It’s funny… as someone who doesn’t subscribe to any particular religion, I’m a big believer in one’s own power to create their own destiny (which is why fate has always been a tough pill for me to swallow). Whenever in a “Why are we here?” or “What does it all mean?” discussion with those abreast in philosophy, the existential label isn’t far behind when they comment on my thoughts. This is a label that I wear proudly. So it’s all the more curious to me (if not a bit hypocritical) that I’m going to get a bit metaphysical on you.
Since today is my birthday, I’m a little more focused on the date of today than I am most other days. As such, there is something that I’ve noticed over the years that seem a little more than coincidental. Many people, that I know, who have similar birthday’s in either year (dragon) or time of year (scorpio), have similar characteristics to those I possess. Now, I am the LAST person to identify with Astrology, especially when used to predict the future (quacks!). But I have noticed that other scorpios, dragons, scorpio-dragons, or, my particular fave scorpio-firedragons (those born in ‘76) tend to have similar personality traits.
Of course my existentialism grounds me in the fact that there are over 6 billion people on this floating rock, and these simple, broad descriptions will not describe everyone within the category, especially when the discussion goes deeper into the backgrounds and upbringing of these people. But, nevertheless, it’s fun to speculate, make comparisons, and draw conclusions.
Can be arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, and demanding
How do you stack up? Have you noticed any similarities? Thanks for indulging me, out here on the deep end. In the future, I’ll try to keep the crazy to myself!
There are a plethora of social media tools available, to maintain an open dialogue with us, your potential customers. As such, there’ s no reason that any of you (who want to stay in business) should be talking AT us anymore! We consumers demand a two-way interaction with potential vendors. And no, that doesn’t mean that we’ll be fooled just because you have a MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube account. We demand non-objective engagement! It’s about relationships and community… How long will it take for you to figure this one out? Here, maybe this will help:
If you still don’t get it, that’s ok… there’s someone, who does, that will gladly take your place!
Something about screaming “VOTE!” and telling me to spam my friends is not my idea of motivation… but maybe I am just not in touch with the youth of this country anymore. Are they acting? And what is up with the Spielberg-ian attempts at jittery cameras and dialogue. And who is that one guy with the beard anyhow? (…you think I should dress up like him for Halloween?!!)
…may have helped with the MPAA (read: smug, holier-than-thou, morons), but it fails to address the main issue for many who see this latest Kevin Smith movie as vulgar. That issue– the title… actually the word “porno” that resides within the title. This movie is running into trouble everywhere. As its producers, The Weinstein Company, start the all important marketing push, mainstream media outlets are saying no to the marketing money, fearing a backlash from viewers.
Just last week, Fox Sports dropped all Zack & Miri commercials after the spots that aired between innings during a Dodger’s playoff game yielded complaints from viewers. As always, the complaints are filed “to protect the children.” Heaven forbid parents would ACTUALLY have to talk with their kids and explain the meaning of the word “porno.” No, no… better those kids hear the definition from another kid on the playground! Hell, I’m certain the friendly neighborhood sex-offender would have no problem addressing the child’s query! But I digress.
I applaud The Weinstein Company for standing firm in keeping the title, as is, under what must be enormous pressure to change it! For every outlet that wants to drop the promo, there’s another that will happily pick it up. Let’s face it, the puritanical, let’s-not-talk-about-sex-until-it’s-too-late, set weren’t going to go see the movie anyway.
As Mark Twain once said, “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak, just because a baby can’t chew it.”
[excerpt from current.com] Early on in Religulous, Bill Maher throws up a bar chart illustrating the number of people in America who are non-religious. That number is 16%, more than blacks, more than Jews, more than numerous other minority groups who seem to have no problem making themselves heard and getting Congress to do their bidding. Maher wonders aloud why non-religious people are so underground, and why they aren’t having an impact on the national discussion. His film is aimed squarely at that 16% of the country, and almost no one else. His goal, and he clearly has one, is to give those people the motivation they need to come out of the closet and do something… before it’s too late.
I too believe that the pro-reason, non-religion, I don’t know-ists need to be more vocal with their “beliefs.” And remember, this approach is NOT atheism! Atheism means you’re CERTAIN there is no higher power, which in it’s own right, IS a religion. Anyway, enough god talk. For those who question the lack of rational, independent thought within religion check this site out!
Check out this lo-fi version of LEGENDmag’s new indie movie commentary segment called Movie Mopup! I’m super excited about this new segment! We’ll get the fidelity up in the next few webisodes, but this beta should get the ball rolling!
