The Shit

In Which The Shit Invites You to Take Our Very First Quiz; or, Dipset Forever

2007-04-14T21:27:08Z

Destined to enter the Hall of Fame of rap blog posts, OhWord's write-up of their recent discovery of Cam'ron's rhyme book is, well—it's one word: G'd up. They got Cam's flow spot-on; every verse would have been right at home on last year's Killa Season (which, granted, was subpar), and it's the kind of stuff that fellow Byrd Gang member Juelz Santana can only hope to emulate. Anyway, it got us thinking; can you tell real Killa from sham Cam? Take our test after the jump!

]]> A.)

And I make one call to get the pussy poppin'

Call your girl, pop that pussy, wanna pussy pop?

B.)

Got white that keeps me fresh like baby powder

Wash my girl's face and chest—give her a baby shower

But she ain't expecting, I keep her guessing

Cam how you stay so freshly dressed

I tell my baby, powder

C.)

Lookin' light skinned, mami was tight slim

Fat ass, big tits, I noticed her nice chin

I approached her, slight grin, white Timbs

Number you can type in, said she don't like men

I just laughed, ma, if we link, we link

You don't like men? Me neither, what a co-ink-i-dink

D.)

Extra chromosomes, wyle out, retarded kids

She gave me the homie dome, mile south to my cartilage

Wide mouth, chubby fingers, big tongue

Retarded kid

E.)

Go make the oobleck tumble down

On every street, in every town

F.)

Get Mami home, she all up on me

Give Killa dome, wearin' mink and Armani

Bigger than capitol dome, Dipset run the economy

Greenspan, greenbacks, Deuteronomy

Answers

A.) Cam'ron ("Crown Me")

B.) OhWord.com

C.) Cam'ron ("Touch It or Not")

D.) OhWord.com

E.) Dr. Seuss

F.) Us, bitches.

Cam'rons Rhyme Book Found [OhWord.com]

Q.T.'s B.S.

2007-04-04T15:59:44Z

We didn't exactly get dragged to see Grindhouse. We'll admit we were curious; that we're fans of Robert Rodriguez's earlier work, and his cooking; and when it comes down to it, we're not all that averse to watching Rose McGowan go-go dance. But we really weren't all that excited—didn't have those ridiculous fan-boy expectations—because, honestly, we don't like Quentin Tarantino all that much. After watching his half of the double feature, entitled Death Proof, we like him even less.

Which is too bad, because we really like the idea of QT. We enjoy the same movies he does, especially appreciated the Shaw Brothers references in the first Kill Bill (Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan? anyone?), and thought there was a real spark to Pulp Fiction. And we were under the impression Grindhouse was going to be another loving homage to schlock. While Rodriguez's Planet Terror is fucking great—boasting the most per capita bloodiness and sheer wtf-ness of perhaps any movie we've ever seen—Death Proof is no fun at all.

]]> Which is missing the point completely. Grindhouse cinema was about gratuitious sex and ridiculous gore; guilty pleasure you made guiltless through substance abuse. Death Proof is interesting—there's a lot of dialogue, some of it seemingly serious, and some masterful shots—but it's mainly boring. It's the slowest movie since Kubrick's 2001, and maybe the most self-indulgent too: Tarantino shouldn't get to act, nor should he use his films as forums for talking about his musical tastes (of which he seems to be very proud). Death Proof just isn't fun, and it needs to be.

Rodriguez gets it. the audience is paying money to see big explosions ("How big?" "Retarded big."), to watch Fergie get eaten by zombies, to hear the screams of a dude getting his testicles ripped off; so that's what he gives us. Tarantino gives us a rambling 90 minutes of film that feels like a slap in the audience's face. Luckily, Planet Terror comes first, so you can leave the theater after it ends and Death Proof starts.

Also on the bright side, Rodriguez might actually be making his one-off goofy trailer for Machete into a full-blown movie. Wtf?

