Will Eminem's "Recovery" Bring On the "Death of Schtick"?

(ORIGINALLY POSTED ON TAN3000; but I'll be getting into this Death of Schtick more so we put it over here also)

On Eminem's "Recovery", Jon Caramanica offers another quality submission for his budding cachet as hip hop's GOAT journalist of the moment. (i extend the props to, one, note that GOAT debates in hip hop are somewhat silly, always of the moment, and, two, to point out that JC Manic's GOAT skills fall under an Obama-esque "The Bridge" rubric, which underscores that while others might be more pointedly pushing hip hop thought forward, the bridge is what allows everyone to get on the same island and build together. Hopefully with a more solid expansive foundation. It's why guys like Gladwell and Klosterman are celebrated as geniuses and then get backlash when everyone is on the island looking for somewhere new to go. There's two different types of pioneers at work here, both doing necessary-but-different work, but i digress...)

I'm still marinating with Eminem's latest work, so I'm just adding a couple extra nuggets/points of entry. But I do agree with Em being "one of the most crucial figures in pop culture in the last 20 years" and even more. So needless to say I'll be revisiting, probably often, but for now:

1. Eminem as genie in a bottle: Caramanica does a great job, and an important one, I think, in putting a bubble/walls around Eminem's early pop supernova success. Those albums, that time, and everything else is a case study in and of itself. Specifically because Eminem is still a freakishly genius manipulator of language and words, yet doesn't carry the same cachet/popularity. So we can discern that an ingredient in his radioactive success from before is no longer present, and has nothing to do with his actual human talents.

2. Slim Shady as one of the great "fictional characters": it might help us reconcile Em's artistry to look at those early albums like a series for a fictional character. Treat them as a "phillip rothian doppelganger gambit", like the latest from Brett Easton Ellis. That might not be a spot on analogy, but mostly I want to avoid these terrible NY Times interviews that feel inappropriate in a bad-meaning-bad way... better to err on the side of the wrong book than completely not appreciate how much of a writer-athlete Em is. (that last link should go to a facebook thread with hip hop bloggers discussing a bad NYTimes interview with em, if not friend/fan Jay Smooth/illdoctrine who should be a regular part of your cultural diet regiment anyways)

3. Eminem as David Foster Wallace:

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Barber

Nice slideshow on an East Harlem "Clipper Master" in the NYT. I ended up skipping the 'Hair + Black People' agenda in my book. Chris Rock's Good Hair documentary is awesome, but even he doesn't really go in on the "black males and their intricately designed haircuts, wtf?" agenda; it's difficult! So 90% of his 90 minutes are spent in the female room, and probably rightfully so.

It's also tougher for me, personally, because I'm what black-people-in-barbershops call "tenderheaded", and have generally never been able to shirk off the prospect of cuts, pain, bleeding on a trip to shape the fade(RIP) up. Soo, yeah, if the NYTimes is starting to get on it, I'll be close behind picking up crumbs to see if they lead anywhere. Here's a few:

1. black males and their intricately designed haircuts, wtf? question for the fellas: is it for the ladies, or for yourself? we should all know by now it's NEVER for the ladies. in the 80s and 90s you could get confused by general Cross Colours-style bawdiness. But, uh, now ... I just don't get the aesthetic.

2. QUOTE:"Elvis Acevedo gets his hair styled by Mr. London for the first time. Mr. London says he freestyles haircuts and is inspired by clients' personalities." It's one thing if the ghost of Tupac (or even real Anthony Mason) sends you some divine vision of hair landscaping from the afterworld (or Queens) and you decide to make it happen. But just allowing a barber artiste to freestyle what your head is going to look like?  Am I overestimating the importance of how one's head looks in real-world-life today? In the Garden of Eden I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter, so maybe this impulse is natural? Have fun with your hair, it's yours! But is anyone ever better off with a 'cooler' hair design? Who is stoked by this? please encourage anyone like this you encounter to form a facebook group and invite me to it.

3. Gender question: Is the girl in the third picture, is she problematic for anyone in the business of defining feminism/what it is to be a female in 2010? I consider females to have a symbiotic connection with beauty... is that wrong? Ok, but is anything in consideration of the Hair Aesthetic Matrix a reflection of gender roles/issues?

4. one of the slides talks about the barber being the "Star of the show". Isn't this guy more "modern art" than Maria Abramovic? Not the respective careers, but in terms of a one-off exhibition sense: This guy's DAILY shop/gallery vs. "The Artist Is Present" at MOMA. How is that not a case of the location making all the difference?

see also: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Booty Dancer

Photos: robert caplin, Rico London

Is Nancy Meyers a Spike Lee For Women?

I recently saw It's Complicated, a relatively pleasing movie watching experience: Compelling-enough storyline. Wonderful performances from the leads. Professionally directed....

I'm a believer in supporting the Artists and Talent. The human beings. If you impress me a couple times in a row, I'll support your evolving sensibility as an *artiste* and give the benefit of the doubt if you choose to experiment. I'm less likely to try an out-of-leftfield indie-arty-pretentious film festival, but if Charlie Kaufman decides to hold a gallery of experimental shorts, I'm in.

In my ideal world everyone would blindly pay, say, $5 for the combination of Nancy Meyers, Meryl Streep, and Alec Baldwin. And, oh yeah, Steve Martin. That's a can't-lose lineup, even if they're not on their A-game, because they have proven their dedication to the craft, which is to say, the grind. I mean if that trio doesn't trump your, uh, tripod(?) then you either hate old people, white people, or successful people. And that's not cool, man.

After reading this (late '09) NYTimes profile on Nancy Meyers carrying the mantle for women & hollywood, it made me think of a black director who for years was shouldering the load for blacks & hollywood: Spike Lee

See Spike Lee is all "god bless bougie black people". Nancy Meyers is all "god bless bougie (and middle-aged) white women" But they're both cinematic auteurs of their respective demographic. spike captures the texture of bougie brooklyn from the pounds/hand-greetings to the clumped-up parmesan in the pizza shop to the bright-but-not-too-twee color palette. Nancy is doing the same, and that NYT profile does the details better justice that I will here, but you know her steez, she would rap about ralph lauren furniture collections and cardigans and champagne flutes and ... (hmm, maybe she's actually Drake in disguise).

