Foul Play Giant

I've always had a bad taste in my mouth from the folks who gush over the work of Shepard Fairey. And now I'm snickering to myself that his legal counsel is abandoning him after it was revealed that he lied about which source he stole from / traced over for the Obama Hope poster.

Fairey represents a lot of what I don't like about the art world - arrogant double-standards. His work is entirely derivative if not outright stolen, which in itself is not offensive to me. There's nothing wrong with appropriation when proper attribution is given. Yet he continually passes himself off as original, and profits from creativity that simply wasn't his - without giving proper credit where it is clearly due. In fact, he outright lies about his sources. And Fairey is clearly lying for the sake of his own celebrity and profit, not for the sake of art.

I've always insisted that the work that put him on the map, Andre the Giant has a Posse and the resulting Obey work, were obviously inspired by John Carpenter's They Live - which starred a pro wrestler and featured subliminal outdoor advertising messages that read "obey" (among other Big Brotherly imperatives). Too many coincidences.

Given that it's now common practice to sue musicians for sampling even small portions of someone else's work without permission and/or payment, Fairey deserves to be held responsible for his actions. It's clear that his primary concern is being a celebrity; perhaps his ego prevents him from being honest about his work, his process and his tremendous debt to pop and fringe culture that preceded him and all of his sordid merchandising.

Fairey is complicit in the ugly corporatization of celebrity - at the expense of honesty, integrity and authenticity. It pains me that only the Obama poster is drawing this fact into the public discourse.

Hip-hop is dead. So is god.

We have these seniors to blame for it:


[Thanks (I think) to Ken Schafer for the link.]

The Only Shocker We'll Get From Dubya:

Talk about senioritis. Dubya, classy world leader that he's always been, raises the shocker in a photo taking during his White House welcome to 2008's NCAA champs.

Three Words To Retire

I imagine this will be a recurring post theme for me (though I'm sure there are other folks out there making similar efforts). Let's start with three words that need to be retired from the English language: diva, luxury and maverick.

Diva
A diva is an operatic prima donna. A diva is not the latest tramp to butcher R&B, soul or hip-hop conventions. Much of the blame for this forced retirement falls on VH1. Don't ever refer to a musician as a diva when she has just one or two releases to her name. In fact, don't refer to anyone as a diva -- odds are she's probably just an ordinary bitch.

Luxury
Luxury is a word, like diva, that carries very little of its original meaning in the ways it is most commonly used now. Chocolate is not a luxury; you can get it at any corner store or vending machine. Two small bedrooms and one bath do not add up to a luxury condominium, especially when there's no parking space included (let alone a chauffeur). To never again encounter any such abuse of the word "luxury" would, ironically, be very luxurious for me.

Maverick
I don't need to remind anyone of who's butchering this one, but it's clear the culprits are not the best-read people in the news today. A maverick is a lone, independent dissenter -- NOT the candidate nominated by the incumbent party, nor his Alaskan twit sidekick (who is, coincidentally, more likely to shoot a true maverick from a helicopter than ever embody the term herself).

Got a word on the verge of retirement? Let's send it away early! Leave your suggestions in the comments and we'll go from there.

An Open Letter to James Meeks

Hey, James.

I'm referring to you as neither "senator" nor "reverend" today, because you're not living up to either title. You're not even living up to your last name. Instead, you are high on your own fumes with the most ill-conceived boycott ever.

Let's get a few things straight. All schools need more funding. All teachers are underpaid. These are issues not unique to your district, not by a long-shot. Funding is uneven, yes. So is the median household income; if your district puts less in, it will get less out. It's that simple.

Still, in your ever-so-finite wisdom, you have encouraged skipping school as a means to improve the education system. Let me clarify. You have publicly encouraged and arranged for thousands* of Chicago children to miss the first four days of school this year. You actually think that these kids are going to just camp out in the lobbies of corporate offices, and "hold" class there? Those kids won't get past building security -- which, incidentally is the best job they could ever hope to get if they follow your lead.

You spent a lot of money on bus rentals. That money could have been donated to schools that need funding more than they need a ride to a publicity stunt. Your behavior not only insults the teachers and students you purport to be helping, but you also make a mockery of the professional environment for which all those kids truly do need a better education. It's clear you have not considered the consequences of your actions. You have exploited your self-righteous religious affiliations for a publicity stunt predicated on ignorance, yet you offer no intelligent solutions or shred of common sense. I imagine you're the type to recommend praying that one wins the lottery rather than finding an honest day's work.

