Music for a Monday: Action Bronson Is My Dude

I had never heard of Action Bronson before last week, when a friend sent me his EP, The Program. Apparently he was on Nah Right a few weeks ago. You can download his EP here. I gotta give it up to dude.

Silvio Doesn't Like Your Fur Coat

At some point along the way, the premise of every Bill Simmons basketball column became as tedious as his jokes, his puerile sensibilities, and his enormous self-regard: Bill must save us from our own shortcomings. When he first wrote for ESPN almost a decade ago, he was far less taken with himself and still amenable to the notion that he did not have everything figured out. Best of all, he wrote with a perspective as an outsider, and that made his ideas about basketball fresh and his vantage point shared by millions. Simmons was a passionate basketball fan who appeared guided by the overriding desire to speak with, and for, other everyday fans.

Over time, that has changed, to everyone's detriment, and to the point that he is all but insufferable. Simmons now writes with the tone of a self-important celebrity. The writer who proudly insisted that remaining on the periphery enabled his unique product now loves to let his audience know when he speaks with NBA insiders. The proverbial Guys Who Know Things. Or even Daryl Morey, whom most of us know as the general manager of the Rockets but whom Simmons counts as a his "friend Daryl." In a gross way, it is fitting, because more than anything else, he is obsessed with celebrities. A worship of the rich and famous has become as much a hallmark of his work as his insistence on being one of a dozen remaining NBA fans used to be. Both obnoxious, the former perhaps explains why he reveres Jimmy Kimmel and wastes time interviewing people like Seth Meyers. Who cares that neither is funny; they're on television! It also helps to explain why he'd proudly cite glorified gossip columnist and kindred spirit Andrew Ross Sorkin as a muse. [/drool]

He now walks among his heroes. Simmons is undeniably a celebrity, a powerful man in media supported by one of its greatest leviathans, ESPN. His work has suffered as he has become that which he has always most coveted, however. (Regarding this transformation as unintentionally Greek would elevate Simmons and confer upon him undue gravity, but obtaining success at the expense of the very things for which he has been rewarded is a classical theme.) His basketball writing, once spirited and gorgeously obsessive, is instead pedantic and bloated these days. He now combines professed basketball omniscience, pomposity, and his bully pulpit--regardless of actual authority--to peddle well-worn ideas. He buries his ever more scarce insights under an avalanche of bad jokes, not-that-clever cultural references, and basketball thinking that is bandied about day and night on the internets by a fairly loud chorus of writers. It's as though while writing his Book of Basketball--no doubt the process that has come to represent his personal Rubicon--Simmons convinced himself of his own preeminence.

This week's trade column tells the sad Simmons story. Over 7,000 words, he manages to effectively repackage the narratives, ideas, and arguments that any NBA fan could access throughout Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as the NBA trade deadline came and went. Only, he does it while handing out grades, referring to Morey as his friend in an attempt to provide context for how disappointed he is that Houston acquired Hasheem Thabeet, and effecting the usual Simmons tone as the man whose burden is to set records straight. To be fair, Simmons is a victim of circumstance to some degree. Twitter, blogging, and other social media have made so much more information so much more readily available that a person so inclined can now find for himself nearly any basketball content he wants. Further, while it would be very Bill Simmons of Bill Simmons to decide he would grade not only NBA trades, but also NBA fans and their reaction to NBA trades, perhaps the column's conceit was an ESPN editor's idea. Lord knows, they grade everything else, on a seemingly daily basis.

All the same, to be so tone deaf, whether on his own volition or while working to appease a boss, is the saddest irony that inheres to what Bill Simmons has become. (And I use the word "irony" intentionally, with its sixth definition in mind. Simmons, ever the wordsmith, made a big to do about how wrongly everyone uses that word in modern language. You may recall the column--it was the one in which he described free-throw shooting as "porous." He really sees things that the rest of us don't!) A man who forever insisted on "getting it" when others didn't--general managers, athletes, fans, owners, porn stars, reality television contestants--now misses the mark regularly. Obsequious when in the bright lights of Hollywood or, even better, the company of his own shadow, Simmons used the trade synopsis to congratulate himself and scold more than a few of us while sharing ideas that anyone who follows Tom Ziller, Adrian Wojnarowski, and a handful of others on Twitter had either offered or assimilated long before the trade grades.

A Knicks fan, I found the Carmelo section notably obnoxious and all too perfect. Simmons gave the Carmelo trade an A-minus, which I disagree with but can understand within the circumscribed parameters which Simmons erected around his first three paragraphs. He also acknowledged the Knick fan angst which attends any decision that James Dolan and Isiah Thomas make in tandem. The section concluded, though, with an F-minus-minus handed out to "People Who Don't Realize That Carmelo Is a Legitimate Superstar." Bill's reasons?

