Searching For Chet Baker

An introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:29:00 +0000

About two years ago I set up this blog as a way to just give my thoughts on various topics. Sometimes it was serious things that bothered me and other times it would just be a funny video or some cool music I wanted to share.   I don't advertise the blog, aside from my facebook/twitter accounts, relying instead of word of mouth and google searches.

One of the main questions I get about the blog, is what's up with the name?   Searching for Chet Baker?   There's very little Chet Baker on the site.

That's true, but there WAS a method to my madness. lol.   When I was going to set this up, I wanted some name that would be catchy I suppose. Something that might stand out. A bunch of blogs that I liked had weird or strange names, and so I wanted something that would be fairly short and memorable.

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As I was thinking of a name, I was listening to Chet Baker, who is one of my favorite jazz musicians, and for some reason the title of the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" came into mind.   And so I just came up with "Searching for Chet Baker".

And occasionally I will post up some Chet Baker related stuff, including music videos, or even some rare live material.    However for the most part it's going to be a pot pourri of topics such as movies, music, sports, religion, politics, comedy, etc. Pretty much anything that gets my attention and makes me want to share my thoughts on it.

So I hope you enjoy the blog, and feel free to leave a message in the comments, and let me know how you found the site, whether it was google, or someone posted a link on a message board, or some other way.

I'll end this post with a video of my very favorite song of all time.   Chet Baker playing "My Funny Valentine"

CHET BAKER - My Funny Valentine (Chet Singing and Playing)

CHET BAKER - My Funny Valentine (Chet Playing. No Singing)

[Comic Review] Watson + Holmes: Issue 3 (by Paradigm Studios)

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:59:00 +0000

When I first reviewed the new comic series "Watson + Holmes" put out by Paradigm Studios, I mentioned that I had a few problems with the series, namely that you had these legendary detectives fighting common street criminals. I felt it was a waste of the intellect and skills.   After having read a review copy of issue number 3, I'm glad to see my problems with the first two issues have pretty much been done away with, as the storyline has progressed. Initially I was concerned that an historical character such as Sherlock Holmes was being wasted on street level crime and just general thugs and whatnot. However it is revealed that the higher up the chain we go, the more vicious and dangerous the people, and that they have a tenuous connection to the good Doctor Watson from his time in Afghanistan.

There's still, however, this sense of Sherlock being what, in my mind, is almost an idiot savant, although that could be my own biases at play there. He's a clearly brilliant man with incredible deductive reasoning skills. And yet he has this seeming lack of social skills where he's almost completely void of any sense of pop culture. In the first two issues there's a scene where he throws out a reference to the Harlem dance "Chicken Noodle Soup", and I commented that I felt that it would have been more appropriate to have referenced "The Harlem Shake" if you're going to mention a Harlem centric dance craze, considering how popular it is now, and that the Chicken Noodle Soup hasn't been popular for years.

Likewise, in the newest issue, when the character doesn't know who Nino Brown is and had never seen nor heard of the film New Jack City, I almost wanted to call bullshit and scream "how DARE you sir?" Then I have to calm down and tell myself that not everyone is a movie freak like I am. I do tend to be like Keegan-Michael Key's character on Key & Peele where he finds out his friend hasn't seen Roots, and he starts spazzing out and falls on the floor in mock exasperation.

I was very interested, and remain interested in Dr. Watson's backstory of his time in Afghanistan. That is very intriguing to me, even more so that Sherlock's.   I've never really read a lot of the Sherlock Holmes stories in the past and only have a general knowledge of them, so I don't know how much of the characters here are similar or different than the literary giants' original story lines. And right now there's some literary nerd out there (much like my own movie nerd) who's screaming at the computer screen, "how have you not read Sherlock Holmes???"

One thing I just sort of noticed, while reading this review copy, is that this is a very wordy comic. While I can read an issue of The Walking Dead in 8 minutes (I've timed myself) without even rushing, with this it's a different situation. There's more words than your average comic. I almost feel like there's two issues of story in each issue, maximizing your value here. And considering the books are only 99 cents, that's gotta make this one of the best values in comics today.

The book is not a breezy read. It's not something you just decide to read because you have five or ten minutes to kill. I enjoy this book because it's a "grown folks" comic book, for lack of a better phrase. And I appreciate that. It's nice to have comics that don't dumb things down or explain everything to you right up front and make you actually wait and be patient. As anyone who read my previous review can attest, that's not always my strong suit. As I said in the intro to this, most of my issues that I had a problem with have been alleviated, and my other main issue (why put the African American Sherlock Holmes + John Watson in Harlem of all places) could simply be my own kneejerk reaction. I do tend to be a bit oversensitive to issues dealing with race and stereotypes, whether it's warranted or not. Not a great thing to admit, I suppose, but it's the truth.

All in all this continues to be shaping up to be a fantastic run of comics, one I am looking forward to seeing through to the end.

If you enjoy the comic series, consider going over to the Kickstarter page for the guys putting this out. They're seeking to put out a print edition, and there's all sorts of cool perks available.   There's only 4 days remaining and while they have their goal met, they now have introduced some amazing stretch goal perks, including having your own character be a hero or a villain in the book. How cool is that?

The One With The Christian vs. Gay Double Standard

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:11:00 +0000

Ever since NBA player Jason Collins came out yesterday in a Sports Illustrated column, declaring that he was a gay man, there has been mostly positive responses from those in the sports world, with a few glaring exceptions. Most of the criticism is coming from the ones you'd most expect it to come from, but there's also a lot of criticism on social media, where people are able to hide behind their anonymity.

In a strangely related story, the New York Jets finally released Tim Tebow after having misused him for the past year, and pretty much destroying his brand by the way they have handled the situation. There are conspiracy theorists out there who are ridiculously claiming that Tebow's faith is the reason he was kicked out of New York. Not because he had problems throwing the ball, not because the team just drafted Geno Smith, bringing the total QB's on the roster to 6. No, the reason he was released was because he was an avowed Christian. Whatever.

Doing a quick google search, these are the following athletes that are avowed Christians, and yet were not discriminated against because of it, and had or are having very successful careers.

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BOXERS

Chris Byrd
George Foreman (also ordained minister)

COACHES

Tony Dungy
Joe Gibbs
Mike Singletary (also ordained minister)

NBA PLAYERS

AC Green (was a virgin while playing, because of his faith and not believing in pre-marital sex)
David Robinson

NFL PLAYERS

The late Reggie White (Also an ordained minister)
Kurt Warner

Shaun Alexander (who used to point to the sky everytime he scored a touchdown)

MLB Players

John Smoltz
Albert Pujols

Mariano Rivera (often seen reading Bible verses before games)

Curt Schilling (who after his "Bloody Sock" game declared at a press conference that it was "God's Work" on the mound.

There are many many more out there, but that was found with less than two minutes of google searching.

The reason that Tebow's release and Collins' coming out is related, is because on the same day that the was released, Jason Collins' article came out, garnering wide spread acclaim at his bravery in coming out and doing so historically.

While there have been openly gay athletes in the past, such as Tennis legend Martina Navratilova and most recently college superstar and WNBA #1 pick Brittany Griner, there has never been an openly gay male athlete in the four major sports (Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey).

For years we've heard conflicting information on how well received someone would be, if they came out as gay. You have a lot of people expressing support saying they'd welcome a gay athlete into their locker rooms, and you have others adamantly expressing that they were having none of that.

It seems that whenever an athlete in those big four did come out as gay, it was after they'd already retired. They'd made their money in endorsements and salary, and were no longer in a position where they really had anything to lose career wise. That's what makes what Jason did yesterday special.

Naysayers who point to his low career totals are missing the point. Whether or not the athlete is a super star is not the point. I wrote yesterday that I think that while this is a great step forward, that the true test for a lot of people will be when a superstar comes out. When someone that you already have an invested interest in, who you've spent your life rooting for, whose jersey you have worn, whose name you have chanted in the stadiums while they were performing. When THAT person comes out, I think we will see a huge seismic shift from the one that Jason has initiated.

The fact that Jason isn't a superstar doesn't mean that the impact won't be felt. What he did will have reverberations throughout sports, particularly where it applies to young athletes who are coming up in Jr. High, High School and College. When they get to the point where they can look at what Collins did, see the reaction that they are getting, which is overwhelmingly positive, and say "I'm not going to hide anymore. I'm not going to be ashamed of who I am, I'm not going to allow bigots and homophobes to tell me that I should shut up and keep my life private, when they aren't asking straight athletes to do the same."

THAT is going to be the true measurement of what Jason Collins did yesterday. And I don't think it's one that we will be able to fully realize until we see numerous athletes coming out and just decimating this antiquated views of gay athletes and athletic ability, not to mention the idea that locker rooms are not going to be able to survive this.

So when people ridicule the idea of Jason being a hero, that tends to be because their straight privilege won't allow them to see it. They've never had to worry about whether someone knew they liked people of the opposite sex. No one ever told them "shut up and keep that shit to yourself".

Which makes this ridiculous meme that I've seen going around even more ridiculous.

This meme has been retweeted over 20,000 times. Which is quite sad and depressing if I'm honest with you. The reason I say that is because, as a man who was raised Christian and still consider myself as such, even if I don't really identify with much of what passes for Christianity these days, it really bothers me when people try to act like Christians are some poor persecuted entity here in this country.

Christians are in power. Christians run shit around here, if you haven't been able to tell. Is there anyone anywhere in the country that could run as a Christian and be told "Yeah, sorry, we're not going to allow you to run for office here. We don't allow Christians to represent the people."? Don't think too hard, it's an easy answer. That place does not exist.

However there are currently 7 states in these United States where an atheist is prohibited from running for office. This despite the Constitution of the United States that declares there shall be no religious litmus test for public office.

Can anyone point to anyone who has been kicked out of their homes for being Christian? Can anyone point to brutal merciless bullying that has led to suicides by a bevy of Christian youth?   Has anyone ever beat and tortured a Christian and then left them hanging on a fence to die, in this country explicitly because they were Christian? Has any Christian's parents sent them off to a camp to be "de-Christianed"? Forced to go through shock therapy to rid themselves of their Christian behavior?

Has there been any athletes in high school or college that are afraid to admit that they are Christian out of fear that their teammates won't accept them, or their friends would suddenly not be their friends anymore if they knew?   Not even close. In fact there's an organization specifically for Christian athletes in high schools.

And that brings me to the most ridiculous aspect of this whole thing. The idea that Gay and Christian cannot be one and the same. There are a lot of Christians that do not believe that you can be openly Gay and Christian. You can be Christian if you stuff that shit down inside you. If you abandon any sense of honesty, if you lie to others about who you are (I believe that's against the Bible Code, by the way), if you refuse to have sex and you just suffer and suffer, so that all the straight people can be comfortable with who they are and not have their bigotry questioned, THEN you can maybe be considered a Christian.

Well, quite frankly, that's bullshit.   There's a great quote that I love that says "You can be sure that you've created God in your own image, when He hates all the same people that you do.". Meaning that too many Christians twist Bible verses and read them out of context in order to validate their already held beliefs.

"I hate gay people...let's see here....*turning pages*...ah HA! Here's a verse that I think sounds like God's saying gay people are abominations! Perfect!" And then they parade that around to say "I'M not the asshole here, I'm simply relaying what God says. If you have a problem with it, then you must be some evil fag Jesus hater then"

Well I refuse to believe that. And if that means I'm not a Christian in your eyes, then so be it. I'd never want to be considered anything like a bigoted person who uses a faith that I grew up in to hate and denigrate and discriminate against those that they disagree with.

As for the Tebow/Collins thing. The reason this is so ridiculous on it's face, is because it's a false comparison. It's not a double standard at all. Tim Tebow is not being told to "shut up" or "keep it to yourself" because he's a Christian. There ARE those who don't like him because he's Christian, and those people are jackasses. But there's also a LOT of people who are upset because, get ready for a HUGE irony alert, the MEDIA trumpeted him coming out of college like he was some superman. Oh look, he's so Christian, and he's such a good man, and oh he's so different from these other athletes (you know the kind, right? nudge nudge, wink wink), and he wore Bible verses on his eye black, would you look at that good God fearing man right there? He's such a great role model.

Meanwhile, his quarterback game was not really up to snuff. I was a big supporter of his until he turned out to be just another right wing asshole who was catering to the vile bigoted church in Texas that I won't name. Cancelled a speech there when news got out that the Pastor claimed, falsely, that 70% of gay people have AIDS and most assaults on children were done by homosexuals. He also claimed that President Obama was setting us on the path of the Anti-Christ.

Tebow backed out after controversy got up, but told the Pastor, according to the Pastor, that he'd love to come back sometime when the attention died down. I would call him a hypocrite, but he seems like that's his audience, so hey.. whatever works for him I suppose.

So while Tebow may be facing backlash NOW from people who are tired of him answering every second or third question with a reference to his faith, that was not how it was when he first came on to the scene. His attention overwhelmingly was positive by virtually every news outlet out there. Tim Tebow was the greatest thing to ever come around.

His video of him crying after a loss assuring that he'd never allow that to happen again, was played ad nauseum everytime there was a piece on him. In the run up to the Heisman that video was played over and over. His mother's story about how she refused to have an abortion when she was told her son would not survive, and then she gave birth to Tebow was played over and over and over. That inspirational video of him firing up his teammates was played repeatedly.

He was celebrated like nothing we've ever seen before. And hey, credit to the guy, he's an inspirational cat. Those are great videos there, and I take nothing away from him on that. But those things were played over and over and over. He was made to be something that had never come around before, when in fact there were many African American quarterbacks who had come through who were just as much about their faith in God, and whatnot, and were the exact same type of quarterbacks, but did not get that same type of attention.

So by the time he got to the NFL, the media had grown tired of pumping this kid up and as the media tends to do, they've built him up, now time to tear him down. So some of that has to do with his faith, but a lot has to do with him being over-hyped and having some people make excuses after excuses for him when he fails. That's not all his fault, but it's the truth.

Jason Collins JUST came out. So the attention, much like it was with Tebow, is almost universally positive. You can't compare these two situations because they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum as it relates to time. Now if this was five years down the road, and people are still feverishly touting Jason Collins, whatever, you can at least broach that subject.

But these assholes forwarding that around are completely missing the point and are simply indulging in this Christ complex that they have. They just want to play victim. The Christian Martyr, oh so forsaken in this cruel evil country that just so happens to be like 90% Christian.

So Christians, please for the love of everything Holy, shut the hell up about how marginalized and how persecuted you are. You're not. You haven't been for a very very very long time in history. You are the majority. You are in power around the country. In fact if someone is not a Christian they get slammed as immoral and whatnot. Most of the times by people like you.

So stop this nonsense, get down off your cross and realize that you have been on the wrong side of history on this topic. Much like people who fought tooth and nail to keep slavery legal (by citing the Bible, mind you!) and to keep interracial marriage illegal (by citing the Bible, mind you!), you are going to be exposed as being the ignorant bigots that you are when all is said and done.

Although if you have it in your mind that you're doing "God's work", then I suppose nothing else matters. Which is the most dangerous thing of all.

The One With The Gay NBA Player

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:38:00 +0000

Today was an historical day as Jason Collins, active NBA player came out in an interview as gay, finally becoming the first active athlete from a major sport (Baseball/Basketball/Football/Hockey) to admit their LGBT status. In the past we've had numerous athletes come out after their careers are done, however none have done so while still playing.

In the last week though Alan Gendreau, an openly gay college kicker has started trying out for teams after he was not selected in the NFL Draft this past weekend. If he were to make an NFL team (and by all indications he's a very good kicker) then he would become the first active NFL player to be openly gay.

As big as this announcement is, for Collins to come out while he's still playing, I can't help but think that it won't be as big of a needle mover as some might be thinking. For one thing, Collins is not a very good player. He's an end of the bench guy on most teams, and his averages are abysmally low. While Ben Shapiro is a giant asshole, and his point he was making is flawed and bigoted, he pointed out this very thing in his twitter comment about Collin's production, pointing out his 1.1 PPG, 1.6 RPG, and 0.3 BPG stats.

Now while I don't believe his on court production is tied into his sexuality, I DO think that if it was a major athlete that was doing it it would have much much more impact. As it stands, people can dismiss it and say "oh well, he's a bench player" and draw false correlations between the two. There's already people who believe that being gay is equal to being weak or soft. Which is one of the reasons why it would be so difficult for a hip hop star to reveal his homosexuality, because the entire genre is so heavily wrapped up in masculinity and machismo.

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And his not being a very productive player (albeit a very good locker room guy and very good teammate) will also provide fodder for knuckle draggers like Ben Shapiro to say "Well, who cares about some guy who can't play?"

However can you imagine the impact if a top 10 athlete in his sport came out? If someone with the cache of a Kevin Durant or Alex Rodriguez or Adrian Peterson? Not saying those men are gay or even suggesting it, simply saying that if someone on that level of production and super star status came out that would be a MASSIVE deal and one you could never ignore again.

A role player can be dismissed. They can be easily cast aside and then having it blamed on lack of production, because the team doesn't want to deal with the media that would be surrounding that story. What if it's a superstar though? What if it's someone you can't ignore? Someone you can't just cut from the roster and be done with because they are just THAT good, and THAT important to your franchise?

