Boomcrash

George Carlin on Michael Jackson

and that’s all i’m gonna say here.

The “Zero respect for the dead” award goes to…

While I understand that CNN’s coverage on the unfolding events in Iran has improved, and that they’re not the only network that indulges in sensationalism, this is over the top. From Twitter:

@octavianasrCNN: You watched her die in front of your eyes.. Now MEET #NEDA! full report on AC360 #iranelection

I’m waiting for Howard Beale and Sybil the Soothsayer to enter stage left. Or perhaps those wacky revos on the Mao Tse-tung hour…

(Props to @cjdkc on Twitter for bringing this to folks’ attention)

Meanwhile, plenty of oppression in the U.S.

Just Jo Nubian reminds us all to keep under-reported stories about the murdering of African-Americans in the U.S. in mind, as the mainstream media continues to cover events in Iran.

Warm heart, cold Friday

Been busy doing background reading – Johnson-Reagon, Foucault, Hardt & Negri; looking towards next week for blogging on all that. In the meantime, here’s a somewhat sniffly wrap-up:

20 year anniversary of Do the Right Thing. I’d say read the Newsweek article on it, but it’s full of feigned praise, if not backhanded compliments. Who shows up at someone’s birthday and says, “That outfit makes you look great…for your size”? Much better fare is the New York interview with Spike Lee.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright has a hymietown moment. If you mean AIPAC, say AIPAC, alright? Can’t even claim privacy of conversation, he said it to a reporter. I think he got dogged during the elections, but “those Jews”? Come on.

Obama administration may be strong-arming potential swing votes on the war spending bill, which includes $100 million for the IMF.

A fabulous write-up from SexGenderBody on Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse as Gothic literature.

A very interesting lecture on “Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality”.

That’s it! Off to rest, relax and make sure this cold doesn’t get the better of me. Much love, see you on the downbeat…

Are we actually starting to be in control here?

Rush job Twitter transcript follows below, with minor cleanup for continuity; much cred to Rebecca Walker for saying “more please” at just the right moment. <3

Solidadrocks The problem w/ the old school publishing system is that it constantly feeds off of a writerly underclass; poets are a prime example. (more)

solidadrocks However, Amazon isn’t the solution; open source models + p2p is. If coders can do it, so can writers – musicians already are.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks What’s that mean? Just distribute our writings by bittorrent and the like?

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon In part, yes. I think what’s still emerging is a means to capitalize on social media for writers specifically (more)

solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) but look at open source software — small distributed model as a result of deflated costs. why publishing (more)

solidadrocks why *old school publishing models don’t work is that

solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) is that digital media has flatted the costs of creating infrastructure, aka distribution. making that model (more)

solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) work is our job. /fin

solidadrocks the irony here is that by pushing the costs of distribution off onto artists, it’s given us the ability to recoup profits directly.

Solidadrocks It’s as if we’re at the stage of building an audience. The expectation is “where’s the money?” but you need to build audience first.

Solidadrocks and fwiw, i have a much bigger audience on the web than i did without it. it’s the first step, but definitely not the last one.

Solidadrocks now, if you already have a large audience, this can seem like a pain. what folks need to consider is how much is getting opened up here.

Solidadrocks a very large, indeterminate number of artists who were heretofore under the radar suddenly have both a broadcast and a distribution model…

solidadrocks …for free. so i’m not exactly sweating copyright, if you get my drift, y’all.

solidadrocks all i know is that the #hustle is my new currency. less of it means more slack = more time to write. sounds good to me

rebeccawalker @solidadrocks more please.

solidadrocks @rebeccawalker will do – just getting started thanks

elliotharmon @solidadrocks It seems like it’s a much older question sans technology – the freedom of DIY vs. the polish of an established press.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks Ultimately, the writers I’m most attracted to sort of straddle that fence.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon like most upheavals in culture, it definitely has a history; as you said, it points back to DIY. free software mvmt, too.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks The connection to open source is interesting, I hadn’t thought about that.

