IGIVETHATSHITTHEFINGER

dansolomon: That video up there is from KLRU’s Women and Girls...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:54:10 -0500

That video up there is from KLRU’s Women and Girls Lead program, about my wife, Katherine Craft, and Conspire Theatre, the organization she started that provides theatre and creative writing classes to women incarcerated at Travis County Jail.

I mention her on this here blog every so often, and every time that I do, I get a few people asking how they can be involved. Here is one very important answer: donate to the Conspire Theatre Pub Quiz Fundraiser that is going on right now!

I’m captaining a team for the quiz, and we’re trying to raise at least $600 for Conspire, so they can continue the work that they do every week in Travis County Jail. If you’ve ever talked with me about the organization for more than two minutes, you may have heard why raising money for Conspire is very difficult:

It does work with a population that most people don’t give a shit about. (“I don’t get free theater classes,” they say, “Why should a bunch of criminals?”)

The people who do care about incarcerated women mostly want to fund services for them that are scripture-based, and Conspire don’t preach.

The work they do is invisible, for the most part. That KLRU video is the first thing to ever be filmed of Conspire’s work (and it was actually shot in Gatesville Prison, where Conspire does intensive workshops a few times a year — jails aren’t keen on letting photographers and filmmakers in). It’s really hard to explain to people why they should support something that they can’t see.

Using art as a healing and transformative (and, yes, anti-recidivist) tool is still pretty radical to people who don’t recognize that these things are actually often more effective at teaching life skills than “life skills” classes.

Doing this work with women — whose reasons for incarceration and needs while they’re in jail are very different from those of their male counterparts — isn’t, frankly, as fascinating to people as doing work like this with men. You know that This American Life episode where those guys in the St. Louis prison perform Shakespeare? That’s what we call a man-bites-dog story: Big, tough guy inmates being moved to tears by Shakespeare? People are fascinated by that. Those organizations are definitely worthwhile, but when you do something similar with women, people pay less attention. Frustrating, but true.

So that is the wall that fundraising is up against. This is all in Texas, too. There is not a lot of institutional money in Texas for work with prisoners. Which means that they have to do things like a Pub Quiz Fundraiser. I am captaining a team of six (if you’re in Austin and want to play and help fundraise, there are a couple of open slots left) that is going to bring glory to the names of all who fund the campaign by clobbering the opposition in this quiz.

You give Conspire Money. They provide vital classes to one of the most vulnerable populations in Texas. (Incarcerated women have it rough, y’all.) We enter and win this pub quiz, carrying a Game Of Thrones-like banner in the name of those who supported via the link.

$600 is our minimum goal. I’m pretty convinced that there are enough people who give a shit about incarcerated women out here, and who have a couple bucks to chip in, that we can break that number with time to spare, and make sure they can afford to offer these classes (and more! They’re launching a program for women who’ve been released this summer, so they can continue to find support after incarceration!) to women for a long time to come. Can you help?

It feels weird to use this Tumblr to ask y’all for money. But this shit is really important, and if people like you don’t help, there is literally almost no one else who cares about this stuff.

Hi again with this, Tumblr.

So, this campaign ends today. All of the stuff I said up there is still completely true, but I also wanted to say a couple of other things. Primarily: thank you.

We’ve raised $1,140, which is very nearly double our original goal of $600. Some of that money came from total fucking strangers who appear to have found this post and then gave money. That is amazing. Honestly, I had hoped it might happen, but I didn’t expect it. The currency of social media websites is often attention/reblogs/likes/favorites/etc — not actual currency. But people gave real money that will help real women. I’m so pleased. Thank you.

Now: If you know anything about operating a small non-profit, then you know that funding is an ongoing need, and so while it is thrilling to have surpassed the goal, there’s still a ton more to raise. So I will ask one more time for help. Can we get six people to give $10 and make it an even $1,200 for Conspire Theater and their work with incarcerated women?

Again — fundraising is a tacky feeling. I hate asking people for money. But this is important, so I’m doing it again.

Here’s a quick aside: I’m researching a pitch right now for a story about incarcerated mothers and breastfeeding (which is rare and difficult and, as you may expect, very important). I did some Googling, just to see what was already out there, and what opinions were being expressed. Most of those opinions, especially on motherhood/breastfeeding/what-to-expect-when-you’re-expecting forums?

