Hello, I'm Zombie Cash

It says "Johnny Cash spoofs Elvis, throws out back" if you can't see it.

It probably wouldn't have killed CNN to mention that that link was for archived footage.

Because otherwise, Mr. Johnny Cash spent his one and presumably only chance to walk once more amongst the living doing something, um, unexpected?

If I were a Zombie Johnny Cash, I'd re-record every song as a zombie tribute to myself. "Five Feet High and Braaains," "Get Rhythm while you get the braaaaaains," "It Ain't Me, Braaaaains"... ... I could go on, but that's enough.

One more than three, one less than five

If this doesn't give you even the slightest hint of a shit-eating grin, you're a heartless monster.

There, I said it.



Additional note: clearly, Feist is a highly advanced white woman.

Will heaven have room for all his stuff?

George Carlin, RIP. Goddamn that's a shame.

If you've been trying to surf blogs at the office and been thwarted by a ton of NSFW George Carlin videos, well, I don't care, I'm making it worse:



"Stuff" isn't necessarily the funniest Carlin skit, but I have a distinct memory of my little brother discovering George Carlin and, in his continuing efforts to spread joy for others, happily reading a transcript of this skit to the entire family.

Gotta love the universal appeal of a vulgar, cranky old man.

Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?

Classic. He'll be missed.

Weekend reading wrap-up

This is what happens when it rains all weekend.

The following things I read over the weekend gave me a serious case of the grins:

Diamonds on Demand: I've read several articles about this over the years, and I'm convinced lab-grown diamonds are just about the coolest thing ever.

Using very secretive methods (there are a few competing methods from a handful of manufacturers), these guys can make diamonds out of (half-) literally thin air. The basic processes have been around for 50-odd years, but now they can make flawless gems (not just industrial-grade!) of almost any cut, clarity, color, and carat in a matter of weeks instead of, ya know, billions of years.

And they can be BETTER than diamonds from the ground. They can make-to-order diamonds of any color, shape, thickness, electrical properties, composition... The Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Lab has already grown probably the world's hardest known substance in a type of lab-grown diamond that's harder than any known geothermal diamond. It broke the scale. The scale was made of diamonds.

That is just awesome.

How awesome?

With a cheap, ready supply of diamonds, engineers hope to make everything from higher-powered lasers to more durable power grids. They foresee razor-thin computers, wristwatch-size cellphones and digital recording devices that would let you hold thousands of movies in the palm of your hand. "People associate the word diamond with something singular, a stone or a gem," says Jim Davidson, an electrical engineering professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. "But the real utility is going to be the fact that you can deposit diamond as a layer, making possible mass production and having implications for every technology in electronics."

How about an iPod that can hold all the collective knowledge of the world? That awesome.

Unless you're De Beers. This is very bad news for De Beers, who have profited handsomly from (a) convincing the world that diamonds are rarer than they truly are; (b) lowering the supply of diamonds artificially by convincing everyone to keep their diamonds off the market -- they're "forever," haven't you heard?; (c) that whole blood diamond thing. They're fighting this lab diamond thing tooth and nail.

Money quote:

The problem for the producers is that even though diamonds are not all that rare, people believe they are, so their price is substantially inflated.

Once people realize that manufactured diamonds are indistinguishable from the real thing, he said, that could change.

So they dismissively call these lab-grown diamonds 'synthetic diamonds' in an effort to lower their status to that of, say, cubic zirconia or ice cubes. But there's nothing synthetic about these diamonds: they're compressed carbon with all the sparkle sparkle and hardness and all that. They're diamonds, no 'synthetic' about it.

My brother's girlfriend, bless her heart, has always said she'd be happy with a cubic zirconia. Why? They sparkle more than diamonds, they're clearer than all but the best diamonds, and you can get a Brobdingnagian rock for pennies on the diamond (sorry!). What's not to like?

We call her a "keeper."

Next up, I continue to love long-exposure light effects.


Sleeping Beauty - City lights / Music video from Benjamin Taft on Vimeo.

Next: How's The Weather? Here's a little waste of time: it pulls your location from your IP address (assuming you're not behind a firewall), automatically gives you the weather, and pulls a full-screen picture from Flickr based on some keywords in the forecast. There are worse ways to waste time online.

Next: THIS is Natalie Portman's boyfriend? She just shot up to the very top of my 'laminated 5' list for it-could-happen reasons alone.

Next: these guys performed in front of surveillance cameras, then used the British equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act to request the footage and make a video. That's just inspired:


Next: The Love Guru takes in a pathetic $14M. Waaah.

“The Love Guru” placed fourth at the weekend box office in a serious embarrassment for Mr. Myers, who had spent years perfecting his new screen character, a love counselor named Pitka, only to be rejected by the critics and audience alike.

He spend YEARS perfecting the character? I doubt that. "Horny guru mugs for camera" takes years? I just did it in 5 words.