Surely You Must Be Joakim

2007-04-04T04:33:50Z

Here's the deal: we really didn't want to care about this little basketball game that happened last night. Really. And on most levels we still don't. But Joakim Noah now has two championships? This guy? Really?!?

Really, not wanting him to have another ring (and by ring, we mean ridiculously unjustifiable amount of ass) was the extent of our caring. We have nothing against Florida: after all, there's been talk of our very own P-town ~~Jail~~ ~~Weed~~ Trail Blazers drafting the versatile Corey Brewer come June, and we have been known, on occasion, to like the colors blue and orange. But, for whatever reason, Joakim Noah really just annoys the shit out of us (and that's a big problem, seeing as we are The Shit).

]]> We understand that he is a Strong Personality. We understand that most celebrated athletes have their various quirks and eccentricities, whether that be constructing your own hyperbaric chamber à la Gilbert or raping women (fine, fine, fine...getting accused of raping women). But we will NOT tolerate talk of Joakim being the next Rasheed Wallace.

First off, Sheed's cool. Noah's not. Second of all, you can empathize with Wallace's fuck-you 'tude. He's relatively street, coming from Philly and all; he's been a perpetually misunderstood figure in the NBA, bashed for apathy when he's all about the hustle. Whereas Noah's dad is a French tennis star, and his mom is Swedish. Plus, Rasheed has garnered press because he was the best player on his team for the early part of this millennium. Noah is, tops, the fifth-best baller on his squad. Also, he looks a bit like an autistic lizard. And yet he still gets to talk shit like this.

There's something ineffably annoying about his persona. Other athletes—like Sheed—make that kind of ego fun, make us want to root for them. Noah just makes us want to change channels. He's enough to make us care more about the unfailingly bland Oden. Or even this baseball stuff. Really.

Bitchfight?

2007-04-03T01:21:02Z

Yes, there was a time when Stereogum was a good blog. Earnest, somewhat hip (indie nerds with jobs can only be so cool), and not without a sense of humor, The Gum became the #1 music blog in terms of site traffic, so in October of last year Scott started doing this shit full time. Now, problem is, Stereogum totally sucks. Sad, right? We don't have an opinion about this "Stereogum sucks" affair, but that's what everyone keeps saying, over and over, whilst continuing to read Gummers not once, but several times a day. (Well, it's mostly Idolator, but they're paid to read that shit.)

Here's a wonderfully hilarious and totally indicative exchange from Stereogum's comment section today:

It blows my mind how lame and poorly written this blog has become over the last 6 months.

Posted by: lame at April 2, 2007 3:31 PM

Thanks for reading!

Posted by: scott at April 2, 2007 4:05 PM

And he forgot to write "first"!

Favorite Worst Nightmare Cover [Stereogum]
Let's Talk About Stereogum [Idolator]
Who Sucked The Fun Out Of Stereogum? [Idolator]

Talking Shit: Willamette Weak?

2007-03-07T02:36:36Z

Portland newspapers have hella beef. Why? What a good question! Maybe it's because nothing ever happens in the 503—and when seriously newsworthy, Willamette valley-shaking bizness does go down (like, once a decade), there's invariably a scramble to scoop the story. Feisty contender Willamette Week's uncovering of the Goldschmidt scandal was huge—like, Pulitzer Prize huge—and a hefty body punch to the Oregonian, the heavyweight champion of the local rag scene.

So where does the Portland Mercury figure in to this news/boxing metaphor? In our estimation, they're a sort of midget pugilist (does midget boxing even exist?). Like, it's fun to watch them flail around, but it's hard to take their jabs seriously. Occasionally, however—think now—they get in an uppercut to the nuts.

]]> At least their blog does. Take a gander at Blogtown: apparently, they've scooped WW! The story involves some dude's awesome Caddy being parked where it's not supposed to be and a conflict of interest and a blow job (?) or something. It also might be damaging for the Oregonian, maybe adding another juicy dimension to this already quite-juicy journal drama. As you might expect, we're not so clear on the details.