No, not that kind of chicken. It now appears that the first presidential debate will go forward as scheduled tonight. I don’t believe that John McCain was trying to dodge it out of fear, as some have stated. Instead, the kind of chicken that occurred here was a high-stakes game of it with Barack Obama, in which McCain appears to have been the one who blinked first. This may be more damaging than anything that could actually happen during the debate itself. The debates, after all, are largely useless.
Let me clarify: They’re not so much totally useless as just highly inefficient. Undecided voters aren’t undecided based on the candidates’ positions on the issues. These positions, after all, have been out there for a year now, and issues-based voters long ago encountered them and made up their minds. Voters who operate principally from partisan identification knew even before then, since they were going to vote for anybody (or at least almost anybody) who had the requisite “R” or “D” after their name. The people left undecided now are people who decide based on emotional response, personal identification and perceived character.
A debate can kind of showcase that, but is really a pretty poor medium for it. Too much question, answer, policy, position, blah, blah, blah for that. We have another medium much better suited for showing us what people are made of. Reality Television. I would like to make the modest proposal that, in lieu of all these debates, the McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden teams compete against each other in The Amazing Race in weekly episodes over the next 6 weeks.
There’s a showcase in which undecided voters can find out the things really important to them in making up their minds! Things like which team launches which bold and risky strategy to block the other, and who blinks first in response…
I’m shocked to find myself even asking this question. As a fan of individual empowerment and self expression I’ve taken it as an article of faith that more media produced by more people is inherently a good thing. Democratization of information access is good. Opening up production of news to voices beyond the mainstream media is badly overdue. A profusion of alternative points of view is healthy. Despite having subscribed (and still subscribing) to these views, what I’ve noticed while avidly following the news in this election has left me wondering:
Is there too much media?
With so many outlets, expanded access to them, and especially with all of them picking up and feeding off of information from each other, the velocity of information in 2008 has increased markedly over 2004, which was itself noticeably speedier than 2000. Unfortunately, bad information propagates as quickly as good information in this environment.
Suppose, for example, I launch the story that Sarah Palin wrote an article for her high school newspaper urging underage girls to bear the children of reptilian aliens. Entirely fictional, but there are places I can post this story online where a significant number of people might see it. With a certain amount of plausibility, catchiness and volume of readership (I think I have the catchiness down, probably falling short on plausibility) my “story” will be mentioned secondhand, passed on in e-mails and posted to other blogs. With enough of this chatter, talk radio outlets will begin pro and con discussion of reptilian babygate. Enterprising 527 groups will incorporate it into campaign ads that they produce purely for online distribution to garner media coverage. The mainstream print and television media will start to mention it in their campaign coverage.
It will be thoroughly debunked by fact checking sites, and my original post will meanwhile have been taken down from the blog where it ran, and the editors there will have barred me from future posting. But by then the “fact” of Sarah Palin’s pro-saurian reproductive advocacy will be circling the globe, being kept alive by the endless recursive loop of one media outlet’s covering another media outlet’s coverage of it, which gets covered by another and…
I’ve chosen a deliberately ridiculous example here, but so far this year we’ve seen exactly this mechanism generate huge amounts of spurious news based on only slightly more robust storylines.
Part of the problem is that the proliferation of media has created a vast zone where news, opinion and satire liberally commingle. There are places where this is obvious (personal blogs, opinion pieces in all media) and others that situate themselves in a journalistic setting but do not consistently apply journalistic standards (political blogs, talk radio, shows on cable news outlets).
Even worse, the pressure created by competition between media and the need to constantly fill the volume increasingly encourages the mainstream news outlets to report “news” that has not been properly reviewed or checked. With “airtime” (for all media, not just broadcast) vastly in excess of the amount of properly evaluated news, fluffy noise expands to fill the space.
And let us not forget that these mainstream news outlets are, at the end of the day, commercial enterprises. They might not be in such a hurry to pass on half digested facts if there was no money to be made from selling the space they occupy.
I’m not entirely sure what I think of what to do in response. Certainly constricting the volume of media produced or constraining access to it is abhorrent to my democratic and DIY impulses. I have to believe it has more to do with the need for responsibility from both purveyors and consumers of information to insist on quality amidst the quantity.
I’d be very interested (back to democracy and free expression here) to hear what you have to say…
You woke up this morning and your regular routine began. You may have made some coffee and taken a shower before heading to work. Perhaps you overslept and rushed to meet the bus. It does not seem like an out of the ordinary kind of day. You may see or speak to those who mean the most to you throughout the course of your day, and you think nothing of it. You are young, and while there are challenges in your path, you have faith and family to get you through. Suddenly, you find yourself caught up in a situation that you have no control over and no real involvement in. This situation lands you in jail through entirely circumstantial evidence and the statements of another man who is the only other suspect in the case. A man has been shot, another pistol-whipped and lastly, a cop has been murdered. Nine witnesses are found who say that you are the one you responsible. No physical evidence is ever found to convict you, including the gun. This does not matter. A cop is dead and someone needs to take the fall. This is Georgia, boy, and you’re just a poor black man in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’ll do.