“This is probably a horrible thing to say but, if a woman is in jail, I doubt that her main concern in life is to provide her child with the best nutrition possible. Even if there WERE breast pumps in prison, would any of the women ASK for them?”

I’m sorry, this is probably not the popular opinion but breastfeeding is the least of this lady’s problems. Having kids and breastfeeding is a privilege not a right. If she wanted to breastfeed so bad she shouldn’t have broken the law.

If you know your pregnant, you better not land yourself in jail if you want to show you even care about your child in the first place.

These were basically the first three comments I saw on the first three forums I opened. We are a culture that still takes great glee in judging, dehumanizing, and condescending to women in the criminal justice system.

The work that Conspire does that facilitates them telling their own stories, in their own voices, is just really important. I hate asking for money, but I’m gonna ask for money one more time, because funding this program really does make a difference.

Meandering song posts and dumb jokes and pictures of my dog and all the rest of that stuff to resume shortly. Thanks.

Outlaw dog! (at Red Bud Isle)

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:16:30 -0500

Outlaw dog! (at Red Bud Isle)

Wuthering Heights

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:42:22 -0500

dailymisogyny:

Male customer: Can you help me find a book? I’m looking for something like Twilight but headier.

Me: Have you ever read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brönte?

Male Customer: Sorry, I should have been more specific. By “headier”, I meant “for guys”.

New must-read Tumblr about condescending, sexist dudes in bookstores.

(Also: Kat’s bike was stolen last week! Which sucks. But I have some savings at this point in my life, so we went bike-shopping today. We went to a number of Austin’s very many bike shops to find something nice, because her bike is her sole means of transportation and she rides it almost everywhere she goes. And there were two [2] bike shops in our travels that didn’t have some dude salesperson act like he was selling her the very first bike she’d ever seen in her whole life. Coincidentally or not, when it was time to make a decision, the bikes we were considering came from either Windmill Cycles on Manor [which is lady-co-owned and was 2/3 lady-staffed while we were there], but they needed a little bit of time to build out the right thing, and she needed something immediately; and The Peddler on Duval and 51st, which was entirely dude-staffed but by people who have never once treated her like anything but a grown-up who knows how to ride a damn bicycle in all of the years that she has been going there. The same can not be said for, say, Bicycle Joe Steroids’ little cheater shop downtown.)

Journalism!

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:00:26 -0500

Journalism!

That video up there is from KLRU’s Women and Girls...

Mon, 06 May 2013 09:30:24 -0500

That video up there is from KLRU’s Women and Girls Lead program, about my wife, Katherine Craft, and Conspire Theatre, the organization she started that provides theatre and creative writing classes to women incarcerated at Travis County Jail.

I mention her on this here blog every so often, and every time that I do, I get a few people asking how they can be involved. Here is one very important answer: donate to the Conspire Theatre Pub Quiz Fundraiser that is going on right now!

I’m captaining a team for the quiz, and we’re trying to raise at least $600 for Conspire, so they can continue the work that they do every week in Travis County Jail. If you’ve ever talked with me about the organization for more than two minutes, you may have heard why raising money for Conspire is very difficult:

It does work with a population that most people don’t give a shit about. (“I don’t get free theater classes,” they say, “Why should a bunch of criminals?”)
The people who do care about incarcerated women mostly want to fund services for them that are scripture-based, and Conspire don’t preach.
The work they do is invisible, for the most part. That KLRU video is the first thing to ever be filmed of Conspire’s work (and it was actually shot in Gatesville Prison, where Conspire does intensive workshops a few times a year — jails aren’t keen on letting photographers and filmmakers in). It’s really hard to explain to people why they should support something that they can’t see.
Using art as a healing and transformative (and, yes, anti-recidivist) tool is still pretty radical to people who don’t recognize that these things are actually often more effective at teaching life skills than “life skills” classes.
Doing this work with women — whose reasons for incarceration and needs while they’re in jail are very different from those of their male counterparts — isn’t, frankly, as fascinating to people as doing work like this with men. You know that This American Life episode where those guys in the St. Louis prison perform Shakespeare? That’s what we call a man-bites-dog story: Big, tough guy inmates being moved to tears by Shakespeare? People are fascinated by that. Those organizations are definitely worthwhile, but when you do something similar with women, people pay less attention. Frustrating, but true.