Anycomplicated, the name of the story was "Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women" and it explores women-issues through the prism of Nancy Meyers roles in Hollywood, and it all feels fairly symmetrical to "Can Anybody Make a Movie for (non-thug) Black People" pieces about Spike Lee when he was that dude. (next up: Nora Ephron/Tyler Perry?- actually they're not similar in this way at all)

So now maybe they'll both read this post and do a movie together - call it The Park Slope Compromise - and that project could be hot fire. that is all.

Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women [NYT]

AssimiLinks: Your Jealousy and Black Female Rabbis are Useless To Me, Like Newspapers and Indie Dream Girls

Changes afoot. TAN soldiers being recruited and suited up for war. There will be AssimiLink-dumps. Send assimilated links, news, brainfarts to theassimilatednegro at gmizzy.

~~

On Jealousy: "Jealousy may be losing its utility in contemporary life, more useful to our ancestors than to us" -- does this mean in 100 years jealousy might not exist? useless and/or phased out via our evolutionary tract like the dodo bird, the appendix, third nipples? what other emotions are no longer useful to us nowadays? Psychology Today with the fodder for thought.

Paper vs. Web, the unscientific experiment: Slate's having some people only read physical newspapers for a few days, while others only read the web. Unscientific but interesting, and a model TAN might use to to conduct some cultural experiments of his own.

Speaking of newspapers, how does the Times home page gets made: don't need much more explanation than that. via the Observer.

LeBron James going from classy to ashy: Josh Levin dissects the Lebron James video cover-up. "The man who wants to be known as "The Global Icon" should be smart enough to realize that a single dunk in a pickup game does a lot more to build the name of the unknown dunker than it does to harm the world-famous dunkee. LeBron lost face the only way he possibly could have: by failing to be magnanimous." Indeed. Although really the reason to peep is for inclusion of video of Michael Jordan losing a one-on-one game to CEO John Rogers. Nice insightful pull on that one, Josh.

Indie Dream girls: Doree Shafrir, who's hot to death right now, explores the genre of manic pixie dream girls in movies. we're gonna have some focused follow-up on this.

First African-American Female Rabbi: have the jews gone post-racial and post-gender? i'm surprised at the lack of negro memos i've received on this.

And finally, some unreleased Nas, a snippet from a song called "Colors", from DJ Khalil and OKP

DJ Khalil and Nas in the studio recording "Colors" from DJ KHALIL on Vimeo.

illustration: via

Emma Shulman: A Woman to Stay Young With

Had this passed on to me, a profile/interview on what I can only imagine to be the baddest mamma-jamma in New York City. She's probably gonna slap me good for such corn-ball phrasing, but for real, let us count the ways:

1. She's a consultant at the Center for Excellence on Brain Aging and Dementia. I didn't know this existed, but now aware it sounds very necessary and very brilliant. I don't care so much about me getting old, so much as my brain. And, of course, consultants are always the best kind of job to have.

2. You'd be a consultant too, with this sort of itinerary: currently pursuing a master's in cultural anthropology. private class in writing. acting class at John Jay. fordham for english lit class. and belong to the Philharmonic, the ballet, the Roundabout. -- wow. that's a lot of classes, are you in high school miss lady with the dyed gray hair?

3. ok, well with all the studying, how do you let loose?: "I smoked. Seventy-something years. I just quit three months ago. Cold turkey. I like red wine, a glass with dinner. I used to drink Scotch. I was a Scotch maniac.

I was a pretty wild kid, running around with a lot of guys."

4. oh yeah? Pretty wild with the guys? Well, you're so smart and interesting, maybe we could go out or something?: "I didn’t want to get involved again. Men who are older are looking for someone to take care of them. They don’t cook, they don’t clean. By the way, I never cooked, I never cleaned."

5. Playing hard to get are you? Well, how old are you anyways?: 96

NINETY-SIX??!?!?! Holy smokes! talk about being out of my league: more educated, more wordly, has drunk more scotch, smoked more cigs, told more significant others to hit the dishes because she doesn't do that, helped more people in ways that matter, and had more fun while she did it, and .... SHE JUST QUIT SMOKING THREE MONTHS AGO. AND SHE SAW THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE GET BUILT. AND SHE'S LIKE, I ONLY MESS WITH YOUNG GUYS CAUSE I CAN'T BE FOLDING CLOTHES FOR THESE INFIRMED DUDES WITH ALL THESE CLASSES I'M TAKING, AND BLOGGING AND BALLET AND STUFF. WHAAAAATTTT????

Is she 26 or 96? What's the movie where lindsay lohan jumps into her mom's body? that's obviously the only explanation for what's going on here.

Seriously, I've been sussing out the MJ narrative and indulging the inspiration from "superstars", but look no further than Emma to see inspiration, life etc is all around you, what you make of it, and any other cliche she'd smack me for because life isn't about talking it's about living.

ok, off to throw pebbles at her window and see if Emma, Queen of The Olds, will have a scotch with me.

Experience Necessary: She Knows a Thing or Two About Aging [NY Times]

Previously in "Amazing People":
My New Rap Name Is Wesley Autrey

image: Sara Krulwich

In Search of Pope John Latino (I)

The NY Times does a little exploring of the ins and outs of landing the first Latino Archbishop. In so doing the writer Paul Vitello showcases the changing face of the Roman Catholic community:

By historians’ account, Irish immigrants and their offspring essentially built the Catholic Church in America. Between 1840 and 1880, Irish immigration accounted for most of the sixfold increase in the country’s Catholic population, to 6 million. The influx fueled a boom in church and school construction, much of it with Irish labor, that culminated with the completion of St. Patrick’s in 1878.