Next: Ex-Girlfriend Don't Want To Talk To You No More, New European Boyfriend Reports: The Onion is brilliant, as always. Their writing proves, as always, that humor is in the details:

Although no answers have been provided to your flabbergasted stutterings following the announcement, 17 hours of careful overanalysis did uncover several new, emasculating details from within the one-and-a-half-minute conversation. It is now believed that the olive-skinned baron and multiple- vineyard owner who relayed the message is currently living with and possibly married to the woman you once tried to impress by wearing a belt.

You have also been able to deduce, without the aid of visual confirmation, that Norsten's new European boyfriend was dressed in flowing white linen pants and rustic kidskin loafers, and is, at this very moment, slowly consuming a perfectly ripened orange.

Lil' Wayne is number 1! Hell and yes. The new album is great, but my favorite Lil Wayne song is this one from Tha Carter II, as performed on Leno


Watch More Videos       Uploaded by www.bebo.com/GeorgeSamia

Next: The Call of Booty: How about some sonnets and haikus in text message format? You're welcome.

Next: The olympics are going to be difficult to watch now. I picked up Mario Kart for a little bit this weekend and was quickly reminded why I quit playing single player in the first place: that damn Blue Shell. What's the point of winning if the AI is going to smack me with a blue shell every 30 seconds? Screw that.

Also, Four Brothers was on USA, so I got my weekly regiment of Mark Wahlberg revenge movies, this time with a side of Dre from Outkast. Sweet. Like every Mark Wahlberg movie, well, it's better than it deserves to be.

Phoning-it-in Friday

Although I have about a half dozen blog posts half written, I just can't find the energy to finish them right now.

As a mea culpa, enjoy the sublime, mesmerizing absurdity of Flight of the Conchords' "Ladies of the World":

How to use GPS to lead your compatriots to certain death

As if Garmin wasn't screwed enough with today's announcement of a GPS-enabled, half-price iPhone.

Maybe I'm reading this commercial wrong, but are they implying that Napoleon led his army to catastropic near-annihilation in Russia with the steady guidance of a Garmin system?

"Is it really negative 40 degrees? Are they destroying all sources of food?! Sacrebleu! Let's go home!"

"Go straight to Moscow"

"OK. Onward!"

If they wanted to make a "ha ha short driver doesn't need to see with GPS!" joke, why not ALF? He's short and funny! And fuzzy!

Hard drive manufacturers: bite me

Dear hard drive manufacturers of the world:

When will you stop lying to everyone?

Case in point: I just bought a 320 GB hard drive to replace the 120 GB one in my computer.

This is what I get when I plug it in:



Hmm, that new hard drive certainly isn't 320GB. In what bizarro universe does 297=320?

What about that 500 GB external hard drive I got last month? Nope, 465.

465=500? I love this math! I'm cutting my car payment and rent checks by 8-odd percent, post-haste!

Yes, I realize the technical cause of this: I know that a "bit" does not equal a "byte." Thus, the formatted drive is not as large as advertised. So what?! That's my point!

"But it IS 500 GB when it's not formatted for use..." I KNOW! That's not an excuse, that's mealy-mouthed technical gobbledy-gook. What good is an unformatted drive? It's useless, that's how good.

When your box says 500 GB in 144 pt 72 pt bold slab-serif, I think I could be forgiven for expecting it to hold 500 Giga-something-usefuls!


That damn pesky evidence

How long until we, as customers, finally call hard drive manufacturers on their lies? When everyone plugs in their first shiny 1000 GB drive to discover it only holds 920? That's a entire placeholder digit you've been robbed of!

It's a set percentage that you're losing every time, so it's only going to keep looking worse as drives get larger, gang.

(Side note: why, after 30 years, do we still not have one single hard drive format that works flawlessly on both a Mac and a Windows PC? Did someone not think that'd be useful?)

Is there any other product that can get away with this? Boxes of cereal and bags of chips come to mind, with their "Contents may have settled" (read: the bag is half empty) warnings.

Am I off my rocker? Is this not a big deal? Any other products that instantly become 8% less useful as soon as you want to use them? Let me know in the comments.

Another aside: I feel a little remorseful about using a picture of a Seagate drive box, because, discounting the capacity lie, their packaging is refreshing and, frankly, delightful. Scan their boxes when you're at the store next time. And check out their instruction manual:

Get ready for lazy economic theory

Amazon.com was down today for anywhere from one to three hours, depending on who you ask.

I love Amazon, and I'm making an early prediction here: some journalist or blogger is going to look at their financials and blusteringly announce that the outage cost Amazon.com so many thousands of dollars per minute.

Their math? Take quarterly revenues. Divide by time. Done.

The problem?

I'm John Q. Internet Shopper. I want to buy a book on Amazon.

Oh, rats, Amazon is down. That's rare.

