MySpace

In light of this article, I've decided to pull out entirely from MySpace. The bit about MySpace owning my music rankles. I hope that there's nothing in there about them retroactively owning shit that's been uploaded in the past. I like the songs that I have posted there.

Here's what I said:

"I'm cancelling my MySpace account because i don't want MySpace's essentially evil policy of owning anything i upload to interfere with the openness that I believe the internet should strive to maintain. I don't think that corporate greed should play into my personal/social/musical life. The original idea was good, but since the acquisition, MySpace has really gone politically downhill, and I can't get behind that. Thanks but no thanks; I think I'll stick it out on my own."

I'll probably come back and write a more thorough rant about how I think systems of control shouldn't apply to music and intellectual property in general. I see the need to be able to track who's listening (royalties - artist compensation, etc.), but I don't think that somebody else should be telling you when you can or can't listen to music you purchased. And I don't think that policies like MySpace owning any and everything you upload without telling you as much right on the front page are good for the health of the internet, for people, and for society. It's time to culturally wise up to the fact that information is infinitely reproducible, but human interaction is consistently unique and valuable. We need to start treating people like people, not potential targets. And so on.

Of course, you can always find my music at Latiflearned.com, where at least I am the one who has control.

Truthiness

By now most of you have heard of Stephen Colbert (which is pronounced Col-Bear, as though it were some sort of French cheese) and his insulting the president's horrible job on national tv. That link provides you a way to say thanks to Stephen. Also, there's this:



Awesome. If you want a bigger version, you can find it here.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Ha

It's funny that I titled the previous post "oozing substances," because that related to a bit of the dream journal that I didn't end up posting. Here it is:

10.15.2004
my dream last night involved kevin smith, and a big tree that plunged a hole into the ground through a person, and out of that hole oozed a substance that turned a hatchback sedan into a fancy sports car.

I gotta get me some of that stuff!

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oozing substances

It turns out that at some point, I kept a dream journal. Here's an excerpt:

01.29.2005
I dreamt that I was in New Haven, at Yale again, only this time the quad that Explo was in (the same quad as before) was much larger, and the buildings were much bigger. It had a much more urban, and less closed-off feel. On one side there was this hall that was for the arts, a big two-story building with spiral staircases on either side that lead up to the second floor.
I started climbing one of the spiral staircases, and discovered that the steps were as high as my chest. On top of this, the part of the step that should be level was at a steep angle, so climbing this staircase was more like climbing a mountain. There were lots of people casually walking down the steps, but nobody going the same direction as me. Difficult climbing.
As I got closer to the top, there was a groove in the stairway that looked like it would offer better leverage for climbing, so I kept trying to get in it, but there were all of these people on bicycles going down the groove at breakneck speed and almost running into me. I narrowly averted being run over by bicycles a few times before giving up the groove and settling for climbing the hard way to the top.
When I got to the top, instead of being on the second floor of the building, I was just outside, on a road, with town to the left of me and the quad from which I came down a level on the right. Like I was on the second floor of the town, or something.
There was a fenced-in lot at the end of the road, and I just jumped over it, floating through the air until I landed softly at the other side. This happens to me a lot in dreams, this jumping extraordinarily high and then just floating to the ground, not flying exactly, just gliding.
The path goes into the woods, and there's a cat inside another fence. Like a mountain lion or something. It talks to me, talking about how it had more food and space to live before we developed the whole forest, then jumps over the fence to attack me. I jump into the air.
So I find myself in the air battling this cat, swatting it whenever it comes too close, only now it's not a cat, it's a stuffed animal on a string, waving around in the air like it was tied to the ceiling, only we're outside in the forest. And instead of a normal stuffed cat doll face, it's got this stuffed doll version of a bloody mess of a clawed-out, shredded-to-pieces face. Like it had been attacked in the face, but a stuffed animal. Like somebody had designed a stuffed cat to look like it had had it's face chewed off. Then the dream ends.

What do you think that means?

I watched that movie Art School Confidential last night. I watched it so you don't have to. Let's just leave it at that. You don't want to watch it. At least, you don't want to watch it if you like artists, or art school, or people, or art. If you don't like any of those things, you'll identify with Terry Zwigoff, who made the whole movie seem like he had a grudge against artists, or maybe just people. I've never seen so many vapid, unmoving characters all on the same screen vying for my attention. I don't normally scoff out loud at movies, but there was some scoffage. Maybe Boston's getting to me. Steve Buscemi was allright, though. I guess.