1) "Advanced metrics" people (don't tell Nate Silver) got too bogged down in statistical analysis of what Carmelo can't do and underestimated what he can, which is score as well as anyone and rebound well for his position.

2) Carmelo is 26 years old, which I assume Simmons thinks is proof that Carmelo will get better, but which could be flipped around to note that Anthony has advanced past the first round of the playoffs only once in what is already seven attempts.

3) Carmelo and Amare Stoudemire are two of the ten players who started in the All-Star Game. You know, the starting lineup which fans elect and to which they added all-but-retired Yao Ming this year? That must be definitive proof that Carmelo is a star, right?

4) Other players respect Carmelo, and that means something. This is starting to seem like a Peter King column.

5) Carmelo could be "ignited" by the glitz and scale of New York.

6) You can't win a title with Amare and Carmelo, but you can with those two and one of Chris Paul, Deron Williams, or Dwight Howard. This is the reason that put me over the edge. Meant as a Q.E.D of sorts--"Thank you, and please drive through" is the way Simmons ends this argument that he's decided he's won--it presupposes that the Knicks will bide time until next season or the summer of 2012 and then strike. It completely neglects that by the summer of 2012, the Knicks will be paying Anthony and Stoudemire $40m; that already, New York would barely be able to afford another max-deal player; that the next collective bargaining agreement will almost certainly implement a lower cap figure, and may very well also contain more stringent cap rules and a more restrictive player-movement system; and that earlier in the Anthony section, alone--to say nothing of the rest of the column--Simmons acknowledges how radically the coming, more owner friendly CBA influenced this year's trades.

A person simply cannot assess the Anthony deal, or any other, in a context void of CBA consideration. It seems foolish, ill-informed, and even dishonest in the name of advancing an argument. Knick fans upset about Carmelo are upset because even if the players traded were worth Anthony, tethering the Knicks to him may not have been. Under the next CBA, the Knicks likely will not be able to afford a third star were the star to make what he could now. Obviously, a market correction is coming, and someone like Paul will command fewer dollars. But to assume that the next cap will accommodate Amare's contract, Anthony's contract, a third star's contract, and then nine more NBA salaries is something of a leap, unless one assumes that rank-and-file players are prepared to earn 80 and 90 percent less than they do now.

For someone like Simmons, who gleefully advances conspiracy theories and burns through column inches on pet theories that he concocts on the phone with his friends, to omit that kind of CBA logic while insisting on his perspective as the authoritative one was the latest episode in his steady decline. Really, that's what this entire post is about. As astounding as the arrogance that permeates his writing is the soaking, underwhelming content. That's the problem with celebrity culture in America: we anoint heroes, ask little of them, and continue to celebrate them even when they've no longer earned it. No one knows that better than Bill Simmons.

A Few Words about Something Real

The other night, David Rawth tweeted something which caught my eye:



Typically, I ride for Jon Stewart, whom I find to be a truth teller in an industry which has very little invested in that sort of thing. Roth's words struck me, as a result, and the impact was even stronger because I know Roth's politics and very much admire how smartly and eloquently he can explain them. When I watched The Daily Show early Wednesday, I finally understood what prompted Roth's tweet. I shot him an email in response, and I thought I would share that:

I saw a tweet of yours from last night that was critical of Jon Stewart's treatment of the Wisconsin Dems and the protesters. I didn't fully grasp the context, but when I sat down to watch last night's episode and Monday's, I came away very disappointed in one of his rhetorical bits. He lampooned the broadcasters who were comparing the Wisconsin protests to Egypt, and that made sense to me. However, he next lampooned a dude on CNBC who compared Wisconsin to September 11th. Obviously, no one has died in Wisconsin, so the most basic comparison of the two events makes the CNBC assertion laughable. It trivializes death. But that is a very myopic view of 9/11, and while I can't say so definitively, I suspect that the CNBC person meant 9/11 as a shorthand for the country's response to terrorism, not as the literal destruction of the World Trade Center. In that broader regard, I find the comparison apt.

9/11 initiated an administrative, cultural, and social restructuring that convinced Americans to sacrifice liberty, fundamental rights, and even the concept of dissent in service of security. It profoundly altered the collective consciousness of the nation. We have arrived at another restructuring. Using the public apparatus of government to dismantle unions, claw back portions of the social safety net, and hold municipal workers accountable for crimes to the economy that they didn't commit is a terrible precedent that will be replicated elsewhere. Worse, it represents another completely galling, cynical, insidious, and dangerous triumph of the wealthy and powerful over the poor and helpless. Only in this country would a response to widespread economic depression caused by Wall Street manifest itself in the functional equivalent of legislative pogroms against Main Street.

Following the news this last month or so has been particularly difficult. As a result, I am somewhat less informed than I normally am. Some days, it's just too hard. However, I don't stop feeling--feeling dismay, sorrow, and skepticism. Sometimes it comes pouring out.