But is it really a scoop? Readers were apparently supposed to figure out who the above dude was as part of a WW photo contest. So Blogtown's all like, we (well, other people, really) figured it out before you published! But wasn't WW's intention to put the onus on the readership? Who's right? WHO'S RIGHT?!? We're thinking about running our own contest. The winner would be the person who figures out whether or not this is really a scoop, and would get to fix the hyper-sensitive "K" key on our faulty keyboard. Let us know if you're interested.

Bottom line: if this really is a scoop, then we too have scooped WW! (Our press credentials better be in the goddamn mail.) If not, then we'll hopefully be less confused after the new issue drops tomorrow.

(Oh yeah: and the Tribune is sort of the brain-damaged boxer to the Mercury's midget. Think Sly Stallone in the new Rocky, where he's semi-retarded and should have given up fighting a long time ago. Why is there a character named Mason Dixon? How can Pamplin make money off a free, unspeakably awful newspaper? To those of us who aren't senile, these are unanswerable questions.)

Ridonkey Kong

2007-03-05T20:58:03Z

We're not sure what to make of this new video game music video trope. We're not even sure if that's the right name for it; it seems like we shouldn't have to say video that many times. At any rate, the rappers have their rims and hos; the indie kids have their Super Nintendos and light guns. Both have coke. Enjoy the following coin-op bip-bleep bliss.

Get Innocuous

2007-03-02T21:52:02Z

Yeah yeah yeah, we used him as a jumping-off point the other day, but James Murphy is about to be everywhere because Sound of Silver will be album of the year. So get used to it.

Plus, he's kind of already everywhere. There was that wonderful puff piece in the latest Rolling Stone. No punches were pulled: it told us that Murphy likes Ultimate Fighting unironically (no really guys), is rereading the Pynchon canon, and has—gasp—DROPPED ECSTASY. The interview transcript probably looked something like this:

RS: Do something funny.

JM: What? No. Fuck you.

RS: Say something interesting. Anything.

JM: [Silence]

RS: Just say something.

JM: I've done drugs before.

RS: THIS IS PURE JOURNALISTIC GOLD!

Most revealingly, the article tells us that the man behind LCD Soundsystem is occasionally moody (or at least hates talking to Rolling Stone when he's hungover). But who can blame him? After all, every one hates his blog for the Guardian.

Especially the commenters. Man, those Brits are mean. After Murphy's yawny post about frequent flyer miles (or something—it was kind of too boring for us to really understand), one commenter whined, "What a waste of time." Another comment starts out, "Hey dummy." PWNAGE!

But then he stoops to their level and comments back as theguywritingthis, starting a good old-fashioned flame war. (Why do people even start arguments? We're online! We're blogging! We have no dignity to salvage in the first place!) And then he writes another sort of meta-post where he basically breaks down in tears and asks why we can't all get along. Of course, the first commenter states his intent to take a cab to Murphy's house, whereupon he'll kill the blogger, the entire readership of the Guardian, and himself with a double-barrelled shotgun. It's a slightly dubious plan.

We're kind of sad Murphy started blogging. We still love everything LCD's ever done, but the mystique's fading fast. It's heartening, at least, to know Murphy has as much free time as we do.

Dunce Cappin' and Kazooin'

2007-02-28T16:49:25Z

But we were there. We were there in 2007 at one of the first Clipse shows of the Hell Hath No Fury tour. We were there.

...And so was everybody else. (Obviously, we've lost whatever edge we ever had). Tickets were hard to come by, and with good reason: everyone and their tagalong hipster girlfriend was drunkenly packed into the downstairs of the Middle East last night, hands in the air like they cared oh so much about the coke-powdered rhymes of brothers Malice and Pusha T. This was the place to be. Sort of.

Hell Hath No Fury was critically acclaimed for a reason. Marrying Pharrell's claustrophobic brainfuck beats with uncut lyrical perfection, it was one of those rare, perfect rap records: no skits, little ego, limited guest spots. And both the mainstream and the indie presses loved it and got the word out.