But Latinos in New York today are almost the statistical twins of Irish New Yorkers of the late 19th century: They account for 30 percent of the city’s population and, by the archdiocese’s estimate, 40 to 50 percent of its 2.5 million Catholics — an estimate that community advocates say probably misses large numbers of undocumented immigrants.

The article points out that the new archbishop can habla Mass (más!) en español, and the Vatican has appointed Hispanic bishops, so all to say, in the style of our man Obama, we're probably going to have our first ArchPapi appointed sometime soon, or at least in our lifetimes (NPR was looking in 2005). I'm not very religious, or Catholic, but that sure seems to smell like progress.

Steroids Are What Vitamins Do When They Grow Up

Beautiful programming on the NYTimes where in the midst of the A-Rod Inquisition, they also have a nice update on how vitamins are kinda-sorta bullshit (don't even act surprised!). Did you know American adults spend $23 Billion a year on "dietary supplements" and don't really know if the products are having the intended effect? Quick, someone call ESPN and Peter Gammons for the interview!

This has been a premise in development for a little while now; vitamins are supposed to help prevent disease or extend life, and concrete proof of either is lacking. The study linked and cited in the beginning of the piece tracked 161,000 older women over eight-years with nothing to show for it. There are many more. Mainly because it's hard to scientifically prove anything as "definitely" true.

But I doubt anyone's too shocked, all the debunking falls in line with the perfectly intuitive notion that there is no "magic pill" that will extend our lives and rid of us disease. We dream of this being possible, but anyone who's dealt with health problems knows the bottom line is some things work on some people, other things don't. Everything has context; vitamins might help sprinkle a little iron in the mix if your otherwise healthy diet skews away from the mineral, but if you're only eating cheese doodles they can't help with the yellow-orange fingertips or expanding waistline etc.

Of course the nebulous root of the vitamin problem, is the same muddy dilemma facing baseball, A-Rod and steroids. In the context of living a life where one eats healthy, works out, and does the things to maintain their body in top form, how does one discern what is the product of a healthy lifestyle and what is a product of taking vitamins/performance enhancers?

The lack of clear answers to this exposes the hypocrisy in the A-Rod lynching. We're all being a little naive, "young and stupid" (especially the wise elders who take the most vits) by ingesting and investing ($23B/year can buy you a lot of A-Rods) in products that we really have no definite proof/evidence/understanding of what it does.

The funny thing, then, in the case of vitamins, is the one thing we do know is they're not doing as much as we'd like them to do for the money we're spending. So maybe anyone who's really angry at A-Rod is only pissed because his multi-vitamins work better.


image: no vits, magic pills

Google For President In 2016?

So as far as I can tell, Google continues to dominate and pave the way to the future, at least on the internet (and all things considered, the internet may very well be our world once we consume most of the earth). The NY Times relays that the Big-Brother-Internet has struck a deal with Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy. As a content producer it's a very interesting deal as Google thus far is known for organizing content, and getting contextual ads on content pages. Now if they get into producing content, that feels like some sort of Holy Trinity. Praise Google!

Apparently Seth is creating 50 two-minute episodes of cartoons that are likened to "animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier," and Google is going to charge premium rates to companies that want to get those ads. There are plenty of ways this can not work, especially with a foul-mouthed twisted mind like Seth as the brain behind the toons; not quite sure if he's normal and tame enough for mainstream. But more important is the thinking behind it, because even if they strike out, there's enough $ and common sense in the concept that they will definitely try try again. And as I jump around from my google mail account, to my google blogger account, to my shared google docs, and check out blogs in my google reader, and makep lans via the google calendar, and upload pics to picasa, I kind of feel like if Google starts producing decent content in the next 5+ years -- even if it's all directly tied to advertising agendas -- I will have no reason not to vote for them as President in 2016. They're already Emperors of the Web; leader of the free world might be a step down at that point.

Google and Creator of "Family Guy" Strike A Deal [NYT]

Politics: Hoarding Tails for the Donkey

Reading this Times story on Hillary Clinton's victory in Puerto Rico, I think it's clear why she isn't dropping out of the race:

Mrs. Clinton said from San Juan. “I will have won the most votes — more than anyone in the history of the primary process.”

She added: “Senator Obama has a narrow lead in delegates. And we’re going to have to make our case to the automatic so-called superdelegates. And I think my case is clear — more than 17 million people voted for me.

It's all about your record in politics, specifically the soundbyte on what you've accomplished that you can pin your agenda on. If Hillary loses but comes out with the "most votes in history of the primary" or even a number previously unprecedented (but still 2nd to Obama), that's a tail, even in the context of a loss, she can campaign with in the future. This is her life, so it's worth weathering the storm for preserving.

I've wavered with my feelings on Hillary being so bullheaded, but I think I fall on the side of respect in the end. There's no questioning her spunk and intestinal fortitude. And Obamamania will either sweep the country, or -- regardless of her timing -- we'd lose because of a split party.

Clinton Ponders Continuing [NYT]

image

I'll Beat The Good Humor Out Of You

From the Times:

Summer is more than a month away, but the ice cream wars have already begun. In neighborhoods across the city, skirmishes are breaking out over which franchise can sell its wares on which route. And the tension between the city’s purveyors of ice-cold treats can at times be thicker than a Chipwich.

There have been harsh words, hurt feelings and even bloodshed between competitors. In 2004, a couple in their 60s who owned and operated two ice cream trucks were ambushed in the Bronx and beaten with an oversized wrench. The motive, the police said, was the couple’s ice cream route. A rival ice cream salesman was charged with assault and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Bloodshed? Oversized-wrench beatdowns?? Jail time???

Seriously?

No more Mr. Softee, I guess. Now it's ... oh I can't bring myself to it, but I'm open to suggestions on hard-rock gangsta names for the ice cream crips-and-bloods set. Also: photoshop anyone?

Ice Cream Truck War Revs Up [NYT]

How Many Blacks In Jail = One Obama?

