chevron first defeat a lawsuit by relatives of dirt-poor Nigerians killed while protesting the company's environmental and human rights violations, then turn around and countersue the villagers for $500K in an attempt to discourage other third-world exploitees who might sue in the future--just as the Blockshopper suit was used as a suppression tactic aimed at other would-be ~~freeloading hippies~~ channelers of free traffic to the firm's site.

Tudo bom!

2009-04-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Kehinde Wiley has dropped in LA.... again. His third show at Roberts & Tilton, The World Stage: Brazil, opened April 4th and runs through the end of May. It incorporates approximately 10 of Wiley's notoriously oversized oils on canvas, all of which depict male Brazilian models emulating poses of historic and nationalistic Brazilian artworks. The bright backgrounds are modeled after found Brazilian fabrics, and each canvas is finished with an ornate black frame. The World Stage series, begun in 2007 with The World Stage: China, has enabled Mr. Wiley to place young contemporary black males into the contexts of nationalistic and identifying artworks of China, Africa, India, and now Brazil. Each portrait provokes the viewer to reinvision the traditionally white European male iconic images that are so familiar. The authority and importance associated with the traditional subjects is therefore transferred to the contemporary models selected by Wiley. All of the men depicted in these new works were hand chosen by Wiley and his team from the favela streets in Brazil, and were asked to come to the studio, usually the day of their meeting, in clothing of their choosing to pose and be photographed for the paintings.

The exhibition travels to the Modern Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro from June 27th to August 22nd, 2009.

"...the 1970 Chevrolet Nova is a lot better automobile than O.J. Simpson."

2009-04-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Apologies for going AWOL. Excuses abound: "Work deadline" is one. "Not writing anything" is another. "Early-onset delirium tremens" is better still. Let's just say I'm missing a shoe.

To recap: I still have a job, the Giants are satisfactorily inconsistent, and the Niners picked up a guy who could prove to be the second coming of John Taylor but is just as likely to channel fellow 10-pick J.J. Stokes. Also, John Starks has nothing better to do this Sunday than to ref some dbag kickball league in Brooklyn.

And since we've come this far, let's just charge the post to sports and toss in a vintage ad that would be funnier if both Potrero's Finest and Detroit's Worst weren't so utterly fucked at present:

GoodNews/BadNews: Mice and Machetes

2009-04-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

Trinitarios de Los Sures

The Good: Specklebutt seems to have taken care of the mouse situation at DCQhq.

The Bad: The gangs have apparently emerged from their slumber for the warm-weather machete-attack season.

The Badder: Some of them are spicing things up by slathering poison on their sharpened machete tips. You know, for max sliceage points. And the ones that weren't before will be once they meander past La Dolce Musto in this past week's Village Voice.

The Who Knew!?: The hood used to be much, much worse.

The OK: The attacks seem to revolve around the southern edge of the Bedford Ave. gentrification corridor, where randomly chosen victims are more likely to be trust-fund hipster kids than, say, I dunno, me. That said, Sazon Perez pernil expeditions may henceforth be restricted to daylight hours.

The Doubly Related: A member of the DCQ family once obtained a rusty machete while vacationing as a child in the Yucatán. Said homeboy tried to carry it on to the plane. Inspection failed. A classic customs blunder.

Oy vey!

2009-04-16T10:32:00.001-07:00

Poor Woody. He's just working away on his film-per-year ouevre (only Spike Lee is as prolific) and minding his own business... when Dov Charney goes and plasters his image from Annie Hall, promoting American Apparel, all over NY and LA, without his consent. Since the billboards' brief showing 2 years ago, Woody has filed a $10 million suit against Americal Apparel for using the image without his permission. And since then, the gloves have really come off. American Apparel's attorneys are arguing that Woody's image certainly cannot be worth $10M, as "[they] believe that Mr. Allen's popularity has decreased significantly, especially in light of the scandals he's been associated with. [They] believe that he greatly overvalues the worth of his endorsement -- if he can get one." Diiiiisssssss.

Of course the scandal that they're referring to is Woody's breakup with Mia Farrow and relationship with former step-daughter, and later wife Soon-Yi Previn. Woody returns the blow by claiming that American Apparel is engaged in a "despicable effort to intimidate" him. The trial starts May 18th in NY.
And did you know that Woody has a statue erected in his honor in Oviedo, Spain? Neither did I.

Epidemic Polemic

2009-04-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

So apparently, Nadja Benaissa, a 26-year-old singer in Germany's famed girl group No Angels (equivalent to the US's Danity Kane) has been arrested on suspicion of infecting one or more sexual partners with HIV. It is unclear whether or not she was in fact the transmitter, according to the source, so I don't understand how this is even publishable news at this point.

Many additional questions continue to float about in my head. I understand that it is incredibly immoral to have unprotected sex without disclosing the fact that you have HIV to your partner. But couldn't she have been unaware that she was carrying the virus? In that case, is she still culpable? And how did she become infected? If from a previous partner, is he also being prosecuted?

I gleaned the following info regarding US laws from a Yahoo answers result (cannot certify its accuracy):

"California has the "Willful Exposure Law" in which it's considered a felony and you can get up to 8 years in prison. Qualifications for guilt are:

1. Having sex

2. Know that you are HIV positive

3. Not telling your partner you are HIV positive

4. Not using a condom

5. Having the specific intent to infect the other person

Usually they get off because how do you prove "specific intent"? However, The AIDS Policy Center in Washington, D.C., reports that 27 other states have established criminal penalties for knowingly transmitting or exposing another person to HIV. If you want to press charges you need to contact a lawyer and find out what the law specifies in your state."

Two Months and Counting...

2009-04-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

Two months till the Puertoriqueños retake Manhattan. We stopped by Sazon Perez tonight to honor the date. (I can't believe they have a website! Dinner costs like four bucks.) The thick girl behind the counter explained that their two fish dishes were "catfish and regular fish." Went with the catfish and habichuelas, with a side of pernil. The guy next to me in line started talking to me in broken English, telling me to order the pernil, which I obviously was going to do anyway. This happens literally two out of three times I go there. It's risky business to migrate to Spanish mid-conversation, though, so usually my little talks with the locals end with one of us saying something the other one doesn't understand, and then the other guy nods in feigned agreement. Then we both slide away slowly to opposite sides of the room, staring at the ground.

Anyway, more shots from last year...