So while everyone knew the words to "Mama I'm Sorry," few could sing along to mixtape classic "Pussy." The pre-Clipse DJ warm-up had people yelling the rhymes to Kanye's remix of Rich Boy's "Throw Some Ds," but Biggie's "Kick In the Door" left the audience cold. Then there was the drunk white girl behind us (Mama we're so sorry—you're so obnoxious) who screamed "VA! They're from VA!" after Clipse finished "Virginia." This is the same audience member who caught a whiff of weed and immediately asked, "Where's that 'dro at?"

The set was unquestionably hot. There was a snarled intensity to Pusha T's verses that wasn't always apparent on headphones, and Malice's swagger was hard as hell. But on "Chinese New Year," when the MCs fired imaginary pistols into the audience, a forest of white fists raised and fired back. Could they even hear the lyrics: "Make nigga kick that can / Fall victim to the Klick Klack Klan?" Would they have come if Pitchfork hadn't given the album a 9.1?

And then came the finale. An oblivious crowd in polo shirts and BoSox caps (what's a 59-50?) looking Clipse in the eyes as they chanted, "Okay, we get it, yep, yeah you too." Okay, everybody: meet Mr. Us Too.

Gawker Teaches The Shit about Blogging, Humor

2007-02-28T15:30:46Z

Sure, we've been reading blogs for half a decade, but it's hard when you're just starting to do one yourself. If you want to do it right (i.e. not on Blogger), you've got to be functioning at a basic level of technological proficiency, and until recently we were kind of like a remote-less Tracy Morgan shouting "Pornography!" at television sets. (Why don't they just show you porn when you want them to?) It's been an effing chore figuring out Movable Type, learning CSS, trying to design shit, etc. Anyways, we've spent so much time working out the technological kinks that we've hardly been able to figure out what the hell this blog is supposed to be about, and how we're supposed to write it. So we turn to sites like Gawker to understand just how we should be generating content. And guess what, it turns out we only have to write something once, and then we can use it again. How great is that!

]]> Yesterday, Gawker lobbed one of their customary snarkbombs in the direction of someone who is currently either modish or just generally ubiquitous -- it doesn't really matter who it was this time -- leading off with this straight-faced salute to some place called the Old Town Bar:

So long as we are in town, we have a standing Sunday lunch date at Old Town Bar. We don't live too far from the place, but that's not what makes it our regular Sunday afternoon stop. It symbolizes pretty much everything that once was New York. The burger is far better than it needs to be and the pours are generous and the bar-wenches are surly with hearts of gold; were we restricted to one tavern for the rest of our lives, this would be it.

What follows are three quick sentences of that rich Gawker wit, in which a pseudo-celebrity is disparaged! We weren't laughing too hard to notice a link to an earlier post, which leads off with this straight-faced salute to some place called the Old Town Bar:

So long as we are in town, we have a standing Sunday lunch date at Old Town Bar. We don't live too far from the place, but that's not what makes it our regular Sunday afternoon stop. It symbolizes pretty much everything that once was New York. From the amazing pressed-tin ceiling, to the now-disabled service-call buttons in the booths, to the fact that the men's and women's rooms are on different floors, you cannot help but feel transported to an earlier era upon entrance. The burger is far better than it needs to be and the pours are generous and the bar-wenches are surly with hearts of gold; were we restricted to one tavern for the rest of our lives, this would be it.

This time, however, it's serious: someone affiliated with said bar has croaked. Sad. But look at that: cut out a few sentences, add a quick "joke," and voilá! A blog entry! And you don't even have to pretend like you didn't recycle most of it: the fact that you recycled the previous post for the "joke" is the joke.

Oh ho! That is rich.