Are you such an ineffective senator that you need to make pawns of students, teachers, parents and Chicagoans' places of business? Even the kids you've implicated in this crack-pot scheme can see through it:

One New Trier student described the boycott as "a big publicity stunt."

"They are trying to make it racial," said New Trier senior, Andrew Scherer, 17. "It's a better media story." [Source]

Racial and religious make for sensationalism, but not a better story. The only supporters of today's boycott are churches -- churches that should be donating to schools instead of wasting money on go-nowhere publicity stunts. I seriously doubt you exhausted that option, James. I think instead that you relish the potential for this stunt to be racially charged, even though it's really just about your school district getting exactly what it pays for. Here's what you were quoted saying two days ago:

“I want the whole nation to look at Illinois. I want the whole nation to ask, ‘Why is Illinois racist?’ I want them to ask, ‘Why is Illinois treating low-income students like that?’”

James, come on. Why are you racist? I find it obscenely insulting that you equate racism with low-income students. I come from a low-income family. Welfare, food stamps, free school lunch programs, church-donated groceries and Christmas presents... I've been there. One lasting life lesson I learned is that money doesn't know what color my skin is, and it never will. Another lasting lesson: the world doesn't owe you anything. I genuinely feel sorry for the kids who don't know any better, being led down this path by a divisive panderer like yourself. You've already admitted openly that you will lie about the number of students you see today.

What a great example you set! The spectacle of your actions is more important to you than the substance of your actions. But you can't even get that right...

* One bus arrived with four people on it. Four. Is this the kind of inefficiency and waste you want to teach kids? Hope so, 'cause you just did.

Keep the preaching of ignorance confined to your precious mega-church, James. The rest of Chicago will do better without this self-righteous, racially-charged divisiveness in the classroom, in the state senate and in the media.

Now, please, just shut up and get back to class.

No News Is The Best News

If only CNN and the other 24-7 news networks would do this instead of repeating the same sixty minutes of programming, twenty-four times a day. I'd watch the news more often, which would get their advertisers more exposure to my much-coveted "young adult" demographic. Just a thought.

Boredom is a provocation.

I think I've been bored my whole life. I used to complain about being bored to my mom. Chronically, hopelessly bored. All the time. She would reply with a simple correction: "No, you're boring."

Around the same time I left home for good, I started experimenting more regularly in the recording arts. It was, in the beginning, something I did to alleviate the boredom. Coincidentally or not, it was around then I started becoming a fan of The Boredoms. [Have you heard them lately? They're playing in-the-round at Congress Theater in a few weeks. You should try to go.] They're not boring. They're not the main reason for this post, either.

Boredom is. In fact, I'm wondering if boredom isn't actually one of my more productive states. If necessity is the mother of invention, as they have always said. Anyway...

Today, I caught up with some bookmarks I've been meaning to read into further. One was about a term that caught my eye about a month ago - Strategic Boredom. You should watch this video about it. It's not boring. At least for most of you regular commenters, it won't be boring. But it is a bit nerdy. And you're gonna need about twenty-eight minutes to get through it. Enjoy... unless you've got something better to do.

Ego, Not Infotechnology, Is Source Of Overload

This morning my inbox at work had an email from AdAge, with a link to an article by Steve Rubel called Too Much Infotechnology Can Lead To Overload. I wanted to see what Rubel had to say about it, because my opinion of this phenomenon goes against what most people in my industry seem to think. Like most of the articles about the imaginary "infotech overload" afflicting folks in their forties and fifties, is a fluff piece at best. Rubel's got it all wrong when he blames technology for the overload:

Over the last decade, Americans have become hopelessly addicted to information and busyness. We have all overheard people bragging about their back-to-back schedules and massive e-mail inboxes. We crave information and busyness because it makes us feel wanted, needed and, above all, important. However, too much of a good thing is never ideal.

So, being needy is a good thing?

I used to work with a guy whose blackberry was a constant source of self-esteem. He swore he was busy busy busy, but he never did much but fuss with that device. Take the blackberry away and he's still an asshole looking for anything to do but work (part of the reason he's no longer a co-worker). Rubel would blame the blackberry and email. The root of the problem lies elsewhere.

I bring this up whenever I read anything that claims "today's target audience leads a hurried and harried lifestyle". I have to call "bullshit" on it. We're actually less busy than we used to be, despite our best efforts to prove otherwise. We have DVRs and voicemail, Roomba's and automated bill-pay options. We can time-shift a lot of things for which we used to make appointments -- but most of us are still terrible at time management. That's why the GTD folks are making so much bank right now.