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interweb friends shout out! plus selling not telling

I'd like to take a moment to give a shout-out to Lindsay for being my one and only friend to link me on her blog, and be both my friendster and my space friend.
Awesome, Lindsay, awesome.

In other news, it's always a bit sad to find out that the media institutions you love exist not to sell you news, but to sell you to advertisers. Click on a "media kit", such as The Weekly Dig's Media Kit sometime, if you want it proven to you that, no matter how totally independent it may seem, if it's got advertising, it's all about selling, not telling. Yo, gotta make those dollars somehow, and it's not like they can just sell it on the street. Unless they're homeless, in which case, they can try.
I love you, Dig, but I sometimes get the feeling that you don't love me the same way.
Visit The Advertising Age if you want more proof that you're so much catlle to be prodded.
Moo!

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Pinback

UPDATE (05.09.2006) If you were so curious as to want to know what Pinback sounds like live, it looks like Bradley from Bradley's Almanac was at the same show I attended, and even made a recording. Good for you, Bradley.

I went to see Pinback last night at the Paradise Rock Club last night. Pinback is officially the only band that I've seen more than once, and with good reason. Not so many bands rock as solidly as Pinback. They have layers, man. Layers! Their bass player is an entire band unto himself. If you're used to their studio stuff, the live show will come as a bit of a surprise, because they play everything double-time and up an octave from the albums. What that means is harder, faster, louder. It's a great show.
The Boston show was a bit different from the last time I saw them, which was in Minneapolis (which is the city. Minnesota is the state. Minneapolis, MN.). The main difference between last night and the Minneapolis show was that in Minnesota, nobody felt inclined to try to fight their way onto stage, hijack the mic, sing so loudly and poorly that the band has to quit playing, stage-dive into.... nobody... then get carried outside by the bouncer. Somebody did feel like doing that last night, though. I'll say this: don't try to fight a bouncer. They want to hit you. It's their job.

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Phone Update

I got a new phone number. If you didn't get the email, then woops! Send me an email, and I'll give you my new number, if you so desire.
There was a gigantic Jamaica Plain party today about five minutes from my house. Three stages. All sorts of sweet bands. Activism. Puppetry. Good food. Jamaica Plain is truly the best part of Boston. Maybe later I'll feel like saying more about it. It's just that I didn't want this post to be entirely about my phone. Lest you think I was obsessed or something.

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The Royal We

As I mentioned before, I've been pretty pissed off with my cell phone plan. It's Cingular, by the way. I don't like them. Let me say that again: I don't like Cingular. They suck. They are not raising any bars. Their rate plans are from the 19th century. Why do we pay to receive text messages? Why do we pay roaming charges? Boo. And by "we," I'm naturally referring to the royal "we." That's me. I'm the royal we.
So I'm shopping around, on the Nextel site, you know, because I see people on the bus with their walkie-talkie phones and I think, "That could be me. Here I am stuck in the last century with a phone that only I can hear, paying through the nose, when I could have a ruggedized bright yellow conversation that let the whole bus hear my weekend plans."
Aaaaaaaanywhoozlebees, I'm shopping around on the Nextel site, and this chat window pops up. "Jessica" asks me if I'd like any assistance. As it turns out, I did need assistance, because the chat window popped up right over the information at which I was trying to look. It's like if you were in a real store, and a sales rep tried to stand between you and the rack. "Would you like some help viewing the MP3 player that I'm blocking with my body?" So I asked her my couple of questions, and she responded pretty quickly. I was, like, all won over. It only took a couple of seconds for me to be totally impressed with Nextel's web site. I mean, there's personal service, right there on top of the page I'm trying to view. Personal service in bed with my browser!
Of course, it wasn't meant to last. Within two minutes of getting me in the chat window (during which time I'd already told her my life story), "she" (by which I mean Jessica) started getting really antsy about me having not purchased anything yet. "Which cell phone plan would you like to purchase today?" Whoa, Jessica, I mean, we're just getting to know each other. Don't you want to chat for a while first, establish some emotional boundaries. No. Jessica wants hot capitalist action, and she wants it now. Not to sound prudish, but that kind of aggressiveness kind of turns me off. So I decided that I'm just going to go to a store and talk to a real human. At least there, I can give subtle visual cues (like snorting in disgust) when salespeople try to get in my wallet before I'm good and ready.

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More Soccer! (from Sam)

Here's some more, from a friend in St. Paul:
All-Twin Cities edition: The Hang Ups vs. The Busy Signals.

