Gossip is the new pornography

There are strong similarities between Michael Corleone and Alexander Portnoy. Neither of them, for instance, wishes to enter his father’s line of work. Each of them falls for a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant girl. Of course, there are some differences, too. When Alexander Portnoy’s father is frustrated, he gets constipated; when Michael Corleone’s father is frustrated, he gets someone killed.

— Dick Schaap, reviewing The Godfather for The New York Times Book Review, April 27, 1969.

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13 August 2008 • quote

I just watched this video on Stereogum and love the aesthetic of it. The black and white goes especially well with the barely emotional melodies from Ladytron. The commenters on Stereogum are much less forgiving but I think the zebra stripes fit the song. The pattern is simple but artistic, just like the song, which pretty much repeats its one-line chorus for most of the second half.

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9 August 2008 • video ladytron

Today on TIG I had a post called “Radical or Pro-Parental”, which was about the outrage one “concerned parent” had about taking her daughter to the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls and her daughter came home with a Bikini Kill tape. I don’t want to rehash the arguments I made, but I’m pretty much pro-Rock and Roll Camp for Girls across the board on everything and this is no exception. I do tend to believe that turning someone on to Bikini Kill is one of the best favors we can do for another human being.

The title, Radical or Pro-Parental, came from a song by Julie Ruin - which was the next project Kathleen Hanna went on to after Bikini Kill broke up. What I did not realize, and only learned from Wikipedia was that Hanna began working with Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning as a means of being able to play her Julie Ruin songs live. Of course, Hanna, Benning and Fateman went on to form Le Tigre.

It is really interesting to go back and listen to the Julie Ruin record because it was recorded mostly in Hanna’s Olympia apartment and sounds like a lo-fi Le Tigre record but I think the songs still hold up after 10 years.

With the inclusion of “Rebel Girl” on Rock Band 2 and this “controversy”, I’m happy that people are again talking about Bikini Kill and Kathleen Hanna again.

Here’s the video for “Aerobicide”, one of the songs from the Julie Ruin album (1998, Kill Rock Stars):

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4 August 2008 • video bikini kill julie ruin kathleen hanna

Be Your Own Pet has been my big iPod obsession all year - pretty much since the moment Fluxblog posted “Becky” a few months ago (thanks again Matthew!). The band just posted a MySpace bulletin saying that this will be their last tour together and they’re going separate ways.

Here’s the video to their single “The Kelly Affair”.

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1 August 2008 • video be your own pet

Saturday, August 9th 1077 The End Presents The Vans Warped Tour featuring Angels & Airwaves, Paramore, Ludo, Katy Perry and more! Tickets still available for this all ages show at the Gorge!

— Tickets still available? Ya don’t say…

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Christopedia: the Christian encyclopedia that the saved can edit

toomuchawesome:

Oh. My. God.

Here’s a taste of what the site offers:

Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a African radical Muslim father from Kenya, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., and a atheist white American mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. According to divorce records they were married on February 2, 1961 in Maui. No guests attended the ceremony.^[1] Barack Hussein Obama himself has questions about the marriage. In his memoir, Dreams From My Father he states, “How and when the marriage occurred remains a bit murky, a bill of particulars that I have never quite had the courage to explore.”^[2]

Three years later Ann Dunham filed for divorce in January 1964, citing “grievous mental suffering.”^[3] The previous year Barack Hussein Obama Sr. had left the family for Harvard and would see his son only once in 1971. From Harvard Obama Sr. returned to Africa and went on to engage in numerous relationships, fathering no less than eight children with four different women. He would later die in a drunk driving accident in Africa.
Stanley Ann Dunham would continue her miscegenation by marrying another Muslim, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian and moving to Jakarta, Indonesia, where the family lived for four years. She later gave birth to a daughter, Maya Soetoro

And you know it’s all true because it’s on “Christopedia” and God said so.

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30 July 2008 • reblog: tylercoates

Zappos offers Twitter classes

“Zappos Finds a Use for Twitter. Really!” Inc.

Twitter seems like just another online distraction to some people, but it’s almost become part of your company’s information technology. Wait a minute — Twittering didn’t actually rescue you from the balcony, did it? You probably had a phone…?

Actually, I text-messaged my co-workers, who were still attending a conference session at the time, as well as Twittered my situation. The combination of the two was what rescued me. I didn’t have the hotel phone number with me.

We’d heard a rumor that you were requiring employees to use Twitter. But the “Employees Who Twitter” page on your corporate Web site lists only 408 of them. And one of your Tweets says: “Problem is seems 2 freak people out & they think we are telling employees 2 do so but we’re not.” So maybe we heard wrong.

Well, our number one focus is our company culture, so we encourage people to sign up for it. But no one’s required to. We also offer Twitter classes. It can be a little complicated for first-time users, so we kind of step them through the process. The classes are optional as well.

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29 July 2008 • reblog: rkb

I just heard this evening that Tim Rogers, the frontman for the frickin’ awesome Australian rock band You Am I, had his visa denied for his upcoming solo tour. That makes me sad because Rogers was set to play at the Sunset Tavern on August 8. I hear a You Am I tribute band might be on the bill in Rogers’ absense.

Here’s the video for the song “Berlin Chair.”

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28 July 2008 • video you am i

But wait, imagine a film critic who proudly resigns his job rather than write about a popular movie or genre of movies - say, movies based on comic books. Would we think that guy was a hero, or kind of an asshole?

—

Zoilus: Forced to Write About American Idol?
Call Our Help Line Now

What Carl said. He seems to have a much bigger-picture perspective on things than Powers, based on her article today, at least.

(via pgwp)

Reading this, I’m not sure if is a good thing or not, according to Ann Powers, for rock critics to “embrace mainstream”. I definitely consider myself a “poptimist” and, I think, so does Powers but her article is all over the map. She can’t really mean it when she says, “This atmosphere of openness is mostly fantastic, but characteristically, pop critics have found a way to turn it confrontational. Prefer Ray LaMontagne to Toby Keith? You’re an NPR-listening square! Irritated by T-Pain? You’re a Luddite! Sick of Fergie? You’re sexist! And just as many critics take the opposite stance, with equal righteous vigor,” can she?

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27 July 2008 • reblog: pgwp

Since this is my blog, I’m allowed to be a little masturbatory in it, right?

If so, here are the first batch of my Capitol Hill Block Party reviews. These were from Friday night:

Vampire Weekend

More are on the way, all from today. I’ve written 4 of my 5 reviews. Forthcoming are: Little Party and the Bad Business, Man Plus, New Faces, Jaguar Love (all Northwest bands) and Grand Ole Party (who play in about a half an hour from the time I’m writing this).

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26 July 2008 • abe vigoda mika miko girl talk vampire weekend

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