Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Give Thanks

Changing the game 'til the Hall of Fame.

The Clash w/ Mikey Dread :: One More Anti-War Dub (Zentronix Edit)

An exclusive one-night mix just to give thanks.

Much respect to Mala, Digital Mystikz, Skream, and the dubstep massive for inspiration.

One.

posted by Zentronix @ 11:03 PM   1 comments




My Man Danny Hoch On Seinfeld and Kramer
From Jails, Hospitals, and Hip-Hop, my man Danny Hoch and the back story on "Seinfeld", Seinfeld, Kramer and race--with a diversion into Tarantinoland.

KARMA LIKE A MUH...


posted by Zentronix @ 10:56 AM   6 comments



Monday, November 20, 2006
Back Like A High-Top Fade

Hey! Retro Kids love the eighties.


This past weekend a friend about to have her first child started making plans with her girlfriends to have one last wild dance night at a ridiculously popular club that specializes in playing 80s music--big hair, big t-shirts with big slogans, big snare drums, big color, big drinks. Woke up the next day to see the picture above. But like those great philosophers once said, I still can't stand fluorescent socks.

Now you can take me back to this and this and this and this and this and OK now I'm getting carried away, this and yes even, this!

But for the most part, man, the 80s were one long decade.

To be fair, they ended perfectly well. The last three years were especially HOT. Even better, they became the 90s. But I'll probably have to wait a few years for my own sons to start asking me if they can have those old flannels and canvas Carharts in the closet.

posted by Zentronix @ 9:50 AM   2 comments



Thursday, November 16, 2006
Time Magazine's Top 100 Albums
Have at it, all you music geeks.

posted by Zentronix @ 7:39 PM   2 comments




Upski On Dems and The Youth Vote
A brilliant, must-read essay from William Upski Wimsatt on the importance of the youth vote:

The secret weapon in last Tuesday's historic election was a constituency Democrats barely bothered to recognize: young people.

Continuing a trend begun in 2004, this year's election may have produced the highest youth mid-term turnout ever. Early estimates suggest that 10 million voters under the age of 30 made up 13% of the electorate. They helped Democrats in close elections sweep into office in 25 states.

We know because our organization, the League of Young Voters, turned out 150,000 young voters who made the difference in races in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Florida. We were just one of dozens of independent, under-the-radar, youth-led efforts to inspire and turn out young voters.

Young people are progressive on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration. Most think the country is on the wrong track, and oppose the war. They vote Democratic by a 2 to 1 margin. So why are young people overlooked by political campaigners and pundits? The answer is what we call the myth of youth apathy.

posted by Zentronix @ 8:09 AM   2 comments




Clear Channel Downsizes, Goes Private
From Paul Porter at Industry Ears comes the news that Clear Channel is going private for a $27 billion buyout from investors Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

Even more interesting is the announcement that they are selling off more than 400 radio stations.

Is this the beginning of a reversal in terrestrial monopoly radio? Has the logjam been broken?

UPDATE: Apparently Mass governor and potential Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a principal in Bain Capital. Political speculation is running rampant.

posted by Zentronix @ 8:04 AM   3 comments



Monday, November 13, 2006
Monday Eye Burn

E is for Egads! Reka wrecks.


Apologies for disappearing on you. Returned from Oz to find vapors in the bank account. So I've been back on the grind.

Here are things I've been meaning to show for a long time. Melbourne's brilliant Koan and Kano arranged for the amazing art at the Red Bull Music Academy. I missed their Letterheads exhibition, but now you don't have to. Check the rest of the Nice Produce site for Ozzy's illest streetwear.


Wake up in the morning, what do I see? (Photo by Peter Dean Rickards)


Jamrock's illest eyes belong to Afflicted, and he's preparing a photobook to drop early next year. Here's a preview of some of his soulful shots from Harlem. I don't need to tell you about the Afflicted Yard, do I?

posted by Zentronix @ 10:10 AM   5 comments




Me And Josh Davis Down By The 45 Bin
Here's an excerpt of some hang-out type talk with me and the DJ known as Shadow in the latest ish of The Believer.

A fine issue, worthy of trooping down to the mag stand to get for your very own, if only to possess a hilarious caricature of me that looks vaguely Chicano that you can shove in my face any time I get full of myself.