So that is the wall that fundraising is up against. This is all in Texas, too. There is not a lot of institutional money in Texas for work with prisoners. Which means that they have to do things like a Pub Quiz Fundraiser. I am captaining a team of six (if you’re in Austin and want to play and help fundraise, there are a couple of open slots left) that is going to bring glory to the names of all who fund the campaign by clobbering the opposition in this quiz.

You give Conspire Money. They provide vital classes to one of the most vulnerable populations in Texas. (Incarcerated women have it rough, y’all.) We enter and win this pub quiz, carrying a Game Of Thrones-like banner in the name of those who supported via the link.

$600 is our minimum goal. I’m pretty convinced that there are enough people who give a shit about incarcerated women out here, and who have a couple bucks to chip in, that we can break that number with time to spare, and make sure they can afford to offer these classes (and more! They’re launching a program for women who’ve been released this summer, so they can continue to find support after incarceration!) to women for a long time to come. Can you help?

It feels weird to use this Tumblr to ask y’all for money. But this shit is really important, and if people like you don’t help, there is literally almost no one else who cares about this stuff.

Real quick, on this Danny Brown onstage blowjob thing, and Kitty's response

Fri, 03 May 2013 15:20:20 -0500

Lots and lots of words have been spilled, arguing whether or not it’s rape, or trying to prove that Brown’s post-incident tweets offer an implied consent after-the-fact.

If none of this makes any sense to you, read this for Kitty Pryde’s response as his tourmate, and this for some shitty Gawker trolling, and maybe this so you can see that even a Dallas music writer who lives 20 hours from where it happens feels the need to weigh in and declare it not-rape.

Now: There’s a bunch of bullshit here, ranging from the very personal investment people have in declaring that there’s no way this could have been rape to the implication that, if someone who this happens to responds to it in a way that you don’t think is appropriate, it must have been consensual.

But the thing that I find especially bizarre and frustrating is the idea that keeps coming up that the fact that Danny Brown chose to maintain his image during and after the incident means that he’s essentially unrapeable. Like the pressures on Danny Brown to perform a very specific form of masculinity are somehow not real social pressures, even though every single dude in this culture has had to confront those social pressures in one way or another in his life.

Danny Brown and I have very little in common, but we’ve both had to deal with that shit. Every dude — gay or straight, assigned male or female gender at birth, rich or poor, black or white, whatever — has had to figure out how much of this specific view of masculinity they were willing and able to perform in front of society. That’s a huge part of what the word “patriarchy” refers to. Denying that it’s a real pressure, and that Danny Brown might have responded to what happened to him onstage in a way that doesn’t make sense to you because of it, is really weird and fucked up.

jeffmiller: Reese Witherspoon Arrest DASH CAM VIDEO (by...

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:46:15 -0500

jeffmiller:

Reese Witherspoon Arrest DASH CAM VIDEO (by TMZ)

This video will get a lot of play today. Sadly, I doubt it will prompt discussion of the propensity of law enforcement to leap to arrest for obstruction. If Reese’s actions actually made it more difficult for the officer to apprehend her husband, then maybe they would be arrest worthy. But that wasn’t what happened. She was bratty and confrontational with a police officer. People shouldn’t act that way, but there are lots of things people shouldn’t do that aren’t actual crimes.

There are professional and historical reasons why Reese now has to be gracious, concede error, and beg forgiveness. She can’t argue on her behalf here. That doesn’t mean some of the rest of us can’t.

Reblogging for commentary, obviously. There’s a weird attitude in this country that it is, or should be, illegal to be rude to the police. It’s reasonable that there are social consequences for being a jerk, but there’s no reason for there to be legal ones, except that police have the privilege of being able arrest the jerks they encounter.

samanthapitchel: DREAMS CAN COME TRUE

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:21:25 -0500

samanthapitchel:

DREAMS CAN COME TRUE

Prince on The Today Show ‘96 #menswear blogging with Prince...