Do I decide I no longer want a book and never shop at Amazon again?

Or do I wait a few hours and try again later?

Then spend the money I was planning on spending anyway.

Net loss to Amazon? $0.

They might have lost a few impatient types that hopped over to Barnes and Noble or something, but I bet Amazon is going to come out of this ok.

You see this same logical fallacy in those chain letters about not buying gas on whatever day. That'll show the dastardly oil companies! ... until the next day when everybody buys the gas they would have bought anyway. Whoops.

Update 7:50 6/6/08: The Consumerist bit. They're saying about $17,000 per minute "lost." In fairness, the 120th or so commenter calls shennanigans on their math.

Update 7:52 6/6/08: I'm going to call this sort of thing 'retardnomics,' in honor of the chain letter analogy. I slay me.

The bravest movie review I've ever seen

I enjoy watching movies quite a bit, so, of course, I spend a good deal of time reading movie reviews. Through the powers of the series of tubes I can read hundreds of movie critics from all over the country, but over the years I've narrowed down my "must read" reviews to four sources. All of them present reviews that are mostly free of promotional material filler and almost all of them eschew numbers or star rankings. Read the damn prose review! Numbers are not opinions!

First up is Pajiba: Their tagline is "Snarky reviews for bitchy people." Accordingly, it's perfect for bitchy ol' me. I've been following them for years now, and their ever-growing roster of writers deliver some of the sharpest, funniest, and downright subversive critical reviews of movies, television, and (lately) books out there. All of their writers are extremely capable, but definitely read anything by webmaster Dustin Rowles and lead film critic Daniel Carlson. Rowles' contributes to the arts of hyperbole and snarkiness, whether skewering 27 Dresses or singing the praises of underrated films like Final Destination or Mission Impossible 3. Carlson is generally more thoughtful and does a good job of describing how it can feel to get swept up in a film, even if it ends up somewhat disappointing. See his reviews of Serenity, Spiderman 3, and No Country For Old Men to see what I'm talking about. I agree with Pajiba almost without fail. Call it ninety-eight percent.

Next up is Roger Ebert. Do I have to defend this? Although he's not as tack-sharp as he used to be, he's still quite prickly and comes armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of film culture and history. For the educational opportunities alone, each of his reviews (and his weekly Answer Man columns) are essential reads. I find myself agreeing with Ebert about eighty percent of the time.

For a quick hit, there's always the AV Club. The reviews are short and clever. I also agree with them maybe eighty percent.

Then, there's Stephanie Zacharek over at Salon. I find that I agree with her less often than the others here. Maybe 3 times out of 5, or 3 out of 4. That's splitting hairs. What makes her an essential read every week is how she approaches reviews from angles I never would have expected. In her review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban she's bold enough to claim it's among the greatest fantasy films of all time; I'm with her there, especially the way she describes the poetry of the film. While other reviewers talked about how faithful it was to the book or whether kids would like it, Zacharek is on a totally different level of appreciation. She always approaches films with refreshingly open eyes.

And the review she posted today might just make her the most essential film critic out there. What review, you ask?

You Don't Mess With the Zohan

You read that right.

Go. Read. I'll still be here.

[taps foot]

I KNOW, RIGHT? How delightfully insane!

Allow me to summarize every other Zohan review you're going to read this weekend:

Idiots and frat boys like Adam Sandler. Adam Sandler seems nice enough, but, god, what a stupid premise for a movie. Rob Schneider is in it. Insert deserved snarky comment about how Rob Schneider owes his career to Adam Sandler. Talk about toilet humor. Talk about how thoroughly stupid this movie is. Maybe I cracked a grin, once, but no belly laughs. 1.5 stars.

There. I saved you the time of reading most reviews. I have another post in me about how most reviews seem to come off an interchangable Model-T assembly line, but that can wait. Back to Zacharek and Zohan.

Zacharek has the stones to... well, just look. Sit down. This goes places:

"You Don't Mess With the Zohan" -- in which Adam Sandler plays an Israeli counterterrorist commando whose big dream is to become a hairdresser -- is the movie "Munich" should have been. At the very least, it's got to be the first picture to use smelly-feet jokes as a means of parsing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

...

... there's nothing more offensive in "Zohan" than the sequence in "Munich" in which Eric Bana -- as a Mossad agent who's trying to escape the violence of his past -- makes love to his wife, as flashbacks of the murders of the Israeli Olympic team in 1972 in Munich run through his head. "Munich" was a fictionalized story set against a real-life backdrop of tragedy: Bana plays an agent assigned to avenge the kidnapping and murder of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. In "Munich" -- its first half, at least -- Steven Spielberg attempts to wrestle with some morally ambiguous issues, particularly the question of whether violence is ever morally justified, or necessary. But Spielberg tiptoes up to the complexity of those issues only to pull back from the edge. And his conclusion -- "Violence begets violence" -- isn't particularly enlightening or deep.