That is what it is going to take to force people to look at this issue with the respect it deserves. That's what it's gonna take to get the fans to stop and say "oh, okay. I guess being gay doesn't mean you're soft and weak. It doesn't mean you can't play." And the execs will say "I guess being gay doesn't mean that nobody will support you" or that it's going to be a negative aspect with the locker room.

If it's someone who is well loved by fans, team mates and media alike? That has the potential to be a very powerful thing I applaud Jason Collins for his honesty about who he is. I've long been angry at people who insist that gay people should just shut up and stay in the closet. To suffer the depression and suicidal thoughts, to suffer the loneliness the self-loathing that comes with being constantly told that you are a freak or you are evil or you're going to hell.

To anyone out there reading this that feels that gay people should just keep their sexuality to themselves, and stay closeted, all I can say is fuck you. How dare you condemn someone to that type of personal hell, when you don't have the same reaction with straight players. When was the last time you read a piece about an athlete hanging out with hot women and said "man, keep that shit to yourself! I don't wanna hear about you hitting on women! Just play the game, that's all you're paid for."?

Yeah, I'll wait.

Bottom line, congrats to Jason Collins for coming out and being honest with himself. I applaud that sincerely. Taking nothing away from that, I do think that Collins is someone that can be ignored. He is what you could call a "Test case". Depending on the reaction to his announcement, could lay the groundwork for more prominent athletes to come out.

You know they're out there. Whether Phil Jackson thinks he's met one or not, they're out there. And they will be out eventually. And at that time the bigots will have to deal with it.

How NOT to do a Kickstarter Project

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:50:00 +0000

A few disclosures before I begin this post. The purpose of this post is not to "shame" anyone. It's not to point at someone and laugh or anything like that. Anyone that knows me knows that's not my thing. Instead this is something that has lingered on my mind for awhile because it's something that did not have to happen.

Also I obscured any identifying marks on the image, because this is not a mocking situation, as I said. It's a situation born out of me trying to help someone out, and they wouldn't take that help, and in the end they were not able to make the project as good as it could have been.

Not that I'm some genius or I represent the missing ingredient, more to the point that I've helped fund many kickstarters, I've seen a lot of people do kickstarters, and I therefore I know what works and what doesn't. I've seen kickstarters succeed due to brilliant marketing and having a perfect plan, and I've seen some fail miserably due to poor planning, poor execution, and a presentation that was anything but concise.

So this is simply me presenting this situation and pointing out that when you are setting up a Kickstarter, you are asking people to put their faith in your abilities to come through in exchange for them giving you their money.

So now that that's out of the way, let me explain the situation. A month or so ago I found a Kickstarter project with an up and coming rapper who was trying to raise money for studio equipment so that he could record his mixtape with professional sounding equipment. That makes a lot of sense, and I've seen Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects with that very thing succeed.

The problems with this one are severalfold.

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First of all, which you can't glean from that snapshot, is that the video he posted was him speaking into a grainy laptop cam explaining that he was seeking $2,000 to get professional equipment so he could record his mixtape and have it sound professional.   Nothing wrong with that at all.

However the video he posted wasn't sufficient because all he had in the video was him talking, with a brief like 10 second low volume song of his playing in the beginning. That's not nearly enough to gauge whether or not someone is going to like your music.

If someone doesn't like your music, chances are they aren't going to pledge money towards your kickstarter to finance something they themselves have no interest in. It's like movies getting released with no advance review copies sent out or screenings for reviewers. People often take that as a sign that it's bad.

Now with this, I think that much with a lot of first time Kickstarters, he didn't know what really was necessary or what would help him out.   I think a mistake many people seem to make is that they are completely new to Kickstarter. They've never backed a Kickstarter, they've never set up one before, so they have no frame of reference as to what it requires. They haven't seen kickstarters fail or succeed before, and aren't able to say "oh okay, so this worked for that person, and this other person didn't offer such and such" or "those perks were way over valued" etc, etc.

I've backed (not counting the 3 current ones) 20 projects, with 14 of those being successful ones due to a lot of people who felt the same way that I did about those projects.   And the most successful ones tend to be due to a variety of reasons, whether it's name recognition or it's someone that had an awesome project and people gravitated towards it. Another one, which I see people make the mistake with over and over, is the number of perks, the quality of perks and the pricing of said perks.

Now with Kickstarter the main idea is you're helping fund indie artists. Getting perks is (or should be) secondary. That said, if you know you're getting perks for doing this, and you look at the pledge amounts and you're thinking "I'm all about helping here, but something seems out of whack", then that can be an issue. And I've talked with people before who said that they didn't donate to a project because of that very thing.

The screencap I took above is an example of this.   He had only two perks. Pre-release (assumedly digital) copy of his mixtape for $10. That's fine. But then for $25 you get that same pre-release (once again assumedly because he doesn't specify) album with some bonus tracks.

So the album costs $10 but for another $15 on top of that, you can get that album + some bonus songs? What kind of sense does that make?

Also you have people who have the download of your album for $30 or more, or a digital copy of their book at $50 or more. That's way too high, and people will not go for that. I've skipped on backing projects before because all I wanted was the digital album or book, but they had it for some outrageous price.

I acknowledge the hard work that goes into making it, but the artist has to acknowledge that getting people who don't know you, who have never heard of you perhaps, to take ac hacne on

So here you have someone with a kickstarter project with no real sample of his music to listen to to get a feel for whether or not he can even rap or not (and there's a LOT of bad rap on Kickstarter, folks!), and he's only got two perks for a total of $35 in order to raise $2000 in a month.

That's not going to work in any situation I can imagine. And it didn't. I kicked in $10 for the album and emailed him via Kickstarter offering some suggestions. Here's a snippet of what I wrote (identifying info removed).

I wanted to point out a few things that might give you a better chance at achieving your goal. Just some things that I've picked up from supporting multiple Kickstarters, and helping promote multiple kickstarters.

1. You should definitely include a link to some of your music that you've done. A Music video is preferred. It gives the potential supporters a chance to hear your sound, hear what you're working with, as it relates to lyricism, production - beats wise, etc. Your intro video has a snippet, but you can't really get much from that.

I think there's a lot of people out there who won't support if they think they may not like it, and there are those who won't bother taking a chance otherwise. I've supported people without it because I'm 100% in support of indie artists. Unfortunately not everyone is that way, and if you include a music video (linked from Youtube would be ideal and easy) it will help you immensely.

2. Introduce more perks. The more perks you have, the more people will be able to support. I imagine your two perks are both DIGITAL copies of the album? You should specify that it is DIGITAL or PHYSICAL.

The most successful kickstarters, though, are ones that provide a sampling of the artists' work, and clear and concise rewards. Consider perhaps $10 for a digital copy of the album $12 for a digital copy with bonus tracks (as it stands you're asking for $10 for your album and $15 MORE on top of that $10 for some bonus tracks. Unless those bonus tracks are another whole album or two, people will probably balk at that and won't do it. Then say $20 for a physical copy (if you're printing them up).

Other options could be unique things, man. Get creative. Do you have the opportunity of printing up buttons, flyers, posters, shirts, any of that?

How about for the high rollers? Introduce one where if they donate $500 you'll come perform at their party? (within a certain travel distance, with YOU picking up your travel costs). For $1000 you'll invite them into the studio with you to watch you work (have 2 of those available and that could be your goal right there).

I sent that off to him because I genuinely wanted him to succeed and pull this off. Yet he never bothered responding to me. Then I totally forgot about it until I got an automated email from Kickstarter saying it had been unsuccessful. I went to the page and although I wasn't surprised it didn't succeed, I WAS surprised that I was the only backer for it.

I think people view Kickstarter as something that's so easy to do and you set up a project and wow, look at that, everyone starts donating money. Perhaps they see projects like the Ouya, or Veronica Mars or Double Fine who get a ton of donations. The problem comparing yourself to those is that in the case of Veronica Mars, that show had an already built in fanbase, many of who are also in the media. So that gave that project a TON of free press, which in turn garners even more backers.

Double Fine and Ouya both presented interesting projects that got attention. They weren't the "same old same old" type of kickstarter. No matter how much faith you have in your work, no matter how unique you feel you are, unfortunately on Kickstarter you're one of many that are doing the same thing. So you have to stand out. You have to force people to take note, and if you're not even providing a sampling of your work, then you already are starting out at a severe disadvantage.

So for those reading this that are considering doing a kickstarter, do your research. Below I'll include some links to articles talking about things to know before doing it, and how to have a successful Kickstarter project.

But as the saying goes, I can only show you the door, it's up to you to walk through it.

1. ULTIMATE GUIDE HOW TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

2. 9 TIPS ON RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN (From 3 Women Who Have Done It)

3. 5 TIPS FOR KICKSTARTER PARTICIPANTS

The One With The Orange Packers Identity

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:06:00 +0000

So here in Spokane I live near a food bank that serves the low income people of the community, and they are blessed to receive food from a variety of sources, whether it's donations, or a larger centralized food bank that distributes various foods (canned goods, boxes of fruits and vegetables, etc) to the smaller food banks throughout the city.

The local food bank got a box of apples in (ironically in a box originally shipping oranges) and I noticed something on the side that I've never seen before. Look at the pictures here, and you'll see there's a square in the bottom right hand corner that shows the picture of a Latino woman and her name with the phrase "I am packing for you".

Am I the only one that is kind of surprised by this? I've never seen that before. I've seen shirts and underwear that have a little slip of paper in the packaging that says "So and so folded this for you" or "tested this" but never one where the person's face and name were clearly labeled on there.

I can't help but have a problem with this. I doubt that woman wants her face and name plastered on those boxes and shipped out across the country.

Maybe that's just me, but it seems odd.

[REVIEW] DJ Drama + ItsTheReal Present: Urbane Outfitters Volume 1

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:01:00 +0000

9/10 CHET BAKERS

Sometime around 2008 I first discovered the Rosenthal brothers (Eric & Jeff) aka "ItsTheReal" and their hilarious hip hop sketch comedy. I would laugh continuously as I would go from video to video of their expert satirizing of hip hop, some so brutally that I was sure I'd read about the target of their mocking having killed them.

There are even rumors of a rapper or two taking issue with their jokes, and looking over their catalog I could definitely see a small handful reaching in and touching the egos of some of their targets. Some rappers definitely come off as surprisingly sensitive given the macho exterior that they put forward, and it wouldn't shock me to hear of them confronting someone for making jokes.

However the vast majority of artists seemed to take the jokes in stride, even jumping in with them on videos making fun of their image. That's a brave thing to do, and something that sadly enough people can't. I think some of the most successful people are those who can stand in there and send up their own images and not take themselves so seriously.

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

That's why Justin Timberlake is so successful on SNL and his appearances on the Jimmy Fallon show. It's why I've always enjoyed Ben Affleck's appearances on SNL as well, because he has zero problem with completely wrecking shop on his image. He doesn't take himself seriously. He's secure enough in who he is that he doesn't take things like that personally.

Nick Cannon exemplified that in his appearances with the ItsTheReal guys, particularly one in which they "defended him" by just basically repeating every criticism of him that he'd received, even throwing in the "Cornball" line, which Cannon himself asked them to use.

Then one day they just stopped making videos. They had branched out into other forms of media, whether it was writing for Rolling Stone and other magazines, or doing interviews for Bonnaroo, and doing some hilarious podcasts, and had left behind the videos, although they've spoken in the past of bringing those back.

Now they are here with another project of theirs, what I suppose could be viewed as the natural evolution of what they do. They've spent their careers mocking the excesses and absurdities of the hip hop genre that they so clearly love, so I suppose it only makes sense that they would then take that to the logical conclusion: Become rappers themselves.

Now I think the easy comparison for them would be to lump them in with other "Comedy Hip Hop" such as Lonely Island or even Weird Al, with some of his hip hop covers like "White & Nerdy" or "All About the Pentiums". However I think that those aren't really apt comparisons.

With Lonely Island, the most common comparison I've seen, while it's comedy and they have big name guest stars as well, it comes off more as comedy than hip hop. Almost like they're just using hip hop to make some jokes. No disrespect to those guys, I like those guys. But it seems more like hip hop is simply a vessel that they use to convey their jokes.

With ItstheReal, it's not like that. It's rap music that is designed to make you laugh. The Rap music isn't simply a medium to convey their messages, it pretty much IS their message. You can tell when you listen to the songs, you can tell when you watch their videos, or their interviews, or read their articles, they love hip hop. They know hip hop, they've grown up with hip hop, and dare I say, they ARE hip hop.

Lonely Island never gave me that vibe. It almost felt like a gimmick with them. With Eric & Jeff, while some might scoff at the idea of two middle class Jewish kids doing a rap mixtape, it's who they are. Beastie Boys faced criticism when they came out because they were viewed by many as the proverbial "white kids from the burbs" that were co-opting hip hop, yet they went on and essentially decimated that idea by showing that they truly respected the artform and that they were never going to be disrespectful of it.

Eric & Jeff have shown over the years that they respect hip hop in general and rap music specifically. They poke fun at the excesses, they mock the egos, they pick at various warts and scars that have developed over the years, however they do it from the perspective of people who love and respect it, and knows that underneath all the negativity and fuckery that seems to be pervasive in hip hop, that there is something amazingly powerful there that's worth noticing.

They've shown their mic skills and wordplay in the past on videos such as "Christmas Missed Us", and "My Girl's A Republican", but this is the first time that they've gone full bore with it, and not only have they brought some mic skills and some seriously creative word play, but they've also brought some of their rowdy friends with them.

On the opening track, which serves as the intro, you have DJ Drama introducing them, and then you have Eric & Jeff simply repeating their names and "It's The Real" over and over. It's something that would normally get very old very quick, but for some reason it's kinda fun. Especially Eric's "Eric...Eric...wait...no?" part.

The second track is where the mixtape officially kicks off with the Bun B assisted "Girls with the Dirty Souths". This ode to women who do not shave their nether regions is a great example of their witty word play that had me laughing repeatedly and having to rewind the track back to hear the parts that I laughed over.

Amber Rose on top, Rick Ross in your bikini bottom
Fabric of my life, the touch, the feel of cotton
Crimp that trim, never trim that hedge
F-f-feed that Ch-Ch-Chia pet between your legs
Some people dread locks, I say put a weave in
Get rid of that bush? That's change I can't believe in
Every time I'm strapping up, I'm heading into combat
Call ASPCA, don't shave that cat

And then Bun B drops by to deliver the knockout blow on the track with his equally witty verse with lines such as:

Got a girl named Camaro; man, she flyer than a sparrow
But she gotta tote her bush around in a wheelbarrow
My girl gets extra filthy, especially when she give me mouth
I ride clean, but love them girls with the dirty souths

I especially liked the ending to the song where DJ Drama decides not to let up and coming rappers jack the beat by continuing to talk random small talk over the outro "So...crazy weather we're having here, huh?"

The song is definitely one of the highlights of the mixtape, and the rest of the tape is fairly consistent, although I didn't necessarily like everything.

"Beef Wit Us" featuring Maino was hilarious, as was the video for it. We've all known those guys who talk so much shit because they know that they have some one to back them up. Those guys that are PERFECTLY summed up with the line by Eric when he says "Me, Jeff & Maino are one bad motherfucker, for real."

The song is hilarious in it's gratuitous bragging and posturing, yet really nails it on the final verse by Maino. While it's great listening to it, it's one of those things where you have to SEE it, particularly that final verse in the video form to truly appreciate it and to really grasp just the hole that Eric & Jeff had dug for themselves, and now they realize the ladder's broke and as Puffy would say, there's no way out.

NOTE: Very strong language. Not safe for work.

This song is another example of the great wordplay and fun lyrics that are to be found over the entire mixtape.

The remaining three songs (and a skit) are reliably entertaining and while I'm not the biggest Lil Jon fan in the world, I did laugh at his "Bye bitches!" line at the end of "Just To Make Dough". Also Eric & Jeff's "I'm Rich, Fly & Drunk and I Forgot How To Rap" line is great as well. Also one of my favorite lines on the entire tape was on "Suns Out, Guns Out" with Freeway where they dropped the line "I Shoot A Boy In Blue, Call it Poppa Smurf".

Clever, fellas, clever.

I think, though, one of the highlights of this tape, and one that sadly not everyone will know, is the person who does the chorus on "Funemployment". I didn't know who it was, as it's not labeled, however apparently that is Greg Mayo who did the production on the mixtape. I didn't know that he could sing, but DAMN did he do his thing on that. .

All in all this is a stellar debut for the Rosenthal boys, and hopefully is a harbinger of things to come. The tape after all IS Volume 1, so you can expect to see Volume 2 sometime ... um..in the future. I don't know when it will be released, but when it is I'll review that one as well.

Follow ItsTheReal on twitter

DOWNLOAD THE MIXTAPE HERE FOR FREE

VISIT ERIC & JEFF'S SITE HERE

The One Where Terrorists Ethnicity Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:01:00 +0000

Image Courtesy of The Guardian

On April 15th the Boston Marathon was the location of a terrorist attack using home made bombs. In the immediate aftermath of it, there were questions about who did this, naturally, and then CNN started the ball rolling by claiming that the FBI were looking for a "dark skinned male".