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:02:27 -0500

Prince on The Today Show ‘96

#menswear blogging with Prince Rogers Nelson.

bettersupes: Source: girlslovesuperheroes This entire project, in which the artist draws...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:58:18 -0500

bettersupes:

Source: girlslovesuperheroes

This entire project, in which the artist draws superheroes based on Cosplaying little girls, is terrific (visit the Tumblr for more), but this one in particular made me very much want to read a Calvin & Hobbes-style comic about a little girl with a Green Lantern ring who solves crimes with the help of a super-powered stuffed dog.

Ashley Judd, is that you? Student says UConn's husky logo is a pro-rape symbol

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:22:00 -0500

Ashley Judd, is that you? Student says UConn's husky logo is a pro-rape symbol:

Take back the night … from a freakin’ husky?

Here, let’s play “right-wing news source telephone.” It’s a game in which someone says something — in this case, UConn student Carolyn Luby’s “An Open Letter to UConn President Susan Herbst” — that gets filtered through a bunch of dishonest interpretations, until a letter in which the word “rape” does not appear, and the school’s logo is not described (except in quotes from school administrators), is suddenly promoted on major conservative political websites as “College’s husky dog logo promotes rape, says student.”

Here is what a staffer at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller wrote about Luby’s letter:

The new logo for the University of Connecticut’s sports teams is a terrifying husky dog that calls to mind images of sexual assault, says one student.

The new logo was unveiled last week, receiving mixed-to-negative reviews from UConn fans who preferred the older, cuter husky dog.

But one student went much further, criticizing the new, meaner logo for being a pro-rape symbol.

In an open letter to UC President Susan Herbst, self-described feminist student Carolyn Luby wrote that the redesigned team logo will intimidate women and empower rape culture.

Go on and read the letter yourself, if you like, and bear these facts in mind.

She doesn’t use the word “rape” even once.
She doesn’t describe the logo as “terrifying” or “mean” or “intimidating.”
She doesn’t talk about the aesthetics of the logo at all.

Luby’s letter describes some off-field incidents involving UConn students that were unaddressed by the school administration. She invokes the logo to say that she’s offended by the decision to re-brand the school visually, instead of addressing the behavior of the school’s male athletes.

That may or may not be a good point, I guess — reasonable people can disagree with her, certainly. (I don’t think juxtaposing the school’s decision to create a new logo with the off-field incidents is particularly compelling, myself, not that it matters.) But that’s definitely not what’s happening here.

What’s happening here is that popular conservative websites are willfully lying to their readers in order to drum up some quick 2-minute-hate against a random 22 year old woman for things that don’t even resemble what she actually said.

And the fact that they’re doing it under the guise of calling out feminism gone crazy or whatever? Well, hell — I know that claiming there’s a conservative “war on women” hurts their feelings, but if I were a 22 year old student who was given to writing innocuous open letters, I might be a little bit concerned that staffers at significant conservative websites could randomly pick me to lie about in order to fire up the base.

Which, I suspect, is part of the point.

(Also, to be clear: These aren’t rando stories yanked from the dregs of Twitchy or the Daily Caller by cherry-picking user-created diaries or whatever — on both sites, this is prominent and on the front page, and written by staffers.)

This tweet from the Yankees reminded me of the strip Brian...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:08:55 -0500

This tweet from the Yankees reminded me of the strip Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso did for DC’s post-9/11 fundraiser collection.

"Unequal Freedom"?

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:52:00 -0500

"Unequal Freedom"?:

That headline — “Unequal Freedom” — comes from the front page of the Austin American-Statesman today, in a story about the prevalence of personal recognizance bonds in Travis County courts. It’s maybe the dumbest headline I’ve ever seen. Here’s why:

When a person is arrested and charged, pre-trial and certainly pre-conviction, they are commonly held on either a cash bond, which is what they’re talking about when they say that “bail has been set for $50,000” or whatever, or a personal recognizance bond. With a PR bond, the defendant’s promise to appear in court is considered sufficient to grant his or her release. With a cash bond, the five grand, or deed to his mama’s house, or collected savings of everyone she knows, is offered as collateral to ensure his or her appearance.

