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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The Brad
Published Letters: 172 Editor's Choice: 17
And to think, if you'd realized this a couple days earlier, we might not have read the Avril interview!
[insert smiley face]
Now when I have something profound to say about Eric Shaeffer or American Idol, you all can appreciate my wisdom in the context of my oeuvre! Fantastic.
(Seriously, if this had been the letters policy at the beginning, it would've made sense to me. Good luck with it.)
Good lord, that's topical! Someone's been watching his or her "Daily Show"! Gold star!
It's a good thing you didn't say "Don Imus and Michael Richards," duuuuude, or I might've soiled myself.
Sure, ragging on Mr. Dan is like Presidents' Day around here (a lot of people celebrate it, e'en if they don't know why), but come on! Credit where credit is due here, people! Satire with spark!
God, that's ignorant. I hope that was facetious. Hey, maybe we can compare Rove to Putin... once Media Matters employees turn up dead. Everything Rove has gained he has not taken from us by force; it has been ceded to him. God help us if anyone ever surpasses Goebbels... until then, Rove is just a powermongering corporate board member.
I remember when I first heard Menajahtwa on Eazy-E's "Gangsta Beat 4 Tha Street"... she fucking killed that track. I still get goosebumps when she kicks into her high-pitched, staccato flow. I have no idea about her sexual identity... all I know is the radio would be a lot more fun with at least some AG spirit.
Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Sibylle Baier, Gary Higgins... is a Davey Graham revival too obvious to ask for? These days, I don't know why I'd bother listening to anything released after 1983.
Wynton Marsalis is a hide-bound trad bopper. He is to jazz what... well, what Ken Burns' "Jazz" was to jazz: a veneer of respectability that the form really doesn't require, a codification of narrow values to emulate and rarely transcend. Like "Jazz," he ain't nowhere near the whole picture, and he ain't the towering authority.
Furthermore, I'm not sure he's had an original musical thought in ages; the same cannot be said, however, for hip-hop (and the irony of his usurping the form to remain relevant is too perfect... at least Mos Def and Chuck D dabbled in hard rock like my man Sonny Sharrock). Just because he's black doesn't mean he's an acceptable Trojan Horse for people's musical biases.
If you'll excuse me, I've got a Rahsaan Roland Kirk CD in the car. Oh, and "Throw Some D's" on a mix CD.
And I see Mr. Marsalis given a fairly fair shake. David, you didn't really do justice to the unease Davis feels at a wealthy, PBS-friendly jazz traditionalist clucking about rampant capitalism and that damn jungle beat. Check these quotes: "This is a protest album staunch Republicans could get behind"? "I'm not saying go back to blaming Whitey, but don't let him wiggle off the hook, either"? C'mon, Dave, that's a starting point for some fun!
Nah, I haven't heard it yet. I should, though: I'm at least morbidly curious... I have fond memories of Miles Davis' hip-hop crossover attempt Doo-Bop, which probably says more about me than I'm comfortable with. Who knows? The idiom may suit him.
With fewer candidates splitting (let's assume) the same number of votes, it was an incrementally harder task to keep Sanjaya in the running each week. Looks like his built-in network of VFTW/Stern/that sobby girl with the tee shirt finally met their match. They'll only get to install their candidate once Idol's popularity dims, but at that point, it'll be an even emptier gesture.
So can we stop talking about the show now?
But is this biography written in crayon? How many variations on the phrase "fuck it" can one biographer drop in three paragraphs? Dre's had a hell of a career - it's deathly hard to stay on top in the game, either as a producer or a rapper, and the Doc's been doing it, as you said, for nearly three decades.
I hope the book's worth a damn more than these responses, cos I could get better insights into Dre by spinning "Let Me Ride". What respected rapper hasn't fought through major adversity? His legacy is going to be as the guy who released 50 Cent's records? Really? So it won't be his production work, the laid-back crispness that put So. Cal on the map? It won't be forcibly swapping hip-hop's harmless fun for hood-paranoia, so that 20 years after NWA, even the pop rappers are desperate to show some grit, some street cred? Isn't Dre's biggest legacy that Lil Wayne smiling is a huge deal? Get someone from Ego Trip on this shit, rest its soul.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