A Quiet Reminder of Why I Love Rap Music

Years ago, I wrote a post asserting what seemed like an overlooked hip-hop reality: Pete Rock makes the best remixes. The dude might as well have invented them.

I returned to the sentiment on Sunday as I closed out my weekend first by cursing Chris Bosh for missing that three, and then by playing a collection of rap samples and original material for a friend. All week, we had been trading YouTube clips over email trying to stump each other. He had chosen some great source material, and I had to clap back. We got lost in the weeds while untangling old Artifacts and De La Soul records. Suddenly, it was late and our All-Star Game party had to be wound down. To finish off the evening, I threw on "You're No Good" by the Harvey Averne Dozen:



The song knocks on its own accord. I don't want to sell it short. But I also can't profess to being the world's largest Harvey Averne fan. Rather, the bass that carries the song from 0:09 to 0:19 has rattled around in my head for years thanks to Peter Rock, who took it, threw it underneath some of those horns he plays with so well, and decorated House of Pain's "Jump Around" with a second aesthetic that has preserved the track. I usually want to kill myself when I hear "Jump Around"; I don't even have the standard MP3 on my computer. I especially hate watching the kids in Madison, WI dance to it. But I will never stop riding for Peter's version. That Averne bass is like formaldehyde, keeping fresh something otherwise long gone. Listen:



The "Jump Around" remix tells an important story about rap music, about why the genre endures.

Trading samples all week--and obsessively hunting them down ever since I learned about high-speed internets in college--made hip-hop's derivative nature inescapable again. So much of the best rap music is created from the works of others. It's practically genetic: the seminal record of the genre, "Rapper's Delight," is just a Chic loop. We've moved on since then, and just as rhyming has become more complex, so has beat making. The most basic samples, those that are unembarrassed to serve as royalty checks, don't amaze people anymore. That's why no one ever felt that Will Smith was making great music when he was repackaging Patrice Rushen, no matter how catchy. Instead, the best producers, many of whose names are canonical, taught hip-hop fans to appreciate real sampling. And not just real sampling, but real music making. Far from straight rip offs, the great sample-driven beats showcase innate musical talent, intricate craftsmanship, and singular creativity. Forever and ever, through trends and cycles. It never stops. Long a venue for new expression, rebellion, and irreverence, rap could never ask for a better ambassador than the expertly made sample, no matter how initially confusing that might seem to the uninitiated. Thankfully, there is no shortage of them.

Rock's "Jump Around" is a prime example, with the original rapping set to new drums, new bass, new horns, and new atmospherics. It's like stripping a car down to its chassis and then throwing on a new body, wheels, interior, and paint job (ice cream or otherwise). Really, it's the meta rap song, not only demonstrating the genre's power to repackage other music, like Averne's, but also itself. That's what a remix is, after all, and no one has ever made them as consistently well as Peter. Just ask the Clipse and Slim Thug, who got the Pete Rock treatment this week:



I prefer this "Wamp Wamp." Just more Pete Rock doing what he does best.

And I Always Find Something Wrong

Just feels right to play this as you read.

Carmelo Anthony is finally a Knick! Renaldo Balkman is finally a Knick again! (If you keep track of these kinds of things, Isiah Thomas has acquired Balkman twice, now.) These trades usually take on some closing flourishes as paperwork gets sent to the league office, so I am not yet fully clear on what just happened. From what I can tell, this is the trade:

Denver gets Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Danny G, Timofey Mozgov, every remaining Knick draft pick until the Rapture which Isiah Thomas or Donnie Walsh hadn't already traded away, a bundle of cash, a year's supply of knishes, luxury tax relief.

New York gets Anthony, Balkman, Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Anthony Carter, Corey Brewer, Isiah Thomas's growing influence, the chance to big three itself in 2012.

Minnesota gets Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry and his roving cloud of Cheeto dust.

Donnie Walsh gets marginalized even more.

The inescapable paradox of New York's basketball culture is in full bloom. Despite proudly insisting on being the most erudite fans in the world, New Yorkers are perhaps more susceptible to spectacle than any others. Everyone's arrival heralds revolution, from (Carmelo) Anthony to Xavier (McDaniel). Always. Want more proof? Don't forget Spike Lee on Dan Dickau. That was one of the many big nights in New York. Restoring the roar to Madison Square Garden is never all that difficult, really. Keeping it there is the problem.