Bail is not, and Constitutionally can not be set punitively. The only reason not to grant bail is when there’s a compelling reason to believe that, if the accused (remember — no one has been convicted yet) is released, he or she will fail to appear, say by hightailing it for Mexico; or, in some situations, if it’s believed that the person poses an active risk to others.

Otherwise, we grant bail. If we have no reason to believe that a defendant is a flight risk or is in danger of hurting anyone, then we have an obligation to do so. Remember — no one has been convicted yet. All we are talking about is people who have been accused.

The Statesman story casts a great deal of doubt on the practice of granting PR bonds in Travis County, which is rather uncommon, at least in the numbers in which it happens here, at least for Texas. It’s laden with quotes from prosecutors who decry the unfairness of defendants being granted their release by judges without the prosecutor being given the opportunity to argue that they should be locked away until the trial, or at least forced to come up with sums of money they very likely haven’t got access to. It finds one example — from six years ago — of a defendant granted PR bond who fled the country, and lays out a case for a broken, corrupt, “unequal” system.

Better ten thousand (presumed) innocent men rot in jail, than one (possibly) guilty man go free, and all of that.

And all of that is fairly standard. Tough On Crime! types have lamented the use of personal bonds in Travis County for years, (Some dummy at Burnt Orange Report last year penned a shockingly ignorant post attacking then-DA candidate Charlie Baird — who, one might point out, has unlike the eventual victor in that campaign never been arrested for and seemingly confessed to DWI — for his willingness to grant them.) None of them have provided any sort of statistics to prove that accused people granted PR bonds are less likely to appear in court than those granted cash bonds, presumably because none exist. The best they can do is a very small smattering of anecdotes (these three stories are really the extent of it in the BOR and Statesman pieces) that indicate that, on very rare occasion, people who are accused of crimes re-offend or flee jurisdiction.

But the headline on the piece is “unequal freedom.” Which is infuriating, because I have no idea what’s “unequal” about it. The best I can get is that it’s “unequal” that the prosecutor doesn’t get the chance to argue for a bail amount the defendant has no hope to raise, which is silly — the Constitution does guarantee that people won’t be held indefinitely before they’re convicted of anything (which everyone granted bond is), but it doesn’t say anything about the rights of the prosecution to be granted the chance to make those arguments.

Either that, or it’s the much remarked-upon fact (in the Statesman piece) that this is a unique facet of Travis County’s justice system. The author talks to prosecutors in Harris County, Tarrant County, and Bexar County, where they all explain how it’s unusual/unethical/unfair/unpleasant. “Unequal,” presumably, because defendants in Houston, Fort Worth, and San Antonio who don’t have the money to post bond have to sit and await trial in jail, while in Austin, they’re free (actually, often required as a condition of their release) to continue their employment, enter rehab, resume family ties that reduce their risk of future arrest, etc. It’s “unequal,” yeah — but that is to the shame of the rest of the state.

It’s absurd to decry the fact that people who have been convicted of nothing, who pose no greater flight risk than anyone else, and who are unlikely enough to re-offend that the stories documenting such are relegated to three cases, are being granted their Constitutional rights. Plastering that shit on the front page of the newspaper like it’s something shameful, rather than something people in Austin should be proud of, is disgusting.

kittydothedishes: at least watch from 1:15-1:40 and...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:28:04 -0500

kittydothedishes:

at least watch from 1:15-1:40 and 2:20-2:55

this video is really important, just like this band is really important, and (some of) kathleen’s antics are really important because this isn’t a thing that people think about a lot of the time

being on a stage is cool and fun and when you’re creating art you want it to be seen. the problem is, if you’re a girl, a lot of the time people aren’t even paying attention to the art and if you choose to wear revealing clothes, nobody is paying attention to anything else at all. i don’t know if you guys heard about the time that guys tried to pull my clothes off onstage, but that shit was humiliating, and there are times that i have to perform feeling like the ugliest worst human on the planet and being scared that that’s gonna happen again makes it way harder to go onstage.