Home Invasion

2009-04-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

DCQ headquarters has come under siege. It started back in the fall, when the landlord responded to our complaint of "there's mice" by giving us two 99-cent glue traps that never caught anything. At that point it seemed we were dealing with a lone invader, but then he multiplied into two, then four, then eight, maybe more? We bought snap-traps that didn't work. They made off like bandits with pounds of cheese. Every night, these cretins run amok, gobbling crumbs and shitting on everything. Come in the kitchen after dark and you're sure to see one of the little bastards bolt across the counter, plunge into the burner and escape through the stove. So we got a bunch of poison disguised as delicious mouse food. They ate two boxes of it and came back for thirds. Things looked dire.

Then we befriended Specklebutt.

He set up shop like Chris and Snoop:

Now nobody fucks with us.

Pair with Jameson, Jack, Patron or Schlitz

2009-04-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

If there's better drinking music out there, do inform.

Of Pirates, Passover and Pablo Sandoval

2009-04-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

A Passover for the memories: It snowed in April, the sun returned to its God-chosen point of origin, and the deli guy topped my morning bagel with cream cheese and lox instead of its raggedy Appalachian cousin lox spread. And finally, thanks to a very large and loud collection of family friends/benefactors, my fridge is now stocked with several containers of mysterious concoctions involving raisins, nuts, matzoh and "ch" sounds.

In other news, a crew of American seamen provided more fodder for ethnocentric Yanks by overthrowing their Somalian pirate captors, while another group of buccaneers clearly slept through the "What Kind of Boats to Not Hijack" seminar. Most importantly, though, "Pablo Sandoval," IDM's beer-addled trivia team, scored 94 points last night in its first contest of the year, which happened to coincide with a successful first contest of the year for a certain baseball team by a certain bay. Pablo Sandoval's showing was good enough for second place, as the number '94' oft is in things such as trivia and, say, baseball. We didn't receive a wild card playoff invitation because the league's administrative office is populated with Mongoloids, but if we had, we're confident that our fundamental excellence (in geography, pop culture, sports and music, as it were) would have allowed us to dominate the opposition, who only won because we started slow and they were using iPhones like A-Rod used needles. Nevertheless, the 94 remains. An omen? Last I checked, one can still dream.

And finally, enjoy this fun video from a couple of Jamiroquai-sounding Euros (playing Mezzanine on 5/15):

So baseball season's here, which should be fun if I don't get fired.

2009-04-06T21:24:00.000-07:00

UNC just won a fairly lackluster national championship game. Tyler Hansbrough still looks like a lemur and Roy Williams like a sun-crisped Huckleberry Hound. And I still can't name a single player on Michigan State other than that one guy Summers who jammed so hard on that UConn guy in the Final Four two days ago. The rout was easily foreseen: No athlete from the state of Michigan will ever succeed in the same place the Lions play.

One of those keen foreseers was none other than Me, and for that, I will show up at work tomorrow and collect like $12 for finishing third in the office pool. Which is about as exciting as getting a free upgrade to the supersized oatmeal when the waitress screws up your order. At the very least, though, the CEO now knows who I am, or at least knows my last name. In theory, this should prove helpful when the inevitable next round of layoffs descends upon the company like Elijah on the Egyptian goyim's firstborn.

On a happier note, baseball season is officially upon us. We took four trains to see the Mets play the Red Sox at New Shea on Saturday only to be stymied by the most anal-retentive ticket policy known to man: The game was sold out, which is fine, but we quickly realized there was nary a single scalper to be had. In the Bronx, plainclothes cops try to bust scalpers, but the street there is usually such a mob scene that it's more of an inconvenience than an impediment. In Queens, on the other hand, it's desolate -- LaGuardia, auto repair shops, and parking lots that stretch all the way to Arthur Ashe offer little shelter to would-be secondhand ticketeers. Scads of cops provide further discouragement. What's more, there's no re-entry at New Shea (Old Shea lies in mounds of concrete rubble in the middle of the New Parking Lot, as it were), so you can't bum used tickets off people leaving and talk your way in.

In other words, the old methods of getting into sold-out sporting events ain't happening at New Shea, which sucks a fat one, because now we have to either plan stuff out like whole days in advance or risk getting fakies off of Craigslist. Also, the cheapest seat is officially bullshit expensive -- i.e., $23 plus fees. I hope the Mets start the season 0-47.

Yeah, the goat. He did it.

2009-04-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

A little Röyksopp-infused entertainment for you brainless bastards on a rainy, ~~lazy~~ work-filled Friday afternoon:

We're off for the weekend to Sager Farms, where they grow emus and house criminal-minded goats. Line of the Day: "We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody."

Art's evolutionary purpose

2009-03-31T22:37:00.000-07:00

As seems to be a recent trend, another human characteristic is theoretically explained via evolutionary psychology. Can it be that appreciation and creation of fine arts are part of natural and sexual selection? Denis Dutton's new book, The Art Instinct, says yes. Mr. Dutton argues that as arts appear in every human society, this universal behavior must have roots in our origins.

Creativity would have helped our ancestors endure hostile conditions, while storytelling taught them to comprehend consequences of actions, thus increasing chances of survival. Additionally, creativity in speech and actions helped both males and females attract and retain a mate, leading to survival "not just of the physically strongest but of the cleverest, wittiest and wisest."

Finally, a resolution that combines arts and sciences, and makes logical sense. I'm sure that our man Jackson would've produced subsequent artistic offspring, if not for his affinity for driving under the influence.

A Bike Pimp Don't Hibernate, Motherfucker.

2009-03-30T22:14:00.001-07:00

The Technocolored Bike Pimp was out in all his splendor near Poets' Walk in Central Park the other day, scoping out the the people trying to dance on roller skates on a brisk, late winter day.

A good 30 folks were still out there as the light began to fade quickly. I asked the guy if he took his Pimp Bike on the subway, and he was none too pleased. The dark side of his pimp demeanor started to show itself, but he seemed to realize that he didn't need that part of the personality anymore, and suppressed the urge to 'beat that ho down.' Like "Hey, you're not a Real Pimp anymore, Calvin. You're a Bike Pimp. You don't need to do shit to make your ends -- just ride your Pimp-Ass Bike around the park, and white people will pay to take a picture with you."

Incidentally, the last time I was up here was probably November, when I came on another Sunday around the same time of day, and the skaterdancers had already started to disperse. I walked past a guy and he looked at me and asked, "You shopping?" I didn't have shopping bags or anything. I thought that was a bit odd.

A Prison Tale, by Brickface Bill

2009-03-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

So I was in the kitchen pulling slop duty one day, and just before we opened the doors for lunch this one skinhead dude tried to run up on Fishgut Frank, so I smacked that fool on his kneecap with a frying pan, and he fell down and started screaming. But then Pretty Mo ran over and whacked me in the teeth with a steel ladle!

I was like, "Damn, Pretty Mo, you broke my teeth! I thought we were cool." And he was like, "Nope."