"Don't Mess With the Zohan" is the braver movie, for the way Sandler uses throwaway humor in the service of a strong point of view. "Zohan" never even addresses the viability of violence as a solution. It posits, from the start, that the only way to solve this seemingly unsolvable conflict is by forging human connections. You can tsk-tsk Sandler's penchant for dumb, crass humor all you want, but there's some meaning behind his madness. Is there nothing more human, more humbling, than the idea of smelly feet?

Hole. E. Shit.

That, my friends, is what happens when you go into a movie with no preconceptions. That's bold, clever, and I can almost guarantee you you're not going to see any other review of Zohan quite like that.

So am I going to see Zohan? Not likely. I mean, Sandler comedies lost me after the dreck of Little Nicky. But I won't dismiss it immediately, which is what my gut reaction would have been.

So, mission accomplished, Miss Zacharek. I now think you're the single boldest mainstream film critic in America, and easily one of the most essential.

Am I crazy? Am I missing some essential critical voice? Who do you read? Let me know in the comments!

Update 6/6: A.O. Scott of the New York Times went there too in his surprisingly positive review. I may have jumped the gun on this one.

I might have a music addiction

Winwood!

So, you don't have to pay for music anymore.

OK, that's not news. Stay with me.

For a long time I had been relying on this Google search algorithm to find free music online. Replace "Judas Priest" (...shut up) in the quotes at the end with whatever band you're looking for and let Google do the heavy lifting for you.

Lately, though, that's gone to crap. Nothing but links to long-dead FTP sites and spam.

Then, today, I found Elbo.ws. It aggregates MP3 blogs, a class of blog that I understood to exist but, clearly, vastly underestimated. MP3 bloggers are, on the aggregate, crazy willing to save me some money.



Seriously. Give their blog search a try. Search for your favorite band or song on there. You can refine by album, artist, or song on the results screen to clear out some of the unrelated crap.

I'll wait. ...

...

I KNOW, RIGHT?! How hadn't I heard about this site before?

I seriously just "saved", what?, $50 bucks or so by scanning my long-neglected iTunes shopping cart, searching on Elbo.ws for those same tracks, and relying on the kindness of strangers to get the MP3s that I otherwise would have paid a buck for.

Pretty much any major single from the past 60 years? It's out there for the taking. Especially if your tastes run indie.

This isn't going to save you if you're an album lover. But if you need to hear Steve Winwood's "Valerie" right this second? You're set.

The question no one asked: what did I download tonight? Be happy to tell you! It starts with a sampling from some upcoming and recent releases and then gets, um, less reputable... then swings back to this blog post with half of the Big Lebowski soundtrack. Shouldn't be hard to track down the MP3s yourself, but have some music videos while you're here. The Cloud Cult and Wisely ones (with Pam from The Office) are especially cool.

• Cloud Cult - "Everybody Here is a Cloud"



• My Morning Jacket - "Evil Urges"


• Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal"



• Fleet Foxes - "Ragged Wood"


• Fleet Foxes - "Mykonos"


• House of Pain - "Jump Around"



• Mungo Jerry - "In The Summertime"


• Hanson - "Mmm bop"


• Loverboy - "Working for the Weekend"


• Nena - "99 Luftballons"


• Marc Cohn - "Walking in Memphis"



• Wisely - "Through Any Window"



• The Stranglers - "Golden Brown"


• Deee-lite - "Groove Is In The Heart"



• Donna Lews - "I Love You Always Forever"


• Sonic Your - "Superstar" (Yes, the one from Juno)


• Carpenters - "(They Long To Be) Close To You"


• Peter Bjorn & John - "Young Folks"



• Steve Winwood - "Valerie"



• Mark Ronson f/ Amy Winehouse - "Valerie"


• ? and the Mysterians - "96 Tears"


• The Crests - "16 Candles"


• The Commodores - "Three Times A Lady"


• Paul Simon - "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover"


• David Bowie - "TVC 15"


• Dusty Springfield - "I Only Want To Be With You"


• Harry Nilsson - "Everybody's Talkin"


• Elvis Costello - "My Mood Swings"


• The Gipsy Kings - "Hotel California"


• Kenny Rogers & The First Edition - "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)"


• Bob Dylan - "The Man in Me"

The lesson, as always: I'm hopeless. The Fleet Foxes and My Morning Jacket albums coming out in June sound like they're going to be really awesome.

And can I say a hearty "SCREW YOU!" to people that disable embedding of their videos on YouTube? What the hell is the point if I can't embed the damn music video?? How am I supposed to share Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up"?? Yes, that's the first time anyone's warned you about being Rickroll'd. You're welcome.

Do you really hate the Eagles?