Please Do Not Visit The Old Town Bar [Gawker]
Sarah Vowell, Please Do Not Visit The Old Town Bar [Gawker]

Eddie Izzard Stars in New Television Show with Hacky Title

2007-02-27T16:30:00Z

It's called The Riches, and it premieres March 12, on FX. It stars Eddie Izzard as the patriarch of a family of con artists (Minnie Driver plays his wife) who discover the wealthy Riches killed in a car crash and settle down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana after assuming their identities. We chanced upon an advertisment for the show on Friday night at 1 o'clock in the morning, and we wondered why in the hell we hadn't heard anything about this before. Does FX not have any money to spend for promoting its shows? Apparently not, judging by The Riches' official website, which looks like it was cobbled together in fifteen minutes.

We're surprised: Eddie Izzard has been, since the beginning of his career in the early 90s, very reluctant about attaching himself to a television series; he's seemed to enjoy the freedom offered by his movie roles, which demand far less of his time. We would hope, then, that when Izzard -- the man John Cleese calls "the Lost Python" -- decides it's time to star in a television series, he would pick something worthwhile.

The Riches on FX [Cake Or Death, an Eddie Izzard site]

Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe Bomb

2007-02-26T17:00:00Z

We remember the very day: we were at a friend's house, after school, playing Super Mario on his newly-acquired Nintendo 64. Or rather, we were watching our friend play Super Mario -- we wanted to play Mario Kart, but our friend didn't want to, and, since it was his house, and since he was the only person we knew with a Nintendo 64, we had to be content with sitting around and being in charge of the stereo. Bored, we ran the dial to the local Top-40 station, which erupted in an alien blast of sound that was totally unlike anything we had ever heard before. It was as if the speakers were about to explode and set fire to the curtains and then burn our friend's house down to the ground. It was awesome.

]]> That moment, hearing "Da Funk" on the radio, was our initiation into music geekdom. We picked up Homework a few weeks later, and then we went on to the Sound Lab and Respect Is Burning compilations, Les Rythmes Digitales, Cassius, Etienne de Crecy, Motorbass, Air, Alex Gopher, etc. You get the picture. For three years or so, anything French was cool in our neck of the woods: we wanted more of that sound, and we looked for it everywhere.

So you can understand how glad we are that the French are, officially, back. Blogospherically, they're everywhere! Big Stereo commented on the French resurgence back in December. Elsewhere, Electric Zoo profiled Ed Banger and Institubes, two record labels behind some of the new hotness; Mischief & Mayhem dropped some choice cuts from the latest Ed Banger compilation; and all this good French dance music got Home Taping to thinking about the good ol' days. But what the hell are we going to call this shit? "Dirty House"? "Dirty Disco"? The "Ed Banger rave-olution"? Come on, guys, you can do better than that! Okay, well, neither can we. Here are some of our current favorites:

Alan Braxe and Fred Falke
Check out their stunner remix of Van She's "Kelly," available at Missing Toof. And we love what they did with Keith's "Mona Lisa's Child," which is available (and a whole lot besides) over at Palm's Out.

Cassius
Fluokids loves the new album. And so do we. "Toop Toop" just kills it, every time.

Justice
Justice have held the keys to our heart since January 2005, which was when we first heard their awesome remix of Scenario Rock's "Skitzo Dancer." Maybe you've heard of them? If you missed "Phantom," here's your last chance.

SebastiAn
As far as we could tell, SebastiAn did not produce a bum track in 2006. Bake this man a cake! And then take a trip over to Good Weather For Air Strikes for a peep at four of SebastiAn's best remixes.

Surkin
This is amazing.

Who Is Fred Jones?

