July 2008 Archives

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (Voice, 2008). The most important thing about this book is that it's given me a new drinking game called Cowboy Faces. The rules? "Take a shot and pretend it didn't hurt. Make your face as stoic as possible." Simple. Comedic. Brilliant.

I don't have much to say about this book. I enjoyed it, despite the fact that for some reason it took me months to finish. Groff is adept with dialogue and does an amazing job of creating this fictional small town rich in history. Our heroine, Willie Upton, is often hard to like but has more than her fair share of wit and charm and smarts so she's forgiven. Much in the same way we forgive her mother, Vi, and the random cast of characters in their lives.

Except one guy...fuck him. But I'll leave you to figure out who.

The one challenge I had with the read is the breaks in the primary story to delve into the sordid history of Willie's family. It isn't always a problem but in the early chapters, I'm still getting to know and care about the present day people of Templeton. I wasn't ready to dig into those old letters and secrets until about halfway through the story.

Once I was ready, though, the sordid parts of Willie's family tree were fascinating and enthralling and Groff's sure voice and enjoyable writing style never waiver.

Recommended.

Photo by Caesar Sebastian

I'd mentioned this a week prior but standing at the back of The Fillmore with my friends all of a certain age (meaning born before 1980) listening to the DJ spin R&B and hip hop tracks of the last 25 years and watching the teens and those only slightly older mill about in their chunky glasses and bright shirts and rainbow colored belts and kicks and headbands and slouching boots and off the shoulder blouses all anxiously waiting for Skateboard P and the rest of N*E*R*D to hit the stage and showcase in less than 90 minutes what it took two days of the previous week's yPulse mashup conference to tell - the kids are alright.

In many senses, they are more than alright. I realize I was in San Francisco for this show but right there was the perfect example of an America that, at least for this night around this music, was more post-racial than not. Whether Black, Latino, White, Asian, some mixture therein, or none of the above, we all knew we could fly or die. Race wasn't much of a factor for all the girls standing in the line for the bathroom. You didn't have to be a shaggy haired white boy to head nod and jump along to a faithful cover of Seven Nation Army by N*E*R*D's entirely Black Funk focused tour band.

This was Obama Country.

And I was reminded of yPulse and Michael Franzini's day one ending Keynote about his book, One Hundred Young Americans which, for me, was the most interesting part of the conference, by a mile. These kids, in this concert hall, who all flashed pics, took video, and speed dialed their ex-es on Pharrell's command as he sang about how they've done us wrong with their cell phones, are absolutely the Instant Access Generation.

They might hear When Doves Cry during the warm-up show and think of it as some song their parents play at the BBQ but they've likely seen every video version of Kanye West's Can't Tell Me Nothin' and could pull up that one featuring Zach Galifianakis on their phone if you asked. They're likely here running into myspace friends and facebook connections for the first time. Maybe they're recognizing each other from their last.fm profile pics or their flickr stream.

They are colored, pop cultured, and connected and it shows.

Now, Franzini made the point that the kids aren't alright in every aspect. Good ol' fashioned education is failing them. That kid who has every remix of Spaz possible and can recite the lyrics to Lapdance without much prodding, isn't likely to be able to name the first five U.S. Presidents, tell you the important political issues of the day, or thrill you with their science acumen without being near Google or Wikipedia. If an Academic Decathlon randomly started in the middle of the concert hall, most of these folks are probably going to want to text a friend.

But, on this night, we're staying away from the anti-matter. I might be 33 and in the back of the club but I'll jump around to She Wants to Move and mosh it up a bit when appropriate and enjoy the Generation Gap.

It's my obligatory 10 favorite albums after 6 months post. And while it's late tonight, I better do it now or it will change again and that whole 6 month window thing will be rendered irrelevant.

1. Mark Ronson Presents Rhymefest: Man In The Mirror by Rhymefest. On Mike the Mentor, Rhymefest has a serious conversation with Michael Jackson about self-doubt, racial identity, and the rap game. Mike, in audio segments taken from interviews and documentaries from the 80s, is cogent, passionate, and inspiring. "Good, that's good," says Mike in a call & response that is both cute and natural and every time I hear it, I smile. Add to that, Ronson is the most on-point producer of the last two years and you've got a mixtape banger and my favorite, most listened to album of the year, so far.

2. The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley. "Got some bad news this morning which in turn made my day." For my money, this should be the album that garners the most attention come award season. Cee-Lo's grimey falsetto and lyrical acumen and Danger Mouse's muted, self-assured production are both just so next level on The Odd Couple that it makes St. Elsewhere, which was a bombastic leap forward in pop music, sound almost quaint in comparison. This is serious, seriously fun, seriously engrossing wonderful song-making.