On the 16th, David Sirota from Slate wrote a very good article about how he wished that the bomber(s) would be revealed to be White Americans. This got a whole heaping of scorn by those on the Republican side of things, and he was mocked and ridiculed, even though he had a very valid point. When it was revealed that while the bombers where fairly white, they were also Muslims, so that allowed the Republicans and Tea Party people to lash out at Sirota with condescension and mocking to point out that "sorry, Dave! They're Muslims!", despite the fact that they are, as you can see from their pictures, fairly white. However the fact that their belief in a religion supercedes the color of their skin. Too bad Republicans don't have the same attitudes towards our President who is an avowed Christian.

What? Too soon?

On a side note, I'd like to point out that I wrote the very same thing the day before, and yet nobody pays attention to me. lol.

But I digress.

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

Sirota's point was that there's a very different way that people in our society go about framing terrorism in this country, depending on the race of the suspect.   Don't believe me? Think of the last white person who committed terrorism that wasn't labeled a "lone wolf" "lone nut" or some other phrase to describe someone who was just crazy or who was acting alone and not indicative of a larger operation or ideology?

Every one was viewed as someone who had just gone off the rails, who had a personal beef with someone or the government, and that was that. No muss, no fuss. They certainly weren't terrorists, and they certainly did not reflect a greater threat that might still be out there.   Because...well, because they're white. And it's much easier to think of them as simply a lone crazy, then to treat them the way you do Muslims.

Now let's think of how those in authority react when there are Muslim terrorists?    Well, we really don't have to look any further than what's going on right now. In the wake of the capture of one of the terrorists, and the death of another, we've had the following responses from those in power.

1. Brian Kilmeade, of Fox & Friends (Yes, Fox News is in power in this country), suggested wiretapping & spying on all Mosques in the country. He has also called for racial profiling of Muslims and those from the Middle East.

After falsely painting the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing as frequent visitors to a local mosque, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade called for authorities to spy on mosques, despite evidence such tactics did not help any criminal investigations.

“I think that we should be able to put in listening devices in there,” Kilmeade said, before asking Peter Johnson Jr., a network contributor and trial lawyer, “Is that possible?”

Johnson quickly said no, pointing out an interview in which New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly said he would follow any lead regarding a terrorism investigation, but that it needed specific information about a “credible threat.”

2. Again on Fox News, Laura Ingraham (that oh so Christian lady who adorns herself with a cross prominently on her chest and will gladly take your money to send you a cross) suggests that we just eliminate any immigration from a country that has a predominant Muslim population.

Right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham announced on her program Monday that she’s long believed the United States should shut down all immigration from central Asia and any nation with a majority Muslim population.

Going even further, Ingraham said she’s not sure why the U.S. allows people from central Asia either, particularly ethnic Chechnens, two of whom have been identified as the Boston bombing suspects.

“I would submit that people shouldn’t be coming here as tourists from Chechnya after 9/11,” Ingraham said. “Dagistan, Checnya, Kergystan, uh-uh. As George Bush would say, ‘None of them stans.’”

3. In the immediate aftermath of the Bombing, after CNN reported that they were looking for a "Dark skinned male", four men in the Bronx in New York attacked a Bangladeshi man because he was "a fucking Arab" and saying the he probably did the bombing.

30-year-old Abdullah Faruque, who was born in Bangladesh but grew up in the Bronx, was having dinner at a Bronx restaurant Monday night when three or four Hispanic men apparently wanted revenge for the Boston Marathon bombings earlier in the day (presumably they thought that the Boston blasts had been perpetrated by Arabs or Muslims).

The paper noted that the four men viciously beat Faruque while shouting “f--king Arab” at the Bengali man as he stepped out of the Applebee’s restaurant on Exterior Avenue in Melrose for a smoke.

4. In Boston a Muslim woman and her friend (both wearing hijab) were approached by an angry man who punched the woman and started screaming obscenities at her and calling her a terrorist, saying that "You people" did this.

Heba Abolaban, a Palestinian doctor who immigrated to the United States from Syria, says she was punched in the shoulder in Malden, Mass., on Wednesday by a man who shouted "F*** you Muslims!" and "You are involved in the Boston explosions," according to the Malden Patch.

The man, described as a white male in his 30s, allegedly shouted at Abolaban for about two minutes before continuing on his way, Patch reports.

These are just four examples of what you're going to see going forward. The fact that they are Muslim, should not be the defining factor in to how we investigate the bombings, just like if someone is a white American, that should not be the defining factor in how we investigate.

If a Muslim is related to a terrorism plot, the talking points become about the Muslim faith. The meme that goes around is "These Muslims...." or "Those Muslims...". When a White Christian bombs an abortion clinic, or flies a plane into the IRS building in an act of anti-Government terrorism, it's never considered an act of terrorism, it's simply a random person who has snapped. And it's NEVER an indictment of white people in general, or Christianity in specifics.

And in some cases you have one of our elected leaders, Scott Brown of Massachussetts, seemingly sympathizing with right wing terrorists and saying that of course, nobody likes to pay taxes. Proving that there are some things that no Republican can allow to happen without pushing their agendas

BROWN: Well, it's certainly tragic, and I feel for the families, obviously, that are being affected by it. And I don't know if it's related, but I can just sense, not only in my election but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated. They want transparency. They want their elected officials to be accountable and open and, you know, talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So, I'm not sure if there's a connection. I certainly hope not. But, you know, we need to do things better.

CAVUTO: You know, invariably, people are going to look at this type of incident, Senator, and say, well, that's where some of this populist rage gets you. Isn't that a bit extreme?

BROWN: Well, yes, of course it's extreme. You don't know anything about the individual. He could have had other issues. Certainly, no one likes paying taxes, obviously. But the way we're trying to deal with things, and have been in the past, at least until I got here, is there's such a logjam in Washington, and people want us to do better. They want us to help solve the problems that are affecting Americans in a very real way."

When was the last time you heard a Republican elected leader seeming to express sympathy or empathy with a Muslim terror suspect? Go on and think real hard, I'll wait.

When Ted Kaczynski aka The Unabomber was wreaking terror across the country with his mail bombs, did anyone think he was anything but a crazy person? When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, was anyone talking about closing the borders to white people, or to wiretap churches?

When the Columbine High School students started firing guns in their cafeteria, was anyone on Fox News proclaiming white people as the problem, and that we needed to investigate?   Did Senator Peter King insist that we investigate White Christians after Jim Adkisson opened fire in a "Liberal Church", the way he has done with Muslims?

Likewise, when the "Fort Hood Shooter" opened fire inside his Military Base, did anyone on Fox News or the Republican Party dismiss the Muslim shooter as a lone wolf, someone who wasn't indicative of a larger plan?   No, instead there were calls to eliminate Muslims from joining the military because we just couldn't trust them.

Meanwhile, the racist militia members and white nationalists are getting their training via the US Military that often gets used in their attacks on US Soil against those they view as impure or not American enough.

Where's the investigations by Rep. Peter King into that?   Oh that's right. They're white. You can't investigate all white people unless you throw yourself onto that pile huh? Much easier to call for investigations and discrimination against people who don't look like you or your friends and family.

I mean look at the reactions to these two Chechyan Brothers? Despite them being fairly and clearly white, that is being ignored in favor of the talking point that matters for those on the right, and that is their Muslim faith. Never mind the fact that one of the brothers was apparently kicked out of his mosque because of his radical attitudes. No, it's more suitable to the narrative if we just paint all Muslims as one and the same.

So conservatives can mock David Sirota all they want, but the fact remains they are proving him correct with every racist and discriminatory comment and suggestion they make, all based on the religious faith that the two Bombers adhered to.

All because you're too stupid to realize that out of over a billion Muslims in the world, a small fractional number go bad. Just like out of all the Christians in the world, there are some who molest boys and girls, or bomb abortion clinics (Yes, that's terrorism folks!) or planned parenthoods, or attack innocent middle eastern people on the streets because, well, they look Muslim you know?

Somehow I don't anticipate the Tea Party Republicans insisting on investigations into Christian Churches.

The One Where The Boston Marathon Bombers Were Set Up In a False Flag Operation

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 07:25:00 +0000

So as you can imagine, now that the Boston Marathon bombers have been either shot and killed, or brought in alive, the conspiracy theorists are out in full force proclaiming all sorts of crazy shit. Whether it's Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity pushing the whole "Obama is deporting the Saudi National who masterminded the whole thing to protect him", or Alex Jones and his ilk screaming "False Flag", you have your usual assortment of nutjobs mucking up the gene pool.

Today the aunt of the two bombers went before the cameras and started screaming about how her nephews were set up, and the FBI knew about them for four years, and how her sweet angelic family members would NEVER do what they did.

I'm not buying it.

However I would like to, for one moment, point out something I thought of as soon as I read what she said. The idea of them being set up for the bombings, while making incredible drama and whatnot, may be bullshit, but it DID remind me of this little seen ABC thriller from about six years ago (damn was it that long?) called "Traveler".

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

The show starred Matthew Bomer (White Collar, Magic Mike) and Aaron Stanford (Nikita) along with Viola Davis (The Help) and William Sadler (Shawshak Redemption) among others. Bomer and his roommate were set up by a third roommate played by Stanford, as terrorists who bombed an art museum in New York.

Suddenly their faces are on the news with footage of them in the museum (which they were in there, roller skating through as a prank -- suggested by their now missing friend who actually detonated the bomb) and they're trying to get out of the city. The conspiracy goes very high, but due to the show being cancelled after 8 episodes, we never got a proper ending.

Crazy shit though. Check out the 3 minute promo below and let me know in the comments what you think. To clarify, I do not believe it was a conspiracy, I DO believe the people we got are the ones who bombed it, and there may have been others (three others reportedly were arrested).

The One Where Keeping It Real Goes Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:52:00 +0000

There's something I have noticed over the years as it relates to those who try to break out of their niche audience to reach a broader appeal. The ones who make it and succeed are the ones who realize that you have to adapt and change up your style. Not necessarily change who you are, but you have to make little changes to how you are perceived and how you interact with others when in that new lane.

Allow me to explain.

Rapper 50 Cent came up with this image of the hard core thug drug dealer turned rapper who was displaying the realness and rawness of the street life that he experienced. As his success increased, he decided that he was going to branch out from just rap music. He began to do some movies, invested in Vitamin Water, and has also created a line of headphones. He has also made a ton of money in the process.

Rapper Jay Z also came from a Hard Knock Life, forgive the pun, to have a succesful rap career after years of selling drugs. He also has evolved from simply rapping to running his own label, having a club and owning a tiny portion of an NBA franchise (while helping that franchise move to Brooklyn), before selling that piece so he could become a sports agent and represent NBA players. Need I point out how much money this man has accumulated in his time in the business?

There are others who have done this as well, come from hard times, have this image of the tough street hardened guy who will take no shit and will not suffer any fools who would step to them. However they also were smart enough to understand that when you are in the streets, or you're in a rap battle, or you're doing something that is affiliated with hip hop, there is a different mode of behavior and way you conduct yourself than when you are stepping out of that niche and into a more mainstream setting.

You don't react the same with the Fortune 500 crowd as you would an up and coming rapper who thinks he's going to take your spot. You just don't do it. There's a difference in the image that you convey, as well, when you are growing older and you are preparing yourself for the life after rap. It's a whole new world.

Nicki Minaj has not figured this out, which is why she continues to act the exact same in her pop (I refuse to call her hip hop) world, that she does in the more mainstream and much larger audience on American Idol. She has been presented with a perfect opportunity to broaden her audience and attract a whole new crowd of people who perhaps would never have heard of her before. While she's not my cup of tea, she does have a lot of fans out there.

However she seems like she's destined to forever be locked in that holding pattern. She'll never be able to expand her empire beyond what it is now the way she is acting on the show. You can call it "Selling out" or "forsaking her identity" or whatever you want. And her fans can talk about how she's just "keeping it real" until their blue in the face, but the bottom line is that when she gets a golden opportunity such as being a judge on a massively popular show such as American Idol, and the chance to introduce herself to a whole new audience and potential fans to buy her albums and come see her on tour, and the entire time she's on there all the reactions to her are negatively portraying her in her ridiculous and at times petty disagreements with Mariah Carey, she's doing something wrong.

This hit home in the last few days when it came out that Minaj childishly dismissed Mariah Carey's critique of one of the artists (And Minaj's criticism of the artist) with a "Simmer down sir". This apparently caused a reaction from the crowd which was shocked that she had said that. At the end of the day, it's not that big a deal in and of itself. It's another instance of Minaj's pettiness and her striving for this thing of her always being in the news.

She's not realizing the great opportunity she's got, and she's not understanding that you don't get out on the big mainstream stage, with a chance to attract a whole new set of fans to go with your older ones, by behaving the exact same way.   You're not attracting new people then, you're preaching to the choir.   And you're turning off a whole new set of people that potentially could have been fans.

I don't watch the show (I saw the 2nd season and that was it), but I've talked to three people who watch the show religiously over the years and every single person A. asked me "who the hell is that loud mouthed girl?" and B. can't stand her. A few of them have said that if she's back next year they won't watch it.   I have to imagine they aren't the only ones who feel that way.

Now I realize that Nicki is an acquired taste. She's definitely not for everyone, and her style is ...something else. I get that.   And if all she wants to do is have her limited success that she's got right now where she sells a few million records, gets a Grammy or two perhaps, and gets some reality TV work, then hey, have at it. Continue to be ....for lack of a better word, Nicki.

However if you want to expand your empire, and grow and branch out into the corporate world, perhaps you should take a page from the book of 50 and Jay. Learn there's an attitude and personality that you can exhibit in your music world, that is not how you react outside.    Can you imagine 50 Cent getting a deal where he's an American Idol judge, and going out there cursing, insulting other judges, and just playing that role that he's done in hip hop?

Howard Stern, is one of the few people who is able to basically just be him no matter where he goes, however even he knows that he has to dial it back when hosting America's Got Talent. He's not going to be going out there cursing and inviting these girls who come up to sing to take their tops off. He knows how to act, while still being him.

50 and Jay know how to act when in different environments. Nicki, it appears, does not know how to do that, and sees no problem with spazzing out on live TV at someone who has accomplished an incredible amount more in the music industry than she.   I'm reminded of that time that Bow Wow went and started talking trash about Will Smith, and damn near everyone pushed back and let him know he wasn't anywhere near where he could throw rocks at the throne like that, ESPECIALLY someone who paved the way for someone like Bow Wow to go from music to TV and Movies.

Nicki doesn't have to like Mariah Carey, but she should have respect for what she has accomplished in this game, and Nicki should also know enough to realize that she's got a golden opportunity here to really create a lane for herself.

She just has to be smart enough to take it, and not just be fine with the spot she's in now.

The One Where The Boston Marathon Bombings Expose Our Bigotry

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:02:00 +0000

Image courtesy of WTAE

Moments like this always expose two things. Our kindness and our bigotry. Sad but true. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and for weeks and months after, you saw people in New York, a city not known for their kind and gentle nature, were helping their fellow man. They had been knocked down, and they were helping each other get back up. You saw New Yorkers rushing TOWARDS the towers to help those in need. You saw them helping digging bodies out of the rubble, putting their own heath and safety at risk to help their fellow man.

And then you had the flip side of the coin where in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 you saw hate crimes against Muslim-Americans (And anyone looking like Muslims) skyrocket. You had people suspected of being Muslim being beaten in the streets. You heard these chicken hawk politicians and talk radio hosts openly talking about bombing *insert foreign country here* off the face of the earth.

You saw people painting an entire religion with a broad brush, based on the actions of 19 individuals. You had people maligning an entire race of people, because others who looked like them did something horrific to us. Yet when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building, we didn't go around seeking out white people to beat up. We didn't lambast all white Christian people as terrorists. Christians didn't have to worry about hiding their faith out of fear that they would be beaten, or worse.

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

For all the talk that we are "Post Racial", the sad unfortunate fact is that we are not, nor have we ever been. This nation has a very bloody history as it relates to those that are different than those in power (Read: Christian White Males). There's a saying that I don't know who originally spoke it, but it rings true in times like this: Man fears what he doesn't understand. And what he fears, he tends to destroy." Not sure if I got that exactly right, but that's the gist of it. Sadly it appears that in our history we have feared many things.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombing at the Boston Marathon, a flurry of conspiracy theories emerged, as is often the case. Some involving a "false flag" operation designed to bring the TSA into sporting events, or it's tied into the Federal Reserve, and I'm sure there's one out there about how a bombing is going to be used to take away people's guns.   At least in this unpredictable world of ours, there's some things that are as regular as clockwork, conspiracy nuts being one of them.

There was an initial report that a Saudi National was being questioned and was considered a "Person of Interest", which set off a lot of Xenophobic/Islamophobic/Just all around anything-but-Christian-White-PeoplePhobic rants on twitter and facebook, many tying it back to the President, because...why not, right?

However it's now come out that the Saudi National is NOT a person of interest, and that there is currently no information on who did this or why. In these times the decent thing to do is to wait and try to make an informed decision based on actual facts not speculation or emotion. That's not an easy thing to do though, and I understand that.

This kneejerk insistence on blaming "The other", whether it's a different race than you, a different religion then you, or whatever, is mind boggling to me.   I've heard many people, normally rational (as far as I know anyway) suddenly start ranting about "those people" and why do we let "them" into this country.   I mean this is OUR country right? We don't need a bunch of people that aren't the same color as us coming into this country and taking over, right?