And that's how my front teeth got chipped.

Bring Out Ya Dead (skeet skeet)

2009-03-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

We just realized that in an uncanny convergence of wholly uncharacteristic immaturity, we've managed to use the words "Balls" and "Titties" in back-to-back post titles. Rather than keeping with the trend, we'll "grow up" and make fun of the tagline of Crank 2 for ripping off Monthy Python:

This Statham guy was great as an unknown in Lock, Stock and has made nothing but abysmal casting choices ever since (see: The Transporter Pts. 1-6). People apparently watch his movies, though, which is sobering but by no means surprising. This tagline, however, leads one to suspect that perhaps he's making a leap into self-deprecating irony (a la Ahnold in Last Action Hero), which wouldn't make sense because while he's certainly become typecast, he's still not, you know, all that famous. Which is to say it's too soon to mock the caricature he'd have to think he's become.

All that aside, Amy Smart's gaptooth is tailormade for skeet-skeet target practice fantasies, which is probably why she only gets roles in films 13-year-old boys pay to see.

There, a splooge reference. Happy now?

New game: "Smash yourself in the balls and die"

2009-03-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

Egad, this just cannot not be funny. On occasion, an insatiable Internet addiction does pay off...

A Tale of Twin Titties in Two Cities

2009-03-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

In the life of every man and lesbian, regardless of education level or mental capacity, there will inevitably come a day when you find yourself chuckling at (or attracted to) inanimate objects that look like boobs. Municipal engineers apparently like to fuck with us on this one.

There's this ode to 1970s cement and silicone off a bland stretch of SoCal I-5:

San Onofre (Calif.) Nuclear Generating Station

And then there's this:

Greenpoint (Brooklyn) Sewage Refinery Plant

A tad less blatant in design than the nuclear duo, the sludge digester knockers are topped with what appears to be some kind of NASA-designed, high-volume breast pump. As you can see, the pump's operators have a nice view of the Empire State Building along with a not-so-nice view of the adjacent Smelly-Ass Newtown Creek, proud host of an oil spill that was three times the size of the Exxon Valdez one. Is this the first time a city has added extensive cosmetic touches to a sewage plant? No idea. But it received applause from a few architectural critics when it opened in 2007. "Community leaders" actually held a lighting ceremony, replete with intensely monotone speech-reading, for the thing.

I still say the San Onofre ones look healthier. In any case, we should look at the existence of both sets of luscious hooters/essential utilities as yet another testament to the coasts' cultural superiority over the flyover states (you really think these make it out of the planning stage in Bumfuck, Oklahoma???). It's also another opportunity for Fox News to point out that we're rapidly devolving into Europeans.

Ely Kim's theory of danceability

2009-03-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

Lamest. Rock band. Ever.

2009-03-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

As we approach St. Patrick's Day, my thoughts can't help but wander to all things Irish, including one of Ireland's most famous musical exports (second only to the Riverdancers).... U2. I have recently concluded something very significant about U2, though: they are the least cool rock band in the history of rock bands. There are so many contributing factors to their squareness; let me count them here:

1) Bono's characteristic pink sunglasses

2) their guitarist goes by The Edge (is he a cartoon superhero?)

3) Bono's self-consciousness about being short, and always insisting on being in the foreground of photos (urban legend? I think not, because he really is always in the foreground)

4) they play seemingly every global charity gig, and always speak so smugly about how charitable they are (yeah, it's great, but so is humility)

5) overall lame stage presence

6) terrible styling (where are the likes of Steven Tyler's scarves when you need them?)

7) they called their 1993 album Zooropa

8) Bono recently complained that “Music has become tap water, a utility, where for me it’s a sacred thing, so I’m a little offended by illegal downloading," but concluded that "artists like me are overpaid and over nourished." (Contradictor says what?)

Needless to say, I am not a fan. Well, I liked their early albums, but then they had to go and be all lame, and ruin the music for me. How is it that they've been so successful (winning 22 Grammy's-more than any other band), when they're clearly high school band geeks who got a lucky break oh so many years ago? Bono can never begin to compare to a Mick Jagger or a Patti Smith. I say, boycott the new album and the new-new album, about which I've just heard (supposedly coming out later this year)! The new ones just sound like more of the same anyways. Until Bono and company can learn how to be proper rock stars and inspire generations of future rockers with better posturing and style, I cannot get behind them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day anyhow. Here's to us all drinking so much green beer that we have no problem enduring the numerous U2 songs we're bound to be subjected to tonight!

Three Months and Counting...

2009-03-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

Only three months till los Puertoriqueños regresan a Manhattan. Their homeland decided to play the 50 real states in baseball today to celebrate the occasion.

And on another note necessitating an under-appreciated accent mark, the Norwegian electroband Röyksopp is dominating iPod playlists in certain circles. Like, say, ours. We're 92 percent certain that they collaborate with The Knife but couldn't confirm this in a very thorough 17-second Google investigation.

East River on a Sunday afternoon

2009-03-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Things Are Happening

2009-03-11T17:26:00.001-07:00

A mixed bag of stale Lenny for your ass:

a.) In a reprisal of the Tupac-Biggie war of the mid-1990s, the president and the army chief of Guinea-Bissau seem to have offed each other via proxy assassination. As luck would have it, this appears to leave a guy named Carlos Gomes Junior in "a relatively strong position" to assume power. So the Colombian coke smugglers who have chosen to use G-B as a rest stop on their road trip to Amy Winehouse's nostrils apparently may have a guy in power who can speak their language (and hopefully help out if they ever need to reclaim 600 kilos of confiscated product).

b.) People are really overreacting to the news about Martha Stewart's stupid dead dog. For all their fluff and bearish good looks, chows are vicious fuckers.

c.) Chris Daly is pushing new tenants rights laws, landlords are "shocked," The Gav is apprehensive. Also, the Warriors are bad and some media execs are apparently as evil/oblivious as finance execs.