3. 19 by Adele. I'm listening to Chasing Pavements right now and I'm feeling my heart hitch in my chest. It's involuntary. There's an emotion in her voice that cuts to my soul and attacks my tear ducts. She finds her way into any part of me that might well up, heave, threaten to burst. She notes in interviews that she only writes songs when she's sad or angry. That's not what I hear or what I feel. As she gets to this chorus, a theatrical overture where she nearly screams out asking if she should give up or keep on chasing, her passion becomes unbridled. She breaks free and I follow. I, too, break free.

4. Jim by Jamie Lidell. At his Los Angeles Show, we stood front row, stage left. He looked as if he had walked into Filter Magazine Headquarters and all the hipsters exploded around him covering him in gaudy trendy cliches. White shoes, sparkly shirts, skinny pants, a kind of ironic herky jerky dance, and willfully undone 'do. And then he started belting out these soulful tracks in the traditions of 60s Black Soul stalwarts and all was forgiven. Encouraged, really. He understands the absurdity. He understands this moment where white UK artists who cut their eye-teeth on Northern Soul and Mod records are now selling more records by mimicking those sounds than those artists maybe ever could but, you know what, he loves this music. He loves playing it, performing it, and sharing it with us. There's no pretending. So, let's give him a soul clap during Where'd You Go and sway back and forth during Green Light and accept another deserving entrant into the ever growing pantheon of Blue-Eyed Soul.

5. Seeing Sounds by N*E*R*D. You know that Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom) is the real song of the Summer but do you know that this is N*E*R*D's first album that meets the promise of all their massive talent? It does. And, for all you kids ready for the post-racial America, the international skate park of your dreams? This is your red capped, mosh-pit friendly multi-culti soundtrack. Get familiar.

6. Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie. I Will Possess Your Heart is my current song of the year. It's simply perfect. That they spend the first 5 minutes of the 8 1/2 minute tune building a crescendo of their wonderful drum riff and melody is ballsy and a reminder to their fans that going to a major label hasn't "ruined" Ben Gibbard and the boys. In fact, it may have made them better. Their focus on the sound they are creating is admirable and may be the reason this is, perhaps, their finest release yet.

7. The Mixtape About Nothing by Wale. Wale is your favorite blogger's favorite rapper these days. On The Vacation From Ourselves, he gets Julia Louis-Dreyfus to add a drop. This is mixtape people! He's got Elaine yelling out, "Motherfucker." And besides that, what other rapper is going to do a concept album about the show Seinfeld? I'm sorry, nobody is even in the same stratosphere as Wale these days. Not even Weezy. This DC area cat hasn't even put out a traditional album yet. And, again, more of that Mark Ronson influence. And, for bonus points, his track, The Kramer, is the most nuanced record on race you'll hear this year and blows everything I've heard from Nas's once-titled Nigger release in the dust.

8. Plastic People by Kraak & Smaak. Can we dance? Can I sing in your ear? Can we groove? Can we chill out? Can we look at the stars? Can I hold you? Will you hold me? Plastic People is the soundtrack for your late night adventures with whomever's catching your fancy at the moment. The chase is on.

9. Feed The Animals by Girl Talk. A late entry. Girl Talk is music for web nerds. People who like information. Who enjoy separating the signal from the noise. People who youtube-twitter-facebook-flickr-digg (in fact, I first heard about it on twitter) their days away. And like to get down.

10. Stereogum Presents...Enjoyed: A tribute to Björk's Post by Various Artists. It's not the best album in the world but I appreciate these interpretations of my favorite artist in the world. Particularly The Modern Things by High Places. I also love the idea that this is the kind of project that doesn't get made 10 years ago. At least not with any kind of hoopla. While Girl Talk is music for the internet, this is music from the internet. In the abstract, we made this.

The top 10 albums of the first half of 2008 according to my last.fm charts:

1. Cross by Justice
2. Untrue by Burial
3. Donuts by J Dilla aka Jay Dee
4. The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley
5. Belle Et Fou by Various Artists
6. Graduation by Kanye West
7. ...and all the pieces matter, Five Years of Music from The Wire by The Wire
8. Metal Fingers Presents: Special Herbs 9+0 by MF Doom
9. Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins
10. Some People Have Real Problems by Sia

I've been meaning to post this for over a week. With all the discussion of FriendFeed being a bit of an echo chamber these days, I'm aware that this is a post that will appear on FriendFeed talking about FriendFeed but my non-ff or new-to-ff friends have been asking about how to get past what they perceive as noise so, here we are.

