RIP Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed MacMahon, So Forth

Today we were blindsided by MJ's death. Tomorrow we'll be blindsided by the details reporters dig up about his life.

It's been a tough couple weeks it's a media feeding frenzy out there, bigger sharks are feeding on smaller sharks every half hour:

MJ has died suddenly
Iran Contra(versy)
Riots everywhere
Pre-Troop Pullout Violence in Iraq
Beautiful & Courageous Neda
US Beefing up Missile Defenses "just to be safe" while N. Korea sails a ship possible laden with nuclear "magic dust" bound for an equally totalitarian Burma
Euna Lee and Laura Ling are sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korean death camps. Godspeed on their safe release.
NY Times Reporter escapes taliban captors, NY Times asked all other media outlets to keep his capture a secret, they comply, I'm scared about what else the media is hiding
Oh in fact they are hiding more stuff: Mark Sanfords infidelity and possible abuse of power - an SC paper had the details for months, but decided not to print anything allowing him to provide the American public with a surreal press conference
Jon and Kate + 8 - Too Late... omg. But I thought reality tv strengthens couples, like when Speidi went on that bs celeb island show and got kicked off in a humid costa rican minute.
Mexico's war on drugs has killed over 8000 mexicans in the last two years (on both sides of the law)

hmmmmmmmmm kind of makes you want to write a new version of:

we didn't start the fire (billy joel)

OR

it's the end of the world as we know it (REM)

Cheers America.

Mark Sanford - A New Martyr for Fiscally Conservative Republicans?

Mark Sanford is the governor of South Carolina. He's also been touted as one of four top choices for a 2012 GOP run for the White House. A few days ago he stirred up great concern after reporting to his staff that he was taking a hike through the Appalachia. He could not be reached and "the public" speculated on his whereabouts. Today at 11:30AM Pacific Time we found him on the major cable news stations: MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, giving a highly anticipated press conference a few hours after he initially told reporters he'd actually been in Argentina (a reporter met him at the airport).

I randomly tuned into the broadcast, knowing a little bit about the story beforehand, and immediately and not surprisingly guessed where his press conference was headed - straight to infidelity land. After making a series of heartfelt apologies to his family, father in law, staff, people of faith, etc. he announced that he had been unfaithful to his wife with a woman he befriended in Argentina 8 years prior. The relationship had "become something more" only in the last year or so and he provided lots of details during the Q&A portion of the press conference. He revealed that his wife/family had discovered the affair about 5 months ago and that this was his first instance of infidelity.

While I've followed most of the recent political affair-scandals in newspapers and on second hand reports via the local TV news, this one really struck me as surreal, since I was catching it live with the rest of the Nation. Here is a man, a governor of a state I know next to nothing about, who is apparently a top choice for the republican presidential nomination in 2012 (with others like Bobby Jindal). And he's telling the whole country of his lecherous behavior with an Argentinian woman. I just guess I had one of those, "we live in strange times" moments.

Other than the fantastical nature of the admission itself, I was curious about how the different cable news stations would cover this breaking story. I watched most of the live press conference on CNN and then some of CNN's commentary, later I switched to Fox News to hear their commentary. I was trying to put myself in a neutral mindset even though, I was expecting more searing commentary from CNN and a more defensive posture from correspondents and commentators on Fox News...

The woman at the CNN news desk expressed a restrained contempt for the Governor and towards the end of the segment praised the Governor's wife for not being "at his side" during the press conference as the correspondent felt it was a sign of being "fake". Strong feminist undertones, but with a calculated restraint. Fox News was interesting because they were able to get comments from people very close to the Governor and so the tone was extremely sympathetic... but even more interesting was what I perceived to be Fox New's strategy of how to frame this political-scandal narrative.

Governor Sanford has made a lot of enemies on both sides due to his rejection of the Obama stimulus package, he was overridden in South Carolina but made lots of fellow Republicans enemies in the process. The Fox News report went out of their way to suggest that perhaps a political opponent forced this scandal out in order to further weaken his strength SC and also his nomination potential in 2012. The guest on the program didn't think that was at all plausible, but the seed was planted. Fox News also went on to frame the Governor's plight in this way: that he was a responsible, fiscally conservative republican being ganged up on by egregiously spendy democrats and the socially conservative republicans that dominate SC politics.

I just have a hunch that the political commentary around this scandal will be interesting to look at retrospectively as we move closer to 2012 as republicans try to posture to find a fresh platform and fresh face for their next bid at the White House.

$7000 for a 1000 sq ft home? Sign me up.

I've never visited Slate.com to read an article. Perhaps I've read an article or two forwarded to me in the distant past, but a couple days ago I thought, why not, they're supposed to have interesting reads...

So I just read this article about Flint, Michigan in Slate. It's apparently a dilapidated, crime-ridden town with few job prospects, but that aside the San Francisco transplant who writes the article drops some values on the homes out there, it's really surprising!

The SF housing bubble is ridiculous. The slate article (below) relates that a perfectly good 1000 sq ft house near a university campus went for 7 grand in a short sale recently. WTF. Aside from all the quality of life factors, housing bubble dynamics, robustness of local industries, etc. just compare that number for a second to the $2750 you could be paying for a recently renovated sub 800 sq ft'er 2 bedroom in Mission Dolores. Less than 3 months of rent for that bigger house in flint, it just blows my mind. I mean the author here talks of crack dens, etc. plaguing some of these Flint neibhorhoods with really low housing prices... it's not like people don't regularly get shot just a few blocks away from the ivory tower mission dolores neighbhorhood. I'm thinking below 16th and Mission... and that doesn't include all the dealing that goes down just at Albion and 16th... ah, but the grungy hipster entrepreneurial lifestyle!