So yesterday the NY Times published some statistics on Americans in prison, and the numbers are particularly depressing for blacks. 1 in 15 are in prison, and 1 in 9 (!) between the ages of 20-34.

This is compared to latinos living la vida loca at a 1 in 36 rate. No word on whether whites actually get sent to prison or are simply sentenced to watching The Wire for a few days.

This report raises a constant debate TAN2 and I have about the state of blacks (usually we specify about black men) and whether we're trending up or trending down. In general I feel we're trending up, I point to Obama, more celebrities/rich black people, and the last white girl I slept with as positive signs of our growth. He points to statistics like the ones in this report as an equally effective counter-argument.

In truth I don't think either of us are wrong, but when reasoned this way it brings up a Quality vs. Quantity argument (something I'll probably raise tonight during The White House) and it essentially boils down to a formula: How many blacks in jail = 1 Obama? Or Oprah? Or Jay-Z?

10? 100? 100K? Is Obama priceless? In which case maybe we can just write-off all the imprisoned negroes on our (err, your) AMEX? Will our celebrity negroes serve as beacons of hope that eventually free us all from the system? Or are they red (err, black) herrings, superficial icing on a cake of gloom and doom?

I don't know, but if we can get a bead on that equation I suspect we'll be able to figure out how much weed we need to smoke and alcohol we need to drink to get our mind on our money and our money on our minds.

(I don't know if that last part makes sense, but I'm just ecstatic over not being in prison. Yay!)

1 in 100 Americans in jail [NY Times]

Please read my demo ...

NY Times provides more evidence on the blogging's the new rapping front ... more bloggers will surely be providing us their version of mixtapes.

EbonyJet: The Dearth of Black Satire

If You Can't Take A Joke .... [EbonyJet]

UPDATE: The NY Times taps into this stream with a discussion about race in sitcoms. Reading the piece and their examples, it's almost like race is the issue that tests the edginess and unique perspective of a writer. All the shows that grab my attention handle the subject in new, funny and different ways. Cheers to those guys!

Race on Sitcoms [NY Times]

The Power Of Conan Compels Me

Of all the odd cat-and-mouse combinations, apparently a priest has been put in jail for stalking Conan O'Brien. For over a year he's been sending the eminently stalkable pale Conan postcards and letters:

“I’m told by some of those officious little usher people that you’re overbooked. Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans? You owe me big-time, pal. I want a public confession before I even consider giving you absolution.”

The priest is from Boston, and claims they both went to Harvard together, so sounds like someone just chose the wrong major and is regretting it a little bit now. What a Masshole.

I don't know, maybe there's more to it, but driving a religious man insane does make me like Conan a little more.

Priest Stalking Conan O'Brien [NY Times]

Adopt Us For Status, Adopt Us For Love

The trend of accessorizing with african babies continues, and this recent essay from the NY Times Modern Love column attempts to give us a little more insight into the cloying psychology. I don't know, obviously I presume the adopters have good selfless intentions, and I would never not applaud someone saving a child's life. But big picture? I'm still torn. I suspect I won't be fully comfortable until we start scooping up some caucasians.

And not just one or two. We need a full out epidemic of black people -- preferably Africans of only a few years of age -- adopting caucasian american adults. I have a dream. Etc, etc.

Too Bad For Me That She Was So Well Loved [Modern Love, NY Times]

NY Times Doles Out Good Advice for Bums Looking for Love and Money; Mostly Money

Attention all male bums, deadbeats, and freeloaders starving artists, musicians, and writers! This weekend's NY Times Sunday Styles section has a wonderful profile on your ideal soulmate – aka woman pulling crazy bank. Seems they are a growing legion:

For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities — New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis — are earning higher wages than men in the same age range, according to a recent analysis of 2005 census data by Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York.

Holla! Of course us true artists know this is nothing but a cause for celebration. But whenever the issue of women making more than men is brought up, you know someone is going to try and sell you on the whole “men have a tough time not being the bread winner” idea. I don’t know if it’s a race thing — it’s more likely a class thing — but I know if you’re like me, and you came up fairly poor, you have NO, ZERO, ZILCH problem with your babycakes making more money than you. Especially if she’s sharing. I know in my case its like, sheeit, every female panhandler I try and kick it to on the street, and her slovenly intern, is making more money than me, let alone that totally out-of-my-league queen with a J-O-B at Duane Reade. So how am I gonna get mad?

Psychology aside, I haven’t done any surveys, but I do feel this trend is real. I see it. I have more and more friends, who are couples, where the guy is the flunky trying to do ... whatever, and the woman is the only one who sees his potential. And GOD, how I ENVY those guys.

Anymooch, back to the Times. The article profiles some of these beautiful women, and their mixed bag of thoughts on these issues:

Women are encountering forms of hostility they weren’t prepared to meet, and are trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date.

Hmmm, how to bolster a man's ego? This shouldn’t be difficult. Here’s a tip ladies, and you should write this one down in period blood because it’s pretty much permanent: Ego = Penis. Swell the penis up via blowjobs, sexy lingerie, nice sex, etc. And you swell the ego. Very simple. Works every time! How can a guy feel not feel like a king while you diligently polish The Pulverizer?

(Before proceeding with the analysis, I have to make an aside about the Times inclusion of a girl who has just fast-tracked to the top of my "I Want Her" list. Peep this snippet:

Hilary Rowland, 28, bought her first condominium when she was 18, using money she had earned from an online business started when she was 15.

Ummm, Hel-LO?? First condo when she was 18? Started her first online business when she was 15? Can I get YOUR number please? After reading that I immediately dropped everything (priorities people!) and looked up Hilary Rowland online. Upon further review, turns out the "business" was an online magazine, or what we call them now… blogs. Which means I have one too! But still, that's cool. She’s a hottie. And if she needs a kept-negro to add to her portfolio I'll call anything she wants a "business.")

