so his new album "evolver", just dropped yesterday, and i gotta tell you the shit is tiiight!!! i mean it, from beginning to end this shit is like one great track after the other. its been a real minute since i found myself listening to an album for the first time and not wanting to skip any track whatsoever! so that should be a clear indicator of the caliber of this record. also the album features andre, estelle and kanye and they are by means wasted in their cameos, especially my boy andre!
I recently came across this compilation of Calvin Klein ads that originally aired in 1995. I'll have to date myself by saying that I vividly remember being in junior high and watching these ads, not really understanding what all the hoopla was about. Now honestly, I got the 70's wood paneling scratchy porn vibe (my first porn encounters were of that variety) but aside from that, in response to the "controversy", I remember thinking that people just needed to relax, afterall it was just a stupid commercial.
However watching these ads as an adult, I now fully understand why their was such an uproar. It has nothing to do with the pornesque vibe in my mind, it is completely revolving around the pedophilic and unseen narrator/cameraman. Hearing the way he speaks to these young boys and girls really is extremely creepy, and though it is a commercial, I cringe at the thought of what happened after the camera was shut off.
I can only imagine what the peeps at CK were thinking when they okayed this marketing campaign. Obviously they intended to cause some controversy, as had been the case with prior campaigns, but this by NO means sells jeans! By connoting that a creepy man with a camera would pay you attention if you rocked CK jeans, it actually makes me NEVER want wear CK jeans!
I mean i've tried to wrap my mind around this, and aside from molestation is cool and desirable, I just don't get it. And needless to say nor did America, as these ads were quickly pulled after hitting the airwaves. I give them credit for thinking outside of the box, but not if said box is filled with porn and inside the basement of Uncle Chester's House.
Ultimately though, this is just a reminder of how perspective changes as one ages. It is always interesting to be confronted with specific imagery as an adult that can be immediately plucked from your youth. Yet, more specifically, how your reaction and interpretation to said imagery differs now than it did then.
i know that we were not together for long, but i must admit i not only eyed you for a long time, i did very extensive research before making my move. a move i never once regretted (well mostly at least). in the time we spent together we did our fair share of living and traveling. we explored the cityscapes and nightlife of SF twice and we also roamed the beautiful and majestic scenary of hawaii. because of you i have a record of concerts, events, birthdays, friends and family.
though you will eventually be replaced by a camera with more megapixels, a better zoom, a more touch responsive scroll wheel and a bigger bang for my buck, it was you who helped me elevate my photographic skills to new heights and for this i will never forget you. and tho the last night we shared together was a testament to your ability to capture brilliant color and resolution in low light situations, you will always be my first, and thus a benchmark which others will have to live up to.
"In these green times, companies are looking everywhere to make a buck -- er, save the planet. Philips Simplicity didn't go much further than the sidewalk to find inspiration for its latest eco-friendly innovation, the Light Blossom, a self-sustainable street lamp that has triple-duty petals. They're peppered with energy-efficient LEDs to illuminate the street, naturally, but also have solar panels on top and can spin around in a stiff breeze to recharge. At night they'll emit a soft glow, intended to cut down on light pollution, but will grow brighter whenever a pedestrian comes by. It all sounds wonderfully efficient, but with lights popping on and off as you go, it could make that late-night walk of shame a little more conspicuous than you might like."
not only is our economy and the overall infrastructure of our country in jeopardy, so is roe. vs. wade! so this one goes out to all the female voters out there...if you vote mccain, i wish you a plethora of unwanted pregnancies and a future filled with welfare and dead beat fathers.
so i just read a very short yet interesting article entitled "Can Birth Order Determine Your Career?" the article looks at how birth order affects your upbringing and socialization within a family structure and how these affect your adaptive patterns and personalities. but more specifically how these play into possible career advancements and success.
but bottom line...first and only children tend to have a stricter upbringing thus creating more responsible and hard working individuals which equals a shit ton of cashflow. Middle children, who are caught in the middle naturally learn to mediate and compromise but are complacent and poor as fuck. While the youngest gets all the personality as a result of fighting for attention but ends up the cliched starving artist.
can we say population control!? any more than one child is straight greedy...and trust me, when you're thinking that your first child needs a friend or a buddy, doing so comes only at the expense of the following children. so don't do it.
okay so the buzz is really bananas at this point as rumors and speculation swirl about what exactly apple will release. the invites are out, so we know fashow apple is repping this tuesday.