The Slate Article About Flint by Gordon Young

SF Murders - A great interactive feature

I count roughly 10 murders alone near my old Mission Dolores pad, they occured between 07-08.

Gordon Young, the Slate article that inspired this post also has a blog, I've included a link here to his Flint murder map... I love how they call themselves Flint expatriates... maybe they should be known as refugees...

Maybe someone can write a robust post on the concept of Murder Maps...

Foodie FAIL

A friend of mine attended this and it was so bad he received a refund upon request. Apparantly expecations were extremely high and the event under-delivered.

I told him I thought this was the absolute worst aggregation of Yelp reviews I've ever seen (and in such a short period of time)

http://www.yelp.com/biz/great-american-food-and-music-fest-mountain-view#hrid:1d5Jj7n5rgvCACMAQibyrg

Up - the new disney/pixar movie

I went to the movies last Friday with my parents. We wante to see Up, but the 8:30PM show was sold out. In a fit of confused rage I purchased 3 "night at the museum II" lie-max (thanks rich) tickets (@ $16.50 for adults, that's stinking nuts) but then my wise parents exchanged those tickets for the 10PM up showing. THANK YOU PARENTS. 

Disney/Pixar's "Up" was awesome! But beware, it's not your typical happy go lucky animated kid film: it's rated PG, there are two scenes with a little bit of blood, and the beginning story arc is very poignantly sad - but it will "lift" you up with great laughs, a fresh-current story, and a strong moral compass.

Angst(er) Rap? No thanks, Lil Wayne.

I recently discovered, much to my horror, Lil Wayne's new(ish) single "Prom Queen". Click on the link and watch the music video if you haven't already, you'll have more sympathy for my ensuing tirade.

It's apparantly a #15 billboard chart topper that debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live back in Januaray, but it's off his new album coming out this August (see the wikipedia article). Typically, I really enjoy consuming Lil Wayne's music. What, with such great hits as "Stuntin' Like My Daddy", "We Takin' Over" (DJ Khaled), and "Lollipop", it's hard to deny Lil Wayne's charming mainstream rap bankability. However, "Prom Queen" imho is an unwelcome foray into the nether regions of rock/hip-hop fusion (read: Pharrel and NERD) and cross-demographic espionage. I hope to devote some attention to the latter, in two forthcoming posts about mainstream rap's often absurd lyrics and the insidious caricature mainstream hip hop is today (and why I feel duped).

I'll admit: when I'm driving to a party on a Saturday night I "need me some" Lil Wayne to hype the mood and get in the groove. I can more than tolerate Lil Wayne's highly nasal rapping voice, belting out limericks about hot hoes ("Hoes"), menstrual issues (listen to the extremly catchy "A Milli"), and lollipop licking (from the eponymous, "Lollipop"). But if and when Prom Queen resurafces on the 94.9 & KMEL 106.1 airwaves, I will cringe and switch over to one of my other presets (NPR).

In trying to seem fresh and versatile, Prom Queen instead noisly rehashes an age-old, teen-angst drama. Nerdy high school kid is infatuated with hot uber-girl, unrequited love ensues, he becomes famous while she languishes in squalor. The music video for Prom Queen might have catalyzed my atypically violent reaction to this type of song. It's boring and unoriginal. Unless you feel that the following are avante-garde: Lil Wayne in thick framed, taped in the middle, glasses and Lil Wayne wailing on electric guitar (they only seem to show his body in that shot, who's his guitar weliding stunt double, I wonder?) It's kind of like that recent Chris Brown song about a nerd and his high school fantasy girl, except that the nerdy Chris Brown gets his girl and the music video doesn't take itself too seriously, has great dance choreography, and is otherwise highly entertaining. Oh and it also contains the "Auto-tune" effect that we've all grown to love in our mainstream rap music (thank you very much Cher and T Pain).

When Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters commented on his love ballad "Big Me" he apparantly said, "Everybody has to have their pop crap token love song... you know you know boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl tells boy to fuck off!" When he said "everybody" I'm fairly certain the esteemed Mr. Grohl did not have Mr. Wayne in mind. BTW the Big Me video is a great spoof on those 90's Mentos commercials.

If Prom Queen is emblematic of the new album, I might have to say no thanks to Mr. Wayne. Even though he's trying really hard to reach out to me and my demographic by getting revenge on the girl that broke his heart in high school, rapping a tribute to the beastie boys, and laying a verse over instrumentation that "sounds" like Coldplay's Viva La Vida... I must (dis)repsectfully pass. The only rapper who's allowed to crossover and morph gangster rap into rock and roll infused "angster" rap is Tupac Shakur (think the posthumously released"Changes"), but then again he could pretty much get away with anything and I'd love it.

And for those of you who instantly recognized my inccorect use of "eponymous" in the second paragraph - your talents would be better spent figuring out ways to improve mainstream hip hop's horrendous grammar and diction. Ok, I'm just playin' I don't want the diction to change. (someday we'll all look back on this and say: yay for malapropistic easter eggs)