Somewhere there are Native Americans who are stunned by the irony.

It would be nice if we could only focus on the positives that are happening in the wake of this tragic event. If we could focus on the random heroes who have stepped up and helped out without anyone asking. People like former New England Patriot football player Joe Andruzzi who was helping carry people to safety.   Unfortunately it's the loudest that gets the press. It's the assholes like Alex Jones who immediately tweeted out that it was a "false flag" event, or Erik Rush who wants to "kill all Muslims", or any of the other slew of idiots that are engaging in this xenophobic and racist rants.

I no longer hope for a better day. I no longer write about how I wish for that day when everyone can just act rationally and not engage in this type of hatred and bigotry. That is because I no longer believe that it is possible to do so. There's always going to be awesome and wonderful people, just like there are always going to be assholes who only want to indulge in fearmongering and hatred.

Because I feel that it will always be that way until the day when we finally succed in destroying ourselves with our own knowledge.

The One Where The Media Twist Facts To Attack Jay Z And President Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:22:00 +0000

The Media has been raked over the coals over the years for a variety of reasons. Essentially becoming stenographers of the White House and/or people in power, not asking any hard questions, and also for spinning events into a narrative that works for them, rather than one that illustrates the truth of what is going on.

This has never been more evidence than in the recent Jay Z & Beyonce go to Cuba Nontroversy.

Jay Z and his wife Beyonce went to Cuba after having gotten a permit from the US Treasury, who handles that sort of thing. They say it was for some cultural outreach thing, but come on...come on. No big deal though, except a couple Republican congressmen were all up in arms and realized this is a great chance to attack the President. I mean Jay and Bey are supporters, they raised money for them, and hey, they're black too, right? Three birds, one stone. (well four birds, if you count that socialist First Lady who wants to get kids in shame and educated right).

Well Jay was having none of that and decided to write a little song called "Open Letter" which was produced by Swizz Beats and Timbaland.

In the song, Jay Z said.... well, here let me show you what the White House Reporter who actually, and I shit you not, read these lyrics to Jay Carney, the WH Spokesperson said, and how it was framed:

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

Okay that's cool I guess. It's always funny to hear news people read rap lyrics in a plain voice. However there's a problem there. Below is the ACTUAL track and see if you can figure out what the above reporter did wrong.

Did you get that? Did you get it? No? Here let me quote the lyrics and I'll BOLD the specific lyrics that the reporter (and every other reporter/columnist/writer) quoted.

This is the entire first verse to the song.

I done turned Havana to Atlanta
Guayabera shirts and bandanas
Every time you think they got me I switch the plan up
Bulletproof this, radio scanners
Ballin' 'til they ban us
You gettin' too much bread, they try to jam you
Boy from the hood but got White House clearance
Sorry y'all, I don't agree with y'all parents
Politicians never did shit for me
Except lie to me, distort history
Wanna give me jail time and a fine
Fine, let me commit a real crime
I might buy a kilo for Chief Keef
Out of spite, I just might flood these streets
Hear the freedom in my speech
Got an onion from Universal, read it and weep
Would've brought the Nets to Brooklyn for free
Except I made millions off it, you fuckin' dweeb
I still own the building, I'm still keeping my seat
Y'all buy that bullshit, you'd better keep y'all receipt
Obama said "chill, you gonna get me impeached"
But you don't need this shit anyway
Chill with me on the beach

NOW do you see? Those three lines weren't near each other in the song, so they were not referring to the same things. In fact the "White House Clearance" line and the "You Gonna get me impeached" line has 13 damn lines of rap in between them, yet they are read one after the other to infer that they were referring to the Cuban trip. This whole thing has been ginned up by the media to infer that A. Jay and Beyonce got specific White House clearance to go to Cuba, just as the Republicans are attacking him for that, and B. That Obama warned Jay not to do it because "You gonna get me impeached", to which Jay responded that he didn't need all the bullshit that comes with the Presidency, and just chill with him on the beach.

Yet when you listen to the song, and read the lyrics you realize they took three lines from various parts of the song, and put them together, so it now looks like it's all referring to the exact same thing. When anyone that knows ANYTHING about Jay Z and his evolution from the streets to the boardroom, and how he's cool with the President, would know that the "White House Clearance" line was not in regards to the Cuban trip, but him having access to the President. "Boy from the hood, but got White House Clearance"

The woman who calls herself a reporter who read those lyrics is a fraud, as is the majority of our "media" in this country. There are good journalists out there, but man, if THIS is representative of what the media is? And to be clear it wasn't just her. Numerous media sources all quoted the same lines, as if they were consecutively read.

No wonder this country is in the situation it is. Because the Media doesn't do it's damn job, and instead sucks up to those in power and bows their head instead of questioning authority. And they don't care if what they report is accurate or not, they just know that it is a better story if we repeat these lines together as if they were originally done that way, to make it look like Jay's saying something he's not.

The One Where Digital Piracy is Going to Kill Comic Books! Or Not.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:18:00 +0000

The questions regarding the impact that piracy has on various industries has been one that has been broken down and analyzed a lot. There are many who say that piracy has contributed majorly to the spiraling descent that the music industry has gone through over the past decade or so, and there are others who point out that not only is the logic used in those arguments flawed, but that there are many instances in which piracy has actually HELPED the artists that know how to use it to their advantage, as surprising as that may seem.

When Radiohead released their new album on Oct. 3, 2000, it debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, an album with heavy electronic, ambient, and experimental jazz influence, nothing like any album that had ever been #1. And all this was done without music videos, interviews, radio play, or touring (the main sources of publicity for most big artists).

The publicity it gained before its release was through free online downloads, particularly Napster. The record company decided to give out the entire album online to radio stations and selected sites, and as a result, 3 months before the release date, all of Kid A was available for free for all to download on Napster, where massive amounts people downloaded the album for free.

This is why the RIAA worked so hard to shut down Napster, because if people have already downloaded an album, who would want to buy it? But despite the heavy downloading, the album still sold 210,000 copies in its first week, which suggests that downloading created enough publicity, and gave people a chance to become accustomed to a type of music they had never before heard, to make the album hugely successful, more then anyone could have possibly imagined.

For Radiohead, mass downloading took the place of mass radio play, and made it a prime example of how free music actually increases sales.

Will you look at that? When you are able to utilize the internet and adapt to the technological advances that your customer base uses, then there can be benefits!

And recently the director of HBO's massive hit Game of Thrones (a series I just can't get into no matter how hard I try) came out and said that piracy has not hurt them at all, but actually HELPED them create buzz. There are actually more people pirating then those watching. Although we all know the measuring stick for how they rate viewerships is bullshit, so who knows how many people are really watching.

Now clearly that isn't going to be the case all the time. I wrote about this last year in relation to music piracy, after Cracker frontman David Lowry attempted to shame an NPR intern because she had admitted to downloading music for free, while seeming to implicate her in the suicide deaths of two of his musician friends who had fallen on hard times due to the music industry's problems.

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

It was a despicable move by Lowry, but perhaps not surprising as he's always come off as kind of a douchebag to me. Not that he didn't have some solid points in his manifesto of passive/aggressiveness, but I think when your tactic seems to be to infer that a college girl downloading music helped to kill people, it is a more than a little heavy handed and ridiculous. Much like the bullshit talking point that buying bootleg DVDS on the streets helped fund terrorism and by extension, Osama Bin Laden.

When you feel that you're not getting your point across, fear mongering is always a good move, I suppose.

Unbeknownst to me, apparently this piracy issue has always been a thorn in the side of the comic book industry. Personally I find that hard to believe, if only because I would imagine comic books are pretty much piracy proof, as far as it concerns impacting sales from legitimate comic book fans. I mean, there's a difference from getting a digital music or video file that can replicate the exact audio or video quality, and getting a digital comic book which is not close to the same experience.

With a digital music file you can rip a CD and have it in lossless FLAC format, and I'm sure there's probably a higher quality audio file than FLAC or OGG or .APE or whatever. However you can get these in extremely pristine quality that can sound immaculate. THAT could be considered a suitable replacement for the CD packaging that will take up a ton of room.

Likewise with video files, you can acquire MKV bluray rips of movies that maintain impeccable video and audio quality of the movies, and I can see people saying "okay, this is much more convenient than having all this plastic and paper boxes taking up all this space in my apartment or house, when I can just have my entire collection on an external hard drive (or multiple, depending on how much you have).

With comic books though, maybe it's me, but that's just not the same. If you're a comic book fan, and I mean a real legit comic book fan, raised on comics, you've passed down the knowledge and history just like it was passed down to you, is digital comics going to replace the feeling and emotion of going to the comic store, looking through the boxes of comics, and finding something you've been looking for?   Is it going to replace you holding the comic in your hand, turning the pages with your fingers? Smelling the pages of a brand new comic book?   I'm not so sure. At least not with the hard core crowd that makes up the majority of the readers and the base.

It's a convenience thing, for sure, and I'm sure there are many casual comic fans that would dive headfirst into the digital comic pool as a way of consolidating a collection and not having all that space taken up, however I wonder if those are people who would not go out to the comic store and buy them if they couldn't get them online for free?

See this is my main issue with people who scream about the doom & gloom that piracy is going to bring to *insert industry here*. Not every download represents a lost sale, because many of those would not have bought it otherwise. Perhaps many of them were not interested enough to buy them, but "they're free? Sure, I'll grab it, I mean, why not?" is the mindset of many I know.

And let's be honest, there are many who just flat out refuse to pay for anything that they can get for free, no matter what. You could have an album priced at a dollar and they'd download the album for free and spend the dollar on something else that they couldn't get for free. That's just the way things are, and I don't think anything will ever change that, unless those people just decide one day to change how they do things.

I wrote a blog post last year on rapper Elaquent who politely asked a blog to remove a pirated copy of his brand new album (only out two days) and while the blog did take it down, some of the commenters got angry at Elaquent for wanting his music removed when he was trying to sell it. See THAT is a dick move. You wanna bootleg, whatever, that's your choice to make, but if an artist asks politely to respect his wishes on this, that's not him being an asshole, that's him being reasonable.

At one point I was downloading 100% of what I got. I wasn't paying for shit at one point, because of a few reasons that I outlined in my post about music piracy last year. In short the reasons were as follows:

1. Price
2. Convenience
3. Perception of Artist as Rich.

The pricing of albums at one point was a ridiculous $20 each, and downloading it was much easier. For a long time the industry was playing catchup and wasn't offering their music online like it is now with iTunes and Amazon and whatnot. So are you going to spend gas money to go to the mall, deal with a bunch of asshole people, idiot retail people who don't know what you want or how to find it, and overpay for an album with probably three or four good songs, or are you gonna spend a few seconds/minutes to download the whole album and be listening to it soon after that?

Also you had the issue, particularly in hip hop, where the artists were portraying themselves as ballin' outta control, so it was kind of hard to look at those dudes and think "well, me downloading this album instead of paying it is REALLY going to put a cramp in their living arrangement.

It also has to do with greed and this idea of wanting everything now now now.

At this point I buy music from Amazon all the time, because it's DRM Free, and often much much cheaper than on iTunes (seriously folks, why do you still buy from iTunes when it's so much cheaper a lot of times on Amazon for the same damn thing?). I also support indie artist and always buy their stuff. Not gonna say I don't still download anything for free (especially if it's out of print and impossible to find), but that ratio has dropped from 100% to probably 10% at the very most, and probably closer to 5% if I was actually going to go through the trouble of figuring that out.

Now as it relates to comic books, I think that people's opinions on it vary, much like with music. I'm sure many of the same arguments for music piracy or movie piracy will also be made for comics (for and against). I'll admit that I've downloaded many a comic book over the years, and I think that one of the reasons is that it's just such a pain in the ass to get digital comics from the official sources. I mean, they're available but you're paying full price (same as physical in the majority of cases) for a digital file that in some cases isn't even yours, it's in the cloud.

Although then there are guys like THIS which...seriously.... I have to admit this is the most ballsy damn thing I've seen since someone uploaded the full film of Django Unchained on Youtube with the title "Legal DVD Screening Copy"

Now THAT guy? That guys's a dick and should probably be visited by some walkers in the middle of the night.

But also you have the sticky situation as it pertains to DRM. I contacted all the major comic book providers, and a few indies, and all of them have responded that any comic book you buy from them is locked into THEIR app. So if you buy a Marvel comic, you cannot read it in the DC comic app. You can't read it in a third party app that you bought, such as Comic Glass which I use.

I paid $3 for Comic Glass which allows for all variety of files to be read, including .CBR, .CBZ and .PDF among others. It's a fantastic app and one I couldn't imagine switching out for another. However, due to the industry's paranoia over piracy (something that they have ZERO control over, as every single comic book out there gets put online, with very very few exceptions, within a day or so of it's release, often the very same morning) they lock their overpriced digital comics to their app and they are unable to be read anywhere else.

So with no printing costs, ~~no costs to pay stores to sell your books~~, no shipping costs, no gas costs to get your books to the stores, etc, etc, etc, you're charging the exact same in many cases for a small digital file when your only real costs are server and bandwidth. EDIT: Thanks to the great Brandon Perlow, who puts out the very good indie Watson + Holmes comic, comic publishers have to pay Comixology + Apple, who each take a piece of the pie, to sell their comics, so that contributes to the cost of digital. My apologies for not realizing that before.

It's like how Sony Playstation sells their digital games for $59.99 even months after the release when in the store the games are down to $29.99 or less. Last night I noticed NCAA 2013 is still priced at $59.99 when the 2014 version is about to be released in another few months. What sense does that make, especially when digital copies aren't technically OURS to own, it's only ours to lease and borrow.

Now there are exceptions, as many comics are discounted to lower rates, and there are some such as indie series "Watson + Holmes" that have their series priced at 99 cents an issue. That's cool to see, and I wanted to point out that they have a Kickstarter going to be able to print up physical copies of their book, and are offering all sorts of neat perks including a Trade Paperback of the first four issues combined. Seriously, go check those fellas out and give them your support! Indies rock!

If the servers of Marvel or DC went down, our entire digital collection may be gone. If Marvel or DC or one of these other companies went out of business (not likely at this point, but in the future who knows?) then all our purchases would be gone. Which makes getting an ACTUAL digital copy that we can put on our external hard drives, transfer to whatever device we want, use whatever app we want, is an important step to combat piracy.

Nothing combats piracy like convenience, good pricing and a reasonable knowledge of what your consumer base wants.

There's also a great point that I saw in a piece about how piracy is NOT ruining the comic industry. They wrote the following, which I think sums it up nicely.

The vagaries of real life also make accurately gauging the effect of piracy difficult. How many people do you know that keep buying crappy comics because they want a complete collection? We all know a few of them, right? Now imagine that completionism writ large. You can have almost every issue of Amazing Spider-Man ever printed in under two hours -- even if you never intended to read them all -- all it would really take is five minutes on Google. Expand that impulse to movies, music, and other media, and you begin to have a clearer picture of what some pirates are into. Some people just like having things. They aren't going to read or watch anything they download. They just like knowing that they have it, if at some point they need it in the future. Other people just like having a high ratio on a torrent site, as if it were a high score.

Are these people lost sales? I don't think so. In a just world, would they be sales? Sure, of course. But I think the real lost sales aren't the pirates, but people who are used to getting things for free because the internet makes getting lots of things for free very, very easy, both illegally and legally. Part of the problem of treating piracy as the number one problem is that piracy then becomes something to stop in and of itself. You can't cure piracy any more than you can cure shoplifting or murder. You can make it unpleasant for people who get caught, sure, but what about the ones who don't get caught? Like every other war on a vague, ephemeral idea, like Drugs and Terror, this is a war you can't win.

And that's a brilliant point. Not everyone downloading stuff is doing it because they otherwise, they'd have to pay, some people just like to collect shit, and they wouldn't buy it if they couldn't get it for free. I'm guilty of that in the past where I'd amass a ton of DVDS that I would never watch. Right now I collect Digital copies that come in DVDS and Blurays. Ultraviolet codes that can be redeemed in VUDU.

At this point I have roughly 250 movies and about 10 TV series, the majority of which I have never watched. Why? Because I like having them, and I like to know that in the future if I WANT to watch them, well, there they are. It's that old adage of "I'd rather have it and not need it then need it and not have it." at work.

Also there are plenty of other reasons for why the comic industry may be in decline, as many have suggested that it is, and that is the same reasons that the football teams in California seem to have a difficult time attracting sell out crowds:

There are simply more things to entertain us than it was when we were younger. We have more things to do, we have more things to spend our money and our time on. Back as a kid I didn't have that many options of things to buy. There was a 7/11 a mile or two away and so I would ride my bike down there and pick up some Marvel comic books, and read them. Other than comics or the occasional music release, there wasn't really anything that I could spend my money on (besides the obvious candy and sodas).

Now I can spend my money on anything I can imagine, both moral and immoral. I think that for many people that are facing that same situation, they have more things to spend money on than comic books. They have bills, they have kids to feed, they have mogages to pay, some of which may be underwater. Not saying that gives someone license to steal, simply saying that there are mitigating circumstances beyond simply "Those thievin' bastids" that could account for why the comic industry may or may not be doing as well as it once was. More options.