Moving on, at this point in the article I start getting nervous cause I swear the Times is tracking my dating maneuvers:

“When we broke up,” she added, “he was upset that I gave my ‘ex’ more gifts than I gave him. Meanwhile, the only gift I’d gotten from him was a small notepad.”

OMG! That’s soooo me! I stay blessing my mamis and mamacitas with notepads. Pens too! It’s good to write and get it out of you, baby. Go ahead and write down how you can’t believe you gave up the drawers to a blogger who crashes and burns on NPR and gives you a notepad while you give him an iPhone (please?). Get it all out. Merry Xmas. Also, Happy Birthday!

Next up:

Ms. Rowland, like some other women interviewed, said that she has come to the conclusion that it would be easier to date someone in the same economic bracket.

Yikes! And this is my soon-to-be Miss Assimilated Negro talking. Oh no! I'm glad the Times buried this little nugget of rational sensibility in the middle of the article. If all the ladies adopted this mantra some of us would have no one to date. Here in America, the land of excess and opportunity, there ain’t NO ONE in my economic bracket. I’d have to move to Africa and kick it to starving babies before they get adopted.

On a first date at a lounge in Hell’s Kitchen, Thrupthi Reddy, 28, a brand strategist in Manhattan, watched her date down several cocktails to her one, then not even flinch when she handed the waitress her credit card.

Hey! There’s me again! Big fan of the several cocktails-to-one ratio. Proves you're a man!

But really, this article is funny because it's basically a bunch of girls trying to reconcile in their head why they don’t care about having a "good guy" if he's not doing anything with his life. Sounds like "no duh" simple evolutionary theory to me, but I guess we need the Times to help work it out in our heads.

So more bits like this:

Michael R. Cunningham, a psychologist who teaches in the communication department at the University of Louisville, conducted a survey of college women to see if, upon graduation, they would prefer to settle down with a high school teacher who has short workdays, summers off and spare energy to help raise children, or with a surgeon who earns eight times as much but works brutal hours. Three-quarters of the women said they would choose the teacher.

Ok. Talk about a survey that proves nothing. A teacher is easy. That’s still a regular salary and just about the most endearing, gratifying heartwarming job anyone can have. No matter what they earn, you can't hate on a teacher. Especially if you're pulling down good money.

But how about a blogger? We too can have short workdays, summers off and perhaps even muster a little energy for the kids (or at least live-blog it when they fall down the stairs). Only thing is the teacher makes eight times as much as you, and a surgeon might as well be a sultan who lives on a pile of gold. Tougher call now? Hmmm, probably not.

But is there anything worse than a blogger?

Jade Wannell, 25, a producer at a Chicago ad agency who lives in a high-rise apartment building, started dating a 29-year-old administrator at a trucking company last year...

“I have to say that I didn’t like his career, I didn’t think he had the goals of someone I would eventually like to be with or have respect for,” she said, adding, “It wasn’t the job, it was the passion.”

Oh? What's that? The 29-year-old SECRETARY for a TRUCKING COMPANY wasn't getting all the red carpet invites you were expecting? That's sooo weird.

Memo to Jade: It was the job.

Finally,

The point, Professor Cunningham said, was that young professionally oriented women have no problem dating down if the man is secure, motivated in his own field and emotionally supportive.

At least, that’s what their responses are in surveys. Talk about the subject with women a bit older — those who have been out of college long enough to be more hardened — and what you hear is ambivalence, if not downright hostility, about the income disparity.

Ahhh … finally a breakthrough we can work with. Get 'em while they’re young! Fresh out of college! Of course us PROFESSIONAL Starving Artist types have long known about this axiom of freelance living. A 22-25 year old, making bank? Yeah, sign me up.

Which leads to my big takeaway from this article. I'm going to give up this sweet writing-for-pennies and embarrassing-myself-on-the-radio gig I've got and start a BUSINESS!! It's going to be a relationship matchmaker type deal. E-Harmony meets Deadbeats. I might call it E-Bum. Or E-Mooch. Or maybe somebodywithtwooboobiesandacleanvijayjaycomesavemeplease.com ... something like that.

But it's gonna be a service where young, hot, smart women with dough in the bank can peruse through a whole database of non-profit n'er-do-wells in search of their perfect co-dependent. All of the arts will be represented. And all of the variations of scruffy facial-hair stylings as well! All YOU have to do is find the one that's willing to walk the dog and bang your brains out after work every day.

Of course, now I need a woman with a dog and a dormant sex life to see the upside and help me finance this venture. Are you out there babycakes? Check my profile, I make a lovely pet! All you have to worry about is if Hilary Rowland comes along, or someone else younger, smarter, hotter and with more money. Because, you know, I'm ambitious like that.

But beside that, yeah ... come and get it! I'll even get the tough emotional stuff out the way early. Look:

I Love You ...

smooches!

Putting Money on the Table [NY Times]

Gray Lady No Longer Whoring Herself

Today (yesterday?) at midnight the New York Times officially nixed the Times Select program where monthly subscribers paid for access to the archives and op-ed columnists. The realization for the Times being that the thousands -- even hundreds of thousands -- of subscribers doesn't come close to the money you get from millions of eyeballs flitting to and fro on the paper of record.

This is certainly a significant move for all new media types and content producers/managers. Perhaps the final nail in the coffin on pay-to-play debates. Readers by-and-large expect the internet and the content therein to be free, and you swim against that tide at your own risk.

Of course for me personally, my take away is something I tell the ladies all the time: You're only a hoe if you make me pay for it, but give it up for free and I'll love you forever.

NY Times to drop charges for website [MSNBC]

Paging Michael Moore: Procter & Gamble Lining Their Pockets For Charity

UPDATE: Post is up now. And they included more in the cut than I thought, so I'm editing the post below accordingly.

I wrote about this for The Huffington Post (note: its not up yet as I post this, but soon), but even though I went long for the typical Huffpost, I still had to cut a lot of incriminatingly intriguing stuff. So I'll post it here.