So I was scanning The AV Club's latest Inventory column about 'great bands with more than one prominent lead singer.' Since the Eagles made the list, I wasn't surprised to see the following about 3 comments in:



The section I've highlighted says:

Also, the Dude taught me along time ago to question the greatness of the Eagles

I'm going to refrain from mocking him for his "along" typo, since that would reveal just how thoroughly white I am...

But what I really want to talk about are fake bullshit opinions like this. What Mr. "Hans Sprungfeld" is referencing, of course, is cult favorite The Big Lebowski, wherein a character named "The Dude" expresses disdain for The Eagles. See below, and all video clips in this post contain NSFW language!



Since Lebowski is a pretty big deal for our generation, I know a fair number of people that automatically respond, Pavlov-style, to any mention of The Eagles by quoting that scene. They can't help it. And it's not just quoting the film; they really actively hate the fuckin' Eagles.

Now, there are many legit reasons for disliking The Eagles. Perhaps you feel worn out on them due to their ubiquity on oldies radio. Maybe they're too pop for your tastes. Maybe you're of the mind that "Hotel California" should be, like, 4 minutes shorter than it is--call it "American Pie syndrome". Maybe you get tired of falsetto singing really fast. You've got options for Eagles-hate, and I'm not here to convince you otherwise.

But if you hate The Eagles just because The Dude hates The Eagles? I hate you. You are worthless. Do you really hate The Eagles? Really? Who in our age demographic cares that strongly about The Eagles anyway? Are your opinions so malleable that an unlikeable character in a cult movie can shape them?

You know people like this. They're the same people that refused to drink merlot for two years after seeing this scene in Sideways:



They also hate Sonic Youth after seeing that scene in Juno when Ellen Page says, "I listened to some more Sonic Youth, and it sucked! It's just noise!" Now, I happen to agree with that one, but I had a few Sonic Youth albums around and already had decided that they're a decidedly unlistenable band. I also hate playing Kool Thing in Guitar Hero 3.

Yeah, you know these people. Lemmings. Sheep. Uh... spies that are chasing after a Macguffin briefcase of opinions, the contents of which are unimportant but after which they are compelled to give chase. ... Right. Should have stuck with 'sheep.'

Telling you what to think is NOT the point of characters expressing opinions in movies like this: the character is expressing their (and arguably the screenwriters') opinion as insight into their personas. The Dude occupies a universe of his own choosing and has no time for contemporary popular culture. Sideways's Miles is an insufferable, unyielding snob who is incapable of fitting in with less exacting peers. Juno rightly prefers melody, harmony, and resolutions instead of aimless drifting and abstract noise experiments. I'm not reaching too hard here.

These expressions are not meant to change your opinions. If you happen to agree, you nod approvingly and bond with the character. If you don't have a solid opinion either way, maybe you should look into it before you express a movie character's opinion as your own, mmm 'k? Or, worse, letting a screenwriter change your mind about what you like to listen to.

In the interest of full disclosure, I think The Eagles are just ok. Their songs are cover-friendly though, like this heartbreaking cover of "Desperado" sung by an 11-year-old girl as part of the Langley Schools Music Project.



Or this cover of "Hotel California" by The Gipsy Kings:



That song is featured prominently on the soundtrack to... well... take a guess.

Shooter IM addendum

me: by the way, if you need a good-bad movie to netflix, check out "Shooter"
mark wahlberg. sniper rifles. you can't lose

frank: i've kind of wanted to see that.

me: i rented it last week. totally worth it
the movie's a little too long but it's loaded with awesome
and, unbelievably, the gunplay is relatively realistic for an action movie

frank: the sniper holds a strange romantic allure in American pop culture.

me: i think it's a lone gunman thing
even though snipers work in teams

frank: ... a certified angel of death... the job of precise killing for god and country... on the fine line of war combat and asasination.

me: also it's like shooting a giant bolt-action penis

Shooter is at least worth a Netflix

Submitted for your approval: Shooter is the greatest movie of all time.

Need some evidence? Oh, I've got a sniper rifle with armor-piercing evidence aimed right at your heart.

1. It's an action movie Same genre as Terminator 2, The Transporter, Hot Fuzz, Face/Off, The Rock, and True Lies. So it's in good company.

2. It stars Mark Wahlberg He's a sniper who was left for dead and has gone into hiding in Kentucky, "the patron state of shootin' stuff," as he puts it. So he's an excellent marksman AND is capable of describing this country with insight unseen since de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

3. He's got a dog Dogs are always sweet. And check out his "in hiding" facial hair! He also trains his dog to fetch beer.



4. It's easy to empathize with our hero Why is our hero killing people after going into hiding? Easy: the big bad government killed his dog when he refuses to cooperate with a secret mission he disagrees with. They kill his dog. They have to die. He explains this very eloquently to an FBI Agent.

Special Agent Memphis: I don't think you understand how deep this conspiracy goes.
Bobby Lee Swagger: No, you don't understand. [beat] These people shot my dog!