Solidadrocks I mean, consider the impact of this on an intersexed mixed-race lesbian author w/ radical politics. No longer just a whipping post 4 BillO.

Solidadrocks re IS mixed-race etc. author: not that I’m naming names here or anything. seriously, it changes things.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks But most attempts I’ve seen to directly monetize online literature are pretty – dopey?

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon I think that’s because 1) digital distro is still new, and 2) consider who is making the platforms.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks I’d rather to the monetizing in person; i.e., touring.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon see that’s just it. the same thing is happening w/ musicians — you sell in concert, not through brick and mortar.

Solidadrocks It’s like that poet who is supporting the pirate bay — he’s famous, hell, seemingly he would have a lot to lose. but he notes…

solidadrocks…that audience is the first step. the existing models stifle creativity more than nourish it en masse. Winterston talks about this as well

elliotharmon@solidadrocks Yeah, I get you, and the internet has a pretty amazing ability to nurture marginalized communities, no question.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon which in turn, opens the possibility for nurturing for everybody, not just the marginalized.

Solidadrocks re the platforms: i think free CMSes such as joomla and drupal, as well as semi-open platforms such as Ning, are the first step in what…

solidadrocks …is going to be a long process. writers and developers collaborating is a critical step in this process imo.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks This is really interesting, I’ll try to send you an email, but now I gots to work.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon coolness, please do.

Solidadrocks none of this is to say that people shouldn’t organize for better contracts – they should! but what if you have “the stuff”, but never get 1?

solidadrocks most of the writing contracts i’ve signed over the years have been shit – either $$ but work for hire, or shitty pay w/ some (or no) control

solidadrocks also, the work for hire contracts were for doing things i absolutely hate, like tech writing. UGH. still, i’m fortunate, rel. speaking.

Funk it with feeling, y’all…it’s the Friday wrap-up

KKK gets pwnd by…clowns. Twitter props to @FeminaPotens and numerous others in the blogtwitterosphere.

Havana times: Homophobia is the problem, not gays.

Wired gets it more or less right this time: The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online. They even break down Clay Shirky’s steps for online collaboration and action! Yay. Serious props to “Anarch” in the article’s comments for pointing out that this isn’t the New Socialism, but is the New Anarchism. You said it compañera/o. Boo to the idiot who said that libertarian socialism contains “a high degree of coercion” because every system that has used the term socialist is coercive, and therefore, he can’t be bothered to look up its history, even when numerous examples of said history were contained within the thread. Kronstadt, hello? /ostrich, FAIL Also, see: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/82/tactical_briefing.html

Joss Whedon on Humanism. A lovely meditation on the need for compassion and intellect over ideology.

Really great guest blog by @Jesimone on walking as healing and the complexities of race.

#win of the week: Sotomayor. Stay strong, Boriqua, we’re counting on you.

#fail of the week: CA supreme court prop8 decision. While I’m glad that they respect the rights of CA residents to make their own decisions (no matter how backward), the whole thing smacks of compromise and politicization. Can’t wait for this shit to get overturned at the ballot box; yet another example of how California is nowhere near as liberal as its reputation suggests.

It’s the Friday wrap up, y’all

Courtesy of Rebecca Walker, The Great Illmatic’s amazing YouTube blog on post-racism, Asher Roth and the racial crossroads.

The funny as hell Stimulator is on a west coast tour – the show is called “Hopium: Confronting Fascism in the Obama era”, and promises to be both lively and informative.

Happy birthday to Malcolm X and Harvey Milk! You both are missed, and frequently in my thoughts. <3

Gaurav Mishra on why he writes about social media.

Noam Chomsky on torture memos and Obama.

Lastly, a wink and a nod to @mmrohrer over on Twitter for noting that yes indeed Virginia, there are sex toys in the bible.

That’s about it! Until next week, be well, stay safe and as always, stay in trouble. ^_^

The Zen of being griefed

I’m new to Twitter, but I’ve already received a follow from a Virginia-based non-profit that promotes missile defense, as well as from the deliberately-offensive-yet-occasionally-hilarious website Ask Blackie. (Blackie as in “S’up, my niggas! Where the party at?”)