yeah, i know i don’t have to, but i WANT TO, and that’s not the point. i want to be able to perform without having to worry about people treating me like their little webcam girl or some shit. come to my show if you want to see me play my songs. if i want to jump around and wear booty shorts and tiny dresses, i can. it’s MY SHOW. you CHOSE to be there, and the price of admission doesn’t include a fucking boudoir photo op and it sure AS HELL DOES NOT MEAN YOU’RE ALLOWED TO FUCKING TOUCH ME WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AT ALL EVER.

it’s not like i’m gonna do what kathleen does in this video- i will never freak out on someone for taking a photo of me, because even if i get super mad, that’s just not really a part of my personality. i’m more likely to run away and hide. but she makes the most important point; i DONT have to stand there and let some white boy who i don’t know take pictures of my ass (in my case, probably to be posted online and spread around as far as he possibly can) and from now on i’m not gonna let people make me feel uncomfortable

a show is about THE SHOW and the experience and being there and seeing a performance. it’s not about what revealing photos you can instagram. artists deserve the respect they ask for, and all i ask is that my photo isn’t taken without my consent. i DONT think that’s a lot to ask considering i take photos with and hug and high five and autograph and talk about hopsin with everyone who actually asks

thxx <333

I swear I don’t mean this in a snarky way — I just know how we tend to treat young women who are doing something relatively novel — but I really hope that the music industry gives Kitty Pryde the chance to continue growing up as an artist in the public eye, because I think she might end up doing and saying some things that are important the way that this video is important.

ExxonMobil Restricting Reporters from Entering Site of Arkansas Oil Spill

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:24:39 -0500

ExxonMobil Restricting Reporters from Entering Site of Arkansas Oil Spill:

Local media in Mayflower have been hamperedin their reporting by a pliant county sheriff’s office who has been taking orders from ExxonMobil about who can enter the site of the spill. A no-fly zone was set up by the FAA after ExxonMobil requested it, and now news organizations must ask for the oil giants’ permission before flying over the site.

Okay, so this is what that post I quoted from Charles Pierce about Rand Paul is about, too, essentially — that it doesn’t matter if you call the instrument of unearned, unjust authority “the State” or ExxonMobil or whatever else. You’re still talking about the same thing. (And yes, I’m aware that the sheriff’s department doing the bidding of ExxonMobil in this case is an instrument of the state — but if they did not exist, do you think Exxon would not have a private organization in place to do that same job?)

It drives me absolutely nuts to hear terms like “Statism” tossed around by people who claim to be invested in liberty, like it’s the greatest evil lurking in the woods. There’s no functional difference between the impositions on liberty from “the State” that wants to force you to live a certain way and impose massive restrictions on your freedoms and a company like ExxonMobil that will keep you out of a neighborhood it has no right to — except that ExxonMobil fucking exists.

The strain of libertarianism that declares an overwhelming hatred of authority when it’s derived from the consent of a political commonwealth, but combines it with the dog-like obedience to that same brand of authority when it comes from a private actor, is a goddamn mental illness.

Here's Another Problem With Rand Paul

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:16:15 -0500

Here's Another Problem With Rand Paul:

“Rights exist only if people recognize that they are free to exercise them. We are creating a culture — and raising our children within it — in which the exercise of those rights in virtually every sphere outside the home is becoming more and more perilous. We are a subject population now and Rand Paul, to name only one person, believes that any attempt to curtail the now-habitual private abridgement of our fundamental rights is a threat to ‘liberty.’ Unions are a threat to liberty. Workplace safety rules are a threat to liberty. Don’t like the way your boss is prying into your private life? Find another boss to pry into your private life. Rights are given to us by Whoever, but the assistant floor manager can render them impractical. Nice work, Whoever. The primary threat to civil liberties in this country today comes from what Rand Paul likes to call ‘the marketplace.’ Do something about that, Rand. Talk to the guys in the boardroom about ‘liberty.’ They’ll laugh at you harder than I am.”

Charles Pierce’s takedown of the virulent strain of libertarianism that adores the sort of rights abuses they claim to abhor when they’re enacted by an entity other than “the State” is a neat bit of poetry.