Again disclosure: Donors Choose are my peeps. And a lot of this info is coming directly from personal emails; so you can call me a DC propagandist. But again, this is not about DC vs. other incredibly worthy causes/charities/non-profits. It's about the spirit of giving, and fairness. Now that the full extent of the relationship between the Children's Safe Drinking Water project and corp goliath P&G is fully exposed, why are they still allowed to play? And if it's because there's no explicit rule against it, then why isn't AmEx making the rule? Is P&G gonna spend $5M suing AmEx over their right to compete for the $5M? If AmEx is not making a rule because it's about their members making a choice (sneaky bastards), then why isn't there complete transparency and disclosure about the company connections?

When you launch a product line at the same time as people are voting in this contest, and downplay the fact that the product is NOW IN STORES and the product description in your project summary IS THE SAME THING ... well, come on. I'm sure AmEx cardholders wouldn't vote for Cap'n Crunch as a project idea, but if it's described as "a corn and oat food product that's sure to bring children across the globe fortifying and enriching minerals and vitamins," well then they might get some votes. Children around the globe deserve food with vitamins, right?

I'm lampooning for [hopefully] comedic effect, but bottom line: Procter & Gamble is putting its marketing muscle behind the project submitted by its employee, and as a result, the other four (truly nonprofit) finalists have been effectively marginalized.

I'm sure the celebrities who endorsed this competition were thinking, "please join Amex in making a difference, please join US in making a change. let's give money to procter and gamble, a company responsible for half the products at your local supermarket or drugstore. oh, wait a minute. you don't want to give to a billion dollar company that spends millions on animal testing, or has been accused of water pollution (but they'll clean it for you at cost!)? that's ok, we'll hide the connection then. that should make it easier for you to look deep into your heart."

That's definitely what Ellen Degeneres, Alicia Keys, Scorcese et. al had to be thinking, right AmEx? Right??

And I don't understand the argument that suggests a company like P&G wouldn't go through all of this for what is, for them, a trifling $5M. I think the marketing and branding for a product that has yet to really reap commercial rewards is more than enough motivation. If they're positioned as the PUR water provider for the future ... well, I don't know, but I hear there's a market for clean water.

That's before getting apocalyptic and imagining the world where all the water is contaminated, and we pay P&G to keep us alive (thanks!). All on our American Express card, of course.

Anyridiculous, if you're using AmEx go to The Members Project and make sure your vote and voice is heard. I'm not sure if there's enough time to get the numbers (2nd place is over 8,000 votes behind as I write this) but if we lean on their conscience, maybe we'll right the wrong.

And here's a timeline of events that puts the case against the Clean Safe Drinking Water project in perspective (dates linked where appropriate, click images to enlarge):

The first NY Times article revealing what was afoot(albeit in an article that was positive toward P&G’s marketing tactics):
“Procter & Gamble is traveling incognito in the American Express Member’s Project... [P&G employee] Mr. Allgood entered the science and theory behind the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program. But he said that the Member Project’s rules precluded him from naming it, or mentioning Pur or Procter."

May 24, 2005
- UNICEF announces a partnership with Procter & Gamble to help provide safe drinking water to families in developing countries. One of the biggest tools in this effort is the P&G product “PUR,” a water-purifying powder.

August 2, 2005
- USA Today reports that “P&G… is keeping an eye on its bottom line while doing good. ‘It's a cause-related issue, but we'll also learn things about low-income consumers that are going to help P&G overall,’ says Greg Allgood, P&G's director for children's safe drinking water.”

June 17, 2007
- Procter & Gamble employee Gregory Allgood submits a project idea to the American Express Members Project entitled “Children’s Safe Drinking Water,” which is the name of a division of Procter & Gamble.


The project idea makes no mention of Procter & Gamble and for all intents & purposes appears to be a UNICEF project. The project centers on a powder that can purify dirty water, which, if one follows a succession of links, turns out to be the PUR product created by Procter & Gamble.

July 22, 2007
- The project idea finishes 3rd in the semi-finals round of voting.

NOTE: The semi-finals of the Members Project were closely contested, with the top finisher (DonorsChoose.org) receiving only 65 votes more than the second place finisher. By contrast, in the finals now underway, one project idea (which had finished in 3rd place in the semi-finals) received an overwhelming number of votes within the first 48 hours. (Anecdotally, the number of votes that hit the site in the first hours of the contest suggests the project was being voted on by P&G employees....hard to imagine another source of such massive AMEX cardholders ready to go at word 1)

July 23, 2007
An article appears in the International Herald Tribune describing P&G’s new venture to sell PUR water-purifying powder for-profit in the United States, after years of selling it at cost in third-world countries.
Quote: “On Tuesday, the company will be selling the purifiers in the United States at what it hopes will be a tidy profit.” That is the very same Tuesday which begins the Top 5 finals of voting in the American Express Members Project.

Tuesday July 24, 2007
- P&G launches the sale of the PUR water cleansing kits at retail stores across the US. New York Times prints an article about the product launch.
Quote: “Gregory S. Allgood, director of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program, cites a less obvious reason behind Procter’s decision to stay in the background. ‘Our employees feel really good about our philanthropy program, and we don’t want to confuse the issue.’”

- In contrast to their project page on the Members Project website, the Procter & Gamble home page features the following text under the heading of News From P&G: “P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water makes the American Express Members Project Top 25.” After Members Project discussion board comments begin to reveal P&G’s role in the project, American Express asks P&G to remove the ownership reference from their homepage, and P&G changes the language to “P&G Employee's Idea ‘Children's Safe Drinking Water’ Is Selected As a Finalist in AMEX Members Project.”


July 25, 2007
- P&G Employee “samjneal” posts on Members Project message board: “I heard of the membersproject [sic] site from a P&G internal newsletter highlighting the entry of this project into the final five.”

July 26, 2007
- American Express claims there is no connection between this project and P&G, other than the fact that it was a P&G employee’s submission. People have asked American Express to identify the author as a P&G employee in his bio on the “Children’s Safe Drinking Water” project page; yet this page on the American Express Members Project web site is still conspicuously non-transparent.