Here's Shaddy Shad with some wisdom:

I would say, “Right off the bat, I’m not the Hyphy spokesperson. I don’t go to shows—I hardly even go to clubs—I’m a good ten years older than most of the people in the scene, if not more.” But what I do tell them is, “Look, in the same way that you can be over here and listen to and understand bounce music but it really helps to go to New Orleans, and you can have all your Chopped and Screwed CDs but it really helps to go to Houston to understand, it’s the same with Hyphy.” From Sly Stone to Digital Underground to now, Hyphy is a witty, quirky take on things. And you have to be in the Bay and know the diversity of the Bay and its weird geographic shape, with its pockets of extreme poverty right next to pockets of extreme wealth, and all that weird interplay that creates the Bay as a whole. Even the weather—the weird way all the clouds butt up against the coast—it’s like everything’s cruising along and then all of a sudden you get to the coast and everything’s turbulent. And it’s always there, that energy in the air—it’s always turbulent, never still. And all that factors into Hyphy.

posted by Zentronix @ 8:14 AM   0 comments



Saturday, November 11, 2006
Nobody Beats This Dude
Courtesy Ernie P! The Diabolical BIZ MARKIE Beat-Boxin Japanese Doll Video.

posted by Zentronix @ 8:28 AM   0 comments



Friday, November 10, 2006
R.I.P. Ellen Willis
One of the pioneering feminist rock and cultural critics, Ellen Willis has passed. Another heroine I won't meet in this lifetime.

Inspirational words:

"My education was dominated by modernist thinkers and artists who taught me that the supreme imperative was courage to face the awful truth, to scorn the soft-minded optimism of religious and secular romantics as well as the corrupt optimism of governments, advertisers, and mechanistic or manipulative revolutionaries," Ms. Willis wrote in an essay collected in Beginning to See the Light (Knopf, 1981).

She continued:" Yet the modernists' once-subversive refusal to be gulled or lulled has long since degenerated into a ritual despair at least as corrupt, soft-minded, and cowardly--not to say smug--as the false cheer it replaced. The terms of the dialectic have reversed: now the subversive task is to affirm an authentic post-modernist optimism that gives full weight to existent horror and possible (or probable) apocalyptic disaster, yet insists--credibly--that we can, well, overcome. The catch is that you have to be an optimist (an American?) in the first place not to dismiss such a project as insane."

posted by Zentronix @ 9:54 AM   1 comments




R.I.P. Ellen Willis
One of the pioneering feminist rock and cultural critics, Ellen Willis has passed. Another heroine I won't meet in this lifetime.

Inspirational words:

"My education was dominated by modernist thinkers and artists who taught me that the supreme imperative was courage to face the awful truth, to scorn the soft-minded optimism of religious and secular romantics as well as the corrupt optimism of governments, advertisers, and mechanistic or manipulative revolutionaries," Ms. Willis wrote in an essay collected in Beginning to See the Light (Knopf, 1981).

She continued:" Yet the modernists' once-subversive refusal to be gulled or lulled has long since degenerated into a ritual despair at least as corrupt, soft-minded, and cowardly--not to say smug--as the false cheer it replaced. The terms of the dialectic have reversed: now the subversive task is to affirm an authentic post-modernist optimism that gives full weight to existent horror and possible (or probable) apocalyptic disaster, yet insists--credibly--that we can, well, overcome. The catch is that you have to be an optimist (an American?) in the first place not to dismiss such a project as insane."

posted by Zentronix @ 9:53 AM   1 comments



Thursday, November 09, 2006
Apathy :: Dead
Youth turned out for the mid-term elections in the largest numbers in 20 years.

Joe Garofoli writes on the front page of today's Chronicle:

18-to-29-year-olds were compelled to vote because of one of the oldest media tactics: Somebody asked them, often in person.

Of course, many were angry with the direction President Bush has taken the country and wanted change, according to a bipartisan exit poll from a youth voter organization. Put the two factors together -- and add the growing influence of new media tools -- and some analysts say a generation of young voters is solidifying into a Democratic voting bloc.