Meet Troy Anthony Davis. On Septemeber 23, the state of Georgia plans to execute this man, after sixteen years on Death Row. Sixteen years in which Davis has maintained his innocence and fought tooth and nail to prove it. His case is complicated, but the injustice is stark and clear. Here is a quicky summary of the key details:
Troy Anthony Davis has been on death row in Georgia for more than 16 years for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia – despite strong evidence suggesting he is innocent.
–There was no physical evidence against Troy Davis.
–The weapon used in the crime was never found.
–The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony.
–Seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony. —Many of these witnesses have stated that they were pressured or coerced by police.
–One of the two witnesses who has not recanted or contradicted testimony is Sylvester Coles, the principal alternative suspect. Mr. Coles has admitted to carrying a .38 caliber pistol the night of the shooting, the same gun used in the crimes for which Troy Davis will be executed.
–Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles. Troy Davis has never had a hearing in federal court on the reliability of the witness testimony used against him.
“By far the most frequent cause of erroneous convictions in our catalogue of 350
cases was error by witnesses; more than half of the cases (193) involved errors of this
sort. Sometimes such errors occurred in conjunction with other errors, but often they
were the primary or even the sole cause of the wrongful conviction. In one-third of
the cases (117), the erroneous witness testimony was in fact perjured.” -Hugo Bedau and Michael L. Radelet, Miscarriages of justice in potentially capital cases, Stanford Law Review
You can read more about the case and the shockingly obvious misuse of power, the courts and the media involved here
You can also sign a petition and send a letter to the powers that be in Georgia, to grant Davis a stay of execution and a re-trial. Link to Petition
If people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sister Helen Prejean, Congress Woman Sheila Jackson, and the POPE have found a moment to send letters and advocate on his behalf, I am sure you can take moment today to help save an innocent man’s life. Do it. If you are not compelled by this post, read the report by Amensty International above. It is shocking. I ask you to do this, not only for Troy Anthony Davis, but for his family. Troy’s family has suffered unbelieveable amounts of pain over the last sixteen years, as they have fought side by side with their brother to find justice. “…with Liberty & Justice for all.” As Troy Davis asks, “Where is justice for me?”
My heart breaks for this man and I feel that I must do something. I have a voice and today, I use it to speak for Troy, a man I have never met. A man who I believe deserves the opportunity to be heard. He asks for nothing more than a fair trial. I ask for nothing more than a moment of your time to plead with the state of Georgia to hear him.
May you each find a moment today to breathe this air, hug those you love, savor your freedom and do something kind for someone else. Sign the petition. Do it now.
Thank you to Mike Hraba for opening my eyes to this situation. Visit Troy’s Website for more information.
Reading Rai-mon’s excellent post from last week about there being room in the independent lifestyle to make choices even if those choices involve “mainstream” options like maybe sometimes going to Subway reminded me of something I wrote on my blog last year about my hair. Stay with me here, I promise what follows below really does involve the difference between the image and the substance of independent living.
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Ever since I started growing my hair out again three years ago I’ve experienced repeated versions of the following:
I’ll be hanging out with people of a punkish persuasion and someone will start in on a story about how somebody or something annoyed them because it was, “fucking hippie.” Whereupon they’ll pause, look in my direction, and parenthetically insert, “no offense.” I’m not easily given to offense, but in point of fact this comment always does annoy me, for at least three reasons.
First off, as I keep trying to impress upon people, the hair aesthetic I’m going for is more grunge than hippie. Do you recall the average hair-length of a member of Soundgarden in 1991? Two feet, minimum. Go back and check out Eddie Vedder from that same vintage. Not to mention supper-shaggy Kurt Cobain. Never even mind Alice in Chains, the Melvins or that dude from Tad. Hair, hair everywhere. And what about all the other things in our collective cultural unconscious that long hair could signify? There’s the country western long hair. Founding Father long hair. Pre-Delilah Samson. I could go on. Hippie my ass!
Second, the third generation baby-punks who often come up with this comment are displaying an appalling lack of historical knowledge. Punks, real original punks, were perfectly capable of having long hair. Have these kids ever even seen a picture of Joey Ramone, for Pete’s sake? How about the New York Dolls or the Heartbreakers? Iggy Pop’s hair has been the same length since 1969 for crying out loud!
