you really don't want to know

This has been profoundly troubling me since I saw it last night — an excerpt of an interview with the rapper DMX:

Q: Are you following the presidential race?
A: Not at all.

Q: You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
A: His name is Barack?!

Q: Barack Obama, yeah.
A: Barack?!

Q: Barack.
A: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Q: Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
A: Barack Obama?

Q: Yeah.
A: What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

Q: You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
A: I ain’t really paying much attention.

Q: I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
A: Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

Q: So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
A: Nope.

Q: Is that why you’re not following it?
A: No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years.

Q: But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
A: I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.”

Q: Right, exactly.
A: It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.

Q: We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
A: I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.

Q: Yeah, but the country is.
A: I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions.

Q: The president…they don’t have that much authority basically?
A: Nah, never.

Q: But Bush pretty much…
A: You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions?

Q: He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
A: He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak!
Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions.

Q: Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
A: Good for him, good for him.

The thing is, this guy has kids. He has fans that look up to him. He is a role model. And there are magazines that care enough about what he thinks to conduct an interview with him, even though they already know him and his reputation. They put him in the spotlight when he’s all coked up, and they don’t even see a problem with it. Not only that, but I’m sure the smart rappers are all lookin’ at him like “man, sit your ass back down and pull up a shadow. You doin’ a disservice to your people.”

But he believes in Jesus. I guess that’s gotta count for something, vacuous though he may be. Christ almighty has rap gone to shit in the past decade.

for future reference

First, read this. From the description on NPR:

Obama Campaign Skewers Clinton E-mail Statement

Wednesday morning, the Clinton campaign sent reporters and bloggers covering the campaign a statement that consisted of questions and comments under the title of “Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground.”

The Obama campaign’s communications department decided to annotate those questions and comments with some comments of their own… and boy, they held nothing back.

The thing is, I can’t tell (if this is what it’s purported to be) whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it’s downright immature. I mean jesus, it looks like the sort of he-said she-said bickering and bitch-slapping that happens between bitter boyfriends and girlfriends over email. You’ve all experienced it, you know how it goes. It’s about as immature an exchange as one can imagine.

However, on the other hand, politics are built almost entirely from bullshit, and I do appreciate the snarky smackdown on a heap of bullshit. One way or another, I know these words didn’t come from Obama himself. And while the response seems immature at the face of it, it sure as hell is a whole lot more respectable than Karl Rove-style tactics.

Also of note: O’bama t-shirts for St. Paddy’s day. That’s pretty effin’ funny. I’m glad as hell they’ve got a sense of humor.

This week’s Radio Lab started out simple, but ended with a bang. The entire point of the show was to investigate deception, lies, liars and scientific findings that are closely tied to them.

But in the last two minutes of the program, they present an observation that rings so profoundly true (in my experience), that I was blown away. I won’t give it away, but I highly recommend you listen to the show from start to finish.

Yep, he’s gone. Boss got rid of him. I think he chickened out and told the FNG that we were running low on work, so we’re not sure when we’d be able to give him more to do, etc, etc. I don’t think he set the strong expectation that we’d be calling him, but the inkling was there. Oh well, so much for a clean break. Well, at least yesterday he sat the kid down for a heart-to-heart about the things he’s screwed up. If the guy can’t figure out why he’s not coming back, I’d be surprised.

I just took a look around the office to see if he’d left anything behind (books, mug, electric fly-swatter (don’t ask)), as can often happen. Like an ex-girlfriend, who “oopsie” left a pair of underwear in a random nook at your place, either to give her an excuse to come back, or to unsettle the next girlfriend.

I hear that can happen.

Ask anyone with a 1999-2004 Jetta (or Golf, I don’t think it matters) if they smell melted crayons when they get into their cars, and their eyes will widen in exasperated recognition. They’ll know exactly what you’re talking about, especially if their car is a little older in that range.

The reason is the foam that’s used inside the center console and under the carpeting. It’s made of a particular type of stuff that will, over time, break down and out-gas in a certain way that smells like crayons. It’s caused people to sell their cars, and it’s probably driven more than a few people crazy.