"The 2006 elections show that Republican campaigns must mobilize their base of young voters to win," said GOP pollster Ed Goeas, who conducted the poll of 500 18-to-29-year-olds with Democratic pollster Celinda Lake for Young Voter Strategies in Washington, D.C. The nonpartisan organization is a project of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

Tuesday "proved that young voters can and will be a force in elections," Goeas said. "Of the 28 seats in the House of Representatives that changed hands so far, 22 were won by less than 2 percent of the vote, 18 by 5,000 or less votes, and 4 by less than 1,000 votes."


(Here's a full list of related articles.)

You want to know how it happened? Just check the League of Young Voters site. In Ohio, they knocked on 50,000 doors. In Pennsylvania, they ran a massive registration and GOTV and election protection campaign, and backed up those efforts on the ground in Maryland, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Florida, Maine, Missouri, Connecticut, and California. Not a few of those states turned on very thin margins--all made by young voters.

The Dems did not do this. The Reeps did not do this. Young people did it for themselves.

The result? Evan Derkacz at WireTap Blog says that young people made up 13% of the vote the other day, yet another surge along the lines of what we saw in 2004. (Check the CNN exit polls here.)

I have to admit it's wonderful to see all the old pundits and their brainwashed young followers (beginning with NPR and extending all the way to the alt-weeklies) who have been bemoaning the waste of "apathetic youth" eating a large serving of crow along with Rumsfeld and Bush.


Unrelated note for t-shirt junkies: you'll see an ad at Wiretap for the very last Origin limited edition Can't Stop Won't Stop tees there too. Mike found a precious few in his garage and he's selling them now.

posted by Zentronix @ 8:06 AM   0 comments



Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Turning Tides

Shades of 1986: Sandinista!

A small slice of history: In Reagan's second term, the Democrats swept back into control of Congress as dissent began to open up around Oliver North, the Iran-Contra scandal and a needless war made by Washington bullets.

There's sure to be lots of fallout from last night's results, whether or not the Senate races ultimately shift the balance of power to the Democrats. Tom Hayden writes today that Henry Waxman will almost certainly begin hearings into war profiteering. Against the backdrop of Bechtel in retreat, and other war contractors reconsidering their death-to-profit ratios, it should be a very interesting 2 years.

In local races, one of our favorite hip-hop candidates, Jane Kim, won BIG for the SF School Board. Could this be the beginning of a starry career?

Aimee Allison lost in Oakland by a mere 800 votes. Hope she runs again.

In South Carolina, our man Anton Gunn also lost, but keep an eye on him too. Big things in store for him.

We'll be hearing back from on-the-ground races around the country as the day progresses.

And hey, guess who's bizzack in Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega.

posted by Zentronix @ 8:20 AM   0 comments



Monday, November 06, 2006
Youths and Post-Youths Do It In The Voting Booth
Your favorite post-young part-time DJ non-savior is back, just in time for the elections.

Pop & Politics has a new look, and a bunch of compelling reads for election season, including a pointer to a report that kills that myth of youth apathy once and for all.

Eye-opening factoid: Blacks and Asians are the most politically engaged young Americans, and Latinos are catching up quickly.

It's a must-read, especially since you're not likely to hear about this snapshot from the future through the old MSM or your average white hipster pseudo-liberal bloggeratist.

Pop & Politics also has a great guide to the top races.

If you're looking for hip-hop certified local youth voting info, check the the League of Young Voters website, or go directly to their local voter guides. There are almost 90 guides now, and more are still being added.

Here's where I'm at:

* Phil Ting for San Francisco Assessor/Recorder
* Jane Kim for San Francisco School Board
* Aimee Allison for Oakland City Council
* Karen Hemphill for Berkeley School Board

Propositions:

1A: No
1C, 1D, 1E: Yes
Prop 86, 87, 89: Yes
Prop 88: No

Remember: Voting is not the only form of politics, but it's a crucial one.

posted by Zentronix @ 11:09 AM   0 comments

 

Previous posts
Coming Soon!
Notes On The Eve Of Day One
Students Occupy The New School
Farai Chideya's News And Notes on NPR Has Been Can...
I Am Nixon
Shouldna Lef Ya...
2G2K Is Back! :: On Hillary, Again, And Foreign Po...
The Impact of The Hip-Hop Vote
UCLA Education In Action Keynote Speech
A Great Day In Baseball History


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