No Neck Blues Band vs. The Stranglers
Super Furry Animals vs. Echo and the Bunnymen
Hum vs. The Static (experimental noise rock from the early 80s or so, I've never actually heard them)
Heads and Bodies vs. The Dismemberment Plan
Cypress Hill vs. Julius Hemphill (Cypress Hill might as well be Hemp-hill... they like weed)
X vs. The Ex (winner plays XTC)

Very nice, Sam.

Also, there's a couple of bands that I've run into on MySpace that are fantastic. Kawaii is Norwegian, and they have a nice happy group-oriented sort of sing-along style. Marching Band (formerly known as Second Language) are Swedish. They're nice guys. They're kind of Kings of Convenience meets American Analog Set. Only not so American. Because they're not from America. They're from Sweden.
Annnnd, I'm spent.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

More Soccer

Explosions in the Sky vs. I Am the World Trade Center
Randy Newman vs. Will Oldham
The Channels vs. TV on the Radio
Animal Collective vs. Super Furry Animals
and so on...

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

New Track

I've posted a new track over at latiflearned.com. The alert among you may note that the band name contained in the MP3 is the Undertones, not Latif Learned. That's because this song just isn't so very Latif Learned. But I hope that you like it anyway. It's an awful lot more pop-song-like than my other stuff. New influences and all. I'd like to say that it's Elvis Costello-influenced, so I will. Sort of like how Stephen Merritt says that he writes a song a day. That may or may not be true, but he said it so we believe him.
It's also available at Seasac Records. Also for free. Because that's how we rock it, folks. You can't turn down free music. But you can turn up your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.
Or can you?

On another note, I've discovered that, in addition to the narcissists out there, there are decent people to be found on Friendster. The word is still out on MySpace

frantster

Are web sites like Friendster and MySpace creating a narcissistic society, or just a symptom of it? It seems to me like a lot of interactions on these social networking sites are meant either to up one's own profile so that one looks better for strangers, or to satisfy one's itch for social ego-stroking by fulfilling the need for recognition. Why would you write somebody a testimonial? Because you want to get one back. Why would you send somebody a "smile?" Because it means that they're bound to write you something, even though all that you sent them was a

:-)

These sites are a perfect way to get a constant stream of minor personal validations in the form of brief messages from total strangers. I've gotten some interesting thoughts from strangers about my profile, or whatever. What bothers me is that the interaction never goes beyond one message in either direction. Nobody ever wants to meet in real life, or even email. It's fine to talk to strangers, but risking meeting them in real life is just too much to bear. There's too much potential for it to turn into an interaction that actually takes some effort. And heaven forbid that you're actually interested in the person you meet, because then you'd open yourself up to being potentially vulnerable to them, which is the biggest faux-pas of them all.

In other news, my phone bill is astronomical, so if it seems like I'm avoiding you on the phone, it's not you, it's just that it costs me a ton of money. I'll change it this month, if I can get my shit together. My shit has not been entirely together lately, so it's kind of up in the air whether it'll actually happen. At any rate, I'm not avoiding you, I'm just avoiding bills. Don't take it personally, right?

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

De Facto Dating

Being single is a bit of a wash, if you're not the dating type. Say, for example, you meet somebody at a party who is interesting to you, and seems to be interested in you as well. Naturally, you want to do is get to know them better. You have no idea, from your initial reaction, whether or not they want to get you into bed or whatever, but you'd like to hang out beyond the party. You exchange numbers or emails, because that's the only way you're ever going to get in contact again beyond the confines of this party.
So there you are, person not interested in dating, and you've scored somebody's number. This is the rub: you can't not go on a date with this person. Oh, you'll say that you just want to hang out, have a beer, or some coffee, maybe go to a movie, maybe walk around Jamaica Pond. These are things that people do for fun, you tell yourself. But they're not things people do for fun with strangers. They're things that people do on dates with strangers. You're dating. There's nothing you can do to help it, except never try to contact anybody of your own free will again.
Well, maybe there is a way around it. You could do some seriously mundane things, just to get some chatting done. Like, nobody's going to mistake going and getting groceries for a date. Or, like, doing bike maintenance. Or perhaps shopping for new socks. You know? I think the next time I meet somebody interesting, I'm going to see if they want to go sock shopping with me. That oughta clear up their motives nice and quick.

Latiflearned.com - In case you haven't figured this out, I am Latif Learned. Go listen to my tunes! Purchase my album!

