Prince Makes Creepy Sexy

Video of Prince covering Radiohead’s Creep at Coachella. I have to say I like Prince’s version better.

DIPLO makes me want to Pop it like a Pimple

DIPLO+KANYE+FREE=Three kinds of Fantastic

How can you go wrong with DIPLO remixing

Kanye…you can’t. Click the Green.

Diplo Flashing Lights Remix

I am in Love Alison GoldFrapp

CLICK HERE: Its not Over Yet (klaxons Cover)

This is a sultry fragile Alison Goldfrapp cover of the Klaxons’ Its Not Over Yet. In Short, I am in love with this…and not the kind of musical love that happens when drunk biddy’s are at the bar and Bon Jovi comes on. No this is real love. Highly recommended for anyone who is crushbroken, frustrated, or has a thing for fantastic jammy jams.

Fuck You Itunes OS 2

What You see above you is going to be my next Tech purchase

What this little device does is allow you to transfer songs and playlists from one Ipod to another. Just Plug it it in and share. It is called a Mishare. Take that Itunes. For the Low low price of $99 I can get music from whoever. Read more about the MiShare HERE

For some Background on why I am so excited to stick it to ITUNES read THIS

The Internet is the Fountain of Youth

It is overcast, and I originally planned on only posting a video of my favorite song for overcast spring days, but then decided to do a little more. First is the video though:

Jesus and Mary Chain-Never Understand

Anyway. Here is the rest of the post:

Why the Internet is the Fountain of Youth

My mom, once asked how I was going to feel when i was no longer cool…ie no longer knew what was fashionable, what music was new, or what scenes were popping off. While her generation fell out of touch when they settled down, it has recently become very clear to me that this generation never has to fall out of the know. This generation has so much access to hip culture via the web that even when we stop going to that dingy club that has the most raved about up and comers we can still know about them because of things like This. Or This. The whole thing is kind of crazy to think about, but basically the internet has a way of making people feel not so out of touch, which when you move beyond the flesh is what really makes people feel old. Which means that the internet is kinda like a fountain of youth.

Simon Says Hip Hop

I just recently noticed while at a Talib/Naughty by Nature show this weekend that going to a Hip-hop show is kind of like playing simon says.

Commands are typically as follows:

1.) raise your hands

2.) swing m’ from side to side

3.) “now bob your head”

4.) something of the “when we say_____you say _____” variety

5.) Something of the “now scream_____” variety

It seems as if the artist just says these things and the audience follows suit. I know about call and response and traditional African American call and response techniques and its relationship with the black church, but when it is a gaggle of white college students in the audience all of the historical cultural meanings die and it just turns into simon says.

I also think that it is because of the instruction nature of a hip hop show that so many white kids love m. I mean there is no room for misunderstanding what you are supposed to do. You just listen and follow suit. I mean there is no room for being the weird person not acting cool. You just listen and react accordingly. I guess, things can still go awry if you have no rhythm, but with dance dance revolution being so popular I think this is a dieing problem.

Anyway here is a video of Naughty by Nature…I loved seeing them cause it was a flashback to listening to my mom’s MTV Jams cassettes on my walkman.

Sound From Another Room

These are some tracks you might get hyped on.

Blu is this cat one of my co-workers tuned me into. Pretty fresh. Like Talib, Roots, and early Common without being too derivative.

This is the Blue Scholars (no blue is not the theme). Anyway they hail from Seattle. Read about them a while ago, but better late than never right? Total 90’s underground hip-hop vibe. Reminds me of listening to music off of Napster in high school, when I first got into Pharcyde, Souls of Mischief, Jurassic 5, and Atmosphere. (they won’t let me embed it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz79goWQrYU

Finally Here is M83, who I admittedly, and embarrassingly, heard about via Hipsterunoff. Anyway, I am now totally crushing on the girl in this first video. Something about enigmatic awk quiet girls with bangs. The video looks they way 16 candles or Pretty in Pink would look if John Hughes wen to Film school now and listened to a lot of emo in high school in Florida, but moved onto Jesus and the Mary Chain once he moved to California. Is it just me or does the second song sound like the killers or vis a vis.

School Visits and Why my Friends Hate this Blog

1.) Accepted Students weekend makes me feel like a salesman sometimes.  Other times it makes me realize why people get into the admissions job.  Is it weird that admissions has made me think of this school as a business and a product? Hi, I am a prospective buyer (student) could you tell me where the marketing department (admissions) is? Yes I would love to see what you have in your show room (campus tour). Seriously though, it was the best time I have had at this job so far.