Carmelo and Amare are the latest to be tasked with trying. For the rest of this season, New York has the most exciting front court combination in the league, and it has created only the second pair of top-six scorers. (You'll never believe this, but Miami has the other.) This much is given, but of course, the trade means more than those bromides. The Carmelo trade already stretches out toward the future. The plan, which seemingly everyone now discusses at a volume that has steadily grown from whispers to everything but shouting, is clear: Team Toast. Chris Paul may have delivered the most consequential wedding toast of all time this summer when he suggested that he, Carmelo, and Amare might assemble in New York to challenge Miami and any other Big Three iterations. That, it seems, is where New York is headed. And even if 2012 comes around, Chauncey Billups's contract goes away, and Paul doesn't land in Manhattan, Deron Williams might. Maybe even Dwight Howard. Who knows? The New York tabloids have eighteen months to figure it out.

Those anticipating an ascendant New York that can contend for a title assume that not only will Team Toast fully assemble, but also that it will travel an easier path to the NBA Finals, and that it will be ready. By 2012 or 2013, the Celtics are likely to be too old, Tim Duncan over, the Magic disappeared, and the Lakers disbanded. Miami will still be Miami, Chicago may be even more improved, and Oklahoma City may have finally acquired another capable big man. Details aside, the League's upper echelon should have more room. Melo, Amare, and a point guard to be named later plan to seize upon it and a Larry O'Brien trophy. I am skeptical, though. Paul, Howard, and Melo, or Paul, Howard, and Amare certainly could. But these two forwards and a point guard leader? The collected history of basketball suggests that it may not work unless Michael Jordan is involved. Defense and rebounding stay critical, after all.

Really, the trade is no sure thing. Set aside championship aspirations and just consider today. This season may have been forfeited. A revitalized Knick outfit that was limited but an early reclamation project has been stripped of all but two true assets. Now, the Knicks have just one center, Ronny Turiaf, and he's undersized; an aging point guard who can't stay in front of people any more and dribbles too much; two scoring forwards who are not reliable defenders or rebounders; and a collection of spare parts. For all the deserved praise Landry Fields earns, he would be most effective coming off the bench as a swing man, not starting as a shooting guard. One thing we can say definitively: Chauncey Billups has found a new, adoring audience for his pull-up threes. Mike D'Antoni's valentine showed up a week later.

We also don't know if Stoudemire and Anthony can play together, and whether they can do it for D'Antoni. Building a fort, staying up with flashlights under the covers, and pledging to be besties is pretty easy at weddings and All-Star Games. But what about when each players wants to hold the ball, dribble into traffic, and take more shots than anyone else? What about when each looks around for someone else to rebound and defend in the paint but can't find anyone? Chandler's roll in the offense suggests that Anthony's style should fit well, but Chandler never was a star, and he never expected to be one. Anthony, who just held his own team hostage for five months, may not be as amenable to sharing. Carmelo and Amare might surprise us. Perhaps each will seize upon this opportunity that they helped to engineer by committing to being different players and curing deficiencies. Or perhaps they won't.

A team built around the future also has picked the worst time for it. The bounty Denver extracted from New York and Anthony's growing anxiety about a trade both indicated that the protagonist of this saga and his starstruck admirers fear a radically realigned NBA. Anthony could have waited to sign with New York this summer instead of forcing a trade, but his free agency might have been impeded by a new collective bargaining agreement that severely diminished his earning power. Similarly, New York could have held out for the free-agency scenario, however a new CBA might have derailed its pursuit of Anthony and its Team Toast designs. Trading for Anthony now ensured that New York could at least pretend to have sustained its momentum while securing another All-Star. But no one seems to know what the NBA will look like next year and beyond. The Anthony trade all but admits that New York is chasing after shadows in the distance that may not materialize as expected when the Brickers happen upon them.

More than anything, hurtling toward such an uncertain end is what casts the Anthony trade in the same negative light that has shone on the Knicks for years. After working with discipline and purpose to change Knick culture, cultivate opportunity, and repair horrific salary-cap damage, New York reverted to the bad habits which got it in trouble for so long. Only a little more than half a season into sobriety, in effect, the Knicks fell off the wagon, rather than trusting that staying clean and doing right would deliver even better days. New York has made a splash, and it may have set an initial foot on championship terra firma, no matter how circumscribed. Beyond doubt, though, is that New York has taken a huge risk, sacrificed short-term financial flexibility, discarded a big number of basketball assets, and once again placed celebrity glamor before sporting substance. The Knicks may get lucky and find that the organization's addiction to big names and cheap news coverage is finally met by championship basketball. It also might find itself mired in an uncomfortable, untenable morass of its own making yet again. Only time will tell, of course. Here's hoping that we all get to toast the former sometime soon.

Alas, Poor Donnie; I Knew Him, Horatio

I once sent a woman something tantamount to a love letter. It didn't go so well. Unmoved by what I had to say, she mostly ignored it, pretending that it never happened. I felt like George Costanza in his car:



You might write such a letter if you're trading them, or if you are exploring new ways to demonstrate known affection. But usually, when you are compelled to compose such a missive, you already sense that there is an inequity in how you and the girl feel about each other. Absent inequity, there may be confusion, but in either case, you can tell that something is awry.

