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!

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.

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).

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

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

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.

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.

• Cadence Weapon — Sharks
• Xiu Xiu — Boy Soprano
• DJ Shadow — This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)
• DJ Scotch Egg — Scotch Hausen

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, everyone 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.

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.

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]

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

• 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.

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.

My take on John Amaechi [ESPN: The Magazine Blog] (via YAYSports!)]]> http://www.the-shit.net/249.html http://www.the-shit.net/249.html Media Sports Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:53:38 -0800

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.