Currently Listening to: Jay-Z ft. Kid Cudi – Already Home
Sharing just because I can. Plus, I love to share.
If ya’ll can’t already see I ain’t worried about ya’ll cause I’m already me.
The world would be a better place if everyone walked the way Cudi did when he first entered. LOL
Currently Listening to: Wale – Letter ft. John Mayer
This song is awesome. Seriously. can’t stop listening to it. Attention Deficit drops in like.. 2 weeks? Whenever 11.10.2009 is.
To whom it may concern
I refuse to be another being on this earth
I’m breathing for a purpose
I wanna be the centerpiece of my entire culture
and I’ve been thinking ’bout you ’cause you’ve done such
by doing such, I get a pen and paper
write you a letter ’cause you are appreciated
I’m dreaming to be great while workin’ on my mistakes
you promised us change, I’m doin’ the same thing
By far the most interesting thing that happened this week was the Cool Kids visit. They are awesome live. They basically rocked all of Bake Sale, half of Gone Fishing, and two tracks off When Fish Ride Bicycles.. WHATTT??! You can strike that off the bucket list. Gotta focus on visiting Lambeau now.
On a different note: I had one major project this fall break, and that’s Fil-I-Am, the annual benefit concert out at Pitzer College, and I basically spent 48 hours watching football and working on three different posters. One of them just got printed on Quest Crew’s website, which is sort of nice. I mean they have to in that there aren’t any other posters, so it doesn’t validate the quality, but its nice that the stuff is out there.
Check it out:
http://www.questcrew.com/quest-events/filiam-benefit-showcase-ft-quest-crew/
The event is on Thurs, October 29th, 2009. Doors will open at 6:30.
click.
Perhaps there’s hope for me yet.
Currently Listening to: Lupe Fiasco ft. Matthew Santos – Shining Down
Today was one of those days where you’re like, “I want to be back here again and again.” It was one of those days that was awesome like no other. One that you look forward to, look back upon and always wonder how much more awesome it could/’ve been. It’s one where you have no regrets and all the regrets in the world.
A week ago, I saw that Far*East Movement was going to share the stage with Talib Kweli and Lupe Fiasco. I almost did a double take…. LUPE FIASCO AND TALIB KWELI? Now the guys of FM are my heroes, they really are. They NEVER fail to impress and today was no different… Jumping off a plane to perform in front of a crowd of 6000? That’s not easy. But Lupe Fiasco probably saved my life. His music picked me up when I was at my lowest in high school, he made me realize that my life isn’t really that bad, but he also made me realize how small I am in the greater scheme of things. It didn’t mean I didn’t matter, the opposite in fact. It just meant that I had to keep pushing.
To be fair, I feel sort of guilty. I feel like I used FM. Then again, this pays back a hundred fold all the work I’ve done for them. Not that I needed any sort of reimbursement or reward. They are the coolest of the cool and the best of the best.
On to the day at hand. I woke up early, at like 9:20 just giddy. I was jumping up and down, breathing just to relax, and trying to get some nerves out. I ate an egg, it was pretty delicious. at 10:30, Diana came over and we drove over to Cal State Northridge. Nothing serious, we got there, parked, waited for FM to get there and then it sort of hit me.. WE GOT ALL ACCESS PASSES. I could go ANYWHERE. I could go backstage WHENEVER I WANT. It was just sort of a surreal moment. we set up the merch booth and just hung out for a bit, sold a bit of stuff (FM needs to get their name out more. I was really surprised at how many people knew Girls on the Dancefloor but NOT FM) and ate some Don Chow’s. It was decently delicious but kind of sloppy. FM got on, did their thing, a good amount of people in the crowd got really into it. They stepped off and then Kev gave Diana the call where they were leaving and we didn’t have to do merch anymore. Awesome.
That meant we would be able to stay backstage the rest of the afternoon and watch Talib and Lupe. To be honest, I was tired at that point and didn’t really want to wait for Talib AND Lupe.. I was contemplating leaving, or at least leaving for a little bit and then coming back for Lupe.. BUT THEN WE FOUND OUT THAT LUPE WAS COMING ON FIRST!. I just sat there for about 10 minutes. It was the most exciting 10 minutes of my ENTIRE LIFE. My mind was just racing. holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit lupe is coming lupe is coming lupe is coming. wow wow wow wow. I’m going to see him walk by in about 3 minutes. I was literally a fan boy at heart. I controlled myself by NOT wearing my Lupe t-shirt and NOT bring my camera. And then he came on, in this like tan jacket and jeans and this awesome Jack Purcell’s. I nudged Diana and was like, “that’s him in the tan.” He met some people, gave some hugs and got ready by himself, silent prayer, gathering thoughts, and got on stage. First song was a Justice mix of “The Instrumental”.. I sort was just star struck after that.. I think there was another song before he went into a freestyle of a Ice Cube track? I can’t remember what it was, and then ran with “Run this Town” It was awesome. like AWESOME. AND THEN IT WAS “CRS’s EVERYBODY NOSE”. ALL THE GIRLS STANDING IN THE LINE FOR THE BATHROOOOMMMM.