Knowing that something was wrong to begin with made the non-response I received much more manageable. I had appropriate expectations as I composed my masterpiece, and her relative indifference inflicted little intrinsic harm. Far more frustrating, tearing, and enraging was my sense of helplessness. My heart, my brain, even my field of vision would occasionally burn red with the inescapable reality that no matter what I did, how much I cared, or how much logic I could summon, I could not exercise control and effectuate my desired outcome. That we shared mutual attraction and magnetic chemistry, that I offered what she purported to want, that I could artfully and poetically present this persuasive argument--none of it mattered. It was beyond my control, and that was the worst.

When logic fails, and when all of our caring cannot fill that void, the world feels unfair and hopeless. I woke up today and almost immediately relapsed into that sort of searing pain. I read the ominous confirmation that Isiah Thomas's shadow, the darkest in basketball, has again enveloped the Knick landscape, and I felt defeated.

No matter how badly Mike D'Antoni's teams play defense, nor how skeptical I remain of Amar'e Stoudemire as a franchise player, this Knicks season had been a triumph of hope. Not only had excitement and enthusiasm returned to the Garden, but so had the reasonable notion that the team was heading somewhere good. For the first time in a decade, the Knicks appeared to be operating with two of the most valuable commodities in sports: logic and cap space. Both will forever stand as panaceas for whatever ails a basketball team. The coach can be fired, and another free agent can be signed. Even better, the proper combination of salary cap latitude and exchangeable assets can yield a championship nucleus. Regardless of their form, the best solutions emerge from the commodious confines of reason and salary cap freedom.

New York will lose those assets, and all hope, if David Stern now fails to marshal whatever forces are required to beat back Isiah's sly resurrection. I hate to sound so nerdy and dramatic at once, but Zeke returning to manipulate James Dolan and again ruin the Knicks is the basketball equivalent of Sauron and Voldemort joining forces to complete the Death Star. It's that bad. And the worst part for a Knicks fan is that I am powerless to stop such an obvious miscarriage of reason. I can't yell "I love you" loudly enough. Nor could a trillion sonnets of surpassing beauty sufficient to render Shakespeare a literary footnote reverse this tide. Instead, I have to look on, writhing in the particular pain of helplessness as I mourn the passing of logic.



Already, the consequences are apparent. If the Knicks listen to Isiah Thomas, the team will trade Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, and Danilo Gallinari to Denver for Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups. The Knicks also will part with Anthony Randolph and Eddy Curry's expiring contract as Minnesota becomes involved. A pick-and-roll team with a relatively young point guard and a power forward who needs many touches will be trading for an older point guard not as adept at running the team's primary offensive set and an admittedly elite scorer who needs the ball as often as Stoudemire. A reconfigured Knicks team likely will start Billups, Landry Fields, Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Soutdemire, and Timofey Mozgov. Off the bench, Shawne Williams, Toney Douglas, and Rony Turiaf will fill out the rotation. A bad defensive team will be worse, an offensive system predicated on shooters will lack them, ball movement will become a novel concept, and New York will be more carnival attraction than championship aspirant.

Also, let's engage in some real talk: neither Carmelo Anthony nor Amare Stoudemire is the dispositive factor for a championship team. And together, they will not win anything as a team's two most important players. Neither is an elite defender, and neither appears to wield the amorphous but palpable tough juice. Some people will scoff, and others will claim this is silly, but I wouldn't say either player has a track record to suggest otherwise. They are exceptionally gifted scorers who will forever need an even more powerful leader to play alongside them. That reality, of course, begets the conventional wisdom that New York will next bide its time until 2012, when it uses cap space to sign an elite point guard, such as Chris Paul or Deron Williams. Then, finally, Isiah will preen about as some validated hero who finally assembled the fearsome threesome he and Dolan envisioned with their third-eye vision before Isiah was unfairly cast out as a pariah and Pat Riley accomplished what Isiah and Dolan knew Zeke would have.

This narrative is a utopian conceit which neglects that Boston's Big Three always has needed Rondo and Perkins, the former now a top-fifteen player and the latter the league's most underrated winner; that Miami's Big Three is driven by the best player alive, one so good that he almost marginalizes another top-five player through sheer force of his singular excellence; that Los Angeles has won the last two titles in this era of Big Threeing because it has Kobe Bryant, one of the ten best players in history, and three seven-footers who are each highly skilled. (Oh, and Miami hasn't won anything yet, either.) It takes for granted that Isiah Thomas will find the right complementary players, that Isiah Thomas will successfully navigate the salary cap, and that Isiah Thomas can preside over a functional organization. He has never demonstrated an ability to do any of these things, though, and that is why today's news is so distressing. Allowing Isiah Thomas to return, even as some machiavellian puppeteer, is an insult to reason, to history, and to decency. It's an affront to fans, to professionals, and to the entire NBA. His initial tenure with the Knicks was a cautionary tale of epic ineptitude, unapologetic petulance, and even lurid inhumanity. Rewarding him with another opportunity is just an insult all around.