But technology is not the problem. The people who insist every little alert is an excuse to drop everything are. It's called an instant message, but you are not obligated to address it this instant. When your phone rings, it only indicates that someone is trying to call you - not that you need to stop the world to take a call. If this kind of busyness makes you feel important, consider a career as a secretary or administrative assistant. But don't blame the technology for your own inability to cope and adapt.

And maybe try not to waste article inches on this stuff, especially considering the subject matter. Rubel's entire premise is that infotechnology leads to overload -- but all of his evidence supports the notion that human ego, however enabled by information technology, is truly the source of the problem.

Would Rubel's article have the same effect if he were complaining that his iPod holds too many songs to listen to in one sitting, or that his DirecTV has too many channels? When you boil down the article, it's a bit of whining about feeling overwhelmed by all these emails one might otherwise use to validate one's own sense of self-importance. If having options is a symbol of status, the truly hip will be the ones who exercise the option to opt-out at least as often as they opt-in. But that's an idea considerably less ingratiating to the bulk of Rubel's marketing industry audience.

There is no information overload, but, as has been true throughout human history, there are a few too many egos getting in the way of common sense.

Pretending To Ask Is Not Asking

Reading Kottke this morning got me to this article by ABC columnist John Allen Paulos. As an irreligious citizen myself, I think it's great to see some attention given (finally) to the most under-represented minority group in this country: atheists.

ABC deserves congratulations for courting the godless reader, but there's one giant, glaring thing wrong with this article. The questions posed to candidates are fictional. The article only imagines asking these questions instead of actually asking them. If only there were a news outlet with correspondents covering the presidential race, correspondents who could ask these questions of the candidates... a news outlet like ABC perhaps?

(Their) god only knows why they haven't thought to stop pretending and start asking. Well, their god and their Mickey.

Street Is The New Mall

I know it might sound surly or even old of me, but I think the whole streetwear thing has just about jumped the shark.

Twenty years ago, Vision Street Wear introduced the term streetwear to kids like me - and it wasn't hip-hop. It was skateboarding (street skating was a more resourceful and opportunistic alternative to vert skating). It wasn't saying "I'm from the streets" as much as it was saying "that's where I go to play". Vision Street Wear at the time seemed to be against a lot of the things it seems to stand for now. Granted, the brand went relatively dormant after one of its premier skaters convicted of killing his girlfriend, and probably needed to come back rejuvenated for a new generation of skateboarders. But do a little homework and you see the brand is almost a parody of what it once was. I suppose you don't think of it that way when you're 13, let alone do your homework*.

Likewise in the past decade, Nigo's A Bathing Ape has gone from a fringe fashion delicacy to a much-counterfeited eBay favorite. I won't get into it now; you've already gotten my thoughts on it. Suffice it to say, there are dozens of guys proudly sporting knock-off Bape gear all over the Green Line these days. At least it's not about authenticity; that would require individualism and a lot more work. It's just about having the look.

Which brings me to Satchel of Gravel's brilliantly insightful post "So You Wanna Be A Streetwearer". Follow the link to their full write-up, or check out my copy-and-paste lift of their "Ten Steps to Becoming a Streetwearer" below.

1. This is the simplest step. Learn everything about Japanese street culture. Just take everything you know about American street culture and mentally make it more expensive and limited. What do you think Bape does?

2. Perfect your masturbation skills. If this is how you’re going to start dressing, you’re never getting any ass. You may get a BJ from other dudes who really like your Jordan IIIs, but definitely from not any girls. Accept it.

3. Stay online till you go blind. Never leave the internet. Don’t worry about going to the store to buy product. You have ebay, Niketalk and a gang of forums at your disposal. Plus, you run the possibility of running into girls and with your newly perfected masturbation skills, you don’t need them.

4. Buying IS rebelling. The more you buy, the more you’re showing that you’re against the system of mass consumption. Get as many overpriced sneakers, tees, jeans, jackets and shades as you can. Also make sure that you have at least one (two max) small luxury items like a Gucci belt or LV wallet, to show off your well rounded sense of style.