July 28, 2007
- NY Times runs another article, more directly dealing with the issues of fairness.
“It feels like David and Goliath because not only is it a competition of ideas, but when you take into consideration that Unicef is a $300 million-plus entity combined with P.& G. — how do you compete with that?” asked Neal Lurie, the marketing director at the American Solar Energy Society."

On going
- Days before contest ends, bloggers are starting to pick up on the story.
- In discussion boards, AmEx cardmembers are discovering the above facts and voicing frustration about the lack of transparency.

Related:
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

I Can Has Hot Librarian?

This Sunday the NY Times filled us in on hipster librarians. And now, two days later, people are still emailing each other about it. Hmmm, well maybe I should make fun of it! Let's start from the beginning:

On a Sunday night last month at Daddy’s, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, more than a dozen people in their 20s and 30s gathered at a professional soiree, drinking frozen margaritas and nibbling store-bought cookies. With their thrift-store inspired clothes and abundant tattoos, they looked as if they could be filmmakers, Web designers, coffee shop purveyors or artists.

Hmmm, powerful opening. I smell hipster... handbook.

When talk turned to a dance party the group had recently given at a nearby restaurant, their profession became clearer.

“Did you try the special drinks?” Sarah Gentile, 29, asked Jennifer Yao, 31, referring to the colorfully named cocktails.

“I got the Joy of Sex,” Ms. Yao replied. “I thought for sure it was French Women Don’t Get Fat.”

Ms. Yao could be forgiven for being confused: the drink was numbered and the guests had to guess the name. “613.96 C,” said Ms. Yao, cryptically, then apologized: “Sorry if I talk in Dewey.”

No problem Ms. Yao, sorry I'm going to leave you now and go talk to the normal people over there. Oh, and the name of my drink is "Shut the f*ck up," I mean "Shush."

That would be the Dewey Decimal System. The groups’ members were librarians. Or, in some cases, guybrarians. “He hates being called that,” said Sarah Murphy

Oh, he hates being called a "guybrarian?" That's weird. What is he trying to act cool or something? From these first couple paragraphs, I'm thinking this must be a piece about how we think librarians are nerdy, but they're like incredibly way nerdier than we ever imagined.

Ms. Murphy was speaking of Jeff Buckley, a reference librarian at a law firm, who had a tattoo of the logo from the Federal Depository Library Program peeking out of his black T-shirt sleeve.

Oh my, a tattoo of the FDLP? (yeah I throw that acronym around like nothing, don't you?) What is this guy, some sort of Library Avenger or something?

Librarians? Aren’t they supposed to be bespectacled women with a love of classic books and a perpetual annoyance with talkative patrons — the ultimate humorless shushers?

Yes! or ... I don't know, maybe?! No?? Why are you asking me about librarians again? Aren't they people just like you and me? What are these silly questions? Is this the NY Times? I thought I was reading the NY Times. Can someone please point me to the NY Times.

Not any more. With so much of the job involving technology and with a focus now on finding and sharing information beyond just what is available in books, a new type of librarian is emerging — the kind that, according to the Web site Librarian Avengers, is “looking to put the ‘hep cat’ in cataloguing.”

Oh snap! That guy really is a Library Avenger. Uh-oh, I have late fees from 1986 (book: "Are You There God, It's Me TAN" also known as "Ketel 1-and-Cranberry"), ... and now I'm kind of scared.

When the cult film “Party Girl” appeared in 1995, with Parker Posey as a night life impresario who finds happiness in the stacks, the idea that a librarian could be cool was a joke.

Two cool librarians walk into a bar ... HA!

It's funny because it's true.

Now, there is a public librarian who writes dispatches for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a favored magazine of the young literati. “Unshelved,” a comic about librarians — yes, there is a comic about librarians — features a hipster librarian character.

A librarian who writes for McSweeney's? REALLY?!!!? What's next? Popcorn at movie theaters? Also, THERE'S A COMIC ABOUT LIBRARIANS?!!? You are seriously blowing my mind right now. That's, like, totally impossible to comprehend. What's next? A comic about a talking beagle who sleeps on his dog-house and occasionally flies in WWII planes?

And, in real life, there are an increasing number of librarians who are notable not just for their pink-streaked hair but also for their passion for pop culture, activism and technology.

Well duh. Anyone who streaks their hair pink is doing it because they're passionate. PINK: P is for pop culture, I is for actIvism, N is for techNology, and K is for Konichiwa bitches!!!

“We’re not the typical librarians anymore,” said Rick Block, an adjunct professor at the Long Island University Palmer School and at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science, both graduate schools for librarians, in New York City.

“When I was in library school in the early ’80s, the students weren’t as interesting,” Mr. Block said.

Tell Mr. Block he's a douche, and no one is signing up for his class at LIU this year.

Ok, enough of this setup and character profiling! Can someone tell us what these librarians do that make the job so interesting?

For that we tab Jessamyn West, 38, the editor behind a site with the tagline, "putting the rarin’ back in librarian since 1999":

In a typical day, Ms. West might send instant and e-mail messages to patrons, many of who do their research online rather than in the library. She might also check Twitter, MySpace and other social networking sites, post to her various blogs and keep current through MetaFilter and RSS feeds. Some librarians also create Wikis or podcasts.

You know, every day I wake up, turn on my computer and wonder "who am i?" Turns out, I'm a librarian! Wait a minute, you too?? Awesome! Good thing librarians -- along with blogs and online networking sites -- are cool then, huh. Also, Ms. West, there isn't a "rarin'" in "librarian." You should nix the tagline, the joke is too forced. It's the same reason Gawker nixed "putting the awe in Gawker" and Obama nixed "putting the Obama in hippobotamus" (hmm, hope that works out). You're either putting the "rarian" back, or you're doing nothing. That tricknology is not working on me!