We expect nothing more from James Dolan--who deserves more run in conversations about the worst owners, and millionaires, in the world--but all the same, this feels gross and terrible. Setting aside a fan's righteous indignation and debilitating lack of control, restoring Isiah's power, in the shadows or elsewhere, also is a legal, moral, and ethical crime. He is employed by Florida International University as its basketball coach, yet he is currently working on basketball projects for another organization. I am sure his employer, his players, his recruits, and the parents to whom he must answer all are pleased to read how little they mean to him. So, too, must Donnie Walsh, who twists in the wind as the cuckolded Knicks president, love that his hard work and tireless commitment to prudence and propriety has been rewarded with such indifference, if not casual disdain. Were Isiah returning not inherently so awful, allowing him to run the Knicks and wage war against Walsh with the owner's approval would make this entire story distasteful, anyway. There are few constants in the universe, but one of them remains that nothing involving Dolan and Isiah will ever be done appropriately, respectfully, or rationally.

Now please pardon me while I have the matzoh ball soup.

Airing It Out

With the NBA All-Star Game scheduled for the weekend, attention has shifted to State of the League conversations. And that, in turn, has refreshed media interest in the FreeDarko book. This week and next, Shoals and I will be carpet bombing the airwaves. So, you know--get excited. Or at least, build an extra few minutes into your internets allocation.

My first segment is available on the FD Tumblr. Part One of my interview is embedded there, and a link to Part Two is alongside it. Check them both, please.

Best Movie Trailer in a Minute

Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts

I had lunch at Red Robin today. I like Red Robin because the hamburgers are perfectly decadent, not preciously so. Red Robin dispenses with the gourmand pretense about locally sourced beef that was raised on a diet of special grass and coddled in the embrace of organic feel-goodery. Nor does Red Robin care about truffle oil, cheese aged in some creepy man’s suitcase, or aioli anything. Regrettably, the burgers do come with mayonnaise, however Red Robin is unembarrassed; it doesn’t insist on a shroud of novelty language. You will get fat at Red Robin, and they don’t mind telling you. Mayonnaise. There—the menu says it. Thankfully, they will refrain from putting it on your hamburger if you ask. Ditto on the tomatoes.

What Red Robin does serve, other than mayonnaise, is a wonderful, delicious, unhealthy hamburger. I like the one with barbecue sauce, a starkly visible layer of blue cheese, and fried onions. These are not carmelized onions, pan-seared onions, Vidalia onions, or seasoned onions in panko breadcrumbs. These are “onion straws,” and the picture on the menu—did I not mention the picture-book menu?—makes it clear that you’re getting a healthy serving of fried underneath your unpretentious beef, your sheet of blue cheese, your shredded lettuce, and your tangy barbecue sauce. If you’re going to have to eat a vegetable, Red Robin makes sure it’s more treat than medicine.

Red Robin also serves all hamburgers with a side order of unlimited French fries. Let me put that another way: from the moment you sit down until the moment you leave—and for me, several hours usually elapse between those two events—you can eat as many French fries as you want. They never run out, they never cost more, and they never elicit consternation. No one judges you for it. To the contrary, you’re encouraged: every table in a Red Robin has dry-rub seasoning which you can sprinkle on the French fries. Now, the condiment furniture which you inherit will tell you a lot about a restaurant. Some places furnish only salt and pepper. Presumably, the idea is that you won’t need to dress your food once it arrives, save for the unavoidable variations in personal tastes which basic seasonings purport to satisfy. Maybe you can receive mustard upon request. Elsewhere, you might sit down to a basket that includes not just the basics, but also, seemingly always, ketchup, mustard, malt vinegar, hot sauce, and steak sauce if you’re lucky. This suggests that the restaurant will surrender control over the entire endeavor and let you take over once the raw materials have been served. This is an inquiry which we’ll have to exhaust some other time, but you get the point.

Anyway, Red Robin is designed for French fries, and the table lets you know as soon as you sit down. You won’t receive water unless you ask for it, but the architecture of the experience contemplates that you will want extra sodium for the endless torrent of fried potatoes that streams forth from the kitchen. Needless to say, I love Red Robin.



I love it so much that I was willing to drive twenty-five minutes in both directions for it today. People who grew up in or around St. Louis are probably nodding that you can, indeed, get almost anywhere in the greater metropolitan region within twenty-five minutes. And you can. It’s great. But that’s all they’re thinking. Presumably, they are now ready to read more about what I had for lunch. However, those of you who are like me and grew up elsewhere but came to St. Louis later in life likely have gasped, or at least clenched your teeth. These people, my people, are completely disinterested in lunch and surely want to know just one thing: how did I possibly survive?