I am the Walrus (goo goo goo joob)

2009-03-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

Walking into Dave Muller's current show, Iamthewalrus, at Blum & Poe is comparable to entering a friend's apartment for the first time and forming an impression of them based upon their possessions. Mr. Muller has revealed much about his personal history and interests in this, his most autobiographical (according to Tim Blum), and sixth solo exhibition at the gallery. Upon entering the space, the viewer is compelled to closely examine simple line drawings depicting the four Beatles as nesting dolls. Beside these is a black and white portrait of John Lennon, neatly framed, with two googly eyes affixed to the glass above Mr. Lennon's signature round glasses. Next, in the larger of two rooms, we see the core of this show, a series of large framed paintings, each split evenly down the center and depicting two subjects. On several, there is a natural depiction, like a puffer fish, an oak leaf, or river rocks, contrasted against a masterwork reference, like a replica Pollock splatter abstraction. But consistently the two subjects share the divided canvas evenly, denoting their equal comparative values. They resemble domino pieces, seemingly hung to randomly match the subjects end to end. One painting even enters the viewers' space, and lies flat on the floor in a corner, an extension of the matching dominoes on the walls above it.
In the next room, the viewer encounters two black and white portraits of homes. These are apparently the childhood abodes of Mr. Muller, in San Francisco. Their proximity to each other on the wall combined with their focused viewpoint almost make them resemble strange faces more than buildings. Mr. Muller makes several other references to his youth, toys, and music throughout the show, providing a subtly childlike perspective on the simple but beautifully executed subject matter.

I Knew a Real Estate Boom, and This, Lereah, is No Real Estate Boom

2009-03-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows industry shills are gonna be industry shills (and sometimes, as Jon Stewart observed the other day, industry shills are gonna pose as cable news channels), but this is excessive: A preeminent 'authority' -- the head cheese of the National Association of Realtors at the time -- actually penned a book under this name in 2005:

Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?: Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb through the End of the Decade -- and How to Profit from Them

Aside from winning the prize for Longest Subtitle That's Really Two Sentences in One and In Hindsight Doesn't Make Any Sense, David Lereah gets our vote for Dumbest Pictorial Metaphor on a Book Cover: You see, the home is rising, which not unlike climbing, which represents an increase in the home's worth. Just like it says in the Longest Subtitle! But the family that owns the house is looking as if maybe they'd like to go inside their home now, please, because little Tina has to pee and Norman's missing the Jets game. But if it falls back to the ground, it'll smash into pieces and maybe kill Tina and/or Norman! So either Tina's gonna pee her pants and Norman's gonna miss the game or someone's getting impaled by a splintered 2x4. Then there's the possibility that Lereah meant it the other way -- that the family's missing out on this so-called "boom," likewise represented by the soaring value of the home they didn't buy. It's somewhat unclear, but I'm guessing he meant the latter.

Either way, that shit's gonna break apart when it falls back down to the ground and the family will either be irate or relieved or impaled, and someone should sue Lereah anyway for putting that house up there and for writing such a poorly named and misleading book in the first place.

Balloons Kill Turtles and Acid Trips

2009-03-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

If you, like us, viewed the 1980s through the colored lenses of blissful youth--eyes shielded, that is, from Iran-Contra, Wall Street and Menudo--some visionary probably gathered your entire elementary school in the big kids' yard to release balloons into the air at some point. With notes reading "Hello this is Tom I like Will Clark" and "Hi my cat's name is Barf what is your's (sic)?" attached, the rising multicolored cloud caught a westerly and drifted out of sight, headed for Europe or Russia or the Nation of Africa, you were sure. More likely they landed in Modesto or Syracuse, were swept into storm drains and channeled into rivers that led to the ocean, where they suffocated that sea turtle you found dead and bloated on the beach two weeks later--you know, the one that still screams at you in your sleep and sits in your rocking chair asking judgmental questions during bad acid trips.

The point is that even at a public school filled with children of reformed hippies in an environmentally prescient city like San Francisco, we went willy-nilly with the balloons. Kids in Missouri are probably still doing it. Meanwhile, in Brazil and Oregon, people are putting balloons to good use. I mean, if you must loose all that rubber on some unsuspecting sap/sea creature in a far-off land/sea, at least have the balls to put your money where your mouth is. RIP, Reverend Adelir.

39 Years Later

2009-03-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

Fun game! Guess which of these Greenwich Village townhouses exploded exactly 39 years ago today...

a.) The one that looks different than all the others; or

b.) One of the others

Answer: a! The building with the funky-angled protruding living room...

Yes, that's the one...

A few members of the Weathermen (l/k/a the Weather Underground) mishandled some nails and dynamite and...yeah, kablooie. According to ever-reliable Wikipedia, it took nine days of body part collection to determine that three people had died in the blast. Two others survived and escaped arrest, with one remaining on the lam for more than a decade before getting pinched for pulling an armored car heist with Tupac's stepdad.

Behind the wall, punk thrived

2009-03-04T23:12:00.000-08:00

I just returned home from a screening of the documentary Flustern & SCHREIEN (Whisper & SHOUT) at the Hammer Museum in Westwood. First of all, accolades to the Hammer for consistently providing great, FREE, programming to the public. Second, this film totally rules. Released in 1988, it follows several East German bands and their adoring fans, as they tour the country. What struck me most, aside from the fabulous German New Wave and punk soundtrack, was the attitude of the young people interviewed. All of them had these really marvelously positive outlooks on their lives and what they wanted to achieve, despite the fact that they had already received government-assigned jobs (like chimney-sweep), and were living in a completely isolated land. It was truly amazing to juxtapose their words against the fact that the wall came down only a year later.

The bands themselves (Silly, Feeling B, Chicoree, Sandow, and more) were required to have government-issued certifications to play concerts. To obtain one, according to the guy who introduced the film, the bands would have to submit lyrics and perform for the state. Obviously, these groups had to master the use of poetic and subversive language to get their rebellious message out to their audiences, while appeasing the state and maintaining their certs.

Overall, a must-see, for the music, for the amazing punk attitude of all the kids featured, and for the radical threads rocked by all!

DumboWall - A Year in Retrospect

2009-03-02T22:07:00.000-08:00

Winter 2007-08:

Winter 2008-09:

on the road again

2009-02-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

If you've read any of the previous LA posts, they all derive in some way from driving. It's what you do in LA, and the bane of my existence. While driving today, I was thinking about how my commute is completely void of human interaction, which made me miss interfacing with bums and crazies along my walk and MUNI ride in SF. I digress. I was also thinking about what I could write about this evening. If nothing else, Los Angeles is pure fodder for writers. As I'm stopped at a red light, I see the chrome spinners doing their thing on a shiny black Prius, complete with carpool lane sticker. I wonder who would drive such a vehicle and inch towards the car in front of me to catch a glimpse. Once the light changes, I'm able to see that it's an ancient, sage-looking asian man. Hip, convincing grandson the culprit here? Maybe.

I also encountered a baby blue 1980s Mercedes station wagon along my journey home. Reminiscent of the manner in which I rode to preschool, a small boy was riding in the back facing seat. He even had the decade-appropriate bowl cut. He waved goofily at me and I smiled. But then we got stopped at the next light beside one another and he got embarassed and slunk down in his seat to avoid eye contact.

I think it's just Friday-induced glee speaking, but maybe commuting isn't so bad in LA. It could also have been the good-vibe influence of The Wrens' The Meadowlands.

