I am, and have always been, a sucker for a good sound system. When raves died in the late 90’s, I mourned the loss of the walls of bass more than my 40-inch phat pants (some of which I still have in a box somewhere, but that’s a whole ‘nother post).

Which is why it was such a surprise to find myself dancing up a sweat last night around 2am in a basement that reminded me of college house parties to a sound system worse than my computer speakers. OK, that’s hyperbole, but still. No low end, with highs cranked so much that my ears are still ringing the day after. However, I do believe I tweeted that “clipping never sounded so good.”

Because I have learned that if I’m with good friends, in the mood for a party, and listening to music that doesn’t suck, we can make an awesome time just about anywhere, including the basement of Don Pedro’s, surrounded by 20-year-olds and a crappy sound system.

New Wave Promiscuity

Babysitting and watching an episode of Wonder Pets!. The show, for ages 2-5 respectively, is trumped when the commercial “KidzBop” comes on.  Out of former complacent programming burst three girls moving, singing, dancing in a simulated recording studio. Shaking heads and future hips move to the phrase “Take me on a trip I’d like to go somewhere…” Capitalizing on adolescent energy and video culture, the television comes alive. Glamour, clubs, shopping sprees, riding in cars—what people do until they go middle age—the commercial jumps to four boys on a couch singing a ballad of love and commitment. KidzBop highlights the diverse range of musical genres available to consumers of all ages as well as the fundamental desires required to participate in 21^st century capitalist culture.

The commercial is made for ages 12-14 and thus marketed to the 6-8 year olds—those still waiting for sterile public school sex education. Moments before KidzBop we were sold action figures, dolls—packaged plastic in all shapes and forms. The entire commercial break is an offering of innocence and promiscuity in a span of three minutes. While the child is vivaciously learning lessons in material culture, the adult has learned. He or she swallows the daily multi-media vitamin just to function. 

I'm Choking on Lotus Flower

This easter sunday, we encourage you to step outside the biblical and think about the buddha in your rear view mirror. Even though we don't drive, we discovered this is fairly easy to do. You don't even really need a mirror cause, if we're correct, it's all in your mind. 

So far, the feedback has been positive. 

"The uneducated, the 'Intelligensia,' the rich, the poor, the victimized, the bullies, the focused, the not so focused: there's something in chanting Nam Myhoho Renge Kyo that fills a missing part of everybody. People who swim all the time look like swimmers. People who chant becomes Buddhas."

-Robin Lukas

"My happiness was all blocked up but then the buddha in my pants let it all out."

-Source unknown

This is (Mid)Ground Control to Major Blog

Group blogging must be akin to the 'great on paper ideal' oft referenced by the eternal naysayer when building the received/standard argument for why X (e.g. socialism) can never work. Quietly passing over the mundane irony that I'm contesting the "it only works on paper" argument not on traditional paper, group blogging embraces all those values anathema to contemporary notions of individual credit/fame/celebrity: group participation, quasi-anonymity (by choice), bi-directional feedback and above all else, group authorship leading to that ultimate democratic idea, mutual responsibility.

What we are actually responsible for, only time will tell - but the ethos of mutual responsibility is an inspiring one: I may not be my brothers keeper, but in a sense I am my brother's tweeter. What/how I choose to contribute reflects on the blog/concept as a whole that organically emerges day-to-day, post-to-post.

By now you've sighed and thought "how obvious!" To that I say: obviousness is often a co-pilot of sincerity and desktop publishing can certainly use a healthy tincture of sincerity.

In regards to desktop publishing, blogging has freed us from the Desktop and turned "publishing" into the useful verb it was always envisioned to be. Group blogging when successful can only free us from the trappings of narcissistic personal blogs whose intentions, while usually sincere, are mired in self-(over)reflection, self-(over)indulgence and self-(over)censorship. The aesthetics of group blogging may lack the elegance of one, single vision, but it arms the (our!) march with an inner complexity with all those emergent properties expected of the riot of ideas.

Wiens Sold Here

At Wine Wo Liquor Discount Center Corp. you get more than wine. As advertised on the glass window, Wein is Sold Here. It's wine manufactured in China. It's got all the ingredients that go into wine: w, n, e, i--but the chemical make up is just a little different. You can still get drunk though.

Map.

wmc 2009

last weekend was wmc 2009, this year's installation of spring break for the electronic music world.

i'm not a huge fan of miami or music industry hobnobbing, but i've been to wmc a few times and came up with the rule for myself that i'd go as long as i have a booking, so ended up there yet again this year. having said that, though, i was actually looking forward to quite a bit of the music this time around.

i'm not gonna bother with a full recap, but i might as well cover some of my highlights for the weekend:

• the "family wmc" party at ps14, while underattended, was a lot of fun-- mostly because it felt like a party on the roof of bar 13 with mostly new york locals and the soundsystem and weather were amazing.
• the resolute party was awesome, though they had some sound issues, particularly inside. i'm not sure why, but it seems like resolute parties are much better when they're out of town (detroit, for example)... or maybe they're much better when they're outdoors (detroit, miami, boat with no captain, etc)
• even though the dirtybird/mothership party had some problems with sound complaints and couldn't use their amazing soundsystem (same one as family @ ps14), the party was great. guido schneider completely shocked me by playing one of the best daytime outside awesome, funky house music sets i've ever heard. we were all looking at each other in disbelief.
• the spectral party totally stole the show for the weekend. the venue (grass) was BEAUTIFUL, the crowd was great, the sound was top notch and the lineup outside (clark warner djing ambient -> kate simko live pa -> matt dear live pa) was pretty much perfect and everything just clicked. i really don't know what could've been changed to make this party better. seriously great.
• sunday school for degenerates was, despite being a total shit show, an awesome time. we showed up at 11pm to pick up our bracelets and raid the open bar, and we were almost the only ones there to catch an amazing live pa from ryan crosson. we ended up leaving when he was done and coming back for the morning, which was a great plan. all of the music outside (when the outside wasn't shut down for rain reasons) was amazing and the weather, when it held up, was perfect. the crowd was excellent and everybody was totally ready to let loose and get down to close down the weekend. the only thing that disappointed me was how hard cassy played... i was really hoping for a deeper set at sundown oustide to close out the weekend.

all in all, it was a great weekend. i barely spent any time on south beach and spent a huge portion of my time outside. i even slept pretty much every night! i guess i'll have to stop hating and actually put more effort into going back next year.

I always find it humorous when certain television shows (Gossip Girl, Kings) attempt to show their characters doing debaucherous things. Invariably they walk into some scandalous red-lit expensive club with bad electro playing and a burlesque/contortionist/flavor-of-the-month act on stage, as if to epitomize how crazy everyone is because some woman in pasties is literally bending over backwards.

Follow up with a montage of many rounds of shots, women in skimpy dresses and stilettos rubbing up against the character who is supposed to be either the “bad boy” or the “good kid” that’s being led astray. End with an image of them going to bed as the sun comes up, and...scene. Debauchery, can’t you see?

Without venturing into self-incrimination, I have to ask: is that the best they can do? It’s so sterile, so expected. Everyone knows things don't really get interesting until the afterparty, well after the sun has come up.