So I blocked the missile defense account, no worries – but the real moment of existential panic was over Ask Blackie. Who the hell is doing this? What do they want from me? God, life is hard enough as it is. I felt a slowly creeping anger setting in.

Never one to leave well enough alone, I watched the vBlogs on the site – but given my politics and background, what may surprise you is that I calmly viewed them, loled a bit, got pissed off a bit but didn’t stress out over it. Did the site annoy me? Yes, of course. Did I laugh despite myself? Yes. The anger receded, and I went on my my day.

You may be thinking, “Isn’t this the moment where people such as yourself are supposed to have your fist in the air, getting on the phone to your Congressperson, blocking the doors and shutting shit down? Isn’t that what you live for?”

No – or to be more precise, not anymore.

Let’s step back a bit. It’s 2007, and I’m out somewhere in the 3D Bizarroville known as Second Life. I – or rather, my avatar – is being bombarded by the following images:

A red-hued shit and disembowelment collage
A wryly smiling Bill Cosby holding a pudding pop
A cartoon image of an anthropomorphized fox/furry in hell

Dozens of floating memes, followed by hundreds of hamburgers and Super Marios, then back to viscera and The Cos – all making me enraged. Hunched over at my computer, I’m moving my mouse back and forth – which is causing the avatar to “run” back and forth frantically. I occasionally stop moving the mouse to type something deeply insightful, like “WTFH.” I was convinced that this was some sort of right wing l33t hax0r cabal determined to fuck with my business – I had read Vice magazine, I knew how the young kids thought! I was clearly a prime target, and as such, I was getting harassed. This resulted in me losing my shit, which was exactly the intention of those bombarding me: get a hoot or three out of my sorry ass chasing a bunch of images on a screen, as if the real life sky suddenly turned purple and started raining Chuck Norris action figures – a neoconservative god-figment tormenting my over-active imagination.

Eventually, I managed to calm down, unplug for a while, take a walk and get some air – for a year or so. (I also learned how to decypher contemporary Internet culture more accurately, where the joke is on everybody, not just “the left.”) But when whoever-the-hell runs Ask Blackie started following my newly established Twitter account, complete with over-the-top racial characterizations and various Internet meme references? A little speck of the old familiar dread set in all over again – a miniature frozen-pudding-worshiping Pavlov’s dog stuck in an awesomely proportioned Bosch triptych. Once again, my mixed-race intersexed femme dyke anarchist self was waiting for the memes to show up, because nothing sets griefers in motion like someone who has a complex set of identities. We’re a petri dish for potential lulz, a walking, breathing Mountain Of Fail in the making. I kept it all on the chill this time though, and the panicked anger receded.

What people need to realize is that when you react as I did back in 2007, you’re shouting all and everything at a very large wall, which then just gives more information to whoever is pulling your personal parts to make you shout even louder. It’s damned funny to watch, and equally painful to go through – a scatological koan gone viral, with whatever you’re obsessed about as the punch line. That is, unless you stop reacting to it, in which case it becomes really, really, REALLY funny for you, and a comedic version of an indifferent audience for whoever’s doing the griefing – and the best part is that you may even learn something about how your mind operates in the process. If you keep on feeding it material though, it quickly morphs into a Buddha virus, and the game is on.

I’m sure that some of you will go to the site and get seriously pissed off anyway, so here’s a bit of advice. If you want to score a truly epic fail for yourself, and an Epic Win! for whoever’s patiently watching and waiting? Try blogging about Ask Blackie (or the equivalent) with a thick tone of smug indignation, and see what happens. You’re guaranteed to be swimming in David Cronenberg outtakes in no time at all, and if you decide to up the stakes in response, you may find your home address being spammed all over the tubes, if the recent past is any indication. Jokes on you, winner! Welcome to Videodrome, use some muthafuckin’ common sense next time…

Oh-oh.