Not everyone is going to spend that money on those comics. However, contrary to the idea that illegal downloading hurts the economy, there's some merit, I believe, to the notion that it doesn't hurt the economy, because that money they theoretically would have spent on the comics, ended up being spent on something else. So since they theoretically wouldn't have actually bought the comics, or gotten them if they weren't free, the comic book industry lost nothing, the filthy filthy pirates gained some entertainment for a few minutes, and the economy of whatever country they are in still saw that money come in, just in a different industry.

Several years back Torrent Freak posted an article about how piracy actually HELPED the comic book industry, when in the aftermath of the release of Apple's iPad, there were doom and gloomers predicting the downfall of the comic book industry.

There was an indie artist who found out that his book had been posted on 4Chan, and that instead of it hurting him, it actually helped him immensely as sales skyrocketed from people who were first introduced to his work. This actually helped him more than a positive review in Boing Boing.

Clearly that isn't something that would apply to everyone, and I'm sure there are those who have been pirated and have not seen an uptick in sales or traffic, however what this points out is the fallacy of the argument that there is no benefit to piracy, or that piracy only harms the industry that the downloader professes to care about.

I think it's all about perspective and how you go about marketing your work. If you infect your work with DRM and lock it down so tight that you can't have it on any other application, then that's not going to be a business savvy thing for you to do. Yet that is what Comixology and the other comic book companies have been doing. Look at iTunes and Amazon. You buy something from them in a digital format, you get that copy to download to your computer, and you can load it up on your PS3, your Xbox, your ipad, ipod, Kindle, whatever. You can listen to them in Windows Media Player, iTunes, winamp or whatever media player you have. NOTE: Some files may need to be converted to another format, but you are able to do that, because the files are not locked into whatever proprietary entity that the companies have deemed to be the one true player.

Remember the outcry over DRM when it came to music in the last decade or so? Remember how hard people pushed back against the items that they paid for being locked into a specific player or device? What makes these Comic book publishers think that their work is any more important than those works? I don't mean that as an insult, I'm simply asking why after all that fuss over DRM, would you lock your shit down to where it can't be viewed in another application?

Is it because you want to make sure it's not pirated? I hate to be the one to break this to you, but that is not something that you can stop. You can take steps to try to mitigate it, you can send some cease and desist letters, file lawsuits, etc, etc, but if you think that by locking in the legitimate purchases made by your customers, that those books won't be put online for file sharing, you haven't been paying attention.

Those books are ALREADY on the file sharing sites for those who are interested in downloading them. All you are doing is pissing off those who are trying to support you and your industry. Here you have a whole lot of people saying "Shut up and take my money!" and you're taking the money, but you're limiting what someone can do with that purchase. That is not smart business model.

And has it has been shown, when there are viable alternatives to piracy presented for the consumer, there IS a noticeable effect.

According to NPD’s “Annual Music Study 2012,” 40 percent of consumers who had illegally downloaded music via P2P services in 2011 reported that they had stopped or downloaded less music from P2P networks. The primary reason for this reduced sharing activity was an increased use of free, legal music streaming services. In fact nearly half of those who stopped or curtailed file sharing cited the use of streaming services as their primary reason for stopping or reducing their file-sharing activity.

I think the comic book industry should smarten up when it comes to some of these things.

The One Where Hip Hop Needs To Support One Of It's Own

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:34:00 +0000

In the time that I just started getting online regularly, around in the 2003-2005 range, I ended up really latching on to some hip hop forums, and was fortunate to make some good connections and even some people that I consider very good friends to this day.   One of those people who I knew about, and saw around and even talked to a few times on the boards, but never really KNEW, was DJ Smooth Denali.

Now while I don't know him like that, I do know his mixtapes. Anyone that listens to hip hop mixtapes and don't know Smooth Denali's name, well...all I can say is you need to listen to some better mixtapes. While he has an extensive catalog of mixtapes, I mostly was familiar with his R&B tapes, as that was more my style during those days. I still hadn't gotten over the end of the 90's era of hip hop which I still maintain is THE era in hip hop.

I know, I know, I'm a "stuck in the 90's old head". Guilty as charged.

Having said all that though, man, Smooth has been a staple in hip hop for years. He's someone who has given his life to hip hop and who has done it for the love of hip hop and for the entertainment of you and me and everyone else who love it too.

That's why if you love hip hop, then you gotta love Smooth Denali, and you gotta step up right now when a staple of hip hop needs that love the most.   The man is going through some rough times right now with this Cancer thing, and as I'm sure most of you know, the health care situation in this country sucks. He's got insurance but that pays for only so much, you know? Cancer treatments aren't cheap.

Some info on his situation:

   MORE AFTER THE BREAK

Ralphie was recently diagnosed with Stage III Colon Cancer and underwent major surgery in December of 2012 to remove a large tumor that was found on his colon. Although they were able to remove the tumor the cancer spread to his lymph nodes which means he will need to undergo 6 months of chemotherapy.

Ralphie and his family have health insurance but it only covers so much. Cancer treatments are very expensive and the bills are adding up. Many of you may know Ralphie as ‘DJ Smooth Denali’ and that he dj’s aside from having his 9 to 5 job. Unfortunately, he is unable to DJ or book any events due to the strong side affects the chemo is having on him.

This is causing financial stress for the family as they never imagined the costs of the cancer treatments would be so high. It is important that Ralphie and his family focus all their energy and strength on getting him healthy. We are asking for support for this great guy who remains positive, as always throughout this ordeal. Any donations you can make would be greatly appreciated by Ralphie and his family. Please…tell a friend and spread the word to help Ralphie fight!

100% of all money raised will go towards Ralphies medical bills.

I'm sure he's made a little off of this hip hop game, but not enough to deal with some high priced chemo and medicine that is needed for him to kick it the way we need him to. So that's why I'm asking everyone who's reading this to do something for me. Consider supporting Smooth with this battle. Show him that he's not facing this alone and that there are those who are more than willing to give a little back for all the enjoyment he's brought us over the years.

Hip Hop needs to take care of its own. I'm tired of seeing staples of this hip hop world just abandoned by those that profess to love it. Look at Fat Beats in NY. So many hip hop legends have gone through that store over the years. Music videos have been filmed there, artists got their records sold in there, DJ's got records there, and then when they didn't have the money to stay open what happened? Did any of these multi-millionaire rappers like Jay Z or Diddy come through and save it? Save a legitimate hip hop landmark that they benefited from, either directly or inderectly? Hell no, they didn't, and then the store ended up shutting it's doors.

That shit shouldn't happen, and Smooth needs everyone to let him know that they're behind him all the way here. Consider giving what you can. $5, $10, $20 or more. That shit adds up and Smooth can feel the love from everyone that's benefited from him being in this game. He's gonna beat this, and we're all gonna help him.

Don't let him down, folks. Click the bottom link below, or look in the top corner of my blog and go to that page and donate. Remember, 100% of the money donated goes directly to paying his medical bills and treatments.

I thank you very much.

FOLLOW DJ SMOOTH DENALI ON TWITTER

VISIT SMOOTH DENALI'S WEBSITE AND BUY SOME OF HIS MIXTAPES! THERE'S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE THERE, WHETHER IT'S R&B, HIP HOP, OLD SCHOOL, NEW SCHOOL, WHATEVER.

DONATE MONEY TO HELP SMOOTH DENALI WITH HIS MEDICAL BILLS AND TREATMENTS.

The One Where This Blog Turns Five

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:16:00 +0000

Five years ago today, I created this blog and made my very first entry, which was a video of the late comedian Bill Hicks talking about how life is "Just a ride". That blog post apparently was almost never seen, as today when I checked it it has 4 visits.   I've definitely come a long way since then. At that point, in April of 2008, I was merely interested in showcasing videos that I found online that I enjoyed and wanted to share with others. I've evolved now into creating my own content, whether it's reviews, interviews (which I no longer do) and even my own podcast where I highlight independent musicians that I feel should be given much more exposure than they currently receive.

When I first started this blog I had no idea that at this point in time I would have met the people I have. I don't think of this as a "hip hop blog", although I post a decent amount of hip hop related things on here, including my own podcast. And when I had looked around the internet landscape at the various hip hop blogs and their relationships with the various artists back then, I always thought that was interesting, but not something that I would do. Little did I know that I would eventually develop my own relationships with artists.

I also don't think of this as a "political blog", although I definitely post a good deal of political observations and critiques, along with my frustrations at politics and religion and the incessant need by many to merge the two.

                                                      MORE AFTER THE BREAK

I also didn't see myself doing reviews, and interviews and the kinds of things that I would eventually come to do, because so much of what I saw on these blogs was, in my eyes, ridiculous. I didn't like the vast majority of artists that were featured, there were seemingly thousands of blogs all fighting for the exact same web traffic, and posting the exact same music videos and "leaked" tracks, which was "leaked" by the artist themselves.

That did not interest me in the slightest. So I set out to basically just create an all purpose blog. Basically whatever comes to mind, whatever catches my eye on any given day, whatever infuriates me beyond words, or thrills me to no end, I'll write about. That is what I do.

And while I have done interviews, I don't consider myself an "interviewer". Although I've done countless reviews, I don't consider myself a "reviewer".   Hell, I don't even consider myself a blogger.   I'm simply someone who enjoys sharing my thoughts with the world. My likes, dislikes, my loves, my hates, things that make me laugh uncontrollably, and things that make me angry to the point of tears.

That is what I do. And if in the process of doing that I end up submitting some interviews or reviews, then that's the way it is. And that's the way it has been for five years now.   And as I look back over these five years I find myself sort of in the same place I was, in the sense that I don't have a clue what I'll be doing on here in another five.

This blog has never been about anything other than what interests me. I am not interested in making money off of it, which is why I feature ZERO advertising through the various internet services such as google ads or whatever.   I will advertise independent artists that I know and/or respect what they do with banner ads on the side of my blog, but I don't charge for it, I offer it free of charge to specific artists that I like and respect.

My reasoning for doing that is severalfold. First off, I don't pick google ads or adsense or whatever it's called, because I want to be 100% in control with what is on my site.   I've seen some liberal political sites that have automated google ads for books by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, and I'll be damned if I'm going to allow vile trash like that to be on this site.

Also I've been to too many blogs that have these intrusive annoying ads that pop up or block your view and inhibit your actually enjoying the site, or reading what you came there via a link to read.   I understand how that usually irritates me, and often will cause me to simply back out of the site and find whatever I'm looking for somewhere else.

Sometimes these popups and ads will even bypass the adblock plus that I have installed for Firefox, which just makes me even more irritated and less likely to ever visit that site again.   So I keep that in mind, and do not want to do anything to drive people away. And I never set my videos to "Autoplay", which is one of the most annoying things any website could do. Unfortunately Huffington Post feels the need to do that all the time, so when I open a link in another tab to read later, suddenly I hear this blaring video playing and I have to figure out which tab it's playing from and where the video is to stop it. Now I hardly go there anymore because of that. I just don't like that nonsense.

And I don't charge the few people that I do advertise on my site for the banners that are on the side, because A. They are people I am close with and/or cool with, or in some cases they are people I consider friends.   B. I am 100% invested in promoting and highlighting independent art, whether it's movies, music, books, or whatever, and that does not include asking the artists to pay me for that promotion. My love for the indies is sincere and heartfelt, not one born out of trying to capitalize on it.   And C. As I said before, this blog is not set up to make money. It has never been about that and will never be about that.

I don't advertise the blog beyond simple word of mouth. I post my links on facebook and twitter, and rely on others to retweet the links if they are interested by what I have to say.   This blog has very limited reach, when compared to other more established sites, however I'm much more comfortable this way.   I'd rather reach a small group of people and have them all feel something by what I have said, then reach a massive audience of people who don't give a damn.

I guess I'd rather be an indie than a mainstreamer.   Which is oddly appropriate, I think.

So I suppose, as I illustrated in the beginning, this blog has evolved into more than I anticipated. When I first began posting I would basically post a video or a link to another site, with a one sentence blurb or maybe a paragraph or two about whatever it was.   Very little original content.   Then as the months went by, and then years, I started writing much more original content, until it's probably 90-95% of what I post now.

Gone are the days of simply posting a link to another site with a paragraph blurb on it, or posting a couple youtube videos with a generic "very funny". I've expanded my network, so to speak, into not just this blog, but also having created my podcast which you can subscribe for free on itunes (I just posted my 10th podcast this past week).

I appreciate each and every person who subscribes to my blog, who retweets or shares my blog, who comments on a blog post I have done. I appreciate sincerely the love that I have been shown by not only the artists that I have come to know over the years, but also the readers who have taken the time to express to me that they like what I have to say on the various topics.

I try to come correct with what I write. I am often frustrated by websites I see, such as Bleacher Report which posts up hyperbolic headlines to fluff pieces that many times is simply served up as click-bait, and in most cases is not even what the author ACTUALLY believes. They write slideshows that are simply to rile up the readers and get them to "hate-click" on the item and comment. Often these readers will then end up arguing with the writers about a topic that the writer doesn't even believe in him or herself.

Also the Examiner, which is another site with very little journalistic standards, often pay their writers (when they get paid at all) by the click, which then leads to excruciatingly sexist and hyperbolic headlines like the one that "writer" Eric Holden did for a recent Ronda Rousey MMA fight, where this was his headline.

For what it's worth, the "hot meat" that the female MMA fighter put in her mouth was buffalo wings. The actual "Article" was also pathetic with various sexual references to Rousey. Holden "apologized" and pulled the article, admitting that he got paid by the click, but it's just an example of what is wrong with today's version of media and how the internet, while doing wonders for actual journalism, also gives people a voice who perhaps don't really need it. Besides it's not like it's the first time Holden has put out an incredibly sexist piece of garbage masquerading as "writing". And for those thinking that "Sexist" is a harsh label, imagine that "Article" being put out about a male MMA fighter like Jon Johnson or Chael Sonnen. Yeah. Exactly.

It's much like how the mixtape site DatPiff allows anyone with an internet connection and deluded sense of talent to upload their mixtape. There's no standards or guidelines. You don't even have to be good, you just have to be able to upload. I get the feeling that Bleacher Report and Examiner are similar in that as long as someone WANTS to write for them, they will always have a place there.

I don't indulge in that nonsense. You may not agree with everything I write, hell you may not agree with ANYTHING I write, however one thing you will never be able to say is that I don't 100% believe in what I am saying. Not that I'll be right 100% of the time (none of us are), but if I write my opinions on something down here, I'm not doing it to simply to drive traffic or do it for shock value. I take this seriously, and would hope that that shines through where even if you disagree with me, you know where I'm coming from and it's not a malicious place.

My headlines, while a play on the old Friends episode titles that was always "The One With...", they are never hyperbolic or exaggerating to get people to hate-click. I also try to avoid using either misleading headlines, or unflattering pictures designed to mock whoever I'm discussing. And I definitely do not create headlines designed to denigrate or be sexist, racist or homophobic.

So for everyone that has stuck with me from the beginning, and everyone that has climbed on board over the years, I thank you all sincerely and absolutely. Here's to another five years. I look forward to providing you with more original content, while counting on you, the readers, to keep me honest. If you think I've written something that is sexist or just over the line in some regards, feel free to let me know by emailing me and I will absolutely respond and we can discuss it. Open door policy and all that jazz!

And finally, I have a major announcement coming soon with regards to a project that I'm putting together. I can't say much about it at this point until I have enough t's crossed and i's dotted, but I'm very excited about it and hopefully you will be to!

Stay tuned folks. The best is yet to come!

The One With The Gay Baiting of Matthew Warren

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 03:51:00 +0000

Image courtesy of NBCLosAngeles.

As I wrote about last night, the suicide death of Matthew Warren, the youngest son of Mega Church pastor Rick Warren brought out a lot of hateful people who, blinded by their hatred of Rick Warren and his bigotry, particularly as it relates to the LGBT community, went on the comments sections of the articles about Matthew, along with Facebook and twitter, to make hateful and vile comments aimed at his father.

While I made a passing reference to the fact that a lot of people seemed to suggest (with absolutely ZERO facts or anything even remotely resembling facts) that Matthew was in fact gay, and that his father's anti-gay stances, and support for things such as the Ugandan "Execute the Gays" bill played a part, I didn't really get into it. That's because I was focusing more on just the general asshole type behavior that many was exhibiting.

However it's gotten even more pronounced leading into today with people being bold enough to either flat out stating as if it's a fact that Matthew was gay, but unfortunately a news show that I watch each day, The Young Turks, actually reinforced that bullshit idea on their show by saying that they "had a meeting" and decided that since they didn't know whether or not Matthew was gay or not, that they weren't going to get into it, however if it WAS a situation of him being Gay, they would "be all over that."

He was not gay, and there is no evidence to support that allegation. What is so hard to understand about that?

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What part of that is so hard to understand? Look, I understand the point behind the whole "Matthew Warren was gay" thing. There's been at least two anti-gay politicians in recent weeks who have revealed that they have gay sons. So my pushback against this whole gay baiting thing isn't from a standpoint of "there's no way he could be gay" it's from a standpoint of why are you adamanetly "just asking" or stating matter of factly that he's gay? Especially since I'd bet dollars to donuts the vast majority of people seemingly so sure that Matthew was gay, didn't even know that Warren HAD a son named Matthew before the articles started showing up about his death.

