Mesmerized with Animal Planetesque curiosity I watched and listened to two very young hipsters have a conversation amid a flurry of electronic interruptions in a coffee shop and for the first time really noted the difference between the generation that has grown up inundated with technology and my own, which didn’t even really have a useful internet in college. I cannot speak for their internal conscious states, but this was no commercial for ADHD. On the contrary, they navigated the changes like expert gymnasts, or finely tuned computer processors, picking up exactly where they left off without missing a single beat. It flowed, noticeably different then most adults I see attempt this. We all think we can multitask these days, but the truth of the matter is that most people still can’t talk on the phone and drive at the same time (this is a fucking epidemic, actually.) I was beginning to think that these two were examples of The New Human, efficient in inhuman ways due to our co-evolution with technology. But then I saw another dude adjusting his slacker mop with the aid of his own webcam. iNarcissist?
Long, somewhat overdone, philosophical analysis of the cult of Rambo. I remember reading the book First Blood as a young boy scout, before seeing the movie, and really liking it. Had no idea back then that this book was originally published in 1972. Rambo was the coolest male survivalist role model for young boys with corporate dads. He’s a good loner that minds his own business…but if you fuck with him, whoa boy. Come to think of it, Stallone really does have a knack for playing the downtrodden loner. And I can’t wait to see the new Rambo movie, honestly.
Which of those two Rambos prevailed? When the Cold War ended, Sylvester Stallone’s movies lost their hold on the culture and decayed into ’80s kitsch. But that distrust of the government didn’t disappear; if anything, it intensified and crossed what used to be sharp ideological lines. (In the early ’90s, it wasn’t that unusual to hear left-wing radicals pondering the possibility of a POW coverup—or right-wing radicals touting the powers of hemp.) Since 2001, the balance has tipped back and forth. When the wounds of 9/11 were fresh, the outrage of the heartland populists turned outwards again; since then, the failures of the Iraqi occupation have driven many of them back to an anti-government stance.
After your bingeing finale to 2007 you might want to exercise a bit, if you care about regenerating those brain cells that is. Wouldn’t want you to forget how to “deal with ambiguity.” I like that. They make alcohol related brain damage sound like some kind of existential psychosis.
Now on to my predictions for 2008:
More Republicans will be caught promoting “family values” in public restrooms, thereby inspiring the long awaited Log Cabin Republicans coup to take the GOP.
UBL will be brought to justice by Captain America (with possible assistance from Iron Man) and thereafter Iraq, the little democracy that could, will stabilize and flourish, quickly becoming the number one tourist destination on the planet. CNN’s Morgan Neill will be there to report it all, but will refuse to grow a beard to look “tougher.”
American football will be replaced by the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame, Ulama. Losers will be sacrificed. Dick Cheney will play some part in this.
Apple will release a product that no one knew they needed but quickly becomes seductively irresistible. Google will release “Google Sex” which allows users to upload their own “sex content” to share with friends and family.
All 80s throwback fashion trends will begin to give way to 90s throwback fashion trends. Yesterdays hipsters will begin to feel old.
Guerrilla open source hackers will replace abandoned pay phones with VOIP kiosks out of retro-nostalgic respect, yo.
Unintelligent people will continue to breed at an alarming rate. Intelligent people will continue to occasionally sleep with unintelligent people, for sport.
People will suddenly stop wearing sandals; Crocs will be made illegal.
Defective Real Doll prototypes will be secretly released into the population, creating an apocalyptic “Westworld” type situation (only much sexier), that only reincarnated Real Doll Yul Brenner can save us from.
Georgia will move to number 1 in national housing foreclosures and retain its championship in bank robberies. I predict some spectacular “Point Break” style bank robberies in Atlanta.
A new president will be elected. No matter who it is Americans will feel relief for a few weeks.