Rock Star Soccer Matches

A long time ago, back when Oasis and Blur were still competing for who could be the lamest, the two bands had a soccer match. Blur won, of course, but it was Oasis who went on to be the lamest. In fact, after that point, Blur started to release their best material. At any rate, it got me thinking: what other bands would have some awesome matches, based on their names? I got my friend Alex in on it, and here's what we came up with (thus far):

(From Alex)
Cat Power versus Cat Stevens ( she'd get distracted and wander off the field )
Bright eyes v. the Flaming Lips ( bring your sunglasses )
the Microphones v. the Sounds ( a cooperative match )
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs v. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ( loud game, very emphatic fans )
Chavez v. Gonzales ( not to be confused with a family fued )
Postal Service v. the Lettermen ( at halftime, covering that song by the Marvelettes )
Spoon v. Cake ( don't think too hard about this one )
Calexico v. Califone ( mostly because I always mix up their names )
The Gin Blossoms v. the Wallflowers ( for gardening fans stuck in the '90s )
The Faces v. the Shins ( the same league as Bright Eyes, Flaming Lips )
Grandaddy v. the Strokes ( A life-or-death game, ha ha )
The Pixies' Frank Black versus Jack White, while Jack Black referees.
The Cars v. the Streets, and the winner plays Pavement.

(From Donald)
Jurassic 5 vs. Dinosaur Jr. (no contest)
Portishead vs. Radiohead (Helmet does security)
The Sixths vs. The Six Parts Seven
Of Montreal vs. Boards of Canada
The Magnetic Fields vs. Iron Maiden (that's bound to be good)
Arab Strap vs. the Sex Pistols (gross!)
The Jayhawks vs. the Black Crowes
Soul Coughing vs. Soul Asylum
Happy Apple vs. Blind Melon vs. Lemon Jelly (A three-way)
King Crimson vs. Ultra Orange
Modern Skirts vs. My Morning Jacket (I have this problem all the time)
The Super Furry Animals vs. Tortoise
The Black Keys vs. The White Stripes (that's a good match)
Air vs. Earth, Wind and Fire (Hot Hot Heat gets to ref)
...and you know who always wins when it's the Deers vs. The Cars.

Send me yours. I'll post them as/if/when/whatever I get them.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

I went to see Jamie Lidell last night. What they say about him is true. It's all true. It's a beautiful thing to see him play. It brought me joy. Then I walked home from Alston, which was also good, if slightly less joyous than the vocal-gasmic Jamie Lidell. There were pop tarts involved. As Elvis Costello says, talking about music is like dancing about architecture, so I'll just leave it at that. Go see him if he's in your town. Try to stand close enough that he can sweat on you.
I realized recently that when I saw Royksopp back in October, they were wearing identical outfits to what Kraftwerk wears in their 1977 video The Robots. I wished I'd noticed at the time, but it's still pretty fantastic to know. I love electronic things. Also worth noting is that Royksopp's video for Remind Me looks an awful lot like the video for Kraftwerk's video The Robots.

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confluence

I'm eating a peanut butter and jelly burrito, reading a biography of Django Reinhardt, when I have a strange epihpany about the music to which I'm listening. I've got Nelson Cavaquinho's "Mulher Sem Alma" queued up in the iTunes, and I realize that it sounds an awful lot like Blonde Redhead's "Pink Love," off of Misery is a Butterfly. Same chords. Similar melody. The same motion. At the time, it seemed so reasonable, but in retrospect, it was probably a coincidence. But my whole epiphany hinges on the possibility that it wasn't... That would be perfect.

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UPDATE: Heh, I wrote Misery is a Butterful, instead of Butterfly. I don't believe in the spell-checker, and sometimes it bites me in the arse. But in a good way. Good arse biting.

Euripides Eumendides

Also, the crazy guy who died from all the running, his name wasn't Marathon, it was Philippides. They named the city of Philadelphia after him. True story. Except for the Philadelphia part, which I made up.

You can't really plan to drink on a Saturday afternoon. I mean, it is possible to plan it, but you kind of have to question why you'd be making those kinds of degenerate plans in advance. If you're going to be a degenerate, it's best to let the degeneration happen naturally. Like, say your plan was to make gnocchi and watch a baseball game. Then you're like, "Well, I could have some wine, that would spice up this otherwise Zen experience." Because you don't always want Zen on a Saturday afternoon. Then you're like, "well, since I drank half of that bottle of wine, I'd better drink half of another." And all of a sudden, you've become drunk on a Saturday afternoon. It's a magical thing, but like all magical things, it's best to let them find you than to seek them out yourself.
Here's to drunken Saturday afternoons, and sober Saturday nights.