Too 'Big' to Ignore?

2009-02-25T21:22:00.000-08:00

Last night, President Barry proclaimed that "the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it" in reiterating his unwavering support for Detroit. Our Chosen Changer sounded every bit More of the Same in falling back on the 'too big to fail' line. It's a tactic that's sure to succeed, as is virtually anything that sounds the least bit scary or unpatriotic these days. But what, exactly, are the qualities that make a select few companies -- Big Three automakers and a couple humongous banks -- 'too big to fail'? There's a logical argument for rescuing financial institutions -- if there aren't any lenders left, how will we buy houses/pay for college/build Burger Kings? But the carmakers? Purely political. Obama and the majority of congressional Democrats don't want to be known as the cats who 'killed Detroit,' which is exactly what Republicans and Rust Belt Dems would paint them as.

But 'too big to fail'?! Please. They're already halfway there: Over the past eight years, GM and Chrysler (Ford's passing over the taxpayer pot o' gold for now) have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers and shut down dozens of plants. Assuming Congress doles out another $21 billion, GM will jettison another 47,000 workers by the end of 2009, bringing its global workforce below 200,000 -- less than half of what it was in 2000. Meanwhile, scads of outside suits stand to make a collective $1.2 billion should GM finally realize its destiny in Chapter 11. Detroit's leaders created this predicament by sitting around guffawing about all the crazy shit an F-150 can tow while Nissan and Toyota developed cars that actually make sense in a 21st-century sort of way. And now D.C. is counting on us to bail them out.

Not surprisingly, our president and federal representatives seem far less concerned about the cataclysmic state of the newspaper industry (as if papers still had the resources to investigate every back-alley horsetrade going on inside the Beltway). In the last three months, the owners of the Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Tribune have filed for bankruptcy. The New York Times has laid off newsroom folks. And today, the Hearst Corp. revealed that it is considering shutting down the SF Chronicle after the paper lost a cool $50 million last year (thanks, Craigslist).

Let's recap: Our tax dollars, intended for schools, Social Security and Medicare, are instead funding war and delaying the seemingly inevitable demise of U.S. automakers (you don't just whip up a better Prius overnight). Meanwhile, San Franciscans may soon have to wait till their Bay Guardians and SF Weeklys come out to find out who won that ballgame last Tuesday. Not even Chris Daly could be happy over the specter of this.

Enough ranting for one week -- we'll try to come up with something a tad more heartwarming for next time. Not rescued puppies/sassy underage cancer patients heartwarming, but something.

Feel da Riddim, Feel da Rhyme! Come to Aruba! We're Mostly White!

2009-02-23T23:36:00.000-08:00

The island nation of Aruba has unleashed an all-out ad blitz on the MTA trains, running short bios of smiling Arubans on beaches, golf courses, and serene Oranjestad streets lined with colorful knockoffs of Dutch colonials. But only one of the seven ads features a local who is black. I was getting amped to rip into Fox News and Nancy Grace and redneck southern politicians for their catalytic roles in the blatantly racist Natalee Holloway fiasco, to illustrate how they’ve driven Aruba to ostracize its black residents through a disproportionately representative ad campaign propelled by the notion that black equals crime. Then I did some research, and was surprised to find that my angle held no water on several counts:

- Due to the island’s arid soil and lack of rainfall, imperialists didn’t try to cultivate Aruba, hence no slaves (to console itself, Spain kidnapped every single Arawak on the island and shipped them to work copper mines on Hispaniola). Thus, a much lower percentage of Arubans claim African heritage than do other Caribbean nationalities -- Trinidadians, Jamaicans, even the folks in neighboring Curaçao.

- Tourism is huge in Aruba. I knew it was important, as it is in every other island on the Carnival cruise highway, but the health of Aruba’s GDP relies more on tourism dollars than on any other industry. And the country’s dependance on tourism is growing stronger: The second-biggest industry is oil refining. With the realization that oil’s a finite resource, Aruba has quintupled its stock of hotel rooms since 1985. In 2004 (before Missing White Girl broke), Aruba filled an average of 80 percent of those rooms, compared with 68 percent in other Caribbean hotspots. They needed tourists before her, and they still need them now.

- None of the three suspects arrested was black (one was Dutch and the other two were Surinamese). Likewise, none was ever charged.

And to further that note on a note, the Holloway dad is some piece of work. In his book, he criticizes the media for being fickle after they bumped his daughter to the bottom of the hour when a juicier story broke:

“Hurricane Katrina had left the door open for the (suspects) to be sent on their way with little publicity and few restrictions because it took the world's focus off of Natalee, but only for a brief time. The huge amount of publicity had waned and, during that time of quiet for us, Joran and the Kalpoe brothers were sent home. . . . All of the news shows that had followed our every move only a day before had now become fixated on the next big ratings grabber: the victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

What manipulative bastards.

But Father Holloway’s justified criticism is beside the point: My expected angle fell flat. In the end, I had nothing. The ad campaign isn’t necessarily racist because it’s actually somewhat representative of Aruba’s population. But if it had proved as racist as I’d expected, I would have said this: “Those two black guys were clearly selected specifically to make the rider think, ‘They look happy and peaceful. I'd bet 4-to-1 they used to hang out with the guys from Cool Runnings till they all realized there wasn't enough room in the bobsled.’"

Then you would’ve laughed and laughed, and I would’ve congratulated myself. Close your eyes. Try to imagine. Or just read this guy’s take (unless he’s got a Lonely Planet: Aruba chum on the Aruban census team, he twisted the ethnic numbers to make the case).

Church: Cool Again

2009-02-21T13:51:00.000-08:00

A Soho boutique called Lounge shut down a few months ago and is allegedly in the process of finding a new place to operate. In the meantime, they're running a temp setup out of an old church on 6th Ave. and 20th St. -- a space that, as the Lounge's owner reminded us on multiple occasions, is the former "home of the famous Limelight" nightclub.
Lounge's proprietors are unloading threads from mid-to-high-end labels after shuttering their 16,000-square-foot store on Broadway and Houston.

Not the best photos, but you get the idea: An 18th-century church converted into a multi-level nightclub, soundsystem, dance platforms, etc., then closed and left to dilapidate for a decade or so...

Since moving in last month, the offerings have grown from a couple racks scattered around the soaring space to essentially a fully-stocked store. They've got the system bumping again, and there's something uplifting about walking into this scene off a scuzzy section of Chelsea on a harsh midwinter afternoon.

more money, more problems

2009-02-20T16:36:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's because (and I am so sick of hearing this…) “the economy's in the dumps” or what, but of late, I've been hearing way more people saying that they don't like their jobs, "but the money's great," so they stay there. What's up with this? Think of your friends who began law school with a plan to work in child advocacy or environmental law, but who, after passing the bar, plunge into well-compensated corporate counsel positions “just until I pay back my loans.” That was seven years ago. They’re still doing doc review for Exxon. And when you call them on this, they slightly blush and repeat the above quote.