5. Bobby. Lee. Swagger. Did I mention that our hero's name is Bobby Lee Swagger? Hell and Yes. Best hero name ever.

6. Sniper rifles. Everywhere. Who doesn't love sniper rifles?



7. A sidekick who kicks ass The token sidekick who gets dragged into a deeper conspiracy, seen below, is a trained killer, so you get double the sniper rifles. You can't lose with two snipers. I can't lie: a lot of people are gonna die.



8. A love interest who kicks ass The token love interest, played by Kata Mara, is far from a damsel in distress. She takes out a bunch of thugs. With a shotgun. In her bra. You want to see that. Thankfully, I'm looking out for you, dear reader, and I've shared a picture of her killing skills below. You're welcome.



That's some good killing.

What's wrong with the movie? Other than you might blow up from an overload of pure awesome, nothing. Better than Citizen Kane.

Godspeed, Mr. Swagger.

Music died for your sins

Great article on Slate today reviewing a book about the parallel Christian pop culture that has exploded in the past 15-20 years.

The whole article is fascinating, but the part about the stresses that Christian rock bands face was most interesting:

The Christian rockers Radosh interviews are always torn between the pressure not to lead their young audience astray and the drive to make good music...

They want to make good, authentic music. But they are also enlisted in a specific mission which confines their art.

Here's where I have to disagree. When I'm wearing my graphic and information design hats, I always have to be aware of constraints. Whether it's audience or media or choice of colors or word counts or legal requirements or whatever, constraints define my work. And here's the thing: limitations make it better.

How? Constraints force you to focus your work. If a few aspects of your project have already been decided ahead of time, you have to work around them. You have more time to be creative with other aspects of the project. You find clever ways to turn those limitations into advantages. You aren't paralyzed by limitless choice. You have to think. You have to work harder! And your work will overall be better for it.

As this article from Wired points out, Hemingway thought his greatest story was only six words long: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

This music blogger did a similar trick by reviewing almost 800 MP3s but limiting his thoughts to six words for each. Most of them are pretty clever.

This cartoonist forced himself to write 200 comics in under 12 hours, and I don't think he would improve on the tight, clever, stream of consciousness humor if he took 12 months.

Back to design, these guys made a fairly beautiful webpage/flyer for a conference with only Times New Roman, the much-maligned default font. Hell, some of the greatest typographers who ever lived only had one typeface available to them. They worked with what they had.

This applies, of course, to music as well.

Only a few truly, absurdly gifted musicians can get away with doing whatever they want. Radiohead comes to mind. Beck can almost pull it off.

Remember OutKast's split double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below? Andre, set loose to fulfill his every wacky fantasy on his half, created "Hey Ya!," which was undeniably perfect but was sadly surrounded with 9 relatively crappy, aimless songs.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes have made an entire career out of their self-imposed restraint: they only do punk covers of popular songs from other genres. And they're awesome at it.





I always wondered how good the Smashing Pumpkins could be if Billy Corgan would have just lived with, say, 2 guitar tracks per song instead of arguably wasting his time laying 64 guitar overdubs in pursuit of perfection. Such excesses worked for a while:



I always thought they did their best when they briefly lost their drummer and Corgan had to write better songs to make up for it:



Ryan Adams is another great example: he's clearly absurdly talented, but his genre hopping dilutes what he's capable of. He's pretty good at rock and roll:



He's even better when he sticks to alt country (whatever that means) and focuses on the songcraft a little more (not that he has to that much; like I said, he's ridiculously good):



The Magnetic Fields' stock in trade has always been arbitrary limitations, like their triple album 69 Love Songs, which hops genres constantly but the songs are all love songs (albeit with a variety of definitions of 'love song'). Here's one example:



Or their latest album "Distortion" where all instruments and vocals were arbitrarily drenched in, you guessed it, distortion. All the better to focus on the delightful lyrics:



They also had an album ("i") where every song started with "i". Why? Why not? Now you don't have to decide what letter your songs will start with. Get cracking on making every other aspect of the album better.

So what's the point? If Christian pop music groups can't work within their arbitrary constraint (ie, every song is about loving Jesus instead of a lady), they're doing something wrong. This limitation should force you to be more creative in every other aspect of your songcraft. It should make you better.

The expectations of your Christian audience aren't holding you back.

You just suck.

Who watches the Watchmen?

One of my long-term goals has always been to write this blog openly, without the beautiful anonymity of the Internet. I understand immediately that the 7 or 8 people that read this blog know who I am anyway, but humor me--isn't humoring the author what all blogs are about, anyway?--for a moment.

I think we can all agree that anonymity is both the best and worst thing about the Internet. Certainly, the ability to post on message boards and make comments without knowing who's talking has allowed innumerable people to voice their opinions who might not otherwise.

However, this has opened the floodgates to an unfathomable amount of idiocy, best encapsulated by this Penny Arcade comic about the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory": Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad.