I’m doing this off memory for the rest but it went a little like. “Hip Hop Saved My Life” I mean its my favorite song of all time. ALL TIME. “Go Go Gadget Flow”, “I Gotcha”, “Little Weapon” “Streets on Fire”, “Kick Push” and then…. “SHINING DOWNNNNN!” awesome live. no auto tune, which makes it better. Celebrated by singing happy birthday to Talib Kweli and then finished off solid with “DAYDREAMIN’” Solid drum solo at the end where he got the crowd all into it and shit. It was awesome. HE. WAS. RIGHT. THERE.
“Peace and much love to ya”, and he was gone, walking back to his tent and peacing out. I’ve never been so star-struck in my life. It was the most awesome day of my life. Seriously just. wow. That really just happened. I wasn’t dreaming.
One of the only pics we took, couldn't be that big of a fan boy in front of some VIP's.
Currently Listening to: Arctic Monkeys – When the Sun Goes Down
I’m so sad that they didn’t play this song tonight. so so sad.
I’ll cut right to the chase. I headed to LA at around 4:15 with the awesome Helen Kim. We arrived at around 5:00 to a lineless Daikokuya. YES. RAMEN. DELICIOUS RAMEN. from the salad, to the rice bowl, to the pork, green onions, and bean sprouts. It is literally my favorite food in the world right now.
We wander for a bit after dinner because we have time to burn, so Little Tokyo site seeing! I go to the market place and grab some gummy candy and hi-chews. awesome.
Head over to the Hollywood Paladium to a line thats around the block and then some. Call tinman and Bingham, because the last time I saw an Arctic Monkeys concert, it was with them (and chip). I miss those guys. The Like opens, an all girl band that has an awesome drummer, but nothing else. It was one of those love at first sound kind of things.
They drop out, and the Monkeys come on. The first thing you notice is their hair. like all of them. It’s crazy and different. They started with stuff from Humbug, but hit up some Favourite Worst Nightmare and But they’ve really matured as a group. Highlight of my night was the View from the Afternoon. That song live never gets old. NEVER. Anyway, they’re starting to add variety to their sound and their songs really do tell a story. It has to grow on you, both Helen and I agreed on the drive back that listening to the album after hearing them live just makes it ten times better. You can recognize the sound and songs and its not a conglomerate of mess. I really like it.
btw. I totally have the hots for Alex Turner.
Currently Listening to: India Arie ft. Akon – I Am Not My Hair
I was hooked onto the movie the minute I realized that the bus bench I see everytime I commute was an advertisement for a movie… produced by Peter Jackson. That’s all it took. It’s viral marketing at its best. The websites are more innovative and inspired than the ones that were sprung for The Dark Knight (which was amazing). Still, the selling point for every movie is that movie is/will be a critical and commercial hit, simply because it couples a sizable amount of action with great character development.
–spoilers start here and will run throughout the post–
District 9 is, at its most fundamental level, a movie about race (more specifically apartheid), human rights, and the social effects of otherization and dehumanization. It also touches briefly on the issue of PMC’s and philosophies on the War on Terror and torture. It’s also an action movie, filled with inherent plot holes and questions that can only (hopefully) be answered by the sequel. I want to address all of these issues, but I’m going to jump back and forth, and it might seem incoherent and rambling: a warning.
Onto the task at hand. I’m surprised that Racialicious hasn’t touched on the subject, probably because the social criticism is so open and blatant throughout the movie. It’s clearly a movie about Apartheid; it’s set in South Africa.. the name “District 9″ is a play off “District 6“, the living conditions and perhaps the hopelessness of many of the ‘prawns’ reflects that of ‘non-whites’ during the Apartheid era.
It does beg a couple of questions. If the ‘prawns’ are so repressed, why was there never any talk of a violent uprising, when they seem to have the weapons and numbers to do so? To speculate, the actions of the ‘prawns’ seem somewhat irrational and therefore they aren’t conscientious or repressed enough to revolt. For one, they have their catfood, albeit at exorbitant prices, and for the most part, live in an arguably manageable world. It could be that, as hypothesized in the movie, that without leadership the “worker” prawns live in a State of Nature, and therefore do not care about ‘prawn’ well being as a whole but simply individualistic well being. It still doesn’t explain why ‘prawns’ TRADE weapons for food instead of USE weapons for food, unless of course they’re pacifists or, due to some ‘prawn’ caste system, cannot use the weapons.