Really, that’s the only pertinent thought. Driving in St. Louis today was perhaps the single most dangerous roadway exercise in America. St. Louis is a city of awful drivers. When you move here, after people stop asking where you went to high school, they wink and tell you that stop signs are usually optional. They don’t mind that at night, or in the rain, and especially at night and in the rain, you really can’t see very well. Lines dissolve away from your view corridor. It’s quaint!

There is a vast array of this arresting nonchalance regarding safety on the road. People in St. Louis appear to either not know or not care about the traffic regulations. St. Louis drivers can’t use yield signs, treating them like stop signs or green lights, but rarely undertaking the simple calculation which they suggest. St. Louis drivers also can’t use speed limits, usually traveling inexplicably below them or alarmingly above them. Heaven forbid that you are in a rush and hoping to make a right turn on red: the car ahead of you in the right lane with its indicator blinking may or may not understand the rules. Worry, too, if you want to get on or get off the highway. The confluence of merging traffic, deceleration, acceleration, reading signs, and looking ahead to the ramp engenders what I can only surmise is panicked irrationality. On my way on and off the highway, I have had to avoid collisions, vehicles stopped for no reason, vehicles driving in two lanes for the better part of a mile, and almost anything else which you might imagine could take place at a highway’s access point.

Every day is an adventure on the roads, and today was no different. It was especially harrowing, in fact, because not only has St. Louis never learned to drive, but it also has yet to accept its unchanging geography. St. Louis is a Midwest city. It is only about four hours east of America’s dead center. Year in and year out, winter brings freezing temperatures to this portion of the world. Perhaps you’ve followed the news sometime in the last century and divined this trend. Those of you who took chemistry in high school know that freezing temperatures cause precipitation to transform from rain to snow and ice. This is all lost on St. Louis, as a staff, record label, and as a motherfucking crew collectively.

People from St. Louis respond to snow the same way I’ve always imagined people in Miami might. Defying decades of empirical evidence and the good sense to change its ways, St. Louis is not equipped to handle winter. When more than a half inch of snow begins to accumulate, people in this city act as though the four horsemen have appeared on the horizon: food is hoarded, local news broadcasts take on the tone of embedded war coverage, and everything stops. Last week was especially galling. On Monday afternoon, schools and businesses closed early, air horns echoed in the distance, and ominous warnings replaced any kind of rational conversation. Want to know why? It was cloudy outside, intermittent drizzle was falling, and the news said St. Louis might get some ice and snow overnight, maybe up to six inches. Call in the National Guard! (Sadly, that’s not a joke; it actually happened.)



Driving conditions are the greatest casualty amid the endless, snow-driven hysteria. Roads are hardly plowed, and St. Louis drivers treat the white of winter as a canvas across which they can author a lawless masterpiece. Stop at the lights, don’t stop; drive in multiple lanes; park perpendicular to the curb—snow makes the St. Louis driver think he can do anything. This city is probably only a one-day accumulation of ten inches away from all-out rioting. And because St. Louis is afflicted by an odd combination of winter denial and inadequate municipal services, snow lingers and keeps the crazy going. Five days into the latest pennyante Armageddon, cars remain snowed in, ice and packed snow persist as accepted surface conditions, parking on the street continues to test towing services, and St. Louis stays driving like a dickhead. In this way, alone, was last week’s storm perfect.

All of that stood between me and Red Robin as I got in my car today. My concerns were warranted. On my way to retrieving a friend, a woman in the car in front of me decided that a green, left-turn arrow with all other traffic stopped was insufficient license to make the turn. So she waited out the entire light cycle before mercifully seizing upon her legal right when it next arose three minutes later. Then, on a side street, I had to use my horn and several hand gestures judiciously to encourage a man to close his parked car’s door and remove his luggage from the ice sheet on which it was resting in the middle of the road. Later, merging onto the highway, I had to contend with a car in the rightmost lane that, for no discernable reason, had stopped moving. We also encountered a man who was so intent on turning into my lane when he shouldn't have that he made the unilateral decision that a collision was better than waiting. Luckily, I disagreed. Worst of all, none of this was surprising. If I am ever institutionalized, the primary catalyst for my insanity will be having driven here.

It didn’t really get better, either. To find this Red Robin is to engage in a process that is one part treasure hunting, one part daredevilry. The local Red Robin rests atop a hill in the western suburbs. Less restaurant than heart of a citadel, this Red Robin appears to be the centerpiece of an unintended mixed-use development that counts an industrial warehouse, a hotel (I think), a small corporate office park, and some condos among its outer fortification. Together, these buildings obscure any view of Red Robin from the road, and the labyrinthine network of driveways impedes access even once you’ve found your way inside. Oh, and of course, the actual entrance to the entire complex is a sharp, obscured ninety-degree turn from the leftmost lane of a four-lane road with a 45-miles-per-hour speed limit. Combining such a terrible layout with St. Louis drivers is almost a perverse joke, and I think I broke my neck swerving in even though the car didn’t roll over.