Some have suggested that Rick Warren actually pushed his son into the suicide, and that the "mental illness" that he was stated to have, was in fact Warren's interpretation of his son allegedly being Gay. Others have stated that Matthew "must have" gotten tired of the anti-gay therapy and his father's vile rhetoric against the LGBT community (and by proxy Matthew) and so that was why he killed himself. One person on an article on Raw Story (which I screencapped in the previous post) referenced Rick Warren "metaphorically handing his son the gun".

This is beyond reprehensible, however it's also bringing up an interesting thought I had today. Many of these people who are attacking Rick Warren via his son's death, and making these baseless allegations that Matthew Warren was gay, are supposed liberals and progressives. The Young Turks, who shamelessly gave juice to that by even referencing it as if "well have to do some research and find out if this is true", are supposedly these big progressives, and yet they also are partaking in this senseless and cruel act of gay baiting.

Replace this situation with assholes on the internet and Matthew Warren with Mitt Romney's attacking a kid in school and cutting his hair because he looked "effeminate". Or kids bullying another kid in Jr. High and calling the kid a "Faggot" because he looks or dresses differently.

How is this different? It's still trying to attack someone and paint them with the label of being gay when there's no basis for it, all because you don't like their father. Every anti-LGBT person is not gay, and their being anti-LGBT doesn't mean their progeny are gay either. And I don't think anything is wrong with being gay, so this isn't a "oh no, how dare you call someone gay, that's the worst" or anything like that. But if someone has no proof that he's gay, why are you calling him gay?

I'm kind of disappointed in how this whole thing has gone down. People who are supposed to be on the side of civil rights and equality, engaging in this vicious gay baiting, all in the name of attacking someone they don't agree with. Admittedly Rick Warren is a bad guy and has some dangerous rhetoric out there that has real world effects on many LGBT individuals.

Trying to attack his family members by spreading baseless lies against his deceased son is not the way to combat that kind of thing. I think people need to look in the mirror and figure out just what you stand for if gay baiting a dead young man is your idea of making a difference.

Something To Restore Your Faith In Humanity

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 04:13:00 +0000

After my previous post in which I pointed out that I have long ago lost faith in humanity because of things like the vicious comments left in the threads about the suicide death of Pastor Rick Warren's son, I found this video and this makes me smile.

7 Year old Jack Hoffman is battling Brain Cancer, and he got to go and score a touchdown for the Nebraska football team at one of their spring practices. How awesome!

Watch this and have your faith restored, if only for a little while.

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Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren's Son Commits Suicide, Assholes Emerge from Under Rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:09:00 +0000

Today the sad news came over the wire that the son of Megachurch pastor Rick Warren committed suicide. Matthew Warren, 27, was said to have dealt with mental illness and depression for a long time, and I suppose it got too much to bear.

As someone that deals with depression and mental illness, I know all too well that feeling of wanting to just make all the pain go away, whether it be physical or otherwise. I've tried to do it in the past, but fortunately I'm at a place now where despite my problems, I don't feel that there's no way to deal with it other than taking my life.

I wish Matthew could have perhaps found that peace, however this shows that even with the best health care money can provide, no one is immune from the grip of mental illness.

An interesting byproduct of this is that it has brought out the assholes of the internet. I'm not talking about the grief trolls who search out any "In Memoriam" facebook page and starts posting mocking memes and whatnot, just trying to hurt and cause pain to people because they have nothing better to do, and because shockingly they get off on it.

I mean on regular websites, with regular posters who are so blinded by partisanship that they can't take a break from their vicious dislike of someone to just let things pass in a tragic instances as this.

Usually when someone passes who is either in the public eye or is related to someone in the public eye, and the person in the public eye is a high profile divisive person, as Rick Warren certainly is, the comments you see break down in one of three categories.

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1. The rational normal human beings who acknowledge that they had differences with the person in the public eye, but this is a sad day and their thoughts/prayers/well wishes are with the family.

2. The passive aggressive people who strongly disliked the person, and can't resist throwing in hurtful comments while giving best thoughts/wishes.

3. The pond scum of the internet. Those whose unbridled hatred for the person prevents them from having any sentiment of a soul and they are blinded by their hatred which does not allow them to see anything but how that person's behavior either led to the death of the person in question, or has influenced deaths of others.

The third is those I'm addressing today.

Something I've noticed is that in the past when a political figure dies, each side of the aisle reacts to it, but one side is always making the incredibly hurtful comments because of who the person is. When Democratic politician Ted Kennedy died, there was this outpouring of well wishes from most on the left, and on the right you had a whole lot of rage posts, and mocking posts about his death, and references to any and every bad thing that he had done or been a party to.

And in response to that you had many blogs on the left that reacted to it and posted up about how classless those people were and how that was typical of those on the right wing, full of hatred and vitriol and blah blah blah.

Here's from a piece at FireDogLake about this very thing.

They just can’t help themselves. You’d think they could’ve waited, oh I don’t know, 24 hours before they started picking at the corpse like vultures. Nope. ... Way to keep it classy, wingnuts.

This was in response to a plethora of comments such as the following:

Edward M. Kennedy,”…“Liar, cheat, drunk, philanderer, and — let’s not forget — inadvertent murderer.” The tsunami of sentimental pap about Kennedy is already churning, gushing, rushing to inundate the public with a nauseating and untruthful fairy tale about the “Lion of the Senate.” The Lyin’ in the Senate is more like it.
...
It’s entirely possible that what Kennedy’s death will really do is bring into stark relief the fact that under Obamacare, this overweight 77 year-old man with liking for the drink would probably have faced treatment rationing and an offer for “physician aid-in-dying”.
...
Given word of his passing, the Senate, as predicted by Rush Limbaugh, is considering re-naming the health care bill in Ted "The Liberal ~~Liar~~ Lion of the Senate" Kennedy’s honor, while also amending it to include mandatory long distance swimming lessons, as well as CPR and breath control classes for all Americans.

And the comment section is filled with people who decry those doing this and insisting how they are despicable people. The implication being that that's what THEY do, not what WE do, "We" being those on the let.

And yet one only has to go to the death of Tony Snow, who was the White House Spokesman during the first term for President George W. Bush. Snow was one of those telling many lies to the American people regarding the need for invading Iraq saying, among other things, that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction (there wasn't), insinuating that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 (He wasn't) and other assorted things.

Here's a post from Patterico about the vicious comments by those on left leaning blogs in the wake of Snow's passing from cancer.

This is the sort of filth we would see on Marc Cooper’s Huffington Post. Accordingly, they closed comments, knowing that if they didn’t, they’d see the same ghoulish sort of comments that they had when Dick Cheney faced danger.

By the way, Marc Cooper is an editor at the Huffington Post. I bring this up because Cooper recently denounced my commenters as “bitter, angry and delusional folks.”

I love irony when it’s this ironic.

And this was, as above, in response to many of the comments, some of which are below:

Good riddance , we still have a white house full of liars
and American soldiers being slaughtered. if Cheney strokes
then change will begin , as for Bush he is just to stupid
to die and when he dies bury him at home in IRAQ.
...
I hope he suffered at the end. Just a terrible person.
...
I guess now we know that lying causes cancer.
...
'Oh yes he was a wonderful man and a ...." puuullleeease. This person had a major part in the most evil administration this country has ever seen. Death and torture, illegal wars, war criminal soldiers. Good riddance. Cancer was too good for him. Hope it was painful. Now for the rest of this scummy administration. Come on Cancer, do your good work.

As bad as some of those were, I'm sure there were some that were incredibly worse out there as well. And my point isn't that these people were somehow above criticism. They both had their pluses and minuses, clearly, but my issue that I take is that these people who are complaining about it are hypocrites of the highest order.

They love to play that victimization game and act like "oh my God, I can't BELIEVE what those people on the right/left are saying about OUR guy" and then turn around and allow the same type of shit to happen when it's someone on the other side.

There are many instances when someone someone on the left will decry "False Equivalency" when those on the right and left are attempted to be compared. This isn't one of those. This is not a false equivalency, this is a FAIR equivalency. Both of these sides have supporters who are vicious and just flat out assholes.

And now we get back to the topic at the top, and that is the tragic death of Pastor Rick Warren's son. I don't like Warren at all. He's a bigot and he's said some absolutely hurtful things in the past about those he disagrees with, in particular the LGBT community. I think he's a charlatan and a very bad person who is masking his bigotry (badly, I might add) with his wrapping himself in the cloaks of Christianity. I take offense at that because as someone who was raised a Christian, he is the antithesis to everything I hold dear.

However for people to take that anger and hatred of someone to the next step where you are casting aspersions on his deceased son, and trying to project your anger onto them by just flat out making things up and alleging things that have no basis in fact is beyond reprehensible.

Today's Raw Story (the 1st place I saw the story), I checked the comments and there were many that were being polite and giving their thoughts and prayers in this time of sadness. And then there were these:

And there was pushback by other more rational members of the community there, but still it's this feeling where some of these posters feel they have the right, the obligation to say the most hurtful and painful thing possible. Not that Warren is going to read these, but just to exorcise some of their own issues perhaps.

By the way, as I was getting ready to hit submit on this (at 6:05pm) I checked in at Rawstory and decided to sort the comments by "Best" as in the highest voted up comments, and THIS is the top one, most approved of by the commenters.

Mind you, this is on the thread about Warren's son having committed suicide. That comment has NOTHING to do with Warren's son, and everything to do with that person's hatred of Warren and their need for vindictiveness. As I've said I do not like Warren at all, and if what that person wrote actually happened (not a guarantee considering it's the internet) then that's reprehensible for that happening. But still.

Not the time. Not the place.

Over at Huffington Post they are at least doing a decent job of moderating and have removed a whole lot of inappropriate comments. I decided against linking one of those that I had screencapped because the mods are clearly doing their jobs over there with a very large commenting base.

It's sad that people feel the need to do that type of trolling online, and I'm not saying that their anger is not allowed or understandable. Just saying there's a time and place for everything and making allegations of the son's sexuality when as far as I know there is nothing to suggest that Matthew Warren was gay, and implying that his father drove him to suicide hours after the death, is so far outside the bounds of reason that you can't even see the line anymore.

And I'm sure that those on the right will be posting up tonight or tomorrow about "oh those vicious people on the Left, look how they're reacting to the death of Warren's son", completely oblivious to the irony.

This is why I have no faith in humanity. This is why I have zero hope that this country will get better, because every generation for all the good that is done and good people who will continue to do good, you have an enormous amount of knuckledragging mouth breathers cloaked in a superiority complex that continue to undermine everything that is good.

The One Where Rick Ross Doesn't Know what Rape Is

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:35:00 +0000

UPDATE: APRIL 14th

A few days ago Reebok officially cut ties with Rick Ross, implying that it wasn't necessarily that he had those lyrics, but his bullshit non-apology apology to it, and his seeming lack of any sense of realization as to why there was an outrage over it. There are of course people defending Ross and screaming "Free Speech" and other nonsense. As I've pointed out before, Free Speech means you can say what you want. Free Speech ALSO means everyone else can express their outrage, and your sponsors don't necessarily have to keep you on.

After Reebok made their move, Ross came out with a heartfelt and sincere sounding apology in the form of a statement. Now of course I can't imagine Ross actually wrote those words. I've heard way too many songs by Rick Ross to believe that.

But the situation seems to be over at this point. Good has prevailed, and hopefully Ross thinks before he raps next time. Now he can just go back to generally making all black people (and fat people) look bad, which is what he's exceptionally good at.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE BELOW.
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Rick Ross, corrections officer turned drug kingpin and all around bawse, has a verse on a song by an artist named Future that has stirred up a lot of controversy lately, due to what appears to be Mr. Rawse condoning the drugging and raping of a girl. You might remember it was another song by Future where Lil Wayne courted controversy after appearing including a vulger sexual verse that name dropped Emmett Till, who was beaten and tortured, then killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Apparently Future is the guy whose tracks you hop on when you want to get some media attention.

In the offending song (this time) called "U.O.E.N.O", Ross drops these bon mots:

"Put molly all in her champagne / She ain't even know it
I took her home and I enjoyed that / She ain't even know it,"

Now, surprisingly there were many people that had a problem with the idea of drugging a woman with ecstasy, and then when he gets her home, he has sex with her, and all the while she doesn't know about any of this. In most parts of the universe, that is called rape. In Ross' universe it's called....well...I'm not really sure, because in his "explanation" for it, it doesn't really seem that he knows what rape IS.

Ross said the following in an interview with a radio station, which had been posted on youtube with the erroneous headline "Ross Clears the Air" regarding the lyrics.

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"Woman is the most precious gift known to man. And there was a misunderstanding with a lyric...a misinterpretation where the term rape was--wasn't used. I would never use the term rape, you know, in my lyrics. And as far as my camp, hip hop don't condone that, the streets don't condone that, nobody condones that."

You see that? Ross seems to be under the impression that since he didn't say the word "rape", it's not rape. He's not talking about rape, folks. He doesn't condone rape. He's talking about drugging a woman (against her will, and without her knowledge) and taking her home and having sex with her (against her will, and without her knowledge).

Case closed? Not exactly.

Ross seems to be in a confused state when it comes to this subject. I think that he is in an insulated bubble from criticism. And it makes sense, seeing as how he's had some high profile situations recently that potentially posed harm to him. However I don't think that he really gets pushback against things he says. I also think he tries to hide behind the "I'm creating a narrative, and this isn't REAL life".

I mean, actors who play rapists in movies don't have to go around and apologize for what they did in that movie do they? David Morrissey doesn't have to go and do interviews and apologize about what he did as The Governor on AMC's Walking Dead. Although after seeing that scene with Maggie, I think he should have apologized to Glenn. But I digress.

The problem with that is that this is a different situation. Nobody rationally looks at actors and says that the role they are playing is who they are. With hip hop music in particular, the entire image you create is based on this idea that THAT IS WHO YOU ARE. Rappers talk about selling drugs and whatnot as the means to getting to where they are. They craft these facades of the big badass guy who is not to be messed with, and then when someone takes offense they want to cry "no, I'm just painting a picture".

Now I think a lot of people realize these rappers that do that are almost always bullshitting. Akon didn't go to prison for some elaborate stolen car chop shop ring like he based his entire image on, and in fact he only spent a few months in jail before charges were dropped in one case, and got three years probation in another. Ross isn't a drug kingpin, he's a former correction's officer who stole the identity from and profited off a guy who actually DID the things that Ross is pretending to be.

However there are many who hear the things that Ross says and thinks "yeah. That guy is authentic! He's real. I wanna be just like him. I wanna be a 'Bawse' too!" Who thinks selling cocaine is great, without realizing the damage that it does to the communities that that kid probably grew up in or around. That doesn't even factor in all the white kids who grew up in the suburbs and the only viewpoint of black people that they've seen is on BET, and think that this is a true representation of black people.

A real life Flip Dog.

So when they hear Ross talking about drugging a girl with "Molly" and she didn't even know it, and then he took her home and "enjoyed that" and she didn't even know it, you have to imagine there's a number of his fans out there thinking "yeah. I bet he did enjoy that shit. I wanna enjoy that shit too."

Most rational people read that and think that's a ridiculous notion, but there are some seriously disturbed people out there that are being fed this bullshit on a regular basis not understanding how dangerous it is. Who don't understand that you don't drug a woman and have sex with her against her will/without her knowledge. And who don't quite get that you don't have to say the word rape in a song for it to be a situation that glorifies rape.

Ross has proven that he clearly has no idea what rape really constitutes beyond the most basic level of "Well a guy forcing himself on a woman and her saying no over and over". Ross doesn't seem to comprehend that unlike what many Republican senators may believe, this isn't a case of "Legitimate rape" versus "well, not really rape because she got pregnant" or "well, she didn't fight back hard enough so she musta enjoyed it" sort of situation.

And this is going to go on for much longer too. Ross will probably end up issuing another apology and it may seem a little more sincere than his tone deaf previous "apology", but at the end of the day this is more publicity for him. And people like Ross in the rap world attribute ANY social media buzz, ANY attention, whether positive or negative, as a plus. Because if you're talking about him, then that's great and that's more attention and potentially more sales.

So in that vein, this works for him. He'll throw out some morsels of apologies, get the protestors off his back and to stop boycotting Reebok, and then he'll laugh all the way to the bank. Meanwhile many of his fans will be pushed even more in that direction of thinking that is okay, because they'll view this as "political correctness" run amok, and how the mass media just doesn't understand "the hip hop culture", which they don't associate with "rape culture" in any form or fashion.

It's just stories, man. Sure, he talks about drugging women and shit, but he doesn't mean it, it's just his schtick, you know? All you ladies just need to calm down, and relax. In fact, I think I have something here in my pocket for your drink that might help you do so.

And the cycle continues.

The One Where Christian Music Bloggers Are Uncomfortable with Race

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 03:50:00 +0000

In the film "The United States of Leland", Ryan Gosling was a youth who was put in a detention center as he was awaiting trial for a horrific crime that you don't fully realize what it is until the end of the film. He's talking to Don Cheadle, who is the instructor there in his class, and in this discussion he points out a fault that Cheadle has and Cheadle responds with "I'm only Human, man." To which Gosling brilliantly quips, "It's funny how people only say that after they do something bad. I mean, you never hear someone say, "I'm only human" after they rescue a kid from a burning building."