First, let me say that I don't see the FriendFeed constant stream of information as noise. Maybe it's just how my brain works but all that stimulus is exciting and engaging, especially considering how much of it I find interesting and how much of it I want to comment on or dig into further.

That said, here's what I do to make it even more user-friendly.

1. You'll want to use some greasemonkey scripts (I assume you're using firefox)

FriendFeed Highlight Your Comments - As the script writer notes, it makes it easier to pick up on conversations where you left off. It also lets you know if your friends are also engaged in the conversation. You can easily see what they are saying.

FriendFeed Read Later - If you use this and hit "later" it creates a "read later" tab in your interface and also adds a like to the item. You'll now be able to go back to that "read later" tab later and dig into links you only glanced at previously. I like this a lot. Particularly for NY Times articles for some reason.

FriendFeed Filters: Friends & Groups - This is a "must have" if you think FF is noisy. I have 3 groups "Most Interesting Friends", "Angelenos" and "People I know" and use it often to parse through my growing friends tab.

FriendFeed By Service - I don't use this one as often and generally only use it for two things - to search for flickr photos (usually on the everyone tab) and to search for last.fm feeds. I might start using it to look for more librarything users, though.

2. You Like Me, You Really Like Me

I always go to the "me" tab first. It's what I have bookmarked and firefox says this is my most favorite link in the world right now. I do a quick scroll down of my page to see if people have liked or commented anything I've posted since the last time I was on. I respond as necessary and then...

2. Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout Willis?!

I make my way over to the Discussion tab (found in the side bar as view all likes and comments) to see what things I liked and/or commented on earlier have had on-going conversations. As people have noted elsewhere, friendfeed has a lot of very robust conversations on content from all over the place. You never know where something is going to go and who is going to chime in. Again, I respond and/or participate as necessary.

Then...

3. Friends, How Many of Us Have Them?

I spend the vast majority of my time right here on the Friends Tab. First, I do a quick scroll down to see what people are posting right now. This is the noisiest my FF experience gets. The 150+ people I subscribe to are all aggregated here, the friends of friends content,  along with the rooms I've joined and some of them, like the lastfmfeeds room could dominate the entire page. But, this is often how I find gems of content I wouldn't find otherwise.

I do my requisite comments and likes and then I filter. I tend to go with best of day and then People I Know. If I haven't been thrown on some tangential journey, I may go to my Most Interesting Friends filter or Angelenos but I usually have seen most of those folks by this point so I use those groups much less often.

Now...

5. I Give You Much More

Now, it's time to participate. Since I'm a very lazy blogger, I'm an active friendfeeder by doing the following -

A. I post links. Early on, I would just share or share with note from Google Reader but I find that posts with images and a pull-quote garner much more interest (I know they do for me). So, I tend to go directly to the source and use my bookmarklet or shareaholic to submit links to FF. I stay away from techie stuff. There are already way too many social media nerds posting that stuff. I like music, books, movies, comic books, words, words of wisdom, TV stuff, food pr0n, and stuff black people like. My feed reflects that, I think.

B. I put stuff on my amazon wishlist. You'd be amazed how many conversations crop up around products/media.

C. I favorite and publish images to flickr. FriendFeed has changed the way I use flickr. I would rarely search for images before. I would just track what my friends were posting and be done. Now, after seeing how other people use the service, I do daily searches around the things that have been in my field of vision for the day (yesterday it was "poketo" and "rooftop pool party") and favorite the images I find. It has enriched my experience on flickr incredibly and I've been using that site since 2004, if not before.

D. I youtube much more often.

E. I Librarything - although, the jury is still out here. I still haven't found an online book community/service that does for me what last.fm does for music.

F. I blog...sometimes.

6. Rinse. Repeat.

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) but I spend hours a day doing this. And I love every minute of it.

And, not to evangelize a tool (I did the same thing with Twitter last year right around South By) but the "friend" part of friendfeed is not just some cute alliteration and a smart name for a product. I've met several new people who have become significant acquaintances in a short time. Unlike even my favorite online social media tools - last.fm and twitter - by "liking" and "commenting" on FF, you find yourself connecting with strangers quickly but because of similar interests and/or engaged conversation.

With Twitter, I've always been much more interested in talking with the people I know in real world terms. My people. My posse. With last.fm, I connect to people across similar music tastes but these are very passive relationships. With friendfeed, however, I've met new random people and we are talking about stuff that matters to each of us.

And, it's fun.