2007-02-23T16:57:59Z

We're pretty sure this is actually a terrible idea, but we still love it. Plus he can do this:

Talking Shit: Beef On, Beefa

2007-02-21T03:46:30Z

So this Cam'ron and 50 Cent thing escalated quickly. We mean, that really got out of hand fast. We had the whole Hot 97 incident, where Fiddy attacked Koch records, and then Cam had that hilarious line where he asked how much Mobb Deep was selling. Next, there was Curtis (see above): a musical masterpiece, a cinematic chef-d'oeuvre. A hobo shouting "Cuuuurtttiiiisss!" Brilliant! Please tell us you've seen it. But did Killa Cam really send a hired killa after Curtis? Doubtful. In a recent interview, Cam'ron supposedly waved the suggestion off, saying, "This is just music." Oh, but Cam! It's so much more!
Lil' Wayne: too hard for friends. But at least he's in the Times! Even if only peripherally, and portrayed as a little bitch. But after leaving DJ Drama in the lurch and acting hella cold after the ridiculous success of his Dedication 2 mixtape, maybe he deserves it. But this? If The Carter 3 isn't the best thing since Clipse, Weezy could be in trouble.
Antarctica doesn't care about black people. Or at least rap. Okay, so this isn't beef (maybe cold vs. intonation?), but this is the best thing we've seen on ye olde Forkke in a good while now.

Straight Ballin'

2007-02-14T15:53:38Z

ESPN's Chris Broussard is fine with gays, as long as they know he hates them. Well, maybe he doesn't "hate" them—they'll still get a hug—but he does expect them to burn in Hell. His new post on ESPN's Magazine blog has a number of gems to its credit.

I'm a born-again, Bible-believing Christian (no, I'm not a member of the Religious Right). And I'm against homosexuality (I believe it's a sin) and same-sex marriage.

But before you label me "homophobic," know that I'm against any type of sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. That includes heterosexual fornication (premarital sex).

Cool, Chris. We'll just label you batshit crazy. Still, though, his take on AmaechiGate (more like GAYte!) is relatively progressive: he thinks the NBA is ready for a gay player, as long as there's no hanky-panky in the locker room.

But if a gay player just goes about his business in the shower, showing that he has no sexual interest in his teammates and that he's not "checking them out," I think the awkwardness would wear off fairly quickly.

We're not even going to bother close reading that. Then there's the grand finale:

Believe me, when the ball goes up, his sexual preference isn't going to matter.

Thank you, ESPN proofreaders; from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

My take on John Amaechi [ESPN: The Magazine Blog] (via YAYSports!)

I Love You 'Cause I Have To

2007-02-11T01:13:42Z

We'd really love to hate Apple. We really would. As we sit here, tapping away at the streamlined keyboard of our slim PowerBook G4, we think back to the days when we carried around a bulky Creative mp3 player and ~~blogged~~ read blogs on our desktop PC. And we miss 'em. We'd like to go back. Honestly, we would. But—dammit—we just can't. You can't beat the iPod's interface, you can't hate on Tiger, and Apple's design work is certainly handsome. But, you can rip on their musical taste.

It's hard not to enjoy the Fratellis' "Flathead." It's got handclaps, harmonized backgrounds, and a nifty meter-shifting singalong hook. It's not wonderful—it's lyrically weak and too studio-glossed shiny—but it's a harmless pop song. Or at least it was, until Steve Jobs got his hands on it.

Ever since "Flathead" popped up in an iPod/iTunes/iBuy (?) commercial, the Fratellis have been vilified as hack musicians, soulless corporate cogs, and pederasts. Pitchfork hates the song, and so does the Phoenix. Apparently, the second rule of music journalism (after maintaining a steady 4:1 ratio of "life-changing" or "Garden State" to "the Shins") is that a song blows if it's been featured in an Apple ad.

It makes a certain amount of sense. After all, Apple owns us. They effectively control the way we listen to music, and they've monopolized cool in an age when aesthetic pluralism reigns and our design choices effectively define our identities. So eschewing our technology overlords' conventional pop ear becomes the only way indie types can create distance between themselves and the brand that even their baby-boomer, commuter-train-riding parents use.

So if you happen to watch an Apple commercial, don't like the music. It's the only way to stay cool. If necessary, keep a pair of earplugs handy while you're watching "The Office." (You WOULD watch "The Office.") Because if you want to keep your Stella-drinking, cloves-smoking friends around, you'll do what's best and refuse to enjoy anything you can buy via the iTunes store. And remember: Razorlight was never a good band, even when it was.