I think that's how many of us in the Christian community seem to be. We tend to want to hold others up to impossible standards that we ourselves don't want to be held up to. We don't have a problem pointing out others' shortcomings and failures, but when it is throw back on us the tendency to rely on the tried and true "I'm only Human, none of us are perfect" is a bit tempting.

I am reminded of that when I've seen some criticism lately from Christian music reviewers, as it pertains to Christian rapper Sho Baraka's newest album The Xth and more specifically his song "Jim Crow". I've seen quite a few reviewers take issue with some of the strong language in the song, namely his using the "N-Word" as well as the words "bitch" and "hoe".

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And if you only hear that, you may think that they have a point, because how can a Christian artist use those words in their music, right? However if you listen to ALL the words, and not just three, then you get the realization that there's a story there and that Sho has a story to tell.

It's not just that there was racism in the past, but that racism still persists. That many people seem to continue this evil racism today through their words and actions. That there is still this systematic racism in place that prevents equality. Is it better than it was? Sure, but that doesn't mean that we need to just get complacent and decide that we can stop fighting.

In particular, I see some white reviewers angry about the "Divisive" nature of the song, and the idea that the Christian artist should not use that type of angry language. I disagree on every point. And I'll go even further and say that those white reviewers (and full disclosure, I'm white) are reacting in a way in which their white privilege is shining through, yet they can't see it.

In particular, there was a review at JesusFreakHideout which, despite seeming to praise the album in all aspects except this one song, gave it a 2.5 out of 5, had this telling quote:

Perhaps the most offensive part of the entire song isn't the ugly words Sho uses, but the fact that he states that black men are used only to be exploited by white men and to help them reach their goals. Sho paints with a very broad and hurtful brush. Perhaps it should be hurtful to some, but it should not be all-encompassing. Instead, "Jim Crow" takes a very direct approach and does not seem to allow for any room other than Sho's stance.

The remarks that are referred to in there is Sho's references to Hollywood often casting black actors in roles as the so-called Magical Negro" where they exist solely to help out the white characters, and often have mystical powers or great insight that they use to help guide the white characters to their goals. Examples include The Green Mile and The Legend of Bagger Vance.

However the reviewer seems to be extrapolating from those lyrics that Sho is simply referring to white people in general using black people for their own gains, and discarding them afterwards. That's not even close to what was being said. He was making those comments specifically in regards to Hollywood. In fact here is Sho's lyrics where he makes that reference.

Hollywood wants to pimp us to get dough
Exploit us, but give us money
Somebody say “Ho!”
Let’s thank them movies and them TV shows
Be a token or I’ll play an Uncle Tom role
Or be a magic negro until the day I’m gone
Help the white man reach his goal
But never reach my own
Or an oversexed male
Even a coon
A young man who loves ignorance
Praising his doom

So that reviewer seemed to be caught up in how uncomfortable the lyrics and the rawness of the subject matter made him feel, and wasn't able to properly put it in the appropriate context. And in the process, he did Sho a great disservice by misinterpreting what he said and presenting him out of context to readers.

However I think it's very typical of some white people to tell a black person how to feel about something. What language is or isn't appropriate, or not to tackle a subject such as the systemic racism that is deeply embedded in our nation's history, because it is "divisive". I wrote about this in a way recently with the situation that Beyonce finds herself in with her song "Bow Down". Many people are upset at her for using the phrase "Bow Down Bitches", while giving a pass to men who say the same word, and worse. And while I pointed out that I didn't care if she said it, I just didn't like the song, I acknowledged that there are those out there who are acting like they have a right to tell Beyonce what she can and cannot say in a song, just like in this situation, there seems to be some who would insist that Sho refrain from using strong language because it causes them to be uncomfortable.

What they are saying is "when you point out the racist history of this country, you are going to alienate many customers out there that don't like to hear that. They don't like to know what this country did, and/or want everyone to "just get over it."

That was so long ago, you know? I mean we have a bi-racial President now...that means racism is over, and focusing on that whole pesky racism thing is counter productive. WE (as white people) have been able to put that behind us and move on and succeed, why can't you black people do the same?

Do I need to point out how ridiculous that view is? Sadly it is a very real viewpoint that many have. All you have to do is turn on Fox News and you'll see actual TV talking heads saying pretty much that same thing. Which makes sense when you realize that in a 2010 poll, it appears that only 1.38% of Fox News' viewers are black. So it stands to reason that with that many white people watching your network, you would have a vested interest in not looking back in history.

Also there's another point here that isn't being addressed, I don't think. And that is the fact that for just about as long as I can remember, Christian music has been very vanilla. I don't mean that in a race related way (although there's that aspect as well), but more to the point of being bland and plain. I wrote about this when I did my review of Lecrae's "Rehab" album.

Growing up I found Christian music to be very plain and bland and just ordinary. The lyrics were banal and cliched to the point of being laughable. Which is why nobody I knew listened to Christian music, except those in the church whose parents didn't let them listen to anything else.

The mission, it appeared, was to try to be as non-controversial as possible. Don't speak on political issues, simply do the typical "Jesus Loves Me" type of thing. The production values were trash making it impossible to really get behind. Growing up I listened to a variety of Christian artists of all genres, whether it was Kenny Marks, Rick Cua, Amy Grant (more on her in a bit), Petra, Stryper, DC Talk and more. However almost all of those artists were very color-by-number, so to speak. Petra and Stryper would hit the slightly harder edged type of music, but the lyrics for the most part weren't really that noticeable. and often were overly simplistic.

The point seemed to be to have this stable of Stepford artists that put out the most easily accessible, non threatening music possible. And it sucked hard (with few exceptions). Also everyone had to have this perfect image, and anyone that dared do something that reeks of human behavior was marginalized and kicked to the curb.

One thing that I'll always remember is when Amy Grant (who I like) got a divorce, many in the Christian music industry completely and utterly lost their collective minds. It was as if she she committed the worst sin every conceived, and that if she did not fall on her knees and grovel at the feet of every industry exec and beg for their forgiveness, then she would be shunned.

This went down when I was in Virginia, and I remember the Christian book stores pulling her albums from the shelves in the aftermath of her divorce. Somehow those albums which praised the Lord exuberantly, were now not Christian enough or something. It's this sense of hypocrisy that so many in the industry have where they want these artists to live up to some impossible example, and when they inevitably are shown to be human, they are eviscerated and cast out.

People like that are the reason that I have questioned my beliefs so much, because I look out and see people like that, that are supposed Christians, and it makes me think that if THEY are representative of what it means to be a Christian, then maybe I've been fooling myself.

I see bigots and racists all around, all cloaked in the word of God, and I'm told I have to behave a certain way, speak a certain way, BELIEVE a certain way, and even VOTE a certain way, and if I don't, then I'm not a REAL Christian. It's mind boggling and sadly it's very real.

Disgraced Christian comic Mike Warnke once had a quote (albeit while playing the victim after having lied repeatedly about his past) where he said "The only army that shoots its wounded is the Christian Army." And while he uttered those words while playing martyr for things that were wholly his fault, I always felt that those words rang true too often.

I mean look at how many Christians went in on Kirk Franklin because he had the audacity to use secular artists in his music. He had the nerve to reach out and try to appeal to a broader audience rather than simply, to use a pun/cliche, preach to the choir. And he would inject a more urban vibe to his music, incorporating hip hop sensibilities to reach a broader audience.

I understand the fear that some have of letting the un Godly infect the Godly and water it down and whatnot, but when you have a situation where you only want your music to be catered to those that ALREADY believe what you are saying, you are limiting your audience, and speaking only in a business sense, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. I remember first hearing about Kirk Franklin on MTV of all places, when I saw the video for his song "Stomp" which featured Salt from Salt & Pepa. If it wasn't for that video being on a mainstream channel, I'd have never heard of Franklin, or went on to hear his Christian music.

Artists like Sho Baraka, Braille, Lecrae, Shei Atkins, Evidence and others are a new breed of Christian artist. They are able to get across their message of Jesus while simultaneously also reflecting realism in their music. They can tackle serious subjects, broach real life issues, all the while maintaining their spirituality and not succombing to the dark side.

And fortunately for those who like Christian music with a message and deep lyrics, they aren't afraid to make some lily-white bloggers uncomfortable with the fact that this country had and continues to have a very serious problem when it comes to racism. And sticking your head in the sand pretending it doesn't exist may work for you in your life, but thank God that doesn't work for them.

The One Where Beyonce Politely Requests For Bitches To Bow Down

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 03:26:00 +0000

UPDATE: Clarified some points in here that I think, in hindsight, came off as overly harsh and not really representative of what I think.

So Beyonce who has seemingly been decreed Queen and Emperess of R&B/Hip Hop for some reason, came out with a song recently that has been a tad bit on the controversial side (as Controversial as Beyonce can be anyway) called "Bow Down", in which she spits out the following lyrics:

I know when you were little girls
You dreamt of being in my world
Don’t forget it , don’t forget it
Respect that, bow down bitches
I took some time to live my life
But don’t think I’m just his little wife
Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted
This my shit, bow down bitches

Perhaps not surprisingly, this has raised a few eyebrows since its release with so many people losing their collective minds over this. "OMG She said bitch!" or the utterly ridiculous "WHAT? You're supposed to be a female role model and feminist icon and this is how you act?" and even the slightly more realistic, but still bizarre "You're supposed to be about women's unity and now you're telling them to bow down?" Even Rush Limbaugh jumped into the fun with a completely ridiculous and incredulous take on the song's meaning.

Let's be honest here. Who give a shit? Her music is generic pop R&B, and nothing more. Each song she puts out, with few exceptions, sounds much like other songs that are out by other artists. Also, it is not like her putting out a song depicting herself as a strong powerful woman is really any different than any other female artists who have done similar things? The only reason this is somehow a big deal is her using the word bitch so many times in the song.

And beyond the initial shock value of it, once again, I'll ask: who gives a shit?

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I never viewed her as someone who was a "role model", no matter how many Presidential Inaugurations she sang at, or no matter how many famous people she hob nobs with. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I don't expect my "role models" to throw up gang signs on instagram. But hey, that's just me.

And her supposed history of girl power is suspect at best. Her catalog is littered with hypocrisies (criticizing other women in "Nasty Girl" by telling the titular girl to "put some clothes on", while her whole career has been about dressing half naked and selling herself with sex), or songs that were viewed as female empowerment when they were basically nothing more than Beyonce playing the victim after kicking the other members of Destiny's Child to the curb.. Looking at you "Survivor"

I read an article by someone named "Fire" who according to her bio is a singer, defending Beyonce against those who were criticizing her for the song. The thing that irritated me about the article though is it just screams "angry feminist who will always take the side against the male in the argument." And that's fine I guess. Everyone should have their voices heard, and I don't think anyone should necessarily be dismissed because they are a female or a male, but her article almost came off as a caricature at points.

There's one specific part that nearly made me dismiss her out of hand when she wrote the following:

The funny thing about patriarchy is that it rears its ugly unshaven head and beer laden morning breath over to your side of the bed, hoping to 'get a little' before you get up to get dressed for work. Meanwhile patriarchy stays at home all day, reaping the rewards of the hard work the next 12 hours your day will bring. Patriarchy thinks it has the right to tell you that after working damn hard (twice as hard as he), for 20 years, that you bitches are not allowed to say 'bitch.' Patriarchy dictates that your husband can say the word bitch in every one of his songs for upwards of 20+ years. Yet, the moment you deign to darken the 'bitch' doorstep, you will be brought to task.

The paragraph starts out with this thinly veiled "men are disgusting rapists-in-waiting" type sentiment and then devolves into this weird diatribe about how the men aren't doing shit, and are just taking advantage of and trying to manipulate those hard working women that are doing all the work (or twice as much at least).

Now I get what she says in other aspects of her piece. When she talks about the double standard that many have towards Beyonce in this song and the utterances of the word "bitch". It's not right, that so many men in hip hop/R&B can say something and it somehow be considered alright by many people, yet when a woman says it it's somehow the end of the world. Men say that and worse in many of their hip hop tracks, so why can't she, right? And I'm not a hypocrite here, while I thought her song was stupid, I thought it was equally stupid and damaging for all those men to rap about "bitches" and "hoes" and throwing the N word around non stop.

I was very disappointed when I bought the newest album by rapper Common where after he told Oprah years back that he was not going to keep disrespecting women (namely black women) in his albums anymore, here he is on The Dreamer/The Believer, dropping multiple lines about women as bitches and hoes and throwing the N word around. As someone that adores his classic album "Be", it was disappointing. He has the right to rap about whatever he wants. Was just hoping that he had elevated himself to a higher plateau than your average bargain basement rapper wannabe.

Women should be respected and treated as equals, and there is a true issue with sexism and discrimination in the music industry and other industries that is a real problem. I don't mean anything I write here to diminish that. Anyone that knows me knows I've spoken out against sexism before on my blog, as well as racism, homophobia and any other forms of discrimination and bigotry.

And I've taken to task rappers in the past for relying on those words far too often, while then getting upset if white people use the N word as well. So my annoyance at Beyonce for her ridiculous song (beat notwithstanding) stems not from some sense of keeping her down and in her place and cooking and cleaning or some shit, it is out of a sense that she could be much better.

I do realize that my desires for artists to grow and expand and be creative aren't necessarily the law of the land, and I don't get all I'd like. At the end of the day though, I think this is much ado about nothing. It's shock value marketing at it's core. It's this, in my opinion, fake feminist woman power type charade she's got going on. It comes off as forced, I mean. Almost like she's trying to reassure herself as much as anyone else.

Beyonce's already stupid rich, she married someone who's even more stupid rich, and she's already the proclaimed queen of pop R&B. She's already at the top in both terms of music and power, as her and her husband, Jay Z, are considered one of the big power couples in the country, so there's no need to create this fake female macho bullshit to attempt to rub everyone's nose in how powerful you are.

And if this is supposed to be some big feminist tent pole moment, as some seem to want to paint it as, then why the need to recruit a whole gang of men for the remix of it? Surely that's a big step forward for the so-called feminist teachings of this song.

And don't get me wrong here, I GET the point of the song. I get that is her planting her flag as the Queen Bee, and making sure people understand she's not a kept wife and that she's her own entity. I get that and I respect that. I don't even have a problem with her using that word, as it's a fairly aggressive move and as I mentioned before I dig the instrumental for it.

However, to me, Beyonce has always seemed to try to straddle that line between gangsta chick and classy woman. She wants to have this split personality/alter ego where she can be all classy and upscale one minute, and then get in your ass the next with some aggressive hip hop vibes.

A variation of the old "Lady in the streets and a freak in the bed" cliche that was in hip hop back in the 90's, and to some degree still today. Only that was sort of a male requirement of the female. Here it's more of "I can be classy and respectable, but I can kick your ass if you test me." To me, I feel that rapper Eve pulled that off much more seriously and believable.

But there is that dichotomy where it's a situation of how can we take her seriously where she's wanting to be viewed as this ultra classy woman of respect and a role model for young women, when she's on Instagram throwing up gang signs, or facing down accusations that she's lightening her skin on her magazines and album covers? Funny I didn't see a mention of that in Fire's article.

But hey, what do I know, right? I'm just surely part of that patriarchal society that's trying to keep poor Beyonce down.

Justin Timberlake - Mirrors (Official Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 08:29:00 +0000

Justin Timberlake has been on fire lately with the promotion for his new album "The 20/20 Experience". Hosting SNL, a week with Jimmy Fallon, and his secret show at SXSW, paired up with the absolutely flaming hot band "The Tennessee Kids", he's been pretty much everywhere lately.

Now he's released the brand new video for the second single, "Mirrors", and it's a doozy. Honoring the memory of his late grandfather William (the video itself is dedicated to both grandparents), the video depicts the love of William and Sadie over the years.

Simply amazing and emotional work here. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of people crawling out of the woodwork to throw shade at Justin lately, which is something I don't understand. He's clearly one of the more talented and seemingly genuine in his down to earth appeal. There's much worse out there that someone can be trying to disrespect.

Anyway, here's the video. Check it out.

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The One Where Sarah Palin Becomes President Due to Insanity

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:48:00 +0000

UPDATE: April 20th 2013: I finally got it. Pictures added.

So I wrote last year about this fantastic strategy game for the iPhone/iPad and Android called "Plague Inc". Similar to the game Pandemic 2.0 (according to those who have played that game), it puts you in the position of spreading a virus throught the world, with the point of infecting and killing everyone. You can up the symptoms, alter how it's delivered, all the while trying to avoid having the virus cured.

In the game you can choose between Bacteria, Fungus, Virus, Bioweapon and even a Zombie virus (with the newest update), each of which requires a different way of approaching things.

Some of the achievements on here are crazy difficult to get, and seems to require a lot of luck in how things happen, as many of the events that go in in the game are completely random (I've had the Olympics go on in multiple different years), however one that I had been trying to get for awhile was for the United States to nuke Russia or China.

Well I finally got ~~part~~ all of the equation necessary, and it kind of made me chuckle a little bit when the events popped up on the screen to let me know I had activated an event. Not necessarily because I was overcome with glee, but just because it seemed kind of an odd thing to throw in there out of nowhere.