Since when is it okay for the Entitled Generation to compromise their values and justify working for evil companies or meaningless retail shops with large (or in my case, merely mediocre) paychecks?
This is totally contrary to the American dream, by golly. Yes, we still want to have the white picket fence someday. And yes, it costs a LOT to have that on either coast. But America—and, by default, capitalism—encourages life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Financial security can contribute to happiness, obvs, but does working long hours at a job you despise and feel wretched about? That, of course, is the false allure of the free market—the notion that wads of cash equate to happiness. In true hypocrite form, I'm currently working for a large oil and gas company. I'm not exactly on board with their environmental policy, nee old man corporate bureaucracy, so I am clearly projecting this issue. Am I ultimately being far too idealistic? Naïve? I refuse to believe so. At least until the system crushes my soul a little more.

Pop v. Pop

2009-02-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

Let the hating begin: We think Lily Allen's new album is good. Not Stranger than Fiction or Southernunderground good, but hooky pop music good. A relative good. These days, when the artist is a passably attractive 23-year-old progeny of celebrity parents who's signed to a major label, you expect an Ashlee Simpson, a Rihanna...a rhinestone bikini filled with an olive-hued body of some class and topped with a workable face; smother the voice in vocoder, and you're good to go. Allen's image, while quite possibly a calculated label construct, is refreshingly flawed -- she looks like she's done some damage on the cookie dough ice cream recently, and admits to not giving a shit about it.

It's Not You, It's Me is at its essence formulaic, melodramatic pop, but it's done right and avoids monotony -- synth-heavy production ("Everyone's At It") alternates with twangy rockabilly-infused joints (upcoming single "Not Fair"). What sets the album apart, though, is Allen's willingness to address an array of topics overwhelmingly shunned by her mainstream diva contemporaries: Cocaine abuse ("Now I'm not trying to say that I'm smelling of roses/But when will tire of putting shit up our noses"), God ("Do you think his favorite type of human is Caucasian?/Do you reckon he's ever been done for tax evasion?"), sexist double standards applied to nearing-30 women ("It's sad but it's true how society says her life is already over/There's nothing to do and nothing to say"), familial reconciliation ("This is not just a song; I intend to put these words into action/I hope that it sums up the way that I feel to your satisfaction") and emotionless sex ("Now I know you feel betrayed, but it's been weeks since I got laid"). I mean, she's got a track about Dubya (originally written about the white supremacist British National Party) entitled "Fuck You." Can you picture Christina Aguilera standing up in her Fanta-hued skinsuit and waxing poetic on, say, immigration policy? Or trumpeting her inability to get dick? OK, bad example.

Contrast that with one of the more unfortunate songs to come out of BigLabel hip-hop in recent (or distant) memory: T.I.'s "Swing Ya Rag." Never known for lyrical intricacy or topical poignancy, Bankhead's finest has dropped a string of certified trunkthumpers over the last couple years, and he's got a few on Paper Trail: "Ready for Whatever," "What Up, What's Haapnin'," "Dead and Gone," to wit. Five or six other cuts, ranging in quality from "ech" to "blow," have already become radio hits. Swizz Beatz-produced "Swing Ya Rag," however, tops all: The hook, which accounts for around half of the song's vocals, answers the much-anticipated question of "How exactly does T.I dance when he goes to the club?" Well, shocker!: He DOESN'T!!!! No, T.I. "don't dance, no way." Of course not! I mean, who dances anymore these days, really...squares only, I say. Stay sharp. Instead, the rapper "just take my Louis rag out and wave it 'round in the air, take my Gucci rag out and wave it 'round in the air." All in all, T.I. repeats the rag-wave eight times. Then he goes home and reads old Silver Surfers while eating grape gummy bears.

With 11 Gucci and 10 Vuitton references (and a Patron thrown in for good measure, of course) packed into the 3:20 song, dude averages a product placement every nine seconds. Major loot, right? Thing is, nobody thought to actually talk to the companies about, you know, the whole thing, and turns out they weren't all that thrilled. Says T.I. about a video he made for the song: "We did it, and it came out hot, (but) Louis and Gucci started trippin' about it. They were saying we were infringing, in one way or another. They weren't happy about it. They didn't want it to come out. But it's hot, though..." While the fashion companies were probably totally sold after he reiterated that "it's hot" -- just in case they were still wondering -- MTV refused to play the video for fear of getting its ass sued off. So, then: Rapper sets, to our knowledge, a record for blatancy and frequency of product placement in a song, proceeds to lose money for doing so. Brilliant, T.I., brilliant.

Having said all that, we're now on revolution #8 of It's Not You, It's Me since we ripped it on Tuesday, and Allen's, sadly, starting to annoy us. A cute British accent and the cojones to discuss fellatio and abandonment issues can apparently only take a pop star so far.

T.I.: You're not getting paid for this, either. "Esteban the Photog from the Vuitton Ad Department" is actually "Phil the Insurance Salesman from Syracuse." Just go home already.

More Pepsi-Biting from Obama

2009-02-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

OK, fine. I know that corporations have piggybacked off war, disaster and political propaganda campaigns to turn a quick buck in the past, but Pepsi’s current ad campaign is positively analrapististic. For the uninitiated (and we’re about a month late to the party here), watch this Pepsi flack try to keep a straight face while telling us about his employer’s desire to seize upon a “cultural movement” and “a spirit of optimisim” to quench our “thirst for positive change”...through mass quantities of refined corn syrup. He also implies that the Obama campaign ripped off the campaign, using as his crucial piece of evidence the fact that Pepsi is older than Barack.

In its ads, Pepsi tells us that “every generation refreshes the world.” Well, now...come to think of it, that’s absolutely true: The baby boomers refreshed our supply of potential soldiers, the beatniks refreshed American demand for berets, the hippies refreshed our appreciation for the First Amendment, Gen X refreshed the cocaine industry, Gen Y refreshed the flat-top, and the millenials refreshed our definition of “refresh.” Who doesn’t want to be a part of that? I’m in -- toss me a Pepsi, Britney!