5. You probably want to be white.

6.Pick up an action sport. Literally. Just buy a deck or a fixed bike and walk around with it. Don’t actually use it, you’ll lower the resale value, which you’ll need for…

7. A digital camera! Get as many megapixels as your parents will let you have. Then, go around and take pictures of your friends, pets, food, chewing gum, dirt and basically whatever ends up in front of your lens. Take a page from Bobby Hundreds and use awkward angles to illustrate your “artistic” side. When that’s done, start a blog detailing your excursions. Like we did.

8. If you’re living in Los Angeles or New York, make sure that you can be found in front of Supreme or Flight Club vying for a photo op on a cool guy blog.

9. Memorize Dipset and Wu-Tang lyrics like your mother’s life depends on it. Because it does.

10. Finally, hit up as many streetwear parties as you can (remember your camera!). As long as they’re in a small venue and Sapporo is the liquor sponsor, it’ll be awesome! These parties are really good for comparing your new hyperstrike deadstock purchases and masturbation techniques with the other guys that are there.

[* Full disclosure: I always did my homework.]

Undertones Make It Pop

Stronger Revisited from Kanye West on Vimeo

I'll admit it, I get down on Kanye West a lot. I never understood why he got popular for speeding up R&B samples, a.k.a. "chipmunking", a rudimentary sampling tactic which had been going on long before he tried it. I have never cared for the blatant, just-add-a-drum-track style of sampling he often employs, either. And I personally don't see or hear enough original talent to justify his notoriously pissy arrogance. On top of that, it bothers me that someone of his disposition has come to represent the Chicago music scene to the masses. He's from upper-middle-class Oak Lawn, not proper Chi-Town - and folks* in the city of big shoulders just don't whine like he does.

That said, I find this clip sort of endearing. Kanye just can't get his drums sounding the way he wants, and has to consult eleven(!) different mixers... until finally Timbaland schools him about undertones and proper drum-tone layering. Watching it, I considered that maybe West is so desperate to win awards because it won't be long before people realize his naiveté. It's almost cute, in a way. He's really just trying to become a super-star.

But, back to my beef with him, that's the approach you expect from NYC or LA, not our beloved Illville. (I know, I know... then how do I explain Billy Corgan? I don't; he's another over-entitled rich kid from the burbs clamoring for attention over integrity.)

Clip courtesy of E.
[* Full disclosure: I'm originally from the "Chicagoland" part of NW Indiana, and truly dislike it when people claim to be "from Chicago" when they actually live outside the city limits, sometimes further from the actual city than I was growing up in Indiana.]

Forgetting To Remember

NYT's Forgetting May Be Part of the Process of Remembering cites a report in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Basically, maintaining cognitive control demands that we forget things, much in the same respect it demands that we remember certain other things. Two sides of the same coin, when you think about it. Or, as the report phrases it:

"Remembering often requires the selection of goal-relevant memories in the face of competition from irrelevant memories."

So, in order to remember to get your proverbial shit together, you may inadvertently force yourself to forget some irrelevant trivia (or perhaps things you know you can look up anyway). I know that ever since I read that Einstein never bothered to remember anything he could look up, I've tried to give myself permission to let easily retrieved information fall out of my head to make room for other ideas and processes. For example, I don't remember your phone number any more because I know my phone remembers it for me.

Does this happen to you? Are you aware of any similar process in your own memory selection?

Bike Helmets Bad For Cyclists?

Just in time for prime bike season: news that wearing a bike helmet may actually increase your chances of an accident involving a motor vehicle. I'm not just pulling your leg, this makes a lot of sense to me. But I've done a little reading on it, so let me throw the links at you...

Neatorama reports on
a Scientific American article about
the findings of University of Bath's Dr. Ian Walker.

As a perennial pedestrian, people-watcher and rider of public transportation, I have no problem whatsoever getting behind Walker's reason for conducting this road safety study.

His road safety work is currently considering questions relating to how drivers' attentional and decision-making mechanisms affect the safety of vulnerable road user groups such as pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. Of particular interest at the moment is the issue of how our natural tendency to "read" other people (i.e., to interpret their gaze signals and other non-verbal communications) affects the safety of vulnerable groups.
[via Ian Walker's site]

I've worn a bike helmet ever since I started biking through the city. I've never been hit, but Chicago traffic is always more dense and less predictable than, say, DeKalb traffic. I do remember first wearing kneepads and a helmet while skateboarding on a half-pipe, and feeling invincible. But I also get the feeling that certain accidents are likely to happen regardless of the cyclist's choice of headgear.