150 Favorite Songs: #71, “Someday,” The Strokes...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:30:00 -0500

150 Favorite Songs: #71, “Someday,” The Strokes (2001)

It’s funny; I have a lot of things to say about The Strokes in 2013, which wasn’t the case at all in 2001. Back then, it was just an album that I was told to hotly anticipate, which I did, because at that age I always anticipated the things that the magazines told me to even though I pretended I was exactly the opposite sort of person from those who did that. But you have to remember what a bleak time it was for rock and roll back then. The consolidation of radio meant that the dreams of the 90’s were dead, and MTV still showed videos, but it was all TRL and boy-bands and pop starlets, if it wasn’t Puddle of Mudd and Creed and Staind and those bands that mercilessly flogged what was left of grunge. There were not yet thriving Internet communities around music — Pitchfork was still in its early days, and the closest someone with left-of-the-dial interests was likely to come in finding his or her own tastes represented in the mainstream culture was maybe hearing Jeff Buckley sing “Hallelujah” over a 9/11 montage.

All of that has changed dramatically over the last dozen years, of course. You can’t throw a rock without beaning some American Idol cast member belting out “Hallelujah” now, and Scott Stapp works at a carwash in Paducah, Kentucky. The Strokes, meanwhile, played a free show for families and children at Auditorium Shores in Austin during SXSW two years ago, and people tore down fences to get a glimpse of the boys.

With that perspective comes the realization that The Strokes (along with, I suppose, The White Stripes and maybe Ryan Adams, to some extent) represent a tipping point in music- and youth-culture. It doesn’t seem to me to be a coincidence that the word “hipster” entered the lexicon at precisely the same moment that these guys in tight t-shirts and leather jackets, with artful hair, ever-present sunglasses, and a shameless interest in assembling something new via a pastiche of things from the past, became major cultural figures.

If you want to distill trends in rock music down to major albums, then you’d have to put Is This It on the list of turning-point records; it kickstarted the hipster era the same way that Nevermind in ‘91 did alt-rock (and what it became), or Van Halen for 80’s guitar rock. There was a sizable shift in the culture after Is This It, and it’s gone on to define the way we talk about and think about rock music ever since.

That doesn’t mean that it’s a perfect album, though, or that it has the best songs. In fact, even in 2001, I didn’t so much love Is This It as I was fascinated by it, and the mood of it. I recognized it as cool and I’d been so sick of uncool music at that point that I decided to like it, almost as much as I liked it because it appealed to my taste. I listened to it a lot in my car in 2001, and put the occasional song — “Last Nite,” or “Take It Or Leave It,” or “Someday” — on a mixtape over the next year, then kind of let it fade out of my mind.

But then a funny thing happened: I was on tour in 2004, which felt like a lifetime from the point at which Is This It came out, which speaks to how big the years between 21 and 24 can be, and I was doing a coffee shop show in Albuquerque at a venue that had an open mic before the feature. And this kid, with an acoustic guitar and blonde hair, he used his time to sing “Someday.” But it wasn’t a straight cover — he played it like he was Jack Johnson or something. And it sounded amazing to me.

I think that was the moment when I realized just how important The Strokes were — that this hippie kid in an Albuquerque loved the song enough to sing it, to recognize the greatness of the melody and the power of singing the words, “I ain’t wasting no more time.” They were much more important than they seemed at the time, in terms of how they both changed the culture of what young people with guitars did, and what kind of music they felt belonged to them.

That’s not, like, a civil rights battle or anything, obviously. But it is a cultural shift. And it’s easy to recognize The Strokes as a band that shifted the culture, with some hindsight. It’s also important, though, to recognize that some of the songs they wrote as part of that shift are legitimately great. “Someday” certainly is.

Remembering Margaret Thatcher. (from Planetary Vol. 2 by Warren...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:24:00 -0500

Remembering Margaret Thatcher.

(from Planetary Vol. 2 by Warren Ellis and John Cassady)

1. Section 28

2. Community Charge

3. Falklands War

Potato fetch all-star

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 17:53:53 -0500

Potato fetch all-star

I just bought the Complete Calvin & Hobbes boxed set, so...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:06:42 -0500

I just bought the Complete Calvin & Hobbes boxed set, so there may be a few of these popping up here.