Third, and this is the critical point, punk as a philosophy is antithetical to having to look any particular way. After its initial outburst in the late 70s the machine ate it up and spit it back out at us as a style. It was pretty gristly, so it took a while, but the machine is patient. And so, since the mid-80s at least, there’s been a very standard punk uniform that hasn’t changed at all. This is so un-punk as to be alarming. What’s more DIY and non-conformist- me having to have a mohawk or dyed or spiked hair in order to listen to a certain kind of music, or me having long hair because I damn well feel like it? Having piercings and tattoos as a sign of group allegiance or being the only un-tattooed un-pierced person under the age of forty in all of San Francisco?
To invert the Sex Pistols’ lyric: We don’t care about long hair. It’s our choice, it’s what we want to do. My long hair is more punk than your mohwak! Bollocks to all of you! And I’ll listen to Donovan any time I fucking want, too!
The Toronto International Film Festival begins tomorrow. As one of the largest indie film festivals in the world, TIFF is responsible for screening hundreds of independent films over its nine day run. If you can’t make it north of the border to check out the latest in film, no worries! We’ve got you covered, with LEGENDmag’s TIFF 25! Make a note of the following movies so you can see them, as these make their way from Toronto to you.
In alphabetical order, here’s a list of the top 25 standouts…
Movie
Director
Appaloosa
Ed Harris
The Brother’s Bloom
Rian Johnson
Burn After Reading
Joel & Ethan Coen
The Burning Plain
Guillermo Arriaga
The Burrowers
JT Petty
Che
Steven Soderbergh
$5 a Day
Nigel Cole
Flash of Genius
Marc Abraham
Food Inc.
Robert Kenner
The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow
The Lucky Ones
Neil Burger
Medicine for Melancholy
Barry Jenkins
Miracle at St. Anna
Spike Lee
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Peter Sollett
Nothing but the Truth
Rod Lurie
The Other Man
Richard Eyre
The People Speak
Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove, Chris Moore
Rachel Getting Married
Jonathan Demme
Religious
Larry Charles
Rocknrolla
Guy Ritchie
The Secret Life of Bees
Gina Prince Blythewood
The Stoning of Soraya M.
Cyrus Nowrasteh
Who Do You Love
Jerry Zaks
The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky
Zack & Miri Make a Porno
Kevin Smith
Some will think that I’ve overlooked some that should have been in the TIFF 25. Films such as Ghost Town (Gervais is hilarious I’m sure, but its not even Indiewood, let alone indie), Management (Anniston in yet another romantic comedy), and Uncertainty (ok… this one looks really good too, and would totally make the list if it was called the TIFF 26!) will do well at the festival and beyond, but those 25 are it for this year!
What would be your one parting wish before you die?
Nicole Kenny and KS Rives are answering that by taking Polaroids of people and documenting the results. Add onto that the fact that Polaroid is a dying medium in it’s own right, and you got yourself a good thesis for a book.
I was having a talk with kc! about buying independent, feeling independent, and how independent a person is or isn’t. I offer this for all to consider.
That fact that you buy a burger at Mcdonalds or a local burger hut isn’t what makes you independent or not. It’s asking yourself if you bought that burger based on lack of choice, a want of buying the best product, or because you want to support a chain or a local restaurant (insert a multitude of other reasons here). When you have answered these questions and choose to spend your dollar against your convictions, you choose to be more or less independent because you choose to be more or less yourself by choosing.
Fooling yourself by justifying a choice against your own convictions doesn’t assure your independent status. I must say here that because you choose to go against your beliefs of supporting a huge chain like Starbucks or Wal-Mart when you feel the need, isn’t going to bring the indies burning golden arches on your lawn, it’s not that black and white. We are the sum of ALL our choices and not just the bad ones.
I have yet to find a local independent who taste good, uses the same or better quality ingrediants, and is as price concious as Subway. I eat their often, does this make me less independent? I think not. I would argue that the fact I have actually thought about why I shop there is what defines me as being independent.
Don’t be bullied into always buying from Jack in the Box because it’s everywhere and there’s a lack of good choices and don’t shy away from buying at Taco Bell if that is what you’ve decided is best for you.
Be independent and know that when you look at yourself in the mirror you’ve made a choice, not been hoodwinked into thinking you had no other option.
The difference is vast, the choices are always up to you.
I got a chance to see both of these acts live and they were great! From the superhero costumes of The Aquabats (which was timely, since Comicon was in town) to the independent messages of MC Lars, both put on a great show! If they come to your town, do yourself a favor and check ‘em out. Here’s a sample…
The Aquabats…
MC Lars video “Download This Song” (my favorite track)
He’s a little “Weird Al” for me, but I’m definitely lovin MC Lars! With tracks like “iGeneration,” “White Kids Aren’t Hyphy,” and “Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock,” Lars has some of the best indie messages I’ve heard in while. Big ups to the Post Punk Laptop rapper for pushing the boundaries of DIY and giving major labels the middle finger!
