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Inspiring. Love his music, but i love even more the fact that he...

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:29:00 -0400

Inspiring. Love his music, but i love even more the fact that he is so open to redefining himself entirely and just being real.

editorial:

We’re excited to announce the official launch of Storyboard, our new hub for in-depth conversations with Tumblr’s creative community. We’ll be posting regular features on creators working in and around Tumblr’s massively diverse cosmos — writers, musicians, animators, scientists, artists, archivists, chefs, comedians, or anyone else with a great story to tell. Today we’re talking about Michael Stipe, the New York Times, Afghanistan, and the design mechanics of the Tumblr Dashboard.

We want to hear your stories too. If you’re interested in submitting a story (or even a story idea) for us to publish, just post it on Tumblr tagged with #storyboard. Our editors will monitor the tag and the community’s interactions there, promoting stories that resonate. And if your story really works, we’ll ask to expand it for publication on Storyboard itself.

Last but not least, if you find yourself in New York City on May 10, we’d love to hang out at the official Tumblr meetup celebrating Storyboard’s launch. It’s at Powerhouse Arena, 7-9pm, with drinks on us and several Tumblr celebrity mystery guests (cough Topherchris, Tommypom, cough).

Consumer Stimulation

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:22:34 -0400

I just watched an old frontline report about selling culture to the youth of consumer society. It basically talks about how billions of dollars are spent researching the best methods of marketing “cool” to kids and young adults with the focus on projecting trends. It would be interesting to see this information re-examined with a decade of internet culture to factor into the equation. Im thinking that through information sharing online, today’s youth is more driven to create its own subcultures or join the many emerging subcultures than be sold fully and directly into the mainstream. The mainstream itself seems to be adapting and accepting a wider range of “marketable culture”.

Limp Bizkit and ICP put off a “fuck you im wierd” attitude, yet it was novel and so damn marketable in the 90s. Except when Fred Durst does something like this…

Kinda like when Lil’ Wayne Did this…

If he said “shag my friends tonight” then I might have thought he was joking, if it wasnt for this…

Lil wayne is the perfect example of how successfully marketing “creative” work - music in this case - has nothing to do with talent or even coherent muscial expression. I like Leather So Soft a lot more when Lil Wayne is rapping.

I realized this most clearly when I saw this…

This video shows what an audience sounds like when they are sincerely impressed by real creative talent/expression. However these musicians may never see the same success as Lil Wayne, unless they find a way to be extremely marketable like him. Despite the fact that bothof them are more skillful guitarists than Lil Wayne - arguably making them better musicians essentially - the reality is that mainstream music seems to get into all of our ears regardless of content or craftsmanship. At its most basic level, mainstream music stimulates the consumers however it can.

The only troubling thing about all of this is a question that i do not know how to answer right now.

Is Corporate Culture molding society’s perception of music as nothing more than a disposable mash of sounds and images engineered for ratings and revenue?

In my opinion it seems that they are, because the moment that people decide to stimulate each other’s creative sense for free, outside of the mainstream, will be the moment that the people will truly be united. But with a constantly redesigned and repackaged mainstream music culture, there will always be the deviating individuals who are looking for more substantial cultural/community connections.

I think the fact that money has so much influence over contemporary music and creative works, prevents the American People from creating Original and Authentic American Culture. Corporate marketing, advertising, and the mainstream media constantly make the public feel insecure about what they do or dont have which makes them feel the need to consume for comfort. The people, young people especially, consume culture just like any other product but specifically in order to “fit in” or be “cool” - which is paradoxical because being cool is about being gracefully unique and relatable in one’s social ways, yet thousands of young adults are ready with their nerd glasses on to hear a new Lil Wayne song because he is an “artist” right? And wearing nerd glasses all of the sudden makes Lil Wayne’s listeners “expressive” and “artsy” and shit right?

Tupac was both legitimately an artist and a thug. Going to an art high school makes him an artist, and getting shot a half dozen times makes him a thug. He promoted social change with another prominent artist.

Lil Wayne uses a lot of drugs. That makes him stupid, not creative. As far as being a thug, im pretty sure bloods and crips dont skateboard. He promotes drinking cough syrup and obsessing over money.

But who am i to say shit about Lil Wayne, i mean shit… Im a damn hypocrite considering the fact that i find many of Lil Wayne’s songs entertaining and fun to listen to in my car. Cant even count the ones i like on both hands - does everything i wrote go out the window now???

I just fear the judgement day of our civilization by higher intelligences, when they come down and determine the cerebral depth of our planet/society based on the most popular muic artists.

They would first see Lil Wayne and cower with fear, but when they witness Justin Bieber the decision will be immediate and resolute - Terminate earth and humanity.

(but im so hypocritical because i love the song “I Feel Like Dying”

Sick film, liked the street art. NY cab drivers are way deeper...

Wed, 09 May 2012 05:45:00 -0400

Sick film, liked the street art. NY cab drivers are way deeper than i thought. Respect.

storyboard:

Things We Saw from His Cab

Max Cohen picks me up on the corner of Bond and Lafayette Streets, in downtown Manhattan, at the cabstand where he rents his car. He’s in a beanie, flannel, and jeans, with Rockstar energy drinks crammed into his backpack for fuel. For the next 24 hours, Cohen will pick up passengers around the city, adding up the fares in his head as he goes. He’ll also document the whole thing on his photo blog, Things I See from My Cab.

Cohen is not your typical cabbie — he’s a struggling filmmaker, getting his MBA, who drives on the weekends. He made an appearance in the New Yorker recently, when he tried to make the fastest lap around Manhattan (or something like that). But Cohen does spew cabbie wisdom: Never go to a gas station between 4 and 5, am or pm, he warns. There are only 10 of them in Manhattan, and this is the time that cabbies need to fill up.

Cabbies can always spot a puker. “It’s like the cabbie version of gaydar,” he says. Cohen’s craziest cab story? The tranny fight in his back seat. The weirdest thing he’s found at the end of a shift? A didgeridoo.

We rode shotgun with Cohen for a night to see what his blog is all about.

- Jessica Bennett and Jon Groat