Luckily, the French fries came early and often once I sat down.

Enjoy the Weekend

For Friday, something different.

What It Feels Like to Be Late to a Trend

N.B: My sister, The Buckets, is back with another pop-culture missive. Try as I may, I can't convince her to write more regularly. *tear*

Hi, I just knowingly listened to my first Vampire Weekend song a few days ago. I had seen that Honda commercial featuring “Holiday” fifty thousand times, and twice I accidentally downloaded songs related to Vampire Weekend by way of my indiscriminate clicking on Elbo.ws and TheMusicNinja.com. But since Vampire Weekend wasn’t really on my radar--I think as a result of some latent, unmapped disdain of my own--I promptly forgot I ever downloaded them. Also, I once downloaded “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” by Janelle and Big Boi and thought it was their song. Lo and behold, it’s by Vampire Weekend. This one just got past me, or maybe I cast it asunder, but somehow I was out of the VW loop. Until now, over three years late.

This is extremely disconcerting. Why is that? Well, I pride myself on my pop culture savvy. It’s actually not savvy so much as disturbing, compulsive behavior that maybe borders on sociopathic. My daily pop-culture digest consists of checking Gawker, Jezebel, EW.com, E! Online, and BuzzFeed. And by "daily" I mean hourly. Of course, there are the not-so-irregular dalliances with Just Jared, TMZ, What Would Tyler Durden Do, and even more music blogs other than the two already mentioned. I watch MTV every morning. (They play music videos from 3AM until 10AM. It’s great. Check it out!) I watch the NPR music channel on YouTube all the time. How else would I know that I fucking hate Edward Sharpe et al so much? You should too; watch:



I just consume a lot, and then I talk about it a lot. I call my mom and talk about TV and celebrities and celebrity fashion missteps. Sometimes that’s all we discuss. I should have given Vampire Weekend at least five minutes along the way, right? In fact, my mom sent me a link to the “Oxford Comma” video on January 23, 2009. I didn’t even pay attention then. What is going on here?

I can only think of one other time I was so woefully late to a party, and that was with LOST. I watched Seasons One through Four of LOST in under three weeks from late December 2008 to early 2009. That’s over four years late, particularly embarrassing for a JJ Abrams/Felicity-loving person like me. With LOST it was different though. The LOST community--expansive, geeky, overactive--will embrace any convert. I mean, LOSTpedia exists for people like me. LOST became a thing of my own. It was the center of my social life; I spent hours discussing and reading about it online while at work. Being a LOST fan was so all-consuming for me, and I did it was such passion, that while I carried the burden of knowing I wasn’t there first, I made up for it in dedication.

So this is where things get really troubling: I really like some Vampire Weekend songs. "Walcott" is my jam. I bought it (yes, bought it) on January 25. I’ve now listened to it on iTunes 13 times, not accounting for iPod listens (as of 11:52 AM on January 28). I don’t really like the lead singer’s unnatural vocal contortions, sort of similar to my dislike of Justin Timberlake’s ubiquitous falsetto. But hey, I love JT too! The drums, and the piano, and all of the instruments are great. Very musical. I’m into it. This is really unfortunate, especially to the proprietor of this blog I am sure. (N.B: It is.) I am totally, 100% lamestream. I would rather profess my love for Ne-Yo, which is very real, than my love for VW, but I just can’t hide it. I spent the last few days reading the critiques of the band, and then watching interviews with Ezra and Rostam responding to said critiques. I won’t get into why it’s embarrassing. Google it, people!

There is something much worse about discovering a contemporary band late than there is about a contemporary TV show. Music fans are snobs. We all know it. They are. The music industry is now driven by the immediacy of the internets and the attendant viral marketing campaigns. Twitter may drive the music industry at this point. To be behind is some sort of dishonor analogous to wearing the Scarlett A. While the TV industry welcomes viewers to catch up via online marathons and illegal streams, being a music fan is about racing to find a download link before it gets zapped. It still remains more immediate, with a pervasive air of elitism and self-assigned classifications of bands. Moreover, music fans are perhaps the most rabid and opinionated of any breed of culture fans. There is such a corpus of thought and opinion on Vampire Weekend, and to contend with, and make way through it, is so intimidating.

Right now, I am the opposite of William Miller. I am not witnessing a mid-level band struggle with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom. No, I am fucking Sapphire, trailing Led Zeppelin, and I could be traded to Humble Pie at any moment for a case of beer.

Looking Forward to This Dilla Documentary

(via)

Drops here on February 7th.