The more I study the Obama campaign, the more I begin to side against the man: He clearly nicked original Pepsi catchphrases like “Yes You Can” and “Fo Sho!” (because, after all, black=now acceptable in Kansas!). His campaign logo looks eerily similar to that of Pepsi--a company that, I must remind you, is older than Obama. And the fact that Obama decided to get inaugurated just as Pepsi rolled out its “Change” campaign is too coincidental for comfort. Nope, my mind’s made up -- Obama’s a thief. He’s from Illinois, home of Blagojevich and that other locked-up former governor and R. Kelly and Oprah, who once endorsed a memoir that wasn’t even true. It was fictional, which is Dutch for “sucked.”

So there it is -- the truth in all its exhaustively-investigated, naked glory. Screw off, Obama. Get your own damn ad campaign. And give Enrique his mole back while you’re at it.

FuK WaR

2009-02-11T21:24:00.000-08:00

You have GOT to admire this guy: He's so into the cause that he goes out and spends $50K on an H2 just so he can spray an anti-war slogan across its side and dump it on an East Village street to influence all who pass. The trees were so awed by this display of altruism that they got all freaky and sprouted leaves in the middle of February. Also, you may be able to make out in the background the new Upper Playground that opened last summer on East 9th. It's right next to a Kid Robot (UP actually got the space when KR downsized into its current shop), which would seem to make for solid crossover traffic potential. UP's NY store is about half as big as it Fillmore location, same vibe with localized references on some of its clothes (no MUNI tees here). KR carries standard KR shit, with a rather lackluster art display up front.

Photo taken with filthy Egyptian disposable camera that cost twice as much in filthy Egyptian tourist town as it would've at my filthy corner bodega.

5-0 on the chase

2009-02-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

For the second night in a row, I can elect to fall asleep watching live news coverage of a high-speed police chase.

Downer-town Whitney Brown

2009-02-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

While on the topic of crack addiction... oh diss! Whitney Houston made an interesting appearance as a presenter on Sunday night's Grammy awards. Watching her cautiously and somewhat slurringly recite from the teleprompter was congruous in the discomfort department to peeping Farmer Ted cut a rug at the school dance in Sixteen Candles.

And did you catch the oh-so-subtle move wherein she arranged her dress' slit to reveal maximum leg? Whoa mama! Seems like the lovely Whitney has certainly progressed from full-on crazy Bobby Brown days of yore, but she still has a ways to go before she should be getting so much air-time.

Symptoms: Narcissism and the Crack Epidemic

2009-02-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

Corporate execs and Wall Street douchebags made a big bowtied fuss over the past two weeks as President Obama considered limits on corporate executives’ pay -- a logical target given these suits' public scapegoating since September, and a sexy, easily-understood trumpeting of an aggressive effort to "fix the economy" or whatever the pundits have simplified it to. Corporate lawyers are, indeed, losing jobs, but nothing like the bankers, where companies shed ten and twenty thousand positions at a time. Most of these predominantly white and male casualties receive some months’ worth of severance pay consistent with their stratospheric salaries as well as outplacement services to help them get on the dole and put out feelers for another job.

Those who snuck past the chopping block, meanwhile -- and, despite the doomsday headlines, this is still the vast majority of America’s high-end, white-collar workforce -- have, in a display of avarice that’s surprised nobody, taken to bitching about salary freezes. It’s a classic example of follow-the-leader (those who aspire to being a cog in a 50,000-head machine do not typically make Jerry Maguire speeches), and when said leader is griping about his or her (but usually his) salary being capped at half a mil (stocks excluded, mind you), it’s easy to justify pushing for that lockstep $40k bonus for hitting your hours baseline on the peon chart. (Bear in mind, of course, that the mushy executive comp mandate Obama eventually signed last week only applies to banks accepting federal assistance going forward--so no, that doesn’t apply to Citigroup or GM, which accepted billions of our dollars over the past few months and still have Chapter 11 dead in their sights, or AIG, whose execs pocketed $85 billion, then embarked on a lockdown session to figure out how to best use the bailout to save their company weekend of massages, golf and Glenlivet.)

These are the same blokes who elected Ronald Reagan (along with this guy), who used the crack epidemic to court law-and-order types the same way Bill Clinton rode Silicon Valley’s success to a reputation as some sort of economic mastermind (and no, goddammit, his vice president did not invent the Internet, though he was most certainly one of its key advocates). Reagan’s demonization of crack led to the bulk of our country’s more outlandish drug laws (and all while his administration arguably turned a blind eye to coca smuggling that stoked the epidemic -- but this is a complicated and disturbing aside deserving of its own examination in due time). It also provides our first example of a theme we’ll make popular in IDM: The American tradition of fighting the symptom of a problem rather than addressing the root cause.

Reagan demonized the addicts and low-level pushers. These people had been steered into their roles by a myriad of factors, from boredom to emotional instability, but most shared a common experience: An environment of poverty. This is an obvious statement: Corner boys grow up poor, attend underfunded inner-city public schools, and drop out to pursue one of the few viable options they’ve been conditioned to recognize. Junkies come from a wider range of backgrounds, to be sure, but many had unstable childhoods, often cultivated by money problems, and most of those from well-to-do families would have exhausted their trust funds and familial goodwill by the time they were freebasing on the regular. These are poor and largely uneducated people -- easy targets for politicians who need a cause. Not much potential for political pushback from this grimy lot. So Reagan made it into a crusade, and today we have public prisons at 150 percent capacity, a booming private prison industry, and potent prison guard unions that keep money flowing for new prison construction while streets crumble, Muni continues to suck, and those same ghetto schools are still issuing textbooks that date back to the height of Ronnie’s War on Drugs.

PUGWMAN is a MSNOMER

2009-02-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

We were on the 10 the other day when we pulled up behind a Corolla with a vanity license plate that read "PUGWMAN." We were stoked. We expected to see something incredible. Then we pulled up, and the driver was just some tubby old broad in a pink sweater with an embroidered pug on it and a faded plastic pug figurine hanging from her rearview. We flipped her off, both birds.

Takeaway: If you claim to be something on your license plate, you damn well better be that thing. Otherwise you're just a constant freaking disappointment on wheels. Knowdat.