Anybook, I don't know about this article. I feel like I'm looking at a big scoreboard that says Hipsters: 100, NY Times: 0. I don't see the story -- Hipsters have discovered an alternative to waiting tables? That's cool, most wait-staff I'm sure would take the $51K median salary over tips. But wait, you first need to scrounge up the money to get that most versatile of graduate degrees, the MLS! Sounds like a plan ... for hipsters with money and no real dreams!

Now if you were to take all these young hipster librarians and catch up with them in ten years, and see if they're still working in libraries, that might be interesting. That's the real heart of the librarian cliche; the older librarian coming to terms with their dead-end job. Williamsburg no longer welcomes them, so they hang out at home, alone, ordering book-drinks to themselves, "Are you there God, it's me TAN?" All night, every night. Now that's a story!

There was one other quote that could have led to something substantive:

"I wanted to do something different, something maybe more meaningful,” said Carrie Klein, 36, who used to be a publicist for a record label and for bands such as Radiohead and the Foo Fighters, but is now starting a new job in the library at Entertainment Weekly.

Now here's something to dig into. Who's more meaningless: a publicist or a librarian?

Let's ponder that in Williamsburg over a Complete Idiot's Guide to Being a Librarian and a shot of the Kama Sutra, shall we? Seriously, let's make it two shots of the Sutra, those librarian glasses always turn me on.


A Hipper Crowd of Shushers [NY Times]

David Brooks Want To Live In A Black Neighborhood, But Not Really

In Friday's NY Times, columnist David Brooks explains why he's a little bummed out over "the waning dream of integration." He suggests that we once all had a dream of equality (Yay! iPhones for everyone!). But now it seems to him the dream is dying, and that's kind of sad (sorry, there's actually no iPhones for minorities, terrorists, or communists!).

Brooks namedrops a bunch of Isms and Ations to explain how we get all ambitious in the spirit of togetherness, but in the end togetherness never sticks. Communism? A mess. War on Terrorism? Needs more work. Immigration reform? not so much. Or as he says, "All these promises hung in the air, but then crumbled."

But just when you're expecting him to drop some of that I'm-a-NY-Times-columnist wisdom on your dome, he concludes saying, "This isn't the integrated world many of us hoped for. But maybe it's the only one available."

Huh?

Maybe it's because I don't have a column in the Times, but I'm a little confused.

Brooks says the Civil Rights movement was a promise to heal "the nation's oldest wound." So If I'm to follow the logic of his metaphor then "America" is walking around with an open wound and Dr. Brooks is saying "tough break, kid" and sending us home with a 739-word band-aid.

Hmmm, well I must be missing his point:

"Maybe the health of a society is not measured by how integrated each institution within it is, but by how freely people can move between institutions. In a sick society, people are bound by one totalistic identity. In a healthy society, a person can live in a black neighborhood, send her kids to Catholic school, go to work in a lawyer's office and meet every Wednesday with a feminist book club. Multiply your homogenous communities and be fulfilled."

Oh, I get it now. I thought white people were moving into East Harlem because it was cheap. But actually, it's because it's healthy! East Harlem is like carrots! El Carrotio!

Some other issues:

1. Integration isn't the same dream or problem for everyone. We don't all have the same "wound." A family operates in the spirit of togetherness, but if they end up in a car accident and only the adopted black son gets seriously hurt, they don't all share the same injury. It may be that everyone in the family is suffering from psychological issues, especially since the "accident" was a result of the white father kidnapping the "adopted son" cause he needed more manpower to get work done in his backyard; but while everyone shares in the handwringing, it's only the adopted black son that's in ICU, hysterically rap-talking about hoes and rims. So let's drop the patronizing "we," shall we (d'oh!).

2. I don't expect Dr. Brooks to definitively know how to heal everything, but if he's casting himself as a doctor, I'd like him to at least try. Brooks premises what I'd call a "Right or Fight" decision: He says things aren't right, and they're not. But instead of fighting, he opts out. It's like Braveheart but with David Brooks as Mel Gibson and he just trots off on his horse instead of delivering the dramatic speech. It's like the plight for minorities in America is terminal cancer, and, well, that's it.

Well goddammit, I want a second opinion.

3. I'd suggest Brooks is stymied by what I now call "Crash Course Racism." If you only learned about racism from the movie Crash, you'd have an interesting, provocative, and theoretically informed opinion about racism. But you don't know the experience. So you end up comparing racism to cars crashing out in LA or whatever the f*ck that was.

Crash Course Racism is progressive when contrasted with civil rights Jim Crow thinking. but it highlights the crux of the issue: racism is our wound. More accurately, our scar. We have healed. We have made progress. But we still have a nasty scar from the accident, and it's a little sensitive, and we're a little self-conscious still. But we're capable. We're not incapacitated. We're just a little weird about it.

And to be honest, I'm tired of hearing about the "racist experience," or the "dream of integration" from old white people. Like they know something cause they just stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Harlem. I guess Brooks is right, I can only connect with my community's experience. And it's across the board, I'm not interested in heterosexuals pontificating on the angst involved in receiving anal sex. If you don't know anything about it, shut up! And if you're really interested then go find someone who knows the experience and work with them.

Which is how the dream can work. If Mr. Brooks really wanted to give it a shot, he could start by giving up his cushy NY Times platform once a week, so that a deserving black writer (not me!) can articulate some thoughts from first-hand experience. Not even once a week, how about .... once.

Matter of fact, I think a nice step for any white writer or commentator looking to express authentic ideas about issues of racism would be to shut the f up, and find a black friend to tell you some things (or Mexican, Puerto Rican etc.). And if all your minority friends are stupid and inarticulate, then keep looking, cause guess what? We're out there. We're not dead. We're just very badly burned!

So if you really want to figure this out, all you have to do is be proactive. Don't talk the dream. Live it.

Otherwise, Dr. Brooks, I'm forced to diagnose you as full of sh*t. With no hope of recovery.

The End of Integration [NY Times]