I keep writing songs that prominently feature articles of clothing. Red shirts. Socks. Et-cetera. I made a silent promise to myself (that is being aired here for the first time on the internet! Amazing!) that I wouldn't write any more songs about girls if I could help it. I feel like 25 out of 40-or-so songs being focused on the babes is a bit too high of a ratio. So I'm cutting myself off. My subconscious, in retaliation, makes lyrics about clothing items and crossing streets. All metaphorical and shit. I mean, what is this, poetry or something? I'm trying to write a fuckin' song here! Come on, subconscious, do your stuff! I need vivid imagery! Catchy hooks! Irony (but not too much irony, lest I cross the hipster threshold and end up in Alanis Morrisette-Land.). My several-person fandom requires it!
Here's to my subconscious/song-writing ego: id, the internet salutes you.

And tonight, I go to see Lair of the Minotaur.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Marathon Died for your Sins

I was biking around Boston yesterday, and I ran into the marathon. Now, the marathon wasn't a big surprise to me, because a friend of my roomate's who is running the marathon was staying at my place this weekend. I crossed over the river of runners a couple of times in my random perusal of Boston, which I'm wont to do on my days off. Peruse Boston. Not cross runners. You shouldn't cross a river of runners if you can avoid it. This is something I learned yesterday.
It occured to me, wading through the sea of sweaty bodies, that people run the marathon in celebration of the guy named Marathon, who ran from one town to the next in Greece like four billion years ago. Twenty-six or so miles he ran to deliver some important message from one Greek to another. Then he died of exhaustion. So we're celebrating the death of Marathon by trying our best to imitate his untimely demise. You kind of have to wonder who came up with that idea...
And then there's Jesus. The only thing I have to say about that is: what would evil robot Jesus do?.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

PS: When I say I ran into the marathon, don't get the impression that I did any running. Because I didn't. Sometimes I run. Monday wasn't one of those times.

PPS: People die often running marathons. The circle of life keeps.. um... being... circular.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. Tim tells me otherwise about the story of the Marathon. Maybe I'm strung out on endorphins. It could be, except that I've never taken any endorphins. But who's to say that matters?

failure to thrive

I recently heard a phrase that's stuck with me: failure to thrive. A friend had a kitten that was new to their house, and she said "it had failure to thrive, so it died. " "What does that mean?" queried I. Apparently sometimes animals in new surroundings just lose the knack of surviving, the will to live, and they just die. They fade away.
Humans can have it, too. The deaths of elderly people who simply pass on for no medical reason are often attributed to "failure to thrive." And human babies, even if they're well-fed, and kept at the perfect temperature, etc., often die if they're not held. Failure to thrive. It's an incredible phrase that keeps circling around my head like a semantic vulture, looking for some vague notion on which to scavenge.
And then I got to thinking: why is it that babies typically die when they're not held? And when is the point where you can stop being touched regularly, and you won't die? And what happens to adults who aren't regularly held/touched? Clearly, it has dire somatic repercussions. Which gets me to thinking about my girl-free 2006. Maybe I'm setting myself up for some actual medical problem with my policy. Lord knows I don't need more medical problems. So cuddling is in. But only platonically. Because Plato was gay, so it was okay for him to cuddle with girls without leading them on.

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blech

I was real excited about getting my last paycheck, until i realized that it's all going to taxes. Damn! I'm torn between my knowledge that taxes, when rightly applied, go to good services that shouldn't be free market-based (like fire departments and police, for instance), and my desire not to give a gigantic hunk of money to the government that I don't particularly support once a year. I mean, what, like a quarter of my taxes are probably going to support a war in which I've never placed any support? But it's not as though you heard it here first, so I'll just drop it. Squarepusher is the only music that gets me through angst like this. I require angular, brainy jazz-house music.
I went to New York City and back on Wednesday, to visit my brother/friend/ex-roomie/whatever. I spent the day helping him move from one apartment to another, which, though mundane-sounding, was actually a real boon in that it was a departure from my regular routine (the one that gives me the money that makes me pay the taxes). The Fung-Wah bus ride home was uneventful, except for when we got to Boston. The bus driver thought it would be a great idea to give us a tour of the entirety of Cambridge and North Boston before going to the bus station. We crossed the bridge between Cambridge and Boston three times, on three different bridges, before he finally committed to taking us to South Station. I have to admit, I wasn't impressed. But it's the Fung-Wah, right? The price is right. They give you a quarter when you get on the bus and say to drop the quarter in a box in the front of the bus if everything was satisfying, and to use it to call them if it wasn't. Well, I did my part and kept the quarter. It brought the ticket price down to $14.75. A bargain! I feel compensated enough that I don't have to call.
I didn't say it was going to be a fascinating post.

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