The Importance of Proper Dog/Bun Ratio

2009-02-05T23:19:00.000-08:00

We were in the rafters at MSG last night to watch BronBron dump 52, 11 and 10 on the Knicks. Among the highlights:

The Celebs: The second quarter is apparently when the arena Jumbotron guy decides to get close-ups of all the famous pretty faces and pretty famous faces in attendance. I think my grand total from last year (in only like three games, but still...) was James Blunt, who warranted a couple "oh, that guy"s from a 60 percent-full house. Last night's game was sold out, and the celeb faction repped hard: First up on the big screen was Chris Rock, ten seats down from Spike Lee near the scorers' table. Today's tabloids ran a photo of Lebron taking a break to give Spike dap. I'd accept said dap too if I thought it might convince the dapper to sign a megalo-contract with my team come 2011. Two minutes later they flashed to the token black Spice Girl, who's a.) still alive; b.) promoting an exercise video or some shit; and c.) much less scary in real life. She scored courtsides as well. THEN they scanned up to Willis Reed, the one guy in the building who'd have a legitimate claim to a lifetime of comp courtside tix...and he's in like the third tier. It was kinda sad. Apparently Whoopi and Jay-Z and Puff fucking Daddy were all in the mix as well (check out the ridicu-fotos of Diddy flashing cash to buy kettle corn and poor Bobby Bacala sitting next to Whoopi and Ciara but nobody gives a shit; come to think of it, Bobby actually got Jumbotron Love at a game I was at last season versus the Bucks or some embarrassment. They probably just comp him seats so the Jumbotron dude has a reason to get paid on slow nights). Apologies for this fanboy rant -- it was just cool to sit and look down from the 12th deck while sipping on a fine spiked beverage and be like, "Hey, Chris Rock's scratching his nose, maybe. Spike Lee's baggy sweatsuit looks really comfortable."

The Delicacies: The biggest hot dog on the menu is, indeed, impressive. Concessions people's approach to the bun, however, is one-size-fits-all. Which it most definitely does not. The result is like squeezing a whale into a pair of Tic-Tacs connected by another Tic-Tac. That analogy worked better in its original form. They also sell delicious Cokes that are complemented exquisitely by most brands of mid-range Kentucky whiskey, the latter preferably served in a reused plastic Tropicana orange juice bottle.

The Last Rebound: Win in the bag, Lebron had his teammates clear out on the last Knicks shot of the game, then almost broke an ankle falling out of bounds after lunging to grab a meaningless 10th board. People cheered like we all got free tacos or something, which we didn't. He became the first player to score 50 in a triple-double since the 70s with that rebound, which was essentially the basketball version of Michael Strahan's record-setting "sack" of Brett Favre in 2002. And speaking of Fav-rah, check out his douchy cousin, Trent. He's into sexy shit like "Premises Liability Defense," proving that the family is good at offense and defense! Ugh. Somebody smack me with a frozen Eggo.

Ghost of Chrismas past

2009-02-02T23:52:00.000-08:00

Who do I spy from the window of my car as I speed up La Brea, on such a lovely Los Angeles afternoon? Why, it’s the nightmarish previous employer whose mere presence makes my stomach drop, the dreaded mega-gallerist Douglas Chrismas. He who incites pure anxiety in my (and likely many others’) very being. I catch a glimpse of him greedily surveying the large building that is currently destined to become his legacy museum, but may well be sold and end up reverting to a car dealership. Alas, my Sunday has been ruined.

That is, until I cross the threshold into the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at MOCA. Ms. Bourgeois calms my nerves and sets me at ease with her organic sculptural forms and voyeuristic “cells.” Truly, "art is a guaranty of sanity." Vive la France! Et vive le dimanche!

O-bama! O, Bushwick.

2009-01-29T22:17:00.000-08:00

Terror Alert Taupe: Last week’s deluge of Obama-tamism has melted and reconstituted as sludgy gray Reality on the streets of New York. The foreign scent of legit change (and judging from Obama’s first acts in office, his rhetoric packs heat) and The First Black(ish) President are both brilliantly righteous returns for eight years of Canadian flag patch purchases and “God Bless America” interruptions of otherwise-innocuous sporting events. But when New Yorkers leave their apartments every morning, there’s still frozen trash on the ground, the train still leaves 10 seconds too soon, the layoff plague is still claiming friends, and it’s still cold as shit. In other words, it’s back to being January in a massive, under-serviced metropolis. In what I can only hope was light hyperbole, Reuters even ran a piece suggesting that the city might be headed toward another 1970s. Judging from separate interactions I had with two neighbors on my block over the last few days -- captured henceforth in always-classy haiku form -- Bushwick/Los Sures de Williamsburg is already well on its way:

A man’s soul destroyed
as father learns he was touched
by ball coach while small.

Sitting helpless on
Steps. Cane fallen to the ground
She stuck long? Unknown.

A bit of a downer post, you say? Here -- grab a popsicle, watch this, feel better.

H.S. Thompson, Businessman

2009-01-27T22:12:00.001-08:00

From time to time, among the peyote-driven snake-femme battles and botched Rolling Stone assignments, Hunter Thompson managed to Take Care of Bidniss when he decided his associates' missteps had reached catastrophic levels. A source sends us proof positive of one such episode, in which Thompson takes the meat grinder to attorney George Tobia for apparently bungling negotiations with New York publishing house Simon & Schuster over the 1998 publication of The Rum Diary:

In another declassified communique written two days earlier, the Master of the Cannonball Sendoff informed Tobia of his fate while simultaneously filling him in on leisure plans for the day and demanding an estimate of his "exact profit expectations" from the soon-to-be-released Fear and Loathing film adaptation. The last graph alone speaks volumes about a man who knew he had the juice to disregard formality and spent the bulk of his career doing just that:

For his part, Tobia seemingly made good with Thompson after the dustup: At present, the Boston lawyer continues to represent HST's estate -- 19 years after the two met while Tobia was handling the estate of another writer who rejected conformity in savage fashion: Jack Kerouac.

Good Girl in a Stuy Gone Bad

2009-01-24T20:22:00.000-08:00

The homegirl JS took one for gentrification the other week, sacrificing a non-shining eye and a purse full of goodies in exchange for 18 months of cheap rent in Bedstuy. Moving time. Pics coming, but five days later and her face is still a horrid mess. Fucking teenagers.

With that said, methinks this blog needeth an explanation: IDM's been preparing to come at ya for more than two years now, an idea that developed into a concept and has remained such since summer '06. We're into the latter stages of dropping our first print issue, with a website also forthcoming. Once we're fully operational, you'll be looking at an online zine with periodic print releases distributed in our three hubs: NYC, SFC and LA/OC. We're onto music, politics, art, multiculturalism and sports, with a focus on the places we live (see previous sentence) and visit, and creating under one overriding rule: We don't print pieces on anything that we don't find entirely enthralling or hilarious (and sometimes both).

So there it is. Time to get get on with the damn thing already. Enjoy.

Here We Are.

2009-01-21T22:14:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday, an African-American finally got the chance to play president.

This coming Tuesday, suburban white kids will finally get the chance to play an African-American samurai with the bombast of Samuel L. Jackson.

Both unthinkable even 15 years ago. Both reality now.

If ever there were a day for Dubya to fall face-first off that wagon, this is it.

Welcome to It Doesn't Matter.