2.) Talking to high school students is pretty awesome cause they are still excited about life.  They aren’t like seniors who have come to realize that the statistic showing the high percentage of graduates who go to graduate school is not a good thing, but rather a statistic that indicates that your undergraduate degree will not get you a job.

3.) If you saw a three paths on a campus and two of the paths led to a building and the middle path just led to grass what would you think?  would you think the middle path symbolized the value of your education…leading you nowhere? Would you think that the middle path signified that the middle road leads no where and that a person is nothing without extreme well separated beliefs? Would you think that it reflected the schools low endowment and their inability to afford a complete third path? Or would you just take it to mean that the landscape architect was trying something different?

4.) People (3) are getting annoyed with me referencing them in my blog. Blogging is strange. While I take inspiration from my life, a lot of it is embellished for the sake of entertainment. Sometimes I speak truth. Sometimes I dont at all. Most of the time it is in the middle. Whatever. If you see something on here that offends you because you think it putting too much of your business out there, leave a comment and I will take it down. In any event it is interesting though to see how and when people get annoyed over issues of privacy. I mean people are ok with facebook pictures, rfid tags, and dinner table gossip, but posts that allude to them, but make no direct reference are no good. ok. Wait, did i do it again?

5.) I think the only time i would run off to vegas to have a shot gun wedding is if I met a woman who liked the same music as me (and didn’t just tolerate it), had bangs, laughed at my jokes, and stood up to me. (you see this is me embellishing/over-simplifying for entertainment).

6.) I am learning that my break from education has made me an even worse debater/dinner table discussion haver. I cannot form thoughts in any coherent manner. I think I am just going to stop talking until I go back to school.

Negative artwork

This is Some real Next Level Stuff. This is a piece by The Mac. He is this artist from Arizona, who paints Graffiti in negative colors. Meaning if you were to take a picture of his stuff and create its negative (with photoshop) you get the real colors.

And After inverting the colors Here is What you Get…Wow.

Well I guess the AIDS is in our Chicken Nuggets…it is a METAPHOR pt. 2

Well this news actually broke a week or so ago, but at the time I had other things to write about so I passed on talking about it, and instead I just used this gem as dinner party conversation. But now, a week later, I am way too distracted by bikes like this to write anything new so here it is:

On April 14th the hipster uniform supplier American Apparel, whose catalog also functions as a stroke book for emerging post-pubescent alt. boys, announced that they will be putting RFID tags in their clothes. You can read the full story HERE, but the gist of it is that these little (half the size of a grain of sand) tags are going to be on American Apparel clothing.

The reason American Apparel execs are happy about it is because they will ” increase sales and customer service by having real-time visibility into product at nearby stores, enhancing the intra-store transfer process to balance stock. Furthermore, the retailer will be able to respond more efficiently to market behavior by using RFID to record and report on purchases, not only within one location, but across a region of stores.”

Meaning, they will know when something is out of stock, track what is getting sold and where, track their goods over the supply chain because unlike a barcode which is the same for every product, these bad boys are specific to individual products.

Reasons Surveillance obsessed neurotic people like me are worried:

What this also means is that there is now the distinct possibility of being tracked through our personal possessions.

What!? Why?

“When RFID chips are embedded in your ID cards, your clothes, your possessions, you are effectively broadcasting who you are to anyone within range.” Since the products each have an individualized RFID tag the store will log exactly which products you purchased, at what store, and at what time of the day it was purchased.

While there is talk about how the chips don’t have the strength to send signal long distances it is disconcerting that American Apparel will now have it logged that Teddy F bought the purple V-neck crew shirt from the Chicago store on Milwaukee on march 12th 2008 at 3:30 pm.

Over time American Apparel would then collect detailed info regarding your purchase history and then use it to pitch products…bring on the junk mail and personalized advertisements that invade your privacy. God forbid you buy your goods with a debit card or credit card.

Worse however is that RFID tags (drum roll please) could also lead to tracking once you leave the store . Yep, Tracking Don’t Stop. While companies say that tracking stops at check out, they only rewrite part of the code at checkout…meaning you are walking around with a beacon once you leave. While “they” say the signal is not strong enough to track you in the street, it is really weird to think that your consumer identity, personal info like address and telephone number, and financial records are going to be stored in your garment. This is weird cause all it would take is some e-savvy criminal to scan your product after you bought it and then retrieve your personal info, banking info, and patterns of behavior (where you shop).

Basically this opens up the possibility for a new level of stalking and identity theft.

So thanks American Apparel, at least now when you are assaulting me with adverts on your latest polka dot hoodies and making me vulnerable to identity theft/stalking I know your stores will always be fully stocked.