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So I (using a cheat that is allowed through the game of unlimited DNA) I basically amped up just about all the transmission points (water to get past the ships filters, and the air to get past plane filters, allowing it to travel out of the country), as well as blood and insects (which affect the poorer nations), while also ramping up my drug resistences (to affect the wealther nations that had the expensive and awesome drug cocktails). This infected the entire world in minutes. I also devolved any mutations that would come along that would create symptoms. Symptoms = being noticed = cure begins to be found.

So once everything was 100% infected, I made the virus a little bit lethal but not TOO lethal.

Oh and here's the trigger to getting the achievement of Nuking another country (Which I haven't fully gotten yet). You have to upgrade to the "Insanity" symptom. You'll see why in a bit.

So once I did had Insanity selected, while making the lethality low, I had to sit back and wait for good bit. Devolving anything that made it too lethal (Coma, Necrosis, etc) was a definite must. You can't kill everyone off.

Suddenly this pops up on the screen.

Oh yeah and I named my disease that was destroying the world, "Bigotry". I'd like to make it clear I didn't necessarily have the name in mind when I was seeking out this achievement, it just happened that way.

So after the president becomes ill, you have to wait some more. I amped up the lethality a bit, because as you can see, the cure was getting close to being found, at 86%. I kept hitting the genetic reshuffle, which knocks their progress back a bit, but it didn't knock it back far enough as I was wondering if I'd even get the nuke achievement or not.

THEN is when the kicker happens that made me chuckle. The following event popped up right at the end where the virus was about to be cured:

Sooooooo, yeah. Due to the "insanity" being upgraded, the country bypasses the Vice President and elects "SPalin".

Then the way you get the achievement (which I didn't get because I ended up having to ramp up the lethality so much to avoid being cured, that it wiped out everyone before it could happen), is you THEN, after Palin is elected President, you upgrade the symptom "Paralysis". This prevents the Generals from stopping "SPalin" from nuking Russia and/or China.

I have to say it's kind of a funny thing, although I guess if you're Sarah Palin or her supporters you may not think it is, particularly with the "Insanity" aspect of it. That said, it's kind of a ballsy move for the creator to throw that in there, considering that there's no doubt some of her fans that play the game and aren't very happy about it.

At this point, though, she's fairly irrelevant and exists only to throw red meat to the wolves of the Tea Party and the extreme fringes of the right wing, so maybe it's not that big a deal.

Kinda funny though I admit.

UPDATE:

So I finally got the Nuke achievement (at least one of them). There are two Nuke related achievements for the game. One to Nuke Russia and one to Nuke China. Haven't gotten China yet, but I DID get Russia twice. Maybe because due to Spalin being able to see them from her house, it was the easiest one to get.

Here are two more screengrabs for the rest of the scenario.

Once you have Palin elected, what you need to do is select "paralysis" symptom, which paralyzes the Generals and they cannot stop the President from Nuking another country.

As you can see I did this with a different name, one I was using previously with a Zombie virus. I just forgot to change it when starting a new game.

Soon after you get that notification, you get the following one.

And that, boys and girls, is how Russia gets nuked because of Insanity and a virus called Zombax-12.

The One Where Video Games Can't Have Female Main Characters

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:16:00 +0000

In my previous review of Tomb Raider, I mentioned how there's a difference, I believe, in how men and women experience a video game based on the gender of the character they are playing. I pointed out how due to Lara Croft being a female, that when she was put in extreme danger, including a scene where it appeared that she was in danger of being raped, that it puts some men in a position of wanting to protect her. I don't view that as "sexist" or "misogynist", just a matter of fact.

I posited that if any man could see something like that and not want to do something about it, then they're a sociopath and possibly worse. I understand that there are many women who find it unfortunate, and infuriating, that there are men who feel the need to protect them, as those women feel they are perfectly able to save themselves. As if the idea of a man being protective, somehow lessens the woman's image of being able to be anything but a Damsel in Distress.

I disagree, obviously, and think taken to it's logical conclusion, would that also mean that if someone WAS attacking a woman, that the man shouldn't step in? They should just keep on going, because the woman is independent and doesn't need rescuing? Maybe that sounds absurd, I don't know.

I do acknowledge though that there is a lot of sexism out there, especially in the gamer community as it relates to women. And as if we needed more examples of that, we have one that came out today where Capcom's upcoming third person action game "Remember Me" was rejected by multiple publishers because the main character, Nilin, is a woman.

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Via Penny-Arcade:

“It was not a decision,” he said. “It was something that just felt right from the beginning. It's one of those things that we never looked at from a pure, cold marketing perspective because that would have endangered the consistency of the whole game.”

That doesn't mean Nilin's sex wasn't on other people's minds, though. By the time Remember Me was shown to prospective publishers, it was too late to change Nilin from a woman to a man, and this was enough to cause potential backers to abstain from publishing the game. “We had some that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that,'” Morris told the Report.

So this goes back to a very real, unfortunately, situation where there are many male gamers who flat out refuse to play a game if the main character is a woman. Whether the sexism is conscious or subconscious, they just won't do it because they feel they can't relate to the character, or due to just flat out misogyny.

Oh but the discrimination and ignorance doesn't stop at simply sexism, folks, we have a little homophobia to throw in there too.

Even if Morris had changed Nilin to be male, that solution produced its own drama. “We wanted to be able to tease on Nilin's private life, and that means for instance, at one point, we wanted a scene where she was kissing a guy,” Morris said. “We had people tell us, 'You can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel awkward.'”

Morris chuckled. “I'm like, 'If you think like that, there's no way the medium's going to mature,'” he said. “There's a level of immersion that you need to be at, but it's not like your sexual orientation is being questioned by playing a game. I don't know, that's extremely weird to me.”

Now that's not the worst example of homophobia out there, but it's still there. This fear that if you have two males kissing in a game (one of them being the main character that gamers will play as) that will somehow remix their memories and make them gay or something? I dunno. I think it DOES clue you in that these people don't quite understand that being gay is not a choice or something that is going to occur due to playing a video game or watching a movie or whatever. It's something that you are born as and is your identity.

Personally if a game is good, I don't care what character gender it is. I've enjoyed playing as Lara Croft just as much as I've enjoyed as a male character such as Nathan Drake, or Kratos or Sackboy. I mean, as I pointed out in my review of Tomb Raider, there's a different emotional attachment, I believe, but as far as sitting down and enjoying it, who gives a shit what gender the character is?

It almost reminds me of hard core racist that I knew once who lived in my apartment building who when I showed him a copy of the movie "Three Kings" (starring George Clooney, Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg) refused to watch it saying "I don't think black people should be in main roles in movies.". That's a paraphrase, as he used a different descriptor for black people, but yeah. Other than that it's a direct quote.

I'll never understand people like that, but I'd like to think they are in the small minority in this world. Yeah, I'm blissfully hopeful like that.

As for "Remember Me" I've been looking forward to this for a few months now since I first heard about it. The concept is intriguing to me, and I've had it pre-ordered for a month now on Amazon. Just a few more months before the release.

For all the shit I give Capcom about their treating their customer base as an ATM with their games, I give them props for at least not towing the line of a lot of other publishers, and ignoring the sexism. Kind of sad we give props now for something that should be just a regular thing, huh?

The One Where I Review Tomb Raider & Infuriate Feminists

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Anderson) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:11:00 +0000

So I finished my initial playthrough of Crystal Dynamics' amazing new release Tomb Raider, and it is pretty damn good. There has been a lot of talk on gamer forums recently about it being "Game of the Year". While I can't argue with that at the moment, there's some top shelf amazing looking games coming this year, such as Beyond: Two Souls, The Last of Us and Watch Dogs.

The storyline of this is decent, I guess. I wasn't that caught up in it, but I think the big reaction it is getting is from the dark tone that the game has, and the eye popping graphics. There's also some really brutal fight scenes in the game as well, which I think adds to the appeal for a lot of people. And there's this real sense of danger that the main character, Lara Croft, finds herself in. This is an 18 year old college girl that is shipwrecked on the island and has to fight off these waves of increasingly more powerful bad guys to achieve your goal by the end, which is to rescue your friends from some guy trying to bring back their leader. Or something. As I said, I didn't really care about the story, but the story did lend a certain suspense and danger as it relates to Lara.

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I can't help but wonder if a lot of the impact of the story (The danger Lara is in, etc) is a direct result of it being an 18 year old female? At least as it relates to male gamers. I don't pretend to speak for female gamers out there. I mean if that was a male character, there'd be some emotional pull there (such as Drake in Uncharted 2), but not as much. Because I think it's inate for men to feel protective of a woman in mortal danger. Sorry if the feminists get all upset at me saying that, but it's freaking true. That's not something that diminishes women to say that either.

I'm not saying that to infer or imply that women can't protect themselves, or they aren't righteously independent women who do not need to rely on a man to "save them", I'm simply making an observation based on, what I view, as common sense logic. Now are men wrong for feeling that sense of wanting to "protect" or whatever you want to call it, women? Maybe some women would say the answer is yes.

As I said, maybe that's a gender specific thing? I'm sure women who play this would have a different reaction, but I think that in general, unless you're a sociopath, I think if you see scenes of women being brutalized, it's jarring. It's something that sets uneasy with you and it SHOULD make you feel uneasy. I don't think that's a detrimental mindset against women to say that, either. I'd be more offended if a man saw scenes of a woman being impaled through the throat with a spike, or being attacked and be subjected to an attempted rape, and wasn't disturbed.

When you play Uncharted 2, there's a constant sense that Nathan Drake is in danger, often fighting various foes, each more difficult than the next it seems at times, and yet, as a guy, I don't think the reaction is the same as it was with Lara. That's not to say that Lara somehow is better than Uncharted 2, but just the way the genders approach these situations are different.

I posted my early thoughts on the game (including parts of this longer piece) on a few forums, and I had some female gamers respond and one woman, Heather, wrote the following:

I kinda disagree with the idea that Lara’s 18-year-old woman status is what directly creates the emotional pull compared to Nathan Drake. We don’t really feel for Nathan because he doesn’t seem fazed by much, whereas if he’d been written with the same sensitivity as Lara was (a 32-year-old man would feel the same pain/fear/cold as a woman of any age), I would think/hope we’d feel similarly emotionally connected with him/worried for him.

But they’re two different games–Uncharted is more swashbuckling fun times whereas Lara is just trying to survive and didn’t want any of this. Completely different both completely valid atmospheres. So you can’t really pin the emotional effect on identity factors alone. Similarly you can say that you personally felt protective of Lara, and no one could gainsay that for whatever it’s worth, but you can’t extrapolate that out to anyone else. Video game protagonists are designed to put you in their shoes. That’s what I felt playing, and I know a lot of dudes who felt/played the same way.

And I think that's essentially the thing, though. She played the game and didn't feel "protective" of her, as I think a lot of men would. I didn't necessarily feel "protective" of her, but more I think subconsciously, the danger she was in, some of it very brutal, triggers something inside a lot of men that they wouldn't necessarily feel playing as a male character, aside from perhaps a sexual assault. And although Far Cry 3 had a scene that implied the rape of a male friend of your character, it was pretty lamely presented, and never mentioned again. So no real impact there.

Likewise, I think women playing as Lara would have a different emotional response than men would, just by the fact that they are females. They can relate to a female character in a more personal matter, and using their own experiences. In the unfortunate occasions where some of these women playing are the victims of violence, then that also can add an extra layer of emotional impact, that a man wouldn't necessarily feel.

Not that men can't relate or enjoy playing as a female character, just it's not the same. Just like a guy playing as Nathan Drake, is having a different emotional and visceral reaction than a woman playing him, I would wager. Again, I can't speak of women gamers and won't. Just my thoughts on that matter.

When the game was announced, Tomb Raider Exec. Producer, Ron Rosenberg, made some comments about how male gamers would feel protective over Lara (which set off many feminists who were not pleased about that) and implied that Lara would be a victim of sexual assault (Which set off even more). There was lots written about that topic, and I wasn't sure what the reasoning behind that choice was, other than a tried and true trope that is always used to heighten tension or something.

However, whether it was changed due to the backlash, or if Rosenberg simply overstated the situation, there is no rape in this game. There's a scene where she is manhandled, and it looks like that might be the direction things are going, but it doesn't. Some of the articles about this last year were a bit upset at this idea, but it turned out to be all for naught.

One article I saw seemed to state that the game would have the rape be a sort of fork in the road moment, where if you fight back hard enough you won't be raped, but if you don't fight hard enough you will. Not sure where they got that idea, because the implication in that statement is that the rape is an interactive moment that either will or won't happen.

Lara Croft will be punished with rape for failing to complete the game objective of not getting raped. The responsibility is wholly upon her to protect herself, it is not upon the scumbag rapists who are trying to hurt her.

Almost like the game inFAMOUS where several points in the game are "Karma" points where you make a good or bad choice, and that impacts how things turn out. The idea of a game doing that with rape is ridiculous, but that seemed to be the insinuation of that article. Perhaps the person didn't mean to infer that, but it's how it came across to me anyway.

For the record the scene in question in the game, has Lara's hands bounded and this big guy has her against a wall and is moving his hands up her body towards her throat to choke her. You can fight him off by reacting to the QTE prompts, but if you fail, he simply breaks your neck. Horrifying, yes, but not a "let's see how bad the young lady doesn't wanna be raped" moment.

While I think Tomb Raider, is really good in many ways, I still don't put it above Uncharted 2: Among Thieves as far as all around packaging goes. The emotional pull of Uncharted 2, the storyline, the supporting cast, the graphics, the voice acting, the writing, EVERYTHING was pitch perfect all around. There was NO WEAK MOMENTS of Uncharted 2. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception was a disappointment to me in a few ways, but "Among Thieves", is the single greatest video game experience of my life, no matter what console.

Tomb Raider, for all it's pluses, the supporting cast is virtually non-existent. 99.9% of the stuff Lara is doing is on her own, which lends to the ridiculousness of this. If Drake is "Impossible White Man" game *more on that later*, then this is "Impossible White Woman" game. This 18 year old scrub who has never killed anything in her life, is suddenly turning into the perfect shot, hitting people in the face with arrows from hundreds of yards away, and is doing it with virtually no help, aside from one moment in the game on a bridge.

Uncharted 2 had a solid supporting cast, including two strong female roles, and the best friend/mentor character of Sully. There were moments where you think a supporting person might die and it's heartbreaking because, you've come to know the characters and you don't want any to die. There was a moment in Uncharted 3 where it kind of hints at one of the supporting cast dying (and it was teased prior to the game's release), and as it's barreling towards it's finish, you just don't know which one might go, and it's sucked you in.

With Tomb Raider, does anyone really care about the supporting cast? They're barely there, and only for brief amounts of time. Meanwhile this 18 year old girl who's turned into Rambina is mowing down hardened killers who don't hesitate to try to flat out destroy you at first sight.

The graphics are awesome, and what little storyline there is has a much darker tone to it than Uncharted 2. I was listening to a podcast called "This Week in Blackness" with comedian Elon James White, and his producer Aaron Rand Freeman, and Tatiana King and they were talking about this game on their #WeNerdHard show. Aaron and Elon were just going crazy over the game and Aaron was talking about how in Uncharted 2 you never think Drake's going to die, because he is, as they affectionately refer to games and movies like Uncharted, and Die Hard as "Impossible White Man" games/movies. And they said that you never really felt that way with Lara, as she was constantly threatened.

However, they're both impossible white people games, perhaps Lara even MORE so, because at least with Drake we know he's done this kind of thing before. It's not like this is his first dance with vicious enemies. With Lara she's supposed to be some innocent Brit, and suddenly after a kill or two, she finds out that killing is kinda her thing.

Graphically, I'd give Tomb Raider an edge over Uncharted 2, although coming out four or five years later, I'd expect it to look better. Pretty much every other category I'd give the edge to Uncharted 2 either by a little or a whole damn lot.

Uncharted 2 won awards in damn near every aspect of the game that can win an award. As I said, the game is perfection personified, and really it was only logical that Uncharted 3 would feel disappointing coming after something like that. Uncharted 2 is one of those games you can pick up again and play it as soon as you finish, and it doesn't really get old. The storyline, the music, the voice acting, etc is just top notch and enough can't be said to illustrate that point. The writing in that is just out of this world, and I think is better than many actual blockbuster movies.

Also Uncharted 2 had the single greatest video game trailer, featuring a fantastic score piece. Incidentally this trailer won an award for best video game trailer, and the song won an award for best video game song.

So while Tomb Raider is very good, and at this point a "Game of the Year" candidate, and the obvious comparisons will be made between this and the Uncharted Franchise (notice they always say "The Uncharted Games" rather than calling out Uncharted 2 in particular) due to the similar game play style, I can't fathom anyone rating this over Uncharted 2 based solely it seems on the incredible graphics and the darker tone. Because I can't figure out any other way in which Tomb Raider is better than Uncharted 2.

Especially with the storyline and the ending. When Tomb Raider ended, I was just thinking "oh okay, it's over now". With Uncharted 2 there's this exhilarating moment when you finally defeat the last boss, and then there's still more to go to escape from the area you were in.

Great game, Tomb Raider. Not the best though. That title still belongs to Uncharted 2.