The best thing about travel, besides enjoying the unique cultural and mulleted wonders offered by the location in question, would have to be discovering a new form of music or art. Or snack food. Holland didn’t disappoint, and on Saturday at Waterpop, a large free festival adorned gratuitously with sunflowers and traditional windmill in the distance, I discovered jumpstyle, the apparently preferred dance-step of young people throughout BeNeLux. It was a surreal moment, as I discovered a new favorite euro-cheese dance hit at the same time, “Me So Horny” by DJ Porny. A dance instructor with a boom box blasting the song, was illustrating the kick-crazy steps to a group of young pre-teen girls, all the while the lyrics carrying on, “DJ Porny, me so horny, come on get the vibe.” Perhaps too much irony. And I was confused, like when I heard Kid Rock for the first time and wondered, “is this a joke?” Please just watch the DJ Porny video for a proper education on all these matters.
By the way, I did spot a new mullet that I don’t think i’ve seen before: the dreds mullet. It’s short hair all around except for a few straggly dreads in the back. It’s these little bits of cultural arcana that you wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to that make travel so necessary for me.
So Saturday was the double header, with us playing Waterpop and THEN jetting across the border to Petrol (club) in Antwerp. That’s two shows in one day in two different countries. I like that. Reminds me of mountains where you can see into different countries simultaneously from some vantage point. Petrol is a very cool club in an old shipyard warehouse type place by the river. There are many different rooms and scenes in the club, and a big black curtain that they draw only when the band is ready to play, which was totally weird. Best show to date, and we are finally in a pretty solid groove. Touring will do that. Saturday night brought much needed sleep and Sunday was the final festival in the little city of Ell. Tough sell, err, to the kids in Ell. But I think they liked our t-shirts.
You’ve certainly heard of Parkour by now, even if not by name. But have you heard of Por Quoi? Give it till halfway through when they start doing the goofy stuff. Skate pool scene kills me. If I were Wes Anderson, or a Wes Anderson competitor, my next feature film would involve a rising Parkour star, and Will Ferrell would be the obvious choice for lead.
Traveling through Greece years ago, I met a Swede who spent his summers partying on the Greek Isles…funded by his government’s unemployment program. What was his disability, you wonder? Like every young and able bodied man, it was simply not wanting to work. So he snookered the system and collected his dough, came to Greece where he drank ouzo all night, did a bizarre Jim Morrison impersonation routine at a local bar, and slept on the beach all day. At the time I thought, man, what an awesome government, because I too was young, and didn’t want to work. How fair is it that some get a free ride while others don’t? Sweden, a country often cited as being the poster child for how big government schemes “work,” has it’s share of problems, and lecherous “disability” bums are among them.
Earlier this year, police in Sweden’s capital city Stockholm investigated the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels biker gang for suspected benefit fraud, because 70% of the gang were on extended sickness benefits. The same doctor had certified them all as suffering from depression.
Moral of the story: if the government builds it, someone will abuse it. And who suffers? Everyone not partying in Greece, or riding with the Hell’s Angels.
Here’s a really funny documentary short I saw last night as part of the AFF done by David Moore of Eyekiss films. Check it out, you will laugh, and if you don’t, it’s definitely your problem. Music by The Georgia Fireflies.
“A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows.”
I don’t know if the university was to blame, but the first email came out 2 hrs after the first shooting. Of course, I don’t think they knew they had a rampage at that point.
I have been notified of many things via email: births, deaths, all sorts of variants of good and bad news, but never that I was being pursued by a gunman. How many students do you think thought it was spam? Can you image some of the SMS messages that were sent back and forth between them?
Perhaps registering students cell phone numbers to send out SMS messages in case of emergencies would be slightly more direct in the event of emergencies.
Update: boing boing talks about the SMS notification possibility here, obviously following my lead. Although it may not accomplish much I do think it’s a step in the right direction, and not at all difficult to implement. The world needs more real time!
The lingering question I have is how could Cho, a lousy playwright and stalker, who had done time in a mental institution, have bought a gun so easily? You would think ‘mental institution’ might flag a background check?!?
String theory ties us in knots › Opinion (ABC Science)2010/09/08 Surely, there are natural laws, and they reflect observed patterns of organised behavior. But are these laws the true blueprints of physical reality? Or are they logical descriptions that we create to represent it?
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