Still, plot holes only reflect that the movie is an action film, and almost all action films have major plot holes.
Another issue with the film, and this is not a personal criticism but more one from the NYPress’ Armond White, is that it is an inadequate portrayal of Apartheid history. I don’t know enough about the history to say if this is an adequate analysis, but an interesting one nonetheless.
It does bring into question a greater criticism I have with the social message of the film. For one, the movie puts the ‘prawns’, the metaphor for racial minorities, into a state of social limbo. They are lower than humans but higher than animals. At one point during the UMC tests on Wikus, he states that he does not want to fire on a ‘prawn’ and instead will shoot another pig or cow. That puts the ‘prawns’ at a social status above our standard animals, probably because on some level humans understand that they are a rational and intelligent species; how else do you explain the ‘prawn’ technology, which is far superior to that of humans? The problem then is how they justify the vicious treatment of the ‘prawns’, and therfore “racial minorities”. They simply otherize them.
It digs deeper. The leading UMC mercenary, who is killed at the very end by various ‘prawns’ is more the monster than say Christopher Johnson is. Therefore the non-humans are actually more human than the humans themselves, in that there is no registered act of brutality or evil by any of the ‘prawns’. Torture is conducted by the humans. Humans experimented with weapons on ‘prawns’, not the other way around. Humans are the ones that are committing executions. The evolution of Wikus goes from human to ‘prawn’, and his understanding of the world is better. He is the hero, and he becomes more of a hero as he becomes more ‘prawn’. Christopher Johnson is the only character throughout the movie with no lapse in judgment or vices, CJ Jr doesn’t have any as well (but its childhood innocence). Christopher, after seeing the effects of experiments, doesn’t claim to seek revenge for his people, but simply to save them. It’s a role reversal. Those the humans dehumanize are actually the good to the humans’ evil, and the animalistic ‘prawns’ while vicious, simply seek to survive not to commit evil.
What Blomkamp and Jackson could have been doing is just showing how tragic the process of otherization and dehumanization is. Therefore the film is inherently an argument against such a process… and it touches on various hot topics, specifically that of torture, terrorism, crime, and gun control. I hear arguments all the time that “criminals deserve to be punished because they committed some atrocious crime” or that “Jews deserve to die because they killed my family” or that “we can torture all Arabs because the sacrifice of some is worth it for the protection of many”. You see the problem with this mentality within the movie; after Christopher Johnson leaves, many people speculate that he will return and wage war against the humans. Why? Because they know that war is justifiable. Wouldn’t you want revenge if you were in the ‘prawns’ shoes? Instead of attacking the source of crime (and therefore not criminals) or terrorism (and therefore not terrorists), American society does dehumanize and otherize individuals. For the sake of time and length, I don’t want to get to into it, but How To Win a Cosmic War by Reza Aslan addresses the issue more thoroughly and I advise people to at least skim it.
Anyway, I’m going to rant a little and vent. This topic reminded me of criminal justice and gun control in that I recently read an article, shared onto facebook by a conservative out at Berkeley (that narrows it down). I’m really tempted to share his name and the link just to show how stupid his argument is, but I refrain. It basically tries to justify gun control for protection (fair), but the people I were debating with went on to say that the dehumanization of criminals and terrorists is justified because they committed atrocious acts. As if torture and capital punishment aren’t atrocious acts within themselves. I would get into more, but I don’t want to bash people.
Essentially, I think the movie does both a really good and a really poor job in its portrayal of dehumanization and its effects. I say that because, simply, the ‘prawns’ aren’t human, and it might even justify, to some people, why we should dehumanize. This really is a motif that I can see easily fly over people’s heads, despite it being so “in your face.”
One last thing. PMC’s are bad. I could write more about why this is so, but I don’t want to make this any longer. Maybe another time.
Currently Listening to: Radiohead ft. Lupe Fiasco – Reckon A Superstar
I find myself listening to a lot of Priscilla Ahn, Colin Munroe (only to think about Ms. Emma Watson when I do), Eminem’s Soldier (and only that song), Youth Group’s Forever Young, and Dispatch’s Two Coins.
Just thought I’d share.
Currently Listening to: Dispatch – Two Coins
I’m still really fatigued. I used to be able to stay up to five or six and just bust out posts or read or watch some tv but I was watching some Daily Show to catch up and listening to some BS Reports and just all of a sudden crashed at like 2. I woke up this morning at 7 and found my light was still on and that my glasses were just lying there.
I’m working on another post for TAF but I wanted to cover yesterday really quickly, because it encompasses a lot of what is great about the opportunities presented in front of me and how I ought to take greater advantages of such opportunities.