My Trader Joe’s peanut butter chewy coated & drizzled granola bar smells like that smell.

Just so you know.

Yesterday, when talking about the FNG and how to deal with him, he said “Sean and I are gonna have a ‘come to jesus’ with him.” That struck me as hilarious. He says little shit like that all the time, and we generally have some good back-and-forth. It ain’t the greatest job in the world, but bosses like this are hard to come by.

Today, after telling us he was gonna let the FNG go (thank god), he said he kinda had an epiphany about re-organizing how the business is run. So, from now on he’s not going to freak out about making sure I’ve got enough clients and projects…he’s gonna try to keep the business small, with a relatively small list of clients, but also allowing time and resources for developing new tools, templates, and other stuff to just make us a more attractive shop. Experimentation in the downtime, stuff like that. I couldn’t be happier with that. Dead time in between projects is exactly when the most fun stuff gets done, and sometimes the most interesting stuff in terms of expanding the business. Plus, I’ve got a handful of books on coding techniques and other things I’d just really like to learn, and I’ve barely cracked open the books at all.

This should be good.

Yeah, so this is me. Or my feet, anyway. And that line where the snow stops and you see trees? Yeah, that’s a nice steep dropoff. This is essentially my second time on a snowboard, and somehow I found myself on the wrong ski lift, headed for the black diamonds. Lucky me, eh? Fuckers apparently don’t put any indication on their lifts, as to what awaits you at the top.

I knew enough NOT to get on the lift called “The Wall.” Especially since they had this sign posted at the entry point.

And for your enjoyment, here is the song I was listening to while peering over the edge. To be honest, this was the best possible music to listen to in this situation. I got down the mountain under my own power, and with a minimum of bruised pride.

I’ve been a Nine Inch Nails fan since Broken. An alternative music video for Wish (not the one you’ll find on YouTube) was what got me. Then, of course, I went back and acquainted myself with his earlier stuff. When I heard Burn on the radio one night at the movie theater (while I was working), my jaw dropped and I immediately had to find out what album it was on (Natural Born Killers soundtrack). I was a little fanatical for a while. But I didn’t wear black lipstick.

Anyway, when The Fragile was released, I didn’t pay much mind for about a year. Then I bought it, and was floored. It was amazing. Who knew two full-length discs could be so packed, floor-to-ceiling, with awesome tracks? But still, as the years went on, I paid less and less attention to Trent and the ever-changing gang. I haven’t even heard more than a song or two from the last few albums. I heard he released Garage Band files of his last album, so people could re-mix under Creative Commons…and I thought that was great, but I still never bothered to check it out.

Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve heard, NIN just released a direct-to-the-consumer album (à la Radiohead), comprised of 36 tracks and a bunch of different of methods for acquiring it. Special edition box sets, über-ultra-cool editions, free sub-sets of tracks, or (my favorite) the basic digital download of all tracks, a PDF booklet, and a bunch of nice extras. For five beans.

Now, I really dug the Radiohead In Rainbows release, and its “pay what you think it’s worth” model. I think it was a good catalyst for paradigm shift, but it was also a little too easy for cheapskates to get something valuable for free. I don’t think they should have done it any other way, since it really took some big brass balls to put their goods out there and trust the masses. But now that they’ve paved the way, I’m glad as hell that Trent has gone with a meager $5.00 charge for his FOUR-ALBUM release. I think it’s been proven that he can keep his shirt with a sale price like that, but it’s still amazing.

And for that five bucks, you get more than music. The photography in the PDF is absolutely stunning, and each individual track has its own high-quality album artwork…and apparently, the concept of the album is that each song is an instrumental narrative for a visual scene, presumably the scene depicted in the track artwork. I’m listening on my iPhone, and the screen fills up with the new artwork each time a new track starts. Nice way to manipulate the delivery method to further your art.

Oh, and the digital download was available in three really-high-quality formats: 320kbps MP3, Apple Lossless, or FLAC Lossless. No skimpy 128kbps tracks here.

I spent five bucks today. I like what I got in return.