there is also a lot of buzz about a brand new notebook all together, one with a very competitive sub-1000 dollar price point. but what we know is that they have been working on the "brick", which is basically a design process that allows them to construct an entire notebook case out of a SINGLE piece of aluminum with allegedly no screws. this kind of manufacturing not only allows them to shoot out notebooks in record time, it lets them easily toy around with designs. so there is now telling what kinds of products they will release from here on out.
but what we are all dying to see are the redesigned macbook pros!!! in my previous blog i posted some pics of supposedly leaked images of these machines. and they are pretty sick! and this new one which appeared on nvidia's website to promote their new chip seems to show a newer and slimmer macbook.
but in a couple days, all speculation will be put to rest. so mark your calendars!
its official: the dates have been set for next years coachella... April 17, 18, 19!!!
so start using those piggy banks.
the next announcement and by far the most important one is obviously the line up....it wont be out for a couple of months, but i know who i wanna see: Santogold, MGMT, Kings Of Leon, TVOTR, Wolf Parade, CWK, Chromeo... etc (the list can go on and on!)
As I have mentioned in a previous blog "sellin out", I have never enjoyed encountering music that I truly enjoy (and in some degrees love) being used in commercials to sell some sort of product. Though a part of me is immediately fraustrated and angry that a beloved artist would whore out their music in that way, I do fully understand that money is ultimately what let's them do what they love as a profession and in doing so are stupid to not sell what they have produced, it is, afterall, a commodity. My only real issue is when the song is attached to something so completely and ridiculously uncool that in no way correlates to the music.
Essentially, a cool song needs to be paired with a cool product, and if the product is not outright cool, then the entire marketing of said product better be so fucking cool that it in turn becomes cool! In my previous blog, I compared Spank Rock's "Bump" used in a wishbone salad dressing commercial (not cool) to Santi's "Creator" used in the bud light lime commercial (cool enough).
Which brings me to the new Armani's Diamonds for him. The commercial features "Slow Hands" by one of my favorite bands of all time "Interpol". Once again upon viewing it , I immediately thought "Oh what the fuck!?", but that quickly passed. So the commercial features Josh Hartnett getting ready for something which turns out to be some sort of event. Though the commercial itself is kinda dumb, it is by all definitions cool: the black and white styling, the idea of high society, good looks, wealth, an actual cool product paired with a really cool ass song!
All in all it is a great example of selling out in a good way. One where you get sum scrilla, more publicity and are paired with a cool brand only adding to the cool factor of both parties.
so we finally got to see palin speak "slightly" more in-depth about what she and mccain plan on accomplishing if voted into the white house. i have to admit she did very well in terms of her overall persona: eye contact, clear articulation and she was also surprisingly funny. however i feel that ultimately the only real thing she has going for her is that whole pretty news reporter persona, the kind which grabs your attention primarily due to her attractive tina fey-like looks and secondly because she does come across as speaking directly to you, much like an evening news anchor.
aside from that, i feel that she strayed away from answering any real questions, in fact she actually said "I may not answer the questions the way you or the moderator want to hear, but I'm going to talk to the American people." it seemed to me that she would somehow manage to deflect all questions back to the 2 issues and instead chose to speak directly to "joe six-pack" (in an annoying ass alaskan accent) solely about energy and taxes. Such deflection is a definite sign of how green and ill prepared she is to be the vice president.
for a more in-depth NPR article about the debates click here
so all of you apple fans out there (myself clearly included) may know that macbook pros have been long over due for a redesign, though there have been upgrades in terms of newer chips, processing speeds, internal memory and most recently the inclusion of an iphone like touchpad, the overall design of the machine has stayed the same for a few years.
now a couple of you may know that the rumor mill is bananas as to the "alleged" (and i say this sarcastically because apple is very bad at containing any kind of secrecy related to the release of its products!) release of the new mbp. they shall be out very shortly, many are saying the announcement will be oct. 14th, but we'll see for sure once the time comes.
but it is really not a question of will they, it is a question of when these puppies will drop! and make us OG macbook pro owners slobbering all over our outdated machines.
enjoy a couple rumored images of the new machines:
*though they are from seperate leaks...they share striking similarities, firstly you will note the black outer shell, the thinner body, a black trackpad and the imac like glass screen with black border.
**however they differ in that the first image bears a more squared body frame (similar to current generations) while the bottom image shows more of a macbook air wedge body. also the bottom image shows an interesting, though highly unlikely, dock screen image on the touchpad.
***now if the "highly unlikely" dock screen touch pad turns out to be "very likely" then holy shit! i'll be forced to sell my soul.