Perceived intelligence of the site doesn't matter; popularity breeds stupidity, regardless of content. The more popular and highly trafficked the site, the grander the scope of idiocy you'll see. Check the comments after any article on the normally intelligent New York Times and you'll see that the masses in the comments are just as ignorant (and willing to wax poetic about the ignorance of others) as, say, YouTube. Last month, a brave writer on Slate scanned the 60,000+ comments on a YouTube video of a laughing baby and correctly noted that "In our time, Internet commenting has become its own special form of social idiocy" and that letting the YouTubers at a cute video of a child was akin to "dipping a bunny into acid."

On top of bringing countless types of abrasive idiocy to light, even well-meaning messages without a name attached are, in my opinion, virtually worthless.

I speak from bitter experience here. My junior year in high school, myself and a few close friends had gotten fed up with the direction that (start laughing...) our marching band (...now) was headed. I don't remember the nerdy, socially awkward details at all, but what's important at the moment is that we were hopping mad and wanted our leadership to make some changes.

So, god damnit, we wrote a long, well-reasoned letter to our band directors that laid out our grievances and offered some reasonable resolutions.

We were, however, big pussies and didn't want to get in trouble if our letter was poorly received. So we didn't put our names on it and dropped it in the suggestion box when no one was looking.

The next day between class and our daily loser meeting band practice, we heard the distinct sound of laughter coming from the directors' office. The ruckus was, predictably, over our letter. They were laughing outright at our reasonable suggestions! How dare they?! Amidst the chuckles, I heard our percussion teacher say, "they make some good points, but because there's no name on this thing, I just can't take it seriously."

That stuck with me: your words are infinitely more valuable in the long run if you're willing to stand by them.

In addition, anonymity can be infuriating to whoever reads your message. Take this note that I found on top of my office computer this morning:



If you can't read it, it says:

Laptops must be stored in a locked cabinet outside office hours.
Don't let audit catch you like this.

While it's surely well-meaning and trying to keep me out of trouble with all-powerful security folks, without a name or anything else attached, it just seems kind of dickish, no? That's certainly how I read it at first. Hell, entire Web sites exist to display the passive-aggressive dickery that comes naturally with anonymous notes. Even if I wanted to thank whoever wrote it (which I did after I calmed down a bit), I don't know who to talk to.

So it's been with some trepidation that I have been blogging for years without putting my name beside it.

I was planning on changing that after getting my master's last December. As I've started moving into the information architecture and web design fields, I've wanted to write about a number of relevant topics; however, I didn't want to put it out there anonymously. What if it's good stuff? There's a pretty robust community of professionals that blog out there, my name is as Google-able as could be, and good content could be just one more networking opportunity. What if a kick-ass blog post with some solid ideas gets me a job some day?

I figured that a blog could complement my portfolio (which definitely has my name all over it) nicely. I even coded the whole damn thing in Wordpress and was ready to go live.

Plus, it would be nice to be able to publicly host my own content and, accordingly, have total control over it.

Then this happened: a CNN producer, Chez Pazienza, got fired for blogging, even though he did so anonymously and never mentioned his employer.

Also, this happened: Mike Tunison, aka "Christmas Ape" of Kissing Suzy Kolber and Deadspin got fired from the Washington Post shortly after coming out of the blogging closet. Why did he cast off the beautiful cloak of anonymity? For full disclosure! And, ironically, the Post, a journalistic enterprise, had a problem with that.

Now, granted, Tunison wrote howlingly funny and wildly inappropriate posts about Philip Rivers and Hines Ward, but he never claimed to be writing for anyone else other than himself and his readers. He certainly wasn't representing the Post or his day job as a local beat reporter.

For his part, Chez also wrote howlingly funny and wildly inappropriate (and harshly opinionated) posts about any number of topics, including the current state of the news media. If you were to scan his posts, he would probably come off as a total ass.

But what an eloquent ass! Check out some of his greatest hits:

• Chez writes about his experience as a young reporter in the middle of a hurriance


• Chez writes about the value of human life after getting surgery for a brain tumor


• Chez suggests a moderate proposal: Kill Ann Coulter


• Chez goes to a My Chemical Romance concert and discusses the youth of the nation


• How to charm Chez in the style of Men's Health narcissistic pabulum


• PJ Harvey gets Chez through some hard times


• Here's a punch to the gut: Chez writes beautifully about a dead girl he never knew

That's some great stuff. It's a shame that CNN and the Post chose to dismiss such pure talent over what they did in their spare time. Sure, they have every legal right to fire whomever they please. And Chez and Tunison have every right to write about whatever they want on their personal sites, anonymous or no. I just don't think blogging is sufficient reason to lose your job, especially when you don't mention said day job in your posts. Especially when they're doing something (writing) that their choice of day job shows they obviously love. It's like getting fired for enjoying cooking in your spare time when your day job is a line cook.