I guess I’ll start by saying that I have some pretty awesome friends. They’re going to go places and do great things, but they seem really complacent about their world and what they want to see. For example, it could be going to a show or even a Dodgers game but because it is outside the norm they tend to stay away from it. I don’t only go to things or attend places I think I will enjoy. I go to it hoping that I will enjoy it and then save judgment for after it. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted a decision I’ve made going out to LA to watch a show or hang out at some random place. Even if I don’t like something, it’s always been a great bonding opportunity. It’s just been great sitting back and watching the world. You learn so much.
So this year, I’ve been to the Annenberg Space of Photography to see the Photo of the Year exhibit. It was awesome just hanging out with Helen, Hanna, and Rebecca. I’ve also headed into “The Party” with Lauren and her family, meeting Jane Lui and Phil Yu (AngryAsianMan) which was awesome. A TN KAT event last night with Jon Lee and Christina Chou (which was really spur of the moment, I didn’t even think about going until last minute), but its TN KAT and it should always be pretty awesome.
Sure, I love heading into these little exhibits and shows, but just getting time to hang out with some of these people is rewarding within itself.
btw. I forgot how awesome Daiko was/is. or Plan C for that fact.
Currently Listening to: 周杰倫 – 安靜
It’s too bad that ingenuity, creativity, and greatness is judged by the people instead of a person… or instead by the person who judges the people. I’d like to think I’m rational, and that numbers dictate what I do and how I do it. Of course that’s not true, I’m very much driven by my emotion and feelings; there are certain things that are, despite inefficiencies, sacrifices and so on, necessary for my personal view of a better world.
But I digress. In certain cases, things exceed a level of great, better, or excellent that define greatest, best, and brilliant… and it is in those moments where, no matter what the numbers say or what the numbers indicate, you feed it and water it so that it grows.. not only within itself but onto the people.
I very rarely rave about a show as I am about to now, and I do not dedicate this level of… effort… into praise, but the loose retelling of King David’s story is worth the time. NBC’s decision to cancel it is a travesty, especially in consideration of their lackluster efforts to promote it. Nothing against ER, but this show doesn’t even compare and our loveable super secret human computer (..its Chuck) with a conscious doesn’t even pale to David Shepard. Plus I think Allison Miller brings a new meaning to “classic American.. I mean Gilboan… beauty”. The show is written beautifully, well directed and holds a wonderous sense of “art”… but you notice its rushed, and that each episode locked in its 47 or so minutes, should be five episodes, with story archs and growth, depth. Even in its alotted time and expiration, the characters given are so much deeper and hold so much more potential then shows that have gone on year after year after year. To keep it fittingly brief… the show makes you think, and its not very often NBC, or television for that matter, does that.
Currently Listening to: Lupe Fiasco – Put You on Game
I hate Lakers and Boston fans. They lose with no shame and they celebrate with no honor. But I think I hate those fans because I’ve lived in those cities, and know so many of those really shitty fans. Obviously this is a huge generalization, but when I listen to some more… rational people… who learn to accept defeat and win knowing that someone else lost. Well. I guess I just like maturity.
Which is what Mark Cuban is. Mature. Apparently he and Mother K-Mart got into an argument in game 3, and he had pretty mean things to say. Obviously things are unclear but Kenyon called Cuban out for it and sort of demanded a face to face without the eye of the public and the media. I think Cuban did the right thing here. But I realized that Cuban’s on to something; it isn’t Boston or LA fans that are shitty, being an asshole is the nature of being a fan. I just don’t know if I would go and threaten or personally attack a Lion’s, Bear’s, or Viking’s fan.
BTW As a man without an NBA team, if Bill Simmons becomes the Minnesota GM, I would be a pseudo-Twolves fan. Just putting it out there.
Also, the newest episode of How I Met Your Mother, and there are spoilers ahead, has Ted meeting Stella again and helping her get back with Tony. I was talking to some people about it, and apparently no one would’ve done what Ted did. When I was watching the episode, I was thinking that I would’ve done what Ted did, but now that people point it out, maybe I won’t. I don’t really know actually. I’ve never been left at the alter, or been to the alter (yeah no.) but I would definitely help out an ex get back with someone; but probably not if that was the guy my ex cheated on me with or something. That’s never happened to me before, but eh.
Tomas Unger, if you’re reading this. I’m writing poetry again. When I’m done, we can swap. But this isn’t about nature or politics, but just some girl I’m kind of going crazy for and some social justice stuff. Maybe I’ll post one up here soon too. I feel like I’m in highschool all over again, it kind of sucks.
Currently Listening to: Cool Kids x Don Cannon – Hammer Bros
E-mail I am contemplating sending to Prof.
“Have you ever had to miss something because a mixtape dropped where if you had to wait 75 minutes to listen to it would be a matter of life or death?
Yeah, see you Weds.”
GRAB YOURS NOWW. What motivates me? the fucking Cool Kids motivate me.
- Kevin