Does wearing a helmet just say to everyone "the wearing of this helmet is totally protected"? It would seem that some effect like this is indeed at play. Do you think drivers are more likely to take precaution when a cyclist is not wearing a helmet?

PULL YOUR LID BACK

Try it. I did, and it really helped.

It finally got me to the realization that this blog has had an identity crisis. Until just now, I couldn't decide if it was about business or pleasure. Ironically, the content of a presentation I've given a few times at work suggested that I not write about work on my personal blog. All this really means: you'll notice a continued shift in tone at PYLB.

Well, it also means the "persuasion industry" topics, minus snarkism, will be migrating to the blog effort underway at work.

Welcome to Pull Your Lid Back.
[Image via hackcanada]

Pop Shall Always Eat Itself

Meet dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip. I have it on good authority that "Thou Shalt Always Kill" is HUGE in the UK right now. Of course, a song about not trying to be popular becomes popular itself and you've got an Ourobouros of sorts. They say pop will eat itself. And so it does.

Dance me to the end of funds

There's apparently a lot that Leonard Cohen has been trying to keep from the public. This article calls it "a sordid tale involving allegations of extortion, SWAT teams, forcible confinement, tax troubles and betrayal."

The first thing I thought was, this is much too juicy for pander-happy cable networks to pass up. I am going so far as to predict a Lifetime Original, based on Cohen's former manager's perspective, to go into production any minute now... And this tale of a Tibetan Buddhist suing a Zen Buddhist would no doubt be sponsored by shampoo and cosmetics, department stores, quick-serve restaurants and the fad diets to which QSR customers resort, plus superfluous prescription medications that promise all kinds of "pharmaceutical enlightenment" that include dozens of unhealthy side effects. Perhaps I am more predicting that the premise of disambiguation will be sold (as it already is) through strict employment of ambiguity.

The next thing I thought was, this seems like the kind of thing that only could happen to Leonard Cohen. However ironic they may appear, these are rather epic, poetic circumstances - even for someone of Cohen's outlook. If my hunch is right, maybe he'll get to pick who plays him in the movie.

West Bank Art Attack

I know, I'm late on this one... but I think it's absolutely brilliant, so better late than never:

Banksy (who normally doesn't show himself) hit Israel's barrier with Palestine. Take a look.

This is some of the most innovative and conceptually responsible "street" art to come along since "clean graffiti". For a self-described "fictional character", Banksy has been pretty busy.

Two-faced Tats Cru?

This post completes my triology of calling out street artists. It's more of a follow-up to the Tats Cru / Hummer post.

As you can plainly see here, here and here, Tats Cru are in fact paid by Hummer. They get paid to paint the message, then deface it. I'm almost jealous. Isn't the consumer supposed to be involved in the communication at some point, folks? Are Hummer and Tats Cru just wanking each other here?

Just because you're "street" doesn't mean you're immune to ethics. Wait... Let me rephrase that: just because you're a corporate graffiti artist doesn't mean you're "street".

More Irresponsible Commentary

So I'm sure came off grumpy in the last post about ill-conceived street art... but here's another reason why the street artists need a good calling-out.

Tats Cru used a toxic, perhaps even petroleum-based spraypaint when they tagged this Hummer ad, presumably to add a tone of environmental responsibility. And they re-branded it with their own branding, which isn't much nobler than what Hummer did in the first place. One could argue that it's actually worse, since Hummer paid to place the ad and Tats Cru played the role of the hater.

If it were only about the environment and opposition to gas-guzzling, there'd be no reason for Tats Cru to brand the vandalism; instead, they're just looking for legitimate work for themselves... Tats Cru is already in league with coroporate graffiti. Consider the projects they've already done for soft drinks, hard liquor and malt liquor.

Or was Tats Cru simply paid by Hummer to vandalize their own ad?

Clip art blows, kids.

I've seen way too much of this in my neighborhood.

I know I'm not the only person who's tired of every other struggling art student assuming the general public wants to see his or her doodles plastered all over bus stops, train stations and otherwise private property. I'm all for poetic terrorism - but not shoddy imitations. "Street art" in this vein strikes me as arrogant and inane - this particular example mounts toxic paint and adhesives to other people's property. The poetry of the "nature scene" is lost, betrayed in the piece's execution.

The take-away here (though it may not have occurred to the artist) is that Chicago street art is as boring and unoriginal as clip art. Maybe try to break the law for a good reason next time, kids? Follow-through and please try not to further poison our environment with half-baked "back to nature" efforts.