"But they're so outlandish and opinionated! Surely that must affect their day jobs!" Bullshit. Most of us can and do check our private lives at the door when we put on our day job hats. And who says they can't coexist? I thought Forbes was wise to embrace and promote one of their staff writers after he was publicly outed as blogger Fake Steve Jobs.

And it's not for fame or money, either. Blogging isn't exactly a claim to fame or riches. Let's look at a popular blog for example. Deadspin.com is arguably the biggest and most influential sports blog out there. On Technorati's admittedly loose definition and ranking of blogs, it's the #61 top blog, and the most popular sports blog on the Internet (if you're curious that places it far below Gawker, Daily Kos, Drudge Report, and the ridiculously high-ranked icanhazcheeseburger.com; and just ahead of Freakonomics.). According to founder Will Leitch, on a good month Deadspin gets about 2 million page views. To compare, Sports Illustrated's site gets that in about a day. ESPN.com in probably half a day or less. It's just not that big, even if it's top dog among blogs. Here's a fun exercise: ask your parents if they've heard of blogging legends Dooce, Tucker Max, or Big Daddy Drew. Nope? Thought so. Accordingly, the money isn't going to be great. Have you checked out the pay rates on Internet ads? A penny for every 10,000 click-throughs? I can't lose!

Of course, folks have been getting fired for blogging as long as there have been blogs. (See: Dooce)

Still, it's a shame that a blog that doesn't mention your employer can be grounds for getting fired.

Given this, I'm staying in the shadows until I'm fully working for myself. Not that it matters, since probably a dozen people read this and they're almost all my real-life friends. And I've been sloppy: if you dig enough, it's not impossible to link my real name to this blog. I'm Facebook buddies with my boss at work. I'm pretty much working on borrowed time here.

But I might as well not actively make it any easier.

So if anyone who doesn't know me in real life wants to know, my name might be Lee, my full name is very Google-friendly, and I work for major multinational firm Compuglobalhypermeganet. See you on the Internets.

Anarchy in the USA

Be very afraid.

Why, you ask?

What you see above is my copy of the American Community Survey from the Dept. of Commerce.

My answers determine where your tax dollars go. Roads, schools, employment programs, you name it. They base those decisions in part on the results of this survey.

You don't want me to have this power. I wield power poorly. My managerial style could best be described as begging my subordinates not to kill me. Some chipmunks can outwit me. I screw up the preparation of Pop Tarts. I think at one point I voted for Nader. NADER!

I'm sorry in advance.

Care to guess what was in my iTunes shopping cart?

These days I use my iTunes shopping cart as a wishlist of sorts. I don't buy it very often, so right now there's a lot of stuff in there after I've recovered from the financial strain of moving and starting a new job.

The music I've been meaning to buy must be some pretty eclectic stuff, because this is what I saw last time I took a peek:



The Spin Doctors and Proclaimers seem reputable, but "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"???

What on earth powers their recommendation algorithm? And why would I ever pay real money for "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"?

Anyway, I haven't cleared out the cart yet. Care to take a guess at what's in there?

My name is Eel and I approved this message

Via Slate:



Run splel cehck, jeaniyus.

Here's the original ad.

Al Queda knows that our bases have streets and planes. We're losing the war on terror!

"I think they can see us"

The military has banned Google Maps from taking 'Street View' pictures of military bases.

Call me crazy or a traitor or a communist, but what's the harm?

Terrorist on a computer: "Mohammed! Come quick! I have Googled the infidels' military bases and I can see what's there! Yup, they've got barracks. There's some guy's Humvee that's double parked. I pan around and I see runways. That means, by deduction, that they probably have... yes! Planes! They have planes!

Or, uh, had planes. This picture is probably at least weeks old so they could have moved it.

Um, there are some other buildings...

...

...

... this is all very obvious and tactically useless."

But because this is surely the work of our brilliant homeland security department, don't count on being able to use Google Earth or Google Maps for much longer. Considering we're told day in and day out that all of America is in danger, our easy access to satellite imagery is probably not long for this earth.

No Enjoyment for Overstimulated Assholes

My imaginary rebuttal to the snap review of No Country for Old Men from a young, male, audience member who spent the entire quiet, contemplative, solemn film talking on his goddamn cell phone.

[Upon witnessing the ending of a haunting, beautifully crafted film that has an ending scene that is as perfect and thought-provoking as it is thoroughly lacking a tidy resolution or happy ending]
Asshole in audience: That's it? Is there a second act? Have they planned a sequel? What a fuckin' waste of time!
Me [in my mind]: Dude, the new Larry the Cable Guy movie is down the hall.

I thought of that one two minutes later in the car. Jerk store would have smoked that guy.

Also, I'm done with grad school and about to be gainfully employed, so look for me to finally get back to this blog in the near future.

[Crickets]

No one reading anymore? I thought so.